The Problem of the Philosophy of Language in the Reigns of Emperors Qianlong and Jiaqing

Kang Yu

   In the reigns of Emperors Qianlong and Jiaqing, there emerged an important “linguistic turn” of Chinese philosophy. Although the turn did not create the modern philosophy of language in China, it caused deep concern of the language itself, especially discussion of several key problems on philosophy of language. Through the expositions of characters, words, mind, and Tao, the scholars connected the value and significance of words, terms, cultural institution, and linguistic studies with noble ideal on value of pursuing Tao of the sages. Through theoretical reflection of the significance of language, the scholars analysed the evolution of the significance of Chinese characters in time and space, constructed series of concrete methods of understanding and interpreting significance, as well as touched the understanding of “hermeneutic circle”. And through the analyses of the essence-function theory of the six categories of Chinese characters, they revealed the organic unification of static form of characters and dynamic application of language, showed the dialectic relation between pronunciation and meaning, as well as inferred the relation between “objects” and “rules” in language to some extent.