The Discovery of Chinese Logic

The Discovery of Chinese Logic

Modern Chinese Philosophy Edited by

John Makeham, Australian National University

VOLUME 1

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/mcp.

The Discovery of Chinese Logic By

Joachim Kurtz

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kurtz, Joachim. The discovery of Chinese logic / by Joachim Kurtz. p. cm. — (Modern Chinese philosophy, ISSN 1875-9386 ; v. 1) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17338-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Logic—China—History. I. Title. II. Series. BC39.5.C47K87 2011 160.951—dc23

2011018902

ISSN 1875-9386 ISBN 978 90 04 17338 5 Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

CONTENTS List of Illustrations ...................................................................... List of Tables .............................................................................. Preface .........................................................................................

vii ix xi

Introduction ................................................................................ 1. “Chinese Logic” and Logic in China ............................... 2. The Argument ................................................................... 3. Discovery and Translation ................................................

1 2 6 9

Chapter One First Encounters: Jesuit Logica in the Late Ming and Early Qing ....................................................................... 1. Logic in Jesuit Education .................................................. 2. Accommodation and Translation ..................................... 3. Logic in Early Jesuit Writings ........................................... 4. Logic as the Patterns of Names ........................................ 5. Logic as a Syllogistic Trap ................................................

21 22 25 29 43 65

Chapter Two Haphazard Overtures: Logic in Nineteenth-Century Protestant Writings ............................... 1. Protestant Authors and Western Knowledge ................... 2. The New Organon and Old Ways of Argumentation ......... 3. Logic as the Science of Debate ......................................... 4. Logic as the Science of Discerning Truth ........................ 5. Logic as the Science of Reason ........................................

89 89 95 104 118 125

Chapter Three Great Expectations: Yan Fu and the Discovery of European Logic ................................................. 1. The Quest for Certainty .................................................... 2. Logic as the Science of Sciences ....................................... 3. Logic as a New Style of Reasoning .................................. 4. Yan Fu as a Translator of Logic ....................................... 5. Logic in the Margins .........................................................

147 148 149 154 169 186

vi

contents

Chapter Four Spreading the Word: Logic in Late Qing Education and Popular Discourse .......................................... 1. Logic in the New School Curricula .................................. 2. Logic in New-Style Textbooks .......................................... 3. Logic in Symbols, Charts, and Diagrams ......................... 4. New Terms for Telling the Truth .................................... 5. Luoji, or What’s in a Name? ..............................................

193 194 203 226 245 257

Chapter Five Heritage Unearthed: The Discovery of Chinese Logic ........................................................................................ 1. All Hail the Pioneers! ........................................................ 2. Chinese Logic as Classical Philology ................................ 3. Chinese Logic as Buddhist Dialectic ................................. 4. Chinese Logic as European Logic .................................... 5. Chinese Logic as an Archival Curiosity ...........................

277 278 289 301 313 327

Epilogue ...................................................................................... 1. Translation and Rupture ................................................... 2. From Discovery to Invention ............................................ 3. De-modernizing Chinese Logic .........................................

339 340 344 360

Appendix ..................................................................................... A. Textbooks on Logic Adapted from Japanese, 1902–1911 ......................................................................... B. Logical Terms in Early-Twentieth-Century Textbooks ..........................................................................

367

Bibliography ................................................................................ 1. Primary Sources ................................................................. 2. Secondary Sources .............................................................

425 425 439

Index ...........................................................................................

463

367 370

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 4.20 4.21

Fan Diji, Lunlixue wenda, 1903 (1) .................................... Fan Diji, Lunlixue wenda, 1903 (2) .................................... Yang Yinhang, Mingxue, 1903 (1) .................................... Yang Yinhang, Mingxue, 1903 (2) .................................... Hu Maoru, Lunlixue, 1906 ............................................... Guo Yaogeng, Zuixin lunlixue gangyao, 1909 ..................... Lin Kepei, Lunlixue tongyi, 1909 ....................................... Qian Jiazhi, Mingxue, 1910 (1) ......................................... Qian Jiazhi, Mingxue, 1910 (2) ......................................... Zhou Dunyi, Taiji tu, 11th cent. ..................................... Tian Wuzhao, Lunlixue gangyao, 1903 .............................. Lunlixue biaojie, 1911/1912 ............................................... Fan Diji, Lunlixue wenda, 1903 (3) .................................... Fan Diji, Lunlixue wenda, 1903 (4) .................................... Chen Wen, Mingxue jiaokeshu, 1911 ................................. Lunlixue chubu, 1907 .......................................................... Qian Jiazhi, Mingxue, 1910 (3) ......................................... Yang Yinhang, Mingxue, 1903 (3) .................................... Wang Bo, Yanji tu, 13th cent. .......................................... Xu Qian, Du Sishu congshuo, 14th cent. ........................... Tang Zuwu, Lunlixue poujie tushuo, 1906 ..........................

230 230 232 232 233 233 234 236 236 236 238 238 240 240 241 241 242 243 244 244 246

LIST OF TABLES 1.1 1.2

Phonemic Loans in the Mingli tan (1631/1639) ............. Terms Related to Predicables in the Mingli tan (1631/39) ......................................................................... 1.3 Terms Related to Categories in the Mingli tan (1631/39) ......................................................................... 1.4 Basic Logical Terms in the Mingli tan (1631/39) ........... 1.5 Terms Related to the Syllogism in the Qionglixue (1683) ............................................................................... 2.1 Logical Terms in Nineteenth-Century Protestant Works ............................................................................... 3.1 Logical Terms in Yan Fu’s Translations ........................ 4.1 Terms for Logical Notions in Translations from Japanese, 1902–1911 ....................................................... 4.2 Chinese Translations of “Logic”: A Chronological Overview, 1623–1921 ..................................................... B.1 Logical Terms in Early-Twentieth-Century Textbooks (1) ................................................................... B.2 Logical Terms in Early-Twentieth-Century Textbooks (2) ................................................................... B.3 Logical Terms in Early-Twentieth-Century Textbooks (3) ................................................................... B.4 Logical Terms in Early-Twentieth-Century Textbooks (4) ................................................................... B.5 Logical Terms in Early-Twentieth-Century Textbooks (5) ................................................................... B.6 Logical Terms in Early-Twentieth-Century Textbooks (6) ................................................................... B.7 Logical Terms in Early-Twentieth-Century Textbooks (7) ................................................................... B.8 Logical Terms in Early-Twentieth-Century Textbooks (8) ................................................................... B.9 Logical Terms in Japanese and Chinese Dictionaries ... B.10 Logical Terms in Modern Chinese Dictionaries ............

53 56 56 57 80 141 177 254 263 372 377 382 386 391 396 402 407 412 418

PREFACE Like many books, or so I try to convince myself, this study was begun with a far more grandiose design in mind than its author was eventually able to realize. Puzzled by the ease and certainty with which traditional Chinese thought has come to be interpreted in modern terms—as if equivalences between ancient Chinese notions and the latest catchwords of contemporary academe could be taken for granted, or needed to be defended at all cost in order to preserve the dignity of Chinese civilization—I set out to reconstruct the history of one discursive field in which this practice appears to be especially hazardous: the discourse on “Chinese logic” that emerged in the early years of the twentieth century and has since produced a vast array of literature, and sustained quite a few academic careers, in China and abroad. My initial idea was to present the tale of this discourse along the metaphorical lines of a biography. Starting naturally, it would seem, with a brief announcement of its birth shortly before the year 1900, I wanted to trace the adventures of Chinese logic throughout the twentieth century, recounting along the way adolescent uncertainties in the era of the New Culture Movement circa 1920; an ensuing period of maturation, oscillating between frantic study and wild speculation, that earned the subject academic respectability and culminated in the publication of the first histories of Chinese logical thought; further on through worrisome decades of adulthood, clouded by the vicissitudes of war, revolution, and ideological pressures that posed constant threats to the integrity of the field and the individuals involved in its maintenance; and ending, finally, with the comparatively calm period of respite, or retirement, that the discourse of Chinese logic, like many other academic pursuits, has been enjoying in mainland China and other parts of the Sinophone world during the past twenty years. Yet, the more I read of the voluminous literature on Chinese logic produced over the course of the twentieth century, in Chinese and other languages, the more it seemed to me that the most intriguing question to be asked about this discourse was not so much how it grew and developed, but how it came into existence in the first place. The following chapters are an attempt to answer this much more modest but, as I hope to show, no less intricate question. Rather than

xii

preface

narrating the biography of Chinese logic, as I initially imagined, their aim is to reconstruct the extended prenatal labors and birth travails of a discourse that remained all but inconceivable until the end of the nineteenth century but is today customarily presented as reaching back more than two millennia. In the course of my struggles with the tangled genealogy of Chinese logic, I was able to rely on the inspiration and help of more teachers, colleagues, and friends than I could possibly mention here. Without the unfailing support, encouragement, and trust of Michael Lackner, who first directed my attention to the complex interplay of history and language, none of the following chapters would have seen the light of day. I am no less grateful to Erling von Mende for his sustained reassurance and quite a few gentle admonitions, imparted even across transcontinental divides. The critical eyes of Viviane Alleton were indispensable in preventing more linguistic blunders in the following pages than I feel comfortable to admit. At a crucial stage, Joshua A. Fogel provided invaluable opportunities to discuss my coarse ideas with some of the finest scholars in our field, and Joan Judge did her best to instruct me, with uncertain success, about the uses and limits of theory in analyses of late imperial Chinese texts. Iwo Amelung, my friend and colleague at Göttingen, Berlin, and Erlangen, has helped me in so many respects with this and other projects that I cannot think of a single aspect for which to thank him most. Substantial parts of this book were written during visiting assignments at two institutions that provide ideal working conditions for historians of knowledge. The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where I was able to spend the academic year 2002–2003, offered monastic seclusion when needed and opportunities for critical dialogue whenever solitude failed to usher in enlightenment. I will always cherish the comraderie and friendship of my fellows there, including, besides Josh and Joan, Hugh Shapiro, Hu Ying, and Martin Kern, who among them seemed to know the proper answer to any question—textual, philosophical, or worldly. While at Princeton, I also benefited from the advice of Benjamin A. Elman, who offered constructive criticisms of several aspects of my project. An invitation to work at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin in 2009 enabled me to put the next-to-final touches on this manuscript in the lively atmosphere of this unique center of transdisciplinary inquiry. I am grateful to Jürgen Renn and Lorraine Daston who made my stay in

preface

xiii

Dahlem possible, and to my friends Rui Magone, Martina Siebert, and Dagmar Schäfer, who welcomed me in their midst and generously shared their ideas, time, and expertise within the creative hustle that quickly enveloped all of us. Prior to and in between these two periods of intense writing, parts of this work took shape in the more mundane circumstances of my regular professional life, first at Erlangen and then at Emory University. In Erlangen, I enjoyed the support and assistance of Wolfgang Lippert, Yvonne Schulz Zinda, and Liu Yishan. During my time in Atlanta, which turned out to be life-changing in more ways than one, I relearned my trade as a teacher and researcher thanks to the patient guidance of my congenial and resourceful colleagues Cheryl A. Crowley, Cai Rong, Li Hong, Eric Reinders, Juliette Stapanian Apkarian, and the inimitable Betty Leathers. I am indebted to the Emory College of Arts and Sciences for its support of all my research endeavors and for granting me a year of sabbatical leave when it was most needed. Since hardly any of the materials relevant for my topic were easily available, extended periods of research in Asian, North American, and European libraries were vital to the progress and eventual completion of this study. I am sincerely grateful to the organizations that made sojourns in Shanghai, Beijing, Paris, Rome, Princeton, Hong Kong, Taipei, Tōkyō, and Ōsaka possible, most notably the Volkswagenstiftung, the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, and the Herodotus Fund of the Institute for Advanced Study, as well as to the individuals without whose hospitality and guidance my travels would have had no avail. In Shanghai, Zhou Zhenhe 周振鶴, Xiong Yuezhi 熊月之, and Zou Zhenhuan 鄒振環 directed me through the labyrinths of many libraries, public and private, and taught me how to read what I would not have found without their help. In Beijing, I am most indebted to my friends Wang Yangzong 王揚宗, Han Qi 韓琦, Tian Miao 田淼, and Su Rongyu 蘇榮譽, who helped in every academic and practical respect. Thanks are also due to Shen Guowei 沈國威 and Uchida Keiichi 内田慶市 in Ōsaka, Benjamin K. T’sou 鄒嘉彥 in Hong Kong, and Nicolas Standaert and Carine Defoort in Leuven. Over the years I enjoyed opportunities to discuss aspects of my work with critical audiences at many distinguished institutions, and I am grateful to them and the scholars who invited me to present my ideas in their departments, seminars, and workshops, especially Anne Cheng, Yves Chevrier, and Christian Jacob in Paris, Zhang Qing 章清

xiv

preface

in Shanghai, Federico Masini in Rome, Frits Staal in Amsterdam, Christian Thiel in Erlangen, Zhang Longxi in Hong Kong, and Peter Zarrow in Taipei. David Wright, Douglas Howland, Catherine Jami, Christoph Harbsmeier, Shigehisa Kuriyama, and Shen Sung-ch’iao 沈松僑 took the pains to comment on individual portions of this manuscript, and Rachel Weine read and much improved the entire first draft. Finally, thanks are due to Gene McGarry, a copy editor exemplary in every regard, Jens Cram for his assistance in compiling the index, as well as John Makeham and Albert Hoffstädt for their trust in this project and the saintly patience with which they awaited its completion. Needless to say, I alone am responsible for any remaining omissions and mistakes.

INTRODUCTION It magnifies their originality to read [ past authors] in their own terms, rather than tacitly to translate, with inevitable distortions, their unfamiliar preoccupations into our own familiar ones. Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity

The philosopher, literary critic, and archaeologist Wang Guowei 王國維 (1877–1927) was the first to characterize the decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century as an “age of discovery” ( faxian shidai 發現時代) unparalleled in Chinese history.1 His emphatic assessment was justified in more than one sense. Wang himself referred to the disclosure of written and material evidence from China’s distant past which had become available through the unearthing of oracle bones in Henan, bamboo and silk manuscripts in and around Dunhuang, as well as long-lost documents and historical artifacts found at various other places, often at the fringes of the Qing empire. But one could also cite less tangible discoveries to corroborate his appraisal. The renewed encounter with “Western knowledge” (xixue 西學), introduced through translations from European languages or Japanese, provoked a massive expansion of the Chinese terminological and conceptual lexicon and fomented a radical reordering of China’s discursive landscape. Adaptations of Western-derived terms and notions gradually displaced the conceptual grids that had framed Chinese learned discourses for centuries. At the same time, they fueled the discovery, or rediscovery, of unknown or neglected aspects of China’s intellectual past, which were subsequently translated into new historical narratives and exploited in reconstructions of alternative or presumably forgotten traditions.

1 Wang Guowei 王國維, “Zuijin ersanshi nian zhong Zhongguo xin faxian zhi xuewen” 最近二三十年中中國新發現之學問 (Scholarship of new discoveries in China during the past twenty or thirty years), Qinghua zhoukan 350 (1925), reprinted in idem, Wang Guowei wenji 王國維文集 (The works of Wang Guowei), ed. Yao Ganming 姚淦銘 and Wang Yan 王燕 (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1997), vol. 4, 33–38; 33.

2

introduction 1. “Chinese Logic” and Logic in China

The emergence of a discourse on “Chinese logic”—a term used throughout this study to denote evidence of explicit logical theorizing in ancient Chinese texts, not of any peculiar Chinese ways of thinking—in the early years of the twentieth century is a paradigmatic case of a discovery of this second kind. Unheard of until the late 1890s, Chinese logic came to claim a history of over two thousand years within less than two decades after the first fragments of ancient Chinese texts were tentatively interpreted in logical terms. Twentiethcentury scholarship has since established that explicit reflections on questions similar to those discussed in traditional European logic can be traced back in China at least to the fifth century BC.2 As in ancient Greece and India, Chinese interest in logical problems evolved from meditations on the methodology of debate. The earliest attestations of this interest are found among the “dialecticians” or “debaters” (bianzhe 辯者) who were classified together as a distinctive “School of Names” (mingjia 名家) around 100 AD by the compilers of the “Bibliographical Record” in the History of the Han ( Hanshu yiwenzhi 漢書藝文志).3 The most important thinkers in this heterogeneous school were Hui Shi 惠施 (ca. 370–310 BC), who formulated ten paradoxes on the infinity of time and space,4 and the infamous Gongsun Long 公孫龍 (ca. 320– 250 BC), who earned his livelihood through the artful defense of the contradictory statement “[a] white horse is not [a] horse” (baima fei ma 白馬非馬) and a number of similarly striking sophisms.5 In an era defined by a crisis of certainty, none of the Hundred Schools (baijia 百家) of classical Chinese philosophy could ignore the

2 For an extensive bibliographical overview, see Anna Ghiglione, “Lo studio della logica cinese pre-Qin nel xx secolo” (unpublished tesi di laurea, University of Venice, 1987), 207–423. 3 Kidder Smith, “Sima Tan and the Invention of Daoism, ‘Legalism’, etcetera,” The Journal of Asian Studies 62, no. 1 (2003): 129–156; 142–144. For a general overview of this school, see, e.g., Angus C. Graham, Disputers of the Dao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1989), 370–382. 4 Ibid., 76–82. See also Ralf Moritz, Hui Shi und die Entwicklung des philosophischen Denkens im alten China (Berlin-Ost: Akademie-Verlag, 1973). 5 See, e.g., Christoph Harbsmeier, Language and Logic in Traditional China, vol. 7, pt. 1, of Science and Civilisation in China, ed. Joseph Needham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 298–321; and Thierry Lucas, “Hui Shih and Kung Sun Lung: An Approach from Contemporary Logic,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 20, no. 2 (1993): 211–255.

introduction

3

issues raised by the dialectical skills of the debaters. Problems like the relation between “names” (ming 名) and “objects” (shi 實), criteria of identity and difference, or standards of right/true (shi 是) and wrong/ false ( fei 非) were discussed across all ideological divides.6 The Daoist text Zhuangzi 莊子 (ca. 320 BC, with later additions) accused the dialecticians of closing their eyes to the inevitable consequence of their insights, namely, that all debates were futile since human opinions “leveled out” from the perspective of the Way (dao 道).7 In contrast to this skeptical view, later Mohist thinkers aimed at a positive justification of their school’s ethical and political teachings. The “Mohist Canons” (Mojing 墨經), also known as the “Dialectical Chapters” (Mobian 墨辯), in the book Mozi 墨子 (late fourth to third century BC)8 contained a series of brief definitions and explanations outlining procedures to check the validity of conflicting assertions, a theory of description, and an inventory of “acceptable” (ke 可) links between consecutive statements.9 Xunzi 荀子 (ca. 313–238 BC) appropriated the logical findings of the later Mohists to defend Confucian ideals of state and society in his discursive treatise “On the Correct Use of Names” (Zhengming pian 正名篇),10 and his Legalist disciple Han Feizi 韓非子 (ca. 280–233 BC) exploited the accumulated knowledge on “names and disputation” (mingbian 名辯) in the formulation of a proto-totalitarian ideology that helped to end the golden age of Chinese philosophical and logical reflection soon after the unification of the empire by the state of Qin in 221 BC.11 After a hiatus of nearly five hundred years, the early interest in logical questions was revitalized during the third and fourth centuries AD by the mystic Xuanxue 玄學 or “School of Dark Learning.” Inspired by the rediscovery of the Mobian and other forgotten texts, Dark Learning thinkers refined the earlier understanding of the relation between “names” and the “patterns [of things]” (li 理) and analyzed models

6 On ancient notions of “truth” as “thusness,” as well as their verbal expressions and their intimate relation to ethically charged terms such as “right” and “wrong,” see Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 193–209. 7 See, e.g., Graham, Disputers of the Dao, 176–186, 199–202. 8 On the textual history of these chapters, see Angus C. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science ( Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1978), 73–100. 9 Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 286–348. 10 For an English translation, see John Knoblock, Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), vol. 3, chap. 22. 11 Graham, Disputers of the Tao, 267–285.

4

introduction

of persuasive argumentation in scholarly debate.12 In the seventh and eighth centuries, logical thought in China experienced a new height inspired by appropriations of sophisticated forms of Buddhist reasoning originating from India. In the translations of the traveling monk Xuanzang 玄奘 (600–664) and his followers, treatises discussing the Buddhist hetuvidyā were reformulated into the ingenious system of yinming 因明 ‘knowledge of reasons’ that offered Chinese clerics and literati for the first time formalized schemes to demonstrate the validity of their arguments and, more importantly, refute those of their opponents.13 Yet, even the emergence of yinming did not lead to the formation of a separate division of learning devoted to questions of logical import. Outside Buddhist monasteries, the religious logic of yinming never aroused much interest, and in the nonreligious realm speculations about names and objects, which never shed the stigma of moral volatility with which their inventors had been branded, lost what may have remained of their intellectual appeal in the aftermath of the powerful Confucian revival gaining momentum from the eleventh century onward. Although the diverse beginnings of Chinese logical thought were preserved at the fringes of the classical canons, European logic was perceived as an entirely alien area of intellectual inquiry when it initially became known in China during the seventeenth and once again toward the end of the nineteenth century.14 Throughout this period, no Chinese scholar, even among those involved in translations of logical texts, detected any affinity or relation between this esoteric foreign science and the theoretical insights of the dialecticians and their

12 Useful accounts of these developments are Zhou Wenying 周文英, Zhongguo luoji sixiang shigao 中國邏輯思想史搞 (A draft history of logical thought in China) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1979) 89–109; and Wen Gongyi 溫公頤, Zhongguo zhonggu luojishi 中國中古邏輯史 (A history of logic in the Chinese Middle Ages) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1989), 247–270. 13 Uwe Frankenhauser, Die Einführung der buddhistischen Logik in China (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996). See also Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 358–407. 14 Two early but still useful accounts are Sakade Yoshinobu 坂出祥伸, “Shinmatsu ni okeru Seiō ronrigaku no juyō ni tsuite” 清末に於ける西欧論理学の受容につい て (The reception of European logic in late Qing China), Nippon Chūgoku gakkaihō 12 (1965): 155–163; and Takada Atsushi 高田淳, “Chūgoku kindai no ‘ronri’ kenkyū” 中国近代の“論理”研究 (Studies in “logic” in modern China), Kōza Tōyō shisō 講座東 洋思想 4, Series 2: Chōgoku shisō 中国思想 3 (1967), 215–227. One ironic limitation of both studies is that they ignore the role of Japanese teachers, texts, and terms in the formation of modern Chinese logical discourse and say very little on the issues of translation and appropriation.

introduction

5

intellectual offspring. At the turn of the twentieth century, even specialized bibliographers of Western knowledge still felt at a loss when forced to address the subject. Writing as late as 1898, Huang Qingcheng 黃慶澄 (1863–1904) placed the only Chinese monograph on logic available at the time in the category of books on “dialects” ( fangyan 方言), that is, foreign languages,15 and Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), who was considered one of the foremost authorities in matters of new knowledge, listed the same text as a work “impossible to classify” (wu ke gui lei 無可歸類)—alongside museum guides and cookbooks.16 Yet, less than a decade after such disarming attestations of indifference or incomprehension, logic had not only become a mandatory subject in the curricula of Chinese institutions of higher learning but was also cited more or less routinely in academic and political debates. Freshly minted terms for logical notions had infiltrated scholarly writings to such an extent that literary historians invented the epithet of a “logical style” (luojiwen 邏輯文) to characterize the prose of their most prolific adherents.17 Moreover, several of the most celebrated scholars of the period, among them the just-mentioned Liang Qichao, had begun to embark on explorations into the hitherto unknown territory of “Chinese logic,” which was conceptualized with surprising confidence in terms that had barely begun to circulate. Some even launched comparative inquiries into the particular characteristics of “the world’s three great logical traditions,” as they would soon come to be known around the globe, of Europe, India—and China.18

15 Huang Qingcheng 黃慶澄, Zhong-xi putong shumubiao 中西普通書目表 (General Chinese and Western bibliography) (n.p., 1898), 1:7a. 16 Liang Qichao 梁啟超, Xixue shumubiao 西學書目表 (Bibliography of Western knowledge) (Shanghai: Shenshijizhai, 1896), 3:20a. In an accompanying essay, Liang found a no less unusual place for logic in the context of a rather enigmatic Western science “specifically concerned with the functioning of the ‘sinews transmitting the brain’s vital energies’ [that is, nerves]” (zhuanlun naoqiguan wanglai zhi shi 專論腦氣管往 來之事). Liang Qichao 梁啟超, “Du Xixue shu fa” 讀西學書法 ( How to read books on Western knowledge), in idem, Xixue shumubiao, appendix, 1a–18b; 5a. 17 Qian Jibo 錢基博, Xiandai Zhongguo wenxueshi 現代中國文學史 (A literary history of modern China) (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 2004), 317–381. 18 See Zeng Xiangyun 曾祥云, Zhongguo jindai bijiao luoji sixiang yanjiu 中國近代比 較邏輯思想研究 (A study of comparative logical thought in modern China) ( Harbin: Heilongjiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1992), 29–43.

6

introduction 2. The Argument

The following chapters reconstruct how the abrupt and unexpected discovery of Chinese logic became possible. They argue that the formation of a discourse on Chinese logic in the early years of the twentieth century must be understood as the result of a dual process of translation that has shaped modern interpretations of China’s intellectual past not only in the realm of logic. Like the now equally ubiquitous histories of “Chinese philosophy,” “Chinese science,” or “Chinese religion,” for example, accounts of China’s logical heritage depended from the outset on a new language of scholarship that emerged from translations of Western-derived notions and their subsequent naturalization in Chinese discourses. The formation of this new language can be traced back to China’s first serious encounter with European ideas in the seventeenth century, but it gained its full force only in the decades around the year 1900 when the symbolic resources on which the imperial Chinese state was built gradually lost their authority. Once the collapse of the imperial order was imminent, Chinese literati swiftly abandoned their indigenous conceptual tools, turning instead to terms and notions introduced through translations from European languages or Japanese that seemed to promise new epistemic possibilities more in tune with the exigencies of a volatile new age. The application of the new language emerging from this first, intercultural process of translation in interpretations of ancient Chinese texts, which became a scholarly fad in the first decade of the twentieth century,19 amounted in many instances to a second, intracultural translation between the new Europeanized idiom and the classical Chinese lexicon. This was undoubtedly the case in the realm of logic. The hundreds of lexical innovations Chinese and foreign translators had to create for their adaptations of logical texts attest that not even the most basic notions of the field had readily identifiable, let alone selfevident, equivalents in the languages of late imperial or ancient China. Consequently, some ingenuity was required to match the new words established as tentative renditions of logical notions with ancient concepts that had been understood in very different terms for centuries.

19 Hao Chang, Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning, 1890–1911 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), 9.

introduction

7

The aim of this study is to reconstruct the history of this twofold process of translation from its earliest anticipations in the seventeenth century to its culmination in the last decade before the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911. The first two of the following five chapters analyze episodes in the extended prehistory leading up to the almost simultaneous Chinese discoveries of “European” and “Chinese” logic in the final decades of the imperial era. Chapter 1 documents the futile attempts of seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries to lure Chinese literati into the Christian faith through a sinicized version of late scholastic logica. While not directly contributing to the later age of discovery, the Jesuit adaptations of Aristotelian texts and notions are relevant to our problematic because they proved that the conceptual lexicon of European logic could be represented in Chinese terms by sufficiently imaginative translators and, thus, that the transmission of logic was not hampered, as is sometimes suggested, by a general incommensurability of Chinese and Western languages or ways of thinking. At the same time, the futility of the Jesuit effort underscored that successful linguistic representation does not necessarily lead to the seamless and immediate naturalization of a hitherto unknown body of knowledge in a new cultural environment. Left outside of any meaningful Chinese context, the Jesuit translations appeared not so much as alluring treasuries of exquisite Christian scholarship, as their authors intended, but as hermetic textual monstrosities. The second Chinese encounter with European logic, analyzed in chapter 2, took place in very different circumstances. In the wake of Euro-America’s violent expansion, the Protestant authors selling faith and knowledge to China in the second half of the nineteenth century were in an infinitely stronger position than their Jesuit precursors. Yet very few included logic in their presentations of “useful knowledge,” and those who did paid little attention to the building of conceptual bridges connecting the subject to contemporary concerns. Moreover, despite the military and economic dominance of the Western powers, the new wave of foreigners from Europe and North America soon learned that their audiences remained highly selective. In contrast to colonized nations in other parts of the globe,20 China’s elites never lost See, e.g., Vicente L. Rafael, Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988); Eric Cheyfitz, The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Colonization from “The Tempest” to “Tarzan” (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Tejaswini Niranjana, 20

8

introduction

control of the conceptual space in which political and scholarly discourses were articulated. Until the turn of the twentieth century, this space remained structured, for better or worse, by a conceptual framework that located the sources of truth and authority in the orthodox Confucian canon and left little room for an alien science claiming to determine the validity of all arguments, including those with profound ideological implications, irrespective of their scriptural backing. Precisely such claims, however, spurred the momentous change in Chinese attitudes toward logic circa 1900 when the authority of the classical canon faded. The psychological shock of China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 led many concerned scholars to seek alternative sources of certainty that promised to legitimate a new political and symbolic order ensuring China’s survival as a sovereign nation. Logic, advertised now as the “science of sciences,” was discovered to be one such legitimating source, thanks in large part to the creativity and persistence of the British-trained reformer Yan Fu 嚴復 (1853–1921). Chapter 3 traces Yan’s activities as a translator who propagated logic as the cornerstone of what he hoped would become something akin to a new style of reasoning against the background of the political and orientational crisis of the fin-de-siècle, and re-evaluates Yan’s contribution to securing a place for the new discipline on China’s intellectual map.21 Chapter 4 argues that the integration of logic into the Japaneseinspired education system, which was instituted as part of the Qing administration’s desperate attempt at “Renewing Governance” (xinzheng 新政) in the first years of the twentieth century,22 was equally important for the domestication of the discipline. Although instruction remained problematic in practice, the incorporation of logic in the curricula of universities and normal schools throughout the country

Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). 21 On the notion of a “style of reasoning,” see Arnold I. Davidson, “Styles of Reasoning: From the History of Art to the Epistemology of Science,” in idem, The Emergence of Sexuality: Historical Epistemology and the Formation of Concepts (Cambridge: Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2001), 125–141; idem, “Styles of Reasoning, Conceptual History, and the Emergence of Psychiatry,” in The Disunity of Science: Boundaries, Contexts, Power, ed. Peter Galison and David J. Stump (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 75–100; and Ian Hacking, “ ‘Style’ for Historians and Philosophers,” in idem, Historical Ontology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), 178–199. 22 See Douglas R. Reynolds, China, 1898–1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 131–150.

introduction

9

fueled the translation of dozens of new textbooks, most of which were adapted from Japan, China’s newly found shortcut to modernity. In these manuals and a host of journal articles promoting the science and its uses, a new vocabulary emerged that was swiftly naturalized in public discourse and exploited, sometimes to quite astonishing effect, in academic, cultural, and political debates. The rapid naturalization of European logic was a necessary but not yet sufficient condition for the almost simultaneous discovery of explicit logical theorizing in ancient Chinese texts. Further prerequisites included the revival of philological interest in “studies of noncanonical masters” (zhuzixue 諸子學) and efforts by Japanese scholars who launched the first interpretations of classical Chinese texts in logical terms during the late 1890s. Without the reconstructions of Qing philologists, many fragments that were identified as key documents in the history of Chinese logic would have remained incomprehensible, and without the example of Japanese studies even fewer Chinese scholars might have mustered the courage to claim their cultural legacy. Even so, considerable imagination was required to link freshly imported logical notions to ancient Chinese writings in a convincing manner. After reviewing the labors of some early pioneers, chapter 5 analyzes the path-breaking efforts of four prominent scholars—Liu Shipei 劉師培 (1884–1919), Zhang Binglin 章炳麟 (1869–1936), Liang Qichao, and Wang Guowei—to recover ancient China’s logical heritage by translating it into the idiom of the new discipline. Although disagreeing in their interpretative strategies and varying widely in their aims and conclusions, each of these authors made a lasting contribution to the formation of a new conceptual space that later writers were to furnish with the more sophisticated, and much more self-assured, histories of logical thought in China that continue to shape the image of Chinese logic until today. A brief epilogue, finally, discusses how the work of the early discoverers prepared the ground for the successive invention of an unbroken tradition of Chinese logic spanning well over 2,500 years, and reflects on the implications of our findings for interpretations of Chinese logic and intellectual history more generally. 3. Discovery and Translation Despite its intricate conception, the conventional image of Chinese logic is rarely questioned. Existing studies, if they do not plainly deny that “Chinese logic” indeed needed to be discovered, routinely ignore

10

introduction

the obvious fact that the translation and naturalization of European logic was a necessary condition of the possibility for the discovery of what we have since come to understand as its Chinese counterpart. One reason for the persistent reluctance seems to be that such an acknowledgment implies a discontinuity—a real and consequential epistemic rupture—between traditional Chinese thought and its modern interpretations that is anathema to a historiography obsessed with the construction of national and cultural continuity. This continuity paradigm is particularly strong in the People’s Republic of China, where it was enshrined as the “correct” view of the history of Chinese logic in the 1950s.23 The voluminous literature adhering to this paradigm illustrates that assertions of unbroken continuity from the pre-Qin period through the twentieth century can only be upheld at the expense of philological rigor and historiographical sincerity. General histories of Chinese logic, such as the self-proclaimed standard works compiled at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences under the direction of Li Kuangwu 李匡武, Zhou Yunzhi 周云之, Liu Peiyu 劉培育, and others,24 as well as unequivocally affirmative accounts by veteran historians, such as Wang Dianji 汪奠基, Zhou Wenying 周文英, or, more recently, Sun Zhongyuan 孫中原,25 betray a striking historical disinterest toward the two stages of translation reconstructed in the following chapters. In all these works, the Chinese

23 For a critical account of the emergence of this paradigm, see Lin Mingyun 林銘鈞 and Zeng Xiangyun 曾祥云, Mingbianxue xintan 名辯學新探 (A new exploration of the sciences of names and disputation) (Guangzhou: Zhongshan daxue chubanshe, 2000), 9–18. 24 Li Kuangwu 李匡武 et al., Zhongguo luojishi 中國邏輯史 (A history of Chinese logic), 5 vols. (Lanzhou: Gansu renmin chubanshe, 1989); and Zhou Yunzhi 周云之, Liu Peiyu 劉培育, et al. (eds.), Zhongguo luojishi ziliaoxuan 中國邏輯史資料選 (Selected materials on the history of Chinese logic), 6 vols. (Lanzhou: Gansu renmin chubanshe, 1991). See also Zhou Yunzhi, Zhongguo luojishi 中國邏輯史 (A history of Chinese logic) (Taiyuan: Shanxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 2004). 25 Wang Dianji 汪奠基, Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi fenxi 中國邏輯思想史分析 (Analysis of the history of logical thought in China) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961); and idem, Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi 中國邏輯思想史 (A history of logical thought in China) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1979); Zhou Wenying 周文英, Zhongguo luoji sixiang shigao 中國邏輯思想史搞 (A draft history of logical thought in China) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1979); Sun Zhongyuan 孫中原, Zhongguo luojishi (Xian-Qin) 中國邏輯史(先秦) (A history of Chinese logic in the pre-Qin period) (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 1987); idem, Zhuzi baijia de luoji zhihui 諸子百家的邏 輯智慧 (The logical wisdom of the one hundred noncanonical masters) (Beijing: Jixie gongyi chubanshe, 2004); and idem, Zhongguo luoji yanjiu 中國邏輯研究 (Studies in Chinese logic) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2006).

introduction

11

appropriation of Western logic is treated as a more or less accidental, and at any rate inconsequential, event that did little to alter the course of a self-sufficient tradition, steadily progressing on its own terms since antiquity.26 Even studies specifically dedicated to the history of logic in modern and contemporary China have largely failed to examine the intimate connection between the introduction of European logic and the ensuing discovery, or “rediscovery,” of Chinese logic.27 Neither the new language that made this discovery possible nor the contexts in which it was first applied to ancient Chinese texts are seriously examined. Perhaps embarrassed by the rather far-fetched suggestions of the initial discoverers of Chinese logic, most authors quickly brush over the tentative efforts discussed in this study and focus instead on the much more coherent and purpose-driven works of foreign-trained logicians, such as Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1962),28 Zhang Shizhao 章士釗

26 Less ideological accounts are provided in two useful textbooks: Yang Peisun 楊沛蓀 (ed.), Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi jiaocheng 中國邏輯思想史教程 (A course in the history of logical thought in China) (Lanzhou: Gansu renmin chubanshe, 1988); and Wen Gongyi 溫公頤 and Cui Qingtian 崔清田, Zhongguo luojishi jiaocheng (xiudingben) 中國邏輯史教程 (修訂本) (A course in the history of logic in China, Revised edition) (Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 2001). 27 The most relevant monographs besides volume 4 of Li Kuangwu’s Zhongguo luojishi are Peng Yilian 彭漪漣, Zhongguo jindai luoji sixiangshi lun 中國近代邏輯思想 史論 (Essays in the history of logical thought in modern China) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1991); Guo Qiao 郭橋, Luoji yu wenhua: Zhongguo jindai shiqi xifang luoji chuanbo yanjiu 邏輯與文化—中國近代時期西方邏輯傳播研究 (Logic and culture: A study of the dissemination of Western logic in modern China) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2006); and Zhang Qing 張晴, 20 shiji de Zhongguo luojishi yanjiu 20 世紀的中國邏輯史研究 (Studies in the history of Chinese logic in the twentieth century) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2007). Pertinent articles include Dong Zhitie 董志鐵, “20 shiji Zhongguo mingbian (luoji) yanjiu” 20 世紀中國 名辯（邏輯）研究 (Studies of Chinese logic in the twentieth century), Zhongguo zhexueshi 1 (1995): 111–117; Zhou Wenying 周文英, “Zhongguo chuantong luoji zai jin, xian, dangdai de shenghua yu fazhan” 中國傳統邏輯在近、現、當代的升華與 發展 (The refinement and development of traditional Chinese logic in modern China), Jiangxi jiaoyu xueyuan xuebao 19, no. 1 (1998): 1–6, and 19, no. 2 (1998): 1–8; Zhao Zongkuan 趙總寬 (ed.), Luojixue bainian 邏輯學百年 (A century of studies in logic) (Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1999), 5–131; and Sun Zhongyuan 孫中原, “Zhongguo luoji yanjiu bainian lunyao” 中國邏輯研究百年要論 (Essentials of one hundred years of research on logic in China), Dongnan xueshu 1 (2001): 29–39. 28 Hu Shi 胡適, Zhongguo zhexueshi dagang 中國哲學史大綱 (An outline history of Chinese philosophy) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1919), reprinted in Hu Shi, Hu Shi xueshu wenji: Zhongguo zhexueshi 胡適學術文集：中國哲學史 ( Hu Shi’s collected scholarly works: History of Chinese philosophy), ed. Jiang Yihua 姜義華, 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1991), vol. 1, 1–269; and Hu Shih [Hu Shi], The Development of the Logical Method in Ancient China (Shanghai: Yadong tushuguan, 1922).

12

introduction

(1881–1973),29 Guo Zhanbo 郭湛波,30 or Yu Yu 虞愚 (1909–1989),31 written in the aftermath of the New Culture Movement, modern China’s first “cultural revolution.”32 Only in the last two decades have more historically minded scholars, such as Cui Qingtian 崔清田, Lin Mingyun 林銘鈞, Zeng Xiangyun 曾祥云, and Cheng Zhongtang 程仲棠, begun to critique orthodox interpretations and called for a reassessment of contemporary Chinese studies of the nation’s logical past.33 Yet, because their revisionist “assault,” to use the authors’ own term, on what is by now a comfortably entrenched invented tradition is directed primarily against appropriations of ancient texts in vulgar Marxist or transparently nationalistic terms,34 their studies, too, have focused on more recent developments and rarely touched upon the violent transformation of China’s discursive space in the final decade of the Qing, without which the studies they critique would have remained unthinkable. This neglect, which is shared by the few relevant studies in European languages,35 is unfortunate not only because 29 Zhang Shizhao 章士釗, Luoji zhiyao 邏輯指要 (Essentials of logic) (Chongqing: Shidai jingshenshe, 1943 [1939]), reprinted in idem, Zhang Shizhao quanji 章士釗全 集 (The complete works of Zhang Shizhao), ed. Zhang Hanzhi 章含之 and Bai Ji’an 白吉庵, 10 vols. (Shanghai: Wenhui chubanshe, 2000), vol. 7, 283–609. The first version of the manuscript was completed in 1917. 30 Guo Zhanbo 郭湛波, Zhongguo bianxueshi 中國辯學史 (A history of Chinese logic) (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1932). 31 Yu Yu 虞愚, Zhongguo mingxue 中國名學 (Chinese logic) (Nanjing: Zhengzhong shuju, 1937). 32 In Taiwan and Hong Kong, where the division between logicians working on general problems of the discipline and historians of Chinese thought is even stricter, no study has as yet traced the adventures of logic in late imperial China in any detail. Instead, publishers continue to fill the lacuna with reprints of standard mainland books, e.g., Wang Dianji 王奠基, Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi 中國邏輯思想史 (A history of logical thought in China) (Taibei: Mingwen shuju, 1993 [1979]). 33 See, among other works by the same authors, Cui Qingtian 崔清田, Mingxue yu bianxue 名學與辯學 (The sciences of names and disputation) (Taiyuan: Shanxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1997); Lin Mingyun and Zeng Xiangyun, Mingbianxue xintan; and Cheng Zhongtang 程仲棠, “Zhongguo gudai luojixue” jiegou “中國古代邏輯學” 解構 (Deconstructing “ancient Chinese logic”) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2009). 34 Lin Mingyun and Zeng Xiangyun, Mingbianxue xintan, 8–9. See also the discussion in Jin Rongdong 晉榮東, Luoji hewei: Dangdai Zhongguo luoji de xiandaixing fansi 邏輯 何為—當代中國邏輯的現代性反思 (Whither logic? Reflections on the modernity of contemporary Chinese logic) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2005), 168–172. 35 The most insightful general accounts are Uwe Frankenhauser, “Logik und nationales Selbstverständnis in China zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Chinesisches Selbstverständnis und kulturelle Identität––“Wenhua Zhongguo,” ed. Christiane Hammer and Bernhard Führer (Dortmund: Projekt Verlag, 1996), 69–80; and idem, Buddhistische Logik, 205–218. Individual aspects of our problematic have also been addressed in

introduction

13

it has left the unwarranted claim of continuity unchallenged but also because the career of logic in modern China, as John Makeham has argued, is indeed a “cornerstone and benchmark” in the establishment of modern Chinese philosophy more generally.36 A reconstruction of this career can serve as an exemplary illustration of the drastic epistemic shifts that have shaped contemporary views of China’s intellectual history. The genealogy of Chinese logic throws into sharper relief the parallel, and in many instances no less violent, transformations from which discourses on Chinese philosophy and cognate fields have emerged. A crucial task of genealogical studies of the kind envisioned here is to identify and understand the terms and notions that structure the conceptual space in which an emerging discourse is articulated.37 This general demand applies no less to discursive formations emerging from transcultural interactions. In the case of Chinese logic, virtually all relevant terms and notions, including “Chinese logic” itself, were coined by adaptation from European languages or Japanese before being enlisted to uncover forgotten meanings in ancient Chinese texts. No genealogy of the field can therefore be complete without a detailed reconstruction of this translation process and its two distinct stages— the creation of a new Chinese language for logic and its subsequent application in searches for alternative traditions. In recent historiography, the notion of “translation” has come to be used in a variety of meanings that go far beyond that of “a simple transfer of words from one language to another, on the model of the bilingual dictionary.”38 In part, such wider uses are warranted by advances in translation studies that have demonstrated that the act Shuo Yu, “L’introduction de la philosophie de la logique en Chine,” Archives europénnes de sociologie 34, no. 1 (1993): 139–151; Robert Wardy, “Chinese Whispers,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 38 (1992): 149–170; and idem, Aristotle in China: Language, Categories, and Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). More ambitious but less relevant in our context is Chung-ying Cheng, “Inquiries into Classical Chinese Logic,” Philosophy East and West 15, nos. 3–4 (1965): 195–216, a programmatic outline for a still unwritten new “systematic” history of logic in ancient China. 36 John Makeham [ Mei Yuehan 梅約翰], “Zhuzixue yu lunlixue: Zhongguo zhexue jiangou de jishi yu chidu” 諸子學與論理學：中國哲學建構的基石與尺度 (Masters studies and logic: Cornerstone and benchmark in the establishment of Chinese philosophy), Xueshu yuekan 39, no. 4 (2007): 62–67. 37 Davidson, “Emergence of Psychiatry,” 85–94. See also idem, “Styles of Reasoning,” 134–138. 38 Douglas R. Howland, “The Predicament of Ideas in Culture: Translation and Historiography,” History and Theory 42 (2003): 45–60; 45–46.

14

introduction

of translation involves much more than lexical substitution. Instead, translation must be conceived as “a creative act of generating meaning and constructing discourse” in translingual contexts.39 Historical studies aiming to reconstruct acts of translation cannot ignore the specific conditions in which they were produced. Yet, the demand for attention to context does not imply, as claimed by some studies that use translation as a mere metaphor to conceptualize all kinds of transcultural exchanges, that texts and the languages from which they were built are insignificant. In appropriations of knowledge across cultural and linguistic boundaries, the texts introducing new ideas have a symptomatic function. They betray singularly detailed evidence of the conceptual dissonances that inevitably arise in the process of appropriation. At the same time, they bear visible marks of the complex negotiations between translators, texts, and readers as they try to accommodate or overcome such dissonances and domesticate the new conceptual lexicon. To exploit such evidence, the present study operates with both a wide, or contextual, and a narrow, nonmetaphorical understanding of translation. Combining the two perspectives forces our inquiry to transgress conventional disciplinary boundaries. Although mainly inspired by recent studies in historical epistemology and the transcultural history of concepts,40 the following chapters also draw on insights in translation studies and historical semantics when probing the invention of the new logical lexicon, and borrow freely from the sociology of science, missionary studies, and the history of print culture to trace the agents, networks, and media on which the circulation of logical knowledge depended. While providing “thick layers of plushy context”41 wherever possible, this study insists on reserving ample space for very close, and at times perhaps painfully myopic, readings of the texts that made the translation of logic into late imperial 39 Idem, Personal Liberty and Public Good: The Introduction of John Stuart Mill to China and Japan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 21. 40 In addition to the works of Davidson, exemplary studies in historical epistemology include Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity (New York: Zone Books, 2007); Reviel Netz, The Shaping of Deduction in Greek Mathematics: A Study in Cognitive History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); and Claude Rosental, Weaving Self-Evidence: A Sociology of Logic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). On the history of concepts, or Begriffsgeschichte, see in particular Hans Ulrich Gumprecht, Dimensionen und Grenzen der Begriffsgeschichte (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2006). 41 Lorraine Daston, “The Historicity of Science,” in Historicization—Historisierung, ed. Glenn W. Most (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001), 201–221; 201.

introduction

15

Chinese discourses possible.42 Even in the narrowest sense of the word, such translations required efforts that had little in common with the consultation of bilingual dictionaries—not least for the simple reason that no dictionaries existed that could have facilitated the adaptation of logical texts in Chinese.43 Instead, they relied on conscious conceptual acts, involving both translators and their audiences, that linked unfamiliar notions to contemporary concerns in a meaningful manner. As Peter Ghosh has shown, reconstructions of such conceptual acts, at least in the case of formal sciences such as logic, do not need to analyze the “entire verbal surface” of the translated texts.44 In contrast to scholars examining literary works, historians of knowledge must focus on sample mappings of the new discipline’s conceptual lexicon, not, to be sure, in order to assess the faithfulness of individual translations to their always elusive originals but to track the transformations necessary to appropriate unfamiliar notions in a new linguistic, cultural, and ideological environment. At various points in this study I will document such sample mappings when discussing the ways in which key terms in the conceptual lexicon of European logic were adapted in Chinese translations. The selection of the terms considered in these mappings reflects the changing Gestalt of the discipline. Although some continuity in basic logical terminology is evident, the notions from which Jesuit logica was built in the seventeenth century differed starkly from those structuring the varieties of logic that reached China in the decades around 1900. Terms created for central Jesuit-Aristotelian concepts, such as the “five predicables” and the “ten categories” (see chapter 1, Tables 1.1–1.5), were soon excluded from logical reflection. Although not at all uniform in either structure or outlook, the translations produced between 1860 and 1911 displayed much greater coherence. It was therefore possible to scan the texts discussed in chapters 2 to 4 for

42 For some good examples of intentionally myopic readings of translations in the European context similar to those envisaged here, see Michèle Goyens, Pieter de Leemans, and An Smets (eds.), Science Translated: Latin Vernacular Translations of Scientific Treatises in Medieval Europe (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2008). 43 See Guowei Shen, “The Creation of Technical Terms in English-Chinese Dictionaries from the Nineteenth Century,” in New Terms for New Ideas: Western Knowledge and Lexical Change in Late Imperial China, ed. Michael Lackner, Iwo Amelung, and Joachim Kurtz (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 287–304. 44 Peter Ghosh, “Translation as a Conceptual Act,” Max Weber Studies 2, no. 1 (2001): 59–63.

16

introduction

a sample of 129 English terms crucial to the types of logic shaping the discipline’s image in late Qing China (see Tables 2.1, 3.1, 4.1, and B.1–10). For the sake of clarity these terms have been arranged within each table in five sets corresponding to the five sections typically found in introductions to logic published in this period. Set A includes general terms of the field, such as “logic,” “reasoning,” “thought,” “judgment,” and “argument,” which would customarily be discussed in introductory chapters, as well as terms for the “laws of thought.” Set B contains lexical items related to terms and their properties, such as “term,” “concept” or “idea,” “intension,” “extension,” and “definition,” as well as items describing different kinds of terms, such as “singular” and “general,” “positive” and “negative,” or “abstract” and “concrete term.” Set C includes terms related to propositions and their constituent parts, such as “subject,” “predicate,” and “copula”; the names of various kinds of propositions; and some terms describing conversions. Set D is devoted to inferences, syllogisms, and the fallacies of reasoning. Set E, finally, brings together a somewhat eclectic selection of terms related to discussions of the methodology of scientific inquiry. Not all texts from this period offered equivalents for all terms examined in these five sets, while in many instances more than one rendition was suggested for a single English term of departure. Altogether, the sample mappings compiled for this study document roughly four thousand examples of the ways in which the conceptual lexicon of European logic was adapted in late imperial China. Diachronic linguists could very well exploit this extensive collection of semiotic shells to refine the typologies of modern Chinese loanwords or supplement our incomplete inventory of neologisms coined in the late imperial period. From our perspective, however, such concerns are of limited interest. The value of lexical innovations does not derive from any inherent qualities or deficits of the individual choices. In the framework of established academic disciplines, technical terms are no more than arbitrary signifiers whose meanings are defined by experts in specialized debate.45 What makes this database valuable to historians of knowledge is that lexical innovations offer leads as to how different authors and readers, operating at different times, in different circumstances, and with different agendas, related the new conceptual

45 See Viviane Alleton, “Chinese Terminologies: On Preconceptions,” in Lackner et al., New Terms for New Ideas, 15–34.

introduction

17

lexicon to the existing vocabulary, and how their joint efforts reconfigured relevant semantic fields. Especially in the early stages of the adaptation process, stories of the invention, adoption, or rejection of terminological suggestions reveal uniquely specific insights into conceptual changes inspired by the appropriation of new ideas. In that brief, transitory moment, the terms created or redefined to convey new notions are more often than not the only concrete interface between the contexts of departure and arrival, and as such their analysis is indispensable to our understanding of both. Much to their detriment, historians of logic and other fields have neglected investigations of the lexical innovations that prepared, accompanied, and reflected epistemic transitions in late imperial and early Republican China. Starting with the clear-sighted works of Ada H. Mateer and Evan Morgan,46 studies of the new terms in which Chinese discourses have come to be expressed since the late Qing period have been the exclusive domain of linguists for most of the past century.47 Early exceptions to this rule included pioneering studies by Yu-ning Li and Wolfgang Lippert, who probed the histories of Chinese and Japanese Marxist terminologies to understand the early reception of socialist ideas in East Asia.48 More recently, Lydia Liu has explored the role of “translingual practices,” that is, translations in a very wide sense, in modern Chinese literary, cultural, political, and legal discourses.49 Studies by Meng Yue and Larissa Heinrich have

See Ada Haven Mateer, New Terms for New Ideas: A Study of the Chinese Newspaper (Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1922 [1913]); and Evan Morgan, Chinese New Terms and Expressions (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1913). 47 Of greatest interest from a historical point of view are the diachronic studies by Federico Masini, The Formation of Modern Chinese Lexicon and Its Evolution toward a National Language: The Period from 1840 to 1898 (Berkeley: Journal of Chinese Linguistics Monograph Series, 1993); and Shen Guowei 沈國威, Kindai Nitchū goi kōryūshi: Shin Kango no seisei to juyō 近代日中語彙交流史ー新漢語の生成と受容 (A history of lexical exchanges between China and Japan in the modern era: The formation and reception of new Chinese words) (Tōkyō: Kasama shoin, 1994; new and revised ed., 2008). 48 Yu-ning Li, The Introduction of Socialism into China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971); and Wolfgang Lippert, Entstehung und Funktion einiger chinesischer marxistischer Termini. Der lexikalisch-begriffliche Aspekt der Rezeption des Marxismus in Japan und China (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1979). 49 Lydia H. Liu, Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity—China, 1900–1937 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995); and idem, The Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004). See also the essays in idem (ed.), Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999). 46

18

introduction

followed Liu’s theoretical lead and transposed her insights to additional discursive fields.50 Closer to the perspective adopted here, Ruth Rogaski and David Wright have demonstrated that analyses of translation and lexical change can be turned into useful tools for transcultural histories of science,51 and Rune Svarverud and Elisabeth Kaske have explored the potential of historical semantics for studies of the emergence of new discursive formations.52 Similarly, essays collected in two volumes coedited by Michael Lackner have probed ways to elucidate the intellectual history of late imperial China through the prism of lexical change.53 All these studies underline that taking semantic innovations seriously as indicators and factors of conceptual change does not mean neglecting the linguistic and extralinguistic contexts in which the new terms and ideas were created, circulated, criticized, or rejected. New terms become meaningful only in specific instances of usage that cannot be understood outside the multilayered contexts in which these uses are situated. From a historian’s point of view, new terms are therefore never ends in themselves but only one type of evidence among many others that must be scrutinized in the attempt to reconstruct migrations of meanings in and between linguistic and epistemic communities. One last point should be stressed at the outset of our investigation. By showing that the emergence of Chinese logic was neither selfevident nor the result of an immaculate conception, this study does not intend to dispute the legitimacy of the discourse as a whole, as I will discuss in more detail in the epilogue. Accidental or tainted origins, as Lorraine Daston has reminded readers of her work on the histories of facts and objectivity, “might sound an alarm, forcing us to examine critically the affected beliefs and arguments, but they are not an

50 Meng Yue, Shanghai and the Edges of Empires (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), especially chaps. 1–2; and Larissa N. Heinrich, The Afterlife of Images: Translating the Pathological Body between China and the West (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008). 51 Ruth Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China (University of California Press, 2004); and David Wright, Translating Science: The Transmission of Western Chemistry into Late Imperial China, 1840–1900 (Leiden: Brill, 2000). 52 Rune Svarverud, International Law as World Order in Late Imperial China (Leiden: Brill, 2007); and Elisabeth Kaske, The Politics of Language in Chinese Education, 1895–1919 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). 53 Lackner et al., New Terms for New Ideas; and Michael Lackner and Natascha Vittinghoff (eds.), Mapping Meanings: The Field of New Learning in Late Qing China (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

introduction

19

ipso facto disqualification.”54 The aim of the following chapters is thus not so much to unmask or debunk yet another invented tradition. Rather, they strive to elucidate the more or less subtle conceptual manipulations that make such inventions possible, and help to pave the way for assessments of their benefits and costs in our understanding of ancient Chinese texts and intellectual history. As such, they seek to shed light on the dynamics of conceptual change at the threshold of Chinese modernity, and to honor the exploratory genius of acclaimed and forgotten authors who courageously ventured to redraw China’s intellectual map, however imperfectly, with untested conceptual tools.

54 Daston, “The Historicity of Science,” 218. See also Daston and Galison, Objectivity, 376.

CHAPTER ONE

FIRST ENCOUNTERS: JESUIT LOGICA IN THE LATE MING AND EARLY QING Logica guides humans in advancing their intellect, distinguishing between right and wrong, preventing error and delusion, and leads them back on the path to the one and only Truth. Li Cibin, “Second Preface” to the Mingli tan

Studies of the European expansion have argued that initial encounters between alien cultures are often characterized by the perception of a perplexing alterity that paves the way for curiosity and, eventually, genuine interest in the Other.1 The first Chinese encounters with European logic in the seventeenth century apparently provoked feelings similar to such étrangeté radicale among the few literati who came into contact with logical notions introduced by Jesuit missionaries and their native collaborators. Rather than with curiosity or interest, however, Chinese scholars responded to this supposedly unsettling perception with almost unanimous indifference. The reasons for this indifference defy simplistic explanations. There are no indications in the historical record that particular “Chinese ways of thinking” were in any significant respect incommensurable with the standards of “European rationality,”2 nor do we find hints of insurmountable linguistic or “cultural” barriers that would have prevented understanding or acceptance.3 Instead, the sustained disinterest is the result of a skein of historically sited reasons that deprived the logical fragments presented by the Jesuits of any potential appeal. In contrast to other sciences, most notably mathematics and astronomy,4 the first introduction of European logic must thus be seen as a more or less complete 1 See, e.g., Tzvetan Todorov, La conquête de l’Amérique. La question de l’autre (Paris: Seuil, 1982), 12–15. 2 For this line of argument, see, e.g., Jacques Gernet, Chine et Christianisme. Action et réaction (Paris: Gallimard, 1982). 3 See, e.g., Alfred H. Bloom, The Linguistic Shaping of Thought: A Study in the Impact of Language on Thinking in China and the West ( Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1981). 4 See Nicolas Standaert (ed.), Handbook of Christianity in China. Volume One: 635–1800 (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 711–751.

22

chapter one

failure. It did little, if anything, to enlarge or transform the conceptual repertoire of late Ming and early Qing discourses. A closer look at this episode is nonetheless instructive since it highlights the multiple difficulties involved in translating and propagating a science as alien and esoteric as the Jesuit variety of late scholastic logica in the intellectual environment of late imperial China. 1. Logic in Jesuit Education Aristotelian logic occupied a prominent place in the Jesuits’ educational curriculum. Since the time of Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556), the order’s Constitutiones decreed that philosophical studies should be based exclusively on the works of Aristotle, as long as these did not contradict or compromise Christian doctrine.5 The Jesuit Ratio studiorum, or “study plan,” stipulated from its first manuscript edition in 1581 that logic be taught at the order’s colleges and universities during the first year of a three-year course in Aristotelian philosophy that prepared students for further studies in specialized disciplines, such as civil and canon law or theology.6 Training during the elementary year was intensive. According to the Ratio, logic was to be taught twice daily, one hour in the morning and one in the afternoon, through dictations, the exegesis of Aristotelian texts, and practical exercises.7 After completing the introductory course, students were to polish their dialectical skills through the regular practice of “controversies,” public disputations in which they were to refute any argument opposing a given scientific, philosophical, or dogmatic proposition by means of the logical and rhetorical devices with which they had become acquainted.8 Syllogistic

5 Alison Simmons, “Jesuit Aristotelian Education: The De anima Commentaries,” in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, ed. John W. O’Malley et al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 522–537; 523–525. 6 Charles H. Lohr, “Les jésuites et l’aristotélisme du XVIe siècle,” in Les jésuites à la renaissance. Système éducatif et production du savoir, ed. Luce Giard (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995), 79–92; 80. On the various editions of the Jesuit Ratio studiorum and its precursors, see La pedagogía de los Jesuitas, ayer y hoy, ed. Eusebio Gil (Madrid: Universidad Pontificia, 1999), 33–45. 7 Ibid., 111–112. See also William A. Wallace, Galileo and His Sources: The Heritage of the Collegio Romano in Galileo’s Science (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 6–10. 8 Riccardo G. Villoslada, Storia del Collegio Romano dal suo inizio (1551) alla soppressione della Compagnia di Gesù (1773) (Rome: Apud aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1954), 89–90, 107–108.

first encounters

23

forms of argumentation, which formed an important part of these skills, were also introduced in many of the mathematical and scientific textbooks used in Jesuit schools.9 As a result, any student graduating from a Jesuit college or university over the course of the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries would have been thoroughly familiar with the theory and practice of a late scholastic style of reasoning built around Aristotelian-inspired concepts and argumentative strategies. The logic taught at Jesuit institutions of higher learning throughout this period was intended to defend dogma, but it was not at all dogmatic in its methods.10 While bound by papal rulings to maintain strictly Aristotelian views in natural philosophy, many Jesuit scholars were open to Renaissance humanist ideas in metaphysics, logic, and rhetoric.11 The most influential teachers of philosophy in the order’s early years of existence, Francisco de Toledo (1532–1596) and Pedro da Fonseca (1528–1599), created a type of logic that differed considerably from the Thomistic tradition. Rather than basing their theories on the prevalent speculative metaphysics of the Thomistic ens reale and entia rationis, both stressed the logical relevance of Aristotle’s psychological insights. Less concerned with the ideal modes of being underlying concepts and ratiocinations, Toledo and Fonseca expounded the functions of conception, judgment, and inference as expressed in the operations of the mind and its faculties.12 This cautiously critical undertaking was facilitated by the formulation of a new and supposedly more purely Aristotelian model of metaphysics, principally at the Portuguese universities of Coimbra and Evora, that dismissed any attempt at a pseudo-ontological foundation of logic as an ill-conceived and misleading fiction. The logical textbooks resulting from these efforts consisted mainly of systematic commentaries on the Aristotelian Organon.13 In its canonized

Peter M. Engelfriet, Euclid in China: The Genesis of the First Translation of Euclid’s “Elements” Book I–VI (“Jihe yuanben,” Beijing, 1607) and Its Reception up to 1723 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 43–46. 10 Wilhelm Risse, Die Logik der Neuzeit. Band 1: 1500–1640 (Stuttgart–Bad Cannstadt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1964), 359. 11 David E. Mungello, Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology ( Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989 [1985]), 27–28. See also Howard Goodman and Anthony Grafton, “Ricci, the Chinese, and the Toolkits of Textualists,” Asia Major, 3rd ser., 3, no. 2 (1990): 95–148. 12 Risse, Logik der Neuzeit, 359–360; 363–370. 13 On the particular style of the Jesuit commentaries to the Organon, see Charles H. Lohr, “Jesuit Aristotelianism and Sixteenth-Century Metaphysics,” in Paradosis: Studies 9

24

chapter one

Latin shape, the Organon comprised six texts thought to elucidate the fundamental elements of Aristotelian logic and its application in science and debate: Porphyry’s Isagoge, conceived as a general introduction to the discipline and its metaphysical foundations; the Categories, dealing with terms and definitions; De interpretatione, discussing propositions or premises; the Prior Analytics, treating syllogisms or the concatenation of the three premises major, minor, and conclusio; and, finally, the Posterior Analytics and the Topics with their appendix De sophisticis elenchis, considering, respectively, the use of the syllogism in demonstration or dialectics, and the refutation of sophistic arguments.14 The extensive commentaries to the Organon by Toledo and Fonseca were officially endorsed in the final version of the Ratio studiorum published in 1599.15 Toledo’s Introductio in dialecticam Aristotelis (1561) and Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in universam Aristotelis logicam (1572) formed the basis of logical education at the Collegio Romano, the central Jesuit institution of higher learning, as well as most of the order’s schools in Italy, Germany, and France,16 while Fonseca’s Institutionum dialecticarum libri octo (1564) was predominantly used on the Iberian peninsula.17 Most, if not all Jesuit missionaries who entered China after 1583, the year in which Michele Ruggieri (Luo Mingjian 羅明堅, 1543–1607)18 and Matteo Ricci (Li Madou 利瑪竇, 1552–1610)19 succeeded in establishing residency on the Chinese mainland, would have been exposed to one of these commentarial traditions, depending on where they received their education. Among the authors active in the introduction of European logic to China, Ricci himself, who took the elementary

in Memory of Edwin A. Quain, ed. Harry G. Fletcher III and Mary B. Schulte (New York: Fordham University Press, 1974), 203–220; 214–218. 14 See, e.g., Robert Blanché and Jacques Dubucs, La logique et son histoire (Paris: Armand Colin, 1996), 25–29. On Porphyry and his Isagoge, ibid., 123–124. 15 Gil, Jesuitas, 112. Since its formal adoption in 1599, the Ratio was revised only twice, first in 1616 and for the second time in 1832. 16 Villoslada, Collegio Romano, 102; Wallace, Galileo, 10–12. 17 Friedrich Stegmüller, Filosofia e teologia nas universidades de Coimbra e Évora no século XVI (Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra, 1959), 85–99. 18 For biographical data, see Fang Hao 方豪, Zhongguo tianzhujiaoshi renwuzhuan 中國 天主教史人物傳 (Biographies related to the history of Christianity in China) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1988), vol. 1, 65–71. 19 Ibid., vol. 1, 72–82.

first encounters

25

course in logic20 and classes in controversy at the Collegio Romano,21 and his fellow Italian Giulio Aleni (Ai Rulüe 艾儒略, 1582–1649),22 who received his training at the University of Padua,23 studied the discipline on the basis of Toledo’s commentaries; the Portuguese father Francisco Furtado ( Fu Fanji 傅汎際, 1587–1653)24 acquired his logical skills at the University of Coimbra from a revised version of Fonseca’s text.25 2. Accommodation and Translation The thorough grounding in logical theory and practice that the missionaries received in their European training colored many of the works and translations they began to produce as soon as they were sufficiently proficient in the Chinese literary language, as will be shown below. Yet, logic and logical notions were in no way central to their missionary strategy. As propagated by Matteo Ricci, this strategy was aimed at accommodating Christian teachings to the Confucian doctrines and practices that dominated the social and intellectual climate of the late Ming dynasty. Convinced that evangelization “from the top down” was the most promising route for their missionary enterprise, Ricci and his confrères adapted their conduct to the values and lifestyle of the literati elite, applied themselves to the study of the learned idiom and the Confucian canon, and displayed a generally tolerant attitude toward Confucian rites, most notably toward ancestor worship.26 Moreover, in order to demonstrate their determination not to 20 Mario Fois, “Il Collegio Romano ai tempi degli studi del P. Matteo Ricci,” in Atti del convegno internazionale di studi Ricciani (Macerata: Centro studi Ricciani, 1984), 203–228; 213–214 and 218–222. See also Engelfriet, Euclid, 19–20. 21 Joseph Sebes, “The Precursors of Ricci,” in East Meets West: The Jesuits in China, 1582–1773, ed. Charles E. Ronan and Bonnie B. C. Oh (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1988), 19–61; 36–37. 22 Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 1, 185–197. 23 Eugenio Menegon, Un solo cielo. Giulio Aleni S.J. (1582–1649): Geografia, arte, scienza, religione dall’Europa alla Cina (Brescia: Grafo, 1994), 30–31. See also Mario Colpo, “Giulio Aleni’s Cultural and Religious Background,” in “Scholar from the West”: Giulio Aleni S.J. (1582–1649) and the Dialogue between Christianity and China, ed. Tiziana Lippiello and Roman Malek (Nettetal: Steyler, 1997), 73–84; 76. 24 Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 1, 208–215. 25 Liam M. Brockey, Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579–1724 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 211–214. 26 For brief summaries, see Standaert, Handbook, 310–311; and Mungello, Curious Land, 44–73.

26

chapter one

threaten or undermine the social and political order of the Chinese state, they abstained from preaching the gospel in public and propagated their faith primarily through private conversations with local dignitaries. In their persuasive efforts during such conversations, they founded their arguments more on the “natural reason” of their counterparts than on attempts at proving the formal validity of their statements, as they had been trained to do in European contexts. The elitist thrust of the accommodationist approach, which was never uncontroversial even among Jesuits active in China,27 entailed a strong intellectual emphasis. According to Nicolas Trigault ( Jin Nige 金尼閣, 1577–1628),28 the not always reliable editor of Ricci’s journals, the Jesuit fathers understood early on in their contacts with Chinese literati that these “are slow to take a salutary spiritual potion, unless it be seasoned with an intellectual flavoring.”29 Adding such flavoring to their doctrines became a major part of the Jesuits’ efforts. Ricci himself was well aware that his literati interlocutors were not only impressed with his moral integrity, which they found exemplified in the coherence of the ethical maxims he advocated and in his impeccable personal conduct, but even more so with his versatility in polite conversation and his stunning mnemonic abilities.30 He also realized, however, that neither these useful skills nor the verbal dialectics in which the missionaries were so well versed sufficed to attract more than fleeting interest on the part of most literati. In order to win over a greater number of elite converts, the Jesuits had to prove that Europe in general and Christianity in particular had attained a level of civilization that was comparable to that of China and, hence, that conversion to this foreign faith offered a genuine alternative, or at least a desirable supplement, to the codified beliefs on which late imperial civilization was founded. The only way to achieve this goal was to present the missionary cause, either directly or in the guise of scientific 27 See George H. Dunne, Generation of Giants: The Story of the Jesuits in China in the Last Decades of the Ming Dynasty (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1962), 282–310. 28 Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 1, 179–184. 29 Matteo Ricci, China in the 16th Century: The Journals of Matthew Ricci 1583–1610, trans. Louis J. Gallagher (New York: Random House, 1953), 325. 30 On the early image of the Jesuits in China, see Wenchao Li, Die christliche ChinaMission im 17. Jahrhundert. Verständnis, Unverständnis, Mißverständnis (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2000), 242–249. On the admiration for Ricci’s mnemotechnics, see Michael Lackner, Das vergessene Gedächtnis: Die jesuitische mnemotechnische Abhandlung “Xiguo jifa.” Übersetzung und Kommentar (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1986), 2–3.

first encounters

27

and moral knowledge, in persuasive and stylistically appealing texts written in the literati language.31 More so than in almost any other country, the “apostolate by the book” thus became a central concern of the Jesuit enterprise in China.32 Despite the admirable speed with which at least some Jesuits acquired a solid grasp of the Chinese language at a time when no textbooks or grammars and scarcely any bilingual glossaries and dictionaries existed,33 the difficulties they had to overcome in translating the Christian message into literary Chinese remained substantial. Even the most astonishing linguistic talents, such as Matteo Ricci and Giulio Aleni, depended in their writings on the assistance of able Chinese collaborators to prevent rhetorical shallowness, stylistic blunders, and passages that could unwittingly offend the sensibilities of their audiences. All these pitfalls, however, were minor issues compared to the task of creating an adequate vocabulary to render many of the basic, but in the Chinese context nevertheless alien, notions on which the Christian teachings, and the scientific paraphernalia with which the Jesuits chose to flavor them, were built. Quite naturally, the Chinese lexicon, for all its richness, did not offer ready-made equivalents for many of the particular terms in which European religion, philosophy, and science had come to be expressed—in fact, not even for the terms “religion,” “philosophy,” and “science” themselves. Chinese discourses that Western observers would have interpreted as pertaining to either one of these fields were structured by distinct sets of notions that cut across the conceptual grids of seventeenth-century Europe. Rather than being mutually exclusive, however, a number of eminent Chinese terms displayed a considerable semantic overlap with related European notions. Instances of such overlap were the basis of the conceptual accommodation characterizing the Jesuits’ more sophisticated Chinese writings. Realizing that phonemic replicas of important Christian terms, such as bugeduolüe 布革多略 ‘purgatorio’ or yanfunuo 咽咈諾 ‘inferno’, were perceived as inelegant barbarisms by the readers they wished to impress,34 the Mungello, Curious Land, 73. Standaert, Handbook, 600–601. 33 For a useful account of Jesuit studies of the Chinese language, see Brockey, Journey to the East, 243–286. 34 Pasquale D’Elia, “Prima introduzione della filosofia scolastica in Cina,” Bulletin of the Institute for History and Philology 28 (1956): 141–196; 145, 147. See also Dunne, Giants, 282–283. 31 32

28

chapter one

fathers and their collaborators shifted their translational strategy to redefining or expanding the meanings of prestigious classicist (or “Confucian”) terms. Early examples of such more or less hostile conceptual takeovers, as we might call them, include appropriations of time-honored terms like shangdi 上帝 ‘Ruler on High’ as a translation for “God,” ling 靈 ‘spiritual energy’ for “soul,” xin 心 ‘heart’ for “mind,” and ti 體 ‘body, structure’ for “essence.”35 Once this strategy gained prominence, phonemic loans were generally used only for the transcription of place names, official titles, or European words that the respective translators deemed of special interest to their monolingual Chinese audience.36 The classicist coloring surely helped to soften the alterity of many Jesuit texts. On the other hand, the rich histories of the terms adapted from the Confucian canon could easily lead to misunderstandings. In many cases, crucial distinctions were blurred and similarities overstretched. When they wanted to accentuate the novelty of a particular European notion, the Jesuit authors or translators therefore avoided semantic borrowing and resorted to loan translations, creating new words modeled on the literal meanings or etymologies of their foreign terms of departure. Instances of this third translation strategy include now-obsolete terms like renxue 人學 ‘the science of man’ for “humanities” and gongxue 共學 ‘common school’ for “university.”37 Since the introduction of too many new words risked affecting the readability of a text, the Jesuits generally preferred to adapt existing terms. Still, as the analysis of the earliest works introducing European logic will show, the number of loan translations and phonemic loans in their writings increased with the distance of a text’s subject matter from conventional Chinese discourses.

35 Giorgio Melis, “Temi e tesi della filosofia europea nel ‘Tianzhu Shiyi’ di Matteo Ricci,” in Atti del convegno internazionale di studi Ricciani (Macerata: Centro studi Ricciani, 1984), 65–92; 70–72. 36 The Jesuit contribution to the Chinese lexicon remains an understudied topic. Some inroads have been made in Federico Masini, “The Legacy of Seventeenth Century Jesuit Works: Geography, Mathematics and Scientific Terminology in Nineteenth Century China,” in L’Europe en Chine. Interactions scientifiques, religieuses et culturelles aux XVII e et XVIII e siècles, ed. Catherine Jami and Hubert Delahaye (Paris: Collège de France, 1993), 137–146; and Federico Masini, “Aleni’s Contribution to the Chinese Language,” in Lippiello and Malek, “Scholar from the West,” 539–554. 37 Masini, “Aleni’s Contribution,” 548, 551.

first encounters

29

3. Logic in Early Jesuit Writings In view of the linguistic difficulties involved, the textual production of the Jesuit missionaries and their Chinese collaborators must be seen as a remarkable achievement. According to the most recent estimate, about 590 Chinese books were published by the Jesuits and their supporters in the course of the seventeenth century.38 The majority of these texts, some 470 titles, were mainly or exclusively devoted to religious and moral issues; about 120 books presented more general knowledge about the West as well as European science and technology. On the whole, the most successful among these works were mathematical textbooks, world maps, geographical accounts, and Ptolemaic cosmological treatises.39 Yet, in the early phase of the mission a few humanist-inspired texts claiming common ground between the ethical maxims of the “Far West” (Taixi 泰西) and Confucian morality also contributed to creating a favorable image of the missionaries among the literati elite. In these treatises the first concepts related to European logic were translated into the Chinese discursive universe. The sources on which the Jesuits relied for their renditions, irrespective of their subject matter, were so thoroughly saturated with latinized Aristotelian notions that some echoes of the latter resonated in nearly every Chinese text compiled in the context of the mission. Only some of these echoes were related to logic. Aristotelian notions were most visibly brought into play in discussions of the human soul and the number of elements from which the physical universe was built, and hence in the areas of psychology and natural philosophy.40 In early moral writings exemplifying the accommodationist strategy, such as Ricci’s On Friendship ( Jiaoyou lun 交友論, 1595) and Twenty-five Maxims (Ershiwu yan 二十五言, 1599/1605), ethical insights from latinized Stoics were presented in brief aphorisms that required no reference to concepts

Standaert, Handbook, 600–601. Catherine Jami, “ ‘European Science in China’ or ‘Western Learning’? Representations of Cross-Cultural Transmission, 1600–1800,” Science in Context 12, no. 3 (1999): 414. 40 See the overtly polemical but nonetheless useful discussion in Qiong Zhang, “Translation as Cultural Reform: Jesuit Scholastic Psychology in the Transformation of the Confucian Discourse on Human Nature,” in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, ed. John W. O’Malley et al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 364–379. 38 39

30

chapter one

pertaining to the mechanics of reasoning.41 Closer to the point was Ricci’s The Western Art of Memory (Xiguo jifa 西國記法, 1595/1625) that contained metaphorical allusions to late scholastic notions of cause and effect, res, and ens alongside the technical vocabulary of the European ars memorativa.42 In his catechistic The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven (Tianzhu shiyi 天主實義, 1603), Ricci then provided a number of more substantial references to notions relevant to Aristotelian logic.43 1. The Tianzhu shiyi The Tianzhu shiyi, which has been called “the most important book in the history of Christianity in China,”44 was composed as a dialogue between a “Chinese scholar” (Zhongshi 中士) and a “Western scholar” (Xishi 西士). Topics discussed in this fictitious cross-cultural exchange include the Christian God (tianzhu 天主 ‘Lord of Heaven’) as the creator of all things, the immortality of the soul, the difference between animals and humans, the existence of ghosts and spirits, sins, the remuneration of good and evil, the afterlife, paradise, hell, human nature, and Western customs.45 Both interlocutors were portrayed as perfectly “rational” debaters. Not surprisingly, however, the Western scholar presented more persuasive arguments on most points of contention, not least because he seemed to have more refined conceptual devices at his disposal. For instance, in a discussion of the possibility that the universe was created through a single divine act, Ricci’s Western scholar could draw on the Aristotelian theory of the “four causes” (si suoyiran 四所以然), which thus made its first appearance in a Chinese discursive context:

41 Both treatises are now readily available in Matteo Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji 利瑪竇中文譯著集 (Matteo Ricci’s collected Chinese works and translations), ed. Zhu Weizheng 朱維錚 ( Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2001), 141–159, 161–177. For discussion, see Pasquale D’Elia, “Il Trattato sull’Amicizia, primo libro scritto in cinese da Matteo Ricci,” Studia Missionalia 7 (1952): 425–515; and Christopher Spalatin, “Matteo Ricci’s Use of Epictetus’ Encheiridion,” Gregorianum 56, no. 3 (1975): 551–557. 42 Lackner, Das vergessene Gedächtnis, 8, 41, and passim. 43 On the various editions of the Tianzhu shiyi, see Henri Bernard, “Les adaptations chinoises d’ouvrages européennes,” Monumenta Serica 10 (1945): 324. 44 Gianni Criveller, Preaching Christ in Late Ming China: The Jesuits’ Presentation of Christ from Matteo Ricci to Giulio Aleni (Taipei: Ricci Institute, 1997), 109. 45 Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 4–139.

first encounters

31

There is nothing in the world that does not combine within itself these four causes. Of these four, the formal cause (mozhe 模者) and the material cause (zhizhe 質者), as found in things, are internal properties of these things or, if one wishes to phrase it in that way, their yin and yang. The active (zuozhe 作者) and the final cause (weizhe 為者) lie outside of things and exist prior to them, and therefore cannot be said to be internal properties of them. The Lord of Heaven we speak of is the reason for things being as they are, and we refer to him only as the active and final cause. He is not the formal or material cause of things. Because the Lord of Heaven is perfectly whole, unique, and has none other beside him, he cannot be a part of things.46

In a subsequent passage, the Western scholar refined his argument through another distinction with a certain logical import, that between “universal” and “particular”: As to the active and final causes, we find distinctions within them between what is distant and what is proximate and between what is universal (gong 公) and what is particular (si 私). What is distant and universal is a higher cause, and what is proximate and particular is a lesser cause. The Lord of Heaven is the most universal and highest cause of things; all other causes are proximate and particular and therefore lesser causes. Parents are the cause of children; they are called fathers and mothers, and are the proximate and particular cause; but if there were no heaven to cover them and no earth to sustain them, how would they be able to beget and nurture their children? If there were no Lord of Heaven to superintend heaven and earth, how would heaven and earth be able to produce and nurture all things?47

Ricci’s appropriation of the four causes and the notions of the universal and the particular was a perfect example of the hybrid arguments emerging from the Jesuit strategy of accommodation, not only in the realm of religion. His translation of “cause” as suoyiran (that by which things are the way they are) linked an Aristotelian term to a notion with a rich history in Confucian natural and moral philosophy, thus implicitly demanding equal dignity. Ricci also claimed common ground by likening the “formal” and the “material” cause to the intertwined aspects of yin and yang. Finally, his rendition of “universal”

46 Ibid., 13. Translations from this text are adapted from Matteo Ricci, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven (“T’ien-chu Shih-i”), ed. Douglas Lancashire and Peter Hu Kuo-chen (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1985 [1603]), here 85–86. See also Melis, “Temi e tesi,” 72–74. 47 Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 13–14; translation adapted from idem, True Meaning, 85–86.

32

chapter one

and “particular” by gong ( public, just) and si ( private, selfish) blended an originally formal distinction with the self-justifying spheres of the Confucian social order. The categories of substance and accident, two further concepts with a more or less direct bearing on Aristotelian logic, were introduced in a similarly hybridized fashion. In this case, the impression of hybridity was not so much a result of the terms, which had already been coined, albeit not explained, in Michele Ruggieri’s A True Account of the Lord of Heaven and the Holy Doctrine (Tianzhu shengjiao shilu 天主聖教 實錄, 1584),48 but rather of the mixture of examples chosen to clarify their distinction: There are two “types” (zong 宗, categories) of things: those that “stand by themselves” (zilizhe 自立者, substance) and those which are “reliant” ( yilaizhe 依賴者, accidents). Things which do not depend on other things for their existence, such as heaven and earth, ghosts and spirits, men, birds and beasts, grasses and trees, metals and stones, the four elements, and the like, are all classed as substance. Things which cannot stand on their own and which can only be established subject to other things, as, for example, the five virtues, the five colors, the five notes, the five flavors, the seven emotions, and the like, are all classed as accidents.49

To demonstrate the utility of these notions, Ricci relied once again on the textual traditions of both China and the West. Thus, on the one hand, he reproduced a simplified Chinese version of the Arbor Porphyrii (Wu zonglei tu 物宗類圖 ‘Chart of the types and classes [that is, genera and species] of things’) in order to show that substance and accidents allowed for a classification of the phenomenal world that was more detailed than, and hence superior to, familiar Chinese taxonomies.50 On the other hand, he employed the two terms in an analysis of the

Michele Ruggieri (Luo Mingjian 羅明堅), Tianzhu shengjiao shilu 天主聖教實錄 (A true account of the Lord of Heaven and the Holy Doctrine) (1584), reprinted in Tianzhujiao Dongchuan wenxian xubian 天主教東傳文獻續編 (Sequel to the documents related to the dissemination of Christianity in China) (Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1966), 755–838; 804–805. 49 Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 21; translation adapted from idem, True Meaning, 109. 50 Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 49. See D’Elia, “Prima introduzione,” 168–169. According to Ricci, he had to elide the “nine categories” ( jiu yuanzong 九元宗) of accident from the Arbor because they were “difficult to represent in full on a chart” (Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 48). 48

first encounters

33

famous Chinese sophism “[a] white horse is not [a] horse” (baima fei ma 白馬非馬), attributed to the philosopher Gongsun Long: Let us take a white horse as an illustration. Here there are two things: whiteness and horse. Horse is substance. Whiteness is an accident, since even without its whiteness the horse could continue to exist. If there were no horse, however, the whiteness of the horse could not exist. We therefore say that it is an accident. When we compare these two [categories] we find that substance has prior existence and is of value, whereas accident is secondary and of little consequence. There can only be one substance in any one thing, but countless accidents.51

Whether Ricci wished this offhand analysis to be read as a serious attempt to solve a logical riddle that had puzzled Chinese scholars for centuries is impossible to determine. He appeared convinced, however, that Aristotelian notions were the best means to clarify human understanding and that they should therefore be presented as useful additions to the conceptual vocabulary of late Ming China, if only to make his audience more receptive to the peculiar shape of his missionary message. 2. The Jihe yuanben Although responses to the Tianzhu shiyi were generally friendly, there are no attestations of Chinese scholars abandoning their inherited conceptual tools in favor of the Aristotelian devices it introduced. Nor did the text inspire the kind of awe that characterized Chinese reactions to Ricci’s second major work, the Jihe yuanben 幾何原本, a partial translation of Christopher Clavius’s (1538–1612) edition of Euclid’s Elements of Geometry. Together with the distinguished scholar, convert, and Hanlin academician Xu Guangqi 徐光啟 (1562–1633),52 Ricci completed the adaptation of the first six of the fifteen books in Clavius’s first Latin edition of 1574 in 1607.53

51 Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 21; cf. idem, True Meaning, 109. See also Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 58. 52 Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 1, 99–111. 53 Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi 徐光啟 (trans.), Jihe yuanben 幾何原本 (Elements of geometry) (Beijing, 1607), reprinted in Tianxue chuhan 天學初函 ( First collection of heavenly studies), ed. Li Zhizao 李之藻 (Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1965 [1629]), vol. 4, 1921–2522. On the textual history of the Jihe yuanben, see Engelfriet, Euclid, 290–291.

34

chapter one

The Jihe yuanben was the first and most influential rendition of a mathematical text compiled in the course of the Jesuit mission. It introduced a branch of mathematics that had not been named as such in China, and its structure diverged considerably from Chinese mathematical writings. Most important in our context was the novelty of its style.54 In contrast to traditional treatises, the Jihe yuanben claimed not to stop at outlining the “computational methods” ( fa 法) for solving problems but to devote equal attention to “explanations” ( yi 義) of their underlying “causes” (suoyiran 所以然, again: ‘that by which things are the way they are’), supplying proofs in addition to solutions. Although the book undoubtedly aroused lasting interest among Chinese mathematicians,55 the question of how much logical knowledge Ricci and Xu transmitted in their version of the Elements remains a contested issue. In accordance with the long-held Western view of Euclid as a unique model of deductive rigor and logical clarity,56 many historians of logic have argued that with the Jihe yuanben the complete arsenal of traditional European logic became available in China.57 Their position resonates with Joseph Needham’s general claim that after 1600 “there cease to be any essential distinctions between world science and specifically Chinese science,” or, in other words, that beginning with Jesuit mediation, Chinese and Western knowledge were seamlessly “fused” into “one universal science.”58 Evidence collected by historians of mathematics suggests otherwise, at least in the realm of logic. The Jihe yuanben conveyed very little of the axiomatic-deductive structure and the metamathematical notions introduced in the Elements. Precisely those aspects said to define the work’s logical value were downplayed in the Chinese version. One example was the way in which Ricci and Xu simplified the structure

Standaert, Handbook, 742. See the mass of evidence assembled in Engelfriet, Euclid, 289–448. 56 Catherine Jami, “From Clavius to Pardies: The Geometry Transmitted to China by Jesuits (1607–1723),” in Western Humanistic Culture Presented to China by Jesuit Missionaries (16th–18th Centuries), ed. Federico Masini (Rome: Institutum Historicum S. I., 1996), 175–199; 176. 57 See, e.g., Li Kuangwu, Zhongguo luojishi, vol. 4, 8–15; Wen Gongyi and Cui Qingtian, Zhongguo luojishi jiaocheng, 271–275. See also Li Yan and Du Shiran, Chinese Mathematics: A Concise History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 194–195. 58 Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 3: Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 437; and idem, Clerks and Craftsmen in China and the West: Lectures and Addresses on the History of Science and Technology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 398. 54 55

first encounters

35

of Euclidean proofs in their adaptation. Instead of reproducing all five or six steps into which individual proofs in the Elements were subdivided following Proclus, the translators arranged the proofs in the Jihe yuanben in only two subsections comprising fa 法 ‘methods/constructions’ and lun 論 ‘proofs/discussions’ in presentations of problems, and jie 解 ‘explications’ and lun ‘proofs/discussions’ in the case of theorems.59 Although the notions framing these proofs must have been unfamiliar to their readers, the translators did not define or explain them.60 But the technical meanings of the words they chose to render metamathematical concepts relating to logical operations were certainly not self-explanatory. For instance, lun 論, the Jihe yuanben’s term for “proof,” generally referred to any kind of discussion, debate, saying or opinion. In the absence of further clarification, Chinese readers could hardly be expected to grasp the narrower technical meaning Xu and Ricci intended to convey.61 The translators further blurred the understanding of lun by using the word also as a shorthand for gonglun 公論 (‘general discussion’ but also ‘common saying/opinion’), their rendition of “axiom.”62 No less problematic was their choice of fa 法 ‘method’ for “construction” since the term was commonly used to denote “computational methods” in Chinese arithmetic.63 Although such terminological ambiguities could create misunderstandings, they should not lead us to dismiss the translation of the Jihe yuanben as a whole. As the first attempt to adapt European geometry in Chinese, the work displayed stunning inventiveness and admirable consistency. Some more fortuitous terms suggested by Xu and Ricci were found to be so convincing that they instantly took root in the Chinese lexicon. Most notable in our context was the word jieshuo 界說 ‘explanation of boundaries’ for “definition,”64 a loan translation based on the Latin etymology of definire, which is still in use today as an alternative to the Japanese-derived early-twentieth-century coinage 59 Ricci and Xu, Jihe yuanben, 1979–1980, 2073–2075, and passim. See Engelfriet, Euclid, 151–153. 60 Standaert, Handbook, 743. See also Jean-Claude Martzloff, “La compréhension chinoise des méthodes démonstratives euclidiennes au cours du XVIIe siècle et au début du XVIIIe,” in Actes du IIe colloque internationale de sinologie. Les rapports entre la Chine et l’Europe au temps des Lumières (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1980), 125–143; 135. 61 Engelfriet, Euclid, 149–150, 206. 62 Ricci and Xu, Jihe yuanben, 1970–1977, and passim. 63 Engelfriet, Euclid, 206. 64 Ricci and Xu, Jihe yuanben, 1949–1967, 2069–2071, 2113–2120, 2249–2285, and passim. See Engelfriet, Euclid, 151–153.

36

chapter one

dingyi 定義 ‘determination of the meaning’. Even in this instance, however, Ricci and Xu opened the door for some uncertainty by using jie 界 ‘boundary’ or ‘limit’ not only as an abbreviated form of jieshuo ‘definition’, but also as a geometrical term of art denoting the “circumference of a figure” or the “end-point of a line.”65 Any confusion arising from such inconsistencies and blurred distinctions could have been resolved with the help of patient instructors. But the Jihe yuanben was neither conceived nor used as a textbook. In consequence, it was read very much like a conventional Chinese mathematical work and mainly treated as a collection of computational methods. Like most of their European counterparts, Chinese readers trained in using such collections tended to dissociate the results of Euclidean geometry from the details of the proofs. Anticipating or responding to this practice, the translators, as well as Chinese commentators and editors of later editions of the Jihe yuanben, strove to make the dense work more accessible by reducing it to its “essential core” of calculable results, thus further weakening the formal structures that could have made up its novelty.66 Ming-Qing literary conventions that valued conciseness above all else in technical and scientific writing amplified these tendencies. By literary standards, the repetitions and redundancies required by syllogistic and other forms of reasoning employed throughout Clavius’s Latin edition seemed more than clumsy. Consequently, they were more often than not elided in Xu and Ricci’s translation and its various offspring.67 Finally, perhaps the strongest argument against the claim that the Jihe yuanben marked a milestone in the Chinese appropriation of European logic was the fact that the text made no allusion whatsoever to a discipline named “logic” or “dialectic” or any of its contemporary functions and uses. Not even in his lengthy preface did Ricci suggest any such reference.68 The mathematical art of the Jihe yuanben, he argued there, was the foundation of knowledge in many areas of utmost utility to human society, from the movements of the stars to 65 Ibid., 147–148. See also Jean-Claude Martzloff, A History of Chinese Mathematics (Berlin: Springer, 1997), 116. 66 Ibid., 112–113. 67 See Jean-Claude Martzloff, “Clavius traduit en chinois,” in Giard, Les jésuites à la renaissance, 309–322; 313–315. For the syllogistic style of Clavius’s edition, see also Engelfriet, Euclid, 43–46. 68 Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 343–353. For a full translation, see Engelfriet, Euclid, 454–464.

first encounters

37

agriculture, medicine, hydraulics, food production, and, above all, military defense.69 But he did not imply that this art was significant outside the contexts of mathematics, applied science, and technology. The same applied to other renditions of mathematical works produced in the course of the Jesuit mission, even though the close relation between mathematics and logic was recognized in Jesuit education in Europe.70 In seventeenth-century China, however, the link between the two disciplines, which is regarded as self-evident today, was not yet established. 3. The Xixue fan Chinese readers were given the first hint that there existed an independent field of study called “logic” that played a crucial role in Western philosophy, science, and education in two brief texts written by Giulio Aleni in 1623. In his Record of the Places Outside the Jurisdiction of the Office of Geography (Zhifang waiji 職方外記), a didactic account of world geography, Aleni summarily listed the subjects taught in European schools. One of these subjects was a science called luorijia 落日 加 (< logica).71 According to Aleni, the discipline he thus introduced by a phonemic loan was part of a three-year course in “philosophy” ( feilusuofeiya 斐錄所費亞) that all students had to complete in “middle school” before advancing to the higher faculties. As to the content of this foreign science, Aleni related only that luorijia “can be translated as the method to distinguish right/true from wrong/false (bian shifei zhi fa 辨是非之法).”72 Encouraged by the convert Yang Tingyun 楊廷筠 (1562–1627),73 Aleni composed a more detailed account of the European educational

Ibid., 1. See Ugo Baldini, Legem impone subactis. Studi su filosofia e scienza dei Gesuiti in Italia, 1540–1632 (Rome: Bulzioni, 1992), 45–52; and idem, “Die Philosophie und die Wissenschaften im Jesuitenorden,” in Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts. Band 1: Allgemeine Themen, Iberische Halbinsel, Italien, ed. Jean-Pierre Schobinger (Basel: Schwabe, 1998), 669–769; 707–711. 71 Giulio Aleni (Ai Rulüe 艾儒略), Zhifang waiji 職方外記 (Record of the places outside the jurisdiction of the Office of Geography) ( Hangzhou, 1623), reprinted in Tianxue chuhan, vol. 3, 1269–1496; 1360. On the Zhifang waiji and its impact, see Bernard Hung-Kay Luk, “A Study of Giulio Aleni’s ‘Chih-fang wai chi,’ ” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 40, no. 1 (1977): 58–84; the chapter on education is discussed in ibid., 70–71. 72 Aleni, Zhifang waiji, 1361. 73 Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 1, 125–138. See also Nicolas Standaert, Yang Tingyun, Confucian and Christian in Late Ming China: His Life and Thought (Leiden: Brill, 1988). 69 70

38

chapter one

system in the same year. This treatise, which was published under the title General Outline of Western Knowledge (Xixue fan 西學凡), offered the earliest taxonomy of European knowledge available in Chinese.74 It also contained the first slightly more significant description of the aims and content of the Western discipline of luorijia. In general, the Xixue fan presented a fairly reliable account of the structure of Renaissance education throughout Europe. Yet the particular features of Aleni’s portrait of the Western curriculum most closely reflected the stipulations of the Jesuit Ratio studiorum and the organization of the Italian schools he had attended.75 True to these models, Aleni divided the subjects of study and examination in Europe into six disciplines (ke 科): rhetoric or letters (wenke 文科), philosophy (like 理科), medicine ( yike 醫科), law ( fake 法科), canon law ( jiaoke 教科), and theology (daoke 道科).76 The study of letters was the necessary propaedeutic to all higher education. The subdisciplines grouped under this subject, taught in secondary schools, included the study of “the words of ancient philosophers” (that is, philology), history, poetry, and rhetoric proper—the arts of writing and persuasive speech.77 Students advancing to university then had to complete a three- to four-year course in philosophy before moving on to study one of the specialized disciplines of medicine, civil law, canon law, or theology.78 Within this curriculum, luorijia, here transcribed as 落日伽 and defined as “the way of clear discernment” (mingbian zhi dao 明辯之道), was studied during the first year of the compulsory course in philosophy. Logic was thus preparing for studies in feixijia 費西伽 ( physics, explained as ‘the way of investigating the patterns of nature’), taught during the second year; modafeixijia 默達費西伽 (metaphysics, ‘the way of investigating what is above nature’), to which the third year was devoted; and mademadijia 馬得馬第家伽 (mathematics, comprising Nicolas Standaert, “The Classification of Sciences and the Jesuit Mission in Late Ming China,” in Linked Faiths: Essays on Chinese Religions and Traditional Culture in Honour of Kristofer Schipper, ed. Jan A. M. De Meyer and Peter M. Engelfriet (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 287–317; 293–298. 75 Menegon, Un solo cielo, 158–159. See also Bernard Hung-Kay Luk, “Aleni Introduces the Western Academic Tradition to Seventeenth Century China. A Study of the Xixue Fan,” in Lippiello and Malek, “Scholar from the West,” 479–518; 481–487. 76 Giulio Aleni, Xixue fan 西學凡 (General outline of Western knowledge) ( Hangzhou, 1623), reprinted in Tianxue chuhan, vol. 1, 1–60; 27–28. 77 Aleni, Xixue fan, 28–30. See also Luk, “Aleni,” 487–492; Standaert, “Classification,” 294. 78 Aleni, Xixue fan, 31–33. 74

first encounters

39

arithmetics, geometry, music, and calendrical studies) as well as edijia 厄第家 (ethics, ‘the science of cultivating one’s personality, managing the household, and pacifying the realm’), which brought the course to its close in year four.79 Aleni described each of these five subdisciplines of philosophy in some detail. In general his accounts more or less faithfully mirrored Jesuit educational practices. His presentation of logic, however, may raise questions about the thoroughness of his training in this particular branch of philosophy or the care with which he composed his sketch.80 Aleni opened his outline with a general statement praising the utility of luorijia: Luorijia . . . is aimed at establishing the foundation of all sciences. It distinguishes between the right and wrong of things and affairs, hollow and solid, core and surface. Lawyers and theologians must adopt its methods as their guideline.81

By tying logic to the work of lawyers and theologians, Aleni provided a correct but somewhat infelicitous context for luorijia since the counterparts of both professions aroused much suspicion in China. He then explained that courses in logic were subdivided into six parts: The first is the logical propaedeutic ( yulun 豫論), that is, the explanations ( jie 解) of all terms (mingmu 名目) used in philosophy (lixue 理學).82

Ibid., 31–32. In the existing literature, Aleni’s account of logic is either altogether elided (especially by historians of logic) or treated very briefly. See Pasquale D’Elia, “Le Generalità sulle Scienze Occidentali di Giulio Aleni,” Rivista degli studi orientali 25 (1950): 58–76; Bernard Hung-Kay Luk, Thus the Twain Did Meet? The Two Worlds of Giulio Aleni (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1978 [ Ph.D. diss., Indiana University 1977]), 75–76; Li Wenchao, China-Mission, 576–580; and Standaert, “Classification,” 294, 304–305. The only more detailed analysis is Luk, “Aleni,” 493–495. My translations differ considerably from those given in the latter study. 81 Aleni, Xixue fan, 31. Aleni’s definition was repeated almost verbatim in one of the few other Jesuit works mentioning logic in the seventeenth century. Cf. Alfonso Vagnone (Gao Yizhi 高一志, 1568/69–1640), Tongyou jiaoyu 童幼教育 (Education of youths) (1628), reprinted in Xujiahui cangshulou Ming-Qing Tianzhujiao wenxian 徐家匯臧 書樓明清天主教文獻 (Chinese Christian texts of the Ming and Qing periods from the Zikawei Library), ed. Nicolas Standaert (Zhong Mingdan 鐘鳴旦) et al. (Taibei: Furen daxue shenxueyuan, 1996), vol. 1, 239–422; 377–378: “Luorejia 落熱加 can be translated as the way of clear discernment. It establishes the foundations of all sciences and distinguishes right and wrong, hollow and solid, core and surface. It enlightens the mind and prevents erroneous judgments with regard to the hidden and subtle in things and affairs.” 82 Aleni, Xixue fan, 31. 79 80

40

chapter one

As taught at the Collegio Romano and other Jesuit schools, the logic course started indeed with a period of three to four weeks in which students memorized important logical and philosophical terms. The drill was considered a necessary preparation for the study of the Aristotelian Organon and the relevant commentaries. The first text of the Organon to be read after the propaedeutic was Porphyry’s Isagoge, a concise introduction to the Aristotelian Categories that developed the theory of the five “predicables” (or “common universals”): genus, species, difference, property, and accident.83 Aleni introduced this theory without mentioning its textual foundation or any of the philosophers involved in its formulation: The second [ part] is the doctrine of the five “universal designations” (wu gongcheng 五公稱, the five predicables) of all things, that is, the “general class” (zonglei 宗類, genus) of a thing, such as vegetative, sentient, or rational; its “particular class” (benlei 本類, species), such as ox, horse, or man; its “dividing class” ( fenlei 分類, difference), such as the reason by which ox, horse, or man are different from one another; “that which belongs exclusively to a certain class of things” (wulei suo duyou 物類所獨有, property), such as humans being able to speak, horses to neigh, birds to sing, dogs to bark, and lions to roar; and, finally, “that whose having or not-having leaves the essence of a thing’s class unchanged” (wulei ting suo youwu wuti ziruo 物類聽所有無物體自若, accident), such as the skills of a man or the colors of a horse.84

Classification had of course a long history in various branches of Chinese natural philosophy and textual exegesis, so that Aleni could borrow the well-established term lei 類 ‘class, kind’ to coin fairly lucid, if inevitably hybrid terms for his presentation of at least three of the five predicables. However, since he left the notion “predicable” itself unexplained, Chinese readers could probably only learn from this passage that Western students of logic shared their preoccupation with more or less refined and convincing taxonomies. The third subject of the logical curriculum, according to Aleni, was the doctrine of the “entities of reason” (entia rationis): The third [ part] is the doctrine of what “exists in reason” (liyou 理有, the entia rationis), that is, that which is not visibly manifest on the outside

For a brief introduction to Porphyry’s Isagoge and the theory of the predicables, cf. Porphyry the Phoenician, Isagoge, trans. and ed. Edward W. Warren (Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1975), 9–25. 84 Aleni, Xixue fan, 31–32. 83

first encounters

41

but exists only in the human intellect (mingwu 明悟), such as, for instance, ethical maxims.85

It is difficult to determine whether this passage could make any sense to readers who did not share the pseudo-Platonic assumptions underlying the theory of the entia rationis but were used to locating ethical maxims either in the Confucian canon or in the “innate knowledge” (liangzhi 良知) with which each individual was endowed by nature. But Aleni’s reference to this aspect was also puzzling for another reason. As mentioned above, the entia rationis were a tenet of orthodox Thomism that was vigorously opposed by the most prominent Jesuit logicians, Fonseca and Toledo. It is thus not easy to see why Aleni would include this doctrine in his account. One explanation is that his logical training at Padua had been fragmentary; another, that he thought the entia rationis, or the “old logic” (logica vetus) in general, would do more to enhance the “intellectual flavoring” of luorijia in the eyes of his Chinese audience than the more discursive “new art” (ars nova). Aleni moved back to more conventional Jesuit ground, and the actual sequence of the Organon, with the fourth subject, the Aristotelian categories, which he introduced again without reference to the texts by which they were taught: The fourth [ part] is the doctrine of the “ten types” (shizong 十宗, the categories), that is, the ten “general storehouses” (zongfu 宗府) of all things between heaven and earth. The first [category] is “that which can stand by itself ” (zilizhe 自立者, substance), e.g., heaven, earth, man, or thing. The second [kind of categories] are those that are “reliant” ( yilaizhe 依賴者, the accidents); these cannot stand by themselves and must thus rely on something else to be complete [for their existence]. There is only one category for “that which can stand by itself,” while the “reliants” are divided into nine [categories]: the first is “quantity/ how much” ( jihe 幾何), e.g., foot (chi 尺), inch (cun 寸), one, or ten; the second is “relation” (xiangjie 相接), e.g., lord, minister, father, or son; the third is “quality/what like” (hezhuang 何狀), e.g., black, white, cold, hot, sweet, or bitter; the fourth is “action/acting” (zuowei 作為), e.g., transforming, hurting, walking, or speaking; the fifth is “passion/suffering” (dishou 抵受), e.g., being transformed or being hurt; the sixth is “time/ when” (heshi 何時), such as day or night, year or age; the seventh is “place/where” (hesuo 何所), such as village, house, room, or location; the eighth is “situation/posture” (tishi 體勢), like standing, sitting, hidden, or

85

Ibid., 32.

42

chapter one leaning to one side; and the ninth is “habit/having” (deyong 得用), e.g., wearing a robe or skirt, or acquiring a field or pond.86

Once again Aleni did not offer any explanation of the role that these “storehouses” played in human understanding. His list, interesting or curious as it may have appeared in its comprehensiveness, could therefore only reinforce the impression of luorijia as a science aimed at systems of classification similar to the elaborate sets of correlations over which Chinese philosophers had obsessed at least since the second century BC. The originality of occidental logic was further clouded by the fact that Aleni offered only very brief comments on the last two subjects mentioned in his survey, namely the “art of discussion” (ars disserendi) and the “modes of knowing” (modi sciendi). With these parts of the science, he eventually could have left behind the narrow realm of the Categories and their interpretation and pointed toward what were even in his time considered as the main instruments of logic. In Jesuit works, the ars disserendi referred to the art of argumentation, taken to encompass the theories of propositions, syllogisms, and fallacies, while the modi sciendi related to the three ways of knowing: defining, dividing, and reasoning.87 Aleni, however, brushed over these theories that were taught in the remaining parts of the Organon and supplied merely vague references to their purported functions: The fifth [ part] is the doctrine of the “science of discussion” (bianxue 辯學, the ars disserendi), that is, the correct method to distinguish right and wrong, merit and demerit. The sixth is the doctrine of the “science of knowing” (zhixue 知學, the modi sciendi), that is, the theory of the distinction between actual knowledge, memories or guessing, and error.88

86 Ibid., 32–33. Aleni’s explanations anticipate in a striking manner efforts by comparative philosophers to understand the ways in which the Aristotelian categories could be expressed in classical Chinese. See, e.g., Angus C. Graham, “Relating Categories to Question Forms in Pre-Han Chinese Thought,” in idem, Studies in Chinese Philosophy and Philosophical Literature (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1990), 360–411; and Jean-Paul Reding, “Greek and Chinese Categories,” in idem, Comparative Essays in Early Greek and Chinese Rational Thinking (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 65–92. 87 Gabriel Nuchelmans, “Logic in the Seventeenth Century: Preliminary Remarks and the Constituents of the Proposition,” in The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 103–117; 105–107; and Risse, Logik der Neuzeit, 363. 88 Aleni, Xixue fan, 33. Masini erroneously retranslates bianxue as “logic” and zhixue as “reasoning”; cf. Masini, “Aleni,” 546, 553.

first encounters

43

The functions Aleni attributed to the ars disserendi and the modi sciendi must have appeared as perfectly noble causes to Chinese literati who were driven by similar concerns in their strife for “solid knowledge” (shixue 實學). Without information as to how these functions were performed, however, readers had no way to assess whether the theories and practices covered by these foreign labels could have made useful additions to their customary habits of inference, disputation, and proof. Brief and fragmentary as it was, Aleni’s sketch failed to arouse any noticeable Chinese interest in the alien science of luorijia. The reason I discussed it in some detail is that it remained the sole more or less accessible account of European logic in the Chinese language until the late nineteenth century.89 Yet, it was by no means the final word of the seventeenth-century Jesuits on the subject. 4. Logic as the Patterns of Names In 1620, Nicolas Trigault returned to China from a seven-year trip to Europe with a sizeable collection of books in various Western languages.90 Prior to his departure, Niccolò Longobardo (Long Huamin 龍華民, 1559–1654), the superior of the mission, had commissioned the young father with, among other tasks, assembling a substantial library for the Jesuit headquarters in Beijing and stations in the provinces.91 One of the goals of this challenging project was to facilitate 89 In contrast to the Zhifang waiji, Aleni’s Xixue fan was not included in the imperially-sponsored Siku quanshu 四庫全書 (Collected writings of the Four Treasuries). It remained accessible in the Tianxue chuhan 天學初函 ( First collection of heavenly studies), a selection of Christian texts first printed in 1629. See Chen Minsun, “T’ienhsüeh ch’u-han and Hsi-hsüeh fan: The Common Bond between Li Chih-tsao and Giulio Aleni,” in Lippiello and Malek, “Scholar from the West,” 519–525. 90 Traditional accounts relate that Trigault brought “some 7,000” books to China, a figure still repeated occasionally; cf. Benjamin A. Elman, On Their Own Terms: Science in China, 1550–1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), 94. Recent studies, however, have shown this number to be widely inflated and perhaps used merely rhetorically. More cautious estimates credit Trigault with transporting more than 800 volumes, a still impressive amount. See Rui Manuel Loureiro, Na Companhia dos Livros: Manuscritos e Impressos nas Missões Jesuítas da Ásia Oriental (1540–1620) (Camarate: Fundação Oriente, 2004), 314–328. 91 Nicolas Standaert, “The Transmission of Renaissance Culture in SeventeenthCentury China,” Renaissance Studies 17, no. 3 (2003): 367–391; 367. On Longobardo and the Jesuit “library strategy” in China, see also Noël Golvers, “The Circulation of Western Books from Europe to the Jesuit Mission in China (ca. 1650–ca. 1750),” Daxiyangguo: Revista Portuguesa de Estudos Asiaticos 14 (2009): 129–148; 138–139.

44

chapter one

more systematic translations of Jesuit-Aristotelian philosophy. Having secured donations of books and funds from the pope and the Jesuit superior general in Rome, Trigault visited several centers of seventeenth-century book production and trade, including Lyon, Frankfurt, and Cologne, and purchased a broad variety of philosophical, religious, scientific, and technological treatises on behalf of his confrères in China.92 Among these works were eight volumes of commentary on Aristotle compiled at the University of Coimbra between 1592 and 1606 that had become the most popular philosophical textbooks in Jesuit colleges throughout Europe.93 It was this series, known collectively as the Cursus Collegii Conimbricensis, that a small group of missionaries and converts set out to translate after Trigault’s return in order to revitalize the Jesuit cause among Chinese literati in the aftermath of the anti-Christian persecutions of the years 1616–1617 and in view of sustained official distrust.94 Their earliest efforts were devoted to psychology. In 1624, Xu Guangqi and Francisco Sambiasi (Bi Fangji 畢方濟, 1582–1649)95 completed a brief summary of the opening chapters of In tres libros De anima (1595) under the title A Spoonful of Words on the Soul (Lingyan lishao 靈言蠡勺).96 Concurrently, Giulio Aleni worked on a more substantial adaptation of the same book and parts of Fonseca’s commentary on Aristotle’s Parva naturalia.97 Selections of the commentaries on the 92 Standaert, “Transmission,” 377–382. See also Loureiro, Na Companhia dos Livros, 324–328. 93 On the Cursus Collegii Conimbricensis and its editors, see José Sebastião da Silva Dias, “O Cânone Filosófico Conimbricense (1592–1606),” Cultura—História e Filosofia 4 (1985): 257–370. See also Charles H. Lohr, “Renaissance Latin Aristotle Commentaries, Authors C,” Renaissance Quarterly 28 (1975): 689–741; 717–719; Stegmüller, Filosofia, 95–99; and John O. Riedl, A Catalogue of Renaissance Philosophers (1350–1650) ( Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1973 [1940]), 105–107. 94 Henri Bernard, Sagesse chinoise et philosophie chrétienne. Essais sur leur relation historique (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1951 [1935]), 122. 95 Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 1, 198–207. 96 For a complete retranslation and analysis of this work, see Isabelle Duceux, La introducción del aristotelismo en China a través del De anima: Siglos XVI–XVII (México: El Colegio de México, 2009). On the Lingyan lishao and other translations from the Conimbricenses see also H[enri] Verhaeren, “Aristote en Chine,” Bulletin Catholique de Pékin 264 (August 1935): 417–429; 419–422; and Standaert, “Transmission,” 395–397. 97 The complete result of Aleni’s labors was published only in 1646. See Giulio Aleni, Xingxue cushu 性學觕述 (A coarse description of the science of human nature) (1646), reprinted in Yesuhui Luoma dang’anguan Ming-Qing Tianzhujiao wenxian 耶穌會羅 馬檔案館明清天主教文獻 (Chinese Christian texts of the Ming and Qing periods from the Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus), ed. Nicolas Standaert (Zhong Mingdan 鐘鳴旦) and Adrian Dudink (Du Dingke 杜鼎克) (Taibei: Taipei Ricci Institute,

first encounters

45

Morale a Nicomachia were included in Alfonso Vagnone’s (Gao Yizhi 高一志, 1568–1640)98 Western Knowledge on Personal Cultivation (Xiushen Xixue 修身西學, ca. 1631).99 The same author rendered passages from the Coimbra versions of De coelo et mundo and the Meteora in his Treatise on the Heavens (Kongji gezhi 空際格致, 1633).100 The commentary on De coelo also served as the basis for the Interpretation of the Universe ( Huanyou quan 寰有詮, 1628), a collaborative adaptation by Francisco Furtado and the Chinese convert Li Zhizao 李之藻 (1565–1630),101 one of the most accomplished pairs of translators in that period.102 After finishing this first project, Li and Furtado decided to continue their collaboration with perhaps the most challenging of the Coimbran volumes: the commentary on Aristotle’s Organon. 1. The Textual Record The Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis e Societate Iesu: In universam dialecticam Aristotelis was a revised and expanded version of Pedro da Fonseca’s above-mentioned Institutionum dialecticarum libri octo. The monumental work, comprising 1,332 folio pages in two volumes, was edited by Sebastian da Couto, who added an introductory chapter defining the place of logic among the various branches of philosophy. Couto’s 2002), vol. 6, 45–378. For not always convincing analyses, cf. Qiong Zhang, “Translation,” 369–376; and Vincent Shen, “From Aristotle’s De Anima to Xia Dacheng’s Xingshuo,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 32, no. 4 (2005): 575–596. 98 Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 1, 147–155. 99 Verhaeren, “Aristote,” 427–429. 100 Standaert, Handbook, 607–608. 101 Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 1, 112–124. 102 See Verhaeren, “Aristote,” 422–425; and Fang Hao 方豪, Li Zhizao yanjiu 李之 藻研究 (A study of Li Zhizao) (Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguan, 1966), 103–116. On Li Zhizao’s earlier translations, see ibid., 97–102; Li and Du, Mathematics, 196– 201; Qi Han, “F. Furtado (1587–1653) S.J. and His Chinese Translation of Aristotle’s Cosmology,” in História das Ciências Matemáticas. Portugal e o Oriente (Camarate: Fundação Oriente, 2000), 169–179; as well as Feng Jinrong 馮錦榮 [Fung Kam-Wing], “Mingmo Qingchu zhishifenzi dui Yalishiduode ziran zhexue de yanjiu—yi Yesuhuishi Fu Fanji yu Li Zhizao heyi de ‘Huanyou quan’ wei zhongxin” 明末清初知識份子 對亞里士多德自然哲學的研究—以耶穌會士傅汎際與李之藻合譯的《寰有詮》 為中心 (Chinese intellectuals’ studies of Aristotle’s natural philosophy in the late Ming and early Qing—Focusing on F. Furtado and Li Zhizao’s translation Huanyou quan), in Shijie Huaren kexueshi xueshu yantaohui wenji (Proceedings of the International Symposium on the Chinese History of Science), ed. Wu Jiali 吳嘉麗 and Zhou Xianghua 周湘華 (Taibei: Danda lishixi huaxuexi, 1991), 379–388; and idem, “Christopher Clavius and Li Zhizao,” in The Spread of the Scientific Revolution in the European Periphery, Latin America and East Asia, ed. Celina A. Lértoza, Efthymios Nicolaïdis, and Jan Vandersmissen (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 147–158.

46

chapter one

manuscript was completed in 1597103 and first printed in Coimbra and Cologne in 1606.104 In all likelihood Furtado had become acquainted with the text during his studies at Coimbra in the early 1610s.105 In universam dialecticam was composed throughout in the modus quaestionis: it was designed to introduce students to the Organon through systematic discussions of questions arising from diverse interpretations of selected passages. The emphasis on such discussions led to an unbalanced treatment of the Organon. In order to set their views apart from the logica vetus, Fonseca and Couto devoted many questions to criticisms of Thomistic ideas about the ontological underpinnings of the Aristotelian Categories, while treating the less controversial Analytics, which contained aspects of logic that are more relevant from a modern perspective, relatively briefly.106 Nonetheless, as its many editions attest,107 the volume was seen to offer a clear and comprehensive introduction to the discipline in contemporary Europe and it was therefore certainly a worthy choice for the Jesuit effort.108 As in their rendition of the Interpretation of the Universe, Li Zhizao and his European counterpart Furtado approached the translation in the tried and tested manner of Jesuit—and in earlier times Buddhist—teamtranslation.109 Furtado, who had studied the Chinese language with Li for some years after his arrival on the Mainland, orally “translated the meaning” ( yiyi 譯意) of the Latin text; Li’s much more complex task was to put this meaning into “comprehensible words” (daci 達辭).110 They began their effort in 1627 and continued until November 1629, 103 Stegmüller, Filosofia, 90. See also Alfredo Dinis, “Tradição e Transição no Curso Conimbricense,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 47 (1991): 535–560. 104 Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis e Societate Iesu: In universam dialecticam Aristotelis (Cologne: Bernardus Gualtheri, 1607 [1606]), reprinted with a preface by Wilhelm Risse ( Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1976). The Cologne edition of 1611, on which Furtado and Li based their translation, is apparently identical with this text. See W. Risse, “Vorwort,” in ibid., 1–4. 105 Brockey, Journey to the East, 211–214. 106 Risse, Logik der Neuzeit, 373–378. 107 See Wilhelm Risse, Bibliographia logica. Verzeichnis der Druckschriften zur Logik mit Angabe ihrer Fundorte. Band 1: 1472–1800 ( Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1965), 108–129. 108 Nuchelmans, “Logic,” 103–104. 109 Walter Fuchs, “Zur technischen Organisation der Übersetzungen buddhistischer Schriften ins Chinesische,” Asia Major 6 (1930): 84–103. 110 Li Zhizao 李之藻 and Francisco Furtado ( Fu Fanji 傅汎際), Mingli tan 名理探 (De Logica), 2 vols. (Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguan, 1965 [1631/1639]), 1. This text is a reprint of the edition Xu Zongze prepared for the Commercial Press in 1931. It is more reliable than the version published in simplified characters in Beijing in 1959.

first encounters

47

when Li was summoned from Hangzhou to the capital Beijing where he died in 1630.111 According to Li’s son, Li Cibin 李次霦, the difficulty of the text, combined with his father’s failing health, turned the effort into a veritable ordeal.112 Li himself, who lost vision in one of his eyes in the course of the project, admitted that the prose of the Conimbricenses was so “rarefied” (xiongjue 敻絕) that he frequently “put down his brush” in resignation.113 The textual problems surrounding the Mingli tan 名理探 (De logica, or literally ‘The investigation of the patterns of names’), as Li and Furtado called their version of In universam dialecticam, are considerable. The standard reprint, edited by Xu Zongze 徐宗澤 in 1931, contains ten juan ‘scrolls’. The first five of these, entitled “The five Universals” (Wu gong 五公) or “The Five Predicables” (Wu gongcheng 五公稱), comprise Li and Furtado’s rendition of Couto’s general introduction and the commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge;114 the remaining five juan, titled “The Ten Categories” (Shi lun 十倫), entail their adaptation of the Coimbra commentary on De categoriae.115 In addition, two prefaces have been preserved. The first, by Li Tianjing 李天經 (1579–1660?),116 a Christian convert who served as director of the Imperial Board of Astronomy at the time of writing, is dated 1636; the second by Li Cibin dates from 1639. Original copies of the work are exceedingly rare. In China, only one manuscript copy of the first five juan has survived in the Jesuit library at Zikawei, now incorporated into the Shanghai Library. The most complete printed version, comprising ten juan, is held at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.117 Further copies are located in Rome at

111 Fang Hao, Li Zhizao, 123–124. See also Gong Yingyan 龔纓晏 and Ma Qiong 馬琼, “Guanyu Li Zhizao shengping shiji de xin shiliao” 關於李之藻生平事跡的新 史料 (New historical materials on Li Zhizao’s life and achievements), Zhejiang daxue xuebao 38, no. 3 (2008): 89–97; 94–95. 112 Li Cibin 李次霦, “You xu” 又序 (Second preface), in Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 7–8. 113 Li Zhizao, “Yi Huanyou quan xu” 譯寰有詮序 (Translator’s preface to the Huanyou quan) (1628), reprinted in Xu Zongze 徐宗澤, Ming-Qing jian Yesuhuishi yizhu tiyao 明清間耶穌會士譯著提要 (Abstracts of Jesuit translations and original works from the Ming and Qing period) (Taibei: Zhonghua shuju, 1958), 198–200; 199. 114 In universam dialecticam, vol. 1, 1–296. 115 Ibid., 297–560. 116 Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 2, 16–23. 117 Fonds Courant, no. 3413 “Mingli tan,” juan 1–5; no. 3414 “Mingli tan: Shi lun,” juan 1–5.

48

chapter one

the Biblioteca Nazionale,118 the Vatican Library,119 and the Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus.120 None of these editions states the year of printing. Li Cibin related in his preface that the first five juan were printed at Hangzhou “after [my father] had departed for the capital in the winter of 1630,”121 most probably in 1631 but certainly no later than 1636. The ten-juan edition that included the two prefaces was printed between 1639, the date of Li Cibin’s preface, and 1641, when the text was mentioned by Alvaro Semedo (Zeng Dezhao 曾德昭, 1585–1658) in his Relação da propagação da fe no reyno da China e outros adjacentes.122 Yet, in their three years of shared torment, Li and Furtado apparently managed to translate a larger portion of In universam dialecticam than the ten printed scrolls. Both prefaces claimed that they rendered “more than ten juan.”123 Marginal notes found on the Latin original used by Li and Furtado—which was held until 1949 in the Beitang Library in Beijing but is now lost—indicate that the translators had divided their text of departure into five “treatises” (duan 端 or lun 論) consisting each of five juan.124 The ten printed juan would thus have to be taken as treatises one and two. This is confirmed by notes at the end of these two sections announcing that “treatises 2–5 [or “3–5”] will be printed later.”125 According to this structure, the five juan of their third treatise were reserved for the commentary on Aristotle’s Analytica priora, and the ten juan of treatises four and five for the discussion of the Analytica posteriora. The sections of the Latin text devoted 118 Mss. Orientali 261/1–5 [72 C 296/1–5]: “Mingli tan: Wu gong,” juan 1–5; 72 B 314/1–5: prefaces by Li Tianjing and Li Cibin; “Mingli tan: Wu cheng,” juan 1–4; plus “Mingli tan: Shi lun,” juan 5, erroneously bound with this part; 72 B 315/1–4: “Mingli tan: Shilun,” juan 1–4. 119 Borg. Cin. 231, 1º–9º, encompassing the same nine juan as the copies in the Biblioteca Nazionale. 120 ARSI Japonica-Sinica II, 1, comprising “Mingli tan: Wu gongcheng,” juan 2–5; “Mingli tan: Shilun,” juan 1–5; prefaces by Li Tianjing and Li Cibin. See Albert Chan, Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome: A Descriptive Catalogue, JaponicaSinica I–IV (Armonk and London: M.E. Sharpe, 2002), 283–284. 121 Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 8. 122 Fang Hao 方豪, “ ‘Mingli tan’ yike juanshu kao”「名理探」譯刻卷數考 (A note on the number of translated and printed chapters of the Mingli tan), in idem, Fang Hao liushi ziding gao 方豪六十自定搞 (Drafts edited by Fang Hao himself at sixty) (Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguan, 1969), 1884–1886; 1884. See also idem, Li Zhizao, 125. 123 Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 3, 8. 124 Verhaeren, “Aristote,” 427; Fang Hao, Li Zhizao, 128–129. 125 Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 19, 288.

first encounters

49

to Aristotle’s Peri hermeneias (De interpretatione), which deal with signs as well as sentences and their constituent elements, bear no notes at all, suggesting that Li and Furtado postponed the translation of this part of the Organon. About the reasons for this decision we can only speculate. One explanation, anticipating a pattern emerging in later adaptations of logical texts—namely, the tendency to elide or abbreviate sections with strong grammatical import—would be that they deemed the adaptation of discussions of sentence structures based on the model of Greek and Latin too daunting a task to complete in Chinese. Yet, as we shall see below, they met this challenge in quite an ingenious manner in their version of the Analytica priora. A second explanation might be that they were not sure what to make of remarks in the Coimbran commentary on De interpretatione about the nature of the Chinese script. In an article entitled “Whether Writing Signifies Words, and How?” the Conimbricenses present Sinitic script as an example of “hieroglyphic writings” that “immediately signify things without indicating any words” and thus “have a peculiar signification which is intrinsic to themselves.” Chinese characters in this view are “not properly writings, but rather certain figures” like “the numbers of the arithmeticians.”126 It would have been difficult for Li and Furtado to transmit this assessment without qualifications, if only because their own labors so clearly disproved its underlying assumption of incommensurability between European and Chinese thought. In any event, all extant evidence indicates that Li and Furtado had started to work on no more than twenty-five juan of In universam dialecticam.127 Even in its present, incomplete form the Mingli tan was a rare achievement. Its ten printed juan encompassed more than 250,000 characters, filling almost six hundred pages in the standard reprint. An

126 In universam dialecticam, vol. 2, 47–48. Translations follow John P. Doyle, The Conimbricenses: Some Questions on Signs (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001), 118–119. 127 Xu Zongze 徐宗澤, “ ‘Mingli tan’ zhi ba”《名理探》之跋 (Postface to the Mingli tan), in Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 579–587; 581–582. The more audacious claim, put forward in Fang Hao, “Juanshu kao,” and repeated in Standaert, Handbook; and Chan, Chinese Books, that Li and Furtado completed 30 juan and thus a translation of the entire work, including De interpretatione, is based solely on a remark in Li Cibin’s preface stating that “as a book the investigation of the patterns of names comprises 30 juan.” It is not clear, however, whether this figure refers to the original or the translation. See Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 8. As we shall see below, five of the fifteen unpublished juan—those devoted to the Analytica priora—have been preserved in the anthology Qionglixue 窮理學 (Cursus philosophicus).

50

chapter one

exhaustive autopsy of this monumental work is thus beyond the scope of this chapter. In the following, I shall only highlight a number of aspects pertinent to the question of the degree to which the Mingli tan contributed to the expansion of China’s terminological repertoire and the building of conceptual bridges that may have made the discovery of European logic and its Chinese counterpart possible. 2. Style and Terminology Even though the Mingli tan did not follow In universam dialecticam sentence by sentence, the translation was generally faithful to the main arguments put forward in the commentary and the quaestiones. Omissions, or rather abbreviations, mainly concerned foreign names, polemical remarks, and historical details. As in their translation of the Interpretation of the Universe, Li Zhizao and Furtado carefully reproduced the complex structure of the Coimbran text. Quotations from Porphyry and Aristotle, which were set in italics in In universam dialecticam, were marked by the head-word “ancient” (gu 古, typeset within a circle); the commentary was introduced by the head-word “explanation” ( jie 解). Quaestiones were rendered as “discussions” (bian 辯); their subsections, or articuli, were called “branches” (zhi 支). Other terms used in structuring the text were “someone says” (huoyue 或曰) for objectio; “we explain it as . . .” (shizhi yue 釋之曰) for solutio; and “the correct argument is” (zhenglun yun 正論云) for vera solutione.128 The style of the translation adapted the text as much as possible to Chinese literary conventions. Direct quotations from Porphyry or Aristotle, marked as “ancient,” were rendered wherever possible in rhythmic phrases of equal length in order to give them a “classical” and hence more dignified flavor. The commentary and the quaestiones were translated in less restricted fashion. Here the ornate and at times verbose prose of the original, teeming with parentheses, ironic comments, and sarcastic asides, was abandoned in favor of conciseness and perspicuity. As in the Jihe yuanben, syllogistic arguments were reduced to their propositional contents at the expense of formal validity. Divergent positions on contested issues were often detached from their foreign contexts and cited without attribution in dehistoricized enumerations summarizing the most significant differences. This strategy

128

Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 39–42, 69, 113, and passim.

first encounters

51

sacrificed a layer of historical information for clarity of exposition. Judged by literary criteria alone, the accommodation of In universam dialecticam to late Ming textual practices would therefore seem like an indisputable success.129 The literary form of the Mingli tan can thus not be held responsible that the work remained one of the most challenging texts in the history of Chinese philosophical literature. The difficulty, rather, lay in the complex conceptual structure of the Latin original that Li Zhizao did his best to adapt by a “purpose-built, forbiddingly technical terminology.”130 The most striking feature of this terminology, which is of special interest to us since it was the earliest systematic effort to represent European logic in Chinese, was that it displayed no attempt on Li’s part to link logical terms with established Chinese notions. In marked contrast to his adaptations of mathematical and astronomical texts and the much emulated Jihe yuanben, all of which drew extensively on indigenous terms and introduced only a limited number of neologisms,131 the Mingli tan bristled with hundreds of new terms. In the sparse literature on the Mingli tan, there has been some confusion about the features and quality of this novel terminology.132 One recurrent misjudgment holds that Li Zhizao and Furtado predominantly used phonemic loans to introduce unfamiliar Western notions.133 This erroneous impression is obviously derived from a superficial perusal of the book’s first chapter. In their introductory discussion of

129 For a different assessment, see Robert Wardy, Aristotle in China: Language, Categories, and Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 82–84. 130 Ibid., 86. 131 For a list of the new terms coined in the Jihe yuanben, see Engelfriet, Euclid, 283–285. 132 The best discussions remain Fukazawa Sukeo 深沢助雄, “ ‘Meiri tan’ no yakugyō ni tsuite”「名理探」の訳業について (On the translation of the Mingli tan), Chūgoku— Shakai to bunka 1 (1986): 20–38; and Xu Guangtai 徐光太 [Hsu Kuang-tai], “Mingmo xifang ‘Fanchoulun’ zhongyao yuci de chuanru yu fanyi: Cong Li Madou ‘Tianzhu shiyi’ dao ‘Mingli tan’ ” 明末西方《範疇論》重要語詞的傳入與翻譯：從利 瑪竇《天主實義》到《名理探》(The late Ming transmission and translation of some important Western terms related to the Categories: From Matteo Ricci’s The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven to the Mingli tan), Qinghua xuebao, n.s., 35, no. 2 (2005): 245–281. See also Cao Jiesheng 曹杰生, “Lüelun ‘Mingli tan’ de fanyi ji qi yingxiang” 略論《名理探》的翻譯及其影響 (A brief discussion of the translation and influence of the Mingli tan), in Zhongguo luojishi yanjiu 中國邏輯史研究 (Studies in the history of Chinese logic) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1982), 285–302; 297–299. 133 Cf., e.g., Martzloff, History, 115–116.

52

chapter one

the disciplinary matrix organizing Western knowledge,134 the translators did indeed offer transcriptions for the Latin designations of the European sciences. Yet, even these were without exception accompanied by loan translations based on the etymologies of their Latin models or brief explanations of their meanings (see Table 1.1, items 1–22). In the further course of the work, only fifteen technical notions were rendered by phonemic loans. In most instances, such as xilushisimu 細錄世斯模 or xiluoshisimu 細落世斯模 ‘syllogism’, yabeidu 亞備 度 ‘habitus’, yideya 意得亞 ‘idea’, eshengxiya 額生細亞 ‘essence’, or suxidengjiya 素細鄧際亞 ‘substance’ (items 23–27; see also 28–32),135 the transcriptions were apparently offered for purposes of reference, much in the same manner as the titles of Aristotle’s works were presented as Jiatewoliya 加得我利亞 (De categoriae), Boli e’ermoniya 伯利額爾默尼亞 (Peri hermeneias), Yanalidijia 亞納利第加 (Analytica) and Dubijia 篤比加 (Topica).136 Only in four cases—yanaluojia 亞納落加 ‘analogy’, guanwunienxiya 觀勿尼恩西亞 convenientia (‘agreement’), xinuoduoge 細搦多格 ‘synecdoche’, and denuominadiwu 得諾靡納第勿 denominativus (‘formed by derivation’) (items 33–36)137—did they seem to indicate that Li Zhizao gave in to the alterity of his European terms of departure. However, these latter notions were in no way central to the Mingli tan’s argument, and they were used so rarely that they hardly affected the readability of the work. Another statement about the book’s terminology that needs to be qualified is the claim that Li Zhizao’s coinages were to a large extent inspired by the Chinese Buddhist lexicon.138 A few such inspirations may be detectable in terms used to render metaphysical and ontological notions such as “being” (ens, rendered by you 有 or youyezhe 有也者, nominalized forms of the verb ‘to have, exist’), “substance” (translated as ziliti 自立體 ‘bodies standing by themselves’ or ben zizai 本自在 ‘something existing of and by itself ’) and “accident” ( yilaizhe 衣賴者 ‘something that is reliant’), or in the use of the suffix -shi 識 ‘conscious mental function’ (from Sanskrit vijñāna) in terms denoting the powers of the mind, e.g., xiangxingshi 想形識 ‘imagination’. In the narrow realm of logic, however, there were no unequivocally Buddhist influences. In Standaert, “Classification,” 290–293. Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 29 and 35, 3, 45, 52, and 165. 136 Ibid., 289–291. 137 Ibid., 52 and 291, 61 and 106, 267, and 291. 138 Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 165. See also Michael Friedrich’s review of Wardy, Aristotle, in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 84 (2002): 345–352; 351. 134 135

first encounters

53

Table 1.1: Phonemic Loans in the Mingli tan (1631/1639) Hanzi

Hanyu pinyin

Original term Translated / Explained as . . .

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

絡日伽 額勒瑪第加 勒讀理加 伊斯多利加 博厄第加 厄第加 額各諾靡亞 博利第加 斐西加 瑪得瑪第加 陡祿日亞

luorijia elemadijia ledulijia yisiduolijia boedijia edijia egenuomiya bolidijia feixijia mademadijia douluriya

logica grammatica rhetorica historia poetica ethica oeconomica politica physica mathematica theologia

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

默第際納 日阿默第亞 亞利默第加 百斯伯第襪 亞斯多落日亞 慕細加 閣斯睦加費亞

modijina riamodiya yalimodijia baisibodiwa yasiduoluoriya muxijia gesimujiafeiya

medicina geometria arithmetica perspectiva astrologia musica cosmographia

19 入沃加費亞

ruwujiafeiya

geographia

20 獨博加費亞

dubojiafeiya

topographia

21 默達費西加

modafeixijia

metaphysica

22 第亞勒第加

diyaledijia

dialectica

23 細錄世斯模 （細絡世斯模） 24 亞備度 25 意得亞 26 額生細亞 27 素細鄧際亞 28 因額西（細） 鄧際亞 29 衣鄧第大得 30 悟尼勿加 （悟尼伏加） 31 額計勿加

xilushisimu (xiluoshisimu) yabeidu yideya eshengxiya suxidengjiya yin’exidengjiya

syllogismus

bianyi 辨藝, art of debating tanyi 談藝 (or 譚藝), art of speech wenyi 文藝, art of writing shi 史, historiography shi 詩, poetry keji 克己, overcoming selfishness zhijia 治家, managing the household zhishi 治世, regulating the world xingxingxue 形性學, science of physical nature shenxingxue 審性學, science examining forms chaoxingxue 超性學, science of that which transcends human nature yixue 醫學, science of medicine liangfa 量法, methods of measurement suanfa 算法, methods of calculation shiyi 視藝, art of vision xingyi 星藝, art of celestial bodies yueyi 樂藝, art of music zhu hua tiandi zhi quantu 主畫天地之全圖, focuses on drawing comprehensive maps of heaven and earth zhu hua quandi zhi tu 主畫全地之圖, focuses on drawing maps of the earth zhu hua geguo zhi tu 主畫各國之圖, focuses on drawing maps of single countries chaoxingxue 超形學, science of that which transcends physical nature shu liangke zhi mingli lun 屬兩可之名理論, logic of contingency tuibian zhi lun 推辨之論, theory of inference

habitus idea essentia substantia in existentia

xishu 習熟, to be familiar with yuanze 元則, original standard benyuan 本元, proper origin ben zizai 本自在, existing of and by itself xianzai 現在, present

identitate univocal

32 凡達細亞 33 亞納落加 （亞納落日亞） 34 觀勿尼恩西亞 35 細搦多格 36 得諾靡納第勿

fandaxiya yanaluojia ( yanaluoriya) guanwunienxiya xinuoduoge denuominadiwu

tong ye, he ye 同也合也, identical, together tongming tongyi 同名同義, same name, same meaning tongming qiyi 同名歧義, same name, different meaning xingxiangshi 形想識, imagination

yidengdidade wuniwujia (wunifujia) ediwujia

aequivoca phantasia analogia convenientia synecdoche denominativus

54

chapter one

particular, Li Zhizao did not seem to borrow any terms from the lexicon of yinming 因明, that is, Chinese Buddhist theories of reasoning.139 If Li was aware of the rare yinming literature, which is not impossible in view of the modest revival of Buddhist scholasticism during the late Ming,140 he failed to recognize compelling similarities between Western and Chinese Buddhist logic, or at least none that were so obvious that he could ignore them only at his own peril.141 There is also no sign that Li Zhizao tried to accommodate technical terms from In universam dialecticam to the lexicon of the texts that are today considered as key documents of China’s native logical tradition. Not even in sections discussing the relation between language and reality, the central theme of “Chinese logic,” did Li draw on the lexicon of the “Mohist Canons,” Xunzi, the School of Names, or its offspring.142 There is, of course, more than one explanation for this fact. Perhaps Li wanted to avoid the impression that the theories taught in the Mingli tan bore any resemblance to noncanonical doctrines. However, it is equally likely that he simply did not recognize affinities that appear natural only as the result of later discoveries. This suggestion does not imply that Li did not appropriate any contemporary or classical terms for technical notions in his rendition, or that the Chinese lexicon did not provide any words denoting logical operations and the mechanics of argumentation. One obvious counterexample is the term, or rather the cluster of terms, Li used to translate the word “logic” itself. The expression mingli 名理, ‘names and patterns’ or ‘the patterns of names’, which was at the core of 139 Uwe Frankenhauser, “Wörterbuch zur chinesischen Logik. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Logiken der Tang-Zeit” (unpublished manuscript, University of Göttingen, 1996). 140 See Timothy Brook, Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late-Ming China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 181–184 and passim. See also Shi Shengyan 釋聖嚴, Mingmo fojiao yanjiu 明末佛教研究 (Studies of Buddhism in the Late Ming) (Taibei: Dongchu chubanshe, 1988), 211–214. 141 Nor is there any indication that the Chan-Buddhist monks who composed yinming inferences to refute arguments developed in Ricci’s Tianzhu shiyi in the context of rising anti-Christian sentiment during the late 1630s were driven to do so by their acquaintance with Jesuit logic. See Iso Kern, Buddhistische Kritik am Christentum im China des 17. Jahrhunderts (Bern: Peter Lang, 1992); and Jiang Wu, “Buddhist Logic and Apologetics in Seventeenth Century China: An Analysis of the Use of Buddhist Syllogisms in an Anti-Christian Polemic,” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 2, no. 2 (2003): 273–289. 142 Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 40–41. See also Bao Zunxin 包遵信, “ ‘Mobian’ de chenlun he ‘Mingli tan’ de fanyi”《墨辯》的沉淪和《名理探》的翻譯 (The decline of the Mobian and the translation of the Mingli tan), Dushu 1 (1986): 63–71.

first encounters

55

Li’s renditions mingli tan 名理探 ‘the investigation of the patterns of names’, minglixue 名理學 ‘the science of . . .’, and mingli zhi lun 名理論 ‘the theory of . . .’, had been used as a vague general designation for matters related to argumentation since the early Han dynasty (second century BC) and gained greatest prominence in the lively culture of learned debate emerging in third- and fourth-century China.143 Apparently, this rhetorical practice was the closest parallel to European logic Li found in Chinese intellectual history. Other general terms with meanings related to argumentation and inference that Li seized in the course of his translation were tui 推 ‘to push on, extend, investigate, infer, deduce, conclude’ and tong 通 ‘to penetrate, understand, make communicate’, as well as bian 辨 ‘to distinguish, discriminate’ and its homonym bian 辯 ‘to argue, dispute, debate, explain’, which were sometimes used interchangeably (see Table 1.2, items 3–7, 10). Yet, none of the compounds in which Li employed these words throughout the Mingli tan were borrowed from a precise technical context. Rather, they were transformed from ordinary words into technical terms only by the definite usages to which they were put in Li’s rendition. In the absence of any established Chinese context to which he could accommodate the logical notions discussed in In universam dialecticam, Li Zhizao had no choice but to create an entirely new lexicon. His preferred strategy to this end was to draw on the literal meanings or etymologies of his Latin models, as attested by his choices of terms related to Porphyry’s five predicables, the ten Aristotelian categories, and some general notions of logical import listed, with literal retranslations into English, in Tables 1.2 to 1.4. To be sure, perfect matches, such as those between zong 宗 ‘ancestor, type’ and “genus” (Table 1.2, item 7), which share similar double meanings in Latin and Chinese, were hard to find. But even less ideal replicas such as di 底 ‘basis, foundation’ for “subject” (from Latin subjectum, ‘that which is underlying’); chengwei 稱謂 ‘designation’ for “predicate” ( praedicamentum, ‘that which is predicated’); xiangjie 向界 ‘delimitation’ for “definition” ( finis, ‘limit’); xianjie 限界 ‘limit’ or duan 端 ‘end’ for “term” (terminus, ‘border’); and tilun 題論 ‘to set as topic/theme’ for “proposition” ( propositio, ‘a setting forth’), were rather sensible inventions (see Table 1.2, items 2–3; and Table 1.4, items 8, 11, and 13). Although none of these terms

143

Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 354.

56

chapter one Table 1.2: Terms Related to Predicables in the Mingli tan (1631/39) English term

Hanzi

Hanyu pinyin

Retranslation

1 2 3 4 5 6

predicable subject predicate universal universality particular

公稱 底 稱 (謂) 公 (者) 公性 特一 (者)

gongcheng di cheng(wei) gong(zhe) gongxing teyi(zhe)

7 8 9 10 11

genus species difference property accident

宗 類 殊 獨 衣 衣賴

zong lei shu du yi yilai

‘universal designation’ ‘basis, foundation’ ‘designation’ ‘(the) public’, ‘general’ ‘of public or general nature’ ‘(the) particular’, ‘special’, ‘unique’ ‘ancestor’, ‘type’ ‘class’, ‘kind’ ‘different’, ‘distinguished’ ‘lonely’, ‘alone’, ‘singular’ ‘clothing’, ‘covering’ ‘to rely on’, ‘to depend’

Table 1.3: Terms Related to Categories in the Mingli tan (1631/39) English term

Hanzi

Hanyu pinyin

Retranslation

1

category

2

substance

倫 倫府 自立體 自立者

lun lunfu ziliti zilizhe

3 4 5 6 7

accident quantity relation quality action (doing)

8

passion (suffering)

衣賴者 幾何 互視 何似 施作 作為 承受 抵受

yilaizhe jihe hushi hesi shizuo zuowei chengshou dishou

體勢 切所 何居 暫久 何時 得有 受飾

tishi qiesuo heju zhanjiu heshi deyou shoushi

‘constants’ ‘constant storehouses’ ‘bodies standing by themselves’, ‘that which stands by itself ’ ‘that which is reliant’ ‘how much?’ ‘seeing one another’ ‘what like?’ ‘doing, making’ ‘actions’, ‘deeds’ ‘to receive’, ‘bear’ ‘to sustain and endure’, ‘to suffer’ ‘state’, ‘situation’ ‘place of contact’ ‘at which place?’ ‘duration’, ‘short or long time’ ‘what time?’ ‘to obtain or possess’ ‘to receive clothing’

9 situation 10 place 11 time 12 having

first encounters

57

Table 1.4: Basic Logical Terms in the Mingli tan (1631/39) English term

Hanzi

Hanyu pinyin

Retranslation

1

logic

2

mingli tan minglixue mingli (zhi) lun bianyi zhitong

‘the investigation/ science/theory of the patterns of names’ ‘art of debating’ ‘immediate understanding’

3 4

simple apprehension judgment reasoning

名理探 名理學 名理（之）論 辨藝 直通

5

inference

6 7 8

demonstration deduction definition

斷通 推通 明辨 推辨 推知 推理 推論 推演 解釋 向界 剖析 推論 辯論 限界 端 意想 題論 推辨之論 題列 收列 首列 次列 謬 證 所以然

duantong tuitong mingbian tuibian tuizhi tuili tuilun tuiyan jieshi xiangjie pouxi tuilun bianlun xianjie duan yixiang tilun tuibian zhi lun tilie shoulie shoulie cilie miu zheng suoyiran

效 規式 模 規模 質

xiao guishi mo guimo zhi

‘judgmental understanding’ ‘inferential understanding’ ‘clear discernment’ ‘push on and distinguish’ ‘push on and know’ ‘push on and reason’ ‘push on and discuss’ ‘push on and unravel’ ‘explanation’ ‘delimitation’ ‘to cut up, divide’ ‘to argue for’ ‘to argue against, dispute’ ‘limit’ ‘end’ ‘intentional thought’ ‘to set forth as topic/theme’ ‘theory of inference’ ‘thematic item’ ‘item’ ‘first item’ ‘second item’ ‘falsehood, error’ ‘evidence, to prove, to testify’ ‘that by which things are the way they are’ ‘to imitate, yield results’ ‘pattern, rule, standard’ ‘model’ ‘pattern, model, mold’ ‘matter, substance’

須 兩可

xu liangke

‘must, necessary’ ‘open to interpretation’

9 division 10 argumentation 11 term 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

concept proposition syllogism premise conclusion major premise minor premise fallacy proof cause

22 effect 23 rule 24 form, formal 25 matter, material 26 necessary 27 contingent

58

chapter one

eventually survived, there was nothing intrinsically inadequate about these or Li’s other choices that made them unacceptable to Chinese readers. What rendered the Mingli tan, and with it Li Zhizao’s lexical creations, indigestible was rather the sheer number of new or unusual terms that pervaded the text. In order to present even a condensed translation of the arguments put forth in In universam dialecticam, Li and Furtado had to introduce up to a dozen novel terms that could only be defined in relation to one another on a single page.144 The inevitable result was a text which, despite its stylistic elegance and lucid structure, was so patently hermetic that it is difficult to imagine any reader being able to grasp its finer points without the sustained help of a dedicated and versatile instructor. 3. Contents and Uses of Logica Even if the more subtle arguments of the text might have remained opaque, readers undeterred by the technicality of the terminology could still gain a deeper understanding of the contents and uses of European logica from the Mingli tan than they would have been able to absorb from Aleni’s sketch. The opening chapter was particularly helpful in this respect. In a free adaptation of Couto’s original introduction to In universam dialecticam, Li and Furtado offered several definitions of the scope and methods of logic and its position within the Western disciplinary matrix. They also made clear from the outset, however, that the ultimate aim of luorijia was to lead students back on the “path to the one and only Truth” ( yizhen zhi lu 一真之路) of Christianity and that logic, like philosophy (aizhixue 愛知學 ‘the science that loves knowledge’) as a whole, was no more than a “handmaiden of theology” (ancilla theologiae). This characterization, which was perhaps more detrimental to the allure of the Mingli tan among non-Christian readers than any of its undeniable difficulties, was a necessary consequence of the belief, shared by Li and Furtado, that there could be no truth beyond the “Lord of Heaven” (tianzhu 天主) and that only “angels” (tianshen 天神) 144 See, e.g., Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 40, where the following terms are introduced in a single paragraph: gongyezhe 公也者 ‘universal’, huigong 會公 ‘complex universal’, chungong 純公 ‘simple universal’, gongzuo 公作 ‘universale in causando’, gongbiao 公表 ‘universale in significando’, gongzai 公在 ‘universale in essendo’, gongcheng 公稱 ‘universale in praedicando’, gongxing 公性 ‘universality’, teyi 特一 ‘particular’, mingxiang 名相 ‘sign’, shiyou 實有 ‘reality’. See also In universam dialecticam, vol. 1, 78–79.

first encounters

59

were omniscient.145 Human knowledge was of necessity imperfect, but, if used wisely, the powers of our rational souls allowed us to come closer to the secrets of the divine order than any other creatures. As Li Tianjing put this faith in the opening lines of his preface: There are no things between heaven and earth that are not connected by true and solid patterns. Only the human soul is able to grasp their subtlety. This is how God the creator makes manifest his omnipotence. At the same time, he thus entices us all to fathom the myriad patterns so that we come to realize his original grace.146

The ultimate goal of all human endeavor, including philosophical and scientific inquiry, was thus defined as the ascent to Christian transcendence. Li Cibin explained in his preface that “the investigation of the patterns of names” was an indispensable step on this path: This [book] deals with argumentation (tuilun 推論) and the patterns of names. Following its path enables humans to open up their intellect and comprehend right and wrong, hollow and solid. By the end, they will be able to follow their nature and reach the transcendent. Everyone concerned with the sciences and arts must take this step in order to uncover their limits. This is called: the investigation of the patterns of names.147

This description resonated with the definition with which Li Zhizao and Furtado themselves first introduced the subject matter of their work: Aristotle (Yali 亞利) set out to compose this book because human knowledge is limited. [This science] guides humans in advancing their intellects, distinguishing between right and wrong, preventing error and delusion, and leads them back on the path to the one and only Truth. Its name is: Luorijia 絡日伽.148

Once the transcendent aim of the science had been stated, Li and Furtado supplied more substantial descriptions of its contents. First of all, readers needed to bear in mind that [t]here are two kinds of logic: one is the logic with which we are endowed by nature, that is, the arguments that come naturally to us without prior

145 This point was already made in Matteo Ricci’s Tianzhu shiyi; see Melis, “Temi e tesi,” 81. 146 Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, iii. 147 Ibid., viii. 148 Ibid., 2.

60

chapter one study; the other is the logic acquired by study and comprises arguments that we must learn how to make.149

Luorijia as introduced in the Mingli tan was only concerned with the latter. Several pages were then dedicated to situating the discipline among the European sciences. According to Li and Furtado, logic was studied immediately after the “art of speech,” philology. The reason was that “logic is the tool on which humans rely to understand all sciences.”150 Within the Western disciplinary matrix,151 logic, now also defined as the “art of debating” (bianyi 辨藝), was classified according to its subject matter alongside grammar and rhetoric as an art concerned with “language” ( yuyan 語言) as opposed to arts devoted to things and affairs (shiwu 事物). With respect to its ends, logic belonged to the “practical arts” ( yongyi 用藝) as opposed to the “speculative arts” (mingyi 明藝) of physics, mathematics, metaphysics, and theology; and among the practical arts, the discipline was grouped together with ethics, economics, and politics as an “internal art” ( yunyi 韞藝), that is, an art concerned with directing the operations of the intellect and the activities of the will in contrast to the “external arts” (waiyi 外藝) of grammar and rhetoric, which were related to speech and other external matters.152 Finally, logic was ranked as one of the “inferior” (xialun 下論) fields of study that were subservient to the “superior” (shanglun 上論) disciplines of physics, morals, metaphysics, and theology.153 Li and Furtado hastened to assure their potential readers that luorijia’s modest position within the disciplinary taxonomy did not adequately reflect its comparative value: Let us now see which science is most valuable. The science of logic controls the operations of the intellect; therefore, it must be more valuable than the arts of language. If we compare it to the speculative sciences, it comes after physics and the transcendent sciences [metaphysics and theology, JK]. The reason is that these deal exclusively with substances, whereas the operations of the intellect are only accidental. When compared to mathematics, however, logic is more valuable because the operations of the intellect are more valuable than matters related to quantity. Even when compared with the merits of the moral arts—ethics, economics, and politics—logic is of greater value. There are two reasons. The 149 150 151 152 153

Ibid., 34. Ibid., 11–12. For a useful diagrammatic overview, see Standaert, “Classification,” 290–291. Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 6–7. Ibid., 9.

first encounters

61

first is related to their respective spheres of application. Ethics, economics, and politics aim to control the application of the various virtues and therefore belong to volition. In contrast, logic aims to control the functions of the various sciences and hence belongs to the intellect. The virtue of the intellect is pure and divine and thus transcends volition. Hence, how could the patterns of names not be more valuable than the [moral arts]? The second [reason] is related to the rules these arts observe. The original task of logic is to refute the errors that are in, or are inferred by, the intellect. Therefore its arguments are all clear and certain. The tasks of the sciences of ethics, economics, and politics are all related to common habits and customs. They are only concerned with what should be done and have no leisure to go on and explore the causes. . . . Thus, logic must be a more valuable science than ethics, economics, and politics.154

Having ensured their readers of their subject’s worth, the translators moved on to define its scope and methods. In contrast to Aleni who, as we have seen, highlighted only the classificatory uses of logic, Li and Furtado painted a more comprehensive picture of the discipline and placed stronger emphasis on its discursive functions. In general, “luorijia talks about argumentation and the patterns of names” but “its most important insights are related to inferential reasoning (or discursus, tuitong 推通).”155 There were two types of logical theories: All those referring to that which is open to interpretation (or ‘contingent’ liangkezhe 兩可者) are called “dialectic” (diyaledijia 第亞勒第加), while those referring to that which is certain and cannot be otherwise, are termed luorijia.156

Luorijia thus acquired a double meaning. On the one hand, it was the primary tool for gaining certainty in argumentation and as such far superior to the “dialectic” of merely probable opinions.157 On the other hand:

Ibid., 12; In universam dialecticam, vol. 1, 24–25. My translation of this passage differs considerably from the partial rendition in Wardy, Aristotle, 101. 155 Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 2. 156 Ibid., 13. 157 The relegation of “dialectic” to a term denoting a rather insignificant subbranch of logic, instead of the science as a whole, reflects a tendency among Jesuit and other contemporary European philosophers to underline the new directions they were advocating in logical thought by proposing a new name for the discipline. See Pierre Michaud-Quantin, “L’emploi des termes logica et dialectica au moyen âge,” in Arts libéraux et philosophie au moyen âge. Actes du quatrième congrès international de philosophie médiévale (Montréal: Institut d’Études Médiévales and Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1969), 855–862. In view of this ideologically charged background, it is not 154

62

chapter one Philosophers use the name [luorijia] simultaneously as a designation for the entire art of argumentation. According to their definition, luorijia . . . holds on to that which is already clear and pushes on in order to understand what has not yet been understood.158

The general purpose of the “art of argumentation” was thus to infer new knowledge from that which was already known. To this end, logic established formal rules (guishi 規式) according to which inferential reasoning had to proceed. Rather than expounding the nature or the meaning of concepts ( yixiang 意想), logic was concerned with “the order in which concepts are used in inferences.”159 Moreover, instead of “holding on to established rules in order to deduce (tuiyan 推演) all kinds of arguments,” as proponents of a “broad definition” of the discipline suggested, the Mingli tan advocated a “narrow definition” which held that logic only needed to elucidate these rules.160 The strong focus on inferential reasoning that seemed to emerge from this definition was qualified somewhat by the admission that the errors logic was intended to prevent occurred in all three operations of the intellect—not only in inferential reasoning (tuitong 推通), but also in simple apprehension (or intellectio, zhitong 直通) and judgment (or enunciatio, duantong 斷通). Since, in a material sense, inferential reasoning depended on these more basic operations, which were defined, respectively, as “the simple knowledge the intellect gains from looking into a thing or affair” and “the complex awareness the intellect gains from judging a thing or affair,”161 logic could not afford to ignore either simple apprehension or judgment completely. Still, the Mingli tan insisted that the errors of both had to be addressed in the framework of logic only inasmuch as they were rooted in faulty definitions or divisions.162 Finally, the Mingli tan explained that logic as an art concerned with establishing the rules of reasoning was divided into three parts: “definition” ( jieshi 解釋), “division” ( pouxi 剖析), and “argumentation” (tuilun), which corresponded to the three modi sciendi.

easy to see on what grounds Standaert (“Classification,” 290) renders luorijia as “dialectic.” 158 Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 13. 159 Ibid., 31. 160 Ibid., 13; In universam dialecticam, vol. 1, 25–26. 161 Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 26–27. 162 Ibid., 28–29.

first encounters

63

Three [features] can be known of all things and affairs: (1) their inner meanings and patterns; (2) the various parts of which they are made up; and (3) all states inherent in their existence. Definition makes known and determines a thing’s meaning and pattern; division opens up and dissects its parts; argumentation infers its states and accidental attributes.163

Another elucidation of the three parts explained definition as “that by which we elucidate the essence (benyuan 本元) of a thing,” division as “that by which we distinguish its various attributes,” and argumentation as “that by which we know something we had not yet understood by pushing on from what was already clear.”164 Still, the introduction left no doubt that the rules of argumentation and inferential reasoning were the ultimate aim of luorijia as a whole. Accordingly, the “most important term in this science is xilushisimu 細錄世斯模 (syllogism),” which was explained as “the sole rule of argumentation.” The towering significance of that enigmatic term derived from the fact that the syllogism “embodies all the rules of argumentation.” In its importance for logic it was comparable to the Lord of Heaven who, by embodying the “entirety of being,” represented the sole and necessary “limit” of the transcendent sciences, metaphysics and theology.165 On the whole, the Mingli tan’s opening chapter thus presented a comprehensive and perhaps even enticing portrait of the scope and uses of luorijia. One problem with this prelude was that it did not adequately reflect the emphasis of the work to follow, at least in its printed form. The advertised “rules of inferential reasoning” were nowhere discussed in the remaining nine juan of the book and the quasi-divine xilushisimu was mentioned only in one brief footnote.166 Instead, the Mingli tan offered a lengthy introduction to a theory of predication whose relation to the main instruments of logic was never made clear, neither in In universam dialecticam nor in its Chinese translation.167 In accordance with Jesuit educational practices, Li and Furtado maintained that the Isagoge and the Categories needed to be studied as a propaedeutic for the proper use of the three operations of the intellect.168 But they were unable to show precisely in which ways the theories Ibid., 27. Ibid., 38. 165 Ibid., 29. 166 Ibid., 35–36. 167 See Arnaldo de Pinho Dias, “A Isagoge de Porfirio na Lógica Conimbricense,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 20, nos. 1–2 (1964): 108–130; 122–129. 168 Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 39. 163 164

64

chapter one

advocated in these texts related to the declared goals of logical inquiry. The reason for this inability had little to do with the intricacies of translation or “incommensurabilities” between Chinese and European ways of thinking. Even contemporary Jesuit philosophers admitted that the Isagoge and the Categories were so heavily charged with metaphysical lore that their logical import was difficult to determine.169 In Jesuit schools, both were primarily taught as an introduction to the metaphysical assumptions underlying thorny theological issues,170 and we have no reason to believe that they would have been assigned a different function in China. Nonetheless, the Mingli tan’s main sections deserve more detailed analysis.171 For our purposes, however, such an analysis promises little reward since the text as a whole clearly failed to inspire any logical interest among Chinese readers. In fact, there is little evidence that the Mingli tan was read by anyone at all apart from the authors of the two prefaces, four Jesuit confrères who helped to prepare the draft for printing, and one Chinese convert said to have consulted the work during his studies in Lisbon.172 The reasons for this spectacular failure are not exclusively textual. Li Zhizao’s premature death, which prevented the work’s completion, was obviously a crucial setback. Furtado’s duties as vice-provincial of the Jesuit mission, which he assumed in 1635, also drew him away from the work and into controversies over the proper missionary strategy with members of his own order and competing denominations.173 Moreover, in the turbulent years leading up to the fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644, only a very limited number of copies could be produced.174

169 Baldini, “Philosophie,” 704–705. Modern historians of logic tend to dismiss them as entirely irrelevant to the legitimate concerns of the discipline; see, e.g., William and Martha Kneale, The Development of Logic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 25, 187–188. 170 Baldini, “Philosophie,” 711. 171 Some aspects of the metaphysical contents of the Mingli tan have been discussed in Wardy, Aristotle; and idem, “Chinese Whispers,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 38 (1992): 149–170. Wardy’s analyses suffer, however, from insufficient attention to the specific historical contexts of late Ming China and seventeenth-century Europe as well as frequent mistranslations. 172 Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 2, 193–194. Cao Jiesheng (“Mingli tan de fanyi,” 294) holds that the Mingli tan was “very probably” used in a private academy founded by one of Li Zhizao’s close friends near Hangzhou, but I was unable to find any evidence to support this claim. Friendship alone is hardly a convincing argument. 173 See Dunne, Giants, 269–281; and Brockey, Journey to the East, 98–107. 174 Bibliographical traces of the Mingli tan in late imperial China are exceedingly rare. See Zhang Yong 章用, “ ‘Mingli tan’ kao” 名理探考 (A note on the Mingli tan)

first encounters

65

Yet, even under more felicitous circumstances the work would have been hard to sell, at least to non-Christian readers. Working one’s way through the wealth of new terms and ideas introduced in the Mingli tan required sustained and tenacious effort. But why should any literatus without prior Christian inclinations take such pains when all he could hope for was to find the “one and only Truth” of a foreign God? If Li and Furtado may be blamed for anything, then, it is the unmistakably Christian coloring of their rendition—which did of course reflect the tone and purpose of their text of departure—and their failure to provide any hint as to how the functions and methods attributed to European logic could be related to Chinese thought, texts, or argumentative practices. Nowhere in their translation, with the exception of its title, did they build any conceptual bridges that would have allowed potential readers to situate the doctrines expounded in the Mingli tan in the Chinese discursive universe. Consequently, no place for them was found. 5. Logic as a Syllogistic Trap Still, this is not the end of our story. In a final twist, the forgotten fragments of the Mingli tan were revived in a daring ruse initiated by the Flemish Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen 南懷仁, 1623–1688)175 more than forty years after their first printing. Thanks to a mixture of good luck, smart strategic decisions, and the utility of their scientific expertise, the Jesuit mission escaped relatively unscathed from the turmoil marking the dynastic transition from the Ming to the Manchu Qing during the 1640s.176 To secure the future of their stations and their cause, some Jesuits started to court the new rulers as soon as the Manchu forces approached Beijing. In 1645, less than a year after the proclamation of the Qing dynasty, the German Adam Schall von Bell (Tang Ruowang 湯若望, 1592–1666)177 was appointed

(1959), reprinted in Zhang Shizhao, Zhang Shizhao quanji, vol. 7, 299–301; and Ying Qianli 英千里, “Mingmo de yibu gongjiao zhexue jiezuo: Mingli tan” 明末的一部公 教哲學傑作：名理探 (Mingli tan, a late Ming masterpiece of scholastic philosophy), Xin beichen 1, no. 2 (1935): 159–172; 159–161. 175 Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 2, 163–179. 176 Brockey, Journey to the East, 107–124. 177 Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 2, 1–15. See also Jonathan D. Spence, To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620–1960 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), 3–22.

66

chapter one

director of the imperial Bureau of Astronomy in recognition of his calculation of a new calendar whose accuracy surpassed everything the Ming had been able to produce. His exalted position allowed the flamboyant Schall to garner support and guarantee protection for a broad variety of missionary activities. At the same time, it aroused suspicion and enmity among astronomers and literati who owed their demotion or marginalization to the father’s rise. Simmering tensions came to a head in the infamous “calendar case” of 1664 that abruptly ended Schall’s career178 and led to the confinement of all Jesuits working in the empire.179 Although the missionaries were able to regain imperial favor and return to their stations some years later, Schall’s demise served as a vivid reminder to his successors that they needed to navigate the treacherous waters of Qing court politics with utmost circumspection. This lesson was certainly not lost on Ferdinand Verbiest, who followed in Schall’s footsteps as director of the Bureau of Astronomy in 1669.180 Convinced that lasting success of the mission could not be built on missionary efforts alone, Verbiest devised a plan to insert Christian philosophy, and with it what he saw as the iron grip of the Aristotelian syllogism, into one of the central institutions of the Chinese state: the civil examination system. In hopes of persuading the court to include its contents in the examination curriculum, he compiled an anthology of European philosophy under the title The Science of Fathoming Pattern (Qionglixue 窮理學, sometimes referred to as Cursus philosophicus), which he presented to the Kangxi 康熙 emperor (r. 1662–1722) in 1683. 1. Verbiest and the Qionglixue The intriguing history of the Qionglixue has only recently been reconstructed.181 It can be traced back to the year 1675 when Verbiest,

178 See Pingyi Chu, “Scientific Dispute in the Imperial Court: The 1664 Calendar Case,” Chinese Science 14 (1997): 7–34. See also Elman, On Their Own Terms, 133–144. 179 Brockey, Journey to the East, 125–136. 180 See, e.g., Spence, To Change China, 23–33. 181 See Ad Dudink and Nicolas Standaert, “Ferdinand Verbiest’s Qionglixue 窮理 學 (1683),” in The Christian Mission in China in the Verbiest Era: Some Aspects of the Missionary Approach, ed. Noël Golvers (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1999), 11–32; and Noël Golvers, “Verbiest’s Introduction of Aristoteles Latinus (Coimbra) in China: New Western Evidence,” in Golvers, Christian Mission, 33–53. See also Nicolas Standaert, “The Investigation of Things and the Fathoming of Principles (Gewu Qiongli) in the Seventeenth-Century Contact between Jesuits and Chinese Scholars,” in Witek,

first encounters

67

who had won the rare trust of the Kangxi emperor during his meteoric ascent through the ranks of the Qing bureaucracy, was assigned to instruct the sovereign personally in European mathematics and astronomy.182 For Verbiest, this assignment offered a unique opportunity to enlist the emperor’s support for the missionary cause. During his audiences, he seized every occasion to lecture on the “transcendent heavens” of Christianity and to praise the fundamental importance of philosophy and logic for the sciences in general and astronomy in particular.183 If we are to trust Verbiest and contemporary Jesuit accounts based on his claims, his praise did not fail to arouse Kangxi’s curiosity: When the emperor had heard Ferdinand talk of many things concerning the arts of reasoning we call dialectica, about the principles of things, and even about the first cause of everything, he advised him to produce a Chinese version of the whole European philosophy, in order to print it under his reign title on the imperial press, to publish and to spread it.184

Immersed in official duties and factional infighting at the Bureau of Astronomy, and busy with the unholy task of casting cannons for the Qing army, Verbiest was unable to respond instantly to the imperial request. In the fall of 1678, he began to compile a comprehensive Cursus philosophicus from existing translations, mostly those adapted from the Conimbricenses.185 In letters and reports sent to superiors and

Verbiest, 395–420; 407–409 and 416–417. The following sketch is heavily indebted to these invaluable reconstructions even though, as will become clear, I do not agree with all their interpretations. 182 On Kangxi’s scientific interests, see Catherine Jami, “Imperial Control and Western Learning: The Kangxi Emperor’s Performance,” Late Imperial China 23, no. 1 ( June 2002): 28–49. 183 Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 36–37. On Verbiest’s formation, see Jan Roegiers, “The Academic Environment of the University of Louvain at the Time of Ferdinand Verbiest,” in Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623–1688): Jesuit Missionary, Scientist, Engineer and Diplomat, ed. John W. Witek (Nettetal: Steyler, 1994), 31–44; and Noël Golvers, “F. Verbiest’s Mathematical Formation: Some Observations on Post-Clavian Jesuit Mathematics in Mid-17th Century Europe,” Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences 54 (2004): 29–47. 184 Thomas Ignatius Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea pro Historiae Sinensis ab anno 1641 ad annum 1700 ex variis documentis in Archivo Societatibus existentibus excerpta (manuscript, Rome, ARSI, ca. 1710), vol. II, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1a. Translation adapted from Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 43–44. 185 For a detailed analysis of which texts may have been included in Verbiest’s Cursus, see Dudink and Standaert, “Qionglixue,” 20–29. See also Standaert, “Transmission,” 390.

68

chapter one

confrères back in Europe, Verbiest stated in no uncertain terms the motivation driving his effort: Currently, I am in charge of introducing a Chinese version of our dialectics and philosophy [to the Kangxi emperor], under the cover, I say, of astronomy, in reality however to show the evidence of our religion.186

As long as open propaganda for the Christian faith remained impossible at court—and this was certainly the case during the 1670s and 1680s187—astronomy offered itself as the ideal cover for Verbiest’s enterprise because European calculations had repeatedly proven their superiority over competing Chinese methods. But how could logic and philosophy further the missionary cause? Earlier Jesuits, most prominently Matteo Ricci himself, had hoped to ensnare their interlocutors by appeals to their “natural reason.” Ricci seems to have had almost unlimited confidence in the persuasive powers of his dialectical versatility. In his journals, as edited by Trigault, we find several accounts of debates in which his formally impeccable reasoning left his interlocutors speechless and entirely overruled.188 Chinese observers, however, were less impressed with his eristic skills, especially when they were not directly involved in the confrontations. One scholar, for instance, compared the debates between Ricci and a Buddhist bonze, as recounted in the apologetic Testament in Defense of the Faith (Bianxue yidu 辨學遺牘, 1610), with “two men bathing in the same tub and ridiculing one another for being naked.”189 Faced with the apparent powerlessness of appeals to natural reason in matters of faith, Verbiest had, rightly so, concluded that the success of the missionaries’ dialectical skills depended on Chinese acceptance of the logical rules underlying them. In the words of the early Jesuit historian Thomas Ignatius Dunyn-Szpot (1644–1716), he therefore intended to set up the Western rules of reasoning introduced in his anthology as veritable intellectual “traps” (or ‘spider’s webs’, casses). According to DunynSzpot, Verbiest planned to lead out, step by step, those whom the enclosures of antiquity kept protected in their woods, and from seeing the sun of the truth, by the exciting sight of things they had never understood. For once they had

186 187 188 189

Cited, with slight alterations, from Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 36. Brockey, Journey to the East, 136–142. See, e.g., Ricci, China in the Sixteenth Century, 341–342. Xu Zongze, Yesuhuishi yizhu tiyao, 91. See also Wenchao Li, China-Mission, 592.

first encounters

69

acquired the art of the syllogism, they would, through irrefutable argumentation, step into such conclusions, or traps, out of which they would never be able to escape.190

Yet, the example of the Mingli tan had taught Verbiest that, by itself, no book, no matter how artfully composed, was able to teach the techniques of dialectical reasoning and convince unprepared readers of their utility. Readers needed a compelling reason, beyond vague promises of spiritual salvation and intangible gains in rhetorical sophistication, for expending the effort necessary to penetrate the subtleties of the syllogism and other elements of his conceptual trap. Verbiest therefore aimed to persuade the emperor to make his Cursus a compulsory part of the civil service examinations, imperial China’s daunting “ladder of success.” As soon as its contents were included among the official requirements, aspiring literati throughout the country would have no choice but to study it assiduously. And once they had acquired a thorough knowledge of the syllogism and its many beneficial applications—in astronomy and other sciences, for sure, but most importantly in matters of theology—Verbiest hoped that students “would easily find their way to the divine law.”191 It took Verbiest five years to set up the trap for his Chinese prey. The final result comprised sixty juan and was sent to the emperor in October 1683.192 Fourteen of these sixty juan, plus the first half of a table of contents entitled “Philosophical Reasoning: General Index, Part 1” (Qionglixue litui zongmu shang 窮理學理推總目上) have been preserved in the only extant copy of the work, held at Beijing University Library.193 Four juan belonged to a section entitled “Reasoning about 190 Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea, vol. 2, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1a. Translation adapted from Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 45. 191 See the letter from Andrea Lubelli (1611–1685) to the general in Rome, dated December 15, 1683, quoted in Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 40–41. 192 Ferdinand Verbiest [Nan Huairen 南懷仁], Qionglixue 窮理學 (Cursus philosophicus) (Beijing: Zhonghetang, 1683). 193 Shanben 善本, 129/4092. A photographic reprint of seven of these fourteen juan (“Libian zhi wu gongcheng,” 1–5; and “Litui zhi zonglun,” 1–2), prepared in 1936, is held at the National Library in Beijing (Putong guji 普通古籍, 15598:1 and 15598:2). Fang Hao’s assertion that sixteen “volumes” (ben 本) have been preserved corresponds to the number of fascicles (ce 冊) in which the extant fourteen juan are bound. See Fang Hao 方豪, Zhong-Xi wenhua jiaoliushi 中西文化交流史 (A history of cultural exchanges between China and the West) (Taibei: Zhongguo wenhua daxue chubanbu, 1983 [1953]), 1011–1012. See also Shang Zhicong 尚智叢, “Nan Huairen ‘Qionglixue’ de zhuti neirong yu jiben jiegou” 南壞仁《窮理學》的主體內容與基本結構 (The basic contents and structure of F. Verbiest’s Cursus philosophicus), Qingshi yanjiu 3,

70

chapter one

Form and Nature” (Xingxing zhi litui 形性之理推, that is, physics) and were dedicated to topics in natural philosophy, presented mainly following the Coimbran commentaries on Aristotle’s Physica and Parva naturalia.194 The remaining ten juan were devoted to logic. The section “The Five Predicables in Logic” (Libian zhi wu gongcheng 理辯之五 公稱) was a re-edition of the first five juan of the Mingli tan; the five juan entitled “General Theory of Reasoning” (Litui zhi zonglun 理推 之總論, sometimes referred to as De syllogismo) offered a translation of the commentary on Book I of Aristotle’s Analytica priora from In universam dialecticam.195 Since the style, terminology, and literary form of the “General Theory of Reasoning” were virtually identical to the Mingli tan, we can be almost certain that these five juan were drawn from unpublished parts of Li Zhizao and Furtado’s rendition. Verbiest’s contribution to the Cursus is difficult to assess. DunynSzpot credits him with the addition of hundreds of “questions and illustrations” to the texts he collected.196 Dudink and Standaert hold that he probably also wrote portions of the extant parts on the Physics.197 His contributions to the surviving parts on logic seem more modest. Verbiest himself defined his own role in regard to these sections as that of a “compiler” ( jishu 集述) and not a “translator” ( yishu 譯述), as in some sections on the Physics. However, he may have had a hand in completing, revising, or even translating parts of the commentary on Aristotle’s De interpretatione from the Conimbricenses, which, as we have

no. 3 (August 2003): 73–84; and Zhang Xiao 張曉, “Wei Nan Huairen ‘Qionglixue’ zhengming” 為南懷仁《窮理學》正名 (Corrections regarding F. Verbiest’s Cursus philosophicus), Ming-Qing luncong 3 (2002): 379–385. 194 Dudink and Standaert, “Qionglixue,” 23–33. See also Wang Bing 王冰, “Nan Huairen jieshao de wenduji he shiduji fenxi” 南怀仁介绍的温度计和湿度计试析 (An analysis of F. Verbiest’s introduction to measuring temperature and humidity), Ziran kexueshi yanjiu 5, no. 1 (1986): 191–192. 195 In universam dialecticam, vol. 2, 232–406. The fifth and last juan of this section is incomplete in the Beijing University Library copy. For a useful overview of the subsections in “Litui zhi zonglun,” see Zhang Xiping 张西平, “ ‘Qionglixue’: Nan Huairen zui zhongyao de zhuzuo”《穷理学》—南怀仁最重要的著作 (The Cursus philosophicus: F. Verbiest’s most important work), in idem, Chuanjiaoshi Hanxue yanjiu 傳教士漢學研究 (Studies in missionary Sinology) (Zhengzhou: Daxiang chubanshe, 2005), 80–90; 86–88. Note, however, that Zhang’s list omits the eighth section of juan 3, containing forty-one paragraphs under the heading Qi ti you ke xiangdang ke jie zhi zhi tati fou 其題有可相當可解之之他題否 (Whether or not there are other premises to which such premises can be equivalent and that can explain them). 196 Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea, vol. 2, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1a. See Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 45. 197 Dudink and Standaert, “Qionglixue,” 22–23.

first encounters

71

seen, Li and Furtado had not touched. “Litui zhi zonglun” contained frequent references to specific chapters and articles of this now lost section under the title “On subjective interpretation” (“Yiyi pian,” 譯臆篇) that were not simply copied from In universam dialecticam.198 Yet, in the absence of firm evidence, we cannot exclude the possibility that Li Zhizao’s son Li Cibin or others interested in exalting Li’s legacy authored these most challenging portions of the Organon. As a compiler, Verbiest made few but significant changes to the ten extant juan of the Qionglixue dealing with logic. According to DunynSzpot, he erased throughout the Cursus “all explicit references to the divine law, in order to spare [the work] from being hated at first sight, so to speak.”199 In the parts on logic, he thus tried to cover his intellectual trap by deleting throughout the text the words “God” (tianzhu 天主) and “angels” (tianshen 天神) as well as sentences in which both terms played a prominent role.200 In addition, he introduced two new terms framing his plot: the first, libianxue 理辯學, or simply libian 理辯 ‘[the science of ] rational argument’ (that is, logic), was obviously intended to divert attention from the fact that he did not present an entirely new work. Verbiest used this term to replace Li Zhizao’s coinage mingli tan and all its cognates related to the “patterns of names.”201 His assumption that such superficial changes would suffice to conceal his source confirms that the Mingli tan must have been all but forgotten by the early Qing. All that may have remained were possible recollections of the work’s title, and perhaps its Christian coloring, from which Verbiest dissociated his version by giving luorijia a new name. His second and more important new term, litui 理推 ‘rational inference’ (that is, reasoning), was intended to provide the Cursus 198 See, e.g., Verbiest, Qionglixue, “Litui zhi zonglun” 理推之總論 (General theory of reasoning), 1:11a, 1:14b, 1:15a, 1:18a, 1:21b, 1:22b, 1:27a, 1:33b, 1:34a, 1:36b, etc. Additional cross-references point to other previously unpublished parts of the Chinese version of In universam dialecticam, e.g., De sophisticis elenchis (“Yinqi bian” 引啟辯 ‘Refutations of those seducing and arousing [others]’) (“Litui zhi zonglun,” 1:21b), and the Topica (“Dubeijia” 獨偹加) (“Litui zhi zonglun,” 2:2a), suggesting that up to thirty of the sixty juan in Verbiest’s Qionglixue may have been devoted to logic. 199 Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea, vol. 2, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1a. Translation adapted from Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 45. 200 Sometimes at the expense of leaving incomplete phrases or obvious lacunae. See, e.g., Verbiest, Qionglixue, “Libian zhi wu gongcheng” 理辯之五公稱 (Logic: The five predicables), 4:53a. Some instances escaped his scrutiny. See, e.g., Verbiest, Qionglixue, “Litui zhi zonglun,” 2:35b. 201 In one instance, Verbiest replaced the term mingli tan with yet another neologism, lituixue 理推學 ‘the science of rational inference’. Ibid., 1:13b.

72

chapter one

with an appearance of systematic unity, above all through its use in the titles of many sections and subsections. In addition to the parts mentioned above, extant and lost portions of the Cursus bore titles such as “Reasoning on Weights” (Qingzhong zhi litui 輕重之理推, mechanics), “Reasoning on the Mechanical Arts) (Liyi zhi litui 力藝 之理推, the mechanics of balances), and “Reasoning, Illustrated and Explained” (Litui ge tushuo” 理推各圖說).202 The ultimate aim of this operation was to lure Chinese readers into the supposedly irresistible grip of the “syllogism” that Verbiest rendered by the very same Chinese word, litui.203 This strategic intention is corroborated by the fact that the copy held at Beijing University Library lists the five juan of De syllogismo as the opening chapters of the Cursus as a whole. Thus, they preceded the revived chapters on Porphyry and the Categories from the Mingli tan, irrespective of the fact that the latter were introduced as necessary foundations for understanding the syllogism in both the Greek and Latinized Organon. 2. The Syllogism, or the Art of Rational Inference Since Verbiest built his entire trap around the suasive force of the syllogism, we should expect him to ensure that the text explaining this miraculous art of “rational inference”—or, more literally, of “inferences according to patterns”—be as accessible as possible. But there is no hint of any such effort on his part. De syllogismo was just as uncompromisingly alien as the previously printed portions of the Mingli tan. No native contexts were evoked, no explanations in familiar terms added, no examples adapted or concretized for Chinese readers.204 Still, even a patently hermetic version of the Coimbran commentary on the Analytica priora contained much more information on the purpose and rules of the European science of reasoning than any previously available text. Despite its unusual appearance, De syllogismo offered potential readers the first substantial glimpse of logical operations that would still be recognized as lying at the heart of the discipline today. Following In universam dialecticam closely, the five juan of De syllogismo covered the core of Aristotelian syllogistics (chapters I–VII of Book I Dudink and Standaert, “Qionglixue,” 13. See Verbiest, Qionglixue, “Litui zhi zonglun,” 1:4b, and passim. 204 On the contrary: concrete examples, e.g., allusions to Plato or the fabulous horse Bucephalus, are rendered by abstractions such as mou jia 某甲 ‘a certain A’ or jia ma 甲馬 ‘horse A’. See ibid., 1:21a and 2:41b. 202 203

first encounters

73

of the Analytica priora) in considerable detail, and then summarized the remaining parts (chapters VIII–XLIII of Book I as well as the whole of Book II) in rather broad strokes. Juan 1–3 presented marginally abridged versions of the Conimbricenses commentary on the first three chapters of the Priora. Juan 1, the most fundamental, discussed the definitions of the premises and terms of which all syllogisms consisted. Juan 2 and 3 were devoted to the distinction of various kinds of premises and the rules for their conversion. Juan 4 offered condensed discussions of Book I, chapters IV–VII, introducing the valid moods of the syllogism in the three figures recognized by Aristotle and offering evidence that all valid syllogisms could be reduced to the universal syllogism of the first figure. Juan 5, finally, rushed through Aristotle’s theory of modal syllogisms, which had long been revealed as flawed when the Conimbricenses were compiled, and briefly recounted the Priora’s remarks on miscellaneous topics ranging from the material conditions for syllogistic inferences to different kinds of proofs, common errors in selecting or enunciating terms and premises, and the various types of fallacies. Taken together, the five juan thus offered a condensed but comprehensive introduction to the formal aspects of the syllogism as taught in Jesuit colleges around the world. Li and Furtado opened their discussion with an explanation of the works on which their treatise was based: The titles Analytica priora and Analytica posteriora were not chosen by Aristotle; they only explain what he accomplished. What we call “analysis” ( jiujie 究解 ‘to examine and take to pieces’) is called yanalixi 亞納利細 in the original texts. By way of explanation we may say that analysis recovers the basic elements of which things consist. Houses, for instance, can be analyzed, either in reality or by the intellect, but in both cases the basic elements of which they consist are bricks and the like. Similarly, transformations in things can be analyzed, in reality or by the intellect, by tracing the basic elements of which they consist, that is to say, matter, form, or a lack thereof, and so on.205

Two forms of “analysis” so defined were central to the philosophy explained in the Cursus. “The first is the analysis of ratiocinations (conclusions), which is the subject matter of the Priora. The second is the analysis of the meaning of these ratiocinations, the subject matter of the Posteriora.”206 The analysis of ratiocinations, as the focus of the Priora 205 206

Verbiest, Qionglixue, “Litui zhi zonglun,” 1:1a. Ibid.

74

chapter one

and thus of De syllogismo, scrutinized whether one followed appropriate “rules and forms” ( guimo 規模) when making an inference. It required, firstly, to examine the terms of which the premises used in an argument were constituted; second, to investigate the premises of which the argument consisted; and third, to address whether the rules and forms by which the argument’s conclusion was drawn were applied correctly. The goal of these analyses was to prove whether what one inferred from the terms and premises used in an argument was concluded in a formally appropriate fashion.207 The material question of whether or not the meaning of the conclusion was in fact true was relegated to the commentary on the Analytica posteriora, a text that, if it was ever completed, is among the now lost parts of the Cursus. One problem of the Priora, much lamented in European intellectual history, was that it did not offer a comprehensive definition of the syllogism. For Chinese readers, who unlike their European counterparts could not be expected to bring a colloquial understanding of the term to their studies of the text, this lacuna further complicated access to the work’s subject matter. Still, the translators of De syllogismo shied away from adapting their version of the Coimbran commentary. Readers who wanted to get a clearer idea of the syllogism needed to dig quite deeply into the text in order to piece together a satisfactory explanation. In a paragraph on the properties of terms they found this partial description: “Now, as to the syllogism, it is a form of speech in which, on the basis of an assumption and its meaning, another meaning follows by necessary inference.”208 Elsewhere they learned that “propositions and terms are the material of which syllogisms consist”209 and that “[e]very syllogism must contain three items” called “premises” (tilie 題列 ‘thematic items’), a technical term for the propositions (tilun 題論 ‘articulations of a theme’) used in syllogistic inferences.210 If the text offered little to clarify the concept of the syllogism, it provided all the more information about its constituent parts and the rules whose application made syllogisms valid. Not all of this information was laid out in a reader-friendly manner. As in the Mingli tan, large portions of the text were dedicated to justifications of the specific way in which the commentary was arranged, and critiques of misguided 207 208 209 210

Ibid., 1:1b–2a. Ibid., 1:11b. Ibid. Ibid., 1:8a.

first encounters

75

interpretations of Aristotelian ideas. Although the translation, as in the previously published parts, reduced the historical and polemical contents of In universam dialecticam, readers attempting to uncover its core message needed to peel away pages upon pages positioning the text in contemporary European debates. Once out in the open, however, this message was anything but impenetrable, especially if studied, as Verbiest intended, under the guidance of a knowledgeable teacher. A closer look at the explanations of key tenets of Jesuit-Aristotelian syllogistics illustrates this point. Like the Priora, the substantial portions of De syllogismo started with the definition of the premise: “What is a premise? It is a form of speech which either affirms or negates that a certain meaning applies to a certain thing.” Distinctions among three kinds of premises were then presented as central to syllogistic reasoning: If a certain meaning applies to everything, or if there is no thing that corresponds to it, then we have a so-called universal premise. If a certain meaning applies to one thing and is linked with it, or does not apply to one thing and is not linked with it, then we have a so-called particular premise. [ Premises] to which neither the marker “universal” nor “particular” applies, and that correspond or do not correspond to an undefined number of things, are called indefinite premises.211

Strings of concise definitions such as these, designed to be committed to memory, were appropriate means for introducing relatively simple notions, and both In universam dialecticam and its Chinese adaptation made ample use of them. To clarify more problematic concepts, however, more complex explanations were required. One of the greatest challenges in this regard were the terms used in scholastic logic to analyze the internal structure of the premises of which syllogisms consisted. In addition to providing unambiguous definitions of “term,” “subject,” and “predicate,” Chinese translators here needed to disentangle the overlapping meanings of all three concepts in logic and the equally alien discipline of “grammar,” and to find Chinese equivalents for examples illustrating their application. De syllogismo made an admirable, if not entirely convincing effort to address these difficulties. The text introduced all three notions in the Priora’s “classic” ( gu 古) definition of “terms”: “The predicate (chengwei 稱謂 ‘designation’) and the subject (di 底 ‘basis’, ‘foundation’) to which it is predicated, [as the final elements] into which premises are analyzed, are called terms

211

Ibid., 1:7b.

76

chapter one

(xianjie 限界 ‘limits’).”212 Straightforward as this seemed, the definition conflicted, as the translators readily admitted, with the analysis of De interpretatione, where not terms but “words” (ziyu 字語) were identified as the “final elements” (mofen 末分) of propositions.213 To resolve the apparent contradiction De syllogismo asserted that “words” were the building blocks of propositions only from the perspective of “the art of speech” (shuoyi 說藝 ‘grammar’) whose scope transcended the narrow goals of logic. While logic aimed at no more than explaining one particular kind of speech—syllogisms—and needed to consider only the “material parts” (zhifen 質分) of premises in its analyses, grammar was concerned with the “formal” (mo 模) aspects of any kind of speech and therefore had to determine the functions of all words used in the piece of discourse under consideration.214 Grammar thus analyzed propositions into “nouns” (ming 名 ‘names’), “verbs” (wu 務 ‘that which attends to, or is devoted to [a subject]’, that is, a ‘subservient [ part of speech]’), and “words that do not have meaning by themselves” (zi bu zuoyi zhi yu 自不作義之語), that is, syncategoremata such as prepositions, conjunctions, and pronouns. Logic, in contrast, looked only at the two “extremes” (duan 端) present in any premise, namely, subject and predicate. Unlike nouns and verbs that retained their grammatical functions outside of propositions, the translators explained, subject and predicate gained their logical meanings exclusively from their association in the context of complete premises.215 Either because they trusted that the literal meanings of the terms they chose to render these concepts were self-explanatory or because these were explicated in the no longer extant adaptation of De interpretatione, however, they did not offer a more detailed discussion of subject and predicate. Patient students may nonetheless have been able to induce a firmer understanding from the many examples throughout the text in which both were highlighted. Passages like the following could have gone a long way in helping them identify the logical terms from which all syllogisms were built: All things or events that are subjects belong to a certain predicate. They are either many or one in number. This [number] is the quantity of the

212 213 214 215

Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

1:10a. 1:11a. 1:29b–30a. 1:27b.

first encounters

77

premise. For from among the things that are subjects we either raise many or one. Let us look first at those who belong to a predicate as many. In “All men have the ability to laugh” ( fan ren jie neng xiao zhe 凡 人皆能笑者), in which “men” is the subject, we talk about many men. As to raising one: In “There is one man who is a philosopher” (huo yi ren wei qionglizhe 或一人為窮理者), the “man” we raise is only one present man, either this one or that one, and we say of him that he is a philosopher. The same holds for the subject of indefinite premises. In “Men are philosophers” (ren wei qionglizhe 人為窮理者), we point only to undefined men. The meaning is that this or that or any man is a philosopher. But when we raise one defined man and say, for instance, this one man here is a philosopher, then we talk only about a certain A (moujia 某甲).216

For the problem of the copula that is often singled out as lying at the heart of perceived incommensurabilities between Chinese and IndoEuropean languages and, by extension, thought,217 the translators found a rather elegant, if implicit solution. Instead of insisting that the copula, and thus a variation of the verb “to be” with its ambivalent connotations of existence and identity, was a necessary part of any premise irrespective of the language in which it was formulated, as traditional syllogistics postulated, they emphasized that the “affirmative verbs” (shi zhi wu 是之務) linking subject and predicate—in the above examples jie 皆 . . . zhe 者 ‘all that is’ and wei 為 . . . zhe 者 ‘is deemed as’ or ‘is said to be’—should be regarded as integral parts of the predicate rather than separate entities, let alone “terms” of their own.218 By focusing on the copula’s logical function in Latin and other European languages—to affirm or deny that a certain predicate applies to the premise’s subject—rather than its grammatical form, the translators managed to present Chinese equivalents without having to address structural differences in the ways in which premises were expressed. The only potential cost of this strikingly “modern” solution to an alleged source of incommensurability was a weakening of the metaphysical grounding of the logical theories presented in De syllogismo.

Ibid., 1:20b–21a. See Angus C. Graham, “Being in Western Philosophy Compared with Shih/ Fei and Yu/Wu in Chinese Philosophy,” in idem, Studies in Chinese Philosophy, 321–359; and Jean-Paul Reding, “To Be in Greece and China,” in idem, Comparative Essays, 167–194. For philosophical and linguistic critiques of this view, cf. Wardy, Aristotle in China, 51–55; and Roger Hart, “Translating the Untranslatable: From Copula to Incommensurable Worlds,” in Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations, ed. Lydia Liu (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999), 45–73; 48–59. 218 Verbiest, Qionglixue, “Litui zhi zonglun,” 1:30a. 216 217

78

chapter one

But in case they were aware of it, the translators were apparently willing to pay that price. Despite such problems, De syllogismo’s explanations of the terms of which premises consisted succeeded in sketching a workable outline of a fundamental aspect of logical analysis. The more mechanical operations of inferential reasoning—for instance, conversions or the application of the three “figures” (xing 形) of the syllogism recognized by Aristotle—were adapted even more smoothly. Variables had been known in China at least since the third century BC and were widely used in mathematical treatises.219 The translators could thus enlist them with great confidence in their presentations of technical aspects of the syllogism. The result in some sections of the text was an almost formulaic presentation of Aristotelian concepts. One example was their discussion of the convertability of the universal negative premise (“No A is B”): Let us take a universal and negative [ premise having the terms] A and B. Then if A applies to no B, it is appropriate [to say] neither will B apply to any A; for if it applies to some thing, for instance, a thing we tentatively call C, then it will not be true that A applies to no B, because C is in fact a B.220

If our selective analyses are in any way representative, “Litui zhi zonglun” confirmed that neither grammatical nor technical difficulties prevented the adaptation of Jesuit-Aristotelian syllogistics in seventeenth-century China. Nor was there any evidence of insurmountable terminological obstacles. The text certainly introduced a challenging array of loan translations (see Table 1.5). Many were identical to terms used in the Mingli tan; those that were new followed the same patterns of word-formation and borrowing. By themselves, the new creations seemed no less ingenious than earlier coinages, and they were employed with the same impeccable consistency. Yet, as in the Mingli tan, the new terms were exclusively defined in relation to one another and not linked to any notions outside the conceptual scheme of the work. Thus, once again, no bridges were built that spanned the divide

219 On the earliest attestations of the use of variables in Chinese texts, see Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 333–334. 220 Verbiest, Qionglixue, “Litui zhi zonglun,” 2:5a.

first encounters

79

separating this scheme from the conceptual environment to which the text’s contents needed to be adapted. Although these difficulties inevitably affected the accessibility of the text, they do not warrant claims of general incompatibilities between Jesuit logica and peculiar Chinese “ways of thinking.”221 What they indicate, rather, is that mastering the conceptual framework of European logic, as represented in the Mingli tan and the added sections in the Qionglixue, required an effort that was, in a very literal sense, tantamount to learning a foreign language. Li Zhizao, although suffering from old age as much as from the alterity and complexity of the subject matter he set out to translate, demonstrably managed to penetrate and even clarify the most intricate notions explained to him, however haltingly, by his co-translator Furtado. All that was required to overcome what is all too easily labeled “incommensurability” was diligence, persistence, some ingenuity, and, most importantly, repeated practice. 3. The Qionglixue and the Kangxi Emperor As a trap, the dense text of the Qionglixue was hardly alluring. It seems almost inconceivable that anyone among Verbiest’s projected prey would have been caught in it by accident. But Verbiest did not leave the success of his enterprise to chance. If he obtained the emperor’s support for printing the work and, ultimately, convinced Kangxi to include it in the examination curriculum leading to public office, his trap would snap shut. Aspiring Chinese literati would have no choice but to study the Cursus philosophicus in order to be promoted and, once they had been trained in the proper method of reasoning, they would easily find their way to the divine law.222 Since the emperor had personally encouraged him to embark on his compilation project, Verbiest had reason to hope his plan might succeed. Experience had taught him, though, that Kangxi frequently changed his mind in order to balance competing factions at court. It was therefore crucial to offer the sovereign irrefragable arguments for a positive decision. To this end, Verbiest composed a long memorial that he presented to the throne together with his completed work

Cf. Standaert, “Investigation of Things,” 417. Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea, vol. 2, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1a. See also Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 41–42. 221 222

80

chapter one Table 1.5: Terms Related to the Syllogism in the Qionglixue (1683)

English term

Hanzi

Hanyu pinyin

Retranslation

1

logic

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

reasoning syllogism demonstrative syllogism dialectical syllogism hypothetical syllogism enthymeme definition analysis

理辯 理辯學 理推 理推 指顯理推 推辯理推 若之理推 非成全理推 界義 究解

libian libianxue litui litui zhixian litui tuibian litui ruo zhi litui fei chengquan litui jieyi jiujie

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

term simple term complex term singular term universal term subject predicate verb proposition

限界 專一之限界 合成之限界 孑一之限界 公之限界 底 稱 (謂) 務 題論 題列 先設之題列 若設之題列 可不然之題列 何似 是 真 非 幾何 稱凡者 稱無一者 公 特 非限定 是之題列 非之題列 特之題列 公之題列 公且是之題列

xianjie zhuanyi zhi xianjie hecheng zhi xianjie jieyi zhi xianjie gong zhi xianjie di cheng(wei) wu tilun tilie xianshe zhi tilie ruoshe zhi tilie keburan zhi tilie hesi shi zhen fei jihe cheng fanzhe cheng wuyizhe gong te fei xianding shi zhi tilie fei zhi tilie te zhi tilie gong zhi tilie gong qie shi zhi tilie

公且非之題列

gong qie fei zhi tilie

特且是之題列

te qie shi zhi tilie

特且非之題列

te qie fei zhi tilie

題列 首列 次列 收列 收也者

tilie shoulie cilie shoulie shouyezhe

‘rational argument’ ‘science of . . .’ ‘rational inference’ ‘rational inference’, ‘reasoning’ ‘ostentatious reasoning’ ‘argumentative reasoning’ ‘as-if reasoning’ ‘imperfect reasoning’ ‘delimiting the meaning’ ‘examining and taking to pieces’ ‘limit’ ‘unique limit’ ‘composite limit’ ‘individual limit’ ‘public/general limit’ ‘basis, foundation’ ‘designation’ ‘subservient [ part of speech]’ ‘articulation of a theme’ ‘thematic item’ ‘presupposed proposition’ ‘assumed proposition’ ‘unnecessary proposition’ ‘what like?’ ‘right, true’ ‘true’ ‘wrong, false’ ‘how much?’ ‘said of all’ ‘said of none’ ‘general, public’ ‘particular, special’ ‘not defined’ ‘right/true proposition’ ‘wrong/false proposition’ ‘special proposition’ ‘general proposition’ ‘general and right/true proposition’ ‘general and wrong/false proposition’ ‘special and right/true proposition’ ‘special and wrong/false proposition’ ‘thematic item’ ‘first item’ ‘second item’ ‘final item’ ‘that which results’

19 hypothetical proposition 20 contingent proposition 21 quality (of proposition) 22 true 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

false quantity (of proposition) predicated of all predicated of none universal particular indefinite affirmative proposition negative proposition particular proposition universal proposition universal affirmative proposition universal negative proposition particular affirmative proposition particular negative proposition premise major premise minor premise conclusion

first encounters

81

Table 1.5 (cont.) 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

English term

Hanzi

Hanyu pinyin

Retranslation

antecedent consequent rule (of syllogism) figure (of syllogism) mood (of syllogism) conversion contraposition transposition opposition contradictory contrary formal principle material principle generalization induction example analogy

先 收 規式 形 規 相轉 反置 相移 相對 相悖 相反 模之元始 質之元始 總理 引推 譬推 相似

xian shou guishi xing gui xiangzhuan fanzhi xiangyi xiangdui xiangbei xiangfan mo zhi yuanshi zhi zhi yuanshi zongli yintui pitui xiangsi

‘prior, first’ ‘result, last’ ‘pattern, standard’ ‘form’ ‘rule, pattern’ ‘to turn over, convert’ ‘to switch positions’ ‘to move one another’ ‘opposed to one another’ ‘contrary to one another’ ‘the opposite of one another’ ‘formal origin’ ‘material origin’ ‘to summarize’ ‘to infer by citation’ ‘to infer by example’ ‘similarity’

on October 16, 1683. This memorial eventually attempted to situate European logic, without mentioning its name, among the sciences most cherished in China, if only for strategic purposes. Drawing on his renown as an astronomer, Verbiest focused on establishing a direct link between the administration of the calendar, eclipse prediction, and the syllogistic “method of reasoning” (litui zhi fa 理推之法). But he also highlighted the significance of this novel method for other areas of learning and government that might attract the attention of the emperor and his non-Christian entourage. The full text of this document read as follows: Your servant, Ferdinand Verbiest, responsible for the administration of the calendar, a former junior vice-president of the Board of Works elevated by two ranks, respectfully presents the book Qionglixue in order to elucidate the patterns of the calendar and open wide the doors to the hundred sciences so that all affairs may be resolved favorably for all posterity. In my humble opinion, the administration of the calendar and the elucidation of the seasons are the primary tasks of the sovereign. Your Majesty’s administration of both surpasses one hundred generations, like the brilliance of the sun outshines the stars. Now, in calendrical calculations, we rely on the numbers (shu 數) of which they consist and the patterns (li 理) according to which they are established. If in our calculations we only had the numbers but no patterns, we would be like men who have bodies but no souls, or like heavenly bodies that have fixed positions but are unable to revolve around and illuminate [the earth].

82

chapter one The patterns of the calendar are the reasons behind the constant motions of all stars, just as a spring is whence a stream of water takes its course. I perused the records in the twenty-one dynastic Histories. From the Han Dynasty onward the calendrical reports seek only calculations and numbers; rarely do they strive for refined patterns (mingli 名理). Although the parties involved in reforming [the calendar] were numerous, they were in fact close to one another, and although one or two new ideas evolved among them, they were unable to understand the origins [of the planetary motions]. Only the calendar by Guo Shoujing 郭守 敬 [1231–1316] of the Yuan [1260–1368] is said to be exact,223 but his calculations were also not perfect. Even in his day irregularities prevailed so that eclipses were predicted (tui 推) when there were none, or eclipses occurred when none were predicted. Since the methods established [by Guo] displayed serious deficits only eighteen years [that is, one lunar cycle] after their introduction, how could we still follow them today? Your Majesty’s administration of the calendar has been perfect. We now possess books such as The Perpetual Calendar of the Kangxi Emperor ([Kangxi ] Yongnian Libiao 康熙永年曆表, 1678) and Descriptions of Newlybuilt Astronomical Instruments in the Imperial Observatory ([Xinzhi] Lingtai Yixiangzhi 新制靈台儀象志, 1674).224 Altogether more than 150 juan have been published on various aspects of the calendar. Indeed, the flourishing of calendrical manuals can be said to have reached a climax! Yet, your subject still has something to request, not in order to add to the inner light of the calendrical patterns but only to increase their outward glance, namely, to promulgate the science of fathoming patterns (qionglixue 窮理學, that is, European philosophy) in order to shed further light on the patterns of the calendar as outlined in these books, so that those studying the calendar will know its patterns as well as its numbers and its brilliance will be manifest for all to see. The reason why those studying the calendar today know only its numbers but do not understand its patterns is that they do not know the syllogistic method (litui zhi fa 理推之法). This is obvious in the discussions of the patterns of astronomy and calendrical calculations in the various books on the subject. Not knowing the syllogistic method is like possessing a treasure of gold hidden in the veins of the earth and failing to dig a mine. Similarly, when these books in their calculations stick to numbers only and do not investigate the patterns, this is like vainly holding up a lamp with one’s hand without using its light. Those who will henceforth study the science of the calendar must first of all acquaint themselves with the philosophical sciences. For the

223 See Joseph Needham, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth, 367–389. 224 Both works were compiled under Verbiest’s direction. See, e.g., Xi Zezong, “Ferdinand Verbiest’s Contribution to Chinese Science,” in Witek, Verbiest, 183–211; 184–202.

first encounters

83

science of the calendar is a branch of philosophy. Without philosophy, there can be no true science of the calendar; it would resemble a tree without roots: wherefrom should its branches grow? The sole reason why calendrical calculations of previous generations were confused and their traditions broken, why they were obscure and unclear, is because the syllogistic method was unknown. In the twenty-four years from the day your subject was summoned to your capital until the present, I have by day and by night exhausted all my powers to perfect the syllogistic method. I have thoroughly investigated the books on philosophy. All those that had been translated from Western languages but had not yet been printed, I revised, enlarged, and prepared for the press; those whose translations had not been completed, I continued one by one, supplemented, and edited them in sets, hoping that I would thus be able to make available the essentials of the syllogistic method. I have already presented a palace memorial on this matter. More than a year ago I received the favor of Your Majesty’s reply asking whether or not I had already finished translating the books on science and philosophy. This shows that you, Your Majesty, amidst the myriad exigencies of government still take the pains to exert yourself for the control of learning, which is executed with superior wisdom, and that you know that philosophy is the root of all the sciences. And so, too, all renowned scholars, past and present, have said in their discussions of that which is essential, refined, pure, and precious in every science that philosophy is the source of all learning; that it corrects erroneous reviews of examination essays and is the touchstone of true potential; that it is the judge of all skills and the bright light in spiritual matters; the eye of the intellect and the key to moral concerns; that it is, indeed, preeminent among the sciences. Without the syllogistic method, the military sciences, engineering, medicine, law, surveying, and measurement must remain superficial and can never become exact arts. Moreover, all scholars throughout the world, irrespective of origin and rank, regard patterns as primary in all their discussions. Still, there are always some who do not know how to distinguish between true and false according to patterns. Their theories will not cease to contradict one another and they will be unable to achieve unity. But surely there must be a certain method to settle [their disputes]. This method is none other than the syllogistic method. The syllogistic method is able to reconcile people’s hearts and complete all tasks in the empire; and thus we may say that it can pacify the realm. One day, many years from now, pagodas, fortified city-walls, moats, and other works of ingenuity will perish, and with them the names of those who built them will fall into oblivion. The doctrines of Confucius and Mencius, however, do not wear out even after ten thousand generations, and the same is true of the science of syllogistic reasoning (litui zhi xue 理推之學). Pattern (or ratio, li 理) is an essential part of human nature; it is eternally engraved in our human hearts. Likewise, Your Majesty’s fame for establishing the study of pattern today will be firmly

84

chapter one and eternally engraved into the hearts of humanity since human nature will never perish. Throughout the universe Your Majesty’s merit will shine as brightly as that of Confucius and Mencius. I wrote a book on philosophy in sixty juan which I present for Your Majesty’s inspection, humbly begging that in your superior wisdom you may grant the permission to print it. Your servant, having started from calendrical calculations and having used more words than appropriate, thus personally offers you this book and respectfully reports for your information.225

Standard memorialese and obligatory flattering aside, Verbiest’s argument was quite straightforward. Administering the calendar was the primary task of the emperor but astronomical calculations had been flawed since antiquity. Even the best traditional methods ( fa 法) led to miscalculations and erroneous predictions (tui 推). One-sided attention to “numbers” (shu 數), at the expense of the underlying “patterns” (li 理), was the main reason for these shortcomings. Under Kangxi’s rule, the deficits of the tradition had been corrected with the help of Verbiest and his confrères who, in contrast to Chinese astronomers, understood the importance of “patterns” for scientific inquiry. The best way to perfect the calendrical methods further was to spread European philosophy, “the science of fathoming patterns,” as presented in the Cursus. Philosophy was at the root and origin of all sciences because it provided a powerful “method of reasoning” (litui zhi fa 理推之法), the syllogism. Read in the context of the memorial, Verbiest’s neologism litui zhi fa 理推之法 masterfully wove together the key points of his argument in favor of the “syllogistic method.” Li 理, ‘pattern’, but also ‘human reason, ratio’, had been singled out above as the indispensable foundation of exact “calendrical calculations” ( fa 法, also ‘method’), and tui 推 ‘to push on, infer’ mentioned in the sense of ‘to predict [as, e.g., eclipses]’. The compound litui 理推, as we have seen, was used throughout the Qionglixue to render both “reasoning” and “the syllogism.” Consequently, litui zhi fa could be understood not only as “the syllogistic method” or, more literally, “the method of rational reasoning,” but also as “the [calculation] method of [calendrical] predictions according to patterns,” and thus as the perfect cure for the

Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen 南懷仁), “Jincheng Qionglixue shu zou” 進呈 窮理學書奏 (Memorial on the respectful presentation of the book Cursus philosophicus), reprinted in Xu Zongze, Ming-Qing jian Yesuhuishi, 191–193. Roughly half of this memorial has been translated, not entirely reliably, by W. Vande Walle for Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 38–39. 225

first encounters

85

deficits of Qing astronomy! Yet, Verbiest insisted, the utility of the syllogistic method extended beyond the realm of eclipse prediction. It could also be used to prevent misjudgments and fraud in the civil examinations, clarify spiritual concerns, advance the human intellect, and elucidate ethical maxims. Moreover, it was an indispensable tool for the military sciences, engineering, medicine, law, surveying, and measurement—in short, for all areas of knowledge with practical value to the concerns of the state. Finally, the syllogistic method could help to resolve the seemingly endless scholarly controversies with absolute certainty. For all these reasons, the decision to print the Cursus and promulgate the study of philosophy would not only earn the emperor eternal praise from future generations but, more immediately, provide him with a powerful tool to “pacify the realm.” Verbiest thus certainly made a strong case for his logical spider’s webs. He emphasized time and again that the Cursus, despite its esoteric appearance, was useful for a broad range of practical applications. But would these claims suffice to lure the throne into his trap? The initial response of the Kangxi emperor was neutral and conformed to standard bureaucratic procedure. On October 27, 1683, he decreed that “the Board of Rites and the Hanlin Academy should get together, study [the matter] carefully, and memorialize on their opinion; the book shall be forwarded along.”226 The officials minding the integrity of the Confucian doctrine replied that the Cursus “is not written in the style common in China so that some time will be needed to arrive at an impartial judgment.”227 In view of the complexity of the text, their final verdict came soon enough. By December 31, 1683, they advised the emperor to withhold permission for the printing and promulgation of the Cursus. The official reason, as formulated by the Manchu grand secretary Mingzhu 明珠 (1635–1708) and cited in a number of sources, had little to do with logic or the complexities of the syllogistic method. Rather, the guardians of orthodoxy took offense with the Cursus for suggesting that “human knowledge and memory are located in the brains” rather than the “heart” (xin 心), where both are situated in canonical writings.228 How seriously this argument should Imperial rescript, cited from Xu Zongze, Ming-Qing jian Yesuhuishi, 193. Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea, vol. 2, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1b. Translation adapted from Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 46. 228 Kangxi qiju zhu 康熙起居注 (Records of the Kangxi Emperor’s work and rest), ed. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan 中國第一歷史檔案館 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1984), vol. 2, 1104. Translation adapted from Dudink and Standaert, “Qionglixue,” 17. 226 227

86

chapter one

be taken is open to debate. Benjamin Elman interprets it as evidence of a significant difference between Chinese and European medical thinking.229 Contemporary observers, however, regarded this contention, more plausibly it seems to me, as a mere pretext. To them, it was obvious that Christianity’s opponents in the bureaucracy,230 who were customarily derided by the Jesuits as “the Rabbis,” had eventually seen through Verbiest’s trap. The true reason for their rejection was hence, in the words of Dunyn-Szpot, “that European philosophy was not in accordance with the Chinese, and that there was a particular doctrine of the divine law embedded within it that ran counter to the wisdom and the religion that had ruled China for so many olympiads of centuries.”231 The emperor’s personal stance on the matter is difficult to assess. After all, if Verbiest’s testimony is credible, he had encouraged the father to compile the Cursus. Yet, at least in public, Kangxi did nothing to overrule or qualify his officials’ verdict. On the contrary, in the official record he is quoted as concurring with his advisers by stating that “the style of this book is absurd and unintelligible.”232 On the other hand, the emperor continued to seek instruction in philosophy through secret emissaries who allegedly reported to him at night what they had learned on the subject at Verbiest’s residence during the day.233 Thus, even if he disagreed with his senior officials, Kangxi apparently deemed the issue of too little importance to risk an open rift. Accordingly, he decreed that the father’s request be indeed denied and his manuscript returned. After more than five years, Verbiest’s efforts to trap the Chinese elite in the iron grip of the syllogistic method thus came to naught.

229 Elman, On Their Own Terms, 146–147. On some of the ideological stakes in SinoJesuit debates about the “heart,” see Qiong Zhang, “Hybridizing Scholastic Psychology with Chinese Medicine: A Seventeenth-Century Chinese Catholic’s Conceptions of Xin (Mind and Heart),” Early Science and Medicine 13 (2008): 313–360; 325–343. 230 See Willy Vande Walle, “Ferdinand Verbiest and the Chinese Bureaucracy,” in Witek, Verbiest, 495–515. 231 Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea, vol. 2, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1b. Translation adapted from Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 46. 232 Kangxi qiju zhu, vol. 2, 1104. See Dudink and Standaert, “Qionglixue,” 17. 233 Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 46–48.

first encounters

87

Concluding Remarks With this renewed rejection the story of Jesuit logica in late Ming and early Qing China reached its end. Just like the Mingli tan before it, the Qionglixue fell into almost immediate oblivion. The only Chinese text mentioning logic at all that remained accessible was the Xixue fan but, as we have seen, Aleni’s description of luorijia was so fragmentary that it could hardly arouse interest or curiosity. Especially when compared with the stunning success of sciences like mathematics and astronomy, the first translation of European logic into the Chinese discursive universe must therefore be seen as a compelling failure (even if “failure narratives” have—for good reasons—fallen into disfavor in recent studies of transcultural circulations of science and thought).234 Yet, we must be clear about the reasons underlying this failure. On the narrow textual level, Li Zhizao and Francisco Furtado proved beyond doubt that it was possible to find or create a language to represent logical notions in Chinese, even though the translators were unable to identify an indigenous context that would help them or their prospective readers to situate the subject. If the result of their labors remained exceedingly difficult reading, this was not so much a consequence of the inadequacy of their stylistic or terminological choices but rather of the complexity of the conceptual lexicon of Jesuit logica. As the example of Li Zhizao attests, however, this lexicon was not impenetrable to “the Chinese mind.” Students intent on entering the conceptual edifice of the Mingli tan or the Qionglixue could do so, if they were willing, like Li, to learn and memorize scores of new terms and notions, and practice the rules, or “grammar,” according to which both were to be used in reasoning and argumentation. The effort required to learn the conceptual language of Jesuit logica would thus seem, as I have argued above, no more or less painful than that necessary to learn a foreign language. But the Jesuits never got as far as starting to teach that language in late Ming or early Qing China because they failed to make the case why anyone should take such pains. Promises to find or return to Christian truths held little appeal for non-Christian Chinese readers. In the eyes of Christianity’s critics See, e.g., Nicolas Standaert, “Christianity in Late Ming and Early Qing China as a Case of Cultural Transmission,” in China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hopeful Future, ed. Stephen Uhalley Jr. and Xiaoxin Wu (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2001), 81–116; 87–90. 234

88

chapter one

they rather overshadowed all other possible applications of the discipline, no matter how ingeniously they were advertised. Accordingly, the Jesuit lobbying for the adoption of luorijia was interpreted, and consequently rejected, as yet another missionary ploy to unsettle the authority of the canonical Confucian writings as the sole and ultimate source of all truth. As long as this authority was intact, there was no place for a logic presented or perceived as the obedient handmaiden of a competing faith and its obstinate foreign messengers.

CHAPTER TWO

HAPHAZARD OVERTURES: LOGIC IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY PROTESTANT WRITINGS The logic now in use serves to reinforce and fix those errors that are founded on commonly held notions rather than to help the search for truth, and so does more harm than good. Francis Bacon, The New Organon

By the early eighteenth century, the Jesuit mission had lost much of its momentum due to internal divisions and continued attacks from competing denominations, culminating in the notorious rites controversy.1 Conditions deteriorated on the Chinese side as well. With the death of the Kangxi emperor in 1722 the mission lost its imperial protection. In 1724, the Yongzheng 雍正 emperor (1678–1735) proscribed all missionary activities.2 His hostile edict marked the beginning of a hiatus in the Chinese encounter with European science and thought. Although contacts were never completely severed and some missionaries continued to operate clandestinely in the provinces, noncommercial exchanges largely came to a halt for almost a century.3 European logic would not be mentioned in a Chinese context for nearly two hundred years after Ferdinand Verbiest’s infelicitous syllogistic trap collapsed. 1. Protestant Authors and Western Knowledge In the early nineteenth century, Christian missionaries again took the lead in Chinese-Western interactions. In many respects the evangelical movement that brought mostly British and American Protestants to Chinese shores from 1807 onward differed markedly from

1 See David Mungello, The Chinese Rites Controversy: Its History and Meaning (Nettetal: Steyler, 1994). See also Paul A. Rule, K’ung-tzu or Confucius: The Jesuit Interpretation of Confucianism (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1986), 88–149. 2 Standaert, Handbook, 313–318. 3 See Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History (New York: Norton, 1999), 92–128.

90

chapter two

the Jesuit enterprise. At least in hindsight, the Protestant missionary drive appears closely linked to a period of European expansion that was fired by commercial interests and colonial aspirations,4 guarded by unparalleled military prowess acquired in the course of the Industrial Revolution, and accompanied by despicable feelings of cultural and more often than not “racial” superiority taken to justify the selfrighteous belief that any obstacle on the unilaterally defined path to universal “progress” could and should be removed, if need be by force.5 Nonetheless, the imperialist background of the Protestant mission does not automatically warrant wholesale condemnation of the aims and activities of all clergymen, including those who came as missionaries but built careers in the service of foreign and Chinese businesses or the Qing administration. Even if delusions of empire shaped the perceptions and actions of many,6 quite a few Protestants, like their Jesuit precursors, had honorable personal motives and proved willing to endure considerable hardship, not only to save heathen souls but also to offer practical help and alleviate the lot of the poor and needy. Still, their unholy alliance with Europe’s new might undeniably helped all nineteenth-century missionaries to secure more liberty for their operations than the Qing state would have been inclined to concede in less precarious circumstances. A substantial part of the missionaries’ efforts were devoted to arousing Chinese curiosity in the Christian message through presentations of “useful knowledge” from and about the West. Although they did not share the elitist approach that had led the Jesuits to target above all the highest ranks of the Chinese bureaucracy, many Protestants came to realize that they also needed to attract scholarly support if they were to gain a secure foothold in the Celestial Empire. Thus, they too invested much energy to add an “intellectual flavoring” to their stern and sober gospel. In contrast to the Jesuits, Protestant missionaries hardly ever sought to extract such flavoring from the West’s

4 See James L. Hevia, English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003), 1–29 and passim; and David Porter, “A Peculiar but Uninteresting Nation: China and the Discourse of Commerce in Eighteenth-Century England,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 33, no. 2 (1999–2000): 181–199. 5 See Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), 79–94, 177–193. 6 See Eric Reinders, Borrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies: Christian Missionaries Imagine Chinese Religion (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004).

haphazard overtures

91

humanistic traditions—or what were then known as the “moral sciences”—in order not to undermine the preeminence of Scripture in ethical matters. Instead, they concentrated their activities on natural philosophy and, until the 1860s at least, a peculiar brand of British natural theology.7 The sciences introduced by Protestant authors over the course of the nineteenth century had little in common with the Renaissance scientia presented by the Jesuits. While not always in step with contemporary developments, the Protestant version of Western knowledge was firmly rooted in the conceptual world of post-Newtonian Europe. Besides mathematics and to a lesser extent astronomy, which continued to intrigue Chinese audiences,8 the Protestants placed the strongest emphasis on the recent achievements of European medicine9 and above all chemistry, the leading science of the age.10 But they also imparted knowledge in other disciplines they hoped would be seen as “useful” in China, most notably various branches of physics11 and the earth sciences.12 Botany13 and zoology were special cases, as Fa-ti Fan has shown, because in these fields missionaries and other foreigners were not only interested in spreading but even more so in collecting knowledge, especially about species unknown in Europe.14 The only areas of the natural sciences Protestant authors seemed to avoid more or less consistently were aspects of biology and natural history affected by the Darwinian revolution, which had the potential

Wright, Translating Science, 72–99. See Wann-Sheng Horng, Li Shanlan: The Impact of Western Mathematics in China during the Late Nineteenth Century (Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, 1991); and Mingjie Hu, Merging Chinese and Western Mathematics: The Introduction of Algebra and the Calculus in China, 1859–1903 (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1998). 9 See Bridie J. Andrews, The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1895–1937 (Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 1996). See also Heinrich, Afterlife of Images. 10 See Wright, Translating Science; and James Reardon-Anderson, The Study of Change: Chemistry in China, 1840–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 11 Wang Bing 王冰, “Ming-Qing shiqi (1610–1910) wulixue yizhu shumu kao” 明 清時期 (1610–1910) 物理學譯著書目考 (A bibliographic study of translated works on physics in Ming and Qing China, 1610–1910), Zhongguo keji shiliao 7, no. 5 (1986): 10–20. 12 Zou Zhenhuan 鄒振環, Wan Qing xifang dilixue zai Zhongguo 晚清西方地理學在 中國 (Western geography in late Qing China) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2000). 13 Georges Métailié, “Sources for Modern Botany in China during the Qing Dynasty,” Japan Review 4 (1993): 1–13. 14 Fa-ti Fan, British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004). 7 8

92

chapter two

to undermine the biblical account of creation.15 And they never missed an opportunity to illustrate the fresh technological dominance of EuroAmerica, which the Qing dynasty had to acknowledge repeatedly in costly clashes with imposing Western powers. The problems of translation the Protestants had to overcome were identical to those the Jesuits had faced two centuries earlier. Even though some missionaries confabulated in terms that were as condescending as they were naïve about the unsuitability of the Chinese language as a medium of science and thought, the highest hurdles remained lexical.16 In their efforts to coin new terms for the ideas they hoped to convey, Protestant translators mostly followed the Jesuit example and relied on the expertise of Chinese collaborators. Only a few bolder, or more conceited, Europeans insisted that they knew best how the Chinese language needed to change in order to adapt Western notions. Especially in the realm of chemistry, imagination roamed free. In order to render the names of the elements, for instance, one translator invented a new series of ludicrously complex Chinese characters, while another devised pseudo-characters with no pronunciations to represent the formulae instead of the names of various chemical compounds.17 Even the success of the more serious lexical innovations introduced in Protestant translations varied greatly, depending not so much on the inherent virtues of individual creations as on the Chinese public’s shifting interest in the sciences to which the new terms belonged.18

15 Elman, On Their Own Terms, 345–352. See also Wang Zichun 汪子春, “Zhongguo jindai shengwuxue fazhan gaikuang” 中國近代生物學發展概況 (Outline history of biology in modern China), Zhongguo keji shiliao 9, no. 2 (1988): 17–35. On the relationship between science and religion more generally, see A. Hunter Dupree, “Christianity and the Scientific Community in the Age of Darwin,” in God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, ed. David C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986), 351–368. 16 David Wright, “The Translation of Modern Western Science in NineteenthCentury China, 1840–1895,” Isis 89, no. 4 (1998): 658–661. 17 See Jean-Claude and Viviane Alleton, Terminologie de la chimie en chinois moderne (Paris, La Haye: Mouton, 1966); and David Wright, “The Great Desideratum: Chinese Chemical Nomenclature and the Transmission of Western Chemical Concepts,” Chinese Science 14 (1997): 35–70. 18 See Masini, The Formation of the Modern Chinese Lexicon, passim.

haphazard overtures

93

Judged by the number of titles, the Protestant output of scientific treatises and translations far surpassed the Jesuit record.19 Their texts also reached considerably larger audiences thanks to the modern printing presses they set up in several Chinese cities.20 Chinese officials and private scholars welcomed especially those of their writings with no or little Christian coloring as valuable sources of information. An even more lasting contribution of Protestant mediators of Western knowledge was the part they played in the creation and extension of an institutional infrastructure for the transmission and popularization of modern science in China. Driven by the conviction that “science is one of the noblest forms of theology,”21 Protestant missionaries launched a number of projects that anticipated or paved the way for later Chinese initiatives. They edited the first Chinese journals devoted to scientific topics,22 founded several colleges that offered scientific instruction,23 and were instrumental in establishing the earliest modern government schools in China.24 With the Shanghai Polytechnic Institution and Reading Room, they founded the first institution dedicated to the dissemination of scientific ideas to the broader Chinese public,25 and in the context of their work at government-sponsored 19 The most comprehensive bibliography is Yatsumimi Toshifumi 八耳俊文, “Shin makki seijin choyaku kagaku kankei Chūgokusho oyobi wakokuhon shozai mokuroku” 清末期西人著訳科学関係中国書および和刻本所在目録 (Chinese books related to science translated by foreigners in the late Qing period, with indications of holdings in Japan), Kagakushi kenkyū 22 (1995): 312–358. See also Xiong Yuezhi 熊月之, Xixue dongjian yu wan Qing shehui 西學東漸與晚清社會 (The dissemination of Western knowledge and late Qing society) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1994), 133–219, 285–300, 475–637; and Tsuen-hsuin Tsien, “Western Impact on China through Translation,” Far Eastern Quarterly 13, no. 3 (1954): 310–318. 20 Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian, 475–492. 21 F. W. Farrar, “The Attitude of the Clergy towards Science,” reprinted in Religion in Victorian Britain, ed. Gerald Parsons and James R. Moore (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988), vol. 3, 440–444; 443. See also Frank M. Turner, “The Victorian Conflict between Science and Religion: A Professional Dimension,” Isis 69 (1978): 356–376. 22 See Ge Gongzhen 戈公振, Zhongguo baoxueshi 中國報學史 (History of Chinese journalism) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1927); and Roswell S. Britton, The Chinese Periodical Press, 1800–1912 (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1933). 23 See Jessie G. Lutz, China and the Christian Colleges, 1850–1950 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1971). 24 See Knight Biggerstaff, The Earliest Modern Government Schools in China (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1961), 1–93; and Xiong, Xixue dongjian, 301–349. 25 See Wang Ermin 王爾敏, Shanghai Gezhi shuyuan zhilüe 上海格致書院志略 (Brief history of the Shanghai Polytechnic Institution) (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1980). See also Knight Biggerstaff, “Shanghai Polytechnic Institution and Reading Room: An Attempt to Introduce Western Science and Technology to the

94

chapter two

arsenals they helped to set up and maintain specialized translation offices.26 Toward the end of the century they even began to convene commissions for the standardization of technical terminology, the first attempt at taming the unstoppable flood of newly coined terms by means of centralized institutions.27 To be sure, not all of these efforts were successful. Poor management, insufficient funding, and frequent personal quarrels were no less detrimental than the official Chinese distrust and public hostility that culminated in periodic bouts of xenophobia.28 Still, their mediation of Western knowledge earned many active or retired Protestant missionaries considerable respect among reform-minded Chinese scholars and officials. Emboldened by this respect, some started to seek greater political influence and published treatises advocating more determined efforts at industrial modernization and institutional reforms.29 The fact that even these more audacious texts were received with considerable interest, particularly in the late 1880s and 1890s, indicates how vulnerable the Qing state and the self-confidence of its elites had become by that time. In view of their success as mediators and advocates of Western knowledge, Protestant authors would have seemed well positioned to advance the cause of European logic—had they chosen to do so. However, logic ranked near the bottom of their agenda. In contrast to the

Chinese,” Pacific Historical Review 25 (1956): 127–149; and David Wright, “John Fryer and the Shanghai Polytechnic: Making Space for Science in Nineteenth-Century China,” British Journal for the History of Science 29 (1996): 1–16. 26 Li Nanqiu 黎難秋, Zhongguo kexue wenxian fanyi shigao 中國科學文獻翻譯史搞 (Draft history of the translation of scientific documents in China) (Hefei: Zhongguo kexue jishu daxue chubanshe, 1993), 78–114. 27 See Wang Shuhuai 王樹槐, “Qingmo fanyi mingci de tongyi wenti” 清末翻譯 名詞的統一問題 (The problem of the unification of translated terms at the end of the Qing dynasty), Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan 1 (1969): 47–82; and Wang Yangzong 王揚宗, “Qingmo Yizhi shuhui tongyi keji shuyu gongzuo shuping” 清末 益智書會統一科技術語工作述評 (A critical review of the standardization of technical terminology at the Educational Association of China in the late Qing), Zhongguo keji shiliao 12, no. 2 (1991): 9–19. 28 See Paul A. Cohen, China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth of Chinese Antiforeignism, 1860–1870 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963). 29 See Wang Shuhuai 王樹槐, Wairen yu wuxu bianfa 外人與戊戌變法 ( Foreigners and the 1898 reforms) (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1965). See also Wang Lixin 王立新, Meiguo chuanjiaoshi yu wan Qing Zhongguo xiandaihua 美國傳教 士與晚清中國現代化 (American missionaries and the modernization of China in the late Qing dynasty) (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1997), 428–470.

haphazard overtures

95

Jesuits, none of the Protestant denominations working in China held the discipline in high esteem. Rational persuasion was considered to be irrelevant for the Protestant faith. Martin Luther and John Calvin themselves had decried the scholastic reliance on reason in matters of belief. To them, Scripture was self-authenticated as the only authoritative access to Christian truths and, as such, needed no further justification. Evidence of the divine was ultimately nonnegotiable and was revealed in immediate and personal experiences that transcended man-made rules of reasoning. The Protestant indifference or even hostility toward logic reflected a general crisis of the discipline. Even outside the spiritual realm, logic had lost much of its prestige as the organon of scientific inquiry. The rejection of scholasticism, by Protestants and others, in the course of the scientific revolution had created the image of a closed or stagnating discourse. Speculative attempts to reunite logic with metaphysics, for example in G. W. F. Hegel’s Science of Logic, had alienated the discipline further from the positive sciences.30 Not until the mid-nineteenth century did “the logical question” begin to be raised again in a more meaningful manner.31 However, the new developments emerging most notably in Germany and England,32 which would eventually pave the way for the emergence of mathematical or symbolic logic, were not widely known before the turn of the twentieth century. Certainly none of the missionaries active in China were aware of, or in any way excited about, the imminent changes. For them, logic remained at best a marginal concern. As a result, they presented the discipline only intermittently and in more or less haphazard fashion. 2. The New Organon and Old Ways of Argumentation Throughout much of the nineteenth century, references to logic remained exceedingly scarce in Protestant writings. Even in general

30 See Frank-Peter Hansen, Geschichte der Logik des 19. Jahrhunderts. Eine kritische Einführung in die Anfänge der Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorie (Würzburg: Königshausen und Neumann, 2000), 7–22. 31 Volker Peckhaus, Logik, Mathesis universalis und allgemeine Wissenschaft. Leibniz und die Wiederentdeckung der formalen Logik im 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997), 130–163. 32 See Volker Peckhaus, “Nineteenth-Century Logic between Philosophy and Mathematics,” Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 5 (1999): 433–450.

96

chapter two

introductions to “Western knowledge” and the European education system, the discipline was hardly mentioned. The earliest exception to this rule was Ernst Faber’s (Hua Zhian 花之安, 1839–1899) booklength essay “Brief Account of Schools in Germany” (Deguo xuexiao lunlüe shu 德國學校論略書) of 1873.33 In this frequently reprinted treatise, Faber presented “logic,” transcribed as luxi 路隙, as one of the courses taught in the faculties of philosophy (zhixue 智學 ‘the science of knowing’) at European universities. According to his sketch, logic discusses how the soul expresses intentions and thoughts and distinguishes several kinds among them. It also explains why something is right/true or wrong/false. In addition, [it] analyzes how perceptions, which enter [our consciousness] via the five sense-organs and are subsequently taken up by the intellect, are synthesized, and outlines the reasons by which things are understood clearly.34

Faber thus introduced luxi as a philosophical subdiscipline exploring how humans actually think. This psychologistic view, reminiscent of the neo-Kantian philosophy to which he may have been exposed during his theological studies at Tübingen, was reflected in the rendition he suggested as a tentative Chinese equivalent of the term “logic”: yifa 意法 ‘the laws of thought’. It was a branch of knowledge, he hastened to add, for which no terminology existed in China and which would therefore be difficult to translate.35 A more comprehensive but scarcely more appealing image of European logic emerged from the few Protestant writings touching upon the methodological tenets of modern science. The medical missionary Benjamin Hobson (He Xin 合信, 1816–1873) seems to have expressed a widely shared view when he declared already in the 1850s that “theoretical opinions” should best be avoided in Chinese translations.36 Still,

33 The text was first serialized in 1873 over a period of six months in Young J. Allen’s Jiaohui xinbao 教會新報 (Church News). See Adrian A. Bennett, Missionary Journalist in China: Young J. Allen and His Magazines, 1860–1883 (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1983), 123–124. Later in the same year, Faber’s study was published as a monograph entitled Xiguo xuexiao: Da Deguo xuexiao lunlüe 西國學校—大德國學校 論略 (Schools of Western nations: Brief account of schools in Germany) (Yangcheng [Guangzhou]: Xiaoshuhui Zhenbaotang, 1873). 34 Ernst Faber (Hua Zhian 花之安), “Deguo xuexiao lunlüe shu” 德國學校論略書 (Brief account of schools in Germany), reprinted in Xizheng tongdian 西政通典 (Comprehensive anthology of Western government), ed. Yuan Zonglian 袁宗濂 and Yan Zhiqing 晏志清 (Shanghai: Cuixin shuju, 1902 [1897]), 24:11b–12a. 35 Ibid., 24:12a. 36 Wright, Translating Science, 263–266.

haphazard overtures

97

in a very general manner, a number of works on natural theology and natural philosophy alluded to or exemplified principles of inductive reasoning, thus drawing on aspects of scientific methodology informed by contemporary theories of logic. Even in these texts, however, references to logic as a discipline in its own right were extremely scarce. More substantial explanations were supplied only in presentations of the life and thought of Francis Bacon, who came to be praised as the founding father of the modern sciences and hence as a harbinger of the West’s overwhelming power. 1. Bacon and the Principle of Induction Bacon’s image in late imperial China was the joint production of Protestant missionaries and reform-minded Chinese scholars and officials.37 Wang Tao 王韜 (1828–1897) set the tone for Chinese interest in his biographical sketch “The Englishman Bacon” (Yingren Beigen 英人倍根) of 1875.38 Wang portrayed Bacon as a loyal government minister who felt compelled to break with time-honored wisdom for the sake of progress. For Bacon, Wang related, blind faith in ancient writings was severely limiting human knowledge. Rather than take the words of the ancients for granted, scholars had to seek out evidence from facts in order to prove the validity of their claims. To assist this purpose, Bacon devised a new method of inquiry: “In his book New Methods for the Investigation of Things and the Fathoming of Patterns (Gewu qiongli xinfa 格物窮理新法, that is, The New Organon) Bacon wrote . . . that we must investigate things in order to find new patterns rather than establish patterns and impose them onto things.”39 Thus paraphrasing the principle of induction, Wang proclaimed that the sciences that had made Europe strong flourished only because later scholars

See Yuan Weishi 袁偉時, Zhongguo xiandai zhexue shigao 中國現代哲學史稿 (Draft history of modern Chinese philosophy) (Guangzhou: Zhongshan daxue chubanshe, 1987), 21–35; and idem, “A Few Problems Related to Nineteenth-Century Chinese and Western Philosophies and Their Cultural Interaction,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 22 (1995): 163–171. 38 Wang Tao 王韜, “Yingren Beigen” 英人倍根 (The Englishman Bacon), in idem, Wengyou yutan 甕牖餘談 (Ramblings from a dilapidated studio) (Shanghai: Jinbu shuju, 1875). See also Zhang Jianghua 張江華, “Zuizao zai Zhongguo jieshao Beigen shengping ji qi xueshuo de wenxian” 最早在中國介紹培根生平及其學說的文獻 (The earliest Chinese document on the life and thought of Francis Bacon), Zhongguo keji shiliao 11, no. 4 (1990): 93–94. 39 Quoted from ibid., 94. 37

98

chapter two

had unanimously followed Bacon’s methodological lead. His assertion was confirmed by, among others, the American missionary journalist Young J. Allen (Lin Yuezhi 林樂之, 1836–1907)40 and by Guo Songtao 郭嵩燾 (1818–1891), China’s first resident envoy to England.41 The implications of their shared praise for Bacon, although never spelled out explicitly, were clear: in order to strengthen their civilization, Chinese scholars had to initiate a similar break with the moral and ideological imperatives of the Confucian classics and become receptive to the new methods of science introduced from the West. The most detailed account of Bacon’s thought was provided by the British missionary William Muirhead (Mu Weilian 慕維廉, 1822– 1900). With the help of his Chinese teacher and assistant Shen Yugui 沈毓桂 (1807–1907),42 Muirhead summarized the first part of Bacon’s New Organon in a long article that was serialized in several missionary journals. The first draft appeared in 1876 under the title “New Patterns of Science” (Gezhi xinli 格致新理) in Allen’s Yizhi xinlu 益 知新錄 (The Monthly Educator);43 a slightly revised and expanded version entitled “New Methods of Science” (Gezhi xinfa 格致新法) was printed in 1877 in Gezhi huibian 格致匯編 (The Chinese Scientific Magazine) and in 1878 in Wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 (The Globe Magazine), the most widely read periodical at the time.44 In 1888, Muirhead published two editions of a slightly abridged rendition of Book I of the

Young J. Allen (Lin Yuezhi 林樂之), “Zhong-xi guanxi lüelun” 中西關係略論 (Brief account of Chinese-Western relations), Wanguo gongbao 1, no. 8 (1875): 105. See also Yuan Weishi, “A Few Problems,” 168–170; and Bennett, Missionary Journalist, 204. 41 Guo Songtao 郭嵩燾, Guo Songtao riji 郭嵩燾日記 (Guo Songtao’s diaries) (Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1981), vol. 3, 268, 356. 42 Yi Huili 易惠莉, Xixue dongjian yu Zhongguo chuantong zhishifenzi—Shen Yugui ge’an yanjiu 西學東漸與中國傳統知識分子—沈敏桂各案研究 (The dissemination of Western knowledge and traditional Chinese intellectuals—a case study of Shen Yugui) (Shenyang: Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1993), 103–108. See also Zou Zhenhuan 鄒振 環, Yilin jiuzong 譯林舊蹤 (Old traces in the forest of translations) (Nanchang: Jiangxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 2000), 55–57. 43 William Muirhead (Mu Weilian 慕維廉), “Gezhi xinli” 格致新理 (New patterns of science), Yizhi xinlu 益知新錄 (The Monthly Educator) 1, no. 1 ( July 1876)—1, no. 5 (November 1876). On Yizhi xinlu, see Bennett, Missionary Journalist, 66–68. 44 William Muirhead, “Gezhi xinfa” 格致新法 (New methods of science), Gezhi huibian 格致匯編 (The Chinese Scientific Magazine) 2, no. 2 (March 1877): 367–370; 2, no. 3 (April 1877): 398–399; 2, no. 7 (August 1877): 26–28; 2, no. 8 (September 1877): 48–54; and 2, no. 9 (October 1877): 87–90. Reprinted in Wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 (The Globe Magazine) 1, nos. 506–513 (September 1878–November 1878). 40

haphazard overtures

99

New Organon (comprising Aphorisms I–CXXX) as New Tools of Science (Gezhi xinji 格致新機).45 In many respects, Muirhead’s presentation complemented the attempts of Wang Tao and others to exploit Bacon for a critique of traditional Chinese ways of thought identified as obstacles to national recovery. In his article, Muirhead introduced Bacon much in the same manner as Wang or Guo Songtao before him: Around the time of the Ming emperor Wanli 萬歷 (r. 1573–1620), there was an Englishman named Bacon (Beigen 倍根) who served as president of the Board of Rites [ Lord Chancellor]. Bacon was the first to establish the correct methods of science. . . . He formulated rules to prevent people from adhering slavishly to the reputation of ancient scholars and remaining in a state of error. Yet, just like infants in the school of natural inquiry, [many] were unwilling to open a new page exposing the errors of their predecessors. To them Bacon said: “How can we avoid destroying the old building when planning a new house?” Like a foot soldier building bridges, laying paths, or removing obstacles, Bacon paved the way [for a new method of science]. Later generations followed in his steps and took control of everything between heaven and earth.46

One aspect in which Muirhead went beyond previous accounts of Bacon’s rebellion against traditional habits of thought was that he did not shy away from explicit comparisons with the present situation of China: The book New Tools of Science . . . expands the achievements of the Greater Learning in elucidating virtue and adds to the patterns of the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge. Only the Chinese still indulge in books on poetry and writings on the six arts instead of examining the instructions of the great origin [of all things]. Who among them knows that in order to progress beyond political matters and textual scholarship we must push upward in order to return to the origin and that, from this origin, we must push downward in order to engage in the investigation of things. If we are able to investigate things and fathom patterns, push on to the origin and arrive at the foundation, then the Way will be great and constantly made anew, and we will reap endless benefits.47

45 William Muirhead (trans.), Gezhi xinji 格致新機 (New tools of science) (Shanghai: Gezhi shushi; Beijing: Tongwen shuhui, 1888). 46 Gezhi huibian 2, no. 2 (1877): 367. 47 William Muirhead, “Gezhi xinji chongxiu zhuxue zixu” 格致新機重修諸學自序 (Translator’s preface to the New Tools of Science and the renewal of all learning), in idem, Gezhi xinji, 1a–b.

100

chapter two

According to Muirhead, the “great instruction” that seventeenthcentury Western and contemporary Chinese readers could draw from Bacon’s work was “not to guess the functions and applications of nature (tiandi 天地), as the ancients did, but to trace all the facts in the universe, enumerate them one by one, and then push on to find out general patterns.”48 Rather than vainly seek truths in ancient writings whose insights were based on guesswork and superstition, Bacon taught scholars everywhere to open the book of nature themselves and look beyond the professed wisdom of classical texts. Faithfully mirroring the empiricist tenets of Bacon’s “new method,” Muirhead described the significance of observation and experiment for the interpretation of nature in considerable detail.49 But how could scholars “push on” to induce general laws from the facts they thus established? According to Muirhead, Bacon’s ingenious solution to this problem was “the method of pushing forward” (tuijin zhi fa 推進之法), that is, the principle of induction: The root of this theory is to follow the human mind. Its basis is the expectation that the same effects will result from the same causes. If we examine and calculate [cause and effect] in each individual case, we will be able to push on and find out (tuichu 推出 ‘infer’) general patterns. This expectation is essential to the nature of the human mind. It is bestowed upon us by the grace of our Creator. Without it, we would be unable to recognize or guard against danger. . . . For example, when a child first encounters fire it will go near it and hurt itself. Afterwards, it will be afraid of fire and will not dare to come too close because it expects that the same cause will necessarily have the same effect. This is an illustration of “pushing forward” (tuijin 推進 ‘induction’). If we extend and enlarge [our experiences] we can establish general patterns.50

Although this passage provided only a crude explanation of inductive reasoning, it revealed a second aspect in which Muirhead’s account of Bacon’s methodology differed from the sketches by Wang Tao and others: by describing induction not so much as a rational, rule-governed procedure but as a way to realize the God-given potential of the human mind, Muirhead linked the principles underlying modern science intimately to the Christian or, more precisely, the Protestant

Gezhi huibian 2, no. 2 (1877): 370. Ibid., 370–371; Gezhi huibian 2, no. 8 (1877): 52–54; and Gezhi huibian 2, no. 9 (1877): 88–90. 50 Gezhi huibian 2, no. 2 (1877): 370. 48 49

haphazard overtures

101

faith. In his preface to the Chinese version of the New Organon, he underlined this link in even more emphatic terms: In science, there are two methods: one is pushing upward to return to the origin (tuishang gui qi benyuan 推上歸其本原, that is, ‘induction’), the other is pushing downward to embrace all things (tuixia baohu wanwu 推 下包乎萬物 ‘deduction’). Western nations use these two methods simultaneously and thus obtain the benefits of both. The method of induction means to return the things here on earth to what is above them; the method of deduction means to bring the great origins in heaven to bear on [the things] down here. Together these two [methods] are complete and provide sufficient evidence. Deduction helps us to examine the truth of induction. It leaves not the slightest doubt that all things were created by God (shangdi 上帝 ‘the Ruler on High’). When people ignore the roots and look only at the branches, they will not return to God but only to individual patterns. Thus, heaven’s grace will be lost and the human mind will perish with it.51

As was the case with many Jesuit writings, the Christian tinge with which Muirhead colored his presentation curtailed its appeal for Chinese readers. Nevertheless, Bacon became one of the first Western scholars whose name gained a certain currency in late Qing discourses. Although the principles of “pushing forward” or “upward” must have remained rather fuzzy notions, the increasing sense of urgency felt by many Chinese literati attracted them to an official-cum-philosopher portrayed as a successful liberator of the human mind from the strictures of a body of knowledge said to have lost its practical utility.52 2. Bacon and the Aristotelian Way of Argumentation In the European case, Chinese readers learned, the epitome of such stale and outdated knowledge was Catholic Aristotelianism. Muirhead emphasized over and again that Bacon, in order to convince his contemporaries that his “method of pushing forward” was the key to an infinite expansion of human knowledge, had no choice but to destroy the authority of the Aristotelian teachings by which Western scholars had been “enslaved and oppressed” for more than two millennia.53 51 Muirhead, “Gezhi xinji chongxiu zhuxue zixu,” 1b. For other passages adding a Christian slant to Bacon’s theories, see Gezhi huibian 2, no. 2 (1877): 369; Gezhi huibian 2, no. 3 (1877): 398; and Gezhi huibian 2, no. 7 (1877): 26, 28. 52 For examples, see Yuan Weishi, “A Few Problems,” 171–175; and Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian, 364–366. 53 Gezhi huibian 2, no. 2 (1877): 367–368.

102

chapter two

In marked contrast to everything Chinese readers might remember from Jesuit writings, Muirhead condemned Aristotle as an intellectual despot whose absolute power over the human mind surpassed even the control emperors exerted over their subjects. Muirhead faulted Aristotle on several counts. In the realm of the natural sciences, he ridiculed above all the scholastic cosmology that was derived from and justified through the Stagirite’s works. Aristotle’s most persistent and harmful errors, however, were located in the area of “philosophy” (xingli 性理 ‘the study of nature and pattern’). In his “way of perception” (xinjue zhi dao 心覺之道), that is, psychology, for example, Aristotle gave a false explanation of how the human mind related to external things and thus prevented scholars from recognizing the value of the human senses.54 Still more baneful was the influence of his “way of argumentation” (bianlun zhi dao 辯論之道), that is, his logic. Muirhead did not refer to any of the Jesuit efforts to introduce Aristotelian logic in China. Nor did he employ any of the terms invented by the Jesuits, so we must assume he was unaware of the Mingli tan and other texts discussed in the previous chapter. Nonetheless, his assessment read almost like a negative mirror image of earlier Jesuit acclaim. One of the less hostile remarks in Muirhead’s essay characterized Aristotelian logic thus: Aristotle’s way of argumentation is indeed profound and evidences great ingenuity. It examines the methods of thought in the human mind. Still, throughout history, this way has confused many people and led them away from external things. All it discusses are distinctions between words and therefore it is of little use to the sciences.55

In other passages Muirhead followed Bacon in asserting that Aristotelian logic had frequently served to defend glaring errors and uphold false opinions.56 Moreover, by focusing exclusively on Book I of the New Organon, “that part . . . which is devoted to pulling down,”57 Muirhead amplified the critical thrust of the work as he thus elided Bacon’s constructive efforts to formulate “a new logic,” as promised by the title

Ibid., 368. Ibid. 56 Ibid., 369. See also Gezhi huibian 2, no. 8 (1877): 53. 57 Francis Bacon, The New Organon, in idem, Works, 15 vols., ed. James Spedding, Robert Ellis, and Douglas D. Heath (London: Longman, 1860), vol. 4, 103. 54 55

haphazard overtures

103

New Organon, that would be better suited to foster the sciences.58 Consequently, in Muirhead’s version Bacon’s “new tool” appeared not so much as an attempt to revitalize logic but as an indiscriminate rejection of the “way of argumentation” per se. Muirhead further lowered the unequivocally negative image of logic by his careless use of the terms bianlun zhi dao 辯論之道 ‘the way of argumentation’ and bianlun 辯論 ‘argumentation’ as Chinese translations for a host of words related to logical operations. Introduced as renditions of the term “logic” itself in his article,59 bianlun zhi dao and bianlun were employed simultaneously for notions as diverse as “dialectic,” “syllogism,” “argumentation”/“to argue,” “reasoning,” “demonstration,” and “logical invention” in his New Tools of Science.60 As a result, entire sections of his rendition read as relentless series of condemnations of a branch of knowledge corrupted beyond repair. Aphorisms XI to XIV, for instance, appeared in Muirhead’s translation as follows: XI. As the sciences we now have are not beneficial for finding out real results, so neither is our current way of argumentation [ Bacon: “logic”] beneficial for the sciences. XII. Today’s way of argumentation [“logic”] helps people only to fortify errors rooted in their habits but does not help them to find out truths. Hence, it is not only useless but harmful. XIII. The way of argumentation [“the syllogism”] is not used today to examine the patterns of science. . . . [ I ]t is incapable of grasping the subtleties of nature. It allows people to bring together meanings but not to know things. XIV. Argumentation [“syllogisms”] consists of descriptions (chenshuo 陳說), descriptions consist of words ( yuyan 語言), and words are records of opinions ( yijian 意見). Hence, opinions are taken as the foundation. If they are as confused as unraveled silk threads, and drawn from things in the crudest manner, then the building erected on their foundation cannot be secure. Therefore, all we

58 See Michel Malherbe, “Bacon’s Critique of Logic,” in Bacon’s Legacy of Texts: The Art of Discovery Grows with Discovery, ed. William A. Sessions (New York: AMS Press, 1990), 69–88. 59 Gezhi huibian 2, no. 2 (1877): 368. For occurrences of bianlun zhi dao or bianlun as “logic,” see Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 1b (Aphorism XI), 2a (XII), 20a (LXXX), and 40a (CXXVII). 60 For bianlun zhi dao or bianlun as “dialectic,” see Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 3a (XX), 4a (XXIX), 11a (LXIII), and 14b (LXIX); “syllogism,” 2a (XIII) and 2b (XIV); “argumentation,” 3b (XXIV); “to argue,” 6a (XLIII); “reasoning,” 4b (XXXIII); “demonstration,” 14a–b (LXIX); and “logical invention,” 21a (LXXXII).

104

chapter two can hope for are patterns derived from things by pushing upward (tuishang 推上 ‘induction’).61

Further negative characterizations of Aristotle’s “way of argumentation” charged that it amplified harmful tendencies of the human mind left to itself (XX);62 that axioms established by it “will never be able to bring out new results” (XXIV);63 that it “generally forces people under the rule of thought, and thought under the rule of words” (LXIX);64 and, finally, that it “does not find out the first principles and axioms of the various arts, . . . but only such things as are consistent with them” (LXXXII).65 That Bacon intended his method of induction as “a new way of argumentation” was mentioned only once in Muirhead’s translation (CXXVII),66 and it seems unlikely that this reference softened the devastating impression of the discipline conveyed in his text. The first serious presentation of logic in nineteenth-century China could thus only deter Chinese readers from investigating the Western “way of argumentation.” 3. Logic as the Science of Debate A more positive and much more precise image of European logic emerged from the Chinese writings of Joseph Edkins (Ai Yuese 艾約瑟, 1823–1905). Edkins was the only Protestant missionary who tried more or less consistently to present a picture of Western civilization that transcended the limits dictated by the demands of the Christian faith, science, and practical utility. Already in 1857, he published a series of essays on Western literature in the Liuhe congtan 六合叢談 (Shanghae Serial ) that included biographies of Homer, Pliny, Plato, and Cicero, one of the key figures in the translation of logic from Greek

Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 1a–2b; cf. Bacon, New Organon, 48–49. Aphorism XIV is a good example of Muirhead’s indifference toward technical terms of logic. Bacon’s original passage reads: “The syllogism consists of propositions, propositions consist of words, words are symbols of notions. Therefore if the notions themselves (which is the root of the matter) are confused and over-hastily abstracted from the facts, there can be no firmness in the superstructure. Our only hope therefore lies in a true induction” (New Organon, 49). 62 Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 3a; cf. Bacon, New Organon, 50. 63 Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 3b; cf. Bacon, New Organon, 51. 64 Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 14a; cf. Bacon, New Organon, 70. 65 Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 22b; cf. Bacon, New Organon, 80. 66 Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 40a; cf. Bacon, New Organon, 112. 61

haphazard overtures

105

into Latin.67 However, in his sketch of the latter’s life Edkins only mentioned the young Cicero’s fondness of “argumentation” (bianlun 辯論) and failed to inform his readers that it was the great Roman orator who popularized the Latin term logica, which would be adapted in all European languages as the standard name for the discipline hitherto known as “dialectic” or “canonic.”68 1. Aristotle and the Syllogism In 1875, Edkins wrote a comprehensive biography of Aristotle for the Zhong-xi wenjianlu 中西聞見錄 (The Peking Magazine). While not reverting to the Jesuits’ unqualified praise, he offered a much more balanced account of the philosopher’s position in Europe’s intellectual history than Muirhead was willing to provide: [Aristotle’s writings] proved exceedingly popular. More than a thousand years after his death they were still held in high esteem in Europe and Asia. Muslims enjoyed reading them, too, and they were translated into Arabic and Farsi. Scholars in all European countries admired his works and agreed that no book apart from the Holy Scripture with its two Testaments surpassed his writings. After the division between Catholicism and Protestantism, the Catholics continued to maintain that Aristotle’s insights were true, whereas the Protestants rejected them. Consequently, many Catholics enjoyed transmitting and teaching his books, while not all Protestants adhered strictly to the old learning. Moreover, since China’s Ming dynasty, when books by the Englishmen Bacon and Newton, the Frenchman Descartes, and the German Leibniz appeared, people in the West devoted great efforts to the new science so that ever fewer scholars studied Aristotle’s patterns. For about three hundred years, Western scholars did not honor his treatises. More recently, since the Jiaqing 嘉慶 (r. 1796–1820) reign, people are again examining and editing his works, and they agree unanimously that the texts should be appreciated. Many of our contemporaries like to read them and probe whether the ancients were indeed right in saying that Aristotle’s books and philosophical teachings continue to be of great benefit to us.69

67 Joseph Edkins (Ai Yuese 艾約瑟), “Jigailuo zhuan” 基改羅傳 (Biography of Cicero), Liuhe congtan (Shanghae Serial ) 1, no. 8 (1857): 3b–4b; 4a. On Edkins’s further activities in connection with the Shanghae Serial, see “Rokugō sōdan” no gakusai teki kenkyū 六合叢談の学際的研究 (Studies on the academic aspects of the Shanghae Serial ), ed. Shen Guowei 沈國威 (Tōkyō: Hakuteisha, 1999). 68 Rudolf Eucken, Geschichte der philosophischen Terminologie (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1960 [1879]), 167. 69 Joseph Edkins, “Yalisiduodeli zhuan” 亞里斯多得里傳 (Biography of Aristotle), Zhong-xi wenjianlu, no. 32 (1875): 7a–13b; 13a.

106

chapter two

Edkins’s dispassionate approach to Aristotle’s legacy was also reflected in his treatment of the Stagirite’s contribution to European logic. Instead of tying Aristotle’s ideas to the scholastic Organon with its metaphysical baggage, Edkins only sketched the discursive art of the Analytics, which continued to be of logical interest after the decline of religious dialectic. Written in lucid prose, the so-called “easy Wen-li” that many of the more gifted foreigners preferred, his account was the first presentation of Western logic available to a wider Chinese audience and therefore deserves to be cited in full: The Analytics (xiangshen zhi li 詳審之理 ‘the patterns of detailed examination’) treat a subject no one had discussed before. Aristotle was the first to establish this science. It is divided into two parts: the Priora (ti 體) and the Posteriora ( yong 用). First to the Priora: Aristotle thought that the investigation of all things and patterns depends entirely on the proper use of the mind. When we seek out the beginnings and ends of matters, we can hope to avoid erroneous thoughts and uncertainty. When we have found out one point about a certain matter in this way, but do not yet know all of the remainder, we must thoroughly think through and probe what we know already in order to find out what we do not know yet. In this manner, we can make the matter clear in our heads, just like good archers who, holding fast their bows and arrows, will first examine the arrows’ stability before releasing them and hitting their targets with certainty. The Posteriora discuss two aspects: First, in all learning and instruction we must follow a definite sequence and proceed step by step; we must never fail to follow the proper order. If in judging the right and wrong or the primary and secondary [of a matter], we deceive by omitting or distorting the facts, our knowledge will not be pure. Second, if our knowledge is complete and our minds are free from doubt, we may use it to rectify others where they are wrong and to correct scholarly errors. However, in order to do so, we need a method to correct fallacies by which we can distinguish whether or not there are any mistakes in our judgments of true and false or right and wrong. Only when we can make others understand their errors will we be able to correct them. Once Aristotle had established the theory of this science, all later scholars relied on it to enlighten others. [Confucius’s method] to “raise one [corner of a square] and [let students] infer the other three” ( juyi fansan 舉一反三) is not at all different from the patterns of this Aristotelian science. There is no other way to teach.70

70

Ibid., 11a–b. The locus classicus for Confucius’s didactic principle is Lunyu VII, 8.

haphazard overtures

107

Edkins then offered a concise description of the syllogism that he presented as the core of Aristotle’s logic: The order of argumentation (bianlun zhi xu 辯論之序) devised by Aristotle is a perfectly certain and unchangeable theory. Neither refined and learned gentlemen in their searches for truth nor peasants in the mountain wilderness in their disputes about petty matters can stray from the rules of argumentation (bianlun zhi ju 辯論之矩) established by Aristotle. [Aristotle’s] method is like an ascending flight of steps. Like a flight of stairs, it has three steps, the first, the middle, and the last. When we have climbed up the first and the middle step, we must eventually climb up the last step to arrive at the top; this will never change. If we take “Humans die when they get old” as the first step and we know that “I too am old” is the middle step, then, eventually, the last step is that “I too must die.” This is an entirely certain and immutable pattern. Likewise, when we wish to examine whether or not two things A ( jia 甲) and B ( yi 乙) are equal, we must seek out a thing C (bing 丙) that is equal to B. If B is equal to C, and when we further find through comparison that A is also equal to C, then we know that A must be equal to B. In the above example, “B is equal to C” is the first step; “A is also equal to C” is the middle step; and, finally, knowing that “A must be equal to B” is the last step. “Explaining a hundred things from knowing one” and “One root, ten thousand branches”—these are apt words to describe this perfect pattern of the three successive steps. In Western languages, it is called “syllogism” (xiluojisimosi 西羅吉斯莫斯), and the name of this Aristotelian science as a whole is “logic” (luojige 羅吉格).71

Due to its brevity, Edkins’s description of the “perfect pattern of the three successive steps” could certainly not serve as a practical guide to the use of the syllogism. However, for the first time in nineteenthcentury China, readers were offered a recognizable portrait of a model of formal reasoning and thus an important aspect of the Western science named luojige. 2. William Stanley Jevons and His Logic In the 1880s, Edkins made a more substantial contribution to the dissemination of European logic in China in the context of a translation project initiated and financed by Robert Hart (He De 赫德, 1835– 1911), the influential director of the Qing Inspectorate of Customs.72 Following Hart’s invitation, Edkins had joined the Maritime Customs

71 72

Edkins, “Yalisiduodeli zhuan,” 12a. On Hart’s activities in China, see, e.g., Spence, To Change China, 112–128.

108

chapter two

Office in 1880 as an accredited translator. One of his first duties was to render into Chinese a series of high school textbooks which Hart, encouraged by Viceroy Li Hongzhang 李鴻章 (1823–1901), intended to submit to the Beijing College of Foreign Languages (Tongwenguan 同文館) and other government schools in order to strengthen science instruction.73 Hart chose one of the most popular series in contemporary Britain and America as texts of departure for this enterprise: the Science Primers, a collection of fifteen slim volumes edited by the renowned scientists Henry Roscoe, Thomas H. Huxley, and Balfour Stewart.74 Volume 13 of this series was a primer of Logic written by William Stanley Jevons, an author who is today mainly remembered as an economist. In his own day, however, Jevons was regarded as one of the preeminent European logicians.75 In his logical writings as well as in his extensive works devoted to what would now be called the philosophy of science, he strongly opposed the overenthusiastic inductionism of John Stuart Mill that had dominated logical discussions in England since the publication of the latter’s System of Logic in 1843, much to the detriment of deductive reasoning.76 Although insisting that logic was a philosophical rather than a mathematical discipline, Jevons recognized the value of George Boole’s revolutionary algebra of logic, which proved to be one of the most important steps in the formation of modern mathematical logic. Through his adaptations of Boole’s symbolic language in his methodology of the sciences, Jevons helped to enlarge the audience for the emerging new logic beyond the disciplinary confines of mathematics.77 His most original contribution to the study of logic was probably his “logical piano,” a machine for the mechanical representation of human inferences that solved a limited number of logical equations at superhuman speed.78 Yet most 73 Wang Yangzong 王揚宗, “Hexuli Kexue daolun de liangge Zhongyiben” 赫胥黎科學導論的兩個中譯本 (Two Chinese translations of T. H. Huxley’s Introductory Science Primer), Zhongguo keji shiliao 21, no. 3 (2000): 207–221. On Hart’s previous activities in the service of the Beijing Tongwenguan, see Biggerstaff, Earliest Modern Government Schools, 108, 120–124. 74 On this series, see Elman, On Their Own Terms, 321–324. 75 Norman T. Gridgeman, “Jevons, William Stanley,” in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Charles C. Gillispie (New York: Scribner’s, 1972), vol. 7, 103–107. 76 See Peckhaus, “Nineteenth-Century Logic,” 445; and idem, Logik, 216. 77 Peckhaus, “Nineteenth-Century Logic,” 444–445. 78 W. Mays and D. P. Henry, “Jevons and Logic,” Mind, n.s., 62, no. 248 (1953): 493–499. Jevons’s “piano” is preserved in the Oxford Museum of the History of Science.

haphazard overtures

109

of Jevons’s logical insights were soon superseded because he paid too little attention to the logic of relations and quantification theory, the most productive lines of inquiry in the final decades of the nineteenth century and beyond.79 Although Jevons’s theoretical work did not stand the test of time, his textbooks in logic were held in high esteem for many decades and translated into several European languages.80 Through these works, he also became the most translated author in the early phase of the appropriation of Western logic in Meiji Japan.81 Jevons had an extraordinary talent for presenting complex problems in clear and simple language. He made a point to avoid “superfluous technical terms” wherever possible and “abstained from putting forward any views not commonly accepted by teachers of logic.”82 This was not to say that he entirely suppressed recent logical discoveries. Rather, his aim was “to show that logic, even in its traditional form,” could be made “a highly useful subject of study, and a powerful means of mental exercise.”83 The logic Jevons presented in accordance with this uncontroversial approach was an easily digestible variety of late traditional syllogistics with an added emphasis on the application of logical procedures to the methodology of empirical research. The volume he wrote for the Science Primers series was an abridged and simplified version of his Elementary Lessons in Logic of 1870, his earliest and most successful textbook. Like the Elementary Lessons, Jevons’s Logic primer devoted about two thirds of its text to deductive reasoning, presented according to the traditional division into three parts dealing with terms, propositions, and syllogisms. The chapters on terms explained different kinds of terms and their properties, sources of ambiguity, and procedures for definition and classification.84 In his

Ibid., 484–485. Christian Thiel, “Jevons,” in Enzyklopädie Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie, ed. Jürgen Mittelstrass et al. (Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 1996 [1984]), vol. 2, 310–313; 311. 81 Funayama Shin’ichi 船山信一, Meiji ronrigakushi kenkyū 明治論理学史研究 (Studies in the history of logic during the Meiji period) (Tōkyō: Risōsha, 1968), 36, 272–273. See also Dale Riepe, “Selected Chronology of Recent Japanese Philosophy (1868–1963),” Philosophy East and West 15, nos. 3–4 (1965): 259–284; 264. 82 William Stanley Jevons, Elementary Lessons in Logic: Deductive and Inductive (London: Macmillan, 1886 [1870]), vii. 83 Ibid., v. 84 William Stanley Jevons, Logic, in Science Primer Series, ed. Thomas H. Huxley, Henry Roscoe, and Balfour Stewart (London: Macmillan and New York: Appleton, 1876), 15–20, 20–27, 27–37. 79 80

110

chapter two

discussion of propositions, Jevons paid particular attention to the implications of the quantity and quality of propositions inasmuch as they affected conversions.85 His presentation of the syllogism relied mainly on Aristotle’s rules, although he recognized that modern logicians had suggested “simpler and better mode[s] of ascertaining when arguments are good.”86 Since he was convinced that students who understood Aristotle’s “ingenious” principles did not need to memorize the various moods of the syllogism (as represented in the mnemonic verse “Barbara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio,” etc.),87 Jevons spent little time on this aspect. Instead, he dedicated separate chapters to syllogisms involving hypothetical (“if Jones was a good teacher . . .”) and disjunctive propositions (“a crime is either treason, or a felony, or a misdemeanor . . .”), thus acknowledging that many good logical arguments we make in daily life do not obey the rules of classical syllogistics.88 One characteristic of his account of deductive reasoning was his insistence that inferences consisted in general of what he called the “substitution of similars or the passing from like to like.”89 Accordingly, his “great rule of inference,” which sounds rather awkward today, stipulated that “whatever is true of one term is true of any term which is stated to be the same in meaning as that term.”90 The remaining chapters of the primer were devoted to inductive reasoning and its applications in natural science and ordinary life. Jevons understood induction as the simple inverse operation of deduction. Contrary to Mill, however, he was under no illusion about the provisional nature of all scientific “truth” and consequently stressed the necessity to guard against all kinds of errors in conclusions drawn inductively from empirical observation and experiment. According to Jevons, the great discoveries of modern science were the results of four different steps of inductive reasoning: (1) preliminary observation; (2) the making of hypotheses; (3) deductive reasoning; and (4) verification.91 In his explanations of each of these steps, Jevons highlighted the value of hypothetical “anticipations of nature” as well as the dangers Ibid., 37–53. Ibid., 57. 87 On the mnemonic names of the moods of the syllogism, see I. M. Bochenski, Formale Logik, 5th ed. ( Freiburg: Alber, 1996), 77–80. 88 Jevons, Logic, 69–73. 89 Ibid., 75. 90 Ibid., 73. 91 Ibid., 78–91. 85 86

haphazard overtures

111

of “hasty and false” generalizations, unwarranted analogies, and other common fallacies in reasoning from particular cases to general laws.92 Like all volumes in the Science Primers series, the book concluded with a list of study questions on each of the text’s twenty-seven chapters.93 3. Edkins and Jevons’s Science of Debate Joseph Edkins did not leave any account of his translation of the Science Primers besides the remark that his labors extended over a period of five years.94 It is therefore difficult to determine whether he found the task of rendering the Logic primer more challenging than the translation of volumes treating more conventional subjects such as arithmetic or history. In any event, he obviously did not attribute any particular importance to the Logic. In the Brief Description of Western Knowledge (Xixue lüeshu 西學略述), the introductory volume he wrote for the Chinese edition of the Primers, Edkins presented the discipline only very briefly as one of the three subjects of classical European “philosophy” (lixue 理學): When philosophical studies were first established in Greece they were divided into three branches: physics ( gezhi lixue 格致理學 ‘the philosophy of the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge’), which elucidates the patterns of all natural things and substances; ethics (xinglixue 性理學 ‘the philosophy of human nature’), which elucidates the patterns of the moral obligations with which every human being is endowed; and logic (lunbian lixue 論辯理學 ‘the philosophy of argumentation’), which elucidates how humans distinguish between true and false by means of words.95

Later in the same chapter, Edkins supplied two further references to logic under two different names when crediting Aristotle with founding the “science of rational argumentation” (libianxue 理辯學), and relating that Cicero exerted all his powers in his studies of “rational” and “verbal debate,” that is, logic (libian 理辨) and rhetoric (koubian 口辨).96 But he nowhere suggested why or in which ways the discipline might be of interest to Chinese readers.

Ibid., 92–106, 107–128. Ibid., 129–135. 94 Joseph Edkins, Xixue lüeshu 西學略述 (Brief description of Western knowledge) (Beijing: Zong shuiwusi, 1886), preface, 1b. 95 Edkins, Xixue lüeshu, 5:43a. 96 Ibid., 5:47a–b. 92 93

112

chapter two

In the short preface to his rendition of Jevons’s Logic that was published under the title Primer of Logic (Bianxue qimeng 辨學啟蒙) in 1886, Edkins showed similar reservations. Besides praising Aristotle once again as the founder of the discipline and highlighting that logic had been taught since antiquity in European universities, he only stated that “the science of debate (bianxue 辨學) distinguishes between proper and improper arguments” and may thus help to resolve human disputes.97 In addition, he pointed out that the subject matter of “the science of debate,” despite the similarity in name, had nothing to do with apologetic Jesuit writings such as Matteo Ricci’s Bianxue yidu 辨學遺牘 (Testament in defense of the faith).98 Although he may not have felt passionately about the subject, Edkins had no choice but to invest considerable effort into the rendition of Jevons’s primer. After all, his translation was the first monograph on European logic to become available in the Chinese language since the publication of the Mingli tan more than two hundred and fifty years earlier, so that he had almost no precedent from which to borrow an adequate, let alone established nomenclature.99 With the

97 Joseph Edkins (trans.), Bianxue qimeng 辨學啟蒙 (Primer of logic), in idem, Gezhi qimeng 格致啟蒙 (Science primers) (Beijing: Zong shuiwusi, 1886), preface, 1a. 98 Matteo Ricci, Bianxue yidu 辨學遺牘 (Testament in defense of the faith) (1623), reprinted in Tianxue chuhan, vol. 2, 637–688. The Bianxue yidu, a collection of letters refuting Buddhist doctrines, was one of many Jesuit works in which the expression bianxue was used in the sense of “apologetics” or, literally, “defending the faith.” It is therefore not easy to see why many historians of Chinese logic credit Ricci, instead of Edkins, with coining bianxue as a rendering of the term “logic” (see, e.g., Dong Zhitie, “Luoji yiming,” 25; Zhou Yunzhi, Mingbianxue lun, 3). Even at the time when he published his translation, Edkins’s concern about possible misreadings of the term bianxue was not entirely unfounded. As we have seen, bianxue had been employed as a translation of the ars disserendi in the Mingli tan and the Xixue fan. In addition, E. Faber (“Deguo xuexiao,” 19:2a) had used the term as a rendition of “rhetoric.” Although there is no evidence that Edkins was aware of these conflicting choices, they certainly may have led to confusion among monolingual Chinese readers. 99 Following Wang Dianji, Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi, 405–406, who seems to have been the first to make this assertion, quite a few historians of Chinese logic claim that unspecified missionaries had published a work on European logic entitled Mingxue leitong 名學類通 at a certain Lexuexi tang 樂學溪堂 in 1824. Yet, neither Wang nor any of his followers provides more than a reference to the title, and none appears to have expended much effort to find the book. Had they done so, they could have easily discovered that the claim was based on an anachronistic misreading of the term mingxue, which would become a common designation for logic in the sense of “the science of names” only at the turn of the twentieth century (see below). In the actual work whose citation Wang uncovered, the expression is used in its historically more conventional meaning of “famous scholars.” See Zhu Wenhan 朱文韓 ( jinshi under

haphazard overtures

113

exception of some omissions and additions, which will be discussed below, his translation closely followed Jevons’s text. Unaware of the Jesuit terminology,100 or perhaps unwilling to use it, Edkins created an entirely new set of Chinese expressions to represent the conceptual lexicon of Jevons’s logic. His approach to the task differed markedly from the strategy Li Zhizao had adopted in the Mingli tan. Apart from bianxue for “logic” itself, Edkins coined only a very limited number of technical terms. The reason was not that he was able to identify existing Chinese equivalents of logical notions that Li had overlooked, but rather that he seemed reluctant to challenge his readers with too many unfamiliar words. Instead of propagating new terms, Edkins resorted to paraphrasing alien notions on the basis of their etymologies or definitions. The length and awkwardness of some of his paraphrases suggests areas where he thought equivalences were especially hard to find. “Concrete terms,” for instance, were rendered in the Bianxue qimeng as “terms [ literally: limiting words] for corporeal entities” ( you tizhi shiwu zhi jieyu 有體質實物之界語) or “terms attached to an entity for the sake of further description” (tiefu shiwu jiayi xingrong zhi jieyu 貼附實物 加以形容之界語); “abstract terms” as “terms illuminating the shape of real things” (zhaoxian shiwu xingshi zhi jieyu 照顯實物形式之界語) or, shorter, “terms describing the shape of things” (shenming wu xingshi zhi jieyu 申明物形式之界語). ( For further variations, see Table 2.1 at the end of this chapter, item 2.20.) “Hypothetical propositions” appeared as “sentences starting with words like if or when” (shouguan ru ruo deng zi zhi yuju 首冠如若等字之語句) (3.16). “Reasoning” was introduced as “the method to push on, estimate, and anticipate” (tuichuai niliao zhi fa 推揣逆料之法); “deduction” as “the method of inferring [ literally: pushing on and explaining] descriptions by relying on patterns in order to calculate things” ( pingli duowu zhi tuichanfa 憑理度物之推闡法); and

Jiaqing 嘉慶, r. 1796–1820), 名學類通 (Classified anthology of famous scholars), n.p., n.d. The longevity of this unsubstantiated assertion is a good example of the historical disinterest that characterizes studies into this period of the history of logic in China. 100 Since references to the Mingli tan are exceedingly rare throughout the nineteenth century, Edkins may well have been ignorant of the text’s existence. One of the few scholars who referred to the book at all (in an edition comprising ten juan) was the above-mentioned Wang Tao. See Wang Tao 王韜, Taixi zhushu kao 泰西著述考 (Notes on books written by Westerners), in idem, Taoyuan xixue jicun 弢園西學輯存 (Collected papers on Western knowledge by Wang Tao) (Shanghai: n.p., 1890), 5a.

114

chapter two

“induction” as “the method of discernment by approaching things in order to examine patterns” ( jiwu chali zhi bianfa 即物察理之辨法). ( For variations, see 1.2, 4.2, and 4.3.) The “syllogism,” finally, with which Edkins had already struggled in his “Biography of Aristotle,” was now transformed into “a judgment arrived at by sequentially linking three sentences” (san yuju cidi liancheng zhi lunduanyu 三語句次第連 成之論斷語) (4.13).101 In some cases, Edkins’s paraphrases were not merely inelegant but misleading. For instance, he used the same pair of glosses for the terms “particular”/“universal” and “distributed”/“undistributed,” namely “including all and everything concerned” (baokuo zhi yu jintouchu 包括至於盡頭處) and “including not all and everything concerned” (baokuo weizhi jintouchu 包括未至盡頭處) (3.13–14 and 3.21–26). Although this suggestion was not implausible per se—a proposition is said to be distributed when its predicate is taken universally—it made it difficult to translate passages such as the definition of “distributed” just cited. A more serious instance of similar paraphrases implying false conceptual interrelations was his use of “words describing the shape” (shenming xingshi yu 申明形式語) for “predicate” that was nearly identical with his renditions of “abstract term” cited above (3.4 and 2.20). One area of particular difficulty for Edkins, as well as many later translators, was the adaptation of the notions explaining propositions and their constituent parts. When he embarked on his translation project, no grammar of the Chinese language had been written in Chinese,102 so that he had to invent not only terms marking the difference between “propositions” and “sentences”—which he attempted to do by referring to the former as “complete phrases/statements” (wanquan yuju 完全語句) or “phrases/statements describing facts” (shenming shishi zhi yuju 申明事實之語句)—but also for the terms “subject,” “predicate,” and “copula.” “Subjects” were labeled “words of special importance” (zhuanzhongyu 專重語) in the Bianxue qimeng; “predicates” were turned into “descriptive words” (shenmingyu 申明語); and the

101 Further examples of wordy paraphrases included Edkins’s renditions of “antecedent” and “consequent” (4.11 and 4.12), “generalization” (5.12), and “analogy” (5.13). 102 See Victor H. Mair, “Ma Jianzhong and the Invention of Chinese Grammar,” in Studies on the History of Chinese Syntax, ed. Chaofen Sun (Berkeley: Journal of Chinese Linguistics Monograph Series, 1997), 5–26.

haphazard overtures

115

“copula” was transformed into “a verb [literally: a living word] connecting and completing phrases” (lianluo chengju zhi huozi 聯洛成句之 活字) or, in short, a “connective word” (lianluozi 聯洛字) (3.1–3.5). When presenting these new terms in one of the most compact paragraphs of his translation, Edkins mentioned that the subject-copulapredicate structure was more obvious in Western sentences, but he abstained from a more detailed analysis of the syntactic differences between Chinese and European languages. As a Chinese example of a “connecting verb,” he cited the word wei 為 ‘to do, to become, to act/ serve as, to deem’, as in the proposition ci xun wei mogu 此蕈為蘑菇 (“this fungus is [to be deemed] a mushroom”).103 In regard to phonemic loans, Edkins adopted a position similar to Li Zhizao’s in that he employed them only to provide his readers with the Western pronunciations of central terms. Examples include luojige 羅吉格 for “logic” (1.1), de’erma 得耳馬 for “term” (2.1), gebula 哥布拉 for “copula” (3.5), and xiluojisimu 西鑼基斯摩 for “syllogism” (4.13). In all these instances, Edkins immediately offered an additional “more Chinese,” that is, less obviously foreign-derived semantic rendition: bianxue 辨學 ‘the science of debate’, jieyu 界語 ‘limiting word’ or jie 界 ‘limit’, lianluozi 聯洛字 ‘connective’, and sanyuju lunduanyu 三語句論斷語 ‘judgment in three sentences’. Even where he coined or adopted more term-like solutions, Edkins almost always introduced more than one rendition. In some instances, his intention was apparently to illustrate in which ways a Western notion related to common Chinese words. Thus, “inference” (4.1) could be rendered alternatively by the roughly equivalent lexemes tuichu 推出 ‘push on and find out’, tuichan 推闡 ‘push on and explain’, and tuichuai 推揣 ‘push on and estimate’. “Fallacy” (4.21) could be rendered by chamiu 差謬 ‘error, delusion’, yubing 語病 ‘faulty wording’, chawu 差誤 ‘error, mistake’, and wangyan 妄言 ‘wild talk, lies’. In other 103 Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 3b–4a; cf. Jevons, Logic, 13–14. According to Graham, “Being,” 326–329, when used in sentences attributing “roles,” which are expressed in Western languages by means of the copula “is” (“He is a soldier”), wei “can hardly be called a copula: it has the flavor of an active verb, ‘to act as’ . . . wei jun 為君 ‘be ruler’.” Neither is wei to be seen as a copula when used in connection with adjectives (“He is tall”). In phrases such as min wei gui 民為貴, it must rather be understood in the sense “x is to be deemed y,” here: “The common folk is to be deemed valuable.” Pulleyblank calls wei a “copula verb” when used to indicate temporal roles, but he would certainly agree with Graham that wei is no equivalent for all functions of the English “is.” See Edwin G. Pulleyblank, Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1995), 20–21.

116

chapter two

cases, Edkins increased the impression of conceptual fluidity for no obvious reason by offering two or more similar renditions of the same term, for instance, by using zhuanyu 專語 ‘special word’ and zhuanming 專名 ‘special name’ for “singular term”; tongyu 同語 ‘common word’ and tongming 同名 ‘common name’ for “general term”; and hunlunyu 渾論語 ‘word talking about everything’ and zongming 總名 ‘comprehensive name’ for “collective term” (2.14–16). Compared to the lexical problems, the cultural adaptations necessary to make Jevons’s primer acceptable to Chinese readers were minor issues. Edkins generally handled them with ease, for example, by transposing allusions to European circumstances into Chinese cultural contexts. Thus, the British statesmen Gladstone and Disraeli were replaced by the Tang literati Han Yu 韓愈 (768–842) and Liu Zongyuan 柳宗元 (773–819);104 the impersonal “John Robinson” was rebaptized Zhang Jia 張甲;105 and a syllogism involving the city of Manchester and its cathedral was rephrased to refer to Jinan and the Yamen, or residence, of the provincial governor.106 Where Jevons illustrated polysemy through the example of the word “church,” which may refer either to a building or to a denomination (Church of England, Church of Rome), Edkins made his point with reference to Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, and added a phrase invoking the provisions in the Treaty of Nanjing concerning “religious freedom,” or unobstructed missionary activity.107 In general, however, religious and ideological considerations did not interfere with his translation. He neither changed a passage in which Jevons asserted that logic is unable to prove the existence of the Christian God,108 nor did he alter racist examples involving “white” and “nonwhite” peoples—a distinction that was considered to be self-evident by many teachers of logic in the age of imperialism—even though Chinese readers might have taken offense at being likened to the “swarthier” races.109 In the difficult case of examples based on specific properties of the English lexicon or syntax, Edkins proved to be equally creative. Jevons’s explanation of ambiguities that can be exploited in puns (“a rake may

104 105 106 107 108 109

Edkins, Edkins, Edkins, Edkins, Edkins, Edkins,

Bianxue Bianxue Bianxue Bianxue Bianxue Bianxue

qimeng, qimeng, qimeng, qimeng, qimeng, qimeng,

31a; cf. Jevons, Logic, 72. 55a; cf. Jevons, Logic, 121. 29b–30a; cf. Jevons, Logic, 69. 8b–9a; cf. Jevons, Logic, 23. 54b; cf. Jevons, Logic, 120. 24b–25b, 32a; cf. Jevons, Logic, 60–61, 74.

haphazard overtures

117

be either a garden implement, or a fast young man”), for instance, was conveyed through li babai 李八百, which can be understood either as the name of the Daoist immortal Li Babai or as “eight hundred plums.”110 Finally, in a passage in which Jevons explained that not all propositions contain subject, copula, and predicate in exactly that order, Edkins used phrases such as Fu zai yan hu 富哉言呼 (“Truly rich is his saying!,” Lunyu XII, 22) from the Confucian canon in order to illustrate inversion, and amplified Jevons’s statement that the copula was not always distinctly expressed by pointing out that this was especially true in Chinese “because it is simpler than the languages of the Western nations.”111 Later commentators have not been kind in their assessments of Edkins’s labors. The general view among modern authors who go beyond listing the title of his work in their accounts of logic in modern China appears to be that his translation was “clumsy and awkward” because “even the renditions of the most basic logical notions differ widely from modern terms.”112 Although it is hardly fair, or logical, to fault Edkins for not anticipating a terminology that was yet to be invented, even contemporaries were divided over his merits. Writing in 1896, Liang Qichao said about the Chinese versions of the Science Primers that “the translation is unfortunately very weak. It is verbose and obscure, almost impossible to read. Still, one cannot afford to ignore these books.”113 Huang Qingcheng, on the other hand, found the renditions “clear and fluent.”114 To readers familiar with the hybrid scientific literature that had emerged in nineteenth-century China, the Primers were certainly not incomprehensible. Yet, Edkins’s translation strategy of using paraphrases in lieu of terms gave his text a somewhat vague appearance and made it difficult to learn or even recognize the conceptual vocabulary of the Western “science of debate.” The only term from the Bianxue qimeng that gained some currency in late imperial China was the name he coined to denote the discipline itself: bianxue, which set the study of logic on a par with other sciences, such Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 9b; cf. Jevons, Logic, 24. Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 16a–b; cf. Jevons, Logic, 39. 112 Li Kuangwu, Zhongguo luojishi, vol. 4, 130. See also Zhou Zongkuan, Luoji bainian, 10–11. For a more balanced assessment, see Yang Peisun, Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi jiaocheng, 291–292. 113 Liang Qichao, “Du Xixue shu fa,” 6b–7a. 114 Huang Qingcheng, Putong shumubiao, 7a. See Zou Zhenhuan, Yilin jiuzong, 60–61. 110 111

118

chapter two

as chemistry (huaxue 化學), mathematics (shuxue 數學), the physical sciences of “light” ( guangxue 光學 optics), “sound” (shengxue 聲學 acoustics), “weights” or “forces” (zhongxue 重學 or lixue 力學 mechanics), “heat” (rexue 熱學 thermodynamics), “electricity” (dianxue 電學), and philosophy (lixue 理學, zhixue 智學, xingxue 性學, etc.), whose status as independent fields of inquiry was signaled in their contemporary designations by the suffix -xue 學 ‘area of knowledge, science’.115 Yet, the increase in nominal prestige was not accompanied by a rise in interest. Neither the moderate commercial success of the Primers nor the fact that the logic presented in the Bianxue qimeng had little in common with the handmaiden of the Christian faith taught and practiced by the Jesuits, sufficed to arouse noticeable curiosity. 4. Logic as the Science of Discerning Truth Irrespective of the success or failure of Edkins’s translation, there is no indication that the Bianxue qimeng was used as a textbook, as Hart had intended, in any Chinese school or college prior to the year 1902. Throughout the nineteenth century, logic remained absent from the curricula of virtually all institutions teaching “Western knowledge” to Chinese students. None of the most influential educational enterprises initiated by Protestant missionaries with or without the support of the Chinese government made any attempt to institute courses on the subject.116

115 In addition, Edkins’s introduction of logic as one of the three classical branches of Western philosophy resurfaced more or less verbatim in a number of texts written for the popular essay contests held at the Shanghai Polytechnic Institution. See, e.g., Zhong Tianwei 鍾天緯, “Gezhi shuo” 格致說 (An explanation of science) (1889), reprinted in Huangchao jingshiwen sanbian 皇朝經世文三編 (Third collection of essays on statecraft), ed. Chen Zhongyi 陳忠倚 (Taibei: Guofeng, 1965 [1898]), vol. 1, 203– 205; 203. On the contents of the essay contests in general, see Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian, 362–391; and Elman, On Their Own Terms, 334–351. 116 According to some accounts, logic was taught to pupils of Western and Chinese descent at the Anglo-Chinese College ( Ying-Hua shuyuan 英華書院) in Malacca in the 1820s. Cf. Lindsay Ride, Robert Morrison: The Scholar and the Man (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1957), 22. However, this claim is based on a misreading of the college’s curriculum, which includes “ethics” (lunli 倫理) but not “logic” (lunli 論理). See Zhongguo jindai xuezhi shiliao 中國近代學制史料 (Materials on the history of the modern Chinese education system), ed. Zhu Youhuan 朱有瓛 et al. (Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1983–1993), vol. 4, 3–22; 7–8. See also Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian, 123–129.

haphazard overtures

119

1. Logic in Late-Nineteenth-Century Chinese Education One school in China that taught logic during the second half of the nineteenth century was the Jesuit seminary in Shanghai. After the reestablishment of their order in 1814, Jesuit missionaries had returned to China in 1841117 and built their headquarters on the grounds of the former residence of Matteo Ricci’s mentor and cotranslator Xu Guangqi in Zikawei (Xujiahui 徐家匯), then still a village eight kilometers to the southwest of the rapidly expanding treaty-port.118 Due to its protected location, Zikawei soon became a harbor for old and new Chinese Christians uprooted by famine, droughts, and rebellions. The Jesuits accommodated the steady and, to them, highly welcome influx of souls by continuously expanding the facilities in the vicinity of their central residence.119 Among the first additions were a church, an orphanage, a library, various workshops, and a boarding school, the Collège St. Ignace.120 In 1862, they opened a major seminary (da xiuyuan 大修院) with the aim of enabling talented boarding school students to continue their Christian education and strengthen the ranks of the native clergy.121 Initially located in Shanghai’s outer suburb of Dongjiadu 董家渡, the seminary was relocated to new premises in Zikawei in 1868. In both locations, the number of novices remained small. Instruction followed the revised version of the Jesuit Ratio studiorum adopted in 1832 more or less closely.122 The educator Ma Xiangbo 馬相伯 (1840–1939), who was ordained as a priest in 1870 after having studied for six years at the seminary, recalls that he spent three years reading European mathematics and philosophy under the direction

117 See David E. Mungello, “The Return of the Jesuits to China in 1841 and the Chinese Christian Backlash,” Sino-Western Cultural Relations Journal 27 (2005): 9–46. 118 Joseph de La Servière, Histoire de la mission du Kiang-nan. Jésuites de la Province de France (Paris) (1840–1899) (Shanghai: Imprimerie de T’ou-sé-wé, 1914), vol. 2, 91–92. 119 For a general overview, see Guy Brossollet, Les Français de Shanghai, 1849–1949 (Paris: Bellin, 1999), 159–170. 120 On the history of the Zikawei Library, see Gail King, “The Xujiahui (Zikawei) Library of Shanghai,” Libraries and Culture 32, no. 4 (1997): 456–462. The statutes of the Collège St. Ignace (Xuhui gongxue 徐匯公學) are preserved in Chinese translation in Zhongguo jindai xuezhi shiliao, vol. 4, 225–230. 121 La Servière, Histoire, 92–94. 122 Gil, La pedagogía de los Jesuitas, 33–45. See also Ruan Renze 阮仁澤 and Gao Zhennong 高振農, eds., Shanghai zongjiaoshi 上海宗教史 (History of religion in Shanghai) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1992), 667–671.

120

chapter two

of Angelo Zottoli (Chao Deli 晁德蒞, 1826–1902).123 Although Ma only relates that the philosophical texts he studied included Aristotle and Aquinas (and hence consisted of traditional scholastic lore), a list of final examination topics from Dongjiadu indicates that philosophical instruction at the seminary entailed at least a basic introduction to logic. In 1866, for instance, examinees were required to answer six questions on logical subjects ranging from the rules of the syllogism through the reliability of human memory and testimony to the role of the senses in gaining and ascertaining “infallible certainty.”124 Yet, the language of instruction at the seminary was Latin rather than Chinese125 and there is no evidence that any of the logical notions students learned there were translated into the Chinese conceptual lexicon before the turn of the twentieth century. The only school in nineteenth-century China that taught logic in the Chinese language appears to have been St. John’s College (Sheng Yuehan shuyuan 聖約翰書院) in Shanghai. Although the discipline was not mentioned in the college’s inaugural statutes of 1879,126 courses in a subject called bianshixue 辯實學 ‘the science of discerning truth’ were advertised in February 1880 in the Shanghai daily Shenbao 申報.127 Yet, neither the school’s records nor later studies mentioned that the course was actually taught as a separate unit.128 Rather, logic was treated in the framework of a course in psychology developed and

Ma Xiangbo 馬相伯, Yiri yitan 一日一談 (Daily conversations) (1936), reprinted in Ma Xiangbo ji 馬相伯集 (The works of Ma Xiangbo), ed. Zhu Weizheng 朱維 錚 (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1996), 1070–1168; 1083–1084. See also Li Tiangang 李天綱, “Xinyang yu chuantong—Ma Xiangbo de zongjiao shengya” 信仰與傳統—馬相伯的宗教生涯 ( Faith and tradition: Ma Xiangbo’s religious life), in ibid., 1227–1278; 1243–1244. On Zottoli, see Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 3, 260– 262. 124 “Examen de tota Philosophia, anno 1866” (Examination in the whole philosophy, 1866), in “Zi-ka-wei, Séminaires” (Archives Françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, Fonds Chinois 303), 1a. See Joachim Kurtz, “Messenger of the Sacred Heart: Li Wenyu (1840–1911) and the Jesuit Periodical Press in Late Qing Shanghai,” in From Woodblocks to the Internet: Chinese Publishing and Print Culture in Transition, circa 1800 to 2008, ed. Cynthia Brokaw and Christopher A. Reed (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 81–110. 125 Zhang Tiansong 張天松, Ma Xiangbo xiansheng dushu shenghuo 馬相伯先生讀書 生活 (The scholarly life of Mr. Ma Xiangbo) (Hong Kong: Gongjiao zhenli xuehui, 1950), 34–36. 126 Zhongguo jindai xuezhi shiliao, vol. 4, 435–447. 127 Shenbao 申報, February 3, 1880, p. 6. 128 See Mary Lamberton, St. John’s University Shanghai, 1879–1951 (New York: United Board for Christian Colleges in China, 1955), 8–9, 11–17. 123

haphazard overtures

121

taught by the Anglican Reverend Yan Yongjing 顏永京 (1839–1898).129 As one of the first Chinese overseas students, Yan had studied theology and a variety of other subjects at Kenyon College in Ohio from 1854 to 1861. Upon his return to China, he had served alternately as a minister and a teacher of English in a number of Christian schools and colleges before joining the preparatory faculty of St. John’s in 1878 as a professor of mathematics, natural philosophy, and theology.130 Yan based his class in psychology, the first of its kind in China, on translations from a book that he had come to appreciate while studying in the United States, Joseph Haven’s Mental Philosophy.131 Haven, a devout Protestant and professor of “Intellectual and Moral Philosophy” at Amherst College, conceived of psychology as an all-inclusive “science of mind,” covering not only the operations of the human intellect, which he took to include an innate sense of beauty and morality, but also sensibilities, that is, emotions, affections, and desires, as well as the will, which he described as a faculty of choice intimately connected with the truths of the Christian religion.132 In the context of his deliberations on the human intellect’s “reflective power”—the third of our four powers of presentation, representation, reflection, and intuition—Haven devoted one chapter to the analytic process of reasoning in which he offered a brief discussion of questions that he identified as belonging to the realm of formal logic, namely, the analysis of propositions and the rules and forms of the syllogism.133 According to Haven’s psychologistic view, logic described “certain general forms into which all reasoning may be cast, and which, according to the laws of thought, it naturally assumes.” These forms were to be considered by psychologists in so far as they “depend upon the laws of thought, and are merely modes of mental activity as exercised in reasoning.”134

129 Li Xisuo 李喜所, Jindai liuxuesheng yu Zhongwai wenhua 近代留學生與中外文化 (Modern overseas students and Chinese and foreign culture) (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1992), 136–140. 130 See Zhao Liru 趙莉如, “Youguan ‘Xinlingxue’ yi shu de yanjiu” 有關《心靈 學》一書的研究 (A study of the book Xinlingxue [The science of the soul]), Xinli xuebao 4 (1983): 380–387; 382–383. See also Zhongguo jiaohui xuexiaoshi 中國教會學校史 (History of Christian schools in modern China), ed. Gao Shiliang 高時良 (Changsha: Hunan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1994), 133–134. 131 Joseph Haven, Mental Philosophy: Including the Intellect, Sensibilities, and Will (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1857). 132 Ibid., iii–xvi. 133 Ibid., 180–189, 199–228. 134 Ibid., 203.

122

chapter two

Since logic was only concerned with a fraction of the multifarious mental activities analyzed in psychology, it was relegated implicitly to the status of an auxiliary subdiscipline of the wider “science of mind,” and it was as such that it came to be taught at St. John’s. 2. Yan Yongjing and the Science of the Soul Yan Yongjing originally hoped to produce a summary translation of Haven’s entire work but completed only the first division dealing with the intellectual faculties during his tenure at St. John’s.135 In 1889, his partial rendition was published under the title The Science of the Soul (Xinlingxue 心靈學, psychology).136 After explaining that psychology was “a specialized science concerned with the soul and its various functions” and praising the value of his book “for all educators wishing to establish secure foundations for learning,” Yan used his preface to draw attention to the difficulties of rendering a text like Haven’s Mental Philosophy into acceptable Chinese: There are many ideas in this book that have never been discussed in China and for which we do not even have terms. Thus, there were no designations to convey them. I have tentatively created new designations for words that could not be expressed and forcibly tied them together (mian wei lianjie 勉為聯結) [by inverted parentheses, see below]. To readers of this book who look at [these new words] from the outside, they may appear confused and difficult to distinguish, but for those who exert their minds and examine them it will not be hard to grasp their derivation. For their great number, I apologize.137

The difficulty of the translation was thus identified as deriving from the novelty of the book’s subject matter and its differentiated terminology. This characterization applied especially to the chapter on logic. Yan’s rendering of this section was highly condensed. In order to adapt the text to the necessities of classroom use, he stripped Haven’s arguments of nearly all their theoretical flourish. Among other things, he omitted 135 John Fryer, Descriptive Account and Price List of the Books, Wall Charts, Maps &tc. Published or Adopted by the Educational Association of China (Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, 1894), 26. 136 Yan Yongjing 顏永京 (trans.), Xinlingxue 心靈學 (The science of the soul) (Shanghai: Yizhi shuhui, 1889). I am indebted to David Wright for his help in locating a copy of this text in the Cambridge University Library. The full text was reproduced in Xinxue beizuan 新學備纂 (Complete collection of new knowledge), ed. Jianzhai zhuren 漸齋主人 (Tianjin: Kaiwen shuju, 1902), juan 6. 137 Ibid., preface, 1a–b.

haphazard overtures

123

subsections discussing the laws of thought on which logic, as we have seen, was said to depend; also cut were paragraphs disputing competing theories and an informative sketch of the discipline’s history.138 Instead, Yan focused on the central tenets of Haven’s own theories, with special emphasis on definitions of important notions and examples illustrating their application. Yan’s prose was impeccably lucid and well suited to communicating the dense contents he introduced. In contrast to Edkins, none of whose terminological inventions he adopted or even mentioned, Yan avoided paraphrases and suggested Chinese equivalents for all technical terms he had to render.139 His lexical innovations did not seem to follow a clearly defined translation strategy. Some, like hezaquan 合雜全 ‘uniting into a composite whole’ for “generalization” (see Table 2.1, item 5.12) or fansui 煩碎 ‘tiny pieces’ for “quality” (3.7), were rather awkward; others, like biaoju 表句 ‘expressive sentence’ for “proposition” (3.2) or jilian 繫連 ‘binding link’ for “copula” (3.5), anticipated later nomenclature, at least in kind. In some cases, Yan was almost too ingenious for his own good, for instance, in suggesting xielujicheng 屑錄集成 for “syllogism” (4.13), which could be read either as a phonemic replica or as a semantic loan meaning “a synthesis of fragmentary records”; or the less convincing xibutixi 希卜梯西 for “hypothesis” (5.7), in which the communion of phonetic and semantic loan applied only to the first two characters (xibu 希卜, which could be understood to mean ‘hoping to predict’) while collapsing in the second half of the word (tixi 梯西, if taken literally, would have meant ‘ladder to the west’). Perhaps more important than the merits or flaws of Yan’s individual choices, however, was the consistency with which he applied them throughout his translation, especially in comparison to Edkins’s frequent variations. A unique feature of Yan’s rendition was an editorial notation he invented to alert his readers that a string of characters denoted a single Ibid., 67b–88b; cf. Haven, Mental Philosophy, 212–213; 218–225. For a discussion of Yan’s psychological terms and a comparison with the terminological inventions in Nishi Amane’s 西周 (1829–1897) earlier Japanese rendition of Haven’s Mental Philosophy, see Kodama Seiji 児玉斉二, “Gan Eikyō to kan-yaku shinrigaku yōgo ni tsuite” 顔永京と漢訳心理学用語について (Yan Yongjing and his Chinese translations of psychological terms), Shinrigakushi—Shinrigakuron 2, no. 2 (2000): 25–33. Nishi’s rendition had been published in 1875 under the title Shinrigaku 心理學 (Psychology), the term that was to become the standard designation of the discipline in both Japan and China. On Nishi’s role in the introduction of psychology into Japan, see Thomas R. Havens, Nishi Amane and Modern Japanese Thought (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 217–218. 138 139

124

chapter two

technical term. The marker he introduced for this purpose was a kind of parenthesis, placed to the left of the column, that linked or “forcibly tied together,” as he wrote in his preface, the characters of which such terms consisted. Rotated to fit the horizontal lines of a Western paragraph, his word “syllogism” would have appeared in the Xinlingxue as 屑∪錄∪集∪成.140 The introduction of this notational device confirmed that Yan was acutely aware of the importance of a clearly defined nomenclature for the success of his translation and that he took great care to facilitate its comprehension. Still, due to the density of his prose, particularly in the section on logic, his rendition bristled almost as much with new terms as the Mingli tan. Retranslated into English, a typical passage from his text would read as follows (new terms introduced in the Xinlingxue are underlined): Discerning truth (bianshi 辨實, logic), in both its [forms] of pushing outward (tuichu 推出 deduction [lit. ‘to make public’]) and drawing inward ( yinjin 引進 induction [‘to recommend’]), relies on expressive sentences (biaoju 表句 propositions). A proposition is a sentence in which two distinct images of intentions ( yiying 意影 concepts) are connected. Being connected here means that the two concepts are either in agreement or not in agreement. When we say, for instance, “Snow is white” (xue shi bai 雪是白),141 then this is a proposition. If we have the concept “snow” in our minds (zhong 衷 [‘inner feelings’, ‘heart’) and also the concept “white/whiteness,” then we know that being white is one of the tiny pieces ( fansui 煩碎 qualities) pertaining to snow; that is, we know that “snow” and “white/whiteness” are in agreement. We can therefore affirm the connection of the two concepts by the phrase “Snow is white.” Every proposition consists of three [ parts]. The first is a certain concept which is called item of the proposition (biaojumu 表句目 subject); the last is a certain other concept called topic of the proposition (biaoti 表題 predicate); the middle [ part] connecting the first and the last [ part] is called binding link ( jilian 繫連 copula). All three parts can be expressed either in one word or in several words. In the sentence just cited, “Snow is white,” “snow” is the subject, “white/whiteness” is the predicate, and

Yan Yongjing, Xinlingxue, 62a. The Chinese formulation of the sentence chosen to illustrate the different constituents of a proposition, according to traditional European logic, is once again unusual. In literary Chinese, “Snow is white” would conventionally be rendered by the nominal clause xue bai ye 雪白也. Replacing the final particle ye by shi—which has become a copulative verb meaning “to be” in modern Chinese but was used in literary Chinese in a variety of different meanings ranging from “this,” “all,” “right/true,” “being so,” and “certainly” to “to praise” or “to justify”—is not ungrammatical but alters the emphasis of the proposition to something akin to “Snow is white indeed!” See Graham, “Being,” 331–334; and Pulleyblank, Outline, 16. 140 141

haphazard overtures

125

the word shi 是 “is” is the copula. “Snow” and “white” are also called two ends (duan 端 terms).142

Read and explained in the classroom, supplemented by exercises and drills, dense passages such as this may well have provided students with an approximate idea of basic logical notions and procedures, especially when taught in a separate course, as advertised by St. John’s, and by an instructor as clearly in command of his subject as Yan Yongjing. Still, we have no evidence of students gaining such knowledge on the basis of the Xinlingxue at St. John’s or any other school at the time. Studied outside the classroom, the text could do little to incite interest in logic among unprepared or unguided readers, even if the consistency of Yan’s translation surpassed Edkins’s earlier effort. Not only was the chapter on logic too brief and sketchy—Haven’s account elided the first part of traditional syllogistics explicating terms and their properties, and said almost nothing about conversions and fallacies—to serve as a reliable guide to the “science of discerning truth,” as Yan termed it. More significantly, the roughly twenty pages he devoted to it in the Xinlingxue were buried so deeply in the theoretical framework of yet another thoroughly alien discipline that no reader could be expected to discover its potential value as an independent and fundamental branch of scientific inquiry. A striking illustration of just how foreign the content of Yan Yongjing’s translation remained even to Chinese scholars with a proven curiosity for new knowledge is Liang Qichao’s authoritative Bibliography of Western Knowledge (Xixue shumubiao 西學書 目表), first published in 1896, in which the Xinlingxue, together with a book on sense perception and a text on mental illness, was appended to the category of texts on “anatomy” (quantixue 全體學)—on the grounds that all three discussed matters related to nerves, “the sinews transmitting the brain’s vital energies” (naoqijin 腦氣筋).143 5. Logic as the Science of Reason The last Protestant author who made an attempt to contribute to the introduction of logic into nineteenth-century China was John Fryer ( Fu Lanya 傅蘭雅, 1839–1928), the most prolific scientific translator

142 143

Yan Yongjing, Xinlingxue, 81a–b. Liang Qichao, Xixue shumubiao, 1:5a.

126

chapter two

of the era. Between his arrival in Hong Kong in 1861 as a largely self-educated missionary who soon abandoned his calling, and his relocation to Berkeley where he became the first professor of Oriental languages and literature in 1896, Fryer participated in the translation or compilation of almost one hundred books on “Western knowledge.”144 In addition, he engaged in a broad range of endeavors to translate more practical aspects of European science and technology into late imperial China, which included serving as editor of the Gezhi huibian, director of the Shanghai Polytechnic Institution, and proprietor of the Chinese Scientific Book Depot (Gezhi shushi 格致書室).145 Toward the end of his career in China, Fryer broadened the scope of his work beyond the realm of the natural and applied sciences, in which he left his most lasting and rightfully acclaimed legacy, and branched out to adapt a number of texts on government, political economy, trade, and international law, as well as more remote topics such as Western etiquette and mental illness.146 Even after taking up the professorship in the University of California, he dedicated his annual summer vacation in Shanghai to translating “useful knowledge” into Chinese. During one such vacation, he wrote a short treatise on logic entitled What Must Be Known about Logic (Lixue xuzhi 理學 須知) that was printed during the turbulent events of the Hundred Days Reform of 1898.147 The Lixue xuzhi is probably the least known of Fryer’s translations. No copy of the work has been preserved in Fryer’s personal library, and it is not mentioned by his Western biographers, Adrian Bennett and Ferdinand Dagenais.148 Nor is it discussed in any account of the history of logic in China. On the basis of a rare copy held in the

144 Adrian A. Bennett, John Fryer: The Introduction of Western Science and Technology into Nineteenth-Century China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), 110–111. The most reliable list of Fryer’s Chinese publications is Wang Yangzong 王揚宗, Fu Lanya yu jindai Zhongguo de kexue qimeng 傅蘭雅與近代中國的科學啟蒙 ( John Fryer and scientific enlightenment in modern China) (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 2000), 126–133. 145 See Wright, Translating Science, 100–148. See also idem, “John Fryer.” 146 See Bennett, John Fryer, 33–40. 147 John Fryer ( Fu Lanya 傅蘭雅), Lixue xuzhi 理學須知 (What must be known about logic) (Shanghai: Gezhi shushi, 1898). 148 See Bennett, John Fryer; and Ferdinand Dagenais, “John Fryer’s Calendar: Correspondence, Publications, and Miscellaneous Papers with Excerpts and Commentaries (Version 3)” (unpublished manuscript, Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, 1999).

haphazard overtures

127

Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, Wang Yangzong has shown that the text was the last of twenty-eight published volumes (out of a planned eighty) in a comprehensive series of high school textbooks whose translation Fryer had initiated already in the 1880s.149 Fryer’s decision to compile an introduction to European logic for this series, after ignoring the subject in his prior work, may have been aroused or at least amplified by his dissatisfaction with Edkins’s Bianxue qimeng. Although praising Edkins on numerous occasions as “the greatest living authority on the Chinese language and Chinese literature,”150 Fryer regarded his predecessor’s rendition of Jevons’s Logic as inadequate: “The translation is in high and heavy Wên-li, so that a much simpler exposition of the principles of logic is needed for young students.”151 The Lixue xuzhi was an attempt to provide such an exposition. 1. Sources and Terminology The Lixue xuzhi is a short treatise of forty-one folio pages, divided into six chapters dedicated, respectively, to “The Meaning of Logic” (lixue zhi yuanyi 理學之原意),152 “Terms and Facts” (ming yu shishi 名與事實),153 “Reasoning” (qiuju zhi fa 求據之法),154 “Induction” (leitui

149 Wang Yangzong, Fu Lanya, 102. For a list of all twenty-eight printed volumes, see ibid., 131. 150 Cited from Dagenais, Calendar, Year 1894, 2. 151 Fryer, Descriptive Account, 13. Some years before this frank assessment, Fryer had published a more neutral, albeit not very informative, note in an advertisement for the series of books in which the Bianxue qimeng had appeared: “The Primer of Logic consists of seven sections. Generally speaking, [ logic] is concerned with differentiating the meanings in human speech, defining things and events, distinguishing right from wrong, and inferring true meanings. It is roughly similar to the ‘science of right and wrong’ (shifeixue 是非學, ethics), which studies the patterns of and evidence for good and evil, but there are differences, too. Mastering this field of learning enables us to advance and revise the sciences. For those who cannot clearly distinguish the patterns of all things are unable to know what is true and false. How could what they keep telling us be of any value?” Gezhi huibian 6, no. 2 (1891): 49b. 152 Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 1a–4a; cf. John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Investigation (1843), reprinted in idem, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, 33 vols., ed. John. M. Robson (London: Routledge, 1973–1974), vols. 7 and 8; “Introduction,” vol. 7, 3–16. 153 Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 4a–11b; cf. Mill, System of Logic, “Book I: Of Names and Propositions,” vol. 7, 19–156. 154 Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 11b–18b; cf. Mill, System of Logic, “Book II: Of Reasoning,” vol. 7, 157–282.

128

chapter two

zhi fa 類推之法),155 “Fallacies” (cuowu zhi chu 錯誤之處),156 and “The Patterns of Science” ( gezhi zhi li 格致之理).157 While Fryer claimed authorship of the entire text, closer inspection reveals that chapters 1–5 were largely based on passages of John Stuart Mill’s System of Logic (as noted in the preceding footnotes); chapter 6 was a critical adaptation of the taxonomy of the sciences as outlined in Auguste Comte’s Course in Positive Philosophy (Cours de philosophie positive, 1830–1842).158 If Fryer’s aim was indeed to write a “simpler exposition” for young students, Mill’s monumental System of Logic was hardly the obvious choice as an adequate model. Mill’s study was anything but an accessible manual of the discipline, and it was certainly not written for beginners. Rather, it was a comprehensive critique of the deductive mainstream of logic that Mill aimed to subjugate under an allembracing theory of induction.159 For Mill, all inference was inductive, that is, reasoning from particulars. Distancing himself from the skeptical epistemology of earlier British empiricists as well as Kantian apriorism, Mill held that even mathematical axioms, supposed to be the purest forms of knowledge, were derived from the experience of brute facts alone, by inductive reasoning from particular instances to general laws. While Mill’s attempts to diminish the value of knowledge achieved deductively and his analyses of the mental processes that he thought were underlying all human reasoning had met with extensive criticism by the time Fryer composed the Lixue xuzhi,160 his four experimental methods, or “canons,” of induction continued to be seen as the most reliable hedges against error in scientific inquiry and were reproduced as such in almost every logic textbook that included discussions on the methodology or philosophy of the sciences into the

155 Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 18b–25a; cf. Mill, System of Logic, “Book III: Of Induction,” vol. 7, 283–640. 156 Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 25a–30a; cf. Mill, System of Logic, “Book V: Of Fallacies,” vol. 8, 735–832. 157 Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 30a–41b. 158 Auguste Comte, Cours de philosophie positive (Paris: Rouen Frères, 1830–1842), vol. 1, 57–117. Fryer would of course have worked from one of the many English translations (or summaries, discussions, etc.) of Comte’s work but there is no indication which edition or text he used. 159 R. F. McRae, “Introduction,” in Mill, System of Logic, vol. 7, xxi–xlviii. 160 On Mill’s position in the development of nineteenth-century psychologism, see Matthias Rath, Der Psychologismusstreit in der deutschen Philosophie ( Freiburg: Alber, 1994), 128–142.

haphazard overtures

129

twentieth century.161 This strong link to scientific practice, in conjunction with the prestige Mill’s work had enjoyed during his education in mid-nineteenth-century England, may have inspired Fryer to base his text on the System of Logic. As for the reasons why he abandoned the System in the final chapter of the Lixue xuzhi and replaced Mill’s deliberations on the “logic of the moral sciences” with a discussion of Comte’s positivistic taxonomy, we can only speculate. Given Fryer’s known “intoxication” with scientific discovery and progress,162 however, the simplest and perhaps most probable explanation may once again be that he chose a text that would allow him to strengthen the generally scientistic tenor of his presentation. Like Edkins and Yan Yongjing before him, Fryer seems to have been unaware of the earlier Jesuit suggestions so that he chose to create his own terminology for the logical notions he extracted from Mill and Comte. From his long career as a translator of scientific texts, Fryer had ample experience in the invention of Chinese replicas of Western notions. Especially in the realm of chemistry, the lexical innovations he coined in cooperation with Chinese collaborators or, to a lesser extent, by himself, exerted considerable influence.163 Fryer paid perhaps greater attention to questions of terminology than any other foreign translator in nineteenth-century China. He meticulously recorded his selections,164 published bilingual glossaries of commendable terms, and repeatedly urged others to follow his example.165 In 1880, he outlined his strategy for coining new terms in an article for the North China Herald: Where it becomes necessary to invent a new term, there is a choice of three methods: a. Make a new character, the sound of which can easily be known from the phonetic portion, or use an existing but uncommon character giving it a new meaning. b. Invent a descriptive term, using as few characters as possible. c. Phoneticize the foreign term, using the sounds of the Mandarin dialect, and always endeavoring to employ the same character for

161 Maurice Cranston, “Mill, John Stuart,” in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed. Charles C. Gillispie (New York: Scribner’s, 1974), vol. 9, 383–386; 384. 162 On Fryer’s scientistic inclinations, see Wright, Translating Science, 123–125. 163 Wang Yangzong, “A New Inquiry into the Translation of Chemical Terms by John Fryer and Xu Shou,” in Lackner et al., New Terms for New Ideas, 271–284. 164 Some of these lists are reproduced in Dagenais, Calendar. 165 Wang Yangzong, Fu Lanya, 66–68. See also Bennett, John Fryer, 29–33, 101–102.

130

chapter two the same sound as far as possible, giving preference to characters most used by previous translators or compilers. All such invented terms are to be regarded merely as provisional and to be discarded if previously existing ones are discovered or better ones can be obtained before the works are published.166

In the Lixue xuzhi, like most of his later translations, Fryer relied almost exclusively on the second of his three methods, that is, the invention of “descriptive terms” or loan translations. One exception was the term he chose to render “logic” itself. Lixue 理學 ‘the science of pattern’, or, as he more likely intended the compound to be understood, ‘the science of reason’, was forcibly appropriated from its time-honored usage as a name for the canonized synthesis of neo-Confucian thought going back to the Song philosopher Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200). Since Fryer left no explanation of his choice, we can only surmise that he wanted to tap the “rationalist” image of this branch of traditional Chinese thought—an image, however, which was more prevalent among contemporary Western interpreters than among Chinese literati who had become increasingly dissatisfied with their own lixue by the end of the nineteenth century. At any rate, Fryer should have been aware that such a brazen attempt to hijack a venerable indigenous term, much in the fashion of Jesuit accommodationism, stood little chance of increasing the appeal of his subject. Many of his less contentious choices of “descriptive terms,” especially those obeying his demand for conciseness, seemed more acceptable. Examples of rather elegant loan translations included yan shi 言是 ‘stating as true’ and yan fei 言非 ‘stating as false’ for “affirmative” and “negative”; teyong 特用 ‘particular use’ and gongyong 公用 ‘general use’ for “particular” and “universal” (see Table 2.1, items 3.19–3.22); huafen 化分 ‘transform into parts’ and huahe 化合 ‘transform into unity’ for “analysis” and “synthesis” (5.2 and 5.3); and sheli 設理 ‘supposed pattern’ for “hypothesis” (5.7). Fryer’s use of xiang 項 ‘item’ for “term” (2.1), borrowed from contemporary mathematical nomenclature,167 anticipated a choice that would be reinvented and eventually standardized in Chinese works on symbolic logic decades later. The terms he 166 John Fryer, “An Account of the Department for the Translation of Foreign Books at the Kiangnan Arsenal, Shanghai,” North China Herald, January 29, 1880, 77–81; 80. The text was published again as idem, “Science in China,” Nature, May 5, 1881, 9–11; May 19, 1881, 54–57. 167 Mingjie Hu, Merging Chinese and Western Mathematics, 396.

haphazard overtures

131

created to describe the syllogism and its constituent parts were inspired by Chinese legal language. The “syllogism” thus became a “case establishing evidence/proof ” (chengju zhi an 成據之案) (4.13), the “conclusion” a “statement seeking evidence/proof ” (qiujushuo 求據之說) (4.5), and the “premise” a “hypothetical statement” (sheshuo 設說) (4.4). In view of his habitual attention to consistency, some obvious blunders in Fryer’s terminology revealed uncharacteristic laxity. His overlapping uses of shigong 事功 ‘achievement’ for “predicate” and “effect” (3.4 and 5.16), or jiexian 界限 ‘boundary, demarcation, circumference’ for the “extension” of a term as well as the “mood” of a syllogism (2.4 and 4.19) were not only infelicitous per se, but implied unwarranted and misleading conceptual interrelations. 2. Fryer and the Essentials of Logic “What must be known about logic,” according to Fryer, was above all the discipline’s intimate connection with scientific practice. Fryer emphasized this bond throughout his highly selective adaptations of Mill’s opinions. In the drastically condensed version in which he presented them, hardly any of Mill’s more subtle differentiations or theoretical justifications survived. Instead, the Western “science of reason” appeared as a pliant tool in the hands of scientists and experimenters, the true savants of the contemporary world. In the opening chapter of the Lixue xuzhi, Fryer defined the functions of logic as follows: Logic is a scientific discipline that investigates the natural causal relations (tianran xiangyin zhi shi 天然相因之事) among the myriad things. The methods of this discipline can guide men in their researches in every scientific domain. Experimenters can apply [them] to things they find to be causally related in order to distinguish whether their causal relations are true or not. Everything men may believe or disbelieve depends on these methods for its supporting evidence. Thus, relying on logic enables us, on the one hand, to examine new patterns and, on the other, to obtain sure proofs. At the same time, it allows us to settle all issues related to experiments and methods to obtain reliable evidence. Hence, irrespective of the reasons why we may believe a certain matter to be true or untrue, [logic] enables us to ascertain whether the evidence is solid and to reach utmost [clarity]. Is this not something everyone should treasure?168

168

Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 3b–4a.

132

chapter two

Throughout the text, Fryer was most at ease where he could discuss topics related to his hard-won experience as a translator and advocate of the sciences. The examples he inserted to illustrate logical rules and theorems were almost exclusively drawn from a wide range of natural sciences, and his chapters on induction and scientific taxonomy were much more coherent than those devoted to the more conventional themes of traditional logic. This applied in particular to chapters 2 and 3 of the Lixue xuzhi, which were dedicated to deductive reasoning. Like Mill, Fryer adhered to the classical form of exposition and divided his presentation into three sections on names (terms), propositions, and reasoning. Names (ming 名) had to be addressed in logic because they helped to determine the qualities of things. Fryer introduced only two of the many kinds of names distinguished by Mill: “fixed names” (dingming 定名 ‘singular names’) referring to individual things, places, or persons, like “China, Nile, Napoleon, Laozi, or Niagara Falls,” and “comprehensive names” (tongming 通名 ‘general names’) designating different things that shared certain properties.169 In addition, he briefly summarized, in rather inelegant formulations, the classes of “nameable things” with which Mill tried to replace the Aristotelian categories, namely, (1) “qualities (xingqing 性情), that is, that which can be perceived and felt” (Mill: “feelings, or states of consciousness”); (2) “the soul (xinling 心靈), that is, that which can perceive the qualities just mentioned” (“the minds which experience those feelings”); (3) “the things outside our minds (xinwai zhi wu 心外之物), that is, that which causes qualities, perceptions or sensations” (“the bodies, or external objects which excite certain of those feelings, together with the powers or properties whereby they excite them”); and (4) “the things humans perceive, which are either in succession, or coexist (bingyou 並有), or are similar or dissimilar” (“the successions and co-existences, the likenesses and unlikenesses, between feelings or states of consciousness”).170 In addition, he stressed the importance of definitions ( jieshuo 解說) to prevent misunderstandings in science and debate. Ideally, definitions should be exhaustive in regard to a term’s properties and rely on the simple to explain the complex.171

Ibid., 4a–5a. On Mill’s peculiar conception of all terms as names, see Kneale and Kneale, Development of Logic, 373–374. 170 Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 5a–6b; cf. Mill, System of Logic, vol. 7, 77. 171 Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 10b–11b. 169

haphazard overtures

133

Names and definitions alone, however, had no bearing on our opinions about the truth or falsity of a matter. For this purpose, “general statements” ( gongshuo 公說, propositions) were needed because they enable us to determine whether a thing or affair is true/right or wrong/false and supported by evidence. Unfortunately, Fryer’s discussion of the proposition was rather crude. His explanation of why the copula is a necessary part of all propositions, for instance, was no more convincing to Chinese readers than the previous efforts of Edkins or Yan Yongjing: All “general statements” (gongshuo 公說 ‘propositions’) are formed by establishing a relation between two things or matters. If they contained only one thing or matter, people would have nothing to believe or doubt. When we say, for instance, “fire burns” (huo shao 火燒) or “gold, yellow color” ( jin huangse 金黃色), then each of these statements consists of two related matters or things. “Fire” is one thing, “burns” is another; only when the two are related according to rules can people believe or doubt them, and only then do they form a proposition. “Gold” is one thing, “yellow color” is another; but if we talk about the two separately, neither is able to form a sentence ( ju 句) and thus no proposition is established. However, when we say “Gold is [deemed to be] of yellow color” ( jin wei huangse 金為黃色), then the word wei 為 functions as a “connecting word” ( guanlian zhi zi 貫聯之字 ‘copula’), and by including this word we are able to form a proposition. Therefore, propositions must contain a “noun” (shizi 實字) and a “verb” (huozi 活字) before people can believe or doubt them. From this we can see that propositions must contain two terms (xiang 項). One is the “topic” (timu 題目 ‘subject’), the other is the “achievement” (shigong 事功 ‘predicate’). The two terms also have a sequence, that is, the subject comes first and the predicate last. In between them there must be a connecting word affirming or denying them. When we say “Gold is [deemed to be] of yellow color” ( jin wei huangse 金為黃色), “gold” is the subject; “yellow color” is the predicate; and the word wei is the connecting verb. Although wei and words of similar kind are used most frequently, there are other kinds of words that act like the words wei and shi 是.172

If Fryer was aware that his argument supporting the necessity of an explicit copula, and its fixed place between subject and predicate in every proposition, was dubious because it did not resonate with Chinese syntax, he made no attempt to overcome the difficulty by adding supplementary explanations or examples. Instead, he moved on to 172

Ibid., 7b–8a.

134

chapter two

outline Mill’s deliberations on the different kinds of relations between things which can be affirmed or denied by propositions—sequence, coexistence, simple existence, causation, and resemblance—without, however, enlightening his readers about how these distinctions might further logical inquiry.173 The most problematic section of the Lixue xuzhi was Fryer’s presentation of the syllogism. In a crucial section introducing the various components of “cases establishing evidence/proof,” which he adapted directly from Mill, the combined effects of terminological confusion and slack editing were nothing short of disastrous ( Fryer’s factual errors are highlighted in square brackets): All legitimate “cases establishing evidence/proof ” (chengju zhi an 成據之案 ‘syllogisms’) must be composed of three, and no more than three, “statements” (shuo 說 ‘propositions’): one “seeking evidence/proof ” (qiuju 求據 ‘conclusion’, that is, the ‘proposition to be proved’), one “establishing evidence/proof ” (chengju 成據), and one “hypothetical statement” (sheshuo 設說 ‘premise’) [correct: “one conclusion or ‘proposition to be proved’ and two premises establishing evidence”]. The “statement seeking evidence/proof ” (qiujushuo 求據說 ‘conclusion’) [correct: “a syllogism”] must contain three, and no more than three items (xiang 項 ‘terms’). The first of these [terms] is the “topic” (timu 題目 ‘subject’), the second is the “achievement” (shigong 事功, predicate), and [the third] is the “middle term” (zhongxiang 中項). Among the major and minor terms [correct: “propositions”] is one premise that contains the middle and the major term, which is called the major premise, and one containing the middle and the minor term, which is called the minor premise.174

In the remaining pages of this chapter, Fryer provided detailed and more reliable illustrations for the different figures (shi 式) and moods Ibid., 8b–10b. Ibid., 12b–13a. Mill’s original passage is impeccably clear: “To a legitimate syllogism it is essential that there should be three, and no more than three, propositions, namely, the conclusion, or proposition to be proved, and two other propositions which together prove it, and which are called the premises. It is essential that there should be three, and no more than three, terms, namely, the subject and the predicate of the conclusion, and another called the middle term, which must be found in both premises, since it is by means of it that the other two terms are to be connected together. The predicate of the conclusion is called the major term of the syllogism; the subject of the conclusion is called the minor term. As there can be but three terms, the major and the minor terms must each be found in one, and only one, of the premises, together with the middle term which is in them both. The premise which contains the middle term and the major term is called the major premise; that which contains the middle term and the minor term is called the minor premise” (System of Logic, vol. 7, 164). 173 174

haphazard overtures

135

( jiexian 界限) of the syllogism as well as the rules of conversion.175 Still, with such a deeply flawed introduction as its centerpiece, it would have been difficult for students and other prospective readers to make sense of his account of “legitimate cases establishing evidence/proof ” and hence of the core of the “science of reason” in the traditional European understanding. Fryer’s outline of Mill’s view of induction, or “the method of pushing on by [similarity] in kind” (leitui zhi fa 類推之法), was more coherent, certainly not least due to his thorough familiarity with the vocabulary and procedures of observation and experiment. Following Mill, Fryer defined induction as a method to obtain general laws ( gongli 公例) from a limited number of instances. Induction established relations between definite causes and their effects. In order to ascertain the truth of the relation between a certain cause and its effect, Mill had formulated four “methods of experimental inquiry” (shiyanfa 試驗法)—the “method of agreement” (xiangtongfa 相同法), the “method of difference” (xiangyifa 相異法), the “method of residue” (qiyufa 其餘法), and “the method of concomitant variation” (tongshi gaibianfa 同時改變法)—which were aimed at successively eliminating all effects unrelated to a certain cause.176 Yet, most phenomena were the results of a plurality of causes whose laws could not be understood by elimination alone, so that another, more comprehensive method was needed, which Mill had called, somewhat misleadingly, the “deductive method.” In order to avoid confusion, Fryer sensibly chose to render “deduction” in this peculiar sense by a new word and termed it “the method of estimation” (chuainifa 揣擬法). In Mill’s interpretation, the method of estimation involved three stages: inductions from particular causes to their individual laws; ratiocinations (that is, once again, “deductions,” paraphrased by Fryer as “explanations of what different cases have in common based on general laws”)177 about possible interactions of these individual laws; and, lastly, experimental verifications of the laws suggested as explanations for complex phenomena.178 His chapter on fallacies was an eclectic catalogue of “errors that can be eliminated through various logical methods.”179 Fryer first presented

175 176 177 178 179

Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 13b–18b; cf. Mill, System of Logic, vol. 7, 164–171. Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 20a–22a. Ibid., 22b. Ibid., 22b–24b. Ibid., 25a.

136

chapter two

a selection of fallacies adapted from Book V of Mill’s System of Logic, divided into three categories: “errors in thought arising from insufficient training of the human mind,” by which he referred to superstitions and what Mill called “fallacies of observation”; “errors arising from the use of the method of estimation,” under which heading he discussed an example of Mill’s “fallacy of changing the premises”; and “errors arising from confusion of language,” that is, ambiguous terms and false analogies.180 In the second part, he listed examples of some more common fallacies in syllogistic reasoning, which Mill omitted in his System, arranged in two categories: “fallacies originating within language,” that is, logical fallacies; and “fallacies outside of language,” that is, material fallacies.181 Since he provided hardly any explanations, the usefulness of Fryer’s catalogue was no less questionable than his sketchy account of deduction, even if it did not contain further mistakes. Fryer concluded his account of the essentials of logic with a lengthy digression into the taxonomy of the sciences, in which logic was hardly mentioned. He did not say anything about the place of logic within the disciplinary matrix he sketched in this chapter but declared only that the various methods introduced in his Lixue xuzhi could help to delineate the boundaries of individual sciences.182 If it was clear to him that logic was so fundamental that it did not need to be located in relation to sciences with a more specific focus, he failed to impart this insight to his Chinese readers. This was particularly unfortunate because his deliberations were apparently written with the hope of influencing the shape of a new disciplinary taxonomy that was beginning to emerge in China.183 Fryer had characteristically strong opinions on the desirable form of this new taxonomy. Comte’s division of the sciences into the categories of mathematics, astronomy, physics (bowu 博物 ‘the science of nature’), chemistry, biology (huoxue 活學 ‘the science of life’), and sociology (huixue 會學 ‘the science of [ human] association’) served

Ibid., 25a–27b. Ibid., 27b–30a. 182 Ibid., 30a. 183 See David. C. Reynolds, “Redrawing China’s Intellectual Map: Images of Science in Nineteenth-Century China,” Late Imperial China 12, no. 1 (1991): 38–51; and Joachim Kurtz, “Was tun mit Chinas Nationaler Essenz? Disziplingeschichte versus Nationale Studien, 1898–1911,” in Über Himmel und Erde. Festschrift für Erling von Mende, ed. Raimund Th. Kolb and Martina Siebert (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006), 261– 280; 261–263. 180 181

haphazard overtures

137

him only as a convenient starting point for a discussion of the future potential of various sciences and hence of China’s need to promote them.184 In accordance with his assessment of this potential, Fryer adapted Comte’s scheme in two ways: astronomy lost its privileged position and was integrated into the physical sciences, and psychology (xinlingxue 心靈學) was dissociated from the science of life and turned into an independent discipline. Among the branches of science in the resulting matrix—mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and sociology—the most spectacular advances were to be expected from psychology, which aimed to understand the anatomy and functions of the human mind, and sociology, which synthesized the results of all the sciences that studied human association in order to formulate prescriptions for good government and decent social statutes.185 Rather than summarize the contents of the “science of reason,” Fryer thus ended his book with an unexpected appeal in favor of two new sciences whose relation to logic remained elusive, and he added a general plea to rejuvenate China’s “literary doctrine” (wenjiao 文教) through the integration of Western sciences into its canon.186 In sum, the Lixue xuzhi must be seen as a well-intentioned but illconceived attempt to fill a persisting lacuna in the Protestant presentation of Western knowledge in nineteenth-century China. Due to its incoherence, biases, and errors the work was hardly suited to serve its intended purpose as a “simpler exposition for younger students.” Even outside the classroom, in which it was never used, the book did not find any resonance. Fryer was the first author who tried to situate logic in a context that would seem meaningful to his Chinese audience. Yet his insistence that the discipline was an indispensable auxiliary of experimental science may not have been the most effective promotional strategy at the time. By 1898, even conservative officials had long accepted the utility of the sciences; and the reformers, Fryer’s most enthusiastic audience, had moved on to exploring what the West had to offer in the areas of politics, law, and society—if they were not busy trying to save their lives in the aftermath of the aborted Hundred Days reform. In addition, missionaries and other Westerners had started to lose their privileged position as the sole interpreters of new knowledge in China.

184 185 186

Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 30b–31a. Ibid., 39a–b. Ibid., 41b.

138

chapter two

More and more Chinese students were sent overseas, and exchanges with Japan, which was to become China’s bridge to the modern world in the first decade of the twentieth century, increased rapidly after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. Whatever its reasons, the muted resonance of the Lixue xuzhi was a fitting coda to an almost entirely lost century in the history of logic in China. Concluding Remarks The second phase in the translation of European logic in China was thus off to a slow start. The reluctance of Protestant authors to advocate the discipline with the same care and urgency with which they applied themselves to propagating other sciences was reflected in sustained Chinese indifference toward the field. The scattered attempts that were eventually undertaken to introduce logical theories and notions ultimately proved futile. Like the efforts of Li Zhizao, Francisco Furtado, and Ferdinand Verbiest more than two centuries earlier, the endeavors of Joseph Edkins, Yan Yongjing, and John Fryer confirmed that it was possible to translate logic into late imperial Chinese, even if it continued to require a sizeable amount of lexical innovation. But the futility of their labors also underlined that the production of more or less comprehensible texts did not suffice to capture their audience’s attention. Before the twentieth century, hardly any Chinese author referred to European logic, even in texts explicitly demanding increased attention for the new sciences streaming in from the West. How far removed from mainstream and even reformist discourses the discipline remained into the last decade of the century can be illustrated by a number of further observations. Perhaps the most striking manifestation was the startling perplexity of contemporary Chinese bibliographers cited in the introduction to this study. Another unambiguous indication was the fact that logic remained absent from the theories of the “Chinese origins of Western knowledge” (Xixue Zhongyuan 西學中源) that did so much to popularize other Western sciences.187 Not even the summa of this discourse, the voluminous 187 See Quan Hansheng 全漢昇, “Qingmo de Xixue yuanchu Zhongguo shuo” 清 末的西學源出中國說 (The late Qing theory of the Chinese origin of Western knowledge), Lingnan xuebao 4, no. 2 (1935): 57–102; Michael Lackner (Lang Mixie 郎宓 榭), “Yuan zi dongfang de kexue? Zhongguoshi ‘ziduan’ de biaoxian xingshi” 源自 東方的科學？—中國式「自斷」的表現形式 (Ex oriente scientia? Chinese ways of

haphazard overtures

139

Ancient Subtleties of Science (Gezhi guwei 格致古微), which was explicitly designed to prove that all branches of the supposedly new knowledge from the West had roots in China, contained a single line on logic or grammar.188 The sole exceptions were brief remarks by the Hundred Days martyr Tan Sitong 譚嗣同 (1865–1898) who, in his famous A Study of Benevolence (Renxue 仁學, 1898) and a short essay entitled “On Contemporary Western and Ancient Chinese Knowledge” (Lun jinri Xixue yu Zhongguo guxue 論今日西學與中國古學, 1898), traced the origins of European logic (bianxue 辨學) back to the pre-Qin philosophers Hui Shi and Gongsun Long, without supplying any evidence for his claim.189 Finally, the enduring strangeness of logic in Chinese texts and contexts was confirmed by the inability of nineteenth-century lexicographers to provide an accepted, or at least potentially acceptable, equivalent even for the term “logic” itself. Unaware of existing translations, the compilers of the Western bilingual Chinese dictionaries published throughout the century either skipped the term altogether—for example, Robert Morrison,190 Walter Henry Medhurst (Mai Dusi 麥都思, 1796–1857),191 and Samuel Wells Williams (Wei Sanwei 衛三畏, 1812–1884)192—or felt compelled to propose a number of alternative renderings, none of which seems to have originated from or migrated into the actual Chinese lexicon. To cite only a few examples, Wilhelm Lobscheid offered in his voluminous English and Chinese

self-assertion), Ershiyi shiji 4 (2003): 85–95; and Theodore Huters, Bringing the World Home: Appropriating the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005), 23–42. 188 Wang Renjun 王仁俊, Gezhi guwei 格致古微 (Ancient subtleties of science) (1896), reprinted in Zhongguo kexue jishu dianji tonghui 中國科學技術典籍同彙 (Anthology of classic works of Chinese science and technology), ed. Ren Jiyu 任繼愈 (Zhengzhou: Henan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1993), vol. 1, 7. See Zeng Jianli 曾建立, “ ‘Gezhi guwei’ yu wan Qing ‘Xixue Zhongyuan’ shuo”《格致古微》與晚清“西學中源”說 (The Gezhi guwei and the late Qing theory of the ‘Chinese origin of Western knowledge’), Zhongzhou xuekan 6, no. 11 (2000): 146–150. 189 Tan Sitong 潭嗣同, Tan Sitong quanji 潭嗣同全集 (The complete works of Tan Sitong), ed. Cai Shangsi 蔡尚思 and Fang Xing 方行 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1981), 317, 399. 190 Robert Morrison (Ma Lixun 馬禮遜), Wuche yunfu 五車韻府. A Dictionary of the Chinese Language, in Three Parts (Macao: The Honourable East India Company’s Press, 1815–1823). 191 Walter H. Medhurst (Maidusi 麥都思), Ying-Hua zidian 英華字典. English and Chinese Dictionary (Shanghai: n.p., 1847–1848). 192 Samuel Wells Williams (Wei Sanwei 衛三畏), Ying-Hua yunfu lijie 英華韻府歷階. An English and Chinese Vocabulary (Macao: Office of the Chinese Repository, 1844).

140

chapter two

Dictionary (1866–1869) no less than five alternatives: mingli 明理 ‘elucidating patterns’ or mingli zhi xue 明理之學 ‘the science of elucidating patterns’, lilun zhi xue 理論之學 ‘the science of rational discussion’, si zhi fa 思之法 ‘the laws of thought’ and, finally, Fryer’s later choice lixue 理學 ‘the science of pattern/reason’, which Lobscheid listed simultaneously as an equivalent of “philosophy.”193 In a similar manner, Paul Perny presented the venerable Confucian term gewu 格物 ‘the investigation of things’ in his Dictionnaire Français-Latin-Chinois of 1869 as a rendition not only of “logic” but also of “philosophy.”194 Slightly later, Justus Doolittle reinvented the term tuilun zhi fa 推論之法 ‘the methods of inference’, which had already been used in the Mingli tan, and added the supplementary rendering minglun zhi fa 明論之法 ‘the methods of clear discussion’.195 Further suggestions included Séraphim Couvreur’s bianlifa 辨理法 ‘the methods of discerning patterns’ or ‘the methods and patterns of argumentation’;196 Gustave Schlegel’s dao 道 ‘the Way’, ‘logos’, or ‘reason’ and 思之理 ‘the patterns or laws of thought’;197 and, last but not least, Kwong Ki-chiu’s (Kuang Qizhao 鄺其照) utterly clumsy paraphrase xuekuo xinsi zhi fa 學擴心思之法 ‘the methods of learning to extend one’s thoughts’,198 which all joined a growing pile of decontextualized and therefore almost inevitably barren renderings of a still thoroughly foreign notion.

193 Wilhelm Lobscheid (Luo Cunde 羅存德), Ying-Hua zidian 英華字典. English and Chinese Dictionary with Punti and Mandarin Pronunciation, 4 vols. (Hong Kong: Daily Press Office, 1866–1869), 1124. 194 Paul H. Perny (Tong Baolu 童保錄), Xiyu yi Han rumen 西語譯漢入門. Dictionnaire Français-Latin-Chinois de la langue mandarine parlée (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1869), 265, 330. 195 Justus Doolittle (Lu Gongming 廬公明), Ying-Hua cuilin yunfu 英華萃林韻府. A Vocabulary and Hand-Book of the Chinese Language, romanized in the Mandarin dialect, 2 vols. ( Foochow: Rosario, Marcal & Co., 1872–1873), 290. 196 F. Séraphim Couvreur, Fa-Han changtan 法漢常談. Dictionnaire Français-Chinois contenant les expressions les plus usitées de la langue mandarine (Ho Kien Fou: Imprimerie de la Mission Catholique, 1884), 570. 197 Gustave Schlegel, He-Hua wenyu leican 荷華文語類參. Nederlandsch-Chineesch Woordenboek met de Transcriptie der Chineesche Karakters in het Tsiang-Tsiu Dialekt, 13 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1886), vol. 6. 198 Kwong Ki-chiu (Kuang Qizhao 鄺其照), Hua-Ying zidian jicheng 英華字典集成. English and Chinese Dictionary (Hong Kong: n.p., 1882), 174.

haphazard overtures

141

Table 2.1: Logical Terms in Nineteenth-Century Protestant Works English term

Joseph Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 1886

Yan Yongjing, Xinlingxue, 1889

John Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 1898

A. General terms of logic 1.1

logic

1.2

reasoning

1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6

thought judgment argument truth

1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 1.11 1.12

form, formal symbol, symbolic law of identity law of contradiction law of excluded middle principle of sufficient reason

羅吉格 辨學 辨論 分辨 推揣逆料之法

辨實學 錄集克 辨實 思

論斷語 辨論語 意真 意真語 式 記號

議論 實理 格式 記號

理學 推論 思想 說 議論 真理 真實 記號

B. Terms related to terms 2.1

term

2.2

concept (idea) intension extension definition category substance (five) predicables genus

2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9

2.10 species 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14

difference property accident singular term

2.15 general term 2.16 collective term 2.17 positive term 2.18 negative term 2.19 concrete term

得耳馬 界語 界

精密意 擴大意 定名語

類 科 種 種異處 情形 偶異處 專語 專名 同語 同名 渾論語 總名 正面語 反面語 有體質實物之界語

端 名目

名 (name) 項 (term) 名目 (terminology)

意影 （意緒）

思念

界

類 部類 族 族種 參差

界限 解說 類 體質 類 種 種類

定名 獨用名目 通名 公用名目

142

chapter two

Table 2.1 (cont.) English term 2.20 abstract term 2.21 2.22 2.23 2.24

absolute term relative term categorematic term syncategorematic term

Joseph Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 1886

Yan Yongjing, Xinlingxue, 1889

John Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 1898

貼附實物加以形之界語 照顯實物形式之界語 申明物形式之界語

C. Terms related to propositions 3.1 3.2

sentence proposition

3.3 3.4

subject predicate

3.5

copula

3.6 3.7

attribute quality

3.8 3.9

quantity true

3.10 false 3.11 some 3.12 all 3.13 distributed 3.14 undistributed 3.15 categorical proposition 3.16 hypothetical proposition 3.17 conjunctive proposition 3.18 disjunctive proposition 3.19 affirmative proposition 3.20 negative proposition

語句 語句 完全語句 申明事實之語句 專重語 申明語 申明形式語 聯洛成句之活字 聯洛之活字 聯洛字 哥布拉 情節 分數 是 真 非 否 分數 有數間 全數 凡…皆 包括至於盡頭處 包括未至盡頭處 首冠如若等字之語句 如若字樣之虛擬語

語句 表句

句 公說 說

表句目 表題

題目 事功

繫連

貫聯之實字 貫聯之活字

煩碎

性情 稱式 數目 真 是

真 是 實 假 非 凡 攏總 有統盲意義 無統盲意義 真切表句

假 非 有 某 凡 分 不分

不真切表句

分歧口頭語句 正面語句 正面語 反面語句 反面語

正連表句

言是之說

反連表句

言非之說

haphazard overtures

143

Table 2.1 (cont.) English term 3.21 particular proposition 3.22 universal proposition 3.23 universal affirmative proposition 3.24 universal negative proposition 3.25 particular affirmative proposition 3.26 particular negative proposition 3.27 conversion 3.28 3.29 3.30 3.31 3.32 3.33 3.34 3.35

simple conversion limited conversion contraposition opposition contradictory contrary subcontrary subaltern

4.1

inference

4.2

deduction

4.3

induction

4.4

premise

4.5

conclusion

4.6

major premise

4.7

minor premise

4.8

major term

Joseph Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 1886

Yan Yongjing, Xinlingxue, 1889

John Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 1898

包括未至盡頭處之語句 數無盡之語句 包括至於盡頭處之語句 數有盡之語句 包括至盡頭處之正面語 數有盡之正語句 包括至盡頭處之反面語 數有盡之反語句 包括未至盡頭處之正面語 數無盡之正語句 包括未至盡頭處之反面語 數無盡之反語句 轉換 倒置

特目表句

特說 特用（之說） 公用（之說）

公目表句

化成法 簡法 偶變法 矛盾

D. Terms related to syllogisms 推出 推闡 推揣 憑理度物之推闡法 即理推事物 連類推測 推測 即物察理之辨法 即事察理 藉物察理 憑事察理 先出之語句 先出語 出語 結收語 斷定語句 斷定語 首先出語 首出語 次先出語 次出語 大得耳馬 大界語

推知 推度

推引 求據之法

推出辨實 推出

揣擬法 憑據法 成據之法

引進辨實 引進 引導

類推之法 類推法 連類推知

先階

設說 設公說

結句

求據 成據

大先階

大設說

小先階

小設說

大端

大項

144

chapter two

Table 2.1 (cont.)

4.9

English term

Joseph Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 1886

Yan Yongjing, Xinlingxue, 1889

John Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 1898

minor term

小得耳馬 小界語 中界語 如若倘茍設等虛擬首冠 字樣 如若等虛擬字樣 前句 先幾 明告余等所必繼續情形 之字樣 後語 後驗 三語句次第連成之論斷語 次第連成之論斷語 三語句論斷語 西鑼基斯摩

小端

小項

中端

中項

屑錄集成

成據之案

4.10 middle term 4.11 antecedent

4.12 consequent

4.13 syllogism

4.14 4.15 4.16 4.17 4.18 4.19 4.20 4.21

hypothetical syllogism disjunctive syllogism sorites enthymeme epicheirema figure (of syllogism) mood (of syllogism) fallacy

4.22 4.23 4.24 4.25 4.26 4.27

logical fallacy material fallacy begging the question illicit major illicit minor undistributed middle term 4.28 equivocation 4.29 ambiguity

口頭分歧三語句

類（式） 式 差謬 語病 差誤 妄言

謬

應有確據不得確據之理 中界語未包括至盡頭處

式 界限 錯誤 誤

行平圜之誤 中端無統盲意義

不分中項之誤

兩處之意義不同

用雙意之誤

語意含 E. Terms related to the methodology of the sciences

5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6

method analysis synthesis fact experience observation

5.7

hypothesis

法 事實 檢察 究察 懸擬之說 懸擬之理

法 分覈 彙歸 實事 經歷 試觀

法 化分 化合 實事 經歷 查

希卜梯西 虛設

設理

haphazard overtures

145

Table 2.1 (cont.) English term

Joseph Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 1886

Yan Yongjing, Xinlingxue, 1889

John Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 1898

5.8 experiment 5.9 proof 5.10 verification

驗試 證明 徵驗

試驗 證明 試驗

5.11 classification

分類

5.12 5.13 5.14 5.15

由數端推及全局 由一物推及相似他物

分部類 歸類 合雜全 形勢相似 解釋 所以然 原因 效

試驗 法 憑據 推證法 證明 分類

generalization analogy explanation cause

5.16 effect 5.17 5.18 5.19 5.20

necessity probability theory axiom

5.21 law

原因 效功 情節 辯論之矩

5.24 5.25 5.26 5.27

uniformity of nature method of agreement method of difference joint method of agreement and difference 5.28 method of concomitant variation 5.29 method of residue

成事 事功

必然之實 兩可之實 說 公理

公理

5.22 principle 5.23 rule

解釋 緣故

法 理

規式 款式

公例 公法 總理 理

總理

相符處之辨論法

天然事物之常

萬物往往不變 相同法 相異法

隔相等時分諸變更

同時改變法 其餘法

CHAPTER THREE

GREAT EXPECTATIONS: YAN FU AND THE DISCOVERY OF EUROPEAN LOGIC The insights and truths in [Mill’s Logic] are as numerous as silk threads in a cocoon. . . . They will do away with 80 or 90 percent of China’s old patterns, and people’s minds will gain utmost strength from their application. Yan Fu, “Letter to Zhang Yuanji, no. 12”

In view of the sustained disinterest recounted in the previous chapters, the abrupt appearance of logic in Chinese discourses around the year 1900 seems all the more remarkable. Less than a decade after the only available text on logic left bibliographers perplexed, the discipline would be taught not only in China’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning but in colleges and normal schools throughout the country. Many of the mushrooming new periodicals1 carried articles on the discipline, mostly translated from Japanese,2 and private publishers struggled to supply readable introductions to meet the growing demand from educational institutions and increasing numbers of curious readers.3 Logical societies and study groups were established not only in cosmopolitan urban centers like Shanghai but also in unlikely remote inland cities, such as Guiyang in the far southwest.4

1 For a comprehensive overview, see Xinhai geming shiqi qikan jieshao 辛亥革命時 期期刊介紹 (Introductions to periodicals from the period of the 1911 revolution), 5 vols., ed. Ding Shouhe 丁守和 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1982). 2 Basic bibliographical data is available in Zhou Yunzhi et al., Zhongguo luojishi ziliaoxuan, vol. 5, part 1, 503–543; and 1900–1949 nian quanguo zhuyao baokan zhexue lunwen ziliao suoyin 1900–1949 年全國主要報刊論文資料索引 (Index of articles on philosophy in major Chinese periodicals, 1900–1949), ed. Fudan daxue zhexuexi ziliaoshi 复旦大學哲學系資料室 and Sichuan daxue zhexuexi ziliaoshi 四川大學哲學 系資料室 (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1989), 215–222. 3 Wang Yunwu 王雲五, Shangwu yinshuguan yu xin jiaoyu nianpu 商務印書館與新教 育年譜 (Annalistic chronicle of the Commercial Press and the new education) (Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguan, 1973), 16. 4 Wang Yanzhi 王延直 (comp.), Putong yingyong lunlixue 普通應用論理學 (General and applied logic) (Guiyang: Guiyang lunlixueshe, 1912), 1–3.

148

chapter three 1. The Quest for Certainty

The eventual Chinese discovery of European logic was closely linked to the crisis of authority and the concurrent delegitimization of orthodox doctrine in the aftermath of China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. Although the populace at large was scarcely affected by the poor performance of the Qing fleet in its hapless engagements with the Japanese navy, China’s loss of territory, finances, and face at the hands of its formerly belittled neighbor to the east had a devastating effect on the confidence and morale of her political and intellectual elites.5 In the eyes of many scholars and officials, the embarrassing defeat sealed by the Treaty of Shimonoseki discredited all efforts at “self-strengthening” (ziqiang 自強) initiated since the mid-nineteenth century, and devalued the selective premises on which the promotion of “foreign affairs” ( yangwu 洋物) had been based.6 More dramatically, it seemed to indicate, if not already prove, that Chinese civilization was not “fit” to respond to the challenges of what many saw as a uniquely ruthless age. Self-doubt and skepticism about various aspects of China’s traditional order, including some of its political and social institutions, had been growing among the educated elite at least since the 1880s, but open expressions of such attitudes had remained confined to the periphery of scholarly and political discourse. Now they rapidly penetrated the center. The mystic aura of China’s symbolic universe and the canonical texts on which it was built began to fade and gradually vanished.7 Manipulations by its self-proclaimed protectors contributed as much to the erosion of the textual foundations of orthodox doctrine as increasingly forthright criticisms did. Within a few years after the shock of Shimonoseki, the system of belief on which the imperial order had been founded for centuries lost its legitimacy, leaving in its wake an orientational crisis that sent China’s elites on a frantic search for order and meaning, to borrow Hao Chang’s apt formulation,8 that was to continue well beyond the demise of the last emperor in 1911.

5 See Paula Harrell, Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers, 1895–1905 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 23–29. 6 See Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: A Trilogy (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959–1965), vol. 1, 98–104. 7 See Chang, Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis, 1–20. 8 Ibid.

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

149

As indicated by the late Qing revival of Buddhism,9 the success of political religions such as socialism and anarchism,10 and, most obviously perhaps, Kang Youwei’s 康有為 (1858–1927) futile attempt to install Confucianism (Kongjiao 孔教) as a state cult,11 the urge to find or if need be invent alternative sources of certainty was a key element of this quest. It was in this climate of despair and intellectual ferment that some Chinese scholars turned their attention and hopes toward a foreign science they had so far chosen to ignore—logic, the European “science of sciences,” which promised to provide new ways of resolving doubts in matters of belief and validate much-needed prescriptions for political and social action. 2. Logic as the Science of Sciences The most ardent propagator of the newly discovered discipline was Yan Fu, one of the most influential Chinese writers in the years surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. Yan’s role in modern Chinese intellectual history tends to be exaggerated but in the narrow context of logic his interventions were decisive indeed. Yan Fu was the first Chinese scholar of empire-wide standing to develop a sustained passion for the “science of names” (mingxue 名學), as he suggested calling the new field, and he went to extraordinary lengths to convince his peers that logic could help them, too, to overcome doubts and desperation. Most recent authors discussing Yan’s contribution to the introduction of European logic to China emphasize in particular the influence of his adaptations of Mill’s System of Logic (1903–1905) and Jevons’s Logic primer (1909),12 two works that, as we have seen, had

9 See Sin-wai Chan, Buddhism in Late Ch’ing Political Thought (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1985), 13–52. See also Ma Tianxiang 麻天祥, Wan Qing foxue yu jindai shehui sichao 晚清佛學與近代社會思潮 (Late Qing Buddhism and modern intellectual trends) (Kaifeng: Henan daxue chubanshe, 2005), 33–128. 10 See Martin Bernal, Chinese Socialism to 1907 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976); and Yu-ning Li, Introduction of Socialism, 3–21. 11 Kung-ch’üan Hsiao, A Modern China and a New World: K’ang Yu-wei, Reformer and Utopian, 1858–1927 (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1975), 384–385. 12 See Zhang Zhijian 張志建 and Dong Zhitie 董志鐵, “Shilun Yan Fu dui Woguo luojixue yanjiu de gongxian” 試論嚴復對我國邏輯學研究的貢獻 (A tentative account of Yan Fu’s contribution to Chinese research on logic), in Zhongguo luojishi yanjiu 中國邏輯史研究 (Studies in the history of Chinese logic) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1982), 303–320; Zhou Yunzhi 周云之, “Ping Yan Fu zai

150

chapter three

already been presented by Protestant authors, albeit to no great avail. At least equally important, however, was his relentless propaganda on behalf of the discipline, which he started immediately after the SinoJapanese War. As Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培 (1868–1940) observed already in the 1920s, Yan regarded logic as the “key to the renewal of Chinese scholarship,”13 and thus as the cornerstone of his projected synthesis of Chinese and Western culture.14 Within this synthesis, logic or, more specifically, the modern arts of definition and induction, served as methodological foundations ensuring the certainty of political, moral, and spiritual prescriptions that transcended the wisdom of the Confucian classics. It was in this peculiar function, as defined by Yan Fu, that public indifference toward European logic eventually turned into curious, if initially puzzled, interest. For Yan Fu, logic was much more than a purely academic concern. Deeply entrenched in Mill’s “fanatical inductionism,” for which he had fallen while studying at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich near

yishi ‘Mule mingxue’ zhong de luoji sixiang” 評嚴復在譯釋《穆勒名學》中的邏輯 思想 (An assessment of Yan Fu’s logical thought in his translation and explanation of Mill’s Logic), in Luojixue luncong 邏輯學論從 (Collected essays on logic), ed. Zhongguo shehui kexue yuan zhexue yanjiusuo luoji yanjiushi 中國社會科學院哲學研究所邏 輯研究室 (Beijing: n.p., 1983), 186–196; Li Xiankun 李先焜, “Yan Fu zai xifang luoji zai shuru shang de zhongda gongxian” 嚴復在西方邏輯再輸入上的重大貢獻 (Yan Fu’s great contribution to the renewed importation of Western logic to China), Hubei daxue xuebao 2 (1987): 72–79; Zhang Zhijian 張志建, Yan Fu xueshu sixiang yanjiu 嚴復學 術思想研究 (Researches on the academic thought of Yan Fu) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1995), 113–133; Sun Zhongyuan 孫中原, “Lun Yan Fu de luoji chengjiu” 論嚴復的邏輯成就 (Yan Fu’s logical achievements), Wenshizhe 3 (1992): 80–85; Guan Xingli 關興麗, “Yan Fu dui xifang luoji de shuru ji qi yingxiang” 嚴復對西方邏輯的 輸入及其影響 (Yan Fu’s reception of Western logic and its influence), Fujian luntan 2 (1999): 15–19; and Chen Hongru 陳鴻儒, “Cong ‘Mule mingxue’ anyu dao ‘Mingxue qianshuo’: Shilun Yan Fu luoji sixiang de fazhan guiji” 從《穆勒名學》按語到《名 學淺說》: 試論嚴復邏輯思想軌跡 (From the notes to Mill’s Logic to the Logic Primer: a tentative study of the path of Yan Fu’s logical thought), in Kexue yu aiguo: Yan Fu sixiang xintan 科學與愛國—嚴復思想新探 (Science and patriotism: New investigations into the thought of Yan Fu), ed. Xi Jinping 習近平 (Beijing: Qinghua daxue chubanshe, 2001), 51–60. 13 Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培, “Wushi nian lai zhi Zhongguo zhexue” 五十年來之中 國哲學 (Fifty years of Chinese philosophy) (1923), reprinted in Beijing daxue bainian guoxue wencui: zhexue juan 北京大學百年國學文粹：哲學卷 (Digest of one hundred years of national studies at Peking University: Philosophy), ed. Beijing daxue Zhongguo chuantong wenhua yanjiu zhongxin 北京大學中國傳統文化研究中心 (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1998), 27–43; 27–28. 14 Benjamin Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), 186–187.

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

151

London in 1878–1879,15 Yan conceived of logic as an all-pervading science and art that, when applied consistently, promised infinite scientific and sociopolitical progress. The foundation of Western strength was the Baconian spirit of scientific inquiry, but this spirit had found its practical application only through the “abstract sciences” (xuanxue 玄學) of logic and mathematics.16 Logic in particular had enabled the Western nations to establish the “new patterns” (xinli 新理) that had made their states wealthy and powerful in the modern era. China, on the other hand, had been unable to proceed on the universal road to progress because the canonical texts on which her sciences and policies were founded lacked logical rigor and imagination and were soaked with ambiguities due to a persistent disregard for proper definitions.17 In outline, this was the argument in favor of logic Yan put forward in a series of articles, published between 1894 and 1898, that earned him instant fame as the sharpest critic of China’s “old” knowledge among an increasingly receptive readership.18 One of his main points in these essays was that the two aims guiding China’s previous selfstrengthening efforts were no longer compatible. China’s inability to defend itself against Japan’s aggression had revealed that the “preservation of the state” (baoguo 保國)—or, as he sometimes put it, the “preservation of the race” (baozhong 保種)—could only succeed if it was dissociated from the simultaneous attempt to “preserve the faith” (baojiao 保教) by defending the orthodox Confucian doctrine.19 Without substantial changes to the “core” (ti 體) of its social and political 15 Schwartz, Yen Fu, 189–190. Yan had studied seamanship in Britain between 1877 and 1879, first in Portsmouth, then at the Royal Naval College. See David Wright, “Yan Fu and the Tasks of the Translator,” in Lackner et al., New Terms for New Ideas, 235–256; 236. On Yan’s curriculum at Greenwich, see Sun Yingxiang 孫應祥, Yan Fu nianpu 嚴復年譜 (Annalistic biography of Yan Fu) (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2003), 33–34. 16 Yan Fu, “Xixue menjing gongyong” 西學門徑功用 (Means and applications of Western knowledge) (1898), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji 嚴復集 (The works of Yan Fu), 5 vols., ed. Wang Shi 王栻 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), 92–95; 94. Yan borrowed the distinction between “abstract” and “concrete” sciences from Herbert Spencer’s The Study of Sociology, a work that had made a lasting impression on him when he first read it in 1880. See Pi Houfeng 皮後鋒, Yan Fu dazhuan 嚴復大傳 (Complete biography of Yan Fu) (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2003), 132–133; and Wang Hui 汪暉, Xiandai Zhongguo sixiang de xingqi 現代中國思想的興起 (The rise of modern Chinese thought) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2004), vol. 3, 888. 17 See Peng Yilian, Zhongguo jindai luoji sixiangshi lun, 62–65. 18 On the four most influential of these essays, see Huters, Bringing the World Home, 47–56. 19 Yan Fu, “Baojiao yuyi” 保教余義 (My opinion on the preservation of the faith) (1898), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 83–85; and idem, “Baozhong yuyi” 保種余義

152

chapter three

order, China risked losing in the murderous “struggle for survival” that governed relations in nature as much as those between states. If the country’s inherited faith was incapable of inspiring the adaptations necessary for China’s survival as a nation, as indeed it had proven to be, then, Yan argued, it needed to be abandoned, irrespective of its sacred antiquity. Yan interpreted the practical failure of China’s state doctrine as a symptom of severe methodological flaws that devalued the entire edifice of ethical and practical maxims enshrined in the canonical texts. In his early essays as much as in later writings on “sociology” (qunxue 群學 ‘the science of the horde’ ) and “politics” (zhengzhixue 政治學 ‘the science of governance and administration’ ), Yan highlighted these flaws through comparisons to the logic and epistemology underlying the modern Western sciences. “The reason why China’s policies deteriorate every day and are unfit for the struggle for survival,” he declared emphatically, “is that they are not rooted in science and violate general patterns and natural laws.”20 Yan derived his conviction that the understanding of state and society, like that of nature, had to be based on rigorous scientific foundations from the British social Darwinist Herbert Spencer, the main inspiration of his early years.21 Spencer taught him that all social and political problems could be resolved with absolute certainty if, and only if, they were studied with methods synthesizing the results of the elementary sciences of “name” (ming 學 ‘logic’ ), “number” (shu 數 ‘mathematics’ ), “substance” (zhi 質 ‘chemistry’ ), and “force” (li 力 ‘mechanics’ ). Yan Fu repeated this mantra throughout his lectures and writings. In one of his earliest essays, “On Strength” (Yuan qiang 原強), published in March 1895, he stated his case as follows: If we wish to understand the science of society, we must first devote ourselves to the other sciences. For without the sciences of name and number, our minds will be unable to fathom immutable laws and necessary

(My opinion on the preservation of the race) (1898), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 85–88. 20 Yan Fu, “Yu ‘Waijiaobao’ zhuren shu” 與《外交報》主人書 (Letter to the editor of the Waijiaobao) (1902), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 557–565; 559. 21 See James R. Pusey, China and Charles Darwin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 155–175.

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

153

figures; and without the sciences of substance and force, we will not know how cause and effect succeed one another.22

A few years later, Yan defended the necessary scientific foundation of social and political action with reference to Thomas H. Huxley, whose lectures on Evolution and Ethics he had exploited to introduce Spencerian ideas in his wildly popular treatise On Evolution (Tianyanlun 天演論, 1898).23 Addressing the editor of the journal Waijiaobao 外交 報 (Diplomatic Gazette), Yan wrote: You, sir, wrote that politics is the root and the arts ( yi 藝) are merely the branches. In my opinion, this is to turn the true order on its head. Are the so-called arts not referring to the sciences? Logic, mathematics, chemistry, and mechanics are all sciences. In their understanding of patterns and general laws they penetrate absolutely everything, and all that is good about Western politics is founded on what these sciences establish. Huxley wrote: “The policies of the Western nations were never entirely based on the sciences. Could this ever be achieved, their practical value would be boundless.” . . . Thus, if the sciences are arts, then the Western arts are really the roots of Western politics.24

The difference between Chinese and Western ways of governance was thus that in the West politics had already become a science, or was at least approaching this ideal, whereas in China it continued to be rooted in canonical texts.25 In his Lectures on the Science of Politics (Zhengzhixue jiangyi 政治學講義, 1906), Yan warned his audience that a scientific approach to administration and government required a rupture with engrained Chinese habits of thinking and arguing about social and political issues: In the West, politics has already become a science. . . . Therefore, I must inform you at the outset: Those who wish to obtain the truth (zhenru 真 如) [in the science of politics] must first of all have patience. Talking about a science is different from conventional arguments in our China and involves some difficulties: the first is that we must strive to make the meanings of our terms unmistakably clear and entirely unambiguous;

22 Yan Fu, “Yuan qiang” 原強 (On strength) (1895), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 5–15; 6–7. 23 Schwartz, Yen Fu, 99–112. 24 Yan Fu, “Yu Waijiaobao zhuren shu,” 559. 25 See Zhou Zhenfu 周振甫, Yan Fu sixiang shuping 嚴復思想述評 (A critical review of Yan Fu’s thought) (Taibei: Taiwan Zhonghua shuju, 1964), 104–107.

154

chapter three the second, that we are not accustomed to following the laws of thought in due sequence.26

A new approach to politics, and to other areas in which certainties had been lost, thus demanded a “style of reasoning,” as it were,27 more in tune with the modern sciences and above all with what Yan, inspired by Bacon and Mill, understood to be the methodological underpinnings of logic, the “method of all methods; the science of all sciences.”28 3. Logic as a New Style of Reasoning According to Yan Fu, three elements were central to this new style of reasoning: an empiricist epistemology that was to replace the traditional Chinese beliefs in innate or intuitive knowledge and textual authority; proper methods of definition; and a clear understanding of induction. Yan derived the radically empiricist conviction that brute facts, as conceived in human understanding through the mediation of the senses, were the only possible source of accurate and reliable knowledge from Spencer and Mill, who had tried to show that not even the supposedly pure axioms of mathematics could claim to be a priori truths, entirely untouched by experience.29 Similar to his Western masters, Yan was adamant in his rejection of all kinds of “a priori intuitions” ( yuju 預據).30 For him, the intuitionist interpretation of the Chinese classics, as exemplified most prominently by Lu Xiangshan 陸象山 (1139–1193) and Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529) in their “Learning of the Heart” (xinxue 心學), had obstructed scientific progress in China for centuries, because it offered an “easy shortcut” to scholars with an “indolent and arrogant temper” who shied away

26 Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi 政治學講義 (Lectures on the science of politics) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1906), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 1241–1316; 1243. 27 I borrow this term, which seems to capture the essence of Yan Fu’s program, loosely from the essays by Davidson and Hacking cited in the introduction. 28 Yan Fu (trans.), Mule mingxue 穆勒名學 (Mill’s Logic) (1903–1905), reprinted in Yanyi mingzhu congkan 嚴譯名著叢刊 (Anthology of famous translations by Yan [Fu]) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1931), 1:2–3, note 1. 29 See Li Zehou 李澤厚, “Lun Yan Fu” 論嚴復 (On Yan Fu) (1977), reprinted in idem, Zhongguo jindai sixiangshi lun 中國近代思想史論 (Essays in modern Chinese intellectual history) (Taibei: Sanmin shuju, 1996), 259–297; 281–290. 30 Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi, 1244.

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

155

from confronting the world of hard facts.31 In a similar vein, Mill had criticized the physicist William Whewell’s insistence on the significance of independent mental acts in the process of scientific discovery and invention. In order to emphasize the value of experiential knowledge in the pursuit of certainty, both Yan and Mill violently disputed the possibility of fundamental ideas justified exclusively by their origin in the human mind.32 Although Yan reserved his most severe criticism for those who upheld the belief in “innate knowledge” (liangzhi ), he also took issue with all forms of scholarship that located the sources of knowledge in ancient texts. “If we wish our scientific inquiries to reach a new peak,” he wrote in 1898, “the most important point is to ‘read the book without characters’ (wuzi zhi shu 無字之書),” as Bacon had already demanded nearly three hundred years ago.33 More recently, Huxley had also insisted that “in order to understand mind and matter, we must read the original book of nature (dadi yuanben shu 大地原本書). Seeking to extract [knowledge] from books and jottings is in fact like reading secondhand books.”34 Such secondhand books, rewritten time and again by successive generations, inevitably contained errors, and these were reproduced and multiplied by those who founded their knowledge on texts instead of their own observations. Reliance on book learning was most detrimental to the advancement of natural science, but Yan also found it harmful to the administration of state and society. “Administrators and ethicists (daodejia 道德家), who do not use their own minds and only follow what they receive from the ancients,” he argued, “will not know what to do in times of change and disorder. To me, this is wherein Chinese and Western knowledge differ most pointedly.”35 Deciphering the firsthand book of nature, as scholars and officials in the West were accustomed to doing, required adherence to strict methodological procedures, not all of which were sufficiently known in

31 Yan Fu, “Jiuwang juelun” 救亡決論 (On our salvation) (1895), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 40–54; 44–45. See Schwartz, Yen Fu, 189–194; and Zhou Zhenfu, Yan Fu, 57–60. 32 Laura J. Snyder, Reforming Philosophy: A Victorian Debate on Science and Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 44–54. See Wang Hui, Xiandai Zhongguo sixiang, vol. 3, 902–903, 908–915. 33 Yan Fu, “Xixue menjing gongyong,” 93. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid.

156

chapter three

China. Propagating these procedures became Yan’s most urgent mission. One early example of the way in which he portrayed the logic of scientific inquiry can be found in a lecture he presented as a guest professor at Beijing’s College of Comprehensive Arts (Tongyi xuetang 通藝學堂) in the final weeks of the abortive Hundred Days Reform of 1898:36 Generally speaking, scientific inquiries are commonly divided into three stages. The first [stage] is called “examination” (kaoding 考訂 ‘to examine and correct [as in textual study]’ ), which means to collect exemplars of things that are similar in kind and to ascertain the reality of each individually. The second is called “generalization” (guantong 貫通 ‘to thread together’ ), which means to see similarities among different kinds and link them together into one. “Examination” is called “observation” (guancha 觀察) by some, and still others refer to it as “verification” ( yanyan 演 驗). But “observation” and “verification” are only different names for “examination”; they refer to the same thing. When we approach things in order to fathom patterns, we find that some, such as the course of the sun and stars or changes in human customs, are beyond human powers to change; others, such as fire in a stove or the growth of trees, we can control and alter. If our examinations are sufficiently detailed, we can thread them together to seek out the reasons why things are the way they are, and thence natural laws and general rules are born. . . . In ancient times, scholars in China and the West who applied themselves to fathoming patterns, irrespective of whether they were good or bad at it, never went beyond these two stages, and for this reason ever more of their laws and rules were mistaken. Modern scientists have saved us by adding a third stage called “experimentation” (shiyan 試驗). The more comprehensive our experiments, the more strongly based in reality are our patterns, which is why this third stage is so important.37

But how could scholars derive general rules and natural laws from the data they obtained through the three stages of their empirical inquiries? In this respect, the insights of European logic were indispensable. According to Yan Fu, the first necessary step prescribed by logic was to link perceptions and empirical data through clearly defined “names” (ming 名). (Like Mill and Fryer, Yan used the word “name” as an equivalent to what is more commonly called “term” in logic.) Attention to definitions ( jieshuo 界說), or as he often paraphrased, “the

36 On Yan’s engagement at the College of Comprehensive Arts, see Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 129–135. 37 Yan Fu, “Xixue menjing gongyong,” 93.

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

157

correct use of names” (zhengming 正名),38 therefore became a recurring concern in his lectures and essays. “In science,” he instructed the audience of his Lectures on the Science of Politics, “the meaning of every single word we use must be clearly delineated, without allowing for the slightest ambiguity. Otherwise, we can talk until our mouths run dry and our tongues are tied without the slightest benefit to our listeners.”39 Yan was convinced that Chinese discourses were marred to a greater extent than those articulated in European languages by ambiguities that hampered meaningful discussion in the natural sciences as well as in political, social, and spiritual affairs. In his view, ambiguities arose more easily in Chinese for a number of reasons. Perhaps the most consequential was that, in contrast to languages relying on alphabetical scripts, the “parts of speech” (zilei 字纇) were not visibly marked in Chinese texts. To determine whether a character denoted a “noun” (mingwu 名物), “verb” (dongzuo 動作), “adjective” (qubie 區別) or “adverb” (xingrong 形容) in a given sentence, readers had no choice but to consider the “textual patterns” (wenli 文理) of context and syntax. Yet, traditional philology (xiaoxue 小學 ‘lesser learning’) failed to provide reliable methods for this purpose because China had never developed specialized studies in “grammar” (wenlü 文律).40 Philological commentaries for the most part offered only semantic glosses (xungu 訓詁) that helped to describe meanings (xun 訓) and elucidate their changes over time (gu 詁) but were unable to determine the true qualities of the things to which a word referred.41 Moreover, ambiguities were amplified by reckless authors of poetry and prose whose writings were all too often “indistinct and evasive” and who “corrupted the language through vulgar uses” of words.42 In contrast, European learning had highlighted the value of definitions since Aristotle, so that no Western scholar had been so ignorant of the rules of the “correct use

38

1:1.

See, e.g., Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi, 1247, 1285. See also Yan Fu, Mule mingxue,

Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi, 1280. Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 2:9. See Jin Yuelin 金岳霖, Jin Yuelin jiedu “Mule mingxue” 金岳霖解讀《穆勒名學》( Jin Yuelin deciphers Mill’s Logic) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2004), 142–143. 41 Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi, 1247; and idem, Mule mingxue, 2:23–24. See also Jin Yuelin, Jiedu “Mule mingxue,” 147. 42 Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi, 1247. 39 40

158

chapter three

of names” as to destroy his own language by deliberate violations of established conventions.43 Yan’s emphasis on proper definitions was conceived as a direct antidote to what he saw as a crucial weakness of Chinese scholarship. Unlike the semantic glosses that generation after generation of Chinese students were trained to master in preparation for the civil service examinations, logical definitions linked “names” not just with other “names” but with empirical data and perceptions, and hence with objective reality. In marked disagreement with later interpreters such as Hu Shi, who reclaimed the studies of classical philologists as early expressions of an essentially modern type of empiricism,44 Yan lambasted evidentiary glosses as one of the main reasons for the inability of the Qing education system to foster a genuine scientific spirit. “Students in China,” he wrote in 1896, “are still forced to learn ancient glosses. In this way, they are neither able to understand what the ancients regarded as wrong/false, nor will they ever know the reasons why the ancients thought something to be right/true. Memorizing poetry and prose is harmful already, but [studying] glosses and philological commentaries is even more damaging.”45 Worst of all, Yan continued, students needed to prove their mastery of such glosses in the eight-legged essays required in the civil service examinations. For him, this practice came close to a willful “destruction of talent— for how could it possibly nurture human intelligence?”46 All it could do was inculcate stale and complacent “habits of the heart” (xinxi 心習) that stifled the creativity on which scientific progress depended. In view of the paramount significance he attributed to definitions, Yan said surprisingly little about the proper way in which they had to be established. The most important principle, which he emphasized in a number of his essays, was that “a scientific term (mingci 名辭) Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 2:23. See, e.g., Hu Shi 胡適, “Qingdai xuezhe de zhixue fangfa” 清代學者的治學方法 (Qing scholars’ methods of scholarly inquiry), in Hu Shi, Hu Shi wencun 胡適文存 (Extant writings of Hu Shi) (Shanghai: Yadong tushuguan, 1928), vol. 1, 383–412. 45 Yan Fu, “Yuan qiang xiuding gao” 原強修訂稿 (On strength, revised draft) (1896), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 16–31; 29. See Jin Yuelin, Jiedu “Mule mingxue,” 147–148. 46 Yan Fu, “Yuan qiang xiuding gao,” 29. For an even more devastating assessment of the harmful effects of the eight-legged essay, see Yan Fu, “Daoxue waizhuan” 道學 外傳 (An unofficial biography of the Learning of the Way) (1898), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 483–485. 43 44

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

159

can only have one meaning. If it has two meanings, we have to ask whether or not the two coincide. If they do, everything is well, but if they clash and do not coincide, we must choose one meaning and discard the other; only then can we use the term. . . . In science, it is of utmost importance to conform to this demand; without it, there is no science.”47 The art of definition is thus presented as offering new and superior tools to determine the appropriate and unambiguous meanings of terms. To do so, Yan added a note in one of his translations explaining that definitions “analyze the properties of things, select and describe them, and establish in this manner delineations of kinds. Good definitions must be exhaustive in regard to the kinds of things they delineate, and neither include too much nor too little.”48 Yan rarely mentioned the formal criteria that had been at the heart of discussions of definition in European logic since Aristotle. The only place where he described them in any detail was a list summarizing the traditional “Five Rules of Definition” ( Jieshuo wuli 界說五例) that he jotted down for an official attending one of his lectures at the College of Comprehensive Arts: 1. Definitions must exhaust the properties of the thing; else they will be confused. 2. Definitions must not use the word to be defined; else they will be circular. 3. Definitions must encompass and identify the things to be named; else they will be incomplete. 4. Definitions must not use glosses and unclear words; else they will be obscure. 5. Definitions must not use words like “not” or “no”; else they will be negative.49

Rules 1, 2, 3, and 5 on this list were drawn directly from Mill; rule 4 combined the traditional European formulation with yet another admonition not to confuse scientific definitions with xungu glosses. Whether unprepared readers would have been able to apply these rules without

Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi, 1285. Yan Fu (trans.), Mingxue qianshuo 名學淺說 (Logic primer) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1909), reprinted in Yanyi mingzhu congkan 嚴譯名著叢刊 (Anthology of famous translations by Yan [Fu]) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan 1931), § 44. 49 Yan Fu, “Jieshuo wuli” 界說五例 (Five rules of definition) (1898), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 95–96. See Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 150; and Song Yingxiang, Yan Fu nianpu, 129. 47 48

160

chapter three

further explanations and examples must remain doubtful. Such technical details, however, were beyond Yan’s scope of concern. His main purpose was to identify and propagate the logical methods vital for China’s salvation, not to teach their practical application. Two further logical methods that Yan discovered and promoted as crucial for the revival of Chinese scholarship were the “applied arts” (tushu 涂術) of “induction” (rendered alternately as neidao 內導 ‘inward leading’, or neizhou 內籀 ‘pulling inward’ ) and “deduction” (waidao 外導 ‘outward leading’, or waizhou 外籀 ‘pulling outward’ ). In one of his earlier accounts, Yan presented these basic procedures of inquiry as complementary aspects of popular and scientific reasoning: In the practice of the investigation of things and the fathoming of patterns, there are no more than two basic arts: one is called “induction” (neidao 內導), the other “deduction” (waidao 外導). These two arts are used not only by scholars but everyone in the same manner right from the beginning of our lives. As soon as we apply them, our knowledge grows daily. Induction brings together different things, observes what they have in common, and thus arrives at general rules (gongli 公例). A rough explanation is this: Think of a small child who does not know that fire can cause scalds. One day it sees a candle, touches it with his hand and gets burned; the next day it sees an oven, puts his foot in it, and gets burned again; on the third day, regardless of where it sees a fire with bright flames, the child knows that fire can hurt humans and will not dare to touch it. Conversely, when it wishes to hurt someone, it will bring that person into contact with [fire]. This is the most common application of induction. The general rule we obtain is the phrase “Fire can cause scalds.” The reason why fire can hurt humans is brought out by the art of deduction. Deduction consists in positing in the mind a “major premise” (li 例 ‘precedent’ ), a “minor premise” (an 案 ‘case’ ), and a “conclusion” (duan 斷 ‘decision’ or ‘verdict’ ). In our case, “Fire can cause scalds” is the major premise; “What I touched was fire” is the minor premise; and “Therefore, fire of necessity causes scalds” is the conclusion. Together, the major and minor premises and the conclusion are seen in logic as a complete “syllogism” (lianzhu 連珠 ‘linked verse’; see below). Sustaining the syllogism is a matter of experiment and verification. The better the verification we have, the more solid is our pattern. . . . Studying by deduction, we can infer what we did not yet know to be so from that which we already knew to be thus.50

50

Yan Fu, “Xixue menjing gongyong,” 94.

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

161

According to Yan, “concrete” sciences, like chemistry and mechanics, but also astronomy, geology, biology, zoology, and botany, relied mostly on induction, while deduction was more prevalent in “abstract” sciences such as mathematics and logic.51 Although both arts were necessary tools of scientific inquiry, Yan attributed much higher value to induction throughout his work.52 The special attraction of induction was that it allowed, as Bacon had shown, the discovery of “new patterns” and thus could lead to more significant increases in human knowledge than deduction, which merely spun out new threads from already established rules and laws. Induction alone, Yan claimed, had enabled Newton, Galileo, and other heroes of the modern age to produce their great inventions.53 In Spencer’s Darwinian terms, which Yan Fu adopted with few qualifications, induction was thus the more “progressive” procedure, more in line with the necessary tendencies in the evolution of the human race. As with definitions, his exaltations of induction were directed against a specific habit shaping traditional Chinese scholarship, in this case, reliance on mental intuitions to find general rules. The rules and maxims advocated by the intuitionist schools of thought that were still widely accepted in China, Yan argued, were invariably “rooted in subjective fabrications ( yizao 臆造) and not generalized from actual observations.”54 In fact, as we have seen above, Yan disputed the existence of any intuitions in the human mind, as he pointedly restated in one of his pleas in favor of induction: Heaven gives birth to man and bestows us with intelligence, but we are not born with any innate intuitions. If we wish to know anything, we must base it on induction. In its most common applications, induction can be mastered even by children who have not yet grown to the height of three feet.55

The ease and reliability of the inductive method made its application in the most diverse areas of the sciences possible. Yan was obviously most interested in its uses for sociology and politics. In view of China’s

Ibid. See Sun Zhongyuan, “Lun Yan Fu,” 83–85; and Zhang Zhijian, Yan Fu xueshu sixiang, 117–121. 53 Yan Fu, Tianyanlun 天演論 (On evolution) (1898), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 1321–1409; 1385. 54 Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 2:66. See Wang Hui, Xiandai Zhongguo sixiang, 908–910. 55 Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi, 1243–1244. 51 52

162

chapter three

predicament, the general rules that induction promised to establish were most needed in these areas, for it was here that the crisis of certainty was most acute. What could therefore be more reassuring than knowing that the general rules derived from inductions “are of necessity true at all times” so that “no one will ever be able not to believe them,” even in the most contested areas of debate?56 One unusual aspect of Yan’s enthusiastic, if overly hopeful, endorsement of induction was his insistence that historical records, and thus many of China’s “old books,” were equally valid as raw material for inductive reasoning alongside the brute facts of nature: Induction must be sustained by facts, and facts must be based on experience. Since the experiences of individuals are limited, we must bring together the experiences of the ancients and people in foreign lands to make our [inductions]. Therefore, [inductions] must be based on written records, and written records are history.57

History and “old books” thus retained some value for the formulation of social and political prescriptions but were relegated to an inferior role. While conventional reasoning considered the historical data provided in classical texts as embodiments of tried and tested rules from which policy makers could derive strategies for action by deductive inferences, Yan held that they could in fact only serve as starting points for further, more scientific and hence more certain, inductive inquiries. Yan summarized his most mature position on the respective merits of induction and deduction in 1909 in his adaptation of Jevons’s Logic primer. Eliding Jevons’s view on the subject, Yan rewrote an entire paragraph as follows: Everything discussed in the previous articles is summarily called “the art of deduction” (waizhoushu 外籀術). Roughly speaking, what deduction means is this: we have a general rule handed down from the past and a current premise; we infer from both and obtain a conclusion. But we never ask whence we begat the general rule. This is like the traditional method of argumentation in our China. Anyone wishing to propose a certain theory or opinion first had to cite the old books, in the manner of “In the Classic of Poetry we read . . .” or “The Master says . . .”; then he had

Yan Fu, “Yi Sishi ‘Jixue’ liyan” 譯斯氏《計學》例言 (Introductory remarks to the translation of Mr. Smith’s On the Wealth of Nations) (1901), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 97–102; 100–101. 57 Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi, 1244. 56

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

163

to associate or dissociate a substantial contemporary statement with [this citation]; and only then was the right and wrong of this substantial statement determined. In the West, this art is called didakedifu 第達克的夫 (deductive). The meaning of this word can be translated as “drawing out” (waizhou 外籀). For zhou 籀 means “to draw out and unravel” (chouyi 紬繹) [as in threads from a silk cocoon], and if we judge something by following general laws and proceeding from the origin to the end, this is like drawing out [a thread] and wrapping it around the myriad things; therefore we call [the deductive art] waizhou. Human knowledge accumulates day by day. Today’s evolutionists say that humans were first seen on the face of the earth about two hundred and fifty thousand years ago. The reason why we live the way we do today is that we have since then accumulated experience upon which we act. But how much experience can one gather in the few decades of his life? Past events must not be forgotten but taken as our guide. Men necessarily rely on what the ancients already obtained, further accumulate and supplement [it], and pass it on. This is why extensive learning and broad knowledge are beneficial. The ancients relied on their experiences and passed them on as general rules, and hence we can use them to judge facts and patterns. Apparently, every human being is capable of this, but often it is done in an illegitimate manner, and thus fallacies arise. If we wish to avoid fallacies, we must follow the art of deduction closely so that something that is right/true is not judged to be wrong/false. Although the art of deduction is important, the “art of induction” (neizhoushu 內籀術) is of even higher value. Its Western name is yindakedifu 因達克的夫 ‘inductive [reasoning]’. It is so called because it unifies scattered realities into one rule, just as we take in air when we breathe. Only when this art is mastered are new patterns found every day, and only then can we hope for progress in human ways. Our country’s scholarship has always focused one-sidedly on deduction. Knowledge of induction was exceedingly rare. The Song scholar Zhu [Xi] 朱熹 (1130– 1200) held that reading books and fathoming patterns was the way to explain the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge. If we probe the meaning of his words, they do not seem to be partial to either induction or deduction. For reading books means to seek out what many have heard; and in this manner, we obtain many of the general rules handed down from the ancients. Fathoming patterns means to seek new knowledge, and the way to seek new knowledge is by approaching things. Therefore, [Zhu] wrote in his supplementary commentary [to the Greater Learning (Daxue 大學)]: “We must approach things to fathom their patterns . . . until they suddenly come together.”58 By bringing things together, new knowledge is brought to light and new rules are established. If some of the new rules we establish do not accord with the rules

58 Zhu Xi 朱熹, Sishu zhangju jizhu 四書章句集註 (The Four Books in chapter and verse, with collected annotations) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), 6–7.

164

chapter three established by the ancients, and when we find after repeated examination that the rules we establish do in fact match the true patterns of things, then the old rules must not be upheld despotically just because they are old. Rather, we must abandon the old and follow the new so that the way of man will progress. Therefore I say: the art of induction is even more important for contemporary learning.59

Induction was hence the royal road along which the social and natural sciences China so urgently desired had to proceed, but this preeminent procedure needed to be supplemented by deductions, adhering to strict rules, that allowed the further “unraveling” of the threads implicitly contained in inductively-ascertained general rules. Based on solid empiricist foundations and unambiguous definitions, as Yan assured his readers time and again, the new style of reasoning, to which the two methodological “extremes” (duan 端) of the Western science of names were central, provided the perfect cure for China’s many ills, be they scientific, social, or political. Yan claimed that the consistent application of this new style could even yield more personal benefits. This is obvious from the kind of “truths” he maintained logic was able to establish. Unlike the scientists and philosophers he cited as his inspirations, Yan had little interest in ethically neutral truths that merely confirmed the validity of arguments or the correspondence of objective facts with empirical reality. While both had their value in philosophical and scientific inquiry, Yan held that logic’s ultimate goal was a “quest for authenticity” (qiucheng 求誠).60 In essence, he presented this quest as the search for a path to personal sainthood, combining the pursuit of broad knowledge of the outside world with unceasing efforts at moral self-perfection. Yan amplified what he thought to be resonances between Mill’s portrayal of logic as a discipline whose “sole object . . . is the guidance of one’s own thoughts”61 and the ideals of the Greater Learning as interpreted by the Song philosopher Zhu Xi. Alluding to Zhu’s classic formulation that “Everything the sage teaches is ‘learning for oneself ’ (weiji 為己之學),”62 that is, aimed at moral self-perfection, Yan claimed that Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, § 108. Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 1:4. See the instructive discussion in Wang Hui, Xiandai Zhongguo sixiang, 903–908. 61 Mill, System of Logic, vol. 7, 6. 62 Zhu Xi, Zhuzi yulei 朱子語類 (Conversations of Master Zhu, arranged topically), ed. Li Jingde 黎靖德 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), vol. 1, 243. See also Daniel K. Gardner, “Transmitting the Way: Chu Hsi and His Program of Learning,” Harvard 59 60

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

165

“logic, when talking about the abilities of the human mind, is about nothing but self-enlightenment and authenticity and, as such, entirely ‘for oneself.’ ”63 In view of his scathing critique of traditional epistemology and the harmful obsession with text-based scholarship, Yan’s redefinition of logic’s promises in accordance with conventional ideals of personal accomplishment may seem surprising. It was very much in line, however, with the desire shared by many reform-minded scholars in late Qing China and beyond to fill the orientational vacuum left by the demise of the orthodox doctrine with a new “guiding ideology” (zhuyi 主義) integrating—just as the now untenable former faith had done—political, social, moral, and spiritual dimensions.64 As we shall see below, it was precisely this inflated notion of logic’s ultimate purpose that led some of Yan’s most influential followers to discover the foreign discipline for their own purposes. Yan was so convinced of logic’s multiple benefits that he propagated them in a wealth of public activities, which contributed significantly to raising public awareness of the science. In addition to his writings and, of course, his translations, to which we will turn in a moment, Yan lobbied relentlessly on behalf of logic, becoming one of the most sought-after lecturers of his day. Between 1896, the year in which his public fame exploded due to the stir caused by the circulation of the first drafts of his On Evolution, and the end of the Qing dynasty, Yan advertised his logical faith in numerous public talks. Many of his lectures, including those at the College of Comprehensive Arts in Beijing, were not only well attended but were also reported in the daily press, thus multiplying their impact. Even more visible was Yan’s engagement with China’s first Logical Society (Mingxuehui 名學會), which he founded in 1900 at the invitation and with the support of

Journal of Asiatic Studies 49, no. 1 (1989): 141–172; 142–143. For another direct link between logic and the teachings of the Greater Learning, see Yan Fu, “Jiaoshou xinfa” 教 授新法 (New methods of teaching) (1906), reprinted in idem, “Yan Fu ji” bubian 《嚴復 集》補編 (Supplement to “The works of Yan Fu”), ed. Sun Yingxiang 孫應祥 and Pi Houfeng 皮後鋒 (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2004), 61–73; 65. 63 Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 1:5. 64 See Joachim Kurtz, “Philosophie hinter den Spiegeln: Chinas Suche nach einer philosophischen Identität,” in Zwischen Selbstbestimmung und Selbstbehauptung: Ostasiatische Diskurse des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts, ed. Michael Lackner (Baden Baden: Nomos, 2008), 222–238; 223–224. On the appeal of “-isms” in modern Chinese discourses more generally, see Ivo Spira, Chinese -Isms and Ismatisation: A Case Study in the Modernisation of Ideological Discourse (Ph.D. diss., University of Oslo, 2010).

166

chapter three

the Jinsuzhai 金粟齊 publishing house in Shanghai.65 Yan served as the first president and main lecturer of the society from August 1900 until May 1901. According to his own recollections, he was drawn into the task because “at the time scholars regarded logic as the key to the sciences.”66 Bao Tianxiao 包天笑 (1876–1973), then a young editor at the Jinsuzhai, offers a more sober account of the society’s beginnings in his memoirs: At that time, the Jinsuzhai’s Translation Bureau was preparing to publish Mr. Yan [Fu’s] translation of Mill’s Logic. Because many people didn’t know what kind of science logic really was, we were not even sure how to explain the term “science of names” in the book’s title. Someone suggested that we take advantage of Mr. Yan’s presence in Shanghai to organize a meeting and ask him to give a lecture so that everyone could get a clearer idea. We contacted Mr. Yan and he agreed. Once we had determined a date and rented a large two-story room, we invited many people to attend and advertised the event as a meeting of the “Logical Lecture Society” (Mingxue jiangyan hui 名學講演會).67

Whatever the background of the initiative, Yan’s talks and the Society’s activities as a whole were instant successes. Many of Shanghai’s, and thus China’s, rising intellectual stars crowded the venue for the inaugural lecture, including Zhang Binglin and his entourage,68 Zhang Shizhao, and Yan’s friend Zhang Yuanji 張元濟 (1866–1959), the founder of the College of Comprehensive Arts, who was soon to become one of China’s most influential publishers at the Commercial Press (Shangwu yinshuguan 商務印書館).69 Yan’s reputation and 65 See Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 216–217; and Sun Yingxiang, Yan Fu nianpu, 149–150. See also Wang Quchang 王蘧常, Yan Jidao nianpu 嚴幾道年譜 (Annalistic biography of Yan Fu) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1936), 55. 66 Yan Fu, “Yu Cao Dianqiu shu” 與曹典球書 (Letter to Cao Dianqiu) (1901), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 565–566; 566. 67 Bao Tianxiao 包天笑, Chuanyinglou huiyilu 釧影樓回憶錄 (Memoirs from Bracelet’s Shadow Mansion) (Taibei: Longwen chubanshe, 1990), vol. 2, 271. On Bao Tianxiao’s work at the Jinsuzhai press, see Li Renyuan 李仁淵, “Xinshi chubanye yu zhishifenzi: yi Bao Tianxiao de zaoqi shengya wei li” 新式出版業與知識份子：以 包天笑的早期生涯為例 (New publishing institutions and the life of intellectuals: Bao Tianxiao’s early career), Si yu yan 43, no. 3 (2005): 53–105; 81–87. 68 On Zhang Binglin’s recollections of Yan’s lectures, see Max K’o-wu Huang, The Meaning of Freedom: Yan Fu and the Origins of Chinese Liberalism (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2008), 338–339. 69 On Yan’s friendship with Zhang Yuanji, see Wang Xianming 王憲明, Yuyan, fanyi yu zhengzhi: Yan Fu yi “Shehui tongquan” yanjiu 語言、翻譯與政治—嚴復譯《社會通 詮》研究 (Language, translation and politics: A study of Yan Fu’s translation of A History of Politics) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2005), 44–45.

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

167

the contacts of his publishers also attracted officials, businessmen, and a sizeable number of star-struck commoners.70 At the most crowded event, more than five hundred listeners squeezed into a make-shift auditorium.71 If we are to believe Bao Tianxiao’s recollections, the curiosity of the expectant audience was not disappointed: We had planned to start at 2 p.m. but Mr. Yan only arrived well after 3. He had an opium habit, got up late, and also needed a pipe after each meal, which delayed him further. He had a shadow of a thick moustache, was dressed in a blue robe and a black gown—at the time no one wore Western clothes since we all still dragged pigtails behind us—and carried spectacles rimmed with thin golden thread. At one end the golden thread was torn and Mr. Yan had used black thread to hold the lens in place. He was from Fujian but spoke in authentic Beijing dialect. Although he was a high official, he had the air of an unconventional eccentric. Our setup was also not quite like that in a school where you would have a dais. All we had was a half-table facing eastward. We carried a chair over and put fresh flowers and a tea service on the table. For the many listeners, we arranged chairs in a half circle. . . . Mr. Yan lectured in a very composed manner. He held a small booklet, perhaps with an outline, read from it at times and spoke freely at others, all in very good order. But he often mixed English words into his presentation that were difficult to comprehend for some of those who didn’t understand English. After all, logic is a very profound discipline. Many listeners were rather baffled. Frankly, although I served as proofreader for Yan’s translation, I was also, as [the poet Tao] Yuanming 陶淵明 (365–427) once said, more than content with a superficial understanding. Therefore I know that many in the audience had not come to listen to the presentation but only to see Yan Youling [that is, Yan Fu]. All they did was follow the crowds so that they could chime in about a fashionable trend.72

Even if not everyone could or wanted to follow Yan’s deliberations, the trend he initiated or amplified through the Logical Society lasted for quite some time. Yan continued to lecture on the subject every Monday and Thursday. Sun Baoxuan 孫寶瑄 (1874–1924), who attended two of these lectures in April and May 1901, shortly before Yan left Shanghai and passed the presidency of the society to his former student

70 Bao Tianxiao, Chuanyinglou huiyilu, vol. 2, 271–272. See also W. W. Yen (Yan Huiqing 顏惠慶), East–West Kaleidoscope, 1877–1946: An Autobiography (New York: St. John’s University Press, 1974), 10–11. 71 Yan Fu, “Yu shengnü He Renlan shu [9]” 與甥女何紉蘭書 (Letter to [my] niece He Renlan, no. 9) (1906), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 833–834; 833. 72 Bao Tianxiao, Chuanyinglou huiyilu, vol. 2, 271–272.

168

chapter three

Wu Guangjian 伍光建 (1866–1943),73 recalled that both events still drew an audience of about thirty, “some sitting, some standing.”74 Yan’s public lobbying did not escape the attention of the central administration. Zhang Baixi 張百熙 (1847–1907), the president of the Board of Rites and an architect of educational reforms in the early years of the twentieth century, invited Yan in 1902 to serve as superintendent of the Translation Office of the Imperial University ( Jingshi daxuetang yishuju 京師大學堂譯書局) in Beijing.75 In this capacity, Yan wrote into the bureau’s official statutes a provision requiring the production of more books on logic (“the science of names, which determines the laws of thought and speech”).76 Through his ties to Zhang Baixi, Yan was also instrumental, as we shall see in the next chapter, in paving the way for the eventual integration of logic into the curricula of normal schools and universities throughout the country. In Yan’s own mind, however, all these activities were mere supplements to the greatest service he could render the discipline: the translation of logical texts into terse and dignified classical prose.

73

87.

On Yan Fu’s relation to Wu Guangjian, see Max Huang, The Meaning of Freedom,

74 Sun Baoxuan 孫寶瑄, Wangshanlu riji 忘山廬日記 (Diaries from the Forgotten Mountain Cottage) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1983), vol. 1, 331. A photograph taken at one of these meetings that Sun showed to his friend Song Shu 宋恕 (1862–1910) inspired the latter to write a poem reflecting the volatile political situation at the time and hinting at a rather ambivalent view of Yan Fu and his activities: Sweaty sheep heads ashamed of dark sins, The Zhao clan’s corruption sufficed to bring down Qin; All corners of the country are teeming with chattering factions, Busy chasing “mountain paste” [that is, opium, JK] and apt at cursing others. In Lingnan, the dispersed troops of the Society to Protect the Emperor, In the lower Yangzi region, philosophers engaging in empty talk. In many places arises the will to kill or die a violent death, Bringing to life tormented gullies where big fish may rise. Song Shu 宋恕, “Ti ‘Mingxuehui tongren tu’ ” 題《名學會同人圖》(Inscription on a ‘Photograph of the Members of the Logical Society’ ), Qingyi bao, no. 100 (1901), reprinted in idem, Song Shu ji 宋恕集 (The works of Song Shu), 2 vols., ed. Hu Zhusheng 胡珠生 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1993), 852. 75 See Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 228–241; Wang Xianming, Yuyan, fanyi yu zhengzhi, 57–60; and Sun Yingxiang, Yan Fu nianpu, 174–175. 76 Yan Fu, “Jingshi daxuetang yishuju zhangcheng” 京師大學堂譯書局章程 (Regulations governing the Translation Office of the Imperial University) (1903), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 127–131; 130.

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

169

4. Yan Fu as a Translator of Logic Together with Lin Shu 林紓 (1852–1924),77 the monolingual interpreter of over one hundred pieces of foreign literature, Yan Fu is rightly praised as the most important translator in late imperial China. Contrary to the assertions of many commentators, Yan was not the first Chinese author to adapt scholarly texts directly from English— as we have seen, Yan Yongjing had published his Xinlingxue about a decade before Yan’s Tianyanlun was printed—but the public attention that his renditions attracted was indeed unparalleled. In addition, Yan Fu’s now famous formulation of the “three difficulties in translation”— “faithfulness [to the original meaning]” (xin 信), “comprehensibility [of the ideas to be conveyed]” (da 達), and “elegance [of expression]” ( ya 雅)78—have remained “the Gospel of translation theory in China,”79 even if, as recent studies have shown, they were in fact borrowed from Alexander Tytler’s Essay on the Principles of Translation.80 Yan attempted to demonstrate through his translations that the new ideas whose adoption he saw as China’s only salvation were fruits of a culture representing a peak of human civilization comparable to Chinese antiquity.81 This intention was mirrored in the choice of the “great books” he deemed worthy of translation: Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (published in Chinese as Yuan Fu 原富 [On wealth] in 1901–1902), Herbert Spencer’s Study of Sociology (Qunxue yiyan 群學 肄言 [Learned words on the science of the horde], 1902), Mill’s On Liberty (Qunji quanjie lun 群己權界論 [On the boundary between the rights of society and rights of the individual], 1903), Edward Jenks’s History of Politics (Shehui tongquan 社會通詮 [A full account of society], 77 See Theodore Huters, “A New Way of Writing: The Possibilities for Literature in Late Qing China, 1895–1908,” Modern China 14, no. 3 (1988): 243–276; 252–254. 78 Yan Fu, “Yi liyan” 譯例言 (Introductory remarks to the translation [of On evolution]) (1897), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 1321–1323; 1321. See He Lin 賀麟, “Yan Fu de fanyi” 嚴復的翻譯 (Yan Fu’s translations), Dongfang zazhi 22, no. 20 (1925): 75–87. 79 See Lawrence Wang-chi Wong, “Beyond Xin, Da, Ya: Translation Problems in the Late Qing,” in Lackner and Vittinghoff, Mapping Meanings, 239–264; 239; and Wright, “Yan Fu,” 238–239. 80 Alexander Fraser Tytler, Essay on the Principles of Translation (Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, [1791] 1813), 16. See Shen Suru 沈蘇儒, Lun xin da ya: Yan Fu fanyi lilun yanjiu 論信達雅—嚴復翻譯理論研究 (On faithfulness, comprehensibility, and elegance: A study of Yan Fu’s theory of translation) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1998), 120–121. See also Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 485–486. 81 He Lin, “Yan Fu de fanyi,” 76–77.

170

chapter three

1904), and Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws (Fayi 法意 [ The meaning of the laws], 1904–1909) belonged to the most acclaimed works in nineteenth-century Europe.82 Yan’s most influential rendition, Tianyanlun, which was based on a series of popular lectures by T. H. Huxley, was an obvious exception, but Yan used this text only as a shortcut to ideas he admired in Spencer’s monumental Principles of Sociology, a text he did not dare to touch early in his career as a translator.83 Mill’s System of Logic, also considered a modern classic when Yan Fu studied in Britain, was a choice very much in line with his general aims. The circumstances in which Yan started this translation were dire. His home in Tianjin and his office at the Beiyang Naval College (Beiyang shuishi xuetang 北洋水師學堂) were destroyed during the Boxer Uprising in June 1900. Yan fled to Shanghai where he found himself in serious financial difficulties despite his fame on the literary scene. For a time, he was so strapped for cash that he had to borrow money from various sources to support his family. Among others, he approached Kuai Guangdian 蒯光典 (1857–1910), the owner of the Jinsuzhai press, asking for an advance of 3,000 yuan in exchange for the publication rights to his as yet undone translations of Mill’s Logic and Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.84 Kuai agreed and, as we have seen, also helped Yan to promote his work through public lectures. Still, Yan was far from happy with the way the cooperation unfolded. In a letter, he complained that the terms of an agreement suggested by Kuai put unbearable pressure on him.85 He also claimed he never saw the money that Kuai had promised,86 an accusation disputed by the Jinsuzhai editor Bao Tianxiao, who blamed the rough start instead on Yan’s cantankerous character and increasing sluggishness due to his opium vice.87

82 Yan had identified most of the books he wanted to translate by 1899. See Sun Yingxiang, Yan Fu nianpu, 136–137. 83 Schwartz, Yen Fu, 98–99. For other texts Yan planned or started to translate but never published, see Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 488–491, 100–103. 84 Ibid., 210. 85 Yan Fu, “Yu Li Ming shu” 與李明書 (Letter to Li Ming) (1901), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji bubian, 225–231; 227. 86 Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 210. 87 Bao Tianxiao, Chuanyinglou huiyilu, vol. 2, 261–262. For a more thorough discussion of Yan’s opium addiction, which began in the late 1880s and lasted until the end of his life, see Wang Rongzu 汪榮祖, “Yan Fu xinlun” 嚴復新論 (A new discussion of Yan Fu), in idem, Cong chuantong zhong qiubian: wan Qing sixiangshi yanjiu 從傳統中 求變—晚清思想史研究 (Seeking change in tradition: Studies in late Qing intellectual

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

171

Notwithstanding these troubles, Yan started translating the Logic in the summer of 1900. He seems to have advanced quite rapidly, reporting at one point that he translated “eight pages per night.”88 In mid1901, he shared his excitement about the work’s progess in a letter to Zhang Yuanji: Half of the Logic (mingxue 名學) should be completed within a year. The insights and truths (daoli zhenru 道理真如) in this [book] are as numerous as silk threads in a cocoon; indeed, they are so powerful that they will do away with 80 or 90 percent of China’s old patterns, and people’s minds will gain utmost strength from their application. Therefore, although it is hard labor, I feel more and more content the more I translate. Should I be able to complete this great work, with heaven’s help, by next year, this will truly be a joyful event!89

At about the same time, Yan submitted the first part of his translation, comprising Book I (“On Names and Propositions”) of Mill’s Logic,90 to the Jinsuzhai for revisions, which were completed by February 1902.91 Slightly thereafter, however, the work stalled. Yan would later explain that I intended and wished to continue with the translation of the latter half, but my affairs left me no time. Moreover, with increasing age my mind grew tired and confused, and I became afraid of exerting my brain’s energies. Mill’s book is profound and extensive; without peace of mind for leisurely deliberation, I was not up to the task. Therefore, I never completed it.92

Yan’s worsening addiction may also have played a part in his decision to let the project rest for the time being. The first printed edition, containing only the above-mentioned “Part One” (bu jia 部甲), was published in February 1903 in a woodblock edition produced at the Jinsuzhai’s Nanjing branch under the title Mill’s Logic (Mule mingxue history) (Nanchang: Baihuazhou wenyi chubanshe, 2001), 136–145; 137–139; and Max Huang, The Meaning of Freedom, 82. 88 Ibid., 100. 89 Yan Fu 嚴復, “Yu Zhang Yuanji shu [12]” 與張元濟書 (Letter to Zhang Yuanji, no. 12) (1901), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 545–546; 546. In the original letter, the whole paragraph was underlined with double dots, thus further highlighting Yan’s excitement. 90 Mill, System of Logic, vol. 7, 19–156. 91 Yan Fu, “Yu Zhang Yuanji shu [11]” 與張元濟書 (Letter to Zhang Yuanji, no. 11) (1901), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 543–544; 544. See Sun Yingxiang, Yan Fu nianpu, 176. 92 Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, preface, 1.

172

chapter three

穆勒名學).93 The full text of Yan’s translation, comprising slightly less than the first half of the original, appeared under the same title in 1905 at the Commercial Press in Shanghai.94 Yan never abandoned hope of finishing the translation of the entire System of Logic. After several futile attempts to get back to working on the second half of the book between 1912 and 1917, he made a final effort in 1918 following a request by Zhang Yuanji but soon had to give up due to his failing health.95 Yan’s second translation of a logical text was a much more modest undertaking: a comparatively light-handed rendition of Jevons’s Logic, the same text with which Edkins had struggled in the 1880s, that was published in 1909 as Logic Primer (Mingxue qianshuo 名學淺說). As Yan Fu recalled in his preface, his decision to translate this book was more or less accidental: In the autumn of 1908, my wanderings brought me to Tianjin. A female student by the name of Lü 呂 (Bicheng 碧城, 1883–1943) from Jingde 旌德 earnestly asked me to teach her this science.96 Therefore I took Jevons’s Logic primer and translated some each day for explication. The book was completed within two months.97 The general meaning of my translation follows the original work, but I have changed many illustrations and examples in accordance with my own opinions. My sole intention with this book was to adapt it for explanation; I did not pay much attention to whether or not what I wrote corresponded to the original.98

93 That the text was indeed printed, and not only circulated among Yan’s peers, as most commentators assume, is confirmed by frequent references in contemporaneous translations of logical texts, which will be analyzed below, and an abstract of the work in Gu Xieguang 顧燮光, Yishu jingyan lu 譯書經眼錄 (Catalogue of translated books) (Hangzhou: Jinjia Shihaolou shiyinben, 1931 [1904]), 11a. 94 Yan Fu’s translation ended with Book III, Chapter 13, and thus not even halfway through Mill’s discussion of induction and well before his presentation of the “Logic of the Moral Sciences” in Book VI, which would have been of particular interest to Yan. See Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, and Mill, System of Logic, vol. 7, 19–483. 95 Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 342–343. 96 On Yan’s relation with Lü Bicheng, who was to become an accomplished poet and educator, see Grace S. Fong, “Alternative Modernities, Or a Classical Woman of Modern China: The Challenging Trajectory of Lü Bicheng’s (1883–1943) Life and Song Lyrics,” Nan Nü 6, no. 1 (2004): 12–59; 32–34. 97 Yan began the translation on September 11, 1908, and completed it by November 13. Yan Fu, “Riji” 日記 (Diaries) (1908–1920), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 1477– 1539; 1480, 1483, 1485. 98 Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, preface, 1. (Translation of the first two sentences adapted from Fong, “Lü Bicheng,” 32.)

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

173

Despite Yan’s emphasis on fidelity in his three principles of translation, his adaptations of the European classics of modernity had little in common with what would today be considered reliable translations.99 Yan rarely rendered his texts of departure word by word or sentence by sentence. Instead, he paraphrased or summarized sections of various length in order to “communicate the gist” (dazhi 達旨),100 amplifying points he found to be of particular significance and omitting others he deemed superfluous or suspicious. At times, he clearly marked his personal commentaries as such in separate notes; more often he wove them directly into the fabric of his renditions.101 Yan’s logical translations were located at different ends of the scale with regard to the liberties he took in their adaptation. In Mule mingxue Yan followed the English text perhaps more closely than in any of his other translations. Although still not reproducing the precise sequence and syntactical arrangement of Mill’s arguments, Yan confined his commentaries almost exclusively to forty-two notes, comprising more than ten thousand words, of varying length and scope. In Mingxue qianshuo, on the other hand, he made ample use of the space for alterations he claimed in his preface. Nonetheless, both translations remained largely true to the ideas expressed in their texts of departure. Before looking more closely at Yan’s notes and alterations as well as the terms in which he represented the conceptual lexicon of European logic, it is necessary to touch briefly upon the peculiar literary style of his renditions. In order to highlight the dignity of the foreign texts he presented and to attract readers from among the highest echelons of China’s scholarly elite, Yan insisted on modeling his translations in syntax and style on a terse variety of pre-Qin prose.102 In part, his antiquarian mode of expression can be seen as an attempt to showcase

99 See Ng Mau-sang, “Reading Yan Fu’s Tian Yan Lun,” in Interpreting Culture through Translation, ed. Roger Ames et al. (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1991), 167–184; and Elizabeth Sinn, “Yan Fu,” in An Encyclopaedia of Translation, ed. Sinwai Chan and David Pollard (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1995), 432–436. 100 Yan Fu, “Yi Tianyanlun zixu” 譯天演論自序 (Translator’s preface to On Evolution) (1897), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 1319–1321; 1320. 101 See Wang Kefei 王克非, Zhong-Ri jindai dui xifang zhengzhi zhexue sixiang de shequ— Yan Fu yu Riben qimeng xuezhe 中日近代對西方政治哲學思想的攝取—嚴復與日本 啟蒙學者 (The reception of Western political and philosophical thought in modern China and Japan: Yan Fu and Japanese enlightenment scholars) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1996), 51–60. 102 Ibid., 46–51.

174

chapter three

his literary abilities to the high-ranking officials under whose contempt Yan had long suffered as a barbarian-educated man who had failed the imperial examinations four times.103 On the other hand, his stylistic idiosyncrasies were not as outrageous as some contemporaries and especially the May Fourth intelligentsia claimed.104 Yan derived most of his stylistic inspirations from the Tongcheng School (Tongcheng pai 桐城派), a literary movement whose theory of prose called for a uniform, archaic style supposed to be accessible to all educated readers.105 Contrary to later condemnations of their obscurantist bent, Tongcheng scholars, such as Yan’s mentor Wu Rulun 吳汝綸 (1840– 1903), believed that the clarity of diction they found embodied in “old text” (guwen 古文) prose guaranteed precision of expression and was thus the best means to convey complex ideas. Yan was similarly convinced that the essentials and subtleties [of foreign texts] are more easily conveyed by using pre-Han style (zifa 字法) and syntax ( jufa 句法). If one uses the vulgar language current today, it is difficult to get the point across: one always suppresses the idea in favor of the expression and one tiny initial error leads to infinite aberrations in the end.106

Thus, while he certainly believed that the new classics with which he intended to replace the orthodox canon had to speak with a voice similar to the Confucian scriptures if their authority was to be accepted by the elitist audience he aimed to impress, Yan also seems to have assumed that this voice would genuinely facilitate his task of communicating foreign ideas. Many readers, even among those who were at least as well versed in classical writings as Yan himself, thought otherwise. Liang Qichao, for instance, commented in a discussion of Yan’s adaptation of On the Wealth of Nations:

103 Michael Lackner, “Circumnavigating the Unfamiliar: Dao’an (314–385) and Yan Fu (1852–1921) on Western Grammar,” in Lackner et al., New Terms for New Ideas, 357–372; 366. 104 Huters, Bringing the World Home, 67–68. 105 See Huters, “A New Way of Writing,” 249–254; idem, Bringing the World Home, 82–87; and Edward Gunn, Rewriting Chinese: Style and Innovation in Twentieth Century Chinese Prose (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 32–34. 106 Yan Fu, “Yi liyan,” 1322. Translation adapted from Huters, “A New Way of Writing,” 249.

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

175

One thing I regret is that [Yan’s] writing is too difficult and elegant, attempting to imitate pre-Qin style. Unless someone has read many classical books, it is impossible to understand his translations. We should have had a literary revolution long ago. Moreover, as these books contain great learning, unless they are translated in fluent and plain writing, how can they benefit schoolboys? Translations are a means to disseminate enlightened ideas among the people. They are not meant to be hidden in deep forests or to earn the translator an immortal reputation.107

Yan was unfazed by such criticisms. In response to Liang’s critique, for instance, he only quipped: What I have translated are books of great learning. I do not expect that they will be read by schoolboys or that schoolboys will benefit from them. My translations are for those who have read many classical books. If readers who have not read any classical Chinese writings want to read my translations, they should be blamed and not the translator.108

From our point of view, it does not matter much that Yan Fu’s assessment was proven wrong both by scores of young readers who took great delight in his antiquarian mannerisms as well as by classically trained literati who complained in no uncertain terms about the opacity of his prose.109 Although the stylistic surface of his works undoubtedly affected their readability and imparted a certain flavor to the ideas they presented, it was not decisive for the success or failure of Yan’s adaptation of the conceptual lexicon he strove to introduce. In this regard, his terminological choices had greater bearing. Many commentators have pointed out that Yan’s classicist proclivities were mirrored in his renditions of key terms. To be certain, Yan redefined many classical terms in his presentations of foreign theories of politics, ethics, economics, and law, and he also colored the general philosophical vocabulary of European thinkers with thick layers of more or less explicit allusions to pre-Qin thought.110 However, in areas of “new” 107 Liang Qichao 粱啟超, “Shaojie xinzhu Yuan fu” 紹介新著原富 (Introducing the new book On Wealth) (1902), reprinted in Yan Fu yanjiu ziliao 嚴復研究資料 (Research materials on Yan Fu), ed. Niu Yangshan 牛仰山 and Sun Hongni 孫鴻霓 (Fuzhou: Haixia wenyi chubanshe, 1990), 266–268; 267. 108 Yan Fu, “Yu ‘Xinmin congbao’ lun suoyi ‘Qunxue yiyan’ ” 與新民叢報論所譯 群學肄言 (Discussing my translation of The Study of Sociology with the Xinmin congbao) (1902), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 515–518; 516. 109 Schwartz, Yen Fu, 93–94. 110 See Huang Kewu 黃克武, Ziyou de suoyiran. Yan Fu dui Yuehan Mier ziyou sixiang de renshi yu pipan 自由的醙依然—嚴復對約翰彌爾自由思想的認識與批評 (The raison d’être of freedom. Yan Fu’s understanding and critique of John Stuart Mill’s

176

chapter three

knowledge that displayed less obvious conceptual overlaps with traditional Chinese discourses, his approach to terminology was of necessity more diverse. David Wright has documented the eclecticism of Yan’s terminology for natural sciences such as chemistry and physics.111 A similar eclecticism characterized his adaptations of logical terms in his renditions of Mill and Jevons. An examination of the logical terms used in Mule mingxue and Mingxue qianshuo (see Table 3.1 below) reveals that Yan drew on a wide range of sources for the creation of his terminology. Actual “classical” terms dominated in neither work, underlining again that ancient lexicons did not provide easily discernible equivalents for logical notions, as has been emphasized throughout the previous chapters. Even a self-professed classicist like Yan Fu was unable to identify more than a handful of ancient words that seemed to lend themselves as acceptable renditions of logical terms. Most prominent in this respect was, of course, his translation of “logic” by mingxue 名學 ‘the science of names’ (see Table 3.1, item 1.1), and “logician” by mingjia 名家 ‘expert on names’, which implied unmistakable affinities between logic and its practitioners and the ancient Chinese School of Names, even if Yan offered a somewhat different justification for his selections, as we shall see below. Further examples included his rendition of “generalization” by huitong 會通 ‘to bring together and make communicate’ (5.12), a term that indeed had time-honored philosophical roots as a metaphor for “penetrating understanding” in the “Attached Verbalizations” (Xici 繫辭) of the Classic of Change (Yijing 易經); and his suggestion to translate “quality” (3.7) by pin 品 ‘character’, ‘property’, ‘moral standing’, ‘grade’, ‘rank’; or de 德 ‘virtue’, ‘power’, ‘inherent ability’.112 While these renditions were based on more or less obvious similarities between Chinese and English terms, most other instances of seemingly classical terms in Yan’s renditions were in fact either neologisms with a pseudo-classical appearance or borrowings adapted

liberalism) (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 2000), 71–81. See also Howland, Personal Liberty and Public Good, 22–25, 83–87. 111 See Wright, “Yan Fu,” 240–242, 250–255. 112 In one of his notes to Mule mingxue, Yan alerted his readers that his usage of de 德 in the sense of “quality” risked causing confusion because the term covered a broad range of meanings in classical sources. He justified his choice by his intention to avoid creating an entirely new term for a notion that he thought to be completely alien to traditional Chinese thought and advised readers to carefully study Mill’s definition of “quality” in order to avoid misunderstanding. See Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 2:107.

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

177

Table 3.1: Logical Terms in Yan Fu’s Translations English term

Mule Mingxue, 1903–1905 Mingxue qianshuo, 1909 A. General terms of logic

1.1

logic

1.2

reasoning

1.3

thought

思

1.4

judgment

比擬 判斷 辨 真理

1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.10 1.11

argument truth form, formal symbol, symbolic law of identity law of contradiction law of excluded middle 1.12 principle of sufficient reason

名學 邏輯 邏輯學 論理學 思籀 思議 思辨

名學 邏輯 論理學 辨學 思籀 思議 思辨 推論 思想 思維 比擬 辨 判斷 真理

B. Terms related to terms 2.1

term

2.2

concept (idea)

2.3

intension

端 名 意 概念 恭什布脫 內涵

2.4

extension

外舉

2.5

definition

2.6

category

2.7 2.8

substance predicables

界說 定義 倫 範疇 薩布斯坦思阿 旌 布理的加門

端 名 意 內涵 內包 外舉 外延 界說

178

chapter three

Table 3.1 (cont.)

2.9

English term

Mule Mingxue, 1903–1905 Mingxue qianshuo, 1909

genus

類 甄譜斯 別 斯畢稀 差 差德 的甫連希亞 撰 常德 波羅普利按 寓 偶德 亞錫登斯 單及之端 普及之端 總名 正名 負名 察名 具體之名 名 抽象之名 獨立之名 對待之名 有謂之名 加特歌勒馬之名 合謂之名 沁加特歌勒馬之名

2.10 species 2.11 difference 2.12 property 2.13 accident 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19

singular term general term collective term positive term negative term concrete term

2.20 abstract term 2.21 absolute term 2.22 relative term 2.23 categorematic term 2.24 syncategorematic term

類 別 差德 常德 寓德 單及之端 普及之端 撮最之端 正名 負名 察名 懸名 獨立之名 對待互觀之名

C. Terms related to propositions 3.1 3.2

sentence proposition

3.3

subject

3.4

predicate

3.5

copula

3.6 3.7

attribute quality

句法 詞 首 命題 詞主 句主 所謂 布理狄桀 綴詞 綴系 鄂卜捷 品 瓜力塔思

句 詞句 詞 命題 詞主 句主 所謂 布理狄桀 綴系 品

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

179

Table 3.1 (cont.) English term

Mule Mingxue, 1903–1905 Mingxue qianshuo, 1909

3.8

quantity

3.9

true

量 觀特塔思 真 是

3.10 false

否 非

3.11 some

凡

3.12 all 3.13 distributed

有 普及 周延 不普及 不周延 徑達之詞 定言命題 未定之詞 有待之詞 相生之詞 設言命題

3.14 undistributed 3.15 categorical proposition 3.16 hypothetical proposition 3.17 conjunctive proposition 3.18 disjunctive proposition 3.19 affirmative proposition 3.20 negative proposition 3.21 particular proposition 3.22 universal proposition 3.23 universal affirmative proposition 3.24 universal negative proposition 3.25 particular affirmative proposition 3.26 particular negative proposition 3.27 conversion

析取之詞

量 真 是 實 否 非 虛 有 某 凡 盡物 未嘗盡物 徑達之詞 定言命題 有待之詞 假設之詞 假言命題

正詞

析取之詞 選言命題 正詞

負詞 偏謂之詞 特稱命題 全謂之詞 全稱命題 普及正詞

負詞 偏及之詞 特稱命題 統舉之詞 全稱命題 統舉正詞

普及負詞

統舉負詞

偏謂正詞

偏及正詞

偏舉負詞

偏及負詞

轉詞 詞之換位

調換詞頭之法

180

chapter three

Table 3.1 (cont.) English term

Mule Mingxue, 1903–1905 Mingxue qianshuo, 1909

3.28 simple conversion

互轉

3.29 3.30 3.31 3.32 3.33 3.34 3.35

取寓之轉 更端之轉

limited conversion contraposition opposition contradictory contrary subcontrary subaltern

互駁 全反 偏反 兼容

簡捷轉頭 簡易之轉頭法 限制轉頭 全反 反對

D. Terms related to syllogisms 4.1

inference

4.2

deduction

4.3

induction

4.4

premise

4.5

conclusion

4.6

major premise

大原 大前提

4.7

minor premise

小原 小前提

4.8

major term

4.9

minor term

大端 大語 小端 小語 中端 媒語

4.10 middle term

推證 推籀 外籀 演繹 內籀 歸納 原詞 原 前提 委詞 委 斷案

4.11 antecedent

安梯西登 前事 提設

4.12 consequent

後承

推知 推 外籀 演繹 內籀 歸納 原 原詞 前提 委 委詞 判 斷案 例 大原 大前提 案 小原 小前提 大端 大語 小端 小語 中介 中端 媒語 前事 前件 提設 安梯西登 後承 後件 康西昆士

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

181

Table 3.1 (cont.) English term 4.13 syllogism 4.14 hypothetical syllogism 4.15 disjunctive syllogism 4.16 sorites 4.17 enthymeme 4.18 epicheirema 4.19 figure (of syllogism) 4.20 mood (of syllogism) 4.21 fallacy

Mule Mingxue, 1903–1905 Mingxue qianshuo, 1909 聯珠 連珠 三斷

連珠 聯珠 司洛輯沁 有待連珠

析取連珠

析取連珠

式 目 發拉屎 眢詞 偽論

式

4.22 logical fallacy 4.23 material fallacy 4.24 begging the question 丐詞 丐問眢詞 4.25 illicit major 大端不合法 之眢詞 4.26 illicit minor 小端不合法 之眢詞 4.27 undistributed 中介不盡物 middle term 之眢詞 4.28 equivocation 歧義之眢詞 4.29 ambiguity

眢詞 偽論 發拉屎 丐詞 丐問眢詞 大端不合法之眢詞 小端不合法之眢詞 中介不盡物之眢詞 歧義之眢詞

E. Terms related to the methodology of the sciences 5.1

method

5.2

analysis

5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7

synthesis fact experience observation hypothesis

5.8 5.9

experiment proof

分析 析觀 歷驗 觀察 希卜梯西 設复 臆說 試驗 証

方法 法 分析 分明 事實 經歷 觀察 希卜梯西 置复 設臆 臆說 設复 試驗 証

182

chapter three

Table 3.1 (cont.) English term 5.10 verification 5.11 classification 5.12 generalization 5.13 analogy 5.14 5.15 5.16 5.17 5.18 5.19 5.20

explanation cause effect necessity probability theory axiom

Mule Mingxue, 1903–1905 Mingxue qianshuo, 1909 印證 印證法 分類 會通 推概 解例 因 果 必然

5.21 law

說 公論 公理 公例

5.22 5.23 5.24 5.25

例 自然常然 統同術

5.26 5.27 5.28 5.29

principle rule uniformity of nature method of agreement method of difference joint method of agreement and difference method of concomitant variation method of residue

推證 印證 區分物類 類族辨物 推概 觀同 比例相似窮理之術 比擬 因 果 說 公理 公例 法律 理 律令 類異見同術

別異術 同異合術 消息術

消息之術

歸餘術

by loan shifts from traditional contexts that were not, or at least not immediately, related to logic. Instances in the first category comprised terms expressed in archaic characters that Yan specifically revived and redefined for his translations. Thus, he introduced jing 旌, the generic name for an ancient kind of banner, as a rendition of Aristotle’s “predicables” (2.8); xuanming 名, a compound formed with the unlexicalized radical compo‘threaded silk’, for “abstract name” (2.20); zhuixi 綴系 ‘to nent xuan connect [by a thread]’ for “copula” (3.5); yuan 眢 ‘dried-up well’ for

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

183

“fallacy” (4.21);113 and zhou 籀 ‘to draw out’, ‘to recite’, as we have seen above, in the compounds he suggested for “induction” (neizhou 內 籀) and “deduction” (waizhou 外籀) (4.2 and 4.3). In the second category of contextual shifts, Yan demonstrated even greater creativity. More plausible instances of such shifts included the following: (1) his appropriation of zheng 正 and fu 負, which denoted positive or negative numbers in traditional Chinese mathematics, in his translations of “positive” and “negative term” (zhengming 正名 and fuming 負名) as well as “affirmative” and “negative proposition” (zhengci 正詞 and fuci 負詞) (2.17–2.18 and 3.19–3.20); (2) the judicial terms li 例 ‘precedent’, an 案 ‘case’ or ‘instance’, and wei 委 ‘end’ or duan 斷 ‘decision’, ‘verdict’ for the constituent parts of the syllogism, “major premise,” “minor premise,” and “conclusion” (4.5–4.7); as well as (3) shefu 設复 ‘Guess the answer!’, the name of a game similar to the British “I spy” or the German “Ich sehe was, was Du nicht siehst,” that Yan used as one of many tentative renditions of the English “hypothesis” (5.7). Yan’s most imaginative and at the same time most problematic loan shift was his rendition of “syllogism” by lianzhu 連珠 ‘linked verse’ or, literally, ‘pearls on a string’, the name of a minor genre of Chinese parallel prose that had flourished in the third and fourth centuries AD.114 When pressed to justify his selection, Yan explained this choice in a way that may raise doubts about his awareness of the significance of formal criteria for logical reasoning: Note: For the expression “to infer by syllogism” ( yan lianzhu 演連珠 ‘to develop linked verse’ ), please refer to the [sixth-century anthology] Wenxuan 文選 (Selections of refined literature) where lianzhu denotes a type of parallel prose (pianwen 駢文). It is often introduced by “Your subject has heard that . . .” In the first line, the pattern of a thing or matter is described; in the second line, something is inferred on the grounds of this pattern; the transition is marked by the word gu 故 ‘therefore’.115 Since See the justification in Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, § 170. See Jui-lung Su, “Lien-chu,” in The Indiana Guide to Traditional Chinese Literature, ed. William H. Nienhauser (Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1998), vol. 2, 89–92. Su defines lianzhu as a “highly embellished genre, characterized by ornate language, rich allusions, balanced analogies, and parallelism, that often deals with political persuasion” (ibid., 89). 115 A standard example of a lianzhu is the following octet by Lu Ji 陸機 (261–303): “Your subject has heard that (chen wen 臣聞): When the keen eye (of heaven, that is, the sun) overlooks the clouds, / It cannot penetrate and shine through. / When the bright uncut jade is covered with dirt, / It cannot shed its rays. 113 114

184

chapter three the form of “linked verse” consists of only two layers, it is somewhat different from a syllogism that establishes arguments through three propositions. Yet, because scholars were encouraged to examine every detail [mentioned in the linked verse couplet] on the day [after the lianzhu was presented publicly at court], the meaning is in fact the same. Since lianzhu were originally a type of parallel prose, their wording is ornate and overtly embellished, and hence it is difficult to see substantial words in them. Still, I have no doubts about using the word today as a translation of the term “syllogism.” The original Western word is siluojiqin 司絡輯 沁; its meaning is “to bring together propositions” (huici 會詞). This is consistent with my choice. In Japan, “logic,” the science of names, has been translated as “the science of reasoning” (lunlixue 論理學), which is already very crude; likewise, their rendition of “syllogism,” linked verse, as san duan 三斷116 ‘three verdicts’, is in my opinion inferior to my translation. For among the three propositions [of the syllogism], there is only one “verdict” [conclusion]; hence referring to [the syllogism] as “three verdicts” can lead to misunderstandings. Therefore, we cannot conform to Eastern scholarship and adopt their translation.117

The paleographer Jao Tsung-i has discussed Yan’s rendering as a prime example of the many cross-cultural misunderstandings besetting modern Chinese discourses.118 Other commentators, like the modern Neo-Confucian philosopher He Lin 賀麟 (1902–1992), have celebrated Yan’s choice as an early example of a “Sinicizing” (Zhongguohua 中國化) translation that helped to underline the parallels between Chinese and Western culture.119 Both positions seem to be overestimating the significance of a single, if undeniably far-fetched, metaphorical loan shift. From our perspective, Yan’s explanation is of interest, on the one hand, because it confirms his indifference to the technicalities of the science he advertised as the cornerstone of China’s salvation; and on the other, because it highlights his aversion to terms This is why (shiyi 是以 ): The enlightened and sagacious ruler / Has the burden of being blocked from the truth; / The talented and outstanding officials / Often embrace the sorrow of missing the proper time.” Cited from Jui-lung Su, “Lien-chu,” 89–90. 116 Yan misrepresented the Japanese loanword san duan by a Chinese homophone. The correct written form of the Japanese san duan for “syllogism” would have been 三段 ‘three stages’, which makes Yan’s argument in favor of his own creation meaningless. 117 Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, § 71. 118 Tsung-i Jao, “The Sino-Western Contact and the Chinese Misinterpretation of the Western Culture Shortly before and after the May Fourth Movement: A Case Study—Lianzhu and Logic,” in Interliterary and Intraliterary Aspects of the May Fourth Movement 1919 in China, ed. Marian Galik (Bratislava: Veda, 1990), 253–256. 119 He Lin, “Yan Fu de fanyi,” 82.

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

185

borrowed from Japanese that began to arrive in China from about 1902, as we will see shortly. Despite this aversion, Yan included a considerable number of Japanese-derived loans in his translations, if only as secondary alternatives. Most probably, this was a concession to readers who may have been familiar with these terms from studying the textbooks by which the discipline came to be taught in Chinese institutions of higher learning after 1902—not least, as we have seen, thanks to Yan’s lobbying. Contrary to the prevalent assumption that Yan was too selfconfident or arrogant even to consider the work of other translators, his terminology indicates that he was not only familiar with terms imported from Japan, but also with all kinds of other works discussing logical notions, and that he did not hesitate to borrow what he found useful. Thus, he had no qualms about adopting Jesuit coinages, such as jieshuo 界說 for “definition” (2.5), lun 倫 for “category” (2.6), and duan 端 for “term” (2.1), or Yan Yongjing’s phonetic rendering xibutixi 希卜梯西 for “hypothesis” (5.7). He even prolonged the life span of Edkins’s metaphorical paraphrase of “induction,” jiwu qiongli 即物窮理 ‘approaching things in order to fathom patterns’, adapted from Zhu Xi’s commentary to the Greater Learning, by reiterating it in his own explanations.120 Yan still found ample room for his own lexical inventions, especially in his earlier Mule mingxue. His approach to the coining of neologisms was no less eclectic than his borrowings of individual terms from other translators or the forgotten fund of archaic characters. In accordance with the Tongcheng ideal of concision, he proposed monosyllabic words wherever possible, for instance, in his renditions of the five Aristotelian predicables where he suggested lei 類 ‘kind’ for “genus,” bie 別 ‘differentiation’ for “species,” cha 差 ‘to be short of ’ for “difference,” zhuan 撰 ‘inherent quality’ for “property,” and yu 寓 ‘to contain’ for “accident” (2.9–2.13). In many cases, however, Yan had to abandon this terse ideal for the sake of comprehensibility. Most of his binomial creations were based on the definitions of the terms they were intended to convey, for instance, cizhu 詞主 ‘ruler of the proposition’ for “subject” and suowei 所謂 ‘that which is said about [something]’ for Yan did not seem to share the negative views of Edkins’s work cited above. In one of his notes to Mule mingxue, for instance, he specifically recommended consulting the Bianxue qimeng for further explanations on the figures of the syllogism. See Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 3:17–18. 120

186

chapter three

“predicate” (3.3 and 3.4); or neihan 內涵 ‘contained within’ for “intension” and waiju 外舉 ‘chosen outside’ for “extension” (2.3 and 2.4). Others, like gaiwen 丐問 ‘begging to ask’ for “[the fallacy of] begging the question” were direct loan translations (4.24). One final aspect of Yan’s terminology that deserves to be mentioned is the large number of transcriptions he wove into his texts. In several cases, Yan used phonemic replicas of English terms not only to indicate his terms of departure for specific renditions but also as independent lexical items that he used interchangeably with semantic loans. Frequent examples included luoji 邏輯 or luojixue 邏輯學 for “logic” (1.1), sibixi 斯畢稀 for “species” (2.10), and the above-mentioned xibutixi 希卜梯西 for “hypothesis” (5.7). Only in one case, sabusidansi’a 薩布 斯坦思阿 for “substance” (2.7), did he introduce a phonemic replica without concurrently suggesting a semantic rendering. Some of Yan’s choices raise doubts about the reliability of his pronunciation skills. Even taking into account dialectal variations, adaptations such as gongshenbutuo 恭什布脫 for “concept” (2.2) or ebujie 鄂卜捷 for “attribute” (3.6) hardly appear to be phonetically adequate representations. Since all these terms, irrespective of their accuracy, violated the aesthetic demands of old-text prose due to their unwieldy length, we can only surmise that in this particular regard Yan consciously took stylistic liberties in order to impress his mostly monolingual audience with his hard-won fluency in the English language. 5. Logic in the Margins The third defining feature besides style and terminology that distinguished Yan’s logical translations was his idiosyncratic insertion of commentary and notes. In comparison to his On Evolution, almost half of which consisted of annotations,121 Yan used these devices relatively sparsely in his renditions of both Mill and Jevons. His fortytwo “Notes” (an 按) scattered throughout Mill’s Logic served a variety of purposes and were devoted to very different subjects. As we have seen, some helped to explain Yan’s terminological choices;122 others

Ng, “Reading Yan Fu,” 167–169. See Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 1:14–15, where he defended his translation of “philosophy” as lixue 理學 against competing renditions, most notably the Japanese-derived loan zhexue 哲學. 121 122

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

187

were intended to clarify passages he had found difficult to render.123 A few provided supplementary cultural or historical information, for instance, on the One Thousand and One Nights,124 or Aristotle’s importance for scholasticism.125 Surprisingly little space was devoted to topics of logical relevance. In one such note, Yan illustrated that formally valid syllogisms will lead to false conclusions if the premises are false by choosing two examples that may have struck a chord with readers keen on emulating the European nations’ wealth and power. His first such syllogism read, “Wealthy people do not travel to faraway countries to seek riches; today’s Westerners travel to faraway countries to seek riches; therefore, they are not wealthy”; the second, “Strong nations do not need to protect their citizens by treaties; today’s Westerners establish treaties to protect their citizens; therefore, they are not strong.”126 In further annotations more specifically concerned with logic, Yan alerted his readers that recent developments in Western logic had expanded upon or corrected Mill’s opinions, thus betraying that his own reading on the subject had not been confined to the System of Logic. Yan mentioned, for instance, that Alexander Bain, Mill’s staunchest supporter, had qualified his master’s critique of the Aristotelian categories;127 and that Augustus De Morgan’s Formal Logic (Fa mingxue 法名學) discussed several new aspects, such as the quantification of the terms in numerically definite syllogisms (for example, “If most B are C, and if most B are A, then undoubtedly some A are C”), which Yan introduced to his readers, somewhat elliptically, as “the art of examining some” ( jihuo zhi shu 稽或之術).128 The areas to which Yan Fu dedicated most of his annotations in Mule mingxue were epistemology, metaphysics, and science. In his epistemological notes, Yan repeated some of his attacks against the belief in innate knowledge with reference to Locke129 and reinforced his criticisms against exclusive book learning and the “bad habits of the heart” 123 See ibid., 1:37–38, where he attributed his troubles to the inaptitude of the Chinese lexicon; and ibid., 3:51, where he held Mill’s original text responsible. 124 Ibid., 2:18–19. Another cultural note explained a (not particularly funny) joke involving Western medicine, ibid., 2:57. 125 Ibid., 2:109. 126 Ibid., 3:75. Other notes on logical issues offered clarifications of the all-encompassing nature of positive and negative names, antonyms, and the properties of relative names; see ibid., 1:26, 30. 127 Ibid., 2:33–34. 128 Ibid., 3:17–18. 129 Ibid., 3:80, 84.

188

chapter three

(huai xinshu 懷心術) that “three thousand years of literary doctrine (wenjiao 文教)” had produced in China.130 The metaphysical question that seemed to have intrigued him most was the relation between thought and reality. Yan approached this issue in repeated reflections on the meaning of Descartes’s cogito, which he related to the opinions of the Confucian Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong 中庸) and Buddhist theories on the reality of various states of consciousness.131 None of these sophisticated reflections is immediately relevant to our problematique. The same applies to Yan’s deliberations on the laws of motion,132 the status of mathematics among the sciences,133 and similarities he identified between the Classic of Change and modern Western sciences. Like the sciences, the Classic of Change, according to Yan, derived qualitative knowledge from deductions based on numbers and was primarily concerned with cause and effect.134 While interesting in themselves, and perhaps also as indications of a nostalgic attachment to the doctrines Yan so vigorously criticized in the majority of his writings,135 from our point of view the most intriguing aspect of his reflections is the ease with which he could relate central problems in epistemology, metaphysics, and science to classical Chinese thought, whereas he did not hint at any such comparisons in the narrow realm of logic itself, with one significant exception to be discussed in chapter 5 below. The focus of Yan’s comments and alterations in his rendition of Jevons’s Logic primer was slightly different, not least due to the differences between Mill’s and Jevons’s approaches to logic. Jevons did not offer any opportunity for metaphysical speculation. Nonetheless, Yan found many occasions to renew his criticism of traditional Chinese thought. In a paragraph on the fallacy of begging the question, Yan brusquely stated that “80 to 90 percent” of China’s philosophical literature consisted in just such fallacies and that this was why China’s scientific achievements were “hardly worth mentioning.”136 In another passage, he recalled that “until three hundred years ago” European scholars had also located all truth in books, namely, in the Old and

130 131 132 133 134 135 136

Ibid., 3:66. Ibid., 2:49–51, 53–54, 63–64. Ibid., 4:46–48. Ibid., 3:69–70, 105. Ibid., 3:70, 4.36–37. See Huters, Bringing the World Home, 56–60, 66–67. Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, § 185.

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

189

New Testaments, but had since learned to look at the “patterns of affairs” (shili 事理). Thus, “When people in our China say: ‘There are no books beyond the Six Classics’, then they are really saying: ‘There are no patterns of affairs outside the Six Classics.’ ”137 In a similar vein, Yan reiterated his critique of the irresponsible tolerance of ambiguity in traditional Chinese thought by a scathing condemnation of some of its most eminent terms. According to him, the meanings of words such as qi 氣 ‘vital energy’, xin 心 ‘heart’, tian 天 ‘heaven’, dao 道 ‘Way’, ren 仁 ‘benevolence’, and yi 義 ‘righteousness’ were all hopelessly confused and had to “wait on later sages” for their unlikely salvation.138 In view of Yan’s lengthy defense of his rendition of the term “syllogism” by lianzhu, it is interesting to note that he could not think of any classical argument that fully conformed to the structure of the syllogism in the relevant passages of Mingxue qianshuo. Instead, he offered an argument from an essay by the Song poet Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101): “[He] used subjects to attack the rulers, therefore, King Wu is not a sage,” and added the following explanation in order to adapt it to the standard structure of syllogistic reasoning: These two phrases give only the minor premise and the conclusion. If we were to state the argument in full, we would have to say: “Sages do not use subjects to attack the ruler” (major premise); “Now King Wu has used subjects to attack the ruler” (minor premise); “Therefore, King Wu is not a sage.” But scholars are able to understand [the argument] even when it is presented in abbreviated form.139

Yan’s adaptation of Jevons’s examples and illustrations allows for interesting comparisons with Edkins’s earlier solutions with regard to their respective assessments of cultural and political sensibilities.140 Where Edkins, as we have seen, replaced Gladstone and Disraeli with the Tang poets Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan, Yan Fu inserted Zhang Zhidong 張之洞 (1837–1909) and Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 (1859–1916),141 the most powerful statesmen in contemporary China; the impersonal character John Robertson, who was given the identity of a certain Zhang Jia in Edkins’s rendition, became the patriotic martyr Yue Fei

137 138 139 140 141

Ibid., § 109. Ibid., § 30. Ibid., § 71. See also Wright, “Yan Fu,” 239–240. Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, § 101.

190

chapter three

岳飛 (1103–1142);142 and in one of the infamous examples involving peoples with darker skin, which Edkins had left untouched, Yan replaced Chinese by Japanese.143 Moreover, Yan did not shy away from comments on current events. For instance, he used several examples to outline arguments in favor of constitutional government,144 and even found a place to complain about the unreasonably high price of telegrams in China, which he thought to be an obstacle to the nation’s progress.145 Finally, in Jevons’s discussion of inductive procedures of experimentation, Yan offered the sentence “The sage sees how everything under heaven is connected and follows its laws and statutes,” from the “Attached Verbalizations” in the Classic of Change, as an early anticipation of Mill’s “method of agreement,”146 and where Jevons explained that researchers had to pay particular attention to “things which vary periodically,” Yan likened this demand to “extremely early” Chinese insights into the permanent alterations between yin and yang and illustrated the parallel, without further explanation, by reproducing the twelfth-century “Chart of the Supreme Ultimate” (taiji tu 太極圖).147 Concluding Remarks How can we summarize Yan Fu’s role in the Chinese discovery of European logic? His record as a translator is obviously mixed. His antiquarian style did little to enhance the readability of his texts, despite his stated goal of enhancing clarity. After reading a draft of the Tianyanlun, in which Yan first displayed his peculiar stylistic preferences, even his Tongcheng mentor Wu Rulun wondered whether the differences between Chinese and Western tongues might not demand

Ibid., § 186. Ibid., § 82. 144 Ibid., § 97. 145 Ibid., § 168. 146 Ibid., § 140. The metaphorical analogy relied on the identification of the Changes’ “laws and statutes” (dianli 典禮) with the “natural laws” of the sciences that Yan had already established in an earlier text; see his “Xixue menjing gongyong,” 93. 147 Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, § 147. On the “Chart of the Supreme Ultimate,” see Michael Lackner, “Die Verplanung des Denkens am Beispiel der tu,” in Lebenswelt und Weltanschauung im frühneuzeitlichen China, ed. Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1990), 133–156; 135–138. For a graphic representation, see chapter 4, Fig. 4.10, below. 142 143

yan fu and the discovery of european logic

191

the creation of an entirely new language, much as a new style of writing had been invented to translate the Buddhist canon from Sanskrit.148 Yan’s eclecticism in the compilation of his logical lexicon was equally detrimental to the comprehensibility of the ideas he tried to convey. But Yan’s logical translations did not fail in every respect. First and foremost, his repeated insistence that only the most rarefied translation could do justice to the subtlety of European logic did indeed help to raise the prestige of this seemingly most esoteric science. In addition, Yan’s notes and comments softened the alterity of the theories outlined by Mill and Jevons, even if he rarely touched upon specific logical issues in his remarks. In contrast to other renditions, Yan made no attempt to bend or amalgamate the teachings of his new-found Western informants to his own opinions but represented them, as best he could, in a largely faithful manner. One reason for his unusual caution may have been that he was well aware of his limitations as an “expert on names,” as we may infer from a remark in his preface to the Mingxue qianshuo: Some friends have asked me why I do not write a book [on logic] myself but rest content with stealing the ideas of others in translation instead of striving to write my own outstanding work. At this, I can only laugh.149

On the other hand, Yan’s impact as a propagator of logic can hardly be overestimated. His relentless lobbying on behalf of the discipline, in many of his essays and through his activities as a lecturer, educator, and government advisor, almost single-handedly secured a place for logic on China’s intellectual map. Scores of readers were enticed to look into his capricious Science of Names, even if some were drawn by Yan’s celebrity rather than a genuine interest in the topic. Yan Fu’s most important contribution, however, was to build sustainable conceptual bridges that finally spanned the divide between key concerns of European logic and contemporary Chinese discourses. Yan was the first renowned author to advocate logic as a key component of a new style of reasoning suited to correct “bad habits” of analogy and inference that, as he tried to convince his audience, impeded the progress of Chinese scholarship and endangered the survival of the empire and “race.” His merciless denigration of xungu 148 Huters, “A New Way of Writing,” 250–251; see also idem, Bringing the World Home, 83–87. 149 Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, preface, 1.

192

chapter three

philology may have been unfair and, in part, rooted in frustration over his failure to succeed in examinations demanding the mastery of semantic glosses, but his plea to replace it with logical definitions established a clear alternative between competing approaches operating in a shared conceptual space. In similar fashion, his enthusiastic embrace of Mill’s empiricist inductionism was based on grotesquely overblown expectations. Yet, by juxtaposing this rule-governed type of inference with the intuitionist foundations of China’s state doctrine, Yan inserted the canons of inductive reasoning into a meaningful Chinese context and, in consequence, turned a central logical notion into a buzzword of scholarly and ideological debates. By promoting logic as the key to a new style of reasoning promising to “transform Chinese habits of the heart and overturn the corrupt practices of thousands of years of Chinese scholarship,”150 Yan positioned the discipline in the center of an emerging conceptual space no longer structured by the tenets of orthodox doctrine and canonical texts. In a time of debilitating doubt, the forceful presentation of a potent new way of reasoning by an intellectual star of Yan Fu’s stature had almost irresistible appeal, as the fad for logic described by Bao Tianxiao and others confirmed. Yet readers willing to heed Yan’s call found that his works offered little help in learning the technical details necessary for a successful application of this new logical style. For this purpose, they needed to turn to less ambitious but at the same time more accessible materials that only became available once logic started to be taught in formal education.

150

Yan Fu, “Jiaoshou xinfa,” in idem, Yan Fu ji bubian, 71.

CHAPTER FOUR

SPREADING THE WORD: LOGIC IN LATE QING EDUCATION AND POPULAR DISCOURSE Whoever knows a discipline, such as logic or any other, well, and tries to translate it into his mother tongue will discover that mother tongue lacking in both substance and words. Roger Bacon, De linguarum cognitio (1267)*

The integration of logic into the Chinese education system was the second important step in the naturalization of European logic in late Qing discourses. As shown in chapter 2, during the nineteenth century neither Chinese nor foreign schools, with the exception of St. John’s College and the Jesuit seminary in Shanghai, had included logic in their curricula. This situation changed after the shock of Shimonoseki when a near-universal consensus emerged among reformers and conservatives alike that Western, or “new” knowledge as it now came to be called,1 had to be given more space in formal education if China was to withstand the imperialist onslaught and survive as a sovereign nation.2 Thanks to the increased attention created by Yan Fu’s activities, European logic was included in the emerging canon of new disciplines that started to be taught in institutions of higher learning throughout the Qing empire around the turn of the twentieth century. The revised curricula spurred the production of a wealth of new textbooks that in turn helped to disseminate a new technical vocabulary and to introduce models of the new style of reasoning postulated in Yan Fu’s writings. Logical terms and arguments quickly

* Cited from André Lefevere, Translation/History/Culture: A Sourcebook (London: Routledge, 1992), 49–50. 1 See Wang Xianming 王先明, Jindai xinxue: Zhongguo chuantong xueshu wenhua de shanbian yu chonggou 近代新學—中國傳統學術文化嬗變與重構 (New knowledge in modern China: Reconstruction and reinterpretation of traditional Chinese scholarship and culture) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2000), 167–206. 2 See Timothy B. Weston, “The Founding of the Imperial University and the Emergence of Chinese Modernity,” in Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and Cultural Change in Late Qing China, ed. Rebecca E. Karl and Peter Zarrow (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), 99–123; 101–103.

194

chapter four

percolated from textbooks into the heated debates about China’s path of national salvation that raged through the pages of flourishing new journals founded in the first decade of the twentieth century. 1. Logic in the New School Curricula The first Chinese schools attempting to present a more complete ensemble of Western subjects were private colleges and academies mainly or exclusively dedicated to the “new knowledge.” Some started offering courses in logic in the immediate aftermath of the Sino-Japanese War. From 1897 onward, for instance, lessons in logic (bianxue 辯學) were included, alongside a host of other foreign sciences, in the English curriculum of the School for Nourishing Talent (Yucai shushu 育材書塾) in Shanghai, the precursor of the prestigious Nanyang College (Nanyang gongxue 南洋公學) and thus of today’s Jiaotong University 交通大學.3 In the same year, Zhang Yuanji unveiled plans to add courses in logic (“mingxue 名學, that is, bianxue 辨學”) as well as European philosophy (lixue 理學) to the curriculum of his College of Comprehensive Arts in Beijing.4 Zhang’s initiative followed a proposal by Yan Fu who, as we have seen, lectured on logic at the school in 1898.5 Regular classes were never implemented, however, because Zhang was unable to find suitable textbooks for logic and other new subjects he wished to introduce.6 Still, private schools like Zhang’s must be credited for their pioneering role in introducing new and more comprehensive curricula. 1. Logic in the New School Regulations Government schools needed more time to change. Curricular reforms remained a highly sensitive issue, both politically and ideologically. As long as the civil examinations were the main route to success, the state had not only the will but also the power to ensure that educational contents corresponded to government interests. Yet, after China’s defeat 3 See Zhongguo jindai xuezhi shiliao, vol. 1, pt. 2, 598–607; on the place of logic in the school’s curriculum, see ibid., 606. 4 Zhang Yuanji 張元濟, “Tongyi xuetang zhangcheng” 通藝學堂章程 (Regulations governing the College of Comprehensive Arts) (1897), reprinted in Zhongguo jindai xuezhi shiliao, vol. 1, pt. 2, 712–717. 5 See Zhou Wu 周武, Zhang Yuanji: Shujuan rensheng 張元濟：書卷人生 (Zhang Yuanji: a life wrapped in books) (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe, 1999), 17–20. 6 Zhongguo jindai xuezhi shiliao, vol. 1, pt. 2, 711.

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

195

in the Sino-Japanese War even the guardians of orthodoxy spoke out in favor of broadening the scope of instruction. They insisted, however, that the new knowledge had to be domesticated to safeguard the integrity of the already embattled state doctrine. The strategy by which they hoped to achieve such domestication was summed up by the well-worn formula “old [Chinese] knowledge as essence, new [Western] knowledge for application” ( jiuxue wei ti 舊學為體, xinxue wei yong 新學為用) that had inspired China’s “selfstrengthening” efforts since the beginning of the Tongzhi Restoration in 1862.7 Discredited as a guideline for military and industrial modernization, the slogan resurfaced after 1895 in debates on the proper place of Chinese and Western knowledge in education, most prominently in Viceroy Zhang Zhidong’s 張之洞 (1837–1909) best-selling treatise Exhortation to Learning (Quanxue pian 勸學篇, 1898).8 The theoretical flaws underlying the ti-yong formula and related rationalizations that aimed at grafting carefully selected branches of European civilization onto the unaffected “body” of Chinese culture have long been exposed by Joseph Levenson and others, and need not be reiterated here.9 From our perspective, it is only important to recall that the ti-yong formula, infertile as it was theoretically, allowed for considerable flexibility in political debate. As such, it retained its force as the guiding principle underlying proposals for educational reform until the founding of the Chinese Republic in 1912.10 All participants in the fierce debates about the curriculum of the Imperial University ( Jingshi daxuetang 京師大學堂), which was seen as the centerpiece of educational reform from 1898 onward, subscribed or paid lip service to the ti-yong equation in their drafts.11 Since the regulations of the Imperial University were explicitly intended as precedents for the reform of schools nationwide, they deserve closer examination with regard to the way in which they included logic in the curriculum, even if their stipulations were never fully realized in practice. Between 1898, the year in which the university—one of 7 See Hellmut Wilhelm, “The Problem of Within and Without: A Confucian Attempt at Syncretism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 12, no. 1 (1951): 48–60. 8 See William Ayers, Chang Chih-tung and Educational Reform in China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), 105–109. 9 See Levenson, Confucian China, vol. 1, 59–78; and Wilhelm, “Within and Without,” 54–55. 10 See Wang Xianming, Jindai xinxue, 250–281. 11 See Weston, “Imperial University,” 103–105.

196

chapter four

the few initiatives to survive the violent end of the Hundred Days Reform—was opened in Beijing by Empress Dowager Cixi 慈禧 (1835–1908), and the reorganization of the school as Peking University under the new Republic in 1912, three versions of the university’s regulations were approved by the Qing court.12 None other than Liang Qichao wrote the first draft, promulgated in the summer of 1898.13 In accordance with his reformist credentials, Liang’s set of regulations was perhaps the most “progressive” of all three in the sense that it explicitly defined the relationship between the Chinese “essence” and Western “applications” as a relationship between two complementary and equally indispensable components.14 It was less impressive in its continued disregard for logic. As we have seen, as recently as 1896 Liang had treated logic either as unclassifiable or as a branch of anatomy related to the functioning of nerves, and he had apparently not yet changed his view of the subject. Liang’s regulations were superseded in 1902 by a draft devised by Zhang Baixi, the Imperial University’s third president in the first four years of its existence, at the behest of the Qing court upon its return to the capital after the Boxer Rebellion. Under the watchful eyes of the indignant foreign powers, Zhang Baixi proposed to turn the school into a genuinely cosmopolitan institution representing the full wealth of Chinese and Western knowledge.15 Although he was more strongly invested in the preservation of the “old learning” and the ethical values enshrined in it than Liang Qichao, Zhang’s more detailed curriculum indicated that he had no reservations about any branch of the new knowledge and regarded old and new as entirely compatible.16 Following Yan Fu’s advice, Zhang even found a place for logic (mingxue 名學), not as an independent subject to be sure, but as part of the

12 See Hao Ping 郝平, Beijing daxue chuangban shishi kaoyuan 北京大學創辦史事考源 (A study into the history of the foundation and management of Peking University) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1998), 173–207. 13 Liang Qichao, “Zongli yamen zou ni Jingshi daxuetang zhangcheng” 總理衙 門奏擬京師大學堂章程 (Regulations governing the Imperial University as memorialized and proposed by the Zongli Yamen) (1898), reprinted in Beijing daxue shiliao. Diyi juan: 1898–1911 北京大學史料．第一卷：1898–1911 (Historical materials on Peking University. Volume 1: 1898–1911), ed. Beijing daxue xiaoshi yanjiushi (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1993), 81–87. 14 Ibid., 82. 15 Zhang Baixi 張百熙, “Qinding Jingshi daxuetang zhangcheng” 欽定京師大學 堂章程 (Imperially approved regulations governing the Imperial University) (1902), reprinted in Beijing daxue shiliao. Diyi juan: 1898–1911, 87–97. 16 See Weston, “Imperial University,” 114–117.

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

197

preparatory classes in the school’s “government division” (zhengzhike 政治科).17 Students entering the Imperial University in this division, which led to higher studies in law and administration, were to begin their education with a three-year course designed to equip them, on the Chinese side, with a sound cultural literacy based on intimate familiarity with the canonical and noncanonical philosophers as well as literature, history, poetry, and prose. Among the new Western subjects, students were to become acquainted with the essentials of mathematics, world history, geography, foreign languages, and physics, as well as logic, law, and economics. Logic was to be taught for two hours per week in all three years. Years one and two were devoted to imparting a “general idea” (dayi 大意) of the science; year three was dedicated to “deduction” ( yanyi 演繹).18 At the end of the preparatory course, students had to pass an entrance examination for the higher division that was to include six questions on logic.19 Since the preparatory classes were a particular feature of the Imperial University, logic was not mentioned in the general guidelines for institutions of higher learning in other parts of the empire promulgated together with Zhang Baixi’s draft.20 At least in Beijing, however, the discipline was eventually incorporated into the regular curriculum, if only at the elementary level. The final revision of the Imperial University’s regulations was approved in January 1904 (with amendments made in 1907 and 1910 that did not affect logic). The draft was signed by Zhang Baixi, Rong Qing 榮慶 (1859–1917), a Mongol bannerman, and Zhang Zhidong, who was responsible for most of the changes.21 Like Zhang Baixi,

Zhang Baixi, “Jingshi daxuetang,” 89. Zhang did not provide any justification for why he omitted logic from the curriculum of a largely parallel course in the “skills” or technology division ( yike 藝科). See Hao Ping, Beijing daxue, 210–213; and Zhuang Jifa 莊吉發, Jingshi daxuetang 京師大學堂 (The Imperial University) (Taibei: Guoli Taiwan daxue wenxueyuan, 1970), 44–46. 18 Zhang Baixi, “Jingshi daxuetang,” 89–90. 19 “Zouding kaoxuan ruxue zhangcheng” 奏定考選入學章程 (Regulations governing the entrance examination, as memorialized and approved) (1902), reprinted in Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian: xuezhi yanbian 中國近代教育史料匯編：學制演變 (Materials on the history of education in modern China: Changes in the educational system), ed. Chen Yuanhui 陳元暉 et al. (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe, 1991), 252–256; 252. 20 “Zouding gaodeng xuetang zhangcheng” 奏定高等學堂章程 (Regulations for the higher schools, as memorialized and approved) (1902), reprinted in Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, 256–263. 21 Zhang Baixi, Rong Qing 榮慶, and Zhang Zhidong 張之洞, “Daxuetang zhangcheng” 大學堂章程 (Regulations for universities) (1904), reprinted in Beijing daxue shiliao. Diyi juan: 1898–1911, 97–130. 17

198

chapter four

Zhang Zhidong modeled his blueprint on the example of Japanese universities, especially in regard to the organization of departments and faculties.22 However, in accordance with his declared aim to preserve the “essence” of traditional Chinese culture, Zhang deviated from the Japanese model in one major respect: he refused to institute a department of philosophy and insisted on retaining or rebuilding a faculty exclusively devoted to the Chinese classics ( jingxueke 經學 科).23 In addition, he introduced compulsory courses in lixue 理學, the orthodox interpretation of the Confucian scriptures (and not by any means John Fryer’s “science of reason”), in the department of Chinese literature.24 Both decisions reflected Zhang’s distrust toward all areas of new knowledge that had the potential further to unsettle China’s “enlightened doctrine” (mingjiao 名教) and thus mirrored the more conservative thrust of his proposal.25 Somewhat surprisingly in view of Yan Fu’s propaganda, logic was not affected by Zhang’s misgivings. Even so, its status changed due to the abolition of the preparatory section. In Zhang Zhidong’s curriculum, the discipline to which he referred as bianxue 辨學 (“Bianxue is called ronrigaku [Chin. lunlixue] 論理學 ‘the science of reasoning’ in Japan but was known as ‘the science of debate’ in ancient China”)26 was listed as an elective (suiyi kemu 隨意科目) that students in the department of Chinese classics could choose during the first and second years of their studies. Those enrolled in literature, history, or foreign languages could only take it in their first year. Students of other

22 On the impact of Japan on late Qing educational reforms, see Abe Hiroshi 阿部洋, Chūgoku no kindai kyōiku to Meiji Nihon 中国の近代教育と明治日本 (Modern Chinese education and Meiji Japan) (Tōkyō: Fukumura shuppan, 1990); idem, “Borrowing from Japan: China’s First Modern Educational System,” in China’s Education and the Industrialized World: Studies in Cultural Transfer, ed. Ruth Hayhoe and Marianne Bastid (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1987), 57–80; and Reynolds, Xinzheng Revolution, 131–150. 23 Zhang Baixi, Rong Qing, and Zhang Zhidong, “Daxuetang zhangcheng,” 98–101. The most outspoken critic of this decision was the young Wang Guowei, who published a devastating review in the journal Jiaoyu shijie 教育世界 (The World of Education). See Hermann Kogelschatz, Wang Kuo-wei und Schopenhauer. Eine philosophische Begegnung (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1986), 28–30; and Joey Bonner, Wang Kuo-wei: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), 35–39. 24 Zhang Baixi, Rong Qing, and Zhang Zhidong, “Daxuetang zhangcheng,” 104–105. 25 See Weston, “Imperial University,” 117–121. 26 Zhang Baixi, Rong Qing, and Zhang Zhidong, “Daxuetang zhangcheng,” 101.

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

199

departments, including those in law and the natural sciences, had no access to the discipline.27 For Zhang Zhidong, logic’s utility seemed to be restricted to philological studies. This impression was reinforced by remarks on the subject included in the regulations for “Upper Normal Schools” ( youji shifan xuetang 優級師範學堂) that were promulgated together with his blueprint for the Imperial University in 1904.28 There, logic (“bianxue, that is, lunlixue”) was defined as a science concerned with “expounding the patterns of written expression” ( faming liyan zhulun zhi li 發明立 言著論之理) as well as “the methods of diction and refutation” (cuoci bolun zhi fa 措辭駁論之法).29 As such, logic, together with ethics, classics, Chinese literature, Japanese, English, mathematics, and sports, was one of the introductory courses in “general education” (gonggongke 公共科) that all students were required to take in their first year. Logic was to be taught for three hours per week, dedicated to introducing a “general outline” of the subject as well as essentials of “deduction,” “induction,” and “methodology.” While this division, as will be discussed below, corresponded to the structure of most textbooks on logic that became available during the last decade of the Qing, another provision in this version of the regulations underlined that Zhang Zhidong and his colleagues understood the discipline largely as a modern extension of classical Chinese philology. In their third year, students of Chinese literature were to be taught another three hours of bianxue devoted to lessons in “phonology” (shengyinxue 聲音學) and “rhetoric” 27 Ibid., 101, 104, 107. In his alternative proposal, published together with his scathing criticism, Wang Guowei suggested including logic (mingxue) in the curricula of the departments of Chinese classics, Western philosophy, and Chinese and foreign literature. Wang Guowei, “Zouding jingxueke daxue wenxueke daxue zhangcheng shu hou” 奏定經學科大學文學科大學章程書後 (A postface to the regulations for the Departments of Chinese Classics and Literature at the Imperial University, as memorialized and approved), Jiaoyu shijie 118–119 (1906), reprinted in idem, Wang Guowei xueshu wenhua suibi 王國維學術文化隨筆 (Occasional essays by Wang Guowei on scholarship and culture), ed. Fo Chu 佛雛 (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chubanshe, 1996), 22–31; 30. 28 “Zouding youji shifan xuetang zhangcheng” 奏定優級師範學堂章程 (Regulations governing Upper Normal Schools, as memorialized and approved) (1904), reprinted in Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, 414–428. “Upper Normal Schools” were to be attached to the Imperial University in Beijing and at least one tertiary institution in each provincial capital. See Li Jiequan (Li Kit Chuen) 李傑泉 “Qingmo de shifan jiaoyu (1897–1911 nian)” 清末的師範教育 (1897–1911 年) (The history of teacher training education in late Qing China, 1897–1911) (Ph.D. diss., The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1997), 97. 29 “Zouding youji shifan xuetang zhangcheng,” 415.

200

chapter four

(boyanxue 博言學), subjects that cannot easily be situated within the conventional European boundaries of the science.30 2. Logic in Educational Practice Little information has survived as to how these ideal regulations translated into educational practice, at least with regard to the newly instituted classes in the science of names or debate. One obvious problem was the recruitment of teachers capable of lecturing on the new subject. The Imperial University circumvented the impasse by hiring foreign instructors, mostly from Japan.31 Among the earliest Japanese employees was Hattori Unokichi 服部宇之吉 (1867–1939),32 who was to become one of Japan’s foremost sinologists after his return to Tōkyō in 1909. Hattori was appointed professor of psychology and philosophy at the Imperial University in 1902. Soon after his arrival, he was promoted to dean of the Normal School Division where he taught courses in education, psychology, and logic in addition to fulfilling his administrative duties from 1904 onward.33 Another school in the capital that included logic in its curriculum was the Beijing College of Law and Administration ( Jingshi fazheng xuetang 京師法政學堂). Here the discipline was taught beginning in 1906 by a Japanese lecturer named Kobayashi Yoshihito 小林吉人. Kobayashi taught logic for one hour per week to second-year students preparing for studies in

30 Ibid., 418. On the place of linguistic subjects in the new curricula, with some references to their relation to courses in logic, see Elisabeth Kaske, The Politics of Language in Chinese Education, 1895–1919 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 250–272; on logic, see 268–270. 31 On the increasing numbers of Japanese instructors teaching in China from 1902 onwards, see Marianne Bastid, Aspects de la réforme de l’enseignement en Chine au début du 20e siècle d’après des écrits de Zhang Jian (Paris: Mouton, 1971), 49–51. 32 See Ōtsuka Yutaka 大塚豊, “Chūgoku kindai kōtō shihan kyōiku no hōga to Hattori Unokichi” 中国近代高等師範教育の萌芽と服部宇之吉 (The beginnings of modern higher normal education in China and Hattori Unokichi), Kokuritsu kyōiku kenkyūjo kiyō 115 (1988): 45–64. 33 See Paula Harrell, “Guiding Hand: Hattori Unokichi in Beijing,” Sino-Japanese Studies 11, no. 1 (1998): 13–20; 16–17; and Wang Daoyuan 王道元, “Jingshi daxuetang shifanguan” 京師大學堂師範館 (The Normal School at the Imperial University), in Beida jiushi 北大舊事 (Old matters of Peking University), ed. Chen Pingyuan 陳平原 and Xia Xiaohong 夏曉虹 (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1998), 18–19. Two textbooks based on Hattori’s lectures on logic at the Upper Normal School, published in 1904 and 1908 respectively, and a brief introduction to logic he authored himself will be discussed below.

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

201

law and administration and for two hours per week in the final year of the college’s general curriculum.34 Educational institutions located outside the capital and cosmopolitan centers like Shanghai, where not only Western but also sizeable Japanese communities flourished,35 had even greater difficulties in enlisting qualified staff, if they tried to do so at all. According to Abe Hiroshi, not even schools in Zhili, the province surrounding the capital, were able to offer courses in logic in the final years of the Qing dynasty, and there is little evidence of more favorable circumstances in other provinces.36 One exception was Jiangsu, where logic classes were instituted in 1906 at the Jiangsu Normal School ( Jiangsu shifan xuetang 江蘇師範學堂) on the initiative of the Japanese head teacher Fujita Toyohachi 藤田豊八 (1870–1929), who had been working in Chinese education for almost a decade.37 At Jiangsu Normal, logic was taught as part of the general studies curriculum, for two hours per week during the first year and one hour during the second.38 In many cases, instruction in logic depended on personal initiatives like that of Lü Bicheng, the female student who persuaded Yan Fu in 1908 to give her private lessons in Tianjin. Similarly, Wang Guowei had studied Jevons’s Elementary Lessons in Logic in one-on-one evening classes with the just-mentioned Fujita Toyohachi at Shanghai’s Nanyang College in 1902.39 Another case of individual initiative is attested from the improbable location of Guiyang, the capital of the inland province of Guizhou, where a certain Wang Yanzhi 王延直 (1872–1947) founded a Society for the Study of Logic (Guiyang lunli xueshe 貴陽 論理學社) in 1905. Between 1905 and 1912, Wang taught nineteen

34 See Futami Takeshi 二見剛史, “Kyōshi hōsei gakudō no Nihonjin kyōshū” 京師 法政学堂の日本人教習 (The Beijing College of Law and Administration and Japanese instructors), Kokuritsu kyōiku kenkyūjo kiyō 115 (1988): 75–89; 76–79. 35 See Joshua A. Fogel, “ ‘Shanghai–Japan’: The Japanese Residents’ Association of Shanghai,” Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 4 (2000): 927–950. 36 See Abe Hiroshi, “Shinmatsu Chokurei shō no kyōiku kaikaku to Watanabe Ryūsei” 清末直隷省の教育改革と渡辺龍聖 (Educational reforms in late Qing Zhili and Watanabe Ryūsei), Kokuritsu kyōiku kenkyūjo kiyō 115 (1988): 7–25. 37 See Kageyama Masahiro 蔭山雅博, “Shinmatsu Kōso kyōiku kaikaku to Fujita Toyohachi” 清末江蘇の教育改革と藤田豊八 (Educational reforms in late Qing Jiangsu and Fujita Toyohachi), Kokuritsu kyōiku kenkyūjo kiyō 115 (1988): 26–44; 43. See also Abe Hiroshi, Chūgoku no kindai kyōiku, 172–176. 38 Kageyama, “Fujita Toyohachi,” 36. 39 Wang Guowei, “Zixu” 自序 (Autobiographical note), Jiaoyu shijie 148 (1907), reprinted in idem, Wang Guowei xueshu wenhua suibi, 36–42; 39. See Kogelschatz, Wang Kuo-wei, 17–18; and Bonner, Wang Kuo-wei, 57.

202

chapter four

courses on logic to a sufficiently curious public and compiled his own textbook to complement his lectures.40 In Shanghai, the discipline was offered from 1903 onward at the Jesuit-supported Université l’Aurore (Zhendan xueyuan 震旦學院), which was lauded by Liang Qichao as “China’s first modern university.”41 Under its founding principal Ma Xiangbo, who had been educated in the Jesuit seminary at Zikawei, the school implemented a comprehensive French-inspired curriculum. Logic was taught by Ma himself as part of an advanced course in philosophy until March 1905, when a rift between nationalistically aroused students and the Jesuit sponsors of the school led to the temporary closing of Zhendan and the founding of a “revived Aurore” (Fudan gongxue 复旦公學), the ancestor of Fudan University, in new facilities.42 Ma resumed his lectures on logic at the new institution as soon as it became operational. After the reopening of Zhendan, logic courses there were continued by Ma’s classmate and fellow Jesuit novice Li Wenyu 李問魚 (Li Di 李杕, 1840–1911).43 Both Ma and Li presented modernized varieties of Jesuit-Aristotelian logic that, as we shall see below in an analysis of the textbooks they compiled for their classes, had little in common with the discipline as taught in other institutions at the time. How much logic students in late Qing China could actually learn from these early educational attempts remains uncertain. Fond

40 Wang Yanzhi, Putong yingyong lunlixue, preface, 2a–b. See Jin Jianguo 金建國 and Huang Hengjiao 黃恆蛟, “Lun Wang Yanzhi ‘Putong yingyong lunlixue’—Yunnan jindai diyi ben putong luoji” 論 王延直《普通應用論理學》—雲南近代第一本普 通邏輯 (On Wang Yanzhi’s General and Applied Logic, the first general logic in modern Yunnan), Yunnan shifan daxue xuebao, no. 4 (1983): 43–49; and Su Yue 蘇岳, “Wang Yanzhi de ‘Putong yingyong lunlixue’ ” 王延直的《普通應用論理學》(Wang Yanzhi’s General and Applied Logic), Fazhi yu shehui, no. 18 (2008): 270–271. 41 Liang Qichao, “Zhu Zhendan shuyuan zhi qiantu” 祝震旦書院之前途 (Wishes for the future of the Université l’Aurore) (1902), reprinted in Ma Xiangbo yu Fudan daxue 馬相伯與復旦大學 (Ma Xiangbo and Fudan University), ed. Zong Youheng 宗有恆 and Xia Lingen 夏林根 (Taiyuan: Shanxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996), 238–239. See Ruth Hayhoe, “Towards the Forging of a Chinese University Ethos: Zhendan and Fudan, 1903–1919,” China Quarterly 94 (1983): 323–341; 329–330. 42 Ibid., 333–336. For Ma’s own account of the split, see Ma Xiangbo, Yiri yitan, 1106–1111. See also Zhao Shaoquan 趙少荃, “Fudan daxue chuangli jingguo” 复旦 大學創立經過 (The path to the foundation of Fudan daxue), in Ma Xiangbo yu Fudan daxue, 257–265. 43 See Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 3, 284–288. For an overview of Li’s writings, see Joachim Kurtz, “The Works of Li Wenyu (1840–1911): Bibliography of a ChineseJesuit Publicist,” Wakumon 11 (2006): 149–158; for his activities as a publisher, see idem, “Messenger of the Sacred Heart.”

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

203

recollections by enthusiastic learners are scarce. The philosopher Feng Youlan 馮友蘭 (1895–1990) recalls in his autobiography that the logic course he attended shortly after the fall of the dynasty at the acclaimed Chinese Public School (Zhongguo gongxue 中國公學) in Shanghai was hardly enlightening. His class was taught on the basis of the original version of Jevons’s Logic and mainly aimed at improving students’ knowledge of the English language. If we are to believe Feng’s somewhat smug account, his teachers, “like most of their contemporaries,” were so utterly ignorant of the subject that no one could help him answer one of the study questions appended to Jevons’s text.44 Yet, if Feng’s experience is at all representative, which it may well be, we have to surmise that despite the efforts recounted in this section, education in logic—outside very few exceptional schools— remained at best rudimentary until the end of the Qing and into the Republican period. 2. Logic in New-Style Textbooks Whatever the quality of instruction in the new “schools without teachers,” as one commentator pointedly called them,45 a beneficial effect of the integration of logic in the new Chinese curricula was to spur hectic activities by a host of new publishing houses that scrambled to provide textbooks for the projected courses. As the historian Wang Xiangrong has observed, “China at that point [that is, in 1902 when the new school regulations were promulgated] had not one textbook suited to its modern schools, nor a single person qualified to write one.”46 Although this sweeping assessment may exaggerate the extent of the problem with regard to the education system as a whole—after all, China had not suddenly been turned into an intellectual tabula rasa by the inclusion of about a dozen new disciplines into the country’s curricula—it accurately reflected the situation in logic. As we have seen above, not even Yan Fu felt competent to write his own book on the subject. Consequently, textbooks in logic, as in many other 44 Feng Youlan 馮友蘭, Sansongtang zixu 三松堂自序 (Autobiography from the Hall of Three Pines) (Beijing: Sanlian chubanshe, 1984), 197–198. See Guo Qiao, Luoji yu wenhua, 131–132. 45 See Reynolds, Xinzheng Revolution, 117. 46 Wang Xiangrong 王向榮, Riben jiaoxi 日本教習 ( Japanese instructors) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1988), 156.

204

chapter four

disciplines, were almost exclusively the product of translation until the founding of the Republic of China in 1912.47 Virtually all logic textbooks published in this decade were based on Japanese models. Japan was discovered as China’s shortcut to modernity after its impressive show of strength in the Sino-Japanese War. Zhang Zhidong himself had formulated a forceful appeal to turn eastward in his Exhortation to Learning. The Japanese had already filtered everything that might be of use to China from the vast and “extremely complex” body of Western knowledge, Zhang argued, and because Japan and China shared “the same race and the same script” (tongzu tongwen 同族同文), absorbing the results of Japanese efforts would be infinitely easier than attempting to seek wisdom directly from Europe or North America.48 Based on this premise, the Qing government sent the first eighteen Chinese students to Japan in the year 1898. In 1900, their number rose to one thousand, and the wave peaked in 1906 with six thousand new arrivals.49 For most of these students, as well as the exiled reformers who had fled China in the aftermath of the Hundred Days Reform, the encounter with Japanese modernity literally opened up a new world. Liang Qichao described his awe upon arriving in this new world in typically dramatic terms that reflected an impression shared by many of his fellow travelers: Books such as I have never seen before dazzle my eyes. Ideas such as I have never encountered before baffle my brain. It is like seeing the sun after being confined to a dark room, or like a parched throat getting wine.50

47 See Tan Ruqian 譚汝謙, “Zhong-Ri zhi jian yishu shiye de guoqu, xianzai yu weilai” 中日之間譯書事業的過去現在與未來 (Translation work between Chinese and Japanese: Past, present and future), in idem and Sanetō Keishū 実藤恵秀, Zhongguo yi Ribenshu zonghe mulu 中國譯日本書綜合目錄 (Comprehensive bibliography of Japanese books in Chinese translation) (Hong Kong: Zhongwen daxue chubanshe, 1980), 37–117; 62. 48 See Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian, 639; and Tze-ki Hon, “Zhang Zhidong’s Proposal for Reform: A New Reading of the Quanxue pian,” in Karl and Zarrow, Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period, 77–98. On the notion of a “shared script” between China and Japan more specifically, see Douglas R. Howland, Borders of Chinese Civilization: Geography and History at Empire’s End (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996), 43–62. 49 Shen Diancheng 沈殿成 (ed.), Zhongguoren liuxue Riben bainian shi, 1896–1996 中國 人留學日本百年史 1896–1996 (A history of 100 years of Chinese students in Japan, 1896–1996), 2 vols. (Shenyang: Jilin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1997), vol. 1, 110–115. 50 Liang Qichao, “Lun xue Ribenwen zhi yi” (On the benefits of learning Japanese) (1899), reprinted in idem, Yinbingshi wenji 飲冰室文集 (Collected essays from the Ice Drinker’s Studio), ed. Lin Zhijun 林志鈞 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, [1936] 1990), 4:80–82; 4:80. Translation adapted from Reynolds, Xinzheng Revolution, 114.

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

205

Almost from the beginning, Chinese students made considerable efforts to share the intoxicating new knowledge to which they had gained access in Japan with their compatriots at home. In 1900, the first Translation Society, the Yishu huibian she 譯書匯編社, was founded in Tōkyō by a group of students committed to translating books and articles from Japanese.51 Although this society was short-lived and published only a limited number of texts, it set a precedent that many similarly devoted groups emulated over the following decade. Many groups published their own journals whose titles (Zhejiang chao 浙江潮, Hubei 湖北, Jiangsu 江蘇, etc.) mirrored the fact that Chinese students in Japan were organized in fraternities based on their regions of origin.52 In China itself, where many of the new-style periodicals from Japan became instant successes, publishers rushed to exploit the opportunities the new education system offered producers of usable textbooks.53 In this effort, connections to Japan proved to be invaluable. Characteristically, the most profitable publisher of the era, the Commercial Press in Shanghai,54 was a Chinese-Japanese joint venture. Other prominent presses depended no less on texts and know-how imported from the East. Through joint ventures with Japanese presses Chinese publishing houses had immediate access to the most recent titles on modern knowledge, and with the growing number of students going to or returning from Japan the problem of finding translators with sound linguistic abilities could be resolved with increasing ease. The number of translations from Japanese published in China between 1896 and 1911 surpassed the Protestant output of the entire nineteenth century. According to Xiong Yuezhi, at least 1,014 monographs based on Japanese texts appeared in China during these fifteen years.55 Despite the meticulous detective work done by Xiong, and

See Sanetō Keishū, Zhongguoren liuxue Riben shi 中國人日本留學史 (A history of Chinese students in Japan), trans. Tan Ruqian and Lin Qiyan 林啟彥 (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1983 [1960]), 217–221. 52 See Harrell, Sowing the Seeds, 89–94. 53 See “Jiaokeshu fakan gaikuang, 1868–1918” 教科書發刊概況 1868–1918 (A survey of textbook publication in China, 1868–1918) (1934), reprinted in Zhongguo jindai chuban shiliao chubian 中國近代出版史料初編 (First collection of materials on the history of publishing in modern China), ed. Zhang Jinglu 張靜盧 (Shanghai: Shanghai chubanshe, 1953), 219–253; 220–240. 54 See Jean-Pierre Drège, La Commercial Press de Shanghai, 1897–1949 (Paris: Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1978), 16–21. 55 Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian, 640. 51

206

chapter four

earlier by Tam Yue-him (Tan Ruqian) and Sanetō Keishū,56 all estimates of the precise extent of Japanese influence through translation in the late Qing must remain tentative. Textbooks in particular, usually printed on cheap paper and seldom bought by libraries, were undoubtedly produced in far greater numbers than researchers have been able to ascertain. This is confirmed by the case of logic texts. While Xiong, Tam, and Sanetō mention only five textbooks on logic translated from Japanese before 1911, Chen Yingnian identifies six,57 and existing studies in the history of logic in modern China reference a combined seven,58 I have located twenty-two such texts. (For a complete list, see Appendix A.) The books chosen for translation reflected the contemporary state of the science in Japan. In the first years of the twentieth century, Japan’s logical scene was split along similar lines as the country’s philosophers, as the initial focus on liberal and empiricist Western European thought had been replaced by inspirations from various brands of German idealism and especially neo-Kantianism.59 In the realm of logic, this division translated into competition between two broad camps propagating divergent, but not mutually exclusive, definitions of the discipline that mirrored contemporary debates in Europe. The first camp, led by British logicians such as Jevons, conceived of logic as a rather lean science examining the rules of reasoning in argumentation; the second, guided by the German psychologism that had been brought to East Asia by Ludwig Busse (1862–1907) and Raphael von Koeber (1848–1923), who worked as lecturers of philosophy at the Imperial University in Tōkyō, treated logic as a Denkwissenschaft, that is, a science studying the ways in which humans actually think.60 Works

Tan Ruqian and Sanetō Keishū, Zhongguo yi Ribenshu zonghe mulu, passim. Chen Yingnian 陳應年, “Jindai Riben sixiangjia zhuzuo zai Qingmo Zhongguo de jieshao he chuanbo” 近代日本思想家著作在清末中國的介紹和傳播 (The introduction and dissemination of works by modern Japanese thinkers in late Qing China), in Zhong-Ri wenhua jiaoliushi lunwenji 中日文化交流史論文集 (Collected essays on the history of cultural relations between China and Japan), ed. Zhong-Ri wenhua jiaoliushi yanjiuhui 中日文化交流史研究會 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1982), 262–282. 58 Li Kuangwu, Zhongguo luojishi, vol. 4, 162–180; Zhou Yunzhi, Liu Peiyu, et al., Zhongguo luojishi ziliaoxuan, vol. 6, 660–661; Song Wenjian, Luojixue de chuanru yu yanjiu, 16–21; and Guo Qiao, Luoji yu wenhua, 47–61. 59 See Gino K. Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 1862–1962: A Survey. Tōkyō: Sophia University Press, 1968 [1962]), 28–31. 60 See Funayama, Meiji ronrigakushi, 36–37. 56 57

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

207

of different quality and length from both camps were translated into Chinese during the first decade of the twentieth century. 1. Logic as the Science of Reasoning The shared features of the textbooks based on works belonging to the first camp included a strong focus on formal aspects of deductive reasoning and a more or less complete disregard for psychologistic explanations of the laws of thought. Otherwise, the texts differed in scope, sophistication and, of course, the reliability of the translation. The first textbook rendered from Japanese, Yang Yinhang’s 楊蔭杭 (1878–1945) Logic (Mingxue 名學),61 was a dense but elegantly written treatise by a surprisingly self-confident translator. Yang had studied law in Tōkyō before taking up a position in the Translation Office at Shanghai’s Nanyang College.62 According to his “Directions to the Reader,” he spent not “much more than ten days” completing his adaptation.63 One reason he could proceed so swiftly was that he borrowed his technical terminology virtually unaltered from his text of departure. Somewhat more accommodating was his choice of example sentences that he either selected from classical Chinese sources or contexts reflecting contemporary societal concerns. In his preface he traced the beginnings of logic to ancient Greece and India, the cradle of “Eastern logic” (dongyang zhi mingxue 東洋之名學), and rejected claims that the Chinese School of Names had produced valuable logical insights on the grounds that thinkers such as Gongsun Long and Hui Shi may well have liked to argue but were indifferent to the “laws of argumentation,” the central theoretical concern of the discipline.64 The logic presented in Yang’s book was strictly deductive, moving in twenty chapters from terms, propositions, and syllogisms through indirect inferences and conversions to an inventory of fallacies. The Questions and Answers on Logic (Lunlixue wenda 論理學問答, 1903) offered an even more concise introduction to deductive reasoning.65 It

61 Yang Yinhang 楊蔭杭 (trans.), Mingxue 名學 (Logic) (Tōkyō: Rixin congbianshe, 1902). 62 See Zou Zhenhuan, Yilin jiuzong, 102–104. 63 Yang Yinhang, Mingxue, 5. 64 Ibid., 2–3. 65 Fan Diji 范迪吉 (trans.), Lunlixue wenda 論理學問答 (Questions and answers on logic), in Xinbian Putong jiaoyu baike quanshu 新編普通教育百科全書 (New encyclopedia for general education), ed. Fan Diji (Shanghai: Huiwen xueshe, 1903).

208

chapter four

appeared in a series of high school primers adapted from a related collection by the Japanese Fuzanbō press, supplemented by translations of some chapters from the Japanese Imperial Encyclopedia (Teikoku hyakka zensho 帝国百科全書, 1898–1908).66 The series comprised altogether 102 texts whose translations were allegedly completed within a single year under the direction of a certain Fan Diji 范迪吉 about whom very little is known.67 The poor quality of print and paper indicates a rough-and-ready production process. Still, at least the rendition of the volume on logic was quite reliable. Of the text’s sixty-eight folio pages, fifty-eight were devoted to the standard topics of deductive reasoning, starting from terms and propositions, moving on to opposition and conversion, and ending with the rules of the syllogism. The remaining pages were filled with diagrams illustrating the valid moods of the syllogism (see below). Takayama Rinjirō’s 高山林次郎 (Chogyū 樗牛, 1871–1902) Logic (Ronrigaku 論理学),68 adapted by Wang Rongbao 汪榮寶 (1878–1933) for the Translation Society in 1902,69 taught a very similar kind of logic. Takayama is mainly known as a journalist, literary critic, and theoretician of Japanese nationalism (Nipponshugi 日本主義) but after graduating in philosophy from Tōkyō’s Imperial University in 1895 he first worked as a teacher of English and logic at a high school in Sendai. His textbook was based on his lectures there. Although his philosophical outlook was shaped by Nietzsche and the neo-Hegelian T. H. Green, his logic displayed no idealist proclivities. Takayama defined the discipline as the “science of the formal laws of inference.”70 He disputed the independent value of inductive reasoning and consequently presented only deductive forms in his lectures.71 Wang

66 The volume on logic, written by an anonymous author, was entitled Ronrigaku mondō 論理学問答 (Questions and answers on logic), in Futsūgaku mondō zensho 普通学 問答全書 (Complete anthology of questions and answers on general sciences) (Tōkyō: Fuzanbō, 1896). For an overview of all titles in the series, see Sanetō Keishū, Zhongguoren liuxue Riben shi, 226–229. 67 See Reynolds, Xinzheng Revolution, 114; and Zou Zhenhuan, Yilin jiuzong, 112–114. 68 Takayama Rinjirō 高山林次郎, Ronrigaku 論理学 (Logic) (Tōkyō: Hakubunkan, 1898). On Takayama, see Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 60–62. 69 Wang Rongbao 汪榮寶 (trans.), “Lunlixue” 論理學 (Logic), Yishu huibian 譯書 匯編 (The Yi Shu Hui Pien) 2, no. 7 (September 1902): 1–59. On Wang Rongbao, see Shen Guowei, “Shin Jiga” to sono goi 新爾雅とその語彙 (On the “New Erya” and its vocabulary) (Tōkyō: Hakuteisha, 1995), 4–7. 70 Wang Rongbao, Lunlixue, 3. 71 See Funayama, Meiji ronrigakushi, 79–82.

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

209

Rongbao’s translation covered the first six chapters of Takayama’s book, which included a general introduction followed by discussions of terms, propositions, syllogisms, conversions, and direct inferences.72 More influential than the textbooks mentioned so far, which were intended to serve as manuals for self-study, were two adaptations of actual classroom lectures by Takashima Heizaburō 高島平三郎 (1865–1946), an expert on child education and professor of pedagogy and psychology in Tōkyō. Takashima played no significant role on Japan’s logic scene. Yet, in his capacity as instructor at the Kōbun Gakuin 広文学院, a school established to prepare Chinese exchange students for their studies at Japanese universities,73 he became the face of the discipline for hundreds of aspiring young Chinese required to take his introductory course in logic after their arrival in Japan. Among his students were such notable figures as the novelist Lu Xun 魯迅 (Zhou Shuren 周樹人, 1881–1936), Huang Xing 黃興 (1874– 1916), one of the founders of the Guomindang, and Chen Duxiu 陳 獨秀 (1879–1942), a cofounder of the Chinese Communist Party. From 1903 onward, partial transcripts of Takashima’s lectures were serialized in the radical student monthly Jiangsu. In 1906, a complete version was commissioned by Jiangsu’s Provincial Board of Education and included in the curriculum of the Jiangsu Higher Normal School.74 In the following year, a revised and commercially more successful adaptation, translated under the direction of Takashima’s colleague Kaneda Nisaku 金太仁作, who taught Japanese language at the Kōbun Gakuin, appeared in Shanghai.75 Despite his background in psychology, Takashima insisted on a clear distinction between his own discipline and logic, “the science of the laws governing the forms of thought.”76 Instead of analyzing actual operations of the human mind, logic was only concerned with the ways in which concepts were expressed in speech. The organization of Takeshima’s lectures followed standard models of deductive reasoning and ended with a brief overview of induction and its applications in the sciences. Throughout Wang Rongbao, Lunlixue. See also Gu Xieguang, Yishu jingyan lu, 6.12a. On the Kōbun Gakuin and its Chinese student population, see Sanetō Keishū, Zhongguoren liuxue Riben shi, 46–47. 74 Jiangsu shifansheng 江蘇師範生 (trans.), Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic) (Nanjing: Jiangsu ningshu xuewuchu, 1906). 75 Kaneda Nisaku 金太仁作 (trans.), Lunlixue jiaokeshu 論理學教科書 (A textbook of logic) (Shanghai: Dongya gongsi, 1907). 76 Jiangsu shifansheng, Lunlixue, 2. See also Kaneda, Lunlixue jiaokeshu, 5–9. 72 73

210

chapter four

his work, Takashima went to great lengths to anticipate students’ questions and find examples to which they could relate. In his explanation of definitions, for instance, he first discussed the traditional Chinese practice of what he called “definition by glossing” (xungu zhi dingyi 訓詁之定義): “Tracing the origins of characters and taking the meanings they were given when coined as definitions, as exemplified by the [early dictionaries] Shuowen and Erya, is what we call ‘definition by glossing.’ But,” he added as if echoing Yan Fu, “such theories are never unified, often contradictory, and bear little relation to reality.”77 Takashima then also dismissed “descriptive definitions” ( jishu de dingyi 記述的定義), that is, definitions based on lists of the accidental properties of a thing or event. To illustrate the flaws of this type of definition he singled out a quote by Confucius that had been regarded since Mencius as a perfect description of the way to maintain control over the fickle human heart: “Hold on to it and it will remain; let go of it and it will disappear. One never knows the time it comes or goes, neither does one know the direction.”78 According to Takashima, this statement could not be regarded as a proper definition because it did not exhaust all aspects of the phenomenon it intended to capture. For Chinese students who had spent most of their youth memorizing just such quotations, Takashima’s pose of audacity—he subjected not only Confucian maxims but also Buddhist and Daoist sayings to such rigorous scrutiny—may have made the subject matter of his course at least somewhat more appealing. On the other hand, Takashima went into excruciating detail when discussing the forms of deductive inference, most probably to ensure that all his students would learn to apply them more or less effortlessly.79 On the whole the works based on his lectures were still much better suited for pedagogical purposes than most textbooks available at the time. The most theoretically advanced work translated from Japanese in the first decade of the twentieth century was Hu Maoru’s adaptation

Jiangsu shifansheng, Lunlixue, 24. Ibid. Quotation from Mengzi 6A.8. English translation follows D. C. Lau (trans.), Mencius (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970), 165. 79 Both tendencies, the playful iconoclasm in the selection of examples illustrating logical forms (“All rites and righteousness were discovered by sages; Mengzi does not know rites and righteousness; therefore, Mengzi is not a sage”) and the painstaking detail of his explanations were amplified in the second, expanded version of Takashima’s lectures compiled under the direction of Kaneda Nisaku. See Kaneda, Lunlixue jiaokeshu, 55 and passim. 77 78

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

211

of Ōnishi Hajime’s 大西祝 (1864–1900) magisterial Logic (Ronrigaku 論 理学).80 Ōnishi taught the history of philosophy, logic, ethics, and aesthetics at the Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō 東京専門学校, the precursor of Waseda University.81 He was among the Japanese pilgrims who visited Wilhelm Wundt’s Institute for Experimental Psychology in Leipzig in 1898 and, like other members of the delegation, was deeply influenced by what he learned there. His Logic, however, was written prior to that visit and insisted on a strict separation between logic and psychology.82 The voluminous work was divided into three parts: the first half was devoted to deductive reasoning, presented very much in the usual order but including imperfect and hypothetical syllogisms. In addition, an appendix offered a brief chapter on the “quantification of the predicate” (keyu zhi fuliang 客語之附量) that showed Ōnishi’s work at the cutting edge of contemporary developments, even if these soon proved to be misguided. The second half was subdivided into two parts: a modern reinterpretation of Indian Buddhist logic and a section on induction. Ōnishi’s excursion into Buddhist reasoning, the earliest study of yinming in terms of modern formal logic to become available in Chinese, included a detailed comparison between the Buddhist “tripartite inference” (sanzhi zuofa 三支作法) and the Aristotelian syllogism.83 The chapters on induction highlighted deficits of deductive reasoning for scientific practice in both Buddhist and Western syllogistics and ended with a detailed examination of Mill’s “four canons of induction.” One peculiar feature of the work was a preface, allegedly written by a certain Li Mingyang 李鳴陽 but in fact composed by translator Hu Maoru himself,84 that offered, besides much praise for the translation, a scathing critique of China’s failure to produce logical insights of any value. Although Confucius and Mencius realized the importance of the “correct use of names” (zhengming 正名) and the necessity of “knowing speech” (zhiyan 知言), Hu aka Li wrote, neither was able to

80 Hu Maoru 胡茂如 (trans.), Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic) (N.p.: Hebei yishushe, 1906), based on Ōnishi Hajime 大西祝, Ronrigaku 論理学 (Logic) (Tōkyō: Tōkyō senmon gakkō, 1895). 81 See Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 42–47. 82 Hu Maoru, Lunlixue, 4–5. 83 Ibid., 55. See Funayama, Meiji ronrigakushi, 84–87 and 117–119. 84 That the preface was written by Hu Maoru was admitted by his friend Gu Zhongxiu 谷鐘秀 (1874–1949) in the latter’s preface to the third edition, published in 1914 after Hu’s premature death. Hu Maoru 胡茂如 (trans.), Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic) (Shanghai: Taidong tushuju, 1914), preface by Gu Zhongxiu, i.

212

chapter four

explain “how names could be corrected and speech be made reliable.”85 Even Xunzi who clearly understood the conventional nature of names failed to grasp the rules according to which these needed to be related in making valid arguments. Still more “ridiculous” were claims that the School of Names resolved this issue, and assertions that classical philology provided adequate tools were yet further off the mark. The bleak truth was that “in several thousand years” of Chinese intellectual history “not one” thinker had formulated an “art of correcting names and knowing speech.” As a result “scholarship had become ever more obscure, political doctrine declined, culture and education stagnated, and society was led on a road to ruin.”86 In order “to salvage what has been lost and reverse the decline” nothing was more important for China than to study “the art of knowing speech and science of the correct use of names,” as laid out in Ōnishi’s book. Ōnishi was not only the most respected logician in Japan; by including Buddhist logic in his account he could also be regarded as the founder of a new “universal logic” (tianxia zhi lunlixue 天下之論理學) that went beyond the insights of even the most advanced European scholars.87 The slim First Steps in Logic (Lunlixue chubu 論理學初步), compiled by anonymous editors at the Junyi Press in Shanghai, opened with an emphatic appeal to educators to exert themselves in the study of the new discipline. “Achievements are born from thought,” the compilers wrote in their preface, imitating the style of the famous chain argument in the Greater Learning, and it is today’s children who will determine the future achievements of the world. Those who wish that their children’s achievements be free from error, must first ensure that their thoughts are free from error. Those who wish that future thoughts be free from error, must first ensure that today’s knowledge is free from error. And those who wish that today’s knowledge be free from error, must first ensure that educators’ knowledge is free from error. For educators wishing their knowledge to be free from error, there is nothing more important than logic.88

The burden placed on educators was particularly heavy in view of what the editors singled out as errors of thought rooted in corrupt

Hu Maoru, Lunlixue, preface by Li Mingyang, i. Ibid., ii. 87 Ibid., iii. 88 Junyi tushu gongsi 均益圖書公司 (ed.), Lunlixue chubu 論理學初步 (First steps in logic) (Shanghai: Junyi tushu gongsi, 1907), preface, 1a. 85 86

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

213

Chinese customs. Five of these errors were especially egregious: “Close-mindedness” was a result of China’s territorial separation that obstructed national unity and the dissemination of new ideas. “Emptiness,” that is, superstitious beliefs in ghosts or spirits, was a consequence of blind adherence to unverified precepts. “Punctiliousness,” “muddle-headedness,” and the “readiness to echo what others say” were embedded in rigid social hierarchies.89 Studying logic, the editors claimed, could correct all these errors by training the mind to follow definitive laws. The contents of the First Steps in Logic hardly lived up to such hyperbole. The text offered little more than a stripped-down version of key tenets of deductive reasoning, culled verbatim and without references from earlier titles. The book’s only remarkable components were three sections promising to elucidate the complex relation between logic and grammar. Yet, instead of offering pertinent explanations, here too the editors only copied, again without indicating their source, the definitions of the parts of speech and their syntactical functions given in Ma Jianzhong’s 馬建忠 (1844–1900) Mr. Ma’s Principles of Refined Writing (Mashi wentong 馬氏文通), the first grammar of the Chinese language written in Chinese, but failed to establish meaningful links between logic and the specific features of individual languages.90 More successful in this regard was a partial adaptation of W. S. Jevons’s Elementary Lessons in Logic91 that was serialized in nine installments in the reformist magazine Xuebao (Learning) between December 1906 and January 1908.92 As outlined in its mission statement, the journal was established to introduce “all knowledge our contemporaries need to study, as citizens of China and citizens of the world.”93 The Ibid., 1b–2a. Ibid., 2b–8a. All quotations were taken from the introductory section of the Mashi wentong; see Ma Jianzhong 馬建忠, Mashi wentong 馬氏文通 (Mr. Ma’s principles of refined writing) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1983), 19–32. On Ma’s work, see the discussion in Lydia Liu, Clash of Empires, 191–209. 91 William Stanley Jevons, Elementary Lessons in Logic: Deductive and Inductive, with copious questions and examples, and a vocabulary of logical terms (London: Macmillan, [1870] 1886). The work was one of the most widely used textbooks in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Europe and North America and had been translated into all major Western languages. 92 Zhang Lizhai 張立齋 [Zhang Junmai 張君勱] (trans.), “Yefangsi shi lunlixue” 耶 方思氏論理學 (Mr. Jevons’s Logic), Xuebao 1, no. 1 (1906): 1–28; 1, no. 2 (1907): 29–60; 1, no. 3 (1907): 51–72; 1, no. 4 (1907): 1–48; 1, no. 5 (1907): 1–44; 1, no. 6 (1907): 1–36; 1, no. 7 (1907): 137–156; 1, no. 11 (1908) (not seen); and 1, no. 12 (1908): 13–35. 93 “Xuli” 敘例 (Preface), Xuebao 1, no. 1 (1906): iii–iv. 89 90

214

chapter four

propagation of logic, which taught how to apply “general rules” in thought and argument, was an important part of this universalist enterprise. Because logic was an unusually “profound” discipline, the editors promised “clear and fluent” translations of logical texts.94 The rendition of Jevons’s work, which comprised seventeen of the book’s thirty-three chapters,95 lived up to this advertisement. The translator Zhang Junmai 張君勱 (1887–1969) had studied at the Jiangnan Arsenal’s College of Foreign Languages and the Jesuit Université l’Aurore in Shanghai before enrolling at Tōkyō’s Waseda University in 1906. Although by his own admission Zhang was more fluent in English than Japanese,96 he consulted versions in both languages to produce an accurate and highly readable translation.97 Emulating Yan Fu’s example, Zhang complemented his adaptation with copious notes. About half of these recounted the history of logic in Europe and tried to situate Jevons’s opinions in contemporary debates. Presented in an authoritative voice, most of these informative digressions were adapted from the Encyclopædia Britannica (10th ed., 1902–1903). Zhang veiled his reliance on this work by directly citing the authors and texts mentioned therein.98 A few of his more independent notes discussed the rendering of key words such as “logic” (for which he advocated, contra Yan Fu, lunlixue 論理學 ‘the science of reasoning’ ), “term” (duanci 端辭 ‘end word’ ) and “syllogism” (tuiceshi

Ibid., vii. The Xuebao presented slightly abbreviated adaptations of lessons I–X and XII–XVIII. 96 See Cheng Wenxi 程文熙, “Zhang Junmai xiansheng zhi yanxing,” 張君勱先 生之言行 (Words and deeds of Mr. Zhang Junmai), in Zhang Junmai xiansheng qishi shouqing jinian lunwenji 張君勱先生七十壽慶紀念論文集 (Essays commemorating the seventieth birthday of Mr. Zhang Junmai), ed. Wang Yunwu 王雲五 (Taibei: Wenhai chubanshe, 1956), 1–53; 12. 97 The Japanese version of Jevons’s Lessons available to Zhang was Soeda Juichi 添田寿一 (trans.), Zebon shi Ronri shinpen 惹穩氏論理新編 (Mr. Jevons’s New Logic) (Tōkyō: Maruzen, 1883). On Jevons’s reception in Japan, see Funayama, Meiji ronrigakushi, 36–39. 98 Instead of referring readers to the encyclopedia, Zhang thus cited “a work by Robert Adamson” (the author of the Britannica article on “Logic”) as well as a number of texts quoted therein, including “Mill’s article on Hamilton,” “Überweg’s globally famous History of Philosophy,” etc. Zhang Junmai, “Yefangsi shi Lunlixue,” Xuebao 1, no. 2 (1907): 45; 1, no. 2 (1907): 54–55; 1, no. 5 (1907): 33–35. It is interesting to note that even Zhang’s discussion of similarities and differences between European logic and Buddhist yinming reasoning relied on Adamson’s review of “Hindu Systems of Logic” in the Britannica; see Xuebao 1, no. 2 (1907): 57–59. 94 95

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

215

推測式 ‘a form of inference’ ).99 Zhang’s most original contributions, however, concerned the intimate relations between logic and language that, as he pointed out, were also emphasized by Jevons. If Jevons was correct in assuming that “a country’s logic” was shaped by its language, then it was necessary in adapting the discipline to take into account the specific features of the Chinese language and the ways in which it was commonly understood. Zhang had been alerted to this complex issue when reading Ōnishi Hajime’s Logic. As the first author to do so from an East Asian perspective, Ōnishi had denied the claim of traditional syllogistics that the copula was an indispensable link between the two terms related in logical propositions. Instead, he argued, its presence was not a universal requirement but the result of a particular feature of European languages, namely, the ambiguity of the verb “to be” that was used in a predicative function as well as to express identity and existence.100 Zhang cited Ōnishi’s analysis, which echoed concerns articulated by Frege and Russell, with “great admiration.” One immediate conclusion he drew from his reading of Ōnishi was that it was unnecessary to rewrite Chinese phrases in a manner that violated “current grammar” (tongxing wenli 通行文例) to mimic the way logical propositions happened to be represented in English.101 But it also led him to call for more substantial studies of the relationship between logic and language in China. Zhang offered some thoughts about the direction such investigations should take in his notes. Expanding the scope of Chinese philology was of crucial importance. Although Chinese scholars were usually well versed in “distinguishing characters” (bianzi 辨字), philological insights had remained scattered in traditional literature. In addition, only semantics (zhengzi 正字) and phonology ( yinyun 音韻) had attained a satisfactory level of sophistication while the other two branches of European philology—morphology (cixing 詞性) and syntax (zhangju 章句)—were hardly developed.102 Thus, equivocation, which was an

99 Zhang Junmai, “Yefangsi shi Lunlixue,” Xuebao 1, no. 1 (1906): 16–17; 1, no. 2 (1907): 46–47; 1, no. 3 (1907): 52. 100 Hu Maoru, Lunlixue, 12–13. For in-depth discussions of this ambiguity and its consequences, see the articles in The Logic of Being: Historical Studies, ed. Simu Knuuttila and Jaakko Hintikka (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1986). Classic examples illustrating the three uses of “to be” are “Socrates is wise” (predicative function), “Socrates is Plato’s teacher” (identity), and “Socrates is” (existence). 101 Zhang Junmai, “Yefangsi shi Lunlixue,” Xuebao 1, no. 3 (1907): 52–53. 102 Ibid., 55–57.

216

chapter four

especially vexing phenomenon in China due to the large number of homophones, had been analyzed with good results at least since the second century.103 But there was still no Chinese grammar defining basic types of sentences similar to the inventory of English phrases discussed in Jevons’s Lessons with regard to their logical qualities. Nor did Zhang find help in Chinese philology to explain the difference between “concrete” and “abstract” terms that was marked morphologically in Western languages (for instance, by suffixes such as “-ness” or “-ity” in English) but needed to be inferred from the contextual meaning in Chinese.104 Although Zhang’s disquisitions did not add up to a comprehensive theory of the intricate relations between language and logic in Chinese, his thoughtful remarks highlighted key issues that no other translator had as yet addressed. It is therefore all the more regrettable that his translation project was aborted when Xuebao was abruptly discontinued in January 1908. The translation produced in the final decade of the Qing that enjoyed the strongest official backing was Wang Guowei’s Logic (Bianxue 辨學),105 a new rendition of Jevons’s Elementary Lessons completed only a few months after Zhang Junmai’s version stalled. Wang was undoubtedly one of the most accomplished translators of his generation. Versed in both English and Japanese, and equipped with a reading knowledge of German and French, he had already translated twelve monographs and dozens of articles on topics ranging from agriculture, geography, pedagogy, physics, mathematics, and law to philosophy, the intellectual passion of his early years,106 when he was entrusted with adapting Jevons’s Lessons by the Translation Office at the Imperial University in Beijing. Like Zhang Junmai, Wang consulted both the English original and its Japanese rendition for his translation. As in his earlier works, Wang paid equal attention to clarity and consistency. His adaptation followed the wording of his source text closely but not slavishly;

103 Zhang Junmai, “Yefangsi shi Lunlixue,” Xuebao 1, no. 4 (1907): 7–9. Chinese scholars had also paid close attention to processes of “desynonymization” (potong 破同), that is, the successive differentiation of initially synonymous words. Ibid., 28–29. 104 Zhang Junmai, “Yefangsi shi Lunlixue,” Xuebao 1, no. 3 (1907): 59–60. 105 Wang Guowei (trans.), Bianxue 辨學 (Logic) (Beijing: Jingshi Wudaomiao shoushuchu, 1908). 106 There is as yet no complete list of Wang’s translations outside the area of philosophy. For the latter, see Fo Chu 佛雛, Wang Guowei zhexue yigao yanjiu 王國維哲學 譯稿研究 (A study of Wang Guowei’s translations of philosophy) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2006).

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

217

the style was lucid throughout. The English-Chinese glossary of 121 key terms that he appended to the final version revealed that he borrowed his technical terminology from the Japanese version of Jevons’s work—with the lone exception of the term bianxue ‘logic’, which the Ministry of Education continued to use in its official publications ever since Zhang Zhidong had inserted it in the regulations governing the Imperial University. Wang left no preface and added only a few annotations. One note explained curtly that the copula was necessary in Western languages but often absent in Chinese sentences “where its meaning is nevertheless present.”107 His only major alteration was the omission of Lesson 11, in which Jevons explained the relation between ordinary language and the rules of logic. Since this discussion was largely based on peculiarities of the English language, Wang may have considered it either as too difficult to translate or of too little interest to his mostly monolingual readers. His work was officially recommended for classroom use by the Ministry of Education immediately after it appeared in print and became one of the most widely used textbooks in China for several years. 2. Logic as the Laws of Thought The second broad group of textbooks adapted from Japan conceived of logic as a science examining the laws of thought, either as an integral part of psychology or as a philosophical science with a strong epistemological or metaphysical component. The earliest translation emanating from this camp was Lin Zutong’s 林祖同 Guide to Logic (Lunlixue dazhi 論理學達恉, 1902).108 Dissatisfied with Edkins’s and Fryer’s “incompetent” introductions to the discipline that contained “mostly irrelevant disquisitions,”109 Lin adapted an esteemed, if slightly dated, Japanese textbook by Kiyono Ben 清野勉 (1853–1904).110 Next to Nishi Amane 西周 (1829–1897), who gained renown as an early propagator of Mill and Comte111 and, as we shall see below, played an important part in the creation of the Japanese philosophical and logical lexicon, Kiyono was

Wang Guowei, Bianxue, 9. Lin Zutong 林祖同 (trans.), Lunlixue dazhi 論理學達恉 (A guide to logic) (Tōkyō: Wenming shuju, 1902). See Gu Xieguang, Yishu jingyan lu, 12b. 109 Lin Zutong, Lunlixue dazhi, i. 110 Kiyono Ben 清野勉, En’eki kinō ronrigaku 演繹帰納論理学 (Logic, deductive and inductive) (Tōkyō: Kinkōdō, 1892). 111 See Havens, Nishi Amane, 98–107. 107 108

218

chapter four

the second most famous Japanese logician of his generation. Although he criticized many of Nishi’s terminological suggestions, Kiyono was as staunch a believer in Mill’s inductionism as his counterpart. Unlike Nishi and Mill, however, he also held that logic was an empirical, and not just theoretical, science describing the laws governing the actual movements of human thought as expressed in language.112 This exalted conception allowed him to present logic as a science with potentially unlimited practical applications, not only in the natural sciences where inductive methods all but guaranteed a steady stream of new discoveries, but also in legal and political debates where those familiar with the rules of deductive reasoning could be sure to keep their opponents at bay.113 The more conventional chapters of the Lunlixue dazhi following these emphatic promises struck a pragmatic balance between induction and deduction. Of the book’s thirty-one sections, the first twentyfour were dedicated to deductive reasoning, while the remaining seven introduced inductive methods such as observation, experimentation, and verification. Lin Zutong’s rendition followed the structure and terminology of Kiyono’s text but at times went very far in “simplifying” the subject matter for impatient readers.114 Another early work with an unmistakable psychologistic bent was Tian Wuzhao’s 田吳炤 (1870–1926) Outline of Logic (Lunlixue gangyao 論理學綱要), distributed in a handsome edition by the Commercial Press just after the publisher entered the textbook market.115 In his “Directions to the Reader,” Tian alerted his audience that his work, even though using a different name, still introduced the same science as Edkins’s Bianxue qimeng and Yan Fu’s Mingxue.116 Totoki Wataru 十時弥 (1874–1940), the author of Tian’s text of departure,117 was a student of Nakajima Rikizō 中島力造 (1858–1918), a professor

Lin Zutong, Lunlixue dazhi, 2–4. Ibid., 5–9. 114 Ibid., ii. For a discussion of Lin’s terminology, see Joachim Kurtz, “Translating the Science of Sciences: European and Japanese Models in the Formation of Chinese Logical Terminology, 1886–1911,” in Historiography and Japanese Consciousness of Values and Norms, ed. James C. Baxter and Joshua A. Fogel (Kyoto: International Research Institute for Japanese Studies, 2002), 53–76. 115 Tian Wuzhao 田吳炤 (trans.), Lunlixue gangyao 論理學綱要 (Outline of logic) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1903). 116 Tian Wuzhao, Lunlixue gangyao, 1a. 117 Totoki Wataru 十時弥, Ronrigaku kōyō 論理学綱要 (Outline of logic) (Tōkyō: Dai Nihon tosho, 1900). 112 113

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

219

of philosophy at the University of Tōkyō.118 From his teacher, who contributed a preface to the Japanese edition, Totoki had inherited a “logical idealism” that attributed objective existence to the laws of thought.119 In the brief work chosen for translation by the Commercial Press, however, the idealist overtones were muted. If at all, they were obvious only in the opening chapter discussing the laws of thought and the relation between thought and language. The main body of the text covered less controversial terrain, explaining standard topics including definitions and methods of classification, propositions, deductive reasoning, syllogisms, and induction. The final chapter provided exercises in the application of logical rules in argumentation. More remarkable than the content was the timid attitude with which Tian Wuzhao approached his translation. In his preface, Tian justified his extreme caution by pointing to the novelty of his subject: In books of this kind there are many words that we have never seen before because they deal with specialized theories (zhuanmen xueshuo 專 門學說). The technical terms in the original were adapted from Western books by Japanese scholars after much research and deliberation. When we [Chinese] today first translate or read [books of this kind] it is as if we can only peep through the keyhole. Therefore, I did not dare to alter anything at will.120

In fact, Tian left even the nontechnical terminology untouched and also shied away from adapting examples, symbols, and sometimes the syntax of example sentences, which forced him more often than not to add rather awkward explanations. A student’s progress through the text was hindered, for instance, by glosses such as “Note: 洋書 ( yangshu, Japanese yōsho, ‘books from overseas’ ) is what the Japanese call xishu 西書 ‘Western books’ .”121 Yet, even if his timidity affected the book’s readability, on the whole Tian’s translation was still consistent and reliable. The strongest and most influential voice of psychologistic logic in late Qing China was that of Hattori Unokichi, the dean of the Imperial University’s Normal School Division in Beijing. Three books based on Hattori’s lectures and a brief introduction to logic he had published in Japan prior to his arrival in China appeared in print 118 119 120 121

On Nakajima, see Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 63–66. See Funayama, Meiji ronrigakushi, 186–193. Tian Wuzhao, Lunlixue gangyao, 1a. Ibid., 4b. For further examples, see ibid., 6b, 16b–18a.

220

chapter four

between 1904 and 1908. Lectures in Logic (Lunlixue jiangyi 論理學講 義)122 was written by Hattori himself as a companion to his classes at the Normal School. In his preface, Hattori dismissed the existing Chinese textbooks as unsuitable for his purposes. Nor did works in Japanese or European languages offer feasible alternatives: students’ knowledge of Japanese was too uneven, and some studied English while others learned German or French. Hattori claimed that the content of his outline, supplemented with oral explanations and practical exercises, could be taught in a one-semester course of four hours per week. Even less time was needed to work through a Chinese adaptation of Hattori’s thin A Textbook of Logic (Ronrigaku kyōkasho 論理学教科書). Translator Tang Yan 唐演 promised prospective readers that the contents of the entire book could be taught in thirty hours.123 Much more ambitious was an annotated transcript of Hattori’s lectures compiled by his student Han Shuzu 韓述組 under the title Logic (Lunlixue 論理學) in 1908.124 Han, who simultaneously published a volume of his teacher’s lectures in psychology, not only incorporated the “oral explanations” and “supplementary exercises” missing from Hattori’s own outline but also claimed to have added substantial portions to the sections on induction. To advertise both works, Han solicited prefaces from highranking officials. The career diplomat Dashou 達壽 ( jinshi 1894) lauded logic as a potential cure for China’s persistent weakness in negotiating international treaties,125 and the Hanlin academician Wang Rongguan 王榮官 (1883–?) praised the discipline as a fundamental “science seeking the unity of knowledge.”126 Han himself used his “Directions to the Reader” to underline Hattori’s view that “logic is a part of psychology” and that one could not be studied fruitfully without the other.127 For Hattori, who had received part of his training at the University of Berlin,128 logic was much more than the formal science taught in conventional deductive treatises. In accordance with German neo-idealist 122 Hattori Unokichi 服部宇之吉, Lunlixue jiangyi 論理學講義 (Lectures in logic) (Tōkyō: Fuzanbō; Shanghai: Quanxuehui, 1904; second ed. 1905). 123 Tang Yan 唐演 (trans.), Zuixin lunlixue jiaokeshu 最新論理學教科書 (Latest textbook on logic) (Shanghai: Wenming shuju, 1908), i. The original was Hattori Unokichi, Ronrigaku kyōkasho 論理学教科書 (A textbook of logic) (Tōkyō: Fuzanbō, 1899). 124 Han Shuzu 韓述組 (comp.), Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic) (Shanghai: Wenming shuju, 1908). 125 Ibid., preface by Dashou 達壽, i. 126 Ibid., preface by Wang Rongguan 王榮官, ii. 127 Han Shuzu, Lunlixue, 2. 128 See Harrell, “Guiding Hand,” 14–15.

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

221

positions, he held that formal aspects needed to be taken into account mainly to understand the material workings of the human mind. As part of this broader project, logicians tried to reconstruct how concepts came to be expressed by the intellect and how they related to objective reality. All three books in which Hattori had a hand followed the same structure. They opened with an introduction outlining the scope, forms, and substance of thought. The main “material” part moved from the explication of concepts to judgments and reasoning, all of which were rooted in empirically verifiable laws of thought, through various kinds of syllogisms and forms of inductive inferences to the law of causality. A final “methodological” part was devoted to discussions of definition, classification, and verification. Examples were chosen from a broad variety of sources, ranging from Mengzi and Han Feizi to statements taken from current political discussions, the latter usually displaying firm conservative convictions: “Based on the observation that one or two nations with republican governments are powerful, we cannot conclude that this form of government is best for all countries.”129 Hattori thus seems to have transposed not only his radically psychologistic understanding of the purpose and function of logic but also the political proclivities with which this understanding of the discipline was linked in late Meiji Japan. Far less sophisticated than Hattori’s was a textbook for use in elementary normal school classes compiled at the Commercial Press in 1906 under the generic title of Logic (Lunlixue 論理學). Yang Tianji 楊天驥 (1882–1958), who supervised the “revision” of the book, indicated in his preface that the text was rendered from Japanese but left no hints regarding its source or translator.130 The basic outlook of the work resonated with Tian Wuzhao’s Outline of Logic, published some years earlier by the same press. Both presented logic as a subdiscipline of psychology probing the mental phenomena associated with inference and reasoning. Although Yang claimed that the new book offered “more details on induction and deduction,” it provided in fact little more than a string of coarse and insufficiently connected definitions of basic logical notions. Despite its declared emphasis on practical application, the text was obviously designed for rote learning.

Han Shuzu, Lunlixue, 167. Yang Tianji 楊天驥 (rev.), Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1906), preface, 1a–b. 129 130

222

chapter four

Instead of a discussion and illustration of fallacies, it left students with no more than a list of Aristotle’s eight rules of the syllogism.131 Even its only novel feature, an appendix on “applications of logic in education,” frustrated instructors looking for hands-on advice. General “maxims” such as “proceed from the concrete to the abstract” were hardly enlightening to anyone who had taught any subject in an actual classroom setting.132 Lin Kepei’s 林可培 Comprehensive Introduction to Logic (Lunlixue tongyi 論 理學通義) was another problematic adaptation of Japanese models.133 Based on the five most recent textbooks available in Japan at the time,134 the translator, with the assistance of his Japanese teacher, tried “to extract the essence of all their theories and explain their gist.” Yet, precisely because the theories of his original authors were not at all homogeneous, this endeavor was ill conceived from the outset. Lin complained only about differences in terminology, which he attempted to resolve “by bringing together the various choices and making them consistent,”135 but failed to realize that it was even more difficult, if not outright impossible, to unify fundamental theoretical disagreements. His synthesis resulted in a thoroughly heterogeneous work containing frequent errors. The topics it introduced included thought, concepts, judgments, reasoning, syllogisms, induction, methodology, and a brief appendix on fallacies. Examples were mainly drawn from the realm of education, where Lin hoped to find his target audience. One example illustrating the rules for the “regressive sorites” thus read: “When people’s knowledge is opened up, society will progress. When education is spread, people’s knowledge will be opened up. When the number of private schools is increased, education will spread. When the gentry wholeheartedly support the commonweal, the number of

Ibid., 9b–11a. Ibid., 26b–27a. 133 Lin Kepei 林可培 (comp.), Lunlixue tongyi 論理學通義 (Comprehensive introduction to logic) (Shanghai: Zhongguo tushu gongsi, 1909). 134 According to the compiler’s preface the book was “primarily based” on Imafuku Shinobu 今福忍, Saishin ronrigaku yōgi 最新論理学要義 (Latest essentials of logic) (Tōkyō: Hōbunkan, 1908); Watanabe Matajirō 渡辺又次郎, Ronrigaku 論理学 (Logic) (Tōkyō: Tōkyōhō gakuin, 1894); and Kitazawa Sadakichi 北沢定吉, Ronrigaku kōgi 論理学講義 (Lectures on logic) (Tōkyō: Kōdōkan, 1908). These main sources were “supplemented” by Ōnishi Hajime, Ronrigaku 論理学 (Logic) (Tōkyō: Keiseisha, 1903); and Totoki Wataru, Ronrigaku kōyō 論理学綱要 (Outline of logic) (Tōkyō: Dai Nihon tosho, 1900). 135 Lin Kepei, Lunlixue tongyi, 1a. 131 132

logic in late qing education and popular discourse

223

private schools will increase. Therefore, when the gentry wholeheartedly support the commonweal, society will progress.”136 Guo Yaogeng 過耀庚 introduced yet another kind of logic in his translation of Kihira Tadayoshi’s 紀平正美 (1874–1949) Latest Outline of Logic (Saishin ronrigaku kōyō 最新論理学綱要).137 Kihira was known in Japan for a “metaphysical logic” that aimed to arrive at ultimate truths through the resolution of contradictions.138 His Outline began with a short introduction on “the meaning of thought,” followed by a “material” section concerned with deductive thinking, including a chapter on yinming forms of argumentation,139 and a section on “methodology.” While the logic taught by Kihira was deeply problematic, at least in hindsight, and did not find many followers, the quality of Guo Yaogeng’s adaptation was remarkable. Guo was obviously fluent in Japanese and English and displayed an extraordinary awareness of the pitfalls of his trade. In his preface, he warned against translators who “elevate themselves through an ancient and elegant style” at the expense of faithfulness, a thinly veiled critique of Yan Fu’s mannerisms, and defended his adoption of Japanese terms on the grounds that they displayed less ambiguity and were in fact not all that “foreign.” According to Guo, no more than 10 to 20 percent of the Japanese philosophical lexicon consisted of true neologisms while the rest was borrowed from Sanskrit or Chinese.140 Two further textbooks whose publication was initiated prior to the fall of the Qing dynasty, Qian Jiazhi’s 錢家治 (1880–1969) Logic (Mingxue 名學)141 and Chen Wen’s 陳文 A Textbook of Logic (Mingxue

Ibid., 175. Guo Yaogeng 過耀庚 (trans.), Zuixin lunlixue gangyao 最新論理學綱要 (Latest outline of logic), 2 vols. (Shanghai: Zhongguo tushu gongsi, 1909); based on Kihira Tadayoshi 紀平正美, Saishin ronrigaku kōyō 最新論理学綱要 (Latest outline of logic) (Tōkyō: Kōdōkan, 1907). 138 See Funayama, Meiji ronrigakushi, 215–220; and Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 195–196. 139 Guo Yaogeng, Zuixin lunlixue gangyao, 124–129. 140 Ibid., 7–10. 141 Qian Jiazhi 錢家治 (comp.), Mingxue 名學 (Logic) (n.p., 1910). Qian, who is perhaps best known today as the father of the nuclear physicist Qian Xuesen 錢學森 (1911–2009), had been a classmate of Lu Xun at the Kōbun Gakuin from 1902 to 1904 and later earned degrees in history and geography. He joined Lu Xun to study under Zhang Taiyan in 1906 and remained in touch with both after his return to Hangzhou in 1908. He prepared the Logic as a teacher at the Zhejiang Gaodeng Xuetang, the predecessor of Zhejiang University. Since he did not leave a preface or other notes, it is impossible to determine when and why Qian shifted his view of 136 137

224

chapter four

jiaokeshu 名學教科書),142 were also of interest mainly from the point of view of translation. Both were digests of unnamed Japanese textbooks with a psychologistic propensity but managed to express this type of logic in terms introduced by Yan Fu. This rather complex operation presupposed considerable familiarity not only with at least two systems of logical terminology but also with the notions these technical terms were intended to convey. The confidence and accuracy with which both translators handled this intricate issue demonstrated the extent to which logical knowledge had spread by the end of the decade, especially when seen in comparison with their almost comically timid precursor, Tian Wuzhao. 3. Logic as the Foundation of Words The only logic textbooks produced during the first decade of the twentieth century that were not translations or digests of Japanese sources, besides the works of Yan Fu and to some extent Wang Guowei, were compiled at the Catholic Université l’Aurore in Shanghai. As mentioned above, both were written by Jesuit-trained authors and taught a variety of logic that was grounded in a modernized scholastic conception of the discipline. Their influence was therefore mainly limited to Christian circles and their immediate environment. The first, Ma Xiangbo’s Philosophy Primer (Zhizhi qianshuo 致知淺說), was published only in 1926, but Ma composed the original draft for the lessons he taught at the Aurore between 1903 and 1905. In a preface, written in 1924, Ma related that he designed the book as part of a new Cursus philosophicus comprising introductions to ontology ( yuan you 原有 ‘the foundation of being’ ), ethics ( yuan xing 原行 ‘the foundation of conduct’ ), and logic ( yuan yan 原言 ‘the foundation of [spoken] words’ ).143 The section on metaphysics was never completed, and “not much was preserved” of

logic from the deductive variety taught at Kōbun Gakuin to the psychologistic brand propagated in his book. 142 Chen Wen 陳文 (comp.), Mingxue jiaokeshu 名學教科書 (A textbook of logic) (Shanghai: Kexuehui bianyibu, 1911). A shorter version of the same text had appeared in the previous year under the title Mingxue shili 名學釋例 (Logic, with explanations and examples). 143 Ma Xiangbo 馬相伯, Zhizhi qianshuo 致知淺說 (Philosophy primer) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1926 [