EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Section 10 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 109 ethical principles and norms of proper conduct. However, blade metaphors are not invariably used with a positive connotation. They can also allude to “sharp tongues” and to the perils of rhetoric and the decep- tive use of words meant as, precisely, a double-edged sword (Richter 2014). The present paper analyzes different occurrences of bladed weapon metaphors with both a positive and negative connotation in a selection of Warring States and Han received literature. As this study will show, such metaphors represent a well-established cluster belonging to the repertoire of early Chinese philosophical literature, showing substantially consistent features. Isay Gad (Technion— Israel Institute of Technology) Balanced Intuition? Analyzing Qian Mu’s View on Intuition Key words: Qian Mu, Intuition, 20th c. Confucianism, Rationality, Epistemology and Practice Around the year 1948, Qian Mu 錢穆 (1895–1990) wrote his interpretation and commentary on the Zhuangzi 莊子 and at the same time he authored his “Quiet Thoughts at the Lake” (Hushang xiansilu 湖上 閒思錄 ). In the latter he discussed intuition in a comparative perspective and identified it with the Eastern mind. He referred—at times openly and sometimes with no indication— to contemporary views and debates. He was involved in the earlier debate on the view of life and he read works by Bergson (1859–1941), among others. With regard to intuition he differentiates between the thought that uses the language of words and writing on the one hand, and non-linguistic thought, on the other. Unlike its opposite, reason, intuition to him is identified with lack of any division and, equally is, direct, deep, and immeasurable. Intuition, Qian argues, characterizes the primordial state from which reason evolved. From this perspective he analyzes the Confucian terms of “all things are one body” and “innate knowledge of the good.” Assuming, as I do, that Qian Mu was always and predominantly preoccupied with the question of balance — in the sense of the middle way — my discussion shows how his idea of intuition corresponds to this major concern. How can intuition be reconciled with balance? Jiang Lu (Sun Yat-sen University) The Epistemological Function of Aristotelian Logic and the Chinese Translation of Elementa Geometrica Key words: logic, Aristotle, Euclid, Clavius, Verbiest The most notable examples of Jesuits’ transmission of Aristotelism to pre-modern China are among others two translations of commentaries on Aristotle’s logic Mingli-Tan (1631) and Qiongli-Xue (1683). In both Mingli-Tan and Verbiest’s memorial to Emperor Kangxi in regard of Qiongli-Xue, logic is described as a propaedeutic for the study of philosophy and other sciences. The special function of logic is described by Verbiest as “making other sciences more precise” and “persuading people in order to accomplish all undertakings”. This understanding is not only in accord to what Aristotle writes in his Analytica Posteriora where the relevance of the art of defining, making divisions and finally demonstrat- ing (exclusively in the form of syllogism) to knowledge is extendedly discussed, but also in accord to the Western school tradition since late Roman Empire in which logic as a member of the Trivium had always been the propaedeutic to the Quadrivium. In Analytica Posteriora, Aristotle mentions the role of syllogism in mathematical proofs. Though we don’t have text evidences of Aristotle’s application of his syllogism to mathematics, this remark was taken seriously by the Jesuit mathematician Christophus Clavius, who reworks Euclidian proofs in syllogistic structure in his commentary on Euclid’s Elementa. With text examples from the Chinese translation of Clavius’ commentary and its reception in Late Ming China, I shall provide evidences for the support of the thesis that this conception of logic, despite its nov- elty to a Chinese audience, is compatible with Confucian knowledge system. Actually, the great attention and interest this works invoked among Late Ming literati might have been one of the motivations of the translation of logic works like Mingli-Tan.