Rudolf G. Wagner is Professor of Chinese Studies at the University of Heidelberg. He is the author of several books, including The Craft of a Chinese Commentator: Wang Bi on the Laozi, also published by SUNY Press.

Preface

Introduction

1. Discerning the That-by-Which: The Language of the Laozi and the Lunyu

A Plea for a History of Understanding
The Consensus: The Ineffability of the Sage's Thinking
The Radical Position
Developing Reading Strategies
The Discussion about Language and the Thinking of the Sage in Wei
The Structural Contradiction of the Confucius Texts: Talking about That-Which-Is-Dark
The Logical Deduction of the Unnameability of That-by-Which the Ten Thousand Kinds of Entities Are
The Deduction of the Possibility of Limited but Sufficiently Grounded Propositions about That-by- Which the Ten Thousand Kinds of Entities Are
Traces of the That-by-Which Found by the Confucius Texts within the Structures of Discernible Entities: Antinomy and Negation
Grasping Aspects of the That-by-Which
An Explanation of the Images [Xiang of the Zhouyi]

2. Wang Bi's Ontology

The Framework of Analysis
Wang Bi's Inquiry into the That-by-Which
Wang Bi's Approach
The Binary Structural Organization of Entities
The Order of the Ten Thousand Kinds of Entities
The One and the Many
The Dao
The Dark

3. Wang Bi's Political Philosophy

The Actual and Perpetual Crisis of Human Society
The Causes of the Crisis
Operating the Return: The Sage
Sagely Politics as Public Performance
Wang Bi's Philosophy: An Ideology?

Notes

Bibliography

Index