Literary Forms of Argument in Early China

Editors:
Joachim Gentz & Dirk Meyer

Publisher:
Brill

Publication Year:
2015

Abstract:
Literary Forms of Argument in Early China explores formal approaches to the study of philosophical texts to present new methods for the analysis of pre-modern thought in China. Attempts made by Chinese thinkers to generate literary forms of philosophical reasoning have gone unrecognised within scholarship in China and the West. Drawing together the expertise of leading scholars of early Chinese textuality, this volume addresses this omission by examining the formal characteristics of an argument, the interrelationship between form and content, as well as patterned compositions and non-linear semantic utterances. With these comprehensive new readings, the volume makes a landmark contribution to the study of written thinking in early China.

Table of Contents:

Preliminary Material   pp i –ix

Introduction: Literary Forms of Argument in Early China   pp 1 –36

A Building Block of Chinese Argumentation: Initial Fu 夫 as a Phrase Status Marker   pp 37 –66

2 Beyond Parallelism: A Rethinking of Patterns of Coordination and Subordination in Chinese Expository Prose
pp 67 –86

3 On the Range and Performance of Laozi-Style Tetrasyllables
pp 87 –111

4 Defining Boundaries and Relations of Textual Units: Examples from the Literary Tool-Kit of Early Chinese Argumentation
pp 112 –157

5 The Philosophy of the Analytic Aperçu
pp 158 –174

6 Speaking of Poetry: Pattern and Argument in the “Kongzi Shilun 孔子詩論”
pp 175 –200

7 Structure and Anti-Structure, Convention and Counter-Convention: Clues to the Exemplary Figure’s (Fayan 法言) Construction of Yang Xiong as Classical Master
pp 201 –242

8 A Ragbag of Odds and Ends? Argument Structure and Philosophical Coherence in Zhuangzi 26        
pp 243 –296

9 Truth Claim with no Claim to Truth: Text and Performance of the “Qiushui 秋水” Chapter of the Zhuangzi        
pp 297 –340

Index

Source: pp 341 –353