Metaphor and Meaning in Early China |
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Authors: | Edward Slingerland |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia, 2329 West Mall, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4, Canada
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Abstract: | Western scholarship on early Chinese thought has tended to either dismiss the foundational role of metaphor or to see it as
a uniquely Chinese mode of apprehending the world. This article argues that, while human cognition is in fact profoundly dependent
on imagistic conceptual structures, such dependence is by no means a unique feature of Chinese thought. The article reviews
empirical evidence supporting the claims that human thought is fundamentally imagistic; that sensorimotor schemas are often
used to structure our understanding of abstract concepts; that these schemas can be selectively combined to result in novel
structures; and that there are inextricable connections between body, emotion, and thought in both everyday and philosophical
cognition. It also provides a review of a recent trend where, explicitly or not, scholars from a variety of backgrounds have
begun to take metaphor more seriously as a foundational bearer of philosophical meaning in early China. |
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Keywords: | |
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