Dao and Sign in History: Daoist Arche-Semiotics in Ancient and Medieval China

Author: 
Daniel Fried

Publisher:
SUNY

Publication date:
November 2018

Abstract:

From its earliest origins in the Dao De Jing, Daoism has been known as a movement that is skeptical of the ability of language to fully express the truth. While many scholars have compared the earliest works of Daoism to language-skeptical movements in twentieth-century European philosophy and have debated to what degree early Daoism does or does not resemble these recent movements, Daniel Fried breaks new ground by examining a much broader array of Daoist materials from ancient and medieval China and showing how these works influenced ideas about language in medieval religion, literature, and politics. Through an extended comparison with a broad sample of European philosophical works, the book explores how ideas about language grow out of a given historical moment and advances a larger argument about how philosophical and religious ideas cannot be divided into “content” and “context.”




Table of Contents:

Preface 

Introduction: Defining “Arche-Semiotics” 

Part I: Daoist Semiotics in Comparative Perspective 

1. Ways through Language 

2. Ways beyond Language 

Part II: Daoist Semiotics in Early Medieval Culture 

3. Tracing the Obscure 

4. Traces of Transcendence 

5. Sign, Translation, Enlightenment 

6. The Arche-Semiotic Mind and the Carving of Dragons