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From Mohism to the school of names, from pragmatism to materialist dialectics: Chinese interpretations of Gongsun Longzi as a text and source of Chinese logic, 1919–1937

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Abstract

This article aims at providing a general overview of the development of interpretational discourse on Gongsun Longzi (公孫龍子) as a text in Chinese logic in the timeframe between the May Fourth events in 1919 and the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937. In my attempt to highlight the main interpretational approaches to the text and philosophy of Gongsun Long (公孫龍, 320 BC-250 BC) I will, on one hand, focus on the question whether or how the Western philosophies and notions of logic, such as for instance that of pragmatism, analytic philosophy and dialectical materialism, influenced the above-mentioned interpretations. On the other hand, aside from its contextual evolution I will also try to cast some new light on the main milestones of its textual re-emergence and development in the early Republican period.

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Notes

  1. Recently published monographs include, for example, Philosophy of Language, Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy (2018) edited by Bo Mou (Mou ed. 2018), or Semantic-Truth Approaches in Chinese Philosophy by the same author, where the content of Gongsun Long is approached through the perspective of modern philosophy of language or Western logic (Mou 2018). The most noteworthy example of Western scholarship—if the monographs are taken in account—on Gongsun Long will probably be the forthcoming book The Gongsun Longzi and Other Neglected Texts: Aligning Philosophical and Philological Perspectives, edited by Rafael Suter, Lisa Indraccolo and Wolfgang Behr, and which is going to be published in January 2020 (Suter et al. 2020). In the same period of time, a number of mostly interpretative articles have also been published in the West, among which, in my opinion, Lisa Indraccolo’s writings most consistently combine both the philologico-historical perspectives on the author and the text with the recent philosophical scholarship on its content.

  2. See also: Zuo Yuhe (2016).

  3. This has been discussed in various general surveys on history of Chinese logic or history of logic in China. Liang Qichao’s and Hu Shi’s contribution to the development of “Chinese logic” have been, for example, studied in Wen Gongyi 温公颐 and Cui Qingtian’s 崔清田 A Course in the History of Logic in China (2001, pp. 322–350), Volume 4 of the History of Chinese Logic edited by Li Kuangwu 李匡武, and written by Zhou Yunzhi 周云之 and Zhou Wenying 周文英 (1989, pp. 252–278) or in Zhou Yunzhi’s recapitulation of the earlier series History of Chinese Logic from 2004. The interpretations from 1920s and 1930s are also fragmentarily or briefly discussed in studies like Cui Qingtian’s philosophical treatise Mingxue yu bianxue (1997a) and his Xianxue chongguang: Jin-xiandai de xian-Qin Mojia yanjiu (1997b), Zhou Yunzhi’s Gongsun Longzi zhengming xueshuo yanjiu: jiaoquan, jinyi, pouxi, zonglun (1994), Huang Kejian’s 黃克劍 Mingjia qici shujie: Hui Shi Gongsun Long yanjiu (2010) etc. Chinese studies in Hui Shi and Gongsun Long in the period following the founding of the PRC are briefly summarized in Guo Qiyong’s Studies on Contemporary Chinese Philosophy, 1949–2009 (2018, pp. 474–476).

  4. The initial moment, when Hu’s interest in the above-mentioned texts was kindled is also attested by an entry (July 1915) in one of his diaries (1910–1917), which he kept during his studies in the United States, see: Hu Shi liuxue riji 胡適留學日記 (Hu Shi’s Diary from His Studies Abroad), Vol. 3, p. 705 (Hu 1947, p. 705).

  5. Hu’s theoretical foundation was Dewey’s Essays on Experimental Logic (1916) (translated into Chinese in 1920). In summary, Dewey devised the idea of experimental logic on his epistemological premise that human reflection plays an intermediary role in generation of experience, which in turn constitutes the main building-block of knowledge. (Dewey 1916, pp. 1–2) Beside the fact that there is not only one type of experience, the experience is a relative thing, which depends greatly on several aspects of the ever-changing reality, such as for example, the temporal aspect. For Dewey, this entailed that the “distinctions and relations in logical theories” are derived from specific timeframes and, in rigid, rationalist philosophies tend to be ad hoc generalised to all other states of affairs. (Ibid.) Another shortcoming of such logical theories consists in artificially applying the thus established rationalist notion of thought upon one’s experiences. However, in Dewey’s pragmatism, experience and rational reflection must be “active and progressive,” (ibid., p. 10) while the concrete circumstances of active reflection must be constantly re-examined. As the main method of reflection, logic must therefore abide closely by the vicissitudes of the state of affairs. Finally, in Dewey’s eyes, another important trait of human knowledge would also affect such dynamic form of logic: the fact that “knowing always has a particular purpose.” Thus, both human thought and method arise from practical needs and its method must be constantly reapplied in concrete situations, in which its effectiveness (objectiveness) is also confirmed (Ibid., pp. 12–3). The term “experimental logic” derives its meaning from this very point. Regarding other kinds of logic, Dewey pointed out that in the early 1910s studies of logic in philosophical field was still in grip of idealism, and therefore the “logics in vogue were profoundly influenced by Kantian and post-Kantian thought.” On the other hand, “empirical logics, those conceived under the influence of Mill, still existed, but their light was diminished by the radiance of the regnant idealism.” However, Dewey did not view empirical logic in a way less critical than the “idealist” variety of logic. In fact, he recognised its greatest “fault” in its adoption of the same mistake than idealism, namely “taking sense-data to be primitive” and not recognising the role of (a comprehensive idea of) human “intelligence in creating new meanings.” In the concluding chapters of his Essays Dewey also expressed a critical attitude towards the so-called “analytical logic” of Bertrand Russell (Ibid., p. 25).

  6. He referred to this aspect of Chinese philosophy as “the theories of natural and social evolution in ancient China” (Hu 1922, p. 10).

  7. Hu conceded that, in spite of the negative effect of Confucianism, later a close approximation to Western logical method was also developed in the neo-Confucian philosophy of Song and Ming dynasties, however, the logical method related to “the investigation into things” (gewu 格物) “was rendered fruitless” because of its “lack of experimental procedure,” “its failure to recognize the active and directing role played by the mind” in experimental investigation of reality and “its construction of ‘things’ to mean ‘affairs’” (Hu 1922, p. 8).

  8. However, in the introductory chapter of his monograph Zhexue yu lunli 哲學與論理 (Philosophy and Logic) entitled “The Threads of Chinese Philosophy” (Zhongguo zhexue de xiansuo 中國哲學的綫索), a collection of writings by different authors introducing the main tenets of pragmatism, experimental logic and the epistemological bases of the view on life (renshenguan 人生觀), Hu Shi admitted that mingxue 名學 is not exactly the same as Western logic (Hu et al. 1925, p. 3).

  9. Previously, the authorship of four of the above-listed books of Mozi was also questioned by the late-Qing scholar Sun Yirang 孫詒讓 (1848–1908), who in 1877 composed his Intermittent Glosses on Mozi (Mozi xiangu 墨子閒詁).

  10. These are: the two canons “Jing shang” 經上 and “Jing xia” 經下, the explanations of the canons “Jing shuo shang” 經說上 and “Jing shuo xia” 經說下, and finally the “Daqu” 大取 and the “Xiaoqu” 小取 miscellanea.

  11. Hu Shi (1922, p. 128).

  12. Hu believed that in some regards Gongsun Long misinterpreted the teachings of Mozi. (Hu Shi, Outline History of Chinese Philosophy, 1919b, p. 13)

  13. Jiang earned his PhD in education sciences from Columbia University. His doctoral supervisor was also Dewey. While, in their propagation of American pragmatism Hu focused on general scientific traits of pragmatist philosophy, such as its logical method and epistemology, Jiang oversaw the propagation of pragmatist (Dewey’s) philosophy of education. For the same purpose, he also founded the New Education (Xin jiaoyu 新教育) journal, which served as one of the key launching platforms for dissemination of pragmatist ideas. Like Hu, in the time of Dewey’s stay in China, Jiang was working at Peking University (from Summer 1919 on), the initial official host-institution of Dewey’s visit in China.

  14. For example, in 1919, Hu published a short propaedeutic booklet entitled Pragmatism (Shiyan zhuyi 實驗主義). In the same year, Hu also published a series of articles discussing William James, Dewey’s pragmatism and experimental method in influential Chinese periodicals like the New Youth (Xin qingnian 新青年), New China (Xin Zhongguo 新中國), Weekly Review (Meizhou pinglun 每周評論), Shangzhi 尚志 etc. For the same reason in 1919 excerpts from Dewey’s Essays in Experimental Logic were translated into Chinese and published in leading Chinese journals. Subsequently, in 1920, Liu Boming’s (劉伯明) and Shen Zhensheng’s (沈振聲) translation of the entire book was published by the Taidong book company in Shanghai. Later, several attempts at introducing experimental logic were also made in the framework of Science and Metaphysics Debate (Kexue yu xuanxue 科學與玄學, originally also called the debate on Science and the View on Life, Kexue yu renshengguan 科學與人生觀). E.g.: Ci Xin 慈心. “Jindai lunlixue de qushi 近代論理學底趨勢 (Trends in Contemporary Science of Logic)”. In: Hu Shi 胡適 et al. (au.), Jiaoyu zazhi she 教育雜志社 ed. Zhexue yu lunli 哲學與論理 (Philosophy and Logic). Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1925, pp. 67–97. In the late 1920s, another strain of American pragmatist logic, Ladd-Franklin’s theory of “antilogism,” was introduced by Shen Youqian (沈有乾, 1899–?), whose main fields of interest at the time, however, were psychology and education science.

  15. This was the first draft of the subchapter on Hui Shi and Gongsun Long from his Outline, and a slightly modified translation of the chapter from his dissertation.

  16. How important Mohist philosophy was to Hu Shi at the time was further illustrated by the fact that, especially between 1918 and 1922, most of Hu’s public and academic lectures were devoted to Mohist philosophy and logic. In 1920, for instance, the Academic Lecture Association (Xueshu jiangyan hui 學術講演會) published the transcript of Hu’s lectures on Mohist Philosophy (Mojia zhexue 墨家哲學) (Hu 1920), which was a summary of his Outline (1919b, pp. 144–250). Before the English version of Hu’s dissertation was published in 1922, a series of three selected excerpts from the text had been published in the missionary journal The Chinese Recorder (1912–1938) (Hu 1921a, b, c, d). All three excerpts were devoted to “The Logic of Moh Tih and His School.”

  17. Liang commented on “Jing shang” 經上 and “Jing xia” 經下 and their explanations Jing shuo 經說. Liang’s commentary on Hu Shi can be found on pages: 1–25.

  18. In general, Liang was sceptical about the alleged scientific nature of the texts described as Mohist dialectics.

  19. When Liang recapitulates the four reasons that led Hu to assert that the chapters of Mobian were not authored by Mozi himself, he claims that the fourth reason was: “Because the wording was the same as in Hui Shi and Gongsun Long, it must have been composed by their disciples. 所言與惠施公孫龍相同,當為惠龍之徒所作” (Liang 1922, p. 3). In his later analysis Liang himself suspected that the followers of Gongsun Long attempted to edit Mohist writings—in particular a part of the “Jing shuo xia” 經說下. This was also how later critics understood Liang.

  20. Liang Qichao noted that teachings such as that contained in Gongsun Long’s famous Baimalun had not yet been developed in the Mojing. In that way, between them there could only have existed a thematic relationship. In addition, Liang also refrained from claiming that in the past Gongsun Long and Hui Shi had not been also referred to as “neo-Mohists,” for deriving from Zhuangzi’s use of the name, one could also establish that the Biemo 別墨 were a form of non-orthodox Mohism.

  21. In 1926, Luan published an anthology of—mostly his own, contributions to the discussion, which he himself chose to call “The debate on Mohist dialectics.” (Luan 1926)

  22. Luan was an almost completely self-thought scholar of Mohism and a translator of English, who started his career working in a bookshop in Shanghai and whose translation work in medicine had earned a position of a professor at Qilu University in 1920.

  23. In 1923, Wu’s Explication of Reasons in Mohist Dialectics (Mobian jie gu 墨辯解故) was published by the Zhongguo daxue (Wu 1923a). In the years between the years 1922 and 1926 Wu published a series of articles in the Shanghai-based Wissen und Wissenschaft (Xueyi 學藝) journal.

  24. Wu Feibai, “Ping Liang Hu Luan Mobian jiao shi yitong” 評梁胡欒墨辯校釋異同 (Wu 1923b).

  25. Zhang was one of those Chinese experts in philosophy and philological studies who in in early 1920s took a great interest in the text of Mozi. In 1922 he published his own commentary on Sun Yirang’s Exposing and Correcting the Mozi (Sun 1935).

  26. The other two included a supplement to his commentary on Sun Yirang and a short book in which Zhang set out to draw comparisons between Mohism and Nestorianism (Moxue yu jingjiao 墨學與景教).

  27. Zhang 1923a: “Appendix”, p. 23. The above-mentioned reply to Wu Feibai was published as an appendix to his Divisions of Mohism. The original essay was entitled “Du Wu Feibai Ping Liang Hu Luan Mobian jiao shi yitong zhi guanjian” 讀伍非百評梁胡欒墨辯校釋異同之管見 (My Humble Opinion from Reading Wu Feibai’s Critical Notes on Liang Qichao, Hu Shi and Luan Diaoyu’s Dissent on Mobian Collated and Annotated).

  28. A large fraction of their written correspondence was already reproduced in: The Second Volume of Collected Writings of Hu Shi (1936), pp. 259–273.

  29. The text was first appeared in 1926, in the Hongyi yuekan 弘毅月刊, and was later (1928) reprinted in the Quishi xueshe shekan 求實學社社刊.

  30. In 1925, the publishing office at the National Jinan University published a translation of Takase Takejiro’s (高瀨武次郎, 1869–1950) three volume History of Chinese Philosophy (Zhongguo zhexueshi 中國哲學史, Jap. Shina tetsugakushi 支那哲學史) from 1910. Takase’s book further strengthened the position that the so-called School of Names had in fact been promoting a form of sophism, which did not have anything to do with logical reasoning. On the other hand, Takase’s view on illogicity of ancient Chinese treatises like Gongsun Longzi was diametrically opposed to Hu Shi’s motion for pragmatist essence of Chinese philosophical method, for the former emphasized that these kind of sophisms were essentially unpragmatic and expressed the complete disregard of Chinese “logicians” for natural phenomena (p. 257). Takase went even so far as to assert that, in fact, Chinese philosophy never developed a logical method, but only such sophistic notions of methodology. However, although Takase emphatically rejected the idea that Gongsun Long had been one the founding fathers of a Chinese school of logic, he still spoke in favour of the idea that in the time of Hui Shi and Gongsun Long there existed such a thing as the School of Names.

  31. Zhang took the term tabian 他辨from Gongsun Longzi and interpreted it as the describing a concept close to “middle term” in Western logic. Though, in his Essentials of Logic (Luoji zhiyao 邏輯指要) Zhang used the term zhongci 中詞 etc. Even though the Zhang located the term in Gongsun Long’s text, his main concern was with Mohist “logic of middle terms.”

  32. In the past discourse on Chinese philosophy, the term zhengming 正名 was interpreted “rectification of names.” In contrast, the translation “correct names” implies an originally different approach in Confucian discourse on names and actualities, as well as a fundamentally ethical meaning of the teaching of zhengming.

  33. The first article from 1923 bore the title “A Discussion on Mutual Criticism and Agreement Between Mohists and the School of Names” and the second one from 1924 “An Investigation on Mutual Criticism and Agreement Between Mohist and the School of Names”. Both were published in the Eastern Miscellany.

  34. Later (1934), a typological solution for the question of classification of Gongsun Long was given by Tan Jiefu, who treated his philosophy through the perspective of his theory on “shapes and names” (xingminglun 形名論).

  35. Wu’s errata of Zhang’s analysis were published under the title “Ming-Mo ziying kao bianzheng” 名墨訾應考辨正 in the Eastern Miscellany.

  36. A wide array of articles on Chinese logic and Gongsun Long were written by authors like, for instance, Wu Xi (吳熙, 1863–1944), Zhang Tingjian (張廷健, ?) etc. In 1925 Wu Jianchan (伍劍禪) a graduate of philosophy at China University in Peking wrote a series of articles criticizing Wu Feibai’s views on the “learning on shape and names” (xing-ming xue 形名學)—Wu was also the author of a peculiar lengthy essay “An Outline of Chinese Philosophy in Recent 30 Years” (Sanshi nian lai Zhongguo zhexue gailun 三十年來中國哲學概論) from 1929.

  37. At the time, Zhong was a senior professor of Chinese philology at Zhijiang University in Hangzhou. In 1926, he wrote an article entitled “The School of Names Did Not Originate from Mohist Doctrine” (Mingjia bu chuyu Mojing 名家不出於墨經). Three years later (1929), Zhong recapitulated his views on the School of Names in his History of Chinese Philosophy (Vol. 1), which was published with the Commercial Press in Shanghai.

  38. In the late 1920s and early 1930s this approach had also manifested itself in Chinese textbooks on Western logic (luoji 邏輯 or lunlixue 論理學). There were two kinds of such textbooks. The first maintained a culture-related notion of logic, providing an overview of similarities between Western logic and Chinese traditional thought. The second kind of textbooks derived from a universal notion of logic and discussed Western logical concepts using examples from both Western textbooks and Chinese philosophy. A few shorter introductions to logic from late 1920s and early 1930s also used the same narrative approach, that, apart from most advanced theories in modern logic (usually Dewey’s experimental logic and Russell’s mathematical logic), extensively discussed the nature of Chinese and Indian logics. As a noteworthy example thereof, I can mention Zhou Gucheng’s (周谷城, 1898–1996) “Introduction to Logic” (Mingxue yinduan 名學引端) from 1928. This kind of textbooks became more common in the mid-1930s as a part of the attempts to reconstruct Chinese traditional identity as a countermeasure against Westernization.

  39. One year earlier, Yu also published an article in which he addressed the question of “Chinese logic.” The article “An Introduction to Chinese logic” (Mingxue daoyan 名學導言) was also intended as Yu’s contribution to the general debate on Chinese logic, Mohist dialectics and Gongsun Long as outlined in the foregoing sections of this study.

  40. In the book Chinese Logic, Yu pointed out that the logic of Gongsun Long and Modi shared the same orientations and topics, however, while he claimed that the Mobian contained a form of deductive logic, he did not claim the same for Gongsun Long. Instead, in Yu’s view, Gongsun Long’s thought revolved around the paradoxical relations between names and reality, which after all had constituted the theoretical heart of Chinese logic (Yu Yu 1937, pp. 2–4). In the epilogue of his book Yu remarked that while Hui Shi’s doctrine on shapes and names could be linked to Daoist ideas or the wuming xuepai, Gongsun Long had been aligned to the zhengming xuepai, to the extent that it his school of logic could be called a major current within the latter. (Ibid., p. 120)

  41. See Yu Yu 1935, pp. 387–389. If we want to understand their actual value, Yu’s contributions would have to be considered within the broader framework of Buddhist discourse on hetuvidyā (因明) and logic in the 1930s (see Vrhovski 2020). Other scholars of Buddhist logic from the period included the renowned scholar of Buddhist philosophy Jing Changji (景昌極, 1903–1982). In 1930, Jing wrote an essay entitled “Phenomenalism of Master Gongsun Long from the School of Names” (Mingjia Gongsun Longzi zhi weixiang zhuyi 名家公孫龍子之唯象主義), praising Gongsun Long for having embodied a scientific attitude, which surmounted that of the neo-Mohist school. Jing also recognised a philosophical independence of the Mingjia from the Mohist school, and at the same time also admitted that there between them there certainly was a certain degree of theoretic continuity (Jing 1930, pp. 316–318).

  42. In the same year Tan also published an essay entitled “On Late-Zhou School of Shapes and Names” (Lun wan-Zhou xing-mingjia 論晚周形名家).

  43. The book was reprinted in 1934 and 1938.

  44. A more detailed analysis of Wu Feibai’s study of Chinese logic was conducted by Lu Yunrong 盧芸蓉. See: Lu (2011, 2019).

  45. Chen’s Collected Explanations consisted in great part also of Wu Feibai’s Detailed Elaboration on the Gongsun Longzi (Gongsun Longzi fawei 公孫龍子發微), completed in 1932, and published as a part of his Zhongguo gu mingjia yan 中國古名家言 (Discourses on Ancient Chinese Logicians) (See Chen 1937).

  46. In 1929, first three students graduated at the department. In 1928, with the appointment of Luo Jialun as the new dean of the university, the cadre and the curricular activities at the department underwent considerable change. Subsequently, the department hired four new lecturers, among whom was also Feng Youlan, who replaced Jin Yuelin as the head of the department in 1929. With respect to modern formal logic and analytic philosophy, Luo Jialun’s successful attempt to hire his lifelong friend Zhang Shenfu brought further change to the department, for in the following years Zhang set up a number of specialized courses on Russell, mathematical logic, Wittgenstein, history of logic etc. See: Guoli Qinghua daxue yilan (Minguo nianyi niandu) 國立清華大學一覽 (民國廿一年度) (National Qinghua University Guide (Year 1932)). Beijing: Beiping Qinghua daxue, 1932, p. 53; Guoli Qinghua daxue shijiu niandu jiaozhiyuan yilanbiao 國立清華大學十九年度教職員一覽表 (A List of Teaching and Administrative Staff at the National Qinghua University in the Year 1930). Beijing: Guoli Qinghua Daxue, 1930, pp. 6–7; Luo Jialun 羅家倫. Guoli Qinghua daxue yilan (Minguo shijiu niandu) 國立清華大學一覽 (民國十九年度) (National Qinghua University Guide). Beijing: Beiping Qinghua daxue, 1930, pp. 58–62; Feng Youlan 馮友蘭. “Zhexuexi gaikuang” 哲學系概況 (General Situation at the Department of Philosophy). In: Guoli Qinghua daxue ershi zhounian jiniankan 國立清華大學二十周年紀念刊 (A Commemorative Publication on the 20th Anniversary of the National Qinghua University). Beiping: Guoli Qinghua daxue, (May) 1931.

  47. While Jin Yuelin assisted Feng in his early writings on history of Chinese philosophical thought, in the late 1920s his own writings revolved around the theory of paradox (“self-contradiction”) in Western philosophy of logic, in the framework of which Jin also discussed the paradoxes of Hui Shi and Gongsun Long, mainly from the perspective Russell’s theory of logical paradox.

  48. Few years before that, similar approaches to the “white horse” (baima 白馬) problem was already briefly hinted at by Zhang Dongsun and Jin Yuelin (1927). The former, for instance, mentioned that in his overview of the history of concepts of universals and particulars in the Western rationalist philosophy. See Zhang Dongsun (1927, p. 58).

  49. Cf.: Zhao Yanfeng (2013, pp. 31–36).

  50. The chapter bore the title “Hui Shi, Gongsun Long and Other Dialecticians” (Feng 1934, pp. 139–177).

  51. Even though the Zhang brothers were amongst the most ardent and prolific propagators of analytic philosophy in the 1930s China, at the same time, they both had a strong proclivity towards traditional philosophy (Confucian ethics and traditional cosmologies) on one hand and dialectical materialism on the other. Thus, apart from other peculiar ways of creating a synthesis between tradition and modernity, Chinese philosophy and Western science, they both also proposed a form of objectivism, where subjectivity would be merged with objectivity to produce a universal image of the universe and human being, and where the methodological foundations would be provided in form of a method which would consist of mathematical logic on one hand and dialectical method on the other, or, in a more general sense, a synthesis between the analytical method and dialectical materialism. See, for example: Zhang Shenfu (1934) and Zhang Dainian (1935, p. 238).

  52. From Engels’ Dialectics of Nature to Lenin and Plekhanov.

  53. Interestingly, a similar view on Chinese logic was also given in the educationalist Lin Zhongda’s (林仲達) book Comprehensive Logic (Zonghe luoji 綜合邏輯) (1936), which argued for a complete unification of all known sciences of logic, from mathematical logic, to dialectical logic, and down to traditional logics such as Chinese mingxue 名學. The idea of such logical synthesis was developed in the ideological framework of Chen Lifu’s (陳立夫) theory of Vitalism, the official “scientific/philosophical” worldview of the Kuomintang. In his work, Lin treated mingxue as a manifestation of universal logic, having divided the “Chinese native logic” (guyou mingxue固有名學) into three branches: the axiological school (jiazhilun 價值論) of Confucianism and Legalism, utilitarian school (gongli zhuyi 功利主義) of Mozi, and the dialectical school (bianzhenglun 辯證論) of Daoistis and the School of Names. (Lin 1936, pp. 53–58)

  54. Kurtz (2011, pp. 360–365) speaks about de-modernization of Chinese logic only in the context of post-1949 interpretations of Chinese logic, which were conducted in the framework of the so-called “Maoist paradigm”. On interpretational directions and approaches in pre- and post-1949 China see: Cui Qingtian (2005).

  55. A representative of this trend was also Zhang Dongsun (張東蓀), who towards the end of the 1930s advocated a culture-related idea of logic. E.g. “Different Types of Logic and Culture—Discussed Together with Chinese Neo-Confucianism” (Butong de luoji yu wenhua bing lun Zhongguo lixue 不同的邏輯與文化並論中國理學) from 1939. However, this theory seems to have been founded on Zhang’s misunderstanding of Jin Yuelin’s article “Alternative Systems of Logic“ from 1934, which, as the title suggests, elaborates on idea that there exist different formal systems of the science of logic, while there is only one logic as such. In 1941, Jin addressed Zhang’s misinterpretation of his article from 1934 in an essay entitled “On Different Types of Logic” (Lun butong de luoji 論不同的邏輯), which was published at the beginning of 1941.

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Vrhovski, J. From Mohism to the school of names, from pragmatism to materialist dialectics: Chinese interpretations of Gongsun Longzi as a text and source of Chinese logic, 1919–1937. Int. Commun. Chin. Cult 7, 511–538 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40636-020-00202-0

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