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Recently, "The Category View of China and the West from Language" by Shen Jiaxuan, a famous contemporary linguist, was published at the Commercial Press.
This book raises the comparison of Chinese and Western languages to the height of way of thinking, discusses the Chinese and Western category concepts from the perspective of language comparison, and provides a philosophical foundation different from that of the West for the construction of Chinese and Chinese theories, which is a major achievement of Chinese grammar research to get rid of the "Indo-European vision".
Highlights from this book are dedicated to readers.
Highlights✦
Wen 丨 Shen Jiaxuan
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One
Four "Chinese Concepts"
The above summarization of the two categories of China and the West from the perspective of language helps us to interpret Chinese concepts more concisely and in a more concise and placed manner from a philosophical height, and get rid of the embarrassing state of "they cannot express themselves, they must be expressed by others" (1). The selection is divided into four points and explains as follows.
(1) This sentence from Marx's "The Eighteenth Day of the Foggy Moon by Louis Bonaparte" was quoted by Saeed as an inscription in "Orientalism".
(1) The unity of heaven and man
Heaven and man are one. This is an extremely important proposition in Chinese philosophy, and anyone who has been influenced by some Western scholarship will raise a question: Since it is "unity", "heaven" and "man" are obviously two names, often referred to as "when the heavens have its own time, people have their rule", Chinese philosophy pays attention to "correct names", making names to refer to the truth, "the same is the same, different is different" ("Xunzi Zhengming"), then what does this "unity" really mean? Zhang Dainian (1995) explained Zhang Zai's use of the eight characters of "Qiankun parents, people's things and things" to express the idea of the unity of heaven and man: "Qiankun is heaven and earth, heaven and earth are the parents of all human beings, and all human beings are produced by heaven and earth and are part of nature." Tang Yijie pointed out that "the unity of heaven and man" cannot be understood as the unity of opposing "people" and "heaven", but should be understood as "man" is a part of "heaven", "the beginning of man, obtained from heaven". This is all about saying that the relationship between "heaven" and "man" is the relationship between heaven and man, and the dynamic "change in" relationship of "life two". Tang Yijie (2013) also believes that the difference between Confucianism and Christianity is that Western Christianity focuses on the problem of external transcendence, it must have a God, the last force for man to be saved comes from God, man himself cannot save himself, and Confucianism does not set an external "God", how people "transcend the saint" is completely dependent on yourself, so Confucius said "for benevolence by oneself, it is up to others to care". (Quoted from Zhao Jia and Chen Anying, 2002) This is actually to say that in the West, the relationship between God and man is a separate relationship, and in China, the relationship between saints and people is a relationship of inclusion and "change in", saints are also people, everyone can be sanctified, and "sanctification" (dynamic concept) is the spiritual place of Chinese philosophy. (Feng Youlan 2013:6)
(2) The body is not two
The body is the same. The concept of body use originates from Indian Buddhism, from the original meaning of Sanskrit, the connotation of "body" refers to both the concrete body, the carrier (Sarīra), and the abstract nature and truth (bhāva), referring to the latter's bhāva in grammatical terms "refers to abstract meanings, concepts, etc.", Song Ming theory of body use, "body" has pointed to a certain abstract existence. (2) Therefore, the relationship between the abstract rule system "grammar" in linguistics and the "usage" of the actual application of words is in philosophy the relationship between "body" and "use". From the mainstream of Chinese philosophy, most philosophers affirm that "the body is not two" and "the body is not separated", and oppose the separation or separation of the body. Cheng Yi's "Easy Transmission Sequence" has two sentences called "the body uses one source, and the microscopy is infinite." But Westerners will ask: Since it is "no two" and "no space", "body" and "use" are obviously two names, "middle school is the body, Western learning is used" (there is also the reverse) The two are opposite, so what does this "no two" and "no difference" mean? In the Zhuzi Language Class, it is said: "Loyalty is the body, forgiveness is use, it is only a thing." If the mouth is the body, the words are used. Do not do one thing with your mouth and do one thing at the end of your speech. Yan Fu said: "The body user, that is, a thing is also concerned." If there is a body of an ox, it is used to carry weight; if there is a body of a horse, it is used to go far. It is not heard that the cow is the body, and the horse is also used. (Yan Fu 1986:558-559) Xiong Shili (2009:7) "The Theory of Body Use" says: "The entity is the functional self", "Outside the function, there is no entity", "There is no body to say without use". From the perspective of the relationship between "Tao" and "instrument", Zhu Xi said that "Dao instrument is also a tool, showing people with an instrument, then the Tao is in it", and "the body use is not two" means that the abstract "Tao" is contained in the figurative "instrument". (Yang Guorong 2014) From the above discussions, it can be seen that the so-called "body use is not two" is actually the meaning of "body inclusion", with the body, the body is in use, there is no body outside the use, so there is no boundary between body and use, "body use without gap".
(2) Reprinted from Shen Shunfu (2016).
(3) Born of nothing
Being born out of nothing. "Being" and "nothing" are also a pair of important concepts in Chinese philosophy, and "being born of nothingness" was put forward by Lao Tzu as an independent proposition, which is of great significance. According to Feng Youlan's interpretation, "Tao" is "nothing" or "nameless", the one from which all things are born, and logically it must be "nothing" before "being", and "being" is born from "nothing". Some people have clearly stated that this is a dynamic "change in" of the inclusion relationship: "nothing" is not nothing, but refers to infinite possibilities, the real meaning of "being born of nothing" is that "'nothing' contains the norm of 'being'", and the concept of "nothing containing being, having born of nothing" is what Lao Tzu called "Tao". (Feng Youlan 2013:94; Chen Xia 2011)
(4) Things are also things
Things are still going on. Chinese philosophy has long noticed the connection between "things" and "things", and When Zheng Xuan said of the "things" in the "University", he said: "Things are still things." This field of theory has been repeatedly endorsed by later philosophers, such as Zhu Xi's inheritance of the above explanation of "things" in the "University Chapters and Sentences", Wang Yangming even said directly that "things are things", and his "things" means "where the intention is". This "thing-thing" concept is directly related to the Chinese language, the Chinese verb is used as a noun (to be the subject and object), Chinese does not feel that it is a problem at all, of course, and the noun is used as a verb (to do the predicate) such as "to cloth people, push eat people" as a problem, said to be "real words are used virtually, dead words are used". This is because Chinese nouns contain verbs, verbs belong to nouns, so of course things are things, belong to things, and the composition of the word "things" shows this, so it is meaningless for Chinese to say "things are things", and it is meaningful to say "things are things" and "things are things" to make sense. The Chinese pattern of "name movement inclusion" also shows that there is no contradiction between the two statements of "things are also things" and "things are not things" (Zhuangzi QiWu Theory). ③
(3) Yang Guorong's (2016) article emphasizes that "matter" refers to "personnel", which also shows that the two statements only focus on different aspects and do not contradict each other.
All of the above, heaven-man, man-saint, use-body, instrument-Tao, nothing-being, matter-thing, these most important paired concepts of Chinese philosophy are dynamic, consisting of the "A and B inclusion" relationship of life and two, and in the minds of Chinese, this kind of inclusive relationship and change in relationship is the norm rather than the abnormal state or transitional state, and the world is originally in this state. From this perspective, the important concept of "he" in Chinese philosophy can be explained more clearly. Feng Youlan said that "and" is not the same as "same", "same" is a simple identity, which will not have rich content, water and then add water, but also just the taste of water; "same" can not tolerate "different", "and" not only can tolerate "different" but also must have "different", in order to call it "and". (Feng Youlan 1998:132, 1999:253) "Harmony and difference" is precisely the Chinese philosophical meaning behind the category view of "A and B contains" as the norm, Chinese the image of the world in mind is not a dualistic division, but a harmonious unity.
Two
Traditional Chinese category view
Finally, it is necessary to clarify that the Chinese view of categories explained in this article is different from the Western dialectical view of "unity of opposites". Some people like to use the Yin-Yang Fish Taiji Diagram to express the difference between the Chinese category concept and the West, where the two ends of Yin and Yang complement each other, and the opposite is mutually exclusive. However, the Yin-Yang Fish Chart was only available in the Southern Song Dynasty, which does not accurately illustrate the traditional Chinese view of categories, and it is easy to give people the illusion of equal treatment of A and B. If it is an equal treatment of relations, Western scholars will say that this can be completely incorporated into the formal logic of the West, in the "logical square" opposites are contradictory relations, treatment is against the relationship, and this treatment relationship can also be incorporated into the Western dialectical concept of "unity of opposites". In the 1930s and 1940s, Zhang Dongsun expressed the difference between China's "treatment" and the West's "opposition": "A and B treatment are interdependent, and the definition cannot be had, it can only be understood by the opposite, which is another set of famous sciences and another system of thought." This expression is close to the expression "A and B contains", because in the "A contains B" pattern, the part A that does not belong to B cannot be defined from the front, for example, in the Chinese "name and motion inclusion" pattern, the part of the noun that does not belong to the verb (that is, the dynamic noun) cannot be defined from the front, and can only be defined by the negative side of "not a verb". (4) However, Zhang Dongsun's expression is not accurate enough, China's "treatment" is not equal treatment, A and B have the difference between the end and the source flow, A is the source, B is the end of the flow, "the original is the original, the source is the origin, the end is derived, and the flow is formed later." (5) The view of the end of the end and the view of the source and the flow of the source are important contents of the traditional Chinese category view, "A and B contain two categories", this expression not only explains the logical origin and the end, but also explains the source and flow in history, and the logical succession is consistent with the historical succession, which is the exact meaning of "treatment".
(4) Chu (1985:16), which abolished the traditional positive definition of nouns "modified by quantifiers" because verbs can also be modified by quantifiers.
(5) See Zhang Dainian (1995) Zhang Wen's remarks on the treatment of "existence" and "phenomena", which should apply to other pairwise categories. See also Zhu Xiaonong (2015).
In short, the two categories proposed and explained in this article from the perspective of language will help us to better "express ourselves" in a wider field and at a higher level, and make the contributions that Chinese scholars should make, which is also what Western scholars who have a considerable understanding of Chinese culture and language are eagerly looking forward to. (See Liu Yiqing in 2014)
(Note: For the convenience of readers, the subtitle of this article is added by the editors of this issue.) ）
Book information
"The Category View of China and the West from the Perspective of Language"
Shen Jiaxuan
Words are the voice of the heart, and the way of thinking determines the way people speak; in turn, the way of speaking also affects the way people think. The author raises the comparison of Chinese and Western languages to the height of way of thinking, discusses the Chinese and Western category views from the comparison of languages, and provides a philosophical foundation different from that of the West for the construction of Chinese and Chinese theories. Compared with Indo-European language, which is the relationship of "name and action separation", with verbs as the center, the seven papers included in this book discuss from different angles that Chinese is the relationship of "name and motion inclusion", based on nouns, verbs belong to nouns, and nouns contain verbs. The author's theory is self-consistent and concise, close to the reality of Chinese, and is a major achievement of Chinese grammar research to get rid of the "Indo-European vision".
Contents
The division of English-Chinese negative words and the division of noun movements
How to compare is convincing
——Take the comparison of English and Chinese names as an example
The logic of the Chinese language is like this, the Chinese language is like this
——The second for the 120th anniversary of the birth of Mr. Zhao Yuanren
From the perspective of language, we look at the category view of the West
Does Chinese have a "subject-verb structure"
Problems caused by the attachment of the "subject-predicate structure"
English-Chinese differences in mindset
Appendix: The Expression of Logical Elements
About the Author
Shen Jiaxuan is a famous contemporary linguist, a member of the Department of Literature, History and Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and a former director of the Institute of Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (1999-2009). His research interests include English-Chinese comparative grammar, grammatical theory, pragmatic and cognitive studies of Chinese grammar, and psycholinguistics of slips of mouth. He has published dozens of papers, reviews, book reviews, etc. at home and abroad, mainly including "Bounded" and "Unbounded", "Comparison of English-Chinese Prepositions", "Cases of Oral Errors", etc., monographs such as "Asymmetry and Marking Theory", "Nouns and Verbs", "Beyond subject-verb structure", etc., and translations include "Introduction to Language", "Language Commonality and Language Type", etc.