Overview
The current study argues that different cultures can coexist better today if we focus not only on what separates them but also on what connects them. To do so, the author discusses how both Aristotle and Confucius see rhetoric as a mode of thinking that is indispensable to the human understanding of the truths of things or dao-the-way, or, how both see the human understanding of the truths of things or dao-the-way as necessarily communal, open-ended, and discursive. Based on this similarity, the author aims to develop a more nuanced understanding of differences to help foster better cross-cultural communication. In making the argument, she critically examines two stereotyped views: that Aristotle’s concept of essence or truth is too static to be relevant to the rhetorical focus on the realm of human affairs and that Confucius’ concept of dao-the-way is too decentered to be compatible with the inferential/discursive thinking. In addition, the author relies primarily on the interpretations of the Analects by two 20th-century Chinese Confucians to supplement the overreliance on renderings of the Analects in recent comparative rhetorical scholarship. The study shows that we need an in-depth understanding of both the other and the self to comprehend the relation between the two.
Full Product Details
Author: Haixia Lan
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint: Routledge
Weight: 0.440kg
ISBN: 9780367884789
ISBN 10: 036788478
Pages: 228
Publication Date: 12 December 2019
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Tertiary & Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
Without any doubt [Lan] manages to put the two great thinkers, Greek and Chinese, on one platform where a comparison is possible ... the value of this work is this very approach. We must try to find ways of communication even across such difficult gulfs. Lan manages to bridge these very different worlds. - Matylda Amat Obryk, Heinrich-Heine-University, Germany, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2017
""Without any doubt [Lan] manages to put the two great thinkers, Greek and Chinese, on one platform where a comparison is possible ... the value of this work is this very approach. We must try to find ways of communication even across such difficult gulfs. Lan manages to bridge these very different worlds."" - Matylda Amat Obryk, Heinrich-Heine-University, Germany, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2017
Without any doubt [Lan] manages to put the two great thinkers, Greek and Chinese, on one platform where a comparison is possible ... the value of this work is this very approach. We must try to find ways of communication even across such difficult gulfs. Lan manages to bridge these very different worlds. - Matylda Amat Obryk, Heinrich-Heine-University, Germany, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2017
Author Information
Haixia W. Lan received her PhD in English from Purdue University with an emphasis on Rhetoric and Composition and Literary Theory. She works at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, teaching writing as a process of learning; theories of rhetorical invention; the grammar, politics, ethics of style; and comparative rhetoric. Her research is in all of these areas, and she is the academic director of 2+2 English degree program.
