1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910779921603321

Autore

Wardy Robert

Titolo

Aristotle in China : language, categories, and translation / / Robert Wardy [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2000

ISBN

1-107-11918-9

1-280-42121-5

0-511-48309-0

0-511-32747-1

0-511-17329-6

0-511-15235-3

0-521-77118-8

0-511-04944-7

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (x, 170 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

Needham Research Institute studies ; ; 2

Disciplina

181/.11

Soggetti

Philosophy, Chinese

Chinese language

Language and languages - Philosophy

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 161-165) and index.

Nota di contenuto

The China syndrome: language, logical form, translation -- Guidance and constraint -- On the very idea of translation -- Whorf's hypothesis -- Deflationary philosophical anthropology -- Von Humboldt's legacy -- Case-study 1: conditionals -- Case-study 2: Chinese is a list -- Logical form -- Against 'logical' translation -- Why form might matter -- Procrustean logic -- Case-study 3: being -- Case-study 4: truth -- Case-study 5: nouns and ontology -- Aristotelian whispers -- What's in a name? -- Disputation, discrimination, inference -- The need for logic -- Finite and infinite -- The simple and the complex -- All the things there are -- How many questions? -- Relatively speaking -- Particular and general -- Translating the untranslatable.

Sommario/riassunto

In this book, Robert Wardy, a philosopher and classicist, turns his attention to the relation between language and thought. He explores



this huge topic in an analysis of linguistic relativism, with specific reference to a reading of the ming li t'an ('The Investigation of the Theory of Names'), a seventeenth-century Chinese translation of Aristotle's Categories. Throughout his investigation, Wardy addresses important questions. Do the basis structures of language shape the major thought-patterns of its native speakers? Could philosophy be guided and constrained by the language in which it is done? What factors, from grammar and logic to cultural and religious expectations, influence translation? And does Aristotle survive rendition into Chinese intact? His answers will fascinate philosphers, Sinologists, classicists, linguists and anthropologists, and will make a major contribution to the existing literature.