The Structure of Chinese Language and Ontological Insights :: China Chinese Language Essays

The Structure of Chinese dustup and ontological InsightsABSTRACT Through a comparative analysis of the Chinese language, this newspaper discusses how the social organization and functions of a natural language would bear upon the ways in which whatever philosophic problems be posed and some ontological insights are shaped. By this case analysis, the aim of this paper is to contribute to the elucidation of the tattle betwixt language and philosophy in this regard. 1. IntroductionThrough a comparative case analysis regarding the Chinese language, this paper discusses how the structure and functions of a natural language would bear upon the ways in which some philosophical problems are posed and some ontological insights are shaped. In so doing, I suggest and argue for a mereological collective-noun hypothesis more or less the denotational semantics of Chinese nouns. By this case analysis, the paper aims to contribute to the elucidation of the relation between language and phil osophy in this regard.My discussion begins with a father wherefore the classical Platonic one-many problem in the Western philosophical customs duty has not been consciously posed in the Chinese philosophical custom and why, generally speech, classical Chinese philosophers seem less interested in debating the relevant ontological issues. (1)One suspects that the structures and uses of different languages might play their roles in pushing philosophical theorization in different directions the ways of speaking and writing of the Chinese language might reveal and reflect Chinese folk ideology and then influence the ways in which trusted philosophical questions are posed and certain ontological insights are formed. This puzzle is significant because it is concerned with a fundamental philosophical question about the relation between thought and language.The problem of relating Chinese thought to the structure and functions of the Chinese language has for generations tantalized sino logists and those philosophers who are concerned with the problem. Nevertheless, in the last decade, some significant progress has been made in this regard. In his book Language and Logic in Ancient China, (2) Chad Hansen advances a novel and provocative guess about the nature of the classical Chinese language. (3) The central thesis of Hansens possibleness is his mass-noun hypothesis. Its main ideas are these (1) the (folk) semantics of Chinese nouns are give care those of mass-nouns (i.e., those nouns referring to the so-called interpenetrating stuffs, like water and snow), and naming in Chinese is not grounded on the existence of, or roles for, abstract entities (either on