In this essay, I challenge the use of Conceptual Metaphor Theory in the premodern Chinese setting. The dominant, implicit assumption in the literature is that conclusions reached by CMT on the ways in which cognition operates can be applied in toto and without qualification onto the makers of classical Chinese texts. I want to challenge this assumption and argue that textual evidence from premodern Chinese points to a different cognitive process. Differences in the use and conceptualization of image-based thinking as (...) well as differences in the understanding of the relationship between words, images, and the world reveal a different cognitive process. However, I do not wish to argue for a total abandonment of the insights of CMT. Rather, I call for the need to properly qualify its findings in light of premodern Chinese use and conceptions of image-based language. (shrink)

I argue that it is only on the condition of a preconceptual understanding that Zhuangzi's metaphors can be cognitive. Kim-chong Chong holds that the choice between metaphors as noncognitive and cognitive is a choice between Allinson and Davidson. Chong's view of metaphors possessing multivalence is reducible to Davidson's choice, because there is no built-in parameter between multivalence and limitless valence. If Zhuangzi's metaphors were multivalent, the text would be subject to infinite interpretive viewpoints and the logical consequence of relativism. It (...) is only if metaphors are cognitive that the text of the Zhuangzi can convey the message of transcendent freedom. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

This article investigates a central yet perplexing term yiming in the ‘Qiwulun’ chapter of the Zhuangzi. Yiming describes a crucial way to detach from epistemic distinctions and debates. This term is often explained as ‘using ming’ or contradictorily as ‘stopping ming’. Yet neither of the two explanations can provide a full understanding of how yiming is adopted. I take three steps to explain yiming. First, taking an etymological approach, I argue that ming can be formulated as ‘X shining on Y’. (...) Second, I use the formula of ‘X shining on Y’ to account for yiming and argue that this term refers specifically to ‘using tian to shine on everything’. Third, I unpack a cluster of tian-associated metaphors, which provides a deep understanding of yiming as an ideal way to mental tranquility. (shrink)

Light metaphors occurring in Chinese philosophy and Stoicism are of special interest for the unique ways they channel potentialities of the self. In this paper I apply ideas from cognitive linguistics to examine selected structural features of these metaphors. I also build on these ideas by presenting a framework regarding affects to assist in disclosing what is at stake for differing Chinese and Stoic technologies of the self. The paper adopts a high-level perspective to see these broad philosophical implications, interleaving (...) discussions of Chinese philosophy (mainly views associated with Daoism), Stoicism (bringing into relief important differences from these views), and contemporary research on socially constructed affects. This “triadic” comparative approach aims to shed new light on some root assumptions built into the projects of self-cultivation that are at the core of Chinese and Stoic worldviews. (shrink)