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Description

Jane Geaney argues that early Chinese conceptions of speech and naming cannot be properly understood if viewed through the dominant Western philosophical tradition in which language is framed through dualisms that are based on hierarchies of speech and writing, such as reality/appearance and one/many. Instead, early Chinese texts repeatedly create pairings of sounds and various visible things. This aural/visual polarity suggests that texts from early China treat speech as a bodily practice that is not detachable from its use in everyday experience. Firmly grounded in ideas about bodies from the early texts themselves, Geaney’s interpretation offers new insights into three key themes in these texts: the notion of speakers’ intentions (yi), the physical process of emulating exemplary people, and Confucius’s proposal to rectify names (zhengming).

ISBN

9781438468617

Publication Date

2018

Publisher

State University of New York Press

City

Albany

Keywords

China, Chinese language, culture, history, philosophy

School

School of Arts and Sciences

Department

Religious Studies

Disciplines

East Asian Languages and Societies | Philosophy

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Read the introduction to the book by clicking the Download button above.

[Introduction to] Language as Bodily Practice in Early China: A Chinese Grammatology

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