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Reviewed by:
  • After Confucius: Studies in Early Chinese Philosophy
  • Andrew Lambert (bio)
Paul R. Goldin . After Confucius: Studies in Early Chinese Philosophy. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2005. x, 266 pp. Hardcover $40.00, ISBN 0-8248-2842-9.

The eight essays in Paul Goldin's book all focus on a time frame that ranges from Confucius to unification during the second and third centuries b.c.e. The critical focus of the book, however, concerns "piecemeal attempts at [a] thick description of classical Chinese philosophy" (p. 2).

"Thick description," a term taken from the philosopher Gilbert Ryle, refers to the transformation of understanding through the acquisition of further "background" information relating to the act or situation under scrutiny. Goldin's general theme is that the ongoing surge in information available relating to the pre-Qin period ought to transform our understanding of Chinese philosophical [End Page 117] thought, insofar as it was previously based on a smaller pool of knowledge and resources and a more limited appreciation of the meaning of certain key concepts in Chinese philosophical debate.

One example of increased understanding of the context within which such texts were produced concerns the pronunciation of Old Chinese: increased familiarity with the original phonetics brings associations missed by scholars who have focused on grammar, graphs, and so on. This grants access to a whole layer of meaning that arises through phonetic associations. For example, Goldin outlines the phonetic connection between xin 信 (snins) and ren 人 (nin), respectively (p.16), and points to the increased suggestiveness of, and the feelings inculcated by, such words. This danger of failing to grasp the significance of a term is especially pronounced when dealing with Chinese philosophical thought. For example, Chinese names that once might have been understood as simple placeholders to mark objects are now understood, upon more detailed investigation, to be attempts to capture the character of a person and that person's actions; for example, the character names used in the Zhuangzi are no longer noted as character names, but for their "punning" effect.

Stated broadly, all conceptual engineering relies on a degree of fixed meaning associated with a concept. The danger is thus that researchers are unaware that the content associated with a term is impoverished and does not reflect the actuality of the term as it was used in particular social and historical contexts.

The eight texts or figures subject to this conceptual approach are the Odes (and their reception in the Warring States Era), the Xunzi, the Hanfeizi, Li Si, the Stratagems of the Warring States, the Huainanzi, Ban Zhao, and the Laozi.

The first chapter, on the Odes, highlights the problematic relationship between the Odes and Chinese philosophical thought, and how the Odes informed later, more explicitly philosophical thinking. Goldin rightly highlights the value of focusing on the reception of the Odes during pre-imperial times as a key strategy for capturing the original spirit in which the Odes were produced. For example, Goldin notes that an examination of extant Zhou commentaries reveals the already politicized nature of Shijing commentary, thus casting doubt on the claim that politicized interpretations of the text were imperial machinations.

Goldin next considers how interpretations of the Xunzi are transformed by consulting the Guodian Manuscripts. The selection of Confucian documents excavated from the Guodian tomb, including the earliest versions of the Ziyi and Wuxing, should "be understood as doctrinal material deriving from a single tradition of Confucianism and datable to around 300 b.c." (p. 36). This body of texts allows for a fuller interpretation of Xunzi's thought; indeed they constitute the original material from which Xunzi's attitude toward xing 性 emerged.

The chapter on the Hanfeizi concerns the claims that that the terms gong 公 and si 私 do not simply refer to public and private, but reflect (as least for Hanfei) the dialectic between ruler and minister, where neither rises above self-interest [End Page 118] but must instead understand how to control the other: "The way has served as nothing more than an august pretext, a rhetorical ornamentation designed to attract rulers who have had a smattering of philosophy" (p. 65). Chapter 4 details the rise and fall of Li...

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