Chaehyun Chong

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this article is to explain the Mohists’ perceived inconsistences of the following three propositions in the Mojing since we attribute to them an unconditional love toward human beings: A thief is a man. Killing a thief is not killing men. A thief is a man. Loving a thief is not loving men. Zang is a man. Loving Zang is loving men. The attribution of unconditional love toward human beings is not unusual to the Mohists when we render the Mohist idea of jian’ai as universal love. My interpretation first suggests that we can consistently interpret the Mohist ethical position as intentional utilitarianism. Second, I claim that Mohist universal love includes some generality, though it does not have to mean universality without exception. This Mohist generality will be explained through the generic use of nouns.

This article explicates Xunzi’s three types of cognitive delusions in Xunzi’s Zhengming Pian. The followings are my conclusions: first, general names such as “a white horse,” “a horse,” “a thief,” and “a man” are thought of as proper nouns because the classic Chinese theory of language concerned pragmatics rather than semantics. Second, classic Chinese epistemology does not address conceptual knowledge or knowledge based on argumentation distinguished from the art of description.Third, Gongsun Long believes in an extreme form of one-name-one-thingism. Fourth, Neo-Moists’ theory of inference is based on intensional contexts. Fifth, Hui Shi’s position presupposes the art of knowing objects before any verbal expression and suggests the arbitrariness in the expressions of known objects. Sixth, Xunzi’s logic and semantics are extensional.

This article explicates Xunzi's three types of cognitive delusions in Xunzi's Zhengming Pian. The followings are my conclusions: first, general names such as “a white horse,” “a horse,” “a thief,” and “a man” are thought of as proper nouns because the classic Chinese theory of language concerned pragmatics rather than semantics. Second, classic Chinese epistemology does not address conceptual knowledge or knowledge based on argumentation distinguished from the art of description. Third, Gongsun Long believes in an extreme form of one‐name‐one‐thingism. Fourth, Neo‐Moists' theory of inference is based on intensional contexts. Fifth, Hui Shi's position presupposes the art of knowing objects before any verbal expression and suggests the arbitrariness in the expressions of known objects. Sixth, Xunzi's logic and semantics are extensional

My aim in this dissertation is to challenge Chad Hansen's mereological interpretation of ancient Chinese philosophy by providing my own interpretation based on theories of lei. Hansen's mereological interpretation is composed of two radical claims: One is to say that since ancient Chinese philosophy is dominated by nominalism, we do not have to introduce any abstract entities in interpreting ancient Chinese philosophy. The other is to say that Chinese nominalism is mereological. ;Against Hansen's first claim, I argue that since nominalism does not always go along with the non-committment of abstract entities and ancient Chinese philosophy show the committment to abstract entities despite its nominalistic trend, we need to introduce abstract entities in our interpretation of ancient Chinese philosophy. Against Hansen's second claim, I argue that Chinese nominalism is based on theories of lei instead of mereology. Chinese lei-based nominalism is more like traditional forms of Western nominalism in that it is the scheme of individuals/similarities-among-individuals and that it emphasizes the conventional characteristics of determining similarity. Nevertheless, this dissertation prefers the Chinese term "lei" instead of the Western term "similarity" because the former better discloses Chinese contexts without unnecessary Western imposition. ;My lei-based interpretation is suggested with regard to three realms. These realms are linguistic features of Classical Chinese, theories of language in ancient China, and philosophical doctrines in ancient China. ;A close examination on linguistic features of Classical Chinese shows that these features simply disclose the conventional characteristics of Chinese characters, the pragmatics--priority conception of language, and individual/similarity semantical scheme, not the mereological scheme. In my discussion of theories of language in ancient China, I claim that besides Hansen's four Chinese assumptions about language , we also should emphasize the relativity of language, the articulatory nature of language, and the semantic role of lei as typical Chinese assumptions about language. All of these Chinese assumptions show why lei came to play a central role in Chinese theories of language. Lastly, I examine not only Hansen's favorite example which he uses to support his interpretation: Gongsun Long's white horse paradox, but also Mencian theory of human nature and Neo-Mohist theory of disputation, in order to show that lei was a theory of classification extensively discussed among ancient Chinese philosophers