The propensity of things : toward a history of efficacy in China

書誌事項

The propensity of things : toward a history of efficacy in China

François Jullien ; translated by Janet Lloyd

Zone Books, 1999, c1995

  • : pbk

タイトル別名

La propension des choses

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注記

Includes bibliographical references

First paperback edition

内容説明・目次

内容説明

In this book, his first to appear in English, French sinologist Francois Jullien uses the Chinese concept of shi-meaning disposition or circumstance, power or potential-as a touchstone to explore Chinese culture and to uncover the intricate structure underlying Chinese modes of thinking. In this strikingly original contribution to our understanding of Chinese philosophy, Francois Julien, a French sinologist whose work has not yet appeared in English, uses the Chinese concept of shi-meaning disposition or circumstance, power or potential-as a touchstone to explore Chinese culture and to uncover the intricate and coherent structure underlying Chinese modes of thinking. A Hegelian prejudice still haunts studies of ancient Chinese civilization: Chinese thought, never able to evolve beyond a cosmological point of view, with an indifference to any notion of telos, sought to interpret reality solely on the basis of itself. In this groundbreaking study, prejudices toward the simplicity and "naivete" of Chinese thought, Hegelian and otherwise, are dismantled one by one to reveal the intricate and coherent structure underlying Chinese modes of thinking and representing reality. Jullien begins with a single Chinese term, shi, whose very ambivalence and disconcerting polysemy, on the one hand, and simple efficacy, on the other, defy the order of a concept. Yet shi insinuates itself into the ordering and conditioning of reality in all its manifold and complex representations. Because shi neither gave rise to any coherent, general analysis nor figured as one of the major concepts among Chinese thinkers, Jullien follows its appearance from one field to another: from military strategy to politics; from the aesthetics of calligraphy and painting to the theory of literature; and from reflection on history to "first philosophy." At the point where these various domains intersect, a fundamental intuition assumed self-evident for centuries emerges, namely, that reality - every kind of reality - may be perceived as a particular deployment or arrangement of things to be relied upon and worked to one's advantage. Art or wisdom, as conceived by the Chinese, lies in strategically exploiting the propensity that emanates from this particular configuration of reality.

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詳細情報

  • NII書誌ID(NCID)
    BB04574793
  • ISBN
    • 0942299957
  • LCCN
    94030660
  • 出版国コード
    us
  • タイトル言語コード
    eng
  • 本文言語コード
    eng
  • 原本言語コード
    fre
  • 出版地
    New York
  • ページ数/冊数
    317 p.
  • 大きさ
    23 cm
  • 分類
  • 件名
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