Abstract

Since China's encounter with Western cultural history and its arguably most regal discipline, philosophy, it has been convenient for both Western and Chinese scholars to regard the texts attributed to pre-Qin Masters as counterparts of the Western discipline of philosophy. Although this assumption has secured the "Masters Texts" a broad readership, it has also severely restricted their interpretation, often reducing them to offering answers to questions that have been asked throughout the history of Western ethics, metaphysics and epistemology. ;This dissertation makes a case for reading what is commonly considered "Chinese philosophy" instead as a textual genre of "Masters Literature" and analyzes its generic conventions and rhetorical strategies from the Analects through the Han Feizi. The dissertation illustrates the potential of the proposed paradigm shift with a rich array of close readings. ;The first chapter sketches the development of the philosophical paradigm providing selected snapshots from the times of the Jesuit mission to the present. The chapter also touches upon the complex symbiosis of figural language with intellectual message. ;The second chapter analyzes the development of the notion of "Masters Literature" in the Late Warring States and Han. In inverse chronology it explores the rivalry between the canon of "Classics" and of "Masters Literature," analyzes biographies of masters in the Shiji, and samples polemics among the Masters Texts themselves to ultimately argue for a text-immanent understanding of "Masters Literature" as a discursive space and to decouple its definition from Han imaginations. ;Chapters Three to Nine constitute the heart of the thesis. The seven vignettes of the Analects, Mozi, Mencius, Xunzi, Laozi, Zhuangzi, and the Han Feizi put the proposed paradigm shift to the practical test of close reading. ;The dissertation closes on a study comparing Han visions of pre-Qin Masters with Hellenistic imaginations of Early Greek thinkers. ;Although only the last chapter is explicitly comparative, the dissertation as a whole has a comparative message. Its ideal intention is to suggest that closer attention to textual analysis---sidestepping the dated antagonism between "rhetoric" and "philosophy"---is more strongly desirable for the discipline of Western academic philosophy than is currently acknowledged