Description: This book considers the relation between language and thought. Robert Wardy explores this huge topic by analyzing linguistic relativism with reference to a Chinese translation of Aristotle's Categories. He addresses some key questions, such as, do the basic structures of language shape the major thought patterns of its native speakers? Could philosophy be guided and constrained by the language in which it is done? And does Aristotle survive rendition into Chinese intact? Wardy's answers will fascinate philosophers, Sinologists, classicists, linguists and anthropologists, and make a major contribution to the scholarly literature.
Review Quotes: '... we in Chinese studies clearly owe a considerable debt to Robert Wardy, and hope that he will find other examples of cultural intercommunication between the classical tradition of Western philosophy and China with which to beguile our increasingly rare moments of reflection.' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society