Abstract
According to Alfred Bloom’s empirical study, Chinese speakers do not have counterfactual thinking. He thinks that one of the reasons is that Chinese language does not have linguistic markers or other devices to express counterfactuals. He also maintains that, if sometimes argumentation needs counterfactuals, Chinese speakers are incapable to make such kind of argumentation. In this chapter, I will argue that Bloom’s view is not right. As demonstrated by many Chinese and Western sinologists or linguists, we can find different kinds of counterfactual markers and other linguistic devices in modern and classical Chinese. Based on textual evidence in Classical Chinese, I will demonstrate that counterfactual expressions and reasonings are often used by ancient Chinese thinkers.
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Notes
- 1.
A detailed discussion about Graham’s view on “correlative thinking” in ancient China can be found in (Fung 2006: 117–62).
- 2.
The linguistic relativity hypothesis holds that the structure of a language affects its speakers’ world view or cognition. This is popularly known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or Whorfianism. As mentioned in (Wolff and Holmes 2011: 253): “Linguistic relativity comprises three main ideas. First, it assumes that languages can differ significantly in the meanings of their words and syntactic constructions—an assumption that is strongly supported by linguistic, anthropological, and psychological studies of word and phrasal meaning across languages. Second, the proposal holds that the semantics of a language can affect the way in which its speakers perceive and conceptualize the world, and in the extreme, completely shape thought, a position known as linguistic determinism. Finally, given that language can affect thinking, linguistic relativity holds that speakers of different languages think differently.”
- 3.
In regard to this point, Bloom explains that: “the Chinese language has no distinct lexical, grammatical, or intonational device to signal entry into the counterfactual realm, to indicate explicitly that the events referred to have definitely not occurred and are being discussed for the purpose only of exploring the might-have-been or the might-be” (Bloom1981: 16).
- 4.
With respect to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, the problem of counterfactuals and their relation to Chinese language, Robert Wardy has provided a detailed discussion from a comparative perspective. Please see (Wardy 2004: § 3.1 and § 4). Here, thank you for one of the readers reminding me the contribution of Wardy in this regard.
- 5.
Donald Davidson’s formulation of the principle of charity can be summarized as that: We make maximum sense of the words and thoughts of others when we interpret in a way that optimizes agreement. The principle may be invoked to make sense of a speaker’s utterances when one is unsure of their meaning. In regard to the theoretical character of the principle and its application in the Chinese context, please refer to (Fung 2006: 117–62).
- 6.
Most Chinese grammarians treat the double-negative construction, say, “bu … bu …” (“不…不…”) as a special kind of counterfactual marker. This point will be discussed later.
- 7.
More examples can be found in (Behr 2006).
- 8.
The popular view in the field of counterfactuals is that the indicative conditional is different from the counterfactual conditional. However, if the context of a conditional indicates that the domain of possible worlds is narrowed down to one of the counterfactual, this kind of conditional can be treated as a special kind of ordinary conditional. Besides, I think the difference between the counterfactual with the tensed marker in Western languages and the counterfactual with the tenseless marker in Chinese language is that: the counterfactual information of the former is indicated by the background knowledge which is signified by the built-in tensed marker while that of the latter is indicated by the background knowledge reflected in the context of utterance.
- 9.
A special case of this formula is that: the consequent B is embedded with a contradiction. In this case, we can make an argument of Reductio ad Absurdum (RAA) to reject the truth of the antecedent A.
- 10.
- 11.
The elaboration of the arguments in the debate between Zhuangzi and Hui Shi can be found in Fung 2020? (forthcoming).
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Fung, Ym. (2020). Counterfactual Conditionals. 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_5
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