Title: Dialectics in Chinese Philosophy: The Case of *Mìng xùn
Speaker: Dirk Meyer
Abstract:
This paper looks at the way a philosophical argument is developed in *Mìng xùn, a recently obtained, fourth century manuscript text from the Tsinghua collection of Chǔ Warring States texts. The text has a close counterpart in the YìZhōushū, which classes it as an utterance in the tradition of Shū (Documents). I analyse the strategies with which meaning is produced in *Mìng xùn and suggest that the text is articulated in a dialectic manner in which the philosophical premise seeks to test itself continuously to avoid becoming doctrine, and thus philosophically void. My choice of a Shūtext as an example of philosophically relevant meaning construction in early China challenges current methodology, which anachronistically considers zǐ-type literature (the Masters) as a disciplinary equivalent to Philosophy in ancient Greece. I argue that since philosophically relevant activities are a non-disciplinary praxis in early China, the articulations of this praxis are also not genre specific but found across the foundational literary texts of China.