Aristotle in China
Language, Categories and Translation

The author explores the relation between language and thought, referring to a Chinese translation of Aristotle's Categories.

Robert Wardy (Author)

9780521028479, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 November 2006

184 pages, 2 b/w illus.
24.4 x 19 x 1.1 cm, 0.337 kg

'… we in Chinese studies clearly owe a considerable debt to Robert Wardy, and hope that he will find other examples of cultural intercommunication between the classical tradition of Western philosophy and China with which to beguile our increasingly rare moments of reflection.' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society

In this book, Robert Wardy, a philosopher and classicist, turns his attention to the relation between language and thought. He explores this huge topic in an analysis of linguistic relativism, with specific reference to a reading of the ming li t'an ('The Investigation of the Theory of Names'), a seventeenth-century Chinese translation of Aristotle's Categories. Throughout his investigation, Wardy addresses important questions. Do the basis structures of language shape the major thought-patterns of its native speakers? Could philosophy be guided and constrained by the language in which it is done? What factors, from grammar and logic to cultural and religious expectations, influence translation? And does Aristotle survive rendition into Chinese intact? His answers will fascinate philosphers, Sinologists, classicists, linguists and anthropologists, and will make a major contribution to the existing literature.

Preface
Part I. The China Syndrome: Language, Logical Form, Translation: 1. Introduction
2. Guidance and constraint
3. On the very idea of translation
4. Case-study 1: conditionals
5. Case-study 2: Chinese is a list
6. Logical form
7. Case-study 3: being
8. Case-study 4: truth
9. Case-study 5: nouns and ontology
10. Conclusion
Part II. Aristotelian whispers: 11. Introduction
12. What's in a name?
13. Disputation, discrimination, inference
14. The need for logic
15. Finite and infinite
16. The simple and the complex
17. All the things there are
18. How many questions? 19. Relatively speaking
20. Particular and general
21. Translating the untranslatable
Epilogue
Glossary
References
Index.

Subject Areas: History of science [PDX]