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Humanitas Taiwanica, No. 69
Item
Title
Author

1

Discourse on Daoism’s Xiao-yao Aesthetics: Dialogue with Roland Barthes’ Philosophy of Laziness


Modern people lead a life of anxiety, with each and every move measured in terms of practicability and effectiveness. However, there also emerges a contrasting attitude that promotes lifestyles such as LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) and Slow Movement. On the one hand, people are extremely busy. On the other hand, they crave leisure time. Such is the divided vision of modern people. This article, in light of the two contradictory attitudes, reflects on the significance of Daoist xiaoyao aesthetics and Roland Barthes’ philosophy of laziness. By way of dialogues, I analyze Barthes’ criticism and therapy to modern Western life and his aspiration for the Eastern aesthetics of life. In addition, by interpreting the xiaoyao aesthetics of Daoism, I intensify Barthes’ philosophy of laziness and reveal the possible therapeutic merits of Daoist aesthetics towards modern civilization. Finally, I conclude that Daoism’s profound agreement with nature is a tripartition that is capable of mental therapy, language therapy, and cultural therapy. I also attempt to disclose the ethics dimension contained in xiaoyao aesthetics.
Lai, Hsi-san

2

Ming名 and Yan言: The Development of and Insight from Chinese and Japanese Linguistic Philosophy


In his work Na to haji no bunka: chùgokujin to nihonjin (A Culture of Name and Honor), the Japanese scholar Mori Mikisaburo closely examines ming名 (name), a concept shared by Chinese and Japanese. By comparing the different implications of ming in Chinese and Japanese, he further analyzes their differences from the perspective of ethical thought, drawing a conclusion that ming is the core value in Chinese ethics and chi恥 (shame) is the core value in Japanese ethics. This approach of investigating the concept of ming in Chinese ethics has provided an innovative perspective for the study of Chinese cultural features. Inspired by Mori Mikisaburo’s comparison of Chinese and Japanese ethics, I further find that ming, as a shared concept between China and Japan, has developed into two utterly different patterns in their respective linguistic philosophy and cultural history, which have exerted direct influence on their attitude towards foreign cultures. In addition, another shared concept yan 言(word, language) is also a cause leading to the different evolution of ming in Chinese and Japanese. With a focus on linguistic philosophy, this paper compares and analyzes the divergence between ming and yan in the Chinese and Japanese languages, and further explores the influence of the different philosophical ideas developed from the two concepts on China and Japan’s modernization.
Wang, Xiao-lin

3

On Guan-jian (關楗), Guan-yue (管籥) and Suo-chi (鎖匙): From the Perspective of Lexical History


This paper argues from the perspective of lexical history that guan-jian (關楗), guan-yue (管籥) and suo-chi (鎖匙) are related in terms of their lexical development. In early texts, guan (管) might signify a locking-bar, both the lock and the locking-bar, or the key that opens the lock. This phenomenon of multiple referents shows a special kind of lexical derivation in a set of words or word family that is closely related in form or usage. Given the relationship between them, it is quite understandable why one form’s name could be used to denote the other or vice versa. This usage leads to duplication. Many philologists define guan and jian or guan and yue, by using suo and chi. This is because as the objects that the terms guan and jian refer to were improved overtime, their appearance increasingly resembled suo and chi. Through lexical replacement, we can see how suo and chi came to connote the implements used for securing a door. This is a clear example of how words are replaced in the history.
Yang, Hsiu-fang

4

Xunzi’s Politicized and Moralized Philosophy of Language: A Systematic Interpretation, Reconstruction, Comparison and Comments


Xunzi offers a classification of names, in which he discusses the membership or inclusion relations among the things to which names refer. In this regard Xunzi’s thought is at least six centuries ahead of Porphyry’s. He suggests the principle and process of “the establishment of names by social conventions and customs,” highlights the sociality, conventionality, and coerciveness of names, and refers to the division of linguistic labor. He discusses the cognitive and communicative functions of names, but places more emphasis on their social, political, and moral functions. He states that the similarities and differences among cognitive objects provide the ontological basis for regulating names; the sensation and cognition of such similarities and differences provide the epistemological basis. He expounds some essential requirements for regulating names, and analyzes three categories of errors about names and the refutations of them. He also investigates the position and functions of names in the system of argumentation. In short, Xunzi develops a rather systematic theory of names, in which there are some outstanding and illuminating insights. These insights are still alive in contemporary philosophy of language, and could be used to broaden and deepen our understanding of names, and of language more generally. His theory of names obviously acknowledges social conventionalism, its most prominent characteristic is politicization and moralization, and its distinct internal limitation is that it does not pay much attention to the epistemological and logical aspects for regulating names, resulting in limited contribution to the study of names in these aspects.
Chen, Bo

5


Predicament and Escape: On the Images of Spring in Du Fu’s Poems “Tonggu Qige” and “Qiuxing Bashou”

“Tonggu qige” and “Qiuxing bashou” are famous poems by Du Fu. Written seven years apart, both were completed in the autumn or winter, and mention spring in the final stanza. At that time, Du Fu was advancing in years, and he was exhausted and in hard times. Where did these thoughts of transcending reality come from This article will discuss this issue by using the text of the poems and the imagery contained therein. The focus of discussion will be on the contrast between natural scenery and art. Particular attention will be given to the structure, management, and timeline of these qilu poem series. It will be shown how Du Fu summoned spring through his structuring of the poems, resulting in an ability to break out of life’s predicaments.

Fang, Yu

6

Violation, Dislocation, Pollution: Excrement Writing in Contemporary Taiwanese Poetry


Excrement is normally regarded as the most disgusting among the things issued from one’s body. This essay aims at discussing how the imagery of excrement came to be a topic discussed in contemporary Taiwanese poetry, its novelty as a trend and its wonderful transfiguration. After a sizable corpus of works were inspected and analyzed, three main patterns of poetic production were apparent: First, the blocked-up excrement type, stemming from a gloomy outlook, uses excrement as a metaphor for the devil or evil. The desire to rid oneself of the foulness is unrealized, resulting in pent-up emotion and thoughts. Second, the splashing excrement type challenges the notion of “curbing desires and avoiding filth.” It uses excrement as a weapon for antisocial action, as a way to rethink what it means to be human. Third, the amusing excrement type advocates freedom and liberation, by viewing excrement as a magical and whimsical game. This is used to deconstruct things noble and to destroy the grand narrative. Finally, the possibility of establishing an “excrement poetics” is discussed.
Liu, Cheng-chung

7


The Stranger’s Friendship on the Battlefield: The Performance of Xenia in the Iliad

This paper aims to study the meeting of Diomedes and Glaucus in Book 6 of the Iliad in relation to the practice of the religious and cultural code of xenia (guest-friendship), which the ancient Greeks formulated as the major institution for consolidating the inter-household and intercity relationships. In the literary world of the Iliad, xenia is vividly represented in several places as the Greek warriors’ respect for the cultural institution and for the philosophy of ethics and morality that lies behind it. The episode of Diomedes and Glaucus’ confrontation with each other on the battlefield in the Trojan War from Book 6, the Iliad, is examined as an example to demonstrate the importance of this ethical code. The description of the two great warriors’ refusal to fight with each other on the battlefield provides a social and cultural space to elucidate the significance of this religious and cultural custom. Through this, the epic narrative transforms the battlefield into a social space of production where ethics and the religious and cultural code reinforce each other’s necessity and importance in a society that obeys not just the edicts of the kings but also the law of Olympus.

Tsai, Hsiu-chih

8

Nosos [ν?σο?]: Plague, Disorder, Disease, and Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus


The statement that the plague at Thebes depicted in Oedipus Tyrannus alludes to the plague at Athens is highly speculative, since the date of this play is uncertain. Admittedly, Oedipus Tyrannus, like most classical Greek tragedies, grafts the fifth-century scenario unto its heroic background; however, the plague scene in this play does not necessarily refer to any specific event. Based on the observation that the entire intellectual, cultural, and social situation of the fifth century B.C. may well be reflected in the tragedy, this paper attempts to explore the multiple senses of Sophocles’ inventive portrayal of the plague, of the quest for the cause of disease and human suffering, and of the conflicting attitudes towards the religious medical treatment. In this light, the term anachronism revealed in Oedipus Tyrannus may integrate the following concepts: to impose the past onto the present, to reverse the order of time, to conduct a retrospective investigation, and to re-map a chronological etiological trajectory.
Chang, Yu-yen

9

Textual Vision and Visual Text: Envisioning the Vernacular Text in The House of Fame


While many critics of Chaucer’s early poem The House of Fame have put a premium on problems of language and textuality and others have called attention to a predominance of images and sight, they have generally failed to address the crucial convergence of the textual and the visual. This paper investigates three interrelated issues critical to an appropriate understanding of the poem: first, the blurring of the visual and the textual; second, the role of sound or speech in this conflation; and finally, the problems of vision and seeing that help empower the project of vernacular writing. The multiple configurations of visuality in the dream world provide crucial insight into the complicated relationships between Chaucer’s vernacular writing and his culture’s canon, which haunts the dream vision and text with imposing yet ambivalent visibility and textuality. The poem explores to the fullest the vernacular poet’s position, the sources of his knowledge and cultural memory, and the limits and strengths of his vision. As Chaucer exploits the tension and intersection of word and image in the dream vision, his visual text dramatizes vernacular writing’s confrontation with canonicity and envisions promises of negotiating and achieving fame through seeing, reading and writing in the vernacular text.
Yang, Ming-tsang

10

Dialectics of Conscience: A Comparative Study of the Theories of Kant, Fichte and Mou Zongsan


The central theme of this paper is the problem of conscience in a context of comparative study of Eastern and Western moral philosophy. I argue that the absolute rightness of conscience cannot be justified if one does not limit the sphere of its validity. Conscience can be understood in two different ways: it can either contain a subjective reference (Subjektbezug) or an objective reference (Objektbezug). Subjective reference means self-examination based on practical reason, while objective reference signifies reference to a concrete content of duty. Kant holds that conscience can only have a subjective reference, because an objective reference is not the task of conscience, but of moral judgment. Both Fichte and Mou Zongsan hold that conscience cannot just have the empty form of subjective reference, but should also contain some concrete substance without losing its absolute rightness. My conclusion is that Kant’s interpretation of conscience is right. The reason is quite simple: the objective reference of conscience cannot avoid the difficulty of dialectics.
Pong, Wen-berng
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