Science and Civilisation in China: Volume 7, Part 1: Language and Logic

500 Pages·1998·91.112 MB·

by  Joseph Needham, Christoph Harbsmeier

THE PICTUREOFTHETAOIST GENIIPRINTEDONTHE COVER
of thisbook is part of apainted temple scroll,recentbut traditional, given to
Mr BrianHarlandinSzechuanprovince(1946).Concerningthesefourdivini-
ties, of respectable rank in the Taoist bureaucracy. the following particulars
have been handed down. The title of the first of the four signifies ‘Heavenly
Prince’.that of the other three ‘l\=‘1ysterious Commander’.
At the tep,ontheleft, isLiu Titian Chain,Comptroller-GeneralofCropsand
“feather. Before his deification (so it was said) he was a rain-making magi-
cianandweatherforecasternamedLiuChiln,borninthe Chindynastyabout
+340.Among his attributesmay be seen the sunand moon, andameasuring-
rod or carpenter’ssquare. The two great luminaries imply the makingof the
calendar, so important for a primarily agricultural society, the efforts, ever
renewed,toreconcilecelestialperiodicities.Thecarpenter’ssquareisnoordi-
nary tool, but the gnomon for measuring the lengths of the sun’s solstitial
shadows.The Comptroller-General alsocarries abell because inancientand
medievaltimesthere wasthought to be a closeconnectionbetween calendri-
cal calculations and the arithmetical acoustics ofbells and pitch-pipes.
Atthet0p,ontheright,isW'én Yuan Slmaz‘,IntendantoftheSpiritualOfficials
ofthe SacredMountain,Thai Shan. Hewastakentobe anincarnation of one
of the Hour-Presidents (C/zia She-n), i.e., tutelary deities of the twelve cycli-
calcharacters(seeVol.4,pt. 2,p.440). Duringhisearthlypilgrimagehisname
was HuanTzu-Yii andhe was ascholarand astronomerinthe LaterHan(b.
+142). Heis seen holding an armillary ring.
Below, on the left, is Kou Yuan Shuai, Assistant Secretary of State in the
Ministry of Thunder. Heistherefore alate emanation of avery ancientgod,
Lei Kung. Before he became deified he was Hsin Hsing. apoor woodcutter,
but nodoubtanincarnation ofthe spiritoftheconstellation Kou-Chhen(the
Angular Arranger), part ofthe group ofstarswhichwe know as Ursa Minor.
Heis equipped with hammer and chisel.
Below,onthe right, is Pi Yuan Shuai, Commanderof the Lightning,with his
flashing sword, a deity with distinct alchemical and cosmological interests.
According totradition, in hisearly lifehewas acountrymanwhose namewas
ThienHua.Togetherwiththecolleagueonhisright,hecontrolledthe Spirits
of the Five Directions.
Suchis the legendary folklore of commonmen canonised by popular aeclama-
tion. An interesting scroll. of no great artistic merit, destined to decorate a
temple wall, to be looked upon by humble people, it symbolises something
which this book has to say. Chinese art and literature have been so profuse,
Chinesemythologicalimagerysofertile,thattheW'esthasoftenmissedother
aspects, perhaps more important, of Chinese civilisation. Here the graduat-
ed scale of Liu Chiin, at first sight unexpected in this setting, reminds us of
theever-presenttheme ofquantitativemeasurementin Chineseculture;there
were rain-gauges already in the Sung (+12th century) and sliding calipers in
the Han (+1st). The armillary ring of Huan Tzu-Yii bears witness that
Naburiannu and Hipparchus, al-Naqqash and Tycho, had worthy counter-
parts in China. The tools of Hsin Hsing symbolise that great empirical tra~
ditionwhichinformedtheworkofChineseartisansandtechniciansallthrough
the ages.
SCIENCE AND CIVILISATION
IN CHINA
V'Vang Shouwastravellingalongwithwrittenmaterials on
his back.At abig crossroadshe caughtsightofHsu Fang.
SaidHsiiFéng:‘Conductconsistsofactions.Actions arise
from circumstaiute. The person who knows has no con-
stantpatternofconduct.Booksconsistofsayings. Sayings
arise from knowing. Thcrciorc the knowing person does
not keep written materials. V'Vhy are you travelling along
with these things onyourback?"At this point Wang Shou
burnt hiswrittenmaterialsanddancedroundthebonfire.
HAN FRI, 21—454

JOSEPH NEEDHAM
SCIENCE AND
CIVILISATION IN
CHINA
VOLUME 7
PART I: LANGUAGE AND LOGIC
BY
CHRSISTOPHTHARBSMEIER
_ 0.5FEATECROPEAVAND
ORIENTAL STUDIES”NIV'ERSI'l OF OSLO
EDITEEEEE
KENNETH ROBINSON
a a CAMBRIDGE
as E? UNIVERSITYPRESS
PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE or THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
ThePitt.Building,TrumpingtonStreet,CambridgeCB2IRP,UnitedKingdom
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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40“est20thStreet,NewYork,NY I001I421I,USA
10StamfordRoad,Oaklcigh,Melbourne3166,Australia
CC?Can'lljiridgeUniversityPressI998
Thisbookisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception
andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements,
noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithout
thewrittenperrnissitmofCambridgeUniversityPress.
FirstpublishedI998
PrintedintheUnitedKingdomattheUniversity Press,Cambridge
'l'ypesetinBaskervilleM'l'1125/Igpt,inQuarkl‘il’rcerisTM [GR]
Acatalogueracom’jiirthis“bookisamifablefmmtheBritish.Library
ISon5~157143 X hardback
JosephNeedham
(1900"1995)
SCIENCE AND CIVILISATION IN CHINA
“Certainitisthat nopeople orgroup ofpeopleshashad amonopoly in
contributingto the developmentofScience.Their achievementsshould
be mutually recognised and freely celebrated with thejoined hands of
universalbrotherhood”
.S‘rienceandCiailz'sationinChinaVOLUME 1, PREFACE.
JosephNeedhamdirectlysupervisedthepublicationof17booksinthe Scienceand
Civil-imam:in Chinaseries,fromthefirstvolume,which appearedin 1954,through
tovolume 6.3,whichwasinpressatthetimeofhisdeathinMarch1995.
Theplanningandpreparationoffurthervolumeswillcontinue.Responsibility
for the commissioningand approvalofwork for publication in the series isnow
taken by the Publications Board of the Needham Research Institute in Cam-
bridge, under the chairmanship ofDr. Christopher Cullen,who acts asgeneral
editoroftheseries.
To
ANGUS CHARLES GRAHAM.
8July1919-26l\-'Iarch 1991
philosopher,poet,teacherandfriend
thisvolumeisrespectfully
dedicated
xn CONTENTS
(6) Logicalpractice,[2.261
(I) Argumentation andrationalityinancientChina,,0.261
(2) SomeformsofargumentinancientChina,,0.278
(f) Logicaltheory,,0.286
(I) TéngHsiandHuiShih,p.286
(2) KungsunLungandtheWhite HorseDialogue,p.298
(3} Hst'mTzu’slogic,p. 321
(4) LaterMohistlogic,p.326
(5) ChinesereactionstoancientChinesedisputationandlogic,f).345
(6) Logicalthoughtinthe +3rdcentury,p.353
(g) ChineseBuddhistlogic,p.358
(I) TheevolutionofBuddhistlogic,f).358
k
(2) ThesystemofBuddhistlogic,P-367
(3) Theargumentforconsciousnessonly,1‘).392
{4) Thetranslationoflogic.fromSanskrittoChinese,f). 396
(5) ContraSISbetween ‘yinming’andAristotelianlogic,p.404
(/2) Concludingreflections,p.408
BIBLIOGRAPHIES page421
Abbreviations,p.422
A. ChineseandJapanesebooksbefore +1800,,0.423
B. ChineseandJapanesebooks andjournal articlessince +1800,,0.432
C. BooksandjournalarticlesinWesternlanguages,p.440
GENERAL INDEX page458
721516qu'lzz'nereDynasties 480
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
The follox-ving abbreviations are used in the text. For abbreviationsused forjour-
nalsandsimilarpublicationsinthebibliographies,seepp.4223.
LSCC Lit8/1272Chhun Chit-272i
.NP ..:’\_"j-‘Q)-=apmaes'a
SECS SmK721i C/z/zz'ianSim
.S'PP'l‘” Sis‘u-pu—pei—yao
SPTK Ssu—pu—ts/mng—khan
H77" I-"i-"i?n.—ti( TaleUniversity)
l-"l-"l’"I-’l-’If Himyou-wen~lt/zu
xiii