KURTZ The Discovery of Chinese Logic PDF

The Discovery of Chinese Logic
Modern Chinese Philosophy
Edited by
John Makeham, Australian National University
VOLUME 1
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/mcp.

The Discovery of Chinese Logic
By
Joachim Kurtz
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2011
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kurtz, Joachim.
The discovery of Chinese logic / by Joachim Kurtz.
p. cm. — (Modern Chinese philosophy, ISSN 1875-9386 ; v. 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-17338-5 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Logic—China—History. I. Title.
II. Series.
BC39.5.C47K87 2011
160.951—dc23
2011018902
ISSN 1875-9386
ISBN 978 90 04 17338 5
Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

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CONTENTS
List of Illustrations ...................................................................... vii

List of Tables .............................................................................. ix
Preface ......................................................................................... xi
Introduction ................................................................................ 1
1. “Chinese Logic” and Logic in China ............................... 2
2. The Argument ................................................................... 6
3. Discovery and Translation ................................................ 9
Chapter One First Encounters: Jesuit Logica in the Late Ming

and Early Qing ....................................................................... 21
1. Logic in Jesuit Education .................................................. 22
2. Accommodation and Translation ..................................... 25
3. Logic in Early Jesuit Writings ........................................... 29
4. Logic as the Patterns of Names ........................................ 43
5. Logic as a Syllogistic Trap ................................................ 65
Chapter Two Haphazard Overtures: Logic in

Nineteenth-Century Protestant Writings ............................... 89
1. Protestant Authors and Western Knowledge ................... 89
2. The New Organon and Old Ways of Argumentation ......... 95
3. Logic as the Science of Debate ......................................... 104
4. Logic as the Science of Discerning Truth ........................ 118
5. Logic as the Science of Reason ........................................ 125
Chapter Three Great Expectations: Yan Fu and the

Discovery of European Logic ................................................. 147
1. The Quest for Certainty .................................................... 148
2. Logic as the Science of Sciences ....................................... 149
3. Logic as a New Style of Reasoning .................................. 154
4. Yan Fu as a Translator of Logic ....................................... 169
5. Logic in the Margins ......................................................... 186
vi contents
Chapter Four Spreading the Word: Logic in Late Qing

Education and Popular Discourse .......................................... 193
1. Logic in the New School Curricula .................................. 194
2. Logic in New-Style Textbooks .......................................... 203
3. Logic in Symbols, Charts, and Diagrams ......................... 226
4. New Terms for Telling the Truth .................................... 245
5. Luoji, or What’s in a Name? .............................................. 257
Chapter Five Heritage Unearthed: The Discovery of Chinese

Logic ........................................................................................ 277
1. All Hail the Pioneers! ........................................................ 278
2. Chinese Logic as Classical Philology ................................ 289
3. Chinese Logic as Buddhist Dialectic ................................. 301
4. Chinese Logic as European Logic .................................... 313
5. Chinese Logic as an Archival Curiosity ........................... 327
Epilogue ...................................................................................... 339

1. Translation and Rupture ................................................... 340
2. From Discovery to Invention ............................................ 344
3. De-modernizing Chinese Logic ......................................... 360
Appendix ..................................................................................... 367

A. Textbooks on Logic Adapted from Japanese,
1902–1911 ......................................................................... 367
B. Logical Terms in Early-Twentieth-Century
Textbooks .......................................................................... 370
Bibliography ................................................................................ 425

1. Primary Sources ................................................................. 425
2. Secondary Sources ............................................................. 439
Index ........................................................................................... 463

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
4.1 Fan Diji, Lunlixue wenda, 1903 (1) .................................... 230

4.3 Yang Yinhang, Mingxue, 1903 (1) .................................... 232
4.5 Hu Maoru, Lunlixue, 1906 ............................................... 233
4.6 Guo Yaogeng, Zuixin lunlixue gangyao, 1909 ..................... 233
4.7 Lin Kepei, Lunlixue tongyi, 1909 ....................................... 234
4.8 Qian Jiazhi, Mingxue, 1910 (1) ......................................... 236
4.10 Zhou Dunyi, Taiji tu, 11th cent. ..................................... 236
4.11 Tian Wuzhao, Lunlixue gangyao, 1903 .............................. 238
4.12 Lunlixue biaojie, 1911/1912 ............................................... 238
4.15 Chen Wen, Mingxue jiaokeshu, 1911 ................................. 241
4.16 Lunlixue chubu, 1907 .......................................................... 241
4.19 Wang Bo, Yanji tu, 13th cent. .......................................... 244
4.20 Xu Qian, Du Sishu congshuo, 14th cent. ........................... 244
4.21 Tang Zuwu, Lunlixue poujie tushuo, 1906 .......................... 246
LIST OF TABLES
1.1 Phonemic Loans in the Mingli tan (1631/1639) ............. 53

1.2 Terms Related to Predicables in the Mingli tan
(1631/39) ......................................................................... 56
1.3 Terms Related to Categories in the Mingli tan
(1631/39) ......................................................................... 56
1.4 Basic Logical Terms in the Mingli tan (1631/39) ........... 57
1.5 Terms Related to the Syllogism in the Qionglixue
(1683) ............................................................................... 80
2.1 Logical Terms in Nineteenth-Century Protestant
Works ............................................................................... 141
3.1 Logical Terms in Yan Fu’s Translations ........................ 177
4.1 Terms for Logical Notions in Translations from
Japanese, 1902–1911 ....................................................... 254
4.2 Chinese Translations of “Logic”: A Chronological
Overview, 1623–1921 ..................................................... 263
B.1 Logical Terms in Early-Twentieth-Century
Textbooks (1) ................................................................... 372
Textbooks (2) ................................................................... 377
Textbooks (3) ................................................................... 382
Textbooks (4) ................................................................... 386
Textbooks (5) ................................................................... 391
Textbooks (6) ................................................................... 396
Textbooks (7) ................................................................... 402
Textbooks (8) ................................................................... 407
B.9 Logical Terms in Japanese and Chinese Dictionaries ... 412
B.10 Logical Terms in Modern Chinese Dictionaries ............ 418
PREFACE
Like many books, or so I try to convince myself, this study was begun
with a far more grandiose design in mind than its author was even-
tually able to realize. Puzzled by the ease and certainty with which
traditional Chinese thought has come to be interpreted in modern
terms—as if equivalences between ancient Chinese notions and the lat-
est catchwords of contemporary academe could be taken for granted,
or needed to be defended at all cost in order to preserve the dignity
of Chinese civilization—I set out to reconstruct the history of one dis-
cursive field in which this practice appears to be especially hazardous:
the discourse on “Chinese logic” that emerged in the early years of
the twentieth century and has since produced a vast array of literature,
and sustained quite a few academic careers, in China and abroad.
My initial idea was to present the tale of this discourse along the
metaphorical lines of a biography. Starting naturally, it would seem,
with a brief announcement of its birth shortly before the year 1900, I
wanted to trace the adventures of Chinese logic throughout the twen-
tieth century, recounting along the way adolescent uncertainties in
the era of the New Culture Movement circa 1920; an ensuing period
of maturation, oscillating between frantic study and wild speculation,
that earned the subject academic respectability and culminated in the
publication of the first histories of Chinese logical thought; further
on through worrisome decades of adulthood, clouded by the vicissi-
tudes of war, revolution, and ideological pressures that posed constant
threats to the integrity of the field and the individuals involved in its
maintenance; and ending, finally, with the comparatively calm period
of respite, or retirement, that the discourse of Chinese logic, like many
other academic pursuits, has been enjoying in mainland China and
other parts of the Sinophone world during the past twenty years.
Yet, the more I read of the voluminous literature on Chinese logic
produced over the course of the twentieth century, in Chinese and
other languages, the more it seemed to me that the most intriguing
question to be asked about this discourse was not so much how it
grew and developed, but how it came into existence in the first place.
The following chapters are an attempt to answer this much more
modest but, as I hope to show, no less intricate question. Rather than
xii preface
narrating the biography of Chinese logic, as I initially imagined, their

aim is to reconstruct the extended prenatal labors and birth travails
of a discourse that remained all but inconceivable until the end of
the nineteenth century but is today customarily presented as reaching
back more than two millennia.
In the course of my struggles with the tangled genealogy of Chinese
logic, I was able to rely on the inspiration and help of more teachers,
colleagues, and friends than I could possibly mention here. Without
the unfailing support, encouragement, and trust of Michael Lackner,
who first directed my attention to the complex interplay of history and
language, none of the following chapters would have seen the light
of day. I am no less grateful to Erling von Mende for his sustained
reassurance and quite a few gentle admonitions, imparted even across
transcontinental divides. The critical eyes of Viviane Alleton were
indispensable in preventing more linguistic blunders in the following
pages than I feel comfortable to admit. At a crucial stage, Joshua A.
Fogel provided invaluable opportunities to discuss my coarse ideas
with some of the finest scholars in our field, and Joan Judge did her
best to instruct me, with uncertain success, about the uses and limits
of theory in analyses of late imperial Chinese texts. Iwo Amelung, my
friend and colleague at Göttingen, Berlin, and Erlangen, has helped
me in so many respects with this and other projects that I cannot think
of a single aspect for which to thank him most.
Substantial parts of this book were written during visiting assignments
at two institutions that provide ideal working conditions for historians
of knowledge. The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where
I was able to spend the academic year 2002–2003, offered monastic
seclusion when needed and opportunities for critical dialogue when-
ever solitude failed to usher in enlightenment. I will always cherish the
comraderie and friendship of my fellows there, including, besides Josh
and Joan, Hugh Shapiro, Hu Ying, and Martin Kern, who among
them seemed to know the proper answer to any question—textual,
philosophical, or worldly. While at Princeton, I also benefited from
the advice of Benjamin A. Elman, who offered constructive criticisms
of several aspects of my project. An invitation to work at the Max
Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin in 2009 enabled
me to put the next-to-final touches on this manuscript in the lively
atmosphere of this unique center of transdisciplinary inquiry. I am
grateful to Jürgen Renn and Lorraine Daston who made my stay in
preface xiii
Dahlem possible, and to my friends Rui Magone, Martina Siebert,

and Dagmar Schäfer, who welcomed me in their midst and generously
shared their ideas, time, and expertise within the creative hustle that
quickly enveloped all of us.
Prior to and in between these two periods of intense writing, parts
of this work took shape in the more mundane circumstances of my
regular professional life, first at Erlangen and then at Emory Univer-
sity. In Erlangen, I enjoyed the support and assistance of Wolfgang
Lippert, Yvonne Schulz Zinda, and Liu Yishan. During my time in
Atlanta, which turned out to be life-changing in more ways than one,
I relearned my trade as a teacher and researcher thanks to the patient
guidance of my congenial and resourceful colleagues Cheryl A. Crow-
ley, Cai Rong, Li Hong, Eric Reinders, Juliette Stapanian Apkarian,
and the inimitable Betty Leathers. I am indebted to the Emory College
of Arts and Sciences for its support of all my research endeavors and
for granting me a year of sabbatical leave when it was most needed.
Since hardly any of the materials relevant for my topic were easily
available, extended periods of research in Asian, North American, and
European libraries were vital to the progress and eventual comple-
tion of this study. I am sincerely grateful to the organizations that
made sojourns in Shanghai, Beijing, Paris, Rome, Princeton, Hong
Kong, Taipei, Tōkyō, and Ōsaka possible, most notably the Volks-
wagenstiftung, the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst, and the
Herodotus Fund of the Institute for Advanced Study, as well as to the
individuals without whose hospitality and guidance my travels would
have had no avail. In Shanghai, Zhou Zhenhe 周振鶴, Xiong Yuezhi
熊月之, and Zou Zhenhuan 鄒振環 directed me through the labyrinths
of many libraries, public and private, and taught me how to read what
I would not have found without their help. In Beijing, I am most
indebted to my friends Wang Yangzong 王揚宗, Han Qi 韓琦, Tian
Miao 田淼, and Su Rongyu 蘇榮譽, who helped in every academic
and practical respect. Thanks are also due to Shen Guowei 沈國威
and Uchida Keiichi 内田慶市 in Ōsaka, Benjamin K. T’sou 鄒嘉彥
in Hong Kong, and Nicolas Standaert and Carine Defoort in Leuven.
Over the years I enjoyed opportunities to discuss aspects of my
work with critical audiences at many distinguished institutions, and I
am grateful to them and the scholars who invited me to present my
ideas in their departments, seminars, and workshops, especially Anne
Cheng, Yves Chevrier, and Christian Jacob in Paris, Zhang Qing 章清
xiv preface
in Shanghai, Federico Masini in Rome, Frits Staal in Amsterdam,

Christian Thiel in Erlangen, Zhang Longxi in Hong Kong, and Peter
Zarrow in Taipei. David Wright, Douglas Howland, Catherine Jami,
Christoph Harbsmeier, Shigehisa Kuriyama, and Shen Sung-ch’iao
沈松僑 took the pains to comment on individual portions of this man-
uscript, and Rachel Weine read and much improved the entire first
draft. Finally, thanks are due to Gene McGarry, a copy editor exem-
plary in every regard, Jens Cram for his assistance in compiling the
index, as well as John Makeham and Albert Hoffstädt for their trust
in this project and the saintly patience with which they awaited its
completion. Needless to say, I alone am responsible for any remaining
omissions and mistakes.
INTRODUCTION
It magnifies their originality to read [ past authors]

in their own terms, rather than tacitly to translate,
with inevitable distortions, their unfamiliar preoc-
cupations into our own familiar ones.
Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity
The philosopher, literary critic, and archaeologist Wang Guowei
王國維 (1877–1927) was the first to characterize the decades surround-
ing the turn of the twentieth century as an “age of discovery” ( faxian
shidai 發現時代) unparalleled in Chinese history.1 His emphatic assess-
ment was justified in more than one sense. Wang himself referred to the
disclosure of written and material evidence from China’s distant past
which had become available through the unearthing of oracle bones
in Henan, bamboo and silk manuscripts in and around Dunhuang,
as well as long-lost documents and historical artifacts found at various
other places, often at the fringes of the Qing empire. But one could also
cite less tangible discoveries to corroborate his appraisal. The renewed
encounter with “Western knowledge” (xixue 西學), introduced through
translations from European languages or Japanese, provoked a massive
expansion of the Chinese terminological and conceptual lexicon and
fomented a radical reordering of China’s discursive landscape. Adap-
tations of Western-derived terms and notions gradually displaced the
conceptual grids that had framed Chinese learned discourses for cen-
turies. At the same time, they fueled the discovery, or rediscovery, of
unknown or neglected aspects of China’s intellectual past, which were
subsequently translated into new historical narratives and exploited in
reconstructions of alternative or presumably forgotten traditions.
1
Wang Guowei 王國維, “Zuijin ersanshi nian zhong Zhongguo xin faxian zhi
xuewen” 最近二三十年中中國新發現之學問 (Scholarship of new discoveries in
China during the past twenty or thirty years), Qinghua zhoukan 350 (1925), reprinted
in idem, Wang Guowei wenji 王國維文集 (The works of Wang Guowei), ed. Yao Gan-
ming 姚淦銘 and Wang Yan 王燕 (Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1997), vol.
4, 33–38; 33.
2 introduction
1. “Chinese Logic” and Logic in China
The emergence of a discourse on “Chinese logic”—a term used

throughout this study to denote evidence of explicit logical theoriz-
ing in ancient Chinese texts, not of any peculiar Chinese ways of
thinking—in the early years of the twentieth century is a paradig-
matic case of a discovery of this second kind. Unheard of until the
late 1890s, Chinese logic came to claim a history of over two thousand
years within less than two decades after the first fragments of ancient
Chinese texts were tentatively interpreted in logical terms. Twentieth-
century scholarship has since established that explicit reflections on
questions similar to those discussed in traditional European logic can
be traced back in China at least to the fifth century BC.2 As in ancient
Greece and India, Chinese interest in logical problems evolved from
meditations on the methodology of debate. The earliest attestations of
this interest are found among the “dialecticians” or “debaters” (bianzhe
辯者) who were classified together as a distinctive “School of Names”
(mingjia 名家) around 100 AD by the compilers of the “Bibliographical
Record” in the History of the Han ( Hanshu yiwenzhi 漢書藝文志).3 The
most important thinkers in this heterogeneous school were Hui Shi
惠施 (ca. 370–310 BC), who formulated ten paradoxes on the infinity
of time and space,4 and the infamous Gongsun Long 公孫龍 (ca. 320–
250 BC), who earned his livelihood through the artful defense of the
contradictory statement “[a] white horse is not [a] horse” (baima fei ma
白馬非馬) and a number of similarly striking sophisms.5
In an era defined by a crisis of certainty, none of the Hundred
Schools (baijia 百家) of classical Chinese philosophy could ignore the
2
For an extensive bibliographical overview, see Anna Ghiglione, “Lo studio della
logica cinese pre-Qin nel xx secolo” (unpublished tesi di laurea, University of Venice,
1987), 207–423.
3
Kidder Smith, “Sima Tan and the Invention of Daoism, ‘Legalism’, etcetera,” The
Journal of Asian Studies 62, no. 1 (2003): 129–156; 142–144. For a general overview of
this school, see, e.g., Angus C. Graham, Disputers of the Dao: Philosophical Argument in
Ancient China (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1989), 370–382.
4
Ibid., 76–82. See also Ralf Moritz, Hui Shi und die Entwicklung des philosophischen
Denkens im alten China (Berlin-Ost: Akademie-Verlag, 1973).
5
See, e.g., Christoph Harbsmeier, Language and Logic in Traditional China, vol. 7,
pt. 1, of Science and Civilisation in China, ed. Joseph Needham (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998), 298–321; and Thierry Lucas, “Hui Shih and Kung Sun Lung:
An Approach from Contemporary Logic,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 20, no. 2 (1993):
211–255.
introduction 3
issues raised by the dialectical skills of the debaters. Problems like the
relation between “names” (ming 名) and “objects” (shi 實), criteria of
identity and difference, or standards of right/true (shi 是) and wrong/
false ( fei 非) were discussed across all ideological divides.6 The Daoist
text Zhuangzi 莊子 (ca. 320 BC, with later additions) accused the dia-
lecticians of closing their eyes to the inevitable consequence of their
insights, namely, that all debates were futile since human opinions
“leveled out” from the perspective of the Way (dao 道).7 In contrast to
this skeptical view, later Mohist thinkers aimed at a positive justification
of their school’s ethical and political teachings. The “Mohist Canons”
(Mojing 墨經), also known as the “Dialectical Chapters” (Mobian 墨辯),
in the book Mozi 墨子 (late fourth to third century BC)8 contained
a series of brief definitions and explanations outlining procedures to
check the validity of conflicting assertions, a theory of description, and
an inventory of “acceptable” (ke 可) links between consecutive state-
ments.9 Xunzi 荀子 (ca. 313–238 BC) appropriated the logical findings
of the later Mohists to defend Confucian ideals of state and society in
his discursive treatise “On the Correct Use of Names” (Zhengming pian
正名篇),10 and his Legalist disciple Han Feizi 韓非子 (ca. 280–233
BC) exploited the accumulated knowledge on “names and disputation”
(mingbian 名辯) in the formulation of a proto-totalitarian ideology that
helped to end the golden age of Chinese philosophical and logical
reflection soon after the unification of the empire by the state of Qin
in 221 BC.11
After a hiatus of nearly five hundred years, the early interest in logi-
cal questions was revitalized during the third and fourth centuries AD
by the mystic Xuanxue 玄學 or “School of Dark Learning.” Inspired by
the rediscovery of the Mobian and other forgotten texts, Dark Learn-
ing thinkers refined the earlier understanding of the relation between
“names” and the “patterns [of things]” (li 理) and analyzed models
6
On ancient notions of “truth” as “thusness,” as well as their verbal expressions
and their intimate relation to ethically charged terms such as “right” and “wrong,”
see Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 193–209.
7
See, e.g., Graham, Disputers of the Dao, 176–186, 199–202.
8
On the textual history of these chapters, see Angus C. Graham, Later Mohist Logic,
Ethics and Science ( Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1978), 73–100.
9
Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 286–348.
10
For an English translation, see John Knoblock, Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the
Complete Works (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), vol. 3, chap. 22.
11
Graham, Disputers of the Tao, 267–285.
4 introduction
of persuasive argumentation in scholarly debate.12 In the seventh and

eighth centuries, logical thought in China experienced a new height
inspired by appropriations of sophisticated forms of Buddhist reason-
ing originating from India. In the translations of the traveling monk
Xuanzang 玄奘 (600–664) and his followers, treatises discussing the
Buddhist hetuvidyā were reformulated into the ingenious system of
yinming 因明 ‘knowledge of reasons’ that offered Chinese clerics and
literati for the first time formalized schemes to demonstrate the valid-
ity of their arguments and, more importantly, refute those of their
opponents.13 Yet, even the emergence of yinming did not lead to the
formation of a separate division of learning devoted to questions of
logical import. Outside Buddhist monasteries, the religious logic of
yinming never aroused much interest, and in the nonreligious realm
speculations about names and objects, which never shed the stigma
of moral volatility with which their inventors had been branded, lost
what may have remained of their intellectual appeal in the aftermath
of the powerful Confucian revival gaining momentum from the elev-
enth century onward.
Although the diverse beginnings of Chinese logical thought were
preserved at the fringes of the classical canons, European logic was
perceived as an entirely alien area of intellectual inquiry when it ini-
tially became known in China during the seventeenth and once again
toward the end of the nineteenth century.14 Throughout this period,
no Chinese scholar, even among those involved in translations of logi-
cal texts, detected any affinity or relation between this esoteric for-
eign science and the theoretical insights of the dialecticians and their
12
Useful accounts of these developments are Zhou Wenying 周文英, Zhongguo luoji
sixiang shigao 中國邏輯思想史搞 (A draft history of logical thought in China) (Beijing:
Renmin chubanshe, 1979) 89–109; and Wen Gongyi 溫公頤, Zhongguo zhonggu luojishi
中國中古邏輯史 (A history of logic in the Chinese Middle Ages) (Shanghai: Shanghai
renmin chubanshe, 1989), 247–270.
13
Uwe Frankenhauser, Die Einführung der buddhistischen Logik in China (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, 1996). See also Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 358–407.
14
Two early but still useful accounts are Sakade Yoshinobu 坂出祥伸, “Shinmatsu
ni okeru Seiō ronrigaku no juyō ni tsuite” 清末に於ける西欧論理学の受容につい
て (The reception of European logic in late Qing China), Nippon Chūgoku gakkaihō 12
(1965): 155–163; and Takada Atsushi 高田淳, “Chūgoku kindai no ‘ronri’ kenkyū”
中国近代の“論理”研究 (Studies in “logic” in modern China), Kōza Tōyō shisō 講座東
洋思想 4, Series 2: Chōgoku shisō 中国思想 3 (1967), 215–227. One ironic limitation
of both studies is that they ignore the role of Japanese teachers, texts, and terms in
the formation of modern Chinese logical discourse and say very little on the issues of
translation and appropriation.
introduction 5
intellectual offspring. At the turn of the twentieth century, even special-

ized bibliographers of Western knowledge still felt at a loss when forced
to address the subject. Writing as late as 1898, Huang Qingcheng 黃慶澄
(1863–1904) placed the only Chinese monograph on logic available at
the time in the category of books on “dialects” ( fangyan 方言), that is,
foreign languages,15 and Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873–1929), who was
considered one of the foremost authorities in matters of new knowl-
edge, listed the same text as a work “impossible to classify” (wu ke gui
lei 無可歸類)—alongside museum guides and cookbooks.16
Yet, less than a decade after such disarming attestations of indif-
ference or incomprehension, logic had not only become a mandatory
subject in the curricula of Chinese institutions of higher learning but
was also cited more or less routinely in academic and political debates.
Freshly minted terms for logical notions had infiltrated scholarly writ-
ings to such an extent that literary historians invented the epithet of
a “logical style” (luojiwen 邏輯文) to characterize the prose of their
most prolific adherents.17 Moreover, several of the most celebrated
scholars of the period, among them the just-mentioned Liang Qichao,
had begun to embark on explorations into the hitherto unknown ter-
ritory of “Chinese logic,” which was conceptualized with surprising
confidence in terms that had barely begun to circulate. Some even
launched comparative inquiries into the particular characteristics of
“the world’s three great logical traditions,” as they would soon come
to be known around the globe, of Europe, India—and China.18
15
Huang Qingcheng 黃慶澄, Zhong-xi putong shumubiao 中西普通書目表 (General
Chinese and Western bibliography) (n.p., 1898), 1:7a.
16
Liang Qichao 梁啟超, Xixue shumubiao 西學書目表 (Bibliography of Western
knowledge) (Shanghai: Shenshijizhai, 1896), 3:20a. In an accompanying essay, Liang
found a no less unusual place for logic in the context of a rather enigmatic Western
science “specifically concerned with the functioning of the ‘sinews transmitting the
brain’s vital energies’ [that is, nerves]” (zhuanlun naoqiguan wanglai zhi shi 專論腦氣管往
來之事). Liang Qichao 梁啟超, “Du Xixue shu fa” 讀西學書法 ( How to read books
on Western knowledge), in idem, Xixue shumubiao, appendix, 1a–18b; 5a.
17
Qian Jibo 錢基博, Xiandai Zhongguo wenxueshi 現代中國文學史 (A literary history
of modern China) (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 2004), 317–381.
18
See Zeng Xiangyun 曾祥云, Zhongguo jindai bijiao luoji sixiang yanjiu 中國近代比
較邏輯思想研究 (A study of comparative logical thought in modern China) ( Harbin:
Heilongjiang jiaoyu chubanshe, 1992), 29–43.
6 introduction
2. The Argument
The following chapters reconstruct how the abrupt and unexpected

discovery of Chinese logic became possible. They argue that the for-
mation of a discourse on Chinese logic in the early years of the twen-
tieth century must be understood as the result of a dual process of
translation that has shaped modern interpretations of China’s intellec-
tual past not only in the realm of logic. Like the now equally ubiqui-
tous histories of “Chinese philosophy,” “Chinese science,” or “Chinese
religion,” for example, accounts of China’s logical heritage depended
from the outset on a new language of scholarship that emerged from
translations of Western-derived notions and their subsequent natu-
ralization in Chinese discourses. The formation of this new language
can be traced back to China’s first serious encounter with European
ideas in the seventeenth century, but it gained its full force only in the
decades around the year 1900 when the symbolic resources on which
the imperial Chinese state was built gradually lost their authority.
Once the collapse of the imperial order was imminent, Chinese literati
swiftly abandoned their indigenous conceptual tools, turning instead
to terms and notions introduced through translations from European
languages or Japanese that seemed to promise new epistemic possibili-
ties more in tune with the exigencies of a volatile new age.
The application of the new language emerging from this first, inter-
cultural process of translation in interpretations of ancient Chinese
texts, which became a scholarly fad in the first decade of the twentieth
century,19 amounted in many instances to a second, intracultural trans-
lation between the new Europeanized idiom and the classical Chinese
lexicon. This was undoubtedly the case in the realm of logic. The
hundreds of lexical innovations Chinese and foreign translators had
to create for their adaptations of logical texts attest that not even the
most basic notions of the field had readily identifiable, let alone self-
evident, equivalents in the languages of late imperial or ancient China.
Consequently, some ingenuity was required to match the new words
established as tentative renditions of logical notions with ancient con-
cepts that had been understood in very different terms for centuries.
19
Hao Chang, Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis: Search for Order and Meaning, 1890–1911
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987), 9.
introduction 7
The aim of this study is to reconstruct the history of this twofold

process of translation from its earliest anticipations in the seventeenth
century to its culmination in the last decade before the fall of the Qing
dynasty in 1911. The first two of the following five chapters analyze
episodes in the extended prehistory leading up to the almost simul-
taneous Chinese discoveries of “European” and “Chinese” logic in
the final decades of the imperial era. Chapter 1 documents the futile
attempts of seventeenth-century Jesuit missionaries to lure Chinese
literati into the Christian faith through a sinicized version of late scho-
lastic logica. While not directly contributing to the later age of discov-
ery, the Jesuit adaptations of Aristotelian texts and notions are relevant
to our problematic because they proved that the conceptual lexicon of
European logic could be represented in Chinese terms by sufficiently
imaginative translators and, thus, that the transmission of logic was
not hampered, as is sometimes suggested, by a general incommensu-
rability of Chinese and Western languages or ways of thinking. At the
same time, the futility of the Jesuit effort underscored that successful
linguistic representation does not necessarily lead to the seamless and
immediate naturalization of a hitherto unknown body of knowledge in
a new cultural environment. Left outside of any meaningful Chinese
context, the Jesuit translations appeared not so much as alluring trea-
suries of exquisite Christian scholarship, as their authors intended, but
as hermetic textual monstrosities.
The second Chinese encounter with European logic, analyzed in
chapter 2, took place in very different circumstances. In the wake of
Euro-America’s violent expansion, the Protestant authors selling faith
and knowledge to China in the second half of the nineteenth century
were in an infinitely stronger position than their Jesuit precursors. Yet
very few included logic in their presentations of “useful knowledge,”
and those who did paid little attention to the building of conceptual
bridges connecting the subject to contemporary concerns. Moreover,
despite the military and economic dominance of the Western powers,
the new wave of foreigners from Europe and North America soon
learned that their audiences remained highly selective. In contrast to
colonized nations in other parts of the globe,20 China’s elites never lost
20
See, e.g., Vicente L. Rafael, Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conver-
sion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988);
Eric Cheyfitz, The Poetics of Imperialism: Translation and Colonization from “The Tempest”
to “Tarzan” (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); and Tejaswini Niranjana,
8 introduction
control of the conceptual space in which political and scholarly dis-

courses were articulated. Until the turn of the twentieth century, this
space remained structured, for better or worse, by a conceptual frame-
work that located the sources of truth and authority in the orthodox
Confucian canon and left little room for an alien science claiming to
determine the validity of all arguments, including those with profound
ideological implications, irrespective of their scriptural backing.
Precisely such claims, however, spurred the momentous change in
Chinese attitudes toward logic circa 1900 when the authority of the
classical canon faded. The psychological shock of China’s defeat in
the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 led many concerned scholars
to seek alternative sources of certainty that promised to legitimate a
new political and symbolic order ensuring China’s survival as a sov-
ereign nation. Logic, advertised now as the “science of sciences,” was
discovered to be one such legitimating source, thanks in large part to
the creativity and persistence of the British-trained reformer Yan Fu
嚴復 (1853–1921). Chapter 3 traces Yan’s activities as a translator
who propagated logic as the cornerstone of what he hoped would
become something akin to a new style of reasoning against the back-
ground of the political and orientational crisis of the fin-de-siècle, and
re-evaluates Yan’s contribution to securing a place for the new disci-
pline on China’s intellectual map.21
Chapter 4 argues that the integration of logic into the Japanese-
inspired education system, which was instituted as part of the Qing
administration’s desperate attempt at “Renewing Governance” (xin-
zheng 新政) in the first years of the twentieth century,22 was equally
important for the domestication of the discipline. Although instruction
remained problematic in practice, the incorporation of logic in the
curricula of universities and normal schools throughout the country
Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1992).
21
On the notion of a “style of reasoning,” see Arnold I. Davidson, “Styles of Rea-
soning: From the History of Art to the Epistemology of Science,” in idem, The Emer-
gence of Sexuality: Historical Epistemology and the Formation of Concepts (Cambridge: Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2001), 125–141; idem, “Styles of Reasoning, Conceptual
History, and the Emergence of Psychiatry,” in The Disunity of Science: Boundaries, Con-
texts, Power, ed. Peter Galison and David J. Stump (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
1995), 75–100; and Ian Hacking, “ ‘Style’ for Historians and Philosophers,” in idem,
Historical Ontology (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), 178–199.
22
See Douglas R. Reynolds, China, 1898–1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 131–150.
introduction 9
fueled the translation of dozens of new textbooks, most of which were

adapted from Japan, China’s newly found shortcut to modernity. In
these manuals and a host of journal articles promoting the science
and its uses, a new vocabulary emerged that was swiftly naturalized in
public discourse and exploited, sometimes to quite astonishing effect,
in academic, cultural, and political debates.
The rapid naturalization of European logic was a necessary but
not yet sufficient condition for the almost simultaneous discovery of
explicit logical theorizing in ancient Chinese texts. Further prerequi-
sites included the revival of philological interest in “studies of nonca-
nonical masters” (zhuzixue 諸子學) and efforts by Japanese scholars who
launched the first interpretations of classical Chinese texts in logical
terms during the late 1890s. Without the reconstructions of Qing phi-
lologists, many fragments that were identified as key documents in the
history of Chinese logic would have remained incomprehensible, and
without the example of Japanese studies even fewer Chinese scholars
might have mustered the courage to claim their cultural legacy. Even
so, considerable imagination was required to link freshly imported log-
ical notions to ancient Chinese writings in a convincing manner. After
reviewing the labors of some early pioneers, chapter 5 analyzes the
path-breaking efforts of four prominent scholars—Liu Shipei 劉師培
(1884–1919), Zhang Binglin 章炳麟 (1869–1936), Liang Qichao, and
Wang Guowei—to recover ancient China’s logical heritage by trans-
lating it into the idiom of the new discipline. Although disagreeing
in their interpretative strategies and varying widely in their aims and
conclusions, each of these authors made a lasting contribution to the
formation of a new conceptual space that later writers were to furnish
with the more sophisticated, and much more self-assured, histories of
logical thought in China that continue to shape the image of Chinese
logic until today. A brief epilogue, finally, discusses how the work of
the early discoverers prepared the ground for the successive invention
of an unbroken tradition of Chinese logic spanning well over 2,500
years, and reflects on the implications of our findings for interpreta-
tions of Chinese logic and intellectual history more generally.
3. Discovery and Translation
Despite its intricate conception, the conventional image of Chinese

logic is rarely questioned. Existing studies, if they do not plainly deny
that “Chinese logic” indeed needed to be discovered, routinely ignore
10 introduction
the obvious fact that the translation and naturalization of European

logic was a necessary condition of the possibility for the discovery of
what we have since come to understand as its Chinese counterpart.
One reason for the persistent reluctance seems to be that such an
acknowledgment implies a discontinuity—a real and consequential
epistemic rupture—between traditional Chinese thought and its mod-
ern interpretations that is anathema to a historiography obsessed with
the construction of national and cultural continuity. This continuity
paradigm is particularly strong in the People’s Republic of China,
where it was enshrined as the “correct” view of the history of Chi-
nese logic in the 1950s.23 The voluminous literature adhering to this
paradigm illustrates that assertions of unbroken continuity from the
pre-Qin period through the twentieth century can only be upheld at
the expense of philological rigor and historiographical sincerity. Gen-
eral histories of Chinese logic, such as the self-proclaimed standard
works compiled at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences under the
direction of Li Kuangwu 李匡武, Zhou Yunzhi 周云之, Liu Peiyu
劉培育, and others,24 as well as unequivocally affirmative accounts
by veteran historians, such as Wang Dianji 汪奠基, Zhou Wenying
周文英, or, more recently, Sun Zhongyuan 孫中原,25 betray a strik-
ing historical disinterest toward the two stages of translation recon-
structed in the following chapters. In all these works, the Chinese
23
For a critical account of the emergence of this paradigm, see Lin Mingyun
林銘鈞 and Zeng Xiangyun 曾祥云, Mingbianxue xintan 名辯學新探 (A new explora-
tion of the sciences of names and disputation) (Guangzhou: Zhongshan daxue chu-
banshe, 2000), 9–18.
24
Li Kuangwu 李匡武 et al., Zhongguo luojishi 中國邏輯史 (A history of Chinese
logic), 5 vols. (Lanzhou: Gansu renmin chubanshe, 1989); and Zhou Yunzhi 周云之,
Liu Peiyu 劉培育, et al. (eds.), Zhongguo luojishi ziliaoxuan 中國邏輯史資料選 (Selected
materials on the history of Chinese logic), 6 vols. (Lanzhou: Gansu renmin chubanshe,
1991). See also Zhou Yunzhi, Zhongguo luojishi 中國邏輯史 (A history of Chinese logic)
(Taiyuan: Shanxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 2004).
25
Wang Dianji 汪奠基, Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi fenxi 中國邏輯思想史分析 (Analy-
sis of the history of logical thought in China) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1961); and
idem, Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi 中國邏輯思想史 (A history of logical thought in China)
(Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1979); Zhou Wenying 周文英, Zhongguo luoji
sixiang shigao 中國邏輯思想史搞 (A draft history of logical thought in China) (Bei-
jing: Renmin chubanshe, 1979); Sun Zhongyuan 孫中原, Zhongguo luojishi (Xian-Qin)
中國邏輯史(先秦) (A history of Chinese logic in the pre-Qin period) (Beijing: Zhong-
guo renmin daxue chubanshe, 1987); idem, Zhuzi baijia de luoji zhihui 諸子百家的邏
輯智慧 (The logical wisdom of the one hundred noncanonical masters) (Beijing: Jixie
gongyi chubanshe, 2004); and idem, Zhongguo luoji yanjiu 中國邏輯研究 (Studies in
Chinese logic) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2006).
introduction 11
appropriation of Western logic is treated as a more or less accidental,

and at any rate inconsequential, event that did little to alter the course
of a self-sufficient tradition, steadily progressing on its own terms since
antiquity.26 Even studies specifically dedicated to the history of logic in
modern and contemporary China have largely failed to examine the
intimate connection between the introduction of European logic and
the ensuing discovery, or “rediscovery,” of Chinese logic.27 Neither
the new language that made this discovery possible nor the contexts
in which it was first applied to ancient Chinese texts are seriously
examined. Perhaps embarrassed by the rather far-fetched suggestions
of the initial discoverers of Chinese logic, most authors quickly brush
over the tentative efforts discussed in this study and focus instead on
the much more coherent and purpose-driven works of foreign-trained
logicians, such as Hu Shi 胡適 (1891–1962),28 Zhang Shizhao 章士釗
26
Less ideological accounts are provided in two useful textbooks: Yang Peisun
楊沛蓀 (ed.), Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi jiaocheng 中國邏輯思想史教程 (A course in the
history of logical thought in China) (Lanzhou: Gansu renmin chubanshe, 1988); and
Wen Gongyi 溫公頤 and Cui Qingtian 崔清田, Zhongguo luojishi jiaocheng (xiudingben)
中國邏輯史教程 (修訂本) (A course in the history of logic in China, Revised edition)
(Tianjin: Nankai daxue chubanshe, 2001).
27
The most relevant monographs besides volume 4 of Li Kuangwu’s Zhongguo
luojishi are Peng Yilian 彭漪漣, Zhongguo jindai luoji sixiangshi lun 中國近代邏輯思想
史論 (Essays in the history of logical thought in modern China) (Shanghai: Shang-
hai renmin chubanshe, 1991); Guo Qiao 郭橋, Luoji yu wenhua: Zhongguo jindai shiqi
xifang luoji chuanbo yanjiu 邏輯與文化—中國近代時期西方邏輯傳播研究 (Logic and
culture: A study of the dissemination of Western logic in modern China) (Beijing:
Renmin chubanshe, 2006); and Zhang Qing 張晴, 20 shiji de Zhongguo luojishi yanjiu
20 世紀的中國邏輯史研究 (Studies in the history of Chinese logic in the twentieth
century) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2007). Pertinent articles include
Dong Zhitie 董志鐵, “20 shiji Zhongguo mingbian (luoji) yanjiu” 20 世紀中國
名辯（邏輯）研究 (Studies of Chinese logic in the twentieth century), Zhongguo
zhexueshi 1 (1995): 111–117; Zhou Wenying 周文英, “Zhongguo chuantong luoji zai
jin, xian, dangdai de shenghua yu fazhan” 中國傳統邏輯在近、現、當代的升華與
發展 (The refinement and development of traditional Chinese logic in modern China),
Jiangxi jiaoyu xueyuan xuebao 19, no. 1 (1998): 1–6, and 19, no. 2 (1998): 1–8; Zhao
Zongkuan 趙總寬 (ed.), Luojixue bainian 邏輯學百年 (A century of studies in logic)
(Beijing: Beijing chubanshe, 1999), 5–131; and Sun Zhongyuan 孫中原, “Zhongguo
luoji yanjiu bainian lunyao” 中國邏輯研究百年要論 (Essentials of one hundred years
of research on logic in China), Dongnan xueshu 1 (2001): 29–39.
28
Hu Shi 胡適, Zhongguo zhexueshi dagang 中國哲學史大綱 (An outline history of
Chinese philosophy) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1919), reprinted in Hu Shi, Hu
Shi xueshu wenji: Zhongguo zhexueshi 胡適學術文集：中國哲學史 ( Hu Shi’s collected
scholarly works: History of Chinese philosophy), ed. Jiang Yihua 姜義華, 2 vols. (Bei-
jing: Zhonghua shuju, 1991), vol. 1, 1–269; and Hu Shih [Hu Shi], The Development of
the Logical Method in Ancient China (Shanghai: Yadong tushuguan, 1922).
12 introduction
(1881–1973),29 Guo Zhanbo 郭湛波,30 or Yu Yu 虞愚 (1909–1989),31

written in the aftermath of the New Culture Movement, modern Chi-
na’s first “cultural revolution.”32 Only in the last two decades have
more historically minded scholars, such as Cui Qingtian 崔清田, Lin
Mingyun 林銘鈞, Zeng Xiangyun 曾祥云, and Cheng Zhongtang
程仲棠, begun to critique orthodox interpretations and called for a
reassessment of contemporary Chinese studies of the nation’s logical
past.33 Yet, because their revisionist “assault,” to use the authors’ own
term, on what is by now a comfortably entrenched invented tradi-
tion is directed primarily against appropriations of ancient texts in
vulgar Marxist or transparently nationalistic terms,34 their studies, too,
have focused on more recent developments and rarely touched upon
the violent transformation of China’s discursive space in the final
decade of the Qing, without which the studies they critique would have
remained unthinkable. This neglect, which is shared by the few rel-
evant studies in European languages,35 is unfortunate not only because
29
Zhang Shizhao 章士釗, Luoji zhiyao 邏輯指要 (Essentials of logic) (Chongqing:
Shidai jingshenshe, 1943 [1939]), reprinted in idem, Zhang Shizhao quanji 章士釗全
集 (The complete works of Zhang Shizhao), ed. Zhang Hanzhi 章含之 and Bai Ji’an
白吉庵, 10 vols. (Shanghai: Wenhui chubanshe, 2000), vol. 7, 283–609. The first ver-
sion of the manuscript was completed in 1917.
30
Guo Zhanbo 郭湛波, Zhongguo bianxueshi 中國辯學史 (A history of Chinese logic)
(Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1932).
31
Yu Yu 虞愚, Zhongguo mingxue 中國名學 (Chinese logic) (Nanjing: Zhengzhong
shuju, 1937).
32
In Taiwan and Hong Kong, where the division between logicians working on
general problems of the discipline and historians of Chinese thought is even stricter,
no study has as yet traced the adventures of logic in late imperial China in any detail.
Instead, publishers continue to fill the lacuna with reprints of standard mainland
books, e.g., Wang Dianji 王奠基, Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi 中國邏輯思想史 (A history
of logical thought in China) (Taibei: Mingwen shuju, 1993 [1979]).
33
See, among other works by the same authors, Cui Qingtian 崔清田, Mingxue yu
bianxue 名學與辯學 (The sciences of names and disputation) (Taiyuan: Shanxi jiaoyu
chubanshe, 1997); Lin Mingyun and Zeng Xiangyun, Mingbianxue xintan; and Cheng
Zhongtang 程仲棠, “Zhongguo gudai luojixue” jiegou “中國古代邏輯學” 解構 (Decon-
structing “ancient Chinese logic”) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue wenxian chuban-
she, 2009).
34
Lin Mingyun and Zeng Xiangyun, Mingbianxue xintan, 8–9. See also the discus-
sion in Jin Rongdong 晉榮東, Luoji hewei: Dangdai Zhongguo luoji de xiandaixing fansi 邏輯
何為—當代中國邏輯的現代性反思 (Whither logic? Reflections on the modernity of
contemporary Chinese logic) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2005), 168–172.
35
The most insightful general accounts are Uwe Frankenhauser, “Logik und
nationales Selbstverständnis in China zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Chinesisches
Selbstverständnis und kulturelle Identität––“Wenhua Zhongguo,” ed. Christiane Hammer and
Bernhard Führer (Dortmund: Projekt Verlag, 1996), 69–80; and idem, Buddhistische
Logik, 205–218. Individual aspects of our problematic have also been addressed in
introduction 13
it has left the unwarranted claim of continuity unchallenged but also

because the career of logic in modern China, as John Makeham has
argued, is indeed a “cornerstone and benchmark” in the establish-
ment of modern Chinese philosophy more generally.36 A reconstruc-
tion of this career can serve as an exemplary illustration of the drastic
epistemic shifts that have shaped contemporary views of China’s intel-
lectual history. The genealogy of Chinese logic throws into sharper
relief the parallel, and in many instances no less violent, transforma-
tions from which discourses on Chinese philosophy and cognate fields
have emerged.
A crucial task of genealogical studies of the kind envisioned here is
to identify and understand the terms and notions that structure the
conceptual space in which an emerging discourse is articulated.37 This
general demand applies no less to discursive formations emerging
from transcultural interactions. In the case of Chinese logic, virtually
all relevant terms and notions, including “Chinese logic” itself, were
coined by adaptation from European languages or Japanese before
being enlisted to uncover forgotten meanings in ancient Chinese texts.
No genealogy of the field can therefore be complete without a detailed
reconstruction of this translation process and its two distinct stages—
the creation of a new Chinese language for logic and its subsequent
application in searches for alternative traditions.
In recent historiography, the notion of “translation” has come to
be used in a variety of meanings that go far beyond that of “a sim-
ple transfer of words from one language to another, on the model of
the bilingual dictionary.”38 In part, such wider uses are warranted by
advances in translation studies that have demonstrated that the act
Shuo Yu, “L’introduction de la philosophie de la logique en Chine,” Archives europénnes

de sociologie 34, no. 1 (1993): 139–151; Robert Wardy, “Chinese Whispers,” Proceedings
of the Cambridge Philological Society 38 (1992): 149–170; and idem, Aristotle in China: Lan-
guage, Categories, and Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). More
ambitious but less relevant in our context is Chung-ying Cheng, “Inquiries into Clas-
sical Chinese Logic,” Philosophy East and West 15, nos. 3–4 (1965): 195–216, a program-
matic outline for a still unwritten new “systematic” history of logic in ancient China.
36
John Makeham [ Mei Yuehan 梅約翰], “Zhuzixue yu lunlixue: Zhongguo zhexue
jiangou de jishi yu chidu” 諸子學與論理學：中國哲學建構的基石與尺度 (Masters
studies and logic: Cornerstone and benchmark in the establishment of Chinese phi-
losophy), Xueshu yuekan 39, no. 4 (2007): 62–67.
37
Davidson, “Emergence of Psychiatry,” 85–94. See also idem, “Styles of Reason-
ing,” 134–138.
38
Douglas R. Howland, “The Predicament of Ideas in Culture: Translation and
Historiography,” History and Theory 42 (2003): 45–60; 45–46.
14 introduction
of translation involves much more than lexical substitution. Instead,

translation must be conceived as “a creative act of generating mean-
ing and constructing discourse” in translingual contexts.39 Historical
studies aiming to reconstruct acts of translation cannot ignore the
specific conditions in which they were produced. Yet, the demand
for attention to context does not imply, as claimed by some studies
that use translation as a mere metaphor to conceptualize all kinds of
transcultural exchanges, that texts and the languages from which they
were built are insignificant. In appropriations of knowledge across cul-
tural and linguistic boundaries, the texts introducing new ideas have
a symptomatic function. They betray singularly detailed evidence
of the conceptual dissonances that inevitably arise in the process of
appropriation. At the same time, they bear visible marks of the com-
plex negotiations between translators, texts, and readers as they try to
accommodate or overcome such dissonances and domesticate the new
conceptual lexicon.
To exploit such evidence, the present study operates with both a
wide, or contextual, and a narrow, nonmetaphorical understanding
of translation. Combining the two perspectives forces our inquiry
to transgress conventional disciplinary boundaries. Although mainly
inspired by recent studies in historical epistemology and the tran-
scultural history of concepts,40 the following chapters also draw on
insights in translation studies and historical semantics when probing
the invention of the new logical lexicon, and borrow freely from the
sociology of science, missionary studies, and the history of print culture
to trace the agents, networks, and media on which the circulation of
logical knowledge depended. While providing “thick layers of plushy
context”41 wherever possible, this study insists on reserving ample
space for very close, and at times perhaps painfully myopic, read-
ings of the texts that made the translation of logic into late imperial
39
Idem, Personal Liberty and Public Good: The Introduction of John Stuart Mill to China and
Japan (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 21.
40
In addition to the works of Davidson, exemplary studies in historical epistemol-
ogy include Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison, Objectivity (New York: Zone Books,
2007); Reviel Netz, The Shaping of Deduction in Greek Mathematics: A Study in Cognitive
History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); and Claude Rosental, Weav-
ing Self-Evidence: A Sociology of Logic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). On
the history of concepts, or Begriffsgeschichte, see in particular Hans Ulrich Gumprecht,
Dimensionen und Grenzen der Begriffsgeschichte (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2006).
41
Lorraine Daston, “The Historicity of Science,” in Historicization—Historisierung,
ed. Glenn W. Most (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2001), 201–221; 201.
introduction 15
Chinese discourses possible.42 Even in the narrowest sense of the word,

such translations required efforts that had little in common with the
consultation of bilingual dictionaries—not least for the simple reason
that no dictionaries existed that could have facilitated the adaptation
of logical texts in Chinese.43 Instead, they relied on conscious concep-
tual acts, involving both translators and their audiences, that linked
unfamiliar notions to contemporary concerns in a meaningful manner.
As Peter Ghosh has shown, reconstructions of such conceptual acts, at
least in the case of formal sciences such as logic, do not need to ana-
lyze the “entire verbal surface” of the translated texts.44 In contrast to
scholars examining literary works, historians of knowledge must focus
on sample mappings of the new discipline’s conceptual lexicon, not,
to be sure, in order to assess the faithfulness of individual translations
to their always elusive originals but to track the transformations neces-
sary to appropriate unfamiliar notions in a new linguistic, cultural, and
ideological environment.
At various points in this study I will document such sample map-
pings when discussing the ways in which key terms in the concep-
tual lexicon of European logic were adapted in Chinese translations.
The selection of the terms considered in these mappings reflects the
changing Gestalt of the discipline. Although some continuity in basic
logical terminology is evident, the notions from which Jesuit logica was
built in the seventeenth century differed starkly from those structur-
ing the varieties of logic that reached China in the decades around
1900. Terms created for central Jesuit-Aristotelian concepts, such as
the “five predicables” and the “ten categories” (see chapter 1, Tables
1.1–1.5), were soon excluded from logical reflection. Although not at
all uniform in either structure or outlook, the translations produced
between 1860 and 1911 displayed much greater coherence. It was
therefore possible to scan the texts discussed in chapters 2 to 4 for
42
For some good examples of intentionally myopic readings of translations in the
European context similar to those envisaged here, see Michèle Goyens, Pieter de
Leemans, and An Smets (eds.), Science Translated: Latin Vernacular Translations of Scientific
Treatises in Medieval Europe (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2008).
43
See Guowei Shen, “The Creation of Technical Terms in English-Chinese Dic-
tionaries from the Nineteenth Century,” in New Terms for New Ideas: Western Knowl-
edge and Lexical Change in Late Imperial China, ed. Michael Lackner, Iwo Amelung, and
Joachim Kurtz (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 287–304.
44
Peter Ghosh, “Translation as a Conceptual Act,” Max Weber Studies 2, no. 1
(2001): 59–63.
16 introduction
a sample of 129 English terms crucial to the types of logic shaping

the discipline’s image in late Qing China (see Tables 2.1, 3.1, 4.1,
and B.1–10). For the sake of clarity these terms have been arranged
within each table in five sets corresponding to the five sections typically
found in introductions to logic published in this period. Set A includes
general terms of the field, such as “logic,” “reasoning,” “thought,”
“judgment,” and “argument,” which would customarily be discussed
in introductory chapters, as well as terms for the “laws of thought.”
Set B contains lexical items related to terms and their properties, such
as “term,” “concept” or “idea,” “intension,” “extension,” and “defi-
nition,” as well as items describing different kinds of terms, such as
“singular” and “general,” “positive” and “negative,” or “abstract” and
“concrete term.” Set C includes terms related to propositions and their
constituent parts, such as “subject,” “predicate,” and “copula”; the
names of various kinds of propositions; and some terms describing
conversions. Set D is devoted to inferences, syllogisms, and the falla-
cies of reasoning. Set E, finally, brings together a somewhat eclectic
selection of terms related to discussions of the methodology of scientific
inquiry. Not all texts from this period offered equivalents for all terms
examined in these five sets, while in many instances more than one
rendition was suggested for a single English term of departure.
Altogether, the sample mappings compiled for this study document
roughly four thousand examples of the ways in which the conceptual
lexicon of European logic was adapted in late imperial China. Dia-
chronic linguists could very well exploit this extensive collection of
semiotic shells to refine the typologies of modern Chinese loanwords
or supplement our incomplete inventory of neologisms coined in the
late imperial period. From our perspective, however, such concerns
are of limited interest. The value of lexical innovations does not derive
from any inherent qualities or deficits of the individual choices. In the
framework of established academic disciplines, technical terms are no
more than arbitrary signifiers whose meanings are defined by experts
in specialized debate.45 What makes this database valuable to histo-
rians of knowledge is that lexical innovations offer leads as to how
different authors and readers, operating at different times, in different
circumstances, and with different agendas, related the new conceptual
45
See Viviane Alleton, “Chinese Terminologies: On Preconceptions,” in Lackner
et al., New Terms for New Ideas, 15–34.
introduction 17
lexicon to the existing vocabulary, and how their joint efforts recon-
figured relevant semantic fields. Especially in the early stages of the
adaptation process, stories of the invention, adoption, or rejection of
terminological suggestions reveal uniquely specific insights into con-
ceptual changes inspired by the appropriation of new ideas. In that
brief, transitory moment, the terms created or redefined to convey new
notions are more often than not the only concrete interface between
the contexts of departure and arrival, and as such their analysis is
indispensable to our understanding of both.
Much to their detriment, historians of logic and other fields have
neglected investigations of the lexical innovations that prepared,
accompanied, and reflected epistemic transitions in late imperial and
early Republican China. Starting with the clear-sighted works of Ada
H. Mateer and Evan Morgan,46 studies of the new terms in which
Chinese discourses have come to be expressed since the late Qing
period have been the exclusive domain of linguists for most of the
past century.47 Early exceptions to this rule included pioneering stud-
ies by Yu-ning Li and Wolfgang Lippert, who probed the histories of
Chinese and Japanese Marxist terminologies to understand the early
reception of socialist ideas in East Asia.48 More recently, Lydia Liu has
explored the role of “translingual practices,” that is, translations in a
very wide sense, in modern Chinese literary, cultural, political, and
legal discourses.49 Studies by Meng Yue and Larissa Heinrich have
46
See Ada Haven Mateer, New Terms for New Ideas: A Study of the Chinese Newspaper
(Shanghai: Presbyterian Mission Press, 1922 [1913]); and Evan Morgan, Chinese New
Terms and Expressions (Shanghai: Kelly & Walsh, 1913).
47
Of greatest interest from a historical point of view are the diachronic studies
by Federico Masini, The Formation of Modern Chinese Lexicon and Its Evolution toward a
National Language: The Period from 1840 to 1898 (Berkeley: Journal of Chinese Linguis-
tics Monograph Series, 1993); and Shen Guowei 沈國威, Kindai Nitchū goi kōryūshi:
Shin Kango no seisei to juyō 近代日中語彙交流史ー新漢語の生成と受容 (A history of
lexical exchanges between China and Japan in the modern era: The formation and
reception of new Chinese words) (Tōkyō: Kasama shoin, 1994; new and revised ed.,
2008).
48
Yu-ning Li, The Introduction of Socialism into China (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1971); and Wolfgang Lippert, Entstehung und Funktion einiger chinesischer marxistischer
Termini. Der lexikalisch-begriffliche Aspekt der Rezeption des Marxismus in Japan und China
(Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1979).
49
Lydia H. Liu, Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Moder-
nity—China, 1900–1937 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995); and idem, The
Clash of Empires: The Invention of China in Modern World Making (Cambridge, Mass.: Har-
vard University Press, 2004). See also the essays in idem (ed.), Tokens of Exchange: The
Problem of Translation in Global Circulations (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999).
18 introduction
followed Liu’s theoretical lead and transposed her insights to addi-

tional discursive fields.50 Closer to the perspective adopted here, Ruth
Rogaski and David Wright have demonstrated that analyses of trans-
lation and lexical change can be turned into useful tools for transcul-
tural histories of science,51 and Rune Svarverud and Elisabeth Kaske
have explored the potential of historical semantics for studies of the
emergence of new discursive formations.52 Similarly, essays collected in
two volumes coedited by Michael Lackner have probed ways to eluci-
date the intellectual history of late imperial China through the prism
of lexical change.53 All these studies underline that taking semantic
innovations seriously as indicators and factors of conceptual change
does not mean neglecting the linguistic and extralinguistic contexts in
which the new terms and ideas were created, circulated, criticized, or
rejected. New terms become meaningful only in specific instances of
usage that cannot be understood outside the multilayered contexts in
which these uses are situated. From a historian’s point of view, new
terms are therefore never ends in themselves but only one type of
evidence among many others that must be scrutinized in the attempt
to reconstruct migrations of meanings in and between linguistic and
epistemic communities.
One last point should be stressed at the outset of our investiga-
tion. By showing that the emergence of Chinese logic was neither self-
evident nor the result of an immaculate conception, this study does not
intend to dispute the legitimacy of the discourse as a whole, as I will
discuss in more detail in the epilogue. Accidental or tainted origins,
as Lorraine Daston has reminded readers of her work on the histories
of facts and objectivity, “might sound an alarm, forcing us to exam-
ine critically the affected beliefs and arguments, but they are not an
50
Meng Yue, Shanghai and the Edges of Empires (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2006), especially chaps. 1–2; and Larissa N. Heinrich, The Afterlife of Images:
Translating the Pathological Body between China and the West (Durham: Duke University
Press, 2008).
51
Ruth Rogaski, Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China
(University of California Press, 2004); and David Wright, Translating Science: The Trans-
mission of Western Chemistry into Late Imperial China, 1840–1900 (Leiden: Brill, 2000).
52
Rune Svarverud, International Law as World Order in Late Imperial China (Leiden:
Brill, 2007); and Elisabeth Kaske, The Politics of Language in Chinese Education, 1895–1919
(Leiden: Brill, 2008).
53
Lackner et al., New Terms for New Ideas; and Michael Lackner and Natascha
Vittinghoff (eds.), Mapping Meanings: The Field of New Learning in Late Qing China (Leiden:
Brill, 2004).
introduction 19
ipso facto disqualification.”54 The aim of the following chapters is thus

not so much to unmask or debunk yet another invented tradition.
Rather, they strive to elucidate the more or less subtle conceptual
manipulations that make such inventions possible, and help to pave
the way for assessments of their benefits and costs in our understand-
ing of ancient Chinese texts and intellectual history. As such, they seek
to shed light on the dynamics of conceptual change at the threshold of
Chinese modernity, and to honor the exploratory genius of acclaimed
and forgotten authors who courageously ventured to redraw China’s
intellectual map, however imperfectly, with untested conceptual tools.
54
Daston, “The Historicity of Science,” 218. See also Daston and Galison,
Objectivity, 376.
CHAPTER ONE
FIRST ENCOUNTERS:
JESUIT LOGICA IN THE LATE MING AND EARLY QING
Logica guides humans in advancing their intellect,

distinguishing between right and wrong, preventing
error and delusion, and leads them back on the path
to the one and only Truth.
Li Cibin, “Second Preface” to the Mingli tan
Studies of the European expansion have argued that initial encoun-
ters between alien cultures are often characterized by the perception
of a perplexing alterity that paves the way for curiosity and, eventu-
ally, genuine interest in the Other.1 The first Chinese encounters with
European logic in the seventeenth century apparently provoked feel-
ings similar to such étrangeté radicale among the few literati who came
into contact with logical notions introduced by Jesuit missionaries
and their native collaborators. Rather than with curiosity or inter-
est, however, Chinese scholars responded to this supposedly unset-
tling perception with almost unanimous indifference. The reasons for
this indifference defy simplistic explanations. There are no indications
in the historical record that particular “Chinese ways of thinking”
were in any significant respect incommensurable with the standards
of “European rationality,”2 nor do we find hints of insurmountable
linguistic or “cultural” barriers that would have prevented understand-
ing or acceptance.3 Instead, the sustained disinterest is the result of a
skein of historically sited reasons that deprived the logical fragments
presented by the Jesuits of any potential appeal. In contrast to other
sciences, most notably mathematics and astronomy,4 the first introduc-
tion of European logic must thus be seen as a more or less complete
1
See, e.g., Tzvetan Todorov, La conquête de l’Amérique. La question de l’autre (Paris:
Seuil, 1982), 12–15.
2
For this line of argument, see, e.g., Jacques Gernet, Chine et Christianisme. Action et
réaction (Paris: Gallimard, 1982).
3
See, e.g., Alfred H. Bloom, The Linguistic Shaping of Thought: A Study in the Impact of
Language on Thinking in China and the West ( Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1981).
4
See Nicolas Standaert (ed.), Handbook of Christianity in China. Volume One: 635–1800
(Leiden: Brill, 2001), 711–751.
22 chapter one
failure. It did little, if anything, to enlarge or transform the conceptual

repertoire of late Ming and early Qing discourses. A closer look at this
episode is nonetheless instructive since it highlights the multiple dif-
ficulties involved in translating and propagating a science as alien and
esoteric as the Jesuit variety of late scholastic logica in the intellectual
environment of late imperial China.
1. Logic in Jesuit Education
Aristotelian logic occupied a prominent place in the Jesuits’ educational

curriculum. Since the time of Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556), the order’s
Constitutiones decreed that philosophical studies should be based exclu-
sively on the works of Aristotle, as long as these did not contradict or
compromise Christian doctrine.5 The Jesuit Ratio studiorum, or “study
plan,” stipulated from its first manuscript edition in 1581 that logic be
taught at the order’s colleges and universities during the first year of
a three-year course in Aristotelian philosophy that prepared students
for further studies in specialized disciplines, such as civil and canon
law or theology.6 Training during the elementary year was intensive.
According to the Ratio, logic was to be taught twice daily, one hour
in the morning and one in the afternoon, through dictations, the exe-
gesis of Aristotelian texts, and practical exercises.7 After completing
the introductory course, students were to polish their dialectical skills
through the regular practice of “controversies,” public disputations in
which they were to refute any argument opposing a given scientific,
philosophical, or dogmatic proposition by means of the logical and
rhetorical devices with which they had become acquainted.8 Syllogistic
5
Alison Simmons, “Jesuit Aristotelian Education: The De anima Commentaries,”
in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, ed. John W. O’Malley et al.
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 522–537; 523–525.
6
Charles H. Lohr, “Les jésuites et l’aristotélisme du XVIe siècle,” in Les jésuites à la
renaissance. Système éducatif et production du savoir, ed. Luce Giard (Paris: Presses Universi-
taires de France, 1995), 79–92; 80. On the various editions of the Jesuit Ratio studiorum
and its precursors, see La pedagogía de los Jesuitas, ayer y hoy, ed. Eusebio Gil (Madrid:
Universidad Pontificia, 1999), 33–45.
7
Ibid., 111–112. See also William A. Wallace, Galileo and His Sources: The Heritage
of the Collegio Romano in Galileo’s Science (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984),
6–10.
8
Riccardo G. Villoslada, Storia del Collegio Romano dal suo inizio (1551) alla soppressione
della Compagnia di Gesù (1773) (Rome: Apud aedes Universitatis Gregorianae, 1954),
89–90, 107–108.
first encounters 23
forms of argumentation, which formed an important part of these

skills, were also introduced in many of the mathematical and scientific
textbooks used in Jesuit schools.9 As a result, any student graduating
from a Jesuit college or university over the course of the sixteenth or
seventeenth centuries would have been thoroughly familiar with the
theory and practice of a late scholastic style of reasoning built around
Aristotelian-inspired concepts and argumentative strategies.
The logic taught at Jesuit institutions of higher learning through-
out this period was intended to defend dogma, but it was not at all
dogmatic in its methods.10 While bound by papal rulings to maintain
strictly Aristotelian views in natural philosophy, many Jesuit scholars
were open to Renaissance humanist ideas in metaphysics, logic, and
rhetoric.11 The most influential teachers of philosophy in the order’s
early years of existence, Francisco de Toledo (1532–1596) and Pedro
da Fonseca (1528–1599), created a type of logic that differed consider-
ably from the Thomistic tradition. Rather than basing their theories
on the prevalent speculative metaphysics of the Thomistic ens reale and
entia rationis, both stressed the logical relevance of Aristotle’s psycho-
logical insights. Less concerned with the ideal modes of being under-
lying concepts and ratiocinations, Toledo and Fonseca expounded
the functions of conception, judgment, and inference as expressed in
the operations of the mind and its faculties.12 This cautiously criti-
cal undertaking was facilitated by the formulation of a new and sup-
posedly more purely Aristotelian model of metaphysics, principally at
the Portuguese universities of Coimbra and Evora, that dismissed any
attempt at a pseudo-ontological foundation of logic as an ill-conceived
and misleading fiction.
The logical textbooks resulting from these efforts consisted mainly of
systematic commentaries on the Aristotelian Organon.13 In its canonized
9
Peter M. Engelfriet, Euclid in China: The Genesis of the First Translation of Euclid’s
“Elements” Book I–VI (“Jihe yuanben,” Beijing, 1607) and Its Reception up to 1723 (Leiden:
Brill, 1998), 43–46.
10
Wilhelm Risse, Die Logik der Neuzeit. Band 1: 1500–1640 (Stuttgart–Bad Cannstadt:
Frommann-Holzboog, 1964), 359.
11
David E. Mungello, Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology
( Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989 [1985]), 27–28. See also Howard Good-
man and Anthony Grafton, “Ricci, the Chinese, and the Toolkits of Textualists,” Asia
Major, 3rd ser., 3, no. 2 (1990): 95–148.
12
Risse, Logik der Neuzeit, 359–360; 363–370.
13
On the particular style of the Jesuit commentaries to the Organon, see Charles H.
Lohr, “Jesuit Aristotelianism and Sixteenth-Century Metaphysics,” in Paradosis: Studies
24 chapter one
Latin shape, the Organon comprised six texts thought to elucidate the
fundamental elements of Aristotelian logic and its application in sci-
ence and debate: Porphyry’s Isagoge, conceived as a general introduc-
tion to the discipline and its metaphysical foundations; the Categories,
dealing with terms and definitions; De interpretatione, discussing proposi-
tions or premises; the Prior Analytics, treating syllogisms or the concat-
enation of the three premises major, minor, and conclusio; and, finally, the
Posterior Analytics and the Topics with their appendix De sophisticis elenchis,
considering, respectively, the use of the syllogism in demonstration or
dialectics, and the refutation of sophistic arguments.14 The extensive
commentaries to the Organon by Toledo and Fonseca were officially
endorsed in the final version of the Ratio studiorum published in 1599.15
Toledo’s Introductio in dialecticam Aristotelis (1561) and Commentaria una
cum quaestionibus in universam Aristotelis logicam (1572) formed the basis of
logical education at the Collegio Romano, the central Jesuit institu-
tion of higher learning, as well as most of the order’s schools in Italy,
Germany, and France,16 while Fonseca’s Institutionum dialecticarum libri
octo (1564) was predominantly used on the Iberian peninsula.17
Most, if not all Jesuit missionaries who entered China after 1583, the
year in which Michele Ruggieri (Luo Mingjian 羅明堅, 1543–1607)18
and Matteo Ricci (Li Madou 利瑪竇, 1552–1610)19 succeeded in estab-
lishing residency on the Chinese mainland, would have been exposed
to one of these commentarial traditions, depending on where they
received their education. Among the authors active in the introduction
of European logic to China, Ricci himself, who took the elementary
in Memory of Edwin A. Quain, ed. Harry G. Fletcher III and Mary B. Schulte (New York:
Fordham University Press, 1974), 203–220; 214–218.
14
See, e.g., Robert Blanché and Jacques Dubucs, La logique et son histoire (Paris:
Armand Colin, 1996), 25–29. On Porphyry and his Isagoge, ibid., 123–124.
15
Gil, Jesuitas, 112. Since its formal adoption in 1599, the Ratio was revised only
twice, first in 1616 and for the second time in 1832.
16
Villoslada, Collegio Romano, 102; Wallace, Galileo, 10–12.
17
Friedrich Stegmüller, Filosofia e teologia nas universidades de Coimbra e Évora no século
XVI (Coimbra: Universidade de Coimbra, 1959), 85–99.
18
For biographical data, see Fang Hao 方豪, Zhongguo tianzhujiaoshi renwuzhuan 中國
天主教史人物傳 (Biographies related to the history of Christianity in China) (Beijing:
Zhonghua shuju, 1988), vol. 1, 65–71.
19
Ibid., vol. 1, 72–82.
first encounters 25
course in logic20 and classes in controversy at the Collegio Romano,21

and his fellow Italian Giulio Aleni (Ai Rulüe 艾儒略, 1582–1649),22
who received his training at the University of Padua,23 studied the dis-
cipline on the basis of Toledo’s commentaries; the Portuguese father
Francisco Furtado ( Fu Fanji 傅汎際, 1587–1653)24 acquired his logical
skills at the University of Coimbra from a revised version of Fonseca’s
text.25
2. Accommodation and Translation
The thorough grounding in logical theory and practice that the mis-
sionaries received in their European training colored many of the
works and translations they began to produce as soon as they were
sufficiently proficient in the Chinese literary language, as will be shown
below. Yet, logic and logical notions were in no way central to their
missionary strategy. As propagated by Matteo Ricci, this strategy was
aimed at accommodating Christian teachings to the Confucian doc-
trines and practices that dominated the social and intellectual climate
of the late Ming dynasty. Convinced that evangelization “from the top
down” was the most promising route for their missionary enterprise,
Ricci and his confrères adapted their conduct to the values and life-
style of the literati elite, applied themselves to the study of the learned
idiom and the Confucian canon, and displayed a generally tolerant
attitude toward Confucian rites, most notably toward ancestor wor-
ship.26 Moreover, in order to demonstrate their determination not to
20
Mario Fois, “Il Collegio Romano ai tempi degli studi del P. Matteo Ricci,” in
Atti del convegno internazionale di studi Ricciani (Macerata: Centro studi Ricciani, 1984),
203–228; 213–214 and 218–222. See also Engelfriet, Euclid, 19–20.
21
Joseph Sebes, “The Precursors of Ricci,” in East Meets West: The Jesuits in China,
1582–1773, ed. Charles E. Ronan and Bonnie B. C. Oh (Chicago: Loyola University
Press, 1988), 19–61; 36–37.
22
Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 1, 185–197.
23
Eugenio Menegon, Un solo cielo. Giulio Aleni S.J. (1582–1649): Geografia, arte, sci-
enza, religione dall’Europa alla Cina (Brescia: Grafo, 1994), 30–31. See also Mario Colpo,
“Giulio Aleni’s Cultural and Religious Background,” in “Scholar from the West”: Giulio
Aleni S.J. (1582–1649) and the Dialogue between Christianity and China, ed. Tiziana Lippiello
and Roman Malek (Nettetal: Steyler, 1997), 73–84; 76.
24
25
Liam M. Brockey, Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to China, 1579–1724 (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 211–214.
26
For brief summaries, see Standaert, Handbook, 310–311; and Mungello, Curious
Land, 44–73.
26 chapter one
threaten or undermine the social and political order of the Chinese

state, they abstained from preaching the gospel in public and propa-
gated their faith primarily through private conversations with local
dignitaries. In their persuasive efforts during such conversations, they
founded their arguments more on the “natural reason” of their coun-
terparts than on attempts at proving the formal validity of their state-
ments, as they had been trained to do in European contexts.
The elitist thrust of the accommodationist approach, which was
never uncontroversial even among Jesuits active in China,27 entailed
a strong intellectual emphasis. According to Nicolas Trigault ( Jin
Nige 金尼閣, 1577–1628),28 the not always reliable editor of Ricci’s
journals, the Jesuit fathers understood early on in their contacts with
Chinese literati that these “are slow to take a salutary spiritual potion,
unless it be seasoned with an intellectual flavoring.”29 Adding such
flavoring to their doctrines became a major part of the Jesuits’ efforts.
Ricci himself was well aware that his literati interlocutors were not
only impressed with his moral integrity, which they found exempli-
fied in the coherence of the ethical maxims he advocated and in his
impeccable personal conduct, but even more so with his versatility
in polite conversation and his stunning mnemonic abilities.30 He also
realized, however, that neither these useful skills nor the verbal dia-
lectics in which the missionaries were so well versed sufficed to attract
more than fleeting interest on the part of most literati. In order to win
over a greater number of elite converts, the Jesuits had to prove that
Europe in general and Christianity in particular had attained a level
of civilization that was comparable to that of China and, hence, that
conversion to this foreign faith offered a genuine alternative, or at least
a desirable supplement, to the codified beliefs on which late imperial
civilization was founded. The only way to achieve this goal was to
present the missionary cause, either directly or in the guise of scientific
27
See George H. Dunne, Generation of Giants: The Story of the Jesuits in China in the
Last Decades of the Ming Dynasty (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1962),
282–310.
28
29
Matteo Ricci, China in the 16th Century: The Journals of Matthew Ricci 1583–1610,
trans. Louis J. Gallagher (New York: Random House, 1953), 325.
30
On the early image of the Jesuits in China, see Wenchao Li, Die christliche China-
Mission im 17. Jahrhundert. Verständnis, Unverständnis, Mißverständnis (Stuttgart: Franz
Steiner, 2000), 242–249. On the admiration for Ricci’s mnemotechnics, see Michael
Lackner, Das vergessene Gedächtnis: Die jesuitische mnemotechnische Abhandlung “Xiguo jifa.”
Übersetzung und Kommentar (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1986), 2–3.
first encounters 27
and moral knowledge, in persuasive and stylistically appealing texts

written in the literati language.31 More so than in almost any other
country, the “apostolate by the book” thus became a central concern
of the Jesuit enterprise in China.32
Despite the admirable speed with which at least some Jesuits
acquired a solid grasp of the Chinese language at a time when no
textbooks or grammars and scarcely any bilingual glossaries and dic-
tionaries existed,33 the difficulties they had to overcome in translating
the Christian message into literary Chinese remained substantial. Even
the most astonishing linguistic talents, such as Matteo Ricci and Giulio
Aleni, depended in their writings on the assistance of able Chinese col-
laborators to prevent rhetorical shallowness, stylistic blunders, and pas-
sages that could unwittingly offend the sensibilities of their audiences.
All these pitfalls, however, were minor issues compared to the task of
creating an adequate vocabulary to render many of the basic, but in
the Chinese context nevertheless alien, notions on which the Christian
teachings, and the scientific paraphernalia with which the Jesuits chose
to flavor them, were built.
Quite naturally, the Chinese lexicon, for all its richness, did not
offer ready-made equivalents for many of the particular terms in
which European religion, philosophy, and science had come to be
expressed—in fact, not even for the terms “religion,” “philosophy,”
and “science” themselves. Chinese discourses that Western observers
would have interpreted as pertaining to either one of these fields were
structured by distinct sets of notions that cut across the conceptual grids
of seventeenth-century Europe. Rather than being mutually exclusive,
however, a number of eminent Chinese terms displayed a consider-
able semantic overlap with related European notions. Instances of
such overlap were the basis of the conceptual accommodation char-
acterizing the Jesuits’ more sophisticated Chinese writings. Realizing
that phonemic replicas of important Christian terms, such as bugeduolüe
布革多略 ‘purgatorio’ or yanfunuo 咽咈諾 ‘inferno’, were perceived
as inelegant barbarisms by the readers they wished to impress,34 the
31
Mungello, Curious Land, 73.
32
Standaert, Handbook, 600–601.
33
For a useful account of Jesuit studies of the Chinese language, see Brockey, Jour-
ney to the East, 243–286.
34
Pasquale D’Elia, “Prima introduzione della filosofia scolastica in Cina,” Bulletin
of the Institute for History and Philology 28 (1956): 141–196; 145, 147. See also Dunne,
Giants, 282–283.
28 chapter one
fathers and their collaborators shifted their translational strategy to

redefining or expanding the meanings of prestigious classicist (or
“Confucian”) terms. Early examples of such more or less hostile con-
ceptual takeovers, as we might call them, include appropriations of
time-honored terms like shangdi 上帝 ‘Ruler on High’ as a transla-
tion for “God,” ling 靈 ‘spiritual energy’ for “soul,” xin 心 ‘heart’ for
“mind,” and ti 體 ‘body, structure’ for “essence.”35 Once this strategy
gained prominence, phonemic loans were generally used only for the
transcription of place names, official titles, or European words that the
respective translators deemed of special interest to their monolingual
Chinese audience.36
The classicist coloring surely helped to soften the alterity of many
Jesuit texts. On the other hand, the rich histories of the terms adapted
from the Confucian canon could easily lead to misunderstandings. In
many cases, crucial distinctions were blurred and similarities over-
stretched. When they wanted to accentuate the novelty of a particular
European notion, the Jesuit authors or translators therefore avoided
semantic borrowing and resorted to loan translations, creating new
words modeled on the literal meanings or etymologies of their foreign
terms of departure. Instances of this third translation strategy include
now-obsolete terms like renxue 人學 ‘the science of man’ for “humani-
ties” and gongxue 共學 ‘common school’ for “university.”37 Since the
introduction of too many new words risked affecting the readability
of a text, the Jesuits generally preferred to adapt existing terms. Still,
as the analysis of the earliest works introducing European logic will
show, the number of loan translations and phonemic loans in their
writings increased with the distance of a text’s subject matter from
conventional Chinese discourses.
35
Giorgio Melis, “Temi e tesi della filosofia europea nel ‘Tianzhu Shiyi’ di Matteo
Ricci,” in Atti del convegno internazionale di studi Ricciani (Macerata: Centro studi Ricciani,
1984), 65–92; 70–72.
36
The Jesuit contribution to the Chinese lexicon remains an understudied topic.
Some inroads have been made in Federico Masini, “The Legacy of Seventeenth Cen-
tury Jesuit Works: Geography, Mathematics and Scientific Terminology in Nineteenth
Century China,” in L’Europe en Chine. Interactions scientifiques, religieuses et culturelles aux
XVII e et XVIII e siècles, ed. Catherine Jami and Hubert Delahaye (Paris: Collège de France,
1993), 137–146; and Federico Masini, “Aleni’s Contribution to the Chinese Lan-
guage,” in Lippiello and Malek, “Scholar from the West,” 539–554.
37
Masini, “Aleni’s Contribution,” 548, 551.
first encounters 29
3. Logic in Early Jesuit Writings
In view of the linguistic difficulties involved, the textual production of

the Jesuit missionaries and their Chinese collaborators must be seen
as a remarkable achievement. According to the most recent estimate,
about 590 Chinese books were published by the Jesuits and their sup-
porters in the course of the seventeenth century.38 The majority of
these texts, some 470 titles, were mainly or exclusively devoted to
religious and moral issues; about 120 books presented more general
knowledge about the West as well as European science and technol-
ogy. On the whole, the most successful among these works were math-
ematical textbooks, world maps, geographical accounts, and Ptolemaic
cosmological treatises.39 Yet, in the early phase of the mission a few
humanist-inspired texts claiming common ground between the ethical
maxims of the “Far West” (Taixi 泰西) and Confucian morality also
contributed to creating a favorable image of the missionaries among
the literati elite. In these treatises the first concepts related to Euro-
pean logic were translated into the Chinese discursive universe.
The sources on which the Jesuits relied for their renditions, irrespec-
tive of their subject matter, were so thoroughly saturated with latinized
Aristotelian notions that some echoes of the latter resonated in nearly
every Chinese text compiled in the context of the mission. Only some
of these echoes were related to logic. Aristotelian notions were most
visibly brought into play in discussions of the human soul and the num-
ber of elements from which the physical universe was built, and hence
in the areas of psychology and natural philosophy.40 In early moral
writings exemplifying the accommodationist strategy, such as Ricci’s
On Friendship ( Jiaoyou lun 交友論, 1595) and Twenty-five Maxims (Ershiwu
yan 二十五言, 1599/1605), ethical insights from latinized Stoics were
presented in brief aphorisms that required no reference to concepts
38
39
Catherine Jami, “ ‘European Science in China’ or ‘Western Learning’? Repre-
sentations of Cross-Cultural Transmission, 1600–1800,” Science in Context 12, no. 3
(1999): 414.
40
See the overtly polemical but nonetheless useful discussion in Qiong Zhang,
“Translation as Cultural Reform: Jesuit Scholastic Psychology in the Transformation
of the Confucian Discourse on Human Nature,” in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the
Arts, 1540–1773, ed. John W. O’Malley et al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1999), 364–379.
30 chapter one
pertaining to the mechanics of reasoning.41 Closer to the point was

Ricci’s The Western Art of Memory (Xiguo jifa 西國記法, 1595/1625) that
contained metaphorical allusions to late scholastic notions of cause and
effect, res, and ens alongside the technical vocabulary of the European
ars memorativa.42 In his catechistic The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven
(Tianzhu shiyi 天主實義, 1603), Ricci then provided a number of more
substantial references to notions relevant to Aristotelian logic.43
1. The Tianzhu shiyi

The Tianzhu shiyi, which has been called “the most important book
in the history of Christianity in China,”44 was composed as a dia-
logue between a “Chinese scholar” (Zhongshi 中士) and a “Western
scholar” (Xishi 西士). Topics discussed in this fictitious cross-cultural
exchange include the Christian God (tianzhu 天主 ‘Lord of Heaven’)
as the creator of all things, the immortality of the soul, the difference
between animals and humans, the existence of ghosts and spirits, sins,
the remuneration of good and evil, the afterlife, paradise, hell, human
nature, and Western customs.45 Both interlocutors were portrayed as
perfectly “rational” debaters. Not surprisingly, however, the Western
scholar presented more persuasive arguments on most points of con-
tention, not least because he seemed to have more refined conceptual
devices at his disposal. For instance, in a discussion of the possibil-
ity that the universe was created through a single divine act, Ricci’s
Western scholar could draw on the Aristotelian theory of the “four
causes” (si suoyiran 四所以然), which thus made its first appearance in
a Chinese discursive context:
41
Both treatises are now readily available in Matteo Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu
ji 利瑪竇中文譯著集 (Matteo Ricci’s collected Chinese works and translations), ed.
Zhu Weizheng 朱維錚 ( Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press, 2001),
141–159, 161–177. For discussion, see Pasquale D’Elia, “Il Trattato sull’Amicizia,
primo libro scritto in cinese da Matteo Ricci,” Studia Missionalia 7 (1952): 425–515;
and Christopher Spalatin, “Matteo Ricci’s Use of Epictetus’ Encheiridion,” Gregori-
anum 56, no. 3 (1975): 551–557.
42
Lackner, Das vergessene Gedächtnis, 8, 41, and passim.
43
On the various editions of the Tianzhu shiyi, see Henri Bernard, “Les adaptations
chinoises d’ouvrages européennes,” Monumenta Serica 10 (1945): 324.
44
Gianni Criveller, Preaching Christ in Late Ming China: The Jesuits’ Presentation of Christ
from Matteo Ricci to Giulio Aleni (Taipei: Ricci Institute, 1997), 109.
45
Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 4–139.
first encounters 31
There is nothing in the world that does not combine within itself these
four causes. Of these four, the formal cause (mozhe 模者) and the mate-
rial cause (zhizhe 質者), as found in things, are internal properties of
these things or, if one wishes to phrase it in that way, their yin and yang.
The active (zuozhe 作者) and the final cause (weizhe 為者) lie outside of
things and exist prior to them, and therefore cannot be said to be inter-
nal properties of them. The Lord of Heaven we speak of is the reason
for things being as they are, and we refer to him only as the active and
final cause. He is not the formal or material cause of things. Because the
Lord of Heaven is perfectly whole, unique, and has none other beside
him, he cannot be a part of things.46
In a subsequent passage, the Western scholar refined his argument
through another distinction with a certain logical import, that between
“universal” and “particular”:
As to the active and final causes, we find distinctions within them between
what is distant and what is proximate and between what is universal
(gong 公) and what is particular (si 私). What is distant and universal is
a higher cause, and what is proximate and particular is a lesser cause.
The Lord of Heaven is the most universal and highest cause of things;
all other causes are proximate and particular and therefore lesser causes.
Parents are the cause of children; they are called fathers and mothers,
and are the proximate and particular cause; but if there were no heaven
to cover them and no earth to sustain them, how would they be able
to beget and nurture their children? If there were no Lord of Heaven to
superintend heaven and earth, how would heaven and earth be able to
produce and nurture all things?47
Ricci’s appropriation of the four causes and the notions of the uni-
versal and the particular was a perfect example of the hybrid argu-
ments emerging from the Jesuit strategy of accommodation, not only
in the realm of religion. His translation of “cause” as suoyiran (that by
which things are the way they are) linked an Aristotelian term to a
notion with a rich history in Confucian natural and moral philosophy,
thus implicitly demanding equal dignity. Ricci also claimed common
ground by likening the “formal” and the “material” cause to the inter-
twined aspects of yin and yang. Finally, his rendition of “universal”
46
Ibid., 13. Translations from this text are adapted from Matteo Ricci, The True
Meaning of the Lord of Heaven (“T’ien-chu Shih-i”), ed. Douglas Lancashire and Peter Hu
Kuo-chen (St. Louis: The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1985 [1603]), here 85–86. See
also Melis, “Temi e tesi,” 72–74.
47
Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 13–14; translation adapted from idem, True
Meaning, 85–86.
32 chapter one
and “particular” by gong ( public, just) and si ( private, selfish) blended

an originally formal distinction with the self-justifying spheres of the
Confucian social order.
The categories of substance and accident, two further concepts with
a more or less direct bearing on Aristotelian logic, were introduced in
a similarly hybridized fashion. In this case, the impression of hybrid-
ity was not so much a result of the terms, which had already been
coined, albeit not explained, in Michele Ruggieri’s A True Account of
the Lord of Heaven and the Holy Doctrine (Tianzhu shengjiao shilu 天主聖教
實錄, 1584),48 but rather of the mixture of examples chosen to clarify
their distinction:
There are two “types” (zong 宗, categories) of things: those that “stand
by themselves” (zilizhe 自立者, substance) and those which are “reliant”
( yilaizhe 依賴者, accidents). Things which do not depend on other things
for their existence, such as heaven and earth, ghosts and spirits, men,
birds and beasts, grasses and trees, metals and stones, the four elements,
and the like, are all classed as substance. Things which cannot stand
on their own and which can only be established subject to other things,
as, for example, the five virtues, the five colors, the five notes, the five
flavors, the seven emotions, and the like, are all classed as accidents.49
To demonstrate the utility of these notions, Ricci relied once again on
the textual traditions of both China and the West. Thus, on the one
hand, he reproduced a simplified Chinese version of the Arbor Porphyrii
(Wu zonglei tu 物宗類圖 ‘Chart of the types and classes [that is, genera
and species] of things’) in order to show that substance and accidents
allowed for a classification of the phenomenal world that was more
detailed than, and hence superior to, familiar Chinese taxonomies.50
On the other hand, he employed the two terms in an analysis of the
48
Michele Ruggieri (Luo Mingjian 羅明堅), Tianzhu shengjiao shilu 天主聖教實錄
(A true account of the Lord of Heaven and the Holy Doctrine) (1584), reprinted in
Tianzhujiao Dongchuan wenxian xubian 天主教東傳文獻續編 (Sequel to the documents
related to the dissemination of Christianity in China) (Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju,
1966), 755–838; 804–805.
49
Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 21; translation adapted from idem, True Mean-
ing, 109.
50
Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 49. See D’Elia, “Prima introduzione,” 168–169.
According to Ricci, he had to elide the “nine categories” ( jiu yuanzong 九元宗) of
accident from the Arbor because they were “difficult to represent in full on a chart”
(Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 48).
first encounters 33
famous Chinese sophism “[a] white horse is not [a] horse” (baima fei ma
白馬非馬), attributed to the philosopher Gongsun Long:
Let us take a white horse as an illustration. Here there are two things:
whiteness and horse. Horse is substance. Whiteness is an accident, since
even without its whiteness the horse could continue to exist. If there
were no horse, however, the whiteness of the horse could not exist. We
therefore say that it is an accident. When we compare these two [catego-
ries] we find that substance has prior existence and is of value, whereas
accident is secondary and of little consequence. There can only be one
substance in any one thing, but countless accidents.51
Whether Ricci wished this offhand analysis to be read as a serious
attempt to solve a logical riddle that had puzzled Chinese scholars for
centuries is impossible to determine. He appeared convinced, how-
ever, that Aristotelian notions were the best means to clarify human
understanding and that they should therefore be presented as useful
additions to the conceptual vocabulary of late Ming China, if only to
make his audience more receptive to the peculiar shape of his mis-
sionary message.
2. The Jihe yuanben

Although responses to the Tianzhu shiyi were generally friendly, there
are no attestations of Chinese scholars abandoning their inherited con-
ceptual tools in favor of the Aristotelian devices it introduced. Nor did
the text inspire the kind of awe that characterized Chinese reactions to
Ricci’s second major work, the Jihe yuanben 幾何原本, a partial transla-
tion of Christopher Clavius’s (1538–1612) edition of Euclid’s Elements of
Geometry. Together with the distinguished scholar, convert, and Hanlin
academician Xu Guangqi 徐光啟 (1562–1633),52 Ricci completed the
adaptation of the first six of the fifteen books in Clavius’s first Latin
edition of 1574 in 1607.53
51
Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 21; cf. idem, True Meaning, 109. See also Ricci,
Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 58.
52
53
Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi 徐光啟 (trans.), Jihe yuanben 幾何原本 (Elements
of geometry) (Beijing, 1607), reprinted in Tianxue chuhan 天學初函 ( First collection
of heavenly studies), ed. Li Zhizao 李之藻 (Taibei: Taiwan xuesheng shuju, 1965
[1629]), vol. 4, 1921–2522. On the textual history of the Jihe yuanben, see Engelfriet,
Euclid, 290–291.
34 chapter one
The Jihe yuanben was the first and most influential rendition of a
mathematical text compiled in the course of the Jesuit mission. It
introduced a branch of mathematics that had not been named as such
in China, and its structure diverged considerably from Chinese math-
ematical writings. Most important in our context was the novelty of its
style.54 In contrast to traditional treatises, the Jihe yuanben claimed not
to stop at outlining the “computational methods” ( fa 法) for solving
problems but to devote equal attention to “explanations” ( yi 義) of
their underlying “causes” (suoyiran 所以然, again: ‘that by which things
are the way they are’), supplying proofs in addition to solutions.
Although the book undoubtedly aroused lasting interest among Chi-
nese mathematicians,55 the question of how much logical knowledge
Ricci and Xu transmitted in their version of the Elements remains a
contested issue. In accordance with the long-held Western view of
Euclid as a unique model of deductive rigor and logical clarity,56 many
historians of logic have argued that with the Jihe yuanben the com-
plete arsenal of traditional European logic became available in China.57
Their position resonates with Joseph Needham’s general claim that
after 1600 “there cease to be any essential distinctions between world
science and specifically Chinese science,” or, in other words, that
beginning with Jesuit mediation, Chinese and Western knowledge
were seamlessly “fused” into “one universal science.”58
Evidence collected by historians of mathematics suggests otherwise,
at least in the realm of logic. The Jihe yuanben conveyed very little of
the axiomatic-deductive structure and the metamathematical notions
introduced in the Elements. Precisely those aspects said to define the
work’s logical value were downplayed in the Chinese version. One
example was the way in which Ricci and Xu simplified the structure
54
Standaert, Handbook, 742.
55
See the mass of evidence assembled in Engelfriet, Euclid, 289–448.
56
Catherine Jami, “From Clavius to Pardies: The Geometry Transmitted to China
by Jesuits (1607–1723),” in Western Humanistic Culture Presented to China by Jesuit Mis-
sionaries (16th–18th Centuries), ed. Federico Masini (Rome: Institutum Historicum S. I.,
1996), 175–199; 176.
57
See, e.g., Li Kuangwu, Zhongguo luojishi, vol. 4, 8–15; Wen Gongyi and Cui Qing-
tian, Zhongguo luojishi jiaocheng, 271–275. See also Li Yan and Du Shiran, Chinese Math-
ematics: A Concise History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 194–195.
58
Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 3: Mathematics and the Sciences
of the Heavens and the Earth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 437; and
idem, Clerks and Craftsmen in China and the West: Lectures and Addresses on the History of Sci-
ence and Technology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 398.
first encounters 35
of Euclidean proofs in their adaptation. Instead of reproducing all five

or six steps into which individual proofs in the Elements were subdi-
vided following Proclus, the translators arranged the proofs in the Jihe
yuanben in only two subsections comprising fa 法 ‘methods/construc-
tions’ and lun 論 ‘proofs/discussions’ in presentations of problems, and
jie 解 ‘explications’ and lun ‘proofs/discussions’ in the case of theo-
rems.59 Although the notions framing these proofs must have been
unfamiliar to their readers, the translators did not define or explain
them.60 But the technical meanings of the words they chose to render
metamathematical concepts relating to logical operations were cer-
tainly not self-explanatory. For instance, lun 論, the Jihe yuanben’s term
for “proof,” generally referred to any kind of discussion, debate, say-
ing or opinion. In the absence of further clarification, Chinese readers
could hardly be expected to grasp the narrower technical meaning
Xu and Ricci intended to convey.61 The translators further blurred
the understanding of lun by using the word also as a shorthand for
gonglun 公論 (‘general discussion’ but also ‘common saying/opinion’),
their rendition of “axiom.”62 No less problematic was their choice of
fa 法 ‘method’ for “construction” since the term was commonly used
to denote “computational methods” in Chinese arithmetic.63
Although such terminological ambiguities could create misunder-
standings, they should not lead us to dismiss the translation of the Jihe
yuanben as a whole. As the first attempt to adapt European geometry
in Chinese, the work displayed stunning inventiveness and admirable
consistency. Some more fortuitous terms suggested by Xu and Ricci
were found to be so convincing that they instantly took root in the
Chinese lexicon. Most notable in our context was the word jieshuo 界說
‘explanation of boundaries’ for “definition,”64 a loan translation based
on the Latin etymology of definire, which is still in use today as an
alternative to the Japanese-derived early-twentieth-century coinage
59
Ricci and Xu, Jihe yuanben, 1979–1980, 2073–2075, and passim. See Engelfriet,
Euclid, 151–153.
60
Standaert, Handbook, 743. See also Jean-Claude Martzloff, “La compréhension
chinoise des méthodes démonstratives euclidiennes au cours du XVIIe siècle et au début
du XVIIIe,” in Actes du IIe colloque internationale de sinologie. Les rapports entre la Chine et l’Europe
au temps des Lumières (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1980), 125–143; 135.
61
Engelfriet, Euclid, 149–150, 206.
62
Ricci and Xu, Jihe yuanben, 1970–1977, and passim.
63
Engelfriet, Euclid, 206.
64
Ricci and Xu, Jihe yuanben, 1949–1967, 2069–2071, 2113–2120, 2249–2285, and
passim. See Engelfriet, Euclid, 151–153.
36 chapter one
dingyi 定義 ‘determination of the meaning’. Even in this instance, how-

ever, Ricci and Xu opened the door for some uncertainty by using
jie 界 ‘boundary’ or ‘limit’ not only as an abbreviated form of jieshuo
‘definition’, but also as a geometrical term of art denoting the “circum-
ference of a figure” or the “end-point of a line.”65
Any confusion arising from such inconsistencies and blurred distinc-
tions could have been resolved with the help of patient instructors.
But the Jihe yuanben was neither conceived nor used as a textbook.
In consequence, it was read very much like a conventional Chinese
mathematical work and mainly treated as a collection of computa-
tional methods. Like most of their European counterparts, Chinese
readers trained in using such collections tended to dissociate the results
of Euclidean geometry from the details of the proofs. Anticipating or
responding to this practice, the translators, as well as Chinese com-
mentators and editors of later editions of the Jihe yuanben, strove to
make the dense work more accessible by reducing it to its “essential
core” of calculable results, thus further weakening the formal structures
that could have made up its novelty.66 Ming-Qing literary conventions
that valued conciseness above all else in technical and scientific writ-
ing amplified these tendencies. By literary standards, the repetitions
and redundancies required by syllogistic and other forms of reason-
ing employed throughout Clavius’s Latin edition seemed more than
clumsy. Consequently, they were more often than not elided in Xu
and Ricci’s translation and its various offspring.67
Finally, perhaps the strongest argument against the claim that the
Jihe yuanben marked a milestone in the Chinese appropriation of Euro-
pean logic was the fact that the text made no allusion whatsoever to
a discipline named “logic” or “dialectic” or any of its contemporary
functions and uses. Not even in his lengthy preface did Ricci sug-
gest any such reference.68 The mathematical art of the Jihe yuanben,
he argued there, was the foundation of knowledge in many areas of
utmost utility to human society, from the movements of the stars to
65
Ibid., 147–148. See also Jean-Claude Martzloff, A History of Chinese Mathematics
(Berlin: Springer, 1997), 116.
66
Ibid., 112–113.
67
See Jean-Claude Martzloff, “Clavius traduit en chinois,” in Giard, Les jésuites à
la renaissance, 309–322; 313–315. For the syllogistic style of Clavius’s edition, see also
Engelfriet, Euclid, 43–46.
68
Ricci, Li Madou Zhongwen yizhu ji, 343–353. For a full translation, see Engelfriet,
Euclid, 454–464.
first encounters 37
agriculture, medicine, hydraulics, food production, and, above all, mil-

itary defense.69 But he did not imply that this art was significant out-
side the contexts of mathematics, applied science, and technology. The
same applied to other renditions of mathematical works produced in
the course of the Jesuit mission, even though the close relation between
mathematics and logic was recognized in Jesuit education in Europe.70
In seventeenth-century China, however, the link between the two disci-
plines, which is regarded as self-evident today, was not yet established.
3. The Xixue fan

Chinese readers were given the first hint that there existed an inde-
pendent field of study called “logic” that played a crucial role in West-
ern philosophy, science, and education in two brief texts written by
Giulio Aleni in 1623. In his Record of the Places Outside the Jurisdiction
of the Office of Geography (Zhifang waiji 職方外記), a didactic account of
world geography, Aleni summarily listed the subjects taught in Euro-
pean schools. One of these subjects was a science called luorijia 落日
加 (< logica).71 According to Aleni, the discipline he thus introduced
by a phonemic loan was part of a three-year course in “philosophy”
( feilusuofeiya 斐錄所費亞) that all students had to complete in “middle
school” before advancing to the higher faculties. As to the content of
this foreign science, Aleni related only that luorijia “can be translated
as the method to distinguish right/true from wrong/false (bian shifei zhi
fa 辨是非之法).”72
Encouraged by the convert Yang Tingyun 楊廷筠 (1562–1627),73
Aleni composed a more detailed account of the European educational
69
Ibid., 1.
70
See Ugo Baldini, Legem impone subactis. Studi su filosofia e scienza dei Gesuiti in Italia,
1540–1632 (Rome: Bulzioni, 1992), 45–52; and idem, “Die Philosophie und die Wis-
senschaften im Jesuitenorden,” in Die Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts. Band 1: Allgemeine
Themen, Iberische Halbinsel, Italien, ed. Jean-Pierre Schobinger (Basel: Schwabe, 1998),
669–769; 707–711.
71
Giulio Aleni (Ai Rulüe 艾儒略), Zhifang waiji 職方外記 (Record of the places
outside the jurisdiction of the Office of Geography) ( Hangzhou, 1623), reprinted in
Tianxue chuhan, vol. 3, 1269–1496; 1360. On the Zhifang waiji and its impact, see Ber-
nard Hung-Kay Luk, “A Study of Giulio Aleni’s ‘Chih-fang wai chi,’ ” Bulletin of the
School of Oriental and African Studies 40, no. 1 (1977): 58–84; the chapter on education
is discussed in ibid., 70–71.
72
Aleni, Zhifang waiji, 1361.
73
Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 1, 125–138. See also Nicolas Standaert, Yang Tingyun,
Confucian and Christian in Late Ming China: His Life and Thought (Leiden: Brill, 1988).
38 chapter one
system in the same year. This treatise, which was published under the
title General Outline of Western Knowledge (Xixue fan 西學凡), offered the
earliest taxonomy of European knowledge available in Chinese.74 It
also contained the first slightly more significant description of the aims
and content of the Western discipline of luorijia. In general, the Xixue
fan presented a fairly reliable account of the structure of Renaissance
education throughout Europe. Yet the particular features of Aleni’s
portrait of the Western curriculum most closely reflected the stipu-
lations of the Jesuit Ratio studiorum and the organization of the Ital-
ian schools he had attended.75 True to these models, Aleni divided
the subjects of study and examination in Europe into six disciplines
(ke 科): rhetoric or letters (wenke 文科), philosophy (like 理科), medi-
cine ( yike 醫科), law ( fake 法科), canon law ( jiaoke 教科), and theol-
ogy (daoke 道科).76 The study of letters was the necessary propaedeutic
to all higher education. The subdisciplines grouped under this sub-
ject, taught in secondary schools, included the study of “the words of
ancient philosophers” (that is, philology), history, poetry, and rhetoric
proper—the arts of writing and persuasive speech.77 Students advanc-
ing to university then had to complete a three- to four-year course in
philosophy before moving on to study one of the specialized disciplines
of medicine, civil law, canon law, or theology.78
Within this curriculum, luorijia, here transcribed as 落日伽 and
defined as “the way of clear discernment” (mingbian zhi dao 明辯之道),
was studied during the first year of the compulsory course in philoso-
phy. Logic was thus preparing for studies in feixijia 費西伽 ( physics,
explained as ‘the way of investigating the patterns of nature’), taught
during the second year; modafeixijia 默達費西伽 (metaphysics, ‘the
way of investigating what is above nature’), to which the third year
was devoted; and mademadijia 馬得馬第家伽 (mathematics, comprising
74
Nicolas Standaert, “The Classification of Sciences and the Jesuit Mission in Late
Ming China,” in Linked Faiths: Essays on Chinese Religions and Traditional Culture in Honour
of Kristofer Schipper, ed. Jan A. M. De Meyer and Peter M. Engelfriet (Leiden: Brill,
2000), 287–317; 293–298.
75
Menegon, Un solo cielo, 158–159. See also Bernard Hung-Kay Luk, “Aleni Intro-
duces the Western Academic Tradition to Seventeenth Century China. A Study of the
Xixue Fan,” in Lippiello and Malek, “Scholar from the West,” 479–518; 481–487.
76
Giulio Aleni, Xixue fan 西學凡 (General outline of Western knowledge) ( Hang-
zhou, 1623), reprinted in Tianxue chuhan, vol. 1, 1–60; 27–28.
77
Aleni, Xixue fan, 28–30. See also Luk, “Aleni,” 487–492; Standaert, “Classifica-
tion,” 294.
78
Aleni, Xixue fan, 31–33.
first encounters 39
arithmetics, geometry, music, and calendrical studies) as well as edijia

厄第家 (ethics, ‘the science of cultivating one’s personality, managing
the household, and pacifying the realm’), which brought the course to
its close in year four.79
Aleni described each of these five subdisciplines of philosophy in
some detail. In general his accounts more or less faithfully mirrored
Jesuit educational practices. His presentation of logic, however, may
raise questions about the thoroughness of his training in this particular
branch of philosophy or the care with which he composed his sketch.80
Aleni opened his outline with a general statement praising the utility
of luorijia:
Luorijia . . . is aimed at establishing the foundation of all sciences. It dis-
tinguishes between the right and wrong of things and affairs, hollow and
solid, core and surface. Lawyers and theologians must adopt its methods
as their guideline.81
By tying logic to the work of lawyers and theologians, Aleni provided
a correct but somewhat infelicitous context for luorijia since the coun-
terparts of both professions aroused much suspicion in China. He then
explained that courses in logic were subdivided into six parts:
The first is the logical propaedeutic ( yulun 豫論), that is, the explana-
tions ( jie 解) of all terms (mingmu 名目) used in philosophy (lixue 理學).82
79
Ibid., 31–32.
80
In the existing literature, Aleni’s account of logic is either altogether elided (espe-
cially by historians of logic) or treated very briefly. See Pasquale D’Elia, “Le Generalità
sulle Scienze Occidentali di Giulio Aleni,” Rivista degli studi orientali 25 (1950): 58–76;
Bernard Hung-Kay Luk, Thus the Twain Did Meet? The Two Worlds of Giulio Aleni (Ann
Arbor: University Microfilms, 1978 [ Ph.D. diss., Indiana University 1977]), 75–76; Li
Wenchao, China-Mission, 576–580; and Standaert, “Classification,” 294, 304–305. The
only more detailed analysis is Luk, “Aleni,” 493–495. My translations differ consider-
ably from those given in the latter study.
81
Aleni, Xixue fan, 31. Aleni’s definition was repeated almost verbatim in one of
the few other Jesuit works mentioning logic in the seventeenth century. Cf. Alfonso
Vagnone (Gao Yizhi 高一志, 1568/69–1640), Tongyou jiaoyu 童幼教育 (Education of
youths) (1628), reprinted in Xujiahui cangshulou Ming-Qing Tianzhujiao wenxian 徐家匯臧
書樓明清天主教文獻 (Chinese Christian texts of the Ming and Qing periods from
the Zikawei Library), ed. Nicolas Standaert (Zhong Mingdan 鐘鳴旦) et al. (Taibei:
Furen daxue shenxueyuan, 1996), vol. 1, 239–422; 377–378: “Luorejia 落熱加 can be
translated as the way of clear discernment. It establishes the foundations of all sciences
and distinguishes right and wrong, hollow and solid, core and surface. It enlightens
the mind and prevents erroneous judgments with regard to the hidden and subtle in
things and affairs.”
82
Aleni, Xixue fan, 31.
40 chapter one
As taught at the Collegio Romano and other Jesuit schools, the logic
course started indeed with a period of three to four weeks in which
students memorized important logical and philosophical terms. The
drill was considered a necessary preparation for the study of the Aris-
totelian Organon and the relevant commentaries.
The first text of the Organon to be read after the propaedeutic was
Porphyry’s Isagoge, a concise introduction to the Aristotelian Catego-
ries that developed the theory of the five “predicables” (or “common
universals”): genus, species, difference, property, and accident.83 Aleni
introduced this theory without mentioning its textual foundation or
any of the philosophers involved in its formulation:
The second [ part] is the doctrine of the five “universal designations” (wu
gongcheng 五公稱, the five predicables) of all things, that is, the “general
class” (zonglei 宗類, genus) of a thing, such as vegetative, sentient, or ratio-
nal; its “particular class” (benlei 本類, species), such as ox, horse, or man;
its “dividing class” ( fenlei 分類, difference), such as the reason by which
ox, horse, or man are different from one another; “that which belongs
exclusively to a certain class of things” (wulei suo duyou 物類所獨有, prop-
erty), such as humans being able to speak, horses to neigh, birds to
sing, dogs to bark, and lions to roar; and, finally, “that whose having or
not-having leaves the essence of a thing’s class unchanged” (wulei ting suo
youwu wuti ziruo 物類聽所有無物體自若, accident), such as the skills of
a man or the colors of a horse.84
Classification had of course a long history in various branches of Chi-
nese natural philosophy and textual exegesis, so that Aleni could bor-
row the well-established term lei 類 ‘class, kind’ to coin fairly lucid, if
inevitably hybrid terms for his presentation of at least three of the five
predicables. However, since he left the notion “predicable” itself unex-
plained, Chinese readers could probably only learn from this passage
that Western students of logic shared their preoccupation with more
or less refined and convincing taxonomies.
The third subject of the logical curriculum, according to Aleni, was
the doctrine of the “entities of reason” (entia rationis):
The third [ part] is the doctrine of what “exists in reason” (liyou 理有,
the entia rationis), that is, that which is not visibly manifest on the outside
83
For a brief introduction to Porphyry’s Isagoge and the theory of the predicables,
cf. Porphyry the Phoenician, Isagoge, trans. and ed. Edward W. Warren (Toronto: The
Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1975), 9–25.
84
Aleni, Xixue fan, 31–32.
first encounters 41
but exists only in the human intellect (mingwu 明悟), such as, for instance,
ethical maxims.85
It is difficult to determine whether this passage could make any sense
to readers who did not share the pseudo-Platonic assumptions under-
lying the theory of the entia rationis but were used to locating ethical
maxims either in the Confucian canon or in the “innate knowledge”
(liangzhi 良知) with which each individual was endowed by nature. But
Aleni’s reference to this aspect was also puzzling for another reason. As
mentioned above, the entia rationis were a tenet of orthodox Thomism
that was vigorously opposed by the most prominent Jesuit logicians,
Fonseca and Toledo. It is thus not easy to see why Aleni would include
this doctrine in his account. One explanation is that his logical train-
ing at Padua had been fragmentary; another, that he thought the entia
rationis, or the “old logic” (logica vetus) in general, would do more to
enhance the “intellectual flavoring” of luorijia in the eyes of his Chinese
audience than the more discursive “new art” (ars nova).
Aleni moved back to more conventional Jesuit ground, and the
actual sequence of the Organon, with the fourth subject, the Aristotelian
categories, which he introduced again without reference to the texts
by which they were taught:
The fourth [ part] is the doctrine of the “ten types” (shizong 十宗, the cat-
egories), that is, the ten “general storehouses” (zongfu 宗府) of all things
between heaven and earth. The first [category] is “that which can stand
by itself ” (zilizhe 自立者, substance), e.g., heaven, earth, man, or thing.
The second [kind of categories] are those that are “reliant” ( yilaizhe
依賴者, the accidents); these cannot stand by themselves and must thus
rely on something else to be complete [for their existence].
There is only one category for “that which can stand by itself,” while
the “reliants” are divided into nine [categories]: the first is “quantity/
how much” ( jihe 幾何), e.g., foot (chi 尺), inch (cun 寸), one, or ten; the
second is “relation” (xiangjie 相接), e.g., lord, minister, father, or son; the
third is “quality/what like” (hezhuang 何狀), e.g., black, white, cold, hot,
sweet, or bitter; the fourth is “action/acting” (zuowei 作為), e.g., trans-
forming, hurting, walking, or speaking; the fifth is “passion/suffering”
(dishou 抵受), e.g., being transformed or being hurt; the sixth is “time/
when” (heshi 何時), such as day or night, year or age; the seventh is
“place/where” (hesuo 何所), such as village, house, room, or location; the
eighth is “situation/posture” (tishi 體勢), like standing, sitting, hidden, or
85
Ibid., 32.
42 chapter one
leaning to one side; and the ninth is “habit/having” (deyong 得用), e.g.,
wearing a robe or skirt, or acquiring a field or pond.86
Once again Aleni did not offer any explanation of the role that these
“storehouses” played in human understanding. His list, interesting
or curious as it may have appeared in its comprehensiveness, could
therefore only reinforce the impression of luorijia as a science aimed
at systems of classification similar to the elaborate sets of correlations
over which Chinese philosophers had obsessed at least since the sec-
ond century BC.
The originality of occidental logic was further clouded by the fact
that Aleni offered only very brief comments on the last two subjects
mentioned in his survey, namely the “art of discussion” (ars disserendi)
and the “modes of knowing” (modi sciendi). With these parts of the
science, he eventually could have left behind the narrow realm of
the Categories and their interpretation and pointed toward what were
even in his time considered as the main instruments of logic. In Jesuit
works, the ars disserendi referred to the art of argumentation, taken to
encompass the theories of propositions, syllogisms, and fallacies, while
the modi sciendi related to the three ways of knowing: defining, divid-
ing, and reasoning.87 Aleni, however, brushed over these theories that
were taught in the remaining parts of the Organon and supplied merely
vague references to their purported functions:
The fifth [ part] is the doctrine of the “science of discussion” (bianxue
辯學, the ars disserendi), that is, the correct method to distinguish right
and wrong, merit and demerit.
The sixth is the doctrine of the “science of knowing” (zhixue 知學, the
modi sciendi), that is, the theory of the distinction between actual knowl-
edge, memories or guessing, and error.88
86
Ibid., 32–33. Aleni’s explanations anticipate in a striking manner efforts by com-
parative philosophers to understand the ways in which the Aristotelian categories
could be expressed in classical Chinese. See, e.g., Angus C. Graham, “Relating Cat-
egories to Question Forms in Pre-Han Chinese Thought,” in idem, Studies in Chinese
Philosophy and Philosophical Literature (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press,
1990), 360–411; and Jean-Paul Reding, “Greek and Chinese Categories,” in idem,
Comparative Essays in Early Greek and Chinese Rational Thinking (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004),
65–92.
87
Gabriel Nuchelmans, “Logic in the Seventeenth Century: Preliminary Remarks
and the Constituents of the Proposition,” in The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century
Philosophy, ed. Daniel Garber and Michael Ayers (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998), 103–117; 105–107; and Risse, Logik der Neuzeit, 363.
88
Aleni, Xixue fan, 33. Masini erroneously retranslates bianxue as “logic” and zhixue
as “reasoning”; cf. Masini, “Aleni,” 546, 553.
first encounters 43
The functions Aleni attributed to the ars disserendi and the modi sciendi
must have appeared as perfectly noble causes to Chinese literati who
were driven by similar concerns in their strife for “solid knowledge”
(shixue 實學). Without information as to how these functions were per-
formed, however, readers had no way to assess whether the theories
and practices covered by these foreign labels could have made use-
ful additions to their customary habits of inference, disputation, and
proof.
Brief and fragmentary as it was, Aleni’s sketch failed to arouse any
noticeable Chinese interest in the alien science of luorijia. The reason
I discussed it in some detail is that it remained the sole more or less
accessible account of European logic in the Chinese language until the
late nineteenth century.89 Yet, it was by no means the final word of the
seventeenth-century Jesuits on the subject.
4. Logic as the Patterns of Names
In 1620, Nicolas Trigault returned to China from a seven-year trip

to Europe with a sizeable collection of books in various Western lan-
guages.90 Prior to his departure, Niccolò Longobardo (Long Huamin
龍華民, 1559–1654), the superior of the mission, had commissioned
the young father with, among other tasks, assembling a substantial
library for the Jesuit headquarters in Beijing and stations in the prov-
inces.91 One of the goals of this challenging project was to facilitate
89
In contrast to the Zhifang waiji, Aleni’s Xixue fan was not included in the impe-
rially-sponsored Siku quanshu 四庫全書 (Collected writings of the Four Treasuries).
It remained accessible in the Tianxue chuhan 天學初函 ( First collection of heavenly
studies), a selection of Christian texts first printed in 1629. See Chen Minsun, “T’ien-
hsüeh ch’u-han and Hsi-hsüeh fan: The Common Bond between Li Chih-tsao and Giulio
Aleni,” in Lippiello and Malek, “Scholar from the West,” 519–525.
90
Traditional accounts relate that Trigault brought “some 7,000” books to China,
a figure still repeated occasionally; cf. Benjamin A. Elman, On Their Own Terms: Science
in China, 1550–1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005), 94. Recent
studies, however, have shown this number to be widely inflated and perhaps used
merely rhetorically. More cautious estimates credit Trigault with transporting more
than 800 volumes, a still impressive amount. See Rui Manuel Loureiro, Na Companhia
dos Livros: Manuscritos e Impressos nas Missões Jesuítas da Ásia Oriental (1540–1620) (Cama-
rate: Fundação Oriente, 2004), 314–328.
91
Nicolas Standaert, “The Transmission of Renaissance Culture in Seventeenth-
Century China,” Renaissance Studies 17, no. 3 (2003): 367–391; 367. On Longobardo
and the Jesuit “library strategy” in China, see also Noël Golvers, “The Circulation
of Western Books from Europe to the Jesuit Mission in China (ca. 1650–ca. 1750),”
Daxiyangguo: Revista Portuguesa de Estudos Asiaticos 14 (2009): 129–148; 138–139.
44 chapter one
more systematic translations of Jesuit-Aristotelian philosophy. Having

secured donations of books and funds from the pope and the Jesuit
superior general in Rome, Trigault visited several centers of seven-
teenth-century book production and trade, including Lyon, Frankfurt,
and Cologne, and purchased a broad variety of philosophical, reli-
gious, scientific, and technological treatises on behalf of his confrères
in China.92 Among these works were eight volumes of commentary on
Aristotle compiled at the University of Coimbra between 1592 and
1606 that had become the most popular philosophical textbooks in
Jesuit colleges throughout Europe.93 It was this series, known collec-
tively as the Cursus Collegii Conimbricensis, that a small group of mission-
aries and converts set out to translate after Trigault’s return in order
to revitalize the Jesuit cause among Chinese literati in the aftermath
of the anti-Christian persecutions of the years 1616–1617 and in view
of sustained official distrust.94
Their earliest efforts were devoted to psychology. In 1624, Xu
Guangqi and Francisco Sambiasi (Bi Fangji 畢方濟, 1582–1649)95
completed a brief summary of the opening chapters of In tres libros De
anima (1595) under the title A Spoonful of Words on the Soul (Lingyan lishao
靈言蠡勺).96 Concurrently, Giulio Aleni worked on a more substan-
tial adaptation of the same book and parts of Fonseca’s commentary
on Aristotle’s Parva naturalia.97 Selections of the commentaries on the
92
Standaert, “Transmission,” 377–382. See also Loureiro, Na Companhia dos Livros,
324–328.
93
On the Cursus Collegii Conimbricensis and its editors, see José Sebastião da Silva
Dias, “O Cânone Filosófico Conimbricense (1592–1606),” Cultura—História e Filosofia
4 (1985): 257–370. See also Charles H. Lohr, “Renaissance Latin Aristotle Com-
mentaries, Authors C,” Renaissance Quarterly 28 (1975): 689–741; 717–719; Stegmüller,
Filosofia, 95–99; and John O. Riedl, A Catalogue of Renaissance Philosophers (1350–1650)
( Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1973 [1940]), 105–107.
94
Henri Bernard, Sagesse chinoise et philosophie chrétienne. Essais sur leur relation historique
(Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1951 [1935]), 122.
95
96
For a complete retranslation and analysis of this work, see Isabelle Duceux, La
introducción del aristotelismo en China a través del De anima: Siglos XVI–XVII (México: El
Colegio de México, 2009). On the Lingyan lishao and other translations from the Conim-
bricenses see also H[enri] Verhaeren, “Aristote en Chine,” Bulletin Catholique de Pékin 264
(August 1935): 417–429; 419–422; and Standaert, “Transmission,” 395–397.
97
The complete result of Aleni’s labors was published only in 1646. See Giulio
Aleni, Xingxue cushu 性學觕述 (A coarse description of the science of human nature)
(1646), reprinted in Yesuhui Luoma dang’anguan Ming-Qing Tianzhujiao wenxian 耶穌會羅
馬檔案館明清天主教文獻 (Chinese Christian texts of the Ming and Qing periods
from the Roman Archives of the Society of Jesus), ed. Nicolas Standaert (Zhong Ming-
dan 鐘鳴旦) and Adrian Dudink (Du Dingke 杜鼎克) (Taibei: Taipei Ricci Institute,
first encounters 45
Morale a Nicomachia were included in Alfonso Vagnone’s (Gao Yizhi

高一志, 1568–1640)98 Western Knowledge on Personal Cultivation (Xiushen
Xixue 修身西學, ca. 1631).99 The same author rendered passages from
the Coimbra versions of De coelo et mundo and the Meteora in his Treatise
on the Heavens (Kongji gezhi 空際格致, 1633).100 The commentary on De
coelo also served as the basis for the Interpretation of the Universe ( Huanyou
quan 寰有詮, 1628), a collaborative adaptation by Francisco Furtado
and the Chinese convert Li Zhizao 李之藻 (1565–1630),101 one of the
most accomplished pairs of translators in that period.102 After finishing
this first project, Li and Furtado decided to continue their collabora-
tion with perhaps the most challenging of the Coimbran volumes: the
commentary on Aristotle’s Organon.
1. The Textual Record

The Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis e Societate Iesu: In universam dialecti-
cam Aristotelis was a revised and expanded version of Pedro da Fonseca’s
above-mentioned Institutionum dialecticarum libri octo. The monumental
work, comprising 1,332 folio pages in two volumes, was edited by
Sebastian da Couto, who added an introductory chapter defining the
place of logic among the various branches of philosophy. Couto’s
2002), vol. 6, 45–378. For not always convincing analyses, cf. Qiong Zhang, “Trans-
lation,” 369–376; and Vincent Shen, “From Aristotle’s De Anima to Xia Dacheng’s
Xingshuo,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 32, no. 4 (2005): 575–596.
98
99
Verhaeren, “Aristote,” 427–429.
100
101
102
See Verhaeren, “Aristote,” 422–425; and Fang Hao 方豪, Li Zhizao yanjiu 李之
藻研究 (A study of Li Zhizao) (Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguan, 1966), 103–116.
On Li Zhizao’s earlier translations, see ibid., 97–102; Li and Du, Mathematics, 196–
201; Qi Han, “F. Furtado (1587–1653) S.J. and His Chinese Translation of Aristotle’s
Cosmology,” in História das Ciências Matemáticas. Portugal e o Oriente (Camarate: Funda-
ção Oriente, 2000), 169–179; as well as Feng Jinrong 馮錦榮 [Fung Kam-Wing],
“Mingmo Qingchu zhishifenzi dui Yalishiduode ziran zhexue de yanjiu—yi Yesuhui-
shi Fu Fanji yu Li Zhizao heyi de ‘Huanyou quan’ wei zhongxin” 明末清初知識份子
對亞里士多德自然哲學的研究—以耶穌會士傅汎際與李之藻合譯的《寰有詮》
為中心 (Chinese intellectuals’ studies of Aristotle’s natural philosophy in the late Ming
and early Qing—Focusing on F. Furtado and Li Zhizao’s translation Huanyou quan), in
Shijie Huaren kexueshi xueshu yantaohui wenji (Proceedings of the International Symposium
on the Chinese History of Science), ed. Wu Jiali 吳嘉麗 and Zhou Xianghua 周湘華
(Taibei: Danda lishixi huaxuexi, 1991), 379–388; and idem, “Christopher Clavius and
Li Zhizao,” in The Spread of the Scientific Revolution in the European Periphery, Latin America
and East Asia, ed. Celina A. Lértoza, Efthymios Nicolaïdis, and Jan Vandersmissen
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), 147–158.
46 chapter one
manuscript was completed in 1597103 and first printed in Coimbra and

Cologne in 1606.104 In all likelihood Furtado had become acquainted
with the text during his studies at Coimbra in the early 1610s.105 In
universam dialecticam was composed throughout in the modus quaestionis: it
was designed to introduce students to the Organon through systematic
discussions of questions arising from diverse interpretations of selected
passages. The emphasis on such discussions led to an unbalanced
treatment of the Organon. In order to set their views apart from the
logica vetus, Fonseca and Couto devoted many questions to criticisms
of Thomistic ideas about the ontological underpinnings of the Aris-
totelian Categories, while treating the less controversial Analytics, which
contained aspects of logic that are more relevant from a modern per-
spective, relatively briefly.106 Nonetheless, as its many editions attest,107
the volume was seen to offer a clear and comprehensive introduction
to the discipline in contemporary Europe and it was therefore cer-
tainly a worthy choice for the Jesuit effort.108
As in their rendition of the Interpretation of the Universe, Li Zhizao and
his European counterpart Furtado approached the translation in the
tried and tested manner of Jesuit—and in earlier times Buddhist—team-
translation.109 Furtado, who had studied the Chinese language with Li
for some years after his arrival on the Mainland, orally “translated
the meaning” ( yiyi 譯意) of the Latin text; Li’s much more complex
task was to put this meaning into “comprehensible words” (daci 達辭).110
They began their effort in 1627 and continued until November 1629,
103
Stegmüller, Filosofia, 90. See also Alfredo Dinis, “Tradição e Transição no Curso
Conimbricense,” Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 47 (1991): 535–560.
104
Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis e Societate Iesu: In universam dialecticam Aristotelis
(Cologne: Bernardus Gualtheri, 1607 [1606]), reprinted with a preface by Wilhelm
Risse ( Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1976). The Cologne edition of 1611, on which Fur-
tado and Li based their translation, is apparently identical with this text. See W. Risse,
“Vorwort,” in ibid., 1–4.
105
Brockey, Journey to the East, 211–214.
106
Risse, Logik der Neuzeit, 373–378.
107
See Wilhelm Risse, Bibliographia logica. Verzeichnis der Druckschriften zur Logik mit
Angabe ihrer Fundorte. Band 1: 1472–1800 ( Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1965), 108–129.
108
Nuchelmans, “Logic,” 103–104.
109
Walter Fuchs, “Zur technischen Organisation der Übersetzungen buddhistischer
Schriften ins Chinesische,” Asia Major 6 (1930): 84–103.
110
Li Zhizao 李之藻 and Francisco Furtado ( Fu Fanji 傅汎際), Mingli tan 名理探
(De Logica), 2 vols. (Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguan, 1965 [1631/1639]), 1. This
text is a reprint of the edition Xu Zongze prepared for the Commercial Press in
1931. It is more reliable than the version published in simplified characters in Beijing
in 1959.
first encounters 47
when Li was summoned from Hangzhou to the capital Beijing where

he died in 1630.111 According to Li’s son, Li Cibin 李次霦, the dif-
ficulty of the text, combined with his father’s failing health, turned
the effort into a veritable ordeal.112 Li himself, who lost vision in one
of his eyes in the course of the project, admitted that the prose of the
Conimbricenses was so “rarefied” (xiongjue 敻絕) that he frequently “put
down his brush” in resignation.113
The textual problems surrounding the Mingli tan 名理探 (De logica,
or literally ‘The investigation of the patterns of names’), as Li and
Furtado called their version of In universam dialecticam, are considerable.
The standard reprint, edited by Xu Zongze 徐宗澤 in 1931, contains
ten juan ‘scrolls’. The first five of these, entitled “The five Universals”
(Wu gong 五公) or “The Five Predicables” (Wu gongcheng 五公稱),
comprise Li and Furtado’s rendition of Couto’s general introduction
and the commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge;114 the remaining five juan,
titled “The Ten Categories” (Shi lun 十倫), entail their adaptation of
the Coimbra commentary on De categoriae.115 In addition, two prefaces
have been preserved. The first, by Li Tianjing 李天經 (1579–1660?),116
a Christian convert who served as director of the Imperial Board of
Astronomy at the time of writing, is dated 1636; the second by Li
Cibin dates from 1639.
Original copies of the work are exceedingly rare. In China, only
one manuscript copy of the first five juan has survived in the Jesuit
library at Zikawei, now incorporated into the Shanghai Library. The
most complete printed version, comprising ten juan, is held at the Bib-
liothèque Nationale in Paris.117 Further copies are located in Rome at
111
Fang Hao, Li Zhizao, 123–124. See also Gong Yingyan 龔纓晏 and Ma Qiong
馬琼, “Guanyu Li Zhizao shengping shiji de xin shiliao” 關於李之藻生平事跡的新
史料 (New historical materials on Li Zhizao’s life and achievements), Zhejiang daxue
xuebao 38, no. 3 (2008): 89–97; 94–95.
112
Li Cibin 李次霦, “You xu” 又序 (Second preface), in Li and Furtado, Mingli
tan, 7–8.
113
Li Zhizao, “Yi Huanyou quan xu” 譯寰有詮序 (Translator’s preface to the
Huanyou quan) (1628), reprinted in Xu Zongze 徐宗澤, Ming-Qing jian Yesuhuishi yizhu
tiyao 明清間耶穌會士譯著提要 (Abstracts of Jesuit translations and original works
from the Ming and Qing period) (Taibei: Zhonghua shuju, 1958), 198–200; 199.
114
In universam dialecticam, vol. 1, 1–296.
115
Ibid., 297–560.
116
117
Fonds Courant, no. 3413 “Mingli tan,” juan 1–5; no. 3414 “Mingli tan: Shi lun,”
juan 1–5.
48 chapter one
the Biblioteca Nazionale,118 the Vatican Library,119 and the Roman

Archives of the Society of Jesus.120 None of these editions states the
year of printing. Li Cibin related in his preface that the first five juan
were printed at Hangzhou “after [my father] had departed for the
capital in the winter of 1630,”121 most probably in 1631 but certainly
no later than 1636. The ten-juan edition that included the two pref-
aces was printed between 1639, the date of Li Cibin’s preface, and
1641, when the text was mentioned by Alvaro Semedo (Zeng Dezhao
曾德昭, 1585–1658) in his Relação da propagação da fe no reyno da China
e outros adjacentes.122
Yet, in their three years of shared torment, Li and Furtado appar-
ently managed to translate a larger portion of In universam dialecticam
than the ten printed scrolls. Both prefaces claimed that they rendered
“more than ten juan.”123 Marginal notes found on the Latin original
used by Li and Furtado—which was held until 1949 in the Beitang
Library in Beijing but is now lost—indicate that the translators had
divided their text of departure into five “treatises” (duan 端 or lun 論)
consisting each of five juan.124 The ten printed juan would thus have to
be taken as treatises one and two. This is confirmed by notes at the
end of these two sections announcing that “treatises 2–5 [or “3–5”]
will be printed later.”125 According to this structure, the five juan of
their third treatise were reserved for the commentary on Aristotle’s
Analytica priora, and the ten juan of treatises four and five for the discus-
sion of the Analytica posteriora. The sections of the Latin text devoted
118
Mss. Orientali 261/1–5 [72 C 296/1–5]: “Mingli tan: Wu gong,” juan 1–5; 72 B
314/1–5: prefaces by Li Tianjing and Li Cibin; “Mingli tan: Wu cheng,” juan 1–4;
plus “Mingli tan: Shi lun,” juan 5, erroneously bound with this part; 72 B 315/1–4:
“Mingli tan: Shilun,” juan 1–4.
119
Borg. Cin. 231, 1º–9º, encompassing the same nine juan as the copies in the
Biblioteca Nazionale.
120
ARSI Japonica-Sinica II, 1, comprising “Mingli tan: Wu gongcheng,” juan 2–5;
“Mingli tan: Shilun,” juan 1–5; prefaces by Li Tianjing and Li Cibin. See Albert Chan,
Chinese Books and Documents in the Jesuit Archives in Rome: A Descriptive Catalogue, Japonica-
Sinica I–IV (Armonk and London: M.E. Sharpe, 2002), 283–284.
121
Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 8.
122
Fang Hao 方豪, “ ‘Mingli tan’ yike juanshu kao”「名理探」譯刻卷數考 (A
note on the number of translated and printed chapters of the Mingli tan), in idem,
Fang Hao liushi ziding gao 方豪六十自定搞 (Drafts edited by Fang Hao himself at
sixty) (Taibei: Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguan, 1969), 1884–1886; 1884. See also idem,
Li Zhizao, 125.
123
Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 3, 8.
124
Verhaeren, “Aristote,” 427; Fang Hao, Li Zhizao, 128–129.
125
Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 19, 288.
first encounters 49
to Aristotle’s Peri hermeneias (De interpretatione), which deal with signs

as well as sentences and their constituent elements, bear no notes at
all, suggesting that Li and Furtado postponed the translation of this
part of the Organon. About the reasons for this decision we can only
speculate. One explanation, anticipating a pattern emerging in later
adaptations of logical texts—namely, the tendency to elide or abbre-
viate sections with strong grammatical import—would be that they
deemed the adaptation of discussions of sentence structures based on
the model of Greek and Latin too daunting a task to complete in
Chinese. Yet, as we shall see below, they met this challenge in quite
an ingenious manner in their version of the Analytica priora. A second
explanation might be that they were not sure what to make of remarks
in the Coimbran commentary on De interpretatione about the nature
of the Chinese script. In an article entitled “Whether Writing Signi-
fies Words, and How?” the Conimbricenses present Sinitic script as an
example of “hieroglyphic writings” that “immediately signify things
without indicating any words” and thus “have a peculiar signification
which is intrinsic to themselves.” Chinese characters in this view are
“not properly writings, but rather certain figures” like “the numbers of
the arithmeticians.”126 It would have been difficult for Li and Furtado
to transmit this assessment without qualifications, if only because their
own labors so clearly disproved its underlying assumption of incom-
mensurability between European and Chinese thought. In any event,
all extant evidence indicates that Li and Furtado had started to work
on no more than twenty-five juan of In universam dialecticam.127
Even in its present, incomplete form the Mingli tan was a rare
achievement. Its ten printed juan encompassed more than 250,000
characters, filling almost six hundred pages in the standard reprint. An
126
In universam dialecticam, vol. 2, 47–48. Translations follow John P. Doyle, The
Conimbricenses: Some Questions on Signs (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2001),
118–119.
127
Xu Zongze 徐宗澤, “ ‘Mingli tan’ zhi ba”《名理探》之跋 (Postface to the
Mingli tan), in Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 579–587; 581–582. The more audacious
claim, put forward in Fang Hao, “Juanshu kao,” and repeated in Standaert, Handbook;
and Chan, Chinese Books, that Li and Furtado completed 30 juan and thus a translation
of the entire work, including De interpretatione, is based solely on a remark in Li Cibin’s
preface stating that “as a book the investigation of the patterns of names comprises
30 juan.” It is not clear, however, whether this figure refers to the original or the
translation. See Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 8. As we shall see below, five of the fifteen
unpublished juan—those devoted to the Analytica priora—have been preserved in the
anthology Qionglixue 窮理學 (Cursus philosophicus).
50 chapter one
exhaustive autopsy of this monumental work is thus beyond the scope

of this chapter. In the following, I shall only highlight a number of
aspects pertinent to the question of the degree to which the Mingli tan
contributed to the expansion of China’s terminological repertoire and
the building of conceptual bridges that may have made the discovery
of European logic and its Chinese counterpart possible.
2. Style and Terminology

Even though the Mingli tan did not follow In universam dialecticam sentence
by sentence, the translation was generally faithful to the main argu-
ments put forward in the commentary and the quaestiones. Omissions,
or rather abbreviations, mainly concerned foreign names, polemical
remarks, and historical details. As in their translation of the Interpretation
of the Universe, Li Zhizao and Furtado carefully reproduced the com-
plex structure of the Coimbran text. Quotations from Porphyry and
Aristotle, which were set in italics in In universam dialecticam, were
marked by the head-word “ancient” (gu 古, typeset within a circle);
the commentary was introduced by the head-word “explanation” ( jie
解). Quaestiones were rendered as “discussions” (bian 辯); their subsec-
tions, or articuli, were called “branches” (zhi 支). Other terms used in
structuring the text were “someone says” (huoyue 或曰) for objectio; “we
explain it as . . .” (shizhi yue 釋之曰) for solutio; and “the correct argu-
ment is” (zhenglun yun 正論云) for vera solutione.128
The style of the translation adapted the text as much as possible
to Chinese literary conventions. Direct quotations from Porphyry or
Aristotle, marked as “ancient,” were rendered wherever possible in
rhythmic phrases of equal length in order to give them a “classical”
and hence more dignified flavor. The commentary and the quaestiones
were translated in less restricted fashion. Here the ornate and at times
verbose prose of the original, teeming with parentheses, ironic com-
ments, and sarcastic asides, was abandoned in favor of conciseness and
perspicuity. As in the Jihe yuanben, syllogistic arguments were reduced
to their propositional contents at the expense of formal validity. Diver-
gent positions on contested issues were often detached from their
foreign contexts and cited without attribution in dehistoricized enu-
merations summarizing the most significant differences. This strategy
128
Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 39–42, 69, 113, and passim.
first encounters 51
sacrificed a layer of historical information for clarity of exposition.

Judged by literary criteria alone, the accommodation of In universam
dialecticam to late Ming textual practices would therefore seem like an
indisputable success.129
The literary form of the Mingli tan can thus not be held respon-
sible that the work remained one of the most challenging texts in
the history of Chinese philosophical literature. The difficulty, rather,
lay in the complex conceptual structure of the Latin original that Li
Zhizao did his best to adapt by a “purpose-built, forbiddingly technical
terminology.”130 The most striking feature of this terminology, which
is of special interest to us since it was the earliest systematic effort to
represent European logic in Chinese, was that it displayed no attempt
on Li’s part to link logical terms with established Chinese notions. In
marked contrast to his adaptations of mathematical and astronomical
texts and the much emulated Jihe yuanben, all of which drew exten-
sively on indigenous terms and introduced only a limited number of
neologisms,131 the Mingli tan bristled with hundreds of new terms.
In the sparse literature on the Mingli tan, there has been some confu-
sion about the features and quality of this novel terminology.132 One
recurrent misjudgment holds that Li Zhizao and Furtado predomi-
nantly used phonemic loans to introduce unfamiliar Western notions.133
This erroneous impression is obviously derived from a superficial
perusal of the book’s first chapter. In their introductory discussion of
129
For a different assessment, see Robert Wardy, Aristotle in China: Language, Catego-
ries, and Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 82–84.
130
Ibid., 86.
131
For a list of the new terms coined in the Jihe yuanben, see Engelfriet, Euclid,
283–285.
132
The best discussions remain Fukazawa Sukeo 深沢助雄, “ ‘Meiri tan’ no yakugyō
ni tsuite”「名理探」の訳業について (On the translation of the Mingli tan), Chūgoku—
Shakai to bunka 1 (1986): 20–38; and Xu Guangtai 徐光太 [Hsu Kuang-tai], “Mingmo
xifang ‘Fanchoulun’ zhongyao yuci de chuanru yu fanyi: Cong Li Madou ‘Tian-
zhu shiyi’ dao ‘Mingli tan’ ” 明末西方《範疇論》重要語詞的傳入與翻譯：從利
瑪竇《天主實義》到《名理探》(The late Ming transmission and translation of
some important Western terms related to the Categories: From Matteo Ricci’s The
True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven to the Mingli tan), Qinghua xuebao, n.s., 35, no. 2
(2005): 245–281. See also Cao Jiesheng 曹杰生, “Lüelun ‘Mingli tan’ de fanyi ji qi
yingxiang” 略論《名理探》的翻譯及其影響 (A brief discussion of the translation
and influence of the Mingli tan), in Zhongguo luojishi yanjiu 中國邏輯史研究 (Studies
in the history of Chinese logic) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1982),
285–302; 297–299.
133
Cf., e.g., Martzloff, History, 115–116.
52 chapter one
the disciplinary matrix organizing Western knowledge,134 the transla-

tors did indeed offer transcriptions for the Latin designations of the
European sciences. Yet, even these were without exception accom-
panied by loan translations based on the etymologies of their Latin
models or brief explanations of their meanings (see Table 1.1, items
1–22). In the further course of the work, only fifteen technical notions
were rendered by phonemic loans. In most instances, such as xilushi-
simu 細錄世斯模 or xiluoshisimu 細落世斯模 ‘syllogism’, yabeidu 亞備
度 ‘habitus’, yideya 意得亞 ‘idea’, eshengxiya 額生細亞 ‘essence’, or suxi-
dengjiya 素細鄧際亞 ‘substance’ (items 23–27; see also 28–32),135 the
transcriptions were apparently offered for purposes of reference, much
in the same manner as the titles of Aristotle’s works were presented as
Jiatewoliya 加得我利亞 (De categoriae), Boli e’ermoniya 伯利額爾默尼亞
(Peri hermeneias), Yanalidijia 亞納利第加 (Analytica) and Dubijia 篤比加
(Topica).136 Only in four cases—yanaluojia 亞納落加 ‘analogy’, guanwu-
nienxiya 觀勿尼恩西亞 convenientia (‘agreement’), xinuoduoge 細搦多格
‘synecdoche’, and denuominadiwu 得諾靡納第勿 denominativus (‘formed
by derivation’) (items 33–36)137—did they seem to indicate that Li
Zhizao gave in to the alterity of his European terms of departure.
However, these latter notions were in no way central to the Mingli tan’s
argument, and they were used so rarely that they hardly affected the
readability of the work.
Another statement about the book’s terminology that needs to be
qualified is the claim that Li Zhizao’s coinages were to a large extent
inspired by the Chinese Buddhist lexicon.138 A few such inspirations
may be detectable in terms used to render metaphysical and ontologi-
cal notions such as “being” (ens, rendered by you 有 or youyezhe 有也者,
nominalized forms of the verb ‘to have, exist’), “substance” (translated
as ziliti 自立體 ‘bodies standing by themselves’ or ben zizai 本自在
‘something existing of and by itself ’) and “accident” ( yilaizhe 衣賴者
‘something that is reliant’), or in the use of the suffix -shi 識 ‘conscious
mental function’ (from Sanskrit vijñāna) in terms denoting the powers of
the mind, e.g., xiangxingshi 想形識 ‘imagination’. In the narrow realm
of logic, however, there were no unequivocally Buddhist influences. In
134
Standaert, “Classification,” 290–293.
135
Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 29 and 35, 3, 45, 52, and 165.
136
Ibid., 289–291.
137
Ibid., 52 and 291, 61 and 106, 267, and 291.
138
Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 165. See also Michael Friedrich’s review of
Wardy, Aristotle, in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 84 (2002): 345–352; 351.
first encounters 53
Table 1.1: Phonemic Loans in the Mingli tan (1631/1639)

Hanzi Hanyu pinyin Original term Translated / Explained as . . .
1 絡日伽 luorijia logica bianyi 辨藝, art of debating

2 額勒瑪第加 elemadijia grammatica tanyi 談藝 (or 譚藝), art of speech
3 勒讀理加 ledulijia rhetorica wenyi 文藝, art of writing
4 伊斯多利加 yisiduolijia historia shi 史, historiography
5 博厄第加 boedijia poetica shi 詩, poetry
6 厄第加 edijia ethica keji 克己, overcoming selfishness
7 額各諾靡亞 egenuomiya oeconomica zhijia 治家, managing the household
8 博利第加 bolidijia politica zhishi 治世, regulating the world
9 斐西加 feixijia physica xingxingxue 形性學, science of physical nature
10 瑪得瑪第加 mademadijia mathematica shenxingxue 審性學, science examining forms
11 陡祿日亞 douluriya theologia chaoxingxue 超性學, science of that which
transcends human nature
12 默第際納 modijina medicina yixue 醫學, science of medicine
13 日阿默第亞 riamodiya geometria liangfa 量法, methods of measurement
14 亞利默第加 yalimodijia arithmetica suanfa 算法, methods of calculation
15 百斯伯第襪 baisibodiwa perspectiva shiyi 視藝, art of vision
16 亞斯多落日亞 yasiduoluoriya astrologia xingyi 星藝, art of celestial bodies
17 慕細加 muxijia musica yueyi 樂藝, art of music
18 閣斯睦加費亞 gesimujiafeiya cosmographia zhu hua tiandi zhi quantu 主畫天地之全圖,
focuses on drawing comprehensive maps
of heaven and earth
19 入沃加費亞 ruwujiafeiya geographia zhu hua quandi zhi tu 主畫全地之圖, focuses
on drawing maps of the earth
20 獨博加費亞 dubojiafeiya topographia zhu hua geguo zhi tu 主畫各國之圖, focuses
on drawing maps of single countries
21 默達費西加 modafeixijia metaphysica chaoxingxue 超形學, science of that which
transcends physical nature
22 第亞勒第加 diyaledijia dialectica shu liangke zhi mingli lun 屬兩可之名理論,
logic of contingency
23 細錄世斯模 xilushisimu syllogismus tuibian zhi lun 推辨之論, theory of inference
（細絡世斯模） (xiluoshisimu)
24 亞備度 yabeidu habitus xishu 習熟, to be familiar with
25 意得亞 yideya idea yuanze 元則, original standard
26 額生細亞 eshengxiya essentia benyuan 本元, proper origin
27 素細鄧際亞 suxidengjiya substantia ben zizai 本自在, existing of and by itself
28 因額西（細） yin’exidengjiya in existentia xianzai 現在, present
鄧際亞
29 衣鄧第大得 yidengdidade identitate tong ye, he ye 同也合也, identical, together
30 悟尼勿加 wuniwujia univocal tongming tongyi 同名同義, same name, same
（悟尼伏加） (wunifujia) meaning
31 額計勿加 ediwujia aequivoca tongming qiyi 同名歧義, same name, different
meaning
32 凡達細亞 fandaxiya phantasia xingxiangshi 形想識, imagination
33 亞納落加 yanaluojia analogia
（亞納落日亞） ( yanaluoriya)
34 觀勿尼恩西亞 guanwunienxiya convenientia
35 細搦多格 xinuoduoge synecdoche
36 得諾靡納第勿 denuominadiwu denominativus
54 chapter one
particular, Li Zhizao did not seem to borrow any terms from the lexi-
con of yinming 因明, that is, Chinese Buddhist theories of reasoning.139
If Li was aware of the rare yinming literature, which is not impossible
in view of the modest revival of Buddhist scholasticism during the late
Ming,140 he failed to recognize compelling similarities between West-
ern and Chinese Buddhist logic, or at least none that were so obvious
that he could ignore them only at his own peril.141
There is also no sign that Li Zhizao tried to accommodate technical
terms from In universam dialecticam to the lexicon of the texts that are
today considered as key documents of China’s native logical tradition.
Not even in sections discussing the relation between language and real-
ity, the central theme of “Chinese logic,” did Li draw on the lexicon
of the “Mohist Canons,” Xunzi, the School of Names, or its offspring.142
There is, of course, more than one explanation for this fact. Perhaps
Li wanted to avoid the impression that the theories taught in the Mingli
tan bore any resemblance to noncanonical doctrines. However, it is
equally likely that he simply did not recognize affinities that appear
natural only as the result of later discoveries.
This suggestion does not imply that Li did not appropriate any
contemporary or classical terms for technical notions in his rendi-
tion, or that the Chinese lexicon did not provide any words denoting
logical operations and the mechanics of argumentation. One obvious
counterexample is the term, or rather the cluster of terms, Li used to
translate the word “logic” itself. The expression mingli 名理, ‘names
and patterns’ or ‘the patterns of names’, which was at the core of
139
Uwe Frankenhauser, “Wörterbuch zur chinesischen Logik. Unter besonderer
Berücksichtigung der Logiken der Tang-Zeit” (unpublished manuscript, University of
Göttingen, 1996).
140
See Timothy Brook, Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society
in Late-Ming China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993), 181–184 and
passim. See also Shi Shengyan 釋聖嚴, Mingmo fojiao yanjiu 明末佛教研究 (Studies of
Buddhism in the Late Ming) (Taibei: Dongchu chubanshe, 1988), 211–214.
141
Nor is there any indication that the Chan-Buddhist monks who composed yin-
ming inferences to refute arguments developed in Ricci’s Tianzhu shiyi in the context
of rising anti-Christian sentiment during the late 1630s were driven to do so by their
acquaintance with Jesuit logic. See Iso Kern, Buddhistische Kritik am Christentum im China
des 17. Jahrhunderts (Bern: Peter Lang, 1992); and Jiang Wu, “Buddhist Logic and
Apologetics in Seventeenth Century China: An Analysis of the Use of Buddhist Syl-
logisms in an Anti-Christian Polemic,” Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 2, no. 2
(2003): 273–289.
142
Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 40–41. See also Bao Zunxin 包遵信, “ ‘Mobian’ de
chenlun he ‘Mingli tan’ de fanyi”《墨辯》的沉淪和《名理探》的翻譯 (The decline
of the Mobian and the translation of the Mingli tan), Dushu 1 (1986): 63–71.
first encounters 55
Li’s renditions mingli tan 名理探 ‘the investigation of the patterns of

names’, minglixue 名理學 ‘the science of . . .’, and mingli zhi lun 名理論
‘the theory of . . .’, had been used as a vague general designation for
matters related to argumentation since the early Han dynasty (second
century BC) and gained greatest prominence in the lively culture of
learned debate emerging in third- and fourth-century China.143 Appar-
ently, this rhetorical practice was the closest parallel to European logic
Li found in Chinese intellectual history.
Other general terms with meanings related to argumentation and
inference that Li seized in the course of his translation were tui 推
‘to push on, extend, investigate, infer, deduce, conclude’ and tong 通
‘to penetrate, understand, make communicate’, as well as bian 辨 ‘to
distinguish, discriminate’ and its homonym bian 辯 ‘to argue, dispute,
debate, explain’, which were sometimes used interchangeably (see
Table 1.2, items 3–7, 10). Yet, none of the compounds in which Li
employed these words throughout the Mingli tan were borrowed from
a precise technical context. Rather, they were transformed from ordi-
nary words into technical terms only by the definite usages to which
they were put in Li’s rendition.
In the absence of any established Chinese context to which he could
accommodate the logical notions discussed in In universam dialecticam,
Li Zhizao had no choice but to create an entirely new lexicon. His
preferred strategy to this end was to draw on the literal meanings or
etymologies of his Latin models, as attested by his choices of terms
related to Porphyry’s five predicables, the ten Aristotelian categories,
and some general notions of logical import listed, with literal retrans-
lations into English, in Tables 1.2 to 1.4. To be sure, perfect matches,
such as those between zong 宗 ‘ancestor, type’ and “genus” (Table 1.2,
item 7), which share similar double meanings in Latin and Chinese,
were hard to find. But even less ideal replicas such as di 底 ‘basis, foun-
dation’ for “subject” (from Latin subjectum, ‘that which is underlying’);
chengwei 稱謂 ‘designation’ for “predicate” ( praedicamentum, ‘that which
is predicated’); xiangjie 向界 ‘delimitation’ for “definition” ( finis, ‘limit’);
xianjie 限界 ‘limit’ or duan 端 ‘end’ for “term” (terminus, ‘border’); and
tilun 題論 ‘to set as topic/theme’ for “proposition” ( propositio, ‘a set-
ting forth’), were rather sensible inventions (see Table 1.2, items 2–3;
and Table 1.4, items 8, 11, and 13). Although none of these terms
143
Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 354.
56 chapter one
Table 1.2: Terms Related to Predicables in the Mingli tan (1631/39)

English term Hanzi Hanyu pinyin Retranslation
1 predicable 公稱 gongcheng ‘universal designation’

2 subject 底 di ‘basis, foundation’
3 predicate 稱 (謂) cheng(wei) ‘designation’
4 universal 公 (者) gong(zhe) ‘(the) public’, ‘general’
5 universality 公性 gongxing ‘of public or general nature’
6 particular 特一 (者) teyi(zhe) ‘(the) particular’, ‘special’,
‘unique’
7 genus 宗 zong ‘ancestor’, ‘type’
8 species 類 lei ‘class’, ‘kind’
9 difference 殊 shu ‘different’, ‘distinguished’
10 property 獨 du ‘lonely’, ‘alone’, ‘singular’
11 accident 衣 yi ‘clothing’, ‘covering’
衣賴 yilai ‘to rely on’, ‘to depend’
Table 1.3: Terms Related to Categories in the Mingli tan (1631/39)

1 category 倫 lun ‘constants’

倫府 lunfu ‘constant storehouses’
2 substance 自立體 ziliti ‘bodies standing by
自立者 zilizhe themselves’,
‘that which stands by itself ’
3 accident 衣賴者 yilaizhe ‘that which is reliant’
4 quantity 幾何 jihe ‘how much?’
5 relation 互視 hushi ‘seeing one another’
6 quality 何似 hesi ‘what like?’
7 action (doing) 施作 shizuo ‘doing, making’
作為 zuowei ‘actions’, ‘deeds’
8 passion 承受 chengshou ‘to receive’, ‘bear’
(suffering) 抵受 dishou ‘to sustain and endure’,
‘to suffer’
9 situation 體勢 tishi ‘state’, ‘situation’
10 place 切所 qiesuo ‘place of contact’
何居 heju ‘at which place?’
11 time 暫久 zhanjiu ‘duration’, ‘short or long time’
何時 heshi ‘what time?’
12 having 得有 deyou ‘to obtain or possess’
受飾 shoushi ‘to receive clothing’
first encounters 57
Table 1.4: Basic Logical Terms in the Mingli tan (1631/39)

1 logic 名理探 mingli tan ‘the investigation/

名理學 minglixue science/theory of the
名理（之）論 mingli (zhi) patterns of names’
辨藝 lun bianyi ‘art of debating’
2 simple 直通 zhitong ‘immediate understanding’
apprehension
3 judgment 斷通 duantong ‘judgmental understanding’
4 reasoning 推通 tuitong ‘inferential understanding’
明辨 mingbian ‘clear discernment’
5 inference 推辨 tuibian ‘push on and distinguish’
推知 tuizhi ‘push on and know’
推理 tuili ‘push on and reason’
6 demonstration 推論 tuilun ‘push on and discuss’
7 deduction 推演 tuiyan ‘push on and unravel’
8 definition 解釋 jieshi ‘explanation’
向界 xiangjie ‘delimitation’
9 division 剖析 pouxi ‘to cut up, divide’
10 argumentation 推論 tuilun ‘to argue for’
辯論 bianlun ‘to argue against, dispute’
11 term 限界 xianjie ‘limit’
端 duan ‘end’
12 concept 意想 yixiang ‘intentional thought’
13 proposition 題論 tilun ‘to set forth as topic/theme’
14 syllogism 推辨之論 tuibian zhi lun ‘theory of inference’
15 premise 題列 tilie ‘thematic item’
16 conclusion 收列 shoulie ‘item’
17 major premise 首列 shoulie ‘first item’
18 minor premise 次列 cilie ‘second item’
19 fallacy 謬 miu ‘falsehood, error’
20 proof 證 zheng ‘evidence, to prove, to testify’
21 cause 所以然 suoyiran ‘that by which things are the
way they are’
22 effect 效 xiao ‘to imitate, yield results’
23 rule 規式 guishi ‘pattern, rule, standard’
24 form, formal 模 mo ‘model’
規模 guimo ‘pattern, model, mold’
25 matter, 質 zhi ‘matter, substance’
material
26 necessary 須 xu ‘must, necessary’
27 contingent 兩可 liangke ‘open to interpretation’
58 chapter one
eventually survived, there was nothing intrinsically inadequate about

these or Li’s other choices that made them unacceptable to Chinese
readers. What rendered the Mingli tan, and with it Li Zhizao’s lexical
creations, indigestible was rather the sheer number of new or unusual
terms that pervaded the text. In order to present even a condensed
translation of the arguments put forth in In universam dialecticam, Li and
Furtado had to introduce up to a dozen novel terms that could only be
defined in relation to one another on a single page.144 The inevitable
result was a text which, despite its stylistic elegance and lucid structure,
was so patently hermetic that it is difficult to imagine any reader being
able to grasp its finer points without the sustained help of a dedicated
and versatile instructor.
3. Contents and Uses of Logica

Even if the more subtle arguments of the text might have remained
opaque, readers undeterred by the technicality of the terminology
could still gain a deeper understanding of the contents and uses of
European logica from the Mingli tan than they would have been able
to absorb from Aleni’s sketch. The opening chapter was particularly
helpful in this respect. In a free adaptation of Couto’s original intro-
duction to In universam dialecticam, Li and Furtado offered several defi-
nitions of the scope and methods of logic and its position within the
Western disciplinary matrix.
They also made clear from the outset, however, that the ultimate
aim of luorijia was to lead students back on the “path to the one and
only Truth” ( yizhen zhi lu 一真之路) of Christianity and that logic,
like philosophy (aizhixue 愛知學 ‘the science that loves knowledge’) as
a whole, was no more than a “handmaiden of theology” (ancilla theo-
logiae). This characterization, which was perhaps more detrimental to
the allure of the Mingli tan among non-Christian readers than any of
its undeniable difficulties, was a necessary consequence of the belief,
shared by Li and Furtado, that there could be no truth beyond the
“Lord of Heaven” (tianzhu 天主) and that only “angels” (tianshen 天神)
144
See, e.g., Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 40, where the following terms are intro-
duced in a single paragraph: gongyezhe 公也者 ‘universal’, huigong 會公 ‘complex uni-
versal’, chungong 純公 ‘simple universal’, gongzuo 公作 ‘universale in causando’, gongbiao
公表 ‘universale in significando’, gongzai 公在 ‘universale in essendo’, gongcheng 公稱 ‘universale
in praedicando’, gongxing 公性 ‘universality’, teyi 特一 ‘particular’, mingxiang 名相 ‘sign’,
shiyou 實有 ‘reality’. See also In universam dialecticam, vol. 1, 78–79.
first encounters 59
were omniscient.145 Human knowledge was of necessity imperfect, but,

if used wisely, the powers of our rational souls allowed us to come
closer to the secrets of the divine order than any other creatures. As
Li Tianjing put this faith in the opening lines of his preface:
There are no things between heaven and earth that are not connected
by true and solid patterns. Only the human soul is able to grasp their
subtlety. This is how God the creator makes manifest his omnipotence.
At the same time, he thus entices us all to fathom the myriad patterns
so that we come to realize his original grace.146
The ultimate goal of all human endeavor, including philosophical and
scientific inquiry, was thus defined as the ascent to Christian transcen-
dence. Li Cibin explained in his preface that “the investigation of the
patterns of names” was an indispensable step on this path:
This [book] deals with argumentation (tuilun 推論) and the patterns of
names. Following its path enables humans to open up their intellect and
comprehend right and wrong, hollow and solid. By the end, they will be
able to follow their nature and reach the transcendent. Everyone con-
cerned with the sciences and arts must take this step in order to uncover
their limits. This is called: the investigation of the patterns of names.147
This description resonated with the definition with which Li Zhizao
and Furtado themselves first introduced the subject matter of their
work:
Aristotle (Yali 亞利) set out to compose this book because human knowl-
edge is limited. [This science] guides humans in advancing their intel-
lects, distinguishing between right and wrong, preventing error and
delusion, and leads them back on the path to the one and only Truth.
Its name is: Luorijia 絡日伽.148
Once the transcendent aim of the science had been stated, Li and
Furtado supplied more substantial descriptions of its contents. First of
all, readers needed to bear in mind that
[t]here are two kinds of logic: one is the logic with which we are endowed
by nature, that is, the arguments that come naturally to us without prior
145
This point was already made in Matteo Ricci’s Tianzhu shiyi; see Melis, “Temi
e tesi,” 81.
146
Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, iii.
147
Ibid., viii.
148
Ibid., 2.
60 chapter one
study; the other is the logic acquired by study and comprises arguments
that we must learn how to make.149
Luorijia as introduced in the Mingli tan was only concerned with the
latter. Several pages were then dedicated to situating the discipline
among the European sciences. According to Li and Furtado, logic was
studied immediately after the “art of speech,” philology. The reason
was that “logic is the tool on which humans rely to understand all
sciences.”150 Within the Western disciplinary matrix,151 logic, now also
defined as the “art of debating” (bianyi 辨藝), was classified according
to its subject matter alongside grammar and rhetoric as an art con-
cerned with “language” ( yuyan 語言) as opposed to arts devoted to
things and affairs (shiwu 事物). With respect to its ends, logic belonged
to the “practical arts” ( yongyi 用藝) as opposed to the “speculative
arts” (mingyi 明藝) of physics, mathematics, metaphysics, and theology;
and among the practical arts, the discipline was grouped together with
ethics, economics, and politics as an “internal art” ( yunyi 韞藝), that
is, an art concerned with directing the operations of the intellect and
the activities of the will in contrast to the “external arts” (waiyi 外藝)
of grammar and rhetoric, which were related to speech and other
external matters.152 Finally, logic was ranked as one of the “inferior”
(xialun 下論) fields of study that were subservient to the “superior” (shang-
lun 上論) disciplines of physics, morals, metaphysics, and theology.153
Li and Furtado hastened to assure their potential readers that luo-
rijia’s modest position within the disciplinary taxonomy did not ade-
quately reflect its comparative value:
Let us now see which science is most valuable. The science of logic con-
trols the operations of the intellect; therefore, it must be more valuable
than the arts of language. If we compare it to the speculative sciences,
it comes after physics and the transcendent sciences [metaphysics and
theology, JK]. The reason is that these deal exclusively with substances,
whereas the operations of the intellect are only accidental. When com-
pared to mathematics, however, logic is more valuable because the oper-
ations of the intellect are more valuable than matters related to quantity.
Even when compared with the merits of the moral arts—ethics, econom-
ics, and politics—logic is of greater value. There are two reasons. The
149
Ibid., 34.
150
Ibid., 11–12.
151
For a useful diagrammatic overview, see Standaert, “Classification,” 290–291.
152
Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 6–7.
153
Ibid., 9.
first encounters 61
first is related to their respective spheres of application. Ethics, econom-

ics, and politics aim to control the application of the various virtues
and therefore belong to volition. In contrast, logic aims to control the
functions of the various sciences and hence belongs to the intellect. The
virtue of the intellect is pure and divine and thus transcends volition.
Hence, how could the patterns of names not be more valuable than
the [moral arts]? The second [reason] is related to the rules these arts
observe. The original task of logic is to refute the errors that are in, or
are inferred by, the intellect. Therefore its arguments are all clear and
certain. The tasks of the sciences of ethics, economics, and politics are
all related to common habits and customs. They are only concerned
with what should be done and have no leisure to go on and explore
the causes. . . . Thus, logic must be a more valuable science than ethics,
economics, and politics.154
Having ensured their readers of their subject’s worth, the translators
moved on to define its scope and methods. In contrast to Aleni who,
as we have seen, highlighted only the classificatory uses of logic, Li
and Furtado painted a more comprehensive picture of the discipline
and placed stronger emphasis on its discursive functions. In general,
“luorijia talks about argumentation and the patterns of names” but “its
most important insights are related to inferential reasoning (or discur-
sus, tuitong 推通).”155 There were two types of logical theories:
All those referring to that which is open to interpretation (or ‘contingent’
liangkezhe 兩可者) are called “dialectic” (diyaledijia 第亞勒第加), while
those referring to that which is certain and cannot be otherwise, are
termed luorijia.156
Luorijia thus acquired a double meaning. On the one hand, it was
the primary tool for gaining certainty in argumentation and as such
far superior to the “dialectic” of merely probable opinions.157 On the
other hand:
154
Ibid., 12; In universam dialecticam, vol. 1, 24–25. My translation of this passage
differs considerably from the partial rendition in Wardy, Aristotle, 101.
155
156
Ibid., 13.
157
The relegation of “dialectic” to a term denoting a rather insignificant sub-
branch of logic, instead of the science as a whole, reflects a tendency among Jesuit
and other contemporary European philosophers to underline the new directions they
were advocating in logical thought by proposing a new name for the discipline. See
Pierre Michaud-Quantin, “L’emploi des termes logica et dialectica au moyen âge,” in
Arts libéraux et philosophie au moyen âge. Actes du quatrième congrès international de philosophie
médiévale (Montréal: Institut d’Études Médiévales and Paris: Librairie philosophique
J. Vrin, 1969), 855–862. In view of this ideologically charged background, it is not
62 chapter one
Philosophers use the name [luorijia] simultaneously as a designation for the

entire art of argumentation. According to their definition, luorijia . . . holds
on to that which is already clear and pushes on in order to understand
what has not yet been understood.158
The general purpose of the “art of argumentation” was thus to infer
new knowledge from that which was already known. To this end, logic
established formal rules (guishi 規式) according to which inferential
reasoning had to proceed. Rather than expounding the nature or the
meaning of concepts ( yixiang 意想), logic was concerned with “the
order in which concepts are used in inferences.”159 Moreover, instead
of “holding on to established rules in order to deduce (tuiyan 推演) all
kinds of arguments,” as proponents of a “broad definition” of the dis-
cipline suggested, the Mingli tan advocated a “narrow definition” which
held that logic only needed to elucidate these rules.160
The strong focus on inferential reasoning that seemed to emerge
from this definition was qualified somewhat by the admission that the
errors logic was intended to prevent occurred in all three operations
of the intellect—not only in inferential reasoning (tuitong 推通), but
also in simple apprehension (or intellectio, zhitong 直通) and judgment
(or enunciatio, duantong 斷通). Since, in a material sense, inferential rea-
soning depended on these more basic operations, which were defined,
respectively, as “the simple knowledge the intellect gains from look-
ing into a thing or affair” and “the complex awareness the intellect
gains from judging a thing or affair,”161 logic could not afford to ignore
either simple apprehension or judgment completely. Still, the Mingli
tan insisted that the errors of both had to be addressed in the frame-
work of logic only inasmuch as they were rooted in faulty definitions
or divisions.162
Finally, the Mingli tan explained that logic as an art concerned with
establishing the rules of reasoning was divided into three parts: “defini-
tion” ( jieshi 解釋), “division” ( pouxi 剖析), and “argumentation” (tui-
lun), which corresponded to the three modi sciendi.
easy to see on what grounds Standaert (“Classification,” 290) renders luorijia as “dia-
lectic.”
158
159
Ibid., 31.
160
Ibid., 13; In universam dialecticam, vol. 1, 25–26.
161
Li and Furtado, Mingli tan, 26–27.
162
Ibid., 28–29.
first encounters 63
Three [features] can be known of all things and affairs: (1) their inner
meanings and patterns; (2) the various parts of which they are made up;
and (3) all states inherent in their existence. Definition makes known and
determines a thing’s meaning and pattern; division opens up and dissects
its parts; argumentation infers its states and accidental attributes.163
Another elucidation of the three parts explained definition as “that by
which we elucidate the essence (benyuan 本元) of a thing,” division as
“that by which we distinguish its various attributes,” and argumenta-
tion as “that by which we know something we had not yet understood
by pushing on from what was already clear.”164 Still, the introduction
left no doubt that the rules of argumentation and inferential reasoning
were the ultimate aim of luorijia as a whole. Accordingly, the “most
important term in this science is xilushisimu 細錄世斯模 (syllogism),”
which was explained as “the sole rule of argumentation.” The tower-
ing significance of that enigmatic term derived from the fact that the
syllogism “embodies all the rules of argumentation.” In its importance
for logic it was comparable to the Lord of Heaven who, by embodying
the “entirety of being,” represented the sole and necessary “limit” of
the transcendent sciences, metaphysics and theology.165
On the whole, the Mingli tan’s opening chapter thus presented a
comprehensive and perhaps even enticing portrait of the scope and
uses of luorijia. One problem with this prelude was that it did not ade-
quately reflect the emphasis of the work to follow, at least in its printed
form. The advertised “rules of inferential reasoning” were nowhere
discussed in the remaining nine juan of the book and the quasi-divine
xilushisimu was mentioned only in one brief footnote.166 Instead, the
Mingli tan offered a lengthy introduction to a theory of predication
whose relation to the main instruments of logic was never made clear,
neither in In universam dialecticam nor in its Chinese translation.167 In
accordance with Jesuit educational practices, Li and Furtado main-
tained that the Isagoge and the Categories needed to be studied as a pro-
paedeutic for the proper use of the three operations of the intellect.168
But they were unable to show precisely in which ways the theories
163
Ibid., 27.
164
Ibid., 38.
165
Ibid., 29.
166
Ibid., 35–36.
167
See Arnaldo de Pinho Dias, “A Isagoge de Porfirio na Lógica Conimbricense,”
Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 20, nos. 1–2 (1964): 108–130; 122–129.
168
64 chapter one
advocated in these texts related to the declared goals of logical inquiry.

The reason for this inability had little to do with the intricacies of
translation or “incommensurabilities” between Chinese and European
ways of thinking. Even contemporary Jesuit philosophers admitted
that the Isagoge and the Categories were so heavily charged with meta-
physical lore that their logical import was difficult to determine.169 In
Jesuit schools, both were primarily taught as an introduction to the
metaphysical assumptions underlying thorny theological issues,170 and
we have no reason to believe that they would have been assigned a
different function in China.
Nonetheless, the Mingli tan’s main sections deserve more detailed
analysis.171 For our purposes, however, such an analysis promises little
reward since the text as a whole clearly failed to inspire any logical
interest among Chinese readers. In fact, there is little evidence that the
Mingli tan was read by anyone at all apart from the authors of the two
prefaces, four Jesuit confrères who helped to prepare the draft for print-
ing, and one Chinese convert said to have consulted the work during
his studies in Lisbon.172 The reasons for this spectacular failure are not
exclusively textual. Li Zhizao’s premature death, which prevented the
work’s completion, was obviously a crucial setback. Furtado’s duties as
vice-provincial of the Jesuit mission, which he assumed in 1635, also
drew him away from the work and into controversies over the proper
missionary strategy with members of his own order and competing
denominations.173 Moreover, in the turbulent years leading up to the
fall of the Ming dynasty in 1644, only a very limited number of copies
could be produced.174
169
Baldini, “Philosophie,” 704–705. Modern historians of logic tend to dismiss
them as entirely irrelevant to the legitimate concerns of the discipline; see, e.g., Wil-
liam and Martha Kneale, The Development of Logic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962),
25, 187–188.
170
Baldini, “Philosophie,” 711.
171
Some aspects of the metaphysical contents of the Mingli tan have been discussed
in Wardy, Aristotle; and idem, “Chinese Whispers,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological
Society 38 (1992): 149–170. Wardy’s analyses suffer, however, from insufficient atten-
tion to the specific historical contexts of late Ming China and seventeenth-century
Europe as well as frequent mistranslations.
172
Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 2, 193–194. Cao Jiesheng (“Mingli tan de fanyi,”
294) holds that the Mingli tan was “very probably” used in a private academy founded
by one of Li Zhizao’s close friends near Hangzhou, but I was unable to find any evi-
dence to support this claim. Friendship alone is hardly a convincing argument.
173
See Dunne, Giants, 269–281; and Brockey, Journey to the East, 98–107.
174
Bibliographical traces of the Mingli tan in late imperial China are exceedingly
rare. See Zhang Yong 章用, “ ‘Mingli tan’ kao” 名理探考 (A note on the Mingli tan)
first encounters 65
Yet, even under more felicitous circumstances the work would have
been hard to sell, at least to non-Christian readers. Working one’s way
through the wealth of new terms and ideas introduced in the Mingli tan
required sustained and tenacious effort. But why should any literatus
without prior Christian inclinations take such pains when all he could
hope for was to find the “one and only Truth” of a foreign God? If
Li and Furtado may be blamed for anything, then, it is the unmistak-
ably Christian coloring of their rendition—which did of course reflect
the tone and purpose of their text of departure—and their failure to
provide any hint as to how the functions and methods attributed to
European logic could be related to Chinese thought, texts, or argu-
mentative practices. Nowhere in their translation, with the exception
of its title, did they build any conceptual bridges that would have
allowed potential readers to situate the doctrines expounded in the
Mingli tan in the Chinese discursive universe. Consequently, no place
for them was found.
5. Logic as a Syllogistic Trap
Still, this is not the end of our story. In a final twist, the forgotten frag-
ments of the Mingli tan were revived in a daring ruse initiated by the
Flemish Jesuit Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen 南懷仁, 1623–1688)175
more than forty years after their first printing. Thanks to a mixture
of good luck, smart strategic decisions, and the utility of their scien-
tific expertise, the Jesuit mission escaped relatively unscathed from the
turmoil marking the dynastic transition from the Ming to the Man-
chu Qing during the 1640s.176 To secure the future of their sta-
tions and their cause, some Jesuits started to court the new rulers as
soon as the Manchu forces approached Beijing. In 1645, less than a
year after the proclamation of the Qing dynasty, the German Adam
Schall von Bell (Tang Ruowang 湯若望, 1592–1666)177 was appointed
(1959), reprinted in Zhang Shizhao, Zhang Shizhao quanji, vol. 7, 299–301; and Ying
Qianli 英千里, “Mingmo de yibu gongjiao zhexue jiezuo: Mingli tan” 明末的一部公
教哲學傑作：名理探 (Mingli tan, a late Ming masterpiece of scholastic philosophy),
Xin beichen 1, no. 2 (1935): 159–172; 159–161.
175
176
177
Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 2, 1–15. See also Jonathan D. Spence, To Change
China: Western Advisers in China, 1620–1960 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), 3–22.
66 chapter one
director of the imperial Bureau of Astronomy in recognition of his

calculation of a new calendar whose accuracy surpassed everything
the Ming had been able to produce. His exalted position allowed the
flamboyant Schall to garner support and guarantee protection for a
broad variety of missionary activities. At the same time, it aroused
suspicion and enmity among astronomers and literati who owed their
demotion or marginalization to the father’s rise. Simmering tensions
came to a head in the infamous “calendar case” of 1664 that abruptly
ended Schall’s career178 and led to the confinement of all Jesuits work-
ing in the empire.179 Although the missionaries were able to regain
imperial favor and return to their stations some years later, Schall’s
demise served as a vivid reminder to his successors that they needed
to navigate the treacherous waters of Qing court politics with utmost
circumspection.
This lesson was certainly not lost on Ferdinand Verbiest, who fol-
lowed in Schall’s footsteps as director of the Bureau of Astronomy in
1669.180 Convinced that lasting success of the mission could not be built
on missionary efforts alone, Verbiest devised a plan to insert Christian
philosophy, and with it what he saw as the iron grip of the Aristotelian
syllogism, into one of the central institutions of the Chinese state: the
civil examination system. In hopes of persuading the court to include
its contents in the examination curriculum, he compiled an anthology
of European philosophy under the title The Science of Fathoming Pattern
(Qionglixue 窮理學, sometimes referred to as Cursus philosophicus), which
he presented to the Kangxi 康熙 emperor (r. 1662–1722) in 1683.
1. Verbiest and the Qionglixue

The intriguing history of the Qionglixue has only recently been recon-
structed.181 It can be traced back to the year 1675 when Verbiest,
178
See Pingyi Chu, “Scientific Dispute in the Imperial Court: The 1664 Calendar
Case,” Chinese Science 14 (1997): 7–34. See also Elman, On Their Own Terms, 133–144.
179
180
See, e.g., Spence, To Change China, 23–33.
181
See Ad Dudink and Nicolas Standaert, “Ferdinand Verbiest’s Qionglixue 窮理
學 (1683),” in The Christian Mission in China in the Verbiest Era: Some Aspects of the Mis-
sionary Approach, ed. Noël Golvers (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1999), 11–32;
and Noël Golvers, “Verbiest’s Introduction of Aristoteles Latinus (Coimbra) in China:
New Western Evidence,” in Golvers, Christian Mission, 33–53. See also Nicolas Stan-
daert, “The Investigation of Things and the Fathoming of Principles (Gewu Qiongli) in
the Seventeenth-Century Contact between Jesuits and Chinese Scholars,” in Witek,
first encounters 67
who had won the rare trust of the Kangxi emperor during his mete-
oric ascent through the ranks of the Qing bureaucracy, was assigned
to instruct the sovereign personally in European mathematics and
astronomy.182 For Verbiest, this assignment offered a unique opportu-
nity to enlist the emperor’s support for the missionary cause. During
his audiences, he seized every occasion to lecture on the “transcendent
heavens” of Christianity and to praise the fundamental importance
of philosophy and logic for the sciences in general and astronomy
in particular.183 If we are to trust Verbiest and contemporary Jesuit
accounts based on his claims, his praise did not fail to arouse Kangxi’s
curiosity:
When the emperor had heard Ferdinand talk of many things concerning
the arts of reasoning we call dialectica, about the principles of things, and
even about the first cause of everything, he advised him to produce a
Chinese version of the whole European philosophy, in order to print it
under his reign title on the imperial press, to publish and to spread it.184
Immersed in official duties and factional infighting at the Bureau of
Astronomy, and busy with the unholy task of casting cannons for the
Qing army, Verbiest was unable to respond instantly to the imperial
request. In the fall of 1678, he began to compile a comprehensive
Cursus philosophicus from existing translations, mostly those adapted
from the Conimbricenses.185 In letters and reports sent to superiors and
Verbiest, 395–420; 407–409 and 416–417. The following sketch is heavily indebted to
these invaluable reconstructions even though, as will become clear, I do not agree
with all their interpretations.
182
On Kangxi’s scientific interests, see Catherine Jami, “Imperial Control and
Western Learning: The Kangxi Emperor’s Performance,” Late Imperial China 23, no. 1
( June 2002): 28–49.
183
Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 36–37. On Verbiest’s formation, see Jan Roegiers,
“The Academic Environment of the University of Louvain at the Time of Ferdinand
Verbiest,” in Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J. (1623–1688): Jesuit Missionary, Scientist, Engineer and
Diplomat, ed. John W. Witek (Nettetal: Steyler, 1994), 31–44; and Noël Golvers, “F.
Verbiest’s Mathematical Formation: Some Observations on Post-Clavian Jesuit Math-
ematics in Mid-17th Century Europe,” Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Sciences 54
(2004): 29–47.
184
Thomas Ignatius Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea pro Historiae Sinensis ab anno 1641
ad annum 1700 ex variis documentis in Archivo Societatibus existentibus excerpta (manuscript,
Rome, ARSI, ca. 1710), vol. II, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1a. Translation adapted
from Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 43–44.
185
For a detailed analysis of which texts may have been included in Verbiest’s
Cursus, see Dudink and Standaert, “Qionglixue,” 20–29. See also Standaert, “Transmis-
sion,” 390.
68 chapter one
confrères back in Europe, Verbiest stated in no uncertain terms the

motivation driving his effort:
Currently, I am in charge of introducing a Chinese version of our dialec-
tics and philosophy [to the Kangxi emperor], under the cover, I say, of
astronomy, in reality however to show the evidence of our religion.186
As long as open propaganda for the Christian faith remained impos-
sible at court—and this was certainly the case during the 1670s and
1680s187—astronomy offered itself as the ideal cover for Verbiest’s
enterprise because European calculations had repeatedly proven their
superiority over competing Chinese methods. But how could logic and
philosophy further the missionary cause? Earlier Jesuits, most promi-
nently Matteo Ricci himself, had hoped to ensnare their interlocu-
tors by appeals to their “natural reason.” Ricci seems to have had
almost unlimited confidence in the persuasive powers of his dialecti-
cal versatility. In his journals, as edited by Trigault, we find several
accounts of debates in which his formally impeccable reasoning left
his interlocutors speechless and entirely overruled.188 Chinese observ-
ers, however, were less impressed with his eristic skills, especially when
they were not directly involved in the confrontations. One scholar, for
instance, compared the debates between Ricci and a Buddhist bonze,
as recounted in the apologetic Testament in Defense of the Faith (Bianxue
yidu 辨學遺牘, 1610), with “two men bathing in the same tub and
ridiculing one another for being naked.”189 Faced with the apparent
powerlessness of appeals to natural reason in matters of faith, Ver-
biest had, rightly so, concluded that the success of the missionaries’
dialectical skills depended on Chinese acceptance of the logical rules
underlying them. In the words of the early Jesuit historian Thomas
Ignatius Dunyn-Szpot (1644–1716), he therefore intended to set up
the Western rules of reasoning introduced in his anthology as veritable
intellectual “traps” (or ‘spider’s webs’, casses). According to Dunyn-
Szpot, Verbiest planned
to lead out, step by step, those whom the enclosures of antiquity kept
protected in their woods, and from seeing the sun of the truth, by the
exciting sight of things they had never understood. For once they had
186
Cited, with slight alterations, from Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 36.
187
188
See, e.g., Ricci, China in the Sixteenth Century, 341–342.
189
Xu Zongze, Yesuhuishi yizhu tiyao, 91. See also Wenchao Li, China-Mission, 592.
first encounters 69
acquired the art of the syllogism, they would, through irrefutable argu-
mentation, step into such conclusions, or traps, out of which they would
never be able to escape.190
Yet, the example of the Mingli tan had taught Verbiest that, by itself,
no book, no matter how artfully composed, was able to teach the
techniques of dialectical reasoning and convince unprepared readers
of their utility. Readers needed a compelling reason, beyond vague
promises of spiritual salvation and intangible gains in rhetorical sophis-
tication, for expending the effort necessary to penetrate the subtleties
of the syllogism and other elements of his conceptual trap. Verbi-
est therefore aimed to persuade the emperor to make his Cursus a
compulsory part of the civil service examinations, imperial China’s
daunting “ladder of success.” As soon as its contents were included
among the official requirements, aspiring literati throughout the coun-
try would have no choice but to study it assiduously. And once they
had acquired a thorough knowledge of the syllogism and its many
beneficial applications—in astronomy and other sciences, for sure, but
most importantly in matters of theology—Verbiest hoped that students
“would easily find their way to the divine law.”191
It took Verbiest five years to set up the trap for his Chinese prey.
The final result comprised sixty juan and was sent to the emperor in
October 1683.192 Fourteen of these sixty juan, plus the first half of a table
of contents entitled “Philosophical Reasoning: General Index, Part 1”
(Qionglixue litui zongmu shang 窮理學理推總目上) have been pre-
served in the only extant copy of the work, held at Beijing University
Library.193 Four juan belonged to a section entitled “Reasoning about
190
Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea, vol. 2, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1a. Translation
adapted from Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 45.
191
See the letter from Andrea Lubelli (1611–1685) to the general in Rome, dated
December 15, 1683, quoted in Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 40–41.
192
Ferdinand Verbiest [Nan Huairen 南懷仁], Qionglixue 窮理學 (Cursus philosophi-
cus) (Beijing: Zhonghetang, 1683).
193
Shanben 善本, 129/4092. A photographic reprint of seven of these fourteen juan
(“Libian zhi wu gongcheng,” 1–5; and “Litui zhi zonglun,” 1–2), prepared in 1936, is
held at the National Library in Beijing (Putong guji 普通古籍, 15598:1 and 15598:2).
Fang Hao’s assertion that sixteen “volumes” (ben 本) have been preserved corresponds
to the number of fascicles (ce 冊) in which the extant fourteen juan are bound. See
Fang Hao 方豪, Zhong-Xi wenhua jiaoliushi 中西文化交流史 (A history of cultural
exchanges between China and the West) (Taibei: Zhongguo wenhua daxue chubanbu,
1983 [1953]), 1011–1012. See also Shang Zhicong 尚智叢, “Nan Huairen ‘Qiong-
lixue’ de zhuti neirong yu jiben jiegou” 南壞仁《窮理學》的主體內容與基本結構
(The basic contents and structure of F. Verbiest’s Cursus philosophicus), Qingshi yanjiu 3,
70 chapter one
Form and Nature” (Xingxing zhi litui 形性之理推, that is, physics)
and were dedicated to topics in natural philosophy, presented mainly
following the Coimbran commentaries on Aristotle’s Physica and Parva
naturalia.194 The remaining ten juan were devoted to logic. The section
“The Five Predicables in Logic” (Libian zhi wu gongcheng 理辯之五
公稱) was a re-edition of the first five juan of the Mingli tan; the five
juan entitled “General Theory of Reasoning” (Litui zhi zonglun 理推
之總論, sometimes referred to as De syllogismo) offered a translation of
the commentary on Book I of Aristotle’s Analytica priora from In univer-
sam dialecticam.195 Since the style, terminology, and literary form of the
“General Theory of Reasoning” were virtually identical to the Mingli
tan, we can be almost certain that these five juan were drawn from
unpublished parts of Li Zhizao and Furtado’s rendition.
Verbiest’s contribution to the Cursus is difficult to assess. Dunyn-
Szpot credits him with the addition of hundreds of “questions and
illustrations” to the texts he collected.196 Dudink and Standaert hold
that he probably also wrote portions of the extant parts on the Physics.197
His contributions to the surviving parts on logic seem more modest.
Verbiest himself defined his own role in regard to these sections as that
of a “compiler” ( jishu 集述) and not a “translator” ( yishu 譯述), as in
some sections on the Physics. However, he may have had a hand in
completing, revising, or even translating parts of the commentary on
Aristotle’s De interpretatione from the Conimbricenses, which, as we have
no. 3 (August 2003): 73–84; and Zhang Xiao 張曉, “Wei Nan Huairen ‘Qionglixue’
zhengming” 為南懷仁《窮理學》正名 (Corrections regarding F. Verbiest’s Cursus
philosophicus), Ming-Qing luncong 3 (2002): 379–385.
194
Dudink and Standaert, “Qionglixue,” 23–33. See also Wang Bing 王冰, “Nan
Huairen jieshao de wenduji he shiduji fenxi” 南怀仁介绍的温度计和湿度计试析
(An analysis of F. Verbiest’s introduction to measuring temperature and humidity),
Ziran kexueshi yanjiu 5, no. 1 (1986): 191–192.
195
In universam dialecticam, vol. 2, 232–406. The fifth and last juan of this section
is incomplete in the Beijing University Library copy. For a useful overview of the
subsections in “Litui zhi zonglun,” see Zhang Xiping 张西平, “ ‘Qionglixue’: Nan
Huairen zui zhongyao de zhuzuo”《穷理学》—南怀仁最重要的著作 (The Cursus
philosophicus: F. Verbiest’s most important work), in idem, Chuanjiaoshi Hanxue yanjiu
傳教士漢學研究 (Studies in missionary Sinology) (Zhengzhou: Daxiang chubanshe,
2005), 80–90; 86–88. Note, however, that Zhang’s list omits the eighth section of juan
3, containing forty-one paragraphs under the heading Qi ti you ke xiangdang ke jie zhi zhi
tati fou 其題有可相當可解之之他題否 (Whether or not there are other premises to
which such premises can be equivalent and that can explain them).
196
Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea, vol. 2, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1a. See Golvers,
“Aristoteles Latinus,” 45.
197
Dudink and Standaert, “Qionglixue,” 22–23.
first encounters 71
seen, Li and Furtado had not touched. “Litui zhi zonglun” contained
frequent references to specific chapters and articles of this now lost
section under the title “On subjective interpretation” (“Yiyi pian,”
譯臆篇) that were not simply copied from In universam dialecticam.198
Yet, in the absence of firm evidence, we cannot exclude the possibil-
ity that Li Zhizao’s son Li Cibin or others interested in exalting Li’s
legacy authored these most challenging portions of the Organon.
As a compiler, Verbiest made few but significant changes to the ten
extant juan of the Qionglixue dealing with logic. According to Dunyn-
Szpot, he erased throughout the Cursus “all explicit references to the
divine law, in order to spare [the work] from being hated at first sight,
so to speak.”199 In the parts on logic, he thus tried to cover his intel-
lectual trap by deleting throughout the text the words “God” (tian-
zhu 天主) and “angels” (tianshen 天神) as well as sentences in which
both terms played a prominent role.200 In addition, he introduced two
new terms framing his plot: the first, libianxue 理辯學, or simply libian
理辯 ‘[the science of ] rational argument’ (that is, logic), was obviously
intended to divert attention from the fact that he did not present an
entirely new work. Verbiest used this term to replace Li Zhizao’s coin-
age mingli tan and all its cognates related to the “patterns of names.”201
His assumption that such superficial changes would suffice to conceal
his source confirms that the Mingli tan must have been all but for-
gotten by the early Qing. All that may have remained were possible
recollections of the work’s title, and perhaps its Christian coloring,
from which Verbiest dissociated his version by giving luorijia a new
name. His second and more important new term, litui 理推 ‘ratio-
nal inference’ (that is, reasoning), was intended to provide the Cursus
198
See, e.g., Verbiest, Qionglixue, “Litui zhi zonglun” 理推之總論 (General theory
of reasoning), 1:11a, 1:14b, 1:15a, 1:18a, 1:21b, 1:22b, 1:27a, 1:33b, 1:34a, 1:36b, etc.
Additional cross-references point to other previously unpublished parts of the Chinese
version of In universam dialecticam, e.g., De sophisticis elenchis (“Yinqi bian” 引啟辯 ‘Refu-
tations of those seducing and arousing [others]’) (“Litui zhi zonglun,” 1:21b), and the
Topica (“Dubeijia” 獨偹加) (“Litui zhi zonglun,” 2:2a), suggesting that up to thirty of
the sixty juan in Verbiest’s Qionglixue may have been devoted to logic.
199
Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea, vol. 2, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1a. Translation
200
Sometimes at the expense of leaving incomplete phrases or obvious lacunae.
See, e.g., Verbiest, Qionglixue, “Libian zhi wu gongcheng” 理辯之五公稱 (Logic: The
five predicables), 4:53a. Some instances escaped his scrutiny. See, e.g., Verbiest, Qiong-
lixue, “Litui zhi zonglun,” 2:35b.
201
In one instance, Verbiest replaced the term mingli tan with yet another neolo-
gism, lituixue 理推學 ‘the science of rational inference’. Ibid., 1:13b.
72 chapter one
with an appearance of systematic unity, above all through its use in

the titles of many sections and subsections. In addition to the parts
mentioned above, extant and lost portions of the Cursus bore titles
such as “Reasoning on Weights” (Qingzhong zhi litui 輕重之理推,
mechanics), “Reasoning on the Mechanical Arts) (Liyi zhi litui 力藝
之理推, the mechanics of balances), and “Reasoning, Illustrated and
Explained” (Litui ge tushuo” 理推各圖說).202 The ultimate aim of this
operation was to lure Chinese readers into the supposedly irresistible
grip of the “syllogism” that Verbiest rendered by the very same Chi-
nese word, litui.203 This strategic intention is corroborated by the fact
that the copy held at Beijing University Library lists the five juan of De
syllogismo as the opening chapters of the Cursus as a whole. Thus, they
preceded the revived chapters on Porphyry and the Categories from
the Mingli tan, irrespective of the fact that the latter were introduced
as necessary foundations for understanding the syllogism in both the
Greek and Latinized Organon.
2. The Syllogism, or the Art of Rational Inference

Since Verbiest built his entire trap around the suasive force of the syl-
logism, we should expect him to ensure that the text explaining this
miraculous art of “rational inference”—or, more literally, of “infer-
ences according to patterns”—be as accessible as possible. But there is
no hint of any such effort on his part. De syllogismo was just as uncom-
promisingly alien as the previously printed portions of the Mingli tan.
No native contexts were evoked, no explanations in familiar terms
added, no examples adapted or concretized for Chinese readers.204 Still,
even a patently hermetic version of the Coimbran commentary on the
Analytica priora contained much more information on the purpose and
rules of the European science of reasoning than any previously avail-
able text. Despite its unusual appearance, De syllogismo offered potential
readers the first substantial glimpse of logical operations that would
still be recognized as lying at the heart of the discipline today.
Following In universam dialecticam closely, the five juan of De syllogismo
covered the core of Aristotelian syllogistics (chapters I–VII of Book I
202
Dudink and Standaert, “Qionglixue,” 13.
203
See Verbiest, Qionglixue, “Litui zhi zonglun,” 1:4b, and passim.
204
On the contrary: concrete examples, e.g., allusions to Plato or the fabulous horse
Bucephalus, are rendered by abstractions such as mou jia 某甲 ‘a certain A’ or jia ma
甲馬 ‘horse A’. See ibid., 1:21a and 2:41b.
first encounters 73
of the Analytica priora) in considerable detail, and then summarized the

remaining parts (chapters VIII–XLIII of Book I as well as the whole
of Book II) in rather broad strokes. Juan 1–3 presented marginally
abridged versions of the Conimbricenses commentary on the first three
chapters of the Priora. Juan 1, the most fundamental, discussed the defi-
nitions of the premises and terms of which all syllogisms consisted. Juan
2 and 3 were devoted to the distinction of various kinds of premises
and the rules for their conversion. Juan 4 offered condensed discussions
of Book I, chapters IV–VII, introducing the valid moods of the syllo-
gism in the three figures recognized by Aristotle and offering evidence
that all valid syllogisms could be reduced to the universal syllogism
of the first figure. Juan 5, finally, rushed through Aristotle’s theory
of modal syllogisms, which had long been revealed as flawed when
the Conimbricenses were compiled, and briefly recounted the Priora’s
remarks on miscellaneous topics ranging from the material conditions
for syllogistic inferences to different kinds of proofs, common errors in
selecting or enunciating terms and premises, and the various types of
fallacies. Taken together, the five juan thus offered a condensed but
comprehensive introduction to the formal aspects of the syllogism as
taught in Jesuit colleges around the world.
Li and Furtado opened their discussion with an explanation of the
works on which their treatise was based:
The titles Analytica priora and Analytica posteriora were not chosen by Aris-
totle; they only explain what he accomplished. What we call “analysis”
( jiujie 究解 ‘to examine and take to pieces’) is called yanalixi 亞納利細 in
the original texts. By way of explanation we may say that analysis recov-
ers the basic elements of which things consist. Houses, for instance, can
be analyzed, either in reality or by the intellect, but in both cases the
basic elements of which they consist are bricks and the like. Similarly,
transformations in things can be analyzed, in reality or by the intellect,
by tracing the basic elements of which they consist, that is to say, matter,
form, or a lack thereof, and so on.205
Two forms of “analysis” so defined were central to the philosophy
explained in the Cursus. “The first is the analysis of ratiocinations (con-
clusions), which is the subject matter of the Priora. The second is the
analysis of the meaning of these ratiocinations, the subject matter of
the Posteriora.”206 The analysis of ratiocinations, as the focus of the Priora
205
Verbiest, Qionglixue, “Litui zhi zonglun,” 1:1a.
206
Ibid.
74 chapter one
and thus of De syllogismo, scrutinized whether one followed appropriate

“rules and forms” ( guimo 規模) when making an inference. It required,
firstly, to examine the terms of which the premises used in an argu-
ment were constituted; second, to investigate the premises of which the
argument consisted; and third, to address whether the rules and forms
by which the argument’s conclusion was drawn were applied correctly.
The goal of these analyses was to prove whether what one inferred
from the terms and premises used in an argument was concluded in
a formally appropriate fashion.207 The material question of whether
or not the meaning of the conclusion was in fact true was relegated
to the commentary on the Analytica posteriora, a text that, if it was ever
completed, is among the now lost parts of the Cursus.
One problem of the Priora, much lamented in European intellectual
history, was that it did not offer a comprehensive definition of the syl-
logism. For Chinese readers, who unlike their European counterparts
could not be expected to bring a colloquial understanding of the term
to their studies of the text, this lacuna further complicated access to the
work’s subject matter. Still, the translators of De syllogismo shied away
from adapting their version of the Coimbran commentary. Readers
who wanted to get a clearer idea of the syllogism needed to dig quite
deeply into the text in order to piece together a satisfactory explana-
tion. In a paragraph on the properties of terms they found this partial
description: “Now, as to the syllogism, it is a form of speech in which,
on the basis of an assumption and its meaning, another meaning fol-
lows by necessary inference.”208 Elsewhere they learned that “proposi-
tions and terms are the material of which syllogisms consist”209 and
that “[e]very syllogism must contain three items” called “premises”
(tilie 題列 ‘thematic items’), a technical term for the propositions (tilun
題論 ‘articulations of a theme’) used in syllogistic inferences.210
If the text offered little to clarify the concept of the syllogism, it pro-
vided all the more information about its constituent parts and the rules
whose application made syllogisms valid. Not all of this information
was laid out in a reader-friendly manner. As in the Mingli tan, large
portions of the text were dedicated to justifications of the specific way
in which the commentary was arranged, and critiques of misguided
207
Ibid., 1:1b–2a.
208
Ibid., 1:11b.
209
Ibid.
210
Ibid., 1:8a.
first encounters 75
interpretations of Aristotelian ideas. Although the translation, as in the

previously published parts, reduced the historical and polemical con-
tents of In universam dialecticam, readers attempting to uncover its core
message needed to peel away pages upon pages positioning the text in
contemporary European debates. Once out in the open, however, this
message was anything but impenetrable, especially if studied, as Verbi-
est intended, under the guidance of a knowledgeable teacher. A closer
look at the explanations of key tenets of Jesuit-Aristotelian syllogistics
illustrates this point. Like the Priora, the substantial portions of De syl-
logismo started with the definition of the premise: “What is a premise?
It is a form of speech which either affirms or negates that a certain
meaning applies to a certain thing.” Distinctions among three kinds of
premises were then presented as central to syllogistic reasoning:
If a certain meaning applies to everything, or if there is no thing that
corresponds to it, then we have a so-called universal premise. If a certain
meaning applies to one thing and is linked with it, or does not apply to
one thing and is not linked with it, then we have a so-called particular
premise. [ Premises] to which neither the marker “universal” nor “par-
ticular” applies, and that correspond or do not correspond to an unde-
fined number of things, are called indefinite premises.211
Strings of concise definitions such as these, designed to be committed
to memory, were appropriate means for introducing relatively simple
notions, and both In universam dialecticam and its Chinese adaptation
made ample use of them. To clarify more problematic concepts, how-
ever, more complex explanations were required. One of the greatest
challenges in this regard were the terms used in scholastic logic to
analyze the internal structure of the premises of which syllogisms con-
sisted. In addition to providing unambiguous definitions of “term,”
“subject,” and “predicate,” Chinese translators here needed to disen-
tangle the overlapping meanings of all three concepts in logic and the
equally alien discipline of “grammar,” and to find Chinese equiva-
lents for examples illustrating their application. De syllogismo made an
admirable, if not entirely convincing effort to address these difficulties.
The text introduced all three notions in the Priora’s “classic” ( gu 古)
definition of “terms”: “The predicate (chengwei 稱謂 ‘designation’) and
the subject (di 底 ‘basis’, ‘foundation’) to which it is predicated, [as
the final elements] into which premises are analyzed, are called terms
211
Ibid., 1:7b.
76 chapter one
(xianjie 限界 ‘limits’).”212 Straightforward as this seemed, the definition

conflicted, as the translators readily admitted, with the analysis of De
interpretatione, where not terms but “words” (ziyu 字語) were identified
as the “final elements” (mofen 末分) of propositions.213 To resolve the
apparent contradiction De syllogismo asserted that “words” were the
building blocks of propositions only from the perspective of “the art
of speech” (shuoyi 說藝 ‘grammar’) whose scope transcended the nar-
row goals of logic. While logic aimed at no more than explaining one
particular kind of speech—syllogisms—and needed to consider only
the “material parts” (zhifen 質分) of premises in its analyses, grammar
was concerned with the “formal” (mo 模) aspects of any kind of speech
and therefore had to determine the functions of all words used in
the piece of discourse under consideration.214 Grammar thus analyzed
propositions into “nouns” (ming 名 ‘names’), “verbs” (wu 務 ‘that which
attends to, or is devoted to [a subject]’, that is, a ‘subservient [ part
of speech]’), and “words that do not have meaning by themselves” (zi
bu zuoyi zhi yu 自不作義之語), that is, syncategoremata such as preposi-
tions, conjunctions, and pronouns. Logic, in contrast, looked only at
the two “extremes” (duan 端) present in any premise, namely, subject
and predicate. Unlike nouns and verbs that retained their grammatical
functions outside of propositions, the translators explained, subject and
predicate gained their logical meanings exclusively from their associa-
tion in the context of complete premises.215 Either because they trusted
that the literal meanings of the terms they chose to render these con-
cepts were self-explanatory or because these were explicated in the
no longer extant adaptation of De interpretatione, however, they did not
offer a more detailed discussion of subject and predicate. Patient stu-
dents may nonetheless have been able to induce a firmer understand-
ing from the many examples throughout the text in which both were
highlighted. Passages like the following could have gone a long way
in helping them identify the logical terms from which all syllogisms
were built:
All things or events that are subjects belong to a certain predicate. They
are either many or one in number. This [number] is the quantity of the
212
Ibid., 1:10a.
213
Ibid., 1:11a.
214
Ibid., 1:29b–30a.
215
Ibid., 1:27b.
first encounters 77
premise. For from among the things that are subjects we either raise
many or one. Let us look first at those who belong to a predicate as
many. In “All men have the ability to laugh” ( fan ren jie neng xiao zhe 凡
人皆能笑者), in which “men” is the subject, we talk about many men.
As to raising one: In “There is one man who is a philosopher” (huo yi ren
wei qionglizhe 或一人為窮理者), the “man” we raise is only one present
man, either this one or that one, and we say of him that he is a philoso-
pher. The same holds for the subject of indefinite premises. In “Men are
philosophers” (ren wei qionglizhe 人為窮理者), we point only to undefined
men. The meaning is that this or that or any man is a philosopher. But
when we raise one defined man and say, for instance, this one man here
is a philosopher, then we talk only about a certain A (moujia 某甲).216
For the problem of the copula that is often singled out as lying at the
heart of perceived incommensurabilities between Chinese and Indo-
European languages and, by extension, thought,217 the translators
found a rather elegant, if implicit solution. Instead of insisting that the
copula, and thus a variation of the verb “to be” with its ambivalent
connotations of existence and identity, was a necessary part of any
premise irrespective of the language in which it was formulated, as tra-
ditional syllogistics postulated, they emphasized that the “affirmative
verbs” (shi zhi wu 是之務) linking subject and predicate—in the above
examples jie 皆 . . . zhe 者 ‘all that is’ and wei 為 . . . zhe 者 ‘is deemed as’
or ‘is said to be’—should be regarded as integral parts of the predi-
cate rather than separate entities, let alone “terms” of their own.218 By
focusing on the copula’s logical function in Latin and other European
languages—to affirm or deny that a certain predicate applies to the
premise’s subject—rather than its grammatical form, the translators
managed to present Chinese equivalents without having to address
structural differences in the ways in which premises were expressed.
The only potential cost of this strikingly “modern” solution to an
alleged source of incommensurability was a weakening of the meta-
physical grounding of the logical theories presented in De syllogismo.
216
Ibid., 1:20b–21a.
217
See Angus C. Graham, “Being in Western Philosophy Compared with Shih/
Fei and Yu/Wu in Chinese Philosophy,” in idem, Studies in Chinese Philosophy, 321–359;
and Jean-Paul Reding, “To Be in Greece and China,” in idem, Comparative Essays,
167–194. For philosophical and linguistic critiques of this view, cf. Wardy, Aristotle
in China, 51–55; and Roger Hart, “Translating the Untranslatable: From Copula to
Incommensurable Worlds,” in Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Cir-
culations, ed. Lydia Liu (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1999), 45–73; 48–59.
218
78 chapter one
But in case they were aware of it, the translators were apparently will-
ing to pay that price.
Despite such problems, De syllogismo’s explanations of the terms of
which premises consisted succeeded in sketching a workable outline
of a fundamental aspect of logical analysis. The more mechanical
operations of inferential reasoning—for instance, conversions or the
application of the three “figures” (xing 形) of the syllogism recognized
by Aristotle—were adapted even more smoothly. Variables had been
known in China at least since the third century BC and were widely
used in mathematical treatises.219 The translators could thus enlist them
with great confidence in their presentations of technical aspects of the
syllogism. The result in some sections of the text was an almost for-
mulaic presentation of Aristotelian concepts. One example was their
discussion of the convertability of the universal negative premise (“No
A is B”):
Let us take a universal and negative [ premise having the terms] A and
B. Then if A applies to no B, it is appropriate [to say] neither will B
apply to any A; for if it applies to some thing, for instance, a thing we
tentatively call C, then it will not be true that A applies to no B, because
C is in fact a B.220
If our selective analyses are in any way representative, “Litui zhi
zonglun” confirmed that neither grammatical nor technical difficulties
prevented the adaptation of Jesuit-Aristotelian syllogistics in seven-
teenth-century China. Nor was there any evidence of insurmountable
terminological obstacles. The text certainly introduced a challenging
array of loan translations (see Table 1.5). Many were identical to terms
used in the Mingli tan; those that were new followed the same pat-
terns of word-formation and borrowing. By themselves, the new cre-
ations seemed no less ingenious than earlier coinages, and they were
employed with the same impeccable consistency. Yet, as in the Mingli
tan, the new terms were exclusively defined in relation to one another
and not linked to any notions outside the conceptual scheme of the
work. Thus, once again, no bridges were built that spanned the divide
219
On the earliest attestations of the use of variables in Chinese texts, see Harbs-
meier, Language and Logic, 333–334.
220
first encounters 79
separating this scheme from the conceptual environment to which the

text’s contents needed to be adapted.
Although these difficulties inevitably affected the accessibility of the
text, they do not warrant claims of general incompatibilities between
Jesuit logica and peculiar Chinese “ways of thinking.”221 What they
indicate, rather, is that mastering the conceptual framework of Euro-
pean logic, as represented in the Mingli tan and the added sections
in the Qionglixue, required an effort that was, in a very literal sense,
tantamount to learning a foreign language. Li Zhizao, although suf-
fering from old age as much as from the alterity and complexity of
the subject matter he set out to translate, demonstrably managed to
penetrate and even clarify the most intricate notions explained to him,
however haltingly, by his co-translator Furtado. All that was required
to overcome what is all too easily labeled “incommensurability” was
diligence, persistence, some ingenuity, and, most importantly, repeated
practice.
3. The Qionglixue and the Kangxi Emperor

As a trap, the dense text of the Qionglixue was hardly alluring. It seems
almost inconceivable that anyone among Verbiest’s projected prey
would have been caught in it by accident. But Verbiest did not leave
the success of his enterprise to chance. If he obtained the emperor’s
support for printing the work and, ultimately, convinced Kangxi to
include it in the examination curriculum leading to public office, his
trap would snap shut. Aspiring Chinese literati would have no choice
but to study the Cursus philosophicus in order to be promoted and, once
they had been trained in the proper method of reasoning, they would
easily find their way to the divine law.222
Since the emperor had personally encouraged him to embark on
his compilation project, Verbiest had reason to hope his plan might
succeed. Experience had taught him, though, that Kangxi frequently
changed his mind in order to balance competing factions at court. It
was therefore crucial to offer the sovereign irrefragable arguments for
a positive decision. To this end, Verbiest composed a long memo-
rial that he presented to the throne together with his completed work
221
Cf. Standaert, “Investigation of Things,” 417.
222
Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea, vol. 2, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1a. See also Golvers,
“Aristoteles Latinus,” 41–42.
80 chapter one
Table 1.5: Terms Related to the Syllogism in the Qionglixue (1683)

1 logic 理辯 libian ‘rational argument’

理辯學 libianxue ‘science of . . .’
2 reasoning 理推 litui ‘rational inference’
3 syllogism 理推 litui ‘rational inference’, ‘reasoning’
4 demonstrative syllogism 指顯理推 zhixian litui ‘ostentatious reasoning’
5 dialectical syllogism 推辯理推 tuibian litui ‘argumentative reasoning’
6 hypothetical syllogism 若之理推 ruo zhi litui ‘as-if reasoning’
7 enthymeme 非成全理推 fei chengquan litui ‘imperfect reasoning’
8 definition 界義 jieyi ‘delimiting the meaning’
9 analysis 究解 jiujie ‘examining and taking to
pieces’
10 term 限界 xianjie ‘limit’
11 simple term 專一之限界 zhuanyi zhi xianjie ‘unique limit’
12 complex term 合成之限界 hecheng zhi xianjie ‘composite limit’
13 singular term 孑一之限界 jieyi zhi xianjie ‘individual limit’
14 universal term 公之限界 gong zhi xianjie ‘public/general limit’
15 subject 底 di ‘basis, foundation’
16 predicate 稱 (謂) cheng(wei) ‘designation’
17 verb 務 wu ‘subservient [ part of speech]’
18 proposition 題論 tilun ‘articulation of a theme’
題列 tilie ‘thematic item’
19 hypothetical proposition 先設之題列 xianshe zhi tilie ‘presupposed proposition’
若設之題列 ruoshe zhi tilie ‘assumed proposition’
20 contingent proposition 可不然之題列 keburan zhi tilie ‘unnecessary proposition’
21 quality (of proposition) 何似 hesi ‘what like?’
22 true 是 shi ‘right, true’
真 zhen ‘true’
23 false 非 fei ‘wrong, false’
24 quantity (of proposition) 幾何 jihe ‘how much?’
25 predicated of all 稱凡者 cheng fanzhe ‘said of all’
26 predicated of none 稱無一者 cheng wuyizhe ‘said of none’
27 universal 公 gong ‘general, public’
28 particular 特 te ‘particular, special’
29 indefinite 非限定 fei xianding ‘not defined’
30 affirmative proposition 是之題列 shi zhi tilie ‘right/true proposition’
31 negative proposition 非之題列 fei zhi tilie ‘wrong/false proposition’
32 particular proposition 特之題列 te zhi tilie ‘special proposition’
33 universal proposition 公之題列 gong zhi tilie ‘general proposition’
34 universal affirmative 公且是之題列 gong qie shi zhi tilie ‘general and right/true
proposition proposition’
35 universal negative 公且非之題列 gong qie fei zhi tilie ‘general and wrong/false
36 particular affirmative 特且是之題列 te qie shi zhi tilie ‘special and right/true
37 particular negative 特且非之題列 te qie fei zhi tilie ‘special and wrong/false
38 premise 題列 tilie ‘thematic item’
39 major premise 首列 shoulie ‘first item’
40 minor premise 次列 cilie ‘second item’
41 conclusion 收列 shoulie ‘final item’
收也者 shouyezhe ‘that which results’
first encounters 81
Table 1.5 (cont.)

42 antecedent 先 xian ‘prior, first’
43 consequent 收 shou ‘result, last’
44 rule (of syllogism) 規式 guishi ‘pattern, standard’
45 figure (of syllogism) 形 xing ‘form’
46 mood (of syllogism) 規 gui ‘rule, pattern’
47 conversion 相轉 xiangzhuan ‘to turn over, convert’
48 contraposition 反置 fanzhi ‘to switch positions’
49 transposition 相移 xiangyi ‘to move one another’
50 opposition 相對 xiangdui ‘opposed to one another’
51 contradictory 相悖 xiangbei ‘contrary to one another’
52 contrary 相反 xiangfan ‘the opposite of one another’
53 formal principle 模之元始 mo zhi yuanshi ‘formal origin’
54 material principle 質之元始 zhi zhi yuanshi ‘material origin’
55 generalization 總理 zongli ‘to summarize’
56 induction 引推 yintui ‘to infer by citation’
57 example 譬推 pitui ‘to infer by example’
58 analogy 相似 xiangsi ‘similarity’
on October 16, 1683. This memorial eventually attempted to situ-

ate European logic, without mentioning its name, among the sciences
most cherished in China, if only for strategic purposes. Drawing on
his renown as an astronomer, Verbiest focused on establishing a direct
link between the administration of the calendar, eclipse prediction,
and the syllogistic “method of reasoning” (litui zhi fa 理推之法). But he
also highlighted the significance of this novel method for other areas
of learning and government that might attract the attention of the
emperor and his non-Christian entourage. The full text of this docu-
ment read as follows:
Your servant, Ferdinand Verbiest, responsible for the administration
of the calendar, a former junior vice-president of the Board of Works
elevated by two ranks, respectfully presents the book Qionglixue in order
to elucidate the patterns of the calendar and open wide the doors to the
hundred sciences so that all affairs may be resolved favorably for all pos-
terity. In my humble opinion, the administration of the calendar and the
elucidation of the seasons are the primary tasks of the sovereign. Your
Majesty’s administration of both surpasses one hundred generations, like
the brilliance of the sun outshines the stars. Now, in calendrical calcu-
lations, we rely on the numbers (shu 數) of which they consist and the
patterns (li 理) according to which they are established. If in our calcula-
tions we only had the numbers but no patterns, we would be like men
who have bodies but no souls, or like heavenly bodies that have fixed
positions but are unable to revolve around and illuminate [the earth].
82 chapter one
The patterns of the calendar are the reasons behind the constant
motions of all stars, just as a spring is whence a stream of water takes its
course. I perused the records in the twenty-one dynastic Histories. From
the Han Dynasty onward the calendrical reports seek only calculations
and numbers; rarely do they strive for refined patterns (mingli 名理).
Although the parties involved in reforming [the calendar] were numer-
ous, they were in fact close to one another, and although one or two new
ideas evolved among them, they were unable to understand the origins
[of the planetary motions]. Only the calendar by Guo Shoujing 郭守
敬 [1231–1316] of the Yuan [1260–1368] is said to be exact,223 but his
calculations were also not perfect. Even in his day irregularities prevailed
so that eclipses were predicted (tui 推) when there were none, or eclipses
occurred when none were predicted. Since the methods established [by
Guo] displayed serious deficits only eighteen years [that is, one lunar
cycle] after their introduction, how could we still follow them today?
Your Majesty’s administration of the calendar has been perfect. We
now possess books such as The Perpetual Calendar of the Kangxi Emperor
([Kangxi ] Yongnian Libiao 康熙永年曆表, 1678) and Descriptions of Newly-
built Astronomical Instruments in the Imperial Observatory ([Xinzhi] Lingtai Yixi-
angzhi 新制靈台儀象志, 1674).224 Altogether more than 150 juan have
been published on various aspects of the calendar. Indeed, the flourish-
ing of calendrical manuals can be said to have reached a climax! Yet,
your subject still has something to request, not in order to add to the
inner light of the calendrical patterns but only to increase their outward
glance, namely, to promulgate the science of fathoming patterns (qiong-
lixue 窮理學, that is, European philosophy) in order to shed further light
on the patterns of the calendar as outlined in these books, so that those
studying the calendar will know its patterns as well as its numbers and
its brilliance will be manifest for all to see.
The reason why those studying the calendar today know only its num-
bers but do not understand its patterns is that they do not know the syl-
logistic method (litui zhi fa 理推之法). This is obvious in the discussions
of the patterns of astronomy and calendrical calculations in the various
books on the subject. Not knowing the syllogistic method is like possess-
ing a treasure of gold hidden in the veins of the earth and failing to dig a
mine. Similarly, when these books in their calculations stick to numbers
only and do not investigate the patterns, this is like vainly holding up a
lamp with one’s hand without using its light.
Those who will henceforth study the science of the calendar must
first of all acquaint themselves with the philosophical sciences. For the
223
See Joseph Needham, Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth,
367–389.
224
Both works were compiled under Verbiest’s direction. See, e.g., Xi Zezong,
“Ferdinand Verbiest’s Contribution to Chinese Science,” in Witek, Verbiest, 183–211;
184–202.
first encounters 83
science of the calendar is a branch of philosophy. Without philosophy,

there can be no true science of the calendar; it would resemble a tree
without roots: wherefrom should its branches grow? The sole reason
why calendrical calculations of previous generations were confused and
their traditions broken, why they were obscure and unclear, is because
the syllogistic method was unknown. In the twenty-four years from the
day your subject was summoned to your capital until the present, I have
by day and by night exhausted all my powers to perfect the syllogistic
method. I have thoroughly investigated the books on philosophy. All
those that had been translated from Western languages but had not
yet been printed, I revised, enlarged, and prepared for the press; those
whose translations had not been completed, I continued one by one,
supplemented, and edited them in sets, hoping that I would thus be able
to make available the essentials of the syllogistic method.
I have already presented a palace memorial on this matter. More than
a year ago I received the favor of Your Majesty’s reply asking whether
or not I had already finished translating the books on science and phi-
losophy. This shows that you, Your Majesty, amidst the myriad exigen-
cies of government still take the pains to exert yourself for the control
of learning, which is executed with superior wisdom, and that you know
that philosophy is the root of all the sciences. And so, too, all renowned
scholars, past and present, have said in their discussions of that which is
essential, refined, pure, and precious in every science that philosophy is
the source of all learning; that it corrects erroneous reviews of examina-
tion essays and is the touchstone of true potential; that it is the judge of
all skills and the bright light in spiritual matters; the eye of the intellect
and the key to moral concerns; that it is, indeed, preeminent among the
sciences. Without the syllogistic method, the military sciences, engineer-
ing, medicine, law, surveying, and measurement must remain superficial
and can never become exact arts.
Moreover, all scholars throughout the world, irrespective of origin
and rank, regard patterns as primary in all their discussions. Still, there
are always some who do not know how to distinguish between true and
false according to patterns. Their theories will not cease to contradict
one another and they will be unable to achieve unity. But surely there
must be a certain method to settle [their disputes]. This method is none
other than the syllogistic method. The syllogistic method is able to rec-
oncile people’s hearts and complete all tasks in the empire; and thus we
may say that it can pacify the realm.
One day, many years from now, pagodas, fortified city-walls, moats,
and other works of ingenuity will perish, and with them the names of
those who built them will fall into oblivion. The doctrines of Confucius
and Mencius, however, do not wear out even after ten thousand gen-
erations, and the same is true of the science of syllogistic reasoning (litui
zhi xue 理推之學). Pattern (or ratio, li 理) is an essential part of human
nature; it is eternally engraved in our human hearts. Likewise, Your
Majesty’s fame for establishing the study of pattern today will be firmly
84 chapter one
and eternally engraved into the hearts of humanity since human nature
will never perish. Throughout the universe Your Majesty’s merit will
shine as brightly as that of Confucius and Mencius.
I wrote a book on philosophy in sixty juan which I present for Your
Majesty’s inspection, humbly begging that in your superior wisdom you
may grant the permission to print it. Your servant, having started from
calendrical calculations and having used more words than appropriate,
thus personally offers you this book and respectfully reports for your
information.225
Standard memorialese and obligatory flattering aside, Verbiest’s argu-
ment was quite straightforward. Administering the calendar was the
primary task of the emperor but astronomical calculations had been
flawed since antiquity. Even the best traditional methods ( fa 法) led to
miscalculations and erroneous predictions (tui 推). One-sided attention
to “numbers” (shu 數), at the expense of the underlying “patterns” (li
理), was the main reason for these shortcomings. Under Kangxi’s rule,
the deficits of the tradition had been corrected with the help of Verbi-
est and his confrères who, in contrast to Chinese astronomers, under-
stood the importance of “patterns” for scientific inquiry. The best way
to perfect the calendrical methods further was to spread European
philosophy, “the science of fathoming patterns,” as presented in the
Cursus. Philosophy was at the root and origin of all sciences because it
provided a powerful “method of reasoning” (litui zhi fa 理推之法), the
syllogism. Read in the context of the memorial, Verbiest’s neologism
litui zhi fa 理推之法 masterfully wove together the key points of his
argument in favor of the “syllogistic method.” Li 理, ‘pattern’, but also
‘human reason, ratio’, had been singled out above as the indispensable
foundation of exact “calendrical calculations” ( fa 法, also ‘method’),
and tui 推 ‘to push on, infer’ mentioned in the sense of ‘to predict
[as, e.g., eclipses]’. The compound litui 理推, as we have seen, was
used throughout the Qionglixue to render both “reasoning” and “the
syllogism.” Consequently, litui zhi fa could be understood not only as
“the syllogistic method” or, more literally, “the method of rational
reasoning,” but also as “the [calculation] method of [calendrical] pre-
dictions according to patterns,” and thus as the perfect cure for the
225
Ferdinand Verbiest (Nan Huairen 南懷仁), “Jincheng Qionglixue shu zou” 進呈
窮理學書奏 (Memorial on the respectful presentation of the book Cursus philosophi-
cus), reprinted in Xu Zongze, Ming-Qing jian Yesuhuishi, 191–193. Roughly half of this
memorial has been translated, not entirely reliably, by W. Vande Walle for Golvers,
“Aristoteles Latinus,” 38–39.
first encounters 85
deficits of Qing astronomy! Yet, Verbiest insisted, the utility of the

syllogistic method extended beyond the realm of eclipse prediction.
It could also be used to prevent misjudgments and fraud in the civil
examinations, clarify spiritual concerns, advance the human intellect,
and elucidate ethical maxims. Moreover, it was an indispensable tool
for the military sciences, engineering, medicine, law, surveying, and
measurement—in short, for all areas of knowledge with practical value
to the concerns of the state. Finally, the syllogistic method could help
to resolve the seemingly endless scholarly controversies with absolute
certainty. For all these reasons, the decision to print the Cursus and
promulgate the study of philosophy would not only earn the emperor
eternal praise from future generations but, more immediately, provide
him with a powerful tool to “pacify the realm.”
Verbiest thus certainly made a strong case for his logical spider’s
webs. He emphasized time and again that the Cursus, despite its eso-
teric appearance, was useful for a broad range of practical applications.
But would these claims suffice to lure the throne into his trap? The
initial response of the Kangxi emperor was neutral and conformed to
standard bureaucratic procedure. On October 27, 1683, he decreed
that “the Board of Rites and the Hanlin Academy should get together,
study [the matter] carefully, and memorialize on their opinion; the
book shall be forwarded along.”226 The officials minding the integrity
of the Confucian doctrine replied that the Cursus “is not written in the
style common in China so that some time will be needed to arrive at
an impartial judgment.”227 In view of the complexity of the text, their
final verdict came soon enough. By December 31, 1683, they advised
the emperor to withhold permission for the printing and promulga-
tion of the Cursus. The official reason, as formulated by the Manchu
grand secretary Mingzhu 明珠 (1635–1708) and cited in a number
of sources, had little to do with logic or the complexities of the syl-
logistic method. Rather, the guardians of orthodoxy took offense with
the Cursus for suggesting that “human knowledge and memory are
located in the brains” rather than the “heart” (xin 心), where both are
situated in canonical writings.228 How seriously this argument should
226
Imperial rescript, cited from Xu Zongze, Ming-Qing jian Yesuhuishi, 193.
227
Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea, vol. 2, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1b. Translation
228
Kangxi qiju zhu 康熙起居注 (Records of the Kangxi Emperor’s work and rest),
ed. Zhongguo diyi lishi dang’anguan 中國第一歷史檔案館 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1984), vol. 2, 1104. Translation adapted from Dudink and Standaert, “Qionglixue,” 17.
86 chapter one
be taken is open to debate. Benjamin Elman interprets it as evidence

of a significant difference between Chinese and European medical
thinking.229 Contemporary observers, however, regarded this conten-
tion, more plausibly it seems to me, as a mere pretext. To them, it was
obvious that Christianity’s opponents in the bureaucracy,230 who were
customarily derided by the Jesuits as “the Rabbis,” had eventually
seen through Verbiest’s trap. The true reason for their rejection was
hence, in the words of Dunyn-Szpot, “that European philosophy was
not in accordance with the Chinese, and that there was a particular
doctrine of the divine law embedded within it that ran counter to the
wisdom and the religion that had ruled China for so many olympiads
of centuries.”231
The emperor’s personal stance on the matter is difficult to assess.
After all, if Verbiest’s testimony is credible, he had encouraged the
father to compile the Cursus. Yet, at least in public, Kangxi did noth-
ing to overrule or qualify his officials’ verdict. On the contrary, in the
official record he is quoted as concurring with his advisers by stating
that “the style of this book is absurd and unintelligible.”232 On the
other hand, the emperor continued to seek instruction in philosophy
through secret emissaries who allegedly reported to him at night what
they had learned on the subject at Verbiest’s residence during the day.233
Thus, even if he disagreed with his senior officials, Kangxi apparently
deemed the issue of too little importance to risk an open rift. Accord-
ingly, he decreed that the father’s request be indeed denied and his
manuscript returned. After more than five years, Verbiest’s efforts to
trap the Chinese elite in the iron grip of the syllogistic method thus
came to naught.
229
Elman, On Their Own Terms, 146–147. On some of the ideological stakes in Sino-
Jesuit debates about the “heart,” see Qiong Zhang, “Hybridizing Scholastic Psychol-
ogy with Chinese Medicine: A Seventeenth-Century Chinese Catholic’s Conceptions
of Xin (Mind and Heart),” Early Science and Medicine 13 (2008): 313–360; 325–343.
230
See Willy Vande Walle, “Ferdinand Verbiest and the Chinese Bureaucracy,” in
Witek, Verbiest, 495–515.
231
Dunyn-Szpot, Collectanea, vol. 2, part IV, chapter IV, 1, p. 1b. Translation
232
Kangxi qiju zhu, vol. 2, 1104. See Dudink and Standaert, “Qionglixue,” 17.
233
Golvers, “Aristoteles Latinus,” 46–48.
first encounters 87
Concluding Remarks
With this renewed rejection the story of Jesuit logica in late Ming and
early Qing China reached its end. Just like the Mingli tan before it, the
Qionglixue fell into almost immediate oblivion. The only Chinese text
mentioning logic at all that remained accessible was the Xixue fan but,
as we have seen, Aleni’s description of luorijia was so fragmentary that
it could hardly arouse interest or curiosity. Especially when compared
with the stunning success of sciences like mathematics and astronomy,
the first translation of European logic into the Chinese discursive uni-
verse must therefore be seen as a compelling failure (even if “failure
narratives” have—for good reasons—fallen into disfavor in recent
studies of transcultural circulations of science and thought).234 Yet, we
must be clear about the reasons underlying this failure. On the narrow
textual level, Li Zhizao and Francisco Furtado proved beyond doubt
that it was possible to find or create a language to represent logical
notions in Chinese, even though the translators were unable to iden-
tify an indigenous context that would help them or their prospective
readers to situate the subject. If the result of their labors remained
exceedingly difficult reading, this was not so much a consequence of
the inadequacy of their stylistic or terminological choices but rather of
the complexity of the conceptual lexicon of Jesuit logica.
As the example of Li Zhizao attests, however, this lexicon was
not impenetrable to “the Chinese mind.” Students intent on enter-
ing the conceptual edifice of the Mingli tan or the Qionglixue could do
so, if they were willing, like Li, to learn and memorize scores of new
terms and notions, and practice the rules, or “grammar,” according
to which both were to be used in reasoning and argumentation. The
effort required to learn the conceptual language of Jesuit logica would
thus seem, as I have argued above, no more or less painful than that
necessary to learn a foreign language. But the Jesuits never got as far
as starting to teach that language in late Ming or early Qing China
because they failed to make the case why anyone should take such
pains. Promises to find or return to Christian truths held little appeal
for non-Christian Chinese readers. In the eyes of Christianity’s critics
234
See, e.g., Nicolas Standaert, “Christianity in Late Ming and Early Qing China
as a Case of Cultural Transmission,” in China and Christianity: Burdened Past, Hope-
ful Future, ed. Stephen Uhalley Jr. and Xiaoxin Wu (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2001),
81–116; 87–90.
88 chapter one
they rather overshadowed all other possible applications of the disci-

pline, no matter how ingeniously they were advertised. Accordingly,
the Jesuit lobbying for the adoption of luorijia was interpreted, and
consequently rejected, as yet another missionary ploy to unsettle the
authority of the canonical Confucian writings as the sole and ultimate
source of all truth. As long as this authority was intact, there was no
place for a logic presented or perceived as the obedient handmaiden
of a competing faith and its obstinate foreign messengers.
CHAPTER TWO
HAPHAZARD OVERTURES: LOGIC IN

NINETEENTH-CENTURY PROTESTANT WRITINGS
The logic now in use serves to reinforce and fix those

errors that are founded on commonly held notions
rather than to help the search for truth, and so does
more harm than good.
Francis Bacon, The New Organon
By the early eighteenth century, the Jesuit mission had lost much of its
momentum due to internal divisions and continued attacks from com-
peting denominations, culminating in the notorious rites controversy.1
Conditions deteriorated on the Chinese side as well. With the death of
the Kangxi emperor in 1722 the mission lost its imperial protection. In
1724, the Yongzheng 雍正 emperor (1678–1735) proscribed all mis-
sionary activities.2 His hostile edict marked the beginning of a hiatus
in the Chinese encounter with European science and thought. Although
contacts were never completely severed and some missionaries con-
tinued to operate clandestinely in the provinces, noncommercial
exchanges largely came to a halt for almost a century.3 European logic
would not be mentioned in a Chinese context for nearly two hundred
years after Ferdinand Verbiest’s infelicitous syllogistic trap collapsed.
1. Protestant Authors and Western Knowledge
In the early nineteenth century, Christian missionaries again took

the lead in Chinese-Western interactions. In many respects the evan-
gelical movement that brought mostly British and American Protes-
tants to Chinese shores from 1807 onward differed markedly from
1
See David Mungello, The Chinese Rites Controversy: Its History and Meaning (Nettetal:
Steyler, 1994). See also Paul A. Rule, K’ung-tzu or Confucius: The Jesuit Interpretation of
Confucianism (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1986), 88–149.
2
3
See Joanna Waley-Cohen, The Sextants of Beijing: Global Currents in Chinese History
(New York: Norton, 1999), 92–128.
90 chapter two
the Jesuit enterprise. At least in hindsight, the Protestant missionary

drive appears closely linked to a period of European expansion that
was fired by commercial interests and colonial aspirations,4 guarded
by unparalleled military prowess acquired in the course of the Indus-
trial Revolution, and accompanied by despicable feelings of cultural
and more often than not “racial” superiority taken to justify the self-
righteous belief that any obstacle on the unilaterally defined path
to universal “progress” could and should be removed, if need be by
force.5 Nonetheless, the imperialist background of the Protestant mis-
sion does not automatically warrant wholesale condemnation of the
aims and activities of all clergymen, including those who came as mis-
sionaries but built careers in the service of foreign and Chinese busi-
nesses or the Qing administration. Even if delusions of empire shaped
the perceptions and actions of many,6 quite a few Protestants, like
their Jesuit precursors, had honorable personal motives and proved
willing to endure considerable hardship, not only to save heathen souls
but also to offer practical help and alleviate the lot of the poor and
needy. Still, their unholy alliance with Europe’s new might undeni-
ably helped all nineteenth-century missionaries to secure more liberty
for their operations than the Qing state would have been inclined to
concede in less precarious circumstances.
A substantial part of the missionaries’ efforts were devoted to arous-
ing Chinese curiosity in the Christian message through presentations
of “useful knowledge” from and about the West. Although they did
not share the elitist approach that had led the Jesuits to target above
all the highest ranks of the Chinese bureaucracy, many Protestants
came to realize that they also needed to attract scholarly support if
they were to gain a secure foothold in the Celestial Empire. Thus,
they too invested much energy to add an “intellectual flavoring” to
their stern and sober gospel. In contrast to the Jesuits, Protestant mis-
sionaries hardly ever sought to extract such flavoring from the West’s
4
See James L. Hevia, English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century
China (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2003), 1–29 and passim; and David
Porter, “A Peculiar but Uninteresting Nation: China and the Discourse of Commerce
in Eighteenth-Century England,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 33, no. 2 (1999–2000):
181–199.
5
See Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of
Western Dominance (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989), 79–94, 177–193.
6
See Eric Reinders, Borrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies: Christian Missionaries Imagine
Chinese Religion (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2004).
haphazard overtures 91
humanistic traditions—or what were then known as the “moral

sciences”—in order not to undermine the preeminence of Scripture
in ethical matters. Instead, they concentrated their activities on natural
philosophy and, until the 1860s at least, a peculiar brand of British
natural theology.7
The sciences introduced by Protestant authors over the course of
the nineteenth century had little in common with the Renaissance
scientia presented by the Jesuits. While not always in step with con-
temporary developments, the Protestant version of Western knowl-
edge was firmly rooted in the conceptual world of post-Newtonian
Europe. Besides mathematics and to a lesser extent astronomy, which
continued to intrigue Chinese audiences,8 the Protestants placed the
strongest emphasis on the recent achievements of European medicine9
and above all chemistry, the leading science of the age.10 But they
also imparted knowledge in other disciplines they hoped would be
seen as “useful” in China, most notably various branches of physics11
and the earth sciences.12 Botany13 and zoology were special cases, as
Fa-ti Fan has shown, because in these fields missionaries and other
foreigners were not only interested in spreading but even more so in
collecting knowledge, especially about species unknown in Europe.14
The only areas of the natural sciences Protestant authors seemed to
avoid more or less consistently were aspects of biology and natural
history affected by the Darwinian revolution, which had the potential
7
Wright, Translating Science, 72–99.
8
See Wann-Sheng Horng, Li Shanlan: The Impact of Western Mathematics in China
during the Late Nineteenth Century (Ph.D. diss., City University of New York, 1991); and
Mingjie Hu, Merging Chinese and Western Mathematics: The Introduction of Algebra and the
Calculus in China, 1859–1903 (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1998).
9
See Bridie J. Andrews, The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine, 1895–1937 (Ph.D.
diss., University of Cambridge, 1996). See also Heinrich, Afterlife of Images.
10
See Wright, Translating Science; and James Reardon-Anderson, The Study of Change:
Chemistry in China, 1840–1949 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
11
Wang Bing 王冰, “Ming-Qing shiqi (1610–1910) wulixue yizhu shumu kao” 明
清時期 (1610–1910) 物理學譯著書目考 (A bibliographic study of translated works
on physics in Ming and Qing China, 1610–1910), Zhongguo keji shiliao 7, no. 5 (1986):
10–20.
12
Zou Zhenhuan 鄒振環, Wan Qing xifang dilixue zai Zhongguo 晚清西方地理學在
中國 (Western geography in late Qing China) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe,
2000).
13
Georges Métailié, “Sources for Modern Botany in China during the Qing
Dynasty,” Japan Review 4 (1993): 1–13.
14
Fa-ti Fan, British Naturalists in Qing China: Science, Empire, and Cultural Encounter
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004).
92 chapter two
to undermine the biblical account of creation.15 And they never missed

an opportunity to illustrate the fresh technological dominance of Euro-
America, which the Qing dynasty had to acknowledge repeatedly in
costly clashes with imposing Western powers.
The problems of translation the Protestants had to overcome were
identical to those the Jesuits had faced two centuries earlier. Even
though some missionaries confabulated in terms that were as conde-
scending as they were naïve about the unsuitability of the Chinese
language as a medium of science and thought, the highest hurdles
remained lexical.16 In their efforts to coin new terms for the ideas
they hoped to convey, Protestant translators mostly followed the
Jesuit example and relied on the expertise of Chinese collaborators.
Only a few bolder, or more conceited, Europeans insisted that they
knew best how the Chinese language needed to change in order to
adapt Western notions. Especially in the realm of chemistry, imagi-
nation roamed free. In order to render the names of the elements,
for instance, one translator invented a new series of ludicrously com-
plex Chinese characters, while another devised pseudo-characters with
no pronunciations to represent the formulae instead of the names of
various chemical compounds.17 Even the success of the more serious
lexical innovations introduced in Protestant translations varied greatly,
depending not so much on the inherent virtues of individual creations
as on the Chinese public’s shifting interest in the sciences to which the
new terms belonged.18
15
Elman, On Their Own Terms, 345–352. See also Wang Zichun 汪子春, “Zhong-
guo jindai shengwuxue fazhan gaikuang” 中國近代生物學發展概況 (Outline his-
tory of biology in modern China), Zhongguo keji shiliao 9, no. 2 (1988): 17–35. On
the relationship between science and religion more generally, see A. Hunter Dupree,
“Christianity and the Scientific Community in the Age of Darwin,” in God and Nature:
Historical Essays on the Encounter between Christianity and Science, ed. David C. Lindberg
and Ronald L. Numbers (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press,
1986), 351–368.
16
David Wright, “The Translation of Modern Western Science in Nineteenth-
Century China, 1840–1895,” Isis 89, no. 4 (1998): 658–661.
17
See Jean-Claude and Viviane Alleton, Terminologie de la chimie en chinois moderne
(Paris, La Haye: Mouton, 1966); and David Wright, “The Great Desideratum: Chi-
nese Chemical Nomenclature and the Transmission of Western Chemical Concepts,”
Chinese Science 14 (1997): 35–70.
18
See Masini, The Formation of the Modern Chinese Lexicon, passim.
Judged by the number of titles, the Protestant output of scientific

treatises and translations far surpassed the Jesuit record.19 Their texts
also reached considerably larger audiences thanks to the modern
printing presses they set up in several Chinese cities.20 Chinese offi-
cials and private scholars welcomed especially those of their writings
with no or little Christian coloring as valuable sources of information.
An even more lasting contribution of Protestant mediators of Western
knowledge was the part they played in the creation and extension
of an institutional infrastructure for the transmission and populariza-
tion of modern science in China. Driven by the conviction that “sci-
ence is one of the noblest forms of theology,”21 Protestant missionaries
launched a number of projects that anticipated or paved the way for
later Chinese initiatives. They edited the first Chinese journals devoted
to scientific topics,22 founded several colleges that offered scientific
instruction,23 and were instrumental in establishing the earliest mod-
ern government schools in China.24 With the Shanghai Polytechnic
Institution and Reading Room, they founded the first institution dedi-
cated to the dissemination of scientific ideas to the broader Chinese
public,25 and in the context of their work at government-sponsored
19
The most comprehensive bibliography is Yatsumimi Toshifumi 八耳俊文, “Shin
makki seijin choyaku kagaku kankei Chūgokusho oyobi wakokuhon shozai mokuroku”
清末期西人著訳科学関係中国書および和刻本所在目録 (Chinese books related to
science translated by foreigners in the late Qing period, with indications of holdings
in Japan), Kagakushi kenkyū 22 (1995): 312–358. See also Xiong Yuezhi 熊月之, Xixue
dongjian yu wan Qing shehui 西學東漸與晚清社會 (The dissemination of Western knowl-
edge and late Qing society) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1994), 133–219,
285–300, 475–637; and Tsuen-hsuin Tsien, “Western Impact on China through
Translation,” Far Eastern Quarterly 13, no. 3 (1954): 310–318.
20
Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian, 475–492.
21
F. W. Farrar, “The Attitude of the Clergy towards Science,” reprinted in Religion
in Victorian Britain, ed. Gerald Parsons and James R. Moore (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1988), vol. 3, 440–444; 443. See also Frank M. Turner, “The Vic-
torian Conflict between Science and Religion: A Professional Dimension,” Isis 69
(1978): 356–376.
22
See Ge Gongzhen 戈公振, Zhongguo baoxueshi 中國報學史 (History of Chinese
journalism) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1927); and Roswell S. Britton, The Chi-
nese Periodical Press, 1800–1912 (Shanghai: Kelly and Walsh, 1933).
23
See Jessie G. Lutz, China and the Christian Colleges, 1850–1950 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor-
nell University Press, 1971).
24
See Knight Biggerstaff, The Earliest Modern Government Schools in China (Ithaca, N.Y.:
Cornell University Press, 1961), 1–93; and Xiong, Xixue dongjian, 301–349.
25
See Wang Ermin 王爾敏, Shanghai Gezhi shuyuan zhilüe 上海格致書院志略 (Brief
history of the Shanghai Polytechnic Institution) (Hong Kong: The Chinese Univer-
sity Press, 1980). See also Knight Biggerstaff, “Shanghai Polytechnic Institution and
Reading Room: An Attempt to Introduce Western Science and Technology to the
94 chapter two
arsenals they helped to set up and maintain specialized translation

offices.26 Toward the end of the century they even began to convene
commissions for the standardization of technical terminology, the first
attempt at taming the unstoppable flood of newly coined terms by
means of centralized institutions.27
To be sure, not all of these efforts were successful. Poor manage-
ment, insufficient funding, and frequent personal quarrels were no less
detrimental than the official Chinese distrust and public hostility that
culminated in periodic bouts of xenophobia.28 Still, their mediation
of Western knowledge earned many active or retired Protestant mis-
sionaries considerable respect among reform-minded Chinese scholars
and officials. Emboldened by this respect, some started to seek greater
political influence and published treatises advocating more determined
efforts at industrial modernization and institutional reforms.29 The fact
that even these more audacious texts were received with considerable
interest, particularly in the late 1880s and 1890s, indicates how vul-
nerable the Qing state and the self-confidence of its elites had become
by that time.
In view of their success as mediators and advocates of Western
knowledge, Protestant authors would have seemed well positioned to
advance the cause of European logic—had they chosen to do so. How-
ever, logic ranked near the bottom of their agenda. In contrast to the
Chinese,” Pacific Historical Review 25 (1956): 127–149; and David Wright, “John Fryer
and the Shanghai Polytechnic: Making Space for Science in Nineteenth-Century
China,” British Journal for the History of Science 29 (1996): 1–16.
26
Li Nanqiu 黎難秋, Zhongguo kexue wenxian fanyi shigao 中國科學文獻翻譯史搞
(Draft history of the translation of scientific documents in China) (Hefei: Zhongguo
kexue jishu daxue chubanshe, 1993), 78–114.
27
See Wang Shuhuai 王樹槐, “Qingmo fanyi mingci de tongyi wenti” 清末翻譯
名詞的統一問題 (The problem of the unification of translated terms at the end of the
Qing dynasty), Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan 1 (1969): 47–82; and Wang
Yangzong 王揚宗, “Qingmo Yizhi shuhui tongyi keji shuyu gongzuo shuping” 清末
益智書會統一科技術語工作述評 (A critical review of the standardization of techni-
cal terminology at the Educational Association of China in the late Qing), Zhongguo
keji shiliao 12, no. 2 (1991): 9–19.
28
See Paul A. Cohen, China and Christianity: The Missionary Movement and the Growth
of Chinese Antiforeignism, 1860–1870 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1963).
29
See Wang Shuhuai 王樹槐, Wairen yu wuxu bianfa 外人與戊戌變法 ( Foreigners
and the 1898 reforms) (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1965). See
also Wang Lixin 王立新, Meiguo chuanjiaoshi yu wan Qing Zhongguo xiandaihua 美國傳教
士與晚清中國現代化 (American missionaries and the modernization of China in the
late Qing dynasty) (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin chubanshe, 1997), 428–470.
Jesuits, none of the Protestant denominations working in China held

the discipline in high esteem. Rational persuasion was considered to
be irrelevant for the Protestant faith. Martin Luther and John Calvin
themselves had decried the scholastic reliance on reason in matters of
belief. To them, Scripture was self-authenticated as the only authori-
tative access to Christian truths and, as such, needed no further jus-
tification. Evidence of the divine was ultimately nonnegotiable and
was revealed in immediate and personal experiences that transcended
man-made rules of reasoning.
The Protestant indifference or even hostility toward logic reflected a
general crisis of the discipline. Even outside the spiritual realm, logic
had lost much of its prestige as the organon of scientific inquiry. The
rejection of scholasticism, by Protestants and others, in the course of
the scientific revolution had created the image of a closed or stagnat-
ing discourse. Speculative attempts to reunite logic with metaphysics,
for example in G. W. F. Hegel’s Science of Logic, had alienated the disci-
pline further from the positive sciences.30 Not until the mid-nineteenth
century did “the logical question” begin to be raised again in a more
meaningful manner.31 However, the new developments emerging most
notably in Germany and England,32 which would eventually pave the
way for the emergence of mathematical or symbolic logic, were not
widely known before the turn of the twentieth century. Certainly
none of the missionaries active in China were aware of, or in any
way excited about, the imminent changes. For them, logic remained
at best a marginal concern. As a result, they presented the discipline
only intermittently and in more or less haphazard fashion.
2. The New Organon and Old Ways of Argumentation
Throughout much of the nineteenth century, references to logic

remained exceedingly scarce in Protestant writings. Even in general
30
See Frank-Peter Hansen, Geschichte der Logik des 19. Jahrhunderts. Eine kritische Ein-
führung in die Anfänge der Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftstheorie (Würzburg: Königshausen und
Neumann, 2000), 7–22.
31
Volker Peckhaus, Logik, Mathesis universalis und allgemeine Wissenschaft. Leibniz und
die Wiederentdeckung der formalen Logik im 19. Jahrhundert (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997),
130–163.
32
See Volker Peckhaus, “Nineteenth-Century Logic between Philosophy and
Mathematics,” Bulletin of Symbolic Logic 5 (1999): 433–450.
96 chapter two
introductions to “Western knowledge” and the European education

system, the discipline was hardly mentioned. The earliest exception
to this rule was Ernst Faber’s (Hua Zhian 花之安, 1839–1899) book-
length essay “Brief Account of Schools in Germany” (Deguo xuexiao
lunlüe shu 德國學校論略書) of 1873.33 In this frequently reprinted
treatise, Faber presented “logic,” transcribed as luxi 路隙, as one of the
courses taught in the faculties of philosophy (zhixue 智學 ‘the science of
knowing’) at European universities. According to his sketch, logic
discusses how the soul expresses intentions and thoughts and distinguishes
several kinds among them. It also explains why something is right/true
or wrong/false. In addition, [it] analyzes how perceptions, which enter
[our consciousness] via the five sense-organs and are subsequently taken
up by the intellect, are synthesized, and outlines the reasons by which
things are understood clearly.34
Faber thus introduced luxi as a philosophical subdiscipline exploring
how humans actually think. This psychologistic view, reminiscent of
the neo-Kantian philosophy to which he may have been exposed dur-
ing his theological studies at Tübingen, was reflected in the rendition
he suggested as a tentative Chinese equivalent of the term “logic”: yifa
意法 ‘the laws of thought’. It was a branch of knowledge, he hastened
to add, for which no terminology existed in China and which would
therefore be difficult to translate.35
A more comprehensive but scarcely more appealing image of Euro-
pean logic emerged from the few Protestant writings touching upon
the methodological tenets of modern science. The medical missionary
Benjamin Hobson (He Xin 合信, 1816–1873) seems to have expressed
a widely shared view when he declared already in the 1850s that “theo-
retical opinions” should best be avoided in Chinese translations.36 Still,
33
The text was first serialized in 1873 over a period of six months in Young J.
Allen’s Jiaohui xinbao 教會新報 (Church News). See Adrian A. Bennett, Missionary Jour-
nalist in China: Young J. Allen and His Magazines, 1860–1883 (Athens: The University of
Georgia Press, 1983), 123–124. Later in the same year, Faber’s study was published
as a monograph entitled Xiguo xuexiao: Da Deguo xuexiao lunlüe 西國學校—大德國學校
論略 (Schools of Western nations: Brief account of schools in Germany) (Yangcheng
[Guangzhou]: Xiaoshuhui Zhenbaotang, 1873).
34
Ernst Faber (Hua Zhian 花之安), “Deguo xuexiao lunlüe shu” 德國學校論略書
(Brief account of schools in Germany), reprinted in Xizheng tongdian 西政通典 (Com-
prehensive anthology of Western government), ed. Yuan Zonglian 袁宗濂 and Yan
Zhiqing 晏志清 (Shanghai: Cuixin shuju, 1902 [1897]), 24:11b–12a.
35
Ibid., 24:12a.
36
Wright, Translating Science, 263–266.
in a very general manner, a number of works on natural theology and

natural philosophy alluded to or exemplified principles of inductive
reasoning, thus drawing on aspects of scientific methodology informed
by contemporary theories of logic. Even in these texts, however, refer-
ences to logic as a discipline in its own right were extremely scarce.
More substantial explanations were supplied only in presentations of
the life and thought of Francis Bacon, who came to be praised as the
founding father of the modern sciences and hence as a harbinger of
the West’s overwhelming power.
1. Bacon and the Principle of Induction

Bacon’s image in late imperial China was the joint production of
Protestant missionaries and reform-minded Chinese scholars and offi-
cials.37 Wang Tao 王韜 (1828–1897) set the tone for Chinese interest
in his biographical sketch “The Englishman Bacon” (Yingren Beigen
英人倍根) of 1875.38 Wang portrayed Bacon as a loyal government
minister who felt compelled to break with time-honored wisdom for
the sake of progress. For Bacon, Wang related, blind faith in ancient
writings was severely limiting human knowledge. Rather than take the
words of the ancients for granted, scholars had to seek out evidence
from facts in order to prove the validity of their claims. To assist this
purpose, Bacon devised a new method of inquiry: “In his book New
Methods for the Investigation of Things and the Fathoming of Patterns (Gewu
qiongli xinfa 格物窮理新法, that is, The New Organon) Bacon wrote . . . that
we must investigate things in order to find new patterns rather than
establish patterns and impose them onto things.”39 Thus paraphras-
ing the principle of induction, Wang proclaimed that the sciences
that had made Europe strong flourished only because later scholars
37
See Yuan Weishi 袁偉時, Zhongguo xiandai zhexue shigao 中國現代哲學史稿 (Draft
history of modern Chinese philosophy) (Guangzhou: Zhongshan daxue chubanshe,
1987), 21–35; and idem, “A Few Problems Related to Nineteenth-Century Chinese
and Western Philosophies and Their Cultural Interaction,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy
22 (1995): 163–171.
38
Wang Tao 王韜, “Yingren Beigen” 英人倍根 (The Englishman Bacon), in idem,
Wengyou yutan 甕牖餘談 (Ramblings from a dilapidated studio) (Shanghai: Jinbu shuju,
1875). See also Zhang Jianghua 張江華, “Zuizao zai Zhongguo jieshao Beigen sheng-
ping ji qi xueshuo de wenxian” 最早在中國介紹培根生平及其學說的文獻 (The ear-
liest Chinese document on the life and thought of Francis Bacon), Zhongguo keji shiliao
11, no. 4 (1990): 93–94.
39
Quoted from ibid., 94.
98 chapter two
had unanimously followed Bacon’s methodological lead. His assertion

was confirmed by, among others, the American missionary journalist
Young J. Allen (Lin Yuezhi 林樂之, 1836–1907)40 and by Guo Song-
tao 郭嵩燾 (1818–1891), China’s first resident envoy to England.41 The
implications of their shared praise for Bacon, although never spelled
out explicitly, were clear: in order to strengthen their civilization, Chi-
nese scholars had to initiate a similar break with the moral and ideo-
logical imperatives of the Confucian classics and become receptive to
the new methods of science introduced from the West.
The most detailed account of Bacon’s thought was provided by the
British missionary William Muirhead (Mu Weilian 慕維廉, 1822–
1900). With the help of his Chinese teacher and assistant Shen Yugui
沈毓桂 (1807–1907),42 Muirhead summarized the first part of Bacon’s
New Organon in a long article that was serialized in several mission-
ary journals. The first draft appeared in 1876 under the title “New
Patterns of Science” (Gezhi xinli 格致新理) in Allen’s Yizhi xinlu 益
知新錄 (The Monthly Educator);43 a slightly revised and expanded ver-
sion entitled “New Methods of Science” (Gezhi xinfa 格致新法) was
printed in 1877 in Gezhi huibian 格致匯編 (The Chinese Scientific Maga-
zine) and in 1878 in Wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 (The Globe Magazine), the
most widely read periodical at the time.44 In 1888, Muirhead pub-
lished two editions of a slightly abridged rendition of Book I of the
40
Young J. Allen (Lin Yuezhi 林樂之), “Zhong-xi guanxi lüelun” 中西關係略論
(Brief account of Chinese-Western relations), Wanguo gongbao 1, no. 8 (1875): 105. See
also Yuan Weishi, “A Few Problems,” 168–170; and Bennett, Missionary Journalist,
204.
41
Guo Songtao 郭嵩燾, Guo Songtao riji 郭嵩燾日記 (Guo Songtao’s diaries)
(Changsha: Hunan renmin chubanshe, 1981), vol. 3, 268, 356.
42
Yi Huili 易惠莉, Xixue dongjian yu Zhongguo chuantong zhishifenzi—Shen Yugui ge’an
yanjiu 西學東漸與中國傳統知識分子—沈敏桂各案研究 (The dissemination of
Western knowledge and traditional Chinese intellectuals—a case study of Shen Yugui)
(Shenyang: Jilin renmin chubanshe, 1993), 103–108. See also Zou Zhenhuan 鄒振
環, Yilin jiuzong 譯林舊蹤 (Old traces in the forest of translations) (Nanchang: Jiangxi
jiaoyu chubanshe, 2000), 55–57.
43
William Muirhead (Mu Weilian 慕維廉), “Gezhi xinli” 格致新理 (New patterns
of science), Yizhi xinlu 益知新錄 (The Monthly Educator) 1, no. 1 ( July 1876)—1, no. 5
(November 1876). On Yizhi xinlu, see Bennett, Missionary Journalist, 66–68.
44
William Muirhead, “Gezhi xinfa” 格致新法 (New methods of science), Gezhi
huibian 格致匯編 (The Chinese Scientific Magazine) 2, no. 2 (March 1877): 367–370; 2,
no. 3 (April 1877): 398–399; 2, no. 7 (August 1877): 26–28; 2, no. 8 (September 1877):
48–54; and 2, no. 9 (October 1877): 87–90. Reprinted in Wanguo gongbao 萬國公報
(The Globe Magazine) 1, nos. 506–513 (September 1878–November 1878).
New Organon (comprising Aphorisms I–CXXX) as New Tools of Science

(Gezhi xinji 格致新機).45
In many respects, Muirhead’s presentation complemented the
attempts of Wang Tao and others to exploit Bacon for a critique of
traditional Chinese ways of thought identified as obstacles to national
recovery. In his article, Muirhead introduced Bacon much in the same
manner as Wang or Guo Songtao before him:
Around the time of the Ming emperor Wanli 萬歷 (r. 1573–1620), there
was an Englishman named Bacon (Beigen 倍根) who served as president
of the Board of Rites [ Lord Chancellor]. Bacon was the first to estab-
lish the correct methods of science. . . . He formulated rules to prevent
people from adhering slavishly to the reputation of ancient scholars and
remaining in a state of error. Yet, just like infants in the school of natural
inquiry, [many] were unwilling to open a new page exposing the errors
of their predecessors. To them Bacon said: “How can we avoid destroy-
ing the old building when planning a new house?” Like a foot soldier
building bridges, laying paths, or removing obstacles, Bacon paved the
way [for a new method of science]. Later generations followed in his
steps and took control of everything between heaven and earth.46
One aspect in which Muirhead went beyond previous accounts of
Bacon’s rebellion against traditional habits of thought was that he did
not shy away from explicit comparisons with the present situation of
China:
The book New Tools of Science . . . expands the achievements of the Greater
Learning in elucidating virtue and adds to the patterns of the investigation
of things and the extension of knowledge. Only the Chinese still indulge
in books on poetry and writings on the six arts instead of examining the
instructions of the great origin [of all things]. Who among them knows
that in order to progress beyond political matters and textual scholarship
we must push upward in order to return to the origin and that, from this
origin, we must push downward in order to engage in the investigation
of things. If we are able to investigate things and fathom patterns, push
on to the origin and arrive at the foundation, then the Way will be great
and constantly made anew, and we will reap endless benefits.47
45
William Muirhead (trans.), Gezhi xinji 格致新機 (New tools of science) (Shanghai:
Gezhi shushi; Beijing: Tongwen shuhui, 1888).
46
Gezhi huibian 2, no. 2 (1877): 367.
47
William Muirhead, “Gezhi xinji chongxiu zhuxue zixu” 格致新機重修諸學自序
(Translator’s preface to the New Tools of Science and the renewal of all learning), in
idem, Gezhi xinji, 1a–b.
100 chapter two
According to Muirhead, the “great instruction” that seventeenth-

century Western and contemporary Chinese readers could draw from
Bacon’s work was “not to guess the functions and applications of
nature (tiandi 天地), as the ancients did, but to trace all the facts in
the universe, enumerate them one by one, and then push on to find
out general patterns.”48 Rather than vainly seek truths in ancient writ-
ings whose insights were based on guesswork and superstition, Bacon
taught scholars everywhere to open the book of nature themselves
and look beyond the professed wisdom of classical texts. Faithfully
mirroring the empiricist tenets of Bacon’s “new method,” Muirhead
described the significance of observation and experiment for the inter-
pretation of nature in considerable detail.49 But how could scholars
“push on” to induce general laws from the facts they thus established?
According to Muirhead, Bacon’s ingenious solution to this problem
was “the method of pushing forward” (tuijin zhi fa 推進之法), that is,
the principle of induction:
The root of this theory is to follow the human mind. Its basis is the
expectation that the same effects will result from the same causes. If we
examine and calculate [cause and effect] in each individual case, we
will be able to push on and find out (tuichu 推出 ‘infer’) general pat-
terns. This expectation is essential to the nature of the human mind. It
is bestowed upon us by the grace of our Creator. Without it, we would
be unable to recognize or guard against danger. . . . For example, when
a child first encounters fire it will go near it and hurt itself. Afterwards,
it will be afraid of fire and will not dare to come too close because it
expects that the same cause will necessarily have the same effect. This is
an illustration of “pushing forward” (tuijin 推進 ‘induction’). If we extend
and enlarge [our experiences] we can establish general patterns.50
Although this passage provided only a crude explanation of inductive
reasoning, it revealed a second aspect in which Muirhead’s account
of Bacon’s methodology differed from the sketches by Wang Tao and
others: by describing induction not so much as a rational, rule-gov-
erned procedure but as a way to realize the God-given potential of
the human mind, Muirhead linked the principles underlying modern
science intimately to the Christian or, more precisely, the Protestant
48
49
Ibid., 370–371; Gezhi huibian 2, no. 8 (1877): 52–54; and Gezhi huibian 2, no. 9
(1877): 88–90.
50
faith. In his preface to the Chinese version of the New Organon, he

underlined this link in even more emphatic terms:
In science, there are two methods: one is pushing upward to return to
the origin (tuishang gui qi benyuan 推上歸其本原, that is, ‘induction’), the
other is pushing downward to embrace all things (tuixia baohu wanwu 推
下包乎萬物 ‘deduction’). Western nations use these two methods simul-
taneously and thus obtain the benefits of both. The method of induction
means to return the things here on earth to what is above them; the
method of deduction means to bring the great origins in heaven to bear
on [the things] down here. Together these two [methods] are complete
and provide sufficient evidence. Deduction helps us to examine the truth
of induction. It leaves not the slightest doubt that all things were created
by God (shangdi 上帝 ‘the Ruler on High’). When people ignore the roots
and look only at the branches, they will not return to God but only to
individual patterns. Thus, heaven’s grace will be lost and the human
mind will perish with it.51
As was the case with many Jesuit writings, the Christian tinge with
which Muirhead colored his presentation curtailed its appeal for Chi-
nese readers. Nevertheless, Bacon became one of the first Western
scholars whose name gained a certain currency in late Qing discourses.
Although the principles of “pushing forward” or “upward” must have
remained rather fuzzy notions, the increasing sense of urgency felt
by many Chinese literati attracted them to an official-cum-philosopher
portrayed as a successful liberator of the human mind from the stric-
tures of a body of knowledge said to have lost its practical utility.52
2. Bacon and the Aristotelian Way of Argumentation

In the European case, Chinese readers learned, the epitome of such
stale and outdated knowledge was Catholic Aristotelianism. Muirhead
emphasized over and again that Bacon, in order to convince his con-
temporaries that his “method of pushing forward” was the key to an
infinite expansion of human knowledge, had no choice but to destroy
the authority of the Aristotelian teachings by which Western scholars
had been “enslaved and oppressed” for more than two millennia.53
51
Muirhead, “Gezhi xinji chongxiu zhuxue zixu,” 1b. For other passages adding a
Christian slant to Bacon’s theories, see Gezhi huibian 2, no. 2 (1877): 369; Gezhi huibian
2, no. 3 (1877): 398; and Gezhi huibian 2, no. 7 (1877): 26, 28.
52
For examples, see Yuan Weishi, “A Few Problems,” 171–175; and Xiong Yue-
zhi, Xixue dongjian, 364–366.
53
Gezhi huibian 2, no. 2 (1877): 367–368.
102 chapter two
In marked contrast to everything Chinese readers might remember

from Jesuit writings, Muirhead condemned Aristotle as an intellectual
despot whose absolute power over the human mind surpassed even
the control emperors exerted over their subjects. Muirhead faulted
Aristotle on several counts. In the realm of the natural sciences, he
ridiculed above all the scholastic cosmology that was derived from
and justified through the Stagirite’s works. Aristotle’s most persistent
and harmful errors, however, were located in the area of “philosophy”
(xingli 性理 ‘the study of nature and pattern’). In his “way of percep-
tion” (xinjue zhi dao 心覺之道), that is, psychology, for example, Aristo-
tle gave a false explanation of how the human mind related to external
things and thus prevented scholars from recognizing the value of the
human senses.54 Still more baneful was the influence of his “way of
argumentation” (bianlun zhi dao 辯論之道), that is, his logic.
Muirhead did not refer to any of the Jesuit efforts to introduce Aris-
totelian logic in China. Nor did he employ any of the terms invented
by the Jesuits, so we must assume he was unaware of the Mingli tan
and other texts discussed in the previous chapter. Nonetheless, his
assessment read almost like a negative mirror image of earlier Jesuit
acclaim. One of the less hostile remarks in Muirhead’s essay character-
ized Aristotelian logic thus:
Aristotle’s way of argumentation is indeed profound and evidences great
ingenuity. It examines the methods of thought in the human mind. Still,
throughout history, this way has confused many people and led them
away from external things. All it discusses are distinctions between words
and therefore it is of little use to the sciences.55
In other passages Muirhead followed Bacon in asserting that Aristo-
telian logic had frequently served to defend glaring errors and uphold
false opinions.56 Moreover, by focusing exclusively on Book I of the
New Organon, “that part . . . which is devoted to pulling down,”57 Muir-
head amplified the critical thrust of the work as he thus elided Bacon’s
constructive efforts to formulate “a new logic,” as promised by the title
54
Ibid., 368.
55
Ibid.
56
Ibid., 369. See also Gezhi huibian 2, no. 8 (1877): 53.
57
Francis Bacon, The New Organon, in idem, Works, 15 vols., ed. James Spedding,
Robert Ellis, and Douglas D. Heath (London: Longman, 1860), vol. 4, 103.
New Organon, that would be better suited to foster the sciences.58 Con-
sequently, in Muirhead’s version Bacon’s “new tool” appeared not so
much as an attempt to revitalize logic but as an indiscriminate rejec-
tion of the “way of argumentation” per se.
Muirhead further lowered the unequivocally negative image of
logic by his careless use of the terms bianlun zhi dao 辯論之道 ‘the
way of argumentation’ and bianlun 辯論 ‘argumentation’ as Chinese
translations for a host of words related to logical operations. Intro-
duced as renditions of the term “logic” itself in his article,59 bianlun
zhi dao and bianlun were employed simultaneously for notions as diverse
as “dialectic,” “syllogism,” “argumentation”/“to argue,” “reasoning,”
“demonstration,” and “logical invention” in his New Tools of Science.60
As a result, entire sections of his rendition read as relentless series of
condemnations of a branch of knowledge corrupted beyond repair.
Aphorisms XI to XIV, for instance, appeared in Muirhead’s transla-
tion as follows:
XI. As the sciences we now have are not beneficial for finding out real
results, so neither is our current way of argumentation [ Bacon:
“logic”] beneficial for the sciences.
XII. Today’s way of argumentation [“logic”] helps people only to for-
tify errors rooted in their habits but does not help them to find
out truths. Hence, it is not only useless but harmful.
XIII. The way of argumentation [“the syllogism”] is not used today to
examine the patterns of science. . . . [ I ]t is incapable of grasping
the subtleties of nature. It allows people to bring together mean-
ings but not to know things.
XIV. Argumentation [“syllogisms”] consists of descriptions (chenshuo
陳說), descriptions consist of words ( yuyan 語言), and words are
records of opinions ( yijian 意見). Hence, opinions are taken as
the foundation. If they are as confused as unraveled silk threads,
and drawn from things in the crudest manner, then the building
erected on their foundation cannot be secure. Therefore, all we
58
See Michel Malherbe, “Bacon’s Critique of Logic,” in Bacon’s Legacy of Texts: The
Art of Discovery Grows with Discovery, ed. William A. Sessions (New York: AMS Press,
1990), 69–88.
59
Gezhi huibian 2, no. 2 (1877): 368. For occurrences of bianlun zhi dao or bianlun as
“logic,” see Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 1b (Aphorism XI), 2a (XII), 20a (LXXX), and 40a
(CXXVII).
60
For bianlun zhi dao or bianlun as “dialectic,” see Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 3a (XX), 4a
(XXIX), 11a (LXIII), and 14b (LXIX); “syllogism,” 2a (XIII) and 2b (XIV); “argu-
mentation,” 3b (XXIV); “to argue,” 6a (XLIII); “reasoning,” 4b (XXXIII); “demon-
stration,” 14a–b (LXIX); and “logical invention,” 21a (LXXXII).
104 chapter two
can hope for are patterns derived from things by pushing upward
(tuishang 推上 ‘induction’).61
Further negative characterizations of Aristotle’s “way of argumenta-
tion” charged that it amplified harmful tendencies of the human mind
left to itself (XX);62 that axioms established by it “will never be able to
bring out new results” (XXIV);63 that it “generally forces people under
the rule of thought, and thought under the rule of words” (LXIX);64
and, finally, that it “does not find out the first principles and axioms
of the various arts, . . . but only such things as are consistent with them”
(LXXXII).65 That Bacon intended his method of induction as “a new
way of argumentation” was mentioned only once in Muirhead’s trans-
lation (CXXVII),66 and it seems unlikely that this reference softened
the devastating impression of the discipline conveyed in his text. The
first serious presentation of logic in nineteenth-century China could
thus only deter Chinese readers from investigating the Western “way
of argumentation.”
3. Logic as the Science of Debate
A more positive and much more precise image of European logic

emerged from the Chinese writings of Joseph Edkins (Ai Yuese
艾約瑟, 1823–1905). Edkins was the only Protestant missionary who
tried more or less consistently to present a picture of Western civiliza-
tion that transcended the limits dictated by the demands of the Chris-
tian faith, science, and practical utility. Already in 1857, he published
a series of essays on Western literature in the Liuhe congtan 六合叢談
(Shanghae Serial ) that included biographies of Homer, Pliny, Plato, and
Cicero, one of the key figures in the translation of logic from Greek
61
Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 1a–2b; cf. Bacon, New Organon, 48–49. Aphorism XIV is
a good example of Muirhead’s indifference toward technical terms of logic. Bacon’s
original passage reads: “The syllogism consists of propositions, propositions consist of
words, words are symbols of notions. Therefore if the notions themselves (which is the
root of the matter) are confused and over-hastily abstracted from the facts, there can
be no firmness in the superstructure. Our only hope therefore lies in a true induction”
(New Organon, 49).
62
Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 3a; cf. Bacon, New Organon, 50.
63
Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 3b; cf. Bacon, New Organon, 51.
64
65
Muirhead, Gezhi xinji, 22b; cf. Bacon, New Organon, 80.
66
into Latin.67 However, in his sketch of the latter’s life Edkins only men-
tioned the young Cicero’s fondness of “argumentation” (bianlun 辯論)
and failed to inform his readers that it was the great Roman orator
who popularized the Latin term logica, which would be adapted in all
European languages as the standard name for the discipline hitherto
known as “dialectic” or “canonic.”68
1. Aristotle and the Syllogism

In 1875, Edkins wrote a comprehensive biography of Aristotle for the
Zhong-xi wenjianlu 中西聞見錄 (The Peking Magazine). While not revert-
ing to the Jesuits’ unqualified praise, he offered a much more balanced
account of the philosopher’s position in Europe’s intellectual history
than Muirhead was willing to provide:
[Aristotle’s writings] proved exceedingly popular. More than a thousand
years after his death they were still held in high esteem in Europe and
Asia. Muslims enjoyed reading them, too, and they were translated into
Arabic and Farsi. Scholars in all European countries admired his works
and agreed that no book apart from the Holy Scripture with its two Tes-
taments surpassed his writings. After the division between Catholicism
and Protestantism, the Catholics continued to maintain that Aristotle’s
insights were true, whereas the Protestants rejected them. Consequently,
many Catholics enjoyed transmitting and teaching his books, while not
all Protestants adhered strictly to the old learning. Moreover, since Chi-
na’s Ming dynasty, when books by the Englishmen Bacon and Newton,
the Frenchman Descartes, and the German Leibniz appeared, people
in the West devoted great efforts to the new science so that ever fewer
scholars studied Aristotle’s patterns. For about three hundred years,
Western scholars did not honor his treatises. More recently, since the
Jiaqing 嘉慶 (r. 1796–1820) reign, people are again examining and
editing his works, and they agree unanimously that the texts should be
appreciated. Many of our contemporaries like to read them and probe
whether the ancients were indeed right in saying that Aristotle’s books
and philosophical teachings continue to be of great benefit to us.69
67
Joseph Edkins (Ai Yuese 艾約瑟), “Jigailuo zhuan” 基改羅傳 (Biography of
Cicero), Liuhe congtan (Shanghae Serial ) 1, no. 8 (1857): 3b–4b; 4a. On Edkins’s further
activities in connection with the Shanghae Serial, see “Rokugō sōdan” no gakusai teki kenkyū
六合叢談の学際的研究 (Studies on the academic aspects of the Shanghae Serial ), ed.
Shen Guowei 沈國威 (Tōkyō: Hakuteisha, 1999).
68
Rudolf Eucken, Geschichte der philosophischen Terminologie (Hildesheim: Georg Olms,
1960 [1879]), 167.
69
Joseph Edkins, “Yalisiduodeli zhuan” 亞里斯多得里傳 (Biography of Aristotle),
Zhong-xi wenjianlu, no. 32 (1875): 7a–13b; 13a.
106 chapter two
Edkins’s dispassionate approach to Aristotle’s legacy was also reflected

in his treatment of the Stagirite’s contribution to European logic.
Instead of tying Aristotle’s ideas to the scholastic Organon with its
metaphysical baggage, Edkins only sketched the discursive art of the
Analytics, which continued to be of logical interest after the decline of
religious dialectic. Written in lucid prose, the so-called “easy Wen-li”
that many of the more gifted foreigners preferred, his account was the
first presentation of Western logic available to a wider Chinese audi-
ence and therefore deserves to be cited in full:
The Analytics (xiangshen zhi li 詳審之理 ‘the patterns of detailed exami-
nation’) treat a subject no one had discussed before. Aristotle was the
first to establish this science. It is divided into two parts: the Priora (ti 體)
and the Posteriora ( yong 用). First to the Priora: Aristotle thought that the
investigation of all things and patterns depends entirely on the proper
use of the mind. When we seek out the beginnings and ends of matters,
we can hope to avoid erroneous thoughts and uncertainty. When we
have found out one point about a certain matter in this way, but do not
yet know all of the remainder, we must thoroughly think through and
probe what we know already in order to find out what we do not know
yet. In this manner, we can make the matter clear in our heads, just like
good archers who, holding fast their bows and arrows, will first examine
the arrows’ stability before releasing them and hitting their targets with
certainty.
The Posteriora discuss two aspects: First, in all learning and instruction
we must follow a definite sequence and proceed step by step; we must
never fail to follow the proper order. If in judging the right and wrong
or the primary and secondary [of a matter], we deceive by omitting
or distorting the facts, our knowledge will not be pure. Second, if our
knowledge is complete and our minds are free from doubt, we may use
it to rectify others where they are wrong and to correct scholarly errors.
However, in order to do so, we need a method to correct fallacies by
which we can distinguish whether or not there are any mistakes in our
judgments of true and false or right and wrong. Only when we can
make others understand their errors will we be able to correct them.
Once Aristotle had established the theory of this science, all later schol-
ars relied on it to enlighten others. [Confucius’s method] to “raise one
[corner of a square] and [let students] infer the other three” ( juyi fansan
舉一反三) is not at all different from the patterns of this Aristotelian
science. There is no other way to teach.70
70
Ibid., 11a–b. The locus classicus for Confucius’s didactic principle is Lunyu VII, 8.
Edkins then offered a concise description of the syllogism that he pre-

sented as the core of Aristotle’s logic:
The order of argumentation (bianlun zhi xu 辯論之序) devised by Aristo-
tle is a perfectly certain and unchangeable theory. Neither refined and
learned gentlemen in their searches for truth nor peasants in the moun-
tain wilderness in their disputes about petty matters can stray from the
rules of argumentation (bianlun zhi ju 辯論之矩) established by Aristotle.
[Aristotle’s] method is like an ascending flight of steps. Like a flight of
stairs, it has three steps, the first, the middle, and the last. When we
have climbed up the first and the middle step, we must eventually climb
up the last step to arrive at the top; this will never change. If we take
“Humans die when they get old” as the first step and we know that “I
too am old” is the middle step, then, eventually, the last step is that “I
too must die.” This is an entirely certain and immutable pattern. Like-
wise, when we wish to examine whether or not two things A ( jia 甲) and
B ( yi 乙) are equal, we must seek out a thing C (bing 丙) that is equal
to B. If B is equal to C, and when we further find through comparison
that A is also equal to C, then we know that A must be equal to B. In
the above example, “B is equal to C” is the first step; “A is also equal
to C” is the middle step; and, finally, knowing that “A must be equal to
B” is the last step. “Explaining a hundred things from knowing one” and
“One root, ten thousand branches”—these are apt words to describe
this perfect pattern of the three successive steps. In Western languages,
it is called “syllogism” (xiluojisimosi 西羅吉斯莫斯), and the name of this
Aristotelian science as a whole is “logic” (luojige 羅吉格).71
Due to its brevity, Edkins’s description of the “perfect pattern of the
three successive steps” could certainly not serve as a practical guide
to the use of the syllogism. However, for the first time in nineteenth-
century China, readers were offered a recognizable portrait of a model
of formal reasoning and thus an important aspect of the Western sci-
ence named luojige.
2. William Stanley Jevons and His Logic

In the 1880s, Edkins made a more substantial contribution to the dis-
semination of European logic in China in the context of a translation
project initiated and financed by Robert Hart (He De 赫德, 1835–
1911), the influential director of the Qing Inspectorate of Customs.72
Following Hart’s invitation, Edkins had joined the Maritime Customs
71
Edkins, “Yalisiduodeli zhuan,” 12a.
72
On Hart’s activities in China, see, e.g., Spence, To Change China, 112–128.
108 chapter two
Office in 1880 as an accredited translator. One of his first duties was

to render into Chinese a series of high school textbooks which Hart,
encouraged by Viceroy Li Hongzhang 李鴻章 (1823–1901), intended
to submit to the Beijing College of Foreign Languages (Tongwenguan
同文館) and other government schools in order to strengthen science
instruction.73 Hart chose one of the most popular series in contem-
porary Britain and America as texts of departure for this enterprise:
the Science Primers, a collection of fifteen slim volumes edited by the
renowned scientists Henry Roscoe, Thomas H. Huxley, and Balfour
Stewart.74
Volume 13 of this series was a primer of Logic written by William
Stanley Jevons, an author who is today mainly remembered as an
economist. In his own day, however, Jevons was regarded as one of
the preeminent European logicians.75 In his logical writings as well
as in his extensive works devoted to what would now be called the
philosophy of science, he strongly opposed the overenthusiastic induc-
tionism of John Stuart Mill that had dominated logical discussions in
England since the publication of the latter’s System of Logic in 1843,
much to the detriment of deductive reasoning.76 Although insisting
that logic was a philosophical rather than a mathematical discipline,
Jevons recognized the value of George Boole’s revolutionary algebra
of logic, which proved to be one of the most important steps in the
formation of modern mathematical logic. Through his adaptations of
Boole’s symbolic language in his methodology of the sciences, Jevons
helped to enlarge the audience for the emerging new logic beyond
the disciplinary confines of mathematics.77 His most original contribu-
tion to the study of logic was probably his “logical piano,” a machine
for the mechanical representation of human inferences that solved a
limited number of logical equations at superhuman speed.78 Yet most
73
Wang Yangzong 王揚宗, “Hexuli Kexue daolun de liangge Zhongyiben”
赫胥黎科學導論的兩個中譯本 (Two Chinese translations of T. H. Huxley’s Introductory
Science Primer), Zhongguo keji shiliao 21, no. 3 (2000): 207–221. On Hart’s previous activities
in the service of the Beijing Tongwenguan, see Biggerstaff, Earliest Modern Government
Schools, 108, 120–124.
74
On this series, see Elman, On Their Own Terms, 321–324.
75
Norman T. Gridgeman, “Jevons, William Stanley,” in Dictionary of Scientific Biog-
raphy, ed. Charles C. Gillispie (New York: Scribner’s, 1972), vol. 7, 103–107.
76
See Peckhaus, “Nineteenth-Century Logic,” 445; and idem, Logik, 216.
77
Peckhaus, “Nineteenth-Century Logic,” 444–445.
78
W. Mays and D. P. Henry, “Jevons and Logic,” Mind, n.s., 62, no. 248 (1953):
493–499. Jevons’s “piano” is preserved in the Oxford Museum of the History of
Science.
of Jevons’s logical insights were soon superseded because he paid too

little attention to the logic of relations and quantification theory, the
most productive lines of inquiry in the final decades of the nineteenth
century and beyond.79
Although Jevons’s theoretical work did not stand the test of time,
his textbooks in logic were held in high esteem for many decades and
translated into several European languages.80 Through these works,
he also became the most translated author in the early phase of the
appropriation of Western logic in Meiji Japan.81 Jevons had an extraor-
dinary talent for presenting complex problems in clear and simple
language. He made a point to avoid “superfluous technical terms”
wherever possible and “abstained from putting forward any views not
commonly accepted by teachers of logic.”82 This was not to say that he
entirely suppressed recent logical discoveries. Rather, his aim was “to
show that logic, even in its traditional form,” could be made “a highly
useful subject of study, and a powerful means of mental exercise.”83
The logic Jevons presented in accordance with this uncontroversial
approach was an easily digestible variety of late traditional syllogistics
with an added emphasis on the application of logical procedures to the
methodology of empirical research.
The volume he wrote for the Science Primers series was an abridged
and simplified version of his Elementary Lessons in Logic of 1870, his earli-
est and most successful textbook. Like the Elementary Lessons, Jevons’s
Logic primer devoted about two thirds of its text to deductive reason-
ing, presented according to the traditional division into three parts
dealing with terms, propositions, and syllogisms. The chapters on
terms explained different kinds of terms and their properties, sources
of ambiguity, and procedures for definition and classification.84 In his
79
Ibid., 484–485.
80
Christian Thiel, “Jevons,” in Enzyklopädie Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie, ed.
Jürgen Mittelstrass et al. (Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 1996 [1984]), vol. 2,
310–313; 311.
81
Funayama Shin’ichi 船山信一, Meiji ronrigakushi kenkyū 明治論理学史研究
(Studies in the history of logic during the Meiji period) (Tōkyō: Risōsha, 1968), 36,
272–273. See also Dale Riepe, “Selected Chronology of Recent Japanese Philosophy
(1868–1963),” Philosophy East and West 15, nos. 3–4 (1965): 259–284; 264.
82
William Stanley Jevons, Elementary Lessons in Logic: Deductive and Inductive (London:
Macmillan, 1886 [1870]), vii.
83
Ibid., v.
84
William Stanley Jevons, Logic, in Science Primer Series, ed. Thomas H. Huxley,
Henry Roscoe, and Balfour Stewart (London: Macmillan and New York: Appleton,
1876), 15–20, 20–27, 27–37.
110 chapter two
discussion of propositions, Jevons paid particular attention to the impli-

cations of the quantity and quality of propositions inasmuch as they
affected conversions.85 His presentation of the syllogism relied mainly
on Aristotle’s rules, although he recognized that modern logicians had
suggested “simpler and better mode[s] of ascertaining when arguments
are good.”86 Since he was convinced that students who understood
Aristotle’s “ingenious” principles did not need to memorize the various
moods of the syllogism (as represented in the mnemonic verse “Bar-
bara, Celarent, Darii, Ferio,” etc.),87 Jevons spent little time on this aspect.
Instead, he dedicated separate chapters to syllogisms involving hypo-
thetical (“if Jones was a good teacher . . .”) and disjunctive propositions
(“a crime is either treason, or a felony, or a misdemeanor . . .”), thus
acknowledging that many good logical arguments we make in daily
life do not obey the rules of classical syllogistics.88 One characteristic
of his account of deductive reasoning was his insistence that inferences
consisted in general of what he called the “substitution of similars or
the passing from like to like.”89 Accordingly, his “great rule of infer-
ence,” which sounds rather awkward today, stipulated that “whatever
is true of one term is true of any term which is stated to be the same
in meaning as that term.”90
The remaining chapters of the primer were devoted to inductive
reasoning and its applications in natural science and ordinary life.
Jevons understood induction as the simple inverse operation of deduc-
tion. Contrary to Mill, however, he was under no illusion about the
provisional nature of all scientific “truth” and consequently stressed
the necessity to guard against all kinds of errors in conclusions drawn
inductively from empirical observation and experiment. According to
Jevons, the great discoveries of modern science were the results of
four different steps of inductive reasoning: (1) preliminary observation;
(2) the making of hypotheses; (3) deductive reasoning; and (4) verifica-
tion.91 In his explanations of each of these steps, Jevons highlighted the
value of hypothetical “anticipations of nature” as well as the dangers
85
Ibid., 37–53.
86
Ibid., 57.
87
On the mnemonic names of the moods of the syllogism, see I. M. Bochenski,
Formale Logik, 5th ed. ( Freiburg: Alber, 1996), 77–80.
88
Jevons, Logic, 69–73.
89
Ibid., 75.
90
Ibid., 73.
91
Ibid., 78–91.
of “hasty and false” generalizations, unwarranted analogies, and other

common fallacies in reasoning from particular cases to general laws.92
Like all volumes in the Science Primers series, the book concluded with a
list of study questions on each of the text’s twenty-seven chapters.93
3. Edkins and Jevons’s Science of Debate

Joseph Edkins did not leave any account of his translation of the Science
Primers besides the remark that his labors extended over a period of
five years.94 It is therefore difficult to determine whether he found the
task of rendering the Logic primer more challenging than the transla-
tion of volumes treating more conventional subjects such as arithmetic
or history. In any event, he obviously did not attribute any particu-
lar importance to the Logic. In the Brief Description of Western Knowledge
(Xixue lüeshu 西學略述), the introductory volume he wrote for the Chi-
nese edition of the Primers, Edkins presented the discipline only very
briefly as one of the three subjects of classical European “philosophy”
(lixue 理學):
When philosophical studies were first established in Greece they were
divided into three branches: physics ( gezhi lixue 格致理學 ‘the philos-
ophy of the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge’),
which elucidates the patterns of all natural things and substances; ethics
(xinglixue 性理學 ‘the philosophy of human nature’), which elucidates
the patterns of the moral obligations with which every human being is
endowed; and logic (lunbian lixue 論辯理學 ‘the philosophy of argumen-
tation’), which elucidates how humans distinguish between true and false
by means of words.95
Later in the same chapter, Edkins supplied two further references to
logic under two different names when crediting Aristotle with founding
the “science of rational argumentation” (libianxue 理辯學), and relat-
ing that Cicero exerted all his powers in his studies of “rational” and
“verbal debate,” that is, logic (libian 理辨) and rhetoric (koubian 口辨).96
But he nowhere suggested why or in which ways the discipline might
be of interest to Chinese readers.
92
Ibid., 92–106, 107–128.
93
Ibid., 129–135.
94
Joseph Edkins, Xixue lüeshu 西學略述 (Brief description of Western knowledge)
(Beijing: Zong shuiwusi, 1886), preface, 1b.
95
Edkins, Xixue lüeshu, 5:43a.
96
Ibid., 5:47a–b.
112 chapter two
In the short preface to his rendition of Jevons’s Logic that was pub-
lished under the title Primer of Logic (Bianxue qimeng 辨學啟蒙) in 1886,
Edkins showed similar reservations. Besides praising Aristotle once
again as the founder of the discipline and highlighting that logic had
been taught since antiquity in European universities, he only stated
that “the science of debate (bianxue 辨學) distinguishes between proper
and improper arguments” and may thus help to resolve human dis-
putes.97 In addition, he pointed out that the subject matter of “the sci-
ence of debate,” despite the similarity in name, had nothing to do with
apologetic Jesuit writings such as Matteo Ricci’s Bianxue yidu 辨學遺牘
(Testament in defense of the faith).98
Although he may not have felt passionately about the subject,
Edkins had no choice but to invest considerable effort into the rendi-
tion of Jevons’s primer. After all, his translation was the first mono-
graph on European logic to become available in the Chinese language
since the publication of the Mingli tan more than two hundred and
fifty years earlier, so that he had almost no precedent from which to
borrow an adequate, let alone established nomenclature.99 With the
97
Joseph Edkins (trans.), Bianxue qimeng 辨學啟蒙 (Primer of logic), in idem, Gezhi
qimeng 格致啟蒙 (Science primers) (Beijing: Zong shuiwusi, 1886), preface, 1a.
98
Matteo Ricci, Bianxue yidu 辨學遺牘 (Testament in defense of the faith) (1623),
reprinted in Tianxue chuhan, vol. 2, 637–688. The Bianxue yidu, a collection of letters
refuting Buddhist doctrines, was one of many Jesuit works in which the expression
bianxue was used in the sense of “apologetics” or, literally, “defending the faith.” It is
therefore not easy to see why many historians of Chinese logic credit Ricci, instead
of Edkins, with coining bianxue as a rendering of the term “logic” (see, e.g., Dong
Zhitie, “Luoji yiming,” 25; Zhou Yunzhi, Mingbianxue lun, 3). Even at the time when
he published his translation, Edkins’s concern about possible misreadings of the term
bianxue was not entirely unfounded. As we have seen, bianxue had been employed as a
translation of the ars disserendi in the Mingli tan and the Xixue fan. In addition, E. Faber
(“Deguo xuexiao,” 19:2a) had used the term as a rendition of “rhetoric.” Although
there is no evidence that Edkins was aware of these conflicting choices, they certainly
may have led to confusion among monolingual Chinese readers.
99
Following Wang Dianji, Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi, 405–406, who seems to have
been the first to make this assertion, quite a few historians of Chinese logic claim that
unspecified missionaries had published a work on European logic entitled Mingxue
leitong 名學類通 at a certain Lexuexi tang 樂學溪堂 in 1824. Yet, neither Wang nor
any of his followers provides more than a reference to the title, and none appears to
have expended much effort to find the book. Had they done so, they could have eas-
ily discovered that the claim was based on an anachronistic misreading of the term
mingxue, which would become a common designation for logic in the sense of “the
science of names” only at the turn of the twentieth century (see below). In the actual
work whose citation Wang uncovered, the expression is used in its historically more
conventional meaning of “famous scholars.” See Zhu Wenhan 朱文韓 ( jinshi under
exception of some omissions and additions, which will be discussed

below, his translation closely followed Jevons’s text. Unaware of the
Jesuit terminology,100 or perhaps unwilling to use it, Edkins created
an entirely new set of Chinese expressions to represent the conceptual
lexicon of Jevons’s logic. His approach to the task differed markedly
from the strategy Li Zhizao had adopted in the Mingli tan. Apart from
bianxue for “logic” itself, Edkins coined only a very limited number
of technical terms. The reason was not that he was able to identify
existing Chinese equivalents of logical notions that Li had overlooked,
but rather that he seemed reluctant to challenge his readers with too
many unfamiliar words. Instead of propagating new terms, Edkins
resorted to paraphrasing alien notions on the basis of their etymolo-
gies or definitions.
The length and awkwardness of some of his paraphrases suggests
areas where he thought equivalences were especially hard to find.
“Concrete terms,” for instance, were rendered in the Bianxue qimeng as
“terms [ literally: limiting words] for corporeal entities” ( you tizhi shiwu
zhi jieyu 有體質實物之界語) or “terms attached to an entity for the
sake of further description” (tiefu shiwu jiayi xingrong zhi jieyu 貼附實物
加以形容之界語); “abstract terms” as “terms illuminating the shape
of real things” (zhaoxian shiwu xingshi zhi jieyu 照顯實物形式之界語) or,
shorter, “terms describing the shape of things” (shenming wu xingshi zhi
jieyu 申明物形式之界語). ( For further variations, see Table 2.1 at the
end of this chapter, item 2.20.) “Hypothetical propositions” appeared
as “sentences starting with words like if or when” (shouguan ru ruo deng
zi zhi yuju 首冠如若等字之語句) (3.16). “Reasoning” was introduced
as “the method to push on, estimate, and anticipate” (tuichuai niliao zhi
fa 推揣逆料之法); “deduction” as “the method of inferring [ literally:
pushing on and explaining] descriptions by relying on patterns in order
to calculate things” ( pingli duowu zhi tuichanfa 憑理度物之推闡法); and
Jiaqing 嘉慶, r. 1796–1820), 名學類通 (Classified anthology of famous scholars), n.p.,

n.d. The longevity of this unsubstantiated assertion is a good example of the historical
disinterest that characterizes studies into this period of the history of logic in China.
100
Since references to the Mingli tan are exceedingly rare throughout the nine-
teenth century, Edkins may well have been ignorant of the text’s existence. One of
the few scholars who referred to the book at all (in an edition comprising ten juan) was
the above-mentioned Wang Tao. See Wang Tao 王韜, Taixi zhushu kao 泰西著述考
(Notes on books written by Westerners), in idem, Taoyuan xixue jicun 弢園西學輯存
(Collected papers on Western knowledge by Wang Tao) (Shanghai: n.p., 1890), 5a.
114 chapter two
“induction” as “the method of discernment by approaching things in

order to examine patterns” ( jiwu chali zhi bianfa 即物察理之辨法).
( For variations, see 1.2, 4.2, and 4.3.) The “syllogism,” finally, with
which Edkins had already struggled in his “Biography of Aristotle,”
was now transformed into “a judgment arrived at by sequentially link-
ing three sentences” (san yuju cidi liancheng zhi lunduanyu 三語句次第連
成之論斷語) (4.13).101
In some cases, Edkins’s paraphrases were not merely inelegant but
misleading. For instance, he used the same pair of glosses for the
terms “particular”/“universal” and “distributed”/“undistributed,”
namely “including all and everything concerned” (baokuo zhi yu jintouchu
包括至於盡頭處) and “including not all and everything concerned”
(baokuo weizhi jintouchu 包括未至盡頭處) (3.13–14 and 3.21–26).
Although this suggestion was not implausible per se—a proposition is
said to be distributed when its predicate is taken universally—it made
it difficult to translate passages such as the definition of “distributed”
just cited. A more serious instance of similar paraphrases implying
false conceptual interrelations was his use of “words describing the
shape” (shenming xingshi yu 申明形式語) for “predicate” that was nearly
identical with his renditions of “abstract term” cited above (3.4 and
2.20).
One area of particular difficulty for Edkins, as well as many later
translators, was the adaptation of the notions explaining propositions
and their constituent parts. When he embarked on his translation
project, no grammar of the Chinese language had been written in
Chinese,102 so that he had to invent not only terms marking the dif-
ference between “propositions” and “sentences”—which he attempted
to do by referring to the former as “complete phrases/statements”
(wanquan yuju 完全語句) or “phrases/statements describing facts” (shen-
ming shishi zhi yuju 申明事實之語句)—but also for the terms “subject,”
“predicate,” and “copula.” “Subjects” were labeled “words of special
importance” (zhuanzhongyu 專重語) in the Bianxue qimeng; “predicates”
were turned into “descriptive words” (shenmingyu 申明語); and the
101
Further examples of wordy paraphrases included Edkins’s renditions of “ante-
cedent” and “consequent” (4.11 and 4.12), “generalization” (5.12), and “analogy”
(5.13).
102
See Victor H. Mair, “Ma Jianzhong and the Invention of Chinese Grammar,”
in Studies on the History of Chinese Syntax, ed. Chaofen Sun (Berkeley: Journal of Chinese
Linguistics Monograph Series, 1997), 5–26.
“copula” was transformed into “a verb [literally: a living word] con-

necting and completing phrases” (lianluo chengju zhi huozi 聯洛成句之
活字) or, in short, a “connective word” (lianluozi 聯洛字) (3.1–3.5).
When presenting these new terms in one of the most compact para-
graphs of his translation, Edkins mentioned that the subject-copula-
predicate structure was more obvious in Western sentences, but he
abstained from a more detailed analysis of the syntactic differences
between Chinese and European languages. As a Chinese example of a
“connecting verb,” he cited the word wei 為 ‘to do, to become, to act/
serve as, to deem’, as in the proposition ci xun wei mogu 此蕈為蘑菇
(“this fungus is [to be deemed] a mushroom”).103
In regard to phonemic loans, Edkins adopted a position similar to
Li Zhizao’s in that he employed them only to provide his readers
with the Western pronunciations of central terms. Examples include
luojige 羅吉格 for “logic” (1.1), de’erma 得耳馬 for “term” (2.1), gebula
哥布拉 for “copula” (3.5), and xiluojisimu 西鑼基斯摩 for “syllogism”
(4.13). In all these instances, Edkins immediately offered an additional
“more Chinese,” that is, less obviously foreign-derived semantic ren-
dition: bianxue 辨學 ‘the science of debate’, jieyu 界語 ‘limiting word’
or jie 界 ‘limit’, lianluozi 聯洛字 ‘connective’, and sanyuju lunduanyu
三語句論斷語 ‘judgment in three sentences’.
Even where he coined or adopted more term-like solutions, Edkins
almost always introduced more than one rendition. In some instances,
his intention was apparently to illustrate in which ways a Western
notion related to common Chinese words. Thus, “inference” (4.1)
could be rendered alternatively by the roughly equivalent lexemes
tuichu 推出 ‘push on and find out’, tuichan 推闡 ‘push on and explain’,
and tuichuai 推揣 ‘push on and estimate’. “Fallacy” (4.21) could be
rendered by chamiu 差謬 ‘error, delusion’, yubing 語病 ‘faulty wording’,
chawu 差誤 ‘error, mistake’, and wangyan 妄言 ‘wild talk, lies’. In other
103
Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 3b–4a; cf. Jevons, Logic, 13–14. According to Graham,
“Being,” 326–329, when used in sentences attributing “roles,” which are expressed
in Western languages by means of the copula “is” (“He is a soldier”), wei “can hardly
be called a copula: it has the flavor of an active verb, ‘to act as’ . . . wei jun 為君 ‘be
ruler’.” Neither is wei to be seen as a copula when used in connection with adjectives
(“He is tall”). In phrases such as min wei gui 民為貴, it must rather be understood in
the sense “x is to be deemed y,” here: “The common folk is to be deemed valuable.”
Pulleyblank calls wei a “copula verb” when used to indicate temporal roles, but he
would certainly agree with Graham that wei is no equivalent for all functions of the
English “is.” See Edwin G. Pulleyblank, Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar (Vancouver:
UBC Press, 1995), 20–21.
116 chapter two
cases, Edkins increased the impression of conceptual fluidity for no

obvious reason by offering two or more similar renditions of the same
term, for instance, by using zhuanyu 專語 ‘special word’ and zhuanming
專名 ‘special name’ for “singular term”; tongyu 同語 ‘common word’
and tongming 同名 ‘common name’ for “general term”; and hunlunyu
渾論語 ‘word talking about everything’ and zongming 總名 ‘compre-
hensive name’ for “collective term” (2.14–16).
Compared to the lexical problems, the cultural adaptations nec-
essary to make Jevons’s primer acceptable to Chinese readers were
minor issues. Edkins generally handled them with ease, for example,
by transposing allusions to European circumstances into Chinese cul-
tural contexts. Thus, the British statesmen Gladstone and Disraeli
were replaced by the Tang literati Han Yu 韓愈 (768–842) and Liu
Zongyuan 柳宗元 (773–819);104 the impersonal “John Robinson” was
rebaptized Zhang Jia 張甲;105 and a syllogism involving the city of
Manchester and its cathedral was rephrased to refer to Jinan and the
Yamen, or residence, of the provincial governor.106 Where Jevons illus-
trated polysemy through the example of the word “church,” which
may refer either to a building or to a denomination (Church of Eng-
land, Church of Rome), Edkins made his point with reference to Con-
fucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, and added a phrase invoking the
provisions in the Treaty of Nanjing concerning “religious freedom,”
or unobstructed missionary activity.107 In general, however, religious
and ideological considerations did not interfere with his translation.
He neither changed a passage in which Jevons asserted that logic is
unable to prove the existence of the Christian God,108 nor did he alter
racist examples involving “white” and “nonwhite” peoples—a distinc-
tion that was considered to be self-evident by many teachers of logic
in the age of imperialism—even though Chinese readers might have
taken offense at being likened to the “swarthier” races.109
In the difficult case of examples based on specific properties of the
English lexicon or syntax, Edkins proved to be equally creative. Jevons’s
explanation of ambiguities that can be exploited in puns (“a rake may
104
Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 31a; cf. Jevons, Logic, 72.
105
Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 55a; cf. Jevons, Logic, 121.
106
Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 29b–30a; cf. Jevons, Logic, 69.
107
Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 8b–9a; cf. Jevons, Logic, 23.
108
Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 54b; cf. Jevons, Logic, 120.
109
Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 24b–25b, 32a; cf. Jevons, Logic, 60–61, 74.
be either a garden implement, or a fast young man”), for instance,

was conveyed through li babai 李八百, which can be understood either
as the name of the Daoist immortal Li Babai or as “eight hundred
plums.”110 Finally, in a passage in which Jevons explained that not
all propositions contain subject, copula, and predicate in exactly that
order, Edkins used phrases such as Fu zai yan hu 富哉言呼 (“Truly rich
is his saying!,” Lunyu XII, 22) from the Confucian canon in order to
illustrate inversion, and amplified Jevons’s statement that the copula
was not always distinctly expressed by pointing out that this was espe-
cially true in Chinese “because it is simpler than the languages of the
Western nations.”111
Later commentators have not been kind in their assessments of
Edkins’s labors. The general view among modern authors who go
beyond listing the title of his work in their accounts of logic in modern
China appears to be that his translation was “clumsy and awkward”
because “even the renditions of the most basic logical notions differ
widely from modern terms.”112 Although it is hardly fair, or logical,
to fault Edkins for not anticipating a terminology that was yet to be
invented, even contemporaries were divided over his merits. Writing
in 1896, Liang Qichao said about the Chinese versions of the Science
Primers that “the translation is unfortunately very weak. It is verbose
and obscure, almost impossible to read. Still, one cannot afford to
ignore these books.”113 Huang Qingcheng, on the other hand, found
the renditions “clear and fluent.”114 To readers familiar with the hybrid
scientific literature that had emerged in nineteenth-century China, the
Primers were certainly not incomprehensible. Yet, Edkins’s translation
strategy of using paraphrases in lieu of terms gave his text a somewhat
vague appearance and made it difficult to learn or even recognize
the conceptual vocabulary of the Western “science of debate.” The
only term from the Bianxue qimeng that gained some currency in late
imperial China was the name he coined to denote the discipline itself:
bianxue, which set the study of logic on a par with other sciences, such
110
Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 9b; cf. Jevons, Logic, 24.
111
Edkins, Bianxue qimeng, 16a–b; cf. Jevons, Logic, 39.
112
Li Kuangwu, Zhongguo luojishi, vol. 4, 130. See also Zhou Zongkuan, Luoji bai-
nian, 10–11. For a more balanced assessment, see Yang Peisun, Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi
jiaocheng, 291–292.
113
Liang Qichao, “Du Xixue shu fa,” 6b–7a.
114
Huang Qingcheng, Putong shumubiao, 7a. See Zou Zhenhuan, Yilin jiuzong,
60–61.
118 chapter two
as chemistry (huaxue 化學), mathematics (shuxue 數學), the physical sci-

ences of “light” ( guangxue 光學 optics), “sound” (shengxue 聲學 acous-
tics), “weights” or “forces” (zhongxue 重學 or lixue 力學 mechanics),
“heat” (rexue 熱學 thermodynamics), “electricity” (dianxue 電學), and
philosophy (lixue 理學, zhixue 智學, xingxue 性學, etc.), whose status as
independent fields of inquiry was signaled in their contemporary des-
ignations by the suffix -xue 學 ‘area of knowledge, science’.115 Yet, the
increase in nominal prestige was not accompanied by a rise in inter-
est. Neither the moderate commercial success of the Primers nor the
fact that the logic presented in the Bianxue qimeng had little in common
with the handmaiden of the Christian faith taught and practiced by
the Jesuits, sufficed to arouse noticeable curiosity.
4. Logic as the Science of Discerning Truth
Irrespective of the success or failure of Edkins’s translation, there is

no indication that the Bianxue qimeng was used as a textbook, as Hart
had intended, in any Chinese school or college prior to the year 1902.
Throughout the nineteenth century, logic remained absent from the
curricula of virtually all institutions teaching “Western knowledge” to
Chinese students. None of the most influential educational enterprises
initiated by Protestant missionaries with or without the support of the
Chinese government made any attempt to institute courses on the
subject.116
115
In addition, Edkins’s introduction of logic as one of the three classical branches
of Western philosophy resurfaced more or less verbatim in a number of texts written
for the popular essay contests held at the Shanghai Polytechnic Institution. See, e.g.,
Zhong Tianwei 鍾天緯, “Gezhi shuo” 格致說 (An explanation of science) (1889),
reprinted in Huangchao jingshiwen sanbian 皇朝經世文三編 (Third collection of essays
on statecraft), ed. Chen Zhongyi 陳忠倚 (Taibei: Guofeng, 1965 [1898]), vol. 1, 203–
205; 203. On the contents of the essay contests in general, see Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue
dongjian, 362–391; and Elman, On Their Own Terms, 334–351.
116
According to some accounts, logic was taught to pupils of Western and Chinese
descent at the Anglo-Chinese College ( Ying-Hua shuyuan 英華書院) in Malacca in
the 1820s. Cf. Lindsay Ride, Robert Morrison: The Scholar and the Man (Hong Kong:
Hong Kong University Press, 1957), 22. However, this claim is based on a misreading
of the college’s curriculum, which includes “ethics” (lunli 倫理) but not “logic” (lunli
論理). See Zhongguo jindai xuezhi shiliao 中國近代學制史料 (Materials on the history of
the modern Chinese education system), ed. Zhu Youhuan 朱有瓛 et al. (Shanghai:
Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1983–1993), vol. 4, 3–22; 7–8. See also Xiong
Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian, 123–129.
1. Logic in Late-Nineteenth-Century Chinese Education

One school in China that taught logic during the second half of the
nineteenth century was the Jesuit seminary in Shanghai. After the rees-
tablishment of their order in 1814, Jesuit missionaries had returned
to China in 1841117 and built their headquarters on the grounds of
the former residence of Matteo Ricci’s mentor and cotranslator Xu
Guangqi in Zikawei (Xujiahui 徐家匯), then still a village eight kilo-
meters to the southwest of the rapidly expanding treaty-port.118 Due
to its protected location, Zikawei soon became a harbor for old and
new Chinese Christians uprooted by famine, droughts, and rebellions.
The Jesuits accommodated the steady and, to them, highly welcome
influx of souls by continuously expanding the facilities in the vicinity
of their central residence.119 Among the first additions were a church,
an orphanage, a library, various workshops, and a boarding school,
the Collège St. Ignace.120 In 1862, they opened a major seminary (da
xiuyuan 大修院) with the aim of enabling talented boarding school stu-
dents to continue their Christian education and strengthen the ranks
of the native clergy.121 Initially located in Shanghai’s outer suburb of
Dongjiadu 董家渡, the seminary was relocated to new premises in
Zikawei in 1868. In both locations, the number of novices remained
small. Instruction followed the revised version of the Jesuit Ratio studio-
rum adopted in 1832 more or less closely.122 The educator Ma Xiangbo
馬相伯 (1840–1939), who was ordained as a priest in 1870 after having
studied for six years at the seminary, recalls that he spent three years
reading European mathematics and philosophy under the direction
117
See David E. Mungello, “The Return of the Jesuits to China in 1841 and the
Chinese Christian Backlash,” Sino-Western Cultural Relations Journal 27 (2005): 9–46.
118
Joseph de La Servière, Histoire de la mission du Kiang-nan. Jésuites de la Province
de France (Paris) (1840–1899) (Shanghai: Imprimerie de T’ou-sé-wé, 1914), vol. 2,
91–92.
119
For a general overview, see Guy Brossollet, Les Français de Shanghai, 1849–1949
(Paris: Bellin, 1999), 159–170.
120
On the history of the Zikawei Library, see Gail King, “The Xujiahui (Zikawei)
Library of Shanghai,” Libraries and Culture 32, no. 4 (1997): 456–462. The statutes of
the Collège St. Ignace (Xuhui gongxue 徐匯公學) are preserved in Chinese transla-
tion in Zhongguo jindai xuezhi shiliao, vol. 4, 225–230.
121
La Servière, Histoire, 92–94.
122
Gil, La pedagogía de los Jesuitas, 33–45. See also Ruan Renze 阮仁澤 and Gao
Zhennong 高振農, eds., Shanghai zongjiaoshi 上海宗教史 (History of religion in Shang-
hai) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1992), 667–671.
120 chapter two
of Angelo Zottoli (Chao Deli 晁德蒞, 1826–1902).123 Although Ma

only relates that the philosophical texts he studied included Aristotle
and Aquinas (and hence consisted of traditional scholastic lore), a list
of final examination topics from Dongjiadu indicates that philosophi-
cal instruction at the seminary entailed at least a basic introduction
to logic. In 1866, for instance, examinees were required to answer
six questions on logical subjects ranging from the rules of the syllo-
gism through the reliability of human memory and testimony to the
role of the senses in gaining and ascertaining “infallible certainty.”124
Yet, the language of instruction at the seminary was Latin rather than
Chinese125 and there is no evidence that any of the logical notions
students learned there were translated into the Chinese conceptual
lexicon before the turn of the twentieth century.
The only school in nineteenth-century China that taught logic in
the Chinese language appears to have been St. John’s College (Sheng
Yuehan shuyuan 聖約翰書院) in Shanghai. Although the disci-
pline was not mentioned in the college’s inaugural statutes of 1879,126
courses in a subject called bianshixue 辯實學 ‘the science of discerning
truth’ were advertised in February 1880 in the Shanghai daily Shenbao
申報.127 Yet, neither the school’s records nor later studies mentioned
that the course was actually taught as a separate unit.128 Rather, logic
was treated in the framework of a course in psychology developed and
123
Ma Xiangbo 馬相伯, Yiri yitan 一日一談 (Daily conversations) (1936), reprinted
in Ma Xiangbo ji 馬相伯集 (The works of Ma Xiangbo), ed. Zhu Weizheng 朱維
錚 (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1996), 1070–1168; 1083–1084. See also Li
Tiangang 李天綱, “Xinyang yu chuantong—Ma Xiangbo de zongjiao shengya”
信仰與傳統—馬相伯的宗教生涯 ( Faith and tradition: Ma Xiangbo’s religious life),
in ibid., 1227–1278; 1243–1244. On Zottoli, see Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 3, 260–
262.
124
“Examen de tota Philosophia, anno 1866” (Examination in the whole philoso-
phy, 1866), in “Zi-ka-wei, Séminaires” (Archives Françaises de la Compagnie de Jésus, Fonds
Chinois 303), 1a. See Joachim Kurtz, “Messenger of the Sacred Heart: Li Wenyu
(1840–1911) and the Jesuit Periodical Press in Late Qing Shanghai,” in From Wood-
blocks to the Internet: Chinese Publishing and Print Culture in Transition, circa 1800 to 2008, ed.
Cynthia Brokaw and Christopher A. Reed (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 81–110.
125
Zhang Tiansong 張天松, Ma Xiangbo xiansheng dushu shenghuo 馬相伯先生讀書
生活 (The scholarly life of Mr. Ma Xiangbo) (Hong Kong: Gongjiao zhenli xuehui,
1950), 34–36.
126
Zhongguo jindai xuezhi shiliao, vol. 4, 435–447.
127
Shenbao 申報, February 3, 1880, p. 6.
128
See Mary Lamberton, St. John’s University Shanghai, 1879–1951 (New York:
United Board for Christian Colleges in China, 1955), 8–9, 11–17.
taught by the Anglican Reverend Yan Yongjing 顏永京 (1839–1898).129

As one of the first Chinese overseas students, Yan had studied theol-
ogy and a variety of other subjects at Kenyon College in Ohio from
1854 to 1861. Upon his return to China, he had served alternately as a
minister and a teacher of English in a number of Christian schools and
colleges before joining the preparatory faculty of St. John’s in 1878 as
a professor of mathematics, natural philosophy, and theology.130
Yan based his class in psychology, the first of its kind in China, on
translations from a book that he had come to appreciate while study-
ing in the United States, Joseph Haven’s Mental Philosophy.131 Haven, a
devout Protestant and professor of “Intellectual and Moral Philosophy”
at Amherst College, conceived of psychology as an all-inclusive “sci-
ence of mind,” covering not only the operations of the human intel-
lect, which he took to include an innate sense of beauty and morality,
but also sensibilities, that is, emotions, affections, and desires, as well
as the will, which he described as a faculty of choice intimately con-
nected with the truths of the Christian religion.132 In the context of his
deliberations on the human intellect’s “reflective power”—the third
of our four powers of presentation, representation, reflection, and
intuition—Haven devoted one chapter to the analytic process of rea-
soning in which he offered a brief discussion of questions that he iden-
tified as belonging to the realm of formal logic, namely, the analysis
of propositions and the rules and forms of the syllogism.133 According
to Haven’s psychologistic view, logic described “certain general forms
into which all reasoning may be cast, and which, according to the laws
of thought, it naturally assumes.” These forms were to be considered
by psychologists in so far as they “depend upon the laws of thought,
and are merely modes of mental activity as exercised in reasoning.”134
129
Li Xisuo 李喜所, Jindai liuxuesheng yu Zhongwai wenhua 近代留學生與中外文化
(Modern overseas students and Chinese and foreign culture) (Tianjin: Tianjin renmin
chubanshe, 1992), 136–140.
130
See Zhao Liru 趙莉如, “Youguan ‘Xinlingxue’ yi shu de yanjiu” 有關《心靈
學》一書的研究 (A study of the book Xinlingxue [The science of the soul]), Xinli xue-
bao 4 (1983): 380–387; 382–383. See also Zhongguo jiaohui xuexiaoshi 中國教會學校史
(History of Christian schools in modern China), ed. Gao Shiliang 高時良 (Changsha:
Hunan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1994), 133–134.
131
Joseph Haven, Mental Philosophy: Including the Intellect, Sensibilities, and Will (Boston:
Gould and Lincoln, 1857).
132
Ibid., iii–xvi.
133
Ibid., 180–189, 199–228.
134
Ibid., 203.
122 chapter two
Since logic was only concerned with a fraction of the multifarious

mental activities analyzed in psychology, it was relegated implicitly to
the status of an auxiliary subdiscipline of the wider “science of mind,”
and it was as such that it came to be taught at St. John’s.
2. Yan Yongjing and the Science of the Soul

Yan Yongjing originally hoped to produce a summary translation of
Haven’s entire work but completed only the first division dealing with
the intellectual faculties during his tenure at St. John’s.135 In 1889,
his partial rendition was published under the title The Science of the
Soul (Xinlingxue 心靈學, psychology).136 After explaining that psychol-
ogy was “a specialized science concerned with the soul and its various
functions” and praising the value of his book “for all educators wishing
to establish secure foundations for learning,” Yan used his preface to
draw attention to the difficulties of rendering a text like Haven’s Mental
Philosophy into acceptable Chinese:
There are many ideas in this book that have never been discussed in
China and for which we do not even have terms. Thus, there were no
designations to convey them. I have tentatively created new designations
for words that could not be expressed and forcibly tied them together
(mian wei lianjie 勉為聯結) [by inverted parentheses, see below]. To read-
ers of this book who look at [these new words] from the outside, they
may appear confused and difficult to distinguish, but for those who exert
their minds and examine them it will not be hard to grasp their deriva-
tion. For their great number, I apologize.137
The difficulty of the translation was thus identified as deriving from the
novelty of the book’s subject matter and its differentiated terminology.
This characterization applied especially to the chapter on logic. Yan’s
rendering of this section was highly condensed. In order to adapt the
text to the necessities of classroom use, he stripped Haven’s arguments
of nearly all their theoretical flourish. Among other things, he omitted
135
John Fryer, Descriptive Account and Price List of the Books, Wall Charts, Maps &tc. Pub-
lished or Adopted by the Educational Association of China (Shanghai: American Presbyterian
Mission Press, 1894), 26.
136
Yan Yongjing 顏永京 (trans.), Xinlingxue 心靈學 (The science of the soul) (Shang-
hai: Yizhi shuhui, 1889). I am indebted to David Wright for his help in locating a
copy of this text in the Cambridge University Library. The full text was reproduced in
Xinxue beizuan 新學備纂 (Complete collection of new knowledge), ed. Jianzhai zhuren
漸齋主人 (Tianjin: Kaiwen shuju, 1902), juan 6.
137
Ibid., preface, 1a–b.
subsections discussing the laws of thought on which logic, as we have

seen, was said to depend; also cut were paragraphs disputing com-
peting theories and an informative sketch of the discipline’s history.138
Instead, Yan focused on the central tenets of Haven’s own theories,
with special emphasis on definitions of important notions and exam-
ples illustrating their application.
Yan’s prose was impeccably lucid and well suited to communicating
the dense contents he introduced. In contrast to Edkins, none of whose
terminological inventions he adopted or even mentioned, Yan avoided
paraphrases and suggested Chinese equivalents for all technical terms
he had to render.139 His lexical innovations did not seem to follow a
clearly defined translation strategy. Some, like hezaquan 合雜全 ‘uniting
into a composite whole’ for “generalization” (see Table 2.1, item 5.12)
or fansui 煩碎 ‘tiny pieces’ for “quality” (3.7), were rather awkward;
others, like biaoju 表句 ‘expressive sentence’ for “proposition” (3.2) or
jilian 繫連 ‘binding link’ for “copula” (3.5), anticipated later nomen-
clature, at least in kind. In some cases, Yan was almost too ingenious
for his own good, for instance, in suggesting xielujicheng 屑錄集成 for
“syllogism” (4.13), which could be read either as a phonemic replica
or as a semantic loan meaning “a synthesis of fragmentary records”; or
the less convincing xibutixi 希卜梯西 for “hypothesis” (5.7), in which
the communion of phonetic and semantic loan applied only to the first
two characters (xibu 希卜, which could be understood to mean ‘hoping
to predict’) while collapsing in the second half of the word (tixi 梯西, if
taken literally, would have meant ‘ladder to the west’). Perhaps more
important than the merits or flaws of Yan’s individual choices, how-
ever, was the consistency with which he applied them throughout his
translation, especially in comparison to Edkins’s frequent variations.
A unique feature of Yan’s rendition was an editorial notation he
invented to alert his readers that a string of characters denoted a single
138
Ibid., 67b–88b; cf. Haven, Mental Philosophy, 212–213; 218–225.
139
For a discussion of Yan’s psychological terms and a comparison with the ter-
minological inventions in Nishi Amane’s 西周 (1829–1897) earlier Japanese rendition
of Haven’s Mental Philosophy, see Kodama Seiji 児玉斉二, “Gan Eikyō to kan-yaku
shinrigaku yōgo ni tsuite” 顔永京と漢訳心理学用語について (Yan Yongjing and
his Chinese translations of psychological terms), Shinrigakushi—Shinrigakuron 2, no. 2
(2000): 25–33. Nishi’s rendition had been published in 1875 under the title Shinrigaku
心理學 (Psychology), the term that was to become the standard designation of the
discipline in both Japan and China. On Nishi’s role in the introduction of psychology
into Japan, see Thomas R. Havens, Nishi Amane and Modern Japanese Thought (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1970), 217–218.
124 chapter two
technical term. The marker he introduced for this purpose was a kind
of parenthesis, placed to the left of the column, that linked or “forcibly
tied together,” as he wrote in his preface, the characters of which such
terms consisted. Rotated to fit the horizontal lines of a Western para-
graph, his word “syllogism” would have appeared in the Xinlingxue as
屑∪錄∪集∪成.140 The introduction of this notational device confirmed
that Yan was acutely aware of the importance of a clearly defined
nomenclature for the success of his translation and that he took great
care to facilitate its comprehension. Still, due to the density of his
prose, particularly in the section on logic, his rendition bristled almost
as much with new terms as the Mingli tan. Retranslated into English, a
typical passage from his text would read as follows (new terms intro-
duced in the Xinlingxue are underlined):
Discerning truth (bianshi 辨實, logic), in both its [forms] of pushing out-
ward (tuichu 推出 deduction [lit. ‘to make public’]) and drawing inward
( yinjin 引進 induction [‘to recommend’]), relies on expressive sentences
(biaoju 表句 propositions). A proposition is a sentence in which two dis-
tinct images of intentions ( yiying 意影 concepts) are connected. Being
connected here means that the two concepts are either in agreement
or not in agreement. When we say, for instance, “Snow is white” (xue
shi bai 雪是白),141 then this is a proposition. If we have the concept
“snow” in our minds (zhong 衷 [‘inner feelings’, ‘heart’) and also the
concept “white/whiteness,” then we know that being white is one of the
tiny pieces ( fansui 煩碎 qualities) pertaining to snow; that is, we know
that “snow” and “white/whiteness” are in agreement. We can therefore
affirm the connection of the two concepts by the phrase “Snow is white.”
Every proposition consists of three [ parts]. The first is a certain concept
which is called item of the proposition (biaojumu 表句目 subject); the
last is a certain other concept called topic of the proposition (biaoti 表題
predicate); the middle [ part] connecting the first and the last [ part] is
called binding link ( jilian 繫連 copula). All three parts can be expressed
either in one word or in several words. In the sentence just cited, “Snow
is white,” “snow” is the subject, “white/whiteness” is the predicate, and
140
Yan Yongjing, Xinlingxue, 62a.
141
The Chinese formulation of the sentence chosen to illustrate the different con-
stituents of a proposition, according to traditional European logic, is once again
unusual. In literary Chinese, “Snow is white” would conventionally be rendered by
the nominal clause xue bai ye 雪白也. Replacing the final particle ye by shi—which has
become a copulative verb meaning “to be” in modern Chinese but was used in liter-
ary Chinese in a variety of different meanings ranging from “this,” “all,” “right/true,”
“being so,” and “certainly” to “to praise” or “to justify”—is not ungrammatical but
alters the emphasis of the proposition to something akin to “Snow is white indeed!”
See Graham, “Being,” 331–334; and Pulleyblank, Outline, 16.
the word shi 是 “is” is the copula. “Snow” and “white” are also called
two ends (duan 端 terms).142
Read and explained in the classroom, supplemented by exercises and
drills, dense passages such as this may well have provided students with
an approximate idea of basic logical notions and procedures, especially
when taught in a separate course, as advertised by St. John’s, and by an
instructor as clearly in command of his subject as Yan Yongjing. Still,
we have no evidence of students gaining such knowledge on the basis
of the Xinlingxue at St. John’s or any other school at the time. Studied
outside the classroom, the text could do little to incite interest in logic
among unprepared or unguided readers, even if the consistency of
Yan’s translation surpassed Edkins’s earlier effort. Not only was the
chapter on logic too brief and sketchy—Haven’s account elided the
first part of traditional syllogistics explicating terms and their proper-
ties, and said almost nothing about conversions and fallacies—to serve
as a reliable guide to the “science of discerning truth,” as Yan termed
it. More significantly, the roughly twenty pages he devoted to it in the
Xinlingxue were buried so deeply in the theoretical framework of yet
another thoroughly alien discipline that no reader could be expected
to discover its potential value as an independent and fundamental
branch of scientific inquiry. A striking illustration of just how foreign
the content of Yan Yongjing’s translation remained even to Chinese
scholars with a proven curiosity for new knowledge is Liang Qichao’s
authoritative Bibliography of Western Knowledge (Xixue shumubiao 西學書
目表), first published in 1896, in which the Xinlingxue, together with a
book on sense perception and a text on mental illness, was appended
to the category of texts on “anatomy” (quantixue 全體學)—on the
grounds that all three discussed matters related to nerves, “the sinews
transmitting the brain’s vital energies” (naoqijin 腦氣筋).143
5. Logic as the Science of Reason
The last Protestant author who made an attempt to contribute to the

introduction of logic into nineteenth-century China was John Fryer
( Fu Lanya 傅蘭雅, 1839–1928), the most prolific scientific translator
142
Yan Yongjing, Xinlingxue, 81a–b.
143
Liang Qichao, Xixue shumubiao, 1:5a.
126 chapter two
of the era. Between his arrival in Hong Kong in 1861 as a largely

self-educated missionary who soon abandoned his calling, and his relo-
cation to Berkeley where he became the first professor of Oriental lan-
guages and literature in 1896, Fryer participated in the translation or
compilation of almost one hundred books on “Western knowledge.”144
In addition, he engaged in a broad range of endeavors to translate
more practical aspects of European science and technology into late
imperial China, which included serving as editor of the Gezhi huibian,
director of the Shanghai Polytechnic Institution, and proprietor of the
Chinese Scientific Book Depot (Gezhi shushi 格致書室).145
Toward the end of his career in China, Fryer broadened the scope
of his work beyond the realm of the natural and applied sciences, in
which he left his most lasting and rightfully acclaimed legacy, and
branched out to adapt a number of texts on government, political
economy, trade, and international law, as well as more remote top-
ics such as Western etiquette and mental illness.146 Even after taking
up the professorship in the University of California, he dedicated his
annual summer vacation in Shanghai to translating “useful knowl-
edge” into Chinese. During one such vacation, he wrote a short trea-
tise on logic entitled What Must Be Known about Logic (Lixue xuzhi 理學
須知) that was printed during the turbulent events of the Hundred
Days Reform of 1898.147
The Lixue xuzhi is probably the least known of Fryer’s translations.
No copy of the work has been preserved in Fryer’s personal library,
and it is not mentioned by his Western biographers, Adrian Bennett
and Ferdinand Dagenais.148 Nor is it discussed in any account of the
history of logic in China. On the basis of a rare copy held in the
144
Adrian A. Bennett, John Fryer: The Introduction of Western Science and Technology into
Nineteenth-Century China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967), 110–111.
The most reliable list of Fryer’s Chinese publications is Wang Yangzong 王揚宗, Fu
Lanya yu jindai Zhongguo de kexue qimeng 傅蘭雅與近代中國的科學啟蒙 ( John Fryer
and scientific enlightenment in modern China) (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 2000),
126–133.
145
See Wright, Translating Science, 100–148. See also idem, “John Fryer.”
146
See Bennett, John Fryer, 33–40.
147
John Fryer ( Fu Lanya 傅蘭雅), Lixue xuzhi 理學須知 (What must be known
about logic) (Shanghai: Gezhi shushi, 1898).
148
See Bennett, John Fryer; and Ferdinand Dagenais, “John Fryer’s Calendar: Cor-
respondence, Publications, and Miscellaneous Papers with Excerpts and Commen-
taries (Version 3)” (unpublished manuscript, Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies,
1999).
Library of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, Wang Yang-

zong has shown that the text was the last of twenty-eight published
volumes (out of a planned eighty) in a comprehensive series of high
school textbooks whose translation Fryer had initiated already in the
1880s.149
Fryer’s decision to compile an introduction to European logic for
this series, after ignoring the subject in his prior work, may have
been aroused or at least amplified by his dissatisfaction with Edkins’s
Bianxue qimeng. Although praising Edkins on numerous occasions as
“the greatest living authority on the Chinese language and Chinese
literature,”150 Fryer regarded his predecessor’s rendition of Jevons’s
Logic as inadequate: “The translation is in high and heavy Wên-li, so
that a much simpler exposition of the principles of logic is needed for
young students.”151 The Lixue xuzhi was an attempt to provide such an
exposition.
1. Sources and Terminology

The Lixue xuzhi is a short treatise of forty-one folio pages, divided
into six chapters dedicated, respectively, to “The Meaning of Logic”
(lixue zhi yuanyi 理學之原意),152 “Terms and Facts” (ming yu shishi
名與事實),153 “Reasoning” (qiuju zhi fa 求據之法),154 “Induction” (leitui
149
Wang Yangzong, Fu Lanya, 102. For a list of all twenty-eight printed volumes,
see ibid., 131.
150
Cited from Dagenais, Calendar, Year 1894, 2.
151
Fryer, Descriptive Account, 13. Some years before this frank assessment, Fryer had
published a more neutral, albeit not very informative, note in an advertisement for
the series of books in which the Bianxue qimeng had appeared: “The Primer of Logic
consists of seven sections. Generally speaking, [ logic] is concerned with differentiating
the meanings in human speech, defining things and events, distinguishing right from
wrong, and inferring true meanings. It is roughly similar to the ‘science of right and
wrong’ (shifeixue 是非學, ethics), which studies the patterns of and evidence for good
and evil, but there are differences, too. Mastering this field of learning enables us to
advance and revise the sciences. For those who cannot clearly distinguish the patterns
of all things are unable to know what is true and false. How could what they keep
telling us be of any value?” Gezhi huibian 6, no. 2 (1891): 49b.
152
Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 1a–4a; cf. John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and
Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Investigation
(1843), reprinted in idem, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, 33 vols., ed. John. M.
Robson (London: Routledge, 1973–1974), vols. 7 and 8; “Introduction,” vol. 7, 3–16.
153
Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 4a–11b; cf. Mill, System of Logic, “Book I: Of Names and
Propositions,” vol. 7, 19–156.
154
Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 11b–18b; cf. Mill, System of Logic, “Book II: Of Reasoning,”
vol. 7, 157–282.
128 chapter two
zhi fa 類推之法),155 “Fallacies” (cuowu zhi chu 錯誤之處),156 and “The

Patterns of Science” ( gezhi zhi li 格致之理).157 While Fryer claimed
authorship of the entire text, closer inspection reveals that chapters
1–5 were largely based on passages of John Stuart Mill’s System of Logic
(as noted in the preceding footnotes); chapter 6 was a critical adapta-
tion of the taxonomy of the sciences as outlined in Auguste Comte’s
Course in Positive Philosophy (Cours de philosophie positive, 1830–1842).158
If Fryer’s aim was indeed to write a “simpler exposition” for young
students, Mill’s monumental System of Logic was hardly the obvious
choice as an adequate model. Mill’s study was anything but an acces-
sible manual of the discipline, and it was certainly not written for
beginners. Rather, it was a comprehensive critique of the deductive
mainstream of logic that Mill aimed to subjugate under an all-
embracing theory of induction.159 For Mill, all inference was induc-
tive, that is, reasoning from particulars. Distancing himself from the
skeptical epistemology of earlier British empiricists as well as Kantian
apriorism, Mill held that even mathematical axioms, supposed to be
the purest forms of knowledge, were derived from the experience of
brute facts alone, by inductive reasoning from particular instances to
general laws. While Mill’s attempts to diminish the value of knowl-
edge achieved deductively and his analyses of the mental processes
that he thought were underlying all human reasoning had met with
extensive criticism by the time Fryer composed the Lixue xuzhi,160 his
four experimental methods, or “canons,” of induction continued to be
seen as the most reliable hedges against error in scientific inquiry and
were reproduced as such in almost every logic textbook that included
discussions on the methodology or philosophy of the sciences into the
155
Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 18b–25a; cf. Mill, System of Logic, “Book III: Of Induction,”
vol. 7, 283–640.
156
Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 25a–30a; cf. Mill, System of Logic, “Book V: Of Fallacies,”
vol. 8, 735–832.
157
Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 30a–41b.
158
Auguste Comte, Cours de philosophie positive (Paris: Rouen Frères, 1830–1842),
vol. 1, 57–117. Fryer would of course have worked from one of the many English
translations (or summaries, discussions, etc.) of Comte’s work but there is no indication
which edition or text he used.
159
R. F. McRae, “Introduction,” in Mill, System of Logic, vol. 7, xxi–xlviii.
160
On Mill’s position in the development of nineteenth-century psychologism, see
Matthias Rath, Der Psychologismusstreit in der deutschen Philosophie ( Freiburg: Alber, 1994),
128–142.
twentieth century.161 This strong link to scientific practice, in conjunc-

tion with the prestige Mill’s work had enjoyed during his education
in mid-nineteenth-century England, may have inspired Fryer to base
his text on the System of Logic. As for the reasons why he abandoned
the System in the final chapter of the Lixue xuzhi and replaced Mill’s
deliberations on the “logic of the moral sciences” with a discussion of
Comte’s positivistic taxonomy, we can only speculate. Given Fryer’s
known “intoxication” with scientific discovery and progress,162 how-
ever, the simplest and perhaps most probable explanation may once
again be that he chose a text that would allow him to strengthen the
generally scientistic tenor of his presentation.
Like Edkins and Yan Yongjing before him, Fryer seems to have been
unaware of the earlier Jesuit suggestions so that he chose to create his
own terminology for the logical notions he extracted from Mill and
Comte. From his long career as a translator of scientific texts, Fryer
had ample experience in the invention of Chinese replicas of Western
notions. Especially in the realm of chemistry, the lexical innovations
he coined in cooperation with Chinese collaborators or, to a lesser
extent, by himself, exerted considerable influence.163 Fryer paid per-
haps greater attention to questions of terminology than any other for-
eign translator in nineteenth-century China. He meticulously recorded
his selections,164 published bilingual glossaries of commendable terms,
and repeatedly urged others to follow his example.165 In 1880, he
outlined his strategy for coining new terms in an article for the North
China Herald:
Where it becomes necessary to invent a new term, there is a choice of
three methods:
a. Make a new character, the sound of which can easily be known
from the phonetic portion, or use an existing but uncommon char-
acter giving it a new meaning.
b. Invent a descriptive term, using as few characters as possible.
c. Phoneticize the foreign term, using the sounds of the Mandarin
dialect, and always endeavoring to employ the same character for
161
Maurice Cranston, “Mill, John Stuart,” in Dictionary of Scientific Biography, ed.
Charles C. Gillispie (New York: Scribner’s, 1974), vol. 9, 383–386; 384.
162
On Fryer’s scientistic inclinations, see Wright, Translating Science, 123–125.
163
Wang Yangzong, “A New Inquiry into the Translation of Chemical Terms by
John Fryer and Xu Shou,” in Lackner et al., New Terms for New Ideas, 271–284.
164
Some of these lists are reproduced in Dagenais, Calendar.
165
Wang Yangzong, Fu Lanya, 66–68. See also Bennett, John Fryer, 29–33, 101–102.
130 chapter two
the same sound as far as possible, giving preference to characters

most used by previous translators or compilers.
All such invented terms are to be regarded merely as provisional and to
be discarded if previously existing ones are discovered or better ones can
be obtained before the works are published.166
In the Lixue xuzhi, like most of his later translations, Fryer relied almost
exclusively on the second of his three methods, that is, the invention of
“descriptive terms” or loan translations. One exception was the term
he chose to render “logic” itself. Lixue 理學 ‘the science of pattern’, or,
as he more likely intended the compound to be understood, ‘the sci-
ence of reason’, was forcibly appropriated from its time-honored usage
as a name for the canonized synthesis of neo-Confucian thought going
back to the Song philosopher Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200). Since Fryer
left no explanation of his choice, we can only surmise that he wanted
to tap the “rationalist” image of this branch of traditional Chinese
thought—an image, however, which was more prevalent among con-
temporary Western interpreters than among Chinese literati who had
become increasingly dissatisfied with their own lixue by the end of the
nineteenth century. At any rate, Fryer should have been aware that
such a brazen attempt to hijack a venerable indigenous term, much in
the fashion of Jesuit accommodationism, stood little chance of increas-
ing the appeal of his subject.
Many of his less contentious choices of “descriptive terms,” espe-
cially those obeying his demand for conciseness, seemed more accept-
able. Examples of rather elegant loan translations included yan shi
言是 ‘stating as true’ and yan fei 言非 ‘stating as false’ for “affirmative”
and “negative”; teyong 特用 ‘particular use’ and gongyong 公用 ‘general
use’ for “particular” and “universal” (see Table 2.1, items 3.19–3.22);
huafen 化分 ‘transform into parts’ and huahe 化合 ‘transform into unity’
for “analysis” and “synthesis” (5.2 and 5.3); and sheli 設理 ‘supposed
pattern’ for “hypothesis” (5.7). Fryer’s use of xiang 項 ‘item’ for “term”
(2.1), borrowed from contemporary mathematical nomenclature,167
anticipated a choice that would be reinvented and eventually standard-
ized in Chinese works on symbolic logic decades later. The terms he
166
John Fryer, “An Account of the Department for the Translation of Foreign
Books at the Kiangnan Arsenal, Shanghai,” North China Herald, January 29, 1880,
77–81; 80. The text was published again as idem, “Science in China,” Nature, May 5,
1881, 9–11; May 19, 1881, 54–57.
167
Mingjie Hu, Merging Chinese and Western Mathematics, 396.
created to describe the syllogism and its constituent parts were inspired
by Chinese legal language. The “syllogism” thus became a “case estab-
lishing evidence/proof ” (chengju zhi an 成據之案) (4.13), the “conclu-
sion” a “statement seeking evidence/proof ” (qiujushuo 求據之說) (4.5),
and the “premise” a “hypothetical statement” (sheshuo 設說) (4.4). In
view of his habitual attention to consistency, some obvious blunders in
Fryer’s terminology revealed uncharacteristic laxity. His overlapping
uses of shigong 事功 ‘achievement’ for “predicate” and “effect” (3.4 and
5.16), or jiexian 界限 ‘boundary, demarcation, circumference’ for the
“extension” of a term as well as the “mood” of a syllogism (2.4 and
4.19) were not only infelicitous per se, but implied unwarranted and
misleading conceptual interrelations.
2. Fryer and the Essentials of Logic

“What must be known about logic,” according to Fryer, was above
all the discipline’s intimate connection with scientific practice. Fryer
emphasized this bond throughout his highly selective adaptations of
Mill’s opinions. In the drastically condensed version in which he pre-
sented them, hardly any of Mill’s more subtle differentiations or theo-
retical justifications survived. Instead, the Western “science of reason”
appeared as a pliant tool in the hands of scientists and experimenters,
the true savants of the contemporary world. In the opening chapter of
the Lixue xuzhi, Fryer defined the functions of logic as follows:
Logic is a scientific discipline that investigates the natural causal relations
(tianran xiangyin zhi shi 天然相因之事) among the myriad things. The
methods of this discipline can guide men in their researches in every
scientific domain. Experimenters can apply [them] to things they find
to be causally related in order to distinguish whether their causal rela-
tions are true or not. Everything men may believe or disbelieve depends
on these methods for its supporting evidence. Thus, relying on logic
enables us, on the one hand, to examine new patterns and, on the other,
to obtain sure proofs. At the same time, it allows us to settle all issues
related to experiments and methods to obtain reliable evidence. Hence,
irrespective of the reasons why we may believe a certain matter to be
true or untrue, [logic] enables us to ascertain whether the evidence is
solid and to reach utmost [clarity]. Is this not something everyone should
treasure?168
168
Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 3b–4a.
132 chapter two
Throughout the text, Fryer was most at ease where he could discuss
topics related to his hard-won experience as a translator and advocate
of the sciences. The examples he inserted to illustrate logical rules and
theorems were almost exclusively drawn from a wide range of natural
sciences, and his chapters on induction and scientific taxonomy were
much more coherent than those devoted to the more conventional
themes of traditional logic. This applied in particular to chapters 2 and
3 of the Lixue xuzhi, which were dedicated to deductive reasoning. Like
Mill, Fryer adhered to the classical form of exposition and divided his
presentation into three sections on names (terms), propositions, and
reasoning. Names (ming 名) had to be addressed in logic because they
helped to determine the qualities of things. Fryer introduced only two
of the many kinds of names distinguished by Mill: “fixed names” (ding-
ming 定名 ‘singular names’) referring to individual things, places, or
persons, like “China, Nile, Napoleon, Laozi, or Niagara Falls,” and
“comprehensive names” (tongming 通名 ‘general names’) designating
different things that shared certain properties.169 In addition, he briefly
summarized, in rather inelegant formulations, the classes of “name-
able things” with which Mill tried to replace the Aristotelian catego-
ries, namely, (1) “qualities (xingqing 性情), that is, that which can be
perceived and felt” (Mill: “feelings, or states of consciousness”); (2) “the
soul (xinling 心靈), that is, that which can perceive the qualities just
mentioned” (“the minds which experience those feelings”); (3) “the
things outside our minds (xinwai zhi wu 心外之物), that is, that which
causes qualities, perceptions or sensations” (“the bodies, or external
objects which excite certain of those feelings, together with the powers
or properties whereby they excite them”); and (4) “the things humans
perceive, which are either in succession, or coexist (bingyou 並有), or
are similar or dissimilar” (“the successions and co-existences, the like-
nesses and unlikenesses, between feelings or states of consciousness”).170
In addition, he stressed the importance of definitions ( jieshuo 解說) to
prevent misunderstandings in science and debate. Ideally, definitions
should be exhaustive in regard to a term’s properties and rely on the
simple to explain the complex.171
169
Ibid., 4a–5a. On Mill’s peculiar conception of all terms as names, see Kneale
and Kneale, Development of Logic, 373–374.
170
Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 5a–6b; cf. Mill, System of Logic, vol. 7, 77.
171
Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 10b–11b.
Names and definitions alone, however, had no bearing on our opin-

ions about the truth or falsity of a matter. For this purpose, “gen-
eral statements” ( gongshuo 公說, propositions) were needed because
they enable us to determine whether a thing or affair is true/right or
wrong/false and supported by evidence. Unfortunately, Fryer’s discus-
sion of the proposition was rather crude. His explanation of why the
copula is a necessary part of all propositions, for instance, was no more
convincing to Chinese readers than the previous efforts of Edkins or
Yan Yongjing:
All “general statements” (gongshuo 公說 ‘propositions’) are formed by
establishing a relation between two things or matters. If they contained
only one thing or matter, people would have nothing to believe or doubt.
When we say, for instance, “fire burns” (huo shao 火燒) or “gold, yellow
color” ( jin huangse 金黃色), then each of these statements consists of two
related matters or things. “Fire” is one thing, “burns” is another; only
when the two are related according to rules can people believe or doubt
them, and only then do they form a proposition. “Gold” is one thing,
“yellow color” is another; but if we talk about the two separately, neither
is able to form a sentence ( ju 句) and thus no proposition is established.
However, when we say “Gold is [deemed to be] of yellow color” ( jin
wei huangse 金為黃色), then the word wei 為 functions as a “connecting
word” ( guanlian zhi zi 貫聯之字 ‘copula’), and by including this word we
are able to form a proposition. Therefore, propositions must contain a
“noun” (shizi 實字) and a “verb” (huozi 活字) before people can believe
or doubt them.
From this we can see that propositions must contain two terms (xiang 項).
One is the “topic” (timu 題目 ‘subject’), the other is the “achievement”
(shigong 事功 ‘predicate’). The two terms also have a sequence, that is,
the subject comes first and the predicate last. In between them there
must be a connecting word affirming or denying them. When we say
“Gold is [deemed to be] of yellow color” ( jin wei huangse 金為黃色),
“gold” is the subject; “yellow color” is the predicate; and the word wei
is the connecting verb. Although wei and words of similar kind are used
most frequently, there are other kinds of words that act like the words
wei and shi 是.172
If Fryer was aware that his argument supporting the necessity of an
explicit copula, and its fixed place between subject and predicate in
every proposition, was dubious because it did not resonate with Chi-
nese syntax, he made no attempt to overcome the difficulty by add-
ing supplementary explanations or examples. Instead, he moved on to
172
Ibid., 7b–8a.
134 chapter two
outline Mill’s deliberations on the different kinds of relations between

things which can be affirmed or denied by propositions—sequence,
coexistence, simple existence, causation, and resemblance—without,
however, enlightening his readers about how these distinctions might
further logical inquiry.173
The most problematic section of the Lixue xuzhi was Fryer’s pre-
sentation of the syllogism. In a crucial section introducing the various
components of “cases establishing evidence/proof,” which he adapted
directly from Mill, the combined effects of terminological confusion
and slack editing were nothing short of disastrous ( Fryer’s factual
errors are highlighted in square brackets):
All legitimate “cases establishing evidence/proof ” (chengju zhi an 成據之案
‘syllogisms’) must be composed of three, and no more than three, “state-
ments” (shuo 說 ‘propositions’): one “seeking evidence/proof ” (qiuju 求據
‘conclusion’, that is, the ‘proposition to be proved’), one “establishing
evidence/proof ” (chengju 成據), and one “hypothetical statement” (sheshuo
設說 ‘premise’) [correct: “one conclusion or ‘proposition to be proved’
and two premises establishing evidence”]. The “statement seeking evi-
dence/proof ” (qiujushuo 求據說 ‘conclusion’) [correct: “a syllogism”]
must contain three, and no more than three items (xiang 項 ‘terms’). The
first of these [terms] is the “topic” (timu 題目 ‘subject’), the second is the
“achievement” (shigong 事功, predicate), and [the third] is the “middle
term” (zhongxiang 中項). Among the major and minor terms [correct:
“propositions”] is one premise that contains the middle and the major
term, which is called the major premise, and one containing the middle
and the minor term, which is called the minor premise.174
In the remaining pages of this chapter, Fryer provided detailed and
more reliable illustrations for the different figures (shi 式) and moods
173
Ibid., 8b–10b.
174
Ibid., 12b–13a. Mill’s original passage is impeccably clear: “To a legitimate
syllogism it is essential that there should be three, and no more than three, proposi-
tions, namely, the conclusion, or proposition to be proved, and two other propositions
which together prove it, and which are called the premises. It is essential that there
should be three, and no more than three, terms, namely, the subject and the predi-
cate of the conclusion, and another called the middle term, which must be found in
both premises, since it is by means of it that the other two terms are to be connected
together. The predicate of the conclusion is called the major term of the syllogism; the
subject of the conclusion is called the minor term. As there can be but three terms,
the major and the minor terms must each be found in one, and only one, of the
premises, together with the middle term which is in them both. The premise which
contains the middle term and the major term is called the major premise; that which
contains the middle term and the minor term is called the minor premise” (System of
Logic, vol. 7, 164).
( jiexian 界限) of the syllogism as well as the rules of conversion.175 Still,

with such a deeply flawed introduction as its centerpiece, it would
have been difficult for students and other prospective readers to make
sense of his account of “legitimate cases establishing evidence/proof ”
and hence of the core of the “science of reason” in the traditional
European understanding.
Fryer’s outline of Mill’s view of induction, or “the method of
pushing on by [similarity] in kind” (leitui zhi fa 類推之法), was more
coherent, certainly not least due to his thorough familiarity with the
vocabulary and procedures of observation and experiment. Follow-
ing Mill, Fryer defined induction as a method to obtain general laws
( gongli 公例) from a limited number of instances. Induction established
relations between definite causes and their effects. In order to ascer-
tain the truth of the relation between a certain cause and its effect,
Mill had formulated four “methods of experimental inquiry” (shi-
yanfa 試驗法)—the “method of agreement” (xiangtongfa 相同法), the
“method of difference” (xiangyifa 相異法), the “method of residue”
(qiyufa 其餘法), and “the method of concomitant variation” (tongshi gai-
bianfa 同時改變法)—which were aimed at successively eliminating all
effects unrelated to a certain cause.176 Yet, most phenomena were the
results of a plurality of causes whose laws could not be understood by
elimination alone, so that another, more comprehensive method was
needed, which Mill had called, somewhat misleadingly, the “deductive
method.” In order to avoid confusion, Fryer sensibly chose to render
“deduction” in this peculiar sense by a new word and termed it “the
method of estimation” (chuainifa 揣擬法). In Mill’s interpretation, the
method of estimation involved three stages: inductions from particu-
lar causes to their individual laws; ratiocinations (that is, once again,
“deductions,” paraphrased by Fryer as “explanations of what different
cases have in common based on general laws”)177 about possible inter-
actions of these individual laws; and, lastly, experimental verifications
of the laws suggested as explanations for complex phenomena.178
His chapter on fallacies was an eclectic catalogue of “errors that can
be eliminated through various logical methods.”179 Fryer first presented
175
Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 13b–18b; cf. Mill, System of Logic, vol. 7, 164–171.
176
Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 20a–22a.
177
Ibid., 22b.
178
Ibid., 22b–24b.
179
Ibid., 25a.
136 chapter two
a selection of fallacies adapted from Book V of Mill’s System of Logic,

divided into three categories: “errors in thought arising from insuffi-
cient training of the human mind,” by which he referred to supersti-
tions and what Mill called “fallacies of observation”; “errors arising
from the use of the method of estimation,” under which heading he
discussed an example of Mill’s “fallacy of changing the premises”; and
“errors arising from confusion of language,” that is, ambiguous terms
and false analogies.180 In the second part, he listed examples of some
more common fallacies in syllogistic reasoning, which Mill omitted
in his System, arranged in two categories: “fallacies originating within
language,” that is, logical fallacies; and “fallacies outside of language,”
that is, material fallacies.181 Since he provided hardly any explana-
tions, the usefulness of Fryer’s catalogue was no less questionable than
his sketchy account of deduction, even if it did not contain further
mistakes.
Fryer concluded his account of the essentials of logic with a lengthy
digression into the taxonomy of the sciences, in which logic was hardly
mentioned. He did not say anything about the place of logic within the
disciplinary matrix he sketched in this chapter but declared only that
the various methods introduced in his Lixue xuzhi could help to delin-
eate the boundaries of individual sciences.182 If it was clear to him that
logic was so fundamental that it did not need to be located in relation
to sciences with a more specific focus, he failed to impart this insight
to his Chinese readers. This was particularly unfortunate because his
deliberations were apparently written with the hope of influencing the
shape of a new disciplinary taxonomy that was beginning to emerge
in China.183 Fryer had characteristically strong opinions on the desir-
able form of this new taxonomy. Comte’s division of the sciences into
the categories of mathematics, astronomy, physics (bowu 博物 ‘the sci-
ence of nature’), chemistry, biology (huoxue 活學 ‘the science of life’),
and sociology (huixue 會學 ‘the science of [ human] association’) served
180
Ibid., 25a–27b.
181
Ibid., 27b–30a.
182
Ibid., 30a.
183
See David. C. Reynolds, “Redrawing China’s Intellectual Map: Images of Sci-
ence in Nineteenth-Century China,” Late Imperial China 12, no. 1 (1991): 38–51; and
Joachim Kurtz, “Was tun mit Chinas Nationaler Essenz? Disziplingeschichte versus
Nationale Studien, 1898–1911,” in Über Himmel und Erde. Festschrift für Erling von Mende,
ed. Raimund Th. Kolb and Martina Siebert (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006), 261–
280; 261–263.
him only as a convenient starting point for a discussion of the future

potential of various sciences and hence of China’s need to promote
them.184 In accordance with his assessment of this potential, Fryer
adapted Comte’s scheme in two ways: astronomy lost its privileged
position and was integrated into the physical sciences, and psychol-
ogy (xinlingxue 心靈學) was dissociated from the science of life and
turned into an independent discipline. Among the branches of science
in the resulting matrix—mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, psy-
chology, and sociology—the most spectacular advances were to be
expected from psychology, which aimed to understand the anatomy
and functions of the human mind, and sociology, which synthesized
the results of all the sciences that studied human association in order
to formulate prescriptions for good government and decent social stat-
utes.185 Rather than summarize the contents of the “science of reason,”
Fryer thus ended his book with an unexpected appeal in favor of two
new sciences whose relation to logic remained elusive, and he added
a general plea to rejuvenate China’s “literary doctrine” (wenjiao 文教)
through the integration of Western sciences into its canon.186
In sum, the Lixue xuzhi must be seen as a well-intentioned but ill-
conceived attempt to fill a persisting lacuna in the Protestant presen-
tation of Western knowledge in nineteenth-century China. Due to its
incoherence, biases, and errors the work was hardly suited to serve its
intended purpose as a “simpler exposition for younger students.” Even
outside the classroom, in which it was never used, the book did not find
any resonance. Fryer was the first author who tried to situate logic in a
context that would seem meaningful to his Chinese audience. Yet his
insistence that the discipline was an indispensable auxiliary of experi-
mental science may not have been the most effective promotional strat-
egy at the time. By 1898, even conservative officials had long accepted
the utility of the sciences; and the reformers, Fryer’s most enthusiastic
audience, had moved on to exploring what the West had to offer in
the areas of politics, law, and society—if they were not busy trying to
save their lives in the aftermath of the aborted Hundred Days reform.
In addition, missionaries and other Westerners had started to lose their
privileged position as the sole interpreters of new knowledge in China.
184
Fryer, Lixue xuzhi, 30b–31a.
185
Ibid., 39a–b.
186
Ibid., 41b.
138 chapter two
More and more Chinese students were sent overseas, and exchanges
with Japan, which was to become China’s bridge to the modern world
in the first decade of the twentieth century, increased rapidly after the
Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895. Whatever its reasons, the muted
resonance of the Lixue xuzhi was a fitting coda to an almost entirely
lost century in the history of logic in China.
Concluding Remarks
The second phase in the translation of European logic in China was

thus off to a slow start. The reluctance of Protestant authors to advo-
cate the discipline with the same care and urgency with which they
applied themselves to propagating other sciences was reflected in sus-
tained Chinese indifference toward the field. The scattered attempts
that were eventually undertaken to introduce logical theories and
notions ultimately proved futile. Like the efforts of Li Zhizao, Fran-
cisco Furtado, and Ferdinand Verbiest more than two centuries earlier,
the endeavors of Joseph Edkins, Yan Yongjing, and John Fryer con-
firmed that it was possible to translate logic into late imperial Chinese,
even if it continued to require a sizeable amount of lexical innova-
tion. But the futility of their labors also underlined that the production
of more or less comprehensible texts did not suffice to capture their
audience’s attention. Before the twentieth century, hardly any Chinese
author referred to European logic, even in texts explicitly demanding
increased attention for the new sciences streaming in from the West.
How far removed from mainstream and even reformist discourses
the discipline remained into the last decade of the century can be
illustrated by a number of further observations. Perhaps the most strik-
ing manifestation was the startling perplexity of contemporary Chi-
nese bibliographers cited in the introduction to this study. Another
unambiguous indication was the fact that logic remained absent from
the theories of the “Chinese origins of Western knowledge” (Xixue
Zhongyuan 西學中源) that did so much to popularize other Western
sciences.187 Not even the summa of this discourse, the voluminous
187
See Quan Hansheng 全漢昇, “Qingmo de Xixue yuanchu Zhongguo shuo” 清
末的西學源出中國說 (The late Qing theory of the Chinese origin of Western knowl-
edge), Lingnan xuebao 4, no. 2 (1935): 57–102; Michael Lackner (Lang Mixie 郎宓
榭), “Yuan zi dongfang de kexue? Zhongguoshi ‘ziduan’ de biaoxian xingshi” 源自
東方的科學？—中國式「自斷」的表現形式 (Ex oriente scientia? Chinese ways of
Ancient Subtleties of Science (Gezhi guwei 格致古微), which was explicitly

designed to prove that all branches of the supposedly new knowledge
from the West had roots in China, contained a single line on logic or
grammar.188 The sole exceptions were brief remarks by the Hundred
Days martyr Tan Sitong 譚嗣同 (1865–1898) who, in his famous A
Study of Benevolence (Renxue 仁學, 1898) and a short essay entitled “On
Contemporary Western and Ancient Chinese Knowledge” (Lun jinri
Xixue yu Zhongguo guxue 論今日西學與中國古學, 1898), traced the
origins of European logic (bianxue 辨學) back to the pre-Qin philoso-
phers Hui Shi and Gongsun Long, without supplying any evidence
for his claim.189
Finally, the enduring strangeness of logic in Chinese texts and
contexts was confirmed by the inability of nineteenth-century lexi-
cographers to provide an accepted, or at least potentially acceptable,
equivalent even for the term “logic” itself. Unaware of existing trans-
lations, the compilers of the Western bilingual Chinese dictionaries
published throughout the century either skipped the term altogeth-
er—for example, Robert Morrison,190 Walter Henry Medhurst (Mai
Dusi 麥都思, 1796–1857),191 and Samuel Wells Williams (Wei Sanwei
衛三畏, 1812–1884)192—or felt compelled to propose a number of
alternative renderings, none of which seems to have originated from
or migrated into the actual Chinese lexicon. To cite only a few exam-
ples, Wilhelm Lobscheid offered in his voluminous English and Chinese
self-assertion), Ershiyi shiji 4 (2003): 85–95; and Theodore Huters, Bringing the World
Home: Appropriating the West in Late Qing and Early Republican China (Honolulu: University
of Hawaii Press, 2005), 23–42.
188
Wang Renjun 王仁俊, Gezhi guwei 格致古微 (Ancient subtleties of science)
(1896), reprinted in Zhongguo kexue jishu dianji tonghui 中國科學技術典籍同彙 (Anthol-
ogy of classic works of Chinese science and technology), ed. Ren Jiyu 任繼愈 (Zheng-
zhou: Henan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1993), vol. 1, 7. See Zeng Jianli 曾建立, “ ‘Gezhi
guwei’ yu wan Qing ‘Xixue Zhongyuan’ shuo”《格致古微》與晚清“西學中源”說
(The Gezhi guwei and the late Qing theory of the ‘Chinese origin of Western knowl-
edge’), Zhongzhou xuekan 6, no. 11 (2000): 146–150.
189
Tan Sitong 潭嗣同, Tan Sitong quanji 潭嗣同全集 (The complete works of Tan
Sitong), ed. Cai Shangsi 蔡尚思 and Fang Xing 方行 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1981), 317, 399.
190
Robert Morrison (Ma Lixun 馬禮遜), Wuche yunfu 五車韻府. A Dictionary of the
Chinese Language, in Three Parts (Macao: The Honourable East India Company’s Press,
1815–1823).
191
Walter H. Medhurst (Maidusi 麥都思), Ying-Hua zidian 英華字典. English and
Chinese Dictionary (Shanghai: n.p., 1847–1848).
192
Samuel Wells Williams (Wei Sanwei 衛三畏), Ying-Hua yunfu lijie 英華韻府歷階.
An English and Chinese Vocabulary (Macao: Office of the Chinese Repository, 1844).
140 chapter two
Dictionary (1866–1869) no less than five alternatives: mingli 明理 ‘eluci-

dating patterns’ or mingli zhi xue 明理之學 ‘the science of elucidating
patterns’, lilun zhi xue 理論之學 ‘the science of rational discussion’, si
zhi fa 思之法 ‘the laws of thought’ and, finally, Fryer’s later choice lixue
理學 ‘the science of pattern/reason’, which Lobscheid listed simulta-
neously as an equivalent of “philosophy.”193 In a similar manner, Paul
Perny presented the venerable Confucian term gewu 格物 ‘the inves-
tigation of things’ in his Dictionnaire Français-Latin-Chinois of 1869 as a
rendition not only of “logic” but also of “philosophy.”194 Slightly later,
Justus Doolittle reinvented the term tuilun zhi fa 推論之法 ‘the methods
of inference’, which had already been used in the Mingli tan, and added
the supplementary rendering minglun zhi fa 明論之法 ‘the methods of
clear discussion’.195 Further suggestions included Séraphim Couvreur’s
bianlifa 辨理法 ‘the methods of discerning patterns’ or ‘the methods
and patterns of argumentation’;196 Gustave Schlegel’s dao 道 ‘the Way’,
‘logos’, or ‘reason’ and 思之理 ‘the patterns or laws of thought’;197 and,
last but not least, Kwong Ki-chiu’s (Kuang Qizhao 鄺其照) utterly
clumsy paraphrase xuekuo xinsi zhi fa 學擴心思之法 ‘the methods of
learning to extend one’s thoughts’,198 which all joined a growing pile
of decontextualized and therefore almost inevitably barren renderings
of a still thoroughly foreign notion.
193
Wilhelm Lobscheid (Luo Cunde 羅存德), Ying-Hua zidian 英華字典. English and
Chinese Dictionary with Punti and Mandarin Pronunciation, 4 vols. (Hong Kong: Daily Press
Office, 1866–1869), 1124.
194
Paul H. Perny (Tong Baolu 童保錄), Xiyu yi Han rumen 西語譯漢入門. Diction-
naire Français-Latin-Chinois de la langue mandarine parlée (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1869), 265,
330.
195
Justus Doolittle (Lu Gongming 廬公明), Ying-Hua cuilin yunfu 英華萃林韻府. A
Vocabulary and Hand-Book of the Chinese Language, romanized in the Mandarin dialect, 2 vols.
( Foochow: Rosario, Marcal & Co., 1872–1873), 290.
196
F. Séraphim Couvreur, Fa-Han changtan 法漢常談. Dictionnaire Français-Chinois
contenant les expressions les plus usitées de la langue mandarine (Ho Kien Fou: Imprimerie de
la Mission Catholique, 1884), 570.
197
Gustave Schlegel, He-Hua wenyu leican 荷華文語類參. Nederlandsch-Chineesch
Woordenboek met de Transcriptie der Chineesche Karakters in het Tsiang-Tsiu Dialekt, 13 vols.
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1886), vol. 6.
198
Kwong Ki-chiu (Kuang Qizhao 鄺其照), Hua-Ying zidian jicheng 英華字典集成.
English and Chinese Dictionary (Hong Kong: n.p., 1882), 174.
Table 2.1: Logical Terms in Nineteenth-Century Protestant Works

English term Joseph Edkins, Yan Yongjing, John Fryer,
Bianxue qimeng, 1886 Xinlingxue, 1889 Lixue xuzhi, 1898
A. General terms of logic

1.1 logic 羅吉格辨實學理學
辨學錄集克
1.2 reasoning 辨論辨實推論
分辨
推揣逆料之法
1.3 thought 思思想
1.4 judgment 論斷語說
1.5 argument 辨論語議論議論
1.6 truth 意真實理真理
意真語真實
1.7 form, formal 式格式
1.8 symbol, symbolic 記號記號記號
1.9 law of identity
1.10 law of contradiction
1.11 law of excluded middle
1.12 principle of sufficient reason
B. Terms related to terms

2.1 term 得耳馬端名 (name)
界語名目項 (term)
界名目 (terminology)
2.2 concept 意影思念
(idea) （意緒）
2.3 intension 精密意
2.4 extension 擴大意界限
2.5 definition 定名語界解說
2.6 category 類
2.7 substance 體質
2.8 (five) predicables
2.9 genus 類類類
科部類
2.10 species 種族種
族種種類
2.11 difference 種異處參差
2.12 property 情形
2.13 accident 偶異處
2.14 singular term 專語定名
專名獨用名目
2.15 general term 同語通名
同名公用名目
2.16 collective term 渾論語
總名
2.17 positive term 正面語
2.18 negative term 反面語
2.19 concrete term 有體質實物之界語
142 chapter two
Table 2.1 (cont.)

2.20 abstract term 貼附實物加以形之界語

照顯實物形式之界語
申明物形式之界語
2.21 absolute term
2.22 relative term
2.23 categorematic term
2.24 syncategorematic term
C. Terms related to propositions

3.1 sentence 語句語句句
3.2 proposition 語句表句公說
完全語句說
申明事實之語句
3.3 subject 專重語表句目題目
3.4 predicate 申明語表題事功
申明形式語
3.5 copula 聯洛成句之活字繫連貫聯之實字
聯洛之活字貫聯之活字
聯洛字
哥布拉
3.6 attribute
3.7 quality 情節煩碎性情
稱式
3.8 quantity 分數數目
3.9 true 是真真
真是是
實
3.10 false 非假假
否非非
3.11 some 分數有
有數間某
3.12 all 全數凡凡
凡…皆攏總
3.13 distributed 包括至於盡頭處有統盲意義分
3.14 undistributed 包括未至盡頭處無統盲意義不分
3.15 categorical 真切表句
proposition
3.16 hypothetical 首冠如若等字之語句不真切表句
proposition 如若字樣之虛擬語
3.17 conjunctive
proposition
3.18 disjunctive 分歧口頭語句
proposition
3.19 affirmative 正面語句正連表句言是之說
proposition 正面語
3.20 negative proposition 反面語句反連表句言非之說
反面語
Table 2.1 (cont.)

3.21 particular proposition 包括未至盡頭處之語句特目表句特說

數無盡之語句特用（之說）
3.22 universal proposition 包括至於盡頭處之語句公目表句公用（之說）
數有盡之語句
3.23 universal affirmative 包括至盡頭處之正面語
proposition 數有盡之正語句
3.24 universal negative 包括至盡頭處之反面語
proposition 數有盡之反語句
3.25 particular affirmative 包括未至盡頭處之正面語
proposition 數無盡之正語句
3.26 particular negative 包括未至盡頭處之反面語
proposition 數無盡之反語句
3.27 conversion 轉換化成法
倒置
3.28 simple conversion 簡法
3.29 limited conversion 偶變法
3.30 contraposition
3.31 opposition
3.32 contradictory 矛盾
3.33 contrary
3.34 subcontrary
3.35 subaltern
D. Terms related to syllogisms

4.1 inference 推出推知推引
推闡推度求據之法
推揣
4.2 deduction 憑理度物之推闡法推出辨實揣擬法
即理推事物推出憑據法
連類推測成據之法
推測
4.3 induction 即物察理之辨法引進辨實類推之法
即事察理引進類推法
藉物察理引導連類推知
憑事察理
4.4 premise 先出之語句先階設說
先出語設公說
出語
4.5 conclusion 結收語結句求據
斷定語句成據
斷定語
4.6 major premise 首先出語大先階大設說
首出語
4.7 minor premise 次先出語小先階小設說
次出語
4.8 major term 大得耳馬大端大項
大界語
144 chapter two
Table 2.1 (cont.)

4.9 minor term 小得耳馬小端小項

小界語
4.10 middle term 中界語中端中項
4.11 antecedent 如若倘茍設等虛擬首冠
字樣
如若等虛擬字樣
前句
先幾
4.12 consequent 明告余等所必繼續情形
之字樣
後語
後驗
4.13 syllogism 三語句次第連成之論斷語屑錄集成成據之案
次第連成之論斷語
三語句論斷語
西鑼基斯摩
4.14 hypothetical syllogism
4.15 disjunctive syllogism 口頭分歧三語句
4.16 sorites
4.17 enthymeme
4.18 epicheirema
4.19 figure (of syllogism) 類（式）式
4.20 mood (of syllogism) 式界限
4.21 fallacy 差謬謬錯誤
語病誤
差誤
妄言
4.22 logical fallacy
4.23 material fallacy
4.24 begging the question 應有確據不得確據之理行平圜之誤
4.25 illicit major
4.26 illicit minor
4.27 undistributed middle 中界語未包括至盡頭處中端無統盲意義不分中項之誤
term
4.28 equivocation 兩處之意義不同用雙意之誤
4.29 ambiguity 語意含
E. Terms related to the methodology of the sciences

5.1 method 法法法
5.2 analysis 分覈化分
5.3 synthesis 彙歸化合
5.4 fact 事實實事實事
5.5 experience 經歷經歷
5.6 observation 檢察試觀查
究察
5.7 hypothesis 懸擬之說希卜梯西設理
懸擬之理虛設
Table 2.1 (cont.)

5.8 experiment 驗試試驗試驗法
5.9 proof 證明證明憑據
5.10 verification 徵驗試驗推證法
證明
5.11 classification 分類分部類分類
歸類
5.12 generalization 由數端推及全局合雜全
5.13 analogy 由一物推及相似他物形勢相似
5.14 explanation 解釋解釋
5.15 cause 原因所以然緣故
原因
5.16 effect 效功效成事
情節事功
5.17 necessity 必然之實
5.18 probability 兩可之實
5.19 theory 辯論之矩說
5.20 axiom 公理
5.21 law 公理法公例
公法
5.22 principle 理總理
理
5.23 rule 規式總理
款式
5.24 uniformity of nature 天然事物之常萬物往往不變
5.25 method of agreement 相符處之辨論法相同法
5.26 method of difference 相異法
5.27 joint method of
agreement and
difference
5.28 method of 隔相等時分諸變更同時改變法
concomitant variation
5.29 method of residue 其餘法
CHAPTER THREE
GREAT EXPECTATIONS:
YAN FU AND THE DISCOVERY OF EUROPEAN LOGIC
The insights and truths in [Mill’s Logic] are as

numerous as silk threads in a cocoon. . . .
They will do away with 80 or 90 percent of
China’s old patterns, and people’s minds will gain
utmost strength from their application.
Yan Fu, “Letter to Zhang Yuanji, no. 12”
In view of the sustained disinterest recounted in the previous chapters,
the abrupt appearance of logic in Chinese discourses around the year
1900 seems all the more remarkable. Less than a decade after the
only available text on logic left bibliographers perplexed, the discipline
would be taught not only in China’s most prestigious institutions of
higher learning but in colleges and normal schools throughout the
country. Many of the mushrooming new periodicals1 carried articles
on the discipline, mostly translated from Japanese,2 and private pub-
lishers struggled to supply readable introductions to meet the growing
demand from educational institutions and increasing numbers of curi-
ous readers.3 Logical societies and study groups were established not
only in cosmopolitan urban centers like Shanghai but also in unlikely
remote inland cities, such as Guiyang in the far southwest.4
1
For a comprehensive overview, see Xinhai geming shiqi qikan jieshao 辛亥革命時
期期刊介紹 (Introductions to periodicals from the period of the 1911 revolution),
5 vols., ed. Ding Shouhe 丁守和 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1982).
2
Basic bibliographical data is available in Zhou Yunzhi et al., Zhongguo luojishi
ziliaoxuan, vol. 5, part 1, 503–543; and 1900–1949 nian quanguo zhuyao baokan zhexue
lunwen ziliao suoyin 1900–1949 年全國主要報刊論文資料索引 (Index of articles on
philosophy in major Chinese periodicals, 1900–1949), ed. Fudan daxue zhexuexi zil-
iaoshi 复旦大學哲學系資料室 and Sichuan daxue zhexuexi ziliaoshi 四川大學哲學
系資料室 (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1989), 215–222.
3
Wang Yunwu 王雲五, Shangwu yinshuguan yu xin jiaoyu nianpu 商務印書館與新教
育年譜 (Annalistic chronicle of the Commercial Press and the new education) (Taibei:
Taiwan Shangwu yinshuguan, 1973), 16.
4
Wang Yanzhi 王延直 (comp.), Putong yingyong lunlixue 普通應用論理學 (General
and applied logic) (Guiyang: Guiyang lunlixueshe, 1912), 1–3.
148 chapter three
1. The Quest for Certainty
The eventual Chinese discovery of European logic was closely linked to

the crisis of authority and the concurrent delegitimization of orthodox
doctrine in the aftermath of China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War
of 1894–1895. Although the populace at large was scarcely affected by
the poor performance of the Qing fleet in its hapless engagements with
the Japanese navy, China’s loss of territory, finances, and face at the
hands of its formerly belittled neighbor to the east had a devastating
effect on the confidence and morale of her political and intellectual
elites.5 In the eyes of many scholars and officials, the embarrassing
defeat sealed by the Treaty of Shimonoseki discredited all efforts at
“self-strengthening” (ziqiang 自強) initiated since the mid-nineteenth
century, and devalued the selective premises on which the promotion
of “foreign affairs” ( yangwu 洋物) had been based.6 More dramatically,
it seemed to indicate, if not already prove, that Chinese civilization
was not “fit” to respond to the challenges of what many saw as a
uniquely ruthless age. Self-doubt and skepticism about various aspects
of China’s traditional order, including some of its political and social
institutions, had been growing among the educated elite at least since
the 1880s, but open expressions of such attitudes had remained con-
fined to the periphery of scholarly and political discourse. Now they
rapidly penetrated the center. The mystic aura of China’s symbolic
universe and the canonical texts on which it was built began to fade
and gradually vanished.7 Manipulations by its self-proclaimed protec-
tors contributed as much to the erosion of the textual foundations of
orthodox doctrine as increasingly forthright criticisms did. Within a
few years after the shock of Shimonoseki, the system of belief on which
the imperial order had been founded for centuries lost its legitimacy,
leaving in its wake an orientational crisis that sent China’s elites on
a frantic search for order and meaning, to borrow Hao Chang’s apt
formulation,8 that was to continue well beyond the demise of the last
emperor in 1911.
5
See Paula Harrell, Sowing the Seeds of Change: Chinese Students, Japanese Teachers,
1895–1905 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992), 23–29.
6
See Joseph R. Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate: A Trilogy (Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959–1965), vol. 1, 98–104.
7
See Chang, Chinese Intellectuals in Crisis, 1–20.
8
Ibid.
yan fu and the discovery of european logic 149
As indicated by the late Qing revival of Buddhism,9 the success of

political religions such as socialism and anarchism,10 and, most obvi-
ously perhaps, Kang Youwei’s 康有為 (1858–1927) futile attempt to
install Confucianism (Kongjiao 孔教) as a state cult,11 the urge to find
or if need be invent alternative sources of certainty was a key element
of this quest. It was in this climate of despair and intellectual ferment
that some Chinese scholars turned their attention and hopes toward a
foreign science they had so far chosen to ignore—logic, the European
“science of sciences,” which promised to provide new ways of resolv-
ing doubts in matters of belief and validate much-needed prescriptions
for political and social action.
2. Logic as the Science of Sciences
The most ardent propagator of the newly discovered discipline was

Yan Fu, one of the most influential Chinese writers in the years sur-
rounding the turn of the twentieth century. Yan’s role in modern Chi-
nese intellectual history tends to be exaggerated but in the narrow
context of logic his interventions were decisive indeed. Yan Fu was the
first Chinese scholar of empire-wide standing to develop a sustained
passion for the “science of names” (mingxue 名學), as he suggested call-
ing the new field, and he went to extraordinary lengths to convince
his peers that logic could help them, too, to overcome doubts and
desperation. Most recent authors discussing Yan’s contribution to the
introduction of European logic to China emphasize in particular the
influence of his adaptations of Mill’s System of Logic (1903–1905) and
Jevons’s Logic primer (1909),12 two works that, as we have seen, had
9
See Sin-wai Chan, Buddhism in Late Ch’ing Political Thought (Hong Kong: The Chi-
nese University Press, 1985), 13–52. See also Ma Tianxiang 麻天祥, Wan Qing foxue
yu jindai shehui sichao 晚清佛學與近代社會思潮 (Late Qing Buddhism and modern
intellectual trends) (Kaifeng: Henan daxue chubanshe, 2005), 33–128.
10
See Martin Bernal, Chinese Socialism to 1907 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1976); and Yu-ning Li, Introduction of Socialism, 3–21.
11
Kung-ch’üan Hsiao, A Modern China and a New World: K’ang Yu-wei, Reformer and
Utopian, 1858–1927 (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1975),
384–385.
12
See Zhang Zhijian 張志建 and Dong Zhitie 董志鐵, “Shilun Yan Fu dui
Woguo luojixue yanjiu de gongxian” 試論嚴復對我國邏輯學研究的貢獻 (A tenta-
tive account of Yan Fu’s contribution to Chinese research on logic), in Zhongguo luojishi
yanjiu 中國邏輯史研究 (Studies in the history of Chinese logic) (Beijing: Zhongguo
shehui kexue chubanshe, 1982), 303–320; Zhou Yunzhi 周云之, “Ping Yan Fu zai
150 chapter three
already been presented by Protestant authors, albeit to no great avail.

At least equally important, however, was his relentless propaganda on
behalf of the discipline, which he started immediately after the Sino-
Japanese War. As Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培 (1868–1940) observed already
in the 1920s, Yan regarded logic as the “key to the renewal of Chinese
scholarship,”13 and thus as the cornerstone of his projected synthesis
of Chinese and Western culture.14 Within this synthesis, logic or, more
specifically, the modern arts of definition and induction, served as
methodological foundations ensuring the certainty of political, moral,
and spiritual prescriptions that transcended the wisdom of the Confu-
cian classics. It was in this peculiar function, as defined by Yan Fu,
that public indifference toward European logic eventually turned into
curious, if initially puzzled, interest.
For Yan Fu, logic was much more than a purely academic concern.
Deeply entrenched in Mill’s “fanatical inductionism,” for which he had
fallen while studying at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich near
yishi ‘Mule mingxue’ zhong de luoji sixiang” 評嚴復在譯釋《穆勒名學》中的邏輯

思想 (An assessment of Yan Fu’s logical thought in his translation and explanation of
Mill’s Logic), in Luojixue luncong 邏輯學論從 (Collected essays on logic), ed. Zhongguo
shehui kexue yuan zhexue yanjiusuo luoji yanjiushi 中國社會科學院哲學研究所邏
輯研究室 (Beijing: n.p., 1983), 186–196; Li Xiankun 李先焜, “Yan Fu zai xifang luoji
zai shuru shang de zhongda gongxian” 嚴復在西方邏輯再輸入上的重大貢獻 (Yan
Fu’s great contribution to the renewed importation of Western logic to China), Hubei
daxue xuebao 2 (1987): 72–79; Zhang Zhijian 張志建, Yan Fu xueshu sixiang yanjiu 嚴復學
術思想研究 (Researches on the academic thought of Yan Fu) (Beijing: Shangwu yin-
shuguan, 1995), 113–133; Sun Zhongyuan 孫中原, “Lun Yan Fu de luoji chengjiu”
論嚴復的邏輯成就 (Yan Fu’s logical achievements), Wenshizhe 3 (1992): 80–85; Guan
Xingli 關興麗, “Yan Fu dui xifang luoji de shuru ji qi yingxiang” 嚴復對西方邏輯的
輸入及其影響 (Yan Fu’s reception of Western logic and its influence), Fujian luntan 2
(1999): 15–19; and Chen Hongru 陳鴻儒, “Cong ‘Mule mingxue’ anyu dao ‘Mingxue
qianshuo’: Shilun Yan Fu luoji sixiang de fazhan guiji” 從《穆勒名學》按語到《名
學淺說》: 試論嚴復邏輯思想軌跡 (From the notes to Mill’s Logic to the Logic Primer:
a tentative study of the path of Yan Fu’s logical thought), in Kexue yu aiguo: Yan Fu
sixiang xintan 科學與愛國—嚴復思想新探 (Science and patriotism: New investiga-
tions into the thought of Yan Fu), ed. Xi Jinping 習近平 (Beijing: Qinghua daxue
chubanshe, 2001), 51–60.
13
Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培, “Wushi nian lai zhi Zhongguo zhexue” 五十年來之中
國哲學 (Fifty years of Chinese philosophy) (1923), reprinted in Beijing daxue bainian
guoxue wencui: zhexue juan 北京大學百年國學文粹：哲學卷 (Digest of one hundred
years of national studies at Peking University: Philosophy), ed. Beijing daxue Zhong-
guo chuantong wenhua yanjiu zhongxin 北京大學中國傳統文化研究中心 (Beijing:
Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1998), 27–43; 27–28.
14
Benjamin Schwartz, In Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964), 186–187.
London in 1878–1879,15 Yan conceived of logic as an all-pervading

science and art that, when applied consistently, promised infinite sci-
entific and sociopolitical progress. The foundation of Western strength
was the Baconian spirit of scientific inquiry, but this spirit had found
its practical application only through the “abstract sciences” (xuanxue
玄學) of logic and mathematics.16 Logic in particular had enabled the
Western nations to establish the “new patterns” (xinli 新理) that had
made their states wealthy and powerful in the modern era. China, on
the other hand, had been unable to proceed on the universal road to
progress because the canonical texts on which her sciences and policies
were founded lacked logical rigor and imagination and were soaked
with ambiguities due to a persistent disregard for proper definitions.17
In outline, this was the argument in favor of logic Yan put forward
in a series of articles, published between 1894 and 1898, that earned
him instant fame as the sharpest critic of China’s “old” knowledge
among an increasingly receptive readership.18 One of his main points
in these essays was that the two aims guiding China’s previous self-
strengthening efforts were no longer compatible. China’s inability to
defend itself against Japan’s aggression had revealed that the “pres-
ervation of the state” (baoguo 保國)—or, as he sometimes put it, the
“preservation of the race” (baozhong 保種)—could only succeed if it
was dissociated from the simultaneous attempt to “preserve the faith”
(baojiao 保教) by defending the orthodox Confucian doctrine.19 Without
substantial changes to the “core” (ti 體) of its social and political
15
Schwartz, Yen Fu, 189–190. Yan had studied seamanship in Britain between
1877 and 1879, first in Portsmouth, then at the Royal Naval College. See David
Wright, “Yan Fu and the Tasks of the Translator,” in Lackner et al., New Terms for
New Ideas, 235–256; 236. On Yan’s curriculum at Greenwich, see Sun Yingxiang
孫應祥, Yan Fu nianpu 嚴復年譜 (Annalistic biography of Yan Fu) (Fuzhou: Fujian
renmin chubanshe, 2003), 33–34.
16
Yan Fu, “Xixue menjing gongyong” 西學門徑功用 (Means and applications of
Western knowledge) (1898), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji 嚴復集 (The works of Yan
Fu), 5 vols., ed. Wang Shi 王栻 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), 92–95; 94. Yan bor-
rowed the distinction between “abstract” and “concrete” sciences from Herbert Spen-
cer’s The Study of Sociology, a work that had made a lasting impression on him when
he first read it in 1880. See Pi Houfeng 皮後鋒, Yan Fu dazhuan 嚴復大傳 (Complete
biography of Yan Fu) (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2003), 132–133; and Wang
Hui 汪暉, Xiandai Zhongguo sixiang de xingqi 現代中國思想的興起 (The rise of modern
Chinese thought) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2004), vol. 3, 888.
17
See Peng Yilian, Zhongguo jindai luoji sixiangshi lun, 62–65.
18
On the four most influential of these essays, see Huters, Bringing the World Home,
47–56.
19
Yan Fu, “Baojiao yuyi” 保教余義 (My opinion on the preservation of the faith)
(1898), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 83–85; and idem, “Baozhong yuyi” 保種余義
152 chapter three
order, China risked losing in the murderous “struggle for survival”

that governed relations in nature as much as those between states. If
the country’s inherited faith was incapable of inspiring the adaptations
necessary for China’s survival as a nation, as indeed it had proven to
be, then, Yan argued, it needed to be abandoned, irrespective of its
sacred antiquity.
Yan interpreted the practical failure of China’s state doctrine as a
symptom of severe methodological flaws that devalued the entire edi-
fice of ethical and practical maxims enshrined in the canonical texts.
In his early essays as much as in later writings on “sociology” (qunxue
群學 ‘the science of the horde’ ) and “politics” (zhengzhixue 政治學 ‘the
science of governance and administration’ ), Yan highlighted these
flaws through comparisons to the logic and epistemology underly-
ing the modern Western sciences. “The reason why China’s policies
deteriorate every day and are unfit for the struggle for survival,” he
declared emphatically, “is that they are not rooted in science and vio-
late general patterns and natural laws.”20 Yan derived his conviction
that the understanding of state and society, like that of nature, had
to be based on rigorous scientific foundations from the British social
Darwinist Herbert Spencer, the main inspiration of his early years.21
Spencer taught him that all social and political problems could be
resolved with absolute certainty if, and only if, they were studied with
methods synthesizing the results of the elementary sciences of “name”
(ming 學 ‘logic’ ), “number” (shu 數 ‘mathematics’ ), “substance” (zhi 質
‘chemistry’ ), and “force” (li 力 ‘mechanics’ ). Yan Fu repeated this
mantra throughout his lectures and writings. In one of his earliest
essays, “On Strength” (Yuan qiang 原強), published in March 1895,
he stated his case as follows:
If we wish to understand the science of society, we must first devote
ourselves to the other sciences. For without the sciences of name and num-
ber, our minds will be unable to fathom immutable laws and necessary
(My opinion on the preservation of the race) (1898), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji,
85–88.
20
Yan Fu, “Yu ‘Waijiaobao’ zhuren shu” 與《外交報》主人書 (Letter to the edi-
tor of the Waijiaobao) (1902), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 557–565; 559.
21
See James R. Pusey, China and Charles Darwin (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983), 155–175.
figures; and without the sciences of substance and force, we will not
know how cause and effect succeed one another.22
A few years later, Yan defended the necessary scientific foundation
of social and political action with reference to Thomas H. Huxley,
whose lectures on Evolution and Ethics he had exploited to introduce
Spencerian ideas in his wildly popular treatise On Evolution (Tianyanlun
天演論, 1898).23 Addressing the editor of the journal Waijiaobao 外交
報 (Diplomatic Gazette), Yan wrote:
You, sir, wrote that politics is the root and the arts ( yi 藝) are merely
the branches. In my opinion, this is to turn the true order on its head.
Are the so-called arts not referring to the sciences? Logic, mathemat-
ics, chemistry, and mechanics are all sciences. In their understanding of
patterns and general laws they penetrate absolutely everything, and all
that is good about Western politics is founded on what these sciences
establish. Huxley wrote: “The policies of the Western nations were never
entirely based on the sciences. Could this ever be achieved, their practi-
cal value would be boundless.” . . . Thus, if the sciences are arts, then the
Western arts are really the roots of Western politics.24
The difference between Chinese and Western ways of governance was
thus that in the West politics had already become a science, or was
at least approaching this ideal, whereas in China it continued to be
rooted in canonical texts.25 In his Lectures on the Science of Politics (Zheng-
zhixue jiangyi 政治學講義, 1906), Yan warned his audience that a sci-
entific approach to administration and government required a rupture
with engrained Chinese habits of thinking and arguing about social
and political issues:
In the West, politics has already become a science. . . . Therefore, I must
inform you at the outset: Those who wish to obtain the truth (zhenru 真
如) [in the science of politics] must first of all have patience. Talking
about a science is different from conventional arguments in our China
and involves some difficulties: the first is that we must strive to make the
meanings of our terms unmistakably clear and entirely unambiguous;
22
Yan Fu, “Yuan qiang” 原強 (On strength) (1895), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji,
5–15; 6–7.
23
Schwartz, Yen Fu, 99–112.
24
Yan Fu, “Yu Waijiaobao zhuren shu,” 559.
25
See Zhou Zhenfu 周振甫, Yan Fu sixiang shuping 嚴復思想述評 (A critical review
of Yan Fu’s thought) (Taibei: Taiwan Zhonghua shuju, 1964), 104–107.
154 chapter three
the second, that we are not accustomed to following the laws of thought
in due sequence.26
A new approach to politics, and to other areas in which certainties had
been lost, thus demanded a “style of reasoning,” as it were,27 more in
tune with the modern sciences and above all with what Yan, inspired
by Bacon and Mill, understood to be the methodological underpinnings
of logic, the “method of all methods; the science of all sciences.”28
3. Logic as a New Style of Reasoning
According to Yan Fu, three elements were central to this new style
of reasoning: an empiricist epistemology that was to replace the tra-
ditional Chinese beliefs in innate or intuitive knowledge and textual
authority; proper methods of definition; and a clear understanding of
induction. Yan derived the radically empiricist conviction that brute
facts, as conceived in human understanding through the mediation
of the senses, were the only possible source of accurate and reliable
knowledge from Spencer and Mill, who had tried to show that not
even the supposedly pure axioms of mathematics could claim to be a
priori truths, entirely untouched by experience.29 Similar to his West-
ern masters, Yan was adamant in his rejection of all kinds of “a priori
intuitions” ( yuju 預據).30 For him, the intuitionist interpretation of the
Chinese classics, as exemplified most prominently by Lu Xiangshan
陸象山 (1139–1193) and Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472–1529) in
their “Learning of the Heart” (xinxue 心學), had obstructed scientific
progress in China for centuries, because it offered an “easy shortcut”
to scholars with an “indolent and arrogant temper” who shied away
26
Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi 政治學講義 (Lectures on the science of politics) (Shang-
hai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1906), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 1241–1316; 1243.
27
I borrow this term, which seems to capture the essence of Yan Fu’s program,
loosely from the essays by Davidson and Hacking cited in the introduction.
28
Yan Fu (trans.), Mule mingxue 穆勒名學 (Mill’s Logic) (1903–1905), reprinted in
Yanyi mingzhu congkan 嚴譯名著叢刊 (Anthology of famous translations by Yan [Fu])
(Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1931), 1:2–3, note 1.
29
See Li Zehou 李澤厚, “Lun Yan Fu” 論嚴復 (On Yan Fu) (1977), reprinted in
idem, Zhongguo jindai sixiangshi lun 中國近代思想史論 (Essays in modern Chinese intel-
lectual history) (Taibei: Sanmin shuju, 1996), 259–297; 281–290.
30
Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi, 1244.
from confronting the world of hard facts.31 In a similar vein, Mill had
criticized the physicist William Whewell’s insistence on the significance
of independent mental acts in the process of scientific discovery and
invention. In order to emphasize the value of experiential knowledge
in the pursuit of certainty, both Yan and Mill violently disputed the
possibility of fundamental ideas justified exclusively by their origin in
the human mind.32
Although Yan reserved his most severe criticism for those who
upheld the belief in “innate knowledge” (liangzhi ), he also took issue
with all forms of scholarship that located the sources of knowledge in
ancient texts. “If we wish our scientific inquiries to reach a new peak,”
he wrote in 1898, “the most important point is to ‘read the book
without characters’ (wuzi zhi shu 無字之書),” as Bacon had already
demanded nearly three hundred years ago.33 More recently, Huxley
had also insisted that “in order to understand mind and matter, we
must read the original book of nature (dadi yuanben shu 大地原本書).
Seeking to extract [knowledge] from books and jottings is in fact like
reading secondhand books.”34 Such secondhand books, rewritten time
and again by successive generations, inevitably contained errors, and
these were reproduced and multiplied by those who founded their
knowledge on texts instead of their own observations. Reliance on
book learning was most detrimental to the advancement of natural
science, but Yan also found it harmful to the administration of state
and society. “Administrators and ethicists (daodejia 道德家), who do
not use their own minds and only follow what they receive from the
ancients,” he argued, “will not know what to do in times of change
and disorder. To me, this is wherein Chinese and Western knowledge
differ most pointedly.”35
Deciphering the firsthand book of nature, as scholars and officials
in the West were accustomed to doing, required adherence to strict
methodological procedures, not all of which were sufficiently known in
31
Yan Fu, “Jiuwang juelun” 救亡決論 (On our salvation) (1895), reprinted in
idem, Yan Fu ji, 40–54; 44–45. See Schwartz, Yen Fu, 189–194; and Zhou Zhenfu,
Yan Fu, 57–60.
32
Laura J. Snyder, Reforming Philosophy: A Victorian Debate on Science and Society (Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 44–54. See Wang Hui, Xiandai Zhongguo
sixiang, vol. 3, 902–903, 908–915.
33
Yan Fu, “Xixue menjing gongyong,” 93.
34
Ibid.
35
Ibid.
156 chapter three
China. Propagating these procedures became Yan’s most urgent mis-

sion. One early example of the way in which he portrayed the logic
of scientific inquiry can be found in a lecture he presented as a guest
professor at Beijing’s College of Comprehensive Arts (Tongyi xuetang
通藝學堂) in the final weeks of the abortive Hundred Days Reform
of 1898:36
Generally speaking, scientific inquiries are commonly divided into three
stages. The first [stage] is called “examination” (kaoding 考訂 ‘to examine
and correct [as in textual study]’ ), which means to collect exemplars of
things that are similar in kind and to ascertain the reality of each indi-
vidually. The second is called “generalization” (guantong 貫通 ‘to thread
together’ ), which means to see similarities among different kinds and link
them together into one. “Examination” is called “observation” (guancha
觀察) by some, and still others refer to it as “verification” ( yanyan 演
驗). But “observation” and “verification” are only different names for
“examination”; they refer to the same thing. When we approach things
in order to fathom patterns, we find that some, such as the course of
the sun and stars or changes in human customs, are beyond human
powers to change; others, such as fire in a stove or the growth of trees,
we can control and alter. If our examinations are sufficiently detailed,
we can thread them together to seek out the reasons why things are the
way they are, and thence natural laws and general rules are born. . . . In
ancient times, scholars in China and the West who applied themselves
to fathoming patterns, irrespective of whether they were good or bad at
it, never went beyond these two stages, and for this reason ever more of
their laws and rules were mistaken. Modern scientists have saved us by
adding a third stage called “experimentation” (shiyan 試驗). The more
comprehensive our experiments, the more strongly based in reality are
our patterns, which is why this third stage is so important.37
But how could scholars derive general rules and natural laws from the
data they obtained through the three stages of their empirical inqui-
ries? In this respect, the insights of European logic were indispens-
able. According to Yan Fu, the first necessary step prescribed by logic
was to link perceptions and empirical data through clearly defined
“names” (ming 名). (Like Mill and Fryer, Yan used the word “name”
as an equivalent to what is more commonly called “term” in logic.)
Attention to definitions ( jieshuo 界說), or as he often paraphrased, “the
36
On Yan’s engagement at the College of Comprehensive Arts, see Pi Houfeng,
Yan Fu dazhuan, 129–135.
37
correct use of names” (zhengming 正名),38 therefore became a recur-

ring concern in his lectures and essays. “In science,” he instructed the
audience of his Lectures on the Science of Politics, “the meaning of every
single word we use must be clearly delineated, without allowing for the
slightest ambiguity. Otherwise, we can talk until our mouths run dry
and our tongues are tied without the slightest benefit to our listeners.”39
Yan was convinced that Chinese discourses were marred to a greater
extent than those articulated in European languages by ambigui-
ties that hampered meaningful discussion in the natural sciences as
well as in political, social, and spiritual affairs. In his view, ambigui-
ties arose more easily in Chinese for a number of reasons. Perhaps
the most consequential was that, in contrast to languages relying on
alphabetical scripts, the “parts of speech” (zilei 字纇) were not visibly
marked in Chinese texts. To determine whether a character denoted
a “noun” (mingwu 名物), “verb” (dongzuo 動作), “adjective” (qubie 區別)
or “adverb” (xingrong 形容) in a given sentence, readers had no choice
but to consider the “textual patterns” (wenli 文理) of context and syn-
tax. Yet, traditional philology (xiaoxue 小學 ‘lesser learning’) failed to
provide reliable methods for this purpose because China had never
developed specialized studies in “grammar” (wenlü 文律).40 Philological
commentaries for the most part offered only semantic glosses (xungu
訓詁) that helped to describe meanings (xun 訓) and elucidate their
changes over time (gu 詁) but were unable to determine the true quali-
ties of the things to which a word referred.41 Moreover, ambiguities
were amplified by reckless authors of poetry and prose whose writings
were all too often “indistinct and evasive” and who “corrupted the
language through vulgar uses” of words.42 In contrast, European learn-
ing had highlighted the value of definitions since Aristotle, so that no
Western scholar had been so ignorant of the rules of the “correct use
38
See, e.g., Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi, 1247, 1285. See also Yan Fu, Mule mingxue,
1:1.
39
40
Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 2:9. See Jin Yuelin 金岳霖, Jin Yuelin jiedu “Mule mingxue”
金岳霖解讀《穆勒名學》( Jin Yuelin deciphers Mill’s Logic) (Beijing: Zhongguo she-
hui kexue chubanshe, 2004), 142–143.
41
Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi, 1247; and idem, Mule mingxue, 2:23–24. See also Jin
Yuelin, Jiedu “Mule mingxue,” 147.
42
158 chapter three
of names” as to destroy his own language by deliberate violations of

established conventions.43
Yan’s emphasis on proper definitions was conceived as a direct
antidote to what he saw as a crucial weakness of Chinese scholar-
ship. Unlike the semantic glosses that generation after generation of
Chinese students were trained to master in preparation for the civil
service examinations, logical definitions linked “names” not just with
other “names” but with empirical data and perceptions, and hence
with objective reality. In marked disagreement with later interpret-
ers such as Hu Shi, who reclaimed the studies of classical philolo-
gists as early expressions of an essentially modern type of empiricism,44
Yan lambasted evidentiary glosses as one of the main reasons for the
inability of the Qing education system to foster a genuine scientific
spirit. “Students in China,” he wrote in 1896, “are still forced to learn
ancient glosses. In this way, they are neither able to understand what
the ancients regarded as wrong/false, nor will they ever know the
reasons why the ancients thought something to be right/true. Memo-
rizing poetry and prose is harmful already, but [studying] glosses and
philological commentaries is even more damaging.”45 Worst of all,
Yan continued, students needed to prove their mastery of such glosses
in the eight-legged essays required in the civil service examinations.
For him, this practice came close to a willful “destruction of talent—
for how could it possibly nurture human intelligence?”46 All it could do
was inculcate stale and complacent “habits of the heart” (xinxi 心習)
that stifled the creativity on which scientific progress depended.
In view of the paramount significance he attributed to definitions,
Yan said surprisingly little about the proper way in which they had to
be established. The most important principle, which he emphasized
in a number of his essays, was that “a scientific term (mingci 名辭)
43
Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 2:23.
44
See, e.g., Hu Shi 胡適, “Qingdai xuezhe de zhixue fangfa” 清代學者的治學方法
(Qing scholars’ methods of scholarly inquiry), in Hu Shi, Hu Shi wencun 胡適文存
(Extant writings of Hu Shi) (Shanghai: Yadong tushuguan, 1928), vol. 1, 383–412.
45
Yan Fu, “Yuan qiang xiuding gao” 原強修訂稿 (On strength, revised draft)
(1896), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 16–31; 29. See Jin Yuelin, Jiedu “Mule mingxue,”
147–148.
46
Yan Fu, “Yuan qiang xiuding gao,” 29. For an even more devastating assessment
of the harmful effects of the eight-legged essay, see Yan Fu, “Daoxue waizhuan” 道學
外傳 (An unofficial biography of the Learning of the Way) (1898), reprinted in idem,
Yan Fu ji, 483–485.
can only have one meaning. If it has two meanings, we have to ask
whether or not the two coincide. If they do, everything is well, but
if they clash and do not coincide, we must choose one meaning and
discard the other; only then can we use the term. . . . In science, it is
of utmost importance to conform to this demand; without it, there is
no science.”47 The art of definition is thus presented as offering new
and superior tools to determine the appropriate and unambiguous
meanings of terms. To do so, Yan added a note in one of his trans-
lations explaining that definitions “analyze the properties of things,
select and describe them, and establish in this manner delineations of
kinds. Good definitions must be exhaustive in regard to the kinds of
things they delineate, and neither include too much nor too little.”48
Yan rarely mentioned the formal criteria that had been at the heart
of discussions of definition in European logic since Aristotle. The only
place where he described them in any detail was a list summarizing
the traditional “Five Rules of Definition” ( Jieshuo wuli 界說五例) that
he jotted down for an official attending one of his lectures at the Col-
lege of Comprehensive Arts:
1. Definitions must exhaust the properties of the thing; else they will be
confused.
2. Definitions must not use the word to be defined; else they will be
circular.
3. Definitions must encompass and identify the things to be named; else
they will be incomplete.
4. Definitions must not use glosses and unclear words; else they will be
obscure.
5. Definitions must not use words like “not” or “no”; else they will be
negative.49
Rules 1, 2, 3, and 5 on this list were drawn directly from Mill; rule 4
combined the traditional European formulation with yet another admo-
nition not to confuse scientific definitions with xungu glosses. Whether
unprepared readers would have been able to apply these rules without
47
48
Yan Fu (trans.), Mingxue qianshuo 名學淺說 (Logic primer) (Shanghai: Shangwu
yinshuguan, 1909), reprinted in Yanyi mingzhu congkan 嚴譯名著叢刊 (Anthology of
famous translations by Yan [Fu]) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan 1931), § 44.
49
Yan Fu, “Jieshuo wuli” 界說五例 (Five rules of definition) (1898), reprinted in
idem, Yan Fu ji, 95–96. See Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 150; and Song Yingxiang,
Yan Fu nianpu, 129.
160 chapter three
further explanations and examples must remain doubtful. Such techni-

cal details, however, were beyond Yan’s scope of concern. His main
purpose was to identify and propagate the logical methods vital for
China’s salvation, not to teach their practical application.
Two further logical methods that Yan discovered and promoted as
crucial for the revival of Chinese scholarship were the “applied arts”
(tushu 涂術) of “induction” (rendered alternately as neidao 內導 ‘inward
leading’, or neizhou 內籀 ‘pulling inward’ ) and “deduction” (waidao
外導 ‘outward leading’, or waizhou 外籀 ‘pulling outward’ ). In one of
his earlier accounts, Yan presented these basic procedures of inquiry
as complementary aspects of popular and scientific reasoning:
In the practice of the investigation of things and the fathoming of pat-
terns, there are no more than two basic arts: one is called “induction”
(neidao 內導), the other “deduction” (waidao 外導). These two arts are
used not only by scholars but everyone in the same manner right from
the beginning of our lives. As soon as we apply them, our knowledge
grows daily. Induction brings together different things, observes what
they have in common, and thus arrives at general rules (gongli 公例).
A rough explanation is this: Think of a small child who does not know
that fire can cause scalds. One day it sees a candle, touches it with his
hand and gets burned; the next day it sees an oven, puts his foot in it,
and gets burned again; on the third day, regardless of where it sees a
fire with bright flames, the child knows that fire can hurt humans and
will not dare to touch it. Conversely, when it wishes to hurt someone, it
will bring that person into contact with [fire]. This is the most common
application of induction. The general rule we obtain is the phrase “Fire
can cause scalds.”
The reason why fire can hurt humans is brought out by the art of
deduction. Deduction consists in positing in the mind a “major premise”
(li 例 ‘precedent’ ), a “minor premise” (an 案 ‘case’ ), and a “conclusion”
(duan 斷 ‘decision’ or ‘verdict’ ). In our case, “Fire can cause scalds” is
the major premise; “What I touched was fire” is the minor premise; and
“Therefore, fire of necessity causes scalds” is the conclusion. Together,
the major and minor premises and the conclusion are seen in logic as a
complete “syllogism” (lianzhu 連珠 ‘linked verse’; see below). Sustaining
the syllogism is a matter of experiment and verification. The better the
verification we have, the more solid is our pattern. . . . Studying by deduc-
tion, we can infer what we did not yet know to be so from that which
we already knew to be thus.50
50
According to Yan, “concrete” sciences, like chemistry and mechan-

ics, but also astronomy, geology, biology, zoology, and botany, relied
mostly on induction, while deduction was more prevalent in “abstract”
sciences such as mathematics and logic.51 Although both arts were
necessary tools of scientific inquiry, Yan attributed much higher value
to induction throughout his work.52 The special attraction of induc-
tion was that it allowed, as Bacon had shown, the discovery of “new
patterns” and thus could lead to more significant increases in human
knowledge than deduction, which merely spun out new threads from
already established rules and laws. Induction alone, Yan claimed, had
enabled Newton, Galileo, and other heroes of the modern age to pro-
duce their great inventions.53 In Spencer’s Darwinian terms, which
Yan Fu adopted with few qualifications, induction was thus the more
“progressive” procedure, more in line with the necessary tendencies in
the evolution of the human race.
As with definitions, his exaltations of induction were directed against
a specific habit shaping traditional Chinese scholarship, in this case,
reliance on mental intuitions to find general rules. The rules and max-
ims advocated by the intuitionist schools of thought that were still
widely accepted in China, Yan argued, were invariably “rooted in
subjective fabrications ( yizao 臆造) and not generalized from actual
observations.”54 In fact, as we have seen above, Yan disputed the exis-
tence of any intuitions in the human mind, as he pointedly restated in
one of his pleas in favor of induction:
Heaven gives birth to man and bestows us with intelligence, but we are
not born with any innate intuitions. If we wish to know anything, we
must base it on induction. In its most common applications, induction
can be mastered even by children who have not yet grown to the height
of three feet.55
The ease and reliability of the inductive method made its application
in the most diverse areas of the sciences possible. Yan was obviously
most interested in its uses for sociology and politics. In view of China’s
51
Ibid.
52
See Sun Zhongyuan, “Lun Yan Fu,” 83–85; and Zhang Zhijian, Yan Fu xueshu
sixiang, 117–121.
53
Yan Fu, Tianyanlun 天演論 (On evolution) (1898), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji,
1321–1409; 1385.
54
Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 2:66. See Wang Hui, Xiandai Zhongguo sixiang, 908–910.
55
Yan Fu, Zhengzhixue jiangyi, 1243–1244.
162 chapter three
predicament, the general rules that induction promised to establish

were most needed in these areas, for it was here that the crisis of cer-
tainty was most acute. What could therefore be more reassuring than
knowing that the general rules derived from inductions “are of neces-
sity true at all times” so that “no one will ever be able not to believe
them,” even in the most contested areas of debate?56
One unusual aspect of Yan’s enthusiastic, if overly hopeful, endorse-
ment of induction was his insistence that historical records, and thus
many of China’s “old books,” were equally valid as raw material for
inductive reasoning alongside the brute facts of nature:
Induction must be sustained by facts, and facts must be based on expe-
rience. Since the experiences of individuals are limited, we must bring
together the experiences of the ancients and people in foreign lands to
make our [inductions]. Therefore, [inductions] must be based on written
records, and written records are history.57
History and “old books” thus retained some value for the formula-
tion of social and political prescriptions but were relegated to an infe-
rior role. While conventional reasoning considered the historical data
provided in classical texts as embodiments of tried and tested rules
from which policy makers could derive strategies for action by deduc-
tive inferences, Yan held that they could in fact only serve as starting
points for further, more scientific and hence more certain, inductive
inquiries.
Yan summarized his most mature position on the respective merits
of induction and deduction in 1909 in his adaptation of Jevons’s Logic
primer. Eliding Jevons’s view on the subject, Yan rewrote an entire
paragraph as follows:
Everything discussed in the previous articles is summarily called “the art
of deduction” (waizhoushu 外籀術). Roughly speaking, what deduction
means is this: we have a general rule handed down from the past and
a current premise; we infer from both and obtain a conclusion. But we
never ask whence we begat the general rule. This is like the traditional
method of argumentation in our China. Anyone wishing to propose a
certain theory or opinion first had to cite the old books, in the manner of
“In the Classic of Poetry we read . . .” or “The Master says . . .”; then he had
56
Yan Fu, “Yi Sishi ‘Jixue’ liyan” 譯斯氏《計學》例言 (Introductory remarks to
the translation of Mr. Smith’s On the Wealth of Nations) (1901), reprinted in idem, Yan
Fu ji, 97–102; 100–101.
57
to associate or dissociate a substantial contemporary statement with [this

citation]; and only then was the right and wrong of this substantial state-
ment determined. In the West, this art is called didakedifu 第達克的夫
(deductive). The meaning of this word can be translated as “drawing
out” (waizhou 外籀). For zhou 籀 means “to draw out and unravel” (chouyi
紬繹) [as in threads from a silk cocoon], and if we judge something
by following general laws and proceeding from the origin to the end,
this is like drawing out [a thread] and wrapping it around the myriad
things; therefore we call [the deductive art] waizhou. Human knowledge
accumulates day by day. Today’s evolutionists say that humans were
first seen on the face of the earth about two hundred and fifty thousand
years ago. The reason why we live the way we do today is that we have
since then accumulated experience upon which we act. But how much
experience can one gather in the few decades of his life? Past events must
not be forgotten but taken as our guide. Men necessarily rely on what
the ancients already obtained, further accumulate and supplement [it],
and pass it on. This is why extensive learning and broad knowledge are
beneficial. The ancients relied on their experiences and passed them on
as general rules, and hence we can use them to judge facts and patterns.
Apparently, every human being is capable of this, but often it is done
in an illegitimate manner, and thus fallacies arise. If we wish to avoid
fallacies, we must follow the art of deduction closely so that something
that is right/true is not judged to be wrong/false.
Although the art of deduction is important, the “art of induction”
(neizhoushu 內籀術) is of even higher value. Its Western name is yinda-
kedifu 因達克的夫 ‘inductive [reasoning]’. It is so called because it unifies
scattered realities into one rule, just as we take in air when we breathe.
Only when this art is mastered are new patterns found every day, and
only then can we hope for progress in human ways. Our country’s
scholarship has always focused one-sidedly on deduction. Knowledge of
induction was exceedingly rare. The Song scholar Zhu [Xi] 朱熹 (1130–
1200) held that reading books and fathoming patterns was the way to
explain the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge. If
we probe the meaning of his words, they do not seem to be partial to
either induction or deduction. For reading books means to seek out what
many have heard; and in this manner, we obtain many of the general
rules handed down from the ancients. Fathoming patterns means to seek
new knowledge, and the way to seek new knowledge is by approaching
things. Therefore, [Zhu] wrote in his supplementary commentary [to
the Greater Learning (Daxue 大學)]: “We must approach things to fathom
their patterns . . . until they suddenly come together.”58 By bringing things
together, new knowledge is brought to light and new rules are estab-
lished. If some of the new rules we establish do not accord with the rules
58
Zhu Xi 朱熹, Sishu zhangju jizhu 四書章句集註 (The Four Books in chapter and
verse, with collected annotations) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), 6–7.
164 chapter three
established by the ancients, and when we find after repeated examina-

tion that the rules we establish do in fact match the true patterns of
things, then the old rules must not be upheld despotically just because
they are old. Rather, we must abandon the old and follow the new so
that the way of man will progress. Therefore I say: the art of induction
is even more important for contemporary learning.59
Induction was hence the royal road along which the social and natural
sciences China so urgently desired had to proceed, but this preemi-
nent procedure needed to be supplemented by deductions, adhering to
strict rules, that allowed the further “unraveling” of the threads implic-
itly contained in inductively-ascertained general rules. Based on solid
empiricist foundations and unambiguous definitions, as Yan assured
his readers time and again, the new style of reasoning, to which the
two methodological “extremes” (duan 端) of the Western science of
names were central, provided the perfect cure for China’s many ills,
be they scientific, social, or political.
Yan claimed that the consistent application of this new style could
even yield more personal benefits. This is obvious from the kind of
“truths” he maintained logic was able to establish. Unlike the scientists
and philosophers he cited as his inspirations, Yan had little interest
in ethically neutral truths that merely confirmed the validity of argu-
ments or the correspondence of objective facts with empirical reality.
While both had their value in philosophical and scientific inquiry, Yan
held that logic’s ultimate goal was a “quest for authenticity” (qiucheng
求誠).60 In essence, he presented this quest as the search for a path
to personal sainthood, combining the pursuit of broad knowledge of
the outside world with unceasing efforts at moral self-perfection. Yan
amplified what he thought to be resonances between Mill’s portrayal
of logic as a discipline whose “sole object . . . is the guidance of one’s
own thoughts”61 and the ideals of the Greater Learning as interpreted
by the Song philosopher Zhu Xi. Alluding to Zhu’s classic formula-
tion that “Everything the sage teaches is ‘learning for oneself ’ (weiji
為己之學),”62 that is, aimed at moral self-perfection, Yan claimed that
59
Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, § 108.
60
Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 1:4. See the instructive discussion in Wang Hui, Xiandai
Zhongguo sixiang, 903–908.
61
Mill, System of Logic, vol. 7, 6.
62
Zhu Xi, Zhuzi yulei 朱子語類 (Conversations of Master Zhu, arranged topically),
ed. Li Jingde 黎靖德 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1986), vol. 1, 243. See also Daniel K.
Gardner, “Transmitting the Way: Chu Hsi and His Program of Learning,” Harvard
“logic, when talking about the abilities of the human mind, is about
nothing but self-enlightenment and authenticity and, as such, entirely
‘for oneself.’ ”63 In view of his scathing critique of traditional episte-
mology and the harmful obsession with text-based scholarship, Yan’s
redefinition of logic’s promises in accordance with conventional ideals
of personal accomplishment may seem surprising. It was very much in
line, however, with the desire shared by many reform-minded scholars
in late Qing China and beyond to fill the orientational vacuum left by
the demise of the orthodox doctrine with a new “guiding ideology”
(zhuyi 主義) integrating—just as the now untenable former faith had
done—political, social, moral, and spiritual dimensions.64 As we shall
see below, it was precisely this inflated notion of logic’s ultimate pur-
pose that led some of Yan’s most influential followers to discover the
foreign discipline for their own purposes.
Yan was so convinced of logic’s multiple benefits that he propagated
them in a wealth of public activities, which contributed significantly
to raising public awareness of the science. In addition to his writings
and, of course, his translations, to which we will turn in a moment,
Yan lobbied relentlessly on behalf of logic, becoming one of the most
sought-after lecturers of his day. Between 1896, the year in which
his public fame exploded due to the stir caused by the circulation of
the first drafts of his On Evolution, and the end of the Qing dynasty,
Yan advertised his logical faith in numerous public talks. Many of
his lectures, including those at the College of Comprehensive Arts in
Beijing, were not only well attended but were also reported in the
daily press, thus multiplying their impact. Even more visible was Yan’s
engagement with China’s first Logical Society (Mingxuehui 名學會),
which he founded in 1900 at the invitation and with the support of
Journal of Asiatic Studies 49, no. 1 (1989): 141–172; 142–143. For another direct link
between logic and the teachings of the Greater Learning, see Yan Fu, “Jiaoshou xinfa” 教
授新法 (New methods of teaching) (1906), reprinted in idem, “Yan Fu ji” bubian 《嚴復
集》補編 (Supplement to “The works of Yan Fu”), ed. Sun Yingxiang 孫應祥 and Pi
Houfeng 皮後鋒 (Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe, 2004), 61–73; 65.
63
Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 1:5.
64
See Joachim Kurtz, “Philosophie hinter den Spiegeln: Chinas Suche nach einer
philosophischen Identität,” in Zwischen Selbstbestimmung und Selbstbehauptung: Ostasiatische
Diskurse des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts, ed. Michael Lackner (Baden Baden: Nomos, 2008),
222–238; 223–224. On the appeal of “-isms” in modern Chinese discourses more
generally, see Ivo Spira, Chinese -Isms and Ismatisation: A Case Study in the Modernisation of
Ideological Discourse (Ph.D. diss., University of Oslo, 2010).
166 chapter three
the Jinsuzhai 金粟齊 publishing house in Shanghai.65 Yan served as

the first president and main lecturer of the society from August 1900
until May 1901. According to his own recollections, he was drawn into
the task because “at the time scholars regarded logic as the key to the
sciences.”66 Bao Tianxiao 包天笑 (1876–1973), then a young editor at
the Jinsuzhai, offers a more sober account of the society’s beginnings
in his memoirs:
At that time, the Jinsuzhai’s Translation Bureau was preparing to publish
Mr. Yan [Fu’s] translation of Mill’s Logic. Because many people didn’t
know what kind of science logic really was, we were not even sure how
to explain the term “science of names” in the book’s title. Someone
suggested that we take advantage of Mr. Yan’s presence in Shanghai to
organize a meeting and ask him to give a lecture so that everyone could
get a clearer idea. We contacted Mr. Yan and he agreed. Once we had
determined a date and rented a large two-story room, we invited many
people to attend and advertised the event as a meeting of the “Logical
Lecture Society” (Mingxue jiangyan hui 名學講演會).67
Whatever the background of the initiative, Yan’s talks and the Soci-
ety’s activities as a whole were instant successes. Many of Shang-
hai’s, and thus China’s, rising intellectual stars crowded the venue for
the inaugural lecture, including Zhang Binglin and his entourage,68
Zhang Shizhao, and Yan’s friend Zhang Yuanji 張元濟 (1866–1959),
the founder of the College of Comprehensive Arts, who was soon to
become one of China’s most influential publishers at the Commer-
cial Press (Shangwu yinshuguan 商務印書館).69 Yan’s reputation and
65
See Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 216–217; and Sun Yingxiang, Yan Fu nianpu,
149–150. See also Wang Quchang 王蘧常, Yan Jidao nianpu 嚴幾道年譜 (Annalistic
biography of Yan Fu) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1936), 55.
66
Yan Fu, “Yu Cao Dianqiu shu” 與曹典球書 (Letter to Cao Dianqiu) (1901),
reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 565–566; 566.
67
Bao Tianxiao 包天笑, Chuanyinglou huiyilu 釧影樓回憶錄 (Memoirs from Brace-
let’s Shadow Mansion) (Taibei: Longwen chubanshe, 1990), vol. 2, 271. On Bao
Tianxiao’s work at the Jinsuzhai press, see Li Renyuan 李仁淵, “Xinshi chubanye yu
zhishifenzi: yi Bao Tianxiao de zaoqi shengya wei li” 新式出版業與知識份子：以
包天笑的早期生涯為例 (New publishing institutions and the life of intellectuals: Bao
Tianxiao’s early career), Si yu yan 43, no. 3 (2005): 53–105; 81–87.
68
On Zhang Binglin’s recollections of Yan’s lectures, see Max K’o-wu Huang, The
Meaning of Freedom: Yan Fu and the Origins of Chinese Liberalism (Hong Kong: The Chinese
University Press, 2008), 338–339.
69
On Yan’s friendship with Zhang Yuanji, see Wang Xianming 王憲明, Yuyan, fanyi
yu zhengzhi: Yan Fu yi “Shehui tongquan” yanjiu 語言、翻譯與政治—嚴復譯《社會通
詮》研究 (Language, translation and politics: A study of Yan Fu’s translation of A His-
tory of Politics) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2005), 44–45.
the contacts of his publishers also attracted officials, businessmen, and

a sizeable number of star-struck commoners.70 At the most crowded
event, more than five hundred listeners squeezed into a make-shift
auditorium.71 If we are to believe Bao Tianxiao’s recollections, the
curiosity of the expectant audience was not disappointed:
We had planned to start at 2 p.m. but Mr. Yan only arrived well after
3. He had an opium habit, got up late, and also needed a pipe after
each meal, which delayed him further. He had a shadow of a thick
moustache, was dressed in a blue robe and a black gown—at the time
no one wore Western clothes since we all still dragged pigtails behind
us—and carried spectacles rimmed with thin golden thread. At one end
the golden thread was torn and Mr. Yan had used black thread to hold
the lens in place. He was from Fujian but spoke in authentic Beijing
dialect. Although he was a high official, he had the air of an unconven-
tional eccentric.
Our setup was also not quite like that in a school where you would
have a dais. All we had was a half-table facing eastward. We carried a
chair over and put fresh flowers and a tea service on the table. For the
many listeners, we arranged chairs in a half circle. . . . Mr. Yan lectured
in a very composed manner. He held a small booklet, perhaps with an
outline, read from it at times and spoke freely at others, all in very good
order. But he often mixed English words into his presentation that were
difficult to comprehend for some of those who didn’t understand English.
After all, logic is a very profound discipline. Many listeners were rather
baffled. Frankly, although I served as proofreader for Yan’s translation,
I was also, as [the poet Tao] Yuanming 陶淵明 (365–427) once said,
more than content with a superficial understanding. Therefore I know
that many in the audience had not come to listen to the presentation but
only to see Yan Youling [that is, Yan Fu]. All they did was follow the
crowds so that they could chime in about a fashionable trend.72
Even if not everyone could or wanted to follow Yan’s deliberations, the
trend he initiated or amplified through the Logical Society lasted for
quite some time. Yan continued to lecture on the subject every Mon-
day and Thursday. Sun Baoxuan 孫寶瑄 (1874–1924), who attended
two of these lectures in April and May 1901, shortly before Yan left
Shanghai and passed the presidency of the society to his former student
70
Bao Tianxiao, Chuanyinglou huiyilu, vol. 2, 271–272. See also W. W. Yen (Yan
Huiqing 顏惠慶), East–West Kaleidoscope, 1877–1946: An Autobiography (New York: St.
John’s University Press, 1974), 10–11.
71
Yan Fu, “Yu shengnü He Renlan shu [9]” 與甥女何紉蘭書 (Letter to [my]
niece He Renlan, no. 9) (1906), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 833–834; 833.
72
Bao Tianxiao, Chuanyinglou huiyilu, vol. 2, 271–272.
168 chapter three
Wu Guangjian 伍光建 (1866–1943),73 recalled that both events still

drew an audience of about thirty, “some sitting, some standing.”74
Yan’s public lobbying did not escape the attention of the central
administration. Zhang Baixi 張百熙 (1847–1907), the president of the
Board of Rites and an architect of educational reforms in the early
years of the twentieth century, invited Yan in 1902 to serve as super-
intendent of the Translation Office of the Imperial University ( Jingshi
daxuetang yishuju 京師大學堂譯書局) in Beijing.75 In this capacity,
Yan wrote into the bureau’s official statutes a provision requiring the
production of more books on logic (“the science of names, which deter-
mines the laws of thought and speech”).76 Through his ties to Zhang
Baixi, Yan was also instrumental, as we shall see in the next chapter,
in paving the way for the eventual integration of logic into the cur-
ricula of normal schools and universities throughout the country. In
Yan’s own mind, however, all these activities were mere supplements
to the greatest service he could render the discipline: the translation of
logical texts into terse and dignified classical prose.
73
On Yan Fu’s relation to Wu Guangjian, see Max Huang, The Meaning of Freedom,
87.
74
Sun Baoxuan 孫寶瑄, Wangshanlu riji 忘山廬日記 (Diaries from the Forgotten
Mountain Cottage) (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1983), vol. 1, 331. A photo-
graph taken at one of these meetings that Sun showed to his friend Song Shu 宋恕
(1862–1910) inspired the latter to write a poem reflecting the volatile political situation
at the time and hinting at a rather ambivalent view of Yan Fu and his activities:
Sweaty sheep heads ashamed of dark sins,
The Zhao clan’s corruption sufficed to bring down Qin;
All corners of the country are teeming with chattering factions,
Busy chasing “mountain paste” [that is, opium, JK] and apt at cursing others.
In Lingnan, the dispersed troops of the Society to Protect the Emperor,
In the lower Yangzi region, philosophers engaging in empty talk.
In many places arises the will to kill or die a violent death,
Bringing to life tormented gullies where big fish may rise.
Song Shu 宋恕, “Ti ‘Mingxuehui tongren tu’ ” 題《名學會同人圖》(Inscription on
a ‘Photograph of the Members of the Logical Society’ ), Qingyi bao, no. 100 (1901),
reprinted in idem, Song Shu ji 宋恕集 (The works of Song Shu), 2 vols., ed. Hu Zhu-
sheng 胡珠生 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1993), 852.
75
See Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 228–241; Wang Xianming, Yuyan, fanyi yu zheng-
zhi, 57–60; and Sun Yingxiang, Yan Fu nianpu, 174–175.
76
Yan Fu, “Jingshi daxuetang yishuju zhangcheng” 京師大學堂譯書局章程 (Reg-
ulations governing the Translation Office of the Imperial University) (1903), reprinted
in idem, Yan Fu ji, 127–131; 130.
4. Yan Fu as a Translator of Logic
Together with Lin Shu 林紓 (1852–1924),77 the monolingual inter-

preter of over one hundred pieces of foreign literature, Yan Fu is
rightly praised as the most important translator in late imperial China.
Contrary to the assertions of many commentators, Yan was not the
first Chinese author to adapt scholarly texts directly from English—
as we have seen, Yan Yongjing had published his Xinlingxue about a
decade before Yan’s Tianyanlun was printed—but the public attention
that his renditions attracted was indeed unparalleled. In addition, Yan
Fu’s now famous formulation of the “three difficulties in translation”—
“faithfulness [to the original meaning]” (xin 信), “comprehensibility
[of the ideas to be conveyed]” (da 達), and “elegance [of expression]”
( ya 雅)78—have remained “the Gospel of translation theory in China,”79
even if, as recent studies have shown, they were in fact borrowed from
Alexander Tytler’s Essay on the Principles of Translation.80
Yan attempted to demonstrate through his translations that the new
ideas whose adoption he saw as China’s only salvation were fruits
of a culture representing a peak of human civilization comparable
to Chinese antiquity.81 This intention was mirrored in the choice of
the “great books” he deemed worthy of translation: Adam Smith’s
Wealth of Nations (published in Chinese as Yuan Fu 原富 [On wealth]
in 1901–1902), Herbert Spencer’s Study of Sociology (Qunxue yiyan 群學
肄言 [Learned words on the science of the horde], 1902), Mill’s On
Liberty (Qunji quanjie lun 群己權界論 [On the boundary between the
rights of society and rights of the individual], 1903), Edward Jenks’s
History of Politics (Shehui tongquan 社會通詮 [A full account of society],
77
See Theodore Huters, “A New Way of Writing: The Possibilities for Literature in
Late Qing China, 1895–1908,” Modern China 14, no. 3 (1988): 243–276; 252–254.
78
Yan Fu, “Yi liyan” 譯例言 (Introductory remarks to the translation [of On evolu-
tion]) (1897), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 1321–1323; 1321. See He Lin 賀麟, “Yan
Fu de fanyi” 嚴復的翻譯 (Yan Fu’s translations), Dongfang zazhi 22, no. 20 (1925):
75–87.
79
See Lawrence Wang-chi Wong, “Beyond Xin, Da, Ya: Translation Problems in
the Late Qing,” in Lackner and Vittinghoff, Mapping Meanings, 239–264; 239; and
Wright, “Yan Fu,” 238–239.
80
Alexander Fraser Tytler, Essay on the Principles of Translation (Edinburgh: Archi-
bald Constable, [1791] 1813), 16. See Shen Suru 沈蘇儒, Lun xin da ya: Yan Fu fanyi
lilun yanjiu 論信達雅—嚴復翻譯理論研究 (On faithfulness, comprehensibility, and
elegance: A study of Yan Fu’s theory of translation) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan,
1998), 120–121. See also Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 485–486.
81
He Lin, “Yan Fu de fanyi,” 76–77.
170 chapter three
1904), and Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws (Fayi 法意 [ The mean-
ing of the laws], 1904–1909) belonged to the most acclaimed works in
nineteenth-century Europe.82 Yan’s most influential rendition, Tianyan-
lun, which was based on a series of popular lectures by T. H. Huxley,
was an obvious exception, but Yan used this text only as a shortcut to
ideas he admired in Spencer’s monumental Principles of Sociology, a text
he did not dare to touch early in his career as a translator.83
Mill’s System of Logic, also considered a modern classic when Yan
Fu studied in Britain, was a choice very much in line with his general
aims. The circumstances in which Yan started this translation were
dire. His home in Tianjin and his office at the Beiyang Naval College
(Beiyang shuishi xuetang 北洋水師學堂) were destroyed during the
Boxer Uprising in June 1900. Yan fled to Shanghai where he found
himself in serious financial difficulties despite his fame on the literary
scene. For a time, he was so strapped for cash that he had to borrow
money from various sources to support his family. Among others, he
approached Kuai Guangdian 蒯光典 (1857–1910), the owner of the
Jinsuzhai press, asking for an advance of 3,000 yuan in exchange for
the publication rights to his as yet undone translations of Mill’s Logic
and Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.84 Kuai agreed and, as we have
seen, also helped Yan to promote his work through public lectures.
Still, Yan was far from happy with the way the cooperation unfolded.
In a letter, he complained that the terms of an agreement suggested
by Kuai put unbearable pressure on him.85 He also claimed he never
saw the money that Kuai had promised,86 an accusation disputed by
the Jinsuzhai editor Bao Tianxiao, who blamed the rough start instead
on Yan’s cantankerous character and increasing sluggishness due to
his opium vice.87
82
Yan had identified most of the books he wanted to translate by 1899. See Sun
Yingxiang, Yan Fu nianpu, 136–137.
83
Schwartz, Yen Fu, 98–99. For other texts Yan planned or started to translate but
never published, see Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 488–491, 100–103.
84
Ibid., 210.
85
Yan Fu, “Yu Li Ming shu” 與李明書 (Letter to Li Ming) (1901), reprinted in
idem, Yan Fu ji bubian, 225–231; 227.
86
Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 210.
87
Bao Tianxiao, Chuanyinglou huiyilu, vol. 2, 261–262. For a more thorough discus-
sion of Yan’s opium addiction, which began in the late 1880s and lasted until the end
of his life, see Wang Rongzu 汪榮祖, “Yan Fu xinlun” 嚴復新論 (A new discussion
of Yan Fu), in idem, Cong chuantong zhong qiubian: wan Qing sixiangshi yanjiu 從傳統中
求變—晚清思想史研究 (Seeking change in tradition: Studies in late Qing intellectual
Notwithstanding these troubles, Yan started translating the Logic in

the summer of 1900. He seems to have advanced quite rapidly, report-
ing at one point that he translated “eight pages per night.”88 In mid-
1901, he shared his excitement about the work’s progess in a letter to
Zhang Yuanji:
Half of the Logic (mingxue 名學) should be completed within a year. The
insights and truths (daoli zhenru 道理真如) in this [book] are as numerous
as silk threads in a cocoon; indeed, they are so powerful that they will do
away with 80 or 90 percent of China’s old patterns, and people’s minds
will gain utmost strength from their application. Therefore, although it
is hard labor, I feel more and more content the more I translate. Should
I be able to complete this great work, with heaven’s help, by next year,
this will truly be a joyful event!89
At about the same time, Yan submitted the first part of his translation,
comprising Book I (“On Names and Propositions”) of Mill’s Logic,90
to the Jinsuzhai for revisions, which were completed by February
1902.91 Slightly thereafter, however, the work stalled. Yan would later
explain that
I intended and wished to continue with the translation of the latter half,
but my affairs left me no time. Moreover, with increasing age my mind
grew tired and confused, and I became afraid of exerting my brain’s
energies. Mill’s book is profound and extensive; without peace of mind
for leisurely deliberation, I was not up to the task. Therefore, I never
completed it.92
Yan’s worsening addiction may also have played a part in his deci-
sion to let the project rest for the time being. The first printed edition,
containing only the above-mentioned “Part One” (bu jia 部甲), was
published in February 1903 in a woodblock edition produced at the
Jinsuzhai’s Nanjing branch under the title Mill’s Logic (Mule mingxue
history) (Nanchang: Baihuazhou wenyi chubanshe, 2001), 136–145; 137–139; and

Max Huang, The Meaning of Freedom, 82.
88
Ibid., 100.
89
Yan Fu 嚴復, “Yu Zhang Yuanji shu [12]” 與張元濟書 (Letter to Zhang Yuanji,
no. 12) (1901), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 545–546; 546. In the original letter, the
whole paragraph was underlined with double dots, thus further highlighting Yan’s
excitement.
90
Mill, System of Logic, vol. 7, 19–156.
91
Yan Fu, “Yu Zhang Yuanji shu [11]” 與張元濟書 (Letter to Zhang Yuanji,
no. 11) (1901), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 543–544; 544. See Sun Yingxiang, Yan
Fu nianpu, 176.
92
Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, preface, 1.
172 chapter three
穆勒名學).93 The full text of Yan’s translation, comprising slightly less

than the first half of the original, appeared under the same title in
1905 at the Commercial Press in Shanghai.94 Yan never abandoned
hope of finishing the translation of the entire System of Logic. After sev-
eral futile attempts to get back to working on the second half of the
book between 1912 and 1917, he made a final effort in 1918 following
a request by Zhang Yuanji but soon had to give up due to his failing
health.95
Yan’s second translation of a logical text was a much more modest
undertaking: a comparatively light-handed rendition of Jevons’s Logic,
the same text with which Edkins had struggled in the 1880s, that was
published in 1909 as Logic Primer (Mingxue qianshuo 名學淺說). As Yan
Fu recalled in his preface, his decision to translate this book was more
or less accidental:
In the autumn of 1908, my wanderings brought me to Tianjin. A female
student by the name of Lü 呂 (Bicheng 碧城, 1883–1943) from Jingde
旌德 earnestly asked me to teach her this science.96 Therefore I took
Jevons’s Logic primer and translated some each day for explication. The
book was completed within two months.97 The general meaning of my
translation follows the original work, but I have changed many illustra-
tions and examples in accordance with my own opinions. My sole inten-
tion with this book was to adapt it for explanation; I did not pay much
attention to whether or not what I wrote corresponded to the original.98
93
That the text was indeed printed, and not only circulated among Yan’s peers, as
most commentators assume, is confirmed by frequent references in contemporaneous
translations of logical texts, which will be analyzed below, and an abstract of the work
in Gu Xieguang 顧燮光, Yishu jingyan lu 譯書經眼錄 (Catalogue of translated books)
(Hangzhou: Jinjia Shihaolou shiyinben, 1931 [1904]), 11a.
94
Yan Fu’s translation ended with Book III, Chapter 13, and thus not even halfway
through Mill’s discussion of induction and well before his presentation of the “Logic
of the Moral Sciences” in Book VI, which would have been of particular interest to
Yan. See Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, and Mill, System of Logic, vol. 7, 19–483.
95
Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 342–343.
96
On Yan’s relation with Lü Bicheng, who was to become an accomplished poet
and educator, see Grace S. Fong, “Alternative Modernities, Or a Classical Woman
of Modern China: The Challenging Trajectory of Lü Bicheng’s (1883–1943) Life and
Song Lyrics,” Nan Nü 6, no. 1 (2004): 12–59; 32–34.
97
Yan began the translation on September 11, 1908, and completed it by Novem-
ber 13. Yan Fu, “Riji” 日記 (Diaries) (1908–1920), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 1477–
1539; 1480, 1483, 1485.
98
Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, preface, 1. (Translation of the first two sentences
adapted from Fong, “Lü Bicheng,” 32.)
Despite Yan’s emphasis on fidelity in his three principles of translation,

his adaptations of the European classics of modernity had little in com-
mon with what would today be considered reliable translations.99 Yan
rarely rendered his texts of departure word by word or sentence by
sentence. Instead, he paraphrased or summarized sections of various
length in order to “communicate the gist” (dazhi 達旨),100 amplifying
points he found to be of particular significance and omitting others
he deemed superfluous or suspicious. At times, he clearly marked
his personal commentaries as such in separate notes; more often he
wove them directly into the fabric of his renditions.101 Yan’s logical
translations were located at different ends of the scale with regard
to the liberties he took in their adaptation. In Mule mingxue Yan fol-
lowed the English text perhaps more closely than in any of his other
translations. Although still not reproducing the precise sequence and
syntactical arrangement of Mill’s arguments, Yan confined his com-
mentaries almost exclusively to forty-two notes, comprising more than
ten thousand words, of varying length and scope. In Mingxue qianshuo,
on the other hand, he made ample use of the space for alterations he
claimed in his preface. Nonetheless, both translations remained largely
true to the ideas expressed in their texts of departure.
Before looking more closely at Yan’s notes and alterations as well as
the terms in which he represented the conceptual lexicon of European
logic, it is necessary to touch briefly upon the peculiar literary style of
his renditions. In order to highlight the dignity of the foreign texts he
presented and to attract readers from among the highest echelons of
China’s scholarly elite, Yan insisted on modeling his translations in
syntax and style on a terse variety of pre-Qin prose.102 In part, his
antiquarian mode of expression can be seen as an attempt to showcase
99
See Ng Mau-sang, “Reading Yan Fu’s Tian Yan Lun,” in Interpreting Culture through
Translation, ed. Roger Ames et al. (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1991),
167–184; and Elizabeth Sinn, “Yan Fu,” in An Encyclopaedia of Translation, ed. Sin-
wai Chan and David Pollard (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1995),
432–436.
100
Yan Fu, “Yi Tianyanlun zixu” 譯天演論自序 (Translator’s preface to On Evolu-
tion) (1897), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 1319–1321; 1320.
101
See Wang Kefei 王克非, Zhong-Ri jindai dui xifang zhengzhi zhexue sixiang de shequ—
Yan Fu yu Riben qimeng xuezhe 中日近代對西方政治哲學思想的攝取—嚴復與日本
啟蒙學者 (The reception of Western political and philosophical thought in modern
China and Japan: Yan Fu and Japanese enlightenment scholars) (Beijing: Zhongguo
shehui kexue chubanshe, 1996), 51–60.
102
Ibid., 46–51.
174 chapter three
his literary abilities to the high-ranking officials under whose contempt

Yan had long suffered as a barbarian-educated man who had failed
the imperial examinations four times.103 On the other hand, his sty-
listic idiosyncrasies were not as outrageous as some contemporaries
and especially the May Fourth intelligentsia claimed.104 Yan derived
most of his stylistic inspirations from the Tongcheng School (Tongcheng
pai 桐城派), a literary movement whose theory of prose called for a
uniform, archaic style supposed to be accessible to all educated read-
ers.105 Contrary to later condemnations of their obscurantist bent,
Tongcheng scholars, such as Yan’s mentor Wu Rulun 吳汝綸 (1840–
1903), believed that the clarity of diction they found embodied in “old
text” (guwen 古文) prose guaranteed precision of expression and was
thus the best means to convey complex ideas. Yan was similarly con-
vinced that
the essentials and subtleties [of foreign texts] are more easily conveyed
by using pre-Han style (zifa 字法) and syntax ( jufa 句法). If one uses the
vulgar language current today, it is difficult to get the point across: one
always suppresses the idea in favor of the expression and one tiny initial
error leads to infinite aberrations in the end.106
Thus, while he certainly believed that the new classics with which he
intended to replace the orthodox canon had to speak with a voice sim-
ilar to the Confucian scriptures if their authority was to be accepted
by the elitist audience he aimed to impress, Yan also seems to have
assumed that this voice would genuinely facilitate his task of commu-
nicating foreign ideas.
Many readers, even among those who were at least as well versed
in classical writings as Yan himself, thought otherwise. Liang Qichao,
for instance, commented in a discussion of Yan’s adaptation of On the
Wealth of Nations:
103
Michael Lackner, “Circumnavigating the Unfamiliar: Dao’an (314–385) and
Yan Fu (1852–1921) on Western Grammar,” in Lackner et al., New Terms for New
Ideas, 357–372; 366.
104
Huters, Bringing the World Home, 67–68.
105
See Huters, “A New Way of Writing,” 249–254; idem, Bringing the World Home,
82–87; and Edward Gunn, Rewriting Chinese: Style and Innovation in Twentieth Century
Chinese Prose (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 32–34.
106
Yan Fu, “Yi liyan,” 1322. Translation adapted from Huters, “A New Way of
Writing,” 249.
One thing I regret is that [Yan’s] writing is too difficult and elegant,
attempting to imitate pre-Qin style. Unless someone has read many clas-
sical books, it is impossible to understand his translations. We should
have had a literary revolution long ago. Moreover, as these books con-
tain great learning, unless they are translated in fluent and plain writing,
how can they benefit schoolboys? Translations are a means to dissemi-
nate enlightened ideas among the people. They are not meant to be hid-
den in deep forests or to earn the translator an immortal reputation.107
Yan was unfazed by such criticisms. In response to Liang’s critique,
for instance, he only quipped:
What I have translated are books of great learning. I do not expect that
they will be read by schoolboys or that schoolboys will benefit from
them. My translations are for those who have read many classical books.
If readers who have not read any classical Chinese writings want to read
my translations, they should be blamed and not the translator.108
From our point of view, it does not matter much that Yan Fu’s assess-
ment was proven wrong both by scores of young readers who took
great delight in his antiquarian mannerisms as well as by classically
trained literati who complained in no uncertain terms about the opac-
ity of his prose.109 Although the stylistic surface of his works undoubt-
edly affected their readability and imparted a certain flavor to the
ideas they presented, it was not decisive for the success or failure of
Yan’s adaptation of the conceptual lexicon he strove to introduce.
In this regard, his terminological choices had greater bearing. Many
commentators have pointed out that Yan’s classicist proclivities were
mirrored in his renditions of key terms. To be certain, Yan redefined
many classical terms in his presentations of foreign theories of politics,
ethics, economics, and law, and he also colored the general philosophi-
cal vocabulary of European thinkers with thick layers of more or less
explicit allusions to pre-Qin thought.110 However, in areas of “new”
107
Liang Qichao 粱啟超, “Shaojie xinzhu Yuan fu” 紹介新著原富 (Introducing the
new book On Wealth) (1902), reprinted in Yan Fu yanjiu ziliao 嚴復研究資料 (Research
materials on Yan Fu), ed. Niu Yangshan 牛仰山 and Sun Hongni 孫鴻霓 (Fuzhou:
Haixia wenyi chubanshe, 1990), 266–268; 267.
108
Yan Fu, “Yu ‘Xinmin congbao’ lun suoyi ‘Qunxue yiyan’ ” 與新民叢報論所譯
群學肄言 (Discussing my translation of The Study of Sociology with the Xinmin congbao)
(1902), reprinted in idem, Yan Fu ji, 515–518; 516.
109
Schwartz, Yen Fu, 93–94.
110
See Huang Kewu 黃克武, Ziyou de suoyiran. Yan Fu dui Yuehan Mier ziyou sixiang
de renshi yu pipan 自由的醙依然—嚴復對約翰彌爾自由思想的認識與批評 (The
raison d’être of freedom. Yan Fu’s understanding and critique of John Stuart Mill’s
176 chapter three
knowledge that displayed less obvious conceptual overlaps with tradi-

tional Chinese discourses, his approach to terminology was of necessity
more diverse. David Wright has documented the eclecticism of Yan’s
terminology for natural sciences such as chemistry and physics.111 A
similar eclecticism characterized his adaptations of logical terms in his
renditions of Mill and Jevons.
An examination of the logical terms used in Mule mingxue and Ming-
xue qianshuo (see Table 3.1 below) reveals that Yan drew on a wide
range of sources for the creation of his terminology. Actual “classical”
terms dominated in neither work, underlining again that ancient lexi-
cons did not provide easily discernible equivalents for logical notions,
as has been emphasized throughout the previous chapters. Even a
self-professed classicist like Yan Fu was unable to identify more than
a handful of ancient words that seemed to lend themselves as accept-
able renditions of logical terms. Most prominent in this respect was,
of course, his translation of “logic” by mingxue 名學 ‘the science of
names’ (see Table 3.1, item 1.1), and “logician” by mingjia 名家 ‘expert
on names’, which implied unmistakable affinities between logic and
its practitioners and the ancient Chinese School of Names, even if
Yan offered a somewhat different justification for his selections, as we
shall see below. Further examples included his rendition of “general-
ization” by huitong 會通 ‘to bring together and make communicate’
(5.12), a term that indeed had time-honored philosophical roots as
a metaphor for “penetrating understanding” in the “Attached Ver-
balizations” (Xici 繫辭) of the Classic of Change (Yijing 易經); and his
suggestion to translate “quality” (3.7) by pin 品 ‘character’, ‘property’,
‘moral standing’, ‘grade’, ‘rank’; or de 德 ‘virtue’, ‘power’, ‘inherent
ability’.112 While these renditions were based on more or less obvious
similarities between Chinese and English terms, most other instances
of seemingly classical terms in Yan’s renditions were in fact either
neologisms with a pseudo-classical appearance or borrowings adapted
liberalism) (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian, 2000), 71–81. See also Howland, Personal
Liberty and Public Good, 22–25, 83–87.
111
See Wright, “Yan Fu,” 240–242, 250–255.
112
In one of his notes to Mule mingxue, Yan alerted his readers that his usage of de 德
in the sense of “quality” risked causing confusion because the term covered a broad
range of meanings in classical sources. He justified his choice by his intention to avoid
creating an entirely new term for a notion that he thought to be completely alien to
traditional Chinese thought and advised readers to carefully study Mill’s definition of
“quality” in order to avoid misunderstanding. See Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 2:107.
Table 3.1: Logical Terms in Yan Fu’s Translations

English term Mule Mingxue, 1903–1905 Mingxue qianshuo, 1909

1.1 logic 名學名學
邏輯邏輯
邏輯學論理學
論理學辨學
1.2 reasoning 思籀思籀
思議思議
思辨思辨
推論
1.3 thought 思思想
思維
1.4 judgment 比擬比擬
判斷辨
1.5 argument 辨判斷
1.6 truth 真理真理
1.7 form, formal
1.8 symbol, symbolic
1.9 law of identity
1.10 law of contradiction
1.11 law of excluded
middle
1.12 principle of
sufficient reason

2.1 term 端端
名名
2.2 concept 意意
(idea) 概念
恭什布脫
2.3 intension 內涵內涵
內包
2.4 extension 外舉外舉
外延
2.5 definition 界說界說
定義
2.6 category 倫
範疇
2.7 substance 薩布斯坦思阿
2.8 predicables 旌
布理的加門
178 chapter three
Table 3.1 (cont.)

2.9 genus 類類
甄譜斯
2.10 species 別別
斯畢稀
2.11 difference 差差德
差德
的甫連希亞
2.12 property 撰常德
常德
波羅普利按
2.13 accident 寓寓德
偶德
亞錫登斯
2.14 singular term 單及之端單及之端
2.15 general term 普及之端普及之端
2.16 collective term 總名撮最之端
2.17 positive term 正名正名
2.18 negative term 負名負名
2.19 concrete term 察名察名
具體之名
2.20 abstract term 名懸名
抽象之名
2.21 absolute term 獨立之名獨立之名
2.22 relative term 對待之名對待互觀之名
2.23 categorematic term 有謂之名
加特歌勒馬之名
2.24 syncategorematic 合謂之名
term 沁加特歌勒馬之名

3.1 sentence 句法句
3.2 proposition 詞詞句
首詞
命題命題
3.3 subject 詞主詞主
句主句主
3.4 predicate 所謂所謂
布理狄桀布理狄桀
3.5 copula 綴詞綴系
綴系
3.6 attribute 鄂卜捷
3.7 quality 品品
瓜力塔思
Table 3.1 (cont.)

3.8 quantity 量量
觀特塔思
3.9 true 真真
是是
實
3.10 false 否否
非非
虛
3.11 some 凡有
某
3.12 all 有凡
3.13 distributed 普及盡物
周延
3.14 undistributed 不普及未嘗盡物
不周延
3.15 categorical 徑達之詞徑達之詞
proposition 定言命題定言命題
3.16 hypothetical 未定之詞有待之詞
proposition 有待之詞假設之詞
相生之詞假言命題
設言命題
3.17 conjunctive
proposition
3.18 disjunctive 析取之詞析取之詞
proposition 選言命題
3.19 affirmative 正詞正詞
proposition
3.20 negative proposition 負詞負詞
3.21 particular 偏謂之詞偏及之詞
proposition 特稱命題特稱命題
3.22 universal 全謂之詞統舉之詞
proposition 全稱命題全稱命題
3.23 universal affirmative 普及正詞統舉正詞
proposition
3.24 universal negative 普及負詞統舉負詞
proposition
3.25 particular 偏謂正詞偏及正詞
affirmative
proposition
3.26 particular negative 偏舉負詞偏及負詞
proposition
3.27 conversion 轉詞調換詞頭之法
詞之換位
180 chapter three
Table 3.1 (cont.)

3.28 simple conversion 互轉簡捷轉頭
簡易之轉頭法
3.29 limited conversion 取寓之轉限制轉頭
3.30 contraposition 更端之轉
3.31 opposition
3.32 contradictory 互駁全反
3.33 contrary 全反反對
3.34 subcontrary 偏反
3.35 subaltern 兼容

4.1 inference 推證推知
推籀推
4.2 deduction 外籀外籀
演繹演繹
4.3 induction 內籀內籀
歸納歸納
4.4 premise 原詞原
原原詞
前提前提
4.5 conclusion 委詞委
委委詞
斷案判
斷案
4.6 major premise 大原例
大前提大原
大前提
4.7 minor premise 小原案
小前提小原
小前提
4.8 major term 大端大端
大語大語
4.9 minor term 小端小端
小語小語
4.10 middle term 中端中介
媒語中端
媒語
4.11 antecedent 安梯西登前事
前事前件
提設提設
安梯西登
4.12 consequent 後承後承
後件
康西昆士
Table 3.1 (cont.)

4.13 syllogism 聯珠連珠
連珠聯珠
三斷司洛輯沁
4.14 hypothetical 有待連珠
syllogism
4.15 disjunctive syllogism 析取連珠析取連珠
4.16 sorites
4.17 enthymeme
4.18 epicheirema
4.19 figure (of syllogism) 式式
4.20 mood (of syllogism) 目
4.21 fallacy 發拉屎眢詞
眢詞偽論
偽論發拉屎
4.24 begging the question 丐詞丐詞
丐問眢詞丐問眢詞
4.25 illicit major 大端不合法大端不合法之眢詞
之眢詞
4.26 illicit minor 小端不合法小端不合法之眢詞
之眢詞
4.27 undistributed 中介不盡物中介不盡物之眢詞
middle term 之眢詞
4.28 equivocation 歧義之眢詞
4.29 ambiguity 歧義之眢詞

5.1 method 方法
法
5.2 analysis 分析分析
析觀分明
5.3 synthesis
5.4 fact 事實
5.5 experience 歷驗經歷
5.6 observation 觀察觀察
5.7 hypothesis 希卜梯西希卜梯西
設复置复
臆說設臆
臆說
設复
5.8 experiment 試驗試驗
5.9 proof 証証
182 chapter three
Table 3.1 (cont.)

5.10 verification 印證推證
印證法印證
5.11 classification 分類區分物類
類族辨物
5.12 generalization 會通推概
推概觀同
5.13 analogy 比例相似窮理之術
比擬
5.14 explanation 解例
5.15 cause 因因
5.16 effect 果果
5.17 necessity 必然
5.18 probability
5.19 theory 說說
5.20 axiom 公論公理
公理
5.21 law 公例公例
法律
5.22 principle 理
5.23 rule 例律令
5.24 uniformity of nature 自然常然
5.25 method of 統同術類異見同術
agreement
5.26 method of difference 別異術
5.27 joint method of 同異合術
agreement and
difference
5.28 method of 消息術消息之術
concomitant
variation
5.29 method of residue 歸餘術
by loan shifts from traditional contexts that were not, or at least not
immediately, related to logic.
Instances in the first category comprised terms expressed in archaic
characters that Yan specifically revived and redefined for his transla-
tions. Thus, he introduced jing 旌, the generic name for an ancient
kind of banner, as a rendition of Aristotle’s “predicables” (2.8); xuan-
ming 名, a compound formed with the unlexicalized radical compo-
nent xuan ‘threaded silk’, for “abstract name” (2.20); zhuixi 綴系 ‘to
connect [by a thread]’ for “copula” (3.5); yuan 眢 ‘dried-up well’ for
“fallacy” (4.21);113 and zhou 籀 ‘to draw out’, ‘to recite’, as we have
seen above, in the compounds he suggested for “induction” (neizhou 內
籀) and “deduction” (waizhou 外籀) (4.2 and 4.3). In the second cat-
egory of contextual shifts, Yan demonstrated even greater creativity.
More plausible instances of such shifts included the following: (1) his
appropriation of zheng 正 and fu 負, which denoted positive or nega-
tive numbers in traditional Chinese mathematics, in his translations
of “positive” and “negative term” (zhengming 正名 and fuming 負名)
as well as “affirmative” and “negative proposition” (zhengci 正詞 and
fuci 負詞) (2.17–2.18 and 3.19–3.20); (2) the judicial terms li 例 ‘prec-
edent’, an 案 ‘case’ or ‘instance’, and wei 委 ‘end’ or duan 斷 ‘decision’,
‘verdict’ for the constituent parts of the syllogism, “major premise,”
“minor premise,” and “conclusion” (4.5–4.7); as well as (3) shefu 設复
‘Guess the answer!’, the name of a game similar to the British “I spy”
or the German “Ich sehe was, was Du nicht siehst,” that Yan used as
one of many tentative renditions of the English “hypothesis” (5.7).
Yan’s most imaginative and at the same time most problematic loan
shift was his rendition of “syllogism” by lianzhu 連珠 ‘linked verse’ or,
literally, ‘pearls on a string’, the name of a minor genre of Chinese
parallel prose that had flourished in the third and fourth centuries AD.114
When pressed to justify his selection, Yan explained this choice in a
way that may raise doubts about his awareness of the significance of
formal criteria for logical reasoning:
Note: For the expression “to infer by syllogism” ( yan lianzhu 演連珠
‘to develop linked verse’ ), please refer to the [sixth-century anthology]
Wenxuan 文選 (Selections of refined literature) where lianzhu denotes a
type of parallel prose (pianwen 駢文). It is often introduced by “Your sub-
ject has heard that . . .” In the first line, the pattern of a thing or matter is
described; in the second line, something is inferred on the grounds of this
pattern; the transition is marked by the word gu 故 ‘therefore’.115 Since
113
See the justification in Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, § 170.
114
See Jui-lung Su, “Lien-chu,” in The Indiana Guide to Traditional Chinese Literature,
ed. William H. Nienhauser (Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press,
1998), vol. 2, 89–92. Su defines lianzhu as a “highly embellished genre, characterized
by ornate language, rich allusions, balanced analogies, and parallelism, that often
deals with political persuasion” (ibid., 89).
115
A standard example of a lianzhu is the following octet by Lu Ji 陸機 (261–303):
“Your subject has heard that (chen wen 臣聞):
When the keen eye (of heaven, that is, the sun) overlooks the clouds, / It cannot
penetrate and shine through. / When the bright uncut jade is covered with dirt,
/ It cannot shed its rays.
184 chapter three
the form of “linked verse” consists of only two layers, it is somewhat dif-
ferent from a syllogism that establishes arguments through three propo-
sitions. Yet, because scholars were encouraged to examine every detail
[mentioned in the linked verse couplet] on the day [after the lianzhu was
presented publicly at court], the meaning is in fact the same. Since lian-
zhu were originally a type of parallel prose, their wording is ornate and
overtly embellished, and hence it is difficult to see substantial words in
them. Still, I have no doubts about using the word today as a translation
of the term “syllogism.” The original Western word is siluojiqin 司絡輯
沁; its meaning is “to bring together propositions” (huici 會詞). This is
consistent with my choice. In Japan, “logic,” the science of names, has
been translated as “the science of reasoning” (lunlixue 論理學), which is
already very crude; likewise, their rendition of “syllogism,” linked verse,
as san duan 三斷116 ‘three verdicts’, is in my opinion inferior to my trans-
lation. For among the three propositions [of the syllogism], there is only
one “verdict” [conclusion]; hence referring to [the syllogism] as “three
verdicts” can lead to misunderstandings. Therefore, we cannot conform
to Eastern scholarship and adopt their translation.117
The paleographer Jao Tsung-i has discussed Yan’s rendering as a
prime example of the many cross-cultural misunderstandings beset-
ting modern Chinese discourses.118 Other commentators, like the
modern Neo-Confucian philosopher He Lin 賀麟 (1902–1992),
have celebrated Yan’s choice as an early example of a “Sinicizing”
(Zhongguohua 中國化) translation that helped to underline the parallels
between Chinese and Western culture.119 Both positions seem to be
overestimating the significance of a single, if undeniably far-fetched,
metaphorical loan shift. From our perspective, Yan’s explanation is of
interest, on the one hand, because it confirms his indifference to the
technicalities of the science he advertised as the cornerstone of China’s
salvation; and on the other, because it highlights his aversion to terms
This is why (shiyi 是以 ):

The enlightened and sagacious ruler / Has the burden of being blocked from
the truth; / The talented and outstanding officials / Often embrace the sorrow
of missing the proper time.”
Cited from Jui-lung Su, “Lien-chu,” 89–90.
116
Yan misrepresented the Japanese loanword san duan by a Chinese homophone.
The correct written form of the Japanese san duan for “syllogism” would have been 三段
‘three stages’, which makes Yan’s argument in favor of his own creation meaningless.
117
118
Tsung-i Jao, “The Sino-Western Contact and the Chinese Misinterpretation of
the Western Culture Shortly before and after the May Fourth Movement: A Case
Study—Lianzhu and Logic,” in Interliterary and Intraliterary Aspects of the May Fourth Move-
ment 1919 in China, ed. Marian Galik (Bratislava: Veda, 1990), 253–256.
119
He Lin, “Yan Fu de fanyi,” 82.
borrowed from Japanese that began to arrive in China from about

1902, as we will see shortly.
Despite this aversion, Yan included a considerable number of
Japanese-derived loans in his translations, if only as secondary alter-
natives. Most probably, this was a concession to readers who may
have been familiar with these terms from studying the textbooks by
which the discipline came to be taught in Chinese institutions of higher
learning after 1902—not least, as we have seen, thanks to Yan’s lob-
bying. Contrary to the prevalent assumption that Yan was too self-
confident or arrogant even to consider the work of other translators,
his terminology indicates that he was not only familiar with terms
imported from Japan, but also with all kinds of other works discuss-
ing logical notions, and that he did not hesitate to borrow what he
found useful. Thus, he had no qualms about adopting Jesuit coinages,
such as jieshuo 界說 for “definition” (2.5), lun 倫 for “category” (2.6),
and duan 端 for “term” (2.1), or Yan Yongjing’s phonetic rendering
xibutixi 希卜梯西 for “hypothesis” (5.7). He even prolonged the life
span of Edkins’s metaphorical paraphrase of “induction,” jiwu qiongli
即物窮理 ‘approaching things in order to fathom patterns’, adapted
from Zhu Xi’s commentary to the Greater Learning, by reiterating it in
his own explanations.120
Yan still found ample room for his own lexical inventions, especially
in his earlier Mule mingxue. His approach to the coining of neologisms
was no less eclectic than his borrowings of individual terms from other
translators or the forgotten fund of archaic characters. In accordance
with the Tongcheng ideal of concision, he proposed monosyllabic
words wherever possible, for instance, in his renditions of the five Aris-
totelian predicables where he suggested lei 類 ‘kind’ for “genus,” bie 別
‘differentiation’ for “species,” cha 差 ‘to be short of ’ for “difference,”
zhuan 撰 ‘inherent quality’ for “property,” and yu 寓 ‘to contain’ for
“accident” (2.9–2.13). In many cases, however, Yan had to abandon
this terse ideal for the sake of comprehensibility. Most of his bino-
mial creations were based on the definitions of the terms they were
intended to convey, for instance, cizhu 詞主 ‘ruler of the proposition’
for “subject” and suowei 所謂 ‘that which is said about [something]’ for
120
Yan did not seem to share the negative views of Edkins’s work cited above. In
one of his notes to Mule mingxue, for instance, he specifically recommended consulting
the Bianxue qimeng for further explanations on the figures of the syllogism. See Yan Fu,
Mule mingxue, 3:17–18.
186 chapter three
“predicate” (3.3 and 3.4); or neihan 內涵 ‘contained within’ for “inten-

sion” and waiju 外舉 ‘chosen outside’ for “extension” (2.3 and 2.4).
Others, like gaiwen 丐問 ‘begging to ask’ for “[the fallacy of] begging
the question” were direct loan translations (4.24).
One final aspect of Yan’s terminology that deserves to be mentioned
is the large number of transcriptions he wove into his texts. In several
cases, Yan used phonemic replicas of English terms not only to indicate
his terms of departure for specific renditions but also as independent
lexical items that he used interchangeably with semantic loans. Fre-
quent examples included luoji 邏輯 or luojixue 邏輯學 for “logic” (1.1),
sibixi 斯畢稀 for “species” (2.10), and the above-mentioned xibutixi
希卜梯西 for “hypothesis” (5.7). Only in one case, sabusidansi’a 薩布
斯坦思阿 for “substance” (2.7), did he introduce a phonemic replica
without concurrently suggesting a semantic rendering. Some of Yan’s
choices raise doubts about the reliability of his pronunciation skills.
Even taking into account dialectal variations, adaptations such as
gongshenbutuo 恭什布脫 for “concept” (2.2) or ebujie 鄂卜捷 for “attri-
bute” (3.6) hardly appear to be phonetically adequate representations.
Since all these terms, irrespective of their accuracy, violated the aes-
thetic demands of old-text prose due to their unwieldy length, we can
only surmise that in this particular regard Yan consciously took stylis-
tic liberties in order to impress his mostly monolingual audience with
his hard-won fluency in the English language.
5. Logic in the Margins
The third defining feature besides style and terminology that distin-
guished Yan’s logical translations was his idiosyncratic insertion of
commentary and notes. In comparison to his On Evolution, almost
half of which consisted of annotations,121 Yan used these devices rela-
tively sparsely in his renditions of both Mill and Jevons. His forty-
two “Notes” (an 按) scattered throughout Mill’s Logic served a variety
of purposes and were devoted to very different subjects. As we have
seen, some helped to explain Yan’s terminological choices;122 others
121
Ng, “Reading Yan Fu,” 167–169.
122
See Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 1:14–15, where he defended his translation of “philos-
ophy” as lixue 理學 against competing renditions, most notably the Japanese-derived
loan zhexue 哲學.
were intended to clarify passages he had found difficult to render.123

A few provided supplementary cultural or historical information, for
instance, on the One Thousand and One Nights,124 or Aristotle’s impor-
tance for scholasticism.125 Surprisingly little space was devoted to top-
ics of logical relevance. In one such note, Yan illustrated that formally
valid syllogisms will lead to false conclusions if the premises are false
by choosing two examples that may have struck a chord with read-
ers keen on emulating the European nations’ wealth and power. His
first such syllogism read, “Wealthy people do not travel to faraway
countries to seek riches; today’s Westerners travel to faraway countries
to seek riches; therefore, they are not wealthy”; the second, “Strong
nations do not need to protect their citizens by treaties; today’s West-
erners establish treaties to protect their citizens; therefore, they are
not strong.”126 In further annotations more specifically concerned with
logic, Yan alerted his readers that recent developments in Western
logic had expanded upon or corrected Mill’s opinions, thus betray-
ing that his own reading on the subject had not been confined to
the System of Logic. Yan mentioned, for instance, that Alexander Bain,
Mill’s staunchest supporter, had qualified his master’s critique of the
Aristotelian categories;127 and that Augustus De Morgan’s Formal Logic
(Fa mingxue 法名學) discussed several new aspects, such as the quanti-
fication of the terms in numerically definite syllogisms (for example, “If
most B are C, and if most B are A, then undoubtedly some A are C”),
which Yan introduced to his readers, somewhat elliptically, as “the art
of examining some” ( jihuo zhi shu 稽或之術).128
The areas to which Yan Fu dedicated most of his annotations in
Mule mingxue were epistemology, metaphysics, and science. In his epis-
temological notes, Yan repeated some of his attacks against the belief
in innate knowledge with reference to Locke129 and reinforced his criti-
cisms against exclusive book learning and the “bad habits of the heart”
123
See ibid., 1:37–38, where he attributed his troubles to the inaptitude of the
Chinese lexicon; and ibid., 3:51, where he held Mill’s original text responsible.
124
Ibid., 2:18–19. Another cultural note explained a (not particularly funny) joke
involving Western medicine, ibid., 2:57.
125
Ibid., 2:109.
126
Ibid., 3:75. Other notes on logical issues offered clarifications of the all-encom-
passing nature of positive and negative names, antonyms, and the properties of rela-
tive names; see ibid., 1:26, 30.
127
Ibid., 2:33–34.
128
Ibid., 3:17–18.
129
Ibid., 3:80, 84.
188 chapter three
(huai xinshu 懷心術) that “three thousand years of literary doctrine

(wenjiao 文教)” had produced in China.130 The metaphysical question
that seemed to have intrigued him most was the relation between
thought and reality. Yan approached this issue in repeated reflections
on the meaning of Descartes’s cogito, which he related to the opinions
of the Confucian Doctrine of the Mean (Zhongyong 中庸) and Buddhist the-
ories on the reality of various states of consciousness.131 None of these
sophisticated reflections is immediately relevant to our problematique.
The same applies to Yan’s deliberations on the laws of motion,132 the
status of mathematics among the sciences,133 and similarities he identi-
fied between the Classic of Change and modern Western sciences. Like
the sciences, the Classic of Change, according to Yan, derived qualitative
knowledge from deductions based on numbers and was primarily con-
cerned with cause and effect.134 While interesting in themselves, and
perhaps also as indications of a nostalgic attachment to the doctrines
Yan so vigorously criticized in the majority of his writings,135 from our
point of view the most intriguing aspect of his reflections is the ease
with which he could relate central problems in epistemology, meta-
physics, and science to classical Chinese thought, whereas he did not
hint at any such comparisons in the narrow realm of logic itself, with
one significant exception to be discussed in chapter 5 below.
The focus of Yan’s comments and alterations in his rendition of
Jevons’s Logic primer was slightly different, not least due to the differ-
ences between Mill’s and Jevons’s approaches to logic. Jevons did not
offer any opportunity for metaphysical speculation. Nonetheless, Yan
found many occasions to renew his criticism of traditional Chinese
thought. In a paragraph on the fallacy of begging the question, Yan
brusquely stated that “80 to 90 percent” of China’s philosophical lit-
erature consisted in just such fallacies and that this was why China’s
scientific achievements were “hardly worth mentioning.”136 In another
passage, he recalled that “until three hundred years ago” European
scholars had also located all truth in books, namely, in the Old and
130
Ibid., 3:66.
131
Ibid., 2:49–51, 53–54, 63–64.
132
Ibid., 4:46–48.
133
Ibid., 3:69–70, 105.
134
Ibid., 3:70, 4.36–37.
135
See Huters, Bringing the World Home, 56–60, 66–67.
136
New Testaments, but had since learned to look at the “patterns of

affairs” (shili 事理). Thus, “When people in our China say: ‘There are
no books beyond the Six Classics’, then they are really saying: ‘There
are no patterns of affairs outside the Six Classics.’ ”137 In a similar vein,
Yan reiterated his critique of the irresponsible tolerance of ambiguity
in traditional Chinese thought by a scathing condemnation of some of
its most eminent terms. According to him, the meanings of words such
as qi 氣 ‘vital energy’, xin 心 ‘heart’, tian 天 ‘heaven’, dao 道 ‘Way’,
ren 仁 ‘benevolence’, and yi 義 ‘righteousness’ were all hopelessly con-
fused and had to “wait on later sages” for their unlikely salvation.138
In view of Yan’s lengthy defense of his rendition of the term “syllo-
gism” by lianzhu, it is interesting to note that he could not think of any
classical argument that fully conformed to the structure of the syllo-
gism in the relevant passages of Mingxue qianshuo. Instead, he offered an
argument from an essay by the Song poet Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037–1101):
“[He] used subjects to attack the rulers, therefore, King Wu is not a
sage,” and added the following explanation in order to adapt it to the
standard structure of syllogistic reasoning:
These two phrases give only the minor premise and the conclusion. If
we were to state the argument in full, we would have to say: “Sages do
not use subjects to attack the ruler” (major premise); “Now King Wu
has used subjects to attack the ruler” (minor premise); “Therefore, King
Wu is not a sage.” But scholars are able to understand [the argument]
even when it is presented in abbreviated form.139
Yan’s adaptation of Jevons’s examples and illustrations allows for
interesting comparisons with Edkins’s earlier solutions with regard
to their respective assessments of cultural and political sensibilities.140
Where Edkins, as we have seen, replaced Gladstone and Disraeli with
the Tang poets Han Yu and Liu Zongyuan, Yan Fu inserted Zhang
Zhidong 張之洞 (1837–1909) and Yuan Shikai 袁世凱 (1859–1916),141
the most powerful statesmen in contemporary China; the impersonal
character John Robertson, who was given the identity of a certain
Zhang Jia in Edkins’s rendition, became the patriotic martyr Yue Fei
137
Ibid., § 109.
138
Ibid., § 30.
139
Ibid., § 71.
140
See also Wright, “Yan Fu,” 239–240.
141
190 chapter three
岳飛 (1103–1142);142 and in one of the infamous examples involv-

ing peoples with darker skin, which Edkins had left untouched, Yan
replaced Chinese by Japanese.143 Moreover, Yan did not shy away
from comments on current events. For instance, he used several exam-
ples to outline arguments in favor of constitutional government,144 and
even found a place to complain about the unreasonably high price of
telegrams in China, which he thought to be an obstacle to the nation’s
progress.145
Finally, in Jevons’s discussion of inductive procedures of experi-
mentation, Yan offered the sentence “The sage sees how everything
under heaven is connected and follows its laws and statutes,” from the
“Attached Verbalizations” in the Classic of Change, as an early anticipa-
tion of Mill’s “method of agreement,”146 and where Jevons explained
that researchers had to pay particular attention to “things which vary
periodically,” Yan likened this demand to “extremely early” Chinese
insights into the permanent alterations between yin and yang and illus-
trated the parallel, without further explanation, by reproducing the
twelfth-century “Chart of the Supreme Ultimate” (taiji tu 太極圖).147
Concluding Remarks
How can we summarize Yan Fu’s role in the Chinese discovery of

European logic? His record as a translator is obviously mixed. His
antiquarian style did little to enhance the readability of his texts,
despite his stated goal of enhancing clarity. After reading a draft of
the Tianyanlun, in which Yan first displayed his peculiar stylistic prefer-
ences, even his Tongcheng mentor Wu Rulun wondered whether the
differences between Chinese and Western tongues might not demand
142
Ibid., § 186.
143
Ibid., § 82.
144
Ibid., § 97.
145
Ibid., § 168.
146
Ibid., § 140. The metaphorical analogy relied on the identification of the Changes’
“laws and statutes” (dianli 典禮) with the “natural laws” of the sciences that Yan had
already established in an earlier text; see his “Xixue menjing gongyong,” 93.
147
Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, § 147. On the “Chart of the Supreme Ultimate,” see
Michael Lackner, “Die Verplanung des Denkens am Beispiel der tu,” in Lebenswelt
und Weltanschauung im frühneuzeitlichen China, ed. Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer (Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner, 1990), 133–156; 135–138. For a graphic representation, see chapter 4,
Fig. 4.10, below.
the creation of an entirely new language, much as a new style of writ-

ing had been invented to translate the Buddhist canon from Sanskrit.148
Yan’s eclecticism in the compilation of his logical lexicon was equally
detrimental to the comprehensibility of the ideas he tried to convey.
But Yan’s logical translations did not fail in every respect. First and
foremost, his repeated insistence that only the most rarefied transla-
tion could do justice to the subtlety of European logic did indeed help
to raise the prestige of this seemingly most esoteric science. In addi-
tion, Yan’s notes and comments softened the alterity of the theories
outlined by Mill and Jevons, even if he rarely touched upon specific
logical issues in his remarks. In contrast to other renditions, Yan made
no attempt to bend or amalgamate the teachings of his new-found
Western informants to his own opinions but represented them, as best
he could, in a largely faithful manner. One reason for his unusual
caution may have been that he was well aware of his limitations as an
“expert on names,” as we may infer from a remark in his preface to
the Mingxue qianshuo:
Some friends have asked me why I do not write a book [on logic] myself
but rest content with stealing the ideas of others in translation instead of
striving to write my own outstanding work. At this, I can only laugh.149
On the other hand, Yan’s impact as a propagator of logic can hardly
be overestimated. His relentless lobbying on behalf of the discipline,
in many of his essays and through his activities as a lecturer, educa-
tor, and government advisor, almost single-handedly secured a place
for logic on China’s intellectual map. Scores of readers were enticed
to look into his capricious Science of Names, even if some were drawn
by Yan’s celebrity rather than a genuine interest in the topic. Yan
Fu’s most important contribution, however, was to build sustain-
able conceptual bridges that finally spanned the divide between key
concerns of European logic and contemporary Chinese discourses.
Yan was the first renowned author to advocate logic as a key com-
ponent of a new style of reasoning suited to correct “bad habits”
of analogy and inference that, as he tried to convince his audience,
impeded the progress of Chinese scholarship and endangered the
survival of the empire and “race.” His merciless denigration of xungu
148
Huters, “A New Way of Writing,” 250–251; see also idem, Bringing the World
Home, 83–87.
149
Yan Fu, Mingxue qianshuo, preface, 1.
192 chapter three
philology may have been unfair and, in part, rooted in frustration

over his failure to succeed in examinations demanding the mastery
of semantic glosses, but his plea to replace it with logical definitions
established a clear alternative between competing approaches operat-
ing in a shared conceptual space. In similar fashion, his enthusiastic
embrace of Mill’s empiricist inductionism was based on grotesquely
overblown expectations. Yet, by juxtaposing this rule-governed type
of inference with the intuitionist foundations of China’s state doc-
trine, Yan inserted the canons of inductive reasoning into a mean-
ingful Chinese context and, in consequence, turned a central logical
notion into a buzzword of scholarly and ideological debates. By pro-
moting logic as the key to a new style of reasoning promising to “trans-
form Chinese habits of the heart and overturn the corrupt practices
of thousands of years of Chinese scholarship,”150 Yan positioned the
discipline in the center of an emerging conceptual space no longer
structured by the tenets of orthodox doctrine and canonical texts.
In a time of debilitating doubt, the forceful presentation of a potent
new way of reasoning by an intellectual star of Yan Fu’s stature had
almost irresistible appeal, as the fad for logic described by Bao Tian-
xiao and others confirmed. Yet readers willing to heed Yan’s call
found that his works offered little help in learning the technical details
necessary for a successful application of this new logical style. For this
purpose, they needed to turn to less ambitious but at the same time
more accessible materials that only became available once logic started
to be taught in formal education.
150
Yan Fu, “Jiaoshou xinfa,” in idem, Yan Fu ji bubian, 71.
CHAPTER FOUR
SPREADING THE WORD: LOGIC IN LATE QING

EDUCATION AND POPULAR DISCOURSE
Whoever knows a discipline, such as logic or any

other, well, and tries to translate it into his mother
tongue will discover that mother tongue lacking in
both substance and words.
Roger Bacon, De linguarum cognitio (1267)*
The integration of logic into the Chinese education system was the
second important step in the naturalization of European logic in
late Qing discourses. As shown in chapter 2, during the nineteenth
century neither Chinese nor foreign schools, with the exception of
St. John’s College and the Jesuit seminary in Shanghai, had included
logic in their curricula. This situation changed after the shock of Shi-
monoseki when a near-universal consensus emerged among reformers
and conservatives alike that Western, or “new” knowledge as it now
came to be called,1 had to be given more space in formal education
if China was to withstand the imperialist onslaught and survive as a
sovereign nation.2 Thanks to the increased attention created by Yan
Fu’s activities, European logic was included in the emerging canon
of new disciplines that started to be taught in institutions of higher
learning throughout the Qing empire around the turn of the twenti-
eth century. The revised curricula spurred the production of a wealth
of new textbooks that in turn helped to disseminate a new techni-
cal vocabulary and to introduce models of the new style of reasoning
postulated in Yan Fu’s writings. Logical terms and arguments quickly
* Cited from André Lefevere, Translation/History/Culture: A Sourcebook (London:

Routledge, 1992), 49–50.
1
See Wang Xianming 王先明, Jindai xinxue: Zhongguo chuantong xueshu wenhua de
shanbian yu chonggou 近代新學—中國傳統學術文化嬗變與重構 (New knowledge in
modern China: Reconstruction and reinterpretation of traditional Chinese scholarship
and culture) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2000), 167–206.
2
See Timothy B. Weston, “The Founding of the Imperial University and the
Emergence of Chinese Modernity,” in Rethinking the 1898 Reform Period: Political and
Cultural Change in Late Qing China, ed. Rebecca E. Karl and Peter Zarrow (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), 99–123; 101–103.
194 chapter four
percolated from textbooks into the heated debates about China’s path
of national salvation that raged through the pages of flourishing new
journals founded in the first decade of the twentieth century.
1. Logic in the New School Curricula
The first Chinese schools attempting to present a more complete ensem-

ble of Western subjects were private colleges and academies mainly or
exclusively dedicated to the “new knowledge.” Some started offering
courses in logic in the immediate aftermath of the Sino-Japanese War.
From 1897 onward, for instance, lessons in logic (bianxue 辯學) were
included, alongside a host of other foreign sciences, in the English cur-
riculum of the School for Nourishing Talent (Yucai shushu 育材書塾) in
Shanghai, the precursor of the prestigious Nanyang College (Nanyang
gongxue 南洋公學) and thus of today’s Jiaotong University 交通大學.3
In the same year, Zhang Yuanji unveiled plans to add courses in logic
(“mingxue 名學, that is, bianxue 辨學”) as well as European philosophy
(lixue 理學) to the curriculum of his College of Comprehensive Arts in
Beijing.4 Zhang’s initiative followed a proposal by Yan Fu who, as we
have seen, lectured on logic at the school in 1898.5 Regular classes were
never implemented, however, because Zhang was unable to find suit-
able textbooks for logic and other new subjects he wished to introduce.6
Still, private schools like Zhang’s must be credited for their pioneering
role in introducing new and more comprehensive curricula.
1. Logic in the New School Regulations

Government schools needed more time to change. Curricular reforms
remained a highly sensitive issue, both politically and ideologically. As
long as the civil examinations were the main route to success, the state
had not only the will but also the power to ensure that educational con-
tents corresponded to government interests. Yet, after China’s defeat
3
See Zhongguo jindai xuezhi shiliao, vol. 1, pt. 2, 598–607; on the place of logic in the
school’s curriculum, see ibid., 606.
4
Zhang Yuanji 張元濟, “Tongyi xuetang zhangcheng” 通藝學堂章程 (Regula-
tions governing the College of Comprehensive Arts) (1897), reprinted in Zhongguo jindai
xuezhi shiliao, vol. 1, pt. 2, 712–717.
5
See Zhou Wu 周武, Zhang Yuanji: Shujuan rensheng 張元濟：書卷人生 (Zhang
Yuanji: a life wrapped in books) (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe, 1999), 17–20.
6
Zhongguo jindai xuezhi shiliao, vol. 1, pt. 2, 711.
logic in late qing education and popular discourse 195
in the Sino-Japanese War even the guardians of orthodoxy spoke out

in favor of broadening the scope of instruction. They insisted, how-
ever, that the new knowledge had to be domesticated to safeguard the
integrity of the already embattled state doctrine.
The strategy by which they hoped to achieve such domestication
was summed up by the well-worn formula “old [Chinese] knowledge
as essence, new [Western] knowledge for application” ( jiuxue wei ti
舊學為體, xinxue wei yong 新學為用) that had inspired China’s “self-
strengthening” efforts since the beginning of the Tongzhi Restoration
in 1862.7 Discredited as a guideline for military and industrial modern-
ization, the slogan resurfaced after 1895 in debates on the proper place
of Chinese and Western knowledge in education, most prominently
in Viceroy Zhang Zhidong’s 張之洞 (1837–1909) best-selling treatise
Exhortation to Learning (Quanxue pian 勸學篇, 1898).8 The theoretical flaws
underlying the ti-yong formula and related rationalizations that aimed
at grafting carefully selected branches of European civilization onto
the unaffected “body” of Chinese culture have long been exposed by
Joseph Levenson and others, and need not be reiterated here.9 From
our perspective, it is only important to recall that the ti-yong formula,
infertile as it was theoretically, allowed for considerable flexibility in
political debate. As such, it retained its force as the guiding princi-
ple underlying proposals for educational reform until the founding
of the Chinese Republic in 1912.10
All participants in the fierce debates about the curriculum of the
Imperial University ( Jingshi daxuetang 京師大學堂), which was seen
as the centerpiece of educational reform from 1898 onward, sub-
scribed or paid lip service to the ti-yong equation in their drafts.11 Since
the regulations of the Imperial University were explicitly intended as
precedents for the reform of schools nationwide, they deserve closer
examination with regard to the way in which they included logic in
the curriculum, even if their stipulations were never fully realized in
practice. Between 1898, the year in which the university—one of
7
See Hellmut Wilhelm, “The Problem of Within and Without: A Confucian
Attempt at Syncretism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 12, no. 1 (1951): 48–60.
8
See William Ayers, Chang Chih-tung and Educational Reform in China (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), 105–109.
9
See Levenson, Confucian China, vol. 1, 59–78; and Wilhelm, “Within and With-
out,” 54–55.
10
See Wang Xianming, Jindai xinxue, 250–281.
11
See Weston, “Imperial University,” 103–105.
196 chapter four
the few initiatives to survive the violent end of the Hundred Days
Reform—was opened in Beijing by Empress Dowager Cixi 慈禧
(1835–1908), and the reorganization of the school as Peking Univer-
sity under the new Republic in 1912, three versions of the university’s
regulations were approved by the Qing court.12 None other than Liang
Qichao wrote the first draft, promulgated in the summer of 1898.13 In
accordance with his reformist credentials, Liang’s set of regulations
was perhaps the most “progressive” of all three in the sense that it
explicitly defined the relationship between the Chinese “essence” and
Western “applications” as a relationship between two complementary
and equally indispensable components.14 It was less impressive in its
continued disregard for logic. As we have seen, as recently as 1896
Liang had treated logic either as unclassifiable or as a branch of anat-
omy related to the functioning of nerves, and he had apparently not
yet changed his view of the subject.
Liang’s regulations were superseded in 1902 by a draft devised by
Zhang Baixi, the Imperial University’s third president in the first four
years of its existence, at the behest of the Qing court upon its return
to the capital after the Boxer Rebellion. Under the watchful eyes of
the indignant foreign powers, Zhang Baixi proposed to turn the school
into a genuinely cosmopolitan institution representing the full wealth
of Chinese and Western knowledge.15 Although he was more strongly
invested in the preservation of the “old learning” and the ethical val-
ues enshrined in it than Liang Qichao, Zhang’s more detailed cur-
riculum indicated that he had no reservations about any branch of
the new knowledge and regarded old and new as entirely compatible.16
Following Yan Fu’s advice, Zhang even found a place for logic (ming-
xue 名學), not as an independent subject to be sure, but as part of the
12
See Hao Ping 郝平, Beijing daxue chuangban shishi kaoyuan 北京大學創辦史事考源
(A study into the history of the foundation and management of Peking University)
(Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1998), 173–207.
13
Liang Qichao, “Zongli yamen zou ni Jingshi daxuetang zhangcheng” 總理衙
門奏擬京師大學堂章程 (Regulations governing the Imperial University as memo-
rialized and proposed by the Zongli Yamen) (1898), reprinted in Beijing daxue shiliao.
Diyi juan: 1898–1911 北京大學史料．第一卷：1898–1911 (Historical materials on
Peking University. Volume 1: 1898–1911), ed. Beijing daxue xiaoshi yanjiushi (Bei-
jing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1993), 81–87.
14
Ibid., 82.
15
Zhang Baixi 張百熙, “Qinding Jingshi daxuetang zhangcheng” 欽定京師大學
堂章程 (Imperially approved regulations governing the Imperial University) (1902),
reprinted in Beijing daxue shiliao. Diyi juan: 1898–1911, 87–97.
16
preparatory classes in the school’s “government division” (zhengzhike

政治科).17 Students entering the Imperial University in this division,
which led to higher studies in law and administration, were to begin
their education with a three-year course designed to equip them, on the
Chinese side, with a sound cultural literacy based on intimate familiarity
with the canonical and noncanonical philosophers as well as literature,
history, poetry, and prose. Among the new Western subjects, students
were to become acquainted with the essentials of mathematics, world
history, geography, foreign languages, and physics, as well as logic, law,
and economics. Logic was to be taught for two hours per week in all
three years. Years one and two were devoted to imparting a “general
idea” (dayi 大意) of the science; year three was dedicated to “deduc-
tion” ( yanyi 演繹).18 At the end of the preparatory course, students had
to pass an entrance examination for the higher division that was to
include six questions on logic.19 Since the preparatory classes were a
particular feature of the Imperial University, logic was not mentioned
in the general guidelines for institutions of higher learning in other
parts of the empire promulgated together with Zhang Baixi’s draft.20
At least in Beijing, however, the discipline was eventually incorporated
into the regular curriculum, if only at the elementary level.
The final revision of the Imperial University’s regulations was
approved in January 1904 (with amendments made in 1907 and 1910
that did not affect logic). The draft was signed by Zhang Baixi, Rong
Qing 榮慶 (1859–1917), a Mongol bannerman, and Zhang Zhidong,
who was responsible for most of the changes.21 Like Zhang Baixi,
17
Zhang Baixi, “Jingshi daxuetang,” 89. Zhang did not provide any justification for
why he omitted logic from the curriculum of a largely parallel course in the “skills” or
technology division ( yike 藝科). See Hao Ping, Beijing daxue, 210–213; and Zhuang Jifa
莊吉發, Jingshi daxuetang 京師大學堂 (The Imperial University) (Taibei: Guoli Taiwan
daxue wenxueyuan, 1970), 44–46.
18
Zhang Baixi, “Jingshi daxuetang,” 89–90.
19
“Zouding kaoxuan ruxue zhangcheng” 奏定考選入學章程 (Regulations govern-
ing the entrance examination, as memorialized and approved) (1902), reprinted in
Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian: xuezhi yanbian 中國近代教育史料匯編：學制演變
(Materials on the history of education in modern China: Changes in the educational
system), ed. Chen Yuanhui 陳元暉 et al. (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe,
1991), 252–256; 252.
20
“Zouding gaodeng xuetang zhangcheng” 奏定高等學堂章程 (Regulations for
the higher schools, as memorialized and approved) (1902), reprinted in Zhongguo jindai
jiaoyu shiliao huibian, 256–263.
21
Zhang Baixi, Rong Qing 榮慶, and Zhang Zhidong 張之洞, “Daxuetang
zhangcheng” 大學堂章程 (Regulations for universities) (1904), reprinted in Beijing
daxue shiliao. Diyi juan: 1898–1911, 97–130.
198 chapter four
Zhang Zhidong modeled his blueprint on the example of Japanese

universities, especially in regard to the organization of departments
and faculties.22 However, in accordance with his declared aim to pre-
serve the “essence” of traditional Chinese culture, Zhang deviated
from the Japanese model in one major respect: he refused to institute
a department of philosophy and insisted on retaining or rebuilding
a faculty exclusively devoted to the Chinese classics ( jingxueke 經學
科).23 In addition, he introduced compulsory courses in lixue 理學,
the orthodox interpretation of the Confucian scriptures (and not by
any means John Fryer’s “science of reason”), in the department of
Chinese literature.24 Both decisions reflected Zhang’s distrust toward
all areas of new knowledge that had the potential further to unsettle
China’s “enlightened doctrine” (mingjiao 名教) and thus mirrored the
more conservative thrust of his proposal.25
Somewhat surprisingly in view of Yan Fu’s propaganda, logic was
not affected by Zhang’s misgivings. Even so, its status changed due
to the abolition of the preparatory section. In Zhang Zhidong’s cur-
riculum, the discipline to which he referred as bianxue 辨學 (“Bianxue
is called ronrigaku [Chin. lunlixue] 論理學 ‘the science of reasoning’ in
Japan but was known as ‘the science of debate’ in ancient China”)26
was listed as an elective (suiyi kemu 隨意科目) that students in the
department of Chinese classics could choose during the first and sec-
ond years of their studies. Those enrolled in literature, history, or for-
eign languages could only take it in their first year. Students of other
22
On the impact of Japan on late Qing educational reforms, see Abe Hiroshi
阿部洋, Chūgoku no kindai kyōiku to Meiji Nihon 中国の近代教育と明治日本 (Modern
Chinese education and Meiji Japan) (Tōkyō: Fukumura shuppan, 1990); idem, “Bor-
rowing from Japan: China’s First Modern Educational System,” in China’s Education
and the Industrialized World: Studies in Cultural Transfer, ed. Ruth Hayhoe and Marianne
Bastid (Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1987), 57–80; and Reynolds, Xinzheng Revolution,
131–150.
23
Zhang Baixi, Rong Qing, and Zhang Zhidong, “Daxuetang zhangcheng,”
98–101. The most outspoken critic of this decision was the young Wang Guowei,
who published a devastating review in the journal Jiaoyu shijie 教育世界 (The World of
Education). See Hermann Kogelschatz, Wang Kuo-wei und Schopenhauer. Eine philosophi-
sche Begegnung (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1986), 28–30; and Joey Bonner, Wang Kuo-wei:
An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), 35–39.
24
Zhang Baixi, Rong Qing, and Zhang Zhidong, “Daxuetang zhangcheng,”
104–105.
25
26
Zhang Baixi, Rong Qing, and Zhang Zhidong, “Daxuetang zhangcheng,” 101.
departments, including those in law and the natural sciences, had no

access to the discipline.27
For Zhang Zhidong, logic’s utility seemed to be restricted to phil-
ological studies. This impression was reinforced by remarks on the
subject included in the regulations for “Upper Normal Schools” ( youji
shifan xuetang 優級師範學堂) that were promulgated together with his
blueprint for the Imperial University in 1904.28 There, logic (“bianxue,
that is, lunlixue”) was defined as a science concerned with “expounding
the patterns of written expression” ( faming liyan zhulun zhi li 發明立
言著論之理) as well as “the methods of diction and refutation” (cuoci
bolun zhi fa 措辭駁論之法).29 As such, logic, together with ethics, clas-
sics, Chinese literature, Japanese, English, mathematics, and sports,
was one of the introductory courses in “general education” (gonggongke
公共科) that all students were required to take in their first year. Logic
was to be taught for three hours per week, dedicated to introducing
a “general outline” of the subject as well as essentials of “deduction,”
“induction,” and “methodology.” While this division, as will be dis-
cussed below, corresponded to the structure of most textbooks on logic
that became available during the last decade of the Qing, another
provision in this version of the regulations underlined that Zhang Zhi-
dong and his colleagues understood the discipline largely as a modern
extension of classical Chinese philology. In their third year, students
of Chinese literature were to be taught another three hours of bianxue
devoted to lessons in “phonology” (shengyinxue 聲音學) and “rhetoric”
27
Ibid., 101, 104, 107. In his alternative proposal, published together with his
scathing criticism, Wang Guowei suggested including logic (mingxue) in the curricula
of the departments of Chinese classics, Western philosophy, and Chinese and foreign
literature. Wang Guowei, “Zouding jingxueke daxue wenxueke daxue zhangcheng
shu hou” 奏定經學科大學文學科大學章程書後 (A postface to the regulations for
the Departments of Chinese Classics and Literature at the Imperial University, as
memorialized and approved), Jiaoyu shijie 118–119 (1906), reprinted in idem, Wang
Guowei xueshu wenhua suibi 王國維學術文化隨筆 (Occasional essays by Wang Guowei
on scholarship and culture), ed. Fo Chu 佛雛 (Beijing: Zhongguo qingnian chuban-
she, 1996), 22–31; 30.
28
“Zouding youji shifan xuetang zhangcheng” 奏定優級師範學堂章程 (Regu-
lations governing Upper Normal Schools, as memorialized and approved) (1904),
reprinted in Zhongguo jindai jiaoyu shiliao huibian, 414–428. “Upper Normal Schools”
were to be attached to the Imperial University in Beijing and at least one tertiary
institution in each provincial capital. See Li Jiequan (Li Kit Chuen) 李傑泉 “Qingmo
de shifan jiaoyu (1897–1911 nian)” 清末的師範教育 (1897–1911 年) (The history of
teacher training education in late Qing China, 1897–1911) (Ph.D. diss., The Chinese
University of Hong Kong, 1997), 97.
29
“Zouding youji shifan xuetang zhangcheng,” 415.
200 chapter four
(boyanxue 博言學), subjects that cannot easily be situated within the

conventional European boundaries of the science.30
2. Logic in Educational Practice

Little information has survived as to how these ideal regulations
translated into educational practice, at least with regard to the newly
instituted classes in the science of names or debate. One obvious prob-
lem was the recruitment of teachers capable of lecturing on the new
subject. The Imperial University circumvented the impasse by hiring
foreign instructors, mostly from Japan.31 Among the earliest Japanese
employees was Hattori Unokichi 服部宇之吉 (1867–1939),32 who was
to become one of Japan’s foremost sinologists after his return to Tōkyō
in 1909. Hattori was appointed professor of psychology and philoso-
phy at the Imperial University in 1902. Soon after his arrival, he was
promoted to dean of the Normal School Division where he taught
courses in education, psychology, and logic in addition to fulfilling
his administrative duties from 1904 onward.33 Another school in the
capital that included logic in its curriculum was the Beijing College
of Law and Administration ( Jingshi fazheng xuetang 京師法政學堂).
Here the discipline was taught beginning in 1906 by a Japanese lec-
turer named Kobayashi Yoshihito 小林吉人. Kobayashi taught logic
for one hour per week to second-year students preparing for studies in
30
Ibid., 418. On the place of linguistic subjects in the new curricula, with some
references to their relation to courses in logic, see Elisabeth Kaske, The Politics of
Language in Chinese Education, 1895–1919 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 250–272; on logic, see
268–270.
31
On the increasing numbers of Japanese instructors teaching in China from 1902
onwards, see Marianne Bastid, Aspects de la réforme de l’enseignement en Chine au début du
20e siècle d’après des écrits de Zhang Jian (Paris: Mouton, 1971), 49–51.
32
See Ōtsuka Yutaka 大塚豊, “Chūgoku kindai kōtō shihan kyōiku no hōga to
Hattori Unokichi” 中国近代高等師範教育の萌芽と服部宇之吉 (The beginnings of
modern higher normal education in China and Hattori Unokichi), Kokuritsu kyōiku
kenkyūjo kiyō 115 (1988): 45–64.
33
See Paula Harrell, “Guiding Hand: Hattori Unokichi in Beijing,” Sino-Japanese
Studies 11, no. 1 (1998): 13–20; 16–17; and Wang Daoyuan 王道元, “Jingshi da-
xuetang shifanguan” 京師大學堂師範館 (The Normal School at the Imperial Univer-
sity), in Beida jiushi 北大舊事 (Old matters of Peking University), ed. Chen Pingyuan
陳平原 and Xia Xiaohong 夏曉虹 (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 1998), 18–19. Two
textbooks based on Hattori’s lectures on logic at the Upper Normal School, published
in 1904 and 1908 respectively, and a brief introduction to logic he authored himself
will be discussed below.
law and administration and for two hours per week in the final year
of the college’s general curriculum.34
Educational institutions located outside the capital and cosmopolitan
centers like Shanghai, where not only Western but also sizeable Japa-
nese communities flourished,35 had even greater difficulties in enlisting
qualified staff, if they tried to do so at all. According to Abe Hiroshi,
not even schools in Zhili, the province surrounding the capital, were
able to offer courses in logic in the final years of the Qing dynasty,
and there is little evidence of more favorable circumstances in other
provinces.36 One exception was Jiangsu, where logic classes were insti-
tuted in 1906 at the Jiangsu Normal School ( Jiangsu shifan xuetang
江蘇師範學堂) on the initiative of the Japanese head teacher Fujita
Toyohachi 藤田豊八 (1870–1929), who had been working in Chinese
education for almost a decade.37 At Jiangsu Normal, logic was taught
as part of the general studies curriculum, for two hours per week dur-
ing the first year and one hour during the second.38
In many cases, instruction in logic depended on personal initiatives
like that of Lü Bicheng, the female student who persuaded Yan Fu in
1908 to give her private lessons in Tianjin. Similarly, Wang Guowei
had studied Jevons’s Elementary Lessons in Logic in one-on-one evening
classes with the just-mentioned Fujita Toyohachi at Shanghai’s Nan-
yang College in 1902.39 Another case of individual initiative is attested
from the improbable location of Guiyang, the capital of the inland prov-
ince of Guizhou, where a certain Wang Yanzhi 王延直 (1872–1947)
founded a Society for the Study of Logic (Guiyang lunli xueshe 貴陽
論理學社) in 1905. Between 1905 and 1912, Wang taught nineteen
34
See Futami Takeshi 二見剛史, “Kyōshi hōsei gakudō no Nihonjin kyōshū” 京師
法政学堂の日本人教習 (The Beijing College of Law and Administration and Japa-
nese instructors), Kokuritsu kyōiku kenkyūjo kiyō 115 (1988): 75–89; 76–79.
35
See Joshua A. Fogel, “ ‘Shanghai–Japan’: The Japanese Residents’ Association of
Shanghai,” Journal of Asian Studies 59, no. 4 (2000): 927–950.
36
See Abe Hiroshi, “Shinmatsu Chokurei shō no kyōiku kaikaku to Watanabe
Ryūsei” 清末直隷省の教育改革と渡辺龍聖 (Educational reforms in late Qing Zhili
and Watanabe Ryūsei), Kokuritsu kyōiku kenkyūjo kiyō 115 (1988): 7–25.
37
See Kageyama Masahiro 蔭山雅博, “Shinmatsu Kōso kyōiku kaikaku to Fujita
Toyohachi” 清末江蘇の教育改革と藤田豊八 (Educational reforms in late Qing
Jiangsu and Fujita Toyohachi), Kokuritsu kyōiku kenkyūjo kiyō 115 (1988): 26–44; 43. See
also Abe Hiroshi, Chūgoku no kindai kyōiku, 172–176.
38
Kageyama, “Fujita Toyohachi,” 36.
39
Wang Guowei, “Zixu” 自序 (Autobiographical note), Jiaoyu shijie 148 (1907),
reprinted in idem, Wang Guowei xueshu wenhua suibi, 36–42; 39. See Kogelschatz, Wang
Kuo-wei, 17–18; and Bonner, Wang Kuo-wei, 57.
202 chapter four
courses on logic to a sufficiently curious public and compiled his own

textbook to complement his lectures.40 In Shanghai, the discipline was
offered from 1903 onward at the Jesuit-supported Université l’Aurore
(Zhendan xueyuan 震旦學院), which was lauded by Liang Qichao as
“China’s first modern university.”41 Under its founding principal Ma
Xiangbo, who had been educated in the Jesuit seminary at Zikawei,
the school implemented a comprehensive French-inspired curriculum.
Logic was taught by Ma himself as part of an advanced course in
philosophy until March 1905, when a rift between nationalistically
aroused students and the Jesuit sponsors of the school led to the tem-
porary closing of Zhendan and the founding of a “revived Aurore”
(Fudan gongxue 复旦公學), the ancestor of Fudan University, in new
facilities.42 Ma resumed his lectures on logic at the new institution
as soon as it became operational. After the reopening of Zhendan,
logic courses there were continued by Ma’s classmate and fellow Jesuit
novice Li Wenyu 李問魚 (Li Di 李杕, 1840–1911).43 Both Ma and Li
presented modernized varieties of Jesuit-Aristotelian logic that, as we
shall see below in an analysis of the textbooks they compiled for their
classes, had little in common with the discipline as taught in other
institutions at the time.
How much logic students in late Qing China could actually learn
from these early educational attempts remains uncertain. Fond
40
Wang Yanzhi, Putong yingyong lunlixue, preface, 2a–b. See Jin Jianguo 金建國 and
Huang Hengjiao 黃恆蛟, “Lun Wang Yanzhi ‘Putong yingyong lunlixue’—Yunnan
jindai diyi ben putong luoji” 論王延直《普通應用論理學》—雲南近代第一本普
通邏輯 (On Wang Yanzhi’s General and Applied Logic, the first general logic in modern
Yunnan), Yunnan shifan daxue xuebao, no. 4 (1983): 43–49; and Su Yue 蘇岳, “Wang
Yanzhi de ‘Putong yingyong lunlixue’ ” 王延直的《普通應用論理學》(Wang Yan-
zhi’s General and Applied Logic), Fazhi yu shehui, no. 18 (2008): 270–271.
41
Liang Qichao, “Zhu Zhendan shuyuan zhi qiantu” 祝震旦書院之前途 (Wishes
for the future of the Université l’Aurore) (1902), reprinted in Ma Xiangbo yu Fudan daxue
馬相伯與復旦大學 (Ma Xiangbo and Fudan University), ed. Zong Youheng 宗有恆
and Xia Lingen 夏林根 (Taiyuan: Shanxi jiaoyu chubanshe, 1996), 238–239. See
Ruth Hayhoe, “Towards the Forging of a Chinese University Ethos: Zhendan and
Fudan, 1903–1919,” China Quarterly 94 (1983): 323–341; 329–330.
42
Ibid., 333–336. For Ma’s own account of the split, see Ma Xiangbo, Yiri yitan,
1106–1111. See also Zhao Shaoquan 趙少荃, “Fudan daxue chuangli jingguo” 复旦
大學創立經過 (The path to the foundation of Fudan daxue), in Ma Xiangbo yu Fudan
daxue, 257–265.
43
See Fang Hao, Renwuzhuan, vol. 3, 284–288. For an overview of Li’s writings, see
Joachim Kurtz, “The Works of Li Wenyu (1840–1911): Bibliography of a Chinese-
Jesuit Publicist,” Wakumon 11 (2006): 149–158; for his activities as a publisher, see
idem, “Messenger of the Sacred Heart.”
recollections by enthusiastic learners are scarce. The philosopher

Feng Youlan 馮友蘭 (1895–1990) recalls in his autobiography that
the logic course he attended shortly after the fall of the dynasty at the
acclaimed Chinese Public School (Zhongguo gongxue 中國公學) in
Shanghai was hardly enlightening. His class was taught on the basis
of the original version of Jevons’s Logic and mainly aimed at improv-
ing students’ knowledge of the English language. If we are to believe
Feng’s somewhat smug account, his teachers, “like most of their con-
temporaries,” were so utterly ignorant of the subject that no one could
help him answer one of the study questions appended to Jevons’s
text.44 Yet, if Feng’s experience is at all representative, which it may
well be, we have to surmise that despite the efforts recounted in this
section, education in logic—outside very few exceptional schools—
remained at best rudimentary until the end of the Qing and into the
Republican period.
2. Logic in New-Style Textbooks
Whatever the quality of instruction in the new “schools without teach-

ers,” as one commentator pointedly called them,45 a beneficial effect
of the integration of logic in the new Chinese curricula was to spur
hectic activities by a host of new publishing houses that scrambled to
provide textbooks for the projected courses. As the historian Wang
Xiangrong has observed, “China at that point [that is, in 1902 when
the new school regulations were promulgated] had not one textbook
suited to its modern schools, nor a single person qualified to write
one.”46 Although this sweeping assessment may exaggerate the extent
of the problem with regard to the education system as a whole—after
all, China had not suddenly been turned into an intellectual tabula rasa
by the inclusion of about a dozen new disciplines into the country’s
curricula—it accurately reflected the situation in logic. As we have
seen above, not even Yan Fu felt competent to write his own book
on the subject. Consequently, textbooks in logic, as in many other
44
Feng Youlan 馮友蘭, Sansongtang zixu 三松堂自序 (Autobiography from the Hall
of Three Pines) (Beijing: Sanlian chubanshe, 1984), 197–198. See Guo Qiao, Luoji yu
wenhua, 131–132.
45
See Reynolds, Xinzheng Revolution, 117.
46
Wang Xiangrong 王向榮, Riben jiaoxi 日本教習 ( Japanese instructors) (Beijing:
Sanlian shudian, 1988), 156.
204 chapter four
disciplines, were almost exclusively the product of translation until the

founding of the Republic of China in 1912.47
Virtually all logic textbooks published in this decade were based on
Japanese models. Japan was discovered as China’s shortcut to moder-
nity after its impressive show of strength in the Sino-Japanese War.
Zhang Zhidong himself had formulated a forceful appeal to turn east-
ward in his Exhortation to Learning. The Japanese had already filtered
everything that might be of use to China from the vast and “extremely
complex” body of Western knowledge, Zhang argued, and because
Japan and China shared “the same race and the same script” (tongzu
tongwen 同族同文), absorbing the results of Japanese efforts would
be infinitely easier than attempting to seek wisdom directly from Europe
or North America.48 Based on this premise, the Qing government sent
the first eighteen Chinese students to Japan in the year 1898. In 1900,
their number rose to one thousand, and the wave peaked in 1906 with
six thousand new arrivals.49 For most of these students, as well as the
exiled reformers who had fled China in the aftermath of the Hundred
Days Reform, the encounter with Japanese modernity literally opened
up a new world. Liang Qichao described his awe upon arriving in this
new world in typically dramatic terms that reflected an impression
shared by many of his fellow travelers:
Books such as I have never seen before dazzle my eyes. Ideas such as I
have never encountered before baffle my brain. It is like seeing the sun after
being confined to a dark room, or like a parched throat getting wine.50
47
See Tan Ruqian 譚汝謙, “Zhong-Ri zhi jian yishu shiye de guoqu, xianzai yu
weilai” 中日之間譯書事業的過去現在與未來 (Translation work between Chinese
and Japanese: Past, present and future), in idem and Sanetō Keishū 実藤恵秀, Zhong-
guo yi Ribenshu zonghe mulu 中國譯日本書綜合目錄 (Comprehensive bibliography of
Japanese books in Chinese translation) (Hong Kong: Zhongwen daxue chubanshe,
1980), 37–117; 62.
48
See Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian, 639; and Tze-ki Hon, “Zhang Zhidong’s Pro-
posal for Reform: A New Reading of the Quanxue pian,” in Karl and Zarrow, Rethinking
the 1898 Reform Period, 77–98. On the notion of a “shared script” between China and
Japan more specifically, see Douglas R. Howland, Borders of Chinese Civilization: Geogra-
phy and History at Empire’s End (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996), 43–62.
49
Shen Diancheng 沈殿成 (ed.), Zhongguoren liuxue Riben bainian shi, 1896–1996 中國
人留學日本百年史 1896–1996 (A history of 100 years of Chinese students in Japan,
1896–1996), 2 vols. (Shenyang: Jilin jiaoyu chubanshe, 1997), vol. 1, 110–115.
50
Liang Qichao, “Lun xue Ribenwen zhi yi” (On the benefits of learning Japanese)
(1899), reprinted in idem, Yinbingshi wenji 飲冰室文集 (Collected essays from the Ice
Drinker’s Studio), ed. Lin Zhijun 林志鈞 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, [1936] 1990),
4:80–82; 4:80. Translation adapted from Reynolds, Xinzheng Revolution, 114.
Almost from the beginning, Chinese students made considerable efforts

to share the intoxicating new knowledge to which they had gained
access in Japan with their compatriots at home. In 1900, the first
Translation Society, the Yishu huibian she 譯書匯編社, was founded
in Tōkyō by a group of students committed to translating books and
articles from Japanese.51 Although this society was short-lived and
published only a limited number of texts, it set a precedent that many
similarly devoted groups emulated over the following decade. Many
groups published their own journals whose titles (Zhejiang chao 浙江潮,
Hubei 湖北, Jiangsu 江蘇, etc.) mirrored the fact that Chinese students
in Japan were organized in fraternities based on their regions of origin.52
In China itself, where many of the new-style periodicals from Japan
became instant successes, publishers rushed to exploit the opportuni-
ties the new education system offered producers of usable textbooks.53
In this effort, connections to Japan proved to be invaluable. Char-
acteristically, the most profitable publisher of the era, the Commer-
cial Press in Shanghai,54 was a Chinese-Japanese joint venture. Other
prominent presses depended no less on texts and know-how imported
from the East. Through joint ventures with Japanese presses Chinese
publishing houses had immediate access to the most recent titles on
modern knowledge, and with the growing number of students going to
or returning from Japan the problem of finding translators with sound
linguistic abilities could be resolved with increasing ease.
The number of translations from Japanese published in China
between 1896 and 1911 surpassed the Protestant output of the entire
nineteenth century. According to Xiong Yuezhi, at least 1,014 mono-
graphs based on Japanese texts appeared in China during these fifteen
years.55 Despite the meticulous detective work done by Xiong, and
51
See Sanetō Keishū, Zhongguoren liuxue Riben shi 中國人日本留學史 (A history of
Chinese students in Japan), trans. Tan Ruqian and Lin Qiyan 林啟彥 (Beijing: San-
lian shudian, 1983 [1960]), 217–221.
52
See Harrell, Sowing the Seeds, 89–94.
53
See “Jiaokeshu fakan gaikuang, 1868–1918” 教科書發刊概況 1868–1918 (A
survey of textbook publication in China, 1868–1918) (1934), reprinted in Zhongguo
jindai chuban shiliao chubian 中國近代出版史料初編 (First collection of materials on the
history of publishing in modern China), ed. Zhang Jinglu 張靜盧 (Shanghai: Shanghai
chubanshe, 1953), 219–253; 220–240.
54
See Jean-Pierre Drège, La Commercial Press de Shanghai, 1897–1949 (Paris: Institut
des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1978), 16–21.
55
Xiong Yuezhi, Xixue dongjian, 640.
206 chapter four
earlier by Tam Yue-him (Tan Ruqian) and Sanetō Keishū,56 all esti-
mates of the precise extent of Japanese influence through translation
in the late Qing must remain tentative. Textbooks in particular, usu-
ally printed on cheap paper and seldom bought by libraries, were
undoubtedly produced in far greater numbers than researchers have
been able to ascertain. This is confirmed by the case of logic texts.
While Xiong, Tam, and Sanetō mention only five textbooks on logic
translated from Japanese before 1911, Chen Yingnian identifies six,57
and existing studies in the history of logic in modern China reference
a combined seven,58 I have located twenty-two such texts. (For a com-
plete list, see Appendix A.)
The books chosen for translation reflected the contemporary state
of the science in Japan. In the first years of the twentieth century,
Japan’s logical scene was split along similar lines as the country’s phi-
losophers, as the initial focus on liberal and empiricist Western Euro-
pean thought had been replaced by inspirations from various brands
of German idealism and especially neo-Kantianism.59 In the realm
of logic, this division translated into competition between two broad
camps propagating divergent, but not mutually exclusive, definitions
of the discipline that mirrored contemporary debates in Europe. The
first camp, led by British logicians such as Jevons, conceived of logic as
a rather lean science examining the rules of reasoning in argumenta-
tion; the second, guided by the German psychologism that had been
brought to East Asia by Ludwig Busse (1862–1907) and Raphael von
Koeber (1848–1923), who worked as lecturers of philosophy at the
Imperial University in Tōkyō, treated logic as a Denkwissenschaft, that is,
a science studying the ways in which humans actually think.60 Works
56
Tan Ruqian and Sanetō Keishū, Zhongguo yi Ribenshu zonghe mulu, passim.
57
Chen Yingnian 陳應年, “Jindai Riben sixiangjia zhuzuo zai Qingmo Zhong-
guo de jieshao he chuanbo” 近代日本思想家著作在清末中國的介紹和傳播 (The
introduction and dissemination of works by modern Japanese thinkers in late Qing
China), in Zhong-Ri wenhua jiaoliushi lunwenji 中日文化交流史論文集 (Collected essays
on the history of cultural relations between China and Japan), ed. Zhong-Ri wen-
hua jiaoliushi yanjiuhui 中日文化交流史研究會 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1982),
262–282.
58
Li Kuangwu, Zhongguo luojishi, vol. 4, 162–180; Zhou Yunzhi, Liu Peiyu, et al.,
Zhongguo luojishi ziliaoxuan, vol. 6, 660–661; Song Wenjian, Luojixue de chuanru yu yanjiu,
16–21; and Guo Qiao, Luoji yu wenhua, 47–61.
59
See Gino K. Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 1862–1962: A Survey.
Tōkyō: Sophia University Press, 1968 [1962]), 28–31.
60
See Funayama, Meiji ronrigakushi, 36–37.
of different quality and length from both camps were translated into
Chinese during the first decade of the twentieth century.
1. Logic as the Science of Reasoning

The shared features of the textbooks based on works belonging to
the first camp included a strong focus on formal aspects of deductive
reasoning and a more or less complete disregard for psychologistic
explanations of the laws of thought. Otherwise, the texts differed in
scope, sophistication and, of course, the reliability of the translation.
The first textbook rendered from Japanese, Yang Yinhang’s 楊蔭杭
(1878–1945) Logic (Mingxue 名學),61 was a dense but elegantly written
treatise by a surprisingly self-confident translator. Yang had studied
law in Tōkyō before taking up a position in the Translation Office at
Shanghai’s Nanyang College.62 According to his “Directions to the
Reader,” he spent not “much more than ten days” completing his
adaptation.63 One reason he could proceed so swiftly was that he bor-
rowed his technical terminology virtually unaltered from his text of
departure. Somewhat more accommodating was his choice of exam-
ple sentences that he either selected from classical Chinese sources or
contexts reflecting contemporary societal concerns. In his preface he
traced the beginnings of logic to ancient Greece and India, the cra-
dle of “Eastern logic” (dongyang zhi mingxue 東洋之名學), and rejected
claims that the Chinese School of Names had produced valuable logi-
cal insights on the grounds that thinkers such as Gongsun Long and
Hui Shi may well have liked to argue but were indifferent to the “laws
of argumentation,” the central theoretical concern of the discipline.64
The logic presented in Yang’s book was strictly deductive, moving
in twenty chapters from terms, propositions, and syllogisms through
indirect inferences and conversions to an inventory of fallacies.
The Questions and Answers on Logic (Lunlixue wenda 論理學問答, 1903)
offered an even more concise introduction to deductive reasoning.65 It
61
Yang Yinhang 楊蔭杭 (trans.), Mingxue 名學 (Logic) (Tōkyō: Rixin congbianshe,
1902).
62
See Zou Zhenhuan, Yilin jiuzong, 102–104.
63
Yang Yinhang, Mingxue, 5.
64
Ibid., 2–3.
65
Fan Diji 范迪吉 (trans.), Lunlixue wenda 論理學問答 (Questions and answers on
logic), in Xinbian Putong jiaoyu baike quanshu 新編普通教育百科全書 (New encyclopedia
for general education), ed. Fan Diji (Shanghai: Huiwen xueshe, 1903).
208 chapter four
appeared in a series of high school primers adapted from a related col-

lection by the Japanese Fuzanbō press, supplemented by translations
of some chapters from the Japanese Imperial Encyclopedia (Teikoku hyakka
zensho 帝国百科全書, 1898–1908).66 The series comprised altogether
102 texts whose translations were allegedly completed within a single
year under the direction of a certain Fan Diji 范迪吉 about whom
very little is known.67 The poor quality of print and paper indicates a
rough-and-ready production process. Still, at least the rendition of the
volume on logic was quite reliable. Of the text’s sixty-eight folio pages,
fifty-eight were devoted to the standard topics of deductive reasoning,
starting from terms and propositions, moving on to opposition and
conversion, and ending with the rules of the syllogism. The remain-
ing pages were filled with diagrams illustrating the valid moods of the
syllogism (see below).
Takayama Rinjirō’s 高山林次郎 (Chogyū 樗牛, 1871–1902) Logic
(Ronrigaku 論理学),68 adapted by Wang Rongbao 汪榮寶 (1878–1933)
for the Translation Society in 1902,69 taught a very similar kind of
logic. Takayama is mainly known as a journalist, literary critic, and
theoretician of Japanese nationalism (Nipponshugi 日本主義) but after
graduating in philosophy from Tōkyō’s Imperial University in 1895
he first worked as a teacher of English and logic at a high school in
Sendai. His textbook was based on his lectures there. Although his
philosophical outlook was shaped by Nietzsche and the neo-Hegelian
T. H. Green, his logic displayed no idealist proclivities. Takayama
defined the discipline as the “science of the formal laws of inference.”70
He disputed the independent value of inductive reasoning and con-
sequently presented only deductive forms in his lectures.71 Wang
66
The volume on logic, written by an anonymous author, was entitled Ronrigaku
mondō 論理学問答 (Questions and answers on logic), in Futsūgaku mondō zensho 普通学
問答全書 (Complete anthology of questions and answers on general sciences) (Tōkyō:
Fuzanbō, 1896). For an overview of all titles in the series, see Sanetō Keishū, Zhong-
guoren liuxue Riben shi, 226–229.
67
See Reynolds, Xinzheng Revolution, 114; and Zou Zhenhuan, Yilin jiuzong, 112–114.
68
Takayama Rinjirō 高山林次郎, Ronrigaku 論理学 (Logic) (Tōkyō: Hakubunkan,
1898). On Takayama, see Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 60–62.
69
Wang Rongbao 汪榮寶 (trans.), “Lunlixue” 論理學 (Logic), Yishu huibian 譯書
匯編 (The Yi Shu Hui Pien) 2, no. 7 (September 1902): 1–59. On Wang Rongbao, see
Shen Guowei, “Shin Jiga” to sono goi 新爾雅とその語彙 (On the “New Erya” and its
vocabulary) (Tōkyō: Hakuteisha, 1995), 4–7.
70
Wang Rongbao, Lunlixue, 3.
71
Rongbao’s translation covered the first six chapters of Takayama’s

book, which included a general introduction followed by discussions of
terms, propositions, syllogisms, conversions, and direct inferences.72
More influential than the textbooks mentioned so far, which were
intended to serve as manuals for self-study, were two adaptations
of actual classroom lectures by Takashima Heizaburō 高島平三郎
(1865–1946), an expert on child education and professor of pedagogy
and psychology in Tōkyō. Takashima played no significant role on
Japan’s logic scene. Yet, in his capacity as instructor at the Kōbun
Gakuin 広文学院, a school established to prepare Chinese exchange
students for their studies at Japanese universities,73 he became the
face of the discipline for hundreds of aspiring young Chinese required
to take his introductory course in logic after their arrival in Japan.
Among his students were such notable figures as the novelist Lu Xun
魯迅 (Zhou Shuren 周樹人, 1881–1936), Huang Xing 黃興 (1874–
1916), one of the founders of the Guomindang, and Chen Duxiu 陳
獨秀 (1879–1942), a cofounder of the Chinese Communist Party.
From 1903 onward, partial transcripts of Takashima’s lectures were
serialized in the radical student monthly Jiangsu. In 1906, a complete
version was commissioned by Jiangsu’s Provincial Board of Educa-
tion and included in the curriculum of the Jiangsu Higher Normal
School.74 In the following year, a revised and commercially more suc-
cessful adaptation, translated under the direction of Takashima’s col-
league Kaneda Nisaku 金太仁作, who taught Japanese language at
the Kōbun Gakuin, appeared in Shanghai.75 Despite his background
in psychology, Takashima insisted on a clear distinction between his
own discipline and logic, “the science of the laws governing the forms
of thought.”76 Instead of analyzing actual operations of the human
mind, logic was only concerned with the ways in which concepts were
expressed in speech. The organization of Takeshima’s lectures fol-
lowed standard models of deductive reasoning and ended with a brief
overview of induction and its applications in the sciences. Throughout
72
Wang Rongbao, Lunlixue. See also Gu Xieguang, Yishu jingyan lu, 6.12a.
73
On the Kōbun Gakuin and its Chinese student population, see Sanetō Keishū,
Zhongguoren liuxue Riben shi, 46–47.
74
Jiangsu shifansheng 江蘇師範生 (trans.), Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic) (Nanjing:
Jiangsu ningshu xuewuchu, 1906).
75
Kaneda Nisaku 金太仁作 (trans.), Lunlixue jiaokeshu 論理學教科書 (A textbook
of logic) (Shanghai: Dongya gongsi, 1907).
76
Jiangsu shifansheng, Lunlixue, 2. See also Kaneda, Lunlixue jiaokeshu, 5–9.
210 chapter four
his work, Takashima went to great lengths to anticipate students’ ques-

tions and find examples to which they could relate. In his explanation
of definitions, for instance, he first discussed the traditional Chinese
practice of what he called “definition by glossing” (xungu zhi dingyi
訓詁之定義): “Tracing the origins of characters and taking the mean-
ings they were given when coined as definitions, as exemplified by
the [early dictionaries] Shuowen and Erya, is what we call ‘definition
by glossing.’ But,” he added as if echoing Yan Fu, “such theories are
never unified, often contradictory, and bear little relation to reality.”77
Takashima then also dismissed “descriptive definitions” ( jishu de dingyi
記述的定義), that is, definitions based on lists of the accidental
properties of a thing or event. To illustrate the flaws of this type of
definition he singled out a quote by Confucius that had been regarded
since Mencius as a perfect description of the way to maintain control
over the fickle human heart: “Hold on to it and it will remain; let go
of it and it will disappear. One never knows the time it comes or goes,
neither does one know the direction.”78 According to Takashima, this
statement could not be regarded as a proper definition because it did
not exhaust all aspects of the phenomenon it intended to capture.
For Chinese students who had spent most of their youth memorizing
just such quotations, Takashima’s pose of audacity—he subjected not
only Confucian maxims but also Buddhist and Daoist sayings to such
rigorous scrutiny—may have made the subject matter of his course
at least somewhat more appealing. On the other hand, Takashima
went into excruciating detail when discussing the forms of deductive
inference, most probably to ensure that all his students would learn to
apply them more or less effortlessly.79 On the whole the works based
on his lectures were still much better suited for pedagogical purposes
than most textbooks available at the time.
The most theoretically advanced work translated from Japanese in
the first decade of the twentieth century was Hu Maoru’s adaptation
77
Jiangsu shifansheng, Lunlixue, 24.
78
Ibid. Quotation from Mengzi 6A.8. English translation follows D. C. Lau (trans.),
Mencius (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1970), 165.
79
Both tendencies, the playful iconoclasm in the selection of examples illustrating
logical forms (“All rites and righteousness were discovered by sages; Mengzi does
not know rites and righteousness; therefore, Mengzi is not a sage”) and the pains-
taking detail of his explanations were amplified in the second, expanded version of
Takashima’s lectures compiled under the direction of Kaneda Nisaku. See Kaneda,
Lunlixue jiaokeshu, 55 and passim.
of Ōnishi Hajime’s 大西祝 (1864–1900) magisterial Logic (Ronrigaku 論

理学).80 Ōnishi taught the history of philosophy, logic, ethics, and aes-
thetics at the Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō 東京専門学校, the precursor of
Waseda University.81 He was among the Japanese pilgrims who visited
Wilhelm Wundt’s Institute for Experimental Psychology in Leipzig in
1898 and, like other members of the delegation, was deeply influenced
by what he learned there. His Logic, however, was written prior to
that visit and insisted on a strict separation between logic and psy-
chology.82 The voluminous work was divided into three parts: the first
half was devoted to deductive reasoning, presented very much in the
usual order but including imperfect and hypothetical syllogisms. In
addition, an appendix offered a brief chapter on the “quantification
of the predicate” (keyu zhi fuliang 客語之附量) that showed Ōnishi’s
work at the cutting edge of contemporary developments, even if these
soon proved to be misguided. The second half was subdivided into two
parts: a modern reinterpretation of Indian Buddhist logic and a section
on induction. Ōnishi’s excursion into Buddhist reasoning, the earliest
study of yinming in terms of modern formal logic to become available in
Chinese, included a detailed comparison between the Buddhist “tripar-
tite inference” (sanzhi zuofa 三支作法) and the Aristotelian syllogism.83
The chapters on induction highlighted deficits of deductive reasoning
for scientific practice in both Buddhist and Western syllogistics and
ended with a detailed examination of Mill’s “four canons of induc-
tion.” One peculiar feature of the work was a preface, allegedly written
by a certain Li Mingyang 李鳴陽 but in fact composed by translator
Hu Maoru himself,84 that offered, besides much praise for the transla-
tion, a scathing critique of China’s failure to produce logical insights of
any value. Although Confucius and Mencius realized the importance
of the “correct use of names” (zhengming 正名) and the necessity of
“knowing speech” (zhiyan 知言), Hu aka Li wrote, neither was able to
80
Hu Maoru 胡茂如 (trans.), Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic) (N.p.: Hebei yishushe, 1906),
based on Ōnishi Hajime 大西祝, Ronrigaku 論理学 (Logic) (Tōkyō: Tōkyō senmon
gakkō, 1895).
81
See Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 42–47.
82
Hu Maoru, Lunlixue, 4–5.
83
Ibid., 55. See Funayama, Meiji ronrigakushi, 84–87 and 117–119.
84
That the preface was written by Hu Maoru was admitted by his friend Gu
Zhongxiu 谷鐘秀 (1874–1949) in the latter’s preface to the third edition, published in
1914 after Hu’s premature death. Hu Maoru 胡茂如 (trans.), Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic)
(Shanghai: Taidong tushuju, 1914), preface by Gu Zhongxiu, i.
212 chapter four
explain “how names could be corrected and speech be made reliable.”85

Even Xunzi who clearly understood the conventional nature of names
failed to grasp the rules according to which these needed to be related
in making valid arguments. Still more “ridiculous” were claims that
the School of Names resolved this issue, and assertions that classical
philology provided adequate tools were yet further off the mark. The
bleak truth was that “in several thousand years” of Chinese intellectual
history “not one” thinker had formulated an “art of correcting names
and knowing speech.” As a result “scholarship had become ever more
obscure, political doctrine declined, culture and education stagnated,
and society was led on a road to ruin.”86 In order “to salvage what
has been lost and reverse the decline” nothing was more important for
China than to study “the art of knowing speech and science of the cor-
rect use of names,” as laid out in Ōnishi’s book. Ōnishi was not only
the most respected logician in Japan; by including Buddhist logic in his
account he could also be regarded as the founder of a new “universal
logic” (tianxia zhi lunlixue 天下之論理學) that went beyond the insights
of even the most advanced European scholars.87
The slim First Steps in Logic (Lunlixue chubu 論理學初步), compiled
by anonymous editors at the Junyi Press in Shanghai, opened with an
emphatic appeal to educators to exert themselves in the study of the
new discipline. “Achievements are born from thought,” the compilers
wrote in their preface, imitating the style of the famous chain argu-
ment in the Greater Learning,
and it is today’s children who will determine the future achievements
of the world. Those who wish that their children’s achievements be free
from error, must first ensure that their thoughts are free from error. Those
who wish that future thoughts be free from error, must first ensure that
today’s knowledge is free from error. And those who wish that today’s
knowledge be free from error, must first ensure that educators’ knowl-
edge is free from error. For educators wishing their knowledge to be free
from error, there is nothing more important than logic.88
The burden placed on educators was particularly heavy in view of
what the editors singled out as errors of thought rooted in corrupt
85
Hu Maoru, Lunlixue, preface by Li Mingyang, i.
86
Ibid., ii.
87
Ibid., iii.
88
Junyi tushu gongsi 均益圖書公司 (ed.), Lunlixue chubu 論理學初步 (First steps in
logic) (Shanghai: Junyi tushu gongsi, 1907), preface, 1a.
Chinese customs. Five of these errors were especially egregious:

“Close-mindedness” was a result of China’s territorial separation that
obstructed national unity and the dissemination of new ideas. “Emp-
tiness,” that is, superstitious beliefs in ghosts or spirits, was a conse-
quence of blind adherence to unverified precepts. “Punctiliousness,”
“muddle-headedness,” and the “readiness to echo what others say”
were embedded in rigid social hierarchies.89 Studying logic, the editors
claimed, could correct all these errors by training the mind to follow
definitive laws.
The contents of the First Steps in Logic hardly lived up to such hyper-
bole. The text offered little more than a stripped-down version of key
tenets of deductive reasoning, culled verbatim and without references
from earlier titles. The book’s only remarkable components were three
sections promising to elucidate the complex relation between logic and
grammar. Yet, instead of offering pertinent explanations, here too the
editors only copied, again without indicating their source, the defini-
tions of the parts of speech and their syntactical functions given in Ma
Jianzhong’s 馬建忠 (1844–1900) Mr. Ma’s Principles of Refined Writing
(Mashi wentong 馬氏文通), the first grammar of the Chinese language
written in Chinese, but failed to establish meaningful links between
logic and the specific features of individual languages.90
More successful in this regard was a partial adaptation of W. S.
Jevons’s Elementary Lessons in Logic91 that was serialized in nine install-
ments in the reformist magazine Xuebao (Learning) between December
1906 and January 1908.92 As outlined in its mission statement, the jour-
nal was established to introduce “all knowledge our contemporaries
need to study, as citizens of China and citizens of the world.”93 The
89
Ibid., 1b–2a.
90
Ibid., 2b–8a. All quotations were taken from the introductory section of the
Mashi wentong; see Ma Jianzhong 馬建忠, Mashi wentong 馬氏文通 (Mr. Ma’s principles
of refined writing) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1983), 19–32. On Ma’s work, see
the discussion in Lydia Liu, Clash of Empires, 191–209.
91
William Stanley Jevons, Elementary Lessons in Logic: Deductive and Inductive, with copi-
ous questions and examples, and a vocabulary of logical terms (London: Macmillan, [1870]
1886). The work was one of the most widely used textbooks in late-nineteenth- and
early-twentieth-century Europe and North America and had been translated into all
major Western languages.
92
Zhang Lizhai 張立齋 [Zhang Junmai 張君勱] (trans.), “Yefangsi shi lunlixue” 耶
方思氏論理學 (Mr. Jevons’s Logic), Xuebao 1, no. 1 (1906): 1–28; 1, no. 2 (1907): 29–60;
1, no. 3 (1907): 51–72; 1, no. 4 (1907): 1–48; 1, no. 5 (1907): 1–44; 1, no. 6 (1907):
1–36; 1, no. 7 (1907): 137–156; 1, no. 11 (1908) (not seen); and 1, no. 12 (1908): 13–35.
93
“Xuli” 敘例 (Preface), Xuebao 1, no. 1 (1906): iii–iv.
214 chapter four
propagation of logic, which taught how to apply “general rules” in

thought and argument, was an important part of this universalist
enterprise. Because logic was an unusually “profound” discipline, the
editors promised “clear and fluent” translations of logical texts.94 The
rendition of Jevons’s work, which comprised seventeen of the book’s
thirty-three chapters,95 lived up to this advertisement. The translator
Zhang Junmai 張君勱 (1887–1969) had studied at the Jiangnan Arse-
nal’s College of Foreign Languages and the Jesuit Université l’Aurore
in Shanghai before enrolling at Tōkyō’s Waseda University in 1906.
Although by his own admission Zhang was more fluent in English
than Japanese,96 he consulted versions in both languages to produce
an accurate and highly readable translation.97
Emulating Yan Fu’s example, Zhang complemented his adapta-
tion with copious notes. About half of these recounted the history of
logic in Europe and tried to situate Jevons’s opinions in contemporary
debates. Presented in an authoritative voice, most of these informa-
tive digressions were adapted from the Encyclopædia Britannica (10th ed.,
1902–1903). Zhang veiled his reliance on this work by directly citing
the authors and texts mentioned therein.98 A few of his more indepen-
dent notes discussed the rendering of key words such as “logic” (for
which he advocated, contra Yan Fu, lunlixue 論理學 ‘the science of
reasoning’ ), “term” (duanci 端辭 ‘end word’ ) and “syllogism” (tuiceshi
94
Ibid., vii.
95
The Xuebao presented slightly abbreviated adaptations of lessons I–X and
XII–XVIII.
96
See Cheng Wenxi 程文熙, “Zhang Junmai xiansheng zhi yanxing,” 張君勱先
生之言行 (Words and deeds of Mr. Zhang Junmai), in Zhang Junmai xiansheng qishi
shouqing jinian lunwenji 張君勱先生七十壽慶紀念論文集 (Essays commemorating the
seventieth birthday of Mr. Zhang Junmai), ed. Wang Yunwu 王雲五 (Taibei: Wenhai
chubanshe, 1956), 1–53; 12.
97
The Japanese version of Jevons’s Lessons available to Zhang was Soeda Juichi
添田寿一 (trans.), Zebon shi Ronri shinpen 惹穩氏論理新編 (Mr. Jevons’s New Logic)
(Tōkyō: Maruzen, 1883). On Jevons’s reception in Japan, see Funayama, Meiji ron-
rigakushi, 36–39.
98
Instead of referring readers to the encyclopedia, Zhang thus cited “a work by
Robert Adamson” (the author of the Britannica article on “Logic”) as well as a number
of texts quoted therein, including “Mill’s article on Hamilton,” “Überweg’s globally
famous History of Philosophy,” etc. Zhang Junmai, “Yefangsi shi Lunlixue,” Xuebao 1,
no. 2 (1907): 45; 1, no. 2 (1907): 54–55; 1, no. 5 (1907): 33–35. It is interesting to
note that even Zhang’s discussion of similarities and differences between European
logic and Buddhist yinming reasoning relied on Adamson’s review of “Hindu Systems
of Logic” in the Britannica; see Xuebao 1, no. 2 (1907): 57–59.
推測式 ‘a form of inference’ ).99 Zhang’s most original contributions,

however, concerned the intimate relations between logic and language
that, as he pointed out, were also emphasized by Jevons. If Jevons
was correct in assuming that “a country’s logic” was shaped by its
language, then it was necessary in adapting the discipline to take into
account the specific features of the Chinese language and the ways
in which it was commonly understood. Zhang had been alerted to
this complex issue when reading Ōnishi Hajime’s Logic. As the first
author to do so from an East Asian perspective, Ōnishi had denied the
claim of traditional syllogistics that the copula was an indispensable
link between the two terms related in logical propositions. Instead, he
argued, its presence was not a universal requirement but the result of
a particular feature of European languages, namely, the ambiguity of
the verb “to be” that was used in a predicative function as well as to
express identity and existence.100 Zhang cited Ōnishi’s analysis, which
echoed concerns articulated by Frege and Russell, with “great admira-
tion.” One immediate conclusion he drew from his reading of Ōnishi
was that it was unnecessary to rewrite Chinese phrases in a manner
that violated “current grammar” (tongxing wenli 通行文例) to mimic
the way logical propositions happened to be represented in English.101
But it also led him to call for more substantial studies of the relation-
ship between logic and language in China.
Zhang offered some thoughts about the direction such investigations
should take in his notes. Expanding the scope of Chinese philology
was of crucial importance. Although Chinese scholars were usually
well versed in “distinguishing characters” (bianzi 辨字), philological
insights had remained scattered in traditional literature. In addition,
only semantics (zhengzi 正字) and phonology ( yinyun 音韻) had attained
a satisfactory level of sophistication while the other two branches of
European philology—morphology (cixing 詞性) and syntax (zhangju
章句)—were hardly developed.102 Thus, equivocation, which was an
99
Zhang Junmai, “Yefangsi shi Lunlixue,” Xuebao 1, no. 1 (1906): 16–17; 1, no. 2
(1907): 46–47; 1, no. 3 (1907): 52.
100
Hu Maoru, Lunlixue, 12–13. For in-depth discussions of this ambiguity and its
consequences, see the articles in The Logic of Being: Historical Studies, ed. Simu Knuut-
tila and Jaakko Hintikka (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1986). Classic examples illustrating the
three uses of “to be” are “Socrates is wise” (predicative function), “Socrates is Plato’s
teacher” (identity), and “Socrates is” (existence).
101
Zhang Junmai, “Yefangsi shi Lunlixue,” Xuebao 1, no. 3 (1907): 52–53.
102
Ibid., 55–57.
216 chapter four
especially vexing phenomenon in China due to the large number of

homophones, had been analyzed with good results at least since the
second century.103 But there was still no Chinese grammar defining
basic types of sentences similar to the inventory of English phrases
discussed in Jevons’s Lessons with regard to their logical qualities. Nor
did Zhang find help in Chinese philology to explain the difference
between “concrete” and “abstract” terms that was marked morpho-
logically in Western languages (for instance, by suffixes such as “-ness”
or “-ity” in English) but needed to be inferred from the contextual
meaning in Chinese.104 Although Zhang’s disquisitions did not add up
to a comprehensive theory of the intricate relations between language
and logic in Chinese, his thoughtful remarks highlighted key issues that
no other translator had as yet addressed. It is therefore all the more
regrettable that his translation project was aborted when Xuebao was
abruptly discontinued in January 1908.
The translation produced in the final decade of the Qing that enjoyed
the strongest official backing was Wang Guowei’s Logic (Bianxue 辨學),105
a new rendition of Jevons’s Elementary Lessons completed only a few
months after Zhang Junmai’s version stalled. Wang was undoubtedly
one of the most accomplished translators of his generation. Versed in
both English and Japanese, and equipped with a reading knowledge
of German and French, he had already translated twelve monographs
and dozens of articles on topics ranging from agriculture, geography,
pedagogy, physics, mathematics, and law to philosophy, the intellec-
tual passion of his early years,106 when he was entrusted with adapting
Jevons’s Lessons by the Translation Office at the Imperial University in
Beijing. Like Zhang Junmai, Wang consulted both the English original
and its Japanese rendition for his translation. As in his earlier works,
Wang paid equal attention to clarity and consistency. His adapta-
tion followed the wording of his source text closely but not slavishly;
103
Zhang Junmai, “Yefangsi shi Lunlixue,” Xuebao 1, no. 4 (1907): 7–9. Chinese
scholars had also paid close attention to processes of “desynonymization” (potong 破同),
that is, the successive differentiation of initially synonymous words. Ibid., 28–29.
104
Zhang Junmai, “Yefangsi shi Lunlixue,” Xuebao 1, no. 3 (1907): 59–60.
105
Wang Guowei (trans.), Bianxue 辨學 (Logic) (Beijing: Jingshi Wudaomiao
shoushuchu, 1908).
106
There is as yet no complete list of Wang’s translations outside the area of phi-
losophy. For the latter, see Fo Chu 佛雛, Wang Guowei zhexue yigao yanjiu 王國維哲學
譯稿研究 (A study of Wang Guowei’s translations of philosophy) (Beijing: Zhongguo
shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2006).
the style was lucid throughout. The English-Chinese glossary of 121

key terms that he appended to the final version revealed that he bor-
rowed his technical terminology from the Japanese version of Jevons’s
work—with the lone exception of the term bianxue ‘logic’, which the
Ministry of Education continued to use in its official publications ever
since Zhang Zhidong had inserted it in the regulations governing the
Imperial University. Wang left no preface and added only a few anno-
tations. One note explained curtly that the copula was necessary in
Western languages but often absent in Chinese sentences “where its
meaning is nevertheless present.”107 His only major alteration was the
omission of Lesson 11, in which Jevons explained the relation between
ordinary language and the rules of logic. Since this discussion was
largely based on peculiarities of the English language, Wang may have
considered it either as too difficult to translate or of too little interest to
his mostly monolingual readers. His work was officially recommended
for classroom use by the Ministry of Education immediately after it
appeared in print and became one of the most widely used textbooks
in China for several years.
2. Logic as the Laws of Thought

The second broad group of textbooks adapted from Japan conceived of
logic as a science examining the laws of thought, either as an integral
part of psychology or as a philosophical science with a strong epistemo-
logical or metaphysical component. The earliest translation emanating
from this camp was Lin Zutong’s 林祖同 Guide to Logic (Lunlixue dazhi
論理學達恉, 1902).108 Dissatisfied with Edkins’s and Fryer’s “incompe-
tent” introductions to the discipline that contained “mostly irrelevant
disquisitions,”109 Lin adapted an esteemed, if slightly dated, Japanese
textbook by Kiyono Ben 清野勉 (1853–1904).110 Next to Nishi Amane
西周 (1829–1897), who gained renown as an early propagator of Mill
and Comte111 and, as we shall see below, played an important part in the
creation of the Japanese philosophical and logical lexicon, Kiyono was
107
Wang Guowei, Bianxue, 9.
108
Lin Zutong 林祖同 (trans.), Lunlixue dazhi 論理學達恉 (A guide to logic) (Tōkyō:
Wenming shuju, 1902). See Gu Xieguang, Yishu jingyan lu, 12b.
109
Lin Zutong, Lunlixue dazhi, i.
110
Kiyono Ben 清野勉, En’eki kinō ronrigaku 演繹帰納論理学 (Logic, deductive and
inductive) (Tōkyō: Kinkōdō, 1892).
111
See Havens, Nishi Amane, 98–107.
218 chapter four
the second most famous Japanese logician of his generation. Although

he criticized many of Nishi’s terminological suggestions, Kiyono was
as staunch a believer in Mill’s inductionism as his counterpart. Unlike
Nishi and Mill, however, he also held that logic was an empirical, and
not just theoretical, science describing the laws governing the actual
movements of human thought as expressed in language.112 This exalted
conception allowed him to present logic as a science with potentially
unlimited practical applications, not only in the natural sciences where
inductive methods all but guaranteed a steady stream of new discover-
ies, but also in legal and political debates where those familiar with the
rules of deductive reasoning could be sure to keep their opponents at
bay.113 The more conventional chapters of the Lunlixue dazhi following
these emphatic promises struck a pragmatic balance between induc-
tion and deduction. Of the book’s thirty-one sections, the first twenty-
four were dedicated to deductive reasoning, while the remaining seven
introduced inductive methods such as observation, experimentation,
and verification. Lin Zutong’s rendition followed the structure and ter-
minology of Kiyono’s text but at times went very far in “simplifying”
the subject matter for impatient readers.114
Another early work with an unmistakable psychologistic bent was
Tian Wuzhao’s 田吳炤 (1870–1926) Outline of Logic (Lunlixue gangyao
論理學綱要), distributed in a handsome edition by the Commercial
Press just after the publisher entered the textbook market.115 In his
“Directions to the Reader,” Tian alerted his audience that his work,
even though using a different name, still introduced the same science
as Edkins’s Bianxue qimeng and Yan Fu’s Mingxue.116 Totoki Wataru
十時弥 (1874–1940), the author of Tian’s text of departure,117 was
a student of Nakajima Rikizō 中島力造 (1858–1918), a professor
112
Lin Zutong, Lunlixue dazhi, 2–4.
113
Ibid., 5–9.
114
Ibid., ii. For a discussion of Lin’s terminology, see Joachim Kurtz, “Translating
the Science of Sciences: European and Japanese Models in the Formation of Chinese
Logical Terminology, 1886–1911,” in Historiography and Japanese Consciousness of Values
and Norms, ed. James C. Baxter and Joshua A. Fogel (Kyoto: International Research
Institute for Japanese Studies, 2002), 53–76.
115
Tian Wuzhao 田吳炤 (trans.), Lunlixue gangyao 論理學綱要 (Outline of logic)
(Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1903).
116
Tian Wuzhao, Lunlixue gangyao, 1a.
117
Totoki Wataru 十時弥, Ronrigaku kōyō 論理学綱要 (Outline of logic) (Tōkyō:
Dai Nihon tosho, 1900).
of philosophy at the University of Tōkyō.118 From his teacher, who

contributed a preface to the Japanese edition, Totoki had inherited
a “logical idealism” that attributed objective existence to the laws of
thought.119 In the brief work chosen for translation by the Commercial
Press, however, the idealist overtones were muted. If at all, they were
obvious only in the opening chapter discussing the laws of thought and
the relation between thought and language. The main body of the text
covered less controversial terrain, explaining standard topics including
definitions and methods of classification, propositions, deductive rea-
soning, syllogisms, and induction. The final chapter provided exercises
in the application of logical rules in argumentation. More remark-
able than the content was the timid attitude with which Tian Wuzhao
approached his translation. In his preface, Tian justified his extreme
caution by pointing to the novelty of his subject:
In books of this kind there are many words that we have never seen
before because they deal with specialized theories (zhuanmen xueshuo 專
門學說). The technical terms in the original were adapted from Western
books by Japanese scholars after much research and deliberation. When
we [Chinese] today first translate or read [books of this kind] it is as if
we can only peep through the keyhole. Therefore, I did not dare to alter
anything at will.120
In fact, Tian left even the nontechnical terminology untouched and
also shied away from adapting examples, symbols, and sometimes the
syntax of example sentences, which forced him more often than not
to add rather awkward explanations. A student’s progress through the
text was hindered, for instance, by glosses such as “Note: 洋書 ( yang-
shu, Japanese yōsho, ‘books from overseas’ ) is what the Japanese call
xishu 西書 ‘Western books’ .”121 Yet, even if his timidity affected the
book’s readability, on the whole Tian’s translation was still consistent
and reliable.
The strongest and most influential voice of psychologistic logic
in late Qing China was that of Hattori Unokichi, the dean of the
Imperial University’s Normal School Division in Beijing. Three books
based on Hattori’s lectures and a brief introduction to logic he had
published in Japan prior to his arrival in China appeared in print
118
On Nakajima, see Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 63–66.
119
120
Tian Wuzhao, Lunlixue gangyao, 1a.
121
Ibid., 4b. For further examples, see ibid., 6b, 16b–18a.
220 chapter four
between 1904 and 1908. Lectures in Logic (Lunlixue jiangyi 論理學講

義)122 was written by Hattori himself as a companion to his classes at
the Normal School. In his preface, Hattori dismissed the existing
Chinese textbooks as unsuitable for his purposes. Nor did works in
Japanese or European languages offer feasible alternatives: students’
knowledge of Japanese was too uneven, and some studied English while
others learned German or French. Hattori claimed that the content of
his outline, supplemented with oral explanations and practical exer-
cises, could be taught in a one-semester course of four hours per week.
Even less time was needed to work through a Chinese adaptation of
Hattori’s thin A Textbook of Logic (Ronrigaku kyōkasho 論理学教科書).
Translator Tang Yan 唐演 promised prospective readers that the con-
tents of the entire book could be taught in thirty hours.123 Much more
ambitious was an annotated transcript of Hattori’s lectures compiled by
his student Han Shuzu 韓述組 under the title Logic (Lunlixue 論理學) in
1908.124 Han, who simultaneously published a volume of his teacher’s
lectures in psychology, not only incorporated the “oral explanations”
and “supplementary exercises” missing from Hattori’s own outline
but also claimed to have added substantial portions to the sections on
induction. To advertise both works, Han solicited prefaces from high-
ranking officials. The career diplomat Dashou 達壽 ( jinshi 1894) lauded
logic as a potential cure for China’s persistent weakness in negotiating
international treaties,125 and the Hanlin academician Wang Rongguan
王榮官 (1883–?) praised the discipline as a fundamental “science seek-
ing the unity of knowledge.”126 Han himself used his “Directions to the
Reader” to underline Hattori’s view that “logic is a part of psychol-
ogy” and that one could not be studied fruitfully without the other.127
For Hattori, who had received part of his training at the University of
Berlin,128 logic was much more than the formal science taught in con-
ventional deductive treatises. In accordance with German neo-idealist
122
Hattori Unokichi 服部宇之吉, Lunlixue jiangyi 論理學講義 (Lectures in logic)
(Tōkyō: Fuzanbō; Shanghai: Quanxuehui, 1904; second ed. 1905).
123
Tang Yan 唐演 (trans.), Zuixin lunlixue jiaokeshu 最新論理學教科書 (Latest text-
book on logic) (Shanghai: Wenming shuju, 1908), i. The original was Hattori Unokichi,
Ronrigaku kyōkasho 論理学教科書 (A textbook of logic) (Tōkyō: Fuzanbō, 1899).
124
Han Shuzu 韓述組 (comp.), Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic) (Shanghai: Wenming shuju,
1908).
125
Ibid., preface by Dashou 達壽, i.
126
Ibid., preface by Wang Rongguan 王榮官, ii.
127
Han Shuzu, Lunlixue, 2.
128
See Harrell, “Guiding Hand,” 14–15.
positions, he held that formal aspects needed to be taken into account

mainly to understand the material workings of the human mind. As
part of this broader project, logicians tried to reconstruct how concepts
came to be expressed by the intellect and how they related to objec-
tive reality. All three books in which Hattori had a hand followed the
same structure. They opened with an introduction outlining the scope,
forms, and substance of thought. The main “material” part moved
from the explication of concepts to judgments and reasoning, all of
which were rooted in empirically verifiable laws of thought, through
various kinds of syllogisms and forms of inductive inferences to the
law of causality. A final “methodological” part was devoted to dis-
cussions of definition, classification, and verification. Examples were
chosen from a broad variety of sources, ranging from Mengzi and Han
Feizi to statements taken from current political discussions, the lat-
ter usually displaying firm conservative convictions: “Based on the
observation that one or two nations with republican governments are
powerful, we cannot conclude that this form of government is best for
all countries.”129 Hattori thus seems to have transposed not only his
radically psychologistic understanding of the purpose and function of
logic but also the political proclivities with which this understanding
of the discipline was linked in late Meiji Japan.
Far less sophisticated than Hattori’s was a textbook for use in ele-
mentary normal school classes compiled at the Commercial Press in
1906 under the generic title of Logic (Lunlixue 論理學). Yang Tianji
楊天驥 (1882–1958), who supervised the “revision” of the book, indi-
cated in his preface that the text was rendered from Japanese but
left no hints regarding its source or translator.130 The basic outlook
of the work resonated with Tian Wuzhao’s Outline of Logic, published
some years earlier by the same press. Both presented logic as a sub-
discipline of psychology probing the mental phenomena associated
with inference and reasoning. Although Yang claimed that the new
book offered “more details on induction and deduction,” it provided
in fact little more than a string of coarse and insufficiently connected
definitions of basic logical notions. Despite its declared emphasis on
practical application, the text was obviously designed for rote learning.
129
Han Shuzu, Lunlixue, 167.
130
Yang Tianji 楊天驥 (rev.), Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic) (Shanghai: Shangwu yin-
shuguan, 1906), preface, 1a–b.
222 chapter four
Instead of a discussion and illustration of fallacies, it left students with

no more than a list of Aristotle’s eight rules of the syllogism.131 Even
its only novel feature, an appendix on “applications of logic in edu-
cation,” frustrated instructors looking for hands-on advice. General
“maxims” such as “proceed from the concrete to the abstract” were
hardly enlightening to anyone who had taught any subject in an actual
classroom setting.132
Lin Kepei’s 林可培 Comprehensive Introduction to Logic (Lunlixue tongyi 論
理學通義) was another problematic adaptation of Japanese models.133
Based on the five most recent textbooks available in Japan at the time,134
the translator, with the assistance of his Japanese teacher, tried “to
extract the essence of all their theories and explain their gist.” Yet,
precisely because the theories of his original authors were not at all
homogeneous, this endeavor was ill conceived from the outset. Lin
complained only about differences in terminology, which he attempted
to resolve “by bringing together the various choices and making them
consistent,”135 but failed to realize that it was even more difficult, if not
outright impossible, to unify fundamental theoretical disagreements.
His synthesis resulted in a thoroughly heterogeneous work contain-
ing frequent errors. The topics it introduced included thought, con-
cepts, judgments, reasoning, syllogisms, induction, methodology, and
a brief appendix on fallacies. Examples were mainly drawn from the
realm of education, where Lin hoped to find his target audience. One
example illustrating the rules for the “regressive sorites” thus read:
“When people’s knowledge is opened up, society will progress. When
education is spread, people’s knowledge will be opened up. When the
number of private schools is increased, education will spread. When
the gentry wholeheartedly support the commonweal, the number of
131
Ibid., 9b–11a.
132
Ibid., 26b–27a.
133
Lin Kepei 林可培 (comp.), Lunlixue tongyi 論理學通義 (Comprehensive intro-
duction to logic) (Shanghai: Zhongguo tushu gongsi, 1909).
134
According to the compiler’s preface the book was “primarily based” on Ima-
fuku Shinobu 今福忍, Saishin ronrigaku yōgi 最新論理学要義 (Latest essentials of
logic) (Tōkyō: Hōbunkan, 1908); Watanabe Matajirō 渡辺又次郎, Ronrigaku 論理学
(Logic) (Tōkyō: Tōkyōhō gakuin, 1894); and Kitazawa Sadakichi 北沢定吉, Ronrigaku
kōgi 論理学講義 (Lectures on logic) (Tōkyō: Kōdōkan, 1908). These main sources
were “supplemented” by Ōnishi Hajime, Ronrigaku 論理学 (Logic) (Tōkyō: Keiseisha,
1903); and Totoki Wataru, Ronrigaku kōyō 論理学綱要 (Outline of logic) (Tōkyō: Dai
Nihon tosho, 1900).
135
Lin Kepei, Lunlixue tongyi, 1a.
private schools will increase. Therefore, when the gentry wholeheart-

edly support the commonweal, society will progress.”136
Guo Yaogeng 過耀庚 introduced yet another kind of logic in his
translation of Kihira Tadayoshi’s 紀平正美 (1874–1949) Latest Outline
of Logic (Saishin ronrigaku kōyō 最新論理学綱要).137 Kihira was known
in Japan for a “metaphysical logic” that aimed to arrive at ultimate
truths through the resolution of contradictions.138 His Outline began
with a short introduction on “the meaning of thought,” followed by
a “material” section concerned with deductive thinking, including a
chapter on yinming forms of argumentation,139 and a section on “meth-
odology.” While the logic taught by Kihira was deeply problematic,
at least in hindsight, and did not find many followers, the quality of
Guo Yaogeng’s adaptation was remarkable. Guo was obviously fluent
in Japanese and English and displayed an extraordinary awareness of
the pitfalls of his trade. In his preface, he warned against translators
who “elevate themselves through an ancient and elegant style” at the
expense of faithfulness, a thinly veiled critique of Yan Fu’s manner-
isms, and defended his adoption of Japanese terms on the grounds that
they displayed less ambiguity and were in fact not all that “foreign.”
According to Guo, no more than 10 to 20 percent of the Japanese
philosophical lexicon consisted of true neologisms while the rest was
borrowed from Sanskrit or Chinese.140
Two further textbooks whose publication was initiated prior to
the fall of the Qing dynasty, Qian Jiazhi’s 錢家治 (1880–1969) Logic
(Mingxue 名學)141 and Chen Wen’s 陳文 A Textbook of Logic (Mingxue
136
Ibid., 175.
137
Guo Yaogeng 過耀庚 (trans.), Zuixin lunlixue gangyao 最新論理學綱要 (Latest
outline of logic), 2 vols. (Shanghai: Zhongguo tushu gongsi, 1909); based on Kihira
Tadayoshi 紀平正美, Saishin ronrigaku kōyō 最新論理学綱要 (Latest outline of logic)
(Tōkyō: Kōdōkan, 1907).
138
See Funayama, Meiji ronrigakushi, 215–220; and Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philo-
sophical Thought, 195–196.
139
Guo Yaogeng, Zuixin lunlixue gangyao, 124–129.
140
Ibid., 7–10.
141
Qian Jiazhi 錢家治 (comp.), Mingxue 名學 (Logic) (n.p., 1910). Qian, who is
perhaps best known today as the father of the nuclear physicist Qian Xuesen 錢學森
(1911–2009), had been a classmate of Lu Xun at the Kōbun Gakuin from 1902 to
1904 and later earned degrees in history and geography. He joined Lu Xun to study
under Zhang Taiyan in 1906 and remained in touch with both after his return to
Hangzhou in 1908. He prepared the Logic as a teacher at the Zhejiang Gaodeng
Xuetang, the predecessor of Zhejiang University. Since he did not leave a preface
or other notes, it is impossible to determine when and why Qian shifted his view of
224 chapter four
jiaokeshu 名學教科書),142 were also of interest mainly from the point of

view of translation. Both were digests of unnamed Japanese textbooks
with a psychologistic propensity but managed to express this type of
logic in terms introduced by Yan Fu. This rather complex operation
presupposed considerable familiarity not only with at least two systems
of logical terminology but also with the notions these technical terms
were intended to convey. The confidence and accuracy with which
both translators handled this intricate issue demonstrated the extent to
which logical knowledge had spread by the end of the decade, espe-
cially when seen in comparison with their almost comically timid pre-
cursor, Tian Wuzhao.
3. Logic as the Foundation of Words

The only logic textbooks produced during the first decade of the twen-
tieth century that were not translations or digests of Japanese sources,
besides the works of Yan Fu and to some extent Wang Guowei, were
compiled at the Catholic Université l’Aurore in Shanghai. As mentioned
above, both were written by Jesuit-trained authors and taught a variety
of logic that was grounded in a modernized scholastic conception of
the discipline. Their influence was therefore mainly limited to Chris-
tian circles and their immediate environment. The first, Ma Xiangbo’s
Philosophy Primer (Zhizhi qianshuo 致知淺說), was published only in 1926,
but Ma composed the original draft for the lessons he taught at the
Aurore between 1903 and 1905. In a preface, written in 1924, Ma
related that he designed the book as part of a new Cursus philosophicus
comprising introductions to ontology ( yuan you 原有 ‘the foundation of
being’ ), ethics ( yuan xing 原行 ‘the foundation of conduct’ ), and logic
( yuan yan 原言 ‘the foundation of [spoken] words’ ).143 The section on
metaphysics was never completed, and “not much was preserved” of
logic from the deductive variety taught at Kōbun Gakuin to the psychologistic brand
propagated in his book.
142
Chen Wen 陳文 (comp.), Mingxue jiaokeshu 名學教科書 (A textbook of logic)
(Shanghai: Kexuehui bianyibu, 1911). A shorter version of the same text had appeared
in the previous year under the title Mingxue shili 名學釋例 (Logic, with explanations
and examples).
143
Ma Xiangbo 馬相伯, Zhizhi qianshuo 致知淺說 (Philosophy primer) (Shanghai:
Shangwu yinshuguan, 1926 [<1906]), reprinted in idem, Ma Xiangbo ji, 635–738; 635.
Ma’s prefaces are available in a rather rough English translation in Ma Xiangbo and the
Mind of Modern China, 1840–1939, ed. Ruth Hayhoe and Lu Yongling (Armonk, N.Y.:
M.E. Sharpe, 1996), 253–268.
the other two drafts so that Ma needed some months to “put together
scattered pieces, fill in what had been lost, and prepare the text for the
press.”144 Although it is thus unclear how much of the present text was
written during Ma’s tenure at the Aurore, we can surmise that at least
the structure of the work remained more or less unchanged.
In its present form, the Zhizhi qianshuo only contains the portion
dedicated to logic. The organization of the text followed classical Jesuit
divisions of the discipline. Chapters 1 and 2 were devoted to simple
apprehension and judgment, the first two of the “three operations of
the intellect”; chapters 3 to 5 outlined the modi sciendi division, defini-
tion and ratiocination. While these sections conformed to older Jesuit
lore, chapter 6, at least in name, “De methodo congruente in oper-
ationibus scientificis observanda,” was an adaptation to nineteenth-
century standards. In this disconnected section, Ma discussed possible
applications of logic in scientific inquiry as well as practical rules of
argumentation, fallacies, and similarities between his “foundation of
words” and the Buddhist logic of yinming. This comparative part and
a surprisingly modern symbolic notation used throughout the book145
were in all likelihood later additions. The same applied to the differ-
ent layers of terminology Ma amassed in his manuscript (see Table
B.6, Column 2). Four or more different terms for key notions of logic
would have been impossible distractions within an actual classroom
setting. Most likely, their inclusion was the result of Ma’s accumulated
reflections on a subject he had followed closely since his novitiate at
Zikawei in the 1860s.
Li Di, Ma’s classmate at the Zikawei Seminary and a much more
loyal Jesuit throughout his life, succeeded Ma Xiangbo as dean of the
Aurore and professor of philosophy and logic in 1905. In this capacity,
Li translated a series of textbooks in Christian philosophy based on
works recommended by the Gregorian University in Rome. Pub-
lished as Outlines of Philosophy (Zhexue tigang 哲學題綱), Li’s texts were
at the same time far less ambitious and much more usable than Ma’s
incomplete introduction. The third volume to appear in this series,
following outlines of psychology and physiology, was dedicated to con-
temporary Jesuit logic.146 Although the title The Science of the Patterns
144
Ma Xiangbo, Zhizhi qianshuo, 654.
145
Ibid., 692–693.
146
Li Di 李杕 (trans.), Minglixue 名理學 (Logica), in idem (trans. and ed.), Zhexue
tigang 哲學提綱 (Outline of philosophy) (Shanghai: Tushanwan yinshuguan, 1908).
226 chapter four
of Names (Minglixue 名理學) suggested continuity with earlier Jesuit

efforts, Li provided in fact a thoroughly modernized introduction to
the discipline in his work. The concise text was structured in the con-
ventional modus quaestionis designed to drill students in the argumenta-
tive defense of the faith. The Minglixue consisted of three parts, devoted
respectively to dialectica, that is, “the rules of reasoning”; critica, “the
criteria of truth”; and methodologia, “the laws of order.” The dialectica
introduced the mechanics of inferential reasoning in standard Jesuit—
but ideologically more or less neutral—terms. The critica aimed more
directly to convince students, and in turn help them convince others,
that there was and could be only one source of ultimate certainty—the
Christian God. The sketchy methodologia, which concluded the book,
was a half-hearted nod toward the canons of modern science, which
had long been recognized as a threat to the certainties the critica was
conceived to defend. Together with the elegant if unusual terminol-
ogy that Li created as a native alternative to Yan Fu’s lexical sugges-
tions (see Table B.6, Column 3),147 the anti-scientistic bent of the work
severely restricted its appeal among non-Christian readers. Like the
series of which it formed a part, it never had any impact outside the
Jesuit community.
3. Logic in Symbols, Charts, and Diagrams
One feature shared by all the logic texts discussed in the previous sec-
tion was the ubiquity of graphic and symbolic representations, which
appeared even more frequently than in European works on the subject.
Two books not mentioned thus far relied exclusively on tables, charts,
and diagrams to explain logical notions and theorems: Tang Zuwu’s
湯祖武 Analysis of Logic, Illustrated and Explained (Lunlixue poujie tushuo 論
理學剖解圖說)148 and the anonymous Logic Explained in Tables (Lun-
lixue biaojie 論理學表解).149 Both were adaptations of Japanese sources.
The volume was freely adapted from José Mendive, S.J., Institutiones philosophiae scho-
lasticae, ad mentem divi Thomae ac Suarezii: Logica (Valladolid: Cuesta, 1887).
147
See Kurtz, “Science of Sciences,” 59–63; cf. Guo Qiao, Luoji yu wenhua, 67–69.
148
Tang Zuwu 湯祖武 (ed. and trans.), Lunlixue poujie tushuo 論理學剖解圖說
(Analysis of logic, illustrated and explained) (Tōkyō: Qingguo liuxuesheng huiguan,
1906).
149
Lunlixue biaojie 論理學表解 (Logic explained in tables), in Biaojie congshu 表解叢書
(Anthology of explanations in tables), ed. Huang Lüsi 黃履思 (Shanghai: Kexue shuju,
1912), i. The book was based on Gotō Yoshiyuki 後藤嘉之 and Mishima Kin’ichirō
The translation of the first was initiated by Chen Shuzhong 陳淑鐘, a

contributor to the reformist journal Xinmin congbao 新民叢報 (The new
citizen), who fondly recalled in his preface how he had become fasci-
nated with the complexities of logic while studying at Tōkyō’s Kōbun
Gakuin. Yet, Chen said, he had also realized that it was impossible to
memorize scores of logical forms from textual representations alone.
He therefore commissioned one of his students to adapt a diagram-
matic outline of the discipline issued to teachers of logic by the Japa-
nese Ministry of Culture. Just like the two volumes on pedagogy and
psychology he had previously serialized in the Xinmin congbao, Chen
thought the graphic outline of logic would not only benefit teachers
but also serve as a study aid for students and the interested public.
The publication of the much more cheaply produced Logic Explained
in Tables followed a similar rationale. According to its editors, the
goal of the text was to “introduce logical terms and their meanings
in a concise yet comprehensive manner so that readers will have to
spend the smallest amount of time possible to understand the essen-
tials of the discipline.”150 For this purpose, they had compiled a series
of “diagrams, examples, and symbols” that facilitated memorization.
Like Tang Zuwu’s adaptation, Logic Explained in Tables concentrated on
illustrations of deductive forms of reasoning and devoted little space to
induction and scientific methodology. Nor did the book offer explana-
tions for the different kinds of terms, since, as the editors opined in
their “Directions to the Reader,” terms had “only a very superficial
relation to logic.” Instead, the work began with a brief introduction to
“propositions” ( ju 句) and reserved most of its pages for illustrations
of the various types of valid syllogisms. In addition, the editors alerted
their readers that the copula would not be explained, because its use
was necessary only in Western languages to connect the two terms
in complete premises, and that they should be aware of ambiguity in
the usage of the Japanese-derived word mingci 名詞 since it referred
simultaneously to “nouns” in grammar and “terms” in logic.151
The ways in which the graphic and symbolic vocabulary of late
European syllogistics was adapted by Chinese and Japanese authors
and translators varied no less than their terminological and stylistic
美島近一郎, Ronrigaku hyōkai 論理学表解 (Logic explained in tables) (Tōkyō: Rokumei-

kan, 1904).
150
Lunlixue biaojie, preface, 1.
151
Ibid., preface, 2.
228 chapter four
choices. Three aspects of their efforts are of particular interest in our

context: (1) the adaptation of variables and logical symbols; (2) graphic
representations depicting the various kinds of propositions; and (3) the
use of diagrams illustrating conceptual sequences and hierarchies. In
each of these areas, both Chinese and imported symbolic resources
were mobilized to explain logical theories.
1. Adaptations of Variables and Logical Notations

Symbolic representation was less important to the kind of late-traditional
syllogistics introduced in late Qing China than it has become since the
advent of mathematical or symbolical logic from 1910 onward.152 If at
all, symbolic notations were used not so much to facilitate the compu-
tation of truth values but as shorthand for complex notions or simply
as aides-mémoires. Perhaps because of their relative insignificance, nota-
tions were the one area in which translators of texts on European logic
drew most heavily on native resources. The frequent use of traditional
signs in adaptations of logical variables and symbols is particularly
striking in view of the almost complete novelty of the basic logical ter-
minology brought into wider circulation through the very same books,
as we shall see in the next section. With the exception of Yan Fu and
some of his followers, no translator displayed significant concern for
issues of cultural continuity in his choice of terminology. In contrast,
many insisted on redefining traditional symbolic resources to render
the variables and logical operators explained in their works.
Almost all texts discussed in this chapter enlisted variables with long
histories of usage in Chinese scientific and mathematical literature to
represent logical symbols. This was certainly a sensible strategy. Vari-
ables, as mentioned above, had been known in China at least since the
third century BC and many readers were familiar with them from their
adaptation in nineteenth-century mathematical works.153 In fact, the
efficacy of this practice was confirmed ex negativo by Tian Wuzhao, the
translator who was so afraid of making mistakes that he did not dare
to change a single word in his rendering of Totoki Wataru’s Outline of
Logic. Tian’s timidity led him to retain the letters S and P to symbolize
“subject” and “predicate,” and to use roman script to represent words
152
See Florian Cajori, A History of Mathematical Notations (Chicago: Open Court,
1928), vol. 2, 281–314.
153
See Martzloff, Chinese Mathematics, 371–389.
such as Barbara, Celarent, and other mnemonic terms describing the

valid moods of the syllogism. Lest his audience be puzzled, however,
he felt compelled to point out in his “Directions to the Reader” that
all these foreign “characters” were “symbols only” and had no deeper
meaning.154
More self-confident translators did not hesitate to take liberties and
impose their own choices in the area of symbolic representation. For
most, the characters denoting the “ten heavenly stems” (tiangan 天干),
jia 甲, yi 乙, bing 丙, ding 丁, and so forth, which were commonly
used to replace indeterminate numbers or things, were the obvious
equivalents of all variables they encountered in logical texts. One vex-
ing consequence was that the heavenly stems were frequently used in
multiple meanings, for instance, as general variables for terms (as in
“All S are P,” rendered, for example, as fan jia wei yi 凡甲為乙) as well
as in the more specialized sense of the roman letters A, E, I, and O
symbolizing the four kinds of categorical propositions distinguished in
traditional syllogistics (甲 = A = universal affirmative, that is, “All S
are P”; 乙 = E = universal negative, “No S is P”; 丙 = I = particular
affirmative, “Some S are P”; and 丁 = O = particular negative, “Some
S are not P”).155 Works of more attentive translators, such as Fan Diji’s
Questions and Answers on Logic, avoided such ambiguity. Fan reserved
甲, 乙, 丙, and 丁 exclusively for the representation of A, E, I, and O
(Fig. 4.1), and offered new solutions for other symbols and variables.
In lieu of S and P he employed abbreviations of the Chinese transla-
tions for “subject” (zhu 主 as in zhuci 主辭) and “predicate” (bin 賓
as in binci 賓辭), and in order to represent the “major” (da mingci 大
名辭), “middle” (zhong mingci 中名辭), and “minor” (xiao mingci 小名
辭) terms in the syllogism he borrowed the variables tian 天 ‘Heaven’,
di 地 ‘earth’, and ren 人 ‘man’ from the thirteenth-century algebra of
“celestial origins” (tianyuan shu 天元術) (Fig. 4.2).156 Used with clearly
defined meanings, traditional variables could thus work perfectly well,
even if they did not seem to possess the same mnemonic qualities as
the syllogistic poems composed in European scholasticism.
154
Tian Wuzhao, Lunlixue gangyao, iia.
155
For instance, Lin Zutong, Lunlixue dazhi; Wang Rongbao, Lunlixue; Tang Yan,
Lunlixue.
156
On tianyuan algebra, see Martzloff, Chinese Mathematics, 258–265.
230
chapter four
Figure 4.1. Fan Diji, Lunlixue wenda, 30a. Figure 4.2. Fan Diji, Lunlixue wenda, 31a.
Some translators did not contend themselves with avoiding ambiguity

and strove for more creative symbolic solutions. The best example is
Yang Yinhang, who devised new variables for A ( | ), E ( ¦ ), I ( [ ), and
O ( ] ) inspired by the symbols for the lines of the trigrams and hexa-
grams in the Classic of Change. Whether these symbols were easier to
grasp for late-Qing readers than roman letters is impossible to deter-
mine from a contemporary perspective, but they undeniably possessed
some aesthetic appeal (Fig. 4.3). In conjunction with the evocative terms
by which Yang chose to label the four basic types of propositions (tai-
yang 太陽 ‘the greater yang’ for “universal affirmative,” taiyin 太陰 ‘the
greater yin’ for “universal negative,” shaoyang 少陽 ‘the lesser yang’ for
“particular affirmative,” and shaoyin 少陰 ‘the lesser yin’ for “particular
negative”), these symbols could be combined into diagrams (Fig. 4.4)
recalling explanatory charts for the study of the Classic of Change, such
as those discussed in Hu Wei’s 胡渭 (1633–1714) Lucid Analyses of Charts
in the Changes (Yitu mingbian 易圖明辨, 1706). As such, they evoked a
comforting impression of symbolic continuity with a prized indigenous
tradition without distracting from the novel technical contents.
The Changes were also the source of yet another set of variables ( yuan
元, heng 亨, li 利, and zhen 貞) suggested by Hu Maoru in his adapta-
tion of Ōnishi Hajime’s Logic. Hu employed this set of characters and
their variations with an added “mouth” (kou 口) radical in explicit
departure from the emerging 甲, 乙, 丙, 丁 convention to symbol-
ize the eight kinds of propositions that resulted from the attempt to
quantify the predicate, a suggestion seen at the time as a remedy for
certain limitations of traditional syllogistics (Fig. 4.5).
But these novel entities could of course be represented just as unam-
biguously, if in a somewhat more hybrid layout, by relying on roman
letters, such as U, I, A, Y, E, W, N, and O, as attested by Guo Yao-
geng’s slightly later diagram (Fig. 4.6).
Formulas did not play a significant role in the translations published,
or for the type of logic discussed, in the final decade of the Qing. Some
mathematical operators still found their way into late Qing textbooks.
One example was the operator ∴ ‘therefore’,157 shown in Figure 4.7 in
symbolic depictions of various kinds of sorites, or chain syllogisms.158 In
such instances, graphic conventions generally followed the precedents
157
See Cajori, History of Mathematical Notations, vol. 2, 282.
158
Another example is in Jiangsu shifansheng, Lunlixue, 12.
232 chapter four
Figure 4.3. Yang Yinhang, Mingxue, 51. Figure 4.4. Yang Yinhang, Mingxue, 39.
logic in late qing education and popular discourse
233
Figure 4.5. Hu Maoru, Lunlixue, 146. Figure 4.6. Guo Yaogeng, Zuixin lunlixue gangyao, 70.
234
chapter four
Figure 4.7. Lin Kepei, Lunlixue tongyi, 182–183.

for combining European and Chinese symbols established in textbooks

on Western algebra published since the late 1860s.159
It would be implausible to claim that any epistemic gains were
produced by the various renditions of logical symbols and variables,
irrespective of their local or foreign flavor. On the contrary, the diver-
sity of symbolic choices only aggravated the confusion arising from
the competing terminologies proposed in the most visible writings on
logic in late Qing China. In the area of symbolic notation, just as in
the realm of the logical lexicon, nothing was more important, and
at the same time more elusive, than standardization and intertextual
consistency, but both were continuously undermined by the creative
genius of individual translators and their idiosyncratic preferences. If
anything, our survey confirms for logic a conclusion Florian Cajori has
drawn from his global history of notations in mathematics, namely,
that “symbols cross linguistic borders less readily than . . . ideas.”160
2. Adaptations of Euler and Venn Diagrams

Some graphic devices frequently used in early-twentieth-century
textbooks that did facilitate comprehension of logical relations were
the so-called Euler and Venn diagrams. Composed of overlapping
or separated circles or other closed curves, these diagrams displayed
the logical relationships of definite sets of things, such as the terms
involved in individual statements or entire syllogisms.161 Although
modern logicians have shown that the older Euler diagrams were not
entirely reliable, they offered late Qing translators a much more intui-
tive way to depict quantified propositions than verbal representations
alone. Euler diagrams for the universal affirmative “All S are P” (A)
(Fig. 4.8) and the particular affirmative “Some S are P” (I) (Fig. 4.9), for
instance, were adapted by Qian Jiazhi in a manner that recalled Zhou
Dunyi’s 周敦頤 (1017–1073) “Chart of the Supreme Ultimate” (Taiji
tu 太機圖), a metaphysically charged depiction of the creative pro-
cesses of the universe dating back to the eleventh century (Fig. 4.10).162
159
See Martzloff, Chinese Mathematics, 372–375.
160
Cajori, History of Mathematical Notations, vol. 2, 338.
161
See Keith Devlin, The Language of Mathematics: Making the Invisible Visible (New
York: W.H. Freeman, 1998), 56–58.
162
Zhou Dunyi 周敦頤, Zhang Zai 張載, Xu Bida 徐必達, and Imai Usaburō
今井宇三郎, Zhou Zhang quanshu 周張全書 (The complete works of Zhou [Dunyi] and
Zhang [Zai]), 3 vols. (Taibei: Zhongwen chubanshe, 1972), vol. 1, 39.
236
chapter four
Figure 4.8. Qian Jiazhi, Figure 4.9. Qian Jiazhi, Figure 4.10. Zhou Dunyi,
Mingxue, 30. Mingxue, 31. Taiji tu.
In Qian’s diagrams, curves with solid lines marked the spaces occupied
by the subject of the proposition, dotted lines those of the predicate.
The triangle in Figure 4.9 emphasized that only a part of the subject
or predicate was contained in the other.
In contrast to Euler diagrams, the visually more complex but more
precise Venn diagrams highlighted empty sets by shaded zones, as
shown in an illustration of the particular negative proposition “Some
S are not P” (O) by Tian Wuzhao (Fig. 4.11). Yet, perhaps because
they were less demanding to produce and memorize, Euler diagrams
became the most prevalent form of illustration in the thriving literature
of the late Qing period and beyond, as exemplified by Figure 4.12, a
depiction of all four categorical propositions taken from Logic Explained
in Tables.
The specific attraction of Euler and Venn diagrams, which were
usually imported without significant alterations to their shape and
style, lay in the fact that they served as epistemic images allowing
Chinese readers to ignore unsatisfactory verbal explanations of the
relationship between subject, predicate, and the structure of propo-
sitions.163 Late traditional logic generally insisted on the necessity of
an explicit copula linking subject and predicate in any meaningful
proposition, but this claim rested, as symbolic logic has shown, on the
particular syntax of Indo-European languages.164 In late Qing Chi-
nese, the copula usually remained implicit in affirmative propositions
or was expressed by particles such as ye 也 or yan 焉. Yet hardly any
Chinese or Japanese author (exceptions being scholars with indepen-
dent standing such as Ōnishi Hajime and Zhang Junmai) felt confi-
dent at this early stage to reject or nuance the particularistic bias of
European theory. Instead, as some examples cited in chapter 2 and
in the previous section underlined, translators strove to compose sen-
tences that confirmed to the flawed analyses, sometimes at the expense
of offending the grammatical sensibilities of their readers. In many
library copies of late Qing textbooks, ungrammatical sentences such
as xue shi bai 雪是白 (intended to render “Snow is white”) have been
163
On “epistemic images,” see Christoph Lüthy and Alexis Smets, “Words, Lines,
Diagrams, Images: Towards a History of Scientific Imagery,” Early Science and Medicine
14 (2009): 398–439; 399, 420–424.
164
See James Van Evra, “The Development of Logic as Reflected in the Fate of the
Syllogism 1600–1900,” History and Philosophy of Logic 21 (2000): 115–134; 128–129.
238
chapter four
Figure 4.11. Tian Wuzhao, Lunlixue gangyao, 18b. Figure 4.12. Lunlixue biaojie, 7.
crossed out or “corrected” by exasperated readers.165 Adding diagrams

of intersecting sets to visualize the relationships between subject and
predicate, instead of forcing them into unnatural verbal expressions,
offered a convenient way to enhance the intuitive plausibility of logi-
cal insights. At the same time, it bolstered their universal pretensions.
Fan Diji seems to have arrived at a similar conclusion when deciding
to elide any reference to the copula while adding graphical explana-
tions of all nineteen valid and some invalid moods of the syllogism in
his Questions and Answers on Logic (for example, Figs. 4.13 and 4.14). Fan’s
decision was the most obvious indication, confirmed by their adapta-
tion in so many other texts, that Euler and Venn diagrams anticipated
a less parochial type of logic that would prove to be more acceptable
in non-Indo-European linguistic contexts than even the leanest version
of late-nineteenth-century syllogistics.
3. Illustrations of Concepts and Conceptual Hierarchies

In addition to technical diagrams, late Qing textbooks on logic used
a variety of less strictly formalized illustrations to enhance the texts’
didactic value. In their simplest forms such epistemic images were
included to dramatize, as it were, the difference between individual
concepts such as deduction and induction without adding much to
their understanding (Fig. 4.15). More sophisticated diagrams were
designed in the manner of organizational charts. The main function of
such charts was to clarify the relationships and hierarchies of concepts
mentioned in the main body of the text. Depending on the subject
matter, they could attain an impressive degree of complexity. One
of the more conventional depictions of a conceptual hierarchy was a
chart in the Lunlixue chubu illustrating the parts of speech; an excerpt
listing various kinds of “adverbs” (zhuangzi 狀字) and “conjunctions”
(lianzi 連字) is shown below (Fig. 4.16). Although the text on which
this classification was based had been plagiarized, as demonstrated
above, the editors must still be credited with adding a helpful visual
explication to Ma Jianzhong’s novel grammatical taxonomy.166
165
Examples include copies of Tian Wuzhao’s Lunlixue gangyao and Qian Jiazhi’s
Mingxue held in the Humanities Library at Fudan University and the Shanghai
Library, respectively.
166
For an overview of Ma’s taxonomy and the terms in which it was presented, see
Alain Peyraube, “Some Reflections on the Sources of the Mashi wentong,” in Lackner
et al., New Terms for New Ideas, 341–355.
240
chapter four
Figure 4.13. Fan Diji, Lunlixue wenda, 39b. Figure 4.14. Fan Diji, Lunlixue wenda, 40a.
logic in late qing education and popular discourse
241
Figure 4.15. Chen Wen, Mingxue jiaokeshu, 61. Figure 4.16. Lunlixue chubu, 4b.
242 chapter four
Many diagrams, however, were more complex and aimed at repre-

senting complete conceptual schemes. One good example of a more
ambitious epistemic image was an inventory of deductive fallacies by
Qian Jiazhi that attempted to integrate all instances in a stringent hier-
archy (Fig. 4.17). Even more ambitious was Yang Yinhang’s attempt
to chart the structure of the entire discipline, or at least its “three main
parts,” in one diagram (Fig. 4.18).
It is tempting to relate the ubiquity of such conceptual ordering,
which was more common in Chinese and Japanese adaptations than
in their European texts of departure, to native interpretative practices.
Two examples may suffice to recall a lively tradition of graphic exege-
sis that enjoyed its greatest popularity among the “neo-Confucian”
Figure 4.17. Qian Jiazhi, Mingxue, 138–139.

Figure 4.18. Yang Yinhang, Mingxue, 6–7.
School of the Way (Daoxue 道學) in the late Song and Yuan periods.167
The first (Fig. 4.19) is a graphic analysis of the “three cardinal prin-
ciples” (san gang 三綱) and “eight specific points” (ba mu 八目) men-
tioned in the opening paragraph of the Greater Learning. It is taken from
the Charts Probing the Beginnings (Yanji tu 研幾圖),168 a study aid com-
posed by the Jinhua scholar Wang Bo 王柏 (1197–1274) that relied
exclusively on charts and diagrams to elucidate the classics’ central
notions. The second (Fig. 4.20) is a diagrammatic autopsy of the con-
cepts discussed in chapter 20 of the Doctrine of the Mean, drawn by Xu
Qian 許謙 (1270–1337) for his Collected Explanations on Reading the Four
Books (Du Sishu congshuo 讀四書叢說).169 In it, Xu visually connects the
key concepts of the chapter to clarify the relationships of the virtues
167
These examples are discussed in depth by Michael Lackner in a forthcoming
study. I am grateful for the permission to draw on his work prior to publication.
168
Wang Bo 王柏, Yanji tu 研幾圖 (Charts probing the beginnings) (Shanghai:
Shangwu yinshuguan, 1937).
169
Xu Qian 許謙, Du Sishu congshuo 讀四書叢說 (Collected explanations on reading
the Four Books) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1934).
244
chapter four
Figure 4.19. Wang Bo, Yanji tu, 1:4b. Figure 4.20. Xu Qian, Du Sishu congshuo, 4:5a–b.
“knowledge” (zhi 智), “humaneness” (ren 仁), and “courage” ( yong 勇)

with three different types of learners identified by Confucius (“those
who know at birth,” “those who must study to know,” and “those who
learn through hardships”) and the manner in which they attempt to
approach the Way.170
The precision and care with which concepts were arranged in order
to display their systematic relationships in these early texts as well
as in Yang Yinhang’s chart of the “Three Main Parts of Logic”—
after all, Yang was dissecting a virtually unknown subject—is striking.
The didactic value of this technique did not escape the attention of
savvy publishers. At least two presses commissioned visual antholo-
gies introducing the key concepts of the most popular new disciplines,
which eventually included logic. One example from a cruder text on
logic in these anthologies, Logic Explained in Tables, has been discussed
above (Fig. 4.12). The more sophisticated Analysis of Logic, Illustrated
and Explained, on the other hand, demonstrated the degree to which
epistemic images could be perfected and is thus well suited to conclude
this brief survey. The diagram reproduced in Figure 4.21 was designed
to offer a condensed overview of the definition, the constituent parts,
and the kinds of propositions relevant to logical reasoning. Its clarity
and analytical simplicity can be seen as a testament to the virtuosity
with which late Qing authors exploited the didactic potential of charts,
diagrams, and symbolic representation in general. At the same time, it
indicates the degree to which authors and publishers believed illustra-
tive means could help them and their audiences to come to adequate
terms with even the most alien and esoteric of all Western sciences.
4. New Terms for Telling the Truth
The barrage of textbooks released onto the booming market for edu-
cational materials in the first years of the twentieth century spurred
public interest in logic. The mere presence of works bearing the
name of the discipline in their titles helped to raise awareness among
170
For a general introduction to the uses of diagrams in Confucian exegesis and
the works of Wang Bo and Xu Qian in particular, see Lackner, “Die Verplanung
des Denkens”; and idem, “Diagrams as an Architecture by Means of Words: The
Yanji tu,” in Graphics and Text in the Production of Technical Knowledge in China: The Warp
and the Weft, ed. Francesca Bray, Vera Dorofeeva-Lichtmann, and Georges Métailié
(Leiden: Brill, 2007), 341–377.
246
chapter four
Figure 4.21. Tang Zuwu, Lunlixue poujie tushuo, 7a–b.

booksellers and their customers, and the many reprints and re-editions
of logical textbooks attest that the new books were not left sitting on
the shelves. Perhaps the most consequential contribution of the new-
style textbooks to the naturalization of logic in Chinese discourses was
the introduction of a new vocabulary, borrowed almost in its entirety
from Japan, for central logical notions. Thanks to the sheer numbers
in which the new books were circulated and studied in and outside
of classrooms throughout the country, the new lexicon swiftly gained
currency. Logical terms entered the mainstream of Chinese discourses
with astonishing speed. Within less than a decade, a quite stable lexi-
con emerged that laid the foundations for the terminology in which
key concepts of the discipline continue to be expressed today.
Tables B.1–B.8 in Appendix B document the terms used in twenty-
four texts published between 1902 and 1911 to render the five sets of
logical notions whose composition was explained in the introduction.
The selection includes data from twenty-one of the twenty-two text-
books adapted from Japanese identified above.171 In addition, it lists
the terms suggested by Ma Xiangbo and Li Di, whose works were
based on Latin sources, and a draft Chinese-English Glossary of Logi-
cal Terms (Bianxue Zhong-Ying mingci duizhaobiao 辨學中英名詞對照表)
compiled on behalf of the Ministry of Education’s Office for Termi-
nological Standardization (Xuebu bianding mingci guan 學部編訂
名詞館) in 1909.172 The eight tables are organized in chronological
order with the exception of Table B.4 that unites the three books
based on the writings and lectures of Hattori Unokichi. The tables
are supplemented with reference data from Chinese and Japanese dic-
tionaries. Table B.9 documents logical terms in the three editions of
the Japanese Philosophical Dictionary (Tetsugaku jii 哲学字彙), compiled
at the Imperial University in Tōkyō between 1881 and 1912.173 It also
171
Omitted is only Chen Wen’s Mingxue shili (1910), whose terminology is identical
with the same author’s Mingxue jiaokeshu (1911).
172
Bianxue Zhong-Ying mingci duizhaobiao 辨學中英名詞對照表 (Chinese-English
glossary of logical terms), ed. Xuebu bianding mingciguan (Beijing: Xuebu, 1909). On
the establishment of the Office for Terminological Standardization, the first national
institution entrusted with this task, see Wang Shuhuai, “Qingmo fanyi mingci de
tongyi wenti,” 65–67.
173
Inoue Tetsujirō 井上哲次郎 and Ariga Nagao 有賀長雄, Tetsugaku jii 哲学字彙
(Philosophical dictionary) (Tōkyō: Tōyōkan, 1881); idem, Kaitei zōho tetsugaku jii 改訂增
補哲学字彙 (Philosophical dictionary, revised and enlarged) (Tōkyō: Tōyōkan, 1884);
and Inoue Tetsujirō and Motora Yujirō 元郎勇次郎, Tetsugaku jii 哲学字彙. Diction-
ary of English, German, and French Philosophical Terms with Japanese Equivalents (Tōkyō:
248 chapter four
entails the terms suggested in the first specialized Chinese dictionary

of philosophy, edited by the Protestant missionaries Timothy Richard
and Donald MacGillivray in 1913 on the basis of the philosophy vol-
ume of the Encyclopedia Japonica (1909 ed.).174 Table B.10, finally, traces
the normalization of Chinese logical terminology beyond our period
of investigation, from the English-Chinese Dictionary of the Standard Chinese
Spoken Language (1916), which included previously unpublished recom-
mendations for standard terms prepared at the Republic’s Ministry of
Education,175 through Fan Bingqing’s 樊炳清 (1876–1931 [?]) Diction-
ary of Philosophical Terms (Zhexue cidian 哲學詞典),176 the most authori-
tative publication in the field to appear during the Republican era,
to the comprehensive Encyclopedic Dictionary of Logic (Luoji baike cidian
邏輯百科詞典), compiled at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
in 1994.177
One way to exploit the historical information preserved in this col-
lection of semiotic shells is to look at the data from two different angles
corresponding to two complementary ways of reading the tables. A
vertical, column-by-column assessment offers information about the
progress, or lack thereof, on the journey “from paraphrase to literalism
and beyond” that has been identified as a recurring feature in trans-
lingual migrations of knowledge.178 A vertical examination also helps
to gauge the consistency of individual authors’ choices and reveals
their grasp of conceptual interrelations. A horizontal, row-by-row
reading, on the other hand, helps to identify where equivalents were
especially hard to find and thus highlights areas of persistent concep-
tual dissonance.
Maruzen, 1912). Since the terminology proposed in the first two editions is almost
identical with regard to logic, I have merged these data in Column 1.
174
A Dictionary of Philosophical Terms: Chiefly from the Japanese, ed. Timothy Richard
and Donald MacGillivray (Shanghai: Christian Literature Society for China, 1913).
175
Karl E. G. Hemeling (He Meiling 赫美玲), English-Chinese Dictionary of the Stan-
dard Chinese Spoken Language (Guanhua 官話) and Handbook for Translators, including Scien-
tific, Technical, Modern and Documentary Terms (Shanghai: Statistical Department of the
Inspectorate General of Customs, 1916).
176
Fan Bingqing 樊炳清, Zhexue cidian 哲學辭典. Dictionary of Philosophical Terms
(Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1926).
177
Luoji baike cidian 邏輯百科詞典 (Encyclopedic dictionary of logic), ed. Zhou
Liquan 周禮全 (Chengdu: Sichuan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1994).
178
See Scott L. Montgomery, Science in Translation: Movements of Knowledge through
Cultures and Time (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 17–34.
On a very general level, a column-by-column assessment of the data

assembled in Tables B.1–B.8 confirms that graphic loans from Japa-
nese allowed Chinese translators of logical texts to skip the first steps
on the path from paraphrase through literalism to fully developed
terminological systems. While earlier representations of logical terms,
as highlighted in the analyses of the preceding chapters, vacillated
between a confusing array of terminological choices, transcriptions,
and paraphrastic adaptations, the range of lexical creations immedi-
ately narrowed with the appearance of the first translations from Japa-
nese sources. Although not yet as rigidly standardized as the vocabulary
of more prominent sciences,179 the logical lexicon Chinese translators
encountered in their Japanese texts of departure had already passed
through the preliminary stages of terminological development. Logic
had been introduced in Japan by Nishi Amane upon his return from
studies at Leiden in 1865.180 Anticipating the role Yan Fu was to play
in China three decades later, Nishi had worked tirelessly to promote
the discipline. He compiled the first manuals of logic available in the
Japanese language, taught the science in a number of schools, and
lobbied successfully for the discipline’s inclusion in the curriculum of
the newly founded Imperial University in Tōkyō.181 Most importantly
in our context, the terminology he successively refined in his writings
on the new subject had a decisive impact on the shape of the Japanese
logical lexicon.182 Although not adopted unequivocally, Nishi’s terms
formed the basis for the vocabulary recommended in the first two
editions of the official Philosophical Dictionary (Table B.9, Column 1),
published, respectively, in 1881 and 1884. The endorsement by the
educational authorities ensured that, according to Morioka Kenji, 332
of the 787 loanwords proposed in Nishi’s works were standardized in
modern Japanese.183 Wherever possible, Nishi and other early transla-
tors of Western works followed the predominant Japanese method of
creating neologisms by scanning classical Chinese literature for words
or word-groups with meanings close to those of the terms they wished
179
Ibid., 227–249.
180
See Funayama, Meiji ronrigaku shi, 19–27.
181
See Asō Yoshiteru 麻生義輝, Kinsei Nihon tetsugakushi 近世日本哲学史 (A history
of modern Japanese philosophy) (Tōkyō: Kondō shoten, 1943), 292–308.
182
See Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 11–15.
183
See Morioka Kenji 森岡健二, Kindaigo no seiritsu. Meijiki goi hen 近代語の成立ー
明治期語彙編 (The evolution of modern language: The vocabulary of the Meiji era)
(Tōkyō: Meiji shoin, 1969), 159–181.
250 chapter four
to render.184 In areas outside of logic and, to a lesser extent, episte-

mology, this strategy proved to be highly productive: more than two
thirds of Nishi’s surviving terminological choices were borrowed from
classical sources. But even Nishi was unable to identify cognates for
logical concepts in the classical canons.
Logical terms made up more than half of the ninety words authored
by Nishi that were eventually normalized in the modern Japanese and
Chinese lexicon. Among his creations were such fundamental terms as
teigi 定義 (Chin. dingyi ‘fixing/determining the meaning’ ) for “defini-
tion,” en’eki 演繹 (Chin. yanyi ‘to develop and unravel’ ) for “deduction,”
and kinō 歸納 (Chin. guina ‘to sum up and accept’ ) for “induction.”185
Nishi’s coinages mimicked the pattern of word-formation most com-
mon in terms adapted from classical models. With few exceptions,
his inventions were disyllabic nouns, in most cases consisting of two
lexemes with closely related meanings. This morphological pattern
became so prevalent in Japanese scientific and philosophical litera-
ture that even authors critical of Nishi’s terms adopted it when form-
ing alternative suggestions. As a result, even in areas like logic where
standardization remained elusive, the Japanese terminologies in which
Chinese students were trained in the first years of the twentieth cen-
tury displayed a high degree of morphological coherence. Whatever
the merits of certain individual terms, Japanese logical terminology as
a whole had undeniably evolved into a fully developed system when
the first Chinese translators started to work on adaptations of Japanese
logical texts.
Together with the Japanese practice of writing scholarly terms in
Chinese characters (kanbun 漢文), the morphological and systematic
coherence of the Japanese logical lexicon greatly facilitated the task of
Chinese translators. Even if the uncritical adoption of graphic loans ran
the risk of producing faux amis, as more sophisticated translators soon
acknowledged,186 most were more than content to take advantage of
the convenience offered by what Viceroy Zhang Zhidong had already
praised as Japan and China’s “shared script.” Relying on graphic loans
relieved translators of the burden to find their own terms or match
184
See Wolfgang Lippert, “Language in the Modernization Process: The Integra-
tion of Western Concepts and Terms into Chinese and Japanese in the Nineteenth
Century,” in Lackner et al., New Terms for New Ideas, 57–66; 62.
185
See Morioka Kenji, Kindaigo no seiritsu, 176–179.
186
E.g., Yang Yinhang, Mingxue, ii.
those they encountered in their texts of departure with existing loan-

words and their models in European languages. Readers familiar with
earlier adaptations must have been struck by the sudden appearance
of systematic consistency displayed even in the earliest translations of
works on logic from Japan. With one exception,187 none of the adapta-
tions of Japanese texts published until the end of the Qing contained a
single paraphrase, nor did any translator see the necessity of resorting
to phonemic loans. Instead, thanks to their Japanese sources even the
most inexperienced and time-pressured translators, as a column-by-
column reading of the data in Appendix B confirms, were able to
present more or less complete terminological sets and systems.
The professionalism of the Japanese texts of departure also helped
to prevent inconsistencies that had plagued earlier Chinese adapta-
tions, most obviously those by Edkins and Fryer (Table 2.1, Columns
1 and 3), but also the works of Yan Fu (Table 3.1, especially items
3.15–3.26).188 In contrast, the texts produced by translators from Jap-
anese sources betrayed very little negligence. The only inconsisten-
cies in the twenty-one textbooks analyzed here concern variations in
the written forms of the word mingci (名辭 or 名詞) for “term” (2.1),
and rather carefree uses of compounds containing the verb tui 推 ‘to
push forward’ for “reasoning” in general (1.2) and the more specific
“inference” (4.1), two words that possessed a broad range of colloquial
meanings besides their more specific logical sense. Still, at least in the
realm of logic, our data refutes the charge that the laxity of insuf-
ficiently qualified translators was responsible for the persisting termi-
nological confusion and the stubborn reluctance of some scholars to
embrace new knowledge in early twentieth-century China.
Although the shortcut via Japan helped to create an unparalleled
degree of terminological coherence and consistency, it did not alleviate
the alien appearance of the emerging Chinese logical lexicon. In and
of themselves, terms borrowed from Japan were no less new or for-
eign than earlier Chinese coinages. The disyllabic words dominating
Japanese logical and philosophical texts insulted conventional stylistic
187
Hu Maoru’s Lunlixue offered explanatory paraphrases to render the different
types of fallacies (see Table B.4, Column 2, items 4.21–4.29) but these were also used
by Ōnishi. See Ōnishi Hajime, Ronrigaku, 147–172.
188
Inconsistencies were no less frequent in Yan Fu’s translations of scientific terms.
See Wright, “Yan Fu,” 236–237.
252 chapter four
sensibilities almost as much as phonemic loans and paraphrases. Crit-

ics took offence with the new terms, in logic and other areas, on the
grounds that they were clumsy and repetitive and had no foundation
in classical sources.189 One of the few outspoken defenders of Japanese-
derived terms was Wang Guowei.190 Wang’s rationale was pragmatic.
He acknowledged that many individual Japanese choices were far
from ideal, not only because they appeared to be inelegant but, more
significantly, because they were based on misinterpretations either of
the foreign notions themselves or of the meanings of the Chinese char-
acters enlisted for their representation. Still, on the whole, Wang held
that Japanese terms were no more deficient than, for example, Yan
Fu’s much-lauded antiquarian creations. For Wang, two reasons made
it imperative for Chinese scholars to adopt Japanese terms: First, bor-
rowing terms that had already been vetted by specialists and accepted
by a critical reading public was a faster and less cumbersome way to
build a new lexicon than reinventing terms in each instance. Second,
Wang argued that a shared vocabulary would ensure the steady cir-
culation of ideas between China and Japan in the same manner as
the use of Latin as a lingua franca had facilitated and enhanced schol-
arly communication in medieval and early modern Europe. Not all
his peers were convinced by these arguments. Yan Fu in particular
remained adamant in his rejection. However, as we have seen above,
even Yan included terms of Japanese origin alongside his own coin-
ages in his translations of Mill and Jevons, if only as a concession
to his more open-minded or aesthetically more forgiving readers. As
Yan implicitly recognized, more compelling than arguments asserting
or disputing their alterity were the sheer numbers in which Japanese
loanwords were introduced in the first years of the twentieth century.
Within less than a decade the originally “alien” terms coined in Japan
became vital, if not yet entirely uncontested, parts of China’s scholarly
vocabulary, not only in the area of logic.
Turning the tables, so to speak, and looking at our collection of
lexical data row by row reveals how individual notions were translated
in different works over time. The data indicate that the vocabulary
imported from Japanese had virtually nothing in common with words
189
See Wang Shuhuai, “Qingmo fanyi mingci de tongyi wenti,” 73–74.
190
Wang Guowei 王國維, “Lun xin xueyu zhi shuru” 論新學語之輸入 (On the
importation of new academic terms) (1905), reprinted in idem, Wang Guowei wenji,
vol. 3, 40–43.
coined by earlier translators. Besides very general terms such as fa

法 for “method” (5.1), yin 因 for “cause” (5.15), or guo 果 for “effect”
(5.16), all Japanese loans introduced in late Qing textbooks on logic
were new additions to the Chinese language. Since the newcomers
could not instantly replace the current terms, some degree of competi-
tion remained in almost all of our 129 sample cases, confirming again
that unequivocal equivalents for logical notions were exceedingly rare
in the late imperial Chinese lexicon. From a historiographical perspec-
tive such contention is not at all unfortunate. It forces us to exam-
ine where competition indicated a particular difficulty that translators
felt the need to address time and again with more adequate choices.
Examples for lasting disagreements included such key terms as “deduc-
tion” (4.2), “induction” (4.3), “hypothesis” (5.7) and “syllogism” (4.13).
The most contested item, however, even beyond the end of the impe-
rial era, remained the term “logic” itself. More than fifty replicas were
proposed as renditions of this one concept, and the discussion about its
most appropriate adaptation grew into a public debate about the best
strategies for integrating foreign notions into the Chinese language
per se, as we shall see in the next section.
Instances of lingering contention notwithstanding, the adaptation of
Japanese loanwords led to a rapid and lasting stabilization of the Chi-
nese logical lexicon. A closer look at the terms for twenty-six basic logi-
cal notions used in translations of Japanese works helps to substantiate
this claim. Table 4.1 synthesizes the terms for each of these notions
proposed in the twenty-one textbooks analyzed for this chapter. If
multiple terms were suggested, they are listed in order of decreasing
popularity. Unequivocal agreement was achieved in only six cases. In
all other instances, variations remained. But the range of these varia-
tions was limited. In most cases, the diverse terminological suggestions
were morphologically identical and displayed only slight semantic dif-
ferences so that readers would easily have been able to recognize them
as attempts at rendering the same, or at least two or more closely
related, concepts. Only the alternatives offered for “subject” (item 12)
and “predicate” (13) were potentially confusing because they blurred
the distinction between the terms’ grammatical and logical meanings.
The choice of the yinming term guo 過 ‘transgression’ as a candidate for
“fallacy” (24) also implied an unwarranted conceptual identity of two
similar but distinct notions. Still, such minor inconsistencies did little
to undermine the appeal of Japanese loans in general. Perhaps the
clearest indication of their lasting impact was the fact that the variant
254 chapter four
Table 4.1: Terms for Logical Notions in Translations from Japanese, 1902–1911191
English Hanzi Hanyu Retranslation

term pinyin
1 logic 論理學 lunlixue ‘the science of the patterns of reasoning’
2 reasoning推論*191 tuilun ‘to push forward and discuss’
推知 tuizhi ‘to push forward and know’
推究 tuijiu ‘to push forward and explore’
3 thought 思想* sixiang ‘to think of and consider’
思考 sikao ‘to think of and examine’
思慮 silü ‘to think of and ponder’
4 judgment 斷定 duanding ‘to decide and determine’
判斷* panduan ‘to judge and decide’
判定 panding ‘to judge and settle’
論斷 lunduan ‘decision of an argument’
5 truth 真理* zhenli ‘true patterns’
真偽 zhenwei ‘true or false’
6 term 名詞*（名辭） mingci ‘name-words’
語 yu ‘word’
項* xiang ‘item’
端辭 duanci ‘extreme word’
7 concept 概念* gainian ‘general idea’
總念 zongnian ‘comprehensive idea’
8 intension 內包 neibao ‘that which is included’
內容 neirong ‘that which is contained within’
內涵* neihan ‘that which is enveloped’
9 extension 外延* waiyan ‘outward extension’
外郛 waifu ‘outer limit’
10 definition 定義* dingyi ‘fixing/determining the meaning’
界說* jieshuo ‘explaining the limit’
釋義 shiyi ‘explaining the meaning’
11 proposition 命題* mingti ‘[something] assigning a topic’
詞（辭） ci ‘words’
斷定 duanding ‘to decide and determine’
12 subject 主詞*（主辭） zhuci ‘primary/host word’
主語 zhuyu ‘primary/host word’
主題 zhuti ‘primary/host topic’
13 predicate 賓詞*（賓辭） binci ‘secondary/guest word’
客語 keyu ‘guest word’
所謂詞 suoweici ‘words attributed to [something]’
說明語 shuomingyu ‘words explaining [something]’
14 affirmative 肯定* kending ‘to consent and determine’
15 negative 否定* fouding ‘to negate and determine’
191
Words marked by an asterisk (*) have become standard terms in modern Chinese.
Table 4.1 (cont.)

English Hanzi Hanyu Retranslation
term pinyin
16 particular 特稱* techeng ‘special designation’
特別 tebie ‘special’
17 universal 全稱* quancheng ‘complete designation’
18 inference 推理* tuili ‘to push forward according to patterns’
推測 tuice ‘to push forward and calculate’
推度 tuidu ‘to push forward and estimate’
推定 tuiding ‘to push forward and determine’
19 deduction 演繹法* yanyifa ‘the method to develop and unravel’
20 induction 歸納法* guinafa ‘the method to sum up and accept’
21 premise 前提* qianti ‘[something] raised first’
提案 ti’an ‘raising the case’
前引 qianyin ‘[something] cited first’
22 conclusion 斷案 duanan ‘verdict’
決論 juelun ‘decision’
歸結 guijie ‘result’
結論* jielun ‘concluding statement’
23 syllogism 三段論* sanduanlun ‘a discussion/argument in three stages’
推測式 tuiceshi ‘a form for pushing forward and calculating’
演繹式 yanyishi ‘a form for developing and unraveling’
推理式 tuilishi ‘a form for pushing forward according to
patterns’
24 fallacy 謬誤* miuwu ‘error and misunderstanding’
過 guo ‘transgression’
誤謬 wumiu ‘misunderstanding and error’
偽論 weilun ‘false statement’
虛偽 xuwei ‘empty and false’
25 hypothesis 假設* jiashe ‘tentative assumption’
臆說 yishuo ‘conjecture’
假說 jiashuo ‘tentative theory’
假定 jiading ‘determined tentatively’
26 proof 證明* zhengming ‘to demonstrate and clarify’
論證 lunzheng ‘demonstration of a statement’
論驗 lunyan ‘evidence for a statement’
證權 zhengquan ‘power of demonstration’
renderings for twenty-five of the twenty-six notions listed in Table 4.1

already included the word that would eventually be normalized in
modern standard Chinese.
Neither the coherence of the Japanese-derived terms as a whole, or
the overwhelming numbers in which they were brought into circula-
tion, nor the aesthetic appeal of Yan Fu’s competing pseudo-classical
256 chapter four
renderings, guaranteed a swift standardization of the Chinese logical

lexicon. More than any of these factors, the standardization of tech-
nical terminology depended on sustained institutional backing. But
in late Qing China such backing was slow to emerge. In contrast to
Japan, where professional societies brought together specialists in the
new disciplines who discussed and voted on terminological choices that
would then be promoted as standard terms through public agencies,192
Chinese officials and scholars remained largely inactive in this respect.
No specialized dictionaries of logic or philosophy appeared in print
before the end of the Qing, and most general dictionaries paid little
attention to logical terms. One exception was the Xin Erya (Table B.2,
Column 1), a book produced with the explicit aim of helping read-
ers understand the confusing array of specialized terms introduced in
translations from Japanese.193 In the field of logic, Wang Rongbao, one
of the book’s compilers, tried to address potential ambiguities by listing
the Japanese loanwords he had used in his adaptation of Takayama
Rinjirō’s Logic alongside Yan Fu’s alternative coinages.194 True to his
work’s statement of purpose, Wang documented the competing sets
of terms vying for acceptance and refrained from recommending one
over the other. The first normative effort initiated to undo the confu-
sion, the Office for Terminological Standardization founded in 1909 at
the Ministry of Education, did little to alleviate the situation. Although
the office hired some the most renowned scholars of the time—Wang
Guowei served as “coordinating editor” (xiexiu 協修)195 and Yan Fu
as “chief reviser” (zongzuan 總纂)196—it only cemented the emerging
diglossia between terms borrowed from Japanese and Yan Fu’s coin-
ages. Instead of trying to reconcile the opposing views of its two most
prominent contributors, the office opted for a shallow compromise in
192
See Montgomery, Science in Translation, 221–223.
193
See Wang Shuhuai, “Qingmo fanyi mingci de tongyi wenti,” 67–68.
194
Wang Rongbao and Ye Lan, Xin Erya, 75–79. See Shen Guowei, “Shin Jiga” to
sono goi, 30–34.
195
See Chen Hongxiang 陳鴻祥, Wang Guowei quanzhuan 王國維全傳 (Complete
biography of Wang Guowei) (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe [2003] 2007), 259–260;
278–280.
196
See Pi Houfeng, Yan Fu dazhuan, 362–366; Sun Yingxiang, Yan Fu nianpu, 340–343.
On Yan’s work at this office see also Huang Kewu 黃克武, “Xin mingci zhi zhan:
Qingmo Yan Fu yiyu yu Hezhi Hanyu de jingsai” 新名詞之戰：清末嚴復譯語與和
製漢語的競賽 (The war of neologisms: The competition between the newly translated
terms invented by Yan Fu and by the Japanese in the late Qing), Zhongyang yanjiuyuan
jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan 92 (2008): 1–42; 29–34.
the first draft of its recommendations. Wherever possible, the glos-

sary embraced terms suggested by Yan Fu, who was after all Wang’s
senior, and then filled the remaining lacunae with terms drawn from
Wang’s adaptation of Jevons’s Elementary Lessons in Logic.197 The result
was an inconsistent and thus utterly useless list of supposedly standard
terms, which not even Yan Fu himself cared to follow in his transla-
tions, as we may infer from the terminology of his Mingxue qianshuo,
published in the same year the office’s draft glossary was printed (see
Table 3.1). Despite its ill-fated beginnings, the list continued to circu-
late well into the Republican period. Its hybrid selection of terms was
still marked as “approved by the Ministry of Education” (buding 部定)
in the English-Chinese Dictionary of the Standard Chinese Spoken Language of
1916 (Table B.10, Column 1) and only began to be replaced by more
coherent suggestions in the widely acclaimed Dictionary of Philosophical
Terms of 1926 (Table B.10, Column 2).198 Even then, however, stan-
dardization remained a precarious issue, not least because the adapta-
tion of mathematical or symbolic logic from 1920 onward introduced
yet another set of logical terms that competed for recognition with
earlier coinages for several decades (Table B.10, Column 3).199
5. Luoji, or What’s in a Name?
The combined effects of Yan Fu’s lobbying on behalf of logic, its inte-
gration into educational curricula, and the circulation of a host of
well-designed textbooks introducing new concepts gradually secured
a place for the discipline on China’s intellectual map. Beginning circa
1902, an increasing number of influential scholars chimed in to advo-
cate earnest study of the discipline. One of the most audible voices in
this chorus belonged to the young Ma Junwu 馬君武 (1881–1940),
a prolific contributor to the journals driving the learned and politi-
cal debate in the early years of the twentieth century.200 Ma, who
had studied under the reformer Kang Youwei and, together with
197
Bianxue Zhong-Ying mingci duizhaobiao, 1a–3b.
198
Hemeling, English-Chinese Dictionary, passim.
199
See Xu Yibao, “Bertrand Russell,” 183–193; and Lin Xiashui and Zhang
Shangshui, “Shuli luoji zai Zhongguo,” 175–182.
200
On the formation of Ma Junwu’s thought, see Huang Jiamo 黃嘉謨, “Ma
Junwu de zaoqi sixiang yu yanlun” 馬君武的早期思想與言論 (Ma Junwu’s early
thought and speeches), Jindaishi yanjiusuo jikan 10 (1981): 303–349.
258 chapter four
Zhang Junmai, at the Université l’Aurore in Shanghai before joining

the group of nationalist activists surrounding the future president Sun
Yat-sen 孫逸仙 (1866–1925) in Japan, gained prominence through an
adaptation of Mill’s On Liberty that was celebrated by Liang Qichao as
the “second best translation” to become available in China after Yan
Fu’s famed On Evolution.201 His interest in logic found its first expres-
sion in a brief essay on Hegel written in 1903. Acknowledging that
Hegel’s logic was “extremely at odds” with the conventional under-
standing of the discipline, Ma struggled to convince his readers that
notions such as the “unity of opposites” were not as “ridiculous” as
they appeared at first glance. Rather, Ma argued, they were an inte-
gral part of Hegel’s idealistic project to capture the dialectical relation
between, and ultimate identity of, mind and world. In the end, how-
ever, he admitted that Hegel’s logic, though influential, remained so
“obscure” and “elusive” that only scholars much more gifted than he
could hope to penetrate its depths.202
In his second foray into logical territory, an introduction to key
tenets of Mill’s philosophy, Ma sounded much more self-assured.203
Logic, he wrote now in line with the view popularized by Yan Fu,
consisted in essence of only two elements: a theory of “definition”
( jieshuo 界說) and a theory of “proof” (zhengju 證據). Mill had shown
that both were indispensable to the progress of science and society
but Chinese scholars stubbornly refused to realize their importance.
Not knowing that definitions were the only means to determine “what
a thing is, of what elements it consists, and what keeps it together,”
they routinely ridiculed those who exhausted their energies attempting
to “delineate the boundaries” of things and events. But this arduous
task stood at the beginning of any scientific discovery; without it no
new knowledge was possible. A proper theory of definition, as pro-
vided by Mill, was therefore “the most important and most beneficial
201
Ma Junwu 馬君武 (trans.), “Mile Yuehan Ziyou yuanli” 彌勒約翰自由原理
( John Mill’s On liberty) (Shanghai: Kaiming shudian, 1903), reprinted in idem, Ma
Junwu ji (1900–1919) 馬君武集 (1900–1919) (The works of Ma Junwu, 1900–1919),
ed. Mo Shixiang 莫世祥 (Wuhan: Huazhong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1991), 28–80.
For Liang Qichao’s preface, see ibid., 28–29.
202
Ma Junwu, “Weixinpai juzi Heizhier xueshuo” 唯心派巨子黑智兒學說 (The
theories of Hegel, the master of idealism), Xinmin congbao, no. 27 (1903), reprinted in
idem, Ma Junwu ji, 99–107; 105–106.
203
Ma Junwu, “Mile Yuehan zhi xueshuo” 彌勒約翰之學說 (The theories of John
Mill ), Xinmin congbao, nos. 29, 30, and 35 (1903), reprinted in idem, Ma Junwu ji,
135–152; 148.
thing in the world.”204 To dismiss theories of proof as “useless” was

no less “preposterous.” Mill himself had pointed out that conventional
theories focused too narrowly on proofs through deductive reasoning,
which could only generate knowledge about particular instances from
general insights already included in the premises. Only his theory of
induction offered a sure method to gain new knowledge by inferring
general rules from particular facts through continued experimentation.
Based on verifiable observations of the causal relations between facts,
this method promised unlimited gains in true knowledge, which in
turn could serve as a reliable guide for action.205
Despite the ubiquity of such grandiloquent claims in the growing
body of Chinese literature on logic, Ma Junwu doubted that his coun-
trymen would muster the persistence necessary for earnest study. In a
third article he addressed what he perceived as their sustained reluc-
tance head-on:
In today’s China there is much talk of logic. But I hear that nine out
of ten among those who study logic through translated texts find the
subject dull. There are two reasons for this: first, logic is not yet well
developed in China so that the translations seem novel, strange, and
utterly difficult to understand. Secondly, those who study logic casually
do not realize what it is good for and hence treat it in a similar fashion
as other sciences commonly seen not to be vital; they feel that it is not
worth wasting mental energies on studying it.206
To arouse true “passion for the study of logic” among his lethargic
countrymen, Ma devoted his essay to highlighting once more the use-
fulness of the discipline. Its two cardinal methods of induction and
deduction were, as Ma stressed time and again, crucial for the prog-
ress of all sciences and arts. Induction, the “method of discovery,”
and deduction, the “synthetic method,” offered two complementary
and equally important routes in the pursuit of “truth” (zhenli 真理)
and thus toward the ultimate goal of all scholarship: the first provided
ways to “induce one root from myriad branches,” the second taught
how to “infer human knowledge from natural laws.”207 In the ensuing
discussion of key concepts of the inductive method (a planned sequel on
204
Ibid., 148.
205
Ibid., 149–152.
206
Ma Junwu, “Lunlixue zhi zhongyao ji qi xiaoyong” 論理學之重要及其效用
(The significance and usefulness of logic), Zhengfa xuebao, nos. 2 and 4 (1903), reprinted
in idem, Ma Junwu ji, 180–186; 181.
207
Ibid., 181–182.
260 chapter four
deduction was never printed) Ma imparted little that informed readers

could not have gathered from readily available, albeit more technical
textbooks. Nonetheless, his appeals were indicative of a steady cre-
scendo of scholarly voices calling for a more serious engagement with
logic and its diverse applications.
With an increasing number of authors seeking to position the disci-
pline closer to the center of public discourse, logical terms started to
seep into the ferocious debates about China’s political future between
the emerging factions of reformers and nationalist revolutionaries.208
In exchanges on topics as diverse as land nationalization, the neces-
sity of a revolt against the “alien” Manchus, or the question of whether
the Chinese citizenry was “mature” enough to live under a republican
constitution, authors like Liang Qichao209 on the reformist side and
Zhu Zhixin 朱執信 (1885–1920)210 on the part of the revolutionar-
ies tried to enhance the credibility of their claims by weaving logi-
cal catchwords, such as “definition” (dingyi 定義), “premise” (qianti 前
提), “conclusion” (duan’an 斷案), and “analogy” (leitui 類推), into their
arguments. Sometimes they even presented entire syllogisms (sanduan
lunshi 三段論式), including formal representations, to support their
points.211 Zhu Zhixin in particular seems to have been quite conversant
208
On the escalating controversies between the two factions, whose headquarters
were both located in Japan, see Yu-ning Li, Introduction of Socialism, 22–68.
209
The most prominent example is Liang Qichao, “Kaiming zhuanzhi lun 開明專
制論 (On enlightened despotism) (1906), reprinted in idem, Yinbingshi wenji, 17:13–83.
In his introductory remarks Liang claimed that this entire essay adhered strictly to
the demands of “logical methods” (lunlifa 論理法) and that he “did not dare to offer
a single word supported only by subjective views.” Ibid., 17:14. For roughly contem-
poraneous attempts to enlist logical notions in the service of political arguments, see
idem, “Bo moubao zhi tudi guoyou lun” 駁某報之土地國有論 (Refutation of the
theory of land nationalization in a certain journal ) (1906), reprinted in idem, Yinbingshi
wenji, 18:1–59; and idem, “Da moubao disi hao duiyu Xinmin congbao zhi bolun” 答某
報第四號對於新民叢報之駁論 (Reply to the refutation of the Xinmin congbao in issue
no. 4 of a certain journal ) (1906), reprinted in idem, Yinbingshi wenji 18:59–131. For
some background on the opinions Liang expounded in these essays, see Hao Chang,
Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890–1907 (Cambridge, Mass.: Har-
vard University Press, 1971), 252–258; and Zhang Pengyuan 張朋圓, Liang Qichao yu
Qingji geming 梁啟超與清季革命 (Liang Qichao and the Revolution of 1911) ( Jilin:
Jilin chuban jituan, 2007), 154–167.
210
Zhu Zhixin 朱執信, “Jiu lunlixue bo Xinmin congbao lun geming zhi miu”
就論理學駁新民叢報論革命之謬 (Applying logic to refute the fallacies in a discus-
sion of revolution in the Xinmin congbao), Minbao, no. 6 (1906): 65–78. Reprinted in
idem, Zhu Zhixin ji 朱執信集 (The works of Zhu Zhixin) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1979), vol. 1, 70–79.
211
For instance, Liang Qichao, “Kaiming zhuanzhi lun,” 17:34–37; and idem, “Da
moubao disi hao duiyu Xinmin congbao zhi bolun,” 18:76–78.
in the new language of logic he learned from the works of Yan Fu,
Wang Rongbao, and Ōnishi Hajime.212 His scathing critique of a
whole series of “epistemological” (renshi zhi miulun 認識之謬論), “for-
mal” (xingshi zhi miulun 形式之謬論), and “material fallacies” (neirong
zhi miulun 內容之謬論) in Liang Qichao’s essays was so devastating
that the latter, after one desperate and misguided attempt to defend
himself, henceforth couched his ideas in less vulnerable terms.
In some political contexts logical notions acquired meanings that
had little to do with their functions in academic texts. One example
was a discussion of the merits and shortcomings of “inductive” (guina
歸納) and “deductive” ( yanyi 演繹) scholarly factions in the work of
Liu Shipei. Taking his clue from the literal meanings of the notions’
Chinese representations, Liu tried to exploit the fashionable appeal
of newly-minted logical terms in an outline of his opinions on the
dispute between supporters of “uniformity” (from “induction”—‘to
push inward’, ‘to sum up and accept’, etc.) or “diversity” (from
“deduction”—‘to push outward’, ‘to develop and unravel’, etc.) in
matters of scholarship and ideology.213 The extent to which such ban-
dying about of logical terms helped to impress the readership that
revolutionaries and reformers hoped to win over is difficult to gauge.
Reactions to imaginative musings such as Liu Shipei’s were rare. Yet,
even if they did not add up to an effective new style of reasoning,
the multiple attempts to borrow the prestige of logic for political pur-
poses confirmed that the authors expected to enhance the persuasive
power of their arguments by demonstrating their familiarity with logi-
cal terms and notions.
1. “Logic”: From Confusion to Contention

An even more visible attestation of the burgeoning interest in logic was
an extended public debate, not on the merits or flaws of the new science
or its applications in the realm of political and academic discussion,
but on the most appropriate rendering of its name. Before examining
the arguments put forward in this lengthy controversy, it might be use-
ful to recall that the discipline was also known under many different
212
Zhu Zhixin, “Jiu lunlixue bo Xinmin congbao,” 71, 74.
213
Liu made this rather curious argument in the preface to his “Zhoumo xueshushi
xu” 周末學術史序 (Prolegomena to an intellectual history of the late Zhou, 1905), a
text that will be discussed in detail in chap. 5. For bibliographical details, see p. 294
below.
262 chapter four
designations in Europe throughout its history. To cite only the more

prominent examples, the science we now know as “logic” was referred
to by names as diverse as “dialectic,” “organon,” “canonic,” medicina
mentis, ars disputationis, philosophia rationalis, scientia scientiarum, and l’art de
penser.214 Although each of these terms had its unique history, all were
intended to highlight a particular quality of the discipline that the
other names seemed to conceal, and this was also the point that fueled
the debate about Chinese adaptations of “logic.”215
As we have seen in the preceding chapters, until 1900 almost every
author mentioning logic invented at least one new name for the dis-
cipline. (Table 4.2 provides a chronological overview of all terms
suggested as Chinese renditions of “logic” between 1623 and 1921.)
Thus, from a semiotic point of view the long phase of nearly com-
plete Chinese indifference toward the science was paradoxically the
most productive period. Once Chinese scholars eventually decided
that they had to come to terms with the discipline, the terminological
confusion resulting from this ultimately meaningless productivity was
quickly reduced to competition among a limited number of more seri-
ous alternatives. In the early years of the twentieth century, the three
main contenders for public recognition as the standard name for the
science were Joseph Edkins’s bianxue 辨學 ‘the science of debate’ or in
214
See Wilhelm Risse, “Logik,” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie. Band 5, ed.
Joachim Ritter and Karlfried Gründer (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesell-
schaft, 1980), 357–362.
215
Quite a few authors have touched upon individual aspects of this debate. See
Dong Zhitie 董志鐵, “Guanyu ‘luoji’ yiming de yanbian ji lunzhan” 關於’邏輯’譯名
的演變及論戰 (The evolution of and debates about Chinese translations of “logic”),
Tianjin shida xuebao 1 (1986): 25–28; Huang Heqing 黃河清 “ ‘Luoji’ yiming yuanliu
kao” ‘邏輯’譯名源流考 (Historical sketch of Chinese translations of “logic”), Ciku jian-
she tongxun 5 (1994): 11–15; Zhou Yunzhi 周云之, “ ‘Mingbianxue’ zhi ming de youlai
ji qi yueding sucheng guocheng” ‘名辯學’之名的由來及其約定俗成過程 (The origin
of the term “Chinese logic” and the process of its popularization), in Li you guran: jinian
Jin Yuelin xiansheng bainian dansheng 理有固然—紀念金岳霖先生百年誕生 (Pattern is
certain: Commemorating the 100th birthday of Mr. Jin Yuelin), ed. Zhongguo shehui
kexueyuan zhexuesuo luojishi 中國社會科學院哲學所邏輯室 (Beijing: Shehui kexue
wenxian chubanshe, 1995), 140–157; idem, Mingbianxue lun 名辯學論 (On the science
of names and disputation) (Shenyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 1996), 1–23; and,
most recently, Xiong Yuezhi 熊月之, “Qingshi ‘Xixue zhi’ zuanxiu de yi dian xinde:
wan Qing luojixue yijie de wenti” 《清史．西學志》纂修的一點心得—晚清邏輯
學譯介的問題 (An insight gained from editing the “Record of Western Knowledge”
in the History of the Qing: The problem of translating logic), Qingshi yanjiu 1 (2008):
124–135, which is largely based on Joachim Kurtz, “Coming to Terms with ‘Logic’:
The Naturalization of an Occidental Notion in China,” in Lackner et al., New Terms
for New Ideas, 147–176.
Table 4.2: Chinese Translations of “Logic”: A Chronological Overview, 1623–1921

Year Hanyu pinyin Hanzi Retranslation
A. Jesuit terms
1623 luorijia 落日加 (phonemic loan)
1623 mingbian zhi dao 明辯之道 ‘the way of clear discernment’
1623 luorijia 絡日伽 (phonemic loan)
1623 bian shifei zhi fa 辯是非之法 ‘the method to distinguish right/true from
wrong/false’
1623 luorejia 落熱加 (phonemic loan)
1631 mingli 名理 ‘the patterns of names’
1631 mingli tan 名理探 ‘the investigation of the patterns of names’
1631 mingli (zhi) xue 名理（之）學 ‘the science of the patterns of names’
1631 minglilun 名理論 ‘the theory of the patterns of names’
1631 bianyi 辨藝 ‘the art of debating’
1631 tuilun zhi zongyi 推論之總藝 ‘the general art of inference’
1631 tuilun (zhi) fa 推論（之）法 ‘the methods/laws of inference’
1683 libianxue 理辨學 ‘the science of rational debate’
1683 libian 理辨 ‘rational debate’
1683 lituixue 理推學 ‘the science of rational inference’
B. Modern terms
1869 mingli 明理 ‘elucidating pattern’
1869 mingli zhi xue 明理之學 ‘the science of elucidating pattern’
1869 lilun zhi xue 理論之學 ‘the science of rational arguments’
1869 si zhi fa 思之法 ‘the methods/laws of thought’
1869 lixue 理學 ‘the science of pattern, philosophy’
1869 gewu 格物 ‘the investigation of things’
1873 minglun zhi fa 明論之法 ‘the methods/laws of elucidating
arguments’
1873 luxi 路隙 (phonemic loan)
1873 yifa 意法 ‘the methods/laws of intentional thinking’
1875 luojige 羅吉格 (phonemic loan)
1876 bianlun zhi dao 辨論之道 ‘the way of argumentation’
1876 bianlun 辨論 ‘argumentation’
1880 bianshixue 辯實學 ‘the science of discerning truth’
1882 xuekuo xinsi zhi fa 學擴心思之法 ‘methods for learning to extend one’s
thoughts’
1884 bianlifa 辯理法 ‘the methods/laws of disputation’
1886 dao 道 ‘the Way, logos, reason’
1884 tuilunfa 推論法 ‘the methods/laws of inference’
1886 si zhi li 思之理 ‘the patterns of thought’
1886 lunbian lixue 論辯理學 ‘the philosophy of argumentation’
1886 libianxue 理辯學 ‘the science of rational disputation’
1886 bianxue 辨學 ‘the science of debate’
1889 lujike 錄集克 (phonemic loan)
1895 mingxue 名學 ‘the science of names’
264 chapter four
Table 4.2 (cont.)

Year Hanyu pinyin Hanzi Retranslation
1896 lujike 錄集克 (phonemic loan)
1901 lunli 論理 ‘reasoning’
1901 lunlixue 論理學 ‘the science of reasoning’
1902 luoji 邏輯 (phonemic loan)
1902 luojixue 邏輯學 ‘the science of luoji’
1904 bianxue 辯學 ‘the science of debate/disputation’
1906 yuan yan 原言 ‘the foundations of words’
1906 laojijia 牢記伽 (phonemic loan)
1906 luoji 落及 (phonemic loan)
1908 laojike 牢輯科 (phonemic loan)
1908 luoqike 羅奇克 (phonemic loan)
1908 tuilixue 推理學 ‘the science of inference’
1908 sixiang gongli zhi xue 思想公理之學 ‘the science of the general laws of thought’
1908 li 理 ‘pattern, reason’
1912 luoji 㦬 (phonemic loan)
1912 luoji 纙集 (phonemic loan)
1912 luoji 落機 (phonemic loan)
1912 laojie 老詰 (phonemic loan)
1913 silixue 思理學 ‘the science of the patterns of thought’
1913 lilun 理論 ‘rational argumentation, theory’
1918 lize 理則 ‘the rules of reason(-ing)’
1918 lizexue 理則學 ‘the science of the rules of reason(-ing)’
1919 siweishu 思維術 ‘the art of thinking’
1921 bianlunshu 辯論術 ‘the art of argumentation’
a more literal retranslation ‘the science of distinction’, coined in 1886;

Yan Fu’s mingxue 名學 ‘the science of names’, first introduced in 1895;
and the Japanese-derived loanword lunlixue 論理學 ‘the science of rea-
soning’, which began to circulate in China from 1901 onward.
In view of the muted response to his Bianxue qimeng, Edkins’s early
suggestion enjoyed surprising longevity. For some time, bianxue even
seemed poised to become the standard name for the science, if only
for the rather awkward reason that it was championed by Zhang Zhi-
dong as a supposedly “ancient Chinese name” in his 1904 version
of the statutes for the Imperial University.216 Due to its endorsement
216
Zhang Baixi, Rong Qing, and Zhang Zhidong, “Daxuetang zhangcheng,” 101,
104, 107.
by one of the most powerful men in the empire, bianxue was included
in the misguided recommendations of the Office for Terminological
Standardization in 1909,217 even though neither Yan Fu nor Wang
Guowei favored the term in their own writings. Because it had been
included in the office’s early list, Hemeling’s English-Chinese Dictionary
still marked the term as “approved by the Ministry of Education” in
1916.218 Yet despite continued official backing, bianxue was only able
to oust alternative missionary suggestions such as Wilhelm Lobscheid’s
lixue ‘the science of reason’, which, as we have seen, had been briefly
revived by John Fryer in 1898. Against terms coined and propagated
by more prominent Chinese writers, Edkins’s invention could not
stand for long.
The first major challenger of bianxue was Yan Fu’s mingxue ‘the sci-
ence of names’.219 Yan’s choice was clearly motivated by more general
concerns than his untiring search for wealth and power, as we may
infer from his first annotation in his translation of Mill’s Logic:
“Logic” (luoji 邏輯) is translated here as mingxue 名學 ‘the science of
names’. The meaning of the name “logic” goes back to Greece; it is
derived from the root logos (luogesi 邏各斯). The name logos has two
meanings: it is used for the ideas in our minds and the words coming out
of our mouths. In extension, it is used to denote a theory or a particular
science. Today, in the West the names of all the individual sciences end
with “-logy” (luoji 邏輯), which means “logic.” . . . On closer examination,
logos is one of the most valuable things in our life. It is nothing other
than that which Buddhists call atman, Christians call the “soul,” Laozi
calls dao, and Mengzi calls “human nature.” Therefore, the meaning of
the name logos is most subtle and refined, and hence this science is called
“logic.” As Bacon said: “This science is the law of all laws, the science
of all sciences.” . . . The earlier translations of logic that I have seen are
far too narrow. There was the Mingli tan, translated by Li Zhizao at the
end of the Ming dynasty, and today there is the Bianxue qimeng, translated
at the Inspectorate of Customs. But neither “exploration” (tan 探) nor
“debate” (bian 辨) are appropriate to express the breadth and extension
of this science. In order to come closer to it, [logic] must be translated
as “the science of names” (mingxue 名學). For ming 名 ‘name’ is the only
word in the Chinese language that is at all comparable in its subtlety,
refinement, and extension to logos.220
217
Bianxue Zhong-Ying mingci duizhaobiao, 1a.
218
Hemeling, English-Chinese Dictionary, 812.
219
Yan first used the term in 1895 in his essay “Yuan qiang” 原強 (On strength),
6–7.
220
Yan Fu, Mule mingxue, 1:2–3.
266 chapter four
Even to his contemporaries Yan’s explanation sounded in many ways

peculiar. Not only did he misinterpret the expression mingli tan ‘the
investigation of the patterns of names’ by suggesting that tan ‘investiga-
tion’ was intended to render “logic.” More importantly, his argument
in favor of ming 名 ‘name’ as the only possible translation of logos was
utterly unconvincing. For why should ming be closer to logos than terms
like dao 道, retranslated alternatively as ‘the Way’, ‘reason’, or ‘truth’,
and li 理 ‘pattern’, ‘principle’, ‘reason’, both of which had in fact been
used as renditions of the Greek logos in many Christian texts? Liang
Qichao was thus most probably right when suggesting that Yan Fu’s
true intention in the choice of mingxue was to appropriate European
logic, at least in name, for the mingjia 名家, the sophistic School of
Names that came to be known in European languages as the “dialecti-
cians,” “debaters,” or “logicians.”221 The price Yan was willing to pay
in order to sustain this implicit analogy was, as critics like Zhu Zhixin
added,222 to imply that logic remained a term- or concept-based disci-
pline, in which concepts or terms rather than propositions or sentences
were the main objects of inquiry. Despite such criticisms authors who
welcomed Yan’s comparative allusion or cherished the dignified fla-
vor of his terminological suggestions continued to write about logic in
terms of a “science of names.” As if to confirm Zhu Zhixin’s objection,
some took Yan’s rendition entirely literally. One example was a curi-
ous attempt to situate logic among other European sciences published
anonymously in a well-regarded journal that offered its readers this
imaginary genealogy of the discipline:
Logic (mingxue ‘the science of names’, also translated as bianxue ‘the
science of debate or distinction’ ): In his discussion of the six types of
writing, Cang Jie 倉頡 [the legendary inventor of the Chinese script]
first spoke about characters formed by phonetic borrowing ( jiajie 假借).
Later generations explained such loan characters in glosses and further
extended their meanings. Examples for this abound, not only in the
realm of philology but with regard to every thing and event. Since this
pattern was followed for a very long time, people became used to it and
no longer examined the original meanings of characters so that their
usage became ever more contradictory and hard to comprehend. Ancient
Greece was the first place where a science of names was established.
221
Liang Qichao, “Jinshi wenming chuzu er dajia zhi xueshuo” 今世文明初祖
二大家之學說 (The theories of two great precursors of modern civilization) (1902),
reprinted in idem, Yinbingshi wenji, 13:1–12; 13:3.
222
Zhu Zhixin, “Jiu lunlixue bo Xinmin congbao,” 65.
Its true founder was Aristotle. The starting points of his studies were
language and writing. Aristotle devised classes and distinguished things,
deliberating carefully to clarify their distinctions. Once he had unified
the meaning [of a word] he applied it consistently. It is for this reason
that Mr. Mill from England has called the science of names a quest for
authenticity that values the presence of truth and the absence of error
above all else.223
In view of such obvious misunderstandings it seems surprising that Yan
Fu’s terminology found some of its most ardent supporters among the
influential Chinese Science Society (Zhongguo kexueshe 中國科學社)
that endorsed mingxue as late as 1916 in its recommendations for stan-
dard scientific terms.224
The seemingly most successful rendition of “logic” in the waning
years of the Qing was the term lunlixue 論理學 and its abbreviation
lunli 論理, introduced as a graphic loan of the Japanese coinage ron-
rigaku 論理學 ‘the science of rational argumentation’ and its variant
ronri 論理 ‘rational argumentation’.225 Ronrigaku had itself been created
as a semantic loan of the English “science of reasoning.”226 The term
owed its normalization in Japan above all to the interventions of Nishi
Amane, who had supported this choice in a short but controversial
debate in the 1880s.227 Nishi had championed ronrigaku after propos-
ing and subsequently abandoning a number of equally tentative Sino-
Japanese equivalents, such as chichigaku 致知學 (Chin. zhizhixue) ‘the
science of extending knowledge’ and meirigaku 明理學 (Chin. minglixue)
‘the science of elucidating pattern’, the latter a term he culled from
Lobscheid’s English and Chinese Dictionary. Ronrigaku itself was borrowed
by inversion from the Chinese lilun zhi xue 理論之學, another one
223
Anon., “Kexue conglu er” 科學叢錄二 (Collected records on science, part 2),
Beiyang xuebao huibian 3 (1907): 1a–15b; 11a.
224
Zhongguo kexueshe, “Zhongguo kexueshe xianyong mingcibiao” 中國科學社
現用名詞表 (Table of terms used by the Chinese Science Society), Kexue 2, no. 12
(1916): 1369–1402; 1370.
225
The earliest occurrence of the terms lunli and lunlixue in a Chinese text is perhaps
Ye Han 葉瀚 (trans.), Taixi jiaoyushi 泰西教育史 (A history of education in the West)
(Nanjing: Jinsuzhai, 1901), 1:13a. Ye’s translation was based on an unidentified origi-
nal by Nose Eiichi 能勢栄; see Abe Hiroshi, Chūgoku no kindai kyōiku, 51.
226
Sōgō Masaaki 惣郷正明 and Aida Yoshifumi 飛田良文, Meiji no kotoba jiten 明治
のことば辞典 (Dictionary of the Meiji language) (Tōkyō: Tōkyōdō shuppan, 1989),
607–608. See Lippert, Entstehung und Funktion, 225–226.
227
See Funayama, Meiji ronrigakushi, 19–38; and Takada Atsushi, “Chūgoku kindai
no ‘ronri’ kenkyū,” 217–218.
268 chapter four
of Lobscheid’s hitherto infertile prescriptions.228 The most important

rivals of ronrigaku in the Japanese debate had been kakuchi tetsugaku 格
致哲學 (Chin. gezhi zhexue) ‘the philosophy of science’, favored by
Kiyono Ben, as well as ronsetsugaku 論說學 (Chin. lunshuoxue) ‘the sci-
ence of argumentation and explanation’ and ronpō 論法 (Chin. lunfa)
‘the methods/laws of argumentation’. None of these terms found its
way into the Chinese lexicon. Due to Nishi’s public clout, all of these
alternatives and a number of further competitors had been super-
seded when Chinese translations of Japanese logical texts began to be
produced.229
The sweeping success of lunlixue and lunli in China during the first
years of the century cannot be explained by any intrinsic qualities of
the terms. If there is any significant difference between lunlixue and
Edkins’s bianxue, lunlixue seems to emphasize even more clearly that
logic is concerned with the analysis of propositions rather than terms
or concepts. However, the strongest argument in favor of Japanese
loans in general was, as we have seen, the sheer numbers in which
terms from Japan had begun to arrive in China. It was again Liang
Qichao who highlighted this fact with due candor when justifying his
own inconsistent adoption of the term:
In the Ming dynasty, Li Zhizao translated the original word “logic” as
mingli ‘the patterns of names’. Recently, Mr. Yan [Fu] from Houguan
rendered it as mingxue. . . . But with regard to the meaning of the origi-
nal, [these translations] do not appear to be exhaustive. Here, I borrow
the word lunlixue, which is commonly used in Japan. In the future, the
learned strata of our China will have intimate relations with the learned
strata of Japan. Therefore, I prefer to draw . . . terms from Japan in order
to prevent them from differing too much from future translations.230
Even though Liang’s prophetic statement proved to hold true for some
decades to come, the Chinese scholars who eventually applied them-
selves to the study of logic produced yet more terminological alterna-
tives. Besides several new phonemic loans, listed in Table 4.2 above,
suggestions included the revival of the Jesuit terms mingli and minglixue,231
228
See Morioka Kenji, Kindaigo no seiritsu, 114.
229
230
Liang Qichao, “Mozi zhi lunlixue” 墨子之論理學 (Mozi’s logic) (1904),
reprinted in idem, Yinbingshi zhuanji 飲冰室專集 (Collected monographs from the Ice
Drinker’s Studio), ed. Lin Zhijun 林志鈞 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, [1936] 1990),
37:55–72; 37:55.
231
Li Di, Minglixue, 2a.
as well as new creations such as tuilixue 推理學 ‘the science of inference’,

sixiang gongli zhi xue 思想公理之學 ‘the science of the general laws of
thought’,232 or silixue 思理學 ‘the science of the patterns of thought’.233
Perhaps the most unusual and sophisticated of the new candidates was
Ma Xiangbo’s yuan yan 原言 ‘the foundations of words’. Ma intro-
duced a whole new system of names for the European sciences based
on the Latin roots of their Western designations. With regard to logic
he argued that yan 言 ‘words’ was more adequate than ming 名 ‘names’
since it could refer to individual terms as well as phrases or sentences.234
Yet, despite Ma’s eloquent justification, his suggestion slipped no more
slowly into oblivion than the other newcomers.
Only bianxue, mingxue, and lunlixue established themselves in public
discourse. Thus, in the final years of the Qing dynasty, the state of
the Chinese translations of the term “logic” resembled that of the
names of most other branches of knowledge that had moved into the
focus of Chinese attention since 1895: one term coined by Yan Fu
competed with one or more terms borrowed from Japanese and a
number of older or alternative renderings that were used significantly
less frequently. One therefore seemed to have good reason to assume
that in due course the Japanese loan lunlixue would be normalized as
the standard Chinese designation for “logic.” However, in contrast
to other academic disciplines, such as physics, philosophy, sociology,
politics, and many more that have kept their Japanese-derived names
until today, the story of how the Chinese came to terms with “logic”
took an unexpected turn.
2. Zhang Shizhao and “the Science of Luoji”

The turn was initiated through a short essay “On the Meanings of
Names in Translation” by the political journalist Zhang Shizhao
232
W. W. Yen (Yan Huiqing 顏惠慶), An English and Chinese Standard Dictionary,
comprising 120,000 words and phrases, . . . with a copious Appendix. Ying-Hua da cidian 英華大
辭典, 2 vols. (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1908), vol. 1, 1359.
233
J. Percy Bruce [Bu Daocheng 卜道成] and Zhou Yunlu 周雲路 (trans.), Silixue
jieyao 思理學揭要 (Elements of logic) (Weixian: Guangwen xuexiao, 1913). See Zhong
Shaohua 鍾少華 “Qingmo Zhongguoren dui ‘zhexue’ de zhuiqiu” 清末中國人對
「哲學」的追求 (The pursuit of “philosophy” in late Qing China), Zhongguo wenzhe
yanjiu tongxun 2, no. 2 (1992): 159–189; 179–180.
234
See Ma Xiangbo, Zhizhi qianshuo, 640.
270 chapter four
章士釗 (1881–1973). The article, first published in November 1910,235

provoked a controversy that raged on for almost a decade in journals
and newspapers and involved many prominent writers. Since the argu-
ments put forward by either side in the course of the debate applied
no less to the translation of “logic” than to that of other foreign
notions, the discussion deserves closer scrutiny.236 Previous debates,
like the controversies surrounding Yan Fu’s stylistic mannerisms, had
failed to elaborate general principles for the creation of adequate new
terms. Now, the learned Chinese audience engaged for the first time
in systematic theoretical reflection on the properties of ideal transla-
tion terms.
Zhang Shizhao, who incited the debate, had studied political econ-
omy, law, and logic at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland between
1908 and 1911.237 During his studies he had developed some insightful
ideas on the particular problems facing Chinese translators of scientific
and philosophical terms from Western languages. The term “logic”
served as a welcome example when he expounded his views in a
series of articles and in many replies to critics and supporters. Zhang’s
starting point was the contention that semantic loans were rarely able
to do justice to the terms they were intended to render. Thus, ming-
xue was in his opinion appropriate as a translation of the Aristotelian
or traditional notion of logic but incapable of denoting modern logic
as it was commonly understood since Bacon.238 Bianxue and lunlixue
shared similar shortcomings, since they were both derived from the
word “reasoning” and hence represented no more than “one part of
deductive logic” (tida luoji zhi yibu 提達邏輯之一部).239 The ill common
to all three terms was for Zhang the result of a specific feature of the
Chinese language, namely that it did not allow the representation of
235
Zhang Shizhao 章士釗, “Lun fanyi mingyi” 論翻譯名義 (On the meanings of
names in translation), Guofengbao 1, no. 29 (1910), reprinted in idem, Zhang Shizhao
quanji, vol. 1, 448–454.
236
For an assessment of the debate in the context of Chinese discussions on the
theory of translation, see Chen Fukang 陳福康, Zhongguo yixue lilun shigao 中國譯學理
論史稿 (Draft history of Chinese theories of translation) (Shanghai: Shanghai waiyu
jiaoyu chubanshe, 1992), 180–197.
237
See Zou Xiaozhan 鄒小站, Zhang Shizhao zhuan 章士釗傳 (Biography of Zhang
Shizhao) (Zhengzhou: Henan wenyi chubanshe, 1999), 63–73.
238
Zhang Shizhao, “Lun fanyi mingyi,” 449.
239
Zhang Shizhao, “Shi luoji” 釋邏輯 (Explaining logic), Minlibao, April 12, 1912,
reprinted in idem, Zhang Shizhao quanji, vol. 2, 210–211.
“words from other languages.” In general, translators had therefore no

choice but to search for semantic renditions. Ideally, they looked for
one or two Chinese words or characters that had the same extension
as the original term. But because they were in most cases unable to
find such words, many tended to offer translations of the definitions
instead of the foreign terms themselves. The danger of this common
procedure was that new translation terms would have to be created
when the definitions on which the previous terms had been based
were altered or refuted. Repeated changes in terminology, however,
were an obstacle to scientific and thus also to economic, social, and
political progress.240
The solution that Zhang Shizhao explicitly advocated in several
articles with regard to “logic” was to abandon semantic translation
altogether and rely on phonemic loans instead. In the case of “logic,”
he recommended the words luoji 邏輯 or luojixue 邏輯學, which Yan
Fu had employed, for want of an accepted Chinese syllabary, as pho-
netic representations of the English term “logic” in his translation
of Mill’s Logic. The decisive advantage of these renderings over their
competitors was, according to Zhang, that they were free from the
misleading connotations inevitably invoked by semantic loans. If there
was any “inconvenience” to the reader, it was the need to look up the
definition of the words when reading them for the first time since they
did not contain in themselves any obvious clues as to how they needed
to be understood.
Public response to Zhang’s case in favor of presumably semanti-
cally neutral phonemic loans was lively and diverse. Many comments
were interesting in themselves since they offered insights into the state
of public awareness on the question of translation. Thus, a number
of readers agreed with the general thrust of Zhang’s argument but
demanded further examples of misunderstandings caused by seman-
tic borrowing. Others wished a clear-cut definition for luoji or asked
for a hint on where to find the “original meaning” of the compound
and the individual characters in the ancient classics.241 And a certain
Geng Yi 耿毅 (1881–1960) suggested using the word luoji, as Zhang
had demanded, but writing it with the rare characters 㦬 that
240
Ibid.
241
“Letters to the Editor,” Minlibao, April 18, 1912; and Minlibao, April 21, 1912.
Reprinted in Zhang Shizhao, Zhang Shizhao quanji, vol. 2, 201–203; and ibid., vol. 2,
212.
272 chapter four
graphically signaled a relation to mental activity through the “heart”

radical xin 忄.242
Readers taking issue with Zhang Shizhao’s theoretical points were
slow to respond. Their main objections were summarized by one
Zhang Lixuan 張禮軒 in two letters to the editor reproduced in Zhang
Shizhao’s Minlibao.243 Zhang Lixuan argued that phonemic loans
should exclusively be employed to represent the names of individuals
and places or newly discovered and invented things and substances.
In all other instances, semantic loans were to be preferred (1) because
they were able to provide lay readers with an immediate understand-
ing of the subject in question; (2) because only semantic translations
were able to preserve the connection of a term to the semantic field
from which it originated in the foreign language; (3) because phonemic
loans were much more difficult to memorize; (4) because strict applica-
tion of Zhang Shizhao’s principle to use phonetic renderings whenever
no fully appropriate semantic translation could be found would inevi-
tably lead to a drastic increase of “meaningless” words and charac-
ters in the Chinese language; and, finally, (5) because phonemic loans
risked causing unintended terminological multiplication, since one and
the same term could be transcribed in many different ways depending
on personal preferences or regional variations in pronunciation.244
Zhang Shizhao did not reply in detail to all these contentions. He
insisted, however, that the seemingly unproblematic provision of an
immediate “general idea,” which his opponents took as an advantage
of semantic translation, was quite often the source of severe misun-
derstandings. In his view, it was precisely the strength of phonemic
loans that readers could not “look at the characters in order to gain
an understanding” (wangwen er shengzhi 望文而生知) of an unknown
term but were rather forced to inquire into its proper definition.245
242
Fanyi yanjiu lunwenji 翻譯研究論文集 (1894–1948) (Essays on translation, 1894–
1948), ed. Zhongguo fanyi gongzuozhe xiehui 中國翻譯工作者協會 et al. (Beijing:
Waiyu jiaoxue yu yanjiu chubanshe, 1984), 42.
243
Zhang Lixuan 張禮軒, “Lun yiming” 論譯名 (On translation terms), Minlibao,
May 17, 1912, reprinted in Zhang Shizhao, Zhang Shizhao quanji, vol. 2, 305–306;
and idem, “Lun fanyi mingyi” 論翻譯名義 (On the meanings of names in transla-
tion), Minlibao, July 6, 1912, reprinted in Zhang Shizhao, Zhang Shizhao quanji, vol. 2,
401–403.
244
Zhang lists luoji 纙集, luoji 落機, and laojie 老詰 as examples of further possible
phonemic replicas of “logic.” Zhang Lixuan, “Lun yiming,” 305.
245
Zhang Shizhao, “Lun yiming” 論譯名 (On translation terms), Minlibao, May 17,
1912, reprinted in idem, Zhang Shizhao quanji, vol. 2, 302–304.
Preserving the alterity of foreign terms was the only guarantee against
aesthetically more satisfying, but inescapably misleading appropriations.
It is difficult to assess which side of the debate convinced more
readers by looking only at the published arguments. Semantic transla-
tion is still the predominant form of borrowing in modern Chinese.
Nevertheless, the gradual dissemination of the term luoji during the
first decades of the Republican era indicates that Zhang Shizhao suc-
ceeded in this particular case in establishing a phonetic rendering as
an attractive alternative to existing semantic translations despite the
systematic pressure exerted by the fact that the Chinese designations
of all other sciences were borrowed or reimported from Japan. The
terms luoji and luojixue were applied in most translations of works on
mathematical or symbolic logic when the latter began to take root in
China from 1920 onward.246
The arguments exchanged in the course of the debate remained a
common point of reference for future discussions on the problems of
translation in China. Yet, at least until 1950 when luoji and luojixue
were normalized as standard designations for “logic” in mainland
China, Zhang Shizhao did not succeed in creating a term acceptable
to everyone writing on the subject. Even after the debate had come
to a halt, a number of new terms were introduced. The most promi-
nent examples were Sun Yat-sen’s creations lize 理則 ‘the rules of
reason[ing]’ and lizexue 理則學 ‘the science of the rules of reason[ing]’,
which are routinely used, alongside or in the place of luoji and lunlixue,
by logicians in Taiwan and Hong Kong, if only to express political
allegiance.247 Although the belated aftershocks of the debate added
few new arguments, they were an indication of just how passionate
Chinese scholars continued to feel about finding the proper name,
and place, for the discipline ever since its discovery at the turn of the
twentieth century.
246
See Guo Qiao, Luoji yu wenhua, 70–121; and Song Wenjian, Luojixue de chuanru,
41–61.
247
Sun Zhongshan 孫中山, “Sun Wen xueshuo” 孫文學說 (The doctrine of Sun
Wen), in idem, Guofu quanji 國父全集 (The complete works of Sun Yat-sen) (Taibei:
Zhonghua shuju, 1965), vol. 1, 113–173. For several other renditions, see Table 4.2
above.
274 chapter four
Concluding Remarks
The swiftness with which logic was naturalized in late Qing discourses
once Chinese scholars had decided that they needed to come to terms
with this seemingly most esoteric branch of Western knowledge con-
firmed that China’s intellectual elites, unlike those of fully colonized
nations, remained largely in control of their discursive territory, even
in times of violent imperialist intrusions. Missionaries and their native
collaborators had advertised logic as an invaluable supplement to Chi-
nese scholarship for more than two centuries without arousing interest
outside the narrow circle of their immediate allies. But indifference
quickly turned into curiosity, and sometimes fascination, once inde-
pendent Chinese scholars discovered the potential uses of the discipline
and built a convincing case that logic was not an exotic intellectual
oddity but a versatile science promising answers to pressing issues of
the time. Displays of infectious enthusiasm, such as those by Yan Fu
and Ma Junwu, succeeded in raising public awareness, at least among
readers of elitist journals. But lofty advertisements of logic’s hidden
values did little to help this restricted group understand its actual prac-
tice, let alone communicate this understanding to a broader audience.
For both, a more sustained effort was necessary that depended on
reliable institutional support.
After hesitant beginnings in private colleges, such support material-
ized with the inclusion of logic in the various new school curricula pro-
mulgated in the final decade of the Qing. Although the place of logic
continued to shift, from 1902 onward all drafts of the revised univer-
sity and normal school regulations agreed that the discipline needed to
be part of a comprehensive modern education. Somewhat surprisingly
in view of Yan Fu’s exaltation of logic’s subversive powers, even Zhang
Zhidong, who refused to allow the teaching of European philosophy
in China’s new schools for fear of further undermining the empire’s
ideological foundations, had no objections to exposing students to new
ways of formal reasoning. One explanation for the orthodox tolerance
of the discipline may be that it was seen either as an ancillary of the
natural sciences or an extension of traditional Chinese philology, and
thus as a mere methodological tool. As such, officials in the educa-
tional establishment had good reason to believe that it would remain
at a safe distance from ideologically sensitive areas of inquiry. The few
records recalling how logic was actually taught in late Qing and early
Republican classrooms confirmed their view. Teachers, if any could
be found, were struggling together with their students to comprehend

the basics of the new field and spent little time considering its norma-
tive implications.
Initially, the most visible consequence of the abrupt institutional
embrace was the publication of a host of new textbooks on logic that
began to appear in print even before the ink on the new school regu-
lations had dried. Although varying in their degree of sophistication
and by no means unified in their theoretical outlook, the sheer mass
of texts thrown onto the booming print market did more to popular-
ize the discipline than the most exaggerated claims of its utility in
science, pedagogy, law, diplomacy, or administration could ever have
accomplished. The hectic pace at which publishers competed to pro-
vide suitable introductions for different levels of students underlined
the commercial interest of titles even on so technical a subject. Aware
that they could expect handsome profits, especially if they managed
to secure an endorsement by the Ministry of Education for their texts,
all of the leading presses included works on logic among their offerings
and advertised them alongside more immediately attractive subjects
in the pages upon pages of book announcements routinely inserted in
newspapers and periodicals.
In addition to enhancing visibility, the ubiquitous circulation of text-
books introducing key notions facilitated the normalization of a new
logical lexicon. Thanks to the almost unanimous reliance on Japanese
texts of departure, the vocabulary used in the new books was from
the outset much more coherent than the terminologies suggested in
earlier adaptations. Even if variations in the choice of individual terms
or sets of terms persisted, the textbooks published in the first decade
of the twentieth century introduced fully developed terminological
systems built according to fixed morphological patterns. Within less
than a decade, a more or less stable terminology based on Japanese
models emerged as a new quasi-standard that no one discussing the
subject could afford to ignore. The contradictory list of officially rec-
ommended terms devised under Yan Fu’s direction for the Ministry
of Education, which attempted to save at least some of his antiquarian
coinages from extinction, did little to stop this trend. By 1909, even
authors who remained attached to Yan’s terms for aesthetic reasons
would only use them alongside Japanese-derived equivalents to ensure
the intelligibility of their texts.
Terms borrowed from Japan were also the preferred choice of authors
who tried to draw on the aura of authority surrounding logical notions
276 chapter four
in political and other nontechnical contexts. Ostentatious efforts to lay

out arguments in strictly deductive fashion, such as Liang Qichao’s
inept attempts to promote his ideas on the nationalization of land,
were clearly more interested in creating the appearance of a novel,
more objective style of reasoning than in applying the latter to test the
validity of their conclusions. Yet, as more and more texts claimed to
adhere to irrefragable logical patterns and the reading public grew too
familiar with logical notions to remain easily bluffed, there appeared
the outlines of a new “logical style” (luojiti 邏輯體) whose emergence
the literary historian Qian Jibo has traced back to the first years of the
twentieth century.248 Not everyone was impressed with this new way
of writing. Hu Shi, for instance, the driving force behind the “literary
revolution” in the 1910s and 1920s, ridiculed it as a “Europeanized
version of ancient-style prose” (Ouhua zhi guwen 歐化之古文) due its
self-righteous posture of rigidity. Others disputed the ability of authors
such as Yan Fu to abide by the strict rules of “definition” and “infer-
ence” they claimed to uphold and consequently derided their articles
as exercises in “fake European learning” ( jia Ouxue 假歐學).249 Yet,
even polemical dismissals confirmed the degree to which logic, and
the new style of reasoning to which it gave rise, had been naturalized
in Chinese discourses no more than a decade after Yan Fu had started
his determined crusade on behalf of the discipline.
248
Qian Jibo, Xiandai Zhongguo wenxueshi, 317–331.
249
Ibid., 318.
CHAPTER FIVE
HERITAGE UNEARTHED:
THE DISCOVERY OF CHINESE LOGIC
The civilizations of the modern West have their roots

in the age of the revitalization of ancient knowledge.
We should follow this example. For it is clear that
correlating ancient Chinese knowledge with new
European patterns is anything but a useless under-
taking for us today.
Liang Qichao, “Mozi’s Logic”
Almost immediately after European logic started to take root in the
Chinese discursive universe, scholars of diverse intellectual and politi-
cal persuasions embarked on a second, intracultural process of transla-
tion that eventually led to the formation of a distinct discursive field
concerned with what has since come to be called “Chinese logic.” In
view of the genealogical evidence assembled in the previous chapters,
it should be clear that the seamless emergence of this self-consciously
derivative discourse was far from self-evident. In contrast to other
branches of European knowledge that could be related to a wide range
of classical Chinese texts with relative ease—as the vast literature on
the “Chinese origins of Western science” confirms—materials contain-
ing explicit logical reflections seemed very difficult to find.
Or at least this was the opinion of the first Europeans who set out
to look for relevant passages in classical Chinese texts. Matteo Ricci
repeatedly stated that Chinese scholarship, despite all its sophistica-
tion, had produced “no conception of the rules of logic” and knew
nothing of “dialectic.”1 Echoes of this blunt but influential judgment
reverberated into the twentieth century, even among students of
China. In 1902, Alfred Forke, one of the first Europeans to study
the extant writings of the School of Names, wrote that the “dialectic”
1
Fonti Ricciane. Documenti originale concernenti Matteo Ricci e la storia delle prime relazioni
tra l’Europa e la Cina (1579–1615), ed. Pasquale D’Elia (Rome: Libreria dello stato,
1942–1949), vol. 1, 39; and vol. 2, 77. See also China in the 16th Century: The Journals
of Matthew Ricci 1583–1610, trans. Louis J. Gallagher (New York: Random House,
1953), 30, 325, 341.
278 chapter five
of these “Chinese sophists” is “of the most rudimentary kind. . . . The

Chinese mind has never risen above these rudiments and developed a
complete system of logic, perhaps because it is altogether too illogical
in itself.”2
Although less condescending in their formulations, the first scholars
introducing European logic in Meiji Japan were equally convinced
that neither China nor Japan had ever discovered, or indeed needed
or desired, a comparable branch of knowledge. If any Eastern counter-
part for this thoroughly European endeavor could be identified, it was
the Buddhist art of yinming ‘the knowledge of reasons’ that some Japa-
nese authors writing around the turn of the twentieth century tried to
reformulate into a distinct “logic of the East,” better suited to “oriental
societal conventions.”3
1. All Hail the Pioneers!
1. Who Discovered Chinese Logic?

The question of who should be credited with discovering “Chinese
logic”—again, in the sense of explicit logical theorizing in ancient Chi-
nese texts, not of any peculiar Chinese “ways of thinking”—remains a
contested issue, at least among historians willing to admit that Chinese
logic in fact needed to be discovered. In Chinese-language studies,
the discovery is most often attributed to the late Qing philologist Sun
Yirang 孫詒讓 (1848–1908). Sun made an invaluable contribution to
the eventual discovery of Chinese logic through his textual reconstruc-
tions of the “Mohist Canons” (Mojing 墨經). His insightful glosses and
emandations caused an immediate sensation when they first appeared
in print in 1895.4 The Mojing, which had been preserved more or less
accidentally in a remote corner of the Daoist Patrology, was regarded
as a work corrupted beyond repair until the mid-eighteenth century.5
2
Alfred Forke, “The Chinese Sophists,” Journal of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic
Society 34 (1902): 1–100; 5.
3
See Sakade Yoshinobu 坂出祥伸, “Meiji tetsugaku ni okeru Chūgoku kodai ron-
rigaku no rikai” 明治哲学に於ける中国古代論理学の理解 (Views of ancient Chi-
nese logic in Meiji philosophy), in Funayama, Meiji ronrigakushi, 242–268; 242–248.
4
Sun Yirang 孫詒讓, Mozi xiangu 墨子閒詁 (Leisurely glosses on the Mozi) (Suzhou,
1895).
5
See Yang Junguang 楊俊光, Mozi xinlun 墨子新論 (A new discussion of the Mozi)
(Nanjing: Jiangsu shifan chubanshe, 1992), 308–320.
heritage unearthed: the discovery of chinese logic 279
With the revival of studies of noncanonical masters in the framework

of the movement for “evidential scholarship” (kaozhengxue 考證學),6
interpreters with a keen eye for circumstantial textual evidence, such
as Bi Yuan 畢沅 (1730–1797) and Zhang Huiyan 張惠言 (1761–1802),
had set out to disentangle the various layers of corruptions that had
rendered the work unreadable. But although they made some progress
in piecing together disconnected portions of the text, their labors ulti-
mately came to no avail.7 Sun Yirang recovered the forgotten structure
of the text by showing how the two parts of the Mojing, the “Canons”
( jing 經) and the “Explanations to the Canons” ( jingshuo 經說), had
to be linked.8 Although he did not resolve all textual riddles besetting
this brief and enigmatic piece of pre-Qin literature, Sun pioneered the
direction that all further textual inquiries were to follow.9
In his extensive interlinear commentaries, Sun repeatedly hinted at
similarities between the rudimentary insights of the “Mohist Canons”
and European sciences such as optics and mechanics. His remarks
built on earlier insights by Zou Boqi 鄒伯奇 (1819–1869) and Chen Li
陳澧 (1810–1882), who had suggested that the Mojing was one possible
Chinese source of the now seemingly superior Western knowledge.10
Yet, like the other proponents of the “Chinese origins” theory, Sun
failed to recognize any passage in the “Canons” that anticipated or
could be related to European logic, at least in the published versions
of his reconstruction. The reason why he is still frequently praised as
the discoverer of Chinese logic is based on a posthumously recovered
letter to Liang Qichao that has been dated to 1897. In it Sun purport-
edly wrote:
I said earlier that the “Mohist Canons” contain many fine patterns, and
I mentioned, but did not develop, that they are the ancestors of the
6
See Benjamin A. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects
of Change in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984),
76–79.
7
Yang Junguang, Mozi xinlun, 320–324.
8
See Cui Qingtian, Xianxue chongguang: Jinxiandai de xian Qin Mojia yanjiu 顯學重
光：近現代的先秦墨家研究 (New brilliance of clear learning: Modern studies of the
pre-Qin Mohists) (Shenyang: Liaoning jiaoyu chubanshe, 1997), 51–56; and Zheng
Jiewen 鄭杰文, Ershi shiji Moxue yanjiushi 20 世紀墨學研究史 (History of Mohist stud-
ies in the twentieth century) (Beijing: Qinghua daxue chubanshe, 2002), 47–56.
9
Yang Junguang, Mozi xinlun, 324–326.
10
See Iwo Amelung, “Weights and Forces: The Reception of Western Mechan-
ics in Late Imperial China,” in Lackner et al., New Terms for New Ideas, 197–232;
214–215.
280 chapter five
theories of the School of Names in the Zhou dynasty. I suspect that they
must contain subtle insights similar to the deductive method ( yanyifa
演繹法) of the European scholar Aristotle, Bacon’s inductive method
(guinafa 歸納法), and the Buddhist theory of yinming.11
The language of this passage should have raised questions about its
authenticity. It seems more than remarkable that Sun, who did not
read any foreign languages, would have used Japanese-derived terms
for “deduction” and “induction,” which did not appear in any other
Chinese texts until 1901, instead of missionary renditions or Yan Fu’s
more popular suggestions. In any event, Sun never explained which
portions of the “Mohist Canons” led him to suspect these muted
resonances.
A second scholar occasionally cited as the discoverer of Chinese
logic is Yan Fu. Yan, as we have seen, pointed out affinities between
insights of the Classic of Change and the Western canons of induction
in his Mingxue qianshuo of 1909, and such affinities were also implicit
in his choice of mingxue ‘the science of names’ as the most appropriate
Chinese name of the discipline. However, the earliest hint in Yan’s
work of parallels between ancient Chinese philosophy and European
logic can already be found in the preface to his most successful transla-
tion, On Evolution:
Sima Qian wrote [in the Shiji 史記 (Records of the Historian)]: “The
Classic of Change makes manifest what was originally hidden, and the
Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu 春秋) infer the hidden from the visible.”
These are the most exquisite words ever uttered in our realm. Initially,
I thought that “making manifest what was originally hidden” referred
merely to reading the “Images” (xiang 象) and the “Attached Verbaliza-
tions” [in the Changes] in order to determine good or bad fortune, and
that “inferring the hidden from the visible” meant no more than judg-
ing and criticizing human intentions. But when I became aware of the
Western science of names, I realized that these [phrases] were in fact
related to the investigation of things and the extension of knowledge: they
refer to induction (neizhou 內籀) and deduction (waizhou 外籀). Induc-
tion means examining the part in order to know the whole, gathering
details in order to understand what things have in common. Deduction
means judging all matters on the basis of general laws and establishing
definite examples in order to predict future events. When I first looked
11
Sun Yirang, “Yu Liang Zhuoru lun Mozi shu” 與梁桌如論墨子書 (A letter to
Liang Qichao discussing the Mozi ) (1897), reprinted in idem, Sun Zhouqing xiansheng ji
孫籀廎先生集 (The works of Sun Yirang) (Taibei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 1963), vol. 2,
581–585; 582.
into books [on logic], I jumped to my feet and said: “Can it be? This is
exactly the knowledge of our Changes and the Spring and Autumn Annals!”
What [Sima] Qian called “making manifest what was originally hidden”
is deduction, and what he termed “inferring the hidden from the visible”
is induction. His words all but confirm it. The two [arts] are the most
important methods in fathoming the patterns of things.12
Yan’s statement went beyond Sun Yirang’s allusion by claiming a
secure foundation for two key aspects of logic in the Chinese classics.
But it does not reveal whether Yan would have agreed that this foun-
dation had sustained a branch of knowledge deserving to be called
Chinese logic. He was deeply suspicious of scholars deriving empty
pride from the professed wisdom of Chinese antiquity and routinely
ridiculed authors adhering to the “Chinese origins” mantra.13 In fact,
even the statement cited above, despite its seemingly enthusiastic
endorsement of China’s “logical heritage,” continued with a sobering
remark that is customarily omitted in unequivocally affirmative histo-
ries of Chinese logic:14
Later scholars failed to expand upon [these anticipations of induction and
deduction] and did not rely on them, and because they never applied
them properly, they rarely touched upon them in their works.15
Thus, even if logic had begun to flower in pre-Qin China, Yan Fu
was convinced that these buds had been spoiled by the negligence of
later scholars. He never made more than passing reference to logical
insights in ancient China in his own works. His most assertive state-
ment on the topic was a paragraph in his translation of Jevons’s Logic
claiming that
The art of logic must have existed in pre-Qin China; for without it the
various theories of “hard and white” ( jianbai 堅白) [and] “similarity and
difference” (tongyi 同異) as well as “short and long” (duanchang 短長) and
“part and whole” (baihe 捭闔) could not have been sustained. In the seven
books of the Mengzi, there is certainly some talk that can be refuted, but
Mengzi himself said that he “knew words” and “liked to debate,” from
which we know that he was deeply concerned about these matters. And
as regards the persuaders (shuishi 說士), if they had not been well versed
12
Yan Fu, “Yi ‘Tianyanlun’ zixu,” 1319–1320.
13
See Huters, Bringing the World Home, 55–56.
14
See, among many others, Zhou Yunzhi et al., Zhongguo luojishi ziliaoxuan, vol. 4,
254–276.
15
Yan Fu, “Yi ‘Tianyanlun’ zixu,” 1320.
282 chapter five
in this science, they would have had no skill to sell. For only those who
are familiar with the science of names can make clear distinctions and
know how to choose what conforms [to rules].16
Even if Yan believed that logic “must have” existed in pre-Qin China,
he failed to find any material on which a reconstruction of that lost
science could be based. His only lasting contribution to the incipient
discourse on Chinese logic thus remained his insistence on mingxue as
the most appropriate translation of “logic,” despite the criticisms that
this terminological choice, as outlined above, had promptly incited.
A third scholar sporadically credited with the discovery of logic in
China is the Buddhist writer Song Shu 宋恕 (1862–1910).17 In one of
eight poems he composed in 1902 upon leaving the Seeking Truth
Academy (Qiushi shuyuan 求是書院) in Hangzhou, Song drew the
first published parallels between the standard pattern of logical infer-
ence in yinming and the European syllogism (sanzi 三字 ‘three terms’ ):
Hindu logic consists of thesis, reason, and examples,
Who knew this was similar to the Greek syllogismos?
The Chan heretics forgot this adopted science after the Song;
In the West, Europe perfected it—and now threatens China.18
By locating the traces of China’s forgotten logical heritage in Bud-
dhist reasoning rather than in the works of the noncanonical masters,
Song Shu offered a new and obviously much more easily justifiable
16
17
See, e.g., Zeng Xiangyun, Zhongguo jindai bijiao luoji sixiang yanjiu, 39; and Li
Kuangwu, Zhongguo luojishi: jindai juan, 201–202.
18
Song Shu 宋恕, “Liubie Hangzhou Qiushi xueyuan zhusheng shi” 留別杭州
求是書院諸生詩 (Poems written when parting with my friends at the Seeking Truth
Academy in Hangzhou) (1902), reprinted in idem, Song Shu ji, 855–859; 857. Appar-
ently concerned that readers might not be able to understand his verse, Song added a
note explaining the historical background of his assessment: “The Nyāyapraveśa (Yinming
ruzhengli lun 因明入正理論) is the most important text in Hindu logic. After it became
available [in Chinese] with Kuiji’s 窺基 (632–682) commentary, several dozen schol-
ars discussed it during the Tang and Song, and many of those exploring the meaning
of the Buddhist canon sought guidance from it. With the rise of Chan its significance
declined, and when Chan became an obsession it almost vanished. Followers of the
Pure Land sect who criticized the Chan adepts rarely pointed out this error because
they, too, failed to emphasize the study of texts and their meanings. All this resulted
in sustained neglect of yinming. Only scholars in Japan never stopped to transmit it so
that it continued to flourish there until today. Even Japanese students of Chan and
Pure Land are well versed in it. The founding father of Western logic was the Greek
scholar Aristotle. Aristotle established the syllogism; his success in destroying heresy
was extraordinary.” Ibid.
variation on the comforting trope that “China has always had it, too.”
However, neither his documented expertise in yinming studies nor the
dramatic potential attributed to the science in his verses led Song to
explore the parallels he sensed more systematically. In consequence his
intuition, too, just like the suspicions of his predecessors, went largely
unnoticed.
Since neither Sun Yirang nor Yan Fu or Song Shu discovered more
than the roughest outlines of the unknown lands of Chinese logic,
there is little historiographic value in exalting their achievements in
this regard. In fact, if a fleeting glimpse sufficed to earn one the hon-
orific title of discoverer of Chinese logic, then the distinction ought to
be awarded either to Matteo Ricci who, as we have seen, recognized
the logical import of Gongsun Long’s “white horse” paradox already
in the seventeenth century, or to the German grammarian Georg von
der Gabelentz, who wrote the following in a brief introduction to the
Mozi published almost a decade before Sun, Yan, and Song voiced
their suspicions:
Book X—chaps. 40 to 43 [that is, the “Mohist Canons”]—is particularly
difficult. It appears to consist mainly of definitions; the style is exceed-
ingly concise and abstract, and in many places the text seems intention-
ally unclear. The whole [book] has an esoteric flavor. At times we are
led to suspect that a synthetic judgment or an affirmative proposition
may be hidden behind a definition, then again it seems as though formal
logic and dialectic were to be taught by example. It is one of the most
opaque texts I ever encountered.19
2. Chinese Logic in Meiji Japan

More serious discussions about the possible existence of logic in ancient
China first emerged in Meiji Japan. Starting in the 1880s, “Chinese
philosophy” (Shina tetsugaku 支那哲學) became a fashionable topic
among Japanese scholars who began to rethink the “Eastern” contribu-
tions to universal philosophical problems.20 In these discussions, which
were conducted mainly in terms borrowed from nineteenth-century
German neo-Kantianism, ancient Chinese thought was scrutinized
19
Georg von der Gabelentz, “Über den chinesischen Philosophen Mek Tik,” Be-
richte über die Verhandlungen der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig.
Philologisch-Historische Klasse 40 (1888): 62–70; 68. (Translation from the German is
mine, JK)
20
Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 32–37.
284 chapter five
for traces, first of metaphysical and epistemological insights, then also

of logic.21 As noted above, most early Japanese scholars of philoso-
phy and cognate disciplines—among them Ōnishi Hajime but also
more seasoned China hands such as Fujita Toyohachi and Hattori
Unokichi—initially denied that anything akin to European logic could
be found in pre-Qin thought.22 Some more generous voices argued
that “sprouts” (haitai 胚胎) of logical thinking could be traced back
to the implicit insights underlying the rhetorical artistry of the Chi-
nese debaters. Perhaps the first author to make this concession was
Nishi Amane,23 but it was developed more fully only by the Buddhist
scholar Matsumoto Bunzaburō 松本文三郎 (1869–1944). In an essay
on the dialectician Gongsun Long, published in 1895, Matsumoto
argued that Gongsun Long’s skillful defenses of seemingly contradic-
tory statements were close in spirit to the Greek sophists.24 Yet, like
Nishi, he rejected the notion that ancient Chinese philosophy had
known logic proper.25 In his History of Chinese Philosophy (Shina tetsugakushi
支那哲學史), the first monograph on the topic to appear in Japan,
Matsumoto went even so far as to suggest that “the lack of logical
thinking” was the most significant difference between early Chinese
and European philosophy.26
The first author to offer a less critical assessment was Kanie Yoshi-
maru 蟹江義丸 (1872–1904), one of Liang Qichao’s attested inspi-
rations, who found “logical value” in the solutions Xunzi offered in
response to the problems raised by the dialecticians. According to
Kanie, Xunzi’s chapter on the “Correct Use of Names” revealed
insights into the origins of propositions and the standards and rules
by which they had to be used. Xunzi thus demonstrated that a “logi-
cal spirit” existed in ancient China, on a par with the ideals of yinming
reasoning that would not become known in China until centuries after
his death.27 Kanie’s remarks were expanded by Kuwaki Gen’yoku
21
See Makeham, “Zhuzixue,” 63–64; and Funayama, Meiji ronrigakushi, 16.
22
For further examples, see Sakade, “Meiji tetsugaku,” 242–244.
23
Ibid., 245.
24
Matsumoto Bunzaburō 松本文三郎, “Kōson Ryūshi” 公孫竜子 (Gongsun
Longzi), Tōyō tetsugaku 2, no. 4 (1895): 145–150. See Makeham, “Zhuzixue,” 64.
25
Matsumoto Bunzaburō, “Shina tetsugaku ni tsuite” 支那哲学について (On phi-
losophy in China), Tōyō tetsugaku 5, no. 4 (1898): 170–172. See Makeham, “Zhuzixue,”
64–65.
26
Matsumoto Bunzaburō, Shina tetsugakushi 支那哲学史 (History of Chinese philoso-
phy) (Tōkyō: Tōkyō senmon gakkō, 1901), 2–3. See Sakade, “Meiji tetsugaku,” 245.
27
Kanie Yoshimaru 蟹江義丸, “Junshi no gaku o ronzu” 荀子の学を論ず (Xunzi’s
study of debate), Taiyō 3, nos. 8–9 (1897). See Sakade, “Meiji tetsugaku,” 246–247.
桑木厳翼 (1874–1946), who is best known today as an interpreter of

Immanuel Kant.28 Kuwaki wrote an essay on “Xunzi’s Logical Theo-
ries” in 1898 with the explicit purpose of supplementing Kanie’s insuf-
ficient analysis29 and added a more comprehensive “Outline of the
Development of Logical Thought in Ancient China” two years later.30
Trained at the University of Tōkyō, Kuwaki focused in his early work
on the neo-Kantian project to reconcile philosophy and the natural
sciences in a new critical epistemology. His interest in logic was part
of this enterprise. Like his teachers Nakajima Rikizō and Alois Riehl,
with whom he studied in Berlin in 1907–1908, Kuwaki regarded logic
and epistemology as inseparable in the attempt to clarify the condi-
tions of the possibility of valid knowledge.31 While epistemology ascer-
tained the material validity of knowledge by exploring the empirical
foundations of perception, logic provided formal certainty by explain-
ing the laws according to which concepts were related in thought. This
understanding of logic also informed Kuwaki’s explorations of logic
in ancient China, as he revealed in the introduction to his essay on
Xunzi—the first text in any language to use the term “Chinese logic”
(Shina ronrigaku 支那論理學):32
The syllogism is not the most important part of true logic. The aim of
logic is to expound the laws of thought itself, that is, the formal laws of
thought; to determine whether judgments are appropriate; and to clarify
the meaning of concepts. Therefore, Xunzi’s treatise “On the Correct
Use of Names” can be regarded as elaborating a logical theory of mental
conception. Prior to discussing this theory, Xunzi explains the patterns
according to which things are represented by epistemic concepts. To
put it in his own terms, he first talks about “knowledge” (zhi 知) before
28
On Kuwaki’s philosophical background and training, see Sakade, “Meiji tetsu-
gaku,” 248–252; and Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 81–83.
29
Kuwaki Gen’yoku 桑木厳翼, “Junshi no ronri setsu” 荀子の論理説 (Xunzi’s
logical theory), Waseda gakuhō 14 (1898), reprinted in idem, Tetsugaku gairon 哲学概論
(Outline of philosophy) (Tōkyō: Hakubunsha, 1900), 449–463. For the reference to
Kanie, see ibid., 463.
30
Kuwaki Gen’yoku, “Shina kodai ronri shisō hattatsu no gaisetsu” 支那古代論理
思想発達の概説 (An outline of the development of logical thought in ancient China)
(1900), reprinted in idem, Tetsugaku gairon 哲学概論 (Outline of philosophy), revised
and enlarged edition (Tōkyō: Waseda daigaku shuppanbō, 1923), 473–500.
31
See Niels Gülberg, “Alois Riehl und Japan,” Humanitas (The Waseda University Law
Association) 41 (2003): 1–32; 2–6.
32
Kuwaki, “Junshi no ronri setsu,” 462.
286 chapter five
addressing “names” (ming 名). This is entirely consistent with today’s so-
called “epistemological logic” (ninshikironteki ronrigaku 認識論的論理学).33
The logically relevant insights Kuwaki identified in Xunzi include
an empirically grounded distinction between “empty” and “full,” or
appropriate and inappropriate, names, terms similar to those appear-
ing in Bacon’s critique of the idola fori;34 a “coarse and simple” theory
of classification prone to confound genera and species;35 criteria for
establishing identity and difference;36 and an inventory of three kinds
of “errors” (huo 惑), resembling discussions of fallacies, that highlights
sources of ambiguity, demands respect for sense data, and exposes
the logical impossibility of maintaining contradictory assumptions.37
Although these elements did not add up to a comprehensive theory of
“epistemological logic,” Xunzi addressed fundamental questions that
no such theory could ignore. And because he did so in a “systematic”
(soshikiteki 組織的) fashion, Kuwaki argued, he should not be treated as
a sophist but deserved to be given a more elevated place in the history
of logic, somewhere “between Socrates and Aristotle.”38
The distinction between “systematic” and “unsystematic” logical
inquiry was also the principle guiding Kuwaki’s second essay on the
“Development of Logical Thought in Ancient China.” As in Greece
and India, Kuwaki wrote, systematic logical thought was provoked in
early China by the emergence of sophistry. The breakdown of politi-
cal order in the Warring States period allowed for an unprecedented
degree of intellectual freedom and in turn fostered increasingly con-
troversial debates. Although Confucius rarely relied on logical argu-
ments to refute challenges to his moral maxims, his followers did not
hesitate to engage their opponents. Mencius in particular frequently
entered public debates with irresponsible persuaders to reveal how
they exploited ambiguities to seduce their audiences. Even if he never
33
Ibid., 450.
34
Ibid., 458–459, referring to Xunzi 22.2g. References to Xunzi follow the number-
ing in John Knoblock, Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works (Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1994). See ibid., vol. 3, 130–131.
35
Kuwaki, “Junshi no ronri setsu,” 457–458, referring to Xunzi 22.2f. See Knob-
lock, Xunzi, vol. 3, 130.
36
Kuwaki, “Junshi no ronri setsu,” 454–456, referring to Xunzi 22.2h. See Knob-
lock, Xunzi, vol. 3, 131.
37
Kuwaki, “Junshi no ronri setsu,” 460–462, referring to Xunzi 22.3a–d. See Kno-
block, Xunzi, vol. 3, 131–132.
38
Kuwaki, “Junshi no ronri setsu,” 451.
expounded his logical ideas in a systematic manner, Mencius therefore

deserved to be given a special place among Confucian thinkers.39 At
the other end of the ideological spectrum, the Daoist texts Laozi 老子
and Zhuangzi shared the Confucian focus on ethics and metaphysics,
and displayed equally limited interest in logical questions. Their only
potentially valuable contributions with regard to logic were an insis-
tence on the unity of opposites and a related attempt to subvert the
law of contradiction.40 Yet, although this starting point was similar to
that of Hegel’s modern enterprise, both squandered the opportunity
to build a fully developed system of philosophical logic on this founda-
tion. Kuwaki’s portrayal of logical ideas among the dialecticians was
even less sympathetic. Although Hui Shi, Gongsun Long, and other
debaters excelled in the exploitation of logical rules, they wasted this
knowledge on frivolous purposes instead of using it more responsibly
for the construction of coherent theories. Their undeniable grasp of
the laws of thought, the properties of concrete and abstract concepts,
and some rules for their combination thus contributed only in a nega-
tive way to the development of logical thought, namely, by inciting a
more determined resistance to their sophistic challenges.41
The most formidable reaction against the dialecticians’ wit came
from Xunzi and Mozi, the only two “systematic” logical thinkers
Kuwaki recognized in pre-Qin China. As in his first article, Kuwaki
commended Xunzi for his sophisticated theory of conceptualization,
or “conception” as it was called in late nineteenth-century logic, which
he reiterated in condensed form, along the way correcting some errors
in his earlier version, such as misappropriations of sophistic quota-
tions.42 What Mozi or, more precisely, the “Mohist Canons,” added to
these insights, according to Kuwaki, was a theory of inferential reason-
ing. Only fragments of this theory were intelligible due to the text’s
severe corruption. Kuwaki relied on Bi Yuan’s version, in which no
more than parts of “Canon A” ( jing shang 經上) as well as the chap-
ters entitled “The Greater Pick” (daqu 大取) and “The Lesser Pick”
(xiaoqu 小取) appeared to be more or less readable. In “Canon A”
Kuwaki excavated definitions for concepts such as “consequence” and
“necessity” without being able to link them to any meaningful context.
39
Kuwaki, “Shina kodai ronrigaku,” 473–476.
40
Ibid., 476–477.
41
Ibid., 477–483.
42
Ibid., 491–499. See Sakade, “Meiji tetsugaku,” 257–258.
288 chapter five
The “Greater” and “Lesser Pick,” whose main purpose was to defend
Mozi’s ethical theory of “universal love” ( jian’ai 兼愛), seemed to be
more approachable. Kuwaki claimed that both texts contained expla-
nations of crucial logical notions and examples illustrating their appli-
cation. However, his interpretations of these two chapters were hardly
convincing. Among his more plausible claims was his identification of
the Mohist notion bian 辯 ‘to dispute or distinguish’ with “logic” or
“dialectic.” The “Lesser Pick” explained the purpose of bian as “to
clarify the distinction between right/true and wrong/false, examine
the records of order and disorder, clarify points of sameness and dif-
ference, and inquire into the patterns of names and objects.”43 Other
suggestions of equivalences that had some merit included Kuwaki’s
likening of “The assumed is not so now” to “hypothesis,” and “The
example is a standard to be emulated” to “norm.”44 While these defi-
nitions displayed at least generic similarities with the counterparts he
suggested, the equivalents Kuwaki introduced, without further expla-
nation, for “problematic probability,” “material example,” “equiva-
lence,” “conclusion,” and “analogy” were rather far-fetched. Still more
problematic was his claim that the “Canons” established a “complete
outline of logic” with the introduction of these eight notions.45
Although Kuwaki tried his best to link the fragments he uncovered,
the connections between them remained tenuous at best. But even the
most ingenious reconstruction would not have been able to hide the fact
that the conceptual tools he extracted from the less mutilated portions
in the “Canons” were too few and far between to serve as reliable foun-
dations for a theoretical edifice truly on a par, as he exclaimed emphat-
ically, with Aristotle and his followers.46 In his concluding remarks,
Kuwaki admitted as much by stating that Mozi’s insights into the rules
of reasoning remained incomplete from a systematic point of view. On
the whole, however, he insisted that his reconstruction demonstrated
beyond doubt that logical thought in ancient China had followed the
same teleological path of development—from “unsystematic” speculation
43
Kuwaki, “Shina kodai ronrigaku,” 485. References to the “Mohist Canons”
(Mojing) follow the page and line numbers to the Daoist Patrology version suggested
in Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 499–525, in this case “Xiaoqu,” HC 6A.9–6B.1. Trans-
lation adapted from Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 472–75.
44
Kuwaki, “Shina kodai ronrigaku,” 486, referring to “Xiaoqu,” HC 6B.3–4. See
Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 470–471.
45
Kuwaki, “Shina kodai ronrigaku,” 488.
46
Ibid., 492.
through sophistry to “systematic” inquiry—as in Greece and India.47

His Shina ronrigaku could thus indeed boast to have unearthed a rich, if
not particularly well-documented legacy, covering basically the same
ground as the most advanced forms of European logic as Kuwaki
understood them. Hence, if it were necessary to identify a discoverer
of Chinese logic, Kuwaki Gen’yoku would have to be named as the
most serious contender, notwithstanding the problematic nature of his
more exalted claims.48
As ingenious as the discoveries of all these early pioneers may seem,
none of them was able to contribute more than vague inspirations to the
manner in which discourses on Chinese logic came to be articulated in
twentieth-century China. Much more decisive in this regard were the
interpretative efforts of four of the most influential Chinese scholars of the
age—Liu Shipei, Zhang Binglin, Liang Qichao, and Wang Guowei—
who started to turn their attention to uncovering native precedents
for the newly discovered science of logic almost immediately after the
turn of the twentieth century. In their studies from this period, the four
scholars identified key questions that no one writing on the subject has
since been able to ignore. Starting from the general conviction that
Chinese scholarship needed to be renewed by the adaptation of new
conceptual resources, each approached the issue of Chinese logic from
a different angle and with different aims. And although they presented
distinct versions of this forgotten legacy, each in his own way added a
central element to the structure of the conceptual space in which the
discourse of Chinese logic has come to be expressed until today.
2. Chinese Logic as Classical Philology
Liu Shipei’s role in this context is often underestimated. The preco-

cious offspring of a distinguished scholarly lineage from Yangzhou,49 a
center of “Han Learning” (Hanxue 漢學) since the seventeenth century,
Liu is best known for his chameleonesque political radicalism. In his
erratic search for a spiritually satisfying political ideology Liu shifted
47
Ibid., 499.
48
On the influence of Kuwaki’s discovery in early-twentieth-century Japan, see
Sakade, “Meiji tetsugaku,” 262–268.
49
On Liu Shipei’s family background, see Wan Shiguo 萬仕國, Liu Shipei nianpu
劉師培年譜 (Annalistic biography of Liu Shipei) (Yangzhou: Guangxia shushe, 2003),
328.
290 chapter five
from a virulent Han chauvinism through anarchism to an anachro-

nistic monarchism.50 Yet, in the first years of the twentieth century he
was also seen as one of China’s most promising young scholars due to
the sound philological training he had received in his family school,
his quick and audacious brush, and his versatility in absorbing foreign
ideas and blending them with native concepts. His first book, The Quin-
tessence of the Chinese Social Contract (Zhongguo minyue jingyi 中國民約精義),
completed in 1903, was a stunning example of this ability.51 In order
to propagate notions borrowed from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Contrat
social, which had become known in China through a translation from
Japanese, Liu deliberately cut the text into pieces, paraphrased use-
ful passages, and corroborated his interpretations by attaching quota-
tions from canonical and noncanonical Chinese texts.52 Liu was by no
means the first to apply this technique, which was clearly inspired by
the argumentative strategy of texts expounding the Chinese origins of
Western science, but he employed this exegetical device with greater
persuasive efficiency than previous writers. Still more importantly, he
connected it with the pursuit of an increasingly popular aim: a revolt
against Qing China’s “alien” Manchu rulers.
1. The Chinese Science of Names

This subversive intention became even more obvious in Liu’s second
major work, the Book of Expulsion (Rangshu 攘書), a radical anti-Manchu
treatise that contained some chapters with a more scholarly focus. In
one of these less contentious chapters, Liu announced his very own
discovery of “Chinese logic.” In deliberations on Xunzi’s chapter “On
the Correct Use of Names,” Liu cited terms borrowed from Yan Fu’s
rendition of Mill’s Logic to corroborate Xunzi’s insights and, wherever
50
On Liu Shipei’s shifting political ideas, see Peter Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese
Political Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 32–45; Fang-Yen Yang,
“Nation, People, Anarchy: Liu Shih-p’ei and the Crisis of Order in Modern China”
(Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1999), chaps. 2 and 3; and Hao
Chang, Chinese Intellectuals, 146–179.
51
Liu Guanghan 劉光漢 [ Liu Shipei 劉師培], Zhongguo minyue jingyi 中國民約精義
(The quintessence of the Chinese social contract) (1903), reprinted in idem, Liu Shipei
quanji 劉師培全集 (The complete works of Liu Shipei) (Beijing: Zhonggong zhong-
yang dangxiao chubanshe, 1997), vol. 1, 560–597.
52
See Xiaoling Wang, “Liu Shipei et son contrat social chinois,” Etudes chinoises
17, nos. 1–2 (1998): 155–190; and Steven C. Angle, “Did Someone Say ‘Rights’? Liu
Shipei’s Concept of Quanli,” Philosophy East and West 48, no. 4 (1998): 623–651.
necessary for his argumentative purposes, reinforced Mill’s messages

with quotations from Xunzi.53 By freely exchanging the order of expla-
nans and explanandum, Liu went beyond the interpretative conventions
of the “Chinese origins” trope. His uninhibited wandering between
two conceptual frameworks, whose priority had to be determined in
each particular instance, was a new element in discourses dedicated
to the amalgamation of Chinese and Western knowledge. “Chinese
origins” authors had insisted on the precedence of Chinese terms until
1897, when the order was suddenly reversed and traditional Chinese
knowledge began to be redefined in order to fit into a Europeanized
disciplinary matrix.54 Still, the taxonomical frames of Chinese and
Western knowledge had remained strictly separated. What Liu Shipei
had in mind, however, was an eclectic fusion of just these frames, and
with this attempt he opened a new page in Chinese domestications of
Western knowledge.
One example of what this new approach entailed was Liu’s appro-
priation of logic, which he conceived very literally as a “science of
names.” Liu was certainly no specialist in the subject. In his under-
standing of the science he depended almost exclusively on the first part
of Yan Fu’s rendition of Mill’s Logic.55 Like Yan, he declared “induc-
tion” and “deduction” to be the central concerns of logic, and he also
cited a passage from Yan’s adaptation of Mill stressing that the disci-
pline should not be conceived as a purely formal “study of thinking”
(si zhi xue 思之學) but rather as a “quest for authenticity” (qiucheng zhi
xue 求成之學) entailing moral and spiritual dimensions.56 Whether Liu
studied Mill’s Logic closely remains doubtful. Inspired not so much by
the contents of the work as by the literal meaning of its title, Liu called
for a merger of the Western “science of names,” as he understood it,
with Chinese philology and textual criticism (“lesser learning,” xiaoxue
小學). Liu was convinced that the integration of logical methods into
53
Liu Guanghan, Rangshu 攘書 (Book of expulsion) (1903), reprinted in idem, Liu
Shipei quanji, vol. 2, 1–17; 15–17.
54
The first “Chinese origins” text in which the taxonomies of knowledge were
reversed was Gezhi jinghua lu 格致精華錄 (Records on the essence of science), ed.
Jiang Biao 江標 (n.p., 1897). On Jiang, see Iwo Amelung, “Weights and Forces,”
219–220.
55
See Li Fan 李帆, Liu Shipei yu Zhong-xi xueshu 劉師培與中西學術 (Liu Shipei and
Chinese and Western knowledge) (Beijing: Beijing Shifan daxue chubanshe, 2003),
101–103.
56
Liu Guanghan, Rangshu, vol. 2, 15.
292 chapter five
the arsenal of traditional philology would help to overcome the Chi-

nese language’s notorious lack of “rules” (guize 規則), which he saw
as obstructing the progress of learning.57 In his “Miscellaneous Notes
on the National Language” (Guowen zaji 國文雜記), written roughly at
the same time as the Book of Expulsion, Liu argued that the merger he
proposed constituted in fact a return to ancient practices:
The reason why China’s national language has no rules is that we do
not understand logic. The utility of logic begins with the correct use of
names and ends with inferences. Without logic, it is impossible to learn
how to analyze parts of speech and link words [in an appropriate way].
Scholars in our China may have the intention to promote logic but so
far they do not practice it. Yet, we see how beneficial logic is when
recalling Confucius’s statements that “it is necessary to correct the use
of names” and that “without correct names, words cannot be trusted.”
Dong Zhongshu’s 董仲舒 [ca. 195–105 BC] remark that “names are
born from truth and what is not true cannot be considered a real name”
also reminds us of the significance of making sure that names are used
correctly. Xunzi’s treatise “On the Correct Use of Names” can help
to explain the application of logic and its rules. But how many people
in ancient China were actually able to apply logical rules purely? The
early School of Names, with the likes of Gongsun Long and Yin Wen
among them, displayed many similarities with the patterns of reasoning
but [their teachings] were closer to those of the Greek sophists than
what Mr. Mill calls the quest for authenticity. Most Confucians also
abandoned it and this is the reason why logic declined. If we want to
correct the Chinese national language today, our first priority must be
to recover ancient China’s logic and supplement it with the logic of the
Western nations for additional benefit. This is the only way to ensure
that names correspond to objects.58
While the purpose of Liu’s planned merger was clear, it was not
easy to see how it could be accomplished. In his Book of Expulsion,
Liu approached his self-chosen task by synthesizing a broad range
of classical opinions on the properties and functions of “names” into
a theory of conceptualization inspired by Xunzi. Xunzi had become
an important point of reference for late Qing literati affiliated with
“Old Text” (guwen 古文) scholarship through the work of Yu Yue
俞樾 (1821–1907), the teacher of both Sun Yirang and Zhang Bing-
lin, whose meticulous commentaries aimed to rehabilitate Xunzi’s
57
Liu Guanghan, “Guowen zaji” 國文雜記 (Miscellaneous notes on the national
language) (1903), reprinted in idem, Liu Shipei quanji, vol. 3, 463–466; 465.
58
Ibid., vol. 3, 465–466.
heterodox views of human nature after centuries of orthodox abuse.59

Liu had enthusiastically joined this enterprise, not least because he
believed that Xunzi’s ideas and the comprehensive “theory of names,”
with which he supported them, resonated with Mill’s, or rather Yan
Fu’s, “quest for authenticity.” To develop these resonances Liu identi-
fied in his Book of Expulsion and a number of roughly contemporaneous
essays specific equivalences between key terms in Xunzi’s and Mill’s
“science of names.”60 For instance, he equated Xunzi’s gongming 共名
‘general name’ and bieming 別名 ‘specific name’ with Mill’s “general
term” (gongming 公名) and “particular term” (zhuanming 專名), and
matched Xunzi’s expressions da gong 大共 ‘greatest generalization’ and
da bie 大別 ‘greatest specification’ with “induction” ( guina) and “deduc-
tion” ( yanyi).61 As if this were not enough complexity, Liu then added
yinming terms to the conceptual mix, substantiating thereby Sun
Yirang’s and Song Shu’s suspicions of similarities between Western
logic and Chinese Buddhist reasoning. Yinming texts were rediscovered
in China,62 along with other alternative traditions, at the turn of the
century, but Liu had no reason to believe his readers would be familiar
with individual yinming notions. Still, he failed to provide any evidence
for his claim that the yinming terms tongpin 同品 ‘of similar quality’ and
yipin 異品 ‘of different quality’ were functional equivalents of the West-
ern concepts “general term” and “particular term,” with which he had
previously equated them in Xunzi.63 Although Liu ventured further in
his search for equivalents than any of his predecessors, he insisted that
both Western logic and yinming were only able to complement, but not
replace, Chinese philology, since they had not evolved on the basis
59
On Yu Yue and his defense of Xunzi, see Hao Chang, Chinese Intellectuals,
105–107.
60
Besides the Book of Expulsion Liu discussed Xunzi and Mill in his “Xiaoxue fawei
bu” 小學發微補 (Additions to unfolding the subtleties of philology) (1905), reprinted
in idem, Liu Shipei quanji, vol. 1, 422–442; “Guoxue fawei” 國學發微 (Unfolding the
subtleties of national studies) (1905), reprinted in ibid., vol. 1, 474–499; and “Xunzi
mingxue fawei” 荀子名學發微 (Unfolding the subtleties of Xunzi’s science of names)
(1907), reprinted in ibid., vol. 3, 316–318.
61
Liu Guanghan, Rangshu, vol. 2, 16–17. The English translations of the terms used
in Xunzi are adapted from Knoblock, Xunzi, vol. 3, 130.
62
On the rediscovery of Buddhist logic in late Qing and Republican China, see
Frankenhauser, Buddhistische Logik, 205–217; and Yao Nanqiang 姚南強, Yinming xue-
shuoshi gangyao 因明學說史綱要 (Outline history of yinming theories) (Shanghai: Sanlian
shudian, 2000), 328–339.
63
Liu Guanghan, Rangshu, vol. 2, 15. On the notions tongpin and yipin, see Shen
Jianying 沈剑英, ed. Zhongguo fojiao luojishi 中国佛教逻辑史 (A history of Chinese
Buddhist logic) (Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 2001), 134–139.
294 chapter five
of the unique Chinese language and script. He never wavered in the

belief that access to the universal truths preserved in ancient Chinese
texts depended on exegetical and philological techniques that neither
European logic nor yinming had ever developed.
2. Toward a History of Logic in the Late Zhou

Liu’s professed belief in the validity of traditional Chinese scholar-
ship also fueled his involvement in the movement to preserve China’s
“National Essence” ( guocui 國粹) from 1905 onward. In the context
of this movement, he made another, more lasting contribution to the
emerging discourse on Chinese logic. One aim of the National Essence
group, inspired by similar efforts in Japan,64 was to bring about a
revival of China’s intellectual heritage comparable to the rediscovery
of Greek thought in the European renaissance.65 For the first issues of
the group’s journal, Liu devised a detailed plan for such a revival under
the title “Prolegomena to an Intellectual History of the Late Zhou”
(Zhoumo xueshushi xu 周末學術史序).66 What he suggested in this
outline was nothing less than a complete revision of ancient Chinese
64
See Martin Bernal, “Liu Shih-p’ei and National Essence,” in The Limits of Change:
Essays on Conservative Alternatives in Republican China, ed. Charlotte Furth (Cambridge,
Mass: Harvard University Press, 1976), 90–112; and Fa-ti Fan, “Nature and Nation in
Chinese Political Thought: The National Essence Circle in Early-Twentieth-Century
China,” in The Moral Authority of Nature, ed. Lorraine Daston and Fernando Vidal
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), 409–437; 413–416.
65
See Zheng Shiqu 鄭師渠, Wan Qing guocuipai: wenhua sixiang yanjiu 晚清國粹派—
文化思想研究 (The National Essence Group in the late Qing: Studies in cultural
thought) (Beijing: Beijing Shifan daxue chubanshe, 1997), 132–139; Wang Dongjie
王東杰, “Guocui xuebao yu ‘guxue fuxing’ ” 《國粹學報》與 “古學復興” (The National
Essence Journal and the “Renaissance of Ancient Learning”), Sichuan daxue xuebao, no.
5 (2000): 102–112; and Tze-ki Hon, “National Essence, National Learning, and Cul-
ture: Historical Writings in Guocui xuebao, Xueheng, and Guoxue jikan,” Historiography East
& West 1, no. 2 (2003): 242–286; 246–251. On the modern Chinese views of the
European Renaissance, see Luo Zhitian 羅志田, Guojia yu xueshu: Qingji Minchu guanyu
“guoxue” de sixiang lunzheng 國家與學術：清際民初關於 “ 國學” 的思想論爭 (State
and scholarship: Intellectual debates on National Studies in the late Qing and early
Republic) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2003), 90–107.
66
Liu Guanghan, “Zhoumo xueshushi xu” 周末學術史序 (Prolegomena to an
intellectual history of the late Zhou) (1905), reprinted in idem, Liu Shipei quanji, vol. 1,
500–525. Since Liu never seriously entertained the idea of writing the book for which
these outlines seemed to be intended, I translate xu 序 in his title as “prolegomena”
rather than “prefaces.” See Li Jinxi 黎錦熙, “Xu” 序 (Preface) (1936), reprinted in
Liu Shipei quanji, vol. 1, 26. See also Wu Guangxing 吳光興, “Liu Shipei dui Zhong-
guo xueshushi de yanjiu” 劉師培對中國學術史的研究 (Liu Shipei’s researches in
Chinese intellectual history), Xueren 7 (1995): 163–186; 172–176.
intellectual history along the lines of European academic disciplines—

within which he tacitly embedded two chapters on traditional Chinese
philology.67 Chapter 3 of this history nova methodo, following delibera-
tions on “psychology” and “ethics,” was to be dedicated to a “history
of logic” (lunlixueshi 論理學史).
Contrary to what the title of his sketch (“Prolegomena to a History
of the Science of Reasoning”) indicated, Liu had not modified his
concept of logic as essentially a “science of names.” After glossing the
term lunlixue by mingxue, he opened his historical deliberations with a
string of quotations illustrating the range of meanings that the word
ming 名 ‘name’ had acquired in ancient Chinese texts. In conventional
philological fashion, Liu started with the definition of the term in the
second-century dictionary Explanation of Writing through the Analysis of
Characters (Shuowen jiezi 說文解字):
The Shuowen glosses the word ming 名 ‘name’ as ming 命 ‘calling’. . . .
[It explains that] the character ming 名 ‘name’ is composed of kou 口
‘mouth’ and xi 夕 ‘dusk’. Dusk means ming 冥 ‘darkness’. When it is
dark, [people] cannot see each other and use their mouths to call each
other by name.68 Likewise, the Book of Rites (Liji 禮記) says: “The Yellow
Emperor corrected the names of the myriad things” in order to clarify
their calling.69
Further philological evidence concerning the meaning of the term ming
was derived from the Explanations of Names (Shiming 釋名), a collection
of semantic glosses written circa 200 AD:
Ming 名 ‘name’ means ming 明 ‘clarity, to clarify’. One names objects to
clarify distinctions. This is what names are for. The man who masters
them is great. People who are otherwise indistinguishable can be distin-
guished by means of names and written characters. In the same way,
we also call “names” that by which we distinguish the myriad things
and affairs.70
67
For a detailed analysis of the entire text and its place in modern Chinese intel-
lectual history, see Kurtz, “Was tun mit Chinas Nationaler Essenz.”
68
Xu Shen 許慎, Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (Explanation of writing through the analy-
sis of characters) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1963), 31.
69
Liu Guanghan, “Zhoumo xueshushi xu,” vol. 1, 503a. For the quotation from
the Book of Rites, see Ruan Yuan 阮元 (comp.), Shisanjing zhushu 十三經注疏 (The
Thirteen Classics, with commentaries and annotations) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
1980), vol. 2, 1590.
70
Liu Guanghan, “Zhoumo xueshushi xu,” vol. 1, 503a.
296 chapter five
In addition, Liu referred to the Song philosopher Shao Yong 邵雍

(1011–1077) (“The ancients believed that names have their origins
in words [ yan 言]”) and The Elder Dai’s Book of Rites (Da Dai Liji
大戴禮記, ca. 80–100 AD) (“Intentions, when expressed, become
words; words, when expressed, become names”). Classical refer-
ences included the Zuo Tradition (Zuozhuan 左傳) of the Spring and
Autumn Annals (“Names are used to institute meanings [or: assign
duties]”);71 the Zhuangzi 莊子 (“Names are the guests of objects”;
and “Names are attached to objects so that through them you may
see the objects’ meanings [or: that which is proper to them]”); and
the Yin Wenzi 尹文子 (3rd cent.) (“Forms are that by which names are
determined [or: standardized]. Names are that by which matters
are determined. Matters are that against which names are checked”).
The point Liu wished to drive home with this barrage of quotations
was that names were essential in establishing and maintaining order in
thought, writing, and, by extension, government and administration.
As such, proper names were the benchmark of all “forms of culture”
(wen 文, literally ‘signs, symbols, graphs, or marks’ but also ‘ornaments
or degrees of refinement’ ), since culture essentially meant being able
to make appropriate ethical and epistemic distinctions. Thus, “Names
and forms of culture complement one another and go hand in hand;
they are combined to form ‘written documents’ (shu 書).”72
But what had all this to do with logic? Here is how Liu stated his case
(his lengthy interlinear commentaries are reproduced in the footnotes):
In our times, the great scholars of the Far West have begun to elucidate
the science of names. This science can be divided into two schools: one
is called “induction” ( guina), the other “deduction” ( yanyi). When Xunzi
wrote his book [ca. 240 BC, with later additions], he made these two
ideas ( yi 意) almost entirely clear. Induction is what Xunzi calls “the
greatest generalization” (da gong 大共).73 In this [procedure], we establish
71
Ruan Yuan, Shisanjing zhushu, vol. 2, 1894, Cheng gong 2.
72
Liu Guanghan, “Zhoumo xueshushi xu,” vol. 1, 503a. For a discussion of many
of the terms introduced in Liu’s deliberations, see William G. Boltz, The Origin and
Development of the Chinese Writing System (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 2003),
134–138.
73
Note by Liu Shipei: “Xunzi says in the chapter ‘On the Correct Use of Names’
[Zhengming, 22.2f ]: “ ‘Thing’ is the name of the greatest generalization. We push on
and generalize, and we go on generalizing until we cannot generalize anymore, only
then do we stop. ‘Generalization’ (gong 共) means ‘general name’ (gongming 公名
‘general term’ ).” Here and in the following, translations from Xunzi are adapted from
Knoblock, Xunzi, vol. 3, 127–131.
names as “boundaries” ( jie 界).74 Deduction is what Xunzi calls “the

greatest specification” (da bie 大別).75 In this case we establish names
as “categories” (biao 標 ‘outward expressions’ ).76 Establishing names as
boundaries [ jie 界, as in jieshuo 界說 ‘definitions’] makes it easier for us
to inquire into affairs and examine [spoken] words.77 Establishing names
as categories helps us to distinguish kinds and classify things.78
It is not easy to recognize traces of logic in these passages, at least
in accordance with the contemporary European understanding Liu
claimed to have adopted. He apparently confounded, or mistakenly
equated, the meanings of “induction” and “deduction” with “definition”
and “classification.” For Liu, as for his ancient master Xunzi, all linguis-
tic expression remained based on “names” and these alone, and thus
propositions and their linkages had no place in their deliberations.
Liu further strengthened this impression by continuing his argument
with a discussion of Xunzi’s functional division of “names” into four dif-
ferent types that are difficult to relate to common logical distinctions:
The ancients relied on written characters to determine names. When
names were used in setting out legal regulations, they were called “names
for punishments” (or: “legally binding titles,” xingming 刑名).79 Used in
74
Note by Liu Shipei: “Western scholars use the word ‘explanation of boundaries’
( jieshuo 界說, definition) in the sense of ‘explaining and analyzing names and their
meanings’ or, in other words, that by which the meaning that is contained in one
name is expressed. All general names must have some content.”
75
Note by Liu Shipei: “In his ‘On the Correct Use of Names’ [Zhengming, 22.2f ]
Xunzi says: ‘ “Birds” and “beasts” are names of the greatest specification. We push
on and make specific distinctions, and we go on with it until we cannot make any
further distinctions, only then do we stop.’ ‘Specification’ (bie 別) means ‘specific name’
(zhuanming 專名 ‘particular term’ ).”
76
Note by Liu Shipei: “This corresponds to Aristotle’s ‘five kinds’ [that is, the five
predicables] (wu zhong 五種). [ Xunzi] also regards ‘names of categories’ (biaoming 標名)
as symbols of order (huishi 徽識).”
77
Note by Liu Shipei: “Every name has its proper meaning (shiyi 實義). If we write
down the proper meaning of a name and examine it, then [we can determine that],
if name and object correspond, the name is correct, whereas if they do not, the name
is false.”
78
Note by Liu Shipei: “When the Luxuriant Gems of the Spring and Autumn Annals
(Chunqiu fanlu 春秋繁露) [a fifth-century text, including earlier materials, attributed
to Dong Zhongshu] describe the function of the correct use of names in the chapter
‘Probing and Examining Names and Designations’ (Shencha minghao pian 審查名號篇)
as, on the one hand, ‘to probe names and objects’ and, on the other, ‘to observe what
is separate and what is united,’ then this is equal to the two schools of inquiring into
affairs and examining words or distinguishing kinds and classifying things.”
79
Note by Liu Shipei: “Xunzi [Zhengming, 22.1a] says: ‘The names for punishments
were derived from the Shang.’ The Luxuriant Gems say: ‘The ancient Legalists used the
people to clarify the punishments and strengthen the law.’ The followers of Master
Yin Wen also based their approach to the law on names.”
298 chapter five
imperial orders, they were called “names of titles of rank and dignity”
( jueming 爵名).80 Used in statutes and administrative documents, they were
called “names of forms of culture” (or: “names of degrees of refinement,”
wenming 文名).81 When they were further applied to the myriad things,
they were called ‘generic names’ (or: “stray names,” sanming 散名).82 I have
my doubts that in ancient times the names for punishments, the names
of titles of rank and dignity, and the names of forms of culture were spe-
cialized terms in the sense of the scientific and philosophical terms of the
Westerners. For in these times no individual disciplines were known.83
In contrast to the preceding passage, where his aim was to estab-
lish similarity between Xunzi’s distinctions and what he understood
to be central logical notions, Liu Shipei acknowledged here that the
European science of names had little to say about the three ethically
charged types of names elevated by Xunzi above the “stray names”
for the myriad things, which were in fact the prime concern of logic.
Instead of drawing any conclusions from this difference, however, Liu
immediately moved on to provide a historical overview of the fate of
the science of names in pre-Qin China:
After the time of the Spring and Autumn, the study of names and pat-
terns (mingli 名理, logic) deteriorated constantly. Therefore, Confucius
insisted on correcting the use of names before he would do anything else.
Xunzi followed him closely when writing his treatise “On the Correct
Use of Names.” He said that, if a later saint were to write a book [on this
topic], the way of correcting the use of names lay in following old ones
and making new ones. . . . Moreover, from elucidating the beginnings
of the naming of things he pushed on and described (or: “inferred,”
tuichan 推闡) how names related to the perceptions of the mind and the
body. . . . [His analysis of this relation] is confirmed by the sciences of the
Westerners. How could [their findings] be different?84
80
Note by Liu Shipei: “Xunzi [Zhengming, 22.1a] says: ‘The names of titles of ranks
and dignity were derived from the Zhou.’ The Zuo Tradition says: ‘Through names and
honorary gifts [qi 器, ‘carts and garments’] alone, you cannot ennoble men’ [Cheng
gong 成公, Year 2].”
81
Note by Liu Shipei: “Xunzi [Zhengming, 22.1a] says: ‘The names of forms of
culture were derived from the officials supervising the rituals.’ Therefore [it is said in
the ‘Bibliographical Record’ in the Book of the Han that] the ‘School of Names’ (mingjia)
originated among the officials supervising the rituals.”
82
Note by Liu Shipei: “Xunzi [Zhengming, 22.1a] says: ‘The generic names that
are applied to the myriad things were derived from the established customs and the
habitual agreements of the Xia people in the central plain.’ ”
83
Liu Guanghan, “Zhoumo xueshushi xu,” vol. 1, 503b.
84
Liu Guanghan, “Zhoumo xueshushi xu,” vol. 1, 503b–c.
Xunzi’s theories of naming and its relation to perception were thus

attributed universal and timeless validity, a status attested by their
agreement with “the sciences of the Westerners.” Soon, however,
these valuable insights were overshadowed by the cunning and ethi-
cally reckless sophistry of the School of Names:
From the day their school was established, the dialecticians of the School
of Names, such as first Hui Shi85 and Deng Xi 鄧析,86 and then later Yin
Wen87 and Gongsun Long,88 split hairs and messed around [with words]89
in order to make cunning distinctions and elevate themselves. . . . For
example, they held that “Mountains and deep waters are on the same
level,” “Qi is bordering Qin,” “Heaven and earth are the same,” “In
through the ear, out through the mouth,” “Hooks have beards,” “Eggs
have hair,” “Zang has three ears,” and “A white horse is not a horse.”
All this is very close to the Greek sophists. Xunzi ridiculed them by say-
ing that “they probed without getting smarter and made useless distinc-
tions.” . . . This [ judgment] is not too harsh!
Yet, despite Xunzi’s ridicule, the irresponsible tricks of the dialecticians
spread faster than his own more sophisticated insights and infected the
teachings of other schools vying for acceptance at the time:
Besides the School of Names, there were the Mohists90 and the Legalists91
who talked much about names and patterns—but are they not all like
branches of the School of Names?92
85
Note by Liu Shipei: “See Zhuangzi.”
86
Note by Liu Shipei: “Deng Xi [d. 501 BC] held the theory that [in every debate]
both sides are right and established unfathomable words.”
87
Note by Liu Shipei: “His book has been transmitted until this day.”
88
Note by Liu Shipei: “See Kongcongzi 孔叢子 [a text from the third century AD].”
89
Note by Liu Shipei: “See Ban [Gu] 班固, [Hanshu] yiwenzhi.”
90
Note by Liu Shipei: “The two parts of the ‘Mohist Canons’ talk a lot about
philosophy (lixue 理學). When Zhuangzi says ‘In the south scholars use the theories of
the “hard and white” and “similarity and difference” to slander each other,’ then he
is pointing at the two parts of the ‘Mohist Canons.’ Moreover, the biography of Lu
Sheng 魯勝 [fl. 300] in the History of the Jin ( Jinshu 晉書) says: ‘[Lu] Sheng annotated
the “Dialectical Chapters” of the Mozi.’ In the extant preface Lu says: ‘Mozi wrote
a book and made distinctions; he was not serious in establishing names. Hui Shi and
Gongsun Long were the ancestors of his learning whose purpose was to correct the
names of punishments and make them known to the world.’ Mengzi criticized Mozi,
but the way in which he distinguished and corrected words was not all that different
from Mo’s. Xun Qing [Xunzi], Zhuang Zhou [Zhuangzi], and others unanimously
criticized the School of Names and tried to eliminate their errors but ultimately failed
to do so.”
91
Note by Liu Shipei: “Such as the Yin Wenzi that says: ‘When the names are cor-
rect, the laws will be obeyed.’ ”
92
Liu Guanghan, “Zhoumo xueshushi xu,” vol. 1, 503c.
300 chapter five
Liu Shipei’s historical outline thus turned into a scathing critique of

the “sophistic” scholars who are today recognized as China’s most
penetrating logical thinkers. For Liu, however, they needed to be
erased from the record of China’s science of names because of their
moral weaknesses. “Logic,” or rather Liu’s very own science of names,
remained an ethical enterprise in which formal insights with no bear-
ing on the “quest for authenticity” had no place, unless they were
strengthening the defenses against the dialectical skills of untrustworthy
“debaters”:
It is truly a pity that the great scholars of that time were ashamed to talk
about the science of names. Occasionally they presented an argument,
but there is no trace of a [consistent] method to refute and censor [false
teachings].93
Judging from the exhortation with which he concludes his “Prolegom-
ena for a History of Logic,” it seems doubtful whether Liu Shipei him-
self would have had at his disposal more consistent methods to refute
sophistic teachings. All he offered his readers as a potential remedy
against irresponsible sophistry was a more earnest engagement in a
“science of reasoning” identical with classical Chinese philology:
The School of Names relied on the loquacious and absurd in order to
adorn cunning words. They did not understand the usefulness of explain-
ing written characters and analyzing [spoken] words. Later, books on
yinming flowed in from India and the science of logic flourished in the
West, while in China the science of names had long ceased to be trans-
mitted. This is deeply saddening! If we wish to understand the science
of reasoning today, there is no other way than to engage thoroughly in
“lesser learning” (philology), to explain written characters and analyze
spoken words to uncover the hints of the ancient sages concerning the
correct use of names, and to ensure that names, patterns, and refined
meanings will once again have something upon which they can rely. I
have never heard that one who does not understand philology can hope
to master the logic of the West.94
In sum, Liu Shipei’s discovery of Chinese logic must be seen as a
rather crude attempt to pour old philological wine into new logical
bottles. Liu had only a rough idea of the European science of names
and treated the terms of art that he borrowed from Yan Fu’s transla-
tions at the face value of the characters by which they were represented
93
Ibid., 503c–d.
94
Ibid., 503d.
in writing. Still, he was not entirely wrong in suggesting that Xunzi’s

insights into the relations of names and perceptions, and his interest
in classification and definition, displayed similarities with a number of
logical problems. What his confused interpretative efforts demonstrated
above all, however, was how fluid both the old and the new concep-
tual lexicons had become by 1905, the year in which China’s centu-
ries-old civil examination system was eventually abolished. Against this
background, his idea to adapt the knowledge of traditional China into
the modern disciplinary matrix was a radical attempt to preserve its
validity for a new era of uncertainty looming at the horizon after the
irreversible demise of the orthodox doctrine.
One question Liu had to answer for all chapters of his projected
new history of late Zhou scholarship was which texts, schools, or indi-
viduals should be discussed in the context of a certain discipline or, to
put it somewhat differently, which texts and ideas should be admitted
into the emerging disciplinary canons of Chinese logic and other sci-
ences. In his Book of Expulsion, he had pointed out similarities between
logic and a broad range of classical texts, including less likely candi-
dates such as the Book of Rites, dictionaries and glossaries, or Dong
Zhongshu’s Luxuriant Gems. Now, however, he had come to the con-
clusion that a history of early Chinese logic should exclusively focus
on Xunzi’s “Correct Use of Names.” The necessity to “discipline”
China’s National Essence offered him a rare opportunity to purge ele-
ments of the nation’s less admirable legacy from the historical record,
and Liu seized it with gusto.
3. Chinese Logic as Buddhist Dialectic
Zhang Binglin, one of Liu’s early mentors and scholarly associates,95

shared many of Liu Shipei’s political and intellectual inclinations and
was even more firmly rooted in the “Old Text” philology that, as
we have seen, played such a decisive part in the revival of studies in
95
On the relationship between Zhang Binglin and Liu Shipei, see Li Fan, Liu
Shipei, 83–87; and Jiang Yihua 姜義華, Zhang Taiyan 章太炎 (Zhang Taiyan) (Taibei:
Dongda tushu gongsi, 1991), 223–230. See also Yao Dianzhong 姚奠中 and Dong
Guoyan 董國炎, Zhang Taiyan xueshu nianpu 章太炎學術年譜 (Annalistic biography of
Zhang Taiyan’s scholarly life) (Taiyuan: Shanxi guji chubanshe, 1996), 82–83.
302 chapter five
noncanonical masters during the late Qing.96 In addition to the textual

reconstructions by Sun Yirang and others,97 this particular brand of
scholarship is of interest in our context because its continued efforts
to illustrate the diversity of China’s intellectual heritage led to a seri-
ous erosion of the paramount position of Confucius as upheld by the
unwavering guardians of orthodoxy. Only this erosion enabled Liu
Shipei to declare in his “Prolegomena” that “Confucians are but one
of the nine schools”98 of pre-Qin thought and to design a master plan
for a new grand narrative of China’s intellectual history that purpose-
fully ignored the traditional distinction between exegetical studies
of canonical works ( jingxue 經學) and philosophical interpretations of
noncanonical masters (zixue 子學).
1. Making Space for Logic

Zhang Binglin did not venture quite so far in his deliberations. Zhang
shared Liu’s view that the Confucian classics, like all other ancient
texts, should be read as “history” rather than sacred scripture.99 But he
rejected Liu’s proposal to fit China’s intellectual heritage into a Euro-
peanized disciplinary matrix. Instead, he proposed to adapt the tradi-
tional classification of ancient China’s schools of thought, first outlined
in Ban Gu’s 班固 (32–92 AD) “Brief Remarks on the Noncanonical
Masters” (Zhuzi lüexu 諸子略敘) in the “Bibliographical Record” of the
History of the Han, to the contemporary situation. Zhang’s interest in the
96
See Wang Fansen 王汎森, Zhang Taiyan de sixiang: Jian lun qi dui ruxue chuantong de
chong ji 章太炎的思想—兼論其對儒學傳統的衝擊 (Zhang Taiyan’s thought, with a
discussion of his attacks on the Confucian tradition) (Taibei: Shibao wenhua chuban
gongsi, 1985), 26–33. For a general introduction to the revival of “masters studies” in
the late Qing, see Luo Jianqiu 羅檢秋, Jindai zhuzixue yu wenhua sichao 近代諸子學與
文化思潮 (Studies of noncanonical masters and trends of cultural thought in modern
China) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1997), 50–200.
97
See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 64–72.
98
Liu Shipei quanji, vol. 1, 500b. See also Zheng Shiqu 鄭師渠, “Wan Qing guo-
cuipai lun Kongzi” 晚清國粹派論孔子 (The late-Qing National Essence Group on
Confucius), Luodi shifan xuebao, no. 3 (1994): 75–81.
99
See Li Fan, Zhang Taiyan, Liu Shipei, Liang Qichao Qingxueshi zhushu zhi yanjiu 章太
炎、劉師培、梁啟超清學史著述之研究 (A study of works by Zhang Taiyan, Liu
Shipei, and Liang Qichao on Qing intellectual history) (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan,
2006), 43–47. See also Shimada Kenji, Pioneer of the Chinese Revolution: Zhang Binglin
and Confucianism, trans. Joshua A. Fogel (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990),
58–66.
“reorganization of China’s learned heritage” (zhengli guogu 整理國故)100

was rooted in his early encounter with Western science and math-
ematics in the 1890s and grew into a lifelong concern. His decidedly
conservative stand on the issue involved him in ferocious debates, well
beyond the period under consideration in this study.101 However, his
position on the place of logic, which he formulated between 1906 and
1909, revealed that Zhang Binglin did not oppose radical reconceptu-
alizations per se but only those that uncritically mirrored European tax-
onomies. Rather than squeezing ancient Chinese texts and concepts
into a Western-derived disciplinary corset, Zhang suggested expanding
existing categories in such a way as to make space for the new knowl-
edge that the nation, as he readily agreed, so desperately needed.
To make space for logic, Zhang Binglin advocated redrawing the
conventional boundaries of the “School of Names.” In his “Brief
Account of the Learning of the Noncanonical Masters” (Zhuzixue
lüeshuo 諸子學略說), written in 1906, he outlined this new concep-
tion in due clarity:
The correct use of names was not an art of only one school. Confucians,
Daoists, Mohists, and Legalists all relied on this science (xue 學), for with-
out it they would not have been able to establish their own theories and
refute those of others. Thus, the Confucians have Xunzi’s discourse “On
the Correct Use of Names,” and the Mohists have the two “Canons”
with their appended “Explanations”—both contain truths (zhendi 真諦)
from the School of Names that were scattered among the thinkers of the
time. In contrast, the art of Hui Shi, Gongsun Long, and others whose
writings and deeds were exclusively centered on expertise in handling
names (mingjia zhi shi 名家之事) must be likened to the sophists because
all they did was make far-fetched and useless distinctions.102
100
See Xu Yanping 徐雁平, Hu Shi yu zhengli guogu kaolun: yi Zhongguo wenxueshi yan-
jiu wei zhongxin 胡適與整理國故考論：以中國文學史研究為中心 (Hu Shi and the
discussion on the reorganization of China’s learned heritage, with special emphasis
on studies in the history of Chinese literature) (Hefei: Anhui jiaoyu chubanshe, 2003),
9–53.
101
See Chen Pingyuan 陳平原, Zhongguo xiandai xueshu zhi jianli: yi Zhang Taiyan, Hu
Shizhi wei zhongxin 中國現代學術之建立：以章太炎、 ““胡適之為中心 (The forma-
tion of modern Chinese scholarship, with special emphasis on Zhang Binglin and Hu
Shi) (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1998).
102
Zhang Binglin 章炳麟, “Zhuzixue lüeshuo” 諸子學略說 (Brief account of
the learning of the noncanonical masters) (1906), reprinted in Zhongguo xiandai xue-
shu jingdian: Zhang Taiyan juan 中國現代學術經典—章太炎卷 (Modern Chinese clas-
sics: Zhang Taiyan), ed. Liu Mengxi 劉夢溪 (Shijiazhuang: Hebei jiaoyu chubanshe,
1996), 479–497; 493. On the significance of this text in modern Chinese intellectual
history, see Shimada Kenji, Zhang Binglin, 116–122.
304 chapter five
Zhang thus replaced the conventional sense of the term mingjia as the
name of one of the nine philosophical schools of the pre-Qin period
with a new understanding: a methodology of debate very much akin
to European logic and Buddhist dialectic. While acknowledging that
traces of this knowledge could be found among all schools, Zhang left
no doubt that he regarded Xunzi’s “On the Correct Use of Names”
and the “Mohist Canons” as the most fruitful sources in this regard.
Similar to Liu Shipei, he praised Xunzi for his insights into the rela-
tions between names, perception, the intellect, and the outside world
of facts, while dismissing the extravagant art of the “sophists” Hui Shi
and Gongsun Long as “useless.” Unlike Liu, however, he did not shy
away from supplementing Xunzi’s disquisitions with a more sophisti-
cated epistemological foundation, inspired by his studies of Yogācāra
Buddhism (see below) that tied the emergence of “names” to mental
constructions rooted in sense perception.103 Even more significantly,
he moved beyond Liu Shipei’s notion of logic as a mere “science of
names,” that is to say, a primarily term-based enterprise. In Zhang’s
more comprehensive understanding, logic was a true “art of reason-
ing” (lunlixue) designed to provide students with the “knowledge of rea-
sons” ( yinming) necessary to defeat opponents in the practice of debate,
and he therefore held the “Mohist Canons” in highest regard, as this
enigmatic text seemed to provide at least a rudimentary theory of the
forms, conditions, and applications of valid inference.104
Zhang elaborated this claim, which signaled the discovery of yet
another crucial element of logical theory in ancient China, through a
complex exercise of translation, retranslation, and interpretation. In
this effort, he identified the Mohist term “reason” (gu 故 ‘something
that is inherently so’)105 with the “logical reason” ( yin 因) put forth in
the “tripartite inference” (sanzhi biliang 三支比量) of Chinese Buddhist
reasoning, and then related both to the “minor premise” (xiao qianti
小前提) of the Aristotelian syllogism (sanduanfa 三段法). The unusual
degree of sophistication required for this operation notwithstand-
ing, readers accustomed to believing in the uncontested superiority
of “modern” theory may feel bewildered by his reflections because
Zhang, despite his obvious familiarity with European ideas, relied on
103
Zhang Binglin, “Zhuzixue lüeshuo,” 494–495.
104
Ibid., 495–496. See also Luo Jianqiu, Jindai zhuzixue, 157.
105
For a useful general discussion of this notion, see Graham, Later Mohist Logic,
189–190.
yinming and thus Chinese terms to frame his interpretation—a strategy

rarely applied at the time, even among his culturally most “conserva-
tive” peers.
2. Chinese Logic as the Knowledge of Reasons

The inspirations for Zhang’s unusual approach were diverse. As a stu-
dent of Yu Yue and admirer of Sun Yirang he was intimately familiar
with the recent reconstructions of the “Mohist Canons” and other non-
canonical works.106 He was also known as a voracious reader of works
on Western knowledge, in both Chinese and Japanese translation.
Initially focusing mainly on science, mathematics, and history, Zhang
successively broadened the scope of his interests. We have already
encountered him as a guest of Shanghai’s Logical Society in 1900,
and it is safe to assume that he knew Yan Fu’s adaptation of Mill’s
Logic and some other texts on the subject.107 Following a brief trip to
Japan in 1902, Zhang shifted his gaze further toward philosophy and
immersed himself in the study of Greek and German idealism as well
as sociology and psychology.108 Although friends introduced him to
writings of the Mahāyāna tradition as early as 1894,109 Zhang’s stud-
ies in Buddhism became more serious only during the three years he
spent in prison for publishing anti-Manchu propaganda and insulting
the Qing emperor as a “buffoon” (xiao chou 小醜) in 1903.110 Among
the works he read in the quietude of his cell in Shanghai’s Interna-
tional Settlement were basic texts of the Weishi 唯識, or “Conscious-
ness Only,” school such as the Treatise on Establishing Consciousness Only
(Cheng weishi lun 成唯識論) and the Yogācāra-bhūmi (Yujia shidi lun 瑜珈
師地論), but also a foundational work of Chinese Buddhist logic, the
106
Shimada Kenji, Zhang Binglin, 68–69.
107
In the revised version of his Qiushu 訄書 (Book of urgency, 1904), for instance,
Zhang referred to a work by Kuwaki Gen’yoku. Zhang Binglin, Zhang Taiyan quanji
章太炎全集 (The complete works of Zhang Taiyan) (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin
chubanshe, 1984), vol. 3, 135.
108
Young-tsu Wong [ Wang Rongzu 汪榮祖], Search for Modern Nationalism: Zhang
Binglin and Revolutionary China, 1869–1936 (Hong Kong, Oxford, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1989), 51–52.
109
Chan Sin-wai, Buddhism in Late Qing Political Thought, 43–45. See also Shi Gexin
史革新, “Zhang Taiyan Foxue sixiang lüelun” 章太炎佛學思想略論 (Brief account
of Zhang Taiyan’s Buddhist thought), Hebei xuekan 24, no. 5 (2004): 146–154; 146–
147.
110
Michael Gasster, Chinese Intellectuals and the Revolution of 1911: The Birth of Modern
Chinese Radicalism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969), 197–198.
306 chapter five
Nyāyapraveśa (Yinming ruzhengli lun 因明入正理論).111 It was his friend

Song Shu who introduced Zhang to the Nyāyapraveśa. Writing to Song
from his cell, Zhang reminisced that “Binglin, when young, studied
only the classics; only after he met Song Pingzi [Shu] from Pingyang
did he learn about the Buddhist canon.”112 The effects of this encoun-
ter on Zhang’s intellectual development were profound. Not only did
he emerge from jail as a devout Yogācārin in 1906, Buddhist terms
also began to permeate his writings. Yogācāra influences were particu-
larly strong in his famously impenetrable interpretation of Zhuangzi’s
“Discourse on Making Things Equal” (Qiwu lun 齊物論),113 but
they also informed his deliberations on the School of Names and its
Chinese and foreign counterparts.
For our purposes it is not necessary to reconstruct Zhang’s spiritual
outlook on the nature of reality and its relation to consciousness in
detail since it influenced only, as mentioned above, his discussion of
Xunzi’s theories of conception and did not shape, at least not to any
decisive degree, his comparative remarks on the methods of inferential
reasoning in the “Mohist Canons,” the Nyāyapraveśa, and the Aristo-
telian tradition. In this context, Zhang focused more narrowly on the
technical aspects of reasoning and abstained from expounding their
spiritual implications. He opened his deliberations with a translation
of Mohist concepts into yinming terms:
Allow me to quote the “Mohist Canons” to elucidate yinming, “the knowl-
edge of reasons.” In “Canon A [1]” we read: “The ‘reason’ ( gu 故): only
if something has it, will it be complete.”114 . . . Because Xunzi focused
on instituting names, he fell short in the art of providing reasons for
names. This was only clarified in the book Mozi. What does “knowl-
edge of reasons” mean? It means taking this reason here to elucidate
that thesis there. The Buddhist method of elucidating reasons consists
of three elements, the “thesis” (zong 宗), the “reason” ( yin 因), and the
111
Yao Dianzhong and Dong Guoyan, Zhang Binglin, 84–89. See also Shen Haibo
沈海波, “Zhang Taiyan yu yinmingxue” 章太炎與因明學 (Zhang Taiyan and Chi-
nese Buddhist logic), Hubei daxue xuebao, no. 1 (1998): 11–14. On the Yinming ruzhengli
lun and its most important Chinese commentators, see Frankenhauser, Buddhistische
Logik, 193–198.
112
Zhang Binglin, “Jiao Pingyang Song Pingzi” 交平阳宋平子 (Meeting Song
Pingzi from Pingyang), reprinted in Song Shu, Song Shu ji, 1031.
113
See Chang, Chinese Intellectuals, 120–121.
114
Mojing A1. English translation adapted from Harbsmeier, Language and Logic,
332.
“examples” ( yu 喻). [In the “tripartite inference” (sanzhi biliang 三支

比量)] these elements are separated into “three branches” (sanzhi 三
支). Among the examples, we distinguish between the “homogeneous
example” (tongyu 同喻) and the “heterogeneous example” ( yiyu 異喻).
Underlying each example are synthetic or exclusive phrases called the
“substance of the example” ( yuti 喻體); the examples themselves are
called the “constituents of the example” ( yuyi 喻衣). An illustration [of
the tripartite inference] is this: “Verbal testimony [literally: sound] is
impermanent” (Thesis); “Because it is produced” (Reason); “Everything
that is produced is impermanent—the homogeneous example being: a
vase”; and “Everything that is not impermanent is not produced—the
heterogeneous example being: space” (Examples). Mozi’s “reason” ( gu) is
equal to the reason ( yin) in yinming, for the thesis can only be established
if a reason is given. Therefore Mozi says: “The ‘reason’ (gu 故): only if
something has it, will it be complete [or, reading cheng 成 ‘complete’ ver-
bally in line with Zhang’s interpretation: “The reason: only if something
has it, can it be established”].”115
At first sight, Zhang’s carefully argued identification of Mozi’s gu with
the yin ‘reason’ of yinming seemed quite convincing. The challenge
for his comparative enterprise, and many that followed in its foot-
steps, was that, at least in their extant version, the “Mohist Canons”
did not provide equivalents for the other two parts of the inferential
forms expounded in yinming and, by analogy, European syllogistics. In
fact, due to the mutilated state of the text, even in its reconstructed
form, we cannot be certain that the “Canons” ever entertained the
possibility of establishing purely formal patterns of inference at all.
Unlike many later interpreters, Zhang did not deny these difficulties
and pushed potential parallels only as far as his material allowed. This
relatively cautious approach was confirmed by his interpretation of the
two kinds of reasons distinguished in the Mozi. According to Zhang,
only the “minor reason” (xiao gu 小故) was given a workable definition
in the “Canons,” namely “Having this, it will not necessarily be so;
lacking this, it will necessarily not be so.”116 In terms of modern logic,
this definition resonated with a description of a necessary but not suf-
ficient reason.117 Zhang saw similar parallels but explained them in yin-
ming terms of argumentative effectiveness. In contrast, the definition of
the “major reason” (da gu 大故), which he cited in the unreconstructed
115
Zhang Binglin, “Zhuzixue lüeshuo,” 495.
116
Mojing A1. Translation adapted from Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 332.
117
Ibid. See also Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 263–264.
308 chapter five
form of “Having it, necessarily nothing is so,”118 did not strike him as
particularly useful for the purposes of his inquiry. Beyond this critical
assessment, Zhang expressed more general doubts about the utility
of the Mohist discussion of “reasons” as a whole. For whatever their
individual plausibility both the “minor” and “major” reasons were of
limited value because they conflated, or failed to distinguish, the func-
tions of reason and example as established in the tripartite inference.
In the conclusion to his comparative overview he had therefore noth-
ing flattering to say about a text that has since come to be regarded as
the crowning achievement of logical thought in ancient China:
Some of our contemporaries say that the Indian “tripartite inference”
is the same as the European “syllogism.” The “thesis” is said to be the
“conclusion”; the “reason,” the “minor premise”; and the “substance
of the homogeneous example” (tongyu zhi yuti 同喻之喻體) is said to be
the “major premise.” The reason why the sequence of the branches [in
the tripartite inference and the syllogism] is inverse, or contradictory,
is said to be that they differ with regard to [their intentions of ] either
“enlightening oneself” (ziwu 自悟) [as in Western logic] or “enlightening
others” (wu ta 悟他) [as in yinming].119 Yet, Europe knows no heteroge-
neous example. In India, the heterogeneous example is used to guard
against inverse syntheses that contain a fallacy by converting from a
smaller extension. For this reason, their insufficiency can be explained
by the “method of exclusion” (lifa 離法) and this error eliminated. It is
on these grounds that [the Japanese scholar] Murakami Senjō 村上專精
[1851–1929] said that yinming forms of reasoning are superior to those
of European [logic].120 Mozi, who thinks that we can obtain knowledge
from the only branch he describes in any detail, that is, the minor rea-
son, is even more difficult to appreciate. As to those holding that “a
chicken has three feet” and “a puppy is not a dog,” they make only
useless distinctions and mess around with words so that there is no need
to discuss them here.121
Even if he did not explicitly endorse Murakami Senjō’s judgment,
Zhang’s decision to frame his comparative inquiry in yinming terms
reflected his conviction that yinming provided a more effective “art of
reasoning” than either the “Mohist Canons” or European logic was
118
Zhang Binglin, “Zhuzixue lüeshuo,” 495. For a reconstructed reading, see
119
On this distinction, see ibid., 374; and Frankenhauser, Buddhistische Logik, 31–34.
120
Murakami Senjō 村上專精, Inmyōgaku zensho 因明学全書 (Complete writings on
yinming) (Tōkyō: Tetsugaku shoin, 1891). On Murakami’s influence on the revival of
yinming in Japan, see Funayama, Meiji ronrigakushi, 52–53.
121
Zhang Binglin, “Zhuzixue lüeshuo,” 496.
able to offer. In a letter accompanying his request to the editors of

the Guocui xuebao to consider for publication his second essay on the
subject, “On [the School of ] Names” (Yuan Ming 原名), Zhang pro-
vided some historical perspective to justify his inevitably controversial
approach, especially regarding his effort to uncover forgotten insights
from the “Mohist Canons”:
Earlier explanations of the “Mohist Canons,” such as those by Zhang
Huiyan and Sun Yirang, did not [sic!] mention [logic or yinming]. Zou
Boqi compared the text to geometry and mechanics, and surely did so
in a subtle manner, but the “Canons” are fundamentally concerned with
theories belonging to the School of Names and not with clarifying cal-
culations. At that time, no one was familiar with yinming or sought to
attain Consciousness Only, and the importation of European logic had
not yet begun again. . . . Now, however, many classical [Buddhist] texts
have been reprinted, and new translations are published every day. Still,
scholars are unable to use them to revise the “Canons” and examine
similarities and differences. Those who edit the new translations do not
look into the noncanonical masters of the pre-Qin period, and those who
read into the knowledge of reasons discard it as abstruse, just as they find
the “Canons” absurd and in this respect similar to yinming, and therefore
no one is able to consult them together.122
According to this letter, Zhang’s self-appointed mission consisted in
demonstrating how ancient Chinese ideas could be recovered from
oblivion by translating them into the rediscovered idiom of Buddhist
dialectic and the freshly minted terms of Western logic. Three years
after his first attempt at such a translation, Zhang approached his task
with much more confidence. He opened his case with a pointed defini-
tion of the “way of argumentation” (bianshuo zhi dao 辯說之道), a new
label he coined to capture the essence of his blended understanding of
the “School of Names,” and a brisk comparison of the ways in which
yinming, European syllogistics, and the fragmentary theories preserved
in the “Mohist Canons” related to this formal model:
The way of argumentation is this: we start with the instruction, then elu-
cidate the foundation, and finally put forward an example to complement
122
Zhang Taiyan, “Zhi Guocui xuebao she shu” 致國粹學報社書 (Letter to the edi-
tors of the Guocui xuebao) (November 7, 1909), reprinted in Tang Zhijun 湯志鈞, Zhang
Taiyan nianpu changbian 章太炎年譜長編 (Expanded annalistic biography of Zhang
Taiyan) (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1979), 306–307. See Ma Tianxiang 麻天祥 et al.,
Zhongguo jindai xueshushi 中國近代學術史 (Intellectual history of modern China)
(Changsha: Hunan shifan daxue chubanshe, 2001), 369–370.
310 chapter five
it and a material reason that can illustrate it; in yinming these [steps] are
called “thesis,” “reason,” and “examples.”123 In India, the sequence of
inferences is: first the thesis, then the reason, and finally the examples.
In the West, the order is: first the abstract example,124 then the reason,125
and then the thesis. As tripartite inferences the two are identical. In
the “Mohist Canons” the reason is called gu, and the order in which
proofs are established is: first the reason, then the abstract example, and
finally the thesis.126 . . . The inferences of the Westerners and of the Mozi
both place the abstract example before the thesis. But those who put
the abstract example first cannot allow for concrete examples. In this
respect, both are inferior to yinming.127
Although Zhang did not change his ultimate assessment of the respec-
tive strengths of yinming reasoning, European logic, and the Mohist
analysis of reasons, he considerably expanded his inventory of the
logically relevant insights to be found in ancient Chinese texts. In his
review of statements on “names,” for instance, he now listed excerpts
from many more works, including some written centuries after the
end of the presumably foundational period of Chinese thought in pre-
imperial times. While still adhering to Xunzi’s basic distinction of the
four kinds of names quoted above, he reserved more space for the
discussion of the ethically neutral “stray names” that most Chinese
thinkers continued to neglect in their interpretations. He repeated his
Yogācāra-inspired view that the establishment of such names pro-
ceeded in three stages, beginning with “reception” (shou 受), or the
“acceptance of sensations,” passing through “conception” (xiang 想), or
the “seeking of resemblances,” and ending with “perception” (si 思), or
the “manufacturing [of intentional objects].”128 However, Zhang now
claimed that not only Xunzi but also the authors of the “Mohist Can-
ons” had realized the significance of the senses in the establishment
123
Note by Zhang Binglin: “Comprising the abstract [heterogeneous] and the con-
crete [homogeneous] example.”
124
Note by Zhang Binglin: “Today translated as the ‘major premise.’ ”
125
Note by Zhang Binglin: “Today translated as the ‘minor premise.’ ”
126
Note by Zhang Binglin: “An example of the Indian inference is ‘Verbal tes-
timony is impermanent’; ‘Because it is produced’; ‘Everything that is produced is
impermanent—the example being: a vase.’ In European terms, the inference would
be: ‘Everything that is produced is impermanent’; ‘Verbal testimony is produced’;
‘Therefore, verbal testimony is impermanent.’ In Mozi’s terms, the inference would
state: ‘Verbal testimony is produced’; ‘Everything that is produced is impermanent’;
‘[ Therefore,] verbal testimony is impermanent.’ ”
127
Zhang Binglin, “Yuan Ming” 原名 (On [the School of ] Names) (1909), reprinted
in Zhongguo xiandai xueshu jingdian: Zhang Taiyan juan, 111–118; 115–116.
128
Zhang Binglin, “Yuan Ming,” 112.
of “names” since they identified “five roads” (wu lu 五路) as sources

of the transitory sensual knowledge on which the persistent knowledge
produced by the intellect was based.129 Zhang saw in this insight a
valuable, if crude, anticipation of the Buddhist notion of the “nine
causes of illusion” ( jiu yuan 九緣). Both theories could be used to verify
that “names” corresponded to the “objects” they were formed to cap-
ture. Useful for the same purpose were Xunzi’s distinction between
“general” (gong 共) and “specific” (bie 別) names and the Mohist
notions of “unrestricted” (da 達), “classifying” (lei 類), and “private”
(si 私) names.130 In a final addition to his catalogue of resonances in
the areas of naming and conception, Zhang identified the Mohist
notions of “personal experience” (qinzhe 親者), “explanation” (shuozhe
說者), and “hearsay” (wenzhe 聞者) as equivalents to three avenues of
knowledge recognized in yinming, namely “perception” (xianliang 現量),
“inference” (biliang 比量), and “verbal testimony” (shengliang 聲量).131
He further highlighted the significance of this equivalence by summa-
rizing a passage from the Treatise on Establishing Consciousness Only that
emphasized the value of personal experience and hearsay in refuting
heterodox opinions in actual debate.132
After reiterating his critique that neither Xunzi nor the Mohists had
developed formal patterns on a par with the tripartite inference or
the syllogism, Zhang devoted the remaining sections of his article to
a review of fragmentary insights into the nature of inferential reason-
ing preserved in the “Canons.” The most valuable of these fragments,
Zhang argued, could be helpful in situations when it was impossible
to establish all three steps of a valid inference. Precisely because its
authors were unaware of the complete forms, the “Canons” had estab-
lished strategies to point out “contradictory” (bei 悖)133 or “irrelevant”
(kuangju 狂舉, literally ‘relating arbitrarily’ )134 elements in the infer-
ences of their ideological opponents. In addition, they had formulated
129
Ibid., 112. On the “five roads” distinguished in Mojing B46, see Graham, Later
Mohist Logic, 415–416; and Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 339–340.
130
Zhang Binglin, “Yuan Ming,” 113. On the kinds of names distinguished in
Mojing A78, see Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 325–326.
131
Zhang Binglin, “Yuan Ming,” 114. On the sources of knowledge identified in
Mojing A80, see Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 327–329. On the avenues of knowledge
recognized in yinming, see Harbsmeier, Language and Logic, 374–375; and Franken-
hauser, Buddhistische Logik, 145–152.
132
Zhang Binglin, “Yuan Ming,” 114–115.
133
Mojing B71. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 445–446.
134
Mojing B66. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 437–438.
312 chapter five
criteria of quantification (for example, “Applying to all means: none

not being so”) that could be used to define the extension of individ-
ual claims.135 Finally, to counter objections that words never actually
“reached” the things to which they referred, they had asserted the
relative merit of “personal experience” over “mere talk” as well as
the superiority of both over “hearsay,” which was yet another step
further removed from sensation than the verbal “explanations” dis-
cussed earlier.
Compared with Liu Shipei’s more superficial attempt to extract
logic from the noncanonical masters of the late Zhou period, Zhang
Binglin’s deliberations displayed an impressive degree of theoretical
sophistication and philological rigor. Equipped with a much firmer
understanding of the purposes and limitations of European logic as
well as an encyclopedic knowledge of the inferential schemes taught in
yinming, Zhang established much more convincing parallels among the
notions he culled from his diverse sources. Yet he agreed with his less
versatile precursor that outside of Buddhism, “Chinese logic” consisted
of little more than a theory of naming and conception formulated in its
most mature form by Xunzi, and fragments of further insights on rel-
evant topics preserved in the “Mohist Canons.” By insisting, like Liu,
on a sharp distinction between logic and sophistry, Zhang also con-
firmed that ethical considerations continued to play a part in Chinese
views of what the newly discovered discipline could and should be.
Zhang’s most important contribution was to show that it was pos-
sible, at least on an elementary level, to assert the validity of a “tra-
ditional,” namely Chinese Buddhist conceptual framework while
simultaneously redefining individual notions, such as the boundaries
of the logical realm, in accordance with a Western-derived under-
standing. Ingenious as it undeniably was, the success of this synthesis
remained—with few, albeit notable, exceptions—confined to Buddhist
circles, not least because the type of logic Zhang championed was tai-
lored to the purposes of a religious dialectic that aimed to defend the
authority of doctrinal tenets by making sure to retain the last word in
any debate with real or hypothetical doubters.
135
Mojing A43. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 294–295.
4. Chinese Logic as European Logic
While the proponents of “Old Text” scholarship thus answered the

question of “Chinese logic” consistently in the affirmative, Liang
Qichao, who had studied under Kang Youwei, a champion of the
modern “New Text” ( jinwen 今文) movement, initially responded with
skepticism. On several occasions he criticized Yan Fu’s translation of
“logic” by mingxue precisely because this rendering linked the discipline
with “the theories about the ‘hard and white’ and ‘similarity and dif-
ference’ in the Warring States period,” though “in effect this science
has nothing to do with the words of the ancient Chinese Sophists.”136
In his “On General Tendencies in the Development of Chinese Aca-
demic Thought” (Lun Zhongguo xueshu sixiang bianqian zhi dashi 論
中國學術思想變遷之大勢), which is often seen as the first “modern”
history of Chinese thought written in Chinese,137 Liang came to an even
more critical assessment. In this text, he identified “the lack of logi-
cal thinking” as the most consequential deficit in Chinese philosophy,
especially as compared with ancient India and Greece, where logic
had been established at a very early stage as a “scientific discipline” (ke
科) in its own right. In China, Deng Xi, Hui Shi, and Gongsun Long
had only “dallied with sophisms” (bonong guibian 播弄詭辯) and had
therefore been unable to open up the secure path of logical inquiry.138
With great authority, Liang identified three reasons for the lack of
logical theory in China: first, Chinese scholars had always been overtly
concerned with practical application and had never found it necessary
“to pay attention to the discussion of true/right and false/wrong”; sec-
ond, China had never elaborated a “grammar” (wendian 文典 or yudian
語典) for its language, and thus the “methods of syntactic analysis”
(cuoci sheju zhi fa 措辭設句之法) were never understood; and third,
exaggerated respect for dogma and the teachers representing it had
prevented open debate and argumentation.139
136
Liang Qichao, “Jinshi wenming chuzu er dajia zhi xueshuo,” 13:2.
137
On the influence of this text, see Xia Xiaohong 夏曉虹, Yuedu Liang Qichao 閱讀
梁啟超 (Reading Liang Qichao) (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2006), 247–264.
138
Liang Qichao, “Lun Zhongguo xueshu sixiang bianqian zhi dashi” 論中國學
術思想變遷之大勢 (On general tendencies in the development of Chinese academic
thought) (1902), reprinted in idem, Yinbingshi wenji, 7:1–104; 7:33.
139
Ibid., 7:34.
314 chapter five
1. The Excitement of Discovery

Yet, as in so many other matters, Liang soon changed his mind and,
as usual, with a vengeance. After a sobering trip to the United States
in 1903 that significantly altered his political and intellectual outlook,140
his fascination with the idea of a Chinese renaissance, which he was
already pondering in 1902, gained renewed urgency.141 Like his oppo-
nents in the National Essence camp, Liang now believed that the
revival of scholarship was the key to China’s national salvation and
that it in turn depended on the reinvention of China’s ancient heri-
tage. “The civilizations of the modern West,” he wrote in 1904, “have
their roots in the age of the revitalization of ancient knowledge (guxue
fuxing 古學復興, the renaissance). We should follow this example. For
it is clear that correlating ancient Chinese knowledge with new Euro-
pean patterns is anything but a useless undertaking for us today.”142
One of the first texts devoted to this ambitious enterprise was Liang’s
essay “Mozi’s Logic” (Mozi zhi lunlixue 墨子之論理學), his earliest
and most influential article on what he now declared, with fresh but
all the more unshakable conviction, to be China’s forgotten logical
heritage.
Before analyzing Liang’s exuberant account of scores of logical ideas
anticipated in the Mozi, it may be useful to pause briefly and recall that
this is the same Liang Qichao who until the turn of the century had
displayed utter ignorance of the functions that a science of “names,”
“reasoning,” or “debate” could perform. Liang left no information
about the time or circumstances of his personal discovery of logic.
The attestations of his initial bewilderment indicate that his epiphany
cannot have occurred prior to his arrival in Japan in the aftermath
of the Hundred Days Reform of 1898.143 Recent studies have made
considerable strides in tracing the dazzling array of books on Western
140
Joseph R. Levenson, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and the Mind of Modern China (Cambridge,
Mass: Harvard University Press, 1953), 103–120.
141
Luo Zhitian, Guojia yu xueshu, 90–91. See also Irene Eber, “Thoughts on Renais-
sance in Modern China: Problems of Definition,” in Studia Asiatica: Essays in Asian
Studies in Felicitation of the Seventy-fifth Anniversary of Professor Ch’en Shou-yi, ed. Lawrence
G. Thompson (San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1975), 189–218.
142
Liang Qichao, “Mozi zhi lunlixue,” 37:55.
143
On Liang’s escape and his early life in Japan, see Zheng Kuangmin 鄭匡民,
Liang Qichao qimeng sixiang de dongxue beijing 梁啟超啟蒙思想的東學背景 (The Japanese
background of Liang Qichao’s enlightened thought) (Shanghai: Shanghai shudian,
2003), 19–43.
knowledge that Liang began to devour there as soon as he had acquired

a sufficient grasp of the Japanese language, probably in the summer
of 1899.144 But we have no information about any books on logic that
may have been among them.145 No relevant titles remaining in his
private library date from before the 1910s,146 and the only work on
logic mentioned in his writings from the period is Yan Fu’s Mingxue,
to which he first referred in February 1902.147 By then, Liang had also
realized that Yan’s book dealt with the same discipline as Edkins’s
“unclassifiable” treatise on the sinews of the brain, the Bianxue qimeng.148
Still, from the onset the terms in which Liang wrote about logic were
of Japanese origin,149 so that he must have read at least some texts on
the subject in the language of his new intellectual home.
The question of how thorough a grasp of the discipline Liang
acquired through his reading is not easy to answer. As we have seen
above, the syllogisms he flashed before his audience to lend credibility
to his views on land reform in 1906 were still demonstrably flawed.
His earliest statements on logic indicate a learning process. The first
essay in which he mentioned more than one of the Chinese names of
the science was a brief sketch of the life and thought of Francis Bacon,150
144
See especially the essays in Joshua A. Fogel (ed.), The Role of Japan in Liang
Qichao’s Introduction of Modern Western Civilization to China (Berkeley: Institute of East
Asian Studies, 2004). For Liang’s studies of the Japanese language, see Saitō Mareshi,
“Liang Qichao’s Consciousness of Language,” in ibid., 247–271; 264–270.
145
Liang Qichao, “Dongji yuedan” 東籍月旦 (Notes on Japanese books) (1902),
reprinted in idem, Yinbingshi wenji, 4:82–102. On the sources of Liang’s understanding
of European thought more generally, see Miyamura Haruo 宮村治雄, “Ryō Keichō
no Seiyō shisōka ron: sono ‘tōgaku’ to no kanren ni tsuite” 梁超の西洋思想家
論―その「東学」との関連において (Liang Qichao’s writings on Western think-
ers: On the connections with “Japanese learning”), Chūgoku—Shakai to bunka 5 (1990):
205–225; and K’o-Wu Huang, “Liang Qichao and Immanuel Kant,” in Fogel, The
Role of Japan, 125–155; 131–133.
146
Liang shi Yinbingshi zangshu mulu 梁氏饮冰室藏书目录 (Catalogue of books held
in Mr. Liang [Qichao]’s Ice Drinker’s Studio), ed. Guoli Beiping tushuguan 国立北
平图书馆 (Beijing: Beijing tushuguan chubanshe, [1933] 2005), 554–555.
147
Liang Qichao, “Lun xueshu zhi shili zuoyou shijie” 論學術之勢力左右世界
(On the state of scholarship around the world) (1902), reprinted in idem, Yinbingshi
wenji, 6:110–116; 6:114.
148
Liang Qichao, “Jinshi wenming chuzu er dajia zhi xueshuo,” 13:2–5; 13:2.
149
For an overview of the logical and philosophical terms Liang used in his writ-
ings, see Li Yunbo 李運博, Zhong-Ri jindai cihui de jiaoliu: Liang Qichao de zuoyong yu
yingxiang 中日近代詞彙的交流—梁啟超的作用與影響 (Lexical exchanges between
China and Japan in the modern era: Liang Qichao’s function and influence) (Tianjin:
Nankai daxue chubanshe, 2006), 176–201.
150
Liang Qichao, “Jinshi wenming chuzu er dajia zhi xueshuo,” 13:2–5.
316 chapter five
adapted from Nakae Chōmin’s 中江兆民 (1847–1901) Japanese ver-

sion of Alfred Fouillée’s Histoire de la philosophie.151 Sounding almost
like the cantankerous Protestant missionary William Muirhead three
decades earlier, Liang painted a hardly flattering picture of the theories
Bacon aimed to replace through his call for a new Organon. The reason
why European scholars had lost their ability to open up new roads of
inquiry in Bacon’s age, Liang wrote, was that they were shackled by
the outdated theories of the ancients. As a result, their studies had
become mired in sophistry and were replete with illusions. Bacon was
the first to realize that only a return to experience could cure Europe’s
intellectual inertia. Yet, there was one obstacle on the path to revival:
the “syllogism” (sanjufa 三句法 ‘the method of three sentences’ ) taught
in Aristotelian logic. “For the syllogism,” Liang informed his read-
ers, “is a method that applies only to speech and writing. As such,
it is of great utility to expound truths we already possess. If we wish
to examine whether these truths actually hold, however, it is entirely
inappropriate.”152 Bacon therefore felt nothing but contempt for schol-
ars of “deductive sciences” (tuice zhi xue 推測之學) who refused to open
their eyes to the world of facts and the necessity to explore it by obser-
vation and experiment.153 In the months following this savage critique,
Liang seems to have become more appreciative of Aristotelian logic.
In a survey of Greek philosophy and a biography of Aristotle, based
on Nakae and a number of new sources,154 he now spoke in rather
glowing terms about the Stagirite’s achievements:
Aristotle’s learning synthesized the beginnings of ancient thought and
developed them to their most elevated heights. His philosophical method
also brought together the opinions of the diverse schools on how best to
distinguish truths. He believed that this method needed a solid founda-
tion and therefore created the “science of reasoning” (lunlixue)—trans-
lated by Mr. Yan from Houguan as mingxue ‘the science of names’—to
151
Nakae Chōmin 中江兆民, Rigaku enkakushi 理学沿革史 (A developmental his-
tory of philosophy) (Tōkyō: Monbushō henshūkyoku, 1886), vol. 2, 21–41. On Nakae,
see Piovesana, Recent Japanese Philosophical Thought, 56–57. On his influence on Liang
Qichao, see Zheng Kuangmin, Liang Qichao, 150–154.
152
Liang Qichao, “Jinshi wenming chuzu er dajia zhi xueshuo,” 13:3.
153
Ibid., 13:4.
154
Liang Qichao, “Dongji yuedan,” 4:86–90. See K’o-Wu Huang, “Liang Qichao,”
130–132.
provide a standard. This is the reason why the theories he entertained

were more accurate than those of all previous philosophers.155
Even if Liang nuanced his judgments on the potential uses of logic
over the course of his studies in Western philosophy in 1902 and 1903,
there is no indication that he acquired a more precise understanding
of the technical details of the science prior to his departure for the
United States, and it also seems safe to assume that he had better
things to do on his journey than pore over logical textbooks. It is
therefore more than likely that Liang, as Cui Qingtian has charitably
remarked,156 was “still learning logic” when writing his essay on Mozi’s
science of reasoning.
If Liang had any qualms about his drastic shift of opinion regarding
China’s logical past or his still rudimentary knowledge of logic itself,
he did not share them with his audience. Instead, he opened his article
with a preemptive retort to another potential charge, namely, that he
offered merely a revamped version of the by now widely discredited
“Chinese origins” theory:
To point out all the sciences the Westerners have today and claim, by
forcibly embellishing the record, that we Chinese have long had them,
too, is a serious offense against the ancients and encourages nothing but
self-deception in our nation. Yet, if we sincerely see something the ancients
achieved, something they discovered and spared no effort to refine, it is
our responsibility to alert our countrymen to it; and to do so is also a
way to strengthen the spirit of patriotism in our nation. . . . Whether the
following discussion of Mozi’s logic can avoid the reproach that it offers
forced parallels and strained interpretations, I myself dare not judge. But
I have exerted all my powers with the most sincere intention neither to
slander the ancients nor to deceive myself.157
However pure his intentions may have been, Liang’s instincts regarding
the potential charges unsympathetic readers might level against what
he was about to lay out were certainly justified. For, in fact, the scope
155
Liang Qichao, “Lun Xila gudai xueshu” 論希臘古代學術 (On ancient Greek
scholarship) (1902), reprinted in idem, Yinbingshi wenji, 12:61–68; 12:62–63. See also
idem, “Yalishiduode zhi zhengzhi xueshuo” 亞里士多德之政治學說 (Aristotle’s
political theories) (1902), reprinted in idem, Yinbingshi wenji, 12:68–78; 12:68. For an
overview of all articles on Western thinkers Liang wrote in his period, see Shi Yunyan
石云艷, Liang Qichao yu Riben 梁啟超與日本 (Liang Qichao and Japan) (Tianjin: Tian-
jin renmin chubanshe, 2005), 104–106.
156
Cui Qingtian, Mingxue yu bianxue, 8.
157
318 chapter five
of the theoretical insights he located in the fragments of the “Mohist

Canons” went beyond anything ever attributed to a single thinker in
the global history of the field. In Mozi, “a great ancestor of logic for
the whole world that no one knew and whose achievements no one
has reiterated over the past two millennia,”158 Liang exclaimed, China
possessed a sage waiting for the overdue recognition that his insights
were on a par with Aristotle and Bacon all at once. Fully aware of the
rules of deductive inference, Mozi had also anticipated key tenets of
induction. And as if that were not enough, “there is almost no place
in his work where he did not apply the logical rules” expounded in the
“Canons” to bolster his political and moral arguments.159
2. The Paleontology of Deductive Forms

Liang’s hyperbole placed a considerable burden of proof on his inter-
pretative effort. He approached it by a method that resembled the
labors of a paleontologist in the amount of imagination it required
to extract plausible hypotheses about lost worlds from the scarcest
possible evidence. Liang’s paleontological genius found its most skill-
ful expression in the first two sections of his essay, devoted, respec-
tively, to “explanations of terms” (shiming 釋名) and the “rules” or
“models” ( fashi 法式) of reasoning. Through a breathtaking exercise
in the “matching of meanings” (geyi 格義)160—that is, the strategy,
first applied in Chinese appropriations of Buddhism, of facilitating
the acceptance of foreign notions by translating them into familiar
terms—Liang managed to recreate the complete theoretical edifice
of nineteenth-century European textbook syllogistics on the basis of
Mohist fragments amounting to no more than 177 characters in total.
The direction of his effort reversed the traditional order in which
matches were established: rather than expressing imported notions in
Chinese terms, Liang translated the logical notions he found in the
Mozi into Japanese replicas of European concepts. The frame of ref-
erence for his excavations was unabashedly and exclusively Western.
Unlike Zhang Binglin and Liu Shipei, Liang made no effort to redefine
the understanding of the discipline in order to adapt it to his material
158
Ibid., 37:71.
159
Ibid., 37:56.
160
See Tang Yongtong 湯用彤, “Lun ‘geyi’ ” 論格義 (On the “matching of mean-
ings”), in idem, Tang Yongtong ji 湯用彤集 (The works of Tang Yongtong) (Beijing:
Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1995), 140–151.
or to preserve remnants of traditional meanings within its boundar-

ies. Instead, his interpretative energies were spent on fitting Mohist
concepts as seamlessly as possible into what he perceived to be the
universal structure of logical inquiry.
Liang’s strategy may well have been inspired by Kuwaki Gen’yoku’s
earlier and no less rash attempt to establish equivalents between logi-
cal notions and Mohist terms. As an avid reader of the Japanese jour-
nal Tetsugaku zasshi, in which Kuwaki’s article on the “Development
of Logical Thought in Ancient China” first appeared, Liang would
have been aware of Kuwaki’s speculations. Yet, in marked contrast to
many of his essays on Western philosophy, which offered little more
than summaries of his unstated Japanese texts of departure, Liang bor-
rowed no more than the outer form of Kuwaki’s arguments and filled
it with his own equivalents. At least in this case Liang’s frequently
decried dependency on Japanese ideas did not extend to his readings
of ancient Chinese texts, an area in which he had the confidence to
trust his own judgment and expertise.
The originality of Liang’s matches did not guarantee their plausibil-
ity, of course. In the opening section of his essay he presented a series
of thirteen glosses for key terms of European logic ranging from a gen-
eral description of the discipline’s purpose to technical notions from
each of its main branches.161 All entries followed the same pattern,
starting with a Mohist term and a quotation from the “Lesser Pick”
to illustrate its use, then adding, in Chinese and English, the logical
term that Liang saw as its modern equivalent, and concluding with an
explanation of the modern term’s meaning. The degree of credibility
of the correspondences Liang suggested in this manner was uneven.
Perhaps the easiest to accept was the similarity he pointed out between
the Mohist term bian 辯 ‘disputation’ and “logic” itself:
Logic (bian 辯). See chapter “The Lesser Pick”: “The purpose of ‘disputa-
tion’ (bian 辯) is to clarify the distinction between right/true and wrong/
false [. . .]; by clarifying points of sameness and difference, to inquire into
the patterns of names and objects; and by settling the beneficial and
harmful, to resolve confusions and doubt. Only after describing what is
so of the myriad things, can one seek out comparables in the multitude
161
All examples from this section of the essay will be quoted from Liang Qichao,
“Mozi zhi lunlixue,” 37:56–58.
320 chapter five
of sayings. . . .”162 Note: What Mozi calls “disputation” is logic. This pas-
sage explains the definition and applications of logic. The definitions of
famous Western specialists do not go beyond it.
In all his matches, Liang trusted his readers to grasp the meaning of
his quotations from the “Mohist Canons” without explanation, irre-
spective of possible textual corruptions. In examples like the following,
this trust may have been justified:
Name (ming 名). “One uses names to raise objects.”163 Note: What Mozi
calls name, is called Term (mingci 名詞) in logic.164
Sentence (ci 辭). “One uses sentences to transmit intentions.”165 Note:
What Mozi calls sentence, is called Proposition (mingti 命題) in logic.166
Explanation (shuo 說). “One uses explanations to bring out reasons.”167
Note: What Mozi calls explanation, is called Premise (qianti 前提) in logic.
Logic must of necessity always rely on the syllogism. The first section
[of the syllogism] is called major premise, the second, minor premise.168
Further note: It would be wrong to say that Mozi’s explanation refers
exclusively to minor premises.169
It is more doubtful, however, whether readers would have been able
to intuit the reasoning behind Liang’s more creative choices, as the
equivalents he offered for “conclusion” and “middle term” may illus-
trate. Unafraid of committing fallacies of ambiguity, Liang suggested
for the first an artificial compound extracted from the three Mohist
phrases just cited as loci classici for “term,” “proposition,” and “prem-
ise”; for the second, he redefined the Mohist term lei 類, used since
antiquity in the sense of “class” or “kind,” to represent the Aristotelian
“middle term”:
162
“Xiaoqu,” HC 6A.9–6B.2. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 472–475 and
482–483.
163
“Xiaoqu,” HC 6B.1. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 482–483.
164
Note by Liang Qichao: “When we say ‘Mozi is Chinese,’ then ‘Mozi’ and ‘Chi-
nese’ are two terms.”
165
“Xiaoqu,” HC 6B.1–2. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 482–483.
166
Note by Liang Qichao: “When we say ‘Mozi is Chinese,’ then this entire phrase
is a proposition.”
167
168
Note by Liang Qichao: “When we say ‘He who has the Way and can save
others through his actions is a holy man,’ then this is a major premise; and when we
say ‘Mozi has the Way and can save others through his actions,’ then this is a minor
premise.”
169
Ibid., 37:56. Translations of the original passages from “Xiaoqu,” HC 6B.1,
adapted from Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 432–433.
Objects, Intentions, Reasons (shi yi gu 實意故). “One uses names to raise

objects. One uses sentences to transmit intentions. One uses explana-
tions to bring out reasons.”170 Note: Mozi’s so-called “objects,” “inten-
tions,” and “reasons” are together called Conclusion (duanan 斷案) in logic.
In logic, we must first refer to a term, then combine two terms in a
proposition, then raise two propositions as major and minor premises,
and finally draw a conclusion from them. Conclusions are no different
from objects and intentions, and one must always use the word “reason”
(gu 故 ‘therefore’ ) to bring them out. Therefore Mozi says: “One uses
explanations to bring out reasons.”171
Kind (lei 類). “One accepts according to kind, and one proposes
according to kind.”172 What Mozi calls “kind” is akin to what is called
Middle Term (meici 媒詞) in logic. Logical syllogisms must contain three
terms. The words used as subjects in the conclusion are called “minor
term,” those used as predicates “major term,” and those that do not
appear in the conclusion “middle term.”173 The middle term serves as
that which is accepted (qu 取) between the major and minor premise,
and as that which proposes ( yu 予) [the connection] between the minor
premise and the conclusion.
In these examples, Liang’s tendency to devote more space to expla-
nations of the logical terms into which he translated Mohist notions
than to justifications of his specific choices is particularly striking. Yet,
this tendency was consistent with his overriding, if implicit, objective
to excavate fossilized traces of a complete system of deductive rea-
soning from the “Canons.” Having identified equivalents for the key
notions of “logic,” “term,” “proposition,” “premise,” “conclusion,”
and “middle term,” all he needed to complete this part of his proj-
ect were equivalents relating to the mechanics of syllogistic inference.
And, surely enough, Liang did not have to look far to discover terms
hinting at an awareness of the quantity and quality of propositions and
the figures according to which they were linked in valid syllogisms:
170
171
Note by Liang Qichao: “When we say ‘He who has the Way and can save oth-
ers through his actions is a holy man,’ ‘Mozi has the Way and can save others through
his actions,’ ‘Therefore, Mozi is a holy man,’ then we have a complete syllogism; since
we have both a major and a minor premise, the conclusion follows automatically.”
172
173
Note by Liang Qichao: “When we say ‘All Chinese are Asians,’ ‘Mozi is Chi-
nese,’ ‘Therefore, Mozi is Asian,’ then ‘Mozi’ is the minor term, ‘Asian’ is the major
term, and ‘Chinese’ is the middle term.”
322 chapter five
Some (huo 或). “ ‘Some’ is ‘not all’.”174 What Mozi calls “some” is called
Particular Proposition (techeng mingti 特稱命題) in logic. Logic distinguishes
between universal and particular propositions. Understanding the proper
forms for their arrangement is a topic one cannot afford to neglect.175
Assumed ( jia 假). “The assumed is not so now.”176 What Mozi calls
“assumed” is called Hypothetical Proposition ( jiayan mingti 假言命題) in
logic.177 What is assumed can presently not be substantiated, therefore
[Mozi] says it “is not so now.”
Example (xiao 效). “An example is a standard for being deemed such-
and-such. Therefore if something coincides with an example, it is this
thing, and if it does not it is not.”178 Note: What Mozi calls example is
akin to the meaning of a “rule” or “model” ( fashi 法式); it encompasses
the meanings of the two Western words Form and Law. If we look for a
specific equivalent in logic, the Figure of the syllogism seems appropri-
ate. For no syllogism can be established that does not coincide with a
“figure” (ge 格).
Before looking more closely into the notion of a “rule” or “model,” to
which Liang appended a whole host of presumably implied meanings
in addition to that of the “figure” of the syllogism in the second
section of his article, we should briefly review his four remaining
matches. Two of them, Liang held, anticipated methods of induc-
tive reasoning. “Verification” (lizheng 立證) was explained in the
phrase “Illustrating (pi 譬) means to raise other things to clarify
one’s case,”179 and “comparison” (bijiao 比較) was elucidated thus:
174
175
Note by Liang Qichao: “When we say ‘All Chinese are descendants of the Yel-
low Emperor,’ then we have a universal proposition, for the words used as its subject
include all people in China without remainder; when we say ‘Some or a certain or
this or that man are descendants of the Yellow Emperor,’ then we have a particular
proposition because it does not include everyone. In this case, we have no way of
knowing whether there are other descendants of the Yellow Emperor besides these
‘some’ here.”
176
177
Note by Liang Qichao: “For example, ‘If there were a Mozi in China today,
then China could be saved’ (step 1); ‘We have no way of knowing whether there is a
Mozi today’ (step 2); ‘Therefore, China’s future remains uncertain’ (step 3).”
178
“Xiaoqu,” HC 6B.4–5. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 470–471. For a detailed
reconstruction of this passage, see Janusz Chmielewski, Language and Logic in Ancient
China: Collected Papers on the Chinese Language and Logic, ed Marek Mejor (Warsaw: Polska
Akademia Nauk, 2009), 207–226.
179
“Xiaoqu,” HC 6B.5–6. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 482–483. In an interlin-
ear note Liang added: “For instance, when Copernicus created his heliocentric theory,
Galileo wanted to check whether it was accurate, and so he established conceptions
according to which Venus, Mercury, and so forth responded to the same phenomenon
and then studied them one by one to prove that they were all of a similar kind; yet,
there are so many kinds [of stars] that it is impossible to go through all of them.”
“Parallelizing (mou 侔) means to compare sentences and to let them all

proceed.”180 In the remarks accompanying his final two equivalents,
none of which added much to the conceptual space already covered,
Liang then struck a pose of thoughtful hesitation, possibly to reassure
readers, who may have been concerned about the veracity of his more
daring claims, of his continued sincerity. To the phrase “Adducing is
saying: If it is so in your case, why can it not be so in mine too?”181 he
added the cautionary note: “It is not quite clear what Mozi means by
‘adducing’ ( yuan 援 ‘to assist’ ) and I do not dare to force an interpreta-
tion. If we can draw on it at all, this notion seems to come close to a
kind of syllogism called “sorites” ( jidieshi 積疊式).”182 Liang displayed
a similar reluctance to jump to the conclusion that tui 推 ‘to push
forward’ could be equated with the term “inference” on the grounds
that “Pushing forward means using what is the same in that which he
refuses to accept and that which he does accept in order to propose
the former.”183
Having set up what he hoped to be a credible framework for deduc-
tive logic in the Mozi, Liang returned to the notion of the “example”
(xiao 效), glossed, as we have seen, as a “rule” or “model” of reasoning
and the “figure” of the syllogism. According to Liang, Mozi used criteria
to test whether certain propositions did or did not “coincide with rules”
(zhongxiao 中效) as a measure “to evaluate all theories under heaven.”184
The liberties Liang took in reconstructing these criteria went beyond
those he had exploited thus far. Since in its present form the book
Mozi did not contain a separate treatise on “rules,” he wrote, he had
decided to gather all relevant hints scattered throughout the work and
synthesize them in the appropriate order. Most of his extrapolations
were tied to a passage in the “Explanations to the Canons” that has no
apparent connection to the concept of rules: “It is admissible for the
man who uses names correctly to use ‘that’ for this and ‘this’ for that.
As long as his use of ‘that’ for that stays confined to that, and his use
of ‘this’ for this stays confined to this, it is inadmissible to use ‘that’ for
180
181
182
Note by Liang Qichao: “For instance, ‘Animals are organisms,’ ‘Quadrupeds are
animals,’ ‘Horses are quadrupeds,’ ‘This thing is a horse,’ ‘Therefore this thing is an
organism.’ The sections in a sorites all support one another to establish a conclusion.”
183
184
324 chapter five
this. If ‘that’ and ‘this’ stay confined to that and this, and accepting this
condition you use ‘that’ for that, then ‘this’ is likewise about to be used
for this.”185 Liang found a bewildering amount of logical theorizing in
this passage, which today is commonly understood as an attempt to
counter relativistic inferences from what Christoph Harbsmeier has
called “the seeming paradox of deictic expressions” (that is, the person
I refer to as “I” is the person you refer to as “you”).186 Liang, however,
interpreted it as an illustration of key rules of inferential reasoning
that betrayed an awareness of concepts as diverse as “intension” and
“extension,” “subject” and “predicate,” “particular term,” “universal
term,” “distribution,” “quantity,” “quality,” “conversion,” and even
hinted at an understanding of some syllogistic fallacies.
One example of the way in which he unearthed these concepts
should suffice to illustrate his strategy. According to Liang:
This passage is designed to elucidate the distinct usage of universal and
particular terms through illustrations of the logical notions intension
and extension. In the phrase “It is admissible to use ‘that’ for this and
‘this’ for that,’ ” the quantities of subject and predicate are identical.187
Predicate and subject are therefore interchangeable [that is, they can
be converted]. . . . Both terms in our phrase are taken universally. As an
example, let us look at the premise “Man is a rational animal.” Why
does this coincide with “It is admissible to use ‘that’ for this and ‘this’
for that?” Because both [terms] are taken universally, for there is no
rational animal that is not a man, and there is no man who is not a ratio-
nal animal. Therefore, it is not only “admissible to use ‘that’ for this”
but also “to use ‘this’ for that.” Hence, we could also say “All rational
animals are men” without contradicting the patterns of reasoning. If we
wanted to explain this in terms of contemporary logic, we could say:
“All subjects and predicates whose qualities and quantities are identical,
can be converted.”188
At first blush, Liang’s interpretation was not implausible. Still, his read-
ings of this and other passages were beset by multiple problems. First,
what Liang proved was not, as he hoped, that the Mozi expounded a
185
Jingshuo B68. Liang, unlike Graham, used the text of the traditional Daoist
Patrology version. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 440–441. The translation follows
Liang’s recension.
186
187
Note by Liang Qichao: “Zhuci 主詞 ‘host word’ is Subject in English; binci 賓詞
‘guest word’ is Predicate. A premise must contain both these terms. . . . In this passage
‘this’ is the subject and ‘that’ is the predicate.”
188
host of logical theories, but rather that it was possible to rephrase the
text in logical terms, which could then be enlisted to highlight implicit
traces of opinions bearing some degree of resemblance to explicit logi-
cal insights. Although it is not impossible that the author(s) of the “Can-
ons” had some grasp of the logical rules Liang extracted from their
extant utterances, there was nothing in the text, or at least in Liang’s
interpretation of it, that allowed him to claim that they conceptualized
these rules in the terms of European textbook syllogistics—unless, of
course, this type of logic embodied the universal Gestalt of the disci-
pline, as Liang seemed to believe, for why else would he have spent
so much of his interpretative energy on matching Mohist meanings to
syllogistic terms? A second problem of Liang’s unselfconsciously Euro-
centric approach was that his reading could only extrapolate from
the text what he knew he had to find if he wished to claim parity
between Mozi and the Western sages who had formulated the blue-
print guiding his explorations in the first place. From the outset, such
a “shrink-to-fit” approach narrowed the range of possible discoveries
to the scope of the prism through which he looked at the sherds he
hoped to reassemble into a full-blown likeness of China’s forgotten
logical heritage. Long sections of his article therefore revealed more
about Liang’s own understanding of logic at the time, which was still
quite basic, than they did about its alleged Mohist anticipations.
In the remaining pages of his essay Liang adapted his interpreta-
tive approach to new argumentative purposes. The explicit goal of
the third section was to confirm Mozi’s theoretical insights by illustra-
tions of their application in other parts of the work. By transposing
key arguments of Mohist political theory into valid syllogisms, Liang
aimed to show that the rules he unearthed were applied consistently
throughout the work. All he achieved by rewriting Mohist claims into
various types of more or less complete syllogisms, however, was to
demonstrate his own mastery of these forms, since his efforts at refor-
mulation were only necessary because the notions he wished to exem-
plify had not been applied by the original author(s).189
The concluding section celebrated what Liang considered to be
Mozi’s crowning achievement: the anticipation by more than fifteen
hundred years of Bacon’s inductive method. As in the previous chap-
ters, he devoted most of his remarks to explaining the meaning of his
189
Liang Qichao, “Mozi zhi lunlixue,” 37:63–68.
326 chapter five
terms of departure, here largely by paraphrasing the eulogy of induc-

tion from his aforementioned biography of Bacon. Mozi came into play
only toward the end of the section through his discussion of the “three
standards” (san fa 三法) or “three gauges” (san biao 三表) of “prec-
edent” ( youbenzhizhe 有本之者), “evidence” ( youyuanzhizhe 有原之者),
and “application” ( you yongzhizhe 有用之者), which Liang identified as
equivalents to Bacon’s insistence on testing the validity of all knowl-
edge through observation and experiment.190 One slightly disturbing
aspect of Liang’s interpretation, after the painful reconstructive labors
of the previous sections, was that he lauded the passages introducing
the “three gauges” as “the place in the entire book Mozi most clearly
concerned with the science of reasoning” and even proposed to under-
stand the “standards of assessment” ( yifa 儀法) that Mozi demanded
to establish prior to advancing any claims as yet another equivalent of
“the Western term Logic.”191
In sum, Liang’s paleontological reconstructions of “Mozi’s logic”
were as ambitious in scope as they were problematic in detail. The
confidence with which he established a broad range of correspon-
dences between Mohist terms and central notions of European logic
stood in marked contrast to the reliability of the grounds on which
those matches were based. Dedicating most of his essay to explana-
tions of basic logical theories, Liang provided only perfunctory justi-
fications for his more often than not perplexing choices. On the basis
of the evidence Liang provided, even sympathetic readers were hardly
able to form reasoned judgments as to whether the translations he
proposed were founded on actual similarities or were, rather, forced
embellishments inserted into the historical record, against Liang’s
professed intentions, with the aim of celebrating Mozi as a forgotten
“Bacon of the East” in order to fortify Chinese cultural pride and
national confidence.192
Even if most of the claims advanced in his essay were hardly con-
vincing, Liang must be credited with two consequential discoveries:
On the one hand, he was the first author to suggest that a fully devel-
oped system of logic lay hidden in the fossilized fragments of early
Chinese literature and that this system could be recovered through a
190
Mozi 35–37. See Philip J. Ivanhoe and Brian W. Van Norden, Readings in Clas-
sical Chinese Philosophy (Indianapolis and London: Hackett, 2005), 110–111.
191
192
Ibid., 37:70–71.
combination of textual analysis and “rational reconstruction”—a sug-

gestion that was to spur an extremely productive interest in the Mozi
and other texts during the 1920s and 1930s, not least in Liang himself,
who upon revisiting the “Canons” resolved textual riddles that had
impeded its interpretation for centuries.193 On the other hand, and
irrespective of his motives, by testing his systematic agenda against
Mozi’s actual practice of argumentation, Liang drew attention to the
fact that studies of Chinese logic need not limit their focus to traces of
explicit logical theorizing but may have as much to gain from examin-
ing the logic implicit in discursive practices.
5. Chinese Logic as an Archival Curiosity
Wang Guowei, the last of the pioneering interpreters to be discussed in

this study, shared Liang Qichao’s initial skepticism regarding the ques-
tion of whether ancient China had known logical theory. In contrast to
Europe and India, he wrote in 1905, China had “disputation, but no
logic,” because the Chinese generally lacked theoretical interest and
imagination.194 Yet, barely two months after this negative assessment,
Wang published a short essay entitled “The Logic of the Noncanonical
Masters of the Zhou and Qin Periods” (Zhou-Qin zhuzi zhi mingxue
周秦諸子之名學).195 Wang left no hint of what had caused his change
of heart or provoked him to rethink the issue. His essay may mark an
attempt to nuance some of the claims put forward in Kuwaki Gen’yoku’s
article on “Xunzi’s Logical Theories” that Wang had translated into
Chinese for Luo Zhenyu’s 羅振玉 (1866–1940) journal Jiaoyu shijie
教育世界 (The World of Education) in 1904.196 Or he may have responded to
Liang Qichao’s grandiose assertions of the scope of logical knowledge
193
On Liang’s contribution to the textual reconstruction of the “Mohist Canons,”
see Zheng Jiewen, Ershi shiji Moxue yanjiushi, 82–89.
194
Wang Guowei, “Lun xin xueyu zhi shuru,” 40.
195
Wang Guowei, “Zhou-Qin zhuzi zhi mingxue” 周秦諸子之名學 (The logic of
the noncanonical masters of the Zhou and Qin periods), Jiaoyu shijie 98, 100 (1905),
reprinted in idem, Wang Guowei wenji, vol. 3, 219–227.
196
Kuwaki Gen’yoku, “Xunzi zhi lunli xueshuo” 荀子之論理學說 (Xunzi’s logical
theory), Jiaoyu shijie 77 (1904). The original, first published in 1898 and discussed above,
was Kuwaki, “Junshi no ronri setsu.” On Wang’s translation, see Fo Chu, Wang Guowei
zhexue yigao yanjiu, 127–137. On Wang’s work at the Jiaoyu shijie, see Chen Hongxiang
陳鴻祥, Wang Guowei yu dongxifang xueren 王國維與東西方學人 (Wang Guowei and
Japanese and Western scholars) (Tianjin: Tianjin guji chubanshe, 1990), 2–17.
328 chapter five
in the “Mohist Canons,” a subject on which Wang held a very differ-

ent view, as he made clear in his article on the “Logic of the Nonca-
nonical Masters” of 1904 and reiterated in 1906 when he offered a
slightly expanded version of his readings of the “Canons” in a discus-
sion of the philosophical significance of the book Mozi that included a
brief section on logic.197
Whatever his motives, Wang was at least as well qualified for the
task as anyone writing on the subject in late imperial China. Of the
scholars discussed in this chapter, he had enjoyed by far the most
thorough training in the discipline. As we have seen above, he began
to study logic with his Japanese teacher Fujita Toyohachi in Shanghai
in 1902 and never lost interest in the subject.198 Claims that he taught
logic while working at the Tongzhou Normal School in Jiangsu have
been revealed to be inaccurate,199 but Wang found some opportunities
to touch upon logical themes in his journalistic writings, for instance,
in the brief biographies of Aristotle and Bacon that he compiled for
the Jiaoyu shijie.200 His translations of Jevons’s Elementary Lessons and a
number of Japanese and English works on philosophy and psychology
also confirmed that Wang possessed a very solid grasp of the science’s
terminology and conceptual lexicon.201 His familiarity with the subject
surpassed that of most of his contemporaries, and he was never shy
to criticize others who failed to meet the high standards he set for
197
Wang Guowei, “Mozi zhi xueshuo” 墨子之學說 (Mozi’s theories), Jiaoyu shijie
121 (1906), reprinted in idem, Wang Guowei wenji, vol. 3, 159–174.
198
One occasion for him to apply his knowledge of logic was in his reading of
Schopenhauer’s treatise on the principle of sufficient reason. See Kogelschatz, Wang
Kuo-wei and Schopenhauer, 86–88.
199
Fo Chu 佛雛, “Wang Guowei yu Jiangsu liangsuo ‘shifan xuetang’ ” 王國維
與兩所 “師範學堂” (Wang Guowei and two ‘normal schools’ in Jiangsu), Yangzhou
shiyuan xuebao, no. 1 (1990): 94–98; 95. See also Dou Zhongru 竇忠如, Wang Guowei
zhuan 王國維傳 (Biography of Wang Guowei) (Tianjin: Baihua wenyi chubanshe,
2007), 82–84; and Chen Hongxiang, Wang Guowei quanzhuan, 117–120.
200
Wang Guowei, “Xila da zhexuejia Yalidadeli zhuan” 希臘大哲學家亞利大
德勒傳 (Biography of the great Greek philosopher Aristotle), Jiaoyu shijie 77 (1904),
reprinted in idem, Wang Guowei wenji, vol. 3, 287–291; and idem, “Beigen xiaozhuan”
倍根小傳 (Brief biography of Bacon), Jiaoyu shijie 160 (1907), reprinted in idem, Wang
Guowei wenji, vol. 3, 409–413.
201
See Fo Chu, Wang Guowei zhexue yigao yanjiu. On Wang’s achievements as a
translator more generally, see Cecile Chu-chin Sun, “Wang Guowei as Translator of
Values,” in Creation and Translation: Readings of Western Literature in Early Modern China,
1840–1918, ed. David Pollard (Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1998),
253–282; and Qiuhua Hu, “Wang Guowei (1877–1929) und die Sprachproblematik,”
Asiatische Studien 55, no. 4 (2001): 971–978.
himself. Among the more prominent targets of his occasional scorn was
Yan Fu, whose translation of Mill’s Logic Wang criticized in 1905:
Those who think that words that have already been standardized in
Japan are more difficult to understand than ancient Chinese words
should look into the Logic translated by Mr. Yan [Fu] from Houguan.
Yan’s words are indeed as old as can be; still, it is impossible to under-
stand their meanings. Whoever has the slightest knowledge of a foreign
language will spend less time reading Mill’s original book [than Yan’s
translation].202
The confidence Wang drew from his solid background exuded from
many of his writings on logic and philosophy. His essay on the “Logic
of the Noncanonical Masters” opened with a categorical statement
on the necessary conditions for the formation of logical theories. His-
tory proves, Wang claimed, that logic is the result of abstraction from
arguments exchanged in scholarly debate. In Greece, dialectic was
developed to meet the challenge of Zeno’s paradoxes; later, Aristotle
synthesized the available logical knowledge in response to criticisms
from the sophists. A similar process had led to the discovery of yinming
schemes in India, and it had also facilitated the beginning of logical
reflection in China.
The founding father of Chinese logic, according to Wang, was
Mozi, whose reflections were provoked by the need to defend his ethi-
cal and political doctrines against Confucian abuse. In the same man-
ner, Xunzi’s insights were formulated to shield the Confucian heritage
from the corrosive sophisms of Deng Xi, Hui Shi, and their followers.
With Xunzi’s treatise “On the Correct Use of Names,” Chinese logic
had reached its early climax.203 The ideological stratification under the
Han emperor Wu Di 漢武帝 (140–87 BC) had effectively brought all
scholarly debate to an end by “suppressing all opinions but one” and
had thus cut off the tradition of logical thought in China—for good,
as Wang emphasized. With this last remark, he made a very conse-
quential point that no author had as yet explicitly stated: in contrast to
discourses on European, or contemporary, logic that promised poten-
tially limitless social, scientific, and intellectual progress, discussions
of Chinese logic, no matter how broadly defined, were and would
continue to be of archival interest only.
202
Wang Guowei, “Lun xin xueyu zhi shuru,” 43.
203
Wang Guowei, “Zhou-Qin zhuzi zhi mingxue,” 219.
330 chapter five
Still, the question remained of how the archives of Chinese logical

interest, if they were to be erected at all, should be accessed, arranged,
and kept in order. Wang’s answer was to start with a sober assessment
of what these archives actually contained. Wang had no patience for
scholars who took pride in burdening archives with data of limited
relevance. In his view, China’s logical heritage consisted of no more
than three well-circumscribed elements: a discussion of “definitions”
(dingyi 定義) developed in the “Explanations to the Mohist Canons,”
an incomplete inventory of “fallacies of reasoning” (tuilun zhi miuwang
推論之謬妄) that could be extracted from the “Greater Pick” and
the “Lesser Pick” in the book Mozi, and a “theory of conception”
(guannianlun 觀念論) with strong epistemological overtones outlined by
Xunzi in response to the sophistry of Gongsun Long.204 Only two of
these elements could be reconstructed in any detail, however, since
among the logically relevant parts in the Mozi only “Canon A” and
the “Lesser Pick” were fully intelligible.205
Wang’s analysis of Mohist logic illustrated the ways in which his
approach to China’s forgotten logical heritage differed from Liang
Qichao’s. Both relied in their interpretations on a European-derived
conceptual lexicon. But because Wang was not interested in reconstruc-
tions of implicit “systems” or hidden “theories,” he could select much
more refined analytical tools from this vocabulary for his explorations.
Whereas Liang had to find equivalents for central logical notions in
order to complete the system whose discovery he hoped would bring
about a Chinese renaissance and help restore the nation’s confidence,
Wang could contend himself with recording dispassionately whatever
his material indicated.
In the case of the Mozi, this amounted to very little. “In terms of
metaphysics and ethics,” Wang wrote, “Mozi’s basic ideas were not
that different from those of the Confucians but he came to entirely dif-
ferent conclusions. Whoever wishes to defend their own opinions can-
not but study the methods of debate (bianlun zhi fa 辯論之法). This is
why Chinese logic began with the discoveries of the Mohists.”206 Judg-
ing from their traces in the Mohists’ extant writings, these discoveries
were not too impressive. Although “Canon A” offered a definition of
204
Ibid., 219.
205
Wang repeated this assessment almost verbatim in idem, “Mozi zhi xueshuo,”
171–172.
206
Ibid., 171.
“names,” the Mozi failed to develop formal criteria for establishing

definitions and therefore this aspect of the Mohists’ discoveries did not
merit further discussion.207 Similar shortcomings applied to the enu-
meration of the fallacies of reasoning in the “Lesser Pick.” Here, too,
the text fell short by failing to explore general laws of inference. Still,
Wang conceded that its descriptions of different kinds of fallacies were
of some logical interest. In his reading the “Lesser Pick” understood
all these fallacies as instances of unwarranted “analogies” (bilei 比類).
Wang based this interpretation on a passage discussing sameness and
difference among “things in general” (wu 物) that he considered in the
unreconstructed Daoist Patrology version:
Of the things in general, there are respects in which they are the same
and in which they are not. To determine whether they are entirely the
same, we have to rely on the parallelism of sentences. Then we have
something by which to correct [our judgments]. If something is so of
things, there are reasons why it is so; but though its being so of them
is the same, the reasons why it is so are not necessarily the same. If we
accept a claim we have reasons for accepting it; but though we are the
same in accepting it, the reasons why we accept it are not necessarily
the same. Therefore propositions which illustrate, parallelize, adduce,
and infer become different as they proceed, become dangerous when
they change direction, fail when carried too far, and become detached
from their base when we let them drift, so that we must on no account
be careless with them.208
According to Wang, the Mohists inferred four kinds of analogies from
this passage. The first, described as “something is so if the instanced
thing is this” (shi er ran 是而然), was illustrated in the “Lesser Pick”
by examples such as “Huo is a person. To love Huo is to love people.
Zang is a person. To love Zang is to love people.” Yet, as the Mohists
realized, if one applied the same pattern of analogy in other cases, fal-
lacies ensued. Two of these were identified in the “Lesser Pick.” The
first entailed the “fallacy of equivocation” (nuanmei zhi miuwang 暖昧之
謬妄), exemplified by “Huo’s parents are ren 人 ‘people’, but Huo’s
serving her parents is not her serving ren 人 ‘others’.” The second
was the “fallacy of accident” (ouranxing zhi miuwang 偶然性之謬妄),
illustrated by “Her younger brother is a handsome man, but loving
207
Ibid. See also idem, “Zhou-Qin zhuzi zhi mingxue,” 220.
208
Wang Guowei, “Zhou-Qin zhuzi zhi mingxue,” 220; and idem, “Mozi zhi xue-
shuo,” 171–172, quoting Xiaoqu HC 6B.9–7A.4. Translation adapted following Wang
Guowei’s reading from Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 483–484.
332 chapter five
her younger brother is not loving handsome men.”209 Another type of

analogy, described by the Mohists as “something is not so though the
instanced is this thing” (shi er buran 是而不然) was close to a fallacy
that modern logic explains as the “fallacy of illicit process of the major
term” (daxiang bu dang zhouyan de cuowu 大項不當周延的錯誤). Examples
for this type of fallacious analogy given in the “Lesser Pick” included:
“Robbers are people but abounding in robbers is not abounding in
people, and being without robbers is not being without people.” The
problem with this analogy, as Wang explained, tutoring his readers
much in the same manner as Liang Qichao, was that the word “peo-
ple” in the premise referred only to a small part of humanity but was
taken universally in the conclusion.210 In Chinese intellectual history,
fallacies of this kind were especially prevalent because, Wang argued,
the Chinese language did not allow for clear distinctions between “uni-
versal,” “particular,” and “singular” terms and premises.
The two remaining kinds of analogies identified in the “Lesser Pick”
and the fallacies they implied described, respectively, situations in which
“something is harmful without exception in one case but not in the
other” ( yi hai er yi bu hai 一害而一不害 or yi zhou er yi bu zhou 一周而
一不周) and “the instanced in one case is this and in the other is not”
( yi shi er yi bu shi 一是而不一是). Wang argued that the examples cho-
sen to illustrate these problematic analogies revealed that the Mohists
had not treated them from a purely logical perspective but imbued
them with their ideological agenda. This was particularly obvious in
the first case, which the “Lesser Pick” illustrated thus: “ ‘He loves
people’ requires him to love all people without exception, only then is
he deemed to love people. ‘He does not love people’ does not require
that he loves no people at all; he does not love all without exception,
and by this criterion is deemed not to love people.” Here, according
to Wang, the Mohists exploited the lack of a clear distinction between
universal and particular terms that they had decried earlier in order
to strengthen their political case for “universal love” ( jian’ai 兼愛) or
“love without exception.”211 The same deficit of the Chinese language
209
shuo,” 172, quoting Xiaoqu HC 7A.8–7B.1. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 485–486.
210
shuo,” 172, quoting Xiaoqu HC 7B.3–4. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 487–489.
211
Wang Guowei, “Zhou-Qin zhuzi zhi mingxue,” 221–222; and idem, “Mozi zhi
xueshuo,” 173, quoting Xiaoqu HC 8B.4–6. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 492–493.
was also at the root of the fallacies described as “the instanced in one
case is this and in the other is not.” One example of this kind was
the apparent analogy, “To ask about a man’s illness is to ask about
the man, but disliking the man’s illness is not disliking the man.”212
Although the Mohists’ typology of fallacies contained some logically
relevant insights, Wang Guowei concluded that it was limited by a
simplistic understanding of the reasons why analogies failed. With their
examples the Mohists demonstrated their awareness that inferences
that appeared to be formally identical could produce valid conclusions
in one instance but lead to errors in others. But they were unable to
formulate abstract rules of inference that could explain the underlying
causes of these different outcomes. Compared with Aristotle’s theory,
their discussion of fallacies could therefore only seem “as powerless as
[the pre-imperial states of ] Lu and Wei when faced with [the domi-
nant powers of ] Qin and Jin.”213 Yet, Wang wrote, even if Mozi’s
theories of definition and inference were “neither comprehensive or
concise, nor subtle or detailed,” and “although he based his insights
on random facts and was unable to discover formal laws, Mozi still
deserves to be revered as the founding ancestor of logic in China.”214
In the global history of the discipline, Wang opined with some care-
fully calculated malice, Mozi should therefore be ranked near Zeno,
the earliest of Aristotle’s precursors—and hence at the bottom of the
roster of logical heroes at whose top Liang Qichao had tried to posi-
tion his forgotten “Bacon of the East.”
Wang Guowei thought much more highly of Xunzi, the second
and only other thinker he was willing to recognize for his contribu-
tions to the development of logic in ancient China. Although failing
to refine Mozi’s crude theory of inference, Xunzi had established a
theory of conception on the basis of common-sense experience that
represented an unparalleled height in the history of logic in China
and even beyond, as Wang added with rare pathos. Wang’s recon-
struction of this theory was in large part a reiteration of the article by
Kuwaki Gen’yoku he had translated in 1904.215 Like Kuwaki, Wang
praised Xunzi’s project for anticipating key concerns of contemporary
212
shuo,” 173, quoting Xiaoqu HC 8A.8–10. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, 491–492.
213
Wang Guowei, “Mozi zhi xueshuo,” 173.
214
215
See the useful comparison in Fo Chu, Wang Guowei zhexue yigao yanjiu, 128–137.
334 chapter five
“epistemological logic.” He also organized his sketch around many of

the same themes as Kuwaki, addressing in turn the origins and func-
tions of “names,” their relation to “objects,” the role of the senses in
maintaining their accuracy and consistency, methods of classification,
the distinction between “appropriate” and “inappropriate” names,
and, finally, criteria of identity and difference. One element of Kuwa-
ki’s deliberations he elided was the discussion of the “three errors,”
probably because Xunzi’s deliberations were in this regard less sophis-
ticated than those of the Mohists. Most of Wang’s additions related to
strengths of Xunzi’s epistemological insights to which Kuwaki had not
paid due attention. One example was his praise for Xunzi’s analysis of
the “stray names for what is within man,” that is, the description of the
emotional faculties united under the term “human nature” (xing 性).216
By identifying the names of these faculties as the unchanging empiri-
cal foundation of the “established names of the Later Kings,” Wang
held, Xunzi had anticipated the intimate connection between sensi-
bility, perception, and the intellect that in European philosophy had
gained prominence only with the works of Kant and Schopenhauer.
In the more narrow realm of logic, Wang recalled Xunzi’s distinc-
tion between “single” (danming 單名), “composite” ( jianming 兼名), and
“general names” (gongming 共名) that Kuwaki had either overlooked or
dismissed: “If things are the same, then we should give them the same
name; if they are different, we should give them different names. When
a single name is sufficient, a single name is used; when it is not, we use
a composite name. If the single and composite names do not conflict,
one uses a general name. Even when a general name is used, there will
be no contradiction.” 217 Wang argued that Xunzi’s description came
close to logical definitions of “simple” and “compound terms” and
thus took an important step toward overcoming the confusion created
by the uncertain boundaries between “particular” and “universal” that
had given rise to many fallacies in Chinese thought.
Despite his uncharacteristically enthusiastic embrace of Xunzi,
Wang left no doubt that what he found admirable in the treatise
“On the Correct Use of Names” was still a far cry from the theories
216
Wang Guowei, “Zhou-Qin zhuzi zhi mingxue,” 222–223, referring to Xunzi
22.1b. See Knoblock, Xunzi, vol. 3, 127–128.
217
Wang Guowei, “Zhou-Qin zhuzi zhi mingxue,” 226, referring to Xunzi 22.2f.
Translation adapted from Knoblock, Xunzi, vol. 3, 130. See also Harbsmeier, Language
and Logic, 323–324.
expounded in the Aristotelian Organon. Thus, even Xunzi could not

shake his conviction that Chinese logic was no more than an archival
curiosity. The brief moment of logical brilliance that had produced the
rudimentary theories of definition, inference, and conception he had
reconstructed in his articles had been stifled before they could exert
more lasting effects or facilitate more sophisticated insights. Still, Wang
emphatically asserted that the traces of these efforts should be consid-
ered “one of the most valuable parts of China’s classical heritage.” In
the global history of logic, however, they were little more than a “most
interesting episode.”218
Concluding Remarks
Wang Guowei’s pointed conclusion marked the end of the age of dis-
covery in the history of Chinese logic. Less than a decade after a spe-
cialist discourse on logic had been established in China, the authors
discussed in this chapter had sketched the outlines of a complementary
field of inquiry that was to assert itself in the following decades as a dis-
tinct discourse of “Chinese logic” or, in the more cautious terms of less
self-assured authors, of “Chinese logical thought” (Zhongguo luoji sixiang
中國邏輯思想). Within the same period, the excitement of discovery
that characterized the infectious exuberance of Liu Shipei and Liang
Qichao’s programmatic declarations gave way to Zhang Binglin’s daz-
zling eclecticism and Wang Guowei’s sobering rigidity.
In the course of this swift development, the pioneers of Chinese
logic unfolded a frame of articulation whose tenets continue to shape
the discourse today. Each author in his own way addressed three ques-
tions that no one writing about China’s logical heritage has since been
able to ignore: (1) Is there indeed anything like “Chinese logic”? If
so, (2) which texts or fragments are the most valuable sources for its
reconstruction, and (3) in what terminological framework are these
neglected sources best understood?
With regard to the first question, all four authors soon agreed that
ancient Chinese thought did contain explicit evidence of logical theo-
rizing. The most obvious parallels to themes of European logic, which
all four embraced as the authoritative yardstick, could be identified in
218
336 chapter five
the extensive debates on the uses and properties of “names” that had
engaged all schools of classical philosophy. But a closer look revealed
further traces of reflection, ranging from modest insights into the
nature of fallacies according to Wang Guowei or a vague awareness
of patterns of valid inference recognized by Zhang Binglin, to a more
or less complete anticipation of recent advances in logical theory as
proclaimed by Liang Qichao. Opinions on the second question also
converged. Xunzi’s “On the Correct Use of Names” and the “Mohist
Canons” were almost unanimously praised as the most insight-
ful attestations of ancient Chinese logical theorizing, and there was
similar agreement on the need to exclude the thinkers of the School
of Names, who were relegated to the ranks of frivolous and morally
dangerous sophists. The third question was the most contested in the
period under consideration and beyond. Liu Shipei halfheartedly sug-
gested an awkward amalgamation between the “science of names”
and traditional Chinese philology, but he failed to show how the two
discourses could effectively be linked. Zhang Binglin succeeded in his
attempt to extract the rudiments of a consistent frame of reference
from the yinming lexicon, but his definition of a new global concept of
the “knowledge of reasons” remained tied to the limited purposes of
a religious dialectic. Liang Qichao squeezed the scattered fragments
of ancient China’s logical genius into a rough and ready-made frame
of Western-derived concepts, without scrupling over the interpreta-
tive violence that the process entailed, in hopes of bolstering his claim
of cultural parity. Reacting in part against such attempts to exploit
scholarly issues for external purposes, Wang Guowei suggested laying
the question of Chinese logic to rest once and for all by translating it
into contemporary terms by means of a sophisticated but highly selec-
tive vocabulary and archiving its remains in the vault of a museum of
“intellectual roads not taken” in ancient China.
Despite their differences in approach and objective, each of the
four authors made a lasting contribution to the future shape of the
emerging discourse on Chinese logic. Liu Shipei supplied the idea to
rewrite Chinese intellectual history along the lines of a Westernized
taxonomy—in other words, to reframe the textual legacy of ancient
Chinese thought in the disciplinary compartments of contemporary
Euro-American science and philosophy. Zhang Binglin drew atten-
tion to the possibility of expanding the boundaries of traditional schol-
arly labels, such as the “School of Names,” and redefining them as
roughly coterminous with modern disciplines. In addition, he identified
hitherto unrecognized resonances among the varieties of logical thought

known in China, thus transposing the culturalist idea of a “tripod” of
world civilizations—Europe, India, and China—to the realm of logic.
Liang Qichao’s most consequential insight was his insistence that a
complete but mutilated “system” of logic waited to be rediscovered in
the extant corpus of ancient China’s philosophical literature. Equally
important, if far less influential, was his suggestion to reconstruct this
forgotten system from argumentative practices rather than traces of
explicit theorizing gleaned from scattered textual fragments. Wang
Guowei’s verdict that the flourishing of logical thought in ancient
China was but a curious episode in the global history of the field found
the fewest followers. Despite the rigorous methods by which he arrived
at it, hardly any scholar with a sustained interest in Chinese logic
supported Wang’s critical assessment, most likely because it sounded
like a premature last word on a discourse that was just coming into
existence.
EPILOGUE
That which is written should be studied with sym-

pathetic mildness, and not tortured on the rack, like
a helpless prisoner, until it renders what it never
received.
John of Salisbury, Metalogicon (1159)*
The story of the dual translation of logic in late imperial China, as
recounted in the preceding chapters, was conceived as an exemplary
genealogy of the conceptual changes from which contemporary Chi-
nese discourses have emerged. Like many genealogical studies it aimed
at a “denaturalizing critique” of a discourse that has become used
to hiding its novelty behind presumably necessary and self-evident
assumptions, and the ideas and practices these help to sustain.1 One
of my main goals was to highlight two related points that are all too
often ignored in studies of Chinese intellectual history. First, I argued
that the languages in which knowledge and experience have come
to be articulated in China since the late nineteenth century are the
results of complex and contingent processes of translation and appro-
priation whose implications are not yet fully understood. Secondly,
I tried to show that genealogical reconstructions of these languages
can offer insights not only into the formation of individual discourses
but, more generally, into the dynamics of the conceptual adaptations
without which the discoveries of “Chinese logic,” “Chinese philoso-
phy,” “Chinese science,” and related discourses would have remained
inconceivable.
* John of Salisbury continues, no less pointedly: “One who withdraws what he

never deposited, and harvests what he never sows, is far too severe and harsh a master,
as also is one who forces poor Porphyry to cough up the opinions of all philosophers,
and will not rest content until the latter’s short treatise teaches everything that has
ever been written.” Daniel D. McGarry, trans., The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury: A
Twelfth-Century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1955), 148.
1
Mark Bevir, “What is Genealogy?,” Journal of the Philosophy of History 2 (2008):
263–275.
340 epilogue
1. Translation and Rupture
Intellectual historians have long held that linguistic changes, such as

those on which all these discoveries depended, can be seen as mark-
ers of epistemic ruptures.2 The emergence of new vocabularies is in
many instances both an indicator of, and a factor in, radical concep-
tual transformations.3 As Melvin Richter has observed, “higher rates
of neologisms appear in times of accelerated change.”4 Lexical inno-
vations that gain acceptance in transitional moments thus offer rich
evidence for historians aiming to understand reconfigurations of the
conceptual frameworks structuring existing and emerging discursive
practices. The fertility of this approach has been underscored by a
number of large-scale research projects that have enlisted historical
semantics as a tool to analyze the emergence of new social and political
languages in crucial periods of Euro-American history.5 More recently,
historians of knowledge have also begun to consider linguistic evidence
in their accounts of “paradigm shifts” and other forms of epistemic
discontinuity.6 As yet, however, few students of epistemic change have
expanded their inquiries from analyzing concepts used within indi-
vidual communities to reconstructing migrations of meanings across
linguistic and cultural boundaries.7 The price of this reluctance is an
2
See, e.g., John G. A. Pocock, “Languages and Their Implications: The Transfor-
mation of the Study of Political Thought,” in idem, Politics, Language and Time: Essays
on Political Thought and History (London: Methuen, 1972), 3–41. For a more general
assessment, see John E. Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn: The
Autonomy of Meaning and the Irreducibility of Experience,” American Historical Review
92 (1987): 879–907.
3
Reinhart Koselleck, “Hinweise auf die temporalen Strukturen begriffsgeschichtli-
chen Wandels,” in Begriffsgeschichte, Diskursgeschichte, Metapherngeschichte, ed. Hans Erich
Bödeker (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2002), 29–48.
4
Melvin Richter, The History of Social and Political Concepts (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1995), 152–153.
5
See, e.g., Otto Brunner, Werner Conze, and Reinhart Koselleck (eds.), Geschicht-
liche Grundbegriffe: Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, 8 vols.
(Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1972–1997); and Rolf Reichardt, Eberhard Schmitt, and
Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink (eds.), Handbuch politisch-sozialer Grundbegriffe in Frankreich 1680–
1820, 20 vols. (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1985–2000).
6
See, e.g., Ernst Müller and Falk Schmieder (eds.), Begriffsgeschichte der Naturwissen-
schaften: Zur historischen und kulturellen Dimension naturwissenschaftlicher Konzepte (Berlin: de
Gruyter, 2008); and Michael Eggers and Matthias Rothe (eds.), Wissenschaftsgeschichte
als Begriffsgeschichte: Terminologische Umbrüche im Entstehungsprozess der modernen Wissenschaften
(Bielefeld: Transcript, 2009).
7
Melvin Richter, “More Than a Two-Way Traffic: Analyzing, Translating, and
Comparing Political Concepts from Other Cultures,” Contributions to the History of Con-
epilogue 341
impoverished and overtly static picture of global intellectual history

that has allowed wishful claims of continuity to go unchallenged, and
has reinforced rather than disassembled reified notions of nations, cul-
tures, and scholarly disciplines.
The adventures of logic in late imperial China can serve as an
antidote to such incomplete accounts. By highlighting the complexi-
ties customarily ignored in nation-based histories, they illustrate the
dynamic nature of the conceptual changes that make domestications
of unfamiliar fields of learning across and between languages and cul-
tures possible. At the same time, they elucidate the depth and violence
of the epistemic ruptures that can be caused by transcultural migra-
tions of knowledge. Both aspects can only be appreciated when the
translation processes on which they depend are embedded in the mul-
tilayered contexts in which concrete acts of adaptation and negotia-
tion took place. Accidental or intentional disregard for these contexts
may give rise to ahistorical generalizations about supposedly perennial
features of actors or ideas involved in transcultural interactions. In
the specific case of logic, such generalizations have more often than
not led to orientalist, and auto-orientalist, statements about allegedly
incommensurable ways of thinking and facilitated dismissive judg-
ments about the rationality, or lack thereof, of the “Eastern mind” in
its various guises.
Yet, already the first and undeniably futile episode retold in the
opening chapter of this book refutes suggestions of a general incom-
mensurability between Chinese and European ways of thinking. Noth-
ing prevented ingenious translators, such as Li Zhizao and Francisco
Furtado, from finding or creating a lexical and conceptual “in-between”
that connected Jesuit-Aristotelian logica and late Ming “substantial
learning.” If the text emerging from their mind-wrenching exercises
proved meaningless outside of Li’s Hangzhou mansion, this was not
because the work was impossible to understand but because ideologi-
cal and historical factors combined, as we have seen, to deprive it of
its potential attraction. Likewise, it was anything but incomprehension
that led savvy Hanlin academicians to expose Ferdinand Verbiest’s
cepts 1, no. 1 (2005): 7–20. For a rare exception, see Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink, “Concep-
tual History and Conceptual Transfer: The Case of ‘Nation’ in Revolutionary France
and Germany,” in Iain Hampsher-Monk (ed.), The History of Concepts: Comparative Per-
spectives (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1998), 115–128.
342 epilogue
syllogistic trap and seal the fate of logic in China for more than two
centuries.
Nor did the haphazard logical overtures of nineteenth-century Prot-
estant authors end in failure because the missionaries or their audi-
ences were unable to grasp and resolve conceptual dissonances that
are inevitably involved in the transmission of a science as alien as
European logic continued to be perceived in late Qing China. Rather,
neither side showed much interest even to try. Logic ranged near the
bottom of what Protestants hoped to sell their prospective Chinese
followers as useful knowledge, and for Chinese scholars the need to
maintain faith in the authority of the classical canons became more
pressing with the signs of each new crisis gathering on the horizon.
Still, the scattered Protestant efforts to translate European logic into
Chinese documented once again that even the most esoteric notions of
this science could be cast in a recognizable Chinese shape. At the same
time, the futility of all foreign attempts to translate logic into China
throughout the nineteenth century confirmed that Chinese elites, in
marked contrast to the political classes of more fully colonized coun-
tries, remained in control of the conceptual space in which meaningful
discourse could be articulated. Not until influential scholars decided
that they could indeed benefit from a discipline promising to restore
the certainty that China had gradually lost under the onslaught of for-
eign encroachment and internal rebellion did logic gain its first secure
foothold in the Chinese discursive universe.
The Chinese discovery of European logic shortly before 1900 and
the rapid naturalization of the discipline in the final decade of the
Qing dynasty proved how swiftly a new and unfamiliar science could
be integrated into China’s conceptual space once sufficiently influen-
tial voices were found to sing its praises. In our case this role was per-
formed with great relish by Yan Fu, whose sustained advocacy almost
single-handedly secured a place for logic on China’s intellectual map.
Yan’s success was all the more remarkable in view of the widespread
criticisms of the translations that he considered his most valuable ser-
vice to his scholarly peers. Once curiosity had been ignited, Chinese
audiences did indeed find more convenient ways of learning about the
discipline than working their way through Yan Fu’s painfully man-
neristic renditions.
The integration of the discipline into the curricula of normal schools
and universities was the next important step in the Chinese domesti-
cation of European logic. Although little evidence survived as to how
epilogue 343
effectively instruction in logic was implemented, especially at the pro-

vincial and local levels, the subject quickly came to be regarded as an
indispensible, albeit not the most exciting, branch of the disciplines
taught in the empire’s new schools. New-style textbooks that added
flesh to the bones of curricular requirements further reinforced the
presence and visibility of logic in China’s discursive space. Although
none of the introductory primers that were produced in great haste
was written with much theoretical interest, most presented reliable
images of late traditional syllogistics and illustrated the discipline’s
practical applications. Thanks to their sheer numbers the new text-
books secured a wider circulation of the field’s emerging technical
vocabulary. By 1904, logical terms began to percolate into various
domains of public discourse, and a debate about the most appropriate
name for the science mushroomed into a controversy about the ques-
tion of how foreign notions in general should best be accommodated
in Chinese.
“Chinese logic” appeared on the stage not until well over two hun-
dred and fifty years into the history of logic in China. Prior to the turn
of the twentieth century no Chinese or foreign author had hinted at
similarities between the seemingly esoteric notions of European logic
and the hidden or forgotten insights preserved in the center or even
at the margins of the Chinese canons. This changed rapidly once logic
became an object of public interest, thanks to Yan Fu’s lobbying and
the official embrace of the new school curricula. Almost overnight,
prominent scholars began to lament the lack of explicit logical theoriz-
ing in classical texts as a fatal deficit of traditional Chinese civilization.
Due to their labors, the unsettling suggestion that the vast archives
of China’s past did not contain any trace of a discipline portrayed
as being central to science, and hence modernity, soon proved to be
untenable. Following tentative identifications of native equivalents
in China and Germany, and inspired by more substantial anticipa-
tions in Japan, several of the most influential writers of the late Qing
period discovered fragments of logical insights in texts that had been
neglected for centuries. Relying on an emerging language of logic and
the extended conceptual lexicon it provided, the four authors exam-
ined in the final chapter of this study translated their findings into a
contemporary idiom that reinterpreted the objects of their discoveries,
notwithstanding their partially mutilated shape and enigmatic brevity,
as an integral part of what they perceived to be a global discourse of
great significance. Although virtually all of their specific interpretations
344 epilogue
have been rejected, their fundamental assertion that ancient Chinese

thinkers were able to formulate explicit insights whose subject mat-
ter paralleled key concerns of European logic has become common
knowledge today, in China and beyond. So common, indeed, that the
epistemic rupture without which this assertion would have remained
impossible tends to be forgotten.
2. From Discovery to Invention
Like its sudden and unexpected appearance, the triumphant success

of this assertion was by no means a foregone conclusion. As did the
discovery of Chinese logic itself, the development from tentative looks
at scattered fragments to the self-confident invention of an indepen-
dent tradition spanning more than 2,500 years depended on a host of
contingent factors. Without determined personal commitment, inter-
pretative genius, and an institutional setting and ideological climate
favorable to the production of master narratives supporting claims of
national and cultural continuity, Chinese logic may well have had a
far less glamorous career than it ultimately came to enjoy.
In the turbulent years leading up to the fall of the imperial order
in 1911, the discovery of Chinese logic remained an academic feat
too marginal to cause much excitement beyond a small community of
philosophically minded scholars. Not even the new textbooks on logic
published in the first years after the fall of the dynasty included more
than fleeting, if any, references to Chinese equivalents of this unwieldy
science.8 Efforts to build on the creative findings of late Qing authors
only began to take shape in the context of the New Culture Movement.
The political failure of the young republic led many aspiring scholars
to question the viability of traditional Chinese culture with renewed
urgency. For those who were not willing to condemn their country’s
legacy wholesale, the search for alternative traditions offered a way
to maintain a measure of continuity in view of undeniable ruptures
8
The two most popular textbooks of the 1910s did not refer to Chinese logic at
all; see Fan Bingqing 樊炳清, Lunlixue yaoling 論理學要領 (Essential outline of logic)
(Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1915); and Zhang Zihe 張子和 (trans.), Xin lun-
lixue 新論理學 (New logic) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1915). Another widely
circulated title stated emphatically that ancient China “never knew logic”; see Jiang
Weiqiao 蔣維喬 (trans.), Lunlixue jiangyi 論理學講義 (Lectures in logic) (Shanghai:
Shangwu yinshuguan, 1912), 1.
epilogue 345
without being forced to refrain from advocating the adoption of new

knowledge or criticizing what they too regarded as debilitating aspects
of China’s mainstream tradition. In this heated climate, the discov-
ery of indigenous roots for a quintessentially modern discipline gained
fresh appeal. Beginning with a long essay on “Our Ancient Logical
Heritage” (Bianxue guyi 辨學古遺), serialized in 1916 in the schol-
arly periodical Da Zhonghua 大中華 (The Great Chung Hwa Magazine),9 a
wealth of publications set out to expand upon the first assessments of
the nature and essential elements of Chinese logical thought. Over the
ensuing decades, these efforts moved the discussion in several distinct
steps from the identification of occasional correspondences between
classical texts and logical theorems to the invention of an unbroken
Chinese tradition, equivalent in every respect to its European and
Indian models.
Contributions to the revived debate came in multiple forms. Works
of textual criticism resolved many of the remaining philological riddles
besetting the emerging canon of Chinese logic. Liang Qichao, who
had avoided the subject for more than a decade following the stinging
criticisms of his apparent logical incompetence, staged an unexpected
comeback in this context. The “Mohist Canons,” Collated and Annotated
(Mojing jiaoshi 墨經校釋), published in 1920, offered a new explication
of the way in which the “Canons” and “Explanations” needed to be
connected that became widely accepted as the most plausible reading,
outshining even Sun Yirang’s path-breaking structural reconstruction.10
In an accompanying series of essays, Liang revoked many of his earlier
interpretations as flawed but insisted that a complete and recover-
able system of logic lay encoded in this still enigmatic text.11 Liang’s
work was but one among many spirited exercises in philological rigor
stimulated by the effort to “reorganize China’s learned heritage” that
gained traction in the first half of the 1920s.12 A new generation of
9
Gao Yuan 高元 [Gao Chengyuan 高承元], “Bianxue guyi” 辨學古遺 (Our
ancient logical heritage), Da Zhonghua 2, no. 8 (1916): 1–9; 2, no. 9 (1916): 1–16; 2,
no. 10 (1916): 1–14.
10
Liang Qichao, Mojing jiaoshi 墨經校釋 (The “Mohist Canons,” collated and
annotated) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1920), reprinted in Liang Qichao, Yin-
bingshi zhuanji, 38:1–104.
11
Liang Qichao, Mozi xuean 墨子學案 (Case studies on Mozi’s learning) (Shanghai:
Shangwu yinshuguan, 1921), reprinted in Liang Qichao, Yinbingshi zhuanji, 39:1–87.
12
See, e.g., Irene Eber, “Hu Shih and Chinese History: The Problem of Cheng-Li
Kuo-Ku,” Monumenta Serica 27 (1968): 169–207.
346 epilogue
aspiring scholars, including Wu Feibo 伍非百 (1890–1965),13 Luan

Tiaofu 孪調甫 (1889–1972),14 and Tan Jiefu 譚戒甫 (1887–1974),15
won reknown through painstaking recensions that made more and
more passages of the “Mohist Canons” and the extant writings of the
School of Names intelligible and strengthened the textual founda-
tions for explorations of China’s logical legacy. Even if philological
versatility did not always coincide with interpretative clarity, let alone
plausibility, these and other pioneering works ushered in a new and
more critically self-aware period in the development of the reenergized
discourse.
Equally bold as these advances in the realm of philology and ulti-
mately more influential were the first book-length attempts to secure
a place for ancient Chinese logical thought in the global history of
the field. Hu Shi’s The Development of the Logical Method in Ancient China
was the first monograph on Chinese logic written in any language.16
The work was initially submitted as a Ph.D. thesis under the direction
of John Dewey at New York’s Columbia University in 1917. Before
the original English version appeared in print in 1922, Hu rephrased
many of its arguments in Chinese for his An Outline History of Chi-
nese Philosophy (Zhongguo zhexueshi dagang 中國哲學史大綱), a longer
and more ambitious study published to immediate acclaim in 1919.17
Despite differences in emphasis, language, and tone, both books made
similar points. In his introduction to the English version, Hu Shi
described the agenda animating his project in emphatic terms. The
general problem facing “New China” and its “intellectual leaders,” he
wrote, was, “How can we Chinese feel at ease in this new world which
at first sight appears to be so much at variance with what we have
long regarded as our own civilization?”18 Hu was convinced that the
deficits of modern Chinese thought, especially in the realm of logic,
13
See, e.g., Wu Feibo 伍非百, Mojing jiegu 墨經解故 (Explanations on the “Mohist
Canons”) (Beijing: Chenguangshe, 1922).
14
See, e.g., Luan Tiaofu 孪調甫, Mobian taolun 墨辯討論 (Discussions of the “Dia-
lectical Chapters” in the Mozi) (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1926).
15
See, e.g., Tan Jiefu 譚戒甫, Gongsun Longzi xingming fawei 公孫龍子形名發微
(Unfolding the subtleties of Gongsun Longzi’s views of shapes and names) (Beijing:
Kexue chubanshe, 1957); and idem, Mobian fawei 墨辯發微 (Unfolding the subtleties
of the “Dialectical Chapters” in the Mozi) (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 1958).
16
For Hu Shi’s own claim to have written “the first [book] of its kind in any lan-
guage not excepting the Chinese,” see Hu Shih, Development of the Logical Method, 10.
17
Hu Shi, Zhongguo zhexueshi dagang.
18
Hu Shih, Development of the Logical Method, 6.
epilogue 347
could not be overcome by simply transplanting “into China the scien-

tific and philosophical methods which have developed in the Western
world from the time of Aristotle to this day.”19 To avoid an “abrupt
displacement,” the domestication of Western knowledge needed to
proceed by way of an “organic assimilation.” But a less disruptive
appropriation depended “on the foresight and the sense of historical
continuity” of his scholarly peers and “on the tact and skill with which
they can successfully connect the best in modern civilization with the
best in our own civilization.”20 Hu’s interest in the “re-discovery of the
logical theories and methods of Ancient China” was thus “primarily a
pedagogical one.” To show the compatibility of Chinese and Western
civilization, he felt it necessary to study “these long-neglected native
systems in the light and with the aid of modern Western philosophy.”
For only when “the philosophies of Ancient China are re-interpreted
in terms of modern philosophy” and, as he hastened to add without
substantiating how and by whom, “when modern philosophy is inter-
preted in terms of the native systems of China,” only then “can Chi-
nese philosophers and students of philosophy feel truly at ease with the
new methods and instrumentalities of speculation and research.”21
Although Hu claimed that he had to overthrow “a tremendous
burden of tradition,” the magnitude of which “it is impossible for an
occidental reader to imagine,”22 his agenda, as should be clear from
the preceding chapters, was not entirely original. Rather, Hu pre-
sented a pointed summary of the aims and methods that had fuelled
the initial discovery of Chinese logic over a decade earlier. Perhaps
because his Chinese readers would have been aware of this fact, Hu
couched the introduction to his Outline History in much less dramatic
terms. Abstaining from general pronouncements about China’s “larger
problems,” he did not dwell on the necessity to maintain, or con-
struct, cultural continuity, his most pressing concern in the English
version. Instead, he presented his project as a purely academic effort
to write a history of ancient Chinese philosophy, a subject he had been
assigned to teach at Peking University after his return from the United
States.23 Despite this changed focus, Hu advocated essentially the same
19
Ibid., 6.
20
Ibid., 7.
21
Ibid., 9.
22
Ibid., i.
23
Hu Shi, Zhongguo zhexueshi dagang, 2.
348 epilogue
approach. Because ancient China’s schools of thought had never been

recorded as “philosophical systems” (zhexue xitong 哲學系統) and tra-
ditional works of Chinese intellectual history did not provide models
for treating them as such, there was no alternative to framing his dis-
coveries in European-derived terms.24 Thus, in scope and method both
versions of his project remained securely on the path paved by his
predecessors. Hu acknowledged as much by crediting Zhang Binglin
with the insight that foreign terms were indispensible tools for “re-
discoveries” of forgotten treasures within one’s own tradition.25 But
he was perhaps even more indebted to Liang Qichao, whose repeated
calls to recover ancient China’s “logical systems” lay at the heart of
his didactic enterprise.
One respect in which Hu deviated from his forebears was his under-
standing of logic itself. Hu’s view of the discipline was shaped by the
“experimental logic” of his teacher John Dewey, who aimed to over-
come purely formal conceptions and integrate experiential knowledge
into the process of determining validity.26 As such, logic became essen-
tially coterminous with “the procedure of thought manifested in mod-
ern science,” as Dewey succinctly put it in an essay Hu cited as a major
inspiration for his research.27 Hu found in Dewey’s broad notion an
alternative to the “wastefulness in teaching the old-fashioned textbooks
of formal logic in Chinese schools” that he had experienced in his
youth.28 Reframed as the general methodology of science and thought,
logic not only regained its relevance to the pragmatic concerns around
which both Hu and his mentor built their philosophical outlook; it
also allowed Hu to cast a much wider and more flexible net when
searching for anticipations of logical theories in the historical record of
ancient Chinese thought. Since every thinker adhered to some implicit
or explicit “method” ( fangfa 方法) in teaching his doctrines, there were
24
Ibid., 1.
25
Ibid., 27–28.
26
See Zeng Zhaoshi 曾昭式, “Hu Shi ‘shiyan lunlixue’ sixiang ji qi dui luojixue
fazhan de yingxiang” 胡適 “試驗論理學” 思想及其對邏輯學發展的影響 (Hu Shi’s
‘experimental logic’ and its influence on the development of logic), Anhui daxue xuebao
25, no. 5 (2001): 27–29.
27
John Dewey, “Some Stages of Logical Thought” (1900), reprinted in idem, Essays
in Experimental Logic (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1916), 183–219; 218.
On the importance of this article for Hu’s thinking, see Hu Shi, Hu Shi koushu zizhuan
胡適口述自傳 (Hu Shi’s autobiographical memories), ed. Tang Degang 唐德剛
(Shanghai: Huadong shifan daxue chubanshe, 1993), 91–98.
28
Hu Shih, Development of the Logical Method, 10.
epilogue 349
no obvious grounds for excluding anyone from the purview of Chi-

nese logic. Both his English and his Chinese accounts consequently
discussed many texts that the early discoverers had carefully purged
from the discourse they envisioned. Confucius and Laozi thus made
their first appearances as logical thinkers, as did the Zhuangzi and sev-
eral Legalist authors. This expansion proved to be more influential
than any of Hu Shi’s concrete interpretations. As later writers soon
realized, it implied that the discourse of Chinese logic could move
beyond the “re-discovery” of scattered fragments and aim instead at
“re-constructing” a more or less continuous development—a possibil-
ity that would have appeared so remote just two decades earlier that
none of the first discoverers had even faintly hinted at it.
While stretching the boundaries of the emerging field, Hu left no
doubts which schools and thinkers he wished to be remembered as
ancient China’s most insightful logicians. True to his pragmatist con-
victions, he particularly exalted the achievements of Mozi and the
“Mohist Canons.” But he also took pride in the discovery of the logical
import of the Classic of Change that he located in rudimentary theories
of ideation and judgment.29 Moreover, Hu claimed to have originated
the view that the School of Names was a retrospective and misguided
invention since insights into the properties of “names” had not been
the exclusive prerogative of any one group but a shared concern of all
ancient thinkers.30 One consequence of this revisionist opinion, which,
as we have seen, had been anticipated by Zhang Binglin, was that Hu
had to find a new affiliation for dialecticians such as Gongsun Long
and Hui Shi who had been discussed as representatives of the School
of Names since the Han dynasty. His solution of ranking both among
the Later Mohists drew immediate criticisms because it violated well-
established chronologies but ultimately helped to move both think-
ers closer to the mainstream of what was more and more confidently
asserted to be China’s logical heritage.31 Even if many of Hu’s claims
struck contemporary and later commentators alike as idiosyncratic,
the two versions of his project secured Chinese logic hitherto unparal-
leled attention. His English text retranslated the discovery of the field
into non-Chinese terms and paved the way for an understanding of
29
Ibid., ii and 28–45.
30
Hu Shi, Zhongguo zhexueshi dagang, 5–6 and 130–131.
31
Ibid., 162–172. See also Hu Shih, Development of the Logical Method, 109–130.
350 epilogue
“Chinese logic” as a global concept. Despite the problematic notion

of logic with which he operated, his works came to be seen as indis-
pensable references for anyone writing on the subject in China and
abroad and shaped opinions about the scope and nature of Chinese
logic throughout the twentieth century.
Not quite as influential, though certainly neither less ambitious nor
sophisticated, was Zhang Shizhao’s monumental Essentials of Logic (Luoji
zhiyao 邏輯指要), the second monograph on Chinese logic written
amidst the intellectual ferment of the New Culture Movement. Zhang,
as we have seen, had received extensive training in logic during his
studies in Scotland and provoked the debate on the most appropri-
ate Chinese name for the discipline after his return. As the editor of
several leading journals as well as a renowned scholar and political
thinker, Zhang was one of the most respected intellectuals of the early
Republican period. It was therefore a coup of sorts when Cai Yuan-
pei, then the president of Peking University, managed to persuade
Zhang to teach courses in logic there beginning in 1918.32 Despite the
discipline’s dull image, Zhang’s lectures drew unprecedented crowds.
According to one listener, four or five hundred students from Beida
and other local schools regularly crammed the university’s largest lec-
ture hall, and many more crouched outside the open windows trying
to catch the gist of Zhang’s deliberations. This level of interest stood in
such stark contrast to contemporary students’ habit of skipping classes
and relying on transcripts of lectures alone that it was reported in
local newspapers.33 Zhang drafted his Essentials of Logic in preparation
for these lectures. Proofs of a first version were circulated in a limited
number of copies in 1917. Although the complete manuscript was not
published until 1939,34 his arguments gained currency at about the
same time as those of his colleague Hu Shi.
Zhang Shizhao shared Hu’s concern with historical continuity but
construed it in a very different manner. One obvious difference was
the language in which he laid out his claims. Hu Shi imparted his
32
See Xiaoqing Diana Lin, Peking University: Chinese Scholarship and Intellectuals 1898–
1937 (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2005), 56.
33
Gao Chengyuan 高承元, “Gao xu” 高序 (Gao’s preface) (1939), reprinted in
Zhang Shizhao, Zhang Shizhao quanji, vol. 7, 288–292; 288.
34
Zhang Shizhao, “Chongban shuoming” 重版說明 (A word on the re-edition)
(1959), reprinted in idem, Zhang Shizhao quanji, vol. 7, 283–284; 283. See also Zhang
Shizhao, “Zixu” 自序 (Author’s preface) (1939), reprinted in idem, Zhang Shizhao
quanji, vol. 7, 293–294.
epilogue 351
message of continuity in the new vernacular style he championed

in hopes of bringing about a “literary revolution” and relied on the
Japanese-derived lexicon of logic that the “old-fashioned” textbooks
he so detested had brought into wider circulation. In contrast, Zhang
Shizhao, who was one of the most outspoken opponents of the vernac-
ularization of written Chinese, insisted on using Yan Fu’s antiquarian
terminology and upheld a classicist ideal of terse stylistic economy.35 As
such, his Essentials were a perfect exemplar of the “logical style” that
gained popularity in the late 1910s.36 Unlike Hu, Zhang did not con-
ceive his text as a work of history but, in accordance with his teaching
assignment, as a general course in logic. His book was structured along
the conventional lines of the discipline in its contemporary European
shape, starting with an introduction of the laws of thought, moving on
to discussions of terms, propositions, and the various ways of convert-
ing them, continuing with presentations of deductive inferences and
categorical and hypothetical syllogisms as well as techniques of defini-
tion and classification, and concluding with a review of the methods
of inductive reasoning and some remarks on analogies and fallacies.
However, the way in which Zhang envisioned teaching this material
had little to do with standard practice. As he declared in his preface, he
wanted his students and readers above all to understand that “although
the name logic first emerged in Europe, the rules of this science are
universal.”37 This intention corresponded to his stated belief “that the
science of names in the pre-Qin period and European logic are like
two wheels of a carriage; they rotate each other in moving forward.”38
To substantiate this point, Zhang set out in his work “to try and take
European logic as the warp and our nation’s patterns of names as the
weft, weave the two intimately together, and disseminate them as a
39
single science, thus opening a new page for this discipline.”
35
See Xu Pengxu 徐鵬緒 and Zhou Fengqin 周逢琴, “Zhang Shizhao de luoji-
wen” 章士釗的邏輯文 (Zhang Shizhao’s logical style), Dongfang luntan, no. 5 (2002):
13–22; and idem, “Lun Zhang Shizhao de wenxueguan ji qi luojiwen” 論章士釗
的文學觀及其邏輯文 (On Zhang Shizhao’s view of literature and his logical style),
Shandong shehui kexue, no. 2 (2003): 102–105.
36
Qian Jibo, Xiandai Zhongguo wenxueshi, 350–361.
37
Zhang Shizhao, “Zixu,” 293.
38
Zhang Shizhao, Luoji zhiyao, 295.
39
Zhang Shizhao, “Zixu,” 294.
352 epilogue
Zhang’s attempt to “weave together” European and Chinese think-

ing required both a magisterial grasp of logical intricacies and envi-
able erudition. His dense work demonstrated that he lacked neither.
In his explanations and illustrations of the basic tenets of logical the-
ory, Zhang enlisted an intimidating array of the most diverse sources,
“without distinguishing between old and new, Chinese or Western,”
and intentionally disregarding their “developmental history.”40 Freed
from all contextual limitations, he was able to create a thick, hybrid
tapestry that impressed upon his listeners and readers the forceful
impression that at some point in history every logical subtlety had
been anticipated in one or more Chinese texts. In his discussion of
the law of identity (tongyilü 同一律), for instance, Zhang used not only
examples from works that had already been identified as logically rel-
evant, such as the Mozi, the “Mohist Canons,” and the Xunzi, but cited
also a string of Chan-Buddhist sayings, passages from the fifth-century
“Ode to Mulan” (Mulan shi 木蘭詩), and the ancient glossary Progress
toward Elegance (Erya 爾雅) to highlight more or less appropriate for-
mulations of this principle in natural language.41 As in other chapters
of his book, his analysis culminated in the claim that the “spirit” of
this fundamental law had nowhere been captured in more concise
fashion than in an ancient Chinese text—in this case Wang Chong’s
王充 (27–97 ad) The Balance of Discourses (Lunheng 論衡): “When a man
is born and his shape is fixed to be, say, A, then, until he gets old and
dies, he will always stay in this shape A. Even when, as a lover of the
Way, he becomes an immortal, he will never be able to change his
shape from A into B.”42
One persistent, and perhaps not unwelcome, risk of Zhang’s inno-
vative mode of exposition was that it blurred the distinction between
explicit theoretical statements made in ancient Chinese texts and argu-
ments with implicit logical structures that lent themselves for analy-
ses in logical terms. Less attentive students may thus have gained the
impression that logic was ubiquitous in classical Chinese philosophi-
cal literature when, in fact, Zhang himself emphasized that the brief
“Dialectical Chapters” of the Mozi remained the richest repository
of Chinese logical thinking. On the other hand, the virtuosity with
40
Zhang Shizhao, “Chongban shuoming,” 283.
41
Zhang Shizhao, Luoji zhiyao, 310–312.
42
Ibid., 311.
epilogue 353
which Zhang guided readers of his fast-paced text through a panoply

of rarefied quotations certainly made the subject of his course look
much more appealing than it must have appeared in the dry text-
books used in standard classes. The interest was further increased by
Zhang’s eagerness to engage other scholars venturing into his terri-
tory. Although he admired Yan Fu’s creative genius, Zhang rejected
some of Yan’s logical terms as reflecting an insufficient grasp of their
technical meaning.43 Liu Shipei was similarly taken to task for his mis-
understanding of induction and deduction in his remarks on Xunzi.44
Zhang’s most public disagreement, however, was with Hu Shi’s claims
that the School of Names never existed and that the early Chinese
debaters were offspring of the Later Mohists, assertions he criticized
not only in his Essentials but also in a series of widely read articles.45
Despite all differences, Hu Shi and Zhang Shizhao pursued several
common goals. Both aimed to construct a basic historical continuity
between classical Chinese thought and modern logic. To do so, both
expanded the range of ancient literature to be considered as relevant to
the discipline’s Chinese history. By demonstrating that Chinese think-
ers had made original contributions to logic as conceived in twentieth-
century Euro-America, both also hoped to show that China deserved a
place in the global history of the field. Their enterprises were based on
fundamentally universalist assumptions and as such directed at partici-
pation in, rather than separation from, a still unmistakably Western-
dominated discourse.
To break or at least challenge this dominance became the mission of
the next generation of scholars devoted to reconstructions of Chinese
logic and its history. One of the most successful strategies for asserting
the particularity, or “independence,”46 of Chinese views on the sub-
ject was to introduce a terminological distinction between European
and Chinese logic. The first thinkers arguing for such a separation
43
Ibid., 378–379. In another chapter Zhang offered detailed criticisms of Yan’s
translation of the term “syllogism” by lianzhu ‘linked verse’ (see chapter 3). There,
perhaps out of respect for his stylistic mentor, Zhang did not simply dismiss Yan’s
fanciful suggestion but went through a long list of lianzhu examples to demonstrate
that it was “absolutely inadmissible to force them into the form of the syllogism.” See
ibid., 391–393; 391.
44
Ibid., 385–386.
45
Ibid., 575–609.
46
Cui Qingtian, “Processes and Methods in Researching the History of Chinese
Logic,” Asian and African Studies 9, no. 2 (2005): 15–25; 18–19.
354 epilogue
may have taken their clue from Zhang Shizhao himself who, with
quite a different purpose in mind, once described the theoretical teach-
ings of the “Mohist Canons” as instances of a distinctly Chinese “sci-
ence of names” (mingxue 名學) that combined basic formal insights
with strong ethical aspirations. Several authors interpreted Zhang’s
statement as claiming an independent identity for Chinese logic as
a whole. Guo Zhanbo, for instance, a historian of philosophy with
Marxist inclinations, argued in his A History of Pre-Qin Logic (Xian Qin
bianxueshi 先秦辯學史) that Chinese logic was not so much concerned
with the properties of names but rather—similar to and yet signifi-
cantly different from traditional Western dialectics—with the nature
and strategies of “disputation.” It was therefore more fitting to treat
it as a “science of disputation” (bianxue 辯學).47 As a result of Guo’s
redefinition, the dialecticians Gongsun Long and Hui Shi came to
occupy for the first time a central place in the saga of the forgotten
discipline, notwithstanding their moral failures. Wang Zhanghuan 王
章煥 concurred with this argument but added that the term mingxue
could still serve to designate a sub-field devoted to the “logic of names”
within the wider “science of disputation” that Guo envisioned recon-
structing.48 The renowned Buddhist scholar Yu Yu offered yet another
opinion and suggested in his Chinese Logic (Zhongguo mingxue 中國名學)
to adopt lunlixue 論理學 ‘the science of reasoning’ as a general name
for the field that should then be differentiated into the three branches
of luoji 邏輯 ‘Western logic’, mingxue 名學 ‘Chinese logic’, and yinming
因明 ‘Indian logic’.49
Despite these efforts, well into the 1940s no agreement could be
reached as to which name was the most appropriate for what was
more and more confidently proclaimed to be China’s very own kind of
logic. Some writers tried to end the prevailing uncertainty by introduc-
ing a neologism that combined two aspects singled out as distinguish-
ing features of China’s logical heritage: mingbian 名辯 or mingbianxue
名辯學 ‘the science of names and disputation’.50 Initially, these hybrid
47
Guo Zhanbo, Xian Qin bianxueshi, i–v.
48
Wang Zhanghuan 王章煥, Lunlixue daquan 論理學大全 (Comprehensive com-
pendium of logic) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1930), 2–3.
49
Yu Yu, Zhongguo mingxue, 3. For other suggestions affirming the terminological sep-
aration between “Chinese,” “Western,” and “Indian” logic, see, e.g., Zhongguo luojishi
ziliaoxuan, vol. 5.1, 232–239 and 434–439.
50
The terms mingbian and mingbianxue can be traced back to the mid 1930s; see,
e.g., Du Shousu 杜守素, Xian Qin zhuzi sixiang 先秦諸子思想 (The thought of the
epilogue 355
creations were mainly used in polemical contexts, for instance in Guo

Moruo’s 郭沫若 (1892–1979) Ten Critical Essays (Shi pipan shu 十批
判書).51 As positive designations for Chinese logic they have been
advocated only since the 1980s. Pointing to an early essay by the
influential Marxist philosopher Zhang Dainian 張岱年 (1909–2004)
in which ming and bian were portrayed as key concerns of ancient Chi-
nese thought,52 contemporary Mainland historians of logic, such as
Liu Peiyu and Zhou Yunzhi, have aggressively promoted the terms
mingbian and mingbianxue as the only fitting designations for their field
of expertise.53
In order to gain acceptance, calls for terminological separation
depended on convincing arguments for the particularity of Chinese
logic vis-à-vis its alleged European or Indian counterparts. Different
versions of such arguments were proposed in “comparative logical stud-
ies” whose popularity increased throughout the Republican period.54
Initially limited to brief remarks in the margins of philological works,
such as those by Wu Feibo, Luan Tiaofu, and Tan Jiefu mentioned
above, comparative studies grew in sophistication and ambition with
the professionalization of research and teaching in logic and philoso-
phy at Chinese universities. Perhaps the most elaborate assertion of
a distinct identity of Chinese logic was formulated in 1939 by Zhang
Dongsun 張東蓀 (1886–1973), a renowned professor of philosophy
noncanonical masters of the pre-Qin period) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1936),

80–114.
51
Guo Moruo 郭沫若, Shi pipan shu 十批判書 (Ten critical essays) (Beijing: Kexue
chubanshe, 1957 [1945]), 248–308.
52
Zhang Dainian 張岱年, “Zhongguo zhexue zhi ming yu bian” 中國哲學之名
與辯 (Names and disputation in Chinese philosophy), Zhexue pinglun 10, no. 5 (1947):
8–19. Another early characterization of Chinese logic as knowledge about names and
disputation can be found in Zhao Jibin 趙紀彬, “Xian Qin luoji shigao” 先秦邏輯
史稿 (A draft history of logic in the pre-Qin period), a work completed in 1948. See
Zhao Jibin, Zhao Jibin wenji 趙紀彬文集 (The collected works of Zhao Jibin), 3 vols.
(Zhengzhou: Henan renmin chubanshe, 1985–1991), vol. 3, 2–3. An excerpt from
this unpublished study appeared in 1949 under Zhao’s pen name Ji Xuanbing 紀玄
冰; see idem, “Mingbian yu luoji” 名辯與邏輯 (Chinese logic and logic), Xin Zhonghua
12, no. 4 (1949): 28–33.
53
For an account of these efforts, see Zhou Yunzhi, Mingbianxue lun, 2–49. For a
pointed critique, see Zeng Xiangyun 曾祥云, “Ershi shiji Zhongguo luojishi yanjiu
de fansi—juchi ‘mingbian luoji’ ” 20 世紀中國邏輯史的反思—拒斥“名辯邏輯”
(Rethinking twentieth-century studies in the history of Chinese logic—rejecting the
“logic of names and disputation”), Jianghai xuekan, no. 6 (2000): 71–76.
54
See Cui Qingtian 崔清田, Mojia luoji yu Yalishiduode luoji bijiao yanjiu 墨家邏輯
與亞里士多德邏輯比較研究 (Comparative studies of Mohist and Aristotelian logic)
(Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 2004), 13–21.
356 epilogue
at Yanjing University.55 In a series of dense essays on the relations

between language, thought, and culture, Zhang argued that all kinds
of knowledge and philosophy were shaped by the “cultures” in which
they emerged. An integral part of his culturalistic position was the
claim that there was no universal “logic as such” (weiyi de luoji 唯一
的邏輯) but only particular, culturally bounded forms of logic that
reflected divergent structures of language as well as different social
needs, religious beliefs, political dispositions, and historical experiences.56
Of all these factors, linguistic features had the most decisive influence
on the Gestalt of the logic governing a specific culture’s thinking. Zhang
portrayed European logic in its entirety, from Aristotle down to the
most recent advances in symbolic logic, as an attempt to clear up
confusions arising from the peculiar structures of Indo-European lan-
guages.57 Many of their basic features had no equivalents in Chinese,
most notably the verb “to be” that had determined the “standard form
of proposition” examined in both traditional and mathematical logic
as composed of subject and predicate linked by an explicit or implicit
copula.58 Since this type of proposition was rare in Chinese, it was
hardly surprising that Chinese thinkers had spent little effort studying
its properties.59 Nor had they felt the need to expound the “law of
identity,” which was similarly rooted in the peculiar suggestion of a
fixed substratum underlying all reality implicit in the way the verb “to
be” expressed existence in Indo-European languages.60 Zhang argued
that Chinese thought as a whole was fundamentally “non-Aristotelian”
due to the different grammatical structures of the language in which
55
For a comprehensive, if controversial, biography of Zhang Dongsun, see
Dai Qing 戴晴, Zai Rulaifo zhang zhong: Zhang Dongsun he tade shidai 在如來佛掌中:
張東蓀和他的時代 (In the hands of the Buddha: Zhang Dongsun and his time)
(Hong Kong: Zhongwen daxue chubanshe, 2009).
56
Zhang Dongsun 張東蓀, “Butong de luoji yu wenhua bing lun Zhongguo lixue”
不同的邏輯與文化並論中國理學 (Different logics and cultures, with a discussion of
Chinese neo-Confucianism) (1939), reprinted in idem, Zhishi yu wenhua 知識與文化
(Knowledge and culture) (Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1946), 198–224; 198. For
a useful discussion, see Key-chong Yap, “Culture-Bound Reality: The Interactionistic
Epistemology of Chang Tung-sun,” East Asian History 3 (1992): 77–120.
57
Zhang Dongsun, “Sixiang yuyan yu wenhua” 思想語言與文化 (Thought, lan-
guage and culture) (1939), reprinted in idem, Zhishi yu wenhua, 171–197.
58
Zhang Dongsun, “Cong Zhongguo yuyan gouzao shang kan Zhongguo zhexue”
從中國語言構造看中國哲學 (A look at Chinese philosophy from the structure of the
Chinese language) (1939), reprinted in idem, Zhishi yu wenhua, 157–170; 167–169.
59
Zhang Dongsun, “Butong de luoji yu wenhua,” 209–210.
60
Zhang Dongsun, “Sixiang yuyan yu wenhua,” 177–181.
epilogue 357
it was articulated, and that the same was true of its inherent logic.61
Zhang characterized this logic as one of “correlation” rather than
“identity” and defined its basic mode of inference as that of “analogy”
instead of “deduction.”62 In contrast to Hu Shi and Zhang Shizhao,
who presented Chinese logic as a more or less complete equivalent of
its European model, Zhang Dongsun thus described it as the latter’s
negative mirror image. Although he never provided a detailed account
of the rules that this alternative logic allegedly followed, his crisp asser-
tion of a clear-cut alternative to Western ways of thinking resonated
with many readers. By lending unprecedented philosophical dignity
to claims of a distinct identity, his skillful construction invigorated
attempts to secure a separate space for Chinese logic in an increas-
ingly globalized discursive environment.
Still, before 1949 neither Zhang nor any other author favoring ter-
minological segregation or claiming a unique identity for Chinese logic
went so far as to propose that explicit logical theorizing had played a
significant role in each and every period of China’s intellectual history.
This final step on the road from discovery to invention was part of a
decidedly Maoist project rooted in the 1950s. The sinicized Marxist
framework in which all historiographical work had to be conducted
during the first decades of the People’s Republic was in many ways
conducive to studies of China’s “cultural heritage” (wenhua yichan 文化
遺產) that were more assertive and expansive, even in areas as mar-
ginal as logic. Put very crudely, the agenda underlying Maoist interest
in China’s logical past amounted to a convenient marriage of Marxist
ideology with nationalistic impulses. If historical materialism scientifi-
cally proved that societies developed in ultimately identical directions
according to universal laws, and that social and economic practices
determined the range of theoretical reflection emerging in specific
locations and historical moments, then, a new generation of histo-
rians proclaimed, the emergence and development of Chinese logic
must have followed a trajectory that corresponded to, and at times
anticipated, global trends. The Maoist philosopher Zhan Jianfeng
詹劍峰 (1902–1982) formulated a typical version of this soon-to-
become orthodox view in 1956 in the preface to his Mohist Formal
61
Zhang Dongsun, “Cong Zhongguo yuyan gouzao shang kan Zhongguo zhexue,”
169.
62
Zhang Dongsun, “Sixiang yuyan yu wenhua,” 182–184 and 189–190.
358 epilogue
Logic (Mojia de xingshi luoji 墨家的形式邏輯), the first monograph on

Chinese logic published in the People’s Republic:
We know that logical forms and laws are the results of practices humans
have repeated billions of times. Once social development advances to
a certain stage, abstract thought also achieves considerable sophis-
tication, the various sciences are established in elementary form, and
spontaneous logic becomes self-aware. This means that people begin to
study thinking itself, summarize the thought experience of their fore-
bears, abstract its forms and laws, and establish a scientific discipline—in
our case, logic. Since logic emerged in ancient India, and then again
emerged in ancient Greece, it had to emerge in ancient China, too. Had
it failed to do so, this would have violated the laws according to which
thought develops.63
The specific tasks of studies in the history of Chinese logic following
from this new article of faith were formulated in a series of program-
matic essays by Wang Dianji 汪奠基 (1900–1979), who established
himself as the leading authority in Chinese logic soon after entering
the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1955.64 Wang derived two conse-
quential lessons from his understanding of the Marxist laws of develop-
ment. First, he argued that histories of Chinese logic could no longer
be limited in scope to the pre-Qin era. Instead their authors had to
trace the necessary progress of Chinese logical thinking throughout all
periods of the nation’s history, from the sixth century bc to the fall of
the Manchu empire.65 Secondly, historians needed to explore not only
passages in premodern texts that contained insights relevant to for-
mal logic as defined by the Euro-American experience. To clarify and
reinforce the “particular features” (tezheng 特徵) of China’s own logical
tradition they rather had to examine the full range of past utterances
about “names” and “disputation,” including excerpts from works that
63
Zhan Jianfeng 詹劍峰, Mojia de xingshi luoji 墨家的形式邏輯 (Mohist formal
logic) (Wuhan: Hubei renmin chubanshe, 1956), 2–3.
64
For a laudatory biography, see Liu Peiyu 劉培育, “Luojixuejia Wang Dianji”
邏輯學家汪奠基 (The logician Wang Dianji), Wenxian, no. 3 (1993): 79–90.
65
Wang Dianji 汪奠基, “Guanyu Zhongguo luojishi de duixiang he fanwei wenti”
關於中國邏輯史的對象和範圍問題 (On the question of the object and scope of the
history of Chinese logic), Zhexue yanjiu, no. 2 (1957): 42–53; 44–46. The significance
of this text was underscored by its inclusion as the opening essay in an authoritative
anthology that set the tone and direction for studies in Chinese logic after the end of
the Cultural Revolution. See Zhongguo luoji sixiang lunwenji 1949–1979 中國邏輯思想
論文集 1949–1979 (Essays on Chinese logical thought, 1949–1979) (Beijing: Sanlian
shudian, 1981), 5–22.
epilogue 359
at first sight seemed unrelated to logical concerns.66 The ultimate goal

of these innovations was the compilation of a “comprehensive history”
(tongshi 通史) of Chinese logic that clearly distinguished its achieve-
ments from the “common logic” (gongtong de luoji 共同的邏輯) to which
earlier studies had erroneously tried to assimilate them.67
One indication that even the propagators of this inflated agenda
were well aware of the challenges it entailed was the ferocity with
which they strove to set their project apart from previous histories of
Chinese logic. No study published during the 1950s refrained from join-
ing, more or less gleefully, the vicious campaign against Hu Shi.68 In
addition to ad hominem invectives that accused Hu, among other things,
of acting as a pawn of imperialist interests with “escapist” tendencies
and misread his call for “wholesale Westernization” as a “denial of the
value of Chinese culture,” both Hu’s dissertation and Outline History
were reviled as “unscientific and ahistorical” works steeped in “sub-
jective idealist illusions.”69 But venomous critiques did not stop with
Hu Shi. Wang Dianji and others extended them to virtually all major
works that had prepared the ground for the Maoist redefinition of the
“object and scope” of research in Chinese logic. Wang himself lev-
eled charges of national “nihilism” at Guo Zhanbo, Zhang Shizhao,
and Yu Yu, who allegedly had “faithfully spread the lie fabricated by
imperialist historians of philosophy that ‘China had known no logical
science.’ ”70 The politically expedient claim, echoed in many works,
that anyone who doubted the existence of explicit logical theorizing in
any moment of China’s long history was led astray by “Japanese” and
other “foreigners from capitalist countries” or their Chinese mouth-
pieces who “mindlessly parroted” their denigrating views was among
the longest-living and most damaging tropes inserted into the discourse
on Chinese logic at the height of the Maoist fervor.71
66
Wang Dianji, “Guanyu Zhongguo luojishi de duixiang he fanwei wenti,”
47–49.
67
Ibid., 43.
68
For an overview, see Chan Lien, “Chinese Communism versus Pragmatism: The
Criticism of Hu Shih’s Philosophy, 1950–1958,” The Journal of Asian Studies 27, no. 3
(1968): 551–570.
69
All these defamations, which are representative of many others, are found in the
two texts just cited. See Zhan Jianfeng, Mojia de xingshi luoji, 1–2; and Wang Dianji,
“Guanyu Zhongguo luojishi de duixiang he fanwei wenti,” 42–43.
70
Ibid., 42.
71
See, e.g., Zhan Jianfeng, Mojia de xingshi luoji, 1–2.
360 epilogue
Yet, clearing the field of competitors did not alleviate the difficulties
Maoist historians faced when attempting to live up to their ambitious
goals. The first “comprehensive histories” of Chinese logic, among
them the study to which Wang Dianji devoted the remaining years of
his life, were not published until 1979, more than twenty years after
the new agenda had been set.72 It was to take another decade before
the hopeful assertion that it was possible to write a continuous history
of Chinese logical theorizing from the Zhou dynasty to the modern
era was substantiated by a multivolume anthology compiled at the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences that brought together quotations
about “names” and “disputation” from thinkers of all periods and per-
suasions, and the publication of an accompanying historical outline
that synthesized these excerpts into a narrative tracing the progress of
Chinese logical thought in step with advances made elsewhere.73 From
the outset, this purposeful narrative was designed to be enshrined as
the authoritative view of Chinese logic and its history in philosophi-
cal seminars throughout the country. Its eventual publication and the
further dissemination of its central claims in a host of derivative works
marked the completion of an arduous process of invention that none
of the earliest discoverers of Chinese logic could have foreseen.
3. De-modernizing Chinese Logic
Although the Maoist paradigm dominated the direction of Chinese

logic in the People’s Republic well into the 1990s, it did not entirely
silence more nuanced opinions. The first works trying to understand
aspects of Chinese logic in terms of mathematical logic began to appear
already in the 1950s.74 These and other careful studies of individual
texts and notions elucidated many issues earlier works had failed to
resolve. In addition, scholars working at a certain distance from the
political center, most notably in Tianjin and Guangzhou, managed
72
Wang Dianji, Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi; and Zhou Wenying, Zhongguo luoji sixiang
shigao.
73
Zhou Yunzhi, Liu Peiyu, et al., Zhongguo luojishi ziliaoxuan; and Li Kuangwu et al.,
Zhongguo luojishi.
74
See, e.g., Shen Youding 沈有鼎, Mojing de luojixue 墨經的邏輯學 (The logic of
the “Mohist Canons”) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1980 [1956]).
epilogue 361
to publish less ideological accounts of the nature and development of

Chinese logical thought alongside the officially sanctioned story.75
Scholars from these alternative centers of logical inquiry have also
been the first to raise more substantial critiques of the Maoist enter-
prise.76 Pointing, inter alia, to the flimsy textual basis on which the
orthodox narrative was based, the epistemic violence it inflicted on
the decontextualized fragments from which it was stitched together,
and the nationalistic motives driving the project of an unequivocally
“affirmative” (kending de 肯定的) history of Chinese logic, a number of
critics have begun to replay arguments rehearsed about a decade ear-
lier in the debates about the “legitimacy” (hefaxing 合法性) of Chinese
philosophy as a whole.77 As in the earlier controversy, the questions of
whether there was such a thing as “Chinese logic,” or why it could or
could not develop in the first place, have occupied center stage in the
increasingly polemical exchanges between detractors and defenders of
the orthodox position.78 While the chances for an eventual consensus
75
See, e.g., Wen Gongyi and Cui Qingtian, Zhongguo luojishi jiaocheng (xiuding ben);
and Yang Peisun, Zhongguo luoji sixiangshi jiaocheng.
76
See, e.g., Cui Qingtian, Mingxue yu bianxue; Lin Mingyun and Zeng Xiangyun,
Mingbianxue xintan; and Cheng Zhongtang, “Zhongguo gudai luojixue” jiegou.
77
See Carine Defoort, “Is There Such a Thing as Chinese Philosophy? Arguments
of an Implicit Debate,” Philosophy East and West 51, no. 3 (2001): 393–413.
78
Perhaps the best example is the extended controversy between Cheng Zhong-
tang, the most outspoken critic of orthodox views of Chinese logic, and Ma Pei 馬佩,
a notoriously dogmatic philosopher and logician. See Cheng Zhongtang 程仲棠,
“Jin bainian ‘Zhongguo gudai wu luojixue lun’ shuping” 近百年“中國古代無邏輯
學論”述評 (A critical review of ‘theories that there was no logic in ancient China’
during the past hundred years), Xueshu yanjiu, no. 11 (2006): 5–12; idem, “Jin bai-
nian ‘Zhongguo gudai wu luojixue lun’ shuping (xu)” 近百年“中國古代無邏輯學論”
述評(續) (A critical review of ‘theories that there was no logic in ancient China’ dur-
ing the past hundred years [continued]), Chongqing gongxueyuan xuebao 21, no. 11 (2007):
15–20; idem, “Wenhua zhongji guanhuai yu luojixue de mingyun—jian lun Zhong-
guo wenhua buneng chansheng luojixue de genben yuanyin” 文化終極關懷與邏輯
學的命運—兼論中國文化不能產生邏輯學的根本原因 (Culture’s ultimate concerns
and the fate of logic—with a discussion about the fundamental reasons why Chi-
nese culture could not produce logic), Zhongguo zhexueshi, no. 1 (2008): 35–43; and
idem, “Zhongguo gudai you luoji sixiang, dan meiyou luojixue—da Ma Pei jiaoshou”
中國古代有邏輯思想, 但沒有邏輯學—答馬佩教授 (There was logical thinking in
ancient China but no logic—a response to Professor Ma Pei), Jinan xuebao, no. 6
(2008): 1–9; and Ma Pei 馬佩, “Bo ‘Zhongguo gudai wu luojixue lun’—yu Cheng
Zhongtang jiaoshou shangque” 駁“中國古代無邏輯學論”—與程仲棠教授商榷 (A
refutation of ‘the theory that there was no logic in ancient China’—a debate with
Professor Cheng Zhongtang), Henan daxue xuebao 47, no. 6 (2007): 50–55; idem, “Bo
Zhongguo wenhua buneng chansheng luojixue lun—zaici yu Cheng Zhongtang jiao-
shou shangque” 駁中國文化不能產生邏輯學論—再次與程仲棠教授商榷 (A refu-
tation of the theory that Chinese culture could not produce logic—another debate
362 epilogue
on these hardly productive issues seem as remote as they have remained

in the debate about Chinese philosophy, the many valid points raised
in the course of the discussion have exposed the paucity of the most
ill-conceived claims sustaining the Maoist vision and helped to throw
many of the remaining problems into sharper relief.
Although it is difficult not to sympathize with the critics’ revisionist
thrust, it seems to me that they have not yet radically enough ques-
tioned the way in which the history of Chinese logic has come to be
written. One reason for their reluctance to raise even more funda-
mental objections may be that they share with their opponents certain
basic assumptions about the nature of logic, the forms in which it
is expressed, and the purpose of writing its history. Following Sally
Humphreys, who has argued a similar point with regard to European
interpretations of Greek and Roman classics since the nineteenth
century, it is tempting to characterize these assumptions as modern-
ist and Eurocentric.79 One key tenet of modernist historicism that is
mirrored in accounts tracing the history of Chinese logic is the belief
that the past must be made relevant for the present by revealing its
genetic links to current concerns. In other words, for the past to mat-
ter, it must be shown to have anticipated or prepared the ground
for insights that are still regarded as valuable when a history is pub-
lished. Combined with a second assumption whose roots can be traced
back to nineteenth-century Europe—a narrow understanding of logic
as consisting necessarily in a set of rules codified in theoretical texts
equivalent in form, function, and status to the Aristotelian Organon—
this belief has led historians of Chinese logic to exert almost all their
energies in a protracted hunt for evidence of explicit theories of rea-
soning in ancient and more recent Chinese texts. The results of this
chase that began, as we have seen, with the discovery of Chinese logic
with Professor Cheng Zhongtang), Zhongzhou xuekan, no. 6 (2008): 156–159; and idem,
“Zai bo Zhongguo gudai (xian Qin) wu luojixue lun—dui Cheng Zhongtang jiao-
shou ‘Da Ma Pei jiaoshou’ de huifu” 再駁中國古代(先秦)無邏輯學論—對程仲棠
教授“答馬佩教授”的回復 (Another refutation of the theory that there was no logic
in ancient (pre-Qin) China—a reply to Professor Cheng Zhongtang’s ‘Response to
Professor Ma Pei’ ), Zhongzhou xuekan, no 1 (2010): 146–150. Cheng’s contributions to
the controversy are now conveniently available in his “Zhongguo gudai luojixue” jiegou,
110–171. For a summary of other strands in this ongoing debate, see Jin Rongdong,
Luoji hewei, 177–184.
79
Sally Humphreys, “De-modernizing the Classics?,” in Applied Classics: Compari-
sons, Constructs, Controversies, ed. Angelos Chaniotis, Annika Kuhn, and Christina Kuhn
(Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2009), 197–206.
epilogue 363
in the first years of the twentieth century and has come to dominate
the historiography of Chinese logic ever more strongly since 1949,
are at best ambivalent. To be sure, the sheer mass of fragments that
have been identified as possible building blocks of a forgotten Chi-
nese Organon is quite impressive. Yet, no one has been able to show
that more than a handful of these scattered pieces served a concrete
purpose in argumentative practice. Nor has anyone built a conclusive
case that their explicit theoretical content goes much beyond insights
that have to be deemed rudimentary by the measure of the milestones
marking the history of logic in Greece or India.
This sobering outcome has led many logicians, in China and abroad,
to disregard the case of China altogether in their studies of the disci-
pline and its history. Yet, such a drastic conclusion can only be justi-
fied if one subscribes to the modernist assumptions outlined above.
But these are deeply flawed. Not only are they derived exclusively
from Europe’s peculiar history; they are also far too limited in scope.
For no history of logic or truth can possibly claim to be “global” in
reach when it can provide no answers about the ways in which argu-
ments were made and weighed in contexts and cultures where no,
or no obvious and complete, Organon or close equivalent existed. For
this more than any other reason, research in Chinese logic is and will
remain indispensable to advances in the global history of the field.
But how could we imagine “de-modernized” studies of Chinese
logic? Rather than continue the forced chase for theoretical frag-
ments, it seems to me, an alternative approach to Chinese logic could
scrutinize argumentative practices and try to recover the implicit and
explicit standards of validity embodied in them. Even in the absence
of an explicit logical canon, as no one familiar with China’s uniquely
rich intellectual history will deny, argumentation, persuasion, and con-
tention were key elements in a wide array of activities central to the
concerns of state and society throughout Chinese history. As such, it is
inconceivable that decisions about which arguments were more pow-
erful than others, what kinds of knowledge claims were more credible,
and which uses of evidence were seen as more convincing, were made
on an arbitrary or ad hoc basis, even if we cannot point to theoretical
treatises codifying the standards on which such judgments were, or
were claimed to be, based.
To recover these standards, it will be necessary to reverse the con-
ventional perspective and try to reconstitute concrete modes of knowl-
edge production and their underlying rules “from the ground up.”
364 epilogue
To do so, one would have to analyze practices in discursive fields

where argumentation, contention, demonstration, and verification
played particularly prominent roles. Areas promising to offer valuable
evidence in this regard, at least in the late imperial period, with
which I am most familiar,80 include education, law, canonical studies,
and historiography in addition to mathematics, astronomy, medicine,
and other domains of scientific inquiry. To understand the implicit and
explicit standards of validity at work in each of these fields, one would
have to identify the specific conventions of description and habits of
inference and analogy, as well as ways of using and disputing evi-
dence, and capture in each case the implicit and explicit criteria of
validity, veracity, credibility, coherence, relevance, applicability, and
so forth, on which the actors seem to have agreed. In a second step,
one would need to record and define the terms, or metalanguages,
in which arguments and knowledge claims were evaluated in each of
these realms; trace the sources from which such metalanguages were
built; and examine to what extent their vocabulary and criteria of
evaluation were shared among discrete discursive fields.
Translated into the topical areas mentioned above, these leitmotifs
would call for painstaking studies of a set of related issues. In the area
of education, it appears that analyses of examination essays would be
most pertinent, with special attention paid to formal requirements and
rhetorical devices, the standards and terminology of evaluation, and
genre definitions as exemplified in model essays. Studies in the realm
of law could begin with reconstructions of the language of legal codes,
focusing not only on their technical terminology but also on stylistic
requirements, such as the criteria of clarity, coherence, and exhaustive-
ness outlined in administrative manuals. Also of interest here would
be conventions for the evaluation of factual evidence, the assessment
and presentation of oral testimony, the arrangement of facts, and the
consideration of mitigating circumstances. In the realm of canonical
exegesis one would have to clarify the criteria by which commentaries
80
Evocative studies recovering implicit and explicit standards of validity in early
Chinese texts include, inter alia, Heiner Roetz, “Validity in Chou Thought: On Chad
Hansen and the Pragmatic Turn in Sinology,” Epistemological Issues in Classical Chinese
Philosophy, ed. Hans Lenk and Gregor Paul (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New
York Press, 1993), 69–112; and David Schaberg, “The Logic of Signs in Early Chi-
nese Rhetoric,” in Early China/Ancient Greece: Thinking Through Comparisons, ed. Steven
Shankmann and Stephen W. Durrant (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York
Press, 2002), 155–186.
epilogue 365
and interpretations were judged to be more convincing than others,

starting perhaps with a look into the technical vocabulary of interlin-
ear commentaries; justifications for emendations, elisions, and glosses;
and indirect editorial strategies such as the art of quotation. Relevant
aspects in historiography could include the uses of historical analo-
gism, about whose origins, development, and functions we still know
far too little, and the definition and defense of epistemic virtues such as
“impartiality,” including the narrative and editorial strategies by which
these were upheld. In the sciences, the focus could be on strategies of
verification and proof, such as the discursive efficacy of numbers and
calculations in the fields of mathematics and astronomy, or, in the
realm of medicine, the grounds given for diagnoses and prescriptions,
the evaluation of patient claims, and techniques for the verification of
the success or failure of treatments.
Supplementing existing studies on the theoretical aspects of Chinese
logic, investigations of the kind I have very tentatively envisioned here
could enhance our understanding of the ways in which arguments
were made and evaluated, and truth claims assessed and defended,
not only in China. If conducted with sufficient attention to detail, they
could be used to paint a more nuanced and empirically saturated pic-
ture of the varieties of logically relevant knowledge to be discovered
in Chinese intellectual history. At the same time, they could provide
fresh material for efforts aimed at reassessing the role of explicit theo-
ries of reasoning in actual argumentative practice. Such investigations
may ultimately earn Chinese experiences a more prominent place in
the global history of the field than even the most assertive versions of
the current master narrative will be able to secure. While it would be
presumptuous to hope that de-modernized studies of Chinese logic
may usher in a new age of discovery comparable in scope to the one
reconstructed in the preceding chapters, I surmise that they could con-
tribute in new and productive ways toward the overdue creation of a
more credibly global history of truth and rationality in which China
eventually comes to claim its rightful place.
APPENDIX
A. Textbooks on Logic Adapted from Japanese, 1902–1911
1. Yang Yinhang 楊蔭杭, trans. Mingxue 名學 (Logic). Tōkyō: Rixin

congbianshe, 1902. Second ed.: Mingxue jiaokeshu 名學教科書 (A
textbook of logic). Shanghai: Wenming shuju, 1903.
Orig.: Unspecified Japanese textbook.
2. Lin Zutong 林祖同, trans. Lunlixue dazhi 論理學達恉 (A guide to
logic). Tōkyō: Wenming shuju, 1902.
Orig.: Kiyono Ben 清野勉. En’eki kinō ronrigaku 演繹帰納論理学
(Logic, deductive and inductive). Tōkyō: Kinkōdō, 1892.
3. Wang Rongbao 汪榮寶, trans. Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic). Yishu hui-
bian 譯書匯編 (The Yi Shu Hui Pian) 2, no. 7 (1902): 1–59.
Orig.: Takayama Rinjirō 高山林次郎 (Chogyū 樗牛). Ronrigaku
論理学 (Logic), chaps. 1–6. Tōkyō: Hakubunkan, 1898.
4. Tian Wuzhao 田吳炤, trans. Lunlixue gangyao 論理學綱要 (Outline
of logic). Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1903; fourth ed., 1914.
Orig.: Totoki Wataru 十時弥. Ronrigaku kōyō 論理学綱要 (Outline
of logic). Tōkyō: Dai Nihon tosho, 1900.
5. Fan Diji 范迪吉 et al., trans. Lunlixue wenda 論理學問答 (Questions
and answers on logic). In Xinbian Putong jiaoyu baike quanshu 新編普
通教育百科全書 (New encyclopedia for general education), edited
by Fan Diji. 102 vols. Shanghai: Huiwen xueshe, 1903.
Orig.: Fuzanbō 富山房, ed. Ronrigaku mondō 論理学問答 (Ques-
tions and answers on logic). In Futsūgaku mondō zensho 普通学問答
全書 (Complete anthology of questions and answers on general
sciences). Tōkyō: Fuzanbō, 1896.
6. Hattori Unokichi 服部宇之吉. Lunlixue jiangyi 論理學講義 (Lec-
tures in logic). Tōkyō: Fuzanbō; Shanghai: Quanxuehui, 1904;
second ed., 1905.
7. Yang Tianji 楊天驥, rev. Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic). Shanghai:
Shangwu yinshuguan, 1906.
Orig.: Unspecified Japanese textbook(s).
8. Hu Maoru 胡茂如, trans. Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic). N.p., Hebei
yishushe, 1906; second ed., 1907; third ed.: Shanghai: Taidong
tushuju, 1914.
368 appendix
Orig.: Ōnishi Hajime 大西祝. Ronrigaku 論理学 (Logic). Tōkyō:

Tōkyō senmon gakkō, 1895.
9. Tang Zuwu 湯祖武, ed. and trans. Lunlixue poujie tushuo 論理學剖
解圖說 (Analysis of logic, illustrated and explained). Tōkyō: Qing-
guo liuxuesheng huiguan, 1906.
10. Jiangsu shifansheng 江蘇師範生, trans. Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic).
Nanjing: Jiangsu ningshu/sushu xuewuchu, 1906.
Orig.: Based on lectures by Takashima Heizaburō 高島平三郎 at
the Kōbun Gakuin in Tōkyō.
11. Zhang Lizhai 張立齋 [Zhang Junmai 張君勱], trans. “Yefangsi
shi lunlixue” 耶方思氏論理學 (Mr. Jevons’s Logic). Xuebao 1,
no. 1 (1906): 1–28; 1, no. 2 (1907): 29–60; 1, no. 3 (1907): 51–72;
1, no. 4 (1907): 1–48; 1, no. 5 (1907): 1–44; 1, no. 6 (1907): 1–36;
1, no. 7 (1907): 137–156; 1, no. 11 (1908) (not seen); and 1, no. 12
(1908): 13–35.
Orig.: (a) William Stanley Jevons. Elementary Lessons in Logic: deduc-
tive and inductive, with copious questions and examples, and a vocabulary of
logical terms. London: Macmillan, 1870; and (b) Soeda Juichi 添田
寿一, trans. Zebon shi Ronri shinpen 惹穩氏論理新編 (Mr. Jevons’s
New Logic). Tōkyō: Maruzen, 1883; third ed., 1893.
12. Kaneda Nisaku 金太仁作, trans. Lunlixue jiaokeshu 論理學教科書
(A textbook of logic). Tōkyō: Dongya gongsi, 1907.
Orig.: Based on lectures by Takashima Heizaburō 高島平三郎 at
the Kōbun Gakuin in Tōkyō.
13. Junyi tushu gongsi 均益圖書公司, ed. Lunlixue chubu 論理學初步
(First steps in logic). Shanghai: Junyi tushu gongsi, 1907.
14. Tang Yan 唐演, trans. Zuixin lunlixue jiaokeshu 最新論理學教科書
(Latest textbook on logic). Shanghai: Wenming shuju, 1908.
Orig.: Hattori Unokichi 服部宇之吉. Ronrigaku kyōkasho 論理学教
科書 (A textbook of logic). Tōkyō: Fuzanbō, 1899.
15. Han Shuzu 韓述組, comp. Lunlixue 論理學 (Logic). Shanghai:
Wenming shuju, 1908.
Orig.: Based on a transcript of lectures by Hattori Unokichi 服部
宇之吉.
16. Wang Guowei 王國維, trans. Bianxue 辨學 (Logic). Beijing: Jingshi
Wudaomiao shoushuchu, 1908.
Orig.: (a) William Stanley Jevons. Elementary Lessons in Logic: deduc-
tive and inductive, with copious questions and examples, and a vocabulary of
logical terms. London: Macmillan, 1870; and (b) Soeda Juichi 添田
appendix 369
寿一, trans. Zebon shi Ronri shinpen 惹穩氏論理新編 (Mr. Jevons’s

New Logic). Tōkyō: Maruzen, 1883; third ed., 1893.
17. Lin Kepei 林可培, comp. Lunlixue tongyi 論理學通義 (Compre-
hensive introduction to logic). Shanghai: Zhongguo tushu gongsi,
1909.
Orig.: “Primarily based” on (a) Imafuku Shinobu 今福忍. Saishin
ronrigaku yōgi 最新論理学要義 (Latest essentials of logic). Tōkyō:
Hōbunkan, 1908; (b) Watanabe Matajirō 渡辺又次郎. Ronrigaku
論理学 (Logic). Tōkyō: Tōkyōhō gakuin, 1894; and (c) Kitazawa
Sadakichi 北沢定吉. Ronrigaku kōgi 論理学講義 (Lectures on logic).
Tōkyō: Kinshi Hōryūdō, 1908. “Supplemented” by (d) Ōnishi
Hajime 大西祝. Ronrigaku 論理学 (Logic). Tōkyō: Tōkyō senmon
gakkō, 1895; and (e) Totoki Wataru 十時弥. Ronrigaku kōyō 論理学
綱要 (Outline of logic). Tōkyō: Dai Nihon tosho, 1900; as well as
(f ) “oral instruction” by Takashima Heizaburō 高島平三郎.
18. Guo Yaogeng 過耀庚, trans. Zuixin lunlixue gangyao 最新論理學
綱要 (Latest outline of logic). 2 vols. Shanghai: Zhongguo tushu
gongsi, 1909.
Orig.: Kihira Tadayoshi 紀平正美. Saishin ronrigaku kōyō 最新論理
学綱要 (Latest outline of logic). Tōkyō: Kōdōkan, 1907.
19. Qian Jiazhi 錢家治, comp. Mingxue 名學 (Logic). Alternative title
Mingxue jiangyi 名學講義 (Lectures on logic). N.p., 1910.
Orig.: Unspecified Japanese textbooks.
20. Chen Wen 陳文, comp. Mingxue shili 名學釋例 (Logic, with expla-
nations and examples). Shanghai: Kexuehui bianyibu, 1910.
Orig.: Unspecified Japanese textbooks.
21. Chen Wen 陳文, comp. Mingxue jiaokeshu 名學教科書 (A textbook
of logic). Shanghai: Kexuehui bianyibu, 1911. Expanded ed.:
Mingxue jiangyi 名學講義 (Lectures on logic). 3 vols. Shanghai:
Kexuehui bianyibu, 1913.
22. Lunlixue biaojie 論理學表解 (Logic explained in tables). In Biaojie
congshu 表解叢書 (Anthology of explanations in diagrams), ed.
Huang Lüsi 黃履思. Shanghai: Kexue shuju, 1911–1912.
Orig.: Gotō Yoshiyuki 後藤嘉之 and Mishima Kin’ichirō 美島
近一郎. Ronrigaku hyōkai 論理学表解 (Logic explained in tables).
Tōkyō: Rokumeikan, 1904.
370 appendix
B. Logical Terms in Early-Twentieth-Century Textbooks
Contents
Table B.1: Logical Terms in Early-Twentieth-Century Textbooks (1)

Column 1. Yang Yinhang, Mingxue, 1902.
Column 2. Lin Zutong, Lunlixue dazhi, 1902.
Column 3. Wang Rongbao, Lunlixue, 1902.
Column 1. Wang Rongbao, Xin Erya, 1903.
Column 2. Fan Diji, Lunlixue wenda, 1903.
Column 3. Tian Wuzhao, Lunlixue gangyao, 1903.
Column 1. Hattori Unokichi, Lunlixue jiangyi, 1904.
Column 2. Tang Yan, Zuixin lunlixue jiaokeshu, 1908.
Column 3. Han Shuzu, Lunlixue, 1908.
Column 1. Tang Zuwu, Lunlixue poujie tushuo, 1906.
Column 2. Hu Maoru, Lunlixue, 1906.
Column 3. Junyi tushu gongsi, Lunlixue chubu, 1907.
Column 1. Yang Tianji, Lunlixue, 1906.
Column 2. Jiangsu shifansheng, Lunlixue, 1906.
Column 3. Kaneda Nisaku, Lunlixue jiaokeshu, 1907.
Column 1. Zhang Junmai, “Yefangsi shi Lunlixue,” 1906–1908.
Column 2. Ma Xiangbo, Zhizhi qianshuo, [<1906].
Column 3. Li Di, Minglixue, 1908.
Column 1. Wang Guowei, Bianxue, 1908.
Column 2. Guo Yaogeng, Zuixin lunlixue gangyao, 1909.
Column 3. Lin Kepei, Lunlixue tongyi, 1909.
Column 1. Zhong-Ying mingci duizhaobiao, 1909.
Column 2. Qian Jiazhi, Mingxue jiangyi, 1910.
Column 3. Chen Wen, Mingxue jiaokeshu, 1911.
Table B.9: Logical Terms in Japanese and Chinese Dictionaries
Column 1. Tetsugaku jii, 1881; and second ed., 1884.
Column 2. Tetsugaku jii, third ed., 1912.
Column 3. Dictionary of Philosophical Terms, 1913.
appendix 371
Table B.10: Logical Terms in Modern Chinese Dictionaries

Column 1. Hemeling, Guanhua, 1916.
Column 2. Zhexue cidian, 1926.
Column 3. Modern Standard Chinese Terms.
372 appendix

English term Yang Yinhang, Lin Zutong, Wang Rongbao,
Mingxue, Lunlixue dazhi, Lunlixue,
1902 1902 1902

1.1 logic 名學論理學論理學
論理
1.2 reasoning 推論推論推論
1.3 thought 思想
1.4 judgment 論斷斷定判定
斷定
1.5 argument 論斷
1.7 form, formal 形式
1.8 symbol, symbolic 記號記號
1.9 law of identity 合同法同一法
1.10 law of contradiction 矛盾法矛盾法
1.11 law of excluded middle 折衷法三不容閒位之法
1.12 principle of sufficient
reason

2.1 term 名辭語名詞
名詞
2.2 concept 概念概念
(idea) 總念 (觀念)
2.3 intension 內包內包內函
2.4 extension 外延外延外郛
2.5 definition 定義釋義界說
2.6 category
2.7 substance 實體
2.8 (five) predicables 賓位語屬件
2.9 genus 類類類
2.10 species 種種種
2.11 difference 特異性要差差
2.12 property 固有性情形屬性
2.13 accident 偶有性附屬
2.14 singular term 獨名辭單稱語單獨名詞
2.15 general term 公名辭總稱語普通名詞
2.16 collective term 合名辭合體名詞
2.17 positive term 正名辭積極之詞積極名詞
2.18 negative term 反名辭消極之詞消極名詞
appendix 373
Table B.1 (cont.)

1902 1902 1902
2.19 concrete term 實名辭具體名詞
2.20 abstract term 虛名辭抽象語抽象名詞
2.21 absolute term 奇名辭絕對之詞絕對名詞
2.22 relative term 偶名辭相對之詞相對名詞
2.23 categorematic term 主名辭自用之詞
2.24 syncategorematic term 從名辭副用之詞

3.1 sentence 句句
3.2 proposition 命題命題命題
3.3 subject 主辭主語主詞
3.4 predicate 賓辭客語所謂詞
3.5 copula 繫辭聯絡語綴系詞
3.6 attribute 屬件
3.7 quality 性性質質
3.8 quantity 量分量量
3.9 true 真真真
是
3.10 false 妄偽妄
否偽
3.11 some 或或
若干
幾許
多少
3.12 all 凡凡
一切
任何
3.13 distributed 充實周到充實
3.14 undistributed 不充實不周到不充實
3.15 categorical proposition 斷言命題
3.16 hypothetical proposition 懸擬命題假設之命題
口頭之命題
3.17 conjunctive proposition 互用命題
3.18 disjunctive proposition 抉擇命題
3.19 affirmative proposition 陽(是) 肯定命題肯定命題
3.20 negative proposition 陰(否) 否定命題否定命題
3.21 particular proposition 太(全) 特稱命題特稱命題
3.22 universal proposition 少(偏) 全稱命題全稱命題
3.23 universal affirmative 太陽命題全稱肯定命題全稱肯定命題
proposition
374 appendix
Table B.1 (cont.)

1902 1902 1902
3.24 universal negative 太陰命題全稱否定命題全稱否定命題
proposition
3.25 particular affirmative 少陽命題特稱肯定命題特稱肯定命題
proposition
3.26 particular negative 少陰命題特稱否定命題特稱否定命題
proposition
3.27 conversion 變化轉換法轉換
轉測法交換
3.28 simple conversion 倒植
3.29 limited conversion 反疏
3.30 contraposition 旋反
3.31 opposition 相對反對當對當
3.32 contradictory 中反對矛盾對當交格對當
3.33 contrary 大反對亢極對當
3.34 subcontrary 小反對偏曲對當
3.35 subaltern 主從對差較對當

4.1 inference 推測推理推理
推度法推度
推知
推定
4.2 deduction 演繹法演繹法演繹法
演繹演繹
4.3 induction 歸納法歸納法歸納法
歸納歸納
4.4 premise 前命題提案前引
前提
4.5 conclusion 決定命題斷案斷案
歸結
4.6 major premise 大命題大提案大前引
4.7 minor premise 小命題小提案小前引
4.8 major term 大名辭大語大詞
4.9 minor term 小名辭小語小詞
4.10 middle term 中名辭中語中詞
媒介語
4.11 antecedent 前撅前節
4.12 consequent 後撅後節
4.13 syllogism 三段法三段論體三段論法
三段法
appendix 375
Table B.1 (cont.)

1902 1902 1902
4.15 disjunctive syllogism 扶擇三段法分離體三段論
4.16 sorites 連環體連體三段論
4.17 enthymeme
4.18 epicheirema
4.19 figure (of syllogism) 圖式格格
4.20 mood (of syllogism) 形體式
4.21 fallacy 誤謬偽論謬誤
謬
4.24 begging the question 設問之誤謬問題不問之偽論
4.25 illicit major 大名辭之誤謬大語越權
4.26 illicit minor 小名辭之誤謬小語越權
4.27 undistributed middle 中名辭不充實之誤謬中論不周到
term
4.28 equivocation 多義之偽論
4.29 ambiguity 辭數義之誤謬曖眛中語之偽論

5.1 method 方法
5.2 analysis 分釋法分析分析
5.3 synthesis 綜合
5.4 fact 事實
5.5 experience 經驗
經歷
5.6 observation 觀察
5.7 hypothesis 假設假定
5.8 experiment 實驗
5.9 proof 證據證權
5.10 verification 證明
立證
5.11 classification 分類分類
5.12 generalization 綜擴
5.13 analogy
5.14 explanation 說明
5.15 cause 原因
5.16 effect 結果
5.17 necessity 必然
5.18 probability
376 appendix
Table B.1 (cont.)

1902 1902 1902
5.19 theory 理論
5.20 axiom 公例
5.21 law 法則法則
5.22 principle 原理原理
5.23 rule 規則
5.24 uniformity of nature
5.25 method of agreement
5.26 method of difference
agreement and
difference
5.28 method of concomitant
variation
5.29 method of residue
appendix 377

English term Wang Rongbao, Fan Diji, Tian Wuzhao,
Xin Erya, Lunlixue wenda, Lunlixue gangyao,
1903 1903 1903

1.1 logic 論理學論理學論理學
名學
1.2 reasoning 推知推理推理
推論
1.3 thought 思想思想思考
1.4 judgment 判定判斷斷定
判斷
1.5 argument 論式
1.7 form, formal 形式形式
1.8 symbol, symbolic 記號符號記號
1.9 law of identity 自同之原則同一法同一律
1.10 law of contradiction 不相容之原則矛盾法矛盾律
1.11 law of excluded middle 拒中之原則不容間位法不容間位律
1.12 principle of sufficient 充足原理
reason

2.1 term 端名辭名辭
名詞
2.2 concept 概念概念概念
(idea) (觀念)
2.3 intension 內函內包內包
2.4 extension 外郛外延外延
2.5 definition 定義定義定義
2.6 category 範疇
2.7 substance
2.8 (five) predicables 賓語
2.9 genus 屬類
類
2.10 species 類種種
部
2.11 difference 差差異
2.12 property 德本性
2.13 accident 偶性偶性偶有性
2.14 singular term 專名單稱名辭單稱名辭
單獨名詞
2.15 general term 公名汎稱名辭普通名辭
普通名詞
378 appendix
Table B.2 (cont.)

1903 1903 1903
2.16 collective term 總名集合名辭集合名辭

合體名詞
2.17 positive term 正名積極名辭積極名辭
積極名詞
2.18 negative term 負名消極名辭消極名辭
消極名詞
2.19 concrete term 察名具體名辭具體名辭
具體名詞
2.20 abstract term 旋名抽象名辭抽象名辭
抽象名詞
2.21 absolute term 獨立之名絕對名辭絕對名辭
絕對名詞
2.22 relative term 對待之名相對名辭相對名辭
相對名詞
2.23 categorematic term 獨立名辭自用名辭
2.24 syncategorematic term 服從名辭副用語

3.1 sentence 文句文章
3.2 proposition 詞命題命題
命題
3.3 subject 主詞主辭主辭
3.4 predicate 所謂詞賓辭賓辭
3.5 copula 綴系詞連辭
3.6 attribute 屬性屬性
3.7 quality 質性質性質
3.8 quantity 量分量分量
3.9 true 正真
真
是
3.10 false 誤偽
3.11 some 或或
某
(二三)
(若干)
3.12 all 凡凡
總 (皆)
(悉)
3.13 distributed 充實周布周延
(意猶包羅)
appendix 379
Table B.2 (cont.)

1903 1903 1903
3.14 undistributed 不充實不周布不周延

3.15 categorical proposition 定言命題直顯命題定言的命題
3.16 hypothetical proposition 假言命題設若命題假言的命題
3.17 conjunctive proposition
3.18 disjunctive proposition 擇言命題離接命題撰言的命題
3.19 affirmative proposition 肯定命題肯定命題肯定命題
3.20 negative proposition 否定命題否定命題否定命題
3.21 particular proposition 特稱命題特稱命題特稱命題
3.22 universal proposition 全稱命題全稱命題全稱命題
3.23 universal affirmative 全稱肯定命題全稱肯定命題全稱肯定命題
proposition
3.24 universal negative 全稱否定命題全稱否定命題全稱否定命題
proposition
3.25 particular affirmative 特稱肯定命題特稱肯定命題特稱肯定命題
proposition
3.26 particular negative 特稱否定命題特稱否定命題特稱否定命題
proposition
3.27 conversion 轉換命題之轉換換位法
3.28 simple conversion 倒植單純轉換法單純換位
3.29 limited conversion 反疏制限轉換法限量換位
3.30 contraposition 旋反反對轉換法換質位法
3.31 opposition 對當對當
3.32 contradictory 矛盾對當真反對矛盾
3.33 contrary 亢極對當反對反對
3.34 subcontrary 偏曲對當小反對小反對
3.35 subaltern 差較對當差等差等

4.1 inference 推測推度推定
推理
推知
4.2 deduction 演繹法演繹論法演繹推理
內籀演繹法
4.3 induction 歸納法歸納論法歸納推理
外籀歸納論
歸納法
4.4 premise 前提前提前提
4.5 conclusion 斷案斷語斷案
斷言
4.6 major premise 大前提大前提大前提
4.7 minor premise 小前提小前提小前提
380 appendix
Table B.2 (cont.)

1903 1903 1903
4.8 major term 大詞大名辭大名辭

4.9 minor term 小詞小名辭小名辭
4.10 middle term 介詞中名辭中名辭
中詞
4.11 antecedent 前立前件
引用語
4.12 consequent 後立後件
接斷語
4.13 syllogism 連珠推度法推測式
三段論法推測式
4.14 hypothetical syllogism 假言三段論法設若推度假言的推測式
4.15 disjunctive syllogism 擇言之三段論法離接推度撰言的推測式
4.16 sorites 積疊式渾體推測式聯鎖體
複雜之方式
4.17 enthymeme 省略式散亂推測式省略體
不完全之方式
4.18 epicheirema 帶證體
4.19 figure (of syllogism) 法式推測式之格
方式
4.20 mood (of syllogism) 形式推測式之式
論式
4.21 fallacy 誤謬誤謬
虛偽
4.22 logical fallacy 論理之虛偽形式的誤謬
4.23 material fallacy 實質之虛偽資料的誤謬
4.24 begging the question 循環推理不當假定
循環推理
4.25 illicit major 大名辭亂用之虛偽大名辭之不當周延
4.26 illicit minor 小名辭亂用之虛偽小名辭之不當周延
4.27 undistributed middle 中名辭不周布之虛偽中名辭不周延
term
4.28 equivocation 文義不明之誤謬
4.29 ambiguity 語義不明之誤謬

5.1 method 方法方法方法
5.4 fact 事實事實
5.5 experience
5.6 observation 觀察觀察
appendix 381
Table B.2 (cont.)

1903 1903 1903
5.7 hypothesis 假說假說臆說
假設之語
5.8 experiment 實驗實驗實驗
5.9 proof 證驗論證
5.10 verification 立證
5.11 classification 分類法分類分類
5.12 generalization 彙類
5.13 analogy 比論類推法
5.14 explanation
5.15 cause 原因原因原因
5.16 effect 結果結果結果
5.17 necessity 必要必然性
5.18 probability
5.19 theory 理論立論
5.20 axiom
5.21 law 法則法法則
定律原則
5.22 principle 原則原理原理
5.23 rule 法則
5.24 uniformity of nature 自然法之一致自然齊一律
5.25 method of agreement 一致法
5.26 method of difference 差違法
5.27 joint method of agree- 重復一致法
ment and difference
5.28 method of concomitant 共變法
variation
5.29 method of residue 殘餘法
382 appendix

English term Hattori Unokichi, Tang Yan, Han Shuzu,
Lunlixue jiangyi, Lunlixue jiaokeshu, Lunlixue,
1904 1908 1908

1.2 reasoning 推理
1.3 thought 思想思想思想
1.4 judgment 斷定斷定斷定
1.5 argument 議論
1.6 truth 真理真理真理
1.7 form, formal 形式形式形式
1.9 law of identity 同一律同一律同一律
1.10 law of contradiction 矛盾律矛盾律矛盾律
1.11 law of excluded middle 不容間位律不容間位律不容間位律
1.12 principle of sufficient 充足理由律充足理由律充足理由律
reason

2.1 term 名目語
詞
(idea) (觀念) (觀念) (觀念)
2.3 intension 內容內容內容
2.4 extension 外延外延外延
2.6 category
2.7 substance 實質
2.9 genus 類類類
2.10 species 屬屬屬
2.11 difference 差異差異差異
2.12 property
2.13 accident
2.14 singular term 單獨概念單獨概念單獨概念
2.15 general term 普通概念普通概念普通概念
2.16 collective term
2.17 positive term
2.18 negative term
2.19 concrete term
2.20 abstract term
2.21 absolute term
2.22 relative term
appendix 383
Table B.3 (cont.)

1904 1908 1908

3.1 sentence 句句
3.2 proposition 斷定斷定斷定
3.3 subject 主辭主辭主詞
3.4 predicate 賓辭賓辭賓詞
3.5 copula 聯辭聯辭聯詞
3.6 attribute 性相性相性相
3.7 quality 性性性
性質性質
3.8 quantity 量量量
3.9 true 真真真
3.10 false 妄偽偽
妄
3.11 some 多多多
或為或為或為
某某某某
3.12 all 凡凡凡
皆皆皆
3.13 distributed 周衍周衍周衍
3.14 undistributed 不周衍不周衍不周衍
3.15 categorical proposition 定言斷定定言斷定
3.16 hypothetical proposition 假設斷定設若斷定
3.17 conjunctive proposition 約結斷定約結斷定
3.18 disjunctive proposition 離攝斷定離攝斷定離攝斷定
3.19 affirmative proposition 肯定斷定肯定斷定肯定斷定
3.20 negative proposition 否定斷定否定斷定否定斷定
3.21 particular proposition 特稱斷定特稱斷定特稱斷定
3.22 universal proposition 全稱斷定全稱斷定全稱斷定
3.23 universal affirmative 全稱肯定斷定全稱肯定斷定全稱肯定斷定
proposition
3.24 universal negative 全稱否定斷定全稱否定斷定全稱否定斷定
proposition
3.25 particular affirmative 特稱肯定斷定特稱肯定斷定特稱肯定斷定
proposition
3.26 particular negative 特稱否定斷定特稱否定斷定特稱否定斷定
proposition
3.27 conversion 轉換法轉換法轉換法
3.28 simple conversion
384 appendix
Table B.3 (cont.)

1904 1908 1908
3.29 limited conversion
3.30 contraposition 反定法
3.31 opposition 相異相異相異
3.32 contradictory 矛盾矛盾矛盾
3.33 contrary 背反背反背反
3.34 subcontrary 小背反小背反小背反
3.35 subaltern 包含包含包含

4.1 inference 推測推測推測
演繹演繹演繹
歸納歸納歸納
4.5 conclusion 決論決論決論
斷案
4.8 major term 大辭大詞大詞
4.9 minor term 小辭小詞小詞
4.10 middle term 媒辭媒詞媒詞
4.11 antecedent
4.12 consequent
4.13 syllogism 推測法推測法推測法
演繹式演繹式演繹式
4.15 disjunctive syllogism 離攝演繹式離攝演繹式離攝演繹式
4.16 sorites 連環體連環體連環體
4.17 enthymeme 渾體略體演繹式略體演繹式
4.18 epicheirema 帶證式
4.19 figure (of syllogism) 法法法
4.20 mood (of syllogism) 論式式論式
式式
4.21 fallacy 謬誤謬誤謬誤
過過
4.24 begging the question
4.25 illicit major 誤用大詞之過誤用大詞之過誤用大詞之過
4.26 illicit minor 誤用小詞之過誤用小詞之過誤用小詞之過
appendix 385
Table B.3 (cont.)

1904 1908 1908
4.27 undistributed middle term 媒詞不周衍之過媒詞不周衍之過媒詞不周衍之過
4.28 equivocation
4.29 ambiguity

5.2 analysis
5.3 synthesis 融會總括
5.4 fact 事實事實事實
5.5 experience
5.6 observation 觀察觀察觀察
5.7 hypothesis 臆說臆說臆說
5.9 proof 論證論證論證
5.10 verification 證明證明證明
5.11 classification 分類分類分類
5.12 generalization 概括概括概括
5.13 analogy 類推類推類推
5.14 explanation
5.17 necessity 必然性必然性
5.18 probability
5.19 theory 理論理論
5.20 axiom 公理
5.21 law 法則法則原律
法則
5.22 principle 原則原則原則
5.23 rule 規則規則
5.24 uniformity of nature
5.25 method of agreement 契合法契合法
5.26 method of difference 差異法差異法
5.27 joint method of agreement 併用法併用法
and difference
5.28 method of concomitant 同變法同變法
variation
5.29 method of residue 殘餘法殘餘法
386 appendix

English term Tang Zuwu, Hu Maoru, Junyi tushu gongsi,
Lunlixue poujie tushuo, Lunlixue, Lunlixue chubu,
1906 1906 1907

1.1 logic 論理學論理論理學
論理學
牢輯科
1.2 reasoning 推論推論推論
1.3 thought 思想思想思慮
思想
思考
1.4 judgment 判定判定判斷
1.5 argument 論點
論式
1.6 truth 真理
1.9 law of identity 自相同之原則自同律同一律
1.10 law of contradiction 不相容之原則矛盾律矛盾律
1.11 law of excluded middle 不容中之原則排中律不容閒位律
1.12 principle of sufficient
reason

2.1 term 名辭名辭名詞
名詞名詞
語
(idea) (觀念) (觀念)
2.3 intension 內包內包內容
界說界說
2.6 category
2.7 substance 實質
2.9 genus 類類類
種類
2.11 difference 差異差異
2.12 property 屬性性質
2.13 accident 偶有性
appendix 387
Table B.4 (cont.)

1906 1906 1907
2.14 singular term 單獨名辭單獨名辭單獨名詞
2.15 general term 普通名辭普通名辭普通名詞
2.16 collective term 合體名詞合體名辭合體名詞
2.17 positive term 積極名辭積極名辭積極名詞
2.18 negative term 消極名辭消極名辭消極名詞
2.19 concrete term 具體名辭具象名辭具體名詞
2.20 abstract term 抽象名辭抽象名辭抽象名詞
2.21 absolute term 絕對名辭絕對名詞
2.22 relative term 相對名辭相對名詞

3.1 sentence 文句文句句
3.3 subject 主辭主語主詞
主題
3.4 predicate 賓辭客語賓詞
所謂
所謂詞
3.5 copula 連辭繁辭綴系
綴系詞
3.6 attribute 特性屬性
3.7 quality 性質質性質
3.8 quantity 分量量分量
3.9 true 真真真
正正
3.10 false 偽妄妄
否反
非
3.11 some 或某若干
幾許
或有
多數
3.12 all 凡凡凡
凡...皆
一切
任何
3.13 distributed 擴充擴充充實
3.14 undistributed 不擴充不擴充不充實
3.15 categorical proposition 定言命題定言命題斷定命題
388 appendix
Table B.4 (cont.)

1906 1906 1907
3.16 hypothetical proposition 假言命題假言命題懸擬命題
3.17 conjunctive proposition 繫合命題
3.18 disjunctive proposition 撰言命題選言命題抉擇命題
proposition
proposition
proposition
proposition
3.27 conversion 換位法轉換轉測法
3.28 simple conversion 單式轉測
3.29 limited conversion
3.30 contraposition 換質位法複式轉測
3.31 opposition 反對對當對黨對當
3.33 contrary 上反對反對大反對
3.34 subcontrary 下反對下反對小反對
3.35 subaltern 差等大小差較

4.1 inference 推理推理推理
推知推測
4.2 deduction 演繹演繹法演繹法
演繹法
4.3 induction 歸納歸納法歸納法
歸納法
4.5 conclusion 斷案斷案決論
4.8 major term 大名辭大語大詞
4.9 minor term 小名辭小語小詞
4.10 middle term 媒辭媒語媒詞
4.11 antecedent 媒辞前件前橛
4.12 consequent 中名辭後件後橛
appendix 389
Table B.4 (cont.)

1906 1906 1907
4.13 syllogism 三段論法三段論法三段法
推測式
4.14 hypothetical syllogism 假言三段論法假言三段論法懸擬三段法
4.15 disjunctive syllogism 選言三段論法抉擇三段法
4.16 sorites 積疊式聯鎖法積疊式
4.17 enthymeme 省略體省略法省略式
4.18 epicheirema
4.19 figure (of syllogism) 格格格
4.20 mood (of syllogism) 式式式
4.21 fallacy 誤謬似而非推論謬誤
過
4.22 logical fallacy 形式的誤謬
4.23 material fallacy 材料的誤謬
4.24 begging the question 多問之誤謬循環之似而非推論
4.25 illicit major 大名辭不擴充大語不當擴充之似誤用大詞之過
而非推論
4.26 illicit minor 小名辭不擴充小語不當擴充之似誤用小詞之過
而非推論
4.27 undistributed middle 中名辭不擴充媒語不擴充之似媒詞不充實之過
term 而非推論
4.28 equivocation 文意不明之誤意義曖眛之似媒詞歧義之過
而非推論
4.29 ambiguity 語義不明之誤言意不同似
而非推論

5.1 method 方法方法法
5.2 analysis 分解分析
聚合
5.5 experience 經驗經驗
5.7 hypothesis 臆說臆說
5.8 experiment 實驗試驗實驗
5.9 proof 論證論證
5.10 verification 確實證明
5.12 generalization 總括總括
5.13 analogy 彙類類推法
390 appendix
Table B.4 (cont.)

1906 1906 1907
5.14 explanation 說明說明
5.15 cause 原因原因
因
5.16 effect 結果果
5.17 necessity
5.18 probability
5.19 theory 學說立論
5.20 axiom 原理
律
5.22 principle 原則原理原則
5.23 rule 規則規則規則
5.24 uniformity of nature 自然齊一律天然者之同一
5.25 method of agreement 契合法類同法
5.26 method of difference 差異法差異法
5.27 joint method of 契合差異並用法類同差異並用法
agreement and
difference
5.28 method of concomitant 共變法相變法
variation
5.29 method of residue 殘餘法剩餘法
appendix 391

English term Yang Tianji, Jiangsu Kaneda Nisaku,
Lunlixue, shifansheng, Lunlixue jiaokeshu,
1906 Lunlixue, 1906 1907

1.2 reasoning 推斷推理推論
推究推究
1.3 thought 思考思想思想
思慮思慮
1.4 judgment 斷定判斷判斷
判斷
1.5 argument 議論議論辯論
1.8 symbol, symbolic 符號符號符號
1.9 law of identity 同一律同一律同一律
1.10 law of contradiction 矛盾律矛盾律矛盾律
1.11 law of excluded middle 離接律不容間位律不容間位律
1.12 principle of sufficient 原由律充足原理充足理由原理
reason

2.1 term 名辭名辭名辭
名詞名詞
(idea) (觀念) (觀念) (觀念)
2.3 intension 內包內包內包
2.6 category
2.7 substance 本質實質
2.9 genus 類類類
2.11 difference 區別特異性特異性
2.12 property 本體之屬性屬性屬性
2.13 accident 偶然之屬性偶有性偶有性
2.14 singular term 單稱名辭單稱名辭單稱名辭
2.15 general term 普通名辭普通名辭普稱名辭
2.16 collective term 合體名辭集合名辭集合名辭
2.17 positive term 積極名辭積極名辭
2.18 negative term 消極名辭消極名辭
392 appendix
Table B.5 (cont.)

1906 Lunlixue, 1906 1907
2.19 concrete term 具體名辭具體名辭具象名辭
2.20 abstract term 抽象名辭抽象名辭抽象名辭
2.21 absolute term 絕對名辭絕對名辭
2.22 relative term 相對名辭相對名辭
2.23 categorematic term 自用語
2.24 syncategorematic term 副用語

3.1 sentence 文句句
3.3 subject 主位主辭主辭
3.4 predicate 賓位賓辭賓辭
3.5 copula 連辭連辭連辭
3.6 attribute 屬性屬性
3.7 quality 性質性質質
性質
3.8 quantity 分量分量量
分量
3.9 true 真真真
3.11 some 某或某
某
3.12 all 凡凡凡
凡...皆
3.13 distributed 擴充周延周延
3.14 undistributed 不擴充不周延不周延
3.15 categorical proposition 定言命題
3.16 hypothetical proposition 若設命題若設命題
3.17 conjunctive proposition 合式命題合式命題約結命題
3.18 disjunctive proposition 離接命題撰言命題選擇命題
離接命題離攝命題
proposition
proposition
proposition
appendix 393
Table B.5 (cont.)

1906 Lunlixue, 1906 1907
proposition
3.27 conversion 轉位換位法轉換
轉位法
3.28 simple conversion 當量轉位直轉法
當量法
3.29 limited conversion 減量轉位制限法
減量法
3.30 contraposition 換質轉位換質位法換質位
3.31 opposition 對當對當對當
3.33 contrary 反對大反對反對
3.34 subcontrary 小反對小反對小反對
3.35 subaltern 大小差等差等

4.1 inference 推究推理推理
推論推知
4.2 deduction 演繹演繹演繹
演繹法演繹法演繹法
4.3 induction 歸納歸納歸納
歸納法歸納法歸納法
4.5 conclusion 斷案斷案斷案
4.8 major term 大名辭大名辭大名辭
4.9 minor term 小名辭小名辭小名辭
4.10 middle term 中名辭媒辭中名辭
中名辭
4.11 antecedent 前項起後
4.12 consequent 後項襲前
4.13 syllogism 推論式三論式論式
三段論法三段推論法推測式
推測式
4.15 disjunctive syllogism 離接推論式離接論式離接論式
4.16 sorites 約結推論式聯鎖體約結推論式
4.17 enthymeme 省略推論式省略體略體論式
4.18 epicheirema 帶證體帶證體
394 appendix
Table B.5 (cont.)

1906 Lunlixue, 1906 1907
4.19 figure (of syllogism) 論格格論格
格格
4.20 mood (of syllogism) 論式樣法論式
式式
4.21 fallacy 謬論謬誤謬誤
過誤
誤謬
4.22 logical fallacy 形式的謬誤形式的謬誤
4.23 material fallacy 資料的謬誤事實的謬誤
4.24 begging the question 多問單答之謬誤豫定之過
4.25 illicit major 大名辭不當周延大名辭誤用之過
4.26 illicit minor 小名辭不當周延小名辭誤用之過
4.27 undistributed middle term 媒辭不周延媒辭不周延之過
4.28 equivocation 文義不明語義不明之過
句義不明之過
4.29 ambiguity 名辭多義語義不明

分解
5.3 synthesis 綜合綜合
事項
5.5 experience 明驗經驗經驗
5.7 hypothesis 假設臆說臆說
假說
5.9 proof 證明證明證明
5.10 verification 檢證立證檢證法
5.12 generalization 彙類
5.13 analogy 比論
5.14 explanation 解釋說明
5.15 cause 原因原因因
5.16 effect 結果結果果
5.17 necessity 必然性必然性必然性
5.18 probability 可能性
5.19 theory 學說
appendix 395
Table B.5 (cont.)

1906 Lunlixue, 1906 1907
5.20 axiom 原理
法則
5.22 principle 原理原則
原理
5.23 rule 規律規則
規律
5.24 uniformity of nature 萬有經齊一律
5.25 method of agreement 契合法契合法契合法
5.26 method of difference 差異法差異法差異法
5.27 joint method of agreement 契合差異連接法契合差異並用法契合差異共用法
and difference
5.28 method of concomitant 相變法共變法共變法
variation
5.29 method of residue 剩餘法殘餘法殘餘法
396 appendix

English term Zhang Junmai, Ma Xiangbo, Li Di,
“Lunlixue,” Zhizhi qianshuo, Minglixue,
1906–1908 [<1906] 1908

1.1 logic 論理學原言名理學
原言原言學名學
名學名學牢輯科
名理探牢記伽
名理探
1.2 reasoning 推理推論推想
推測推想
推論
1.3 thought 思想思想思想
1.4 judgment 比判判決判斷
判通斷
比量智
1.5 argument 論辨式論式證理
1.6 truth 真理真實
1.7 form, formal 形式狀貌
態度
模樣
1.8 symbol, symbolic 記號記號
名號
1.9 law of identity 同一之公例義主相同同一之理
1.10 law of contradiction 矛盾之公例義主相違逕反之理
1.11 law of excluded middle 擯中之公例義主相消
1.12 principle of sufficient 義主有由
reason

2.1 term 端辭名言詞
名辭界限
2.2 concept 概念觀念意
(idea) (觀念) 意想 (簡意)
意胎
心產
現量
(意識)
(知見)
2.3 intension 內包容度
2.4 extension 外延廣被張度
2.5 definition 界說界說界說
appendix 397
Table B.6 (cont.)

1906–1908 [<1906] 1908
2.6 category 倫府景
2.7 substance 自立性自立體
2.8 (five) predicables 五種之可謂辭公普五稱五族
五公稱
2.9 genus 類都宗宗
宗
2.10 species 別倫類類
類
2.11 difference 差所殊類別
2.12 property 性獨具
2.13 accident 偶偶具
2.14 singular term 單獨端辭專指切一詞
2.15 general term 普通端辭公意詞
2.16 collective term 集合端辭彙總合群詞
2.17 positive term 可定端辭
2.18 negative term 否定端辭
2.19 concrete term 具體端辭實跡詞
2.20 abstract term 抽象端辭提空詞
2.21 absolute term 絕對端辭卓絕訓獨立詞
2.22 relative term 相對端辭附傍詞
2.23 categorematic term 獨陳端辭具本訓自成一義詞
2.24 syncategorematic term 合陳端辭待他訓合於他詞而成
一義詞

3.1 sentence 句句
3.2 proposition 命題言陳辭
文句
3.3 subject 主語前陳首詞
主辭主語
所別
宗依
3.4 predicate 謂語後陳從詞
謂辭賓詞
能別
宗體
3.5 copula 繫辭紐詞連詞
3.6 attribute 品性能別性本資格
3.7 quality 性質何似優長
從違
398 appendix
Table B.6 (cont.)

1906–1908 [<1906] 1908
3.8 quantity 分量幾何幾何
容量
3.9 true 真真真
是
3.10 false 偽偽妄
妄
非
3.11 some 有有一數人
或有的若干
3.12 all 凡凡眾人
一切人人
3.13 distributed 普及遍及散屬
普遍義
3.14 undistributed 不普及不遍及不散屬
3.15 categorical proposition 定言命題
3.16 hypothetical proposition 假言命題
3.17 conjunctive proposition 並辭
3.18 disjunctive proposition 選言命題間辭
3.19 affirmative proposition 可定命題結是從辭
3.20 negative proposition 否定命題結非違辭
3.21 particular proposition 偏稱命題泛稱言陳分意辭
3.22 universal proposition 全稱命題公普言陳總意辭
3.23 universal affirmative 全稱可定命題總意從辭
proposition
3.24 universal negative 全稱否定命題總意違辭
proposition
3.25 particular affirmative 偏稱可定命題分意從辭
proposition
3.26 particular negative 偏稱否定命題分意違辭
proposition
3.27 conversion 換位法倒合改
3.28 simple conversion 單純換位法簡改
3.29 limited conversion 限量換位法偶改
3.30 contraposition 換質位法移改
3.31 opposition 對當反對反
3.32 contradictory 矛盾相違徑反
3.33 contrary 反對相悖對反
3.34 subcontrary 小反對相觝平反
3.35 subaltern 相屬相左屬反
appendix 399
Table B.6 (cont.)

1906–1908 [<1906] 1908

4.1 inference 推測推顯推想
4.2 deduction 外籀抽徵順推
歸納引自
歸納法待渡克希奧
演繹
4.3 induction 內籀搜徵逆推
演繹引渡
演繹法引渡克希奧
歸納
4.4 premise 前提前提前列辭
前按
4.5 conclusion 斷案收句合辭
收辭
束辭
4.6 major premise 大前提大言陳起辭
起句
4.7 minor premise 小前提小言陳轉辭
承句
4.8 major term 大端辭大言大詞
大話
4.9 minor term 小端辭小言小詞
小話
4.10 middle term 中端辭中權中詞
中話
4.11 antecedent 前陳前語者
4.12 consequent 後陳
4.13 syllogism 推測式三句論引徵法推想
三段式三辭
4.14 hypothetical syllogism 假定三句論
4.15 disjunctive syllogism 互拒三句論
4.16 sorites 積疊式堆垛貫串法推想
聯鎖推測式銜接體
4.17 enthymeme 省略式反觀含辭法推想
截句體
4.18 epicheirema 帶證式發舒附証法推想
離句體
4.19 figure (of syllogism) 格爻象像
4.20 mood (of syllogism) 式句格式
400 appendix
Table B.6 (cont.)

1906–1908 [<1906] 1908
4.21 fallacy 謬誤詭辯謬
虛偽
4.22 logical fallacy 論理上之虛偽聲文之詭辯
4.23 material fallacy 事實之詭辯
4.24 begging the question 以宗為因求原
4.25 illicit major
4.26 illicit minor
4.27 undistributed middle
term
4.28 equivocation 岐混之虛偽文同義否含數義詞
4.29 ambiguity 端辭岐混語義含糊

5.1 method 方法方法法
5.2 analysis 分解剖解法分析
分斷
5.3 synthesis 綜合綜合法合斷
5.4 fact 事實事
閱歷
5.6 observation 觀察侯驗審查
5.7 hypothesis 假定之說創說
潛置
潛擬
5.8 experiment 實驗徵驗試驗
閱檢
5.9 proof 證明論證証理
5.10 verification 徵
5.11 classification 分類分類分門
分類
5.12 generalization 類聚總括
5.13 analogy 比例從同論
譬鄃
因因
5.16 effect 結果果結果
果
5.17 necessity 必然性必然
5.18 probability 蓋然性有兩可者
appendix 401
Table B.6 (cont.)

1906–1908 [<1906] 1908
5.19 theory 說理想說
理論
5.20 axiom 公例規則法言
5.21 law 例公理定例
原則
律
5.22 principle 原理檥言原理
法言
5.23 rule 定例細則例
5.24 uniformity of nature 自然界有同樣之存在
5.25 method of agreement
5.26 method of difference
agreement
and difference
5.28 method of concomitant
variation
5.29 method of residue
402 appendix

English term Wang Guowei, Guo Yaogeng, Lin Kepei,
Bianxue, 1908 Zuixin lunlixue Lunlixue tongyi,
gangyao, 1909 1909

1.1 logic 辨學論理論理學
羅奇克論理學
1.2 reasoning 推論推理推理
1.3 thought 思想思考思想
1.4 judgment 斷語判斷判斷
判斷
1.5 argument 議論論提
1.6 truth 真理真偽真理
符號
1.9 law of identity 同一之法則同一原則同一律
1.10 law of contradiction 矛盾之法則矛盾原則矛盾律
1.11 law of excluded middle 不容中立之法則不容間位原則拒中律
(不容間位律)
1.12 principle of sufficient 充足理由之法則充足理由之原則充足原理
reason

2.1 term 名辭端名辭
項名辭
語
(idea) (觀念) (觀念)
2.3 intension 內容內包內包
2.6 category 範疇
2.7 substance 本體
2.8 (five) predicables 賓性語賓位語
2.9 genus 類類類
2.11 difference 差別差異種差
2.12 property 副性特有性特有性
2.13 accident 偶性偶然性偶然性
2.14 singular term 單純名辭單一概念單稱名辭
2.15 general term 公共之名一般概念通稱名辭
2.16 collective term 集合名辭集合概念集合名辭
2.17 positive term 積極名詞積極名辭
appendix 403
Table B.7 (cont.)

gangyao, 1909 1909
2.18 negative term 消極名詞消極名辭

2.19 concrete term 具體名辭具體概念具體名辭
2.20 abstract term 抽象名辭抽象概念抽象名辭
2.21 absolute term 絕對名辭絕對概念絕對名辭
2.22 relative term 相對名辭相對名辭
2.23 categorematic term 自用語自用語獨用語
2.24 syncategorematic term 帶用語副用語副用語

3.1 sentence 句文章
3.3 subject 主語主位主部
3.4 predicate 賓語賓位賓部
說明語
3.5 copula 連辭連辭繫部
(繫素)
連辭
3.6 attribute 屬性屬性屬性
3.7 quality 性質性質性質
質
3.8 quantity 分量量分量
3.9 true 真真真
真實
虛妄
3.11 some 或或或
若干
3.12 all 一切 . . . 皆凡凡
3.13 distributed 分配周延周延
3.14 undistributed 不分配不周延不周延
3.15 categorical proposition 斷言命題斷言立定命題
立言命題
3.16 hypothetical proposition 假言命題假設假設命題
3.18 disjunctive proposition 離言命題選言選擇命題
選言命題選言命題
3.19 affirmative proposition 肯定命題肯定肯定命題
3.20 negative proposition 否定命題否定否定命題
3.21 particular proposition 單純命題特稱特稱命題
特別命題
3.22 universal proposition 普遍命題全稱全稱命題
404 appendix
Table B.7 (cont.)

gangyao, 1909 1909
3.23 universal affirmative 普遍肯定命題全稱肯定全稱肯定命題

proposition
3.24 universal negative 普遍否定命題全稱否定全稱否定命題
proposition
3.25 particular affirmative 單純肯定命題特稱肯定特稱肯定命題
proposition
3.26 particular negative 單純否定命題特稱否定特稱否定命題
proposition
3.27 conversion 轉換換位法轉位法
換位法
3.28 simple conversion 單純之轉換
3.29 limited conversion 限制之轉換
3.30 contraposition 對峙之轉換
3.31 opposition 反對對當對當法
3.32 contradictory 矛盾矛盾對當矛盾
3.33 contrary 反對反對對當反對
3.34 subcontrary 次反對小反對小反對
3.35 subaltern 從屬大對當差等
從屬

4.1 inference 推論推理推論
推理
4.2 deduction 演繹推理演繹法演繹法
演繹法
演繹
4.3 induction 歸納推理歸納法歸納法
歸納法
歸納
4.5 conclusion 結論結論斷案
4.8 major term 大名辭大概念大名辭
4.9 minor term 小名辭小概念小名辭
4.10 middle term 中名辭中概念中名辭
中項
4.11 antecedent 前因前件前件
先行者
4.12 consequent 後因後件後件
後起者
appendix 405
Table B.7 (cont.)

gangyao, 1909 1909
4.13 syllogism 推理式三段推理法三段法

4.14 hypothetical syllogism 假言的推理式假設三段法
4.15 disjunctive syllogism 選言的推理式選言的推理法選擇三段法
離言的推理式
4.16 sorites 渾證連鎖法連鎖體
4.17 enthymeme 二斷論法省略推理法省略體
散亂推理式
4.18 epicheirema 暗證
4.19 figure (of syllogism) 圖形圖式格
圖式
4.20 mood (of syllogism) 形式論式式
論式
(論體)
4.21 fallacy 謬論虛偽謬論
虛妄謬誤
4.22 logical fallacy 辨學上的虛妄形式上的虛偽論理上的謬論
4.23 material fallacy 實質上的虛妄資料的謬誤資料上的謬論
物質上的虛妄
4.24 begging the question 循環之證明循環論法循環論證之謬
4.25 illicit major 大名辭泛濫之虛妄大概念之犯禁
4.26 illicit minor 小名辭泛濫之虛妄小概念之犯禁
4.27 undistributed middle 中名辭不分配之虛妄中概念不周延虛偽
term
4.28 equivocation 名辭混淆之虛妄語多義之虛偽
4.29 ambiguity 多義之虛妄名辭暖昧之謬

5.2 analysis 分析 (‘specialization’) 分析分析
5.3 synthesis 綜合綜合綜合
5.7 hypothesis 假說假定假說
(臆說)
5.9 proof 證明證明論證
5.10 verification 證明法論證證明
5.12 generalization 概括總括總括
406 appendix
Table B.7 (cont.)

gangyao, 1909 1909
5.13 analogy 類推比論法比論法

類推法
5.14 explanation 說明說明敘述法
5.17 necessity 必然性必然性必然性
5.18 probability 或然性可能性
5.19 theory 說說理論
理論
5.20 axiom 公理公理公理
5.21 law 定律法則法則
法則
5.22 principle 原理原則原理
5.23 rule
5.24 uniformity of nature 自然之統一自然之齊一性齊一律
5.25 method of agreement 符合法契合法契合法
5.26 method of difference 差別法差異法差異法
5.27 joint method of 符合及差別之聯合法契合差異結合法契合差異併用法
agreement and
difference
5.28 method of concomitant 相伴變化之方法共變法共變法
variation
5.29 method of residue 餘剩之方法殘餘法殘餘法
appendix 407

English term Zhong-Ying Qian Jiazhi, Chen Wen,
mingci duizhaobiao, Mingxue jiangyi, Mingxue jiaokeshu,
1909 1910 1911

1.1 logic 辨學名學名學
名學 (論理學) (論理學)
(邏輯) (邏輯)
(辨學) (辨學)
1.2 reasoning 推論 ( psych.) 推知致知
1.3 thought 思想思
1.4 judgment 判斷 ( psych.) 斷定識別
(判斷)
1.5 argument 論辨辨式辨(辯)
1.7 form, formal 形式形式
1.8 symbol, symbolic 符號記號
1.9 law of identity 元同律同一律自相同律
1.10 law of contradiction 互滅律矛盾律不相容律
1.11 law of excluded middle 不容中立律排中律不容中律
1.12 principle of sufficient 足理律充足原由律具足理由律
reason

2.1 term 端端端
名 (‘name’) 名辭
2.2 concept 概念概念
(idea) (觀念) ( psych.) (觀念)
2.3 intension 內函內函內函
2.4 extension 外舉外舉外舉
2.5 definition 界說界說界說
定義定義
2.6 category 疇範疇
2.7 substance 質實體
2.8 (five) predicables 五族五旌賓位語
謂語
2.9 genus 類類類
2.10 species 別種別種
2.11 difference 差角差差德
(差異) 差異
2.12 property 撰撰德常德
(物)德性
2.13 accident 寓寓德偶德
2.14 singular term 專名專端單及概念
408 appendix
Table B.8 (cont.)

1909 1910 1911
2.15 general term 公名公端普及概念
2.16 collective term 總名總端攝最概念
集合概念
2.17 positive term 正名正端積極概念
2.18 negative term 負名負端消極概念
2.19 concrete term 察名察端具體概念
2.20 abstract term 糸名玄端懸意概念
2.21 absolute term 獨立之名奇端絕待概念
2.22 relative term 對待之名偶端相關概念
2.23 categorematic term 獨用語實語
(自用語)
2.24 syncategorematic term 帶用語虛語
(副用語)

3.1 sentence 語句句
3.2 proposition 辭詞詞
3.3 subject 詞主詞主主位
主語詞主
3.4 predicate 所謂所謂賓位
賓語所謂
3.5 copula 綴詞綴系綴系
(聯辭)
(連辭)
3.6 attribute 屬性物德
3.7 quality 德性質品
(品質)
物品
3.8 quantity 量分量量
3.9 true 誠真
3.10 false 妄妄
3.11 some 或有
有僅
3.12 all 凡凡
皆一切
3.13 distributed 盡物溥及盡物
(盡物)
3.14 undistributed 不溥及不盡物
(不盡物)
3.15 categorical proposition 無待辭定言之詞決定的識別
(假設之詞)
appendix 409
Table B.8 (cont.)

1909 1910 1911
3.16 hypothetical proposition 有待辭有待之詞有待的識別
3.18 disjunctive proposition 取一辭析取之詞析取的識別
3.19 affirmative proposition 正式辭正詞肯定的識別
3.20 negative proposition 負式辭負詞否定的識別
3.21 particular proposition 偏舉辭偏及之詞偏及識別
3.22 universal proposition 全舉辭統舉之詞統舉識別
3.23 universal affirmative 統舉正詞統舉肯定識別
proposition
3.24 universal negative 統舉負詞統舉否定識別
proposition
3.25 particular affirmative 偏及正詞偏及肯定識別
proposition
3.26 particular negative 偏及負詞偏及否定識別
proposition
3.27 conversion 轉換轉位術換位法
3.28 simple conversion 單轉
3.29 limited conversion 限轉
3.30 contraposition 對轉換質位術
3.31 opposition 對比相當法
3.32 contradictory 互滅矛盾相悖
3.33 contrary 反對全反相反
大反對
3.34 subcontrary 次反對偏反半相反
小反對
3.35 subaltern 從屬曲全相容

4.1 inference 謨知 ( psych.) 推證推理
4.2 deduction 外籀法外籀術外籀術
(演繹法)
4.3 induction 內籀法內籀術內籀術
(歸納法)
4.4 premise 前提原前提
(原詞)
4.5 conclusion 判判斷案
(判詞) 委
4.6 major premise 例例大原
(例詞) 大前提
4.7 minor premise 案案小原
(案詞) 小前提
410 appendix
Table B.8 (cont.)

1909 1910 1911
4.8 major term 大端大端大端
大概念
4.9 minor term 小端小端小端
小概念
4.10 middle term 中端中介中端
中概念
4.11 antecedent 前見提設提設
例語
4.12 consequent 後從後承後承
(判語)
4.13 syllogism 連珠聯珠術連珠
聯珠論式 (三段式)
連珠論法
4.14 hypothetical syllogism 有待連珠有待聯珠論式有待連珠
4.15 disjunctive syllogism 析取連珠析取之聯珠論式析取詞連珠式
4.16 sorites 聯鎖體聯鎖體
4.17 enthymeme 單提連珠省略體省略體
4.18 epicheirema 援證連珠帶證體
4.19 figure (of syllogism) 格連珠之格
4.20 mood (of syllogism) 式連珠之式
4.21 fallacy 眢辭眢詞偽
謬妄紕謬
4.22 logical fallacy 形式眢詞形式上之謬
4.23 material fallacy 資料眢詞
4.24 begging the question 丐問眢詞丐問眢詞
4.25 illicit major 大端不合法眢辭大端之不當溥及大端不當盡物之謬
4.26 illicit minor 小端不合法眢辭小端之不當溥及小端不當盡物之謬
4.27 undistributed middle 中端不盡物眢辭中介一端絕不溥及中端不盡物之謬
term
4.28 equivocation 名詞歧惑之眢辭詞意不明之眢詞
4.29 ambiguity 歧義眢詞

5.1 method 方法方術法
5.2 analysis 分析分析分析
5.3 synthesis 綜合綜合綜合
5.5 experience 經驗經驗經驗
5.6 observation 插關察觀觀察
觀察 ( psych.)
appendix 411
Table B.8 (cont.)

1909 1910 1911
5.7 hypothesis 臆說設論
5.8 experiment 實驗式驗式驗
實驗
5.9 proof 證明證法
5.10 verification 印證印證
5.12 generalization 統概會通概括
5.13 analogy 比例推類推法
5.15 cause 因原因因
原因
5.16 effect 果結果果
(結果)
5.17 necessity 必然性
5.18 probability 或然
想當然
5.19 theory 立說理論學說
5.20 axiom 論素
公理
5.21 law 律公律定律
法
5.22 principle 原則原理
5.23 rule 律令律令
5.24 uniformity of nature 自然純一律自然齊一律自然一律
5.25 method of agreement 符合法統同術契合法
5.26 method of difference 差別法別異術差異法
5.27 joint method of 符合兼差別法同異術契合差異兩用法
agreement and
difference
5.28 method of concomitant 消息法消息術共變法
variation
5.29 method of residue 歸鵌法歸餘術剩餘法
412 appendix
Table B.9: Logical Terms in Early Japanese and Chinese Dictionaries

English term Tetsugaku jii, Tetsugaku jii, Dictionary of
1881/1884 3rd ed., 1912 Philosophical Terms,
1913

1.1 logic 論法論法論理學
論理學
1.2 reasoning 推論推論推理
推理推理理論
1.3 thought 思想思考思考
思考
1.4 judgment 斷定斷定判斷
裁判
1.5 argument 辨論辨論證明
真實真實
1.7 form, formal 正式形式形式
1.8 symbol, symbolic 表號記號記號
1.9 law of identity 同一主義同一律
同一原理
1.10 law of contradiction 矛盾主義矛盾律
1.11 law of excluded middle 不容問位主義拒中之原則
1.12 principle of sufficient 事理充足主義充足原理充足理由之原理
reason

2.1 term 名辭名辭名辭
名詞
(idea) 意影
2.3 intension 內包內包內包
廣褒
界說界說
2.6 category 範疇範疇範疇
2.7 substance 本質本質實體
本體
實體
2.8 (five) predicables 賓位語賓位語賓位語
範疇
2.9 genus 類類類
2.10 species 種種種類
appendix 413
Table B.9 (cont.)

1913
2.11 difference 差違特異性差異
異點
特異性
2.12 property 固有性固有性特性
2.13 accident 偶有性偶有性偶有性
2.14 singular term 單稱名辭單稱名辭單獨概念
個體概念
2.15 general term 普通名辭一般名辭一般概念
全稱名辭
2.16 collective term 集合名辭集合名辭集合名辭
集合概念
2.17 positive term 肯定名辭肯定名辭肯定概念
積極概念
2.18 negative term 否定名辭否定名辭否定概念
消極概念
2.19 concrete term 實形名辭具體名辭具體的名辭
2.20 abstract term 虛形名辭抽象名辭抽象的名辭
2.21 absolute term 絕對名辭絕對名辭絕對概念
2.22 relative term 相對名辭相對名辭相對概念
2.23 categorematic term 獨用名辭獨用名辭
2.24 syncategorematic term 副用名辭副用名辭自用語 (sic!)
副用語

3.1 sentence 文
章
句
成文
3.3 subject 主位主辭
題目
3.4 predicate 賓位賓辭賓位
命証
3.5 copula 連辭連辭連辭
決者繁辭
固有質
3.7 quality 形質性質質
3.8 quantity 分量分量量
3.9 true
414 appendix
Table B.9 (cont.)

1913
3.10 false 虛妄虛妄
3.11 some
3.12 all 一切一切
3.13 distributed 廣衍周衍周延
散佈分佈
分配
3.14 undistributed 未衍不周衍不周延
不分佈
3.15 categorical proposition 合式命題定言命題定言判斷
合式判斷
3.16 hypothetical proposition 約結命題假言命題假說的判斷
3.17 conjunctive proposition 合結命題合接命題
3.18 disjunctive proposition 離攝命題離接命題離接判斷
選言命題
3.19 affirmative proposition 肯定命題肯定命題肯定判斷
3.20 negative proposition 否定命題否定命題否定判斷
3.21 particular proposition 特稱命題特稱命題特別判斷
3.22 universal proposition 全稱命題全稱命題全稱判斷
3.23 universal affirmative
proposition
3.24 universal negative
proposition
3.25 particular affirmative
proposition
3.26 particular negative
proposition
3.27 conversion 轉換轉換換位法
3.28 simple conversion 單轉換單轉換單純換位
3.29 limited conversion 偶轉換偶轉換限定換位法
3.30 contraposition 對位對位換質換位法
換位
3.31 opposition 反對法反對法對當關係
3.32 contradictory 真反對真反對矛盾對當
3.33 contrary 實反對實反對反對對當
3.34 subcontrary 小反對小反對小反對對當
3.35 subaltern 差等差等大小對當
appendix 415
Table B.9 (cont.)

1913

4.1 inference 推度法推度法推理
還元舉一概百
感應執本求末
一本萬殊
溯流達源
萬殊一本
4.5 conclusion 斷言結論斷案
結末結論
歸結
斷案
4.8 major term 大名辭大名辭大概念
大語大前提名辭 (sic! )
4.9 minor term 小名辭小名辭小概念
小語
4.10 middle term 中位媒語中概念
中 (間) 名辭
4.11 antecedent 前項前項前件
4.12 consequent 後項後項後件
4.13 syllogism 推測式推測式三段論法
推論式三段推理法
4.14 hypothetical syllogism 約結推測式約結推測式假說三段推理法
假設推測式
4.15 disjunctive syllogism 離結推測式離結推測式離接三段論法
選事推測式
4.16 sorites 渾體連鎖體連鎖法
4.17 enthymeme 散亂推測式散亂推測式省略法
4.18 epicheirema 牽強推測式牽強推測式帶證推理法
4.19 figure (of syllogism) 圖式圖式格
4.20 mood (of syllogism) 法式法式式
樣式
4.21 fallacy 虛偽虛偽誤謬
虛偽
4.22 logical fallacy 論體虛偽論體虛偽形式的虛偽
4.23 material fallacy 資料虛偽資料虛偽資料上之虛偽
416 appendix
Table B.9 (cont.)

1913
4.24 begging the question 循環論法循環論法
原理請求
4.25 illicit major 僭稱大名辭僭稱大名辭
大語越權
4.26 illicit minor 僭稱小名辭僭稱小名辭
小語越權
4.27 undistributed middle 未衍中位不周衍中名辭
term
4.28 equivocation 多義之虛偽
4.29 ambiguity 汎意汎意
曖昧

5.2 analysis 分解法分解分析
解析法解析法
分析剖析
5.3 synthesis 綜合法綜合法綜合
類聚
彙集
5.5 experience 經驗經驗經驗
練過練過
實歷
考察
5.7 hypothesis 臆說臆說臆說
想考假說設辭
意見
5.8 experiment 試驗法試驗法實驗
實驗法
5.9 proof 證據證據證明
照憑憑據
左驗
5.10 verification 證明證明
立證
徵驗
5.11 classification 彙類法彙類法彙類
分類分類
5.12 generalization 概括概括概括
一般化
類化
appendix 417
Table B.9 (cont.)

1913
5.13 analogy 比論比論類推
酌例酌例比論
比考對比相似
5.14 explanation 解釋解釋說明
註說註說
本源本源因
5.16 effect 結果結果
應報功效
效驗
5.17 necessity 必至必至必然性
必然性必然性
5.18 probability 蓋然性蓋然性蓋然性
5.19 theory 理論理論理法
5.20 axiom 單元單元公理
公理
5.21 law 格律法法則
律法
律
5.22 principle 主義主義原理
原理原理原則
5.23 rule 法式法式規則
順序順序
5.24 uniformity of nature 自然契合自然齊一
天律不變自然齊合
5.25 method of agreement 契合法契合法契合法
5.26 method of difference 差違法差違法差異法
5.27 joint method of 契合差違合一法契合差違合一法契合差異結合法
agreement and
difference
5.28 method of concomitant 伴差法共變法共變法
variation 伴差法
5.29 method of residue 殘餘法殘餘法殘餘法
418 appendix
Table B.10: Logical Terms in Modern Chinese Dictionaries

English term Karl Hemeling, Fan Bingqing, Modern
Guanhua, 19161 Zhexue cidian, standard
1926 Chinese terms2

1.1 logic 辨學 * 論理學邏輯
思理學邏輯學
名學論理學
推理學 (‘dialectics’) 理則學
論理學 (‘dialectics’)
辯學 (‘oratory’)
1.2 reasoning 推論推理推理
推論
1.3 thought 思想* 思考思維
思維
思想
1.4 judgment 論證斷定判斷
判斷
1.5 argument 判斷論証
真實性
1.8 symbol, symbolic 符號符號符號
記號
1.9 law of identity 元同律* 自同律同一律
相同律
1.10 law of contradiction 互滅率* 矛盾律矛盾律
1.11 law of excluded middle 不容中立律* 斥中律排中律
1.12 principle of sufficient 足立律* 充足理由之原理充足理由律
reason

2.1 term 端* 名辭詞項
名項
項名詞
名辭
2.2 concept 概念* 概念概念
(idea) (觀念) 觀念
1
Words followed by an asterisk (*) are marked as “Approved by the Standardization Committee of
the Ministry of Education” (buding 部定) in Hemeling, Guanhua.
2
Standard Chinese terms are taken from Zhou Liquan 周禮全 (ed.), Luoji baike cidian 邏輯百科詞典
(Encyclopedic dictionary of logic) (Chengdu: Sichuan jiaoyu chubanshe, 1994).
appendix 419
Table B.10 (cont.)

1926 Chinese terms
2.3 intension 內函* 內包內涵
2.4 extension 外舉* 外延外延
2.5 definition 界說* 定義定義
定義
2.6 category 疇範疇範疇
倫類
2.7 substance 質* 實體
2.8 (five) predicables 五旌* 五種賓語
2.9 genus 類* 類屬
類
2.10 species 別種種
種種類種類
2.11 difference 差差異差異
特異性
2.12 property 撰固有性固有屬性
2.13 accident 寓* 偶有性偶有屬性
寓德
2.14 singular term 專名* 單稱名辭單一詞項
2.15 general term 公名* 普遍名辭普通詞項
2.16 collective term 總名集合詞項
2.17 positive term 正名* 肯定名詞正詞項
(積極概念) 肯定詞項
2.18 negative term 負名* 否定名詞負詞項
(消極概念) 否定詞項
2.19 concrete term 察名* 具象名辭具體詞項
2.20 abstract term 糸名* 抽象名辭抽象詞項
懸名*
2.21 absolute term 獨立之名* 絕對名詞絕對詞項
2.22 relative term 對待之名* 相對名詞相對詞項
2.23 categorematic term 獨用語* 自用語自用詞項
2.24 syncategorematic term 帶用語* 副用語依附范疇詞

3.1 sentence 語句
3.2 proposition 辭* 命題命題
表句
3.3 subject 主詞主項
主位主詞
主語
420 appendix
Table B.10 (cont.)

1926 Chinese terms
3.4 predicate 所謂* 賓詞謂項
賓詞賓位賓詞
賓位說語
表題 (‘of proposition’)
3.5 copula 綴系* 繁辭連項
系詞
3.7 quality 德* 性質質
質量
3.8 quantity 量* 分量量
數量
3.9 true 是 (‘right’) 真真
直 (‘right’)
3.10 false 非 (‘wrong’) 妄假
妄 (‘false’)
3.11 some 某有
3.12 all 凡所有
3.13 distributed 盡物* 周延周延
3.14 undistributed 不盡物* 不周延不周延
3.15 categorical proposition 無待辭* 定言命題直言命題
直言命題
斷言命題
3.16 hypothetical proposition 有待辭* 假言命題假言命題
3.17 conjunctive proposition 合取命題
3.18 disjunctive proposition 取一辭選言命題析取命題
選言命題
3.19 affirmative proposition 正式辭* 肯定命題肯定命題
3.20 negative proposition 負式辭* 否定命題否定命題
反表句
3.21 particular proposition 偏舉辭* 特稱命題特稱命題
3.22 universal proposition 全舉辭* 全稱命題全稱命題
3.23 universal affirmative 全稱肯定命題全稱肯定命題
proposition
3.24 universal negative 全稱否定命題全稱否定命題
proposition
3.25 particular affirmative 特稱肯定命題特稱肯定命題
proposition
3.26 particular negative 特稱否定命題特稱否定命題
proposition
3.27 conversion 轉換* 換位換位
換位
3.28 simple conversion 單轉* 單純換位
appendix 421
Table B.10 (cont.)

1926 Chinese terms
3.29 limited conversion 限轉* 減量換位
限定換位法
3.30 contraposition 對轉* 換質 (之換位) 換質位
換質換位法
3.31 opposition 對當反對關係
3.32 contradictory 互滅矛盾對當矛盾關係
3.33 contrary 反對上反對對當反對關係
3.34 subcontrary 次反對* 下反對對當下反對關係
3.35 subaltern 從屬* 大小對當差等關係

4.1 inference 推理推理推理
自一推萬
自一理推萬事
4.2 deduction 外籀* 演繹演繹法
外籀法* 演繹
演繹
舉源推流
自一推萬
4.3 induction 內籀* 歸納歸納法
內籀法* 歸納
歸納
因流溯源
溯流達源
自萬推一
4.4 premise 前提* 前提前提
預論
引端
4.5 conclusion 斷語* 斷案結論
推理的事
4.6 major premise 例* 大前提大前提
首步
大前提
正意
4.7 minor premise 案* 小前提小前提
小前提
副意
4.8 major term 大端* 大概念大項
大名辭大詞
4.9 minor term 小端* 小概念小項
小名辭小詞
422 appendix
Table B.10 (cont.)

1926 Chinese terms
4.10 middle term 中端* 中概念中項
媒介名辭中詞
4.11 antecedent 前見* 前件前件
前件
4.12 consequent 後從* 後件後件
後件
4.13 syllogism 連珠* 三段論法三段論
三段推理法三段推理式
推測式
4.14 hypothetical syllogism 有待連珠* 假言的三段論法假言三段論
假說的三段推理法
4.15 disjunctive syllogism 析取連珠* 選言的三段論法選言三段論
離接三段論法離接的三段論法
4.16 sorites 連索法聯鎖法連鎖推理
積疊法堆垛推理
4.17 enthymeme 省略推理省略三段論
4.18 epicheirema 援證連珠* 帶證法帶証式
複證式
渾體推理
牽強推理
4.19 figure (of syllogism) 語式* 格格
辭式*
4.20 mood (of syllogism) 樣樣態式
式
4.21 fallacy 眢詞* 偽論謬誤
謬論
4.22 logical fallacy 辨學眢辭* 形式的偽論形式的謬誤
4.23 material fallacy 實質眢辭* 資料的偽論實質的謬誤
4.24 begging the question 丐問眢辭* 竊取論點竊取論提
匿證要求先決
佯證
4.25 illicit major 大端不合法眢辭* 大項不當周延的
謬誤
4.26 illicit minor 小端不合法眢辭* 小項不當周延的
謬誤
4.27 undistributed middle 終端不盡物眢辭* 中項不當周延的
term 謬誤
4.28 equivocation 名詞歧惑之眢辭* 多義之偽混義概念

偷換概念
4.29 ambiguity 語詞歧義
appendix 423
Table B.10 (cont.)

1926 Chinese terms

法式
法
5.2 analysis 分析法* 分析分析
究原 (‘logical a.’)
5.3 synthesis 綜合法* 綜合綜合
5.5 experience 經驗* 經驗經驗
5.6 observation 觀察* 觀察觀察
5.7 hypothesis 設事* 臆說假設
設端假說
設辭
假說
臆說
5.8 experiment 試驗* 實驗實驗
實驗*
5.9 proof 證法證明証明
憑據 (‘evidence’) 立證
5.10 verification 証實
5.11 classification 分類造類分類
5.12 generalization 統概概括概括
擴義
5.13 analogy 比例推* 類比類比
類推比論類比法
比論
5.14 explanation 說明* 說明說明
因因
5.16 effect 果結果結果
果
5.17 necessity 必然性必然性必要
5.18 probability 約有性蓋然性概率
蓋然性
5.19 theory 理說* 理論理論
學理
5.20 axiom 自然的理* 公理公理
公理
公論
論素*
424 appendix
Table B.10 (cont.)

1926 Chinese terms
5.21 law 例律規律
律
5.22 principle 原理原理原理
原則
5.23 rule 法則規則規則
5.24 uniformity of nature 自然純一律齊一律自然齊一律
5.25 method of agreement 符合法* 契合法契合法
求同法
5.26 method of difference 差別法* 差異法差異法
求異法
5.27 joint method of 符合兼差別法* 契差兼用法契合差異并用法
agreement and 求同求異并用法
difference
5.28 method of concomitant 共變法共變法
variation 伴差法
5.29 method of residue 剩餘法剩餘法
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INDEX
accommodation, 25–27, 31, 130, 207 354–355, 358; logic as bianxue

ambiguity, 35–36, 114, 157, 189, 286, ‘science of disputation’, 42, 194,
320, 331–332 262–265, 270, 354
Aleni, Giulio (Ai Rulüe), 25, 27, 44, 58, Boole, George, 108
61, 87; and Xixue fan, 37–43 Buddhism, 46, 54n, 68, 188, 282,
Allen, Young J. (Lin Yuezhi), 98 312, 352; revival of, 54, 149;
analogy, 52, 81, 145, 182, 191, 260, Consciousness Only, 282, 305–306,
288, 307, 331–333, 357, 364–365 309, 311; Mahāyāna, 305–306;
Aquinas, Thomas, 120; Thomism, 23, Yogācāra, 304, 306, 310–311
41, 46 Buddhist logic. See yinming
Arbor Porphyrii, 32 Busse, Ludwig, 206
Aristotle, 120, 182, 187, 280, 286, 288,
297n, 318, 333; in Jesuit education, Cai Yuanpei, 150, 350
22–24; commentaries on, 45–48; Calvin, John, 95
translations of texts on, 44–45, 48–52, Cang Jie, 266
70; as founder of logic, 59, 73, 78, canonical studies ( jingxue), 198, 302,
105–107, 110–112, 114, 222, 282n, 364–365
316–317, 328–329, 347, 356; categories, 32–33, 41–42, 46–47, 52,
Jesuit-Aristotelian philosophy and 55–56, 63–64, 132, 185, 187, 297
logic, 15, 22–23, 44, 75, 78, 202, cause, 34; “four causes”, 30–31
341–342; Aristotelian notions in certainty, 152, 162, 342
Tianzhu shiyi, 29–33; on categories, 15, “Chart of the Supreme Ultimate”
40–42, 44, 52, 55–56, 63–64, 187; on (Taiji tu), 190, 235
definition, 157–159; and syllogism, Chen Duxiu, 209
66, 72, 78, 211, 304, 316; criticism of, Chen Li, 279
101–104, 132, 187, 267, 316; Chinese Chen Shuzhong, 227
thought as “non-Aristotelian”, 356 Chen Wen, 223–224, 369, 407–411
astronomy, 364–365; Jesuit, 67–68; and Cheng Zhongtang, 12, 361–362n
Chinese calendar, 66, 81–82 Chinese logic, 2, 9–13, 277–279,
authority, 6, 8, 148, 342 283, 288–289, 300, 312, 317–318,
axiom, 34, 154 329–330, 333, 335–337, 339,
343–344, 350, 357, 363; canon of,
Bacon, Francis, 89, 105, 270, 280, 301, 330–333, 335–336, 363;
286, 317, 328; portrayal in late characteristics of, 300, 329–330,
imperial China, 97–101; Muirhead’s 335–337, 345, 356–360;
presentation of, 98–104; contra comparative studies of, 5, 279–282,
Aristotle, 101–104, 315–316; Yan Fu 284, 286, 289, 293, 300, 303–312,
on, 151, 154–155, 161, 265; Liang 329, 336–337, 343–344, 354–356,
Qichao on, 315–316; Mozi as “Bacon 358; denial of, 54, 211–212,
of the East”, 318, 325–326, 333 277–278, 284, 313, 327, 343, 359;
Bacon, Roger, 193 designation for, 285, 295, 304,
Bain, Alexander, 187 354–355; discoverers of, 9, 11,
Ban Gu, 302 278–283, 289, 349, 360; as
Bao Tianxiao, 166–167, 170 embodied in argumentative
Begriffsgeschichte. See history of concepts practices, 327, 337, 363–365; first
being, 52, 63, 224. See also copula mention of, 285; history of, 2–5,
Bi Yuan, 279, 287 285–289, 294–300, 329, 335–336,
bian ‘disputation’, 5, 50, 55, 60, 68, 344–350, 352–355, 361–365; as
102–103, 105, 107, 288, 319, 327, invented tradition, 9, 19, 314,
464 index
344–345, 349, 357, 360; “legitimacy” debate, 2–4, 55, 104, 111–112, 117,
of, 18–19, 361–362; in Meiji Japan, 198, 200, 263–266, 281, 286, 304,
283–284, 343 313–314, 329–330
“Chinese origins of Western deduction, 160–161, 162–164, 291,
knowledge”, 138–139, 277, 279, 281, 293, 316, 318; in Chinese thought,
290, 317–318 279–281, 296–297;
Chinese philosophy, 13, 313, 336, 339, translation of term, 101, 113, 124,
345–347; in Meiji Japan, 283–289; 135, 160, 162, 183, 197, 250, 253,
“legitimacy” of, 361–362 280, 293
Chinese script, 49, 157, 294, 297–298, definition, 3, 24, 109, 123, 164,
300 258–259, 351; in Mingli tan, 62–63;
Cicero, 104–105, 111 Fryer on, 132–133; Yan Fu on
civil examination system, 66, 158, 301, 150–151, 159–160; and glossing
364 156–159, 291–292, 301; absence
Cixi, 196 in Chinese philosophy, 257–258;
Classic of Change (Yijing), 176, 188, 190, in Xunzi, 297, 301, 334–335; in
231, 280–281, 349 Mozi, 330–331; translation of
classification, 40, 42, 61, 145, 182, 219, term, 35–36, 55, 57, 141, 177, 185
221, 239, 286, 297, 301, 320–321, Deng Xi, 299, 313, 329
334, 351; of logic, 5, 125, 196 Descartes, René, 105, 188
Clavius, Christopher, 33, 36 Dewey, John, 346, 348
College of Comprehensive Arts, 156, diagrams: Euler diagrams, 235–247; as
159, 165, 166, 194 epistemic images, 237, 239–242; in
Commercial Press, 46n, 166, 172, 205, canonical studies, 235, 242–245; in
218–219, 221 textbooks, 226–227; Venn
Comte, Auguste, 128–129, 136–137, diagrams, 235, 237–240
217 dialectic, 3, 22, 24, 36, 53, 61–62,
conception, 23, 285–287, 292, 298, 67–69, 103, 105–106, 226, 262,
306–307, 310–312, 330, 333–335 277–278, 283, 288, 301, 304, 329
Confucian classics (canonical “Dialectical Chapters” of the Mozi
writings), 8, 25, 41, 85, 88, 98, (Mobian). See “Mohist Canons”
150–153, 197, 290, 302 dialecticians (bianzhe), 2–3, 266, 284,
Confucius, 83–84, 106, 210–211, 245, 287, 299–300, 313, 354
286, 292, 298, 302, 349 dictionaries, 15, 27, 139–140, 210,
Conimbricenses, 44–47, 49–50, 67, 247–248, 249, 256–257, 265, 267,
70–74 269, 295, 301, 412–424
continuity, 10, 231, 340–341, 344–347, discovery, 1, 9–13; of logic, 6–8, 147,
353, 357–359 190, 278; of Chinese logic, 5, 8–13,
copula, 16, 77, 117, 124–125, 133, 182, 278–279, 335, 339, 342, 344, 347,
215, 217, 227, 237–239, 356; 362–363, 365
translation of term, 114–115, 123, Doctrine of the Mean, The (Zhongyong), 188,
142, 178, 182 243
Couto, Sebastian da, 45–47, 58 Dong Zhongshu, 292, 297n, 301
Couvreur, Séraphim, 140 Doolittle, Justus (Lu Gongming), 140
Cui Qingtian, 12, 317 Dunyn–Szpot, Thomas Ignatius, 68, 86
curriculum: Jesuit, 22–25, 37–43; of
civil examinations, 66–69; logic in Edkins, Joseph (Ai Yuese), 104–105,
late Qing, 5, 8–9, 168, 193, 196–200, 107–108, 123, 125, 127, 129, 133,
274, 342–343; Japanese models of, 138, 172, 185, 217, 218, 251, 268,
198. See also under education 315; and biography of Aristotle
105–107; translation of Jevons’s
Daoism, 3, 116–117, 210, 278, 287, 303 Logic (Bianxue qimeng), 111–118; use
Darwinism, 91–92, 152, 161 of paraphrases, 113–114; translation
Dashou, 220 of logical terms, 113–116, 262–265;
index 465
adaptation of examples, 116–117, 284, 287; Liu Shipei on, 292, 299;
189–190 Zhang Binglin on, 303–304; Liang
education, 364; logic in Jesuit, 22–25, Qichao on, 313; Wang Guowei on,
37–43, 63; logic in nineteenth-century 330; Hu Shi on, 349; Guo Zhanbo
European, 96; logic in late Qing, 8, on, 354
118–122, 125, 193–203, 274–275; grammar, 49, 60, 213; and logic, 75–76,
late Qing reforms of, 168, 194–200, 313, 356–357; absence in traditional
342–343; utility of logic in, 212–213. Chinese philology, 114, 139, 157,
See also curriculum 215–216, 313; subject and predicate
empiricism, 100, 154, 158, 164, 192, in, 114, 117, 227
206, 316 Greater Learning, The (Daxue), 163–164,
epistemology, 14, 128–129, 152, 154, 185, 212, 243
165, 187–188, 284–286, 304, 330, Green, Thomas H., 208
334, 356 gu ‘reason’, 304–309, 321
ethics, 153, 175, 199, 211, 224, 293, Guo Moruo, 355
330 Guo Shoujing, 82
Euclid, 33–36 Guo Songtao, 98–99
evolution, 153, 161, 163, 165, 186, 258, Guo Yaogeng, 223, 369, 402–406
280 Guo Zhanbo, 12, 354, 359
experiment, 100, 110, 128, 131,
135–137, 156, 160, 190, 218, 316, Han Feizi, 3, 221
326, 348–349 Han Shuzu, 220, 368, 382–385
Han Yu, 116, 189
Faber, Ernst (Hua Zhian), 96, 112n Hanlin Academy, 33, 85, 220, 341
fallacy, 135–136, 182–183, 286, 324, “hard and white” ( jianbai ), 281, 299,
330–334 313
Fan Bingqing, 248, 344n, 417–423 Hart, Robert (He De), 107–108, 118
Fan Diji, 208, 229, 239, 367, 377–381 Hattori Unokichi, 200, 219–221, 247,
Feng Youlan, 203 367, 382–385
Fonseca, Pedro da, 23–25, 41, 44, Haven, Joseph, 121–123, 125
45–46 He Lin, 184
Forke, Alfred, 277 Hegel, G. W. F., 95, 258, 287;
Fouillée, Alfred, 316 neo-Hegelianism, 208
Frege, Gottlob, 215 Hemeling, Karl (He Meiling), 257, 265,
Fryer, John (Fu Lanya), 125–126, 140, 417–423
156, 198, 217, 251, 265; and Lixue history of concepts, 14, 16–18,
xuzhi, 126–138; scientism of, 129, 340–341
131–132, 136–137; on Chinese Hobson, Benjamin (He Xin), 96
language and terminology, 129–130; Homer, 104
translation of logical terms, 130–131; Hu Maoru, 210–212, 231, 251n, 367,
on logic, 131–133; on syllogism 386–390
134; on induction, 135; on fallacies Hu Shi, 11, 158, 276, 346–351, 353,
135–136 357, 359
Fujita Toyohachi, 201, 284, 328 Hu Wei, 231
Furtado, Francisco (Fu Fanji), 25, 45, Huang Qingcheng, 5, 117
138, 341. See also Li Zhizao Huang Xing, 209
Hui Shi, 2, 139, 207, 287, 299,
Gabelentz, Georg von der, 283 303–304, 313, 329, 349, 354
Galilei, Galileo, 161, 322n Huxley, Thomas H., 108, 153, 155,
genealogy, xii, 13, 266, 277, 339 170
Geng Yi, 271 hypothesis, 110, 113, 11, 134, 211,
Gongsun Long, 2; and “white horse”, 288, 322, 351; translation of term,
2, 33, 299; Ricci on, 33; in textbooks 80, 123, 130, 142, 144, 179, 181,
on logic, 139, 207; in Japanese texts, 183, 185–186, 253, 255, 257, 288
466 index
ideology, 3, 165, 289, 357 Kiyono Ben, 217–218, 268

Imperial University, 168, 193, knowledge, 285–286; intuitive or innate
195–200, 216–217, 219, 264 (liangzhi ), 41, 154–155, 161; “new”,
imperialism, 90, 116, 193, 274, 359 176, 193–195; “old”, 151, 195–196;
incommensurability, 7, 21, 49, 64, useful, 7, 90, 342; “Western” (xixue),
77–79, 341 1, 5, 195–196, 291, 314–315
induction, 110, 114, 124, 127–128, 132, Kobayashi Yoshihito, 200
160–164, 199, 209, 211, 219–222, Kōbun Gakuin, 209, 223–224n, 227,
227, 239, 259–260, 280–281, 291, 368
293, 296–297, 318; inductionism, Koeber, Raphael von, 206
97–101, 104, 108, 128, 135, 150–164, Kuai Guangdian, 170
192, 218; in Mozi, 280, 325–326; and Kuwaki Gen’yoku, 284–289, 305n, 319,
progress, 129, 151, 154; translation 327, 333–334
of term, 81, 100, 143, 180, 183, 185, Kwong Ki-chiu (Kuang Qizhao), 140
253, 255
inference. See deduction, induction, and language: and logic, 215, 292,
reasoning 356–357; “deficits” of Chinese, 92,
Inoue Tetsujirō, 247n, 412–417 292, 332–333. See also Chinese script,
copula, grammar
Japan, 8–9, 138, 151, 185, 198, Laozi, 132, 265, 287, 349
200–201, 204–212, 217–224, 227, Latin, 24, 29, 35, 120
251–256, 258, 147, 294, 315, 319, law, 285, 322, 352, 364; divine, 69, 71,
343; Sino-Japanese War, 8, 138, 148, 79, 86; natural, 152, 156, 190n, 259
150, 194, 195, 204; as shortcut to laws of thought, 16, 96, 121, 123,
modernity, 9, 204; Yan Fu and, 140–141, 154, 168, 177, 207, 217,
184–185, 190; Chinese students and 219, 221, 263–264, 269, 285, 287,
scholars in, 204–205, 209–210, 250, 351–352, 356
314–315; Japanese teachers in China, Legalists, 3, 297n, 299, 303, 349
200–203, 328. See also under Chinese legitimation, 8, 148
logic, loanwords, logic, terminology, Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 105
textbooks lexical change, 6, 14, 16–17, 19,
Jenks, Edward, 169 340–341. See also loanwords,
Jevons, William Stanley, 206; place neologisms
in history of logic, 108–109; Logic li ‘pattern’, 3, 81–83, 151, 266,
primer, 107–111, 201, 203; Edkins’s 298–299
translation of, 111–118, 127; Yan Li Cibin, 21, 47–48, 59, 71
Fu’s adaptation of, 149, 162, 172, Li Di (Li Wenyu), 202, 225, 247,
176, 186, 188–190, 191, 252, 281; 396–401
Elementary Lessons in Logic, 109, 201; Li Hongzhang, 108
Zhang Junmai’s translation of, Li Tianjing, 47, 59
213–216; Wang Guowei’s translation Li Zhizao, 113, 115, 138, 265, 268,
of, 216–217, 257, 328 341; and Furtado, 45, 46–47;
Jiangsu Normal School, 201, 209 translation of In universam dialecticam
Jiang Weiqiao, 344n (Mingli tan), 45–65, 70, 71, 79, 87;
Jiaotong University, 194 style of, 50–51; translation of logical
journals, 9, 147, 205, 213–214 terms, 51–58; presentation of logic,
58–64
Kaneda Nisaku, 209, 368, 391–395 Liang Qichao, 5, 202, 258, 279, 284,
Kang Youwei, 149, 257, 313 348; and classification of texts on
Kangxi emperor, 66–68, 79–86, 89 logic, 5, 125, 315; and educational
Kanie Yoshimaru, 284–285 reform, 196; and Japanese
Kant, Immanuel, 285, 334; scholarship, 204, 268; using logical
neo-Kantianism, 96, 128, 206, 283, terms in political discourse, 260–261,
285 276; and Wang Guowei, 330,
Kihira Tadayoshi, 223 332–333; on Edkins’s translations
index 467
117; on Yan Fu’s translations 136; Indian, 289, 300, 313; in Meiji
174–175, 313; on translation of Japan, 109, 278, 283–284, 309–310,
‘logic’, 266, 268, 313; on terms 329; explicit theory of, 278, 325, 327,
borrowed from Japanese, 268; on 330, 344, 352, 357, 362–365; implicit
absence of logic in China, 313–314; in argumentative practice, 327, 330,
on Chinese logic, 5, 9, 277, 289, 352, 357, 362–365; and self-perfection,
313–327, 335–336, 345; matching 164–165, 291; and mathematics,
Mohist terms with logical notions, 34–37, 108, 128; and metaphysics,
319–323; on rules of reasoning in 23, 52, 60, 64, 77, 95, 223; and
Mozi, 323–325; on inductive method science, 8, 128–129, 149–154, 161,
in Mozi, 325–326 343, 347–349; and “ways of
Lin Kepei, 222, 369, 402–406 thinking”, 341, 356–357; utility
Lin Shu, 169 of, 32, 39, 60–61, 68–69, 81–85,
Lin Zutong, 217–218, 229n, 367, 149–150, 164, 199, 212–213, 220,
372–376 258–259, 292, 316–317, 343;
Liu Shipei, 9, 318; education of, 290; universality of, 212, 214, 319, 325,
political views of, 289–290; and 351, 353, 356–357; in public
“National Essence” group, 294; and discourse, 245, 257–273, 275–276;
Zhang Binglin, 301–302, 304, 312; translation of term, 37, 103,
and Yan Fu, 290–291, 293, 300; 117–118, 130, 139–140, 176, 198,
understanding of logic, 291–292; 253, 261–273, 282, 313, 316–317,
using logical terms in public 326, 343, 350, 354. See also under
discourse, 261; on rewriting Chinese Chinese logic, curriculum, education
intellectual history, 294–295; on Logical Society, 165–166, 305
Chinese logic, 289–301, 335–336, Longobardo, Niccolò (Long Huamin), 43
353; on names, 292–293; on logic Loyola, Ignatius, 22
and philology, 291, 300; on Xunzi, Luther, Martin, 95
290–294, 296–299; on Mozi, 299; Lu Xiangshan, 154
on School of Names, 299–300 Lu Xun (Zhou Shuren), 209, 223n
Liu Zongyuan, 116, 189 Luan Tiaofu, 346, 355
loanwords, 16, 223; graphic loans from Luo Zhenyu, 327
Japanese, 35–36, 185, 207, 217, 219, Lü Bicheng, 172, 201
249–253, 267–268, 280, 315, 318;
phonemic loans, 27–28, 37, 51–52, Ma Jianzhong, 213, 239
115, 186, 271–273; semantic loans Ma Junwu, 257–259, 274
(loan translations), 28, 35, 52, 78, Ma Xiangbo, 119–120, 202, 224–225,
123, 130, 186, 267, 270–273; loan 247, 269, 396–401
shifts, 28, 40, 52, 54–55, 176–184, MacGillivray, Donald, 248, 412–417
253. See also neologisms Maoism, 357–362
Lobscheid, Wilhelm (Luo Cunde), Marxism, 12, 17, 354–355, 357–358
139–140, 265, 267–268 mathematics, 34, 67, 303, 305,
Locke, John, 187 364–365
logic: Aristotelian, 22–25, 30, 32, Matsumoto Bunzaburō, 284
101–104, 202, 286, 316, 341–342; Medhurst, Walter Henry (Mai Dusi),
Jesuit, 15, 22–24, 29–30, 37–43, 139
45–46, 58–65, 72–79, 225–226; in Mencius (Mengzi ), 83–84, 210, 211, 221,
Protestant writings, 96–97, 102–104, 265, 281, 286–287, 299n
106–107, 111, 122–125, 126–138; metaphysics, 23–24, 38, 52–53, 60,
as nineteenth-century syllogistics, 63–64, 77–78, 187–188, 223–224,
109–110, 227–231, 239; as science of 283, 287
reasoning, 206, 207–217; method (methodology), 2, 16, 34–36,
psychologistic, 96, 121–122, 206, 37, 39, 42, 79, 81–86, 96–104,
217–222, 224; mathematical or 106–109, 113–114, 128–131,
symbolic, 108, 356–357, 360; as 135–136, 140, 145, 154–156,
academic discipline, 37, 60–61, 96, 161–162, 182, 190, 199, 221–223,
468 index
225–227, 259–260, 304, 308, 313, neologisms, 16–18, 28, 51, 55–58, 92,
316, 330, 347–349 123–124, 129–30, 176–183, 185,
Mill, John Stuart, 108, 110, 147, 211, 340, 354. See also lexical change,
217–218, 267; and System of Logic, loanwords
128–129; Fryer on, 131–132, 134– New Culture Movement, xi, 12, 344,
136; Yan Fu on, 150, 154–155, 156, 350
159, 164, 192; Yan Fu’s translation “New Text” ( jinwen) scholarship, 313
of, 149, 166, 169, 170–173, 176–186, Newton, Isaac, 91, 105, 161
186–188, 190–191, 252, 265, 271, Nietzsche, Friedrich, 208
290–293, 305, 329; Ma Junwu on, Nishi Amane, 123n, 217–218,
258–259 249–250, 267–268, 284
ming ‘names’, 3, 132, 156, 286,
292–293, 295–299, 301, 310, Office for Terminological
318, 320, 323, 331, 336, 358; and Standardization, 247, 256, 265,
‘objects’ (shi ), 3–4, 288, 292, 295, 407–411
319–321, 334; logic as science of, “Old Text” ( guwen) scholarship, 292,
149, 265–267, 270, 282, 290–291, 301–302, 313
293, 295–296, 298, 300, 304, Ōnishi Hajime, 211–212, 215, 222n,
313–314, 316–317, 351, 354–355, 231, 237, 261, 284
358–360;
mingbian or mingbianxue ‘(science of ) paradox, 2, 299, 329
names and disputation’, 3, 14, Peking University, 196, 347, 350
354–355, 358–360 Perny, Paul (Tong Baolu), 140
Ministry of Education, 217, 247–248, philology, 215–216, 278–279, 345–346;
256–257, 265, 275 glossing (xungu), 157–158, 210, 295,
missionaries: Jesuit, 7, 21–88, 224, 300–301, 319, 365; lesser learning
341–342; Protestant, 89–140, 342; (xiaoxue), 157, 199, 291, 293,
reliance on Chinese collaborators, 300–301, 336
21, 27, 46, 98; and imperialism, 7, philosophy, 305, 315–317, 328–329;
90, 342 natural, 23, 29, 40, 70, 91, 97, 121.
“Mohist Canons” (Mojing), 3, 54, See also Aristotle, Chinese philosophy
278–280, 283, 287–288, 336, Plato, 41, 72n, 104, 215n
345–346, 352; Liang Qichao on, Pliny, 104
314, 319–322, 325, 327; Liu Shipei Porphyry, 24, 40, 47, 50, 55, 72,
on, 299; Zhang Binglin on, 303–312; 339n
Wang Guowei on, 328, 330–333; predicate, 16, 55–56, 75–77, 80,
Hu Shi on, 349; Zhang Shizhao on, 114–115, 117, 124, 131, 133–134,
352–354 142, 178, 186, 211, 228–231,
Mozi, 3, 283, 287–288, 349, 352; Liang 237–239, 253–254, 321, 324, 356.
Qichao on, 314, 317–327, Wang See also under grammar
Guowei on, 329–333. See also “Mohist progress, 90, 129, 329
Canons” proposition, 16, 24, 42, 55, 74, 76,
Montesquieu, 170 104n, 110, 113–115, 124, 133–134,
Morgan, Augustus De, 187 229–231, 235–237, 283–284, 297,
Morrison, Robert (Ma Lixun), 139 320–321, 331, 351, 356
Muirhead, William (Mu Weilian), psychology, 44–45, 120–122, 137, 200,
98–104, 105, 316 209, 211, 217, 220–221, 225, 227,
Murakami Senjō, 308 295, 305, 328
psychologism. See under logic
Nakae Chōmin, 316
Nakajima Rikizō, 218–219, 285 Qian Jiazhi, 223, 235–236, 239n, 242,
Nanyang College, 194, 201, 207 369, 407–411
“National Essence” ( guocui ), 294–295, quantification, 109, 187, 211, 311–312,
301, 314 321, 324, 332
index 469
race, 90, 116, 151, 191, 204 Schopenhauer, Arthur, 328, 334
reasoning, 100, 109–110, 128, science, 285, 298, 303, 305, 309, 365;
207–217, 284–285, 287, 295, 300, taxonomy of, 32, 38, 40, 60–61,
304, 306, 308, 310, 314, 316–317, 128–129, 132, 136, 336; Chinese, 6,
326, 351; rules of, 62–63, 72–74, 87, 34, 339; and religion, 68, 86, 92–93,
121, 164, 206, 218, 226, 273, 119, 121; and logic, 128–129, 161,
287–288, 292, 318–319, 322–325, 347–349; logic as “science of
333, 357, 363–364 sciences”, 8, 149, 154; and scientism
Renaissance, 23, 294, 314, 330 128–129, 151–154, 226; and
reorganization of China’s national modernity, 343
heritage (zhengli guogu), 303–304, Scientific Book Depot, 126
345–346 Semedo, Alvaro (Zeng Dezhao), 48
rhetoric, 22–23, 27, 38, 53, 60, 69, 111, Shanghai Polytechnic Institution and
112n, 199, 364 Reading Room, 93, 118n, 126
Ricci, Matteo (Li Madou), 24–25, 41, Shao Yong, 296
54n, 112, 119; and accommodation, Shen Yugui, 98
25–27, 29–37; and Tianzhu shiyi, shi/fei ‘true/false’ or ‘right/wrong’, 3, 37,
30–33; and Jihe yuanben, 33–37; on 158, 288, 313, 319. See also truth
natural reason, 68; on “white horse”, shu ‘number’, 81–84, 152, 365
32–33; on absence of logic in China, Sima Qian, 280–281
277 Sima Tan, 2n, 455
Richard, Timothy, 248 Smith, Adam, 169–170
Riehl, Alois, 285 Society for the Study of Logic, 201
Rong Qing, 197 Socrates, 215n, 286
Roscoe, Henry, 108 Song Shu, 168n, 282–283, 306
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 290 Sophists, 2, 25, 32, 266, 278, 284,
Ruggieri, Michele (Luo Mingjian), 24, 286–287, 292, 299–300, 303,
32 312–313, 316, 329
rule. See under reasoning Spencer, Herbert, 152–154, 161, 169–170
Russell, Bertrand, 215 Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu),
280–281, 296, 297n
Sambiasi, Francisco (Bi Fangji), 44 St. John’s College, 120, 193
“sameness and difference” (tongyi ), 281, Stewart, Balfour, 108
288, 298, 299n, 313, 319, 331 studies in noncanonical masters
Schall von Bell, Adam (Tang Ruowang), (zixue or zhuzixue), 9, 279, 282, 284,
65–66 301–305, 309–312, 327–330
Schlegel, Gustave, 140 style, 34, 36, 50–51, 106, 123, 127,
scholasticism, 7, 22–23, 30, 75, 95, 102, 173–175, 350–351, 364; logical, 5,
106, 120, 187, 224, 229 192, 351; of reasoning, 8, 23, 154,
School of Names (mingjia), 54, 207, 212, 164, 191–193, 261, 276
266, 277, 280, 292, 336; in Hanshu Su Shi, 189
yiwenzhi, 2; Yan Fu on, 176; Ricci on, subject, 16, 55–56, 75–77, 80,
277; Liu Shipei on, 292, 299–300; 114–115, 117, 124–125, 133–134,
Zhang Binglin on, 303–306, 309–312; 185–186, 228–231, 237–239, 253–254,
Liang Qichao on, 266, 313; Wang 321, 324, 356. See also under grammar
Guowei on, 329; Hu Shi on, Sun Baoxuan, 167
349–350; Zhang Shizhao on, 353 Sun Yat-sen, 258, 273
schools: Jesuit, 23–24, 37–38, 40, 64, Sun Yirang, 278–281, 283, 292–293,
193; Protestant, 121, 193; 302, 305, 309, 345
government funded, 93, 108, syllogism, 107, 134–135, 183–185, 285,
194–195, 201, 203, 274, 343, 348; 311, 316, 351; Jesuit Aristotelian,
private, 194, 222–223; normal, 8, 71–78, 82–84; as intellectual trap, 65,
147, 168, 199, 328n, 342; regulations 68–72, 79–86, 342; “Hindu”, 282; in
of, 194–200. See also under curriculum “Mohist Canons”, 304–305, 309–310,
470 index
320, 322–323, 325; translation of Translation Society, 205, 208

term, 183–185. See also under yinming Trigault, Nicolas ( Jin Nige), 26, 43–44,
symbols, 226–235 68
truth, 120, 124, 259, 303, 316, 365;
Takashima Heizaburō, 209–210 Christian, 58–59, 65. See also shi/fei
Takayama Rinjirō, 208–209, 256 Tytler, Alexander, 169
Tan Jiefu, 346, 355
Tan Sitong, 139 Université l’Aurore, 202, 214, 224,
Tang Yan, 220, 368, 382–385 258
Tang Zuwu, 226–227, 368, 386–390
Tao Yuanming, 167 Vagnone, Alfonso (Gao Yizhi), 45
terms, 130, 318, 320, 351; abstract, 287; variables, 78, 228–235
concrete, 287; general (universal ), Verbiest, Ferdinand (Nan Huairen),
293, 324, 332, 334; particular, 293, 65–66, 89, 138, 341; and Qionglixue,
324, 332, 334; technical, 16, 51, 54, 66–72; and logic as intellectual trap,
55, 104n, 109, 113, 123–124, 207, 68–69, 72, 79, 85; on syllogism,
217, 224, 256, 219, 300, 343, 351, 72–79, 82–83; and Kangxi emperor,
364 66–68, 86; and memorial on
terminology: logical, 15–16; Japanese, Qionglixue, 79–85
35–36, 185, 207, 217, 219, 249–250,
318, 351; Yan Fu’s, 175–186; Wang Bo, 243
coherence of, 15, 250–251, 255, 328; Wang Chong, 352
stabilization of, 247, 253–256, 275; Wang Dianji, 10, 358–360
standardization of, 94, 235, 256–257; Wang Guowei, 1, 237, 265, 368,
inconsistencies in, 225, 251, 257; 402–406; logical training of, 201, 328;
variations in, 92, 253 translation of Jevons’s Elementary
textbooks: Jesuit, 23–24, 224–226; Lessons (Bianxue), 216–217, 224; on
Protestant, 108, 118, 122–125, 127; terms borrowed from Japanese, 252;
translated from Japanese, 204, and Yan Fu, 252, 256–257, 329; and
205–224, 226–228, 367–369; Liang Qichao, 327, 330; on absence
publication of, 203, 274–275; of logic in China, 327; on Chinese
use of diagrams in, 226–227; and logic, 9, 289, 327–337; on
popularization of logic, 193–194, 343, conception, 330, 333–335; on
344, 348, 351, 353; and analogies, 331–333; on fallacies
stabilization of logical terminology 330, 331–333; on “Mohist Canons”,
246–257, 275, 370–423 330–333; on Xunzi, 333–335
theology, 22, 38, 58, 60, 63, 69, 121; Wang Rongbao, 208–209, 256, 261,
natural theology, 91, 97 367, 372–381
Tian Wuzhao, 218–219, 221, 224, 228, Wang Rongguan, 220
237, 367, 377–381 Wang Tao, 97, 99, 100, 113n
Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō, 211 Wang Yanzhi, 201–202
Toledo, Francisco de, 23–25, 41 Wang Yangming, 154
Totoki Wataru, 218–219, 228 Wang Zhanghuan, 354
translation, 9, 13–15, 304–305, 318, Whewell, William, 155
339–341, 343, 348–350; intercultural “white horse” (baima), 2, 32–33, 299.
and intracultural, 6–7, 277; lexical See also Gongsun Long
aspects of, 15, 18, 27–28, 113–116, Williams, Samuel Wells (Wei Sanwei),
269–273; difficulties of, 27, 92, 122, 139
169; strategies of, 27–28, 50–51, 113, Wu Feibo, 346, 355
123, 129–130; paraphrastic, Wu Guangjian, 168
113–114, 173; annotations in, 173, Wu Rulun, 174, 190
186–190, 214; and history of Wundt, Wilhelm, 211
concepts, 13–14, 340–341. See also
under loanwords, neologisms, terms, Xinxue ‘Learning of the Heart’, 154
terminology, Yan Fu Xu Guangqi, 33–37, 44, 119
index 471
Xu Qian, 243–245 Yin Wenzi, 292, 296, 298n, 299

Xuanxue ‘School of Dark Learning’, 3 yinming ‘knowledge of reasons’, 4, 173,
Xuanzang, 4 186–190, 214, 223, 225; inference in,
Xunzi, 3, 54, 212, 284–287, 336, 211–212, 304, 311; in Japan, 278,
352–353; on names, 397–398; on 284, 308; compared to
conception, 333–335; Liu Shipei European logic, 211, 280, 294,
on, 290–293, 296–299, 301; Zhang 306–308; compared to Mohist
Binglin on, 303–304, 306, 310–312; notions, 280, 306–308
Wang Guowei on, 327, 329–330, Yu Yu, 12, 354, 359
333–335 Yu Yue, 305, 392–393
Yuan Shikai, 189
Yan Fu, 8, 201, 203, 218, 223, 226, Yue Fei, 189
228, 249, 251, 252, 255, 258, 270, Yongzheng emperor, 89
276, 351; as propagator of logic,
149–154, 164–168; critique of Zhan Jianfeng, 357–358
intuitive knowledge, 153–158, Zhang Baixi, 168, 196–198
161–162, 187–188; inductionism of, Zhang Binglin, 9, 318, 348, 349;
154–158, 161–162; and logic as quest scholarly background of, 166,
for authenticity, 164–165; on glossing, 301–302, 305–306; and Buddhism,
158–160; on definitions, 158–160; 304–312; and Song Shu, 306; and
on induction and deduction, 160–164; Liu Shipei, 301–302, 304, 312; and
on syllogism, 183–185, 187, 189; on Hu Shi, 348; on Chinese logic, 289,
difficulties of translation, 169, 173; 301–312, 335–336; on names
translation of Mill’s System of Logic, 303–304, 306, 310–311; on Mozi
170–172, 186–188; translation of 306–310; on School of Names
Jevons’s Logic primer, 162–164, 172, 303–305; on Xunzi, 303–304,
188–190; style of, 173–175; 310–311; comparing inferences in
adaptation of examples, 189–190; “Mohist Canons,” yinming, and
translation of ‘logic’, 176, 264–269, European logic, 306–312
313; impact on Chinese views of Zhang Dainian, 355
logic, 190–192, 210, 214, 224, 274, Zhang Dongsun, 355–357
290–291, 300, 305, 315, 342–344; Zhang Huiyan, 279, 309
and new school curricula, 193–194, Zhang Junmai, 214–216, 258, 368,
196, 198; and Liang Qichao, 396–401
174–175, 196, 258, 261, 266–268, Zhang Lixuan, 272
276, 313, 315–317; and Liu Shipei, Zhang Shizhao, 11–12, 166, 269–273,
290–291, 293, 300; and Wang 350–354, 357, 359
Guowei, 252, 256–257, 329; at Zhang Yuanji, 147, 166, 171–172, 194
Office for Terminological Zhang Zhidong, 189, 195, 197–200,
Standardization, 256–257, 275; and 204, 217, 250, 264, 274
opium, 167–168, 170; critique of, 223, zhengming ‘the correct use of names’,
313, 329, 353 157, 284–285, 290, 292, 298,
Yan Yongjing, 129, 133, 138, 169, 300–301, 303, 329, 334–336
185; education of, 121; translation of Zhou Dunyi, 235
Haven’s Mental Philosophy (Xinlingxue), Zhou Wenying, 10
122–125; translation of logical terms, Zhou Yunzhi, 10, 355
123–124 Zhu Xi, 130, 163–164, 185
Yang Tianji, 221, 367, 391–395 Zhu Zhixin, 260–261, 266
Yang Tingyun, 37 zhuzixue. See studies in noncanonical
Yang Yinhang, 207, 231–232, 242–243, masters
245, 367, 372–376 Zhuangzi, 3, 287, 296, 299n, 306, 349
Ye Lan, 256n Zikawei (Xujiahui), 47, 119, 202, 225
Yen, W. W. (Yen Huiqing), 167n, Zottoli, Angelo (Chao Deli), 120
269 Zou Boqi, 279, 309

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The Discovery of Chinese Logic

Modern Chinese Philosophy

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/mcp.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

List of Illustrations ...................................................................... vii

Chapter One First Encounters: Jesuit Logica in the Late Ming

Chapter Two Haphazard Overtures: Logic in

Chapter Three Great Expectations: Yan Fu and the

Chapter Four Spreading the Word: Logic in Late Qing

Chapter Five Heritage Unearthed: The Discovery of Chinese

Epilogue ...................................................................................... 339

Appendix ..................................................................................... 367

Bibliography ................................................................................ 425

Index ........................................................................................... 463

4.1 Fan Diji, Lunlixue wenda, 1903 (1) .................................... 230

1.1 Phonemic Loans in the Mingli tan (1631/1639) ............. 53

narrating the biography of Chinese logic, as I initially imagined, their

Dahlem possible, and to my friends Rui Magone, Martina Siebert,

in Shanghai, Federico Masini in Rome, Frits Staal in Amsterdam,

It magnifies their originality to read [ past authors]

1. “Chinese Logic” and Logic in China

The emergence of a discourse on “Chinese logic”—a term used

of persuasive argumentation in scholarly debate.12 In the seventh and

intellectual offspring. At the turn of the twentieth century, even special-

The following chapters reconstruct how the abrupt and unexpected

The aim of this study is to reconstruct the history of this twofold

control of the conceptual space in which political and scholarly dis-

fueled the translation of dozens of new textbooks, most of which were

3. Discovery and Translation

Despite its intricate conception, the conventional image of Chinese

the obvious fact that the translation and naturalization of European

appropriation of Western logic is treated as a more or less accidental,

(1881–1973),29 Guo Zhanbo 郭湛波,30 or Yu Yu 虞愚 (1909–1989),31

it has left the unwarranted claim of continuity unchallenged but also

Shuo Yu, “L’introduction de la philosophie de la logique en Chine,” Archives europénnes

of translation involves much more than lexical substitution. Instead,

Chinese discourses possible.42 Even in the narrowest sense of the word,

a sample of 129 English terms crucial to the types of logic shaping

followed Liu’s theoretical lead and transposed her insights to addi-

ipso facto disqualification.”54 The aim of the following chapters is thus

Logica guides humans in advancing their intellect,

failure. It did little, if anything, to enlarge or transform the conceptual

1. Logic in Jesuit Education

Aristotelian logic occupied a prominent place in the Jesuits’ educational

forms of argumentation, which formed an important part of these

course in logic20 and classes in controversy at the Collegio Romano,21

2. Accommodation and Translation

threaten or undermine the social and political order of the Chinese

and moral knowledge, in persuasive and stylistically appealing texts

fathers and their collaborators shifted their translational strategy to

3. Logic in Early Jesuit Writings

In view of the linguistic difficulties involved, the textual production of

pertaining to the mechanics of reasoning.41 Closer to the point was

1. The Tianzhu shiyi

and “particular” by gong ( public, just) and si ( private, selfish) blended

2. The Jihe yuanben

of Euclidean proofs in their adaptation. Instead of reproducing all five

dingyi 定義 ‘determination of the meaning’. Even in this instance, how-

agriculture, medicine, hydraulics, food production, and, above all, mil-

3. The Xixue fan

arithmetics, geometry, music, and calendrical studies) as well as edijia

4. Logic as the Patterns of Names