A Conceptual Lexicon for Classical Confucian Philosophy
Uses a comparative hermeneutical method to explain the most important terms in the classical Confucian philosophical texts, in an effort to allow the tradition to speak on its own terms.

Over the years, Roger T. Ames and his collaborators have consistently argued for a processual understanding of Chinese natural cosmology made explicit in the Book of Changes. It is this way of thinking, captured in its own interpretive context with the expression "continuities in change" (biantong) that has shaped the grammar of the Chinese language and informs the key philosophical vocabulary of Confucian philosophy. Over the past several centuries of cultural encounter, the formula established by the early missionaries for the translation of classical Chinese texts into Western languages has resulted in a Christian conversion of Confucian texts that is still very much with us today. And more recently, the invention of a new Chinese language to synchronize East Asian cultures with Western modernity has become another obstacle in our reading of the Confucian canons. This volume, a companion volume to A Sourcebook in Classical Confucian Philosophy, employs a comparative hermeneutical method in an attempt to explain the Confucian terms of art and to take the Confucian tradition on its own terms.

1141295740
A Conceptual Lexicon for Classical Confucian Philosophy
Uses a comparative hermeneutical method to explain the most important terms in the classical Confucian philosophical texts, in an effort to allow the tradition to speak on its own terms.

Over the years, Roger T. Ames and his collaborators have consistently argued for a processual understanding of Chinese natural cosmology made explicit in the Book of Changes. It is this way of thinking, captured in its own interpretive context with the expression "continuities in change" (biantong) that has shaped the grammar of the Chinese language and informs the key philosophical vocabulary of Confucian philosophy. Over the past several centuries of cultural encounter, the formula established by the early missionaries for the translation of classical Chinese texts into Western languages has resulted in a Christian conversion of Confucian texts that is still very much with us today. And more recently, the invention of a new Chinese language to synchronize East Asian cultures with Western modernity has become another obstacle in our reading of the Confucian canons. This volume, a companion volume to A Sourcebook in Classical Confucian Philosophy, employs a comparative hermeneutical method in an attempt to explain the Confucian terms of art and to take the Confucian tradition on its own terms.

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A Conceptual Lexicon for Classical Confucian Philosophy

A Conceptual Lexicon for Classical Confucian Philosophy

by Roger T. Ames
A Conceptual Lexicon for Classical Confucian Philosophy

A Conceptual Lexicon for Classical Confucian Philosophy

by Roger T. Ames

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$39.95 
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Overview

Uses a comparative hermeneutical method to explain the most important terms in the classical Confucian philosophical texts, in an effort to allow the tradition to speak on its own terms.

Over the years, Roger T. Ames and his collaborators have consistently argued for a processual understanding of Chinese natural cosmology made explicit in the Book of Changes. It is this way of thinking, captured in its own interpretive context with the expression "continuities in change" (biantong) that has shaped the grammar of the Chinese language and informs the key philosophical vocabulary of Confucian philosophy. Over the past several centuries of cultural encounter, the formula established by the early missionaries for the translation of classical Chinese texts into Western languages has resulted in a Christian conversion of Confucian texts that is still very much with us today. And more recently, the invention of a new Chinese language to synchronize East Asian cultures with Western modernity has become another obstacle in our reading of the Confucian canons. This volume, a companion volume to A Sourcebook in Classical Confucian Philosophy, employs a comparative hermeneutical method in an attempt to explain the Confucian terms of art and to take the Confucian tradition on its own terms.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781438490809
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Publication date: 04/02/2023
Series: SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture
Pages: 552
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Roger T. Ames is Humanities Chair Professor in the Philosophy Department at Peking University in China and Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Hawaii. His published works include collaborations on translations of the Chinese philosophical canons and several interpretive studies.

Table of Contents

Introduction

ba. "Hegemon."

ben. "Root, trunk."

cheng. "Sincerity, with integrity, resolve, (co-)creativity."

chi. "A sense of shame."

dao. "The proper way, way-making, dao."

de. "Moral virtuosity, excelling morally, virtuality."

fa. "Standards, norms, laws, models."

he. "Optimal harmony, optimizing symbiosis."

ji. "Inchoate, incipient beginnings."

ji. "Sacrificing, sacrifice."

jian. "Remonstrating, remonstrance."

兼愛jian’ai. "Inclusive care, inclusive concern."

jiao. "Teaching, education."

精神jingshen. "Spirituality, vigor, vitality, mystery."

jing. "Respecting, revering, seriousness."

jing. "Sustained equilibrium."

君子junzi. "Exemplary persons, ruler, prince, lord."

le (also pronounced yao when transitive). "Enjoyment, making the music of enjoyment."

lei. "Categories, groupings."

li. "Ritual propriety in one’s roles and relations, ritual practices, ‘social grammar, rites, customs, etiquette, propriety, morals, rules of proper behavior, reverence’."

li. "Patterning, coherence."

li. "Benefitting, profiting, personal advantage."

lun. "Order, relation, category, class."

mei. "Beautiful."

min. "The common people."

ming. "Commanding, ordering, command, mandate, the propensity of things, the force of circumstances."

ming. "Acuity, brilliance."

ming. "Naming, making a name for yourself, reputation."

內外neiwai. "Inner and outer, inside and outside."

qi. "Vital energy, qi."

qing. "Emotions, passions, feelings, the way things are, situation, circumstances."

ren. "Consummate persons, consummate conduct."

ru. "Confucianism, Ruism, scholar-teacher, literati tradition."

shan. "Felicity, efficacy, behaving well, auspicious conduct."

上帝shangdi. "High god(s)."

shen. "Heavenly gods, ancestors, spirituality, vigor, vitality, mystery."

shen. "Lived, social body."

sheng. "Living, growing, birthing."

聖(人)sheng or shengren. "Sage, sagacity."

慎其獨shenqidu. "Internalizing and consolidating virtuosic conduct as one’s habituated disposition for action, being circumspect when dwelling alone."

shi. "Warrior, retainer, knight, scholar-official."

shi. "Purchase, momentum, configuration."

shi. "Fetal beginning, natal beginning, genealogical beginning."

shu. "Putting oneself in the other’s place, deference, empathy, dramatic rehearsal."

shu. "Techniques of rulership."

si. "Thinking, reflecting."

四端siduan. "The four inclinations."

太極taiji. "The furthest reach."

ti. "Lived body, discursive body, embodying."

tian. "Tian, conventionally ‘Heaven’."

天命tianming.

天志tianzhi. "The purposes or intent of tian."

體用tiyong. "Reforming and functioning, trans-form-ing."

tong. "Sameness, similarity."

wang. "King, True King."

萬物wanwu. "The ten thousand things, the ten thousand processes or events, the myriad things or happenings."

wen. "The written word, patterns, culture, refinement, King Wen."

文化wenhua. "Culture, enculturation."

wu.

無極wuji.

無爲wuwei. "Noncoercive acting."

五行wuxing. "Five modes of virtuosic conduct, the five phases."

xiang. "Figuring, figuring out, configuring, figure, imaging, imagining, image."

xiao. "Family reverence, filial piety."

小人xiaoren. "Petty and mean persons."

孝悌xiaoti. "Family reverence and fraternal deference."

xin. "Heartmind, bodyheartminding, thinking and feeling."

xin. "Making good on one’s word, living up to one’s word."

xing. "Natural human propensities."

xu. "Emptiness."

xue. "Teaching and learning."

yi. "Changing, exchanging, ease."

yi. "One, uniqueness, continuity."

yi. "Optimal appropriateness, meaning."

陰陽yinyang. "Yin and yang."

yong. "Courage, bravery, vigor, vitality, boldness, fierceness."

you. "Friend, friendship."

有無youwu. "Something and nothing, determinate and indeterminate, presence and absence."

yue. "Music."

zheng. "Proper, acting properly."

zheng. "Proper governing, effecting sociopolitical order."

正名zhengming. "Using names properly."

知/智zhi. "Living wisely, realizing, wisdom, knowing."

zhi.

zhi.

zhi. "Native temperament, raw stuff, basic disposition."

自然ziran. "Self-so-ing, so-of-itself, spontaneity."

zhong. "Center, balance, focus, equilibrium."

zhong. "Conscientiousness, doing one’s utmost, loyalty."

中庸zhongyong. "Focusing the familiar, hitting the mark in the everyday, making the ordinary extraordinary."

主客zhuke. "Subject and object, subjectivity and objectivity."

Bibliography of Earlier Glossaries
Bibliography of Works Cited
Acknowledgements

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