The Craft of a Chinese Commentator: Wang Bi on the Laozi

by Wagner, Rudolf G.

• ISBN13: 9780791443958
• ISBN10: 0791443957
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-01-01
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

Rudolf G. Wagner is Professor of Chinese Studies at the Institute of Chinese Studies, University of Heidelberg, Germany.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
Introduction	1	(8)
Wang BI: A Biographical Sketch	9	(18)
Wang Bi's Life	9	(11)
Wang Bi's Afterlife	20	(7)
The System of the Classics	27	(26)
A Sketch of Commentary Strategies during the Han Dynasty	31	(22)
Technique and the Philosophy of Structure: Interlocking Parallel Style in Laozi and Wang Bi	53	(62)
Introduction	53	(2)
The Discovery of Parallel Style in Western Scholarship	55	(2)
The Problem: Molecular Coherence	57	(5)
Open Interlocking Parallel Style in the Laozi	62	(14)
Closed Interlocking Parallel Style in the Laozi	76	(20)
Interlocking Parallel Style in Early Texts Outside the Laozi	96	(9)
Interlocking Parallel Style in Wang Bi's Time	105	(5)
Conclusion	110	(5)
Demonstructing and Constructing Meaning	115	(142)
The Hidden Meaning	115	(5)
The Implied Author and His Authority: Kongzi and Laozi	120	(19)
The Status of the Laozi and the Texts Ascribed to Confucius	139	(3)
The Implied Reader and His Education	142	(8)
The Countertexts	150	(20)
The Homogeneity Hypothesis	170	(6)
The Potentiality of the Text: Comparing Different Commentary Constructions of the Laozi	176	(1)
Laozi 17.1	177	(32)
Laozi 6	209	(22)
Laozi 11	231	(18)
Conclusions	249	(8)
The Craft of Wang Bi's Commentary	257	(44)
Introduction	257	(1)
Integration of Commentary and Text	258	(6)
Emphatic Rejection of Other Readings	264	(2)
Explaining Metaphors, Similes, Comparisons, and Symbols	266	(4)
Insertion of Subject	270	(5)
Defining Terms through Equivalence	275	(1)
Translating the Text	276	(5)
Merging Terms and Structures	281	(17)
Conclusions	298	(3)
Notes	301	(36)
Bibliography	337	(14)
Subject Index	351