The confucian politics of appearance-and its impact on Chinese humor

Philosophy East and West

Volumn 54, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 514-532

  Weihe, Xu ^a  

^a MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33846502458     PISSN: 00318221     EISSN: 15291898     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/pew.2004.0025     Document Type: Article

References (36)

1. Lin Yutang, "Youmo zahua," in Lin Yutang xuanji, Dushu yuwen (Taipei: Dushu Chubanshe, 1969), pp. 173, 177, and his introduction to Chinese Wit and Humor, ed. George Kao (New York: Coward-McCann, 1946), p. xxxi.
2. See David R. Knechtges, "Wit, Humor, and Satire in Early Chinese Literature (to A.D. 220)," Monumenta Serica 29 (1971): 81;
3. Yan Guanglin, Xiao: Jinchi yu danbo (Tianjin: Guoji Wenhua Chubangongsi, 1989), pp. 28, 113, 115;
4. and Chen Xiaoying, Youmo de aomi (Beijing: Zhongguo Xiju Chubanshe, 1989), pp. 159, 161.
5. Xun Kuang, "Xing'e pian," in Xunzi, ed. Geng Yun (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 1996), p. 255. All quotations from the Xunzi are taken from this edition.
6. The Oxford English Dictionary, prepared by J. A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), vol. 1, p. 566. The Latin root of "appear" is apparere, which means "to come into sight" or "come forth," and is thus akin to the Greek peparein, "to display" (Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, ed. David B. Guralnik [New York and Cleveland: World Publishing Company, 1972], p. 66).
7. "Xici shang," in Zhouyi quanyi, ed. Xu Zihong (Guiyangshi: Guizhou Renmin Chubanshe, 1991), p. 366. All quotations from the Zhouyi are taken from this edition and are hereafter cited as "Zhouyi." It is only accurate to call the "Yi zhuan" a Confucian classic, rather than the hexagrams and the two interpretive texts, that is, the "Guaci" and "Yaoci," which comprise the so-called "Jing-wen" of the Zhouyi, because the latter texts came into being probably long before Confucius was born. The so-called "Yi zhuan," as the tradition has it, came from Confucius' hand.
8. "Yue ji," in Li ji, ed. Zhang Wenxiu (Beijing Yanshan Chubanshe, 1995), p. 263. All quotations from the Li ji are taken from this edition.
9. The Oxford English Dictionary, 11 :674.
10. For this sense of qing, see A. C. Graham, Later Mohist Notes: Ethics and Science (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1978), pp. 179-182.
11. , and his Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (La Salle: Open Court, 1989), pp. 98, 478.
12. Cf. Guodian Chumu zhujian (Beijing: Wenwu Chubanshe, 1998), p. 13; A
13. A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, trans, and comp. Wing-Tsit Chan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 183, 184, 245, 246, 499, 524
14. and Kenneth K. S. Ch'en, Buddhism: The Light of Asia (Woodbury and New York: Barron's Educational Series, 1968), pp. 161-163.
15. Cf. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, chap. 3, "Analytic of Principles."
16. Cf. "Tiandao," in Zhuangzi quanyi, p. 236, wherein the author unequivocally negates appearances' necessary manifestation of reality/truth.
17. Kenneth K. S. Ch'en, Buddhism, pp. 163-164.
18. Cf. Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, trans. Derk Bodde (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), vol. 1, p. 390.
19. Moreover, Franklin M. Doeringer holds that "the formless" or "the ultimate" and "the formed," "the phenomenal," or "the nonultimate" constitute the two aspects of reality that the authors of the "Xici" envisioned, and compares them to Mircea Eliade's "the nonmanifest" or "chaos" and "the manifest" or "cosmos." See Franklin M. Doeringer, "The Gate in the Circle: A Paradigmatic Symbol in Early Chinese Cosmology," Philosophy East and West 32 (3) (July 1982): 310, 315, 316.
20. Needham might also have had this in mind when he remarked that the Zhouyi "led to a stylisation of concepts almost analogous to the stylisations which have in some ages occurred in art forms, and which finally prevented painters from looking at Nature at all." See Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, 2:336.
21. Guodian Chumu zhujian, p. 180, 183.
22. Stephen Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought (Cambridge [MA] and London: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 21.
23. Stephen Owen has also given an insightful discussion of the subject. See Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought, pp. 19-23.
24. Chad Hansen, "Freedom and Moral Responsibility in Confucian Ethics," Philosophy East and West 32 (2) (April 1972): 173, 174.
25. "Hongfan," in Jinguwen Shangshu quanyi, ed. Jiang Hao (Guiyangshi: Guizhou Renmin Chubanshe, 1990), p. 235. All quotations from this work are taken from this edition and hereafter cited as Shangshu.
26. Xu Gan, "Faxiang," in Zhong lun, in Congshu jicheng chubian, ed. Wang Yunwu (Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1939), vol. 530, pp. 2-3. All quotations from the Zhong lun are taken from this edition.
27. T'ung-tsu Ch'u, Law and Society in Traditional China (Paris: Mouton, 1961), pp. 226-230;
28. Donald J. Munro, The Concept of Man in Early China (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1969), pp. 23-29;
29. Benjamin I. Schwartz, The World of Thought in Ancient China (Cambridge [MA] and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 68;
30. Karyn L. Lai, "Confucian Moral Thinking," in Philosophy East and West 45 (2) (April 1995): 263.
31. Lai, "Confucian Moral Thinking," pp. 251-253.
32. Xun Kuang, "Zhengming pian," in Xunzi, p. 234.
33. See Ban Gu, Han shu (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1990), vol. 9, p. 2616.
34. Zhanguo ce, juan 21, ed. Liu Xiang (Shanghai: Shanghai Guji Chubanshe, 1998), vol. 1, p. 757.
35. Feng Menglong, Gu jin xiao (Shijiazhuang: Hebei Renmin Chubanshe, 1985), p. 9.
36. William James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (New York, London, and Bombay: Longmans Green and Co., 1905), p. 25.