Pre-Qin Rhetoric and Its “Chinese” Characteristics

Extrême-Orient Extrême-Occident 34 (2012): 5–14., 2012

Early Chinese thought enjoys a wide appeal, in the scholarly world as much as elsewhere, as people are keen on learning about the ideas of Confucius, Mencius, and other thinkers whose views have shaped traditional Chinese culture. In the study of early Chinese thought, emphasis has long been on what thinkers said, not on how they proffered their views. Even studies that do consider the how, tend to focus on logic and argumentation, rather than rhetoric. Fortunately, in the past few decades growing attention has been paid to Chinese rhetoric which has led to an impressive number of publications. This publication feeds into the current debate on Chinese rhetoric by exploring facets that have hitherto been underemphasized, if explored at all.

[Extrême orient Extrême occident], 2012

According to Cicero (Brutus: 46-48), Aristotle identifies the "inventors" of rhetoric as two logographers (speechwriters) named Corax and Tisias, who taught citizens the art of speech in order to reclaim expropriated property, and later composed the first rhetorical handbooks. 3.

Extrême-Orient, Extr ême-Occident 34 (2012), 195 – 208, 2012

L’art de la persuasion politique en Chine ancienne. Les auteurs explorent les stratégies de prise de parole, analysent le développement de procédés stylistiques dans le contexte de l’idéologie monarchiste et impériale. L’originalité de ces études consiste dans la perspective aménagée : il s’agit d’analyser non pas ce que les penseurs et hommes d’État de Chine ancienne ont dit, mais de comprendre comment et pourquoi ils l’ont dit de telle ou telle façon. Il est aussi question de comprendre comment les conceptions politiques de la Chine ancienne ont orienté le développement de la rhétorique et de l’art de bien écrire. Ce numéro est exceptionnellement rédigé en langue anglaise

Literary Forms of Argument in Early China, 2015

Defining Boundaries and Relations of Textual Units: Examples from the Literary Tool-Kit of Early Chinese Argumentation 112 Joachim Gentz 5 The Philosophy of the Analytic Aperçu 158 Christoph Harbsmeier 6 Speaking of Poetry: Pattern and Argument in the "Kongzi Shilun" 175 Martin Kern 7 Structure and Anti-Structure, Convention and Counter-Convention: Clues to the Exemplary Figure's (Fayan) Construction of Yang Xiong as Classical Master 201 Michael Nylan 8 A Ragbag of Odds and Ends? Argument Structure and Philosophical Coherence in Zhuangzi 26 243 Wim De Reu 9 Truth Claim with no Claim to Truth: Text and Performance of the "Qiushui" Chapter of the Zhuangzi 297 Dirk Meyer Index 341 7 Roman Jakobson, "Linguistics and Poetics," in Style in Language, ed. Thomas A. Sebeok (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1960), 350-377, 370f. 8 This view can already be found in early Jesuit discussions and in reflections by philosophers such as Leibniz and Hegel. An early more systematic linguistic analysis undertakes Wilhelm von Humboldt in his letter to Abel-Rémusat in 1827 (transl.

2008

Why do the rulers listen to the wild theories of the speech-makers, and bring destruction to the state and ruin to themselves? Because they do not distinguish clearly between public and private interests, do not examine the aptness of the words they hear, and do not make certain that punishments are meted out when they are deserved. ("The Five Vermin," 11) -Han Fei (?289-2 B.C.E.)

Christopher Harbsmeier, Review "Chinese Rhetoric", T'oung Pao 85 (1999) pp. 114-127

bibliographic survey on Chinese works on Rhetoric

Humanities

Though applicable in many Western historical-cultural settings, the Aristotelian model of ethos is not universal. As early Chinese rhetoric shows in the example of cheng-yan or “ethos of sincereness,” inspiring trust does not necessarily involve a process of character-based self-projection. In the Aristotelian model, the rhetor stands as a signifier of ethos, with an ideology of individualism privileged, whereas Chinese rhetoric assumes a collectivist model in which ethos belongs, not to an individual or a text, but rather to culture and cultural tradition. This essay will be concentrating on the concept of Heaven, central to the cultural and institutional systems of early Chinese society, in an attempt to explore collective ethos as a function of cultural heritage. Heaven, it shall be argued, plays a key role in the creation of Chinese ethos. This essay will also contrast the logocentrism of Western rhetorical tradition with the ethnocentrism of Chinese tradition. The significance ...

DAO: A JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE PHILOSOPHY, 2018

We are, in both East and West, long overdue for some far-reaching comparative analyses of our respective intellectual and literary heritages. The inherent difficultythrown into high relief by the volume under review-is that such an enterprise requires multiple competences, each of which is dauntingly difficult to achieve. In the case of Mengzi 孟子 (or, to use the Latinized version of his name coined by 17th-century Jesuit scholars, "Mencius") and Aristotle, this entails a reading knowledge of two ancient languages-classical Chinese and classical Greek-each of them written in a different non-roman character set-and, further, a working understanding of both the Greek and the Chinese philosophical traditions. In order to undertake the work that Douglas Robinson is doing in this book, one also needs a fourth competence, and that is a working understanding of the history and theory of rhetoric-which has been extensively disciplinized outside the realms both of academic philosophy and of classics. Such a prospect would be enough to make many doughty scholars quail. Thankfully, Robinson did not quail, and the result is The Deep Ecology of Rhetoric in Mencius and Aristotle.