Language and Value Edited by

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© ProtoSociology Volume 29/2012: China’s Modernization II

ProtoSociologyAn International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research

Volume 31, 2014

Language and Value

Edited by Yi Jiang and Ernest Lepore

www.protosociology.de

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© ProtoSociologyVolume 29/2012: China’s Modernization II

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3Contemts

© ProtoSociology Volume 29/2012: China’s Modernization II


Volume 31, 2014

Language and Value Edited by Yi Jiang and Ernie Lepore

Contents

Introduction ........................................................................................... 5Ernest Lepore and Yi Jiang

I. Semantics and Ontology

The Relation of Language to Value ......................................................... 11Jiang Yi

Refutation of the Semantic Argument against Descriptivism .................. 16Chen Bo

Semantics for Nominalists ...................................................................... 38Samuel Cumming

Semantic Minimalism and Presupposition .............................................. 43Adam Sennet

Compositionality and Understanding ..................................................... 50Fei YuGuo

Values Reduced to Facts: Naturalism without Fallacy ............................. 59Zhu Zhifang

II. Word Meaning, Metapher, and Truth

Philosophical Investigations into Figurative Speech Metaphor and Irony ............................................................................................... 75Ernie Lepore and Matthew Stone

Contents4

© ProtoSociologyVolume 29/2012: China’s Modernization II

Norms of Word Meaning Litigation ....................................................... 88Peter Ludlow

The Inconsistency of the Identity Thesis ................................................. 113Christopher Hom and Robert May

Describing Ijunction ............................................................................. 121Paul M. Pietroski

Predicates of Taste and Relativism about Truth ....................................... 138Barry C. Smith

Mood, Force and Truth .......................................................................... 160William B. Starr

A Semiotic Understanding of Thick Terms ............................................. 182Aihua Wang

III. Features of China’s Analytical Philosophy

An Echo of the Classical Analytic Philosophy of Language from China: the Postanalytic Philosophy of Language ............................................... 205Guanlian Qian

The Chinese Language and the Value of Truthseeking: Universality of Metaphysical Thought and PreQin Mingjia’s Philosophy of Language ... 220Limin Liu

Mthat and Metaphor of Love in Classical Chinese Poetry....................... 231Ying Zhang

Impressum ............................................................................................. 246

On ProtoSociology ................................................................................. 247

Digital Volumes available ....................................................................... 248

Bookpublications of the Project .............................................................. 254

Limin Liu220

© ProtoSociologyVolume 31/2014: Language and Value

The Chinese Language and the Value of Truth-seeking: Universality of Metaphysical Thought and Pre-Qin Mingjia’s Philosophy of Language

Limin Liu

AbstractThis paper argues that philosophy in the sense of metaphysical speculation is universal and not at all language-specific. At the beginning of traditional Chinese philosophy, the an-cient Chinese thinkers were concerned with social morality, raising questions which differed greatly from those of ancient Greeks and the language they used was typologically different from the western languages, but in the end the thinking and debating over their questions gave rise to speculations on language names which were unmistakably metaphysical in na-ture and oriented toward the establishment of conditions of truth in language. This shows that truth-seeking is a universal predisposition.

1 Philosophy and the Chinese Language

Since the Chinese language differs typologically from the western languages, some believe that they can attribute the fundamental difference between Chi-nese and western philosophies, or rather the absence of metaphysics in Chinese tradition, to the properties of the Chinese language. Of its properties, those that are significant philosophically include: 1) the absence of copula “to be” in the Chinese language with its veridical and existential uses as those in the west-ern languages; 2) the lack of inflectional changes in Chinese, which makes it impossible to distinguish formally parts of speech, abstract and concrete nouns and so on; and 3) a loose syntax structure in which the subject and the predicate are not clear enough to represent unmistakably the entity talked about and the comment on it, two major elements of a proposition.

Zhang Dongsun has long before noted that metaphysics is absent in the tradition of thought in China, primarily because the properties of the Chinese language could not lead to speculations on issues such as “being as being”, and the truth values of propositions.[1]pp.338–339 The absence of copula “to be” kept the ancient Chinese thinkers out of the area of “being qua being”, the kernel issue

221The Chinese Language and the Value of Truth-seeking

© ProtoSociology Volume 31/2014: Language and Value

of western metaphysics; the indeterminacy of the subject in sentences made it difficult for the thinkers to focus on the issues of entity and its nature of existence, and the loose syntax structures prevented the Chinese from specula-tion on propositions. Probably for this reason, Derrida announces that there are thoughts, but no philosophy, in Chinese tradition.[2]p.10 In addition, the Chinese language does not differentiate the abstract and concrete nouns by form, which results in a lack of the “conceptual apparatus” as in the western languages, landing the Chinese thought at “behavioral nominalism” level,[3]

p.34–47 with no concept such as that of Plato’s “Idea” constructed. Consequently, the Chinese thoughts could not transcend common-sense practice.

Such sayings appear to make sense because it is a historical fact that tradi-tional Chinese philosophy does not know of any metaphysical speculation on ontology and the Chinese language lacks indeed strictly defined syntax forms; it did not even have the copula “to be” in its ancient form. A causal relation-ship seems attributable to these two facts. However, such an attribution is problematic. It is true that language makes possible the abstract thought of human beings, the essence of their rational existence, but language is not some screening that stands between thought and actuality, deciding which aspects of actuality should be provided to the thought, a passive terminal that processes the linguistically screened data. This author argues in this paper that thought is the cognitive operation in language per se; i.e., thought is a linguistic operation on “things” as conceptualized meanings. Such “things” are not out there in ac-tualities objectively, but are constructed in the process of cognitive operations (abstraction, generalization, contract and comparison, analysis and synthesis, etc). Whether metaphysical philosophy can occur in a language community depends on the nature of the “things” thinkers operate on linguistically. The Chinese language is typologically different from the western languages, but it constitutes no barrier to the rise of metaphysics in Chinese philosophy, if the Chinese thinkers come to ask the questions of the same nature with those asked by western philosophers.

2 Linguistic “Isolation” and Philosophy

“Problems of philosophy occur when language goes on holiday.” [4] PL,§38 The so-called “on holiday” is in fact a “separation” of language from its uses and users in the actual situation of life. Philosophy occurs because of such an isolation of language. There is no problem of meaning in the everyday communicative

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activities of verbal exchanges, as the utterance meaning is always understood contextually by the members who share similar life experiences and speak the same language in a community. But once language is isolated, i.e. separated from its users and contexts of use, to question what meaning is and how it can be correctly established, we begin to ask metaphysical questions, which cannot be answered, or even comprehended, empirically. It is from here that philosophy starts. Since it cannot be answered empirically, logical speculation on what language meaning is has to be the approach to philosophy, because we don’t have other ways to the truth of statements. Of course, philosophy is not the same as language study, but has its own realm, where there are idea, es-sence, truth, universality and so on. However, these concepts were not possible, if there were no problem of meaning in language in the first place.

Such is the case of western philosophy, whose ontological speculation actu-ally began from Socrates’ questions of “What is X” (X being ‘justice’ ‘courage’ ‘knowledge’ etc.). Questions of this kind are not about how these words are used in real life situations, but about what is X as X in and of itself. Language users and contexts of use are ruled out and the meaning somehow conveyed by X is isolated to be inquired into, in order that it be established with certainty, necessity and universality. It is Socrates’ questions that enabled ancient Greek thought to transcend natural philosophy and step into the realm of speculative metaphysics.

In the process of this sublimation of western philosophy, the western lan-guage form has played an important role. As Alston[5]p.2 has noted, for instance, the formal difference between concrete nouns (such as tree, sharp) and their cor-responding abstracted forms (treeness, sharpness) may well have led the western thinkers to ponder over the existence of different “entities” represented by these forms; and when such semantic entities are regarded as having reality, Plato created in the end his world of “Ideas”, a hard beard that western philosophy has been trying in vain to raze off, as Quine put it. The rigid syntax forms of the western languages, too, enabled Aristotle to reflect on the roles of and the logical relationship between the subject and the predicate of a sentence in an effort to establish the certainty, necessity and universality basis for truthful propositions. It seems reasonable to say that western philosophy began with such speculations on language meaning and the way to ensure its correctness. Of course, this is an oversimplification; there are much more to philosophy than just metaphysical speculation on language meaning; but such questions could only have been raised when philosophers isolated language meaning from its actual uses for speculation on what it is and how it can be correct in abstraction, as the ancient Greeks did.



In contrast, the Chinese language is characterized not by word and sentence structures, but by “ming”, or names: 1) the names are indiscriminately the same in form, regardless of parts of speech; 2) abstract and concrete names cannot be differentiated morphologically; and 3) any name is able to function as any role in a “sentence” in most cases. Obviously, such an absence of formal syntactic devices makes it impossible for the Chinese thinkers to raise metaphysical questions via syntax. Yet, this obstacle is only technical, because it only means that Chinese thinkers would have to embark on metaphysics speculation in a way different from that of their western counterparts, if they ever intend to.

Interestingly, the name-centeredness of the Chinese language proves to be highly conducive to the Chinese thinkers’ reflection on the nature of meaning, which pushes forcefully their thought on to the path of metaphysical ontology. As the most prominent language feature, names are what attract the attention of Chinese philosophers: what is a “ming (name)”, what is the relationship between name and actuality, what is “shi (actuality)”, what constitutes a cor-rect application of a name to an actuality? Such questions on the essence of meaning had also brought the pre-Qin1 Chinese thinkers to a metaphysical speculation very close to that of the ancient Greek philosophers. An example is Hui Shi, one of the major representatives of pre-Qin Mingjia (School of Names), wrongly labeled in Chinese intellectual history as “sophists” or masters of nonsense. One of his most “sophistic paradoxes” is: “天与地卑，山与泽平 (literally, Sky and earth are as low2 as each other; mountain and lake are as flat as each other)”. This statement consists of 8 characters, 4 of which are names of things (天、地、山、泽 [sky, earth, mountain, lake]), 2 of properties (卑、平 [low, flat]) and 2 conjunctions meaning “and”. Without any morphemic marking, all the names appear to be the same in form, whether they are nouns, adjectives or even conjunctions. I think this is exactly what Hui Shi was ques-tioning: if, as a name, a noun derives its meaning from the thing it stands for, then from what does an adjective, also as a name, derive its meaning? Can one be as certain about the meaning of an adjective as about that of a noun? Such an inquiry into the ontological foundation of the meaning of language

1 Pre-Qin denotes a historical period in China before the Qin Dynasty unified the country, especially the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods (approximately 770–221 BC).

2 There is a criticism of the translation of “卑” into “low”, which has been usually translated as “humble”. But I insist on using “low”, because it parallels with “flat” in the next part of the statement, and because Hui Shi’s discussion does not involve ethic evaluation. “Humble” is consistent with the orientation of traditional Chinese philosophy such as Confucianism, but not with Mingjia’s philosophy which is not interested in ethics, or politics, but in what things are and how their essence can be understood.

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names was indeed what Mingjia thinkers were concerned with. This can be seen clear from Gongsun Long’s famous proposition of “white-horse not-horse”, which intend to grant an independent ontological status to both “whiteness” and “horse-ness” in and of themselves, as he believes that such are the differ-ent essences these names truly refer to. Along the same line, Mingjia debaters pondered on propositions such as “eyes don’t see, fire is not hot, a chicken has three feet” etc, in which the names of “eye, fire, foot” were not USED to denote things in actuality, but MENTIONED for metaphysical speculations on the essence of names as conceptual entities. By “mentioned” here in this article, I do not just mean the quotation indicates a discussion of the word itself, but extend this analysis technique to say that Mingjia debaters were, at the time, speculating on the nature of the concepts the quoted words represent. This is a conscious effort to distinguish the level of experience from that of language, which shows that Mingjia had come to the realization that the meaning of a name, as conceptual being, is not the same as what is refers to in actuality, and therefore the truthfulness of the meaning of a name should be established by metaphysical speculation. Mingjia had already stepped onto the rationalist path of truth-seeking.

Like their ancient Greek counterparts, the Mingjia philosophers isolated names from their use in actuality to reflect on the issue of meaning and its nature and came thereby close to questioning the ontological status of name meaning. Thus the orientation of general pre-Qin Chinese concerns (that of morality and social behavioral code) did differ significantly from that of ancient Greeks (that of the truth and knowledge), but the Chinese inquiry into the nature of “name” and “actuality” could also lead to the rise of metaphysical speculation. This is the inherent logic of development of the Great Debate on Name and Actuality during the pre-Qin period.

3 Rationalist Ideas of pre-Qin Philosophy of Language

The Great Debate was initiated by Confucius, who was dissatisfied, at a time of social turmoil, about the contradiction between names and actualities. He attributed the wars and disturbances to the barriers in communication caused by the divorce of names from actualities and would spare no effort to restore the social order by way of “rectification of names”. To him, rectification of names should be implemented not only in ethnics and morality, but also in everyday language exchange, and the criteria for the rectification should be the



ideal meaning stipulations which the prior wise kings had established3. This was vital to Confucius, who believed that the ideal moral and ethical orders had to be founded on a correct and standardized verbal communication. This does make some sense, but his idea of subjecting actualities to the prior ideal criteria aroused serious disagreement. It was in repudiating Confucian proposal that the pre-Qin thinkers came to the raising of philosophical questions.

Two schools of thinkers who directly opposed Confucianism were Daoism and Mohism. The major representative of Daoism, Laozi, believed that names as language devices can only apply to concrete things, but their meaning rests in the final analysis only with the Dao, which is ultimate reality that gives birth to things and governs the change of things. As such, the Dao is embodied in everything, but cannot itself be anything. Once it is talked about in the form of “Dao is an X”, the Dao so said becomes a thing, and as such, it is no longer the ultimate reason for other things. The Dao can only be perceived with meditative insight but cannot be discussed in language. Thus, the question of “rectification of names” is impossible, or simply senseless. Metaphysical as the concept is, the mysterious Dao that can not be talked about has steered the Daoists away from an analytical inquiry into what is and what is true.

Both Confucianism and Daoism focused on social ethical issues, with the former being practice oriented, while the latter advocating insightful culti-vation. The questions they raised were far different from the truth-seeking tradition of the ancient Greek philosophy, but if these same questions were pursued, a truly rationalist philosophy of language, oriented to the seeking after truth, could also come into being. And the schools of thought that contributed significantly to this process were Mohism and Mingjia, or School of Names.

In sharp contrast with Confucian idealistic position, Mohists claimed that “Names are what we use to say, and what we say about are the actualities.” Names should be a truthful description of actualities, instead of being ideal forms forcing actualities to meet up to their standard specifications. Since lan-guage is a simulation and description of the actuality, it is the expressions that derive their meanings from the actualities and not the other way around. There have to be facts that are to be described, before humans use names to represent

3 For instance, Confucius condemned the use of the name “gu（觚）” to refer to a wine cup that no longer had the cornered shape it should have in the good old days of the wise kings. Therefore one should restore the original form of gu in order to apply the name of “gu”.

Note: the Chinese classics quoted in this paper include: 1) Translation of Mozi. Sun Yikai et al. Chengdu: Bashu Press, 2000; 2) Interpretation of Gongsun Long. Wang Guan. Beijing: China Press House, 1992; 3) Sayings of Confucius. Classics Compilation Group of Sichuan Univer-sity. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Press, 1998; and 4) Zhuangzi Re-illustrated. Liu Wendian. Kunming: Yunnan People’s Press, 1980. These books are not listed in the bibliography.

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them. As such, whether a name corresponds to an actuality determines the truth or falsity of an expression; in other words, the semantic correctness of a language expression is verified by actuality. It should be noted that the Mohists were not talking about language and its meaning at the practice level, but were proposing the principles for judging the truth or falsity of language units (a name or a statement), which makes their thought philosophical in nature. Specifically, the Mohists demonstrated a strong characteristic of empiricism, with their principle of “effect of verification”: a name is a true name if and only if it can be verified by a fact in actuality and a proposition is true if and only if it is verifiable by the effects of relevant events in actuality. It is amazing that the Mohists could have come to such an epistemological proposition in a social culture that did not invest wisdoms in the objectivity of knowledge as in ancient Greece, but it appears natural when we put it against the background of intellectual debate at the period: to rectify names. After all, one needs criteria for telling sense from nonsense and truth from falsity, and since Confucian a priori approach is problematic, metaphysical inspection of it was necessary in order to establish a more secure foundation for the rectification. It is in such an endeavor that the Mohist ideas transcended Confucian social-moral practice and entered the realm of philosophical speculation.

Different from the Mohists, Mingjia’s propositions appear to be all “nonsen-sical”, such as “White-horse is not-horse”, “Tortoise is longer than snake”, “White dog is black” and “I know that the center of universe is located north to Yan State (a state in the north) and south to Yue State (a state in the south)”, to cite just a few. Certainly, none of these can be verifiable by any events in actuality and for this reason cannot be empirical propositions. And because of their appar-ent weirdness, these propositions of Mingjia’s have been labeled as “sophistic nonsense” in history. However, if one examines them against the afore-men-tioned viewpoint of philosophy of name-rectification, these are not nonsense at all, but truly rationalistic speculations: purely linguistic speculations on the meaning of name itself in separation from its users and the contexts of its use. Take “White dog is black” and “Tortoise is longer than snake”. Just like Hui Shi’s speculation on the ontological status of adjectival names, these two proposi-tions are not in any sense empirical observations, but an isolated inquiry into the certainty of the meanings of the names of this nature. Empirically, a snake is certainly longer than a tortoise in terms of length, while also empirically, a tortoise is much longer in its life expectancy than a snake is. Mingjia debaters found a question here: since “long” as a name is used to denote spatial, temporal lengths which appear to be so different, what then is the essence of the concept referred to by the name “long”? Or, what is “long” as long-in-itself? Similarly,



“white” as a name names a color4 and so does “black”, while “dog” as a name names a form. A question raised here is: the name that names a color differs from one that names a form, this can be assured; but a name that names a color must be the same as one that names a color; can we then say that “white” is “black” since they both name a color? If pursued, the next question must be: what is the color of “color” itself? In other words, what is the essence of color? Such questions are not raised on the basis of empirical observation, but in and of the meaning of ming itself, in an attempt to establish a reliable foundation for the meaning that names represent. This rationalist tendency is also wit-nessed by Hui Shi’s “I know … … ” proposition. Logically, the center of the universe can never be to the north of the north and to the south of the south at the same time, but when this false proposition is preceded by “I know”, is the entire statement true or false? Does “I know P” differ from “I believe P”, where the former can be true or false depending on the truthfulness of “P”, while the latter is always true as it is the subject that is believing? Or the entire “I know P” is simply an act of affirmation, which does not involve truth value? These are philosophical questions even today. But this author believes that such is so far the most reasonable explanation of the idea of Hui Shi’s as expressed by his apparently paradoxical statement. Hui Shi was seeking a logical ground for determining the correctness of names and statements.

The Great Debate, initiated by Confucius, involved all the schools of thought at the time, different ideas conflicting with each other. With the deepening of the Debate, its development would sooner or later come to require a clarifica-tion of the key concepts being debated on; namely, what is “name” and what is “actuality”. Without a clear and unambiguous definition of these key con-cepts, there could never be any agreement, as each school would virtually be talking about different things. The school of thinkers who raised this question and attempted to speculate on the nature of “name” and “actuality” were the pre-Qin Mingjia.

In the same line with Gongsun Long’s announcement of “the so-called ‘name’ and ‘actuality’ relationship is a question of language meaning”, Min-gjia consciously distinguished empirical and conceptual levels and speculated metaphysically on what and how human beings know about the world through language. Gongsun Long made this quite clear when he said “what exist in

4 Note: these statements have to be understood in the Chinese language framework, where there is no morpheme to denote gender, case, number. The philosophical implication might be lost, if we put it in good English forms, such as “‘Whiteness’ as a name names a color.” Gongsun Long’s “white-horse not-horse” proposition was also explained in this way.

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nature are things, but ‘things’ as the naming of things-in-themselves consti-tute what we name as ‘actuality’”. “‘Things’ have their being because they are referred to by names and this reference differs from mere denotation of specific things”. What he meant is this: things are things-in-themselves without any name; and they are referred to by names as the result of human conceptualiza-tion on their essence by means of language. In other places, he gave examples such as “‘Fire’ is not hot” etc, to demonstrate that “fire” differs from fire; the concept of a name is in essence different from the thing it names. The concept is the linguistic description of the essence of a category of things. Therefore, he believed it necessary to reflect on what it is that human beings have mastered by language and how human language can express correctly the essence of things. Such questions are indeed philosophical.

Not only has Gongsun Long distinguished the conceptual from the empiri-cal levels, he has also proposed his principle for ensuring the certainty and necessity of the correct use of names: “the exclusive nature of thisness and thatness (唯乎其彼此)”. His arguments have traditionally been misunder-stood, because of the indiscriminate forms of abstract and concrete nouns and pronouns in Chinese (here the two pronouns of “this” and “that”). One needs just to add quotation marks to his statements, what Gongsun was say-ing becomes unmistakably clear: “The name of ‘this’ is applicable to a this, if and only if the ‘this’ means inherently the thisness that the this should have and only it can have; the same is true for the name of ‘that’.” In other words, a name is correct in its meaning if and only if it represents the exclusive essence that the group of things it names has in common. This idea has been repeated twice in his On Name and Actuality, with special effort to rule out the possibility of a name having a definition with its negation at the same time: “‘That’ is a true name when it expresses thatness and no non-thatness (not thisness); the same holds true for ‘this’; it is not allowed for the name ‘that’ to contain in it thatness and non-thatness (thisness) at the same time; the same holds true for ‘this’.” It is in this spirit that Gongsun put forward his “white-horse not-horse” proposition. In his view, horse-in-itself, as concept, does not have a color, and “horse” is a name that names the horse-form; while “white” as a name names white-color, the essence of which is whiteness-in-itself. Therefore, “white-horse” as a concept is neither “horse”, which is colorless as a form, nor “white”, which as a color has no form, but an independent concept that has its own “thisness” as “white-horseness”. Composite names denote integrated concepts which are not simple addition of the concepts of single names. A compound name, just like any simple name, refers to an independently existing idea. With such reasoning, Gongsun illustrated his ideas such as “Chicken has three ‘feet’” (two



actual feet and one conceptual ‘foot’, the essence that all and only chicken feet can have), etc.

It can be seen that Gongsun Long’s ideas came very close to both Plato’s Idea and Aristotle’s basic laws of logic (those of excluded middle and of non-contradiction). One might say that Gongsun Long is naively absolutistic and atomistic in his standpoint. The criticism may be right, but Gongsun was after all a thinker over 2,500 years ago. With all his shortcomings, it is clear that his is a unique rationalistic thought among the hundred schools of thought at the epoch, which is even more remarkable against the historical background of secularization of the then Chinese atmosphere of intellectual development. What is important is that these ideas of Gongsun Long’s have been proposed in a very different language and cultural background from those of ancient Greece, showing that metaphysical speculation is not language specific and hence not exclusively western.

4 Ending Remarks

The pre-Qin Chinese thinkers asked in the beginning social-moral questions and their thought was practice-oriented, which were different from the truth-orientation of the Greek philosophers. But once they came to speculate on the issues of language meaning, their thought entered the abstract level of metaphysical speculation. In the whole process, the Chinese language did not constitute an obstacle. On the contrary, the language does have its unique value in facilitating the truth-seeking mode of thought. As witnessed by the discus-sion of this paper, the name-centeredness of the language structure proved to be conducive to the questions the pre-Qin Mingjia philosophers asked. When the ancient Chinese came to ask the questions of “What is the meaning of X, and how can it be right”, they would inevitably enter the world of philosophy in the sense of metaphysics of being as being. If their thoughts were not banned later by political dictatorship and intellectual tyranny working together, an ontology without “being” could well have come into being in China. The sayings of Derrida and others are simply wrong, partly because they failed to understand the Chinese classics.

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Acknowledgements

This paper is submitted at the request of the organizer of International Confer-ence on Language and Value, held at Beijing Normal University in August 2011, who has permitted that an expanded version of this article can be submitted at the same time to the journal Frontiers of Philosophy in China prior to this collection.

References

[1] Zhang, D.S. Reason and Conscience [C]. Zhang, R.L. (ed). Shanghai: Far East Press House, 1995.

[2] Derrida, J. Writing and Difference [M]. Zhang, N. (Trans). Beijing: Sanlian Book House, 2001.

[3] Hansen, C. Language and Logic in Ancient China [M]. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1983.

[4] Wittgenstein, L．Philosophical Investigations [M]．Beijing: China Social Science Press, 1999．

[5] Alston, W.P. Philosophy of Language [M]. Mo, B. (Trans). Beijing: Sanlian Book House, 1988.

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247Contributors


On ProtoSociology

Protosociology plays an important role among philosophy journals with connected contributions on important and breaking topics – such the nature and special features of collective cognitive states – that do not receive such generous attention in other journals. It isworth serious consideration for inclusion in a library‘s phi-losophy collection.

Margaret Gilbert, Storrs (USA)

The journal Protosociology has become an important forum for discussion in the philosophy of social science and of sociality and, more broadly, for theoretical discus-sion in social science. It is especially interesting and important that such new fields as social metaphysics and social epistemology as well as research related to collective intentionality and its applications have acquired a prominent place in the agenda of Protosociology.

Raimo Tuomela

Protosociology occupies an important position in the European intellectual scene, bridging philosophy, economics, sociology and related disciplines. Its volumes on rationality bring together concerns in all these topics, and present an important challenge to the cognitive sciences.

Donald Davidson, Berkeley (USA)

Protosociology publishes original papers of great interest that deal with fun da mental issues in the human and social science. No academic library is com plete without it.

Nicholas Rescher, Pittsburgh (USA)

Protosociology has been remarkably successful in publishing interesting work from different tradition and different disciplines and, as the title signals, in giving that work a new, eye-catching slant.

Philipp Pettit, Canberra, Australia

Protosociology is a truly premier interdisciplinary journal that publishes articles and reviews on timely topics written by and for a wide range of inter national scholars. The recent volumes on rationality are remarkable for their breadth and depth. Protosociology would be a great addition to any library.

Roger Gibson, St. Louis (USA

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Volume 30, 2013

Concepts—Contemporary and Historical Perspectives

Contents

Concepts in the Brain: Neuroscience, Embodiment, and Categorization Joseph B. McCaffrey

RecallingHistory:Descartes,Hume,Reid,Kant,Ockham

Conceptual Distinctions and the Concept of Substance in Descartes Alan Nelson

The Concept of Body in Hume’s Treatise Miren Boehm

Conceiving without Concepts: Reid vs. The Way of Ideas Lewis Powell

Why the “Concept” of Spaces is not a Concept for Kant Thomas Vinci

Ockham on Concepts of Beings Sonja Schierbaum

OnContemporaryPhilosophy

Paradoxes in Philosophy and SociologyNote on Zeno’s DichotomyI. M. R. Pinheiro

The Epigenic Paradox within Social Development Robert Kowalski

Concepts,Sense,andOntology

What Happened to the Sense of a Concept-Word? Carlo Penco

Sense, Mentalese, and Ontology Jacob Beck

Concepts Within the Model of TriangulationMaria Cristina Amoretti

A Critique of David Chalmers’ and Frank Jackson’s Account of Concepts Ingo Brigandt

The Influence of Language on Conceptual-ization: Three Views Agustin Vicente, Fernando Martinez-Manrique

Representations,Contents,andBrain

Views of Concepts and of Philosophy of Mind—from Representationalism to Contextualism Sofia Miguens

Changes in View: Concepts in Experience Richard Manning

Concepts and Fat Plants: Non-Classical Categories, Typicality Effects, Ecological Constraints Marcello Frixione 15.- Euro. Order and download:

http://www.protosociology.de

249


Published Volumes


Volume 29, 2012

China’sModernizationII–EditedbyGeorgPeterandReuß-MarkusKrauße

Contents

NeoliberalismandtheChangesinEastAsianWelfareandEducation

Business Opportunities and Philanthropic Initiatives: Private Entrepreneurs, Welfare Provision and the Prospects for Social Change in ChinaBeatriz Carrillo Garcia

Time, Politics and Homelessness in Con-temporary JapanRitu Vij

Educational Modernisation Across the Tai-wan Straits: Pedagogical Transformation in Primary School Moral EducationTextbooks in the PRC and TaiwanDavid C. Schak

Is China Saving Global Capitalism from the Global Crisis?Ho-fung Hung


International Development, Paradox and PhronesisRobert Kowalski

Précis of “The World in the Head”Robert Cummins

Communication, Cooperation and ConflictSteffen Borge

OnContemparyTheoryof Modernisation

Multiple Modernities and the Theory of Indeterminacy – On the Development and Theoretical Foundations of the Historical Sociology of Shmuel N. EisenstadtManussos Marangudakis

ChangingChina:Dealingwith Diversity

Dissent of China’s Public Intellectuals in the Post-Mao EraMerle Goldman

Modernization of Law in China – its Meaning, Achievements, Obstacles and ProspectQingbo Zhang

China’s State in the Trenches: A Gramscian Analysis of Civil Society and Rights-Based LitigationScott Wilson

Manufacturing Dissent: Domestic and International Ramifications of China’s Summer of Labor UnrestFrancis Schortgen and Shalendra Sharma

15.- Euro. Order and download:http://www.protosociology.de

250



Volume 28, 2011

China’sModernizationI–EditedbyGeorgPeterandReuß-MarkusKrauße

Contents

ChangingChina: DealingwithDiversity

Class, Citizenship and Individualization in China’s Modernization Björn Alpermann

Chinese Nation-Building as, Instead of, and Before Globalization Andrew Kipnis

Principles for Cosmopolitan Societies: Values for Cosmopolitan Places John R. Gibbins

OnModernization:Law,Business,andEconomyinChina

Modernizing Chinese Law: The Protection of Private Property in ChinaSanzhu Zhu

Chinese Organizations as Groups of People – Towards a Chinese Business Administration Peter J. Peverelli

Income Gaps in Economic Development: Differences among Regions, Occupational Groups and Ethnic Groups Ma Rong

ThinkingDifferentiations:ChineseOriginandtheWesternCulture

Signs and Wonders: Christianity and Hy-brid Modernity in China Richard Madsen

Confucianism, Puritanism, and the Tran-scendental: China and AmericaThorsten Botz-Bornstein

China and the Town Square Test Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom

Metaphor, Poetry and Cultural Implicature ..Ying Zhang


Can Science Change our Notion of Exis-tence? Jody Azzouni

The Epistemological Significance of Prac-tices Alan Millar

On Cappelen and Hawthrone’s “Relativism and Monadic Truth”J. Adam Carter


Published Volumes

251



Volume 27, 2011

ModernizationinTimesofGlobalizationII

Contents

TheProblemofSocialOrderina DisorderedTime

From Order to Violence: Modernization ReconfiguredDavid E. Apter

Institutional Transfer and Varieties of Capitalism in Transnational SocietiesCarlos H. Waisman

Media Distortion – A Phenomenological Inquiry Into the Relation between News and Public OpinionLouis Kontos

Labor Migration in Israel: The Creation of a Non-free WorkforceRebeca Raijman and Adriana Kemp


Deference and the Use TheoryMichael Devitt

Constitution and Composition: Three Ap-proaches to their RelationSimon J. Evnine

NewTheoreticalApproaches

Religion, International Relations and TransdisciplinarityRoland Robertson

Modernization, Rationalization and Glo-balizationRaymond Boudon

Modernity Confronts Capitalism: From a Moral Framework to a Countercultural Critique to a Human-Centered Political EconomyIno Rossi

Three Dimensions of Subjective Globaliza-tionManfred B. Steger and Paul James

Transnational Diasporas: A New Era or a New Myth?Eliezer Ben-Rafael

The Discursive Politics of Modernization: Catachresis and MaterializationTerrell Carver


Published Volumes

252



Volume 26, 2009

ModernizationinTimesofGlobalizationI

Contents

CaseStudies

Spatial Struggles: State Disenchantment and Popular Re-appropriation of Space in Rural Southeast ChinaMayfair Mei-hui Yang

Re-Engineering the “Chinese Soul” in Shanghai?Aihwa Ong

Territorial Stigmatization in the Age of Advanced MarginalityLoïc Wacquant

Quixote, Bond, Rambo: Cultural Icons of Hegemonic DeclineAlbert J. Bergesen

OnContemporaryPhilosophy andSociology

Implicature, Appropriateness and War-ranted AssertabilityRon Wilburn

Is the Whole More than the Sum of its Parts? Matthias Thiemann

MultipleModernization

Contemporary Globalization, New Inter-civilizational Visions and Hege monies: Transformation of Nation-States Shmuel N. Eisenstadt

Multipolarity means thinking plural: Mo-dernities Jan Nederveen Pieterse

Postmodernism and GlobalizationOmar Lizardo and Michael Strand

Latin American Modernities: Global, Trans-national, Multiple, Open-Ended Luis Roniger

Institutions, Modernity, and ModernizationFei-Ling Wang

TheStructureofthe GlobalLegalSystem

Modern Society and Global Legal System as Normative Order of Primary and Secondary Social SystemsWerner Krawietz

International Justice and the Basic Needs PrincipleDavid Copp 270 pages, 15.- Euro. Order

http://www.protosociology.de

Published Volumes

253


ProtoSociology DigitalVolumesavailable

Vol.31 Language and ValueVol.30 Concepts – Contemporary and Historical Perspectives

Vol.29 China’s Modernization II

Vol.28 China’s Modernization I

Vol.27 Modernization in Times of Globalization II

Vol.26 Modernization in Times of Globalization I

Vol.25 Philosophy of Mathematics – Set Theory, Measuring Theories, and Nominalism

Vol.24 Shmuel N. Eisenstadt: Multiple Modernities – A Paradigma of Cultural and Social Evolution

Vol.23 Facts, Slingshots and Anti-Representationalism On Stephen Neale’s Facing Facts

Vol.22 Compositionality, Concepts and Representations II: New Problems in Cognitive Science

Vol.21 Compositionality, Concepts and Representations I: New Problems in Cognitive Science

Vol.20 World-SystemAnalysis: Contemporary Research and Directions

Vol.18/19 Understanding the Social II: ThePhilosophy of Sociality

Vol.17 Semantic Theory and Reported Speech

Vol.16 Understanding the Social I: New Perspectives from Epistemology

Vol.15 On a Sociology of Borderlines: Social Process in Time of Globalization

Vol.14 Folk Psychology, Mental Concepts and the Ascription of Attitudes

Vol.13 Reasoning and Argumentation

Vol.12 After the Received View – Developments in the Theory of Science

Vol.11 Cognitive Semantics II – Externalism in Debate (free download!)

Vol.10 Cognitive Semantics I – Conceptions of Meaning

Vol.8/9 Rationality II &III (double volume)

Order and download directly from our hompepage:www.protosociology.de

15.- Euro eachFor subscription or additional questional: [email protected]

ProtoSociology. Editor: Gerhard Preyer, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main FB 3: Department of Social Sciences. Editorial staff: Georg Peter.

Editorial office: Stephan-Heise-Str. 56, D–60488 Frankfurt am Main

254


SociologyChinasPower-Tuning:ModernisierungdesReichs der Mitte, Gerhard Preyer, Reuß-Markus Krauße, Spinger/VS Verlag. 2013

Rolle,Status,ErwartungenundsozialeGruppe.Gerhard Preyer. Spinger/VS Verlag. 2012.

Selbstbeobachtung der modernen Gesell-schaft und die neuen Grenzen des Sozialen. Georg Peter und Reuß Markus Krauße (Hrsg.). Spinger/VS Verlag. 2012

ZurAktualitätvonShmuelN.Eisenstadt– EineEinleitunginseinWerk.Gerhard Preyer. VS Verlag 2011.

MaxWebersReligionssoziologie.EineNeubewertung.Gerhard Preyer. Humanities Online 2010.

Gesellschaft im Umbruch II – Jenseits von National-undWohlfahrtsstaat. Gerhard Preyer. Verlag Humanities Online 2009.

Gesellschaft im Umbruch I. Politische Soziologie im Zeitalter der Globa lisierung. Jakob Schissler und Gerhard Preyer. Verlag Humanities Online 2002.

Philosophy of Education in the Era of Globalization. Edited by Yvonne Raley and Gerhard Preyer. Routledge 2010.

InChinaerfolgreichsein–Kulturunter-schiede erkennen und überbrücken. Ger-hard Preyer, Reuß-Markus Krauße. Gabler Verlag 2009

BorderlinesinaGlobalizedWorld. New Perspectives in a Sociology of the World System. Gerhard Preyer, Mathias Bös (eds.). Kluwer 2002.

PhilosophyFrom Individual to Collective Intentionality –NewEssays,edited by Sara Rachel Chant, Frank Hindriks, and Gerhard Preyer. Oxford University Press 2013

Consciousness and Subjectivity. Sofia Miguens, Gerhard Preyer (eds.). Ontos Pub-lishers 2012.

Triangulation–FromanEpistemologicalPointofView.Maria Cristina Amoretti, Ger-hard Preyer (eds.). Ontos Publishers 2011.

IntentionandPracticalThought.Gerhard Preyer. Humanities Online 2011.

Contextualism in Philosophy. Knowledge, Meaning an Truth. Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter (eds.). Oxford University Press 2005.

Context-Sensitivity and Semantic Mini-malism–NewEssaysonSemanticsandPragmatics. Gerhard Preyer and Georg Peter (eds.). Oxford University Press 2007.

Concepts of Meaning. Framing an Integrat-ed Theory of Linguistic Behavior. Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter, Maria Ulkan (eds.). Kluwer 2003. Rep. Springer Verlag, Wien.

LogicalFormandLanguage. Gerhard Preyer, Georg Peter (eds.). Oxford University Press 2002.

DonaldDavidson’sPhilosophy.From Radi-cal Interpretation to Radical Contextualism. Gerhard Preyer. Verlag Humanities Online, dt. 2001, engl. 2006.

TheContextualizationofRationality. Ger-hard Preyer, Georg Peter (eds.). Mentis 2000.

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