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Non-Deductive Argumentation in Classical Chinese Philosophy

Topic: Non-Deductive Argumentation in Classical Chinese Philosophy
Speaker: Prof. Paul Goldin, Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations (EALC), University of Pennsylvania
Date: 12 October 2015, Monday
Time: 4:30 – 6:30 pm
Venue: Room 220, Fung King Hey Building
Delivered in English
All are welcome

Abstract:
One longstanding criticism of Chinese thought is that is not truly “philosophical” because it lacks viable protocols of argumentation. Thus it qualifies at best as “wisdom”; Confucius, for example, might provide valuable guidance, or thoughtful epigrams to ponder, but nothing in the way of formal reasoning that would permit his audience to reconstruct and reconsider his arguments in any conceivable context.

This criticism stands only if one accepts the premise that all argumentation must be deductive argumentation, for the most famous Chinese arguments tend to be non-deductive in nature. (This claim does not require any unusual definition of “deduction”; the Aristotelian definition is as good as any.) This paper will survey the types of non-deductive argumentation commonly found in Chinese philosophy. One of the most prolific types of non-deductive argumentation is appeal to example, and this, I contend, is the basis of the strong interest in anecdotes as a genre of philosophical literature from the Springs and Autumns at least through the Six Dynasties.

There are important examples of deductive argumentation as well, which will be briefly reviewed.

Whether these observations are sufficient to rescue Chinese thought from the wilderness of “wisdom” and enshrine it in the halls of “philosophy” will be left for the reader to decide, but a conception of “philosophy” that can account for Chinese thought is naturally more interesting than one that cannot.

Topic: Non-Deductive Argumentation in Classical Chinese Philosophy
Speaker: Prof. Paul Goldin, Professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations (EALC), University of Pennsylvania
Date: 12 October 2015, Monday
Time: 4:30 – 6:30 pm
Venue: Room 220, Fung King Hey Building
Delivered in English
All are welcome

Abstract:
One longstanding criticism of Chinese thought is that is not truly “philosophical” because it lacks viable protocols of argumentation. Thus it qualifies at best as “wisdom”; Confucius, for example, might provide valuable guidance, or thoughtful epigrams to ponder, but nothing in the way of formal reasoning that would permit his audience to reconstruct and reconsider his arguments in any conceivable context.

This criticism stands only if one accepts the premise that all argumentation must be deductive argumentation, for the most famous Chinese arguments tend to be non-deductive in nature. (This claim does not require any unusual definition of “deduction”; the Aristotelian definition is as good as any.) This paper will survey the types of non-deductive argumentation commonly found in Chinese philosophy. One of the most prolific types of non-deductive argumentation is appeal to example, and this, I contend, is the basis of the strong interest in anecdotes as a genre of philosophical literature from the Springs and Autumns at least through the Six Dynasties.

There are important examples of deductive argumentation as well, which will be briefly reviewed.

Whether these observations are sufficient to rescue Chinese thought from the wilderness of “wisdom” and enshrine it in the halls of “philosophy” will be left for the reader to decide, but a conception of “philosophy” that can account for Chinese thought is naturally more interesting than one that cannot.

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