Lecture 1: Introduction to Chinese Philosophy Flashcards
What does the term “philosophy” mean?
The word “philosophy” has Greek origins, being a combination between the words “philos” meaning wisdom and “sophia” meaning love. Thus, “philosophy” means “love of wisdom.”
Traditionally, what were the Chinese terms more or less equivalent to the term “philosophy”?
In Chinese, there were many ways which the idea of philosophy was expressed. There was: dàoshù 道術 (道术), meaning dao and the art of its realization; dàoxué 道學 (道学), the study of dao; lîxué 理學 (理学), the leaning of principles; and many others.
When the Jesuits introduced Western philosophy to China in late 16th Century, what terms they used to translate “philosophy”?
When first introduced to China by M. Ricci and G. Aleni at the end of 16th Century, “philosophy” was translated first phonetically as fêi lù suô fèi yà 斐祿所費亞 (斐禄所费亚), or àizhì zhīxué 愛智之學 (爱智之学), meaning “love wisdom,” then as lîxué 理學 (理学).
By whom was the term translated into “tetsugaku” 哲學?
Nowadays, the term “philosophy” in Chinese is zhéxué 哲學 (哲学). Nishi Amane 西周, (1829-1892) translated “philosophy” as “tetsugaku”, read in Chinese as 哲學.
Who first used “tetsugaku” in Chinese as “zhexue” 哲學, and why there are debates today in China concerning the legitimacy of using the term “Chinese philosophy”?
This term was used first by Chinese scholar Liang Qichao 梁啟超 in his newspaper published in Yokohama, Japan. However, this term makes sense in Chinese as well. In Chinese, 哲 zhé means “wise”, 學 (学) xué means “learning”, together they mean “leaning to be wise” or “science of wisdom”, quite different from philosophy’s Western meaning, love of wisdom. However, during WWII the Japanese held many Chinese in internment camps and practiced torture on Chinese people. Sino-Japanese relations have been damaged ever since, and thus the use of this Japanese term has become controversial.
What, according to Fung Yu-lan, was the spirit and task of Chinese philosophy?
“This is what Chinese philosophy has striven for. Having this kind of spirit, it is at one and the same time both extremely idealistic and extremely realistic, and very practical, though not in a superficial way. This-worldliness and other-worldliness stand in contrast to each other as do realism and idealism. The task of Chinese philosophy is to accomplish a synthesis out of these antitheses.” (p. 8)
What are the special characteristics of Chinese philosophy in comparison with Western philosophy?
In Western philosophy, comparisons come from the external world and everything is related externally. However, for the Chinese, they believe things are related internally. They believed that you look for meaning because it comes out of us, in other words, we have a desire within us that reaches outwards. For example, the combination of “head” and “walk” to make dao 道 shows that Chinese philosophy is about finding the Way through thinking. Based on its language, Chinese philosophy expresses itself by image-ideas, which is different from Western philosophy which aims at pure ideas. Chinese philosophy prefers metaphors more than concepts, narratives more than argumentations, and synthesis more than analysis.
What textual legacy had early Chinese philosophers inherited when they emerged in Chinese intellectual history? Note three names of those texts and tell succinctly their main ideas and contributions to Chinese philosophy.
The beginnings of philosophy consisted of people like Confucius and Laozi. They emerged in late Spring and Autumn (6-5th Century BCE). Common textual heritage of all:
- The Classics of Odes (or Poetry) expressed feeling/affectivity as essential mode of human existence.
- The Classics of Documents showed human historicity and the function of practical reason in judging historical events.
- The Book of Changes or the Yijing evolving from divination to ethics to cosmology.
