Early China/ancient Greece: Thinking Through Comparisons (suny Series In Chinese Philosophy And Culture)

The first edited volume in Sino-Hellenic studies, this book compares early Chinese and ancient Greek thought and culture. This pioneering book compares Chinese and Western thought to offer a bracing and unpredictable cross-cultural conversation. The work contributes to the emerging field of Sino-Hellenic studies, which links two great and influential cultures that, in fact, had virtually no contact during the ancient period. The patterns of thought and the cultural productions of early China and ancient Greece represent two significantly different responses to the myriad problems that human beings confront. Throughout this volume the comparisons between these cultures evince two critical ideas. First, that thinking is itself an inherently comparative activity. Through making comparisons, the familiar becomes strange, and the strange somewhat more familiar. Second, since we think through comparisons, we should think them all the way through. How valid and productive are the comparisons and contrasts made between particular works and different styles of thought that emerged from two different, although contemporaneous, cultural contexts? Contributors include Roger T. Ames, Stephen W. Durrant, David L. Hall, David N. Keightley, Michael Nylan, Andrew Plaks, Michael Puett, Lisa Raphals, Haun Saussy, David Schaberg, Steven Shankman, C. H. Wang, and Anthony C. Yu. The subject matter is timely, excitingbroadening two important traditional fields of inquiry. Robert C. Solomon, author of From Rationalism to The Existentialists and Their Nineteenth-Century Backgrounds This book helps to create and define an important new informed, disciplined, and insightful comparative cultural studies for the Greek and Chinese worlds. There is a steadily growing cohort of scholars who work on these types of problems, and they are attracting an increasing audience. Willard J. Peterson, Princeton University This pioneering book compares Chinese and Western thought to offer a bracing and unpredictable cross-cultural conversation. The work contributes to the emerging field of Sino-Hellenic studies, which links two great and influential cultures that, in fact, had virtually no contact during the ancient period. The patterns of thought and the cultural productions of early China and ancient Greece represent two significantly different responses to the myriad problems that human beings confront. Throughout this volume the comparisons between these cultures evince two critical ideas. First, that thinking is itself an inherently comparative activity. Through making comparisons, the familiar becomes strange, and the strange somewhat more familiar. Second, since we think through comparisons, we should think them all the way through. How valid and productive are the comparisons and contrasts made between particular works and different styles of thought that emerged from two different, although contemporaneous, cultural contexts?

Author Biography: At the University of Oregon, Steven Shankman is Distinguished Professor in the College of Arts and Sciences and Stephen W. Durrant is Professor of Chinese. They are coauthors of The Siren and the Sage: Wisdom and Knowledge in Ancient Greece and China. Shankman is also the author of Kindred Verses and Durrant is also the author of The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writing of Sima Qian, published by SUNY Press.

This pioneering book compares Chinese and Western thought to offer a bracing and unpredictable cross-cultural conversation. The work contributes to the emerging field of Sino-Hellenic studies, which links two great and influential cultures that, in fact, had virtually no contact during the ancient period. The patterns of thought and the cultural productions of early China and ancient Greece represent two significantly different responses to the myriad problems that human beings confront. Throughout this volume the comparisons between these cultures evince two critical ideas. First, that thinking is itself an inherently comparative activity. Through making comparisons, the familiar becomes strange, and the strange somewhat more familiar. Second, since we think through comparisons, we should think them all the way through. How valid and productive are the comparisons and contrasts made between particular works and different styles of thought that emerged from two different, although contemporaneous, cultural contexts? -- From publisher's description Early China/Ancient Greece: Thinking through Comparisons Contents Introduction 1. What Has Athens to Do with Alexandria? or Why Sinoloists Can’t Get Along with(out) Philosophers 2. No Time Like the Present: The Category of Contemporaneity in Chinese Studies 3. Humans and Gods: The Theme of Self-Divinization in Early China and Early Greece 4. “These Three Come Forth Together,But are Differently Named”: Laozi, Zhuangzi, Plato 5. Thinking through Comparisons: Analytical and Narrative Methods for Cultural Understanding 6. Alluding to the Text, or the Context 7. Epistemology in Cultural Context: Disguise and Deception in Early China and Early Greece 8. The Logic of Signs in Early Chinese Rhetoric 9. Means and Means: A Comparative Reading of Aristotle’s Ethics and the Zhongyong 10. Fatalism, Fate, and Stratagem in China and Greece 11. Cratylus and Xunzi on Names 12. Golden Spindles and Axes: Elite Women inthe Achaemenid and Han Empires 13. Creating Tradition: Sima Qian Agonistes? Contributors Index A B C D E F G H J K L M N O P Q R S T V W X Y Z The field of Sino-Hellenic studies attempts to link the ancient culture of China with that of Greece. Editors Shankman (arts and sciences, U. of Oregon) and Durrant (Chinese, U of Oregon) acknowledge that this emerging field is controversial. Thirteen professors from American universities contribute one chapter a piece for this college-level text Edited By Steven Shankman And Stephen W. Durrant. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.