lENeE D
l
ILlS·
nON I INA . VII: 1
MEIER
SCIENCE & CIVILISATION IN CHINA JOSEPH NEEDHAM VOLUME VII: 1 BY CHRISTOPH HARBSMEIER
V
�'" l�
Science and Civilisation in China Volume 7 Part 1 is the first book in the final volume of this unique resource. The Chinese culture is the only culture in the world which has developed systematic logical definitions and reflections on its own and on the basis of a non-Indo-European language. In this work, Christoph Harbsmeier discusses
the
basic
features
of
the
classical Chinese language which made it a suitable medium for science in ancient China, and he discusses in detail a wide range of abstract concepts which are crucial for the development of scientific discourse. There is special emphasis on the
conceptual
history
of
logical
terminology in ancient China, and on traditional Chinese views on their own language. Finally, the book provides an overview of the development of logical reflection in ancient China, first in terms of the forms of arguments that were deployed in ancient Chinese texts, and then
in
terms
of
ancient
Chinese
theoretical concerns with logical matters. This is the first of two planned parts of Volume 7 of Science and Civilisation in China.
The
preparation, 'General
second will
part,
contain
Conclusions'
now
m
Section
50
by
Joseph
Needham, together with other writings by him constituting his final reflections on the Science and Civilisation in China project. While this will stand as the final volume in the sequence of the series, further parts of earlier volumes are at various stages of preparation, and will continue to appear.
SOME REVIEWS OF VOLUMES I, II, III, IV AND V
SCIENC} AND
1bis is the exciting first instalment of a comprehensive wod .. . The author has set himself to interpret the Chinese mind in Western terms. and he is perhaps unique among living scholars
in
possessing
the
necessary
combinations
of
qualifications for this formidable undertaking. The practical
'Dr Needham's work shows ... a deep respect for the Chinese
people, their creative genius and their great contribution to world civilisation ... In almost every paragraph there is new material of interest not only for specialists in the history of
CIVILIS·
science but also to a wide circle of readers.'
importance of Dr Needham's work is as great as its intellectual
L. S. VASruEV and A. P. YUSHXEVrTCH in
interest. It is a Western act of "recognition" on a higher plane
Huton'ografia, Kritika, Bibliografia (Moscow)
ATION
than the diplomatic one.' ARNOLD TOYNBEE in The Observer (London)
'We should not ask, Will it stand the test of time? or. Is it
compared with the fact that Dr Needham has opt'ned up a
penetration of his mind compel the uanos! respect for his
whole new world of inquiry to us which will keep historians of
accurate?
because
these
questions
are
quite unimponant
treatment and his conclusions. It is a book which is bound to
science busy for generations to come. The important fact
modify all subsequent histories of Chinese thought and indeed
about this work is not whether its conjectures
the histories of thought the world around.'
details precise: the important fact is that it is very exciting.'
L. CARRINGTON GOODRICH in
are
correct or its
The Times Literary Supplement
Far Eastern Survey (New York)
IN CHINA VOL. VII: 1
'Time only enhances our amazement at Needham's ability to 'The undertaking of such a gigantic task single-handed reveals
discover in the ocean of datable Chinese literature so many
a creative spirit worthy of all admiration. Its completion will
anticipations of present-day scientific knowledge. Even his
make it an unprecedented and epoch-making work in the
tentative speculations are as arresting as his conclusions.'
history of science, and it has already aroused the interest of
A. W. HUMMEL in America1/ HutoncaJ RetJiew
scholars in every country, who regard it as a masterpiece
of modern scientific study. It cannot fail to direct the attention
'Joseph Needham, working outside intellectual fashion in a vast
of the learned world to ancient Chinese culture and science.'
and patchily explored field, has produced one of the great
Yii PANG-Hu in Kuang Ming Jih-Pao (Peking)
be too high; the author has an impressive knowledge of
The Times EducatiO'lal Supplement
CHRISTOPl
one of the great European contributions to the under
HARBSMEIE
Chinese culture to add to his eminence in the field of natural
standing both of the sweep of Chinese civilisation and of its
science; and so we have a volume authoritative, fascinating and
contributions to Western scientific society.'
illuminating, sure in the unravelling of the complexities of the evidence,
and
with
a
shrewd
appraisal,
on
New Scielltist (London)
appropriate
occasions, of contemporary Eastern and Western progress in W. M. SMART in Nature (London)
the sciences.'
NEEDHAM
est and most captivating works of scholarship [Q grace our age.'
'Por this immense and astonishing work of erudition no praise can
JOSEPH
abundant evidence of tremendous research and learning spread over a breath-taking range of knowledge coupled with personal observation and experience gathered through long
'lei la science et la technologie font une entree spectaculaire dans la sinologie .. ' L'ouvrage dont nous rendons compte ici marque une epoque
years living and travelling in the East.' Bulletin of the Institute ofArchaeology (London)
Un ouvrage que tout homme cultive P. HUARD and K. M. HUANG in
doit connaitre.'
Revue d'Histoire des Sciences (Paris)
'Here is material for the artist, the political historian, the psychologist, the ethnographer, as well as for the historian of science. And there is pleasure for all who admire the comeli
'A boon in its sweeping yet significantly detailed treatment of
ness of the English language ... The reader who approaches this
scientific thought in China ... a supreme achievement of
work with stiff caution will find his study eased and his mind
European scholarship.'
flexed by Needham's constant delight in life.'
K. P. PrLLAr in Journal of Indian History (Calcutta)
The Times Higher Education Supplement
'Die bedeutendste Publikation der Gegenwan auf dem Geb
'Perhaps the greatest single act of historical synthesis and
iete der Wissenschaftsgeschichte Chinas ... Needham hat in
intercultural communication ever attempted by one man.'
muhseliger
und
jahrzehntelanger
Arbeit
neue,
bisher
LAURENCE PICKEN in The Guardian (Manchester)
unbekannte Bereiche der Kulturgeschichte Chinas der west lichen W issenschaft erschlossen, wofur ihm unser aller Dank gebiihrt.' OTIO KAROW in Archive.! d. Geschichte der Medizin (Leipzig)
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
ISBN 0-521-57143-X
III I I
9 780521571432
CC 81 Nee
THE PICTCRE OF THE TAOIST GENII PRINTED ON THE COVER of this book is part of a painted temple scroll, recem but traditional, gi\'en !O rvIr Brian Harland in Szechuan prcl\'ince (1946). Concerning these four di\'ini ties, of respectable rank in the T.lOist bureaucracy. the following paniculars ha\'e been handed down. The title of the first of the four signifies 'Heavenly Prince'. that of the other three 'l'Vlystcrious Commander'. At the lOp, on the left, is Liu Thien ('hun, Comptroller-General of Crops and Weather. Before his deification (so it was said) he was a rain-making magi cian and weather forecaster named Liu ehlin, born in the Chin dynasty about +340. Among his attributes may be seen the sun and moon, and a measuring rod or carpenter's square. The two great luminaries imply the making of the calendar, so important for a primarily agricultural society, the efforts, ever renewed, to reconcile: cc:lestial periodicities. The carpenter's square is no ordi nary tool. hm the gnomon for measuring the lengths of the sun's solstitial shadows. The Comptroller-General also carries a bell because in ancient and medieval times there was thought to be a close connection between calendri cal calculatiuns and the arithmetical acoustics of bells and pitch-pipes. A.t the top, on the right, is Wen Yllall SIlIIai, Intendant of the Spiritual Officials of the SflCI'ed Mountain, Thai Shun, H� was taken to be an incarnation of one of the Hour-Presidents (Cilia Shell), i.e .. tutelary deities of tht twelve cycli cal characters (see Vol. 4, pt. 2, P.440). During his earthly pilgrimage his name was Huan Tzu-Yli and he was a scholar and astronomer in the Later Han (b. +142). He is seen holding an armillary ring. Below. on the left. is Kou YI/all SllIIai, Assistant Secretary of State in the Ministry of Thunder. He is therefore a late emanation of a \'cry ancient god, Lei Kung. Before he be<.:ame deified he was Hsin Hsing, a poor woodcutter, but no doubt an incarnation of the �pirit of the constellation Kou-Chhen (the Angular Arranger), part of the group of stars which we know as ursa Minor. He is equipped with hammer and chisel. Below. on the right. is Pi Yllall SlIuai. Commander of the Lightning, with his flashing sword, a deity with distinct alchemical and cosmological interests. According to tradition, in hiS early life he was a countryman whose name was Thien Hua. Together \vith the colleague on his right. he controlled the Spirits of the Fi,'e Directions. Such is the legendary folklore of common men canonised by popular acclama tion. An intercsting scroll. of no great artistic merit, destined to decorate a ttmple wall. to be looked upon by humhle peopil-, it symbolises something which this book has to say. Chinese art and literature have been so profuse, Chinese mythological imagery so fertile, that the \Vest has often missed other aspects, perhaps more important. of Chinese civilisation. Here the graduat ed scale of Liu Chiin, at first sight unexpected in this setting, reminds us of the ever-present theme of quantitative were rain-gauges already in the Sung (+12th eentUI'Y) and sliding calipers in the Han (Hst), The atmillary ring of HUlln Tzu-Yii bears witness [hat Naburiannu and Hipparchus, al-Kaqqash and Tycho. had worthy counter parts in China. The tools of Hsin Hsing symbolise that great empirical tra dition whi(;h informed the work of Chinese artisans and technicians all through the ages.
SCIENCE AND CIVILISATION IN CHINA
\"'aug Sholl was travelling along with writt�n materials on his back. At a big crossroad� he caught sight of Hsti Fi':ng. Said Hsu Feng: 'Conduct consists of actions. Actions arise
from circumstance. The person who knows has no con
stant pattern of condun. Books consist ofsayings. Sayings
arise from knowing. Therefol"C the knowing person does not keep \\Tincn materials. \\'hy arc you travelling along with these things Oil your back?' At this point Wang ShOll
burnt his written materials and danced round the bonfire.
•
r
JOSEPH NEEDHAM
SCIENCE AND CIVILISATION IN CHINA VOLUME 7
PART
I: LANGUAGE AND LOGIC BY
CHRISTOPH HARBSMEIER PROFESSOR, DEPARTMF.:'T OF £AST £CII.OI'£"1'> "'1'0 ORIENTAL STIJDIF.S, l.:NIV"Eil.SlTY 0.· O�LO
,
•
t:DITED BY
110
KE"NETH ROBIKSON
•
I
_ CAMBRIDGE :.
UNIVERSITY PRESS
t>UHLlSHED TlY
Till: I'Kt;�S SYNDICATf 01'
THE U;O;I\lERSITY
OF CAMBKIDGE
The Piu Building, Trl.lmpinHlO1L Str.-rl, Cambridge C82 lRP, Unitrd King dom CA�18RIDGF; U;o;lVERSITy PRESS
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11.1 Stamrnrd Roa.d, OalJcigh, �Irlhourne 3166, Australia
This lowk is;n copyrighl. Suujectto SlamlQry t.xception
and to lhe prodsiQIIS of rrlr\'ant collecti\'c licrn�ing agreemt"nl�,
no reproduction of any part rna)' takc plarr without
the written permission ofCamhridlo\"t" Univcrsity Pr,.�o;. Fim pt1blisll�d 1998 Prin1('d in the United Kingdom al thr Cniversity I'r('�s, Camhridge
A wtalo,�ue T(wrdjiJr Ihi.r book iJ Qt'QI'/(lbkjrolli tht �riti.fh Library ISH:» () .'):.1157143 X hardbark
Joseph Needham (1900-1995) SCIENCE Al\D CIVILISATION IN CHINA "Certain it is (hat no people or group of peoples has had a mon opoly in contributing to the deydopment of Science. Their achievements should
be mutually recognised and freely celebrated wit h the jo in e d hands of universal brotherhood"
Science and Ci()iluatiQn i"
China VOL UME J,
PREFAC E .
•
Josr.ph Ne edham
directly supervised t he publication of 17 books in the Seit1lct and
Civilisato i n to volume 6.3, which was in press at the time of his death inMarch 199.)·
The planning and p repar a tion affurther volumes will continue. Responsibility for lhe commi ssi oning and approval of work for publication in the series is now taken by the Publications Board of the �eedham Research Institute in Cam bridge, under the chairmanship of Dr. Christopher Cullen, who acts as general editor of the series.
A N G U S C H A R L E S CRAHAM 8July I9I9-26 March 1991 philosopher, poet, teacher and friend this volume is respectfully dedicated
XU
CONTENTS
(e)
Logical practice,p. 261 (I) Argumentation and rationality in ancient China,p. 261 (2) Some forms of argument in ancient China,p. 278
(f) Logical theory,p. 286 (I) Teng Hsi and Hui Shih, p. 286 (2) Kungsun Lung and the ''''hite Horse Dialogue,p. 2g8 (3) Hsiin Tzu'siogic,p. 321 (4) Later l\'lohist logic, p. 326 (5) Chinese reactions to ancient Chinese disputation and logic,p. 345 (6) Logical thought in the +3rd century,p. 353
(g) Chinese Buddhisllogic,p. 358
(I) The f'volution of Buddhist logic, p. 358 (2) The sy stem of Buddhist iogic,p. 367
(3) The argument for consciousness only,p. 392 (4) The translation of logic from Sanskrit to Chinese,p. 396 (:;) Contrasts between jin mmg' and Aristotelian logic,p. 404 (h)
Concluding reftections,p. 408
BIBLIOGRAPHIES Abbreviations,p·422
A. Chinese andJapanese books before + 18oo,p. 423
B. Chinese andJapancse books and journal articles since + 1800, p. 432 C. Books and journal articles in Westf'rn languages,p. 440
GENERAL INDEX Table ojChine.se DynastiM
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS The following abbreviations are used in the text. For abbrc\·iations used for jour nals and similar publications in the bibliographies, set' pp. 422ff.
SPTK
Ui Shih Chhun Chhiu ftJ'ayapravefa Ssu law Chhiian Shu SsU-pu-pfl-yao Ssu-pu-tshung-klzan
WYWK
Ji1an-you-[Den-kllu
!.SCC 345
NP
SKCS
sppr WI'
Wen-Ii (Yale University)
Xlll
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book owes its inception toJanusz Chmielewski ofWarsaw University, who sug gested, conceived, planned and began it many years ago. I only wish I could have written a section morc worthy of its originator. Kenneth Robinson has edited this volume, and has given me invaluable help and encouragement at every stage, far beyond the call of duty. His loyal friendship and hospitality over the years has been crucial and wonderful. Geoffrey Lloyd, Cambridge, has provided always incisive and oflcn crucial com ments on every single sub-section in this book. R. E. Allinson, Hong Kong; Chad Hansen, Virginia; D. Kchren, Bonn; Gregor Paul, Osaka, have all given generous comments on early drafts. Robert Wardy has kindly re-read, and commented on, the final draft. Yu Min of the Normal University in Peking has given detailed advice on the philological sub-sections.
I also wish to thank the following for their help on specific points: 1',,1. Broido,
Oxford; D. D. Daye, Boulder Green; G. Dudbridge, Oxford; S. Egerod, Copen hagen ; H. Eifring, Oslo; D. Follesdal, Oslo; Nathan Sivin, Pennsylvania. lowe the Institute of East Asian Philosophies,
Singapore,
a profo und debt of
gratitude for their generous support during a sLx-month fellowship there in 1986,
and partic u larly to the superb librarians Lilian Phua and l,i Kin-seng of that insti
tution where I '...Tote the first draft for this book, the writing of which was finished in Ig88. During the post-final stages I enjoyed the most congenial environment of the Institute for Advanced Study, B erlin, to sec the book through its final stages of preparation.
Above all, l owe: a profound debt of gratitude to the late A. C . Graham, from
whom I have constantly learnt for almost a quarter of a century, and who has given hjs very detailed advice on several complete drafts of Lhis book. In 1986 I spent six crucial months on this book as a feUow of the Institute of East A<;ian Philosophies, Singapore, in
c
lose collaboration with him. Angus Graham died as this book
neared completion. In deep sorrow I dedicate this volume to the memory of this great philosopher and sinologist whose friendship had sustained me for more than twenty years.
Material from the pre sent book has been used in several articles I have pu blished
over the years: 'The mass noun hypothesis and the part�whole analysis of the 'Whitt" Horse
Chinese Texts and Philo50phical Conlext5. E5says dedicated loA. C. Graham (La Salle: Open Court, 1991), pp. 49-66. 'Marginalia sino-Iogica', in R . f\.Ilinson, ed., UndeTJtanding the Chine5e Mind: The Philosophical Roots (London: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 59-8g. Dialogue' , in H. Rosemont, ed.,
xv
XVl
ACKNOWLEDOEMENTS
'Conceptions of knowle dge in ancient China', in H. Lenk and C. Paul, eds.,
Epistemological hsues in Classical Chinese Philosophy 1993), p p. II-31.
(New York: SUN)," Press,
John ·Webb and the ea rly h istory ofthe study nfthe classical Chinese language in
the West', Proceedings of the Inter national Conference on the HislOry of
Sinol o gy rraip ei, London: Han Shan Tang, 1995), pp. 297-338.
Considering the extraordinarily generous instruction and help I have' received from Angus Gra ham, and from so many other distinguished people, I sombrely reflect
that even twel ve years ago I should have been able to write a much better survey
than the one [am able to present here. The responsibility for this failure remains entirely my own.
eds.. Press.
FOREWORD
1ge m
)f)' of
Since the winter of r986 we have bf"en installed in our nf"W and permanent building, of which the t::ast Wing was built primarily by contributions from Hongkong
lfrom reflect rur\"e)' mams
(through our Trust there, of which the chairman is Dr Mao "Ven-Chhi), while th!.; Centre Block is owing to the generosity of Tan Sri Tan Chin Tuan of the Overseas
Chinese: Bankin g Corporation of Singapore. The architect was Christophe Grillet of Caius and the builder was Roger Baile-y of !\,fe:ssrsJohnson & Bailey, Ltd. The bu il ding has vermilion pillars (like a Chinese Temple) and there is white Chinese lattice-work in the veranda raili ngs. The building has won several awards, notably one from the Royal Institute of British Architects: others for the excellence of its brickwork and its woodwork. It stands at the corner of Herschc1 Road and Sylvest er Road, Cambridge, on land belongin g to Robinson College. It is in this new building that we ("orne allast to Volume 7.
More than fony years have passed
�incc Volumt.: 1 in thi� series was published.
\\'e imagine-d then that Volume 7 would be the seventh in a series ofonlyst.:ven slim volumes, and not the last
in a series of thirty. But so great was the wealth whie.h we Treasure l'vfountain that our original pl ans had to be
discovered imide the Chinese-
adapted. From the main shafts which haw been sunk, subsidiary tunnels now run in all directions. Inevitably some lines of exploration have had to bf" abandoned; with others work is postponed, and sometimes the order in which work had been planned for publication has had to be altered. Volume 7 marc than any other has been subjected to the pressures oftime and change, bur it is \"ith great pleasure that I now prcsf"nt Volume 7, pan I.
For the suppon of OllT rese arch and writing, we must mention the National
Science Foundation (USA), the Mellon
an d
the Luce Foundations, and tht:
:\ational Institute for Research Advancement (Japan). \<\'ithout their continued support, our work \\'ould have been impmsible. Most of their help was mt:diated through our New York Trust (Chairman .MrJohn Die bold) ; and this is
also de�erv
ing of our warmest thanks for obtaining fi'om the Kresge Foundation a grant of US5150,000 towards the build ing of the South \-Ving ofour InstiLute. In Volume 2 we wrote in large measure about the impact of Chinese people, soci eties and philosophies on the growth ofscienee. Thereafter we wrote about specific fields of Chinese scientifiC" thought - in mathem atics, astronomy, mete orology,
geography and eartograph); geology, seismology, mineralogy, and then, Lurning to
physics, on heat, light, s oun d, magnetism and electricity, and, in a new set of vol umes, to engine ering - me-chanical, civil and nautical. T his was to be followed by things chemical in several volumes, some of which are not yet completed, on mili tary and textile technology, and on paper
and printing, Chinese inventions which
were of decisive importance in the growth of modern science. Then came the great effort to disentangle Chinese alchemy and the beginnings of modern chemistry, X:Vll
XVlll
FOREWORD
which r equired four volumes. Th�se wcre follow ed by specific applications ofchem ical discoveries to technology, such as the making and use of gunpo wder, and the use of s(ero i ds in medi cine.
In what had originally been t hought of as a s lim Volume 6 we now h ave or shall
soon have several volumes on sllch s ubjects as botany and agricult ure with their related studies and technol ogies, 10 be followed by contributions on things medical and pharmaceutical.
All the se wen' reasonably specific and objective. But now, in Volume 7, we return to
that most proper s t udy of mankind, namely human speech and tho ught processes, as they occurred in China. I had originally arranged with the distinguished logician, Janusz Chmielewski of\Varsaw Univ�rsity, to write a part of
and Ciuili.fOtion in
Section 49 in the seventh volume of Science
ChTUJ. i , covering Chinese language and Chinese logic, as we then
expressed it. But by Sep tember 1983 he had made it dear to us that his own failing
eyesight, the illness of his \\'ik, and the sheer physical difficulti es of living in Poland
at (hat time, made it impossible for him to go beyond the first two chap tt>fs which he had by then written. This was but the first of many setbacks we rece.ived in the wril
ing of Volume 7. Janus z Chmielewski did, however, recommend that the wo rk
should be entrusted to ChrislOph Harbsmeier. We gratefully follo wed up this sugges tion. Christoph went to see Janu�z , and a smooth and cordial handover was
arranged, which the author of this volume refers to on p.
I. \"'e were vcry sorry that
Janusz was unable to bring to a �uccessful conclusion the. work to which he had devoted much precious time, but arc most grateful to him for ensuring its continua tion in the hands ofhis gift�d pupil.
Christoph Harbsmeier, in writing on I .anguage and Logic in Traditional China,
has given us a contribution which is no t o nly erudite in its ability to draw together East and West, but also stimula ting and entertaining. He fte1s that what logic
amounts to is the history of the philosophy of science, and that this should be recog nised as central to the intellectual scheme in ScienceanJ Civilisation
in China.
In the pages which follow the reader will find many common preconceptions challenged. Early Chintse. for example, was an isolating, bur not an isolated lan guagt. Literary Chinese was no vagut" and poetic language unsuitable for s cie nce , provided it was used by a competent scientific thinker. Nor wcre the Chines e uninterested in logic, explicit or implicit. Twice the Chincse appear to have been
intercsted in f'--xplicit logic for its own sake, once in the Mohist School, and once again with the Chinese Buddhist commentators, in whose logical minds the ambi guities of Sanskrit were resolved when translated into Chinese. But the Chinese were always more interested in the truth on which assum ptions were based than on the verbal machinery for developing these assumpti ons. Explicit logic did not therefore have that continuously sustained int�rest which it has received in lhe West. Many rcaders will be anxious to know how Chine�e compares for clarity \\Iith, say, classical Cre�k, and will turn
to Section (c,6)
on 'Comple.xiry', where
FOREWORD
XIX
0-
translations from Plato's works into I.iterary Chinese by skilled translators are com
1<
pared. It would be wrong of me here, however, to anticipate the author's findings.
ill
actually happened when it was so used? This, as (he Americans would say, is a
or
whole new ball-game for which the reader will have to await a subsequent volume.
'0
Cambrid,ttt 9Ma)' 1994
aI
,., iki
.a
en og
nd
he
].a,
g>c
Jg-
JOS
10-
ce, <se
:en
:lee
lbi esc
on
not the
rity
�ce
Granted that Literary Chinese was capable of expressing scientific ideas, what
JOSEPH NEEDHAM
AUTHOR'S NOTE The Chinese were supcrficial- alit o/profondrfy,l
There is only one culture in the world which has developed systematic logical definitions and reflections on its own and on the basis of a non-Indo-F.urop�an lan guage. This is lht" Chinese culture. The history of logical reflection in China is therefore of extraordinary interest for any global history of logic and hence for any global history of the foundations of scien ce. It has become an unquestioned assumption that there is one golden age of ralio nallogica l inquiry in China: the -5th to yd centuri es, the later pan of the Warring States period. The present volume will correct this assumptio n. It will demonstrate that there arc two such periods of intense logical activi ty
in China, by
far the most
productive being the +7th and early +8th centuries, wht:rc Buddhist logic made tremendous headway in China and produced a significant literature both in terms
of sh e er size and of philosophical quality. Buddhis l logic was Indian in origin, and the Chinese language turned out to be no obstacle for a remarkable intellectual efflorescence ofRuddhist logic in China. For an empirical global account ohhe nat
ural relations between logical theorising and the language in which this theorising
is going on, again, the case of China is of unique importance.
Chinese Buddhist logic rem ained limited to a small subculture. This is why it could be so largely overlooked by students ofChinese intellectual history. But then, even the Later Mohist achievements of the Warring States period, for all thei r sparkling intellectualism o n many points represcmed a highly marginal subculture. The Later )/lohisl lexu have been transmitted to us in a shape that bears witness to the fact that the Chinese transmitters did not understand much of what they were transmitting. The Later MohislS and sophists like Kungsun Lung did have a certain inAuen("(�
on the philosophy of their times, but on thr. whole their achievements wcre not absorbed into the mainstream of Chinese intellectual culture. Mohist ethics main lained at lea�H some, albeit highly marginal, presence, Mohist logic was simply for gotten. Buddhist logic, though not forgotten in Buddhist cirdes, was disregarded. ll never becam� a central discipline for large numbers ofChin�se Buddhi�ts as it did a.mongTibetan and Indian Buddhists. One cannot emphasise enough: logic, no matter whether Buddhist or iviohist, n-mained marginal in Chinese culture until modern intellectuals needed to demon cale that China had its own logical traditions, j ust like the vVest. Chinese logic was �covered in an attempt to prove that China was the intellectual equal of the West. The result was a large modern indigenous literature on indigenous Chinese c.
I :-iietzsche, l"NfrMlit:he WismudlOfl., end ofthe I·innd.: DU Gfird/tn Wdrtl! ob"jliirhlich -aru 1.ift! XX!
X.Xll
AL-T H O R ' S N O T E
At a very elementary level, logical thought originates as a theoretical concern with certain logically crucial words such as negations like 'not' and various logical conjunctions and quantifiers like 'or' or -all'. The Chinese clearly developed such specific logical concerns. From a global persp("C[i\'e, the Chinese general comments on their own language (b,3) are of concern because there are very few cultures indeed whose comments on their own languages are not dirl"ctly or indirectly inspired by the Greek and Latin or the Sanskrit tradition. The Chinese art" also the only people operating ,\�th a non-Indo-European language who dt"veloped an entirely indigenous interest in some grammatical features of their own language: a global history of grammar would have to accord a central place to Chinese tradi tional grammar as the only non-lndo-Europl"an pre-modern tradition . Chinese civilisation is the onlynon-Indo-£uropean civilisation in the world which has devel oped independently ofoutside influences an indigenous and powerful lexicograph ic traditi.on and a sustained systematic interest in the definition of terms. Chinese interest in the lexicon of their 0\\'11 language is parallelled in Europe by that of the French in more modern timl"s. J trace the Chint"se devdopment in Seclions (b,-!-) and (b,S). The significance of the lexicographic tradition for tht" study of the history of science is evident: the dictionaries and the definitions are a main source of our knowledge of the Chinese conceptual world. v ! lany exotic logical features have been claimed for the Chinese language throughout the ages. for example, it has been clalmed that negation somehow does not have its full logical force in Chinese. In fact it turns out that such illogicalities as cumulative negation and such phrasl"s as 'all that glitters is nOt gold' are in fact quite
alien to Chinese grammar, and ifwe are to compare logicality with respect to nega
tion, then it turns out that Chinese is very considerably more logically transparent and rigid than ancient Greek (C, I). It has been claimed that Chinese is very strange in lacking proper word classes, but Shakespearean gnglish turns out to be very close indeed in its treatment of word classes to Classical Chinese (compare 'but me no buu'), and in any case there is a sound basis lor distinguishing the functional prop
erties of ancient Chinese words, not to speak of modern ones. They often even have morphological word class characteristics (c.4). Thl" stylistic differences in explicit ness in Greek versus implicitness in ancient Chinese are real enough, but they are only matters of degree, and it must be pointed out that Gret"k can be elliptic in
many places where Classical Chinese cannot (c,5). 1 find that there are indeed many semantic/logical configurations that arc perfectly possible but cannot be repres ented in Classical Chinese. But it turns out that these do not generally seem to be
essential for the articulation of scientific thought. The synta.'\ of Classical Chinese turns out to be rich I"nough to express the thought ofPlato, though it is poor enough to necessitate considerable syntactic and logical revamping ((,6). The history of logical concepts in China has, in recent years, received much more attention than the grammatical and linguistic problems introduced so
far:
and this area remains <:ontroversial. A. C. Graham remarked that 'it is perhaps
AUTH O R ' S f"OTE
x..Xlll
inevitable that in the no-man's-land on the common borders of linguistics, philo sophy, and sinology. among those from whom one looks for stimulating new approaches (Rosem ont, Hansen, Hall) most genf'ralisations aboutthe Chinese lan
guage start from totally obsolete assumptions'. Graham goes on to give an examp le:
'To speak of Chinese sentences as "strings of names" is to revert to the grammatical
knowle dge ofthe ancient Chinese themsc lve� (an d not quite catching up with Name.r
and ObjecLr).' Graham argues: 'But a claim that, for (;xample, there are no sentences in English, offered withoUl even an alternative aCCOUiH of the gramm atical
differences hNween the so-called "sentence" and the nominalised clause, would
be meaningless; why is the claim supposed to be meaningful if the language is
Chinese?'l
Section (d) in the present work is a systematic study of some logically fundamen
tal concepts like that ofa sentence, ofmeaning, truth, and nt':cessity, and some prob lems of their application to Chinese. I argue that there i� as much - or if you prefer: as little - of a concept ora sentence in Chinese asthere is in English or Greek (d ,I). I
show that the wncept or truth is manifestly present, al thou gh it is indeed not regarded as all-importantly central to philosophy which in China has always been predominantly prab'll1atic in orientation (d,3). Thn(': is even some truly surpri�illg evidt'"nce ofthe development of an abstract notion ofa class, ofsubsumption, and of an abstract property (d,6}-(d,8). Moreover, there is no reason to attribute to the ancient Chinese an exotic absence of a notion of propositional kno\\ ledge On the l
.
Olher hand it is quite correct to point out that the ancient Chinese words within the semantic field of knowledge - like their ancient Greek counterparts - also mean knowledge by acquaintancl': and knowing how to' (d,g). On close examination the '
Chinese language turns out to be less exotic than might appear from the current literature.
It turns out that the Ch ine se l anguage is reasonably well equipped to express
rational argumentation, essential to science, and the ancient Chinese have many current forms of argument in common with thl':ir contemporary Greeks (t,I)-(t,2).
My survey of the Chinese tradition of disp utat ion and l ogic shows that - like it�
Greek counterpart - the Chinese tradition owed much to the legal tradition on the
one hand and to intellectual entertainment on the other. Creative frivolity is shown to have been a nuda! factor in the thou ght ofKungslIll Lung (1,2). 'J'he intellectual
response to logic by the cultu re at large is crucial for our appreciation of the roll': of logic in Chinese culture. In China, as in Greece, the response was predomin antly
negative, but unlike in Greece, even the argumentative phi losophers in ancient
China did not systematically deploy the il15ights of the logicians and their tech niques in other areas than those offormal logic (/'5).
Finally, I present a critical survey ofthe system of Chinese Buddhist logic and
or its terminology (g,2). Discu ssin g the problems of Hsiian-Tsang s translation '
from the Sanskrit original into Chinese I argue thal these translations make crucial ; Graham ('gflg), pp. 392 ami 394.
XXIV
AUTH O R ' S N O T E
additions to the Sanskrit original and thus contribute significantly to the progress of
Buddhisllogic (g,4). Finall)� I have found it useful LO highlight Ihe contrast between
the formal charancr ofAriHotle's syllogistic and the more rhetoric-based system of Indian logic which should be viewed as a formal logic of dialogut" and disputation rather than offormal logical relations as such.
It will be noticed lhal this volume is almost entirely concerned not with the his
tory of science, but with lhe comparative history of the foundations of science. The scientific texts investigated are thost" concerned with logic and linguistic analysis.
The detailed impact of Chinese approaches to and e:'i:pt"riences oflogic on the prac
lice of concrete sciences originally, for good reasons, was intended to form part of this volume, which will be treated in a separate volume by another author.
The highly abstract and compll"x issues raised in this volume arl", to use ',\'ioston
Churchill's famous phrase from 1939, 'a riddle \\Tapped in a mySlCry inside an eni&'Tna'. I havc looked for a key in a combinaLion of philology and logical analysis.
Now, many years after
the writing of this book, the rl'sult of my efforts ll'aves me
diffident in m ore ways than onl'. I must now quote from one of Chun;hill's speeches: Writing a book is an a d\'ClUure: to begin \\'ith it is a toy. A.nd an amusemtnt. And then it be('omes a miMrt:S�. And [hen it becomes a mastf'r. And then it becomes a tyrant. And the last phase is thatjust about as you are reconciled to your sc .... l itude, you, ster. Hm. And fling him about to the public.
you- kill thr:- mon·
]n mypresent case I have found the last clause. after thl" hesitation , is the most prob
lematic part. The fate of the present book was not so simple, after the killing o f
the monster: the thing - un-flung to any public wider than Ihat of the Keedham
Research Institute and a fl"w li'iends and colleagues - became a ghost, waiting for a ompanion to form a volume. And dlen a forgotten skeleLOll in a drawcr. Andjust as
c
1 was reconciled to my indifference, then T had to
revive the skeleton. Now, in the
end I fling him abom to the public, diffidt"mlr Hoping that [he gentle readers will not see as manyju\'enile weaknesses in it as its amhor dOt'S.
The main part of this book was written in tg85, in the most congenial company
of Angus Graham who had invited me to join him at the Institute of Far Eastern
Philosophies, Singapore. 'f'hroughout its incubation it has benefited tremt"ndously from the editorial help of Kenneth Robinson and, during the final stage�, Christine Salazar. The manu�cript was fini�hed in I988, after which dale I have only been
able to make very minor changes.
ress of
",een
49 .
tem of �tion
L A N GU A G E AND LOGIC I N TRADITIONAL CHINA
(al METHOD (I) METHODOLOGICAL REMARKS I The theory and practice of science and t�chnology arc inextricably bound up with language and logic.. Scientific insights become transmittable cultural heritage to the extent that they are articulated in language. The insights add up to a scientific explanation to the extent that they are organised into a coherent argument. The explanations add up to a scientific system to the extent that they are organised into "" me
a general logical scheme. In this Section I shall address three main questions:
rches:
then il
I.
.nd lh� � mon-
prob
ling of
"
g foT a
JUSt as
in the
'TS will
npany astern dously
mlioe
.. been
\�Ihat are the basic logical and linguistic features of the Literary Chinese lan guage that enabled it to serve as a medium for scientific discourse? r shall lry to
answer this question in terms of grammar and conceptual histor),. 2.
What (if any) were the strategies of argumentation and proof employed by the ancient Chinese?� I shall try to answer this question by a logi cal examination of ancient Chinese arguments.
3- What (if any) were the main logical theories advocated by the ancient Chinese before the impact ofWestern philosophy on science and logic? I shall summarise the history oflogic in China.
To somc extent there will be a temporal progression from this Sub-section to the next. Here I shall be mainly concerned with the period from Confucius (-551 to
.:Eft (-t2j to +IOO}.3 As far as indigenous Chinese logic is concerned this turns out to be the only really productive period. Moreover, n i sofar
-.1}9) to \'Vang Chung
as Classical Chinese remained the main focus of intellectual attention among
all
later Chinese thinkers (except for some Buddhists) and insofar as the Classical Chinese literature defined a large part ofthe basic linguistic and logical conceptual framework for later Chinese thought, it deserves our special attention. I
ThiJ S�elion owe! iI, in ception to Janu.u Chmi�l�w.ki ofW"rsaw Universily, who suggested, concei,."d, planned lind began it many year.< ago. In laking over from him, I hlll'e tried 10 live up to hi. high slandarw of philological and logical rigour, and I havc occasionally drawn on hi! notes. I only l,;sh I could haw ,n;I\Cn a sec tion more worthy ofits distinguishcd originator. I It will he fuumi lhal l..hc cmphasis in this �c{ion i. largely on the period from Confuciu!·, lime to the 2nd
antury. Tu wme eXlem this simply refl�ts the spe<::ialisation of the prestont wriler and the limitations of his knowledge. On lhe other hand il also seems right 10 ronc;..ntrate on Ihe mOil formlltil'e and creative period in Chine:le intellectual hi�tol)·. In any ca.s-e, I h ave done my ben to co-.-.:! importam laler de,-elopmenb aJ; wdl, such as Buddhist logic oflhe +7th century. The follo",;nl'\" Section will deal mainly with latu de'�10pmeI1l5. , Our enterpme s i not uncomroversial. l\larcd Granel, in his 'QlJelqlles partirularites de la l angue et de la ptnsee chinoi�e' argues forcefully for the unique and special character ofche Chine"" language and o[Chinese thoughc whichmake Chinese unsuitabk for an analysis in Western logir.al terms.
2
LANGUAGE A�D L O G I C
Just as we should try to learn something about the relevant parts of optics or bio
logy in general before we expound (he history of optics or biology in China, so in the case of logic and (he philosophy of language we should feel obliged to famil iarise ourselves with some basic relevant parts of logic before we embark on the study ofthe history of logic in China. Basic modern logic and analytical philosophy provide us with the best theoretical account to date of the complex relations benveen language and logic. This is essen rial in order to study the particular case oflanguage and logic in ancient China. t I shall aspire to treat ancient Chinese ways of thinking about language and logic entirely on the basis of ancient Chinese texts which I present in English transla tions.2 I shall try to avoid sayin g anything whatsoever about ancient Chinese lan guage and logic which I cannot or do not either document through quotation or demonstrate by the absence of certain phenomena in the texts we have. I am not abstractly philosophising about Chinese texts. I am practising the kind of logical
philowlO' which interprets, translates and explains relevant Chinese texts in the light ofwhat is known about language and logic in general and Classical Chinese gram mar and philology in particular.3 Every translation, however well founded it may be on the necessary detailed grammatical and philological research , will inevitably have to beg a host of ques tions of interpretation . Translations arc never evidence. They embody interpreta tions that are open to questioning. They are pan of the argument and must be treated as such, \'lith the appropriate critical awareness that there may always be alternative translations. In translating Chinese texts I apply modern principles of Western linguistics, logic and analytical philosophy. In this sense I am always begging questions con
cerning the 'prelogicality' of the Chinese. I am assuming that the Chinese, when
properly understood, did make logical sense. I am in sympathy with W. V 0. Quine
Both in China and in the 'Ven then, ha\'� been thole who, like Lionf'1 GiI�! in 1945. \�ould want to claim 'Chinese cannot really be 5aid to ha\'C any grammar at all.' (BSOAS II (1943-6), p. �36). In 1986 Carl B. Beder published an article 'Ikasofl5 for the Lack ofArgumentation and Ophate n i the Far EMt'. In 1939 Chang Tung-Sun shrank from dw}�n!l: that the Chinese had logic. Inw'ad, he SCI up a curiously opaque di.
LA:"lG!;AGE A :"l D L O G I C
· bio so m lITlil ,
the
3
when he remarks: ·\Vanton translation can make natives sound as queer as one pleases. Better translation imposes our logic upon them, and would beg lhe ques tion of prclogicaJicy ifthere were a question to beg.') However, it turns out that onc can make good logical sense in radically different ways, and we n eed
10
find out exactly how different the Chincse ways were from
!tical en
ours. 'Whatever lht" needs of i diomatic translation into English, one may slill won
L'
(as they may carry their own notions of gods), or whether logic is something trans
der whether widely different cultures may not each carry their own logical notions
logic
cultural (like arithmetic, where cultures only differ in their strategies for represent
Ulsla
ing the same arithmetic truths). One may wonder whether the apparent ·logicality'
! lan
of the translations from the Chinese is indt"ed only the result of the sort ofinterpre
on or n not >gical : light
tive imposition Quine speaks of I do rather expect that people who have learnt to count, in all cultures and at all times, will agree tl1
;ram-
how they may express this thought in their language. But do people of all cultures and times have to agree that a statement cannOt he at the same time true and
tailed
untrue? Do the Chi.nese, for example, haw: a notion of a statement and of"truth in me first place?3
ques·
By introducing Coca-Cola in all the markets of the world we impose a culture
Jrela-
bound American taste and replace indigenous tradition. By teaching logic in all
1St be
me universities of the world, arc we imposing a culture-specific logical scheme on
Irs be
11sti cs, s
coo
when Quine
peoples who haw: independent, different, but equally sound, logical schemes of their own? By interprr.ting ancient Chine�c texts in terms of modern formal and philosophical logic, arc we imp osing on Chinese thought an intellectual �chcme which is so alien to the Chinese that they might not even know whether to disagree with it? !vIarcel Granet has been the foremost modern proponent of the relativist posi tion, deploring the application of cven elementary '''''estern' logic to Chinf"se.
to claim
&der w10udy
� rormal
!d socio·
ed n i the
he mor� jc in the
land the
• inter.
Iall texts
un only Jbeen an book D;f .. English !Ie anid�
Jacques Gernet (lg83) has argued eloquently Lhat Chinese categories of thinking are fundamentally different from Western ones, thus making effectively impossible
me spread ofWestern Christianity to China, On the other hand Chinese hislorians of philosophy like Hu Shih (as wt"ll as his critics like F0ng Yu-lan) take the opposite vicw by not only attributing 'Western' logic to the ancient Chinese, but by evell interprt:ting most of Chinese intellectual , Quin(' (1969). P' !is. • In one sense one can �aythat �H"n whell members ofour own ('ulture M'em to mal",: perf('ctly good and ordin· ary logical sense. arpear:lnc�1 mar k d�ecpti\'e, Sueh membtrs of our own !IOci�ly may IhcotclieallyJUSt hal"e deI.�loJXd an un(annily p"n-....,iv" habit orbcba" ing linguistically IIJ iflh..y had my basic notions orJogie whl:n in (:.>ellher Ii,'" in Ih�ir own 10lall, dillen-Ill logical uni,·..rv, Smr.. (h..ir kha\-iullT would bc $0 per\,asiv..ly df'''�p m�, w� ha".. no wl'ly of ever finding OUl, Similarly, "'f' hal'<' no "Hoiy ufpro,ing that the ancient Chin�St" did nm r�al· fy li\'� in " tutally different logical uni\'ene. But I rrop')�� \I) tlcmumtratc inductively that they r...nainly ort�11 i ...TOte as fthey didn'l. Inde�d, ;\5 lor ..xampl� in th� casc of muhiple negation, Wf' ,hall find Ihal thc aucient
Chinese adher�d Illore rigidly to logical hy¢cIIc tilfU\ Ihcir Greek cOll1empor;lriI:S, or th�ir English.speaking successor!, • \\·e shall take up th�s .. qu�,ti{)m in detail in Sectio!)s (d,I) and {d':IJ b<-Iow
4
LANGUAGE
AND LOGle
history through predominantly Western categories of thought. Hu Shih calls his history of Chinese philosophy The Deutlopment rifLogical Method in AnCltnt Ch ina, and by 'logical method' he understands something close to Western logical methods. These approaches to the problem of logic and culture may seem irreconcilable, but they each make an important point.Jacques Gernet and his predecessors arc right that Chinese ways of articulating and structuring thought are profoundly different from Greek and European ones. However, in wiing their very differem lin guistic and intellectual strategies, Aristotelians as well as Confucians will still use essentially the same kinds ofJogical tools, such as negations, conditional statements and quantifiers like 'some' and 'all'. There is nothing Western about negation, con ditionals or quantifiers any more than there is anything \"restern about the numbers 'one' and 'nyo'. I shall nOt argue this philosophical point in detail here, but a com parison of logic \.... ith arithmetic may help to clarify the approach I shall follow in this Section. Notice first that notions of the Holy Trinity and the like do not belong to the realm of arithmetic. We cannot point to the notion of the Trinity and argue that the notion of ,three' is culture-specific. Certainly, different cultures do different things with the notion 'three', but they do their different things with fundamentally the same notion of 'three' which is systematically treated for example in 'Western' number theory. Plato, we are told, regarded the ability to count as one of the defining general characteristics which give man his dignity. I Some peoples might, I suppose, not be able to count as far as three, counting 'one', 'two', 'many'. (Indeed, as Yo Min from Peking has pointed out to me, the early meaning 'many' for san ':=' may possibly be a fossil of an earlier stage of Chinese when indeed the Chinese counted this way.) If there really were such people I should simply say that they are at a certain arithmetical disadvantage.z Let us now turn to the more controversial subject oflogic. Modern formal logic3 can be construed as the study ofthe foundations ofmathematics (including number theory among many other things). Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead's classic Principia Malhtmalica (1910) attempts to deduce the truths of mathematics from some principles of logic. They did not quite succeed, but on the other hand they showed in detail how the propositions oflogic may usefully be considered as propositions belonging to the field of the foundations of mathematics, and that is the point that matters for us. Just as one can study not only number theory but also the anthropology ofcount ing, so one can study the anthropology ofJogical articulation that has to do with the logic of sentences (propositional logic), and the logic of properties and relations , ArnIOI)", PmbitmIJ/(l30.6, 95GallfT. , Wheth"r a people eXpress 'Ihr"'" in a binary or a decimal system is intcn:5Img, but orIilt1c comequeuc>:: in our contexl. What cultural significanu a population altachcJ to the uotiuu of 'three' i.• again hi�torically very interesting, but it is mathematically irrdevant. It makes sense to detach the abslraC\ arithm"tic notion of'three' as univenal from its culture-specific cultural comeXI$ such as thaI ofnumerology or the Holy Trinity. , Modern formal logic must, of course, be disdnguished from traditional !\tistotdian logic, which raises entirely differeut probletm.
LANGUAGE A�D L O G I C
5
first order predicate logic).l In
propositional logic we study logical sentence con in English by such words as ' and', 'if', 'if and only if', 'either . . . or', and propositional logic makes these concepts precise by interrelating them through formal definitions of logical relations bep,\'een propositions p and q which we could translate roughly as: nectives, connectives namrally (but only approximately) expressed
Definition: Ifp then q = either not -p or q.
10 first order predicate logic we study logical relations between predicates {like 'be a number'} symbolised by letters like 'F', and relations (like 'be larger than') symbol i e ' R', and such more complicated logical concepts as quantifiers, ised by letters lk
naturally expressed in English by such words as 'all', 'some' and the like. 'Ve can try interrelate these concepts by definitions which we can translate informally as:
to
Definition: For all x: Fx = Not (for some x: not Fx) �w
me
�lth e , dUngs
�' lhe �atern' �
of the
ounnng
me of such
lSlage
ttt"
,
l.e., 'all things are F' is defined as 'it is not the case that there are some things which are not F'.)
As anthropologists
oflogie we can then go on to study the ways in which various
peoples articulate or have articulated logical relations between sentences and
predicates (just as anthropologists of mathematics may study the way different peoples have articulated notions like that of addition, division, etc.). 'We then need to investigate such questions as whether these peoples employ sentences and can distinguish these from other strings of morphemes), whether they apply truth predicates like the English 'is true' to sentences (or whether they manage ...;thout such truth predicates), whether they conceive of sentences as things that ODe can believe or know to be true (or whether they think along entirely different
between
es),
number
:\ people might, I suppose, turn out to have no word for 'not' and not to be able to make explicit any logical relations between propositions in any way. Indeed, they
aroead's
might be unable to distinguish between sentences and other strings ofmorphemes.
.al logic�
tleffiancs
�r hand
dered as
d that is
3fCQunt ,� ith the
matioos
.cqvencr n i
� \'crr .. of'thrc'"
They might have no words for 'all' and 'some ' .
In that case I should simply find to hear of any such lanages. I propose to demonstrate that ClaSSIcal Chinese is in any case certain?J not such a .aguage. I read in the Corpus Hermeticum (+rst to +3rd centuries) that thought and language sisters, or rather instruments for each other.1 Language cannot be used in sep· ...arion from thought, nor can thought manifest itselfin separation from language. I tha.ll show that Classical Chinese is indeed an efficient instrument for the articula - n of logically structured thought. Languages generally do have expressions or :orutructions which we are tempted to translate as ' not') 'all', 'is true' and the like, 1 these words will often have widely different non-logical semantic connotations them
to be
at a certain logical disadvantage. I have yet
i erening "'arofplming that this can b( done i, to go ahead and do il as be$1 one can. In Whal The most m 'S I shall attempt this formofproof, taking Classical Chinese as an ellample. �ock and Fe$lugi�re (1960), \'01. I. p, 97.
6
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
and are subject to non-logical grammatical restrictions. 1 I shall not b e outraged by the fact that the anciellt Chinese had half a dozen ('ommon negations. Neither shall
'
I be outraged by the fact that they happen to express the thought 'either fJ or q by saying something like 'ifnot-p then q (fei�F p is; �IJ q)'.
It may be': tempting to attribute to the ancient Chinese a logical insight or a
definition to the effect that Definition: p or q = if not-p then q But this would be misleading unless we found such a definition or equivalence explicitly stated in the ancicnl texts. It so happens that tht" ancient Chinese never stated such a theorem. All we can say is that they most commonly expressed what we would rall the notion of 'or' by using a certain combination of negation and implication. In so doing they \'Jere adhering to \'Jell-kno\\'n principles ofJogic, but they were not necessarily discussing these principles. One can follow lOb';cai rules without ever discussing them or even rrflecting on them. In what follows I shall carefully distinguish between saying that the Chinese adhcre to a logical rult: on the one hand, and saying that they stated or focussed on a logical rule on the other. I shall try to distinguish between Chinese logical practice and Chinese logical theory. Similarly, I shall have to distinguish between saying that the Chinese followed a certain linguistic pattern, and saying that they focussed on or discussed this linguistic pattern. I shall try to distinguish between their linguistic practice and their language theory.1 .All peoples, I believe, can
COUnt in one way or another, but few have developed a
mathematical number theory. All peoples I know of perform basic logical opera
tions such as negation
and
conjunction,
but few indeed have developed thcorit's
of propositional logic or of predicate logic. I intend to investigate to what extent different peoples, and the ancient Chinese in particular, have found it useful to articulate logical structures, and to what extent they have focussed or reflected on logical notions such as 'all', 'some', 'if' and 'not' and have thus become theoreti cians oflogic. Among the users orrndo-European languages it was the Greeks and the Indians who discussed such problems profusely. Aristotle's achievements in this area were unsurpassed for many centurit':s.l The Indian tradition of J\yIij'(I was preoccupied
with issues closely related to logic .
It started out with the N)'ii)'(l Sutras attributed to
Gotama (c. +3rd century) and achieved considC"l'able theoretical rigour and logical preciseness
with Dignaga (c.
+6th century). All other logical reflection within the
Indo-European area derives from
these
two sources. Outside the Indo-European
area there is only one people for whom it has been claimed mat they developed an , Such. of cour>e, is th� Ca.e alSQ for English. �.I P. f. Straw.lo" h�s �mpha,is�d in hi, still l!seful hook lnl�uction 10 LogiCllI Throry (1952). , In So:<:tions (f), I.oKieal featur�, t<J (I;, Logical pr..clice, w.. are cxclusin · Jy COllcern..d wilh Chin"!O
LANGUAGE A:SO L O G I C
d by .hall
7
indigenous independent tradition of logical reflection, namely the Chinese. For example, the: Later Mohists (c. -3rd century) defined:
( by
(Definition:) 'Some' :::; 'not all'.
(Definition:) 'All'
=
'none not'. 1
\\boevcr wrote these definitions was doing logic. The mathematician and linguist Y. R . Chao complains: 'Thus whi1e aiming at finding out how Chinese logic operates, we shall probably end up with finding out :ncc
bow logic operates in Chinese.'2 I am afraid I have ended up as Y R. Chao feared
! YCf
\OIo"t: would. However, I have constantly tried to avoid looking in Chinese logical texts
..
hat
only for exemplification of what we are familiar with from our Western logical tra
and
dition. One has to try to expect to be logically surprised, and trying to be surprised
but ules
is not at all an casy thing to do.
Logic, like chemistry, is basically the same subject in China and in Greece. But that certainly does not mean logic and chemistry are conducted in the same sorts of
lese
�'ays in traditional China and in ancient Greece. As we shall see, they evidently
l on
were not. The differences arc profound. They need to be emphasised and studied in
-lice
detail.
that
\Vhen it comes to grammar and the study of the linguistic strategies the Chinese
l on
used for communicating with each other, I shall certainly not want to find Out 'how
isnc
Latin grammar
operates in Chinese'. On the contrary, I shall try to explore the
deep differences benveen the traditionally most important Western languages and
ed a
era-
\IodYS ofthinking on lhe one hand and Chinese on the other.
One basic contrast is this: In China the thinkers who were pursuing logical mat of a small subculture, whereas in India and in the West the logicians
Ines
Itrs were part
tent
belonged to the mainstream ofintellectual endeavour. In Europe logic belonged to
d lO
me standard obligatory curriculum ofhigher education. This explains why Matteo
l on
Ricci, writing some lime after +1599, could be tempted to claim categorically that
reti-
-they (i.e., the Chinese) have no logic'.3 In +1701 Father Jean-Fran'1ois Fouquet +1665 to +1741) maintained that the Chinese have 'little aptitude for the subtleties
tans
of dialectic', although he did feel that 'for the most part they have good minds.'j
,"ere
G. B. Bilfinger wrote in +li24 about Chinese (particularly Confucian) philosophy:
lied
Est practica tota, a subtilitatibus peifecte omnibus pura.:;
d lO
In 1979 the analytical philosopher Anthony G. N. Flew (1979) still writes in a sim
�cal
ilar vein in a thoroughly entertaining paper illustrating the effects oCa philosophical
th,
culture clash. Basing himself on Western sources Flew not only finds no logic in
oean
China, but also a very remarkable lack of the analytical spirit ofphilosoph)� I submit
l an
that if Ricci had known more than he did about Later Mohist logic he might have qualified his judgement. And I insist that ifFouquet had read +7th-century Chinese
book I :\fo 7{u, ed. Graham (19;8) A 43 and so s-
f
Chao(1976),p. 250. ' Pasquale M. D'Elill (1949},'OL 2, p. n• Letter from �anchhang, quoted according to]. C.-.:rn"t (1985), p. 242. Cf. Anon (1717), \-01. ,), p. 165. •
'It is totally practical and completely d",-oid ofall subtleties.' C. B. BUlffingerius (=G. B. Biltinger) (17'�4),
p. 14-
8
LANGUAGE A�D
LOGIC
Buddhist logic he, toO, might have expressed himself somewhat differently. More over, I think that the present work may help analytical philosophers to develop a more balanced and well-informed view of Chinese intellectual achievemenL<;. And yet, when one considers the dominant main currents of Confucian thought of Ricci's, Fouquet's and Bilfinger's times, as well as the authoritative English sources on which Flew quite reasonably thought he might bast' his judgement, one readily understands their negative reactions. Janusz Chmielewski, one of the pioneers of the study of Chinese logic in the \Vest, observes: It has long
been
a common opinion among sinoio gists that the linguisti c
structure of
Chinese largely accounts for what might be termed the 'logical underdevelopment' of Chin
ese philosoph)� and for the lack oflogic as a distinct philosophical discipline in particular. I His own considered conclusion is this:
Such characteristic features of early Chinese as mOllosyllabi.-;m of lexical units, lack of inflections and lack ofdearly delimitated grammatical word-classes (especially the lack of a clear morphological distinction between nominal and \·erbal forms) could hardly ha\'e any negative bearing on Chinese implicit logic; in fact they are benefi cial rather than detrimen tal to this logic, since they make the Chinese language more similar to the symbolic lan guage ofmodern logic than any tongue of the Indo-European type can claim to b1":.�
Janusz Chmielewski's intuition here is fundamental. The point is not that Classical Chinese is like symbolic logic. Classical Chinese is most certainly not like symbolic logic. No natural language is. But inspin::d by Janusz Chmielewski's remarks we can indeed inquire whether it is not part of what Wilhelm von Hum boldt called Ie genie de La langue chinoise, that being an isolating language it is in some quite fundamental ways more logically transparent than the Indo-European lan guages we are familiar with. There is no reason why some languages might not be logically more transparent than others. Neither is there any reason why all lan guages should be equally powerful with regard to the representation oflogical com plexity. These are among the philological and philosophical issues which I propose empirical1y to investigate in some detail below. (2) THE HISTORY OF THE STUDY O F CLASSICAL CHINESE LANGUAGE A:SD LOGIC 1:S THE \'\fEST Thepre-history qfChinese linguistics in the West William of Ruysbroek (c. +1215 to +1270) noted in the diary of his travels to Mon golia in +1253 to +125;): The inhabitants ofCathay are slight n i size, and as th�y speak they breathe heavily throu gh the nose.' , Chmielewski (1969), Part IV, p. 103.
' Ibid.
I
Ri,ch (1934),P. '7'
9
LANGUAGE A:"iD L O G I C
�Iore
t:\-elop
ments.
19ht of
OUTces
�adily
in tht"
:rure
of .rChin
rular.'
1'h(: inhabitams of Cathay write with a brush, iik(: thatpaint(:Ts use, and they make sever ai ictlCTS in a single character to make up one expression (jaciullt ill unafiguTapluTeJ litnaJ com prthtlldellus unam dictionrm). The Tibetans write as we do and have ictlcrs vcry similar to ours. The Tanguts writc from right to left like the Arabs, but they put the rows OneHCrS vertically next to each other, beginning at the bottom with each line and going upwards. The Uighur writing, as mentioned before, reads from top to bottom. 1 After the remarkable William of Ruysbroek, who even pointed out the connec tion benvccn Uighur and Turkish,2 contact with and detailed knowledge of Far
Eastern lan guages and writing systems declined considerably. Marco Polo, for all
his perceptiveness, tells us disappointingly little of the languages current in the
China of his day, although he wa." famous for knowing no less than four of them . (None of these, incidentally, would seem In his
lack
of ack of a
.a\-e any
trimen
Xic lanOt that
not like
lewski's
I
Hum
n some
an lan
t not be
all lan
al com
)ropose
to
have been Chinese.) Language, to
Marr:o Polo, was a tool, not the focus ofhis attention.
The Advancement rif Learning (1605) Francis Bacon wrote the now-famous
lines:
For the organ of tradition, it is either speech or writing: for Aristotle saith well H0rds art the imageJ ofcogitations, and ltUm are thr imagfJ ojwords; but yet it is not of necessity that cogitations be expressed by the medium of words. For whatsotfltr is capablt ojsufficient diffnenas and /hOSt ptretptiblt lo' the sense is in nature comprtmt to txprm cogitatwns. And therefore we see in the com merce ofbarbarous people, that understand not one another's language, and in the practice of divers that are dumb and deaf, that men's minds arc e.xprcssed in gestures, though not exactly, yet to serve the turn. And we understand further, that it is the usc of China, and the kingdoms of the high Levant, to write in characters real, which express neither letters nor words in gross, but things or notio ns; insomuch as countries and provinces, which under stand not one another's language, can nevertheless read one another's writings, because the characters arc accepted morc- generally than the languages do extend; and therefore they have a vast multitude of characters, as many, I suppose, as radical words.s More detailed \'Vestern knowledge about the Chinese language is almost entirely
due to reports from theJesuits.� The first of theJesui ts in China to have made a seri
ous effort at learning Chinese was Michele Ruggieri (+1543 to +1607). He translated the Four Books (Lun Yu iM!i�, Afing
Tzu �T, Ta Hsiieh }(!¥-, and Chung Yung cpli)
(
into Latin. However, only the first lines ofthe Ta Hsuelt Great Learning) were pub
[JAGE
:0 �Ion-
duough
lished under the title Libn sinensium in Antonio Possevino's huge Bibliolheca Selecta qui AgitUT de Ratione SludLOTum (first published in +1593, also in +1603, and +1608)." The gen eral standard of Chinese studies among theJesuits has remained very high ever
, Ihid., ch. 39, pp. '23'-2. Th� eariier rder�nce to Uighur wriling will be found in ch. 27, p. 158. For early gen· cnl accnunl5 ufChina ,�e the classic Henry Yulc (1866). } Bacon (160;.), pp. 136ff. 1 Rhch (1934). p. 163. • The standard reference worb on the early history ofsinology remain Cordier (189sal and Cordier (1�5b). fOr the geneml cullUral background see Rci<;hwcin (1923), and from a Chinese point ofview Chu Chhien·Chih IglIJ). �Iore spe<::ilically ",e DUY'-"ndak (19;'0) and Kraft (1976). In addilion we now have Uungdlu (1985), Widmaier (1983) and Knud Lundb""k (1986), which gi"e a wealth ufbiogr.-phk.J IU well a.s bibliogmphical refer ences for early studi�s"fthe Chine." language in Europt'. >
See Luudb
10
LA)/"GUAGE AND L O G I C
since, I But as orientalists in Europe wer e quick to complain , the Jesuits remained remarkably possessive about their kum'ikdge for a long time. Given that there were a considerable number of Eur opeans who were superb connoisseurs of Chinese language and culture, it is surprising how little of this was transmitted competently to the European public.1 Matteo Ricci (+1552 to +1610) had a superb command of Classical Chinese which was the envy even of some Chinese of his time. His report on the language of the Chinese in his De Christiana ExpeditlOne apud Sinas (1615) as well asJuan Gonzal es de Mendoza's remarkable bestseller The Hiswne of the Greal and Mightie Kingdome of Chma, and the Situation thereof Togither with the Greal Riches, Huge Cities, politike Government and rare Inventwns in the same, translated oui ifSpanish by R. Parke (London, 1588, first Spanish ed. 15863), included some remarks on the Chinese language without going into any detail about the matter. Ricci's enthusiasm for Chinese culture in general and for the Chinese language in particular, 011 the other hand, had a considerable intellectual impact in Europe. In a letter to his rhetoric teacher Martino de Fornari, written in +1582 when he had just arrived in China and still knew little of the lan guage, Ricci wrote: I have recently giyen myselfto the study ofthe Chinese language and I can promis e you that
it's something qui te different from either Greek or Germa n. Tn speaking it. there is so much
ambiguity that there are many words that can signify more than a thousand things, and at many times the only difference bet\vecn one word and another is the way you pitch them high or low in four different tones. Thus when (the Chinese) are speaking to each other they write out the words they wish to say so mat they can be sure to understand -for aU the writ ten letters are different from each other. As for these written letters you would not be able to believe them had you not both seen and used them, as I han done. They have as many let ters as there are words and things, so that then� are more than 70,000 of them, every one quite different and complex. Ifyou would like to see examples I can send you one of their books with an explanation appe nded.1
The excellence of the Chinese language demanded an explanation, and Athanasius Kircher (+1602 to +168o}" provided such an explanation in his book Oedipus aegyptiacus (1652), Kircher claimed that the Chinese received their language from wise Egyptian priests. In +1667 Athanasius Kircher published his impor tant China Monumentis, qua sacris qua profonis . . . illustrata, which contained the Nestorian Stele text in translation and also reproduced the Chinese text. (The Fr ench t Witness the high sinological �tanda«j, maintained e�n today by suchJesuit puhlicatiun5 as the Bi�IM&a
butil�tiHisJqrjcjSlKitlJltisJtS� Ruma.
, This is not �xclusivdy the Jesuits' fault. For example, Father Joseph Henri-Marie de Prtmare (+1666 to +1736) submitted a very remarkable grammar of Chine�� to Etienne Fourmon! (+J/iB3 to +1745) of the French
Acadcmie de! Inscriptions e! BcU�5-LeltreS in +17:-\0, but Fourmont perhaps failed to reali!c, and certainly failed properly to acknowledge, the excellent quality of this work. , There were forty-six editions and reprints ofthi� boo},: in seven language� within the )'ean +'585 and +!6oo
alone. • I quote the Englidl tramlalion in Spence (1g86), pp. 136ff. ) For a bibliography ofthis early oriental;"'t see Really (1974) and Godwin (1979).
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
II
translation ofthis book (+1670) contained in addition a Chinese·French vocabulary; the DictioTmaire
Chi/lOis et Fran(ais on pp. 324-67.) Kircher claims [hat although the
characters were originally pictographic they had partly lost this character since. Already Kircher considered Chinese as a suitable model for an artificial universal language built up according to rational principles. The origins of the project of a universal artificial language go back at least to the mystic abbess Hildegard of Bingen (+1098 to +1l79).1 John Wilkins (+I614 to +1672), a leading exponent ofthc project, explained in his important theoretical essay MercuT)� or the Secret and SwiftA1essenger (1641) how the Chinese characters fitted into this scheme of things: After the Fall ofAdam, there were two General Curses inflicted on Mankind: The one upon their Labours, me other upon meir Language. Against the fiNt oflhese we do narurally endeavour to provide, by all those common Arts and Professions about which the World is busied; seeking thereby to abate {he Sweat oftheir Brows in the Earning of their Bread. Against the other, the best Help that we can yet boast of, is the Latin Tongue, and the other learned Languages, which by Reason or their Generality, do somewhat restore us from the first Confusion. BUI now if there were such an Universal Character to express Things and Notions, as might be legible to all People and Countries, so that Men ofseveral Nations might with the same ease both write and read it, this Invention would be a far greater Advantage to this Particular, and mightily conduce to the spreading and promoting of all Arts and Sciences: Because that great part of our Time which is now required to the Learning ofWorm, might then be employed in the Study of Things. Nay, the Confusion at Babel might this Way have been remedied, f i every one could have expressed his own mean· ing by the same kind orCharacter. But perhaps the Art orLeners was not invented. That such manner ofWriting is already used in some Pans ofthe World, the Kingdoms of the high Levant, may evidently appear from divers credible Relations. Trigaultius affirms, that though those of China andJapan, do as much differ in their Language as the Hebrew and the Dutch; yet either of them can, by this Help ofa common Character, as well under· stand the Books and Letters of the others, as jf they were only their own. Unrortunately, the Chinese characters proved difficult. This extraordinary difficulty demanded and found an explanation: it was said that this was because Chinese was an invention of the Evil One to prevent the spread or Christianity in Eastern A�ia: the protestant theologian Elias Grehniz maintained some time before
+1682 that the Chinese characte rs
'durch Goiles Verhiingniss vom Teuffil eingefiihretl damit er die elende Leuk in der Fin.flerniss derAbgiitterei destomehr verstricket halte (introduced through God's rate by the Devil, so that he could better keep the miserable people in the darkness or superstition),.2
Rumours about the Chinese tones inspired F. Godwin in his imaginary travelo
gue
The Man in thl! A100ne: or a Discourse ofa VQYage Thither by Domingo Gonsales, the Speedy
Sec Schrader and FUrkOllcr {19S6} and Wilkins (16.p). pp. 57f. , This account i, contained in Andr�", �1ulIers boolr. AlIdmu AfiilkriBmtr Ultl",ie;'t """ dtr Si/UllStr Schriift ulld Drutt, alst/wo ill lIm. D. /:;/io, Grthtttilatt Ulltorichlt·O/!dnRiformiTlm rtndLIllhnisclwr Airdlrn rnlllallm iJl, Berlin 1682,
1
p·S·
12
LANGUAGE AND
Messenger
LOCle
(London, 1638) where he explains that the strange language of the
'moone'
hath no affinitie with any other that ever I heard. (. . .) it consisteth not so much of words and Letters, as ofcunes and uncouth sounds (. . .J you have few words but they signifie divers and several! things, and they are distinguished ondy by their tunes. I The difficulties oflcarning the Chinese language were reduced by dictionaries and word lists. Already Matteo Ricci was t'ngaged in such a project, and one of the earliest important such lists was handwritten by the Dominican Francesco Diaz (died +1646) in the +16405. The copy of it kept in the Royal Library ofBerlin in the +18th century had 598 pages with three columns on each page. This dictionary comprised i,16g characters. A copy of it is preserved in the Vatican libr ary:J
The first large-scale publication on the Chinese language to be published in the
West is John 'Vebb's (+1 6 1 1 to +16i2).3 An Histon·cal EJsay
Endrnvouring a Probabili9' That the L(mguage of the Empire if China is the Pnmitive Language (London, 1669). The title of the second edition of+1678 is even more specific: The Antiqui9' ifChina, or an Historical Essay, Endeavounn!!, a Probabili9' That the umguage qfthe Empire ifChina is the Pn·mitive Language Spoken Through the Whok T%rld Bifore the Confosion ifBabel. \Vebb's book is of considerable historical interesl. It is facile to tn"at it as an entertaining curiosity. In reality it represented a very serious effort to sort out the character and importance of the Chinese language before much was known about the language.
And as ifall things conspired to prove this the: Primitive Tongue, we may observe how force ably Nature struggles to demonstrale so much. The vcry first expression we make oflife, at the very instant minute of our Births, is, as was touched on before. by uttering Ihe Chiniqut word ra. Which is not only the first but indeed the sole and only expression that Mankind from Nature canjustly lay claim unto. ( Webb is in no doubt ofthe moral excellence of the language he describes:
And what is more, they have not any CharaCler whereby to write the privy parts.·' On the other hand he finds . . . devout Ejaculalions, such as cannot(oh the shame!) among Christians without difficuhy befound.6 There is also entertaining detail on Chinese phonology:
The Chinois have not the leuer R, nor can ever by any possible means be brought to express or pronounce the same, whatever labour or diligence is used by them. And when our Children attain to riper age; as ifNature abhorred the Confosion, what care and pains do \\lC take, what opportunity not lay hold of, by practising and repeating to make them pro nounce this letter, till education after long contestpre\'ailing they arrive thereat? "l'hus from
J Cf. Wilkin' {16.p),p. xvii.
, Bergia Cimsr, .4-12. tor the tarliest Gt:rman word list by Florian Rahr £cc Fuco$ (1937), pp. 611-72. • , Set Ch'''ll Shou-Yi ('935). Ibid., p. 203. • IbiJ., p. 206.
>
Webb{161i9), p. 196.
(
,
,
<
n
LANGUAGE A�D L O G I C OUf Births 10 our Infancy,
13
and from our Infancy to Riper Age till Namrc is compelled to
�'eeld by the enforced power of instruelion, unto corrupt speech, we generally throughout the Universe appear in our Language direCt
Chinois.1
There is also a lyrical account of the exquisite naturalness of the Chinese system ofmorphology and syntax:
Furthermore the Chinoi� are never put to that irksome vexation ofsc:arching out a radix for the derivation of any of their words, as generally all other Nations are, but the radix is the word and the word is lhe Tadi:,\:. . . . Besides they aTC nO[ troubled with variety of Declensions, Conjugations, Numbers, Genders, Moods, Tenses and me like grammatical niceties, but are absolutely free from all such pcrpl�xing accidents, having no other Rules n i use than what the light ofnatur� has dictated umo them; whereby their languag� is plain, easie and simpl� as N A T U R A L speech ought to be,� \Vebb was aware': ofa special relation between written and spoken Chinese:
Hence it is, that the style Lhey write is far different from that they speak, although sayth Semedo (and mark him, I pray) the words arc the same, so that when one goeth about to write, he had need to collect his wits; for he that will write as commonly they speak, may wonhily be laughed at.J We do need to mark Alvarez Semedo (+1585 to +1658) and his famous Imptrio de La China, published +1642 in Madrid, and all ,!;"ebb's other sources such as Colius and Spizelius as well:1 For in fact \,\rebb's contribution to sinology was that he sum marised what could be gleaned from the published Western literature, His original ity was limiled to constructing out of these reports a case that Chinese was the original language of mankind before the building ofthe tower ofBabel.5 It appears that mOSt earlyJesuits believed that the Chinese were descendants of Shem, whose children were said to have been shrewd and wise - as the Chinese remained, according (0 the Jesuit view, The identification, of course, of the first emperor Vao Thang withJoktan, the great grandson orShem, was perhaps prob lematic, though plausible, but the general picture was dear enough: the Chinese, according to manyJesuits, preserved the speech of one branch ofNoah's family,G The Dutch mathematician and linguist Golius lJakob Gohl, +1596 to +1667) placed the Chinese language in a systematic and philosophical as well as a religious context: ' lbid" p, T97,
' lbid" p,192,
' lbid., p. T8fi. Thcophilu5 Spiulius', Dr Rt Ii/Imina Sintflfium Comrmnlanus, published +,660 in Lc:iden, a city which was 10 become one ofth" I"afing modern eenu'es ofChineSC studies, • For a survey oflhe doxography on th" Chinese language duriog th.. +T71.h CCnturysee �'Iungdlo (1985),
• We oot�
particuh,rI)'
• Joseph de Guignes (+'721 to +'floo) became famous for a Mbnoit. daM hqutl 011pwu:e, que Its ,hinou salitl/lIt: r ..phic detail in a honk publs i hed anony· aIIolI� Vplimllt: (published in +1759)' The Ca� is made in glorious g mously by Picru Martial CiLot (+1727 to +1;80) which I ha�? at hand: ullftdePihll, jU' hgfwiede la lanptehilloise, d fa nalure de lew icn'tI4rt s}"mboliqut. (ompark al'« "Ik dtJ 1I",iml iVPlitIIJ (publisherl 'arM( appro6atiM t/ fJt>'missi(m', Bru&Sells, +1773), In a rtrlijctllprimcd on p. vofthis book no less than ten di�tinguiili"d citizens of Rome ar� li.l
ed by name and said to hal'e confirm�d Ih� aUlhenticity ofpart of the material prcsem�d, The book continues "ith a d�tail�d anonymous !.ttlr. $ur III ,ame/em chino s i , par 1# rtI.'trendpb, n.., d. la Compagml d�}fjU.r (in fact by a certainJohn Turberville Needham) /()llowed by twenty-sel'en exquisil<: plal". demonstrating the do"" connec tion octween Egyptian ami Chin..s� character!,
14
LA;\ICL:AGE A�D L O G I C
The anificialit)' oftheir language means thaI il was invented at one point in time by a skillful person in order to establish verbal communication bcnvccn the number ofdifferent nations who Ii\"(: in that large country which we call China, although it has to be said that this lan guage might be changed now lhrough long usage. I r.cibniz was thoroughly fascinated by accounts such as these. His feelings are summarised by his dictum 'If God had taught man a language, that language would have been like Chinese:� But what particularly aroused his philosophical interest was the nature orlhe Chinese characters. Leibniz's enlhusiasm is clear, as when he writes to La Croze in +1707:
This enquiry �ccms to me to be ali lhe more importalH since I imagine that ifwe were able to discover the key to the Chinese (;haracters, we would have found something which could 5erve for the analysis of thought.
Leibniz be:lieves he would have something to contribute: It does appear that f i we Europeans were well enough informed about Chinese literature, then the aid of logic, critical thinking, mathematics, and our way of expressing ourselves which is more explicit than thdrs, would make us discoHT in these Chinese monuments of such remOte antiquity many things unknown 10 the modern Chinese and even to their later interpreters no matter how classical one takes them [0 be.3
Leibniz expresses here a feeling of European Bmerwissere£ or analytical superior ity, which has remained importanl in Western attitudes to the Chinese language. Lcibniz's intensive analytical eAerts did lead to a clear conclusion. The Chinese characte:rs, for all iheir intrinsic interest, did not after all supply a suitable model for his philosophical alphabet of human thought, alphahttum cogitationum humanarum or charactenstica universalis: Ifwe understood the characters of the Chinese I think we would find some more connec i but at bottom these characters are undoubtedly far tions (with a ehara{un.stua w!IJersalis), removed from such an analysi� of though t which is the essence of my plan.1
What he missed in the Chinese characters was a unified underlying rational prin ciple of their construction or what he called a 'filum Ariadn(le' in the labyrinth of C hinese writing.·' John Wilkins (+161 4 to +1672) had arrived at similar conclusions already in +1668 when he publishe:d his ambitious Essay towards a ual charader and a philosophiC(lllanguage.6 , Leuer by Leibni"t LO Christian :\I�nr].el. daled
15 October [698.
. Cf. I.undbaek (1986), PI'· 97, 8:3, and '''3· • ·t..-ure ,ur la philosophic chinoilie iI. �im!a!< lie R..mond' dated +1715116, ed. Loo-Je n and Vones.s.en ('968),
1'1'. 12Gf.
, Lctter to Hfr�"gJohann Friedrieb dalcd April (?) +,ni9; "e" \\'idmaier (1983), p. 36. , Letter toJ
illful nons Ian-
:rest n h,
,l�to ould
rorc,
:kes
Its of
later
:lor
e
n�se !for
.Dec r far
lnnh of
19t)8),
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Enrry grammars Seventecnth·ccntury concern with the Chinese language was dominated by specu· lation and hampered by lack of specific information.! But in +1703 the missionary Francisco Varo's (+1627 to +1687) Arlt de ta kngua mandarina was published in Canton. This pioneering grammar avoided (he use of characters and introduced the Chinese language entirely on the basis of transliterations. Unfortunately, it remained inaccessible to most scholars in Europe and is excessively rare. S. Fourmont, to whom we shall (urn in a moment, was one of the few to have used il.l On 18June +1700 Peter the Great of Russia issued an ukaz which recommended the finding of'two or three good and learned men, not too old, that would be able to teach Chinese and Mongolian language and grammar'. 3 T. S. Bayer (+1694 to +1738) was called to St. Petersburg to fill one ofthese posts, and he apparently had no access to Varo's grammar when h<: published his Museum sinicum, in quo sinicae lin guae el lileraturae ratio exj)licatur (+1730), which was the first grammatical account of the Chinese language published in Europe." This grammar was the beginning ofa great tradition ofChinese linguistics in Russia, a tradition which was to have a very profound influence on modern linguistic developments in the People's Republic of China, and to which we shall return in due course.; Bayer's introduction to his Museumsinicum contains a most remarkable document: a detailed history ofsinology from its beginnings to +1730.6 T. S. Bayer died in profound distress over a negative review from S. Fourmom (+1683 to +1745) of the Academic des Inscriptions et Belles-Leures in Paris. S. Fourmont's Meditationes SiniClU (+1737) and his Linguae Sinarum mamlarinicat hierogry phicae grammatica dupkx (+1742) began an important French tradition in Chinese linguistics which thrives to this day.' Fourmont's Grammatico duplex has been considered by Abel-Remusat as plagia rism on Varo's earlier work. There is no doubt that Fourmont freely drew 011 Francisco Varo's Arte de /a lengua mandan·na. But what is worse: Fourmont also had , See particularly Cornelius (196:;) which incluu". a fine bibliographyon pp. 159 7� andDavid (1965). , Ahcl-Remusat {18�6), vol. p, Wi, ' artuld (1925), p. 197. , The sinological tradition in SI. Petersburgdid nul di" "�lh ay�r: in 11:132 .'1.J. ichutin (+1770 to ,8j3) (alias mona<:hu� Hyadnthu$ (lakinf)) published his KilajJkajagrammalika, .,,,,hin'nn�ja mQ�a!;hQm /aki'!fom. In his preface, N.J. Bkhurin survey. a numb"r orearlier grammars by Varo, Bayer, Fuurmont, Premar�, :\br�hman, JI.']orri�OTl, Remusal and GOII�alvcs. ichurin', dl;Jr{ wa, continued by all �)(cepliona! Hllc of u�!ian Chin�,,, Iingui,t, including such . cholars M A, A. Dragunov, and S, . akhontnv in nur century, ! One sp.::cial �tn,n!l;lh n[ the Russian linguists was lexicography. In 1H67 th� fim dir.tinnary of colloquial Chinese was published in Pdcing, th� Ru.nkQ·blajsky swvar'ra
2,
I
B
B
B
Il
R
EJ
(2
F
(1986), pp. 39-101. , See the \oI'ork ofthe french ingu;"'ts l Alex;'" Rygaloff, Marie-Claudc Paris and Vh'ian" A11"lon on modern Chinese grammar, and ofAlain Peyraub.:: on h;"'lOrical grammar.
LANGUAGE A)
available to him another most remarkable piece of scholarship: thc Notilia Linguae sinuae byJoseph Henri-lVlarie de Premare (+1666 to +1736), which he mentions in his preface and dismisses as distincdy inferior to his own work. It so happens that this Notitia was a mature work ofscholarship containing no less than 50,000 charac ters and - as the Chinese proverb has it - Fourmont's effort 'cannot be mentioned on the same day' as the }I/o/itia. In good faith de Premare had sent a copy of his manuscript to Fourmont in +1729 but the }liotilia was first published marc than a hundred years later, in r 831 in Malacca.1 De Premare was undoubtedly the most outstanding grammarian of Chinese in the 18th century. He was an unusually thoughtful man. Like mostJesuits he did not believe that the grammar of Chinese could be reduced \0 mechanical rules. Instead of reducing Chinese language to an inevitably latinising grammatical system he decided to demonstrate its regularities through copious examples. He observes: Absit ut ad nostras linguas sinicam revocare velim.l This is a memorable remark the full significance ofwhich first began to be appreciated centuries later. Indeed, even the modern sinologist ,,,,ill still find de Pn�mare's ]'(otitia fascinating reading.3 For its time, it is a simply astonishing scholarly achie\"ement vastly superior to what pre ceded it, and quite arguably also superior to much more celebrated works such as Abel-Remusat's Elimens de lagrammaire chinoise of 1822, which - as we shall see - was in turn accused ofbeing a selective plagiarisation of the �Votitia. De Premare deserves a very special place of honour in the history of Chinese linguistics in the West. De Prcmare's grammar was published a hundred years late, but at least it did get published in the end and did become very influential indeed for later developments. The same can unfortunately not be said of the efforts byJuan Rodriguez (+1724 to +li8S), another Spanish grammarian of the Chinese language. We have an English translation, A Grammar if the Chmese language expressed b), the letters that are common(;' used in Europe. From the Latin r.fF.John-Anthony Rodriguez. With a dedICatory letterfrom the translator, John Geddes, to the R. Honorable }t4r. Dundas, dated Afay 29th 1792,4 of an early manuscript by Rodriguez. But neither this translation nor the original or its much improved later versions ever got published." Generally, the books on Chinese published during the 18th century were still found by most people to be pitifully inadequate for practical purposes. When , I only have the unchanged reprint (HongKong, lllgll) available. , 'Far be it from me to wish to reduce the Chinese language to our kinds oflanguages: Lundb<ek ('g80), p. �6g. , for lhos� unfamiliar with Latin. it may h� t�,mpting to consult the translatiun ofthe .Nolil1:a by the Am�rican missionaryJ. G. Bridgman, Cantun, 1847. But fur ,orne rea,un this tran,lmiun p�ryasi \"dy perverts the meaning ofthe Latin original in most sl1rprising ways. II often manages to say the plain opposite of whal Premare's origi nal means, and it almost consistently nus oul the more interesling asides lhat makes Premare such exquisile reading in the Latin. .J. G. ridgman, who died at the age ofaboUl lhirty in 1850, is one ofthe more puzzling figur�' in the history of�inolog)'. • China Factory R�c"rds, vol. �tl. India Office Record5. Commonwealth Office, London. . 'i:i pages, manu script, Cf. Lundba:k(lgBo), p. �65. , A 19B-page careful manuscript ufth� late,! v�rsion ofRodrigu�z' grammar, r�vi,ed byj",,, Villanue,·a, may be found n i Bib!. Nacional, �Iadrid, Sigla: �5!1 (H. 303). for a d�tail�d account of Rodriguez's 'lUdi�, S�� Lundb<ek {lg80).
B
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Ii
Rodriguez asked some officials at the factory offices in Canton what they had learned from four mont's Linguae Sinarum grammatica which was on their shelves,
they all replied that they had learnt nmhing. They complained that the marc they
worked with the book, the less they knew about Chinese. Looking at Fourmont's work today one can certainly understand this reaction.
Nineteenth-century grammatical scholarship During the 19th century the basic issues concerning the nature of Chinese charac
ters remained topical and controversial. In 180l Joseph Hager wrote a little book
entitled An Explanalion rifthe Elementary Characters ofthe Chinese; with an Anafysis riftheir ancient Symbols alld Hieroglyphics, which prompted a splendid reply with the gruesome title £eichenstein aufdem Grabe der chinesischen Gelehrsamke':t des Herrn]oseph Hager, Doctors aufder Holun Schule zu Pavia (Tombstone on the Grave of the Chinese learning ofMr. J Hager . . . ) published by Julius Klaproth appare n tly in or just before r81 1. 1 Five years later, unperturbed, a certainJ C. F. Meister published his treatise Ganz neuer Versuch ouch freien Denkern GUS der Chinesischen Schriftsprache eine symbolische Ansich! zu eriiffnen wlter welcher das Gemiith empfiinglicher wird fiir das Geheimnis der christlichen Dreieinigkeit (An entirc.:ly new attempt, on the basis of the written Chinese language, to open up a symbolic perspective under whic.h the mind becomes more receptive for the mysteries of the Christian holy trinilY . . .) (Leipzig, 1 8 1 6). The study ofsuch controversial material, which may strike us as idle today, would provide a histori
cally more realistic picture of "Vestern intellectual concerns with Chinese than
an exclusive concentration on 'serious' philological scholars hip. But unfortunately there is not lhe space here to enter into any detail about it. We shall have to concen
trate on those intellectual effons concerning the Chinese language which proved
fruitful and instrumental in future sinological research .
The crucial new feature of the 1 9th century was the rapidly increasing flow of
publi<.: information on the C hinese language. In the Danish colony of Serampore,
India) the Baptist missionaryJ. Marshman p roduc ed a remarkably well�organiscd
and thoughtful survey, his Elements rifCllinm Grammar,
Clovis Sinico (181 4) which may
be read with profit to this day. The contrast with Andreas Muller's abortive - or as we now know, non -existent - Clavis Sinica is striking indeed. R. Morrison's A
Grammar Q/ the Chinese Language (1815), also published in Serampore, was another useful detaile:d description o1'Lhe language.� The ' Seramporean' grammars were, however, eclipsed by Abel�Remusat's elegant and influential Elimens de la grammaire ellinoue published in 1822 in Paris. Abd-Remusat was a most remarkable orientalist and comparative linguist. His
,
, ,
, For another eloquent pamphlel attacking British sinoIOg}\ dalinS from 191 11, see &hindler and Erk�5 (19IB), 5-15, which indud". a wond"rfully biased o\"en�ew ofthe hi$IOry ofEurop"an �inology from a thoroughly German point or\"iew. f Robert �lorri50n (+liB� to I!lH) a1S(}puhli�h"d a dicrionaryofChinese in six \"0IuJnCS(1813 10 1!I�3)whi<;.h is remarkable not onl)' for iLS high quality. hut also for the ex'luisit� printing.
pp. 10
LAKGUAGE
AND
LOGIC
grammar, which owes more than it acknowledges, and more than i s generally recog nised, to de Prcmare's }/o(itia' established France as the European centre of Chinesc linguistics throughout most of the 1 9th century.2 Abel-Remusat's Elinuns inspired one of the greatest gener al linguists of his lime, Wilhelm von Humboldt, to writc his long ullre Ii Af. Abel-Remusat sur la nature des formes gramma#caies en general, et sur Ie genie de la langue chinoise en particuler i (I827) which remains to this day perhaps the fillt'st introduction to the philosophical and gener al lingui stic questions raised by the Chinese languagc.� Humboldt r e cogni �ed Chinese as structurally the diametr ical opposite of languages like Sanskrit and Greek, but as a perfect language in its own way. In the wake ofHumboldt, a number of traditional German philosophers oflanguage such as H. Steinthal (1823 to 18gg) continued to speculate on the significance of Chinese for a general philosophy of language in the latter part of the 19th century. Steinrhal finds 'the contrast between the means the Chinese language t!mploys and the effects it achieves a phenomen on quite unique in the history oflanguage.'" One carerul reader of Abel-R6musat was the German idealist philosopher Friedrich Schelling (+1775 to 1854) who summarised an emotional as well as philo sophical response to the strangeness of the Chinese language which was to remain prevalent for a long time to come when he "'!'Ote: The Chinese language iii ror us like a language from another world. And ir one were to give
a definition oflanguagc according to which all the other idioms are called languages, then une would have to admit that the Chinese language is not a language at all, just as the Chinese people is not a people.
Only ten years after Abel-R6musat's Elimells the Russian missionary NikitaJako published his Kitqjskaja grammalika (peking, 1832), in which he develops the characteristic idea of Unlstvennoe slolJuizmenenie or 'mental inflection'. This work deserves careful comparison with its vVcstern European contemporaries and has been sadly neglected by Western sinologists. Abel-Remusat's Elimens (as well as Premare's Notitia) included a survey not only of literary Chinese but also of the colloquial language. In our present account we disregard the study of colloquial Chinese. In France Stanislas Julien provided an immensely practical handbook in his Sj'nlaxe nouvelle de ta langue cflinoiu (1869/70). Classical Chinese was now a language which, given patien ce, one could go ahead and learn on the basis of published \Vestern books. 19th-century French scholarship in Classical Chinese was the inspir ation and the esscntial background to Georg von der Gabdcntz's Chinesische Grammatik (1881) which openly acknowledged its debt� to de Premare and to
jalevich Richurin
Fri�d�rieh N�umann (+'793 to 18iO) ill Keumann (1834), 2. Ham.., pp_ 'U42-52 and pp. ,o6'-j. does se�m to gn too far when he refers to Abel-Ktmusa!'! grammar � an exe..rpt from Pri'marr.'5
, cr. Carl ��umann
.Nolitia throughout his detailed acruwn, but he does ha\'e hi! point.
, Curiou.!y, Varn and Rodriguez had no significanl sur.r...s.'\()u in their o....n oounl1)'; Spain ncvcr again beeame a centre ror Chinese linguistic studies. , S"" Harbsm"ier(I9i9).
' Steinlhal (1860), p.
'37.
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
g50
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"j
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er
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-e's
19
Stani.slasJulicn. Georg von del' Gabelentz was a distinguished general linguisL His Grammatik remains recognised umit today as probably the finest overall grammati cal survey oftile language. Gabelcntz'sAnJangsgriindederchinesischen Grammatik(I883) is a useful supplement to the GrammaM itself. In spite of the achievements of 19th-century grammarians there remained a conviction, even among the finest scholars of the Chinese language, that Classical Chinese does not have a grammar to speak of. H. A. Giles, in the introduction to the first edition of his quite outstanding work 11 Chinese-English Dictionaryl, advocated this view. Gustave Schlegel (1840 to 1903) of Leiden University became famous for his slogan : Lise;;, iise;;jjele:::. fa grammaire, and Achilles Fang sympathises with him when he writes in 1953: 'Gustave Schlegel was notlhe best ofSinologists; yet he had a modicum of sound sense when he advised his students to forget their grammar. . . . The sooner we forget grammar, the speedier will we recover our sanity.'2 Attitudes of this kind continue to have their profound indirect effect on Classical Chinese studies, particularly translations, to our own day.3 An authoritative treatment of general issues in the study of the Chinese language will be found in P. Demieville (1 943), pp. 33-'70. Historicalphonolcgy
There may be those who doubt that Chinese has a grammar, bUl no olle has been able to doubt that Chinese has a phonology. When it comes to historical phonology the picture is totally dilfereOl from the study of syntax: progress since the t9th cen tury has been systematic and simply enormous. Bernhard Karlgren's Etudes sur 111 phonolcgei chinoise (1 9 t 9) was the pioneering work in the reconstruction of earlier Chinese pronunciation, and his work inspired an important linguistic tradition in Scandinavia.' Henri Maspero's Ie Dialede de Tch 'ang-ngan 50US les Tang (19 20) was another crucial contribution - although it turns Out that the dialect Maspero described was in fact nOl that of Chhang-an bUl mainly that of the area around Nanking..� Karlgren's classical work Grammala Serica Recensa (1952), Mantaro Hashimoto's The Phonology cifAncient Chinese (Tokyo, 1978), Chou Fa-Kao's Pronounc ing Dictionary cif Chinese (Hong Kong, 1973) and most recently E. G. Pulleyblank's Afiddle Chinese: A Study in Historical Phonology (1984) summarise a wealth ofinsight that was almost totally inaccessible in the West (and to a large extent in China) during: the 19th century.s , Giles (18g2},pp. x-xii. ' A. fang (19j3), p. �8�. J It is as ifollC' we� 10 Iramlale ancient Greek text� wit.huut laking nUI� of th� T�sulu in handhoou like]. DC'nnisron's siandar �I' Malmqvist (1968).
D.
• As Roy Andrew 1\liller (1�i3) show�, .. hedTons tomm.k a re<:onstrucrion ofandem Chinf:$C phonolo&); are still conITOI-eTSla1. Hut there can be no doubt ofthe tremcndou. u\'t!ralJ pmgre!lli in Ihe an ofhiSiorica.l phonolo&):
20
LAr\GUAGE AND L O G I C
Hiswrical.ryntax A great
deal of attention has been given to pre-Chhin Classical Chinese. Joseph
M ullie's Dutch
Grondbeginselen van de Chinese letterkUlldige taal (1948) provides a detailed
traditional survey based on the grammatical categories ofLatin applied to Chinese. S. E. Jakhontov's
Drevnekitqjsk1.jja:ok (1965)
provides a very fine but unfortunately
short account of the Classical Chinese language. 1vloTe recent grammars including those by W. A. C. H. Dobson and R. Shadick (1968) are theoretically mOTC ambi lious and terminologically much more prolific. The most substantial progress in the understanding ofClassical Chinese grammar has mostly been presented in detailed papers on individual grammatical particles. F. M. Uhle's fascinating book
Die Partikef wti ilm Shu-king und Sehi-king. Ein &itrag ;:,ur Grammatik des vorklassischm Chinesiseh (r880), A. Conrady's Uher einige altchinesische Hi!fswiirler (1933), J :Misch's fine dissertation Der Konditionalsat;:, im klassisehen Chinesisek (1935),]. Mullie's book length articl� 'Le mot-particule TCHE' (1942) and \-Valter Simon's long series of articles on the particle irh ffij (1952 to I954) set significant precedents. R. Gassmann's Das grammalische lHorphemyt 1:t! (1980) and Das Problem der £inbettungsstrukturen (1984) att�mpt to apply transformational generative grammar to Chinese. Significant
detailed contributions have been made in articles by such scholars as Ting Sheng Shu, La Shu-Hsiang, Chou Fa-Kao, A. Conrady, V\� Simon, N. C. Bodman, G. A.
Kennedy, Hugh S. Stimson, E. G. Pulleyblank, A. C. Graham, G. �!falmqvist, and
J Cikoski. t My own book Aspects
of Classical Chinese Syntax (1981)
is an attempt to
continue this lin� of detailed research by applying it to some logical particles in Classical Chinese. On the early history of Chinese syntax we hav� W. A. C. H. Dohson's Late Anhaie Chinese (1959), Ear?J Archaic Chinese (1962), lAte Han Chinese (1964), and the best of the series, his The Language ofthe Book ofSongs (1968). These provide a starting point for future research. For the post-Han period, remarkably many significam contributions are in Russian, written in the tradition ofA. A. Dragunov and under the general guidance ofthe great linguist S. E. Yakhontov of Leningrad. We have the following important
books: M. V. Krjukov The Language ofthe Shang Inscriptions (1973), S. E. Yakhontov The Ancunt Chinese lAnguage (1965), I . S. Gurevich Outline of lhe Grammar of the Chinese Language ofthe +JYd to +5th centuries (I974), 1. T. Zograf ' Outline qfthe Grammarifll1edievul Chinese' (1972), I. T. Zograf The Popular Tale ifthe Rewards ifKindness, part 2: Grammar and Vocabulary (1972) I. T. Zograf The Medieval Chinese lAnguage, Ongins and Tendencies of Developmmt (1979).� In Western European languages the most important contribu· tions to the field are Bernhard Karlgren (J952a), Gerty Kallgren's Studies in Sung Time Colloquial Chinese as Revealed in Chu Hi's Ts'iianshu (1958), M. A. K. Halliday'S book The Language of'The Secret History ofthe Mongols' (I959) and now Alain Peyraube's Synta.xe 1
See also Ga"mann (1980) and (1982). , Unfortunately, tll<'s� hooks have be�n largely i!(nor..d in the \Vest.
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
ph
diachronique dll chinou: evolution des COtlftructions datives du XIf� sitcle av. ]. G. a u XVllle sie& (1988). 1
ed
The study qftraditional Chinese logic
se.
ely ng bi :he
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, of
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'uzic !he foc
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Th, nm
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21
The interest in Chines� grammar is old in Europe. Chinese logic, on the oth�r
hand, was very late to attract anemion. China was regarded as a predominantly Confucian country, and logic was not seen to play a part in Confucianism. The
binary 'logic' of the 1 Ching (The
Book qf Changes), did arouse the early curiosity of
logicians like Leibniz, but neither Lcibniz nor his successors in the field of formal
and philosophical logic over the next 250 years knew anything of the indigenous
Chinese logical tradition. In 1962, William and Manha Kneale could still wTite an
outstanding book entitled The Development ifLogic which manages completely to dis
regard not only Chinese but also Indian indigenous traditions. L M. Bochenski in
his Formate Logik (1956) also gave short shrift to Chinese logic although there was at least an extremely brief section on the Indian traditions. Even in the 1980s the his
tory oflogic - like the philosophy of language - is dealt with largely without refer ence to China. China has most emphatically been put on the map of the history of technology,
and to some extent ofscience. But when it comes to the history oflogical science this has yet to be done, ifindecd it can be done.
The pioneering first forays into this difficuh terrain were by Alfred Forke (1902)
and (1922). P. Masson-Oursel (1906) and (1918) made a valiant attempt at introduc ingforms of Chinese reasoning to a Western public. But still, from the standpoint of a logician this did not add up to much. Henri Maspero (1928) made a first detailed
philological attempt at a coherent interpretation ofMohist logic.
None ofthese scholars ofthe history of Chinese logic had any grounding in logic, and not surprisingly their reports aroused little attention outside the narrow circle of sinological specialists. Hu Shih, on the other hand, by calling his 1922 account of Chinese philosophy
The Development ifthe Logical Method in Ancient China adopted so broad a concept of 'logic' that the term seemed to become synonymous with philosophy. Ignace Kou Pao-Koh (1953) made perhaps the most successful and thorough attempt to apply traditional philological methods to Chinese logical texts. Ralf Moritz (1974) takes special account of the social context of logical thought in ancient China but still takes no notice offormal logic or analytical philosophy. It was during the 1960s, when some scholars vvith a solid logical background began to write about logic in China, that Chinese logical tradition began to be
interpreted in a way that could make sense to historians oflogic in general. It is the
, Cf. abo Chellg Yat-Shing (19i6), Mill"T (1951), Crump (1950) and Th:!w (196j). Since we are mainly oon c"rned with Clauical Chin".", ".., hav." in m.;" 5ll""') , largely ignored the study ofoolloquial Chin"",_ for a us,, ful .u,,'eY ofiinguislic studies on Chinese see s"rruys (1943).
22
LAKGUAG£ AND L O G I C
considerable merit ofJanmz Chmielewski t o haw: acted o n the insight that i n order to study Chinese logic
it
is use ful to know about Western formal logic. Janusz
Chmielewski's Notes on Ear{y Chinese Logic 1 La vH! (196� to 19 69) are the first sustained attempt to apply formal logic to Classical Chinese texts. Donald Leslie has pursued
similar ambitions with less theoretical rigour and discipline in a number ofpapcrs. I Chung-ying Cheng, a student of the veTy distinguished analytical philosopher \'\Z V O. Quine, has written on Chinese logic from the point ofview ofmodf'rn ana lytical philosophy.2 The
problem
with all this carly analytical work on Chine�c logic was that the
Chinese texts were in too bad a shape
(0 be properly interpreted, too unreliably be solved before any serious
auributed and too poorly dated. This problem had to
advance could be made. It is the merit orA. C. Graham that he took up this philo logical c1lallenge. He demonstrated [hal only [\\'0 dialogues arrribulcd [0 KUllgsun
and inrerprf'tcd the text of the main source for Chincse logic, the Dialectical Chapeer.'; of the Afo Tzlt �T in his Lung can
be called genuine.:1 Next, he established
thics ami Sacnet (J9jB). l\'irhout Graham's mOIJllmm(a/ \.,,-ark ioll'r A'Ionist '..0..(((; E
many pioneering contributions to tile study of logic in China, the present survey
of
language and logic could never have been attempted. The obvious next step was to apply logical reflection 10 (ht' corpus thus estab
lished. Also in this area A. C. Graham's conceptual and philosophicaJ clarifications published during the last thirty years arc essential contributions. Chad Hansen's recent book
Language and Ingie ill Ancient China (1983) is a philo
sophically very ambicious attempt to describe the special character oflanguage and
logic in pre-Han China. Hansen aims LO draw philosophical!)' and logically impor tant conclusions from his Chinese logical material. Hansen claims that 'Chinese philosop hers have no concept oftrurh at
they had no concept of a sf'ntcnce;' that they had no concept
all',! that of propositional
knowledge ('knowing that a scntf"nce's truc') or of propositional belief ('believing that a sentence is true').6 Taken tOge ther, this would mean that the Chinese could
not possibly have had a science which they understood as a body of selltences or theo rems which they claimed they knew were true, and which in any case they belielledto be
true.7 The question oftile .suitability qffhe ChiTUSe languagefor .science There have been widdy differing vjews as to the suitability of Chint':se for science. Marcel Granet's spirited and seminal
article 'Quelques particulariles de la languf'
et de la pensee chi noises' (1920), written very much in the tradition ofWilhel111 von
Humboldt, is wonderfully dear in his conclusion that Chinese, lacking grammatical ' Chel1g Chung-ring (r90S), (1970), ('971), (Uf/2) amI (am). , Lt:,lie (lgO';'4) and (1f/6.;.b). , S<.;C Graham·5 rCeCII! SllIdiu i� Chinm Phi/Q.wph)· and 1'h1"losvphica/ Liltralurl ( 19H6aj. •
' IbUJ p. S'; tlpGJSim. ' Hansen ( 1 9HS), P.491 IbiJ.,pp. joof. , In (J.3) and (J,9) we �hal1 oou�irler Ihe ronccpt> of'lrlllh', 'beli..f· and 'knowledge' ill ancielll China. .•
LANGUAGE AKD L O G I C
"
"
" Iy
"
J-
m
"
" "
Df
J
"
J ,d
T-
,t al
'g id , oe
forms, is a picturesque and an essentially inaniculatc language. According to Granet, the Chinese language is inherently inappropriate for scientific analysis and precise scientific discourse: There is no doubl lhat the progress and the difiusion of the scientific spirit are linked to the existence, in the West, oflal1guagcs all of which to different extents - arc inslruments of analysis which allow one to define c1asse�, which teach one to think logically, and which also make it easy to transmit in a dear and distinct fashion (I vcrydaboratc way ofthinking. Kow I do not think that Chinese as it is wriuen and spoken, in the slightest dcgrr.c has any ofthese qualities ofthe great languages of Europe. I Can a language which suggests rather than defines be suitable for the expression of scientific thought, for the diffusion ofscience, for the teaching ofscience? A language made for poeIT)' and composed of m i ages rather than concepts is not only not an instrument of analysis. It also fails to constitute a rich heritage of Ihe work of abstraction which each gen eration has been able to achicve.l
In our se.:ction on definition we shall investigate the.: Chinese tradition for non suggestive precision and analysis. Marcel Granet blames [he ideographic Chinese writing system for the articula tory poverty of Chinese: If, in the course of a long historical development, the Chin{'se language has been able [Q remain essentially a simple means ofpicturesque expression it owes thi�, n i my opinion, to
the figurative writing which, linking every word to an ideogram, from the stanwas opposed to the employment of all manner of grammatical forms and derivations in such a way that syntax is almost reduced to the development of rhythm only. Above all this figurative writ ing has stilled all lhe inner life ofwords. j
In our section on the semiotics of Chinese characters we shall investigate the question ofthe influence ofthe writing system on the conduct of Chinese science. In our section on lexical and functional categories we shall look into the question of grammatical form in Chinese. ?+o'larcel Granet observes that the Chinese language works through musical and picturesque symbolisation, and he concludes: In this case one mUSt admit that whcn language cannOI translate the opcratiom of thought, these opcration� must proceed beyond language. I
,
. " ·n
Here we have the core ofGranet's thought on the Chinese l an guage. In his "jew the Chinese language docs not properly speaking articulate thought, does not 'translate' it. h only poetically and picturesquely suggests precise thought. Precise thought has to proceed wit.hout lhe support oflinguistic aniculation by speakers of Chinese. In our section 011 logical and grammatical explici tness we shall enquire into related aspects of the Chinese language. J Gran�t(!l:I20),P.!50.
' Ibid.,p. L54.
' /biri., P. !5L
' Ihid.,p.lj3.
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
Marcel Granet asks rhetorically: This (Chinese) thought which seems in essence picturesque and musical and which ex presses ilSelfin any case through rhythm and concrete symbols, what can it achieve when
applied to a domain where precise and distinct formulations as well as explicitjudgmenlS are required? "''hat kind ofsincerity can there be in a kind of thought which takes not lived experience but tradition as its point of departure? . . . What power would the principles of contradiction and of causality have - without which scientific thought can hardly proceed or be expressed?'
In our sections on negation and contradiction in Chinese we shall investigate to what extent the Chinese were concerned with contradiction. fvl arcc1 Granet, dearly influenced by Wilhelm von Hllmboldt's i..ellre a Monsieur Abei-Rimusat sur ia nature desjormes grammalicales en ginlral, et sur Ie genie de la langue ellinoise en parlieulier of r827, brings out with admirable verve and eloquence some profound doubts concerning the adequacy of the Chinese language as a medium of science. As a highly intelligent and thoughtful observer of Chinese thought he deserves to be taken seriously. His challenge needs to be answered in philological detail. It will notdo summarily to dismiss Granet's intuitions. These intuitions have, in any case, been profoundly influential ever since they were published. The nt"gative perception of the Chinese language is graphically brought out by J. E. Rcnan (1823 to 18g2): Is not the Chinese language, with its inorganic and imperfect structure, the reflection ofthe aridity ofgenius and heart which characterises the Chinese race? Sufficing for the wants of life, for the tedmicalities ofthe manual arts, for a light literature onow �tandard, for a philo sophy which is only the expression onen fine bUl ncvcr elevated, of common sense, the i the sense in which we Chinese language excluded all philosophy, all science, all religion, n understand these words. God has no name in it, and metaphysical matters arc expressed in it only by round-about forms ofspeech. � ,
However, one point must be added at this stage in order to avoid all misunder standings. To the extent that the preceding volumes of Science and Civilisation in China have shown that the Chinese were rather good at some pans of science, they have also shown that one can use Literary Chinese to do science. If Marcel Granet had known more about the Chinese scientific tradition he would, I like to think, have expressed himselfin a different, less abrasive way. l also believe that ifhe had known more about the precise syntactic structure of Classical Chinese and the very subtle semantic and syntactic rules governing the use of Classical Chinese grammatical particles, he might have shown a little more respect for the articulatory power of that language.3 [53ff. ' Renan ([889), p. '95, ;u tran51at�d in \\'att�rs (1889), p. 18. , There is no similar e"cu� for sinologisu writing the I /bid., pp.
n i
19805.
LANGUAGE AKD L O G I C
Chinese as a mediumfor thephilosophy Q/science
h ex
when nents
lived les of Keed
le to
lSteur
lngue
ome lium It he peal lave,
It by
Ifthe
Its of
hilo , the hwe !din
der-
1zina lave had
lave )wn btle ical 'T
of
There still rl!mains a crucial philosophical point which is nOl answered so simply.
the issu e' has been raised most forcefully by Georg Friedrich Vlilhdm Hegel (+1770 to rS3r):
In this case,
'""hen we speak ofthe Chinese science� . . . we see that they enjuyvery great public admiration and support from the governmcnt. . . . Thus on the one hand the sciences are highly honourcd and cuirivaled, but on the other hand these scienccs lack the free space of inner reflcction and the properly scientific interest that would makc it into a scientific endeavour. A frec and ideal realm of the spirit has no place here, and what is called scientific here is of an empirical nature and is essentially in the service ofwha[ is useful for the state and for the needs of the Stale and thc individuals. The nature oCthe written language in ilsclfis a great hindrance for the dC'vdopment of the �cienccs; or rather we UeTJa since the true scientific n i terest is lading, the Chinese have no better instrument for the articulation and communi cation oflhoughts.'
As usual, Hf:gel is thinking and
writing in a highly philosophical vein. He feels he has an inner realm of (intellectual) freed om (derfreie Boden der lnnerlichkeit) which he suspects is lacking in China. He feel s the Chinese did not have that autonomous realm of'sciemific sp irituality', that properly scientific intellectual interest which in its concern with truth is indifferent to practical application and which makes an enquiry into a theoretical rather than p ra ctical ac{ivi{)� Hegel sees Chinese science as basically utilitarian and pragmatic in purpose, and above all he sees Chinese science as subse rv ient to non-scientific purposes. Hegel sees the written Chinese language as inferior. And he sees this inferiority of the Chinese language as essen tially linke d with th e untheoretical nature of Chinese thinking. Hegel may have been wrong. His doubts may not have been very well-in fo rme d. But r think Hegel's doubts were profound and significant. The Chinese achieve ments in astronomy, medicine, biology, and even in mathematics, which arc laid out in the p receding volumes of
Science and Cilliiisalion in China, I fear, would not neces
sarily have removed Hegel's doubts. For none of these achievements affect the cru cial obselVation that the 'Chinese had sciences but no scien ce, no single conception or word for the overarching sum o fa11 of them' , as Nathan Sivin (1982) put it in his
admirably tlear paper 'Why the scientific revolution did not take place in China
or didn't it?' Neither wou ld the history of (basically moral an d p Olitical) philosophy in China put to rest H egel 's suspicions. These things only go to reinforce the posi tive judgement with which our quotation begins: the conviction that the admirable intellectual activity in China was strongly utilitarian rather than purely theoretical 111
purpose. Hegel's question is of a
different order. Do the Chinese have, and is the Classical
Chinese l anguage equipped to express, a non-empirical, abstract and theoretical Science with a purely philosophical and cognitive
perspective?� Here we must
, Hsia([9!1�),r· 11:14.
, One may, ofcourse, also ask whdher the West e\'cr devdop�d an ultimately non-utilitarian kind ofS(:icnc�
for its own mk�. But [he ideal of a ,cicnc� for ,d�nce's sake w..s d�ar enough.
LA:"'CUAGE AND L O G I C
,6
carefully
distinguish t\vo
second-order
science,
questions: I.
did the
Chinese
have what we might
call
i.e., the enquiry into the nature, status and methods of
science and 2. did the Chinese ever develop science for its own sake? From the
early 20th century onwards there have been a number
of studies that
have a bearing on this subject. Jen Hung-Chiln's 'The reason for China's lack of science' (1915) was the first important paper. (It was published in Chinese.) In 1922
there follO\ved Feng Yu-lan Why China has no Science -An interpretation qfthe HiswrJ' and
Consequences �fChineJl Philosophy. Then there
wa�
Homer
H. Dub�'
the Chinese to Produce Philosophical Systems' (1929) and
'The Failure of Derk Bodde's 'The
Attitude toward Science and Scientific Method in Anci�nt C hina (1936). The publication of the first volumes of Science and Civilisatioll in China and associ ated publications have provoked considerable discussion, notallly A. C . Graham's 'China, Europe and the Origins of Modern Science' and Nakayama's Joseph Needham, Organic Philosopher' (1973). A very stimulating critical survey of the current state of the art is provid�d in N. Sivin (1982), which we have quoted above. The latter halfofthis Section will be devoted to the very subtle and difficult ques '
tion not of whether China had sciences, or of whether it had an all-embracing notion of 'Science', but whether China had anything we can interpret and recog
nise as purely theoretical logical concernsl during the formative period of Chinese civilisation from Confucius's times (-55 1 to -479) to Wang Chhung £3t (+2] to +100) and beyond. Did they discuss rules of argumentation and the structure of scientific propositions ? Did they have what we can recognise as logic? I shall outline the history of logic in China down to the +7th century when Buddhist logic was practised with great success in China, and to the +17th century when Aristotelian
logic was introduced into China -with notably lesser success. (b) THE LANGUAGE
{I}
TH E TYPOLOGY O F EAST ASIAN LANGUAGES
It is useful to distinguish four major, overlapping, historical varieties ofChinese:
I. Proto-Chinese c. -1300 to c. -500 2. Classical Chinese c. -500 to c. -100 3. Literary Chinese c. -IOO to the early 20th Cf':ntury, ow:rlappingwith 4. Paihua B�� or colloquial Chinese Proto-Chinese and Classical Chinese reflect more or less standardised spoken
periods in question. Li terary Chinese largely remained fossil ised throughout its history and never followed closely any spoken norm although it was consistently influenced by spoken practice. languages from the
, t shall not 0., coocerned \"ith Chine"" philowphy and melhodology of science. This is a maU�r to be diK.uSSOO by lICiemiM1; who are ramiliar ,,�th detailed Chinese scicmifit: pranice, and with lhe technical sciemific literature.
L A N G U A G E AND
U
,f
" ,f
d ,f
LOGIC
27
Our treatment of the Chinese language will concentrate on the Classical Chinese language of the formative period of Chinese culture from about -500 to about -100, and on what we call Literary Chinese, which, basing itselfon Classical Chinese as a model, was the slowly evolvi.ng more or less standardised medi.um of writlen communication throughout China from -100 onwards. Before we turn to a detailed consideration of Classical and Literary Chinese, it will be both healthy and methodologically essential to put these varieties ofChinese in a proper historical and comparative perspective. I
e
The rypolof!.Y ofEastAsiall languages
's
h
e ,
-
g
e ,
.f
e
s ,
From a typological point ofview East Asian languages may be divided into isolating ones which have very few traces ofinflections, and agglutinative languages in which whole clusters ofmorphemes are 'glued-onto' the words they modify.2 This obvious division might lead one to suppose a genetic relation between the isolating lan guages on the one hand and the agglutinative languages on the other. However, matters arc not as simple as that. There has been complex interaction between these languages and we need sophisticated criteria to reconstrUCt the gen etic rela tionships, if indeed the genetic paradigm is appropriate to explain the complex interrelationship of the languages concerned. How, then, are we to decide whether two languages are genetically related or not? The classical comparative method worked out for Indo-European languages establishes sound-laws for correspondences of shared vocabulary and determines the nature and degree ofshared features. Using such sound-laws many scholars have tried to establish among the East Asian languages three genetic groups: I . the Ahaic (including Uighur, �'longol, Tlingusic, l\,ranchu, and possibly Korean and Japanese); 2. the Sino-Tibetan (including the Sinitic languages often referred to as Chinese dialects, as well as the very large number of Tibeto-Burman and Karen languages); 3. the Austronesian Thai (including such languages as Vietnamese, Thai, Malay, and Tagalog). The Sinitic languages
1
• •
The Sinitic languages (or Chinese dialects) and some adjacent languages have one prominent feature in common: their non-composite words or morphemes all have only one syllable. ''\ie therefore call them monosyllabic languages. Both north and south ofthe Sinitic languages there are many languages with large numbers ofmor phemes containing more than one syllable. We call these languages polysyllabic. Historically, there has been profound influence from the northern and southern polysyllabic East Asian languages upon the Sinitie languages." The variety within , cr. Vol. I, pp. :l'7ff. For a .u""'y ofrno", ."c"m r"",arch •.,., yol. 2 ofSd�ok (1967). I OWl! a 'p"<:iai d"ht of gralitudt to $oren Egerod for ad\�c" on this Sub-secliun. 1 YtI ;"Iin trJltl: hu poinLcd Out to me that this typological diff"rence � i "<'I)' mur-h Unp. urd"gT"'" ) Sec H.uhimolo (1976al, Ha�himoto (1976b), Ha!rumolo (1986) alld Eg.:rod{I9B3), pp. 37-j:l'·
L A N G U A G E A)l'O L O G I C
what are known as 'Chinese dialects' is n o smaller than that of languages in Europe,l Moreover, the diversity of languages spoken within the Chinese territory is vastly greater than the variety oflanguages spoken in Europe,2 \"lord order in the Sinitic languages tends to be fixed rather than fru. Thus Propenius expresses a profoundly Chinese sentiment using profoundly un-Chinese word order when he says: Fortunae miseras auximus arte vias: FORTUNE ' S MISERABLE 'WE-ADD ART WAY S . Chinese word order would have to be more like the English translation: 'We artificially add to fortune's miserable ways.'3 Predominantly, but by no means completely, Chinese word order obeys what one might call 'a principle of adjacency', which says that no constituent of a sentence tends to modify any other constituent that is not immediately adjacent to it.� All - or almost all - of the East Asian monosyllabic languages turn out to have evolved tones which serve to distinguish otherwise like-sounding or homophonom syllables from each other:1 These tone:s or syllabic intonation patterns increase the number of distinct morphemes which can be expressed through monosyllables. Tones are particularlyuseful in monosyllabic languages, but it turns out that tonal ity is not a basic unchangeable feature of natural languages." The history of East Asian languages shows that it is easily transferred from one genetic language group to another. Northern versus Southern Sinitu Among the monosyllabic tonal languages, the Sinitic languages (or Chinese dialects ) are the most important and best known. These may broadly be divided into Northern Sinitic and Southern Sinitic languages, This division certainly ante dates the phonological system reconstructed by Karlgren as Ancient Chinese (also known as the Chhieh Yun language named after the Chhith riin tJJM Dictionary of +60I), E, G. Pulleyblank, in his monumental recem work on the history ofChinese phonology, prefers to interpret this basic division as a contrast between the dialects as spoken in different capitals or cultural centres ofthe Chinese empire.) The contemporary Chinese languages (or dialects) represent the result ofmigra lion - especially from north to south -which has led Northern Sinitic languages far j PmpertiusII. \-i ;_ 32. I S"" Chang Kun('967), ' �eS. Eg"Tod (1983),pp.37n: ,..I"n ex�plun 10 lhis law . i lhe final "" i ii'iic. in Classi"al Chine�e whieh often refer.! 10 elements in�ide the lscnlencr at the end orwhich il nands. Sec Harh!meier (198G). Yo Min has kindly poinl�d OUl lO me a \'�!")' uice mod�rn Chinese cxception: uou-chhu la mhl ehhi :it t±l -J:::. F�t!;: 'went out of lh� door', ",hen, rhlll � which is an l!Ilslreued form ofeMu $; 'go' and mndilies eMu !±l 'IO go oul, l�ave' . • The four lones ofModern Standard Chinese aTe historically developed from other phon�lic feam,..,., 'luitc possibly the fol1o,,'[ng: the fiut h igh lone de\..,lopcd n i words with an originally un\'Olced n i ilial consonant; the .eeond ri�ing lOne developed in worili ,,�th an originally ''Diccd n i itial consonant; the third tone developed in words Wilh a final lar}11gal stop (like lhe Danish (md)) and the fOtlrth lOne de\"elop"d in words which ended in an h-lik� sound. See K�nnedy (1952b), Haudricourt (1954), and E. G. Pulleyhlank (19641.
(
•
i
, We note lhal ancient Greek was a IOnalliinguage: ",},,,Iwe tend 10 read as stress in Classical Greek is known to hll\'� been nOlstren hut a lanai pattern somewhat like the �Iodern Slilndard Chinese rillingsecond lOne, while the circumflex aCC:ent is thoughl to haw: been pmnouneed romewhat like a Modern Standard Chinese .hort 5CC ood rising lone immcdiatdy followed hy a shorl fotlrth falling tone.
, Pulleyblank (1984)·
LANGUAGE AND LOGIC south. The great Han dynasty migrations followed rivers and valleys through Hunan and Kuangsi to Indo-China and Kuangtung, and these same routes have been followed throughout history. Fukien was colonised from this direction as well as from the Lower Yangtze River and from the coast. South Sinitic, on the other hand, has spread northward as a standard way of reading the Classical Chinese language. I Henri Maspero called his 1920 work on
ancient Chinese Ie D£alecte de Tch'ang-ngan sOUJ Ies T'ang, but Chou 1'su-1v10 has shown it to belong rather to the Lower Yangtse region.1 Literary Chinese, the
medium of most writing in traditional China, functioned as a bearer of the Southern Chinese tradition especially from Thang times onwards. That is why tra ditional Chinese poetry is more appropriately read in Cantonese than in the Peking dialect. Cantonese pronunciations are much closer to Thang dynasty Literary Chinese pronunciation.3 Modern Stan dard Chinese turns out, in this scheme of things, as a Northern Sinitic language with considerable accretions of loan words from Literary Chin ese.t More recently a wealth of loan words have been incorporated from European languages- especially from English - mostly viaJapanese.5 Structurally, Modern Standard Chinese has a fair amount in common with its
Northern and Western neighbours,6 but like all other Sinitic languages it has also received considerable influence from the Literary Chinese which was introduced to all parts of China together with literacy. In modern times there has been a strong tendency towards 'Westernising' grammatical patterns in Chinese.1 For example,
�JIJ1.:� 'Marxism-Leninism' in the recendy A Rtverst ChintSt-English DictWnary, (peking, 1986), whereas traditionally
I count t30 'isms' like Ma-I..Uh-chu-i published
China was mercifully free of all manner of 'isms'. Similarly, I count over 160
'isations' like La-ting-hua t!rT11::. 'Latinisation' which differ markedly from indige
nous Chinese formations in -hua
1�
'ise' like tsao hua
m1� CREATE TRANSFORM
'good luck' and Buddhist loan translations like (so hua �1� SIT TRANSFORM 'die
while silting' . Cases of Westernised syntax in the modern writer Pa Chin's work are conveniently presented for the Western reader in Kubler (1985)' A typical Southern Sinitic language, modern Cantonese (with its many (sub) dialects), turns out to be structurally and lexically closely related to Thai. In fact , The Literary Chinesc as d�ribcd in th" classic CM.w. 11in l;1JMI. (+601) rh}'ming dktionary is phonoLogical ly sp"aking ckarly a variety ofwha{ ,,� call Soulhern Sinilk more dos d}' related wJapanesc g6mf �-ft than to lheJa"anese kmwfI rrA:1i. a� Pulleyblank has !Ucce�!fully shown. For a briefdescription ofthe correlation 1xl ' .. ..een change of linguistic standard and dmng" of Lucation of Ihe capital city see PuLlcyblank (1984), PI" 1-4' PuLleyblank minimises th� effect of other languages, wheth"T Altaic in the North or Austric in Ihe South on the \4rious Sinit;c Iangauges. For Ih� or!,osit" vi�w see BaUard (1979l and Hashimoto (1976) . 1
Sce�Lalmq\'ist(1968).
, :'\'ot surprisingly, the Nonh�rnChinc",", have traditionally (aU"d thcmseh·"s Han p"ople (Halfjm 1lA) after the Han dynasty. whereas th� Southern Chinese prefer to call themselves Thangpeopl" (Tlumgfrn �A) after the Thang d� ' nasy t. • P. Demievill" (1950) andEgcrod (1972). ' S"e Kao M;ng·K.hai d at. (1984). • Particularly n i ler�5ting in this connection is the Dungan Language $pokcn in Far Ea.st�rn pam ofth" Soviet �n;on. See Dr"guoo\' (1936), KalimO'o'(1968), and more re<:f'ntly the ''<:11' nt i "resting !ludy ImazO\'(19B�l. A fas· cinating sampling of Dungan senl<:nCct will � found in Salmi (1984). , The most sensith'c account o[tbis remain, Wang Li (1959), vol. 2, pp. 299�J83'
LA:-JGlJAGE A�D L O G I C
30
there arc certain varieties of Can Ionest' which, from a linguistic point o fview, could
perhaps be described as dialects or Thai whidl happen Chinese charactlTs as a writing system.!
TO have comf' to employ
Archaic Chinese of lhe -ISl millennium (including what we call Classical
Chinese) turns out to be based on an ancient variety of Northern Chinese.� The most palpable evidence for this is the paucity in Archaic Chinese of sentence-final
�
particles which is paralleled in Modern Standard Chinese, and which is in absolute
0
contrast to the p_r�fus�on_ Qr2�n.!c��!:...fi . n� parti cs in Southern Sinitic languages sll(;h as Cantonese (and Thai).
One might expect that at least the ancient languages arthe -1St millt'llnium were
'pure' Chint"st" in the sense lhal lht" basic vocabulary consiSlt"d ofonly Sinitic words.
Such, however, is not the case, There certainly are quite a number of basic words
for which we cannot establish regular cognates in other Siniti(' languages. These
are most plausibly explained as loan words. In some cases the source of these loan
words may even st"em to be Indo-European:
mi 5t:
'hOllCy', which in the oldest
n�construcred pronunciation had a final t-sound, is generally taken to be a loan
word from Indo-European, and related to _Sanskrit
g
madhu,
Greek
melhy, p.i{fl),
'mead'. and is also related to Russian mjed, En ilShl1ulUi, Danish nyed. The horse is
not indigenous to China, and neither is the word rna m 'horse', which in fact is gen t'rally assumed to be an Indo-European loan word related to the English
rna"
and
[he German .Hahre. The wifCIg()O"Se)',!'1/ Jf( is often taken to be related to Greek chen .njv 'goose' and German Gans.3 \'Ve mcntion these details to illustrate the fact that from the very beginnings ofthe
written Chinese languages these have included non-Sinitic words. Sinilic languages
in historical times never cvolved in splendid isolation from surrounding languages.
The indications are that at all known historical stages, the Chine�t" languages were
structurally and lexically influenced by very complex linguistic surroundings. Chinese
languages may be isolating languages, but theyw�re not isolated languages.
Having said that, the fact remains that Literary Chinese has remained surpris
ingly reluctant to absorb large numbers offoreign morphemes or words. One only
has to think of the vast number ofl .atin and French borrowings in English to appre
ciate the significance of the contrast with Chinese.!
, In \'ary;ng d�gu.._, m()d"rn Sin;tic languagel show si�., of ,uimrata, i.e., that they r�pr.."'nt "ar;"!;,,, of Sini!ic �pok..n by Jl<'0pk who originally �poke anoth..r 1)1'<' of language whkh ha. l..fl itJ:. traces n i the language they .,,,..ak. It has been jugge51ed that even ....feh.!;,· Chiut:1e ofthe -1St millennium mar not t..:: an exception. See ".g., Egerod{'96i) pp. 91-129; H;uhimoto (1976). i l'oh�d loan 'mrd� nut gcneraUy �tlesled in Sino E\"en in it! earlie�t known forms Chin..� ,....,ms to ha,� n Tibetan languages. for Austro-Thai loan words ,cc Benedict (1975). C
,th" \\theJuhu
the
fletcher memorial lectur.. at Ihr.·an.l ln April 1987 in whIch Pullfyblank arg"ed that Chlll�lld tnqo-Europ"�\Il may have had a c<;ommon lingl.lbti,· anC"Slor localcd in Cwual Asia. • Se� �.K. • SerjeanllOll (1935)·
I.
...
-.
..
LANGUAGE mid )Ioy .ical rh, mal lute 1ges .ere rds. )rds lese oan d.est oan {{iv, ;e is ;en and thin 'the oge, ges. rere lese Insmly )re-
AND
LOGIC
31
When a vast number of basic French words were introduced into English there wt:re complaints and real fears that English was losing its identity. In our times there are similar fcars in France. There never werc such fears and there never was reason for such fears in traditional China. I Even at the height of Sanskrit influence during the Thang dynasty, when poets like Han Yu �:@: (+768 to +824) could be extreme ly worried that Buddhism was infesting and replacing Chinese tradition, there was no tendency to replace or extensively supplement the ba�ic vocabulary of Chinese with Sanskrit morphemes. Pai Cha-I sgg (+772 to +846) may have had reason for his vision thal 'people's homes all turn into Buddhist temples? but people's daily speech was never anything like as pervasively Sanskritised as English speech was Frenchified in medieval times. The predominant practicc n i China was to produce loan words by paraphrasing meaning rather than by imitating sound. Thus the Chinese say tim-shih iit$1. 'light ning/electric-look' for 'television' , unlike the Japanese who say urebi, and like the Germans who say Ferris/hen ('distant-look'). Phonetic loans remain comparatively few in Chinese. Clillan for Sanskrit dhyana, Uapanese zen mt) 'meditation' is a famil iar example of this. <What was phonetically borrowed from Sanskrit were mostly specific technical Huddhisl terms. And when Buddhism ceased to be an all-powerful foreign influence, the majority of the borrowed Sanskrit loan words disappeared from me language. Of the thousands of loan words from Sanskrit that have put in an appearance in Literary Chinese texts only a few hundred, such as tha � (Sanskrit: stiipa) 'pagoda' survived as part of the general vocabulary into modern limcs.3 Insofar as Classical Chinese defined a very large part of the basic linguistic and logical conceptual framework for later Chinese thought, it deserves our special attention. This is not to deny the fact or to underestimate the importance ofthe fact that important modifications and innovations occurred in later times. None the less the present section on language and logic will pay special anemion to the formative phase of the Classical Chinese lanb'1lage. The subsequent section on language and science will deal in much greall:r detail with later Literary Chinese sources for Chinese history of science. (2) S P O KEN CHINESE AND THE SEMIOT I C S O F CHINESE CHARACTERS
Characters and words Aristotle maintained: '\-\'hat is spoken is a symbol (�)'mbolon) of states (pathemata) in the soul; what is written is a symbol of what is spoken.'� h.,
Iyfar "'.,
oeing
=d
1 Th" mod�rn n i vasiun nf£nglish loan words is an entirely different matter. It is n i d�.,d a cau!>C fur profound Cooncern among many Chill".le in our tim... j
utmg Chu /(v, Pa;Chii'IChim*�, E:lJ1ii il.. �, vol. I, p. 74. ) For an interesting but inwmplele sur\'�r of loan wurd� in :l.Iodnn Chine", s�" Kao r-,<[n i g-Khai tt ul. (1984). for rich bibliographic information onloan words in ChineloC Set Yang (1985), pp. t 11- �2. , Dr ilftnprewtiOlft t6.....3.
LANGllAGE AND L O G I C
The ancient Chinese said comparable things. The realist philosopher Han Ff':i � .1F (died -233) has an anecdote abollt two unknown individuals, Vv"ang Shou 43and Hsu Feng, that vividly illustrates the primacy, from a certain poim ofview, of the �poken over the written medium: Wang ShOll was travelling along with written materials (sh1l ::;!:t) on his back. At a big cross· road;; he cauglH sight of Hsti Hug. Said Hsti Feng: 'Condul:t consim of auion s. Actions
arise from circumstance. The person who knows (chi h chi ffi1!i) has no constant pattern of conduct. Books consist of sayings. Sa}'ings arise from knowing. Therefore the knowing
person does not keep written materials. Why are you travelling along wlth these things on your back?' At this p oint Wang Shou burnt his written materials and danced round the bonfire, !
Yang Hsiung mm (-53 to +18) asks: Whell our words are unable to express our thought (J'en pu nin!; fa chhi Iisin
�/fgg}!j{:'L'),
and when our wriling is unable to express our words (sh1l pu ning fa chhl)"C1I ./fgg�Jt�), is
this ilot a great difficulty?�
What writing is supposed to do here is to represent spoken words" writing does represent what is in one's mind:
But in so doing
Therefore words are sounds of the heart/mind (ku)'ell hsin shing)'eh m:S.c,'Jftf2.). Writing is a picture of (what is in one 's) heart/mind (shit hsm hua)'ih .,L,mtB).l ---_.- .......
;,
Wang Chhung.±.:1E (+'23 to +100) writes in his autobiographical chapter : Through words one makes dear one's intention (chih �. One is afraid that words may dis appear, and therefore onc writes them down ,\'ith characters.'
Cheng Hstian JI)"'z (+1'27 l0 +'200) makes it clear in his explanation oflhe origin ofphonetic loan words that to him what was written down (shu lID were words ofthe spoken language. He looked upon Chinese as a logographic script in the sens�' that characters were designed to represent spoken words. � Ko Hung -i"i� wrileS in c. +3'20: What emerges from the mouth arc words. What is wriuen down on paper is writing (shu). \'Vri ting stands for words, and words are notations for things.'i
ChhEn Khuei 1Nf.� concurs in his Wen Tse (+1 170): Through words we get across (uai�) facts: through writing (win X) we nott down words,7
, Han }fl "lh �,.15. 1 , in Liao (I!l:-IY), '""\. I, p. 2'9 ' Ct: at", Chuang n.u's �lOry about J)\!k� Buan ofChhi f('ad· ing a book in his 1.:..11, who is !eclUr"d by wheelwright Pi�n on tbe primacy ofli\
(Clwang T{II. '3.6) , Fa len *-i!r 8 ed. WangJung·Pao, p._ �46, cf. Von Zach (1939), p_ 23"
I Ibid.
, Wang Cbhung, i.JIn Hfng:E3t, at'ifi ed. ChuIIg-hua-slw-(hii, p_ 1688, cf. Forke (1911), P"rf I,p. 7�· Cf. Chiang
'!!U-I (1965), p. 46. , See Hung Chheng (19&'),P. 13�. I Ed. Liu Yen.Chll�ng, p. 12.
•
Pao Phu «u,ch. 4:-1, en. IVl'WK, p. 748.
LA.'JGUAGE AND L O G I C
" u
,r
33
The most telling kind of evidence is fou nd in passages not at aU explicitly con cerned with the mallers at hand, but with the way of reading texts. Chu Hsi *= (+1130 to +1200) is reported to have said: Generally, when one looks at books, one rnustfirst read thcm until aile is familiar with them,
one must bring it about that it is as if the words all come from one's own mouth. Then one
(must) cominue 10 reflcct sublly and bring it about that it is as if the meanin� all come from one's own heart. Only then can one get the poim.' 'g
n
"
Chu Hsi reads the Classical Chinese texts as 'sayable Chinese'. The reader ima gines himselfsaying the same words, not writing the same strokes of the brush. This is significant. At the opening of an imperial edict of+1269 1 came across this statement: I believe that one writes characters in order to note down words, and one uses words in order to repoTl lhings.2
g
,.
n e "
n
).
> i
•
From a certain point of view the primacy of the spoken word versus the writlen character is obvious in exclamations like wu hu�Uf 'alas' which is already common in the Book of History. For this ph rast: there is a wide variety of graphs as there is indeed in all sorts of other onomatopoeic �xprcssions, i.e.) words that plainly imi tate the sounds of this world. One might say these are exceptional cases ofno general typological significance, but take a common expression wer i � ;f$ , ��, � Jjg ) 'to writhe (gracefully), be graceful', which is attested already in th e Book of Son gs3 for which Morohashi's great Chinese�Japanese dictionary (vol. II, p. 638) provides eigh t alternative writ ten forms, and for which I have found some more variant forms. It is almost as if it didn't much matter to the Chin�se what graph the scribe employed as long as it was clear which word of the spoken language was intended. Compare the case of the English word 'through' , for which we have no less than 350 onhographic variants recorded from the +13th to the early +151h century in England alone, with another tOO or so to be added from various dialect sources.1 But whereas in the case of English various ways of spelling 'through' reflect dialectal variation as well as scribal uncertainly or indifference, the situation is different in Chinese. In Chinese there can be an important suggestive nu ance when the scribe uses the radical for 'path, to walk' (suggesting a winding road), or the Ulseet radical and the word for 'snake' (suggesting a writhing snake), or the moun tain radical on top (visualizing a difficult winding mountain path). The graphs offer glimpses ofthe range of imagery conjured up by the word in the writer's mind. The writing offers morc than the word. It does have an autonomous graphic effect. Chinese characters often involve a kind of graphic poetry. And for certain Chinese , Ghu T::u ru Lei. cd. Chung-hua·shu-d'tl, 1986, \'01. I , p. ,68. - n'lIn Shih. rei. SPPF, cit. 2<>2. p, 1381, 'luol�d in I. T. Zograf{!984)' p, I I . ' Shih Ching 18.1 . • Sec �Iadntn!h, SanlLlcb, and Benskin (lgIl6). \'01. 4, pp. g!>-l()I. These W
reprcstm not unly dillerent .enhal conventiuns hnt also diale"tal diffcre"c�s on a scale unretorded in China "ith the Chin""" writing system.
34
LAKGUACE Al"D L O G r c
writers this poetry o rthe graphs was important. In any case i t has always fascinated Westerners.
H'estern viewJ ojChineJe characters In the \Vcst, as opposed to China itself, an 'exotic' vie:w of Chinese characters became current since the +15th cemury to the effect that these characters, quite unlike other writing systems, and rather like the mathcmatical symbols
' ' r ,
' '
'2', 3 ,
elC., stand directly for concepts and only incidemally have prommcialions (pronun· ciations like English 'one', in Russian 'odin' or in Greek 'heir'). Following H. G. Creel
we can call this the ideographic conception of the Chinese characters. I According to this conception, Chinese characters would turn out to constitute a kind ofnatur al Begrijftschrijt, a natural and culture-specific version ofLcibniz's
characteristlca uni
versalis, or an 'alphabet of thought', as Leibniz liked to say, The opposite view, namely that Chinese characters stand for pronunciations of morphemes, or words ufthe spoken language, and mean what they mean because the morphemes have the meanings that they have in the spoken language, has been
argued in the work of the Swedish linguist Bernhard Karlgren and the American
scholar Peter A. Boodberg. Following an article by Y. R. Chao (1940), we may call theirs a logographic conception of Chinese characters. This view is by now quite generally atccpted by specialists in Chinese linguistics:z This logographic view does not, of tourse, in any way deny that Chinese characters have important graph ic etymologies and that in addition these characters have autonomous <esthetic dimensions oftheir own that may serve important literary purposes, Some comparisons between Greek and Chinese may be useful at this point. "Ve can trace the history of the pronunciations ufCreck words in thf': spelling of the Iliad and the
Odyssg>, and we can trace variant pronunciations of the same words in writ
ten dialect material that has come down to us from ancient Greece. In China thf': evolution ofthc orthography of Chinesc characters tells us precious littlc3 about the history of the pronunciation of a given word, When it r:omes to dialects, it is in the nature of the Chinese script lhal a given word, though pronounced differently in different dialects, will normally be written with exactly the same character in all dialects.
I Creel (19:,,6) ami (l93H). The term 'ideographic' M'..m, 10 go back to the very 5Chola� (Champollion) to wbom \,'e owe th" deciphering ofthe ancient Egyptian snipt and the demonnration that th" Egyptian ..:ript is IW/ideographic in the �eruejust outlined. Champollioll'5 crucial discO\�rywas that th" Eg}l,tian hieroglyphs can only be propo:rly understood when one anrihute� to them phonetic valuel. (For the �Iory of the disco\'ny of Egyptian in the Wesl see Erik h�r.sen (19f'3\.) The idea ofideograph), is, of course, much oldcr than this. cr. F'lotinul, EnntadI V8.6. ed. Paul H�nT)' ami Hans-RudolfSchwy"er(P/"hni Opm, \'ol. �, (959), p. 39'. : �e c.g., Chao (1940), Boodbcrg (195i), Scrrll)'! {1!H3}, p. '7�ff_, and Boltz (19B6). Sampson (198;,) gives the gencral linguiniceontexl. DeFrancis, Tltt Cltmtst LangullJ:" Honolulu t98.l. eb. 8: Tbe Ideographic .\Iyth·, gi\'f:s some hiSloricai backl(round. J We do learn a certain amount about the pronundatiom o[Chinese characters in the COUT.,e ,,[Chinese hi.! (01)' by obsuving which characler6 were usen a� pho"etic ekmenls in other l1lor� complex charact"", and whir.h wer� used as simple phonetic loans 10 repre,ell! other characters: surh rh()n�li" luan. must n i dicate more or less dose simil.\rity ofpronunriation uf\h� characters in"olv�d.
l
"
.
"
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
35
Whereas the imernal structure of a word in Greek will tend to be evident in the phonetic representation of lhat word, in ancient Chinese the internal morphemic structure of words written with one character, which in some cases we can try to reconstruct, is hidden under the blanket of the character. I This has meant that the Chinese morphemes written with characters had to be trcated as unanalysable even when they did contain some internal structure. Grammatically significant slight distinctions in pronunciation as between advise and advice may have been pre sent, in ancient Chinese pronunciation, but they were unfortunately not visible in the writing system. Again, such pairs as practise versus practice, where an original difference in pronunciation has been neutralised bur is preserved in the more con servative writing system, would be indistinguishable in Chinese writing. All such cases would look in the Chinese writing system more like the case of (to) promise ver
sus (the) plomise, except that there was no inflexion in Chinese to help disambiguate between 'nominal' and 'verbal ' uses. Homophonous but etymologically entirely distinct words, rather like the English
sun and son,
or
right, writi!,
and
rill! may be written by the
same character, be thus
graphically indistinguishable, and create the quite spurious impression that Chinese words are grotesquely ambiguous. Examples of this sort are common. But there are also notorious cases where a single Chinese character is used to write t\'iO entirely different words with quite distinct meanings, as in the case of shih:Q 'stone', which is also rcad as tall 'hectolitre of dry grain'. What is ambiguous in all such cases is the writing system, not the words of the language. Axel Schuessler's new Dictionary rifEally ?hou Chinese (1987) takes account of this situation and tries to be a dictionary of words rather than of characters. It was the reconstruction of the ancient pronunciations of Chinese characters by B. Karlgren and others that has enabled us to carry the analysis to the inside of the unit written by a Chinese character. And the process of this systematic reconstruc tion started by Karlgren is still continuing. The most recent contribution being the important book by E. G. Pulleyblank, Middk Chinese(Ig84). 'We can safely conclude that Chinese chara('lcrs did hide a range of important features which phonetic spelling tends to reveal, and that they discourage the analytical perception of the internal structure of Chinese morphemes. Phonetic reconstruction of ancient pronunciations ean certainly not make up for this disad vantage: for one thing these competing reconstructions are no more than working hypotheses,l and for another the fact that lwo characters are reconstructed as having the same pronunciation does not under any circumstances signify more than the inability of researchers to identify a difference by the means ofreconstruction so far available. Thus the fact thatJen
A
'man' andjen
t
'humaneness, goodness' arc recon
structed as having: identical pronunciations does not at all, in my view, allow us to , cr. Axd &hue",l�r (1976) nnd S. Egcrod (1971). , Rcconmuctions h"'l: been proposed n i BaxlH !II (1986), in Ughl �d, (1968). pp. 1- 34. Bodman (1968), in Light ed. (19M), pp. 34-'99, Karlgrcn (19.')2b;', Li Fang.Kuci (/971), Pullcyhlank (196�), Schuessler (1987), and Wang Li(/958).
LANGUAGE A .'J D L O G I C conclude that these nvo crucially distinct words really were pronounced exactly the same way. On the contrary, it would seem more likely that our reconstructions so far leave out certain features of ancient pronunciations, than that Classical Chinese was as full of such homophones as the reconstructions so far available ".-auld make it appear.
The rypolo/!)! and evolutIOn ofthe Chinese writing D'stenl Like other known writing symbols, many Chinese characters began as pictures of things.
Confucim said: '\Vhm \ve look at the character chhiian 7:. (for a dog) il looks as if one had drawn a dog.' I But it is pro/i:lUndly significant that the name of the scribe
in ancient times was
not a desit,'l1ation ofa painter or artist but that ofa diviner: shih 9:.. The picture� and
designs of the scribes/ diviners of antiquity turned into writing to the extent that they were associated with fixed words of the spoken language. From around -4800 onwards we have pottery inscribed with marks, and it must be emphasised that these marks were not, so far as we know, connected with divina tion. These marks have been considered by a number of distinguished scholars
including Yii Hsing-\Vu T�'a as an early writing system,� but there is no evidence
that the marks represented meanings, words, sentences or phonetic values. \-Ve simply know too little about their function.3 There are, however, most puzzhng exceptions, like the ancient character for
tan .§.
'dawn' depicting a mountain, and
above i t a horizon with a sun on top. 1 The earliest evidence we have of writing in China dates from not much earlier than -1200. \'Ve have a large number of oracle bone inscriptions from this pcriod.5 The evidence we have suggests that Chinese writing was first used in the service of the ancient practice of divination. The inscriptions we have are record� made by diviners for theif successors, not ritual communications \vith some spirits. One can say that the Chinese script evolved along much \he same lines as Mesopotamian and Egyptian writing did: I.
By the pictographic strategy pictures Of pictographs were used to denote the words for what was depicted.
This strategy can never have been very successful,
since there are many words the meaning of which is not readily drawn. That problem was tackled by the phona-pictographic strategy.
2. By the phono-pictographic strategy the pictographs were used both for the words the meanings ofwhich they depicted and also for other similar-sounding I Shuo J�"'" Chien T�u. ed. Tuan Yli-Ta,hai, p. 4-73. ; Yii H_ing-lVu (/972). For a detailedsurvey o[th" "arlyevidence se� Cheung Kwong-rue (1983). , C( Boltz (lyS6), pp. 43otJ: Chang (1933), PI'. 1l41I. plamihly maintains that the most ancient imcrip!ion., were potter's marl.. , Yli Hsing-Wu (197:::) . Cf. also Aylmer (1981), p. C. , A coll\"cniem, Ih�malira!ly organised amhology orthe,� im"ripliom i, in Chang "\"sUng-tllng (I!);O).
LA.'\' GUAG J:: A�D L O G I C
:he
words. rl'his raised increasing problems ofambiguity, since one given pictograph
rae
,..,
37
could stand for a series of morc or less homophonous words. Such problems
were reduced by the- logographic strategy.
3. By the logagraphic strategy semantic elements were added to the pictographs in order [0 specify which ofthe homophones of a given pictograph was intended. These additional elements are generally known today as 'radicals', and their use to disambiguate graphs has
or
ad
been
increasing until it became fairl)� but never
completf"I)" standardised in Han limes. Historically, all three strategies coexisted: a given word could be represented either by a pictograph, a phon a-pictograph or by a logographic character with a disambiguating element.
The next and founh strategy would have been to sdcct for each syllabic of the
Chinese language ofthe time one standard pictograph or phono-pictograph to rep
resent that syllable. That would have led to a syllabic 'alphabct', but for interesting reaSOnii on which it is tempting to speculate the Chinese never did quite take this step. Chinese writing thus always retained its logographic character: in Chinese
but words,
IS!
one writes not syllables
a-
syllabic words - morphemes.
and - as the langu age developed many pol}'
The standardisation of this logographic script remained
"
i :omplete. vVe count m
ce
no less than nine variants for 'spring' in the carly inscriptions: the picture or a bud
'e
seems to have been the only obligatory element. Added to the bud were such things
19
as the sun, various numbers of either grass-pictures or tree-pictures. I
,d
C;hinm characters as illdicaloTs qrpTonl!..�ialiun
I i;2 <-
Of the 9,353 characters purportedly defined in the early dictionary
Shuo Wen eliieh
n
-ft. (died Tzu m.>cft¥f¥ (postfar.e +100) at least i,697 arc claimed by Hsu Shen � c. +149) 10 contain phonetic elements indicating - more or less precisely -- the pro nunciation of the characters in question. It is therefore important to realise that
n
Chinese writing, though it is not simply phonetic, none the less contains many pho
.y
netir. elcmellts.2 e
I, u
e
g •
Let us look more closd}' at the modern Hsin-hua TIu-lien:wr$*� of 1971 which coillains 8,077 common r.haracters and gives their pronunciations in Modern Standard Chincse.3 1,348 ofthese constitute elements recurring in other characters
,
Chang Tsung-lung (19i�), 1'. 1�.
. On th� OlJLt-r haud (he .:::hoiU' ofOLL� phunetic �Ietn�m rather than another ha� oflen been determined by mnt-moni(' 'semantic' consid�rations. As lar a� possihle, on� chuoses .. �ugg"sli\'e pirto!l;ram which s i eaaicst to rem�mber het:au� it not only repre�..nu the riShl kind ofwund but occau se it originally ha. a suggnth-.. mean· ing. Thus CITn wh�n an .,kmcnt is c1.-ad), phonetic. we are still ell1itl..d to look for a semantic reason for th� pho netic el..meU! rath�r than anoth..r. Fur t'xarnple, in miP II!J 'depressed, tigbdy du...d· th� dem�nt min r, 'gate' i, phoneIi", but it is at the same lime hi!(hly mggcslil·e. Cases uf (hi; s()rt "r� common. and many uf Ihem arc alr�adv noted in Skuo
Win Chidl 1�u �J..xfW�.
, \\'c disregard Iht: filet lhal difiercm dialt:f"! prunllncia!ions wOllld give a som�what rliffcr�n! pic:lurc from
that rrco�nted l,�re.
LAt-I G U A G E AKD L O G I C
as phonetic elements. They are, in a sense, indicators ofpronunciation. No less than a further 6,542 charaClers contain such phonetic elements. Only 18i characters contain no hint whatever ofpronunciation in the graph. However, there are a number ofimportant faClors limi ting the value of characters as indicators of pronunciation. One point is that the phonetic recurrent elements generally do not provide any hint ofthe tone in which a syllable is to be pronounced. Even leaving aside the question of LOnes, 68 (16%) of the 415 syllables which occur in Modern Chinese cannot be indicated hy existi ng phonetically recurring clements and will thus always have to be learned separa\!�ly. Another st'rious problem is that only j2% of the characters with a recurring pho netic ekment have then' pronunciations (regardless of tone) indicated exactly when we consider modern standard Peking pronunCIation. Another 27% have at least the correct rhyme, but a changed initial consonant. The remaining 2 1 % fail to corre spond exactly even in rhyme and thus offer little help for remembering the pronun ciation today, even when their is a certain phonetic similarity.l Finally, of the recurring phonetic dements
c.
1 0 % have more than one phonetic
value, which reduces their value as constant and reliable indicators ofpronunciation.
A look through Bernhard Karlgren's Ana'-yli�' Die/wl/mj' (ifChinese and Sma-Japanese
or the more up-to-date but less auraclively arranged
Grammala Serica Recensa will
confirm that among Chinese characters we find a large number of phonetic series containing recurring phonetic elements and theIr reconstructed ancient pronun ciations are conveniently lined up [or us to compare. \>\Ie also find a considerable number of phonetic loans wlwre a character with onc meaning is used for a homophonous
or
near-homophonous word with an entirely different meaning.
Ivloreover, when reading ancient Chinese texts we frequently find that Chinese
writers make usc orad horphonetic loans.2 Chinese characters were comtructed
and lIsed extensively with reference to their
pronunciations. Note the frequency of onomatopoeic words from most ancient times onwards. Chinese characlers arc and always were a device to note down spo ken words or morphemes. They arc not devices to depict meaning independently from the spoken language. A character, irrespective of its graphic composition, has the range of meanings ofthe word/morphemf' it represents. Because characters do not directly stand for meamngs as such but for words of a living spoken language, a dictionary could be written of +lst century 'dialects' that purported to describe the varieties ofJanguage(s) spoken in Chinese territory, and this 'dialect dictionary' could be written
with Chinese characters.
If characters stood
directly for meanings, then etymologically unrelated but synonymous morphemes in the dialects should regularly have been written wilh the same standard charac ters. In general, this turns out tlOt lO be the case. Hence the need for and the possi bili!)' of a 'dialect' dicLionary written entirely in Chinese characters. , For a detailed <maly,;s ofth�s� data �ee Chou Yu-Kuang (1980), pp. charaClcf> without r�fer�nc� to th�;r history.
, Sec Karlgrcn (1903) and ('9i).!,,-
1-13. Chou trcats th� modern ,impl;fi�d
L:\�G{;AGE A:"ID L O G I C
39
\".'hen thi': Japanese ust.:d Chinese characters to writt': their language, they did indeed write their own etymologically quilt.: unrdalt.:d morphemes with semanti
cally appropriate Chint.:se t:haractcrs, the kanjt ilij*. The kat1fi wcre conventional
marks used to write down words ofthe,Japanesc languagt':. To a very limited extent the same thing has also happened in Ihe transcription of Chinese dialeu words.
Thlls for the Taiwanese word
blq
'want to, will' we sometimes find the ncar
synonymous standard Chinese t:haracter pronounced)·ao �. But in general it is
clear that Chinese characters stand for et}mologicaUy and not just semantically related morphemes ofthe spoken language.
The af/vantages qfC'iIl'nese dw.ractl!TS There is one significant advalHagt.: or Chinese t:baractcrs for a language like Chinesf', and this has to do \\'ilh homophonf's, i.e., words of the samf' pronwKiation . ]n English \ve have pairs like
moming/mollrninli or sun/son which are unambiguous
in writing while they arc ambiguous in speech. On the other hand we have pairs like the verb
permit versus the noun j)ermil which are unambiguous in speech but
ambiguous in writing. In English, phenomena of the first kind arc not common while in Chinese thL,)' art': endemic. Homophones pronounced i in the fourth tone can ue counted by the score::, and dozens ofthem arc actually quite ('ammon. Under
these conditions it is psychologically natural that the scores of neatly distinct char aCters with which these morphemes are written will be intimately linked with the
identityofthe morpheme itself. The Chinese character is drastica1iycJoser than the Greek spelling to the essence ofa morpheme represented by it. j
AJt the ancient Chinese linguists have perr:civ(;d a profound link between the
hexagrams ofthe BookqfChangH and the Chinese r:haracrers. i\lany characll'rs show an ambition to pro\cide emblems which make the true nature of thc things desig nated as transparent as possible so that ideally one can approach the mysteries of the universe through the study of characters. Here lies a profound diflerence between the Chinese and the r\ear Eastern invention of writing 'which is spelt out in L. Vandermecrsr:h (1988).
This explains the extraordinary Chinese fascination "'ith caUigraphy,l a phe
nomenon which is hard to undastand for the outsider, except on a purdy a:shetic level. But Chinese calligraphy has a deeper metaphysical dimension. Il touches the
nerve ofmorphemes and aspires to rea(';h the profound (';osmic essence ofthings. At the same time it expresst':s a person's cultural personality and identity. The Chines�
calligraphic tradition has a cultural depth quite unparallded in the \\'est.3
, Tbe Chinese Customarily , .. r er to thcir ,,'ord..,1, Izu!f. 'chara<:\l'r', although t1ley h,,"" a t110r� weslcruiscd term 1;)111 tal for -"..,rd'. Thu� th., Chinc�e today can be h..ard to $a}' thing> ike l 'I didn't $a}' a {'hardcter' inst..ad of'l didn'l$ay a ""(Ird'. , During the +4th o::mury a!r.:adr we arc told. ,'iS n}1c.' of calligraphy ..�rc knnwn. By the +6th centUry the number had riscn to 1'10. Sc<: ''Un Ronhorn (t9-pa), p. 142. , The 1it..r�ture 011 Chine... {'aliigraphy . i ''aSI. Sct: fu (19ii). which contains a useful bibliograph} on pagl"� 308w3'0.
LANGCAGE AND L O G I C
And this is where the pictographic and thought-provoking internal structure of Chinese characters does come into our account. For the literate person such struc tures are associated psychologically with the morpheme as a kind of graphic Cty mology ofth� morpheme as well as to the essence ofthings. Of c:ourse, like all kinds ofetymology and metaphysical resonance, this may be present to a greater or lesser extent in different individuals or at different times. But the result is that it becomes not entirely unnatural to say that the characters stand in a more or less direct rela tion to their meaning, to what the culture perceives as the essence of thing... That is why the ideographic conception of Chinese characters has its poetic force and attractiveness. E. F. Fenollosa and Ezra Pound have done more than anyollt- dse in the West to explore this poetic potential of the Chinese characters. I A very fine presentation of the connection uetween the graphic semantics of Chinese characters and archeo logical finds in China is presented in Cecilia Lindqvist (1991), which is currently being translated into many European languages. from a historical rather than literary point or view the advantage of Chinese characters lay in the fact that every literate dialect speaker would be able to read most of them in his own dialect and would thus to some eXIt-ill regard them as his own. The Chinese characters became the focus of cultural self-identification among the Chinese when any unified phonetic writing syslcm might have been divisive and difficuh to learn for non-speakers of the standard language. As has often been noted, the Chinese charaeters were eminently suitablt" as a Jtnptumfianca of the empire and were thus to some extent adaptt"d to their historical el1\·ironment. II is for this reason - and not for reasons of traditionalist inertia among the Chinese that the Chinese characters still seem to ha\'c a stable future in that country;l Chinese dialects are not much less diverse than European languages oflhe Indo European family or languages. What made the spt-akers of these diverse languages feel that they spoke 'the same language' was their effectiv!,; (and beautiful) common writing system which constituted a link not only with other parts of China, but also to the common literary heritage. \: T+hltm (lnd spoken Ch.inese on characters and w!'; have identified these as cer tainly representing morphemes or words of the ancient spoken language. But tht"re is a quite separate and more controversial rurther question: to what extent did the the Classical Chinese sentences written with these charactt>rs represent the current
Until now we have concentrated
I Cf. fenollosa (1936) anti Pound ('9!i"a, 1!:I;jllb and 19;j4). A. fang (1953}, anti K�nn..clr (196.•, in 'fenollosa, Pound and the Chinese character,) ha,.., <:ommemed on 1'enoll05a and Pound frurn a silloJoJ{i.-aJ point of"iew. 'J On the inconvenience of characlcn sec e'!h Lu Shu-Hsiang (1980), p. 37 and Lu Shu-H
. Cl!i1llst &ript{Arlmer (1981). p. 22) with the remar" that 'It (th� Chines<: SCriP' IS in faCT ideally suilctl w the lan)I;Uage it repre:R:litl.'
4'
LA�Gt;AGE AND L O G I C
speech ofth� time"? Essentially it is the qu estion whether Classical Chinese is a nat· ural language orjust a language·relatcd notational system. IvL Granet thinks it is
the: latter:
The great difficulty for a systematic study ofChinese stems from th£' disparity between the spoken and the written language. This disparity is so strong wday that one can ask oneself whether the written language is a [ru� language at all, whether it is an exact representation ofthe thought (the only difference compared W11h our languages being that this representa. tion is aehicvcd by a graphic representation and not a phonetic one), or whether it is just a mnemotcchnir notation which permits the reconstruction of a verbal expression for the thought. I First of all we must be carf'ful not to distort the issue by asking simply whether Classical Chinese writh"n sentences completely represent the spoken Chinest" Ian· guage or not. No written language completely represents the corresponding spoken language. There are plenty of German words I can think ofwhich one would never write and for which there is no reeognisf'd spelling.2 Within modern China, this
phcnomenon is particularly common in lhe IVlin and Ytieh 'dialect' areas. There are colloqu ial constructions which we would hardly evcr use in writing.
We must
assume that such constraints werc even more real in ancif'nt China: written Chinese never was a complerely faithful record of the speech at any time. This much should, I think, be uncontroversial.
i\'1oreover, the relation between the spoken and the written language has evident·
ly not been the same throughout the ages. The Iliadwas still reciled, and for the first time written down in 'Homeric Greek', long after anything like 'Homeric Greek', if
indeed it ever was a current spoken
language, had become a maner of the past.'
Similarly one must assume that the Book oJSongs ofthe Chinese was written down at a time when its language already sounded archaic or was at least obsolescent. The crucial poinl that the Homeric poems and tbe Book qfSongs have in common is that
both, though written in a sometimes formulaic, somewhat artificial language, were evidently based on oral poetry which was only incidentally
almost literally postfis·
tum - \\'Titten down and almost certainly first performed by illiterate people. Bards could be blind even after the invention of writing because they did not need to read. Indef'd, at least as late as the -3rd century it appears that the texts of the Book if Songs were known and understood by less learned scribes by their sounds, not their characters, as the phonetic way of writing quotations in the famous Lao Tzu � T , 'La gr,mdoo rlifficuht d·unc �lUd� spt..malique du chinoi. pr
e
h
o
e
LAi\'"GUAGE A N D L O G I C
manuscripts
recently discover�d would suggest. I In general, the profusion of pho· netic loan characters througho ut the epigraphic evidence accumulated through archeological discoveries must indicate that texts were remt"!mbered primarily not as graphic form but as spoken sound. The proliferation (and irregularity) ofphon et ic loans throughout even our primed texts is the strongest proofwe have of the pn macy of the spoken over the \\Titten forms of texts. In a predominan tly illiter ate society this is not in the slightest surprising: indeed anything else would be anthro pologically and historically extraordinary. From the -1'2th to the -I1th century, the time from which we have our first exten sive written documents in the Chinese language, the purpose and style of wri ting was sacral and formal: records wen� kept of communications with the gods. This naturally restricted the kinds of things that would be written down, but it also restricted the kinds oflinguistic forms that would be inclu ded in the texts. From the -10th century onwards there followed a proces� ofincreasing �er:ularisation of writ ing, and by the -5th century the written language was used to note down a wide variety of historical, philosophical and anecdotal m aterial, a l though even at that stage writingsomclhing down was still a solemn thing to do. Especially from the -5th to the -2nd Century there is evidence that the written literature to various extents, though presumably never completely, represcnled spoken standards of the time.z The dialogues in texts like Lun Yii or the Meng Tzu probably come as close to the spoken language ofthe time as Plato's almost contem porary dialogues.
It ought to be clear to any unbiased reader that the dialoguc� ol"l.un)"ii. Meng-tsi and Chuar/g lSi, the dramatically narrated episodes of the Tst) chuan, etc , an: the purest possiblr: repro duction of a spoken language. We can positively hear the speakers, with all their huh: curious turnings, anacolmhic sentences, exclamations, etc.' \Ve do in any case have some direct evidence
that what people said could be writ
ten down: The emperor says nothi ng injest . When he speaks the clerk will write it down. ' One might, I sup pose, insist that what the scribe writes down is a translation into
'notationese' of what the emperor intended to convey rather than what he literally we note that Confucius, for one, is recorded as first saying sOIl1(.! thing and th (.!n claiming that he was only joking a moment ago.'"' Even substandard colloquial Chines(" seems to make its occasional appearance in our early sources. For example in the story about Chi Mao-Pien who was noted said. But
Cf. £nu 'T<:u Chillll Pin Chiian IJou Xi, IShu Shih 1�'Ii i!:T Ef3*1tl$:
I
,
LA�GUAGE A)
Kl gh 101 !t-
n
n-
19
us 50 Ie l Ie at n d :u ,-
43
for his fondness for dirty language about others (to tzu:g,�). His language is so vul gar that one of the characters used in Lii Shih Chhun Lnhiu g�i€ftk to represent his speech has rarely elHen:d any traditional Chinese dictionary. I But let us leave jokes and possible vulgarisms aside and consider the grammalical particles of Classical Chinese instead. These will, as 1 argue, and as the Chinese through the ages have seen it, originally represent words from the spoken language. Cheng Hsiiarl �� (+127 to +'200) describes the panicle {hii � as a dialect word: 'It is an auxiliary particle us ed in the area between Chhi and LU.'2 Essentially the uses and functions of grammatical partidf:s must have been taken (though possibly adapted) from the contemporary colloquial language. In the literature of the -5th to -2nd century {he usage of particles strikes one as stricuy idiomatic and we find few grammatical anachronisms. vVhen we gt"l to the -1st century, the situation changes. A. Conrady (t926) has identified a colloquial particle )'en in the Book of Songs which clearly went Out of usc around the -6th century. We know little of the collo quial language of the time, but Conrady's arguments suggest that yen § was a colloquial particle at tht" time. Again, the sentence-final modal panicle i E. has been shown to have uee:n well established as a colloquialism around the lime of Confucius.3 Bernhard Karlgrcn has attempted to identify dialects in Classical Chinese. Certainly, the language ofthe Tso Chul1l1 ti.-Al1 is distinct from that ofthe Lun Yii and the }I'/€ng Tzu. Such differencLS arc perhaps most naturally explained as reRecling different dialectal varieties of spoken Chinese or dialects, especially since - as we have seen - such differences in dialecl are mentioned in our ancient texts.· Some eminent scholars like H. ;Vlaspero and A. Forke have seell the differences as a matter not ofdialect but only ofwritten style,':' but this notion is less than plausible. Finally, there i5 an interesting piece of evidence first brought up by Bernhard Karlgren in 1929, the case of stultering as recorded in Shih ChiP�c. (-ISl century): the words out my mouth.' hr. rcplied. 'But I know it will n-n-n-evcr do (chhin chhi cMi chih chhipu kho �Wntljm:tt1":OJ)! Although Your �1ajc:sly wishes to remove the heir apparent, I shall n-n-T}-c\"er obey such an order (eMen chhi chhipufingchao �WHt':Il'*�.'6 'J cannot get
)
I
, 'Tht' heir is sowick�dthathi, looks ,,>ccced IhuS<' of),!N (thai I�u d!ihpufin /;uQN!I'shih:t:r';::l.:t:�mii:m)'
(1ii Shih Chhun Chiliu 9<1, cd. Chhell Chhi-��l (1984), p. 49<). Wilhelm (1928), p. •og r�s to thc occasion by trans lating 'u /wIts dick hintt. dtn Ohrm'}. The parallel in Chan /I.;'Q TIl" no. '39, ed. Chll T,u-K"ng, p. �79, rJ. Crump ('97"). PI'· 'joll. b (ittk hdp.) NN i" clO:lIriy d�$Cribed as a name r"ferring lu a wicked po'rSOIl by Kao You's cnm i oh\'iously tempting to "xp{ain menml)'. Since the eharao:ter in quo:.tion i., nO{ in allY {r"di{ional di(:lionariCli, it s
it il4 a vari"n( of an cxi${ing character. But if it is really a '"ariant, wh,' dues llois mi:,wriut'n charact..r occur e>c actly in Ihc direct �peo:<;h of,om�one notorious for Ilis dirty spt:�ch? h·w mor� important: if the character h"d bc..n underslood as an ..pigraphir '-arianl ofantlthcr charAncr, why haw nOli" ofth� 1e>cioogr"phcrs, who u�"d the 1ii Shih Chhun Chhiu e.'\t�n!i>·..ly, "ddcd this char"ctcr 10 th�ir lr�alury of varianI characlers? Th" most r prcs..nt a vuig"ri!m, and was tlmiu�d on plausible expl"nalion ICt'ITl5 10 be that th" ch"raCtt'T',";cus...d in B. Kadgren {t92g},P· '78.
44
LANCUAGE AND L O G I C
B. Karlgren (rg2g), p. 178, comments: 'It ought be evident to anybody that the stuttcrings k'j k'i . . . would not be inserted into a "literary, non-colloquial" sen tence.: Howe\,er, it must b(' said that it is nOt inconceivable that the stutler could be introduced into a senten(;c written in a different language. B. Watson'� English translation of our passage quoted above provicit'"s instant exemplification. Stutter ing could jusL be represcntf:d by Chinese chartacters, but other speech defects such as that of Alcibiades reported by Aristophanes in ho/iiis The% n? len keph(llin kolakos ee/ui, oMS" Or:wi\OI'; nIv Kr:¢o.>'�V KOi\UI(OS' iX€!, 'Do you scc Theoros? He has the hr.ad of a crow (flanerer)", I are not so easily rendered by tharacters. It i$ the coht>rencc ofthe detailed picture we can reconstruct ofthe historical evo lution of colloquial Chinese grammar which makf's it so plausible to assume that our Classical Chinese sources are written in what was dose to the spoken language of tht: time.l Alain Pcyraubt> (1988) provides a detailed case in point: the evolution of tht> dative construction in Chinese. Wang Li (1958) and Ota TalSuo 7,;:: B3 Jr{ X (1958) an: standard handbooks on Chinese historical grammar which will illustrate our point in a more general way. What we call Literary Chinese is a language which is to varying degrees removed from the spoken Chinese of its time. Chinese writers since the historian Ssuma Chhien �,%}!: (" . -'45 to -89) have occasionally commented on the gap bet\veen the written and the spoken medium. In his time the written Chinese language was beginning to become an autonomous medium only partly determined by the collo quial language. But Bernhard Karlgren still insists: 'I go $0 far as to say that I believe t>ven in the Han period the written language was not f'
Han Fri
..
...
.leurnalAsialiqut, "01. 212 (1933) p. 47. ,. S�e ,\lei TIll-lin (19H�) for the dating ofthis po�m, and Fr�nkd (1969).
.
45
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
in style. One strongly senses in this ballad the rhythms and patterns of oral litera ture, and one can demonstrate the presence of many universal features of oral poetry all over the world. It is extremely unlikely that a poem like }(hung Chhiirh Tung Nan Fei should have been deliberately concocted in a language which was not cur rently spoken, used in oral poetry and naturally understood al the time. In the Buddhist colloquial Chinese literature of the +3rd 10 +5th century we also find a wide range of popular usages and particleNhat were, and long remained,'/ unacceptable in formal Literary Chinese. i-By th-; time a fairly dear stylistic gap had opened up between respectable Classical Chinese texts and unrespectable col loquial literature of various kinds. An incidental remark in the autobiography of Emperor HsiaoJilif� (+508 to +555) suggests that whatever the differences between colloquial and written Chinese, he was able to understand books in classical Chinese when they were read out to him: Siner. the age of 14 I have suffered a chronic eye disrase which has made me increasingly blind, so that after a while I could nol read lor myscJfany longer. For the last 36 years I have cmployedscrvanl!; [0 read aloud lor me. '10 quote the word� ofTsEng Tzu: Reciting poetry, reading prose, I live with the men of old. Reading prose, reciting poetry, I hope together with the men ofold.'l '
One may say that Ihe separation of the written from the spoken language ovt:r the ages contributed to the problems of illiteracy in ancient China and in any case made Chinese books Jel'is accessible than they might have been, and that it made the reading of books more of an elitist conc{"rn than it need have been. To some extent one may also feel that it failed to encourage the sort orspontaneous creativity which was at the heart of the Renaissance in Europe. Colloquial texts (like the h1lung Chhiieh Tung NOll Fe; :rL1f;3Itr¥jjf� ) largely remained a subcultural phenomenon in China until the 20th century. This was not the case after the Renaissance in Europe. It turned out that there "'en� also certain advantages attached to the stabilisation of the \\Titten language and its relative isolation from the changes or colloquial idiom. For this stabilisation over the centuries meant lhat the literature of all ages since the -6th century continued to be read by many right down to the 20th cen tury. Through the stabilisation of Literary Chinese, the distant past was made to look more familiar and accessible to the present. Aflf'r all, the Chin�se would be reading sentences in the ancient books which they might literally use in the next letter theywould write. In this way the literary heritage could be felt to be a natural living part oflhe present. In the context of science this meant that Chinese scholars throughout th� ages have been aole to draw with natural case on achievements oCthe past. The literary language played the crucial role that Greek and (later) Latin used to play in Europe, that Biblical Hebrew plays among orthodox Jews, and that Classical Arabi, to a I See Gur�\'ich (1974). "'hieh i, the standard monograph on Lh� lubjCCl, and Zlirclwr (lil8,,), whiCh adds fa.l· cinating mal(:rial bUL ""<'fiS unawaT� OfGOT�\;ch's carli�r\"ork. 2
Kuo Ti'ng.Ftng (/¢j), p. 181'.
LANCL:AGE AND L O G I C
considerable extent continues to play today in the Islamic world. Literary Chinese was the medium of the all-important cultural continuity in traditional China. The
should remind us vividly of the impor tance ofsuch a mediu m ofhistoric:al continuity. effective loss of our Latin and Greek past
(3) TRADITIO:O
In pre-Han texts we find a few graphological comments on the structure and
no Chuan :ti� commentary (+4th century) (Duke HSiian, 12th year) interprets the character wu :fE\:: to be composed of the symbol for '!;pear' and for 'to stOp '. These attempts at popular graphic etymolo significance of Chinese characters, as when the
gy are nOt at all common in early China.
The clearly predominant traditional Chinese interest in language was social, not
theoretically linguistic in a narrow sense. 'J'here is no Classical Chinese word for lin guistics. 1 Language tended to be considered from what we today might he tempted to call a 'socia-linguistic' point ofvie\\', Already Confucius seems
to have recognised a cognitive function for language:
Ifyou do not know about words (]m e), you do not have what it takes to know about men
(or: others).z
The important thingthat language allows us to do, according to Hsl1n Tzu, is set
ting up distinctions between the different things in the world.
What is it that makc� man into man? It i� the ract that he makl'sdistinctions (pitT! 1�)..l
The result is expressed in an ancient proverb: From words one knows things.. As a philologist one heartily agrees. Rut what exactl); one wonders, would consti tute 'knowing about words' to the ancient Chinese? The question is put in the book Ming ll:.U and lhe answer there makc� it clear that Mi:ng Tzu was in any case not especially refe rring to what we under�tand by linguistics in any narrow sense, '\'Vhat is "knowing about words"?' 'To know from biased words what someone is blind to, to know from immoderate words what someone is ensnared in, to know rrom herericaJ words where someone has strayed from the right path, to know from c\"lisi\'e words where someone is at his wit's end.'� , Chang Ping-Lin :a:it'iM (1868 (0 (936) Wil..l du' firs! [0 (oin lhc phr....,)u)"in wi� '�II chih h..ikn �-g;t*��. S.... U.Jung (r.?71), p. I l-un 111 �o.3, sec Lau (!9i:!:P), p. 20:;. I Il.riin T<:u :P4, sn Dubs (!9�9), p. 7! . \ . Ming 4.u2A�, �e.. Lau (lg83C), p. 59. • no (;h�an. Duke Chao, l.Q (end): sec Lcgg.:: (1872), p. 371i.
T
LA!\GUAGE A-:-lO L O G I C
The Chinese did not have a distinct abstract
to speech, talk, words, no division between speech'.
47
notion of language as opposed
dialektos 'language' versus logos 'word,
The essence of man, that which is peculiar to man, is declared to be language in a
passage from one ofthe earliest textual commentaries in Chinese literature:
ThaI which makes man into man is speech ()oen-i3). A man who cannot speak, how can he count as a man? That which makes speech (}'tn) into speech is truthfulness (hsin ill ). Speech that is not truthful, how could that count as speech? That which makes truthfulness into truthfulness is the Way (tar; no. If truthfulness is not in accordance with the ',Va)" how can it be truthfulness?1 Man
is here conceived and almost defined as a speaking animal. His ability to and in accordance with the "Vay is what makes him properly human. It is by no means a coincidence that such a view oflanguage is advocated in a systemati(' commentary on an older text: the Ku Liang:;1J:mm and the Kung Yang 1:}${!¥: commentarics constitute coherent evidence of how seriously the Chinese took the matter orlanguage, of diction, of formulation. The Kung Yang commcntary relentlessly asks why the older Annals, on which it comments, use one word rather than another, why the tcxt says what it does say, and why it says it in one way rather than another. For the study orearly linguistic sensitivities the Kung rang and Ku Liang commentaries provide crucial early evidcnce.2 The Book ofRites (Ii Chi:m�) takes a slightly different perspective on language : speak truthfully
The parrOt can speak, but it is not distinct from (pu li /f�/lm) the birds. The hsmg-hsing �� ape can speak but it is not distinct from (pI/ ii) the wild animals. :\low when a man has no sense ofpropriety, even ifhe can speak, does he not have the mcntality ofa \vild animal? It is because the animals have no sense of propriety that father and son copulate with the same female. Therefore the sagc� instituted the rites to educate men, and they made men under stand that because Iht")' had a sense ofpropriety they belonged to a different category (Pith jjU) from birds and beasts. J .
Thus the Ii Chi insists that propriety, not language, is what makes man into man.
Definitiof!.r q/language The Chinese have
cer
tai nly used more of their analytical skills on the analysis of
propriety than on that oflanguagc. The commonest definitions oflanguagc involve
communication:
Confucius said: �n andent book says that words serve to give adequate expression to thc (communicatiYC) will ()'tn i /.sl/ chih � !-':,UEiit); written style sep;es to give adequatc npres, Ail Vaf\!: OlUan, Duke H£i, 22+
2
For a elm!" lingui,tic study "fthis early tradition �e :;"'Ialmql'iu (L971).
, Li Chichi-chi'h, cd. Sun Hsi-Tan, Wll F}(: vol. I, p. '0.
L A N G L' A G E A N D L O G I C
sian to words. Hyou do not speak, who will understand your (communicatiye) will (chih ;E:)? Ifyourwords have no elegant style, they will not reach far.'1 Words ()"en -g) arc: the means by which one makes pl ain Uti ilWl) one's communicative intention (i �).� ·Words ()"tn) arc the means whcrc:by what lS of ouneh-es is communicated to others. Hearing is th e means whcrebywhat is of others is communicated to oneself.1 As for words (;-en), these are the means by which we dredge out our chests/minds and bring out (fa �) our true feelings (chhing '11j).1 Sentences (t::hl1 �) arc the means by which men make themselves understood to others (jim chi1l so I tzu thlmg)'fh Ak:.pfiJ;J.@jJffii±1).' Language is seen as a means of communication also within the individual per sonality in the following intriguing passage which is quite unique for the attention ,
it pays to imernal psychology and the role oflanguage :
The heart/mind (hJin !�,) is such that it hides a hean/mind (hrin). \Vithin the heart/mind (hsin) the-re is another heart/mind (lain). A .s Jar this heart/mind (h5m) of the heart/mind (h5in), thought/communicative intention (i) precedes speech (gen). Only when there lS artic ulated wund ()'ln15), does it (i.e., thought) take shape. Only when it takes shape is there spe-ech. Only when there is speech is there internal control (shih te). Only when there is internal control is there order. \Vhen one does not order things, there is bound to be chaos." .
The limitations qflanguage \\'ords are conceived as a m<:ans to an end. Ultimately, this end tended to be practi cal. 'Vhen the end is reached the means ccase to be important. The
traditionally
dominant conception is clearly stated in the opening phras<: ofrhe book r(1 1(n $� by Yang Hsiung
ma:
In study, practising (the thing lc:arnt) is the most important thing. Expressing it in words is secondary. ) In any case, we have a whole chapter of an an cient book on the theme:
\Vhen sage� make themselves understood to earh othfT, they do not rely on words.a FOT further discussion on this s ubject the reader is referred to the Section on logi cal and grammatical explicitness, ((",5). \Vords are not in themselves important symbols to the anci<:nt Chinese mind, as they certainly were to the ancient Indian mind. Theywere not r egarded in China as complete representations ofwhat they transmit. They CIre conventional tools only:' This is a point ofview shared by Confucians and the Taoists. L tio Chunn, Duke Hsiang, 25.7[U2, see Legge (I8i2), p. jli. For the Chinese id�als olsryle, s�� our Section (b.7).
, Iii Shih Chhun Chhiu 18+ cd. Chhen Ghhi-Yu, p. 1177; cf. 'Vilhdm (u)28), p. :;00. CI. also ibid. ,8.5, ed. Chhen Chhi-Yu, p. 1185; cf. '\'ilhelm (1928), p. 304. 1 HuaiA;:rn T :u, eh. 20, ed. I.iu 'Ven-·I·ien,p. 'lob. , SIIIlQ rUml, eh. 8, ed. Chao Shan-I, p. �IB. ' Shuo 1uan, ch. I I , eel. Ch"" Shall-I. p. 30] , [("an Tzu 49, ed. Tai Wang, \"01. 2, p. IOIf., cf. Kuo 1\10:10 eta!. (195i) (Ktwn Tzu Chi ChiaQ), p. 788. Fa len, ch. I, eel. \V""ldung-Pao, 1'. 3a. , L"Shih Chhun Chhiu ]8.3, �el. Chh�ll Chhi-Yu, 1'. 1107; d. R. Wilhdm (1928;.1'. �97.
c· Aho, Chincse poclry is justly famous for its ecollomy of diction and powers of suggestion rather than its comprehensiveness ofarticulalion or representation.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
I\ e
nd ch
49
Therefore when names are sufficient to point out (chih 1'§) realities and when sentences (tdw � arc sufficient \0 bring out what he is aiming at, the gentleman leaves oft: 1
Of course, there is a difference in style and in the extent to which humorous and pOelic sensitivity get iO(o the picture in some texts that have come to be regarded as Taoist:
�ron
With nets one captures fish. Once one has captured the fish, one forgets the net. With traps ont': captures hares. Once one has captured the hares, one forgets the trap. \Vith speech one captures communicative intention (i g). Once one ha� captured the communicative inten tion (i), one forgets the speech. How can I find someone who forgets about speech and speak to him?Z Consummate words dispense ,\�th word;;. Consummate action dispenses with
nd nd
The Chuang 'hu is in profound doubt whether words arc an altogether effective means of capturing/expressing meaning:
action.J
Saying is not blowing breath. Saying says something. The only trouble is that what it says is never quite fixed. Do we really say something? Or have we never said anything? Ifyou think it different from the twitter offledgelings, I;; there proof of the distinction?'
' "
g>-
'We have here a theoretical insistence on the indeterminacy inherent in the Chinese language. \\;ords arc not conceived as an eternally adequate representa tion ofreality, as they were by the writers of Sanskrit. For the Taoists \vords are only pointers to a reality which they do not truly reach." This perception of the nature of language is, I feel, endemic in Chinese literary culture, even when that culture was predominantly Confucian. It comes out in the absolutely crucial, and very popular, Chinese notion of lhe 'picture beyond the picture' in Chinese art, and of the 'intended meaning beyond the words (yen wai chih i-g;;'Zf:)' in poetry. Ifmy view of Chinese grammar is correct, this way of thinking may even have affected the character ofthe Chinese grammatical system. The Chuang 'hu revels in lhe insufficiencies of the written as against the spoken word, and in the insufficiencies of the spoken word as a vehkle for intended mean ing.6 That famous passage is not unique:
Sentences (tdlu�) arc only the oUl\vard manifestation of intended meaning(i �). It would be paradoxical if one were to concentrate on the outward form and neglect [he intended meaning (i). Therefore, the people of old, when they had got hold orthe intended meaning (1") discarded the word;; (;"tn 8"). When one listens to words, this is because one glimpses the intended meaning (i) by means ofthe word;;.7
Quile generally, language was regarded as secondary to action, a point of view by no means alien to the Greek tradition. The autonomous theoretical and I Hsiin 41< 22 .49, ,�� Dubs (19�8), p. 292. Cf. Shuo l'ti"an, ch. ! ! , ed. Chao Shan-I, p. 302. , Chuang 7i..u 26.48, .e� Warson (1964), p. 302. ' Chu�ng Tcu 22.84, see Wauon (1964), p.. 247. • Cllua'V. T �u 2.23, see Graham (1964), p. 52. , Could chis be the m i port ofthe $Ophist Hui Shih's�� enigmatic sa��ng 'pointing doe.� not reach ((kill pu ,lIih ml'�)', quoted in CJtuang T:;u 33.76? • cr. Vol. 2, p. 122, (."'uang UU 2.23, and Graham (Iglh), p. 52. , Iii Shi h Chlw.1I Chlr.iu (8'4. cd. ehh"n Chhi-Yu. p. 1179, cf. Wilhdm (lg2t1), p. 303.
50
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
non-pragmatic value of "vards counted only in so far a s they were connected to
action (luingfj), use (yung ffl). This is a recurrent theme. The disrespect for discourse as such is graphically expressed in the follmving saying attributed to Confucius:
The 1hstcr said: 'Thus when the \Vay prevails in the world action flourishes. \Vhcn the \Vay docs not prevail talking flourishes.'1
An alternative mew oflanguage It was a commonly held conviction that language had to conform to ancient norms,
and occasionally we find references to semi-divine origins of nomenclature, as of
most human inventions:
The Yellow Emperor assigned the correct designations to the various things (riling mmgpai
wu lEiS S:t%).2 The
Chhun Chhw Fan Lu {f:fk�U! is \videly regarded as an early Han document.
However, Goran Malmqvist has accumulaTed ev:idence which inclines him to
regard lhe book as a whole as a product of Six Dynasties times around the +6th cen
tury, although it does contain earlier material.3 \Vhatever its precise date, the
Chhun Chhiu Fan Lu provides an interesting account of names that deserves our attention4.
Its sacral view of names is worth studying, if only as providing a useful contrast to
what I see as the dominant tradition:
Names represent the intentions of Heaven as expressed by the sages (ming lsi shingjen soja
thim j � flIJ�A?Jr!£t-*]�l j
Even the Taoists could claim things like:
V'lords that are not in harmony with the former kings cannot be considered as the \Vay
(tao ill).I; Linguistic conventions and uari.etieJ In spite ofoccasional references to the Yellow Emperor as the originator of the right
use ofnames, the contrast to biblical ideas of a divinely sanctioned nomenclature of things, or to Indian ideas of an eternally right holy language is strik:ing. Hsi.in Tzu's
pra�rmat:ic v:iew oflanguage is so basically sensible that it almost strikes us as banal, because we have got so used to the idea oflinguistic conventions:
Names do not have an unchanging proper use. One designates by names because of con ventions. Only when the convc-ntion is fixed and a usage is established does one speak ofthe , U Chl, ed. s. COllvrcur, vol. 2, p. 507. ' Li Chi. �d. S. Couvreur. vol. 2, p. 269. , G. "·Ialmq\�st has unfortunately nOI yCI pubE,h"d h�, Iindin!l;S. • H,ii fu-Kuan (1975) (l.iang Han :;Sllhsiang shh i ) \"01. 2, p. 24" maintaim that the ChhUlI Chhiu Fml Lu takc:; the nam", back to the stage where theywere magical spells ofprimitiw '(}ci�ti�s. Cf. ...Iso Kuan Han-Heng (1981).
, Chhun Chhiu Fan Lu, "d. SPTK: lo.,h:.;.
' Huai..Van T::.u, eh. 20, cd. Liu Wen-Ti�n, p. 1Gb.
LA:'-I G U A G £ A N D L O G I C
'proper use' of a name . . . There is no fixed correspondence bet\veen names and realities.
Only when the convention is fi."I':ed and a usage is established does one speak of a (correct)
designation for a reality. l
Compare Aristotle: to de kata lj'nlhtken, !/Oti physei tan onomalan ouden estin, TO O€ Ko.TU OVVO�K1jV, on rpvaH nvv OI'Of.alTWv ovoiv eanv. '(Names have their meaning) by con vention, for none of the names are by nature.'l Hsi Khang rmtin (+223 to +262) echoed Hstin Tzu - and, I s upp ose Aristotle -when he said in his es�ay argui ng that music.: is beyond pleasure and grief: This is because the mind is not tied to what is said. Words are sometimes not sufficient for
bringing out (ching �) what is on one's mind. . . . Words are not things that arc narurally fL"I':cd once and for all (fu)·enJri I�u)an i lirlg chih wu �f:i:?-FI3?'�-;EZ:tm). III the Five Regions customs differ, and the same thing has different appellations (hao�).1
The conventions were rcco'l1ised to change with time: �
Ancient ordinann:s (or t{'rms, ming$) arc oftcll not comprehensible as modern speech. "
Conventions, of cour se,
can also differ in different parts of a country. The vari a tion ofthe languages/dialects spoken in China were recognised and commented on at an early stage: The peopk of the Five Regions:' spcak mutually incomprehensible languages, and their predilections are different. Thosc who act
as
translators and who intcrpret the desires
between these different groups are called (hi� in the east, hsiang � in the south, in the west, and i� in the nonh.6
1'1eng Tzu, too, environment:
noticed
lis/lih 1XP;;
(he way in which one's language depends on one's
IVfcng 'I�u said to Tai Pu-Sheng: 'Do you wish your kind to be good? I shall speak to you
plainly. Supposc a counsellor ofChbu wished his son to speak the language ofChhi. Would he ha\·e a mall from Chhi to tulOr his SOIL or WOlJld he have a man from Chhu?' \Vith one man from Chhi tutoring the boy and a host ofChhu men chattering around
him, e\·cn though
you caned the boy every day to make him speak Chhi/ you would not
succeed. Take him away to some district like Chuang and Yileh for a few years, thCi1 ew:n if you cane him every day lO make him speak Chhu, you will not wcceed. :'\ow, you haye
placed Hsueh Chil-Chou near the king because you think him a good man. If everyone around the king, old or young, high or low, was a HsOch Chii-Chou, then who would help
the king to do ed? But ifno one (clse) aroundthe king is a Hsuch Chu-Chou, then who will
help the king \0 do good? What differe:ilCf: can one: HsOth Cho-Chou makc to the King of
Sung?n
' & 1�ltr p"lal"'nt 16a�a . I Hflin T� n.2), sec W;U"'l1l (1963), p. ]H. , TaiMing·Yang(t96>1). p. 2 1 1 . , Ijj SMh CMun Chkiu 1;.8, cd. Chhen Chhi-Yu, p. 935; cC Wil),"'01 ('928), p . 230. ,. Ii Chi. ed. S. C<>UI"TCUr, ",I. J, p_ 296. .\ )lonh, i\(HHh, ea.'i, "'1'5\ ami eenlre. , For th.. \"<:rI,aj USI' of (J!ki 's�ak Chhi diall'rl·, romp31·c, <,.g., the Gernlan verb brriintT".
, ,limp, 7{usB6, SC� I.au ('98Se),p. '25.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Language is described as a matter ofconvention or habit (lid�) in a rather inter
esting piece of early psycholinguislic observation:
I'ow a madman may gnaw at himself, oblivious that his is not the flesh of an animal raised for food. He may e at dirt, unaware that it is not millet or rice. None the less, a madman of Chhu will speak the Chhu language, while a madman from Chhi wi l l speak the ehhi lan guage. That s i a mailer ofhabit. Now the effect of habit on man s i such that . . . It IS more adhesive than glue or lacquer. I Hsun Tzu summarises with his customary lapidary precision: Children from Kan, I, Yiich, or Mo all utter the same sounds at birth, but when they grow older, they develop differing customs. Instruction (chiao �) brings this about.2
During the Han dynasty, a whole dictionary of 'dialects' was compiled, the Fang Yen 15* by Yang Hsiung mtt (-53 to +18). In their cultivation of the art of de fin i
tion and in their lexicography, the Chinese have shown a most extraordinary atten
tion to semantic detail and documentation which is quite unparalleled by Western
dictionaries ofthe same period. Definition and lexicography in China deserve their separate Sub-sections, to which we shall turn below.
Cheng ming lEi;
From an anachronistically scientific point of view one may look upon this as a programme for terminological discipline, and in Confucian historiography such terminological discipline was indeed important. Confucius, like most other philo sophers in pre-Chhin China, was interested in language within the context of the political and social context of his time. Confucius has an unforgettably humorous remark about things not living up to cheir names:
A horn-gourd that is neither horn nor gourd! A pretty horn go urd indeed! A pretty horn -
gourd indeed!'
The ancient Chinese generally had a keen perception that categories set up by language (particularly moral and administrative categories) have an important function in organising and regulating public and private human behaviour.5 The use of this language is supposed to symbolise, and to induce, orthodoxy in thought and in behaviour. The setting up of such a code of speaking was caned
ching ming
, H�n SkiIr W"i Ch,la" {.26, ed. HSil Wei-Vii, p. 158; a. Highlower(1951), p. 15�. HSiin u.UI.3;.e� K6ster(1967),p.2. ' um :Yii13.3,s�eLau (198p),p. 121. • un 1ii6.25. I quole the ini!pin:d translation in Waley (1938), p. I �O. � By the way: the regulated official laoguage ofthe Communist Party in the G�rman Democratic Republic waspopularlyknown ali PanndUIUiUU.. I
53
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
'setting up ofright names, right use ofnames' . It is under this heading chtng mingthat
Hsiin Tzu discusses logic from a Confucian point of view, as we shall see in the Section on Hsiin Tzu's logic below. In ancient Chinese literature the predominant concern was not the relation between names and objects, but between names and behaviour, between what one
says and how one performs. The Confucians, with their theory of the right use of names (cMng ming) were particularly interested in such concepts of social roles as 'father', 'son', 'elder brother', 'younger brother', 'ruler', 'minister', 'husband', '\\,ife' etc., which embodied values and moral norms that were obligatory for those who filled these roles. A father should live up to the title of a father through paternal care, the son should live up to the title ofson through filial piety, the ruler should live up to the title ofa ruler through efficient government, and so forth. Words for social roles were interpreted as specifying standards or ideals of social behaviour. Understanding these words, then, constituted the understanding of the principles governing proper behaviour. Hence the Chinese fascination for the definition of moral lerms which we shall see in our Section on definition (h,4) below. A rather late anecdote will give an idea of some wider Confucian thoughts 011 the right use ofnames:
Confucius was sitting with one ofthe Chisun family. The Chisun's minister, Thung, said: 'Ifthe prince should send someone to borrow a horse, should it be gi,'en him?' Confucius said: 'J have heard that when a prince takes a thing from his subject, that is termed "taking". One does not speak of "borrowing".' The Chisun undemood and said to [he minister Thung: 'From now on when your prince takes a thing, call it taking. Do not speak of borrowing. Confucius used the expression 'borrowing a horse' correctly and as a result the proper relation between prince and subject was established. The LWI Yii says: ',,"Vhat is necessary is '
to usc names correctly .'1
I n its extended form represented in the above story i t represents an attempt at a Confucian
Sprat'hregelung,
a mandatory use of language, which in different trans
mutations has indeed remained extraordinarily influential in China to this day.
Hsing mingfflJ':& 'title andperformanct' Another variety of the social concern with language was the legalist theory of 'performance and title (hsing ming)': But whereas the Confucians were, in principle, traditionalists upholding the values inherent in linguistic tradition, the legalists saw in the normative use oflanguage an important lever ofpolitical control. Like their Confucian counterparts, they insisted on the binding character of titles
(ming .:&),
but the definitions were no more simply traditionaL They were to be formulated according to changing political needs. By defining the duties of all members of , Han Shill IVai Chilli" :i
Crecl (1974)),p· 1I611
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
54
sociely according to their titles the legalist ruler hoped to define and control social practice. What used to be, for (he Confucians, a traditional moral obligation imposed on the people by the moral connotation ofkey words involving social roles and social behaviour, became, at the hands of the legalists like Shell Pu-Hai Ef!/f�, a political obligation imposed by the ruler's duty-defining decrees accord ing to the changing exigencies of the time. I
(4)
T H E ART OF D E F INITION
There has been
much discussion on the alleged vagueness of the ancient Chin<.:se language. Indeed, it docs look as if the ancient Chinese di d not have a standard abstract \\Iord meaning 'definition'.2 Howevt"r, Hsun Tzu's term chill ming $Ui; 'management ofnames' may seem (0 com e close enough to our notion ofestablish ing networks of interrelated clarifications oflerms, Significantly, the ancient Chinese did h ave a standard way of referring to the making ofrdevant distinctions: pith tIlling i J.:tlraJ�, The Chinese tended to be inter estf'd in definitions not in a Socratic way and for their own sake as descriptions of th e eSSf'nce of things, and they were rardy interested in definition as an abstract art in th e Aristotelian manner.3 They were interested in clarifications of the meanings of terms in their literary contexts and as instrumental in control li ng the physi cal and social environment. The Chinese were marc concerned to find useful distinc tions than to find ingenious definitions, 1 They commonly took a great interest in the clarification of the meanings oflerms through examples and illustration. The extent to which SLlch attempted clarifications amoLlnt to formal definitions, on the other hand, is often in doubt. Hsiln Tzu takes up the matter ofcreating a terminology for systematic analysis and asks three questions: IftodilY lherc weft' trut': rulers, they would in some case� Slick to the old names but would in other cases create nc\.; one�. Tn this olle must be careful to inVC'sligate the following , ror a d..tailed discU5Sioli ofShen Pu-Hai alld hsing minKS"'! Cred (19H.). . . Comp"rc, however, Ihe notoriously lil-understood word hll I �" for �xample in the IlJiin T �M. The pr,.,ci.., force ofIbis remaim 10 h" investigal('d. , CI. Graham ('9116a), p. 3i8: 'Thl" d�61lilions of Chin�;� philosophy ,uc theretor!" wlLccivcd as presl"nting, not whal is essential lu bdng X, hut what is indisp..n,,,iJk to beinll; l'alled "X" . In ..ithcr case. l1()wl""..r, thcrc is thc >arne ('xdusiun ofthe ac('itieuuo.l: A little episode from the Ming T �u "ill il!u.tfllle OUT puilll: King H�uan orChhi askedaboutministers. }'fcngTlU ad,..d: " \'hich kind ofministers an: you asking about?' 'Are there dirr�r�1l1 kinds ofministcrs (.hltingpu Ihung hu �T-li'iP¥Y 'Yes, ther.. ar" minist..rs ofroyal blood and th",e offamih..s 011",1' lhan the royal bouse: 'What about miuisters ormy..l blood?' 'If the rul"r made serimu mi..takes they,hould rcmons{rat� with him. But ifrepeated remont: dismissed.' Th� King looked appalled, 'Y(Jur �Iajesty ,hould 110t be surpri",d by my an5w�r. Since �'Qu a.ked me, I dared not answer "'ith any
thin� but the truth (pu kan ipu cnrng lui1'i{!I:./..;.tT-lEii). As soon as the King had calmed down did h.. ask about the mil1ist�Ts from dill'erent dam. '\Vh"l1 th� ruler makes mi�take, they should r�mOn!tral". Iflhey rcmonslrat� repeatedly without listened to th�y should resign.' (i.thtg �u j89; Lau (lg83c), p. 219).
l...ing
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
)n es .,
d-
1-
,. r ,f "
:e
"
or
55
qm:stions: \Vhy an: names necessary? How do we distinguish 'the same' from 'different'? What is the most important thing in the management ofnames (dlih ming)?l The most important thing in the management of names, for Hsiin Tzu, is simply that (relevantly) similar things be called by the same name, and that (relevantly) dissimilar/different things be called by different names.:! As far as Hstin Tzu is concerned, one can manage namcs X and ras long as one can distinguish between Xand r.J Our question is whethcr or not the Chinese were able to ask for definitions and conceptual clarifications when these were needed, and whether they were able to provide such definitions when appropriate. We note first that the art ofdefinition is by no means limited to the so-called liter i ed ary texts. The newly discovered legal texts from the -3rd century make sustan and extensive use of legal definitions of terms as well as phrases rdevant to their precise legal code. Moreover, their definitions were plainly stipulative in the sense tllat they did not purport to describe how a term generally tends to be used, but rather how it is henceforth to be interpretcd in a well-defined context oflega! dis course. They prove beyond doubt that at the lower end of literacy widespread use was made ofrithy legal definitions designed to facilitate the application ofthe law. The art ofdefinition is not a privilege ofthe literary elite. Often, such legal definitions explained ordinary expressions through technical legal terms: What does 'neighbourhood' (ssu lin [gm) mean? 'Ndghbourhood' means the members ofone's mutual responsibility group (wujin iliA)." Or again) they might explain a legal technical term in concrete terms:
d g •
When a son accllses his father or mother, or when a male or female slave accuse their mas ter, this is not a matter for the public coun. One should not take up the case. What does 'not a matter for the public court' mean? When the ruling person on his own authority kills, amputates or brands his children, male or female slaves, this is called 'not a matter for the public court' ilnd should not be taken up as a legal case.} The case ofthe legal definitions is particularly important because these belong to the non-literaryworld ofpublic administration and thus show that at this basic level of everyday life definition played a crucial and pervasive part in Chinese culture. And even when technical terms were not explicitJy defined, they were used, in the legal texts, with impressive consistency. This suggcsts that the technical precision ofMohist vocabulary, far from being marginal in ancient Chinese life, was part of everyday administrative practice.
J ,
, H,iin 'Tz.u 22.12, 'ee K(jsteT (1967), p. �89. " Hsli'n T.:u 22.2Iff., 5ee Kibter (1967), p. 1190. , For a more detailed lreatment ofH.�un Tw's logical lhoughl !lee below Section on 'Explicit logic'. Mil Chit Chin! !I�:!t!l�1iWrIfi, p. 194; Hulscw� (1985) 08\!. • Shu flll n > Shlti HII n Cllhill MII Chll ChWr., p. 196, Hulse".,; (1985) oR6f. cr. abo 087-9, and 0[66-90 for an extendc
i
CAJrill
LAKGUAGE AND L O G I C
Turning now to more literary evidence, the ancient Chinese philological com mentaries from the -3rd century onwards are rich sources ofdefinitions ofterms. In many cases whole sets of related terms are defined. 1 The commentators also pro vide paraphrases of knotty passages and sentences. As far as the art of systematic glossography goes, China must be said to possess one oftht richest traditions in the world. But let us look more closely at the art of definition in the earliest literature. First, a typical conceptual clarification from the military sphere: I have heard it said that mil itary action within the state is called internal strife (lllan �L). Military action from the outside is called an incurs ion (khou )8L)J It turns out that we can trace the art of definition of moral terms back to Confucius himself, but I shall start with an example probably wrongly attributed to him in the book Chuang Tzu. �ow me to askwhat you mean by "benevolence" (jill t) and " duty" (i �).' Confucius said: 'To delight rrom your innermost heart in loving everyone impartially, these are the essentials (chhing"t;i) ofbenevolence and duty. 'J
Confucians were naturally interested in the definition of moral terms: To give ofone's wealth to others is called 'generosity' (hZlj�. To teach others benevolence is called 'conscientiousness' (chung !�-). To find lhe right man for the empire is called 'bene volence' (jin).'
There was also a distinct imerest in the concept of'man': What is it that makes man into man? It is the fact that he makes distinctions (pien f:If:) . . That by means of .... ..h ich man is man is notjuSt that he has two feet and no proper fur. It is because he has the capacity to sel up distinctions. The hsinghsing ��+ape, as far as its phys ical shape is concerned, also has [\'10 legs and no hair (on its face), but the gentleman will drink his soup and cat his meat. Therefore that by means of which man is man is notjust that he has two feet and no hair (on his face). It is because he has the capacity to make distinctions.; how carefully Hsiln Tzu ensures that his definition distinguishes between the most closely similar cases: man and ape. They are physically alike, but intellec tually different. Hsun Tzu's attitude to definition at this point strikes us as a very 'scientific' one.(i Wang Chhung defines the concept of man in terms that remind us of the tradi tional 'Western use ofgenus and differentia: Note
, i\Ially gloss,," ace a},o found in the llon-commclI1arial lilcraluce. Charact..ri,tically, such earlyglossc. w�r� oftcn by words with similar �ounds, a. Wang Li (1981). p. I, poillls OUI. Tso Chutm, DukeWen i, cd. Yang Po-Ch(ln, p. j6:�: cf. S. COU\Tcur(195Ib), ,..,1. I, p. {86_ • M � TOI3Af, see Lau (1983C),P. 107. C"�0"l: T!� '3.{9,sec Graham (1981), p. ,28. ) HJiin T!� 5_2{, !;CC Dubs ('928), p. 71. Cr. Read (1976), no. {"2, for a description ofthe hsingluinga�. � fOr funh�r examplcs of definitions of man sec Ihe Sult-�tion on ancicnt Chincse commems on the Chinese language. >
•
LAKGUAGE A :-J D L O G I C
57
Among the ;1Go naked (unfurry) animals man ranks first. :Man is a creature (wu�). Among the ten thousand creatures he is lhe most intelligent one. 1
The standard request for a definition of X is of the form ho wei fCJ� X 'what is called X?' This formula is the standard in legal texts. Mcneius, when challenged on the meaning ofbenevolence and lrustworthiness, comes up with a strikingly elegant and coherent answer: '\VIIat does one call "good", and what d�s one call "trustworthy"?' 'That which one ought to desire is called " good", and hllVing it within onesc1fis called being "truslworthy".'i
Both definitions de verbo and de recan coexist in the same passage: Tzu Chang asked: '\Vha! must a gentleman be like before he can be- said to have won through?' The 1'faster asked: '\-Vhat do you mean by winning through?' Tzu Chang replied: '\-Vhat I have in mind is a man who is sure to be known whether he Sf'rves in a state or in a noble family.' The �1a�ter said: ' . . . The term "winning through" describes a man who is straight by nature and fond of what is right, sensitive to other people's words and observant of the expression on their faces, and always mindful of being modest Such a man is bound to win through whether he serves in a state or ill a noble family. On the other hand, the term " having a reputation-, describes a man who has no misgivings about his own claim to bene i belied by his volence when all he is doing is putting up a fa�ade of bene\'olcnce which s deeds. Such a man is sure to be known, whether he serves in a state or in a noble family.'l
Very commonly, in China as elsn....here, definition is by examples: ',"Vhat does one call ''from Hea\'cn"? \,Vhat does one call " from man"?' That oxen and horses have four feel, this is called "from Heaven". Haltering horses' heads and piercing oxen's noses, this is called "from man'·.'�
The Chinese were more interested in the question how a thing should be described than in the question how a term should be defined. consider right as right and \vrong as wrong is called 'knowledge'. To consider right as wrong and wrong as right is called 'stupidity'. To call right 'right' and wrong 'wrong' is called 'being straight/ correct'.� To
Clearly, the extent to which various Chinese authors have wished to, or needed to, define their terms has varied. With the flourishing of competing systems of thought during the Warring States period the need for definitions increased. The chapter on Explaining Lao Tzu (Chich Lao IW�) in the book Han Fci Tzu .?FT pro vides some.: ofthe finest examples ofthe art ofdefinition in ancient C hina. I 11.111 Ht"1Ig, ch. -1-3, p. '39�, 5tC Forke ('9' ,) , \"01. 1, p. j11t ' Ming T.:u 7B�5, (T. Lau (1983C). p. �97. llj. (VGhuang 7(.u " ..'il, see Graham (,g8,), p. 149. , lIsiin T�U 2.12, S<:� Kilster(lg67), p. 13.
, um ni 12.20, se" Lau (1983a), p.
j'
58
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
" rhe ·Way' is that wherein all things are so (jan r. .8), what all principles ofthings observe, l 'The principle' is the pattern which makes things what they are.l 'Humaneness' (jrn t) refers to loving others dearly from lhe bottom of Olle's heart, to rejoice in other people's good fortune and to dislike otherpeople's misfortune. and LO do all these things undelibcratdy without being able to StOp oncsell� without seeking a reward for it.' 'Duties' (i fI) are the service of minister to Tuler, of inferior to superior, lhe distinction bet\veen father and son, Hoble and mean, the interactions between acquaintances and friends, the differentiation between dose and distant relatin:s, between those inside and outside the clan. That the servant should serve the ruler is fitting. That the inrerior should cherish his superior is fitting. That a son should serve his father is fi tting That a lowly person should honour a nobleman is fitting. ThaI acquaintances and friends should help each orner is fitting. ThaI relatives are counted as insiders and nOIl-relatiYes as outsiders is fining. 'Duty' (i) refers to the fittingness (i.'§.) of th!!"sc thillgs.� 'Ritual' (lilft) is that by which one gh-es external expressioli lO one's real internal fedings. " It is the external embellishml':nt of all the duties . .
The Confucian theory of lhe proper usc of names w as closely associated with
definition. Hson Tzu's chapter on the subject opens with an interesti ng sequence of definitions, which even pay careful attention to the fan that many terms have more
than one usage:
These arc the common names that apply to man. That which is as it is from the time ofbirth is called man's 'nature'. That which is harmonious from birth, which is capable ofperceiv ing through the senses and of responding to stimulus spontaneously and withom effort is also called 'nature'. The likes and dislikes, delights and angers, griers andjoys of nature are called 'emotions'. \t\'hen the emotions are aroused and the mind makes a choice from among them, this is called 'thought'. When the mind conceives �omething, and thought and the body put it into action, this is called 'consciou� activity'. \Vhen the thoughts have accu mulated sufficicmly, rhe body is wdl trained and the action is carried to completion, this is also called 'conscious aclivity'. "Vhen one acts from considerations of profit, it is called 'business'. When one acts rrom considerations of duty, it is called 'conduct'. The means of know ing within man is called 'intelligence'. His n i te llige nce tallying with something is called 'knowing'. The means ofbe-ing able within man is called 'ability'. His ability tallying with 1 something is called 'being able'. Injuries to one's nature are called 'sickness'. Unexpected occurrences with which one meets are called 'fate'. These arc the common names that apply to man, the names that have been fixed by the kings oflater times." Even the Taoist book
Chuang T{u contains a series ofterminological clarifications
which show a probing concern with the clarification ofthe meanings ofimerrelated terms.
The 'vVay' s i the layout of the Power. 'Life' is lhe radiance of the Power. The 'nature' of something is its resources for liying. \'\'hat is prompted by its nature is called 'doing'. A doing L Han Ft" �II �O.'l7.1, s�� Liao {1939}, vol. I, p. 191. ' Ibid. 20.27.'h sec Liao (19:19), voL I, p. 191. ' lhid_ 2Q.4.1, see Liao (1939), vol. 1,p. IiI. , Ibid. 20.3.1, 5«Liao (1939), ml. I,p. 171. • HJiin nIl224,�" Wa{son (1963), p. 139r. ! Ibid. 20.5.1, $eC I.iao (1939), \ul. 1, p. 172.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
,
o
,
,
J J d
, , , ,
,.
r e
h
,
<
59
which is contTin:d i � a 'misdoing' . To 'know' is to be in touch with something. 'Knowledge' is a repJ'(:scntation ofit. As for what knowledge does not know, it is as ifwe are peering in one direction.
That which promptli on the course which is inevitable is what is meant by 'Power'. The
prompting being from nowhere but o neselfis what is meant by 'ordered'. I
For the: scientifically-minded authors ofthe Mohist dialectical chapters, the an of
definition came to occupy a central place in their methodology.� A.
C.
Graham has
argued that the i tems Al to A87 from the ]vlohist canons constitute what aspires to be a �$(em of defini tions.
Even the principles of application of the system are carefully
defined in ways that remind one ofmodern technical definitions in logic:
The 'standard' (fa $) is that in being like which something is so.� The 'criterion' (yin IZSI) is that wherein il is so.' A number ofconcepts are defined in terms ofa few basic ones like those ofbenefit (Ii flJ) and ham (liai i!i).
'Benefit' is what one is pleased to get.'; 'Harm' is what one dislikes getting.6 'Loyalty' is to be t"nergc'tic in sustaining bendkiaL7
responsibility
when olle deems
something
'Filial piety' is benefiting one's parems.� 'Achievement' is benefiting the peopl c.�
'Desire' and 'dislike' are defined in terms ofbenefit and harm:
n
'To desire' is directly weighing the benefits. ''10 dislike' is directly weighing the harm.'O
-
In lhe comext of Chinese science it is particularly imeresling to note the way in
J
, d
d b d .1 ,
J ,r g
which the Mohists used interlocking formal definitions for the coherent clarifica tion ofconcepts like that of a circle.
'The same in length' is exhausting each other when laid straight. I ) i es to the circumference) are the same in 'The c,entre ' is the place from which (straight ln lcngth . ) � 'Circular' is having the same lengths from a single centre.ll definitions are exasperatingly short, and they do not constitute dis cursive explications of the terms they are concerned w ith. They read like cues for memory, but they do have a rigid formalised syntax and are by no means just strings of key words. One of the reasons for their economy of lerms is that the definitions were designed to minimise the use of undefined terms. Thus the fewer terms the Mohists used in their definitions the neater these definitions would fit into the pat tern of ilHeriocking definitions where all defining terms were in turn defined in the Many of the
system. <.11 �:no, se�Graham(1981). p. 190. , OU«l1lg '1'
' ._ •
Ibid., "'35.
' Graham ('978), pp. 261-336. . � _ · � ML · . _ . •_ . •• 11 Ibid.. A53. 10 ibid., ,,84. " Ibid., "58. ,t Ibid., "')4.
60
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
The system of Mahist definitions as we have it today does not realise these high ambitions in a satisfactory way. But the Mohist canons arc full of conceptual analyses and explications that sho\\' a very inquisitive allitude towards the problem of the systematic clarification of meanings of words and expressions in the context of a formal description of reality. Whi l e it is true that the school ofNlohist logicians declined, and that with it the art ofMohis[ definition disappeared, it is only proper to point to the lexicographical tradition as the context in which the arts of definition and clarification of meaning have flourished throughout the centuries. Here is a quotation \vhich - were it not for the Chinese transcriptions - one might think was taken straight out ofAristotle. Indeed, for all we know, this definition may indeed have been produced during Aristotle's life-time, ahhough we have no way ofbeing sure. Bipeds with fcathers are called {Min 11; 'birds'. Four-footed creatures with fur arc called slwu
I\: 'beasts'. I
The important poim here is that a non-furry tetrapod, or a non-four-footed furry animal would not count as shOll. The art of definition in Chinese dictionaries will be the subject of our next sec tion. BUl before we leave the history of definition in ancient China, we must turn to a unique system of Confucian definitions.
A glossary iftthica/ term.r by Chia [Will \Vithin the human and social sphere, lhe Confucians developed a distinct interest in definitions, especially definitions afmoral terms. By far the most impressive system of such definitions that has come down to us is that by Chia I (-200 to -168). Curiously, it has never been translated into any European language, and it is not even mentioned in the standard histOries of Chinese philosophy. Here is a first par tial translation ofthis central document in the history of the art of definition and of ethical theory in ancient China. He (King Huai ofLiang(?)) said: '} have often heard thr. term "the \Vay" (tao lH), but t still
do not know the reality (that corresponds to) the Way (tao). May I ask what "t he Way"
(taQ)
refers to?' Chia P replied: 'The "Vay is that which we use as a guideline to deal with things. ' Its root is called emptiness (hsu llSt), and its branches arc called artS (shu frij). .
'May 1 ask about the constituents (lhi.) ofmoral appraisal?' Chia I replied: 'I? The parents loving and benefiting the son is called kind-heartcdness (0111 :� ). The opposite ofkind-hearted ness is heartlessness ()�'1I II) 2. The son loving and benefiting his parents is called filial piety (hsiao oJ:). The opposite of filial piety is impie ty (nieh �). E," 1i1, ed. SPTK, ').1')b.
The way or calling Chia I Ra:D: 'i\·1r Chia (Chill ,hUll .!/:t)' i� wonh noting, .incc it may h� .ignificaUl for \h� dating ofthe chapter. cr. Hsi" S�U 7.1, �d. Chhi Vii-Chang, p. 919f., wher� Chia I .cern! to us� th" tUT!\ to refer 10 himself. 1 The numbcring orthe d�finitio", ;" added by th" translator. I
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
6. ,.
8. 9· 10.
16. '7·
lB.
40. 47-
50.
Loving and the benefiting coming from within is called loyalty (chung *.). The opposite ofloyalty is disobedience (pei ffi). The hean being aware and in sympathy with other people is called generosity ofheart (Iwi ]g). The opposite ofgenerosity ofheart is called hostility (chho1l �). The elder brother respecting and loving the younger brother is called brotherly '0( affection lru OJ. The opposite ofbrotherly affection is cruelty (nuth ®. The younger brother resp<,cting and loving his elder brother is called brotherly piety (thit.#;). The opposite ofbrotherly love is nonchalance (00 ;1&). Tn one's contacts with othen to be careful about appearances is called respectfulne.ss (kung �). The opposite ofrespectfulness is rudeness (hsirh�. In one's COlllacts with others to be �erious and correct is called reverence (ching t,[,c). The opposite ofreverrnce is irreverence (man �). In words and actions to be consi�tcnt is called moral firmness (chin tl). The opposite of moral firmness is moral duplicity (wei �). One's promises being effective and one's words correct, that is called trusl'\vonhiness.l' (h.rill lEf). The opposit(" oftrustworthineRs is unrdiability (man -tt) . Caring for all and showing no partiality is called impartiality (kung 0;). Thr. opposite of fairness is partiality (HU :fJ,.). '10 be straightforward and unwarpcd is called correctness (ching lE). The opposite of correctness is crookedness (hsieh $). Seeing onesdfwith other people's eyes is called proper judgement (Iu fi). The oppo· sile ofproperjudgement is biasedjudgement (wolIg �. Judging others by comparison \'lith onesdfis called fairness ofjudgement (shu �). The opposite offairness ofjudgement is arbitrariness ofjudgement (huang Jrt). In one's actions to be in accordance with principle is callr.d moral charisma (lire). The opposite ofmoral charisma is moral vindictiveness (yuan 1@,). To gi\'c rein to principle and be pure and calm is called proper comportment (hsingfi). The opposite ofpraper comporunent is improper comportment (wu 75). In one's heart to lo\'c all men 'properly is called benevolence (.lin C). The opposite of '..... benevolence is cruelty (len�.). In one's actions to do the completely fining thing is dutifulness (i �). The opposite of dutifulness is brutishness (mhlgit). To be deeply aware ofdisaSler and good fonune is called wisdom (chih :XO). The oppo site ofwisdom is stupidity (J'II rs). To notice things swiftly and to investigate them profoundly is called intelligence (hui Il). The opposite of intelligence is childishness (thungiif:). In sorting things to be dear and discriminate is called discrimination (pun m). The opposite of discrimination is indiscriminate talkativeness (na ID'i). To understand all subtle matters is called sharpness ofmind ({hha �). The opposite of sharpness of mind is obfuscation ofmind (mao Dt). To move with conviction and be awe-inspiring is called moral authority (wti iX). The opposite or moral authority is moral disori("ntation (flUl! IE). To govern and control a people so that they do nOl go against one's regulations, that is called strictness (J'Cn M:). The opposite ofsrriemess is la:xiry Uuan t)0.'
, In ;Itt, there arc sG su("h pairs of di:fini!ion�. These definitions in"ile comparison with thoS<" in Aristotle's Niromaduail F.lllies andEut/rm;an £thies. Aristotle treatsfewer terms but ismuchmore anal}'tical in his approach to tho� terms he d�s trcaL
62
LANG CAGE AND L O G I C
All these '1ualities belong to the range of what is good. They arc what is called thl: ''\·'ay (tao ttl). Th\l� he who keeps to the ,",v'ay is called a knight (shih ±). Ht"' who rrjoices in the Way is called a gentleman (dtiin U.II :r-t-=t-). He who knows the Way is called enlightened (ming 1113). He who practises thl: Way is called talented (hsim �). He who is both talentr.d and enlightened is called a sage (shlngjr'n �A)."
This did nO[ remain the last long list of philosophiraI definitions. Chhen Chhull �Jfn:J;f (+1159 to +12�3), a di sciple of the famous �eo·Confucian philosopher Chu Hsi *� (+1130 to +1200) CVl'"ll wrotc what amounts to a Dictionary ofPhilosophi· cal Terms known as the Pei }lsi Tzu IjU���.l Chhen Chhun frequently distin guishes between different meanings of a given philosophical term and goes into consi derable detail about eilch of the terms he discusses . His dhlionnaire phl1osophique provides as clear a proof as one could hope for that Nco-Confucians were inten:sled n i conceptual questions and definiti ons. They were certainly not just wallowing in edifying but undefllled and ultim ately indefinable generalities. There was a gen uine concer n for the clarification of concepts, although the pu rsuit of this clari fication was not often cond ucted in the sort of systematic critical spirit cultivated in Greece in the tradition ofSocratf's. As Yo ::vlin has reminded me, it is worth reflecting that there was a strong Buddhist influence on many ofthe founders ofNeo-Confucianism, which may have affected the intellectual habits of conceptual clarification. Often, Chhen Chh un starts out with a traditional gloss, but then goes on to ask penetrating questions: :\aturc (hsil/g tt) is nothing other than principle (li�.). BUI \\'hy in thal case do we call it 'Mit/g' and not 'Ii"?� Passion (chhil/g ,t�j') and nature (hsil/g) make up a conceptual pai r. Pa�sioll (rhhil/g) is the movement of nature (h-flllg). f In all, 4-3 terms are given careful contrastive and systematic conceptual attention, of the kind that Plato \\Iould have respected, and that Aristotle tried to provide, for
corresponding Greek concepts. The existence of this book, and the high resp ect it enjoyed in the Neo-Confucian tradition refutes Ol1(:e and for all the i dea that Con fucian thinking was merely 'picturesque' and did not aim for conceptual clarity. \Ne may find that the concep tual darity actually achieved was insufficient, but, as observers of Creek ph ilosophy, we will most certainly want to say the same about Aristotle and Plato, as recent philosophical re search 011 these philosophers has shown at many point�.5 , Chia. !, Hsl" Shu, eh. U. �rl. Chhi Y(i-Ch�ll1g, 1'.
919. �d. srr!t: 2..1,bJJ:
i 19M3. TheTC i$ also a recent tra!\$' , Aus..ful n�w ediri"n ofthis work ""�5 publi5lu:d by Cilung-hu..·.hu·ehii n
lation of the book by \\'lng-·J'it Chall (191\6). J Chh(·n Chhun, lhi T. <.u I, p. o. , Chhen Chhun. Pti H�i "klt I. p. 14. FOT another instane... ofa COllc('pm..J p..ir (1IIi f:t) S� ibid., p. .:t8. , S�" ,ht \"olum�< ofth� Clar�ndon Ari!!Olk Seri .., edit",d by.J. L. Ackrill at the Clarendou Pr��, Oxford, for m('morabl� pic(('$ oflht �"rt ofphilologital ..nalrsi$ ofancient (�xt.S (h�t ha\� .'C("\·t!d as a modd t(lr my work on
Chin�5c lnnSu�I;�.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C Quota/ion marks In many of the above translations we have seen a proliferation of quotation marh. In ancient China there was no typographical or epigraphic device equivalent to the modern Western quotation marks. Moreover, the question marks in the passage just quoted, and in many others, are not made explicit in the original. Ont' might there fore be tempted to think that the ancient Chinese did not have any linguistic devices to indicate the nuances expressed by quotation marks in English. Consider the following spoken sentences: A. Poverty is a commonphenomenon. B. Poverty i.� a common word. C. Povtrty is a subtle COllUpt. i rtally only in the mind. D. Povtrty s In written English we tend to mark offlhe uses of the word 'poverty' in B, C and D with quotation marks. There are no such devices in ancient Greek or ancient Chinese. From a logical point ofview, the important point is not whether ancient Chinese (or Greek) inscriptions use quotation marks, but whether the ancient Chinese (or the Greeks) did or did not devise a method or convention which enabled them to make explicit the distinctions we indicate by quotation marks (some of which are covered by the Sanskrit iii). The idiom suo wei X ehe Fff"liW . . . :tf 'the so-called X' gets dose to the nuanee� B and C which we express with quotation marks. Another device the Chinese have used increasingly, from the time of Confucius onwards, is the combination of the particles)'fh chit.!!:tr after the word or phrase to be marked out. Thi� usage had the obvious disadvantage thaI while the end of the quotation marks was very clear indeed, the beginning was by no means physically obvious in all instances. The result was that the Chine�e have sho\\'11 a strong predilection for placing the words that they put into quotation marks at the beginning of their sentences. HowevCl; it turns out in practice, that even when a phrase X)'eh che occurs in the middle of thl': sentence, it is usually quite easy to ascertain where the 'quotation marks' are meant to begin. The case is difi"erelll with the quotation marks for direct speech, indicated by the word)'ueh S, which is often translated as 'to say'. Actually, the syntactic behaviour of this word)'iith is so restricted that it is orten belter understood as an initial quota tion mark or a colon. The word is rarely preceded by a negative or followed byany thing other than direct speech or items of a list. In any case, however 01le decides to interpretyiieh it will sometimes remain uncertain where the direct speech that fol lowsyiith ends. Thus while)'eh chi fails to mark the beginning of the phrase put into quotation marks,yiieh fails to mark the end, except in the occa�ional cases whereyiill :Zi: 'to say' is used to mark lhe end of a quotation which begins \vithyiieh. As we have secn above, the practice of marking off a term to be defined byyeh chi was already current in the time of Confucius. In the Kuo ru ��, a historical text,
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
i o nly a sprinkling o f three examples, where quotations from the Book oJSongs there s are marked offwith)'rh chi and tWO cases where the concept of a ruler is discussed in a way that invites us to use quotation marks even in English, although there is no distinction between use and mention involved.
(h is useful to keep in mind that in
English, tOO, the use of quotation marks is not limited to the marking of the men tioning versus the use of a term.)
The irreverent philosopher Chuang Tzu is fond ofthe usc ofthe Chinese equiva
lent of the quotation marks for subtle literary purposes (I count over
A.
C. Graham (198r) consistently renders the formula
by
20 instances).
quotation marks in
English, a new practice which does scem to improve our understanding ofthe stylis tic subtlcties in the passages involved.
'Knowledge' (J'eh chi) is a tool in competition. 1 The subtle point here is that Chuang Tzu does not really believe that what people
call 'knowledge' in fact is knowledge. He manages to indicate: this by a device which is remarkably like our non-standard usc of quotation marks, the particles)'eh chi. In the more theoretically orientated
Hsiin Tzu, the combination )'eh eM becomes
quite common (1 count over 30 instances). When Hsiln Tzu introduces a concept as such) he commonly puts it into 'quotation marks' to draw attention to the fact that he is referring not to a thing which instances the concept but either to the form of words (mention versus use) or to a concept as such.
In the Kungsun Lung Tzu 0f,fUtR.:r, an example ofa bo ok oflo gic, we find that the
particle chi=g by itse1fis used where we should expect quotation marks &;tinguish ingthe mentioning ofa term from the use of it:
'Horse' (rna chi ,��) is tha t by which we name the shape. 'White' (pai chi EI�) s i that by which we name the colour.1 Without the chithis logical observation would be much less transparent. After all, horses are not the sorts ofthings which we use to designate shapes. Kungsun Lung is
concerned to make it plain that he is talking about the word ma m 'horse'. It is cru cial to his argument that he is mentioning the word 1110 'horse' and not using it. The
use of chi alone where we would use quotation marks remained common in ancient Chinese philosophical literature. The problem is that there are so many other func tions ofthe particle chi on its own. At other times, when making paradoxes, the Chinese sophists cheerfully exploit the non-transparent use: of words to designate: not their meanings but the:msc1ves, as
in the famous paradox:
Shan chhu kholl W I±I Cl MOU::-:TAIN COMF.-OUT-F}l.OM :\'OUTH ':'vlountain' comes out of the
mouth.'
I
(')U4Qng T<.� 4.6. �e Graham (1981). p. 67.
, }{"ngsun Lung T(u, ch_ 2, b_
, ChU07lg u.u 33.75, "'� Graham (1981), p. 284.
LA:>lGUAGE A;.fO L O G I C
Compare Aristotle's comment: , )
AnthrQPQs gar /wi lLukon linipragma kni QI1Qma uh"n .
av8gw1To!O 'lag K(l.l A�IJKOI' Kat "lTgnYlLa Kal Ol'0fLa i(1"ttl'. 'for anthropos(man) is something white, a thing, and a name'. I
Kungsun Lung and Aristotle seem to have been struck by the same logical fea Nre, which we make explicit through quotation marks, but characteristically Kungsun Lung exploits his obSClVation to make a vcry shan paradox w-hich is easily misunderstood and is indeed deliberately provocative. At least by Han times, the formula )'eh chi had apparently entered everyday speech. if the following dialogut' is anything to go by: Prince Chien went out on a tour ofChheng-fu and encountered Duke Kan ofChheng in a (hemp)fidd. 'What's this?' asked the Prince. 'It's a (hemp)fidd.' 'What's a "(hemp)field" ()"th chl)?' " "hat you gro\" hemp in.' 'What's "hemp" {J-th chi}? ' " ''hat you make clothes from.'J
The first question is about a thing) it is dt rt: 'What is this?' The second and third questions are not about this thing any more, they are about the Chinese words (de verbis) for '(hemp)field' and 'hemp', which the Prince apparently does not under stand, and which are then defined for him. The Chinese construction ),th chi here can be naturally translated into quotation marks. But the question whether we have 'use' or 'mention' is a debatable one. (.5) DICTIONARIES IN TRADITIONAL CHINA One way ofreacting to and commenting on one's own language is by writing a dic tionary of it. A civilisation's awareness of its own language may be conveniently observed in the dictionaries it produces. Lexicography proper in China is historically and essentially linked to the tradi tion of writing commentaries or glosses on old texts. Such glosses could be of three kinds: those concerned with meaning, those concerned with the shape of the characters, and those concerned with the pronunciation of the characters. Correspondingly, we find in China three kinds of dictionary. The semantic dic tionary, of which the £rh ra m ii£ (c. -2nd century) is the illustrious precursor, the pictographic-cum-semantic dictionary of which the Shuo Win Chith 7{.u "WG:>cm.:r (postface +100, presented to the throne in +121) is the great model, and the prim arily folk-erymological or phonetic dictionary of which the Shih Ming :f$ � (+2nd century) is the distinguished earliest example. There \,",ere other types of diction aries, like the fascinating DictionaryofLocal Languages (Fang Yen 11-ft -1st century) but these fall into a class by themselves.
66
LA�GUAGE AND L O G I C
One kind of dictionary is conspicuous indeed through its rarity: the dictionary of foreign languages. The Chinese had two things in common with the Greeks: t J they wefe fascinated by their dialects; :2. they did not seriously respect foreign languages as interesting in their own right. In this �ection we shall look at the historical development of Chinese dictionaries from late Chou times down to the period when the "Vestern impact made ilSelffcit in Chinese lexicography. We shall pay special attention to the semantic aspects of lexicography, the way the Chinese solved the complex problems of the description ofmeaning. FukudaJonosuke (19i9) and Liu Ych-Chhiu (1983), as well as the beau tifully detailed Chhien Chicn-Fu (1986) arc the main handbooks I have used in this briefsurvey on a subject which deserves a monograph in its own right.l
Pre-In:rlory iflexicograph),: the characterpnmerJ The modern Chinese word t.;:u-tien::f:W is of fairly recent origin, deriving as it does from the authoritative status ofthe Khang Hsi Tzu Tien !lft�*� (1716). The earliest Chinese bibliography that has come down to us, lhe bibliographic section of the Han Sh.u (J� features a number of word-lists under the heading hsino hsiieh IJ\!? 'little studies'. With the help ofthis bibliography we can trace back the pre-history of the dictionary almost 2,500 years to the late Chou dynasty. Tradition even ascribes the earliest list of words lO the court historian of King Hsuan of the Chou dynasty, who reigned from -8'27 to -781. It is hard to know what to make ofthis tra dition today, but it would appear that the word-list Shih Chou!1:.f&, ascribed to the period around -800, did take some definite form not later than during early Warring States times, i.e .. some time in the -5th cenwry.2 The Shih Chou was a work by a scribe for the use ofthose who aspired to become scribes. It was a (rhymed!) primer of writing for the select who aspired to learn that arcane art in those distant times. By the -3rd century \\-Titing had become some thing ofa political issue with China's First Emperor insisting on the standardisation and modernisation of the script, the result of which was the small seal style (hsiao chuan IJ'1f0. Li Ssu *WT, the right-hand man ofthe First Emperor, produced a new primer of standard characters, as did two other courtiers of his time. During the Han dynasty these three works wen: combined to produce one �tandard handbook, the 7ihallg Chieh Phien :@"�:1; comprising apparenlly no less than 3,300 characters in alP , The Important tradition of the phonetic and phonological description of Chinese fall! out.ide the SCO� of
th� rre�ent section.
1 Cf. Wang Li (198r), p. 7. .... shon Akkadian ,,·ord list, from central r.,-Iesopotamia, is a&Cribcd to the -7th cen mry. It would apJXa! that the rievelopmcllI wa. almost contemporary in both cuitures. , Itmay1M! usefultocompar� thevocabular}" ofsome early booh: Th.. Spring and Autumn Annab, aUriblllcd to Confucius, UIR' about 950 different characters, the three corruncHlari..s to this work combined (. 4,000, the Hook of Songs no I..ss than 3,000, th� I�" lli ;taB 2,200, the Mi ng 1i;1I �T a little over 2,000. the Lui 1i;1I �T little more than 800, the Hslin 1i;/l ljj.:r about 3,000, th� MQ nu.¥-1-' about 2,750, the Kuo Hi �:m. !urpri!ingly,
onlyabout l,jOO.
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
The lexicographer Yang Hsiung m-RjE (-53 to +18), ofwhom we \"ill hear more in due course, wrote a commentary on this work, and those who have suffered through the extraordinarily recondite vocabulary of the great poet Ssuma
Hsiang�u EJ mf§!m (-179 10 -I17) will not be surprised to learn that this poet actually pro duced his own extended list ofcharacters, the Fan Chiang Phien Jt�'.fii, which unfor tunately, like: so many of the early practical character books, was lost when it became superseded by later practical character books. The only one ofthese word lists to survive in a form that allows us to get some idea
of its original sbape is the
Chi Chiu PhiC1/ �¥tlii by a certain Shih Yu who flourished
around the years -40 to -33.' The work consists Of2,168 characters, few of which
are repealed in the text.2 1t was thus suitable, and widcly used, as a text to copy by way of practising calligraphy. Indeed, its very survival in many versions is due to this fan. The text begins with a list of 130 family names. Next there is a section on embroi dery, food, clothes, social status, instruments, and many other things, and finally on social ranks. Taken together with its learned commentaries by scholars such as Yen Shih-Ku �ffijj� (+58,
to +645), this work has rctained a cenain usefulness until today.
The books we have so far surveyed are more than purely mnemonic 'word-lists, but they really still belong to the pre-history of Chinese lexicography. We shall now turn to some ofthe most importan t works oflexicography proper. And the first work we shall have to consider is essentially a compilation of tr aditional glosses on vari ous Chinesc words.
The <Erh Ya': theJaurusq/early Chineseglosses 'I'hl:! dictionar y of glosses ErIE ra m�, on which the first commentary was written during early Han times,:l often looks like little more than a sparsely annotated word
list. Within the Chinese tradition it occupies a place similar to that or Yaska's Nirukfa 1 (c. -5th century) in ancient India, although it is much less analytically ambitious than the lalter. It is easily the most respected word-list in Chinese cultur al history. The origins of this book are traditionally placed in distant antiquity. Even
Confucius himselfis said to have had a hand in its compilation. With such (spurious)
credentials, lhe book became one of the Thirteen Classics during the Sung dynasty. This says pe:rhaps less about the intellectual importance ofthe J:.'rh ra than about the
importance attached to the knowledge ofcharacters in Chinese culture. The: first three chapters of the Erh ra are lists of semantically close or related
words belonging to common usage. Each of these series of semantically related , See Wang Li (f98f), pp. 8f[. . for a general account ofthe Chi Gluu /'him @:Uj(. Th� 000],; owes its !urVil'al lo Ihe faCl lhal il I,'as u�d for calligraphy practic'" , Th.. authorilati\'� hihlingr..phie handhook, Sru Kku Cilia" Shu Tsu"l Mu Tki lao L!:!I.�."13 tli!:J! (ro. Chung.hua.thu-cllll. Peking 1980, vol. I, pp. 102-:1) wrongly claiml lhen: are no n:peliIions at all. I See Wang l.i (1981), p. 12. • The Xirukfa is a IrealLsc dealing wilh Vedic worm and with Iheir etymological explanations. 5.:" Ca.-dona (1976), pp. 270-3 for a survey oflhe literalUn: on this work.
68
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
terms is then followed by a 'heading' (or rather: a 'tail') indicating the general cate gory the (unknown) compiler had in mind. I Thus the first three books arc a kind of mini-thesaurus of lhe basic vocabulary, a prOlo-Roget1 of the ancient Chinese language. The principle ofthe thesaurus was thus discovered early in China and it continued to be used with great proficiency. The last sixteen chapters of the
Erh ra
are more specialised: they constitute
an cncyclopaedk survey of lhe vocabulary within the main areas of Chinese civilisation.3 vVe have seen that the first three chapters or the Erk ra provide synonym groups and brief glosses, but already at this stage there is an awareness of the fact that one word may have several meanings, as when the dictionary quite properly includes the word chhung * among the words in the semantic field of kao
r'&J 'high', but adds
that chhung can also mean chhung 7C 'fill up'.' There are also instances where the dic
tionary first introduces a series ofcharacters under one 'heading', but then goes all to elaborate distinctions by further subdividing the members ofthe series.J Synonymy is expressed in the following way: X wei chih -m-:z...
called r and
r is called X',
1'; r wei chih X 'X is
in the section on architecture which is a treasury of
detailed terminological information.6 Considerable skill is shown in the mutual definitions ofkinship terms: lhe precision ofthe terminology and the meticulous con ciseness of the definitions arc quite remarkable, especially when they are relational: Ifsomeone calls me an uncle, t call him a nephew.1 One senses that those who wrote this section felt entirely safe on their home ground. There is no doubl that the
Er" Ya documents
a profound, comprehensive, and
analytical interest of the Chinese in their own language during the centuries when it i devoid of all undue emphasis on cultural or moral was taking shape. The Erk fa s
lerms. It is entirely concerned with everyday terminology and with the terminology of the science of the day, the so-called Jan ming Wt-iS or 'miscellaneous names'. One
might have thought that such a concentration on san ming of no moral consequence
would have left the £rk ra unrespected by Confucian orthodoxy. But thisjust goes to show that our accustomed ways ofthinking of Confucian mentality are perhaps not quite adequate. There definitely was a place for the Erh ra in the Confucian scheme
of things, just as there was a place for science. After all, did not Confucius himself • TI,e"" categories werr. not alwa�'s unambiguous or w�ll-C'ho�n. For cxample, und�r thc cil.legoryfi T, (I) \�rb: gi''''; (2) first person pronoun: I, the £." 1... It:f il, (onrusingl�; lists wQrds of both meanings. Since most Chinese chanlcters are highly ambiguous, a sing!o:' character is kJclom enough IQ n i dicate a meaning, but the Erh lil, like the early ",losses Qn which it is based. refuse� to make (xplieil which meaning i, int�nded. Commentators like t:heng HSlian Jl;il;: (+12j to hoO) disambiguated the glo,sc! by expanding them into binomes. Such dis
amhil\Ualion through the making ofbinomes occame the standard practice in CQUoquial Chinese as it evoked from Han times Qnwards.. t cr. Rogel (t852), oflen R'printed and revised �inr.e. TheR' arc lists modelled on Rogel ror French,
Hungarian, Dutch, Swedish, German, and ).Iodern Greek. Cf Dornseiff(1970), p. 37. , Cf. Vol. \,1 (I), PP' 186IT., and Vol. I'll (2) pp. I [35IIT. , J::rlt 1;', ed. SPTK. 1.7b. ' F;rh la, cd. SPTK. !.3a. Cr. Liu Yeh-Chhiu (1983), p. 3'•
}<;rn la, cd. srn..-. �.!a.
' £rh liz. ed. SP1J,.; '.ISh.
LANGUAGE A),'D L O C I C
69
recommend the Book of Songs on the grounds that it provided insight into niao shou
i TIling �1k1j[*.:zij 'the names of birds and beasts, shrubs and trees'? {shoo mu chll Careful readers of Scunce and Civilisation in China \vill have noticed that many a fascinating story of scientific and technological analysis and achievement takes its beginning in the Confucian classic Erh Ya. It is a fact of profound historical significance that this dry book so full of scientific or proto-scientific definitions became a COlifucian classic. Already in the bibliographic. section ofthe Han Shu �i§:, the first comprehensive bibliography that we possess, lhe £rh Yo is listed in a place of honour, right after the crucially important Hsiao Chjng�� or Classic of Filial Piety. In the bibliographical ch apter of the Thong Shu ng�, our encyclopaedia is even promoted to a place of honour after the Lun ru ��� of Confucius. The scholar Chhien Ta-Hsin i:l*Bfi (+1 728-1804) summed up current feelings when he said: 'Ifyou want exhaustively to understand the import ofthe Six Classics you must take the Erh Yo as your �taning p oint. ' t Until the twentieth century, the Edt 'Ya remained standard fare in the Chinese literary curriculum. A later supplement to the Erh ra, the Hsiao Erh Yo IJ''m!fiE, survives today as ch. I I of the apocryphal book Khung Tshung Tzu :rLit-r. The Hsiao £rh fa i s already men tioned in the bibliographical section ofthe Han Shu. The book has often been con sidered as unreliable faT this reason. Howeve r, quotations from it by the leading commentators from Tu Yo (+222 to +284) onwards have tended LO be in accordance with the text as we have it in ch. I I ofthe Khung Tshung Tzu. The chances are that this book originated in late Han times and was later considered to be the original work quoted in the Han Shu section on bibliography.� By and large, the Hsiao Erh fa does not redefine terms already defined in iIS famous predecessor. It is small in size and would not, perhaps, be wonh mentioning ifit did not contain the earliest reference in Chinese linguislics to the phenomenon of the fusion word,3 one character stand ing for the fusion of two alhers. This phenomenon is noticed in the opening defini tion ofch . :3 ofthe Hsiao £rh ra/J'm.!fl.� · a.!fiE of Chang I �m A much larger elaboration on the Erk ra was the Kuang r (c. +220 to +265) which was over 18,000 characters long and in the version that has come down to us expounds the meanings of 6,9'3 characters.� This work is , Chhi�n Ta-Hsin a::*::wr (1989), ch. 33, Y" Hui Chih hm Erh la Shu fijllliJ��m�., in Liu Yth-chhht {lg83}, p. 61. Given the Chill�Je pauion rnr writing cOllllllclIlaries, it will not come as a sllrpri..'lc to anyon� that the (om m�ntaries on the E.h lashould be many. Th� rarliest commentary ofwhir,h wr know the title dates from the --2nd century, and the great Kholar \0 whom we ow� the preservation of'0 much of ancient Chine� literature, Liu Hsin j'lJ§X. (di�d -23) wrote a (ommental)' on the work in three cIJian @. The �arly mmm�ntarialliterature ofa dozen or .1,1 works was II.lmmariS('d and - as it so ofl�n happened superseded by the 51andard work by the philologist Kuo Phu fl:Jl (+276 10 �24) has come down 10 us in a somewhaltTUncated form. There u an extremeiy con\ocnient Han.-ard Ycnching Index including a critical I�xt ofthe Em la. , Cf. Hu Chheng-Kung(lgJ6) and Liu Yeh-Chhiu (/983). p. 40. • My,,�fe points OUI to me a rather n i t�r�"ing ca!e ofa fusion word in English: blood} for 'by Our Lad),'. Thus here as so often �!��where. the difference belw��n Chine� and English turns out 10 be len than ablolut�. Compare also zounJsfor 'God', wound,;'. , J."hung Tshung Tzu tUilT I t, cd. SPTK, 3, p. 66a, where chu � is defined as ckih Z. + hu.Jf. , The Kuang li1 is most conveniently available in the SPPYedilioll profusely annul:!t�d hy Wang Nien-Sun.
which
--
LA:-JGUAGE A�D L O G I C
important because it preserves a large number of early glosses o n characters that have not been preserved elsewhere. However, as the ratio ofcomment per character shows, the explanations - though valuable - are sparse in the extreme.1
'Shllo Win Chlfh T;:u'fJtxfW� In spite of its fame, the Erh Ya must have remained oflimited use as a dictionary. For one thing, it was not easy to find a ,b>ivcn character in the book. For another, evt"11 after finding it, the definitions found were often far loa vague to be usc!ul. The real breakthrough, a practical dictionary of eminent usefulness to anyone who wants to
Wen Chieh Tzu by Hsu Shell i cidelllally, was born in Ten Thomand -m:tllt (c. +55 to c. +149)/ Hso. Shen (who, n
understand ancient Chinese texts, came with the Shuo
Year Village) hdd various ritual positions under the Han dynasty. He was famous for his commentaries on the das't'ics, which are unfortunatdy lost. Hsti Shen undoubtedly inc.:orporated many ofhis commentarial glosses into his dictionary.
The £rh Yo had still remained essentially in thc tradition orthe earlier charactcr
lists like lhe
Shih Chou !E W . The Shuo Win Chith Tzu was essentially a systematic
repository of philological glosses. In the postface, Hsu Shen reporL� that his dic tionary contains no less than 9,353 characters. In addition there arc about one
thousand graphic variants, so that in Hsti Hsilan's
1*�
(+9::.w to +9i4) recension
the dictionary contained lO,ilO characters':' The sheer bulk of the dictionary is
-+- impressive:
there are '33,441 characters of comment, as one of the many loving
admirers ofthe book has calculated.1 In an ancient book of such bulk il was crucial that material should be so arranged
that the reader could readily find what he: was looking for. Hsu Shen atte:mptcd to
solve this problem by arranging the more than 9,000 characters under 'only' 540 graphic radicals. These radica1s were recurring graphic elements in Chinesf" char acters, and in the typical case they would indicate the semantic class to which a word belong�. Thus any designation of a variety offish is likely to have: the character for fish,}ii p.;., on the left side of the graph. Hsti Shen would ask his readers to look for
all characters containing theyii under this radical. O fcourse readers would already
have followed something like this practice in generalise the method to include
£rh Yo, but what Hsti Shen did was to
ctnu: "",pt mad<
IX
on
th<
2
mall) ""'"
><eN Ihan th< t to US
,-Kk< II
....,. d<>� He,
rom
.m
ft-td It"" md> Fl
Ii><
all characters he discussed. They were either
declared 10 b<: one ofthe 540 radicals or subsumed under one ofthese radicals. The radicals were themselves arranged in semantic groups. Thus in chapter 8 of
the dictionary there is a sequence of36 radicals, all ofwhich are either transformations
orthe man-radical (jin A) or otherwise related to the human body. Within each of I During Sungtimes two important works in th� traditiOll ofErn 1;' apjXared: the Phi 1;' J:!I!!flF. by Lu Tien Il>tffll (postface d�l�d +11�5) and the Erh li1 1 'm fli:'91i by 1.0 YUan �J;j fini,h�d in +11H, but fir,! printed lil +l�7"_ AKain, during i'o.tinJol times the,,: wa, Ih� Phirn lil .ijf� by Chu :'-Jou-Wei *&¥� (preface dated +lj87). and th� '-�ry large Tku,,:!: 1".!i� ;n 52 chuan by Fang I-Chil, 15):J.� which was fmi.hed some time bt:fim' +'519. These arcju!t lome ofthe hightlights ofthe lexicographic Em 1" tr..ldition in Ch.ina. ! Th� �51Wem�rn treatment ofth.;s most important work ren>airu; RoyAndll'w Miller (1953). ) I ow� these tigure! to Li.Jung $m and to Yii !\lin ltrtftl. hmh from Peking. , Tillg Fu-Pao (1930), fir.t ,,·ries. pp, 245f.
nm
.... ... '
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
the 540 radical groups Hsti Shen again grouped together what he felt were semant ically related characters, starting often from the more general and moving towards
the more specific. As Roy Andrew Miller has pointed out, the arrangement of a
character under one rather than another radical was often inspiredby cosmological speculation rather than linguistic reflection. I Under each character, Hsu Shen con
centrated on the explanation oftwo features: the internal graphic structure and the graphically relevant meaning of the character concerned. In both ofthese areas he made decisive cOlllributions.
Developing earlier ideas ofLiu Hsin WlJ W\ (died +23), Pan Ku ffEfi!!I (+32 to +92)
and others, Hsu Shen divided lhe Chinese characters into six classes (liu shu
/\ i!)
according to their internal structure and this division has remained canonical until the 20th century.2 His ex-planations of the graphs remain, of course, puzzling in many instances, but they still form the indispensable point of departure for discus sions by modern scholars. However, by some curious reversal of history, modern archaeology has given us a much more detailed picture of carly Chinese epigraphy than was available to Hsu Shen who was so much closer in time to the evidence. On the basis of the oracle bone inscriptions from around the -11th century, available to us but unknown to Hsu Shen, we can in many cases improve on the analyses pro vided by him. It is a measure of the tremendous spirit of scientific accuracy that Hsti Shen aimed for, that among his many precise editorial conventions he had a standard device for indicating that he felt he had no good explanation for a given character.
He would write the word chhiith � in the place where the explanation should have
come, This convention is all the more remarkable in the face of the exasperating tendency among later Chinese commentators to pretend omniscience, to present evcn the most conjectural guesses with an air of certainty and to make up far fetched explanations when they did not understand a passage. Hsu Shen's humility greatly increases our confidence in what he does say, although we often may be inclined to disagree with him. For the study ofthe small seal characters introduced during the -3rd century and for the study of early Han glosses on Chinese characters, the
�Xm* is a quite indispensable
ShUf} Win Chieh Tzu
tool. However, it had its serious weaknesses.
Already the specialist scholar HSLl Hsuan, who in +986 published a new, corrected and improved version of the
Shuo Win Chiell Tzu, complains in his preface:
'When
one is looking for a character one often has to leafthrough a whole volume.' I
Hsu Shen had given no phonetic glosses,� and as the Shuo Win Chieh "D.u was prov
ing so popular, it was found convenient to add these to his book from other sources ' S;"'� lVin (,"ltirh T:..u Ch"an run Ph", preface. ' Cf. \'01. 1, p. 3�. , Phonetic g10'<5<:5 were gken allhe earlieSl l!ag.. simply by providing a (near-)hoillophonou. olher charact�r. This was oftcn difficult (in Ih" !: a.'II: of rare pronunciations), and 5Orn"limcs m i pmsibk (when Ihere ....-ere no homophonous known I:haraCICI""l). Th., crucial w::p wa.. taken in whal i. known asja" (Mim &iJ], where Ihe ini lial oon50nant of one charaClu wa� cumbined "ith th" rh}1ne of another. The lalt�r �ystem was apparently inl'cnl�d, ""rfeeled, and further dc,,:!op.,d undcr all iner�asing influ.,oce from Samkrit. Cf. e.g., Milkr (1973), pp. 1232IT. and Wang Li (lglil), pp. 55fT. for an orientation on the history ofphonetics in China.
I �liller(1973), p. 1223.
l.A)J C U A C E A):IO L O G I C
to be discussed presently. Apart from a fragment o fa Thang dynasty manuscript, it is only these supplemented versions ofHsll Shen's dictionary dating from the +roth century which have: come down to us. I
Shua Win Chiell Tzu. Hsii Shen tSllng mtng �.ib, from others. Thus he defines chM -* as 'a general term for a conveyance with wheels', � and niaa .� 'bird' Let us now turn to the nature of the" definitions in
distinguishes general terms, which he calls as 'general term for long-tailed pteroid'.
He defines tools by their uses, as when he definesJU j!f 'axe' as 'that wherewith
one hacks'.
Fascinatingly, he sometimes seems to define what we are inclined to regard as verbs by noullS, as when he defines
ming q!$ 'to sing, ofbirds, etc.'
as
'the sound of
birds (niaoshing ,��)'. Or does he really Ihink ofsheng§!; as ve"rbal here? Again, Hsil
Shen defines ku i!&. 'reason' as 'to caLise something/someone to do something (shih
wei chill)'eh ue�z-ti1)'.
He defines the historically (and especially graphologically) primary meaning of a
graph, that is to say, he is really writing
i\
historical dictionary. For those looking
Shuo �ten Clliell Tzu, this can be most frustrating. As when Hsii Shen defines the object pronoun so J5JT as follows: 'So for definitions of grammatical particles in the
is the sound of felling a tree.' And as if to rub salt into our wounds, he even goes
on to quote a passage from the Book QjSongs, where the word is indeed used in that
way.3 Hso. Shen's failure to define the current meaning of so is symptomatic: his prim ary interest is in the explanation ofthe graph and its relation to the original sense of the graph. Hsu Shen sets out to explain lhe semantics of graphs. Hence the title of his great work, 'Explaining Graphs and Expounding Characters'. The problem is not restricted to grammatical particles. \Vhen he is explaining
the word hsin Wi. meaning 'new', one might expect him to explain this word as 'not
old', but he says no such thing. For the graphic structure of the graph suggests
another basic meaning which had aU but disappeared by Hso. Shen's time, the gath
..
-
ering of firewood, hence 'firewood', a meaning which is expressed with a character
I
written with the grass radical on tOp, as hsin. Again, when explaining the character
cllhing � 'light', Hsu says it means 'a light
cart', which may be true enough etymologically, and it certainly would explain the
1
presence of the character for a cart on the left of cMing, but it does not help very much as an explanation of current usage. The point is that it does not really help to consider the
SlIuo Win Cllieh T<.u as a dictionary in our terms. We have to read and
use the book on its own terms. This means that it would be totally misguided to treat the definitions ofthe Shuo Win Chiell Tzu as a reflection ofHan dynasty usage or even
I During the Chhing d}Tlasty a numbtr of vcr}' imporlan{ c;ommemarie, On thc Slruo WiR \\"�re published which are an essential aid to our und"ntanding of the dictionary.
-
LANGUAGE A::,\,D L O G I C
73
of the usage in the Classical literature Hsii Slv�n was familiar with, HSii Shen was only interested in such usages in so far as these serve his purpose, which is that of explaining graphs, VV(' need therefore not he worried by the fact that he very often defines one
Y, and on the same page goes on to define the r by the character X, as when h e defines ,: � 'meaning' as cMh z; 'inten� tion', and on lhe same half page goes on to define chih 'intention' by i 'meaning' , \
character X by another character character
His is nut a learner's dictionary ofClassical Chinese, and as we arc aU raw learners of the language, this limits the usefulnes s of his dictionary in practical terms. It is really most useful for thosr who understand the words but wishto understand the graphs. In fact, it takes a tremendous ability for abstract thought to be able 10 disregard, as consistently as Hsii Shen docs, current usage and to concentrate so entirely, as he does, on the aspects that are rcievant lO histheoretical purpose,
"I 'here is a dear system in this: Hsu Shen is not explaining words, he is explaining graphs in terms of (he meaning rtUuanLjor a 5atisfactory explanation ifthe graph. In other
words, Hsii Shen is consciously and consistently doing the semiotics qf Ihe ChineJe graphs. It is an extraordinary thought that so long before semiotics was recognised in the West as a crucially important philosophical and philological discipline, it was coherently practised in China and consistently apphed to a large body of Chinese characters. Eventhe literal translation of thetitle ofHsii Shen's book makes it quite plain what he sets
OUI
to do: 'Explaining Graphs and Expounding Characters',
There are occasional excursions or deviations, as when Hsti Shcn explains the final
particle i E quite rightly asyii i tzhu g:gB� 'a word indicating that the speech has cnded',2
Hsu Shen's graphic tradition was followed by a long line of distinguished graphic dictionaries, for example the Liu Shu Ku
I\�;tt by 'fai Thung iY:(IliJ, first published
in +1320 but considered to be of Sung provenance, This book is divided into nine sections: mathematics, astronomy, geography, human affairs, animals, plants, artificial objects, miscellaneous, problematic characters. A valiant attempt is made to base the explanations uf characters not on the standardised small seal script introduced during the b rief Chhin dynasty (-221 to -207), as Hsii Shen had done, but on earlier inscriptions. 'I'he study oftile industry in China,l
liu shu /\�, or six categories of characlers, has become a large
'rii Phim' 3i;i and '/1i Phit'n '�� In our context, \ve are more interested inthe semantic side oflexicography lhan in the graphic etymology ofcbaracters, In Chin times (+265 to +420). I,ii Chhcn
gtt
! SJ,U{} [lfn, Juh \'erbo i e, , Sh"o W", Ckith Tt.� in Tuan Yil-Tshai (J9B/), p, )"2_ , SII4I(I IV", C huh T:.u IJt lin ed, Ting fu-f'..., (I93Q), with its supplement puhlishcd in '93:l, rq>rinu :laS ho<Jks as well as SoH arucles On Shuo Win, Since (hen, a number nfimponam w"rk., havc appeared, notahly ).[a H,(l LUll (1957).
74
L A N C U A G E AND L O G I C
produced an expanded edition Ortl l e Shuo Wen Uliell Tzu explaining 12,824 charac ters. For many (.'cl1turies this work maintained it� status as the equal ofthe Shuo H'en Chieh Tzu, but by the +12th century the book only survived in part and gradually fell out of use, being eclipsed by the mammoth Yii Phien (+548) 1 by the child prodigy Ku Yeh-\'\'ang �x (+519 to +581). This dictionary is impressive in sheer bulk: there are 290,770 characters oftt"xt defining in all 16,917 characters, and in addition there are over 400,000 characters of commentary, if we ar!" to believe the preface of the work. However, the" discovery in Japan early in this century of an earlier version of somewhat less than a fifth of the Yii Phien known as the Yii Phien Ling Chiian Ji1m�f!:/ which is considerably more detailed in its semantic descriptions than the current edition we have. suggests that what we have today is a boiled-down, abbreviated and doctored version of Ku Yeh-Wang's original work. The ru Phien changes the number ofradicals from the Shuo Hlin Chieh Tzu slightly and rearranges tht characters wilh less emphasis on the six categories (liu shu) set up by Hsu Shen. In general, the Yii Phien concentrates on phOllf'tics and meaning rather than on graphic structure. An avowed successor to th� rii Phien, still vcry much in the tradition of the Shuo J..yen Chieh Tzu, bur placing more �mphasis on pronunciation and meaning rather than the shape of characters, was the Lei Phun �:iU;ij , compiled between +1039 and +1066 and finally edited by the great historian S�u-Ma Kuang (+1019 to +1086). Jt comprised no fewer than 31,319 characters, but eveIl this number was surpassed by the contemporary more phonetically orientated dictionaries lik<; the Kuang run JJi na and Chi Yiill mm1, to be discussed b�low.
'Shih A'f£ng':r.f}iS and eDJmologicalglossograp/!}' Folk etymology is extremely common in early brahmanic Indian literaturt, and it is weJl known in anc.ient Greece. It features prominently, for example, in Plaw's dia logue CroljduJ. In fact, Plato's contemporary Mencius did occasionally use etymolo gising glosses to explain why and how a word c.ame to mean what it means, but the golden age of etymologising glossography was the Han dynasty. /\. book like the Pai Hu Thung Bt�j.m 'Comprehensive Discussions in th� vVhite Tiger Hall' introduces folk etymologies in almost every chapter and gives a vivid picture of tht range of traditional Chinese folk-etymological fantasy and imagination, and of its function in the thought ofthe time.3 The folk-etymolgically orientated dictionary Shih Ming, comaining etymologis ing glosses for somewhat over 1,500 characters, was \\."Tittcn around +:200 by Liu Hsi ilJ ��. The material is arranged in a manner strongly reminiscent of Roget's , The curTf':nt �ditions orlhe work includ� additiuns dating f.-om +67+ and from +1013. Our present �d;{;om are based on that uf+1013 by ehhen Ph�ng.Ni�n f*��. , Th;�;s r�printcd in Tshllng-w chi-chllin;: ••�. ,"ols. 10� to 10.')i. , S� Tjau (195:J).
1:
75
LA:-.lGUAGE A N D L O G I C
Thesaurus qfthe English lAnguage,
and in the tradition of the
headings as follows: I. Heaven, 2. Earth, 3. Mountains, 4. StrC"ams, 5.
Erh Yn pfHili,
under 27
Hills, 6. Roads, 7. Provinces, statc"s, 8. Body
parts, 9. Alliludes. body anions, 10. Age and youth, II. Kinship, 12. l,anguage, 13. rood and drink, '4. Colours and stuns, 15. Headdress, 16. Clothing, 17. Dwellings, 18. Curtains, car
peLS, 19. Writing, 20. Classics, 2 1 . Tools, 22. l.' i {usical instruments, :23. \Veapons, 24. Wheeled vC"hides, :.15. Boats, 26. Diseases, '27. Mourning rites.' This compares favourably with one or the most comprehensive synonym-and homonym dictionaries, the
Vaijqyant I (+12th century), in which 3,500 sta nz as were
organised into eight sections: I. heaven, :2. almosphere, 3. eanh, 4. nether world,
i ables and 8. sundry.z 5. general, 6. disyllables, ; . trsyll The
Shih flling�;iJ is famous for its 'paronomastic3 glosses', i.e., glosses that are
similar in pronunciati on to the original character and at the same time close in meaning. The word�play of these glossl:� comes out in examples like gloss 325:
Tsu ,@ (lSiukllsl1vok) 'the 100\' is hsii trI (d::.iukh.iwQk) 'to continue'. This means it is a continu ation orthe leg.·
It is a reflection ofLiu Hsi's preoccupation with phonetic description that many
orhis glosses are chosen for sound resemblance at the expense of similarity in mean ing. v ? !oreover, the explanations appended to lhe paronoma5tic glosses are not essentially explanations or the characters but rather explanations of why Liu Hsi chose the gloss he did ror the character at hand.
This do�s, of course, make the Shih
Aling a crucially important document ror a historical study of the Chinese �ound system, but from our �emantic point ofview the dictionary is oflimited interest.�
Chhieh run i.)]�, Kuang Yiin mIll and Chi run �il6 For our purposes the rhyme dictionaries are of interest not for their information on rhymes but because th�y often include precious semantic glosses. These dictionar
ies were, by and large, not intended as works ofscientific phonological analysis bUl
rather as practical handbooks for those.: who needed to know what rhymes and \vhat
does not rhyme in order to pass their examinations. The
Chhieh rUn tnit rhyme dic
tionary of +601, which distinguishes 32 initial consonantS and 136 finals, is remark
able especially for its highly sophisticated methodological introduction.7 This famous rhyme dictionary, which has bf'en crucial for the reconstruction of the ' Vogel (1973), p. :-rol:i. , Ilodman (19.H), p. II. , Bodman (19H) cunsis,�ndy miSSI!C1h this worn as 'par
LA:-JGUAGE AND L O G I C
pronunciation ofancient Chinese, represents the pronunciations in the present-day Nanking area and not) as previously assumed, the area ofChhang-an, the capital of the Sui dynasty under which it was compiled. In this section we shall concentrate on those rhyn1('" dictionaries that have impor tant semantic components, the Kuang
riin and the Chi run,
both of which may be
regarded as semantic dictionaries with a phonetic component. Before we turn to these landmarks of traditional Chinese lexicography, a briefsurvey of the predeces sors ofthese dictionaries is in order.
+
The earliest rhyme dictionaries that we know orare the Sheng Lei �� ( 3rd cen
tury) by Li Teng and the slightly later run Chi mi� by Lii Ching
g�. Ivluch more
famous than these was the extant Olhieh run dictionary (preface +601, an improved edition dated +677) in which the characters are categorised under tones, and origi
nally under a total of 193 rhyme categories - which we have discussed above. Unfortunately, only fragments of these early rhyme dictionaries survive. The earliest important rhyme
dictionary
Nien's ilt.1B:if. Kuang run mm (first edition
tllat survives today is Chhen Pheng
+lOOi), which is intended as an extend
ed version oCthe Chhieh run. It is arranged according to Lones and rhyme categories.
There are semantic and phonetic definitions of26, 194 characters which are divided into 206 rhyming calegories. The pronunciations of3,877 syllables are distinguished. There are a massive 191,000 characters ofLext. The special strength of this diction ary lies in its quotalions. It does nOt limit itsclfto the Confucian classics, but actually quotes freely and abundantly from narrative literature and informal literature. I The Chi riin (+I067) was finished by a team uncit'"r the historian Ssuma Kuang
� % :7t: became famous for his superb and vast Tzu Chih Thung Chien 1tt'dimit. Among man kind's dictionaries of its time, the GIll rUn ' ....as an achievement of similarly gigantic dimensions. The Chi run defines no fewer than 53,525 characters. There are thus (+1019 to +1086). Ssuma Kuang
comprehensive history of China, the
considerably more definitions than in the /(uang Yiin but lhe definitions are some what shorter. For a long time this remained the most comprehensive reference book on Chinese characters and, quite arguably, it remained for several centuries the biggest dictionary in the world.
""}j.g
The book Fang len (Local Languages), auributed to Yang Hsiung
ma
(-j3 to
+18),2 must surely be the earliest dictionary oflocal languages in any country. It is common to regard the Fang Yen as a 'dialect dictionary', but it would appear that many of the linguistic phenomena covered in that work actually belong to different L
By fn the most useful edition of the Kuang run i� Chou Tsu-�lo {/96Q) . S� Serrup (1959), which remains the �tandard work Uri this dictionary. Yan!! HsiunJ!'5 authorship of the Fang Ji" has been doubledby ,orne from Sun!! limes onward!. Ho\\"�\'cr, Ih� prevailing opinion is thai the famollS poet lind scholar ,,·a. indeed lhe author oftho: dial�cl dictionary. (Liu Yeh·Chhiu (1983). p. 4::'.) •
LA).'GUAGE AND L O G I C
77
languages rather than different dialens. Yang Hsiung apparently derived the idea lor his dictionary from the long-standing interest in local folklore at Chinese imper ial courts. By his own account he spent at least 27 years collecting material for his
Shuo Win Chieh Tzu M.xM=¥=, Hsu Shen (died +149), he seems to have worked on his magnum opus until he realised that he did not have much longer to live, i.e. shortly before +18. 'j'he arrangement ofthe material discussed largely follows that ofthe £rh Ya, but
work from visitOrs at the capital Chhang-an, and like the author of the
in this case each character is followed by a string of equivalents i n various dialects. According to Ying Shao
b!WJ (+2nd cemury), the dictionary contained g,ooo char
acter5, but the current edition has closer to 12,000 characters, a discrepancy which
indicates later additions to Yang Hsiung's ma work as it was current in late Han
times.
Among the dialect words, Yang Hsiung distinguished five kinds of linguistic characterisations: I.
of the common language;
2. of a certain dialect area; 3, ofa certain group ofdialect areas; 4' an obsolete dialect form; 5. a local variation on a common language expression, lnterestingly, Yang Hsiung included a number of expressions from non-Chinese
minority languages which he describes as li 1*, man ':If, and chhiang:re; .
For example, Yang Hsiung first enumerates 12 words for ta 7\ 'big', and then con
tinues to explain which of these words are used where. Or under the word
chu �
'pig' he goes on to Jist nine words for 'pig' and their area oruse. ln each case, Yang Hsiung is careful to nme some semantic nuances relating to certain dialect forms. The great philologist Kuo Phu mentary on the
��
(+276 to +324) wrote the first detailed com
rang Yen thal has come down to us,
and Chou Tsu-Mo (1951) pro
vides an ext':mplary index lO the book, which contains by far the most convenient critical edition orthe Fang un.
ln China, the Fang 1m rf'mained unparalleled and unsurpassed until the flowering ofChhing philology from the +1 8th century onwards. Both in sheer size and in coherent dialectological design the
Fang Yen also remained unparalleled in
the West for a long time. 'Vhat the Fang Yen demonstrates without a shadow of doubt is that Chinese characters stand nm for ideas or thoughts but for words of the spoken language.
'Ching Tim Shih Win' ���Y.: alld 'I-chhieh Ching rin l'-tvt.m.1lfl From the bibliographic sections of the dynastic histories it would appear that the Thang dynasry was an age oflexicographical megalomania : we hear ofone diction ary in no It':ss than 360
chuon ;ff, a bulk that was
quite unprecedented in Chinese
]) 'f .:.
,
LAKGUAGE AKD L O G I C
histor): I A long book might haw: thirty chiian, bu t ove:r three hundred (lilian was b�yond the imagination even of the bibliophile. For later bibliophiles like ourselves it is a matter ofprofound regret that none ofthese early lexicographical mammoths has come down to us. Kane the less it i s significant that the Chinese were sufficiently interested in lexicography to produce some oftheir most voluminous early books in thal area. Consider the Ching Tim Shih Bleil t;!l! $ � ::x: by Lu Te-l\4ing � t� � (+550 to +630), which is thirty chliGn iong and concentrates on the phonetic as well as seman tic explanation of tht: characters found in thirteen Chinese classics. Strictly speak ing this is not a dictionary but a systematic collection of glosses. In some case:s Lu concentrates on the phonetic glosses, in others on the semantic glosses, But what ever he concentrates on has remained im'aluable l e.xicographical evidence for scholars of Chinese literature ever since, not so muc.h because of th�' originality of his own obse rvations, but because of the c.are with which he collected earli!"r glosses and thus saved them from oblivion. The arrangt:ment of the charact!"rs and phrases in the Ching Tien Shih Win is according to their glossed occurrence in the classics. This makes the book extremely inconvenient to consult as a dictionary, However, much of the contt:nts of the Ching Tim Shih Wen arc accessible in the large modern Chinese:Japanese dictionary by �/Iorohashi.
Te-Millg did for the Confucian Classics, the monk Hsuan Ying �H!!1. did around the year +645 for tbe Buddhist works in his [-chllieh C!II:"g Yin I -tJJttm.:g.� in 25 chuan, systematically excerp ting glosses from no fewer than 454 Mahayana and Hinayana texts. Hsuan Ying glossed both Sanskrit-dt:rived technical terms and ordinary Chinese characters and ar ranged his glosses, as Lu T€-Ming had dont: shortly before, cH:cording to the provenance of the glosses he quotes. The glosses on ordinary Chinese characters occupy about half ofthe book, The Empress \-Vu :IE\�Ij� of the Thang dynasty was megalomaniac in her archi tectural taste, and she had similar inclinations when it came to dictionaries. Under her direction the Tzu Hai�ffij was compiled in no less than 100 chiian, and the biblio graphy in the Hsin Than!!, Shu WT Jmftf 'The Kew Thang Hislory' even mentions a work entitled riin Hoi Ching l'iiall j�jHt;j:iifU,* by a certain Yen Che-n �;¥i in 360 chuon.1 This must have been, by any standards, a very large: dictionary, and by the standards of the time it must have: been simply gigantic. Unfortunately, unlike: the large J-chJ/uh Ching nn I, which is much less than a tenth of its size, it is lost . Around +807 the monk Hui Lin produced another l-chhrh i Ching Yin I, th is lime in 100 chiian. Hui Lin e:xcerpted from no fewer than 1,300 Buddhist works, and his glosses are taken from a vast range of lexicographical and commentarial literary works nmv lost to us. These ("adier works have actually later been partly re:con� structed on the basis ofthe ample and c.arefully attriLuted quotations in Hui Lin's large collect ion ofglosses. What Lu
I for .&Orne ri�tail� on this dictionary. of whkh \.... h.m : a detailed description, seC Liu Yeh,Chhiu (1.<J8.'1),
p. 179-
' IbiLI'. 80.
Q,h
lion m IS
a
,,'
sy
ork r
The d they a defect
the ,\1
.,.,615 headil andef Even
each r and ef stroke contel ofaco centUJ there co, lists 01 �Ie: the m
!l!!\!l'
COpiet based a nun
"'4!!i OJ
very r:
its ne, Th
�tio
8vW Hsi E
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
was .elves laths �ntly lks in
f
50 to man >eak !S Lu \'ha1e ror it y oI' asses rin
is mely Ching 'Y by 7z.� lin I than rived IS Lu '" he «>k. tfchi fnder iblio om a 1 360 I)' the r. tlume til d his erary !Con Lin's
79
Other cHorts at systematic glossography rade in comparison with this, but men tion must be made ofJuan Yuan's m5C Ching Chi Tsuan Ku t.�11Hf� (+I798), which is a systematic collection of pre-Thang semantic glosses on Chinese characters, a work rightly admired by later Chhing dynasty philologists.
The dictionaries we have discussed so far may look impressive when described, and they are awe-inspiring when one tries to use them, but they all have one major defect: they remained infuriatingly impractical. The breakthrough came during the Ming dynasty, and was due to the scholar Mei Ying-Tso m fiW rF (+1570 to +r615)' He arranged the 33,179 characters, which he set out to explain, under 214 headings (pu 00) which have proved (in essentially unchanged form) to be useful and efficient mnemonic aids for the retrieval of characters down to the present day. Even more important was Mei's recognition that the order of characters under each radical was essemial for rapid use ofthe dictional)� He introduced the natural and efficient rule that characters under each radical are arranged by the number of strokes needed in addition to the radical. In addition to this, Mei included tables of content in each chiian with references to page-numbers, thus greatly facililatingease of access. (One wishes the compilers oflarge books in China down to the twentieth century had learned that lesson from Mei Ving-Tso!) ,",Vith these major innovations, there was for the first time a dictionary that could be used rapidly and efficiently. So conscious was Mei or ready accessibility in lexicography that he even included lists of troublcsome characters that wcre not easily categorised under his radicals. �Ilei's dictionary remains a mine of information on phonology, and it became the most important source oflater standard works such as the Khang Hri Tzu Tim ,,*�*$, which we shall presently discuss. In fact, Mei's work was surreptitiously copied even berore it was published. Chang Tzu-Lieh iji El r.!{ (+1564 to +1650) based his Ching 7<.u Thung IE':f:iIi (preface +r670) on Mei's dictionary, introducing a number of minor corrections) minor rearrangements and new mistakes. 1 This was only the first of a long line ofpopularised editions of the Tzu Hui *i!i, and the very fact that the Tzu Hui was so widely popularised testifies to the public interest in its new practical approach. The Tzu Hui itselfwas first printed in Japan (+1671), where several more popular editions of it appeared.
By Western standard�, the J..lIung Hsi Tzu Tim, or 'Character Classic of the Khang Hsi Emperor'. might still have to count as a plagiarisation of the Ttu Hui, but this I For au interesting disCUSJinn Q1"1l1l" fale Qflhi, l)()()k sec GO(ldrich (1976), pp. 10621.
80
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
plagiarisation was imperially sponsored, and it must be admitted that it involved considcraLle improvemen t in reliability and detail, and also in scope: there ar� 47,°351 characters defined In lhe Khang Hsi Dinionary; !O,OOO more than in the Tzu Hui or its popularisations including the Ching Tzu Thung .IF. * jifi . In fact the quality orthe Khang Hsi Dictionary is such that must serious scholars ofClasskal Chinese will at least have it on 111t�ir shelves - not Out of some kind of piety to the Khang Hsi emperor, but because under that man\ tutelage a remarkable monu ment oftraditional Chinese Icxit:ography was achieved. The Khang Hsi Dictionary was a collective effort by thirty scholars over the ycars +IjIO to + 17 1 6. The cultural m i portance of the Khang Hsi Dictionary can be gauged by the fan
that the modern Chinese word for 'dictionary' tzu-fien �� actually derives from the title AlIang Hsi Tzu Tim. The Khang Hsi Dictionary became synonymous with the gl.!neral concept of a dictionary, and in fact it has all but replaced its pioneeri ng predecessors (("xceptil1g the Shuo Wen Chieh Tzu aR.:xWf.�) on modern scholars' bookshelves. Ont": consequence of the official character of the Khang Hsi Dictionary was that it concentrated entirely on the educated literary language and omitted non-literary meanings of characters. This was a malta of policy, and it constitutes an unfortunate shortcoming ohhe book. On the other hand, the Dictionary aimed at, and boasted of, total reliability when it came to its references to the Classical litr.rature. Owi ng to the prestige of the Khang Hsi emperor, this image was preserved un til Wang Yin-Chih .:E ij l ;:t , the philologist (+1766 to 1834), in the true spirit ofChhing dynasty khao ching �� textu alscholarship, published a list of 2,588 entries containing mistakes. Since then it has been the Chinese philologists' delight to point out in exquisite detail that even this impressive list of errata is far from complete.1 In spite of all its shortcomings, the Khang Hsi Dictionary has enjoyed a quite unique p opularity in China. Vv'hen, in 1882, a popular edition was published in Shanghai, 40,000 copi es wen,: sold within a fe'w months, and the second edition of another 60,000 copies again sold out with in a few months. J 'Pilei
Wen riin Fu',M:xM}f;f (+q26)
The dictionaries proper we have discussed so far are essentially single character dictionaries. Combinations are covered only incidentally. However, the meaning of a combi nation ofcharaCters in Chinese is by no means simply the sum or product of the components. There are, in short, idioms. If one wishes to look up a combination of two characters, with both ofwhich one may be quite familiar, aU the traditional dictionaries we have so far discussed are generaUy quite inadequate for the pur pose. This gap is filled by the Phei Wen run Fu, compiled between + 1704 and +!711 under the direction of Chang Yo-Shu 5N33:. (+164� to + 1 7 1 1) and others. In the 1983 reprint edition by tbe Shanghai Ku-chi-chh u -p an -she the index to the work , I mu.t recurd that LiJuog flg8 5), p. 3 coums 4i,U2' chamcII:Ors. . S.,.,Wang Yin-Chih (1631). ' C[ Fang Hou-Shu (1979), pan 11, p. �n6.
LA�GUAGE AND L O G I C
alone covers c. 1,200 large pages in small print and gives one access to 13,000 double pages ofdetail on Chinese combinalions ofcharacters arranged by the rhyme ofthe
last characters in the combinations. The Phei Win run Fu was oased on two earlier compilations ofthe same type, the riin Fu Chhiill rIlMJffiif.Ji and the Wu Chhi Yiill}ui n.$ii�:l'JJ. It is a measure of the scholarly meticulousness of this work that the material taken over from these sources is clearly marked as such and distinguished explicitly from the original additions by the editors of the Pilei HJell YUlI Fu. The weak points of the Pilei Wen run Fu arc none the less evident enough: essen tially this is nol a dictionary but a mammoth collection of basic material for any future dictionary that would have to include combinations. By and large, the semantic explanations in Phd Win Yiin Fu are all quotations of earlier glosses. When no such glosses were available, there normally are no explanations orthe combina tion in question. In a dictionary of that kind then' would have to be glosses on each combination, not just examples of how it is used. The meanings of combinations "muld have to be made explicit in each case, not assumed as self-e\�dent from lhe context when no semantic gloss happens to have been found.! Considering the tremendous variety of meanings auributed to Chinese words in traditional Chinese dictionaries, one might be excused for getting the impression that Chinese is a semantically rather diffuse language when compared with, say, Greek. A look through a standard dictionary like Mathews's Clunese-English Dic lionary (193!) will cer tainly leave one with this impression when one compares it to Liddell and Scon's A Greek English Lexicon. But the comparison is quite inappropri ate. �'Iathews's dictionary covers 3,000 years of linguistic history, whereas Liddell and Scan's dictionary is overwhelmingly concerned with the 305 surviving classical authors, who an� divided into nine principal eras in Greek literature, which they list as running from Homer, ,'. -goo, to Lucian, c. +160. It is true that 165 aUlhors later than Lucian are cited, and some of them are e"en as late as Theodorus of Byzantium, who flourished in +1430. But for ;omparison with Chinese literature one must imagine a mammoth Liddell and SCOll covering not only Classical Greek, but all ialer forms ofByzantine Greek, medieval colloquial Greek, as well as semi Turkic and Americanised modern colloquial Greek. Such a mammoth dictionary, if presented in a historically indiscriminate, summary, way without attribution to sources, would present a most confusing picture of the meanings of Greek words, quite as confusing I should think, as the picture emerging in Mathews's dictionary of the semantics of Chinese words. The curio us fact is that we still do not havc a spe:cialised dictionary of pre Buddhisl Classical Chinese, which would be comparable to Liddell and Scott's , The final brl'�kthrough in lcxit,(lp;raphy !I�\'cr cam� (il,ring C]a;;$;e,,] times in China. It"'''s tor theJapan��� scholar i\IoroIHi�hi Tetsuji to incurpmate the malerial fmm the Chinese dictionaries and from their .Japann� counterparts imo th� l,..st dictionary of Cla••ical Chincse until today. !lIC Dui Kdnwd]ilt1l *�fflM*. which culJ�c� all the earlier g]""�s, and where everycombination ! i uplained ;lIId n i lupreled. Keedkss to Sa); Ihe Da; Kan;L'IJ]i/m could 110\ ha,.., be�n compiled withom the usc ofils Chinest prcd"","5S0T$. notably Phei IV;,. Hill fit
l<>"_.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
dictionary. Couvreur's great Dictionnaire classique de la lan!!,ue chinoise does not limit iselfto pre-Buddhist usage. Even the very careful Wang Li (I9i9), covering far too long a time span for our purposes, still presents Chinese words with a range of meanings that is not significantly larger than that which Liddell and Scott attribute to Greek words. Glossaries rif.fore�1Jl1 words Since Chou dynasty times the Chinese had intepreters of various languages attached to their various courts. Surprisingly, they did not produce detailed and reliable dictionaries of foreign languages of anything like the lexicographical stan dards they applied to their own language until modern times. The contrast with Europe is striking. Leaving aside a number of minor glossaries offoreign languages printed in the late +15th century, we find the gigantic Calepini Octoglotton (+1502)1 by Ambrogio Calepino (+1435 to +Ijl I), which gives the meanings of Latin words first in Latin and then in seven other languages. Calepino's work became so popular that calepin became a current word for 'dictionary'. By comparison, the Penlagtot Lcxicon2 published under the auspices of the Chhien Lung emperor (+1736 to +1795) strikes one as vastly inferior not only in scope but also in philological quality. The extraordinary achievements ofEuropean lexicographers offoreign languages up to 1889 may be found conveniently surveyed in the bibliography assembled in the 1 1 th edition of Encyclop,rdia Britannica, vol. 8, p. I90ff. We find nothing remotely like this fascination for foreign languages in traditional China at that time in spite ofthe fact that the Chinese-speaking people lived in an exceptionally rich and varied linguis tic environment. In this the Chinese were rather like the Indians who wrote in Sanskrit. There are hardly any significant foreign language dictionaries into Sanskrit, whereas there is a considerable lexicographical tradition of Sanskrit in India. The comparison with Sanskrit lexicography in India is indeed instructive. The major works ofIndian lex icography are listed in Vogel (1975). In his general characterisation ofSanskrit dic tionaries Vogel notes that 'the classical dictionaries are generally limited to nouns and indedinables'.3 Vogel reports that traditional Sanskrit dictionaries are ofnvo types: they list synonyms, or they list homonyms. They are essentially systematic word-lists. There arc no sizeable traditional Sanskrit dictionaries that give discur sive definitions ofthe meanings of all current Sanskrit words.'1 The earliest fragment of a glossary that survives is dated to the +6th or +7th centuries. The art of Iexico graphy of Sanskrit flourished particularly during the +IIth to +qth centuries, but apparently no major lexicographical effort was made in traditional times towards the writing of dictionaries that explamed foreign languages in Sanskrit. I The book was repri nted and added to many times, The largcst edition (Basic, 1590) lreal, �l"ven lan)\Uages, amoog th�m Hungarian . How,,"�r, the hest edition is the seven·language \',�-rsion (Padlla, In'l). , Thi, workwa, photographically r�puhlished by Raghu Vira as vol. 19 of the Sata·Pitaka Series, New D�lhi 1961, but was finl describ"d already by.J- P. Abd·Remusat in his Mdango Asiatiqlw (182:;1, \'01. 1, p, 153. , Vogel (1975), p, 30+ • Vo;',,,l (197j), p- 3"5-
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
i,
o
,r <
,
j
83
Such Chinese interest in foreign languages as there was, was entirely practical. There is, as far as I know, no deep intellectual curiosity with respect to foreign lan guages. A few people were interested to see that somebody in China knew foreign languages, but nobody was particularly concerned to understand them or learn morc about t1u':m. In this the Chinese were rather like the ancient Greeks. An early survey of the study offoreign languages is Abel-Rcmusat's 'De l'ttude du lanK/US itTangeres chez les chinois' of 1826. Paul Pellial (1948), pp. 207-90 remains the best overall introduction to the main institution responsible for foreign language i g dynasty Four Barbarians' Office (ssu i kuan [9�fl'B) and its instruction, the Mn successor in tht Chhing, the Four Translations Office (ssu i kuan [zyiilJ!g). t By fin (he most important source for Chinese glossaries of foreign languages is the Hua II Yii lj¥.��� (Chinese Barbarian Translations), an early version ofwhich was published in +1389.2 The pioneering: detailed work on the all-important Hua I I Yii was \Vilhelm Grube's Die Sprache und Schrff/ derluten, published in 1896 and carefully lining up 871 phonetic and semantic glosses on the}u-chin &� language. Lewicki (1949) remains a standard account of the Chinese achievements in Mongolian lexicography':l For Uighur we now have Ligcti (1966), for �1alay we have Edwards and Blagden (1931), which lists 482 expressions divided into gevcnteen semantic categories. For Cham we have Edwards and Blagden (1939), with its 601 words and phrases divided into the same categories as in the case afMalaccan ?vlalay. For Vietnamese we have Gaspardonne (1953) and Chben Ching-Ho (/953). I:or Japanese the best reference work is Otoma and Kimura (1968). For what the Chinese called hui hui @J @J or Muslim language we have Tazaka ('Kaikaikan yakugoto goshaku' in TOyo Gakuho 30 ('943), pp. 96-'3' and 232--g6; 30 ('944), pp. 534-60; and 33 ('950), pp. '32-45. For Tibetan there is Nishida, For Thai and rdated languages an early European treatment is MOller (1892)_ ! All these vocabularies are ofinterest to students ofhistorical phonology and com parative East Asian linguistics. From our lexicographical point ofview they art; dis appointingly limited in scope and show little semantic perceptiveness on the words that they do treat. Chinese culture, like Greek culture, did receive outside stimuli, but it remained generally introspective as far as lexicography was concerned. One might expect that the Chinese might have developed a sophisticated intel lectual imerest in Sanskrit, since we have such an enormous body of translations from the Sanskrit. The classic work on Sanskrit-Chinese glossaries is Prabodh
1 s�� Ssw IJ.."u.an 1.11(10 by Wau!!; T,ung-Tsai, prcf,u:e '580. Copiel hpt in 71;'0 Bunko and Lellingrad Libraryno. 130). See abo Devtria (11196). For a readablr. aecoun! oflh� rrguialions and Iho: hislory oflllc� ;nSlilUlions sec abo Wild (1946). , The rarliesl v�r�;oll is (hal ofHuo YU"n-Chieh (j/oruiI 13H9). Hila II fa, reprint Kymo '937. Cf. Fuchs (1931) and Miller (1%4). ri tin Uigurt1l. NtbSI tWm lVOrlnw" "o:r alreadyJulil" K.laproth's AhMlldbmg ibn 1M �pra(Ju IUId &hft , S� 1IO\\... (eidrnjJJ� und nndmn Ui;;llris,;htn Sprachprohm. au, dtm kaisn/iJ;hm Ulmut:..ung,hojt �u Ptking, Berlin 1812. For bibliogr;).phic detail jt� Yang (1974), pp. j ':-I' 21. j
LANGUAGE A N D L O G I C
Chandra Bagchi'sDeu.x lexique! Sankn·t-Chinois {Paris, 1929 and 1937), which discusses in detail four glossaries, I none of which shows any detailed philological interest in Sanskrit philology or grammar. R. van Gulik summarises his findings in his mono gr aph Siddham, Yhe Sturi;' ifSanskrit in Chma andJaj;Gll (Delhi) 1 956) as follows: Thus onr arrives at the conclmion that thr study of Sanskrit as we understand thr trrm, namely as leading to a thorough knowlrdge of Sanskrit grammar and \·ocabulary such as
will enable one to rtad and translate indrpendently Sanskrit lexts, neyerflourished in China. Here the reader will ask how the huge Buddhi�t Canon in Chinese (arne into being, as so
few Chinese had a sufficient knowledge ofSanskrit to be able to translate Indian �lItras" The answer is that the stupendous task ortranslating into Chinese the hundreds ofsutras that constitute the bulk ofthc Canon was performed mamly by Indian and Central .�iatic
1\
IU C< ..
monks.
vVe sh all see in our Section on Buddhist logic that there \vere notable excep tion s to this rule, like HSllan-Tsang "£ � / bu t the general disinterest of tht" Chinese in Sanskrit lexicography as wdl as grammar is plain enough. However) the ideal of enabling the Chinese to read Sanskrit was not abst'nt in the Chines\,; tradition, I Ching �1-� writes in the preface to his One Thousand Words in Sanskrit:
o. '!l of
Ifone reads this together with the Siddham Pari\·arta, one will be able to translate in one or twO years.J
\"rhatever Chinese interest there was in Sanskrit praclicall)� it disappeared from the +151h to the e arly 20th century. There was no competitor in China to Japan's Ji-un (+1718 to 1804), who showed a sustained interest in Sanskrit p hilology and achieved a fair understanding ofSallskrit grammar. 1 Another important language with which tht' Chinese w(rc in intense and sus tained contact was Tibetan. VVI" have an early glossary described in Thomas and Giles (1948), which presents a Tibeto-Chinese word- and phrase-book written 011 the back ora +gth-cemury Buddhisl lext found in Tun Hu ang, There are in fact two lislS containing 154 and 60 items respectively and supplying Chjnl'"se glosses in each case,� We also have a number of sizeable Buddhist translators' glossaries oftechni cal terms from Tibetan 10 Chinese, But none of these amOUllts to a comprehensive dictionary of the Tibetan language. None of them shows an intellectual interest in the vocabulary and structure of the Tibetan language as such. During the period of Manchu domination in China therl'" was, understandably; a certain practical interest in Manchu. Chinese dictionaries and studies of the �"anc.hu language art' surveyed in the Russian monograph Grebcnshchikov (191 3). , 'Timko "fnpitakD nos. \1133, 2134, 2133. and �1:{6. Van Gulil(1956). I'. 33, .:umm..nu: 'W" muSl � gratcfu.lto thu"'Japan�M' monks(who prcSl"",.,.c · d th"",, glo!l.<ari"s C.H.), for iflhey had nul carefully pre�""""l'
C(
.(
1<
p'
m
co
pI
nt
., po
L A N G U A G E A:"JO L O G I C
(6)
THE ART
OF
GRAMMAR
DI
TV.OIT[ONAL CHINA
Background We have noted that the ancient Chinese paid considerable philosophical attention to lhe natur� of their own language, and that they developed a commentariallexi cographical tradition that shows their profound p hilological interests.
However, dictionaries as we:11 as commentaries are essential!y cumulative. They
arc typically concerned with individual qut';stions of intcrpretation within a given
passage. They arc not concerned with (he grammatical system as such. \Vhen it
came to the study oftht' pro nunciation ofChincse characters, the Chinese linguists showed a considerable systematising interest and aLility. They were interested not
only in pronunciation of individual characters but in the sound system of their lan guage as a whole. I But what about the grammatical system of their language? ·What
was the evolution of Chinese views on the grammatical system of their own lan guage?� By and large, one will find that tht" grammatical system as a whole has been of only marginal interest when compared to lexicography and phonology.
Grammar in the West In Greece, the study of grammar proper started mainly with the Stoics in the -3rd ccntur)� 3 The first complete grammar, lhe Te(hn� grammatike in 25 sections, was tra ditionally attributed to Dionysios Thrax (c -(00) but is probably a somewhat later compilation. The Teelmi grammaliki defines, for example, the concept of a sentence ('expression of a complete thought'), and of a word (,smallest unit within a sen
tence.) , and sets up eight word-classes
(noun, verb,
participle, article, pronoun,
prepo�ition, ad\·erL, conjunction). It deals in detail with inflection but does nOt pay the same attention to syntax.
In Romt', Varro (-116 to -27) wrote his famous De iinl:ua lAtina,
5 to
ro,
and some further
fragmenls,
of which books
SlIrvive today. From c. +500 we have the
celebrated Latin grammar by Priscian. Grammar became a part of the In'mum, the educational curriculum consisting of grammar, logic and rhetoric, which, together with mllsic, arithmetic, geometry and astronomy, was the mainstay ofsecular edu cation throughout the .Middle Ages and beyond. H. Keil (1961), Grammatici fAtini,
published bt"twet'n the years 1855 and 1880, is an impressive monument to the inge· nuity and fertility of the Latin grammatical tradition. Kothing remotely similar to
this colleClion could be compiled from traditional Chinese sources. , The pr..face to the phollctit: rii(tionary CMirh llin i:JJIiI. (+601) show. a quite th(oreticai n i tereSl in "'hat,,� tod�ywoul
.' Se� �Iill�r (1')73). Sc" Pohle",. (1939). Th� gennal SlOT)' ofthe "arly histor) nfgrammar ill weU wid in Steinthal (1B90) Arro, (L9:f5), I'r· I��H, Robin. (19E)i), pp. ,- 65, and H()HihaL'g�n (t9H�). Bom (lgu3) pt'O\';(ks a detailed compar:\l;'� j.><>T!pcnj,·e on the history ofm�n's id..as on languag�.
86
LAXGUAGF. A�D L O C I C
Ev{:'n more striking is the contrast when we turn to tbe philosophy of grammar. Anselm ofCanterbury"s fascinating dialogue De Grammatico, I or Bocthius, De modis significandi� aTC only two examples of a rich '","estern tradition which has no parallel in China. In India, Pal�ini evolved what long remained the most advanced system ofgram matical drscription in the world as early a� c. -50Q. The Sanskrit grammatical tradi tion is among tht.: most impressive'" scientific achiev("ments in pn;-modcrn India. I i traditionai Chin.tl Grammar n
What corrcspond� to European grammar in China is a proper part ofthe science of characters, which we have discllssed in detail in our section on lexicography. In so far as we have grammar in traditional China, it is in the form ofexplanatOry glosses on grammatical particles and much later - dictionaries of grammatical particles. Grammar as a specialised a nd systematic non-lexicographical exercise was late to devc.:lop . • The earliest book we can plausibly describe as a grammar of the Chinese lan guage, th(" l\Ja Shih Win Thullg ,%�x:� was published in 190+� and was written (under clear and acknowledged \Ve:stern influence) by ivla Chien-Chung � � ,t, (1844 to 1900) and his brother Ma Hsiang-Po .�"H:ifB {1840 to 1939)," both ofwhom Wf're well versed in Latin and Wf're reputed to have ta ught Latin to Liang Chhi Chhao �.®� (1873 to '929) and Tshai Yoan-Ph (' i �:lC:t--g. (1868 to 1940). vVe shall now investigate the evolution of grammatical reflection and analysis in China before the impact of Western linguistics in that part ofthe workF How could the: ancient Chinese be brilliant philologists and fine linguistsU with out sorting out grammar! \Vhy did they fail to produce their own grammatical sys tem to account for Iheir own langllage? Hu Shih "AAM (18g1 to Ig62} comments: �
How is it that Chinese grammar study developed so late? I think thef(� are three reasons. Firsl, Chinese grammar is basically \·try casy, so people fCIt no ncr.d for grammar study. Intelligent peoplr could 'grasp il (direnly) with their minds', while dullards, having labori i read a thousand-fold, ils mean ing will itself ously to me the dullards' method of 'A. book f •
See rinborg and Roo� ('969). ' Sn.: 51,1011 (19i21 . Ihat I have $mmui",l aerol' u,,� comninalion tJi-t which s i th<: �!odern Chinese word ror Synta.x, aire3dy in the S3};ngs allribUl�d to ChI! I lsi :S!<::B (+11:30 10 +'200) n i Chll nil l"ii ui *.y.�!i,t;R. �d. Clnlllg-hua-shu-(hii, reking 19HG, p. 33:;". The meaning of chiif� h�re ."�m! 10 b� ,urnc Ihinj( like 'the art "fmakiu)i:" senlencc� in poetry'. , The pfefaer "flhis I,"()rk is dOlled 18g8 "hich ;< usually gi,,;n as th<: dale ofpublicalion. Ho"e\-er, the finr \"ol\lm� was puhli,hcd only in '(100. and Ihe eomrle,� work appeared in 1904. • Since th� work was publi5h�rl soon aft�r �Ia Chi�n-CIIlUlg'5 d�alh, hi, brolh�r Ma Hsianp;-P" la,,' it through th� pre1s. Thrre has �en <"Umid�rahl,; oonlrovrrsy on {hI' author$hir "flhe Ala Shih JViI! "Thung ��Jt liJj. notahly Ch.. Hsins: (1980). Cf. Pc'·�r�lh (1986). PI'. 59f. Th� mu", rec�nt IludiC$ (nOI mentioned!'y Pe'�re[[i) arc \\'\1 Kuo-I (.fl8'�) and to Shu-Hsiang and Wang l lai·fCn ('9116). Sc� al�o Lin ¥ii-Sh"n (198:\), pp. 4Tf. , For the hisfory "rCh;l1rs�, !trilmmar frOIll M" Shih IVbl ThulIg Ol\warrl, we now have Pever�lli (1986), which pl"Olirlrs a useful .un."C'j, as w..Jl as Kung Chhicn-Yrn (lg87). I·" T a con'"rn;cnt bio!l;raphjc and hiuJiographic dictionary of Ihe pTa�ti{jon�r< of theM' "TIS n i traditional Chi",. see Cbhen Kao-Chlmll (198!i).
, s�� Henry{19641 and ('967\.
• I must r..pun a� a ruriO,;I): Ihougl"
,hll.fa
LANGUAGE A:\'D L O G I C unfold', did not conceive of the short-cut of grammar
study. Second, education in
8j China
was for thc most part limited lO a \'cry small numbc:r of people, so no onc co nside red lhe inconvenience of the greatest number, so thf'rc was no neccs5ity to study grammar. Third, the Chinese language and orthography have stood alone for thousands of y�ars with no
l:hance for compari�on with other types ofhighly·devrlopcd language and orthography. Only Sanskrit came into contact with Chinese fairly enrly; but the: grammar of Sanskrit is too difficult and too far remO\'ed from Chinese grammar to serve as a basis for comparison. Other languages th at came into contact with Chinese were each looked down upon by the Chinese and so were not able [0 induce comparison. Ha\i· ng such comparison, the Chinese did not den"lop lhe concept ofgrammar. ,
A few hundred years earlier Andreas :MOller wrote: lingua Sinica nulla imiigel GR,l.lf-" ,ITlr..J. Sujficit lincon. � Thj� is evidently an exaggeration, bu t it hints ,-ll an important factor. One reason why the Chinese did not (ne ed to) devel op systematic grammar is that in an analytic language like Ch inese the: le:xicon ofwords plus the lexicon o[grammatical particles taken together go a longwa}' LOwards accounting for what it takes to understand the: texL� - a much longer way than would be possible in more synthetic languages like Creek or Sanskrit. In Greek, there is an ouvious and pervasive need for an analysis of the cases (nominative, ge nitive, dative, accusative), [or the endings of tenses and their aspects (present, imperfect, aorist, perfect, pluperfect, future), for agrf'e:mf'l1t (as in the English 'I go', 'he goes') , and many other thin gs . All these can only he accou n ted [or in a grammar. They cannot vcry well be tre ated in a dictionary. In Chinese, what ro ughly corresp onds to the genitive in Western language:s, must in principle be discu ssed in the dictionary u nder chill Z. In gen e ral a great deal of the grammar of Classical Chinese can be formulatf'd as an extended dictionary entry under the various grammatical p articles of thClt language. Grammars could there fore lake the form of dictionaries of grammatical particles, which is exactly what happencd.3 The grammar of English is not as different from that of Chinese as one might think. Speakers of English used to be tcased for speaking a language without a grammar. Sir Philip Sidney (+I554 to +1586), in his The Difenci ofPotJ-ie, put up a splendid defe.nce: of English . It reminds me of what was s aid about Chinese by seventeenth-century European obs ervers. Sir Philip answered the charge that Engli sh had no grammar as follows: Nay, truly, it hath that prayse, that it wante:th not Grammar: for Grammar it might h;we, but it needes it not : bt'eing so easie of itself; and so voyd of those cumbersome differences of Cases, Genders, YIoodt's, and Tenses which I think was a peece of the Tower of BQbifon� curse, that a man should be put to schoole to learnt his mother-tongue_' ) Hu Shih Win 'hhun #JIiJt1,<. 1.3, p. 67, cf. Cikoski (1970), p. 7. " 'The Chines,- language docs not need grammar. Thp oir.tinnory �uffi"n.' �lillln {1671}, p_ 13, By comparison, specialised diclionari�., ()fGr�"k !(ramma\in,l lmrlid�, wn� relatively lalc t o develop. Cf. Dcnniswn ([934), .. SidnC)-' (1868), p. 70.
88
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
'Full words' and 'empt)' words'
The most fundamental and importalH grammatical distinction in Classical Chinese is that benveen 'full words' and 'empty words', \'Ve shall first discuss the carly history ofthe division and then turn to the problems of subdivisions within the two main cate gories. The di�linction between categorematic and syncatt>goremalic.: in medieval grammatical and logical theory' is closely related {Q that between I;mpty and full words in Chinese.2 A comparison shows that the \"'estern distinction has anraCled much more sustained systematic philosophical atlention than its Chinese counter pan.1 Already HSll Shen WPtii (died ca. +149) in his Shuo Wen Chich Tzu &R.)(fY!f¥ distin guished between what he called particles (tdIU It$ oryii aN) on the on� hand, and full lexical words t{1l � on the olher. He defines mng $ 'would that, rather' as 'particle of intention', chieh -§' ' all ' a� 'particle of universality', k/) � 'each' as 'particle of difference', the final particle i E. as 's�ntence final particle ' , By the time Cheng Hsoan J$y (+127 to +200) wrote his commentary on HSil Shell's great dictionary he draws a wnsistent line between ming � 'names', and lzhu t'i!l 'particles', But as , C[ especially \\-illiam uf Sh c .... -uocI'� .. S)'nci,lu§1rtmQ/il, edi!(:d byJ. R. O'l)onell (1941), , It ",11 be lI$eflil to compare th., distinction betw(,en categorematic and syncat(,gorematic tcrms a. marie by William ofOckham: There is still another distincti'ln holding both between ,",>cal, and hrtw<"en mental t(,['!lIS, Som" at.. cate gorematic, others are syncalcgur�malic terms, C;l.legorcmatic t�rm, ha\'� a definite and flXcd signifiratiOll, a� for inst�nce the word 'man' signifying all men, and the word 'animal' �ignitying all alli!ll�b, and the n(mn 'whiten���' !ignit}�ng all whi tcnesscs, Th� Iyll(:al�gorematic terms, on th.:: others hand, �uch �s 'aU', 'no', 'sollle', 'th� \\'hol�', 'besides', 'unly', 'in so far aI', do not ha,-� a tixed and definite m��nin!(. nor do they signify thlllg� di,tinel /Tom the Ihing, signified by "at�gOfemalie terms. Rather, just a� in Ih� �ysl�m of numbcn Z�1l> �Ianding alone d",," not sigulfy anything, but when addcd 10 an mher number gi\'� it a new signification, so a $)'TlCalegorcmatie lerm
d�s not prop"!rl)' 5peaking signify anything, hut ",h�n added 10 anuth.,r num.....r gil'es it a Ilew ,ignifir.a lion. In the sam., wa} the categorematic term do"!! not properly spc�ling �igllify an}1hing. but ralh�r
I,'hen add('d to anuther ",rm it makes it signify something or make! it stand for SOme thing or things n i a definlle manner, or has SOllle uth..r function \\,ith regard to a ca.. t gorematic tertn. William of Oekham
(t9�7), p. 5'
William ofShcJ'wood(+I�IO to (. +1 27U) I,'rote ('I'('1l befor" hi, namesa�e orOckham: In ordcr to under'tand anything, one must UIl(,j,:ntand ils parts, alld so in u rdt'r tlnll th� statement may I,.., fully understood, OnC Ill",t und�r�land the pans of it. Now it, part� are of 1"'0 kiIlus : principal and scc olld�lr)'. 'J'h� principal parts arc Ih� �ub�tanti\'al name and the wrb, f"r th�y al'� ll('ccssary for an und..r standing of the 'Ialem�nt_ The l�condar)' partl ar� lh� adjectival name, th� auwrh, and conjullCtiom and prepositions, for a natement nm �Xi51 without them. Some lecondary pans arc d�lamination5 ofprincipal parI> wilh r�'pt'Cl to the things belunging to them; t1t�se ar� not syncategoremala. Fur exampl�, when I �ay 'white man', th� 'white' !ignifies Ihat ,om� thing bclonginlo(to 'man' iswhite. Othcr !Ci:undaryparts are detcrmination. ofprincipal pans n i ro rar a. the} are ,ubjects ur pr�dicates. tor examp!.:, when I �ay 'e'�I)' man rwu' the ''''''1).'. which is a uniw:l1i si!'(Jl, does nOt signir} tltat ,urn., thing belonging to 'mau' is univ..rsal, but that -ttum' is a uni""r.
al
I qu ote thes(' mcdk\'�1 definition" 'p"cti\'e.
50
(hal
Chincic ..:xplanations may be s<:C!\ in thdr prop�r compar�th.., I"'c
89
LAKGUAGE 11.).10 L O G I C
the Sung dynasty scholar Liu Shu-Tshai 'iJlJ,J&/f poims out: '\Vi\hout pronouncing these (grammatical particles) one cannot exhaust the meaning.'l The standard terms shih !
'full characters' and hrii 1.<.11 'empty characters'
first become wid",ly current during Sung dynasty timcs.�
The relotio1lship btlween empg andfid! words In sen tences there are auxiliary words (chu (zhu WJ::f:),just as in ritual and music there are masters orceremnnir.s. Ifin ritual or music there are no masters ofceremonies, then rhe rit ual will not proceed properly and thc music will not be pleasant. Ifin sentences there are no auxiliaries, theu they will not flow smoothly (pu shun 1'Jm).�
Chiu-Yuan �1Lvm (+1139 to +I192), the famous Confucian philosopher, 'vVhen it comes to what meanings tend towards, there is again the distinc tion between empty (hsu Ii) and full (shih �). in the case of empty characters (hsu tzu J.I*), one will only discuss the meaning of the characters (t<1i i *�). In the case of full characters (shih t
advises:
loan characters for grammatical particles, as Chou po-ehhi
m:lfsfllt himself points itcf* fascinat
oU( in a diftcrenl place:; Another aspect is raised in YuanJen-Lin's
ing book Hsii Tzu Shllolif[�� (+1747). 'On the whole the ancients created the char
acters taking
concrete
things as their point of departure
. Aftef\vards those who
made thl.! (wrinen) language n i each case loaned the full characters to wrile empty words in ordl.!r to convey their meaning. ,f
Yuan Jen-Lin
�t# even provides explanatory accounts of some particles.
Thus he writes: 'Every pOI has a bottom and a lid. When the lid is put on top to
cover things, its position is such that it embraces the rest. Now, when we use the full word
kai � " lid" as an empty word: "on the whole, probably", it still has something
ofits full me aning. 'II
The anonymous Hrii Tzu Chll Shih m-'¥WJ:f$ (1820) lists up the lexical meanings of
39 grammatical particles, but without focusing on the link between the lexical and
grammatical functions discussed.�
I Cf: Lin Yo-Shan (191l3),P. �a. , Chcug Ticn and }'Iai i\Iei-Chhiao (19°5), p. 9', gi"'" a rich ,,,j.,ctioll of early quotations. Chh�I1 Huan (+ljS6 to +1863) speaks orth� 't:mpty "" aning (h.rii i li'ift)' of a dmraClcr in his commentary on lhe Shih Ching 136. 1 .
, Chh�n Khuei, IV;" 1ji, cd. Liu Yen-Chhfng, p. 27. Cf. aho I.i\l Chih-Chi i!l:lilJ� (+66l to +721), who di,tin !l:"i.,h�s I�tw�ell ICIIICIICC·illilial and sentence-final particles and then CQntinut:�: 'Ifyou I�a'� these
go
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
The Jubcategon:sation ofempty words
Hsii Shell �t:a; (died +149) defines ten words as distinct kinds of particles (tdlU SnJ) , 1 In Win Hsin Tiao Lung x{,'filrM (The Literary Mind and the Carving ofDragons), Liu Hsieh �-'lJ4� (+465 to +522) subdivides particles into four classes: those which do not add to the meaning of a sentence (wu i wen i mtM)(�) like hsi �l.. , sentence initial particles, intra-sentential particles, and sentence-final particles.2 Liu Tsung-Yiian t1JO*51; (+ii3 to +819) distinguished further between i tzhu �Hm 'doubtful (final) panicles' like hu -¥ and chiieh tzhu l.Rj'joJ 'definite (final) particles' like),ell itt . J These, however, were isolated remarks rather than systematic attempts at subcategorising Chinese grammatical particles. An allert/alive distinction between empty andfull umds
At least from rvfing times onwards there emerges a new distinction within the lexical items between 'full (shIh !Ii)' nouns on the one hand, and 'empty (hsii 1!lli) , verbs and other nun-nominal words on the other. It is this latter distinction between nominal and non-nominal words, which came to play an important part in discussions of parallelism in poetry, and it is this latter distinction which actually entered classical dictionaries like the Tzhu Hai jfj¥m (I948), p. 426, where we read sub verbo shih lzu W':f= 'full character': In ancient times the nouns ,vere considered as full words and all other characters as empty words. Chu Hsi *_ (+1130 to +1200) finds this distinction less than water-tight: Vilal ener gy (chhi�) is a solid/real/liJll (shih ltr) thing. 'Contract (;,iieh to), is a half-empty half-full character. These two cannot function as corresponding clements in parallelism."
The rationale behind this distinction between the nominal and the non-nominal is in the philosophical distinction between substance (lhi 11) and function (yung ffl). Thus YenJo-Chu 1HJ::;fi±� says: Ev\;a.e�!.'!.-c.te.r can be used for a substance (thi) or for a 1i1l1ction (;,ung). For example, chin tt 'pillow' in the upper tone is used for the substance and is a full (shih) word (meaning ¢. f . \ 'pillow').:' Read in the falling tone, chin refers to the function (yung) and is an empty (lISU ti) •
1.
� word {meaning 'USt as a pillow').6
A Ming dynasty compilation on parallelism in poetry explains: characters which correspond to a form and substance count as full. Characters which do not corre spond to a form and substance count as empty. Those which appear LO correspond I Ancient dictionary entrie, on grammatical partid�, ar� conveni"ntiy a""ml.Jled in Cheng Tien and ]\fai
\·Jei·Chhiao (J()6.'i), pp_ �Hl----<) L , IV;" Ib" i Ti(!O Lung, cf. 34, �d. Lu Klmn-Ju (lgHI), vol. 2, p. 185; If. Shih (1983), p. 18g. , 7a 7" IWn·Fu Shu, quotcd aftcr Lin Yil-Shan (1983), p. 2 8. h" Tz" Yii Lei, lranslated from Cheng Ticn and "'hi Mci·Chhiao (196:-,), p. 103. • C , The,e difT�reJlt readingsfor charactCfs in different fllIletions go baek [0 at least the Han dYllasty. b Cheng Ticn and r-Iai �-Ici·Chhiao (!g6j), p. 9:-'.
,
LANGUAGE
AND
LOGIC
9'
to a form and substance but do not so correspond, COunt as half-empty. Those which appear nOt to correspond to a for m and substance, count as h alf-full. I 'Dead words' and 'living words'
The handbook on parallelism continues: The full characten are all dead characters. Only among the empty characters are there both dead and li\·ing characters. The dead characters refer to things that are naturally so, like high and low, large and fine. Living characters refer to a bringing about, like 'fly', 'dive', 'be transformed'. Empty characters must correspond in parallelism to empty characters, full characters to full characters. Similar remarks apply to half empty and halffull charac ters. Tt is particularly imporlanl lhat dead characters must not correspond in parallelism to living characters, and living characters must not correspond to dead characters. Irone does not pay attention to this, then the style goes wrollg.�
This passage shows clearly hO'v the system of rules for parallelism could lead to classifications of characlers that can be interpreted as grammatical in th e light of later developments. Ancient comments on wordorder On several occasions lhe Kung Yangi}$ commentary brings up questions of word explains these in terms of the psych ology of perception. Thus, when a sentence rcads in Chinese S I X FI S H - HAW K S RETURN FLY, lhe commentary asks: order and
vVhy does SIX come first and F ISH-HAWKS afterwards? S I X fiSH-HAWKS RETURN FLY reporb something that is seen. One looks and sees there are six things. One looks more closely and finds there are six fish-hawks. One iuvestigates more slowly and finds they are Hying back.3 In another, perhaps even earlier, commentary we find a discussion of the sen tence WILD- G O O S E NORTH HEAD-FOR 'the wild goose head northwards' versus ).l1).lTH MONTH D I S APPEAR WILD-SWAN WILD-GOOSE: \Vhy is WILD-GOOSE named first and HEAD-FOR afierwards? That is because you sec the wild goose first and ollly afler that you ascertain the direction it is taking. . . . ·Why is D I S .....PPEAR named first and WILD-S\....A N WILD-GOOSF. af"lt'rwards? This is because you see that they are: gone and only afterwards you ascertain that what is gone: are the wild swans and the: wild geese.' For
the sentence
BROWNISH THE
SO-.H'I-PLA:-lT
'the so-sui r?
mi plants have
turned brownish' we have from the same early source the following disquisition:
Why does it first say BROWNtSH and then mention the plant? It is because the: brownish colour is what you sec first.) , Tui Uitt�, cr. Cheng Tien and /I.-lai "'I"i-Chldao (lg6S), p. 110. ' Ibid. Aim;; langClluu�, DLlke Hsi, year ,6. Cf. als.., D..,k<.: Yin, year I; and Uuk� H,i, y�itr 1 . • 7;' TaiLiChi, ch. 47, ed. Kao i\!ing(I9ij), P.Sg. I Ibid.,p.61. .1
L A l'\ G U A G E A N D L O G I C
The philosopher and commentator Chu Asi
=* f.f
(+1I30 to
+H!oO)
notes an
important semalllic distinction which he thinks is marked by word order.
Hlei chitflZ C ..... LL IT means (0 name it. Chih wei znw IT CALL means simply that it is it. '
What Chu Hsi is saying sl'ems to be that when in Classical Chinese we have wei
chih X this should be read as
'we call it X', whereas when WI; see
X chih wei it just
m(;ans 'is (an) X'. The point is debatable, but clearly we have here caught Chu Hsi out as he is trying to do Classical Chinese grammar.
Grammatitai c()mments in the traditional Chinese commentaries From carliest timl's Chinese philological commentaries are rich in wncrete obser vations on grammatical usages of given grammatical particle�. These ob�ervations tend to be descriptive rather than explanatory, and the grammatical descriptions arc neverjustifil'd or argued for. One hardly find� commentalOrs considering alter native grammatical glosses and deciding between them. MoreovCT, the grammati cal particles were never sten as pan ora grammatica1 9slem. Without conscious and reasoned choice between alternative grammatical descriptions and without the establishment of a grammatical syste-m, Chinese grammatical observations in tra ditional times remained
from a modern point of view - ad hoc and disconnected
comments. But precL'Ieiy Lecause they were so untheoretical, these comments give us precious clues on traditional Chinese natural intuitions concerning their gram matical particJ�s. Disconnected and ad hoc as they may be, traditional grammatical glosses deservl' our dose attention. And it does stand to reason that grammar, after all, is more ad hoc and disconnected in nature than some theoretical linguists (like Noam Chomsky) would have us believe. In some instances Chinese grammatical glosses are contrastive, as when the Kung
rang OlUan i}$i$ notes that in two entirely parallel phrases one uses irh rm then' and the other uses nai 7J 'and then':
'and
At midday (then) one could bury the princess Uih (hliligirh kho Isong B �ffij"UJ�).� '....'hen the sun went down (then) ont could bury the princess Jilt ksia chih nai kho tJangB -t:Z
7J"l�.' The
Kung Yang ChI/un goes on to ask the perfectly pcrtinent question: why is irh used in one case and I/ui in the other. This question is answered perhaps most dear ly in the Kit Liang Chuan t2:�f$ commenting on the same passages: £rh is a slow particle. . .
.
Nai is a (more) urgent particle.
Thus nai is taken to ml'an 'then immedialely', whereas irh is just 'then'. The neg
ativefo iJt, is explained as a stronger variant ofpu /f. I The poet and philosopher Liu , C�u T:;u Iii I�i 38. cd. Wang Hsing-H,i..n, p. 3280.
, Chhull Chhiu, Duke Hsilan H. ed. Yang Po-ChOn (lg84), p. 6�.'); cf. Couvreur (1951 b), vol. I, p. 595. , Chhun Chhiu, Duk� Ting 15, ..d. Yallg Po-Chiln (198. J) , p. 1600: cf. CUU\TCUT (19:;1 b), \"01. :i, pp. 592f. • Ho Hsiu 191*, AiI"lliJng ChutJn ChirhKu. i}$llIM.tr;, Duk.. Huan, rear 10. Forfurthcr ",idence on the com
panson Ix(,·\"(�c"pu l' andJu $ in traditional Chin
PP·I(iSIT.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
93
Tsung·YOan Ml*:JL': (+773 to +819), even empl oys a notion that comes close to that ofa 'grammatical rule' when he compl ains that one ofhis correspondent.s 'in his use ofempty characters did not conform to the rules and orders (Iii ling f!4')'.1 Dictionaries ojgrammatieatparlieUs in traditional Chimr The first specialised dictionary ofgrammatical particl es was the Yii Chu �WJ by Lu I·Wei ll.J:);m (preface +1324),� which treats over one hundre:d grammatical parti· des and provides often contrastive glosses on the ir usage in an almost colloquial style for begi nners . Classical panicles are often glossed by wlloquial equivalents. One special feature ofthis work is the fan that it also ddine:s a number of combina· tiollS of partic les . In +171!. the scholar LiLi Chhi �-'IJ?jl; produced the first coherent aod comprehen· sive dictionary explaining 476 grammatical particles , the Ow Tzu Pien Liieh iVJf:m � , which contains abundant illustrative examples from Classical literature from pre·Chhin times down to the YOan dynasty. The annotated editions of thi s book remain singularly useful today. Yuan Jen·Lin's at#- HSii 'hu Shuo Jj[*� (Explanation of Grammatical Particles , preface dated +1747) is only 68 pages l ong, but fuJI of careful and original observations on the grammatical functions of both individual grammatical pani cles and combinations ofth�e. The auemion Yiianjen·Lin paid to combinations of grammati("al panicles is remarkable for its time. '{Oan J en·Lin had a profound influence on the authors of the first proper grammar of Literary Chinese, Ma Chien·Chung ,��,';S', and Ma Hsiang·Po ,�t§f8. Wang Yin·Chih's .:E91Z much larger and less erratic Ching Chuan Shih Tzhu i§!:{$�1iEJ (Explanations of the Grammatical Partides in tht: Classics and Com· mentaries) ) preface +1798, remains a popular grammatical handbook to this day. '-Vang sets up no less than 52 categories ofgrammatical particles. In his imroduction he complains that since Han times disproportionate attention has been given to 'fuJI' lexical items, and hardly to gramm atical particles. He proposes to make up for
this imbalance in a comprehensive way.1
All the above dictionaries of grammatical particles are t:ssentially collections of glosses and make no attempt at a systematic analysis of the characters tht:y discuss or of the grammatical system as a whole. The first grammar of C hinese was pub· lished in 1904. However, there arc a number of works which include interesting remarks on grammar and which deserve special study. Notable among these is , J-il Tu IYrIl-FwSltu fltl:i4�W.-d. lVHVA; \uL j,p. 13.
, An oumandin�I)' IIseful compilation on traditjonal C:hin�sc grammatical theoriei is Ch�ng Tien and Mai �I..i-Chhiao (196�). On pp. 3201T. "fthi:. ,,"urk "ne will find a bibliographic survey ol tradidonal Chin��e hook.�
rdated to grammar. Hu Chhi.Kuang (198i), 100, supplies a wcll-documenlt'<:! SIU'-':-Y) Scc Chhen Wang-Tao (lg80). , Yo �lin{Ig.87) prolidesdelailed crilir;ism ofWang yin -Chih 'sd .... "' i". Yii Min', book is a major contriblllion 10 methodology in Chinese S)lIlax and prmides a wealth ofmigi"aI aalyse. n blUed on a eomparath'e approach 10 the sludy ofancient Chin..� grammar: he take, n i to account nOi only e\·idenee from Chinese dialeclJ (which provide (nlcial hinUl), fmm Tib�tan and fromJapanese, but he also provides stimulating comparisons "ilh Samluit, German, E.nglisl., Lalin and Greek grammar.
94
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Chhen Khuei's Ii*� Wen Tfi X HIJ (pre:face dated +1170, new edition by Liu Yen Chheng @J�r&., Peking Ig88), which contains a section on the use ofempty words. I Moreover, Watters (188g), p. 97, has dra\.... l. attention to one early Igth-cemury work that does contain a systematic and coherelll aCcount of Chinese grammatical categories . This work is said to have alre ady been Freely used byJoseph Edkins in his grammar oCthe colloquial Chinese, and it deserves our altentiol1. Pi Hua-Chin's $!:}l
'Lull Win G'hhien S!tu()' �ifii)(�� and 'Lun Wen Hsii SllUo'�rffi"xm-m2
Pi Hua-Chen (writing in the early 19th century) begins by dividing words (tzu * )
into full (shih �) and empty (hsii Jilil) ones. The characteristic feature afthe full words is that by themselves they describe something which may be thought of and spoken
oC The concf'pts they de signate must have features which may be designated (yu iuan kho clllh che ffnffiri1J1��). Moreover, they must be designed to combine into sen tences (phai tzhupien chii #FnaJ�iD). Among the full words, Pi distinguishes between primary words (mu t(:u ref., lit. 'mmher words') which directly refer to things, and secondary words (t{U tzu -r*, lit. 'son words') which rerer to features of things. Two full words, we are told, can be either co-ordinate (phing lich .:qz)ilj) or they are subordinate (!shi lich {!!1J371J) with a head (chu I) and a modifier (pin }l{). The head is said to come last. ''''e now turn to the empty words in Pi's system. Among these he describes the rigi d empty words (Iai hsli tzu *,jffi=f:), intransitive or stalive verbs, which are designed to describe circumstances (i IIsitil cilhu wu chih cllhing chuang t:) n t±1¥JJ-<:m Wt) and which do not require a complement. A sentence with such a predicate is called a simple sentence ofthe first order (tan !shing ta; chii ftlJi*iD). Next Pi describes the living empty words (hu() hSi! t{U $ !!II!. ::f:), which express a i dlhujin shih J,::/U� C±L}\.�) or which combine what precedes human action (i liseli with what comes afterwards (i lien (flui shang hsia t:J�9Ji�J:r), and sentenc.es involv ing these are called second-order rigid sentences (shuang Lrhing kli chii � � � 1:iJ). Finally, there are two categories of empty words whkh come close to grammatical particles (khou chhiyi! chu hsli t;:,u D��W)m* and the kh.ung hu() Itsii 1;:'11 �mJ.!ffi:*). Rosthorn (18g8) does not manage to give a coherenl picture ofthl: distinction. From Arthur von Rosthorn's desc ription this does indeed appl"ar to be a fascinat ing book, quite different from the grammatical literature we have discussed so far. One is at times tempted to assume some \"'estern influence, Lut on the other hand one would expect such influence to have manifested itself more obviously and to I Jilin 'TilChu-i>CJlIJtr:Zl. ed. Liu Y"n-Chheng. p. 2;.
•
Cf. 1m HJU TIh/lQ Thang PI. Chi mf,ft:a�-'ffffi:!. The pr"."m account ofthi. tittle book has to rdy entirety un
Rosthorn (18gH), $ince I haw! not been abte u> gain acce�� to th" original Chin"'� work. I'i Hua-Ch�n lIt-." i� m�ntioncd in Hummel (19i3\ p. n41, as actin' in 1809 and interested in mu,ic, bUI without further detail. h would be int"re�ting to know whethn Pi Hua-Chfn had any c()nn�rtions with \\'�Hnners.
L A N G U A G E Ar\D L O G I C
95
have aroused the suspicion not only of Roslhorn, but even morc of Wallers and Edkins.
Phonology \-\ie have seen that the treatment of grammar was generally atomistic and ad hoc in nature: what we have arc essentially glosses and collections ofglosses on grammati cal particles in particular COnlexlS.
One might be temp led to conclude that the Chinese were quite generally inca
pable: of systematically organised theoretical workwithin the field o flinguislics. But the case of Chinese phonology shows abundantly that this is not true.
detailed account of ph onological sciences in However, from the point of view of the history of science, we must emph asise that in the field ofphonology the Chinese did approach a systematic theoretical method, which we have found lacking in the study of grammar. This important achievement deserves a separate monograph in its own righ t, and I shall not attempt to summarise it here. There is no need here to
give
a
China. The literature on this subj ect is vast. I
(7) TilE ART O f LITERACY
IN
TRADITIONAL CHINA
The ancient Greeks as well as the Romans cultivated and celebrated the art of rhetoric and particularly of public speech. This was an integral part of the social
fabric of public lifi: in these societies. Admittedly, the ability to speak persuasively to
rulers is commended in such works as Chan Kuo
Tshi��m (-3rd century), and the
wit ohhe quick riposte was widely admired in ancient China and celebrated in such
Shih Shuo HS1.n Yii i!t � iT m (+5th century). But the overwhelming emphasis in traditional China was not so much on public delivery or speech as on the written memo rial. Inspired calligraphy counted for more than spirited oral per formance. The cultural emphasis is scriptural. Here we have a most profound contrast between ancient China and ancient Greece. There is no proper parallel in China to the ritualised sporting contest between arguments that was so lmpOrtant in Gn:ek intellectual history. "Vhat works as tht>
mattered in Chinese rhetoric was generally to give the right advice to a ruler. Figures like Kungsun Lllng, who were rhetorical sophists, remained marginal in
Chinese: intellectual history, whereas the conversationalist Socrates became an all imp ortant philosophical figure.
Literary Chinese that deserve our brief attention beeau sc they wcre intim ately connected with Chinese ways of com municating and of thinking. First, there is the ideal of the brief, concise and preg nant style. Then there is the habit of allusion to earlier literature. Finally, there is the There are a few stylistic features of written
I ScI: rullcrWlInk's monumcutal sludy ,\lidtill Chinfjr (Toromo [98+) and 1: A. Scheok cd., [jllguisricH"Qi. 2 (The Hague. [967) for a compelem reccm sun'c),oflhc fidd.
Cllrrml TWilL in
96
L A .'J G U A G E A.'JD L O G I C
pervasive habit of stylisti c parallelism. We shall deal with these stylistic features in that order. Brevity The dominant ideal in Chinese style and in Chinese philosophy was economy of language. I Meng Tzu has given perfect expressIon to the ideals ofgood s lyle both in prose and in poetry throughout the ages: ,Vhen one talks about what is close at hand but one's words have a far-reaching import, one's words are good.' A sparing use oflanguage is commended by Confucius: The people of Lu wefe rebuilding the treasury. :\Ifin Tzu-Clnen said: '\-Vhy not simply restore it? Why must it be totally rebuilt?' The Master said: 'This man docs not speak. And when he does, he hilS the mark'.�
It is this hitting the mark (chung $) that is Confucius's main concern in language and that became proverbial in later Confucian literature. Intellectual garrulousness (ning{�) was one of his imp ortant target� for attack, and one might well suspect that what he was attacking there was what in the \'Vest evolved into discursive theoretical philosophy. The Taoists carried the ideal of brevity to its logical conclusion, and they com manded \vide sympathy outside their own Taoist circles. Consummate words do away with words,l
Sages were said to understand each other without recourse to words. \Vhe:n the: sages make things clear ()'u 1ljfij) to each other, they do not rely on words."
And this is necessary because, as Chuang Tzu points out: What can be said and discussed arc crude things. What can be reached by thought are subtle things.6
Speaking of the beginnings oftime, a Taoist text of the -2nd century states: \-\lords were brief ({iiel! things.;
:tta), but they were in accordance with the inherent principles of
The pragmatically inclined bookMo Tzu �r recommends: When it comes towards (Yell ri), do not aim for quantiry but for wisdom; do nut aim for styl istic polish (well Y.:) but for pcrspicaciy.a t
I The philosopher Immanuel Kant was among lhos� who we"e impressed by (he concisenc,g of Chine,,,. H� comments : ' "Z. E. G "lell .l<>Iorgcn, m�i!l Herr!" winj
97
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
It remained the high ambition of Chinese stylists to capture what was important and essential by rigorously omining what was not. Confucius said:
\¥hen sentences (khu iff¥) convey (what they are imended to convey) one stOps. I Unfortunately, this stylistic ideal was cultivated to an extent that makes many te.'(ts incomprehensible to outsiders and even more to outsiders who arc also latecomers like ourselves. There was a deliberate - and orten politically pruden t practice
of expressing things in such an indirect way that one could not be held
responsiblt> for what one had said.
Therefore the gentleman is subtle (Wei M) iII what he tells others.2
The Sung philosopher Chu HSl *J: (+ 1130 to + 1200) summed up the tradition ally dominant perception: QIIe should not set �tore by wordiness.1 Chhi:n Khuei [r*�, writing about +1170, coined the phrase:
In writing simplicity is ofthe essence (Win klw chhi (him ::t:t!iJtlYi)." ' He provides a useful illustration ohhe virtue of brevit}' (chien M). He quotes lhe Book qfHis/01)': 'You are wind. The people below are grass.' He compares a longer and more explicit version in !.un ru 12.20: 'The virtue of the gentleman is like wind; the virtue of the small man is like grass. Let the wind blow over the grass and it is sure to bend.' To hammer home his point he adds a third
version quoted by Liu Hsiang ��tcJ (-'j9 to -8) which uses thirty-two characters to make the same p oint.5 Chhen Khuei is preoccupied with the pregnancy {hsii . . . j i} . . . ;-g) of good
style. " 'here should be more to words than what is directJy said in them. Explicitness
in a text strikes him as vulgar.'; Unfortunately, such explicitness can be! of great educational and scientific
value. We
shall discuss
the problems of semantic and
grammatical explicitness in detail below.
Allusion In any language, words and phrases may evoke literary antecedents. Sermons, for example , nOt only contain quotations from the BiLle, they arc also full of allusions to biblical texts. Few P0t:lS in world literature can have been more allusive than T. S.
Eliot or Ezra Pound. Few prose writers anywhere will haw' been more allusive than JamcsJoycc. The first thing one has to understand abom Literary Chinese style is that by force of a dominant convention it tends to be saturated with allusions to a large corpus of literature with which lht'" reader is assumed to be thoroughly
conversant. In this,
C hinese literature resembles traditional Christian religious literature. I u.n J'ii lj.41,so:o:LaU{I 9!3:1a).P.159. J/an Shih II'"i ChMan 4.33, "d. Chhrn Chhi-Yu, p. 163; cf. Highlo\l"er (1951), p. 158. 1 Quolcd n i LiChi Chi·chim, cd. Sun Hsi-Tan, 11'11VK,ml. l, p. 6. , Chhen Khuci, Ilion Tsi, cd. Liu \'cn-Chhcng, p. 12. � IbiJ., p. 1 2. ' Ibitl.,p. Ij.
•
J
98
LA�GUAGE A "'1 D L O G I C
Consider, for a moment, the style of Theophilus Sigfridus Bayer (+1694 to +1738), one of the founding fathers ofsinology. Bayer was in the habit of alluding to Greek and l.atin authors without indi,ating his sources. This was difficult enough. But in addition many or his printed pages include passage� in Arabic, Persian and Syriac. \ It is worth noting that lhe widespread display of foreign language skills in traditional \Vestern style has no parallel at all in China. This difference is culturally significant lHemorimtioTl aspart l!flitertl.T)' culture
In traditional China, the Chinese classics were memorised in vast quantities by any aspiring scholar/reader. This detailed familiarity with the classics among writers and readers alikc created an e:sotf'ric literary high culture which is of difficult access to those who do not share the required memorised background. \Vhen thc writer of Literary Chinese uses a phrase or even a relatively rare character which recurs in one of the clas�ics, he will not only effortlessly associate the locus classlCu.f, but can quite properly assume that his readers will naturally perceive the resonance. Western observers have often complained about the inordinate burden placed upon the Chinese by obligatory memorisation ofa wide range of textS. The central place of memorisation in Literary Chinese education is seen as a symptom of the supposed lack of creativity displayed in that culture. This vit'w is mistaken. vVhen, on August 7, +1582, Matteo Ricci arrived in ?vfacao, he was determined to teach the Chinese not only Christianity but also the an of memorisation, which he continued to believe was much morc satisfactorily developed in Europe than in China. In +1596 he drafted his Chinese Treatise of Mnemonic Arts (ChlFa �2$) to help the aboriginal Chinese on the way towards the sort of mnemonic skills he thought he possessed and which he knew were common ly cultivatt'd in the Europe ofhis time.1 Frances A Yates's classic work The Arl qfMrmoT)' describes in detail how the skill ofmemorisation from Greek and Roman antiquity onwards was regarded as a c�n tral discipline within rhetoric as taught in thF Fducational institutions of the time. 11emory is of paramount importance: in all societies where there is no easy access to books and written ini(lrmation. China is in no way an exception. In Ricci's time a detailed memory of things was known as a thesaurus eloquentiat, and by all accounts Ricci had as colossal a memory as any Chinese ofhis time.3 More:over, Ricci was not at alJ unique in a European context. Ifan enormous memory is indeed a burden on the creative mind, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Montaigne, or Fran�ois Rabelais cer tainly carried more than their fair share of that burden. , S""Lundh:p.k (!986),p.+ 1 Spcucc (Igflfl), pp. '-23. For m�mori�..tilln !t'chniqu�! in China ICC V"l. 4, 1'1. �, pp ..,8 and 5�8, Vol. 4, pt. 3, p. 583, Vol. 5, pt. 4. p_ �fll and Spence (lg8G), p. 1,.,OtT. , Spence (lgBG), p. 5
99
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
Erasmus finishes hi.� Encomium moria,� as follows: Vctus iIlud, MISO �1t\AMO"A SYMPOTA/\
novum hoc: �IIS0 M:\"AM(}:\"A AKItOATr.N
Quare valetc, plauditc, vivite, bibite, \'roriae celeberrimi ). [ysta:. I
The published work of Erasmus shows that he had a truly a�tonishing mt'mory. And, as his Colloquiafamiliaria show, he was very far from being a dry scholastic sort ofman.
Even men like Montaigne and Rabelais, who despisl"d and ridiculed memorisa
tion) had, by our standards, remarkably good mcmories and were full ofliterary tra
ditionalisms. It so happens that these were among the most unconventional writers in European intellectual and literary history. I I is perhaps supcrAuous to stress this, but it needs repeating in our society with its cull of the new: traditionali�m of allu
sion
and comprt"hensive memorisation of traditional heritage arc not an impedi
ment to creativeness, innovation, anti-traditionalism)
01'
even
Hippancy. The work
ofRabelais should be sufficient to prove this point.
The argument that the Chinese habit of memorisation, the allusive traditional ism of Literary Chinese style constituted an impediment to creativity, innovative ness and scientific progress loses all its force as soon as one looks into the crucial era when the brt"akl hro ugh came in the West, the Renaissance. If anything impeded the Chinese, it was not their traditionalism as such but the style in which they culti vated it. The Renaissance was far from untraditional. It was steeped in scholastic learning and scholastic allusions. The point is that the writers of the European Renaissance used this tradition in new creativc ways. And this creative way of using the tradition became the dominant literary trend. The special character ifaliusions in Literary Chinest In I .ilerary Chinese text� the literary allusions often not only add to atlf'S aesthetic appreciation of a passage, they are essential even for the
grammatically correct
parsing and tht': elementary understanding of passages. In English one will gram matically understand a sentence even when one fails to recognise a biblical or other allusion that occurs in it and gives the sentence a special force or a specific refer ence. In Literary Chinese, the texts as they stand often
do not begin
to make any
sense until you get the allusions. If, for example, you read that someone's 'mind was on study', it is important to realise that this most likely should be translated as 'was fifteen years old' and is a ref erence to Lull Yii ::l-4 'At fifteen r had my mind on study'. Conventional allusions of this type abound in many- but not all- types of Literary Chinese. , 'Th,,", i� an old !.1ying: I hale {h� feUo",-drinker ",ilh a K'KKI memory. Here is a ne\� one: I hale a islener l with a good m..mory. Th..r�fore farewell. clap your hands, live and drink, rnu di�!in!rui.h..cl iniuates Qf�olly.·
100
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Such allusions create, among Literary Chinese texts, a hierarchy of abstruseness, rather like the degree of Latinity used to create a hierarchy among English texts. There seems to be no general reason \vhy the use of allusions should be more obfus cating in the traditional Chinese context than the usc of Latin in traditional European societies. However, since the gradual modernisation of the Chinese educational system from the 19205 onwards, familiarity with the classics has markedly declined in China,just as it has al lhe same time in the West. The recognition of allusions used
to be a natural and effortless thing. Today, it is turning into more of a speciality of the few who still possess something ofthe traditional command ofthe texts. I
What used to be trivially obvious allusions understood as effortlessly as our vtni, vidi, vici by the leisured literati are slowly becoming learned apperfus even to Chinese scholars. Allusions of all types play a greater part in the recommended Literary Chinese style than generally in) say, contemporary English or in ancient Greek, or indeed in Classical Chinese.2 This is a measure of the extent to which Chinese literary culture
perceived itself as embedded in a tradition. Writing a sentence in Literary Chinese tended (0 be a dialogue with the past. One can only understand this dialogue ifone is familiar with both sides: the Literary Chinese text one is reading and the Classical and Literary Chinese heritage that text relates to. The writer in Literary Chinese expressed himself through the medium of the tradition of which he felt he waS a part. He spoke to those who were also pan of this tradition. His discourse was not directed towards those who lacked what he considered the essential educational background. The comparison with the Christians' allusions to the biblical tradition is instruc tive. Such references often express a commitment to and reaffirmation of the basic values of that tradition. Nothing would be further from the truth than a suggestion that the allusive conventions of theological and religious discourse have prevented theology from being inventive or creative. Thomas Aquinas remained entirely a medieval traditionalist, and yet I doubt that European intellectual history has seen any more t:reative and original systematiser since Aristotle than Thomas Aquinas with his
Summa theologiae
and his
Summa contra gentiltJ.
Having to use traditional,
scholastic and allusive Latin did not prevent Thomas Aquinas from applying what I am tempted to see as a scientific, critical, method across a vast range of human knowledge in often original ways. Moreover, the overwhelming dominance of Christianity did not prevent the growth) within its monastic centres, ofa most admirable tradition ofnatural science largely unencumbered, or at least unimpeded, by the allusive style of religious dis course. "Ve used to look upon the Middle Ages as a period ofnarrow religious pre occupation, but we have long since had to recognise that a uniquely rich culture of I See Fang(1953) for a vividpiclUre oflhe pitfalls and the burdens Ihispusenll for the mo(krn scholar. , They also play a much larger pari in mod"rn Chioese than Ihey do in. 5ay. Eoglish, German, or Russian. Yang(1985), pp. 13:'-92 has a comprehensiv., hibliographyon Chine;;., pTO\�rb, and traditional sa}�ngs.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
lOr
varied intellectual endeavour had developed under this superficial
appearance.
The logi cians ofthe 'dark Middle Ages' have turned out to have been in many ways vasdy more enlightened and more advanced theoreticians than their Igth-century detractors. In earlier volumes ofthis series we have made a similar discovery about seemingly Confucian-dominated, unscientific China. Lofty moralism and precious literary allusiveness may have preoccupied mis sionaries and the Sinologues in their wake. But from the -4th
century onwards we
almost tOlaUy unornate, unallusive hard-headed scientific style in China. The book Kuan 7(-ullf-r contains a great deal of unornatc straightforward exposi tOry prose. The book Mo Tzu � T is stylistically most pedestrian, even pedantic much ofthe time. It subordinates style to requirements of clarity of exposition and
find an
argument. The Dialectical Chapters of the bookA1o Tzu are algebraic almost to the point of obscurity in their technical use of language. The logician Kungsun Lung 01*H (c. -320 to -250) writes with the same sort of technical rigour that we find in Anselm of Canterbury's (+1033 to +1109) Degrammalico. Wang Chhung.:E:1E (+27 to +100) explicitly dedares himself, in the preface to his Lun Hengglf8"fti, to be an adher ent of plain, unallusive style, although we should emphasise that in point offact his style has considerable literary qualities of its own. Thus we have, on the one hand, a 'protoscientific' stylistic tradition which appears indifferent to - perhaps even defiant of- the aesthetic demands ofLiterary Chinese. On the other hand we also have writers who use exquisite Literary Chinese to expose and oppose the traditionalism Literary Chinese may seem to stand for. I Even within the literary and non-scientific tradition not everyone indulged in
same extent. Yu Hsin � -m (+513 to +581) used so suspects that he defeated even [he seasoned pre-modern scholar on many points.� Thao Yuan-Ming lltilJitHl E)A (+365 to +427) and Pai Chu-I BJi5� (+772 to +846), on the other hand, deliberately tried to avoid aUusion in an effort to create a fresh and natural s tyle. rvlany other scholars like Han Yo .tt (+768 to +824) repudiated and attacked the excessive use o f allusion i n Classical Chinese. Such common traditional Chinese reactions only go to show that as mod ern observers we are not the only ones to find much Literary Chinese writing rid den with ossified allusions and cliches. The Chinese have had their fair share of literary hacks, and easy is the task of finding all usion s ineptly or inaptly used in the vast treasury of Classical Chinese lit erature . BlIt more fruitful and much more exciting is the challenge offathoming the allusions all the time or to the
many of them that one
I The tndilions of the Literal)' Chineie jest book and much ofChine.e informal literalure (pi ell! a:e) ule well-turned Clanical Chincsc phraj;cs full ofallusioll3 to make outrageously rude and thoroughly tareastic com InenlS about almost e,·errlhing lhat is holy or taboo in Chinese culture. The lUlQ ClIIJi CIIIl i IQIJJIf;t:Ji. (Stories From a Chine$C Studio) by Phu Sung-Ling 1i'.m� (+ 1640 to + 1714) 5 i jlUlly famOU1 for ituuperb tCrSe Classical style, which � i rich in allusioos. AI tilt' �amt' time il is abonolOriously rich in improprietie$ and crude expressions, lit.) muc:h Jll th..t e,,<,n th� u.,�tofmoclern Chine"" I�..n.lacion.. admil that lh�ydo notdar� to rollow th� original in Ihis IUPJXJsedly mor� lib�ral new ag�! There s i nothing n i h��endr<:ooformist ahout using I..it�r..ry Chines�. 1 See Graham (1980) for a thoroughanalysill ofallusion in one ofYi! Hsi n'. works.
102
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
depth
of semantic subtlety that is often encapsulated in the apt and agile deploy of what at first sight might look like a stale cliche . The ff'ader of Classical Chinese; prose and poetry often finds that what at first sight was a hackneyed cliche turns out upon closer inspec tion to be a rather subtle turn. Let us now, finally, turn to the use of all usion as a riddle lor the reader or as a dis play ofsupcrior learning by the wri ter, a phcnomenon \vhich corresponds to the usc ofl .atin or Greek words in modern European literaturt':. Traditional Chinese letters and prefaces (usually added as postfaces at the end of traditional books) illustrate the cases we are imcrested in. 'I'he phenomenon is beautifully summarised in a live ly passage from a book published in 189S: mem
One day in China, when I had replied in Chinese LO a Chine�e letter, my Chinese professor told me: " I"his will not do. This is not profound enough. It is too clear. I �hall write a letter for you ofwhieh hr will understand nothing.' When I objected that I was precisely hoping that my correspondent should understand me, my Chinese prufes�or replied: 'That does nut matter. He should much rath er understand nothing th an un dersumd everything. ' There you are! It is the same with th e preface . to Chinese books. The author does not want them to bt" understood. The more ob�cure he is, the less intelligible he is, the more he will be admired by the ordinary reader. All the more so, if ant in a thousand is able to grasp all the allusions with which the ,Iuthor has studded his piece. And the readr.r does not want to understand. :'\0 more than our peasants consider that a preacher preaches well if he preaches intelligibly. I This is an ac<.:Ount of a culture clash. Chinese prefaces are indeed often by far the most difficult part of a book . When it comes to Pre�Han Chinese literature we cer� tain ly do well to heed the observation by Ko Hung �m. (+283 to +343):
Moreover, the many obscurities in ancient books arc not necessarily because men of tht" past wanted to be difficult to understand. In �omr cases, language has changed over period� oftimr. Sometimes the dialect was not the same. Books have be:en all disarranged and put in incorrect order. Buried and hidden o\'er a long period of time, the slips and bindings have roued and broken apan and much has been lost. Somt' sections have been added at the end ofthe wrong book, and some: books exist only in remnants and with lacunae. Some ha\'e missing chapters or semc:nces. In this case it is difficult to figure them out. It may appear as ir th ey were obscure." Ko Hung g);!t concludes:
\-Vhr.n it comes to �peeeh, we call il rhetOrically successful if it i� r.asy 10 understand; then why should we call a book good if it is hard to understand?� , linjour. cn Chill�, "yant repondu cn Chn i oi� it UII� l"lne chinoi�, mon profcsscur chinni$ me die 'Cd" nc Ce n'cst pas as.stc avec I,,, Pr�f1lces de5 Ii\'�s chinoi.;. L'aut..ur ne veut pas qu'on compren"... Pl1I5 il est obscur, moiO! il ....( intelligible, d'"utam plu� il 5<"ra admif<� par Ie lccteur ordinai",. 'IQut all p lus si un entr� mille pem s1Iisir t()Ut�.' 1�5 allusions dont l'aut�ur a faIT; sa piece. Ellc Icctcur chinlli� ne "cut pas k comprendr�, pas phiS qLlc' nos pay,am n'e,timent un !l!'ctr� qui pn:che intelligiblcmcnl. S�hl�!I:�l (lij9,�), p. 3 . ' Ibid., p. 632; d. S�il..y (! �.j78). p. !66. • PiIO Phil n� 30, ed. I VnVA; p. 6'9; ef. Sail.,y (197!l), p. !6:-I.
,�.. point.
1 03
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
On the other hand the great scholar Chang Ping·Lin
ili 'Wi M
(J868 to I936)
wrote obscure prose, which was so studded with allusions that Lu Hsun
�lli (1881
to '936), a man of quite considerable learning, liked proudly to declare that he understood liuJe
of it,l But then: who would claim he understood Finnegans Wake?
Here, as so often, the difference bcnvccn China and the West is a maHer ofdegree.
Rhythmc i euphony a1ldparallelism Rhythmic regularity and the recurrence of rhythmic patterns are a well·known stylistit: feature in Latin rhetoric as they are in many ocher languages. What distin· guishes the Literary Chinese style is a strong and pervasive tendency towards pleas· ing rhythmic patterning throughout their sentences, vVe can call this a principle of rhythmic euphony. Thc rhythm must be regular enough to aid with the proper scanning orthe text, but it must avoid being mechanically monotonous.� Above all, the rhythm must be predictable enough to assist in the correct parsing of a text. '1 Parallelism, which is common in Classical Chinese, is endemic in Literary
Chinese. No one has explained this more eloqut;ntly and more graphically than Liu Hsieh ;'''1M. (+465 to +522):
\'Vhcn living creatures arc created, their limbs are created in pairs. In the mysterious work· ings of;"lamre nothing stands alone. The mind creates literary language, and in doing this it organises and shapes all sorts of thoughts, making what is high supplement what is low and spontaneously producing parallelism (t;: ujan chhtng lui Ei f.��t.t). I ,
Note the way Liu Hsieh stresses the spontaneous natural way in which paral. ,
ldism t;nters Chinese diction. He returns [0 this subject throughout his detailed and theoretically pioneering chapter entitled Li rii 1W� (Matcbed Words), ofwhich we
bavejust quoted the beginning. Liu Hsieh discusses first the bistorical development in Cbinese literature, then the typology, and finally the stylistic dangers involved in the use ofparallelism. In many other languages sentence patterns will not be repeated in successive sentences. Ifone sentence has a certain structure there is no reason to assume that the next will follow suit. Each sentence comes with its own fresh and new syntactic pattern. In Classical and Literary Chint;sc the situation is different. Here paral. lelism is a significant aid to comprehension. If you see that a passage begins with a sLx·character phrase, you expect that it might well continue with either one or three more similar phrases. A St;qUCncT of sentences in Literary Chinese is often a series of repeated rhythmic and syntactic patterns. To some extent this syntactic , Thil i� unfortunate lor our particular mission, occausc Chang Ping.Lin took a certain inte�1t in logic, , Tht! pulerr�d rhythm is {hr four-brat rhphm: for rxamplc in Hsun Yii�h'5�tst book. SlIt1/. Clti!n
.
L A N G t: A G E AND
LOGIC
repetitiveness compensates for lhe absence of morphology to make syntaClic rcla
l ih:rary Chinese. profound aspect to parallelism in Classical and Literary Chinese: this parallelism represents the characteristically Chinese tendency to see the world as a harmoniously p auerned whole in which certain patterns of reality repeat themselves in all spheres. The patterns of physical reality are found again in social reality; The patterns of social reality again repeat themselves in the micro cosm of the self. The patterns of the past repeat themsdves in the present. The pat terns of the human sphere repeat themselves in the patterns of the sphere of the gods, ghosts and spirits. The universe is seen as an ordered pattern ofpaucrns, and this vision of the universe is represented in a language dominated by parallelism, an tions palpable and explicit in
.
But there is a far more
ordered pattern oflinguistk panerns. During the Han dynasty, when lhe
systematicity of the Chinese view of the fully explicit, the use of parallelism
universe and of social realiLy was first made
dramatically increased and then remained a central part of the Chinese stylistic repertory.
Linguistic parallelism is a linguistic
reflection of the inLellectual habit of
parallel patterning, 'correlative thinking'. 1
The definition qfparallelirm in Chinese? Let us begin by quoting the of parallelism, La loi du parallilismt en sryle (hinois, Demonstriepar faprifacedu Si-Yii Ki by Gustave Schlegel: How then do we define parallelism
European classic on the subject
In two parallel or jlLxtaposed phrases the rules or Chinese style d!"mand that all the parts correspond to each other: the subject (Q the subject, the w!"rb to thc ycrb the noun to the noun, the adj ective to the adjective, the adverb to the adverb, the place name to the place namc, the sign oCthe geniti\'c to the sign ofthe genitive, the object to the object, etc., etc.2 ,
The subtitle of Schlegel's book is instructive: Ln traduction de ceUe prifiue par Feu Stnnirla.rJulim difendue contre fa nouvelle traduction du Pert A. Gueluy. Schlegel analyses a text only 836 characters long on no less than 203 pages, and shows through this tour deforce how the 'law' we have JUSt quoted is necessary for an adequate understand ing of it. Again and again Schlegel shows how disregard for the law of parallelism prevents the unfortunate Father Gueluy from getting the grammar and meaning of sentences right. Convincingly, Schlegel shows how paralldism is not only pleasing to our sensibilities, but literally essential to our understanding of texts. Tchang Tcheng-JVling, in his thorough study Le Parallelisme dans Ie . Vcrs du Chell King (Paris and Shanghai, 193i), has shown the ancient and popular origins ofpara1ldism in the ancient Chinese Buok of Songs. Thus parallelism is in no way a lale pedantic literary invention in China. It has its deep popular roots. The conditions under which words may count as parallel in nvo sentences have exercised lovers of Chinese poelry a great deal, because parallelism not only is a .
, C[ Graham (1g66b).
' &hkgd(189S), p. I.
LA:-lGl.:AGE Al'iD L O G I C
pervasive
feature of Literary Chinese prose but also forms an integral obligatory
shih f� � or ' Regul ated Verse'.l Roughly, TWO sentences if they contain the same number of words in the same pattern. "Vords or phrases .·r and r count as parallel in such sentences when in some sense they correspond to each other. Thi� correspondence will normally involve that X
part of the so-called lit count as parall cl
and Yplay grammatically similar roles, but more specifically it may take the follow ingforms:
X and Yare identical and havf' the same meaning X and Yare synonymous 3. X and rarc the opposite ofeach other 4. X and Yare similar in a relevant respect 5. X and Yare dissimilar in a precise relevant respect 6. X and Ylook as ifthey correspond to each other in one of the above five ways but do not in fact correspond (in that case we have only superficial formal parallelisrn).2 I.
2.
Parallelprose phien win�)( In general it must be said that the proverbial loi
du parallilisnu is
not a law
but
a
strong stylistic habit. There is, however, one style of Literary Chinese in which par
allelism is almost literally obligatory. This is the phien wen Ihi .�}tZ:te. Parallel Prose Style', which is said to have had its origins in the +2nd century and flourished well into Thang limes. � It is remarkable, though, to see how much of such texts as the HuaiNall Tzu rlEi$j..y (-2nd century) is dominated by parallelism . Let us tak(! some examples of the Parallel Prose S tyle. The Pti Shan 1 Win itLl.Jn)( 'Proclamation on the Korth Mountain' by Khung Chih-Khuei (+447 to +501) is a stylistic tour deforce which consists of 124 lines and exactly 62 couplets. There arc quite a few quadruplets (parallel pairs of parallel c ouplets) There is also a sprinkling of introductory phrases such as 'therefore', 'when it comes to' and the like. But there is not a single triplet or quimuplct ofparallel clauses. � The Yii Thai Hsin rung HSii �-E5'if�Jj; Prefac(! to 'New Songs from the 'l'ower of Jade' has been laid out to consist of 105 lines. With some few exceptions they all make structurally parallel t:Ouplets.� Yu H si n �{§ (+513 to +581) probably went further than anyone else in his usc of allusion and parallelism. His famousfo JIlEt -poem Ai Chiang-nan Fu arrmJlit 'The Lament l'or the South' consists of no fewer than 520 carefully p air(!d lines. The text '
.
of this complex poem is beautifully laid out with a translation in Graham (lg80),
Pp· 50-103· L for an inreresling recent book-Ienglh lrcatm"nr oftile sllbjc(:t.'�e Fu Pilei-Han (1986). , Our a"count is based un High\ol"er (1965). , See Highto"'�r {lg6S1 for an imroclurtorr sur,",,}, of,orne prominenl fi>atures ofthis style of1ileralllr� in two famous examples \)fth... gen�. • See bid., i pp. 75-6, which con",ui�ntly di$pla)'� thc 1""110 bring out iu MTUcture.
, lhid_, pp. 77-91.
106
LAi'\GUAGE AND L O G I C
We are not saying that Literary Chinese was generally like the Proclamation on
the Noreh Mountain or the Lament for the SouLh. What we are saying is that paral
lelism was natural and endemic to Literary Chinese style in a way that is alien to all
Indo-European language I know. Parallelism is almost pan of the grammar of l.iterary Chinese. I Parallelism in Literary Chinese is typically between pairs ofsentences. Quite reg ularly onc pattern ofparallelism may be maintained over four scntcnces or two cou plets. Occasionally; one gets three coupkts maintaining the same structure. Triplets or quintuplets of parallel sentences, on the other hand, are not part of the conven tion, although there is no strict rule against them.
inter/nc/..:ingparallelprose Apart from the strict parallelism we have so far discussed, there is a more complex form of'interlocking prose style' discussed in some detail in Wagner (I980). A typi cal example of this runs as follows:
'Whoever does anything to things will ruin them; whocw:r lays hold ofthings will lose them. Therefore the sage because he doe� nothing to rhillg�, does not ruin them; because he does not lay hold oflhings, does not lose thr:m.� Patterns of interlocking resumptive parallelism such as these are common m early and later Chinese literature. Rhythmic requirements and parallelism sometimes interfere with semantic requirements. One occasionally suspects that the presence of a character in a sen tence is due to purely rhythmic considerations and adds nothing to what is said. In scientific texts, for example, we often find a strong tendency towards rhythmic regu larity, which leads to uncertainty whether certain characters are heavily significant or purely euphonic and present only for the sake ofrhythm. This is true, for exam ple, for the texts of Buddhist logic from the +7th century, which we shall discuss below:! The logically disconcerting effect is that the technical vocabulary is acca sionallyvari�d for the sake of rhythm, at the expense of terminological consistency. With rhymes, the phenomenon is well known in \Vestern literature, and immortalised in the G�rman poem by Christian Morgenstern:
Ein Wiesel saO aufeinem Kiesel inmincn Bachgerie�d. Du fragsl, weshalb: Oas Mondkalb vcrriet es mir im stilkn: Almost, blllnotquiIe. Bt:(;au�, a' ....e . han, sc"n, tWO lines may COWlI as parall..l on only �upnficiaH}' formal I Lao 'kut4,Lau(ly84),P' 95. ' SeeSub-�rrion (f.7). grounds.
LANGUAGE A)/D L O G I C
107
das raffinier tc Tier tat's um des Rcirnes willen,
In scientific texts, on the other hand, we: should like to be sure that whatever is said is not just said for reasons of euphony.
Rhymt The ancient Shih Ching �i&!. 'Book of Songs' (-9th to -6th century) and the Chhu Tzhu �� 'Songs of the South' (c. -3rd to +2nd century) have regular rhyme pat terns. These are not evident in the changed modern pronunciations of the words involved, but they have proved useful in the reconstruction of ancient Chinese pro nunciation. A book like the Lao T
I') LO G J C A L FEATURES O F T H E C L A S S I C A L C H I N E S E LANGUAGE
( 1 ) NEGATION A:-JD THE LAW
OF DOUBLE NEGATION IN CLASSICAL CHINESE
In standard logic we have sentential negation, which applies to whole sentences, i. e. , has sentences as its scope. },rot-p is understood to mean that the proposition p is not true. The scope ofthe senten tial negation is a whole proposition. Thus the sentential negation corresponds roughly to a phrase like 'it is not the case that . ' Aristotle developed an abstract notion ofnegation, opophasis, which he defines: An affirmation is a statement affirming something of something. A negation (apophasis, a.1T61paot') is a statement denying something ofsomething. I J Chang Tsung·Tun� (1982). , See Kar!gfCn (1932). , C[ Chou Tsu·Mtl (1,9,)8). Ames (19B3) find, rhymes in almost halfofchapter 9 ofthilt hook.
• De InlnprttalioN� G, L7a25t:
108
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
All natural languages I know of have devices to deny or negate sentences, and Classical Chinese is certainly no exception. On the other hand, few cultures have had occasion to formuJare an abstract concept ofnegation, and in this respect tradi tional China does not form an exception either. In Classical Chinese literature we find no abstract notion of negation as such,
and even when one looks for a word for 'to deny, to negate' the verb fei
.1F to
dis
approve, to criticise', which comes dos<'st to this meaning, is not often used in the technical sense. However, we do have commel1lS like the following wherefii is used
to mean 'to deny, reject' as opposed to Ii if. establish, assert, put forward':
The explanations put forward by Confucius wcre rejected by Mo Tzu. The explanations put lorward by ·Mo Tzu we re: rejected by Yang Chu. The explanations put forward by Yang Chu wne rejected by :Ylt:ng Tzu.1 And as W� shall see i n detai l below, the Later !vlohists argued along the following lines:
Re-jccting denial is sell�contradictory. Explained by 'he does nOl reject it (i.e., the denial itself)' .l \Vhether denials are admissible or not does not depend on how many or few there arc. Explained by 'deserving rejection'.3 Abstract disquisition of this sort is rare in China, and when it occurs, it is impor tant from a logical poi.nt of view to realise that the notion of negation discuss�d is
ofjudgemenl, not the purely logical one.i there is a surprisingly rich flora of negatives in the Classical
the psychologising one of a negat ive act On the other hand Chinese language.
The main negativeparticles in Classical Chmese 1.
Pu /f negates a verb or a verbal predicate in a narrative sentence and always pre
cedes the verb phrase it modifies in the pattern (SUBJECT) PU PREDI CATE" which we tend to understand along the lines of'(the SUBJECT) does not PREDICATE'.
Chun I{upu chhj;gT7f� OE'XTLEMAN KOT VESSEL; 'The gentleman does not act as a tool! vessel.'6 Pu is a verbal negation, and even ifwhat follows is lexically more likely to function as a noun, it must be taken v�rbally. However, the verbal predication can be judge mental rather than narrative:
Fu UU pu weiyth XT7f�t!! �IASTER NOT BE-OK-SIDE)"th; 'Tht: i\'[astt:( is not on his side.'; L HuaiNaTJ nu, ed. LiuWen-Tien, ch. '3, lob. " Graham (19;8), "19. , IIJiJ., B78. ' For thill distinction sec, e.g., Ritter and Grunder ('984), \"01. 6, p. 666. , Element., in bnt�kelS are oplional andmay nOI b� prelcnt, • Lm fii 2.1�; cf. Lau (19113a), p. 13, who misconstrue, lhe e5SCllliai gT71mmalical poinl: 'The gctltleman is no vessel.' This would lta\"e to be: &hiin U .ufn dw.iy.Jt ;g.t=--1��t!! according to the grammatical roles of Classical Chincst.
, Lu" 1/i 7. IS; cf. l..au (1983a), p. .'19.
LAKGUAGE A:">l"D L O G I C
109
'I'he lo�rical scope ofJm can be more than one verb phrase : Tryour lord�hip wishes to sec it he must for halfa year not (pu) enter the harem and he must not (pu) drink winc oreat meat.'
Fei etymologically possibly a contraction of pu wei ;p� NOT BE, negates the whole predicate in the pattern: (SUHJECT)Jei PREDICATE }eh ill , which we tend to understand along the lines of'(the SUBJECT) is by no means correctly classified by the PREDI CATE', where the final particle ),ch marks the judgemen tal mode of the statement. 2.
Fciwu thll)'el! ��{iEtt! r-;-OT MY DISCIPLE)'ch; 'He is nOI my disciple. '2 TW,foi wQ)'ell T�Ff1tt!:! YOU KOT �IE),eh 'You ar� not (idr.ntical with) me.') Fei wQ)'eh 4t::f:tt!! NOT 1)'(11; 'It wasn't me (i.e., it was not mydoing).' (Compare wu wo iJJ.jX, below.)'
Since .foi is very common before what we translate as nominal predicates, it is oftt':11 rallf'd a nominal negation . Whcnfei comes before a predicate that we ordinarily m ight take as narrative or descriptive, we arc forced by the rules or C lassical Chinese grammar to rt':ad that predicate as non-narrative and classificatory.
Kuan Chllngfii than iffcj:qlFQ KUA:\ CHUKG KaT BE-AVARICIOUS; 'Kuan Chung was by no
means (corrt'ctiy classifiable as) avaricious. '-'
',Ve are not grammatically free to take the verb anerjd as straightforwardly nar rative 'he \\'ent on to act avariciously (on that occasion)'. On the other hand, we arc not forced 10 takefii than �Wa �OT BE-AVARICIOUS as a nominal predicate 'be nor (identical with) -\V . arice', although we are obviously free to lake it that way when the context demands ic6 3. H�i *' '(temporally:) not yet, Oogically:) not quite' refers to the whole predicate, 7 (Compare the sentence-final p article i B '(temporally:) by then, (logically:) under these co nditions' .) (SUBJECT) WtipREDICi\TE TRANSLATES INTO (The SUBJECT) does not yet/quite PREDICATE. �i toy!i ti 5KllB.m';tfu NOT-YET FALL TO GROL'ND; 'It has not yet fallr.n to the ground, '8 I#i shal1)eh *�tQ �OT-QUITE GOODyh; 'He is not quitr. good.'� 4. Fu 51# '(often contrastivelyHl)
'refuse/fail to . . . (the obj ect) ' always precedes verb phrases, and very often transitive verbs with their object understood, I , Fujuyeh
, HM Fn 1i;1I 3�.1�'32; d: Liao (1939), \'oL 2, p. 36, ' un 171 ! 1 . 1j; cf. Lau (1983a),P, 101. , ChIl(l1Il 1i;1I 17.8g; cf. Graham (198lj, p. !�3 . ' un lli !!.II; cf. LaU(I9f!3a), p. 99. , Cf. Hl1n FI!i nll :i6.15.23; cf. LiaO(19:i9J. "01. 2. p. [.'is. • Iiarb�ml'il"r (1911!) In, pp. 'iff., I argUI" that pre-vl"rbaljti;Jp is nic�ly com'tyed bythe German "ickl,Iu;a\,it is nul as if'). Al�ul:umber...m" EnglishglOl!' wuuiJ be 'by no m�ans·. For an I'lH:l'll"nt treaunC'm ofOIh"r u.a!l"s o(fli sec PulicybIanl(lgjg) and a�o Yen(!971). 1 Harb�meier (1981), pp. 411f[. • un 1Ii I g,1l2; cf. Lau (lg83a), p. tg6. , UTI 17i Ij.33i cf. Lau (1983a), p, !j7. , Compare th� originallyemphatic MPasin French, which has lost iLSemphalic force in contemporary speech. " 5<"1' HamSml'll'r (1993). tor an intl'resting alternative treatment orlhi, particle, see Ting Sheng-Shu (1935).
110
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
��niQ, 1\" O T BE-UP-TO)'t'h; 'You fail to come up to him, i.e., you are not as good as he.')
,). JU() * non t; (ofthe subjects), has the subject a� its scope . J\1in InO kan pufu .E£J,l!J&1"�bt PEOPLl: KO:-.'£ DARE E\OT SUBMtT; 'No people dare to fail to submit.'�
6. II/it JO �ffi, LACK THAT-\VHTCH 'none (orthe o�iects)' has as it.s scope the object
ofthe verb which it precedes:
(SUBjEe'!") um so VE R R (The SUlJJJ:: CT) VERBS nothing.
Chiill I{II!/III so (hing �T�pJl� OE:-:TL.EMAl' man does not compete o\'er anything.'�
I.ACK THAT-WHICH FlOUT;
The gentle-
7. rtl"l AA- is a negative
v("rb 'to lack, there an.; none'. 8. f,)1u f# 'make sure that not, don't!', \ T1tit is preverbal. "Vhen it precedes a pronoun, it will forn.: thi s pronoun into a verbal r61e: f�u WQ :OO:ft )IA" E- SURE -THAT-NOT I; 'He avoided being self-centfed. " ,
g.
IHI :o/) 'avoid to, don't' is a prohibitory negation which includes an oqject:
Chlin 1(;11 Ihing +=to/]� KUI.ER. SilO CLU -1'WTIIT LISTEN -TO; 'You should not listen to this.'6 10. Mi f1& ' if it were no t for, but for' is restricted to pre-nominal position and to sub ordinate p osition. ;
II'll Kuan Chung wu chhi "eifa /Jojen i 1i&�fq.;g:jt:Wi2:t£tff� BtT FOK (wei) KUAX CHUNG
WF. PRESU�IABLY LET-DOWN IIAIK LEFT FOLD-CLOTHES; 'But fOf Kuan Chung we should
presumably be wearing our hair down and folding our robes [Q the kft.'R II.
FOIl :a ' su,h
is not the case,
no' is a sentential negation which functions
as a
whole sentence hy itself.
Kennedy (1952a), p.
2, l ists
altogether 18 negatives and speculates on thdr pho (1959) continues this line of research." In view of such an abundan,(" ofsubtly distinguished negatives, it is curious that Liu Kia-hway could maintain the idea that in Chinese 'l'affimUition et 10 ngalion i 5e disl;lIguenl (I peine' . 10 If this were so, thp. Chinese would indeed be a singularly illogical people. The mind boggles at the thought of what legal system the Chinp.se could have develop ed if they really hardly distinguished between th e affirmation and the negation of a statement, But Liu Kia-hway (1961) i� desperately and demonstrably wrong. A quotation attrihuted to Confucius himself will conveniently illustrate the poin t : netic relations. iVlulder
I Un r.j ':1-.h cf. La\! (191l3"), p_ !�J. ' Cf. Lli ShlJ-Hsiang (1958), 1'1'_ '�-:i; ), and Gral"'m(!�,)�). , i..lln fii 9.4; d L,1l (lgB3"), p. 77. '
I un H i :1.ii; (f. Lau (Igll],,), p. :m.
1 LIm Hi :p; d. loa" (Ig!!]"), p. ·J I .
•
•
•
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
III
A s for (he Wa), there are o nly two allernati,"es: to be humane orto be inhumane (jinJ'iipujin
eW/fe), that is all. 1
How can one possibly say about a moral culmre, at the hean of which lies this division betwecnjen t "be humane' andpujin /Fe 'be inhumane ', that affirmation and negation arc harcUy distinguished? How could the Master have committed himseJfmore emp hatically to lhe absolute distinction between a morai term and its opposite? 1 suggest that it is only the remoteness of Chinese cuiturr from our own that makes it at all possible publicly to attribute such exotic attitudes to the C hinese as Liou Kia-hway does.2 The Sfope ifnegatives The problems of the scope of Classical Chinese negatives cannot here be treated in
detail . But let us consider a sentence like Ho pu chhu /hll fiiJ/f I:U � RIVER NOT BRI:<:G-FORTII CHART: 'Thr rivcr did its chart.'�
no! bring
forth
The English translation may be understood in many ways according to intona tion. For example:
1 . It was not the river that brought forth its chan. 2. It was not the chan that the river brought forth . 3. It was not bringing forth that the river did to [he chart.
In Classical Chinese, readings one, two and
different sentences like th e fol 1owing: 1'. 2 '. ' 3 ·
three would be
expressed in quite
Chhu thu chtfti ho]th I:fj iI�#-iIlliQ BRI).IO-FORTH CHART THAT-WI-IICH NOT BE RIVER)'th. Ho so eMu chtfti thuyeh VilJifiw;g-:1FiJiQ RIVER THE-OBJECT-WHICH IHUNG FORTH NOT-BE c HARTyeh. Ho chill yii tfIU ehe fii (hhu yell i"i: IT�1Rtgj�:JFt±liQ RIVER'S BE-REI.ATED-TO CHART THAT-WHICH NOT BRING-FORTH)'£11. ''''hen reading Clas�icaJ Chinese texts, one gets the impn:�sion that some of the
and that goes unmarked in written English is generally carried by explicit syntax in Classical Chinese. It is not at all easy to find any clear cases where a sentence like ;'0 pu ehhu ihu i'iiJ l' W II obviously invites a reading alon g the lines ofreadings one to three above. The system ofChinese negation show-s considerable subtlety and precision. Morc over, when it comes to the problems of so-called 'cumulative negation' , Ciassica1 burden that i$ carried by in tonation
!
:Hi", 1�1I.j.A2(3); c:[ l.au (1983C), p. 139. , ror a St!n$ihl� rli$C"uuion ofolh�r adhercnl$ orI.il1'. \";�"" ; ..,.. I��I;e (196f), p. lilt:
, L¥Il I'll 9.9; d. I..au (198ja), p- i9.
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
112
Chinese shows distinctly grt'ater logical discipline lhan, say, Classical Greek or Modern English.
Double negation alld cumulaliue negation Battling Billson I expresses the proposition 'I am not going to fight tonight in Oddfdlows' Hall' as follows: 'I ain'tfighting at 110 Oddfellows' Hall', he replied.
'}tlol at I/O Oddfellows' Hall, nor nowhere
else I'm notfigilling, lIottonight, nor I/O night. ' He pondered stolidly, and then, as ifcoming to
tht conclusion that his last sentence: could be impron:d by the addition ora nq,r.llive, added
'JVo.'
Plato does only slightly worse (or should we say better?) in the following: AnfU loutoll oudeis eis ouden oudenos un lD'miin oudepote gellQiw axioJ',
I ,ilerally: '\'Vithout this no ant' for nothing to one ofyou will never become worthy',
i. e. , 'no one will ever become worthy of any ofyou for any purpose without this. '!
In l'vl iddle High German illogical cumulativ� negation is obligatory in sentences like
nu enkan ich es nietnanne gesagen, literally 'now
not can I it no one say' . i.e.,
'now I cannot tell anyone'; the indomitable translator ofRabclais,Johann Fischart,
Kan keiner kein Liedlin?,l is there no aile who knows no song'. In modern Russian we have to say on nichto ne Jka;:ai, literally: 'he nothing not said', i.e., 'he said nothing'. In modern French we say 01/ ne Ie voil nulle part, and this evidently asks:
does not make the French illogical people. On the contrary, I remember thal I haye heard it said that French is a very logical lallguage. If that is so, Classical Chinese
seems to be more logical still when it comes to negation.
ace<
A n<
There certainly are no sayings in Chinese that on the face orit commit such inex actitudes of logical articulation as we find in the saying 'all that glitters is not gold', \vhich docs not improve when one translates it into French:
d'or. As if gold did not glitter!
lout ce qui brille n'est p(lj
One can ea�ily imagine a Chinese scholar writing a
treatise wondering about what it does to the mind when one is condemned to think in an exotic Far-vVestern language, like English or French, that involves such a mud dle surrounding negation. How, the Chinese may wonder, do Lhey keep their neg
I 1
ated thoughts straight? Consider rhe French, who arc so justly proud of their language. We have se diranger de rien 'to make a fuss about nothing', ala se riduil a rim, beau.coup de bruitpour , Wodehousc. (1g86), p. ,84, Shak,,"peare commits logical alrOCitie� lik� 'You may dl'll)' that you WI''''' 11m the cause.' (Ri,�ard Illi.3.go) and 'Fim he denied you had in him no right.' (Cwnt,ry ojEmns;".1l.7). I SeeJuper!�n (19�9). p. 31 1fT., for a surwy of d,,, phenomena ofrcd'llldant dQub1c negation iu �lodenl J:'.ngli'h and olher E\lrop�a!llang\lage!. Kilhner and Gerth (.892), vol. 1. pp 103-23, pro\"id�.s a wonderfully welt-documenled nudy oflhe phenomenon iu Classical Grl'�k. There are in l,u:I >orne rule.• for ",hen ncgati\"�, cancel Qne ano,her, and ",hen not n i Gre�k, but wlforUlnately they are by no means consistently obscn·cd. • F. Von der I.o:y"" (1942), \'01. 3, p_ lIj.
..... ,"aT.
"" � ...." Mod .... I • C
.
,
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
113
n'm, Ct n'estpas pOllr rim, where rim means 'nothing', But we say il n'a rien vu, if est inca pable de rien dire. Molierf': said diable emporte, sij'entends n'm en midecine, and one used to be able to ask a-t'on jamais rien llU de pareil?, where rial means 'something' or 'anything' . 1
jHultiplt negation in Chinese Many Indo-European languages are infested with illogical cumulative negation.� AsJanusz Chmielewski pointed out a long time ago, Classical Chinese is entirely free of it. I have yet to find a single instance in which negation is not construed strict ly according to logic. Anyone who, in Classical Chinese, were to use a form ofwords
literally corresponding to 'I ain't got no money' would certainly be taken to mean
that he has money. as logic indeed would encourage one to think. In this respect, then, the ancient Chinese were far more logical than their Greek counterparts, i volving three negations in close proximity: Consider the following Chinese sentence n
Feifu neng wu chhu)"th NOT (fill NOT (fo) CAN NOT (wu) DISCARD)'th, Seraphim COllvreur's Latin paraphrase rullS like this: nan quod non possit non dimitlere 'Not as ifhe could not avoid to discard (the ritual clothing):� There certainly is no illogical cumulative negation here, but the important point is that there
could never be
any such thing according to the grammatical rules of
Classical Chinese. And the structural organisation orthe negations is grammatical ly as well as logically crystal-c1ear,4 Even three negations in a row do not work cumulatively, They work strictly according to logical syntax: A ruler may be shrewd and wise, but IWT-QUITE (wei*) LACK (IVu �) NOT (pu �) KNOW (i.e.: it is not quitt: that there is n othing he does not know),l ''''e shall see later on that there were, in ancient China as in ancient Greece, those
who maintained a relativistic and deliberately paradoxical stance according to
which contradictories can be concurrently true. In China, this view was known as
the
liang kho chih shuo �CJ�� maintained by some sophists.s But the very fact that,
, Uptrit Robtrl. I1CW ..ditioll 191h, p_ '717. , The language ofmy own country, )iom'egiau, fo�ms an n:ception. :-;Oegation s i .-u strictly logical n i our lan gua� as it is in Cl;onical Chinc!re, Modern Chinese, on the other hand, has an unseulingidiom like Iu.opu. GOOD "or. ....here haQ pu.jf-MO ('000 l'iOT !I\JSY is s)'nonrmOUJ "ith haQji-na� GOOD BI!�Y and m�ans 'very husy'. On the o her hand we ha\"� - astonishingly - the pair ha�)lmg-i G OOD E....SY and haupujung.i GOOD I<<.JT .E.... Sy, which both mean 'nO! at all easy'. 1 have nuttht $lighlcst idea how to explain these fasdnating 'illugkal" facts aboul Modern Chines.:. And 1 do nO! ,.ish \0 imply thai Cl;usical Chine", ",a, n i any$Crue a perftetly logical language either. , Li Chi, 'rsmg nu Ilh,ed. Couvreur(1951), \'01. l , p . 446. ' One exception i.s the phenomenon known to lingui.lt� a.< negatiun·raising in $Cmenceslike 'I dun't think she wilt comc',which mean.< 'I think shc won't comc'. In Harbsmeier (Iglh). p. 310"., I haw� shuwn that similar phe nomena do ex ist in Classical Chinese. , LJ Shih CMun Chhiu li.j, ..d. Chhen Chlli-Yu, p. H.'91t; cf. Wilhelm (t9�8), p. 277. , See our S"b-'�r-tion on Teng Hsi 001ff helow.
l
I,ANCUACE A l\" D
LOGIC
in China as well as in Greece, such views wt.:rc regarded as outrageous and flippant, shows that such relativistic auitudcs went against what was common sense at the time. Indeed,Janusz Chmiclcwski has suggested that the vcry feeling oflogical outrage towards the liang kho chill slluo sparked off, a� a response, Later Mohisl I,ogie, I and one might add that similar feelin gs or outrage at the daims made by early Greek sophists were an important factor in the development ofloglc in Greece. For more theoretical discussion of the closely connected notion tion, see below.
of a contradic
( 2 ) LOGICAL S E NTE:'-ICE CON:-IECTIVES Apart from n egation, some ofthe basic concepts ofpropositional logic arc those of
implication (roughly rendered by the English 'if'), disjunction (roughly rendered by 'or'),'! equivalence (roughly: 'if and only if'), conjunction (roughly: 'and'). Let us look briefly at the representation
of each
of these logical concepts in Classical
Chinese, We shall pay particular attention to the question whether (he ancient
Chinese were able to make explicit counterfactual conditionals such as ifthe world '
were different from the way it is, people would also be different.' The possibility of making such hypotheses that run counter to known fact is crucial for the develop ment oft:ritical and systematic general scientific explanations.
Implication In standard propositional logic an implication is a complex sentence of the form:
(A) p materially implies q. 'We call p the antecedent and q the consf>quent in this formula. Kow in standard propositional logic a sentence like that in (A) is taken to mean somf"lhing like 'it is
not the case that p is true and that q is false.' According to the concept of material implication there need be no semantic connection whatever between the ante cedent and the consequent of a true implication. Strict implication, on the other hand, docs demand a strict semantic relation between antecedent and consequent:
(B) p strictly implies q. is taken to mean something like 'it is impossible in any conceivable world forp ta
be true and for q at the same timc to be false, as long as p and q mean what they do mean',
, s.,�, Chmielewski (1969). Part VI. pp. 351l: Chan Chiell-Feng (19i9), Pl'. 3011'.. WaJ the firs! \0 argue thi, point in detail. , 'Or' turm
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
"5
W'ith this distinction in mind, consider now a Lypical Classical Chinese clause
with lsi �U 'rule, principle; on thaL pattern, then as a rule, then':
Ifyou study without thinking, then (lsi) you are lost. Ifyou think without studying, then (lsi) you arc in danger. I
Here we have two generalisations stated in two conditionals. Confucius argues together, given that the world is as it is. He main tains that there is a real link between the anttcedents and the conclu sions in the thal study and refiet"tion must go
world. This world being as it is, you will gel lost if you study without reflection, and
you will gel into trouble ifyou just indulge in reflection without study.
By writing sentences like 'p tsi q', the ancient Chinese established a relation between different statement.s p and q about the world. The general force oftsiis that given p one wouldexpecl that q. The nature and the intcnsity ofthis expectation can vary according to context. But by using the panicle lsi the ancient Chinese identified what they saw as (more or less) regular patterns of co-occurrence or con comitance in this world. It was by establishing such patterns of concomitance that they attempted to orientate themselves in the weller of appearances and things and to articulate regularities in their world. \Vhen used by a logician, the meaning of !simay harden into the rigidity of strict implication.
Ifyou hear that something you do not know is like something you do not know, then (lsi) you
know them both? When used in a narrative context, the meaning Qf lJi may very occasionally soft en to become a purely descriptive indicator of contemporaneity. :!
Cla'isical Chinese distinguishes between a general implication ofthe sort 'when ever p then q', which tends to be expressed in sentences like 'p lsi q', and particular implications of the sort 'if (on a given occasion) p then q', which tends to be expressed in sentence patterns like 'ju 9D/jo :;S p, q."1 The concept ofa necessary condition 'unless p, not-q' is expressed as follows:
Ifyou do not know language, you do not hayc the means whereby to know men.�
Here knowledge oflanguage is said to be a necessary condition for knowledge of men. Early writers
were
aware of
the
transitivity
of the rdation expressed by this
formula:
If namc� are not correct, then (tsi) speech will not be in accordance with things. When speech is not in accordauce wi.th things, thcn (lsi) tasks are not fulfilled. When tasks are not fulfilled, then (tsi) ritual and music will not flourish. \"Then ritual and music do not flourish, 2 Mo Tzu, ed. Grdham I i.JIR Jil2.lj; d. Wale}' (1938), p. 9'. p. 443. E.g., Han Ni Tzu 30. 13.6. • Harbsmeicr (19BI), pp. 24SJT., detai!� th� c""tcast but o"crstates the regularity with which it i, maintained. 1
, un rUIIO.3; c[ Lan (1!l83a), p. 3":)·
('978),
116
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
then (lsi) punishments and fines will not be adequate. \""hen punishments and fines are nOI adequate, then (tsf) the people have nowhere to seek reruge.1
The force of this argument is that the correct use of names is a necessary condi tion fOT a tolerable life of the peopk. \-Ve shall look more closely into this sort of argument, consisting ofa chain of implications, in our Sub-section on the sorites. Counteifactual conditlOnal senimas If one wishes to explain why the world is the way it is, one needs to be able to imag ine the world to be different from the way it happens to be. Counterfactuals can either be implici t ('If this is not a counterfactual, I am a Dutchman') or they can be explicit ('If he had been born in Holland, he would be a Dutchman.') Implicit counterfactuals are no less counterfactual than explicit ones. Alfred Bloom has argued concerning modern Chinese: Yet, despite Chinese grammatical preci�ion in expres�mg both the degree oflikelihood of the premise of implicational statements and the distinction between if-then and if-and only-then mterpretations of the relationship of the premise to its consequence, the Chinese language bas no distinct lexical, grammatical, or intonational device to signal cntryinto the coumerfactual realm, to indicate explicitly that the cvcnts rcfcrrcd to have definitely not occurred and are being discusscd for the purpose only ofexploring the might-have-been or thc might-bc.�
Bloom maintains: Historically-speaking, the fact that Chinese has not offered its speakers incentives for think ing about the world in countcrlactual and entificational ways is likely 10 ha,,·e contributed substantially to sustaining an intellectual climate in which these modes of thinking were less likely to arise.';
Bloom's account raises very interesting questions:1 is it true that lhere was no way of making explicit counterfactuals in Classical Chinese? And is it true that the ancient Chinese were notably sparse in their usc ofcountcnactual reasoning? Such counterfactual reasoning is crucial for the intellectual development of a people. Imagining the world as being different from the \vay it actually is, is an important strategy of scientific explanation. \Vang Chhung .::t=:3t uses counterfactual reasoning to demonstrate the unaccept ability oftraditional superstitions: IfYao and Kao Tsu had really bcen the sons of dragons, then, since it is in the nature of offspring to be like their parents, and since a dragon can fly on the backs of clouds, then it follows that Yao and Kao Tsu should have been able to mount clouds and fly.·' I lim Yii 13.3; <::[ Lau (ry8:-;a), p, 121. , Bloom (lg81), p, 16. Curiousl;; Bloom docs not melllion the crucial)'a�pu J'hih�/f:lE 'ifit had not b��n that' which is frcqucntly m�d in mod �rn Chinese to make counterfactual scntenccs with a negative anteccdt'lll. For a lucid accoulll ofyaop" ,hih and other related malleI' see Eifring (1988), , Ibid" p, 59. Cf. th� review by Garr�tt (!y8,,;) and al:;o Wu (lg87). , L�n Hmg, ch. 15; cf. Forkc {I gIl), vol. 1,1'. 32(), •
I Ii
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
It turns out thal for counterfactual conditionals ofthe sort:
(C) if(comrary to fact) it were the case that p, then q
'
Classical Chinese writers regularly use patterns like 'shih UEP, (lsi �IJ) q or, much ' more rarely, 'chi flf p, (isi) q . Chinese counterfactuals about a contingent event in the future cannot per dwnitiontm be strictly counterfactual: 'Ifhe came, I would sim ply send him home again' speaks about a remote hypothesis, or about an inconceiv able but strictiy speaking possible future event. Injust the same way counterfactual shih �, when followed by a clause describing a contingent future event, will intro duce a remote or 'unrealistic' possibility. If(shih) the Way could be handed up (to a ruler), everyone would hand it up to his ruler. If (shih) the Way could be presented, e\'cryone would present it to his parents. If(shih) the Way could be reported, everyone would report it to this brother. If (shih) the Way could be bcqucathed, everyone would bequeathe it to his descendants. But it is m i possible to do any L ofthcsc things, and lhe reason is this. The combinations chia shih 1¥l UE andjo shih ;S UE always mark counterfactual clauses.2 Hsun Tzu's combination chia chih @Z 'tet us assume this as an arbitrary hypolhesis'3 is not so much coumerfactual as theoretically hypOlhetical. The counterfactual particle wei W. 'if it had not been for, but for ' , on the other hand, like its English paraphrases, is entirely limited to counterfactual usage: the noun mentioned after wei must refer to something that is presupposed to have been non-existent. I Hit had not been for your assistance (weifujin chill li tf&�.A.�J:1), I would not have got 10 this statc.� Sometimes the noun phrase after wei is a nominalised sentence: Ifthe Master had not removed my lid for me (waJu l.{u chihfa wufiJ)'eh M�f'��:ef1l1:!!), I would never have understood the Great Integrity ofHea\'en and Earth.fi At mher times the nominalisation, ifpresent, is in any case [mally unmarked: But for the fact that your Royal Highness memioned it (wei thai l.{u)·en V&.tT �), I would have requested permission to go along.; Counterfactual wei fI!& can even come after the nominal subject: 'If your High ness had nol ldl (chun wel eMu ��tfj), made clear your resentment and rejected me, I would (still) certainly be guilty.'8 , Chul1� 71.u 104.47; d \\'auon (19!4)P. 161. Harb.meier (lg8I),pp. '17'1ff., analyses more than fin}' coumcrfactuals in Jhih Ill! ike l this une. See Harb5mcier(1981), p. '277. • Hriin 71." 22.68 and '23.30. • For a sound trealmen! o(ari II: 5r.r. S. L Yen (1978). , 710 CJwan. Duke H,i 30, cd. Yang ro-Chlin, p. 482; cf. Legge (187'2), p. '1'7. Yang Po-Chlin's nult: un this pu sag<: cumaim furth�r examples ofour pa,!crn. • Chuang «u21.38; cf. Wauon (1964), p. 227. , Chan Kuo Tiki, no. 473, �d. Chu Tsu-Kcng, p. 1651; d. Crump (1970), p. 556. Y�n (1978). p. 475, misund�r 1
STands this SentenCe. , ena>! Kuc TIM, no. 471, cd. Chu 'l�u_K�ng, p. 1 39; cf. Crump ('970). p. 549. Our in!nprelalion Tso-�fin (1983), p. 980. which is aho in ac<:oTdance ,,;,h ,he oldcJT cumm�ntary.
6
lollows F�ng
1I8
LANQUAGE A N D L O ( H C
In collocation with
.wi �
'even if',
wei 'if it had nO[ been for' makes unambigu
ously counterfactual concessive dauses \;ven if it had not been the cast': that':
Even irit were not so (sui wti ¥l�) that the former great official had done it, dare I do any thing but appro\'c ofyour command?' It turns out that explicit counterfactual reasoning was frequent in ancient China. The lack of verb forms like the': subjunctive in Chinese did not lead to a lack ofexpli cit counterfac:tuals.
Inference lsi �IJ
The conditional particle
'then', which can mark the relation between an
antecedent and a consequent in conditionals, is among the most frequent words of the Classical Chinese language. Curiously enough, the word docs not occur even once in the works which we can confidel1lly attribute to the logician Kungsun Lung
01W:1I (c. -320 to
250) By contrast the word ku itt 'therdore', which marks
-
.
inferences from premises to a conclusion, occurs frequently in Kungsun Lung's work.2
What, then, is the difference between conditionals like 'fJ iSi RU q' on the one hand
and infen::nces like
'
'p ku � q , 'p kuyueh 1& B q' , 'p shih i �j;). q' , Of 'p shih ku ft':t& q'
on the other?3 The consequent in conditionals is not assened to be tfue, while the conclusion of the inference is indeed maintained to be true (against lhe background indicated in lhe premises). A chapter from the l..ao Tzu will illustrate our point: Lao Tzu begins with a series ofconditionals where the truth ofthe second clause is pred
icated only conditionally upon the truth of the antecedent. Hc then continues with
a series of inferences where the truth of the conclusions is asserted, and what pre cedes the ku arc grounds adduced to justify the conclusion.
(Ifyou) bow down, then (lSi) you are preserved; (Ifyou) bend, then (lsi) you will be straight; (Ifyou) are hollO\\� then (tsl) you will be full; (Ifyou) are worn out, then (lsi) you will be renewed; (Ifyou) have little, then (lsi) you will be enriched; (!fyou) have a lot, then (lsi) you will get confused. Thererore (ku) thr. sage embrace� the One and is a model ror the empire . He does not show himselfand therefore (ku) he is conspicuous. He does not consider himselrright and therefore (ku) is illustrious. He does flOt brag and therefore (ku) has meril. He docs not boast and thererore (ku) endures. Precisely because he does not contend, therefore (ku) no one in the empire is in a position to contend with him! , no ChutJ", Duke Chhcng 16.7; ef. Leggc (18;:2), p. :�98. Cr. al>o Pull.,yhlank (1959), p. 187. cr. Ch�n!t (1975). I For o!<efill discussion on Ihis point MeC Ch.,ng (1975). , !Ao u:'ll n;cf. l..au(1984), 11·33· I
L A );' G U A G E AND
Ku YUih ;INS can be used Kungsun Lung Tzu 01%�!r:
in strictly logical
119
LOGIC
contexts, as when we read in the
'Horse' IS that by which we name the shape. '\Vhite' is that by which we name the colour. Naming the colour is not (the same as) naming the shape. Therefore (ku.) I say 'white horse' is not (tht same as) 'hors(,.'1 In other cOIllexL� the me aning of ku. is
a vague ' thus ' , as in the summarising for
mula 1,."11YUill itX.S 'thu� it is said . . . ', which onen introduces apt traditional quota
no way logically implied but much more loosely illustrated or suggested as true bywhat precedes. In spitt: ofthe loose usages ofbolh ku and tJi(which we would expect in a natural language) the di sti nction between the non-assertive, hypothetical force of tse and the assertive (inferential) force of ku is fairly d early maintained throughout all of early Chinese literatun:.
tions that are in
DI�junction 'I·he standard way to ask whether something is fish or fowl in Classical Chinese is to ask two questions: 'Is it fIsh? Is it fow}?' The juxtaposition is quite enough to make the disjunctive point, but quite often tht' particle chhi;tt 'his, its' is used in this sort of alternative question regarding the same subject. The disjunctive or alternative nature of the question may be brought out explicitly by the word i :jQJ 'or rather?', Latin : an? 'or? ' . The intcrestin g point is that Classical Chinese has no current equivalent for the declarative vel 'or', and the excl usive aut '(either) or'. f (as well as the 'alternative' anaphoric chhi) is entirely lim ited to alternative questions of this sort. 1'or' nevCf occurs in declarative sentences. In pre-nominal position, we very occasionally find the particlejo;E used to mean 'or': Please let [he ruler or the heir apparent ('ome (chhing chunjo /0 t{U lai m�;s*.:r*).1 During Han times, moreover, we begin to find the particle lIuo WG 'some' used to
mean 'or'. The earliest example that I have found, from the -2nd century, comes from the HuaiN(In nu
it.i$ir:
Generally, when people think or plan, they all first consider something as right and only then proceed to doing it. That they art' right or wrong (chili shih huofii:"I�Jj�:��p) is what dis tinguishes the stupid from the clever.' Aimf.sUII Lung T�", cil. �, ..c!. I.uan Hsing, p. 13.
• no (Jwan, Dukc A.i Ii, fu �; d. CoulT�ur (193Ib). \"t,I. 3, p. 731. In Tso GllIlall, Duk.. Hsiang 13.3, "e ha\l� a
similar<:a.'I" 01]0 b wilhin the s<."Up� ofclrhi"&ttY. There i> a punling isola[�deasc ofju t4l b..ingu.\ed aJ a disjl.Ulco Ii,..;: partid�:
Tlw... can either Ix under.tuod or th�y (an be not under,[ooct. ·I·hey can either be ...�n or they can Ix not seen fju 1),0 chih).. klto pw chih.jt. kho chim)" Idwpu ,him :\lIl0f;U!llJ"EJ1":l
•
ed. Chh�n Chhi-Yu, p. 1002; cr. Wilh�lm (1928), p. 25�.)
HliaiNan hu, eh. I). cd. Liu Wcu-Ti�n, p. :na; tl". Ames (1983), p. 207.
LANGUAGE A :"i D L O G I C
120
then, does ont': ordinarily say 'This is fish or fowl' i n pre-Han times (and after)? Formal logic leaches us that this proposition is adequately rendered without any notion of disjunction. In fact, disjunction may be systematically defined in terms of implication and negation, borh of which we have already discussed \\·ith respect to Classical Chinese. In formal logic 'p or q' is understood to be t':xactly syn onymous with 'if not-p then q", The ancient Chinese availed themselves orjust this logical equivalence. Imtead of 'This is fish or fowl' they said something like ' I( Lhis is not fuh then it is fowl.' The pattern for a declarative disjunction in Classical Chin ' ese is 'Jei ?F P isi �IJ q , if not-p then q'. This is indeed a current pattern in ancient Chinese literature. It is current exactly where we would expect a disjunction. l How,
Conjunctifm The English
'and' is ambiguous. It can stand between nouns Oohn and Bill arc ('a nice and attractive girl'), between verbs ('he
Americans'), between adjectives
loved and adored her') or between sentences (:John is an American and Bill is British'). In Classical Chinese nominal conjunction has to be expressed by p articles
like yii !M
and chi :& 'and, with', whereas sen tential conjunction is in English) by simple collocation or the co-ordinate sentences. or by particles like irh ffij 'but, and then, and thus'. In English we say things like 'You do that again and I shall report you to tht' police', where 'and' is logically speaking a marker ofimplication. Such logically con fusing, purdy conditional, usage for irh is rare but nO( unattested in the early Chinese literature. 'and, with'
expressed either (as
(3) LOGICAL QUANTIFIERS Next to negation and sentence connectives, the only remaining crucial ingredient
in modern standard logic are the quantifiers, words like 'all', 'some', 'no(ne}'. One
may ask, for example, whether aU the quantified calegorial p ropositions in Aristotelian logic can be naturally and painl essly expressed in Classical Chinese or not. C onversely, we
must ask whether all the subtle quamificalional patterns in
Classical Chinese can be naturally and painlessly expressed in Classical Greek. Or
arc quantificational strategies like those we find in modern logic parochial to some languages like Greek or are they universal and equally applicable to very different languages like Chinese? Aristotle's logical Organon remained for a very long time the finest achievement in (he field of logic, although in more recent times the contribution ofthe Stoics has been incre asingly appreciated for its considerably wider range of philosophical
more generally:
1 Lahu as well as a wide variety of other East ..lu ian languages USe 'if' and 'not' to cxp�!o$ 'ur'. II would b
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
121
analysis. Let us bef,rin with the Aristotelian classification of the relations behveen the subjc<.:t lerm and the predi<.:ate term and sec whether these logical patterns, which involve quamification, can be naturally rendered imo Classical Chinese. SaP'all Sare po be<.:omes S chieh � P)'eh -t!!' . S mo � Pyeh'. 3. SiP'some Sarc po becomes 'S kUo !!X; P)·th'. 4. SoP'some S arc not P' becomes 'S huofci!!X;:?F P),th'. '
I.
2. SeP 'no Sare po becomes
'
Given that we can translate each of these four basic relations bct\",cen S and P that Aristotle envisages, and that the Chinese had ways of expressing conjunctions and implications, we can translate all the 256 forms ofthe categorial syllogism, from 'Barbara' to 'Celarent', into Classical Chinese. Aristotle mightjust as well have diScussed not Greek but Chinese sentences. He could h�xpounded exactly the -;;�e theory. Syllof,ristics is nOt in principie and for linguistic reasons parochial to Greek and other Indo-European languages like Greek. And that, of course, is one if the reasom why this form of logic could spread so easily among speakers of very different languages.
Universal quantifiers Universal quantifiers are - roughly speaking - words or constructions which do the job that 'all' typically does in English. Just as we find many different and non-synonymous negations in Classical Chinese, so we find many differem and non-synonymous words for 'all'. At this point we shall summarise some basic dis tinctions among universal quantifiers. I The most important general observation is that while quantification in Greek is through adjective-like words (like pantes 'all' , plli 'every'), in Chinese the predomin ant strategy is to use adverb-like words Oike ckieh, chim, chin, chou,jan,jan, hsi, ko,pien {j!f, �, it, 1lI , V'[., ill , ;!:, :g., �) in phrases like ku chihjin dliehjall �z.A � � ' A)lTlQ.UITY S MAN ALL BE-LIKE-TI'I1S ;the men ofold were all like this.'2 When there is an object as well as a su�ject in a phrase, then the question arises which noun is quantified by an adverbial quantifier. In a sentence like bai hsing 'kieh ai chhi shang 8��jf�J: HUNDRED FAMILIES ALL LOVE THEIR SUPERiOR, the chich {g will refer to the subject, so that we have to translate 'the hundred families (i.e., the citizens) all loved their supf'riors':; and we cannOt translate 'the hundred families loved all their superiors'. If, on the other hand, we had a sentence like HUNDRED FAMILY ALL (.ro 1!) LOVE THEIR SUPERIOR, we must translate 'the hundred families each loved their superiors (not other people's superiors)',� and we cannot simply translate 'they all loved their superion'. , A d�lailed account ofquantificallon in Cla..I<:al Chinese will be found n I Harbsmeicr ([g81), PIl. 49-176.
l
•
b", 1ii r4.�O; cr. Lau (19a3a). p. 146.
C(,�.g.,MoT-!u r·I·ll.
J IIsiin kit. "'-76; d Kmtrr (1967), p. l��.
1
.:)
(-
--r-
122
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Ifwe read HUKDRED FAMILY ALL (CHIE.\'� LOV E THEIR SUPERIOR, we have to translate 'the hundred families loved all their superiors (each in their own way)'l and we cannot treat chien as synonymous with ckith rg or kQ :g.. Fan J'L 'all' refers indiscriminately to all objects, never to the subjects. Pim j§ 'all' refers indiscriminately to aU objects wherever they may be in relation
to the speaker, and never to the subjects.
Chou mI 'all objects universally' comes in logical contexts like:
has to universally (chou) love (all) men, only then does that COUllt as loving men. have to universally (chou) not love (aU) men to count as not loving men. Someone does not have to universally (rJwu) ride (all) horses in order to count as riding horses, but only irhe universally (chou) not-rides (all) horses can one say that he does count as not riding horses. 2 Someone
But one docs not
In passages like these a subject quan tifier like chieh 'all' would obviously be impos
sible, but it also seems semantically significant that the Mohists, who were extreme
ly familiar with object quantifiers such as
chien 'all objects, each in their own way'
chose not to use that quantifier in this technical context: they wanted a logical all connotations, and they used chou as such a
object quantifier that was rree from technical term. They might have used
chin :ffit
'the whole lot'. Indeed,
chin is the only universal
quantifier which the Later Mohist logicians defined:
Chin 'exhaustively' means 'none s i not so (mQPujan �::f�)'.:l Chin 'exhaustively' refers to the object, unless that object is unquantifiable. A sen tence like HUND R ED FA){fLiES EXHAUSTIVELY (CHI:-l) LOVE THOI would come to mean 'the hundred families loved the whole lot of their superiors'. Sometimes the object is nOt quantifiable , for c.xample because it is a place word like 'here': Ytieh's treasures are exhaustivdy (i.e., all) (chin) here.�
But we do have
sentences where chin 'exhaustively'
because there is no object to which it could refer:
refers to the su�jeet simply
The ten thousand things are exhaustively/all (chin) the way the arc'!' Universal quantification can be expressed periphrastically. We find the combina
�?F)', 'there is none who not (wupu mff) ', 'there is none who is not (wu.fei 1m1F)'. These again arc syntactically distinct. Mofii, mo pu and wufei invariably refer to the subj ect, while wu pu may refer to lhe
tions 'none not (mo pu ��)', 'none is not (mo.fti
object.
In the pattern SUBJECT NONE ('\/o�) VERB OBJECT the negative universal quan tifier 'none (mo)' will always refer to the subject so that we have to translate the pat tern as 'none of th e subjects verh the objects ' . , VI�i "LI. (CHilo:,,) I.OVE WORLD'S MAS 'he t",,<:s aU the people of the "orld (equally): (Mo 7{u. 28.[1\; cf. : (1953), p. 153·) , Mo T�u. ,,:'.2,,; Graham (19i8), xo 17. ' Mo T::.u., ed. Graham (1978), "47. • M0 7{1IIj.2-4;cf.M"i (19:'3}, p.84. ' Cku.Qrlg TVI 'l.,8;d Graham (lgBl),P.59.
123
LA�GUAGE A N D l . O G I C
Note that rno unlike the English 'no' cannot prf'ccde the noun it quantifies and is thus not an 'adjectival' modifier in any sense at all.
By contrast, chu mf 'all the (members ofa definite sel)', chung 'Jfl 'the whole crowd
of' and chhun � 'the whole flock of' do immediately precede the nouns they modify.
The vadom younger brothers (cllu II 'imm) of the King ofChhu made representations that
he shouldpardon the man. I
These three words are not synonymous, but they are very close in meaning and in their crucial structural property, which is that they must immediately precede the noun which is their scope.
Fan J'L 'speaking generally of' is limited to whole subjects or topics of sentences
and it cannot be used to quantifY an embedded noun as in the example we havejust noted about lhe younger brothers ofthe King ofChhu.
Existential quantification The existential quantifiers in Classical Chinese are 'adverbial' like The pattern
huo �
'some'.
SUBJECT lIUO VERB OBJECT
means 'some subjects verb the obj ect' . If one wants to speak of 'some objects' one
needs to usc a periphrastic pattern: SUBJECT )"u so 19pfr VERB
which means 'the subject verbs some objects'.
(4) LEXICAL AND GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES Since the sixteenth century Europeans have often expressed their profound amaze ment at the fact that the Chinese language seemed to have no fixed word classes. They reported with consternation that the Chinese freely used nouns as verbs and verbs as nouns. Chinese was found to be a most extraordinary language in this respect and quite unlike any of the Indo-European languages we arc used to.2 :tvla Chien-Chung mj�,� wrote in 18g8:
Characters have 110 fixed meaning. Thr:rerore they have n o fixed word classes. Ifyou want to kllow their word classes, you must first sec what the meaning ofthe contc.xt is like.' Ma Chien-Chung supplies an excellent example ofwhat he means:
ME" NONE �I1RROR-THEMSELVES IN FI.OW WATER. Ur:T MIRROR-THEMSELVES 11'
SlJLL
(I) \VATE R. ONl.Y STJI.I. (2) CAX SIlL!. (3) TIl£-VA RiO I;S STll.!. (4). Nobody will mirror himsdfin flowing water: he will mirror himsdfin still water. Only what is still can make still all things lhat are still.; , Slwo Juan J�':l. ed. Chao Sh"-n-l. p. 32j. ? Cr., ...g., E. Clark and H. Clark (1�79). , r.lu Chien.Chung (J9�). p. 9 . 1 The 'luotaliou i, from Chuang 7(11 .vo; d. Graham (lg81), p. n
124
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
We might be tempted to say that the word chihll:, which we have literally glossed as STlH, is used here (I) as an adjective 'still', {2} as an intransitive verb 'be still', then (3) as a verb 'make still', and finally (4) as a noun 'still things' . ehhen Chheng-Tse Il*;ijk� objects i n 1922:
From my point ofview, three of the classes Mr Ma brings up represent derived llsages (huo yungmffl) of chih. The word class of chih should be 'intransitive verb'. I According to Ma Chien-Chung, lexical items in Classical Chinese do not belong to word classes, they omy havt" functions characteristic of",.-ard classes in interpreted sentences. According to ehhen Chheng-Tse, lexical items in Classical Chinese do basically belong to word classes but they can occasionally be used in special func� lions characteristic ofolher word classes. The Chinese case is not as strange as might appear at first thought. We shall begin our enquiry by looking at word classes in English. To begin with, it is healthy to consider such sentences as 'But me no buts!' which show a greater flexibility in the use of grammatical panicles than would be acceptable
in
Classical Chinese.2
J Marshman, in his grammar of 1814 already mentioned the English word 'sound', which he claimed can function as an adjective, a transitive verb and a noun.3 Marshman and others thought that what defines the grammatical character of a word in a sentence is the syntactic context in which it appears, primarily word order.4 But how does that context itself acquire its firm structure in the first place? Questions of this order have rarely been raised, but they are decisively important. The answer must be two-fold: firstly, the grammatical particles of the Chinese lan guage impose more definite grammatical structure on their surroundings; secondly, not all Classical Chinese words show the same degree of grammatical flexibility so that the grammatically/functionally more stable words impose a grammatical frame on the less stable ones. In addition, the idiomatic structure of the Classical Chinese language helps to remove the ambiguity ofpotentially ambiguous phrases.5 VV'ords likc the English 'sound' and 'round' are fairly special precisely because they are grammatically so multivalent. But Elizabethan English as used by poets like Shakespeare provides an excellent starting-point for a discussion ofword classes in Classical Chinese. For Elizabethan English shows a grammatical fle.xibility in the use of words which is profoundly different from modern English, and which is strongly reminiscent of ancient Chinese practice. By looking at Eli:.:abethan i Ma Chi"n.Chung (1904), p. 8. I Chhen Chhcng-Tse (1957), p. 20. Cf. Yang Shu·Ta·s footnote 3 n I $(,e Simon (1937),P. 116. , Krnn�lh Robinson has pointed out that �Iarshman'l eXl.mpk is unfortunate: the adjective JOundis r�lated to
� .l
Germangtsundand th�. noun derives from the quite unrdatcd Latin JnntLS. Thus wej\lno\ls 'round' would ha,'C been a betlerexamplc. We happily use this word;u a pr�polition, as a ,."rb, as an adjective, and as a noun. Often onlythe syntae�ic contnt tells u! what kind of'round' we "n: dealing
....·onb nnJIUI. The word
"ilh.
I It is significant thatJuliell (1870) called his grammar .V'n/axe Muull, d� Ili languf ChiMis,jcnditJuria pl)sition deJ
mali, Note, however, that word order alon� docs not distinguish a transitive verb from all adjective: bol.h the adjecti,." and the transitive ''Crb directly precede the noun. , Cf. .entenCes like 'Oxford Cit)' Polyt..r.hnic academic mill'disLike Londun Uniloersit)' library catalogue Cllrd
photocopying senic," charges', which pose no problem in English.
,
LANGUAGE AND LOGIC
125
examples we can gain a pretty good first sense ofwhat is going on in Chinese. Thus we may sensibly start our enquiry into Chinese word classes with Shakespeare.
Elizabethan English versus Classical Chinese Shakespeare asks in the opening lines of Sonnet J08:
What's in the brain that ink may cllarac/er Which hath not figured to thee my true spirit? Shakespeare feels free to use adjectives as transitive verbs, as in Sonnet 6 'Which
happies (=makes happy) those that pay the willing loan',
or Macbeth ii+4: 'Three
score and len I can remember well;! Within the volume ofwhich time I have seen/ Hours dreadful and things strange; but this sore night/ Hath trifled (==made trifling) former knowings.' He can also use adjectives as intransitive verbs, as in
Coriolanus
t'oy'd (==be coy) to hear Comenius speak, I'll keep at home'. I A nominalised e).'Pression can be used verbally; as in the memorable phrase rrom the UJver's Complaint, '\Vho, young and simple, would not be so [overed?'. BenJonson has such 'Chinese' usages as 'Year'dbut to thirty' (Sejanus i.I). Shakespeare himself even obliges us by using 'king' verbally in IGngJohn ii.1.371: 'Kinged of our fears, until our fears, resolved,! Be by some certain king purged and deposed'. In Classical Chinese this son of usage of the word for 'king', wang would also have been morphologically marked.1 Shakespeare writes in King Lear iii. 6.117: v.i.6: 'Nay, ifhe
'How light and portable my pain seems now,! ''''hen that which makes me bend makes the King bow -/ He
childed as IJathered'. We may compare Lun ru 12.11:
'Let
the father father and lhe son son (f uJu i�u tzu). . . . When the father does not (behave
like a) father and the son does not (behave like a) son
(tzu pu tzuJu pufo), then even if
there be grain, would I get to eat it?' Even 'god' is not immune from such grammat ical licence, as in
Coriolanus v.3.1I:
'This last old man . . . Lov'd me above the mea-
sure ofa father;/ Nay goddedme indeed.' The point we need to stress is the [ibtrry Elizabethan writers had - or took - when it came to using words in unusual grammatical functions. The verb 'to king' did not at that time need to be lexically sanctioned to be perfectly usable. Moreover, the word did not enter the Elizabethan dictionary as a verb just because Shakespeare used it so. 'Servant', even nit never had been used as a verb, still couid have been used as a verb. And this possibility, this freedom, is the crucial point about the grammar ofElizabethan and particularly Shakespearean English that concerns us here. � Any reader of Elizabethan English is impressed with the considerable amount of what one might call 'categorial grammatical anarchy' in that language. The English language thrived on such categorial anarchy. Indeed, the period of this
I Cf.
aho 'v;olentelh' meaning 'act violently' in Troil", olld CTm;ao iv.f.f: 'The griefi, rme, full, perfect, thai I t�le,l And ,io'mut1l in a sen�e as strong/ tll thaI wh.ich C3.u,ethit. How can [ moder-ate it?' • See our disculsion ofderivalion by tone change below. n i ddelllally: 'r.ly wife, mOlher, child, I know nOlo My affairs/ are stnanUdlo others.' (Con·o/anusv.2.78).
, Cr.
J J ..z /
'
L A :"< G U A G E AND L O G I C
anarchy shows up the English language at its best. The grammatical and �ates!Ei�1 rigidity introduced into the English language at later stages did not mark grammat icaJprogress but quite arguably a dedine in the expressive p�w��� \'ivacity of�be El"!glishJanguage. ; , .c f" d.;J::-} "--In Lilcrary Chinese, for its part, words never lost their functional suppleness. In Classical and Literary Chinese the considerable catcgorial li<.:cnce the Elizabethans allowed themselves was, so to speak, institutionalised and integrated into the vcry core ofthe standard grammatical system itself: A certain amount ofcatcgorial anar chy became a stable part of Literary Chinese grammar down to the 20th century. Chinese writers, like Elizabethan writers, would, of course, differ considerably in the extent to which they made use orthe freedom they had. But in principle a writer of Literary Chinese feels frec to use any \\Iord we would normally translate as a noun Nas a verb meaning 'cause to bc an N', 'rcgard as an}t' or even, when appro priate, 'act as an N'. Similarly, a \..,riter of Literary Chinese would quite generally feel free to usc a verb Vas a noun ' V-ness" or as an adjective ' Fing', or as a transi tive verb 'cause to V', 'consider as V�ing', I.:tc. . 1 The Chinese have allowed themselves the luxury of using words in a variety of syntactic functions in which these \vords can be understood to make good sense. The fundamental contrast may appear to be that the Elizabethans marked such ad hoc changes ofgrammatical or syntactic function not only by word order but also by morphological mcans such as endings (as in 'kinged', ']overed') whereas the Chinese characterised the unusual functions their words could have by syntactic means; by word order Oike the Elizabethans} and through grammatical particles. This is a gross simplification. .Ju�t as in English we have standard pairs such as the noun record versus the verb recQrd, and the verb permit versus the noun pt!1TI1it (contrasts which arc not recognisable in w titing but quite distinct in English pronunciation) so ) the Chinese - as we have see 6 often gIQD.o,Ullccd_ one_and t� same character differently in different syntactic functio�s. Or, to put the matter more accurately: the Chinese developed different derived and grammatically distinct words which their writing system often failed to distinguish. Unfortunately, we do not know the precise extent to which this differentiation and word derivation was practised in early forms of the Chinese language, and there is considerable controversy regarding the precise nature of the morphological <.:haracterisation of the derived words, but we do know that such functional differ entiation existed. In 1946 Bernhard Karlgren wrote : '
.
-
�
In Dlher words, to the Chinese scribe around -800 it was self-evident that his language had a fully living system of word-formalion (ordbildni.ngsliira) i�hich diffe-rent grammat ical functions were- expressed through sound variations n i the word ste-m.� ---.--� ...
L V
�-
Traditiunally, Ih� a"cient Chine,,, called th� mc ofa word in a grammatical or "ymaClic function which it d�s not uandardly h',,"<2 the Iiviug usC" (kuoJ'U"K $,Efj r of a dlara(ter, and this Chin"1c cxprenion cov�r5 \"t'ry t>r.autifullyalrowhat the: Eli7.3h"than� "'e:r� doing "'hen th"y UM"d s�nleuccs ike l Otlulloiii.4.'95: '1 do attend here on the General;! and think it no addition, nor mywish;! To have seeu me U'OfIIOlftri.' ---?- ' Cr. our Sub-;cClion on lh� typology nfthe Chine"" language. , Karlllr"" (Fran Kinas 'I'dk,'�rld. Nouledl, StodJlOlm, 19:.19), p. 77; c[ al!() Chmielew.ki (1949), p :i97. L
'
LAXGUAGE AXD L O C I C
127
We hasten to add that not all differences in grammatical function were expressed
through variations in the word stem in Classical Chinese. In fact, uery ftw such differences wcre made explicit in this way in Classical Chinese. Returning for a moment to Elizabethan English, we find that even in that lan guage not all cases of unorthodox grammatical function are made palpable by the addition of morphemes. Shakespeare oflen uses prepositions as verbs, as in Romeo andJuliet iii.2.141: 'I'll to him', though this is to be derived historically from ellipsis of the verb, as in: '[Gal to yo ur tents, 0 Israel.' This is reminiscent of Classical Chinese practice where 'prepositions' function as vfOrbs. KingLenr i.l.264 goes even further than the ancient Chinese ever would: 'Thou losest here a better where to find'. 1 Nominalisation of interrogative pronouns in this way is more than even Chinese grammatical flexibility permits. And in English we know that 'here' and \....here' are nouns only from the syntactic position in the sentence.2 vVe shall now turn to a marc detailed account of logical and grammatical cate gories in Classical Chinese. We bcgin with a briefsurveyofthe substanlialliteraturc on the subject. Biblwgraphic orientation The question whether there are word classes in Chinese has been discussed by a number of distinguished sinologists. Wilhelm \'on Humboldt wrote to Abcl-Remusat in 1827: All Chincse words, even if they arc linked together in a sentence, are in an absolute state, and they resemble ill this the root-words in the Sanskrit language.1
Humboldt wri tes : i tain that the Chinese language seems to me not so much to neglect as to None the less I man dismiss the marking ofgrammatical catcgoric5. I
Georg von der Gabelemz, n i his grammar of 1881, carefully distinguishes word categories (which he designates by German words like Hauptwort, Eigenschaflswort, <eitwor� and functional calegories (which he: designates by Latin words like Substan twum, At/jectivum, l'hbum). Gabelentz explains: ompa� so Jf. whidl m��ns 'place' aswcll as 'whn", th., ohject which'. Again, only syntactic cOIl�d�rations indicate thaI 'eye' mUSI mean somelhing lik" 'al'""ar 10 the eye' n i Anllwny D.ffd CWijN1lTo i.3.97: 'But, sir, forgi'''' mel Since my bccomings kill me, when Ihey do nOli Eft ("'appear) ....cllto you.' In 11m? Vi\·.3.63, 'This day .hall�ffl/e his condition', nnly Ihe fact Ihal 'gcntle' has >ll1 object tells u, that il isa lrdIls;t i ... .,,-.:rb. ShakeSIXarC f..,,,1> no compunction IlboUI wing nOllns as splendid \�rbs withoul lUnher morphological notice in (. }mbtb� V .j..l.j..r 'Such stuffas madmen 11J"lUt (=-,�[[ use their tongues), and braiII not ("''';[[ not use thcir brains)" or in M(Ils"nj�r,\f,asuni.l.69' 'Ho....· might sh" IO'\l:u� (""'5cold) me?' Shale!peare also USl" 'path' to mcan 'walk'. (Julius COI.mrii.1.83) I 'Tous 1".mot5 chinois, quoique �ncha;nes dans unc phra.•�, _ont in StalU ab!Olulo, "I r�lsemblent par-a au,,; radical1x d� la lan!l;ue sanskritc.' (Humboldt (1827), p. 16} 1 Tav()ur. ""pendant que la langu� chinoise me sembI" moins negliger que df.daigner de marquer les ca(�gorjcs grammaticales: (Ibid., p. 3)
t
�
C
.
LA:>lGUAGE A2\'D L O G I C
The category is immediately inherent in the word, whereas the syntactic function will be changing in many words. I Henri Maspero flatly denied that there were functional or lexical word classes in Chincse, 2 Maspero wa� followed in this - with certain minority of Chinese scholars such as Kao Ming·Khai.
qualifications - by a small
Paul Dcmieville (1948), p. 148, rollowed Ma Chien-Chung
in maintaining that
word classes only exist from the functional, not from the lexical point ofview.:1 This
view was current in Chinese under the slogan Iichii wllplzin l�fH:i]AAcih 'separate from sentences there are no classes'.
Dobson (1966), p. 29, concludes that essentially the question whether Chinese
has lexical word classes is inconsequential. j
W. Simon (1937)5 and Bernhard Karlgren (1961, PP, i3 8) maintained that Chinese
does have parts ofspeech,6 ln this they were followed by Chou Fa·Kao (1964) and most Chinese linguists.
G. Kennedy'S 'Word Classes in Classical Chinese' (lgj6) is a detailed s(Udy along lines and ba�ed on the At/eng Tzu. Leonard Bloomfield (1887-1949) scoffed at any 'mentalistic' description oflanguage and insisted on discussing only
Bloomficldian
{he observable distribution oflinguis tic items in sentences, Following this rigid melh· odology, Kennedy shows in great detail how each grammatical particle constitutes a word class of its own and how lexical items of apparently the same 'word class'
, 'Dic K;lI�goric iSI abo dem Wortc ullmiudbar anhaftcnd, die Funnion bei vielen Wortern wechsdnd.' (Vd. Cabel�nl� (188!), p. 113). Cf.1akhontQ\· (1968). p. i9, who draw. ;lIIentiol1 to Gab.-Jel1u.·s neal di�tinCfion. l 'Rien n'y separe un nom d'ull vcrbe. £vidcmm�nt, quand nuus lraduisuns ou ("]ual!d nOll! expliquons du chinois, now disOlU de certain. mots qu'il. IIOIlt verh�;, e.t d'a\ltr�� qu'ils SOUl noms, d'aulres encuTC qu'ils snnt adjectifs, eiC. �Iais c'est paree qu'il nOIlHSI impossible de penser IIO!! mots fr.&n�ais .\all, lcur donll�r immfdiale men! des valeurs de nom� el de verLcs, que nous anrihunns aux mOl:! chinois d�s fon,tinns dislin'I�" '1u'ib n'on! pa�. En realitt Ie! mOl" \:hinois n� sum ni !lOm� ni verb"., ib SOIH qudquc ,ho.e d'inditJl"rcneic qui, �ans eIre pro prement ni run ni l'autre, p..ut ltablir dajU la phrase, suh'ant les cas, d�, relation. diverse;, si bien qu� notrc langue nous oblig� a les rtranir emre Ie. noms,,1 I�$ \'�rbes, alors qu'en <:h[noi5, ill rel!enl indisdncis. Cda nc ''l:ut pas dire qu� ees mOl< n'ont pa� un sens prtkis , mais s"ukmcnt que ec sens n� Ie laiss<: POl" cnrerm�r dam nos ,adres grammalicaux.' (:\Iaspero (1934), p. :-16) , 'us parlies du discoLU"S , . . n'uistent pas en chinoi. quc du point de \'U� fOJKlionnel. Si ron p<"ut dire que, dan. tel ou lei wntCX"te synta"ique, tel ou leI mOl chinoi� �!t employe ici wmme sU�llmtif, Ja ,omme "erbe ou comme adj.xlif, c'�'t cxdusi"emcnt en re s<;ns q\l'il y [onc(innnc comme sujCl, attribut Oil r�!pmc, commc predicat ou ,online determinarll.' • '0 m i Ol� soil consid,;n" comme un 'nom', nn 'vcrbe', nn 'adje<'tif', on encore In trois i port" pcu qll'un mOl $ ala foi5. II lIssume nne vakur nomina1e, ,.,.rbal" ou adjet:li,"C, en n,rlU de sa preSl""n,e dans nne mlltricc dOni la valeur est nominale, \"crbal� ou adje,tive. KOIIS pourrions din: ,!U' llll mot isolt ({'est-it,dire sou, h. [orme d'ullc dtalion) eSI inda,.able, mais '1u'en 'distribution', c'est-it-dire dam une matTice, il panidpe i la valeur grammal kale de cdle-ci Des 101'$, 'verbal', 'snl..tantif' et autrc! termes dc\"ic.nnelll ks qualiles d'un cadre dinrihntiond el liOn lei qu:a.lit';s qn'un mot poss�derait imrinseqnement.' , Cf. Maspero's review oflhi. in th.· Bul/Min dt I" 5«iiti I.inguiJliqw dt Paris 3, 1931-1, pp. ·�oo-13. " 'Ifth.. Chille� .I,ript Wri eJ �tYIllQlogkally rdat�d hut nevenhdcss different words with one and th� same cllara"er, a person who staru from the script willasl.: whelher it is the,-erbal or nominal meaning orthc chara, t�r in hi, lexl, and will see Iramilions ofwnrd-�alegoriu where Ih�rc are in reality ditJ"ercm words diffnemiat�d by tone. ' (Simon (1937), p. " 5)
.
l
'Summari7.ing, I should like to say that the thcory dell'iing th� existence ofpam of'peeeh in Chine� was huilt on the follo"�nK erroneous "npposition.: (i) Iha! pan. of5pe<:ch must ne<:".s:Sarily be differ<:ntiat..d n i sound; (ii) Ihat the Chine.., words pass al random from on.. categolYto Ihe other.' (Op.�il., p. 1 17)
129
LA�GUAGE AND L O G I C
comhine differently with the grammatical particles . Kennedy opens his article with the following summary and
conclusion:
was originally written to serve as Introduction to A Grammar of �'lencius, a project that must now be retitled An Aborti\'e Grammar of�'fencius. The pro ject had proceeded on the assumption that word-classes can and must be defined before the relation between words call be grammatically lrt�ated. It has IlOW reached the conclusion that in the final analysis word-classcs cannot be defined, hence that Chinese grammar must start from diffcrent premises. I The present malerial
John Cikoski's thesis Classical ChineJe Word ClllSStJ (Yale, 1970) provides the most strin gent attempt to date to define word classes for Classical Chinese. Cikoski limits himself to the Tso Chuan (-4th or -3rd century) and tries to set up formal criteria for the distill(;tion between nouns and verbs. Cikoski provides a glossary of about I,500 words (pp. [5[-82). All words arc assigned to word classes, and the evidence from the 'TSo GJlUan for this assignment is listed in this singularly useful glossary. Cikoski's Three ESJaYJ in Chinese Gmmmar(1978) are an elaboration of themes in his thesis. See Harbsmeier (1979), pp. 15S 2[]. for the argument that from the lexical poim of\-jew Classical Chinese words do differ grammatically, but that lexical word class es in Chincst.: took the form of Acxible functionaL prifermu rather than more rigid grammatical specialisation as in Russian or Grt.:ek.2 One may summarise some of the lessons to be drawn from all this discussion3 as follows:
1. Not
all
Classical Chinese words
have
the same
functional
example, there is a marked division between grammatical
capabilities. For
particle s and lexical
items in Chinese. Consequently we may safely conclude that there are word classes in Chinese.
2.
C hinese words are nOL grammatic ally characterised in the same way as, e.g., apply our Latin concepts verbum and nomen to Classical Chinese, verbality in Chinese is not the same as verbality in English. Strictly speaking we equh'ocate by applying the same concepts verbum and nomen to entirely different languages. We may safely conclude that Classical Chinese word classes are not the same as Latin word classes: Classical Chinese does rwt have the same word classes as Latin. i arity between Latin and Classical Chinese for it to be 3. There is sufficient siml possible to apply a wide range I of concepts from I.atin grammar intelligently to Chinese. 19th-century Chinese grammars, particularly v.d. Gabclentz's Chiflesisclu Grammalik, demonstrate this point beyond do ubt . Latin words. Thus, even if we
I Kenncd)'{196.j,), p_ 3�3.
, ·l·h� history oftlw contro\�rsy is trca\�d in great detail in Y. V. ROlhdes(\,cnskij's book Pon)·atitJlITmy .iOWl � islmii?famTllllliki kil,!j$kogoja�)'ka. Ochtrkipa " IQ"i kitajn'fdmija (The cun('�pt ofword form in the history ofChilJ��tl
grammar. Studies on the hi,tory ofChinc!c grammar), :>.!oskow, 1958. 3 We �i1l1nOT consider hcr� the vaSI !il�ratL1rc on word cIaSSe!! in Modern Standard Chinese. For an exceUcnt critical ,,,rvey ofChine:se disc,,�ions in this area sec Wallg Sung-:>.Iao (1983), pp. J-225' W�stcrn sun.''')� include
Korotko\' (1968). 1 "fa "'at 1I0t n i dio;criminate: he certainly did not drag such wncepti as that ofth� supillLinto tI,e de!W;riplion "fChinese.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C 4. A \vide range of grammatical categories of Latin can be lucidly expounded in the medium of Classical Chinese. Ma Chien-Chung's ,�M!.�, method in Ma Shih Wen Thung m.B:;Xjffi (18g8) followed 19th-century European practice in applying selected Latin grammatical categories to Classical Chinese. It is worth pondering how well Ma managed to articulate his Latin-inspired analyses in the medium of Classical Chinese. We may safely conclude that the principles off .alin grammar are not so alien to Literary Chinese that they cannot be expressed in that 1an6'Uage, and that the principles ofLatin grammar have not been felt to be so strange by Chinese intellectuals that they could not be naturally understood and creatively applied to the Chinese language. 5. Vv'hile there may be doubt concerning the classification of Classical Chinese lexical items as such, we may safely conclude that 'nominal', 'verbal' and 'adjecti val' grammatical functions within a sentence can be syntactically defined by the use ofword order and the possible occurrence of grammatical particles. The question whether these functions are quite 'the same' across different language types does not concern us here. 6. We can set up lexical distinctions between Classical Chinese words on the basis of their syntactic and semantic interaction with grammatical particles, number phrases, and with each other. Thus Classical Chinese lexical items as such are by no means grammatically featureless. The precise nature of these lexicalised grammat ical distinctive features is the subject of empirical grammatical research, but their existence is beyond doubt. I Let us, then, look at some ofthis crucial empirical evidence.
The class riflexical items and the class rifgrammalicalparticles
Ma Chien-Chung ([904) was surely right when he followed Chinese tradition in dividing characters above all into grammatical particles (empty words (hsii t;:u I.@:::¥) ) andlexical items (full words (shih tzu'ef$)): \Vhen one composes literature, one uses only empty wurth and full words, and nothing else. . . . And in the classics and commentaries the full words are ea�y to glu�s, the empty words are difficult to explain. �
Sentence-final particles like)'eh itt (marking declarative sentences), i * (marking narrative and declarative sentences), hu Jf (marking: questions or emphatic sen tences) are clear examples of grammatical particles. Some particles have distinct lexical and grammaticalised functions:3 Ku 1& 'reason' is grammaticalised to 'for that reason, therefore'; tse Jllj 'pattern, rule' is grammaticalised to 'along that pattern, then as a rule, then'; tang ¥ 'to face, to fit' is grammaticalised to 'when'; I
K.,nn�dy ('964) and Cikoski ([978) are m i portant dforls n i lhis direction. Ollr own Section (j,2. T) d�tails [h� lexical subclassification ofClassical Chinese nouns. , !\fa Chien-Chung (lgo4), p. 1 1 . ' Cf. Chou Yin-Thung (l.'-lii.�).
LANGUAGE A).ID L O G I C
chheng� 'sincere, genuine, real' is grammaticalised to 'if really' . Fan fL 'vulgar, general ' is grammaticalised [Q 'in general, generally,
speaking
generally of' ;
kai � 'to cover' is grammaticalised to 'probably'; tni7f1 'da nger' is grammaticalised [Q 'probably'. Chin � 'exhaust' is grammaticalised to 'exhaustively, the whole lot, all'; pi � 'finish' is grammaticalised to 'completely, the whole l ot, all'; ping :M!. 'combine' is grammaticaliscd to 'combining everything, all' . Chiang Wt 'lead' andyu fiX 'wish' are grammaticalised to markers of the future, j ust like the English 'will'. The so-called pn.:positions like)'u 'fi1: are grammaticalised verbs, or deverbalised
partides in the process of dcvcrbalisation and grammaticalisation.1
The so-called passive particles are transitive verbs in (he process ofgrammatical i5ation.
Chien � ' see, fate'; j)ei we
'suffer';
Chinese passive particles.
shou �
'receive' are grammaticalised to
We conclude that thf're is an important distinction between grammatical parti cles and lexical words in Chinese, but that the borderline between these two word classes
is systemati cally
blurred in certain places due to a persistent process of
grammaticalisation , which is well known also from other languages.
The nominal, verbal and adjectiuaLgrammaticalfunctions Let u s attempt to define nominal , verbal and adjectival grammatical functions in
ter ms not oftranslation into other l anguages but in terms ofsyntactic features ofthe Classical Chinese language itself. Nouns in Latin have gender, number and case endings. Classical Chinese words have none of these things. Gender does not come inlo the picture, number is indi cated only when this is communicatively relevant,2 and the function of case endings is 'taken over' - as in E.nglish - by various prepositions and word order. None lhe less, we may define a word or phrase as nominal in a sentence under a certain inter
pretation if it can only be negated byfe-i �¥, not by pu :::f, and ifit can only be con
joined with another word or phrase by)'ii cW, not by irh ffiJ.
\Ve may ddlne a word or phrase as verbal in a sentence under a certain interpre
tation if- under that interpretation - it can only be conjoined with another word or phrase or the same catl':gory by irh 'and', not by)'u 'with'. \-Vc may define a word or phrasl': as adjectival in a sentence under a certain inter pretation if - under that interpretation - it occurs in a nominal phrase, precedes a noun or noun phrase, and is not itselfnominal. \Ve may define a word or phrase as adverbial in a sentence under a certain inter pretation if - under thal interpretation
it precedes a verbal phrase and is neither
nominal nor verbal nor a grammatical panicle. , cr. Harbsmcicr (1979). pp. 105 70.
�
For a fine study ohhe categoryofth.. plUTal in Chin..�� �"P Kaden (1964).
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
\-\ie conclude that we can define functional notions such ali 'nominal', 'verbal', 'adjectival' and 'adverbial' for Classical Chinese words and phrases in terms of word order and co-occurence with certain grammatic al particles. The question to what extent what we thus formally define as 'nominal', 'verbal', 'aqjectival' and 'adverbial' is felt to coincide with European c urrent conceptions of these terms is irrelevant at this point. Our definitions are l anguage-immanent. We have ancient evidence that the Chinese recognised grammatical or function al distinctions in the use of their words. \"'e know this because occasionally the Chinese have explicitly marked !"ouch functional distinctions through affixes. We
shall now turn to the way in which grammatical function may be morphologically and intra-syllabically marked in Literary (and perhaps in Classical) Chinese. We turn to the phenomenon of 'derivation by tone change ' which was first properly introduced in Chou Tsu-Mo's ffll t.El.fJ;! article Ssu shengpieh i shih Ii OfT945, and which
is conveniently presented for us by Gordon Downer. l
Explicitgrammatical denvation in Literary Chinese Functional contrasts can be marked by an affix which in many cases came to be realised in Modern Standard Chinese pronunciation as the falling fourth tone. Let us designate this affix by X. We then have pairs of words, many ofwhich are indi� tinguishable in their wriUen form:
a. Fu m Ping 1t h.
verb venus milrked adverb 'repeat' ycrsusfuX 'again' ; 'stand together' versus pingX'together'; noun versus marked transi#vt verb
'dress' versus iX'wear as dress'; 1:Ji( ,I'<1ng .:E 'king' versus wangX 'be king over' ;
c.
verb venus marked noun Chhi !lilf 'ride' versus chhiX ' rider' ; Nan m 'difficult' versus nanX'difficulty'; Shih fP. 'send, despatch' versus slzihX 'ambassador, messenger' :
d.
transitive verb versus marked intT(lllsitille verb
Chih tf:!
t. Hao ij'f
f) g.
'govern something' YersU$ chiILJ,," 'be well governed';
intransitive verb versus marked transitive verb 'be pretty, good', versus haoX ' consider as good, like';
Wei�
verb VtrSlLf markedgrammatiralparticle 'work for' versus weiX 'for' ;
rii!>l!
grammaticalparticle versus marked verb 'associate with > with' versus)'iiX'take part in'.
LA::".'GUAGE AND L O G I C
133
A number of crucial points need to be made in connection with ;dcrivation by
tone change:' as outlined above: I.
Ali lhe functional changes which arc in this way sometimes marked by our affix
X or tht· falling lone go unmarked in a vast number of other cases. The falling tone, then, occasionally makes explicit what pervasively tends (0 be implicit in Literary Chinese. In this way it provides direct evidence that the functional grammatical contrasts so marked are indeed an inherent part ofthe Chinese grammatical system and not 'read into' Chinese sentences by outsiders.
2. In the vast majority orthe derivations orthe type we are concerned with the
deriw,:d word is wriuen with the samt> character as the word from which it is
derived. This is in significant contrast with other derivations t hrough affixcs where
Ihe derivedword is normally \\Tillen with a new character. As a result ohhis curious
graphic homonymy such distinguished philologists as Ku Yen-Wu .iJi*� (+1613 to
+1682) and Tuan Yi.l-Tshai �9:33.-m (+1735 to +1815) could seriously maimain that
the derivation by lone changt: was a late scholastic invention with no basis in early I.iterary Chinese or Classical Chinesf'".
3. V : [OSl derived tones are lost in modern Standard Chinese pronunciations,
whereas other words derived by affixes survive in large numbers. For the ease of modern Cantonese, however, compare Kam Tak Him (1977), who lists 48 ofDO\\Iller's examples of derivation by tone change which survive in comemporary Cantonese. 1
4. \-Ve can assign no specific meaning whatever to the affix X other than the exces
sively vague 'derived mean ing' . (See Bodman (1967)). Compare the contrastive
function offirSl syllable stress in English pairs like permitIpermit, which regularly ere·
ates nouns as in the cases ofwords like conduct, conflict, conscript, consort, contract, present, progress, record, rdme, fransfer, etc., where slress (not tone), though invisible i n the writ ten form of the words, is a reliable indicator of word class in spoken English. "Vord class can remain unmarked in English , as in the case of regard or return, but when stress on the first syllable is used as a distinctive feature in this way, it always marks the derived noun, never the derived verb. Denominal verbs like to canoe, 10 ctment, to harpoon, to referee never are marked by a shift ofstress to the first syllable. The Chinese morpheme.ris not even semantically regular n i this limited sense. 5. The functional versatility of the derived words is more limited when compared with that of other words which are not thus explicitly derived. But if traditional modern notions of when a ch aracter is to be read in the derived tone is anything to go by, then we should have to conclude that the derived word wangX .3:. 'be king
over' l·an be re-nominalised to mean 'being·king':
Whtn these three qualifications are pro\'idcd, the being king follows suit (sail tzu chipei irh
wOllgX sui chi/! i.=.1i�·tmitri�Pl!Z*).� L
K�m 'J"ak Him (1977). 1'. 1 99.
, Chan h�� '1 :ihL1l0.ji. cd. Sh�ngh.'i Ku-<:hi-chhu-pan-shc, p. Hi: cf. Crump (1970), p. 67. Chu Tsu-K�ng's �di· tion ofrh� eM" Kuu Tshe {p. 188) emenrl� thi,,; passage 10 «;Q"lIaO hsi1lKi .±mw� on the bll!;i5 of Tluri Phillg Hi Lan :;t!fLIIIIJr in �"ile ofIhe fan that Hsin Hliig.8 concurs \,ith our lext and that Kao Yu jIIIj$ (ftourishffi H12) actu·
ally glm...,s the Jlli, "hieh ;s in {he Itxtw u(fplusami nOl in Iht tmended ,."r.ion.
1 34
LA:".' G U A G E AKD L O G I C
:"-riu Hung-En et at. (1.984), p . 34, footnote 16, maintains that we must read wangX in the falling tone. If read in the st'cond tone, the passage would have to be trans lated along the lines 'the king followed . . .', which does not make sense in the COIl texl. In any case, our example is far from unique : W"hy should this heart (of mine) accord with bcing-a-king (';:.flU hsin chih so i ho)'ii wangX eMIto J,h JlI:'L'ZJi'it}1'm::E,#j�i!l).'
Here thl,; 'preposition'J'u� makes it dear that the wangXwhich follows it must be taken to ue re-nominaliscd. Conversely, shih f� 'to despatch' becomes sltihX'ambas sador' through affixation, bUl JhihX in turn may be re-verbalised into 'act as ambas sador'. Thus 'derivation by tone change' does Iwl in general create words without funnional Aexibility. However, we need to qualify this discussion of derivation by tone change with a strong caveat: the direct dear evidence we have that a certain charact(;r in a ct"rtain Classical text was read in one way and not in another way is far too sparse and is of far too late a date for us to discuss dle grammar of the distribution of the diacritic morpheme' .r with real ,onfidence. On the other hand, the extreme scepticism of Ku Yen -Wu ��f�, who considt'rs X as a late philological invention is squ arely refuted by Chou Tsu-]\ Io fflIfJi� ('945), pp. 52ff., who shows that derivation by X was recognised in the earliest direct sources on the pronunciation of characters we have, i.c., from Han time�.! '
Lexical cattgorie.r Having decided that Classical Chinese has functional categories like 'nominal', 'verbal', etc., and that these were sometimes grammatically marked, we are now in a position lO ask a more controversial question: do we have lexical word classes in Chinese? Our first inclination is to state categorically with \Vilhelm von Humboldt: Chili
'
..
, JIi"" 1'>'7'9; cf I�gge (lai�i,p. '\I, C UU\T lIr(l<j5Ja), 1'_ 3':) and Liang Cheng·Thing(/973), p. (7, who all agree Ihal WI' are dealing WiTh U'6I1&X 'hr--king' ralh..r than =lIg I ·klnS·. , lndccu, D(lwner (1959), pp. �6-l-i, aT!(lIe5lhat th rl",;'<\lioll by Xi! \'cl1'likdy offl�-Han dat".
'{'.tu
, W.\', Humhold( (t8z7), p.
'10,
..
, \Vc di.lro!gard the (ri\'iai ('alC ofth� '1uOlation OftllH word)'iidl 8, which,
of (our,�, wO\lld be nominal.
LANGUAGE
AND
LOGIC
1 35
In spile of the existence of words like)'iieh a I think most scholars would agree that for Literary Chinese a thesaurus divided into nouns, verbs and adjectives would be systematically, and to a large extcnt arbitrarily, repetitive. I It would be sys tematically repetitive because a vast number of words can be seen to have been used in these different functions. It would be arbitrarily repetitive because it is unclear how one is w decide whether a word t"ould have been used in onc fUllction or another in Classical Chinese.z Even those words which we have not yet found used in more than one grammatical function quile plausibly could havt bUll used in other gram matical functions, and might indeed tomorrow be found so used in the texts that are being unearthed by archaeologists. We must assume that the ancient Chinese - like the Romans and the Greeks - oflen chost not to usc words in grammatical ways that would have been acceptable. But thi.� is where agreement ends. vVe are in no posi tion to judge what the ancient Chinese could have written, whether they could havt used all their verbs as nouns. Since we cannot ask them what they could have wrinen, we are limited to what th..:y did write, and this unfortunately leaves a number ofimponant grammatical questions unanswerable. On lhe other hand, it so happens that the Chinese did write about the flexibility in the lise oflheir words, and their own old testimony, it seems to us, is of special interest. Ithas not received the attention it deserves in the literature we have surveyed at the outset. In our survey of traditional Chinese grammatical thinking we have found thai the current opinion was that characters had what was called huo)'ung �!§ffl 'living uses, or ad hoc uses' which deviated from the pen)'ung "*m 'basic uses'. One description of this situation that has been applied with some success to Modern Standard Chinese is to say that what look like ad iwc uses ofwords in unusu al grammatical functions are in fact standard uses of homonymous derived words or grammatical homonyms, as in the case of 'sleep' in 'I can sleep' versus 'I like sleep'. This is acceptable for modern English, because the process of unmarked derivation of grammatical homolly-ms is not freely productive. It is unacceptable for Elizabethan English because in that language the process of unmarked derivation of grammatical homonyms is fairly freely productive. In Classical and Literary Chinese it is even more freely productive than in Elizabethan English. I "'hen Peter Rogel CQn,lnll:led h.is "[lrt5�urMj,!!EIlf,IiJh Jli>rdsalld J'hrd$u(LondQn, 185�), he fQund it natllTal lO divide hi� IJHu..dal according to word d;I-" cS in StICh a way th,,! under mml !cm""li.. headin� he listed separ ately ,erhs, noun$ and adjl'"<:lil"!:s bl:lnnging 10 a singl!: '''mantic field. For modern Chin",c Iho: Th�n.g; l;Au 1�llu lin P1.a�!iilli Cfhl:sauru. ofSynonym" Shanghai, lyB3) aHeml'lS no slI"h division, bnall!" il ,,'ould kad to an Unl,cc"ptahlc prolif�nlliolL Qfrepetitions in it. worn li�t. What"'1.:fQUr theoretical rondusion;; on word dasscs ill i\iudern Standard Chinese, thiJ CQlltra.
.
.
136
LANOUAGE AND L O G I C
One possible criterion for deciding whether a Classical or LitcralY Chinese word is 'basically' a noun or a verb is to observe its interaction with numbers. Suppose we are in doubt whether a character X 'basically' represf:nts a noun or a verb. If the
constructions like san '=' XTHREE X come to meand 'three X,,' (7\1 odern Chinese: $(ln-ko - 00 X) or 'three kinds ofXs' (san chung =.li X), we are dealing wilh a noun. If the constructions come to mean 'Xed thrice' (X-Ii ran lz}lIl 7.=.*), we have a .
-
verb. If the construction comes to mean 'lhe three X ones' we have what is basically a stativc verb. If both the verbal and the nominal illlerpretations of constructions
f{ .r SEVERAL X[Urns out to mean always 'several Xs', we are dealing with a noun, ifit like THREE X are attested, we can then say we havt� true homonyms. Again ifshu
means 'to X several times', X has turned out to be a verb.
If no such diacritic con
structions are attested at all, our criteria do not bite. Moreover, to the exteUl that such criteria depend on how 've translate iUlO a ''''estern language, thc,)' remain suspect. It is the dr:tailed investigation of such diacritic constructions which promises to de epen our understanding of the inherent system of Classical Chines<: lexical
categories.
DiJtincl lexicalJu/;categones J S. Cikoski sets up a lexical subclassification of verbs on tht' basis of their syntanic and semantic potential. His subclassification of Chinese verbs into ergative verbs
likr: mieh itl£ 'destroy' and direct verbs like
hlti �
'destroy' is entirely original
and
grammatically important: ergative verbs become inherently intransitive (tnmslat able as passive) when tht'fe is no object, whereas direct verbs do not. Thuspu mitll /f
i1i without an object comes to mean 'not be destroyed' wh ereas Pll filii /f� wi thout an object comes to mean 'does not destroy'.! These two words are. almost synony mous, bur Cikoski has shown them to have clearly and neatly distinct lexicalised
grammatical properties which ensure that when W� seepu hui, we translate 'does not
mieh we must translate along the lint's of 'is not grammatical contrast between hUI and mieh is not affected by the
destroy', wher�as when Wr see pu destroyed'. This
question whether thesr: words may also come to function nominally and come to mean 'destruction'. Being an ergative verb is as rigid and stable a lexical property of
miell as any lexical property of a word in Latin or English. Thus we can define rigid lexical categories like that of a transitive verb (a word which when functioning as a verb always has an object), an intransitive vr:rb (a word which when functioning as a verb never has an object), and a direct verb (a word which when functioning as a verb can be either transitive or in lransitive, but which retains its transitive meaning even without an object), and ergative verbs (a word which when functioning as a verb may also be either transitive or intransitive, but which take on a passiw meaning when there is no object, as we have seen in the case of miek � above). Tso Clumn, Duke Chao 1'l.2 and Duk .. Hsiang 20.6.
1 37
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
In a similar spirit, one can define ri&.-id lexical categories for nouns: we can define mass nouns
likcjou �J
'meat' (words which, when functioning as a noun, may be
preceded by a quantificative measure like 'one plate of meat'), count nouns like
rna .%
'horse' (words which, when functioning nominally, may be followed by an
itemising number phrase as in
ma slln pili ,�'='lrr
'three horses', or which may be
immediately prcceded by a number as in san ma .=..� 'three horses'). We can also set
up a dass of generic nouns like min R 'people', which like count nouns can be pn;· ceded by itemising panicles such as wan (if; 'the ten thousand, all' and chu
� 'all the
individual', but which cannOt be counted individually, so \hat ssu mn i [Q� comes to
mean 'four kinds of people'. Again, this lexical division is not affected by the ques
lion whether min can or cannot be used verbally in Classical Chinese. For example,
shih it 'food' i� a mass noun, and the fact that this word is also used verbally for 'to
ear' does not affect our lexical classification, which essentially says that ifand when
shih functions as a noun it functions as a mass noun.
The categonal continuum Consider the word ta7\ which basically means 'be big, be great, be large'. Ifwe look at the concordanced literature, we find this word used in the following ways: T.
verbally: 'be great'
2. aqjectivally: 'great' 3. adverbially: 'greatly' 4. nominally: 'great size'
5. transitively: 'consider great' l If all words in Classical Chinese were lexically quite indifferent as to the gram
matical function in which they occur, then a construction consisting of characters such as lajen-;k.A. 'great man' should be indifferently ambiguous between the follow
ing translations: T.
great man
2.
consider man as great
3. be grcatly/vf':ry human 4. greatly human
5. the humanness of size
6.
be great and be human This, however, is not the case. As the historian of Chinese
literature V M.
Alekseev remarked, 'No language, including Chinese, is mathematics, and there fore there arc certain constraints on such e1asticity.'2 In generaJ, Classical Chinese words may be flexible with regard to grammatical function, but they , cr. c. HlIrh�nwiu(1979), PI'. IBBrr. , AI�k5��\' (J97H), 1'. 5.1-2. The translation from Al�kse�v's Ru"
ian j, my own .
are not
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
indifferent to the way they grammatically function. Classical Chinese lexical items not only have rigid grammatical properties, as we have just seen, they also show clear 'preferences' for certain grammatical functions rather than other functions that in principle they could also perform. The notion of functional preference as applied to words is not easy. There is no suggestion that words have desires and preferences, rather that speakers who usc words have structured expectations con cerning the most likely functions a word will perform. \\le say a word in a language shows a preference for a grammatical function to the extent we feel we can attribute to the native speakers of that language an expectation that the word, ceteris paribus, will have that function. Ta 7:::. is 'primarily' or 'basically' an intransitive verb or an adjective, and only under special circumstances docs it function as an adverb, a noun, or a transitive verb.}en A 'man' shows a marked preference for nominal syn tactic roles. Consequently, a reader of Classical Chinese will be in little doubt that lajen 7:::. A probably will mean 'great man', or, at a double take, 'consider man as great/important'. The case is different ifwe replacejCn 'man' withjen f= 'humane':jen 'humane' is almost as flexible as ta 'great', and the potential syntactic ambiguity of the hypo thetical tajen GREAT HUMANE out of context would, perhaps, be greater. But then, happily, such expressions and constructions never naturally occur out of context or in the abstract. They naturally come, if at all, with a context. Normally, in English as in Chinese, this context painlessly removes the ambiguity ofconstructions which, taken in isolation, would have been ambiguous. Moreover, not all syntactically possible readings are in themselves equally cur rent or natural, so that in disambiguating sentences one proceeds from what, in view of the context, is the more natural and current to what is less current. I \\le have to develop the grammatical expectations of native speakers of Classical Chinese. The sense of what is natural and current is acquired only by extensive expenence. \Ve conclude that Classical Chinese lexical items or words do have inherent grammatical properties. But these properties do not take the form of rigid and total functional specialisation. Rather, they take the form of conditional regularities and patterns offunctional preferences, or ofprimaJacie tendencies to play certain gram matical roles. \-Vhen one sees a Classical Chinese word, this creates a spectrum or field of syntactic expectations, and these expectations can be stronger or weaker as the ease may be. And these fields of syntactic expectation may vary individually and subtly for each word in the lexicon, so that one may end up with a tailor-made spe cial word class for each lexical item. The words \....ill then be distributed in a catego rial continuum of syntactic tendencies. J It is illlerC�[ing [0 compare the comprehension "f:;"Iouern Sumuard Chin�,e homonyms in sp��ch_ The contexi of speech creates certain expeClations and when one hears a sound sequence which is arnbil(uous, one begins by aSSllming that the most likely word is intended and Ihen proceeds down the hierarchy ofprobabilitiej" In just the same way one assumes a Classical Chinese word to haw its most likely function unless the s),lllaClic environmrnt �reat�' different synta(l.ic expectations.
LANGUAGE A N D L O G I C
139
Chinese words are not predominantly governed by strict functional laws and subcategorised into discrete word clases in quite the same way as Latin. They are importantly governed by flexible
grammatical tendencies and subcategorised into a categorial c ontinuum . Chinese words can have a stronger or a weaker tt:ndency to work like nouns, verbs, adjectives. \Ve cannot simply say that they are nouns, verbs or adjectives. Not only do Classical and Literary Chinese have different word classes from Latin. The vcry nOlion of belonging to a word class is different in these two lan
guages. Breaking the rules of scholarly discourse one might almost say: 'It's a different ball-game'. In a language like Greek, a finite vcrb will look morphologically like a finite verb and function syntactically as
a finite verb, just as according to the rules of chess a
bishop will both look like a bishop and move as a bishop. In Classical Chinese verbs do not look like verbs, All we can say about them is that, all other things being equal, we naturally expect them to work as Chinese verbs do. BUI all other things never being quite equal, we also know that Classical Chinese verbs can play the part, lor example, of nouns or of adjectives. Classical Chinese lexical items, then, are not very much like chess-men \'Vith their well defined shapes and roles. They are more like football players: we do expect a
also aware tllat in l he heat of the battle a defender may attack and even the goal-kee-per has in fact been known to leave his goal for another player to keep.
dcfcnder to be at the back and the goal-keeper to guard the goal, but we are
The scope ojJullcllOnaljlexibili;y he ading 'Distinct lexical categories' we have cxplored the rigid sub Now we shall explore the range of the flexibility of Chinese words. I begin with the standard noun lim 'ritual', which, when used with an object, becomes a transitive verb meaning 'to treat with proper ritual respect' . The generalisation is that, when used as a single predicate, Ii is classificatory and means either 'be identical with ritual' or 'be in accordance with ritual' . The trouble is that we have phrases like chun t;:,u li i shih chhing 13TlftP.Jtrliffl 'the gentleman cul tivates ritu al in order to embellish his real nature (or: emotions} ' . 1 Personal pronouns are specialised (rather like goal-keeper s) in most languages: we strongly expect them to fulfill their pronominal/nominal duties wherever they occur. BUl in Classical Chinese we are told about Confucius himself: Under th e
classification of Chinese words.
The mas[C[ refused to do four things: . . . and he refused to be self-centred (wu WI) m�).l
Here the pronoun wo
ft, in defiance of all grammatical expectations is used as a
verb presumably meaning something like 'to be self-centred'. The existence of this ) D Chi, ed. COu\'",'ur, \'01. I, p. Hj. Lun Til
LA.:\CUAGE A;\'D L O G I C
parlance does
not cause
us to enter a new verb
wo 'be self-cemercd'
into the dic
tionary of Classical Chinese. \'Ve simply note that, in the heat of the communicative battle, c"ven a pronoun can come to partake in the grammatical flexibil ity which is characteristic of the rest ofClas.�ical Chinese lexical items. VIle only understand wo in such a way by some sort of grammatical double-take. It is a part of our under
standing of wo
ft:
that we do not ordinarily expecl lhe word to function as a verb.
Similarly for the pronouns the
shjh � 'this'
Chuang R.u. I
and pi Wl 'that' which are used verbally in
Compound noun phra ses, one would have thought, should be stable in their nominal function. They should ccrtainly not be able to function as verbs. But then, in the heat of the syntactic battle, we find Confucius h imself applying the verbal negation pu :::f to the compound word for 'gentleman':
Is it not gcntlemanly (pu i ch/in-I<.u hu ::::r' :1.r- tt+.1f) not to take offence whcn others rail to appreciate your abilities?' We take chiin tzu ;g.:y. as verba.l along the same lines as the paralldyiieh -m 'pleas
ant' and
It � 'joyful'. Confucius is not the only one to take such grammaticalliber
ties with nominal compounds: yIu Tzu said: 'The Prince of Chhu is \'el)' handsome, but he doe� not behave like a high official (pu wfu /f*::K).'3 Surely proper names should be immune from such functional aberrations, but one could say in Classical Chinese:
Kung Jo said: �rc you trying to treat me as they treated King \Vu (er!i)'ii Wu Hfmg wo !iu
lli;;X",.:EtltCo/y
Thr.n (Hou Fan) killed KungJo,1
The proper name Wu Wang gi:!.:E is used verbally to mean 'treat as they treated King \"TU'. Again one may point out that even the name of Confucius himselfis not immune to such grammati cal 'impropriety':
As for Yen Hui, ifhe was not like Confucius (pu f(hung :ffL), then even controlling the whole world would not be mough to give him pleasure.� Pu 117lUlIg ::f:FL could be paraphrased as 'not live up to the ideals of Confucius'.
The verbal negationpu /f makes it clear that Khung 1L must be taken verbally as 'be
like Confucius', Lao Tzu comes in for similar treatment elsewhere in the same text,
I Cf. CIr�lIl1& nu 2fi,37 forpupi 1'm. aud Ch�anR '{{u :I.go forpu $kih 1'�, wh.-re In each case the pronoun is preceded by the \'O:TUa! n.-gationpu1- 'not'. , i.aJl ril 1 . 1 . We foUow til translation ill Lau (19M3a), p. 3. , Kilo Iii th. 5. no.6, (d. Shanghai Ku-<:hi-chhu-P�II-shc, p_ 19:J• Iso Ch�Qn. Duke Ting 10; cf. Cou\T.-ur (1951b), p. j6r 'EsI," quetu oQUd/aIS mf ImillrCQmmt on a trait; kprinu ill
..
Ou? 5 Yang H�iung, Fa len 2, cd. WangJung-rao, p. 7.\
•
•
LA:-"GUAGE AND L O G I C
where we find w u tsai Lao fr u Lao geh �::fE:¥ 1'�tf:!. 'why should this be a matter of being in Lao Tzu's slyl� or not being in Lao Tzu's style?'1 Here th� explicitly verbal
Lao fru Lao ::g.::f� 1.AO TZU NOT LA O TZU as a whole is nominaliscd as th� object of the transitive verb tsai 1£ 'to be in, to consist in, to be a maner of'! The verb kho PI X'may be Xed' creates another grammatical frame that must be filled by a verb. In one case this 'verb' turns out to be a sequence ofl\vO nou ns:flng • 'phoeni.x' and lin iii 'remale unicorn', wh ich are not only verbalised by tht' con te.X{ but also passiviscd after having been verbalised, so thatfing comes to mean 'be
made into a phoenix' and lin 'be made into a unicorn':
Can all birds and beasts be ph oenixed and unicorncd (i.e., made into phoenixes and uni corns) (niao sjwu chith khofing till hu .!%I'--'crUJJjj!JP¥W The music of the state ofCh€ng ;m being known as notoriously lewd, we find the place word
Cheng used for 'be Cheng-ish!y lewd' construed along Wilh)'<1 �fE 'be ele
gant and dignified'.3
At least place names should be stable nouns. But the facts of Classical Chinese syntax arc otherwise:
Vv·hen you live in Chhu, you act-the-Chhu-way (DWELL CHHU AND CHIlU chii CMu irk Chhu ��ffU�); when you live in Ytich. you aet-the-Yiieh-way (DWELL yO£H AND YOEI-I chii nth irh ruth ,@.@&rm�); when you liyc in China, you act the Chinese way (DWELL I1SIA AND HSI" chii Hsia irh Hsia '@Imi�.+ A place name Xcan even come to mean marc specifically 'to affect Xmanners':
Phien Chhneh (the ramous physician) was rrom Lu, and many doctors affect Lu manners (Le., pretend to be from Lu ��!t.A.t!!ffijif-:g.&!.)!, Place names naturally come to function adverbially, too:
Ifyou make a man rrom Chhu grow up amongJung barbarians, or iryou make aJung bar barian grow up in Chhu, then the man from Chhu will speak theJung-way (Chlmjin]ungyrn �A.*13) and the man rromJungwill speak the Chhu-way (Jullg}in Chhu),tn ;JXA.��).6 Verbal or adverbial U!ies of proper nouns like the ones we have j ust surveyed may sound strange, but they are nol strange at all once one reflects that in German we have Berl£,urn 'to speak with a Berlin
accent', and as I am writing these lines I come
across the verbs philippi;:.o CP,AI1T1Tt,W, 'sympathise with Philip' as well as makedoni;:ij
MUI(ESWI){,W,
sympathise with i'vIacedonia' in Plutarch's biography of Demos
'
thenes.' 1t seems only proper to say that when later Greek writers felt impelled to use the word ari�toteli;:jj 'ApHIT07"E),{�w, for 'to imitate Aristotle') and when Lucian , Vang H�iuns. Fa Jm '0. ed. Wan'!uuug-Pao, p. 336. Cf. alsopll lpu Hili ::r-.;;fW; :':OT 1'0 1 1>"01' L.LUHSiA Hn 'he �ha,�s ndther lile Po I norLike Liuhsia Hui'. ibid. '7. ed. Wang.!ung.l'ao, p. 7'.12. a 1m 3, ..rI. WangJuns-Pao, p. 93. • F 2 YLlng Hsjung, Fa 1m 9. ed. Wang Yung·l'an, p. 281. :; Fa 1m '3, ..d. WangJung-Pao, p. 473, Hsli" U.1I8.lIjj cf. KOster (1 967) pp. 86f i Lii Shill CMII" ChAi� 4.5, ed. Chhcn ehhi-Vu, p. 232; cf. Wilhdm (1928), 1" 53. , I'huarch. itJralkl l.iuI, ..d. Lorh, vol. 7, pp. 34 and 46.
.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
permits himself the use of the word
PlatonikOtatos U>'a-rwv I KbJTa-ro<;,
for 'most
Platonic', the Greeks were following the same grammatical urges as the Chinese were used to, the only difference being that the Greeks Qike the Germans) were con strained by the grammatical struCLUre of their language to make their grammatical liberties morphologically explicit, except in the adverbial use of nouns as in the fre quent Latin
Ca£saT imperawr illssit 'Caesar as the im/Jerator issued an order', which is
i jen Ii uh Ihi¥A1z:ftDllit 'the boar stood up like a closely similar in struCture to shh
man and cried" .
Note that in the construction Chhujell 1!A 'Chhu man' onc might ask whether Chhu1l!: is an adjective or a noun. This is a grammatically moot point. The question
may perhaps make sense to the \Vesterner, but for the Chinese interpreter there is no structural alternative here. \'Ve shall turn to this problem under the heading of structural indeterminacy.
Spu'ulations ongrammaticai indeterminacy in Classical Chinese We have seen that word classes arc less rigid in Chinese than they are in Latin or Greek. Perhaps something similar is true of grammatical structure. Grammatical structures seem suppler, less rigid things in Classical Chinese than they are in Latin.2 Perhaps the ascription of grammatical structure to Classical Chinese sen
tences must even more often be taken cum grano salis, with a pinch of salt (note the use of'pinch' versus 'graM'!) than is the case in ancient Greek. One does fecl that the Romans used a more grammatically regimented language than the Chinese. Perhaps Classical Chinese, as oppost'd to Latin, is lexically as well as grammati cally a somewhat less rigidJy dt'fined, a more opt'nly organic structure in which no morphological straight jacket enforces spuriously clear·cut obligatory divisions where none are required for the efficiency of communication. Chinese grammati cal structures are only sufficiently well-defined to articulate meaning, but at the same time flexible enough not to impose rigid structure where such structure does not serve an articulatory or communicative purpose. Perhaps even the functional distinction between noun and verb is
not always as
clear-cut as our familiarity with Indo-European languages leads us to expect, so that in Chinese we must live with the existence of hermaphroditic verba-nominal hybrid functions.3 The Chinese would, then, not only have held an organicist world vinv. They would also have expressed Ihis world view in a medium of communication which , no Ciwan, Dul� Chuang 8.5; d COU\T�ur (19jlb), \'01. I , p. q:i. , Probkms offunClionai n i d"t"Tminacy arise in man)', ifnot all, lallguag"" In San.kric, lor ex3mplc. 3nd par ticularly in the Vediclanguagc, th" distinction bt{\,'een noun and adjeclh'\! u ,pt�maticallyli.J7.l'i, .so that Rc..IOU (1965), p. �3J. noted: 'On diSCU1C sur la que.lion de .!avoir si tel mOl cst adjcctif ou .ub.tantif, nom d'agent OU nom d'aelion: la decision C5t50U\'ent arbilr.o.irc, pare., qu� la caltgori,alion n't'S1 plCi scmie Cumm., " t 'I,, ' , HarbsmeieT (1g85) ""plores thi.:; possibilil). I urn corre<:lf:d on a numbtr ofpoints in replies by S. EgeToo. Zhu Dcxi and particularl�' by E. G. Pulkyblanl, all of which a� printed in the same is�uc ofEmfy Cirino. (pp. 127 (45).
L A N G U A G E A).' D L O G I C
' 43
was much more (organically?) supple and less rigid in its articulatory strategies than languages like Latin or Greek.
G rammati('al suppleness and flexibility should not be confused with (mechani cal) grammatical looseness or lack ofprecision. Classical Chinese grammar is cer· tainl), much more precise than would appear from current descriptions. Organisms are precisely structured subtle things. They are more highly structured than a very advanced rigid devke. What I am suggesting is that Chinese is highly structured in supple and subtle ways analogou s to those oforganisms. 'l'he suppleness and flexibility of Chinese words is conveniently illustrated by the phenomenon ofthe hui wen @IX or Chinese palindrome, a poem which makes good sense when read forwards and when read backwards. 1 The hui wen has quite a long tradition in C hina. il is mentioned by Liu Hsieh &1J��. (+465 to +522), and the carli· est illustrious example of a ilUi wen is that attributed to Su Hui j;f;rg (+4th ccntury).2 From Sung times we have a poem by a certain Chhien ,,,rei-Chih �fflda which must count as a consummate !lUi well. It consists of 20 characters and it m akes sense if you start with the first character; or the second or the third, etc., thus giving us efft"ctively 20 poems. But it can also be read backwards, again starcing either from lhe last, or the last but one character, etc., thus &>iving us another 20 poems.3 The extraordinary grammatical suppleness and flexibility of Chinese words is nowhere morc palpably demonstrated than in the palindrome, the hui wen. From this point ofview thc playful flui wen deserve our s�rious li nguistic attention. ·
(5) L OGI C AL AKD GRA:\lMATlCAL EXPLICIT:"IESS
Already the authors ofthe Corpus Hamelicum (+2nd to +4th cemury) noted: Language does not reach the truth. But the mind (nouJ) is powerful. Being guided
guage up to a certain point, it is capable ofreaching the Iruth.'
by Ian·
European observers have for centuries complained of the especially elliptic and
insufficiently explicit nature ufClas�ical Chinese, Wilhelm von H umboldt wrote, in his Lettre a M. AbelRbnusat sur la nature deformesgrammalicales el/geniral, elsur legmit de la langue chinoise en jHlrtitulier of 182i:
Dalls IOutc� lcs langues, Ie sC"ns clu contexte cloit plus Oll mains venir a l'appui de la grammairc.:l Cr. Latin Rcma libi mbilc m�libusibilarner. The palindrome has a long history in the \\'�!t. Cf. also l1�n Hsi1! Tiacwng, �d. Chou Chen-Fu, p_ 5", and p. 60, (""mote 36. I Chhien't p�m will � found in Hou Pao-Lin till/. (19115), p. q,6_ For a d..tailt-d Western tr�atment ofthree palindromes $e� A!ekseev{l�i8), pp. 5:12-.H" Th� h�,t hibliogr.lphi<: ori�ntation on the Chinesc palindrom e ",ill L
1
he IQund in Frank..(1!PI7) and in 110 W�n·IIui(198j J. • C .orpus I/ermtll'",m ed.A. K KoekandA-F. Fe5lUgicre (paris 1� o), \'01. I, p. 100. , 'In all languages the Jcn'e of the context has to suppOrt grammar: Humboldt ([969), p. IO�. The context dependence of�tltenc� meanings and the problems of\-agucncss ha\'e �en in the focus of both linguinic and philosophical jtlt�rest in recent times. A fin.. philosophical treannent oflhe 5uhj..rt ",ill I� found in Sch�ffi�r (1979). �Iu(h more technical is !lallm..r and Pinka! ('9831- Rt-c..nt liu>ratur.. i5 5un1:)l'd in tht-]f1IIrna{ofPragmatUs published in ,'>"msterdam.
6
1 44
LAl' C U A G E AND L O G I C
Humboldt nOtes degrees o fcontext-dependence i n natural languages:
Dans la langue chinuise, Ia grammaire explicite est dans un rapport infiniment petit, com parativemelll a la grammaire SQllS-f'tltendue.i What are the psycho-linguistic effects of a language in which so little i� explicit, and so much understood? Consider the following curren( Literary Chinese saying:
rhihjin chih mien pu chih hsin�,AjInijFffflJL\ KNOW MAN, KNOW FACE, ," O T KXOW HEART
'\Vhen you know a person, you know his face but you do not know his heart. 'Z l'he crucial sentence connectives as well as the subjects ofthese three clauses are not explicit in the Chinese. Tense ('goes' versus 'went') and articles ('a person' ver sus 'the person'), too, are sometimes indicated by syntactic means, but mostly only
implicit in the Chinese language. Here is another proverbial sequence ofthree verb
phrases:
.......
chien ipu wti U'u)'ungJeh�tff1#!,�t�:-tl! I'AKTICI.E 'If, when you see dmyyou do not act according to it, that is lack ofcourage.'
SEE kIGHTf.OUSl'ESS, NOT DO, I.;\.CK COt.:RAC£
But are all these things that the translation mak!':s explicit really properly under stood by the Chinese? It has been suggested, espct:ially by the linguist Franz Misteli (r8S7), that the indeterminacy oflanguage in cases like the sayings I have just quot ed represents an indeterminacy of thought, and that translation falsely attributes articulateness to a way of thinking which was essentially vague and indeterminate, or to use Marcel Graner's term summing up the phenomenon: the language is pit
toresque in nature. According to Marcel Graner, Chinese writing is so elliptic that. it only allows one to reconstruct thoughts expressed withom actually lran�lating them into linguistic for m.'l
The guiding print:ipic underlying ellipsis in Classical and Literary Chinest' is
expounded in the following description ofthe old Spring and Autumn Annals tradi tionally ascribed to Confucius himself:
The Spring ancl Autumn Annals in their usc offormulations omitted what was already dear and put down what was not yN clear."' This applies not only to the Spring and Autumn Annals, but to traditional Chinese \",riting in general. Whatever the audience can understand from the con text is preferably omitted in literary style. Explicitness is felt to be vulgar. It is not by chance that there is no word for scilicet 'i.e., you should remember, that is to say' in Classical Chinese.
\Vhat you should know is omitted for the very reason that you
should know it. , 'In Chine�, explicit grammar plays an n i fillitd�· .mall pan compan,d with ··understood" grammar.' Ibid. ; Gnm�l{t9�O). P. 99. • ChJwn (;lrJIiIl FanLu, ch. I, ..d. l.ing Shu, p· 3· ' Bn«:�(t9·�5), p.rl!.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
n-
1 45
As we shall describe in more detail below, even arithmetic statements are gener· ally elliptic in this way: San ehhi irh shih i - t-=+
11,
'e ,-
ly rb
TIIRE£ SEV£l' TWO Ti::'" 01\'F.
'Three times seven is n....enty-one.'I
The suggestion that a Chinese reader or writerjust picturesquely conjoins these numbers in his mind without structuring their relation precisely makes no historical or philolobrlcaJ sense. The context makes it sufficiently clear even to the modern reader 2,500 years pOJtfistum that multiplication is intended. Commentators show that multiplication was understood. The Chinese were mort numerate than their European contemporaries for a long time. They were certainly advanced practi tioners orthe art of arithmetic. It just so happens that the Chinese here as so often elsewhere - for us disconcertingly often - communicated their insights in remark ably implicit context-dependent ways. The ambivalent collocation ofnumbers became the basis for jokes: 'Thirty ofConfucim' disciples wore caps (as signs of adulthood) and forty-two did not!' 'What is your textual basis for this claim?' 'Well, it say-s in the Lun Yii that "cap-wearing youths FIVE SIX"'1 and five times six is thirty. 5£VI':1\" ,1 and SLX times seven makes farty-tvJo. All this adds up to Again it says " afboys SIX
·li ,
"
<, i II
n IS ,-
seventy-two disciples. ' I
What seems to me to constitute the particulargenu de fa longue chinoise is that it does not grammatically enrorce or institutionalise explicitness or semantic completeness where it is deemed communicatively non-runctional given the knowledge of the intended audience. On the other hand, the Chinese have often tended to deem e."" means 'six or$C\'Cn'. Both Ihe quotations are found n i the lim 17i as w� have it today. • Hou Po, Chlri 1mUi mlfi�, ed. \Vang Li·Chhi, p. 11. The manuscript containing Ihisjoke (Stein no. 610) is dated +]23. The Iraditional numbt.r ofdisciplesis indeed 72.
'46
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
whatever can b e understood from the context. Confucius both expresses and exemplifies this ideal at the same time in the following often-quoted saying. \Vords (should) get (the point) across and that is all (Izhu /a irk i �JiffifB). I
The trouble is that what was sufficient to put across a point to Confucius' audi ence of disciples and therefore lived up to his ideal may not ahvays be sufficient to put across that point to later interpreters like ourselves. Plato's Socrates was constantly on his guard against being misunderstood (even by hirnselfl) and compensated for this danger by painstaking explicitness in the statement of problems and solutions. To Montaignc, this made him a tedious per son to read about. Confucius, on the other hand, seems satisfied that he knows what he is talking about and sees no reason for elaborate explicitness in his sayings as they have come down to us. The point is that Confucius could haVf� been more explicit, but he chose not to be, and his choice was typical of the culture to which he belonged. The question arises what significance we attach to this implicit form of commu nication typified by Confucius and encouraged by the system of Chinese grammar. Ellipsis in !3hakespeare The case of Chinese is probably closer to Elizabethan than to modern English. Consider Shakespeare The Tempest i.2.219: 'On their sustaining garments (sci!. there is) not a blemish,! But (sci!. the garments are) fresher than before.' In Anthon), and Cleopatraiv.2.27 we read 'Haply you shall not sec me more, or if(scil. you see me, then you will see me)! A mangled shadow.' Or take Hamleti.1.108: 'This must be known; which being kept close might move! More grief to hide than hate to utter love.' \\·'e may apparently paraphrase this as follows: 'This ought to be revealed for it, by being suppressed, might excite more griefin the king and queen by the hiding ofthe news, than our unwillingness to tell bad news would excite love.'2 E. A. Abbott (1913), p. 2 79, introduces his section on ellipsis in Shakespeare as follows: 'The Elizabethan authors objected to scarcely any ellipsis, provided the deficiency could be easily supplied from the context.' This statement highlights a significant feature of Elizabethan English, and it applies without further qualifications to Classical Chinese. We can go even further: \-"Vhatever is unnecessary for the interpretation of a Classical Chinese sentence in its context can be left out salva grammaticalitate, or, more technically expressed: 'Whatever is pragmatically redundant in Classical Chinese is grammatically optional. We may call this a principle of grammatical economy. The varieties of Pidgin English show that a great many morphemes in both mod ern and Elizabethan English are 'pragmatically redundant' or unnecessary in the , U'" YJi '5.4', cC Lau (198p), p. 159.
' ALLott {1913), p. 2114.
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
' 47
communicative COntext. The third-person verbal ending in 'He reads', for exam ple, is in this way redundant, but the 's' in 'reads' is clearly grammatically obliga tory in standard English and cannot be left out. What the speaker of Pidgin does is to apply something like the principle of economy to modern English. The speaker of Pidgin will supply indications of tense, definiteness of nouns, etc., only as and when they (Ire necessary to make his point. ThaI is just what happens in Literary Chinese.! • •
•
,
,
It turns out that the Chinese were able to writt� fairly explicitly when they felt the need or the urge to do so. Wang Chhungx1t (+'27 to+ 100) was proud ofindulging in this stylistic 'vice' ofover-explicitness and describes it in enthusiastic detail in the postrace to his great Lun Heng �f!ij, Later scientific writers were able to make their texts as explicit as they needed to be. The 1 Ching ��, at one extreme, leaves room - and power - to the expert interpreter, and to the imagination of the reader. The l.u.n Heng, at the other extreme, was intended to solve doubtful questions of scientific, historical and religious fact, and I think the patient reader of Literary Chinese will agree that the Lun Hlng may be wrong on many points, but it is not in general particularly inexplicit. Neither does a text have to be at all scientifically minded or non-Confucian to use an 'elaborated code' in this way. The commentator Chao Chhi �!Itit (died +201), explaining Mcng Tzu's moral philosophy, wrote, if anything, more explicitly even than \'\Tang Chhung. His sentences are quite deliberately replete with redundant characters designed to put the intended meaning of Meng Tzu beyond any doubt even for the rawest outsider: even after the passage of 1,700 years a modern scholar can fairly effortlessly follow most afChao Chhi's interprctations.2 And in case one has overlooked the overall message of a section, Chao Chhi adds a very explicit summary of the significance ofc\'ery seclion in the A1€ng Tzu. Let us look over Chao Chhi's shoulder as he is expounding Meng Tzu's terse prose: BENEVOLENT Jrh chi 1:!!� MAN )'I'h t!! . COMD1J\'£ AND WORD IT, WAY )"th. Lau (1983C), p. 293, translates: ' "Henc\'olentc means "man". vVhcn these two arc conjoined, the result is
"the \Vay".'
Chao Chhi glosses: ning hsingjill en chejiI1Jeh.}in)'iijill lw hll)'en chi}, kilo i wei chihYIl tao)"th Jjgt'r}SE,ljAt!! 0 A!M t:� fffi * z 'iij .1-.:{"�� Z �mt!! . CAl': PRACTISE BF."'EVOI.E�T OENEROSlT\' chi MAN)'th. MA:'> WITH REXEVOLENT COMBINE AND SAY IT CA" CALI. IT HAVE WAY. i a man. Wh en you combine "be 'Someone who can pranisc bene"olent generosity s benevolem" with " be a man" one may call this having attained Lhe Way".' "
I The facllh,u lit: \,;11 also add a:rtain dements whicb I", carri", ffi"Cr from his own language need not inter est u, here. • \Vhether he can arUpllh�M' interpretations is, ofcourse, " \"CI)· Jitler<:nt question, ,,'hich we shall nOt discuss
allhispoint.
LANCUAGE AND L O G I C
Since the advent o f the Jesuits in China in the late +16th century, Western observers have been most interested in rarified matters such as philosophy. In read ing Chinese phi l osophical texts, they have often felt exasperated by the elliptic nature ofthe Chinese language used in these texts. Part of this apparent vagueness and diffuseness is surely due to their insufficient understanding of the vocabulary and grammar of Classical and Literary Chinese. Classical and Literary Chinese is bound to look to us hazy and indeterminate in so far as we have only a hazy and i.ndistinct grasp of the grammar of that language. I believe that as we understand more ofthe intricacies of Classical Chinese grammar and lexicographyL, we shall appreciate better the semantic precision of Chinese semences. To some extent, vagueness, like beauty, is in the eye ofthe beholder.
Types ifdiscourse Besides, one has to take into account the type of Chinese discourse in question. Confucius' remarks in
Lun Yii belong to an intimate sphere of communication
which is as naturally and as properly implicit and heavily context-dependent as a modern private conversation. In the type of discourse used among friends it is nat ural that many things are understood. Explicit discourse would not be intimate.
Explicit discourse is essentially public. The form of discourse we have in the Lun Yii
tends to be not public but private and intimate. Ifwe read it as if it were public dis course, we would profoundly misunderstand it. It is pointless to complain that pri vate speech is not as explicit as public speech should have been. Private discourse must not be confused with esoteric discourse. Confucius did not speak in a deliberately obscurantist '....ay. There is no ti.me-honoured Chinese conspiracy to write obscurel), Confucius spoke in a familiar, in a private way. We must try to understand him nOt as we would try to understand a published or public
debate, or an Aristotelian disquisition, btl[ rather as ifwe were eaves-dropping on a
stranger's conversations. \'Vc must expect to miss out on many things, and we must strive to compensate for this inevitable loss by reconstructing the context and back ground as best we can. Socrates conducted pedagogical and didactic conversations. Aristotle wrote didactical lectures. These Greek philosophers tried to convince those who refused
to be convinced by anything other than argumentation. Arguments ex autoritale were unacceptable. Plato and Aristotle therefore had carefully to spell out and analyse what they had to say.2 Wang Chhung did not generally accept arguments ex aucwritatt, and neither did Chuang Tzu.
, It is inlere51ing to note that we still do not ha\'e a .tandard and generally acceptable grammar orCI�;cal Chines<:. More�r, ".., .till do not have a Jlandard and g�n�raHy acceptable Cla3!ical Chine!e - Engli\h dictionary. , Note, however, [hat argum�n!' u: a�t{Jrilalt were routinely accepted in Europe tor example from the +�nd cellllLry onwards. Tlll1s Plato and Ari.llorle ollly represent one Lradition, and a tradition whkh has not al"",,y' b�en the dominant one in Europe.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
1 49
By contrast, Confucius, Meng Tzu and even HsGn Tzu arc predominantly por trayed as preaching to the converted or presenting their case to men in authority. l Hstin Tzu is perhaps the most argumentative and systematic ofthese. But even he, when he bothers to refute thinkers who deviate from the path of Confucian truth, characterises his opponenl�' views in ways that can by no stretch ofthe imagination be called fair, and his counter-arguments amount mostly to no more than intel lectual denigration. While we can reconstruct a fair amount of pre-Aristotelian thinking in considerable detail from Aristotle's accounts, Hsun Tzu tdls us dis appointingly little about those with whom he differed. He was expounding Con fucianism to an audience of converted Confucians. He felt no need to do justice to the common opponent. A comparison ofHsun Tzu's Refotation oJtht Twelve Philosophers with Aristotle's opening chapter of the Metaphysics immediately bears out our point. Plutarch's vitriolic attacks on the Stoics may often seem to us unfair, but they do enable us to reconstruct a fairly detailed picture ofStoic philosophical view�. The central and ultimate purpose of Confucian philosophising was moral edification. Argumentation entered into the picture only in so far as it was morally edifying. Unedifying ;pure' reasoning was rejected as 'petty sophistry (hsiao pien i 'J\nf)' and as 'wanton words (yn tvlU �If)'.
Indeterminacy and vagueness One might complain that tsuijm �A GUILT MAN is vague or grammatically under determined because it can either be taken to mean 'a man characterised by guilt' (with tsui � as a nominal modifier) or it may be taken to mean 'guilty man' (with tsui as an adjectival modifier). Here it becomes important to distinguish vagueness from structural indeterminacy. The logician Charles Perrce has supplied a useful definition ofvagueness: A proposition is vague when there are possible states ofthings concerning which it is 11lrin i sically uncertain whether, had they been contemplated by the speaker, he would have regarded them as excluded or allowed by the proposition. By intrinsically uncertain we mean not uncertain in consequence of any ignorance of the interpreter, but because the speaker's habits oflanguage were indeterminate.2 In fact, tsutjin � is not a case of semantic vagueness. The vagueness is not on the part ofthe Chinese expression. The problem arises only when we feel obliged struc turally to match the expression with an English expression. Cases of this sort are extremely common in Classical Chinese. The fact that we have two alternative ways of translating a Chinese construc tion is not always good evidence that this construction is vague between those two , NOTable exceplio", are Ihe di�cus8i"os belw��o Kao Tzu a.nd M�ng Tzu, and between HSiin Tzu and Mtllg
Tzu on the goodn��s or badn�s! of human nature. Cf. Aft"!, T.::II, book 6 and Hsii T.::II, ch. 23. The bookAl� TVi containl a great deal or argumentation, bUl th�re again its altack on Confucianism (Afo 'kll, ch. 29) ill dearly i dir�led al a :-'fohi
L A N G U A G E A:'\'D L O G I C
readings. In pri nciple , every Chinese concept o r construction is something suigener�
IS
an)'\vay which is not normally semantically OT structurally isomorphic with any�
thing in another language. 'l'he appearance of vagueness in a different language is often simply a symptom of the Nhnocentricity of the person who complains about the vagueness. It is the result ofinsufficient empathy with the strange language, not a feature ofthat language itself. The imeresting question is whether Classical Chinese is in Charles Peirce's semantic sense a more vague language than Classical Greek. My conclusion is that Classical
Chinese leaves greater scope for vagueness of meaning than Classical Gret'k, but that with cenain significant limitations Classical Chinese sentences could be made as specific ancl determinate as each of the ancient Chinese writers wishcd to make them. I Some constraints on this will be discussed in the section on logical and gram matical complexity below.
(6) LOGICAL A)lD GRAMMATICAL C OMPLEXITY IN C L A S S l C A L CHINESE In the present Sub�section we shall look al what may turn out to be some restric tions on what can be lucidly t"xpressed in Classical Chinese. Consider Shakes� peare's Sonnet IS:
\Vhen I consider everything that grows Holds in perfection but a little moment, That this huge stagr prt:sentrth naught but show� whereon the stars in seeret inAuence comment: \Vhcn I perceive: that men as plants increase, Chet:rcd and chccked even by the selfsame sky, Vaunt m their youthful sap, at height decrease, And wear their brave state out ofmemory; Then the conCeit ofthis inconstant stay Sets you mOSI rich in youth before my �ighl, Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay, To change your day of youth to sullied night; And all in war with Time for Ion ofyou, As he take� from you I engrart you m�w. For stylistic reasons one would not expect a poem of this kind in Classical Chinese: sentcnces tend to be much shoner than this in Chinese poetry. No Chinese poet would ever coin any worcl like Chrislian Morgenstern's
Kurhl1UJkon�
zertbierlerra.fStllereignis, which is the subtitle ofhis poem Die Fiederml1us.
L This is nO! to den\" that there w�re writ�n; in ChilLa who wcr� d�litxratel\" obscure in order to "n.\ure au cxclusive read"rship. But this is not a peculiarly Chinese phenomenon. Heracliuu was suspH:ted by DioRenes Laeniul to have made sure that he "=t.. in an n i "xplicit "-"y 'in order that onl} 11." able would approach his wor],; and that he �hou!d !lot he OJXIl to disrespe<:t because he was popular/vulgar'. (I)iogcn�� J."lertiu', Fila� Pkifos�plwrum 9.6) One (enainly has simila,. suspiciOn! '",ilh re'p<:CI 10 m.my writer:. of l.iterary Chinese, ��pe cially the "T;ters of traditional prefaces. Th..se oflcn do strike O"e as deliberately esoteric and eltelu.;,"".
LA:\IGUAGE AND L O G I C
The question that I am concerned with in this Section i s not, however, related to mallers of style, but with the more fundamental issue of what is and is not lucidly expressible in Chinese.
Preliminary remarks Let us begin with a historical perspective. In 1827 Wilhelm von Humboldt empha
sised the striking way in which Classical and Literary Chinese style strongly favours much simpler sentences than Classical Latin or Classical Greek tend to do. Classical Creek sentences can run over several pages ofprinted text. Classical and Literary Chinese writers mostly use shon sentences. \"'hen their sentences are long, they arc made structurally simple and transparent by the use ofparallelism. Wilhdm von Humboldt tried to relate the brevity ofsemences to the absence ora morphologically explicit system ofword classes or 'grammatical forms': The grammatical relations have an intimau:: relation to the unity of the proposition. ror these grammatical relations are what expresses the relations of the words to the unity of the proposition. Ifthese relations are conceived with precision and clarity, then they will mark offlhis unity better. They ....ill . make it more palpable. The relations be£\veen the words must
become more in number and more varied as the sentences become longer and more com pl icated. It emerges from this that the need to try to markofrthe distinction be£\veen the cat egories or grammatical forms in all detail derives from the tendency to form long and
complicated sentences. When the phrases that are marked oIffardy exceed the limits of the simple proposition, then the mind does not require that one represent the grammatical forms exactly. Neither does it demand that one carry the distinction so far that each of the grammatical categories \vill appear in all its individuality. I
In 1934 Liang Shih-Chhiu wrotc in the introduction to his very carefully anno
tated translation from the Latin of Cicero's De Senectutt:
The sentences in L·1tin are toO long, and their grammatical organisation is too complex, so
that there is simply no way oftranslating them successfully into Chinese without breaking them up into separate parts.1
In 1945 the great linb'1list Wang Li observed with respect to Modern Chinese: vVhen we translate from \·Vestern languages into Chinese, the sentential form of second ary clauses faces us with very great difficulties. . . . ''''hen we have a two-layered secondary I Lei categories grammalicales � lrouw�m en �Iation imime an:c l'unite- de la propoJition; car elks 50nl les eXIX',an! de� rapporu d�.1 tll(JU a ccue unite, el li ellei sonl con�l1e, avec precision et dart�, dIes eo marqueot mieuxceue unitt: et la rendem plus knsible. Us rapporu des mots dniveot� multiplier, et \·arier � proportion d� la longueur et de la compliCation dell phrai"5, et it en rt:�ultc naturdlemcOl que l� besnin de poursui\'Te la dis· tinction des categories ou formes grammaticales,julque dans leur derniere! ramifications, nait surtout de Ia ten· dance ;l. former des period", longues Ct compliqu';e•. La OU de� phrases entrecoupees depass�nt raremcOl les limites d� la pruposilion simple, l'intelligence n'exige pas qu'on 5C reprtl'ente exactement les formes grammati· cales des mna, ou qu'on en porte Ia distincriottjusqu'au point ou chacun� de eel formeJ paralt dam (Oute Ion indh�dualit". W. v. Humboldt (t964), PP, 64f. (Note tlie dilTerenr.� between sentcn ce Icngth in Humboldt', French and the English translation .) Ct: �I�nge (1960), p. .541.
, Liang Shih·Chhiu (1934'), p. 3.
LANGUAGE AND
LOGIC
sentence form, then unless we break it up into a kind of parataxis, translation is practically impossible. For example, 'They murdered all they met whom they supposed to be gentle i we translate it literally into fha-min sha-hai-{t Iha-min sO)'ii-chien-t! Iha-men i-wei shih men', f shang-liu jen ti i-chhu:h ftiJ.1M�i!f7ftl!1f�?ff�YUfJft!!fF'lJY.'!%:iE:l:.ffi[A8-j-t}J, then the result is simply an uninterpretable Chinese sentence. Again, when we come across a non restrictive clause, our literal translation cannot distinguish it from the restrictive clause. Try to compare 'He had four sons, who became lawyers' with 'He had four sons that became la\�)'ers'. If we use a literal translation, then we have no way of translating them into two different forms. I
In 1987 Tso Ching-Chhuan tr:ft:.ti, discussing ancient Chinese versus Classical Greek from a Chinese point ofview, observes with characteristic conciseness: From ancient times longsentences have been a rare sight (/zu ku i lai, han chiM chhang chii § t:!:l
fJ*"f1ft,!Hil).'
Tso Ching-Chhuan elaborates: But Greece shows a preference for a long-winded extended sentence. . . . \Vhen the reader meets these kinds of complex sentences, the interpretation is actually not difficult. The secret (of their success in interpretation) is their constant practice of 'logical analysis'. They pick out complete constituent clauses and study separately their relations to other constituent clauses. After doing this for a long while, hey l develop this habit (of analysis), and even if they wanted to stop practising such logical analysis, they slill cannot stop themselves.1 I shall not trouble the reader with any of the notorious syntactically complex passages in Demosthenes' speeches, or with any of the Latin writers noted for their elaborately balanced complex sentences. But even Seneca, who is generally com paratively brief and concise in his style, could start a letter (to an unhappy lady Marcia) as follows: Nisi te, Marcia, scirem tam longe ab infirmitate muliebris animi quam a ceteris vitiis reces sisse et mores tuos velut aliquod anliquum exemplar aspici, non auderem obviam ire dolori tuo, cui viri quoque libenter haerent et incubant, nec spem concepissem tam iniquo i imico iudice, tam n i vidioso crimine pos�e me efficere, ut fortunam tuam tempore, tam n absolveres. 'If I did not know, Marcia, that you were as far removed from womanish weakness of mind as from all other vices, and thai your character was looked upon as a model of ancient virtue, I should not dare to assail your grief(the grief that even men are prone to nurse and brood upon), nor should I have conceived the hope of being able to induce you to acquit Fortune of your complaint, at a time so unfavourable, with her judge so hostile, after a charge so hateful.+
Note the slightly complex scope of nisi Jcirem 'if I did not know'. This complex scope would be hard to make transparent in Classical or Literary Chinese, In the L
Wang Li (I98-/), vol. 1, p. j7.
' lbid.,p.230.
' Tso Ching-Chhilan (1987), p. 230.
1 Seneca (!gs8), p.2.
1 53
LA.'\'GUAGE AND L O G I C
translations we shall survey below the difficulty in representing the complex scope ofverbs ofimelleclual attitude is a recurrent problem. One may wonder how important the possibility of a complex scope for such verbs of intellectual attitudes is in intellectual culture. We have a very considerable number of letters from traditional China. I
very
much doubt that any one of them would start with a sentence remotely as complex and as full of multiple subordination as Seneca's stylistically innocent opening remarks. 1,,!oreover, I wonder whether grammatically they could have started with a sentence ofthis order ofnon-parallelistic embedded complexity. In the conduct of legal proceedings, syntactic complexity became ritualised in
Greece, as a survey ofDemosthenes' famous speech De corona wiD shO\v. I Rhetoric of this sort, written or spoken, was certainly not encouraged by ancient Chinese ideals ofstyle, as we have seen in my section on the art ofliteracy. But my point is that such rhetoric was also made difficult by the currelllly available
grammatical devices as
used in Classical and Literary Chinese.
Grammatical and intellectual complexiry One hastens to emphasise that, whatever ,<\filhelm von Humboldt thought, there is
no clear evidence of a correlation between the morphological complexity of a lan guage and the syntactic complexities it may be equipped to articulate efficiently.
Moreoyer,
there most certainly is nothing culturally 'advanced' about having a
complex morphology. Neither is there any connection whatever between the intellectually advanced nature of a thought and the length of sentences used to express that thought. An ele mentary textbook on logic, for example, will not normally contain syntactically simpler sentences than a more advanced textbook on the same subject. Indeed, I was brought up with the idea that a very complex sentence, if true, probably deserves
(0
sort of rhetoric,
be restated more briefly and without recourse to the
elaborate syntactic flourishes that were the hallmark of Greek and Latin and which are under consideration in the present Section.
And yet there remains the possibility that the ability ofa thinker to pass through a phase ofclearly articulated complex sentences on his way towards a perhaps briefer and plainer lapidary final statement of his views may be useful. Complex sentences, though perhaps nOt necessary for the final formulation of one's views, may be useful in the preliminary process of groping towards such views. It
is in this groping and
probing posture that we tend to find Socrates as described by Plato in the early dia logues. Is such syntactically comple..... philosophical groping feasible in Classical Chinese? One may ask whether the ancient Chinese writers were constrained by the structure of their language to write
I
relatively simply
£'g., DemOSlhClltS, Dt(",ona
or whether the simplicity of
lHLfl ed. r.oeb, vol. 2, pr. "pit
154
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Classical and Literary Chinese style is a matter o f rhetorical choice. One may ask whether Classical and Literary Chinese is a linguistic tool powerful enough to express, for example, Greek logical and philosophical theories. The role Wnatural language in science The spread of modern science all over the \vorld and the translation of scientific insights into vastly different languages all over the world would seem to bear clear and abundant witness that all natural languages can be adapted and supplemented in such a way as to seITe as media for the communication ofcomplex scientific insight. Terminology is a case in point. If a language does not have a given concept, one can always introduce it by stipulative definition. After all, this is how the latinised concepts of English were introduced imo English in the first place. I In principle, such problems oftcrminology are unproblematic. It is a question of time, attention, education and effort. The matter of syntactic and logical complexity is only slightly more subtle. If a language does not have a means to represent a complex embedded logical or syn tactic structure, in principle one can introduce such a means. For example by intro ducing a loan word or a loan construction from a language that does possess the means to present the structures involved. Such terminological and grammatical borrowing has been happening to a quite remarkable extent in many languages. It sometimes takes the form of terminologi cal as well as syntactic anglicisation. In English it often took the form oflatinisation. In the case of Classical Tibetan, it took the shape of extensive - almost pervasive sanskritisation. DimenszoTlS W10gical andgrammatical complexity Complexity can be viewed along many parameters. For example, there is morpho logical complexity, which we disr�gard at thL� point, and there is modal complexity (try to say utinam venisset 'I wish he had come' in Classical Chinese!), which we also leave aside, although it certainly invites philosophical attention. Moreover, there is the philosophically highly int�r�sting distinction between direct and indirect speech as in 'Galileo said the Earth was round' and 'Galileo said: "The Earth is round"', which one cannot reproduce in Classical Chinese. But this is another point that we shall reluctantlyleave aside. At this point we shall concentrate on quan tification, on sentence connectives and on syntactic complexity in that order. Qualltificational complexiry
Quantifiers (words like 'all', 'no', some ', 'only') in Classical and Literary Chinese are not easily compounded within a single proposition. Classical Chinese quantifiers
tend 'Somt ' \I natu pie, ( state brso scop. objel o
I us�. states A"
unac hanc com, meal C, Prior
Seha: sider
hum.
TI thin, ed to porn
,�
adjei
stant
waul
alma
' \I
caml
uacl
hens:
poinl
'P"" IDOIo
'
I Cf. Vol. VII,pt.:].
.. ... . ,
ISS
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
tend to work adverbially as in 'Emperors are Jome wise' rather than adjectival as in 'Some emperors are wise'. j When the scope of a quantifier is syntactically deeply embedded, the adverbial nature of Classical Chinese quantifiers can cause systematic problems. For exam ple, one might want to say that 'Confucius taught the Way to the ministers in the states of only some kings'. For a Classical Chinese translator, such a sentence would be something ofa logical tcaser. It is not easy to see how one can make plain that the scope of the quantifier is just the modifying noun 'kings' embedded within the object. One might also want to say lhat but quite frankly nOl as few rulers of large and wealthy states as most ofyou might think, understand the Way.
I used to believe thai only some,
An ancient Chinese who might want to say this, would be unlucky. He would be unable to express clearly and simply what he might have in mind. On the other hand, if many ancient Chinese had had things of this degree of quantificational complexity on their minds, 1 have little doubt that they would have developed the means lucidly to express such propositions. Consider another short example, inspired by the philosopher and logician A. N. Prior. Scholars only occasionally consult a few of the books which n'ery philosopher would con
sider any true intellectual writing about any subject of interest to all serious students of human culture should be familiar with and make all his or her students read.
There is no reason why the ancient Chinese should have wanted to say this son of thing. But it is not clear how they should have gone about saying it ifthey had want ed to. Speakers of Latin may not have wanted to say any such thing either, but our point is that they could easily have said it, had they wanted to. Again, take the case of lhe quantifier 'no'. Classical Chinese had no flexible adjectival quantifier 'no' as it recurs in 'No ant': imagines that nobody fails to under stand that no sensible man reads no books that no sage would read and that no sage would wTite.' The result is that such sentences, which are difficult in English, seem almost impossible to render into Classical Chinese. What limits comprehension of such English examples is the degree of logical comple.xity which the reader has learnl and has gal used to grasping without losing track of the overall picture. Informally, but adequately, one might say that compre hension of such complex structures depends on the reader's 'logical boggling point'. The difficulty is mostly not onc ofgrammatical structure but ofpsychological span of attention and concentration. (fa use Noam Chomsky's fashionable term inology: it is a matter ofperformance rather than competence.) , In Modern Standard de> ha\"e adjccth-al forms fii¥) 'some', but amusing thatJu-li .till rardy us�d in object po,ition. A s,:ntence likc)"w-li lhw hao kan lia'Jf!fPrW SOME BOOKS GOOD TO RI'.AD a "�ntencc lik� 1 '.'KE SOME I'tO]'1.E would be ungram 'Som� books arc good to read' is dear and ea,y, matical. On� has!O say SOME noPLF. 1 1.1U:.
Chin
Iik
i!
while
it is
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
A perfectly perspicuous and transparent logical formula can come to be felt to be opaque when it exceeds a certain degree of complexity. The reason why we do not understand it has nothing to do with the syntax of the artificial language oflogic. lt is connected with our psychological ability to grasp the clearly articulated structure which is there. This ability can easily be trained and incrt"ased manyfold through exposure to logically complex structures. [n other words: the logical boggling point is mobile, not genetically or c ulturally fixed. However, some people reach their boggling point soont;r than others. And we may ask whether some peopf�5, too, on account of the inherent structure of their lan guages, tend to reach their logical 'boggling points' significantly earlier than other peoples. In particular, we may wonder from a psychological point ofview about lhe gram matical and logical 'boggling point' of the ancient Chinese. How much quami ficational complexity firstly did and secondly could the ancient Chinese pile into a Classical or Literary Chint;se sentence without affecting comprehensibility? Note that the quantificational articulatory power of English is not due to the efforts of logicians building it up. Elizabethan English would have served quite as well as Modern English. Bertrand Russell and his logician colleagues did not make a difference. The quantificational articulatory power of a language is not a resull of a deliberate building-up of this articulatory power. The Greeks were presumably linguistically equipped to make very complex sen tences long before they could be bothered to construct them. The pcasams in ancient ltalyspoke a language (Latin) that was excellently suited to express the logical complexities their Greek neighbours liked to indulge in, although the contact with Greek literacy led to a marked increase in lhe grammati cal precision with which speakers of Latin used their language. Latin writers seem never to have had any difficulty with literally reproducing the syntactic complexi ties they found in Greek rhetoric. The very literal Latin Vulgate generally makes considerably easier and more transparem reading than the Greek original. (But then, of course, Greek and Latin are historically and typologically closely related languages.) One is tempted to add that in religious and perhaps even in metaphy sical COntexts transparency is not always an unmixed blessing. The logically felicitous features of Classical Greek and Latin are not properly viewed as logical achievements of these peoples. '·Ve should rather think ofthem as strokes aflinguistic good luck. Compltxiry through logical conneclives It has often been noticed that Classical Chinese docs not have one word for 'or' that was used in declarative sentences like 'Sages are either arroganl or stupid'. J They , Classkal Chinese does have a word for 'or' ;n quenion!l ike l �<\re )'Ou �rman or areyouDutch?', That word i declarative 5enU'nc� "'1m me meaning 'or'. This u \'''ry inu''''
the great"r
need for disjl.lncti\'C struCtures;n 'luestions than n i declarative s�ntencl':l.
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
1 57
tend to express the same idea by saying something like :;\.s for sages, if they are not arrogant, they arc stupid'. It would be biased to maintain that Classical Chinese did not have a concept of di�junction.] Thl.:Y expressed the notion of a disjunction very lucidly, and logically quite satisfactOrily, through the notions of negation and implication. But let us now look at the way this enables the Chinese to handle complex sen tenCes involving multiple di�jutlction. Consider:
Confucius hated or at !cast disliked arrogant or stupid ministers who, either publicly or pri vately, criticised or mocked their kings or rulers. It is a truth of propositional logic that in principle one could express these dis junctions using only negation and implication. But the psychological fact is that a sentence of this order of complexity in the lo&rical connectives would become most cumbersome in Classical Chinese, if indeed it turns out to be translatable at all.
And it is not an insignificant fact that the English sentence is very far from difficult or opaque. Neither is there anything complicated about a sentence like this: 'I never met a more pl�asanl, more beautiful, more intelligent, more cultured, or more profound i my life'. Such disjunctive modifiers are impossible to bring ly attractive woman n
out in pre-Han Classical Chinese, and they remain thoroughly uncongenial in
Literary Chinesc.2 I leave it to the patient reader to construct other plausible cases of'.�clf-embedded' disjunctives like
He must either, pubicly l or privately, have criticised, or, in letters or publications, attacked hi� leader. Here again, in principle there is nothing to prevent the ancient Chinese from try ing to build up this constellation of disjunctives using only negation and implica tion. Our observation is that this would result in a less than transparent Classical Chinese construction. (Our English is bad enough!) One might object that these concocted examples do not represent what, for examplt",
an
ancient Chinese or an ancient Roman might want to say. But now I
happen to come across this entirely relevant passage in Cicero's rhetorical explor ation of the ultimate good:
Auf enim statuel nihil esse bonwn nisi honestum, nihil malum nisi {urpe, cetera aut omnino nihil habrre mamenli aut tamum, ut nee cxpetenda nee fugienda, sed eligcnda modo aut reicienda �int, autanleponct eam, quam cum honf'.$tate ornatissimam, tum etiam ipsis initi is naturae: et totius pcrfectiont vitae loeupletam videbit. , In any cas�. the ancient Chim:'e did have a rurrcnt word lor 'ur' (iJ in question! ike l 'Is this a man or a woman?' Tht curious point is that th� Chin"5e nen'r .sc.::m to ba\'t thuughl ufsimply tran�f"rring thi5 word into plain dedarath'e .�n{enc"s. , Cumulative 'cunjunctive' modification is ai.IO cxtr..mdy rare in ClaS!lical Chinese: 'I me] a pleasant, beauli ful, im"lIigcm. cultur�d and in """I)'way ,·t!)' auranin: woman' ....·ould ha"" 10 boo paraphras-ed along the Iin"s of 'I met a woman. Sh", wa! pleasant. e]e., <"Ie.'. When this sort of compkx nOun rhras.. is syntactically deeply "mbcdd"d, serious problelln ofarticulatilln arc often in�'�tahl".
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
Either h e will puslulate that nothing is good unless it i� honourable, and that nothing is evil unless it is dishonourablc, and that the odl�r things are (;III(rofno (moral) significance what soever oTonl)' in such a way that they arc n�ither to he sought nor [0 b� a,'oided, but only to he chosen fir to he rrjectC'd, or €lSi he will prefer the doctrine which he sees is most adorned with honourableness ancl also rich in exactly the tendencies ofnature: and ill the overall per lection oflire.1
The logical structure ht're is plain in the Latin, but logically complex: Either . . (and (. . . or . . . (. . . or . . .))) or else .
It is hard to rende.r this sentential form into Classical Chinese. The paraphrase 'if not . . . then' pattern, though the.oretically feasible, would involve extn:ml"ly heavy bracketing of a son that only becomes possible in symbolic nota tion and is hard to represent in any natural language I know of, and which certainly is unheard of in Ltlin. Consid("r now the complexities Ihat are e asily and perspicuously created in Latin or English when d�iunclions and implications arc combined in a single sentence like: using tht'
Tf; cither deliberatdy or by chance, when you mrn a sage or a philosopher, or when you run into a distinguished politician, ),ou slight such people, then you should apologise or at least try to make up for your offel1(;e.
Such a mi:xture of conditional and disjunctive constructions in a single sentence or even clause makes things still more difficult for the translator into Classical Chinese. By adding other logical connectives we could further compound the problems for Classical Chinese without affecting comprehensibility in Latin or English. It is a curiously easy task to construct logical/syntactic constellations that are easy to articulate in a language like Classical Latin but apparently impossible to articulate in Classical Chinese. The COtwt'rse test is most interesting: can we find complex constellations that are easy to express in Classical Chinese but the logical complexity ofwhich is apparent ly difficult to rendf'f in Classical Latin? I find it impossible 10 build up such exam pl es. 1t would be int<:>resting to find one. Are we to conclude, then, that anciem Chinese thought is non-disjunctive, or that a traditional Chinese would ne:Vf'r find he was lacking a si ngle word or expres sion for 'or'? For once, we can give a definite historical answer: .:'-Jo. For it turns out that from Han times onwards the Chinese did te:nd to develop a word for 'or', the very same word to which we referre:d above as the quantifier huo WG 'some, prob ably' , which sometimes came to be uSf'd from Han times onwards in a meaning that comes close to our 'possibly, or possibly, or'. Moreover, we note in passing that the , Cic�ro, Dtfrnibus bQrlOllim �I mil/arum, Book 2.18. I'h", tmlHlation i� 01)' OWI1.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
1 .\ 9
Modern Chinese word huo-chi�.:§, which is defined in dictionaries as 'or', has its very deep pre-modern roots. Hun-chi is not an anglicising modernism.I The Chinese did haW" use for a di�junctive p article, and since they felt they had ust' for one, they made one. But they felt this need relatively late, and even in Literary Chinese never quite got into the habit of thinking in disjunctions as the ancient Creeks, particularly Socrates, de.:monstratively groping for the right word, liked to pretend he.: did. Logical equivalence (or the bi-conditional) in Modern English provides an inter esting case ofcomparison. Speakers ofEnglish, like the speakers ofmany other lan guages, have long cultivated thought without feeling the need lor a connective which in reCen t times analy1ical philosophers have introduced into Modern English: 'if and only if'. Similarly, English has lived with the treacherous vagueness in the connective 'or' m eaning either 'either p or q, bu t not both' or 'p or q or both', unlil we artificially introduced a new word 'and/or' to refer unambiguously to the indusivl': me:aning of'or'.
Languages like English and Chinese can and do make s uch additions to their log ical tools as and when they fe:el the need. In some cases ancient Chinese is far more logically degant than English. Thus from at least the +grd century onward, the Chinese frequently used the logically important identifying 'copula' chi RrJ which we have to render by clumsy glosses such as 'be nothing other than, be identical with'. Syntactic complexity
Noam Chomsky (1965). p. 12, has a convenient prdiminar)' classification of syntac tic constructions: A. Nested constructions For example, the phrase 'the man who wrOte the book that you told me aboul' is nested in the phrase 'called (the man who wrote the book that you told me about) up'. Such constructions are generally hard to reproduce in Classical or Literary Chinese. B. Self-embedded constructions For example, 'who committed suicide' is part ofa sc1f embedded construction in 'who taught the student (who commiued suicide) Latin'. The (infdicitously) so-called sdf-embedding constructions arc simply n('ste:d con structions in which the superordinate and the subordinate conslfllction are of the same type. It would hI': an interesting task to find self-embedding constructions in Classical or Li terary Chinese. C. Multiple branching constructions To usc Chomsky'S example, in John, Bill, Tom, and several of their friends visited us last night', John', 'Bill', 'Tom' and 'several of their friends' are part of a branching construction. Such constructions pose no problems in Classical or Literary Chinese. , cr. Chao(1976), p. 115;, whonore� rhat �\..,n in �Iod"m Chin"st: litepn:ferrcd wa), ofslating an altemari\"l! i� through negalion and conditional.
160
LANGUAGE AND LOGIC
D. Lefi-branching constructions I-or example, '((( (.John's) father) 's brother),s unde)' . Such constructions are used in Classical or Literary Chinese. In the ThanKungt!:.<:3 section ofIi Chi lItc 'vc read: Nan Kung Thao's wife's mother's funeral (.I"an KIJ.71g Thao chih ch}1i chill ku chih Slwg 1¥i'2itfiZ i!ziliZ�) . ' E. Right-branchingconstructiolls For example ' (this is (the cat that caught (the rat that , ate of (the cheese that ruined the meal)))) . Right-bran ching constructions of this sort are unknown in Classical or Literary C hinese. I suppose that English aJlows us to construct combinations of several of these construction t)1Jcs so that in principle we could get a right-branching construction embedded in a l eft-branching (,onstruction , which is part of a multiple branching
is part nested construction. One of the reasons why we do not get sentences of such degree of complexity - not even in Gibbon's Decline and Fali ofthe Roman Empire - is that we have no practical use for them. Another is th at even if we had, our gram matical boggling point would lOa soon be reached: we would not be able to decode the sentences which in principle can be decoded. On the other hand we do decode things like the so-called 'zero knowledge proof' in computing science, ofwhich Silvio Micali says: 'It aUows me to ascertain whether the other person knows what I \vant to know, without him having to divulge to me what he kl1ows.'� One wonders, whether a speaker of Classical Chinese or a wri ter of Literary Chinese would have been able to think up or articul ate such a sentence. In absLract terms our general observation about Classical or Literary Chinese is that nesting constructions are exceedingly difficult to make in that language, and that branching operations have to be multiple (i.e., co-ordinate) or left-branching. This brief and dry observation has profound consequences for our account of grammatical complexity in Classical or Lilerary Chinese. construction, which is part of a self-emb edding construction, which in turn
of a
St(ltements ofconditinnal belief One kind of syntactic complexity involves embedded complex sentences, for exam ple conditional sentential oqjects. One may believe that ifDeng Xiaoping had con tinued to hold power for some more years, the reform policies would have been irreversible, or that if the First Emperor of China had lived longer, the Chhin dynasty would have been firmly established. The standard pre-Han idiom for 'believe' is i X wt'irJ.:) . . . � . . . 'to take Xto be
r, lO believe that Xis Y(ing)'. It is not very clear how a conditional (or a counterfac
lual) could be fitted smoothly into this particular common pattern. Indeed, I believe that the increasing use ofthe pattern i wei f)%,"\ S 'to believe that S' particularly from I Li Chi, r.h. �. ed. S. Cou\,reur, \'01. 1, 1'. 1211. C[ also Chhen Kuci. IVin TIE,;d. Liu Y"n-Chheng. p. �7.
,
{)i�,z(il no. 13, 2() March '98i.
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
Han times onwards is partly motivated by the fact that in this pattern there is much greater freedom for syntactic complexity in the embedded sentence S. However, even in pre�Han times we do occasionally find hsin chih{8;z' 'he holds it to be reliably true'. 1 quote what might look like a relevant instance where we have a conditional statement which apparently is the grammatical object of a putative verb at least in D. C. Lau's translation: Everyone' bdie"cs that Ch'en Chung would refuse the state ofCh'i were it offered to him against the principles ofrightness. I
But the case is only apparent. We should translate : Chhen Chung would refuse the state ofChhi were it offered to him against the principles of rightness, and people regard him as trust\\lorthy.�
When there is no anaphoric chilt �, the sentential object may contain co� ordinate clauses but apparently not subordinate ones: Now suppose thaI all the world held it to be reliably true that the ghosts and spirits can reward talent and punish cruelty, then how should there be disorder in the world?l It would be interesting to see othere were individual beliefs of conditional state� ments expressed with hsin ffi. We only have a few cases like this one: Then his friends believed (hsin) [hat he was ashamed to become Official Recorder}
Let us summarise: The ancient Chinese can and will often express their beliefin the truth ofconditional statements by making conditional statements. What appar� en dy they tend not to do is explici tly to attribute to each o ther or to themselves such beliefs that c onditional statements arc truc. Thus they will constantly say things like 'if P then Q.', but in pre�Han they are rarely found to embed this structure as an object in sentences like I believe that if P then Q. Of course, quotations like 'He said: "If P then Q" pose no problem, but then they are different. This is not a superficial point of idiom connected only with the current pre-Han idiom i X wei rPJ X � Yand the less current verb hsin ffi 'hold to be reliably true'. The verb chih � 'kno'....' is extremely common, but I do not find sentences of the form 'He knew that if P then Q in the indexed literature. What we do find are '
L Mil!g T.:� 7"'3-1,; cr. 1.:", (!983c), p. �79. Yang Po-Chun {lflOl. (1.96I), p. 3,6, translate' th� h.,in chill ro.:t as: puh)i� lou hsiQ�-luin tho JlUAIM§fffftE 'the others all believed in him'. Th"r" i, no rea_mn to tah chih .:t r�fer to the sentence rather than to the man: Itsin is 'to con!id�r a& trus t .....onhy' v.:ry commonly applies to PO:TSOns, and more rarely to lentences. Yang Po-Chiln'. r�ading is not only J)ossihl�, it i> also byfar the musl plausible. Chao Chhi MJl: (ed. Shen Wen-Chuo, p. 927) d()(:s not paraphrase ourjbl chith ksin Mih AI;#�Z.. Legge (11172), p. 963, lramialcs: '. . . and all people bdk\'e in him, (a..o; a man of the high�sl ....on . h)'. Couvreur, us qualte IWm, p. 623, gives a literal paraphrase oflhe traditional Neo-Confucian interpretalion: TMQII/IgtslIn"-l rrMun/""m (foiSJt sapulltnn). ·ChungT1.u, if one had pre $(;nied him by unjusl mealU with Chhi, would nUl han: acccpt�d the reign. (Therefore) all men bdi,,\"ed in him (ha,ins: been) "ise.' Dobson (1963), p. t2t, ...rites: '. . . and gO ew:ryonc truSIS him'. I
, :\fo nIl 31.S; cr. �Jci(1929),P. 160. • Lii Shih Chhun ChIliu �6.1, ed. Chhen Chhi-Yu. p.
,690; ef. Wilhelm (1928), p. 449.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
conditional statements followed by questions like h o i chih chhijan fPJ.L-).'1;tJ;!t� 'how do we know that this is so?'] The case for ivlodern Standard Chinese is different and much more like that of English. One would like to know exactly when and under what conditions sen tences of the sort 'I believe that if P then Q became current in China. Note the English: '1 have heard that they believe that if, as you get up and stretch your arms, everything turns black, then you ought to go and see a doctor.' In principle, we can have considerable additional complexity within the sentential object of a verb of belief. And \ve certainly could make this object much more complex than in the above sentence ifwe tried hard enough. The evolution of the phrase iX wei Yinto i wei X shih Y J;) )�� X :IE Y in Chinese and the emergence of a single verb i-wei rJ.� 'believe that' and jen-wei �?� 'consider that' significantly increased the range of potential syntactic complexity in the sentential objects ofbelid: Here as often the Chinese evolved syntactic means to express complexity when they needed it. Grammaticalpotential versus grammaticalperformance It will be wise (though unfashionable or un;;:,eitgemiifJ) not to take a modern language like English as our point of comparison, and not to treat our problem on the basis of hypothetical, artificially constructed sentences. We are interested in the actual use oflinguistic and logical complexity in various cultures at various historical times. Adapting Chomsky's term we can say we are interested in historical performance. Our historical question concerning Classical and Literary Chinese is not whether it could have been made to develop such-and-such means of representing logical complexity. The answer to that question is simple and almost axiomatic: yes, it could have been made to develop any means of representing logical complexity that we can think of, the grammatical potential was there. But our question is of an historical kind: how powerful a tool for the written articulation oflogical and syn tactic complexity did the ancient Chinese actually develop according to our histor ical records? \Ve need to know: I.
2.
\vhat in point offact did the ancient Chinese get into the linguistic habit ofdoing to express semantic complexity, and what did the explicit grammatical strategies they developed equip them to do within that framework?
It is one question to ask what buildings some people might in principle have built. (In principle they might surely all have been able to build the Empire State Building.) It is another question what building techniques and building styles a peo ple actually did develop and cultivate. (It is historically significant that the peoples of ancient times, for example, never built anything like the Empire State Building.)
ex
L Other verbs pre"ingpropmitional attitud�s dcscrvc allcntion: for �xample the word kJwng � 'to fear' and ils ncar synonyms. I du nOt remern�f seeing{h�se with complex sentential objeet5, bUllhe maller nc�ds \0 be investigated in detail.
I
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
The current view in general linguistics seems to be that all languages in principle provide equally powerful means of communication.
e
r
,
g
l n '-
g
may be correct. But
Chinese might have built the Empire State Building. This is a speculative observa tion with which in principle I strongly concur on the obvious grounds that in dubio pro reo. The point is that the observation is not very illuminating historically.
r
r
This
historically it is about as interesting as the (correct) observation that the ancient
Rhetorical versus semantic complexig Let us call the actual (surface-)grammatical and logical complexity of a sentence S the 'rhetorical complexity of S'. Let us call the complexity ofthe conjunction of the grammatically and logically simplest possible sentences which jointly are equivalent to Sthe 'semantic complex ity of S'. Given these very rough definitions, which will suffice for our present purposes, we can then formulate simply our concrete problem concerning the passages from Seneca and Demosthenes more rigorously: Do our sentences quoted or mentioned from Seneca and from Dcmosthenes show any semantic complexity beyond the articulatory power of Classical or Literary Chinese grammar?
'We are also in a position to formulate a more general and far-reaching question of comparative intellectual history: Can we find a significant set of Sanskrit,
Classical Greek and Classical Latin sentences (especially in the scientific and philo sophical
literature) which show a semantic complexity beyond the articulatory
power we have evidence ofin the preserved Classical and Literary Chinese texts?
Tra".�/atio"s ofphilosophical and logical texts info literary Chinese ''''hen it comes to the ability ofthe Chinese language to serve as a medium oflogical
disco urse, one's general confidence in Classical Chinest:: is not an an of faith. We
have the indigenous Chinese traditions of logical discourse as evidence. As for Literary Chinese, we have translations of highly technical Sanskrit Buddhist texts.
o
R. H. Robinson (1967), pp. 73-88, discusses in commendable detail the ments of KumarajTva (+344 to +413) as a translator, and he concludes:
achieve
t, :e > OS
To summarise the virtues and faults of this translation: The Chinese is often more explicit than the Sanskrit. It relies less heavily on anaphora and so is clearer. It sometimes supplies explanatory phrases, such as one finds in the prose paraphrases of Sanskrit commentaries. . . . The Chinese cope5 successfully \vith syntactic features such as the locative absolute and statements ofreason by means of ablative noun compounds. It possesses a device for han dling the highly-important abstract-noun suffixes . . . . ' I Robinson (lg6j), p. 87. Robinson aloo points OuI some weak points. but none of these are ofan n i e\�tabl" kind: they just sho", that Kum ar .. jI\-..'s team did not always do as ",dJ ;u the)' might ha\'e done.
LA:iGUAGE A�D L O G I C
Hsiian�Tsang's x.-� translations done in the +71h century mark a clear improve� ment over KumarajTva's. I Indeed, I have argued that Hsuan-Tsang's Classical Chinese version of N)'ii;yapravesa is more (not less) lucid and transparent than the Sanskrit original as we have it. Latin and Greek logical texts, for obvious historical reasons, have received less consistent and thorough attention from traditional Chinese translators, and the translations are correspondingly weaker.
Yiristoteles Senctls' and 'Platon Sericli.s>! 'When Christianity was reintroduced3 to China in Late �in'g timesl it too brought along its logic: the logical Organon ofAristotle. However1_Christianiry did not strike deep rOOts in Ming China. Correspondingly, Aristotelian logic (even more than Buddhist logic in the +7th century) remained a marginal phenomenon on the Chinese intellectual scene during the +I7th century, when it was introduced. Aristotelian logic practically disappeared from the Chinese scene until Yen Fu �m (I8'=>3 to 19:21) detached vVestern logic from Western religion and provided para phrased translations of "Villiam Stanley Jevons's (1835 to 1882) primer Logic (Chinese translation published 1908) as well as John Stuart Mill's �slem ofLogic (Chinese translation published 1905). Yen Fu's relative success is connected with his wise decision not to try to reproduce syntactic complexity but to go for a Literary Chinese paraphrase ofwhat he (often rightly) tholight was essential. It is symbolically significant that Indian logic came to China because the Chinese monk HsOan-Tsang -S� took the initiative to go to India. He returned with a num ber oflogical treatises which he felt weTC important in the context ofBuddhism. On his return, Hsuan-Tsang translated a little primer of Buddhist logic into Chinese, and this primer became the point of reference for the tradition ofBuddhist logic. By contrast, Aristolelian logic came to China because Father Francisco Furtado (+1587 to +1653)1 look the initiative to go to China, and he took along a very bulky, detailed and theoretically advanced scholastic treatment ofAristotelian logic in the form of the detailed standard handbook Commentarii Colkgii Conimbricensis e Societate Jesu in Universam Dldlecticam Amtotelis Stagiril<e, published in +1616. , I have compared the basic Samkrit logical work}{yayapr(l(.'I'ia with [he +ith-century Chinese lranslation by H,iian-Tsang. The rp.mlt1. of this cumpari,,'n are extremely Hatlering for Hsiian.Tsang·s p.tlOrt5 and will be reported in some dClail in my .'ection on Buddhi�t logic. Hstian.T�ang (!lund no unsurmounutble pwbl�ms with s}'IltaClic cumpl�ity in the Sanskrit. Having compared Hsuan-Tsang's leXt with th� Sanskrit original in comid erabl� detail, I mu" report that the Chinp.�e, if anything, is more - not less - transparent than the Sanskrit ori· ginaL Sun.-eying the general field of tTanslllti(lOs fwm Sansluit into Literal1' Chinese, one doe, not find that semanticcomplexity in SaIl5krit has prO\..:d to he an obviou, impedim..ntto the Chinese translators' succe�s. , Amon g Chinese tran.lations of !'lalo we note '\'u Hsien-Shu, Li_luu11'g Kuo, Commercial rreu, Shan ghai 1929, reprinted Shanghai [957, Y�n ChhUn-I, l'o-la-thu: Thai-a-tltai-It, Shanghai. Commerdal Pres. [96J, Chang Shih-Chu, l'u-Ia-thu IUli-/ma chi liu chwng, Shanghai, Commercial Pre�i !933, Chu Kuang-Chhien, Po-Ia-Ihu win·i lu.i-hua chi, Peking, P�ople's Publi,hing Company, 1963, reprint t980, Hu Hung-Shu, Pr,-la-Ihu Iwi·hua lu. Taipei, Cheng \Ven Book Cllmpany, 1966. -:21 ' �e'tllri:r.n Christianit y as well as 1..lanicheism havc a long history in China, going back tI. Thang times. , Furtado had become aJesuit n i +1608, arrived in i\Iacao "ilh Trigauh in +loI9,joined Li Chih-Tsao .$;;2:. 11 n i +1630 tllok (harge ofthc Christian funeral for Li Chih·Tsao. He later became i Hangchou from +[6�;) andn a leading mini()Ilary administrator.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
This hefty work was partly translated imo Chinese with me help ofLi Chih-Tsao * -:::... � (died +1630), a crucial figure in the history of Late Ming Christianity in China.' Li Chih-Tsao was a thoroughly experienced translator when he began [0 work together with Furtado on the Chinese translation of the Commentarii. His translation was really an adaptation. He. tried to make the material he translated more palatable by free adaptation, which involved the breaking down of long peri ods into shorter sentences. There is evidence in his translations that he had pre pared himse1flor the task by looking at some texts on Buddhist logic. HO\vever, he did not take over from Hsuan-Tsang and his Buddhist colleagues the indispensable iron discipline of terminology whieh is as important in Aristotle as it is in N),aya logic. The result was, from our point of view, a rather poor translation of Aristotle into Literary Chinese. But it is not at all dear to what extent the failure was due to insufficiencies ofthe Chinese language itself: Let us, then, consider the much more recent Chinese translations of Plato, par ticularly a LiteralY Chinese version of Plato's Republic, by"Vu Hsien-Shu (Shanghai 1929). Comparing trus translation with the Greek original and English translations, one soon learns to predict where in the Greek or English text Wu Hsien-Shu's Literary Chinese version would show itself unable to cope with the syntactic and logical complexities of the original. On the basis of such translations of Plato into Literary Chinese, one might be tempted to conclude thal Literary Chinese was indeed unable to articulate a predictable range of philosophically significant and syntactically complex passages in Plato's wrilings.� There is nothing inherently impossible about such a conclusion, and there cer tainly is nothing prejudiced or biased about contemplating the possibility that Literary Chinese has shown itself to be logically less powerful than Plato's mother tongue. The conclusion is not inconceivable, biased, or prejudiced. It simply needs care ful strictly philological verification. What at first sight appear to be limitations of Classical Chinese, often turn out upon doser investigation to be very Jargelylii1ii'fii="" ti'ons_
Wltl haptised 'Leo' in +1610, and who§c funeral he administe�d in Ihe samc �..,ar. Li was impressed 10 see Ihat
Ricci had ken able 10 draw a map of the world (fint puhlished in :'\'anking in +1600), and was dc-Iermined 10 Icarnwhat h., could aboUllhe approach that enabl�d Ricci 10 gel so far in canogmphy. Rieci had used Li as his i Li's Chinese translation Iranlliitor. A treati5� on geometr), and another one on arithmeric we� both published n in+1614· '1 In +1613, Li prcsclltcd
;/
166
LANCUAGE AND L O G I C
picture. Chang generally handles syntactic complexity with vastly greater inte\lcc lua] care and syntactic skill than Wu Hsicn-Shu or Hsiang Ta joJji. l
Having compared pans of the Greek original with the Literary Chinese trans lation,
I have to report that where one might have expected
the Literary Chinese
translation to give up in the face of syntactic complexity, Chang Shih-Ghu and Chang Tung-Sun usually manage: reasonably well to address lhis complexity with
the means available in Literary Chinese. One is led [0 the conclusion that as far as the above-mentioned five reprr.senlalivc works of Plato are concerned, the structur al and grammatical limitations orClassical and Literary Chinese are not such that they necessarily more than marginally affect the articulation of what Plato had to say in these pieces.
The point at hand is so important that I shall present to the reader a complex
in extenso with its English and Literary Chinese up his own mind. I have chosen Pro/agoras 3I3a,
Greek passage
translation, so that
he can make
because it presenb
some interesting syntactic challenges, Let us consider the famous translation by Benjamin Jowett (1817 to 1893). This classic English version was first published in 1871; we shall use the third edition, 18g'2 (vol.
I,
p. 134) and compare it with both the
Greek and the Literary Chinese. Hippocrates is about to become a follower of Protagoras the sophist. Socrates warns against this and says: ' JOWETT S TRANSLATIO:-;:
. . . Tfyou were going to commit your body to some: one, who
might do good or harm to it, would YOll not carefully consider and ask the opinion of your friends and kindred and ddiberate many days as to whether you should give him the care of the body? �
GREEK:
� £i j.Lel' TO oWj.La £r "f lTpllT£LI' 1]£ '.1.
• ,'
(0, TIP oW'(l1'8VI'{l)0I'Ta � XP'70TOI' aUTO Y£I'£o()aL " , • • , ' , T£ ./.. a " " TOV� QV, I{UI £i� OVP.!-'Ollll'7 'f' LIIOV,
" "lT o lllla , " al' 71"(P", I]I{£'f'W £iT f1TITPf7TT(OIJ (IT£ ." 1TOIITJPOIJ,
all "lTap£l{o.A£LS I{al TOV� oil{£{olls OI{07TOVj.L£IIOS �j.L£pUS OllX"Ct,·. GREEK LITERAL: Or f i on the one hand that you emrust th� bod}' to someone was
necessary, risking it either La hecom� good or bad, much you-would-have-c;
body, and upon lhe good or evil ofwhich depends the well-being ofyour all, GREEK:
0 oe 7T(PI' rrAflolloS Toii I]wp.o:ros �Y17' T�V .pVXTJ", I(al flo � 7TallT' £0.,.111 TO: O"a � Iv
� I("al("w!i" 1Tpo."TT£LII, XP'70Toii � 1ToVTjpoii au.,.oii yevop.(vov. CREEK LITERAL:
. . . what, on th� other hand, you consider as morc valuable than the
body, the soul. and in which r esides either the being well or not
being well
of all
(that is)
yours, (according to) the thing turning out good or bad . L incirlen(ally, Wu Hsicn-Shu �:a¢' seeml lO bL� a p�n nam e. Immerefn!.
i have been unabj� w ascertain to whom lh..
LANGUAGE A�D LOGIC
• II
.. ;a
It
J;\ 1If. 'II II! II! 111! ,�, @ ill �. l1li • 11'1 i! ;fr it # II!. •• I'l " It !II J'J
I!'l
lII!
1;1 *
U< 'If
• ID � iIt 11
j!ji 'It � ill it.
llt lII! Sf. m. fJT llt
&li Sf .
off fJT ;It !It
.i:',.
II p "
. 'i>J Z
=
! T
II!i 'I
i!Ii i& � II( i
Fig.
� � Z ,. '" it � � . 'fi � li!i:
� ;t Z !It •• A E/ ; � ? NT iJl' � lit. '" A ; M
Jl.
"
167
:i\
u:
lit J'J
:)I; J'J NT � A . lit l!II . lI!
til
ffij iJl'
'If
Z
� It !II 111
i'J< ; 111
,It
fi 11'1 ft
•. � A . ,�
±. 'i>J. 1I'1 Ul l'! 'If 'l' � lJl: " i'J< .Ill l& )iO iii III li< lI'i � *€ f'I NT
'i>J. 'If
ffij ffij !It ,i!f ltI � lit Z
.(;, •
PJT
II 'l' fJl �IJ 11 tt 'If 'If � Z
it
Z ,i!f f'I
Jt 1t M
# II! It lit it � ;It fl! . lI!
,�.
if! I'l !t Z
J;! 'II
III iJi: 11'1 lJl: it .Ill A ;§ JI! #
:$I; 1J 1< ;, ,
1i!; !Q Sf!
It . lI !It ;It Z lJl: .Ill .J;JJ #
� . iIt • af
PrQlagoras 313a....'. in Chang Shih·Chu'5Iranslation
CIIIl'\J::SE I.ITERAL: Now as for your relation to your own hean-spirit, you yourselfregard it as srill more valuable than your body, and the goodness or badness of all your affairs depends on the well-being or otherwise of the heart-spirit,
JOWETT: . . . about this you have never consulted either with your father or with your brother or with any one of us who arc your companions. But no sooner does this foreigner appear, than you instantly commit your wul to his keeping. GREEK: TffPI Of TOVTOV OU7-f TI{.! TfO-TPI oun TI{.! aOf),4>1{.! (Tf£KOIVWaW OV"'f �lA-wv TWV ETa{pwv ouofvi, fin (TTITPHTT£OV flTf 1(0.1 OU T� cl4"KOIA-£VIp Toun!' t£vo/ T�V cn)V ifs"xiJv,
168
LANGUAGE A N D L O G I C
GREEK LITERAL: . . . but about this neither with the father nor with the brother you have communicated, nor with nobody of us your friends, whether it should be entrusted or even not to this having-arrived foreigner the soul ofyours. CHI�ESE LITERAL: \Vhat do you do? You fail to discuss the matter with your father and your brother(s) and you do not take counsel with your friends in order to decide whether in fact you should or should not put your tfust in this newly arrived person hom a different country; .
J OWETT: Tn the evening, as you say, you hear ofhim, and in the morning you go to him, never deliberating or taking the opinion of any one as to whether you ought to entrust your self to him or not; . . GREEK: d),),'€V1Tipa, UKo uaas, di, rpiJ" opOpw, 7}KWV 71'�pi tt�V TOUTOV ov8,fvu A6yov ou8€
aUtt{30UAY,V 1TOlii, �lH Xp� (1TITp,f1T€tV aUUTOv UUT� €ZT€ tt�, GREEK LITERAL: . . . but in the eVf�ning having-heard, as you-say, at dawn having-come about these things, on-the-one-hand, YOll pay no account nor counselling about this, whcthcr it-is necessary to entrust yoursclfto him or not, . CHINESE LITERAL: . . but actually, according to what you rcport, hcaring in the evening about the man, you comc the ncxt morning to me asking for my approval, and as regards the qnestion whether you really should entrust your heart-spirit to this man or not, you do not at all proceed to consider your plans, neither do you discuss them with others, .
JOWETT: - you have quile made up your mind that you will at all hazards be a pupil of Protagoras, and are prepared to expend all the property of yourself and of your friends in carrying out at any price this determination . . . GREEK: JTO'ttO> 8' �l a,'u'\{aK€t1' Tel H aUUTOV Kat Tel nvv rp[AWV Xpr,ttaTU, di, �3lJ SI€YVWKWS" OTt 1T!lI'TW> auv�aT,fOI' IIpwTuyop q, GREEK LITERAL: but you are willing, on thc othcr hand, to spend your own and your friends' moncy, as if already having discerned that assuredly one should be with Protagoras, . CHINESE LITERAL: on the contrary you want to spend your own money as well as your friends' wealth, having stubbornly determined that you will certainly go along with him, even ifyou use up everything, J OWETT: . . . although, as you admit, you do not know him, and have never spoken with him: and you call him a Sophist, but are manifestly ignorant of what a Sophist is; and yet you are going to commit yourselfto his keeping. � � � . OUT€ " y,yvwaK€t" , GREEK: 01' W, 'l'TI" J.' HIT7}V 0�"OVOttU' (€t" • J. ' OUT€ O IHII€ "Ut OUO€1TW1TOT€ , a0'l' TOV D€ aocpWT�1' o·n 1TOT ,raT /V CPo.{l'!) dyvowl', ,;; ,dAA€I' ao.u7()1' €1TITp,f1THI'; GREEK LITERAL: . . . whom you neither know, as you say, nor even talked to ever, but a sophist you call him, but whatever the sophist is you appear to be ignorant of, to whom you are going to entrust yourself. CHINESE LITERAL: and yet when it comes to him, according to what you say, you do not even originally know him and have never talked to him; although you call him a disput er, you again do not know what kind of a thing a clever disputer is, and you are nonetheless determined to entrust your heart-spirit to him. ,,
.
•
"
,
,
.
)I English version even when onc would not punctuate the Greek
.Jo·wett chooses to break down the Greek sentences by using full stops in his in this way, and
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
1 69
when in any case John Burnet's edition of 1903 does not punctuate this way. Friedrich Schleiermachcr (+1 768 to 1834), in his classic German version of Plato's complete works first published 1804-10 (second edition 1855-62), reproduces the Greek sentence without ---using a single full stop, following roughly a punctuation like , � ....' l, · Burnet's.' -, -...;. There is always the possibility that other works by Plato (the Theaetetus, for example, or the Republic) do indeed pose significantly grcater syntactic obstacles to the Literary Chinese translator from the point of view that we are concerned with. On past experience ] am reluctant to predict that these obstacles will turn out insur mountable. None the less, the clear impression, based on a wide range of translations, remains this: logical and grammatical complexity poses markedly greater syntactic and grammatical difficulties for a translator into Literary Chinese than for one into Ciceronian Latin2 or into English. Part of the reason for this is very simply that Literary Chinese writers as well as readers arc not used to long and complex sentences. A given translator's mistakes may thus sometimes be arbitrary. On the other hand, they may also be sympto matic of the difficulties inherent in the specific task of translation in which he fails. There are structural reasons that make it likely that he should at least face severe difficulties. In Modern Standard Chinese we havt; a quite unique work of detailed Plato scholarship, Chhcn KJlang's �*'* Pa-man-ni-te-ssu phien t:::3 3tJE:;mJliTm (Chungking '944).3 The translation of Plato into Modern Chinese does raise its own fascinating problems regarding the profound 'o\'esternisation of Modern Standard Chinese, but our general conclusion is clear enough. Any disagreements I might have and do have with Chh/!:n Khang's translation arc very largely the sort of disagreements I might have and do have with French, English, or German translators. They are of no immediate consequence for our present enquiry, which is concerned with Literary Chinese. J Cf. flaUm, Siimllicht It"ke. ln dtr ()btrUl�ung ,'On F ridrich S
du deinen KOrpercinem an\"e"raucll sulhest aufdie Gerahr, ob cr g(".5t!l.rkt w�rd�n wilrde oderverdorben, d...nn wohl cnt \;plfaeh abed,,!!:en, ob du ilm ihm am"ertrau�n wontcst ooer oicht, er lrgend G�'pr�ch und Beratllng w pfiegen, ob dl! dieh ,elb st ihm hingeben sol],t oder !lichl, sondern ganz ben·it SGhon, dei" und deincr Fr�und� Vcrm1ig�n daran 2u w�n den, abu als w;l.re dicses schon fest beKhlo�n, daJ3 du aufaile Weise dlch mit Jem Prolagoras einlasscn muBt, welchel! du eloeh \.,..,dcr kenns t, wie du sagst, noch auchjemals g<:tpmchen hast; Inndern du nennst ihn emen Sophlsten, ahcr was ein sokh"T Sophisl eigemlich iSI, dem du dith sdbst iibergcben wills!, dacm z"igst du dich ganz uO\�issend. , Se" Ax (rg6j), pp. !SSb 187b, for a convenient bilingual Latin/Greek yer,ion ofthe 71mllt"S. Ji!F:- -r I M/"i",i> , Chu Kuang-ehhien·, translation ofrne Tlualllluswill prO\;dc particulacly important additional material for the study of Modern Chinese translations ofPlalo, sinGe Chu musl undoubtccly l rank as one oflhe China'sl�ad ing philosophers in the 20th GeotuT)'. Unronunatcl} � I ha\"l� nOI }'t:t �n able to procure Ihis book.
J
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
170
Comparing standard translations of the Bible into Literary and Modern Chinese, one certainly gets the impression that the task is significantly easier in Modern Chinese,l 'ConfociuJ Latinu5': Seraphin Couvreur Benveen +1654 and +1678, R. P. Ludovico Buglio, � (+1606 to +1682) began to four volumes of careful Literary Chinese translations from Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae,� which provide convincing evidence of the ability of the Literary Chinese language to articulate advanced systematic '''''estern thinking. However, it is evidently a biased test or the articulatory power of a foreign language to ask how well it can be used to translate Plato, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas. j\ '''·'e need to ask the other way round: how well equipped is, say, Latin or Greek to 'r I translate the philosoph i cal classics of China? Can one usc Latin or Greek to make literal paraphrases of the syntactic complexities in the Chinese classics? This is an empirical question which needs detailed and op en-minded study. vVe have a wide range of translations of Chinese classics into e cclesiastic later Latin.3 Stanislasjulien has provided the first attempt at a methodical and systemat ically literal paraphrase of a complete Chinese text in any European language. His Meng Tseu, vel Mencl1lm inter Sinenses philosophos ingenio, doctrina, nominisque claritate Con}Ucio proximum, edidit, Latina interpretatione, ad tnterpretationem tartaricam utramque · re(ensita, instruxit, et perpetuo commentano, e Sinicis deprompto, illustravit Stanislaus Julie/I, SocietatisAsiaticae et comites de Laste;'rie impensis (Lutetia:: Parisorum r824) is perhaps the most richly annotated translation of the Ming Tzu to date. julien's Latin shows how an ancient Chinese text can be expounded word byword in comprehensible Latin, with only very few changes in the Chinese word order. His many mistakes are not due to any features ofthe Latin language. They are due to failures ofStanislasjulien to understand the text properly. Scraphin Couvreur's literal I-,<,tin versions of the Four Books (Lun YU, Ming Tzu, Ta Hsiieh, Chung lung), of Shih Chmg, Shu Ching, and of Li Chi are less ambitiously systematic than those of the grammarian Stanislas julien, but they too provide ample testing ground for the question whether Latin can in principle provide a comprehensible, very literal word-by-word paraphrase, and whether such literal paraphrases give a defensible literal interpretation ofthe Classical Chinese original. publish
I In the case of Literary Chinese Hible translations, a, in the case of l.iterary Chin"'� Platn tran.lations, it is important not to attribut� weaknes.,e. of the Chine"" tran.lations to w�akn�"�' of the Literary Chin"s� lan guage "� such. Knotty pa��"!I,"es such a, th� o�nin!l," ofPaul'� utt�r to th� Colossiam, for �xample, are ()pa'lu� n i
early translations, hut\Vu Chin!l,"-H'iun!l,",,�£lJ'R ll.
how the medium of Litcrary Chincs� Can be 'H�d to tackle Paul's con\'olul�d prose both graccf"Uy and cm�icntly. \Vhat is tmll' hard to reproduce in Litcrary Chinesc is Paui"s anacoluthically abrupt and sometimes syntactically incoherent intense style, and his paremhetic remarks. For a bibliographic survey 01 Hible transla
tions into Chinese ,ee Spillett (197:;). For detailed analy�es otllve translations see Strandenaes (l gB7) .1
·
Cf. the beautiful new edition (Shanghai '9:W)
·
Eccie,ia.,t ic later Latin differs �\!h,tantially, of COUHe, from Cia.,.,iral l.atin. But not, I think, in way' that are
'"t",ry important fi)r our pres�,nt purpos�s.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
171
One will not always agree with COu\'Teur's (and even less with Julien's) interpre tations, but COU\'Teur has undoubtedly shown Latin w be an eminently viable - d medium in which to provide word-by-word paraphrases ofthe Chinese c1assics. l In the area of syntactic complexity, Latin seems to cope quite easily and quite painlessly with just the kinds ofproblems that cause so much trouble for Cla'isical or Literary Chinese literal paraphrases ofLatin. Classical or Literary Chinese could certainly not be used to provide literal para phrases for the Latin Classics.
R. P.
Ludovico Bugiio, SJ, did not and could not
anempt a literal word-by-word paraphrase of Thomas Aquinas' text, although he provides remarkably careful Literary Chinese translations from the Summa lheologiae. Indeed, he wisely chooses to provide only selective translations. Li Chih-Tsao, as \\"1: have noted above, encountered severe problems in translating Aristotle's categories.
Concluding remarks It will be healthy to start out with some remarks A.
C.
Graham made a long time
ago:
The pre.ent study does not encourage one to take it for granted that Chinese i� either better or worse- than English as an instrument of thought; each language has its own sources of confusion.�6lneofwhich are exposed by translation into the Olher."� All comp arisons such as those I have summarised above raise �erious doubts and queries: Are the reflections I have presented so far ultimately no more than a rather complex expression of basically simple cuhural prejudice on the part of a biased Western observer? Such prejudice need not be malicious. It can simply be a reflection ofthe fact that the writer ofthese lines grew up with Latin and Greek, and did not grow up with Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese. Such doubts and suspicions concerning the psychology ofcross-cultural compar ison deserve to be taken seriously. As we have seen in our survey of the history of sinology in the \A/cst, there is a long tradition ofprejudice. None the less I confidently conclude, firstly, that Classical Chinese writers show a very considerably Ie-sser tendency to use rhetorical and semantic complexity (in the technical sense's we have indicated above) than Classical Greek or Latin writers. To the extent that the habit of reliably decoding highly complex articulated meanings constitutes a mental exercise that may be healthy for the conduct of , That l.atin (pani<:ularly ecdnia'tic Ullin ,,�th in Christian terminolngkal m..::rtones) faces tn,mendou! tcr minologi�a.1 difficulties when used to trans[:nc Chines� texts, goes with
1 72
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
science insofar as science involves very complex interrelations between statements that need to be made explicit, aspiring scientists who were learning Classical Chinese were at a certain disadvantage when compared with speakers of Classical Greek or Latin. But, on the other hand, I suppose one might add that writers of Classical Chinese might have been led to acquire greater skills of simplification. It seems profoundly significant that, when in logic classes one learns to translate sentences from natural languages into logical notation, one performs tasks that much of the time remind one strongly orthe kinds oftasks one would perform ifone had to translate that same sentence into Classical Chinese: one performs a process oflogical 'factorisation' and reduction to the simplest possible form. I conclude, secondly, that Classical Greek and Latin show a much greater sys tematic ability unambiguously and transparently to articulate logical and gram matical complexity than the comparable Classical or Literary Chinese. To the extent that the rhetorically or semantically very complex sentences which cannot be reproduced in Classical or Literary Chinese should prove to be a significant aid in explicating, questioning and developing an overall view of a com plicated constellation of scientific theories, the traditional Chinese scientists would also appear to be at a clear linguistic disadvantage. Of special cultural interest is the grammatical possibility of a parenthesis which is present in Greek and Latin, since this allows for spontaneity of expression of current thoughts. This possibility is strongly discouraged by the structure of the Literary Chinese language. A parenthesis has to be expressed as an aftcrthought when it may be too late. A truly parenthetic thinker is unthinkable in Classical Chinese. (Except that one feels Chuang Tzu comes pretty close to being a paren thetic thinker without using intra-sentential parentheses!) Even on the technical grammatical point one must not generalise toO freely. Here is a neat and unquestionable parenthesis from the great independent thinker Li Chih \\'hich was pointed out to me byJacques Gernet: Although he has never bowed to me as a master - he knows that I am unwilling to be the master ofanybody -still he has already sevc:ral times sent people over distances ofthirty Ii to ask about the Law. Even ifI ,vanted to not repl)� could I?l
In spite of a striking example like this one, it remains significant that the paren thetic construction is very important in Indo-European languages and exceedingly rare in Chinese.2 Our results, even if accepted, raise a host of further questions: how intellectually important was it for the development of Socrates' thought that the Greek language, which he inherited from his forefathers, encouraged him lO speak in sentences as complex as those in \vhich he spoke, and how important is it that his language would have allowed him to speak much more complexly still without difficulty?
, Li Chih $�, FblShu HsiiFro Shu �.ilI�., ed. Chung-hua-shu-chii, p. 183_ , C[ Schwyzer (!939) and the brilliant ,he,i! by jI,·licbad mn Albrnhl ('964). The study oftbe par"nth�,i, n i .\iodern Chines� is an important '!1bj�Cl for fumre re,�arch.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
'73
How uilimate{y essentiaL in the intellectual life of a person or a culture is the ability to speak in very complex sentences such as would be hard or impossible to translate into Literary Chinese?l To what extent is the extra logical and syntactic power of Latin and Greek culturally and intellectually operative and functional? These are wide open questions which lie beyond the scope of our present enquiry.� They must be studied against the background of a wide range ofphilolog ical facts regarding Latin, Greek and Chinese. They are not matters for abstract philosophical or linguistic speculation or dogmatism. There is ample scope for a detailed and wide-ranging cultural study entitled something like Piaton Sen'cuJ, which would take up questions concerning the general hislOry of ideas: how much of the essence of Plato's thought can be rendered in sayable Classical Chinese or in readable Literary Chinese, and for that mattcr in Modern Standard Chinese? Whcre are the main losses in plausibility as Plato's views are transposed into the Chinese linguistic tOnality or medium? Could it be that what does not travel across to such a very different language is in some philo sophically significant way parochially Greek or Indo�European? Should not philos ophy in principle aspire to rise above such parochialism? Should we not distrust what is parochial in Plato? Since A. N, Whitehead could plausibly claim] that all ofWestern philosophy was mere footnotes to Plato, these mjght seem to be questions ofsome consequence. (d) L O G I C A L C O NCEPTS
(1) PU:-JCTUATION
AND THE CONCEPT OF A SENTENCE
In Section (C,2) we have seen that the ancient Chinese had sentence connectives. But did they also have the notion of a sentence as opposed to that of a text, a word or a character? And did they have the notion of a proposition as distinct from the sentence which can be used to express it? Let us look at the simpler notion of the sentence first. The rambling sentence (to use Y. R, Chao's phrase), in which sentence bound aries between clause, phrase and sentence are vague, is common in ancient Chinese texts (as indeed it is in Classical Greek!) and it survives as a natural part of modern spoken Chinese. Only the rigid conventions of modern typography enforce strict sentence limits (full stops) where the language itself imposes no such hard�and-fast division. There are many independent questions about the sentence which deserve a sep arate study. I Similarl}� howintelle<:tuaUy important was it thatCI�icalChine� had a concept ofa class, but perhaps no wnccpt ofa property or characteri,tk:? , It n pcrhap! u�ful lO 5ay e\�n al this point, though, that it does notseem from that pn:!ent enquiry Ihal the syntactic and grammalical limitation! were th€ most important ,ingle faClor 'haping Chinese Kienlific thought lhrough il$ histor),. Other social and n i tellel:lUaI factors"�n, appan:ntlymuch man: important. , Whitehead (19�9), p. 53-
1 74
LANGL'AGE AND L O G I C
Could the ancient Chinese unambiguously mark off �t:ntcncc boundaries when theywished to? 2. Did the ancient Chinese mark offsentence boundaries when they needed to? 3. Did the ancient Chinese have an unambiguous concept of the sentence as opposed to that oCthe word, passage or text"? I.
Thegrammatical characterisation r:fthe sentence
There is no doubt that the ancient Chinese could fl.'\{ emphatic sentence boundaries when they needed or wanted to. A wide range of Classical Chinese particles (on one ifnot all oftheir distinct interpretations) clearly mark out sentence boundaries. The following are rules that allow us to recognise explicit sentence boundaries in ancient Chinese texts.
.J
\\.'hem:vcr one sees the extremcly common particle i �, one may safely assume that a narrative or descriptive verbal sentence has come to an end. Already the dictionary Shuo Wen Chieh Tzu iill.y:m� (postface +100) defines i as a sen tence-final particle. \Vhatever exceptions there are to this rule are motivated by evident emphatic transpositions. \'Vhenever one sees the common particle hu 1"- used as a question marker, one may safely assume that the interrogative sentence to which it belongs ends in hu. \Vhenever one sees the question markers ),ii M or ),eh !Hj/lID, one may again assume that an interrogative sentence is coming to an end. Whenever one sees the (hard-to-dcfinc) final particle i 8 (literally: 'to finish'), one may again assume that a sentence is coming to an end. VV'henever one sees the common combination erh i (i) ffif8� 'and that is all' or one of its variants erh 1+ and erlt m, one may saldy assume that a generalising verbal sentence is coming to an end. :�vforeover, the ubiquitous panide}Jch fu provides a natural place to look for a sen tence boundary even though that particle also has what one may be inclined to interpret as sentence-internal functions.l These rules should not be taken to obscure the fact that Classical Chinese does not have a grammatical particle the exclusive function ofwhich is to mark sentence boundaries. Sentence-final particles in Chinese always have a certain modal -force. They are added at the end of sentences to indicate a certain modal nuance. Only incidentally do these particles mark sentence boundaries. v I loreover, the fact remains that many Chinese sentences do not make use of sentence-final particles, and there was in pre-Han times no known form ofpunctu ation which unambiguously indicated the end of a sentence. Even more than in the case of Classical Greek, sentence boundaries could be left vague. , For a remarkably detailed n i troduction to the ledmi'l ue, {)n� may u,� to punC\uate Classical Chinese sen· lenc�, ,�� W\l T"mg(J!}88), pp. 527 86.
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
)
, as
on..
one The ><m
urne lady sen aled one n!w.
'75
Now, for example, to conclude that the Chinese had a poorly developed sense of historical time or comexlual definiteness since they often do not make these cate gories explicit in their sentences would be plainly absurd. For example, few peoples are more time-conscious than the Chinese, and the elaborate tense system of the Sanskrit language has not prevented the Indians from paying considerably kss attention to the dimensions of time and chronology than the Chinese.1 Similarly I believe we must be vcry carefw indeed not to imply that the Chinese lacked a sense fOT the selHence simply because they often do not find it necessary or expedient to indicate explicit sentence boundaries. The fact that they can unam biguously indicate sentence boundaries proves conclusively that they do have an operative concept ofa sentence. Without such an operative concept they would not be able to learn where to use their own sentence-final grammatical particles. Having said this, we still can and must inquire whether the Chinese have in fact marked sentence boundaries when this was necessary. The crucial difficulty here is the inherent ambiguity of the word 'necessary': necessary to whom? \Ve can soon agree that the Chinese have often failed to mark sentence boundaries when it would have been convenient for us to see them marked. The lack of explicit sentence boundaries made Classical Chinese more arcane than it might have been, but it clearly did not make the written language incomprehensible.
pm
Punctuation
hi,
Classical Chinese and Classical Greek texts, like modern Chinese texts, were tradi tionally written in a kind of scriptura continua in which word-boundaries are not marked by empty spaces, The consistent printed punctuation of all texts in China is a phenomenon which belongs to the 20th century. The cffect ofscriptura continua on the reader is easily reproduccd in English by wTiting out the beginning of Benjamin Jowett's translation of Plato's Republic:
0' or bing
sen
!d to
IWENl'OOWNYESTERDAYTOTHEPEIRAI::U SWITHGLAUCONTHESONOFARISTONTUATIMI GHTOFn:RUPMYPRAY£RSTOTHECODD£liSANDALS08ECAUSEIWANTEDTOSEEIl\WHATM
docs ence )rce. C>nly '" of lCtu H he
rs.t:n-
ANNERTHEYWOULDCEI.EL8RATETH£FESTIVALWHICHWASANEW1'HIXGIWASDELIGHTE DWITHTHEPROCJ:: S SIOXOFTHEINHARITANTSBUTTHATQFTHJ::THRACIANSWASJ:: Q.UALLY IFNQTMO REBEAUT IFUI.
"Vhen one uses scriptura continua in Chinese, the inconvenience is much slighter because the character boundaries (unlike the letters) conveniently mark out the boundaries of the morphemes - and to a large extent of the words, Thus as long as scriptura continua was used, the ancient Chinese were at a distinct advantage com pared with the Europeans. I The ora<:1c bon" inS(:riptiom, which are more than 3,00<.> years old, alr�adr thow a curious t.,ndency to dat" �\"'nt$, 'I'he ChJwn Chhiu annl\.ls dating to p<:rhaps the �jth century are fl1lJ ofexact chronological detaiL The 1'i:.11 Chh i Thurzg Chim (+1084) provides a m�ticulously da\�d chronicle Ofl,326 y"ar� of hislory,
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
,
\'Vhen, on the other hand, the Europeans started early to mark word boundaries with gaps, I and clause boundaries as well as sentence boundaries with various marks, they developed a system which was dearly more convenient than the Chinese. Traditionally the Chinese have made up for part of this disadvantage by an extensive use ofparallclism as an aid to the parsing of sentences. Compare the case ofSanskrit. Word boundaries are not marked in the DevanagarT script. But the earliest sizeable body ofSanskrittcxts we have are the Asoka inscrip tions on rocks and columns in India. These inscriptions, as has long been noticed, have gaps in the text at certain predictable places, and these gaps can be viewed as a form ofpunctuation. The punCluation gaps occurred predictably in the following places: I. after every sentence, 2. between two words loosely in apposition, 3. after every item in an enumeration or listing. There were also further gaps marking more idiosyncratic and scribally optional gaps in addition, and in this way the gaps served as an organising parsing system for the language.2 From its beg1nnings, writ ten Sanskrit has remained a fairly consistently punctuated language throughout its history, although it must be emphasised that the punctuation by strokes and double strokes of Sanskrit scribes is far from entirely regular and pr�dictabJe.3 \Ne have -jth-century Greek inscriptions in which phras�s were sometimes separ ated by a vertical row of two or three points. In some of the oldest papyrus versions of literary texts we find a horizontal line called the paragraplws or paragraphe (,that which is written alongside') which was placed under the beginningofa line in which a new topic was introduced. Aristotle comments on this in Rheioric 142oa19, empha sising that the end of a sentence should be marked not only dia fin paragrapkin (by the paragraph-marker) but by rhythm. In Greece, the discovery of the principles of punctuation is ascribed to the great Alexandrian lexicographer and philologist Aristophanes of Byzantium (c. -257 to c. -IBo). Aristophanes of Byzantium is said to have marked the end ofa short sec4 tion (called a Iwmma) by a point after the middle of its last letter, that of a longer sec tion (known as a kolon)4 by a point on the line, following thp. bottom of the lener, and that ofthe longest section (known as periodos) by a point above the line, following the letter. The komma and the kolon would seem to correspond to the traditional Chinese tou rJ and chii 1l], while the periodoscorresponds naturally to the chang 15: in Chinese tradition. The question mark first emerged in the +Bth or +gth centuries in the \-Vest, when it was written as our semicolon (;). In the Chinese tradition, the question mark \vas I Note thal sincp. word boundaries are nOUlriomly und�ar ev�n in madtrn Chinese, th� splem of marking such boundaries br gaps would II¥. quite diffir.ult to introducl" !'ven toda)". cr. haenko (1957), which includes an ellcell�nt e�y on wmd boundaries in modern Chinese (pp. 2.p-:-I(8). The Chines� literaturl" on the subj�C1 is vut. t There actually is a monograph on the punctuation gaps in thl" AMIul inscriptions: Klaus LudwigJan"rt (1972). I owe this referenc" to Georg vOn Simson. , Probably under Sanskrit influence, "Titten Tibelan has trom its ,·ery beginnings "5 we know lhem, had a consinent tradition ofPUlKtll"tinn in addition to Ihe wealth of Tibetan grammatical markel"li indicating clause and St"ntence ends. • Cict:ro mentions these Gre�k (("rm! in 0,.1110,62, 211.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
'US
he by art
ip
:d.
sa
ng leT ,...,
�
it
its
,Ie
never introduced independently from the ''''estern tradition. This I S readily explained by the fact that the question-marking final particles combined with the explicit question words lend to suffice for making questions explicil. Latin texts were often written in scriptura continua, but occasionally word bound aries were marked with a dot from the -1st to the t-2nd centuries. The first consis tently punctuated book we have is the Vulgate Bible by St Jerome (died +420). Jerome devised his own punctuationper cola ei commala which was designed to facili tate lhe reading aloud of the text, especially in ceremonial contexts. Punctuation, for Jerome, served a primarily elocutionary rather than a grammatically clari ficatory purpose. In the +12th century intonational punctuation, based on the musical notalion of neumes, became common, the punctuJ elevatus, the punctus interrogatillus and the punc tU.f circumjlexus, the latter designating a rising inflection at the end of subordinate clauses. Even in Elizabethan times punctuation was almost entirely elocutionary ralher than syntactic in nature. In +1556, Aldo Manuzio ofltaly became the first to advocate the view that clarification of syntax is the main object ofpunctuation, in his book Orthographiae ratio. In England, BenJonson was the first to voice a similar view in his Enghrh Grammar (+1640},1
ns la'
ch la
he "" '0
:c:c od
he ;se ;se
China The case of China is markedly different.2 In the oldest inscriptions we have from the oracle bones, punctuation, even in the form of gaps indicating pauses, is so erratic that no systematic pattern emerges. From the \'\'arring States period onwards we find marking ofparagraphs,� but the various synlbols we find on many bamboo strips do not coherently relate to the notion of a sentence in which we are interested. There is certainly no obligatory marking ofsentence ends by gaps or othenvisc. On the face ofit, all the punctuation devices in the Ma-wang-tui manuscripts of the Lao Tzu taken together (-'2nd cen (" tury), for example, do not add up to any recognisable and coherent pattern. Theyi-t> . constitute an epigraphic puzzle to be solved by future palaeographers. Certainly, there is no generally regular marking ofclauses. Even less is ther e a regular marking of whole sentences. \'Vhat we have ofpunctuation, as opposed to grammar, would not give us any set of reliable clues at all to sentence boundaries and clause bound aries in Classical Chinese.4 , ).Iy accoun! h�rc i, ba,�d on the ma'terly survey of Brown (1984). FQr details onthe Greek case see Turner (19.71), pp. 9-16. For intomLlional aSlw,·ts of punctuation sec P�t�r-(' 1� 95� tuatiou n i --r:li7.abr:lhan times see l'arlriage (19(4), ch•. 1'4> 1;), and appendix vi ii. fur a thorough �Iudy orth� German case n i cumparaLin: pcupecth� sec .4J�xander Biding (1880). J 1.0 Ssu-).[i<:n (193Q), wrillen only ten years after the beginning ofthc current use ofpunctuat ion n i China, is the cla,sic contribution to the history ofpunctuation in China. 1 Afamou! datable example is the 1 Chi'IStext pres"T"ved on silk, and datin!! apparently from -, 68, where each
� ��b�
d. -
comment first on the main meaning of a hexagram
systemaLicaily marked offuy dots_ Compar� 11'u-u'l"iHan·,lrun, pp. lOr. •
and then on cach of lhe individual lines n i the hexagram is
,-
LA1'\GUAG£ AXD L O G I C
The Han Hi Tzu (-3rd century) preserves a story which became the ancestor of innumerable Chinese popularjokes about incorn:cl puncluation: Duke Ai asked Confucius: �-J,E)1, is that true?'
'I
have heard it said that Khuei had one leg (Kh11.a i Is11.
'Khuei is a man. How should hI:"" have one leg? That man has no other distinctions, he is only good at music. Vao said: "Khuei is good
Here is an intriguing example from the Book of Ritual (Li Chi), where a certain Shih I approaches the Duke of Chou for approval of a certain course ofacnon: The Duke of Chou said (or meant to say); 'How? That is not acceptable ! (chhi pu kilo
�/f'"5J)!'
Shih I went ahead with his plan.
Here the commentator Ch eng Hsiian titl z (+12j to HOo) explains that Shih I failed to understand thal one must break the sentence after the chhi .:l§t 'how?' and took the Duke of Chou to give his approval. The commentator Cheng Hsuan writes [his extraordinary comment: The Duke of Chou says: 'How?' End ofsemence (chiith chi) t@1:i]). This means 'How should this be? End ofsentence (chii£h chii).' In relation to ritual this is unacceptable. End of sentence (chiith chiiJ.l
If punctuation had been a known standard procedure at all during his time, the great Cheng Hstian would surely never have written in this cumbersome way. The art of parsing texts correctly was rer.ognised as a central educational achievement. In the same Book ofRirual (Li Chi) we read: After the first year (of instruction) aile examines whether (the children) parse the classics and distinguish meaningli {li chingpin! chih w.'£�ffl:m)..'
Ch eng Hsuan explains Ii ching M� 'parsing the dassics' as tuan chii chiith .m.1:i]� ' cu tting offwhere the phrase ends'.� Khung Ying-"j'a fL�Ji:l* explains li ching as 'they caused the paragraphs and sentences to be separated (shih chang chii tuan chiieh)'eh 1t�1'i]f6!#iStJ1.)' . \Nang Chhung .:EJC (+2j to +100) commends ·voracious readers for having acquired the skill of parsing (or punctuating) texts (shen ting win tou if m 5C�).1; Probably \Vang Chhungjust thought of a correct placing of pauses when n�ading out a text, possibly when declaiming it aloud. As we have seen, such declamatory practice was important in the history of punctuation in the \'Vest. 7 i one thing. That is , Confucius, in his answer, will punctual�: lJw.,i i. Tsu !f- . ,!!L. 'Khu..i is speciaH�ed n ', -� .-... enough.' t HanFti 1(U 33. [5.22; cf. Liao (1939), vol. 2, pp. 7[[ J l.i Chi, cd. Shill San Chingchu �hu, p. 140[, middle column. , IiChi, �d. Cou\Teur, \'01. 2, p. 30. ' Li Chi chi-auh, ed. Sun Hsi-Tan, I!,}"IVK, \"01. 10, p. {. • LIn Hmg, ed. Chung-hua .hu-<:hu, p. 7n; Cr. fOTk� \1'1. 2, p. 295. , Kao Yu (jloruitaround HOj to +212) lells m that he learnt to 'put comml\la and �mps (chii IOU ii);!I) and to chant' wh�n he .....as young. (preface lo Huai-,,"/111 ·Tzu, cd. Liu \Vi'u·Tien, p. 2a.)
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
• ,
,
'79
Bur the dictionary Shuo Wen Chieh Tzu�Xm* (+100) already defines a written punctuation mark in the form ora dot as 'by this we know that there is a break (yu so chueh chih fiPJT#.Mll:.),. \ The same book also defines a hook which was used as a punctuating device. The Records of the Grand Historian Ssuma Chhien �,�jI (-145 to c. -89) preserve a passage where the hook is even used verbally meaning 'to put in a hook'.2 The standard term for the parsing of texts into clauses during the Han dynasty was chang chii �1:i].3 Ho Hsiu fnJf* (+!29 to +182) speaks of the parsing or punctuat ing of sentences by c!tii tou tJ'aE 'stops and commas' in the preface to his edition of the Kun,lt Yang 0$ Commentary,"' and he reports that the cases of people making fools of themselves by misplacing punctuation marks are innumerable. The chii tv, wc are inclined to say, marks off a sentence, and the tau til a clause, although we do not know how precise the distinction was in Ho Hsiu's mind any more than we know how precise the distincrion was among traditional punctuators of European books.s Lo Ssu-Mien (1.930), p. 13, makes a good case for maintaining that the terms lou and chii were synonymous rhyming terms during Han times, both being used simply to mark any break, which could also be called chueh ;i@. By Thang times the nolion ofthe sentence is clear enough, but perhaps significantly it is first articulated by a Buddhist Thien-thai monk by the name of ChanJan who explains: In any sutra, wh�re an ult�rancc br�aks off, we 5p�ak ofa (hu b]. vVh�rc th� utt�ranc� is not
yet broken offand we put a dot for convenient reading, this is called a tau �.6
Punctuation, then, was certainly known from Han times onwards. But the Tun Huang manuscripts dating from the +6th to +lOth centuries still provide few consis tent clues on punctuation. There often is evidence that such punctuation as we find in these manuscripts is later than the original writing ilSelf. Through the ages we do find punctuated books, especially in the imperial libraries. YOeh Kho ffiJiij (+1183 to +1234) reports that imperial books, as opposed to other books, in his time had punctuation, and he notes that this is convenient for the reader.7 Ku Chieh-Kang �� \jlJIJ has examined a Song copy of one ofYtieh Kho's works and finds that in it there is a distinction between full stops, marked in place of a character, and what corresponds to our commas, marked by the side of the character after which they arc to be construed. The mammoth work rung 1.0 To. Tim -jj(�*!Jt! ''''Titlen out in 11,095 volumes by +I4oB, for example, was profusely and consistently marked - at least in the case of those facsimile volumes I have seen t.1 -with red punctuation marks ofelaborate kinds. From Ming times onwards, proper names were sometimes, marked off by a straight line along their left side in certain punctuated editions. Place names were, at this time, marked wirh a double straight line, also along the left side, in such editions. In early ehhing times we find a straight J Cf. Chu71g-wm Tn u;u-tim, vol. I, p. 442. : Shih C hi 126, ed. Tak.igawa, p_ '5. Th" pa.>ii
180
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
line across the breadth of a character used to indicate a unit smaller than a para graph but often containing several
sentences.
Unforlunately, from mid-ehhing
times onwards the increasing use of punctuation came to be felt to be a vulgar innovation, and the movement was rather abruptly discontinued. None the less, even the great philogologisl Wang Yin-Chih.I.i3 lz (+1766 to +1834) made a point
commentary on the Kuang Ya !Ii � Chuan Shih Tzhu m.flIj"� in punctuated editions. I
of privately printing his famous well as his
Chng i
dictionary as
But, to take one example of infinitely many, the scholar Tuan Yo·'D;hai �.:£-a
(+1735 to +1815) to whom we owe a fine commentary on the dictionary
Shuo Win Chuh Tzu �>cm�,� \vhen he found occasion to insist on a certain punctuation of his outstanding work, resorted to writing the character fou m at the relevant place. He, and many others before and after him, could not imagine imposing on his
printers such a vulgar and unseemly thin g as printing a punctuation mark would have been.J It must be emphasised none the less that punctuation of Chinese texts is useful enough even to the most learned of Chinese scholars.'! The art of traditional punctuation of Chinese texts
(chii iou £] at)
has received
detailed attention in a monograph by Wu I, published in +1789, and it remains a
respectable discipline.s for example, Yang Shu-Ta's m:fl'ijji classic Ku Shu
Shih Li 3':w£]�n{7lJ (second edn.
Chii You
1954) contains careful analyses of 168 classified
H.ice
cases of controversies over punctuation of classical te.xts. One oflhese must su for our purposes:
Chi KhangTzu asked: 'How can on.:: inculcat.:: in the common people th.:: \-inu.:: ofrever
ene.::, ofdoing their best and ofenthusiasm?'
The Master said: 'Rule over them with dignity and they will be reverent; treat them with kindness and they will do their best. Raise the good and instruCt those who are backward and they will be imbued with enthusiasm.'t;
Here it turns out that the traditional punctuation wants us to read: 'Raise the good and instruct them. Then those without ability will feci encouraged', as many
early quotations show. Modern interpreters have preferred the punctuation we have taken over above from D. C . Lau. Examples of this sort are not hard to find, but one must keep in mind that they are not hard to come by in Greek texts either. The insistence on coherent and
rigid printed
punctuation of texts in China
emerged along with the May-fourth-Movement in the early 20th century, the campaign for the popu!arisafiml and· democratisation of knowledge, and with the movement for writing in the
C hinese vernacular.
The only form of punctuation
that was ever rigourously and systematically applied to a wide range of books and , For n i formation on these two dictionaries ."" our Section (6,5) 00 the history ofdictionaries in China. , See our Section (b,;,} on the art oflcxicography in traditional China. ' Cr. TuanYii··Ehai (1.981), p. 717. Beginnings ofparagraph.• were oflen marlr.ed�· cr i cle.• in Sung editions. Howevcc, une might add that even the beginnings of new paragnlphs often go unmarlr.ed n i Clankal Chinese books. As I write the.e lines, I look al Lu Wen-Chhao·s .!I..X:m (+[7[7 to+'796) edition ofChia 1'. HJill Shu ifafl., Wi,:, eh. 8, p. Sb, where this scholar has to write the characters i llIall 'one paragraph' into Ihe le)(t in order to leU th� r�ad..rwhat is happening. , For a convenient acCOUnl of this work see Chang Ti-Hua II Q/. (/gB8), p. 236 . •
•
UI1I1ii2.20;r.f. Lau('g83a), P·lj.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
' .::. _
'I
r8I
t>'v
texts was a basically vVelaern kind ofpunctuation,' and the movement for systematic punctuation, curiously enough, wentaIong ,vith the abandonment of Classical Chinese as the general medium ofpublication. Even after the success of the modern vernacular as a medium of written
communication there were those, like the great scholar Hsiung Shih-Li n�+1J
(1885-1965), who not only continued to write in Classical Chinese but also contin ued to write unpunctuated books. It appears that the first emergence ofpunctuation was roughly contemporary in China and Greece. But while punctuation in Greece and in Europe was a compara tively trivial maller, the morphology of the language supplying ample cues for fairly reliable punctuation, the art ofpunctuating a Chinese text has remained a task that has had to be entrusted to men of considerable learning. A recent example of this being the series ofthe twenty-four dynastic histories punctuated by one of the great est historians of his time, Ku Chieh-Kang"�IiijI� , during the 1960s. By and large the vast majority ofLiterary Chinese texts were printed in unpunc tuated editions until the 20th century. Punctuation was regarded as vulgar. The pre sumption was that those who deserved to understand these books would naturally be able to punctuate them properly. Literary Chinese was never a natural medium for popularisation, and the elitist nature of Chinese written culture has, in this instance, led to a refusal to make these texts marc accessible through coherent punctuation. 'Ve must nOt fail to record an aesthetic reaction to punctuation, par ticularly lypical of the middle and late Chhing, which still survives. To a seasoned Chinese scholar, an unpunctuatedtext has something virginal about it.Just as thcre
is a special pleasure in lhal liresome cutting open ofa new French book, so there is a
sublime quiet joy in punctuating a Classical Chinese edition as one reads it for the first time. After all, Classical Chinese was never meant for the impatient modern rf'ader. Classical Chinese texts are meant to be savoured slowly by people who have the leisure to punctuate them.
The concepi ifa sentence or a statement There are synta<.:tic contexts or frames in Classical Chinese which must be filled in with a declarative sentence or a statement. Thus said) . . . ', and
wu wen chih � !*l z
. . .
ku (yueh) � S
. .
.
'therefore (it is
'I have heard it said that . . .'2 are patterns
where the empty places arc expected to be filled with statements rather than any other string of words. In order to fill in the right sort oflinguistic forms the ancient Chinese must have had an operative notion of a statement versus other strings. But is there a word or a technical term in Classical Chinese for the sentence or the statement versus other strings? The most common ancient Chinese word for a sen tence would be the general)'en
�
.
.
'speech':
I TradilionaUy, (he Chinese used (hre<: kinds ofmarks: th.. full stop, indicated by a circle, and conuna as well
as indicated b�' a dash, a special duh to mark off item. in li.t. or other co-ordinate structures. I
u Chi Chi Chull, Than AMI!,(, cd. Sun Hsi-Tan, voL 2, p. 59-
I·
LAKGtlAGE AND L O G I C
Thc �'1aster Prerect has addressed to me nine sentences (dziu),tn :ft,-§'): (I) 'Do not begin to cause trouble! (2) Do not trust wealth� (3) Do nOI rely on fa\'our! (4) Do not go against com mon opinion! ('» Do nmlak.e r itual/politeness lightly! (6) Do not take pride in your abilities! (7) 00 not get angry a second time (i. e., do not bear grudges)! (8) Do not plan what goes against your moral power! (9) Do not commit "'hat goes against your duty. '
The ancient Greeks were in a similar condition and lIsed their similarly vague logos 'speech, word' for a sentence. In Sanskrit we have the equally vague viik}'a. However, Diogenes Laenius reports:
He (An tislhenes (-444 to -365) wa.� the first lO defi ne lhe sentence (logos) saying: 'The sen tence is that which makes clear (dewn) that which is or wlucll will be.'� ',Ve can see that the only word Antisthene� could find for 'sentence' is still logos. lo�os not in terms orthe spe aker 's intended meaning but in terms of obj c: ctive semantics. Aristotle (-384 to -322) coined a technical term to express the precise idea of a declarative statem ent (apophasis), ancl he makes the logically crucial distinction betwef'n declarative and non-declarative Sf'l1tences. And he defines the
Evt'ry st'ntencc (wgos) signifies, but not cvery sentence is declarative (apophanlik05): only those sentences in which onc can be right or wrong are dcdarati\'l'. For example a prayt'T may be a sentence, hut it is neither true nor false.' In -grd-century legal lanb 'llage tdIU lit was a technical term, apparently for a statemeIll by the defendant, but we do not know how far back this legal term goes: Tht' person who makes a statement makes this statement in the court.'
used the tf'ch nical term tz/Iu 'formula to call a selHence (as opposed to the words Urn -g) and texts (j-hu �)). But we find no dear explicit definition of the declarative versus non-declarative sentence like that jusl quoted from Aristotle. Let us look at some usages of the word t<.hu where we suspect it must mean something Similarly, anCif'Ill Chinese philosophers
tion, sentenl.:e' to designate what we are inclined
like 'sentence'. i The srntence (l<.hu) combines the nam(';s for difTerem realities to brng out one intended mcaning (i�). ';
In
a l arge
number of other contexts tzhu invites the translation 'sentence', but
'rormulation' would do as well.
The sentence (tzhu � is the extcrnal expression of an intrnded meaning (i g). To conccn trale on the extt'rnal expressio n but Lo discard the intended meaning is comradictory.6
, 1�" Ch"n1l, nuke Ting. of fu, ed. Yang Pu-Ch, ln. p. '5.\2; cf. COli'rcur(195Ib), vuL 3, p_ 51.16_ Di()K"n..� \.a�rlius, I'if(uphiloJoplwrwn 6.3. ed. R. I). Hicks, l.oo!b Classical LUran', n,L '1. p. 4. , lk /n/npwntitm, 'Ja ' . \ HuI;;cwe (19115), Di9. ' HSlm T�" 22.39; cr. KoSIer (1967), p. '139· • Ut Shih Chhu" Ckhiu ,8·4, ed. Chhen Chhi·Yu, p. , '79; rf. \\'ilhelm (T928), p. 303. 1
LA�GUAGE AND
LOGIC
In many ca�es sentenees (U;hu) seem (0 b e wrongbut are right, o r they seem to b e right but arc wrong. The guiding line of right and wrong (Jhihjd ,hih (hing£�f��) should be studied. I
The Later Mohists usc t<.hu as a technical term, as A. C. Graham has shown: One uses names (ming ::g ) to refer to objects, and one uses sentences (tdlu) to bring out intended meanings (i).�
Thc �;;...�ion Names and Objects from the 1'vIl)hist Dialectical Chapters deals with the problem of deciding whether apparemly parallel ..entences are really similar. vVe read:
The sentence (tdlu) is that which is cng(';ndered n i accordance with a ku OX ·what is Ix:hind it, reason', becomes full-grown in accordance with a pattern, and proceeds n i accordance with its kind."' Moreover, when the same section makes a distinction between knowing and hav ing an image, it would appear (hat it focusses on knowledge being knowledge of a sentence or statement being true, whereas 'having an image' implies no suchjudge
mem on the truth of a sentence. � We shall discuss Later .rvIohist reRections on logic and lan guage in Sec tion {,[,1). But it is worth noting that \'Vang Chhung, who was not particularly interested in the abstract science of logic, did have a clear concept of a sentence. ''''ang Chhung writes:
When written character� ha\·c a (complete) intended meaning (i), they make up a sentence (,hii tJ). When there arc a certain number of sentences (,hil), we string togcther paragraphs (chang �) by means of them. '''''hen paragraphs have a certain coherent structure, we i the largest unit of sentenCes and make chapters (phim m) of them. The chapter (phitn) s paragraphs.:; The commentators of the Hnd and +3rd centuries liked to call their work� ,hang
ckii 'r�'N
in paragraphs and sentence�', the most well-known of these being Chao
Chhi's mUiR (died +200) Ming T
to this work we find a convenient listing orearly examples of'this genre.to
The literary critic Liu Hsieh §'"1J� (+4.65 to +562) makes a sequence tzu :'f= 'char
acter, word', ckif 'sentence', chang 'paragraph' and phien 'chapter' .
When men write literature, they make sentences (chU) un the basis of characters (U;u), they put together sentences to make paragraphs (chan.0. and they put together paragraphs to make chapters (phiLn). , . A sentcnc('; (chit) deploys several characters, and these must link up before the sentence can be used.') , Lii Shi" CMun CMiu 11.2.::" ed. Cilh�n Chhi-Yu. p. 1527; cf Wilhdm (1928), p. 401. ' Graham(19i8), .,<0 IO. I ibid. • Gr..ham ('978), 'iU 3. Han",n (19H.'i) ary;uel that the anci�nt Chil1esc did!lO! ha\'� a cunccpt ofa S�OlCJl(:�. He provides no new philological c\i(\cJ1<'e to .opport his ca�e. � un Heng, cd. Chung-hu",.shu.r.hli, p. 1j89; c[ Furke (19! I), II. 451. " Mb.g 'Tzu Clufll, l. �d. Sllt:n \\'cn-Cho, p. 311.. , lV' m Hfln Tiao l.ung, eh. H. ed. Lu Khan-Ju and Unu Shih·Chin. \,,,1. 2. p. '77. Cf (lgH:I), p. ,86.
LANGUAGE
AND L O G I C
Yen Chih-Thuci �ztt£ (+531 to after +590) describes the function orthe (mostly sentence-final) particle),eh as fo]]o\.,..s: Yehi!! is a word that finishes a sentence and aids punctuation (chu chii lttiiiJ).1
Yen Chih-Thuei goes on to note quite accurately that),th is sometimes used after what we would call the subject, and is not always obligatory. I am inclined to agrt.:c with Yen Chih-Thuei: )'eh tE tends to tell us where sen tences end, That is indet.:d why yell is such a useful and ubiquitous particle in Classical and Literary Chinese. Sentence-final grammatical particles likcyeh carry much of the parsing burden that is carried by punctuation in Vlestern languages. One might suspect that the Chinese were unable to distinguish between the clause and the sentence, since they usc the same punctuation mark for both. However, this is a dangerous assumption, because it is open to refutation by exam ples slich as this one I came upon in the sayings attribllted to Chu Hsi *� (+1 130 Lo +!200) where he quotes Hsiin Tzu 3.16: 'The gentleman, when he has large ambi tions, will act according to Heaven and he will act according to the Way. ''''hen he has small ambitions, he will stand in awe of righteousness and he will be restrained.: There are many clauses here. But Chu Hsi is absolutely right when he takes it [hat there arc exactly two sentences: These two sentences arc well said (t:::.hll trh chii shuo-ti hao itt.=. -5Jmmtff).l
The sentence (chii ii]), for Chu Hsi, seems closely connected to [he concept of a point made (tao Ii m:J!l[).3 Discussing the correct way of reading, Chu Hsi comments: One sentence (chu) makes the point (mo Ii) of onc scntence. \Vhen you have exhausti\·cly studied one semencc, you have got hold of the poim made by this sentence. \Vhen you read books, then after you have understood the meanings of the characters, you should ponder what the sages were driving at. I In Classical Chinese the correct parsing of sentences is aided in crucial ways by the pervasive use of parallelism. This is one of the subjects we have taken up above. (2) THE CONCEPT O F MEA:NJNG Ifwe wish to understand Chinese conceptions oflal1guage and its relation to reality, we must begin by looking closely at the way in which the Chinese speak about the meanings ofwords, phrases, sentences and lexts.5 Did they ever use words which we are entitled to translate as 'meaning'? What did they attribute meaning to? To speakers using expressions? To the expressions as used in a given context? Or to I ttn Shih ell;" Hsiin, ch. 17; c[ Teng Ssu-ytl (1968), p. 161. , Chu u.u til&{. ed. Wallg Ii.ing-Hsien, p. 325i: .
• The fan t.hat Chu Hsi occasionally uscs chiilii] loosely (much in the "'ay we u'"the word '..,n!ence') 10 r"fe, to subordinate sentences Ore\"en ..mbcdded sentences need not detain us here.
• Chu UU li'iLn,ed. Wang Hsmg-Hsien, p. 297H.
.' Cf. in this mnneClion H.,.. ('97�).
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
:m.Iy
as such? These are imporlam questions for an understanding o f the philosophy oflanguage which is either explicit or implicit in Chinese. e.xpressions
The meanings of characters are described in the traditional Chinese dictionar ies.' Sentence meanings are often expounded in the vast traditional commentarial
iller
literature from the -3rd century onwards. The meanings oftexts are systemacically
sen
J\1eng Tzu by Chao Chhi mil&. (died HOI) contains for each separate item (chang a) a separate intended import of the item (chang chih it §'). Taken lOgetht:r, the dictio
expounded as such in some commentaries. For example, the commentary to the
e m
orr)" .. the
oth.
am
naries and the commentaries give abundant evidence that the Chinese were much
preoccupied with questions regarding the meanings ofwords, sentences and texts. of lau:r Chinese phi l osophy consisted in
Indeed, not the least important pan
attempts to explain and �y�lemalist: earlier texts in a fashion that reminds us of the scholastic tradition in the West.
to
In the Chinese tradition, words arc taken to have meanings primarily in so far as
nbi
they function in concrete utlerances on concrete occasions. A commentary gloss on
he
a word will not tell you what that word as such means, but rather what the word is
; 0
n
led.·
that
used to convey in the concrete context.
A dictionary entry will tell you not really what a word as such means but rather ha:; been taken to mean in con<.:Tete contexts by various authoritative com mentators or interpreters. Dictionaries originated as collections of glosses. Chao
what it
Chhi, whom we havejust referred to, will not tell you what a sentence as such means ofa
bUl what in hi� opinion it was used to convey in one particular context. The notion
nlS:
of context-free meaning of a sentence as such is not current in traditional China.
!\'ely "ad ilder
rays
Definitions,
as we have seen in Section (b,4), tend to be of a thing, a value etc.
Definitions of the meaning of a word tend to be definitions of the meaning of that word as used by a certain person on a certain occasion in a certain communicative context. The formal definitions of the Later Mohist logicians and the ethical definitions ofChia I provide neal exceptions (0 this generalisation.1
, up
' LogoctrZlnsm We may imagine a logocentric civilisation which focuses on ,vhat is said or written down, on sentences, on what these senLences objeccively mean, and on whether these sentences - so understood in accordance with their linguistic meaning - are
lif)', the
uic. The dominant culture in India, certainly, was almost obsessively logocentric.
Iwe
The fixation on Vedic truth is symptomatic ofthis logocentrism.
actually true. Greek civilisation was, I think, in this sense predominantly logocen
To
China is not in this sense a predominantly logocen tric civilisation. It is a civilisa
r to
tion which concentrates not on what words as such mean, but rather on what peo ple really intended
to convey by using these words. The Chinese sec sentences as
deeply embedded in personal and social reality. The meaning of sentences was not , Cf. Ollr Sllb·,<:nion (b..j), on traditional Ch;n�s� kxicography. , Se� Section (b,..) on ddin;t;OIl for delil.�s.
,86
LA�GUAGE AND L O G I C
for them a grammatical and lexical question. It was a historical question. Sentences are only messengers (shihur.) for meaning, they are not takt:�n to articulate meaning literally. In China, the crucial semantic concept is not that of sentence meaning but of speaker's meaning. The Chinese were preoccupied with the speaker's intended meaning and the intended import ofwords. That is why we have so little in the way of literal dogmatism in Confucianism. There was no inquisition which tested what people said against a set of dO,gmala, Lehrsdt<.c, or a corpus ofexplicit doctrinal truths. The history of these explicit doctrinal truths is the history of logocentrism. The his tOry of strictly scriptural fundamentalist theology in the West can be interpreted as the history of logo centric textual fetishism. Christianity was able to become a heavily doctrinal religion because it emerged in a logocentric culture in Europe. It became an obsessively logocentrie religion under the influence of Martin Luther's insistence on Scripture as the sale authority. Buddhism, originally not logocentric in the least, grew into a textual and doctrinal religion because it emerged in a fiercely logocentric Indian cultural context. Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, aU lhe indigenous ancient Chinese 'schools' of thought were non·doctrinal in the sense that they did not define a Credo and a body of truths defining an orthodoxy. The form ofBuddhism lhat became mOSt intcllec· mally significant in China, Chhan or Zen, was also non-doctrinal. \'\'e might say that Chhan Buddhism is defiantly and outrageously anti·logocentric. It would be interesting to investigate '""hether Buddhism in China generally remained less logo centric than it was in India. The l\rlohists, on the other hand, did define their 'ten doctrines'. 1 These were more like ten topics or items on a party programme, but they do come the closest I know to a proper catechism ofa creed in ancient China. They include religious top ics (The will of Heaven, Elucidating the spirits), 'philosophical' issw.:s (Rejecting destiny, Universal love), political aims (Elevating worth, Conforming to superiors, Rejecting aggression), and moral precepts (Economy in funerals, Economy in expenditure, Rejecting music). :'>.10 Tzu said: 'My words are: worth using! Rejecting these \\'ords and e:ngaging in ne:w reflections is like: omitting the: harve:st and coHecting stray grains instead. To use one's words lO refute mywords is like thrmv:ing eggs against a rock. One can use: up the world's eggs, but the stone: is still right. It cannot be destroyed.'2
Mo Tzu certainly feels his philosophical position is unassailable, but still he emphasises the use rather than anything like the objective truth of his words. He may, in this sense,justiy be called a pragmatist. Of course, Confucius's sayings and Mo Tzu's sayings were collected because these sayings were felt to be important. Chinese culture was much preoccupied with the written word and was in that sense logocentric. But these sayings were important for what they 'were ultimately trying to get at, not for what they actually articulated. , Cf. Gralul.m (1976),pp. 14am11
' MI1 � u4i, �nd; O. "-lei
(1929), p. 229.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
The hermeneutics of these texts is personal (what did Confucius mean?), not scrip tural or iogocf':mric (what does the text mean?). It is only when one understands this fine distinction that one can truly appreciate the philosophical spirit of Chinese commentarial literature and Chinese concepts ofmeaning.
AskingJor the meaning qfsol1lething It is hard to documem or demonstrate within a brief space that the Mohists as well as the other philosophers were predominantly non-logocentric in their attitude towards their work. Chinese philosophers could ask what sentences and words meant. Let us look at the questions of this son that they did ask. Predominantly, Confucians were concerned with moral values: 'What is called "goodness" (ho wei jin 1nJlWft)?' (Meng Tzu 7B2S), " Vhat is called "good faith"?' (Ming Tzu 7B25), 'What is callcd "to set one's mind on high principles"?' (Meng Tzu 7A33). These questions are not ontological like Plato's 'vVhat is the beautful (ti estin to kalan, Tl Eon" Te) Ka.'\O") , , they are linguistic and psychological: 'What does one call/do we call/is called goodness?'. Similar observations apply to questions like 'Whal is called "the \Vay"?' (Chuang Tzu II.72), 'What is called a "true man" (ho wei chinjen (iiJ'iiW � A.)' (Chuang Tzu 6.9 and 6.20) and passages like 'What is called "sit and forget" (ho wei tso wang {iiJffiil*�)? . . . This is called "to sit and forget" (tdlU wei Iso wang .llt.iW1ili:.;B).' (Chuang Tzu 6.92)1 All these are formulated as linguistic rather than ontological questions as the use of the crucial word wei ID'l 'call' indicatt:s. The subject ofwei' call' is the person who uses the name in question. Thus we could have translated, and perhaps should have translated: "'\That do we call "the Way"?', etc. Of course, many of such questions are not concerned direcLly with values, but they stiU concern the imended meaning of a speaker rather than the inherent meaning or essence of a word. Tzu Chang ask�d: 'What must a gentleman be likc before he will win through?'
Confucius ask�d back : " ·Vhat on earth do you mean by "winning through (ho lsai irh so wei /a chi fiiJ·�mfffWi!i�:a)?'� The ylaster said : 'Raise the straight and set them over the crooked. This can make the crooked straight.' What did he: mean (ho wei),eh iUJtmt!!)?'l "
Again, the Mohists ask 'What do you call "the three basics" (110 wei san pen fiiJ� =;;$:)?' (Mo Tzu 9.15) ',"Vhat do you call "the three standards"?' (AlIa Tzu 35.7). These are requests for a specification of a certain list which the person asked is supposed to have in mind. Han Fei Tzu 9.1 on The Eight Villainies asks no less than eight times for conceptual clarification within a context: 'What do we call/what is called X (110 wei fiiJ� X)?' gives a general explanation of a villainy, and then concludes: 'This is what we call/is , Cf. also Chuurw T {)I 17.51f., 19.53, 20.56, 20.59, 20.60. " l.u" 17i 12.20; cf. l.au (198]a). p. 117.
s um 111 12.22; cr. Lau (1983a), p. 117. For mo� qu�stion� aboul the lIIeallill� of CJl;prcssiolls M:c bn 1. 2.5, 3.8,3.13, .!-IS; 101.010, 2<1.2.
188
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
called x.' Again, the tenth chapter of the same book, '\Vhat dowe call X (hsi wei
The Ten FauLts, asks lcn times
�Wi X)?' and provides examples often faults. Note that
aU these questions are marked as linguistic by the verb wei -m !call not an ontolo ". ave been expect cal \�rb LikeE! i'itis' or wei 'tur n into, counts as', which wo k ed in Gree . �
,
�
'i.ifc:lh
The Chinese were perfectly able and indeed sometimes inclined to ask what words mean, but even when a hostile Mohist by name of! Tzu asks McngTzu 'what this phrase means', he is interested in the significance, the intended meaning, not the literal interpretation ofthe form of words as such.
According to the Way of the Conrucians the rulers of old 'acted as if they were tending a new-born baby'. What do these words rerer to (t;:)m)'en ho wei)'ehLltgfar�ih)? In my opin ion it m�ans that there should be no gradations in love, though the practice orit begins with one's parents. I 'Vhat one matter:
l: )
-v
__
p
wei ID!i
X 'calls
"X'"
or 'means by
"X"
,
is recognised as a subjective
What I caU 'profit' is the root of righteousness. What lhe world calls 'righteousness' is the way orcrueh:y. 1 Another important semantic verb iSJii � 'to make one's meaning plain; to indi
cate by metaphor, a metaphor'.
Yu is a psychologlcal concept,
neatly in the following pair ofexamples :
as is demonstrated
Speech ()'m §) is the means by which onc makes plain (yu) intended meaning (i:@V In general the purpose ofspeech ()'m) is to make plain ()'U) what is on one's mind (janytll
chi i)'ii hJinyell fl�:t'l..;J.ij;JJL,tQ.).'
n, as far as we can ascertain, refers to the putting across by a person of his thoughts and more particularly his communicative intentions:
Ir names and objeclS are not unravelled, ifthe noble and the base is unclear, ifthe identical and the different are not distinguished, ifthings are like this, then we arc sure to have trouble over the (communicative) intention (chih :t) not being made plain (),U).l It is nOl a word or a sentence as such whichyiis anything, it is a person using words or other means. fi , ,\Ii,¥: u.1ly.s; cf. Lau (1983c), p. II I . l Sha,¥: CJiii� Skll, rh. 7, ed. Kao H�ng, p. n cf. Duyvendak (1928), p. :130. I ,
!
Iii Shih Chh�n CIIMu 18.+, �d. Chhel1 Chhi-Yu, p. 1177; cf. Wilhelm (1928), p. 300. Iii Shili Chhun Chlrill 18.5. ed. ehhe" Chhi-Yu, p. II8j;d Wilhelm (19�8), p. 30.. H.iin T.t/I 22.l3; cr. B. Watson (1963), p. I"I.
_
• Cf. the follo,,�ngpauage from Millg T � _rr.
That whleh a gemleman 10110"'3 as his natuft'-, that is to �ay, benevolence, rightness, the rite, and wisdom, is rooted in his hearl, and manife!t� itselfin hi� face, giving il a sleek appearance. It also shows in his back and exu,nds to hi, limbs. rendering their meaning plain without speaking (pIlJt1l irhJ'ii ::ftrirntdl). (Mfng nu 7...:1[; cr. uU ([g83C), p. 27[)
It is only when thinss show in his facial expres>ion or whcli lhey com., out through his voice thaI his meaning becomes plain (rhfngyu il/a)'11 shinglrh hVIIJu W��Q-:¥.'Jlffii1i�l (Ming nu 6815; cr. I.all (Ig83C), p. 763)
LA).IGUAGE AND L O G I C
18g
Nominalised ,oncepLs qfmeaning Let us turn to the concept i � which we often gloss as 'intended meaning', The Shuo Wen Chith Tzu �3clYf¥ (postface +lOO) defines: l'intcnded meaning' means intention (chih:t:) . intended meaning (i). 1
. .
When examining words one understands
The binome chih i iiS':� 'imention and inlended meaning' is significant:
The Hu and Yueh people do not understand each other's languages. They cannot commu nicate intentions and intended meanings (chill i),2 but whc n mountainous waves arise about the boat they share, lhey rescue one another as though they were one groUp.3
Hsijn Tzu commonly uses the compound ,hilt i ;:G;�: Those 'words and sen tcnc es' are messengers of the intentions and purport (chih i).� they arc sufficient to communicate, one dismis�es them (the words and sente nees) .�
\Nhen
The famous thien i:7:::� oflVlo Tzu are 'the intentions ofHeaven' which man must follow. Quite frequently Mo Tzu also refer s to thun chill :7:::-Z 'the lillent of Heaven', and the distinction between these two concepts is not clear. In any case, the Ihien i are notjust Heaven's impressions, or thoughts, or images in its heavenly mind. The thien j involves heavenly imentions/wishes regarding matters on Earth. In the human sphere, Mo Tzu uses the term i in a similar way: 'Suppose there is a fire. One person is fetching water to extinguish it, and another is hold ing some fud to make the fire worsc. Neither of them has yet done anything. Which one
would you value more highly?' ,\Vu 10fa Tzu replied: 1 approve of the intentions (i ¥') of the one who fetches water and disapprove ofthe n i tentions (i) of the one who holds fucl.' Mo Tzu continued: 'And I, too, approvc ofmy in te ntions and disapprovc ofyours.''' '
/ is used to refer to the intentionality of an action, e.g., when one moves of one's own accord as opposed to being moved by someone else.7 When applied to speech, we understand the i to refer tojust this sort of intentionality. However, there is another side to the concept of i. The word can come to mean something close to 'thought' and then 'idea', 'mental image': Therefore the gentleman mu�l make his conscious mind sincere. 'Making one's thoughts (i) sincere ' means 'to make sure one does not cheat oneself'.� What one can explain with words is the crude side of things. vVhat one can reach with one's thought (i) is the subtle side of things. But what words cannot explain and what the , Tuan Yii·tshai (/981), p. 50:z.
, Cf. 1m �u ChIulIl CMiu, cd. Wu Tse-Yii, pr. IH:z£, or another usc ofmill;pu thung��::fJi, this time to indio Cat" that CnnfuciU$could not communicate hi� m i "minns and intendedmeaning(to th" rulers whom he tried to
convince).
, Chall t."w! lilu, no. 450; cr. Crump ([970). p. J16 . • [take chih i z:i: to be th" !am� in meaning as cnih i:!':ft. cr. )'Juruha
' .n, H,�h, ed. l-tgge, p. 366,
LANGUAGE A)lD LOGIC mind cannot reach - that is beyond the reahn of the crude and the subtle aspects of things. I
Therefore that by means of which
1'""'''11 ft{).'
people imagine (i hsiang �:w.) tbing� is called an image
Hsiin Tzu speaks of the senses producin g 'images (i)' of things3 by which we decide whethe r thin gs belong to the same class or not. Ne.xt, i comes to mean 'what one intends to convey ', 'what one intends to communicate' or 'intended meaning'. The purpose ofspeech was seen in terms ofthought or intended meaning (i): Hearing is the sensibility of the ear; to attend to what you hear so that you grasp the n i tend· ed meaning{i} is discernment by the mind. Saying is the flow orthe tonhrue; to make a case forwhat you say so that your intended meaning (i) can be seen is the subtlety of the mind.I Fish-traps are the means by which one catches fish. Once one has the fish, one forgets the traps.
Hare-traps are the means by which one catches hares. Onno: one has caught the hare, one
forgets the traps. \Vords are the
means by which to get to the inu:nded meaning (i). Once one forgets the words.0;
one has Ihe
intended meaning (i),
Is this 'forgetting the words' not a characteristic sign of a non-logocentric tradi tion? In any case, the sentiment here expressed is by no means limited to the book Chuang Tzu: In ancient times people would disregard word� once they had got the intended meaning (i).
\Vhw one listens to words, one uses the words to catch sight ofthe intended meaning (I').�
,"Vhal we tentatively translate as 'inte nded meaning' primarily attaches to the person. Jt is a psychological concept describing nOt the meaning attached to speech or words as such but meaning as intended by the speaker. One might of course simply translate i by 'thought', and this would make for smoother reading, but the thought involved is essentially linked with the communi cation ofit, it is a thought or image as intended to be understood by some audience. Chuang Tzu even distinguishes benveen the meaning one is intending to convey, and the ultimate point one is trying to get at: A book is no more than sayings. But there is something that is the most valuable in speech. That which is the most valuable thing in speech is the intended meaning (i). The intended meaning (i) has something it pursues. But whal il pursues cannot be transmitted in words.! vVords do not exhaust intended meaning (i). Does this mean that we cannot get a glimpse ofwhat the Sages intended to communicate? The Ylaster said: 'The Sages established the diagrams in order exhausti"dy to bring out tbeir intended meanings (i).'8 t
j
!
•
Chuang nu 17.�+; c.[ Wat_on (196.;.), p. 178. ' Han "�i n" 20.28.4; c.f. LiaO (1939), yol. I, p. 193. Hsii� T(u 22.,6; cf. \Vauon (19U3), p. 142. ' Graham (1 9i8), ,,0 9. Ckllo1ll 'f{u. 26'4R, tr. Grah�m (1981), p. rgo. Lii SIIih Chi1l1n CMu.. 18'4, cd. ChbeD ehhi-Y", 1'. 1179; cf. Wilhelm ('92R), p. 303.
, 0111<1111 T o- '3.65; c[ Graham (1981), p. '39· • IC hing, Hsi u.hu, cd. Kao Heng, p. Sol'; d. Sung (1969), p. 3,,2.
LAKGUAGE A�D L O G I C
Hsiin Tzu, o n the other hand,
speaks as if intended meaning (i) is indeed con
veyed by words, and his usage comes closest in ancient Chinese literature to that of sentence meaning as opposed to speaker's meaning:
•
"
In a sentence (t.dIU �) we combine the names of diHercnt realities to explicate (fun ��) onc intended meaning (1').1
One's general intended meaning is Seen in contrast with factual instantiatin g
1-
o
• • •
; I.
details:
lfyoll omit details offaCl and put fOI"\\iard your intended meaning (i), you will be said to be weak-minded a nd less than thorough-going.'
When trylng to persuade someone, Han Fei feels one do(�s need to make plain one's intended m eaning (i): Difficulties in persuasion, generally speaking, arc not difficulties rdating to the knowledge with which to persuade someone. Neither are: [hey difficulties rdating to my rhetoric (pien M) being able to make plain my intended meaning (i) . . . Generally speaking, the difficulty in persuasion relates to one's understanding oflhe mind ofthe person one persuades, and to the ability to make one's persuasion fit his mind.1
FinaUy, it is imporlam lO remember thal lhc notion of i 'int�nded meaning' is by no means limited to philosophical discourse. W'hen King Hui ofChhin says:
'I want to order \-\7u_l\n Tzu-Chhi to go and convey this meaninglthought (i g)! b
"
1-
Th� thoughl ill question is not about something the king intends to do, it is some thing he intends to communicate, namely the thought that the various states arc as likely to be united as two cocks arc to share the same perch.
•
The technical term 'chih' 1m
y,
The dictionary ShuQ '1-'in Chieh
Tzu ;i&xlW* (postface +100) explains:
, d
The first (type: of character) is called 'referring \0 a matter (chih shih m$),. When one sees a graph ofthis type, it may be understood on seeing it. By looking at it one sees the: intended meaning (i). The graphs shmlg 1: 'above' and hsia' r 'below' are of this sort.\
II
thing, and by looking al a character one may rc<.:ognise its intended meaning (i).
For Hsti Shen �1tJi (died c. +149), a characler points to (chih) a state of affairs or
, HJiin 41122.[6; <:£. "'auon ([963), p. [42. > Han Fti U,II [:2.3.44; d. Llao (HJ39J. \'01. [, p. [08. Th� tal::*;::t is the o,"""mll intended purport ofwhat nne is .a)�ng. (Cf. Han Fti U,1I 12+32). , lIan F �i '1!1I [�. [.1; cf. Liao (1939), vol. 1, p. 106. , Chan KilO CHin [,3, cd. Chu Tm-Keng, p. 139; cr. Crump (1!:I70), p. 59. , Preface to th� Shu� Will. Ttlarl Yii-Tshai (198T), p. 755; cf. Them (1<.)66), p. 9. )lotc that th� t�rm i � 'in tended mcaninj( (;fluid applr (0 the meaning 01 lexical itcms a.' such. For detailed comm�nt see Hsiang Hsia
uht.
('974). pp. 38ff.
LANGUAGE A)..'D L O G I C
The original meaning of ckih m was 'finger', then 'to point to v..;th a finger', 'to
indicate'. I
Therefore, when the name i� sufficient to point out (chih) the object, .md the sufficient to di�play it to the utmost, one goc:s no further.2
sentence
The main use of chih ' to indicate, to point to' was nominal. The word came to mean something like ' intended import' . Synonymity of words is explicitly described in terms of identity of intended
i by Chuang Tzu: import (chll)
The three words chou f,!iJ, phitll �, and hsien � arc different terms for the same reality (shih �; their intended impOrt is one and the same (chhi chih iJ'eh ��-1:B).� This example is important because it clearly and explicitly attaches the notion of
intended import (chih) not to a speaker who intends to convey it but rather to a word to which it is attachcd.1
The intent ((11m) Oike the intended meaning i) is something one can try to bring out or dredge out, as in the following passage which is uniquely rich in semantic vocabulary:
The disputant distinguishes separate kinds of things so that they do not interrere with each other, arranges in sequences different starting-points so that they do not conruse each other, brings out his intended meanings (i�) and makes the intent (lhih) intelligible, and clarifies what he has to say (ming chhi so wei gij :;lt. FJT �)_ He shares his knowledge with others and makes it his business not to mislead them.:' Wang Chhung .:E3t writes ormcn ofliterary accomplishments: They dredge out the meaning and illlellt (ofthe books) (shu chhi j chih ff:lt�J�).� The Chinese stylistic ideal is beautifully described - and exemplified - in a pas sage from the Han Shu ��: His styk is concise, but the illlent (chih $) is plain_1 The Chhun ChhiuFan Lu �tk�S, a book ofuncertain date which probably found something like its present shape some time around the +5tl1 century, but which con tains much earlier material, points out: , There is a good acrount of the itman!ics of(irih 1fj in G,.aham (1979). pp. 54711".
, Hsun -I(.II. �2.50; d. Walson (1963), p. 149. Cf. ..IJO Hsun u..u 22. 'oj.. D .� CAII.DrIg 1z" 22.47. Graham ('9711), p. 459, lranslates 'These thr�." din" � ,Pitll .. and mitt! � . ar., cliff.,r.,nt name$ ror 1I11:: same object.' However, it jlj not dear how these th,..,., wurd� can be COnstrued as names "f au
object. and ofth� .ame object. Tit" �{ohut d"flllilion ofchin 1t! 'all' al; 'none no! so' (Graham ('978), "43) .hows that the Later M"hi.ts in 3l1)' casc did not commit such a seriol.lS logical blunder as it would h.- to TCgard a quantifier \u II proper "arne ofaa object. I do not think JkiII J( can heTC ha l meaning ·concr..t., \".. it.. I..chair... object'. I It is clear that this meaning do�s nOI fall under the cl..finition ·th.. dir�cti()n in which discourse poinu. its i Graham (1 9i8), p. 4)8. meaning or drift, themainpointin cnntra�t "ilh d�tail. or .id� issut:s' as gi"en n Han Shih IVai Chunn 6.6, .,d. Hsu \\'�i·Vii, p. 208; d. High tower (19jl), p. t96, alld Graham (1�:178), p. �o. \
, IJJn Hlng, "d. ChUllg-hua shu-chu, p. 777) d. Forke (1911). "01. 2, p. 295. , Han Shu. ell. 53, ed. Chung-hu" "hu-chu, p. 2411
LANGUAGE A)oO L O G I C )
,
1 93
Sentences (l�hu iI¥) cannot reach. It all depends on the intent {chih} , . . When one has seen the intent (chih), one does not rely on the words. Only when someone does not rely on the formulations {or: sentences) (lZhu), can he come dose to the Way, I
Conclusions
,
OUf survey of nouns meaning 'meaning' is by
no means complete. For example,
sometimes verbs like wei 1iW 'to call' are used in an ad hoc way as nouns, as when we arc told:
\Vords are subservient to f.:unvcyedmeaning ()'rn chi wci chh i shuytll 1f::g-�Z�if!.). 2
,f d g £
We conclude that the ancient Chinese did not tend to attribute meanings to sen tences as such. Rather, they tended to attribute intended meanings to users of sen tences.s This tendency naturally connects with the elliptic nature ofmany Chinese sentences. The speaker's meaning contains much that is understood and not explic it in the overt sentences he uses. For the Chinese, then, a sentence would not nat urally be regarded as a picture or representation of what it means. Instead, it is naturally taken as a contextually sufficient indicaLOr to direct the audience to the
h
meaning intended by the user, or to the user's thought. That thought, then, may or may not represent a fact. But that is a different question which will be addressed in our Section on the concept of truth.
(3) THE CONCEPT OF TRUTH
We have seen that the ancient Chinese had logical sentence connectives and the notion ofa sentence. But did they have the notion ofthe truth ofsentences?
,-
Note first that the ancient Chinese, unlike the ancient Greeks and their Western
successors, distinguished carefully benveen problems ofthe all-important taom 'the
right way ofgoing about things', and the more ordinary questions of truth as 'bdng the case', for which they had a variety of words some of which will be introduced
,d
n-
below. The subjective moral truth one lives by (Sanskrit dharma) translates naturally into tao in Classical Chinese (although the Buddhist translators actually chosefa $ 'la\v' as lh(� standard translation for the technical term), and this concept, though of no special concern for the logician, is certainly a crucial concept of Chinese philo sophy. It is profoundly significant that Chinese preoccupations were not with the objective truth of factual or philosophical statements as such but rather with the right way (lao) to go about personal and political life. Donald Munro overstates his case, but he does have a significant point when he writes:
u '
, Oku" CMiu &111 Lu, ch. 3, ed. Ling Shu. pp. 33f. • [.Ii Shill Chilull CAlI,U ��.3, ed. Chheo Chhi-Yu, p_ ,,68; cf. Wilhelm (t928), p. 298. • The truth predicates in ancient Ch ioe�, 00 this interpretation, \'>'ere applied to what sentences were intend ed to cnn\'..�; not lowhat sentence! mean iili such. See nur SectiQo (d,3) on th.: concept oftruth.
'::-. 1 . ,
194
LAKGUAGE AND L O G I C
In China, truth and falsity in the Greek sense have rarely been important considerations in a philosophn's acce.ptance ofa proposition; these are Western concerns. I We shall want to ask in detail whether truth and falsity (in what D. Munro seems to think oras the Greek sense) really have not been Chinese concerns. When it comes to the notion offactual truth (Sanskrit sarya) we must distinguish bcnveen a range ofquestions ofdifferent orders ofphilosophical significance :
Did the ancient Chinese have an operative concept of truth, i.e., were they con cerned to duainguish between true and untrue sentences or statements with predicates like our 'is true' or 'is not truc'? 2. How exactly (if at all) did the ancient Chinese express or articulate the idea that a statement is true? 3. Did the ancient Chinese ascribe tru th to such entities as sentences or statements or to truthful spe akers only? 4. What were the connotations of the ancient Chinese ways of calling something true? 5. Did the ancient Chinese discuss abstract nominalised notions of truth? I.
Aristotle defines: Thus a person has got it right (alithcua) who considers that things which arc separate are separate and that things which belong together belong together.1
The question is whe ther we have statements ofthis sort in anciem China. We do. Compare, for example: We caU it 'being maightfotward' to declare something 'this (or: right)' ifjt is this (or: right), i not-this (or: wrong) (shih wa shih,ja wei and to declare something 'not-this (or: wrong), ifit s
fayuth chill �m��Fm:;tF 611:).'
I want to stress two important cOntrasts here: Aristotle
is interested in a formal definition of what it is to be right, whereas HSOn Tzu defines what it is to tell the truth by calling what is right 'right'. 2. Aristotle thinks of the subject term and the predicate term being separate or belonging together whereas HsOn Tzu thinks of a predicate applying or not applying to a thing. I.
Both are profound difference s. For Aristotle th e question is one orthe theoretical definition of alttheuein 'being in accordance with the truth', whereas for Hson Tzu the problem is the more social i g the truth, gelling things straight' . For Aristotle definition ofchih 'being straight, telln p a r a di m of a st a t e m e n t is a g e neral statement of the sort � philosophers are the g I �Junro (1939), p. 55- Smilh (1980), p. 43�, "Tites: 'Truth thUI (i.�., in Ihe Chin�$(C way) conceived is a kind of ]Xrformali.-c: il ill "P"N;h or deed aimed al effecting an llll..nded (:onsequen(:e.' Hansen (1985), p. 492, draws the blum conclusion; 'Chinese philosophy has no concept of truth'. For a diS(us.o;ion of Han...::n'$ claim5 see Harbsmeier (198g).
•
M(f(lp/!piU I05tb3.
1
Hm,, 1{tl.2.'2; cf. K()sler(1967). p.I�.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
humans' or 'All humans are mortal': his paradigm o f a proposition relates two
general terms. For Hsun Tzu, as for all other early Chinese philosophers of lan guage, the main concern is not in this way essentially tied up with a relation between two terms. Chinese philosophers oflanguage were mainly concerned with the relation between names and objects/things. The question is simply this: did the ancient Chinese have the notion of the truth ofstatcmcnts? Wang Chhung declares: Tht Confucians theorise saying: 'HtaH:n and Earth dcliberatc:ly give birth to men.' This
s tatement ()'ffl �") is mistaken.'
Yen must rder to a sentence or statement. "Vang Chhung goes on to consider what he regards as false analogies be£\\'een Heaven and Earth on the one hand, and a potter or founder. He rejectS these and concludes with a general point which is cru cial for ollr purposes:
to the facts, then they cannOt be said to bring alit the correspond to realit}� they cannot be called right/true (wen pu dlhblg shill wei kilo wei jhihjtl'filJ.*ilJaw:�V
\Vhen analogies do not correspond
facts . \Vhen wriuen statements do not
This is a negative definition ofthe predicate 'is righlltrue (shih fl)', not of a noun 'truth'. The predicate is applied to
wen >c which in this context mmt be a written
statement. ]n any case, what does the corresponding here is not a single predicate but a whole description. The correspondence is not with a physical concrete ol�ject but with reality in a wider sense. There is no one standard Classical Chinf'se noun for truth. The Chinese have not tended to reify or hypostasise an abstract concept of truth as correspondence with facts. They have indeed shown a commendable reluctance, encouraged by the
morphemic structure of their languagf', to hypostasise or reify all) abstract concept.
On the other hand we shall sec that ancient Chinese philosophers were in many ways concerned with semantic truth, with lhe truth of sc:ntences. From Han times onwards, the Chinese have known the phrase 'Seek the tnuh on the basis of fact
(shh i .rhih (lihiu shih ��:�R�)'/ which became an important slogan during the +171h and +18th centuries in China.� But HOle that what the common saying recommends one to do - and commends a certain king for doing- is to seekfot'tJ ofa matter rather than
truepropositions or sentences. The Chinese have always tended to be interested
in the practical aspect of truth. They have traditionally been inclined to ask of a
statemcnt not only whether it was true, but also what would happen if one held it to be true. An anecdote will illustrate our point:
Tzu
Kung asked Confucius: 'Do the dead havr. knowledge or do they not ha\"(�
knowledge?'
, !,un Hen;., ell. !;» ed. Chung-hua'shu-("hll, p. \'''5; c[ Fork.. (196..), \"01. ' . 10]. , Un Hml!" eh. IS. cd. Chung-hua.�hu·chi!, p. �o6; d: Fork.- (1964), mi. I, p. 103 , liaR sm. �13, ..d. Chung.hua.shu·r.hli, p. 1'.,10. Y�1l Shih·Ku·s6llMiiS" (+581 10 +b.,5) commenlon Ihe .ayingis worth quoting: 'He made it his bu�in"!-$ to find 0111 th.. fact� (shih rhih '1:*). In eaeh ca"" he tried !" find whal wa� gelluiud} right (chin shih J't1f).' What is genuinely right her� al"f' not facl� but surdy .'tat�m�nt� ab(>ut th�m. , Cf. E!mau (19114).
196
LA::-.JGUAGE A:'\'D L O G I C
The Master said: 'I might want to say that the dead have knowledge. But then I am afraid
that filial SOllS and obedient grandsons will abandon their old folks and leave them
unburied. I might want to say that the dead have no knowledge, but I am afraid that unfilial sons would abandon their parents and leave them unburied. You want to understand whether the dead have knowledge or not. When you die you will find out in due course:. There is no hurry now.'1
Nott that even in this passage what 'will be found out in due course' is the factual truth concerning the knowledge oCthe dead. Confucius takes a pragmatic attitude
towards a concept oftruth which he has. The Chinese pragmatism comes out in statements like these: One's words hittingthe mark a hundred rimes outofa hundred{pai)'e1Ipai tang B 1§s1#) is not as good as being fast to act and to an in a well-considered way.2
In view ofsuch attitudes our question becomes even more urgent: did the ancient Chinese have an ordinary notion offactual truth, and of truth as applied to philo sophical generalisations? Han Fei (died -233), for one, did take the notion oftruthfulness and of telling the truth seriously enough to declare the following (in what was to become the opening
paragraph ofhis book): Any minister, f i not loyal, must be condemned to death. Ifwhat he says be not true (tang'S), he must be condemned to death, too..'
Han Fei is using the term tang 'fit the facts' to express an idea that I believe
W. K. Liao's translation captures adequately. He speaks not of the appropriateness of saying something or the expediency of believing something. He speaks of the importance of good faith (standardly called Min m in Classical Chinese) which is connected but not identical with the notion of the truth of sentences. Or could we take Han Fei to refer to the semantic concept of the objective truth of sentences? The context is not clear enough to allow us to decide.
The smzantic concept oftruih It is one thing to say that a state of affairs exists. It is another thing to say that a sen tence, statement or claim is (rue. vVe call the latter the semantic concept of truth. Consider the
Huai Nan T<.u (-2nd century) which discusses the difficulties of
accounting for such phenomena as the 'loving stone' (or magnet) and the sun flower's turning towards the sun and then continues: I Shuo Hian 18.31, ed. Chao Shan·I, p. 558. and lJiulig �tl Chia n, ch. �,no. 17; cf. Kramer> (1950), p. �:l8. Compare thejustly famom Buddhist·Coofuciao debate on the immortality ofthe soul during the +4th and +5th centuries. Precious material on this has been made available 10 me by Prof�'50r Yang Xianyi. (Cf. Liebenthal (19S:.z))· 1
HuaiNafl T<:II, ed.Liu Wln·Tien, 18.t:.za.
• HM Fe!" T<;u 1.1.6; I quote Ihe translation inLiao (1939), \"01. I, p. 1.
1 97
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
d • • , •
Therefore perception by the eyes and ears is not sufficient to sort out the attributes ofthings (fin wu Ii 7ttmJ.!l!); discursive thinking of the mind is not sufficient 10 fix what is right and \\lrong (pu lsu i lingshihfii:::fJEJ;J.JE:h1:�). 1
The context suggests that the right and wrong here is a scientific, not a moral r ight and wrong. But is truth ascribed to sentences? One might imagine that the Chinese were able to wonder about states of affairs
I ,
but that they did not speak or think ofsenunces or statements being true. For example
,
ancient logicians will speak of 'the facts ofthe case, literally: the be-so or not-be-so of a thing (wu chihjanfou '1mL�::e)'/ a way of speaking which does not bring sen tences or statements
into play. Again, when the Chinese use the predicateyu � 'to
exist' to indicate that something is true, we might interpret them to claim not that a •
•
,
!
,
•
r
sentence is true but that a state of affairs exists. One might suspect that the ancient Chinese spoke and thought offacts of a case,
not of the truth of a sentence. This suspicion , however, is not borne out by the facts. The ancient Chinese did regularly apply predicates similar to our 'be true' to sentences, even in the context of abstract logical debate. Consider this example:
'Is the whiteness ofwhite feathers the same as the whiteness ofwhite snow, and the white ness ofwhite snow the same as the whiteness ofwhite jade?' 'That is so (jan �).'J Is it our Western bias which misleads us into interpreting M€ng Tzu's qu estion as a question regarding the truth of a sentence, and Kao Tzu's answer as confirming
that that sentence is true? The question has to be decided against the background of
a wide range offurther evidence.
i The Lii Shh
Chhun Chhiu considers two
(jan), and the other 'not so (pujan 1'�)':
alternative statements and calls one 'so
The path you follow is very difficult but leads to no results. If someone were to call you determined, that would be so (i.e., true enough) (wei t{Uyu chjh lsijan mTfl;t;�IJ�), but if
someone were to callyou clever, that would not be so (i.e., true) (wti tzu ,nih lsipujan UJT�
�U'f!!(i). '
Again we read in the same book: Many statements look as if they were not-right
(fii ?F) but turn out right (shih !!). Many
others look as if they are nght (shih) but turn out not-right (foi). The guiding principle of right and not-right (shihfii chih ching �?F��) must be distinctly understood. That is what the Sage is careful about. He goes along with the inherent essence of things (wu
chih chhing
¥ .1�1J) and keeps in touch with the inherent essence of man (jin chill chhing A�1W).!'
, Iluai Nan 7{1I, eh.
6. "d. riu Wen-Ti"n, p. 6a. On" might be tempted to $l:e th" anributes/principl"s of
things (u:" Ii �1I) in th" HlI.aiNI/.JI 7{u as an m i crc31ing appn)J<;imation to the nOlion ofII natural law. ? Graham (1978), p. 624. 3 Mi ng , liJ Shih CMlln ChIIill 20.1, ed. Chilen Chlli-Yu, p. • IJi Shm CMlln CMlill �2.6, "d. Chh,," Chhi-Yu, p.
7{u6B3; e[ Lau (1983e), p. 223. 1322; cr. Williclm (1928), p. 348. 1527; ef. Wilhelm (1928), p. 40t.
Ig8
LANGUAGE A ::"' O L O G I C
sentences rather than states of affairs. Moreover, the author of this passage clearly attached the greatest importance to whether words were shih 'th is, right' orfii 'not-this, wrong'. Han Fei explicitly rejects a philosophical thesis as untrue: Shih andJei here apply
lO
\Vhen the opponenl says: 'One has to depend on a sage, then thert will be good order', then that is not so (pujan /f�).l Meng Tzu speaks or the truth ofhistorical statements:
Wan Chang asked: 'It is said by some that '\";rlue declined with Yu who chose his own. son to succeed him, instead of a good and wise man". Is there such a state of affairs l.l'U chu
'/i'lIlll' Yieng Tzu replied: 'No, it is Ilot so (jou,puju71)'th 1S::f�ih)." \Van Chang asked: 'Some people say that J Yin tried to attract the attention ofThang by his culinary abilitie�. Is there such a state of affilirs (yu elm)?' MengTzu replied: 'No. That is not so (foll.puJalj E.::f�).'� In all such contexts cl aims are quoted and the question is raised whether there are facts validating claims or statements. Sometimes it is even more explicit that the subject is a form of words. In .Ming 7(.u a certain Hsien Chhiu-!vIeng retails a story which he introduces byyii)'IW �� 'the story goes', and then he goes on to complain : I do not know whether this SlOry (t<.hll)'ii .Ilte8) is genuinely so ((hhingJan ��).1 In instances like this it becomes almost ungrammatical
to use the English 'be What we really need is 'be tru('"'. Book SA of A1teng Tzu contains an ex tended series of queries whether c ertain claims which are quoted arc true or not. HSlln Tzu addresses the philosophical question whether human nature is good as
so' forjan �.
follows:
:\1cug Tzu says: 'Human nature is good.' (I) say: 'This (shih ft!:) is not so (jail)." 'This (shih)' here clearly refers to Meng Tzu's claim which has just been quoted. In this very chapter Meng Tzu is quoted four times, and his claims ar e expli ci lly rejected four times.6 In the Ta Tai Li Chi (stabilised around +100) we rcad: Tan Chu-Li asked Tseng Tzu; 'As lor "Heaven is round and Earth is square", is there truly such a state ofaffairs (thiroyuall irh lifallg chi, clthtngyu (hih hu �l9Iffij:ft!!h1!3"ii1iX� L¥)?' MI"I!, TVlj,,6; cf. Lall(1983C),P· 191. iHi"!, TzM :i.y; d. Lilu (1983C), p. 185·
I Hall&i "l"{Il.W:i.3; Liau(1939). \"01. 2.p. 203.
, Ming n-M �7; cf. Lau (lg83c), p. 193. ' , Hsiill 1zI1 23.36; cf. KoS\(�r (196i), p. 307·
>
• 1l1ii11 n-1I23.1O; 23.14; 23.36: 23.45. Cf. also e!wll11;'0 lillt, cd. Chu T SlI-Keng, p. "101; cf. Crwnp (1950), p. 63, 101 7{M C.J,)IIHf OOi1l 3, cd. Wu Tse-Yu, p. 139 and Slrllo luII1I 7.37. ed. Chao Shan-I, p. 197, for instructive funher
instances whe� truth is explicitly ","criloed tu sentences.
199
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
e
•
n
n "
Tseng Tzu replied: 'Li, have you heard that this is so?' Tan Chii-Li said: 'I, your disciple, have not imrestigatcd the maner.
sume lO ask."
Thus this eminently Confucian compilation seems at this paim urgently con cerned with the concept of truth as applied to a ( proto-) scientific statement. A later Confucian compilation provides us \\Iith a splendid statement on the gen lleman's attitude to tru th versus rhetoric: In his
discourse (fun rnB"), the gentleman (chun �u �T) sets store by adequacy to the princi
ples n i herent in things. He does not set store by Howery sentenccs.�
We conclude that words or sentences weTe regul arly called something like 'true' in Classical Chinese, as in C onfucius's almost proverbial chhtng tsai shihyen)'eh �� �"'@t!1 'how genuinely adequate are (hese words'.3 There is no evidence to support the current claim that the Chinese thinkers could not or did not conceive of the truth of sentences, or that theywcre unconcerned with the truth ofstatements .
..
Some Chinese conceptual distinctions u�·lhin the area iftruth
It
a D
That is why I pre
Meng Tzu distinguishes ben..'een factual truth whieh he confirms by yu 'there is su ch a state ofaffairs', and moral acceptability (kho iSJ):
chih � Z
King Hstian ofChhi asked: 'is there such a state of affairs (yu chu �ffi) that Thang banished Chich and King \\Tu marched against (the tyra t) Chou?' Yleng Tzu replied: 'There is (such a state ofaffairs) inlaccording-to me records.'
n
.. (-
'Is it (morally) acceptable (kho) mat a minister kill his ruler?'
'He who trespasses against benevolence is a trespass er. He who trespasses against right eousne�s is a cr ppler. A man who is both a trespasser and a crippler is "an outcast". I have
i
indeed heard of the punishment of "the oU[cast (tyrant) Chou". I have not heard of the assassination ofa ruler.'�
Mo Tzu has a different distinction between
jan � 'be (objectively) so': d_ Iy
Looking at it rrom the point of\-:iew or what you say, what everybody calls 'acceptable (kho 15J)' need not necessarily be so Uall).'
Here a ruler is addressing Mo Tw. The ruler attributes to lvlo Tzu a distinction
j
bet\veen sub ective
'" I"
kho 'be (subjedively) acceptable' and
acceptability (kho) and
objective truth
(jan). Note
that what
, Til Tni Ii Chi 58, cd. Kao �ling, p. 207; d. Grynpas (1967), p. LIS.
t h7umg TIl"I.,,! �u, th. 12, cd. SPTK, p. 75a.
, un Y" '3.11. D. C. Lau (1983a), p. 125, mansl:ues: 'How true is the saying after a state has been ruled for a hundrcd years by good men it is impossible 10 get the kner of cruelty and to do away with killing.' Cf. abo Yang Hsiung Fa Y rn 10, <:d. Wang.Jnng-Pao, p. 363, wher� rhhtng. i� .,imilarJy applied to a generalisation. In both pa55a�s chhblg ·sincere, et c.' is g ss� by lIsi" 1t; ·trustwonhr, etc.' by the earliest commmtators, • Ming Tzu 1118; Lau (Ig83C), p. 39. This is a fine example ofth<: Confucian 'corren use of nameS (cM"l mill,f IE�)', "'hich will be discussed in our Sub--set:tion on the origins oflogic in China.
l()
d
, Mo ·�u -4,9.2-4,; ef. Jl.lei (1929), p. 246.
that
200
LA:-lGUAGE A:\' D L O G I C
everybody calls acceptable is a form ofwords, a sentence, o r a claim. And that same thing is said to be not necessarilyjan 'objectively so'. There is even some evidence that the anrient Chinese could distinguish between arguing for or maintaining (chii $) a proposition and a fact obtaining. 'I havt: heard it said that you argue that to be a sage is casy. Is there such a state of affairs (yu chu lfi�)?' Thien Chhti replied: 'That is what I maintain (chit) ." Quite properly, Thien Chhii replies 'yes, this is what I maintain', not 'yes) this is so'.
tilllg � 'fit the faClS' is used in a most remarkable passage concerning the distinction between explanatorr and factual truth: The verb
Every thing's being so must ncces5arily have a reason (ku 1iX). And when ont" does not know the reason, then en:n though what one sa},!! fits the facts (!angl, this is the same as ignorance.7 V\'hat one says can be true, and one can be right, but for the wrong reasons.
ru we shall see in OUT Section (/.2), Kungsun Lung 01*� used the concept kho
to refer to the logical acceptability of a certain claim in a given logical COnlext.
Finally we might mention in passing historical technical terms introduced by the
Grand Historian Ssuma Chhieni§ij�}! ( r45 to -89), khUllg)'lm �.� 'empty words' -
and
khung wen � )(
'empty writing', which refer to non-factual judgements and
generalisations as opposed tojudgements ofhistorical fact.1 The Grand Historian's terminological innovation here has not caught on in the Chinese tradition and was
not taken up again for many cenluries after his death. In general usage kJw.ng)'eT1 would be taken to mean 'empty, meaningless or untrue words', but Ssuma Chhien's technical usage is important. Ssuma Chhien was obsessed with exactly dated historical truth based on reliable sources, as his famous Chronological Tables� show with particular eloquence. One might say that the Chronological Tables are some thing of a positivistic tour deforce. One thing that enabled Ssuma Chhien to indulge in this tour deJorce was his ability to distinguish historical factual truth from general comments. Having established that the ancient Chinese do apply truth predicates to sentences, and having looked at the finer distinctions they made within the general semantic area around 'semantic truth', we shall now take a brief look at the expressions which may be used in Classical Chinese to express notions closely related to 'truth'.
Verbal notions like 'is true' in Classical Chinese In translating from the ancient Chinese texts I have so far often avoided using the word 'true' in order not to beg the question at hand: how exactly do the anciellt , Lii Shih eMun Chhiu 18.1, ed. ehhen ehhi-Yu, p. 1 l j,-2; cf. Wilhdm (192fl), p. �91. , Lii Shih eMun Chhiu 9.4, Chh�n Chhi-Yu, p. 498; d \"ilhtlm (19�8), p. II I . i B. Watson (19S6), pp. R8r. • The evidence on this u�"ge is discuuro n • Shih C1ri 13---'l2. In th� standard Talcigawa roition thew dlronologir,al tables cover exactly 756 pagel.
LAr\CUAGE A::\,O L O G I C
201
Chinese treat tht' semantic area of truth? Instead of asking this question from a
"Vestern perspective, taking our notion of truth for granted and asking to what extent the Chinese e..xpressed it, we aspire to start from the Chinese usages sur rounding the notion of truth and ask ourselves just how these usages are to b e understood. "'hat, then, were the words that the Chinese used to cover the semantic field of 'is true'? As a first orientation I shall simply list these words and try to explain their
semantic nuances.
Shih � '(be) this, (be) it, (be) right' Fei:1� 'not be this, not be it, be wrong' g. Shih 11 '(be) solid, (be) real, (be) based on fact' 4. Hsii � 'be tenuous, be unreal, not be based on fact' 5 .Jan M 'be so, be the case' 6. FOil i§ 'be not so, not be the case' 7. Yu B 'havc, exist, there is such a state of affairs' 8. Wu � 'lack, not exist, there is no such state of affairs' g. Chheng�)( 'be honest, be sincere, be genuinely so' 10. Hsin ffi' 'believe, be loyal, be trusn\'orthy, be reliably so' I.
2.
.
Wei � 'to fake, create artificially, be fake'
II.
12. 13.
Tang f; 'to fit, fit the facts' Kuo � 'to go beyond, to not fit, to not fit [he facts'
[5.
Wang � 'be misguided, be \Hong'.
14. c..'htn
� 'be genuine, be genuinely so'
There arc some other words which one might be tempted to include in this list:
e.g., ching lE as 'be straight, be according to the rule, be morally correct (opposite of hsieh
$), be factually accurate'. "Vhen �1eng Tzu has offended a king by explaining
to him that he should be dismissed ifhe did not listen to remonstrations from minis ters coming from his own family, the story continues: The King looked appalled.
'Your Majesty should not be surprised by my answer. Since you asked me, answer with anything but the truth (pu kan ipu ching lu! ::t'�P ).::t'IEf:t).'1
I dared not
The conccpt of ddng here must be taken to involve the straightfonvardness of a reply as well as the correctness ofthe point ofview expressed in that reply. The con cept of'truth seems thus embedded in the concept of cheng as used on this occasion.
Another case in point is lhe word kuo * 'fruit, reality, really: be borne out by the
facts', as when Yang Hsiung m$ff: (-58 to +18) meets the complaint:
Remarkable, how the records and books arc not borne out by the facts (prJ fwo :::f!f!W
, Mblg 1i:u jB9; Lau (198:�c), p. 219_ Cf. also lIe;LiDo 1!u, ch. t2, cd. Chung Chao-Hua, p. j3· Yang Hsiung, 1'0 1m 18, ed. Wang Jung-Pao, p. H9. Note the evidence on bo m assembl� in the
1
commcntary.
202
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Nominal uses oftruthpredicates
I
have demonstrated through examples that
the
ancient Chinese applied verbs
meaning something like 'be true' to sentences, and that in this sense they had a con
cept ofsemantic truth. But did they focus on this concept as a subject of discussion? Did they have nominalised concepts of truth as opposed to expressions for 'be true'? The evidence is that they did.
\-\'hcn right and wrong (shihftj.f€�) are in doubt, then asses� (tu Lt.) the situation according to other independent facts (yuan shih li$) test (}'t71 �) them on things at hand (chin wu Ui:1'tlJ), check (Ishall-i!) them with a balanced mind.'
The assessing, the testing, and the checking are crucial concepts in the ancient Chinese attitudt: towards (ruth. To ignore your O\VTI safety in the quest for wealth; to make light of danger and try to talk your way out ofevery difficulty; to rely on lucky escapes; to ignore the essential characteris tics ofrighl and wTong, ofwhat is so and what is not so (shihftijall/Jujan (hih thhillg�#�::r:
�z1ff). and to make it one's purpose only to overpowf'"r others: such s i inferior valour.�
Notice the place of the notion of shifil ��F in this pa�sage from a book of the
+4th century which contains much earlier ma[t;,rial:
Yen Tzu asked Kuan Chung about 'tending life'. Kuan Chung answered: 'J[ is simply liv ing without restraint; do not suppress, do not restrict. ' 'Tell me the details.' 'Give your�elfup to whatever your ears wish to lillten to, your eyes to look on, your nostrils
to turn to, your mouth to say. your body to find case in, your will to achieve . What the cars
wish to hear is music and song, and ifthese are denied them, I say that the seme of hearing is
. . . T1Ihal ihe mouth wishes to discuss is truth andf alsehood, and ifthis is dmied it, Isay that tJu intelligence is restricted. ,·\lhat the body wishes to find ease in is fine clothe.'> and good food,
restncted.
and if these are denied it, I say that its comrOrt is restricted. What the will wishes to achieve
is freedom and leisure, and int is denied these, 1 say that man's nature is restricted. All these restrictions are oppressive masters.'1
There art: instances where the notions of truth and tV'lined. The term chhing shih
rea/i9 seem closely inter
'1W1!f 'the real facts' is unambiguously faclual in the fol
lowing passage: The viscount Hsuan of Han said: '�.'fy horses ha\"e had an abundance of madder and grain. Why are th�y so skinny? I am worried over this.'
Chou Shih replied: 'Ifthe stableman feeds them with all the beans and grain, then they
are bound to become fat. But suppose he gives thcm much in name but little in fact. Then they are bound to becom� skinny. TfYour Highness does not investigate the real facts ofthe case (chhingshih) but sits th�re and worries about it, the horse� will never become fat.'i , Hsiin Ti.U�7.1�3; cf.
KO�{�r (1967), p. 362.
, H.riin T�u �3.86; cf. Watson (1963), p. '70. Cf. also Hsiin T{u 8.28 for the 5amC formula shihjtijaJIpujan chill "'''''Ji!lP�'f�ZI1l. , Lith �1I7, ro. Yang Po-chiln, pp. '4of.; t�. Gl'ilham (,goo), p. 14�. • Han Fei Tzu 3:3-27; Lao (lg39), \"ol. �, 1'. i8.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
The natural opposite Oflhis shih
ft
20 3
reality, solid, Tcal' is ming i5 'name, in name
'
only', as in lhe passage I just quoted. This opposition between the solid facts and mere tenuous words or claims, is ubiquitous in ancient Chinese philosophical as well as historical literature. It plays a central part in the ancient Chinese intellectual "
construction ofreality; Another opposite to shih is hsil � 'tenuous, empty, unreal' as in
The way the ancients had it: 'ifone bends one i, preserved intact' is no empty saying (hsiiyii !li:lli) , Hoshang Kung's commentary dating to at least
the +2nd century, elaborates:
"
'These are co rrect words (ching)'trl lE�') and not empty words (hsiiyen r.mg).'2
Ik
(chhing fA) bur only with words. This notion of real facts must be carefully distin guished from that of verbal truth referred 1O in the passage just quoted from Lao
0'
f
Dialecticians or 'talkers' are accused of nOt being concerned with the real facts
Tzu:
''''hen power is in single hands, then squabbling will stop. '<\'hen squabbling stopS, then
dialcr.ticians (shuo chi-m1!f) will stay away and the real facts (chhing) will become clear. 'When the real facts arc unembellished, then solid realit), (shih shih .�) will become plain.l
",
"
Hsun Tzu complains that Teng Hsi and Hui Shih do not care for the 'essential
characteristics of right and wrong or for what s i so and what is not so (shihfei.jan pu jan chih chhing �?f.�::r:��'tff)'.* The concept ofjan pujan �/f?ti 'what is so and what is not so' (orjan/ou �if 'what is so and what is not') is the closest the ancient Chinese came to an unambiguous concept of factual truth. Note that by using
"
opposing terms in this way the Chinese avoid the SOrt of hypostasisation of an
d,
nique is used in other relevant pairs ofconcepts;
0'
abstract entity suggested by such abstract forms as the English truth. The same tech
Sages established the emhlems (of the Book of Changes) in order to give complete expression to their intended meaning. They established the diagrams to give full expression ofthe real-or-fake-character (chhil/good .tR'�) ofsomething.;'
The
T'
I, ,
A recently discovered manuscript from the Ma-wang-tui tomb provides neat evid ence ofthe place the Chinese accorded \0 truth in their scheme ofthings:
:y
,. "
Only after understanding the corrt'spondcnce between names and realities, only after exhaustively understanding what is rcal and what is fake (chhing wd) and being free ofconfu sion, can one complete the Way ofthe emperors and kings.6 I !.no 1?.u �.�; cf. Lau (Ig!l:,a), p. 35. Cf. also Hsiin u..u 18.71, Ktlster (lg6i),il. 233: 'When it comes to the sen tenCe (foJiit!. 1<: 8) "Yao aixlicated to Shun", this i, an empt), saying(liJiiJt� tI �.' • Shima Kunitl ('.973), p. 99. Cr. Eduard Erkes (1950), p. 4Q, and, fur th� dating ofthe commentary, iilid., pp.8 12. l Lii Shilr O/hun Chlriu 17.5, cJ. Chhen Chhi·Yu, p. '°92; cr. Wilhelm (1928), p. �76. , !hun T:u 8.28; cr. Komr (1967), p. 73. Cf. also ll,jj" Tzu 23.86. I ! Chin,;, HJi T dlu, cd. Kao Hcng, p. 54�. Khull!( Ying-Ta's 1\.�tl!. canonical £.Ommentar)' on the phrase clliri1lgwniW� COnflfm.i our interpreat t ion. •
ChillgFa, "c!. Wen-....u, p. 29.
204
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Thus attaining Truth was seen as dependent upon obtaining truth. Importance was attached to truth, especially in the context of politics, because it ensured that the ruler was not confused about the real state of affairs, could act on the basis of fact: If you do not check-and-compare
(chhing i'Ff) will not reach your ear. I
(tshan #) what you see
and hear, then the genuine facts
This passage gives us the crucial connection of the notion of truth with that of comparative investigation (tshan). Han Fci is in no doubt about such comparative investigation: A man who considers a matter as certain
(pi £'1 withoUi checking-and-comparing it and
testing the evidence (tshan)'ffl ��) is stupid.2
Considering something as certain, for Han Fei, is considering something as certainly true. Throughout his book he emphasises the need to check the reliability or certainty of what one hears. He speaks of'deciding the genuine facts of a matter (chheng Wit ) by checking and comparing'.3 Han Fei talks about 'trying to find the genuine facts of a matter (chhiu chht chhing *J't�)'4 and recommends listening to others' V-lOrds and trying to find what fits the facts (chhiu chili tang *;t�!j�")'" as well as 'comparing and checking words in order to understand the genuine facts of a mat ter (chih chhi chhCng ffi�IDlll) .'fj The nominal concept of chlling � is not always purely factual, faT Han F'ei can also ask: '
Whom could one ask to decide the real facts of the case
(chheng)
of the: i\Iohists and
Confucians?)
Here the question of chhingclearly involves both tactual and moral issues,just as it does in the case on'Vestern concepts of truth. Of course, Han Fei was by no means the only one to take such an attitude to the importance offinding out whether words are true or not. "Vhen one gets hold of words one must check
investigating (shtn t¥) it brings good fortune. .
-,
(chha �)
these.
. Hearing something and
Hearing something without investigating it is even worse than not hearing it at all. ,"Vhene\'er one hears words, one must carefully appraise the person (from whom they come), and one must test (ren �) them according to the attributes/principles of things (li .t£). B _
_
'What more splendid evidence of the scientific spirit and interest in truth during pre-Han times can one look for than such programmatic statcments? I,
, Han Fd 'li:u 30.2.2; Liao (1939), \'01. p. 281. , Han Hi ll..U50.1.37; Liao (1939), vol. 2, p. 299. , Han Fei ll..1I32.2.20; Liao (1939), \"01. 2, p. 27. , Han &i ll..u 47.2<11; Liao ('939), \'01. 2 , p. 250. , Han hi ·rz''4.8.4.21; Liao ('939), vol. 2, p. 266. , Han Fn.· ll..u 46.6.12; Liao ('939), vol. 2, p. 247· , Han Fn.· ll..u 50.1.31, Liao (1939), \"01. 2, p. 298. , iii Shih Chhu" Chhiu 22.6, "d. Chhen Chhi-Yo, p. Ij26; d. \Vi!helm (1928), p. 399
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
<
,
{
,
Consider again the preface to lhe lii Shih Chhun Chhiu:
Above I have explored Heaven, bdow I have te-sled (yen) the Earth, in bctwccn I have inves tigated (shin) mell, and in this way what is right or wrong, what is accC'ptablc or unaccept able (shihfn kMPII kilO �;:; l fOJ:::f1iJ) has nowhere to hide,' Consider again the case ofhislorical truth . Here is what Pan Ku ffi!al (+32 to +g2)
had to say about his predecessor the Grand Historian Ssuma Chhicn
'§:Htm (-145
r
to c. -89):
:
Liu HsiangiJicJ (-79 10 -8). Yang Hsi ung mit&: (-59 to +18), and other men of wide learn ing and copious letters all praise (Ssuma) Chhien as a man of excellent ability as a historian and testify to his skill in setting forth events and thrir causes. He discourses without sound ing wordy; he is simple without being rustic. His writ ing is direct and his facts sound. He docs not confer cmptypraise nor does he conceal what is evil. Therefore his may be termed a "true record' {sllih lu WU).1
I
Yang Hsiung, in his ardently Confucian work Fa Yen is asked: 'In five hundred years one sage arises', is there such a state of affilirs {wu pai sui irh Jhingjln
chhu,),u chu 1i1�:i�fffi�ALI:ll?ffir}j
Yang Hsi ung is questioned about the truth of an honoun.:d Confucian common of Mencius. But after having given some perfectly plausibl e examples of sages who wert': near-contemporaries, like the legendary sage t':mpcrors Yao and Shun , he concludes that 'one cannot tell if there will be one even in a thousand years' . Li Kuei's *ttL commentary (eady +4th c entury) to the Fa Yen brings out the meaning perfectly: place which has the unquestioned authority at least
\Vhethe:r there is one: person (i.e:. , sage) sages) in one yc:ar may not be known.+
111
a thousand years or a thousand persons (i . e. ,
Yang Hsiung also answers rhe followi ng ques tion in the affirm ative :
'To use lhe methods orthe sages ofthe past in order to govern the: future, that is like glue ing the tuning columns to the body ofthe- Ji�-lute and then trying to tune the instrument', is there not such a state of affairs?
(Yang Hsiung) answered: 'There is.",
In general, the Fa YeTI shows a very considerable Confucian interest in the truth and consistency of Confucian doctrines. A wide range of un-Confucian objections are raised and answered in th at book dating from around +5. , l.ii Shih Chlum CAhiw, HJU I, "d. Chhen Chhi-Yu, p. 648; cf. \\'ilhdm(1928), p. Ij.'>. � lIan Shu 6:l, ed. Chung-hua.shu-chu, p. :li38; d: B. Walson ([9;:.8), p. 68. I y..ng Hs;ung, Fa 1tn II. ed. Wang Jung-Pilo, I). 370. Cr. alJo [he important, but unfortunately probl"malic, .
paslage in Fa Jim rQ. ed. \Vang.Jung-Pao, p. 4.'i0. ,,"hcr� Yang Hsiullgrlisc\lssel lh� notion of,kin Uit!.� 'genuinel fake, genllincn�'$, trlnhfllln�.o;s(?)'. • Ibid. I see nO need what�,�r 10 see a mi'prim here to the eITeet that Li Kllei "-'" only saying there could br. one sage in One y"ar, as one commentator h"", suggested. , Yang H�illng, Fa 1m 12, cd. WangJllng-Pao, p. 436.
206
L A ::>r G C A G E AND L O G I C
I n Han times shih h 'solid, real' was commonly nominalised and came to mean something like 'lhe solid facts of a matter'. vVang Chhung .:f.Jt: (+'27 l0 +roo) writes programmatically: In (scientific) discourse (lUll [H1f), what maners is what is right (shh i ft:).1
Tn his preface, Wang Chhung makes it quite explicit that his purpose in \\Titing LUll Hengis none other than to refute untruths and thereby to promote truth. 'Vang Chhung is indeed a living refutation of the view that Chinese philosophers did nOt place central emphasis on the notion of the scientific objective truth of doctrines. He says, in the same context: Explanatory discourse disputes about what is so and what is not so.' ()ne discards what is fake (wei �) and retains what is genuine (chin :a).J
Aristotle defines philosophy as 'knowledge of truth/Truth (episteme tes aletheias E1TWT�IL1) Tij, a)'1)8da,),.f 'Vang Chhung might easily have voiced the same view as Aristotle - ifhe had had a concept ofphilosophy available to him \vhich for interest ing reasons not to be discussed hen� he did not have. In any case he was, in practice, a seeker of truth, asking such questions as whether man \vas deliberately created by Heaven and Earth, whether ghosts exist, etc., and demanding factually correct rea soned answers. His opus magnum, the LUll Hellg consists in weighing against each other conflicting ans\vers to questions of this sort. One might object that the I,UII Hfng sees itself as exceptional, which ofcourse it is. But consider now this authoritative main-stream definition of discourse (lun �iE): As a genre lhe lU/I perrorms the runction or dislinguishing and getting right what is true and what is nor."
Here the leading literary critic of traditional China declares the object of dis course (lun) (0 be the establishing ofthe truth. Finally, let us note that the concept oftruth is elosely linked with that ofevidenee. Han Fei mentions the notion ofevidence ()'en t2!) establishing the substantiveness of a claim: 'Vhen aq,TUments (plen �) arc unsupported by evidence ()'cn), these are speeches for which one is blamed." Yang Hsiung insists: As for the words of a gentleman, ifthr}' arc obscure they have their evidence ()"tn) in some thing clear. lfthc}' arc remote, rhey have their evidence ()"en) in something close at hand. If um Hf ngch. 85, <,d. Chung-lwa-shu-ehu, p. 1690: cf. A. Forke (196{), \'01. 1, p. 73. , Ibid. , Ihld Th� fact that chen :IT 'g�n\lin�' and 11.'(; f!!:l 't;"l.ke· very olien refer to persons rather than doctrines r�malm I.mportant. 1
•
,l1elllp�'ysi,,' ", 993L�().
, Lill Xic (+.J.GS to +j22), J\'/-n II.fin ,
"]it,o Lu.ng, �d. and tT. Shih (,gil]). Pl'· �()4f Han Ffi 7:.." 18.3.16; Liao (1939), "01. 1 , 1'. !5�,
LANG{}AGE AND L O G I C
mean
207
they are overwhelming, they han their C'\-idenct ()'rn) in something manageable. IfthC'y arC' subtle, they have their c\ldcnce (Jrn) in something pla in . Speaking without evidence ()'m) is mistaken. Is the gentleman mistaken"! No he is not mistaken. I Yang Hsiu ng's concern is, of course, \\�th good government. But he takes his
nung \"ang
d no t
nnes.
Wuias
ewas
analogy from the science orarithmetic: In running a state to hope ror efficient resuhs \�-ithout following the law must be compared to the case of the calculating sticks.l
Yang Hsiung did not even have to explain that the calculating sticks serve to determine the correct result or arithmetic calculation. He wantt:d the operation or government to be governed by the sort or impartial concern for truth that is charac teristic of arithmetic. Laws were a means to introduce such objectivity. But this, of course, leads us astray from our subject, the concept ofscienLific trulh, and towards Chinese social thought. The significant poin t is that the lwO realms are not as sepa rate as one might imagine.
ereSl
ctice,
ellis.
i:
'" and f dis-
ence. ""of ...h · ich
IOme
nd. rr
Conclusion conclude that far from finding the notion of truth inconceivable, ancient Chinese philosophers frequently asked themselves whether some statement was true or not, although they did not show the samt' dt'gree ofphilosophical preoccu pation with factual truth as ,<\resterners might expt'ct. 'fhe Chinese regularly applied the predicate 'true' to words or statements. They often referred to the nominalised notion of truth, Kane the \t;ss, there is a crucial difference of attitude with Greek thinkers in ancient times which comes out in this quotation:
vVe
As for the gentleman's explanations (shuo�) . . . wh(:n they ar(: sufficienl lO understand thc real state ofLhings (wu chill cMung wzm") and wh(:n having grasped the words men can livc their lives, then olle stops.]
This is where much of Greek philosophical analysis starts, Greek philosophy is predominantly not pragmatic but theoretical in ambition and approach, The ancient Chinese may have taken a pragmatic approach to language and thinking. But as pragmatists should, they had plenty of use for the scientific notion of o�j ective factual truth. "Vhereas Creek philosophers were very often preoccupied with the notions offactual and evaluative truth for iLS own sake, their Chinese counterparts looked upon language and thought as much more pragmatically embedded in social lire. Their key concept was that of the Way (tao) of conducting ') . " human affairs, not of objective factual or doctrinal truth. , Yang H,uung, Fo. 1," H, ed. WangJung-Pao, p. 2-iG. for a verbal usc oftht WOrd)'t1l M m�aning 'to provid. ."idence for, toprove' §ee bid., i p. 391. 2 Fa 'Im lz, ed. WangJung-Pao, p. 4:'9. 1 Lii Shilr Cllill Clrhiu 16.B, cd. Chhen Chhi·Yu, p. 1019; cf. Wilhtlm (19�8), p. �58"
208
LANGUAGE A::-l"D L O G I C
Moralist pragmatism is, of course, '�R-£lit"J!� wisdom alien to the \Vest. There were plenty of people in ancient-G reece who thougltt this i;va.y,- ann iiliilOr'e recent timcsJeanJacques Rousseau's moralistic pragmatism had a profound politi cal and educational influence: I.e Dogme n'est rien, fa morale esl tou.l, I
j
All this does not mean that Rousseau had no concept of truth. It means that he was particularly interested in certain kinds of things. The objective truth ora statement was considered in China along with its politi cal appropriateness, its practical usefulness for the organisation of society and for the cultivation of one's personal life. Those who, like the Later !vlohists, to a certain extent tried to detach the theoretical considerations of objective truth from their political, social, and personal contexts, were doomed to a marginal place in Chinese intellectual history. Collectively, Chinese intellectuals have tended towards a holistic view of mean ing and truth which refuses to detach these concepts from their anthropological and historical context. The Neo-Confucian term tao It m:fl:I! which we may be tempted to translate as 'truth' because this is what the word lao-Ii sometimes means in angli cised Modern Chinese, is in fact something much closer to our modern 'point' as in 'he has a point': ,-
The poems ofSu Tung-Pho's later years are certainly good. The only thing is that much of the wording is haphazard and not at all to the point (chhiiallpu khan tao Ii :3':T;gm�).2
Thus we must be careful not to impose our \Vestern scientific notions of objective truth upon Chinese texts where they really do not belong. There is excellent reason to warn against the uncritical assumption that the notion of scientific objective truth played the same kind ofcentral role in China that it did in the \-Vest. In China one tended to look upon someone who, we would say, is wrong, as someone who sees only part of the truth. The sage is thought to have the over arching vision reconciling all such partisan or partial views, seeing the point of each. Chu Hsi brings this out explicitly: Ordinarypeoplc's studies are often partisan to one point (li ffiI), lhey are dominated by one theory (shuo lilt). Therefore they are nut catholic in their vision. As a result disputes arISe-. The Sage stands at the exact centre and is conciliatory, leaning to neither side.1
The Chinese quest for 'truth' tends to be the quest for this un-partisan catholic vision which is above controversy in the sense that it understandingly embraces rather than refutes seemingly opposing views. The remarkable last chapter of the book Lill Tzu IJ-f-, which we musl probably attribute to the literary critic Liu Hsieh �Jtm!, (+465 to +522), lists and characterises I 'Dogma is nothing, morals is �v�rything,' (Euvrcs cornpl�t�" ,-,,!. 1 (Bibliothequ� d� la Pleiade), p. 1077. J Ibid" p. 130,
, Om Tzu Yii {"II, cd, Wang:H,ing-Hsi�n,p. 3326.
LANGUAGE AND 'est.
KlCO titi-
m
l in ,of
209
the nine schools of Chinese thoughtl and then gives the weaknesses ofeach of these schools. It does not ask which sellOol is right. It asks what point each school is geuing at and how far it gets.2 This, it seems to me, remained a characteristic Chinese atti tude even after the establishment ofa Confucian orthodoxy during the Sung. (4)
: he titi foe am leu
LOGIC
THE
C O N CEl'T
OF N ECES SITY
Aristotle was interested in the philosophical difference benveen contingent state ments like 'It is raining' and necessary or analytic statements like 'Two and nvo is four'. Ancient Chinese philosophers generally did not make this difference into a major topic ofphilosophical reRection, bm the l\'lohists, in theiropaque way, did try to grapple with the problf'm of exactly how to understand and define thdr concept pi&:" which we translate by 'necessarily'. The necessary logical relations obtaining between propositions, such as that of one proposition being a logical consequence of another, have not been widely discussed as such among Chinese thinkers. In this specific sense logical necessity was not an issue that preoccupied the ancient Chinese. Suppose all white swans die ofwhite swan plague tomorrow: then it will be quite generally true to say that 'All swans are black'. However, this statement, though quite generally true, would be contingently, not necessarily, true. It just so happens that all the white swans have died. Factual inevitability in this world was defined as follows: The necessary (pi chi,£'�) is what is ordained by Hca\·en.�
!.-
of
n, 1<.
lie
es
But the problem T find important for the history ofscience is whether the Chinese had a notion of inevitability in all possible worlds, a logical kind of inevitability which goes beyond factual concomitance or invariance in the world as we have it. To the extent that the ancient Chinese reasoned along logical lines we might say that they employed notions oflogical consequence and thereby ofvarious varieties oflogical necessity. But my question is whether they explicitly focused on such rela tions ofloglcal necessity which obtain nOl only in the world as we have it but in any world that can be conceived of. � I Confucianism, Taoism, �(:hool ofYin and Yang, logidaru, kgaHst-" Mohists, diplomatists, syncrctists, and agricuhuraJists. , cr. Liu u.u, ed. [.in Chhi-Than and Chhen Fcng-Chin, pp. 301ff. For (he authorship and dating sec ibid., pr. 335-96.
, Ching Fa, ed. Wen-wu, p, 28. • I am aware (ha( th� notions oflogical neee&sil)" oflogical consequence, and ofpo"ib\e worlds are highly controversial philo�ophicallr, and Ihat I am treading on trcach�roul ground. Huwew:r, thi, will not prevent me from trying to chart ancien! Chinele wars of uling their own notion pi 'he nec�ssary', and from in\'�slig-.ltin� the eXlenl to which we find Ihal I he Chine_Ie employed Ihi. word or olher devices 10 mark so:ntencel as analytically true or necessarily true in aU possible worlds. For ;1 so happen! (ilal lhe nO(iOll of (necessary) truth in all possible worlds is important for the history ()fth�oretical science.
210
L ....�OUAGE A;-;'O L O G I C
In general pi marks invariable truth in this world in descriptive sentences: A man of moral charisma will necessarily (pi) be the author of sayings. The author of say ings does nOl necessarily (pi) have moral charisma.
A benevolent man will necessarily (pi)
possess courage, but a courageous man does nO[ necessarily (pi) possess benevolence. \
Confucius is not at this point presenting an example of pure semantic analysis. He generalises about the world in which he lives. This kind of generalisation is marked by pi. Contingent invariance and something more like' a conceptual !ink seem to be expressed by the same grammatical form, in Chinese as in English. People who are cleverwith their mouths arc not necessarily (Pi) trustworthy:�
Here we still have a genl!ral observation concerning the world in which Confu cius lived. We do not have conceptual analysis. The inevitability of a law of nature is again something which obtains in this world: Everything that lives benveen Heaven and Earth must necessarily (pi) die. This is some thing which cannm be avoided.l
Note that there is nothing logically impossible about a world in which things live eternally. It just so happens that things in this world invariably are not like that. Yang Hsiung mtrt (-59 to +18) explains this quite properly: That which has life will necessarily (pi) have a death. Thatwhich has a beginning will neces i the 'vVay ofwhat is so ofitself(t sarily (pi) have an end. Such s zujan (hih lao)·th rJ �Lm-tt!.).�
At times, these strict regularities of nature become the subject of explicit dis course: The sage knows the necessarypatterns/attributes ofthin� (pijan (hih Ii £'�Ll!ll.) .�
One does not have a verypn!cise idea aboutwhat the necessary patterns ofthings were. In later times, the notion of/il!l! 'panern, principle' became a crucial concept of Chinese philosophy. But note that these patterns or princ.iples are always patterns or p rinciples of this world as we haV(� it. They are not logical principles or patterns. At times, one docs begin to perceive a purely abstracl, conceptual interest, as when Tzu Lu asks: Why is if necessary (pi) to read books before one can coum as learned?6 , um r1i 14.4j cf. LaU {lg83), p.
133.
2 HU'li.Nan Tzu; ch. 10, �d. LiuWrn-Ticn, p.
17b.
, Lii Shh i Chhun Chhiu IO.�, "d. Chhen Chhi-Yu, p. 5�4; cf. Wilhdm (1928), p. 120. , Yang Hsiung, F� len 18, rd. Wangjllllg-Pao, p. 768. HI; Khang oflhe +3rd c�ntury (�d. Tai \ � 1ing-Yang,
Way of what i, so uf itself', ",hich begins to remind onc of the notion of a law p. 262) rc!umt' ti,t phrase 'he t ofnature. Shang Chilf SJiIl t8, cd. Kao H�ng p. '44; d. DUY\'cndak(t928), p. 292 • Lun 1li 11.2!j; d Lan (198J), p. '33. >
,
.
LA:-JGUAGE A:-JD LOGIC
Jay (p.)
2II
One can read this question as asking whether the concept of learnedness neces Note the neat logical contrast with the grammatically similar:
sarily involves the notion of bookishness.
Docs Hsu Tzu invariably (Pi) weave a cloth before he wears it? 1 Cases where one feels
the ancient
Chinese were moving towards conceptual
analysis arc not uncommon:
Now he who desires profit will necessarily (Pi) abhor loss. . . . He who wants good govern ment wi.1l necessarily(pi) abhor political chaos.2 This does sound like a conceptual reflection. I cannot imagine Han rei seriously persuading anybody who desires profit that
1futhis
m,-
live hat. CO> t!!).•
dis-
mgs :epl !Tns
""s . � as
lImg,
a law
he should abhor loss, neither can I imagine prescribing such a procedure. The matter is tOO obvious. vVe do seem to have an analytic statement made for the purpose of conceptual clarification in the course of an argument. When issuing a prohibition, onc necessarily (Pi) wishes something nOI to be done. When issuing an order, onc necessarily (Pi) wishes something to be done. \-Vhen seeking some thing, onc necessarily (Pi) wishes to obtain it.1 These three sentences read
like
conceptual clarifications rather than descrip
tions of the state of the world as it is.
In the tin Hibz Tzu jtXT (+3rd century) we read: That which has a form will necessarily (pi) ha\"e a namc. Btlt that which has a nam!" does not necessarl i y (weipi *&:') havc a form.I It turns out that the commonest form in which the notion of necessity occurs in ancient Chinese literature involves negation:
Chhli Tao was fond ofwaler-chestnuts. King \Ven preferred calamus pickles. Not that these were 'correct' taste�. The two talented men just set slore by these things. \Vhat people have a taste for is nOl neccssarily(pupil"£') of excellent laste. Duke Ling ofChin liked Shan Wu Hsti. Kuai ofYen regarded Tzn C hih as the mOSI talented. Not that these two were 'correcl' gentlemen. The two rulrrsjust honoured them. \Vhat one regards as a sage is not necessar ily (pu pi) a sage. '> Han Fei seems to be answering not just the empirical question whcther those who
are regarded as sages in fact turn out to be sages in this real world. He seems at the same time to locus on a presumed logically necessary conccptuallink benveen being regarded as a sage and being a sagc. In any case, this type of discourse is common: As for a greal man, his words arc nOI necessarily (puPi) truthful, and his actions do not nec essarily (pu Pi) bear fruit. The point is ill his sense ofduty:6 I Mill/{. '�u 3A4.4; Lall (198:"11:), p. 103.
' Han Fn.· �w 46+30 and +0+35; Liao (1939), \"01. 2, pp. 242f.
, KW{1� T.:u, ..:d. Tai Wang, vol. I , p. 71; ct: Rick�t{ (1985), \"oL I, p. 252.
, lin IVi>f 4�, ed. Lin Shih-Hsi, p. 4. Ming n� 481,; l.au (191131:), p. 163.
•
•
Ho.1! M nu39.1'.1.2; Liao (1939), vol. 2, p. 197.
212
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Chuang Tzu reflects:
Thus ifyou art: enthroned as SOli ufHeaven, you are not necessarily (pu pi) honourable. If YOll stay stuck as a commoner, you are not necessarily (pupi) base. Your share ofhonour or dishonour depends on how rair or foul your conduct is. I It seems that Chuang Tzu shows an interest in the concept ofhonour as such. He
is at pains to show [hat honour is not an external concept linked to positions ofhon OUf and the like. He denies that there is a conceptual or logical link between being
an emperor and being honourable. His notion ofncccssity, at this point) is concep tual. Whether we should say that he speaks ofstrictly logical necessity here is a sub
tle question which must perhaps remain open, but passages like the ones here under
discussion cenainly raise such questions regarding early Chinese thought. Here is another representative instance:
A man must necessarily (pi) know ritual before he can show polite reverc:ncc.Z If one takes a very strict view of logical n ecessity, defining it in terms of truth in any conceivable or possible world, then I suppose there is no neat evidence that the ancient Chinese ever thought in such terms. They failed to make that explicit step
from the consideration of the world as it appeared to them to the consideration of any p ossible world that anyone might conceive. On the other hand, they did habit ually observe links between concepts, links which they considered to be either nec essary (pi) or not necessary (weipi *,z,jpupi ::f&:,). The Later Mohists maintain, quite generally:
Names and object� do not connect necessarily (Pi).' Finally, I need to consider the que stion whether the ancient Chinese ever prob
lcmatised the notion of necessity and made it the subject ofphilosophical reflection.
Not surprisingly, there is
evidence that the Later
Mohists did take this step.
They
certainly did try to define the concept pi. Unfortunately, thdr explanation s remain textually and philosophically opaque to me.
Canon: The n�ccssary (pi) 1;; the unending.t
(5)
.� � ;
"
THE C O N CEPT OF C O NTRADICTION
Shakespeare 'vrites (Othelw iv+ (4): ' Her honour is an essence that's not seen;! They have it very oft that have it nol.' On the face of it) Shakespeare is here assening , Clulang U;U 29.6�; c[ Graham ('981), p. 239. , !tium T.!u, eh. 5, �d. Tai Wang, voL I, p. 44; cr. Rid,�tt ('g8S), vol. I, p. 196. , }{l1m'! and ObJe<'il 'i Graham (1978), 1'. po. . -t... ' L"planation: It applies to cases wlt�re complement' aTe pcrfc-ct. Such casu as 'dder brother or younger' and 'something so in one re.pect or 110t ill on� resped arc th� nece$$ary and the not n�cr.$!ar'.i Sc-ing this Or nm this is nece$$ary. Mp Ching Ajl; cf. Graham (197H), p. 299. I quot� the translation in Graham (1989), p. '43. A. C.
Graham has changed his mind on the- interpretation ofthis pauage. [ must confess that I still feel the-re- is no sal isfar,toryexplanation ortransl.ttion oflhe text.
, (
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
incompatibles. But everyone realises at once that the contradiction is only an apparent one. In China there are some thinkers (especially the Taoists) who were fond ofpara· doxes. Indeed we read in a recent paper that the Chinese were not bothered by con e
tradiction at all:
En:n the highest authorities on logic in China literally did not know what they were talking about, and frequcnlly contradicted themselves without being bothered by it/' This thought has a long and distinguished history:
r 5
Le principe de contradiction ne prcoccupe pas plus les Chinois que Ie principe de callSalile.� Statements like those by Marcel Granet are useful because they force us [0 state clearly the reasons we might have for attributing [0 the ancient Chinese the con cepts of incompatibility and of contradictories. Donald Leslie (1964) has tried to take up this challenge and to demonstrate that the notion of contradiction did play
! )
r
a role in ancient Chinese thinking. Let us start out with some crucial conceptual distinctions. Firsdy, we must distin guish between the view that two statements actually will never be true at the same time in the world as it is (factual incompatibility) and the view that contradictories can never be concurrently true under any conceivable circumstances Qogical incompatibility). ''''e are especially interested in the latter. Secondly, we must distinguish between statements which cannot at the same time be true (incompatibles) and statements which cannot at the same time be true but one of which must necessarily be true (contradictories). Saying that something is a
i a buffaJo is incompatible with saying that it is a horse. 'This is a horse' and 'This s buffalo' are incompatible predicates but nOt contradictory ones, because they may both at the same time fail to apply. As in the case of a dog. Contradictory statements would be statements such as 'This is a horse' versus 'This is not a horse'. Ancient Chinese philosophers from Confucius onwards were concerned with incompatible predicates and statements, but they showed little theoretical interest in the notion of contradictories, i.e., predicates which are such that they cannot both apply or both not apply to a given object.
inconsislenq hetwun actions Very common in ancient China is the accusation of inconsistency in action, as here exemplified by Meng Tzu:
ChheD Chen asked: 'The other day in Chhi the King presented you with a hundred j� of superior gold and you refused. In Sung you were presented with seventy i and you accepted. , Ikcker{Ig86), p. 84. The ilalio are Ikck"r'$ ()wn. 'The principle of contradiction doxs not preoccupy the Chinese any more than \h� principle 'If causality.' Granel (1934), p. :.;85. Cf.: '-"either the principle ofcausality nor lheprincipie ufcontradiction can be .aid to lake the role ofguitlingprincipl�,.' Ibid., p. 3�9 (my translation). 1
LA�GUAGE
AND LOGIC
In HsCieh you likewise accepte-d fifty i. Ifyour refusal in the first instance was right, then your
acceptance on subsequent occasions
must be wrong. If your acceptance was right, your refusal must be wrong. You cannot escape one or the other of these n\'o alternatives. "
The underlying thought here is that a morally responsible person should react similarly in similar situations. If he reacts differently to the same sort of situation there is a contradiction iT! aclll. rvfeng Tzu recognises this as a valid objection, but he defends himselfby pointing out that the situations were not in fact similar in the rel evant respect.2 Incompatibiliry brtween words anddeeds
Donald Leslie has drawn our attention to a passage \vhel'e Mo Tzu �T (-3th cen tury) speaks explicitly ofthe incompatibility ofwords and deeds: That means that in speaking onc rcje:cts universality but in making (moral) choices (tse�) one accepts universality. This is incompatibility between words and deeds.l
This notion remained current and perhaps even predominant in ancient China. Incompatibility belweenpS}'chologicaf alliludes
Confucius, for one, was interested in incompatible desires: Tzu Chang asked about . . . recognising <;onfusion (huo �). The Master replied: . . If you love something you want it to livc; if you hate something you wam it to die. To wish something to live and (at the same time) to wish it to die is confused (,mol.' 1
Here Confucius focuses on the notion of being confust"d (hllo) which seems to us closely related to incompatibility of desires. Here is another explicit e.xample rormulated in terms of incompatibility ofpsy chological attitudes: Mohisl argumems are self-contradictory (I;;:u wei eMi shu El J!Jtffi). On the one hand the Mohists place light emphasis on burial, but on the other hand they honour the ghosts oflhe
deeeased.�
Incompatibiliry between desires and actions
Consider the realist philosopher Han fei tl?F (died -233): Therefore, incompatible things do nOI coexist (pu hsiallf!Jung chih shih pu liang Ii 1'1tl�Z� 1'�.lz:). For instance, to reward those who kill their enemies in battle, and at the same time , AlI"l Tt.U2B4;Lau (lgH3C), P·n, : For (,.ontradiction in practil:� see e.g., ;"'Ung T�u 5al> and Chh�1I Ta-Chhi (/¢9). pr· :'5ff. ) Mo 1Zu 16·:n/45; cf. �-Ici ([929), pp. 90/92. 1 Lun Yu: ,�.�; cf. Lau (!983a), p. 113. who docs nOI !'ccogni!e the logical edge ofthi., passage. I Lun Hrng, rho ti7. ed. ChU!lg-hua-.,hu-chil. p. '321; c[ forke (196,.), 1'01. 2, p. 375.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
215
�your l. your
t o esteem deeds ofmercy and generosity; 10 reward with ranks and bounties thosc who cap ture enemy cities and at the same time to be1ie\'e in the theory ofimpardallovc . . . 1
:l react
tudes. We can speak here, in a loose sense, of real contradictions. So this is a notion
uation
but hI.:
Han Fei wants to point out that certain actions are incompatible with certain atti which the modern Chinese by no means had (0 learn from Marxism .
the rel-
Incompatibi[iry betwem statements Han Fei was also interr-sted in the abstract concept of contradiction between state ments (not only actions and attitudes) and construcled a famous joke about the mat
th cen-
ler. He was so fond of this joke that he repeated it twicc in his book, and again
referred back to it explicitly on two separate occasions. Janusz Chmielewski has drawn our attention to the logical significance ofthis passage:
China.
In Chhu there was a man who sold shields and lances and who praised his merchandise as follows: ':tvIy shields arc so �trong Ihal nothing can pierce them.' He wellt all to praise his lances thus: 'Yly lances are so strong, they will pierce anything whatever.' Someone com mented: '\Vhat ifyou me one ofyour lances to pierce one or your shields?' The man from
Chhu was lost for words.2
The man from Chhu was lost for words because he was caught in a con tradiction. He was caught out making two incompatible statements. These state
L . . lf
To wish
ns
to us
. of psy-
land the 515 ofthe
ilDetime
ments, as Han Fei puts it, 'cannot at the same generation/time be established (pu kho thungshih irh li1'"iiJ [QJi:!tffiJiL)'.3 It turns out that Han Fei liked to point out that those he criticised held in this way incompatible positions (mao tun chih shuo ;f I§ Z*).'
\"Tang Chhung .:E:JE (+27 lO +100) maintains that eenain accounts o fthe Spring
and Autumn pf'riod 'attacked each other (hsiangja f§rt.)', i.e., w ere incompatible
and could not at the same time be true, in the sense that ifone was right (shih �) the other had to be wrong (Jei :J.f) and Fiee versa." By his time, this was a current intellec tual ploy with a long history.
Confucius's disciples were well-kumvn for attacking their master as being incon
sistent in his comments:
Thc Mastcr weilt to Wu Chheng. There he heard the sound ofthe the zithern and singing. The Master broke into a smile and said: 'Surely you don't need to use an ox-knife to kill a chicken.>�
, Han ni lzl1 49.1 0.:10; cr. Liao (1939), ml. 2. p. 2M7. , lIan Fti lzu 36.4.20; d. Uao (1939), \"HI. 2, p. Ln. The same itory is n,told ....ith 1light variations in Han Eli T�1i .f°·�·37· I Han ni T.:;1136+3[;cf. Lia.O(I939), vol. 2,P. 1{3. , Cf. Han hi U.1I 36..j..33 and 40.5.44. tor a collcclion ofinstanccs whe� Han Fei see.ms to use the concept of comradictioI1 or incompatibilit) ; cf. Chou Chung-Ling Han Fti g� n lodr;, t'eking '958, pp. 'HI. fur the later historys�� the Hi; Kltant. Clti, ed. 'I"a; ]\Iing·Ya.ng, pp. '198 and 277, "';Ih i[$ C(lmmentari�s. , I-Jln Hm", ed. Chllnp;-hua-shll·chii, p. '592; cf. Fork� ([964), \"01. I, p. '15'1. Confucius', implication is thaiit is n i congruoll' tn play a nnbJ� instrument n i such " ba..c: environment. •
216
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Tzu Yu -=r W'f commemed:
'Some time ago
I heard it from you, 1Ia�ter, that the: gentle
man instructed in the \-\Ia)' loves his fellow men I and UUt tile small man instructed in the \OVay is easy to command.'�
Confucius seems to have recognised the inconsistency and simply pleaded that he had just been joking on the first occasion: The Master said: :'1)' friends, what Tzu Yu said is right. :'vI)' remark a moment ago "\vas only made in jest." '
\/
In a text attributed to Teng Hsi but probably compiled in Han times we read: One who speaks distinguishes different kinds and makes sure that they do not contradict each other (hsiang hai:f§�), one keeps the theses in theiT proper order so that they do not get
confused. In bringing out what one has on one's mind one should convey one's intended meaning and not to get involved in contradictions (kuai 0ffE). I
lncompatihiliry between terms The 11aster said:
'I have never met anyone who is truly unbending.'
Someone objected: 'But what about Shen Chheng"." The Master repied: l 'Chheng is full
of deSlfes. How can he (yn tC�m.) be unbendillg?'�
Confucius plainly regards 'being unbending' and 'being full of desires' as logical ly incompatible predicates. It is on this basis that his argument works. There is also incompatibility between nouns: 'Gentleman' is the opposite (fan &) of'little man'.6
The termfan refers to contraries rather than contradictories in such contexts. Yang Hsiungma (-53 to +18), when challenged, insists that subtlety (wei fJ!t() and clarity (ming SJ3) are not incompatible. The case is logically complex: As for the subtle (wei), in seeing it to be clear (ming), is that contradictory (pei �)?7
The notion ifcontradictories versus conlran·es \Ve have seen that the ancient Chinese thinkers were indeed concerned to avoid inconsistency of action, of intention or between statements. But did they develop the notion of contradictories as opposed to contraries? , This is taken (Q imply thal lhc gentleman �pTead:; high culture ,unong his (common) fdlow men. ., !":m rii 17.4; cf. Lau{I983a),P. I7I. ' Ibid. • Teng H.
ofthis lind ofJan ti. 1 Yang Hsiung, Fa Un 9, �d. Wang Yung-Pao, p. 275. Wang Yun)\-Pao'� generally '�'T fin� commell1ary docs not grasp the logical force ofpti�.
21 7
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
One may wonder whether the Chinese ever paid special theoretical attention to the notion ofcomradictories. In our survey of Later l\llohist Logic we shall find that this is indeed the casc.t At this point we give a brief preview of some essential evidence. Canon: Logical analysis (pirnm:) is contending over claims which are the contradictories ortach mhr.r (chi ngJan lE&). Explanation: One calling it 'an ox' and the other calling it 'nOt an ox
',
that amounts to con
tending over claims which arc the contradictories oreach other.�
Contradictories (fin) arc what cannOt be both regarded as unacceptable at the samc time.]
If one maintains a sentence, one is thereby committed to denying the negation (or rejecting the denial) of what one says. Consequently, refusing to deny any sen tences, as the Taoists arc fond ofdoing, is simply inconsistent: Canon: To reject denial is inconsistent.
Explained by: he does not reject it. E.tplanatioll: If he doC"s not rrjecl lhc denial (of his own thesis that denial is to be rejected)
i to be rejected or not, this then he dor.s nOl reject denial. �o ma(t�r whether the rejection s amounts to nOt rejecting the denial.' I full
caI-
Suppose someone maintains that one should re-ject denial. Then, if he means what he says, the thesis that one should not reject denial should be denied. But if one admits that that thesis should indeed be denied, then one is not really maintain ing that one should reject denial: in at least one instance (i.e" the thesis in which one rejects denial) one fails to reject denial. One's position is therefore inconsistent. For a more detailed discussion of such technical Later Mohist arguments the patient reader is referred to our Section {j,4). But it is important to keep in mind that a keen awareness ufcontradictiun did not disappear with the Mohists.
and Concluding remarks
Even an 'anti-intellectual' Confucian attitude was expressed using the notion of logical contradiction: An old saying goes like this: 'Not knowing is compatible with (pu hai ::f�) being a gentle
!Oid :lop
man. Knowledge does not make someone any less
ofa small man. ':i
Indeed, one might argue that making contradictory claims is not incompatible with being a gentleman. Han Fei tells us that Confucius once defends himself against the charge that he is giving inconsistent explanations of good administra tion by pointing out that the different explanations were directed at different con crete political circumstances.6 This suggesLS 1 . that the charge ofinconsistency was 1
I
•
For a ,ur\"ey ofLal«r .\-Iohist Logic the reader must turn to our S«ctiOl1 ((,4). . En Win 1zu, ed. Li Shih-Hli, p. 14. Graham (1978), "'40. ' Ibid., A73. ' lhid., ll79.
Different \"�rsions Oflhi., $lory are com..niently assemhl�d in Siwfl Tiilln 7. ed. Chao Shan-I, pp. J8,;rff.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
taken seriously, and 2 . that Confucius' (sometimes apparently incompatible) state ments should perhaps be construed not as theoretical abstract explanations or definitions, but rather as concrete responses to historical situations. There is nothing particularly Chinese about such a pragmatic view of public statements and contradiction. The public speaker Demadcs (-4th century) proudly claimed that he had often made claims that were contrary to his own, but never claims that ,vcre contrary to the interests ofthe city state (hautiimen autoll l'anantiapol lakis eirekenai, Iedepolei medepote, aUT(j; f.LEV aUTov T"avavTla 7TO,\,\Q:KtS" fdp'"'IKival, Til OE 170'\0:1 f.L'"'IOi17on) . 1
1 tI
o tI
tI
(6)
THE C O N C E P T OF
A CLASS
First order predicate logic can be considered as a theory ofclasses or sets. Chinese logical writings like the White Horse Dialogue by Kungsun Lung have in the past been interpreted as a part of Chinese reflections on classes or sets. But did the ancient Chinese actually have a clear concept of a class?Janusz Chmielewski (1969, pan I on early Chin Logic I) argues that they did. A. C. Graham (1965) disagrees.1 Neither of them offers a detailed conceptual history of the word lei � to back up their claims. Vv'c need to look carefully at the history of this concept in order to determine whether it designates a class of items, or whether it would seem to refer to a kind ofsruff. The notion of a category, a class or a set, is important in the history of science. It is through the categorisation and classification of his environment that man begins his long march tmvards science. Every word of a language represents, in a way, a classification or categorisation of the human environment, but it is not at all evident that every language must have an abstract notion of a class. Indeed the abstraCl notion of a class versus a natural kind is a fairly modern notion. Few people can have been more preoccupied with classification and taxonomy than the Chinese. One striking and early example must suffice here to remind us of this fact: the chapter Ku G'liill ]en Piao �6;-A*- 'List of Men Past and Present', which forms chapter 20 of the Chhien Han Shu ·�ln:w; � , completed by the great woman scholar Pan Chao fIEajj (died c. +I20). This list ranks no less than 1,955 indi viduals according to nine grades of their moral and intellectual worth.� In China, the development of the notion of a class or category started from that of an ancestral group, a racial group, an animal kind, a biological kind, a natural kind, to become, finally, a humanly defined set of things. I
Plutarch, Parallellius, eu. L,eb, \"01. 7. p. JO. See Graham (1965), p. 143. 'Objecls arC C()ncl
nexl Sub-section.
, For a wonderful survey "fthis classificatory orgy Se<.'" Hodde (1939), PI'.
207fT.
� \,
tI
C
n
01 'c Ii fa
m
bo
'" "" 01
..
..
LAXGUAGE AXO L O G I C ble) state lations or
of publi c " proudly but never rJIIJntia pol VQt, Tn OE
;. Chinese
n the past H
did
the
rski (1969,
lisagrees.1
back up to m to refer
a
I order
iCience. It
an begins
1
a way, a
!
abstract
ill e'v;dcnt
.... :a..
onomy
nind us of
Present' , me gn�at -955 in difrom that a natural
!kkind (lhuR,g umotU5� th� a class in (h�
219
In this Section I shall inYestigate the semantic history and the use of the central concept of lei 'kind', 'category' in ancient Chinese literature. I Thepre-histoT}' ojthe notion oja class '1'he word ki has not, as far as I know, been ide-ntified in the oracle inscriptions or in the bronze inscriptions.2 �either does it occur in the Book of Changes. In the Book of History, lei is the name of a solemn sacrifice performed only for the highest deity, the shang ti L*' This sacrifice is often mentioned in the ancient repository of ritual, the Choll LA mH�, and occasionally in the Book of Songs as 'veil as the KilO Yii ��. However, in general the sacrificial meaning of lei had all but disappeared during \Varring States times. Another carly meaning of 'e': is 'good'. \Ve find a d e ar defin ition rdating the two meamngs in lhe following passage:
As for 'lei', it means 'not reducing to shame the former wise men (i.e., the ancestors)'.J
The link between the sacrificial and the moral meaning of lei is evident: both these concepts are linked to the notion ofthe ancestor. \,\ie note, in passing, that the ' Greek word dikaios 'just originally meant 'observant of custom', and thus desig nated 'a good tribesman'. As the meaning 'good' disappeared, a new meaning emerged, that of a racial group defined in terms ofits common ances(or.� I have heard it said that thc spirits do not accept sacrifices from others than their own stock (fti lei :#'�, and that the people do nOt sacrifice to others than their own dan Uri fsu :1Ftm}.o;
He3H:n and Earth are the bases onile. The former ancestors are the bases ofraces/dans
(Id)."
We note thatIa Lei means nothing like 'dissimilar'. It will not do to take the notion
of simi lari ty as basic. Already in early sources we get the notions of Ihung lei 1m � 'cognate' and i lei �� 'non-cognate, agnate', and the old commentary to the Kuo rii IB!I� ascribed to Wei Chao #8f1 comments simply: 'lhung lei means "of the same family name".') \Vhat has the same family name is not a kin d of similar Sluff, but individuals. Moreover, they are defined in terms ofkinsh ip, !lOt similarity. I ),lotc thai the word chung � ·s�ed·. hence 'br�ed' (..� in 'among tht' harharians there are nine breeds (chung), became curr<�'n( .�t a lat�r stag.. although w.. find i�nla!�d inS!iUu:es like I(hu iw (hU11l}',h Jtt foHil:1!!. 'whal sort of thing is chi,!' (Han Hi "T.;.u 3�.3L). When Buddhi,! philo�oph)" was lransmillcd \0 China it wa� chung not leiwhich became ,h.. s.annarn t�rmfor the characteri>t;c BuddhisL IradhiolL ofsubclassification. Chwl8acquired a nuance
of'lfp<'ciP" , ,,< oppo....,d to /ti·genus". J St'� Wu Ch;�n-K.uo (1963), p. 103. ' Kuo Hi, cd. World Book Compan}; p. 8j. • Compare. ;ncidcmall�; Ihe ef)mology ofthe Greek ...·ord grnos ·genus.. kind', whi<:h also originally mean! a
tri1xofpeopk.
, no ChuOll, Duke H�i lo,ed. Yaoll Bnjun, p. :134; cf. Cnu\"TPur (t95Lh), \"01. I, p. 2i9. 7Jo CJiuan, Duke Hsi 3t, ed. Yang Po·Chlin,p. 48i; CounCIIT (195I b), \"OI. �, p. 423, uS<"� Lht' mmhinatinn /sulriiSi.�. • HJiin '�u 19-14; d Ko.t<:r (1967), p. 243. ' Kuo lit, u. Hi, apudWu Chien-kilo (1963), p. 108.
LA:'>.'GUAGE AND L O G I C
When Confucius declares that for him there are no lei � in education, I i t i s likely (hat he thereby meant he did not make any distinction between people according to which clan they came from.
Biological kinds A natural development from this is the notion of lei as a biological kind in general. Tigers and men belong to differellt kinds (lei ). 2 To some extent one may say the
lei have
a certain metaphysical force. Human
and natural ki are seen in a proround analogy even by the Confucian Hstin Tzu.
Herbs and trees spring from their own kind (lei). Birds and beasts live in flocks. That is because every thing foUom its kind (lei).] Good fonune and bad fortune are then defined relative to the category a thing belongs to.
That which is in harmony with a (biological) kind (Jhun chhi ki chi .lWiJt��) is called good fortune. That which goes against a kind (ni chhi lei,hii91;lt�1l:!) is called ill fortune. Such is the government ofHeaven. I Dictionaries, from the Shuo
Win Chuh Tzu �>cm:* (postrace +100) onwards, will
describe animals in terms of the lei to which they belong. Typically, for the Chinese, this
lei is
not necessarily defined in terms of a superordinate more general genus
under which a species is subsumed, but quite often by example.!> The next step is to take
lei not as a specifically biological kind but as a generally
natural kind. The lei to which a thing belongs determines its behaviour in the "..-orId.
The ten thousand things are of different kinds (shu lei ��) and they have different charac teristic shapes. They all have distinct functions and cannot replace each otherY The practical usefulness of an awareness of natural kinds was obvious enough to the ancient Chinese:
\r\'heneveryou undertake anything, you should not go against the vVayofHeaven. You must foUow the seasons ohhings and you must adapt to the relevant natural kinds (leiF This notion of a natural kind is importantly linked, still, to the notion of a com mon origin, as the Book of Changes insists:
Things that draw their root from heaven tend towards what is above. Things that draw their root from the earth c!ca\;e to what is below. So every thing follows its kind (leo tJhung cMi lei)'th
i'>iitIUi'H!!).•
, Lun ril lj.39: cr. LaU{1983a),P. 159. Hrun 'nu 1.15; cf. Duh. (1928), p. 34.
J
' Chuang T.;,u4.62; cf. Graham ('981), p. i2.
• Hsiin Tzu 17 . 1 2; cf: Dubs (I9�8). p. 176.
, Sec Tuan YtHshai (1981), p. 458. for on� of many examples of Ih� practic� ofdefining a binlogical kind in t�rms ofsimillirity to a member. •
I
Lii Shih Chhufl ChlriIl 3.j, cd. Chhen Chhi-Va, p. '72; cr. Wilhelm (192B), p. 38. lii Sltilt Chhufl CMiIl 8.1, cd. Chhen Chhi-Ya, p. 422; c( Wilhelm (1928). p. 9+
· IChing'la;cf. Sang(1969),P·9·
LANGUAGE A N D L O G I C
221
'Meto.physical' categories
ely
The notion of a kind must not be identified in a facile way with biological or physi cal classification. We often have a more 'metaphysical' kind of classification under the five elements or five phases (wu hsing lifT): I.
tan u is
ong ood
:h is
ese, nus ..ny
Irld.
h [0
Dust
om-
iIld in
The: mar� belongs to the category (lei) ofearth. I The setting up of categories the manipulation of which will give one control over the things belonging {Q them is a central concern in the Book of Changes. The Great Appendix to this book explains: In ancient times Fu Hsi ruled over the world.
. . . and he devised the eight trigrarns to show lhe Power of demonic understanding and to categorise (lei) the essences of the ten thousand things.�
fully
VCIY interestingly, the I Ching verbalises the notion of lei to make it mean 'cate gorise, divide into categories', and it is clear that the categories (lei) here n i volved are of a profound metaphysical nature. It is often hard to find out how much of this metaphysical dynamism of lei survives in less metaphysically laden contexts than the Book of Changes. Since things in some sense follow their kind, one must understand the kinds in order to understand the things. This, in any case, is the ambition ofthe Sage. The ten thousand things in the world are the body ofone man. That is caUed the Great One
(ta thung *�) . . . Heaven fills all things (with life). The Sage surveys them to ascertain their
kinds (lei).j
The reasons why the sage must observe the kinds or categories of things become clear in the following passage:
It is inherent in things of one kind that they call each other up. Ifthe vital energies (chhi�) are the samt, they act together, when a sound correlates, it responds. When you strum the note slumg ftij or cniien fb, on one instrument, the same string is stirred on another. Ifyou pour water on flat ground it flows towards the damp. If you put fire to wood of equal quality it tends towards the dry.� The same in kind (tnung lei [email protected] go along with tach other, the same in sound respond to each other.)
Things affcet each other according to their kinds (wu leihsiang tU7lCmJi::t§�).G
The idea of cosmic resonance has been studied in detail in Charles Le Blanc (1986). One Taoist attitude towards this cosmic resonance was to regard it as inaccessi ble to discursive reasoning. , JCJllilg �; cf. Sung(1969), P. [6.
" Jc;,ingHsi T�u2;Sung(1969), P.3og.
, liiShilt CMun Wiu 13.I,ed. Chhen Chhi-Yu,p. 659;cf. Wilhelm (I928), p. 160. • lii Sililt CMIlJ! WiJI 13.2; cf. Wilhelm (1928), p. 161, and Graham ([978). p. 373> Compare a1so LMShih ChJum Chlri" 20.4, tr. Wilhelm, p. 3�5, for a similar passage. � Chuang �U31.l2; d Graham (1gBI), p. 249. " HuaiNan 1i;u 3. �d. SP'TK3, p. lb.
222
L A >l G U A G E AND L O G I C
As for the correspondance ofthings (lei chih luiangying � ZftllJ!), this is something mysteri ous and profound. Knowledge cannot �ort it OUI (/un mil), logical analysis (pien m) cannot unravel it. ! This notion of a metaphysical resonance oflike to like is of the utmost impor � andyang � moving the universe in a sort of cosmic music of resonance are but one instance of the popularity of this way of thinking in China. The enthuliiastic acceptance of the Buddhist doctrine ofkarma is another instance. In ancient Chinese medicine, the concept of lei � comes to play a significant part, as when the famous Huang Ti Nei Ching Su Wen �w!l3 t.� �FJ:l� systematically subsumes things cosmologically under rhe five elements or phases (wu k'ling lifi) by describing things as lei huo �j( 'of the category offire', etc.l Within Chinese theo ries of art the idea orcosmic resonance also had its impact.3
lance in Chinese intellectual history. The pervasive speculations on)'in
Similarity groups The next step was that from a natural kind or metaphysical category to that of simi larity in general , as in the dramatic story where criminals enter the bedroom of Duke Hsiang ofChhi, kill the man lying on the Duke's bed, but then they find they have made a mistake:
'It's not Ihe ruler. He's not like h im (pu UI 1'�)!"
Meneius makes an important categorial statemcnt: All things of the same category (lei) are similar (ssu if)). Why should we have doubts on this just in the case ofman?:;
to the same catcgory, according to � i \'Iencius, is not simply the same as being similar. But things which belong to the same category will be similar thing (in some relevant way). Often the question whether things are of the same lel is thought to be controversial: Belonging
Things often are alike but arc not the same (hsiang lti irhfii ffi�ffii�I'): the dark coloured grasses that grow benveen wheat sprouts resemble wheat . A brindled yearling(?) is like (ssu) a tiger. Bleached bone might be suspected of being ivory. The wu-fu it:;le precious stone resembles (ui)jade. These are all cases of being like a thing but not being the thing.'; I HllaiNim �Il, ed. l.iu \\'cn-Ti�n, 6.3a; cf. L� Blanc (Igl:lii),pp. I Iliff.
Hilling Ti/lei CrungS" lV',.", t:h. I, p. 1+ Compare also Iii Shih CiliUm ChIIiIl20.4; IT. Wilh�lm (1928), p. �, for a similar piU-.age. On th� urly hi>Iory of the conccplS of Yin and Yang iU w..11 as Ihe Five f'haJC5 ser Graham (1986b), pp, 7"-94. , S�e r.luuakata (lg83), pp_ 105-31. • 15Q Chua,., Dukr Chuang H, �d. Yang Po-Chun, p. 176; c[ Couvr..ur(195Ib), mI. 1, p. 144. , Mb'l Ji:.u 6.-\7; Lau (lg83"), p. 229. • CltIUl Kill) nM, no. �95, cd. Chu Tsu-Keng, p. 1139; d. Grunlp (1970), p. 372. •
L A N G U A G E AND
� 3teri '
cannot
mpor
223
LOGIC
This notion ofa similarity group can then be used in a nominal way:
He can raise to office good people, Only those who are good can raise to office those who are like them (chii chhi fei!J;J;t.�} I By the -4th century the notion of lei as a concept referring to a similarity group
Q}'ang
was firmly established. Categories were no longer entirely traditional or given by
nee of
and artificial kinds (lei.) comes out beautifully in this passage:
nance
meant
tieall\'
fj') by theo-
nature. They were also conceived as set up by man,
The difference bet\veen natural
Therefore laws are not established by themselves. Categorisations cannot apply generally of tllt:msdvc� (/ti pu rJ.rng t;:u ruing :�.IrF � § nV If one finds the right person (to administrate them), they will exist. If one fails to find the right man, they will cease to exist.3 Evidentl); the concept of ki played its part in administration theory where
it
referred to administrative categories ofpeopJe and actions. On the other hand, the
concept was also to play a crucial part in Chinese conceptions of reasoning and explanation.
fsimi
om of
:I they
E>,:plnnatory categories .For Mo Tzu rhc concept of kiwas a central one. When accused of incoherence in his
opposition to offensive warfare, Mo Tzu replies:
You have nOI properly Ut\'cstigated the categories to which my words belong (wu)'tn chih lei .:g:�Z� andyou have not quite understood my reasons (ku).·
Mo Tzu mentions the lei 'categories' and the ku 101: 'reasons' on a par. The name
ofsueh a category can specify the lei involved:
1n this sam,
:milar
! lei is
lOured ' (ssu) a stone
m,for .wam
To enter other people's states and to associate with those who rob others, these arc not things of the category ofdutifulness (Jei i chih /tiyh ?F�Z�ti!).'·, Understanding categories ((lIih ki 1IJ�) was evidently a matter ofprofound import
anCe for 1"10 Tzu. l\ot understanding categories was in facl lantamOunt to not under standing him at all. Mo Tzu's conflict and dialogue with Kungshu Phan provides
an important clue on the concept of understanding categories. Mo Tzu begins by asking Kungshu Phan to kill one of his (Mo Tzu's) enemies, whieh Kungshu Phan
refuses all the grounds that it is in contravention of what he perceives as his duty
(i �). Mo Tzu gets up, bows twice, and proceeds to a moralistic Kungsun Phan which culminates and ends as follows:
harangue against
To consider it as one's duty not to kill rdatively fcw and go on to kill (relatively) many, that cannot be called knowing categories (pu kIw u:ei chih leiyth /FiiJIDlIffili:1:!2).6 , no Chuon, Duke H�iang 3, ed. Yang Po-Chiin, p. 927; d. COll\Tellr{1951bj, \'01. lit, p. 19lit. Compare the technical use ofthe term hsingfj 'proceed' in connection ";th ki. among the later �[ohut:s
l
�e
Graham(19i8), PI" In!: , HI;;n nu 12.lit; d. Ko.ter ('96i), p. '52. , 1<10 UU 39.41; c[Me;{1929), 1'. 2"7.
•
' .1-10 UU 19.32; d. Wal
Mo UII 50.6; cr. �Ie; (1929), p. 258.
LA�GUAG£. A�D LOGIC �'H�ng Tzu seems t o have taken over Mo Tzu's strategy o n this point: Mencius said: 'Now ifone's third finger is bent and cann ot stretch straight, though this nei ther causes any pain nor m i pair� the use of the hand, one would think nothing of the dis tance between Chhin and Chhu if someone able to straighten it could be found. This is because one's finger is inferior to other people s. When one's finger is inferior to other people's one has sense enough to resent it, but not whell one's heart s i inferior This s i what is called "not knowing (the rcle\Oant) categories (lei)". ' I '
,
.
Knowing explanatory categories, according to Mo Tzu and �vtcng Tzu, seems to be the ability to extrapolate from one similar case to the other, and the relevantly similar cases are then said to be of one
lei.
The process by which one extrapolates
came to be called that of thudiE 'pushing' by the Later Mohist logicians.�
Kungshu Phan's ruler wants to attack Sung, but Mo Tzu opposes this move with a
number ofinteresting analogies which he summarises by referring to the notion of le£. Mo Tzu saw lhe ruler and said: Supposc there is a man who, putting asidc his degant carriage, desires to steal his neighbour's shattered sedan chair; or someolle who putting aside his embroidery and finery desires to steal his neighbour's short jacket; or someone who putting aside his meat and grains desires to steal his neighbour's husks. What kind ora man would this be?' The lord said: 'He must suffer from the disease of kleptomania.' Mo Tzu continued: 'The land ofChing amounts to five thousand square li l L while that of Sung is of only five hundred. This is similar to the contrast between the elegant carriage and the shattered sedan. Ching possesses Yun �leng which is full of rhinoceroses and deer. The fish, tortoises and cfOwdiles in the Yangtse and the Han rivers are the most abundant in the empireo \,yhile Sung is said to possess not even pheasant rabbitS, or foxes. This is sim ilar to the contrast bet\...-een meat and grairu on the one hand and husks on the other. In Ching there are tall pines, spruces, cedars and camphor trees, while Sung has no tall lrees at all. This is similar to the contrast bet\vccn embroidery and finery on the olle hand and a shortjacket 011 the other. \Vhen your ministers and generals set out to attack Sung, it seems '
,
to me they belong to the same category as this (]ii l<.hll ihung lei �Jtt iPJM). As I see it, you, my mlel� are bound to violate the demands ofduty without getting anything in return.'_l For Mo Tzu i n this dialogue a
lei@: is not just a fixed natural kind, it is a relevant
similarity group, a set of things that are similar in a relevant respect. 'Knowing cat· egories', then, amounts to recognizing similarities that are relevant to lhe argumelH at hand. Mencius made use ofthe term in this connection in a justly celebrated passage : 'What is the difference in form lJet\veen refusal to act and inability to act?' 'If you say to someone "1 am unable to do it when the task is one of striding over the Nonhern Sea with Mount Thai under your arm, then this is a genuine case of n i ability to act. But if you say "1 am unable to do it" when it is one of making an obeisance to your "
Mint T�"t.",,,,.\..a,, \'>'1\'.11:). \1. '117 · , The (ouccpt ufknowing <;aH:gori�5 r�curs. for c"ampk, in iii Shih ChJr.un Chhiu llJ
\
p. 537, lii Silih CMun C/JUu 13 .4, . �d. P· 13H·
-
ehhen Chhi·Yu, p.
, Mo TtIl4o.I'l; cr. �1ci (lg83c), p. �5H.
698, and lii Shih CMu" Chhiu 2{).�, "d. Chhen Chhi-Yu,
4
LANGUAGE AND
LOGIC
elders, then this i s a case o frefusal to act, not of inability. Hcnce your failure to become a
this nei
the dis This is
o
other
This is
true King IS not of the same category (lei) as ;'striding over the Korth Sea with Mount Thai under your arm" but ofthe same category (ki) as "making an obeisance to your elders" . " Thr unicorn and othcr animal.s, the phoenix and other birds, Mount Thai and smaU mounds, rivers and seas and running brooks, these are all of a (i.e., the same) kind (lri)'eh
�i:!1). The sage and a commoner are also of a kind (leiJ·eh).2
Mcncius called the pushing of categorial thinking to extremes 'ems to
v !' a mly palates
'chhung lei J'f.tJ'i
"filling up lhe category" ' : To mailllan i that taking anything that does not belong to one is robbery is 'filling up a cate gory' (chhung lti) and carrying the concept of dutifulness (i�) to its limit.�
Jf,
For Meneius, chhung means the laking ofa category to its logical limits, to take it as far as it will go. The notion of' lei can be quite abstr act, as in the following punl mgpassage:
degant putting meont
tnd or a
:Vl�ng Tzu said: 'For everyman there arc things he cannot bear. To extend this to what he can bear is benevolence. For every man there are things he cannot gel himself to do. To
extend this to what he can get himself to do is righteousness. If a man can extend to the full
((hhung) his natural
aversion to harming others, then there will be an overabundance of
bencvolen(.e. Ifa man can extend to the full (chhung) his dislike for boring holes and climbing
ile that unagc d decr.
mdant IS
Silll
her. In trees at l and
it
,seems
it, you,
il.'J
le\'am
g c at
I
lJflent
age: lCf
the
aity to ) YOUf
bhi·Yu, hhi-Yu.
over walls, then thefe will be an oycrabuncll'lnce of rightness . . 1'0 speak to a gentleman who must nOI be spoken to s i to use spee ch as a bait. On the other hand, not to sp eak to one who could be spoken to is to use silence as a bait. In either
case, the action is ofthe same category (lri) as hat t orboring holes and climbing over walls.' I
Han Fei, explaining the difficulties of speaking, knows that making such analo gies between things can have an effect contrary to that intended: . . IfI use many words and complicated expressions, ifI string together categories and com pare things (/iro lripi wuji!i.l:tW), then this will be looked upon as empty and useless . . . '
However, Han Fei too is convinced of the importance of undcrstanding catc
gories, as the following reflection of his shows:
The possessor ofa thousand Ii*- ofrocky land cannot be called rich. The possessor ofa mil lion puppets cannot be called strong. !\ot that the rocks are not big or that the puppets are
not numerous. The pOSSessors cannOt be called rich and strong simply because great rocks do nOI produce grain, and because puppets cannot be used to resist ene mies. !\ow men who get office through purchase and who play tricks, they eat without cultivat ing the land. They are as unproductive as uncuhivated land, in the same category as rocks.
In the same way the literati and the knights render no meritorious army seJ"\ice but are cele
brated and prosperous. They are useless people, the same thing aspuppets. Those who know what disasters rocky lands and mere puppets are, but who fail to understand that the office purchasers, the lilerati and (he knights arc as harmrul as uncultivated land and unemploy
able people, they are the sort ofpeoplc who do not understand the categories (/ti) of things.6 ' M� T:.Il�A2; Lau(lg8:iC),P. 61. , M � T.tll 1A7; l..au (I�83c), p. 17. I Ming Tzll 7B31; LaCl (1983c),P. 2ry8. ' M;"!I. ·r:.� j8..; Lau(1983c).p.2!1. " Han Fei 1:." :3-1.10; cr. Liao (1939), vol. I, p. �3. • Han Hi Tzu 50.6; cf. Llao (1939), \'01. 2, p. 305.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
I n one passage Hstin Tzu mentions
lei 'categories' and Ii t!
'ritual' side by side.
According to him, the aim of speech is to capture the natural regularities which are inherent in the natural categories as well as in the artificial categories set up by man:
. . . This is the sign ofa great Confucian (ju. 1ffit) . His words are in accordance with (the rele vant) categories (chhiyenyu lei :1t'�:ff�), his deeds are in accordance with ritual (chhi hsing)'IJ. Ii ;ltl'Tf!1!!) '
lei becomes a term of high intellectual praise. The lei to refer to are of course those set up by the Confucian
For Hstin Tzu the \vord categories which he takes tradition.
If someone speaks a lot and keeps in accordance with (the relevant) categories (Io)'en erh lei
�§mf�) he is a sage.�
The Taoist philowpher Chuang Tzu lifts himselfabove the sort of reasoning that involves categorisation. In his essay entitled 'On regarding all things as equal' he sets up just one highest category in which everything is equal.
Now suppose that I speak of something, and do not know whether it is ofthe same category (lei) as the thing at hand or whether it is not of the same category (lei) as the thing at hand. If what is ofthe same category (lei) and what is not ofthe same category (lei) arc all considered to be of the same calegory (lei), there is no diHerence between the thing at hand and Ihe other thing.1 If Chinese civilisation was able to become the cradle of great scientific discover ies, this was because Chuang Tzu's attitude was not in fact typical of Chinese intel lectual practice. More typical is the attitude displayed in the chapter entitled 'Distinguishing categories' in the encyclopaedia
Lii Shih Chhun Chhiu g ,B;": :ff ti;. .
Here the difficulty of setting up categories is clearly realised:
11any things look as if they are of a certain category but are not. As a result states are lost and peoples come to grief in an endless series. Among the plants there are the hsin � and the lei;l;. \Vhen one eats one of these separatc:ly, they kill one; f i people eat them together, they give them a longer life . . . One cannot with certainty infer from one member ofa cate gory to another of the same category (lei ku pu PI !rho thui chih ,eh �!8l1::i£' n}:Jt�iQ). A set oHour small horses is ofthe same category (lei) as a set offour large horses. A small hone is of the same category (lei) as a large horse. But small knowledge is not ofrhe same category (lei) as large knowledge.' )
Here the author reflects on the potential of the notion of a
lei for formal deduc
tion. You might have thought that if two plants are equally poisonous, the two of them together are doubly poisonous. Not so. You might have thought that small horses being of the same category as large horses, by analogy, by a process of 'push ing categories'
(thul lei ti£�), you could conclude that small (i.e., petty) knmvledge is
Hsiin ku 8.86; cf. Dubs (lg28),p. 109. ' Hsiin kIl 27.lz6; cr. Koster (19G7), p. 363. Chuang T<;u LjB; cf. Graham (lg81), p. 55. I.ii. Shih Chhun Chhiu 25.�. ed. Chhen Chhi·Yu, p. 164-�; cf. Wilhelm (1928), p. 4-35.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
of the same category a s large (i.e., superior) knowledge. Not so. According to the
writer) such conclusions are unwarranted, and he even obliges with a j oke to illus trate his point:
be
an
III Lu thert: was a man by the name Kungsun Chao He told someone: 'You know, I can i g the dead back to life again!' brn 'How so?' 'You sec, I can certainly cure hemiplegia, and ifI take t\vlce the amount ofmerncine with which I cure hemiplegia, 1 should be able to raise the dead to life again." 'A'hat better illustration would one want for the close relation bet'tveen Chinese
logic and Chinese jokes? Like so many others, this joke is based on a false analogy;
and a false analogy is essentially a case ofputting into the same category what is not
>a'
he
''Y
df ,w
the
�I
led
'*
""
md
ler,
'1<-
in the relevant respect similar.
Tn the same chapter on 'Distinguishing categories ' we find another entertaining
and philosophically more subtle story: A c onnoisseur of swords said: '\Vhite (metal) makes a sword hard, brovffl (metal) makcs it elastic . Ifyou combine the white and the brown, the sword will be hard and elastic and you will gel the best sword.' Someone raised an objection: 'The while (metal) will make the sword not clastic. The brown (metal) will make it not hard. If you mix the while and the brown, you will make the sword neirher hard nor elastic. y[oreover, ifa sword is clastic, it gets easily bent. If it is hard, it is easily broken. A sword that is easily bent and easily broken, how can you c all that a sharp (i. e., good) sword?' The real nature (chhingt1'i) ofthe sword was unchanged but one considered it as good, the other as bad. Their explanations (shuo � bring about this (divergence).2
Here the author focuses his attention on the fact that by categorising something undr.r a c.ertain
lei like
'hard' you are at the same time commilled to categorising
under the lei ' not elastic'.
The Later Mohists made extensive abstract use of the term
lei as a category of
things. \Ne shall investigate their theories in the Sub-section on Mohist logic. But
in speaking of 'the category of things with shapes ' (ju 'ISing chih lei 1flf3Z�),3 was clearly capable of a quite abstract notion of a cate
even a philosopher like Han rei,
me
,c , of
,all ,h'"
gory insofar as these shapes were going to be sharply different and dissimilar.
The very intriguing text Liu TZu �JT, which we may vcry tentatively attribute to thc literary critic Liu Hsieh i'IJ�� (+465 to +522), argues logically that a similarity group does not establish a lei. vVe might say without distorting the issue that the liu Tzu also argues against the transitivity of"the similarity relation. \"Ihen you generalise uniquely Oil the ba�i� of I�j, because this is like that, then if you main
tain that a dog is similar to a chUt )I-ape, that a chile-ape is similar to a chii m-ape, and that the chii-apc is similar to man, then a dog will be similar to a man. If you maintain that
' lbU l.
J
' iii Slrih L'hhun eMil/.25.2, 00. ehhen Chhi·Yu. p. •641; cr. Wilhelm {1928), p. 435. lIanFti T:..Il� I .Jo.J.
LA.:\'GUAGE
AND
LOGIC
white is similar to light yellow, light yellow is similar to brown, brown is similar to red, red is similar 10 purple, purple is similar to dark purple, and dark purple is similar to black, Ihen white turns out 10 be black. 1 This amounts to advanced abstract theorising about categories
(lei).
Ludwig
Wittge:nstein would have been delighted to find this piece of reasoning, I am sure. There is a deep contrast between the current Classical Chinese notions like
leI
and the purdy logical notion of class which is central to our concern. The nOlion of an ordered hierarchy
of categories,
or of a
lei of different leis, a
category of cate
gories, a class of classes, does not seem to have been focused on by the ancient Chinese as it has been by the ancient Greeks, and particularly by Plato in his theory ofdiairesisow.{p£o(<;. However, this did not in any way prevent the Chinese, when the time came, from becoming consummate taxonomers of biology, as previous vol umes of sec have shown.
The old Classical Chinese notion of lei corresponds not to the logical nOlion of a mathematical sel or a class, but evolved more along the lines ofwhat we mighl call 'a natural kind' and of explanatory categories.1 Natural kinds are classes of things lhat we regard as of explanatory importance; classes whose normal distinguishing characteristics are 'held togelher' or explained by deep-lying mechanisms. Cate gories are kinds we are conscious ofhaving set up ourselvt.:s.
Semantic categories, calego,u,f and subcategones However, we do have lhe concept of a semantic class in traditional Chinese lexi
cography, as when Liu Hsi �J� writes in lhe introduction to his dictionary Shih Ming
�:g written around +200:
As for the rdation bcnveen names and objects (shih .), there are classes of meaning (i lei fiJil'i).' Cheng Hsilan �2C (+127 to +200) se:ems already lO employ somethinglike a notion
ofa subcategory chungfm when he defines chiu 1 jL� 'the Nine I-Barbarians' ofLun
Tii 9 . 14 as tungfong chiil l,yu chm chung *hZ��1Lfm: 'the I-barbarians of the East
ofwhich there arc nine subgroups'.� The
Chhun Chhiu Fan Lu �;f.kJfi1, a work which contains a fair amount of early
Han material but was perhaps compiled no earlier than the +sth century, intro
duces a notion offon hao fL� 'comprehensive appellation' to refer to a general term
or genus and san ming 1tZ.:iS 'spread names' for its subcalegories or species.
Things all have a general appellation (fon hoo). And appellations all have their subcategorie� (san mil!g).'
, Du T;:u, ch. t6, cd, Lin Chhi·Th"n and ChhcII F�ng·Chin. p. 94. Chapt�r.1 16 and 1 7 art: collccrnl'd with names (milll ;g). I mention thi5 bccau5e the hook is not mtntioncd in the execllem hibliography to Graham
(19;8).
See Putnam (1975). ' Cr. Chhicn Chien-lill {ff,l86), p. 151 . • Lun 1Ii, cd. Liu I'ao-N"n, vol. 2, p. 97, ' Chhu� Chhiu FMI Lv., ch. 34, �d. Ling Shu,p. 23+ 1
22 9
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Examples will bring out the nature of this division The general (jan eM fL�) only brings up the main matter. Entcnaining the ghosts and spirits has one (general) appellation: sacrifice (chi �). The subcategories (san ming) of 'sacrifice (chi)' are as follows: . . . Hunting birds and beasts has one appellation: hunt (lIzitn 83). The subcategories (san ming)
of'hunt (lIzim)' are .
. .1
B. C . Cohen (tg82) argues thal underst anding natural kind terms requires exten sive shared wmmon-sense beliefs about the characteristic properties ofa kind. The task of the historian of Chinese intellectual history is indeed to reConStruct these extensive networks of common-sense beliefs which - for the ancient Chinese defined their catcguries and their changing conceptual schemes. What we have been studying in this Sub-section, then, is not the abstract mathematical concept of a class or set. It is the absolutely fundamental cultural concept of the cognitive (as well as administrative) category in ancient China. ( 7 ) ABSTRACTION AND THE C O N C E P T
OF
A
PROPERTY
The concept of a kind or category plays an important part in Chinese intellectual history. We shall also see that the notion of subsumption under a category was known to the C hinese. But the abstract concept ohhe quality, property, or characteristics as such is an idea which needs separate inveHigarion in its own right. After all, it is conceivable that the ancient Chinesewere nominalists in the sense that they spoke only ofthings, ofkinds ufthings, ofdistinctions bcnvccn things, and ofnames applying to things, but never ofabstract properties or qualities as such as auaching to things. The Classical Chinese language lack.� such morphemes as the English '-ness'. Antisthenes would have had trouble telling the ancient Chinese in their own lan guage what he tOld Plato: 'I can see horses, but 1 can not see horsehood.' Plato, the slory goes, replied: 'That, Antisthenes, is because while you have what it takes to see horses, you do not have what it takes to discern horsehood, that is: intelligence. '2 Do we have to condude that the ancient Chinese 'did not have what it takes to discern horsehood, that is a grammatical morpheme like -otes or '-ness'? Does this mean that the Chinese had no way ofspe aking of abstract concepts or properties? Or does this on ly mean they had a more limited rOle for abstraction in their scheme of things? Vv'e must look at the philological evidence. Abstraction in anamt Chme.(t thought The ancient Book of Songs has the enigmatic Jines: Heaven gave birth to the multitude of people. There are creatures, and there are rules (for
these creatures) ()'u wuj"U tJef'ftml'faq).3
. Cf. Simplooo. (,882), p. 208, lines 3uff. , Ibid., p. �:n. , Shih Oillg26o.1; Karlgrcn (1950), p. 228. .:-.'otc CoovreUT (1934). p. 399, who tramJates: sunl rlS (quiollS
honrints), tst Itz llloraliJ.
LA0;GUAGE A0;D L O G I C
\Ve seem to have a dualism hen: between wu 1m 'thing, creature' and lse flU 'rule,
pattern' . One is inclined to find lse distinctly more abstract than wu.
It is possible to speak of a property without actually mentioning the abstract concept property' as such. \Ve can have abstraction without suffixes indicating '
abstraction.
The be-mg a circle of a small circle is identical with the bemg a Clrcie of a large: circle (hsiao )'Iian chih)'iiall)'li ta),iiall chihJ'iiali Ihung IJ\l.MJzltllW*�iL�1BJ lit . . S)'IALL CIRCLE ' S C 1 RC LE WITH lARGE CIRCLE ' S CIRCLE IDENTICAL). ' What is identical here is not the circle. It is the circularity ofthe circle. The Later
the abstract property of being a circle. There is no nat in Chinese. Unlike Plato, the IVlohist had no obvious morpheme available to mark 01T which occurrences of the word (";JRCT.r. refer to the physical round object, and w hich occurrences refer to the property ol"circularity as such. However, if his c o ntemporaries understood this sentence at all, they must also have understood a distinction between a circle and
Muhist is concerned with
ural entification or hypostatisation of 'being a circle'
circularity. One might object
that a parlanc e of this sort was limited to the very special kind
of scientific literaturc ofw hich the IVlohist Dialectical Chapters from which we have quoted arc remnants. But
just
the .Men!!, Tzu s urely belongs
10 the mainstream of
Chinese philosophical literature:
:'vlengTnl asked: 'Is the being white ofwhite feathers the same as the being white ofwhite snow; and is the bemgwhite of snow the same: as the being while ofjade?' (Kao Tzu replied:) 'That IS so.' 'Tn that case, is the nature ofa dog the same as the nature of an ox; and is the nature ofan ox the same as the- nature ofman?'2 Then� is a Socratic flavour to this passage, which is essentially an attempt at a reduc!ion ad absurdum. There is an explicit concern with 'being white' as opposed to 'white things l' l oreovLT, we have philosophically quite innocent common ways of referring to abstract properties, as in the opening ufthe Taoist book ChuQng Tzu: '.
v
As for the size ofth(, Khun (khull (hili tafm�*), I do not know how many thousand li lt! i t is.� However, here one might obj ect that the many tho usand li apply to the Khun as a proper subj ect, not to its size. One cannot rej ec t th is objection out of hand. 'j'he Hsiin Tzu is a u'ntral Confucian text, and in it ''ie find disquisitions like this:
Thai by means ofwhich man is man (jeri chih so 1 wajell che A�pfrj;)'�A�) is not just that he has two feet and no hair. It is that he has the capacity to set up distinctions.1 , Mo hu, Ta ("hhii �T, j;:J\'Z, d.]. Chmidc,,",ki(,g6g). PI. Vll. P "�j, "nd Gr"ham (1978), pp. f7ftY. , Ming h" ow;; 1.'1\1 (1!)83c). pp. 223f. ' Chuang T::." 1.1; Gmham (1981), p. 43. + H"i"n 72u 5.2..; Duh'('!pg), p. 7'
LA�GUAGE AND LOGIC
..Je. atl
mg
lier
"'1-
me , of no
m�
md ind
bite
Hsiln Tzu is interested in what we could call certain properties that makt>: man into man, allhough he uses no abstract term for 'property' . 1 Even without the use of lexical, syntactic or morphological special devices the Chim.:sc were able to refer to such abstract concepts as that of 'fatherhood' also in non-philosophical contexts like the following gruesome stOlY Y(jeh Yang was Wei's general in the attack against Chung Shan. His son was hostage in Chung Shan at the rimt'; alld the ruler of that 81ale had him boikd alive and made into a soup which was scm to YOrh Yang. VHeh Yang ale it and WilS prais(:d by one and all. V(ieh Yang ate his son to show his trustine�s. He knew he committed an offence againsl fatherhood (haijil �X:), bUl he sought to conrorm to the law (which required his loyalty).z
The earliest commentary glossesJu x: 'father' a::c..fo tao x:m ·the way ofa father'. On the other hand it is most instructive to observe the ingenuity with which later com mentators have attempted a highly speculative emendation ofthe text (involving the addition of onc character, and the explanation oftwo characters as miswriLings for a personal name) because they failed to recognise or did not find natural the abstract lise ofthe wordfo to meanJu 1M 'the proper way ofbeing a father, fatherhood'. ' This shows how abstraction in Chinese, being often not clearly marked, is less palpable. more elusive, as long as it is not allached to clear and explicit syntactic devices. In philosophical contexts there often is no doubt about the abstract namre of Chinese concerns. \Vhen we read a Cl
have exactly the same ambiguity in the English translation as we have in th� Chinese. Ssuma ::"Jiu may eillu:r be tak�n to inquire about a certain individual whom he identifies as a gentleman, or he may be concerned with the abstract notion ofa gentleman. It so happens that we have not the sliglllcSI doubt in this par ticular passage that what is being asked about is thr. gentleman in gr.neral. In Classical Chinese no morphological device such as 'gcntlemanhood' is available which might encourage one to hypostasise a corresponding abstract 'Platonic' en tity. Similarly in English we happily discuss the abstract notion of the gentleman without normally resorting to such grammatical variants as gentility or gen lleman hood or Trollope 's softer sounding gf:ntlehood. But how often do the Chinese ask questions of this 'abstract' sort? Are not such general concerns unnatural to the Chinese bent ofmind? I ,et us take thr. crucial text ofthe Confucian tradition, the Lun Yii. Compare:
we
ll a i lO
asa us:
The goycrnor of She asked Tzu Lu about Confucius.l Chhen Ssu-Pai asked whelher Duke Chao knew rituaL"
t
As W� shall sec in a rnom�nt. Hsiin Tw diJ ha\"� :). technical l�rm for 'perceptible propr.lty'. namely ciluallg
I
('.han Kim 'Jjlu. no. 489, cd. Chll'lsu-Keng, p. ti33; Crllmp (1970), p. 574.
iIi:.
, Two sllrh anempu arc quoted in �'It7UO in Chu T.u.K..ng's edition. p. 1734. , un Jit I':t..j.; Lao (1983a), p. log. ., l.lIn Iii 7.19; Lall (lgR3a), p. 61. ' Lan lUj·3'; l.au {t9B3al, p. 6;,.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
These are concrete questions. \Vc also have: Fan Chhih asked about knowing/being knowledgeable good/goodness (jin t:). I
(chih "fO) . . . He: aske:d about being
These are abstract questions insofar as they are concerned with
chill
'knowing'
and je1l 'being good' as such and not as attaching to any particular person. Surveying the vast amount of Confucian discussion of the termje1l, one may well feel that this particular concept was hypostasised by Chinese thinkers. In idiomatic English we are tempted to translate jen as 'goodness' rather than as 'being good'. The gloss 'good person, good persons' does nOl always seem to work. The problem is to what extent this natural tendency of translators is justified and based on gram matical facts of Classical Chinese. Note that in English we discms good and evil \vithout needing to \vrite explicit morphemes to indicate the nominality of what we speak about. 'Good' and 'evil' are not less abstract than 'goodness' or 'evilness' would have been. Plato could have formulated his theory orthe ideas of'good' and 'evil' without recourse to such mor phemes as '-ness'. Indeed Plato himself tends to ask not at all about the penectly possible neologism
kalotes
'beautifulness' but about
to kalon
'the beautiful'.2
Something analogous happens pervasively in Chinese. Thus we have a word ming
8)3
'be clear about', but this word, \vhen used as the object of wen
FI'l�
'ask about',
comes to mean the abstract property of 'being perspicacious' rather than any con crete perspicacious person.1
Chiao >:: means 'to be friends with', but when used as
the object of wen 'ask about', it comes to mean 'being friends with someone', and it
does not come to be synonymous withyu tf. 'friend' which in the same position can come to mean 'treating someone as a friend','!
The ancient Chinese had no problems speaking about such things as the con crete case of somebody's death and about the dead. But could they and did they ask about death as such? Let us see: Chi Lu asked about how the spirits ofthe dead and the gods should be served.
The 1faste:rs said: 'You are not able even 10 serve man. How can you serve the spirits?'
'�hy I ask about death (kan lven ssu �rI0 1JE)?'
'You do not understand even life:. How can you unde:rstand de:ath?'';
A question about the dead, in Classical Chinese, would be a question about ssu
ehe % �
'those who have died'.G This question is not about dead individuals, but
about the more abstract matter of dying. ) , Lun 1'1,6.22; Lau (Ig8 p), p. 53. , In point offaCl, ridos, idea, etc., are not very frequent words even in tho>e dialogues that happen 10 experi· ment with a 'theorv offorms', I Lim Yii 19.:-;; Lau (1983a), p_ 191. versu., Lun 1" '�-23; Lau (198:P). p. "9, , Lun hi 1 2. b; l;'u ('98:P). p. I " , , I�'l Yu I'-'�; Lau (lg8:p). p_ 99. The old commentary. ed. l.iu Pao-Kan, �.33, �xplaim: 'Th� ghosts and the m,m�r of d��ng (SSII Jhih 7[.) are difficult to illuminat�. To talk about lh�m will brn i g ao profit. Ther�fore he
Joes not reply.' o For ssu (hi7E� 'th e dead' see, e.g., LU Shih ChllUn Chhiu )6.3: If the dead have consciousness, how am Ito [ac�
up 10 Kuan Chung? 1 Th e old commentary (ed. Liu Pao·Nan, JynYK, vol. 3, p, gI) glosses ssu JE 'die' as ssu shih JE$ 'the matters of death',
-
a
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Il
hl=ing
. , owmg >erson. ay well omatic good'. roblem I gram-
exp licit Id 'evil' tid have :h mor erfectly
utifu!',J
mi
ming abo ut' , II)' con used as '. and it non can :he con they ask
.
.
)tnts.) '
!bout JJU uals. but
n 10
Sp" P· 1 t9·
osts and the
bcrefon' he am 1
toracc
233
In the Lun Tii alone, a text which fills no more than forty-two printed pages in the Harvard Ycnching Index, I find thirty,two such abstract or conceptual questions like 'X inquired about r. The history of tile art of definition in China is the history ofsem aillic answers to some such abstract qu estions. I Confucius was notable for refusing to come up with abstract definitions,just like many of the interlocutors of Socrates. Hsun Tz u, a later Confucian, on the other hand, paid great attention to the art of abstract definition. Some ancient Chinese concepts seem fairly specialised in carrying an abstract meaning. l 'fj, 'righteousness' is a case in point.� It is not clear how i 'righteousness' in its nominal uscs is radically less abstract than the Greek dikaiosyne 'justice, right eousness'. Consider Mcnciu s's discussion with Kao Tzu: i like the (hhi fc. willow. Righteousness (i) is ike l Kao Tzu said: 'Human nature (hsing "Ii) s cups and bowls.'.'
Here I 'righteousness' is considered as a thing, hypostasised if you like, and as such compared to cups and bowls, It will not do to translate i here as 'being right eous', or as 'a righteous person', because we have the parallelism with ruing 'nature' which is not a concrete noun referring to a namral individual, but an abstract noun 'nature, inborn properties ' . I 'righteousness ' is something that the Taoists could chhi * 'reject'. But let us look at the way in which such rejection, which we tend to see as the rejection of an abstract value, is expressed: Get rid of sageliness (Shblg �), discard wisdom (chih �), And the people will benefit a hundredfold; Get rid ofbene\"o1cnce (.fin {:), discard righteousness (i), And the" people ,,!ill again be filial. . . . '
We could avoid attributing all austraction to the Chinese in this passage: instead of ,sageIiness' we could translatt.: 'sages'; instead of 'wisdom' , 'tht.: wise'; instead of 'benevolence', 'the benevolent'; instead of'righteousness', 'the righteous ' . And the crucial question is this: do these alter native translations represent a true ambiguity in Chinese or are they only a complication introduced into the fe.Xl by our English translating idiom? Is the ambiguity only in the mind of the translator or is it in the Chinese text? There is a clear distinclion in Classical Chinese betw'een shingjcn �A 'a sage' and sheng (flO �m 'the way of a sage'. lt makes sense to ask within the framework of Classical Chinese which of these is rejected in the above passage from the LAo 'ku. The word sheng � is ambiguous not only in terms of English translations but also in terms of the available paraphrases in Classical Chinese. , Han5f'n ('983), p. 7i, ",rites: 'Clauical Chinese philosophical theQries had no rot.... for abstranion5.' Certainly it ha. to be said that Confucius's aus,.."r. to the queStion, w.. have JUSt discu"ed do no. invo[v" a 'Platonic' attempl lO account {(,,. the world in tcrm, ofan ontology of a higher world of'idca,' (lr 'forms' corl"t' sponding to tlw c(lncepts he discu.,.,�, , Howevcr, i dues o(:Cll5ionally funninn verbally 'be just". , AUII8 «u 6....; Lau (191\:IC), p. 223. • iAn Tzu 19. (f. Lau(lgR:i), p. 27.
234
LA�GliAGE A:\lD L O G I C
In translating ancient Chinese H!xts it is a sound principle to attribute to them as lillie abstraction as is compatible and seems philologically unavoidable to attribute'
to them. It is all too easy to rc ad our own habitual abstractions into ancient Chinese
texts. Take an example:
When one �ccs what is right (i ttl but does nOl do it, that is lack of courage (chim ipu wei wu
y"'wy,h J!.;!FfX.i!!( �1il).'
Here, I suggest, one can and therefore probably should resist any temptation to take ias an abstract noun, righteousness, alongthe lines 'when one is aware ofright·
eousness but docs not act according lO it . . ,'.
m 'the Way', t;t� ;charismatic power, power' as well asyin � 'the female! force Yin' and 'yang � 'the male/bright force Yang', on the other hand, do strike us in various ways as 'abstract' h}1)ostasised concepts which arc som etimes spoken about as ifthey were referring to a higher realm of ultimate reality to which Chinese mystical lhinkcrs gain direct access through meditation not totally unlike that cultivated by some Neo-Platonists.l There are thus inherently abstract concepts in Classical Chinese. One is often quite confident that ancient Chinese thinkers were in fact concerned with an abstract concept a.� such. But it is as if there is in Chinese - as there is indeed in the best of modern philosophy - a natural and strong gravitational force towards the non-abstract down-to-earth use ofwords. There is no tendency towards, indeed not much room for, the inessential or fatuous abstract use of words which could easily be replaced by an equivalent less abstract way of speaking. The abstract Llse of words tends to be introduced only where it is essential to convey a message. It is never - as sometimes in Latin and Greek, and often in modern academic prose - a preferred stylistic device. But could the Chinese focus on the non-concrete concep tually by an abstract notion ofa property as opposed to a thing? \'Ve must investigate 7(10
dark
lhis que!ition in an open-minded way.
It is facile to move from the observation that abstraction is morphologically to the judgement that it is anthropologically unimportant in ancient China. Such a judgement would be like �omeone observing that in spoken Modern Standard Chinese the pronouns for 'he' and 'she' are identical, and that then� are no masculine or feminine genders, jumping to the conclusion that the Chinese do not distinguish between the female and male r61es. unmarked
The concept rifaproperty It is one thing to distinguish abstract concepts from others. It is another to have an abstract concept of a property. It is
quite conceivable that the ancient Chinese indulged in abstraction without having th e benefit of a word like 'property'. Note, I
Llm1ii �'�4;Lau('98.1a),p. 17.
, C[ Vol. �, pp. 3(;11 lind �:n �IPa"im, and, particularly foryin anciJa'W, pp. 268f. For lh� book Chuang T�u SC�
pllrticularly Chang ('982), pp. 6'-130.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C ,
however, that the concept of a property does not have to b e seen in a philosophical
context. In a narrative context we find passages like this:
The Shang King was most unruly. He was immersed in 'the vinue ofwine ((hiu tiit!it!.)'. I Presumably 'the virtue of"..;nc' was to do with the p roperties ofwine.
•
Let us consider the early history ofsome Chinese explicit abstract words related )
to that ofa propt'rty:
hsing tt 'nature, natural characteristics, properry(?)' chhingffl 'real slate of affairs, essence, essential propenies(?)' ma/):m 'external shape, shap e, propeny(?)' chuang AA" 'form, visual characteristics, property(?) ' li:EJ. 'pattern, anribute(?), property(?)'
1. I ) , ,
2.
3.
4. 5.
Hsillg l
,
y f s
,
y
1
e
,
The basic meaning of hsmg 'nature (from birth)' is attested already for Confucius. By nature (ruing) men are dose to each other. Through their practice they differ from each other.1 It is
the goodness or otherwise of this nature of man that Meng Tzu and Hsun Tzu discussed at great length. By analogy, the notion hsing is also applied to ani mals,S and then to inanimate things such as mountains or water I or to wood, as when Hstin Tzu speaks of wood being by nature (hsing) straight or not straight.5 Chuang Tzu speaks of the genu ine nature of the horse, of the nature (hsingtt) of water, and of things generally losing their nature (hsing).r. In a text from the -2nd cemury we read: It is the nature (ksing) of a cocoon to make silk thread, but if it is not first heated in boiling water by the woman whose job it is, and then unravelled and put into order, it \\-ill not become silk thread. It is the nature (hsing) of an egg to make a chick; but withom a good hen to cover it and protect it for days on end, it will not become: a chick.1
7{u we read that 'it is the nature (f1S1:ng) ofbamboo that it floats'.M The Tlllmg speaks of humaneness, wisdom, ritual propriety, good faith, and duti fulness as of natural characteristics (hsing)." In Hum Nan
Po Hu
n
e ,
•
: Iii Shill ChltWII Clrhiw ,6.L, ed. Chhen Chhi·Yu, p. 976; cf. Wilh.dm (L9211), p. 134.
2
S
Lull J'a 1j.2; LaU{1983a),P. 17I .
For cKilmpl.::, we },ave pa.s,agcs ile l Lhi,:
The nature (hsing) oran ox i. nUllike Lhat ofa .heep. and th� natu� (hs 'W i ) ofa sh"ep is nO! lil" that ofa pig. (Iii Shill CMr�n CMri� 23.5, ed. Chhen Chhi·Yo, p. L569) It is inlerening 10 note thaL th" anci"nL CommenLator glo.",,�hsi'Wtt 'n,lIur�' a.< tlril!l 'hody'. , .Ilin& 'k� 6"3, 6,,8. ' Hiiill 7:..u. 23..;j.8IT.; cf. also ,ub" 7:..11 6", and KilO Hi 13, ed. SPTIi; p. 2b. ; HIIJI Shill lIai Chllan 5.1;; d. Hightower (195L), p. L76. , Ch�1I11& 7:..119.1, 15.16, and L6..). • PoHIl Thng 12.6; Tjan (1952), \'01. �,p. 4tJg. I HlloiNan T.:1I, ch. II. "d. Liu Wcn-Ticn,p. 6b.
LANGUAGE AKD L O G I C
Considering the usages of hsing in the ancient literature, i t seems clear that a properly like 'being bamboo' as such is not what is primarily intended by hsing, while 'Aoating on water' belongs to the hsing'nature' ofbamboo. lt has been current to translate kfing by 'nature', and this c.aptures well tht: fact that every thing only has one hring 'nature', wbereas we would say it has many properties.
\Vhile hsing refers to natural endowments or characteristics of a tbing in general, chhing, which is often used in very similar contexts, refers more specifically to essential characteristics or properties of a thing. A. C. Graham was tempted to risk the trans lation 'essence' while warning the reader not to take this term in any technical Aristotelian sense . Again, every thing will only have one chhing, not many. A fre quent topos in ancient Chinese literature is the following: It is the essence of man (jen chih (hhing A."Z m) that men all are concerned for their 0\\fIl person.1
Han Fei speaks ofthe essence (chhingtR) of the \"'ay,� and Hsun Tzu ofthe chhingof the sense of duty. I Eve:n Chuang Tzu speaks of the chJling of benevolence and duty.� Not only positive qualities have chhing. Han rei speaks of the chhing of good or bad governmenr and even of the chhing of wickedness. 7 Sometimes no moral qualities whatever are involve:d, as when we hear of'being blind and wanting to understand the chhing ofblack and white' Y Chhing as a semi-technical term refers to the qualities that entitle a thing to its name. What is in this sense essential is not necessarily accessible to sensory perception: The visible to sight is shape and colour. The audible to hearing is name and sound. How sad it is then that worldly peopl!' think shape and colour, name and sound, sufficient means to grasp the chhing of objects� If shape, colour, name, sound, are really inadequate means to grasp their (Mlng, then, since knowers do not speak and speakers do not know, how can me world understand them?�
The aim of Chuang Tzu was in some way to grasp this profound 'essence of the ten thousand things (wan wu chill chlling 1§t:fm£.11Ii)' . I (l The ten thousand things, of course, do have characteristic.', that can be perceived by the senses. The Way (tao.i1!) is said to have only chlting essence' but no hsing W 'manifest e.xternal form, shape, Gestalt'. 1 1 Here we enter a higher metaphysical realm. I
For an .,nmplary attempt at thc rccoll�truCliun urlhc COll(CptUal history ofch/Jingi'l'f, �c Grah�m (1 986a),
pp. 59-6�. J Han Fti 1�"2o.27.51 . , [[an Fti Uli 10.9_36: LiUO (1939},\·oL [,P.90. • HSii1l 7i;1I 16_79. ) c.-'I�ang 1::� l :l , cf. Graharn (1966),p.61. ' Han Fti T.:ul4-5.2 and '+5·18. I Han I-'ei 7<,u [.p.2j: Liao (1939), \'01. I, p. ,,8. , H"nFti nU .'JO_IO, 10. 11 Chuang U" 2.16, 10 Cf Chuang T �" 17.38 and 20,3. o Chuang nu [3.&6; Graham (l'lS[), p. 139.
.. 2 37
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
lat a o.ng. rrent �'has
lera!,
Hstin Tzu makes logical use ofthe: notion of chhing: are of the same kind (kim) and have the same essence (cMing m-) ",rill be apprehended by the senses as bcmg one and the same thing. Therefore by comparing such things with other similar things, one will settle upon a common conventional name to estab lish a common convemion. '
Things which
The chhing is not necessarily accessible to sensory perception. But without it a thing would not be called what it is called. h can be - and is frequently said to be lost (shih �) so that a thing loses the righ l lo its original name.
IDttial ram>
Mao%/.
mical
Alaa 'external characteristics, aspect' can always be perceived by the senses, and it is s ubj ect to change in time. At any given time a thing has only one mao 'aspect' allhough we should say it may have many vi sual propenies. iHao is often contrasted as external (wai j})2 to the quintessential chhing:
\ [re-
T own
ling of
duty.�
Ir bad
alities
-stand
ing to 'nsory
ow sad :ans to :ans to :an the afthe
ogs, of
:"'" !i!)
shape,
, 1986a),
••
Ritual must count as that which is the external sh ape of the essence (orman) (fi wei chhing mao chiJ,h lIi!'>,!i!I!\ll.'i!:lt!l).' Thc gentleman opts for the essence (chhing) and disregards the (external) shape (mao). I
In the Later Mohist texts, A.
C. Graham has identified mao as a technical term.
Judging from the many examples he mentions, the primary
technical
meaning is
'visible propenit's'.:'i In commentarial glosses the term mao is constantly used in describing the semantics ofdescriptive adjectives. In Shuo Win Cheh i T{u IDtzm=¥ this mao is a technical term for descriptive adjec tives written with the same graph mao that is also often found in the Dialectical Chapters of the Mo T{u.
Hstin Tzu uses the term chuang 'form' as a technical term to refer generally to the perceptible aspect of an object:
There are things with the same form (chuang) but in different places and things with different form (chuang) but in the same place; they are to be di�tinguished. Things with the same form (clwang) butjudged to he in different places, although they may be put together, afe said to be' twO objects; a thing which alters in its form (chuGllg) \vithout obj ects dividing and bemg judged differelH is said to be transformed, and what is transformed without division is said to be one obje cc6 The techn ical usage of chuang is special to the
like it recurs in a later work:
HsulI D,u, except that something
, Hsiill �u��.[i;cf. Walson(1963), p. '4'.1. ' Han M ·�II �I.17+ I Hlln Fti nll�O.J.:i; ibid. ' Hllll hi 1?u �o.7.';Liao(1939),''OL " p. '73. Hsu1l '['�U22.27;':;f. Graham (19iH), p. 197. l GT;).ham (1978), pp. '94-6 and 223. •
LANG CAGE AND L O G I C Hui Shih said: 'Let us suppose we have a man who dots not know what a tan s.1i is . Ifhc says: "What is the form (chuang) ofa tan l ike" and you answer "Like a Inn", will it be conveyed to him?' 'It will not.'
'Ifyou procecd to answer instead: "A (an in iu form (chuang) is like a bow, but with a string
made ofbamboo", will he know?' 'He will knoW.'i It is hard to be sure orany clear semantic distinction between mao � and chuang.
Li, standardly glossed as
'principle' in many English writings, is a concept which
came to play an increasingly central part in the histOry of Chinese philosophy, the
The concept played a particularly Imu¥ (+115j to +1223), a disciple ofChu Hsi, wTites in his j ustly famous dictionnairt philosophique:
early history of which still awaits detailed study:
important part in Nco-Confucian thought. Chhen Chhun
Li :f;f 'principle' and Ino m 'Way' are by and large the same th ing bm since therc is a division into two characters, there mml be a distinctiOIl.1
The conc<.:pt Ii has been discussed in Vol . 2 and in the large literature concerned que stion that concerns us at this point s i whether Ii was used by ancient Chinese philosophers to refer to any thing like the properties of things. In one of the most remarkable documents of carly Taoist theorising, the chapter Chich Lao JW� 'Explaining Lao Tzu' from the book Han Hi Tzu ��FT (-3rd ce n tury), the concept of Ii is extensively used and discussed as a technical term,:' but, as it often happens, the key lerm turns out to be impossible to translate salisfanoriiy. l shall risk by way ofan experiment the translation 'attribute' for Ii, which is an exten sion ofthe meaning 'visi ble pattern', well attested in the early literature:
with the history of Chinese philosophy. \ The specific
Being shon or bcing long, being large or being small, being square or being round, being strong or being britlle, being light or being hea\" being bright or being dark, these are called attributcs (/uan (Mang. la hsiao,fong;'iian, chim tshui, chhing chullg, pai hei chih wei li *i�,
*'J'. Hill, �1lfP:, Il'l!!, BI\\;tl'lfJl!!),O Generally, attributes (ti) are an apportioning of being square or being round, of being
short or being long, ofbeing coarse or being finc, ofbeing strong or being brittle. J
, Sh/l() lUan II-R, ed. Chao S han-I, p. 307- Cf Graham(19i8j, p. HS. 1 My lreaunent oflif!! is inspired by a fa,,:inaling cil�r hy D. C . Lau ,�n!itl�d 'Taoi,t �-letaphYlin in the Chien lAo and Plala's Th�01)' of Forms', o/'whkh I hav.: only 3�eu th.: proofs but not Ihe print�d vl'rsion. Although my a�count ditfers considl'rably from that ofD. C. Lao, I am indebted \0 him in many wavs. ) hi l!Ji '[�N lj.t�*B �d. Chung-hua shu-chil, p. 'I!. I note in passing that Ih� wo'rd Ii is gI05�l'd no leu than 6 limes a. ("0 in the old commentary to th� HuaiNolI 7{w. , Cf. Vol. 2, pp. 4i!ff., n81f.. 472ff., 5571[ 1Ipanim. Graham (1958), pp. 8--22. prmid�s a singularly lucid account ofI\eu·Confucian con,-�plions of /i� . • I count no ll'� than 22 occurrence, of li_ " Han Fn' nu �O.34.16; Liao (!939), "01. 1, p. 200. , H�n Fn ]i;U20.2!P; cf. Graham (IOiB), P. 429.
LAKGUAGE AND L O G I C
• is. Ifhe co .;eyc
n
d
ill a string
We note that tuan (hhang�* 'literally: being short or being long, or: length' can
not here refer [0 short and long thi ngs. And most importantly, it cannot be taken to refer to things being either shor t or long. These pairs of concepts are not just arbi
trary illustrations or examples of Ii 11. They seem deliberately lined up to indicate
range of dimensions or parameters along which physical objects may be said to
have attributes: one-dimensional length, three-dimensional size, shape, e1asticity/ strength, granulation,
:l chuang.
w
eight, pigmentation. It is imeresling that smell and taste,
for example, are omitted. On the other hand, Han Fei provides some further exam
ples of attributes (Ii) ora different type:
'pt which
Among the fixed attributes (ling Ii JEJ.1j!) there arc. (those being dead or living, flourishi ng or declining.'
ophy, the rticularly +1223), a
s a diyision
of) be ing persistent or perishing,
These attributes (Ii) ofthings combin� to for m Oil!: Gestalt: Om of the: flow and flux things were brought forth. When the things came about, they brought fonh attributes (Ii), and these were called the Gestalt (luing m). � From the Lii Shih
Chhun Chhiu we have an interesting definition o[ Ii which in the
i Lao m.� we might try to translate as follows: light of Cheh
erns us at
Therefore, if diS[inctions do not fit the attributes (Ii), then they arc false. If knowledge does not fit the attributes (Ii), i t is misleading. Misleading or false people were executed by the for mer kings. Attributes (ii) of things are the ultimate source of right and wrong.�
)c chapter
attribute 'being white' is present in the horse. Knowledge as well as disputation
oncerned
er to any-
-srd cen
m,5 but, as
factorily. I
san f'xten-
lUnd, being
k.. these arc. u:n li (@*,
Ki, of being
lies in th., Clluk
L Although 1m'
�no kssthan
mgubTly lucid
In other words: we are right in eaUing a horse white on the uJtimale basis that the must be measured against this ultimate standard. Here is how Han Fei explaim Ii:
As for the attributes (fi), thtry bring about the patterning of things. , Han Fei states the obvious i n the theoretical manner ofa logician: Things have attributes (li)." Again he insists on ma king explicit what might seem obvious in the manner of a logician:
The leTl thousand things each have their different attributes (wan wu ko i Ii f-ittm.@r�:flllV •
P· 7·
Han Fri r..u 20.29+ for OUT int�rpr�tat;on S�� Liang Chhi-Hliung (1982), \'01. ', p. 159, and also Lall ([9119),
, Cilll tTanslate: 'is the pallern which bringJ [kings aOO\l(. This difference is n i oo� quential for our present p"rpo''''_ l Han fa ku �0.27.1l; La" ('939). yot. I, p. 191 . Han h iT !.II �0.�P5; Liao (1939),mL I, p. Iq�. Cf. Cllualll UII25.63. •
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
We have seen that Han Fei speaks o r the 'fixed attributes (ting li 1E:�)'. \Ve now need to inquire what he means by ling JE 'fixed' in such (ontexts. Han Fei says: When the anributcs (Ii) are fixed/distinct, it is easy to djyide lhings up (inlo classes (lei �). I
It is only when attributes (Ii) are fixed lhat we can distinguish between distinct things, since we must usc the attributes (Ii) ofthings as our criteria. If this inlerpretation is right, it would help us explain Han I-ci's generalisation 'Therefore only when attributes (ii) are fi...ed can one attain the \'Vay'.J The \'Vay, after all, is what governs things having or nOl having their attributes (Ii). Any proper understanding of the Way presupposes an understanding of these fixed attributes (Ii) of things. As our rough approximation we have translated Ii as 'attribute'. It seems that Ii is ambiguous between a phenomenological sense ('overt attribute') and a metaphys ical sense ('disposition to show an overt attribute'). There is nothing strange in this ambiguity. The English word 'attributfo' happens to have the samfo ambit,'l.lity. An overt feature like baldness is as much or a human auribute as is a (hidden) disposi tion like irascibility. One basic meaning of Ii � is 'pattern, arrangement'. What Han Fei did in his technical use of the term was to identify some dimensions or parameters along which one physical objfoct makes patterns. 'I'he pattforns thus specififod then come to resemble physical attributes, on the one hand simple primary qualities of things such as shape and weight, and on the other hand more complex anributes like being alive or being dead. This is how I reconstruct Han Fei's account of li. To the extent that Han Fei speaks of ti in an abstran way, and oflhings 'having' attributes, he speaks like a realist, not like a nominalisl. But the issue ofnominalism versus realism is a Western one which does not arise in ancient China. It is nOt an issue which needs to detain us at this point where we are attempting to reconstruct Chinese conceptual schemes. Conclusions \tVe have set out with the question whether the ancient Chinese used abstract con cepts and whether they had a concept of a property, vVe have ended up by looking into the semantics of some relevant Classical Chinese words, none of which, of course, arc exact equivalents for 'property'. Let us now summarise our results. In non-technical Classical Chinese contexts, li� tends to refer to the patH':fI1 ofthings, the (often hidden) dispositions of a thing, its potential for showing certain qualities at given Limes. The Omit Lao Wf.13 chapter of the Han rei Tzu introduces a technical usage according to which Ii refers to any inherent patterns or attributes of things. The attributes as such are fixed (6ngJE) (by definition, on the one hand, and by the 1
Han F,i 7�" 2°':14.17; Liau (19:-19), vol. T, p. 2011,
' HanFt! 7�U 2(),29.3; Liao (1939l, vol. 1, p. T!)'!'.
LA::-JGUAGE AND L O G I C
,.'
.e.
on .y,
""
'<5
lis ys his
An )51-
hi;
mg �to ngs
ike l lng' �m ! an -ue'
:on Gng I. of •. In ngs, ities tical "'gs. ,the
constancy offealUres o fthings on the other), but the presence ofaltribUles i n things changes (in accordance with the Way),l The chhing'� 'essential characteristics' are those dispositions which qualify what is called X for the name 'X'. The hsingti ' natu ral characteristics' are those disposi tions with which a thing comes into existence. Mao � 'form' is used as a technical term for those perceptible properties which a thing has. Chuang AA: 'form' is used synonymously with mao 'shape' as a technical term to rcier to the perceptible prop enies orthings.� The crucial thing about all these latter notions is that there is noth ing plural-like about them in Chinese. To the ancient Chinese mind things have only one essence, one nature, one shape, and one form.
(8)
THE
C O NC EP T O F SUBSUMPTION
The concepts of the subsumption ofone item under a class, and of the inclusion of onc class under another class are basic for the structural organisation ofa conceptu al scheme. In some sense we first understand a thing when we are able to subsume it under a relevant category of things to which it belongs. Setting up a conceptual scheme can be viewed as a systematic strategy ofsubsumption. It would be quite easy to imagine a culture with the practice of subsumption but without a rormal concept of subsumption, a culture in which the thought that an item belongs to a class or that one class is included in another is expressed by some form ofwords roughly comparable to our English phrases like is a, as in (a) man is a creature. vVe do find sentences likejen wu)'ehA�i11 MAN CREATURE YEH in ancient Chinese litcrature,l It remains systematically unclear in such cases whether we have class inclusion or general subsumption in Chinese. Theoretically, it would also be quite thinkable that a culture might conceive of subsumption as a part/whole relation where the subsumed is conceived ofas a part of an abstracl mass-like object consisting of what most other cultures consider as the set of objects belonging to that set. Such theoretical possibilities must be tested against the evidence from the ancient Chinese sources. In this Section we shall ask whether the ancient Chinese had an explicit concept ofsubsumption, and we shall try to get a sense ofhow they conceived of the notion ofsubsumption. The word we shall concentrate on is shu,tl, which originally meant 'to be subordinate to, attached to, to pertain to' and then came to mean 'to belong to (a class)'. Used nominally, shu can refer to those who arc under somebody's I Adapting to the gi\�n (disposit ions for) properties (Ii) of thinS' is a m�lhod of auaining the Way which figures promincnth in many early lelll5. , Hansen (1983), p. 31, conlran" Chinese and Weslern concepula] schemes concerning objects as follows: 'The mind s i not regarded as an internal picturing mechanism which rep""J;<:nts the individual objects in the world, hut � a faculty that discriminat". the houndaries of substanc". or .tufts referred 10 by names. Thi. "cutting up thin�" viel� (OntTasU strongly with the traditional Platonic philosophical piclure of objeclS which are undcrstood as indiliduah or particulars which m i tantiat� or "have·' properties (uni,·ersals).' Neither the cru eial book Han Hi 7{u nor any ofthe crucial concepts IIJing, chhi'W, mao, chuang or litt, tIIt, �, �, 31 figure in the index ofthat book.
, E.g., Wang Chhllng, un IIrng, eh. 43, cd. Chung-hu;.-s)\\I-chli, p. 1�92.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
domination, subordinate in rank, those who belong to someone's retinue, and finally to things that belong to a given dass or kind.
Losing one's retinue (shu) and one's army is in itsdfa serious matter. I Adherents of a philosophical school could be called shu:
The dis ciples and adherents orConfilcius and Mo Tzu (l(hung Mo chih ti I;:u thu shu tL�Z ffi-r-tEJi5) fill the whole world. �
Shu may
sometimes be understood to mean '(belong to) someone's legal juris
diction':
Chao Meng asked who the ofIicers or lhe distriCl were, and it turned out that the man belonged to his j urisdiction (chhi shu),eh �Jim). He called lhe old man and apologised to h',m, ,
From the notion of personal political or judicial dependence, where someone's function is defined by whatever he belongs to (shu) the notion ofcosmological domin ance is naturally derived:
ehhen is dominated by the dement ofwater (Chhen shU! shu),th PW7.k.Ji!ili).4 This dominance can be of a fairly abstract kind:
The human body is composed of three hundred and sixty joints with four limbs and nine passages as its important equipment. Four limbs plus nine passages make thirteen. The functioning of all these thirteen things is subsumed under/dominated by (shu) life." The
Huai Nan 7::,u speaks of 'the five intestines being able to subordinate them
selves under the heart and not to go against it'!' In non-scientific, ritual contexts, too, the notion of shu plays a part that seems connected with dominance:
The wang � sacrifice bdongs under (shu) the chiao )f� sacrifice. Ifone does not perform the
chUlo sacrifice, one need not perform the Willig sacrifice either.)
In moral contexts, the verb shu is used to indicate a person's moral choice or abil ity to be dominated by a moral value: A man may be the descendant ofa king, duke, prefect or officer, ifhe IS unable to be domin
ated by ritual and duty (pu nellg shu),ii li i/ffl�JilnN!iti!j) he must be relegated to the common ranks. Even if someone is he t descendant of a commoner, a� long as he has accumulated L Tso Chuan, Duke H,iian ]2.3, ed. Yang Po-Chiin, p. 7"27: cf Couvreur (195Ib), vol. I, p. b18. , LUShih Chhun Chhiu 2j.3, cd. Chhen Chhi-Yu, p. 16jl; d. Wilhdm ('92fll, P.437. 1 T iO Chuan, Duke Hsiang 30, ed. Yang Po-Chiln, p. !!7�; C"uweur (1951b), \"01. �, p. 545; cf. Legge (1872), p. 'i56 . • Tsa O man, Duke Chao 9.3, ed. Yang Po-Chiin, p. 1310; cf. Couvreur (I<)jlb), \01. 3, p. 166. , Han Fe; 7!:.u �0 30.6; Liao ('939), vol. I, p. 19b. • HuaiNan 7?;u 7, "d. Liu Wen-Tien, p. 3b. A little earlier in the same passage (p. 3a) the heart is described lI' the ruler (chu.±:) ofthe body. Tso Chuan, Duke Hsiian 3, cd. Yang Po-Chlin, p. 6GB; cf. u,gg� (IB7"2), 1'. �93; COuVT�ur (195'\1), \"01. 3, p. 575. .
LANGUAGE. AND L O G I C
learning, has corrected his pt"rsonal conduct, and is able to be dominated by ritual and duty, he should be devilled as minister, prime minister, officer or prefect.! Moreover, whoever keeps his nature dominated by/subordinate to (shu) benevolence and duty, though as intelligent as Tseng and Shih, is not what I would call a fine man.2 i
Those who arc thus dominated by a value or a IcalUre X are call�d the X chh shu
IZ Ins-
man :ti to ,
me s
nm-
nm,
Th,
lem-
�ms
n
ill,
abil-
)mm nmon dated
, p. ;:';:;-
21M:
You must be courteous and temperate! Pick out and promote those who are loyal and pub lic-spirited (kung chung chih shu 0-Jt.tz.II), allow no Rattery or fa,·ouritism, and thell who or your people will venture to be unruly?1 Perhaps in
this passage we must translate 'people who are loyal and p ubl ic
spirited and their likes', for the word xfw � does occur aft er referring expressions as
chih shu fLlJ:tZ� 'in general , things of this sort ' . � The notion of dominance is, as we have seen, largely abscnr in the concept of lei �. None the less, lei and shu are clearly two closely related conccpts.5
infon tzhu
Hairy and feathered creatures are of the walking or Hying kinds (fii hsi71g chill lriyh 7Rfiz �1S), therefore they belong to (the: male: principle) Yang (.lhu),ii)'(1.7lg �m�).6 The kinds of things that have: vital spirits and blood (),u },slieh chhi (hill shu ff1ill � Z.) are bound to have knowlt"dge. All cre:atures endowed with kno\vledge ()'II (11m chih shu tfffl Z./I) know to love their own kind (lei) . . . Of the kind� ofthings that have blood and vital energy (]1/ hsiith chhi chih shu) none is more k nowledgeable than man.1 In the Shuo Win Chi£h Tzu ;tR.Xm* lhe idea of su bsumption under a genus is shu, as in shih hao shu �re;. 'the shih-plant is a species of hao-plant'.8 This usage is nOt at all restricted to moral, to formal logical or to scientific dis course. We find the combination in highly informal contexts that are quite uncon cerned with logi c al problems: regularly expressed by
Wh�n carp�ntl:r Shih came home, the sacred oak appeared in a dream and said to him: ,\Vith what do you propose to compare me? 'Vould it be with the fine-grained woods? As for thl: sort (shu) that bear fruit or berries, the cherry-apple, pear, orangr, pumeio, when the fruit ripens they arc stripped and in being stripped they arc disgracefully abused, their branchrs broken, their twigs snapped off. These arr trees which by their own abilities make life mi�erable for themselves; and so they die in mid-path without lasting Out the years assigned to them by Heaven, trees which haye let themselves be made viCtims of worldly
vulgarity, Such arc the consequences with all things.�
The Kuo Yii ��J speaks ofyu po chili lei 3i M Z� 'things belonging to the cate gory ofjade and silk'to and ofping chhi chih shu �.$zJJ5 'things belonging to the category of armo ured carts' , I I I
Hliin 7{u 9.2; d. Duh. ('9�8), p. 121.
C/ru1l1l8 7{u 8.36; cf. Graham ('98,), p. 202. rhere arc three mor.. ....t.,\'3nl �xamplc$ in th� conIC;>;I. ChNa1ll 7{rt 12...,; d. Wat.on (196.j,), p_ '32. ' E.g., HlJ.a;.Yd� Ti:u, (;h. 13, ..d. Liu \\'"n-Ti"n, p_ 2ib. , lndeC'd, the Auaf(J;}iin l.iII. dictionary (cf_ our S....:t: ion on dkliouarics [b,51 ) defines J/w In)." /ElM:!!!. • HUIII .""tI� T;;'Il, ch. 3, cd. Liu Wen-Ticn, p_ 2a_ . Hsii" �1I 19.g8; cf. KuSler (1967), p. 256. , 511110 11m Ch�h 1?1I. cd. TuanYii-Tshai (11'111'1'),mL J, p. $.j,. ChNa1l8 'ku.j,.69;cf. GTaham (1981),p.]3. Ie [d. sn1i; p. IH.ln. " U:\,SPTK, p. 6.lob. 7
,
•
•
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
In biological classification the notion ofdominance has already largely given way to that ofsimple class membership. This becomes even clearer when a set is defined not in terms of a general term but of examples: The disciples of Hsiangli Chhin, the followers ofWu Hou, and the Mohists of the South, Khu Huo, Chi Chhih, Tcng-ling Tzu and their likes (shu III ), all recited the Mohist canons but diverged and disagreed. They called each other heretical Mohisls, abused each other in disputation about 'the hard and the white' and 'the same and the different', answered each other with propositions at odds and evens which do nO[ match. )
By now, shu is purely classificatory: ·
.
. Ifyou reject those who respect their superiors and follow the law, and cultivate roving
knights and private swordsmen and their likes
(J'u hsia ssu chien chih shu m-l*fL�J�II), if
you act like that, it is impossible that your government should be firm.�
The army ofChhi invaded our state (i.e., Lu) and the duke was about to fight when a cer tain Tshao Kuei requested to be introduced to him. One of Kuei's fellow-villagers said to him: 'The meat-eaters are planning for the occasion. You have no businl"ss to interfere.' Tshao Kuei replied: 'The meat-eaters are vulgar people. They are unable to make far reaching plans.' He went in to the duke and asked him on what basis he wanted to go to battle.
The Duke
replied: 'Clothes and food are things that I
enjoy, but I do
not monopolise
them . I make sure I give others their share.' 'That is just petty generosity and is not quite all-embracing. The people will not follow
you. '
The Duke said: 'In sacrificing animals and offering jade
and gems I do not go beyond
what is required, so the prognostications are bound to be trustworthy. '
'That is just petty trusnvorthiness, it does not cover everything. The spirits will not send you their blessings.' 'In all legal matters, whether small or great, I may not be able to investigate them (com
pletely), but I make a point to decide according to the real circumstances.'
'Thai must be subsumed under loyalty (i.e., is a matter oftrue loyalty to the people, doing one's best for the people) (chung chih shuye:&,Z�tQ.).'3
Here it seems that shu ,ll is used as a particle or noun of emphatic or contrastive subsumption. There is no question of subordination of one individual under anoth er. Shu seems to have taken on a purely categorising function. In the Hsiln Tzu, shu is even used as a transitive verb 'to subsume as, categorise as': Why is it that people are brawling? I would want to categorise (shu) such people as mad and sick, but that would not be right. The sage king will go on to punish them. I would want to categorise
(shu) them a5 birds, rats, wild birds and beasts, but that .. , ould not be acceptable.
Their physical bodies are those ofmen.�
, Chua", nil 33.29; cf. Graham (1981), p. 2771 Han Ni Tzu 49.'0.32; Uao (1939), VQI. 2, p. �87. Tso (.'huan, Duke Chuang 10.1, "d. Yang Po-ehlin, p. 183; cf. Couv,.�ur (195Ib), \'ot. I, p. 149: '('nl de /a IQJ auU!'j Legge (1872), p. 86. • HJiin nu 4. '4: cf. Kuster (1967), p. 3 ' . •
LANGUAGE AND LOGIC
n way :fined x>uth, anons !her in :leach
ronng
JII), if a ccr
aid e.' u:
to
far-
245
(9) THE C O N C E P T S O F KNOWLEDGE AND BELIEF
The distinction between knowledge (epistemi, €rnrrr�p.7)) and belief(doxa, 06fa) was basic for the development of Greek philosophy, and for science. For the task ofphilosophy (a concept which in ancient Greece included that ofscience) can simply be defined as the art of distinguishing things we know from those which we merely believe. It is not a foregone conclusion that the Chinese had anything like our concept of knowledge which is at the heart ofWestern notions ofscience and the philosophy of science. I In any case, the ancient Chinese did not have a noun that corresponds to belief as opposed to knowledge.� On the other hand, there seems to be a clear dis tinction between believing and knowing in ancient texts. The notion of belief as opposed to knowledge comes out dearly in the following passage: South ofthe mouth orthe Hsia River there was a man called Chlian Chu-Liang. In disposi tion he was stupid and very fearful. When the moon was bright, he was walking in the dark. He looked down, saw his shadow and thought (i wei.L:.A�) it was a ghost following him. He
looked up, saw his hair and thought (i wei) it was a slanding ogre. He turned round and ran. When he gOt to his house he lost his breath and died.J
polise follow e),ond
t send (comdoing
lStive noth;anse d and Ult to table.
1 ill
fo)'-
The Later Mohists take a technical interest in the distinction between beliefand knowledge: Dreaming is supposing something to be so while one is asleep (ming wo irh i weijanyeh �®..iffi
fA:", i:{\jJ2).'
In this Section I wish to consider ancient Chinese ways ofspeaking about knowl edge in order to reconstruct and understand ancient Chinese ways of thinking. Is the paradigm of what is learned in ancient China really only 'the Confucian virtues',S or is there a clear factual and scientific paradigm as well? Is there only knowledge how to treat things, and acquaintance or famili ari ty with facts in ancient China, or is there also knowledge that certain statements are true? How exactly are we to understand Hsiin Tzu's formal definition ofknowing when he says: Considering this {or: what is right
(shih � ))
as this (or: right), and considering not-this
(or: what is wrong (fei �F)) as not-this (or: wrong) constitutes knowing. Considering this as
, Hansen (198�) and (198.'i} arguc� that they had noconeepl ofpropositional knowledge. His claim isstimulat ing in th" sense that it foren uS to test hi. eondusion against the philological evidence, 50mething he conspicu ously fail. to do. , When Chinese writers used Mil fa 'I . be l3.ilhful, be in good faith, �. believe' nominally in Chine.se, th" meaning i:s unequivoclllly ·good faith, truthfulness', never, as far as I can determine, 'belief' conceived nominal ly. By contrast, when the character chih :m 'to know, to be awa� of' is understood nominally (usually read in the fourth, falling, tone, and sometimes written with a different character chilt. ti'), the meaning is something like 'wisdom' or 'knowl"dgeablenen'. J Hsiill nIl21.74; cf. Dubs (1928). p. 275. • Graham (1978), ...24. Cf. also B IO: '11 it knowing? Or is il supp()sing Ihe already ended 10 be iO?' .l [I has ��n claimed about the wncept oflrnowledge in ancient China: 'Knowledge is a product oflearning in the �nJe oflraining, not n i the lenSe ofthe acquisition ofdata items calledconcepts and facts. The paradigm ofwhat is learned is the tradit ional Confucian \';nues.' (Hamcn (1982), p. 66)
LANGUAGE A�D L O G I C
'not-this' and considering what is not-this as 'this' is making a fool ofonesdf(shih shih,Jrifei,
U!ti chih chih. Feishih, Jhihjti lJ.!ti chihyii .:lrdE�F?Fffi!lL!Ill "
�r�:Jt:�FiMZJM).1
When the pronoun Jhih 'this, right' is used as a transitive verb, it is customary to translate it either psychologically as I have done ' to consider as right' or more prag matically as 'to treat as right'. The profound question is whether in ancif;nt China
'considering something as right' was simply the same as ' tre ating it as right'. Whether belief an d knowledge should be viewed in Classical Chinese as pragmatic concepts.
The present Sub-section is a philological inquiry intO the anthropologyofbeliev
ing and knowing in ancient China.
The trouble with the person who makes a mistake is that he does not know but believes he
does (kuo chi chill liUallpu rhih lr/l t�u j wei du'lt �1IZJ!J,�ffiffii E! p).�:m).2
I thoughl Your ::-vlajesty already knew lhis (chMII i Wallg wei i chih chh i @j:)' ' :E.;%B:1iIl;t),_1 The notion ofbelieving or s upposing something to be tbe case is translated by the
Classical Chinese i wei. The slightly different notion of 'believing in' something that
has been said is expressed by i wtijan .L-:J.�� 'believe to be so', or by hsin m 'believe
to be trustworthy, believe to be true'.
Han rei took the distinction ben,'een knowledge and beliefvery seriously n i deed. He made a distinction between the factual truth ofwords on the one hand and psy chological auitudes (e.g., ofbelief) on the other.
It is in the nature of words that they are laken to be trustworthy (hsin) when many people advocate them. Take a thing that is not so (pujall chih wu l'f!.:;!¥,i)), \Vhen ten people main tain it, one has one's doubts. \Vhen one hundred people maintain it, one thinks it is prob ably so (jan �). \-VhCll on� thousand people maintain it, it is incontrov�rtibk.-· \Vhat is this 'thing (wu 1m)'? S ince it is something which one advocates, it appears
a sentencc. This sort of story is of central importancc to the Hsin 'be trust\vorthy' here refers quite specifically to what is trust worthy because it is true. Good faith is pl ainly not at issue. It is worth look ing at a to be something like
issue at hand.
variant ofthis story:
(Phang Kung) said: 'Suppo�e onc person maintains there is a tiger in the market. Would you believe it?' (The King) replied: ')10.' 'Suppose t\vo people maintained that there is a tiger in the market. \Vould you believe it?' ':-fa!' 'Suppose three peoplc maintainrd there is a tiger in the market. Would you bdicH: it?'
'Yes, I would.' Phang Kung continued: 'It is perfectly clear that there is no tiger in the market, but when three maintain that there is one, lhat makes a tigcr!'� I fbun 71;... V�; cf. K;i_'t�r (Igoi), p. 13. , iii Shih C hh,,,, Chhiu 15.�, �d. CJlh�n Chhi·Yu, p. 1642; c[ Wilh('llll (19�6), p. 4:14. , iii Shih Chlmn Chhiu 9.4, cd. Chhen Chhi-Yu, p. 4<J9; d: Wilh..lm (19211), p. 113 . • Han hi 71;... 48.6.6; Liao (i939), \'01. �, p. 2b<J_ Han hi Tzu 3(J.17; Lao (1939), \'01. I, p. 291
LAKGUAGE AND L O G I C
247
Han Fei took a central interest in the notion ofobjective truth (which mayor may not be known) and which he dearly distinguished from the psychological notion of to
g-
oa
belief: And in case anyone should think that this dear distinction was limited to philosophers like Han Fei, we can point, for example, to the fact that the story is retailed again in tht': historical compilation
Chan Kuo TIhe ��Jft I
t'.
uc
The realms ifknowitdge in ancient China There are several realms ofknowledge that must be distinguished for our purposes: l.
knowing things; 2. knowing how to do things; 3. knowing whether a sentence or
statement is true. In addition there are three important distinct ways of reflecting on knowing: 4. reflecting on the nature and structure ofknowing; 5. reflecting on the social usefulness of knowing; 6. reflecting on the objective reliability of knowledge. Before we turn to the more detailed questions, recall the following saying:
he
oat ,� :d. 'Y-
pie tn
,!>
It is not the knowing that is difficult. It is the acting that is difficult. The: Master knew it, but I was not up to it (i.e., I was unable: to follow his advice).2
There is little room in traditional Chinese culture for knowledge for its own sake. There was little enthusiasm for 'academic knowledge' as cultivated by philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, who continued the heritage of Socrates. For the ancient Chinese what mattered was action , i.e. , personal aClion and political action. Insight was valued insofar as it led to successful action.
'Knowing things' We turn first to the cases when the object of the verb
cll£1I i-a 'know' is a noun) which
we call cases of'knowing things'. For example, the ancient Chinese commonly spoke iTS
he 51-
ta
(chih jen fil A )'. KNOW SHU� (chih Shun � � ) HIS SHUN (chi h chhi Shunyth � lt jlf. 1Q ) meant
of the importance of 'knowing men meant 'know Shun', while
KNOW
'know that he was Shun',3 The first kind ofknowledge we call familiarity, the second
we call discursive knowledge. No knowledge is more important than (the knowing) of people. 1 This 'knowing people' includes knowing how to handle people. Again, ancient Chinese thinkers
']d
frequently commend someone for 'knmving ritual
(chih Ii :m:.m.)', and by this they
certainly mean that the person in question is properly educated, ritually well
.>t.,-
trained. 'i\cademic' or theoretical knowledge of ritual by itself would not in ancient China have qualified one as
chih Ii in
every sense of the word. Knowing ritual in
ancient China is usually taken not as a purely cerebral awareness of the truth of propositions. One might plausibly argue that it is an acquired skill. ><0
When it comes to 'knov.i.ng the Way (chih wo ;au:Ei)' (Ming Tzu 2.\4, 6A6 tlpassim),
this is not cerebral knowledge that something is the case. It i� mainly understood as a moral and prudential skill. , No. 302, ed. Chu T5u.Keng. p. 123�; sec Crump (1970), p. :'177.
, 150 Ckuan, Duke Chao In_5, ed. Yang Po-eblln, p. 1 3 1 9; cf. C"u�T�ur (19j!b) voL 3, p. liB, , iii Shill Chkun Chkiu lB.!, ed. ebhen Chhi-Yu, p, 11 42. ' HuaiNan 1i:u2o,ed_ Liu W�n-Tien,p. �ia.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C The ruler knows the Way, the minister knows tht tasks (chiin chih eMi laoJ'eh, (hMn chih chhi shih
J,h 'l'tJnl'ti1!i!l
•
,
I:!Jnl't'll'i!l).'
Knowing the Way in ancient China is knowing how to go about things. Consider the following philosophically fascinating passage: People all use their lives and live, but they do not know that whereby they live; they use their knO\\'lcdgc and know (i eMi (hih J..);1t1d1�), but they do not know that whereby they know.
Knowing that whereby one knows is called 'knowing the way ({hih lao j;[]!i!)'. Not knowing
,
c
,
f
,
that by which onc knows is called 'throwing away the treasure'.�
Vlhat exactly is this thing called 'that whereby one knows'? Is it a knack of some sort, or is it some discursive knowledge? Compare: There arc many people who are not aware what they practi�e, who do not inquire into what they repeatedly do, who follow a way all their lives bUl do not understand (chih) it.�
hoipolloi, in practice do
I
are doing and where they are going. The crucial point made by chih is that they do
,
Notice here the insistence that the common people, the
foUow (and in that sense know) their way. In practical terms they do know what they not 'understand'. Confucianism is not just about training people in certain ways of treating things and in moral skills, it is crucially about making them 'understand'. This involves lifting things up into consciousness. The best of Confucian philoso phy consists in articulalin g thesc things in 'philosophical statements'. Without understanding this point one does not begin to understand the intellectual edge of Confucian thinking. Interestingly, the early Confucians do not, in fact, speak of'knowing benevolence
(chihjen rot)' in this way very oftcn at all.+ On the contrary, Confucius keeps com plaining that he does not know whether such-and-such is benevolent or not (pu chih chhijin 'Fill:J:tt:): As for Yu, he may be given the responsibility of managing the military levies in a state of a thousand chariots, but whether he is benevolent or not, I do nOl know (chih). i
This is a way of saying that he did not know (chih) whether the statement 'he is humane' would be true. Thus, COlHrary to appearances) we seem to have a case of knowing that something is the casc.
'Krwwing how to do things': competence Consider the following two kinds ofknowledge: He knew how to harm others but he did not know that others (would) harm him (chih haijen
erhpu chihjtn hOI chi)·eh rIl�AffiFf:mA�[:>tQ.).'-'
, Fragments (lfShen Pu-Hai I.;; see Creel (19;4), p. 350. , Iii Shih O/llin Chlriu S.3, cd. Chhen Chhi·Yu; p. 265; cf. Wilhdrn (1928), p_ Sf!. , Ming 'ku jAj; Lou (19aZC), p. 263.
, See UII lli 4.7, which according 10 Lau (19333), p. 30, doe, nOl involve: 'knowing benevolence'.
, Lun rii 5.11; d. Lau (1983a), p. 39, where ther� are Ihree comparable �x�mp!cs.
, Iii Shih CMun Chhiu z'n, �d. Chhcn Chhi-Yu, p, 143�; cf. Wilhelm (1928), p. 389.
,
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
.,/"h
2 49
Knowing how to harm others is 'knowing how', whereas knowing thal olhers might harm one is 'knowing that', discursive knowledge. Knowing how to do things
sider
is expressed in the pattC':rn KNOW +VERB PHRASE. Knowledge that something is the case is normally expressed in the pattern KNOW + NQMINALISED S ENTENC E , although the sentence that is known may also be unnominalised, as we shall see
their mow. �ng
presently. The point to notice here is that 'knowing how' and 'knowing that' are syntactically distinct in Classical Chinese.
'Knowing that'; dircursive knowledge lOme
The question arises whether the ancient Chinese had the notion of propositional knowledge at all. In recent times this has been summarily denied. The suggestion is
what
that when the Chinese believe X to be a
Y, they really have no mental attitude to a
proposition at all. They only have an attitude towards X, namely that attitude
which is appropriate to things of the kind Y. Bclie"'ing X is ris just treating X as r: .. do
Again, when the Chinese know Lhat X is
they :). do
not involve the notion of a proposition at all, it only involves successfully treating X
p of
A typical Greek scientist would look at a statement, consider what is intended by
md'.
it, its content, the proposition, and then believe the statement to be true, or know
Ioso·
that it is true. His Chinese counterpan might never entertain any beliefconcerning
hout
a statement. He might never claim to know anything concerning a statement. He
ge of
Y
-
according to this account - that does
as r.
might only know about things. The only thing he does is to learn to treat X as Y, and ifhc does so successfully, he will use the word dlih 'know' to indicate this success:
encc
:om
, (hili
References to knowing ((nih) in Chinese philosophical texts arc most naturally treated as either knowing how or knowledge by acquaintance. Knowing the virtues (e.g., knowledge of benevolence), can be read as
either knowing (how) to be benevolent or knowing of (being
acquainted with) benevolence. I
: ofa
Let us consider, then, onc rare case where 'knowing benevolence' is discussed in ancient Chinese literature. Mo Tzu has an important passage on the nature of
he is
'knowing benevolence' which has no parallel in Confucian literature so fiu as I
'" of
know: The blind will say that that which is bright is white, and that that which is dark is black. Even the clear-sighted cannot improve on this. But if we should mix up the black and white objects and let the blind pick out (the black or the white) among them, they could nOt do it.
Hence the reason that I say the blind do nO[ know black and white is not terminologicai. It is
aijin
in the picking out. The reason why the gentlemen of the world do not know benevolence is not terminological It is in the picking out (ofthe benevolent from the non·benevolent).� .
The Mohisr recognises purely terminological (i chili ming tJ.-!t�) knowledge con·
cerning definitions or meanings as independent from a posteriori knowledge of the
world beyond language. He carefully distinguishes this from the more important ' Hansen(J982j, p.66.
I
MQ TzII"7.23r.;<:f �-lei(19'19),p.22j.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
'knowing how' to pick out (chilii 1&) things according to definitions. The blind man does rwt know how to successrully treat bright things as wh ite, but he dots know as a mattcr ofterminology that bright things are white. We may safely conclude that the Mohists spoke of purely discursive knowledge. According to A. C. Graham, the Later Mohists drew a distinction between knowl edge gained by experience and knowledge which does not require experience other than that concerning the language one is using. '\;ith good reason, A. C. Graham s i tempted to use the Western term 'a priori' knowledge to describe what the Later Mohists were getting at. The Later Mohists thought that the logical interdepen dence ofpredicates creates a network or necessary 'a priori' relations between things. From the things that follow from each other or exclude each other, it s i admissible that we know 'a priori' what it is {hsien 'hih shih kJw 7c�;lEOJ).I
The Later Mohists' use orthe concept or a priori knowledge (hsien chih 7'i:;'1qJ) may be conveniently studied in Graham (1975). A detai l ed sut'/eyorthe uses ofthe word chihffi 'know' in the non-logical Classical Chinese literature yields plenty of cases of chih 'knowing' that are neither 'knowing how' nor 'knowing by acquaintance'. On the other hand, a prcliminarysut'/ey of the verb ming Ejij 'be dear about' suggests that the ancient Chinese notion orming tended to be one of knowledge by intellectual familiarity. Han Fei recommends: Compare words and know>ascertain whether they arc true (L�han)'tn irh ,hih Chhl chhing��
lfiifil..illI),'
For 'know>ascertain whether they are true' we normally read in Classical Chinese 'know>ascertain their truth'. Similarly, we normally say something that looks like 'He knows its being so' ror 'He knows that it is so'. Kow in English we can say 'He knows it is so', and in Classical Chinese we find cases where the sen· tenee which forms the object of chih �D 'know' is not - or in any case not overtly nominalised: This is how I know (chih) the knights and gentlemen oCthe world know petty things but do not know Heaven?
'Vhen the ancient Chinese said they did not know whether something was the case, such wondering certainly does not presuppose that there is a fact to wonder about. I do not know (pu shih 1'� whether Shun failed to r<:alise that Hsiang intended to kill him.'
The object arknowledge may also be an overt question: I do not know {pu shih) how )'ou knew (chih) this.s I
GTaharn (1978), p. 3f�'
�
Han hi Tzu f8..pl; Liao ('939). \'01. 2, p. 266.
, M� 1'<.u 26.8[; c[ ibid. 26.14, 2j.42. and 28.soff., which ha. no less than fOUTCa.iCS in point. Cf. al." Han Fei T�u. 10.ll ,ij, 31.28,�5 and 31, 32.12.7, 35. 6.115, 50,10.11, 'Jio C h�Qn, D�kc Chao :10,4, Hsiin T:.u 28_42. M�ng nU5A�; Lau (lg83C), p. 181. ' Hsiin T:.� 3l..P; cf. Kl.istcr (lg67l, p. 385. •
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
n
•
e.
1IS
,
s.
i envisaged: In counterfactual cases I no event or fact s
Suppose that Chieh and Chou had known (chih) that their state ....-. ould be bound to be ruined and that they personally would be bound \0 die and would be left without offspring, then I am not so sure (u;ei chih *1:IJ) that their cruelty and their wayward actions would have gone this far,2
The interesting case is the wei chih *10. Chieh and Chou are explicitly presup posed not to have knowll the fatc they would suffer. There is no fact concerning their cruelty or waywardness under those hypothetical conditions to be acqu ainted or unfamiliar with. The issue in this son ofsentence is one ofwhat propositions one would know La be true on cenain assumptions which are knQ\\'11 to be untrue. From this point of"iew I am not so s ure (�i chih) that the ruler ofa ruined state cannOt Count as a talented ruler (wei (hih lI.mng kilO chih chupll kho i wei hsim chuyeh *�l't::�ZJ:.l'PJ.r:J.� 'Ii':tttl).'
aI 'g 'e
,;
If I understand tht' idiom Wet chih correctly, the tru th of the obj ect of ignorance here is not at all presupposed. On the contrary) the suggestion is that rulers of a ruined stale can sometimes count as talented. Again, Confucius expresses uncer tainty about a possible fact rather than un familiarity with an actual fact when he advises us, sensibly;
It is fitting that we should hold the young in awe. How i� one to know (chih) that/whether coming (generations) will be inferior to the present one?l aI " ,.
,-
10 ,e
"
Our conclusion at this point is that discursive knowledge in ancient China (as in ancient Greece and in (he moder n West) was not just familiarity with things and knowing how to apply names to things. The ancient Chinese had notions of'apnori' terminological knowledge and of 'knowing that/whether' statements were true. And yet it remains a most interesting fact that the sentential object of the verb chih 'to know' n i Cla!>sical Chinese never !>eems to take a syntacticaJly complex form involving conditional and other semence connectives. Thus in Classical Chinese we never find sentences like this one; T know {or: believe) that ifShakcspearc, although he knew no Chinese, had read some trans
lations orYiian drama, or ifhc had had a chance to sce a performance, he would have been most excited.
Explici t obj ects ofknowledge and of belief tended to be synt actically simple) even more simple than Classical Chinese sentences generally tended to be.!> The typicaJ aniludes ohhe ancient Chinese towards knowledge, their assessment ofme social importance and the intrinsic nature ofsuch knowledge, and the question I
Cf. our Section (C,2).
Ii' Shih GMu� eM!u 7.4, �r\. Chh�n Chhi-Yu, p. 402; c[ Wilhelm (!9�B), p. 88. rh�r� is another exactly par aUel exarnpl� in the- comext. ; Lii Shih CMu� Chhiu 4.5, ed. Chhen Chhi-Yll, p. 232; d. Wilhelm (1928), p. jS . Cf. our S.:-ct;un (e,6) on !\rammatical andlogical r.omplexity. • um 1); !J.2:i; l...lu {lg8sa}, p. BS. . \
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
whether they regarded such knowledge as ultimately reliable will b e discussed separ ately in what follows.
'Explaining knowlldge': views and tiuonl.f about knowledge
For the historian ofscience traditional Chinese altitudes to knowledge are ofprima
ry interest insofar as science is concerned with the accumulation and advancement of learning and knowledge.
Such accumulation
of knowledge was not popular
among Confucian philosophers: The point in knowledge (chin) is not quantity, it is in carefully examiningwhat one knows. I Wide knowledge is of no special concern to Confucius: The Master said: 'Do I have knowledge (chill)? 1 don't have knowledge! There was a vulgar person who asked me something; his mind may be all empty, but 1 will get crackinlf from both ends and will do my best.'J Arter listing some issues prominent among the sophists that he regards as futile, Hsiin Tzu concludes: Ignorance (in matters of their disputation) is nOi inconsistent with being a gentleman. I Confucius's priorities for chill 'knowledge/wisdom' are clear: Fan Chhih asked about knowledge/wisdom (chih). The l\'iastu replied: 'To work for the things the common people have a right to and 10 keep one's distance from the gods and spir its while showing them reverence may be called knowledge/villdom (chill) .') Confucius attempts an interesting 'definition' ofknowledge: Yu, shall I teach you to know (chih) things properly? \'Vhen you know something, consider that you know it. When you do not know something, consider that you do not know it. That constitutes knowing.6 This is as close as Confucius comes to defining chih 'knowing'.
Hsun Tzu has a carefully balanced view on the need for knowledge:
Knowledge (chih) without benevolence (jell e) (in a minister) is unacceptable. Benevolence (jrn) without knowledge (chih) is unacceptab\r.. lfsomeone is both knO\ving and benevolent, then he is a treasure for a ruler ofmen.'
I Hsun nw 31 .10; cf. KI:I.ter (1967), p. 381. , This translation may sound exce.,.,;ve!y colloql,ial. But the original, unkSS ;1 wmains lexl\lal wrrupliOI1. �em! 10 be of a similarly colloquial nature. • i.JJ1! Hi 9.8; Lau (19H3a), p. 79. • Hsul! T�u 8.;U; d. Kum·r('967), pp. Nt: ' ul!"fii 6."l"l;LaU(Ig83a), P.5"l. ' LunJii2.17;LaU{1983a),P· lj. , Hsill! UU 1�.6,; e[ Ku!cer {lg6,}, p. 16"l. Thp i.JJ SMh Chhlm (" J
If one occupies a high po.ition, one doe. nul walll to he n i quisilive in a <mall way. One docl not want to be knowledgeable in a smail way. . . Being blOwledgeable and pursuing pri,-.uc aims is not ai good as heing siupid and pursuing u",plfi�h ends.
LAKGUAGE AND L O G I C
'53
Hstin Tzu abo had a rather subtle distinction between two meanings of chih 'know(ing)': The means ofknowing (hat is wit hin man is {'aBed 'chih (intelligence),; his intelligence tally ing with something is (also) called 'chih � (knowing),.1
It is not improbable that Hsiin Tzu derived inspiration for this distinction from the Later Mohists.
Thr Mohut lhrorcticai {l('count ofk71owledgr It is the considerable ml;rit of the Mohists that they recognised the central impor tance of the conl.:ept ofknowledge in their intellectual scheme of things. They took a conceptual interest in knowledge which is alien to earlier Chinese thinking. To start with, the Later Mohists defined a series of concepts in the semantic field of knowledge as follows: 'lntdligencc (chih)' is the capability. Explanation: It being the means by which one knows, one necessarily does know. (Like (the case of) eyesight.) 'Thinking (lii rlff,)' is the seeking. Expl(Jnati oll: By means ofone's intelligence one seeks something, but does not necessarily . find it. (Like peering.)
Iii 'thinking' is interpreted here as trying to achieve knowledge. This trying is nol necessarily successful. 'Knowing (chih), is the connecting. E.'
This definition of knowledge is curiously close to the etymology of the Greek word for to know, oida which literally means 'I have seen'.2 'Understanding (chih)' is the illumination. Explanation: By means of one's intelligence, in discourse about lhe thing onc'5 knowledge or it is apparent. {Like clearness of sight.)l
The Mohists proceed�d to a threefold classification of knowledge in terms of methods or sources of knowledge and objects of knowledge: Knowing (chih) is by hearsay, by explanation, or by personal experience. Explanation: (How one kno\,,.-s:) HaYing received it at second hand is 'knowing by hearsay'. Knowing that something square will not rotate is by 'explanation'. Ha\;ng been a witness oneselfis 'knowing bypersonal experience'. ) lI.!iill 4" 22.5; d. Graham ('ln8), p, 269. , Another curious instancc of.uch coinciden"" of '\'est�rn etymology and Ea$t"rn definition is th� Mohi.t d�finition ofpi&' 'necessary', where the Latin elymQlogy ofntwsan'w is 'not ceasing, not ending' This interest ing observation was point"d 0111 to me by William B. Bohz. , For Lh� text and an e�llent ultnpretation ofthis seqn"ncc ofd"flnitiom st"cA. C, Graham (J978), p. 267,
L A ).! G U A G E A)'!D L O G I C
(\Vhat one knows:) \Vhal something is called by is its 'name'. \Vhat is so called is the ·object'. The mating of namc and object is 'relating'. To inte:nd and to perform are to 'act'. I
Thus the Later Mohists n�cot,'11ised and practised 1. a science of names, 2. a science or objects, 3. a science of how names apply to objects, and 4. a science of human action. Thus lhey had an explicit scientific scheme orknowledge according to which thcyproceeded.'l Having thus defined a range of concepts, the Mohists pron:edcd to conceptual analysis: \Vhcn one knows, it is not by means orlhe 'fiVf; roads."< Explained by: duration. ExplanatIOn: The: knower sees by means of I}W eye, and the: e:ye: sees by means of fire, but lire docs not sec. If the only means were (he 'Ii\'(, roads', knowing as it endures would not fit the fact. Seeing by means of l\le eye is like seeing by means offire. "'
Finally, the Later �dohists explained an apparent paradox of knowledge: that we can be said to know what we do not know. This, we arc told, is because we are ablf' to choose between what we know and what we do not know." It seems likely that this extremely sensible explanation is a reaclion to Taoist sceptical rejections of knowledge. \Ve must now turn to a doser examination of the traditions of anti-intellectual ism and of scepticism. Anti-intellertualism and scepticism must be carerully separ ated: I call anti-intellectualism the negative views on the social and pragmatic importance of (proto -)scientific knowledge, and I call scepticism the pervasive doubt conl'.erning the objertivt' reliability of human knowledge. Ancient Chinese anti-intellectualism is concerned with the social function of knowledge, scepticism belongs firmly to the realm of epistemology, the general theory of the relation between knowledge and reality. 1)ismissing knowl.edge as useless': anti-intellectualism It is one oflhe interesting paradoxes of the history of Chinese science that some of the Taoists, who contributed most to the progress of science in China through the ages, have also gone on record as 'rejecting knowledge(ableness)': Cut off sagdiness, rej ect intellectual excdlr:ncc (chill), hundredfold."
and
the people will
benefit
a
The obvious question is ,,,-hat exactly the ancient Taoists rejected when they rejected chilt 'knowledgeableness, intellectual excellence'. 7 How exaclly are we to interpret the noun chih 'wisdom, knowledgeableness, shrewdness, wiliness' in the relevant contexts? 1
Cf. Graham (I!Jl8), p :1'�7- Contra,;l VoL 11, 1' _ '77. . Se� Graham (197H;, 1'1'_ �:1'-+ , I.e., the fi\T '�'''n. , See Graham (197H), p_ P - 5- Contra't VoL II, p. 178, 'Knowledge of duration'. Cf VoL II, p. '79 amI Graharn (I97H), p. ..17. 0 Lao 7:;11 T�I; cf. Vol . TT, p. 87.
j
' Cf VoL H, 1'1'_ H6ff.
LANGUAGE The Taoists certainly did not
.... :\10
2 55
LOGIC
rt'jec l intuitive or practical aptitude and s kill .
On
the contrary, they cultivated it under the provocative name of non-action (wu wei �
�). The widely cC':!ebrated ' kn ack-passages' in Chuang Tzu' bear eloquent witness to
a
>f g
this. Like everybody else the Taoists rej ected chill underslood as the negative quality of 'wiline ss' , but such trivi al reje ction of an in tri nsically unattractive f), u ality would
be too facile to deserve �o much altCllrion and emph asis.
A detailed survey oCtile uses ofdlih �1 and chill ?:{]/� (falling tone) in the indext-d
literature has led me to thc conclusion that tht'se: m:gatiw attitudes to chill constit ute
a rf"j ection of what we today migh t call 'intf'llf'ctual excellence' or
even 'acadl"mic
excellence' and of the son of discursiv(" ' academ ic' knowledge that define� 'acade
•
d u Ie •
mic excellence'. Included in this concept of intellectual excellence is knowledge ableness in mallers of lofty Confucian moral isi ng philosophy. Our ancil"m lexts oftt'll memiOIl cnih 'knowledgeableness' togeth er with pien � ' soph istry ' , which
after all was a (d\�rogatively used) term for what wa� the pursuit of scientific knowl edge for its own
sake. The kind ofknowledgeabJene_�s attacked as chih is the rhe lori
cal knowledgeableness of the sophists and the theoreti cal knowledgl"abl("ness o f scientists like the Later l\·lohists, as well as the t raditionalist moralisti c kn owl edge ableness of traditional Confucian le arning. To the extent that scientific knowledge and imellectual excellence becamf"
"0
c • • n o
•
•
, ,
instrumemal in the pursuit of the good Taoist life (good he alth , long life as well as
intellecmal excdle nce was encourage d and cultivated by later Taoists. The pre ceding volumes ofsecbear witness to th e large scalc on which this has happened throughout Chinese history. Confucians, for their own reasons, reje:cted chili 'intellectual excellence:' when il \vas not constructively instr umental in the good conduct of the moral life and of political lifC . Confucius and his followers though t that intellectual exccllence was secondary to moral excellence, and that the effects of in telle ctual excellence upon th e moral qualities ofthe individual as well as the political qualities orth e state were predominantly negative. Intellectual excellence \\'as lhe:refore not to be especially cultivated except as a handmaid to moral edification or to political administration. When anciem Confucian and Legalist (("xts address the problem of chih ' knowl edgeableness, intellectual excellence: ' , they do not address a problem of epistemolo gy at aIL Often they address a problem ofpublic administration com parable to the recurrent question of how much weight a president in the United States ofAm(" rica should put on academic expertise in his government, and hQ\.... many distinguished Harvard professors he sh ould employ. The Legalist Han Fei was vcry much preoccupied with the though t thai intel lectual excellence easily combines with insubordination and thus gelS in the way of the strict discipline which i...� necessary for the well-regulated run ning of a state. When Han Fei used the word chih � (now read in the f alling tone), hf" mostly immor tality), such
, ct: Vol. JJ,pp. 121ff., and Graham
ar� many in Urlr T�!I.
('98,), pp. 5t1: �O\C tliat \hu� are no such passage! in lAo 7�'1, \\'hil� ,here
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C thought of it as 'academic knowledgeableness' together with such words as pun
m
'rhetoric' and the like:
m
So-call�d knowledgeableness (so wei chih chi ffliift��) consist s in subd� and mysterious talk.'
'
"
There are literally hundreds of passages attacking such politically unproductive ('academic') knowledgeableness and its rhetorical as well as philosophical deriva tives
in Han Fei Tzu.
ta
One less polemical and philosophically more interesting
remark concerns the limitations afknowledge:
Knowledge (chih) is like eye(sight): (the eye) can see further than a hundred paces, but it is unable to see its own cydids.l This thought, one might suspect, belongs to the Taoist strain in Han Fei's work.
'Doubting the rtliabili!JI ofknowiedge': scepticism Consider a piece of knowledge like 'two plus two equals four'. Conceivably, one might dismiss this statement as inconsequential and morally irrelevant. That would ue one way of dismissing such a piece of knowledge. But a hard-headed mathemati cian might also do something entirely differenl. He might doubt that we can be absolutely certain that two plus I:\\'O actually equals four. That would be a case of scientific epistemological scepticism. The question I now propose to discuss is this: did the ancient Chinese develop epis temological scepticism as clearly distinct from what we called 'anti-intellectualism' in our last Sub-section? Did the ancient Chinese cast general doubt on the ultimate reliability ofhuman knowledge? Consider a famous saying attributed to Lao Tzu: Knowi ng to not-know is superior (chihplI chih ShOllg i �/ffIJ I';!ij B).l Wang Pi I:� (+226 to +249) comments:
Tfyou do not know that knowing cannot bc relied upon (pu twjill /fJEff), you are at fault
(ping 1�V
Chuang Tzu asks: Is it whcn not knowing that one knows? Is it that when one knows one does not know? "'Iho
knows the knowing which is not-knowing?"
I Hml Fei 'ku 49.1 1.3; Liao (1939), vol. 2, p. 288. Ha" Fe, ll;11 � I ,20.9; l.iao (1939), nIL I, p. 226. UJo ll;u i[; ,r. uu(lgil2), p, [OS: " 1'0knowyet to think h t ai one doe, not know is kn,' The Chinese t�X[ docs
J
nOI support Ihi� inl"rpr�tadoll, S�e Rump and Chan (1979), p, 194, .ang Tzu 22.61; cf. Graham (198t), p, 163, In his usual, pithy .Iyle Hstln Tzu points Olll a profound paradox • , (' J u of�pcne01ology which would seem 10 be Taoisl-inspired: 1
Greal etfki�llcyconsim in whll[ one does not a(hi�\'c ddiber�lcly, Gr�al knowl�dge (to "Iik :*:!I!I) .:un;;ists in what is h<:}'()nd (ddilocrale) cngitati{ln (LIa! sopu Iii :tf.ff,/f!l). (HJiin T{u 17,,6; ce, Komr (1967), p. 217)
a<
01 u
), d P a •
il t , t
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
257
This not-knowing is quite possibly l.ao T7.u's 'knowing to not-know'. The theme, in any case, is a common one in lhe !10us
Chuang �u:
Men all set stOre bywhat wit knows, but none knows how to know by depending on what his
wits do not know; may that nOt be called the supreme uncertainty?'
-rive
wa ling It s i
k.
me
�d IUbe
of
n'
The book Chuang Tzu, particularly chapter 2, asks unAinchingly and with crys talline clarity of thought the all-important question:
How do r know that what I call knowing is not not-knowing? How do I know what I call not-knowing is nOl knowing?l Chuang Tzu remains uncertain . For every level of knowledge one may have achieved in one's life there is a higher level of uncertainty concerning the reliability of that knowledge onc has achieved. Knowledge is thus inevitably built on an uncertain basis, on what we do not k nmv, on not-knowing. And a recognition ofthis latter state of affairs constitutes part of the true wisdom orthe Taoist sage. It is a wis dom which consists in not-knowing. A wisdom which deserves to be closely com pared with the famous oida ouk eidos (olOa OVK £i8w.) 'I am aware that I do not know' attributed to Socrates. For example : how do we know that we are not dreaming as we think we knov·,.. something? The justly celebrated story of Chuang Tzu and the butterfly tries to illustrate that we cannot be sure.3 The Taoist sceptical attitude is that all knowing of theorems is never quite cer tain. There may be delusion. We may "wake up' to higher insight which might invalidate whatever we think we know. Chuang Tzu also gives us an example from the philosophy of life:
How do I know that to take pleasure in life is not a delusion? How do I know that we who hate death are not exiles since childhood who have forgotten the way home? . . . Who banquets in a dream, at dawn wails and weeps. \'Vho wails and weeps in a dream, at dawn goes out to hunt.
It
,
While we dream we do nOt know that we are dreaming, and in the Not until we wake up do we know that we are
middle ora dream interpret a dream within it.
dreaming. Only at the Great Awakening shall we know that this was a Great Dream. Yet fools think they are awake, so confident that they know what they are, princes, herdsmen, incorrigible! You and Confucius arc both dreams, and my calling you a dream is also a dream. '
Through this p oetic speech i n a fictitious dialogue Chuang Tzu suggests that our knowledge is uncertain because we may wake up to find that it was an illusory dream. As the history of Taoism shows, a theoretical conviction of this sort and a commitment to the book Lao UU as an authoritative source is perfectly compatible with the conduct ofempirical scienc�. Chuallg T(,.u ��.j�; cf. Graham (198I), p. 1O�, • C hw(/"I1 T:u 7.66; cf. Graham (1981), p. :)8. Ch�ang T.::u 2.94; It. Graham (1981), p. 61. Chuang 7:i:u 2.78/9; d. Graham (19H.j, p. 59 and Vol. II, p. 87.
LA:-lGUAGE AND
LOGIC
Apart from the argument from delusion, Chuang'!zu appeals to argumems from the inevitable subjectivity of human viewpoints. Chuang Tzu observes that deictic terms like 'this' and 'that' are inevitably subjective, and he speculates whether all our assessments ofthings might not be of the same kind:
'It's acc eptable! ' Then it is acceptable. 'It's unacccptable!' Then it is unacceptable. The vVay comes about as we walk it. Things become 'so' because we call them 'so'. I Chuang Tzu delights in the thought lhat, names being arbitrary, anything can become anything else by a mere change in nomenclature. Ifl call oxen horses, then
all oxen have thereby become horses. Thus, he concludes, all knowledge is subjec tive and relative to the knower. Taoist enlightened not-knowing consists in an awareness of this ultimate subjectivity and relativity of nomenclature which leads one not to know whether or not 'ultimately' to call things by one name or another. Chuang Tw's relativism is remarkably dose in mood to Heraclitus. You may ask whether a non-level road 'really' goes up or down. There is no objective ans\ver to this, as Heraclitus points oul, and as Chuang Tzu no doubt would have delighted in
pointing out if he had thought of it:
A road is, upwards and downwards, the same.� The sea is purest and mosl unclean water: for fish, drinkable
undrinkable and deadlr�
and life·giving; for men
,
For Chuang Tzu subjective distinctions and oppositions arc indistinguishable in
the Way. Similarly we havc in Heraclitus:
God is day night, \vinter summer, war peace, surreit famine; but he is modified, just as fin:, when incense is added to it, takes its nam(' from the particular scent oreach different spice.' The connection bel\vcen knowing and not-knowing is discussed in chapter the HuaiNan
1'2
of
Tzu, which tells of a fictitious person Translucence asking the equally
fictitious lnfinitude wht:ther he knew the Way. Infinitude replied he did not know. Translucence went on to ask Kon-Action the same question, and Kon-Action replied that he did know. Confused, Translucence went on to ask No-Beginning which was right, the not-knowing of Infinitude or the knowing of Non-Action. No·Beginning replied: 'The nOI-knowing is profound. The kn owing is superficial. The not-knowing is internal, the knowing is external. The not-knowing is subtle, the knowing is crudt.' Translucence threw back his head and sighed: 'So not-knowing is knowing. Knowing is not knowing. Ah, who knows that knowi ng is not-knowing and that not-knowing is knowing?':;
Not-knowing, then, is not at all ignorance, it is an advanced Taoist version of
docla ignorantia. It is not an anti-intellectual n�.iection of scientific knowledge. It is ' H. Did, (19Yl), fro 60. , Chuang 1i;u 2.33; cf. Graham {19flJ}, p. :;3, Ibid., fro 61. ' H"raclitu" fro 6i; cf. Hussey (1972), p. f6. fluaiNan T�u I�. �d. I.iu Wen-Tien, pp. rail: Cf. th� probably earlier Chuang nu, eh. 22; Graham (19BI), pp.
�
162f.
LANGUAGE AND LOGIC
rom iclic ",11
Th,
can then !lee I an :ads "". , ,,,k !r to -d in
Ilen, Ie in
fu'. ice.' o of !ally lOW.
tion
nOl
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n of 1l is
h Pp·
2 59
itselfth� product afan advanced piece ofscientific theorising. Chuang Tzu thought that our knowledge, however well-founded empirically and theoretically, is ultim ately uncertain. Chuang Tzu nowhere directly and dogmatically states that we cannot know. He only persists in asking 'How do we know?', He is not an adherent ohhe dogma that we cannot know anything (which would make him into what in Greek philosophy would be called a dogmatic Academic). Chuang Tzu simply cannot sec how we can avoid uncertainty (and must count as a true sceptic in the way that Sextus Empiricus (fl. +180 to +200) was famous for in the West). The dialogue between the fictitious characters Gaptooth and "Vang: Ni brings this out: GaplOOlh asked Wang :\i: 'Do you know what all mings agree in calling right?' 'How would I know that?' 'Do you know that you do not know that?' 'How would I know that?' 'Then do (we) creatures know nothing?'
'How would I know that? But suppose I try saying something "Vhat way do I have of knowing that if I say I know something I don't really not know it? Or what way do I have of .
knO\\fing that ifI say I don't know something I don't really know it? Kow let me ask you some questions . . .'1
Compare the redoubtable German mathematician and theologian Nicolas of eusa (+qOI to +(464). \-Vhen he published his great work of philosophy, De docta ignorantia (1440), he quile properly entilied the first chapter Quomodo scire est ignorare (How knowing is not·knowing) and then proceded to explaining Qjlodpraecisa veritas incomprehrnsibilis sit in his chapter 2. Nicolas of eusa finishes this beautiful third chapter \vith the paradox: El quanto in hac ignorantiaprofimdius doctifuerimus, tanro magis ipsam accedimus ,,·eritatem (And the more profoundly learned we become in this igno rance, the closer we come 1O the truth.)2 Nicolas of Cusa was, in a way, more dog matic than Chuang Tzu. He maintained a dogma on the uncertainty of theological kno\\fledge, a dogma which on our interprctation Chuang Tzu would have found questionable. It is significant that Nicolas supports his sceptical doctrine with a wealth of geo metrical arguments. He was an accomplished mathematician and interested in medicine and biology, as well as in many branches of applied science. Through experimental methods he established such important insights as that air has weight and that plants absorb nourishment through the air. Being ultimately a sceptic and a Neo-Platonist mystic did not prevent him from being a proficient practitioner of scien<.:e.J I dwell on Nicolas ofCusa because his way ofthinking about the ultimate state ments, about theology, was close to that of Chuang Tzu: Et ex his mar/ifes/um est,
ChWJng
·�u �.t4; cf. Watson (196,,), p. 45. ' :".'icolas ofCu�a (19f4), p. q. I l Or, incidental1}; from di.o;co\"ering a doun unknown comedies hy the Roman drama
list Plautus.
260
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
quomodo negationes sunt verae et ajJirmationes Irt.lujJiClentes In theologtcis
(From this we
see clearly how in matters theological negations are true and affirmations are insufficient). I The doubting attitude to knowledge, the insistence on the justification for claim ing the objective validity of apparently self-evident or commonly accepted knowl
\
edge, is a central part of rationality and a crucial factor in carly Chinese intellectual history.l Chuang Tzu's attitude ofpervasive uncertainty concerning the question of the reliability of our knowledge is the result of such rational doubt, as expounded in chapter 2 of the
Chuang Tzu. This chapter, therefore, must count as a central docu
ment in the history of Chinese science and epistemology. PyTrho ofElis
(c. -360 to -270) , the father figure of Greek scepticism, was rough
,
e
ly contemporary with Chuang Tzu. Pyrrho's sceptical tradition became important
in Europe from the -3rd century onwards. It appears that Pyrrho visited India, and it is said that he mixed there with the 'naked sophists' or fakirs
(gymnosophistai) and
the magicians (ma,goi).:l We are told:
(Pyrrho) used to say that nothing was beautiful or ugly, just or unjust, that all human action was invariably by custom and by habit, that nothing was more this or more: that.� Thus the sceptical tradition in the \Vest, which was so important for the develop ment of self-critical science, may have benefited from Indian inspirations. Like his contemporary Chuang Tzu, Pyrrho seems to have been a colourful and poetic souL There was an anti-authoritarian and non-conformist streak in both men, But then it is important to remember that there is nothing particularly unscientific about being anti-authoritarian, non-conformist and doubtful about everything.� The early Socrates (as depicted by Plato) was a case in point He refused to be certain about anything, He was a thorough sceptic. The Nonvegian philosopher (and mountaineer) Arne Naess has argued eloquently for the philosophical and scientific feasibility ofscepticism in his philological reconstruction and philosophi cal analysis ofPyrrhonism as expounded in the work of Sextus Empiricus (fl, +180 to +200), which constitutes the earliest coherent philosophical exposition of scepti cism that has come down to us from European antiquity.6 Indeed, many philoso phers of science have recognised the sceptic Sextus Empiricus as a crucial figure in the history ofvVestern scientific methodology. And yet, Sextus Empiricus' purpose in cultivating a sceptical non-committal attitude to all dogma was not immediately scientific. Like Chuang Tzu, he - and PyTrho many centuries before him - cultivat ed a sceptical stance as a means to obtain serenity, peace of mind, ataraxia 'unruffled balance of thought' . Through this quest he made a significant contribution to the history of science,
' Cf. Vul.!I, p. 365. ' See D;ogenes Laert;us, VitaePhilosophorum 9.6, . I Ibid., p. liZ. Ibid. ' A good historical ,ur"\'�y un p'Trhu and early Greek scepticism;s that ofL. Robin (1944). , Naes, (1968). •
,
,
,
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
his we ns
( ,) L O G I CAL P R A C T I C E
are
( 1 ) ARGUMENTATION A :-r D RATIONALITY I N ANCIENT CHINA
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\-Ve have seen that the ancient Chinese had the linguistic and logical tools which are necessary to construct arguments. But what argumentative use, if any, did they make ofthe:se tools? On the one hand it is perfectly possible for a person -or a cui· ture - to live a happy life without ever explicitly arguing logically for any conclu sions or deliberately proving any point.s. On the other hand it is far from certain whether any people could ever get by without in their speech and conduct showing evidence that they -at least implicitly - reason logically. One might well be tempted to argue that such a people is unthinkable.
In thL� Section, then, 1 shall be concerned to show some examples of Chinese
explicit reasoning. I also want to show how logical reasoning is clearly implicit in certain ancient Chinese ways of speaking and writing. The first point is far from triviaL In the second case I think it is worth while to illustrate through examples what I believe might well seem self-evident to a logician or to a philosopher. Rationality and argumentation arise when a thinker seriously contemplates the pervasiveness of the possibility that he may be wrong, that he needs reasons and arguments to support the validity ofhis views. This rationality is not something uni versal, but it seems to me to be not unconnected with the notion of a philosophical culture. The question of whether rationality developed among the Chinese is entirely separate from the question whether the ways of speaking of the Chinese do or do not involve what we can recognise as logical trains of thought. Recognising a train of thought as logical, in turn, is in no way the same as recognising it as plausible or acceptable. A person or a culture can be desperately wrong in our eyes, but at the same time they may be entirely rational and logical in elaborating what we may perceive as a wrong-headed way of conceiving of things. Thus rationality and acceptability have to be kept carefully separated. There are, then, several separate questions:
o
m
'" Iy 1d e
1.
Did the ancient Chinese try to justify claims which they were making about the world? (The answer to this one is an emphatic 'Yes, of course they did. They did it all the time. ')
2.
Did the ancient Chinese construct explicit logical arguments? (The answer is 'Yes, they certainly did, but the role of these arguments in their discourse was significantly smaller than for example in Greece, and the logical structure of such arguments was somewhat simpler. ')
3. Can we reconstruct arguments as plainly implicit in ancient Chinese texts with out violating the spirit of these texts or reading alien logical clements into them? (The answer is 'Yes we can, and in order to understand Chinese texts properly traditional Chinese commentators as well as modern "Vestern translators have to do this aU the time. ')
LANGUAGE AND
LOGIC
4. Are some of the Chinese patterns of explicit argumentation (if indeed there are any) recognisable by us as valid?! (The answer is 'Yes, there are many such valid explicit and implicit arguments.') I am aware that relativists will argue that in arriving at the answers outlined above I impose our categories on the Chinese texts. On the other hand that is, in principle, also what we are reduced to doing when we understand the logical struc ture of what members of our own culture say, or even what we ourselves are saying. In each of these cases we have to translate something into our own idiom, and the fact that the translation sometimes is homophonous with the original does nOI, philosophically, matter at all. At this point I can only remind the reader of the remark by W. V 0. Quine:
\Vanton translation can make natives sound as queer as one pleases. Bettcr translation imposes our logic upon thr.m, and would bcg the question of prelogicality, if there were a question to beg,2 To all philosophical intents and purposes we arc natives ourselves to ourselves when we try to understand what we are saYIng. Relativism applies also in that case. There is nothing special about the case ofthe Chinese in this respect. In any case, the above - quile separate - issues are basic to the history of science and civilisation in China, but unfortunately they are not at all easily studied in any conclusive way.� Even if we lined up some instances where the ancient Chinese \vould appear to argue or think along familiar logical lines, we would still be open to the objection that the examples we have chosen to concentrate on are collected from a biased point ofvie\.... and not at all representative ofthe essence and the natural bent of the Chinese mode of thinking. One might argue that the predominant intellectual mode in ancient China was not that of argument or proof but of classification or correlation.+ Such correlation was naturally expressed in sets of parallel sentences,
hence the tendency towards parallelism. The Chinese, one might feci, were not so
much interested in proving general theses as they were in correlating concrete phe nomena with supernatural agents,
shen :W ,
and classifYing them, e.g., under such
broad categories as)'in � and)'ang �, 'hot' and 'cold' in medicine and natural phi
losophy, or the wu hsing n1-T 'five phases'.
In many cases these different explanatory and argumentative strategies were in
competition with each other, as in the case of the sickness of the Duke of Chin in , l\ote that by now remarkably few ofPlato's arguments, for example, would strike philosophers as acceptable as they stand. The point is that we seem to perceive Plato as being in pursuit ofwhat we would recognise a, ratio nal and convincing arguments.
, Quine (lg09), p_ .'lil . , On� ofth� most detailed ,tudi�, ofargum�mation in �ady China i, Lc,li� {!glitb),Proccssc! ofReasoning in Confucian Texts down to the +I
of ancient Chinese argumentative rhetoric. , tor a stimulating analysis ofcorrelativc thinking see Graham (lq86d).
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
-539, on which our historical records have preserved extensive discussion. v\le are told that th� divination specialists altributed the matter to interference from two
spirits unknown to aU the scribes. Tzu Chhan arrives on the scene, explains who the two spirits arc, but insists that they are the sort who have nothing to do with the Duke's illness. Th<: ruin's h<:alth d<:IXnds on his conduct, on his drinking and eating, on his grids andjoys. i , rivers and heaycnlyconslcllations ha\'e nothing to do with it . 1 The spirits ofthe mountam Tzu Chhan argues that it must be the
Duke's irregular and improper daily rou�
lines that have caused the sickness. Moreover, he points out, there are four concu�
bines in the Duke's harem who bear the same surname as the Duke: couldn't that breach of the taboo against endogamy have been a reason for the sickness? Tzu Chhan recommends that the
four concubines
be dismissed. The Duke of Chin is
imprfssed by these arguments but requests more medical advice from Chhin, and a certain Dr Ho from Chhin comes up with a remarkabl e psychological explanation:
The sickness cannot be treatr.d. This is a case of being sick to the point of bewitchment as soon as one gr.ts into the f("male chambers. It is neither a matter or the ghosts or offood. It is a matter of get:ting confused and losing ones mental comrol (sang chih �:t).� The Duke is worried:
then, keep away from women?' 'You must show moderation. . . . Heaven has the Six Ethers, which descending generate the Five Tast<:s, issue as the Fi\"C Colours. arc evidenced by the Five Sounds, and in excess generat<: thc Si.x DisCalSCS. The Six £th(".rs arcyin � and }"l11lg 1\;, wind and rain, dark and light. Th<:y divid<: to make the Four Seasons, in sequence make the Five Rhythms, and in <:xc<:ss bring about calami£)'. From)"m in excess cold diseas<:s, from )'ang hot; from wind in excess diseases of the extremities, from rain of the stomach; from dark in eXCeSS delusions, from light disease� of the heart. Woman being a thing of)'allg but frolll a dark season. in exc<:ss sh<: generates the diseases of inward heat and deluding poisons.1 'Must T,
Compare the reason ing in -486 by Chao Yang of Chin. He hesitates whether or
not to go to the rescue of the state of Cheng which i� being attacked by the state of Sung. By divination it is determined that the event in qu estion is characterised by
the j uncture of fire being extinguished by water. The divination specialists
decide
that this signifies that a war is possible, and that since a war (like water) belongs to
they,:n or female
dynamism, this is dominant. The specialists further explain that if Chao Yang wish es to go to war, then , being of ayin-clan himself, he should not go to war with anotherym-dan, that of the princes of Sung. On the contrary, the special� ists argue, he could attack the prince of Chhi whose lineage descends from an
officer ofthe fire and therefore must be said to be a)'ang-cian. We are told that Chao , Ts6 (Allan, Duke Chao I, ed. Yang Po-ChUIl, p. 1220; d. CoU\�ur (195Ib), \'01. 3, p. 33. , 1 16 C hllan, Duk., Chao I, ed. Yang Po-Chun, p. 1221; C( Cou\'l"�ur(195Ib). \'01. :!. p. :i6. Duk., Chao 1. ed. Yang Po-Chun. p. un; d. Cou\"Teur {Jg'i b), \'01. 3, p. 37. For Ihe inlellectual I 1J6 allan, .1 COllleXI orlhi� pas.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C Yang avoided attacking Sung in support of Cheng but instead lead a successful
campaign against Chhi.1 The kind of practical re ason ing here summarised was of great importance in Chinese n i tellectual history. In one of the texts attached to the
Ma-wang-tui m.:E:li manuscript of the Lao Tzu we read:
In general, in theoretical discourse one must lise yin and yang to make plain the grand scheme (ta I *�j).2 Chinese arguments of a corn:lative sort may be seen to be rational even when they seem quite implausible to us:
In the fourth month there was a fire in Chhcn. Pi Tsao of Cheng said: 'In five years the state of Chhen will be re-established, and after ): 2 years it will finally perIsh.' Tzu Chhan asked for a reason (ku 1'&). Pi Tsao replied: 'Chhen belongs to the dement ofwater. Fire is the element antagonistic to water and is under the supervision ofChhu. Now the fire-star has come out and brought fire to Chhen. This indicates that Chhu is ousted and Chhrn is established. Antagonistic elements are ruled by the number five. That is why I say in five years. The year-star must five times come to the configuration kuo IIOU before Chhen perishes. That Chhll will gain control over it is in the: nature ofHeave:n. That is why I say 52 years.3 For all we are told, Tzu Chhan was satisfied with this pi ece of reasoning, or at least he was expected 1O find it satisfactory and plausible. Today, we badly need the ancient commentary to understand what is going on. The commentator Tu Yu
tlffi (+222 to +284) explains that after five years 'water' will gain the ascendance in the sky and that as a result ofthat Chhen (representing water) will be re-established. From then on four years will pass before the configuration kuo hUG will appear in the sky, and this configuration appears every twelve years. Thus it will have appeared five times after 52 years (4 + (4 X 12)). "Vhen properly seen against the background of the beliefs apparently current at the time, this argument was a rational one. The difficulty in many c ases is how to reconstruct the rational force of apparently wild
Chinese arguments. One might argue that the ancient Chinese were more inclined to argue 'analogi cally', by analogy or comparison, rather than logically by demonstratior: or proof. 1 I IJo Chuan. Duke Ai g. ed. Yang Po-Chlin, p. 1652f.; cf. Cou,·rtur (Igjlb), vol. 3, pp. 657-60; l..egg�, (1872). p. 8Ig. Vandermeersch (tgHH), p. 66, ,ummari,�s Ih� affair. , Chlng Fa ;;&$, PI'. 94[ Thc tcxt cominue, to provide a li,t of 22 .Jall/?,/.Jin Ii!!!-� pairs: Heaven/Earth; spring/autumn; summerl\\inter; day/night; big Slalcs/small states; important statedunimportant states; action/inaction; str�tching/cnntracting; ruler/minister; above/below; man/woman: father/child; dder brolher/younger brolh�r; old�r/younger; noble/base: geHing on in the world/being stuck whcre one is; laking a wife of begetting a child/ha,ing a funeral; controlling others/being comrolled br others; guesl/lim!; soldi�n/ labourers; speechhilence; giving/r�c�i,,�ng. (Cf. Graham (lg86d). p. 27.) , IJo Chuan, Duke Chao 9.3, cd. Yang Po-Chiln. p. ':J'U; cf. Cn\lvreur (" l5lb), \"01. 3, pp. 166f., and kggc (1872), p. 626 . Cr.J. S. Cik05ki (1 975) as well as]. Chmielewski (1979), which off�r., critical cnrnrnents on Cikoski. for detailed analpis ofthe method of analogy in the Ming u.u see Lau (I983c), pp. 334-jG, and m"r� r�cently Reding (lg86). •
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
There i s no doubt that the ancient Chinese, like (he Greeks, were fond ofarguments by analogy, but it still makes good sense to study the non-analogical arguments in
E. R. Dodd�, in his book The Gretkf and the Irrational (Berkele); !95!), has shown that the ancient Greeks generally were very far indeed from think
China and Greece.
ing predominantly in ways that we would call rational. But Dodds adds an impor tant sequel to his observation: The evidence which
i�
here brought together illustratt's an important, and relati\'dy un
t:1.miliar, aspect of the mental world of ancitUl Greece. But an aspect must nOt be taken for the whole. I
Logic.al argumentation (as opposf'd to correlative explanation) is only one aspect of ancient Chinese intellectual c.ulture and must not be taken tor lhe whole. None the less it makes good sense to study the evolution and the pannns of non-correlative ralional thinking and argumentation in ancient China. I wish to demonstrate that there was room in ancient Chinese culture for this kind oflogical reasoning. I shall iry 10 discover some ofthe typical strategies ofargu memation and infert"nee explicitly or implicitly prcsent in the ancient Chinese texts that have come down to us. In tht' following Sub-section I shall thcn go on to look a litd� more dosely at some specific forms of argument such as (he syllogism, modus por/ens, moduJ tollens, the sorites. \Ve arc imerested in the presence or absence of these forms of (explicit or implicit) reasoning in China because we are interested 10 know whether the ancient Chinese mind moved along entirely different logical avenul"S from ours. Arguments in non-technical Classical Chinese texts are in general designed not to prove a proposition but to COr/vinet a reader with plausible reasons of a proposition which the philosopher, most often on the independent basis of his superior wisdom, holds to be true. Such reasoned argumentation must be carefully distinguished from persuasion (shui aw.), which lalls into the realm of rhetoric or psychological tactics and is not of immediate concern in the context of lhe history or science in China, ahhough it was viewed as important by the Chinese themseh"es at the time. � Indeed, most reasoning in ancient China was designed to make someone of superior rank notjust believe but use (),ung ffl) certain words, i.e., act on them. �
In a scientific contt'xt the crucial notion is that ofproofand ofthe art ofplausiblc rt'asoning. The
art
of formal proof was little devcloped in China by comparison
with Greece. The an of plausible reasoning on the other hand, formed an integral part ofintdlt'ctual lift' in China from the time ofConfuciu�'s disciples onwards, and especially since the Confucian teachinbrs were challenged by rival schools of thought such as that ofi\'io Tzu. L Dndds (J951), P. \"iii.
Til" Chan·Kr,o 'ISM -.s;lfLifi ur . rIllrig\l�" of \h� W"rring Slat�s' (s"r Crump ('970}) aud tho: SllIlV Yuan �m 'Carden ofPcr5uasioru' cOJltain panklJlarl� f:uo:inating mal"rial on lhr art OfpeLIUM;on in a!lei"nt ChiM, h\lt rhe them" rtturs lhroughout the pllilosophieal and hislorkal literamre. , See. e.g., hUO 11i�;3 2' nO.I. cd. Shanghai Ku-(,hi, p. 643. 1
266
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
One unique feature of imeJlecluai life in Greece was preci sely lhe demand for formal proof in informal contexts. I Plato's tendency towards st rict argumentative
rationalism amounted essentially to just this: to demand rigid clarity of meaning in philosophy, and to demand clear deduClivc evidence for any philosophical thesis maintained, preferably in the form ora proof from tTue or plausible premises. In China, such rigid rationalism remained a marginal phenomenon.
A typical,
almost programmatic, statement of Chinese rationalism and empiricism would be this:
'Vhen one hears words, one must investigate them (i.e., their truth). Belter not to hear about something at all than to hear about someth ing and not investigate the matter? No Chinese philosopher would ever say about an academy3 anything like mideir ageometrlios eisita, f-lTj8ds ay£w/,"£TPTjTO. £lO{TW, 'lel no Olle ignorant of geometry enter', In point offact, the ascription of this saying to Plato is probably ap ocryphal, tOO, but it adequately expresses the thought that access to wisdom depended on
mathematical training.1 This thought was not entirely alien to the traditional
Chinese thinkers, but it must be fair to say thac among those whom we traditionally
regard as 'philosophers' such an emphasis is rare to say the least.
In any case Cicero, in an interesting c:omparison of the achievements of Greek
and Roman culture, notes around -45:
(i.e., the Greeks) honore geomctria fuit, itaque nihil mathematicis inlustrius; at nos mcticndi ratiocinandique utilitate huius artis termina\1mus modum,5
In summa apud illos
Most Chinese philosophers might well have sympathised with Cicero's general auitude, and they might more naturally have: assigned to history the place which Plato and many other Greeks gave to geometry. Compare Confucius with Plato. Confucius made many claims. To what e:xtent he was prepared to argue for his claims, or how he did argue for them, is difficult for , I recall that in 1965, when I wasilllervkwed for a scholarship to study at Oxford, I was asked by the learned
board why I had shown mch n i ordinate interest in philo�orhy. I rcm�mber clearly (hat I replkd thaI Aril(()(le
had asked himsclf(he question why one should philo.ophise, in a dialogue which unfortunately wa, lost, but of
which fragments
remain. J said Aristotl,,·s amw�r Wa! uf unsurpassable elegance and ran somewhat lih thi"
'Eithcr we must philowphise or w" n""d not rhilo�()phisc. This much is clear. Kow ifwe mllM philo.ophi.", th"n
we must philosophi,e. This much i, �\;d�nt. lf, 0" the other hand, we need not philosnphi.,,,. th�n w� n�eJ to give phil<)�<)phir_al r"awn why we nenl "ol philolophisc. Therefore, qu itf g�llfrally, we must philosophist.' It was rightly felt tu be comical lO use formal proof in an,Wfr 10 an �v�ryday ques tiun. And yet, what J was doing was quite in the spirit of Greek rationali,m. 1 mll_t apoll.lgisc for this autobiographical lOOlnot", hut 1 do f",,] it ll i ll,'· trates th" point at hand mther well. , I.ii. Shih eMun Chhi� 22.6, cd. Chhen Chhi·Yu, p. [J�6; cl: Wilhelm ([9211), p. :399. , And w� do fmd the equivalent of an academy in -4til-cl'ntury China, nutaLly the Chi·hsia academy in the �tat� (,rChhi n i present·day Shantung Pl"O\�nce, which attnrtl'd large numocr! ofintcUe.::tuals during the -4th aud -jrd centuries. , DrrkkWt l'ou!J, uxili3n dtTAn/ike in5 Winl/m, \�)L 4, 1" 90[, It should be pointed Out. ofcoune, that the empha·
sis artic.ulated in (his de!ICription d",,� nO{ deu:ribe the intellectual or even the philosophical climate ofancient Greece in general. For an importautgene.. .. 1 �UI"\·CJ ofthc differences bet\,'een the int"Uectual dimat" in anci"nt Greece and ancient China ;ocr �akarama (19fl.�).
> 'G�umctry held the highest place of honour among them, and nothing ,,'a. mOre illustrious than mathe� maticians. But wcha\'Ccircumscribedourconcernfor the$<: by thetr usefuln�ss fur the art ofmeasurementand of
calculation.' TlIJcukmaediJpufIJI;on,.• I.)).j.
LAKGUAGE AND LOGIC
,
•
• >
L
"
� In
a1 Iv
us to know. His disciple Tzu Lu showed a more combative and argum entative dis position, pointing out inconsistencies . In the Mo T:.;ul thr�e standard tests for the acceptability of a claim were intro duced: I . the opinion ofthc authorities orthe past, 2. observation by the people, and 3. the beneficial or harmful efff'ct on so(;iery. The J\1Q 'Tzu not only sets up these stand ards but defends its tenets on the basis of them. Many Chinese thinkers from Mo Tzu onwards trit'd to ju�tifY whatcvt"r claims they wished to make. LogicaJ argu mentation played a certain limited part in this. But we must emphasise that logical argumentation was not the preferre:d way ofjustifying or supporting one's thesis in ancient China. What then W(Jj tht' preferred way ofsupporting one's claims? It was through what we may call paradigmatic argumt'nL'l from historical examples. This was noticed by G. B. Bilfingerin 1724: find agreeable a mode of demonstration which to our cars, allea�t. is not w�ry usual: it consists in not substantiating their instructions by argumrnts but by examples from king� and emperors.·:
The Chinese
Argumentsfrom historical examples Ancient Chinese philosophy (or in any case what is preserved of it) was quite pre
dominantly social philosophy. It was concerned with the conduct of human affairs.
Thi.s conduct was discussed on the basis ofrecorded historical episodes and events.
at '"
Such episodes and events were used to illustrate andj ustiry more general or abstract 'philosophical' statements in much the same way as exempla or hispel 'edifYing illus trauvl' stories' were used in medieval sermons.J Andjusl as we have
collections of
exempla and bispel from medieval times o nwards in Europe, so we have plenty of col
lections of illustrative anecdotes to be used in support of p hilosophical, Nhical,
social or political points in China.·! Historical annals and other historical sources were used as sources ror such exempla or topoi to be adduced, marshalled (or, some would say: trotted out) in support of a given point of view. At the same time such illustrative historical anecdotes were designed to demonstrate the practical applica
tion ofthe point ofview supported by them. These points ofvie':w did not have': to be Confucian. For example, chapter 21 of
the': Han Fei 'ku $liJr.r (-3rd century) and chapter 12 of the HuaiNan Tzu rtEp.:qT (-2nd century) consist predominantly ora series ofanecdotes designed to substanti ate the truth and practical application of a series of statements from the Lao Tzu. One briefexample will suffice to indicate the': genre:
""
dof
, .-1-10 T<:u, chapl�r.' 3.i, :E!. 37: set: )l.f�i (1929), pr. 18S, )8g. anrl )(J.h as "ell ilS Wat""n (1967), p. 118. , I'lac�t (Le., to th� Chinese) inusitalum d..monstrandi modus, nostris quidtm aurihus non nimiurn I:On�uc IuS, quo pr�cepla Ixpcuumero non argum"nti., firm
LANGUAGE A�D L O G I C
268
The ruler ofYu de�ircd the chariots from Chho Chhan and the jade from Chhu! Chi, and he did not listen to Kung Chih-Chhi's advice. As a result his country was laid waste and he himselfdied. Therefore it is sa id: 1 'No fault is more painful than the urge to get hold ofthings.'! Chapter 18 ofthe HuaiNan
Tzu lays out sixteen these� which are substantiated in
each case by a paradigmatic illustrative anecdote. Tht" interesting thing about these theses is that in each case they are in a certain senseprovedby the examples provided.
The Shuo Yiian -mJii and the Hsin H�ii �� (both compiled during the-1st century
on the basis ofearlier material) are e.xtensive collections ofedifying historical evidence
forthe use ofConfucians who neede.d to substantiate and argue for their points ofview. The points ofview thus supported did not necC"ssarily have to be philosophical in
our sense. The Han Shih Wm Chuan
��51-1$ (-2nd century) is full ofillusrrative his
torical anecdotes to show the practical application, truth and relevance of certain lines from the ancient Book ofSongs.·1 A modern reader ofthe surviving ancient Chinese literature might be forgiven for suspecting that a thesis or point of view counled as plausible to the ancient Chinese to the extent that it could be 'exemplified' by historical anecdotes and episodes. If a point was unsusceptible to such exemplification, this raised a suspicion that it was either irrelevanl to the conduct of human affairs or simply untrue. No wonder sci entific or abstract theoretical claims had a hard time in such an intC"lleClual climate. The Iii Shih Chhun Chhiu g�� occasionally speaks of something being 'expounded on (chich tsQi M-tE) . . .'.� ''''hat is intended is not theoretical just ification but historical illustration. Demanding an explanation (shuo �) in ancient China ,vas often tantamount to demanding a historical c:umplum or some other kind ofillUSlrative anecdote. 'Philosophising' in ancient Chlna tended to be an inte nsely and pervasively historical exercis�. Reasoning tended to consist in an appeal to his torical example and traditional authority. But this is not the whole story. Some people, like the Lat�r Mohists and a n umber of others, did think of explanation (shuo) for a thr.sis vr.ry much in terms of definitions and theoretical logical reasoning. It is this rather specialised - and intel le ctually important- kind ofreasoning in its implicit and explicit forms which holds our special interest in the contC"..xt of the history ofscience. Implicit logical arguments Arguments do not
have to be explicit to be dearly present. An ancient little story
about a child will illustrate the point:
When WangJung IJX (+234 to +30.')) wa� seven years old, he was once roaming about with a group of children and they saw a pear tret" by the wayside. The tree had so much fruit that • Han Fri ·f2u 21.4: Liao (19:191. vol. t. p. �o8. t lAo Tz�. ch. 46. , For anothcr a.p<;:Cl ofth e purpose ofth� Han Shh i IVai Chuan se" Hightower (1951), p. 3 . • Sce hi Shih Chhun 13.1 (0 13.7. Each oflhesc chapu:rs contains [he phr....e cilith uai �tE 'the ("plana t;ml jsin·.
Chhu.i
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
its branches were breaking under the weight. All the children rushed forward to get the fruit. OnlyJungdid not move. Someone asked him why. He repl ied: 'lftile tfCC by the way side has much fruit, that must be because the pears arc bitter. ' They picked the pears and he turned Out to be right. ' This kind of story is common in Classical Chinese literature, and it crucially involves logical reasoning. \'Vang Jung reasons as follows: if the pears were good there would not be so many of them kft, since they would have been eaten by
') co m
IS1m 0' ""
fa 'as
e' le_
ng ,, -m
nd
others. But thert� arc many pears left. Ergo: they can't be any good. One may object that this is just plain common sense, but the point is precisely that in applyingpJain common sense the Chinese habitually proceed along the lines ofplain formal logic. Even when this does nOt show at all in the surface structure of their arguments. Implicit ways of speaking often show a keen sense of logical structure, as when Yang Hsiung question:
m-m
(-58 to +18) is attacked with the following
Someone said: 'You despise philosophers (chu fzu �T). Isn't �'leng Tzu a philosopher (Ming tzufii chu lzu hit �T��T-¥)?,l Yang Hsiung's answer shows that he understood the implicit argument which runs something like this: You despise all philosophers, Meng Tzu is a philosopher, Therefore you must dt"spise �\'Ieng Tzu. But you don't despise Meng Tzu . Therefore your position is inconsistent. Yang Hsiung defends himsclfby claiming that Meng
Tzu is not a elw lzu 'philosopher' in his sense oCthe word. He would nOt have needed
to defend himselfin this way ifhc had nOt understood the argument along the lines
we have outlined.
!Iy JS-
.., of el Ids
Reasoning and .rcientifit explanation In general, the early Chinese, and particularly the Confucians, were not much
given to deductive reasoning. And in particular it was not common for such reason
ing to be applied to questions ofscientific explanation. BUl that does not mean such reasoning was not common among the ancient Chinese people. The book Lirh
JUT,
'ku
compiled probably around the +4th century but containing much earlier
traditional materiaJ,l pokes fun at Confucius's refusal to engage in such reasoning concerning natural phenomena:
''Y ;u. la,
..-
Confucius was travelling in the east when he came upon ""'10 small boys arguing with each other. One boy said: '1 think the sun is closer at sunrise and further away from us at noon.' The other boy said: " fhe sun is further away at sunrise and closer at noon.' The onc boy said: :t\t sunrise the sun is as large as the COver ora carriage. At noon it is as small as the COver for a plate. The sun is closer at sunrise and further away from us at noon, for surely that whieh is further away is smaller than that which is closer.' 1 SJrih SlfuoHJin nit!!:U� 6.<+; �lalher('976), p.
,H • .
, Van!!: Hsiung, Fa le� IR, ed. WangJung-Pao, p. 72i, SC� Graham (19116), PI'. 116 8�, for a brilliant discu'$ioll ofthe audwnticily ofthis important It:xt_
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
2 70
The other boy said: 'At sunrise the sun is refreshingly cool. At midday it feels as hot as hot soup. The sun is /iltther away at sunrise, for surely (Ihe same object) which feels hotter is closer to us than when it feels cooler. '
putting your finger into
Confucius was unable to solve the puzzle.
The two small boys laughed at him and said: '\'\'ho would think you knt'w anything?
"
The first boy -who for all we know may represent a widely held popular attitude towards Confucian aloofiless throughout the ages - is thinking and arguing along the following lines: r.
The sun is larger at sunrise than at noon.
3.
Ergo: The sun gets closer to us at sunrise than at noon.
2. Everything that appears larger to us gets closer to us.
The Lieh
Tzu uses this argument in a humorous spirit, and the traditional Chinese
response to this sort of satirical attack has become prove rbial:
An old saying goes like this: �ot knowIng is compatible with being a gentleman. KnowJr.dge does not make someone any less of a small man.�
VVe must balance this example with another one where Confucius is said to apply strict scientific 10t,ric to a case ofethics: \Vhen Confucius was on his way to Chhu a fisherman insis ted OIl presenting him with a fish. Confucius refused to accept, but the fisherman insisted: 'It's a\\{ully hot. If! try to sell this
fish in the market place wluch is a long way from here I won't be able to get rid of it. 1 thinking of throwing it away. But then 1 thought it would be better to present it to a gentleman.' Confucius bowed nvice, accepted the gift and told his disciples to broom the s acrmcial area in order to make a sacrmcc of the fish. 'That fdlow was about to throw it away. How can you use it as a sacrificial animal?' asked the disciples. 'I have heard it said that he who distributes leftovers and does not let them rot away i s a sagc. Now 1 have received a gift from a sage. How could 1 fail to sacrifice ,
,
was
. '>'1 ,t.
Note the Master's logic: 1.
He who distributes leftovers and does notlet them rot away is a sage.
3.
Ergo: That fisherman ofChhu is a sage.
2. That fisherman from Chhu distributed his leftovers and did not let them rot avy·ay.
A semi-barbarian fisherman is deduced to be a sage! And Confucius seems to be delighted to make this claim and thereby to offend current notions on who was and who was not a candidate for sagehood.
. Tzu. eb. ;j, ed, Yang Po·ebiin, p. IOj; d. Graham (1960), p. 10+ This story goes back LO Hllall Than I 1ieh (di�d +21l). For tbe genre of stories in which children poke fun at Coniucius see Soymie (19;jf) and Graham (lg86a), p. 211l. , 1i'n W;" Tzu, ed. Li Shih·Hsi. p, 1+ ' Shuo YIi'an j.20, ed. Cha" Shan·I, p. 120.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
..
0<
Cullurat logic and the logic QJthejoke We leave it LO lht" reader to reconstruct the unfilial son's underlying reasoning in the
following story in detaiL It is enough to emphasise thaI in order to gel the joke in this passage one must understand the apparent logical force
de
ng
argument.
of the unfilial son's
A learned man from Sung returned home after three years ofslUdy and called his mother by her personal ginn name. The mother said: 'You have been away on study for three years and now you come back and call me by my given name. Why do you behave like
this?' The son replied: 'There is no one I regard as more talented than Yao and Shun, and still I call them by their given name" There is nothing I regard as larger than Heaven and Earth. But I call them by their given names. Now a mothr.r is no more talented than Yao and Shun, and she i� no grander lhan Heaven and Earth. Thercf"ore I call my mother by her given name.'1
]g<
ply
This is perfect cultural logic, wonderfully outrageous . Ifone wants to understand the way logic entered the everyday lives ofthe ancient Chinese) this sort ofevidence is invaluable. A man from Wen is arrested by the Chou border guards but declares himself to
ish. dill iL I
be a subject of the Chou.
'You are not a Chou citizen. How can you insist that you are not a foreigner?' 'From my youth I have recited the Book ofSongs, and one Song says:
:0 '
Every place in the world Is the King's land. Anyone within the eircling sea Is the King's servant.�
cia!
Kow Chou rule� the world
and consequently I am the subject of Chou.
How could I
Count as a foreigner?" The argument can be expounded as follows:
wt
) be and
I.
I am within the circling sea.
2. Everyone within the circling Se a is a Chou subject. 3. Ergo: I am a Chou subject.
Even in the case or early Chinese logicians like Kungsun Lung and Hui Shih we have good reason to believe that their logical argumentation was conducted partly as comic logical entertainment. In any case, the tradition for argumentative enter tainment of this sort provided the social selling within which Chinese 'sophistry' flourished. , Cftdn KII4 Ts�, no. 359, cd. Chu Tsu-Kt,n.ll, p. '255; d. Crump (19iO), p. 431. cr. Shih CIIin,g, no. �o5. ) Chan KllO Tk, no. 4�, cd. Chu Tsu-Keng, p. 29; cr. Crump ('970), p. 5'.
�
L A N G U A G E A='1D L O G I C
The lOgic �rinsult Logic can function well in the service of rudeness and insult. Here is a translation of the ancient insult involving logic: Yen Tzu �T wtnt as an ambassador to Chhu . The King asked: Are there no people in Chhi?' Yen Tzu: '(The capital of Chhi) Lin Tzu contains as many as 300 boroughs . . . . How should there be no people?' 'How come then that you act as an ambassador?"
'Vhen Ven Tzu aCTS as an ambassador TO Chhu, the king of that country asks whether there aren't any people in Chhi. FOT irthere were any other people there, he suggests, Chhi would surdy have chosen someone 'bigger' than Ven Tzu as ambassador. The logi c of the king's rudeness may be summarised as follows: Chhi would only send something too insignificant to count as a man, like Yen Tzu, if there were no people in Chhi. 2. Chhi has sent someone as insignificant as Ven Tzu. 3. Ergo: There cannot be people in Chhi. I.
If one fails to understand the underlying logic as we .(perhaps too laboriously) reconstrucT it, one cannot fathom the depth of rudeness in the king's opening remark. I am not saying that the king ofChhu is here presenting a logical argument. He is not about to chop logic. He is trying to insult someone. But in order to insult effectively, he relies on a string of plain logical reasoning which he expects his audi ence to grasp in order lo appreciate the insult. Vv'ithout this implicit n a lural logical train of thought the insult �imply would not work. Of course, the king is not being serious. And neilher is Ven Tzu �T, when he replies along �imilarly insulting but strictly logical lines, expecting the ruler to grasp something like the following argument: Chhi sends to each country an ambassador who corresponds to the quality of that country's king. 2. Chhu has the most untalented ofkings . 3. Chhu dcserve� the most untalented of ambassadors. 4. Ven Tzu is the mo�t untalented of ambassadors. 5. Ergo: Chhi sends Ven Tzu as an ambassador to Chhu. I.
Now Ven Tzu does not, ofcourse, formally go through the motions ofthis argument. Here is how he very effectively delivers his logically exquisite piece of rudeness: \Vhen the state ofChhi assigns ambassadors, it is in each case govemed by certain consider ations. The talented men are sent to serve as ambassadors to talented kings. Tlle untalenled men are sem \0 serve as ambassadors to untalented kings. 1 am the least talented. Thai is why they sent me slraighl lo Chhu.2 lim T:;u Chlum Chili", eh. 6, cd. Wu "Ee·Yu, p. 389.
Ibid
•
LANGUAGE AKD L O G I C
2 73
Again: in order to understand this insult, the King ofChhu would certainly have
to appreciate something like the logical structure outlined above, And the insult bt"comes evt"1l more dft"ctive by the faCl thal it is coupled with the obligatory ritual humility) as whell
Yen Tzu insists that he is the moS! unlalcllted mall in Chhi, The
humi l it); here as so often elsewhere, is plainly ironical. Howt""f'r, there is something profoundly unsatisfactory in this method we have pur sued of scouring Chinese literature for traces of
IVisum forms of reasoning, for
what we arc interested in is notjust to what extent the Chinese argued and thought
like W'esterners,
We arc much more in terested in
their autochthonous tendencies
and habits ofreasoning and discourse in their own right, in their own terms, and for their own sake, \Ve simply want 1O know: how did the Chinese Lend La justify claims
which they ftlt needed justification,
What was the anthropology of argumentation in ancient China? Not ar6'U nl en tation in our seme, 011 our terms, Argumentation in terms ofthe Chinese tradition itself The arguments from historical example which we have discussed above fall into this category. But what else is there? The mnce})f of 'ku ' � I \.\,'hal are the obj t"ctive criteria, based on the languagt" itself, that justify Ollr inter
preting a given passage a:; an argument? An ar6'Unlc nt, after all, must be intended
as such in order to count as an argument.
The kt"y word in the history of Chinese rea.mning is 1m, \."hi('11 has the mean ings
'old, that which ('omes t"arlit'r, cause, reason, (used adjtctivally:) former, (used as sentence-initial particle:) therefore', Arguments in ancient China may be wnstrued
as answt:rs to (cxplit.:it or implicit) questions like ho kufaJi5X 'why' or its many equiva
lents,l Answers to such questions may be designed to provide either a motive for an
action, or the cause for an event, or a plausible reason for a point ofvicw, Looking through the oldest indexed literature, one finds that in the vast maj ority
of cases ancient Chinese answers to questions like 'why' are in terms ofmOlives for action or causes for e\'t'nts. In
the context of the histOry of science, on the other hand, we are particularly interested in explicit arguments of another kind, '1'0 wh at extent, then, were the ancient Chinese in the habit of asking for plausi ble reasons for a given claim or point of view? If we consider the standard request for a reason, there is striking and highly significan t contrast between Confucian texts and texts from other sources. In the LUl1 Yu, the kUng Tzu and the HJiin Tzu there is not one single expl icit request for a ku 'reason', \ Similarly, there arc hardly any cognitive question s like Iw i chili chhljan (itJJ...')JdJjt.� 'how do we know that this is so?' or ho i ming chih {OJJ..), a)l� ' how do we explain this?' in the early Confucian texts, They first make their occasional appearance in the Hsiin Tzu, In the more , \\'eidmann ((, I QiOI, pp. .54 9�, deat! indetail",iththe u>e. orku ttl.. in Mbl, 1�1I ann in ,liD 1�1I. , HD)l f:iJi:!!. 'why is Ihal' occur� 45 l imes in Han Ffj r..11 alone. Shih (or: IdlII) rlrhi!-u Iro U'tlr) � (lit) �f"i (" t!!) to �xlr�m!"lr common in ,\[D ·!:::IJ. , Th�,"," ar�, how",...r,5n-.:n cases ofIwyffl'what aboUi thal?' in the Jlill& u.IJ and many more .::ascl ortJ,is 'K>r1 ill the fhii" 1 �u.
-
274
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
scientifically orientated book j\1o
Tzu, on the other hand, we find over fifty explicit
requests for a ku 'reason', and over thirty overtly epistemological questions like 'how
He
do we know/ explain that this is so?'. This does not mean that early Confucians were incapable of arguing or of giving reasons. It does mean that they \vere less inclined than others to demand such rea soning from their lcachers. Confucians were used to appealing to ancient author ities and they liked to presume that they spoke with the natural authority of wise men themselves. Thus their moral excellence and sagclincss constituted the main argument in favour oftheir vie"·...s.
\\11
Confucius's intellectual achievement was not in supplying cogent arguments for his views, it was in the coherence ofhis moral interpn:tation of the past, his attempt at finding the one moral thread (/ i kuan chili f),-Jf-<:').
The other schools of thought - such as the Mohists - had to compete with a pre
existing Confucian tradition from the start, and for them argumentation became an important constitutive part of their legitimacy. They needed the better argu ments to legitimise their claims. It is therefore not by chance that logic developed so strongly within the Mohist school. vVithin Confucianism, argumentation developed to the extent that it developed
sac
m. n i c H' wh
pe
de
from two sources: firstly from the necessity to refute well-argued attacks from the Mohists, legalists and others; secondly Confucian argumentation developed from the need to argue out internal differences that had arisen within the Confucian movements (such as the different views on the goodness or wickedness of human nature). A. C. Graham (1964), p. 45, describes the matter with his usual masterly
,n
pi,
elegance: 'The pressure of competition with other schools, which had forced Meneius into publie debate, drove Hsun-tzu (c. -2 g8 to -238) to a much more thor ough rationalization of the Confucian position.' Hmvever, the victory of Confucianism as state doctrine in the -2nd century also meant a battle won for the habit of reasoning from authority. Contrast the constant demand for reasons and explanations in the Mo
Tzu.
Chapter 28 of that book pro
vides a neat example: :Mo Tzu said: 'Be obedient. Be careful. Be sure to do what Heaven desires and avoid what
Heaven abominates. Now, what does Heaven desire and what docs Heaven abominate?
Heaven desires righteousness and abominates unrighteousness. How do we know this? B ecause righteousn ess is the standard. How do we know that righteousne ss is the standard? Because with righteousness the world will be orderly. \Vithout it the world will bc dis orderly. So this is how I know that righteousncss is the standard.' I
m
,h q'
In T \\
g<
m
h.
One may not find these arguments impressive, but OIlt' cannot fail to notice the. sturdy n i sistence on giving rt'asons for the views maintaine.d. It is ImpOrtant to \vatch Mo Tzu's method closely if one wants to get a closer picture of rationality in ancient China.
'.
LA:'-IGUAGE A N D
The
LOGIC
2 75
gentlemen of the world who desire to be righteous must therefore obey the
He ave n .
will of
\-\Ihat is the will ofHeaven that is to be obeyed? It is to 10\'(' all the people in the world uni\·crsally.
a· �. ""
in ,
0' pI
..,. oe
u·
How do we know it is to 10\'e all the p eople in the world univers ally?
Because Heaven accepts sacrifices from all.
How do we know Heaven accepts sacrifices from aU?
Because from antiquity to the presenl day tbere is no diSl::lnt or isolated country but that
feeds oxr.n and sheep, dogs and pigs with grass and grains and prepares clean cakes and wine to worship the gods, hills, rivers, and Ihe spirits. So therefore we know Heaven accepts sacrifices from all. Giwn that Heaven accepts sacrifices from all, it mmt love th em all . ThaI Heaven loves all the people ofthe world i� proved not only by this. Tn all the coun tries of the world and among all the. pr.ople who live on grains, the murder of one innocent individual brings down calamity. 1\'owwho is it that murders the innocent? It is man. Who is it that sends down the calamity? It is Heaven. If Hf"aven really did nOt love (all) the people, why should Heaven send down calamities for the murdr.r of an innoce nt person?' Il would be unrealistic, though, not to pay atte ntion
SO
(0
the fact that even some
people within the Mohist circles do reason through a lraditionalist appeal to prece
ed
dent and ancient authority. 2
he
Thus Mo Tzu said: 'To have music is wrong. ' How do we know that this is right? It is found in the Code of Punishment of Thang among the books of the ancient kings. This book proclaims: 'To have constant dancing in the palac e is called the witches ' pleasure. '1
,m
an
an
rly ed
Iso
ml
TO-
hal
lis·
We need nut illustrate in detail at thi� point that the characteristic Confucian arguments from historical precedents as well as scriptural authority are not alien to the �v[ohists. They are an integral part ufthe Chinese intelieClual heritage. Meng Tzu recognised {he On the other hand, even the traditionalis t ConfUl.:ian . i!&). He was evidently impressed by
importance of objeClive causes or reasons (ku
the astronomic achievements ofhis time and his famous commenl on these is worth quotin g in full. In talking about human nature people in the world mcrr:ly appeal to (clever) reasons (ku). Those who appeal to (clever) reasons (kll) takf: self·interest as their basic consideration. \Vhat I dislike in clever men is that they barf: thf:ir way through. Ir clever men could act as Yii did in guiding the flood waters, tht"n there would be nothing to dislike in them. Yii guided the water by imposing nothing on it that was against its natural tendency. Ir clever men can also do this, then great indeed will their cleverness be. In spite of the height of the heavens and the distance orthe heavenly bodies, if one seeks out the (re al) reasons (ku), one: can calculate the sol st ices of a thousand ye:ars hettee without sti rring from one's �eat.oj
, .\-tQ T�Il·l8.26t[: cf. :\lei (1929), pp. 154IT. Accordinglo Graham (198S)the di;;crcpancy can \.M: explained nn th.. hasis ofa division ofthc :\'lohist school into lhre.: wings. Grah..m'� paper i.I. a major oomribl11i on to U... r�<:unstnlction or�tohi5( philosophy. I .110 �� 32.4$ cf. l\Id ('9"9), p. 180. I .Il1ng u,u �26; lr. Lau (lg83<:), p. ,6g. fur a \�'1' importam detailed dUcu�sion ofthispas.\agt Ke Graham (1966a). pp. 52f. 2
LA�GUAOE A:'i"D L O G I C
h is remarkable to see how Meng Tzu argues from the sci('ntific to the philosoph·
wI
ical paradigm. He rrcommends a scirntific. observation of realities also in non·
a,
'scientific' contexts. His attack on the logicians (the 'clever men who hore through ')
is not only that of a moralist, but thaI of a �ensilive observer of contemporary
science. The logicians should not keep arguing abs lractly but should base their
theories ofhuman nalUre on precise observation offact. In ordinary discourse the question ho ku 0J"MI: 'why is that?' is a demand for a rea
kn
son, and questions oflhis son are the beginnings ofreasoning and arguments. If wt'
want to understand what indigenous Chinese arguments arc we must study the replies to questions like flo ku. 'The army or Chhin will COllle to grief. ' 'Why s i thai?' 'Their army is slight and arroganl. Ifan army is slight, it has few optiom. lfit i� arroganl, it does not follow t1lf: rules ofpropriety. Ifit does not follow the: rules ofpropriety, the soldiers
\eaye the ranks. If they have few options, they will trap themsekes and when they arr in trouble they will leave the ranks. How could theyf"il to be defeated?"
Here the argument starts from the assumption thaI the Chhin army is slight and that it is arrogant. It is then shown how each
of these
assumptions will lead to its
sol diers leaving the ranks and the army therefon' getting defeated. Instead of saylng quod erat demoll..J{randum the ancient Chinese, here as so often dsewhere, ends
with a rhetorical que stion. Irone needed formal proof that Chinese arguments are designed to convinct' rather than to prove, this would be if.
'h d. lh
m lh H
'h 'h p,
Ancient Chinese allitudes fo ar;f!,umtnlatiol/ Argumentation was used to restrain customary traditionalist credulity,
as
the fol
l owing story will demonstrate:
If 'F "
The King of Wei said: 'I have heard that lhe Taoists who ascend Mount Hua becomf'"
0<
immortal. I wonder \\'hether you have' also heard this?'
'in ancient times thf'"re was no such practice. I want nothing to do with it.' 'But I ha'·e heard it is tnle.· '1 have not y�t investigated (shell !&¥) what you havc heard. Ha\·c YOH personally beard it from an immortal, or ha,·c you hcard it secondhand? Ifyou have heard it second hand, then thc persoll whom you heard it from was mistaken. Ifyou h,lye heard it from an immortal, where is he now: Ifhe is still around, you should learn from him and have no doubt.';. lfhe is
a, aJ (0 IT
not around, you should not learn from him and haw no doubts.·!
The sanity and down-to-earthness of this piece of reasoning is characteristic of the best tradition within Confucianism. Another characteristic feature is the prag
p.
displayed in the following t:pisodc 1
G
matic attitude to philosophical questions Ai/O 1'1':, td. sppr, (h. 2, p. 6h.
a�
Alumg Tshlmg T�u ?LfiiT, ..d. syn; I:h. I:).
II'c h;\\"� already had O« <1.,jun to di,<;uss {his p;t�sag.. ill Section (a',3)·
LA:;\IGCAGE A:'-lD L O G I C
which constitutes a fitting conclusion to uur g�ncral deliberations on reasoning in
I
i-
ancient China:
)
• I
r r
Tzu Kung knowledge?'
askcrl Confucius:
'Do
the
dead han' knowkrlge or
do
they not have
The �Iaster said: -I might want to say that th e dead han: knowledge . But thell I am afraid that filial wns and obedierll grallrlsons will harm the li\'ing and send them to accompany the dead. T might want to say that the dead han: no knowledge, but I am afraid that unfilial sons would abandon their parents and leave them unburied. "ou are not to understand whethrr the dead ha\'t: k nowledgt": or not. There is no hurry now, You will naturally come to know �oon enough. "
When all is said and done, epistemological pragmatism, the endemic nature of
..
,
n
the pragmdtic suspense ofjudgement on tricJ.." qm::stions ofthe sort Confucius hen: demonstralCs, coupled with the Confucian variety of scholastic traditionalism, arc
the things which put the greatest constraint on the evolution of formal logical mcthod in China.l The place ofintellectual endeavour i n the: Confucian scheme of
d
r
things is well summarised by Hsun Tzu:
Hcarillg ofsomething is bemr than no! hearing about it. Sceing a thing for oneselris brner than hcaring about it. Ondcrstanding somcthing IS better than seeing it. Performi ng some thing is better than understanding it. The learning stops when performance is reached. Perrorming (a desirable act) is enlightenment (ming 1Y'l). Being enlightened about a thing amounts (0 being a sage (Jhi/lgjin �A). 1 Logical argument is considered as a handmaid ofmoral orthodoxy:
Ifone 's words arr outside the area ofhumaneness. then it would be better to be silent {han to spcak, and it would be bettcr to be fumbling than [0 br. well-argued.' All tatk that is not in accordancc with the fonner kings and with propriety and righteousness we call rantankr.r ous. E\'en ifthl' words are weU-argued. the genul':man ,,>ill nOl listen to it.� Arguing well for an
unorthodox thesis or for a
thesis which was felt to be morally
and politically irreb'anl was u sually fell to bl' either flippant oTwicked in tradition al China. This will not surprise anyone familiar with Vv'estcrn intellectual history:
•
l
•
r
logica anC/"[/a titeologiae. Logic as \"ell as philosophy rf'mained ancillary to theology in
medieval and Renaissance Europe, and far beyond . . .
, SIWd 11 ...", 18.31, ..d. Ch"o Shan-I. p. .158, and Kl"mg 1;;.u (;hia 1U fL1"�a!, rh. 2, no.
p. 2:-I8.
Ii; cf. Knm�ri (1950),
, Of (our.... ,ueh 'O'p"'!1SC ofjudgemcllI is (ommon in Gr.,,,re aswell � in China, bUi ll w� nOI endemic in Cre...re. Ther" was a si)!:lLifi1:am pan ofC,..,,,k intellcctua] whur... in "hieh the pursuit oflrieky 'lUestiol" ofthl�
;uri wa. cU]li\"�led. Moreu".-r, rhi1 llur!uir gain�d a certain general r�!pectahitity and ("�rtain]y some con.,irler
able popularity In Gr�ecc which il n<'\"�r ""on ill China. , HJiin I�u8.I03; l)ubS{1928).p. 113.
, Hriin T�II ::,..j.o; d K6t1<.:r (196i . y• .j.R.
' H.Un
I<.1l5.55; d KosIH ( rg6i), p.st.
2j8
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
(2 )
S O M E F O R �I S OF ARGUMENT I N ANCIENT C HINA
The syLlogism Consider lhe following passage by Wang Chhung (+27 to +lOO): The books ofthe literati rdatt> that the Prinrr ofHuai Nan in his smdyofTaoism assrmbled all the Taoists of the empirr and humhled the grandeur of a princedom before the exposi IOfS of Taoist lore. Consequently, Taoist scholars flocked to Huai Nan and vied \vith each
other in exhibiting strange tricks and all kinds of miracles. Then the pnnce attained the \-Vay and rose to Hea\'en with his whole household. His domestic animals breame genii too.
His dogs barked up in lhe sky, and the cocks crowed in the clouds. That means that there were drugs of immortality in such plenty that dogs and cocks could eat of it, and follow the prince to Hcm'en. Ajl who have a fad for Taoism and would learn the art of immortality
believe III this story, but i t i;; an untrue story (h.Hiyn).' lvfan is a creature. He may be as noble as
a
king or feudal lord, but his nature is no
different from that ofa creaturI'. All crealurI'S without exception are mortal . How can man become immortal? Birds havmg feathers and plumes c
\Vang Chhung is concerned to establish the truth or othenvise of a well-known story. He provides what effectively is a neat Aristotelian syllogism in support of his thesis that the story must he untrue:
All men are creaturrs. All crr.atures arr. mortal. Ergo: All men are mortal.'
Paradoxically, \Vang Chhllng's syllogism is more purely and more precisely 'Aris totelian' than the standard medieval \Vestern form that has become current in the history on'\"estern logic since medieval times: All humans are mortal. Socrates is human. Ergo: Socrates is mortal. Or, a s
Origen ha� it in a serious thcological contcxt:
If every man IS made a fool by knowledge, and Paul is a man, tben Paul was made a fool by
knowledge. I
cr. our Sub-"cClion (d,3) Ull lhe notioll ofmuh. \Vang Chhung, LUll Hing, e-d. Chung-hlla-shll-chii. p. po: . Forh (1911), vol. 1, p. 335.
Cf lh� !QlIo,,�ng excuse put forward by wtllcone who rcflbcs to cummit suicidc in the ,cryicc ofhi, master:
All 5ervic� of anolher is b�caus� one com,jders it beneficial. To die is HOl bcncClCial. Thcrcfor� I do not di�. (liiShih Chhull Chhlll dLh ed, Chhen Chhi-Yu p. 1178. cf. R. Wilhelm (1928), p. 303.) .
P(llmiogia Gmeca. yol, )3, pp. 343-4Cd,
LA::-OGUAGE A N D L O G I C
2 79
Lukasiewicz (1957) has argued that the stan dard Western example of a syllo non-generic sub i ject term 'Soc.:ratcs', No such objection can be rased to Wang Chhung's syllogi.�m. On the other hand Wang Chhung's formulation of the argument is n ot de liber ately formalistic. But then Wang Chhung was n o t in the" business of for mal l ogic . What he demonstrates abundan tly is that the notion of a valid argument in support of a conclusion , and the usc of a syllogism form to prove a conclusion , are in no way comple tely alien to an cien t Chinese tho ught. Even in the carlin literature there is no shortag� ofstrictly logical trains of quasi syllogistic thought. Especially in jokes: Jan
gism docs nOl in fact conform [0 Aristotle's rules uecause it has a
1>1«1 1'0"
h h,
<00.
tu�H'
," the
!.aIiry
,
•
no
oouid
In Chhi there was a scrvant who refused to commit suic ide for lhe sake orhis master who gO( into trouble. In the strcet he met an old ,u.:quailltance who said: 'How come you're still alive? ' '\Vdl, cveryone serves others to gain an ach-amage . Dying is not an ad\·antagc. Therefore I rr.fmcd to die.' 'But will YOll be able to face OIher people (h aving failed to commit the obligatory suicide)? '
'\oVell, do you imagine I could face them ifT were dead?'l
fhis
�is-
1
(lIb),
LJ.U"r:
One argument or logical train of lhoughl in lhisj oke can be set out as follows: I.
Everyone who serves olhers aims at profit for himself.
2.
lfl commit suicide that does not aim at profit for myself.
3. Ergo: I did not commit suicide. Such logic-chopping in ancient Chinese is nOt always intendr.d as funny:
Liang Chhiu-Wei told Yen Tzu: 'T will never reach your level ofatlainmcnts until J die.' Yen Tzu replied: 'I han heard it said that " In action Ihose \vho persevere succeed. In walking those who persevere arrive. " 1 am no different from OIher men. I persevere i n my actions and do 110\ let up. T persevere on my path and do nOI resi. There is nothing hard about it.'2
If the ancient Chinese understood Yen Tzu here, they must also have.: undastood an elementary pattern oflogic. I. Everyone who perseveres succeeds. 2. I persevere. 3. Ergo: I succeed.
This is not a well-formed Aristotelian syllogism because it contains a singular term, 'I'. But it comes close enough to have been traditionally confused with a syllo gism in Europe. In any case, the crucial point is that it represents sou nd recognis able logic.
Lu SJ,iJz CMwn. Chlru. 18.{, "t.!. Chh"n Chhi-\'u, p. 1178; d. \filhclrll (1928), p. 303. 1m 7:;;u Chlrun. Chlriu, eh. 6, "t.!. '\'u Tse-Yii, p. 425.
280
LA�GUAOE A�O L O G T C
I n the jUellg Tz u we find another argumt'nt dose to the traditional medieval (and non·ArislOtelian) quasi-syllogism: Tzu Kung once asked Confucius: :A.re you, �1astcr, a sage?' Confucius replied: 'I haH: not
succeeded in becoming a Mgt". T simply never tire ofkarning nor become weaT)' ofteaching.' Tzu Kung said: 'Not to tin:: of learning is wisdom. ;\ot to
ex.
fm
weary of tcaching is bene\"o
lenn'. Since you are both bcncyolcm and wi�c you are, by ,hal loken, a sage. l
Confucius admits that he does nOl lire oflt'arning or teaching. From this premise Tw Kung derives the desired conclusion that Confucius is a sage through nm inter mediate steps as follows:
ou
pr
Confucius does not tire oflearning or tt�aching. Everyone who does not tire oflearning or teaching is wise and berH�\·olenl. 3. Everyonc who is wise and benevolent is a sage. 4. Ergo: Confucius is a sage. I.
2.
Confucius's disciple Tzu Kung argues according to a pattern which is morc com plicated than a syllogism. The pattern involves two intermediary universal proposi tions, t.:ach ofwhich in turn are complex. Having pointed out one example of a Chinese syllogism and having introduced a sampling of quasi-syllogisms from earlier litt'ratuJ't', we must hasten to emphasise that from a modern logical poim of view the liyllogilim iii of no special systematic logical sign ificanct'. There is nothing logically fundamental about the syllogism. It just so happens that historically lhi� particular form has played an important part, since it was much favoured by Aristotle's allt'nlions. The traditional preoccupation wilh tht' question whether the Chinese did or did not havt' a syllogism is theoretical ly quile misplaced. The fact that \\"ang Chhung used a syllogistic form L<; no more than an entertaining logical curiosity which we use as an introduction to our enquiries because it shows that, ofcourse, the Chinese CQuld use such forms of argu ment. But it would not make a big difference if the Chinee had not used it. In fact, formal syllogisms are exeedingly rart' beyond texts specifically discussing abstract logic even in the vVest. \Vang Chhung aims to support everything he claims with good argumentsjust as any Western philosopher aims to do. \·Ve may not always find his argumenls con vincing, but we must not fail to acknowledge his pervasive attempt at coherent argumtnlative rationality throughout his great work, the Lun Heng ·il"IfH1tT.
fa ac
T
d,
u;
th
pt
"
Sorites The ancient Chinese were fond of arguing in sequences o[ implications that haw� been called 'sorites'.2 These argrunents take something like the following general form: SI implies Sb S� implies S-u . . . S._I implies S., .w "!: Till I>A2: cf. Lau (lg83c), p. 59. . In the o.E.D:s second or lransferred usage oflhe lerm. t:t: J.�sl;t {lgh.l,hJ.
LA:\I GCAGE AND L O G I C
d
i S. i s typically left unexpressed but where lhe contiusion t o rhe effect lhat SI imples may or may not be releVanl lO lhe argumcni . ut us look at t\lm formally imperfect examples by Han Fei in which he sets out to ju stity Lao Tzu's statement that mis fortune lurks in good fortune.
\Vht-I1 a man h as good fortu ne, wealth and honour come to him. When wealth and hon our come to him, he dresses and eats wdl. \Vhen he cats and dresses well, arrogance will arise. When arrogance- arises, his behayiour will be wicked and his actions will be contrary LO principle (lil). Jl \-"hen his behaviour is wicked, he wi l l die an untimdy dcath. \Vhen his actio ns :Ire contrary [0 principle (Ii), he wiJI not be successful. On the one hand he will ha\'c the misfortune ofrlying an untimely rleath. On thc other hand he will be kllown as unsuccessful. That is mi�fOrtune. Thcrefore it is said: 'Misfortune lurks in good fortune.'1 .. ..
� Ie
It
Remarkably, Han
Fei ends up c onsidering something like the definition of mis
fortune: he considers whether the co nse quences of being very lucky do not in fact add up to misfortune. The sequence does indeed look like a logical argument.
There is no doubt that Han
Fei here focusl"s on th e transitivity of the relation he denotes by the Chinese word lsi JllJ. However, Han Fei is nOt, n i fact, selling up a sequence oflogicaJ implications by using the particle lsi. By usingp Lre q Han rei only claims a regular conc om itance in this world . He is not concerned with the logical connection between p and q in any possible world.
..,
IE
I
t. tl " ,-
11
When a person suffers misfortune, his mind grnws fearful. \Vhcn his mind grows fr.arful, his actions will be straight . \Vhen his actions ar(" straigh t. hi� ddibcrations arc mature. When his deliberations arc mature, he gets to the inner principlcs ofthings. \'Vhen his actions arc straight, he witi 5Uffcr no harm. \"lhcn he suffers no harm, he will byc out his natural span oflifc. \-Vhcn he gels 10 the inner principles of things. his mind achic\"Cs its proper end. \\'hcn he Hyes OUI his natural span ol"lifc, he stays intact llntil old age. lfhis mind achie\·es its proper end, he gets rich and lIoble. To SI
which is indeed formally impeccable, except that the conclusion i.� not stated explicitly:
i said will not sound reasonable. \\llen nilmes arc not correct, what s \Vhen what s i said docs not sound reasonable, affairs will not culminate ill success. \"'hen affairs do not culminate in succcss, rit('s and music will not nourish. Whcll rites and music do not flourish, punishments will not fit the crimes.
, Sec laD n�, rh. :-.8, fOf Ihi, dictum. Thi! passaS"" \,ill l}C' found in lIa� Fe; T::'/j, 20. 1 1.lff.: Liao (1939), '·01. I,
P· 176.
, HanFti 7�u �().I<>.I; Liao (1939), yoJ. I, p. 17b.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
\Vhen puni�hments do not fit the crimes, the common people will not know where to put hand or foot. Thus when the gernleman says som�thing, the name is sure to be mabie in speech, and when he says something, lhis is sure to be practicable. The thing about the gentleman is thaI he is anything but ca�ual where speech is concerned. I The sorites at the beginning ofthj� quotation consists offive clauses. The crucial IObrical question is whether Confucius intended TO demonstrate the conclusion that 'if names are not correct, then the common people will not know where to put hand and foot.'� By writing and thinking in the form of a sorites, the ancient Chine�c established not logical laws, but sequences or chains of regular concomitance in their concrete world. They were engaged not in formal logic but in 'real' logic, in the regularity of the concomitance of certain features of the world. The theoretical importance of the sorites was that it allowed the Chinese thinkers to establish indirect links between diflerent features of the world. A passage from the unjustly neglected book Hsin Shu
�llt by Chia I �rn (
,lOa
-
to -163) conveniently illustrates our point:
Education (chiao �) is the basis of government. The Way i� Ihe basis of education (chiao). Only when there is a \Vay, can there be education. Only when there is education, can there be proper government. Onlyv...hen there is proper government. do the people give it its moral support. Only when the people give the government its moral support, can the state get rich.] Chia I shows that the Confucian 'Vay,
indirect!;', is the source of the wealth of the
state. His reasoning here is entirely typical of early Chinese thinking, and it does have a logical base, although it in no way involves purely formal logical reasoning. The habit of constructing chains of regular concomitance was pervasive in Chinese intellectual history. It was a dominant strategy of patterning or structuring the world among the Chinese. An exquisite instance of such patterning is almost the
whole of Ta H,ueh *� or 'Great Learning', one ufthe influential Four Books of Confucianism.'
Afodus {alloH An argument ofthe form: (A) P implies q not-q Therefore: not-p l..un fli 13.3; cf. !.au (19f!3a), p. Ill.
lt is f"r from d""r thaI W� ,hould "tlribute this passage to Confucius at all. The question has long been dis Lus>ed. Creel (!9i4), pp. II6ff., Slllllmarises the discussion and casts considerable douht on the 'aUlh�nticitv' . of thi.! passage. J Chia I, Hsin Sh'l, ch. 9. ed. Chhi YO-Chang. p. 101.'i. , Compare incid�ntally: Because of a nail a shoe wa, losl. Because of a shoe " horse """s lost. lkc"use of" hors� a rider w�, lost. Because ora rider a battle was lost. and all for th� los., of a hors�-,ho� nail.
LA�GUAGE A�D L O G I C
is traditionally callr.d an argument by modus to!un.r. This form of argumenllurns out
md ha,
:iaI
ha,
md
,ed
�le
,-of
�
of
<en
Si"
"'J.
el>< mal
to be much mort': popular in ancient Chinese texts than its seemingly morc straight
forward counterpart, the modusponms which we shall discuss below. Consider a typical Chinese example of
modus wllens:
Jan Chhiu said: 'It is not that I am not pleased with your way, but rather that my strength b""cS om.
The r-.·fasler replied: 'A man whmt': strength gives out gives up mid-way. Now in your case you set the limits beforehand.' I Confucius makes the assumption here that anyone whose strength is insufficient to achieve something will give up mid-way. He assumes as evident that Jan Chhiu has not given up mid-way (he has failed to try propcrly) . The conclusion is that the reason forJan Chhiu's behaviour was nOl lhat his strength \\'as insufficient. A tenta tive formalisation of this argument might run like this: (B) (for all x) (fl: impliesgx) not-ga
Therefore: not-fa Here!stands for having insufficient strength to achieve something. g stands for giving up mid-way, and a stands forJan Chhiu.\Ve have an imperfect case of
modus
PQnens because quantification is involved in the fint premise. My point is not that
this is a very sophisticated argument. However, the argument is dearly a formally valid onc. Given the premises, the conclusion follows logically. .!\nd moreover,
though one of the premises is not mentioned explicitly, what Confucius says is quite sufficient to enable us to reconstruct the logical structure of his thought with nng : the :s
of
confidence. In the Mrng u,u we find a mOrt; straightforward case of modus tollens: For this rc:ason there are no talented men I("there wc:rc:, I wou ld be bound to know about
thcm.�
The underlying argument is dearly as follows: ifthere were men of talent I would know about them. But I do not know about any talemed men. Therefore there are no talented men. This plainly does not amount to a formal proof for the non existence of talented men, but the train of thought seems logically very clearly structured. Here is another example from the same source:
Between father and son there should be no rc:proving admonitions with respect to what is good. Such reproofs lead to estrangement, and there is no thing morc: inauspicious than estrangement.3 A logical paraphrase of this argument might run like this: If there are reproving :ndi,·
:ity' ()f
admonitions behveen father and son, there will be strife. Strife is inauspicious (and must be avoided as such). Therefore one must avoid admonitions behveen father and son.
IS
losl.
I Lun Iii 6.12; cr. Lau (1911301), p. 49.
•
' Mby: T:u 686(5); cf. tau (1983C), p. 2jJ.
Mbrg nu4A18; cf. Lau (lgIl3C), P· I:;1.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
!viencius said: 'Fish i � what I want; bear's paws is also what 1 want. IfI cannot have both, I would rather take bear's paws than fish. Life is what I want; dutifulness is also what I want. Ifl cannot ha\·e both, I would rather take dutifulne�s than life. On the one hand, though life is what 1 want, there is something I want more than life. That 15 why I do not cling to life at all costs. On the other hand, though death is what I loathe, there is something I loath� morr. than death. That is why there arc troubles I rio not avoiri. lfthere were nothing a man wants more than life, then why should he ha\"e scruples about any means, so long as it will ser\"e to keep him alive? Tfthere were nothing a man loathes more than death, then why should he haw scruples about any means, so long as it helps him to a\·oid trouble? However, there are ways of remaining alive and ways of avoiding· death to which a man will not resort. In olher words, there are things a man wants more than life and lhere are also lhings he loathes more than dtath. This is an attitude not confined to the moral man but common to all mr.n. Tht: moral man simply never loses it.'l One strand ofthis argument runs like this: 1. if people's highest valuf'"S were lhe preservation of life and the avoidance of death, lhey would do everythi ng to preserve life and avoid death.
2. Under certain conditions, people will choose to do things that lead to their death 3.
or fail to do things that save their lives.
Ergo: There are things that people value higher than the preservation oflife and the avoidance of death. Finall); we may just note the current ancient Chinese practice of reruting a
generalisation by a counterexample which is related to
the modus toUms,
though
of course quite distinct, since it involves the use of the concept of nec essity or quantification:
Thang and \Nu succenled n i attaining supremacy without following the ancient practices, and as for the downfall of the dynasties Yin and Hsia, they wcre ruined without rites having been altered . Consequently, those who acted counter to antiquity do not nt:ce5sari l y dt:st:rvt: blame, nor do thost who followed established rites merit much praise.'
J.Hodus ponms An argument by modusponens is traditionally taken to be of the form (C) p implies If
p
Ergo : q
Note the characteristic fashion in which thc levcls of thought and action are intertwined in this passage:
Pi Hsi summoned the �Tasler, and tht �hster wantt:d to go. Tzu Lu said: 'Som� time ago I heard it from you , }''faster, that tht gentleman does not entt:r thr. domain of one who in his I }.ling Ttu 6.\10; cf. Lau (I g23c), 1'. �3S. , Shang Chiin Shu, ch. I , "d. Kau H�ng, 1'. 17; d. DUY'""ndak(I9HI), 1'. '73
LAi'\(;UAGE AND L O G I C
:xh.
I
.. "OUlL
I> Ill, !if� at
more
""'" ,'(: (Q Id h, 11::
are )ther more Th,
docs what is 1l0l good. �O\'\l Pi Hsi is using Chung MOll as a �tronghold to stage a revolt. How can youjustify going there?"
person
We may summarise the essential argument of Tzu I.ll as follows: The gentleman should not enter the domain of a person who dues what is not
1.
good.
2. Pi Hsi is a person who does whal is not good. 3. You, Confucius arc a gentleman. 4. Ergo: You, Confucius, should not enter Pi Hsi's domain.
As our analysis shows, this is far from bt'ing a neal case of an argumt:nt by modus
ponens,
but tht" connection with
modus pone71s is
plain enough. Confucius shows a
distinct lack of interest in the plain logical side of Tzu Lu's qUl:r)' when he replies,
disarmingly:
'Tt is true, I did say that. But has it not been said that "hard indetd is thar which can with stand grinding"? Has it not been said that "white indeed is [hat which can withstand black dye"? MoreoH:r, how can I allow myself to be treated like a gourd which, instead of being eaten, hangs from the end oCa slring? 'l and
'!g a IUgh y or
Compare Mo Tzu's response to the same sort ofcomplaillt: �1aster Mo Tzu was ill. Tieh Pi entered his room and a�ked: 'Master, you said that ghosts and spirits were omniscient. that they have the power to send blrssing and misfortulle, and that they reward tht"" good and punish the evil. However, you, be ing a sage, have fallen ill. Huw is this possible? Can it be that your teaching was not entirely correct, that the ghosts and spirits afe after all not omniscient?,l Characteristically, Mo Tzu takes the charge ofinconsistf"ncy seriously in his reply:
i\hster Mo Tzu replied 'E\·en in am ill, how could the spirits' lack of omniscience be held responsible for that? Diseases are caused by excessive work or hardship. If there are one hundred gates and you shut only one of them, how can you pre\·ent the burglar from g�tting • )'-1 ffi.
Afortiori Argumellls
afortion·
or par plus forte
called them arguments Lu:
ace
go I
t his
raISon, wt're already familiar to kala poioma.' Aristotle promises in several
Aristotle, who places that he
LMn Ji] li.i; cf. l.au (1983a), p. 173. Arj("lIm(matiun along �uch hn(s was apparend�' a charaneristic ofT'.1I 1'•.11 Lll wcnt in lind ashd: ' I havc h�"rri il said lhal Heavcn r�wards tho,"" who do good ",iell good forl\me. and (hal Heaven reward.� thOK who do (\';1 with mislOrtune. Now tor a lunlit Time �uu, "'lam:r. h",." piled \"iTTU� upon righleou�ncss, and good ;mr ('lj6i), p. 37").
Confudus an.wtrs aiollS" simibr logical lim,s:
I �upposc yuu Ihink thaI m�Uis:em i m"n in�\�\ably find (lllplu)"mem, bw in Ihat case PiKan shouldnot have had his heart cut OUI. (Ibid.)
. Mo r.:qfl.7o;cf. "'[�i (19�9). p. 240. , l.un li"i '7);
LANGUAGF. AND L O G I C
would write a treatise on the matter.
Unfortunately, no such treatise h as come down to us. Let us consider this form of argument in ancient China: Even the Duke ofChou len something to be de�irt:d in the ,,'ay of benevolcnce and wisdom.
How much more (khuantJ musllhis be so in the case ofYour Majesty! 1
g' ao
c.
Here the Duke ofChou is assumed to be a paragon ofbenevolence and wisdom.
If J
The compari.�on in an afortiari ar�'Umenl can be between objt::ClS: King Kou Chien ofYiieh once saw an angry frog and saluted it. The coachman asked: '\-Vhy docs Your MajeslY salute ie'
"
il
o
'A frog that shows a fightn i g spirit like this! How cOlild I fail to salute it?'
When the knights heard this they said: 'E\'en a frog,
C(
ifit shows spirit, our kingwil! salute.
"
How much more (khuang?5t) will he salute a knighl \."ho haR courage!'l
Han Fei uses argum ents aJortiori quite system atically to argue from the immed iately plausible to the less immediately plausible.
Moreover, parents' relation to their children is such Ihal \\'hcn they get a son, they congratu late each other. \'Vhen they get a daughter, they kill her. Now both boys and girls come from their parent's womb, and ye t the parents congratulate each other whel1 it is a boy and kill the child off f i it is a girl. This is because they an' concerned with later convenience and because they calculate long-term profit. Thus even parents dealing with their own children still usc their calculating minds. How much more should one expect this when there IS no such bond ofaffection between those ill\"olved!�
Chinese arguments afortiori can also turn on a comparison ofvt::rbs:
\
e d c
(,
1 o
i,
,.
If the ruler of a state wilh a thousand chariots canllot even hope 10 btCome acquainted with him, howmuch less (khuantJ can he hope to .>umman such a mall! 1 There
often is something China as elsewhere:
poetic
and
emphatic
about a fortiori
arguments,
III
Irmere water clarifies whcn it is still, how much more the stillness ofthe quintessential-and demonic, the heart ofthe sage! '
If)
L O G I C A L T H E O RY
( I ) TEKG HSI � :tFf
AKD
HUI SHill w'Dfl!';
(died -501) and Hui Shih (t". -3io to -310) were both closely involved in and political conflicts of their times. Tcng Hsi is j ustly regarded as the founding father ofthe Chinese logical tradition. It is not a coincidence that he was earning a living as a specialist in l aw : his significance in the history ofJogic is closely
Teng Hsi the legal
, Mmg T.:� 2B9; d. l.au (1g83c). p. 85.
j
•
•
' Han f{j u.1t 30.:H; l.iaO{1939), '1)1. I, p. 302. D L; I M1ng nit j1l7; . C. .u {1g83d, p. �Ii·
11m. Fri u.1t 46.2.24; Liao (1939), vol. �, p. 239· Chu«1l/. T:.1t 13.4; cf. Graham (1981), p. 2:,9.
Sections (j,1) to (J>4) �hould be compared ,,;Ih Vol. 2, pp. 171-2°3.
, J
,
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
me cloWIl
grew. First in close connection with legal rhetoric, and then more independently as
dwisdom.
an autonomous preoccupation. The creation of Chinese law codes must be placed perhaps as early as the -8th ccntuT)" and even in the state of Chhin it must have occurred significantly earlier
wisdom.
than the -4th century. l By the -3rd century the complexity of the legal ·system (penal as well as administrative) was considerable. A.
l.aIl
asked:
E P. Hulsewe (1985) presents
crucial new archeological evidence on this matter in an exemplary way. vVe shall illustrate the logical significance of this legal material by considering the invention of one crucial device of abstract thinking, the invention of variables to refer to arbi
�-ill salute.
=
connected with his legal interests. It was o n this legal ground that Chinese logic
trary items.
f'ariab/es in Chitin law
immcd-
congratu orne from I)' and kill i�nce and l dren � chi h�re is no
Mud with
nents, in
llial-and-
Variables like X,
r,
Z are singularly useful devices for the articulation of any gen
eralisations, and particularly of scientific generalisations. Aristotle's systematic deployment of variables to make clear the general and abstract nature of his con cerns ,vas a crucial part of his success as a logician. \\-'. Kneale and v , I. Kneale (1962), p. 6r, comment on Aristotle's invention of term-variables as follows:
This is a new and epoch-making device in logical technique. It is used for the firSl lime with out explanation in the second chapter ofthe PriorAna/ytics, which deals with cOIlvenion, and it seems to be Aristotle's invcntion. In earlier works generality is indicated by a rather clum sy use ofpronouns or by examples in which it is left \0 lhe reader to see the irrelevance of the special material. Both methods arc uscd by Plato and Aristolle. An example of the former from the Republic is : '\Vhen things are of such a nature as to be relative to something, then those that arc ofa certain sort are relative to something of a certain sort.'� It is clear that Plato \vould have been able to express himself more clearly if he had had variables available. His Greek sentence without his illustrations \vould have remained opaque. Aristotle solves this problem oflogical articulation. But was Aristotle's invention of the variables repeated anywhere else? 'Vhen (if ever) did the ancient Indians or the ancient Chinese develop symbols that function like variables, symbols that have no material or epideictic function but serve purely to abstractly identify arbitrary items or person·( In Sanskrit we find the phrase
waf!1f1ama
'of such-and-such a name, such-and
such' which corresponds roughly to the Chinese
mou;% 'such-and-such'. Let us call
;"(Ilved in
this sort of expression a pseudo-variable. vVhen more than one such-and-such are
�d as the
involved, we find that these are all referred to by the same term eval/miimii, so that we
It he was
is closely
have X, X, and X all referring to different people as in the following generalised rule for the conduct of Buddhist communities:
This �Ionk such-and-such is able to instruct such-and-such and Sllch-and-Sllch as an IIpiid h)'ii)'a in secret.1 1
See Hulse"c (1985), p. 1 .
I
Republic .nilh.
' Hartel (19:;6). p. if.
288
LANGUAGE A N D L O G I C
This usc ofpseudo-variables s�ems to have been current in Sanskrit at least from the -3rd or the -4th century: Consider now the following Chillcsc legal text from the -3rd cen tury:
X(chia EfI) and Y(i z,) do not originally know each other. Xgoes on 10 rob ;:(ping fAI). As he arrin�s, Yalso goes along to rob .({pinjj, speaks with X. and they then each proceed to the robbc'1\ The value ofthe goods was four hundred (cash) each. Having left the place they all got (profit). Had they made plam beforehand. then one would have to try them on the com bined amount. Since they did nm make plans. they must each be held responsible: for dwir amounts. I Whm X(chia) an d ni) each have intefcourscwith the woman « nii l{uping!J:yfJ
In
Ti '"
W m
lei
co
id,
T.
efl
1 fo und one case in which the IlUmbfr ofpt':ople i nvolved was four, wilh an addi
CI
tional pseudo-variable mou �: The commoncrs Hiand X ora ce rl <'lin
(mull) \'illagc bound and brought in the mcn Yalld
,( . . 1 X (chm) steals cash ill order to buy silk. He sends [his to r (i). r receivcs it but does not
ex
,h
k now that it is stolen. 'Vhat is t(i) to be' accused of? He is nOl \0 be accused.'
The symbols which the ancif'l1[ Chinese used for variables could not be letters ofthe alphabet since they did not know of any alphabfL IllSlead they used the so-called ten
SIems, a series ofcharacters used from ancien I limes in the Chinf'se syslem ofdating.s The variable in Chinese legal [t:;xts may be used as a modifier as in ({jifo chia*� EfJ 'the dignitary X'6 and nii kit chia fr-=rEfJ 'the woman X'" i I t is a standard pan of
the linguistic repenory of the practitioners of law at ICdst since the -srd century; and then; is n o particular reason for assuming that this use ofvariahies began at that time, considering the long stretch oflegal history bf'fore thal timt.
Some early prdctitioners of tht" law, it turns out, were particularly fond of para
doxes. Tcng Hsi and Hui Shih were case s in point.
Ting Hsi ftl5:tJT
m
T.
m
p< ,h ac
'a
(hi
\Ve can get a realistic picturf: ofT['ng Hsi's activitifs from Ihe fOIJOWlllg passage:
co
"Vhen people wen" im'olved ill lawsuits, Tt:ng Hsi would enter ilgrecmcnts with them : for il lilrge case he could take one o\-ercuat, for a small case he would take iljacket with trousers.
so
• ShuiHu 1i ChAin Mu Chu Chim '!!i!:iJ'::±t!l : _.Mt'rAA, p. ljG; rf. Hulsel,'e (H;l8j). VII. , Simi Hu Ti ChAin Mu C},u Chi",. p. � ' 2:); d Hulsew,; 1191>5), DJ5�. , Shui Hu Ti C"},;n Mu C},u Chim, p_ �-'�: d. Hulse",.:: (1985), [9. Shui Hu Ti ChJJin .\1u CIIIl Ckim, p_ 1ti.'i_ There are 1,,0 sjmiJ�r ,:a! 16K, dig, t7t. tHo, lin, 210, 218, 212f., 225, 23", 249, 2;,,[, 25411: [1 ;5 interesting10 nult: llml th� 1�!r ..l l{XIS sometimes usc a \-..ri"hl� ,,\·..n in a caseI,here only on.. individual i. Jpok.,n anorn, i.e., ",here theft: i. only an Xhtn no I; as ihid., p. 180 and p. J04. But when there is nu
m
'h'
th
•
1; lhe normal t�t:hni'lu" i. to u�e the term kuo $( '.om"",n,,'. ! For a cone;';" tabulation oflhe ten stem s aud their uS/' t
ShUI HII Ti CMi" Jl.. ClIII Ckim, p. 206.
In dating see Giles (1892), pp. 29r.
' Ibid., p. 22L
T.
LA�GUAGE AND L O G I C
( from
. As he
I to the
!hey all � com·
)T their
) and X how is
1 addi-
1 r and oes
not
li of the
led ten lating, " ",,*,, part of entury, at that f para-
age: m: for a rousers.
IC:S I ha\'l' ,:ns· �J",
tonlyum: .bcr� j, no
289
Innumerable people handed up their coats andjackets with trousers to take his legal advice.
Teng Hsi turned \\Tong into right and right into wrong. Then': was no standard ofright and wrong. What was admissible and what was not changed from day to day. If Teng Hsi
wanted someone to win a case that man would will as a resuit. IfTeng Hsi wanted someone to be found guilty, that man would be: found guilty as a result. There was great confusion
in Cheng, and the people kept arguing with each other. I
There is ample evidence that Teng Hsi IUH1r developed his debating skills in the Tso Chuan �:f.W commentary credits him with the authorship of a penal code wriuen on bamboo (dIU krillg t17f1J)� which was in deliberate opposition to the official bronze code of Teng Hsi's apparent political enemy, the formidable Tzu Chhan .:rJi, who was the effective ruler ofCheng from -34'2 to -5'22.3 Teng Hsi's legal and political activities clearly brought him into conflict \vith Tzu Chhan and his successors. They also made him famous throughout the land for his extraordinary rhetorical skills. vVe tall still get a glimpse of the spirit and subtlety of the sophistry attributed to Teng Hsi by looking at the following story:
legal couns of the economically very advanced state of Cheng. The
There wal' a flood around the river Wei. A rich man from Cheng drowned. Somebody fished out the dead body and the rich man's family wanted to buy back the body. However, the man who had found the body demanded a lot ofrnoncy. The rich family complained to Tcng Hsi, who replied: 'Leave him, no one else will buy the body anyway.' The man who had found lhe body gO! angry and he 100 complained to Teng Hsi, who replir:d: 'Leave them! Theyhave nO\\,here else to buy the body from anyway.'l
This is one ofthe many examples ofjokes from early Chinese literature:, and like many jokes it tells us a great deal about the perceptions and sensibilities of its time. Tcng Hsi was fell to be a menial rhetorician who would provide convincing argu· ments for whatever his clients wanted to hear. Significantly, both his statements are perfectly true. The outrageous thing is that Teng Hsi m;fJT seems unconcerned with the fact that his advice to the twO parties is inconsistent. vVithin each situation he argues from his client's point of view. The inconsistency of the overall stance he is taking is of no concern to him. He is an adherent of what was later called liang kJw chih shuo �Q]"�F�, the doctrine that both sides are right.s As a legal adviser, of course, one might feel that he was obliged to take such a stance, but the de:velop' ment of $ophistry consisted in the detachment of the legal argumentation from its social context, the development of arguments for their own sake, and particularly the attempt to justify apparent paradoxes by irrefutable arguments. We shall see this development in the thought ofHui Shih m:Dffi . , lii Shh. i (.'hhun Cllh.iu IB'4, pd. Chhen Chhi'YlI, p_ " 78; cr. Wilhdm (1928), p. 302. , no Chuolf, Duke Ting 9, ed. Yang Po·Chlin, p. '57'; cf Cou\'reur (19:J1h), \"01. 3, p. 550.
Cr. Rubin (1965). , I;; Shill CMun CMiu 18,4, ed. Chhen Chhi·Yu, p. 1178; cf. Wilhelm (19z8), p. 301. , 'I'hi� term wa� fInt u�pd. as far as I know, in I.iu Hsin's prefac� 10 the (lOSI) original Ting Hsi u.ull!ltITT: 'He (T�ng Hsi) practised lh� doctrine that bolh sides are right and established argum�ntl (Ivm Po) that W�T" un as.ailahl�.' (Wu fei-Po (1,984), p. 863). •
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
2g0
HuiShihl Hui Shih (-370 to -gID) is celebrated in our earliest sources as a man of many talelHS - and
of many books. In point of fact he is perhaps the most versatile of aU pre· Chhin philosophers we know of, being an eminent politician, an important legal specialist, a prominent theoretician of science, a distinguished practical scientist, and a noted conversationalist and friend of the eccentric Taoist Chuang Tzu m:7'-. No wonder the ancient Chinese books are so full ofstartes on Hui Shih.1 There is abundant evidence that he was a vel)' active politician and it appears that his unlikely friendship with Chuang Tzu flourished after his political demise in Wei and bis flight to Chuang Tzu's native Sung *.3 His political and administrative career provides the indispensible background for our understanding of his logical and scientific views.4 We have, of course, no way of judging the quality ofHui Shih's legislation, but we may safely conclude that. it was widely perceived to be unnecessarily subtle and i e . As complex, perhaps pedantic, just a.� legislation is often perceived in our own tm
a legislator Hui Shih ,'vas ahead of his time, and by all accounts he paid the sort
of formal
attention to the 'letter' of the law which struck his contemporaries as
misplaced. This was the very same formal attention to words which, see, Hui
as we
shall
Shih applied to philosophy, where it was felt to be no less unnatural and
pedantic. Again, Hui Shih's scientific interest was not limited to mundane politics and mundane legal practice. He was also accused in the Taoist book Chuang uu of'chas ing after things and not turning back'." He proudly announced: What nobler theme is [here than Heaven and Earth? tradition.�
I keep my male role. 1 depend on no
Defiantly, Hui Shih declared an interest in mundane questions of the science of his time. 'Veak in the Power within, strong on the things outside, his was a crooked path. Ifwe con sider Hui Shih's abilities from the viewpoint ohhe \Nay ofHeaven and Earth, yes, his were no marc: than the labours ofa mosquito or a gnat. Even within the realm ofthings, what use were they?';
, Cf. Vol.
2, pp. ,119-97, for a d�tailed 5urvey ofHui Shih's paraduxes. Our preocm, briefer, account rrie, to
tab: account ofthe the last 35 yean· research.
�u in which Hui Shih figuT"S prominently as the Taoist philosopher·. personal I Apart from thebook (;juul1lK T friend, Hui Shih is mentioned ,·uy frequently in Lii Shih Chhun eMili, Han Fd nu, Hua; Nan T�u, Chan /G,o TIki, Shuo nan and in no less than six chaplers of the Hsun nu. Cf. :\Ioritz ('974) and Reding (1985). 1 cr. R. Moritz (1974), PI'· 74-9 1 . , Cf. panicularly LIi Shih eMun Chhiu 18.5; tr. Wilhelm (1928). p. 306. By far the beSt treatment ofthe early SOU1"(es on Hui Shih ! i Reding(Ig.85). R..,ding has th" advantage ofheingquite as ",,,n at home in the Gret"k texts a..o; he evidently is in],is Chinese oource!. He suggeSt! (pp. 32111:) tim! l1-e 510ri"5 "bout Hui Shih in the Iii Shih CMtm ellhiu may go back to one uriginal book on the sophist. The cur�ncy of,uch a book wuuld indeed explain wh�' Hui Shih is so often mentioned n i pre Chhin literature. {1I 33.81; IT. Graham (1981). p. 28+. 6 CluuIng 1 1 Chllaflg nU33.86; tr_ GTaham (1981), p. 2R.s. , Chua,,/: QIl33.8.r tT. Gn.ham (lgBl), p_ �8.s. -
LA)
All this reminds us of the tradition attributing an agricultural invention to Hui
Iy talents
fall pre ant legal scientis t, zu ifFf. There is that his
e in Wei listrative
Is logical cion . but tbtle and time. As the sort ranes as we shall
ural and
itics an d
of'chas;ndon no tience of
Twe con • his were 1 what lise
JUJ1! tri..� to
",'1personal .. };i.Q Tshe,
ollh" ..arly Gr"ek t�x"
the Lii ShU. ired explain
Shih's predecessor Teng Hsi.1 It docs seem (hat the 'logicians' stood in some delib erate' and defiant opposition to traditional highbrow interests among the more ethically inclined philosophers oftheir time. 'fhey are thus key figures in the histol)' of'proto-science' in China. In the south there was a queer man named Huang Liao who asked why the sky did not fall and the earth did not sink; also about the causes ofwind, rain and the rolling thunder. Hui Shih answered without hesitation, and without taking time for reflection. He discussed all things continuously and at great length, imagining that his words wcre but few, and still adding (Q them strange statemems.'
Hui Shih's debating style is preserved for us in a long series or anecdotes ofvary ing degrees oflikely authenticity. Khuang Chuang spoke as follows to Hui Shih in the presence of King Hui of Wei: 'A peas ant will kill a locmt ifhe ha� caught one. \'Vhydoes he do this? Because they harm the grain. Now you travel around often with several hundred carts and several hundred followers, and at the very least with some dozen carts and some dozen followers. That means that you do not work. but still eat. 'fhe harm to [he grain is greater than that caused by the locusts.' KingHlii said: 'Hui Shih will have trouble answering you, Still, let him speak.' Hui Shih said: 'Ufor example one builds a city wall, then some people will stand on top and tread down the earth. Others will carry along the baskets with earth down below. Still others look at the drawings and supeni.se the building activities. I am one oCthe supen-ison with the drawings in their hands. Ifyou transform a spinner imo silk, she won't be able to go on to work silk. Ifyou trans· form a carpenter into wood, he won't be able to continue to work wood. lfyou transform a sage into a peasant, he won't be able to work the peasants. \-Vhy do you insist on comparing me to a locust?'�
Hui Shih's fondness ror analogies was proverbial in ancient China, and in one
story he defends his constant use of this method: A dient said to the King of Wei: 'When Hui Shih talks about anything he is prone to use illustrative comparisons. If you forbid him illustrative comparisons he won't be able to speak,' The King agreed. At the audience next day he said [Q Hui Shih: 'When you speak abo ut something I wish you would simply speak directly, without illustrative comparisons .' 'Let's suppose we have a man who does not know what a tan5\t'l is', Hui Shih said. 'lfhe says "'A'hat are the characteristics of a tan likc?" and you answer "like a lan", will it be con veyed to him?' 'It will not.' 'Ifyou proceed to answer instead ':<\. llln in its characteristics is like a bow, but with a string made ofhamboo", will he know?' 'It will be known.' , Cf Wu Fei,Po (lf)84), p. Sil.
, Chuang 7{u 33.82; d. Graham (1981), p. �B4. We follow Th:rk Bodde's translatinn in Feng Yu·Lan (1953), \'QJ.
l.P· 196.
, Iii Shih CMulI CM,,, 18.6, ed. Chhe<> Chhi·Yu, p. 1197: d. Wilhdm(!918}, p. 308.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
'It is inherent i n explanation that by using something he does know to convey what he does not know one causes the other man to know. To give up illustrative comparisons as you are telling me to do is inadmissible.' 'Well said!', said the King.1
The dialogues between the mystic Chuang Tzu and the logician Hui Shih are among the more memorable pieces of ancient Chinese philosophical prose that have come down to us. Here is an example which exemplifies Hui Shih's spirit of logical analysis: Chuang Tzu and Hui Shih were strolling on the bridge above the Hao river. 'Out swim the minnows, so free and easy!' said Chuang Tzu. 'That's how fish are happy.' 'You are not a fish. Whence do you know that the fish are happy?' 'You aren't me. \-\'"hence do you know that I don't know the fish are happy?' '\'Ve'll grant that not being you I don't know about you. You'll grant that you are not a fish, and that completes the case that you don't know the fish are happy.' 'Let's go back to where we started. \Vhm you said " �Vhence do you know that the fish are happy?", you asked me the question already knowing that I knew. I knew it from up above the Hao. '�
When Hui Shih asks 'You are not a fish. How do you know that the fish are happy?', he really raises a profound epistemological question which will not come as a surprise to any Vv'estern philosopher. To Chuang Tzu, on the other hand, and to most oChis contemporaries, Hui Tzu's question will have sounded quite hope lessly pedantic. Hui Shih's interest in politics and in the practical affairs of this world was below the spiritual dignity of Chuang Tzu. When Hui Shih was chiefminister ofLiang, Chuang Tzu went to visit him. Someone told Hui Shih: 'Chuang Tzu is coming. He wants your place as chiefminister.' At this Hui Shih was frightened and searched for him throughout the state for three days and three nights. Chuang Tzu did go to visit him. 'In the South there is a bird,' he said 'its name is the phoenix. Do you know of it? The phoenLx came up from the South Sea to fly to the North Sea; it would rest on no tree but the sterculia, would eat nothing but the seeds of the bam boo, would drink only from the sweetest springs. Just then an owl had found a rotting mouse. As the phoenix flew over, it looked up and glared at it: "Shoo!". ::"Jaw am I to take it that for the sake of that Liang country of yours you want to shoo at me?"l
Hui Shih's petty IOglc-chopping as well as his 'petty political interests' were like an interest in an intellectual rotting mouse to Chuang Tzu.
An interpretation ifHui Shih'sparadoxes J. P Reding (1985), pp. 274-385, takes up the crucial question whether Hui Shih's dicta are properly understood as scientific paradoxes in the first place. He provides a ShUG JUflll ll.8, ed. Chao Shan-I, p. 307; c[ Graham (I978), pp. 444f. Chuang Tzu I7.8j; tr. Graham (I9!lI), p. '23. ' Chuang T�u 17.84: tr. Graham (lg8,), pp. 122- 3.
d, p. al Z
m
"
a
II
II
pi
n
at a< II
cl
"
0'
d,
e<
IT
S<
w
a
LANGUAGE
"'. what he ow as you
AND L O G I C
detailed alternative interpretation intending to show that they are not scientific paradoxes at all. A. C. Graham (I9iO), p. 140, on the other hand, writes: ' . . . although Hui Shih's explanations no longer survive, the whole list can be read, like Zeno's paradoxes, as a series ofproofs that it is impossible to divide space and time
Shih are rose that spirit of
s
without comradiction. ' Unfortunately, all we have are Hui Shih's theorems and paradoxes as preserved in the last chapter of the book of his friend Chuang Tzu, to which we shall now turn. 1 The cases of Zeno and of Hui Shih differ profoundly in that we do have a fairly precise idea of the stringent logical arguments Zeno used to support his
.rt
happy.'
theses,2 whereas we know so little ofthe intellectual context ofHui Shih's paradoxes that one can evidently raise doubt that they arc scientific paradoxes in the first place, as Reding docs. The first 'thesis' is in fact not a thesis at all but a set oftwo crucial definitions. It
. know the he fish are
t up above !
fish are
not come and, and
ju� hope rs
of this
xone told three days
une is the the North fthe bam a rotting I to take it
runs like this:
Thesis f Definitions: The perfecdy large thing, having nothing outside it, is called the macro-one. The perfectly small, having nothing inside it, is called the micro-one.:! The concept Hui Shih is concerned with is 'that than which nothing is bigger' and 'that than which nothing is smaller'. In order to appreciate the intellectual achievement represented by this son of definition, it is healthy to compare it with the following dialogue:
Duke Ching {j:t} asked Yen Tzu �T: 'Is there an infinitelylarge thing in the world?' Yen Tzu replied: 'There is. In the l'\orthern Lake there is the Pheng. lts fcet float on the douds, its back reaches the azure sky. The tail wafts between the heavens, and it hops and takes a sip from the Northern Sea. Its tail fills out the space between Heaven and Earth. So vast is it that it is nOt even aware where its wings arc.' 'Is there a smallest thing in the worldT Yen Tzu replied: 'Yes there is. In the Eastern Sea there is an animal which builds its nest on the eyelids of a mosquito. Again and again it lays its eggs and Aies off but the mosquito does not get disturbed by it. I do not know its name, but the fishermen at the Eastern Sea call it the Chiao Ming.� For Yen Tzu 'the largest thing' is just a very, very big thing. The distinct notion of
""ere like
infinity, the logical definition which Hui Shih is aiming for and achieving, lies beyond his intellectual horizon. And the tragedy for Hui Shih �1ii!i. as well
as
so
many other logicians was that, quite generally, what they were concerned with was so far beyond the intellectual horizons of their contemporaries. Logical opinions
were perceived as bizarre intellectual curiosities, as 'strange words', lui Shih's lrovides a
as
grotesque
, All Hui Shih', theorems thaI f"How are taken from Chuang T.t.u 33; cr. Graham (1981), pp. 2!13!T. , Th� evidence on Zeno is assembled in Dids (1954). pp. 247-)ll. , AI Solomon (1969), p. �h pon i u out, the lerm la j 'jc- recurs f'15ewh�re n i contemporary literature. (ee. Chuang 7::11 24.106f.) How�\'er, itll definition h�re i> quite unfamiliar from oth�r sources. I 10. 1i;u C-lrJum CMill §Tii"'::k, ed. Wu Tse-Yu, p. 514.
2 94
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
paradoxes (yin t.t,hu �ii$). As i n the case of Kungsun Lung's
01*-ft White Horse
Dialogue, which we shall discuss later, they were recorded for their entertainment value rather than their intellectual content. The macro-one and the micro-one are Hui Shih's abstract logical constructs. Paradoxical theses arise when these abstract constructs are applied to the concrete things ofthis world.
Thesis If Definition:
That which has no dimension (um hou �J.i.) cannot be accumulated, but its size is a thou
sand li,m.
The micro-one, since it has nothing inside it, has no dimension
(wu haul.
Yct
things of size must presumably be thought of as composed of micro-ones. Thus something which does not have size, when added to other things which also have no size, adds up to something that has size. This is a paradoxical thought. However, it does seem to follow from the assumption that the smallest unit has no parts or size, and that sized things are compounds ofthese smallest units. Thesis II follows naturally from the first part of , thesis' I, given the extra assump tion that sized things are made up of ' micro-ones'. Again, thesis III can be construed to follow naturally from the second part of ,thesis' I.
Thesis Iff
The sky is on the same low level as the earth. Mountains are on the same level as the marshes.
Ir the macro-one is infinite, then when compared with this infinitude the dif ference in height between the sky and the eanh, between mountains and marshes, should be negligible, and this would mean that the sky is on the same low level as the earth and the mountains are on the same level as the marshes. The theses II and III
are given a coherent explanation in
Thesis )'1 Things which have more in common being different from things which have less in com mon, that is called micro-differentiation. All things having something in common, and all things differing from each other in some respect, that is called macro-differentiation.
One can obviously set up a difference between any two distinct things, but making this sort of difference is called micro-differentiation, while that which Hui Shih is concerned with for the purpose of his (sophistical) argument is macro differentiation. By saying that a mountain is on the same level with a marsh he says something which he knows people will find absurd. Just as the later sophist Kungsun Lung, knowing that people would find it absurd for him to claim that a
J
For our cxposition wc d.::,;atc from {he order n i which the th...ses are pKscnted n i the last chapter of th.,
wang T�".
LA:\,GUAGE A)lD L O G I C
lite Horse rtainment
uostructs.
� concrete
:t
is a thou-
2 95
on showing that he can defend this thesis on a i erence in given interpretation, so Hui Shih, knowing full well that there is a dff height between a mountain and a m arsh, insists on showing that there is a 'macro' interpretation under which the two are on one level. Chuang Tzu's m:.::r chapter ' Seeing All Thin gs as Equal' 1 consists in a c oherent attempt to take such a 'l evelling' perspective on all things :
while horse is not a horse, insists
Nothing in the world is bigger than the lip of an autumn hair, and Mount Thai is small. No one Ih-es lo nger than a doomed child, and Pheng Tsu died young. Heaven and Earth were born toge ther with me, and the myriad things and I are one.1 One can imagine how Chuang Tzu and Hui Shih c ould become close intellectu
v
Iwu). Yet nes. Thus 50 have no lowcver, it :rt.s or Slze, "a
assump
construed
k\"d as the
de
the dif
d marshes,
level as the es II
and III
al companions on the basis of such profound common perceptions. However, what for Hui Shih was a result ofsome logical definitions was for C huang Tzu the starting
point of a philosophy onile. In the book KUGl1 Tzu :g;..:r we find a passage that might throw light on the connec tionbet\veen Hui Shih's alleged egalitarianism and his talk ofmountains and marshes: How can a small rise make a flat plain high?
(Commentary:) The four major failings of men are for the ruler to be predatory, the
father and mother to be cruel, the mn i ister and subordinate official to be disloyal, and the son and his wi.fe to be unfilial. Hence ifany one ofthese major failings is present in a person, it is impossible for him to become a worthy, even though he may have some minor good points. 'A flat plain' refers to low marshland. Even though there may be a slight rise on it, it cannot be considered high. How can a small depreSSIOn make a lofty mountain low?
(Commen tary:) The four highest forms of conduct for men are for the ruler to be kind,
the father and mother to be compassionate, the minister and subordinate official to be loyal, and the son and his ,vife filial. Ifanyone ofthese highest forms ofconduct is present in a per
son, he cannot be considered unworthy, even though he may commit minor errors. 'A lofty
mountain' refers to a mountain that s i high. Even though it may have a small depression, it cannot be considered low.3
less in com-
her in some !h..ings,
but
which Hui
lS macro
I
m arsh he
ler
sophist
!aim that a
chapter of the
Though we have
no way of telling, there may be, behind Hui Shih's paradox of
mountains and plains, a soci al paradox as well. This, of course) does not mean that
the th esis does not have a logical/scientific dimension as well. Some ofHui Shih's paradoxes sound like intellectual pranks, but they can still be connected to his general definitions:
ThesU 1"1/1
Interlocking rings can be separated.
We have) as usual, no record of the reasoning which lay behind t his paradox. But suppose that a ring is defined as something round. Then the perfectly round thing , See Graham (19B1), pp. 48- 61 ' Chuang n-u 2.5�; cf. Graham (lg81), p. 36. , Kuan n-u 1'-7, ed. Tai Wang, vol. I, p. 5 and vl)l. 3, p. :n; tr. RickctI (1985), p. 72. Cf. Rickett's earlier rransJa tion of the Kuan Tzu (1965), p. '33, note 63.
296
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
(wu hou 1m,ll1:) ). Two circlts of this kind - one might lease an audience by claiming - could
would b e a circle of no thickness (a circle.: which lacks internal dimension indeed be separated. At the macro-level of space there are also paradoxes.
ThestJ 1.'1: I know the CenlT(' ohhe world. North orVen up in the north, and south ofYueh down in the south is [he place.
This paradox is phrased almost like a
bOil-mol. What Hui Shih is surdy intending
to convey is the fact that in a universe that is as infinite as he defines it, the centre will be absolutely everywhere, even in rhe most 'marginal' places. \
Another spatial paradox is that about the limitless South, the scene of seemingly
endless Chinese cultural and political expansion thro ughout the ages.
Thws ].j
The South is inexhaustible and yet it IS exhallstible.
E. II I
Here again, we do not have the arguments which Hui Shih used to defend this or
b; III
any of his other paradoxes. However, we can attempt to reconstruct what may havc been his reasoning. Suppose that the South is inexhaustible. Then there is no other inexhaustible outside this inexhaustible, i.e., the inexhaustible is, after all, delimited, excluding other inexhaustibles outside itsel( Such an interpretation (in which we delibcratdy avoid modernizing precision of mathematical terminology) may still sound hopelessly modern and unnatural to impose on an ancient Chinese thinker. Can we really attribute to the ancient
Chinese theories about infinitudes? It is hard to be surc.
The notion of infinity as opposed to a very large number was, in any case, famil
iar to the authors of the
Chuang Tzutt-r who deliberately contrast the literal mean
ing of wan � 'ten thousand' with the metaphoric meaning 'indefinitely many'.
Suppose you were COUnting the number ofthings. Then rou would not srop at ten thousand,
th T n: C(
SF
w
and yet by conyenlion we speak orrhcm as 'the ten thousand things'. This is because we use the largest number to call and designate them by.2 Consider next the following most remarkable story from a part of the book
Lieh Tzu which we have some reason to suspect quotes from a lost chapler of Ch1lang Tzu.
th
Emperor Thang of Yin asked Chi ofHsia: 'W�re there things in ancient times, at the
ru
Chi of Hsia said: 'lf the:re: had bccn no things then, how come the:re: are things now?
m
beginning of the world?'
Suppose thal later me:n maintain there: were no things at this tUne:, would that be acceptable:?'
, Thi"
I think, would he th., vi�w of modern physi(;iS19.
1
Chumlt 1211 2j.66; c[ Graham (19B1), p. 151.
to
IX
LA)JGUAGE A N D L O G I C
n U'U hou � - could
Thang o fYin said: 'Docs that mean that there is no "before" or "after" to the realm of things'?' Chi ofHsia replied:
i
'The endings and startings of thngs Have no limit from which they began. The start of one is the end of another,
bdown in
ntending :ntrc will :emingly
Id this or
nay have laustible (cludi ng cision of ttural to anClent e. famil11 mean Qy'. laousand, 1e
\"e use
The end ofone is the stan of another. Who knows which came first? Bm beginning from the point where the realm of things ends and which i� before events, then I know nothing. '
Thang ofYin said: 'Does this mean that above and below and in the eight directions there
is a limit, and that things arc finite?' Chi said: 'I do not know.' When Thang pressed lhe question, Chi c ontinued: 'Kothingness is without limit. Existence is finite. How am T to know the answer to your question? Howevel; outside the limitless there is no further limitless. Inside the infinite there is no funher infinite. On this
basis I know their limitlessness and their n i finitude, but I do Ilot know their limit and their
finiteness. ,�
This argument may well echo, as A. C. Graham has suggested to me in conversa tion, the original arguments ofHui Tzu in favour ofhis sophism. The basic thought is that beyond the infinitude of !>pace there is a higher order of infinitude which we do not know. Perhaps this way of thinking was what lay behind Hui Shih's paradox. If it was, this would do more to explain the affinity and friendship which the Taoist Chuang Tzu felt for the sophist. But, whereas for Hui Shih his result is an abstract result of reasoning,� for Chuang Tzu it is a poctic expression for the human condition at the centre ofa whole hierarchy of unknowable infinitudes. The theses we have hitherto considered were all concerned \vith the notion of spa<.:c. \·Vhen we turn to the notion of time, his paradoxes are again of a kind that will naturally have amused a Taoist.
Them Ir
Whe:n the sun isat the: zenith, the sun at the same time declines. Athing is ali'-e and at the
Je book fChuang ::s,
at the
Igs now? that be
same time dying.
Shill seems to be thinking of the infinite divided n i to indivisibks in time: at the indivisible moment when the sun reaches the zenith it must also count as begin ning its decline. The moment of being in the zenith is part orits decline ifdecline is to stretch over morc than one indivisible moment. Similarly, the moment of death must be at the same time a pan ofa person's life. For Hui Shih these are theoretical consequences of his definitions of the infinitely great and the infinitely small. For Hui
, Than/( orYin ash I,'heth.,r this mean. that and 'aftn' apply oll!y within the [",,1m of things.
P. I�I.
th.,r" is no ·l>efore' or 'aft�r· the totality ofthin�. I.t., ·before'
, LilA 7�u, eh. 5, ed. Yang Po-ChUn. p. 92; c[ Graham (1960), p. 94. i • The Later �'1ohists carryon thl' debate n i ,.·hal pre.umably ,,-,., Hui Shih's sprit. Cf. Graham (1978), 873.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
the Taoist Chuang Tzu these results have a very different mystical appeal: for him it appears that the sophist by his formal methods independently arrives at results that coincide with his deep philosophical conclusions. Another paradox deliberately combines the �patial and the temporal dimension: Th�si.s Vll 1 go to Ytieh today and arrived yesterday.
Suppose I cross the border to Ytieh exactly at the moment where LOday and yes terday meet. Then I will have gone to Ytieh today and will all the same ha\'e arrived today, all depending upon under what day you count the moment I crossed the border. The moment, like that of death, belongs to both sides. It belongs both to yesterday and to today. I Aristotle ...vas of the opinion that the origin of philosophy was in the sense of wonder/amazement (thaumazesthai, 8auJ.t6.{w8u(). I find it not at all implausible that it was the amazement at paradoxes like those we have just surveyed which sparked off logical speculation in C hina) as indeed it probably did in Greece. Diogenes Laertius (+3rd century), the loquacious historiographer of philosophy, observed that the dialtktikan, T() 8�a"€KnK6J1 or 'dialectic' part of philosophy derived from Zeno the Eleatic who was well known for his paradoxes.2 In China, as in Greece, [he interest in pin! m 'disputation' was inspired by the discovery ofparadoxes. (2) KUNGSU:-< LUNG AND THE \VHITE H O RSE DIALOGUE3 Ofthe book KungsunLung Tzu 0mfm.:r only two chapters may plausibly be attributed
to the sophist Kungsun Lung 0m�� (c. -320 to c. -250): the essay on Meanings and Things (Chh i Wu Lun t�1o/J"M.H) and the \<\ihite Horse Dialogue (Pai .Ma Lun El ,�ffffijV The strong arguments A. C. Graham has lined up for considering the other chap ters as dating from the +4th to the +6th century has, in the Wcst, led to a neglect of these later parts of the Kungsun Lung Tzu as forgeries ever since. However, even as forgeries of the +4th to +6th centuries, also the remaining chapters deserve our close attention. We have an old commentary on the Kungsun Lung Tzu which is usually attributed to Hsieh Hsi-Shcn �it�� (+995 to +1039), but is very probably ofThang date.� A , For an alternative recent acooum ofchese paradox". cf. Reding (lgB5) which repre!�nts all intcresting effort to relate the paradoxes less to togic.al r�Aections than to the social and political realilic::s ofthe time. , Lives ojEmultnl Pfliump!lus 1.18. • Cf. VoL 2, pp. 18S-9. The pre�nt �ctioll tries 10 take acC.OUnl ofthe last 3j y<:ars ofr<:scarch on KUlIgsun Lung. Panicularly the works of A. C. Graham mentioned below ha , ... mmplctcly changed our views 011 the auth ntcity ofthe KlUl£sun Lung T?u and the nature ofKungsun I.UlIg'5 thought. • Graham (1986<::) ha.$ shown Ihis n:ry convincingl)' and in admirable philologiul detai1. Hi, mh"r ''''ry cru· cial conlTibutions to Ihe smdy of Kungsun Lung include Graham (1965), Graham (195.�) alld Graham (19iR), pp. +j7 69. It would obviouslybe tempting in lhe pr�.�m Sub-rection simply to S\lmmaru.: th" lal"", fmding! of A. C. Graham who has been working on this material for 23 years. BUI for such an authoritative summary the read�r is referred to Graham (1986b). , Graham (Review ofKou l'ao·koh, rophisltS ChiIlOU, in Journal ojO,unlal Sirldits, �, no. �,J\lly 1955) For thi$ commc::ntary see Kandel (1974).
e i
Dl.Ux
.
LANGUAGE AND L O C I C
ror him it suIts that
299
postface to the Kungsun Lung Tzu by Hsieh Hsi-Shen survives. There is another inter·
esting commentary by Fu Shan MLll (+1 607 to +1684), wrinen in almost colloquial
Chinese.' llenSlOn :
The modern Chinese literature on Kungsun Lung is considerablc.2 Since A. Forke (1902) drew attention to Kungsun Lung, there has also been a fair amount of work done in Western languages. !
and yes· � arrived
ssed the
, bmh to .sense of jble that sparked .jogenes bserved
Ofthe genuine works of Kungsun Lung, the potentially crucial essay on Mean· ings and Things has received a number of radically different interpretations which have one striking feature in common: they havc by and large failed to convince othcr students ofthe texl. The leading scholar ofKungsun Lung, A. C. Graham, is alone responsible for two radically distinct interpretations, and he remarks: 'There
are more rival interpretations ofthe Chih wu {un m1o/.J�� than ofany other document
in early Chinese philosophical literature.'� It is not my intention to add another interpretation at this point. Instead, I propose to turn to the \"'hite Horse Dialogue
which I do believe we can interpret with some confidence, although the intcrpreta· tion of this dialogue is, of course, also far from uncontroversial.
eel from
The text iflhe White Horse DiaLogue
-ece, the
The vVhire Horse Dialogue is our mOSt important source on Kungsun Lung's
thought. And the first problem one is faced with is ora textual nature. Recent inter· pretations ofthe White Horse Dialogue; have had this in common that they inter tributed ngsand
I��).� r chap. glect of even as lye our ributed late.� A mg dfnn Kungsun os
on the
''a)· cn!-
111 '1978), IKiings of
1IlM}' the
pret not the
texlus reuptus
as it has come down to us but a version ingeniously
reconstructed in Graham (1965) which involves, among other things, several major transpositions. Chinese scholars on the other hand have generally tried to understand the
receplus without
uxtus
such major textual surgery.1i One is tempted to follow current
\Vestern practice and interpret the tf"..xt as rearranged by A. C. Graham, but I shall aspire to prescnt a plausible interpretation of the dialogue ",hich resists the tempta tion to rearrange the text as it has come down to us.
A.
C. Graham has commented: 'It does not seem too presumptuous to say that
no one has yet proposed a reading of the dialogue as a consecutive demonstration , Sec Luan Hsing (19&"), p. 'Sfi, ror bibliugraphie detail.
, Chh;:11 Chu (1947), Than Chieh-F" ('957), l/su Fu-Kuan (,g66), Phang Phu (/979), Luan H'ing (T98�), WU
ll:i-Po (1984), pp_ 500--fi�8, ,md Ho Chhi-Min (1967) are woeful �nnOiated editions. Hu Tao-Ching (19�) remains an invaluable collection ofmaterial.
, E.g., Perleberg (1952), M�i (1953), Kou ('<j53), Kao and Obenchain (1<;175). Hansen (1983) and the dcci�iv� works reprinted (....ith wme additions) in Graham (1986a). pp_ 125-2'5. ) Including Ro:ding(1985) and Hansen (1983). • Graham (1986...), p. 2'0. , S�� Feng Yao-lI-·ling (/98s) fur an alt�mpted formalisation of the dialogue without rearranging if. Th� mO't recent interpretations inc1ud� Phang Phu ('974), !'han!! Phu (/979) and Chhil Chih-Chhing (/981). I have found especially useful Wu Fei-I'o ('98�), pp. 500--{)28, and the most thorough imerpretations, Luan H,ing {1982} and lin Chhi-l\lin (1967). Taken IOgether, these flOOks provid� exhau5tive bibliographic and biographic information On Kung.un Lung, andthey ''''1'collveniently lay 1I11t che sounc.. onwhich an interpr�tacion nfche Ku,,&SWI Lung 1�" will ha\� to \)(' based_ How�ver, nnne orthese book! take into account A. C. Graham', crudal conclusions on the :tIHhcntitity lIfth� v
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
300
which does nOt turn it into an improbable medley of gross fallacies and logical sub· detics." Certainly, on our ilH�rpn:talion Kungsun Lung will not emerge as a bril liant and always superbly coherent theoretician oflogic advancing OI1f� consecutive logical demonstration . Indeed, I do not find it historically pl ausible Ihat Kungsun Lung was such a theoretician. We must ask: VVhat kind of a person was Kungsun Lung and what kind of
discourse does the \-Vhite Horse Dialogue belong to? 'Vhat is its proper cultural context?
The social and historical context ifthe White Horse Dialogue Some scholars, notably Hng Yu-Ian and Janusz Chmielewski, have read rhe dia·
logue as sustained serious logical discourse by a theoretician. Others, from earliest
times onwards, have considered it a facetious piece of sophistry:l I believe that the Dialogue is both these things. I believe that Kungsun Lung (c. -320 to
c. -250), as
our earliest sources describe him, was indeed an intdleclUal entertainer at the court of tile Lord ofPhing-yiian. There were many entertainers at ancient Chinese courts displaying differen t skills or tricks. Ku ngsun Lung was one of these. His trick, his piece of entertain
ment, was of an intellectual kind. His showpiece or standard ploy was to declare that he could prove that a white horse was not a horse. He would declare that he
could meet any objections anyone could raise against this thesis. By an extraordin ary case ofserendipity,3 we still have an account that gives us quite a good idea of\he arguments Kungsun Lung was in the habit ofusing in defense ofhis the sis. I take the text we have today in lhe \-Vhite Horse Dialogue� as a demonstration of the sort of sophists' dialogue that Kungsun Lung would engage in." In the Dialogue, Kungsun Lung is supposed to successfully defend his plainly outrageous thesis against an opponent. Kungsun Lung's repenory was not limited to lhe thesis that a white horse is not a horse. Here is one ofmany other examples taken trom a sou rce roughly contempor
ary with Kungsun Lung:
KJlung Chhuan and Kungsun Lung disputed at the palace ofthe Lord ofPhing-yiian. They spoke with profundity and rhetorical skill (pien �). When they came to 'Tsang has three , Graham ('9116a), p. 193- By the was ther� � i nothing historir.alIy improbahle about a mixture oflogkal suh tlet�· and dcm"nraq' logical blundcl'5. The history of the modern logical int"rprctation and eritkisrn of Plato's dialogue� proves this point �yund all doubt. 1
Cf. Chou YUn-Chih (1981). , Mo.t dirctl evidenc" about early Chin",c 'sophiHry' comes from ,nuree. hosl;l.. tn Ihi. 'sophistry'. I\just 10 happ..ned that during the +:3rd and +-lm centuries, when a cenain intellectual flippancy was the f...,hion, somc· one still found accell 10 some genuine matera i l from the -3rd c;emtlry. • We also have the Dialogue nn �Icanings and Things, but this ""�ms to me w oc a docu m..nt fur which Iher� are many widdy different int�rprc\al;OD5. non� of which carry �"nviction: lihJanusz Chmi�bnki, I simply cannot pr�l"nd thai I can make sense oflh" text. , '1'1'0 .. suggestion tbal a philosophically m i ponant texl may ultimately invoke a jlippanl use 01 logic is by no mean� unh�ard ot: Plato's dialogue PaunLlIW,1 hal been n i terpr<:ted a'! a logical gam., rather than a ...riuus dialngu..,.
LANCUAGE AND L O G I C
b-
11-
ears', Kungsun Lung propounded lhe thesis failed to come up with an answer and left.
with great rhr.torical
skill.
Khung Chhunn
The next day, when Khung Chhuan came 10 coun, the Lord ofPhing-ytlan said to him:
'\Vha! Kungsun I,ung said yesterday was presented with great rhetorical skill.'
Khung Chhuan replied: 'Yes. He almost managed to make Tsang have three ears. He
may ha\"c been skilful, bm his case was a difficult one. May I ask you a question: That Tsang has three ears IS vcry hard to maintain, and it is that which is the wrong thesis. ThaI Tsang
has two cars is Ycry easy to maintain; il is that which is Ihe right thesis. Woul d you prefer to be right by taking the easy alternative or would you prefer to be wrong by taking the difficult
alternatiw·?'1
a t l< as n nt
Saying that the White Horse Dialogue belongs to a tradition of light-hearted entertainme:nt is not to imply that it is devoid of serious logical interest. For in the Dialogue Kungsun Lung shows a considerable interest in problems which we are inclined to say belong prope-rly to the philosophy of language. The Later Mohists argued dead seriously about logic. Kungsun Lung was not necessarily as seriously interested in logical problems as they were, although he delighted in using logic to prove unlikely conclusions. Let us look at the logical structure of his famous white: horse arguments in some detail.
,'" t<
, t<
'" ,f n
n a r-
v e
> -, •
•
, , •
The grammatIcal background In our Sub-section on definition and quotation marks we have noticed that the ancient Chinese had several syntactic devices available to them that come close to our quotation marks. These devict"s are an integral part of the Chinese grammati cal system, and like so many other grammatical markers they are optional: they can be omitted when the context permits without this affecting the meaning. Again, in our Sub-section on negation we have seen that the particlefti 1F in front of nominal predicates has two very distinct u�es as exemplified in the following two sentences:
t<.ufei wo T1�:fJt ;you arc not (the same as) me', B. t<.uftiyii T11=-ffA 'you ar� not (a case of) a fish'.
A
Against this background we can translate a sentence like pai mafii rna S,�1F'% along twO lines: A. "White horse' is not (the same as) 'horse'. B. A white horse is not (a case of) it horse. We note that the English "White horses are not horses' and 'A white horse is not a horse' are similarly open to two such opposing interpretations. Version B is, ofcourse, lht ordinary way in which one would understand pai mafti rna B .�1P�. But from lhe late first chapter and preface of the Kungsun Lun<� Tzu it , iii Shift ClrhUJ! Chhiu 18.5, ed. Chhen Chhi·Yu, p. 1I1l6; c( "·-,jh�lm (19211), p. 305.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
302
would appear that interpretation A was the one assumed by the authors quoted in
the preface to that book:
Kungsun Lung and Khung Chhuan oncc mct in Chao at the palace of the Lord ofPhing yi.ian. Khung Chhuan said: 'I haw long heard about your noble conduct, and I have want (""d to br.comr. your disciple. However, I cannot accept your thesis that a white horse is not a horse. Please rejecl this thesis, and I will beg to become your disciple:. , Kllngslln Lung replied: 'Your words are self-contradictory. The reason I have made a namr. Jor mysdfis none other than Ihis discourse on the white horse. Ifyou nm.... make me abandon this discourse, T have nothing to teach. '�vloreoYer, if one wishr.s to make someone one's master, Ihis is because oue's wisdom and learning is not up to his. Tfnowyou make me abandon my thesis, this would be first teaching me and thcn making me your master. First teaching someone and then making him into one"s master is self-colltradictory. Jvloreover, that "white horse" is not "hors(""" is precisely a thesis which Confucim advocated. 1 have heard it said that the King of Chhu was oncr. widding his bow Fan-jo with his (famous) \Vang-kui arrows. He was shooting at crocodiles and rbinoceroses in his (legendary) Ytin meng Park, when he lost an arrow. His mlllisters wr.re scrambling to collect the arrow, but the K.ing replied: "That i� not worth whik. Thr. king ofChhu has lost his arrow, and a man from Chhu (Chhujin 1!A) will find it. \Vhy go and look tor it? " \Vhen Confucius heard about this hr. commented: "The King ofChhu may be humane and Just. but he 1S not perfect yet. Surdy he should simply have said: '1\ man (jin A) has lost the arrow and a man (jin) will find it.' What reason is there to bring in the 'Chhu'? In this way ConfuclUs mack a distinction between Chhujbt 'a man ofChhu' and what is calledjill 'a man' Now to approvc Contilcius's distinguishing between Chhujen andjill but to disapprove of my distinguishingpai ma B,� "white horse" and ma,� "horse" is self-contradictory. " \Ve note that the story about Confucius and the arrow is also preserved in a pre Han text.2 Confucius suggests in this story that the King should have saidjen instead of Chhujell. \Ve note that the state of Chhu may be the place of origin of the Chhu man, but that piece ofland is in no way a proper part ofthe Chhu man. There is nothing to suggest that the ancient Chinese ever thought of anything as strange as the idea of a Chhu man consisting ofa piece ofland and a man. On the other hand, there is clear evidence in the preface that the construction
Chhujen i� construed sim
ilarly to pai rna. '
\Vhat the preface to our lext focuses on is the distinction between ' Chhujen' and
weijen prr'i;WA'" 'Chhujen' and j ' ell' an: not the same (just as pai rna and rna are not the same). There can be occasions \vhcrc one should use one expression rather than so
the other. That is the issue as it is understood in the preface to our text. And there is good reason
[0
think that our passages concerning Kungsun Lung and Khung
Chhuan are in the main afrre-Han origin ':l J KungsuflLuflg hu, eb. 1, �d. Lllan Hsing. P" 1 Ui Shih Chhun Chlriu Lie> �d. Chh�n Chhi-Yu. p. 44. A slightly latcr vcrsion is in Sima Yuan 14.7, �d. Chao
Shan-I. p. 390. , Se� Graham (I986a), p. Ji9. Khung Chhllan wa� a desc�nctilnt ofConflicilis. \\'c may slispect that lh� 'lory i, ofCon/i,rian Qrigin.
-
LANGUAGE AND
led in
Phing-
want
s not a
:tade a
Lkeme
neone
.um,
r.
First �O\'er, I haH"
LlllOUS)
" un-
)W, bm aman
LlrIlane las lost In this -djin 'a
LOGIC
Khung Chhuan's answer concerning the difference betweenjin A and
�A is elaborated in the book !tllung Tslwng Tzu fL�-T (c. +3rd century):
Chhujen
\Vhoever uses the word 'man (jen)', refers generally to men, just like anyone who uses the word 'horse (rna .%), refers generally to horses. Chhu is basically a state, and white is basical lya colour. If you want to refer more generally to men you must remove the 'Chhu'. Ifyou want to make SUfe ofcorrectly naming the colour you must nor remove the 'white (pai a)'. I This story and its elaboration in the
Mung Tslwng Tzu
take it to be Kungsun
Lung's argument that there was a difference between pai ma
t:L� and mao The rea
son why pai ma and ma arc diHerent is that pai rna involves being white plus being a
horse, whereas rna does not involve the combination oftwo such concepts.� This, of course, is and \vas a trivial point, but what makes it entertaining is that in stating it in Chinese as ;jJai mufti nw O,J0�p,%' one says something that will naturally be under stood along the lines of" the absurd statement ;a white horse is not a case of a horse'.
Pai mafei ma sounds as obviously untrue as Zeno's provocative daim (hat the flying arrow never moves. Kungsun Lung - like Zeno
became famous for being able to
give a plausible interpretation of an outrageously implausible statement, In this Kungsun Lung continues the line ofH ui Shih before him which we have discussed in the last Section. By demonstrating his trivial truth Kungsun Lung can manage to appear to demonstrate an outrageously untrue sentence, a paradox, to be true. 3 Kungsun Lung may, of course, have been misunderstood by those who compiled his book, by those who are quoted in its preface, and by the sources on \vhich the
Khung Tshung Tzu was based. However, I find no strong evidence that there was such
a misunderstanding in the dialogue or in other early sources. a
pre
n5tead Chhu
n.ere is
nge as hand,
'
71' and
U"e not
�r than
here is
i(hung
� Chao
Ihe story
Kungsun Lung ,vas, of course, widely criticised and misinterpreted as having said that a white horse does not count as a horse. Consider the following joke pre
served in many versions,1 some of which go back to the -3rd century. T quote a ver sion by Huan Than ffi� (-43 to +28):
Kungsun Lung kept arguing that a white horse Was not a horse, hut people would not agree with him. After this he rode a white horse and wanted to pass a customs point without a licence (enabling him to take a horse out). The customs official was unable to understand him (i.e., his subtle arguments that 'a white horse' IS not 'a horse'). This goes to show that empty words have a hard time removing facts.; I Khu,,!\ "I shuTlg Tzu 12, ed . SPTli; I , 7jb. In thi, cont�xtwe find the !hOllghl-prO\oking phrase i Chhujen.Jii.
pai rna eomi,t, of two semantically distinct pans wher�a, rna consi�t! only of one part. Being white pillS being " horse is nO! equal 10 b�ing a hor�e. Similar observatium "pply to Chhujen andjn i . Iking from Chhu ph,s bein.'l �
man is no! CqllallO being a man. , .:-Iote thaI il is equally tri,;al to .,ay that the Hying arrow at nu point in time move,: the arrow has obviously not got a chance to movc as long as w� only look at Ol1� point in timc. Zeno - lih Kungsun Lung - is guilty of playing on tedious trivialities. But like Kungmn Lung he isjustly famo us . , i\Iany version. orthe story ofKungsu!l Lung or wmeone else crossing a border riding a while horse are col, lecled in tlw txcdlent survey by Hu Tao-Ching (1934), pp. 16 18. , Hsin l.unv.�Il, ch. 9, in Wu Fei-l'o (1984), p. 597.
LA:'\' GUAGE A::-1"O L O G I C
Hc.;rc i t is plain that the common·sense way in which to take pai maJei m a B ,% �F,� was al ong the lines ;a white horse does not count as a horse'. This is obviously not what Kungsun Lung had in mind. I assume that Kungsun Lung, like everybody else, knew that the ordinary way one would take a sen tence like pai maIei ma is along the lines of the Customs official, or B. The skandalon was that Kungsun Lung insisted on taking the sentence -unnat· urally - along the lines of A On this morc technical interpretation the sentence turns Out to be plainly true. Thus a situation arises where Kungsun Lung can defend as plainly true a sentence which sounds plainly untrue. vVe must and can imab.-ine that such an intellectual stunt, such a piece of argu mentative acrobatics, had a certain entertainment value. 1 Together with riddles and puzzles it fits well into the court life of musicians, dwarfs and other entertainers of which we have much indirect evidence. At the same time Kungsun Lung's dia logue shows a very considerable interest in the techniques of formal argument as well as in what we would call the philosophy oflanguage. Unfortunately, what we have of Kungsun Lung's dialogue un the white horse is not a transcript of an actual discussion. Rather it seems to be a paradigmati c sum mary of the ways in which Kungsun Lung was prepared to argur. his outrageous thesis. None the less, this summary i s a unique piece ofdi rect evidr.nce on the argu mentative practice of the Chinese sophists. InterpretatIOn ofthe Whift Horst Dialogue I
A. Is it admissible that 'a white horse is not a horse (pai mafti ma a,��t:,�)'? B. It is admissible.
A. Why should this be so (ho lsai fiiJ�,)?2 B.
'Horse' is that by which we name the shape. 'White' is that by which we name [he colour. Naming the colour is not (the same as) naming the shape. Therdore I say ' "white horse" is nOl (the same as) "horse" (pai mafti ma a,��F�)'.
Kllllgsun Lung is asked whether a white horse is a horse and deliberately miscon strues this question as asking whether 'white horse' and ' horse' arc the same. Since 'white horse' also names the colour (besi des the substance (du'h �)),3 it cannot be the same as 'horse' which does not name the colour. The. argument at this point is 1 ' hasten to add that seen with mod�rn �)�. - Kungsun Lung'l sophism docs turn out to b� a bit of a lam� joke (to rut it mildly), a fairly straightfol"Vl'ard f:;"" "fan ambiguity explOited to C�i\!e a punk, �,lIOO year, ...!l�r Ih� ev�m (or ,hall W� say fJf'"ially for �orhiscir...l..d think..", - to try to r�ad into it mor., sophisticated thought! [hat "'ould make Kunlr.lun Lung a mo,t remarkably .uphinicaled logician treating the kings ofhis time to arguments ofa stutain.,d rr�"i,ion remn i ilCeU! ofcurrent analyticalphiloiophy. ? Kote that I/IJ fia; M� 'why on eanh?' is nO{ synon)1110US \,ith the hQ)'ti! fiiIth 'why?' liotcr in the dialogue, an importanl point which Graham (I!}86a) does nOI nOlk�. Comrar� Ih� diff�r.,nco: octween the simple question panicle lIu � H:nUS Ihe r.omhinalion h /sa; -'fffl: Ihat mak�s rhetori<::al questions. Such distinclions are impor Ilmt in ?ur cont�XI. The obj�<:lor s i not only aslcing the wollogical question 'why?', as Graham tak�s it- He i.
f'Xpre5llmg .urpnse.
I cr. t.1umg TsAu", 'ku. "h. II', cd. SrrK, p_ ija.
LANGUAGE AKD L O G I C
simple. The empiri cal question whethf:f in point of fact
white
"
... �
:e "
, lo I •
all horses happen to be
does nOl affect tht:: issue. I
Kungsun Lung's argument would be thoroughly boring if it did not have the effect ofp raving as dearly tflle something that appears to be clearly untrue. Note that similar obsen'alions call be made concerning the tricks ofmagicians less inte!· lcctual than Kungsun Lung. If you explain their techniques, there is nothing very exciting about what is happening. Similarly for a joke which loses its force when elaborately explain ed. The sophism, like its relatives, the puzzle, the j oke, and even the magician's crick, lives and thrives on a surprise effect. Once that dement arsur p rise is gone, they lo�e their living force. This, however, does not mean they never really had such force.
II A. But if one has a white horse one cannot be said not to hayc a horse; and ir one cannot be �aid not to h ave (l horse, how can (what one has) not be a horse? (In other words) ir h aving a white horse counts as having a horse, why should the white one not be a horse?
•
objector A comes up w ith a common·sense objection: supposing that a horse was not a horse, th en ifyou have a white horse, one would have to say white you don't have a horse. But clearly you do have a horse when you have a white horse. Therefore, by modus toilens, ' a whit e horse is not a horse' cannot be true, i.e., a white horse must be a horSt;, \Ve shall see that the technique of modus (uliens. or if one prefers of reductio ad absurdum, is a standard device used in our dialogue. The
B.
Ir someone is looking for a horse, you can olTer him a brovro or a black horse. Ir(on the other hand) he is looking for a white horse, you cannot after him a brown or a black
that 'white horse' was nothing other� than 'horse ' . Then what he would be looking for would be the same thing. And ifwhat he is looking for was th� i same thing, then the whit� one would not b� different from 'a horse'. But if what he s looking for (in those two cases or'white hone' versus 'hors�') was the same, why should it be that the brown and black horses were acceptable in one case but not in the other? It is evident that the admissible and the inadmissible arc not the same as each other. horse. Supposing (now)
Therefore. since a black or brown horse remains the same, but since one can answer that there is 'horse' and cannot answer that there is 'white horse', this means that the thesis that a white horse is not a horse is (;ondusi,"dy demonstrated true.
The reply,
again, is plain enough in outline: looking for a white horse is not the same as looking for a horse toul simple. However, if'while horse' was nothing other than 'horse', then looking for a white horse would be the same as looking for a horse. Therefore. by modus toUms or reductio ad absurdum he concludes that it cannot be true that 'white horse' is the �ame as 'horse'. lfil war true, u nacceptable conse· quenccs would follow. I KOle thalpai B 'whilc' and rna .� ·horsc· are nO! lh� lame sort of thing. Ma 'fixes' " thin)!:.pai doe. nOI, to usc KUnglUn I.ung·' phrase. � Graham (1986b) mm,lau:s nai n with quite unrhatdncri'lic vagueness as ·aft�r all' .
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
The sophist goes o n to usc yet another argumelll by modus tollen.f. Supposing now, he argues, that what the two are looking for were one and the same thing, then it should not make a difference whether you come up with a brown or a black horse in either case. But it does make a difference. Therefore, by modus tolll'TlJ, it cannot be true that they are looking for the same thing. There is another logical technique in the sophist's arguments which is of special interest to the historian oflogic: he seems to apply something like Leibniz's law of identity which says that ifX and Yare idelllical, one must be able to substitute them for each other in any sentence, saLua uerilllte, without this affecting the truth or other wis/'; of the sentence involved. Thus the sophist reasons that if 'white horse' was the same as ' horse ', then 'I am looking for a white horse' should be true under exactly the same circumstances as 'I am looking for a horse'. But this is not so. Therefore, 'white horse' and 'horse' cannot be the same. I vVhy does the sophist change tht': example from 'having a white horse' to 'seeking a white horse'? Here again, it looks as if something logically quite subtle may be going on. For 'have an X' counts as what analytical philosophers call an extensional context, whereas 'seek an X' creates an intensional context in the relevant sense. The relevant basic idea behind this distinction between extensional and intensional contexts is not hard to explain. If! have a certain horse, and vvithout my knowing about it this horse is deaf, then in every sense of the word I do 'have a deafhorse'. If, on the other hand, I am looking ror a certain horse, and without my knowing it this horse happens to be deaf, then - in one psychological sense of 'look for' - I am not looking for a deaf horse, i.e., my mental attitude is not towards a horse under tht: description 'deaf horse'. After all, I do not know that the horse is deaf. 'Looking for white horses' is no more 'looking for horses' than 'looking for black swans' is 'looking for swans'. On the other hand it is perfectly true that 'having a white swan' is indeed 'having a swan'. When the sophist changes the example from 'having a white horse' to 'seeking a white horse', I cannot hdp feeling that he had a perc.eption of this subtle logical difference between 'having' and 'seeking' . III A. You are considering a horse Ihal ha� a colour not to be a horse. But il is not the- case that there are colourless horses in the world. Then (by your argument) lhere would be no horses in the: world. Is that admissible? Again, the objection is plain enough. If coloured horses are not horses, then, since there are only coloured horses in the world, there would be no horses in the world. But there plainly are horses in the world. Therefore, by modus tolfens or reductio ad absurdum, it cannot be true that coloured horses - and particularly white horses - are not horses. , Thispoint is wcU made n i Feng Yan-Ming (19h:j).
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
B.
Horses cenainly have colour. That is why there are white horses. Ifhorses had no colour, there would (o nly) be horses plain and simple. How could one then pick out white horses? Therefore' 'white' is not the same as 'horse'. " Vhite horse' is 'horse' combined
with 'white'. But 'horse' combined with 'white' is not (the same as) 'horse'.1 Therefore I maintain : 'a white horse' is not 'a horse'.
Here one might al6rst sight construe 'horse combined with white' as a combina· tion ofparts in a whole. But the sophist says that horses have colour. He does not say that colours have horses. There is no symmetry between 'white' and 'horse'. They are not construed as parts of the same order. Still, one can say that WHITE. HORSE is
composed of the parts WHITE plus HORSE. One can then go on to say that WHITE plus HOR!;E does not equal H O R S E . 3 That is what the sophist does. The sophist does not deny the common·sense point of view that horses have colour, or that there are such things as white horses. But in picking out the white ones from among horses, he claims, one acts on the assumption that indeed 'white ' is not the same as 'horse', and that ',,,hite horse' is not the same
as 'horse '
either. Here the sophist uses the rather sublle argumentative device of showing that the conclusion he wishes to demonstrate is actually implicit in what his opponent is say·
ing. This is again only possible because Kungsun Lung deliberately insisu on can· struing the sentence pai mafii ma
S}!!;?Fm differently from his opponent.
On hindsight we are tempted to say that the opponent might easily have won the contest by simply calling the bluff and explaining that the sophist is putting a very special interpretation on the sentencepai mafii mawhich is not the generally accept· ed one. However, it is not quite so easy to imagine what an opponent could have said in Classical Chinese to call that particular bluf[4
I Because une pick.:! 01.11 by this criterion. , I follow\\'U Fei·Po (1984), p. .'i38, who und�rstamls)i'h -tl2. a.1 a IOlm word for the question partic\t)'eh Jl;!l. From handbooks on Chinese panic\c$ il rnay aJ?pear lhalJeh is u�d as a loan word lor Ihe que.nion partide.rffl in mark�d question, tiL: lui i dUll ckhijtJlIflk �j.:)Jlllt�tI1 'how do we 1m()\\.' this is so?', and thaI it is new:r used in ""un Chhw. lO.j we findyu i ho chi i kuo chill. r;huyell. unmark�d question.. This im ression is mistaken. In Lii Shih C p Chin u'I>jti eM; cilu)til li"-!!m� - �z. 3::t!! • 4":m��;tt::ltl! 'He \\'ho controb a whol� Slale i.. the ruler OfUlIlt Slate. )low am I nOl iLl rulcr," Chhen Chhi·Yu(198.,), p. 56:\, nme ,6, remarks Ihat ',he CMun CMiu often u�esyh forJfh'. AnOlher enlirely convincing ..xample ofth" use ofyth for)·th in unmarked qUf:sliom win be found in liiSilik CIrJUIII CMiu 9.3, cd. Chhen Chhi·Yu, p. 490, line 12, and n i C/UIII Kill) TJhc, ed. Chu ·1"lu·Keng, p. 326, line 7, holh ufwhkh are dialogue pa.ssages. [t seems a!mu�l maiidOUI lhal \\'C should find this usage in a logical wnteXI. An crTClr by a 51:r;bc who WaS'101 following the argumelll propnl)' ,eems not unlikely. , Whil� pgm i ent and the biulogicll.l kaIUrt�� thaI makc up a hone could perhaps be m i agined 10 be pam of on" whole white hor�, although this wuuld involve cunsiderable biulogical and logiraJ abstraction, which I see no reason to attribute 10 the an"ienl Chines.:. Bm, a� we han� nOled earlier in Ihis Section, when it comes [0 a Chhu man, then Ihe Slale urChhu can hy no �tretch ufthe intelleClual m i aginalion he construed a, literally a part oronc whole Chhu man. Kot �"en 'Chhu·i,hness' can b" said to 1><: a proper pan ofa Chhu man. For one (:an be born in Chhu, and ther�fon, a Chhu man, but actually by upbringing, language, el(:., a Chhi man, as Ihe an(:iem Chin,,�were well aware. , Of cuurse, un our interpretation Khung Chhuan doc! hring outlhc point in the preface to Ill" Kwtgsun Lwrg Ti:;u, and the Khu1l11 "[jhu1l11 J �u, ch. I I, quoted lIbovc, does c1aborau· the point. But neither ofthese sources have com"enicllt simpl.. phrases like 'is not identical wilh X' wnus 'is lIot a cas� of an X' to mark the erudal logical dirrerene�.
Lii Shh i
308 IV
A.
If'horse'
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
not yet i n combination with 'white counts as 'horse', and if'white' not yet in
combination with 'horse' counts as 'white', then when we put together 'white' and 'horse' to make 3 combim:d term 'white horse', we gin: names that are OUi of combina tion to things that are in combination,
and that is not quite admissible. Therefore I say
that 'a white horse is not a horse' is not quite admissible.
f\ow the objector abruptly shifts from common-sense objection to accusing the sophist of maintaining an inherently inconsistent philosophical position . Whereas until now the objector maintained the point of view of general common sense
against the artificialities of theorizing, he now shO\\'s quite a subtle perception ofthe sophist's point of view. It is as
if wc are now witnessing one sophist arguing against
another. What is the namre of the obj ec tor's oqjection? He objects to Kungsun Lung's treating 'white' and 'horse' in construction with each other as if thcy had the same
reference B m). They change (pitn
reference as they have separately. But they clearly do not have the same inside and outside the construction 'wh ite horse' (pai ma
�) when they are used in one syntactic construction, we might say, echoing a chap
ter ofthe Kungsun Lung u.u which is not genuine, but which, after all, may in mrn be echoing earlier logical reflections.
How, then, does 'whitt' change when it enters the construction 'white horse'? It refers no longer to the things that are white but only to the white things that are horses. How does 'horse' chan ge when it enters the construction with 'white'? It refers no longer to the things that are horses but only to the horses that are white. Thus the obje ctor points out that construing the combination 'white horse' as the sum of things that are white and things that arc horses is not quite justified. Such a \\lay of taking the construction would make anything white (also things that are not horses) as well as any horse (also horses that are not white) count as 'white horses'.
As 1 understand the objector's argument, he claims that the sophist's proposed
analyses rest on such an interpretation orthe combination 'white horse' . This inter pre tation is plainly incorrect. Therefore, by modus wilens the sophist's analyses can not be correct. B. Since you consider 'having a whi te horse' is 'having a horse', does this mean that 'having
A.
a horse" count!i as 'having a brown horse'? Is that admissible? It is not quite admissible.
The sophist rcfuses to tackle the objection directly. He jU.
The sophist argues his point by going back to
the objector 's original submission
that 'having a white horse' means 'having a horse' and pointing out that while 'having a white horse' entails 'having a horse', 'having a horse' does not conversely , With Than Chieh-Fu, I omit tile pai 'white' in from ofmd 'horse'. Without this emclld�tion thelinkwith the
rl'ply become, incomprehensible.
LA:'-lGUAGE AND L O G I C 1m nd ,.
entail 'having a white horse'. Since h e L<> interpreting the sentence
B .�:;1F.% s)'TIlmetrically as
poi maJd rna
' ''a white horse" is not (the same as) "a horse"', this
asymmetry in the entailment is clearly crucial lo his case.
")'
B. ''''hen you make a distinction between 'having a horse' and 'having a brown horse', you are making a distinction between 'brown horse ' and 'horse', Since you make a distinc
he
�ame as) 'horse'. To consider 'brown horse' as not (the same as) 'horse' , and to consider
as 50
De .,
t'S 1<
:e m >'"
tion between 'brown horse' and 'horse', then 'brown horse' must count as not being (the
that in the case of 'white horsp,' you ha\'(: I (the same as) a 'hone'. that is (like the saying) 'flying things mo\"c in a pond, inner and Outer coffins change places'. These are the mOst contradictory words and the most confused formulations.
Having established that the objector makes a distinction between 'brown horse' and 'horse', the sophist simply points out that when one makes su(.;h a distinction between
X and Y, then X cannot be said to be (the same as) T, and if this argument
works for 'brown horse' and 'horse', it must, by analogy, also work for 'white horse' and 'horse' if one is to avoid inconsistency. The sophist gives a triumphandy flowery rhetorical picture
of the inconsistency
in which he feels the objector would involve himself. The stylistic flourish is rather important, because it shows that the dialogue as we
have it is not entirely thought of as an algf"braic disputation but as related to a real situation at court where an objector is trying to show that the sophist cannot main tai.n his outrageous thesis. The difference with the Mohist logical texts is striking: it seems that the later Mohists operated and wrote in a purely scientific milieu where e a ,
l
such rhetorical flourishes would have been out ofplace.
V B. 'If one has a white horse, one cannot be said not to have a horse' means that one separ ates offthe white' . If the white is not separated off, then having a white hors e one can '
not be said to have a horse_ Therefore, as regards the reason why one counts as having a horse, it is exclusively because of(the word) 'horse' that one counts as having a horse. It is not because of (the expression) 'white horse' that onc counts as having a horse. Therefore 'counting as having a horse' cannOt refer to any (particular) sort ofhorse.
Now the sophist launches into a longish final monologue in two parts. He
explains why the objection that 'If one has a white horse, one cannot be said not to
have a horse' does not prove that (in his sense) " 'white horse" is "horse" '. By separ ating off the 'white' we understand that he has a horse, Kungsun Lung argues, but this does not commit us to the thesis that ' "white horse" is "horse" '. Kungsun Lung contends that by disregarding the 'white' and focusing on the 'horse' one is said to 'have a horse' when one 'has a white horse' Thus, he claims, the inference is not _
from 'white horse' to 'horse' but from 'horse' to 'horse'. The validity of this infer ence does not imply that 'white horse' is the same as 'horse'. -
I I regard theJb B 'there is' n i the text as an i�rtion for the sake ofsupcrfidal paralldism wilhJn# not be'. The opposite orJnwould, perbaps, be expected to be but that would in this in�tance have gi,·eIl an unat tractive .equence 11..". wei �A in which the twO uris lIrP I k�n as synonymous.
u·(j?::!" ..
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Having spoken of the separ ating off of 'while') Kungsun Lung nO\v goes on to
focu� on the difference between the two things that are separated off from each other. B
(continues):1 'Wllite' docs not fix thai which it declares while. That which it declares while may be left out ofaccount. In 'white horse', when one says 'while', one fixes what one declares white. That which fIxes what one declares white is not (the same as) the 'white'. 'Horse' docs not reject or pick out with resprct to colour. That is why one can come up with a brown or black horse (when asked to point out a horse). ""'hite horse' does reject and pick out with respect to colour. Brown and black horses arc all rejected on the grounds of colour. Therefore one can only come up with white horses (when asked to point out a white hone) . �ow that which rej ects something is not (the same as) that which does not reject it. That is why T say 'a white horse' i� not 'a horst',
Quite properl); the dialogue ends with the victor concluding with his main thesis. This is indeed a very plausible and natural end to a dialogue concerned with one main thesis. In his concluding dialogue the sop hist discusses the terms 'white' and 'horse' sep arately and in combination. He di stinguishes between a word like ma .� w hich fixes som ething, and a word like pai which does not fix anything in that way. Compare
B
the following passage from a possibly +3rd-century source:
Naming the colour first and thereafter the substance (chih Ji). that is something that applies to all things, and it is a practice which the sages have consistently rollowed.2 That which would fix w hat is declared white i� a word for a substance (chih) like
'horse', as in 'white horse'. This is important evidence on early Chinese grammati cal sensibilities, but we hasten to add that Kungsun Lung himself never uses the
term chih 'substance' . What we have here is an early Chinese attempt at an explana tion ofwhat is going on in the White Horse paradox. Kungsun Lung then simply goes on to expound his interpretation ofthe paradox pai mafei ma B'%�F,% in the context ofwhat these terms pick out and do not pick oUl L Th")'Uth B at the beginning ofthi, clam� dnes n(l1 introduce a new speaker but a n�w 'equ�nee by the same ipeak�f and i� therefore troubksomc. Phaog Phu (I!)U.), p. t6, surmises Ihal)"lth is a "Titing mistake for the graphically sm i ilar i ):X A. C. Graham takes thc)iieh as d�ar evidellre for a maj or dislocation, tramposing the final s�quence ofthe dialogue to a pnjition after no. 9 of the original text. H<Jw�v�r, in ANn" Tzu 2AI.4,)iieh is tran.latahl� hy '�Iencius COntil11l�d'. Cf. ab<J Ii Chi, "'Clion Than Kung t'iI: �, ed. Couvreur (19sa). 'in] I, p. �J I for another neal eXampi" nfsequence of)'ii,h imroducing the ,am� 'p�aker. In Chua11& 7i;u 22.61 and 63 W� lind a similar cale of a dialogue whieh �nds with two seqllenccs by the supposed �ictor: there the same speaker i, evrn named twice, and alto ill that Ca�r h� fini�hes oth dialogue wilh a longi,h monologue. The presem case dilf�n from the parallels in Mi718 7i;w amI Chuanl!, 7{u T�feTred to abow in that th� .�ahrs in our KU7l8suli Lung 7i;u text ar� not named and in Ih�\ there art thrr�)jj'h "ith the sam,;, speaker in a row. It look.. as ifthe editor oflhe dialogue had added what he had by way ofextra enmmrnts byIhe sophin al this point. However we a.k� t thefl,h, and whether we rearran�e Ihe text or not, wc must lake Ihi, p�ge to represent Kung-.un Lung's <Jpinion. Thi. much " uncontrtn'Cnii1l. : Mung uhung 7i;u, ch. 12, ed. SPTK, I, 75a. )lOtt that this rar .. ..xampl� ora sylllaclic rule make';1 dear Ihat /la; 'whit�' and 1IW 'horse' are nm perceived as being ofthe Umr ordp.r. One ofthem is a substance (chin i'i). the nth..r is not.
LANGUAGE AND IeS
on to
)m each dedares ixes what Ie as) the r one can ite horse' I rt:jected n (when
ill thesis.
parts of reality, expounding his original position. The text ofKungsun Lung makes reasonably good sense as it stands and does not need textual surgery to become interpretable as an important document in the his
tory of early Chinese logic.
On this view, then, the comp iler ofthe Kungsun Lung Tzu
has not fundamentally misunderstood the sophist, and neither have his early critics. His was indeed
a somewhat flippant interest in argumentation for the purpose of
creating entenaining: puzzles. It is for the subtlety of argumentative ski l l which Kung:mn Lung deployed that he deserves an important place in Chinese intellectual history.
ApPE:-
THE ?\-[ASS NOUN HYPOTHESIS AND THE
PART-WHOLE ANALYSIS OF THE "VHlTE HORSE DiALOGUE
The
\'Vhite Horse Dialogue is among the most widely discussed documents in
Chinese intellectual
history.
I shall at this point add a few comments on two of
rse'
sep ich fixes
the most recent interpretations. The first of these,
ompare
proper phi l osophical background.
It applies
;/rib) lik.
lm
mati
uses the xpl
ana-
311
from reality. He thus contrasts the way in which 'white horse' and 'horse' pick out
reject it.
vith one
LOGIC
C.
Hansen (1983) is of a certain
interest from a methodological poinl of vicw, and his work must be seen against its The logician \\:. V O. Quine, in perhaps the most famous part ofhis most widely
read book
f¥ord and Object, maintains that in some ways we may attribute to others
different and mutually
contradictory structures
of thought without risking ever
being refuted by any evidence from their speech. Quine takcs
as his example the hypothetical 'native' word gauagai 'rabbit', and shows that without risk of being refuted onc can attribute to a people a notion not of an enduring entity but only of rabbity time-slices. Another alternative is to attribute to the native a notion not of a rabbit as such but only of all and sundry undetached rabbit parts. He then continues:
)aradox pick out ,the lame Ike for Ih..
posing Ih..
_ Kung � 111: speak�r.
t$Upposed • a longish ill that the �er ina sophist :n fl:preSCIII ckar Ihal Ii if). Ihe
A further alternative likewise compatible with the same old stimulus meaning (or the word gavagai) is to take 'gavagai' as a singular t('Tm naming the fusion, in Goodman's sense, of all rabbits: that single though discontinuous portion ofthc spatiotemporal world that consists of rabbits. Thus even the distinction between general and singular terms is independent or stimulus meaning. I Hansen attributes what Quine reconstructs as the notion of a
fusion to the ancient Chinese - with the difference,
spatio-temporal admittedly, that the Chinese
talk not of a rabbit but a horse:
Then the question, 'Of what is rna "horse" the name?' has a natural answer: the mereo logical set of horses. 'Horse-stuff' is thus an object (substance or thing-kind) scattered in space-time. . . . As a result, Chinese theories of language tend to treat adjectives as terms denoting mass substantives; for example, red is the stuff that covers apples and the sl..-y at sun�et.� I
Quill" (H�6g), p. 52.
?
Hanse" (1983). p. 35. Hansen dtw'& acknowledge hii d�bt to Quin...
312
LA::-JCUAGE A ::-l" D L O G I C
The thought of a mereological set consisting of apples and skies at sunset scat tered through space and time is perhaps a formally and physically feasible con struct, since the great mathematician Stanislaw Lesniewski developed his vcry abstract and complex theory ofmereology (thus introducing and defining the tech nical term 'mereological set' which Hansen employs), and since Einstein has been able to establish a relationship between space and time. However, I find nothing in traditional Chinese literature that remotely suggests that the ancient Chinese ever thought of anything like Lesniewski's mereology, or of apples and evening skies as one object scattered through time and space. In any case, Hansen does not provide any of the necessary detailed philological evidence to prove that the Chinese did think in this \vay. \Ve note that reactions to Hansen's suggestion vary considerably. A. C. Graham writes: Chad Hansen in hi� wn/I,ua/i( and logic in ancient China has opened the first radically !lew approach to the '\Vhite Horse', II is an application of his hypothesis that Classical Chinese nouns filllctionlike the mass nouns rather than he t count nouns orInda-European languages.] \Vc start from one: ofHaosC'n's crucial insights, that thinking with mass nouns is in terms ofwholc: and part ofwhich what for us are cla�s and member are only one variety.2 A. C. Graham explicitly takes the mass noun hypothesis as his starting-point for a new interpretation of the \Vhite Horse Dialogue. But for all his enthusiasm Graham wisely avoids the attribution of the notion of a mereological set to the anCIent Chinese when he writes: But ifhe (i.e., Kungsun Lung) is thinking ofhorse as a mass with discontinuous parts similar in shape, and of white as a mass of discontinuous patches of colour, then for him a white horse is indeed a part of the former mass combined with part of the latter.] Let us call Graham's interpretation the part-whole interpretation of the White Horse Dialogue as opposed to Hansen's mereological interpretation. In view of A. C. Graham's reticence about the concepts of a 'mereological set' and 'object', we can perhaps try to avoid attributing to Kungsun Lung such notions as that ofsin gle objects scattered through space and time and still save the essence of the part-whole interpretation for which Graham argues so eloquently. Perhaps we can take the much simpler line that Kungsun Lung treated terms like pai B 'white' and rna ,% 'horse' as mass terms without thereby anachronistically envisaging an object consisting of all white patches or horsey stuff past, present and future scattered through space and time forming one single whole.
The mass noun hypothesis \\ie know that 'information' is a count noun in French, German, Danish, Norwe gian , Russian and many other languages, but not in English. What most languages •
Graham (lg86a),p.196.
' Ibid., p. 199.
' Ibid., p. 19i.
3'3
LANGUAGE AKD L O G I C
u
refer to as 'countables' or c:ount nouns, may in some languages b e referred to as
D-
'non·countables' or non-c;ount nouns.
ry h-
Sir Thomas Malory, It Mode D'Arthllrwc hear of'many evidences of the contrary'. 1
m
language have ocen a count noun.
en
"" as
de lid un
ew "" ,.' rru
for sm
the
The English word 'evidence' is not today a COllnt noun, but in the introduction to
What in a given language is a nOIl-t:Qum noun may well at an earlier stage of that Now one can imagine a language structured in such a way that it treats physical objens as �'lodern English rather than earlier English 'evidence' treats evidence,
and as the English rather [han the French 'information' treats information. If
Classical Chinese were such a language, then we should read the Classical Chinese
Ijen -)\.
O N E MAN
as 'one of mankind' or san ma ..:::. � THREE HORSE as 'three of
horse-kind' even when there is no measure word 0ike phi 12.f 'horse-like ilem of') between sail
=- THRE.E
rna
and
nouns of the same order as
HORSE. One would thus treatjin and rna as mass
shih 1t
'food' and
,rhui *
'w
ater' . � Let us call such a
hypothesis about Classical Chinese nouns the mass noun hypothesis, and let us note that this mass noun hypothesis does not involve Lesniewski or the advanced mathe matical notion ofmereology. A. C. Graham claims that inquire whether
rna
rna should be interpreted as a mass term. He does not
'horse' behaves syntactically differently from other common
shnlg tt 'domestic animal', not to speak of proper ChungNi 1�fE 'Confucius' and pro-nouns like tzhu at 'this item'. i\mong
nouns like shui 'water' or like nouns like
the common nouns the question ofa grammatical distinction between count nouns,
generic nouns, and mass nouns in Classical Chines!:: certainly needs careful atten
ilar lit�
tion before we are entitled to decide whethe-r rna m is a mass noun or not. Let us try
to identifY provisionally some of the diagnostic syntactic environments that might
bring out into tht: open any grammatical distinction that might exist benveen count lite ,
nouns, generic nouns and mass nouns in Classical Chinese.
of
ct',
(I) Cvuntnoun.r
an the :an md �ct red
It turns out that count nouns may not only be quantified by tv � 'much/many' and
shav j./ 'little/few' but also by shu � 'a number of', kv � 'each ' , chien :;lf! 'each of the
objects', rnei m ·every'. Mass nouns are never quantified by shu, ko, chien or mel, and
when they are counted by ordinary numbt:rs, the semantics of counting is entirely different (e.g., 'three kind.r ofwine' , as we shall see below).
If we study the scope of quantifIers like
ko, chim, mei and shu we can make an shu 'a number of'
extensive list of count nouns in Classical Chmese. Let us take
which is frequent with measure phrases. Measure phrases are count nouns. We welles
havc shujih
t!l E!
'a number of days'1 shu)'ueh
ti.,r::J
'a number of months' ,.\ shu nien
I I.e., e\'id"n,:� 10 the effect th"i King Anlulf was a real historical person. Ed.Janct Cowen, Penguin Engli�h l.ibrary, Harmondswonh 1969, p. 4. I lf�n&i<1{1I32.j7.12. . J disregardlh�meaning'ri....r'forJhlli *. ' Han Fri r.1I 30.49.'l.
LANGUAGE A:-ID
LOGIC
1Z1f. ' a number of years' 1 or shujen i:IW 'a number ofjcn-kngths' / shu chhiht'J.R 'a number offeet'.-1 However, we also have the common shu hang�ff 'a number of WINS (of tears)" shujen �A 'a number of people"I pu /ruo shujen /fillitzA 'no more than a few people'," tzhu shu tZtl llt 11& r 'these several men',c' tdlU shu wu llt lZ:'W 'these several things',' chih shu thi�iZ� 'these sevcral limbs',u shu kuei shenft�:.fiP 'the several ghosts and spirits',9 shupaijen �sA 'several hundreds ofpeople', 10 t:chu shu chieh lltiZiW 'these several accomplishments', I I Izhu shu kuo llt�� 'these sever al states', 12 shih shu chii �i9:'& 'these several tools' /' shu khou chih chia lZ 0 �* 'a home of a number ofpersons', 1 1 shu shih �iit 'a number ofgenerations'. 11 Huan idf, 'disaster' turns out to be a count noun because \vc have 'Izhu shu huan lltti:,1�, 'these several disasters', but we also have chhi huan t,f, 'seven kinds of dis astrous behaviour' ,16 Huan is thus used both generically, and as a count noun. Some nouns are used both as mass nouns and as count nouns, Thus we have 'a number of units ofmoney" 7 in spite of the fact that chin :& is also
shu chin �:3l:
often used as a mass noun meaning 'metal'. This, I think, is simply a case oflexical ambiguity.
ChM � 'cart' is sometimes used as a classifier indicating a eontainer- measure: Ie chM shu sMng 1�lI!tt* GET CART A-NUMBER-OF ITEMS 'get a number of carts'.IR \Ve can also count them like ordinary count nouns with an itemising classifier: ko i (hke san pai la ng :$ -* .=:. S :1jWj WAR-CHARIOTS THREE HUNDRED VEHIC ULAR ITEMS 'three hundred war chariots', 19 not: san pai liang ko chM - sm:$$, One 'a cart-load'. As a count noun meaning 'cart' it can in turn be counted with shu:
might at first sight suspect that the complexity of the phrase may be a motive for
chhe i sheug �-* VEHICLE i chM shi sheng chih Chhm .L.') J¥ + "* � *
the choice of this construction. But we regularly have ONE VEHICULAR-ITEM 'one chariot',20
WITH VEHICLE TEN VEHICULAR-ITE)'I GO-TO CHHIN 'go to Chhin with ten
chariots'.21
Some count nouns are naturally counted in pairs, for example ko Iii wu liang :;¥;,�
E. �
FIVE PAIR KO-SHOE 'five pairs of dolichos shoes'Y Others are counted in
L Ly.n}"ii7.'7. ' Lun Yii 19.23. ' Aieng 7i..u 7B3+ • ,\ling Tr..u 2B2. Cf. r;·o Chuan, Duke C hau 8, ed. Legge, p. 621, line 5. , Tio Glwan, Duke Ai 12, cd. Legge, p. B36, line 10. ' Chuung u.u 8.21 ' Chuang T�uz3.14. Lao Tr..u Chi" P�n Chli'an Hou Ku I Shu Shih IPn�TEj3*�{&t.'tt."'X p. "lh, bamboo strip no. .�18. Hall Fei T�u 30'::19..). Mo Tzu 31 ..'i8. 31.60, :1' .73. " Hsii� Tz.u 7.9, �d. liang Ch'i-hsiung, p. 6g. ,\/fng u.u 1""3. " Hslin u.u 15.36. 1) Hsiin U.1I 16.67. " Tso Chuan, Duke Hsiang 31. Hsi 33, ed. Legg�,p. 222, line 12 'lpa$Jim. ,. Chuang U.u20.38andMQ'Tzu5.J. " Chuang Tzu' ':-l9· " Chuang Tzu 32.2:{; d. \\'at50n ([964), p. 356 who translat�5; 'four or fi\"" carriage,' Chhl :$: 'cam' ar� \"�ry frequently count�d with th� it�mi.,,,r "hing ?\t throughout pr�-Chhin IiteralUr�. ,. Ming Tzu 7B4; cf. also 3B4 and 7B34. " Tso Glman, Duke Chheng IB.z; d. CumTeur (195Ib), \"ul. 2, p. 167. Cf. also Shu; Hu 7i Chhin AI" Ch" Chim ffil1t!t!'j;.�t111il p. j8 elpas$im, for examples ofilcmizcd couilling wilh postposed number phrase. " Lii Shih Chhun Chhiu 12.5, ed. Chhen Chhi-Yu, p. 64!. " Shih ChIng 10[.2. Karlgr�n ([9;>0), p. 65. mi5Constfues this as 'the dolichos �ho�.' w�r� fiv� pairs', failing to notice the rules go'·erning the position of individual counting phra�es in Classical Chin"s� with which we are here concerned. '0
11
315
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
R 'a
�r of
nore
t'l�
*1$
' l
*
'a
fours: hsi ilia ehhtn i SSll � ,�T� TIE HORSE 1,000 QUADRUPLETS 'one thousand teams offour horses'. I With count nouns like rna ,� we find a construction like rna san phi ,�=-Q!" HORSE THREE iTEMS 'three horses',� but never san phi rna -l?I,� THREE ITEM HORSE. Vv'e have chhi wan phi �;m;Q!" C AVALRY MAN TEN-THOUSA)[D ITEM 'ten thousand caval rymen? but neve,r TEN-THOUSAND ITE:'>I CAVALRYMAN, \Ve have ko chung erh ssu �iI=:I): MUSICAL HELL TWO SET-ITEM 'two sets ofmusical bells', \ but never n\'o SET-ITEM MUSICAL-HELL!' \,Ve have common constructions like yu rna ehhien ssu f:j,�T� HAVE HoRSE 1,000 QUADRUPLETS 'have onf' thousand teams of lOUT horses cach',u},u ma irh shih shingB,�=+� HAVE HORSE TWICE TE� CARRIAGE (-TEAM) 'have (\venty carriage-teams ofhorses' . 7 "Vhen ("ount nouns are counted by itemising (or set-identifying) classifiers, the number phrase always comes after the
ha...e
s also :..xical
main noun in Classical Chinese.
I have found dozens of examples of this, and not a
single one v....hen.� the itemising classifier comes before the main noun. Container ('ma:ss') classifiers like pei
fi� 'cup' , on the other hand, can fredy occur
in front oflhe main noun, as in ipclShui-ff* OI\""E !Sure:
mu: Ii !J'lS' , 18
ier: ko
tLAR
_
One
ye for :lICLE
::' W
!h ten
I :gllii!
led in
\l8.
as we shall see below.
The count noun jtn
A
CUP "·lATER 'one cup ofwater',
'man , person, individual' may serve as an itemising
classifier, as when 'Shun had five ministers' is expressed by Confucius
as Shunyu Chia
ehhrn wujin �li�1i.A SHUN HAD MIXISTER FIVE INDIVIDUAL." (Compare
hsiao wei)'ing liu ehhih,yu ma i phi EfJ/J'*1a"t\R. ffP.;-Q!" 'When X was less than six chllil! tall, he had one horse' .'l) Cases of this sort where jin may be construed as an
itemising classifier for humans arc very common, and the number phrase always
e.g. , },ung shih ijen ,Jj ±- A VALIANT KNIGHT ONE //lei chhieli (Til shihjin ��= +A B EAUT I FUL CONCUBINE TWENTY INDIVIDUAL 'twenty beautiful concubi nes' , " ),u eMieh irhjin li�=A. HAVE CO)[CUBI).lE TWO I.:'>lDIViDUAL 'he had (\vo concubines'/! yu ttu sanjin :AT=-A HAVE S O N THR EE I;-JDIVIDUAL 'have three sons','3 We also have slightly more complex structurc:s like this: tsl!ung li wupaijin i .fltang Ut�1iEA B ...t ATTEXDANT O FF IC IAL FIVE HUNDRED ABOVE 'more than five hundred attendant officials' ." In the newly discovered law texts oflhe -3rd century we read nil tzu ijen tang nan t.z.U ijin frf--A. g-�T- A ·WOMAN ONE PERSO� CORRE SPOND·TO MA." OKE l'ERSO)[ 'one woman is reckoned as equivalent lO one man' ,15 comes after the main noun,
INDIVIDUAL 'one courageous knight', If)
, A1ir"(�U.�A7.
, cr. 1sv Chua!!, Dub· Chuang 18, for the phrare mu ian phi .�=�. Compar� al$O Duke Hsuan 2, cd. Cou,"rcur (t9)lb),,"oJ. I, p. 5°5, for 1Lir> milp�isJu:xM£ F I VII, again wilh th� pmtposition oflhc tiassifin , Chan Kuo TJh;, no. 393. �d. Chu T.u-K"ng, p. 1364. I find a similar cunslrut:tion n i I ti. nu �T, eh. 6, ed. Li
a. CllitR
(;ailing 10
;;b we arc
Shuo-Chih and Wang Shih-Chin, p. Wi. I -no Cilunn, Duke Hsiang 11.10; cf. Co uvr ..ur (1951b). '·ol. �, p. 27+. , For delalls 5ee Wang Li (1958), PI'. 240f.. as w..11 as Cikoski (I!HO), PI'.
rOlf.
' Lun 1ii 16.12. ' "fJo CilIUl/l,Du ke HsiaIl1Z 22;ed . ....1{.1I; . .. P. 4!H, line I8. • Lun 11i8.20. • ShuiHrr1i CMinMu Ch" Chint elit ��� I"rIO!, p.2IH . " Chum'i: ·�u5.' 1. Hlin FriT","" �2.31.2. II HlIn F,i hu35.Zj. '),d-: i8.7.19. " HOIrNi'T.:uH.l3.P. . " IVei Lioo nu I"{�T 24. ed. ChungCh",n-Hua, p. n. Shu! Hu 1i CMin,\1" Chu Chim 1I!l!t1trt!!.�.t'JM, p. 7J. There arc "-'\-"ral ,imilar in!tal1ce� on the preceding t.
t.,
pag".
LANGUAGE A N D L O G I C
(Note the 'suffix' tzu T here) which would seem to be limitcd to Count nouns as it spreads in the language.) The point aboutjen 'man' being used as a classifier is par· ticularly useful in our context, since it is so common and alwqys comes q/terthe noun counted. Not all count nouns are countable by classifiers: for example the nounjen 'man, individual' itselfis very often counted, but never with a classifier, and neither is sheng � 'carriage', pu ti7 'pace' or any of the nouns obviously referring to measures, quantities or units of any kind. We have the count noun)'tn § 'word, sentence' l which is counted, but never with a classifier, versus the more general}'ii � 'talk', which is rarely, ifat all, eounted.l There is ample scope for further subcategorisa tion of Classical Chinese count nouns. For our present purposf"s the present rough first orientation must suffice.
(2) Generic nouns Consider the following pairs of Classical Chinese words: I. niao � (count noun) 'bird', vcrsus cMu if (generic noun) 'domestic animal'. 2. wang.x (count noun) 'king' versus sMngtt (generic noun) 'domestic animal'. 3. jen A (count noun) 'man' versus min � (generic noun) 'common people'.3
Unlike count nouns, generic nouns are never modified by shu 12: 'a number of'. Like count nouns, but unlike mass nouns, generic nouns can be modified by chhiin tlf 'the whole flock/ crowd/lot of', chu � 'the various', chung � 'all the many', wan 1l 'the tcn thousand, i.e., all the various', pai B 'the one hundrcd, i.e., all the', etc. We have chung min }fi£; 'the many people',� shu min �i£; 'the numerous people'," and wan min t§tN 'the ten thousand people (never: ten thousand common individu· a1s)' ,6 chao min Jt...5: 'the innumerable people'.i Generic nouns are never counted with classifiers in the manner ofmass nouns with container classifiers (ipeishui �ff *- 'one cup ofwater'YI or in the manner of count nouns with itemising classifiers (ma san phi ,�=-lZ!; 'three horses'),' They thus constitute a proper subcategory ofnouns in their own right. , Cf. Chan li.UQ Tslu, ed. Chu l)l1-Kpng, p. -l,75, wh�re Sall)'1n means 'thr�p word,'. Ssum� Chhicn speaks ofthe TM Tl Chillg i!1t!i& consi,ting of wu ,hhit�Jt1I IiT !f 'fi'·e thOUiiand ["hara<;tcN' (Shih Chi. ch. 6:,. ed. Taki!!,'a,,"a,
6; d: al50 ibid., p. 16). }<-II �u Ch)wll Ch!till �T�fj: 6.16, ed. Wu Tse-Yil. p. 407, u.\�� Janjell -=-� to me"'ll 'three sentences', similarly for Hall Shi!t IVai ChUll1I 2,9, ed. HSii Wei-Yil, p. 4[. J The di.ninction between count noun! and mas.. nouns n i Classical ChineN', like that between ergali"" and non-ergative verbs, d�T\�� a detailed treatment in iu. own right. Against Ihe badr.ground ofsuch a detail"d study the hypothesili lhat Chine51': nOUn.' are mass nOun5 may appearin a n�w light, , l\ote thaI mill � is nOI a <:o1I"Cli"" noun for a cert.lin prople;fa/l m;II }l� (MfI'l r..UiAIO) means '\'Ulg;>rpeopic', not 'a common people. ' Ming Tzu IA2 tlpassim, , MinS 'T.::� 7A�. ' Kuo Iii, ed. World Book Co., p. 405. , Kuo lu, �d. World Book Co., p. 282; Han Fd '{":.u . 8.4.22. , This �omtruclion ",ill Ix discussed below under th" h�"ding mass nO\!llS. • Tht' apparent counter example. TIo ChUlln Duk� l\fin 2.7 (cd. Yang Po-Chtln, p. 2h7 line I), turns om to be 'purious. Cf. also Couvreur ('9.,)Jb), vol. J , p. 2�'. p.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
is shing
The semantics ofcounting is different in generic nouns and in count nouns. Tdlu liujen chiJ1t7\A:t" me:ans 'these: six individuals (or people)', I whereas a little further on in the same text i::.hu liu min cheJlt7\�1f means 'these six kinds ofpeople'.2 Wu min .Ei.�, again, are 'five kinds ofpeople'3 and certainly not five individuals oflower rank. SS/l min [9 � are explained as 'the four categories of people'.4 I min -� is mostly a verb-object phrase meaning 'unify the people'. When i min is nominal, it
casu res,
means 'one population' or 'the whole population'.5 The standard expression for
urn as it
"T IS par
he noun m 'man, .r
nlenec'l
'one commoner' is not i min but iJII -7;: 6 This is what the phrase means in Chia 1, Hsin ShU.' ljen -A, on the other hand, means 'one person'.11 Jm A 'individuals'
egonsa
are very often counted, and as far as I can see they are never counted generically as
18 'talk',
u rough
Jal' . ' nal
,
.
ther of'.
by chhiin ' ny . won :be', e tc.
xople',5 nd.ividu counted
hui-ff' diers (ma >fnouns
ICakJ urIbe TiligJ....a.
& lom�an rpli--C and l :;t delailed
rolgarpro-
aoullobc
.
so-and-so many 'kinds of persons'. On the other hand I seem to be unabJe to find
min � 'commoner' ever counted as such, except by unspecific numbers such as won � 'the tt.:n thousand'.9 Liu wong J::. X must mean 'six kings', and /iu ma 7\ m will normally mean 'six horses', whereas wu sheng .litt must mean '(the) five kinds ofdomestic animals' and fiu ehhu 1\� must mean 'six kinds of domestic animals' . 1 1} Already Cheng Hsiian �l( (+127 to +200) defines chiu I 1L� of Lun Yii 9.14 not as nine individual barbarians but as tungfong chih i,yu chiu chung -*.15 ��l[1Lf!i 'the I-barbarians of the East ofwhich there are nine kinds'. Similarly wu Ti.li1k has to mean 'the five kinds cif Ti-barbarians',jusl as ssu I [9� in Mbtg Tzu IA7 are 'the five kinds cifI-barbarians', since Ti 1*: 'Ti-barbarian' and l � 'I-barbarian' are genenc nouns:
The three principal ministers (jail kung =£-) h'e re in front ofthe middle stairs . . . As for the
states of the various earls (chu po ,hih kuo �fBZIiiJ), they were positioned [Q the West of the Wt""stern stairs. . . . As for the state of the �ine (kinds of) I-barbarians (chw 1 chill kllO fL�Z
[@),t' they were positioned outside the Eastern Gate . .
.
. As for the states of the Eight (kinds
of) Man-barbarians (pa Ala/l dlih kuo )\�Z�), they were positioned outside the Southern , Han &i 1{uH·�.7 andH·f 2 . We Ill"\� tV!uhkfo! lIt=.A. 'thesoe two individuals' (Han Fri nu 1�.5.+), Idw !QII jin lit =-A 'Ihese t.hr�e individual.,' (Han Fti Ti..u '+7.i2). , HilI! Pt" IZu 46.1.19 and ibid., 46.1.:-19. l Shang ('Mitl Shu, �h. 6, cd. Kao Heng, p. 66. , li"uo 1Ii, ed. World Book Co., p. 101; d. also Shu Cllilll. ed. ugge, Cllin.s, Citusics, vol. 3, p. ;'30. $ K llun u.1l, ed. TaiWang, \"01. ,:, p. 911, lioe 3, and MhI& 1{1l2AI. (\"Olt Ihat in Milll Ull i min-� isquantified hy moPN ;ct1' and can therefore nOI be taktn 10 mean ·one humhle �r$on'. l..r:gge (18i':), p . .'Jt8, constn.!es this gummalically correed)·: "There was tlOl one ofall th.. people whu was nOI his ,ubject.' , ·no ChlUln, Duke Hsi 15.5, �d . Yang r<.>-�hiin, p. 355 ,tpm:sim. , Ed. Qj Yuzhang, p. 10H, but in Ihe parall�l ShllO Han 1.6, ed. Chao Shan-I, p. 4, "d. H,ian.s: Tsung-Lu, p. 5, we ha,·e an in"tance of i min m�aning 'a single conunoner·. followed by a slrictly paralltl ijm -A 'one penon·. II would be •
inttresting to in\"est.iga� Whtlhcr ami whtn Ih" U.5agc became currtm.
s"e, e.g., Han Fti nIl 8.7.30, '5. 1.';13 and '10.20.3.
? Th� case of dthin � (count nuun) 'minister' v�rsus Ii � (gen eric noun) 'official' is �'peciall)" interesting and punling. 1{hu ukt Hsiang 2j}. Howe"er, I ha,.., found one iwlated n i stance where in fact Ii is u� iI5 a count noun. In lii SIIill CMu" eMi" 18.8 w� find "'0 officials first mentioned fil ii all}in J!'=A OHU;IAlS TWO "If::>!, and thtn in t.h.. end Wt hear thal Irk Ii =It!. 'Ihe two officials' made a report.. One needs t.o study whelher Ii is really ambiguous between " generic noun and a count noun reading, or whether Ihis inSta,,�� i� just a Stray case motivated by tilt -,peeial COnt�xt. !n any Ca,� wu chhin 1i � apparently never ha.lhat generic reading. ,. H�n &i 1{u3i.13.-t-.'). Cf. also • , ."u sMngiitE. 'the five domeuic animals' (Han&i u.u 31.13.39). " Cf. /lall/Vi T�1l22.25.i.
-
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
. . . As for the states orthe Six (kinds of)Jung-barbariam (liuJung dlih kuQ 1\�Z�), Five (kinds of) Ti-barbarians (wu Tichih kuo Ji1:k��), they were positioned outside the i\onhern Gate. 1 Gale.
they were positioned outside the Western Gatc. . . . A� for thr �Iates or the
len A 'man' and min � 'common people' (as well as h'�) aU refer to humans. But these words refer to humans in radically different \\fays. A/in and Ii are generic nouns which are counte d only generically, not by individuals. Jen is an ordinary count noun. The distinction bctwccn count nouns and generic nouns in Classical Chinese deserves to be studied in more detail.
(3) Mass nouns Compare the following pairs: 1. tan .1l (count noun) 'basket' versusjou I�J (mass noun) 'meat'. sllll 1M (count noun) 'tree' versus hsm Wr (mass noun) 'firewood ' . 3. fu 1f (count noun) 'axe' versus tMelt � (mass no un) ' iron' . 2.
With mass nouns like shui *- we regularly find container classifiers which are designations of containers: i pei ShUl -:ffJ]( ONE CUP WATER 'one cup of water' / i pltiaoyin --'.l1� ONE LADLE DRINK 'one ladleful of drink' , ' i Itu chiu -�ilN ONE POT WINE 'one pot ofwine',I i tan .rltilt -ll1t O)lE BASKET FOOD ' on e basket ful offood' /' i cMuh chin -�:fm OKE BOX BROCADE 'one box oforocade'/' i chhihsin -lfiir Of';E CART FIREWOOD 'on e cart-load of firewood'! \·Ye also find other measuring but not itemizing classifiers: iku thieh -9.la ONE KU-�IEASURE O F IROK 'one I.:u of iron',R .rhih .fhu h.un +*Fr TE)I BUNDLE FIREWOOD 'ten bundles of fire wood'," iping kon -ffiW O::>lE HA.....mFUL STRAW 'one handful ofstraw'. 10 I suppose one should be able to say i chhijtn -1l!.A. 'a cartload ofpeople' or the like, but for some reason I have not been able to find good examples ofthis kind. If! found such a case, I would be inclined to insist that this syntactic frame converts the COUIlt noun int o a mass noun,just as a negation wu m converts a pronoun WQ ft into a verb, as in wu wo mft. 'he avoide d be ing self-centred '. I I In spite ofexamples ofthis sort i1 remains useful and important 10 think of wo as a pronoun which under cer tain special circumstances comes to take on a verbal function. \'Ye have passages like this: He takf':s one plate of meat (i loujou -R�) and feed� the knights with the rest.'.( lfyou taste one piece ofmeat (i luanjou -JF]�), you know llle taste ofthe whole pot and the flavour ofthe whole tripod. I J Shu Ku-Yang took a beakr.r ofwine (i shall/i (hiu-/Nmi) and offered it up. I ..
I Li Chi, ed. S. COllvreur, \"01. I, pp. 7251T.
T If
cour
S, bein
grail
l1Ya! jou 1 dose
is ·1� It
But
COUl
II
Chil unci alth, mal!
In f nou
Eng
refe-
T
cide phi r.
\\ min : T him: b�, gram
·nota
k inds
, Min& ·T<:1I 6A18. ;\'ote that in ISU .>kui l!9* '[he four riV<.:r�' we ha\'� a dilTerelLl l�xical meaninK of�hui*. , 1....11 11' 6.11 . i =�iD" 'l""O polS ofwim:. • Kuo 1ii, "d. Ku Chi, p. 635· In Ih" sam" COnleXI WI: also find h-kku (hll • T"" Chuan, Duk" Chao [3; rf. Cou\T(ur (195Ib), 1'01. 3, p. 229. , an Iii 6.11.
...
, AIm: �u 6,\I8. For further e."rumpl M'e Cikoski (197\)), pp. 10111: Tso Clrllllll, Duke Chao 29, fu); cf. COll\TeUT (195,b), �-.;ol. 3, P. +56. • C/uJang 7:..114.85. I I a1l1u9+ 'Q TsO C/rUIIII,DllkI:Chao27+ " !IIYl Fti nu,34.7.2-f;cf. Lillo(1919), P.90. " 1-* Shih Chit.", Chkill 15.8, I:d. Chh�n Chhi-Yu, p. 935. l< flail F ti nu 10.2.,. I
Chin
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
!!Ol), of) te.!
BUl
me
,ary
ieal
are tr',2 �ii"i ket
luin
the;
itO)1
fire-
' the . IfI ,the mto
"this
cer-
and
"I'here may be no explicit number in this sort of construction: If you leave goblets ofwinc and platters of mc:at (chih chiu toujou m:il'li.fl_�) in the: inner court . Some mass nouns frequently occur with fixed numbers, the most well-known being wu kuIif}: 'five kinds of grain'. J leu -ti means 'one kind of (not: corn of) grain'.� San ChlU ':::@i :' means 'three kinds (not: bottles or measures) ofwine')� ssuyin [gtiX means 'fouT kinds of drinkables' (not: 'three individual portions of drink'),4 wu JOu 1i� 'the five kinds (not: portions) ofmeat'," wu tu lim means 'five kinds (not: doses) of poison' ," wu chhi Ji*'. 'the five kinds (not: portions) of ether', 7 liu chhi 1\*" is 'the six kinds (not: portions) of ether'.R It is perfectly true that chhi *' illustrates the usefulness ofthe mass noun analysis. But this is because cMi, in sharp and clear contrast to the count noun rna ,% is not a count noun. The exact classification of cMi remains a problem to be investigated. \Ve conclude that there is a reasonably clear grammatical distinction in Classical Chinese between count nouns, generic nouns and mass nouns. It remains entirely unclear in what sense rna 'horse' can be classified as a mass noun (like shih jt 'food'), although in point offact I have come upon a single isolated and late instance where rna is indeed used gcncrically.�
Theproblem ifthe plural In English, as in many other languages, the opposition mass noun versus count noun affects the semantics of the plural. 'Horse') unlike 'tea', is a count noun in English. 'Horses' refers to several mdividual horses. 'Teas' is much rarer and would refer to several kinds of tea. This difference is essential. The post-Classical rise of Chinese plural morphemes (or suffixes) roughly coin cides with the emergence ofthe pre-nominal itemizing classifiers like phi � as in san phi rna ':='Qf,� THREE ITEM H O R S E 'three horses':IH When \Vang Tzu-Shm was a few years old, he was once watching his father's pupils (chu men !iheng�F�£) play . The pupils (men shengpei F��fI), not showing any respect for him as a small child, said to hi.m: . . . 1 1 L Han Fei 1?� 34.29.3; d. Liao (1939), vol. 2, p. 113. Cf. al,o "lio Chuan, Duh Ai 7.4, shu chin 5I<:i1I 'bundl�! of brocade'; Jvling 1?u 1A7,)'ii hsin �'f# 'a cartload"s wonh of firewood'. We note here an isolated n i stance in the grammaticallY\'�0' idiosyncratic Kung 1angcomm�ntary (Duke Hsi 33): phi ma ,hill lun wufan cMJ:lI.lt!l!"MI�R� 'not a singl� hors� or a singl� whed return�d'. , Kuan Tzu, �d. WnVK: vol. :J, p. 91. Cf. also Ku [.ian!!. Chuan, Duke Hsiang 2f.'3, wn� ku � is CO\lnt�d by kinek , Chou Ii, eh. �, �d. Lin Yin, p. 49. • Ibid. , Kuan 1?u, cd. Tai Wang, vol. 2,p. 75, line B. £ Cho�Li, eh. 2, "d. LinYin, p. 47. , ChouLi, ch. �, cd. Lin Yin, p. 46; cf. abo Ho Kllan Tzu, e!t. Tu �HIn, ed. u..uHili, p. 42. , Tso Chuml, Duke Chao I; Kuo Fii, �d. World Book Co., p. 96; Chuang 1?u 1.21, 11.46, 11.47; Kuan Tzu, ed. Tai Wang, '·01. �, p. ,6. , Chou Li, "d. Lin Yin, p. 3:19. W If .mch da��ifi"rs had he�n obligatory or at lea5t common in Classical Chines�, (he int�rpre(ation of Chinese COunt nouns as rna" nouns might at l�ast hav� had som� initial plausihility. , I Shih Shuo Hsin Yt/. j.5,), cd. Yang Yung, p. 259.: cf. I\Iather (19iG), p. 17G.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
320
'My little boys (i,e., his nephew, HSiian, and his younger brother, Shih) have inflictrd a crush ing defeal on lhe invader (hsiao hI!pei faplIO Isci IJ\ RJ'f2nM:l1tX:)." Such use of plural suffixes seems uncomfortable for a mass noun anaiysls of the ifmen sheng F�� 'student' is a mass noun meaning 'student nouns so modified. For . kind', its plural for m
(men sheng pei)
should presumably come to mean 'student
kinds', 'kinds of students'. Exactly similar observations apply to Imao ;rh IJ\5t, little
boy'.
Parls and wholes A pan-whole interpretation of the notion rna m, 'horse' would seem to be doomed
to failure because it either has to introduce an anachronistic mathemalical con
struct (the concept of one spatia-temporally discontinuous object, the horsey mass), or because there is no whole and therefore no horsey part. For the notion of a part docs not seem to make sense without that of a whole. It is of the essence of a part to be a part of a whole.
A comparison with English \vill bring out our point. Compare the mass noun lug gage or the mass noun lea. \Vhen we usc the mass noun luggage, we are not thereby explicitly or implicitly committed in any way to an ontology ofsome giant luggage like mass-like whole consisting of all manner ofluggage past, present and future as proper parts. If one asks 'Please make me a cup of tea' (in Chinese or in English), one is not committed to an ontology of a discontinuous sea of tea scattered through space and time, ofwhich one wishes to obtain a certain part. A cup of tea may properly only be called a part of that mass of tea which is in the tea-pot, although logicians like Lesniewski would have us think of both the cup ortea and the pot of tea (as well as the tea-cups and the tea-pots) as a proper part of some very abstract object consist ing of all manner of tea (tea-cups and tea-pots) past present and future. On the other hand, when one is asking for a cup of tea, one is simply contemplating the /)0.1sibility of some more tea being brought into existence for one's benefit. In no sense is one asking for something conceived as actually existing in an over-arching time space dimension. One imagines that this cup of tea may never come into existence, but one is presumably hoping that it will. If, on the other hand, we completely give up the notion of a horsey whole and of horsey parts, and if \ve simply cling to the central idea that the Chinese always thought of horses as a 'stufT-kind' (and presumably of vegetation rather than of plants, of offspring rather than of children), then such an at:count is directly refuted by the above preliminary survey of the neat grammatical contrasts bet\veen count nouns, generic nouns and mass nouns \vhich shows that the Chinese did make a
, f
reasonably clear overt grammatical difference between names of kinds of stuff, names of kinds of objects, and names of individual objects. J Shih SllUv Hsin li'i G,3j, "d. Yang Yung, p, 286; cf: '.lather (1976), p. '9�,
,
321
LAKGUAGE AND L O G I C
The oiJjection tha t lhe distinction between mass nouns and other nouns is not always dear in Classical Chinese for all nouns, and that thert"" are many ambiguous
-the
ent
ent
.ittle
cases, carries no weight at all. It applics \vith equal force to languages like English
where the division benveen count nouns and non-count nouns is recognised as grammatically basic "
Compare the use of'analysis' in the following dialogue:
'Do you like lhis analysis?' 'No, I don't like analysis.'1 None of this directly affects the possibility of interpreting pai ma
med
con
rus),
part
1ft to
1
lug
'reby :age Ie as
advocated by Kungsun Lung. The aggregate of 'white' and 'horse' is taken by Kungsun Lung not to be 'horse'. If we detach Graham's interpretation from the untenable mass noun hypothesis which he espouses we can still attribute to Kungsun Lung the view that the aggregate whole
The crucial poinl lhat then remains is lhatpai B and ma constitute parts of very different types and that the relation between these is by no means symmetrical. In any case, however we arc to understand the \"'hite Horse Dialogue, if Kungsun Lung's aim in writing it was to construct a logically stimulating intellectu
al teaser, we can all cheerfully agree that he has succeeded.
�and
i
like
ell as
nsist
n
the
e pos
nse 1S
time
ence,
Indof
lways
an
of
{uled
count
lake a
' Sniff,
(pm rna) is not (identical with) its
constituent part (ma �).
s not
llybe
B� as a whole
consisting of one part 'while' and another part 'horse', which I take to be explicitly
(3)
Hsijl\" Tzu's 15r
LOGIC
Hsiin Tzu's essay o n The Right Use of Names is the most coherent and sustained discursive survey of the problems of logic that has come down to us
from ancient
Chinese times. In expounding Hsiin Tzu's logical thoughts we shall do best to fol low his own exposition, adding our OW11 explanatory remarks where appropriate.'! Hsiin Tzu viewed linguistic conventions as a historical phenomenon and as a social institution. He distinguished benveen those conventions introduced by decree (the legal terminology of the Shang court, the administrative terminology of the Chou court) and the miscellaneous terms
(san ming Tfl:i!J) which he also saw as
fixed by kings, but where the kings based themselves on various local customs.
\Vhen the later kings established (chheng pt) names, the names for punishment were derived from the Shang; the name:s for ranks of nobility were derived from the Chou; and the cultural names (we'n millg ;<:1;) were derived from the (books of) ritual. Now as for the sundry names (san ming) applied to (chia 1111) the \"arious obj ects, these were haphazardly agreed upon in accordance with the established habits oflhe Chinese people. Using these names, people from dislant regions and ofdifferent habits could communicate with each other (thung�).·1 .
, Quirk rf al. (Igilj) ,,,c1ion S .h .Noun.. wilh dual da.,.. membmhip, p. �47. , There "re a Humber ortramlaliom orlh� dmpt�r on Th� Right U,,, orNam�' (DuyHmJak (1924\ Duh, (192B), )'lei (1951), KOSier (19G7), alld W,mo!l (1963)). j\"one orthese ,erve the needs or ollr present "n"lpis. We rerer the reader to the most conveniently available modern tr"-nsl"tioTl by Burt,,!] \\'alSO!l. , Hsii'l U:U '.2. T; cf. Walson (1963), p. 139.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
HsOn Tzu already recognises the Chinese language a s a linguafranca, a kind of Chinese kotne'common language' which was standardised to make communication possible between different regions. HsOn Tzu's interest in language (and logic) was primarily social: he thought that by managing the names (chili ming *0 is) the ruler could ensure that names were fixed and realities distinguished (correspondingly). The aim of the institution and managing of names, then, was bringmg unity and proper organisation to the peopJe. Sorting out reality by means of names was sub sidiary to that. HsOn Tzu thought that the correct managing of names would lead to a Sprachregelung 'regulated discourse' ""here everybody, through speech and action, would articulate the principles inculcated through the managing ofnames (chih ming *U1S), through the correct use of names (cheng ming lE.fJ). HsOn Tzu felt he lived in an age of decline from a golden past, but he does not simply look to the golden age for a remedy. He writes: If a king deserving of that title rises to power, he is bound to follow old names in some cases and to make new ones in other cases. I
HsOn Tzu then dearly states the three main directions of his inquiries into names: Consequently, the purpose (so wei .PfT�) of names, the reasons why we treat things as different or the same, and the crucial points in the management of names (chih ming chili shu )'aoitiJ:gZli.�) musl be properly iIlvestigated.�
Each ofthese three areas is treated in his opening section. Let us take the purpose
of names first. This purpose turns out to be practical rather than theoretical: If the distinction between noble and base will become unclear, and men will not discrimin ate properly between things that ar� th� same and those that are different, then their inten tions will inevitably not be properly communicated and understood, and undertakings will inevitably be plagued with difficulty and failure. For this reason the wise man is careful to set up the proper distinctions and to institute names so that they pomt to (the proper) realities. In this way he makes clear the distinction between noble and base and discriminates prop erly between things that are the same and those that arc different. Ifthis is done, there will be no danger that the ruler's intentions will be improperly communicated and understood, and his undertakings will suffer no difficulties or failure. This is the purpose of names. 3
Hsiin Tzu focuses on the need for a common human internal structure of repre sentation ifwe are to distinguish between things and communicate about them: On what basis do we treat things as different or as the same? On the basis of the senses. For all people ofthe same kind or of the same essential make-up (chhing'\'R) the senses will repre sent (i�) things in the same way. Therefore, by comparing and assessing things men com monly agree on names and thus fix them for the future (chhi Wi) for each other. I I H1iin J;;u 22.!!; cf. Watson(!g63), p. !4!. H,iin ·ZZU 22.,S; ct: 'Watson (!963), p. 141.
j
, lI.'iin T:.UQQ.!2; d: Wat50n (!gb3),P' !41. • Ihiin T;.u ��" 5; cf Wat5011 ('96.�},p. '42.
LA�GUAGE A�D L O G I C
rind of btion ic) was e ruler lingly). tyand is subI to a
lCtlon,
tjh ming
lCS not Ie cases
:s inta mgs as
rJrih slm .t.rpase
T'he mind, as opposed to the senses, has discriminative knowledge (ching chill
;;tm). The mind
(min {,-) ha�
discriminative knowledge
(cheng chih). In the case of discriminative It is acceptable
knowledge it is acceptable that one knows sounds on the basis of one's ears.
that one knows shapes on the basis of one's eyes. But for discriminative lrnowledge to be
acceptable it must necessarily depend upon direct contact ofthe senses (/hienkuan ��) with
the kind in question. The Five Senses come in contact with things but do not lrnow. If the mind discriminatively assesses these things (ching chih M:�f1) and comes up with no explana tion, then everyone will call rhis ignorance. So much for the question of how we ueat things
as different or as the same. 1 We turn to the third question Hslin Tzu has promised ta answer: what are the
crucial things in the management of names? Then only (afier taking eyidenee from the senses) do we give names (ming ::S) to things.
If
things are the same, we u�e the same name. Tfthey are dilTerent, we use different nam�s.�
Hsun Tzu formulates a principle ofeconomy: use complex names only when this is necessary in order to be understood.
If a single (non-composite) name is sufficient to make onesclfunderstood, then we usc a single name. Ifa simple name is not sufficient to make oneself understood, one uses a com· posite name. \Vhen the simple name and the composite name are compatible with each other (wu su hsiang pi 1m:Ffrfllllf), lhen one uses the general (simple) term. Even with the general term {kung 0) there will be no contradiction. To know that different objects have different names, and therefore cause every different object to have a different name, to avoid confusion, is no better than causing every different
:nnun
object to have thC" same name.3
' lllIen-
Hsiin Tzu is aware that in some cases we fail ta distinguish different things but actually refer to all things indiscriminately:
:alities.
Therefore the myriad things may be many, but sometimes we \\·ish to pick out all of them (Phien ,hii chin jj!llZ), and then we call them 'thin�'. 'Things' is a comprehensive general term (ta kung mingyh*01Slli). \,Ve push (ihuei 1E) and generalise, and we go on generalis
19S v..ill 11 to set J prop :re
will
ntood, "
repre m' Ie$.
For
repre n com-
ing until we cannot generalise any more: only thcn do we stop. Sometimes wt' wish to pick out only some but not other items (phien chii chih). Then we call something a bird or a beast. 'Bird' and 'beast' are comprehensive specific terms (to p�h
ming)'eh *�U�iB). \\'e push on (thuei) and specify, and we go on specifying until we cannot specify any more: only then do we stop.� Names have their reference not inherently but by convention: Kames are not inherently appropriate
(ku i [j'f}:§:). We give
names by establishing a con
,"ention. When the convention is settled and a habit is formed, we call a name 'appropriate'
and we call it 'inappropriate' when it is at variance \"ith the convention. :\ames do not , Hsiill T;;.u 22,'9; cC. WlIuon (1963). p. '4'l. ' HJim QUI!2.1!1; cf. WlIuon (1963), p. 143. ' HlIm T�u2V.l3; cr. W,moll( 1 963), pp. i.nf.
' Ibid.
LAKGUAGE AXD L O G I C inherently have a (corresponding) reality (lIIing It.!U ku Jhih ;.g�IEl*). It i5 by eonycntion that we givc names to realities. When the convention is settled and a habit is formed, we speak of 'a name ofa reali ty' .1
HsOn Tzu then addn�sses the questio n whether some names or naming fOllVen tions may be better than othe rs. Some namrs arc inherently good. \Vhen they art: straight to the poim, easy to and lIot contradictory, we call them 'good llames'.1
understand,
'"
an,
the
'Yo hor th, .ro
Given naming conventions, Hson Tzu raises lht" question what is to COunt as one o bject or reality 10 which a name is to be applied or not applie d. Hstin Tzu writes: Ofthings some are orthe same form but in diflhem places: others are of dillercnt shape' but in the same place. These can be separated. Those things which are ofthc samt" shape but in differem places, even though they can be combine-d. are called 'two objects/rcalitic�'. \Vhen
t
to t
pat
On<
an{
the shape changes and when an oqject/realitywithout separating-out becomes dilTerenl, we
yOl
speak of a transformation. \Vhen there is transformation and no �r.parating OUI we speak of 'one objecl/reality'. This is how one examines the objcn� involved in states of affair� and
fixes their number. So much about the crucial things in the- management ofnames.'
All lEI
This i� where Hsiin Tzu's tripartite systematic exposition on naming ends. Hstin rJ7.U continues with a briefaccount offallacies. These are divided into three groups: I. those which confound names uy confusion in the usc of names; 2. those which c:onfound names by confusion in the use of realities ; 3. those which confound realities by confusion in the use of names. These fallacies correspond to the 'three areas' mentioned at the beginning of the chaptt"l'.
ext
he insulted is nOt disgraceful', 'The sage does nOt loyc himself', 'Killing robbeTS is not ki l ling people', these (claims) confound IliImes by confusion in the usc of names. If one tem 'To
them by the purpose ofha"ing names, and observes which ahernati"e applies generally. one can pre\'em these confusions.'
Hsiin Tzu suggests that sophisms of this kind may be solved by applying the prin ciples he has laid o ut in answer to the first question: what is the purpose of having names? For example, you inquirt>: what the purpose was of instituting the name 'robber' and 'killing pe opl e ' in order to decide whether 'killing robbers is not killing pe ople ' is acceptable. '�'lountains are level with
abysses' , 'The essential desires arc few',
'Fiue
dishes
do not
improve the taste', these are cases ofconfoundillgnames by confusion in the usc ofrealities.
If you t�st them by what one depends on to recognise similarity and difference. and observe
which altf'rnath'c accords. you can prevent these confusions.'
Hson Tz u
suggests that sophisms of this second kind may be prevented by refer cnce lO his second discipline, his answer to the second queslion: how does one , fl.!iin TtU22.2S; cf. Watson (lg63),P. 14+. ,. I/)iin Ttu 22.27; cf. Wa!5on ('95:{), p. 14-4� Hsun T tU 22.31; cf. Wat�on (1963), p. 145.
•
H.,iin 7�u 2V.l9.; cr. Watson (1963), p. 'H . • f!Jiin ll.U 2 2 .29; cf. 'ratson (1953), p. 145.
( I
the nan
aflc
liar \
;en
Th. mg
and
the def 1 1
ma
1 ,«"
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
�I lof
md.
recognise similarity and difference? For example, one decides whether mountains and abysses arc on one level by applying one's senses to these objects and deciding the maner on the basis of one's sense impressions. The third set ofsophisms i s unfortunately especially hard to undcntand: ·''{ou introduce yoursdfLy what is not your name', 'The: pillar has the ox', 'A horse is not a horse', these arc ra�cs of confounding reality by confusion in the usc of names. Ifyou test them by the conventions for a name and use what onc accepts to show that what is rej ected (10 lQIl1 Pfri§¥) is incoherent. then one can prevelll these confusions. I Hsiln Tzu suggests that sophi sms ofthis third kind may be prevented by reference to the eonventions governing the usc ofwords as discugsed in the third part ofhis tri
,bul
� bUl
�b�n
LWe
nof
•
and
partite exposition.
For example, if you are Bill, but you introduce yourself as some
ont': else, John, then the eOllventions governing the application or the names ' Bill'
and :Tohn' are contravened. There is a factual mistake . You ilrc Bill, notJohn . \Vhat you gay is factually untrue.�
All wicked explanations and dc-viom speeches which go against the correct Way (ching tao lE® and an: initiated without authority may be categorised under these three confmions.3 Clearly, Hsiln Tzu aspired to give an account of fallacies which he thought of as
exhaustive in some sense. .hree hose
:)Und
three
IS
not tens �: onc
�
prm
avmg
name
tilling
HSOll Tzu turns to the conditions under which we give names to things,
define
them, give e.xplanations, and construct arguments:
\Ve give names to reaitics only after they have become unclear: we enter conventions about names only after the names have become unclear; \"1' give explanations ofcom·entions only arter the conventions haye become unclear; we construct arguments only after the explana tions have become llnclear.� l
With astoni�hing precision Hsiln Tzu focuses on the
distinction between the semantic content of a name or word and its syntactic capabilities: The use of names consist> in the realities becoming dear when the Ilamc is heard. The link ing ofnames consists in names being strung together to make a lext (win :>c). Whcn the use and the linking uflhe words are both grasped, that is called 'knowing names'.:; In order to understand names one must understand both
their sematllics and c their syntacti links, Hsiin Tzu tells us. Unflinchingly, he actually proceeds to give a definition ora name:
:10 not
aline,. bse .... t C' referes
one
The 'name' is that through which by cOIlYcntion (chhi;Wj) we group together (lEi tEt) realities. The 'sentence' combines the names of different realities to make explicit onc cnmmu nieati\·e intention (i�).6 The next stood.
defini tion,
of argumentation and explanation, is nOt
as easily under
Here is an attempt at a li teral rendering: , lI��n 7!� n.3�; ..c. WaHon (1963), p. 1.\5. l Hliin T::.� 1111.33; cf. \ralSOn (1963). p. 146. � Hfiin T.:u 1111.38; d. Wal son (TglYj), p. 'oli.
• Cf. Graham ('978). pp. 233-.'1· HSlln T�u 22.36; d. \\'atSOIl (1963), p. q6. Ibid.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
'Argumentation and explanation' consists in, without varying the name of an object (pu i shih ming 1'B-'1;j making plain the way in which it moves or is still (tlmgchmg chih tao !fttJfW <'-ill) 'Com'enriom and definitions (chili mmg ;M1;)' are what is used in argumentation and explanation. :t\rgumentation and exposition' are the mind making an image of the "Vay.]
Hsiin Tzu summarises the purpose of the exercise of getting the usc of names right as follows: That right use ofone's termmology the fitting me of senlences (!::.hu ii¥) has as its purpose the explaining or one's intended meaning (chih t iC::m). Those 'words and sentences are messengers of the intended meaning (chih i ;&�).' VI"hen they are suffiCIent to communicate, one dismisses them (the words and sentences) .! ,
'
It has been pointed out that Hsun Tzu's account of names owes a great deal to Later Nlohisl logical theories:' On the other hand we must emphasise that Hsiin Tzu's essay on T'he Right Use ofKames is the most disciplined, coherent, and by far the best-organised discussion of naming that has come down to us hum ancient China. As we present Hsi.in Tzu's views on naming, we can simply follow the open ing passages of The Right Use of Names as they unfold. \Ve do not have to impose our own extraneous organisation on the text. Hsiin Tzu's principles of organisation are explicit enough. He speaks with an almost :t\ristotelian' expository lucidity. Hsiin Tzu was not especially interested in language and logic. But he does give us an inkling ofwhat logical texts by more specialised 10l-,ricians in ancient China might have looked like iflhey had not come down to us in such a haphazard and truncated form. \Vhat saved Hsun Tzu's account of naming for posterity was the fact that it was embedded and integrated into an important work of Confucian moral philoso phy. \",,'hat prevented the transmission of much of the more professional older logi cal literature was prccisdy that it was so specialised and in the end dissociated from the immediate moral and social concerns ofthc day.
(I) Gweral introducti()n The Dialectical Chapters of the book ,\10 7::.u �-T,6 arc the most important single document in the history ofprc-Chhin science. As Liang Chhi-Chhao ��ffl put it with emphatic repetition in 1922: U,un T;;:u 2�<)'l; cr. Wac
•
(
I •
•
,
LAKGUAGE A:\'D L O C I C ..
If in ancient Chinese documents you wanl to look for something that links up wilh what the modern world calls the spri i t of science, then there are only Ihe Dialectical Chapters of.Mo Tzu and that is all. There arc only the Dialectical Chaplers oLMo «"u that is all!! Sun I:Jang's i%�fi� famous commentary on the Afo
building on Pi Yuan
Wr bt's
Tzu, first publi$hed in
1894,
commentary of +1783, represented the first serious
Chinese attempt in modern times to grapple with the tremendous problems of the text. A number of distinguished textual studies have appeared ill China.� Luan
Thiao-Fu ��m stands om as a very sysLematic eariy student ofMohist logic. From a
philological point ofview, Than Chit:h-Fu has made outstanding contributions. Wu
0.,
10
un
far ;nt n : IS<
on us
lilt led
• it
so
'!!l-
,rn
gle
H it
Fei-Po ffi�F8 (1984), published nineteen years alter the author's death,� is a splen
did summary and demonstration of what traditional Chinese scholarship can
achieve in the interpretation of the Dialectical Chapters. Indeed this awe-inspiring:
work, rcpn:senting many decades of dedicated research on early Chinese logic, has been an indispensable tool throughout the writing: oflhis section on explicit logic in early China. In the West) the Dialectical Chapters were first introduced in a German transla tion by Alfred Forke (1922).! Hu Shih's important study
MetJwd in Ancient Chna i
DtL'elopmt1lt oj lite Logical
which deals with, among other things, some parts of the
Dialectical Chapters appeared in Shanghai at about the same ti me.
H.
Maspero
(1928) made a first attempt at a coherent philological interpretation ofMohist logic in any Western language. Janusz Chmielewski {1969} applied rigorous methods of Western formal logic to Mohist IObrie.Joseph Needham, in Vol. 2 of sec, made the
first serious and sustained attempt at understanding the scientifically most impor tant parts of the Dialectical Chapters.5 A. C. Graham's book
Later lv/ollis! Logic,
Ethics and Scunce� published in 'giS, is a landmark in the history orthe: inte:l'pretation orMohist logic, easily superseding anything that had been published on the subject before. Our account ofMohist logic is indebted to his study on more points than it
would be practicable to mention in footnotes. We: trust that the patient reader with a special inte:rest in the subject will want to compare: our conclusions with those pre
sented in Graham's magnum apl/s.
In this Section we shall concentrate only on those pans of the Dialectical
Chapters that arc ofrelcvanee to logic and the philosophy oflanguage.h Il is thus not our ambition to give a complete account or the scientific efforts of the Later J LiangChhi.Chhan (19""')' p.
'-
, Notably Chang I-Iui·Yen (1909), Chang Hollan (rgfg), Liang Chhi·Chhao (/922), Hll Shih rl ul, (l923). Wu Fei·Po (1923), Lu Ta-Tung (1926), Luan Thiao·Fu ("91'61. bm K@ng'\�n (1934), Than Chieh-Fu (1935), Chh ..n Wu·Chiu (193j), Yang Khuan (1942), Chan Chi�n.Fel1g (I,Y1!.}). i'han Chieh·Fu (1958), Kao Heng{f!)60), Chang Chh.i.Huang (lglio), Liu ·Ii·lln·yan (1.05), I.i Yo-Shu (ly68), Thall Chid,·Fu (1981) and Chhen �lel1g·l.in (1983),
10 name bUI Ihe more important con\Tibutiom. Thp history uflogic carly in the 20lh c�nt\lr)' is slUlIi..rt in Kuo
Chan·Pho (/93j). , See csPf'cial1y pp. t 446 Ofthl5 .ingularly mefuJ work. ' pp. -113-526. " Cf. Graham (J9iB), p. xi. • For tran$laliOll! from tl!.. .,';"mific "cuio". o[lhe Dialectical Chaplers su Vol. {. Part J. pp. J'f"27 and pp. 81t· Th"", .hould be (;omparcd w;lh the more recelll lind mor� d�tai1ed accounts in Graham (19i8), particular· ly pp. 53-9, 201-315, and 369-97. For the optical �({ions s�c partitularly Graham and Si,,;n (1973). If Graham and S;vin are right, thCllth� Lalcr �lohist oplics represclll a much mor" radical departure from the wrretati"e current
328
LANGt:AGE A.:\'D L O G I C
i �'Iohsts. The son o f questions to which we seek answers are lhesf": \Vhat were the analytical achievements ofth(" I.aler Mohist logicians? Whal loglcaJ questions main did they ask? What logical concepts did they apply? How did their methods differ from those of their contemporaries? And why did they ultimately fail to make a significant impact on Chim:sc intellectual history? It seems clear that the Later Mohisl logicians were on the brink of developing a spirit ofracionality and of scientific enquiry that is quite unique in Chint'se intellec tual history. I The Later Mohists deserve our careful aUention. The organisation riflhe Dialectical Chapters The Dialectical Chapters ofthe Mo �u are divided into twO parts: the canons with their expianatiom covering ch apt ers 40 to 43, and two more discursive chapters, 44 and 45. The all-important division within th � canons is that between th� definitions (AI to A75) and the propositions (A76 to H82).� Th e Later Mohists' ability to sustain this rigid distinction throughout the canons is quitt: rt:markable and in itsdf an achit:vement of advanced intellectual di�cipline. It turns out that the order of the items in the canons is far from arbitrary, and that the individual items have to be read within their context. The definitions and propositions can again be divided inlo groups, although this division is not alway� as neat as that between definitions and propositions. We first find six definitions concerning descript ion (AI-A6), tht'n thiny-three definitions concerning action (A7-A39), t hen rwdve definitions concerning knowledge and change (A40-A51), eighteen definitions on geometry (A5�-A69), and finally six definitions all disputation (A70-A75). The first 35 propositions are concerned with procedures of descriptiol1, includ ing an opening se<.:tion on ambiguilY of terms ("-76-BI2), followed by knowledge: and change (BI3-BI6), the sciences (B17 B3T), and finally a long section concerning problems in disputation (B32-B82). The organi�arion of the canons may, at first sight, look arbitrary. Indeed, Than Chit'h-Fu (/98r) has quit� recently taken it upon himself to rearrange the. material in what he thought was a more coh/"r�nt manner. However, i\. C. Graham has shown that the canons actually have a reasoned structure based on what the IVIohi!iu considered as the four objects of knowledge: names, oqjects, h ow to rdate them, and how to act. Thus, apart from a section on problems of knnwledgt: and <.:hange (defini lio ns A40-A5I, and propositions 813-B16) we have four sections: significam methodological StCpS in the direction of rationalit)' "as their �unsiSltnl refm.al to attribute opinions 10 their authors. The l..al�r �tohil1S in.iw�dun di,r"",;ng any thesis on it� own {"rms "ilhout reference to the p..r:oon adn>eating it. Already �(o Tzu hinuclf, in a rommcm nOlt"onily fur it.. Renerosit�� <JUOIC$ Confucius "ith approval. {Mq �u {8.jll: cr. �(e; (!9�9), p. 238: 'In a di�uuion "'illl Chhcug Tzu, Mo Tzu pra;.Ie
,
,
' One of Ihe
, ( ,
d
LA:-:!GCAGE AND L O G I C
explaining how to relate names to objex;t.'; (definitions AI A6, and propositions
he
I.
e a
3. explaining objects (definitions A52-A6g. and propositions BI7-n3I);
ga ee-
A88-nI2):
2.
explaining how to act (definitions A7-A39, and Expounding the Canons); '
4.
explaining names (definitions ·-\70-A87, and propositions 832-a82).1
i g we must realise, then, when dealing with the Dialectical Chapters The first thn
is thal lht"y do indeed constitute a structured system and must not be arbitrarily reshuffif'd or read as stray fragments. When viewed in its systemic context, much of what looks arbitrary and incomprehensible fits into a larger coherent picture. But
rith , +-I om
having said this, we hasten to add that a great deal still remains very obscure
in deed , and the Dialectical Chapters still rank among the most difficult texts in the c.:orpu� of Classic al Chinese literature.
�m 2.
an the
, be this
Iml
",ns
and
SLX
Jud
-dge lillg ban
!ria! has the
!latc and
.,., '" 'ilhoul
7O:5.il�.
loTw "!" �Io
odition
A sun)�y ofMoliisf logiC
We shall now turn to the Later Mohist theories in so far as they arc relevant to l ogic
or the philosophy oflan guage. We shall first consider the notion oflogical analysis
(pieri �), i.e., the definition of the I.ater vto :' hisu; ' logical endravour.
The term pim is generally translated as 'disputation', and this is indeed the way the term is taken in Graham (r978). Certainly, we are convinced that the word pien,
when applied to the earlier pu:n chi�* or 'sophists',j refers to a battle of words and arguments, a verbal dispute, that in shortpit'n refers to di!�putation.
However, the Later 1111ohists' logical practice is profoundly dilTerelll from that of
Kungsun Lung and his fellow 'sophists'. As Graham noted, the :rvlohists were quite systematically uninterested in attributing theses to individuals. They show no spe
cial signs ofinterest in public verbal dispute. For them the essence ofpim is no longer in a battle ofwords but in the fitting description ofthe world and the systematic log ical analysis of concepts. Aristotelian logic is essentially and mainly concerned with the relation between concepts, relations of exclusion, indusion, etc. Mohist logic, on the other hand,
rarely touches on this and focuses almost entirely on the relation bet',l/een names
(ming:&) and o�jects (shih if). The Later ivlohists did not show a special interest in
meanings ofwords as such,' but primarily ill the relation between words and objects.
If one
were tu regard tht: ivlohists and Kungsun Lung as nominalists on this
account, that would be profoundly miskading in so far as it suggests that the , Expuumlin!l" lhc Canom (-'�' ching3"3_�) i� �rhap� the: oldest pan oflhe: Dialectical Ch apters, r�con.llrUl;tffi by Graham n the: basi� of /Ill) 'ku, eh•. 44 and 45. (et: 0raham (1978), pp. '�4j-59 and 1U1-H). In addition, Graham has �connnIC(ro from (h.:- sam.:- chapvrs ",hat is prohahly lh� [alest sun;\illg d.K:umeut urthe Lata :'>lohiSl logicians, th.....ction :-.lamc:. and Ohj""tl\ lming.�hjh ;GW) (Ibid., pp. -1-09""94 and t08-to). l Graham (19711), p. 30. ' fUT the pmhlems surmunding th� i l nslal n Reding (198S). • 'I'hi$doesnO! mc:an thatt h.. Latc:r :'>Iohislll had nO cuneept ofmeaning. lljusl means that-perhaps wi5t:'ly Ih�' did nm sl,,,,,' a sp"cial philUl!ophieal ;,nerest in thai eont::"pl.
o
ra
io set::
330
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
lVlohists considered a n alternative between realism and nominalism and settled for the latter. The Mohists, as well as Kungsun Lung, only look like nominalists to us because they do not seem to consider what - following a medieval European tradi tion - we should call 'realist' issues involving the objective existence of abstract meanings. In fact, since there was no such thing as a notion of realism in ancient China, it makes no sense to attribute philosophical nominalism to them either.l The general purpose of the Later Mobist logical enterprise is set out coherently in the following way: The purpose oflogical analysis is ( I) , by clarifying the distinction oet'.veen right and wrong (.rhihfei �?F)/ to inquire into the prmciple� of order and mlsrulc; (2), by clarifying points of sameness and difference, to discern the patterns of names and objects; (3), by settling the beneficial and the harmful, to resolve confusion and doubts. Only after that may one by describing summarise \vhat is so of the myriad things, by sorting seek out comparables in the multitude of sayings. ("·06) A crucial step was to distinguish the traditional notion of 'hearing or having heard (wen 1*1), from the notion of articulate discrimination which is the result ofthe effort of logical analysis. "'·hus the Later Mohists developed the notion of the dis cernment or discrimination of the mind (hsin chill chha L Z�n Traditionally the Chinese had a notion of 'having heard' which largely took the place of that of knowledge. Having heard something was the predominant way of knowing some thing. The Later Mohists analyzed the notion ofunderstanding as follows: ,
'
.
Hearingis the sensibility ofthe ear. To attend lO what you hear so that you grasp the intend ed meaning (i) is discernment by Ihe mind (h.J"w chih (hha). (:--<09)
Strict logiwl analysis More specifically, the Mohists define formal logical analysis (pim�) in a narrower sense as contending on 'contradictory (fan &)' propositions: GanO/I: Logical analysis (/Jien) is contending over (claims which arc) the contradictories of each other (chengj{ln lLtZ). The alternative that prevails (sheng00:)' fits the facts (tang �). l:xplanalion: One calling it 'an ox' and the other calling it 'not an ox', that amounts to con tending over (claim� which are) the contradictories of each other. Such contradictory (claims) cannot both fit the facts (tang). If they do not both fit lhe facts (lang), then one of them necessarily (Pi ,Q,) does not fit the facts (tmlg)."' (Not like the case ofmaking cMiian 7\. (dog) fit the facts.) ("94) L Cf. Graham (1978), p. 33, as ,,"elias pp. �9f., �8i, 3�5 and 444.
, P�rhap' we should also here take shihfti �;}F mor� technirally as ·i5 this' and 'is not" .
, The uni,..,nally acc�pt�d int�rpretation ofshing Mi" here is 'to win' as in 'co win a dispute'. But f i lhal were th�
correct interpretation, we would have to anribme lO the Laler /l,johi,t an dementary mi51ake, namely the view
thaI the viewf in a verLal di'pute i, necessarily right. On our vicw, shlngIih pin. m takes on a new meaning in /l,lohi5t logic which is somewhat removed from the notion of a verbal dispute ami macerm di,eur.,ive analysis. Th� subj�ct ofJhing 'prevail·, then, i! not a person. as previow; translators have had il, but a claim. • Surely chis is a purely logical step ofre",oning if�,"er cherewas one. The selllence mUIJ(j, :" ifit were taken 'traight out ofa modern lextbook ofpredicate logic.
LANGUAGE AND LOGIC
d raT to us
radi !trac, .cient
The notion of 'contradictory' has
bct:n
ingeniously defined in the preceding
definition:
Canon:
Contradictorics (jim) are what cannot be both regarded as unacceptable (at the
sam� time) .
l!.'xplallotwn: Tn all cascs, 'an ox' is milrked off!
from 'not an ox'. These are the n.,..o things.
There is no criterion by which these two are to be rejected.
ttly in
33'
(""'73)
This narrow lvlohist notion oflogical conceptual questions which dominate
analysis can only be applied to the purely the first part of th(·. Dialectical Chapters.
Indeed, within the network of definitions, truths must be formally deducible or �TOng
ints of og th� mc
by
in the
demonstrable. This is the realm ofpi £, or necessity. That the ?vIohists should have
thought up such a realm of conceptual interrelations is a most remarkable intellec
tual achievement in the history of Chinese science. In the rigour ofits methodology it is quite unique in th e history of Chinese civilisation. The Later
rvfohist scheme
clearly met opposition.
The
objection was
simply:
what if both of the opponents are wrong? The Taoists would certainly have taken
lavmg ofthc Ie
dis
By the hat of somc-
.Jltcnd-
this attitude. The obj ection was rebutted in the following formal argument:
Canon: To say thai neither alternative prevails in logical analysis necessarily (pi) does not fit the fact.
Explained by: logical analysis. Explanalion: \Vhat something is called is either lhe same or it is different. In the case where things are (called) the same - one man calling it a whelp and the other miln a dog, or where they are diftercnt - olle man calling it an ox and the other a horse, and neither winning, these arc cases of f
The aim oflogical analysis was to establish a correct description of the world. Thus
rrower
a most important part ofthe Mohist scheme oflogic was the sorting out ofa proper terminology and method ofdescription. In this process, a number ofbasic issues in
ories of
Il
toeon
,dietory Dfthem
(dog) fit
t ....�re the
r the ��e'" earling in , ;malysis.
the philosophy oflanguage as well as the philosophy nfscience had to be faced.
Nectssary alld sufficient vmus necessary rea.wns. A crucial notion involved in any coherent description of the world is that of a reason or causc.2 The Later Mohists begin their canons with a defiuition of this term, and it is a most significant event in the history of Chinese science that they defined the reason in terms that \...·crt totally alien to the wcll-known tendency towards analogical reasoning (Xi s so because something similar ris so) or correlative thinking. Canon: The 'reason (ku itt), is (such
that) if and only F i something has got it, it will come
about.
I Cf. l,JIn "Hi 19.12 fur ,hhulj5 '10 mark oil"'.
, It is IU bt: nOled lhal ifku� is to lx lak�n a. a r.onr,�pt in physics, it docs not bd':>ng in th� r,ont�XI of·�xplain·
ing how 10 rdale nallltS to obJ�cu'. , The nOlion of'only if· is exp,.e�secl in Cla"i.;" l ChillC� by the panernjn . . . tJipu �F . . . JlIJ1' lit; 'if not . then nOl'.JOIIhQ� �f� and irh nQU jfff� mean �of!lething like 'if . . . then and only tht:n'.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Explanatum: :\1inor reason: hanng this, it will not necessarily (pi :Q:,) be so, Laeking this, it will necessarily (pi) nO[ be so , , , Major f(�ason: having this, it will necessaril y be so. Lacking this, necessarily (pi ,Q,) it will not be so . . . (AI) In spite
of the mutilated state of this canon, it seems clear that it distinguishes necessary and sufficient 'major' reasons, and necessary but not sufficient 'minor' reasons. Along with the rejection of correlative and analogical thinking, this must count as a remarkably astute additional logical djstinction to make. However, the Later I\'lohists do not, unfortunately, go on to use the terms 'major reason' and 'minor reason' coherently in the rest of the Dialectical Chapters: the terms do not recur. lVlore seriously, having defined a reason (ku 2&:) as necessary, they fail to usc kll exclusively for necessary reasons. They do not seem to realise that somebody's reawns for upholding something (A94) are generally not a necessary (bu t generally a sufficient) reason for someone's upholding it. They also do not realise that dampne�s is not a necessary reason [or sickness (A77), surely only a sufficient reason. Or are they really thinking about a sickness that can exclusively be brought on by dampness? But that surely is not the typical situation. Physical causes should therefore not count as reasons (ku) at all according to lhe Later Mohist definition, since what is physi cal ly caused by one thing could in general also have been caused by another thing, Argumentative reasons should not count as ku because what is argued for with one reason could in general also have been argued for with another reason.
between
i rences. Description is by sentences (t{hu il$), I and these sen StIlunces, kinds and rife tences crucially involve lhe specification ofkinds (lei�). The Later rvlohists realised that drawing inrerences from a sentence, 'pushing the kind (thuei lei m:�)' or seeing whether the sentence 'proceeds (hsing 19)' depends on the kinds (lei) involved in the semence: Sentences (tdlu) 'proceed' according to kinds (lei). Ifin putting forward a sentence you are llot clear about (the relevant) k inds (lei), you are certain to get into trouble. (:-;010) This laconic statement gives us one reason why the Mohists had such an extra ordinary interest in the precise interdcfinition of terms, By these definitions they established the kinds (lei) which played a nucial role in infi:.:rcnce, in the process they called thuei lei 'pushing the classes', hence: 'draw infi:rcnccs'.
The van'tV' ofnmne5. Description is by application ofnames, The Mohists made sever al fundamental distinctions among names: Canon: )lames (ming is) are unrestricted, dassifying or private, Explanation: 'Thing' is unrestrict ed. Any object necessarily (pi £,) requires this name. , When in the ap.,r.endix 10 1.11" E''<pounding the Canons there is a ref"r�n� to 'outrageous formulations (dUn yin chill 1;11. �jgZ¥.1', I am endined 10 fullow Wu Fei-Po (t!J8.J), p. 427, in ilLl"rpr.:ting [hr. fdw If as 'proposi
tiuns' Oikr. lh.o'C advocau:dby Kungsun LunK). Graham (197B), p. 3:', maintain� rnal lh" di�(:O\'l:ry ofthe propo sition ur �"nt"nc.. by Ihe I.aler �lohislS was a lal" on.. only manireSl in the Xamel and Objeclll. Hansen (19B.)) maintains Ihat thr. �Iohislll nC''er devdoped a oone"l't "fth .. proposition at all, but he docs not add...,,,, the C'o'id· ence or argumentspru\-;d"dby Graham.
,
nar
,
tlOI
( I 1 I
Sen
bel \\'0
rrf
sta
Th the no.
lUa I I tho
fan knt
fae abl U� cO<
the
:II; In ( thi! b",
thu
em ( I
..
333
LA;.;rCUAGE A)JD L O G I C
� this. it it will
�ishcs
fficient
inking, "major
r : s: lhe
::\laming �omc:thing 'horse' is classifying. For 'like lhe object' we necessarily (pi) name. �aming something Jack' is private. This name stays confined in this object
.
usc this
. . . (A/B)
The concept of a name (ming) was carefully distinguished from that of its applica�
tion, the calling (wei�) a thing by a certain name: Canon: To call (w�i) is to rransfer, to refer, or to apply.
Explanafwn: Kamingby linking 'koll fiiJ (dog)' and 'chhiian *' (dog), s i calling by transfer. To call something a kou (dog) or a chhiian (dog) is referring. Hooting at a dog is applying (a name).
(A79)
1'); they
se
that
Sense and rrftrence. The Later l.Iohists showed a praClical awan:ne$$ ofthe distinction (the sen$e) and the objcct(s) in the
:essary
between the semantic content of an t':xprf:ssion
do not
world referred to by that expression (the rt':ft':renct"). In modern philosophy, Cott]ob
only a
Frege has made this (problematic) distinClion famous. The ('xpre$$lOnS ' morning
Wt{Y be
star' and 'evening star', he daimed, have difTerent senses but the same reference.
causes
�lohist
;0
have
t as ku
ougued
se
sen
ealised
' seemg
:l in the you
I
arc
extra
ns
they
?rocess
The Later MQhists were interested in the paradoxes generated by this situation. For them, the standard pair ofwords of the same reference but difft':rcnr senses or con notations were chhiian 7\. and kou to), both meaning 'dog'.
Gauou: Ifyou know kou(dogs), to say ofyoursdfthal you do not know chhiian (dogs) is a fac tual mistake (kuo i,3}).
Explained by: identity ofobjects. E�plonatwn: Ifrhe knowing ofkou (dogs) L� identical with Ihe knowing ofclEhiian (dogs), then
i a misrake. lfrhere is no identity, there is no mistake . (B40) there s
Vle can explicate the abstract V r lohist point by rewriting the canon, using a more familiar example: If you know Ronald Reagan, to say of yourselr that you do not know the first actor to have become president of the United States of America is a factual mistake
.
The Later Mohists distinguished carefully between namt"s that involve recognis
able properties in things, and names that do not involve such recogni sable proper
ties. The formulation of their thought on this topic involved the use of a term that
comes close to a 'variable ' , a notion essential ror the dt':vf':lopment of logical thoughl The Later Mohists came closest to the use of variables in their use or mou .
;lj!,; in the rollowing passage: : sever-
In cases ofnaming on the basis of shape and characteristics, we necessarily (PI ,.e,) know that thi� thing i� X (mou), only Then do we know X(mou). In cases where naming cannot be on the basis of shape and characteristics, we may know thing is X(mou). (,,02)
aons (chin
'proposi bcpropo
kn '985)
Ilb" ",;d-
X (mou) even if we do not know lhat this
In order to avoid making a factual mistake, th e
Later Mohists insist that one must
ensure that one understands the rererence orthe terms involved:
CanQn: Understand the communicative intention (i:@::) berore replying. Explained by: you do not know which item he referS lo.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
334
Explanation: The questioner says: 'Do you know to?' I One replies: '·What does "lo � " refer to?'
\tVhen the other says: 'The 10 (mule) gallops', then it turns out you did know a lo(mulc). If without askingwhaL 'to' refers to YOli directly answer that you do not know, then you make a factual mistake. . . (B41)2
Qyantification. We have so far only considered names of things. But there arc words that are not names of things, and among (hese there afe logically crucial particlt::s like quantifiers, words like 'all' and 'some'. These n aturally attracted the Later rVlohists' special attention, si nce the Mohist concept of universal love involved uni versal object quantification. At first thought it might seem truly astonishing that the Later rVlohists should have seen the importance of defin ing such seemingly insignificant words like the quantifiers 'all' and 'some', but there was good theoretical rcason for their imertst. Tbey lOok the notion of 'none (mo �)' as their primitive undefined term and pro ceded as follows: Canon: 'All (chin m)' is none not bcingso. Explallation: Something is fixed ofall (chii 1fl)� ofthem. (.-\43) As for 'some (huo 1]!t)', it is 'not all'. (:-;-o 5)
From a modern point of view one might object that 'nol all' is an insufficiently precise definition of'some', because it does not exclude 'none'. The Laler MohislS may have overlooked this point, but their arguments on universal object quantifica tion are anything but unsophisticated: Canon: Their being countless is not inconsistent with (Iwi �) doing something to every one.
Explained by: whether it is filled or nOlo
Explanatwn: (Objection:) The south, iriimired, i� exhaustible; ifunlimited is inexhaustible. Ifwhether it is limited or limitless is unknowable 'a priori', then whether it is exhaustible or not, whether men fill it or not, and whether men are exhaustible or not, these are likewise unknowable
'a pried'. It is
fallacious to treat it as necessary that men can be exhaustivdy
loved.
(Answer to the objection:) If men do not fill the limitless, men are limited, and there is no dffi i culty about exhallS[ing the limited. Ifthe), do fill the limitless, then the limitless has been
exhausted, and there is no difficulty about exhausung the limitless. (R73)
The structure orthe Mohist reply invites formalisation: p Men fill the limitless. q = There is no difficulty abOUI exhausting the limitless. Either p or not-p (implicit assumption), =
, L4 a i� �llsP<'cl.,d ofbeing a rare character meaning 'mule'. , Our lilterprelatioll (elliatively foUows WuF�;-I'o (19114), pp. L.')7 and 250.
I Note that the word chum is not u,",d to ddine (hin 5. inS1Cad, the i\lohiSl very intelligemly choo'ICs 10 give an analysis ofthe concept oflhe llnh-ersal quamifier in terms ofnegation and the quantifier 'none·.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
335
Ifp then q. Ifnot �plhcnq.
He). �n you
....arrls .. rtides Later d uni-
Ergo: q. (QJ/od erat demonstrandum) The Later Mohists focused on the thought that n i order to know that a univt;'.r sally quantified semence is true one does not have to know how many items one quantifies ove-r: Canon: \Vithout knowing their number we know that all are included. Explained by: the questioner.
Explanation: Assume that there are (WO men, then we do know their number. In 'How do
we know lhat the loving of the
hould te th� lerest .
j pro-
iently ohists tifica-
tn':r),-
people applies La all?', olle man is presumably lefl out of his
question. lfhc asks about all men, then one loves all whom he asks about. (1174)
Having demonstrated that an infinite number of men docs not create any difficulty for the Mohist doctrine oflo\'ing all men, the Later Mohists now go on to consider any finite number of men, for example two. Then, if an objector were to question whether the yIohist was sure that he loves aU men, this question would either not refer to aU men (in the concrete example: leave out one orthe (\\10) and therefore fail to ask the question he wants to ask. Or if indeed it asks the qUf:stion of all existing men, then the reply to the question is simply that the Mohist loves exact ly those that the questioner asked about. Thus the objcl'tor can only raise the objec tion by supplying a ready ansv.'cr to il. Having demonstrated that nOL knowing the precise number of men does not create any difficulty for the rvIohisl doctrine onoving all men, the l.ater rVIohists go on to consider the case ofknowing the number but nOt the when:abouts: Canon: ::-.Jot knowing their whereabouts is not inconsistr.1ll with loving them.
Explained by: having lost a son.
lStibk.
iblc or kewlsc
sti\'dy
>e 15 no $ been
Explanation: Like knowing that 10\'(: includes all ofthem when you do know their number; there is no difficulty. (1175)
One can clearly love a son without knowing where he is. And as the- explanation remarks, this is similar to the case ofloving all objects of a certain kind without nec essarily knowing how many they are.
Names, sentences and explanations. Names are seen as only one units relevant to the scientific description orthe world:
of differenl
linguistie
One uses names (ming .:!T) to reftr to objects (shh i 'Jl). One uses S(:lltences (/<:.hu �) to bring out intended meanings (iW).
One us(:s r.xplanations (shuo i'Jt) to bring out reasons (ku '&().
i nd (In �), and olle proposes according to the kind (lei). One accepts according to the k (NOli)
ItO
gi\�
The kinds (lei) form the basis of the rVIohist topography ofthe universe: it is when a given thing belongs to the relevant kind (lti) that they accept a proposilion or that theypropose a proposition.
LANGUAGE A N D L O G I C
Assertion. Articulating a sentence is not the same as asserting it. The Later Mohist logicians found occasion to develop the notion of assertion or maintaining (chih'$JJ.): Saying is the now of the longue; to maintain what you say (chill SO)'fII ¥t\p)rEi) so lhat your intended meaning (ig) can be seen is analysis by the mind (flsi" chihpun ;[,IZ?af). (1'09)
The opposition here between)'en ·� 'saying' and chih SO)'tn 'maintain what one is saying' certainlyreminds us of the modern analytical distinction between articulat ing a sentence and asserting i l. l
Semanlic criteria. In order to ask whether a description applies or does not apply one needs criteria. As we have seen in our Sub-section on definition, Chinese philoso phers had for a long time' defined meanings ofwords, but the Later ).i[ohists went on to ask the more abstract general question: ho\\' does one determine or fix mean ings? In other words, they were concerned with the question by what criteria we apply the words which \\'e do correctly apply. The t:xample they chose was the con cept of a cirde. The uner :Ylohists distinguished with unfaili.ng precision between (he criterion as applied, which they called the standard (fa 1$;), and the criterion as the property corresponding to the standard applied, which they called criterion (yin t!l).
Canon: The standard (fa) is thal in being like which something is so. F.xplanatioll: The mental picture (i �), the cornpass, a circl(" all these may serve as a stand
ard (lb.). (AiO)
Canan: The criterion (Join) is that wherein it is so. Explanation: Being so is the: characteristics being like the standard. (A71)
Ambiguiry. Even when criteria are fixed and meanings determined, there remains (he problem of ambiguity which aroused the Mohisls' systematic attention because it has a decisive efkct on the procedures of description.2 1t is most significant from the point of view of the history of science that the Later Mohists by no mean� limit t:d their attention to important philosophical or moral terms. They showed a curi ous scientific interest in ordinary words as well. Their illlcreS{ \.vas not only in ambiguity as such, but in the structure of it. In one instance, they show how one word can look as ifit had two quite opposite. meanings in spite of the fact thal these are closely linked. Canon: To finish (i B) is to bring about or to get rid of. Explanati011: Ofmak ing a coal: 'to bring about'. Of euring an illness: ·to get rid of'. (A76) I Ass�niIlg is. ofcour�, only one ora \"ny large numh,,! ufspeech acts UT things one can do ,,�th proposition;;. It harp�ns to be the one most relevant to Ihe practice and philosophy urscienc... Cf. Searle (197U). J Cf. ,1./6 A87 Graham (197A), p. 32, plaCC$lhi. as an appendix to definition.•, but it cOllld al.,,, be regarded as th.. opening pan of the section on description, a. we have prefnrcd to do. 1\ole that A86 and A87 discuM the notions ofsameneu and dill�r"llI:e, and A88 iJ.Iogin� with a canon un 'samen..� and difti:rence'.
.
•
LA:-JGUAGE. AND L O G I C
�Iohist
cmnt/l):
hat your
:oog)
II one
is
rticulat-
337
A scientifically important concept like shih fiE 'make to' , the most common verb for causation, is perceptively analysed inta an effective and a nan-effective versian: Canon: To make (someone or something) do something is to tell or to be the cause.
Explanatio/!: Giving orders is ro tell. Thr thingdors not necessarily (pi £,) come about.
Dampness is th� cause. It is necessarily (pi) required that the thing it does comes about.
i-'77)
Substitution. Th� Later Moh i sts evidently recognised a principle of substitution to the effect that if Xis defined as Y, then it must be possible to substitute nor orin any
Iply onr'
sentence salva vm'18It, without lhat affe c ting the truth or falsity ofthat sentenCe. I It is
philoso
this substitutability which interlocks the various sentences in the canons and makes
wem on
them into a system. Thus substi tutability is a central
t m
Mohist analytical scheme, and as such it attracted their detailed attention.
ea n
lena we :he con M:tween
enon as ntenon
theoretical issue in the Later
A white horse is a horse. To ride a whitt' horse is to ride a horse. A black hors e is a horse. To ride a black horse. is to rid� a horse.
Jackis a person. To 10yeJack is to love a person.
Jill IS a person. To lovejill is to lov� a person.
In these instances som�thing obtains (or is the case) when a thing is such-and-such
:\i!:). i,0'4)
(shih
VVe take' 'a thing' here to refer ta '3 white horse', Jack', etc., and we take 'such
a stand-
and-such' to refer to being 'a horse', 'a person', etc. The thing which is said to 'obtain' are sentences like 'to ride a wh ite horse is to ride a horse', 'to loveJack is to love a person'. Like AristOtle, the MohislS noticed that such apparently impeccable infcrel1(�es often break down. l\'oticing this breakdown can be ofphilosophical importance, as
-emams
is demonstrated in the following passage which brings out the link between logical
hecause
an alysi s and ethical theory.
nt from
15 limit
t a curi only in 0\\'
one
at these
tpOSiliQm.
jprd�d as
tiscuss the
Jill's parents arejin A (p�ople).Ji1l's serving h�r parents is not s�rving jin (her husband). Her younger brothr:r is a handsome man. But her loving her younger brother is not
'loving a handsome man (= being in love with someone), . Robb�rs are p�ople. Abounding in robbers is nOl abounding in people, and being wilh· Out robbers is not being \vithout people.
i ng the How shall we make this clear? Disliking the abundance of rohbers is not dislki abundance of people. Desiring to be without robbers is not desiring to be without people. The whole world agrees that these are righ t. But if such is the cas�, there is no longer any difficulty in allowing that although robbers ar� people, loving robbers is not loving people, not loving robbers is llot not loving people , and ki l ling robbers is not killing people. (1\015)
, �Iodem philo'lOpher�of1anguagc ar" aware ofob\�ouseXreplion5 where fcannOi sub$lilut" for X: in a '''0-
tenee '''Blueberry'' il; a nice "'On!' you canool5ubstilUtt lhe butanical ddinition of a blueberry. But such fin." ,,,s as Ihc$c do nOI affect our pre.llmt argument. A principle ofsub!tilUtability ofsome sort, though, i, a.1 essential to any mod�m rt""cis� ,ci�nce al it is to Ihe ).Iohist call"n'.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Epistemology Scientific description expresses knowledge. And obviously the notion of knowledge is closely linked to that of science. The Later rvIohists spent a great deal of time in the logical analysis of concepts within this general area. Learning. There are those (the Taoists) who maintain that leaTning{JlJii(h�} does not add anything to knowledge. The Later Mohists show this to be an inconsistent, i.e., a self-contradictory, statement. Canon: By learning we add something (to our knowledge).1 Explained by: the objector himself. Etplanation: He considcrs that learning does not add anything and accordingly inrorms the other. This amounts to causing the orner to know mat learning does not add anything, i.e., it amounts to teaching. Ir one believcs that by learning one does not add anything, then it is inconsistent to tcach. (8)7)
The logical point is that iflearning does not add anything, then it is incoherent to try to make someone learn this sentence that learning does not add anything. For if the sentence is true, then the learner cannot add it to his knowledge, and if the learner can add it to his knowledge, it is plainly untrue. This paradox is constructed on lines remarkably similar to Bertrand Russell's, when he constructs the sentence that 'The village barber shaved all those in the village who did not shave them selves'. Here again, we have the paradoxical situation that the barber, ifhe shaves himself, by virtue of the selllcnce does not shave himself. But ifhe shaves himself, then by the same sentence, he does shave himself. Epistemological concepts. In order to avoid confusion and paradox, the Later Mohists sorted out the concepts around knowledge and learning as follows: Canon: The intelligencc (cllih ffl) is the capability. Erplanation: It being the means by which one knows, one necessarily (Pi &:,) does know.
(Like the eyesight.) Canon: Thinking (Iii II) is the seeking. Explanation: By means of one's intelligence one seeks something, but one does not neces sarily (Pi) find it. (Like peering.) (A4) Canon: Knowing (chih nI) is the connecting. Explanation: By means or one's intelligence, having passed the thing, one is able to describe it. (Like seein!H (AS) Canon: Wisdom (chih 'L') is the illumination. Explanation: By means ofone's intelligence, in discourse about the thing one's knowledge ofit is apparent. (Like clearness ofsight.) (A6)
, We might also Iranslate 'To I"arn !omethiug i_, advantageous', and in the last '�ntence: 'Ifyou deem !earn· ing to b" ,,�thout advantage. to Icadl (al aU) is incomistent' In Ihat Col"" we would have a pragmatic paradox,
LANGUAGE A�D L O G I C
339
7ypes qfknowkdge. Calion: Knowledge is by heanay, by explanation or by personal experience. Knowledge is ora name, ofan object, ofa collocation (Ito iJ), or ofhow to perform an action. Explanation:
Having recein�d it at second hand is knowing by hearsay. Knowing that
something square will not rotate is by explanation (snuG �).I Having �cn a witness oneself
is knowing by personal experience. What something is called by is its name. What is so called is the object. The mating of name and object is collocation (ho g.). To do something with the imention ofdoing it is an action. (ABo) This imporlant division afty-pes afknowledge is applied as follows: Calloll: Why a thing is so, and how I know that it is so, and how I cause olhers to know that
it is so, are not the same. Explained by: being injured.
Explanation: That someone wounded him is why it is so. That I sawil is how I know. That I
tell them is how I make others know. (Bg)
The notion of hearing something is discussed in the ensuing definition:
)
f
o
:I
e
t-
•
f,
Canon: Hearing is at second hand or in person. Explanation: Being told by someone is hearing at second hand. Being a witness ollcsclf is hearing 'in person'. (,\81)
The Later Mohists als o speak of 'a pnnri knowledge (hsien chih 7'C;;Q)' based on definitions as opposed to empirical knowledge. ! This subtle differentiation must count as one of their major intellectual achievements.
Knowledge and awareness qfknowledge. Anoth er sophisticated distinction in the same area is that between knowledge ofa fact and knowledge that one knows:
w.
,-
to
go
Canon: It is fallacious that the knowledge of whether one knows something or not is sufficient to act on. Explained by: lacking what distinguishes knowledge. Explallation: When we sort out one rrom the other, the non-knowledge lacks what distin guishes knowledge. (s34) This is an enigmatic reaction to Confllcius's dictum: \Vhr:n you know something, to recognise that you know it , when yot! do not know some thing, to recognise that you do not know it, that is knowledge. �
Knowudge and perception. The Later Mohists were aware that knowledge is funda mentally different both from having a pictorial idea of a thing and from perception: Knowing is different from haying a pictorial idea. (l'03)
Canon: \Vhen one knows, it is not by means orlhe five senses (wu lu .nlij., literally: the five
paths).
: C[: 'An explanation i! the means wh.. �by one makcs things transp
•
3 40
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Explained by: the duration (chiu �).I Explallah'Qn: The knower uses the eye to sec, and the eye uses light� to see, but the light (as such) does not see. If the sole source afknowledge were the five senses, then knowledge that has duration (chiu) would not be true. Using eyes [Q sec is like usinglight to see. (fl46) The point of the final remark is that the eye does not see, just as light does not see. Thus the sophism 'The eye does not sec', which at first sight might sound like just another piece ofnonsense, turns out to be the result ofquite remarkably precise and disciplined philosophical reasoning and is not at aU flippant. In this instance, then, the Later Mohists agreed with a sophism.
The objectivity ofl.:nowkdge. In another case, they certainly disagreed, as in the case of the sophism 'Fire is not hot'. The Later Mohists take up the problem of the objec tivity of sensual perception:
Canon: Fire is hol. £..xpJained by: looking. l Explanation: One calls fire hot. One by no means regards the heat or the fire as belonging to oneself. (Like looking at the sun.) (B47)' Here the Mohisl seems to be answering someone who considers the heat of a hot object to reside in the observer who feels it. Thus, fire is not in itselfhor. It onlyfiefs hot to a human observer so that the heat must properly be attributed to the observ ing subject rather (han the observed objecl. The Mohist's objection to this is clear enough. He insists that however we: per ceive heat, we apply the name 'hot' [Q objects, not to ourselves. Thus when looking at the sun, one calls the sun hot. There is no implication that one is hot oneself. One may indeed feel cold on a freezing winter day and still recognise the fact that the sun
is hot.
Knowledge and necessiry. The
Later Mohists were aware that the reasons why names
apply are different from the reasons why things are 'so'. Names apply because:
of
conventions of meaning or definitions, and these are regarded as necessary (pi &,:,). Things are the way they are for natural reasons and these are not necessary:
For 'like Ihe object' one necessarily (Pi) uses such-and-such a name. (Ai8) Such cases as 'elder brother or younger' and 'something so in one re�pect or not so in one respect' are the necessary and the not-necessary. Being this or not this is not necessary. (ASI) By checking through the present Section the patient reader will be able to confirm the wide USe the Later �\'fohists made ofthe notion ofnecessilY (pi). Knowledge pertaining to the realm of conventions of meaning or definitions is called hsien chih :$t5ilJ, a term which, following A. C. Graham, we translate as 'a priori I Th� concept ofduration (d!iu)..) is in tum defined in AfO: 'Duration i� per.-asion ofdilTe�m limes.' , Literally: 'fire'. l We followWu Fei.I'o(/98f'1,p. 222. ' Cf. Vol. 2, p. t73.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
34'
i *!'iJ91J 'not knowledge'. 1 What we cannOt hsien chih 7'c:m 'know apriore is weikho chh knowable apriori'. Thus we are said to know apTion the idea of a pillar, but whether a
It
light (as kdge that
given pillar is square or round is not knowable
apnori (wei klw chih). This, of course,
does not mean that it is not knowable (pu kho chill .:fOJlO) whether the pillar is round or square .
VVhat you know apriori about an object, you know about that object even though
!S not see.
you are separated from it by a wall. Even if we are separated from it by a wall, the
d like just
circular stays fixed as a concept and remains knowable apriori. 2
recise and nce, then,
the case of the objcc·
\Vhen we 'jump the wall' the circular stays fixed. By the things which rollow from each other or c...xclude each other, we may know a priari what it is. For the five colours, long and shan, before and arter, light and heavy, adduce the one to which you are committed. (Ag8)1 How, one may ask, i s the circle known
a priori, by pure definition, to the ancient
Chinese whose interests in mathematics were so predominantly algebraic and arithmetic? The Latcr Mohists construct the notion of
a circle in a series of
definitions as follows:
s he-longing !at of a hot
It onlyfiels he ohservrer we per
len looking neselr. One hat the sun
why names because of ruy ( pi
ary:
""'l.
not so ill one cessary. (A51) be able
to
(In).
lefinitions is :le as 'apTion :rent time$.'
'Straight' is in alignment. (A57) 'The same in length' is exhausting each mher when laid straight. (A5S) 'The centre' is the place from which they are the same in length.' ("54) 'Circular' is having the same lengths from a single centre. (.-\58) These definitions, then, define a realm oflogical necessity. However, the realm of necessity is not limited
to that of mathematical science. can·
Ethics is another area in which the concept was systematically deployed to
struct an a prion' system.
In the case ofall things that the sage desires or dislikes aprWri for the sake or men, men nec essarily learn from him by considering their essentials; but in the case ofdesires and dislikes born from the conditions they encounter, they do not necessarily learn from him by consid ering their essentials. (ECIO) Consider now the way
in
which ethical
terms are intcr·defined by the Later
�{ohists from the terms 'desire' and 'dislike' and 'benefit' and 'harm':
'Desire ()'ii �)' is either directly, or having weighed the benefit. (A84) 'Dislike (wu �)' is either directly, or having weighed the benefit. (A84) 'Benefit (li fU)' is what one is pleased to get. (A:l6) 'Harm (hai �)' is what one dislikes getting. (A27) , This :\[ohin us� ofthe Chine�e term for 'for�-knowledge, knowing beforehand' is highly significant. The Later l\lohislS were in th� habit of introducing a logical dimension into U!rm1 helongin g (0 a leu ah,t.....ct ...,alm . Ifour ;nterpreiatiull h correc,t, they did the Jam� thing to Ihe notion of 'disputation'. , For the l\[ohisl use ofth� concept ofthe wall s�e Graham ('�n8), p. ns. l 'Things \�hich follow one another' are propositions which imply each other, and 'things which exclude One another' are propositiOn! which are inconsistent with each otilt,r. In thi$ context ofdescription, thp. �Iohisu show an inlerc�1 in the logical relations belw��n prnpositions, but this n�n�r Warn(" th("ir main concern. , In the cxplan�tion we ncad the ng�nious i.. further den,·ation: 'OU[\"'Ird from this Ihey ar� �'lual/like each oth("r'. The �Iohisu takr the notion ofio ;e;: 'be equai' 3JI the fundam�ntal one from which the othen are derived.
pfll i Mi'
342
LA:-IGUAOE AND L O G I C
'To do for ,he sake of (wei �)' is to give something most weight III relation to tht desires,
having taken acount ofall that one knows. (A75)
'Love'l 'To be benevolcm (jin C)' is w love individually. (A7) 'To be righteous
(i ii)' is to benefit. (AS)
'To be filial (hS1'aa �)' is to benefit parents. (AI3)
'Achievement (kung m)' is benefit to the people. (A35)
ParadQXtjOne of the important things the system of definitions and sentences in the Dialectical Chapters was designed to achieve was the avoidanc e or resolution of paradox. The Later MohislS addressed a number ofparadoxes. Some ofthese they showed to be theoretically sound and only apparently paradoxical, others they proved to be based on conceptual confusions. Theparadox qfknowledgt. Canon: We know what we do not know.2
Explained by: picking out by means ofa name.
Explanation: Ifyou mix together what he does know and what he does not know, then he is say: 'This one 1 know' and 'That one I do not know'. To be able to both pick out and reject amounts to knowing them both. (B48) bound to
The point is a very subtle one: we know what we do not know in the sense that we can identify what we know and what we do not kno\\' when challenged to do so. Thus we know what it is we do not know, but we still do not know what we do not know. Lnan words. One place where contradiction (pci�) or paradox necessarily arises is in the case orIoan words, \'lhere a given character with a certain pronunciation is used as a phonetic loan for a word with the same or a similar pronunciation,:I The Later Mohists quite properly link the notion ofcontradiction (pei) between the orig inal meaning and the derived meaning of the character with that of neccssiry or analytical truth (pi &�,). Canon: Using loan words is necessarily (pi) contradictory (pri �), Explained by: not being so ofit.
Er:planaliQn: What it is loan-named as it necessarily (pi) is not, only then do we have a
loan-name, 'Nhen a dog is loan-named as being a crane, it is as when one gives it the clan name 'Crane'. (R8)
, This definitionwas 1051 logethn with all defmition� ofwords in Mo T�u'5 len Ihes��. Hown"er, the s�tem of definitions s i so tight that one can surm;,;" ,,�th reasonable <usurance Ihat the definition oflo,"e must ha,'e run somcwhal lilce Ih,,: '10 daire benefil and disike l harm for the rue ofthe man (nm forone'$ own sake)'. , Graham (19i8) faiLs 10 construe Ihis canon itS a senlence in spile oflhe fact that he counts it as a propo»ilion. Thi! M:ems incon�i!tenl, and in any caM: it doc, not dojuslice 10 the force ofthis particular paradox. , Ct: Karlgrcn (1952b).
343
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Token-rejlexive expressions. Token-reflexive or deicric expr�ssions are words like '!', 'you', ' this' , 'that'. The logical puzzle here is simply that lhe person I refer to as 'I' is the person you refer to as 'you' , and that the person I refer to as 'you' is the person you refer to as 'I'. \"'hat you refer to as 'that' I may refer to as 'this' and what 1 refer to as 'that', you may refer to as 'this' . \Ve have a similar situation for words like 'here', 'thert' etc. The meaning of such words depends on where they are used and by whom. Such is the superficially paradoxical nature of deictic expressions. The Taoists delighted in these as proof of the impossibility of achieving objectivity of description, and the Later Mohists were determined to dissolve the apparent paradoxes: I
Canon: You cannot usc 'that' for this without using both 'that' for this and 'this' for that. Explained by: their being different. F�planalion: It is admissible for the man who uses names rightly to use 'that' for this and 'this' for that. As long as his use of'that' for that stays confined to that, and his use of'this' for this stays confined to this, it is admissible to use 'that' for this. \Vhen 'this' is about to be used for that, it is likewise admissible to use 'that' for this. If'that' and 'this' stay confined to that and this, and acc�pting this condition you US� 'that' for this, then 'this' i5 lik�wise about to b� used for that. (868)
The Chuang Tzu, eh. 2, plays with the relativity ofdeictic terms and surreptitious ly seems to transfer the problem ofrelativity to moral terms. But the Later Mohists insist that the relativity ofdemonstratives does not invalidate their use as long as onc is consistent in their use.
The paradox of non-existence. Paradoxically, one can say that there must
thing Mohists
be a
to
identify before we can say that this thing does not exist. The Later approach this puzzling state of affairs by making an important concepmaJ distinc
tion between the absence of an existing thing on the one hand, and the non existence in the universe on the other hand.
Canon: Non-existence does not n�c�ssarily (pi) presuppos� �xistence. Explained by: What is referred to.
Explanation: In the case ofnon-existence of something, the thing has to exist before it is in
this way non-existent.
In the case of the non-existence of the sky's falling down, it is non
existent without ever having existe d.
(849)
Theparadox oflevels ofcounting. Canon: On� s i l�ss than n....o, but mor� than five.
Explained by: s�lting up levels.
Explanation: Fiv� contains on� in it, but one contains fivc2 or twdve1 in it. (B59) , We might ofcOUrs�jU5t iLl well have quoted this canon in our Section on lh� Mohilt w!ution ofparadox�•. , E.g.. one hand contaim five fingers. ' E.g., one y�ar (!nntains twelve month,.
LAr\GUAGE AND L O G I C
344
Pamdox qftense. CanOll: A thing could ha\'e not existed, but when it has occurred it cannot be got rid of. Explained by: having been 50, 1 (861)
Paradoxes ofspace and time. Canon: Moving ovcr a spatial extension (hsiu M�} uses temporal extension (chiu :7.). Explained by: before: and after. Explanation: The: mover is necessarily (pi £,) doser at first and further away only after that. Being close or far (;'iian chin tj}1i) is called spatial extension (hsiu). Preceding and suc i order to move ovcr a long dis ceeding is called temporal extension (chiu ?-.). For someone, n tance, necessarily (Pi &;,) uses duration. (B64) Here the Mohists meliculously analyze basic concepts with the purpose of clari fying sp acial paradoxes. We do not know exactly what paradoxes or paradox the
Mohists had in mind. Perhaps it \,,·as not Hui Shih's 'I go to Ytieh today but arrived \\le can sec that in them selves such paradoxes afe not necessarily of s<.:ie ntific interest, but their tremendous use is in forcing upon the opponent conceptual clarity in order to sort out the apparent paradox. The sophist who flippantly trades in paradoxes thus becomes the catalyst of scientific development. The dogmatic sceptic gets a hard-headed response, as the self-reflexive paradoxes show. yesterday' , but it certain ly was some paradox oflhat o rder.
The self-reflexive paradoxes. If one maintains a senten ce, one is thereby committed to denying the negation (or rejeclingthc denial) ofwhat one says. Consequently, refus ing to deny any sentences, as the Taoists are fond of doing, is simply inconsistent: Canon: To rej ect denial is inconsistent.
Explain ed by : he does not reject it.
Explanation: Ifhe does not reject the denial (of his own thesis that denial is to be rejected) then he does !lot reject denial. No matter whether the rejection is to be rej ected or not, this amounts to not rejecting the denial. (a79)
Suppose someone maintains thal one should reject denial. Then, if he means what he says, the thesis that one should not reject denial should be denied. But if one admits that that thesis should indeed be denied, then one is not rcallymaintain ingthat one should reject de nial: In at least one instance (i.e., the thesis in which one reject s denial) one fails to reject denial. One 's position is therefore inconsistent. Let us rephrase the mauer more along our usual lines ofthinking: Suppose some one (the Relativist) maintains the proposition P('For alJ propositions So 5 is true'). He is then maintaining that ' P is true.' Now by substituting non-P for s in this formula we get 'non�Pis true' as a consequence ofP. Thus the Relativist is committed to two prop osi tions: 1.
Pis true.
2. non�Pis true. I
The explanation is textually 100probJ�m"tic to be ofmuch U$e.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
345
In other words, this special substitution demonstrates that the ReiativL'It is con tradicting himself: Maintaining P m i plies denying non-P. But denying non-Pviolatcs the principle that no proposition is to be denied. Therefore maintaining Pis self-contradictory. If he maintains that no propositions are to be denied, the Relativist is committed to denying the proposition that not all propositions are to be denied. He is theH':fore contradicting himself. It is extraordinary to have to attribute an advanced argumelll of this degree of logical subtlety to an ancient Chinese thinker, but in this particular instance the text is quite dear and the interpretation is quite �traightforward. \-Vith stunning persistence the M : ohist goes on to claim that it makes no difference whether the Relativist is right or wrong in refusing denial. It i� not a que�Hion of whether the RelativiS( is right or wrong. The point is that the Relativist position is self-contradictory. The Mohim. make a closely similar proof against considering aU saying as contradictory: Canon: To claim that all saying contradicts itselfis self-contradictory. Explained by: his saying(this). 5xplanalwn: To be self c ontradictory i� to be inadmissible. If these words ofthe man are admissible, then this is Ilot self-contradictory, and consequently in some cases saying is acceptable. Ifth is man's words are nOl admissibl�, then to suppose lhat it fits the facts is nec essarily ill-considered. (BjI) -
The crux in this argument is again the application of a thesis about all proposi tions to that thesis itself If the Relativist declares his own thesis to be included among the incoherent theses which arc to be rejected, then he both maintains and rejects his thesis and therefore contradicts himself Tr, on the other hand, he docs not include his thesis among the theses which are incoherent and to be rejected, then there i� at least one thesis which is coherent and not to be rejected so that the Relativist is again contradicting himselL \-Vhoever constructed arguments of this sort, we may safely conclude, was a thinker ofcomiderable logical sophistication. He represents an early but advanced logical and scientific subculture of which, unfortunately, all too few traces have been thought worth handing dovl/·n in the Chinese tradition. (5) CHINESE REACTIONS TO ANCIENT CHINESE DISPUTATI O K A�D LOGIC
In China, as in India, disputation or logic was perceived as an essentially rhetorical discipline. Indeed, the ancient Chinese term for disputation or logic,pitn m, is com monly used to refer to rhetorical skill, as when Confucius's disciple Tzu Kung, who surely knows nothing about disputation, is described as a pienjen m:A 'a man skilful with words'.l However, in this Section, we shall be concerned not with rhetoric in , HuoiNGfI T�u,ch. ,8. ed. Liu Wcn·Ticn, p. �'1a.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
specifically \vith ancient Chinese reactions to the practice of Chinese pien chi�:ff 'sophists'. Reactions have been predominantly negative. We need to ask why. Moreover we need to know whether the ancient Chinese thinkers dismissed pim 'disputation' without paying careful anention to it, or whether they rej ected disputation for recognisable reasons . l For the intellectual history of China, our question is important, for what we set out to investigate is whether the failure ofdisputation in traditional China is due to an intellectual failure to understand it or rather to an intellectual choice to reject it. We intend to present evidence that ancient Chinese thinkers did not ignore logic or disputation but consciously and explicitly rejected it. The evolu tion ofthe grounds for this rejection is the subject of the present Section.
general, but more
ConfociuJ At the time of Confucius there was, for all we know, not much disputation to react to. But already in the £Un YUwe find a negative attitude towards morally indifferent reasoned debate: Ifone spends all day wgelher, does not speak ofwhat is right (i ti) but shows fondness for petty cleverness, that s i a difficult case indeed.2
Confucius's prejudice against 'artful words (chhiaQ)'m 0*)' remained proverbial and influential throughout the ages : charismatic power (tHiitl ) .s I detest the tunes of Cheng for corrupting classical music. I detest clever talkers who overturn states and noble families.'
Artful/clever words confound/ruin one's
The music of Cheng, we may surmise, was judged morally depraved and purely entertaining, therefore to be rejected alongwith pure argumentation.s Throughout his dialogues, Confucius displays a consistent disrespect for rhetorical nimbleness (ning tli): Banish the music of Cheng and keep the nimble-tongued (ning) at bay.G This negative attitude towards 'artful words', which reverberates through most ofpre-Chhin philosophy, has been a major factor in the rejection ofthe formalistic , In Greece the sophists in general, and Socrates in particular, were widclY(lhough ofOOUTM not uni'''rlally) deorised and ridiculed. K.J. Dm"r's excellent edition ofAristophane,' CWiuls (Oxford (968) illlL'ltrat'" this point brilliantly. Cf. also Sommerst"in (1962). On the other hand the popularityo(the sorhru is evidem e.g., in PlaIa"
HippiaJ Majqrand Hippin.sllJinD•. 1
L¥1l fa 15. '7; cf. Lau (1983a), p. 153.
, um Yii '7.16; cr. Lau (1983a), p. '77.
i
I
L¥II fij 15.�7; cf. Lau ('983a), p. '55.
> Archaeology ha.'l revealed that in point of(act the rnu,ic of Cheng indeed had special �,haracteri.uin which have been reconstructed on the basil ofb�lI�, �tc., frurn Cheng. Cf. Chen Cheng.Yih (1987), PI'. 155"""97, �,pecial· lypp. 171 and 180. lowe thil important refer�nce to Kenneth Robinson. 6
um rii I5,II; cf.Lau(lgB3a), p.I5l.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
347
approac.h of philosophers like the Later �vIohist logicians. Words and language wefe
in the end seen as secondary in importance to
the charismatic inner power
called t£:
He who has charismatic power (ti) is bound to find words (to express himself). He who finds
tt
:0
,.
words does not necessarily have charismatic power. '
The primacy and priority of the moral sphere was undisputed throughout C hinese history. The rejection of logic and disputation is profoundly connected with this.
Meng Tzu The Confucian Meng Tzu (-3il to -'28g) could no longer afford to summarily dis·
miss disputation: ct nt
Kungtu Tzu said: 'Outsiders all say that you, Master,
are fond of disputation. May I ask
you why?'
'Surely 1 am not fond ofdisputation: Ijust have no alternative but to practise it.'1
Meng Tzu 's practise of disputation and argumemation has been studied in Lau
(I983c), pp. 334-56. His theoretical statements on disputation are few, however,
aI
of �<
ly
ut
although he boasted: 'I hay!': an insight into words. . '\Vhatdo you mean by " an insight into words" ? ' 'From biased words I can see wherein the �peaker
is blind; from immoderate words, wherein he is ensnared; from heretical words, wherein he has strayed from the right path; from evasive words, wherein he is at his wits' end.'] By 'disputation', Meng Tzu often means something more like rhetoric th an like
disputation. He still has not developed a deep theoretical interest in the subject .
,.,
Hsiln Tzu
�t DC
.,.
... �'.
The Confucian Hsun Tzu (c. -2g8 to -238) took a much more differentiated view of disputation . Indeed, chapter 22 of his book is, as we have seen, one of the most important contributions to ancient Chinese disputation . He voices his objections to logic-chopping as follows: The underlying pattern ofritual is truly profound. Argumentative n i vestigations ofthe type 'arc "the hard" and "the white" the same?', if they address themselves to this matter, they drown in it. 1 To splil words and conduct argumentations, to discuss material things and practise disputation, these are things that the gentleman holds in low esteem.� , LIm Hi 14.4; d. Lau (,gH:;a). p. '3:1.
, Mfng 1i;u z,o,z; d. Lau ('983c), pp. 57f.
: Mbv, 7{u 3B9; cf. Lau (lg83c), p. ,27· ' Hsli" T<.u 1 9.30; cf. K.ust�r (lg67), p. 247.
., Hw" 1i;u 21.90: ,r. Kilsta (1967), p. 2H4.
LANGUAGE AND l. O G I C
Discussing the dialecticians Teng Hsi and Hui Shih, Hstin Tzu finds their prac tise nOt only morally but also politically irrelevant: They do not take lhe former kings as thdr models and do not approve ofritual and dury. On contrary, they love to �Ort out strangr. theories and play around with abstruse expres sions. They arc very sharp but without generosity, '....eB-argued but without use. They make much fuss but achieve little. They cannot be taken as guidelines for the practice of
the
government. 1
What particularly irritates Hsun Tzu is the arbitrarines� of lhe subject-matter discussed by the sophists and their predilection for the abstruse and difficult: The gentleman docs not value the arbitrarily difficult action le.g., swimming with a stone], and he does not value the arbitrarily sharp-witted n i ex planation [e.g., the claims that mountains and abysses an: ofthe same height] . . . These are difficult explanations to main tain but Hui Shih and Teng Hsi were able to do it. However, the reason why the gentleman does not set prize by them is because they do not fall within the realm of ritual and duty (Ii i 1lI�).' The difference ber.veen hard and white, the distinction between what has thickness and what has no thickness, these are by no means things which should not be investigated dis crimin atingly but the gentleman does not argue about these things He leaves them where ,
,
.
they are.l
Hsun Tzu rejects disputation as a circus performance ofintdlectual virtuosity and observes wryly: �ot knowing about these things (the niceties of abstract disputation as practised by the ancient Chinese dialecthians) does nO! prevent one from being a sage. Knowing about them docs not make one less of an insignificant person.�
This is not an unfounded judgement of someone who does not know what the disputation of ancient China is about. It is a considered verdict by a very weJl informed thinker. The attitude expressed is representative of informed traditional Chinese opinion.
The Lii Shih Chhun Chhiu, compiled around -240, offers rather subtle objections to disputation. When a hole s i eight feet deep, then the human arm is bound to be unable to explore il com
plete1y. Why is this? Because the arm does not reach (i e., is not long enough). Knowledge also has things which it will not reach. 'rhcoreticians (slmo chemi:f) may be sophisticated in their arguments (Pit11 m), and they may be subtle in their methods, bUI they cannot catch sight of these things." .
• HJii� 'T<:w 3.1; cf. KOsier (11:107), p. '.'0. , H,un 1�u 6.8; d Kost�r ('967), p. 55. HJiin 'T<:u 8.36; cf. Koster (1967), pp. Hf. , HJiin �u 7.30; cf. Ki.'ist�r (1967), p. 16. ; Iii Shih Chhml CMiu ,0,4, d. Chhcn Chhi-Yu, p. 979; cf. Wilhelm (1 9211), p. 24j. '
LANGUAGE A )l D L O G I C
prac-
1)'. On tpres· They ric� of
349
The limits ofdisputation are seen in terms of what we t oday would see as political considerations: 'lbat which confusrs names (min,I{:¥i) 15 dissolute discourse. When theories (Jhuo�) arC' dis
solute, the acceptable is made out to be unacceptable, that which is so is made out nor to be
so, that which is right is made out not to be right, and that which is wrong is made out not to be wrong. Therefore, as far as the gentleman's discourse IS concerned, when it is sufficient to bring our dIc quality of the talr:nted and the lack ofquality ofthe untalented, it stops. ",rhen
it is sufficient tomake c1ear what obstructs good government, and how chaos arises, it stops. \Vhen it is sufficient for an understanding orlhe true nature oflhings, and when grasping this understanding allow� men to survive, then he stops. I ;tone] .
1S
that malO
lemaTl d duty !SS
and
ed dis where
lUosiry
bY lhe
.11lhel11
hat the y well lilional
The dissolutt'"ness ofdispulation is illustrated in
an entertaining an ecdote :
There was a scryalll in Chhi. His master got into trouble, bUi the servalll failed to die for him. He then met a friend in the street who said to him: 'SO YOll really did not die for him!' 'You arc right. In everYlhing we do we aim for benefit. Death i� not a beneficial thing. Therefore I did not die for my master.' The friend said: 'But can }'OU still fac� people arter this?'
:Well, do you imagine I could face them if! was dead?'
This man, according to se\"eral accounts, failed to die ror his ruler and superior. He great ly failed in his duty. His speec.hes were none the less incontrovertible. It is thus clear that lan guage is not a sufficient criterion 10 decide a matter.2
Rigid logical thinking was perceived in the
absurd conclusions:
ii Shih Chhun Chhiu to often lead to i
Kao Yang-Ying was about to build a house. His builder told him: 'It is still 100 early. The timber is too fresh.
Ifyou put day 011 it, it will bend. lfyou build with fresh timber, it will be
good for the moment, but it will cenainly turn OUI badly in the end.' Kao Yang-Yingsaid: 'If one follows your words, a house would nt � ...-er disilllegrate. The drier the woodgets, the bet
ter it bears. The drier the day gelS, the lighter it becomes. l\"ow ifyou put something that get.� lighter on something that gets firmer no harm can arise.' The builder did not know what to reply; so he obeyed and built the home. When the house was finished it was very beautiful to look at, but after a while it did indeedcollapsc.l
Chinese intellectuals throughout the ages have fclt a profound sympathy for the lions to
builder, and a deep suspicion affluent argumentation like that of his master. Neither Hstin Tzu nor the Lii Shih Chhun
Chhiu reject disputation as a whole. The Ch inese dis putation, and also lhe Iii Shih Chhtm Chhiu is an important documem in the study of the early Chinese sophists. \"'hat both these texts criticise is the sophists' tendency to overestimate the range and scope oftheir skills, their profoundly mistaken leaning towards regarding disputation as a ph ilosophical panacea. What, unfortunately; nei ther ofthem realised was that such sophis lS' mental gymnastics might have indirect H.run UU,
! it com
owlcdge icated in
101 catch
as we have seen, contains a most important con tribution to
, LiiShih CMun Chlliu 16.lt�d. ehh.,,, Chhi·Yu, p. lUlg: d. Wilhdm (1928},p. �58. Lii Shil! Cllhun eMlu 18 4. �d. Chhcn Chhi-Yu. p. 1 17B; ct: Wilhdm ( 1928). p. :.;o�. ; Iii Shih Chh�n Chhiu !J.�, eli. Chh,·n Chh;·\'u, p. 1042; d. Wilhelm ( 1928). p. 436.
I
·
==
350 scientific uses,
L A )l G U A O F. A ).l D L O G I C a.�
indeed they proved to have in the history o f theoretical science in
the \Vest. As i t turned out, the Chinese common-sense r�jection of disputation as
morally frivolous, political irrelevant and i ntdlectually sterile won almost universal acceptilnCe, so that after the -3rd century disputation never again became a widely �ignificant force in Chinese intellectual history until rhe 20th century.
The Lego/i.rls The Shung Chii.n Shu
-rffi��, dating from the -3rd century, as well as the Han Fti Tzu
m;JF-T, which belongs to the late -jrd centUI,; both frequently deplore what they call pim � 'disputation or sophistry . The Lord ofShang complains that one can obtain '
offiCI; and rank at the couns ofhis time through skilful speech and 'sophistical theo ries (Piert sIma �*)'.I The complaint is quite common:
':--"owadays, the rulers of the' world arc all anxious over the peri l ous condition of their coun tries and the weakness oftheir armies, and they listen at all costs to the theoreticians (snuo chi ��). Though these maylorm battalions, talk profusely and employ beautiful formulations, it is of no practical use. The rulers are fond of this sort of disputation and they do not seek practical application (shih W). When the theoreticiam (.rhuo eM) have their way, expound their crooked disputations in the streets, their various groups become great crowds, and the people, seeing that dlCY succeed in captivat ing kings, dukes and great men, all imilale them .I
'fhe Han rei Tzu is full ofdiatribes against rhetoric or disputation (pien) whieh the author feels leads to ruinY The crucial insight that dominates Han Fei's treatment of disputaLion is simply that the truth of a thesis and the quality of the arguments adduced in favour of a thesis are quite independent:
When a stutterer argues a point it is 'doubtful'. When a rhetorician/sophist (pim chi1al:Jfi) argues a point it is 'true'.!
The Taoists The Confucians were morally opposed to frivolous disputation. The Legalists were politically opposed (0 'purely academic' disputation. The Taoist Chuang Tzu tried
to sho\v that disputation was a necessarily fruitless and pointless excercise not for
moral or political reasons, but for philosophical reasons. Chuang Tw was a meta
logician in so far as he philosophised
about practising logic or disputation.
As far as Chuang Tzu is concerned the sophists or dialecticians are just fools who
think that things are what they appear to be from the dialecticians' standpoint. Chuang Tzu argues this Out in a rare piece of'<;lraight meta-logical reasoning: , Shang Cltlin SIt", ed. Kao Hcng, p. 3:i; cf. Du)'\'cndak(19111), p. 18i_ , Sh�n.g Chiin Shu. "h. 3, cd. Kao Heng, p. 40; cf. DUY';endal (1981), p. '9:'1.
, Cf.Han FdT:;,u 15.J.3i t1pasJim. , H�n Fri nil 41l.6. 12; cf: I ,ian (1939), vol. 2, p. '�!i9.
35 1
LANGUAGE A ::-" O L O G I C
You and I having been made to argue ov('r alternati\·cs, ifit is you not I that wins, is it really you who are right, I who am v"rong? Ifit is T not you that wim, is it really I who am right, you who arc:: wrong? Is one of us right and the other of us wrong? Or are both of us right and both ofus wrong? Jryou and I aTC unable to knowwhere we stand, others will surclypartake of our pe:rplexity. 'Vhom shall we call in to decide: the maller? If we gf't someone of your party to decide it, being already of),our party how can he decide it? Ifwe get someone ofmy party to decide it, being already of my pliny how
("
he decide it? If we get someone of a
party different from either ofus to decide it, being already ofa party different from either of us how can he: decide: it? lfwe get someone orthe same party as both orus to decide it, being already ofthe same party as both of us how can he decide it? Consequently you and I and he are all unable to know where we stand, and shall we find yet another person to depend on?1
One reason
why issues
one may
dispute about
are subjective is,
according to
Chuang Tzu, that the meanings we attach to words are subjective. If I use 'black' to mean 'white', then as far as I am concerned white things are black. But what does it
matter? For Chuang Tzu this sort of reflection on the arbitrariness of names, which he is the first to maintain in the history ofChinese philosophy, is symptomatic ofthe
subjectivity of mental acts such asjuclging issues.
The ·Way comes about as we walk it; as for a thing, call it something, and the thing is what you call iLl
Later allitwies The Salt and Iron Discourse by Huan Khuan
1.§:1a: (-1st century)
contai ns
an
entirely typical statement which represents current feelings in China throughout
the ages:
Ifyou do not reach the great Vv'ay (tao m) but engage in small disputation/analysi� (hsiuopzrn tJ�), then lhat,vlll only lead to harm to your person.·'
Yang Hsiung
m-a (-53 to +18), in conversation, has a poignant way of putting the
logicians in their proper place when asked whether the methods ofKungsun Lung were worth adopting: Chopping wood to make chessmen and working kather to make footballs all have their i accord with the former kings, the gen proper mcthods. But since tht:se methods are not n
)'th ";f$t!!).1
tleman will not cultivate them as methods (pula
Ideas ofthis sort became something ofa locus communis among later Confucians:
(ehhil hsileh 1tH�). Small (ehhiao)'en
Impoverished places will be rich in trifling intellectual endeavours disputation/analysis (hsiao pun IJ� will harm great knowledge. Skilful phrasing
J5i§) will take away trustworthincss. Petty generosity will impede great righteousness." ' Chuang 1(u Q':\3; d. Graham (ly81), 1'. J3. , Chuang Tzu 2.84; cf. Graham (1981). p. 60. , 1m nith Lm, eh. 55, td. Bal;ie Sinnlogical St:rits, p. '84. , Yang Hsiung, Fa lm4, cd. WangJun!\.Pao, p. 107. ' Silul) l""iia� 16.122, cd. Chao Shan-I, p. -1-56.
35 2
LANCUAGE AND L O G I C
From a book that took its prescnt shape around +100 we have the iollowl1lg dia logue which was spuriously attributed to Confucius himself: The. Duke (Ai) asked: 'I want to study small disputation/analysi.:;
(hsiao pum)
understand goyernment.'
in order
to
The ).1aster (Confucius) replied: 'No. This is no! appropriate. The lord oyer the altars of i his use oftime. Days gone by will not wme again. the- land and the grain should bc c areful n Study must not proceed by small di�putation/analysis (hJiaa p�n). Therefore in ancient times the former kings stud i ed how to adjust the o,·erall \Vay in order to understand gow::r nmcnt .
·fhc SOil of Heaven studied music, sought clarity about customs and put rituals in ordcr
to p ractise proper govr:rnmelll. The feudal lords studied the rituals and distinguished otlicial duties in order to carry out
their administration and to serve the Son ofHeawn. The great officials studied moral excellence (litiS) and sought clarity on various duties, and they diligently served thei r ruler. The knights s tudied service and sought clarity about (the ruler's) words in order to carry out (the ruler's) intentions. The common people obeyed their superiors aud sought clarity about legal prohibitions. The pea�ants used their physical Strength to go about their business. In don i g these things those im"Ulved still feared that they would not succeed: why should they be concerned with small disputation/analysis (hsiao pien/J\MV"
In this very important passage we can see how the ordered and regimented hier archy of Chinese society since Han times, and the division of social functions that \ ....ent with it, could gel in the way of'peny disputation (h.riao pien)'. .!\.Imost 600 years after the flowering of ancient Chinese disputation, the lone commentator Lu Sheng �MJ (jloruil c. +300) wrote: From Teng Hsi down to Chhin limes the- so-called logicians wrote thelr chapters and books for generations on end. But they were all extremely hard to understand and no scholars pass on the an. �o\\� over 500 yearslatcr, the books ha\"(:: di.'iappcarcd. Ofthe !vlohist disputation we have the upper and lower canons, with an explanation to each canon, four chapters in all. Since they are inte-grated with the reSl of the chapters in the book, they alone have sun.'ived. �
Thus the most important classic of disputation survived by coincidence, because it got mixed up \vit h other texts that wcre more in the main-stream of Chinese intel
lectual history. One of the classi<.:S of disputation which did not survive was the Teng Hsi Tzu mtJTr, an apparently faked version of which possibly originated around the time ofLu Sheng. Its characterisation ofproper dialectics is significant. The so-cailed 'great disputation (/apien *m)' dr aws np distinctions between ways ofacting in the world and it Covers the things of this world. It recommends the good and rejects [he bad. At aU times it uses the right words and its success is estahlished, its moral power perfect. Ta TaiLi C hi76, erl. Klto ;\{ing, p. 388; d. G'1'llpal{'967}, p. 206. Chin Sh/l,o:d. rai Na,.:h. 9.1. p. 6b.
L A N G U A G E AKO L O G I C
rua7
to
nof !"'". I}' In J
rder
}' out
uties,
Small disputation (hsiao pien /J\l�) i� not like that. It quibble� with words, sets up distinc tions between ways or action. It uses words like arrows to shoot at the opponent . '
As time went on, reactions to the logicians brcame even less sophisticated and informative, indeed much less well-informed. Here is an example from a Buddhist book dating from +622: Formerly Kungsun Lung wrote the Discourse on Hard and \Vhite, condemning tht; Three
Kings and denying the Fi\'e Emperors. Even now people who read it still gnash their tccth.l
Even the sound of the gnashing of teeth soon ebbed. Indigenous Chinese dispu tation reec.:ded into the limbo of unperceived c:ultural tradition. The very advanced Buddhist logicians of the +7[h century show no signs that they knew much about any originally Chinese logical tradition.
(6) LOGICAL THOUGHT IN THE +3RD CENTURY
carry ions. hould
I hier s
thal
! Ione
353
On the eve ofthe major intellectual m i pact ofthe introduction ofBuddhist philoso phy into China, the +3rd century sa\" a certain revival ofinterest in speculative phi losophy and in some aspects of Chinese logic.) Thanks to the work of Robert G. Henricks, the practice of constructing arguments in support of theses and in refuta tion of theses may be conveniently studied in reliable English translations. Juan
Khan's liiiiJfL essay 'Residence is Devoid of Good and Bad .Fortune' and the ensuing controversy with Hsi Khang :mim, Chang Lao-Shu's 'lJHJ1!J& essay entitled 'People Naturally Delight in Learning' with Hsi Khang's repl); and Hsi Khang's wonderful essay 'On Nourishing Life ' , with the ensuing controversy with Hsiang Hsiu
r5J*,�
arc fme examples of the art of debating in the +3rd century. Given this fashion_ of I books
tT5 pass
utatlon :tapters It;
han:
ecause e intel-
'-lsi nu
ae
nme
lfacting �ts the
·JKrfeet.
public argument, it is not surprising that we also find, during the same period, aeer tain interest in logical problems as such. As far as explicit logical reflection is concerned, a crucial figurc 'was the philo
sophical prodigy Wang Pi I� (+226 to +249),5 whose recently discovered Lao
Tzu Chih Luth ::g.:rmBm6 turns out to be a rather interesting document in the history of Chinese logical thought. As Dan Daor has confirmed, the fin Win Tzu jfX.:r, spuri ously attributed in its title to the pre-Chhin deuater Yin Wen jtX, must probably also be attributed to the +3rd centuryJ 2 Cf: Graham(I!l86a). p. '79For Ih" general background """ E. Balasz (1964). There art I\�O excell"nt books on Hsi Khang: Hol:unan (19:>7) and Henricks ('96 I a). Cf. also Shryock (1937). Important Chin""" worb On the intell""rual hislOry orlhe +3rd <:�nlurr include Fan Shou-Khang ('936), Ho Chhi-�Iin ('.\1&'1. H" Chhi-r-.Iin (I907), Liu Ta-Chieh (1939), '\Iou Ts�ng-San (l,96j) and Thang l'ung.Thung {t957" Espedally u"�[ul [or our purpo'" ar� Daor (1979) and Mou Tsung-San (1960). • All these controversies are pre!enteci in (�'Il�SO in Henrid,,, ([9i113), pp, 21 7u, 135-43, and IH 99. , cr. f\otro\·(1936) and Ih" n.:\;"w o[this, Wright ('947). Lou Yu-Lieh, Wang Pi chi chiao-shih, published in 1980, prm;d",. a splendid critical "dition ofWang Pi's "�)rb. Tht best translation ofWang Pi's oommrntary is Rump t
1
Wilhtlm (1947), p. ,6.
and Chan (19i9)•
Lou Yo-U"h (s�� preceding not"), pp. 195-210, transla,"d in Daor (1979), pp. 14'2-59. Tao Tsarw, \"01. 46, pp. �79 27!-l- Cf J\-iaI!On Oursel ('!-l,B), bib!. p. �4, no 97, A convenimt rccem edition with commentary is Li Shih-Hsi (l�n7). Daor (1979), pr. 1<)4-41, provide! a reliable annotat�d translation. 1
354
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
It was during the +3rd century that the abstract term ming Ii ;g� became COill mon,l a term which remained the vague general word for logic (or perhaps we should rather translate anachronistically: analytical philosophy) until the 20th century. There are two main logical areas in which the +grd-century intellectuals showed an interest: the correspondence of names to shapes, and the relation of words to meanings. Already in the Chuang Tzu we find a rather cryptic remark that 'names are the "guests" ofrealities' ,2 and in one latc Han book we read: Names are that by means of which we name realities (shih rn The reality is there and the
name adapts (Ishung t'E) to it. It is by no means so that the: name: is there: and the shape (hsing
It) adapts (tshung) to it. Thus when there is a long shape, we call it long. 'When there is a short
_ names 'long' and 'short' are there first shape, we call it short. It is by no means so that the and that the long and short shapes adapt (tshung) to them.'
All names have their origin in shapes . It never happens that a shape is born from a name.'
Ouyang Chien ��Jt Ouyang Chien (+268 to +300) wrote a dialogue between The Conformist Gentleman and The Master Who Defies the Masses entitled Yen chin i tun --g��W8 (On That \-Vords Exhaust Meaning). The Conformist gentleman said: 'All the debaters ofthe world consider that words do not exhaust meaning, and this has a long tradition." All men of large talent and penetrating knowledge consider that this is so. . . . ' The Master Who Defies the Masses replied: 'Heaven does not speak, but the Four Seasons follow their perfect path. The Sage does not speak, but his awareness and knowl edge follow their natural path. A shape does not depend on a name for its roundness or squareness to become evident. Colours do not depend on an appellation for the black or white to become manifest. Thus names have no active role towards things. Speech is inac tive (wu wei��) towards the patterns ofthings (which it describes). Why then is it that in ancient and modern times the Sage� were unable to get rid of words: It was truly because ifyou have got hold ofa pattern ofthings in your mind, it is only by words that you can bring it out. \Vhen you have pinned down an object, it is only names that you can mark it ouL'
by
I Cf. Mou Hung-San (1960). pp. Q and 71l Since ""lou Tsung-San wrote this, the discovery ofthe Ma-wang-tui manuscripls has revealed that the term mi�g li:f,llI! wa. not. a, Mou -l'sung-San claims, coined during the +3rd century, but was in fact known at the very least in early Han tm i e . Cf. Anon. (f976), pp. 4�f., where a document entitled ming Ii recommends 'investigating lhe principles ofname, (ming Ii)'. , Chuang Tzu '-'5; c[ Graham (1981), P.4j. ' ChungLun, cd. SPTK, eh. 2, p. 6a; cf. Dam (1979},P. 68 . • Wang Pi, Lao Tzu CIr.'" l.ii.elr. �--THl�, ed. Lou Yu-Lieh, p. 199. Compare Lao Tzu', op�ning lin� 'The way that can be shown is not the constant way, the name thatcan be named is not the constant name' and Chuang Tzu·.1 dictum '\"lhat can be expounded with words ar� the crud� things' (Chuang Tzu 17.23). For a good account ofthe debate on meaning in th� +:1rd century see "-Iou Tsung-San (1960). pr- lQn: There is also e\idence that Hsi Khang had earlier written an essay �ntitled '\"lords do not exhaust meaning', thm d"f�nding the famous statement in the Great Appendix LU the I Chi�g §�_ One would indeed love to read this essay, but, unfortunately. it is no longer extant. (Cf. Henricks (198m), p. ��.)
,
,
LANGUAGE AKO L O G I C
355
Ifspeech does not bring out what is on the mind, it docs not relate to anything. Ifnames
do not distin guish things, awareness and k.nowledge are unelucidated. . . It is not as though .
things inherently have nalnes, or that patterns of things have definite appellations. If you
want to mark out a (pan of) reality, you give it a separate name. Iryou want to express your thinking
(chih ::t), you
�et up a way of expressing it. Names change with things, speech s i
transformed with the patterns of things. This is like a sound being followed by an echo,like
a shape being imme diately followed by its shadow. These must not be regarded as separate things. When they arc unseparatcd, there is nothing (in meaning) that is not e.xhaustively articulated.'
Yin Wen Tzu fi>cT on names The Yin Win Tzu is a book representing rather miscellaneous but predominantly political interests. In a passage concerned with logic it sets up a classification of names as follows: I, 2.
3.
There are three categories ofnamcs (ming�) , names referring to things, like square, round, white, black. names of(objective) blame and praise, like good, bad, noble, base, non-descriptive names (khuang ming?Jt.�)/ like 'consider as talented', 'consider as stupid', 'love', hate' ] '
,
The T£n Wen 1i.u provides one of the rare attempts in ancient China at something approaching grammatical reflections. My translation is tentative: Now in 'befriending the talented', 'keeping away from the incompetent', rewarding the good' and in 'punishing the bad', the appropriateness of the names 'talented', 'incompe '
tent', 'good', 'bad' is in the objects (pi :t&1, whereas the appropriateness of the designations (chhillgfjij.) 'keep at a distance from', 'befriend', 'reward', and 'punish is attached to the sub ject (wo 'f� ). When the subjective (wo) and the objective (pi) each get their names that is '
called dear-mindedncs� about names. When you usc the names 'talented', 'incompetent'
like 'befriend' and 'keep away from'; when you use the names 'good' and 'bad like 'reward' '
and 'punish', i.e., when you scramble the subjective (wo) and the objective (pi) designations
, W�lIg Tien-Chi (/979), p. �6�, and d. �-1ou Tsung-San (tg60), p. I�. III the +4th-century IXlmmemary \0 the Lith 1i.:w '�T we find a short .,ummary oftlw dialogue: ':-l"ames <:hange with things, speech changC5 "'lIh the pal
tern oflhings (yin /i1i§J1I!.). These pairs (i.e., nam�s vcnus thing.. and .peech versus pa\!cms of thing!) must not become �eparat�d from each uther. As long as they arc not •.,parated from .,ach nlh�r, word� will exhau"n'dy de.cribe things. (Wang Ti�II-Chi (1979), p. 26j, who quotes from Chang Chan', (fl. +370) comm"ntary \u the book Lith ·�u.} • l'he t�hnical term1Jwllng� '10 compare, how much more so' is hard to understand properly. I rely un the Lontext in Ihis pa$Sag� for my inlerpretation. Cf. Wang Pi's Jlatcment: The Way is a designation for Nothing. There is nothing which d�5 not reach it. There is nothing which does nOI foUow it. As a non-de.criptive duig. nation � ,aU it 'the Way' (1Jwang dlih.1iith ta4 l£z.B.lIr (cd. Lou Yu-Lieh, p. (24). Kuo Hsiang (died +3'�) write�: 'One mUll forget thc words and look lor what is being indirectly expre....ed (i wongyen i Mil" eMi JO kJuullI,f .1i:��J;)..�mi5C.).· Chheng Hsiian-Ying's subcomrnentary cxpands: 'One must took for the o\�rall meaning indirecdr "xpressed (i hsiin ,hA, chihkhuang .l.:.t4;rt '§'�).' (Kuu ehhing-Fan (t¢l), p. 24. Cf. also ibid., pp. 52� and 947. Theold commentary 10 the IGurg-Su" /.JUII T:,., ed. SPPr, p. Sh, has a comparable inler�Sling use of khuang, wh�re the word ii parallel IUJU � 'to illustrate' and means som�thing ike l referring to something without uling ils namc. Han Khang-Po's cumm"ntary 011 I Ching, cd. SfPl', ,,"oalO and 47"3 gives further example!. C( Daor (1979). p. 78. I 1in lVin nil., cd. Li Shih-H.i, P. !ii T a4 Tsang, p. 2a; cf. Daor (1979), p. 107.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
into one and do not d.istingui�h bet\veen them, that is called 'confusion ofnaming' (ming chih
hun:&Z'ii).'
The dictionary Shih Ming:m� distinguishes: Name (ming :&): to make plain. One names objects or facts and makes them distinct and clear.
Appellation (hao !]ttl: to call, to name according to its good or bad qualities."l
Kuo Hsiang makes a distinction between ming designate, refer to' and chhing 'call '
something by a name': Now what one calls
(chheng) (the
emperors) Vao and Shun only names
(ming) their dust and
dregs.'
Another distinction that caught the allention of the anonymous author of the
Yin Win Tzu was that betwe e n what we would call a transitive verb and its object) and particularly the sharp logical distinction between what we would call the verb/object relation and the subjecr/predicate .relation:
Consider the: phrase (;'11 �R) 'loves oxen'. 'Loves' is a designator which reaches out to things
(wu chih [hung chhmg)'eh ¥!J�Wm-til). 'Oxen' (refers to) a specific shape ofthings (wu chih ling
ruing WZYEM). There is no limit to the possibility ofputting a designator that reaches out (JlzungchMng mi.fili) and then (a name which) fixes the shape (ofthe object to which it reaches
out). For example jfwe make the complex phrase 'love horses', we tie (the designator which reaches out) to 'horse'. So there are no bounds to what 'loves' can reach Out to. For example, if
we makc the complex phrase 'loves men', then the object (pi 1&:) belongs to the class of'men'
(JJ/U)"iijin)'th .1R'Aitt), so that 'loves' is nOt a man, and man is not 'loves', and the (complc:..x) phrases 'loves oxen', 'loves horses', 'loves men' arc inherently separate. Therefore it is said that naming (ming) and setting up attitudinal distinctions (fin 51) must not be confused.! Attitudinal distinctions (fin) {as opposed to objective distinctions
(pun �)
discussed elsewhere in earlier Chinese logical literature) apparenLly fascinated the author ofthe Yin Wen Tzu to such a degree that he fclt impelled to give us a rich set of examples in an effort to make his meaning clear: The applicability (i 1i:) ofnames attaches to the object (pi). The applicability (i) of the set ting up of attitudinal distinctions (F m 71") attaches to me (WQ �).
In 'loves white' and 'hates black', 'finds the shang ift:j note agreeable', 'rejects the chih :ft: note', 'likes the smell of goats', 'dislikes the smell of burnt food', 'is fond of sweets', 'avoids bitter taste', the terms 'white', 'black', 'shang note', 'chih note', 'goaty smell' 'smell ofburnt
food', 'sweet tasle', and 'bitter taste' arc names reaching out to the object (pi). 'Loves', 'hates' 'finds agreeable', 'rejects', 'likes', 'dislikes', 'is fond of', 'avoids', are my attitudinal distinctions (fin). When the names (ming;g) and attitudinal distinctions (f en) are fixed, then
everything will fall into place.�
\'\'e have here a rare instan ce of intensive logical reflection on common words. I lIn Win 'n;.., ("d. Ii Shih-Hsi, p. 9; 1;.0 Jiang, p. :ia; d. Daor(1979), p. log. , Chtng ·r;..n and )'lai r-.ld-Chhia" (1965), p. ::86. I Kuo Chhing-fan (t¢I), p. 33. lin JVin T.:u, cd. Li Shih-H�i, p. 9; Tao TJang, p. :p; d. Daor ('979), p. 110. , Tin Win T.:u, ed. Li Shih-Hsi, p. 10; Tao 'nang, p. 3b; cf. thor (1979), p. 1 1 1 . I
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
357
Wang P£ X:� on names The distinction between the objective and the subjective names is also promin ent in
the logical part of Wang Pi's {+226 (0+249) summary of Lao Tzu's teaching. He tries to work out a distinction as follows:
d
Names (ming) are that which fLXCS the object. Designations (chhingfllJ) come from the person who uses them (wti chi�16). :\'ames (ming) originate in the object. Designations ({Mali) emerge from oneselr. . . . Names (mi'!ghao:&� originate with shapes. Designations (chheng weiflliSW) emerge through conscious eITort.1
n
Wang Pi explains his interest in logical problems in a coherent way: lfsomeone cannot intelligently discriminate between names (pim mingm�), then one can· not discuss principles (ti�) with him . Tfsomeone cannot fix names (lingmmg n:�), onc can not discuss realities with him. Ewry name originates in shapes, and �hapes do not originate in names. Thus when something has a given name, there must necessarily be a given shape present. When something has a given shape, there must be the corresponding distinction. 'Benevolence' cannot be: called 'sageliness', 'wisdom' cannot be called 'benevolence', and ill that way every (name) has its corresponding realiry (shih .V
, •
,
,
Occasionally, Wang Pi carries his urge for precision of definition surprisingly far,
, , f "
l I )
:
f
t •
•
as when he produces the following, almost Aristotelian, elaborate discourse on the
notion of chin lli 'close', which I find in his commentary on the Lun Yii:
Confucius says 'by nature they are dose'. Iftheywere completely the same, the formulation 'are dose' would nOl arise. If they were completdy different, the formulation 'are close' could also not be established. When it now says 'dose', this means that there arc the same features and different features, and it picks out Itx) common features. Their neither being good nor bad s i the same. Their having more or less of each (goodness and badness) arc different features. Although they are different, they are not far from each other, there fore they arc called 'close'. �
(chhii
'Wang Pi had the notion ofa 'general term': All these are called gentlemen, and that surely is a general designation for people who have moral charisma V'U Ii chi (hih thungi chhing)'fh :fii� �ziifiijt!)! .'; Wang Pi was not a logician. He was primarily a commentator. But i n the course of his commentatorial work he had occasion for logical reflection and a certain amount of analytical innovation.� I Wang Pi, Lao 7{u Cl!ihliifh, �d. Lou Y(I-Li�h, pp. 197f.; c[ Daor (1979), p. 15z. ! Ed. Lou Yli-Li�h,p. 199. , Ed_ Lou Ya-Lieh, p. 63�. On.. may �till point out that Aristotle', approach to Ihe problem of ddlnition would have be"n mOT" abstract than lhis, bUI the spirit h"re is cl�arly thespirit ofanaI)-tic enquiry. , Kuo Hsiang fIl� (died +j12) dcfined !him 1i:JCJt!!. as 'a s.-ncral term for all things (u= UlfUriJI /s�"I! ming.� Zt!;t;)'. (Kuo Chhing-Fan (t961), p. 20_) Ed. Lou Va-Lieh, p. 624. For example, ""<e find n i h" work the notion of a general as opposed 10 a sp"cific concept: He liay' that 'gentleman' is a general (or 'per\'asi\'�') term (thung c!thing ii�) for a person who has moral tharisma. (EO. Lou Vil-Lich, p. 6z4). Tbis c:onc"Pl is aho;I used by �laJung in his commentary on th� first "hapter of Lu." Yii. HOWl:\"l�r, the explicit distinction b.:tween IhuflgchMng 'geneTal term' andp;
•
LANGUAGE A:-ID L O G I C
In general, it would be an exaggeration to speak of a school of logicians in the +3rd century. For all we know, interest in logic did remai.n somewhat i.ncidental in this period. However, in the context ofChinese intellectual history even such a mar ginal interest in logic is significant because such interest is generally so rare. That is why I have taken the trouble to give some examples oflogical reflections ofthe +3rd century. (g) C H I N E S E B U D D H I S T LO G I C ( 1 ) THE
E VOLUTION O F B UDDHIST L O G I C
The total extent of indigenous Chinese wTiting on logic which we have discussed so far is quite insignificant when compared with the considerable bulk of Chinese texts on Buddhist logic. Buddhist logic played a marginal role in Chinese intellectual his tory, but we do have a great deal ofit, and this has received comparatively little sino logical allention in Western languages since Sadajiro Sugiura's and E. A. Singer's first exploratory work Hindu Logic as Preserved in China andJapan, published in 1900, and since Giuseppe Tucci's contributions to the subject thirty years later. 1 How did Buddhist logic get to China? How was it perceived and received by Chinese intellectuals? What were the main logical doctrines expounded by Buddhists using the Chinese language? Was Buddhist logic translatable into a lan guage as different from Sanskrit as Chinese without serious loss of meaning and intellectual perspective? We shall want to discuss these questions separately, and we intend to discuss them in a sinological rather than indological context. We shall look closely at Buddhist logic as it would have appeared [0 a Chinese ofthe +7th and +8th centuries in its Chinese linguistic form. ,,,re shall use Chinese texts as sources for Chinese thought, not at this stage for the reconstruction of an essential1y Indian intellectual history. Finally, and quite separately, we shall pay proper attention to the fascinating questions of cultural transmission and translation from the Sanskrit originals. BUl first, we must turn to a historical and bibliographic orientation in this difficult terrain.
Historical and bibliographic on·entation Buddhist logic (Chinese:yin ming ��)2 originated in India, not with the Buddhists but with other philosophical schools, particularly those known as Vaiiqika, Ivruno.T{1sii and NyQ.;'a.3 In India, the origins of logic were linked to the interpretation of the , Th.: one nmabk exception heing Richard
S. Y. Chi"s highly technical rc<:on$lfUClion of thr formalism
underl)";ng Buddhist logic at puc... i 1969. t ..rl in Ch ina ill hi5 BuddhiJl For","'u.,;upublishcd n
The term);11 ��an is derh·cd and n-amlaled fwm the Samlr.rit luuwitfJii. , The pioneering account oflndian logic iJ Vidhyabusana (1971), which remains an ouulanding work ()fref� erence today. Khuei Chi 1Yl.M;, in the opening remarks to hi, Great Commentary on the }(yJyaptIl",.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
!he :al in mar
I
lat IS
+:l,d
edso texts L1 hissmo-
' 1ger s
IgOO,
ed
by d , by a lan g and Ildwe , shall h and mrees ndian ion to nskrit in this
Idhists maf!!sii of the
>rmali,m
rt of rel�
ute, the
359
Vedas and the practice of public philosophical debate, as well as to the science of linguistics as it developed under the influence of P;ll�ini. The first autonomous development oflogic (known as n)'�J'a) can be dated with any certainty at most to the +3rd century. The Yogacara Buddhist Vasubandhu (+5th century) was an early figure to shO\v a distinct interest in logical problems. Some texts of a certain logical interest were translated into Chinese by Indian missionaries during the +5th and +6th centuries. Three such works have been intro duced in G. Tucci (1929a): The TarkaSiistra,1 attributed to Vasubandhu and trans lated asJu Shih Lun YO'imfB by the monk Paramartha between +552 and +557, the Upqyahrdqya/ tentatively attributed to N;lglIrjuna and translated as Fang fun Hsin Lun jJ��·ITffil bel:\veen +471 and 476, � and the Vigrahal!Yiivartanf,� more plausibly attrib uted to Nagarjuna, translated in +541 as the Hui Ching Lun :OO���. Dignaga (+6th to early +7th century) was the first great practitioner of Buddhist logic as we know it today and was duly reviled for his strong scientific interest in the validity of arguments and for his rejection of argumentation by rderence to reli gious authority. � Two complete works, both representing early stages of DignlIga's logical think ing, were translated into Chinese.. Later, more sophisticated, developments oflogic in India were not taken over by the Chinese Buddhists. This was not because these later developments were unkIIO\vn. Hsiian-Tsang;t:� must have been familiar with them. These developments were neglected because they were found uninteresting. Names such as that of DharmakIrti were familiar to practitioners of Chinese Buddhist logic in +8th-century China, but the intense epistemological interest of the later Dignaga as well as his rigid logical formalism did not win the interest ofthe Chinese Buddhists. The tradition of Buddhist logic which did win Chinese interest \.... as that of Dharmapala (Hu Fa �a::, flourished during the early +7th century), who empha sised the use oflogic in practical argumentation, and for whom the art of Buddhist logic was not abstractly formalistic but was essentially linked to the social practice of debate and argumentation. The early history ofIndian logic must today be studied largely on the basis ofthe materials transmitted to Tibet and China and then to Japan (and to Korea)." However, while logic struck strong roots in Tibet and flourished within Japanese Buddhism, it mostly remained a marginal phenomenon in Chinese intellectual ']iJ.iJM Tripitaka no. 1633, ' 'Ii/isilo Tnpilaka no. 1632. Apparently the work hadbeen translated Ixfore or duril1g the Eastern Chin dynasty (+3'7 to +4�o). TaisM Tripilaka no. 1631 For basic orientation on early Buddhi.t logic in India, ,�� K�ith ('921), Randle (1930), Tucci (19Qga) and Hochenski ('960). PI'. 416-46. Nakamura (191l0) provide, a ,ingularly useful fir:>t bibliographic guide to this vast area of .cholarship. �Iatilal (1971) provide:; a modcm logical perspective on the Indian logical tradition. Potter ('977) is the most allthoritative recent account to date of the early development of logic in India. CI. also Junankar ('9i8). , There i, a good r�a.,on why Gim�pp" Tucci's da"ic work Pr,-IJ,'n nii ga BuddhiJl 'It:d.. on Lipc has a sublitle .from Chin(st SourceJ. lt turns oUl that th� main ",urc�, on Buddhist logic from this early period arc indeed Tibetan and Chin�,e.
LA::-.lGUAGE A:-.ID L O C r c
life. I Only during lhe second halfofthe +7th century and during the renaissance of
Buddhism in the early +20th century did Buddhist logic make an imponant impact
on Chinese intellectuals. The crucial figure for the Chinese reccption of Buddhist logic was Hstian-Tsang Z� (+602 to +664)" with hi� disciples, notably Khuei Chi m£ (+632 to +682),3 with whom he foundc.:d the school ofComciousness Only (wei shih ntf�) also known as the sect orConsciousness Only (Ja hsiang wei shih tJung $t§Oi�*).·' Buddhil>t logic \vas introduced to China as an integral part, one might even say the methodological organon (hsiao tao IJ\m), of the Buddhist ;theology' ofthis school.' Consciousness Only was an inte nsely intellectual and demanding school of Buddhism. It was not naturally designe d for popular consumption. As Conscious ness Only was understandably eclipsed by other less obsessively intellectual schools like the Pure Land and Chhall 1ft!. (Sino:Japanese: Zen), this also speh the end of the creative phase in Chinese Buddhist logic. \\Then Consciousness Only was revived during the late 19th and early 20th century, i China. this meant a revival also for Buddhist logic n In +629 Hstian-Tsang set out for India on an unauthoristd and illegal lonely journey in order to enquire about doubtful points of doctrine and in order to find a solution to the conflict between the Southern and the Northern schools of Chinese Buddhism. During many years ofstudy in China with leading Buddhist teachers of his time he had found that they were unable to give clear answers to his doctrinal questions. He decided to go to India which at that time still was the centre of Buddhist l earning. In India, HsUan-Tsang studied with a number of dislinguished masters of Buddhis t logic, notably with Silabhadra, a student of one of the logician Dignaga's students, the colourful learned hermitJayasena, and PrajMbh adra, an authority on grammar and logic. He relurned to Chhang-an sixteen years later in grand style, and with no less than 657 Buddhist treatises in his baggage. This was not a mean load, since the books had to be packed in 520 crates. 3i of these treatises were con cerned with the study ofyill ming�B)3 or Buddhist logic. Under imperial patronage, Hsuan-Tsangorganised a l arge-scale translation pro gramme, and he found time to translate 74 of the texts he had brought along from India. Among these a small proportion only were on logic.6 One n�ason for this 1 Kenneth Chen (1964). the classic Western work on the history ofBuddhism in China. doe. not e,"�.n mention Buddhisl logic orJ1·n "lillA in its n i dex. , SeeJulien (1853), GroUSSC\ (19�9) and Samuel Seal (1911). For a hridcr and mor� rcadable orientatiun lee Wa1eY (1952), PP· I I -130 . ., See Wcinstein (1959) lind TaisM 1n"pilai;a no. 2061 for his bingraphy. Khuei Chi •• was known as :l\Ias!er Chi (Shill Chi 11iIi�) in his OIHl time. Thc first partofhis name, Knuci, is first atrem:d during th� Sungdpla5ry. • For [his school ofBuddhi.mJ .ee Kenn�ch Chen (1914), pp. 3�o-5. Olh.". imponant translators n i the hi�l<>r r ofChinese lo!!ic include: Sh�nThai fII!$ and W�n Pel, xli Ching Mai�lA, Ming Chikh IJJ3Jl, \Wn Ku�i::x. tIL, H ui Chao �m (+650 to +7!4) and Chih Choll fl'ffll (+668 to +")23), all ofthe +7tll and +8!h cl"nturies. S�e Ltl Chhen!! (1982), p. 383, for an illmtratillli for the importance ofJin ming �1j.Ej within the scheme of COIl.'I<; iousnes;; Only. This has not alW
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
must have been that Buddhist logic in India had its .
of public philosophical debate, whereas this .
him.JLldging b)' his name he must have been a brahmin. Cf. the Sanskrit text in �'Jironov (I�rl') ed. and ,..,mn"ruct�d . "!"oung PliO, 1931, no. 1-2, pp. 1-24), and i\lil"onol' (lfl27) (Dignlga'� Nylyaprav"'a lind Haribhadra's Commcmary on il; originally .!m:na ShusQn, extra numb..r B�nare� 1911). The mu,t (ul1\"cnic-1ll Sanskrit t�xt is Tachikawa (1971), which aho indud�! an annotated English rramlation from the Sanskrit. Tilxtans ha".. altrihut�d Ih� w"rk lU Dignaga himlclf, thc Chinese to a disciple ofhis. On the extensive c"mm\'e"y mncerning the aoth()r:;hip Ice Tubianski (1926), Tucci (lg28a), pp. 7ff., Nakamura (19110), p. 300, and Chi {lg6g}, p. hxiv. By far the best cdition of the Chinese translation is Lu Chh�n.� {198j). HUll Thau·Hui (1985), pp. 43-135, p rovides mo� Westerniud philosophical perspecti"l:� on th� Chine,e text. I The N.Ji)·aprauJu was also known ill Chilla as The Little Treatise (HliMI.li.n IJ\iQ), I() distinguish il from lhe somewhal longer and more aothoritative Aj-ii yumuJJ.n., ttamlat...{ into Chines� t,,'O reaN latcr. Thc title N.Jayaprm#ucan perhap$ 1x inrerp,",,",d a. :An imruduetion to the .'Vjiyam�IdM'. Cr. also Chi (1969), p. 124. • Cf. Tucci (1930). The be.1 edition oflh, Chine5e lext Oflhis with texlo31 nOles i1 by 1.(1 Chh..ng and Y'm T.hang (1927). This work is singularly useful because it pro\ides srsrematk crou·ref�r�nco=s (0 Dignaga's hllmd!'usumu("(lIya. The� is 3110lher Iranslalioll of this work by I Ching (+635 to +]13, TuiJlrii Tripi/aka no. (629). Lij Chhcng and Yin Tshang(t.9,q). p. 336, sospectthat th.. W""[ tta,",:U�r I Chingga\'e up hi, atl�mpl at lranslal ing the book 3nd Ihal di$Cipl.., fill..d in H.nan T'
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
the popularity ofthe .i\)iiyapravefa for this reason. Giuseppe Tucci, undoubtedly one of the most formidable "Vestern scholars of Buddhist literature, writes on the
N)ii.)'amukha:
'The treatise, small as it is, is one of the most difficult books that we
have in the Chinese canon.'l The 1'yii.yamukha was not the subject of many com (
mentaries, but a fragment of Shell Thai's �� commentary on it, dated +655,
.
survives.,
The .I\'jayamukha and the Nyiiyapravefa are often presented as the only treatises of
Buddhist logic ..."hich were translated into Chinese. But tbe ru
eMie Shih. Ti Lun
JAiJvmmitt! � (Togiiciirahhiimiiiistra), chapters 15 and 18, (translated in +645) contains
imponam surveys of Buddhist logic. 'Moreover, in +649 HSiian-Tsang also trans
lated a text which exemplifies the practical use ofyin ming fZ.g6A, the
Chang (:hen Lun
mft�.3 1n +650 he translated the Kuang Paz" Lun Shih ,i{EifiRi"4 which is rich in examples of Buddhist logical practic:e. Finally, Chhen,J: Wei Shih Lun pxllfE-r.&.�'" con
tains material relevant to the study ofJ'in mingo
The Chinese commentaries to :Nyayapravefa' As, Hsiian-Tsang
Z� translated the ./{y4>'amukila and the .;\)'iiyapraveia he expounded
their meaning to his disciples who were very eager to note down the esoteric new teaching they received.
The tremendous difficulty of the subject was no doubt vividly perceived by every
one present. Khuei Chi m�, who was to become Hsuan-Tsang's most trusted dis
ciple in the end, writes:
Dignaga made detailed investigations (oflhe earlier literature on the subject) and produced his NJ'iiyamulrJJa and other works. Although the basic teaching was orderly and lucid, the meaning was obscure and thc words recondite. The beginner was unable to fathom its subtleties." '""riting commentaries onyin
ming became something of a rage.7 Twelve com TaishiJ ::t: IE Tripitaka, published in
mentaries to the }{YiiJ'apravefa survive in the
Tokyo, and the Supplementary Tripitaka, published in Kyoto.s In practice it is impossible to distinguish in these commentaries berween the opinions of Hsiian Tsang
�� and those ofhis disciples. These commentaries, in any case, are the main
basis for our understanding of the development of Buddhist logic in China.
\ Tucci (1930)' p. "l. , Tai..nd Trlpi/alw no. 1H39, Suppinrlrolary TripitaM " voL 86, no. 71;. Cf. the parlial lranslation in Tucci (lg"l8a). , Mi..M Tripitaka, vol. 30, pp. ::68-78. " Taislri Tripi/aka, vol. 30, pp. ,8i �so. Great Commentary I.lgag. , See Wei(19iJ). 1 The �ar!i�st Cllmmcntaries wer� those by Shen Thai jijl$, Ching :\1ai illlJI and :\'Iing Chiieh IW�, aU 01 which a� lost. Th� second gcn�rali()n ofcommentari�5 wu by Wtn Pei Jtflil ann Wiln Kuei :Xtir. Ilfwhich by far the more popular waJ \-\'�n Kuei's comln�ntary which survive! today 3! Ih� 1111 ,\lm,IlJu iNn Clu.lI1Ig 1... SIIIl •
!!I·Al--1.t;U:"UAI.
• Cf. )ialamura (1980), p. 300. Th" commentaries are conveniently Ij�ted up in Chi (1969), p. 189. A useful but quite outdated lint orientalion on Buddhist logic in China and in Japan � Sugiura and Singer (1900). Bibliographies ofthe l"el('\'
LANGUAGE A�D L O G I C
f • ,
• 1
d "
'
-
;
d
, n
IS
,
n
�,
., •
The earliest surviving comm�ntary, and the most disciplined and philosophically inspiring, is that by 'Wen Kuei >C@'l..' My far the most comprehensive and ency clopaedic of the commentaries is that by Khuei Chi miilS, the rin l\1ingJu Cheng Ii Lun Shu �a)ti\.iEf:!1!�ifriifJit, more conveniently (and very appropriately) known as the Yin kling Ta Shu 12SI�j(� 'The Great Commentary on Buddhist Logic', or simply as Ta Shu ::kiW 'The Greal Commentary', We shall follow Chinese practice and refer to lhe book simply as the Great Commental)�l The texwal history of the Great Commentary is complicated. It appears that Khuei Chi only finished five sixths of it, and that Hui Chao (+650 to +714) finished the rest for him. Hui Chao �m also produced a sub-commentary or an extended version on lhe Great Commentary, known as the Hrii Shu ,m lftE , which was pub lished in two volumes by the Chih-naJ./t1-h.riieh-'yiian JtJj�rg�� in 1933.3 The very bulk and detail ofthe Great Commentary, and the fact that it made exten sive use of earlier commentaries by men like Shen Thai 1¢:t; meant that many of the earlier commentaries were consigned to olJlivion. The last of the early com mentators was Chih Chou �m (+679 10 +733), three ofwhose commentarial works are printed in the Supplementary 1'ripitaka.� Yin ming IZSI � logic spread toJapan, where +7th- and +8th-century material on Buddhist IOglc was collected in the Yin IHing Lun Shu ..Hing Teng Chhao ���Iffft. H}H;'ft t�.5 There also survives a Japanese commentary on the }(yayaprauesa, written in Chinese by HOlan �� (+1653 W +1738),6 which provides material from now-lost earlier Chinese sources.i The transmission oflndian Buddhist logic to China is linked w Hsuan-Tsang, perhaps the best-known Chinese monk of all ti me,S bur this did not ensure a great success for Buddhist logic in that country. Even those doctrines of the School of Consciousness Only (wet shih ntm.) which Hstian-Tsang had fell were suitable for the Chinese context, did not fare well in China itself.9 A most interesting question is that ofthe c:uhural impact of Buddhist logic in the China beyond the confines of monasteries. In fact, there is one cause ctlibre in , s�� Surrl�m"ntary Tripitaka. series I. "01. 86, no. 718, ;lnd tilt wond�rful �xpand<:d re-edition 1111 MingJu Lull Chuang len Shu published in "J:l�, which relates Wen Kud's comm�!It.' 10 parallel pa55ages in the Great Commentary by KhU!:i Chi. cl'ogether with the ;Zulgmki :f;'ti ii:�c these arc the standard r�f"rence editiom of the most important texli on Chiuc,� Buddhist logic. On \Wn Kuei'� commentary sec Takcmura (19tl9). , Of all the commentators. Klllle i Chi seems to ha\"� he�n th� On� mo!t intereS1ed in the original Sanskrit words. On� might he tempted to douht whethe,· Kh uei Chi actually was fully lit�rate in llon-fluddhisl Chinese. Ihn by the lime one reads his u i tnxluctiou to the Great Commentary one is quile eert�ill lhal KJmei Chi wa.. a
Inrned Chinese schol ar well ycned in the Confucian da"i,_• . • First SeTi,,". no�. 72:-1 to 7�5. , C[ al5() S�pp!mvll/(l'J Tripilaka, \'01. 87 , no. 722.
l 1"iJislrii Tn"pilaM. no. ·��7<'>. � Cf. Anon, lli sugahjiltn, Klldaluha, Tokyo 1971, p. 1�99. , Thil wurkWal reprinted in 1928 by the Commercial rrc,� n i Shanghai. I The classical novel I1ri I" Chi§ �.fc brilliantly translalcd by Arthur \\'aJ�y as 'Monkey', deall with the exploits ofHsUan-T.ang(or Tripital:a) on his way to India. � 'I'he study of Chn i esc Buddhisl logic It"" to tak ... acc'ount oflhe m�nysources wrinen byJapall"St: Buddhist
logidalU. i\loTf:m...r, much oflhe detailed modern research on Buddhi�t logic has �n condueled byJapanese scholars. :s'utab]" Chine.., M;holaTS include the philologist til Chheng, Ihe philo5()pher and logician Chh"n Ta Chhi, ami ill I]", )uunger !{eueralion 1..0 Chao, who oominuC$ Lu Chh€ng'1 tradition and "'or� wilh both Sanskrit and Tibelan soun"•.
LANGL"AGE AND L O G I C
Chinese intellectual hisLOry that is din�('tly('onnectcd with Buddhist logic. The case involves the celebrated polymath Lo Tshai g;t (+600 to +665). 1 Lii Tshai was
employed as one of the emperor's two chief physicians. He was also known
as
an
astronomer and as an authority on dance as wf':ll as music. By all act:Ount�, he was generally very fond of solving puzzles. Arthur Waley tells [he story how the
Emperor 'l'hai Tsung 7,;;: * once came across a c.ertain ancient book called
San Tim
Hsiang Ching =!iffi#&!. 'The Treatist' on Three-board Chess' and found he could g:;t, then thirty years old spent a night studying the book and was able to explain it completely and illustrate it with diagrams 1 Similarly, when challenged to explain the notoriously tricky Th(liHsiian Chin.s::.:tZ� by Yang Hsiung mfft, he was able to extemporise a reasonable account of the work. In +655 Lo. Tshai came across Dignaga's }v ),iiyamuklw. The book was sent to him nor understand it. Lo Tshai
,
on account ofits notorious obscurity by a Buddhist friend with the following note: 'This treatise is full of profound mysteries and extremely hard to get to the bottom
Many monks
of.
of great intelligence and wide learning have found themselves
unable to understand it. If you succ:ecd in doing so, you may consider yourself a complt:te master ofBuddhism no less man oflay studies." Clearly, a man of the calibre studied the }yqyamukha as well {
of Lti Tshai could not dismiss this challenge. He as the commentaries to the .,A'jiiJ'aprautia by Shen
Thai �'* and others, and he found the interpretations in the available commen z� disciples contradictory (50 shuo ll.u hsiallg mao tun ffi� EI ffi:rf5) though all attributed to HsLian-Tsang himself: 1 Lo. Tshai was not a man
taries by Hso.an.'rsang's
to leave things at that. He produced his own critical exposition on the work under
the title
l1n Min,g Li PIw Chu Chich I Thu E;I�j'[iHtmgril 'Explanations and chiian ;g . >\nd as an
Diagrams on Logical Demonstration and Refutation' in three
.
intellectually fearless man, Lo Tshai offered, in the preface which is the only part of the work that survives,\ to submit his work to the judgement of the Master Hsuan Tsang himself. LLi's preface gives splendid evidence of his independence of' mind. He confesses that he had never heard of Buddhist logic before he saw the
declares
JVjii)'omukha. He
that he docs nOI follow the accumulated wisdom of a mastcr. As for the
those explanations that are good, but that he will refute those that are questionable. And
e,xisting three commentaries,6 he declares that he will give proper praise to
very reasonably he proposes to make his meaning more intelligible at difficult points by introducing diagrams {i thu �[;il 'meaningful pictures').7
Buddhist reactions were, of course, fierce. Hsuan-Tsang's biographer Hui Li
r:1.1r. compared Lo. Tshai to the mouse which, because it could get to the top of the
stove, thought it would have no difficulty in climbing Mt Khun lan g. It was felt to be -
• For a detailed sur\'ey of what;, known abont him .
.
LA)lGGAG£ 1\:,\,D L O G I C
outrageous that Lli Tshai g:t as an outsider and non-Buodhist should presume to write on mallers of Buddhist logic or indeed on any subject within the special com petence of the Buddhist masters. As Hui Li put it, Lti Tshai 'wilh tht:: qualifications of a commoner misappropriated (dilliell �) the explanations of many Buddhisl masters'.1 One ofHsOan-Tsang's collaborator�, �/ling HsGan, came lorward with a letter lull of accusations and detailed criticisms, claiming among other things that Lti had misunder�tood various Sanskrit terms and c;:\'en the nature of Sanskrit inflection.1 Finally, a confrontation was arranged between La "l'shai and HsOan-Tsang. We would love to know what happened on this historical occasion, and particularly what arguments were exchanged. In any case, in the end La l'shai was humiliated and made to recant his rash opinions concl':rning Buddhist logic. Thus ended the single most significant encounter be tween Buddhist logic and a Chinese layman philosopher in ancient time�. In India, lObrlC fiouri�hed until the +Ilth century and continued as an unbroken tradition (the so-called naID'a-11)'oya or '.:-;rew Logic' school) right down to the 18th century, I while in China the imerest in logic remained marginal even under the Thang (+618 to +g06) and all but disappeared after th!� decline ofBuddhism during the latter part of that dynasty. :\1any of the Chim:se books on Buddhist logic will have survived for a time, and Yen Shou J!-= (+904 to +9iS) did include some mat erials on logic in his Tsung Ching Lu �f;jJH.fJ:.� H owever, during the upheavals of the +14th century, practically all the Chine�c material on Buddhist logic was lost \Vhen rvling scholars like Ming Yii �!it, Chih Hso �11J§., Chen Chieh �:W, and \'Vang Khcn-Thang x�� felt a new curiosity foryin ming �iY'J studies,5 they had to base themselves on the very difficult texts of Hsiian-Tsang's translations together with second-hand materials such as they found in Yen Shou 's TsuTI!: Ching Lu.(' The com memarial tradition was broken, and much of what we have of older Chinese works on Buddhist logic \vas presl':rved inJapan only, inaccessible to Chinese scholars dur ing the Ming dynasty. 'Nang Khcn-Thang (born +1553, graduaTed +1589), one of the eminent scholars whom Mattco Ricci associated with in Nanking, has a rather moving preface to his commentary on the fi j'iiyapraveia. ·With a friend he visits a Buddhist monk and the 1\....0 arc given a little booklet by the monk: He looked pleased and handed it to us. saying: 'If you want to �nter de�p into the sea of learning, then this is your rudder and your oars.' \Ve looked at it and it was the)Vj·ii)·apraveia. \Ve wtr� all confused and did not know what to say . . . When I visited the Zen master 1H
3 1 0.
, Yang Pai-Shun, Xllan,:ulIJUuJillmillg, p. , For d�{ails orlh� a�cusa1iom see WaJ�y (1952). pro �74-5.
, The �landaTd work on this is Ingalls (19SI). cr. aho fo.latilai (1!J66)' The Jiling Chi"8 Lu��"� in on� hundred cAiilln � by Yen Sholl .ii1;$J (+!Jo4 l0+97S)wa, nmpubJish�rl until be(>',ccn +1078 and +1085. It ht(lIme a '"try popular lummary ofBudrlhist doctrine, and has 'oI.'cn r�pdJH�d and r�viscd man\' time! �ince. i , cr. S7 ,'. \"01. 87, nos. 726 to 729. Th�.;;e epigonio::pl1 ming �1J8 pursui�dc""rve t a study in their uwn rght. cr. Sh�n Chien-)�ng (1984)' p. 66. I
e
•
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C Tsang,
I saw a book on the: table in his place. In a desuhory way I opened i t to see what it
was, and it tur ned out to be a cummentary 011 thcJ'i ),ii),apraveia.I
Without much �ucccss, \Vang tried to study the JyY&yapralleia, but whenever he asked other people's advice on it, he says, they all answered as foHows: i Thl-; treats e has
been known a, the most mystc::rious and hard-ta read from the times of HSiian-Tsang onwards. The old manuscripts orthe commentaries and manuscripts are -
lost . . . �
Access to Chinese books on Buddhist logic may have been difficult during !'vling times, but the situation became even worse during lhe Thai-phing Rebellion (ISSI to 1865), when the Thai-phing leaders aimed at destroying all Buddhist repositories of learning within their control. The historically crucial figure for the revival ofBuddhist logic and Consciousness Only in China was Yang Wen-HuimXff (1837 to 1911).� In 1878, while in Lmdon on a diplomatic mission, Yang Wen-Hui met the great indologist Max Milller, and his disciple Nanja Bunja, the compiler ofthe still indispensable bibliographic guide to the Buddhist Tripitaka. In 1890, Yang wrote to NanjO soliciting his help in col lecting Buddhist books for him inJapan. As a result, a relative of Yang's, an official in the Chinese embassy in Japan, brought back hundreds of Buddhist texts that were not in the Chinese Tripitaka as it was then known. Among these happened to be Khuei Chi's m.£ commentary on HSilan-Tsang's �� magnum OPlLf, the ChMng Wei Shill Lun ����ifII , published by Yang \'Ven-Hui m>cit in 1901. The edition we have used of the Great CommentaI1' on NydyapralJeSa was published five years earlier, in 1896, by the legendary Buddhist Press, the Chin-ling kilo-ching chhu ��t(1J ��. Publications like these sparked offa revival ofinteresl in Buddhism. � Noteworthy among those Buddhist schools of thought that were revived in the early 20th century was lhe school of Consciousness Only, for which Yang Wen-Hui had shown a special interest. In 1918, Ouyang Ching-Wu �Jt�(r871-r943). with Chang Ping-Lin $.:If3G (1868 to 1936) and others, founded the China Institute ofInner Learning at Nank i ing to propagate Consciousness Only and)'n ming �1Y3. In 19'22 the abbot Thai HSii :;:ttm (r89°--1947),� a student ofYang V,,'En-Hui and an enthusiast foryin miTig as well as Consciousness Only, founded the competing but less important 'Wuchang Buddhist Institute'. These associations, and several others like them,6 were places of considerable learning, and they had a pervasive influence on intelleclual life in China. , Wang Khcn·Thang on NP, STvol. 87, p. .�3a IOP.�f[ Ihid., top 6. ' For a biography sec Yang \,'en·Hui (/,9J3). , Cr. Wei Tal (1973), � GII'OII: 11'Ii Shill Lilt, p. 5-1. For more general accounts pUlling the re\�,"al orBuddhiJm into pt'flpective �ec Briere (19.16) and the authoritative Chan (1953). tor the genual 5OCial 5Clting sec (1968) •
(1967).
, Sec Yin-Shun (1950) and tht: Icss entJlIlsiastic accoum in Wdch(1968). the most complet� lin a\"aitabl� to date ohuch Buddhist �cmina.-ics see Welch (1968), pp_ �8')-7.
• For
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
tat it
The school of Consciousness Only, and with it its central component, Buddhist logic
r
he
(yin ming)
attracted special attention from most of the leading inteUectuais
of the time: the scholar Chang Ping-lin Hsiung Shih-Li
am�
(1868 to 1936), the philosophers
#�+:!J (1883 to 1968) and Chh,n Ta-Chhi !il(7<:J!\' and Ihe distin
�*�mJ Hsu Ti-Shan �'f1t!:!LlJ) and Lti gtl& all wrote treatises on Buddhist logic_I Men like Yen Fu �m., Liang Chhi-Chhao !;1t1llt>!,! Khang Yu-Wei 1!!il'lJ.!;" Thao Ssu-Thuog �0lJ[liJ, Chhen Yin-Kho �Ji!te, Thang Yung-Thung �JtlfB, and the grand old man ofConfu cianism Liang Shu-Ming ��� all took a lasting benign interest in Consciousness guished philologists Chhen \Nang-Tao Chheng
ling 18S1 Ines ness
don and tide col leial iliat
d lO
bing
Don
�J ilie Hui
�M mk
ruu ",'eU
Only Buddhism and Buddhist logic. The organs of the intellectual revival of Con
� ��fU and Nei-yiian Tsa chih pq m��, and .,Vei-hsiieh P"J* all published in Nanking, and particularly Thai Hsti'sj,(tt Hai-chhao-yin ?1:ij��.2 Many wrote aboutyin ming�l!ij, but those who took a serious philological inter
sciousness Only werejournals like the Neijliilln nim-khan
est in it, who learned Sanskrit and Tibetan as well asJapanese to be able to consult the most important sources, were fev\,.:J The reasons why so many leading Chinese intellectuals turned to the School of Consciousness Only, and particularlyyin ming logic, were profound: most important was probably the deep-seated desire for a distinctly Eastern logical and method ological identity.
Yin ming provided a way of being scicntific in method and deeply
spiritual in purpose, while remaining Chinese - or in any case oriental - in basic outlook. One participant in this revival of Buddhist logic Yu Yu
.I!I � , in Liu Phei-Yu
(1982), p. 40, repons: 'But on the onc hand the old translations were so abstruse
that even those laymen who had the inclination to work with it withdrew. On the
other hand, since Buddhist logic lacked precise modern examples and was short of realistic significance, it found it hard to attract the interest ofreaders_ This is probably a realistic assessment ofthe reasons why Buddhist logic failed to have a more sustained and lasting intellectual impact in China than it did have. (2) THE SYSTEM
OF
BUDDHIST
LOGIC
ang
introductory remar/u
Ices
In ancient Greece we find at least two competing though in fact complementary
em
traditions of logical enquiry: The Aristotelian peripatetic tradition and the Stoic tradition which had Chrysippus as its main early exponent.1 In pre-Chhin China,
bUm
,..
I Se" Chang Ping-Lin (1917), Chhen Wang-tao (1931), d. Chou W�n-ying (1979), p. 'l32. ChQu Shu-.:hla (If.d.), Hslung Shih-Ii (1916), lIui YOan ('.978), La Chh�ng (1935), Lu Chh�ng and Shih T,haug-ho (/.9�7); ef. Chou Wen-)�Ilg, ('979). p. ��2, • For fh� m�t r.orupletc hibliography 10 dale ofBl1ddhistjol1rnab ofthe time Sc� Welch (1968), pr. 27�4' J Lii Chh�ng lSit1 i. perhaps the most aceomplish�d Chinc:oe Kholar in thill fidd sinc� I-Ulian-T&3ng himself. La Chao Ii'tB of the Academy ofSocial Sci"nccs in p.,king continue, this great philological tradition . • For standard treatments �c Patzig (1969), Male, (1961) as wdl ail Bochenski(I947).
3 68
LA::-.IGUAGE AND L O G r C
too, there were competing schools oflogical thinking: among others Kungsun Lung and the Later Mohists expounded competing logical theories. In Thang China, by contrast, all practitioners ofyin ming JZSIBA seem to have ste.n themselves as practi tioners of one and the same art introduced in to China by HSlian-Tsang 1[�. Buddhist logic was one �ystem represented by the Nyo.;'apraueia and the }I/)ayamukha and expounded in Chinese commentaries on these two works. In a recent survey ofBuddhist studies we read: ),'Iost prr-scm-day Japanese scholars considrr H�iian-Tsang's translatiom as rault)" and Khuei Chi's
m.�
comments miss the original meaning even more. Presumably because
Khuri Chi did not quite undcrsLand Buddhist logic I
Hajimc f\:akamura brars out this view: Indian logic was acccpu:d only in part, and even the
understood in the sense: of the Jndian originals. .
Tz'u-en's
.
part
that was acceptcd was not
(i.e., Khuci Chi. Tzhu-cn was the name ofthe monastery alier which his school
was called.] work, which was regarded as the highest authoriry in China andJapan, con tains many fallacics in philosophical and logical analysis.1
The harshness ofHajime Nakamura's generalisation is remarkable: he goes on to discuss Buddhist Logic in China under the heading: �cceptance ofIndian Logic in a Distorted Form'.:1 One way of reading the Chinese logical texts is indeed to look for logical mis turn out to be a happy takes. One can also read Plato in this way, and Plalo's ...vorks . hunting ground indeed for those who delight in logical blunders. The logical work De grammatico by Saint Anselm of Canterbury (+1033 to +1103) suffered abrasive criticism by a scholar ofmedieval European thought: . . . Saint Anselm maintains these heights (of theological thought) as long as he remains within the border of Christian metaphysics; but he falls back into the barbariry of his period as soon as he leaves the field of Christianity to take up the philosophy of his period, namely,
the Scholastic dialectic. Thus the dialogue Degrammotica (sic!!], which most unfortunately is one ofhis pieces, turns on a wretched question arising from Aristotle's De Inlerprtlah'ont; it is as useless and insignificant a production as. �
Victor Cousin's harsh judgement was echoed also in the first large-scale history of logic, C. Prantl (IBiO). Detailed research since then, however, has shown that Anselm's dialogue Degrammatico happens to be one of the great masterpieces in the histOl), ofWestern philosophy oflanguage.s It is worth enquiring in detail \"hether Hsuan-Tsang and his followers did quite as badly as Hajime Nakamura seems to think. We need to study Hsuan-Tsang's work from the point ofview not only of traditional syllogistic theory but ofmodern philosophical logic.
' Ihid., p. Igl
' ):J;J;amura (!964), p. 192. , Wu]u-Chun (1984),P. 81. • Victor Cuusin (!836). p. (iii, as quoted in H�nry(!967), p. 3�.
)
Henry (1967).
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
19 Jy
u-
•
Iw
ot
�l
n-
to
ill
1)'
'Y
at Je
Ie rs
m
I do nOl deny that it will be interesting to know exactly what kinds ofmistakes the Chinese logi cians were capable ofmaking. (I would be amazed if they weren't mak ing mistakes, of course.) But the morc important first questions are the positive ones: Were the Chinese on'hang times incapable oftruly proficienl logicai analysis along the lines ofInruan Buddhist logic? Was their language lacking in the precision and logical subtlety necessary for the purpose of rigid formal l ogical analysis? There is only one effective way orflnding out about this: to make a close philologi cal study of the Chinese works on Buddhist logic. These questions are not easy to answer in a general way. However, the evidence I have seen strongly suggests that the early Chinese Buddhist logicians ofthe Thang dynast)� particularly for example Wen Kuci )t.�, but also Khuei Chi �:.l, have done fr:markably well. It is sometimes treacherously easy to attribute to the Chinese commentators obvious logical blunders in their excruciatingly difficult tcxt�. l Moreover, it is perfectly true that the terminology ofChinese logicians is often curi ously multivalent. For example, the term tsung * can mean I . the thesis, 2. the sub ject orthe thesis, 3. lhe predicate of the thesis, and 4. a discussant party. Again, it is facile and misleading to blame this {truly unfortunate} terminological multivalence on the Chinese commentators' incompetence. Similarly, there is a most disturbing ambiguity of)'in IZSI 'n�ason', which can either refer I . to the property R in the rcason, or 2. to the proposition ascribing the property R to the subject S of the thesis. But it turns out that the Chinese commentators in both cases faithfully reproduce (parl or) a terminological muddle of equivocation found in the Sanskrit texts themse1ves!� In what follows we shall simply try to reconstruct Buddhist logic on the basis of the earliest Chinese sources we have. 'Ne shall see to what extent a coherent picture emerges.
A pTtliminary simplifird sumry qfthe yin mini IZSlBA system The history of Buddhist logic in China is full of subtle distinctions, subdistinctions and all the formidable appurtenances ofa highly developed scholastic systematicity , A passage wlliell al f,rsl glance looh like a glaring mistake oftentllCn! out in the end to be a passage which is iu"uffid"nuy undcf>tood. For example, in Great Commentary �.toa3tt'. Khuei Chi argues apparently at vari ance willi hi! Sansk.rit lources, thaI subject and predicate spedy f or subcategori�e each othn Chhrn Ta-Chhi (1970), pp. 2if., following I.u Chheng regards this a., a m
,
,
,
,
,
the
370
L A N G UAGE A:-1D L O G I C
which are aJien, on the whole, to pre-Buddhist China. Introductions to this system of Buddhist logic are often extremely hard to follow. One has to acquire new intel lectual habits, and this is not easy, The first thing onc \vill notice is that just as the Chinese detective story usually exasperates the \Vestern reader by giving away the identity orthe culprit at the very beginning and not at the end, so the Buddhist argument surprises us by putting the conclusion before the grounds. Instead of arguing cogito, ergo sum, a Buddhist would instead consider an argument like I exist, because I think. And the Buddhist logician'S enquiry is exactly into the conditions that might make such a \\'ay of arguing acceptable. Chinese Buddhist logic is an art offormallyjustifying a thesis or a tenet. For an argument [0 be of an acceptable form, the Chinese Buddhist logician also requires that it should he substantiated by examples. In this instance, what needs to be exemplified is the generalisation which is so crucial to the argument: that wher· ever there is thought there is an existing subject of thought, and that convenely wherever there is no subject of thought there will be no thought. As long as exemplification of this kind is not forthcoming, the argument is - by the standards of Chinese Buddhist logic - not well-formed. The examples serve to insure that an argument is logically connected with this world as it is, that it does not consist of empty abstraction only. I In this concrete instance, the Chinese Buddhist adherent of the School of Consciousness Only would maintain that the issue is precisely whether the process of thought necessarily must have a neat metaphysical subject in the form of a Self, or an ego to do the thinking. Cogito, ergo sum, according to our imagined Chinese Buddhist, begs the question by surreptitiously and fallaciously introducing the ego into cogito. Moreover, the Buddhist logician would insist that the argument cogilv, ergo sum would be unacceptable (because pointless) if used \"';th an audience in which the thesis or conclusion is not in doubt in the first place. Again, the argument cogilo, ergo sum would be unacceptable (because ineffective) if the notions of'person', 'exist' and 'think' were nOt understood by the arguer and his opponent in the same way. Finally, a standard argument like 'People exist, because they think' would only be acceptable if in [act every person thinks; (All S are R) some things that think definitely exist; (Some R are P) 3. no things that do not exist think. (All non·Pare non·R) These three (mela-logicalJyformulated) requirements in Chinese Buddhist logic are known as the Three Aspects ofthe Reason. By an elementary rule oflogic we may simplify the third Aspect as 3' All R arc P. 1.
2.
and deduce from All S are R, and All R are P, thal All Sare P. , Tu Kuo-H,iang, (I9&'a) and (196�b), strongly stresses the epi"l�ml>ll>gical and not purely logical empha�;! in
yin ming �aA .
,
n
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
37'
At this point one may be tempted to conclude with
quod trat demonstrandum and
rejoice at having reduced the Chinese Buddhist form of argument to the most de mental)' urlhe Aristotdian syllogisms,l Indeed, a great deal ofwork has been pro duced using mathematical logic to describe Chinese Buddhist logic.1 R. S. Y. Chi (1969), p. Ij, states the method in his study orthe Buddhist logicaJ system in China:
Therefore in my formulation I do not actually translate the Indian authors' words into sym bols, but express what they meant to say - i.e., what they would have said ifthc:y had uSl':d precisely Ihe same language and symbols as we do. R. S. Y. Chi's method is not entirely without its merits, since it defines many basic
logical issues relating to Chinese Buddhist logic, and he does recognise its limita
tions: '1 shall not list these nyqya meta-logical terms and give a comparative study of them, (such a task could be better handled by philologists) . . . ' (Ibid., p. xiv) In the context of our present enterprise it is a philo-logical enquiry which holds our special interest. And for this philological enquiry we need all the formal logical acumen we can muster. Benson 1htes, whose textbook Elementary ugic I have admired and used for years in teaching logic, provides a shining example of the advantages offormal logical training in philological research. His book Swic ugic is a masterpiece of philology precisely because it shows thorough familiarity with philological detail as well as a proficient command of modern philosophical logic.
Sound philology oflogical texts requires a strong background in both philology and
logic. The philological tasks involved require logical decisions at everyjuncture.
In order to understand Chinese Buddhist logic in its own terms, our first step
must be to understand the basic terminology of Buddhist logic in China, not as
pro lo-logical adumbrations ofmodern logical concepts, but as forming a conceptu al scheme in its own right. A conceptual scheme not to be reduced to modern logic, but to be more fuUy understood by comparison with modern theories.
After this methodological excursion on the formalism ofthe Three Aspects ofthe
Reason, let us revert to our introductory application of the general scheme of Chinese Buddhist logic to
the familiar cogito, ergo sum.
IL turns out that the Chinese Buddhist logician is far from exclusively concerned
with the formal features stated above under nos.
I-3. The
Chinese Buddhist logi
cian is also crucially interested in the presuppositions involved in such an argument. For example,
he might find the argument cogito, ergo sum acceptable as long as it is
at an audience which accepts the idea that thought must be a process
directed with (or in) a subject.
For a Chinese Buddhist of the School of Consciousness Only,
I In a scriet ofimeresting article' on the mdhoduloKY ufthc comparali,'C study oflogie, the lOgician Douglas D. Day� has poimect out the dangen; ofreducing the Indian S)'.tcm 10 a Wenern formalism: 'I ,",'Quid ugg"'t (and ""9' J\lAA"�t) that the Jump/i,,,, utility ofmathematical logic with I4rl)' :"I)·!l.ya texl$ hu simply bf,en overrated . Thnefur", the Procrustean usc ofmathcmar ical logic . . . should not he ,oj"w�d, in my"y"', as th" Meq�lIltOltriiJHl [riiJHl: forml from "'hieh all exposirol)- bhllJf,lU fMagas: ble••n i K'l mu�t flow.' (Daye (1977), p. :)31.) • In 1951 there was rh.. p ion....ring fJ. H. H. Ingalls. In 1958 came H. Nakamura and]. F. Staal. Other impor tant contributions include Kiraga"-d(.goo), Barlingay (1965), McDermotl (1970) and B. K. :'-.lalilaJ's work, e!pr: dally �Iatilal (1971).
�
37'
LA:'\'GUAGE AND L O G I C
however, this is not a foregone conclusion. For him it is in fact a mistaken view. The person or Sclfor ego -for adherents ofthe School ofConsr:iousness Only- is only a construct, not an existent thing. Thought may be real in some sense, even ifonly as illusion, but the person, ego, or Self docs not exi'>t in any other sense than this: it is an object ofimagining. There can be a process of thinking \vlthout there necessarily being a thinker as the subject of the thinking, just as there can be blowing without there 'being' a wind that does the blowing. Thus, the argument
t'ogito, ergo sum may he acceptable in unenlightened parts of
the world where the doctrine ofConsciousness Only is not (yet) understood, but it is quite unacceplabl� when used to prov� anything to an adherent of that school of Buddhism. For the Chinese Buddhist logician, then, the question of the acceptability of an argument depends on the truth ofadduced grounds and on the audience to which it is addressed. He is not concerned with deductive logical validity as such. An argu ment must be seen in its intellectual context. Its acceptability is not an absolute mal ter. It is relative to th� historical context in which it occurs. Chinese Buddhist logic is nOt purely formal logic in our vVestern sense oflh� word. It is-as we shall see -ultim ately concerned not with formal logical validity, but with material truth. Chinese Buddhist logic is therefore always concerned with theoretically important signi ficant propositions and their justification through formalised argument.
Theplace ofChinese Buddhist Logic among the sciences l1n
ming
'the science of grounds' is intended as a comprehensive philosophy of
sCIence. Scientific discourse (iun 'tiIfB) consists of proof (liang :1:) and disputation (I �). Proof (liang) fixes what is true and what is (only) apparent(!y true) (ling dun ssu JEW fJ:j). Disputation (i) goes into detail about establishing (Ii 11.) and refuting (pho li1Z). I
Quite generally, yin
ming is
concerned with the conditions of acceptability of
grounds as proofof a thesis. Traditionally;yin ming is regarded as one of the Five Sciences (wu ming liHA), a fact which has guaranteed logic a place in the Indian (but not in the Chinese) general educational curriculum: Logic (yin ming) is onc ofdIe Five Sciences (wu ming)o I have humbly looked for accounts of [he Five Sciences and [he term goes back a long time.2
The five branches of learning were tht" literary sciences
(sMlIg ming
��),
the
technological sciences (kung chhiao ming IPj�) the medical sciences (fang ming "JjHA),
the logical sciences (yin ming), and finally the only specifically Buddhist branch, the religious sciences (nti ming j7gSf:i). Apart from the religious sciences
(nli ming), all the
, Greal Comm�ntar); cd. SunK Y"n, 1.6aj. Wen Kl.lei on J\'y4 yapYllt'tia, ed. Lii Chhcng, p. la, S"pplml4niary TripitaJ;l1. \"01. 86. p. 3:i,a, lOp 3.
1
L A � G U A G E AND L O G I C
1< ,a as as
ill'
out i O[ it is
l of jan
:h it
rgu nat-
jlC IS um nest:
Igm-
hI' of
(liang) ion (i) tity of •
a fact
e neral
lunls of
others were regarded as not linked up with any spe cific religion. However, the logi cal sciences were obviously used in the service ofBuddhism:
Rdigiou� sciences (1I1"i ming f'ql!fj) are directed towards the. believers and their provision. Logical sciences ()'in ming t2Si�) arc directed toward� the heretics (pang"W1) and their con lrol.' By means orlhe�es (tstmg *), rea50nR (yin Jlj) and examples (Jiit!f.J) onc explains dog mas to those who have' not yet understood (Wl'l Ijao * 7).! Special importance is attached to Buddhisl logic because it helps one to sort out
competing vic\vs on ultimate Lruth:
The ultimare truth (chill li � J) ) is a recondi\(: thing which is nOt accessible to superficial i knowledge (chhiw shih ��), Therefore the competing views arose concerning the varous profound dogmas (00 i !l�) , . . Iryou want to see ifyour shape is beautiful or ugl'}; you look al yoursclfin a dear mirror or in a clear pool.� If you are to fix tnah or deviation (ching hsUn IE$), you must look at them through logic (yin ming �H)j), the theories ofperception (hsun
.fjl) and inkrence (pilt).'
Chinese Buddhist logic is essentially concerned with thejustification of orthodox Buddhist clai ms against u nonhodox
opponents, It
is concerned with promoting
reason ed, rational discourse, but within this specific area:
Even iryou put ronvard a thesis (tsung), as long as you do not put fonvard reasons (yin) and supporting e.xamples (J'u), like all those discussants who hold on to the Ego (chill WO ¥#.�) and keep thinking along their own lines, that surely is wrong!� i h (so chhing Ii i fnJ.iK:l!E Question: tn order to establish the significance ofwhat you establs �), why first establish a thesis (tsuniJ? Answer: It i� in order to first show the- significance of the thesis which onc likes (.fO ai Ii tsung i lliitll1*!IJj). Question: Why does one go on to dispute about reasom (pien)"in ��)? Answer: In order to make something plain on the basis of observed facts (i hsun ,hun shih .1.:J.JJ2.!lfl), and to de-dde the point (chiith thmg tao li ij:;JE.m:fJl!.), to make others accept the import of" the thesis propounded. Que-slion: Why does one go on 10 pull in examples C)'in)"ii ij lam)? Answer: In order to make plain what that which ean establish the point (tao Ii ll!:fJI!.) rests on and fix it on obsen'ed facts (hrim chien shih �!llil'V The translation of Dignaga's own Nyiiyamukha opens with this statement: r write [his treatise because r want to grasp simply proof(what can establish) and refutation (what can refute) (ning Ii /ling pho ht1z: fIg Mil and the true facts in a dogma (i chung chin shih
jfi
Ill). th.
�:n!lJl),
teh, the
, all the
. ,.
373
L
W�n Ku"i on .»·JYlprattsa, cd. Lii Chlleng, p. la, Supplmuntary Tripi/ak'l, vol. 86, p. 23Ia, top 9. }.)J),amukha, �d. Taishii Tripi/aka p, 1'11;•.VJ·iyaprauia, en. Lil Chheng, p, II, TuuM Tn"piwM, p. Ilb2. ) This �choe., c.g. , Chuang T�u 13.3. • Wen Kuei onXyii)'IJpra,"(/a. ed. Lii Chheng. p. lar, S"ppkmnrlary Tripitaka, ml. 86, p. 231a top -10. o Khud Chi, Gr�al Commentary, ch. r . �d Sung Yen, p. '3a9 . • Khuci Chi, Great Commentary, ch. 2, "d. Sung Yen. 2.'[,1, , ,\j·a)"amukha, �d. 'liIi,'ho "Tnpitaka, p. ''4; cf. Tucci (1930), p. 5. o
374
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Primarily, arguments arc adduced to make non-believers understand (wu tho ffifili), but they also function to make one understand one's own tenets or theses (Izu wu Elt'i): Proof (nbl,.;r Ii HEJI, lie: \vhat can establish') or refutation
(ning pho fjEm, lit.: 'what can
destroylrefute'), as well as only apparent <:a�cs ofthese (ssu 1J.:)) are called 'making others
understand (wu tha)'.Judging a thesis on rhe basis orperception (hsien l iand�.) orjudging a thesis on the basis ofinference (Pi liang .tt:;:j, as well as only apparcnl cases ofthese (ssu it).)
arc (,ailed 'making oneself understand (/�U wu)'. 1
Making others understand and making oneselfundersland were the two benefits (irh i =:M) thought to be accruing to one from the study of Buddhist logic. Estab lishing, refuting, pcrcci\�ng, and inferring, together with their only apparent coun terparts, make up the eight gates (pa men /\��) oflogical knowledge. Chinese Buddhist logic like the pre-modern traditional concept oflogic - thus includes more than the study oflogical t:ntailment or consequence. It also includes what we are today inclined to call epistemology, or the the ory of knowledge and perception. The explanation for this is clear: Chinese Buddhist logic is the study of what grounds one may adduce under what circumstances to justify a given thesis. Such grounds may indeed be either logical grounds in our sense (i.e., the thesis fol lows logically from the publicly accessiblt: adduced ground), or they may be sense data. Before Dignaga there were four recognised avenue� ofknowledge : I. perception (hsien liang �.s:). '2. inference (Pi liang .tt:=l), 3. an alogical inference (piyuliang ItllM:S.), and 4. verbal testimony {shEngliang �:SV According to the logi cian Dignaga, only two ofthese were legitimate: perception, \vhich was concerned with particular appearances (tZIl hsiang EI ffi), and categorization, which was con cerned with the application of concepts (kung h.riang �.ffi) .l It was this rather hard headed philosophical attitude which was transmitted to China - and which was to some extent applied to the tenets ofBuddhi�m. Knowledge by analogy and by ver b al testimony (slUng � ) was rejected.! The scheme of Chinese Buddhist logic is de signed, then, to explain l ogical and perceptual grounds which one might success fully adduce in order to justify a thesis. -
J ,i'ijii)'apravtfa, cd. Lii Chh�ng, p. ti. TdisM Tripi/aka, p. !!a-�. , The four SOllrccs ofknowblg� ilr� �xpo\1nrll'rl in the openillg passages of the :\'yaya Siltra"
usdully mmpar�d wilh the "'-(ohi!t st:mdards:
\'hese may �
Th�r�fou th�re mu�t b<: three !landaI'd! [ur !p.,t:('h, What ilr� these? /l,laSler Mo Tzu s aid: 'Th�r� must � lhal which i, the basi" thar, which is tht tllquiry, and(hal wh ich is lh� mdtllM", In whal way do we provid� it with a basis? Looking up, w� hll.� il on tht ways of the nge king' of antiquity. How dn we enquiu into it� l.ooking do"n, we study it in th� t'"�timony of the ordinary people. How du we put it to Il'ie' Propagate it as law and govunmental poli.:y, "h""r"� 1m.... it accord5 wi{h the benefit ofthe people and lh� ltate. Thi5 is why W'" ,'iay that there are thr...c standards for spt:et:h. (J/Q 'Tzu :'15.7; d: \Iei {lg2g}, p. 183, alld Han.�n ('98: , d, pp. 8.J-f.) , Cf. TU : m (1928). p. -In. Shen Thai explains: 'Nllm�". and words (",;� :& �n only expre.. conc�pU I !!. f:ll-P (Aung iuidng FtfJ, thcy cannot �xpress the panicular appcarolllco::� (I�� wlIJ: gW ) orlhing$. This is bc..-auso: th" particular ap]X"arancrs are separate from langlJage and tX�3nalion.' (Fa TSlln Fa-shih (1984). p. 55.) , The ..\j-t!/..rJiI1TaJ dcf1l1c Sanskrit J/J/HIII (Chintst Jhin& ...) as follows: 'Vcrhal traditional authority (Sanskrit Ja/HIa, Chin. ,fhintJ is ,he inslruclin: assertion ofa r.:-liable person.' V ( idhyabhwmna (lg81, fint �cl. 1930), p. S.)
LAI\GUAGE A:\'D L O G I C
375
The well-formed argument In Chinese Buddhisl logic In order to understand what constitutes a ror mally acceptable or well·rormed argu·
.
ment in Chinese Buddhist logic, it is best to stan au! with a Han dard example As it happens, the most standard example involves [ht� conce pt ofsheng 'f, a word which
literally means 'sound', but which in the contt'_X( oflogir, as we havt' seen, comes to mean something like traditional authority. 'I·he standard example or an argument starts with a thesis on which Chinese Buddhists and other tr aditionalist schools dis· agree, and \\Ihich runs as follows:
Thesis: V�rbal traditional authority (5) is impermanent (P) (shmg shih wu (hhang��;f!W'¥;)) The standard reason adduced in support of the thesis is this:
Reason: By reason of having been produced (K) (so Iso ku mfJ:t�ftV Chincsc B llddhi�t
logicians were increasingly concerned to make explicit the
logical rcquirt.ments \vhich would guarantee the step from the reason to the conclu sion. This
-
as we shall see - they have
in common with logicians in the \Vest.
However, their strategie s were diftcrent. Their first Slt.:p was \0 introduce positive
examples (lhung.)'ii �!!jfrJ) and negative examples (i)'u �!l6tr) to illustrate the systemat
ic link between the reason adduced and the thesisjustified. This systematic link was
called the substance ofthe example s ()IU lhi llIDJjig) and it typically took the form of an implication:
SubstalJu oJtnepositive example: Ifanything is produced, it is nOI permanent. Apart from this, the Chinese Buddhists required an example item (yii
i �it{).
The positive example is typically stated (without the so·called 'substance ofthe pos itive example') as roll ows:
Positivt e.mmple item: For example bottles and thl." like (phljuphing ting .AAJBi�). 3 The Chinese Buddhist logici an s insisted on a negative example intended to show that there was indeed a concrete case which showed a systematic link between R and f' such that if, in some place, P (e.g., impermanence) was not found , then R (e.g., producedness) would never be found in that place either.
Substance ofth� negativr example: If anything is permanent, it is nol produced. , For simplici ty w� shall rd;,r to the subject of tile the,i, (in thi, �
3; 6
LAXGUAGE AXD L O G I C
The negative example is typically stated (also without its ' substance of the m:ga tive example') as follows:
),regativt examplt item: �or example space and the like (ju hsii khulI,� ring 9IJJJtR��). I Bo th positive and negative examples are - theoretically - n:quired if an argu ment is to (;Qunt as well-formed by Chinese Buddhist standards.� Here i.� anothcr typical argument in it� full form:
Thuis: Space is merna! (hsu khUlIg5hh i chhong tm�JEnl Rtason: Because of not being produced {fii so tso hi ?FFlTWt&}. Positivi example: The various things that are not produces arc each and all ofthem eternal. Like nirvat:la (chufti so Iso chi chith hsishih cMang.]u nith phatl ffi*ffr{'F�H';��;Q'� 0
Mi'il!j/l). Negative i.tample: Ifsomething is not etefnal, then it is produced. Like a bOlile or a pOI etc. (jQ shih wu chhang chishihso tso.ju phingphin ling ;:fi-��� £!P�M{t �mBt:�.n. � 0
In the case of a thesis like 'All things are momentary, for example, the negative
leads to evident problems: how is one to find examples ofnon-momentariness all of
which arc not things. Since all acceptable examples have to be real things, this turns out to be impossible and has - quite properly - exercised the minds of Chinese Buddhist logicians a great deal.
Presuppositions and the intended audience Aristotle's syllogistics is an abstract deductive logical theory. Chinese Buddhist logic is a science
of argumentation within
its
social
context. That social context
becomes crucially relevant to argumentation byway of the logically significant pre suppositions it sanctions.
To start with, the Chinese Buddhist logicians find an argument unacceptable if
its conclusion is self-evident to all parties in the first place. Thus an argument to the
effect that sound is something one
hears is held
to be
unacceptable because it is
the thesis on the whole, then, is that it must be controversial in such a way that the proponent must hold it to
uncontrovcrsial. The presuppositional requirement on
be true while the audience must be less than certain that it is true. This requirement
shows that acceptability to the Chinese Buddhist logician is not the same as logical validity to the \'Vestern logician. The charge of triviality is not a relevant objection to the logical validity of an argument, but it is a relevant obje<:tion to the acceptabil ity of the argument in terms of Chinese Buddhist logic .
Again, to the Chinese Buddhist an argument whichjustifies a thesis which goes views is logi u na ccept a ble. cally
against the teachings of one's own school or against one's own known
, Note chal th� rormulalion� "fboth I'xampln make nice four-charact�r phra5t:s.
, As....e. ,hall lee in our more detailed treatmt:ntofthc example., these im� conceived by th� Chine�c Buddhist
logicians to cons;" oftw{)pam: Ihe illustrative thing, and the conditional illustrated. ; W�n Kuei un}(Yii.yapral:lia, ch. I, �d. Lti Chheng, p. 18><3.
LANGUAGE A�'D L O G I C
377
Another requirement is that the relevant mean ings of S (the subjecl of the thesis),
P(the predicate ofthe thesis) and the property R in the reason must � agreed upon
(chi chhing &fflZ) by the proponent and the audience. Consider an example : Thtsis: You and I are nOt eternal. Reason: By reason ofbeing aeli\'(" items. Eramplt: Like sparks ofthe lamplight.1
Such an argument would only be acceptable in Chinese Buddhist logic if there were agreement between the proponent and his audience on the relevant sense DrS ('yOll and 1'). This would not necessarily be a trivial malter, since the Chinese Bu ddhist docs nOl accep t the notion of the self, or of 'I' and 'you' as metaphysically real o r enduring entities. On the other hand, contestin g parties could agree to usc ter ms like 'J' and 'you' in a non-metaphysical, or we might say - pre-theoretical ordinary sen se. Another require d shard presupposition is that all S must be R, i.e., it must be agreed between the proponent and the audience that you and J are active items . Further, it mu�t he a shared presupposition that all +E(positiV<.' examples, e.g., sparks of lamplight) must be P (e.g., not immortal), and that not-E(negative exam ples, e.g., space) must be nQI-P {e.g., (not not) immortal), i.e., it must be agreed between the proponent and the audience that things like sparks oCthe lamplight are nOt immortal, and that things like space are immortal . An argument is accep table in terms of Chine>ie Buddhist logic only if there is agreement on these specific presuppositions between lhe proponent and his audience.
We have
seen that the Nyii)'apraveia distinguishes between arguments designed to � ffl) and those designed to make others understand
make oneselfunderstand (t�u wu
(wu Iha tllit!!).
Thus all the argl.lm�nts (Pi liang tt.M) may genCTally be divided into three kinds: those dir ected towards others, those directed toward� onesdf, and those directed generally at others and at onesc1P
In an argument directed towards oneself one can legitimately operate on the assumption that presuppositions of oneself or one's group are justified. In an argu ment direcled towards others one can legitimately operate only 011 the presupposi tions shared by the other person or other group. In an argument directed towards both olhers and one's own group then one can legitimately operate only on the pre suppositions shared by one's own group and the other group. According to the Chinese Buddhist logician, no argu ment is in prn i ciple detached from this presuppositional context, no matter what audience one is , Wen Kuei on ,,vyii JapraiJtla; Sh"" Chi"n-Ying (Ig/J.J), p. 133. : Khuei Chi, Gn:al Comml"ntary, ch. 6, ed. SungYen, p. Il!b3; cf. alsoKhuci Chi, GreatCommentary, ch. j,
«I, Sung Y�n,p. 4b8.
LA�GUAGE A:'lD L O G I C
addressing with on(" s argument. No argument is valid per St. ]1 may only be judged valid in relation to tht presuppositions the argument is basf.d on and which partici pants in (he argumentation mayor may not share. These presuppositions can be made explicit in the various parts of an argument, and the purpose of making presuppositions explicit is to ob,,;ate objections: Generally in me method ofBuddhist logic (yin ming �BA), when then= arc presuppositional distinguishers (chull pieh BlUm) for the thesis and the grounds, one will avoid the logical mis takes (of which one would have been guilty without the presuppositiona! distinguishers).1 Ifan argument is directed towards one'� own group, one marks it as hsiJ)'en �1f§ to make
plain that one's own group accepts it. In that way one avoids the fallacies like 'the truth of one party not being conceded by the other party'.
Ifan argument is direCted towards another group. then one marks it asju shii &:l1f. tn that way one avoids the fallacies like 'the thesis being inconsistem with one's own claims'.
If an argument is directed towards one's own and another group one marks it as sheng I OOi'l . ln this way one avoids tht fallacyof'contradiction vvi.th common knowledge and with what one's own group teaches.�
The choice of presuppositional distinguishers can thus make a decisive differ ence to the acceptability of an argument, as is illustrated byJaya<;ena's famous proof of the aU(heOlic:ity of the Maha.ya.na SUtras:
Thesis: All the Mahaya.na SQlras are speeches orthe Buddha. Reason: By reason of their being, as both sides agree, encompassed by what the Buddha said.
Example: like the Agama.siitra scriptures.:' When this argument is used against adherents of Hlnaya.na Buddhism, it surely docs not carry any weight) since adherents of Hlnaya.na will deny that the reason property R applies to the subject S of the thesis. HSiian-Tsang changed the presup positional distinguisher 'as both sides agree' into 'as our side agrees', converting this argument into one by which adherents of Mahayana justify their position to each others. Agreement can apply to propositions or to terms. In the case ofa proposition, the Chinese Buddhist logicians take the agreement to be concerned with whether or not the reason-property R is agreed to apply to the subject Softhe thesis. This form of agreement is called
clwan i chi chMng +If.&�nX
'agreement of application'. The
case of terms is more complicated. Here the agreement can be on the extension of the term
(ching chith chi chMng � W;ffi p.x;
'agreement on the external world') . For
example, there can be agreement on what is and what is not a traditional verbal authority etc. The agreement can also be on the intension of a term
(chha pith chi
chhing �J.1UM!P!( 'agreement on distinguishing characteristics'). For example, there can be agreement on a way of understanding the notion of , I' as either a perishable constellation without ontological statm or as an ultimate ontological item. I KJlue; Chi, Great Commcma'1·, �.h. S, cd. SungYen, p. �b,. KlIue; Chi, Gr.-at COIlUllCma'1; ch. 3, o::d. Sung Yen, p. �b2. , KhudChi, Great Commcntar�; ch. 6, o::d. Sung Yen,p. 3btt; Sh..n Chien-Ying{1¢4), p. 'ol'. I
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
:d
",
0-
" of
go
.lh
379
All agreement, in order to count in Chinese Buddhist logic, must be definite and not uncertain. Agreement on the constituents ofthe thesis (tsung*l is agreement on a relevant meaning of these constituents, and on the non-emptiness of the class specified by the constituents as understood in the agreed way. Presuppositions in Chinese Buddhist logic are not that such-and-such is true, but that such-and-such is agreed among the relevant parties. However, this does not mean that the Chinese Buddhist logicians ,vere unable to distinguish bcnvccn agreement ofopinion and presupposition offact. For example, they did occasionally distinguish between clien Chl.�-t:rll 'factual presupposition' that a term is non-empty Uu thi ��) on the one hand, and psychological agreement (kung mil :f:t.}'f) on the other. I Having looked at the general scheme of Chinese Buddhist logic, and at the framework of presuppositions within which it operates, we are now in a position to consider in more detail the constituents of an argument as interpreted by the Chinese Buddhist 10f,riciam. We begin with the thesis, turn to the reason, and end up with the examplcs,just as an argument in Chinese Buddhist logic does. The theSIS
h,
p
og to
he 0' m
he
of
'" )aJ chi
ore
)Ie
Chinese Buddhist logicians call dte thesis as a whole 'what is established (so h pJTiL), or tsung thi *00: 'body of the thesis', or isung !sung �.* 'the overall result of the the sis'. The thesis as a whole is systematically and consistently distinguished from its constituents known as the /sung 1 ** 'the supports of the thesis' or pieh !sung 5j1j* 'the thesis as separated'. J As we have seen, the constiuents of the thesis must be agreed upon: A thesis consists ofa commonly agreed (chi chheng ��) owner ofa characteristic (yufa ;g$) and a commonly agreed (chI chhing) subcategorizer (nengpuh f1EJ5IJ).1 Khuei Chi �¥ explicates: The owner of the characteris tic (),uJa) and that which can subcategorize (nmgpieh) arc: only constituents of the thesis (/sung i). They do not constitute the thesis (),ufa, nengpieh tan shih
' fj�}jH'§'�**ffifJ.��* ). The constituents must be com tsung i erhfit shih tsung �it, pletely agreed on by the nvo parties (liang /sung m*). Only when the meanings ofthe con stituents (I i ��) of the thesis are established can the substance or the thesis (tsung /hi *liI) take shape. . . . Ifthese constituents are not agreed on in advance (hsien :¥e), thcn onc has to go on to establish lhese, and in that case (tdlU Itt) they do not count as constitutc:nts.' 0
The essential import of the thesis as a whole is analysed as the non-separateness (1m hsiang li hsing /f:f§�,ti ) ofthe two constituents in the thesis, subject and predi cate. Khuei Chi writes: I
For good account ofagreement see Chhen Ta-Chhi (1952), PI'. 29-3H. Occasionally. th� th�si, a, such (IJU�g;t:) i, distinguished from the expression used to articulate it, the yen *15 'th� word, ofth� th�,is'. Cr. Lii Chheng (1983), p. 8. , }{yii)'aprau.ia, �d. Lii Chh�!lg, p. w; 7i1isho Tnpilaka, p. I1b3 . • Khuei Chi, Great Commentary, cd. SlUlg Yen 2b2; c[ Hsiung Shih-Li ('926}, p. '4a. 1
!sung
380
L A :-I" G U A G E A:"I"D L O G I C
In modern limes Dignaga maintained that the rcason and the examples are what can estab
lish a thesis (ning Ii 1!E,'T),
and thal lhe thesis is what is established (JO liM.li:). The identifier (ku hsillg El 11. lit: 'sdf-namre') and the predicate (dllmpien �)1IJ, lit : 'distinguishcr, subcate gorizerl an: both IUumally agreed on. The constilUtms ofthe thl'sis by themselves (tan Jhih /.sun,? i @�7Fft<) do not qui Ie make up the- issue of the dispute. Only when they afe tied together to make up a thesis (IJlmg ff:) and there lS non-separateness (pu hsiang li hsjng/fr�� 'Ii } do we have Ihe issue of the dispute. '
The subtle distinction between the whole ofthe thesis and the sum orits parts is
further explained:
What lhe other party (tha 1iE.) does not agrc(" on is only the thesis as a linkage (hD t..lUflg15-*).
CI 11) and thr. subcategorizer (chha pith :&.��) are both constitm:nts ofthe thesis {tsung i *�. They are not what is establishc>d (JO liffi'.1L).2 This thesis is what is established. The identifier (t-!u h.lillg
Khuei Chi makes a lucid and subtle distint:tion between lhe property
(fa �t)
as
such in the predicate oCthe thesis, which must be agreed upon, anel the application
ofthat same property to the subject ()'ufil ��), which must not be agreed upon:
The property as applied in the thesis (tsung chung chihfa *y1;;t�) is not agreed on before hand by the opponcnt.l
The internal structure ofthe thesis: subject andpredicate Since
it
is an important issue whether or not Chinest: is a subject/predicate
lanb'llage, the discussions concerning subject and predicate within the context of
Chinese Buddhist logic holds a special philosophical interest for us.
\Ve shall want
to look carefully at what the Chinese Buddhist logicians had to say on the matter.
Could they make proper sense of the distinction as they found it in their Indian " sources.
One common Chinese way of di sti nguishing between subject and predicate was
by simply calling the subject 'that which is put forward first (hsien
the predicate 'that which is expressed last (holl shu That which is put forward first (bsien cMin)
�.i1f!:)'.
chhCn :1t�)' and
is the 'possessor of a property' or that which is (bOil JIIU) is the 'property (fa 1$-) or the subcate '
distinguished'. ThaI which is expressed last
gorizer (nengpieh fl'lillIJ).�
This way of putting thing.s is unlikely to be of Indian
origin, since in
fact it is
grossly inappropriate to Sanskrit where the predicate quilt.: commonly precedes the subject in an ordinary proposition. However, the Chinese Buddhisllogicians were
not insensitive to the subtler philosophical aspects ofthe distinction between sub
ject and predicate: , , , ,
Khuei Chi, Creal Cummenlary, ch. I, "d. Sung Yen, p. Ilb2. Khu"i Chi, Great COmm�n[ilry, ch, I, ed. Sung Yen,p. 12b{. Khuei Chi, Great Commenrary, ch, 3, cd. Sung Yen. p. 3a6. Wen Kuei on }{ J'qyaprm'u(l, ed. Ltl Chhcng, ell. I, p. 7a8; Supplemenl(l1)' Tn'pilo.l.:a, p. 332b bottom :J.
L A N G L' A G E AND
LOGIC
Expr�ssions like: 'eternal' and ;non-etcrnal' (Olltam a sr.manric criterion (J..'Uri th.). Therefore we call them properties (10). 'Colour', 'sound' and thr. likc can have (Y'u m these properties.
Therefore we call them possessors ofproperties (yufa :f.j$). Idell tifiers (uu ksing 1311) likt'; colour are subcategorized by 'non-eternal' and pm either inside or olilside this category.
Therefore we call them subcatcgonzers (ehha pieh ��U). Since 'eternal' and 'non-eternal' can subcategorize idenrifiers like colour we call them 'that which can subcategorize (ning i h tlEBlj)'. This is like the case of wax receiving a square or round shape from a seal. The pl shape is called the subcatcgorizer vun.� piehl. This is because it camf'S this \vax to han: a
square or round shape (ningpuh t�hu ta rhhnlf{[ang)'iian flE..£�JltniRt1JIRI),\
Khuei Chi goes on to reflect subtly: Among all quidditie�/properties of allribute (i�),�
(fa) thrn� arc t\Vo kinds: Ihal of substance (fhia) and that
Khuei Chi goes on to introduce and explain three technical terms each for sub
ject and predicate. For 'subject' the three terms are izu hsing EH1 'identifier',yufa
�ft possessor of the property', and so pieh pJT;3IJ 'that which is subcategorized', For the terms are (hIla jJleh �JjIJ 'subcategorizer', fa ?t 'property', and ning pieh ffE�U 'that which can subcategorize'. Confusingly, Khuei Chi explains matters by using a fourth pair: 'that which is put forward first' for 'subject' and 'that which is put forward last' for 'predicate'.1 predicate
(The proponenl and the opponent) do not disagree on that which is put fon'lard first (i.e"
[
,
the subject). They argue about whether in (rhang L) that which has been put rorward first (hsien chhin :9cm!) thr:re is that which is said ofit aften"ards (hou so shuo ��), By that which is said afterwards (hou so shuQ �;:nIDG) one subcategorizes lhat which has been put fom-ard first (hsitnchhin). One does not by means oflhat which is put ronvard first apply subcategor i'la tion to what comes last (pieh),u Jwu 5j�1R'1&) . Therefore, the substance (thi B) that comes
first is called 'that which is subcategorized(.w pieh PfrZlU)', and the attribute (i) which is put fOf\oJard last is called 'lhat which can subcategorize (neng Ili(h)'. I
I
One might find the choice of Chinese terms less than fortunate. Khuei Chi, in ally casc, continues:
,
, : :
These three terms all have their faults. What are these faults? The obj ection (nan ft) to the first runs like dns: H the substance (fhi) is called self-nature (t.{u ilsing) and thc attribute (i�) is called dislingui�her (eMapiehl, how can onc go on further along to say: 'Ifthe variom masters
oflearning establish the thesls that "1 think", then "I " is a self-nature (t{.11 hsing ElT'.! ), and think" is the distingUisher (chha plfh :£7.l�).' In this text'" you treat the attribute (think (ssu
"
}�)) as lhe self-nature (t{.u hsini; and the substance (/hi G) as the distingl.lisher.G
, Wen Kuci on )'jiiplmmia, "d. l..li Chh"ng ch. r, p. 7a; SupplnntnlirfJ TripilukiJ, p. 332h top -fiR'. , Khuei Chi. Great Commellary, t ell. 2, �d. Sung \'..n, p, 3ao, • Lik.. m�die"al .:uropean praClit ionCTS ofphillMOpllical ll:ummar he does not pay allemion \0 such po..ibilitie� as a prt:po�ed pr"d;ca{". 1 Khuci Chi, Great Comm�ntary, eh_ 2, ed_ Sung Yen, pp. j.ll:Vf. J I.e., in the phra:re ' " think" i,the di�tinguisher', • Khu('i Chi, Greal Commentary, ell. 2, .,fl_ Sung Yen, p, Sa,
LANGUAGE AND L O C I C
There is no space lospelJ out the difficulti�s Khuei Chi raises with tht' other terms. The problem of subject and
predic.ate preoccupies him in many pl aces. Khuei
Chi writes:
According to the theory of Buddhist logic all terms (fa $:) that refer (eftii �) to some things and only apply to these things without being applicable to anything other than what the), are being applied to, are called idemifiers (/zu hsmg). If, a� in binding together flowr:rs, you tie a property to something mher (the subject), then all such properties subcategorizf! mean in� (iii), and they count as 'subcategorizers ({hhapuk),. ' Occasionally, Khuei Chi's explanations ofthe concepts of subject and predjcate
written in such a way that they must hav� been totally incomprehensible to those who were unfamiliar with inflected languages like Sanskrit, as wh en he refers to the verbal endings (cilM chllii JiBIfH) in the predicate, a t�rm which must surely hav(" been totally obscure to everyone who did not know how an inflected l anguage w orks:
arc
There are two attributes/meanings (i) of terms (jil). The one is able to put forward a self contained substance (tzu Ihi !3 ft), the other gives a criterion (kllei !ltir.) to introduce a new predication (Iha chieh fti!.M). Therefore the various treatises say: 'The properties (fa) are a maintaining of criteria (kllti chih tlLtIt). That wh ich is maintaine d first is the self-substance (ku lki) which everyone understands. The crilerion (kuei $;tt) that comes aflenvards newly produces an explanation, and it needs to have a verbal inflection (ehhii eMu Jffi BB).' In the case ofwhat is put for.vard (ch/Un�) first, there is no preceding comment (shuo �), it directly puts for.vard a substance. This term docs not have a verbal inflection (ehhu ehhil) and does not introduce a new predication (tha ehieh ftl!1W). In the case ofwhat is put fonvard last ((hhm!) there is a preceding comment and the later addition can subcategorize (fin pieh 7t�U) what has been stated before (in the subject). It is only this second part that has verbal inflection (chhii ehhil.) and introduces a new predication (Iha i chleh @�m). 'fhe arising of the the predication only depends on what is put forward last.1 Khuei Chi is aware that the multipli city oft�rminology and of criteria deciding what is the subject and what is the predicate demand an explanation:
First, there is referring (chil�) versus linking (thung »l). That which refers [Q things is called an identifier (l<,u ruing EitEl because it is narrower in its application. That which links with other things is said to be lhe chlwpu:h ��� 'subcategorizer' because it is wider in its application. Second, there is first versus last. That which is put forward first is called an identifier (t�1I kring) because there is nothing before it which it can �ubcalegorize. That which is put for ward last is called subcategorizer (chhapuh) because there is something before it which it can subcategorize. , Khuei Chi, Great Commentary, ch. 1I, ...t. Sung Yen, p. 3a3: .:f. bid., i c:h. 11, ed. Sung Yen, p. -las. Khuei Chi a�tribulc3 [hill to a EO 7i l..!;11 fiIIli1!! � . which must be the Po 7i Cki'W I�II �:lt!!.�� traIllilaled by H30an-Tsang :y' 9€ . But in the version of thaI hook ", we ha"e i� today �hc "l\.\.IiaS" [0 which Khuei CI,i refers OM.1 not occur. 2 Khuei Chi. Great Commentary, c.h. 2, ed. Sung Yen, pp. 41>41f. Th� obvious que.51 ion arise� m what eXlem the C hinese practitionen ofBuddhi�t )ogk wrote in Chinese, but only fur an audi�nce that was abo familiar ,,;(h other languag�, Iik� Sallshi!. The aniwer In this one is resoundingl)' cJe�r: v�ry t�w readers of Chin"", indeed could be expected to know Sanskrit. (Cf. on t!J� point van Gulik (1956).)
"xp�anation
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
"",
luel
m�
they you
�an
Third, there is that which is spoken arUen En versus that which is declared acceptable (hsu Wf). That which is carried forward by the words is said to be the identifier (tzu hsing E! 'Ii), and that which in one's thought is declared acceptable (hsii) is said to be the: subcatego fizCf ((hhapuh �ll�) because it is the subcategorIzing meaning (pieh I 31J:#j) put forward in the words.'
The subject S ofthe thesis is described by Khuei Chi as 'the overall lord ofthe t\\'O properties (i.e., ofthe predicate P anel of the reason R) (drhia LlUng chu =tJiM!I,.1:.).'<
The reason
cate
e to
�rers
lave >rks: self-
new are a
ance
lewly
, llt), eMIl} ward
11 pieh
The Chinese Buddhist logicians distinguished various kinds of what we for want of a better term translate as 'reasons': There arc two kinds (chung �) ofreason (yin ESI). One is the effective reason (sheng),1n 1:.ESI), as in a seed producing sprout� and the like. The other is the epistemic reason (liaa)'1n T ESI) as in a lamp shedding light on an object.�
Each of these kinds of reasons are again subdivided into three categories \....hich all have to do with the proponent: I.
()'en shingyin 131:.129),
linguistic effective reasons
i.e., a proponent's adduced
explicit reasons which guarantee the truth ofhis thesis. 2. intellectual effective reasons (chih shCngyin %J�ESI), i.e., the intellectual skill which
allows the proponent to grasp his thesis. 3. semantic effective reasons
(i shen,gyin � � 129 ),
i.e., a fact or general truth to
which the proponent refers and which entails his thesis.
-efba!
[)fthe
We have similar subcategories for the epistemic reasons. They all have to do with the opponent:
iding
call,d
I links in its
er (tzu It ror lt
can
lueiChi lated by :Ii refers
'tel
I.
linguistic epistemic reasons
(]en liao),in §"71Z9), i.e.,
arguments understood as
convincing by the opponent.
2. intellectual epistemic reasons
(chili iiaoyin ril71Z9), i.e., intellectual capacity on
the part ofthe opponent which allows him to grasp a thesis.
3. semantic epistemic reasons
(i Iiao)'in �71Z9), i.e., a fact or general truth which
convinces the opponent ofthe truth of a thesis.1 All these kinds of reasons have their importance, but Buddhist logic in China as we have it is particularly concerned with only two of them: the linguistic effective reason corresponding roughly to a sufficient logical reason, and the semantic epis· temic reason corresponding roughly to an objectively convincing argument. I Khuei Chi, Great Commentary, ch. �, ed. Sung Yen, pp. 4a9ff. , Gr�at Comm�ntary, eh. :J, ed. SllngYen, p. !hb. ) Wen KllCi on J\'yi!yupm"da, "d. Supplnn.enlary Tripitaka. \"01. 8b. p. �34a top 8; cf. Khuei Chi, Grcal Commentary, ed. Supplfmenlary Tripilaka, vol, BG, p. 3S8a top -G. \Vhen diff�r�ntearly comm�ntarie� coincide, we may often assume thaI they all draw on a common oral SOllrcc, lhe explanations ofHsiian-Tsang himsdf , Great Commentary, ch. 2. ed. Sung Yen, pp. 16a6ff.; cf. Yang Pai-,hlln (in Lill Phei-Yii (19114), pp. Qg8-3!2), P · 307 ·
LA�OUAGE A�D L O G I C
Although our subdivisions o f effective and epistemic reasons yield six (categories of) rea sons, we arc directly concerned only wilh the linguistic effective reasons (j1'1! shing §1:.) and the semantic epistemic reasons (chh i /jaQ�7), On the basis ofthe Iinguistie effective reason the other side's (Ii ix) reasoned understanding arises, On the hasis ofthe semantic eplstcmic reasons the meaning (iif) that used to be hidden is now made plain,' Predominantly, Chinese Buddhisl logic is concerned v'lith sufficient logical rea sons and with fallacious reasons ofmOrt: vaguely defined kinds. The meaning of the thesis establi�hcd follows from lhe proponem's words that are able to establish (the thcsis). The linguislic effective reasons are in a direct sense e�tablish (ning Ii fjttzv
(chinglE) what can
E§) is described as the main constituent of the grounds (neng Ii). 'l'he reason can be called ching ning li1E�g.:IT 'that which directly is able to establish' as opposed to the examples (yii i!fl1J) which can be called 'that which helps to be able to establish'. Or, as Khuei Chi puts iL, the reason (yin) directly establishes (chhin chheng �nX;) the thesis (l.fung *) whereas the examples establi�h the thesis in a dis tant way (chheng lsung slluyuan RX:*ifjjU�n , .j The reason (yin) as a proposition and a constitutive part ofthe argument is some times distinguished from the property R mentioned in the reason (yin thi E§'GIV Reasons (yin) in Chinese Buddhist logie are expressed not as sentences or propo The reason (yin
sitiom but as terms or properties:
Thesis: Traditional verbal t:videnc� is impermanent.
lUason: Because ofits producedncss (thhiJO lJo hsillgku ltJiJTfFtt!Sl:). The reason (yin) provides the crucial concept which
will
establish a firm link
ber.veen the subject S and the predicate Pof the thesis (tsung). rt thus loosely corre sponds to the middle term in
Aristotelian
logic. The workings of this main con
stituent are expounded with unfailing precision by Wen Kuei: , KllUei Chi, Greal Commentary, eh. �, ed, Sung Yen, p, !7b2, Khuei Chi, Greal Commentary, eh. ' , ed, ::;ung Yen, p, 2pt. , Ct: Lii Chheng (1935), p. ,n. In th� (fn'at Commentary a number ofll.ldd objeetil.ll" to thi l nomenclature ar� raised: I. Why i. Buddhist logic called a "('i�nce orreasons and 1I0t ofexampks and the,e" all of which an involved? �. l t i, t:air enough to call true reasons and true darifkation, (min�l!lllJ'ill ming §IJ.Ii, but only appar�nt realOns and only appar�!ll clarifications should surd}' not be calkdJin ming? �. R..asoned demonstralion, ,,,,d reasoned refutations should be called]in ming, 11U1 mistaken refutation� and only apparent refutations should ,urely not b� call..d]in ming? 4. In establishing or refuting th���.• (h�re is \�rbal knowledge involved, and lhe'e may be ealll'd]in mingo But inaJXUmenl5 Oll the basis ofpcrecption no \'�rbal knnwledge ;5 involved. They .hould surely not be calledJin ming? 5. In the ca�e ofintelleelUal effcctive grounds and i!lldl�nual hermencUlic ground, (see above) one may call argument> in\'ol\;ng them.21n mi�g, but surely in Ih� lOa;" nrthe other four kinds of grounds where IheR' is no k.nowledgt' th� w"rdyi� � is appropriate, but the word mini: 'darification' is surd), inappropriate? 6. The reason and the examples can ��tablish a Ihesis, and Ihey (an be calledJin min,r:, but surdy tht: Ih"si. r.annnt ...tablish a thess i and ihould not U� calledyin ming. 7. Why i. Buddhis,logie only calledyin IIIfI!8 ,
'clarification ofground,' and not kuo mingm� 'clarification ufwnriu.ions'? (Greal Commemary 1.7a2) Th�r� i, no room for Khuei Chi'. dClail�d an"" ·....$ to these questions, but tllC3e questions hy th..mM'h-es illustrate the spir it ofscientific clarity andprobing im"lIeclual perSC:\-er:lnce "'hich pervadcs l"e Great Commentary , Ct: Great Commentary, eJ.. 3, ed. SunilYen,p. 18at. and also Shen Chien-Ying (19&'), p. 72.
, For thetermJin lhil:'§l!1 sec, e.g., Cr"at Commenta!); ch. 3, ed. Sling Yen, p. 1310.
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
2-
O n the possessor of a property 'traditional "�rbal evidence' there arc n\lo properties: one is
'"
the agreed upon property 'being produced'. \ On the basis of the agreed-upon property
od
the contro\"crsial
(pu chhillg 1":� lit; un-agrecd-upon) property 'impermanent'; the other is
being on 'traditional verbal evidence' one goes on to infer the un-agrccd-upon 'unpcrman
OK
ent' and make it also agreed upon.� The property which is established (50 Ii ,hihfa FfifI.::"rt..) s i a non-agreed property on the
a-
'subject' 0'IIJa ::gt,t). lfin a place (chhll ,�y there is the commonly agreed reason (yin �) there is certain (chueh ling i1
••
something non-agreed.'
m
Tlu Nillt Reasons .' h'
Cunsidf'r now the relation of the property R in the reason to the examples in an argument. The restrictions on this are studied in what Khuei Chi calls the
ie
fLEi
..
chiuyin
'Nine Reasom'." R can either be present, or not be present, or be present in
some but not all of the cases (paradoxically expressed as 'both present and absent'
5-
in the Chinese logical texts) and this clearlywill have an impact on the acceptability ofthe argument involved.
,-
\'Ve are told that there arc nine permutations in the relations between R and the examples:
1 . R is present in the positive examples a. and also present in the negative examples. b. but not present in the negative f'xamples. c. and both present and absent in the negative examples.
2. R is absent in the positive examples
a. and present in the negative examples. b. and absent n i the negative examples. c. and both present and absent in the negative examples.
3. R is both present and absent in the positive examples a. and present in the negative examples. • •
•
• • •
• • ,
r 1 J • �
b. and absent in the negative f'xamples. c. and both present and absent in the negative examples. Only cases Ib and 3b are considered acceptable. As an example for Ib, Shen Thai gives the standard argument: , The reason V·ill) is a property which is agr�ed !O be on the subject. (Greal Commentary, eb. 4, ed. SungYen, p. �b�.) , W.,n Kuei on J'IjijJapra�'ria, ch. J, cd. Lli Chheng, pp. 13blOff. Cf. Shen Chil'n-Ying (JgB'll, p. ]3.
• CMu is a leo:hnic,,1 Inm for 5ubjecl:i Olher th"n thaI in the the,;.,.
, Khuei Chi, Great Commo:ntary, eh. 4. cd. SungY�n, p. '.!b�. , Khu�i Chi's detailffi tr.,atrnent nfthese "�!I b<' found in Gr"al Commentary, (;h. 3, ed. Sung Yen, p. 9bl 10 J.llaJ. A crucial earlier treaunent is in Shen Thai on N}iiJarnIlXJIII, &ppk1rullUi'J Tripilil!ro, \'1)1. 86, p. 324h bottom
glf. l\ paraphr:l>� ofShen Thai's comm�r1\' will be found in Tl1cci (192I1a), pp. 38.:-.f. The Nine RelUOns so back to Dignaga and have been exten.ivdy lIudied. See Chi (1(!69), pp. 1-29, which att�mpl' a coher�nt formal analysis from th� point of,�ewof5)1nboJi{ logic.
3 86
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
Thesis: Traditional verbal evidence is impermanent. Reason: Because it is produced. Examplu: like a bottle etc., unlike space etc. This is the direct reason (chh1.g)'in)'eh lEtZSI-th).' The case of3h is more interesting. Here the example is:
Thesis: Traditional verbal e'Vidence is impermanent. Reason: Because it is produced by effort. Examples: Like a bottle: or lightning etc., unlike space. In thi5 context lightning and pot are positive examples of impermanence, and being produced by effort is the reason pro duced. In pols and the like the reason is present, in lightning and lhe like it is nol. Space and the like are negative examples of impermanence, and Ihe quality ofbeing produced by draft is pervasively absent (chung wu im,;f!ft:).1 This is the second category (ti irh ehii �=1iJ) and it is also a correct reason ((hingyin IE[l;I).3 In some cases, conversely, the reason not only fails to establish the thesis, it actually establishes the negation of the thesis. 2a and 2C are cases in point:1 Thesis: Traditional verbal �vidence is permanent.
Reason: Because it is produced.
Exampw: Like space and unlike a boule.
In this context space is the positive exampk and a pOt, etc., is the negative example of permanence. Produeedness is the reason, and in the positive example it is absr.nt, in the negative example it is prcscnt.�
The example argument for 2C is plain en ough : TnlsU: Traditional verbal evidence is permanent. Rtason: Because it is produced by effort. Examples: Like space and unlike a bottle or lightning.6 Khuei
Chi declares that all the other five configurations produce inconclusive arguments. 7 Throughout his commentary he frequently alludes to this division of the Kine Reasons (chiuyin :fLtz9) into two valid, two incompatible, and five inconclu sive patterns. Shen Thai on.l\)a)amukha, Supplt:mmtary Tn'pitakn, vol. 116, pp. 3241>-4 OOtlUm. Great Commentary, eh. 3, ed. Sung Y�n, p. IOb9, writes i hsiill1!..ftU t.'J . Shen Thai on}6'ilyamukha, ed. Supp'ttmtntary T ripitaka, vol. H!l, p. 325:\ bottom 4· Gr"",t Commentary, cit. 3, "d. Sung Yen, p. ,!h" call. 2a and 2C Itsiangwc."j-in ffilftffil 'contradictory reason.'. Shen Thai on ./I·ill, STvul. 86, p. 32;', spea� of!!a, 2b, and 2C as the three contradictoryrea.�OIu (sanltsiang I.I.vtji" :=:m.llffi:l). Her� "'1: seem to catch out Sh"n Thai on a logicat howler. , Shen Thai onJ\)i)ll1l1ulia, M. &.ppltmtntary Tripitaka, vol. H6, p. 325a lOp 4. Shen Thai on }(JiJomukha, cd. SuJ>pftmll1tory Tripitokn, \"01. H6, pp. 3!!5a top -7· , Great Commentary, <;h. 3, "d. Sung Yen, llb2. Th" inconclusive examplr argument! in ,",'hieh nothing fuJ•
low.are:
Ia: Sound;$ permanent, beca1l5� it is knowable. Like space and unlik" a pot. Sound is produced by effort, ne(:au,;e it is impermanent. Like a pOt and unlike lighUling or �pace. 2h: Sound is �rmanent, �CaUii<: it is audible. Like 'pa"" and unlike a pot. 3a: Sound is nOt produ""d br effort, becau� it i$ imp"rmancnl. Like lighming Orspace, and unlik" a pot. 3C; Sound is perman"nt, because it is incorpor"a1, like the subtle$1 �ubsoo.ncc (dli uxi .ft!at) and unlike 'e:
space.
LAKGUAGE A:"10 LOG I C
The Three As/}tcl.f qflht reason
How does the reason manage to link the 'subject' to the 'predicate' of the thesis? One answer lO this is: on the strength orits Three Aspects (san hsiang =;f§). It is time, now, to look closely at these famous Three Aspects. The literature on these is large,' It is easy to lose one's way in it. We shall limit our attention to Chinese accounts of the matter and start out with a literal tramlation of the celebrated statement of the matter in thc J\jayapravefa: I.
! ;
E.g., producednes5 must inhere in every traditional verbal evidence. In other words: if producedness is to count as a reason for any property of traditional verbal evidence, then traditional verbal evidence must have producedness. One can only adduce as reasons what are quite generally properties of the subject of the thesis. 2.
of
m
,..,
of
lu-
(rhe reason-properly R) is pervasively a property of the subject of lhe thesis (S).
The pos ilive examples (P) undoubtedly have the property (R).
E.g., producedness must undoubtedly be present in (at least some) cases of imper manence. It need not be present in all cases of impermanence uecause the reason V'in tzSI) is only sufficient, not necessary. There may be reasons other than produced ness for impermanence? 3· The negativc cxamples (Ilot-Pj pervasively lack the property (K).
E.g., producedness must be absent in all instances ofpermanence, or: all things, if permanent, must be unproduced. If produccdness is to count as a sufficient reason for impermanence, then clearly no thing can be permanent and yet produced.1 The problematic Aspect is the second one: why do we have ting .JE 'undoubtedly' and not, as in the other two Aspects pien � 'pervasively,? Part of the amwer is that the seco nd Aspect involves positively a"cenaining whether there are indubitable instances (other than that mentioned in lhe subject ofthe thesis), in which the prop erty in the reason actually entails the property in the predicate of the thesis. The word ting emphasises the confirmed existential claim involved.'· A brief comparison with the notions ofa necessary reason, and that of a sufficient reason) in modern logic will make the poin t clear. A standard textbook in logic writes: The notions of necessary and mfficient conditions provide other formulations ofconclition al statements. For any specified event there are many circumstanccs necessary for its occur rence.
Thus for a car to run it is necessary Ihat there be gas
in its tank, its spark
plugs
;fol, See Chi (1969), pp. �o--to-l.
t Cf. Tarhikawa (r9ir), Huo Tbao-Hai (1985), pp. SIlIT., Lil Chh..n�(I.98.'I), pp. 3ff., and Chi (1969), pp. ,p[ ) Th� formulation orth.. Threr A.spe.;:t.s will be found in . .\j·ti )·apmrti4, fl. r rhllT.; d. Tachikawa (19il), p. [21. ..\n alternative formulation ur[be Three Aspecr;,.; is in AjtiJ4mutha. pp. 2c--:3rr. and -la3ff.; cf. Tucci (1930). pp. 42
... <:iear. How�\'er. it also in,"Uh�� th" distinction betweenpim
and 14, though goingbad: to Dignag-d him",lf, i.le
Ii forthe Ihe fiTSt and IhirdAspcct, and ling JE for Ih.. second.
e
• :'>Iote Ihe differenc belwccn lillg'cenainl� , ;c;,;ured.iy, undoubtedly" andpi &:. 'necessarily'.
LAKGUAGE AND L O G I C
propnly gapped, its oil pump working, and so on. S o iflhe evr:nt occurs every onr: of the
conditions necessary for its occurrence mUSt be fulfillc:d . . . For a spccifip.d �ituation there are many a\(ernati\·e drumstances any one of which is sufficient to produce Ihat silliation. Thus for a purse to contain over a dollar it would be sufficient for it 10 comain one hundred and ont cnltS, twenty-one nickels, eleven dimes, five quarters, and so on. Ifany one ofthese circumstances obtains, the specified situation ,vill be realized. Henre to say 'That the pune contains five quarters is a sufficient condition for il to comain over a dollar' is to say the same as 'Jr the purse comaim fivc quarters then it contains over a dollar.' In general, 'p is a sufficient condition for q' is symbolized as p --+ q.1
In standard logic 'p --+ q' is a proposition which is defmed as true whenever p is untrue, Thus, according to the ddinitions in rormal logic, a false proposition can be said to imply any other proposition whatever. Translated into our idiom of sufficient conditions: a condition which does not obtain in the universe ofdiscourse counts as a sufficient condition ror anything ,,'hatever within that universe. The Chinese Buddhist logicians arc quite explicitly excluding such very strange suf ficient conditions. They are interested only, and precisely, in sufficient conditions that can be ascertained definitely to o<.:cur in this concrete world. That is why the t'"_xistential second Aspect is profoundly significant. It demonstrates that Chinese Buddhist logic is not ror mally deductive but preoccupied with concrete instances of standardised argumen[.s.�
Er:amples \Ven Kuei, when challenged by a questioner to explain why the examples are neces sary, explains: Producedness (so lSo hsing f1f tFtt) is the direct reason (ehbl.gyin .ll: �), but it can only bring out into the open the first Aspect (eMu hsiang m:ff'l). Th� second and thc third arc not yet understood. Therelore one makes hem t explicit (ming ehih !ij:lZ) by the two examples.'
Khuei Chi was aware that the example, while supporting the thesis, was not by itself a justification for its acceptance: Although it (the example (yii �)) is in accordance with and in support of (Jhlln i JJH�) the conclusion, it is nOI whal the thesis directly rests on (fii shih cheng tJung chih so l ?F�.IE*
"-ffr1!
The positive and negative examples are stated with various degrees of explicit ness. In its most explicit form, the positive example involves a general implication. Khuei Chi reflects on the importance orthe generalisation in this scheme: I Copi (19.'>3), p. 2li5.
!
The issu" ofwhcther lher� are such thinS' as ohjc(tiv� fact! does not aH)o(:t lhi. argument.
1
Wen Kuej on ')ii;lapTln·tifl. eh.
I
Khuei Chi, Creal Commentary. eh. �, ed. Sung Yen, 18al.
Sun� Yell, p. . p. .
. .
I,
"d. Lii Chheng, p. :nb; cf. also K hue; Chi, Greal Commentary, eh. 4. "d.
-
LANGliAGE AND L O G I C
mc of thc :ion thrrr situation .
. hundrt-d � ofthcse the purse :0 s ay the raJ, "p is a
lewr p is m ean be mom of liseourse rse. The mge suf mditiom why the Chinese lances of
Ifyou do not say �t\J.l produced things are impermanent, like the bottle, etc:. (chu J.Q Isu chCchieh shih wu (hhang iffi" ffif'F-:{?l· 1§'Jt:�"M')', then you have nOt established that in the plact' where the produced lS, the 'impermanent' is bound to follow.l
The general part ofthis formulation in the form ofan implication linking Rto Pi.s called the substance of the example (yii thi II®�). The second, concrete instance is known as the constituent of the example (J'y i c1fiJf&) or as the example item (J'Yphin !!1ftr t?1J). Sometimes, the Chinese commentators caU the specific second part the so i pjff t< , lit.: 'what (the example) relies on'.� Very' subtly, \',,"en Kuei speaks of pointing out the substance ofthe example directly (ching chih IhiIF.mftfi) versus 'bringing up the constituent (chii so i �M*).j Both the sub�tance and the comtituent of the example are linguistic entities. There arc twO kinds of examples ()"ii 11M): one is lhe positive term (tlm�fa �?-t), the other is the negative term (ifa �$). III lhe case orthe positive term (lhungJa), ifin this locus (chllll �) you show a case ofa thing similar to the reason ()'ill tzSI), then there is certainly (chueh-ting #!:, ;lE) going to be the property ascribed in the thesis (hsing ttl. I.e., (wei � lit.: ;ca11') if there is producedness, then you will fmd the impermanence ill qucstion,} e.g., a bottle, etc.� i A.5 for the negative example, uin this locus (eMu) you explain there is notthe property that s to be established (so liPfr1I.)," then in all cases the (propeIT}t in the) reason (rin) will not be there. i a thing is permancm then you will find that it is not produced. like space etc.; I.e., (wei) f
Stated in this way, the positive example establishes an explicit link betwe:en the reason (]in ESI) and the predicate of the thesis (hsing ii), As the .Njii),amuklw has it: re ncces-
ml)" hring rc not yet �cs. l
as not by
. explicit liicalion.
The positin example says that the (predicate orthe) thesis (tsung *) follows from the reason. The negative example says that whcn the (predicate Pofthe) thesis (tJUIlg) is absent, so is the reason.�
Khuei Chi comments on the positive example as follows: In all places ((him �) where there is coming into existence there certainly is going out of existence. Wherc the mother cow goes the calf is bound to follow. In the place where the .
I KIlUei Chi. Greal <';omm�mary, ch. B, ed. Sung Yen, p. 4a. , TIle thought .""nu to be Ihalthe generalisation �Ii�s on he I cxampl" IU I� psyehologicaUy eon'-lndng. Our rather awkward tramiatiun ·r:onst;tuem' is designed to n:mind w; orlhe U1e (If; til rd�r to the constituent., of{h� thesis, the tsung' ffitt<. • C[ \\"en Kuei onN)§)apta"da. p . 337;1 IOP-4. • Wen K.u�i daborates Ihis concomitance heautifully and pueli"al ly: i.e., 'Wherever tll" prociucedness goc" Ihe s!Llpid and Ih� wise in this world alike know, imperman�nec is bound to tollaw it; like Iii" c�m� of a mother enw: wherevrr she goes, the link c.alfwill follow her.' (W�n Ku..i on /'ijiJ)apfa;" J'u, p. 337a top -1 .) > W�n Kuei upound!: 'This exemplilical ion (yU �) .significlO Wh�n lhe "produced·' gucs to pots, then the quaiity ofimpermanence (WII(khllllghsi"t�1t11 )i� in the bottlcs. Th"r"fore"� know thai whell th.. '"pTQduced" goes 10 sound, \h� quality ofimJXrman�nce wiU aIsn be in sound.· (Wen Kuei 011 .Njii)-apml"tia, p. 3373. bollom +:1.) • Th� cOllcept S� Ii rtr:t:r.. 'what i� c�tabli,hed' often ref�r.< generally 10 the Ihe,is, but sometime! - as h"r� - to Ihe ,,',"troversial part orthe the,i, - iI, 'pr�nicate' - only The term U�rIl * 'thesi!' 1m, a ,imilar ambiguity. .
T)', ch. \. . ed.
, }( yiiyapra,·da, ed. '.(1 Chheng, p. 15. W"" Kllei expounds: The m�al1ins: arthis exemplification (J"ii) is as fol lows: on space, et<;., thHe is 1101 Ihc "impcrm �n�nl" which is Ihe prLlperty atlr;buted in the tile,i" and consc quently thn� i! nOI lh" quality of p roducedncu frum the reason. SiliCt on 'du(edne.», (h�n "e know th�1 th..re (erlainly mus} bt, the '·imJXrmanem" ofthe the�i$ in iI: (Wcn Ku�i 011
Nja )"lJpm.""<J'a, p. :n8a lOp -7.) •
ltjii.JomuiJta, ed.
·fimM Tripi/aka, p. 2c3; cf. Tucci (1930), p. 36.
39 0
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
reason lyin) is, the (predicate P ofthe) thesis (tsung) is bound to follow. This is the connr.ction. Ifthere is producedness, then the opponent as well as witnesses will see the impermanence. I
From a \Vestern logical point ofview, the generalisation in the positive example is the essential element (and it will be remembered that the Chinese call it 'the sub stance of the exemplification (yii thi llffiim)'). Indeed, Khuei Chi quotes Dignaga as saying that the positive example item as such docs not show anything about the sub ject S ofthe thesis. You may say that the substance: of the bottle (Philli!, thl tINg) and the substance: of space (khung /hi �D) constitute the example: U1i i!§IJ"), but you must assimilate (lei�) the: bottle: to the meaning 'impermanent' in what is being established. Since you do not say that 'The various produced things are all of them impermanent', then bringing up (chid$) the bottle to show something about traditional authority (sMng!i:) is ineffective.2
Curiously, the spelling out of this generalisation continues to he regarded as optional in Chinese Buddhist logic. Even the negative exemplification as a whole is often omitted. On the other hand an argument without the concrete positive exam ple item would seem to be simply not acceptable. Khuei Chi writes: \Vhen a member of the argument (chih y:') defaults, we say it does !Jot have the quality of being able to establish (Jeineng li hsing �ftfE.:trtt).J
It is customaIJ' to refer to the role of the positive instance as 'inductive'. This is profoundly misleading in so far as the question of how far the single example guar antees the generalisation (or 'substance of the example') is never at issue among Chinese Buddhist logicians. Finally, let us turn to a rather curious formulation of an argument in which Khuei Chi seems to come close to using the modusponens. Suppose we establish a thesis (tsung *) that traditional verbal evidence is impermancnt on the grounds that it is produced. 'Impermanent' means 'liable to go out of existence'. 'Produced' means 'liable \0 come into existence'. (The thesis then runs:) 'Traditional verbal evidence has (the property) "liable to go out of existence" on the grounds that it has (the property) "liable to come into existence", for all things which are liable to come into exis tence arc liable to go out of existence.' Since traditional verbal evidence by virtue ofthe rea son comes into existence, then it is clear lhat it has the resulting (property of) 'going out of existence'. Ifthe 'produced' ohhe reason does not pCIvade the subject 'traditional verbal evidence' orthc thesis, then how could one conclude (chhi ti �-m) that it (the traditional verbal evid ence) was pervasively characterised by 'impermanent'?' In this remarkable passage, Khuei Chi disregards the role of the examples. Moreover, he makes the logicaJ structure of the argument very clear: 1 Khu"i Chi, Greal Commentar}; ch. .1-, �d. Sung Y�n, p. 3b7. Sung Yen, p. 5b�. ) Khuei Chi, Greal Commentary, ch. I , ed. Sung Yen, p. �ja3. • Khuci Chi, Great Commentary, ch. �, �d. Sung Yen, p. 3bl.
, Khu"i Chi, Greal Commentary, ch. 4, ed.
39 1
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
mection.
I.
anence. 1
2. Everything that comes into existence goes out of existence.
lmple is :he sub
All traditional verbal evidence is liable to (';Orne intO existence.
(Traditional verbal evidence comes into existence )
3.
.
4. It is clear traditional verbal evidence must go out of exist ence
.
na.ga as
the sub-
Affirmation and negation
of space
All words have something they block out/negate and something they display/affirm (i chhith
lat 'The'
that you have got hold of the concept of fire itself, you have got hold ofa fire occurring.l
:xmlc to It bottle
ued as rhole is e.xam-
mingyenyu chiyu piao -t)J:g ·�FH�fg�). If you say 'fire' you block out 'is not fire'. II is not Chinese Buddhist logicians distinguished between affirmative statements
chhiian ��) and negative statements (chi chhiian ��):
(piao
Negation (chiUft lil. 'hide, block, keep out') refers to the c.xclusion ofwhat it negates Uti 1F).2 Suppose you speak ofsalt. If you say it is not tasteless, that is negative (chi), and ifyou say it is salty, that is positive (piao
�). Or suppose you speak ofwater. Ifyou say it s i not dry, that
is negative, (chi), and ifyou say it is wet, that is positive (piao).3 a1ity of
The Chinese Buddhist notion ofnegation was a subtle one. You cannot look at a sentence, see whether it has a negation in it and on that basis decide whether it is
This is .
guar
mong hich
w
em
on
LnCe . \"Crbal u (the:
positive or negative. In a very puzzling but significant passage, Khuei Chi writes: There are two modes of establishing the predicate of a thesis: one is to purdy negate and
not affirm, as in The 1 does nOt exist'. This merely wants to negate 'the l' (tanyii chiwo@tiK '
�ft) and does not subcategorize the I as 'non-existent' .
It appears that the notion of negation (chi j,g) is applied to predicate terms and
not to sentences or propositions. 'Permanent' can be described, and often is
described, as the 'negation' of'impermanent'.
) e.XlS
Contradiction
� rea out of \tnce' evid-
!pIes.
. . . The second modus is both neg
ative and positive, as in 'The I is eternal'. This not only negates the non-eternality; it also asserts that there i� the substance (thi §)f ofeternity.�
The notion of contradiction is discussed in Chinese Buddhist logic. The Chinese Buddhist technical term is wei m 'contradictories':
Eternal and non-eternal arc direct contradictories (ching hsiang wti IE;j
in contradiction with it (wei hai ifl@f) and these arc therefore called contradictory (hsiang wti
Khuti Chi, Great Commentary, th. 8, ect. Sung Yen, p. l.p.\I;. See Shen Chien-Ying (1984), p. '73. • See Shen Chicn-Ying(/98.,). p. 173. The u"!: ofth" (erm l!rift: 'substance' here is disconcerting. I have no explanation why Khud Chi should want touse the term hert. l Khuei Chi, Gr"at Commentar y. eh. 8, cd. Sung Yen, p. sa. � W"n Kud on},5-·.,i}aprattfa, Supp/(mdilary T ripi/aM, vol. 86, p. S�5b, bOltom 'S. l
1
•
3 92
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
TEI�), 'Bitter' and j oyful', 'bright' and 'dark', 'cold' and 'hot', 'large' and 'small', 'perman ent' and 'impermanen l' etc" all are like this (i chhieh chieh hit --J))1§'W1). I ,
The distinction between contradictories and contraries does not seem to have struck Khuei Chi in the context. Or perhaps wt: should say: Khuci Chi disregarded the difference, just as the Greeks often disregarded the difference when they used the \vord enantion. A little further along on the same page the notion of contradiction is expressed in
a slightly different way:
The property of non-eternality in the bottle has a directly incompatible relation to (thillg
ning wei haiIEfj�m*) the property of eternity in space. Therefore it
is called a negative
example.1
(3 )
T HE A RGUMENT F O R C O N S C I O USNESS QKLY
Having surveyed the abstract system of Buddhist logic as taught in China, we shall now briefly turn to an outline of the one most famous historical example of the an of Chinese Buddhist argumentation.3 Inevitably, we enter deep and treacherous waters of Buddhist reasoning at this point. As outside observers without the neces sary life-time's exposure to the doctrinal intricacies of the School of Consciousness Only, we can only provide an outside observer's account from a logical perspective. The background story is well told in Arthur "Valey's splendid biography of Hsiian-Tsang. Harsha, accompanied by Tripitaka (=Hsuan-Tsang) reached Kanauj at the end ofthe year (AD 642). They werejoined by the kings ofeighteen vassal countries, by some three thousand monks and some r\'..-o thousand Hindus andJains . . . Tripitaka was then called upon to take the chair and state the case of the Mahayana as against the doctrines ofthe Lesser Vehicle. Arthur "Valey translates the formal argument Hsuan-Tsang used as follows: Philosophically speaking, such forms of matter as are accepted both by us and by you are inseparable from the eye-consciousness (Proposition). Because according to the eighteen fold classification that we too accept, these forms ofmatter are not included under the head ing 'Organ ofSight' (Proof). Like eye-consciousness itsdf(Analogy). Arthur \Valey concludes his assessment of the argument thus: It is certain at any rate that the famous syllogism comes perilou sly near to being nonse:nse:;-l otherwise Tripitaka's disciples would not have ne:eded to de:vote: page: after page to proving J Khuci Chi, Greal Commentary, ch. 3, cd. Sung Yen, p. 13a7. , Wen Kuei on 19'i!)'apra"'da, ed. Supplmunlary Tnpitaka, vol. 86, p. 325b,bottom 19. , For detailed analyses ofthis argument cf. particularly Lli Chheng (1983), pp. 62-79, Lo Chao (1988) ami Sh�n Chi�n-Ying (1981). Th� ar!l;llm�nt was originally called Th� Argum�nt for Conseiousn�s> Only in Khuci Chi's Greal Commentary, eh. 5, where it is first summarised. A mor� detailed account of it ,,-ill b" found in Hui Li'g biography ofKhuei Chi, chs 4 and 5. o (Footnote by Arthur \\'alcy:) I mean, of course, nonsense [rom lhe standpoint of his own contemporari�,; whether it does or d�s not conform to our convemions ofthought is irrelevant.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
rman-
ha\"e irded . used
393
that it makc:s sense. At the risk of�uffcring the same fate as Shun-ch'iung who, as a punish ment for his \1CWS on Tripitaka's syllogism, dropped headlong to Hell, through a hole that opened in the ground at his feet, I must <:onfess that I don't find the apologias ofhis disciples K'uei-chi and Shen-t'ai very convincing. l Hsoan-Tsang's Argument was designed to show that the external world (ching;t) was
led in
i<Mng
�ti\"e
inseparable from awareness of it (shih �). As an example of external things he (se � li t. \:olour'). This much is uncontroversial. But once that is said, one has to admit that HsOan-Tsang's senior disciples differed widely in chooses vi.sible thin�
their interpretations of the Argument. The literature is vast, and it deserves a spe cialised monograph in its own right. Hstian-Tsang's followers, ofcourse, regarded the Argument as 'the ten thousand generation guideline by which to produce arguments'.
It
deserves our detailed
attention a� an historically significant test case of logic in acti.on. It
is
a valiant
attempt at metaphysica in ordine /ogico demonstrata preceding Spinoza's ethica in ordinegeo shall !eart :rous tees mess
l : h·e.
Iy of
me(rico delllonstrat(l by many centuries. I shall not and cannot at this point enter deeply into the history of the various interpretations attached to the Argument, or indeed into the detailed interpreta tion of the Argument in its Buddhist context.� Instead, I shall make a tentative attempt to use the concepts ofyin min,t:!Zj� introduced in the last Sub-section to see whether what looked like indubitable near-nonsense to Arthur Waley will yield to a somewhat more charitable interpretation in the light of Buddhist logical theory. After all, when an argument is as celebrated as The Argument for Consciousness Only it seems perfectly legitimate to declare it seriously wrong and mistaken. But to
year ..., d we de.
declare such a One must
ar�
"n ead-
. nng
"',,
first
find out what gave Anselm's argument its apparent plausibility
and force, and only then proceed to criticise it. Exactly the same
Argument I
locus classicus 'clearly near-nonsense' is no more helpful than saying
about Anselm's proof ufthe existence of Cod that it is clearly near-logical rubbish.
of Consciousness Only.
We must first
applies
to the
understand what appeared to
make it tick. Only after that can we sensibly declare that it
doesn't work. Since
I
have been very much preoccupied with this argument, let me present a brief and
summary account ofil; at the risk ofappearing indeed to be retailing nonsense.
Hsual1-Tsang proposes something that may remind one ofBishop Berkeley's esse estpacipi 'being is being perc.eived', but it should rather be expressed as esse est aesti man esse 'to bl.; is to be deemed to be', and a detailed comparison with Arthur Schopenhauer's position on this issue is most instructive.3 Objective existence is doomed to be exactlyv,,·hat it is deemed to be. We have no Olher access to it than our deeming. Hsuan-Tsang's position emphatically does not assume the existence of a
�d .huei Hui
perceiver or a deemer. As we have seen before: an argument of the sort cogito, ergo sum would, for a Buddhist of the School of Consciousness Only, carry no weight bf.cause in L
the one word cogilQ it
begs the crucial question at issue: could there be
Waky (19S2), pp. 62r. For a mOTe detaited account ofthe historical circumstances "fthi, famous debat� ICC
i.tl Chhcng (1983), pp. 6�ff. , By far the br.Sl treatment \0 date i. [.0 Chao (1.988).
' Cf. e.g., &hopenhaucr (1960). \'oL �, pr. t Iff.
394
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
thought without that thought being the thought of a thinking subjcct? [s there a metaphysically real ego in any conceivable cogitatio? There is a problem about the visible objects we think about: what exactly do we mean by claiming thaI they exist? And moreover: do they in fact exist? But there is also a question about the subject which docs the thinking: what exactly do we mean by saying that it does exist? And does it in fact exist? The Argument of Consciousness Only addresses a queMion regarding the nature of the existence of objective things. Here is how I have come to understand the essence ofHsuan·Tsang's argument as paraphrased in my 0\.,11 terms. Sense impressions are not directly of objective things. Sense impressions are am strued by 'eye-consciousness' (the thinking as applied to the visible \\'orld) to be of objective things. Things are constructs of eye-(;Qnsciousnes�. They are therefore inseparable from eye-consciousness in so flU as they belong to the visual sphere and eye-consciousness defines their ontological status. Hsoan-Tsang argues that visible things are by common agreement in the visual sphere (consisting of the eye, eye-consciousness and visual things). But how, one may ask, do visible things get attached to the visual sphere? Not, Hsuan-Tsang would insist, because the eye directly perceives them. (Because what meets the eye are sense impressions, not visible things themselves. \Vhen the eye sees a stone, what hits the eye is not the stone but sense impressions construed to be of the stone.) But how, one may persist, are visible things attached to lhe visual sphere, if not because they are directly perceived by the eye? There is only Ont: link left: it must be through eye-consciousness which construes and judges the sense impressions to be ofvisible things. Visible things, therefore, though not identical with a judgement by eye-consciousness that they are visible objects, are inseparable from eye-consciousness, essentia1ly linked with it. A preliminary translation ofthc celebrated Argument might run like this: Thesis: Spcaking philosophically, and assuming a mcaning of the terms ('visible things' and 'be not scparablc from eyc-consciousness') acccpted by the disputing partics: VISIBLE
THINGS ARJ.: DEFI N I TJo:LY XOT
SEPARABLI> .'ROM J::Y J:: - CONSCiOUSNESS.
RMSQn: Because, using the term ( visible things') in the proponent's sense of the term: '
THOUGH
BF.IXO IN TH E VISUAL SPHERE THEY ARF. NOT PERCEIVED B Y THE VISUAL
ORGAN.
Exampu: (Everything which, though in the visual sphere, is not perceived by the visual organ, is not scparable from cyc-consciousncss.)1 AS fOR EXAMf>LE J.:YE-CONSCIOUSNESS.
Let us kecp in mind that this is an argument belonging not to the 20th but to the +7th century. It belongs not to modern analytical philosophy but to an earry phase in the history of Buddhist logic. It is beyond the scope of this survey to attempt to fully expound the buddhologica1 significance orthe argument, or to give a detailedjustificalion ofour interpretation , This addition in brad"L' mah-_, n:plicit ",hal, according 10 Ihe Chinf'Sl: logicians, Ih" "xamp)., Sl:r...,d
exempify. l
(0
if
.v.,
-
3 95
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C - if indeed it can be properly justified. But, however
\ ....
e must understand the
Argumcnt, it does represent a valiant attempt at a metap�sica in ordine IOgUQ demon )we here ) we
It
of
:e of
nent
: cot/ X of
�fore : and
isual
, one Sang e eye what
straw descrving a dose logical scrutiny in the light of modern logic, which to my knowledge it has yet to receive, and which in any case it has not received here and now. A number of formal features of the Argument must be noted here nonetheless.
explicit pan (thi MI) of the positive - is omitted in the original formulation. Moreover, we note with surprise that the ex ample item used occurs in the thesis itself. But there was apparendy no rule to prevent this and it is not clear what other
First, we
have already seen that the optional
example - which is added in brackeL<;
example Hsuan-Tsang should or could have chosen. Second: The negative example is completely omitted. This is a fine example of how the crucial link in an argument can be left implicit in Buddhist logic. Third: the Argument adds limiting clauses
both thesis and reason.
(chien ptth M �U)
at the beginnings of
\Vhy did HSiian Tsang introduce the qualification 'philosophically speaking -
(chin ku �t)1:)'? HSiian-Tsang deploys a distinction between levels ofdiscourse here. He intends his thesis understood on the level of sMngt 3#f! 'highest meaning'. Such hierarchies of meaning arc not unknown in China (especially to the Taoists), but they play a much more central part in formal Indian philosophy. Why, then, did HSiian-Tsang introduce this
if not
qualification? The answer is that he thereby avoided the recognised fallacy ofshih chim hsiang wei tltra'fflit 'being in conflict with plain fact'. The common-sense objection that plainly a table, though
to be
visible, is not perception but a physical object, is ruled out. As indeed it would be for
lSt be
:nt by
sness,
someone discussing bishop Berkeley's question is not as simple as that.
esse est percipi. At a philosophical level, the
Why did Hsuan-Tsang introduce the qualification 'on the common acceptance
SIBL£
of the term (chi chhing:tiRX:.)'? The answer is again that he is avoiding a fallacy which in this case would consist in arguing a thesis the concepts of which are understood in incompatible ways by proponent and opponent. As we haw� seen, one conven
term:
upon by proponent and opponent, and that the thesis as a whole must not be com
visual
that he is using the terms se � visual object' and liyiiyen shih �ff{-m.� 'separate from optical perception' in a sense acceptable to the proponent himself and his opponent. \Vhy did Hsuan-Tsang introduce the qualification 'in the proponent's sense of
to the
these expressions'? This is a tricky and highly controversial question on which I
hings'
ISUAL
tion in Buddhist logic is that a sense of the concepts in the thesis must be agreed monly agreed beforehand. "Vhat Hsuan-Tsang is claiming in his qualification is '
1' E S S .
lase III
have changed my mind many times. Let me submit my current interpretation. In the thesis Hsuan-Tsang has assumed that the
term 'visible
things is to be under '
.ogical
stood in a commonly agreed 'pre-theoretical' sense. In the reason he now stipulates
tation
that
'visible things' as understood by adherents
of the School
of Consciousness
OnJy, though in the visible sphere, are not perceived by the visual organ. The com monly agreed 'visible things' are included in, or part of, the things taken by the
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
School of Consciousness Only to be the 'visible things', so lhal this is seen as a tech
nically legitimate qualification in terms ofthe rules of),jn mmg logic.
Why did Hsuan-Tsang introduce the qualification 'though in the visual sphere'? Clearly, if he had not added this qualification, the thesis would not follow at all. The point of the argument is that the visible object (as evcryone admits) is in the visible sphere but i� not (directly) perceived by the visual organ. The visible object, then, since it is not the eyeball itself, must belong to eye-consciousness, i.e., it follows that the visibk object is not separable from cyc-consciousne:ss. Our biased sources indicate that nobody dared raise any objections against the formidable Hsuan-Tsang on that occasion in India in the year +642. Naturally, though, his Argument on Consciousness Only did not go unchallenged. One oppon e:nt constructed a most ingenious competing argument which might almost look like a parody of the original one. Undaunted by Hsuan-Tsang's argument, Yuan Hsiao j[; � (Korean: Wonhyo, +617 to +686), a formidable Buddhist from Korea (writing in Chinese), I declared that like the eyeball itself; the visual object was separ
ate from visual perception. Here is the Korean's challenge to Hsuan-Tsang:!
Thesu: Philosophically speaking, and taking the term visible thin g in the commonly accepted meaning: Visible things are separate from eye-consciousness. Reason: Because, using the term 'visible thing' in the propone-nt's sense, though in lhe visual sphere they arc not perceived by the eye. i ed by the eye, is sep E.r:amptr. (Ever}'thing which, though in the visual sphere is Ilot pcrcev arate from eye-consciousncss.) Like the eyeball .' At the time when \Vanhyo put forward this argument, Hsuan-Tsang was already dead, but his foremost discipl�
Khuei Chi, as one can imagine, did not let th� mat (ch . 5) he pointed out six serio us fallacies
ter rest at that. In his Creat Commentary
committed by (he Korean. The debate continues even today.4 I cannot and will not pretend to be the ultimate arbiter ofits rights and wrongs. But I wish to insist that it
is far from being philosophically pointless or theoretically inane.
By way of a conclusion of this discussion of Buddhist logic, I shall highlight some fundamental contrasts bet\....een Chinese Buddhist logic and Aristotelian logic in the following Sub-section. But first I turn to problems of translation.
(4) THE TRANSLATION OF L OGIC F R O M SANSKRIT TO CHINES E'� To what extent, one may ask oneself, is the nature of Greek logic linked to the nature: of the Greek language? Or for that m atter: to what extent is Western logical I Wonh�'o was quite a colourful IXrsonality. Aft�r h� turned Buddhist hc had a child ,,'ith a princess and pre rerred to be k110"11th�reafter by the name l..a)' Pracritiuno:rufSmall Nature (Sownglifa). �� "oIUlnes ofhi6 ,,"ork� are extant. for an account orhi., lir., and thought 5� HongJung-shik (t98�). The attrihution orthi. argument to WOnhyo is, hOW"''f'H·.ontm""rsiai. The ",·idencc on Ihis is collected in 1.0 Chao (1988), p. 28. , It must bt, notoo thai Wonhyo did not presenl 1he argument In China himself, and some source! attributc the syllogism 10 a mcssen�r and discipk orhis. 1 Yiian Hsiao, Plumpi liang bm. !:.T, \"01. 94, eil. 4. I Shcn Chien-Ying (T9�) argues ,';gorouslr hut quite superficially against Hsiian-Tsang as an 'idealist'. Lil Chh�ng (198.1), PI'. 62f9, carefully recon.trUl:t� Ihe plausibilit)' ofthe /\rgumenl for Consciou.,n.,.. Only.
, (;[ f"ucru (1930), '-dn GuliIr. (19S6), pp. 3-36, Chen (1960) and HUr\iu (1963).
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
h."
he ,Ie :11, oat
:he 11y, )n >ok ian rea )ar)01y the
"'p!ady
mat lelfS 1 nOl l.at it
thinking conditioned by the fact that it was articulated and developed in the med ium o(Indo-European languages? Similarly, one may ask: to what extent was Indian logical thinking, and particu larly Buddhisllogic, conditioned by me Sanskrit language in which it was articulated? How much of the Sanskrit Buddhist logic can be adequately and naturally con veyed in a language as totally differcnl from Sanskrit as Classical Chinese?i In general: what is the relation between logical theories and the natural lan guages in the medium ofwhich they are developed and ultimately defined? All these afC crucial questions for the history of science. They are questions any philosopher of language worth his salt should take seriously, indeed should have [aJ..e n seriously a long time ago. They are of more than purely histOrical interest. Unfortunately, they cannot find any definitive answer here. \Alhat we can investi gate empiricaUy is not the question whether the Chinese might have invented Buddhist logic of the kind the Indians invented. That is a malleT for pure specula tion. \·Vhat, howevcT, we can investigate is the question to what extent Indian logic can be translated into Chinese and transported into China. A briefsurvey of the technical aspects of Buddhist translations into Chinese will help to put things into perspective. For when we speak of Hsuan-Tsang's transla tions, we really mean a translation made by a large imperially sanctioned office where translation was done by no less than eight individuals: 1.
2. 3.
4. .J.
;orne :tc III
6.
7.
8.
o lhe 19ical \lid pr�
isworh ml:nllO lliribute
397
The head of the translation team (i chu � ±), in our case Hsuan-Tsang, under whose name the translation would appear. The transmitter of the words (chhuanyii 1lJJm or iyu ��), who produced an oral first interpretation orthe Sanskrit text. "I'he verifier ofthf. meaning ofthe Sanskrit text (chingfan j ���), who ensured that the oral translation was in accordance with the Sanskrit. The scribe (pi shou ��). The verifier of tht" meaning of the Chinese translation (ching i ��), who checked that the Chinese made sense as it stood. The embellisher ohhe style (jun wen iOOX). The proof-reader (chiao khan ttl/] or tsung khan �ttb), \vho ensured that the Chinese text was complete. The proof-reader (ching tzu �*), who ensured that all the Chinese characters were written correctly.1
1 for Kumarajt,·a's mt:lhod. of the leXt. The !ubstillltirln ofrh�torica! quc!tion! for negali..� statemcnu and ,-icc ,'eroa s i neithera ,-irtue nor adefect. . . . The defc(ts ofsuc;h a translation are both�...ome to the ".holar who wishe� to reconstruct a S�n"krit original hul, with the e. x ception of th� mishandling oflogical lerms, I do not think that the mistranslation. pre"�nt th� rcad�r from understanding th� Madhyamaka iy!t�m as an aggregate. (Ibid., pp. 81f:) , For the organisation o[Buddhist translatioll work see r\l<:hs (1930) and van Gulilr. (1956).
LA:\' G U A G E A�' D L O G I C
Our present enquiry will b e based on a close wmparison oCthe Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese versions of the systematic expository part of the N)'o)'apmvda only.! So far, we have chosen to consider Ihe Chinese texts on Buddhist logic i n their o\\'n right and to reconstruct Chinese Buddhist logic on this Lasis. We must now turn to
the crucial question: how far were the Chinese able to represent in their language the nuances, subtleties, and technicalities of the Sanskrit origi nal of Nyii;'apraveia? How, for example, does their achievement in this particular instance compare with
.. 'Ii
that ofthe Tibetans?
One might suspect that the Sanskrit version ofNyiiyapraveia was much more pre
cise and explicit than its Chinese translation, and that in general the Chinese given the very different nature of their language - were only able to convey such
parts of the messages in the Sanskrit original as could be naturally conveyed in the Chinese medium - a kind ofwatered-down version of nyii;'a logic. Again, one might imaginf': that the Tibetans were much more proficient in their adaptation to the Sanskrit logical discourse. However, this is not an occasion for abstract speculation or ratiocination on the ultimate relation between language and logic in Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan.2 It is an occasion for simply addressing the philological facts oCthe historical case at hand.
TechnicaL terms Consider '9'o)'a, the technical term most commonly ust:d for Indian logic_ One way of translating this into Chinese is simple phont:tic transcription. Since the literal
m<:aning of nyqya i n Sanskrit is less than immediately obvious in the first place, this
would not seem to put the Chint:sc at a significant disadvantage. However, Hsiian Tsang preferred a more analytical rendering: he called nya ya 'the science ofreasons
(yin ming �OA)', modelling himselfon the more explicit Sanskrit term hetuvidyii which is one of the many less widely used Sanskrit terms for logic.3 In order to avoid arbitraI)' eclecticism in our <.:hoice of topics
in translation to
discuss, let us now simply turn to the tcchnical terms in rhe opening lines of the
�V;'a)'apm1ieia. Consider, then, the main su�jects treated in ryqya logic and listed at the outset of
r
our little primer orBuddhist logic: siiditanom '(mt:ans of) establishing: proof', dii�ar;am
'(means of) destroying: refutation', /Jra!yak..\·o 'what lies before one's eyes: perception'
and anumana 'what is measured according to some thing else: inference'.
Hsiian-Tsang treats these as two structural pairs: he calls proof neng li��.lr '(that
which) can establish', refutation nmgpho Fi�� '(that which) can destroy', perception
, Fol' a systematic w:atment ofth.. t.."hniqlles oftran91ation ofBlIrlrlhi�t text! into Chinese see Fuch1 (193oj. , Th..� has !xcn an cnormousamuumoHau;naling philosophicalspeculation nn Ih;l arN within the frame wori; ufanalytical ph;lowph}� inspiredloymen Jil.. GNdob Frege and Ludwig Wittgert'tein. I In urdcr to markuffdearlyall works on logic, H�ijan-T,ang u well
in it! title, preferably at Lh� beginning ofthe title. The result u that Chinese(and. incidentall}\Japane!e) ,mdt • on . BuddhlSl logic Can be con\-eniendy icl..ntified beuusc: lh<.'ir titles begin with the chuacters)';11 mingo
..
..
..
,
,
I
s S
1
>
e
,r
•
"
"
n
LAKGUAGE AND L O G I C
399
hsien liang m,:s:
'measu ring (on the basi.� of) what is at hand'i and inferenc e pi liang it. 'measuring (on the oasis of) comparison ' , The Chinese and Sanskrit terms
have, ofcourse, this in common that tht)' arc ttdmical terms used in specific Sf'llses
and according to definitions. But the differe nce which strikes the eye is that Hsuan Tsang's terminology here is more structurally transparent than the Sanskrit. In Chinese we have, palpably, nyu pairs of concepts. Tn Sanskrit one may remember, if one recaUs the technical meanings, th at the four terms rail into two groups, bUl lhe pairing is not made morphologically transparent. The lo&rical terminology which HsU an-Tsang constructed was often more transparent and coherent than the
Indian original terms he aimed to translate, hecause he had (he need - and thefree
dom - to create a term inology through stipulativc definition much of the time.2 To cach pair the Sanskrit text adds sabhiisa 'and fallacies', whieh Hstian-T�ang most aptly translates as chi ssu &fJ;1, 'and (only) apparent cases (of these)'. Ssu fJ.:..1. is basically a transitive verb 'be like, be only like (cf. 55U erhfti fJ;l.ffij�F ' resemble some thing but nOt really be it'). The transitivity of S5U makes it plain that the text refers
to only apparent cases of proof and refutation, of arguments from perception and inference.
The fact that .>Su is basically a verb, and that ning li ¥It:tz: as well as
ningpho gg�
arc verb phrases, but that hoth are here used as a subject-nominalization (,the sub
ject of the vcrb (phrase)') , is no disadvantage in the COnlext because the particles
chi :& andyii W can stand only between noun phrases and IllUs act as effective and
qui te unambiguous nominalizers in the context.
i the Sanskrit to be parasa'!'vidt 'designed to make Proof and refutation are said n others understand', perception and infen:nce are said to be atmasa'!'uidt 'designed to
make oneself understand'.3 Hsuan-Tsang adds here the restrictive copula wti � to indicate that these and only these things constitute the relevant realm of making others understand and making oneself understand respectively in the context of nyiiya logic, I One might think that the plural forms in the Sanskrit could present a problem
men 1r� cannot be used to convey the plural in the form of Classical Chinese used by the Chinese Buddhist logicians. However,
when the Chinese plural morpheme
\vhen appropriate and necessary the Chinese Buddhists simply broke the rules of
�
Classical Chinese syntax and introduced the word to in front ofthe Chinese word standing for a Sanskrit word in the plural, and this, though not making exactly ele gant Chinese , adequately encoded the S anskrit nuance and made it accessible to the Chinese reader. This introduction of to in front of words in the plural, however, I Th� crucial Ix>im i. that the Chinese makes it txpliril that what is Ixinglpokcn aOOul il nOl lhe reality Ixtore one', e)'E:l (luim l:Jl cxprcucs that idea), but a conclusion or judgement of some sort (called IIang:fil: by Hs(lan Tsang), bascd 0[\ whal iJ being perceived. , The deve10pmem of terminology can be compared to that (If techn(llogy. \Vh!"n, at"t!"T the Second ,Vorld War the.Japanele had to eOJntruet an induslrial ba.e from !l{".ra«:h, they were abl" to Je,·dop moTe streamline wlutiuns to technological problem! than the coumries that were their indu9IriaLized models. I TI,e Tib.::tan tcxt, fa.:scinatingi)', u!CS two different wOTd� for 'understand· hen:. • r'Or a.II we !wow H!uan-T!ang ""' y, ofcoursc. ha\"C"addcd tbc fC"$tricti,"C" copulaonlyforthesake ofmetl"t', but it .seems wrong to assume that at the OUiMet.
400
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
\Vas not used indiscriminately but only in cases where it was felt to be helpful or important by the Chinese translators. Hitherto, we have considered only some terminological and grammatical details. l osophically much more central issues raised in the But there are larger and phi Chinese translation of NYil),apravtia. There are crucial passages in which Hso.an Tsang made substantial improvements on the Sanskrit original. First, the very definition of the thesis or proposition. In Sanskrit iabdo 'n.iryah can either mean 'impermanent sound' or 'sound is impermanent', CorrespondingJ), there is a devastating uncertainty whetherpakfa is 'thesis' or 'the subject urthe thesis as qualified by the predicate'. Hsuan-Tsang's translations, and the early Chinese commentaries, make it perfectly plain that the thesis is a proposition, not a complex noun phrase. They translate quite unambiguously and perfectly unanimously sheng shih wu chhang ���� 'Sound is impermanent.' (Yes: They did add that quite sur prising 'copula' shih �.) In making it dear that tsung * is not a qualified noun but a proposition, the Chinese translation marks a distinct advance over the Sanskril. In Chinese one does not say anything that can either mean 'impermanent sound' or 'sound is impermanent'. The Chinese therefore said nothing of the kind. At this crucial poim, Chinese is less ambiguous than Sanskril. The Chinese were at an advantage because of their language. \,\lhere the Sanskrit leaves you with a lurking suspicion that the Indian thinkers had not sorted out for themselves lhe signifieam distinction between a modified noun and a subject predicate structure, the Chinese forces us to make a clear and unambiguous choice. There is another most extraordinary detail regarding the definition of the thesis. All Sanskrit versions of this definition involve a clause that a thesis must not go againstpratyaksa 'evidence from direct perception'. This clause is logically problem atic because it presupposes that a thesis, in order to be a thesis, must be acceptable. But a thesis does not ccase to be a lhesis because it can be refuted by reference to direct perception. I
Qgantification n i the ThreeAspec/s Consider a second example. That of the famous Three Aspects (.ran hsiang =fB) which are generally treated and recognised as the theoretical core ofyin ming �1Y3 logic. Suppose that Aristotle had written: Greeks are men, Men are mortal,
Therefore Greeks are mortal. L
The CaM. i, different tor the rcquiremenl thai the meanings or referenl:C� orlhe I..rnu
ll i the thesis mu.1 be
agreed upon: fot irlher� isno agreement on Ihi:! mauer, there i, no th...is to diKUM ordi,agree aboUl.
,
1
l 1
,-
o
LA='IGUAGE AKD L O G I C
401
Suppose then that a translator had come along and translated: All Greeks arc human, Allhumans are mortal, Therefore allGreeks are mortaL The added precision of such a translation, \\If': would surely say, makes all the difference LO the logical point at hand. Hsi.ian.Tsang's translation made just this sort of contri bution to the formulation ortbe crucial (meta-)logical rule of)'in ming � � logic. He added that crucial quan tifier ('aU') to get the rule into logical shape. The standard stock-in-trade example of an argument inyin mingrullS - as ,viiI be remembered -like: this: Sound is impermanent Because it is produced. Like a bonie, but unlike space or time. The Indian early formulations of the three conditions which the reason must fulfil in order to guarantee the truth of the thesis: The reason must be predicable of the subject of the thesis. (Sound must be produced.) 2. The reason must be present in p ositive examples. (Impermanenl lhings must be produced.) 3. The reason muSl be absent in negative examples. (Permanent things must not be p roduced.) (Cr. Tachikawa (1971), p. I'll.) I.
Presumably the Sanskrit version of the original text available to Hsuan�Tsang was something like the above. HsUan�T�ang'� contribution consists in the addition of the quantifiers which are needed to make the principle logically transparent and imponanl: I. 2.
3.
Allsound must be produced. (At least some) impermanent things must indubitab(y be produced. },(o permanent things at all must be produced. I I Aliteral translation would run like thi"
I. (The reason-prOperty H) is pervasively a property Drlh" lul>ject ()fth� thesis (S). E.g., producedness must inhere in every sound. In OIher words: ifproduc"dn��1 il to mum as a reawn for any property of sound, then sound must have producedness. One can only adduce as r�aliOns what are quite general ly pro�nie5 oflh� subject ofthe the.is. 2. Th" positive exampl�.(p) undoubtedly have the pTOperty (H). E.g., produccdilCU
mUll
undoubuxllr be present n i (at least somc) ca!;Cs of m i permanence.
prelent in all cases ofimper manence bccau�e the «awn
reasonl other than producednes:; lor impermanence. 3. The neg..t;'.., examples{not-P) pe,,:asi,..,lr lack the property (R).
,
It need not be
(Jill �) j, only ,uffiden!, not nccessary. There may be ,
E.g., produccdncss must be ab ent n i all instance. ofJWrmanence or: all things, ifpermancnt, must Ue unpro
duccd. Ifproduccdncss is to count as a sufficient reaSOn for impermanence, thcn clearly no thingcanbe.pnman ent and yet produccd.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
For all we know, the addition of quantifiers in the formulation o f the Three Aspects in HsOan.'Isang's translation seems to be his original contribution which he added as he was translating. In any case, the consistent addition of the quantifiers is unattested in Indian logical texts carlier than Hsuan·Tsang's transla· tion.l What is more, Hsuan·Tsang adds these quantifiers throughout his translation
wherever the Three Aspects overtly or indirectly become relevalll again. Hsuan.Tsang could only add his qualllifiers where he did because he was far from mechanically translating a text the intdlectual import of which he understood only imperfectly. He was an advanced practitioner of the art oflogic an introduc tion to which he was translating into his mother tongue.
If the systematic expository first part of J( yqyapravtia which 1 have examined
closely is anything to go by, Hsoan-Tsang's Chinese translation is not only often an improvement on the Sanskrit original, it has turned out - to my great surprise - to be gentrally easier to read as well. I have been reading the
l(yiiyapravefa together
with three Sanskritists who between them have spent Over sixty years reading Buddhist Sanskrit texts. The Sanskrit
JyYayapraveia
presented quite considerable
concrete problems ofgrammatical imerpretation for all of us. By comparison my task of expounding the literal meaning of the Chinese translation was considerably easier. Of course HSilan-Tsang's translation raised a host of problems ofphilosoph ical interpretation. But unlike the Sanskrit it was not so full of problems of literal grammatical comprehension. It is as if the analytical nature of the Chinese lan guage enforced a plainness of construction which made my task so much easier.
Theproblem qfparallelism Consider the following Sanskrit formulation:
Prasiddho dharm'iprasiddl/avifr�'(l}a uii4rataya 'the by the agreed-upon property subcategorized agreed-upon subject' The slightly complex construction is rendered by Hsuan-Tsang into what looks Like a series of three four-character phrases: chi chhingyufa, chi chhing ningpieh, chha pieh hsing ku �/iX1li�tI!hX;fjgJ.l�i�:}J�'t1Mc 'the agreed-upon subject and the agreed upon predicate, in so far as (the latter) is a subcategorizing characteristic (of the
former),. HSiian-Tsang expounds the modified noun. This is a crucial point.
tsung *
'thesis' as a proposition, not as a
Hsuan-Tsang imposes a four-character rhythm which is entirely consonant with the stylistic standards of his time, but which does make comprehension more difficult than it need be. Other instances of the obtrusive use of parallelism are , Wil�" it was first systematically and clcarly focused on within !h� Indian tradition i! 01 no cOIll:�rn to us here. The Indian lOgicians may oh\�ou"ly have dcvt:ioped this refinement !h�msel\'e� without inspiration from Hsuan-Tsang. lnd.,..,d, this seems most likely, although one (annot exclude ule possibility that lhilan-Tsang did, after all, play a enta;n role in the de\'dopment ofindigenolllindian logic. He was, undoubtedly. recognised loy the Indians as a leading practitioner ofI},,, art_
L A N G Lt A G E AND L O G I C
fhree Nhich Jf the ansla lanon
common in the commentarial litcrature \\,here at times one is uncertain whether a
character has crucial meaning and weight or whether it is used to fill out the four character pattern.
Lti Chheng {I983), p. 10, finds the Chinese opaque at this point, and he claims a
plainer translation into Classical Chinese would have been simply to write: yu
chMng ning pirh chill so chlla piehli�RX:1fE�IJ;LffT�lJ!J
chi
'that which is subcategorized
far
by the agreed-upon predicate' . " his would indeed have been a more literal render
"Stood
ing of the Sanskrit, but the problem is that the Sanskrit formulation expounds the
oduc-
'thesis' as a modified noun, which is not at all the same thing. At this point
nincd
nuance: we arc notjust talking ofa ' subcategorized subject' bur of a subject 'in so far
as
I am
inclined to insist that Hsuan-Tsang's more elaborate version adds a significant Icn an
as it is subcategorized'. Hsuan-Tsang surely could havc rendered this literally, but
;e - to
he tries to subtly and unobtrusively improve on the originaJ.
:ading
the last phrase differently: chhapieh wei hfing�J.jU�·t1 'the subcategorization Counts
erable
as the issue', (and, incidentally, the non-Buddhist polymath Lti Tshai emphatically
In my
agrees with him).
5cther
erably
\Ven Kuei, perhaps the most brilliant of Hsi.ian-Tsang's
Chinese disciples, read
1 find that this makes sm oOther reading, and indeed it puts the
issue into much better locus. We need not enter this particular philological brawl.
""ph
Suffice it to say that both the alternatives considered by the Chinese logicians in this
literal
particular instance seem to be clear improvements on the Sanskrit te.xt we have
;e
lan
ec.
today. I \Ven Kuei's commentary, as usual, is strictly to the point. phrase
ChilO pieh wei hst"ng separately
He comments on the
and introduces his comments \\lith the pithy
remark: 'This e.xplains the substance (Ihi�) (of the thesis).'t The substance of the
thesis is the main predication itself. Wen Kuei knows that in taking this stance he differs from what he calls 'the old masters of Buddhist logic' .
BUl he also declares
and demonstrates with a quotation that he has the support ofDignaga himself. Wen Kuei writes with confidence. Khuei Chi, on the other hand, indulges in a
t looks
1z, chha greed
(of the )t as a
1t \\'ith I
more
im are
CTT1 10
us
0011 from
:sang did,
pmcdby
venomous attack on \--Ven Kuei's reading: 'Some do not understand where this comes from, and they change the text to re:ad:
"chllapieh wei hring ��U�'I1", but this
not only goes against the rules ofSuddhist logic, it also shows ignorance of the local dialects
(jang)'en :n ·�n
of Thang
F.!f
and Fan
'1it
(China and India). Constantly
changing the original texts deserves profound criticism . . . . When latter day lay men change the superb subtle words of a thousand generations, that is likc the silly habits persevering under the Hundred Kings, it surely is painful. And how much more so when the culprit is not a translator of sutras!'� Khuej Chi is emotional at this point, but unfortunately he offers no reasoning of any logical substance to sup
port his case. , w� Cilllllot, of course, exdudc Ih� p05!il..ilily that H�Uan·Tsallg was wurking with a better Sanskrit original
Ihan thos� we work ,,�th today.
, Chu.u,,& lin Silil ,.gb. In thi! the GT.,at CommentHY, 2.toa3, agT"C� with him. , Great Comm..ntary "l.ua5· Not., thaI Khuei Chi's Irallslatio"" are full of quotations Digna:ga, alld that mey abo melltillll such thillg' ''' cases in Sall,oo;t.
from the works of
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
\'Vhen one turns from Thang times to the later Ming dynasty accounts of)'in ming
IZSII!.EJ
logic one docs get a sense of muddled incomprehension on the part of the
Chinese commentators, which could have been pervasive throughout the Chinese tradition but isn't. The weakness ofMing dynastyyn i ming logic, we must conclude because of the earlier evidence, is because the Ming commentators did not under stand),in ming logic well. It is not because of inherent deficiencies in the Classical Chinese language. (5) CONTRASTS BETWEEN 'Y"I.V kfI..VG
ESj AA ' AND ARISTOTELIAN L O G I C
By way of a conclusion to our discu��ion of Chinese Buddhist logic, 1 we shall now
turn to a briefsummary of the main contrasts betweenyin ming and Aristotelian logic.
'Yin ming' is material, notformal logic The standard thesis for Chinese Buddhist logicians is standardly translated as
'Sound is impermanent'. This may sound as arbitrary as 'All Greeks are mortal', but in fact it is not at all comparable. Forwhat we have translated as 'traditional ver bal authority is impermanent' is the thesis that the Vedic truths (iabda), rather than being eternal and incidentally also temporarily manifested, are as ephemeral as anything else. The thesis is ofconcrete philosophical interest. Aristotelian syllogistic is concerned only with lhe formal validity or invalidity ofa very limited set offormal arguments. In all ofthe Prior Ana(ytics ofAristotle there are plenty ofexamples ofterms, but the syllogism is discussed as a form with the use of variables. \"'estern logical theory is in principle indifferem [Q the question what concretely the premises of an argument are, or whether the premises of an argu ment as a matter offact are (rue or not. Aristotelian and later more general formal theories of logic in the West are interested in premises only in a conditional way: if the premises were true, would this logically imply that the conclusion also was true? The true Aristotelian syllogism is not All men are mortal.
All Greeks are men. Therefore all Greeks are mortal. Rather, it tends to go something like this: .ifall men are mortal and all Greeks are men, then all Greeks are mortal.
I Chine.se Huddhist logic must, of COlJr�c, not be confused with Buddhi!l logic in general. We shall not be concerned with d",·dopments in India, and particularly not \,ith later developments from Dharmaklrti onwards. The comparison ofth� later de'"elopmcnt$ with Aristotelian traditional logic mu,t oh,�omly },., left to Illdologists. OUT focus ofmmpari'lOn is only Ruddhi$1 logic a$ it emerges in the Chine.., .OUTe..,. here und..r discu"ion.
LANGUAGE A:\'D L O G I C
A Chinese Buddhist logician is concerned with acc eptable proof and refutation of controversial propositions in a given historical context. The mortality of Greeks (or Indians) is of no 'Ioglcal' interest to him. A valid argument with a bl atantly untrue condusion counts as unacceptable. So does an argum ent \vith a blatantly or obviously true conclusion. For Aristotlf", as for medieval European logicians, a blatantly untrue conclusion would make no difference whatsoever to the logical problems they are concerned ·with. Medieval European logicians happily amused themselves arguing from bias· phemous premises like 'all popes are asses' to equally outrageous conclusions. For example, we find: Quicumqut sunl epLScopi sunt sattrdote.r ilti asin! .runl epucopi Ergo uti ruim sunt sacerdotd
Quoting this piece of reasoning in their v..-onderful survey of the history of "Vestern logic, William and Martha Kneale add: 'Asses, and Brunellus (the quint· essential ass] in particular, were always a favourite subject with medieval logicians.' To Chinese Buddhists such arguments are notjust frivolous or flippant, but liter· ally unacceptable. They are logically unacceptabl e, according to Chint':se Buddhist logicians, because they are based on blatantly untrue grounds. There is no room in Chinese Buddhist logic for the sort of dignified flippancy in the choice ofexample arguments which characterises much of the Western (and, as we have seen, the early Chinese) logical traditions. Chinese Buddhist logicians use concrete examples to exemplify the truth of cer· tain premises. [fthey were unconcerned with factual truth about this world, and of their premises, their r..xamples would be quite out ofpl ace. ''Yin ming' does 1Iot systematically distinguish betweenfactual/ruth. and wgical lJalidiry
'IfaU 11 are n, and all B are C, then all A are C' is a valid schema of inference. It is log ically valid. The factual question whether in point of fact all A are B does not arise. Formal logic is concerned with validity, not with truth. The Chinese Buddhist logi cians fail to focus on formal validity as such. They discuss the truth of the premises together with the acceptability of theses without noticing the crucial distinction between questions offactual truth and questions oflogical consequence or formal validity. In Aristotle, the art ofplausible reasoning and the legitimate justification of philosophical claims is discussed in the Rhetorics and Topics, quite separately from the Analyticswhich are exclusively concerned with validity.
l
'Whoe\"CT ill a bishop is a prif!lI. Thf!�f! assts :lrf! bishops. Thf!y-.,fore [hc� as�s are pricstll. (W.
�I. Kneal� (I96�), p. 233·)
and
LA:-I"GUAGE A:'\'D L O G I C
'Tin ming' ltaJ no vanables Examples like 'If all men are mortal, and all Greeks are men, then all Greeks are mortal' do not, of course, belong to the realm offormal logic at all. For formal logic is neither about mortality, nor about Greeks, nor even about men. The way Aristotle tends to express himselfthroughout is as foUows: Ifall Beta is Alpha and all Gamma i� Beta, then all Gamma is Alpha.
Aristotle's formulations absolutely cruciaily and quite invariably involve variables. Chinese Buddhist formulations, as far as I have been able to ascertain, never involve any variables. I The Chinese Buddhists wcrc cminently capable ofcreating new concepts by stip ulative definition, but unlike Aristotle they did not have occasion to fashion such veTY specialised linguistic tools as variables. � This they had in common with the early Indian logicians.j Suppose someonewas discussing arithmetic in terms oftheorems like 'two apples and two apples makes four apples' and 'two pears plus two pears makes four pears' without ever generalising his insights into some form like 'two and two makes four'. Such a person can, ofcourse, record a great many insights, and these insights will be closely related to those arrived at in the science of arithmetic. But they remain essencially on a less formalised and less theoretically transparent and lucid level. Buddhist logic in China suffers from this sort oflimitation. It cannot systematically and frecly abstract from the concrete terms in its pmposilion and formulatc the for mal laws governing valid inference.� It invariably discusses concrete examples, and moreover always examples that are of Buddhist doctrinal significance. It is as if one were to write a handbook ofWestern logic and discuss exclusively arguments ofthe sort of controversial nature of a cogito, trgo sum. , Forthe hi�lory ufvariables in early China"e<: Seclion (J7).
•
The Laler :\lohist! came dosest to using�..riables when they used terms like 'hone' and "ox· tostandju�t [or
any pmpeny whate,"!'r. In principk, this '"''auld he a perf�liy L-qui"a1ent notational "ariant of\'ariablc�, One
could "Tite mmkrn lextboob ofmathematical logic byusing 'ox', 'ho".,' and the likc forj,gand the like without
this making the slightest philu!!lphical difference. The crucial achievement ofthe �Iohists here was the abilily to
abstract from th� concrete CO!ll�1lt of'horse', the ability to ojomss 'horse· witlwut .howing any int�r�!t what�\'er in
horses or the particular meaning oCthe word 'horse',
I
A� th� grcal Polish mathl'malical logician and hi�lorian oflogkJan Luka!iewic� has puinted out in his wun·
derful Arislolu'. S ylwxiJrit (tirst cd. 19.'l1}. and as my teacher Gonther Patzig has pvinll'd OUI in his impOTlllnl work
ArisuJlu's Thtory· riftlu Sy/�m (first cd. 1958). the introduction of�..riables X, 1; etc., u an absolutely crudal �tep in lht' hi$IOI")'oflogic. The Buddhists did I10t lake this step. Thislimited their logical rangt'o ·I·he.,-w�rc unable 10 abstrar.1 completcl)' frum th� concretc cxampl., arguments they discuU<"d. Every ne",· argument had to be l:un· sidered in its O"'Tt teflllS.
, The n�are_'t the ChincliC Buddhist logicians cume to variables is the all,tnrl description ofthr terms in their proPOSilioM. Th�y thus refer to th� ,
(Jail hsiang :::' ;f �) - general laws whkh do indeed guanmlee the
validity ofthe arguments conforming to them. There Wa! abo a tendrncy for Ihe Chinc'" Buddhist logidam to U!.C !lod; examples ik l e 'sauml'. elc., almost ik� l variables standing for any propeny. But th� Buddhi51 logicians
did not carry Ihis abstraction from the concrct� subjects, predicatcs and reasonsfar enough fur us to want to say that they used ��..riables.
LAKGUAOE A:"ID L O G I C
'rin ming' is sensilwt to pragmatic conlext Ayin ming argument can be acceptable when u�ed against one opponent, but invalid when used against another because of intricate rules concerning what disputing parties have to agree a!ld to disagree on. They must, for example, disagree on the thesis as a whole, but agree on the meaning ofthe constituents of the thesis. Chinese Buddhist logicians chose to con('t":ntrate not so much on formal logical presuppositions but on actual agreement among the contestants on premises. "Vhile Aristotle in his
Rhetoric
and
Topics is
concerned wilh plausible proof, the
Chinese Buddhists are concerned with plausible victory in debate.
Ayin ming argument can be acceptable when used by one proponent, and unac ceptable when used by another, because by the rules of)!in ming the proponent can only acceptably argue for theses that are in a<.:cordance with his own general posi tion. He can only acceptably use terms which according to his own general position have the meaning and reference which he attributes to them in the argument. In Aristotelian logic it docs not matter at all how subject term S, predicate term P, and middle term M arc understood, as long as they are understood consistently throughout an argument. That is why Aristotle used letters ofthe Greek alphabet to represent these terillS. You can understand them as you like, as long as you under stand them consistently. There is absolutely no reason to agree on how to under stand the terms. A Chinese Buddhist logician considers an argument not as a formal structure but as a concrete semantic structure which communicates a cer tain content. (At the same time, it will be remembered that the Chinese Buddhist logicians formulated strict formal rules for the construction of arguments, as in the theory ofthe Three Forms ofthe �ason.)
'Yin mmg' arguments are not systi!matically explicit Another contrast between Aristotelian logic and Chinese Buddhist yin
ming con
cerns the notion of explicitness. The whole point of Aristotelian logic was that it , ,
l , ,
insisted on being absolutely and perfectly explicit on every logically relevant aspect of an argument. It may not always have achieved its aim, but the ambition is clear enough. Chinese Buddhist logic was not explicit in the sense that you are not supposed to be able to look at the surface structure of an argument and assume that it directly represents the underlying logical structure. For a Chinese Buddhist logician, an argument may be perfectly acceptable although it is highly implicit and leaves
,
• ,
,
• r
es�ential parts to be understood by the reader. Having defined a well-formed argu mtnt as containing both a positive and a negative example, for example, the Chinese practitioners of Buddhist logic - like their Inclian colleagues - omilled the negative example much of the time. Again, having explained that the import of the negative examples contains a general conditional ('If anything is eternal, it is
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
unproduced. Like space.'), they proceed to almost invariably leave out the conditional clause as obviously understOod by the audience. At the same time they continue to theoretically insist that such omission constitutes a formal fallacy. On account of the tendency to leave out things that are obviously understood ont" clearly cannot regard Chinese Buddhist logic as formalistic in any Aristotelian or modern sense.
Overall dijftrrnce between yin ming' and syllogistic The crucial overall difference is that Chinese Buddhist logic always remains a set of
rules for concrete debate, whereas in Aristotelian logic rules of debate and rules of logic are kept quite separate. (Indeed, onc should perhaps compare much more ofAristotle's rhetorical theory with Buddhist logic than I have chosen to do in this limited space.) The Chinese Buddhist logicians insisted on looking upon logic as a profoundly
social science,
the science of rules and conventions governing argu
mentation as a social institution. Chinese Buddhist logic is about how to refille an
opponent'S thesis, and about how to establish one's own thesis. It is essentially
'rhetorical'. Syllogistic and its successor, formal logic, are quite abstractly about formal logi cal relations between terms, and formal relations (e.g., of consequence) between ordinary propositions. Non-empirical philosophical theses predominate amongyin
ming theses. Non-philosophical arbitrary propositions like
'there is fire' play a sub
sidiary part only in Chinese Buddhist logic. They are not what this logic is all about. Buddhist logic is a tool for religious insight. IfBuddhists had the notion ofGod, one might say ' lcgica ancilta tMologiae'.
(hi
C O N C LU D I N G R E F L E C T I O N S
However we define highly problematic words like 'science' and 'scientific' for the
traditional Chinese context, the medium of 'scientific' discourse will turn am to be predominantly (but not exclusively) Classical Chinese enriched by a technical vocabulary. The technical language ofscientific texts as well as the artificial symbol ism of certain disciplines are defined and built up in terms of the current language. To the extent there is science in traditional China, Classical Chinese is the linguistic medium of that science. To the extent that the medium of this language has shaped the messages expressed in it, the study ofthe relevant aspects of Classical Chinese is a fundamental part ofChinese history ofscience. Logic is concerned with the organisation of discourse about the world into pat terns of argument, ofconceptual coherence, of scientific discipline. The study ofthe logic inherent in Classical Chinese is the study ofthe structural elements which give Chinese scientific thought its argumentative architecture.
LANGUAGE AND
'Y y.
<
or
Loerc
language and science Classical Chinese is not only an important medium of scientific communication. It
is also a medium of communication about itself: The study of writing systems was nowhere pursued with more enthusiasm and with more scientific rigour than in traditional China. The graphological analysis of Chinese characters presented in the Shuo
Win Chieh Tzu in the +rst century does not represent natural science, but it
certainly provided an outstanding example of rigid scientific methodology and systematic classification for natural scientists of later ages. Dictionaries like the
Erh Yo explore and syste'matise the conceptual schemes the ancien! Chinese used to or
explain the world.
e
ject for study. But again, the systematic and comprehensive phonological analysis of
or • •
e
y
The sounds of a language provide a less permanent and much more elusive sub the sounds of the Chinese language achieved in China around +600 is a significant example of sustained and systematic scientific observation of the physical facts of the language on the one hand, and of a highly disciplined ability to assemble these observations into a logically coherent and highly structured whole.
It makes sense to speak of a technology of information retrieval systems.
Alphabctisation, for example, was a major breakthrough in the organisation of dic tionaries in the West. The ability of Chinese lexicographers since the +Ist century
1 •
to organise large dictionaries in such a way that most items in the dictionaries became increasingly easy to retrieve by those who had learnt the principle of the compilation was in my view a major contribution to the technology of information management in the ancient world. Chinese civilisation paid persistent attention to the problem of the systematic
definition of the meanings of words, and to the semantic evolution of concepts. In
its monumental mono-lingual Chinese-Chinese dictionaries the culture has a varied tradition of systematic reflection upon its own conceptual world. It is a measure of the intellectual maturity of traditional Chinese civilisation that it problematised its own conceptual world, discussed, systematically analysed and defined its own words in such a long series of Chinese-Chinese dictionaries. It is a measure of the scientific spirit ofthe traditional Chinese lexicographers that lhey habitually insisted on explicit evidence for all the meanings they provided, both in terms of earliest examples of usage and ill terms of the earliest semantic gloss attributing a certain meaning to a given word. One aspect of Chinese linguistic civilisation that was potentially relevant to the development ofnatural sciences was the tradition ofdefiningproblematic concepts in terms of simpler or less problematic concepts. This tradition was one of the fac tors encouraging the development of intricate systematic taxonomies of inter defined terminology in various branches of Chinese natural sciences. The Chinese reflections on their own language - particularly phonology, graphology, and lexicography - provide us with the only example that is known to us of a non-Indo-European tradition of scientific inquiry into language. Though
LA�GUAGE
A�D L O G I C
natural science and technology formed a highly specialised and articulated field containing a large number of scientific subcultures and sub-subcultures, these were all held together by a common cultural classical heritage ofwhich the graphological and the semantic dictionaries were a formative part.
Grammar in Chinese culture Given the Chinese fascination with the systematic analysis of their own conceptual world it is interesting that the field ofgrammatical analysis did not arouse their spe cial attention, even after they had been exposed to the world of Buddhism which came from India, where systematic grammar and the philosophy of grammar was nothing less than an intellectual rage. Traditionally, the Chinese rarely showed much interest in the inner morphology of their words. Neither did they ever begin to write systematic accounts of Chinese syntax comparable with their accounts of Chinese phonology. It is true enough that the first grammar of Chinese was pub lished by a Latin-trained Chinese in 18g8, but what preceded this grammar, the tra ditional systematic studies of grammatical particles and the classifications of characters into such general categories as lexical items on the one hand (full charac ters) and grammatical words on the other (empty characters) deserves our close attention. After all, here again, the Chinese civilisation is the only one to have paid systematic attention to the problem of the grammatical categorisation of its own lexical items, and to the detailed study of grammatical words. Chinese is only just beginning to take its place in the history ofthe science oflinguistics. l isation from which we have a wi.de China is the only non�Indo·Europcan civi range of general reflections on the role oflanguage in society, on the nature oflan guage change and so forth. Chinese perceptions on these matters, however, as in the case of grammar, were nOl systematised. No extensive canon ofscienlific argumen tation or justification of views on language was developed in traditional times. But precisely because of their non-systemic character) Chinese perceptions on these matters are ofspecial interest to the serious student ofgeneral linguistics. There is much to be learnt from the Chinese about human language, but one thing that I have not found in classical Chinese is any kind of special Chinese logic.. The logical spacc within which that language articulates itself is the space deter mined in terms ofnegations, sentence connectives) quantifiers and the like. It is no more good form, no more bad form, to contradict oneself in Chinese than in English or Creek. The syllogism - rarely used in argumentative practice in Greece and Rome - does occasionally occur in Chinese, and arguments afthat sort are by no means alien to the Chinese way of thinking. None the less, there are striking con trasts between, say, Latin and Classical Chinese with respect to logical structure. One thing is the absence ofdisjunction 'or' down to Han times, an absence which in cases ofmuhiple disjunction 'either . . . or . . . or . . . or . . .' is not effectively compensated by the usc of 'ifnot . . . then . . . ' in Classical Chinese. On the other hand,
LA�GUAGE. A::\fO L O G I C
field
lhe very currency of the form
i\-ere
Classical Chinese indicates clearly how 'Western' logic is inherent in the linguistic
gical
'if not
. . . then' where we should expect 'or' in
structure ofthe Chinese lan gu age.
This point about disj unction and multiple di�unc tioll in Ch inese brings out the connection of logic with the practice of natural science. Multiple disjunctions are current in ,"Vestern �cientific discourse, and the invention of an equivalent tool in China, a standard expression
)lUa}
Chinese scientific discourse.
'pe hich was 'wed
egm ts
of
Jub
meanin g 'or', added a significant fOfm to traditional
Rhetoric awl scence i One might feci that the rh�torical conventions ofCJassical Chinese, the literary tra
ditionalism ofChines� prose, might Hand in the way of the development of scien ce and technology in China. The point may be conveniently illustrated through the
+I5th-century carpenter's manual Lu Pan Ching. Thi.� important text, which is full of
u-,
detailed and very explicit quantified descriptions
, of
architecture, starts out with a three-page biography orthe legendary carpenter Lu
of traditional
Chinese
wooden
.rae
Pan (bor n -507), about whom W� are told:
paid
ncar Mount Li. In the end he met an immortal, who taught him secret formulas to travd
:lose own
Thereupon, when his agr had reached fony, he took up the life ofa recluse again, this time
just
through the world riding on a cloud. In broad daylight he ascended, leaving behind only his axe and his saw in the Cave of the Immortal of the White Deer. These remnants can still be
\ride
greatly loyal, he was given the title 'EternaUy perfect loyal gentleman expecting to serve'.
seen clearly up to the present day. Therefore in the \Varring States period, since he was
lan , the l
en
But ,.,e
on e '!Pc. 1er . no , m
:eee
Three years later the �rarquis of Chen
added the title ',"Vise and benign master of magic'.
During the Han, Thang and Sung dynasties h e could still help the country many times by manifesting himself, and was repeatecUy enfeolled with an honorary title. When in the
Yunglo period ofour Ming dynasty the imperial palace was erected in Peking, the t�1l thou
sand corvee worken rdied without exception, and fuU ofawe, on the divine guidance of the master, and only then did they succeed in completing the work. Thereupon a temple was
built to worship him. On the tablet over the entrance was \\Tilten 'Gate ofLu Ban'. He was given the tide of ':Marquis or Beicheng, Grand Master, support or the state, expecting to
serve'. At the sacrifices of spring and autumn the Juourwurilia (swine. sheep and bull sacrifice)
was used. Every time when the workers of our present age pray to him, he responds !O their prayers without delay. Truly, as his image radiates from high above, itwill be worshipped for evermore.
Thus ends the open ing chapter of Lu Pan Ching. From this folkloric. biography, or
, by
hagiograph)" the book immediately proceeds not on ly to a precise and technically
"n
circumstantial description
ure.
the choice ofauspicious days and the like are presented alongside technical instruc tions on h ow to construct the house: a house may be ruined either because the tim ber was procured on an inauspicious day or because it was wron gly constructed.
h in
)m ood,
of how to
set about buildin g a house;
religious rules for
Both explanations belong to one ,....orId view. The technical sphere is not isolated
LANGUAGE Ai\"D L O G I C
from the religious sphere. In the course ofhisrory it gains more and more relative independence, but throughout traditional Chinese history it would be profoundly uncongenial to separate out the technological from the religious-folkloric aspects of traditional Chinese architecture. In the tradition thesc things are interwoven. And this means that the study of science and technology cannot be dissociated from the study of the culture and the civilisation. The study of the conceptual foundations of Chinese �cience must not be dissoci ated from the study of ancient Chinese grammar and rhetoric, because traditional Chinese scientific discourse is interwoven into the fabric ufthe less specialised and more general literary tradition. This is particularly evident in the case of medical discourse, but to varying extents it is true of all the sciences. Even in the mathemati cal commentaries we find quotations from Confucius as a natural part of the scientific rhetoric. \Vhen we reconstrqct some rhetorical and grammatical constraints that operate in classical Chinese, for example down to Han times, we have at the same time identified constraints upon scientific discourse in so far as this is articulated in Classical Chinese. \Vhen we note that expressions like 'that is to say' are not available in Classical Chinese at a certain stage, we have identified an intellectually significant area where Chinese scientific texts differ from Latin ones, where scilicet and id est are intellectually important and perfectly currcnt form�. vVhen we discover that the mode of distancing oneself as a writer from one's own choice of words through phrases like 'so to speak' was not available in classical Chinese at a certain stage, this implies that Chinese scientific texts at that stage of their cultural development differ significantly from I,atin ones where ut ita dicam 'so to speak' is as common as is the phrase hOs epos eipein is in Classical Greek. Turning now from what the ancient Chinese were logically, grammatically and rhetorically equipped to do to the question oflogical practice, I found that there is what one might call an architectural difference. In principle, basic forms oflogical argumentation are pervasively present throughout classical Chinese literature. The strict and complex internal logic ofthe J Ching may be controversial in its details, but there is no doubt whatsoever that we are faced in this case with a strictly organised, and logically structured whole. On the other hand there is a fundamental difference in the ways in which logic enters into traditional Chinese discourse. The inner structural complexity of arguments explicitly presented as such in the tcxts that have come down to us from pre-Buddhist times at least, is strikingly less great than that of contemporary Greece and Rome. Traditional Chinese arguments do not tend to have the complex explicit and sustained logical architecture of a Platonic dialogue. It is not that the Chinese arguments have a different logic. It is that their arguments tend to be shorter and simpler. Reasoning was not widely used in ancient China as a tool for main truths. It tended always to remain in a subservient role.
L A .'I G U A G E A:.ID L O G I C
uve
Idly !Sof �d the OCt·
.nal md ical an the ..te me I in ical rea ue wn
cal !
of
Reasoning in scimce Let me take up the case of mathematics. Here the secondary role of reasoning and proof has significant consequences. The validity of procedures and theorems in Chinese mathematics is of vital m i portance to the traditional Chinese mathemati cian. But the systemic and logical connections between theorems and procedures, the distinction benveen axiomatic statements and logically derived theorems, the procedures of proof rather than calculation or problem-solution, were not in the main focus in the history of traditional Chinese mathematics. Jean-Claude Martzloff(lg88), p. 66 writes: For those who undenakc- to write (h(' history of a scienec in which reasonin g is lhe ycry how, after all, can we imagine mathematics without demonstrations, or, at the
essence
-
\·ery least, without argumentation?
-
the question oflogic i� the most fundamental quC"stion
thaI there is. And yet, in spite' orthis obvious fact tht" gC"nerai historiC"s ofChinese mathemat
ics rare ly take up this quC"stion.
Martzloff raises a problem that is crucial for our present discussion. The five· and-a-half pages he devotes to the mattn of the importance oflogical method and argumentation in the hislOry of Chit lese mathematics, however, are intenselydisap pointing. He docs not present important methods or proof or logically significant
presentation. The strength of the Chinese mathematical tradition was in the dis· covery of effective and useful mathematical procedures providing reliable solutions for a wide range of-problems of calculation and analysis. The establishment of a
complex system of geometrical or arithmetical thron:ms, and their derivation by logical procedures of prooffrom axioms, was evidently not part of the Chinese tra dition, and perhaps it is quite wrong to take the specificities of Greek mathematics and simply look for their counterparts in China. There was, as Karine Chemla has
Uld e LS
cal ne OUt
cd.
•ee
.er
shown in a number of articles, a considerable amount of methodological discipline implicit in the very form of the presentation of mathematical results in Chinese. But what matters to us here is tlH\t mathematics was not explicitly cultivated as a logically structured hierarchical system of logically interrelated and hierarchic.ally organisrd theorems. Mathematics was c.ultivated in China as a range of effective mathematical procedures to solve givcn problems that were found accessible to mathematical treatment .
lat
The history and anthropolof!.Y oflogic
JOt
and of remarkable progress. One is well kno\....n, very sparsely documented, but
IaJ1 rue
cu m :nt
It turns out that the traditional Chinese had two periods of intellectual innovation exceedingly well researched. It occurred during the Warring States Period, espe
cially the -4th and -3rd centuries. The significance of this period for the general history of science lie� in the fact that this period provides clear evidence of an indigenously Chinese and entirely autochthonous intellectual movement in the direction of a critical rationalism and of systematic logical reflection. The problem
4'4
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C
with this first period is that its documents arc so scantily and poorly preserved, although its intellectual effects have been shown to be far-reaching in the literature orlhal period. However, explicitly logical discourse remained marginal during the iiteramre of the Warring States Period, and its direct influence on the development of scientific discourse would appear to have been limited.
The second golden age oflogic in traditionaJ China (the +jth to +8th centuries) is extensively documented, and the textual quality orthe material we have is general ly good. On the other hand this logical corpus which is of great importance for the study ofthe the history ofscientific thought in China, has still not recdved anything like the intellectual attention by historians nfscience that it deserves. The extensive treatises of the)in mingschool of Chinese Buddhist logic constitute an extensive cor pus of highly disciplined and technical scientific literature which contributes con siderably to our picture of Chinese intellectual history. This scientific corpus shows that in the very abstract realm
of systematic
discourse logic the ancient Chinese
were capable of a rigid intellectual dis<.:ipline and a high degree of theoretical explicitness which would seem to have been fully abreast with contemporary logical theories in India, and which in its systematicity of approach is quite as sophisticated as anything that 'was being done in that area during the same period in Europe. One may speculate why this remarkable logical flourish in China remained as marginal as it did to the Chinese intellectuaJ tradition as a whole. Obvious peren nial questions re-emerge from these summary considerations: Why did Buddhist logic not catch on even among Chinese Buddhists, not to speak ofChinese thinkers within other traditions? Why, for that matter, do we not find a sustained presence of a
significant intellectual subculture cultivating the traditions ofyin ming and of
Mohist logic for that matter? Why did no one want to read theyin ming literature? ""hy did those who did read it in later times tend to misunderstand it? Why did {he practice ofyin
ming decline whereas Aristotelian logic was
revived and developed
into a central discipline within the European educational curriculum? These are questions that belong properly to the anthropology oflogic. They concern the soci etal and cultural conditions that mayor may not favour the cultural and sociologi cal success ofthe intellectual practice of the science oflogic. No simple distinction between the different roles oflogic in despotic versus civil societies will help; occidental despotism (including the special variety of spiritual, psychological despotism directed against thought and inner conscience) was rife in many places 'where logic flourished. Republican Rome with its freedoms was not noted for its advances in theoretical logic. The story here, when it is fully told, will
be t'-xtremeiy complex. It Vvill not be a simple matter of occidental civil society in Greece or Rome versus oriental despotism in China.
Again, the structure and nature of the Chinese language for all the constraints cannot be the decisive factor, since the extant logicaJyin ming texts are about as clear or as unclear a.� their contemporary and comparable European counterparts \\�thin the field ofAristotelian logic. �
these impose on Chinese rhetoric
�
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C xrved, eraru re lturc of
ientific
In the end I agree on this point with my much-missed teacher and friend Angus Graham when he
used to complain
that these questions were misdirected. Instead
of asking why things did not develop in China we should, at this stage, allow our selves the luxury ofinvestigating as closely as we can what e.xactly did develop, and under what internal and external intellectual conditions developments did take place in China.
car
From the poim of view of the anthropology of l ogic the case of ancient Greece and Rome is unique. What were the conditions that made a Stoic like Chrysippus want to write so many books about logic that their titles can begin to match in length all the strictly logical texts that havt.: come down to us from ancient China? How could Stoic logic be w largely neglected by comparison with the much inferior Aristotelian system in the West? How could logic come to occupy such a central
con
place in the ''''estern intellectual curriculum?
uies) is :neral
for the )'1hing ensive .oe s
shows lmese
Scribal reticence and tfu epitomising scribal mode
"elical ogical Vie\ving the
strikes me as particularly relevant to the history ofscience. It has to do with the evo
ted as
ci,il
lution of the psychology ofwriting in China and in the West, In Ancient Greece and Rome certain writers came to affect the expression of inner processes of thought and inner arguments directly in their writings. Writing came to transcribe - or at least affected to transcribe - thinking processes and inner argument simultaneous with the writing process, the dialogue ofa person with himself. Aristotle's lectures are full of argumentative parentheses and deliberative asides. He comments on his thoughts as he formulates them. These lectures may not really be transcripts of on-going thought. But they are written as ifthey were. And that is the point that m atters here. Literary products are in a sense always summaries after the event, after the occurrence of a thought. They are deliberate literary acts and never in any strict and direct, unmcdiated sense tr anscripts of inner thought-processes. The differ ence is this: some cultures cultivate texts that pretend to transcribe current on-going thought, other cultures do not pretend to do this. To what extent any culture infoct ever docs cultivate the transcribing of current thought is not something one needs
:ual,
to go into at this point.
erCll Idhist nkers Ice of ld of ture? d the
!lped
! are
soc,
logi-
fe in not will
ym ints ant
Uld
The
European case through the
Chinese looking glass, one major aspect
.cated ,.
anthropology of writing is markedly different
in traditional China from
described in Greece and what we could have described for Rome. The difference is marked, but one must remember that it still is a difference only in degree, It is in the nature of things that one would not find absolute differences on matters ofthis sort. There are obvious constraints on what would be written down on the oracle bones. The scribe who recorded the speeches recorded in the old parts of the Book of Documents, Shu Ching, summarised and condensed these speeches, I would what we have
argue, boiled them down to their essentials. He never cares lO aim at creating an
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C illusion that he
is recording an
actual flow of words, the actual historical flow
of
words. He was not in the business of creating a historical illusion, like PlatO in the
Apology.
Hesitation, fumbling for words, correcting oneself, off-the-cuff incidental,
thrown-in remarks are never recorded in the Documents. The cultural an ofwrit
ing down these documents was an act of condensation. In a rhetorically deep sense writing down is making a digest in pre-Buddhist China. The hesitations, grammat ical inconsistencies, asides, etc., that characterise Plato's ApoLogy arc not just rare in pre-Buddhist China. They arc culturally ungrammatical. A digest would never tend to be anacoluthic. It never could be. Except when it deliberately breaks the very rules of the medium. At the same time one must always remember that the appearance of spontaneity ofwriting that meets us in Cicero's or in Seneca's leuers, the apparent transcription of on-going thought in wriling, is a very conscious literary device. Many Creek and Roman writers learnt to write as if they thought spontancously as they wrotc, and very few pre-Buddhist writers in China cultivated such a style. The Analects are an interesting case in point. There is no hint of any parenthetic remark in the Analects. There is no case ofConfucius trying to find a word, correct ing his own use oflanguage. There are no incidemal irrelevanc asides. These are
boiled-dQ\Vll precious snippets of conversation, summaries of their essence through verbatim quotation of the words, often with out any indication of context. For this latter feature of credible purported verbatim
what stylistically clearly purports to be
authenticity, the Analects are indeed a unique document from pre·Buddhist China. But the Analects are still vcry clearly condensations of conversational episodes, not transcriptions of conversations. Epitaphs constitute an excellent test case for our reflections on the anthropology of writing. Tombstone inscriptions or epitaphs are one kind of writing where
cul
tures are comparable. Epitaphs constitute a privileged form because in many cases
we have
such inscriptions as archaeological finds) and not just as late reports on
what they say. We have inscribed tombstones in China and in Greece. And yet, how total is the difference between the tombstone inscriptions that we have from Greece on the one hand and those [rom China! How totally different the style of communication represented in writing on these tombstones. Here is an interesting example dating from the -3rd century:
;1'00.0' tyw K�;:p.at 'P08lOS. 'To. r£A.oia O'lwmn
Ka� lJ1TaAaKWl' OA€OpOV Af{1TW Ka'T&' raial' iinaoal'.
,
\ '
'
'" € ns aV1'tll�yu, 1
'Here I lie, Rhodios. About those ridiculous things [which you expect to read on tomb stones] I keep silent; And whal the moles destroy all over the earth I leave aside [will not speak about how beautiful 1 am even in death] If anyone speaks up against this, let him speak up against it after he has come down here [to the Yellow Springs known in Greece as Hadesl.' (Peek no. 219.)
LANGUAGE A:SO L O G I C of
Insult from the tomb i s not unheard of, as in a tombstone from the +2nd to +3rd
he
century:
,,-
,WI' tTl J41TO'\"\WI'IS" oro fl-lIijP.' £1TOTjOaB' iUUTrp, 1(}.:'1POIIOP.WI' fiowS" 1"11" v1ToAl]O"fLOO"UV1jI'.
at-
'Still li\'ing Apollonjs made this monument for himself, Drlhl: inheritors he knC'ovthc forgetfulness.' (Peck no. '242.)
,�,
It will be evident to any student of tombstone literature that different cultures differ widely with respect to how much oftheiT speaking and thinking they encour
ai,
"" m
he
age their members to \YTite down. The Chinese did make jokes about death, but
ity on
they certainly did not inscribe these on any tombstones .
ad
more restrictive with respect to what they wrote on tombstones than the Greeks.
nd
But the argument is that tombstone literature may in a sense turn out to be sympto
One might say that this contrast shows no mOTe than just this: the Chinese were
matic ofliterature on bamboo, silk and later paper.
Similarly different cultural con
tic
straints may turn out to operate in all media ofwriting. And I do think that the act of
tt
writing literature in ancient China is a very different linguistic and anthropological
u-e
gil
act from that ofwriting literature in ancient Greece.
1 am prepared to argue in detail that what the pre-Buddhist Chinese writer pur
h-
ports to write down is very rarely the thought as it occursjust after it has occurred. It
vn
is the result of a thought that has occurred and that is summ arsed in a balanced
..
.
ot
i
way through text. One tends to record a thought-process that is over. Being typic
ally epitomes or summaries of thought, pre-Buddhist Chinese texts very rarely indeed include representations of the tangled and contradictory process ofdelibera
1;)' u-
tive thoughl. fI.'Iany of Plato's dialogues purport to be essays in disentanglement of
such inner tangles.
In Classical Chinese texts we get the upshot of thought and speech. Things are
put in linguistic nutshells.
,�
m
of
19
b-
Since Classical Chinese writing summarises thought and speech, there is no need for parentheses, that is why there are hardly any in all of traditional Chinese litera ture. Since writing is something that is presumed to come after thought, and rarely
pretends to be concurrent with thought, there is a natural threshold between cur
rcnt thought and current written expression. Direct speech in ancient China right down to the
1
9th century tends to be presumed to be summary of direct speech.
Very oflen it is \','Titten in a Classical medium which simply does not constitute sayable Chinese of the time at all. Thus a
9th-century person may be quoted in direct speech as having used a language which had been dead for more than a thou 1
sand years when he spoke. The reader learns to translate such Classical Chinese direct speech into the colloquial language of the time, and he reads the direct speech as summary.
Since direct speech is treated in this way, there is no need for
indirect speech. And indeed, the r61e of indirect speech in Classical Chinese is neg ligable. The summarising function of indirect speech is taken over by the very con
ventions ofwriting things down.
LANGUAGE AND L O G I C There
is an endemic - but far from u'livcrsal - scribal reticence with respect to
what may be written down, cven in personal notes like the pi-chi from Thang times onwards. Corresponding to the scribal reticence and the epitomising scribal mode, there is a reading culture which has perfected the an of leasing out what underlies the reticent t{"_xI. The reading of a Classical Chinese tcxt is a very active cuhural process. And yet, it would be profoundly wrong to take the general culture ofliteracy in
China as determining the style of scientilk prose. As I have shown in dlC preceding chapters, the various subcultures of scientific prose style can be as straightforward and explicit in China
as anywhere ehe. What carries over into the scientific prOSe,
on the other hand, is the general summarising effect of wriling, the absence of syn
tactic parentheses, the scarcity orthe me talinguistic perspectives, etc. Just as narra tive literature in pre-Buddhist times is characterised by the virtual absence of lhe extended inner dialogue, so in the science of logic there
is a corresponding and related absence of the scientific inner dialogue made explicit through text. Such
inner dialogues will no doubt havc occurred, but they have not been recorded.
Logic and the anthropowgy qfwritmg In the context oflo&ric the consequences ofthis scribal reticence are incisive. Ifinner
deliberation and argumentation is not customarily externaliscd and made manifest
in writing, then it becomes harder to make it the object ofr igorous scientific analy sis. If the writing culture encourages the summarising and digesting of scientific
results rather than the delineation of the intellectu al path by which they were
achieved, then there is nothing objectively textual for the logician to pick up and analyse in detail. The usefulness of logic as an intellectual tool for the inner life of deliberation and rca.soning cannot be made manifest on texts. However, scribal reticence is not a scribal incapacity. Two strategies have com monly presented themselves to Chinese writers. The first was to create a transpar ent
summarising reticent surface through which the reader can see some of the deliberation. This tremendously impor tant strategy reveals itself only to a very close study of Cla�sical Chinese texts. It is cultivated to consummate perfection ill poetry. This explains the truly extraordin ary position of poetry in Chinese culture. And it turns Out that a large number of
world of continuing inner reasoning and
Chinese prose texts avail themselves of this important strategy of the transparent reticent surface. At times one is sure that it even carries over into scientific texts. In any case, a historical text like the Shih Chi is full of such transparent reticence. The second strategy is simply to revolt and break out ofthe cultural pattern, to defy the rules. This would appear to have been Chuang Tzu's way. He has had many admirers and quite a few tpigones. What matters to us in the context of the history ofscience and of intellectual his
tory is that the scribal reticence of the culture at large had a considerable impact on the logical form of scientific writing. This writing continued to be summary-
LAKGUAGE AND L O G I C
!Spect
to
ng times
:tI mode, mderlies cultural eracy III 'eceding
forward .c
prose,
: ofsyn� s narra
e of the
ing and :to Such :d.
lfinner lanifeSl : anal y -ientific )' were
up
and
r life
of
e com lllspar�
of the 'l1lpor (S. It is .ordin !ber of parem xts. In :rn. to lS
had
al his
npact mary-
419
orientated, result�orientated, not reasoning-orientated. Even in sueh cases as that ofm athematics. This is a profound difference in logical and scientific style between China and Europe. The pragmatism inherent in this Chinese result-orientation had a certain welJ defined positive influence on the progress ofteehnology. For the user of any mathe matical theorems or procedures it is indeed of no consequence how these results were achieved or whether they can be proved to be corn�ct. From the user's point of view it is quite enough that the theorems are correct and that the procedures are effC'ctive. Invention of important procedures and discovery of useful theorems are technologically decisive. Here the Chinese proved to be extraordn i arily effective. Up to a certain point the systematic theoretical justification oftheorems and pro cedures has little direct technological effC'ct. But when that point was reached \vhere further progress in technology depended no longer on discoveries about numbers, physical objcC[s and the like, but on discoveries about how one discovers new truths, then the Chinese mode became markedly less successful. It stands to reason that in a broad sense the logic of Chinese written discourse played a crucial role in these developments .
Two mqjor obstacles /() comparaiive Intelleciual history vVhen comparing scientific achievements benvecn widely different cultures we arc under especially severe constraints rt:garding the demands of a presupposed, unquestioned, and mostly unanalysed feeling for what is politically correct and for what s i desirable in cultural and scientific international relations inside and outside the academic world. The unperceived and therefore all the more powerful obliga tory paradigms of scientific discourse on intellectual history often seem to crowd out straightforward unflinching contras tive analytical observation. This intellectu ally pernicious internalised censorship exercised by our eager sense lor what is politically correct and culturally acceptable easily produces the sort of argumenta tion and rhetoric which belongs more to the realm ofcultural politics than to that of objectively reasoned intellectual analysis. Political correctness, which is, ofcourse, a factor in all sciences, constitutes a particul arly serious problem for comp arative studies because comparative: studies must count as a highly 'politicised' and sensi tive area. The case or comparative intellectual history has certain structural similarities with that of c.nvironm cntal studies. The environmental sciences naturally aim to promote balanced respect for the environment, ifnecessary at the expense of man's own natural but morally indefensible ontological arrogance. \Vestern comparative intellectual history aims to promole respect for other civilisations, ifnecessary at the expense ofthe \Vcster ncrs' natural bUl morally indefensible intellectual arrogance. The writing orthe hislOry of Chinese science and thought has been a central part of a campaign to gain respect for the Chinese intellectual tradition which is still ill� understood and grossly underestimated in the West. It still remains important to
420
L A N G U A G E AND L O G I C
put China on the intelle.c.tual map of the world, but thanks to Joseph Needham morc than anyone else, China is now emphatically on the world map of the history ofscience and of intellectual history. Thanks to his efforts, the campaign for the vin dication of China as an intellectual power is emering a new phase where sinologistS can no longer remain advocates for the case of China but must at 100g 1a51 begin to become fair judges ofthe relative strengths and weaknesses ofthe Chinese intellec tual tradition. The weaknesses have to emerge from the footnotes, the subordinate clauses, perfunctory asides and from the sinological table talk imo the focus of crit ical analysis. Moreover, having shown convincingly that the judgement ofthe case of traditional China crucially depends on familiarity with the Classical Chinese lan guage and culture, sinologists must begin to appreciate and accept that their com parative judgements on the ""estern tradition will crucially depend on familiarity with the classical languages of traditional Europe, Latin and Greek, in addition 10 the main European vernacular languages. The comparative study of logic makes extraordinary intellectual demands on
those who embark on it. Modern formal and philosophical logic are in themselves intellectually difficult enough. To the unwary they constitute a treacherous terrain full ofintellectual land-mines. To the philosophically wary there are even morc log icalland-mines. Moreover, it turns oue that our own classical European tradition is not much less exotic to modern Europeans than that of China. Balanced compari son demands balanced familiarity not only with the Classical Chinese but also with the classical European languages and intellectual heritage. Co-operation on this point between scholars of different specialisation is necessary and desirable, but in
the end it is not enough. Here, as in life generally, primary exposure is crucial. One
needs to be familiar with the ancient traditions and texts one wishes to compare. It
is as simple as that. And it is as difficuh as that.
ham nory
BIBLIO GRAPH I E S
' Vln-
lP''' UIlO
A
CHINESE ANOJAPA�ESE BOOKS BEFORE + 18 0 0 , AND ALL GAZETTEERS
llee-
B
CHINESE ANO JAPANESE BOOKS AND JOURNAL ARTICLES SINCE +18 0 0 , EXCLUDI:"lG GAZETTEERS
C
BOOKS ANDJOUR�AL ARTICLES IN \VESTERN LANGUAGES
nate cnt-
se a r Ian·
om·
mly
o
to
l on
In R;bljo!!rapbi�s A and B th�T� are I'W modificaliou. ofme Roman alphabetical ""qo�nce:
transliterated C/th- comC1 ar!�r all othu cntri�! uncl,.,r Ch-, and Ira",literall'{\ Hs- mm�' aft("r
all other cntri�, under H-. Th"s C/lhf m nml�' after Chung and Hsi �om�! alier Hua;. Thi! ly3t1'm ap"lic� only 10 Ihe {,rl\ wonl.< of Ihe tidu. �lor�..,\'er. whfre CIth- and lb· OCCor in words u�ed in Bibliography C. i.e.. n i a Wl'$ll'rn language context, th� normal sequ�nce of Ih� Roman alphabet is uL1erw�n_ \\'hm uLsolere Or lUlujual l"Omarlis�ti()n' of Chin�s� worns OClur in �ntries i" Bibliogrllphy
og·
r:, they arc ioU""'ed, "'hcr�vnpo>silok, by th� romani.' it, in muon b.-...
an·
i(alies imply that thl': work �n i one nr olhcrof(h� East ,uian langua.ges.
!his
incon.istencks in the applkation oflhe prc\"iow system.
I\'cs
O IS
nth t in )oe
:. It
Knrl':an and Vietnamese books and paper. ar� in(luded n i Bihliographies,� and B. Date� in Please nute that the old ;r
ing )'ear uf publication, Thi. ha.' beeom<' ner��ar�' in view of lhe difficulty of eliminating
A B B R E V I AT I O N S Set also p. xiii
AM
.{,I·
AIIO ASE4 BABEL BEFEO BLSOAS(BSOAS)
BkIF£A BSN
BUA CAAAL CCUJ.
]el' ]OSHh
Asia Major AII/hro/IOJ" (H ungar)') Archil! Orientalni( Pragur)
Asia/istll( Studien: Etudt.f Asialiqul'S
Bahll:
R/t"llt
Inlfma/jonale
dl 10
Tradu(tion Bul/lfiTl de I'£eoll Prollf/1iSf d'E.ttrime
Orimt(Hanoi) Bullltin qfthe London School rifOriental &!!friran Sfudiu Bulletin oj Ihe iduSlUlII of Far t.aslrrn Anliquilies (Stockholm)
BI/uwiollr Science ,Nolrs Hlliletill de I'l/!lh'ersitf de l'Aurore
(Shanghai)
COII/pultr !ll/u!.>'us qfAsioll and .-!friral/ Languagts (Tokyo) Chinut Cullure
CS
Chil/t5f .fieifllrt
EC
Harly Chino HarvardJournal qfAsiolir Studits liart"ard l�nching Sinologienl fndtx Sm-u ]ouTl/al Asiatique ]ollfl/al qfAsian Studies Jourl/al WI/U Amtriran Orim/al So(itry ]ournal qfChinut Lin.f{uislics
H]AS HFSIS ],1 ]AS ]AOS ]CL
.lIlAS!. ICB UI' L4 J\IIT i\{/of MS MSOS
]ol/fllal ojChinm Phdosoph), Joufllol qf On·mtal Studils
Hong Kong
Cni\·crsity
Journal oj thf ROJol Asiatir StJriel)'. . \ortn China Branrh Language IJ:Jgiqllt et Allo(yse l\ lassachus('tts inSlitlite ofTrchnology
Jlr.mumenta .,\ippon iro l\loflumellto Serico
Alil/pifl/llgen
d.
StmillarJ .f ontlltoluche
,�prachen (Hedin) N17 NS OA.( ORE
NewAsiaJollmol
PEW
Philosopll)' East and Wist
110 .1:4
New Srientisl
Ostasialische zeilsdaij/ Onells £tlreml/s (L"nivcrsiry of
Hawaii)
RoeZllik Orif1ltali*,.t'!}' (Warsaw)
sr
(o riginally Chinesisehe Bl atter j ' 1 lssensrhqft u. KI/ns� � Jnttse
TP
Toul/g Pao (ArchilltJ 'ol/urnant IHis/oife. les
Sinien
LAnguts, 10 Geogrophil, l'Ethno..f!,rophie el lts
Arts de l'Asie Orientale, Leiden) II'ARC
42 2
H'or/d A rrhotolog),
A.
Kong
.\orth
'" or
C H I N E S E A N D ] A PA N E S E B O O K S B E F O R E + 1 8 0 0
Each entry gives parliculars in Ihe following order: (a) title, alphabetically arranged, wilh characters: (b) alternative title, ifany; (el translation oftitle; (d) cross-reference 10 closely rdated book, if any; (r) dynasty; IJ) date as accurate as possible; (g) llame of autilor or editor, with characten; (h) lilk of other book, iflhe text oftht: work now c:-.:is\s ani)' incorporated then'in; or, in special cases, references 10 sinologi cal studies of it; (i) re ferences to translations, if any, given b)' the n:lmc of the translator in B ibliography C; (j) notice ofany index or c Ollro rdance to tht' hook if such a work exists; (t) rderence to the number of the book in the TaQ Tsmlgcat alogue o f\\'icger (6), if applicable; (I) refe� nce to the number of the book in the S!m 'nung ITripitaka) catalogues of!':anjio (I) and Takakusu & \\';"an;Ibe, ifapplicable. \\'ords which as.sist in the translation oftitles are added in round brackets. Alternalive titles or e](planatory additions 10 the titles :I� lidded in square brackets. It " 'ill lK remembered (po .pn above) that ill Chinese indexes words beginning Chh- ar� all li51ed together aflcr Ch-, and th after H-, but that this "pplies to inilial words of titles only. Chan Kuo Tsht lltt� :m..
cerning the period -454 to -22 1 . \Vriter unknown. Compiled by Liu Hsiang
il'JJ [til
(- 7910 -8).
�� (- t70- C. '2'20). Tsu-Keng "iffim IEk, Chiang-su Ku Chi,
Commented ed. by Kao Yu
1985. Tr. J. Crump (1970). Sec Tsuen-Hsuin Tsien's bibliographic �urvey in Loewe (1993) pp. I - I I . Chbtg 'T<.u Thung IE,¥jffi . Yang-chou,
Pervasive Description of Correct Characters. (Dic· tional)' arranged according to the '214 radicals).
Changlzu-Lieh
S/Han
S/Phing
JlChin IJSung t\/Chou i\'IChhi :\/Sung
Former Han. Eastern \Vei
Later Han.
Latcr S hu (\\'u Tai). Later "I·hang 1\\'u ·rai). LHer Chin (\\'u Tai). SoU!h�fT1 Han " ( ·u Tai). Southnn Phillg(\"u Tai). JUIThen Chin.
Liu Sung. �orthern Chou. t\orthern Chhi. t\orthern Sung (before the rl"lllowl oftile capitai to Hangchow). !':orthern "·ei. Southern Chhi. Southern Sung (aftcr tile removal of the Glp!tal to Hangchow). "'estern \\'6.
N/\\'ei S/Chhi S/Sung W/\\·ei
�EI?!!,
Ching Chi D·uan Kil ;tgi�lf-riiS .
1962.
Glosses on the Classics.
+1798. Juan Y\.ian
(+1764 to +1849). 1982.
Ed. Chung Hua, Beijing,
Ching Chuan Shih 'T<.lw. mA'J��HJ. E.xplanations of the Grammatical Particles in the Classics and Commentaries. Prdace +1798.
1iJIZ (+t766 to +1834), World Book Co., "raipei, 1 965 . Chjll,� Fa .�it::. Regular .\lodels. (Recently discovered Wang Yin-Chih Ed.
silk
manuscript).
Ed. SRCS I'1ll'l\:3':l!I. Chi Chiu ?hilll �Y.tlf.l.
-3rd. Anonymolls.
The Chaptn for Quick Success. (An ab('ccciari· urn, madc perhaps for language learning). Shih Yu !l:i1ft- (flourished -40 to -33), There is a commentary by Yen Shih-Ku
mi ffili t!l
(+581 10 +645). Ed. Yo Yiieh-Heng�, Y('kh
Lu Shu She, Chhang-sha, 1989.
Chi Yiin *mt.
Ed. Ma
Wang Tui Han Mu Po Shu Chin,1t Fa ,�.3:.tttiJ
li!Me�$ The i\la-Wang-Tui Han tomb silk book Laws ofgovernment, \,\'en-wu, Peking,
Ching Tien Shih Wen f�:!ffl.� Y:.
1976.
Explanations orthe Texts of Classics. +7th cent.
Lu Te-ming �t�El)3 (+556 10 +(27).
Collected Rhymes.
Ed.
SPTK. Cll1·u Clwllg Suall Shu flJlI�frjtr.
Sung, +1067.
Ed. Ssuma Kuang Rj,�7't (+1019
m1(� el al.
Ed. Chung Hua, Peking,
Han compilation based on earlier material COlt
Preface +1670.
AIII'!Rr.VIATlO�S
C /H;l1l E/Wci H / Hal! H/SllU H /Thang H/Chin
Fang HSiian-Ling
Records oflhe Warring States.
Ed. Chu
\"here there are an�· differences hctwe�1I the entries in thest bihliographif's and thos� in \ols. 1-4, lhe information here given is to lK taken as more correct. An interim list of references to the editions uSl"d in thf' present work, ;"tnd 10 the IJhulIg-Jhu collecliom ill which uouks arc avail· able, has beelL givcll in Vol. .1, pI 3, pp_ 913ff, and is availaule as a separaTe bror-hu re .
10 +1096),
sppr Cf. Chhiu ehhi-Yang J1fH.��jm , Chi Yiil/ J,n
Chiu �tiJl.ivt�, eha Shao Lan, Taipei, 197+ Chin Shu -fft!f . History ofthe Chill Dynasty (+265 to +419). Thang, +635.
The ::\ine Chapter Calculating Technique. c.
-2nd ccntury.
Anonymous, commentary by Hsii Yileh Ed. Kuo Shu-Chhun Shu
�ll e!fif,
(fl. +220),
Chiu Chang Suan
7LJi'l��j, Liaoning Chiao Yil, Shell-yang,
1990. Cf. Loewe ( 1993), pp. 1 6-23 .
BIBLIO GRAPHY A
Chiu Thang Shu WI!"1i. Old History of the Thang. Wu Tai, +945. Liu Hsu i1JIJ{;J, Ed. Chung Hua, Beijing, 1963Clwu Ii 181m. Records orthe Rites of the Chou dynast)'. Han compilation , fim mentioned in Shih Chi as Chou Kuan mtr 'Offices of the Chou'. Anonymous. Ed. SPTII and SSCCs. Tr. E. Biot, [ 851. See William G. Bohz's biblio graphic survey in Loewe ([993), pp. 24-32. Chu Tzu Hen Luth Wr¥��. A Discriminating Survey ofS ubsidiary Characters.
+[71J.
Liu Chhi ���Jt Ed. Chung Hua, Shanghai , 1955. Ghu Tzu ru Lei *T�B�. Classified Conversations orehu H si. +[270. Chu Hsi *� . Ed. Chung Hun, Be iji ng, 1986. Chuang Tzu ;tt-=f. The Book of Master Chuang. Chou, -4th to -3rd century. Chuang Chou jiffflJ (c. -350 to t. -280). Ed. Harvard Yenching Sinoiogicai Index Series. Cr. also cd. Kuo Ch hing-Fan 'W�li Chung Hua, B�ijing, 1961. See H. D. Roth's bibliographic sur vey in Loewe ( 1 99 3), pp. 56-66. Chung!.un CPE�. Discourse ofthe Middle Way. (Tr. ofthe lv/fi/amad hyamakaiiistra by Nagarjuna into Chinese by KumarajIva.
+4°9 ·
Attrib. Nag:l.rjuna.
Taisho 'rripitaka 30, no. 1564For a survey of translat ions see David Seyfon Ruegg, The literature oj the MadhyamaKa schoo/ oj philosophy in India in A history oj Indian literature, Harrassowitz, \'Viesbaden, Ig81. Chung fimg cPJaf. Doctrine ofthe Mean. -4th to -3rd centuries. Attrib. to Confucius's disciple Tzu Ssu T.�, (c. - 493 to -406). Ed. Legge, Chintst Classics and SSCCs. Chhang Chen Lun 'M!t�. Ed.
ConstantJewel Account.
+649·
Original by Bhavya (c. +490 10 +570), tr. by Hsuan
Tsang z::� (+60'2-+664). 1578, tr. L. de la Vallee Poussin, MCB, vol. '2 ([933), pp. 60-146 . In MCianges Chinoises et Bou ddhiques. Chhing Wti Skih un �om���. The True Account of Consciousness Only. +7th century. HsUan Tsang z::� (+60'2 to +664) . Ed. TaishO Tripitaka Tr. Louis de la Vallee Poussin, Vijilaph·matratasiddhi. IA Siddhis de Hiuan-TJang, 2 vols., Paris 1928/9. English tr. by Wei Tat, Ch'mg Wei-Shih £Un, Doctrine oj Mm-ConJciousnm fry Taisho Tripitaka no.
Tripitalw-Master Hsiian Tsang, Ch'eng Wei Shih Lun Publication Commillee, Hong Kong, 1 987. Chhieh run f;JJfHt Carved Rhymes. +60[. Originally compiled Ly Lu Fa-Yen � 1! a (A. c. +581 to +60[), current editions cOlHain much later material. . Ed. Chou T �u-Mo jij t.H� Kuang-yu n chiao-pen IiYimt�* '2 VO[S., Peking 1958. Chhim Han Shu Mi�Ul. History ufthe Former Han Dynasty [- 206 to +9) and its Hsin Dynasty [+9 to +23J. c. +100. Pan Ku ffi � (+32 to +92), incorporating work by Pan Piao m� (died +54) and after his death con tinued by his sister Pan Chao ffiBTI (+48 to +[ [6). Ed. Chung-hua, Peking, 1962. Partial tr. H. Dubs (1938-55). cr Loewe ( 1 993), pp. 1'29 37 · Chhirn Tzu Win T!¥X. Thousand Character Text. Before +521. Chou Hsing-Ssu m1ftiliPl. Ed. Ch'ien tzu win: Iht thousand charalier classic. A Chintstprimer. Unger, New York, 1 963 . CMu Tzhu 1il'iIf. Elegies ofChhu. Late Chou, with many Han additions, -4th to -3rd centuries. By Chllu Yuan FtB� (c. -343 to c. -277) el al. Tr. D. Hawkes (1959), revised and reannotated e di tion 1985. Ed. SPPY. See David Hawkes's bibliographic sur vey in Loewe ( [993), pp. 48-55. Chhun Chhiu �tk. Spring and Autumn Anna[s. Chou: chro nicle of the State of Lu for the years -722 to -481 . Attrib. Confucius. Tr. S. Couvreur (1 95 1) andJ. Legge, Chinese Classics. Ed. HYSIS Index and SSCCS. Cf. Loewe (1993), pp. 67-76. Chhun Chhiu Fan Lu �fk.ili. String ofPearls on the Spring and Autumn Annals. Early Han, incorporating a fair amount of later material added. Attrib. Tung Chung-Shu Iii1tJ:lff (+176 to +104). Ed. SrrKand \-"orld Book Co., Taipei, 1970. Tr. Robert H. Gassmann, Tung Chung-shu, Ch'un ch'iu fan-lu Uppig" Tau dts Friilrling-und Htrbst Klassikm. Ubmt!Zung lind Annotation der Kapittf tins bis seeks EtudesAsiatiq/ltJ Suisses, vol. 8, Bern, etc. 1988. See Steve Davidson's and \1ichael Loewe's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 77-87. =
J
Dainihon zfJku.tokyo"* B ;$: t;ftM.�, ZOkyo shoin, Kyoto ' 905-12. Supplementary Tripitaka. Erh Yo m!ffE . Getting Close to \-Vhat is Correct. Chou material, stabilised in Chhin and Early Han, c. -3rd century.
B I B L I O GRAPHY A
ei
hih
lr19Bi·
l ft. ,. much
10
+
ori< h
theon +116. . Dubs
Enlarged and commented on c. +300 by Kuo Phu �� (+276 to +324). Ed. SPTK and HfSIS Index. See South Coblin's bibliographic survey in l.oewe (1993), pp. 94-9.
£'h y, /m!filJ�.
Wings to the Literary Expositor. +1 [74, preface by Wang Ying-Lin .:E�'!;M:, dated +12]0. Luo Yuan liM!. Ed. SPTK:
Fa lffl $�-.
Model Words. -1St century. Vang Hsiung mHl (-53 to +18). Ed. WangJung-Pao 3:.�§, World Book Co., 'lairei 1958. Tr. E.rwin von Zilch, lang Hsiungs Fa-)"fn ( H'orle stftngtr Erma/mung): Batavia [939; reprint San Francisco: Chim:se Materials Center, 1976. See D. R. Knechtges' bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pr· 1 00- 4·
Fan Chiu Phitn fLJ#t1f?;.
!lh 10 dedic sur-
General Guide. Han, -2nd century. Sima Hsiang-Ju J:i.J.�:f!3�O (-179 to -117) · Not extant.
Fang Pitll Hsin Lun 1JffWT�ii1i.
New Treatise on Upaya. Between +47 ' and +476. Original attributed lO Nagarjuna. Ed. Taisho Tripitaka no. [632.
Fang un 1r�.
Local Words. Han, -1St century. Yang Hsiung m-a (-53 to -18). Ed. srrK
Fen Shu, Hsii Fen Shu !K:S, �Pti!1.
Book for the Burning, Continuation of the Book for the Burning. l\'Iing, +16th century. Li Chih 'f.tf (+[527 to +1602). Ed. Chung-hua, Peking, 1975. fI" F. 7;, i1I.FT.
('tc.,
�·s
- 8i·
The Book of Master Han Fei. Early -3rd century, with some possible later addi tions. Han Fei ��F (died -233). Ed. Chou Chung-Ling ftjjlUii , Han Fri �u Suo rin ��FT*i1I, Chung Hua, Peking, tg8'2. See.Jean Levi's bibliographic survey in Loewe (lg93), pp. [ 15-24.
lian Shih )'I'i1i Chllan ��:7H$.
Supplementary Commentaries on the Han Songs. -2nd century. HaIl Ying �� . E.d. Hsu ,",Vei-Yu �-t Mt � , Chung Hua, Peking, 1980. Tr. Hightower (1951). Sec J R. Hightower's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 125-8.
Han Shu rJ6.
Sec Chhien Han Shu.
Hsi Mang Ch; fit.ji!ft �
Collected Works ofHsi Khang. Hsi Khang fi£Mi (+223 to +262). r:.d. Tai �Iing-Yang i<,8JHi, Chung Hua, Peking, Iq62.
Tr. Rohen G. Henricks, Philosoph)' and Ar.gumtn
tation in Third·Ctntury' China, Tht Euays oj Hs; ICang, Princeton University Press 1983. Hsiao Ching ;f":�.
Classic of Filial Picty. Allegedly Chou, probably -1st century. Attrib. Tscng Shen W�, disciple ofConfucius. Ed. SPTK and HYSIS. See William Boltz's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. '41-53.
Hsiao Erh la IJ\m.m.
Little Erh Va. San-kuo, +3rd century. Preserved as ch. I I orthe Mung Tsl/Ung T{u :rL�r by Wang Su .:E�I� (+ 195 to +256). Ed. SrrK
Hsin Shu WTiIf.
New Book. Large parts are -2nd century, but there are many later additions. Chia I Jim (-200 to-168). Ed. Chhi Yu-Chang tB.3!�, Hsin Shu Chi Shih ff�m�, Chung Kuo Wen Hua Tsa Chih, Taipei, 1974. See Michael Nylan's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 161-70.
Hsin Thang Shu if�li.
!'\ew History of the Thang Dynasty. Sung, +1061. Ouyang Hsiu ��f� (+1007 to +1072) e/ al. Ed. Chung-hua, Peking 1962. Hsii �u Shuo tJ.*�. Explanation ofEmpty Charactc[".�. Preface dated +1747. YuanJen-Lin �ef*. Ed. Chich Hui·ChhUan m.m�, Chung Hua, Peking, Ig89. Hsiin �u tiir .
The Book of Master Hsun. Chou, c. -240, with later additions. Hsun ehhing mew (c. -2g8 to c. -238). Ed. HYSIS. C[ f/siin- �u Hsin Chu liJrlF!Tl1., Chung Hua, Peking, 1979; Liang Chhi·Hsiung i.W:f¥{Mt Shang Wu, Taipei, 1975. Tr. H. K6stcr, Hsiin R.U, Kaldenkirchen, 1967, and J. H. Knoblock. A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, Stanford University Press, Ig88, 1990. See Michael Loewe's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 178-88. Hua II ru $���. Translations between Chinese and the YiBarbarians. +1389. Huo Yuan-Chich j(i1N,�. Tr. Marian Lewicki, La langut mongoft des Irans cn"ption5 chinoises du 14mu sitch. Wroclawskie Towarzystwo Naukowe Prace, Series A, no. 29; A. rvlostaen cd., Igor de Rachewiltz, Bruxelles 1977 -
B I B L I O G RA P H Y A
lI.hung Tihung Tzu flAT.
HuaiNan TzurlEmT.
J\.[aslerofHuai -Nan. Han, c. -139Compiled under the auspices orLiu An �J� (-'79 10-12'2). Ed. Liu Wen-Tieo ilJ)(:!J4, Shang \\lu, Shanghai, 1923- See Charles leBlanc's bibliographic sur vey in Loewe (1993), pp. t8g 95.
Huang TiN,i Chin.dtii* Nm.
The Yellow Emperor Inner Classic-. Anonymous. Han original text now lost. Current version certainly post-Han, probably as late as +7th century. Ed. Huang Ti Nii Ching Su Wtl/. Fu Ling Shu Ching j'/i W f'J till '* 16' , �HlHI! !ill , Shang Wu, Shanghai, 1955. See Kathan Sivin's biblio graphic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 196- 216.
Hui Ching Lun j{gI��.9i. Vigrahav)'Ilrlani.
Translation +541. Original Na.garjuna. Taisho Tripitaka no. [631.
Anthology. A Slur[y and Trallslation oj Chapters [-10, {2- 14, Princeton University Press, Plinceton, 1989. Khung T(.u CJ,ia Yii fLT*� .
Family Sayings of Confucius. +3rd century. Wangsu x.1mr (+195 10 +256). Ed. Wan�yu-wcn-khu il:f:JJtJ1U, Shang Wu, Shanghai, [936. Partial trs. R. P Kramcrs, Il.'ung Tzu Chia n, The School Sayings ojCo"jucius, Brill, Leidcn 1950, and Richard Wilhelm, Kung F,IlU, Schulgespriiche, Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Dusst:ldorfiKoln, 1961. Sec R. P. Kramers' bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 258 62.
Ku liang Chuan tll:�W#.
Kuliang's Commentary {on the Spn'ng and Autumn Annals] .
I Ching �tlil..
Book of Changes. Chou, with later additions ofthe 'Ten Wings' from up to Han times. Compiler unknown. Ed. HYS!S. Cf. SSCCS, and Shchutskii, lulian K. Researches 01/ Ihe ! Ching, tr. by \'Villiam L. MacDonald and Tsuyoshi Hasegawa with Hellmut Wilhelm (Princelon Univ. Press, Princeton, 1979). See E. L. Shaughnessy's biblio graphic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 216-28. ILdi/l!1ll..
Forms and Rilual. -3rd century. Anonymous. Ed. and Ir. S. Couvreur, lli, Ceremonial, Calhasia, Paris, 1951 and SSCCS. See William C. Bohz's bibliographic survey in Lo('.:wc (1993), pp. 234-43·
! Chhieh Ching Yin !-tJJii!I!1}-it
Pronounciation and Meaning of all Classics. +645. Hsuan Ying �lf!. Ed. Sun Hsing-Yen 1X:.ffm, Shang Wu, Shanghai, 1936.
c.
-3rd to -2nd centuries. Attrib. Kuliang Chhih ft�#. Ed. Hl'S!S, cf. SSCCs. See Anne Cheng's biblio graphic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 67-76. Kuan Tzu 1;f-r.
Book of Master Kuan. Miscellaneous material dating from -Slh to -2nd centuries. Aurib. Kuan Chung �1tp (died -645). Ed. Tai Wang � �, Shang Wu, Shanghai, 1936. Cf. Kuo Mo:Jo � i:*;s e/ al., Kuall Tzu Chi Chiau �T�1')l, Kho Hsueh, Peking, 1957. Tr. W. Allyn Rickett, Kuan-tzu, A Repository ifEar!;' Chinm Thought, Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong, 1965; and idem, Guand: Political, &onomic and Philosophical Essq"lsjrom Early China; a Sluqy and Translation. Vol. 1 lr. by W Allyn Rieken, Princeton Univ Press, Princeton, 1985. See \V Allyn Rickett's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 244-57·
Kuang Pai Lun Shih his ���.
Expanded Explanation of the Hundred Theories. +650. Hsuan-Tsang Z:� (+602 to +664). Taisho Tripitaka vol. 30, no. 1571.
Kuang ra }ji�.
Ju Shih Lun mlI'HffiI.
Tarkasastra. Translation from +552 to +557. Original attrib. Vasubandhu, Paramartha. Ed. Taisho Tripilaka no. 1633.
The Khung Family r.. laster's anthology. +3rd cenlury. Probably by Wangsu .3:.Atit (+195 to +256). Ed. SrTK Cf. Yen Chhin':'\an rm��, A'hung TihulI!: Ttu ChiM Ching 1Lft-rM4m, Privately published, 'I'aipei, 1975. Tr. Yoav Ariel, K"ullg- 7$'ung-Ttu, The K'ullg Family
Iranslated by
A1wng Hs; Tzu Tim m�*$.
Khang Hsi Dictionary. +1716. ChangYu-Shu �.Le. Ed. reprint Chung Yang Shu Tien, Shanghai, 194-2.
Expanded Erh Ya. +3rd century. Chang I 5N:tit (c. 220 to +265). Ed. Wang Nien-Sun .3: :&: 1)f: , Ting-wen, Taipei, 1972. Kuang 11m 1Jim!.. Expanded Rhymes. +1107. Cheng Pheng-Nien 1!Jt!�.q:: . Ed. Chou Tsu-Mo fflJm�, Kuang Yiin Chiao Pen JJif31ti:;$:, Chung Hua, P('.:king, 1960.
B I B L I O G RAPHY A
Kun,g fang C!Juan
0$iW.
Master KungYling's Commeutary [on the Spring and Autumn AnnalsJ. -2nd century, transmitted orally earlier. Attrib. Kungyang Kao �$i*i. Ed. HrSIS, cf. SSCCS. Sec Anne Cheng's biblio graphic survey in Loewe (1993), pr· 67 76.
Kungsun Lung Tzu 0f,f;ftIi-f-.
T7u ..d
W, lin. r in
-
Book of;\hstcr Kungsutl Lung. Paj-ma-Iun and Chih \Vu LUll afe genuine -4th century, the other chapters ("ontain much later materiaL The earliest commemary probably dating to the +71h century. Kungsun Lung 0ffdI11 (laic -4th fentury). Ed. Luan Hsing�.f€, Chung-chou Shu Hua She, Ho-nan, 1982. Tr. Y. P. ;"lci, HJAS ,6 (19:"13), 404-37; Kou Pao kob, Deux sophisles chilwis: Houe! ClIt et }[ong-Suue/l Lilng, Paris: Presses Univcrsitaires de France, 1953. See A. C. Graham's bibliographic survt=y in Loewe (1993), pp. 25 2- 7.
Ku() ru�lin.
Discourses on the States. -4th/-3rd centuries, treating the period -990 10 -453 ·
Attrib. Tso Chhiu·Ming ti:: JiBJ3 (-5th century). Ed. SPPY and World Book Co., Taipei, 1975. Cr. Ku Chi, Shanghai, 1978. Partial tr. Remi �hthieu, Guo Tu, College de France, 1985. See the bibliographic survey in Loewe ( 1993), pp. 263-8. lAO Tzu �-r.
ti. •
" L •
Thc Book ofl\'lastcr Lao. -3rd century. Aurib. Lao Tan �1If4. Ed. and tr. D. C. L"lu, Hong Kong (lg84}. For cdi tions see Yen Ling-Feng Ii � D$. , LAo Tzu Chi ChMng :t .:r w. p).!; I Wen, Taipei. undated. See Shima Kunia �.f.B�, Ras; kOst; �-Tf)(iE, KyOko shain, Tokyo, 1973, for an outslanding collation of' traditional editions, and Robert C. Henricks, uw Tt.u, Tao Te Ching, Bodley Head, London, 1990, for the recently discovered i\ta \VangTui manuscript version with a translation. See also Lao Tzu Chia Pen Chuan Hou Ku I Shu Shih Wen o!5'j'Ej3:<$:'i'fiJ1i5fi
LAo 7{u Chih liieh �f'm�.
Summary orLao Tzu. +3rd century. Wang Pi .I:.5i'B (+'126 to +249). Ed. Lou Yu-Lieh :tI?!.'!1, Peking: Chung-tlUa, 1980; tr. R. Wagner in T'oung-Pao 72 (1986), 92- 129. Lei Phim !tJUii .
Classifications. +1066.
Compiled and finally edited by Ssuma Kuang n'].�7t: and others between +1039 and +1066. Eo. Shanghai Kuchi, Shanghai Ig88. LiChim�.
Record ofRites. Compiled c. -50, containing earlier material. Ed. S. Couvreur, Catilasia, Paris, 1951. Cr. SSCCS. See Jeffrey K. Riegel's bibliographic survey in Loewe (! 993), pp. 293- 7·
I.iang Clw·Ko, Pai Cllu-l C!1I' iif1H1�:mJ,
Bm��.
The collection ofLiangChu-Ko and Pai Chli·!. Ed. Ku Hsueh-Chieh. Liao Clwi Chih I!IW'J'fZ:*. Strange Stories from the Studio ofPhu Sung-Ling. Phu Sung-Ling tmfl� (+1640 10 +1714). Ed. Chang Yu-Ho jJft�:�. Ku-chi, Shanghai, 1 962 . Lith 7{u 7'll:r-.
Book ofMaster Lieh. +3rd/+41h centuries. Attrib. Lieh Yu-khou 7'IJ ��. Ed. Yang Po-Chlin m{B�, Lieh Tt.u Chi Shih ?'IJ-r ��, reprint Hongkong: Taiping, 1965. See T H. Barren's bibliographic survey in Loewe ('993, pp, 298-309,
Liu Shu /(u 7\e�.
Exposition of the Six Modes ofWriting. Late Sung, published +1320. Tai Thung �(f.iJ. Ed. Li Ting-Yuan *,@5C, Shih-chu·chai lmit'r:al{
�, '784.
Tr. L. C. Hopkins, Tltt Six Scripts -or tht Principlts of Chintst Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer sity Press, ' 954.
Ii, 7<, �J'j',
+6th century. Probably by Liu Hsieh i'IJ� (+465 to +Y12). Lin Chhi-Than tt J:t. t� and Chhen "eng-Chin 1lJ1IJlfU, Liu T<.u Chi Chiao �l-rmtt Shanghai, Ku-chi, 1986, and Lin Chhi-Than #-1t� and Chhen Feng-Chin M!1f1�, Tun Huang f Shu Liu 11.u Tshan Clluan Chi Lu $j(::.tQtI�j1J-r7J:���,
Shanghai: Shanghai shu-tien, 1988.
Iii SMh Chh" ChM,
g J'I;'1ftk,
ivtr Lu's Spring and AUlUmn Annals. -239 · Compiled under the auspices of Lli Pu-\Vei g :::r=
;,;! ,
Ed. Chhen Chhi-Yu Mi'iiff1t Shanghai: Hslieh lin, 1984. See Michael Carson's and :Michacl Loewes bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 324�30. Lun Htng �1ti.
Discourses Weighed in lile Balance. c. +83 . Wang Chhung .I:.JC (+27 10 c. +100). Ed. Lun Hing Chu Shih � tti tt . , Chung Hua, Pcking, 1979, and Huang Hui :ii( 1I!I!, Lun Heng Chiao Shih �OOt1�, Chung Hua, Peking, 1990. Sec Timoteus Pokora's and �.., tichael Loewc's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 3n9�1 2 .
B I B L I O GRAP H Y A Lun Yii gRli�.
COllvefsations orConfucius; Analects. Chou (Lu), c. -450, with some slightly later additions. Compiled by the disciples orConfueius. Ed. HrslS and Liu Pao-:\an �ln.fm Shang \\"tI, Shanghai, 1936 . Tr. Lau (1983a). See Anne Cheng's bibliographic survey in Loc,\'e (1993), PP' 313-23. Ming Tzu�T.
The Book of Master i\!cng (iv!encim). Chou, -4th cent. c. -290? Mcng Kho jfu�J (c. -372 to - 289). Ed. and Ir. Lau (lg83C). Cf. cd. Chiao Hsun mfIB, Chung 1-Iua, Beijing, 1983. See D. C. Lau 's biblio graphic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 331-5.
Mo 'T.?u !fT.
The Book ofMaSler 1\>10. Chou, -5th to -3rd centuries. Oldest parts by Mo TI � l¥l (late -sth century), many later additions. Ed. HrslS. See the excellent new edition ,"Vu Yu Chiang �ljfttI, ,Ho U,ll Chiao Chu �TtrEi1, Hsi Nan Shih Fan Ta Hsuch, Chhung Chhing, no date. See A. C. Graham's bibliographic sur vey in Loewe ( 1993), pp. 336-41.
Pai Ch. I Chi BNH!JIl. Collected Works ofPai Chii-I. Pai Chu-I Bm� (+772 to +824) . Ed. Ku HSileh-Chich ia�6jj, Chung-hua, Peking, 1982. Pai Hu Thung BJ7tj,ffi .
Comprehensive Discussions at the Tiger Lodge. [.+80.
Pan Ku F.JI[,§,) (+32 to +92). Ed. SPT/(, and BlitJi!i#- § I , W)j({�)!j!�!Ii, "''l'l' !!1m, Tokyo IliHa 54 (1980). Tr. Tjan 1Joe Som, 1949f1: See iv{ichael Loewe's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), PP' 347-56. Pao Phu u.u :ffiHlT .
Preservation-of-simplicity ivlaster. +4th centuI·Y· Ko Hung��. Ed. Shang Wu, Shanghai, 1936 ( lVrWK). Cf. Wang �fing.:E1Y! Pao Phu U,u Nei Philm Chino Shih [email protected].�. rev. ed. Peking: Chung-hua, 1985. Cf. Jay Sailey, The Master who Embraces i ilj'; A Study oj Ihe Philosopher Ko Hung, AD Simplc 283-343, San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, '978, andj. 'vVare, Alchtlny, Medicine and Religion in the China ofAD 320, tr. and ed. byJ. R. Ware, Cambridge !\'Iass.: :\tnT Press, 1966. Index K. Schipper, Concordance du Pao-p'ou-t.Jeu nei-p'ien (Paris, 1965) and II. Schipper, Concordancedu Pao-p'ou-tseu wo.i-p 'ien (Paris, 1970).
PO H;i Tzu l:it�'i'
Charactcr Meanings by Pei-hsi. Before +1226. Chhen Chhun jljI!i!J: (+1 159 to+ 1223). Ed. Chung Hua, Beijing, 1983. Tr. Wing-tsit Chan, NeQ-Confiuian Terms Explained (The Pei-hsi
I-!u-i) by Ch'm Ch'UII, 1159-J:!23, Columbia Uni versity Prcss, :\iew York, 1986. Phon Pi Liang Lun !fIJ.tt:m::iB. Criticising the Argument (lor Consciousness Only). +7th century. YOan Hsiao jClIJt (+617 to +686). Ed. DainillOn -!oku-!ok),o 7\. B *tl:i't�, 1.94/4. Phei H'tn Yiin Fu (ij,)l:ftftJf.f.
Rhyme Treasury for �!atching Texts. +17 ] ] · Chang Yii-Shu �.L:e:. Ed. Ku Chi, Shanghai, 1983.
PI" ra �!IIE.
Additional Standard. Postface + 1 1 25· Lu Tien �flD.
Ed. SPTK
Phien 1'0 !ff!fft
Additional Standard. Preface dated +1587. Chu Mou-WI�i *'".Ji'J . Ed. SPTK Shang Chiin Shu ifJj�:et.
Book oftile Lord of Shang. -4th to -3rd centuries. i ii'R or Kungsun Yang 0fX:fk. Anrib. Shang Yang 6 E d. Kao Hcng �l], Shang Chun Shu Chu Ifflj�"w i1�, Chung Hua, Peking, 1974. Tr. Duyvendak,Jean Levy, Shang Yang, Le livre du prince Shang, Paris, 1981; L. S. Perdomov, JCniga jJrauileljo. oblasti Slum, ivloscow: Nauka, 1 968. See Jcan Levi's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), PP· 3 68- )5· Shin Chien Jt!�.
Precepts Presented. C.+190.
Hstin Yiieh lii'\7t . Ed. SPTr..: See Ch'en Ch'i-Yiin's bibliographic survey in Loewe ( 1993), pp. 390-3. Shin Pu Hai I'fi::::r' ffi" . FragmenlsofShen Pu-Hai. Shen Pu-Hai (died -337). Ed. Herrlee G. Creel, Shim Pu-hai, University or Chicago Press, Chicago, 1974. Shin "ku tRT.
Fragments from the Shtn u,u. Shen 'fao (c. -350 to c. 275). -4th century. Ed. P. tI,'l . Thompson, Tht Shen Tzu Fragments, Oxford University Press, London, 1979. See P. Thompson's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 399-404. Slu'h Chi �R. Records of the Historian. Hall, -1St century. Ssuma Chhicn E'J,�jI (c. - 145 to c. -85), Lut with certain later additions. Ed. Takigawli Kametaro llmJII il:::t � B, Shiki kaichii. koshQ �-ac a-tt�m, 10 \'Ois., Tokyo 1932-4, reprint Peking '957. Tr. E. Chavannes, Les memoires hisloriques de Se-ma Ts'ien, Paris
B I B L I O G RAP H Y A
,ta Cni-
a Only).
1895-19°5. See A. F. P. Hulscwe's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993). pp. -1-05-15.
Shih Ching W�. Book ofSon gs. Chou, -9th to -5th centuries. Anonymous. Ed. and tr. B. Karlgren (1950). HrSIS Index . See :\.[i(;hael Loewe's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 4 [5-:2 3Skih Ming �1;.
Explaining names. +2nd/3rd centuries.
Liu Hsi���. Ed. SPTK See Roy Andrew ;",Iiller's bibliographk survey in Loewe (1993) , pp. 4:24-8. Shih Shuo Hsin Yii iitmlYT� . A New Accoun t ofTales of the World. +51h century. Liu I -e hhing WJ.fi.i:� (+403 10 +444). Ed. Yang Yung m�, Ta Chung, Hong Kong. 1 969 . Trans R. �Iather, Shih shuo Itsin )'ii: A Ntw Account oj Tal,s oj th, I HuM, Univ. of l\ linnesota Press, Minneapolis, 1976; t!t�f1T;mW;ijl(mt�)() � m iii !;Ii f.i jl'.1!HiIi , Tokyo, pccracc Ii/UU 34 ('960).
Shu Ching i!i;t¥.
t Jiz:u
du
"-; Aniga
PB. Set' �
1993),
graphic
nity of
Book ofDocuments. -10th to +3rd centuries. Various authors. Ed. and tr. Bernhard Karlgrcn, Book ojDocuments. BMFEA 22 (1950), 1 -$ 1 . cr. cd. Chhi.i Wan-Li Jffi �*, Shang \Vu, Taipei, 1977. See E. L. Shaugh ne ssy's bibliographic survey in LOewe ('993), pp. 3)6-89. Shui Hu Ti G'hhin Mil Chu Chitll IWdt:tth�j!TI1lff . Bamboo Slips from the Chhin Tomh at SllUi Hu Ti. Wen WlI, Peking, 1978.
Chieh 7:.u �>cm¥. Explaining Graphs and Characters. +1001 +1:21. with later additions. Hso Shen gtf-fjl (died c. +149). £d. Tuan Yo-Tshai l&.3.im, Ku Chi, Shanghai, 1981. See William G. Boltz's b ibliograph ic sur vey in Loewe (1993), pp. 4:29-4:2 . Shuo Win G'hith Tzu Chuan run Phu �)(�*f«MG5. Rhyme List to the Explaining Graphs and Shuo Win
Characters. +986. Hsu Hsuan l*iZ. Ed. Ting Fu-Pao Tmil*, Shllo 11/bl Chitlt 7{u Ku Lin mXM::f&!if':t. I Hsueh, Shanghai, [930.
Slwo Yuan m:m.
A Garden ofTalk.
IIUtwith Shih Tokyo .
_
-:20. Liu Hsiang \tIJfOJ (-79 to -8). Ed. Chao Shan-i ttia'l'Ei, Shuo Yuan Shu Chfng �:?i�Jm-m, H ua Tung Shih Fan Ta Hsilch, Shanghai, 1985 and Hsiang Tsung-Lu r5J �� �. , Shuo nan Chiao Cktng � n � � Chung-bua, Peking [987. See David Knechtges' biblio graphic survey in Loewe ([993), pp. +43 5.
SSII Ili."uan Khao e:g�'i515'.
Inycstigations into the Four Barbarian Offices. Preface +1540. Wang Tsung-Tsai x*tt Ed. Tung Fang Hslieh Hui, no place (Shanghai?), 19:?J : .. Supplementary Tripitaka: see Dainihon {oku{o/ryo
:k B :;js:iYlli!l:!i'li.
TaHsiich **.
'I'he Great I .ea rn ing. -200, part ofLi Chi m.�C. Au thonhip uncertain. c.
Ed. and tr.J Legge, Chinese ClaSJics. cr. ssccs.
To 'Tai Li Chi X�m.fiC.
IZecord orRite� by the Elder Tai. Slabilised around +80 and +100. Ed. SSCCS. cr. Kao Ming iQjBjj, Ta TaiLi Clti Chin Chu Chin I xitlli24'i:t9ftl, Shang Wu, Taipei, 1975. SeeJefTrey K. Riegel's bibliograph ic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 456- 9. Taish6 Tripitaka: TauM Shittshii Doi{okyo, -t::. IE iTflif1\ i(�, ed. Junjir� Takakusu and Kaikyoku Watanabe, D aizO shuppan kabushiki kaisha, Tokyo, 19:2'1-34. Tao Tsang m•.
The Taoist Patrology. First collected in Sung, first available printed cdi· lion c. +1445. Ed. Cheng Thung Tao Tsang lEtaEn1i1(, reprinted Taipei, Yiwen, 1977Cr. C. Schipper, Cheng Tlwng Tao Tsang Mu LII Suo Yin i.Ef.1tJ!!\ii( §��'J 1 , Yiwen , Taipei, 1977-
Ting Iisi Tzu R$tfTr.
Book ofMaster Teng H si .
Han? Attrib. to Teng Hsi OOtfi (died -501). Ed. and Ir. H. Wilhelm, A10numenla Sirica 1 2 (1947), 41ff. Thai flsiian Ching7,::,��.
Classic ofGreat ;"·l ystery. Han, -1St century. Yang Hsiung met (- 53 to +18). Ed. Srn: Thllng J'U mim. Comprehensive Standard. Finished c. +1579. Fang Yi-Chih htJt? (died +[671).
Ed. SPTK
Tshang Chieh Phien "*m�.
Book ofTshang-Ch ieh. Pre-H an . Anonym ous . Ed. Sun Hsing-Yen M:JEm, I Wen , Taipei, [967.
TIo Chuan �f.IIl: .
Tso Commentary. Between -400 and -250, but with certain later additions. Attrib. Tso Chhiu-Ming :ti::1i �. Ed. Yang Po-ChOn mfB�, Chung Hua, Peking, 1982; tr. J Legge, Chinest Classics, and S. Couvreur, La cltronique de la pn'ncipollti de wu,
43 0
B I B L I O GRAPHY A
Cathasia, Paris 1951. Set: Anne Cheng's biblio graphic survey in in Loewe (1993), pp. G7-n. Tmng ChingLu *iliJ. Records of the \1irror of the School. Published between +1°78 and +1085. Yen Shou �. (+904 to +975). Taisho Tripitaka no. 2016. 1{u Chih Thung Chien :fl;fmmi�. Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Government (covering period -403 to +959). +1084. Ssuma Kuang j§J,�* (+1019 to+lo86) e/ fll. Ed. Chung-hua, reprint Hong Kong [97 [. Tzu Hm '*Ifft. Collection ofCharactcrs . +1615. Mei Ying-Tso mlWt'F (+1570 to +[615). Ed. SPTK
Wti Liao Tzu Wf�T. Master Wei Liao. Original version -3rd century, later additions, partial early Han manuscript found. Anonymous. Ed. Chung Chao-Hua jj���, 11'1; Liao 1{u �'tt§ -1-.&tt, Chung-chou Shu Hua She, Ho-nan, 1982. Win Hsin Two Lung ::x>ii�fIti.. The Carving of the Literary Dragon. Liu Hsieh ilJM. (+465 to +522). Ed. Lu Khan:Ju �{}7t"t10, Qi Lu, Chi-nan, Ig81. Tr. Vincent Shih, The LiteralJ' Mind and the Carving rj' Dragolls, bilingual ed. Hong Kong Univ. Press Ig83·
Well TseX�U.
Patterns of Literature. +117°· Chhen Khuei ��. Ed. Liu Ven-Chheng ilJjJ:�, Shu Mu Wen Hsien, Peking, Ig88. Wu Chhi TiinJui .li*,II.JIffl . AJade Vessel for Five Cart-Loads of Rhymes. Lost work ofthc !I.'ling dynasty. WuNmg Tzu fflt�r. The Incompetent Classic. +887· Anonymous. Ed. Wang Ming 3:: BA , Chung Hua, Peking, Ig81.
Yen Shih Chia Hsiin ��*WII. Family Instructions by Mr Yen. +6th century. Ven Chih-Thui ;m:zm (+531 to after +590). Ed. SPP1� also ed. Chou Fa-Kao fiIiJ$� Thai Lien Kuo Feng, Taipei, 1975. Yrn Thieh Lun D:m.�. Salt and Iron Discourse. -80. Huan Khuan ffij[ (flourished -73 to -49). Ed. Basic Sinological Series, and cd. \Vang Li-Chhi 3::1IJ�, 2nd. ed. Chung Hua, Peking, 1992.
Cf. partial translation in Esson Cale, Discourses on Salt and /ron, Brill, Leiden, 193[, and the forth coming profusely annotated complete transla lion by]. Kroll. See Micheal Loewe's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 477-82. 't1l Tzu CMu1l Chhiu �riG-;f:k. Annals ofVen-Tzu. -3rd century. Attrib. Ven Ying ��. Ed. Wu Tse-Yii �f!IJt:a, Chung Hua, Peking, 1982. See Stephen W. Durrant's bibliographic survey in Loewe (1993), pp. 483-9. Yi1l Ming Cheng Li Mrn LuIl 1tSl8)liEJlli Ij[J� . Nyiij·amukha. +7th century. Hsiian Tsang z!:lE (+602 to +664). Ed. Taisho Tripitaka nos. 1628/9, tr. Giuseppe Tucci, The Nyiij'Q7IIukha rj' Dignaga, Heidelberg [930. fin MingJu Ching Li Lun JlgBjjAlElIDUS. Njiiyaprnvtia. +7(h century. Tr. HSiian-Tsang ��. Ed. Taisho Tripitaka no. 1630. Cr. Lii Chheng, 8m, f&BJ]AlE:Jm��M, Chung Hua, Peking 1983. Yin MingJu Ching Ii Lun Shu ��AlEJ1UfBirJiL Commentary tOJYj-r!yaprnlJeia. +7th century. Khuei Chi m�. STvol. 87, no. 722 ed. Lil Chheng g� ;(J.I�pq� j;i, Nanking [933. rin MingJu Lun Chuang l'tn Shu �Bjj A��iif.JUiL Commentary on the Nyayaprnveia. +7th century. Wengui xiWt. Ed. Lii Chheng g jf(, Chin-ling kho-ching-chhu, Nanking, [93:2. Yin Ming l.J: Pho Chu Chieh f Thu f&B)l!l.�11���. ).Iyaya Proof and Refutation with Comments and Illustrations. +7th century. Lii Tshai 15;;;t . Not extant. rin Ming Lun Shu Mi1lg Ting Chao �BA��J!:BAi.lt�. Collected Commentaries on .Njii)'apravtia. �f.12.Zenshll. +8th century. Ed. Taisho Tripitaka no. 2270. Yin Wen Tzu ttx r. Book ofMaster Yin \Ven. +3rd century. Attrib. Vin \Ven jtX. Ed. Li Shih-Hsi Jj;1im� ri'l Wen Tzu Chien Chu j!' X-r-Mtf:Jen-min wen-hsueh, Shanghai, 1977. Tr. Dan Daor (1979). Yii Chu gaWJ. Aid towards Speech. Preface +[324. Lu I-Wei !.IlUifI;. Ed. \.vang Kho-Chung 3::'£(rp, Chung Hua, Peking, Ig88.
/ii
/i
B I B L I O GRAPHY A • .. ,.
;.,
bu,
;-;.
I...
ru Chhith Shih Ti LUI! Jl1'iJ{/JOMitt!!�ili .
Yogil.carabhumisastra. Translated +645. Tr. by Hsuan-Tsang Z� (+602 to +664.) Ed. Tasho i Tripitaka no. 1839. Cf. A Wayman, in ]A OS 78 ('9;8), pp. '9-40. rii Phitn Ji�. Jade Book. First compil('d +548, later reworkings.
43 1
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