Poetic Wisdom of Language: A Collection of Philosophical, Linguistic, and Cultural Works by Ma Qinzhong

Author: Ma Qinzhong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-12-01
Features: The collected essays in this book are divided into three parts. The first part explores the necessity of distinguishing between factual and value issues in cultural exchange and research; it focuses on establishing the value foundation of Chinese indigenous culture, especially under the context where Western humanities research is increasingly tending toward "poeticization," highlighting the vitality of Chinese cultural values. The second part discusses the individual characteristics and humanistic responsibilities of artists as intellectuals, analyzing and contrasting the different cultural perspectives on music and mathematics between ancient China and ancient Greece. The third part is the core of the book, employing Western linguistic philosophy, linguistic culture, and hermeneutics, combined with Chinese textualology, etymology, and phonology, to use Chinese characters as a medium to propose the concept of "synchronic culture" in Chinese cultural tradition. It elaborates on the social formation of the "synchronic culture" tradition, which tends toward "antiquity" in temporal tradition and "centrality" in spatial transmission, thereby demonstrating from an important perspective the cultural and social functions of the poetic wisdom of language.