The Craft of a Chinese Commentator

Rudolf G. Wagner

Description

The Laozi has been translated into Western languages hundreds of times over the past two hundred years. It has become the book of Chinese philosophy most widely appreciated for its philosophical depth and lyrical form. Nevertheless, very little attention has been paid to the way in which this book was read in China. This book introduces the reader to a highly sophisticated Chinese way of reading this Taoist classic, a way that differs greatly from the many translations of the Laozi available in the West.

The most famous among the Chinese commentators on the Laozi—a man appreciated even by his opponents for the sheer brilliance of his analysis—is Wang Bi (226–249). Born into a short period of intellectual ferment and freedom after the collapse of the Han dynasty, this self-assured genius, in the short twenty-three years of his life, dashed off two of the most enduring works of Chinese philosophy, a commentary on the Laozi and another on the Book of Changes.

By carefully reconstructing Wang Bi's Laozi text as well as his commentary, this book explores Wang Bi's craft as a scholarly commentator who is also a philosopher in his own right. By situating his work within the context of other competing commentaries and extracting their way of reading the Laozi, this book shows how the Laozi has been approached in many different ways, ranging from a philosophical underpinning for a particular theory of political rule to a guide to techniques of life-prolongation. Amidst his competitors, however, Wang Bi stands out through a literary and philosophical analysis of the Laozi that manages to "use the Laozi to explain the Laozi," rather than imposing an agenda on the text. Through a critical adaptation of several hundred years of commentaries on the classics, Wang Bi reaches a scholarly level in the art of understanding that is unmatched anywhere else in the world.

Preface
Introduction

1. Wang Bi: A Biographical Sketch

Wang Bi's Life
Wang Bi's Afterlife

2. The System of the Classics

A Sketch of Commentary Strategies during the Han Dynasty

3. Technique and the Philosophy of Structure: Interlocking Parallel Style in Laozi and Wang Bi

Introduction
The Discovery of Parallel Style in Western
The Problem: Molecular Coherence
Open Interlocking Parallel Style in the Laozi
Closed Interlocking Parallel Style in the Laozi
Interlocking Parallel Style in Early Texts
Interlocking Parallel Style in Wang Bi's Time
Conclusion
Scholarship
Outside the Laozi

4. Deconstructing and Constructing Meaning

The Hidden Meaning
The Implied Author and His Authority: Kongzi and Laozi
The Status of the Laozi and the Texts
Ascribed to Confucius
The Implied Reader and His Education
The Countertexts
The Homogeneity Hypothesis
The Potentiality of the Text: Comparing
Different Commentary Constructions of the Laozi
Example 1: Laozi 17.1
Example 2: Laozi 6
Example 3: Laozi 11
Conclusions

5. The Craft of Wang Bi's Commentary

Introduction
Integration of Commentary and Text
Emphatic Rejection of Other Readings
Explaining Metaphors, Similes,
Comparisons, and Symbols
Insertion of Subject
Defining Terms through Equivalence
Translating the Text
Merging Terms and Structures
Conclusions

Notes
Bibliography
Subject Index

Sujets

• History of Asia
• Asia

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 février 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791493380
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 10 Mo

Extrait

PREFACE i

The Craft of a Chinese Commentator

ii

PREFACE

SUNY series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture

David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, editors

PREFACE iii

The Craft of a Chinese Commentator

Wang Bi on the Laozi

Rudolf G. Wagner

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

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PREFACE

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2000 State University of New York All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address the State University of New York Press, State University Plaza, Albany, NY 12246

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wagner, Rudolf G. The craft of a Chinese commentator: Wang Bi on the Laozi/Rudolf G. Wagner. p. cm.—(SUNY series in Chinese philosophy and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-4395-7 (alk. paper).—ISBN 0-7914-4396-5 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Lao-tzu. Tao te ching. 2. Wang, Pi, 226–249. Lao-tzu tao te ching chu. I. Title. II. Title: Wang Bi on the Laozi. III. Series. BL1900.L35W29 2000 I 299 .51482—dc21 99-40511 CIP

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ontents C

Preface Introduction

1.

2.

3.

Wang Bi: A Biographical Sketch Wang Bi’s Life Wang Bi’s Afterlife

The System of the Classics A Sketch of Commentary Strategies during the Han Dynasty

Technique and the Philosophy of Structure: Interlocking Parallel Style inLaoziand Wang Bi Introduction The Discovery of Parallel Style in Western Scholarship The Problem: Molecular Coherence Open Interlocking Parallel Style in theLaozi Closed Interlocking Parallel Style in theLaozi Interlocking Parallel Style in Early Texts Outside theLaozi Interlocking Parallel Style in Wang Bi’s Time Conclusion

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v

vii 1

9 9 20

27

31

53 53

55 57 62 76

96 105 110

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4.

PCROENFTAECNETS

Deconstructing and Constructing Meaning The Hidden Meaning The Implied Author and His Authority: Kongzi and Laozi The Status of theLaoziand the Texts Ascribed to Confucius The Implied Reader and His Education The Countertexts The Homogeneity Hypothesis The Potentiality of the Text: Comparing Different Commentary Constructions of theLaozi Example 1:Laozi17.1 Example 2:Laozi6 Example 3:Laozi11 Conclusions

5. The Craft of Wang Bi’s Commentary Introduction Integration of Commentary and Text Emphatic Rejection of Other Readings Explaining Metaphors, Similes, Comparisons, and Symbols Insertion of Subject Defining Terms through Equivalence Translating the Text Merging Terms and Structures Conclusions

Notes Bibliography Subject Index

115 115

120

139 142 150 170

176 177 209 231 249

257 257 258 264

266 270 275 276 281 298

301 337 351

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It has taken many years, and several other books, to finish this study of which the present book is the first of three volumes. In fact, the writing of this study took as many years as Wang Bi, its subject, lived, namely twenty-three. Debts of gratitude for spiritual and material support and critical discussion have accumulated. The core ideas were developed in Berkeley in 1971 where I spent a wonderful year as a Harkness Fellow. The first of many drafts of an extrapolative translation of theLaozi through the Wang BiCom- mentary was begun then, and continued in the following year in Berlin with a habilitation grant from the German Research Associa- tion (DFG). A position as assistant professor at the Free University of Berlin began a long detour. My education had been exclusively in the field of classical Chinese studies; the focus of the Berlin Institute was modern China. While gaining some expertise in this new field, work on Wang Bi remained active, but on the back burner. After the job in Berlin had run its course in 1977, I worked part-time as a science journalist and consultant on Chinese agriculture, and fin- ished the first full draft of this study. In 1980 I submitted it (in German) as a habilitation thesis, and it was passed in 1981 with my late teacher Prof. Wolfgang Bauer (Munich) and Prof. E. Zürcher (Leiden) as external referees. Cornell University was generous enough to invite me as a fellow into its Society for the Humanities in the same year, which resulted in a book on Taiping religion. In the subsequent years I was a Research Fellow at Harvard University and a Research Linguist at UC Berkeley, working on two books on

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the politics of modern Chinese fiction. Only small segments of my Wang Bi study were published in English during these years. In 1987 I began to teach at the University of Heidelberg in Germany at an institute in urgent need of a major development effort. A stipend from the Stiftung Volkswagenwerk made possible another year at Harvard working now at the English version of this study. In the meantime, scholarship had revived in mainland China, and a siz- able amount of new work had come out. I was relieved that my core arguments seemed solid enough to survive, and developed new sec- tions, such as the analysis of Wang Bi’s commentarial strategies contained in this volume, the critical edition of the texts, and the chapter on textual transmission, while reworking all the rest. In short bursts of feverish work between long stretches of other equally feverish work that study finally was completed. It will appear in three separate volumes of which the present volume is the first. They are:

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

2.Wang Bi’s Commentary on the Laozi. Critical text, Extra- polative translation, Philological Commentary;

3.Language, Ontology, and Political Philosophy: Wang Bi’s Scholarly Exploration of the Dark (Xuanxue).

Much of the emotional cost of such a study is not borne by the author but by those on whom this kind of work imposes painful deprivations. My older daughter Martha was born in 1971. When I eventually told her the manuscript was now finished, she seemed unbelieving. Since the day she was born, this manuscript had hung over her head with the eternal and never fulfilled promise that, after one last effort, it would be finished. I wish to thank her, her sister Tina, and their mother for their many years of bearing the burden of this work with me, and I wish to apologize for the deprivations and disruptions of their lives coming with it. Catherine Vance Yeh with her unflinching optimism and sup- port is thanked not only for the study’s eventual completion but she managed that this protracted, tumultuous, and often very frustrat- ing work lost its grim colors, and ended up in enriching our lives. My thanks to the foundations and universities that have gener- ously supported this work at various stages such as the German

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Research Association (DFG), the Stiftung Volkswagenwerk, and the Universities of Cornell, Harvard, and UC Berkeley who offered me research opportunities; to the members of the research group “Text and Commentary” in the Institute of Chinese Studies in Heidelberg who gave much needed spiritual support and critical advice, and to Dr. Johannes Kurz and Holger Kühnle who during the last stages helped as research assistants to finish the manuscript and the bibliography. Florence Trefethen eventually applied her firm and gentle pen in an effort to make my English more understandable and economical. Finally, the readers have been exceedingly helpful with their comments, pointing out weaknesses in argument and prompting me to rethink some important premises. Two of them were kind enough to go through the manuscript in painstaking detail and as they gave permission that I could know their names, I can express my sincere gratitude for this labor of scholarly collegiality and friendship to Robert Henricks and Robin Yates. The book is dedicated with gratitude to my mother, Renate v. Weyrauch. Her firm and unconditional belief in the right of her children to develop their own potential and interests has enabled me to enter Chinese studies, a field in which I have never for a minute been bored.