Chad Hansen

This ambitious book presents a new interpretation of Chinese thought guided both by a philosopher's sense of mystery and by a sound philosophical theory of meaning. That dual goal, Hansen argues, requires a unified translation theory. It must provide a single coherent account of the issues that motivated both the recently untangled Chinese linguistic analysis and the familiar moral-political disputes. Hansen's unified approach uncovers a philosophical sophistication in Daoism that traditional accounts have overlooked.… (más)

This guide to Taoism was actually a step above what a complete idiot might need. The authors were both well versed in philosophical speak and, purposefully or not, peppered the book with it. I'm not complaining, though. I thought it was quite a bit of fun.

This book tries to cover the big picture of Taoism, including history, literature, how it impacts worldviews and politics, and even its influence on pop culture. It took me a little longer to read because I kept getting inspired to stop reading and look things up. Many of the websites they mention are now defunct, but the ideas are timeless.

I gave this book 3 stars (out of 5). I would have liked to have given this book 4 or even 5 stars. Unfortunately, the mod-ness that made it so cutting edge in 2002 only made it look a tad out-of-date by 2011. A prime example being the many (many) references to various GeoCities websites. But I guess the "Complete Idiot's Guides" are not lauded for their timelessness. Maybe they'll release an updated Toaism edition one of these days?… (más)

Chad Hansen claims he’s going to shake up traditional views on Chinese thought (even modern ones such as A.C. Graham and B.I. Schwartz). Well, I’m not sure if he succeeded in that, and I found both Graham and Schwartz more accessible and clearer in their surveys of classical Chinese thinking.

Nevertheless, Hansen’s work was well worth the effort. What I found most valuable is his approach to the linkage of thought and language. Hansen takes a strong Whorfian approach (one which I agree with) in proposing that Chinese thought, as expressed in the underlying structures of their language, is different from Western thought in some fundamental ways. For example, Greek and Indian (and all other Proto-Indo European sourced languages) “depend on the semantic concepts of meaning and truth.” Chinese language and thought, on the other hand, are more relational. Hansen makes an interesting contrast of Western and Chinese dictionary traditions. In Western language, we “assume the notion of a meaning that the definition should express. The Chinese dictionary tradition is more historical. It collects different historical examples of use and lists possible character (or phrase) substitutes in each use.”

One of my central themes is that Western thought traditions emphasize what I call “conceptual consciousness” (pfc-dominated thought) over “animate consciousness”. Hansen gives a great example of this thesis, when he explains how in Chinese, meaning is partly a function of tone. In the West, we make a separation between the substance of what we say, and the tone in which we say it. The substance is a function of the “objective truth” of the statement. The tone… well, that’s the emotional, touchy-feely stuff of affect. In Chinese, by contrast, there was never as clear a separation between conceptual and animate consciousness. They were more integrated from the outset, and that shows itself in their inclination to incorporate tone into meaning.

Hansen gives a detailed descriptions of Mencius’ view of human nature expressed in a full-fledged plant analogy. This is something important to me, and I’m grateful to him for his detail. I believe that Mencius’ view of an organically growing human morality, linking the individual with the cosmos, offers a great deal to anyone trying to construct a global ethic for the 21st century, and also ties in closely with some aspects of modern evolutionary psychology, such as theories of “parochial altruism”. In following up some of Hansen’s bibliography citations, I discovered a book put out in 2005 by Donald Munro, A Chinese Ethic for the New Century, which I’ll be really interested to follow up.

I’d recommend Hansen to people who have already read Schwartz’s The World of Thought in Ancient China and Graham’s Disputers of the Tao, and who want to add another linguistic-oriented perspective to their understanding.… (más)