Name and Actuality in Early Chinese Thought

307 Pages·1994·15.655 MB·English

by  John Makeham

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NAMEA NDA CTUALYI T
INE ARLCYH INETSHEO UGHT
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IIIlllI IlIIlI IIlIII IIIlIII Il 11I11 I1 II 1I 1 1 I11 11111
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SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture
David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, editors
NAME
AND
ACTUALITY
IN
EARLY CHINESE
THOUGHT
john Makeham
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS
Published by
StateUniversity ofNewYork Press, Albany
© 1994 State University ofNewYork
All rights reserved
Printedin theUnited States ofAmerica
No part ofthis bookmay be used or reproduced
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exceptin the case ofbriefquotations embodied in
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Forinformation, address State University ofNewYork Press,
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Production by Cathleen Collins
Marketing by Bernadette LaManna
LibraryofCongress Cataloging in Publication Data
Makeham,John, 1955—
Name and actuality in early Chinese thought/John Makeham.
p. cm.—(SUNYseries in Chinese philosophy and culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBNO-7914—1983-5.—ISBN 0-7914—1984-3 (pbk.)
1. Philosophy, Chinese—221 B.C.—960A.D. 2. Hsii, Kan, 170—217—
Criticism and interpretation. I. Title. II. Series.
B126.M34 1994
181'.112—ClC20 93-31922
CIP
10987654321
For Seguier McCoy

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
Part One Xu Gan’s new); ofNaming
1 Xu Gan’s Appropriation of the Name and
Actuality Polarity
PartTwo ThePhilosophicalBackground
2 Confucius and the Correction of Names 35
3 NominalistTheories ofNaming in the Neo-Mohist
Summa and Xun Zi
Han Fei’s Xing Ming Thinking and Ming Shi 67
The Emergence of Correlative Theories of Naming
in Guan Zi and Chun Qiu Fan Lu 85
PartThree TheSoda-intellectualBackground
6 Mingjiao in the Eastern Han 99
Word without a Message: Classical Scholarship in
7
the Eastern I-lan 113
Part Four TheApplication ofXu Gan’5 Theory ofNaming
8 The Cosmological-cum-Ethical Implications of
Name and Actuality Being in Accord or Disaccord 129
Conclusion 145
Appendices
A History of the Text 153
vii
viii c/a Contents
Zhuang Zi’s Scepticism about Names and
Naming 160
Zheng Ming: A Legalist Interpolation? 163
An Etymological Note on the Xing 1H] Graph 166
On the Dating of the “Xin Shu Shang,” “Xin
Shu Xia,” and “Bai Xin” Pian of Guan Zi 170
The Meaning of Mingjiao 172
An Outline ofthe Old Text School—New Text
School Rivalry in the Han Dynasty 179
Examples of Xu Gan’s Classical Eclecticism 184
i—t From Names and Actualities to Names and
Principles 191
Notes 195
Bibliography 261
Index 283
Acknowledgments
IN WRITING THIS BOOK, I have received support and encourage
ment from many people. In particular, I would like to express my
thanks to the following people who, at various stages in the manu
script’s gestation, have given me feedback, in the form of advice and
criticism, on the work in whole or in part: Roger T. Ames, Noel
Barnard, Chi-yun Chen, Rafe de Crespigny, K. H. J. Gardiner, Bill
Jenner, Patricia Makeham, Kaji Nobuyuki, Donald Leslie, Seguier
McCoy, Yang Youwei, and the three readers for SUNY Press. I would
also like to thank my wife, Li-chin, for giving me the freedom to
devote myself quite selfishly to the task of writing and for my son,
Henry, for putting-up with a father who was there but not there.
ix