The Pattern of the Way: Reflections on the Argumentation of the Wenzi

The present study aims to demonstrate how certain argumentative features of a text that exists only in a fragmentary fashion can be used to gain a fuller picture of its original content and structure. The Daoist treatise Wenzi 文子 is particularly suitable for this study, for it is available in two different but similarly distorted and fragmented versions: the received text as well as some Western Han 西漢 (206 B.C.-A.D. 6) fragments obtained at the archeological site of Dingzhou 定州 (1973). The study first deals with the numerous parallels between the Wenzi and other early Chinese manuscripts. In addition to demonstrating the major influence of Laozi 老子 and Xunzi 荀子 and adducing circumstantial evidence for the time of the text's creation, the intertextual parallels also point to the importance of specific argumentative features. Among them, ＂antithetical parallelism＂ appears to be one of the most salient. The focus of the study is the reconstruction of a text sequence using this rhetorical figure. Furthermore, it argues that despite the widespread usage of ＂antithetical parallelism＂ in early Chinese texts, including the Laozi, there is some evidence to identify the source of the Wenzi's inspiration for this particular argument as the Xunzi. In the latter, ＂antithesis＂ was one of the important constituents of the ＂patterned＂ discourse (wen) meant to reflect the theme of wen, the cultural legacy of the early Zhou Kings. Given the often neglected importance of the notion wen in the Wenzi, signifying the complete realization of the central Daoist notion, the Way (dao 道), the study concludes with the claim that, just like the Xunzi, the Wenzi also attempted to establish a connection between the content of its philosophical teaching and its formal, textual representation.

關鍵字

Wenzi ； intertextuality ； antithesis ； Xunzi ； Laozi

並列摘要

本研究旨在探討如何從現存殘篇中的論證特點來推測原始文本的整體內容和結構。道家典籍《文子》十分適合用來做這樣的研究，《文子》現有的兩個版本，即今本《文子》和1973年定州出土的西漢簡本《文子》，雖然存在一定差異，但都殘缺不全，且為人篡改過。本文首先分析了《文子》與其他早期中國文獻間的相似之處。研究發現《文子》在很大程度上受到《老子》和《荀子》的影響，這也為研究文本的創作時代提供了間接證據；此外，文本間的互文性也反映出特定論證特點的重要性，其中「反義平行」是最為突出的。本文的重點是要通過文本的修辭方式來重建文本序列。儘管包括《老子》在內的中國早期文獻都廣泛使用「反義平行」，但仍然能找到一些證據表明《荀子》才是《文子》的靈感來源，而「反義平行」恰恰構成了《荀子》中「文」的話語模式，並以此來闡釋周代所崇尚的文化價值—「文」。《文子》中「文」這一概念極為重要，儘管這一點經常被人忽視，它意味著道家的核心概念「道」得以完全實現。本文認為，正如《荀子》一樣，《文子》也試圖建立一種哲學學說內涵與表現形式上關聯。

並列關鍵字

《文子》；互文性；反義平行；《荀子》；《老子》

國際替代計量

The Pattern of the Way: Reflections on the Argumentation of the Wenzi

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