Confucianism and Philosophy of Language

 

 

I. Chad Hansen and Ames and Hall (where they agree with each other in general)

 

Referential language vs. evocative/allusive language, or “the language of deference”

 

Referential language (Western language and theory of language)

Evocative/allusive language (Chinese language and theory of language)
  • Meaning is contained in or determined by sentences
  • Meaning is contained in strings of names
  • Meaning is reference. Propositional content. Contain information that represent reality
  • Content is dispositional. Do not represent, but present attitudes.  
  • Criterion: true or false – a matter of the relation between sentence (proposition) and reality
  • Criterion: Acceptability (ke 可). Assent. – A matter of the relation between names and human disposition/conduct. 
  • The mind is the repository of information. Naming is the act of making generalizations (abstraction)
  • The mind is a faculty of making and acting on distinctions (bian 辨). Naming is the act of recognition or establishment of boundaries
  • Stresses the personal nature of language
  • Stresses the social nature of language
  • Subject to formal logic

-- Meanings are defined by other words

-- formal structures of reasoning determine validity
  • Subject to “illocutionary logic”

-- Meanings are commitments, behavioral expectations

-- efficaciousness/acceptability

 

 

 

 

II. Question: Are Western languages referential languages and Western philosophy of language all referential theories?

 

Reference theory:

            Ideation theory: John Locke

            Sentence as the basic unit of meaning: Frege and Russell.

            Holism and indeterminacy of translation: Quine.

 

Ordinary language:

            Wittgenstein: Meaning is its use. No private language.

            Speaker’s meaning and sentence meaning

            John L. Austin: Performative function of language: How to do things with Words.

                        Locutionary act – the act of saying something

Illocutionary act – the act done in saying something (such as questioning, answering, making an appointment, an appeal, apology.)

Perlocutionary act – act done by saying something (such as alarming someone, convincing someone, soliciting an answer).

 

III. Zheng Ming 正名 – Rectification of Names

 

1. Its importance to Confucianism:

·         13.3: Priority in governance

·         12:11: King the kings, subject the subjects, ….

·         12.5: Within the four seas, all are brothers. -- Names can determine one’s disposition. 

·         Mencius 1B:8: To punish an outcast is not regicide

·         Mencius 2A:6: whoever is devoid of the four hearts is not human.

·         4.24: Slow to speak; 2.18: to speak with few errors. See also 14:20, 14.27, 2.13.

 

2. Conditions for rectification of names:

  • Tradition: coiner. What determines the locutionary content. In Chinese language: The association of names with images (that carry values, expectations, etc.). It creates the possibility for creation of new names that have associated meaning (or dispositional content): as in the case of 仁 and 人, 義 (appropriateness/signification) and 宜 (appropriateness), 政 (governance) and 正 (upright, correct).  
  • Convention. Acceptability by the community of users of the language. Illocutionary and perlocutionary use of language depend heavily on the community. Confucius: “names must be able to be spoken and acted upon” (13.3).
  • The junzi (exemplary person), the one who uses/rectifies names. Do things with words: Bring order to society (whereas Wittgenstein only describes language games, using words to play games). To let the world/reality be in accord with the subjective value (rectification of names as the action of ordering reality). The junzi

(1) makes names clear (bian 辨). Making expectations, commitments etc. clear.    

(2) let words carry mission, ideal.

(3) let names be acted upon and actualized; become reality.

 

3. Examples of “correcting names”

·         Taiwan “zheng ming” movement.

·         America: the “Patriot Act”: with the country caught up in a patriotic fervor, who would vote against something with such a title?

·         The novel 1984: in the novel, one of the characters works on the official dictionary of the country, with the goal of making it smaller and smaller with each new edition, mostly by eliminating pesky synonyms, but also by eliminating undesirable concepts. After all, who can rebel if they have no word for, no concept for, rebellion?

·         The vocabularies of today’s student have fallen dramatically in the past 50 years or so. What does this imply?