Table Of ContentSINICA LEIDENSIA
EDITED BY
E. ZURCHER
IN COOPERATIONWITH
P.K. BOL • C. HARBSMEIER • W.L. IDEMA
D.R. KNECHTGES • D. KUHN· E.S. RAWSKI
H.T. ZURNDORFER
VOLUME XXXIII
TIME AND SPACE
IN CHINESE CULTURE
EDITED BY
CHUN-CHIEH HUANG
AND
ERIK ZURCHER
K]. BRILL
LEIDEN .NEW YORK' KOLN
'c..
1995
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CONTENTS
SETTINGTHE STAGE
CHUN-CHIEHHUANGAND ERIKZURCHER, Cultural Notions of
Space andTime in China 3
DMSION ONE: CULTURALFRAMEWORK
KUANG-MINGWu, Spatiotemporal Interpenetration in Chinese ......
Thinking 17
DMSIONTWO: CULTURALENRICHMENTS
PartOne: On Time andSpace
CHRISTOPHHARBSMEIER, Some Notions ofTime and ofHistory
in Chinaand in theWest 49
CHUN-CHIEHHUANG, HistoricalThinkingin Classical
Confucianism-HistoricalArgumentation from the Three
Dynasties 72
PartTwo: Time andSpace as Lived
LI-CHENLIN, The Notions ofTime and Position in the Book Vi
ofChangeand TheirDevelopment '.:. 89
KIuSTOFERSCHIPPER, The InnerWorld ofthe Lao-tzuchung-
ching 114
ERIKZURCHER, "In the Beginning": 17th-CenturyChinese
Reactions to Christian Creationism 132
PartThree: Time andSpace as Managed
A.To QuantifyorNotto Quantify
CATHERINEJAMI,Western Devicesfor MeasuringTime and
Space: Clocks and Euclidian Geometryin Late Mingand
Ch'ingChina 169
EDUARDB.VERMEER, NotionsofTime and Space in The Early
Ch'ing: TheWriters ofKuYen-wu, Hsu Hsia-k'o, Ku Tsu-yu
and ChangHsiieh-ch'eng 201
vi CONTENTS
B.To "Spatialize" and to "Temporalize"
\) PAO-CHEN CHEN, Time and Space in Chinese Narrative Paint-
ings ofHan and the SixDynasties 239
LLOYD HAFr, Timeless in Time: Perspective-BuildingDevices
in Yang Ling-yeh'sPoetry 287
PartFour: Effects ofTime and Space
A. Effects ofTime andSpace on the PoliticalArena
MICHAELLOEWE, The CycleofCathay: Concepts ofTimein Han "
Chinaand TheirProblems 305
CHANG-TZEHu, HistoricalTime Pressure:An Analysis ofMin
Pao(1905-1908) 329
B.Effects ofTime and Space on OurLife
CHI-P'ENGHo, The Lamentfor Autumn: AType ofTime
Space Consciousnessin the Traditiori ofChinese
Literature 343
WILTL. IDEMA, Time and Space in Traditional ChineseHis-
torical Fiction 362
Division Three: Cultural Embodiments
J
YIH-~
LI,Notions ofTime, Space and Harmonyin Chinese
Popular Culture 383
Contributors 399
SETTINGTHE STAGE
CULTURAL NOTIONS OFTIME AND SPACEIN CHINA
Chun-chieh HuangandErikZurcher
This volume tells a great story ofhow peculiarly, concretely Chi
nese the notions of "time" and "space" are in Chinese culture
and, conversely, how these peculiarlyChinese notions oftime and
space mould a grand living tradition called Chinese culture. And
howsignificantthis story is,aswell aswhatcharacteristics this story
exhibits, is to be considered in this introductory essaythat sets the
stagefor whatisto follow.
A."TIME"AND"SPACE"ASCULTURALNOTIONS
Aswe all know, time (then, now) and space (here, there) are the
indispensable overall forms of human mind to organize sense
data from the outside world, so as to intelligibly mould our expe
rience. Kant made a big splash over them, saying that space and
time serve as the "forms" of "intuition" to shape our human
categorial experience.1 "Intuition" here is something "transcen
dental," that is, among others, general, a-historical, a-cultural, in
differently sharedby all human beings as long as they are ration
ally human. Such in our Western, commonsense understanding
ofthe notions oftime andspace.
But "transcendental" mean something pertaining to the sub
ject, and the subjectisthe Iwhich byits nature cannotbe general
ized.2 The I-in-general does not exist any more than does the
"every"-in-generaI. The "I" isalwayssituation-specific, alwaysa spe
cific I in a specific cultural space and a specific cultural time. And
1 See ImmanuelKant, CritiqueofPureReason,from A20=B34to A49=B73,Cf.
Norman Kemp Smith, Immanuel Kant's Critique ofPure Reason, NY: St. Martin's
Press,1929,1965,pp. 65-91.Interestingly,Kant took"forms ofintuition"asthose
of "space and time," whereas the Chinese people take them to be "time and
space" (shihk'ung).
2,.To council us here on Kant's distinction between the empirical I and the
transcendentalego merelybegs the question. Forourobservation-thatthe I,in
whatever sense, cannot be generalized-cuts beneath the Kantian distinction
which simplyassumes that the I canbe generalized. Such a counsel merelybull
dozes over theincorrigiblespecificity ofthe Ithateven logiciansrecognizewhen
theyclassifythe Iasakeyexampleof"demonstratives,""indexicalwords," etc. Cf.
PalleYourgrau,ed., Demonstratives,OxfordUniversityPress, 1990.
4 CHUN-CHIEH HUANGAND ERIKZURCHER
so whatneither KantnorourWestern common sense did notice is
the simple fact that these very spatio-temporal "forms," precisely
because they are "transcendental," are not of "intuition" in
general at all. Instead, these "forms" ofour thinking and experi
ence are themselves concretely and variously crafted by our vari
ous cultural modes ofthinking and behaving, "cultural mode" in
the widest sense of our mores and customs, accustomed ways of .
J moving and styles of living. The spatiotemporal "forms of intui
II tion" are ones that are themselves historically and culturally
l
contextualized.
In otherwords, the "form" ofspace-time in which we live, move
and have our experience, is itselfshaped by the way in which we
live, move and have our experiential being, and this our mode of
living is called "culture" in all its historical depths and regional
riches. Culture isthe womb ofourbeing "human," the universe of
discourse in which our experience makes sense and distinguishes
itself as humanly meaningful, not a mere spewing forth of
animality. Human culture isthen theform ofthose forms ofspace
and time. And there isno such thing as culture-in-general, either;
"culture" is alwaysin the plural, as divetse asworld history attests.
Asa result, there are as many kinds offorms ofspace and time as
there are cultures, because there are as many kinds ofhuman ex
perience, moulded by those spatiotemporal forms, as there are
cultures.
One ofthe peculiar modes ofhuman living in the world is the
Chinese culture, a thoroughly concrete and reasonable culture.
How peculiarly concrete and reasonable it is, is meticulously ex
hibited and brought outin this volume, concretelyspecifyingvari
ous modes in which the notions oftime and space are taken and
lived through the widths and breadths ofChina, in the various pe
riods and regions ofChinese culture.
B.DIVISIONS ONEAND Two
And so, this volume tells a grand story ofhow the notions oftime
and space came to be peculiarly Chinese, as they on their part
pervaded and moulded that great living tradition called Chinese
culture.
To begin with, in Division One Professor Wu descf~pes how
thinking in Chinese culture is itselftimed and spaced-l~irst,Chi
r
nese thinking concretely moves from the familiar here to the
