Abstract
It is commonplace to characterize the philosophy of Early China as attuned to interconnections and informed by the implications of situations and environments. This portrait of early Chinese philosophy encourages us to speculate about whether the same was true of concepts of “language” in Early China. Should we reconsider the habit of interpreting the foundational term of Chinese logic, ming 名, as “word,” as opposed to “name”? Whereas a word or “word-type” is an element of linguistic theory (static and uniform, regardless of its definitional criteria), a name is a means for labeling something. A word is the kind of thing that can be found in a dictionary, and it encompasses functional terms like “in.” By contrast, dictionaries generally omit most names because names simply refer to entities. If we mistakenly conceive of ming through the retrospective framework of a zi 字 (graph), a ming might look more like a word than a name. It is anachronistic, however, to think that early Chinese texts used the term “ming” to mean what is later meant by zi. Thus, I argue, a more promising starting point for understanding uses of ming in early Chinese texts is the idea of a name.
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Notes
- 1.
Because certain models of “language” treat “word” as an important minimal unit of language, my comments about “language” extend to “word.”
- 2.
The colloquial use of “word” to mean a bit of speech is not a problem in this regard, but below I focus on two other important uses of “word” that make it inappropriate as a translation equivalent of ming: “words” as having semantic meanings, and “word” as a unit of a language system.
For a more in-depth analysis of contrasts between “word” and “name,” as well as an examination of the implications of using these terms to translate ming 名, see the introduction to Geaney 2018 and Geaney forthcoming.
- 3.
I am grateful to comments from the reviewers asking me aware to clarify my position on ming and semantics. As Jeffrey Stout argues, the twentieth-century trend in analyzing “meaning”—starting with European figures like Gottlob Frege, Max Weber, and Sigmund Freud—has produced unnecessary confusion and debate (Stout, 1982). The “meaning” of words is no exception to this lack of clarity. If we nevertheless assume the obviousness of word-meanings as a feature of ming in early Chinese texts, we would reasonably expect the texts to employ a term to mean “word-meaning.” But no such term is immediately evident. In retrospect, we might hypothesize that yi 意 and yi 義 would be likely candidates. My investigation of the emergence of the idea of word-meaning in Early China—a monograph in which I analyze the usage of yi 意, yi 義, ming 名, shi 實, yan 言, and zi 字, as well as other terms—recovers a different and more complex picture. In short, although the term yi 意 often occurs in relevant contexts, yi 意 are merely expressed by speech (yan 言)—and not at all by ming. In addition to raising questions about the precise relation of ming to yan, the account of yi 意 that I reconstruct intersects interestingly with the later development of the use of yi 義 in semantic contexts, as distinct from strictly ethical contexts. See Geaney forthcoming.
- 4.
Recognizing that a ming is not a zi 字 has consequences for philosophy of “language” in early Chinese texts: at the very least, it undermines the likelihood that those texts attribute word-meanings to ming. See Geaney 2010. See also Geaney 2018, chapters 3–5 and 7–8, where I discuss this idea in terms of Chad Hansen’sDaoist Theory of Chinese Thought, which has been the standard text in Anglophone scholarship on early Chinese philosophy of language since its publication in 1992.
- 5.
In Anglophone scholarship, “reality” still seems to be the most common translation equivalent for uses of shi 實 in early Chinese texts, but the related term, “actuality,” also appears frequently. See chapter 2 of Geaney 2018 for an extended argument for why “reality” is a misleading translation of shi: my argument there is largely, but not solely, based on the unlikely consequence that all pre-Buddhist Chinese texts take emptiness to mean unreality.
- 6.
In other words, like Cao Feng 曹峰, I believe the study of traditional Chinese thought has been “thoroughly influenced by the West,” and like him, I advocate rethinking the role of ming 名 in texts from Early China through a more appropriate lens. My contribution is an embodied approach; his is that of the history of political thought (Cao2008: 220, 224–25).
- 7.
See Geaney 2010. We do not usually take “words” to be restricted to sound unless modified as “spoken words,” and we do not typically understand “language” to be restricted to sound unless modified as “spoken language.”
- 8.
To be clear, my point is that, in its linguistic usage in early Chinese texts, a ming is a sound (typically made by humans) that paradigmatically refers to a visible thing. I am not saying a ming is the sound of a visible thing.
- 9.
The idea that ming paradigmatically refer to sound does not mean it is impossible for ming to refer to other ming (or sounds of other sorts), although the notion of applying ming to ming might have seemed a bit puzzling from the perspective of early Chinese texts (Geaney 2018, 192).
- 10.
For the argument that these terms are used to mean something paradigmatically visible, see the appendix to Geaney 2018, and for the case of shi 實 in particular, see also chapter 2 of that volume. The pairing of ming with wu 物 is not as common in pre-Qin texts. See n. 20.
- 11.
Despite some potential resemblances, this is not a mind/body contrast. The terms are more like fame/fortune, or more precisely, honorable fame/fortune (Geaney 2018, chapter 2).
- 12.
Moreover, the line between sounds that are linguistic and sound in general is less finely drawn than one might expect. I explore the implications of this for the idea of zhengming in Geaney 2011.
- 13.
To listen is to obey, perhaps because one cannot shut one’s ears as easily as one’s eyes. Several examples should suffice to remind us that interchanges of the two characters for ming were more prevalent in Pre-Han texts than the effects of later editing would lead us to believe. The variant ming in the opening lines of the Beijing University bamboo slip manuscript of the Laozi (which has 名可命 instead of 名可名) recently stimulated new political reflections on the early Chinese concept of ming in the work of Cao Feng 曹峰 (Defoort 2013 and Cao2011). Other examples of interchanges of ming 名 and ming 命 are common in the Mo Bian chapters of the Mozi. They also occur in discussions like this one from the Zuozhuan.
名有五, 有信, 有義, 有象, 有假, 有類。
以名生為信, 以德命 [variant名] 為義, 以類命為象, 取於物為假, 取於父為類。
Names have five [sources]: trust, yi 義 (normative modeling), xiang 象 (resemblance), borrowing, and kind. To name from birth is trust; to name (ming 命) from de 德 (power/virtue) is yi 義 (normative modeling); to name from a kind (lei 類) is xiang 象; to pick [a name] from a thing is borrowing; to pick [a name] from the father is [of a] kind (lei 類).
Chunqiu Zuozhuan 春秋左傳 桓公 B 2.6《桓公六年傳》
All citations to early Chinese texts are to the CHANT 漢達文庫 database. Translations are my own unless otherwise noted.
- 14.
Whether these are contrasts or correlations is not important for my purposes. The presence of the two sides in the pattern is what matters.
- 15.
For a discussion of the visibility of li 禮 and my reasons for translating li as “ritual action,” rather than “ritual,” see Geaney 2018: 141–166.
- 16.
The term used for sound, sheng 聲, is used for speech as well as other kinds of sounds (Geaney 2011).
- 17.
The associations of yin/yang in binary constellations are still somewhat inconsistent in texts from Early China. This is the dominant pattern, but the constellations take two different forms. For a more detailed discussion of these binary constellations, see Geaney forthcoming.
- 18.
In other words, in light of contrasts and parallels of hearing and seeing, assertions about li 禮 being visible make it likely that li is what is implied as the other pole to sound as yang.
- 19.
Hearing and smelling (wen 聞) are often associated, perhaps because of their vacuity, as implied in this comment in the Huainanzi.
鼻之所以息, 耳之所以聽, 終以其無用者為用矣。
That by which the nose breathes, that by which the ear listens: in the end it treats that which has no use as useful.
Huainanzi 淮南子 說山訓
- 20.
Uses of the term wu 物 suggest an association with visual things in particular, but also a general application, so wu 物 might also be a general term. Both uses are operative in this example:
聲一無聽, 物一無文, 味一無果, 物一不講。
If sounds are all one, there is no listening. If things (wu 物) are all one, there is no pattern. If tastes are all one, there is no fruit. If things (wu 物) are all one, there is no thoroughness.
Guoyu 國語 鄭語 《史伯為桓公論興衰》
In this sequence of sound, sight, and taste, the first occurrence of wu aligns it with vision (specifically in contrast to sound), but the second use does not link it to any particular sensory faculty. See appendix to Geaney 2018 for more examples and a longer discussion of visual associations in uses of wu 物.
- 21.
Given this idea that the residence/location of a wu consists in having both a ming and a shi, perhaps uses of the term wu align more closely with vision than hearing because discerning something’s whereabouts poses less of a challenge to the eyes than the ears. See Geaney 2016 for an exploration of how, in early Chinese texts, location and movement determine the nature of things.
- 22.
My point is not that every term used as a pair (or contrast) with one that is associated with vision will necessarily involve an aural aspect, and I have not investigated whether such uses of fa 法 (method) with xing 行 suggest specific sensory functions.
- 23.
This is not to deny that early Chinese texts use e ming 惡名 to mean a bad reputation.
- 24.
As others have argued, the coherence of all texts from Early China is in question because of the nature of the textual composition.
- 25.
The passage also concludes that boasting does not help one’s reputation either, but that part does not appear to have any link to the shi to which the passage refers.
- 26.
Robin Yates observes that in military terminology a “guest” implies an attacker and a “host” is a defender (Yates 1997, 279). If we press the analogy here, then the mobile, active sounds of speech and names threaten the boundaries of staid, visible things.
- 27.
All references are to CHinese ANcient Texts (CHANT) 漢達文庫 database. http://www.chant.org
References
Chinese Classical Works
Baihutong 白虎通
Chunqiu Zuozhuan 春秋左傳
Guanzi 管子
Guoyu 國語
Hanfeizi 韓非子
Huainanzi 淮南子
Liji 禮記
Lüshichunqiu 呂氏春秋
Mawangdui Laozi B “Cheng” 馬王堆漢墓帛書‧老子乙本卷前古佚書-稱
Shiji 史記
Shangjunshu 商君書
Zhanguoce 戰國策
Zhuangzi 莊子
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Cao, Feng 曹峰. 2008. “A Return to Intellectual History: A New Approach to Pre-Qin Discourse on Name.” Trans. Joseph E. Harroff. Frontiers of Philosophy in China 3.2: 213–228. (The article argues against the current logical-linguistic emphasis in interpretations of ming in pre-Qin texts, proposing instead a focus on ethical and political uses of ming.)
Cao, Feng 曹峰. 2011. “Re-examining the Questions Related to “Ming”. In the First Chapter of Laozi: Taking the Coming-out of Laozi in the Han Dynasty’s Bamboo Slips Preserved in Peking University as an Occasion.”《老子》首章与“名”相关问题的重新审视——以北大汉简《老子》的问世为契机《哲学研究》年第4期: 58–67.
Defoort, Carine. 2013. “Excavated Manuscripts and Political Thought: Cao Feng on Early Chinese Texts.” Contemporary Chinese Thought 44: 3–9.
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Geaney, J. (2020). What Is Ming 名? “Name” Not “Word”. In: Fung, Ym. (eds) Dao Companion to Chinese Philosophy of Logic. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29033-7_2
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