Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T07:00:17.609Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Chinese Ideographs and Western Ideas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Chad Hansen
Get access

Extract

It began with the Phoenicians. Most written languages now use their invention— a phonetic alphabet. The invention of alphabetic writing escorted an influential theory of language onto the intellectual stage. Aristotle expressed the basic outline of that theory, which has since dominated Indo-European views of language:

Now spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, and written marks symbols of the spoken sounds. And just as written marks are not the same for all men, neither are spoken sounds. But what these are in the first place signs of—affections in the soul—are the same for all; and what these affections are likenesses of— actual things-are also the same.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , May 1993 , pp. 373 - 399
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Aristotle, . Categoriae and De Interpretatione. Trans, with notes by Ackrill, J. L.. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1963.Google Scholar
Bodde, Derk. 1981. Essays on Chinese Civilization. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Boltz, William. 1985. “Desultory Notes on Language and Semantics in Ancient China.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 105.2:309–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boltz, William. 1986. “Review of The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy by John DeFrancis.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.2:405–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boodberg, Peter. 1937. “Some Proleptical Remarks on the Evolution of Archaic Chinese.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 2.1:329–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boodberg, Peter. 1940. “Ideography or Iconolatry?” T'oung Pao 35:266–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chan, Wing-Tsit. 1986. Neo-Confucian Terms Explained. New York: Columbia University Press, xi-277.Google Scholar
Cikoski, John S. 1970. Classical Chinese Word Classes. New Haven Conn.: Yale University Thesis.Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. M.I.T. Press, 1965.Google Scholar
DeFrancis, John. 1984. The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press, pp. 330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeFrancis, John. 1989. Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems. Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press, pp. 306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forrest, R. A. D. 1948. The Chinese Language. London: Faber and Faber.Google Scholar
Geschwind, Norman. 1972. “Language and the Brain.” Scientific American (August 1972), pp. 77–83.Google ScholarPubMed
Graham, Angus. 1978. Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science. Hong Kong and London: Chinese University Press.Google Scholar
Graham, Angus. 1989. Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court.Google Scholar
Hansen, Chad. June 1975. “Ancient Chinese Theories of Language.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 2.3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Chad. 1983. Language and Logic in Ancient China. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, Chad. 1985. “Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy, and ‘Truth’.” The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol XLIV, No. 3 (May):491–519.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Chad. 1989. “Two Philosophical Dictionaries: A Review of Neo-Confucian Terms Explained and Chinese Philosophical Terms.” Philosophy East and West 39, No. 2. (April):201–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Chad 1992. A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Harris, Roy. 1986. The Origin of Writing. LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court.Google Scholar
Hayakawa, S. I. 1939. Language in Thought and Action. New York: Harcourt Brace and World.Google Scholar
Kaplan, David. 1990. “Words.” Aristotelian Society, Supplemental Proceedings, Vol. 64:93–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karlgren, Bernhard. 1966. Grammata Serica. Taipei: Chengwen Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Keightley, David N. 1989. “The Origins of Writing in China: Scripts and Cultural Contexts.” In Senner, Wayne, ed., The Origins of Writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 171–202.Google Scholar
Kitcher, Philip. 1987. “Why Not the Best?” In Dupr, J., ed., The Latest on the Best. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, pp. 77–102.Google Scholar
Kripke, Saul. 1972. “Naming and Necessity.” In Harman, Gilbert and Davidson, Donald, eds., Semantics of Natural Language. Dordrecht: D. Reidel.Google Scholar
Kripke, Saul. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lesser, Ruth. 1989. Linguistic Investigations of Aphasia: Studies in Disorders of Communication, Second Edition. London: Cole and Whurr, Ltd.Google Scholar
Lyons, John. 1981. Language and Linguistics. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mozi, . 1973. Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series. Taipei: Chinese Materials and Service Center, Inc.Google Scholar
Nagel, Thomas. 1987. What Does it all Mean? A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. 1960. Word and Object. Cambridge: The Mit Press.Google Scholar
Ramsey, S. Robert. 1987. The Languages of China. Princeton, Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Rosemont, Henry. January, 1970. “On Representing Abstractions in Chinese Thought.” Philosophy East and West 24, 1:71–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sacks, Oliver. 1990. Seeing Voices. HarperCollins Publishers, New York.Google Scholar
Schnitzer, R. 1976. “The Role of Phonology in Linguistic Communication: Some Neurological Considerations.” In Whitaker, H. and Whitaker, H. A., eds., Studies in Neurolinguistics, Vol I. New York: Academic.Google Scholar
Schwartz, Benjamin. 1985. The World of Thought in Ancient China. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, Stephen P. 1977. Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Stitch, Stephen. 1983. From Folk Psychology to Cognitive Science: The Case Against Belief. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stitch, Stephen. 1990. The Fragmentation of Reason. Cambridge: Mit Press.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig Anscombe, trans. 1960. The Blue and Brown Books. New York: Harper Torchbooks.Google Scholar
Wu, Yi. 1986. Chinese Philosophical Terms. Lanham, Md: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Yu, Yu. 1967. Zhongguo Mingxue. Taipei: World Book Co.Google Scholar
Zhuangzi, . 1956. Harvard Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series, No. 20. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar