The Gongsun Longzi and Other Neglected Texts: Aligning Philosophical and Philological Perspectives

Editors:
Rafael Suter, Lisa Indraccolo and Wolfgang Behr

Publisher:
De Gruyter

Publication date:
April 2020

Abstract:
The Gongsun Longzi is often considered the only extant work of the Classical Chinese “School of Names”, an early intellectual tradition (trad. dated to the 4th cent. B.C.) mainly concerned with logic and the philosophy of language. The Gongsun Longzi is a heterogeneous collection of five chapters that include short treatises and largely fictive dialogues between an anonymous persuader and his opponent, which typically revolve around a paradoxical claim. Its value as a testimony to Early Chinese philosophy, however, is somewhat controversial due to the intricate textual history of the text and our limited knowledge about its intellectual backgrounds. This volume gathers contributions by leading specialists in the fields of Classical Chinese philosophy, philology, logic, and linguistics. Besides an overview of the scholarly literature on the topic and a detailed account of the reception of the text throughout time, it presents fresh insights into philological and philosophical problems raised by the Gongsun Longzi and other closely-related texts equally attributed to the “School of Names”.

Table of Contents:
The Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ and Other Neglected Texts – Aligning Philosophical and Philological Perspectives: An Introduction
Rafael Suter, Lisa Indraccolo and Wolfgang Behr

I. HISTORY
TRADITIONS OF SCHOLARSHIP IN CHINA
1. The Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ: A Historical Overview
Wang Ping and Ian Johnston

2. Notes on the Relationship between the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ and the Dialectical Chapters of the Mòzǐ
Ian Johnston and Wang Ping

3. The ‘Discourse on the White Horse’: A Concrete Analytical Philosophy of Language – with a Coda on the Authenticity of the Received Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ
Zhōu Chāngzhōng

II. PHILOSOPHY
CONTEMPORARY ANALYTIC APPROACHES
4. Reference and Ontology in the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ
Yiu-ming Fung

5. How Gōngsūn Lóng’s Double-Reference Thought in His “White Horse Not Horse” Argumentation Can Engage with Fregean and Kripkean Approaches to the Issue of Reference
Bo Mou

PHILOSOPHICAL READINGS OF THE GŌNGSŪN LÓNGZǏ
6. Place as a Category in the ‘Treatise on Name and Reality’ (Míngshí lùn名實論)
Dennis Schilling

7. A New Interpretation of the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ’s ‘Zhǐwù lùn’ (Discourse on Pointings and Things) and ‘Míngshí lùn’ (Discourse on Names and Actualities)
Liú Tǐshèng

8. A New Interpretation of ‘Báimǎlùn’ (Discourse on White and Horse)
Jiāng Xiàngdōng

III. PHILOLOGY

PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE AND TERMINOLOGY
9. Logically Significant Words in the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ
Thierry Lucas

10. Linguistic Affinites of the Yǐnwénzǐ Text in the Light of Basic Corpus Data
Lukáš Zádrapa

11. Gōngsūn Lóng and the Zhuāngzǐ: On Classifying (Declassifying) Things Zhǐ (Qí) Wù Lùn 指〔齊〕物論
Ernst-Joachim Vierheller

12. Buddhist Murmurs? – Another Look at the Composition of the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ
Rafael Suter

六朝書翰文の研究

Author:
福井佳夫  (Yoshio Fukui)

Publication date:
202003

Publisher:
汲古書院

Table of Contents:

第一章　作家の簡潔な注釈たりうるか─書翰文の概観─
　書翰のジャンル
　殷周の書翰文／秦漢の書翰文
　六朝の書翰文
　簡潔な注釈たりうるか
　標題の命名
　
第二章　友と清宴をたのしもう─曹丕「与呉質書」を中心に─
　「与呉質書」の内容
　「与呉質書」の四特徴
　文雅な曹丕像
　曹丕と蕭兄弟
　曹丕と蕭兄弟書翰
　陳後主「与詹事江総書」の内容

第三章　書翰の名手はわしじゃ─応璩の書翰文─
　日常性
　ユーモア
　誇張
　美文的彫琢
　応璩書翰の意義

第四章　二流の書翰で失敬─王羲之の書翰と尺牘─
　尺牘の三段構成／尺牘解釈の困難
　公私と雅俗の比例
　尺牘の価値
　書翰と尺牘の連続性
　「与会稽王牋」の文章
　桓温「薦譙元彦表」との比較
　天は二物を与えず

第五章 書翰は文学であります─鮑照「登大雷岸与妹書」を中心に─
　鮑照「登大雷岸与妹書」の文章
　呉均「与朱元思書」の文章
　庾信「為梁上黄侯世子与婦書」の文章
　劉孝標「重答劉秣陵沼書」の文章
　鑑賞用書翰文の価値

第六章　裏をよまねばならぬぞ─劉孝儀の「北使還与永豊侯書」─
　南北の交流使節／「北使還与永豊侯書」の内容
　蔑視感情／陳腐な先入観
　優等生の感想文
　ホッとしたわい

第七章　皇太子がお便りします─蕭統蕭綱兄弟の書翰文─
　早熟な十五歳（兄）
　文学と賢才（兄）
　哀悼の情（兄）
　大仰な表現（弟）
　攻撃性（弟）
　繊細な感覚（弟）
　兄弟の文学的資質

第八章　構成は三段できめよう─美文書翰の書式─
　書儀と月儀
　三段構成
　二流文人の文例集
　書儀としての信憑性
　「十二月啓」の価値

第九章　これが書翰のお手本じゃ─「十二月啓」訳注─
　太簇正月
　夾鍾二月
　姑洗三月
　中呂四月
　蕤賓五月
　林鍾六月
　夷則七月
　南呂八月
　無射九月
　応鍾十月
　黄鍾十一月
　大呂十二月

第十章　書翰は気どってかこう─王褒「与周弘譲書」を中心に─
　千里の面目
　望郷の書翰文
　類型的な叙しかた
　隠逸書翰の食言
　恋情書翰の虚構
　装飾と美文

第十一章　母さまにお会いしたい─宇文護母子の書翰文
　無名氏「為閻姫与子宇文護書」
　宇文護「報母閻姫書」
　口語化と美文化
　率直な感情吐露
　健全な儒教精神
　いちずな訴え

第十二章　臣にならぬか─招隠書翰─
　楊暕の「与逸人王貞書」
　招隠の風
　魏の招隠書翰
　沈約「為武帝与謝朏勅」
　梁武帝期の招隠書翰
　清節と寛仁
　江淹「為宋建平王聘逸士教」
　平和な世の産物
　読後感よき文学

秦漢時代の家族と国家

Author:
多田麻希子 (TADA Makiko)

Publisher:
専修大学出版局

Publication date:
February 2020

Table of Contents:
序論―中国古代史研究における家族史研究の位置づけと研究課題・研究方法―
　はじめに―古代史研究のなかの国家史研究―
　第一節　中国古代史研究における社会内部関係についての諸議論
　第二節　家族史研究の新たな位置づけと研究方法
　おわりに
　注

第一章　中国古代家族史研究の現状と課題
　はじめに
　第一節　第一期―漢代家族史研究をめぐる論争―
　第二節　第二期―戦後中国古代史研究における家族史研究の位置づけ―
　第三節　第三期―簡牘史料の出現と中国古代家族史研究の課題―
　おわりに
　注

第二章　出土簡牘にみえる「室」・「戸」・「同居」をめぐる諸問題と「家族」
　はじめに
　第一節　漢代家族史研究における「同居」についての諸見解
　第二節　『睡虎地秦簡』にみえる「室」・「戸」・「同居」についての諸見解
　第三節　「室人」・「戸」・「同居」の関係についての再検討
　おわりに
　注

〔補論〕『嶽麓秦簡』（伍）にみえる「同居」－「分異」の検討を兼ねて
　注

第三章　出土簡牘にみえる「家罪」および「公室告」・「非公室告」―秦漢時代における「家族」の居住形態―
　はじめに
　第一節　「公室告」・「非公室告」・「家罪」に関連する史料
　第二節　「公室告」・「非公室告」・「家罪」をめぐる諸学説
　第三節　「非公室告」と「家罪」の規定からみた「家族」の範囲と居住形態
　第四節　「同居」における親・子関係、主人・奴婢関係
　おわりに
　注

第四章　秦・前漢初期の律令にみえる女性戸主
　はじめに
　第一節　女性戸主の存在
　第二節　女性戸主の存在形態とその変化
　第三節　女性戸主による経営
　おわりに
　注

第五章　秦律・漢律にみえる奴婢―国家的身分と社会的身分―
　はじめに
　第一節　奴婢所有に関する規定―登録・処罰・譲渡・売買―
　第二節　奴婢身分に関する規定―婚姻・解放―
　第三節　家族と奴婢と郷里社会―社会的身分としての奴婢―
　おわりに
　注

第六章　秦漢時代の簡牘にみえる家族関連簿集成稿
　はじめに
　第一節　家族関連簿分類集成
　第二節　家族関連簿をめぐる分析（稿）
　おわりに
　注

結論

The Chinese Lyric Sequence: Poems, Paintings, Anthologies

Author:
Joseph R. Allen

Publication date:
March 25, 2020

Publisher:
Cambria Press

Abstract:
Classical Chinese poetry is the dominating lyric form of world literature. Mainstream shi (lyric poetry) is a genre spanning more than two millennia, with poems numbering in the hundreds of thousands—extant shi from the medieval Tang dynasty alone consists of 48,000 poems by 2,200 authors. In these thousands of poems are some of the world’s more enduring examples of the short occasional poem, inspiring readers and writers across the globe with its vivid language of perspicuity. And embedded within that great lyric tradition, from its very beginnings to contemporary times, is the subtle but unsung form of the sequence of poems. Along with its related meta-forms of the literary anthology and album of paintings, this forms the Chinese lyric sequence.

The Chinese lyric sequence was never named or even noticed, by the poets, painters, or anthologists who worked in the genre over the millennia. It was an invisible but powerful form; in fact, Professor Joseph Allen argues that its power was lies in its invisible hold on the artists. Although the works discussed are some of the most canonical in the tradition, this is the first time that close attention and detailed analysis has been brought to the Chinese lyric sequence, both in its specific manifestations and as a shared aesthetic form. In doing so, Allen provides a focused introduction to Chinese literature and art for the general reader, while offering new insights for the specialist.

The works discussed include liturgical hymns, risqué folk songs, religious poems cast in dramatic forms, sensuous songs of the seasons, dense ponderings of personal travail, intimate landscape and figural paintings, and important collections that give them form. Despite the diversity of these works, Allen offers an abiding rationale for understanding all of them in the rubric of the Chinese lyric sequence, providing an original protocol for reading. This interpretation derives from deep Chinese cultural norms, such as parallel structures, significant numbers, and the interweaving of modes of understanding, but each example offers its special manifestation of those norms.

Allen places the genre in a comparative perspective with both Japanese and Western models, using theoretical language derived from the Chinese lyric tradition itself. All poems are provided in original and translation, with extensive contextual notes and detailed readings. Examples of paintings are provided, including one complete album.

Table of Contents:

Preface
Chapter 1: The Chinese Lyric Sequence in a Comparative Perspective
Chapter 2: Decades in The Book of Songs
Chapter 3: Nines in The Elegies of Chu
Chapter 4: Selections and Collections in the Six Dynasties
Chapter 5: The Four Seasons and the Twelve Months
Chapter 6: Du Fu’s Metapoem
Chapter 7: Eight Views
Epilogue: In Significant Numbers

Between Disaster, Punishment, and Blame: The Semantic Field of Guilt in Early Chinese Texts

Author:
Thomas Crone

Publication date:
2020

Publisher:
Wiesbaden Harrassowitz Verlag

Abstract:
The concept of having done something wrong is an integral part of normative thinking and thus a human universal. With regard to the early Chinese world of ideas and the resulting Confucian value system, consensus has it that the normative forces of “shame” have played a particularly strong role in the conceptualization and assessments of wrongdoings. This study aims to broaden our understanding of these processes by examining a group of synonyms associated with different states of “guilt” (i.e. the fact of having committed something wrong), in the course of their historical development during the pre-Qin period (appr. 1250–221 BCE). By outlining the synchronic conceptual differences and diachronic changes of these synonyms and framing them in their sociopolitical context, this attempts to relate the early history of a concept that has so far received little scholarly attention. The results of this study offer many surprises and show overall that the concept of guilt in early Chinese texts is much more nuanced than previously assumed. They provide impressive evidence of the emergence and growth of several expert discourses on the subject of guilt, thus challenging the notion of early China as a representative of a “shame culture.”

Table of Contents:

1 Introduction
2 Methodological Approach
3 The Semantic Field
4 Provoking Disaster: The Concept of Calamitous Guilt
5 Breaking the Law: The Concept of Legal Guilt
6 Violating Etiquette: The Concept of Ritual Guilt
7 Deviating from the Way: The Concept of Moral Guilt
8 Concluding Remarks and Outlook

[Dissertation] The Buddha’s Voice: Ritual Sound And Sensory Experience In Medieval Chinese Religious Practice

Author:
Kelsey Seymour

Date of Award:
2018

School: 
University of Pennsylvania

Abstract:
This dissertation explores Buddhist chanting practices in mainly the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE), showing that they were more than just one part of ritual practice: chanting could also be a type of music, an educational tool, a means for manipulating the supernatural, and a cure and cause of illness. Previous studies of chanting practices in Chinese Buddhism have addressed histories of transmission, doctrinal approaches, and made efforts to preserve melodies through notation. However, they do not necessarily capture how individuals who engaged in chanting experienced this practice. Therefore this dissertation aims to investigate this experience through accounts found in hagiography, miracle tales, and other Buddhist materials. In studying chanting from this perspective, we can see how local and individual experiences, goals, and needs interacted with practices, and how these practices operated within Chinese Buddhist communities. Furthermore, we can understand how and when these understandings and practices were informed by scripture, and when they were not, through how individuals performed, listened to, and promoted them.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Chapter 1  Chant and Music

Chapter 2 Experts of Memory:
Chanting as a Method and Verification of Learning

Chapter 3 Gods, Demons, Ghosts, and Men, Lend Me Your Ears:
Hearing Buddhist Sounds in Medieval China

Chapter 4 Sound Objects and Sound Bodies:
The Materiality of the Voice in Buddhist Miracle Tales

Chapter 5 Therapeutic Tones and Hazardous Hymns:
The Relationship between Sound and Health in Tang Dynasty Buddhism

The Jiankang Empire in Chinese and World History

Author:
Andrew Chittick

Publication date:
April 2020

Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract:
This work offers a sweeping re-assessment of the Jiankang Empire (3rd-6th centuries CE), known as the Chinese "Southern Dynasties." It shows how, although one of the medieval world's largest empires, Jiankang has been rendered politically invisible by the standard narrative of Chinese nationalist history, and proposes a new framework and terminology for writing about medieval East Asia. The book pays particular attention to the problem of ethnic identification, rejecting the idea of "ethnic Chinese," and delineating several other, more useful ethnographic categories, using case studies in agriculture/foodways and vernacular languages. The most important, the Wuren of the lower Yangzi region, were believed to be inherently different from the peoples of the Central Plains, and the rest of the book addresses the extent of their ethnogenesis in the medieval era. It assesses the political culture of the Jiankang Empire, emphasizing military strategy, institutional cultures, and political economy, showing how it differed from Central Plains-based empires, while having significant similarities to Southeast Asian regimes. It then explores how the Jiankang monarchs deployed three distinct repertoires of political legitimation (vernacular, Sinitic universalist, and Buddhist), arguing that the Sinitic repertoire was largely eclipsed in the sixth century, rendering the regime yet more similar to neighboring South Seas states. The conclusion points out how the research re-orients our understanding of acculturation and ethnic identification in medieval East Asia, generates new insights into the Tang-Song transition period, and offers new avenues of comparison with Southeast Asian and medieval European history

Table of Contents:
Preface
1 Introduction: The Invisible Empire
Section One: Proto-Ethnic Identities
2 The Discourse of Ethnicity
3 Agriculture and Foodways
4 Vernacular Languages
Section Two: Political Culture
5 Marking Territory: The Militarization of the Huai Frontier
6 Making Hierarchy: Garrison, Court, and the Structure of Jiankang Politics
7 Managing Prosperity: The Political Economy of a Commercial Empire
Section Three: Repertoires of Legitimation
8 The Vernacular Repertoire
9 The Sinitic Repertoire
10 The Buddhist Repertoire: The Era of Pluralist Patronage
11 The Buddhist Repertoire: Jiankang as Theater State
12 Conclusion: Re-Orienting East Asian and World History
Appendix A: The Population of the Jiankang Empire
Appendix B: Migration
Appendix C: Geographic Distribution of Office-holding

Beyond the Troubled Water of shifei: From Disputation to Walking-Two-Roads in the Zhuangzi

Authors:
Lin Ma & Jaap van Brakel

Publisher: 
SUNY Press

Publication date:
June 2019

Abstract:
In recent decades, a growing concern in studies in Chinese intellectual history is that Chinese classics have been forced into systems of classification prevalent in Western philosophy and thus imperceptibly transformed into examples that echo Western philosophy. Lin Ma and Jaap van Brakel offer a methodology to counter this approach, and illustrate their method by carrying out a transcultural inquiry into the complexities involved in understanding shi and fei and their cognate phrases in the Warring States texts, the Zhuangzi in particular. The authors discuss important features of Zhuangzi’s stance with regard to language-meaning, knowledge-doubt, questioning, equalizing, and his well-known deconstruction of the discourse in ancient China on shifei. Ma and van Brakel suggest that shi and fei apply to both descriptive and prescriptive languages and do not presuppose any fact/value dichotomy, and thus cannot be translated as either true/false or right/wrong. Instead, shi and fei can be grasped in terms of a pre-philosophical notion of fitting. Ma and van Brakel also highlight Zhuangzi’s idea of “walking-two-roads” as the most significant component of his stance. In addition, they argue that all of Zhuangzi’s positive recommendations are presented in a language whose meaning is not fixed and that every stance he is committed to remains subject to fundamental questioning as a way of life.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. Preliminaries
Necessary Preconditions of Interpretation
Against the Ideal Language Assumption
Underdetermination of Meaning and Interpretation
Would “On Its Own Terms” Be Possible?

Part I. The Troubled Water of Shifei

2. Projection of Truth onto Classical Chinese Language
The Harbsmeier–Hansen Dispute
Looking for the “Is True” Predicate in Classical Chinese
Conceptual Embedment of Shi 是 and Its Congeners
Transcendental Pretense in Projecting “Theories of Truth”
The Later Mohist Canons

3. Competing Translations of Shifei 是非

4. Variations of the Meaning of Shi
Shi as a Demonstrative
Shi as Meaning both “This” and “Right”
Modifiers of Shi

5. Dissolution of Dichotomies of Fact/Value and Reason/Emotion
Are There Dichotomies in Classical Chinese?
Fact/Value Dichotomy in Western Philosophy

6. Rightness and Fitting
Nelson Goodman on Rightness and Fitting
Setting up the Quasi-universal of Yi 宜 and Fitting

7. Shi and Its Opposites and Modifiers in the Qiwulun 齊物論
Non-English Translations of Shifei
Bi/Ci (彼/此) and Shi/Fei
Shibushi 是不是, Ranburan 然不然, Kebuke 可不可
Qing 情 and Shifei
Modifiers of Shi in the Qiwulun
Graham’s Contrasting between Yinshi 因是 and Weishi 為是
Translations of Yinbi 因彼, Weishi, and Yinshi

Part II. From Disputation to Walking-Two-Roads in the Zhuangzi

8. Is Zhuangzi a Relativist or a Skeptic?
Zhuangzi and Relativism
Relativities versus Relativism
Hansen and Graham’s Relativistic Interpretations of the Zhuangzi
Zhi 知 and Skepticism

9. Zhuangzi’s Stance
Stance Instead of Perspective or Set of Beliefs
No Fixed Meanings (Weiding 未定)
Walking-Two-Roads (Liangxing 兩行)
Doubt and Rhetorical Questions
Buqi Erqi 不齊而齊: Achieving Equality by Leaving Things Uneven

10. Afterthoughts
Do the Ruists and Mohists Really Disagree?
Is Zhuangzi’s Stance Amoral?

Appendix
The Zhuangzi—Key Notions
Zhuangzi’s Text(s): What Are the Authentic Chapters?
The Big (Da 大) and the Small (Xiao 小): Early Interpretations and Disagreements
The Qi 齊 and Lun 論 of Wu 物
The Sages
Dao道, Tian 天, and “the One”
Ziran 自然 and Hundun 渾沌
Wuwei 无為 and Wuyong 无用

Lives of Sogdians in Medieval China

Author:
Huber, Moritz

Publisher:
Harrassowitz Verlag

Publication date:
March 2020

Abstract:
Sogdians, a group of Central Asians based between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, played a significant historical role at the crossroads of the Silk Roads. Travelling the world as caravan leaders, organised in trading networks, they were found from Byzantium to the Chinese heartland. The Sogdian language was a candidate for the lingua franca of the Silk Roads for some hundred years and Sogdians acted as polyglot mediators at courts and prominent translators of Buddhist texts. In the Chinese capitals, fire temples were erected for their use and the exotic products they imported were cherished by the people and the court.

This socio-historical study by Moritz Huber provides a translation of the transmitted Chinese records on Sogdians in Sogdiana and China and combines them with archaeological evidence to present a differentiated picture of their presence in China from the 3rd to 10th century CE. Besides the transcription and translation of all epitaphs of Sogdians from an archaeological context, used to tell their interconnected biographies, as well as a detailed discussion of their political organisation in China under the sabao 薩保/薩寶, this publication further includes a case-study of the Shi 史 families in Guyuan 固原, Ningxia 寧夏 Province.

Table of Contents: