Ideography and Chinese Language Theory A History - Compress

Timothy Michael O’Neill
Ideography and Chinese Language Theory

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Timothy Michael O’Neill
Ideography and Chinese
Language Theory
A History
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgements —— vii
Introduction: Egyptian Hieroglyphic and Chinese Characters —— 1
Chapter 1: Platonism and the Strong Theory —— 18
Chapter 2: Aristotelianism and the Soft Theory —— 32
Chapter 3: Hellenized Egypt, Pythagoreanism, and the Primitivist Theory —— 42
Chapter 4: Patristic Apologetics and the Scriptural Theory —— 59
Chapter 5: Neoplatonism and the Hermetic Theory —— 85
Chapter 6: Universals and the Scholastic Theory —— 108
Chapter 7: Renaissance Neoplatonism and the Emblematic Theory —— 135
Chapter 8: Athanasius Kircher on Egyptian and Chinese Ideography —— 144
Chapter 9: The Great Chinese Encyclopedia —— 156
Chapter 10: Zhengming 正名 “Making Words Correct” and Chinese Language

Theory —— 177
Chapter 11: Chinese Language Theory and the Interpretation of

the Classics —— 189
Chapter 12: The Erya and Lexicographic Classification —— 202
Chapter 13: The Erya and Chinese Language Theory —— 214
Chapter 14: The Shuowen jiezi and Chinese Language Theory —— 236
Chapter 15: The “Shuowen Postface” (Annotated Translation) —— 258
Conclusion: Ideography and Chinese Language Theory —— 274
Appendix: The Metalinguistic Terms ming 名, yi 義, yi 意, and zhi 志 —— 285
Bibliography —— 306
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Oliver Weingarten, Wolfgang Behr, David Knechtges, Zev
Handel, Leroy Searle, Henry Staten, Patricia Ebrey, Anna Shields, Zhou Chang
zhen, Mark Pitner, Nicholas Williams, Gregory Patterson, Charles Sanft, William
Boltz, Jerry Norman, Ken-ichi Takashima, Paul Kroll, David Tod Roy, Edward
Shaughnessy, Jere Fleck, and three anonymous reviewers for the Swiss Asia
Society. I should also take this opportunity to express my profound gratitude to
Kelly Joebgen, for living with this project for so long.
Part of the research for this study was conducted during a Fulbright Fellow
ship in Taiwan and a portion of the writing was done during a Fellowship from the
Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange, for which I
would like to once again state my thanks. An earlier version of chapters 14–15 was
previously published as “Xu Shen’s Scholarly Agenda: A New Interpretation of
the Postface of the Shuowen jiezi,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 133.3
(2013): 412–440.
This book is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Alfred Fraser.
Introduction: Egyptian Hieroglyphic and
Chinese Characters
Analyzing the classical Chinese word shan 譱 “to regard something as good,
beautiful,” the Jesuit figurist Prémare wrote: “what this hieroglyph shows us is
羊, ‘lamb’, between two 言, ‘words, to speak’. Reading the parts of the charac
ters across… tells us that 言 plus 羊 means that those that came before spoke of
the lamb—the Old Testament prophets—while 羊 plus 言 means that the lamb
spoke—agni verba, Jesus Christ speaking to us.”1 Relying on his study of the
Shuowen jiezi 說文解字, the first etymological dictionary of Chinese, Prémare
astutely picked out the oldest character registered in the lexicographic tradition
for the word he was working on, whose graphic elements are indeed two 言 and
a 羊 (譱, the guwen character which writes the word more generally written 善).2
His figural analysis of the ‘etymology’ of the word shan is nothing short of the
most critically representative example of the complexity of ideographic theory in
the history of European thought: it combines elements of the strong, soft, primi
tivist, scriptural, hermetic, scholastic, and emblematic theories of ideography all
together at once simultaneously.3 These seven iterations of ideographic theory
will be examined in detail in chapters 1–7.
In terms of a historical context for Prémare’s figural exegesis of this ‘hiero
glyph’, Chinese characters were introduced to European reading audiences in
1585 and almost immediately assimilated to millennia-old European theories
about Egyptian hieroglyphic.4 In order to curtail any uncertainty about the nature
1 Knud Lundbæk, Joseph de Prémare (1666–1736), S.J.: Chinese Philology and Figurism (Aarhus:
Aarhus University Press, 1991), 31. For discussion of Figurism, see: Arnold H. Rowbotham, “The
Jesuit Figurists and Eighteenth-Century Religious Thought,” Journal of the History of Ideas 17.4
(1956): 471–485.
2 “譱正, 善今” (Longkan shoujing, 160.6–7, in Shi Xingjun 釋行均 [fl. 997 C.E.], Longkan shoujing gaoli
ben 龍龕手鏡高麗本 [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006]). On the topic of guwen 古文, see chapter 14.
3 I take the ‘strong’ and ‘soft’ designations from Stolzenberg’s terms for distinctions in the history
of European symbolism, see: Daniel Stolzenberg, Egyptian Oedipus: Athanasius Kircher and the
Secrets of Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), 57–58, 198–199, and 242–243.
4 After the introduction of Chinese writing to Europe, Egyptian hieroglyphs (as ‘ideographs’)
were thereupon and consequently just as often compared to Chinese characters (as ‘ideographs’)—
and later Egyptologists were forever despairing of those individuals who “recourir à l’éternelle
comparaison avec la Chine” (Henri Sottas, “Préface,” in Jean-François Champollion, Lettre à
M. Dacier, Secrétaire Perpétuel de L’Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, relative
à l’alphabet des hiéroglyphes phonétiques employés par les Égyptiens pour inscrire sur leurs
monuments les titres, les noms et les surnoms des souverains Grecs et Romains: édition du
centenaire [Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1922], 33n2).
2 Introduction: Egyptian Hieroglyphic and Chinese Characters
of Egyptian writing, I here provide a brief description of the history of its four
types—hieroglyphic, hieratic, Demotic, and Coptic (the last two are often consid
ered as writing separate languages, albeit directly descended from Old, Middle,
and Late Pharaonic Egyptian):5
Hieroglyphic: a script used to write Old and Middle Egyptian from about 3200
B.C.E. to the last datable inscription of August 24th, 394 C.E., consisting of
a combination of single consonant graphemes, called uniliterals (as in the
writing systems for languages like Moabite, Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, and
Arabic, vowels are not written), multi-consonant graphemes (called biliteral
for two consonants and triliteral for three), and determinatives for distin
guishing in writing between otherwise homophonous words (determinatives
which are placed without exception at the end of the phonetically-spelled
word). These determinatives, also known as classifiers, should perhaps be
explained more clearly. There are two types of determinatives: phonetic (self-
explanatory, in that they reinforce phonetic readings—like English 2nd, which
forces you to read the 2 as the ordinal number word rather than the cardinal
number word) and lexical. A simple illustration of how lexical determinatives
work should suffice: it would be as if in written English, in order to distinguish
between the various words signified by the combined graphemes B-A-L-L, we
added superscripts of other written English words so as to remove ambiguity
(we would not actually pronounce the superscripts when reading the word out
loud). For example, were one to write B-A-L-Lsphere, or B-A-L-Ldance, or the more
colloquial B-A-L-Lfun, it would readily allow the reader to determine which word
was intended by B-A-L-L (homophony is relatively rare in English words, but
in those of other languages—e.g., Chinese or Egyptian—it is quite common,
which makes lexical determinatives practical and helpful in writing). This type
of classifier is in all cases in and of itself an extant and pronounceable word in
the particular language being written,6 and hence should properly be called
an interlexical classifier—as it associates a particular word with other words
5 The standard Egyptological reference work is Wolfgang Helck and Eberhard Otto, ed., Lexicon
der Ägyptologie, 7 vols. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1975–1992). The ancient Egyptians, of course,
had their own dictionaries; for annotated translation, analysis, and discussion of Pharaonic
Egyptian lexica, see: Alan H. Gardiner, Ancient Egyptian Onomastica, 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1968).
6 For Pharaonic Egyptian see: Bjørn Jespersen and Chris Reintges, “Tractarian Sätze, Egyptian
Hieroglyphs, and the Very Idea of Script as Picture,” The Philosophical Forum Quarterly 39
(2008): 10n27; Karl Richard Lepsius, “Lettre à Monsieur le Prof. Hippolyte Rosellini sur l’alphabet
hiéroglyphique,” Bulletino dell’Istituto di correspondenza archeologica 9 (1837): 32.
Introduction: Egyptian Hieroglyphic and Chinese Characters 3
in the same language, in order to clarify which word is actually being written
in that instance—a kind of interlexical disambiguator.7 The hieroglyphic script
is lexigraphic, in that each distinct grouping of the combination of consonant
graphemes and classifiers always writes a particular word (which comes from a
particular spoken language—in this case, Egyptian in various historical stages).
Hieratic: an abridged form of hieroglyphic (basically like cursive handwriting)8
used to write Middle and Late Egyptian from about 2500 B.C.E. to about 700
B.C.E., at which time Demotic began to be used more frequently (last datable
inscription in hieratic is 3rd century C.E.).
Demotic: an even more calligraphically abbreviated form of hieratic used
to write the Demotic stage of the Egyptian spoken language from about 700
B.C.E. to 452 C.E., the last datable inscription in Demotic.
Coptic: an alphabetic script with 31 or 32 letters (25 letters from Greek and 6 or
7 uniliterals from Demotic), invented by Roman Egyptian Christians, used to
write spoken Coptic Egyptian from about the 2nd century C.E. until the present
day (it still marginally survives as the liturgical language of the Coptic Church).
As with all writing systems, any language can be more or less successfully written
in any script; examples such as Hittite (an ancient—and highly inflectional—Â�Indo-
European language) being written in both hieroglyphic and cuneiform, Egyptian
7 For discussion of lexical determinatives in the four original writing systems, those being
Sumerian (17 lexical classifiers), Egyptian (93 common lexical classifiers), Chinese (traditionally
between 540 and 214 lexical classifiers), and Mayan (perhaps 1 lexical classifier), see: John
L. Hayes, A Manual of Sumerian Grammar and Texts (Malibu: Undena, 1990), 14; Dietz Otto
Edzard, Sumerian Grammar (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 9–10; Alan H. Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar,
Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs: Third Edition, Revised (Oxford: Griffith
Institute, 2007), 31–33 and 442–543; Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian: A linguistic introduction
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 13; Henri Sottas and E. Drioton, Introduction
à l’étude des hiéroglyphes (Paris: Geuthner, 1922), 12–15; Lepsius, “Lettre à Monsieur le Prof.
Hippolyte Rosellini,” 58–62; William G. Boltz, The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese
Writing System (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1994), 67–72; John Montgomery, How to
Read Maya Hieroglyphs (New York: Hippocrene, 2003), 50–51, 80, and 129; Ignace J. Gelb, A Study
of Writing: Revised Edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 102–103.
8 Champollion described hieratic as a “veritable tachygraphy,” see: Jean-François Champollion,
Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens, ou recherches sur les élémens premiers
de cette écriture sacrée, sur leurs diverses combinaisons, et sur les rapports de ce système avec les
autres methods graphiques égyptiennes, seconde edition, 2 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1828),
1:18–21, 1:45, and 1:420–421; Jean-François Champollion, Grammaire égyptienne, ou principes
généraux de l’écriture sacrée égyptienne appliquée à la représentation de la langue parlée, ed.
Jacques-Joseph Champollion-Figeac (Paris: Didot, 1836), xii and 15.
being written in cuneiform, Akkadian being written in hieroglyphic, Greek being

written in hieroglyphic, Elamite being written in cuneiform, and Sanskrit, Mon
golian, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese being written in Chinese characters are
common occurrences in the ancient and modern world. The only major problem
is that a script traditionally associated with (if not invented to write) one language
sometimes lacks the means to write the sound values of another language—e.g.,
why the inventors of the Coptic alphabet took 6 or 7 letters (uniliteral consonant
graphemes) from Demotic in order to be able to write the sounds of the Egyptian
language that could not be written with the existing Greek alphabet.9
The first historical occurrence of script-borrowing is that of the Akkadians
in the mid-third millennium B.C.E. borrowing Sumerian cuneiform to write Old
Akkadian (a Semitic language linguistically unrelated to Sumerian). The Sume
rians—the first inventors of writing on earth—had an epic version of the story of
the invention of writing, which ascribes this innovation to the inability of a royal
messenger to remember a particularly grand oral missive recited by the king: “His
speech was very grand, its meaning very deep; the messenger’s mouth… could not
repeat it. The lord of Kulab patted some clay and put the words on it as on a tablet.
Before that day, there had been no putting words on clay; but now, when the sun
rose on that day—so it was! The lord of Kulab had put words as on a tablet—so it
was!”10 Even Ignace Gelb, whose grammatological work is otherwise extremely
problematic, admits that “the signs used in the earliest [Sumerian] writing are
clearly word signs… this is the stage of writing we call logography or word writing
and which should be sharply distinguished from the so-called ‘ideography’.”11
As cuneiform script, invented to write Sumerian, is structurally a combination
of syllabographs and lexigraphs, the Akkadians were able to make the shift with
only those few script changes needed to write the emphatic consonants and the
glottal stop of Old Akkadian—sounds that did not occur in spoken Sumerian (and
thus were not originally part of cuneiform script); copious amounts of cuneiform
bilingual dictionaries still survive—beginning around 2300 B.C.E. as word-lists,
becoming canonical recensions by around 1200 B.C.E., and continuously copied out
on clay tablets until the early years C.E.—wherein each Sumerian word is first spelled
9 The number 6 or 7 depended on which dialect of Coptic, see: Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar,
6; G. P. G. Sobhy, “The Pronunciation of Coptic in the Church of Egypt,” Journal of Egyptian
Archaeology 2 (1915): 15–19; William H. Worrell, Coptic Sounds (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 1934); L. Depudt, “On Coptic Sounds,” Orientalia 62 (1993): 338–375.
10 “Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta,” in Herman Vanstiphout, trans., Epics of Sumerian Kings:
The Matter of Aratta, ed. Jerrold A. Cooper (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 85.
11 Gelb, Study of Writing, 65. For the problems, cf. Gelb, Study of Writing, 35, 85, 95, 106–107,
249–250, and 283n45.
phonetically with syllabographs, then its lexigraph is given, followed by a definition

gloss in Sumerian, and a translation gloss in Akkadian (Sumerian was retained as
a literary language after the Old Babylonian period, 1894–1595 B.C.E., during which
time it died out as a spoken tongue). The huge corpus of Mesopotamian lexico
graphic works was published over the course of the mid-twentieth century.12
Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832) was able to decipher the hieroglyphic
writing system and read Pharaonic Egyptian not simply because he could iden
tify the phonetic values of particular graphemes via the combined hieroglyphic,
Demotic, and Greek transcription of the name of Ptolemy on the Rosetta Stone,
or that of Cleopatra et al. in various inscriptions (others, like Thomas Young, had
also done this),13 but more importantly because he assumed that the majority of
the hieroglyphs outside the cartouche were also phonetic in nature, and actually
wrote the spoken language of ancient Egypt.14
12 Benno Landsberger et al., ed., Materialien zum sumerischen Lexikon, 18 vols. (Rome: Pontificio
Instituto Biblico, 1937–1986). For further discussion, see: Miguel Civil, “Lexicography,” in
Stephen J. Lieberman, ed., Sumerological Studies in Honor of Thorkild Jacobson on his seventieth
birthday, June 7, 1974 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 123–157; Morgens Trolle Larsen,
“The Mesopotamian Lukewarm Mind: Reflections on Science, Divination, and Literacy,” in
Francesca Rochberg-Halton, ed., Language, Literature, and History: Philological and Historical
Studies Presented to Erica Reiner (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1987), 203–205; Aage
Westenholz, “An essay on the Sumerian ‘Lexical’ Texts of the Third Millennium,” Orientalia
54 (1985): 294–298; Hayes, Manual of Sumerian Grammar, 273–276; Miguel Civil, “Sumerian,”
in Giulio Lepschy, ed., History of Linguistics, 4 vols. (London: Longman, 1994–1998), 1:76–87;
Jean-Claude Boulanger, Les Inventeurs de dictionnaires: de l’eduba des scribes mésopotamiens au
scriptorium des moines médiévaux (Ottowa: Les Presses de l’Université d’Ottowa, 2003), 65–96.
13 Thomas Young, An Account of Some Recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature and
Egyptian Antiquities including the Author’s Original Alphabet as Extended by Mr. Champollion with
a translation of five unpublished Greek and Egyptian manuscripts (London: John Murry, 1823), 14,
18–19, 21–22, 32, 43, 45–49, 51, 56–57, and 61–62.
14 Viz., “les signes reconnus pour phonétiques dans les noms propres, conservent cette valuer
phonétiques dans tous les textes hiéroglyphiques où ils se rencontrent… c’est-à-dire que ces hiéroglyphes
sont phonétiques dans l’un comme dans l’autre cas… signes purement phonétiques, experiment les
sons et les articulations des mots de la langue égyptienne” (Champollion, Précis, 1:102–106—in all cases
the emphatic italics are Champollion’s); “les anciens Égyptiens l’employèrent à toutes les époques,
pour représenter alphabétiquement les sons des mots de leur langue parlée… toutes les inscriptions
hiéroglyphiques sont, en très-grande partie, composées de signes purement alphabétiques” (Précis,
1:11); “comme l’alphabet des caractères phonétiques est, selon moi, la clef principale de l’écriture
hiéroglyphique” (Précis, 1:20); “une très-grande partie des caractères qui composent toute inscription
hiéroglyphique, expriment, et l’on ne saurait plus en douter, des voix et des articulations, c’est-à-dire,
des mots de la langue parlée des Égyptiens” (Précis, 1:460); “les groupes hiéroglyphiques exprimant
des mots égyptiens, noms communs, verbes, prépostions ou conjonctions, et dans un foule de formes
grammaticales propres à la langue égyptienne… représentant proprement la prononciation des
Champollion was inspired by Abel-Rémusat’s description of the traditional

Chinese 反切 fanqie spelling system,15 which had been used in China since the
mid-second century C.E.; the key insight that passed from Abel-Rémusat to Cham
pollion (which appeared not inconsequentially on pages 4 and 11 of the Lettre à M.
Dacier), was that Chinese so-called ideographs could be used to write sounds.16
Abel-Rémusat had noticed the use of binomes to transcribe foreign words,17 but
believed that fanqie was commonly used to spell foreign names phonetically,18
mots de la langue égyptienne parlée” (Précis, 1:182); “puisque la plus grande portion de tout text
hiéroglyphique consiste en signes phonétiques, l’écriture sacrée fut en liasion directe avec la langue
parlée, car la plupart des signes de l’écriture représentaient les son de la langue orale” (Champollion,
Grammaire égyptienne, 48); “toutefois les différentes applications que nous venons de faire de
l’alphabet phonétique à des caractères ou groupes hiéroglyphiques expriment des noms communs des
deux genres, des articles, des prépositions, des prenoms, des formes de verbes, &c., nous ont conduits,
ce me semble, à des résultats assez probans par eux-mêmes, sinon pour démontrer déjà, du moins
pour nous induire à croire que la plus grande partie de tout text hiéroglyphique pourrait bien être
absolument phonétique” (Précis, 1:136–137); “DE SIGNES DONT UNE TRÈS-GRANDE PARTIE EXPRIME
LES SONS DES MOTS DE LA LANGUE PARLÉE DES ÉGYPTIENS, C’EST-À-DIRE, DE CARACTÈRES
PHONÉTIQUES” (Précis, 1:298, the supremely emphatic capital letters here are also Champollion’s).
15 That is, using initial consonant of one word as the upper speller, and the medial, vowel, final,
and coda of another word as the lower speller, and combining them to spell out the word one
wants to gloss phonetically—an example in modern standard Mandarin would be 個 (gè) + 通
(tōng) = 工 (gōng) (written in normal syntactic form: 工, 個通反 or 工, 個通切). For more extended
discussion of fanqie, see chapter 9.
16 See also: Champollion, Précis, 1:17, 1:345n1, 1:346n2, 1:352, 1:352n1, 1:353, 1:353n1, 1:353n2, and
1:354n1; Champollion, Grammaire égyptienne, xvii, 12, 49, and 58. Champollion’s brother, Jacques-
Joseph Champollion-Figeac (1778–1867), also had extensive contact and exchanged correspondence
with Abel-Rémusat, see: Amié Champollion-Figeac, Les Deux Champollion: leur vie et leurs oeuvres,
leur correspondance archéologique relative au dauphiné et à l’égypte: étude complète de biographie
et de bibliographie 1778–1867 (Grenoble: Drevet, 1887), 13, 21, 125, 147, and 156. On Abel-Rémusat
himself, Franke succinctly writes: “everybody knows that 1814 was the birth-year of Sinology.
On 11 December 1814 a ‘Chaire de langues et littératures chinoises et tartares-mandchoues’ was
established along with a chair for Indology at the Collège de France. It was given to Jean-Pierre
Abel-Rémusat (1788–1832) who was just 27 years old when he began his lectures 16 January 1815.
All this happened during the collapse of the Napoleonic empire, between Leipzig and Waterloo”
(Herbert Franke, “In search of China: Some general remarks on the history of European sinology,”
in Ming Wilson and John Cayley, ed., Europe Studies China: Papers from an International Conference
on the History of European Sinology [London: Han-Shan Tang Books, 1995], 13).
17 Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, Mélanges asiatiques, ou recueil de morceaux de critique et de
mémoires relatifs aux religions, aux sciences, aux ciutumes, a l’histoire et a la géographie des
nations orientales, 2 vols. (Paris: Librairie Orientale de Dondey-Dupré, 1825–1826), 2:50–51.
18 Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, Élémens de la grammaire Chinoise ou principes généraux du kou-
wen ou style antique et du kouan-hoa, c’est-à-dire, de la langue commune généralement usitée dans
l’empire chinois: Nouvelle édition publiée conformément a celle de l’imprimerie royale et augmentée
on which point he was mistaken; he did, however, recognize the use of fanqie
in traditional lexicography.19 After the third century C.E., Chinese dictionaries,
almost without exception, include fanqie spellings for each lemma, and it became
standard commentarial practice to give fanqie glosses in all kinds of texts, up to
and including the classics—in fact, many of the most important commentaries on
the Chinese classics consist in large part of such sound glosses, e.g., the Jingdian
shiwen 經典釋文 of Lu Deming 陸德明 (550–630 C.E.). Thus the birth of modern
Egyptology—the celebrated deciphering of hieroglyphic in the early 1820’s—was
very much informed by the introduction of native Chinese philology to Europe:
as Sottas says, “la sinologie, science née au XVIIIe siècle, a exercé une grande
influence sur les débuts de l’égyptologie.”20
On the basis of the new and radical assumption that hieroglyphic wrote the
spoken language of Pharaonic Egypt, Champollion was then able to apply his knowl
edge of Coptic to break down hieroglyphic texts into words and sentences and actu
ally begin to read them. Champollion knew how to speak, read, and write liturgical
Coptic (which he learned—along with Arabic—from Dom Raphaël de Monachis and
also practiced speaking for several years with Geha Cheftitchi, a Coptic-speaking
Egyptian priest then resident at the Church of Saint-Roch),21 and was thus able to
begin to recognize the Egyptian words written in hieroglyphic script, just as a liter
ate speaker of modern Italian would be able to come to recognize cognate words in
written Latin without having any direct knowledge of the Latin language.
As important as we may recognize Champollion’s Egyptological contribution
to be, he did not fully decipher the hieroglyphic script—in fact, because Cham
pollion assumed only the existence of uniliterals (biliterals and triliterals had
d’une table des principales phonétiques Chinoises (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1857), 216; Jean-Pierre
Abel-Rémusat, “Remarques sur quelques écritures syllabiques tirées des caractères chinois, et
sur le passage de l’écriture figurative à l’écriture alphabétique,” Mémoires de l’Institut Royal de
France, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 8 (1827): 34–59. Cf. Champollion, Précis, 1:7,
1:29, 1:42, 1:44, 1:51, 1:100–101, 1:107, 1:330, 1:338, 1:344–347, 1:354, 1:357–358, 1:372; Champollion,
Grammaire égyptienne, 31–32; Lepsius, “Lettre à Monsieur le Prof. Hippolyte Rosellini,” 34.
19 Abel-Rémusat, Élémens de la grammaire chinoise, 33n2.
20 “Préface,” 34n1. For further discussion of the Sinology-Egyptology connection, see: Maurice
Pope, The Story of Decipherment: From Egyptian Hieroglyphics to Linear B (London: Thames and
Hudson, 1975), 66–71; Édouard Naville, “La Grammaire de Champollion,” in Recueil d’études
Égyptologiques dédiées à la mémoire de Jean-Francois Champollion à l’occasion du centenaire
de la lettre à M. Dacier relative à l’alphabet des hiéroglyphes phonétiques lue à l’Académie des
Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris: Champion, 1922), 743–744.
21 Hermine Hartleben, Champollion: sein leben und sein werk, 2 vols. (Berlin: Weidmannsche,
1906), 1:81–82; Lesley Adkins and Roy Adkins, The Keys of Egypt: The Obsession to Decipher
Egyptian Hieroglyphs (New York: Harper Collins, 2000), 77.
to wait for Lepsius’ groundbreaking revision of Champollion’s work),22 he never

did come to grasp the lexigraphic principle in its entirety. For the hieroglyphic
graphemes that Champollion could not explain phonetically, he unfortunately
had recourse to the European tradition of ideographic theory—and Champollion
Â�actually coined the modern term ‘ideographic’ (Fr. “idéographique”) to describe
the written words he was unable to understand.23 The figurative and symbolic
exegetical method that Champollion employed on the words he could not read (in
other words, ideographic exegesis of non-uniliteral graphemes, where in many
cases he directly quotes Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica as evidence), was based on his
lack of recognition of the phonetic nature of biliterals and triliterals—and was a
genuine, albeit historically understandable, mistake—as hieroglyphic is a script
that has always directly recorded spoken language (be it Hittite, Akkadian, Greek,
or the various stages of Egyptian).24 Even the oldest extant example of archaic
Egyptian writing—the celebrated Palette of Narmer (now resting in the British
Museum), illustrating the conquesting deeds of the first historical pharaoh of
dynasty zero, the first king to unite Upper and Lower Egypt—is the simple pho
netic spelling of “Nar-Mer,” the king’s name.25
On the Chinese side of the equation, Peter Stephen Du Ponceau (1760–1844)
exchanged correspondence with Champollion about the nature of both Egyptian
and Chinese writing. How both of these writing systems were commonly under
stood in Europe during the first half of Du Ponceau’s life is best exemplified
when, in 1763, “at the instance of the Royal Society, the [British] court sent out
some queries, for the purpose of ascertaining the affinity between the Egyptian
and Chinese writing, it being conceived that they were in fact the same language”
and further, in 1802, when British archaeologists, having discovered cuneiform
tablets at the site of ancient Babylon, “applied to the Court of Directors of the
East India Company, in the hope that Chinese scholars might interpret them…
the Gentlemen at Pekin were requested to obtain the meaning of the Characters
22 Lepsius, “Lettre à Monsieur le Prof. Hippolyte Rosellini,” 5–89.

23 See: Champollion, Précis, 1:xix, 1:xxiii, 1:10–11, 1:17, 1:29, 1:37, 1:160, 1:322, 1:331–332, 1:375,
1:434, 1:447, and 1:464; Champollion, Grammaire égyptienne, 22–27, 48–49, and 58–59.
24 See: Lepsius, “Lettre à Monsieur le Prof. Hippolyte Rosellini,” 23; Sottas and Drioton,
Introduction à l’étude des hiéroglyphes, 16–17 and 111–113.
25 For discussion, see: Alan H. Gardiner, “The Nature and Development of the Egyptian
Hieroglyphic Writing,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 2 (1915): 72–75; Sottas and Drioton,
Introduction à l’étude des hiéroglyphes, 22–27; Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, 7; Erik Iversen, The
Myth of Egypt and Its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1993), 147n1; Gelb, Study of Writing, 73–74.
or Hieroglyphics.”26 Considering the abysmal state of contemporary knowledge,

combined with the fact that Du Ponceau knew no Chinese and only had a bare
minimum of scholarly materials to work with (one dictionary and two grammars
of classical Chinese, and two short manuscript dictionaries of Vietnamese), this
sinological amateur managed to construct a narrative about the Chinese script in
a Â�surprisingly accurate way. The Vietnamese materials were published by him,
bound in the same volume as his Dissertation; for the Chinese, Du Ponceau had
Morrison’s A Dictionary of the Chinese Language (1812), the first published Chinese-
European language dictionary,27 Morrison’s Grammar of the Chinese Â�Language
(1815), which is for the most part a kind of primer, and Marshman’s Clavis Sinica
(1814), the first grammar of classical Chinese ever published in any Â�language.
The Clavis Sinica was also the first Western publication to discuss the
so-called ‘Primitives’ of Chinese characters. Marshman had discovered their
structural function in graphs and series-making and saw that the Mandarin words
were pronounced somewhat similar, but did not guess that they were sound
values and constituted phonetics and phonetic series in Old Chinese. He came
up with a list of 1,689 ‘Real Primitives’ from a lengthy perusal of Kangxi zidian
康熙字典 (a standard dictionary of classical Chinese, compiled by order of the
Kangxi emperor and published in 1716, which glosses 47,035 characters); while
his graphic analyses were largely correct—1,689 graphemes proper—the assump
tion of ideographic theory did not allow Marshman to recognize that the graphic
components he identified were phonetics: for example, “six of those [characters]
have precisely the same Name [i.e., pronunciation] with the primitive; the other
six change the initial power alone.”28 It is telling that he managed to pick out most
of the Old Chinese phonetics—never imagining they could represent sounds—just
by looking at the structure of the characters. Marshman’s theory of the ‘Primitive’
26 Hosea Ballou Morse, ed., The Chronicles of the East India Company trading to China 1635–
1834, 4 vols. (Taipei: Ch’eng-wen, 1966), 1:300 and 2:398.
27 For discussion of Morrison’s epochal dictionary, see: Giuliano Bertuccioli, “Sinology in Italy
1600–1950,” in Wilson and Cayley, Europe Studies China, 72. The Dictionnarie Chinois, Français
et Latin of Chrétian Louis Joseph de Guignes (1759–1845), edited and compiled from the Da
Gemona-Huang-Fourmont-Hager-Von Klaproth manuscript series, was published a year later in
1813 (for discussion see: Lundbæk, Joseph de Prémare, 22; David Honey, Incense at the Altar:
Pioneering Sinologists and the Development of Classical Chinese Philology [New Haven: American
Oriental Society, 2001], 25).
28 Joshua Marshman, Clavis Sinica: 中國言法, Elements of a Chinese Grammar, with a preliminary
dissertation on the characters and the colloquial medium of the Chinese, and an appendix
containing the Ta-hyoh of Confucius with a translation (Serampore: Mission Press, 1814), 54. In
twelve other cases Marshman notes this similarity in “Name” between characters with the same
“Primitive” but makes little of it (Clavis Sinica, 55, 57, 59, 61, 62, 63, 65, 66, 74, 75, 76, and 77).
assumed that they were ideographic roots linking the meanings of various char
acters together.
The Systema phoneticum scripturæ sinicæ, directly inspired by Champollion
(who is mentioned by name in the first sentence of the preface), published three
years after Du Ponceau’s Dissertation, was the first European-language publica
tion to understand Old Chinese phonetic series,29 which Marshman had been so
close to with his notion of ‘Primitives’. In this post-Champollion era work Callery
established the Grammata Serica-type dictionary by organizing 13,921 characters
according to their phonetic series, with Latin and French glosses (for the most
part copied verbatim from De Guignes’ dictionary) for each lemma.30
Du Ponceau, similarly working under the conditions of the post-Champollion
episteme, was the first Western scholar to take issue with ideographic assump
tions about Chinese, and his Dissertation on the Nature and Character of the
Chinese System of Writing (1838) is a monument of late Enlightenment scholarship.
He starts by examining the history of published discourse on Chinese in the West:
When in the last century the Chinese language, through the writings of the Catholic mis
sionaries, became known to the learned of Europe, great astonishment was excited by its
simple, ungrammatical structure, by its complicated graphic system, and by the small
number of its monosyllables, compared with the immense quantity of the characters
employed in writing… the Chinese writing was called hieroglyphic, ideographic, and said to
represent ideas entirely independent of speech. It was almost exclusively considered as the
language, and the spoken words were called its pronunciation, as if they were only a second
ary mode of communicating ideas, and dependent upon the ocular method. At last, it was
said that the Chinese characters were read and understood as in China, by nations entirely
ignorant of the spoken idiom. In short, those visible signs were held up by enthusiasts as
a model for a universal language which should reach the mind through the eyes, without
the aid of articulate sounds… a French missionary, Father Cibot, thus wrote… “the Chinese
characters… are composed of symbols and images, unconnected with any sound, and which
may be read in all languages. They form a kind of intellectual, algebraical, Â�metaphysical
and ideal painting, which expresses thought.”31
29 Joseph Marie Callery, Systema phoneticum scripturæ sinicæ (Macao: np, 1841), 11–23.
30 Callery, Systema phoneticum, separately paginated 1–500. Cf. Bernhard Karlgren, “Grammata
Serica, script and phonetics in Chinese and Sino-Japanese,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern
Antiquities 12 (1940): 1–471; Bernhard Karlgren, Grammata Serica Recensa (Göteborg: Elanders
Boktryckeri Aktiebolag, 1964).
31 Peter S. Du Ponceau, A Dissertation on the Nature and Character of the Chinese System of
Writing, in a letter to John Vaughn, Esq. (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1838),
7–8; all emphatic italicization is Du Ponceau’s own. Pierre-Martial Cibot, S.J. (1727–1780), was
a missionary in Beijing and a firm believer in the ideographic nature of Chinese characters—
for discussion, see: P. Conor Reilly, Athanasius Kircher: Master of a Hundred Arts (Weisbaden:
Edizioni del Mondo, 1974), 133.
This ideographic vision of the nature of Chinese characters was professed by all
Western sinologists of the time, even Abel-Rémusat, the holder of the first Chair
of Chinese in Europe.32 Du Ponceau also corresponded with Abel-Rémusat and
this Dissertation was partially the fruits of their friendly debate:
The general opinion which prevails, even among those who are the most proficient in the
Chinese idiom, is, that the system or mode of writing which is in use in that country, and which
they call the written in opposition to the spoken language, is an ocular method of communicating
ideas, entirely independently of speech, and which, without the intervention of words, conveys
ideas through the sense of vision directly to the mind. Hence it is called ideographic, in contra
distinction from the phonographic or alphabetical system of writing… and the love of wonder,
natural to our species, has not a little contributed to propagate that opinion, which has at last
taken such possession of the public mind, that it has become one of those axioms which no
one will venture to contradict. It requires not a little boldness to fly in the face of an opinion so
generally received, and which has so many respectable authorities in its support… this opinion
has naturally led to that of the Chinese writing being an universal written Â�language conveying
ideas directly to the mind, and which might be read alike in every idiom upon earth, as our
numerical figures and algebraic signs are… this writing having been formed, it is supposed,
without any reference to, or connexion with, spoken language, a question might naturally
arise, which of the two was first invented? Nobody, to be sure, has ventured to say that writing
existed before speech; yet if that proposition has not been directly advanced, I must say that
sinologists have come very near to it. For instance, they affect to call the monosyllabic words
of the Chinese language the pronunciation of the characters, which leads to the direct inference
that the words were made for the signs, and not these for the words. A justly celebrated French
sinologist, M. Abel Rémusat, does not indeed believe that a language was invented to suit the
written characters after they were formed; but he supposes that some then existing popular
idiom was adopted, to serve as pronunciation to the graphic signs. One step more, and hardly
that, and written characters must have been invented before men learned to speak.
[Abel-Rémusat] falls upon the notion that [the writing] system was invented before an oral
language was adapted to it, which is not very far from the general proposition that writing
preceded language, and that men wrote before they spoke. But let us hear him. ‘Some writers’,
says he, ‘among them whom Fourmont[33] holds the first rank, having considered the Chinese
32 Abel-Rémusat was, however, also the first to—hesitatingly, doubtingly, yet pregnantly—
juxtapose Chinese writing and Young and Champollion’s recent study of “hieroglyphes qui ont
été pris comme signes de sons, et employés avec une valeur phonétique” (“Extrait d’un Mémoire
sur les plus anciens Caractères qui ont servi à former l’écriture chinoise,” Journal Asiatique 2
[1823]: 140n1). Obviously such scholarly influences travelled in both directions.
33 [my note] Etienne Fourmont (1683–1745) “made his reputation as a sinologue off the hard work of
his learned assistant, one Arcadius Huang (1679–1716), a Christian Chinese from Fukien… Fourmont
was an enthusiastic student of the Chinese language; he worked his entire life on unfinished Chinese-
French dictionaries, and was especially exercised by the contemporary vogue of searching for the
‘key’ to Chinese by way of the 214 radicals—a clavis sinica being the Holy Grail of the proto-sinologists
and French sinological orientalists” (Honey, Incense at the Altar, 20–21). For further discussion of
language (he means the writing) as being the invention of some Â�philosophers, who afterwards
communicated the use of it to their nation; and considering the characters as anterior to the
words, and consequently writing as existing before speech, they have made of the words of
the spoken language the expression of the characters or their name, if I dare thus speak.34
While Du Ponceau had obviously not read Vico—The New Science contains this
exact argument, a primitivist theory of the pre-verbal writing of mute Â�postdiluvian
Giants (ideographic Giantish)35—it is important to realize that the academic disci
pline of Sinology was at that time deeply implicated in advocating ideography,36
and was, for the most part, remarkably hostile to Du Ponceau. Samuel Wells Wil
liams, the first professor of Chinese at Yale (and a former missionary), went so far
as to call the Dissertation “a labored treatise upon a figment.”37
One cause for the animus must have been Du Ponceau’s status as an amateur,38
but the main reason was that various iterations of ideographic theory had been
at the core of the philosophical and religious discourse of Western civilization for
more than two millennia. Having had a long conversation about Chinese writing
with a certain Captain Hall, who proceeded to give an account of said conversation
in a published memoir, Du Ponceau ended up becoming a target of virulent attack
by the East Asian missionary community:
Fourmont and his background, see: Cécile Leung, Etienne Fourmont (1683–1745): Oriental and
Chinese Languages in Eighteenth-Century France (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002).
34 Du Ponceau, Dissertation, 107–108 and 12.
35 See: Thomas Goddard Bergin and Max Harold Fisch, trans., The New Science of Giambattista
Vico: Unabridged Translation of the Third Edition (1744) with the addition of “Practic of the New
Science” (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), 76–77, 118–119, 127–128, 141–142, and 341. On the
primitivist theory of ideography, see chapter 3 below.
36 For example, Walter Henry Medhurst (1796–1857) writes: “the characters used by the Chinese
are ideographic symbols, as rich in variety as the compounds of the Greek language. The
Chinese, who are actuated in every thing by the rule of contrariety, instead of combining sounds,
have multiplied by juxta-position the number of ideographic symbols. Other languages speak
to the ear, the Chinese to the eye… the Chinese symbols form a system of ideography, so that
every character expresses an idea” (Walter Henry Medhurst, Notices on Chinese Grammar: Part I.
orthography and Etymology [Batavia: Mission Press, 1842], 15–16).
37 Samuel Wells Williams, “Review of A Dissertation on the Nature and Character of the Chinese
System of Writing by Peter S. Du Ponceau,” The Chinese Repository 18 (1849): 408.
38 Du Ponceau was 78 years old when the Dissertation was published. A lawyer by profession,
leader of the Philadelphia bar for nearly fifty years (see: Jennifer Denise Henderson, “‘A Blaze
of Reputation and the Echo of a Name’: The Legal Career of Peter Stephen Du Ponceau in Post-
Revolutionary Philadelphia” [M.A. Thesis, Florida State University, 2004], v and 1), Du Ponceau
only turned to serious oriental scholarship after his retirement from the bar in the 1830s; he
became the first president of the American Oriental Society in 1842.
An anonymous writer in the Canton Register rebuked Captain Hall in a severe, and, I might
add, illiberal manner, for having yielded his opinion to mine, and asserted that he had himself
interchanged thoughts in the Chinese character with the Cochinchinese, Japanese, and
Â�Loo-chooans, without understanding their respective languages; and that it would be regret
ted, if that fact should lose its hold on the mind of any Christian philanthropist by the confes
sion of Captain Hall… I cannot understand how religion comes to be called in aid of any man’s
opinion in a mere question of fact. I should think that it may be decided without appealing to
Moses or the prophets. I never suspected before that the Chinese characters involved a religious
dogma, which cannot be contradicted without danger to the Christian faith.39
Du Ponceau’s doubts about the contemporary dogma of ideographic theory led

him to approach the Chinese writing system from a different perspective:
I have never been able to bring my mind to concur in the opinion so generally entertained,
that the characters which the Chinese employ in their writing, and of which the Cochinchi
nese and other nations also make use, are what is called ideographic, that is to say, that
they present to the mind ideas unconnected with vocal sounds, so as to make what is called
an ocular language, of which words are only the pronunciation; and consequently, (for
the consequence appears to me necessarily to follow,) that it is a system of pasigraphy, to
be read alike in all languages, which absurd consequence appears now to be abandoned
by philologists. But the fact of the Chinese characters being read and understood by the
Cochinchinese, Japanese, and other nations, speaking different languages and ignorant of
that of China, is to this moment asserted by missionaries, travelers, and even learned phi
lologists in Asia and Europe, so that logic is forced to yield to the weight of authority. The
manuscripts accompanying this letter will, I hope, go a great way towards deciding the
question, which I think has not been sufficiently investigated.40
One of the more persuasive arguments Du Ponceau makes in his investigation is

to compare classical Chinese to Latin:
If a Chinese should say that he saw in Europe men of different nations conversing with one
another in writing, in a language called the La-tin, though they could not understand each
other’s native idiom, nor even converse together in that language, because of the difference
of their pronunciation, he would easily be credited, and no more would be said about it; all
the inference that would be drawn from the fact would be, that both had learned the Latin
language, but could not converse in it, because they pronounced it differently. But it is not
so that our enthusiasts wish to be understood. They wish it believed that there is something
magical in the Chinese writing, something out of the ordinary course of things, by which
ideas are conveyed from eye to eye, and through the eyes from mind to mind; so that each
person may read the characters in his own language, however it may differ from the Chinese
in words or in form… I cannot conceive how two men… can converse together in writing in
39 Du Ponceau, Dissertation, 95.

40 Du Ponceau, Dissertation, 4–5.
the Chinese character, unless they should have learned it, not as an ideographic character,
but as the representation of a spoken idiom; in short as Chinese. That they should not both
pronounce it alike can make no difference… this is a natural explanation of a natural fact;
but miracles, such as the enthusiasts would have us believe, cannot be explained.41
Du Ponceau then offers a direct challenge—that being that any true believer in
ideography should fashion a universal writing system for the rest of us:
Our ideas, independent of speech, are vague, fleeting, and confused; language alone fixes
them, and not in the same manner with every nation… a purely ideographic language,
therefore, unconnected with spoken words, cannot, in my opinion, possibly exist. There
is no universal standard for the fixation of ideas; we cannot abstract our ideas from the
channel in which language has taught them to run… I defy all the philosophers of Europe to
frame a written language (as they are pleased to call it) that will not bear a direct and close
analogy to some one of the oral languages which they have previously learned. It will be
English, Latin, French, Greek, or whatever else they may choose.42
Instead of accepting the doctrinaire thesis of ideography to explain the use of

Chinese script throughout East Asia, Du Ponceau comes up with a new typo
logical model for writing which includes—and he coins the term—the lexigraph
(which he actually calls “lexigraph” and “logograph” interchangeably):
I endeavor to prove, by the following dissertation, that the Chinese characters represent the
words of the Chinese language… The letters of our alphabet separately represent sounds to
which no meaning is attached, and are therefore only the elements of our graphic system;
but when combined together in groups, they represent the words of our languages… I
contend that the Chinese characters, though formed of different elements, do no more…
and therefore they are connected with sounds, not indeed as letters of our alphabet sepa
rately taken, but as the groups formed by them when joined together in the form of words.43
The hard evidence Du Ponceau provides for lexigraphy is the comparison of

written Chinese and written Vietnamese. This comparison shows that the Chinese
script can be used to write unrelated languages:
[Warburton] 44 considered the art of writing as confined to two systems, the one Â�representing or
recalling to the mind ideas, (as he considered the Chinese characters to be, and the Â�Egyptian

43 Du Ponceau, Dissertation, xi–xii.
44 [my note] Warburton argued—rather like Vico—that all languages were originally soundless
pictures expressing ideas, which first became hieroglyphs in Egypt. Thus spoken languages
developed after ideographic writing—and, according to the primitivist theory of Warburton, the
world history of language follows a natural, teleological model of development from soundless
symbols to have been in their origin,) the other representing sounds. But by the word sounds,
he understood only the primary and secondary elements of speech, which we call letters and
syllables; it does not appear to have occurred to him that words also were sounds, and might
be represented as such by graphic signs… this Vocabulary [of written Vietnamese] I hope will
show, that there is also a lexigraphic system, by which words, that are also elements of speech,
are recalled to the mind by means of written signs or characters, and which is therefore a
phonetic system as much as our alphabets; and that the only difference between it and those
which represent the more minute elements of human language, is in the method pursued…
written languages, then, (I am willing to use the expression,) will be divided into three classes,
to wit: 1. The lexigraphic, which represents words. 2. The syllabic, which represents syllables.
3. The elementary, which represents the primary sounds or elements of speech, which we call
letters. In the first of these classes I would place the writing of the ancient Egyptian, as well as
that of the Chinese, and its affiliated languages. I do not mean to say that one of these forms is
exclusively adopted in any one language. They may be found mixed, as has been shown to be
in the case in the Egyptian and the Chinese… but there is generally one which predominates.45
This typology of scripts—considered ridiculous by his contemporaries—is now

the universally accepted model of academic linguistics. The philological exam
ination of sinoxenics (i.e., non-Chinese languages written in the Chinese script)
began with this Dissertation, and later studies have shown Du Ponceau to be
accurate in his conclusions about written Vietnamese, which were:
Independent of those characters which I cannot consider otherwise than as expressive of the
Cochinchinese sounds, without regard to the meaning which they have in China, it is evident
that there are many others, which, though Chinese in their origin, are combined together in
a manner peculiar to the Cochinchinese language; so that, upon the whole, I cannot resist
the conviction that forces itself upon me, that the inhabitants of Anam cannot read Chinese
books, or converse in writing with others than their countrymen by means of the Chinese
characters, except to a very limited extent, unless they have made a special study of those
characters as applied to a different language than their own; or, in other words, unless
they have learned Chinese. The Cochinchinese themselves make a distinction between the
Chinese characters and their own. They call the former Chu nho, and the latter Chu nom.46
Chữ nôm, as Du Ponceau points out, is written Vietnamese—the adaptation of the

Chinese script to write the words of the Vietnamese language. The first Â�documented
occurrence of Chữ nôm (hence the first evidence of written Vietnamese) is on a stele
primitive ideographs into refined spoken alphabets. See: William Warburton, The Divine Legation
of Moses Demonstrated on the Principles of a Religious Deist: From the Omission of the Doctrine
of a Future State of Reward and Punishment in the Jewish Dispensation, 6 vols. (London: Fletcher
Gyles, 1738), 4:66–79, 4:91–95, 4:106–112, and 4:164.
46 Du Ponceau, Dissertation, xxvii.
inscription of 1209 C.E. Chữ nho, on the other hand, is classical Chinese (obvi
ously written in the Chinese script), which was the literary or prestige language in
Vietnam from the first century B.C.E. until the early twentieth century C.E.
Classical Chinese was also the literary/prestige language of Korea and Japan,
and they too adapted and modified the Chinese script to write their own lan
guages (first by means of Idu and Man’yōgana, respectively). The incontrovertible
physical evidence of the historical development of sinoxenics, in this case written
Vietnamese, led Du Ponceau to reject ideography:
I have said enough, I think, to show, that if the Chinese writing is read and understood in
various countries in the vicinity of China, it is not in consequence of its supposed ideo
graphic character; but either because the Chinese is also the language or one of the lan
guages of the country, or because it is learned, and the meaning of the characters is acquired,
through the words which they represent. Without a knowledge of these words and of their
precise signification, according to the genius, syntax, and grammar of the language, it
would be impossible to understand or remember the signification of the characters. If those
characters could be read into languages which, like the Yomi and the Corean, differ in their
forms from the Chinese, or in the meaning and sound of the words which the signs repre
sent, they might be read alike in English, French, Latin, Greek, Iroquois, and in short in
every existing idiom upon earth, which I think I have sufficiently proved to be impossible.47
Du Ponceau’s conclusion, “that an ideographic system of writing is a creature of

the imagination, and that it cannot possibly exist,”48 was the first time any human
being on our planet made this argument in print; it was in Philadelphia, in 1838.
With this publication, the Western ideographic paradigm inexorably shifted. Cham
pollion and Lepsius had for the most part knocked the stuffing out of the long tra
dition of European ideography by deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphic; Du Ponceau
rather elegantly put the lid on it by explaining how Chinese characters write words.
What I am concerned with in this book is not once again to prove that ide
ography does not exist, that no human writing system has ever worked in such a
way, as this has already been done by many generations of philologically-oriented
scholars in multiple disciplines.49 Rather, my goal is to understand its intellectual

48 Du Ponceau, Dissertation, xxiv.
49 For important recent discussions not already mentioned in the notes, see: Michael D. Coe,
Breaking the Maya Code (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1992); Michael D. Coe and Mark Van
Stone, Reading the Maya Glyphs: Second Edition (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2005); Linda
Schele and Mary Ellen Miller, The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art (Fort Worth:
Kimbell Art Museum, 1986); David Kelly, Deciphering the Maya Script (Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1976); Richard Parkinson, Cracking Codes: The Rosetta Stone and Decipherment (Berkeley:
history: where ideographic theory comes from, why it was and to some extent
still is so important and so interesting to so many people, how it was discussed
in various pre-modern historical periods. By examining ideography as a founda
tional philosophical and theological episteme in European tradition in chapters
1–8, I am then able to contrast it with the episteme of classical Chinese philology,
the native Chinese theory of language and writing, in chapters 9–15.
European theories of ideography were introduced into Japanese popular
culture during the Meiji era by Ernest Fenollosa (1853–1908), and from there
spread across East Asia. With the exception of what Western travelers, mission
aries, and expatriates brought with them, there was no ideographic theory—
nothing even remotely like it—in imperial China (nor, for that matter, anywhere
in East Asia before Fenollosa started teaching philosophy at Tokyo University in
1878).50 In contradistinction to ideography, but equally as historically pervasive,
Chinese civilization had its own traditional language theory: zhengming 正名
“making words correct.” This classical Chinese episteme is the East Asian equiv
alent of ideographic theory in Europe—and its history similarly spans from the
late Warring States (479–221 B.C.E.) to the early 20th century. Kang Youwei 康有為
(1858–1927), the late Qing reformer, was clearly still working within this episteme
when he wrote: “夫語言文字出於人為耳; in any case, language and writing surely
only come from human artifice.”51 Ideography and Chinese language theory had
radically dissimilar origins and discursive trajectories; in this study I propose to
show that conflating these epistemes is an error of historical perspective.
University of California Press, 1999); Jean-Jacques Glassner, The Invention of Cuneiform: Writing
in Sumer, trans. and ed. Zainab Bahrani and Mark van de Mieroop (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2003); Giuseppe Visicato, The Power and the Writing: the Early Scribes of
Mesopotamia (Bethesda: CDL Press, 2000); David B. Lurie, Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the
History of Writing (Cambridge: Harvard University Asian Center, 2011); David B. Lurie “Language,
writing, and disciplinarity in the Critique of the ‘Ideographic Myth’: Some proleptical remarks,”
Language & Communication 26 (2006): 250–269.
50 On Fenollosa’s career in Japan and his ideographic theories, see: Lawrence W. Chisolm,
Fenollosa: The Far East and American Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963); Nam-
See Kim, “Grammatologie der Schrift des Fremden: Eine kulturwissenschaftliche Untersuchung
westlicher Rezeption chinesischer Schrift” (Ph.D. Diss., Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 1970),
210–229; Kahori Tateishi, “Ideograms in Modern Perspective: The Reconfiguration of Textual Space
in Anglo-American and Japanese Modernisms” (Ph.D. Diss., Pennsylvania State University, 2008),
15–20 and 33–78; Ernest Fenollosa and Ezra Pound, The Chinese Written Character as a Medium
for Poetry: A Critical Edition, ed. Haun Saussy et al. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008).
51 Kang Youwei 康有為, Datong shu 大同書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2012), 77.4–5. This and all
following translations from Chinese are my own.
Chapter One: Platonism and the Strong Theory
All of the epistemological assumptions of the strong theory of ideography were
established in ancient Platonism. With the caveat that I am not attempting to
describe the complex arguments of the historical Plato (428–347 B.C.E.) himself,
these assumptions include the matter/form divide, a creator god who uses the
Forms as a blueprint for cosmogonic endeavors, the nature of dialectic, the Greek
alphabet as an analytical model, primary language, the block of wax analogy,
and the recollections of an immortal soul.
According to canonical sources of ancient Platonic thought (which for our
purposes include the texts of Plato, the Middle Platonists, and the Neoplatonists),
the demiurge used the model of the Forms to fashion the world; the physical
world is therefore an image of the world of Forms stamped in matter.1 In this
mimetic cosmogony, the creator inserts the Forms into material envelopes and
thus creates the universe as an imitation, a copy, an image of another perfect,
static, timeless, and changeless universe where the Forms reside (and matter
simply does not). The Forms, as the best things, are least liable to change; divine
1 Plato, Timaeus, 27d–29b (in John M. Cooper, ed., Plato: Complete Works [Indianapolis: Hackett,
1997]—all citations of Plato, occasionally slightly modified, are from this translation; for the
Greek text I use Gottfried Stallbaum, ed., Platonis Opera Omnia, 10 vols. [New York: Garland,
1980]). Cf. “[the universe] is a receptacle of all becoming—its wetnurse, as it were… its nature is
to be available for anything to make an impression on, and it is modified, shaped and reshaped
by the things that enter it. These are the things that make it appear different at different times.
The things that enter it and leave it are imitations of those things that always are, imprinted
after their likeness” (Plato, Timaeus, 48e–50c); “the creator made both the pattern and the copy
(eikōn) in all that he made… he wrought its archetypal seal, and he also stamped with this an
impression which was its close counterpart. The archetypal seal is an incorporeal Form (idea),
but the copy (eikōn) which is made by the impression is something else” (Philo, On Drunkeness,
33.133, in F. H. Colson et al., ed. and trans., Philo, 12 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1929–1962]—all citations of Philo of Alexandria are from this Loeb edition); “the visible universe,
then, is properly called an image (eikōn) always in process of being made” (Plotinus, Enneads,
2.3.18, in A. H. Armstrong, ed. and trans., Plotinus, 7 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2000–2003]—all citations of Plotinus are from this Loeb edition); “it is everywhere necessary
that images (eikones) should be know from paradigms; but that the paradigms of material
things should be immaterial” (Proclus, Platonic Theology, 1.6, in Thomas Taylor, trans., Proclus:
The Platonic Theology, 2 vols. (Kew Gardens: Selene, 1985), 1:140—all citations of the Platonic
Theology are from this translation; for the Greek text I use the Budé edition: Henri Dominique
Saffrey and Leendert Gerrit Westerink, ed. and trans., Proclus: Théologie platonicienne, 6 vols.
[Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1968–2003]); “the demiurge… fabricates this sensible world as an
image of intelligibles” (Proclus, Platonic Theology, 5.4); see also: Plotinus, Enneads, 6.6.10; Philo,
On the Eternity of the World, 4.15.
Chapter One: Platonism and the Strong Theory 19
things, in fact, are incapable of change—the world of Forms is therefore eternal,

unchanging, and invisible by definition.2
The images and copies of the Forms that exist in the substrate of matter
are compared to dreams, to shadows, to reflections in water and mirrors, and
to reproductions in drawings and stamp-impressions.3 We can only get at them
with our bodily senses at one stage removed; we must therefore use our immate
rial and eternal souls to seek after them.4 This is the basis of epistemology and
ontology in Platonism.5 Dialectic, as a discursive practice, “draws the soul from
2 Plato, Phaedo, 78d; Plato, Statesman, 269d; Proclus, Platonic Theology, 1.13 and 1.18. Compare
Apuleius: “incorruptam, inmutabilem, constantem eandemque et semper esse”; I translate this
as “it is incorruptible, immutable, constant, identical with itself and eternal” (Plato and his
Doctrines, 9, in Jean Beaujeu, ed. and trans., Apulée: Opuscules philosophiques [Paris: Les Belles
Lettres, 2002], 69); for the Latin texts of Apuleius not contained in this particular Budé edition
I use Paul Thomas and Rudolf Helm, ed., Apulei Platonici Madaurensis Opera, 3 vols. (Leipzig:
Teubner, 1955–1970).
3 Plato, Sophist, 239d; Plato, Republic, 509d–510a; Plotinus, Enneads, 2.3.17 and 6.2.22. They are
“divine images (phantasmata) in water and shadows of the things that are” (Plato, Republic, 532c).
4 On the topic of the soul in Platonism: “the soul… is one of the first creations, born long before
all physical things” (Plato, Laws, 892a); “the soul is far older than any created being… it is
immortal and controls the entire world of matter” (Plato, Laws, 967d; cf. Philo, Special Laws 4,
24.123); “since a man is neither his body, nor his body and soul together, what remains, I think, is
either that he’s nothing, or else, if he is something, he’s nothing other than his soul… when you
and I talk to each other, one soul uses words to address another soul… so the command that we
should know ourselves means that we should know our souls” (Plato, Alcibiades, 130c–e); “the
soul has an absolute superiority over the body… while I am alive I have nothing to thank for my
individuality except my soul, whereas my body is just the likeness of myself that I carry round
with me” (Plato, Laws, 959a). Cf. Plato, Apology, 41d; Plotinus, Enneads, 1.1.12; Porphyry, On
Abstinence, 1.30–32, in Gillian Clark, trans., Porphyry: On Abstinence from Killing Animals (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2000)—all citations of On Abstinence come from this translation; for the
Greek text I use: August Nauck, ed., Porphyrii philosophi Platonici opuscula selecta (Hildeshem:
Georg Olms, 1963); Porphyry, Auxiliaries to the Perception of Intelligible Natures, 7, in Thomas
Taylor, trans., Selected Works of Porphyry (London: Thomas Dodd, 1823); for the Greek text I
use Erich Lamberz, ed., Porphyrii: Sententiae ad Intelligibilia Ducentes (Leipzig: Teubner,
1975); Iamblichus, On the Soul, 57–59, in John F. Finamore and John M. Dillon, ed. and trans.,
Iamblichus: De Anima: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
5 Viz., “we say that there are many beautiful things and many good things, and so on for each
kind… and beauty itself and good itself and all the things that we thereby set down as many,
reversing ourselves, we set down according to a single Form (idea) of each, believing that there
is but one, and call it ‘the being’ of each… and we say that the many beautiful things and the
rest are visible but not intelligible, while the Forms (ideai) are intelligible but not visible” (Plato,
Republic, 507b; cf. Philo, On the Cherubim, 25.86).
20 Chapter One: Platonism and the Strong Theory
the realm of becoming to the realm of what is.”6 By definition, dialectic “comes
down to a conclusion without making use of anything visible at all, but only of
Forms themselves, moving on from Form to Form, and ending in Forms.”7 It is a
philosophical practice which leads to an understanding of the Forms.
“All the Forms,” according to the Republic, “each of them is itself one, but
because they manifest themselves everywhere in association with actions, bodies,
and one another, each of them appears to be many.”8 So how does one make the
move from the many to the one? How does one move from the multifariousness
of the material world to the streamlined perfection of the world of the singular
Forms? Over and over, again and again, Platonism turns to one simple heuristic
device, the most finely honed pedagogical tool in its pedagogical toolbox, the
model that serves as the model for the Form of “modeling” itself: writing. And to
be even more specific: the Greek alphabet.
By using the Greek alphabet as a model, ancient Platonism establishes the
strong theory of ideography. Although the Greek alphabet is used in this way
6 Plato, Republic, 521d. Cf. Plato, Republic, 533d; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, 1.9 (in
Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, ed. and trans., The Ante-Nicene Fathers, 10 vols.
[Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994]—with the exception book 3, all citations of the Stromata are from
this translation; for the English translation of book 3 of the Stromata, which following quaint
Victorian sexual mores was translated into Latin rather than English by Roberts and Donaldson,
I have relied upon: John Ferguson, trans., Clement of Alexandria: Stromateis books one to three
[Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1991]; for the Greek texts of Clement I
use Otto Stählin et al., ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, 4 vols. [Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1960–1985]);
Eusebius of Caesarea, Praeperatio Evangelica, 14.10 (in Edwin Hamilton Gifford, trans., Eusebius:
Preparation for the Gospel, 2 vols. [Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981]—all citations of
Praeperatio Evangelica are from this translation; for the Greek texts of Eusebius I use Jacques-
Paul Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus series graeca, 161 vols. [Paris: Garnier, 1857–1891]).
7 Plato, Republic, 511b–c. Even in deciding who one should take on as a student, Platonism
suggests: “let’s look for someone whose thought is by nature measured and graceful and easily
led to the Form (idea) of each thing that is” (Plato, Republic, 486d–e).
8 Plato, Republic, 476a. Cf. “Plato said that, if we wish to take in at one glance the principles
underlying the universe, we must first distinguish the Forms (ideai) by themselves… things
within our experience bear the same names as those Forms (ideai) because they partake of them…
each one of the Forms (eidē) is eternal, it is a notion, and moreover is incapable of change”
(Diogenes Laertius, 2.12–13, in R. D. Hicks, ed. and trans., Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent
Philosophers, 2 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925]—all citations of Diogenes
Laertius are from this Loeb edition); “as for the properties which you enquire about… these will
certainly each be separate and simple, as totally transcendent properties of beings which exist
eternally” (Iamblichus of Chalcis, De mysteriis, 1.4, in Emma C. Clark et al., trans. Iamblichus:
De mysteriis [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003]—all citations of De mysteriis are from
this translation; for the Greek text I use the Budé edition: Édouard Des Places, ed. and trans.,
Jamblique: Les Mystères d’Égypte [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1989]).
dozens of times in the Platonic corpus, I have here only selected one key passage
to explicate this model to end all models:9
It’s a hard thing… to demonstrate any of the more important Forms (eidē) without using
models… the Form (eidos) of a “model” itself in its turn also has need of a model to demon
strate it… when children are just acquiring skill in reading and writing… they distinguish
each of the individual letters well enough in the shortest and easiest syllables, and come to
be capable of indicating what is true in relation to them… but then once again they make
mistakes about these very same letters in other syllables, and think and say what is false…
isn’t this the easiest and best way of leading them on to the things that they’re not yet rec
ognizing? …take them first back to those cases in which they were getting these same things
right, and having done that… put these beside what they’re not yet recognizing. By com
paring them, we demonstrate that there is the same kind of thing with similar features in
both combinations, until the things that they are getting right have been shown set beside
all the ones that they don’t know; once the things in question have been shown like this,
and so become models, they bring it about that each of all the individual letters is called
both different, on the basis that it is different from the others, and the same, on the basis
that it is always the same as and identical to itself, in all syllables… have we grasped this
point adequately, that we come to be using a model when the given thing, which is the same
in something different and distinct, is correctly identified here, and having been brought
together with the original thing, brings about a single true judgment about each separately
and both together? …then would we be surprised if our minds by their nature experienced
this same thing in relation to the individual “letters” of everything, now, in some cases,
holding a settled view with the aid of truth in relation to each separate thing, now, in others,
being all at sea in relation to all of them—somehow or other getting the constituents of the
combinations themselves right, but once again not knowing these same things when they
are transferred into the long “syllables” of things and the ones that are not easy?10
Letters, as the unanalyzable units of Greek writing, are thus directly analogous
to the Forms—just as written Greek words can be broken down into their com
ponent units, so too all the complicated phenomena of the material world can
be broken down into ultimate and unanalyzable units (the shadowy reflections
of the singular Forms reproduced in complex combinations of matter). The jux
taposition of letters on the one hand, and the Form-bearing ontological bricks
on the other, produce Greek syllables and words and the objects and events that
9 For other examples, see: Plato, Cratylus, 393d–e and 431e–432a; Plato, Sophist, 253a; Plato,
Statesman, 285c–d; Plato, Philebus, 18b–d; Plato, Euthydemus, 277a–b; Plato, Protagoras,
326d; Plato, Timaeus, 48b–d; cf. Xenophon, Memorabilia, 4.2.20 (in Xenophon, Memorabilia,
Oeconomicus, Symposium, Apology, ed. and trans. E. C. Marchant and O. J. Todd [Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2002]).
10 Plato, Statesman, 277d–278d.
make up worldly phenomena respectively. 11 The very succinct model of the Greek
alphabet as functionally analogous to the cosmos is one of the most influential
analogies ever made in the history of Western civilization—certainly more central
to European thought than the so-called ‘Great Chain of Being’.12
This analogy is the origin of all theories of ideography; the ontological dia
lectic of the one and the many is echoed, reflected, reimaged, and reified in the
Greek alphabet as letters compounded into syllables and words.13 Literacy in
reading and writing Greek is equated to a kind of philosophical literacy in simi
larly working with the abstracted but intelligible world of the Forms—once you
11 Viz., “since our discussion is about sense-objects and every sense-object is included in this
universe of ours, it will be necessary in considering the universe to seek to divide its nature and
distinguish its elements and arrange them… as if we were to divide articulate sound, which is
unlimited, into limited sections by bringing back to one what is the same in many, and then to
another one and again a different one, until we have brought each and every one under which
individuals are classed as a Form (eidos)… now in the case of articulate sound each and every
Form (eidos) and all of them which have been discovered can be brought back to one, and we can
predicate ‘letter’ or ‘sound’ of all” (Plotinus, Enneads, 6.3.1).
12 On which, see: Arthur O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea
(New York: Harper & Row, 1960).
13 Plato, Theaetetus, 201e–202e. Cf. “let the complex (sullabē) be a single Form (idea) resulting
from the combination of the several elements (stoicheia) when they fit together, and let this hold
both of letters (grammata) and things in general” (Theaetetus, 204a); “if the complex (sullabē)
is both many elements (stoicheia) and a whole, with them as its parts, then both complexes
(sullabai) and elements (stoicheia) are equally capable of being known and expressed… if anyone
tries to tell us that the complex (sullabē) can be known and expressed, while the contrary is true
of the element (stoicheion), we had better not listen to them… and, more than this, wouldn’t you
more easily believe somebody who made the contrary statement, because of what you know of
your own experience in learning to read and write? …I mean that when you were learning you
spent your time just precisely in trying to distinguish, by both eye and ear, each individual letter
(stoicheion) in itself so that you might not be bewildered by their different positions in written
and spoken words” (Theaetetus, 205d–206a). For embryonic explanations of how Greek stoicheia
theory underlies later perceptions of Egyptian hieroglyphs (particularly that of Clement) and the
consequences this had for Champollion’s decipherment, see: Édouard Dulaurier, Examen d’un
passage des Stromates de Saint Clément d’Alexandrie relative aux écritures égyptiennes (Paris:
Libraire Fournier Jeune, 1833), 22–30; Champollion, Précis, 1:xii, 1:321, 1:327, 1:379, 1:387–393, and
1:397; Champollion, Grammaire égyptienne, 23; Karl Richard Lepsius, “Über die prōta stoicheia
in der Stelle bei Clemens Alexandrinus über die Schrift der Aegypter,” Rheinishes Museum für
Philologie 4 (1836): 142–148; Karl Richard Lepsius, “Lettre à Monsieur le Prof. Hippolyte Rosellini,”
44n49; Pierre Marestaing, “Le passage de Clément d’Alexandrie relatif aux écritures égyptiennes,”
Recueil de Travaux 33 (1911): 214; Pierre Marestaing, Les écritures égyptiennes et l’antiquité classique
(Paris: Geuthner, 1913), 105–108; J. Vergote, “Clément d’Alexandrie et l’écriture égyptienne; essai
d’interpretation de Stromates V, 20–21,” Le Muséon 52 (1939): 199–221; Sottas, “Préface,” 24–25
and 29–30; Sottas and Drioton, Introduction à l’étude des hiéroglyphes, 74n1.
get a certain number of basic Forms down in your repertoire (like learning an
alphabet), it is possible to begin to break the universe down into its component
ontological parts through dialectic.14
How can human language function in such a way for Platonic dialectic? Dia
lecticians, by definition, are those who discover “how to display in words (logoi)
the things there are.”15 In this view, words are tools to divide being. The first
makers of these tools, wordsmiths as it were, looked to the Forms as a model
so as to properly reproduce them in sounds and syllables. Although these word-
tools may have been composed in different languages per se, because they used
the same ‘morphological’ method (i.e., being constructed by reifying Forms), the
different sounds and syllables could work equally well as signs for the Forms.16
Here, as Cassirer says, “each word governs a specific realm of being.”17 In other
words, no matter whether the language is Greek or a foreign tongue, the relation
ship between things and words is neither arbitrary nor conventional; there is a
natural correctness of words, in that they should represent what the Form of each
thing actually is (perhaps even better than a material thing or phenomenon, in
and of itself, can).18
Within Platonic language theory, the noun (onoma), obviously plays the
key role; because the verb (rhēma) is not eternal and unchanging, but rather
expressive of coming to be, it is a mere epiphenomenon unworthy of study.19 This
14 Plato, Philebus, 16c–17b. Cf. “It’s just the way it was with learning to read, our ability wasn’t
adequate until we realized that there are only a few letters that occur in all sorts of different
combinations, and that—whether written large or small—they were worthy of our attention, so
that we picked them out eagerly whenever they occurred, knowing that we wouldn’t be competent
readers until we knew our letters… and isn’t it also true that if there are images (eikones) of letters
reflected in mirrors or water, we won’t know them until we know the letters themselves, for both
abilities are parts of the same craft and discipline? …we know the different Forms (eidē)… which
are moving around everywhere, and see them in the things in which they are, both themselves
and their images (eikones), and do not disregard them, whether they are written on small things
or large, but accept that the knowledge of both large and small letters is part of the same craft
and discipline” (Plato, Republic, 402a–c).
15 Plato, Statesman, 287a; cf. “are there words (logoi), to describe each thing that exists?—
Certainly—And do they describe it as it is or as it is not?—As it is” (Plato, Euthydemus, 285e); “the
person who speaks what is and the things that are speaks the truth” (Plato, Euthydemus, 284a).
16 Plato, Cratylus, 388b–390a.
17 Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, trans. Ralph Manheim et al., 4 vols. (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1953–1996), 1:40.
18 Plato, Cratylus, 383a–b.
19 Plato was the first to theorize the “noun” and the “verb”—recognized at least as early as
Apuleius and Plutarch (see: David Londey and Carmen Johanson, trans., The Logic of Apuleius:
Including a complete Latin text and English translation of the Peri Hermeneias of Apuleius of
manner of analysis assumes that unchanging Forms exist in the other world, and
the changeable phenomena of this world acquire their nominal status by partic
ipating in these Forms.20 The etymological definition of the Greek word onoma
in the Platonic canon is “this is a being for which there is a search.”21 Another
language would have to be established if one wished to adhere to an ontology in
which things are in flux; because onomata always represent fixed entities, if used
correctly they cannot help but refer to eternal and unchanging Forms.22
Complex words can be analyzed by breaking them down into their smallest
meaningful units—“primary onomata.” These primary onomata are imitations,
images, copies, and reproductions in letters and syllables of the real Forms of
things.23 Being an onoma and being a thing that has an onoma are two distinct
states. Onomata are imitations of the Forms of things by definition, but due to the
fact that they exist independently of said Forms and said things, humans can incor
rectly assign onomata to inappropriate things. In other words, because onomata
have an independent life of their own in human language, their application
Â� to
Madaura [Leiden: Brill, 1987], 85; Plutarch, Platonicae quaestiones, 1009c, in Frank Cole
Babbit et al., ed. and trans., Plutarch: Moralia, 16 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1927–2004]—all citations of Plutarch are from this Loeb edition)—Plato was therefore “the
first to study the significance of grammar” (Diogenes Laertius, 3.25). The consequence of this
word-class typology for the history of Western linguistics is such that even inveterate twentieth
century linguistic relativists like Sapir were unable to escape it (see: Edward Sapir, Language: An
Introduction to the Study of Speech [Mineola: Dover, 2004], 96).
20 Plato, Phaedo, 102a–b. They do this “by participation, after the manner of an image
(methexin eikonikōs)” (Proclus, Elements of Theology, 65, in E. R. Dodds, ed. and trans., Proclus:
The Elements of Theology [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933]—all citations of Elements of Theology
are from this edition); “let’s think about nouns (onomata) again, the same way as we spoke about
Forms (eidē) and letters of the alphabet. What we’re looking for seems to lie in that direction”
(Plato, Sophist, 261d).
21 Plato, Cratylus, 421a.
22 Plato, Theaetetus, 183b.
23 Plato, Cratylus, 421d–423e. So, “it doesn’t matter whether the same thing is signified by the
same syllables or by different ones. And if a letter is added or subtracted, that doesn’t matter
either, so long as the being or essence of the thing is in control and is expressed in its onoma”
(Plato, Cratylus, 393c–d; cf. Plato, Letter 7, 343a–b). There are numerous examples of this kind
of analysis, e.g., “the letter r seemed to the name-giver to be a beautiful tool for copying motion,
at any rate he often uses it for this purpose… he uses i, in turn, to imitate all small things that
can most easily penetrate anything… in the same way, the rule-setter apparently used the other
letters or elements as likenesses in order to make a sign or onoma for each of the things that are,
and then compounded all the remaining onomata out of these, imitating the things they name”
(Plato, Cratylus, 426c–427c). Cf. Varro, On the Latin Language, 7.1, in Roland G. Kent, ed. and
trans., Varro: On the Latin Language, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006).
specific things is a matter of speaking truly or falsely—correctly representing or

misrepresenting the Forms.24 The natural correctness of words, by definition, is
the proper embodying of the Forms of particular things in units of sound.
Within this epistemological framework there are two sorts of language,
primary language and human language.25 Primary language is always naturally
correct;26 normal human language is apt to flaws—mistakes in the representa
tion of Forms.27 The difference between primary language and human language,
according to the episteme of ancient Platonism, comes down to a historical break,
a falling away from how language should work, and did in fact work in antiquity:
Then when we’ve divided off the things that are—the things to which we have given
onomata—if there are some things to which they can all be carried back, as onomata are
to the letters, and from which we can see that they derive, and if different kinds of Forms
(eidē) are found among them, in just the way there are among the letters (stoicheia)—once
we’ve done all this well, we’ll know how to apply each letter to what it resembles, whether
one letter or a combination of many is to be applied to one thing… we’ll apply letters to
things, using one letter for one thing, when that’s what seems to be required, or many letters
together, to form what’s called a syllable, or many syllables combined to form onomata and
verbs. From onomata and verbs, in turn, we shall finally construct something Â�important,
beautiful, and whole [i.e., primary language]… of course, I don’t really mean we ourselves—I
was carried away by the discussion. It was the ancients who combined things in this way.
Our job—if indeed we are to examine all these things with scientific knowledge—is to
divide where they put together, so as to see whether or not both the primary and deriva
tive onomata are given in accord with nature. For, any other way of connecting onomata to
things… is inferior and unsystematic… perhaps it will seem absurd… to think that things
become clear by being imitated in letters (grammata) and syllables, but it is absolutely
unavoidable. For we have nothing better on which to base the truth of primary onomata.28
The ancient wordsmiths had evidently gotten it right, but the historical corruption
of language has confused the issue.29 In other words, modern language (i.e., Attic
24 Plato, Cratylus, 429d–431e.

25 Plato, Cratylus, 392c–e.
26 In primary language, “the connexion of the words… imitates the indissoluble order of things”
(Proclus, Platonic Theology, 4.27).
27 Plato, Cratylus, 391c–e.
28 Plato, Cratylus, 424c–425d.
29 Viz., “the first onomata given to things have long since been covered over by those who
wanted to dress them up… letters were added or subtracted to make them sound good in the
mouth, resulting in distortions and ornamentation of every kind… time had had a share in this
process… this sort of thing is the work of people who think nothing of the truth, but only of the
sounds their mouths make. Hence they keep embellishing the first onomata, until finally an
onoma is reached that no human being can understand” (Plato, Cratylus, 414c–e). See also: Plato,
Greek) had become so corrupted by this process of historical decline that most
words signify exactly the opposite of what they had signified in the ancient primary
language.30 The only way to get back to primary language, wherein the Forms were
properly encoded and reproduced in letter and syllable, is to break down the com
ponent parts of words and their signified Forms, and reconstruct them through the
process of dialectic. The procedure for distinguishing the correct onomata (reaching
back to reconstruct primary language), therefore, is the process of dialectic itself—
and the fruits of this procedure are always described using the same basic set of
action-verbs: the true onomata are “all those things we mark with the seal of ‘what
is’, both when we are putting questions and answering them.”31 The meaning of
any particular onoma is found “after having separated it from the rest we must
impress one character on it… having stamped a single different Form (idea).”32
Marking with seals, stamping, impressing, making inscriptions, images,
copies, and the like actions (which echo the actions of the creator god) are simply
the most important analogies for human understanding throughout the long
history of European intellectual culture. These verbal analogies form the basis
for nearly every single discussion of the soul, the mind, perception, thought,
and language one finds in canonical Western texts (even to some extent into the
modern era).33
Laws, 656d–657a; Plato, Protagoras, 210b; Corpus Hermeticum, 16.2 (in Brian P. Copenhaver,
trans., Hermetica: the Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1992]—all citations of the Corpus Hermeticum are from this translation; for the
Greek text I use the Budé edition: Arthur Darby Nock and André-Jean Festugière, ed. and trans.,
Corpus Hermeticum, 4 vols. [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1945–1972]); Iamblichus, De mysteriis, 7.5;
Iamblichus, Commentary on the Timaeus, frag. 9, in John M. Dillon, ed. and trans., Iamblichi
Chalcidensis in Platonis dialogos commentariorum fragmenta (Leiden: Brill, 1973), 113 and 272.
30 Plato, Cratylus, 418a–b and 421c–d.
31 Plato, Phaedo, 75d.
32 Plato, Statesman, 258c; cf. “the same thing is one in the many in a way like that in which there
is one seal-print in many things” (Plotinus, Enneads, 6.5.6).
33 E.g., “By attributing such principles to the mind, as an innate property, it becomes possible
to account for the quite obvious fact that the speaker of a language knows a great deal that he
has not learned… by application of these intellectual truths, which are ‘imprinted on the soul by
the dictates of Nature itself,’ we can compare and combine individual sensations and interpret
experience in terms of objects, their properties, and the events in which they participate.
Evidently, these interpretive principles cannot be learned from experience in their entirety, and
they may be independent of experience altogether… we can expect to find universal consent
to Common Notions only among the normal, rational, and clear-headed… the psychology that
develops in this way is a kind of Platonism without preexistence. Leibniz makes this explicit in
many places. Thus he holds that ‘nothing can be taught us of which we have not already in our
minds the idea,’ and he recalls Plato’s ‘experiment’ with the slave boy in the Meno… that the
In order to get a clearer picture of how this stamping, impressing, Â�inscribing,

and marking with seals works in ancient Platonism, we must look to descrip
tions of perception—descriptions which profoundly inform discussions of what
language is and how it functions. To reiterate, Platonism presumes that “by our
bodies and through perception we have dealings with coming-to-be, but we deal
with real beings by our souls and through reasoning… being always stays the
same and in the same state, but coming-to-be varies from one time to another.”34
So how is it that the soul can reach out through perception to grasp the unvary
ing Forms reflected in objects? Grasping the Forms is by definition grasping the
truth,35 so how does this crucial process work?
Ancient Platonism assumes that the Forms, as distinct entities, travel from
objects to the senses and hence to the soul via effluvia or light.36 When a per
ceived object is under consideration by the soul, the soul carries on a cÂ� onversation
with itself, as it were—asking questions, affirming and denying—and ultimately,
through this internal dialectic, reaches a conclusion about which Form it under
stands to have been carried through the effluvia (or light-beams) from an object;
this is also the definition of ‘thinking’, the process of formal analysis by thought:
the Form should travel directly from object to perception to thought to word.37
Examples of a Form reflected out there in the world (e.g., snub-nosedness
per se, be it reproduced on the face of Socrates or on that of Theaetetus) imprint
a record on the soul via perception.38 Because the movement of effluvia or light
which carries the Forms to the soul is neither easily explainable nor easily com
prehensible, Platonism turns to an analogy; this analogy occupies a place in the
history of European discourse on perception similar to that of the analogy of the
alphabet in the parallel history of ontology:
We have in our souls a block of wax, larger in one person, smaller in another, and of purer
wax in one case, dirtier in another; in some men rather hard, in others soft, while in some
principles of language and natural logic are known unconsciously, and that they are in large
measure a precondition for language acquisition rather than a matter of ‘institution’ or ‘training’
is the general proposition of Cartesian linguistics” (Noam Chomsky, Cartesian Linguistics: A
Chapter in the Study of Rationalist Thought [New York: Harper & Row, 1966], 60–63). This appears
to be an example of the “linguistics which always remains, even when denying it, a linguistics of
the word, verily of the noun” (Jacques Derrida, Glas, trans. John P. Leavey Jr. and Richard Rand
[Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986], 91b).
34 Plato, Sophist, 248a.
35 Plato, Theaetetus, 186a–e.
36 Plato, Meno, 76c–e; Plato, Republic, 507e–508b.
37 Plato, Theaetetus, 189e–190b.
38 Plato, Theaetetus, 209c.
it is of the proper consistency… we make impressions upon this of everything we wish to

remember among the things we have seen or heard or thought of ourselves; we hold the wax
under our perceptions and thoughts and take a stamp from them, in the way in which we
take the imprints of signet rings… whatever is impressed upon the wax we remember and
know so long as the image (eidōlon) remains in the wax; whatever is obliterated or cannot
be impressed, we forget and do not know.39
Because the soul is like a block of wax, perception leaves an imprint—the ideo
graphic impression of the signet seal of a Form—on the soul. One can also compare
previously impressed imprints, called “signs” (sēmeia), with what is being cur
rently perceived to check if they match up; this is the basis of all thought—we think
with these soul-waxen signs. Mismatching perception with the sign-imprints
on the wax block leads to false judgment, heterodoxy, and the production of
Â�nonsense.40
Differences in the quality of any particular soul are likened to wax of a greater
or lesser quality, because “in some men, the wax in the soul is deep and abun
dant, smooth and worked to the proper consistency; and when the things that
come through the senses are imprinted… the signs (sēmeia) that are made are
lasting, because they are clear and have sufficient depth. Men with such souls
learn easily and remember what they learn; they do not get the signs (sēmeia) out
of line with the perceptions, but judge truly. As the signs (sēmeia) are distinct and
there is plenty of room for them, they quickly assign each thing to its own impress
in the wax—the things in question being, of course, what we call the things that
are and these people being the ones we call wise.”41
Everything ancient Platonism has to say about education comes down to
these internal wax-inscriptions, these ideographic soul-signs.42 The equation of
39 Plato, Theaetetus, 191c–191e.

40 Plato, Theaetetus, 192a–194b, 195c–d, and 199c–200a.
41 Plato, Theaetetus, 194c–d.
42 Viz., “the person who achieves the finest blend of… training and impresses it on his soul in
the most measured way is the one we’d most correctly call completely harmonious and trained”
(Plato, Republic, 412a; cf. Clement, Stromata, 1.1); “you cannot carry teachings away in a separate
container. You put down money and take the teaching away in your soul by having learned it” (Plato,
Protagoras, 314b); “when a friend complained to him that he had lost his notes, ‘You should have
inscribed them,’ said he, ‘on your soul instead of on paper’” (Diogenes Laertius, 6.5); “he that has
begun by learning these things with his understanding rather than his hearing… has stamped on
his soul impressions of truths so marvelous and priceless” (Philo, On the Creation, 61.172). Cf. “what
Derrida uncovers as an archē-writing is already for the metaphysician a language of purely mental
concepts which exists prior to its phonetic or graphic expression: if this language is best described as
an interiorized writing prior to its inscription as marks-on-the-page, it is because speech and writing
are not set in opposition by the quest to describe what Ockham called ‘mental words’ which ‘reside
the soul to a tablet of wax (such as would have been used by Greek students for
noting down lessons),43 upon which written signs are impressed and imprinted,
which further are the means for the process of thinking itself—we think with (or
in) these ideographic sēmeia —allows for the not inconsequential additional step
of comparing the soul itself to a written text, with the signs of the Forms function
ing as words written on the soul; a further corollary is that the soul can contain
paintings which illustrate the written text with haunting images and figures of
the Forms:
But look, do you share my view on this?—what view?—That our soul in such a situation is
comparable to a book?—How so?—If memory and perception concur with other impressions
at a particular occasion, then they seem to me to inscribe words (logoi) in our soul, as it
were. And if what is written is true, then we form a true judgment and a true account of the
matter. But if what our scribe writes is false, then the result will be the opposite of truth—I
agree, and I accept this way of putting it—Do you also accept that there is another craftsman
at work in our soul at the same time?—What kind of craftsman?—A painter who follows the
scribe and provides illustrations (eikones) to his words in the soul—How and when do we
say he does this work?—When a person takes his judgments and assertions directly from
sight or any other sense-perception and then views the images (eikones) he has formed
inside himself, corresponding to those judgments and assertions. Or is it not something of
this sort that is going on?—Quite definitely—And are not the pictures (eikones) of the true
judgments and assertions true, and the pictures of the false ones false?—Certainly.44
This twinning in the soul of image and word, of written text and accompanying
painted picture, is impressed in and inscribed on the waxen surface through the
likewise twinned processes of perception and internal dialectic. The inscrip
tion of the Platonic ideograph on the soul has its fullest description in a famous
passage from the Phaedrus.45
in the intellect alone and are incapable of being uttered aloud’. That the metaphor of a ‘writing in
the soul’ served best to capture this mental language reveals a tradition which, so far from being
in contradiction with itself, has never demonstrated a significant or consistent hostility to writing”
(Seán Burke, The Death and Return of the Author: Criticism and Subjectivity in Barthes, Foucault and
Derrida: Second Edition [Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998], 162).
43 On the ancient European use of wax tablets as writing surfaces for students, see: Isidore of
Seville, Etymologies, 6.9, in Stephen A. Barney et al., trans., The Etymologies of Isidore of Seville
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 140–141; all citations of the Etymologies are from
this translation; for the Latin text I use Jacques-Paul Migne, ed., Patrologiae cursus completus
series latina, 217 vols. (Paris: Garnier, 1841–1855).
44 Plato, Philebus, 38e–39c.
45 Viz., “writing shares a strange feature with painting. The offsprings of painting stand there
as if they are alive, but if anyone asks them anything, they remain most solemnly silent. The
same is true of written words… can we discern another kind of discourse, a legitimate brother
Ancient Platonism further—and significantly—argues that human souls must

in some way have a priori, pre-born knowledge of the Forms which is forgotten
at birth; although the pre-inscribed text of the soul is mostly rubbed out, all
worldly experience of the Forms is still a kind of recollection via palimpsestic
Â�reinscription.46 In this discussion of the transmigration of souls, the canonical
texts of Platonism further relate that without such recollection of the Forms,
human beings would be incapable of using language.47 Without the ideographic
inscription of the Forms on the soul before birth, no soul would be capable of
becoming embodied in a human—this due to the fact that human speech can only
be understood to represent Forms more or less reliably. In other words, unless one
has the complete text of the world of the Forms already inscribed (albeit mostly
erased at the moment of birth), one cannot by definition become a human; one
needs at least the lingering traces of the lost text of the Forms to even begin to
of this one? Can we say how it comes about, and how it is by nature better and more capable?—
Which one is that? How do you think it comes about?—It is a discourse that is written down, with
knowledge, in the soul of the listener… the dialectician chooses a proper soul and plants and
sows within it discourse accompanied by knowledge… first, you must know the truth concerning
all the Forms (eidē) you are speaking or writing about; you must learn how to define each Form
(eidos) in itself; and, having defined it, you must know how to divide it into Forms (eidē) until
you reach something indivisible… for to be unaware of the difference between a dream-image
and the reality of what is… must truly be grounds for reproach… what is said for the sake of
understanding and learning, what is truly written in the soul concerning what is… can be clear,
perfect, and worth serious attention” (Plato, Phaedrus, 275d–278b).
46 Plato, Phaedo, 74b–76e and 92d–e. Cf. “The human soul is immortal; at times it comes to an
end, which they call dying, at times it is reborn, but it is never destroyed… as the soul is immortal,
has been born often and sees all things here and in the underworld, there is nothing which it has
not learned; so it is in no way surprising that it can recollect the things it knew before, both about
virtue and other things. As the whole of nature is akin, and the soul has learned everything,
nothing prevents a man, after recalling one thing only—a process called learning—discovering
everything else for himself, if he is brave and does not tire of the search, for searching and
learning are, as a whole, recollection” (Plato, Meno, 81b–d). In Republic, 620e–621b, Er describes
souls, having completed their journey in the underworld, drinking a larger or smaller amount
of water from the Lethe, and hence erasing more or less of the Forms off themselves, before the
clap of thunder and earthquake takes each away like a shooting star to their respective rebirth.
47 Viz., “in the thousandth year both groups arrive at a choice and allotment of second lives, and
each soul chooses the life it wants. From there, a human soul can enter a wild animal, and a soul that
was once human can move from an animal to a human being again. But a soul that never saw the
truth cannot take a human shape, since a human being must understand speech in terms of general
Forms (eidē), proceeding to bring many perceptions together into a reasoned unity. That process is
the recollection of the things our soul saw when it was traveling with the god, when it disregarded the
things we now call real and lifted up its head to what is truly real instead” (Plato, Phaedrus, 249b–c).
use human language—learning to speak is also a form of recollection. Without

this underlying assumption, the basic episteme of Platonism does not function.48
The strong theory of ideography, explicitly proclaimed by Plotinus in his dis
cussion of Egyptian hieroglyphic (see chapter 5), is grounded in all of the Platonic
notions above—the world of Forms, the matter/form split, the demiurge using Forms
as blueprints for creation, the nature of dialectic, the Greek alphabet as a model,
primary language, the block of wax analogy, and learning as Â�recollection—and it
makes perfect sense within the greater episteme of ancient Platonism. The assump
tion that Egyptian hieroglyphic was a form of human writing that could ideograph
ically encode Forms in a non-discursive fashion through the use of external images
and symbols (modeled on the analogy of the Forms being written internally on the
soul via dialectic, and the Forms ‘written’ as the stoicheia “elements/letters” of
things in the world) was the first instance of the strong theory applied externally to
actual writing in the physical world. This seductive vision of absolute truths being
recorded and transmitted in writing both inside and outside of the souls of wise
individuals becomes a key thread and a core episteme running through the length
and breadth of European intellectual history. This is a critically important historical
theory, regardless of its factual applicability to any form of human language.
The strong theory—as codified in the canonical texts of ancient Platonism—is
the origin and fountainhead of all later theories of ideography. And although Bloch
may warn us that obsession with origins is an idol of the historian tribe,49 some
times this kind of idolatry is necessary to begin the process of Â�understanding an
enormously complicated historical episteme and its lengthy discursive Â�trajectory.
48 E.g., “if those realities we are always talking about exist, the Beautiful and the Good and
all that kind of reality, and we refer all the things we perceive to that reality, discovering that it
existed before and is ours, and we compare these things with it, then, just as they exist, so our
soul must exist before we are born. If these realities do not exist, then this argument is altogether
futile” (Plato, Phaedo, 76d–e); “to dissociate each thing from everything else is to destroy totally
everything there is to say. The weaving together of Forms (eidē) is what makes speech possible
for us” (Plato, Sophist, 259e); “if someone… won’t allow that there are Forms (eidē) for things and
won’t mark off a Form (eidos) for each one, he won’t have anywhere to turn his thought, since he
doesn’t allow that for each thing there is a character that is always the same. In this way he will
destroy the power of dialectic entirely” (Plato, Parmenides, 135b–c).
49 Viz., “It will never be amiss to begin with an acknowledgement of our faults. The explanation of
the very recent in terms of the remotest past, naturally attractive to men who have made of this past
their chief subject of research, has sometimes dominated our studies to the point of a hypnosis. In its
most characteristic aspect, this idol of the historian tribe may be called the obsession with origins”
(Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, trans. Peter Putnam [New York: Random House, 1953], 29).
Chapter Two: Aristotelianism and Soft Theory
The soft theory of ideography develops from Aristotelianism. The differences
between Platonism and Aristotelianism have often been overemphasized; this
should be apparent from the similarities between the strong and soft theories.
Aristotelian soft theory—again with the caveat that I am not attempting here to
describe the intricately detailed arguments of the historical Aristotle (384–322
B.C.E.) himself—is so called because it does not rely on a creator god, on the
immortality of the soul and the recollections thereof, on an ontologically distinct
world of Forms, or on dialectic. It is epistemologically grounded in a specific
understanding of language, inductive and deductive logic, human perception,
thinking and thought in the soul, the matter/form divide, the Greek alphabet as a
model, and the block of wax analogy.
The Aristotelian view of language is summarized in a single passage:
First we must settle what a word (onoma) is… spoken sounds are symbols of affections in
the soul, and written marks are symbols of spoken sounds. And just as the written marks are
not the same for all men, neither are the spoken sounds. But what these are in the first place
signs (sēmeia) of—affections of the soul—are the same for all; and what these affections are
likenesses of—actual things—are also the same… a word (onoma) is a spoken sound signif
icant by convention… I say “by convention” because no word (onoma) is a word naturally
but only when it has become a symbol.1
The first point is that in order to interpret any human speech act (be it verbal or
written), one must define what a word is. The second point is that a word is to
be defined as the sign of an affection in the soul; whether this word, as a sign,
is spoken sign or a derivative graphic representation of speech (a sign of a sign)
is unproblematic. The third point is that although these word-signs, be they
spoken or secondarily written, are different in sound and shape from language
to language and from writing system to writing system, the affections which
they are signs of, the semantic contents to which words refer, are identical for
all humans—with the corollary that objects too are always perceived in the same
way, and hence the things out there in the world must be the same regardless of
who is perceiving them. The fourth point is that human language is conventional.
1 Aristotle, On Interpretation, 16a (in Jonathan Barnes, ed., The Complete Works of Aristotle: The
Revised Oxford Translation, 2 vols. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984]—all citations
of Aristotle, occasionally slightly modified, are from this translation; for the Greek text I use
Aristotelis Opera ex recensione Immanuelis Bekkeri, 11 vols. [Oxonii: e Typographeo academico,
1837]); cf. Aristotle, Poetics, 1457a; Aristotle, Sense and Sensibilia, 437a.
Chapter Two: Aristotelianism and Soft Theory 33
But what Â�conventional means here is that the particular sounds or graphic shapes

that words take in human languages and writing systems have nothing to do with
the signified content of the words; the signified contents, which words convention
ally symbolize, are identical for all humans and thereby universal. The signifiers
are conventional; the signifieds are not conventional but rather absolutely fixed
universals.
Under these conditions, “every word (onoma) must be intelligible and signify
something, and not many things but only one… further, if the word (onoma) sig
nifies something and this can be truly asserted of it, it necessarily is this; and it is
not possible that that which is necessary should ever not be… further, if it is not
possible to affirm anything truly, this itself will be false—the assertion that there
is no true affirmation. But if a true affirmation exists, this appears to refute what is
said by those who raise such objections and utterly destroy rational discourse.”2
And so, “if knowledge or thought is to have an object, there must be some other
and permanent entities, apart from those that are sensible; for there can be no
knowledge of things which are in a state of flux. Socrates… became the first to
raise the problem of universal definitions.”3
“Definition,” according to Aristotelians, “is of the universal and of the Form
(eidos).”4 And so “Socrates… seeking the universal… fixed thought for the first
time on definitions; Plato accepted his teaching, but held that the problem
applied not to any sensible thing but to entities of another kind—for this reason,
that the common definition could not be a definition of any sensible thing, as they
were always changing. Things of the other sort, then, he called Forms (ideai), and
sensible things, he said, were apart from these, and were all called after these;
for the multitude of things which have the same name as the Form (eidos) exist
by participation (methexis) in it… but what the participation (methexis) or the
imitation (mimesis) of the Form (eidos) could be they left an open question.”5 The
Aristotelian answer to the question of how participation or imitation of the Forms
works led to the development of the soft theory of ideography.
2 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1062a–b. Cf. “each affection has its sign (sēmeion), since it is necessary
that it should have a single sign” (Aristotle, Prior Analytics, 70b); “for not to have one meaning is
to have no meaning, and if words (onomata) have no meaning reasoning with other people, and
indeed with oneself has been annihilated; for it is impossible to think of anything if we do not
think of one thing. Let it be assumed, as was said at the beginning, that the word (onoma) has a
meaning and has one meaning” (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1006b).
3 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1078b; cf. Aristotle, Metaphysics, 999b.
4 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1036a.
5 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 987b.
34 Chapter Two: Aristotelianism and Soft Theory
The Aristotelian Forms of the soft theory do not exist in the separate and dis
tinct world of Forms—they do, however, exist in exactly the same way in every
human soul without exception, and are therefore called “universals.” It is these
universals which form the basis of Aristotelian epistemology:
Now what knowledge is, if we are to speak exactly and not follow mere similarities, is plain
from what follows. We suppose all that we know is not capable of being otherwise; of things
capable of being otherwise we do not know, when they have passed outside of our observa
tion, whether they exist or not. Therefore the object of knowledge is of necessity. Therefore
it is eternal; and all things that are eternal are ungenerated and imperishable.[6] Again,
every science is thought to be capable of being taught, and its object of being learned.[7] And
all teaching starts from what is already known… it proceeds sometimes through induction
and sometimes by deduction. Now induction is of first principles and of the universal and
deduction proceeds from universals.8
Induced universals (and the deductions that proceed from them)—which are the
objects of knowledge by definition—obviously cannot be sensed individuals.9
These universals, in terms of language, are the fixed signifieds of words. In other
words, the meaning behind any particular word is a universal which is neces
sary—i.e., inevitable, invariable, eternal, ungenerated, and imperishable by defi
nition. The signifieds of words are soft ideographic Forms (a.k.a. universals).
Words, according to Aristotelianism, are therefore literal, unabashed, and
perfectly knowable signs of absolutely true reality: all human languages are
primary languages (because their signifieds are inevitably universals, even if
the signifiers are conventional). Aristotelians have taken the world of the Forms
over wholesale from the Platonists and relocated it in the identical geographies
6 [my note] cf. “eternal things must be always most true; for they are not merely sometimes
true, nor is there any cause of their being, but they themselves are the cause of the being of
other things, so that as each thing is in respect of being, so is it in respect of truth” (Aristotle,
Metaphysics, 993b).
7 [my note] cf. “now about eternal things no one deliberates… and in the case of exact and self-
contained sciences there is no deliberation, e.g. about the letters of the alphabet (for we have no
doubt how they should be written)” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1112a–b).
8 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1139b.
9 Viz., “if there is nothing apart from individuals, there will be no object of thought, but all
things will be objects of sense, and there will be no knowledge of anything, unless we say that
sensation is knowledge. Further, nothing will be eternal or unmovable; for all perceptible things
perish and are in movement” (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 999b); “if they are not universals but of
the nature of individuals, they will not be knowable; for the knowledge of anything is universal”
(Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1004a).
of each and every human soul: “the soul is in a way all existing things.”10 It is
possible to use the wrong words for things, but that is only a matter of ignorance,
and has nothing to do with the nature of words—which cannot be otherwise than
absolutely true and absolutely representative of reality by universal definition.
This truth-claim about the nature of any particular word leads to the episte
mological assertion that deductive sentences (a.k.a., propositions) constructed
out of such words can be either absolutely true or totally false (i.e., Aristotelian
logic), which further encourages the belief that human language can genuinely
and exactly encode reality in and of itself in an absolutely true and unquestion
able way (by definition, as it were). Such a perfect and universal language could
then be used by humans, who would thereby produce and disseminate ontologi
cally factual knowledge as easily and quickly as they generate logical speech and
writing. It is admittedly a tall order for any human language, but this is precisely
what Aristotelians advocate and claim to be doing:
Regarding things that cannot be otherwise opinions are not at one time true and at another
false, but the same opinions are always true or always false… about the things, then, which
are essences and exist in actuality, it is not possible to be in error, but only to think them
or not to think them… as regards being in the sense of truth and not being in the sense of
falsity, in one case there is truth if the subject and the attribute are really combined, and
falsity if they are not combined; in the other case, if the object is existent it exists in a partic
ular way, and if it does not exist in this way it does not exist at all; and truth means thinking
these objects, and falsity does not exist, nor error, but only ignorance.11
Accordingly, perception begins with the universal elements (stoicheia): “the

most universal things are elements (because each of them being one and simple
is present in a plurality of things, either in all or in as many as possible)… it is
common to all the meanings that the element of each thing is the first compo
nent immanent in each.”12 And, as in Platonism, analysis of these basic elements
(Â�stoicheia) of reality via perception and thought is associated at a fundamental
level with the letters (stoicheia) of the Greek alphabet:
How is one to know what all things are made of, and how is this to be made evident? This
also affords a difficulty; for there might be a conflict of opinion, as there is about certain syl
lables; some say za is made out of s and d and a, while others say it is a distinct sound and
none of those that are familiar. Further, how could we know the objects of sense without
10 Aristotle, On The Soul, 431b.

11 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1051b–1052a. Cf. “falsity and truth are not in things… but in thought;
while with regard to simple things and essences falsity and truth do not exist even in thought”
(Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1027b).
having the sense in question? Yet we should, if the elements of which all things consist, as
complex sounds consist of their proper elements, are the same.13
Perception is, at this level and in a certain sense, problematic.14 Perception itself
can grasp only the raw sense data of individuals; some kind of ideographic
inscription has to happen on the wax tablet of the soul for universals to become
known; only when perception inscribes universals on the soul does knowledge
happen.15 So how does this process of ideographic inscription work in Aristote
lianism? How does the soul become possessed of knowledge of these necessary-
by-definition universals?
It is part of the Aristotelian definition of the human soul that it has the capac
ity to peel off the matter of the individual percept and record the universal Forms
via the inscription of memory.16 Memory produces experience and experience
is like written ideographic Forms on the soul. Aristotelians turn to a military
analogy to illustrate this:
So from perception comes memory, as we call it, and from memory (when it occurs often
in connection with the same thing), experience; for memories that are many in number
form a single experience. And from experience, or from the whole universal that has come
to rest in the soul (the one apart from the many, whatever is one and the same in all those
things)… they come about from perception—as in a battle when a rout occurs, if one makes
a stand another does and then another, until a position of strength is reached… when one
of the undifferentiated things makes a stand, there is a primitive universal in the mind (for
though one perceives the particular, perception is of the universal)… a stand is made in
these, until what has no parts and is universal stands… thus it is clear that it is necessary
for us to become familiar with the primitives by induction; for perception too instills the
universal in this way.17
13 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 993a. Examples of the Greek alphabet analogy are rife in the
Aristotelian corpus—just in this one particular text, see, e.g., Metaphysics, 998a, 999b–1000a,
1002b, 1014a, 1041b, 1054a, and 1086b–1087a.
14 Viz., “nor can one understand through perception. For even if perception is of what is such
and such, and not of individuals, still one necessarily perceives an individual and at a place and
at a time, and it is impossible to perceive what is universal and holds in every case… it is what is
always and everywhere that we call universal” (Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, 87b).
15 Viz., “what actual sensation apprehends is individuals, while what knowledge apprehends is
universals, and these are in a sense within the soul itself” (Aristotle, On the Soul, 417b).
16 Viz., “for that which is potentially possessed of knowledge becomes possessed of knowledge
not by being moved itself but by reason of the presence of something else; for when it meets
with the particular object, it knows in a manner the universal through the particular” (Aristotle,
Physics, 247b).
17 Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, 100a–b.
How induction of the universal works, then, is that the multifarious Forms
present in each object or phenomenon become distinct as primitive universals
through multiple experiences over time of the same Form in different particular
objects—when universal parts of perceived objects are broken down on the battle
field of the soul by induction, each primitive Form eventually stands in a position
of strength and there becomes impressed and inscribed as an ideographic image
on the soul.
Though it may appear that perception is solely of the individual (and accord
ingly false by definition), this is not actually the case—visual perception allows
human souls to understand universals once induction sloughs off the rough of
the multiple parts and lets each distinct universal shine on its own.18 The process
of the movement from object to perception to induction to inscription is already
inculcated within the Aristotelian definition of the soul itself, and therefore does
not contradict the fact that perception is always of particular individuals located
in space and time: “in each case the sense-organ is capable of receiving the sen
sible object without its matter.”19 The sensible object without the matter is by
definition the Forms that make up the essential qualities of the object—it is these
that are visually perceived in battle as it were, and then induced and inscribed as
imagistic universals in the soul. In describing how this works, Aristotelians turn
to a familiar analogy:
Generally, about all perception, we can say that a sense is what has the power of receiving
into itself the sensible Forms (eidē) of things without the matter, in the way in which a piece
of wax takes on the impress of a signet-ring without the iron or gold; what produces the
impression is a signet of bronze or gold, but not qua bronze or gold; in a similar way the
sense is affected by what is colored or flavored or sounding not insofar as each is what it is,
but insofar as it is of such and such a sort and according to its definition.20
Although Aristotelianism does not allow for an ontologically distinct realm of

Forms outside the human soul, the wax block and the signet ring analogy func
tions similarly. The waxen impressions are not abstract reproductions of Forms
from another world, but rather are abstract reproductions of the induced uni
versals (Aristotelian Forms) which the soul itself works out in response to the
data of perception (with the necessary stipulation that all human souls always
respond in exactly the same way to the same data and thus always produce the
18 Viz., “it is through the sensation of sight that we recognize the Form (eidos) present in each
individual” (Aristotle, Topics, 113a).
19 Aristotle, On the Soul, 425b.
20 Aristotle, On the Soul, 424a.
same Â�internal ideographs). This is almost an exact reversal of the Platonic demi
urge inserting the Forms into matter during the cosmogony—here the Forms
mixed in with matter in the world are pulled out and abstracted via perception
and impressed intaglio upon the human soul. These impressions of the Forms are
compared to seal-stamped pictures or images, which again is the familiar analogy
from Platonism:
It is clear that the cognition of these objects is effected by the primary faculty of percep
tion, and memory even of intellectual objects involves an image (phantasma) and the
image is an affection… it is clear that we must conceive that which is generated through
sense-Â�perception in the soul… to be some such thing as a picture. The process of movement
stamps in, as it were, a sort of impression of the percept, just as persons do who make an
impression with a seal.21
More than just perception, or memory, or even experience, this analogy extends
to thinking itself, to all acts of human cognition; these ideographic pictures or
images are what humans think with according to Aristotelianism. We can detect
our own processes of thought because we think in these percept-like images;
thought itself is literally a form of ideography—albeit the soft form.22
It is these inscribed Forms that humans cogitate with and all human souls,
sufficiently experienced, share one identically inscribed set of ideographic images
(the Aristotelian Forms); these Forms are the signifieds of all human Â�languages.
21 Aristotle, On Memory, 450a–b.

22 Viz., “even when the external object of perception has departed, the impressions it has
made persist, and are themselves objects of perception” (Aristotle, On Dreams, 460b); “granted
that there is in us something like an impression or picture, why should the perception of this
be memory of something else, and not of this itself? For when one actually remembers, this
impression is what he contemplates, and this is what he perceives… we have to conceive that
the image (phantasma) within us is both something in itself and relative to something else”
(Aristotle, On Memory, 450b); “without an image (phantasma) thinking is impossible” (Aristotle,
On Memory, 450a); “within the soul the faculties of knowledge and sensation are potentially
these objects, the one what is knowable, the other what is sensible. They must be either the things
themselves or their Forms (eidē). The former alternative is of course impossible: it is not the stone
which is present in the soul but its Form (eidos)… hence no one can learn or understand anything
in the absence of sense, and when the mind is actively aware of anything it is necessarily aware
of it along with an image (phantasma); for images (phantasmata) are like sensuous contents
except in that they contain no matter” (Aristotle, On the Soul, 431b–432a); “to the thinking soul
images (phantasmata) serve as if they were contents of perception… that is why the soul never
thinks without an image (phantasma)… the faculty of thinking then thinks the Forms (eidē) in
the images (phantasmata)… by means of the images (phantasmata) or thoughts that are within
the soul, just as if it were seeing, it calculates and deliberates… in every case the mind which is
actively thinking is the objects which it thinks” (Aristotle, On the Soul, 431a–b).
When thought is actively occurring in the mind, the individual thoughts them
selves are like written words on a writing-table; when such thought is only poten
tially in the mind (not currently active), the mind is, as such, a writing table that
stands ready to be written upon.23 According to this analogy, the universal Forms
in the soul are like ideographically written words, inscribed on the soul (which is
the table prepared for such writing).
When Aristotelians proclaim that “actual knowledge is identical with its
object,”24 we should understand that knowledge itself—what can be known with
absolute certainty—is exactly the same thing as the text written in the soul via
the process of perception and induction of universals (no one deliberates about
how letters are to be written; it is an exact science). These universal inductions
and deductions, as signs, then serve as the definitions of normal human words—
they are the signifieds of the words of Greek (and all other languages); they form
the basis of meaning in all languages (being the sum total of all possible human
sememes). And, according to Aristotelianism, such signifieds cannot be in error.25
The Aristotelian Forms are the elements of reality (mixed in with matter out
there in the world), the cognitive elements of thought, and the semantic elements
of language—and they are exactly identical in all three cases and always and
everywhere true, be they in the world, in the mind, or in human discourse. The
23 Viz., “if thinking is like perceiving, it must be either a process in which the soul is acted
upon by what is capable of being thought, or a process different from but analogous to that. The
thinking part of the soul must therefore be… capable of receiving the Form (eidos) of an object;
that is, it must be potentially identical in character with its object without being the object.
Thought must be related to what is thinkable, as sense is to what is sensible… it is a good idea to
call the soul the place of Forms (eidē)… to sum up, in so far as the realities it knows are capable
of being separated from their matter, so it is also with the powers of thought… what it thinks
must be in it just as characters may be said to be on a writing-table on which as yet nothing
actually stands written: this is exactly what happens with thought. Thought is itself thinkable in
exactly the same way as its objects are. For in the case of objects which involve no matter, what
thinks and what is thought are identical; for speculative knowledge and its object are identical”
(Aristotle, On the Soul, 429a–430a).
24 Aristotle, On the Soul, 430a.
25 Viz., “the thinking of the definition in the sense of what it is for something to be is never
in error… actual knowledge is identical with its object” (Aristotle, On the Soul, 430b–431a); “in
the special object perceived they perceive an object… specifically the same for all; and this,
accordingly, explains how it is that many persons together see, or smell, or hear the same object.
These things are… an affection or process of some kind (otherwise this would not have been, as it
is, a fact of experience)” (Aristotle, Sense and Sensibilia, 446b); “perception of the special objects
of sense is always free from error” (Aristotle, On the Soul, 427b); “perception of the special objects
of sense is never in error” (Aristotle, On the Soul, 428b); “I call by the name of ‘special object’ of
this or that sense that… in respect of which no error is possible” (Aristotle, On the Soul, 418a).
ultimate signifieds of all of our words, no matter which particular language we

use (be it, e.g., English, Greek, Nahuatl, Old Church Slavonic, or Cantonese), are
identical; human language is always the same in terms of its message-bearing
contents—if it was not, Aristotelians argue with impeccable peripatetic logic, no
human soul could ever understand any other human soul via any form of speech.
The soft theory is grounded in this Aristotelian epistemology. While similar
in many ways to the strong theory, the soft theory does not need anything greater
than the souls of human beings in order to function—although it does require a
very specific (and universal) definition of the human soul and the presumption
of a matter/form split. As is the case with the Platonic strong theory, the Aristo
telian soft theory contains a magnificent vision of absolute truths being recorded
and transmitted both inside the souls of wise individuals and outside of souls in
logical speech and writing. All human speech acts, if done correctly, are by this
definition ideographic.
The Aristotelian definition of language that began this chapter also serves as
its conclusion; as, according to soft ideographic theory:
Spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, and written marks are symbols of
spoken sounds. And just as the written marks are not the same for all men, neither are the
spoken sounds. But what these are in the first place signs of—affections of the soul—are the
same for all; and what these affections are likenesses of—actual things—are also the same.26
From the perspective of modern relativist epistemology (after e.g., Nietzsche,

Wittgenstein, Whorf), we know that the signifieds of human language are really
just as arbitrary and conventional as the signifiers themselves.27 This makes both
26 Aristotle, On Interpretation, 16a.

27 Nietzsche—a trained philologist—articulates it with the most aplomb: “we always express
our thoughts with the words that lie to hand. Or, to express my whole suspicion: we have at
any moment only the thought for which we have to hand the words” (R. J. Hollingdale, trans.,
Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982],
145); “the significance of language for the evolution of culture lies in this, that mankind set up in
language a separate world beside the other world, a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing
upon it, it could lift the rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it. To the extent
that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names of things as in aeternae veritates
he has appropriated to himself that pride by which he raised himself above the animal: he really
thought that in language he possessed knowledge of the world. The sculptor of language was
not so modest as to believe that he was only giving things designations, he conceived rather
that with words he was expressing supreme knowledge of things” (R. J. Hollingdale, trans.,
Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986],
16); “as an architectural genius, man excels the bee; for it builds out of wax which it collects from
“affections of the soul” and “actual things” quite different from language to lan
guage, historical period to historical period, culture to culture, social group to
social group, generation to generation, and even individual to individual. The
prevalence of this episteme in the zeitgeist of modernity is such that it regularly
appears even in mass market paperback fiction:
“There’s only language. There’s no such thing as a ‘fact.’ There is no truth or falsehood, just
dominant processes by which reality is socially constructed. In a world made out of lan
guage, nothing else is even possible.” Zeta searched in the dirt. She picked up a rusty nail.
“Is this language?” “Yep. That’s a ‘rusty nail,’ as the conceptual entity called a ‘rusty nail’ is
constructed under our cultural circumstances and in this moment in history.”28
Such “conceptual entities” (i.e., words) only exist in the lexicons of the specific
languages of specific people in specific places at specific historical junctures;
the words of the languages we speak cause our senses and our consciousness to
perceive different things in different ways. This modern Western paradigm shift
to semantic and ontological relativity does not, however, change the historical
importance and influence of the Aristotelian dream of perfect language—soft
ideographic theory.
nature, while man builds out of the much more delicate material of the concepts, which he must
fabricate out of his own self… only by the invincible belief that this sun, this window, this table
is a truth-in-itself… does he live with some calm, security, and consistency. If he could even for
one moment escape from the prison walls of this belief, then his high opinion of himself would
be dashed immediately… that enormous structure of beams and boards of the concepts, to which
to poor man clings for dear life, is for the liberated intellect just a scaffolding and plaything
for his boldest artifices” (Friedrich Nietzsche, On Truth and Lying in an Extra-Moral Sense, in
Sander L. Gilman et al., trans., Friedrich Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language [New York: Oxford
University Press, 1989], 252–254); cf. Hollingdale, Human, All Too Human, 316; Hollingdale,
Daybreak, 32; Walter Kaufmann, trans., Beyond Good & Evil (New York: Vintage, 1989), 216–217;
Walter Kaufmann, trans., On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo (New York: Vintage, 1989),
26; Twilight of the Idols, in Walter Kaufmann, trans. and ed., The Portable Nietzsche (New York:
Penguin, 1982), 482–483 and 530–531.
28 Bruce Sterling, Zeitgeist (New York: Random House, 2000), 151.
Chapter Three: Hellenized Egypt, Pythagoreanism,
and the Primitivist Theory
According to classical European sources, Thales the Milesian (fl. 585 B.C.E.)
learned geometry from Egyptian priests and brought this knowledge back to
Greece.1 Thales was also widely known as the founder of physics.2 Diogenes
Â�Laertius (fl. 3rd Century C.E.) actually begins his history of philosophy in Egypt:
“Hephaestus (Ptah) was the son of the Nile, and with him philosophy began,
priests and prophets being its chief exponent.”3 Other important Greek philos
ophers also supposedly learned what they knew of their art in Egypt, Â�including
Cleobulus (fl. 600 B.C.E.),4 Eudoxus (407–357 B.C.E.),5 Democritus (460–370
B.C.E.),6 and, of course, Plato.7 Among the philosophers who famously derived
their teachings and philosophy from Egypt, Pythagoras of Samos (580–500
B.C.E.), however, was by far the leading light.
1 Diogenes Laertius, 1.24, 1.27, and 1.43; Clement, Stromata, 1.15–16. Aristotelians confirm that
“the mathematic arts were founded in Egypt” (Aristotle, Metaphysics, 981b).
2 Aristotle, Metaphysics, 983b; Apuleius, Florida, 18.30–32 (in S. J. Harrison et al., trans., Apuleius:
Rhetorical Works [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001]).
3 Diogenes Laertius, 1.1. Clement makes similar claims about the origin of philosophy in Egypt
(Stromata, 1.15), as does Philostratus (Lives of the Sophists, 481, in William Cave Wright, ed. and
trans., Philostratus: Lives of the Sophists & Eunapius: Lives of Philosophers [Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1998]—all references to Philostratus and Eunapius are to this Loeb edition).
4 Diogenes Laertius, 1.89.
5 Eudoxus, one of Plato’s pupils, reputedly spent a year and four months in Egypt training as
a priest, and translated Egyptian documents into Greek. See: Diodorus Siculus, 1.96 (in C. H.
Oldfather et al., ed. and trans., Diodorus of Sicily: The Library of History, 12 vols. [Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1933–1967]—all citations of Diodorus are from this Loeb edition);
Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 354e; Clement, Stromata, 1.15; Diogenes Laertius, 8.87–89; Iamblichus,
De mysteriis, 1.1; Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, 484.
6 Diodorus Siculus, 1.96; Clement, Stromata, 1.15; Diogenes Laertius, 9.35; Iamblichus, De
mysteriis, 1.1.
7 Apuleius, Plato and his Doctrine, 3; Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorun, 5.29 (in L. H. G.
Greenwood et al., ed. and trans., Marcus Tullius Cicero, 28 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1969–1979]—all citations of Cicero are from this Loeb edition); Cicero, De Re Publica,
1.10; Lucan, Civil War, 10.181–182 (in J. D. Duff, ed. and trans., Lucan: The Civil War [Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1928]—all citations of Lucan are from this Loeb edition); Plutarch,
Isis and Osiris, 354e; Clement, Stromata, 1.15; Diogenes Laertius, 3.6; Diodorus Siculus, 1.96;
Iamblichus, De mysteriis, 1.1; Ammianus Marcellinus, 22.16 (in John C. Rolfe, ed. and trans.,
Ammianus Marcellinus, 3 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935–1939]—all citations of
Ammianus Marcellinus are from this Loeb edition).
Chapter Three: Hellenized Egypt, Pythagoreanism, and the Primitivist Theory 43
Pythagoras was a student of Thales, who encouraged him to travel to Egypt

and study with the priests there,8 and it was “by these, he said, that he himself had
been provided with the very things in virtue of which the multitude believed he
was wise.”9 Pythagoras evidently “learnt the Egyptian language… he also entered
the Egyptian sanctuaries, and was told their secret lore concerning the gods.”10
And it was this secret lore, this teaching of theological mysteries, that Pythagoras
passed on to the Greeks;11 as Diodorus relates, “Pythagoras learned from Egyp
tians his teachings about the gods, his geometrical propositions and theory of
numbers, as well as the transmigration of the soul into every living being.”12 It
was widely believed in Mediterranean antiquity that the theory of the immortality
of the soul (if not demiurgery and the strong and soft theories of ideography for
that matter) was something introduced into Greece from Egypt by Pythagoras,13
8 Herodotus, 2.81 (in A. D. Godley, ed. and trans., Herodotus, 3 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1926–1928]—all citations of Herodotus are from this Loeb edition); Diodorus
Siculus, 1.69, 92.2, and 98.2; Apuleius, Florida, 15.14–15; Porphyry, Vita Pythagorica, 6–8 and 11–12
(in Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie, trans., The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library: An Anthology of
Ancient Writings Which Relate to Pythagoras and Pythagorean Philosophy [Grand Rapids: Phane
Press, 1987]; for the Greek text I use the Budé edition: Édouard des Places, ed. and trans., Porphyre:
Vie de Pythagore, Lettre à Marcella [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1982]); Iamblichus, De mysteriis, 1.1;
Isocrates, Busiris, 28 (in LaRue Van Hook, ed. and trans., Isocrates, 3 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1954], 3:119); Isidore Lévy, La légende de Pythagore de Grèce en Palestine (Paris:
Librairie ancienne Honore Champion, 1927), 19–24.
9 Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life, 39 (in John Dillon and Jackson Hershbell, ed.
and trans., Iamblichus: On the Pythagorean Way of Life: Text, Translation, and Notes [Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1991]—all citations of On the Pythagorean Way of Life are from this edition); cf.
Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life, 45 and 175.
10 Diogenes Laertius, 8.3; cf. Erik Iversen, “The Hieroglyphic Tradition,” in J. R. Harris, ed.,
The Legacy of Egypt: Second Edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 172n4. Clement claims
that Pythagoras “alone seems to have met the prophets of the Egyptians… by whom he was
circumcised, that he might enter into the adytum and learn from the Egyptians the mystic
philosophy” (Stromata, 1.14–15).
11 Viz., “all the things for which Pythagoreans were admired among the Greeks were
transferred from Egypt” (Diodorus Siculus, 1.96). Part of the mystique of Pythagoras and the
early Pythagoreans is that they left no written works, see: Kathleen Freeman, trans., Ancilla to
the Pre-Socratic Philosophers: A Complete Translation of the Fragments in Diels, “Fragmente der
Vorsokratiker” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 20 and 82.
12 Diodorus Siculus, 1.98; cf. Porphyry, On Abstinence, 3.1.
13 According to Herodotus, the Egyptians “were the first to teach that the human soul is immortal”
(Herodotus, 2.123); cf. Diogenes Laertius, 1.12; Augustine, City of God, 10.30, 12.12, and 13.19 (in
R. W. Dyson, ed. and trans., Augustine: The City of God against the Pagans [Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1998]—all citations of City of God are from this translation; for the Latin texts
of Augustine I use Migne [op. cit.]); Augustine, On the Trinity, 12.15.24 (in Philip Schaff et al., ed.
44 Chapter Three: Hellenized Egypt, Pythagoreanism, and the Primitivist Theory
and it may be exactly this theory, and its consequences, which caused Pythagoras
to legendarily be the first person to call himself a ‘philosopher’.14
Pythagoras “used definitions… [and] their use was extended by Socrates and
his disciples, and afterwards by Aristotle and the Stoics.”15 As Apuleius says of
Pythagoras, “this pre-eminently talented genius, a man truly blessed in intelli
gence beyond the reach of humanity, the first founder and professor of philos
ophy, taught his students above all else to be silent… indeed, I say, this was the
first rule of wisdom: to learn how to think, to unlearn how to speak… my master,
Plato, Pythagorizes for the most part, departing not at all or very little from this
sect.”16 And it is this silent wisdom, this unlearning how to speak, this disdain
and trans., A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church: First Series,
14 vols. [Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995]—all citations of On the Trinity are from this translation);
Isidore of Seville, Eytmologies, 8.6.2; Ficino, Platonic theology, 4:61 (in Marsilio Ficino, Platonic
Theology, ed. and trans. Michael J. B. Allen et al., 6 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2001–2006]—all citations of Ficino are from this edition). For Pythagoras specifically bringing
this teaching to Greece see, e.g., Porphyry, Vita Pythagorica, 19 and 45. Clement notes that “from
Pythagoras Plato derived the immortality of the soul; and he from the Egyptians” (Stromata, 6.2).
14 Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life, 67 and 83; Clement, Stromata, 1.14. Pythagoras
in this way “discovered the secrets of philosophy” (Diogenes Laertius, 8.46), and taught that
“wisdom is truly a knowledge concerned with first things, noble, divine, undefiled, and always
the same and in the same state, by participation in which all other things may be termed noble.
And philosophy is the zealous pursuit of such contemplation” (Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean
Way of Life, 83); “Pythagoras himself, then, first named philosophy, and said it is a desire,
indeed a love, as it were, of wisdom, and wisdom is knowledge of the truth of existing things.
Existing things he recognized and declared to be immaterial, eternal, and solely active, that
is, things which are incorporeal. Other ‘existing things’ are equivocally so called by sharing
in existing things themselves, that is, corporeal and material forms, which are both generable and
corruptible, and never truly existing… [they are] virtually non-existent by comparison with the
universals” (Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life, 175); “Pythagoras cultivated philosophy,
the scope of which is to free the mind implanted within us from the impediments and fetters
within which it is confined, without whose freedom none can learn anything sound or true, or
perceive the unsoundness in the operation of sense. Pythagoras thought that the mind alone
sees and hears, while all the rest are blind and deaf. The purified mind should be applied to the
discovery of… eternal and incorporeal things which never vary” (Porphyry, Vita Pythagorica, 46).
15 Diogenes Laertius, 8.48. That Plato derived the foundations of his philosophy from
Pythagoras was taken for granted by most authors in middle and late Mediterranean antiquity,
e.g., Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life, 183; Proclus, Platonic Theology, 1.5. Plato was
supposedly excommunicated from the Pythagorean community for sharing Pythagoras’ secret
wisdom with the public (Diogenes Laertius, 8.55).
16 Florida, 15.22–26. Cf. “Pythagoras, who tardily but very properly has learned how to maintain
silence; for Pythagoras long ago (as you are well aware) taught his pupils the Pythagorean
manner” (Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers, 484). See also: Clement, Stromata, 1.12; Aulus
Gellius, Attic Nights, 1.9 (in John C. Rolfe, ed. and trans., Aulus Gellius: The Attic Nights, 3 vols.
for normal human speech, that most definitively characterizes Pythagoreanism

in all its forms and guises; it is “for this reason the Pythagoreans and the wise
men among the Egyptians forbade talking… paying respect by silence to god,”17
and “this is, then, the import of the silence of five years prescribed by Pythagoras,
which he enjoined on his disciples; that, abstracting themselves from the objects
of sense, they might with mind alone contemplate the deity.”18
Pythagoras reputedly transmitted two teachings, the plain and the Â�symbolic.19
The symbolic teaching is the silent version, the one unspoken, the one that no
one was allowed to transmit except in mysterious symbols. “In Egypt,” Porphyry
writes, “he lived with the priests, and learned the language and wisdom of the
Egyptians, and their three kinds of letters, the epistolographic, the hieroglyphic,
and symbolic, whereof one imitates the common way of speaking, while the
others express the sense of allegory and parable.”20 We can here see just how the
apocrypha surrounding Pythagoras and theories of ideography begin to cohere
inextricably in Roman antiquity—as Porphyry attests, there is a theoretical split
in these descriptions of Egyptian writing between that which records speech and
that which records ideographic wisdom (which exactly corresponds to Pythago
ras’ two teachings—ergo Egyptian writing itself was the source of this split and all
of Pythagoras’ silent and hidden wisdom).
In the Metamorphosis a (Neopythagorean) priest of Osiris brings “out of the
sanctuary some books inscribed with unknown characters (litteris ignorabilibus).
Some used the shapes of all sorts of animals to represent abridged expressions
of liturgical language; in others, the ends of letters were knotted and curved like
wheels or interwoven like vine-tendrils to protect their meaning from the curios
ity of the uninitiated.”21 Iamblichus further claims that Pythagoras’ Â�“symbolic
[Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946]—all citations of the Attic Nights are from this Loeb
edition); John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 2.6 (in Daniel D. McGarry, trans., The Metalogicon of John
of Salisbury: A Twelfth-Century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium [Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1955]—all citations of the Metalogicon are from this translation;
Latin text from Migne [op. cit.]).
17 Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs, 27 (in Robert Lamberton, trans., Porphyry: On the Cave
of the Nymphs [Barrytown: Station Hill Press, 1985]—all citations of On the Cave of the Nymphs are
from this translation; cf. John M. Duffy et al., ed. and trans., Porphyry: The Cave of the Nymphs
in the Odyssey [Buffalo: Department of Classics, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1969]).
18 Clement, Stromata, 5.11.
19 Porphyry, Vita Pythagorica, 37, 41–42, 48–49, and 57.
20 Porphyry, Vita Pythagorica, 12.
21 Apuleius, Metamorphosis, 11.22 (in J. Arthur Hanson, ed. and trans., Apuleius: Metamorphosis,
2 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989]—all citations of the Metamorphosis are from
this Loeb edition).
manner of instruction [was] entirely like the teaching which he learned in

Egypt”22—obviously referring to hieroglyphic—explaining:
Most indispensable for him (Pythagoras) was his manner of teaching by means of
“symbols” (symbola). For this style of teaching was treated with respect by nearly all Hel
lenes inasmuch as it was of ancient origin, and especially employed by the Egyptians in very
subtle ways. Likewise, Pythagoras considered it of great importance if someone carefully
and clearly elucidated the meanings and secret conceptions of the Pythagorean symbols,
(and discerned) how much rightness and truth they contained when revealed and freed
from their enigmatic form, and when adapted with simple and unadorned teaching for the
lofty geniuses of these philosophers, deified beyond human thought… in accord with the
“silence” legislated for them by Pythagoras, they engaged in divine mysteries and methods
of instruction forbidden to the uninitiated, and through symbols, they protected their talks
with one another and their treatises. And if someone, after singling out the actual symbols,
does not explicate and comprehend them with an interpretation free from mockery, the
things said will appear laughable and trivial to ordinary persons, full of nonsense and ram
bling. When, however, these utterances are explicated in accord with the manner of these
symbols, they become splendid and sacred instead of obscure to the many, rather analo
gous to the prophecies and oracles of the Pythian god. And they reveal marvelous thought,
and produce divine inspiration in those scholars who have grasped their meaning… such,
in outline, was the manner of his teaching through symbols.23
It appears that Pythagorean symbols, based on an ideographic exegesis of Egyp

tian hieroglyphic, are in fact able to protect themselves from the gaze of those
unworthy of such secret wisdom—something which the Phaedrus so famously
criticizes normal writing for being unable to do. These ideographic symbols,
then, can pass secret wisdom from initiate to initiate, and have nothing to do with
the normal spoken words of human language—they are literally secret inscrip
tions of divine (strong or soft) ideographic thought, the mysteries of the human
soul and the universe itself summed up in distinct visual images enigmatically
written, stamped, or otherwise produced externally in matter or internally on the
soul. As Plutarch says, “so great then, was the circumspection of the Egyptians in
their wisdom touching all that had to do with the gods… Pythagoras, as it seems,
was greatly admired, and he greatly admired the Egyptian priests, and, copying
their symbolism and occult teachings, incorporated his doctrines in enigmas. As
a matter of fact most of the Pythagorian precepts do not at all fall short of the
22 Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life, 47; cf. Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of
Life, 167, 177, 223, and 233.
23 Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life, 127–129.
writings that are called hieroglyphs.”24 Philo notes that the Pythagoreans had in
“studying and discerning truths… brought to light the Forms (ideai).”25
The Hellenized Egyptian priest and Stoic philosopher Chaeremon (fl. 41 C.E.)
was a member of the Alexandrian embassy to Claudius, tutor of Nero, and chief
librarian at Alexandria in succession to Apion. Chaeremon was a member of the
Alexandrian priestly hierarchy—one of the “hierogrammateurs” (hierogram-
mateis)26—and wrote an extremely influential treatise on Â�hieroglyphic.27 Unlike
Manetho, who lived during the early years of the Ptolemaic period, Chaeremon
was a Roman Alexandrian—assimilated into and colonized by Greek intellectual
culture; it is unlikely that Chaeremon spoke Demotic and Â�furthermore obvious
24 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 354d–354f.

25 Philo, Every Good Man Is Free, 1.3. Cf. “the apothegms of Pythagoras were called symbola by
disciples who believed that they concealed a deeper meaning… a symbolon was allowed to bear
less resemblance than the eikon to the thing that it signified. It was therefore an apter medium
for the representation of the supersensory and ineffable, which cannot resemble anything. At the
same time… the link between the symbol and its counterpart was supposed to be natural rather
than conventional… the symbol as a radiation from the gods, midway between the utterable
and the unutterable… reveals the power of the gods in a manner appropriate to each recipient”
(Mark Edwards, trans., Neoplatonic Saints: The Lives of Plotinus and Proclus by their Students
[Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2000], 106n342).
26 Hierogrammateis were “important priests in the second class. Among their many functions
were the finding of scared animals, the testing of candidates for priesthood, the interpretation of
dreams, the foretelling of the future, and especially the cultivation of the knowledge of ancient
Egyptian scripts” (Pieter Willen van der Horst, ed. and trans., Chaeremon: Egyptian Priest and
Stoic Philosopher [Leiden: Brill, 1984], 61n58). Lucian argues that such hierogrammateis “lived
underground for twenty-three years in their sanctuaries, learning magic from Isis” (Lucian, The
Lover of Lies, 34, in A. M. Harmon et al., ed. and trans., Lucian, 8 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1913–1959]—all citations of Lucian are from this Loeb edition); Heliodorus of
Emesa states that only such hierogrammateis could read and understand the sacred books of
Egypt (Aethiopica, 2.28, in Moses Hadas, trans., Heliodorus: An Ethiopian Romance [Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1957]—all citations of Heliodorus are from this translation; for the
Greek text I use the Budé edition: Thomas Wallace Lumb et al., ed. and trans., Heliodorus: Les
Éthiopiques, 3 vols. [Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1960]). See also: Clement, Stromata, 6.4.
27 For discussion, see: Samuel Birch, “On the Lost Book of Chaeremon on Hieroglyphics,”
Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature 3 (1850): 385–401; Charles Lenormant, “Fragments
du livre de Chéréman sur les hiéroglyphes par Samuel Birch,” Revue Archéologique 8 (1851):
13–30; Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer, Chairemon (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1932); Carl Wendel, “Zum
hieroglyphen-buche Chairemons,” Hermes: Zeitschrift für Klassische Philologie 75 (1940):
227–229; Ruben Smolders, “Chairemon: Alexandrian Citizen, Royal Scribe, Gymnasiarch,
Landholder at Bacchias, and Loving Father,” Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists
42.1 (2005): 93. On Chaeremon’s Hieroglyphica, van der Horst notes that “it is most probable
that authors like Clement of Alexandria and Horapollo drew upon it, and it is certain that the
Byzantine polymath Johannes Tzetzes did so in the twelfth century” (Chaeremon, x).
that his knowledge of written Egyptian was marginal at best. As Fowden says,
“three hundred years of exposure to Greek and then Roman rule have had
their effect. Not only is the objective manner of the narrative Greek—so too
is the vocabulary and the whole framework of ideas within which the descrip
tion is constructed. The priests of the Egyptian gods have become, not just ‘phi
losophers’, but covert Pythagoreans; and while Manetho, though writing in
Greek, presented his material as he had found it in his sources—as more or less
a translation—Â�Chaeremon is more self-conscious, careful to represent in terms
that will not seem shocking or incomprehensible a remote and apparently self-
sufficient culture that, as he well knew, by turns fascinated and alienated the
Greek world.”28 According to Chaeremon, “Egyptian wisdom is to say all things
symbolically, to conceal the Forms (eidē) of the gods in little boxes and to hang
from the wall only the Sphinx.”29 And thus “what is said in this passage is that
the ancient sacred scribes wanted to conceal theological truths. For that purpose
they handed these truths down to posterity in the disguise of allegorical and sym
bolical signs: hieroglyphs serve secrecy.”30 And so “from all this it is clear that in
later antiquity there was the wide-spread conviction that the ancient Egyptians
did not want their ideas about the gods and divine matters to be divulged. They
concealed them, inter alia, by way of a mysterious, symbolic script, the hiero
glyphs, which only the wise priests were able to write and were allowed to read.
28 Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 56. Chaeremon “was thus the ideal interpreter
of Egyptian religion, for Plutarch and Iamblichus as well as Porphyry, explaining the priestly
lifestyle and the theological content of myth and ritual in recognizably philosophic terms”
(Clark, Porphyry: On Abstinence, 182n571); “but it is not impossible that even an Egyptian priest
in the Hellenistic or Roman period sometimes no longer knew the exact significance (and origin)
of many hieroglyphs… it is also probable that a thoroughly Hellenized Egyptian priest like e.g.
Chaeremon, came to believe in the allegorical interpretation of hieroglyphs under the influence
of the Hellenistic authors they studied, once their knowledge of the origin and character of
this script began to decline” (Pieter Willen van der Horst, “The Secret Hieroglyphs in Classical
Literature,” in J. den Boeft and A. H. M. Kessels, ed., Actus: Studies in Honour of H. L. W. Nelson
[Utrecht: Instituut voor Klassieke Talen, 1982], 119–120).
29 Chaeremon, frag. 2, in Van der Horst, Chaeremon. As Fowden notes, “even if it was not
Chaeremon’s fault that his priests sounded like Pythagoreans, he can hardly have been unaware
of the usefulness of the resemblance” (Egyptian Hermes, 56n34).
30 Van der Horst, “The Secret Hieroglyphs,” 116. So “it would appear that Chaeremon, in spite of
being an Egyptian priest, adhered to the erroneous Greek symbolic conception of the hieroglyphs
which has had such a fateful influence in the West till the nineteenth century” (Van der Horst,
Chaeremon, 62n1).
Only the Egyptian priests could divulge these secrets.”31 Thus Chaeremon, Egyp
tian priest and self-styled member of the Stoa, was clearly also a Neopythagorean
and a Middle Platonist in terms of his strong theory of hieroglyphic.
Echoing Chaeremon, Plutarch (46–120 C.E.) writes that Egyptian philosophy
is “veiled in myths and in words containing dim reflexions and adumbrations of
the truth, as they themselves intimate beyond question by appropriately placing
sphinxes before their shrines to indicate that their religious teaching has in it
an enigmatical sort of wisdom.”32 Assuming that the tenets of ancient Egyptian
religion and Attic Greek philosophy were basically identical is a key component
of Middle Platonism. According to this tradition, Julius Caesar himself once
demanded of an Egyptian priest: “reveal all that is engraved upon your ancient
shrines, and disclose your gods who are willing that they should be known. If
your ancestors taught their religion to Plato the Athenian, was ever guest of yours
more worthy than I to hear these things, was ever a mind more able to contain the
world’s secrets?”33
Plutarch, on the basis of the assumption that all the important Greek philos
ophers were in essence if not in fact transmitting arcane Egyptian knowledge in
their discussions of the Forms, made Plato and Aristotle more explicit ciphers of
the ancient hieroglyphic wisdom of the Egyptian priests that had been secretly
passed down through the generations from father to son in the form of allegorical
stories.34 Plutarch describes Egyptian religion as follows:
For in use those things that are perceptible and ready at hand afford many disclosures of
themselves and opportunities to view them as they are changed about in various ways. But
the apperception of the conceptual, the pure, and the simple, shining through the soul
like a flash of lightening, affords an opportunity to touch and see but once. For this reason
31 Van der Horst, “The Secret Hieroglyphs,” 118. And “it is also evident that all these authors
were victims of certain fundamental misconceptions as to the nature of Egyptian scripts, impeded
as they were by their ignorance of the language. However correct the information that Greeks
and Romans acquired from Egyptians concerning Egyptian writing, they always received this
information with pre-conceived ideas and hence remained ignorant about the true relationship
between words and pictures. The Greeks developed a theory of allegorical connection between
word and sign. These supposed allegorical qualities of the Egyptian sign were what fascinated
the Greeks to an ever increasing extent. The mysterious symbolic qualities with which Greek
ignorance of their true character endowed the hieroglyphs, became their main charm and
attraction” (Van der Horst, “The Secret Hieroglyphs,” 116–117); “exactly the same allegorical
conception of the signs is found in the works of Chaeremon” (Iversen, “The Hieroglyphic
Tradition,” 174).
32 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 354c.
33 Lucan, Civil War, 10.179–183.
34 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 370f–373f.
Plato and Aristotle call this part of philosophy the… mystic part, inasmuch as those who
have passed beyond these conjectural and confused matters of all sorts by means of reason
proceed by leaps and bounds to that primary, simple, and immaterial principle; and when
they have somehow attained contact with the pure truth abiding about it, they think that
they have the whole of philosophy completely, as it were, within their grasp. This idea at the
present time the Egyptian priests intimate with great circumspection in acquitting them
selves of this religious secret and in trying to conceal it… for the souls of men here, which are
compassed about by bodies and emotions, there is no association with Osiris except in so
far as they may attain to a dim vision of his presence by means of the apperception which
philosophy affords. But when these souls are set free and migrate into the realm of the invis
ible and the unseen, the dispassionate and the pure, then Osiris becomes their leader and
king, since it is on him that they are bound to be dependent in their insatiate contemplation
and yearning for that beauty which is for men unutterable and indescribable.35
Even something as simple as the day-to-day garments of the Egyptian priests are
described by Plutarch in such ideographic terms:
Many writers have held Isis to be the daughter of Hermes, and many others the daughter of
Prometheus, because of the belief that Prometheus is the discoverer of wisdom and fore
thought, and Hermes the inventor of grammar and music… for she is wise, as I have said,
and discloses the divine mysteries to those who truly and justly have the name of “bearers of
the sacred vessels” and “wearers of the sacred robes.” These are they who within their own
soul, as though within a casket, bear the sacred writings (hieros logos) about the gods clear
of all superstition and pedantry; and they cloak them with secrecy, thus giving intimations,
some dark and shadowy, some clear and bright, of their concepts about the gods, intima
tions of the same sort as are clearly evidenced in the wearing of sacred garb. For this reason,
too, the fact that the deceased votaries of Isis are decked with these garments is a sign that
these sacred writings (hieros logos) accompany them, and that they pass to the other world
possessed of these and of naught else.36
The Forms inscribed on the soul as “sacred writings (hieros logos)” have become
cloaked in priestly garb (external ideographs) and assimilated to theological texts
written in hieroglyphic and stored in caskets resting in Egyptian temples. Such
ideographic texts were ‘discovered’ by the Greeks and Romans in many forms—
including temple, tomb, cavern, tablet, obelisk, and stele. Ammianus contends
that “those acquainted with the most ancient rites dug in the earth in many places
with great labor, since they had foreknowledge that a deluge was coming and
feared that the memory of the ceremonies might be destroyed. And on the walls
of these caverns they carved many kinds of birds and beasts and countless forms
35 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 382d–383a.

36 Isis and Osiris, 352a–c. Cf. Philo, Special Laws 4, 11.69.
of animals which they called hierographic writing (hierographicas litteras).”37 Dio

Chrysostom notes that “all the history of earlier times was recorded in Egypt, in
part in the temples, in part upon certain steles, but that some things were remem
bered by a few only as the steles had been destroyed, while much that had been
inscribed on the steles was disbelieved on account of the ignorance and indiffer
ence of later generations.”38 Plutarch, for his part, narrates one such important
find:
Before the tomb, however, lay a bronze tablet with a long inscription of such amazing
antiquity that nothing could be made of it, although it came out clear when the bronze was
washed; but the characters had a peculiar and foreign conformation, greatly resembling
that of Egyptian writing… it is said that the priests of Egypt were able to read the inscrip
tion which was written on the tablet… Chonuphis shut himself up for three days, conning
scripts of all kinds in the ancient books… the document, he said, ordered the celebration
of a contest in honor of the Muses… the god was using the inscription to instruct and urge
the Greeks to live in the enjoyment of leisure and peace by always taking philosophy as
their field of contention, laying their arms aside and settling their disputes about right and
wrong by an appeal to the Muses and discussion. As for ourselves, we felt at the time that
Conuphis was right.39
The obscure message ideographically revealed once the tablet was ‘deciphered’
turned out to be not only of philosophical, religious, and ethical interest (and
couched in contemporary and easily understandable Greek terms), but also to have
been literally penned by the god. The god was “using the inscription to instruct
and urge” the initiated receivers (Plutarch and company)—revealing that he,
the god, had always known who his Greek readers would be at exactly this point
in time and had therefore encoded this particular ideographic message for them
alone. This motif of hieroglyphic revelation will reach its peak in the scriptural
theory of ideography (see chapter 4).
Herodotus (484–425 B.C.E.) was the first Greek traveler to Egypt of which we
have self-documented record. He mentions that “they use two kinds of writing
(grammata); one is called sacred (hiera), the other common (dēmotika).”40 Hero
dotus also explains that he had bilingual interpreters who could speak Greek
37 Ammianus Marcellinus, 22.15.30.

38 Dio Chrysostom, Trojan Discourse, 38, in J. W. Cohoon, ed. and trans., Dio Chrysostom, 5 vols.
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932–1951).
39 Plutarch, On the Daimonion of Socrates, 577f–579b.
40 Herodotus, 2.36. Cf. “In the education of their sons the priests teach them two kinds of
writing, that which is called ‘sacred’ and that which is used in the more general instruction”
(Diodorus Siculus, 1.81).
and Egyptian and could read Egyptian (written in both the sacred and common
scripts). The only evidence we have that Herodotus had anything like an ideo
graphic theory of Egyptian sacred writing comes from his description of the com
memorative steles raised in conquered territory by one of several kings of the
12th dynasty—Kheperkare (r. 1965–1920 B.C.E.), Khakheperre (r. 1880–1874), or
Khakaure (r. 1874–1855), each called “Sesostris” by the Greeks (Sesostris I, II, and
III respectively).41 Herodotus claims that Sesostris inscribed female genitalia on
the steles set up for those peoples who did not put up a good fight—such that
he would be indicating how he viewed their masculinity, bravery, and martial
prowess—: “he gathered a great army (according to the story of the priests) and
marched over the mainland, subduing every nation to which he came. When
those that he met were valiant men and strove hard for freedom, he set up pillars
in their land whereon the inscriptions showed his own name and his country’s,
and how he had overcome them with his own power; but when the cities had
made no resistance and been easily taken, then he put an inscription on the
pillars even as he had done where the nations were brave; but he drew also on
them the privy parts of a woman, wishing to show clearly that the people were
cowardly.”42 Diodorus imaginatively adds to this account that “the stelae he thus
erected among warlike nations bore the likeness of a man’s genitals, while those of
a woman were featured among peoples base and cowardly.”43 Strabo, who visited
Egypt in 25 B.C.E., notes that in Ethiopia “there is a stele of Sesostris the Aegyp
tian, which tells in hieroglyphics of his passage across the gulf; for manifestly
he was the first man to subdue the countries of the Aethiopians and the Troglo
dytes” and that “Sesostris traversed the whole of Aethiopia… memorials of his
expedition, stelae and inscriptions, are to be seen even to this day.”44 According
41 Some earlier Egyptological authorities (e.g., Champollion, Précis, 1:293) have identified the
conquering and stele-raising “Sesostris” with Ramesses II (Usermaatre, r. 1279–1213 B.C.E.) of the
19th dynasty, but this is anachronistic; Manetho identifies “Sesostris” as the third king of the 12th
dynasty, Amenemhat II (Nubkaure, r. 1920–1880 B.C.E.), but most modern scholars disagree with
this attribution, and not a few argue that the “Sesostris” referred to by Herodotus and Diodorus
is precisely “Sesostris III” (Khakaure).
42 Herodotus, 2.102; cf. Herodotus, 2.106. As many Egyptologists have noted, this is a mistake
on Herodotus’ part in understanding the hieroglyphic writing system—see, e.g., Naville, “La
Grammaire de Champollion,” 751–752; Marestaing, Les écritures égyptiennes, 24–28 and 47. Cf.
Manetho, frag. 34, 35, and 36 (in W. G. Waddel, ed. and trans., Manetho [Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1997]—all citations of the fragments of Manetho are from this Loeb edition).
43 Diodorus Siculus, 1.55, in Edwin Murphy, trans., Diodorus On Egypt (Jefferson: McFarland,
1985), 73.
44 Strabo, Geography, 16.4.4 and 17.1.5, in Horace Leonard Jones, ed. and trans., The Geography
of Strabo, 8 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1917–1933).
to Manetho, who served as high priest at Heliopolis during the reigns of Ptolomy
Soter (r. 323–285 B.C.E.) and Ptolomy Philadelphus (r. 285–247), Herodotus erred
in his descriptions of Egypt through ignorance, particularly through ignorance of
written Egyptian.45
As Herodotus before him, the historian Diodorus Siculus traveled in Egypt,
spending some four years (60–57 B.C.E.) touring up and down the Nile. In his
encyclopedic Library of History, Diodorus states that phonetic writing had been
invented in Egypt by the god Hermes (a.k.a., Thoth)—a claim almost univer
sally accepted in Greek and Roman antiquity46—however, unlike other classical
authors, Diodorus actually historicizes how a non-phonetic and ideographic
hieroglyphic writing system (which preceded phonetic writing) first came about.
Many other Greek and Latin authors blurred the distinction between the phonetic
and non-phonetic in their brief discussions of Egyptian writing—e.g., “Phoeni
cians first made bold, if report speak true, to record speech in rude characters
for future ages, before Egypt had learned to fasten together the reeds of her river,
and when only the figures of birds, beasts, and other animals, carved in stone,
preserved the utterances of her wise men”;47 “now the infinite carvings of char
acters called hieroglyphics… have been made known by an ancient authority
of primeval wisdom. For by engraving many kinds of birds and beasts, even of
another world, in order that the memory of their achievements might more widely
reach generations of a subsequent age, they registered the vows of kings, either
promised or performed. For not as nowadays, when a fixed and easy series of
letters expresses whatever the mind of man may conceive, did the ancient Egyp
tians also write; but individual characters stood for individual nouns and verbs;
and sometimes they meant whole phrases”;48 “the Egyptians, in their animal-Â�
pictures, were the first people to represent thought by symbols: these, the earliest
45 See: Manetho, frag. 42. See also the discussion in: Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, 53–54.
46 Viz. “For [Hermes] was the first to bring language to perfection (koinēn dialekton); he named
many nameless things, invented the alphabet, and ordained divine worship and sacrifices to
the gods” (Diodorus Siculus, 1.16). Cf. Plato, Philebus, 18b; Plato, Phaedrus, 274c–275b; Diodorus
Siculus, 1.69; Cicero, De Natura Deorum, 3.22; Pliny, Natural History, 7.56 (in H. Rackham et al.,
ed. and trans., Pliny: Natural History, 10 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938–1963]—
all citations of the Natural History are from this Loeb edition); Iversen, Myth of Egypt and its
Hieroglyphs, 42–43; C. J. Bleeker, Hathor and Thoth: Two Key Figures of Ancient Egyptian Religion
(Leiden: Brill, 1973), 106–160; Patrick Boylan, Thoth: The Hermes of Egypt (Chicago: Ares, 1987),
92–96; Georg Adolf Erman, Life in Ancient Egypt, trans. H. M. Tirard (New York: Dover, 1971), 333;
Marestaing, Les écritures égyptiennes, 13n3, 35–42, 71–73, 75–76, and 91–92.
47 Lucan, Civil War, 3.220–224.
48 Ammianus Marcellinus, 17.4.8–10.
documents of human history, are visible today, impressed on stone”;49 “suppose

we wrote no letters (grammata)… but signs (sēmeia) and symbols, such as the
many that the Egyptians use instead of letters.”50
Diodorus Siculus can thus be identified as the originator of a long line of
primitivist theorists of the ideograph—of whom Warburton, Webb,51 Condillac,52
Vico, and Hegel53 are later to become the most illustrious exponents.
49 Tacitus, Annals, 11.14, in W. Hutton et al., ed. and trans., Tacitus, 5 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1970); cf. Tacitus, Annals, 2.60; Pliny, Natural History, 36.14.
50 Lucian, Hermotimus, 44. Cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.19.13 and 1.21.12, in Percival Vaughan
Davies, trans., Macrobius: The Saturnalia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969); for the
Greek text I use J. Willis, ed., Macrobius: Second Edition, 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1994).
51 Warburton and Vico have already been mentioned in the introduction. Webb argues that
“the language of the Empire of China, is, the Primitive Tongue which was common to the whole
World before the Flood” (John Webb, The Antiquity of China, or, An Historical Essay Endeavoring
a Probability That the Language of the Empire of China is the Primitive Language Spoken through
the Whole World before the Confusion of Babel, wherein the Customs and Manners of the Chineans
are Presented, and Ancient and Modern Authors Consulted with; with a Large Map of the Country
[London: Nath. Brook, 1669], 44).
52 Condillac claims that before the Fall the human soul had perfect a priori knowledge of the
Forms, after the Fall the soul became dependent on the senses, a shift from strong to soft theory
(Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge, trans. Hans Aarsleff
[Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001], 13–14); Adam and Eve had in fact been mute
and telepathic, communicating strong ideographs wordlessly to one another by direct divine
intervention (Essay, 113). For postlapsarian humans the word “‘idea’… signifies a perception
considered as image” (Condillac, Essay, 77); perception is “the impression produced in us in
the presence of objects… ‘consciousness’, the notice we take of it; ‘idea’, the notice we take of it
as an image” (Essay, 76), and “our sensations are mere sensations and become ideas only when
reflection causes us to consider them as images of something” (Essay, 86), as “they are merely
impressions that have been made on the mind which cannot become ideas until they have been
considered as images” (Essay, 90)—all soft internal ideography. Condillac was also deeply
indebted to Warburton, which he openly acknowledges (Essay, 178n48); and Condillac similarly
articulates a primitivist theory of the teleological development of non-phonetic ideographic
writing into phonetic alphabetic writing (Essay, 178–183).
53 Hegel, writing in early 19th century, for his part argues that “in recent times in particular,
the ruins of Egypt have been examined by many investigators; the mute language of the statues
has been studied, and the enigmatic hieroglyphs as well… no written documents were yet in
existence among the Egyptians because Geist had not yet clarified itself… by dint of prolonged
study, progress has been made in deciphering the hieroglyphic language, to be sure; but in some
ways the goal has still not quite been achieved, and the hieroglyphs will always be hieroglyphs”
(Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, ed. Peter C. Hodgson,
trans. R. F. Brown et al., 3 vols. [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984–1987], 2:637n341).
Hegel’s massive project, explicating the dialectical development of Geist through history,
required a primitivist framework for early proto-writing (inculcating a teleology of ideographs
Establishing the primitivist theory in the first century B.C.E, Diodorus writes:
As for the first-born men, it is said they endured a precarious and subhuman existence.
They roamed about individually in search of food, plucking the most digestible plants
and natural fruits from the trees. The attacks of wild beasts taught them the advantage of
mutual assistance; and, once thrown together by fear, they gradually came to recognize
each other’s features. Then, from inarticulate and confused sounds, they little by little
refined their power of speech: they agreed with each other on… symbols for everything they
encountered and made the meaning of words clear among themselves. But, with such con
ventions arising all over the world, every group did not speak the same language, since each
one chose its vocabulary at random. In this way the different varieties of human speech
came about, and these first societies were the origin of every nation.54
The vast majority of these early human groups eventually developed into full-blown
societies and civilizations with recognizable and distinct languages, such as the
Greeks and the Persians; at least one large group, however, remained stagnant—
stuck at a pre-linguistic, perhaps even pre-fully human, stage. Diodorus explains:
The majority of [Ethiopians], and especially those who dwell along the river, are black in
color and have flat noses and woolly hair. As for their spirit they are entirely savage and
display the nature of a wild beast… speaking as they do with a shrill voice and cultivating
none of the practices of civilized life as these are found among the rest of mankind.55
Their level of life being much the same as that of wild beasts which make their homes in
dens… they devote themselves assiduously for four days to the sea-food they have caught,
the whole tribe feasting upon it merrily while entertaining one another with inarticulate
songs; and furthermore, they lie at this time with any women they happen to meet in order
to beget children, being relieved of every concern because their food is easily secured and
ready at hand. But on the fifth day the whole tribe hurries off in search of drink… and their
journey thither is like that of herds of cattle, all of them uttering a cry which produces,
not articulate speech, but merely a confused roaring… as soon as they arrive at the water
ing-places… and have their bellies filled with the water, they return, scarcely able to move
because of the weight of it. On that day they taste no food, because everyone lies gorged and
scarcely able to breathe, quite like a drunken man… their way of living follows a cycle after
this fashion throughout their lives.56
sublated into alphabets). For key passages exemplifying his primitivist theory, see: Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, trans. T. M. Knox, 2 vols. (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1975), 1:311 and 1:357–358; Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosophy of Mind:
Being Part Three of the Encyclopædia of the Philosophical Sciences, trans. William Wallace and
A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 60–61 and 214–218; cf. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind, trans. J. B. Baillie (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 753–754.
54 Diodorus Siculus, 1.8.
56 Diodorus Siculus, 3.16–17; cf. Diodorus Siculus, 3.15 and 3.24.
The shrill voices of inarticulate speech, the sexual license, savage culinary
practices, and the bestial, pre-linguistic, and drunken roaring of these packs of
pre-Â�civilization Ethiopians leads Diodorus to conclude that “the only solution
left to us is that [Ethiopians] are autochthonous, and that they experienced no
beginning of the race they originally sprang from, but existed always from the
beginning of time, as certain natural philosophers have declared to be true of
all Â�phenomena of nature.”57 The historian here goes so far as to say that Ethio
pians are not exactly human—rather a force of nature, always the same from the
beginning of time—most importantly in that they are affectless and do not speak
a normal human language, but can only effectively communicate with inarticu
late cries and in a kind of silent sign language using their hands; the “Ethiopi
ans… have no intercourse with other nations… they speak no language, but by
movements of the hands which describe each object they point out everything
they need.”58
These unchanging and immutable autochthones, fixed in their state of prim
itive humanity in an Ethiopian primal horde, evidently prove to Diodorus that he
has found anthropological evidence of an early stage of human development—a
slice of timeless insight into pre-civilization proto-human behavior. Interest
ingly enough, Diodorus also insists that ideographic Egyptian hieroglyphic (as
opposed to the phonetic Demotic script developed later along the Nile) was his
torically Ethiopian in origin:
The Ethiopians… were the first of all men… they did not come into their land as immigrants
from abroad but were natives of it and so justly bear the name of “autochthones”… the
Egyptians are colonists sent out by the Ethiopians… the larger part of the customs of the
Egyptians are… Ethiopian, the colonists preserving their ancient manners… the forms of
their letters are Ethiopian; for of the two kinds of writing which the Egyptians have, that
which is known as “popular” (demotic) is learned by everyone, while that which is called
“sacred” is understood only by the priests of the Egyptians, who learn it from their fathers
as one of the things which are not divulged, but among the Ethiopians everyone uses these
[latter] forms of letters… we must now speak about the Ethiopian writing that is called hiero
glyphic (hieroglyphikōn) among the Egyptians, in order that we may omit nothing in our
discussion of their antiquities. Now it is found that the forms of their letters take the shape
of animals of every kind, and of the members of the human body, and of implements and
especially carpenter’s tools. For their writing does not express the intended concept (logos)

58 Diodorus Siculus, 3.18. According to Martianus Capella, the Ethiopian so-called Troglodytes
“live in caves, and feed upon serpents, and hiss instead of speaking” (The Marriage of Philology
and Mercury, 252, in William Harris Stahl et al., trans., Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal
Arts: Volume II, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury [New York: Columbia University Press,
1977]—all citations of Martianus Capella are from this translation).
by means of syllables joined one to another, but by means of the significance of the objects
which have been copied and by its figurative meaning which has been impressed upon the
memory by practice. For instance, they draw a picture of a hawk, a crocodile, a snake, and
of the members of the human body—an eye, a hand, a face and the like. Now the hawk signi
fies to them everything which happens swiftly, since this animal is practically the swiftest of
winged creatures. And the concept (logos) portrayed is then transferred, by the appropriate
metaphorical transfer, to all swift things and everything to which swiftness is appropriate,
very much as if they had been named. And the crocodile is the symbol of all that is evil, and
the eye is the warder of justice and guardian of the entire body. And as for members of the
body, the right hand with fingers extended signifies a procuring of livelihood, and the left
with fingers closed, a keeping and guarding of property. The same way of reasoning applies
also to the remaining characters, which represent parts of the body and implements and
all other things; for by paying close attention to the significance which is inherent in each
object and by training their minds through drill and exercise of memory over a long period,
they read from habit everything which has been written.59
In the ethnology of Diodorus, the Ethiopians were childlike proto-humans inca

pable of normal articulate speech; it made perfect sense to Diodorus that the
writing system they invented would be somehow able to express their primitive
ideas and thoughts in a non-phonetic, symbolic, and purely gestural fashion (like
Vico’s ideographic Giantish). This primitivist theory of the hieroglyphs, although
on the surface appearing to be a conventional theory of a purely visual written
‘language’ learned by rote, established by habit, and readable by practice, must
presume that there were primordial (strong or soft ideographic) Forms already
inscribed in the souls of the proto-human Ethiopians which could then be signi
fied by the figurative external hieroglyphs. These signifiers must have signifieds—
and the signifieds are the Forms.
Because the more developed Egyptian civilization (albeit stemming histori
cally from primitive Ethiopian colonists), even after it had developed articulate
speech and phonetic writing, was still able to use the ancient ideographic system
(Hermetically passed down from father to son inside the lineage of the priest
hood) to represent its religious ideas (alongside the new phonetic system used for
everyday life), this shows that even if the Ethiopian ideographic Forms were prim
itive after a fashion, they were still viable universals. In fact, the Â�primitivist theory
of ideography actually makes it seem that these pre-articulate speech (strong or
soft ideographic) ‘thoughts’ may be more authentic, more numinous, and contain
greater insights into the eternal, immutable, and unchanging—the Ethiopians
were, after all, a primordial force of nature unchanged from the dawn of time
59 Diodorus Siculus, 3.2–4. On Ethiopian origin of hieroglyphic, cf. Chaeremon, frag. 12;
Heliodorus, Aethiopica, 4.8; Mairestang, Les écritures égyptiennes, 47–51.
(synchronically eternal by definition). As a non-discursive method of communi

cating such numinous, fixed, primal, and archaic Forms, Ethiopian hieroglyphic,
though it may be mysterious and primitive, appears to be a concrete material
purveyor of the same silent and secret wisdom contained in Neopythagorean
symbola—purely gestural, allegorical, and symbolic—yet somehow Â�writeable.
Diodorus was not the only one to discuss the origin of hieroglyphs in Ethio
pia; by Roman times Homer was actually considered to have studied this ideo
graphic, symbolic, and most ancient Ethiopian system of writing. “Homer,”
Chaeremon writes, “very well educated in every kind of knowledge, says this on
the basis of the symbolic Ethiopian characters. For the Ethiopians do not have
letters for their characters, but, instead, all kinds of living beings and their
limbs and members. For since the more ancient of the sacred scribes (hierogram-
mateis) wanted to conceal the theory about the nature of the gods, they handed
these things down to their own children by way of such allegorical symbols and
characters.”60 According to Diodorus, Homer visited Egypt and studied hiero
glyphic with the priests there.61 Plutarch confirms that “Homer, like Thales, had
gained his knowledge from the Egyptians.”62 Further, according to both Clement
and Heliodorus, Homer was not actually Greek but rather Egyptian, the son of
Hermes (Thoth) himself, and had been instructed and trained by his father in
the sacred and symbolic lore of Egyptian hieroglyphic—which he evidently then
used to compose the quintessentially allegorical epics.63 Although the early fol
lowers of the primitivist theory of ideography may have given Ethiopians credit
for inventing the original system of ideographic hieroglyphic, their more civilized
and cultured Egyptian descendants still earned the prize of historical recognition
for inventing ‘philosophy’ per se by explicating and explaining the ideographic
Forms their primitive neighbors had first encoded in writing.
60 Chaeremon, frag. 12—extracted from Tzetzes, Exegesis in Iliadem, 1.97 (in Jean-François
Boissonade, ed., Tzetzae Allegoriae Iliadis [Lutetiae: Dumont, 1851]), where Tzetzes uses these
ideographic Homeric secrets as the hermeneutic lynchpin for his allegorical and symbolic
readings of the Iliad, very much in line with Porphyry’s reading of the Odyssey in On the Cave of
the Nymphs.
61 Diodorus Siculus, 1.96. One may wonder how the blind bard was able to read hieroglyphic. On
Homer and blindness, see: Porphyry, Homeric Questions, 9 (in Robin R. Schlunk, ed. and trans.,
Porphyry: The Homeric Questions: A Bilingual Edition [New York: Peter Lang, 1993]); Ficino,
Platonic Theology, 4:179.
62 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 364d.
63 Stromata, 1.15; Aethiopica, 3.8. Clement further argues that this Egyptian Homer foresaw and
prophesized the historical rise of Christianity (Stromata, 2.19).
Chapter Four: Patristic Apologetics and
the Scriptural Theory
According to Philo of Alexandria (20 B.C.E-50 C.E.), the Jewish Middle Pla
tonist and precursor to Patristic apologism, the “textbooks and treatises of a
more special character, were imparted to Moses by learned Egyptians. These
further instructed him in the philosophy conveyed in symbols, as displayed in
the Â�so-called holy inscriptions (hierois grammasin)… and, when he had mas
tered the lore… he eschewed all strife and contention and sought only for truth.”1
Having learned how to do ideographic hieroglyphic (and consequently how to
do philosophy) from the Egyptians, Moses in later life used this method to write
the Torah, wherein “most of the contents of the law book are outward symbols
of hidden truths, expressing in words what has been left unsaid.”2 Thus, “the
exposition of the sacred scriptures (hieroi grammata) treats the inner meaning
conveyed in allegory. For to these people the whole law book seems to resemble a
living creature with the literal ordinances for its body and for its soul the invisible
mind laid up in its wording. It is in this mind especially that the rational soul
begins to contemplate the things akin to itself and looking through the words
(onomata) as through a mirror beholds the marvelous beauties of the concepts,
unfolds and removes the symbolic coverings and brings forth the thoughts and
set them bare to the light of day for those who need but little reminding to enable
them to discern the inward and hidden through the outward and visible.”3 And it
is under the exact epistemological conditions of interpreting Abrahamic scripture
as ideographic that:
They read the Holy Scriptures (hierois grammasi) and seek wisdom from their ancestral
philosophy by taking it as an allegory, since they think that the words of the literal text
1 Philo, On Moses 1, 5.23. Gk. hierōn grammatōn is the most common phrase used in Koine
for both the Bible and for Egyptian hieroglyphic. For more discussion of the hiera grammata
not featured below, see: Josephus, Contra Apion, 1.14 (in William Whiston, trans., The Works
of Josephus: Complete and Unabridged; new updated edition [Peabody: Hendrickson, 1987]; for
the Greek text I use the Loeb edition of H. St. J. Thackery et al., ed. and trans., Josephus, 13 vols.
[Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926–1971]); Diogenes Laertius, 9.7; Tzetzes, Exegesis in
Iliadem, 5.6.
2 Philo, Special Laws 3, 32.178; cf. “Biblion is Moses’ name for the word of God, in which have
been inscribed and engraved the formation of all else” (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation 1, 8.19);
“[it] stands inscribed on the tables of nature as deathless and agelong, and the writing that
records it must endure with the universe to all eternity” (Philo, Special Laws 1, 5.31).
3 Philo, The Contemplative Life, 10.78.
60 Chapter Four: Patristic Apologetics and the Scriptural Theory
are symbols of something whose hidden nature is revealed by studying the underlying
meaning. They have also the writings of men of old, the founders of their way of think
ing, who left many memorials of the Forms (ideai) used in allegorical interpretation and
these they take as a kind of archetype and imitate the method in which this principle is
carried out.4
This hermeneutic paradigm assumes at least two levels of language—the spoken

or written matter (which has a conventional surface linguistic meaning) on the
one hand and the Form as hidden symbolic signified content on the other: “these
are the contents of the ordinance taken literally. But another meaning also is indi
cated of the mystical character which symbols convey; words in their plain sense
are symbols of things latent and obscure.”5 Philo does not assume that this other
meaning is always clear to everyone—“I expect the same question will present
itself to not a few who read the holy scriptures (hierais graphais) with their under
standing rather than with their eyes.”6 However, he often admits defeat when it
comes to the surface level of scriptural language: “what meaning this conveys to
those who interpret literally, I do not know… we must make up our minds that all
such language is figurative and involves deeper meanings. It would seem, then,
that the thought Moses desires to convey is of this nature.”7
When Philo writes that “this is a divine mystery and its lesson is for the initi
ated who are worthy to receive the holiest secret… the sacred revelation is not for
those others,”8 we can see the familiar refrain of Pythagorean exclusivity.9 The
act of reading scripture (at least for the adept who is in on the secret) is ideographic
by definition—as “when he reads he will reason thus with himself… ‘I write
them in a book in order to rewrite them straightway in my soul, and receive in my
mind the imprints of a script more divine and ineffaceable’.”10 Moses, as the first
such legendary ideographer, upon receiving the revelation of the indescribable
glory of the world of Forms (which is the mind of God) evidently “inscribed its
beauty on the most holy tables of the law, and impressed it on the minds of all who
were set under him,”11 and was “thereby impressing on the readers of the sacred
scriptures (hierais graphais) the stamp.”12 Such Mosaic internal Â�ideographs were
4 Philo, The Contemplative Life, 3.28–29.

5 Philo, Special Laws 1, 37.200; cf. Philo, On Rewards and Punishments, 28.125.
6 Philo, Special Laws 1, 39.214.
7 Philo, The Worse Attacks the Better, 46.167.
8 Philo, On the Cherubim, 12.42.
9 Clement explicitly calls Philo a “Pythagorean” (Stromata, 2.19).
10 Philo, Special Laws 4, 32.160–163.
11 Philo, On the Creation, 43.128.
12 Philo, Special Laws 2, 21.104.
Chapter Four: Patristic Apologetics and the Scriptural Theory 61
“not inscribed on steles nor on leaves of paper which the moth destroys, but on
the souls,”13 and were thus “permanently imprinting the thoughts in the souls
of the hearers.”14 Moses himself had “a soul which had taken shape under the
graving of God.”15
In terms of the strong and soft theories, Philo combines them together in a
rather intriguing way (later followed wholesale by Neoplatonists). One iteration
of the argument is as follows:
The rational principle is twofold as well in the universe as in human nature. In the uni
verse we find it in one form dealing with the incorporeal and archetypal Forms (ideai) from
which the intelligible world was framed, and in another with the visible objects which are
the copies and likenesses of those Forms (ideai) and out of which this sensible world was
produced. With man, in one form it resides within, in the other it passes out from him in
utterance. The former is like a spring, and is the source from which the latter, the spoken,
flows. The inward is located in the dominant mind, the outward in the tongue and mouth
and the rest of the vocal organism.16
There is an intelligible world where the Forms exist (the mind of God), and there
is a sensible world in which the Forms were mixed in with matter by the creator
(our world); in humans there are intelligible Forms in the soul, and there is
sensible language—speech and writing—in which the Forms are mixed in with
matter by the human creator of a linguistic statement. Speech acts are secondary
Â�cosmogonies.
Philo contends that “spoken words contain symbols of things apprehended
by the understanding only. When, then, as at noon-tide God shines around the
soul, and the light of the mind fills it through and through and the shadows are
driven from it by the rays which pour all around it, the single object presents to it
a triple vision, one representing the reality, the other two the shadows reflected
from it.”17 The three visions of the single object here are the Form sans matter in
the human soul backlit by the mind of God (reality), the Form mixed in with the
matter of human speech in a linguistic statement (shadow), and the Form mixed
in with matter in the sensible world (shadow). The light of God shining into the
human soul allows it to comprehend the reality of the Forms—and later medi
eval Scholastics, following an Aristotelian formulation that develops by means
13 Philo, Special Laws 4, 28.149. Cf. Philo, Allegorical Interpretation 1, 18.60–61; Philo, On the
Creation, 61.172.
14 Philo, The Contemplative Life, 10.76.
15 Philo, On the Virtues, 9.52.
16 Philo, On Moses, 25.127; cf. Philo, Allegorical Interpretation 3, 31.95.
17 Philo, On Abraham, 24.119; cf. Philo, On the Creation, 1.6.
of Neoplatonic commentaries, will devote great attention to this ‘Active Intellect’

(nous poiētikos/intellectus agens).
The original formulation of the Active Intellect considers that “thought
thinks itself because its shares the nature of the object of thought; for it becomes
an object of thought in coming in contact with and thinking its objects, so that
thought and object of thought are the same. For that which is capable of receiv
ing the object of thought, i.e. the substance, is thought. And when it is active
it possesses this object. Therefore the latter rather than the former is the divine
element which thought seems to contain”18 One can see why Jewish, Christian,
and Muslim Aristotelians would be fascinated by this passage, especially the
“divine element” aspect of the Active Intellect; one can also see why the Neo
platonic formulation of divine emanation of Forms as light combines so readily.
Thomas Aquinas perhaps exemplifies it best: “there is in the intellective soul an
active power in respect of the phantasms, rendering them actually intelligible,
and this power of the soul is called the active intellect”;19 and “we must therefore
assign on the part of the intellect some power to make things actually intelligible,
by abstraction of the species from material conditions. And such is the necessity
for the active intellect… the effect of the active intellect is to give light for the
purpose of understanding… the active intellect, which by lighting up the phan
tasms as it were, makes them to be actually intelligible… wherefore we must say
that in the soul is some power derived from a higher intellect, whereby it is able to
light up the phantasms. And we know this by experience, since we perceive that
we abstract universal forms from their particular conditions, which is to make
them actually intelligible… for this reason Aristotle compared the active intellect
to light.”20

19 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentiles, 2.77, in Anton Charles Pegis et al., trans., Summa
Contra Gentiles, 5 vols. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989–1992).
20 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1a79.3–4, in Fathers of the English Dominican Province,
trans., Summa Theologica: Complete English Edition, 5 vols. (Notre Dame: Christian Classics, 1981).
For further discussion, see: Myles F. Burnyeat, Aristotle’s Divine Intellect: The Aquinas Lecture,
2008 (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 2008); M. Tuominen, “Aristotle and Alexander
of Aphrodisias on the Active Intellect,” Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 141 (2006): 55–70;
Kirk Templeton, “Avicenna, Aquinas and the Active Intellect,” (M.A. Thesis, San Francisco State
University, 2006); Myrna Gabbe, “Aristotle’s Theory of Cognition: The Agent Intellect Revisited,”
(Ph.D. Diss., University of Pennsylvania, 2005); Leen Spruit, “Agent Intellect and Phantasms: On
the Preliminaries of Peripatetic Abstraction,” Poznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences
and the Humanities 82 (2004): 125–146; Daren Mathew Jonescu, “Human Thinking and the Active
Intellect in Aristotle,” (Ph.D. Diss., McMaster University, 2000); J. G. Hart, “Agent Intellect and
Primal Sensibility,” Contributions to Phenomenology 24 (1996): 107–134; Herbert A. Davidson,
Philo’s rather complicated combination of the strong and soft theories ulti
mately comes down on the strong side of the theory in terms of the ontological
nature of Forms, but on the soft side of the theory in terms of the ontological
nature of language—the signifieds of human language, the same in all human
souls, when spoken correctly (as in the Torah of Moses) should reach to the
thoughts of God: “For ‘thoughts’ are nothing else than God’s ‘words’ or speech.
For without the prompter speech will give forth no utterance, and mind is the
prompter of speech, as God is of mind… for the stream of speech flowing over
tongue and mouth carries forth the thoughts with it.”21 God created humans in
his own image; the mind of a human is an image of the mind of God and the
thoughts of humans echo and participate in the thoughts of God.22
Human language, when used properly, is ultimately grounded in the mind of
God, which is the world of Forms by definition. Compare this with Philo’s vision
of the language of angels who “though they have no vocal organs, will utter the
language which speaks in the reality of facts, a language which is plainer than the
Alfarbi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect,
and Theories of Human Intellect (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Thomas J. McKeon,
“Aquinas and the Agent Intellect: The Task of Interpreting Aristotle in the 13th Century,” (B.A.
Thesis, Bowdoin College, 1984); Ahmed M. El-Har, “Ibn Rushd’s (Averroës’) Doctrine of the Agent
Intellect,” (Ph.D. Diss., Saint Louis University, 1982); Kalman P. Bland, ed. and trans., The Epistle
on the Possibility of Conjunction with the Active Intellect by Ibn Rushd; with the Commentary of
Moses Narboni: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation (New York: Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, 1982); Martin Thomas Woods, “The Concept of Agent Intelligence: A
Solution in Accordance with the Traditional Problem of the One and the Many,” (Ph.D. Diss.,
University of Southern California, 1966); J. Anthony Warner, “The Agent Intellect: The Key to
Human Knowledge,” (M.A. Thesis, Catholic University of America, 1959); Mary Josephine
Gildea, “The Thomistic Doctrine of the Agent Intellect,” (M.A. Thesis, Saint John’s University,
1956); William J. Carney, “Agent Intellect and Phantasm: Their Relationship in the Teaching of
St. Thomas and his Commentators,” (Ph.D. Diss., Georgetown University, 1950); Peter J. Teston,
“The Theory of the Active Intellect According to Saint Thomas,” (Ph.D. Diss., Catholic University
of America, 1934); Paul Sidney Christ, “The Psychology of the Active Intellect of Averroes,” (Ph.D.
Diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1926).
21 Philo, On the Migration of Abraham, 15.80–81; cf. Philo, The Worse Attacks the Better,
34.Â�126–35.130.
22 Philo, The Worse Attacks the Better, 24.86–87; Philo, Noah’s Work as a Planter, 5.18; Philo,
On the Creation, 6.25, 23.69, 44.129–130 and 51.146; Philo, Allegorical Interpretation 3, 31.96.
Cf. Origen, De Principiis, 12 (in G. W. Butterworth, trans., On first principles, being Koetschau’s
text of the De principiis [New York: Harper & Row]—all citations of De Principiis are from this
translation; cf. Henri Crouzel and Manlio Simonetti, ed. and trans., Origène: traité des principes,
5 vols. [Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1978–1984]; for the Latin and Greek texts of Origen I use Paul
Koetschau et al., ed., Origenes Werke, 12 vols. [Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1899–1955]).
language of the tongue.”23 Similarly, the way God communicated with Moses was
by using a visual language of symbols:
It was natural that the place should be the scene of all that was wonderful, claps of thunder
louder than the ears could hold, flashes of lightening of surpassing brightness, the sound
of an invisible trumpet reaching to the greatest distance… then from the midst of the fire
that streamed from heaven there sounded forth to their utter amazement a voice, for the
flame became articulate speech in the language familiar to the audience, and so clearly and
distinctly were the words formed by it that they seemed to see rather than hear them. What
I say is vouched for by the law in which it is written, “all the people saw the voice,” a phrase
fraught with much meaning, for it is the case that the voice of men is audible, but the voice
of God truly visible… it conveys, too, symbolically.
In the midst of the flame was a form of the fairest beauty, unlike any visible object, an image
supremely divine in appearance, refulgent with a light brighter than the light of fire. It might
be supposed that this was the image (eikōn) of Him that is; but let us rather call it an angel or
herald, since, with a silence that spoke more clearly than speech, it employed as it were the
miracle of sight to herald future events. For the burning bramble was a symbol.24
The figural language of Moses contained in the Torah is the closest any normal
human language has ever come to the strongly ideographic perfection of the
language of God and the angels: “elsewhere the universal practice of men as a
body is to give to things words (onomata) which differ from the things, so that the
object is not the same as what we call them. But with Moses the words (onomata)
assigned are manifest images of the things, so… the onoma and that to which
the onoma is given differ not a whit.”25 The Torah, according to Philo, is primary
Â�language.
The Middle Platonist Church Father Origen (185–254) argues that Moses pos
sessed all the wisdom of the Egyptians, including knowledge of hieroglyphic,26
that “Egyptian wise men who have studied their traditional writings give pro
found philosophical interpretations of what they regard as divine… the secret
teachings”;27 such Mosaic wisdom was “the secret and hidden philosophy of the

24 Philo, The Decalogue, 11.44–49 and On Moses 1, 12.65–67.
26 Origen, Contra Celsus, 6.14 (in Henry Chadwick, trans., Origen: Contra Celsum [Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1953]—all citations of Contra Celsus are from this translation; cf.
Marcel Borret, ed. and trans., Origène: Contre Celse, 5 vols. [Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1967–1976]).
27 Origen, Contra Celsus, 1.7. That Origen knew of the work of the Hellenized Egyptian
philosopher Chaeremon, perhaps even the Hieroglyphica itself, is clear (see: Contra Celsus,
1.59); “Origen also made use of the books of Chaeremon the Stoic… from these he learned the
allegorical method of interpreting the mysteries of the Greeks, and he applied it to the Jewish
Egyptians… and further the manifold and diverse opinions of the Greeks con
cerning the divine nature.”28 Origen claims that “Plato learnt the words of the
Phaedrus from some Hebrews,”29 and, in fact, “all the more mysterious and eso
teric truths, which contained ideas beyond the understanding of everyone, they
expressed by riddle and allegories and what are called dark sayings, and by what
are called parables or proverbs. Their purpose was that those who are not afraid
of hard work but will accept any toil to attain to virtue and truth might find out
their meaning by study.”30
In the Christian Bible, according to Origen, “all the expressions are alle
gorical, and are meant to show the nature of the intelligible world by the terms
usually applied to corporeal things… [Paul] calls the sensible interpretation of the
divine scriptures ‘the letter’ and the intellectual interpretation ‘the spirit’.”31 The
quintessentially ideographic text of scripture “may well enshrine certain deeper
truths than the mere record of the history seems to reveal and may contain a spir
itual meaning in many passages, using the letter as a kind of veil for profound
and mystical doctrines,”32 and so “readers need an open mind and considerable
study, and, if I may say so, need to enter into the mind of the writers to find out
what spiritual meaning each event was accorded.”33 Under these conditions, “the
scriptures have not only that meaning which is obvious, but also another which is
hidden from the majority of readers. For the contents of scripture are the outward
forms of certain mysteries and images of divine things”;34 and so it must be the
case that “the spiritual and prophetic meaning of scripture is veiled beneath the
outward narrative, so that all scripture may be understood literally by inferior
readers, but in a mystical way by the spiritual.”35
Like Philo, Origen admits that “at first sight of the letter the superhuman
meaning does not at once appear obvious to those who have been but little
scriptures” (Porphyry, Contra Christianos, frag. 39, in van der Horst, Chaeremon, 5); “Origen used
also the books of Chaeremon the Stoic… from whom he learnt the figurative interpretation, as
employed in the Greek mysteries, and applied it to the Jewish writings” (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical
History, 6.19, in Kirsopp Lake and John Ernest Leonard Oulton, ed. and trans., Eusebius: The
Ecclesiastical History, 2 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1957]—all citations of the
Ecclesiastical History are from this Loeb edition).
28 Origen, De Principiis, 224.
29 Origen, Contra Celsus, 6.19.
35 Origen, De Principiis, 117n4.
Â�
instructed in divine things, that is no wonder; because divine things are com
municated to men somewhat obscurely and are the more hidden in proportion
to the unbelief or unworthiness of the inquirer”;36 it therefore appears necessary
to concede from the beginning that “a ‘treasure’ of divine meanings lies hidden
with the ‘frail vessel’ of the poor letter.”37 Otherwise, one cannot read scripture
ideographically.
For Origen it must be the case that “the divine voice is such that it is heard
only by those whom the speaker wishes to hear it… the utterance of God which is
mentioned in scripture is certainly not vibrated air, or a concussion of air, or any
other definition given in the textbooks on sound, because it is heard by a superior
sense, more divine than physical hearing. And since when God speaks he does
not want his voice to be audible to all, a man who has superior hearing hears God,
whereas a man who has become hard of hearing in his soul does not perceive that
God is speaking.”38 Origen notes that “even those who cannot understand what
is concealed in these writings yet understood clearly that something is concealed
there.”39
This hermeneutic method is grounded in the strong theory of ideography. As
Origen says, “let everyone, then, who cares for truth, care little about names and
words, for different kinds of speech are customary in different nations. Let him
be more anxious about the fact signified than about the words by which it is sig
nified… [these signifieds are] certain things, the meaning of which is impossible
adequately to explain by any human language, but which are made clear rather
through simple apprehension than through any power of words. This rule must
control our interpretation even of the divine writings, in order that what is said
therein may be estimated in accordance not with the meanness of the language
but with the divine power of the holy spirit who inspired their composition.”40 In
other words, the true signifieds of Biblical ideographic are always the Forms in
the mind of God, revealed only to initiates by non-linguistic intuition.
Origen found this same message in the Bible itself: “the divine scripture says
that the spoken word, even if it is true in itself and very persuasive, is not Â�sufficient
to affect a human soul unless some power is also given by God to the speaker,”41
and so “the highest good cannot at all be expressed in words… ‘it comes Â�suddenly
36 Origen, De Principiis, 265–266.

38 Origen, Contra Celsus, 2.72; cf. Origen, Contra Celsus, 6.62.
39 Origen, De Principiis, 273–274; cf. Origen, De Principiis, 267 and 272.
by long familiarity with the subject itself and by living with it, like a light in the
soul kindled by a leaping spark, which after it has come into being feeds itself’.”42
Being on the receiving end of such ideographic communication changes people—
“anyone who had received the word of God into his own soul changes.”43 Origen
bases this assumption on a conception of the soul influenced by the soft theory
of ideography: “mind… [brings] to memory through divine power all things the
signs and forms of which it had impressed upon itself,”44 and “every mind which
shares in intellectual light must undoubtedly be of one nature with every other
mind which shares similarly in the light… [though] in our illustrations we ack
nowledged some diversity in the reception of light… varying in proportion to the
earnestness of the soul and the capacity of the mind.”45 The consistency of the
wax tablet here is based on both native intelligence and religious commitment.
For Origen, in true Christian worship the “altars are the mind of each Â�righteous
man, from which true and intelligible incense with a sweet savor is sent up,
prayers… images and votive offerings appropriate for God, which have not been
made by vulgar workmen, but which are made clear and formed by us in the
divine Word… images in the soul of those who are pious toward the God of the
universe.”46 These strong internal ideographs are “impossible for human thought
or speech to explain, unless as prostrate suppliants we beseech the Word himself…
that he, pouring himself by his grace into our minds, may deign to enlighten
what is dark, to open what is shut, to reveal what is secret.”47 Through the act
of ideographic reading and earnest supplication, Origen claims, “this wisdom
will be distinctly stamped upon us according to the revelation of the mystery
which has been kept in silence through times eternal, but is now manifest.”48
This works because “the holy scriptures were not composed by means of merely
human words but were written under the inspiration of the holy spirit.”49 Indeed,
“he who approaches the prophetic words with care and attention will feel from
his very reading a trace of their divine inspiration and will be convinced by his
own feelings that the words which are believed by us to be from God are not the
42 Origen, Contra Celsus, 6.3, quoting Plato, Letter 7.

46 Origen, Contra Celsus, 8.17–18.
48 Origen, De Principiis, 268. Cf. “the revelation of the mystery which has been kept in silence
through times eternal, but is now manifested… illuminates the mind so that it grasps the true
nature of reality” (Origen, Contra Celsus, 3.61).
Â�
compositions of men… the light which was contained within the law of Moses,
but was hidden away under a veil, shone forth at the advent of Jesus, when the
veil was torn away.”50 Christianity was ideographically concealed under Judaism;
Christians, through ideographic reading practices, are fully justified in transmog
rifying the Tanakh into the Old Testament.
With Clement of Alexandria (150–215), the Middle Platonist Church Father,
the scriptural theory of ideography comes to full flower—and “most probably
he got his information from the Hieroglyphica of Chaeremon.”51 Clement argues
that the Bible is ideographic, and that Moses not only knew hieroglyphic, but
also historically introduced grammata to the Jews, Phoenicians, and Greeks:
“having reached the proper age, [Moses] was taught arithmetic, geometry, poetry,
harmony, and besides, medicine and music, by those that excelled in these arts
among the Egyptians; and besides, the philosophy which is conveyed in symbols,
which they point out in the hieroglyphical inscriptions… whence in Acts he is
said ‘to have been instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians’ [Acts, 7:22]. And
Eupolemus… says that ‘Moses was the first wise man, and the first that imparted
grammata to the Jews, that the Phoenicians received it from the Jews, and the
Greeks from the Phoenicians’. And betaking himself to their philosophy, he
increased his wisdom.”52 And thus it was that:
In accordance with the method of concealment, the truly sacred Word, truly divine and
most necessary for us, deposited in the shrine of truth, was by the Egyptians indicated
by what were called among them adyta, and by the Hebrews by the veil. Only the conse
crated—that is, those devoted to God, circumcised in the desire of the passions for the sake
of love to that which is alone divine—were allowed access to them… thence the prophecies
and oracles are spoken in enigmas, and the mysteries not exhibited to all and sundry, but
only after certain purifications and previous instructions… now those instructed among the
Egyptians learned first of all that style of the Egyptian grammata called epistolographic;
and second, the hieratic, which the hierogrammateis practise; and finally, and last of all, the
hieroglyphic, of which one kind… is literal (Kyriologic), and the other symbolic. Of the sym
bolic, one kind speaks literally by imitation; and the other is quite allegorical, using certain
enigmas… in using the figurative style, by transposing and transferring, by changing and by
transforming in many ways as suits them, they draw characters… all then, in a word, who
have spoken of divine things, both barbarians and Greeks, have veiled the first principles
of things, and delivered the truth in enigmas, and symbols, and allegories, and metaphors,
and such like tropes. Such are the oracles among the Greeks… also the maxims of those
among the Greeks called wise men… but those, taught in theology by those prophets, the
poets, philosophize much by way of a hidden sense. I mean Orpheus… Homer, and Hesiod,

51 Van der Horst, Chaeremon, 70n8.
and those in this fashion wise. The persuasive style of poetry is for them a veil for the many.
Dreams and signs are all more or less obscure to men… research, introducing to the under
standing of enigmas, may haste to the discover of truth.53
Clement thus argues that Egyptian ideography—where ultimate truth is to be

found—was handed down from Moses to poets such as Homer;54 as he says, “the
symbolical style was ancient, and was employed not only by our prophets, but
also by the majority of ancient Greeks, and by not a few of the rest of the gentile
barbarians.”55 Homer by these enigmatic means displays his knowledge of the
Christian God;56 Pythagorean symbols and sayings both reiterate the teachings of
Moses and prefigure the message of Christianity,57 and Pythagoras himself drew
his tenets directly from Moses.58
Clement assumes that “Pythagoras and his followers, with Plato also, and most
of the other philosophers, were best acquainted with the Lawgiver, as may be con
cluded from their doctrine… the Hellenic philosophy is like the torch of wick which
men kindle, artificially stealing the light from the sun… therefore also the Egyptians
place sphinxes before their temples, to signify that the doctrine respecting God is
enigmatical and obscure… it [would be] tedious to go over all the Prophets and the
Law, specifying what is spoken in enigmas; for almost the whole Scripture gives its
utterances this way… the things recorded of the sacred ark signify the properties of
the world of thought, which is hidden and closed to the many.”59 Indeed,
the Egyptians did not entrust the mysteries they possessed to all and sundry, and did not
divulge the knowledge of divine things to the profane… similar, then, to the Hebrew enigmas
in respect of concealment, are those of the Egyptians too… at Diospolis in Egypt, on the temple
called Pylon, there was figured a boy as the symbol of production, and an old man as that
of decay. A hawk, on the other hand, was the symbol of God, as a fish of hate; and, accord
ing to a different symbolism, the crocodile of impudence. The whole symbol, then, when
put together appears to teach this: “Oh ye who are born and die, God hates impudence”… but
it was not only the most highly intellectual of the Egyptians, but also such of other barbar
ians as prosecuted philosophy, that affected the symbolical style… and why should I linger
over the barbarians, when I can adduce the Greeks as exceedingly addicted to the use of the
method of concealment?… Dionysius Thrax, the grammarian… says expressly, “some sig
nified actions not by words only, but also by symbols… derived from the Egyptians”… very

57 Clement, Stromata, 4.23 and 5.5.
59 Clement, Stromata, 5.5–5.6.
useful, then, is the mode of symbolic interpretation for many purposes; and it is helpful to
the right theology and to piety, and to the display of intelligence, and the practice of brevity,
and the exhibition of wisdom. “For the use of symbolical speech is characteristic of the wise
man,” appositely remarks the grammarian Didymus, “and the explanation of what is signi
fied by it”… it is, then, proper that the barbarian philosophy, on which it is our business to
speak, should prophecy also obscurely and by symbols. Such are the injunctions of Moses.60
It was precisely in this manner—and with such astounding rhetorical flair—that

Patristic apologists such as Clement of Alexandria dubbed the Greek philoso
phers thieves and robbers (alluding to John, 10:8—“all that came before me were
thieves and robbers”) because they stole the ideographic method from Moses and
from Jesus (inasmuch as he was the preincarnate Word), and did not give credit
where credit was due (i.e., they were plagiarists of ideographic theory).
As the Greeks had themselves learned philosophy from the Egyptians,61 it
must have been the case that “the same God that furnished both the Covenants
was the giver of Greek philosophy to the Greeks.”62 Clement further says of the
theft of the original theories of ideography:
There is then in philosophy, though stolen as the fire by Prometheus, a slender spark,
capable of being fanned into flame, a trace of wisdom and an impulse from God. Well, be
it so that “the thieves and robbers” are the philosophers among the Greeks, who from the
Hebrew prophets before the coming of the Lord received fragments of the truth, not with
full knowledge, and claimed these as their own teachings, disguising some points, treating
others sophistically… Aristotle, too, assented to Scripture…63
Aristobulus… writes these words: “And Plato followed the laws given to us, and had mani
festly studied all that is said in them.” And before [the Septuagint]… there had been trans
lated by another, previous to the dominion of Alexander… the whole code of laws; so that it
is perfectly clear that the above-mentioned philosopher derived a great deal from this source,
for he was very learned, as also Pythagoras, who transferred many things from our books
to his own system of doctrines. And Numenius, the Pythagorean philosopher, expressly
writes: “For what is Plato, but Moses speaking in Attic Greek?” This Moses was a theologian
and prophet, and as some say, an interpreter of sacred laws.64
Because those “who mimic the true philosophy are thieves,”65 it is therefore
Â�necessary that Plato must have learned from Moses about the world of the Forms
60 Clement, Stromata, 5.7–5.8.

61 Clement, Stromata, 6.4 and 6.7.
64 Clement, Stromata, 1.22. Cf. Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, 9.6.9 and 11.10.14; Ficino, Platonic
Theology, 6:53.
(i.e., the mind of God),66 about the “sure and irrefragable apprehension of things
divine and human, comprehending the present, past, and future, which the Lord
has taught us.”67 Indeed, according to Clement:
Life would fail me to adduce the multitude of those who philosophize in a symbolical
manner… all things that shine through a veil show the truth grander and more imposing;
as fruits shining through water, and figures through veils, which give added reflections to
them… Now, then, it is not wished that all things should be exposed indiscriminately to all
and sundry… nor are the mysteries of the Word to be expounded to the profane. They say,
then, that Hipparchus the Pythagorean, being guilty of writing the tenets of Pythagoras in
plain language, was expelled from the school, and a pillar raised for him as if he had been
dead… it was not only the Pythagoreans and Plato, then, that concealed many things; but
the Epicureans say that they have things that may not be uttered, and do not allow all to
peruse those writings. The Stoics also say that by Zeno things were written which they do
not readily allow disciples to read, without their first giving proof whether or not they are
genuine philosophers. And the disciples of Aristotle say that some of their treatises are eso
teric, and others common and exoteric. Further, those who instituted the mysteries, being
philosophers, buried their doctrines in myths, so as not to be obvious to all. Did they then,
by veiling human opinions, prevent the ignorant from handling them; and was it not more
beneficial for the holy and blessed contemplation of realities to be concealed?… these we
shall find indicated by symbols under the veil of allegory… perchance too, the twofold…
peripatetic teaching—that called probable, and that called knowable—came very near the
distinction between opinion on the one hand, and glory and truth on the other.68
The glory and truth of each such Patristic Form “leads us from things of sense
to intellectual objects, or rather from these to holy things, and to the holy of
holies”;69 for “the region of God is hard to attain; which Plato called the region of
Forms (ideai), having learned from Moses that it was a place which contained all
things universally.”70 Thus “a Form (idea) is a conception of God; and this the bar
barians have termed the Word (logos) of God… now the Word issuing forth was the
cause of creation, then he also generated himself, ‘when the Word became flesh’
(John, 1:14), that he might be seen.”71 Therefore, “Mosaic philosophy is accord
ingly divided into four parts… the fourth, above all… theology… which Plato pred
icates of the truly great mysteries. And this… Aristotle calls metaphysics. Dia
lectics, according to Plato, is, as he says in The Statesman, a science devoted to

the discovery of the explanation of things… But the true dialectic, being philoso
phy mixed with truth, by examining things, and testing forces and powers, grad
ually ascends… and essays to go beyond to the God of the universe, professing not
the knowledge of mortal affairs, but the science of things divine and heavenly.”72
Clement, in constructing this scriptural theory of ideography, returns once
again to the alphabetic analogy: “this teaching the apostle recognizes as truly
divine, when he says, ‘and thou, Timothy, from a babe hast known the sacred
letters (hiera grammata)’ [II Timothy, 3:15]… for the letters which make us sacred
and divine are indeed themselves sacred, and the writings composed from these
sacred letters and syllables, namely the collected Scriptures, are consequently
called by the same apostle ‘inspired by God’ [II Timothy, 3:16].”73 It is in this pre
cisely ideographic way that “the Scriptures hide the sense… it was not suitable
for all to understand… wherefore the holy mysteries of the prophecies are veiled…
from the fact that truth appertains not to all, it is veiled in manifold ways, causing
the light to arise only in those who are initiated.”74 This is because “the Savior
teaches His people nothing in a merely human way, but everything by a divine
and mystical wisdom, we must not understand His words literally, but with due
inquiry and intelligence we must search out and master their hidden meaning…
enveloped in a wonderful and super-celestial depth of thought, [his words]
should not be taken as they strike the careless ear, but with an effort of mind to
reach the very spirit of the Savior and His secret meaning.”75 Clement claims that
it is only by means of divine intervention (by the Word as such) that humans can
truly understand anything—“through Him alone, when He has risen within in the
depth of the mind, the soul’s eye is illuminated.”76 As he says, “we ought, I think,
by having these divine writings stamped deeply into the soul, to regard wisdom
as a noble starting-point,”77 contending that “the mind is somehow capable of

73 Clement, Exhortation to the Greeks, 9.71 (in G. W. Butterworth, ed. and trans., Clement of
Alexandria [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1919]—all citations of Exhortation to the Greeks
are from this Loeb edition); cf. “the Hellenic truth is distinct from that held by us (though it has
got the same name), both in respect of extent of knowledge, certainly of demonstration, divine
power, and the like. For we are taught of God, being instructed in the truly ‘sacred letters’ (hiera
grammata) [II Timothy, 3:15] by the son of God” (Clement, Stromata, 1.20).
75 Clement, The Rich Man’s Salvation, 5 (in Butterworth, Clement of Alexandria).
76 Clement, Exhortation to the Greeks, 6.59. Cf. “for ‘the image of God’ is His Word (and the
divine Word, the light who is the archetype of light, is a genuine son of Mind); and an image of
the Word is then true men, that is, the mind in men, who on this account… is made like the divine
Word or Reason, and so reasonable” (Clement, Exhortation to the Greeks, 10.78–79).
77 Clement, Exhortation to the Greeks, 10.84.
receiving the power of God, when the divine image is established within it…
knowledge is a kind of divine understanding; it is that light engendered in the
soul.”78 In describing his own magnum opus, the Stromata, Clement argues in
the scriptural ideographic mode that this book itself is literally a composed ideo
graph (similar to scripture) in that it externally refigures and reinscribes the inter
nal ideographs inscribed on his own soul by Jesus.79
Eusebius of Caesarea (260–340), the Neoplatonist Church Father and his
torian, Euhemeristically argues that the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek god
Hermes were the same person,80 and that this singular historical individual
was actually Moses himself—“Moses was beloved by the multitudes, and being
deemed by the priests worthy to be honored like a god, was named Hermes,
because of his interpretation of the hieroglyphics.”81 And in this manner Moses
“delivered the tradition of the types and symbols of heavenly things, and the
mysterious images, in concordance with the oracle.”82 It was for just this reason
that “the unanimous proclamations of the prophets of old days [were] inscribed
on steles and in sacred books”;83 these were the “sacred writings (hierōn
Â�grammatōn), which they have left us,”84 oracles written in the “sacred script
(hierōn grammatōn).”85 Moses early on “wrote on lifeless tables” in externally
ideographic hieroglyphs, whereas Jesus later “wrote the perfect commandments
of the new covenant on living minds.”86 This is wholesale Christian ideography.
Eusebius argues that “if the Greeks should be found to hold the same doc
trines with the prophets and theologians of the Hebrews, you may no longer be
in doubt who were likely to have borrowed from the others”;87 indeed, “the wise
men of the Greeks have been zealous imitators of the Hebrew doctrines.”88 Plato
was the best case scenario of this borrowing: “Plato also bears witness to the
78 Clement, Stromata, 3.5; cf. “O truly sacred mysteries! O pure light! In the blaze of the torches
I have a vision of heaven and of God. I become holy by initiation. The Lord reveals the mysteries;
He marks the worshipper with His seal”(Clement, Exhortation to the Greeks, 12.92).
80 Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, 1.10.
82 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 1.3.
83 Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica, 5.0 (in W. J. Ferrar, trans., The Proof of the Gospel [Eugene:
Wipf and Stock, 2001]—all citations of Demonstratio Evangelica are from this translation; Greek
text from Migne [op. cit.]).
86 Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica, 1.8.
opinion of the Hebrews”;89 “Plato, having imitated not only the thought, but also
the very expressions and words of the Hebrew scripture, appropriates the doc
trine.”90 This is not just a case of borrowing but rather concrete evidence that
“the creator of all things had implanted this conviction by innate ideas in every
rational and intelligent soul”;91 according to Eusebius, Plato himself “says that
the Forms (ideai) are certain patterns arranged class by class of the things which
are by nature sensible, and that these are the sources of different sciences and
definitions. For besides all individual men there is a certain conception of man:
and besides all horses, of a horse; and generally, besides the animals, a concep
tion of an animal uncreated and imperishable. And in the same way as many
impressions are made of one seal, and many images of one man, so from each
single idea of the objects of sense a multitude of individual natures are formed,
from the idea of man all men, and in like manner in the case of all other things
in nature… As, therefore, the particular archetypes, so to say, precede the bodies
which are perceived by sense, so the idea which includes in itself all ideai, being
the most beautiful and most perfect, exists originally as the pattern of this present
world; for that has been made by its creator like this idea, and wrought according
to the providence of God out of the universal essence.”92
Eusebius, as a Patristic Neoplatonist, explains that “Socrates and Plato
suppose the Forms (ideai) to be separable from the matter, subsisting in the
thoughts and in the presentation of God, that is, of the mind,”93 and that “the
deep and occult reason of these things they left to be sought out and learned in
secret communications by those who were capable of being initiated in matters
of this kind”94—the Neopythagorean refrain. And it is according to the “secret
and mysterious theology conveyed in enigmas and allegories”95 that the “gospel
teaches us… to regard as God one sole divine power pervading and ordering all
things, being in its nature incorporeal and intelligent, or rather impossible to
describe and to conceive, which shows itself through all things whereby it works,
and incorporeally pervades and traverses them all without intermixture, and
throughout all things, not only in heaven but also upon earth, both the univer
sal elements and the several parts, exhibits the perpetual mighty working of the

90 Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica, 11.9. This is a conclusion evidently reached by placing the
Septuagint and the texts of Plato side by side and comparing Greek lexical usage.
Godhead.”96 As this is the case, “more wonderful than wonders are the arche
types, the rational prototypes of these things, and their divine models… the son
of God himself created in his own image, and everywhere and in all things hath
bestowed upon it the divine likeness, an incorruptible nature, an essence incor
poreal, spiritual, a stranger to all earthly matter and endowed with intelligence
of its own.”97
From this Eusebius asks the rhetorical question—“did he not ever and every
where reach through the matter of the elements and of bodies themselves as
being the creative word of God, and imprint the words of his own wisdom upon
them, impressing life on the lifeless, form on that which is formless and shape
less by nature, stamping his own beauty and unembodied Forms (ideai) on the
qualities of matter… pervading all things with the divine power of reason?”98 To
which the scriptural ideographic answer is that “the original and true image of
the God of the universe is his own Word, who is very wisdom, and very life, and
light, and truth, and whatsoever man can conceive of noble and good; and the
human mind is an image of an image, inasmuch as it is acknowledged to have
been made after the image of God.”99 The human mind is an ideographic image of
the Son, who himself is an ideographic image of God.
By means of the gospel, the Forms of the Word are “engraven as it were on our
souls,”100 “the meaning of which it is impossible for the human soul to discern
without divine inspiration.”101 Therefore, “not even speech is germane to him…
by pure silence and pure thoughts we worship him,”102 we “employ towards him
that better speech: I mean the speech that passes not through the lips.”103 Ideo
graphic speech, as Eusebius says:
Of course no one should imagine that the word of God is like to articulate and spoken speech,
which among men consists of syllables, and is compounded of nouns and verbs: for we
know that our speech consists essentially of sounds and syllables and their Â�significations,
and is produced by the tongue and the organs of throat and mouth, whereas that of the

103 Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica, 3.3. Cf. “the divine word has no need of a voice”
(Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 381b). Accord to Philo, God “whispers” into the souls of the elect (The
Embassy to Gaius, 33.245); Clement states that “the word of the father of the universe is not the
uttered word” (Stromata, 5.1).
eternal and unembodied nature, totally divorced from all our conditions, could not possibly
involve anything human: it uses the name of speech and nothing more. Since we must not
in the case of the God of the universe postulate a voice that depends on the movements of
the air, nor words, nor syllables, nor tongue, nor mouth, nor anything indeed that is human
and mortal. For his word must be a word of the soul, and quite incapable of existence or
being apart from the soul. For human speech is in itself without essence and substance,
and regarded generally as a self-movement and activity of thought. But the word of God is
other than this: it has its own substance in itself altogether divine and spiritual, it exists in
itself, it is active also in itself, and being divorced from matter and body, and made like to
the nature of the first unbegotten and only God, it carries in itself the meaning of all begot
ten things, and the Forms (ideai) of things visible, being itself without body and invisible.
Wherefore the divine oracles call it wisdom and the word of God.104
This theory of divine language—the Word of God (i.e., Jesus)—leads the Patristic
scholars to “study the sacred scriptures (hierōn grammatōn) and expound their…
philosophy by allegory, for they regard the literal interpretation as symbolic of
a concealed reality in what is beneath the surface,”105 and thus “the interpreta
tion of the sacred scriptures (hierōn grammatōn) are given them figuratively in
allegories, for the whole law seems to these men to be like a living being; for a
body, it has the spoken precepts, but for a soul the invisible mind underlying the
words.”106 The bad scholar, Eusebius notes, does not follow the methodology of
the scriptural theory of ideography: “I suppose that he got these notions by a per
verse reading of the apostolic accounts, not realizing they had spoken mystically
and symbolically.”107 Under the words of the hierōn grammatōn is the Word.
For Augustine of Hippo (354–430), Neoplatonist and Church Father, all
human language is based upon soft ideography—words are “conceived from the
images of things: for the things stamped their prints upon the mind as they passed
through it by way of the senses.”108 Spoken words therefore express the Â�internal
104 Eusebius, Demonstratio Evangelica, 5.5. Compare Plutarch’s description of the process by

which the Oracle of Delphi produces her divinations: “as a matter of fact, the voice is not that of a
god, nor the utterance of it, nor the diction, nor the metre, but all these are the woman’s; he puts
into her mind only the visions (phantasiai), and creates a light in her soul in regard to the future;
for inspiration is precisely this” (The Oracles at Delphi, 397c).
108 Augustine, Confessions, 11.18 (in F. J. Sheed, trans., Augustine: Confessions [Indianapolis:
Hackett, 1993]—all citations are from this translation). As was the case with the other Church
Fathers, Augustine assumes that Moses knew Egyptian hieroglyphic (City of God, 15.27 and 17.37),
and that Plato studied hieroglyphic in Egypt “with the aid of an interpreter” (City of God, 8.11).
ideographs located in the mind,109 and so “the thoughts of men are mutually
made known by the enunciation of significant words.”110 These soft ideographs
happen “in the inner retreat of my mind… neither in Hebrew nor Greek, nor Latin,
nor barbarian… without lips or tongue or sounded syllables,”111 and under those
conditions “we think all that we say, even if it be said by that inner word which
belongs to no separate language.”112 In mentally scrolling through internal ideo
graphs, as it were, Augustine notes that “someone might object that although we
don’t produce any sound, nonetheless we do ‘speak’ internally in the mind.”113
Although in normal human languages, “signs are not valid among men
except by common consent,”114 it appears to be the case that “a sign is a thing
which causes us to think of something beyond the impression the thing itself
makes upon the senses… conventional signs are those which living creatures
show to one another for the purpose of conveying, in so far as they are able, the
motion of their spirits or something which they have sensed or understood. Nor
is there any other reason for signifying, or for giving signs, except for bringing
forth and transferring to another mind the action of the mind in the person who
makes the sign… words have come to be predominant among men for signifying
whatever the mind conceives if they wish to communicate it to anyone… a multi
tude of innumerable signs by means of which men express their thoughts is made
up of words.”115 It is quite clear that the mind and speech are ideographically
109 Augustine, Confessions, 1.14.

110 Augustine, On the Trinity, 10.1.
111 Augustine, Confessions, 11.3. Cf. “for those are called words in one way, which occupy
spaces of time by their syllables, whether they are pronounced or only thought; and in another
way, all that is known is called a word imprinted on the mind, as long as it can be brought forth
from the memory and defined” (Augustine, On the Trinity, 9.10).
112 Augustine, On the Trinity, 14.7. Cf. “although we neither utter nor think of any articulate
word that is significant in any tongue of any nation… there is in the mind’s eye of the thinker
an image resembling the thought which memory contained” (Augustine, On the Trinity, 15.27).
113 Augustine, The Teacher, 1.2 (in Peter King, trans., Augustine: Against the Academicians and
The Teacher [Indianapolis: Hackett, 1995]—all citations of The Teacher are from this translation).
114 Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 2.25 (in D. W. Robertson, Jr., trans., Saint Augustine: On
Christian Doctrine [Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall, 1958]—all citations of On Christian Doctrine
are from this translation).
115 Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 2.1–2.3. As Jackson mentions—what we have been
referring to as soft internal ideography—“Augustine believes that prior to and independent of
speaking there is something in the mind which may be expressed by speech and which in turn
is understood when one hears intelligible speech” (B. Darrell Jackson, trans., Augustine: De
Dialectica, ed. Jan Pinberg [Dordrecht: Reidel, 1975], 127n9; for further discussion, see: B. Darrell
Jackson, “The Theory of Signs in St. Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana,” Revue des Études
Augustiniennes 15 [1969]: 9–49).
linked for Augustine,116 that “language is the messenger which proclaims all our
thoughts,”117 that speech is a “bodily manifestation of the mind,”118 and indeed
that human language is a kind of “clothing” for soft internal ideographs.119
Augustine uses the image of Carthage to discuss the relationship between
Â�language and internal ideography, explaining that “when indeed I wish to speak
of Carthage, I seek within myself a notion or image of Carthage; but I have received
this through the body, that is, through the perception of the body, since I have
been present in that city in the body, and I saw and perceived it, and retained it
in my memory, that I might find within myself a word concerning it, whenever I
might wish to speak of it. For its word is the image itself of it in my memory, not
that sound of two syllables when Carthage is named, or even when that name
itself is thought of silently from time to time, but that which I discern in my
mind, when I utter that dissyllable with my voice, or even before I utter it.”120
It is in such a manner that Augustine describes ideographic Forms as internal
Â�representations,121 assuming, of course, that God created all the primary exem
plars of these Forms in the first place.122
The strong external ideographs by means of which the book of the world was
written (i.e., the cosmogony in Genesis) are God’s footprints, more deeply or more
lightly impressed in each and every thing.123 And so “every nature which has a form,
and likewise matter capable of receiving a form… received their existence from
Him alone,”124 and thus “every substance, therefore, is either God or from God.”125
Within the bounds of Patristic Neoplatonism, strong internal ideographs are
“drawn, as it were, out of that rational substance of our mind, by which we depend
upon and cleave to the intelligible and unchangeable truth.”126 Such internal ideog
raphy leads one to contemplation of God: “we may contemplate Him steadfastly in
116 Augustine, City of God, 7.30.

123 Augustine, City of God, 11.28; Augustine, Confessions, 13.15.
125 Augustine, On Free Choice, 3.13 (in Anna S. Benjamin and L. H. Hackstaff, trans., Saint
Augustine: On Free Choice of the Will [Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964]—all citations of On Free
Choice are from this translation); cf. Augustine, Confessions, 8.1.
things eternal.”127 It is taken for granted here that “wisdom is not many things, but
one thing, in which there are immense and infinite treasures of intelligible things,
and in which reside the invisible and immutable forms of the visible and mutable
things made by it. For God made nothing unknowingly,”128 and so “wherever you
turn, wisdom speaks to you through the imprint it has stamped upon its works.”129
This is the “eternal law that has been impressed on our minds,”130 and so these
Forms can and should be the same for all humans.131 God, and faith in God alone,
transforms the soft ideographs written on the soul into strong ideographs.
Augustine’s ideographic ontology is based on the assumption that “every
thing we perceive, we perceive either by one of the bodily senses or the mind.
We name the former sensible, the later intelligible”;132 intelligible things are
“those which can be understood with the vision of the mind… with no bulk of
mass, with no sound of voice, without location in either space or time.”133 These
internally ideographic Forms are written in the “secret places of the soul,”134
“stored up in a kind of secret knowledge, which is called memory,”135 and so “all
these things, then, both those which the human mind knows by itself, and those
which it knows by the bodily senses… are laid up and retained in the storehouse
of the memory; and from these is begotten a word that is true, when we speak
what we know, but a word this is before all sound, before all thought of a sound.
For the word is then most like to the thing known, from which also its image is
begotten, since the sight of thinking arises from the sight of knowledge; when it
is a word belonging to no tongue, but is a true word concerning a true thing.”136
Such internal images—strong ideographic ‘words’—of primary language
can signify “the forms of things which Plato called ideas,”137 because “they have
always had and always will have that very absolute being. And they abide, but
not as if fixed in some place as are bodies; but as intelligible things in incorporeal
127 Augustine, On the Trinity, 13.19; cf. “I will not be slow to search out the substance of God,
whether through His Scripture or through the creature. For both of those are set forth for our
contemplation to this end” (Augustine, On the Trinity, 2.0).
129 Augustine, On Free Choice, 2.16.
131 Augustine, On Free Choice, 2.9–2.19.
132 Augustine, The Teacher, 12.39.
things in incorporeal nature… that incorporeal truth… as it were written down

and fixed in the mind.”138 And it is for this exact reason that “there is still a more
hidden depth of our memory… wherein an inner word is begotten such as belongs
to no tongue… which had indeed existed before in the memory, but was latent
there.”139 Augustine thus echoes the palimpsestic reinscription of Platonism.
Why these Forms are not apparent to everyone is because they have always
been kept secret from the hoi polloi, a type of knowledge to be granted only to
a privileged few—“this mystery… was, through certain signs and symbols, pro
claimed by the angels from the very beginning of the human race to those who
were intended to know.”140 Such ideographic communications can be discovered
only by a member of the spiritual elite, and only if one looks in the right place,
as Augustine queries—“where, then, are they written, unless in the book of light
that is called Truth?”141
Augustine perhaps says it best when he remarks (making reference to the
Active Intellect) that “the human soul is naturally connected with the divine
ideas (divinae rationes)… those ideas through which all things were made. What
does not participate in the divine ideas cannot be grasped by true understanding,
since it is itself not true.”142 Human logic and rationality are literally ideographic
“participation in His unchangeable and incorporeal light,”143 since it must be the
case that “the intellectual mind is so formed in its nature as to see those things,
which by the disposition of the Creator are subjoined to things intelligible in a
natural order, by a sort of incorporeal light of a unique kind.”144 There must be
some kind of “incorporeal light with which our mind is somehow irradiated.”145
The internally-inscribed strong ideographic Forms are described as “the light of
the truth,”146 “the light of the mind,”147 “the unchangeable light,”148 the “light of
the purified mind,”149 “that light which is intelligible,”150 the “spark of reason,”151

and “that eternal light.”152 Indeed, when Augustine asks the rhetorical question,
“what is wisdom, except spiritual and unchangeable light?,”153 it is because he
assumes that “God Himself has given your reason the power to think,”154 and
therefore that “our nature has God as the author of its being.”155
It only stands to reason that God therefore speaks silently,156 that his voice is
silent,157 a form of divine speech that uses light and visuality as a medium. Thus
“he speaks in His own ineffable way… it has no audible and transient sound, but
it has a power which endures for eternity and operates in time… we also grasp
something of this kind of speech with our inward ears… for the immutable Truth
either speaks by itself, ineffably, to the minds of rational creatures, or it speaks
through a mutable creature: either to our spirit by spiritual images, or to our cor
poreal sense by corporeal voices.”158 Such figurative and enigmatic divine signi
fiers as can be found in scriptural ideography “raise the eye of the mind above
things that are corporeal and created to drink in eternal light.”159 And so one can
“behold, then, by the sight of the mind, in that eternal truth from which all things
temporal are made, the form according to which we are, and according to which
we do anything by true and right reason, either in ourselves, or in things cor
poreal; and we have the true knowledge of things, thence conceived, as it were
as a word within us, and by speaking we speak to others, we apply to the word,
remaining within us, the ministry of the voice or of some bodily sign, that by the
same kind of sensible remembrance some similar thing may be wrought also in
the mind of him that hears—similar, I say, to that which does not depart from the
mind of him that speaks.”160 The strong internal ideograph is always just under
neath the soft internal ideograph in the soul—holding it up as it were.
It should come as no surprise then that Jesus, as both the incarnate and pre
incarnate Word, thus wise gets compared to an ideograph: “that word, then, of
ours which has neither sound nor thought of sound, but is that thing in seeing

153 Augustine, On the Trinity, 7.3; cf. Plotinus, Enneads, 1.6.3; Philo, On the Creation, 23.71;
Proclus, Platonic Theology, 4.9.
156 Augustine, Confessions, 12.15; cf., “your eternal Word and its silence” (Augustine, Confessions,
11.6).
157 Augustine, Confessions, 9.10; Augustine, City of God, 10.15. Angels “are of Him by His word
without bodily sound” (Augustine, On the Trinity, 15.13).
159 Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, 3.5.
which we speak inwardly, and which therefore belongs to no tongue; and hence
is in some sort like, in this enigma, to that Word of God which is also God”;161
“just as the sound by which we hear a thought which was first formulated in the
silence of the mind is not itself a thought, so the aspect under which God is seen
even though He is by nature invisible is not the same thing as God Himself. It is,
however, He Himself who is seen under that bodily aspect, just as the thought
itself is heard in the sound of the voice”;162 “in order that what we are thinking
may reach the mind of the listener through the fleshy ears, that which we have
in mind is expressed in words and is called speech. But our thought is not trans
formed into sounds; it remains entire in itself and assumes the form of words by
means of which it may reach the ears without suffering any deterioration in itself.
In the same way the Word of God was made flesh without change that He might
dwell among us.”163 This analogy is the very definition of the Patristic scriptural
theory of ideography; Jesus Christ incarnate is literally an external ideograph sig
nifying God.
To recap, for the Patristic scholars, spoken words are either “audible signs of
visible things” or “audible signs of intelligible things,”164 it being the case that
“the corporeal form of these things comes into being for the very purpose, that
it might signify something, and then pass away.”165 And so, “whoever, then, is
able to understand a word, not only before it is uttered in sound, but also before
the images of its sounds are considered in thought—for this it is which belongs
to no tongue, to wit, of those which are called the tongues of nations, of which
our Latin tongue is one—whoever, I say, is able to understand this, is able now to
see through this glass and in this enigma… for of necessity, when we speak what
is true… the thought that is formed by the thing which we know, is the word…
which word is neither Greek nor Latin, nor of any other tongue. But when it is
needful to convey this to the knowledge of those to whom we speak, then some
sign is assumed whereby to signify it… that the word which we bear in mind may
become known also by bodily signs to the bodily senses… some exhibit these and
the like bodily signs either to ears or eyes of persons present to whom we speak,
letters have been invented that we might be able to converse also with the absent;
but these are signs of words, as words themselves are signs in our conversation

164 Augustine, The Teacher, 4.8.
of those things which we think.”166 A fine description of the relationship between

human language and soft internal ideography.
Augustine contrawise defines strong internal ideographs (‘true words’) as
follows: “the likeness of the divine word, such as it is, is to be sought, not in our
own outer and sensible word, but in the inner and mental one… accordingly, the
word that sounds outwardly is the sign of the word that gives light inwardly…
the words of all tongues that are uttered in sound are also silently thought… by
certain incorporeal images appropriate to them… we must go on, then, to that
word of man, to the word of the rational mind, to the word of that image of God…
which is neither utterable in sound nor capable of being thought under the like
ness of sound, such as must needs be with the word of any tongue; but which
precedes all the signs by which it is signified… this is a true word.”167 Only by con
templating the soft internal ideograph can one be lead—via the ineffable strong
ideograph underneath it—to the mind of god.
The scriptural theory of ideography is also brought to the forefront in Augus
tinian hermeneutics—when one seeks out the “secrets of the Divine Scriptures,”168
one discovers that what one is really looking for is the true words (i.e., strong
ideographs) of “the writer of these Sacred Scriptures… or, rather, the Spirit of God
acting through him.”169 As Augustine so perspicuously puts it, “the intention of
the author… or, rather, the Spirit of God speaking though him”170 is what is at
work here—as “the Spirit of God, who worked through the author, undoubtedly
foresaw that this meaning would occur to the reader or listener… He provided
that it might occur to him, since that meaning is dependent upon truth.”171 In
the final analysis, the Patristic reader can ideographically discover (inside any
text, but most importantly scripture) that “these words were not devised by
human industry, but were poured forth from the divine mind.”172 The Neopla
tonist Church Father Basil of Caesarea (329–379) similarly argues that “this divine
language does not mean to us a sound which escapes from the organs of speech,
a collision of air struck by the tongue; it is a simple sign of the will of God.”173 In

173 Basil, Hexaemeron, 2.7 (in Philip Schaff et al., ed. and trans., A Select Library of Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers: Second Series, 14 vols. [Peabody: Hendrickson, 1994]; Greek text from
the scriptural theory put forward by the Patristic apologists, God uses ideographs
to communicate his divine plan to the devout.
When Premaré figuratively analyzed the classical Chinese word shan 譱 more
than a thousand years later, he also believed that God was literally speaking to
him through the character—the almighty evidently knew that this Jesuit would
at that time in history ‘decipher’ this graph in that way (it having been his inten
tion, his will, and his plan for all of eternity, concealed inside the structure of the
Chinese hierōn grammatōn 譱).174 The way Premaré allegorically interprets this
Chinese word is identical to the way Church Fathers interpret the entirety of the
Tanakh, which they rename the ‘Old Testament’ (it only becomes a ‘Testament’
of Christianity when interpreted in this fashion). The scriptural theory therefore
Â�
explains why in early modern Europe such ideographic visions of Egyptian hiero
glyphic and Chinese characters actually “involved a religious dogma, which
cannot be contradicted without danger to the Christian faith.”175 As, without
the scriptural theory of ideography, the most basic episteme of Christianity—
the Christological reading of the so-called ‘Old Testament’—does not function.
Undermining ideographic theory destroys the Bible as scripture; by canonic defi
nition “whoever understands the Holy Scriptures otherwise than the meaning of
the Holy Spirit, by whom they were written… can be called a heretic.”176
Basilius von Caesarea Homilien zum Hexaemeron, ed. Eammanuel Amand de Mendieta and Stig
Y. Rudberg [Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1997]).
174 In a 1725 letter to Fourmont, Prémare writes: “I hope that soon you will say not only that
[the Chinese script] is the ‘noblest achievement of the human race’, but that humanity could not
by itself have put into the hieroglyphs the sublime and divine truths which we discover in them.
God himself must have guided him who made them, in order to transmit to the remotest posterity
the knowledge he had revealed to the first man after the Fall” (Lundbæk, Joseph de Prémare, 32).
176 Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, 8.5.70.
Chapter Five: Neoplatonism and
the Hermetic Theory
The Hermeticists claim that the author of the original Egyptian text of the Greek
Corpus Hermeticum (3rd century C.E.)1 was Hermes Trismegistus (the Egyptian god
Thoth)—that in high antiquity there were “steles… inscribed in the sacred tongue
in hieroglyphic letters by Thoth, the first Hermes, and translated after the flood
from the sacred tongue into the Greek language.”2 Iamblichus states that “Hermes
has also set out this path; and the prophet Bitys has given an interpretation of it…
having discovered it inscribed in hieroglyphic characters in a sanctuary in Sais
in Egypt” and “those documents, after all, which circulate under the name of
Hermes contain Hermetic doctrines, even if they often employ the terminology
of philosophers; for they were translated from the Egyptian tongue by men not
unversed in philosophy. Chaeremon and such other authorities.”3
Only a select cadre of Hermetic adepts could properly interpret the translated
Greek remains of the original strong ideographic Egyptian texts; the exclusivity
of such wisdom, so poorly and ineffectively translated into Greek, was absolute
(and something to be kept strictly hidden). As Fowden points out:
The Ogdoad reveals the Ennead also emphasizes the importance of studying the books of
Hermes in general, and in particular of not divulging its own contents, on pain of terrible
penalties. In short, although the ultimate revelation of divine knowledge can occur only in
the personal intercourse of master and pupil, there is a parallel and supplementary literary
tradition which, since it records what passes between Hermes and his adepts, has a sanctity
of its own. That is why Hermetic texts, technical as well as philosophical, are frequently
referred to as hieroi logoi, “sacred discourses,” emphasizing their scriptural status; and one
can imagine that access to them, and the obligation not to reveal their mysteries, will have
acted as a powerful bond between Hermetic adepts… in fact one does not have to read far in
the surviving texts to find abundant symptoms of a sense of apartness from the uninitiated
1 In 1614 Isaac Casaubon famously redated the Hermetica on philological grounds to the 3rd
century C.E.—see the discussions in: Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, xiv, 11, and 11n53; Copenhaver,
Hermetica, L; Francis A. Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1979), 398–403; Anthony Grafton, “Protestant versus Prophet: Isaac Casaubon
and Hermes Trismegistus,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 46 (1983): 78–93.
2 Copenhaver, Hermetica, 164n. For the classic discussion of Hermetic revelation—written in
secret hieroglyphic ideographs, inscribed monumentally on steles for the eventual edification
of select and initiated members of posterity—see: André-Jean Festugière, La révélation d’Hermès
Trismégiste, 4 vols. (Paris: Gabalda, 1950–1954), 1:319–321.
3 Iamblichus, De mysteriis, 8.5 and 8.4.
86 Chapter Five: Neoplatonism and the Hermetic Theory
majority of human kind. The pious are few, the wicked many; and this is a state of affairs
divinely ordained.4
So what was it that these followers of Hermes were trying to keep hidden? Even
upon the most cursory reading of the Hermetica it becomes apparent that it is
only with the mind or soul that one can contemplate the glorious light of the
divine, the universal god-mind that shoots out rays of light.
Philo and Proclus perhaps explain it best: “it comes to a point at which it
reaches out after the intelligible world, and on descrying in that world sights of
surpassing loveliness, even the patterns and the ideai… pure and untempered
rays of concentrated light stream forth like a torrent, so that by its gleams the
eye of the understanding is dazzled”;5 “visions are unfolded to souls super
nally from the supercelestial palace… for the mystic impressions of Â�intelligibles,
shine forth from than place, and also the unknown and ineffable beauty of char
acters… for the pure splendor… symbolically unfolds to us intelligible light…
symbols of ineffable silence, and of union with mystic natures through intelli
gible visions… we shall be filled with the mysteries which are there, and with
intelligible silence”;6 “the supplier of light proceeds by his rays into secondary
natures, converts the eye to himself, causes it to be solar-form, and to resem
ble himself, and through a different similitude conjoins it with his own fulgid
splendour… the desirable of the gods allures and draws upward all things to the
gods in an ineffable manner by its own proper illuminations”;7 “for the intelligi
ble is that which nourishes and fills all things… it perfects indeed all the natures
that ascend to the intelligible, dilates souls to the reception of divine goods, and
illuminates intellectual light.”8 These rays are the incandescent beams upon
which strong ideographs travel soundlessly into soul of the initiate: “Mind as
a whole wholly enclosing itself, free of all body, unerring, unaffected, untouched,
at rest in itself, capable of containing all things and preserving all that exists,
and its rays (as it were) are the good, the truth, the archetype of spirit, the
archetype of soul.”9
Philo says of this light that it is “the archetypal essence of which myriads of
rays are the effluence, none visible to sense, all to the mind”;10 further, “when
4 Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, 158.

5 Philo, On the Creation, 23.71; cf. Plotinus, Enneads, 1.6.3.
6 Proclus, Platonic Theology, 4.9.
9 Corpus Hermeticum, 2.12.
Chapter Five: Neoplatonism and the Hermetic Theory 87
the rays of the Divine Day-star, rays visible to the mind only, pure from all defiling
mixture and piercing to the furthest distance, flash upon the soul, it can descry
nothing else”;11 and “when… the sudden beam of self-inspired wisdom has shone
upon us, when that wisdom had opened the closed eye of the soul and made us
spectators rather than hearers of knowledge, and substituted in our minds sight,
the swiftest of senses, for the slower sense of hearing, then it is idle any longer
to exercise the ear with words,”12 as it is “not through a variety of words, but
through intellectual projection alone.”13 According to the Corpus Hermeticum, the
“mind, then, has not been cut off from god’s essentiality; it has expanded, as it
were, like the light of the sun. In humans this mind is god; among humans, there
fore, some are gods and their humanity is near to divinity.”14 The relative diviniza
tion of the human initiate’s soul can be judged by how many and what sort of
ideographs have been beamed into them—as Tat says, “since god has made me
tranquil, father, I no longer picture things (phantazomai) with the sight of the
eyes but with the mental energy that comes through the powers.”15 Strong theory
Hermetic internal ideographs come straight from the godhead of the One.
These internal representations of extraterrestrial mental energy cannot be
effectively communicated in normal human language—it is only ‘pure speech’
(i.e., the silent ideographic primary language, the language of thought) that can
effectively signify the strong ideographs beamed into and back-lit by the univer
sal mind: “within myself I inscribed [it]… and I was deeply happy because I was
filled with what I wished, for the sleep of my body became sobriety of soul, the
closing of my eyes became true vision, my silence became pregnant with good,
and the birthing of the logos became a progeny of goods. This happened to me
because I was receptive of mind… You who we address in silence, the unspeak
able, the unsayable, accept pure speech offerings from a heart and soul that reach
up to you.”16 As Proclus says, “with theurgists also, the ascent to the ineffable…
no longer unfolds through words.”17
There is a constant Neopythagorean reminder in the Hermetic dialogues,
said to those who seek this kind of theurgic ascension—“from here on, my child,
11 Philo, On Drunkeness, 11.44.

12 Philo, The Sacrifices of Abel and Cain, 22.78; cf. Philo, On Rewards and Punishments, 6.37–40.
16 Corpus Hermeticum, 1.30–31.
keep silence and say nothing.”18 And the Corpus Hermeticum offers up a distinct
version of the efficacy of Egyptian primary language:
My teacher, Hermes—often speaking to me in private, sometimes in the presence of Tat—

used to say that those reading my books would find their organization very simple and clear
when, on the contrary, it is unclear and keeps the meaning of its words concealed; further
more, it will be entirely unclear (he said) when the Greeks eventually desire to translate our
language to their own and thus produce in writing the greatest distortion and unclarity. But
this discourse, expressed in our paternal language, keeps clear the meaning of its words…
Egyptian onomata have in themselves the energy of the objects they speak of. Therefore,
my king, in so far as you have the power… keep the discourse uninterpreted, lest mysteries
of such greatness come to the Greeks, lest the extravagant, flaccid and (as it were) dan
dified Greek idiom extinguish something stately and concise, the energetic idiom of our
Â�onomata.19
The power of Egyptian onomata seems to be tied into and in fact reliant upon
their strong ideographic writing system—the silent ideographs are very naturally
linked with a real ontology and divine revelation; as Fowden notes, “the Her
metists, while insisting that their composition had indeed been written in Egyp
tian, and inscribed on steles in hieroglyphic characters, were also well aware that
they could not have been rendered into Greek without losing the authority that
attached to sacred texts… the Hermetica are presented as revelations of divine
truth, not as the product of human reason.”20 Both Hermeticism and Neopla
tonism are uncomfortable with soft theory ideography—it is too closely linked
with mere human reason and crude matter through perception via the senses.
Plotinus (207–270 C.E.), the key Neoplatonic theorist of the ideograph, actu
ally takes umbrage with the signet ring in wax analogy,21 arguing that perception
cannot be like a corporeal affection—it must be an internal process of the incor
poreal soul itself, as otherwise, how could one explain the internal ideographs
that occur within it without the mediation of external objects? Plotinus thus
assumes that “we must suppose that the perception of sense-objects is for the
soul or the living being an act of apprehension, in which the soul understands the
quality attaching to bodies and takes an impression of their Forms (eidē). Well,
then, the soul will either apprehend alone by itself or in company with something
else. But how can it do this when it is alone and by itself? For when it is by itself it

19 Corpus Hermeticum, 16.1–2.
20 Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, 30–32.
21 Plotinus, Enneads, 3.6.9, 4.5.3, and 4.7.6.
apprehends what is in itself, and is pure thought.”22 He further argues that “soul’s
power of sense perception need not be perception of sense-objects, but rather it
must be receptive of the impressions produced by sensation on the living being;
these are already intelligible entities. So external sensation is the image (eidōlon)
of this perception of the soul, which is in its essence truer and is a contempla
tion of Forms (eidē) alone without being affected. From these Forms (eidē), from
which the soul alone receives its lordship over the living being, come reasonings,
and opinions and acts of intuitive intelligence; this precisely is what ‘we’ are.”23
This is the cogito ergo sum (“I am thinking, and therefore know that I exist”) of
internal ideography.
When it perceives the world, the soul is remembering the Forms inscribed
upon it before birth; perception is a kind of bounced-back soft reflection of the
already-present strong ideographs—the so-called perceptions of external objects
are actually intuitions of the internal ideographs already present in the (preborn)
soul: “it seems as if awareness exists and is produced when intellectual activity
is reflexive and when that in the life of the soul which is active in thinking is in a
way projected back, as happens with a mirror-reflection when there is a smooth,
bright, untroubled surface. In these circumstances when the mirror is there the
mirror-image is produced, but when it is not there or is not in the right state the
object of which the image (eidōlon) would have been is (all the same) actually
there. In the same way as regards the soul, when that kind of thing in us which
mirrors the images of thought and intellect is undisturbed, we see them and know
them in a way parallel to sense-perception, along with the prior knowledge that
it is intellect and thought that are active.”24 The Active Intellect ‘perceives’ the
strong internal ideographs located within the soul without reference to external
sense-perception; this is what thinking should be.
Plotinus further contends that “when sense-perception, then, sees the Form
(eidos) in bodies binding and mastering the nature opposed to it, which is form
less, and shape riding gloriously upon other shapes, it gathers into one that which
appears dispersed and brings it back and takes it in, now without parts, to the
soul’s interior and presents it to that which is within as something in tune with it
and fitting it and dear to it”;25 and “now the soul which holds the Forms (eidē) of
real beings, and is itself, too, a Form (eidos), holds them all gathered together, and
each individual Form (eidos) is gathered together in itself; and when it sees the
22 Plotinus, Enneads, 4.4.23.

25 Plotinus, Enneads 1.6.3.
Forms (eidē) of things perceived by the senses as it were turning back towards it
and approaching it, it does not endure to receive them with their multiplicity, but
sees them stripped of their mass; for it cannot become anything else than what
it is.”26 Thus the soul “perceives the experiences in its body by its own agency,
but the reasoning power in the soul makes its judgment, derived from the mental
images (phantasmata) present to it which come from sense-perception, but com
bining and dividing them; and, as for the things which come to it from intellect,
it observes what one might call their imprints, and has the same power also in
dealing with these; and it continues to acquire understanding as if by recognizing
the new and recently arrived impressions and fitting them to those which have
long been within it: this process is what we should call the ‘recollections’ of the
soul.”27 This must be the case, “for it is certainly not by running around outside
that the soul ‘sees self-control and justice’, but itself by itself in its understand
ing of itself and what it formerly was, seeing them standing in itself like splen
did statues all rusted with time which it has cleaned.”28 Plotinus here gives us a
splendid example of the Neoplatonic epistemology of the Hermetic theory of ide
ography—with the soft ideographs received through perception reflecting upon,
polishing up, and relighting the strong ideographs already eternally present (like
a garden of antique bronze statuary) in the soul.
“And what is this?,” Plotinus queries, “…a sight and the impression of what
is seen, implanted and working in it, like the relationship between sight and
its object. But did the soul not have the realities which it sees? Does it not rec
ollect them? It had them, but not active, lying apart and unilluminated; if they
are to be illuminated and the soul is to know that they are present in it, it must
thrust toward that which gives it light. It did not have the realities themselves
but impressions of them; so it must bring the impressions into accord with the
true realities of which they are impressions.”29 The workings of the light-bringing
Active Intellect shows that:
Sense-perception is our messenger, but intellect is our king. But we too are kings, when we
are in accord with it; we can be in accord with it in two ways, either by having something
like its writing written in us like laws (nomoi), or by being as if filled with it and able to see
it and be aware of it as present. And we know ourselves by learning all other things by such
a vision… and by that intellect he thinks himself again, not any longer as man, but having
become altogether other and snatching himself up into the higher world, drawing up only

the better part of the soul, which alone is able to be winged for intellection, with which
someone there keeps by him what he sees… if, therefore, it says that it is from intellect
and second after intellect and an image (eikōn) of intellect, having in itself everything as if
written, as the one who writes and has written is there… yes, we must so know, if we are to
know what ‘self-knowledge’ in intellect means.30
It is through the internal hermeneutics of the Active Intellect—reading the true

‘self’ through Hermetic theurgy and Neoplatonic ascension—that the soft inter
nal ideographs of perception become (or remember that they always have been)
strong.
In further analyzing the Active Intellect, Plotinus crafts an intriguing itera
tion of the familiar analogy of the Greek alphabet:
Since we say that sense-perceptions are not impressions or seal-stamps on the soul, we
cannot say either with any sort of consistency that memories are retentions of what we have
learnt or perceived while the impression remains on the soul which was not there to begin
with… if we received impressions of what we see, there will be no possibility of looking at
the actual things we see, but we shall look at images and shadows of the objects of sight,
so that the objects themselves will be different from the things we see… this is the way, I
think, in which a distinction is made by the soul between what is seen and what is heard,
not if both are impressions, but if they are not by nature impressions or affections, but
activities concerned with that which approaches (the soul). But we men do not believe that
each particular power (of perception) can come to know its object unless it is struck by it,
and make it be affected by the object near it instead of coming to know it, though it has
been appointed to master it, not to be mastered by it. One should suppose the same kind of
process takes place in the case of hearing: the impression is in the air, and is a sort of artic
ulated stroke, like grammata written on the air by the maker of the sound; but the power
and the substance of the soul does something like reading the impressions written on the
air when they come near and reach the point at which they can be seen… sense-objects are
observed from outside, but the intelligibles in reverse come out, one can say, from within;
and they are activities in a higher degree and more authentically: for the object belongs to
the knowledge, and the knowledge in its active exercise is each of its objects.31
According to this Neoplatonic hermeneutic, spoken language is like a material

inscription of soft ideographic grammata on the air—airy grammata which are
then read by the souls of the hearers; this act of reading can only occur if the soul
of the listener already knows the ideographic writing system needed to read the
airborne text—the strong ideographic Forms in the soul are in a sense reaching out
and touching the soft ideographic aerial grammata, infusing them with meaning,
lighting them up as it were, which consequently makes the Â�interpretation of
30 Plotinus, Enneads, 5.3.3–4.

31 Plotinus, Enneads, 4.6.1–2; cf. Plotinus, Enneads, 3.8.9, 6.1.5, and 6.4.11–12.
verbal utterances entirely dependent on the state of the soul of the listener (a
fact that explains why initiates and adepts understand hidden or complicated
messages better than others).
Plotinus emphasizes that “Plato says, ‘it cannot be spoken or written’, but we
speak and write impelling towards it and wakening from reasonings to the vision
of it, as if showing the way to someone who wants to have a view of it.”32 And, in
what is certainly the most influential passage ever written on the topic of external
ideography, Plotinus offers up a materially and historically instantiated view of
it—the Egyptian alternative to normal human speech:
All the Forms we speak about are beautiful images in that world, of the kind which someone
imagined to exist in the soul of the wise man, images not painted but real. This is why
the ancients said that the Forms were realities and substances. The wise men of Egypt, I
think, also understood this, either by scientific or innate knowledge, and when they wished
to signify something wisely, did not use the forms of grammata which follow the order of
words and propositions and imitate sounds and the enunciations of philosophical state
ments, but by drawing images and inscribing in their temples one particular image of each
particular thing, they manifested the non-discursiveness of the intelligible world, that is,
that every image is a kind of knowledge and wisdom and is a subject of statements, all
together in one, and not discourse or deliberation.33
As Boas notes, “if any small group of words can be thought of as the source of a
great tradition… the source of the idea in modern times that emblems contain a
kind of knowledge which cannot be found in discourse… [that] discursive rea
soning and deliberation… are subsequent to this vision. So Ernest Fenollosa
was to describe Chinese characters in the twentieth century. That the Egyptian
hieroglyphics were nothing of the sort has been known to us since the time of
Â�Champollion, but there had been a long tradition to convince lovers of the ancient
wisdom that Plotinus was right… two points were thus established: (1) that true
knowledge was a contemplation of Platonic ideas in visual form; (2) that this had
been made possible in Egyptian hieroglyphs.”34 Iversen further explains that
Egyptian hieroglyphs “became, in an ever-increasing way, recurrent topics in the
philosophical debate of the times, and the final wording of what henceforward
should become their accepted canonical definition was framed by Plotinus.”35

33 Plotinus, Enneads, 5.8.5–6.
34 George Boas, trans., The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1993), 8–9.
35 Iversen, Myth of Egypt and Its Hieroglyphs, 45.
Porphyry (233–304), a Syrian nobleman from Tyre,36 studied philosophy

with such notable figures as Origen, Longinus, and Plotinus himself.37 He makes
a case for the proper (non-discursive) worship of the deity: “so we too shall sac
rifice. But we shall make, as is fitting, different sacrifices to different powers. To
the god who rules over all, as a wise man said, we shall offer nothing perceived
by the senses, either by burning or in words. For there is nothing material which
is not at once impure to the immaterial. So not even logos expressed in speech
is appropriate for him, nor yet internal logos when it has been contaminated
by the passion of the soul. But we shall worship him in pure silence with pure
thoughts about him.”38 As Clark notes, “Porphyry argues that the god who is
above all wants nothing material, and pure unvoiced thoughts are the appropri
ate sacrifice.”39 Philo similarly advocates this: “let each individual person too
utter this same cry, not with the voice that glides forth over tongue and lips, not
reaching beyond a short space of air, but with the voice of the understanding
that has wide scope and lays hold on the ends of the universe.”40 All divine dis
course—to the god or from the god—should always be utterly silent strong ideo
graphs; as Porphyry says, “the gods communicate to us in silence.”41
The Hermetic theory of ideography, as exemplified by the Neoplatonist Por
phyry, can be quickly summed up by his contention that “expressive logos is voice
signifying with the tongue that which is experienced internally and in the soul (this
is the most general definition, which does not depend on any school but only on
the concept of logos)… why should a creature not first have thought what it expe
riences, even before it says what it is going to say? I mean by ‘thought’ that which
is silently voiced in the soul… that which is voiced by the tongue is logos however
36 Tyre was part of a Roman colony during the period, and there is no evidence that Porphyry
spoke any language other than Greek (with Latin being the likely choice for a second language,
if any)—for discussion of many of the linguistic and cultural misconceptions surrounding
Porphyry’s background, see: Fergus Millar, “Porphyry: Ethnicity, Language, and Alien Wisdom,”
in Jonathan Barnes and Mirian Griffin, ed., Philosophia Togata II: Plato and Aristotle at Rome
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 241–262.
37 Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers, 456; Kathleen O’Brien Wicker, ed. and trans., Porphyry
the Philosopher to Marcella: Text and Translation with Introduction and Notes (Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 1987), 1, 3, and 28n19—all citations of Letter to Marcella are from this edition.
38 Porphyry, On Abstinence, 2.34. Cf. Clement, Stromata, 4.26; Eusebius, Praeperatio Evangelica,
3.13, 4.4, and 5.15; Augustine, City of God, 19.23.
39 Clark, Porphyry: On Abstinence, 12. Cf. the discussion in: Hans Peter Esser, “Untersuchungen
zu Gebet und Gottesverehrung der Neoplatoniker,” (Ph.D. Diss., Cologne, 1967), 50.
40 Philo, On Husbandry, 12.53.
41 Porphyry, On Abstinence, 3.5.
it is voiced, whether in barbarian or Greek.”42 As Dodd notes, “of course no Greek

writer who used the term logos could dissociate the idea of ‘word’ from the idea of
the thought expressed in the word.”43 The “thought” here is the internal ideograph.
Following from this assumption, “perception itself cannot occur without thinking.
It often happens that grammata we scan with our sight, or words that impinge on
our hearing, escape us because our mind was on something else; then it returns
and runs in pursuit of what has been said, retracing each word. So it has been said
‘mind sees, mind hears; all else is deaf and blind’, because what happens to eyes
and ears does not produce perception if thinking is not present.”44 Porphyry in this
manner describes the ideographically inscribed self (the cogito ergo sum):
I am not this person who is tangible and susceptible to visible appearance, but rather a
being completely separate from the body, without color and without material form, totally
incapable of being touched by hand but rather comprehended by thought alone. We do not
receive from the externals what has been implanted in them for us. Rather we receive only
the musical pitch, as in a chorus, which leads us to remember what we had from the giver as
we set out on our wandering… was it not, then, these very teachings which you particularly
joined in praising, recognizing them as divine grammata implanted within you?45
Although his teacher Plotinus mentions it in passing, Porphyry is the first gentile
to go into detail about how the ideographic text inscribed in the soul is divine ‘law’
(nomos), a synchronic text of the entire ideographic lexicon of the Forms, stamped
by the deity at the dawn of time upon every soul that was ever and is ever to exist:
The divine nomos, for its part, has been ordained by the mind, for the salvation of ratio
nal souls in accordance with their perceptions; having penetrated into their souls, it is dis
covered through the truth of their thoughts… intellect alone knows it, digging deep in the
search for it and finding it stamped upon itself. And intellect provides nourishment from it
for the soul as if it were its own body. For it must be established that the body of the intellect
is the rational soul, which the intelligence nourishes by bringing into recognition through
the light from itself the thoughts in the soul, which it has stamped and engraved with the
truth of the divine nomos. And it becomes the very teacher and savior and nurse and guard
ian and guide to the ascent. By speaking in silence, and by allowing truth to unfold its
divine nomos through its insight into it, the intellect comes to recognize in its investigations
into it that the divine nomos has been stamped upon the soul from eternity.46

43 Charles Harold Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1964), 120.
45 Porphyry, Letter to Marcella, 8–9.
46 Porphyry, Letter to Marcella, 25–26. As Wicker points out, for Porphyry “divine law is stamped
on the intellect at the beginning of time” and “Porphyry… uses images of mining, engraving, and
And just as this divine nomos is stamped ideographically upon the soul (which
therefore stands as the ultimate referent to all this-worldly activity—including
language and perception—that human beings engage in, the ultimate and proper
signifieds of all signs), so too can this-worldly written texts be understood to be
allegorical in precisely such a manner. Porphyry argues that “the body of a text is
its verbal meaning and its soul is the author’s meaning.”47
This method of reading off the strong Forms that were ideographically
scribed on the soul of the author—only cheaply and flaccidly represented by the
fallen human language which has in all cases only attempted to softly re-present
the silent ideographs—is what allows Porphyry to read Homer as scripture: “it is
evident, not only to the wise but also to the vulgar, that the poet, under the veil
of allegory, conceals some mysterious signification… since this narration is full
of such obscurities, it can neither be a fiction casually devised for the purpose of
procuring delight, nor an exposition of a topical history; but something allegori
cal must be indicated.”48 Porphyry continues: “it must not, however, be thought
that interpretations of this kind are forced, and nothing more than the conjec
tures of ingenious men; but when we consider the great wisdom of antiquity, and
how much Homer excelled in intellectual prudence, and in an accurate knowl
edge of every virtue, it must not be denied that he has obscurely indicated the
minting coinage to describe the manner in which the soul receives and discovers the existence
of the divine law” (Porphyry the Philosopher, 111n and 114n). Cf. “the Cause judges those worthy
of His gifts, who do not deface with base practices the coin within them which bears the stamp
of God, even the sacred mind” (Philo, The Unchangableness of God, 23.105); “it is in the laws
(nomoi)… because in a sense it is an image of the primal origin reproduced from it like the imprint
from an archetypal seal” (Philo, Special Laws 2, 28.152); “the minutest seal takes in under the
graver’s hand the contours of colossal figures. So perchance shall the beauties of the world’s
creation recorded in the Laws (nomoi), transcendent as they are and dazzling as they do by their
bright gleams the souls of readers, be indicated by delineations minute and slight” (Philo, On the
Creation, 1.6); “but where are these rules inscribed? Where does even the unjust man recognize
what is just? …where else are the rules written down but in the book of that light which is called
truth? From it every just law is copied and inscribed in the heart of the man who acts justly; and
it comes down, not by literally crossing over, but by being as it were imprinted, as the image from
a ring is transferred into the wax and yet does not leave the ring” (Ficino, Platonic Theology, 4:93;
here quoting Augustine, On the Trinity, 14.15).
47 Edwards, Neoplatonic Saints, xxx; Porphyry, frag. 416, in A. Smith, ed., Porphyry: Fragmenta
(Leipzig: Teubner, 1993), 488. According to Proclus, “the task of the philosopher is to disengage
the natural signification of a word—its form or eidos—from its matter, which is a variable
conglomerate of sounds. This he achieves by mastering the art of the ‘theologians’, who can also
teach him how to parse the symbols that are vouchsafed to us by gods whom none can name”
(Edwards, Neoplatonic Saints, xlix).
48 Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs, 2–3.
images of things of a more divine nature in the fiction of a fable.”49 Just one con
crete example of Porphyry’s ideographic hermeneutic should suffice to illustrate:
One particular, however, remains to be explained, and that is the symbol of the olive
planted at the top of the cavern; since Homer appears to indicate something very admirable
by giving it such a position. For he does not merely say that an olive grows in this place, but
that it flourishes on the summit of the cavern. “High at the head a branching olive grows,
beneath, a gloomy grotto’s cool recess.” But the growth of the olive in such a situation is not
fortuitous, as someone may suspect, but contains the enigma of the cavern. For since the
world was not produced rashly and casually, but is the work of divine wisdom and intel
lectual nature, hence an olive, the symbol (symbolon) of this wisdom, flourishes near the
present cavern, which is the image (eikōn) of the world. For the olive is the plant of Minerva;
and Minerva is wisdom. But this goddess being produced from the head of Jupiter, the the
ologist [Homer] has discovered an appropriate place for the olive, by consecrating it at the
summit of the port; signifying (sēmainōn) by this, that the universe is not the effect of a
casual event, and the work of irrational fortune, but that it is the offspring of an intellectual
nature and divine wisdom.50
The same divine nomos that Porphyry found inscribed on his own soul must have
also been stamped on the soul of Homer—and this belief (i.e., that humans souls
everywhere and at all times contain the same fixed set of Forms) is what justifies
the hermeneutic practice displayed in On the Cave of the Nymphs. Because the
nomos is absolutely universal, it allows one to use the Forms found in one’s own
soul to explicate what must be exactly the same Forms in the soul of every single
human being who has ever lived (and who will ever live, anytime, anywhere)—
and perforce every single thing that any human being has ever said (or will ever
say, anytime, anywhere) becomes amenable to ideographic exegesis (which
locates the truth). And it is not just human speech acts that can be interpreted in
49 Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs, 36.

50 Porphyry, On the Cave of the Nymphs, 15. Cf. “Our present collection will contain a record
of many doctrines of philosophy, according as the gods declared truth to be… and do thou
endeavor to avoid publishing these above all things… these things I beg of you to conceal as
the most unutterable of secrets, for even the gods did not make a revelation concerning them
openly, but by enigmas” (Porphyry, “Preface to the Philosophy from Oracles,” in John J. O’Meara,
trans., Porphyry’s Philosophy from Oracles in Eusebius’s Praeparatio Evangelica and Augustine’s
Dialogues of Cassiciacum [Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1969], 108). It is clear that Porphyry
was attempting to imitate the allegorical method both Homer and Plato supposedly practiced
(originally learned by them in Egypt)—hiding his theological wisdom in silent and obscure
ideographic symbols (insofar as they can be thus wise hidden in human language), which only
the deserving adept of the future will correctly interpret.
this way—any and all phenomena in the world are equally open to such ideo
graphic analysis (which similarly locates Hermetic truths).
Iamblichus of Chalcis (240–330), the Syrian Neoplatonist and student of
Porphyry, once asked “what, after all, would cause being, which is essentially
incorporeal, and has nothing in common with the bodies participating in it, to
be divided among qualitatively distinct bodies? …as for me, I do not see in what
way the things of this realm are fashioned and given form, if no divine creative
force or participation in divine Forms (eidē) extends throughout the whole of the
cosmos.”51 The universe does not make any sense, therefore, without assuming
the Forms and the Neoplatonic deity who installs and maintains them in sub
strate matter. When every single thing that exists, when every single predicate,
when every single bit of sensory data that any human being ever perceives is liter
ally an external ideograph of the mind of the god, this obviously makes Egyptian
hieroglyphic unproblematic—as the written ideographs created by the Egyptian
scribes already contain the necessity of being ontologically ideographic simply
by the fact of their being in existence in the first place.
According to Iamblichus, it was in Egyptian theology, in the contemplation
of the gods in visual form, that human-created ideography (an imitation of divine
cosmogonic ideography) first originated:
Was not this cult established by law (nomos) at the beginning intellectually, according to
the ordinances of the gods? It imitates the order of the gods, both the intelligible and that in
the heavens. It possesses eternal measures of what truly exists and wondrous tokens, such
as have been sent down hither by the creator and father of all, by means of which unutter
able truths are expressed through secret symbols, beings beyond form brought under the
control of form, things superior to all image reproduced through images (eikones), and all
things brought to completion through one single divine cause.52
These secret symbols, wondrous tokens, and unutterable truths can only be encap
sulated by means of external and internal ideographs, never in the apostate pro
ductions of normal human language.
Iamblichus further describes Egyptian theology, and recommends imitation
of its practice:
First of all I would like to explain to you the mode of theology practiced by the Egyp
tians. For these people, imitating the nature of the universe and the demiurgic power of
51 Iamblichus, De mysteriis, 1.8. Iamblichus likely wrote On the Mysteries during his trip
to Egypt—see: B. Dalsgaard Larsen, Jamblique de Chalcis: Exégète et philosophe (Aarhus:
Universitetsforlaget, 1972), 174–175 and 196.
52 Iamblichus, De mysteriis, 1.21.
the gods, display certain signs of mystical, arcane and invisible intellections by means of
symbols, just as nature copies the unseen principles in visible forms through some mode of
symbolism, and the creative activity of the gods indicates the truth of the Forms in visible
signs. Perceiving, therefore, that all superior beings rejoice in the efforts of their inferiors
to imitate them, and therefore wish to fill them with good things, insofar as it is possible
through imitation, it is reasonable that they should proffer a mode of concealment that is
appropriate to the mystical doctrine of concealment in symbols. Hear, therefore, the intel
lectual interpretation of the symbols, according to Egyptian thought: banish the phantasia
of the symbolic things themselves, which depend on imagination and hearsay, and raise
yourself up towards the intellectual truth.53
So how was it, exactly, that the Egyptians did this? They did it by writing in silent
arcane symbols and invoking the symbols by ‘thinking’ them: “the invocations
do not arouse inspirations of the intellect or bodily emotions in the one receiving
them: for they are wholly unknown and mysterious, and are spoken intelligibly
only for the god whom they invoke.”54 Thinking (i.e., ‘speaking intelligibly’) the
silent unutterable symbols such that the god would ‘hear’ them was a method
that the ancient Egyptians had evidently mastered through ideographic writing;
Egyptian hieroglyphic encodes strong ideographs which have the theurgical
capacity to draw human souls upward into union with the divine:
It is the accomplishment of acts not to be divulged and beyond all conception, and the power
of the unutterable symbols, understood solely by the gods, which establishes theurgic union.
Hence we do not bring these things about by intellection alone; for their efficacy would be
intellectual, and dependent upon us. But neither assumption is true. For even when we are
not engaged in intellection, the symbols themselves, by themselves, perform their appropri
ate work, and the ineffable power of the gods, to whom these symbols relate, itself recognizes
the proper images (eikones) of itself, not through being aroused by our thought. For it is not
in the nature of things containing to be aroused by those contained in them, nor of things
perfect by things imperfect, not even of wholes by parts. Hence it is not even chiefly through
our intellection that divine causes are called into actuality; but it is necessary for these and
all the best conditions of the soul and our ritual purity to pre-exist as auxiliary causes; but
the things which properly arouse the divine will are the actual divine symbols.55
As we see here, there was a theoretical problem with the human production of
these divine symbols. How did imperfect human beings historically come to
53 Iamblichus, De mysteriis, 7.1–2.

54 Iamblichus, De mysteriis, 3.24. Cf. “theurgic union is attained only by… the power of
unutterable symbols which are intelligible only to the gods” (Dodds, Elements of Theology, xx);
“[Iamblichus’] most distinguished disciples leaned towards and inclined to a silence appropriate
to the mysteries, and a reserve worthy of a hierophant” (Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers, 461).
possess an art that should by all rights be reserved only to the gods? Iamblichus
theorizes: “the whole of theurgy presents a double aspect. On the one hand, it is
performed by men, and as such observes our natural rank in the universe; but on
the other, it controls divine symbols, and in virtue of them is raised up to union
with the higher powers, and directs itself harmoniously in accordance with their
dispensation, which enables it quite properly to assume the mantle of the gods. It
is in virtue of this distinction, then, that the art both naturally invokes the powers
from the universe as superiors, inasmuch as the invoker is man, and yet on the
other hand gives them orders, since it invests itself, by virtue of the ineffable
symbols, with the hieratic role of the gods.”56 By means of fashioning and con
templating external ideographs, then, the Egyptian priests (by direct dispensa
tion of the gods no less) had themselves taken on the role of gods: “the theurgist,
through the power of arcane symbols, commands cosmic entities no longer as a
human being or employing a human soul but, existing above them in the order
of the gods… [this] power he holds through his unification with the gods, which
he gains through knowledge of the ineffable symbols.”57 Thinking through the
strong ideographs unifies the human and divine mind, literally transforming Her
metic adepts into gods themselves.
Iamblichus in this manner argues that true theurgic wisdom only comes from
the divine through material inscriptions of mysterious and ineffable ideographic
symbols:
Let us grant that they are unknowable to us—or even, in some cases, known, since we may
receive their explanations from the gods—but to the gods they are all significant, not accord
ing to an effable mode, nor in such a way that is significant and indicative to the imagina
tions of human beings, but united to the gods either intellectually, or ineffably, and in a
manner superior and more simple than in accordance with intellect… thus, the symbolic
character of divine similitude, which is intellectual and divine, has to be assumed in the
onomata… we preserve in their entirety the mystical and arcane images of the gods in our
soul; and we raise our soul up through these towards the gods and, as far as is possible,
when it has been elevated, we experience union with the gods.58
This is the fullest explication of the theurgical core of the Hermetic theory of ide
ography: that contemplation of strong external ideographs will ultimately lead
the human mind to intellectual unification with the divine mind. Hermetic ideog
raphy divinizes us, inside and out.

57 Iamblichus, De mysteriis, 6.6–7.
Proclus (410–485), who was born in Byzantium and studied in both Athens
and Egypt,59 provides even more evidence of the Neoplatonic context of the
Hermetic theory: “to you who are desirous of knowing divine concerns through
images (eikones), the method will be apparent. For all these shadow forth the
powers of things divine… for those who treat of divine concerns in an indicative
manner, either speak symbolically (symbolikōs) and fabulously (mythikōs), or
through images (eikones)… for that mythological mode which indicates divine
concerns through conjecture is ancient, concealing truth under a multitude of
veils, and proceeding in a manner similar to nature, which extends sensible fig
ments of intelligibles… and images (eidōla)… of things perfectly true.”60 Proclus
contends that the Forms in the mind of the One are ideographically reproduced
in the human soul: “according to participation, there will be another intellect
subsisting in energy, more ancient than soul, which essentially possesses intel
lection… since it is also necessary that the soul which is essentialized according
to reason, should possess that which pertains to intellect through participation,
and that the intellectual nature should be twofold; the one subsisting primarily
in a divine intellect itself; but the other, which proceeds from this, subsisting sec
ondarily in a soul.”61 His view of the primary (strong) and secondary (soft) states
of ideographic Forms in the human soul is highly nuanced:
All the eidē, being contained in a single intelligence devoid of parts, are united with one
another, and all interpenetrate all; but if all exist immaterially and without bodies, there is
no confusion among them, but each remains itself, keeping its pure distinctness uncon
taminated. That the intellectual eidē are unconfused is shown in the specific participations
enjoyed by the lower principles, which may participate any eidos in independence of the
others… thus all the intellectual eidē exist both in one another as a unity and also each
apart in its distinctness. If in addition to the above proofs anyone should feel the need of
examples, let him consider the theorems which are contained in a single soul. All these,
existing in the same unextended substance, are united one to another, since the unex
tended embraces its content not spatially but without partition or interval. At the same time
they are mutually distinct: for the soul can produce them all in their purity, bringing out
each by itself and drawing forth nothing of the rest in its company; and the soul’s activity
could not discriminate them were they not permanently discriminated in their passive state.
Every intelligence is a complete sum of eidē, but certain of them embrace a more universal
and others more specific eidē; and while the higher intelligences possess in a more uni
versal manner all that their consequents possess more specifically, the lower also possess
59 Marinus of Neapolis, Proclus, or, On Happiness, 8, in Edwards, Neoplatonic Saints; for the
Greek text I use: Rita Masullo, ed. and trans., Vita di Proclo: testo critico, introduzione, traduzione
e commentario (Naples: D’Auria, 1985).
more specifically all that their priors have more universally… every intellectual eidos is con
stitutive of things perpetual… for again, if all eidē produce their consequents in virtue of
their mere existence, and their existence is perpetually free from variation, their products
likewise will be unchanging and perpetual.62
These unchanging, eternal, and uniquely distinct strong and soft Forms can (fol
lowing the Hermetic theory), as Proclus says:
Enkindle the light of truth in our souls… exempt from multiform opinions, and the variety
which subsists in words, preserving at the same time the interpretation of divine names
(onomata)… such things are delivered through symbols… such as are delivered through
images (eikones)… and of things enigmatically proposed… the soul entering into herself will
behold all other things, and deity itself… for the soul when looking at things posterior to
herself, beholds the shadows and images (eidōla) of beings, but when she converts herself
to herself she evolves her own substance, and the reasons which she contains. And at first
indeed, she only as it were beholds herself; but when she penetrates more profoundly into
the knowledge of herself, she finds in herself both intellect, and the orders of beings. When
however, she proceeds into her interior recesses, and into the adytum of as it were the soul,
she perceives with her eye closed… for all things are in us psychically, and through this we
are naturally capable of knowing all things, by exciting the powers and the images (eikones)
of the wholes which we contain. And this is the best employment of our energy, to be
extended to a divine nature itself, to excite all the multitude of the soul to this union, and
laying aside all the things as are posterior to the One, to become seated and conjoined with
that which is ineffable, and beyond all things.63
Under such negative theological conditions, it follows that “of all beings there
fore, and of the gods that produce beings, one exempt and imparticipable cause
preexists—a cause ineffable indeed by all language, and unknown by all knowl
edge and incomprehensible, unfolding all things into light from itself, subsisting
ineffably prior to, and converting all things to itself, but existing as the best end of
all things.”64 From the premise of the One, Proclus comes to the conclusion that:
It is not possible to apprehend it intellectually, because it is unknown, nor to unfold it,

because it is uncircumscribed; but whatever you may say of it, you will speak as of a certain
thing; and you will speak indeed about it, but you will not speak it. For speaking of the
things of which it is the cause, we are unable to say, or to apprehend through intelligence
what it is… the cause of all disseminated in all things impressions of his own all-perfect
transcendency, and through these establishes all things about himself, and being exempt
from the whole of things, is ineffably present to all things. Every thing therefore, entering
into the ineffable of its own nature, finds there the symbol of the father of all. All things too
62 Proclus, Elements of Theology, 176–178.

63 Proclus, Platonic Theology, 1.1–3.
naturally venerate him, and are united to him, through an appropriate mystic impression,
divesting themselves of their own nature, and hastening to become his impression only, to
participate him alone, through the desire of his unknown nature.65
Each and every existent thing in the universe loves the One, worships the One,
channels the One, and yearns to participate his Forms.
This desire to participate the Neoplatonic One, extending to human beings,
leads Proclus to endeavor to:
Know the unknown nature of the first principle, through the things which proceed from,
and are converted to it; and… attempt through the same things to give a name (onoma) to
that which is ineffable. This principle, however, is neither known by beings, nor is effable
by any one of all things; but being exempt from all knowledge, and all language, and sub
sisting as incomprehensible, it produces from itself according to one cause all knowledge,
every thing that is known, all words, and whatever can be comprehended by speech… [but]
those who were wise in divine concerns were unable to indicate it by words… the ineffable
is primarily concealed in inaccessible places, and is exempt from all beings, thus also the
union of all things with it is occult, ineffable, and unknown to all beings… the first princi
ple transcends both gnostic powers, and the parts of speech; but all other things afford us
cause of knowledge and of appellation.66
Therefore, neither will there be any knowledge of beings if the One is not. For it will not
be possible either to speak or think of any being. For each thing itself, and every thing of
which we can speak, and in which we impress the nature of the One, will have no Â�existence,
because neither does the One exist. Hence neither will there be any discourse nor any
knowledge. For discourse is one thing consisting of many things, if it is perfect. And knowl
edge then exists, when that which knows becomes one with that which is known. But union
not existing, there will at the same time be no knowledge of things, and it will be impossible
to speak about things which we know.67
It seems that while it may be impossible to assign an onoma to the One, the first
principle, the negative theological corollary to this is that it should be otherwise
possible to perfectly assign linguistic labels to all other beings, to all other Forms,
to everything that has ever been and will ever be produced by the One. It is in this
way that we know them.
The empty discursive space of the continuously-cosmogonic One itself, in
terms of its negative theological consequences for language theory, allows all the
other spaces surrounding the emptiness of the center to be encapsulated without
fail by means of onomata. Although these onomata are meaningless in any sense

but the occult and negatively theological—we can only know that they are signi
fiers of absolutely true Forms; we can never know what these Forms are (besides
having them securely placed in our own souls via strong inscription)—we can
never articulate the signified content of any ideograph, be it lodged in object,
phenomenon, sound, writing, or soul, but only know that it comes from the One.
The internal and external ideograph is always in a state of the permanent deferral
of discursive intelligibility because of its necessary and inevitable origin beyond
human ken. This kind of profoundly negative epistemology may give one pause,
but somehow it does make a certain kind of sense that ideographs can only be
‘ideographic’ if we cannot define them, if they are beyond human articulation,
if they are an undisclosed secret—in Hegelian terms, the ideograph must be, and
must always be, ‘hieroglyphic’ in precisely that sense.
Proclus argues that the One and the gods “are alone, as Plato says, known by
intelligible, mystic, and ineffable impressions. Hence also he calls the attempt
boldness which endeavors to unfold the arcane concerning them, and to explain
by words their unknown union.”68 In this manner Proclus allows us to see the
ultimate negative-theological consequences of the Hermetic theory.
In The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, Martianus Capella (fl. 410) con
tends that ideographic learning—and, indeed, all learning—originated in Egypt.69
In this highly allegorical Neoplatonic treatise on education, Astronomy person
ified stands up and says: “matters which over the vast span of ages have been
reposited in the sanctums of Egyptian priests, I was keeping secret, not wishing
to divulge and profane them. In fact, for almost forty thousand years I kept myself
in seclusion there.”70 Philology personified literally gags and vomits up Egyp
tian hieroglyphs and steles.71 Compare this to Philo’s depiction of internal ide
ography—to which Martianus Capella may well be referring—wherein the mind
“devours and eats up yea and swallows down the steles in it, that is, each particu
lar thought or judgment, which are graved and chiseled as though upon a stele.”72
Martianus Capella states that Philology personified “prayed long in silence,
and according to ancient ritual, uttered certain words with her inner voice,
words varying in number according to the practice of different people, words of
unknown sound, made up of alternating combinations of letters. In these words

69 Stahl, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, 47n72.
70 The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, 318.
71 The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, 47. Cf. John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 2.9.
72 Philo, Allegorical Interpretation 3, 82.230.
she paid reverence to the presiding deities of the world of pure understanding.”73
In other words—allegorically speaking—Philology herself prays in internal ideo
graphs, this is her native tongue; equally important, Rhetoric personified states:
“just as what is written is contained in wax and letters, so what is committed to
memory is written into areas as if in wax and on the written page; but the memory
of things is contained in images as if in letters… symbols… should not be read
out loud, but rather memorized under our breath.”74 According to Philology per
sonified human words can be “clothed in incorporeal utterance… by the use of
imagery.”75 Rhetoric personified also says at one point “the difference between a
figure of thought and a figure of speech is that the figure of thought remains even
if the word order is changed,”76 thus exemplifying that—at least for Martianus
Capella—internal ideography has no syntax (very much distinct from William of
Ockham, see chapter 6 below).
The grammarian Priscian (fl. 500) argues that the Ideas in the divine mind
are emanated into the material world as Forms—an ontological and epistemolog
ical claim that grounds his entire grammatical theory.77 But it was Horapollo, the
fifth century Alexandrian Neoplatonist, who conclusively summed up the Her
metic argument that the ancient Egyptians had perfected a type of writing which
allowed for the direct material graphic representation of the strong Forms (which
lead, upon silent ‘reading’, to theurgical ascension and union with the One); he
also believed that was possible to explain, in Koine Greek no less, how it was that
they did this.78

74 The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, 203–204.
77 Priscian, Institutiones grammaticae, 17.44, in Heinrich Keil, ed., Grammatici Latini, 8 vols.
(Hildesheim: Olms, 1961–1981), 3:135. For discussion of Priscian (and other early grammatical
theorists), see: Anneli Luhtala, Grammar and Philosophy in Late Antiquity: A Study of Priscian’s
Sources (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005); Vivian Law, Grammar and Grammarians in the
Early Middle Ages (London: Longman, 1997); Martin Irvine, The Making of Textual Culture:
“Grammatica” and Literary Theory 350–1100 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994);
Mark Amsler, Etymology and Grammatical Discourse in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
(Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1989); Even Hovdhaugen, Foundations of Western Linguistics:
From the Beginning to the End of the First Millennium A.D. (Oslo: Universitetforlaget, 1982);
Catherine M. Chin, Grammar and Christianity in the Late Roman World (Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).
78 As many scholars have remarked, “exactly the same allegorical conception of the signs
is found in the works of… Horapollo… in his explanation, the simple phonetic reason for the
connection between the picture and the word is completely disregarded in favour of a rambling
A few examples of this interpretatio graeca should allow us to see the kind of
Hermetic exegesis that Horapollo was engaged in:
When they wish to indicate (sēmēnai) a man concealing his inferiority, they draw a monkey
urinating. For when a monkey urinates, he conceals his urine.79
Again, when they symbolize (sēmainontes) the two equinoxes, they draw the baboon, but
seated. For in the two equinoxes of the year, it voids urine twelve times a day, once an hour.
And it does the same thing during the two nights. Wherefore it is not illogical that on their
water-clocks the Egyptians carve a seated baboon. And they make water drip from its penis,
since, as has been said above, it indicates the twelve hours of the equinox.80
When they wish to indicate (sēmēnai) a man yoked from an early age to the woman who
bore him, they draw oysters big with young. For when the oysters are born in their shells,
they cling for a while to one another.81
allegorical exposition, according to which the picture… is used metaphorically to express the
abstract notion” (Iversen, “The Hieroglyphic Tradition,” 174); “as do the other Greeks, Horapollo,
impeded by ignorance of the true relationship between word and sign, endows the hieroglyphs
with symbolic and allegorical qualities” (Van der Horst, Chaeremon, 72n1); “ils constituent une
mystification pure et simple… malheureusement, l’on a cru trouver là une confirmation des dires
des auteurs plus anciens touchant la nature purement idéographique et ultra-symbolique de
l’écriture” (Sottas, “Préface,” 26–27); “ils constituent une mystification pure et simple… c’est là
un jeu d’esprit parfois ingénieux, mais qui, par malheur, n’a rien à voir avec les hiéroglyphes
égyptiens” (Sottas and Drioton, Introduction a l’étude des Hiéroglyphes, 79–80); “without, then,
falling into the error of imagining that the hieroglyphs were above conveying anything as vulgar
as words and sentences, but were symbols of arcane and divine truths… one easily understands
why it was that the fifth-century Alexandrian writer Horapollo’s treatise on hieroglyphs
(Hieroglyphica) already belonged… to the realm of fantasy. To the alchemist Olympiodorus
(perhaps identical with the sixth-century Alexandrian Platonist of that name), the hieroglyphic
inscriptions that he searched out in the abandoned temples beside the Nile, and in the quarries
along the edge of the western desert, were plainly full of power and wisdom—but by his day
impenetrably mysterious” (Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, 64). See also the fuller discussion in:
Gaston Maspero, “Horapollon et la fin du paganisme égyptien,” Bulletin de l’Institut Francais
d’Archeologie Orientale 11 (1914): 163–195.
79 Hieroglyphica, 2.67, in Boas, The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo, 86; cf. Francesco Sbordone, Hori
Apollonis Hieroglyphica: Saggio introduttivo, Edizione critica del testo e commento (Hildesheim:
Georg Olms, 2002), 180; B. Van de Walle and J. Vergote, “Traduction des Hiéroglyphica
d’Horapollon,” Chronique d’Égypte 18 (1943): 222; Pliny, Natural History, 10.202; Aelian,
Characteristics of Animals, 6.27 (in A. F. Scholfield, ed. and trans., Aelian: On the Characteristics
of Animals, 3 vols. [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958–1959]—all references to Aelian are
to this Loeb edition).
80 Hieroglyphica, 1.16—Boas, 55; Sbordone, 45–46; Van de Walle and Vergote, 56–58.
81 Hieroglyphica, 2.107—Boas, 95; Sbordone, 207; Van de Walle and Vergote, 234. Cf. Aelian,
Characteristics of Animals, 10.13.
When they wish to depict (sēmēnai) a man prevented from committing suicide, they draw a
beaver. For that animal when hunted, bites off his testicles and throws them at the hunter.82
When they wish to indicate (sēmēnai) a weak and rash man, they draw a bat. For the bat,
though it has no feathers, flies… when they wish to depict (sēmēnai) a woman giving suck
and nursing her children well, they again draw a bat with teeth and breasts. For this alone
of winged things has teeth and breasts.83
When they wish to signify (sēmēnai) a wife who hates her husband, and plots his death, and
mates with him only through flattery, they draw a viper. For when the viper mates with the
male, she puts his head in her mouth, and after mating bites off his head and kills him.84
When they wish to indicate (sēmēnai) a fecund man, they draw a sparrow on fire. For when
the sparrow is troubled beyond measure by lust and an excess of sperm, it mates with the
female seven times in an hour, ejecting its sperm all at once.85
On the surface of the text of the Hieroglyphica (without allegoresis to draw the
intellect upward into transcendent union with the One) such entries appear
rather earthy; surely they cannot mean what they appear to say: flaming spar
rows, black widow vipers, buxom bats, beaver testicles, pregnant oysters, baboon
penises, monkey urine, et cetera.
Whatever its descriptions might mean, Horapollo’s Hieroglyphica was the
authoritative final word on Egyptian hieroglyphic in late Mediterranean antiq
uity. It was taken so seriously as to be later used by Champollion to ‘decipher’
the hieroglyphic biliterals and triliterals he could not understand; it was through
this means that Horapollo ended up playing a key historical role in the coining of
the modern term ‘ideograph’.
European interest in ancient Egypt went into a steep decline after the
sixth century—though interest in the Forms, and especially in the nature of
internal ideography, exploded in the Scholastic debate over universals.86 The
82 Hieroglyphica, 2.65—Boas, 85; Sbordone, 178; Van de Walle and Vergote, 222. Cf. Pliny, Natural
History, 8.109 and 32.26; Aelian, Characteristics of Animals, 6.34; Apuleius, Metamorphosis, 1.9.
83 Hieroglyphica, 2.52–53—Boas, 81; Sbordone, 167–168; Van de Walle and Vergote, 216. Cf. Pliny,
Natural History, 10.168 and 11.164.
84 Hieroglyphica, 2.59—Boas, 83; Sbordone, 172–173; Van de Walle and Vergote, 218. Cf.
Herodotus, 3.109; Pliny, Natural History, 10.169–170; Aelian, Characteristics of Animals, 1.24.
85 Hieroglyphica, 2.115—Boas, 97; Sbordone, 213–214; Van de Walle and Vergote, 238. Cf.
Aristotle, On Length and Shortness of Life, 466b; Aristotle, History of Animals, 613a; Pliny, Natural
History, 10.107.
86 For discussion of the Realist-Nominalist debate, see: Richard N. Bosley and Martin Tweedale,
ed., Basic Issues in Medieval Philosophy: Selected Readings Presenting the Interactive Discourse
among the Major Figures (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1997); Alain de Libera, La querelle des
universaux: De Platon à la fin du Moyen-Age (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1996); Paul Vincent Spade,
Â�
Hieroglyphica of Horapallo was rediscovered and published in 1505 in Venice,
when Hermetic interpretations of Egyptian hieroglyphic (rather like splendid
statues all rusted with time) were dusted off, polished up, and once again put on
display. It was only during the Italian Renaissance that the discursive modality
of the Hermetic theory of ideography directly resurfaced, after a thousand year
hiatus.
trans., Five Texts on the Medieval Problem of Universals: Porphyry, Boethius, Abelard, Duns
Scotus, Ockham (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994); Leen Spruit, Species intelligibilis: From Perception
to Knowledge: Classical Roots and Medieval Discussions (Leiden: Brill, 1994); Umberto Eco and
Costantino Marmo, ed., On the Medieval Doctrine of Signs (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1989);
Hans Arens, Aristotle’s Theory of Language and its Tradition: Texts from 500 to 1750: Selection,
Translation and Commentary (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1984); Marcia L. Colish, The Mirror
of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowledge (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1968); M. H. Carré, Realists and Nominalists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946).
Chapter Six: Universals and the Scholastic Theory
Pseudo-Dionysius (5th-6th century C.E.) exemplifies the negative-theological under
pinnings of ideographic theory at the cusp of the Patristic, Hermetic, and Scholas
tic traditions, cast in terms of Neoplatonic ascent (following the light back up,
as it were) and scriptural theory hermeneutics (wherein the Bible and the world
itself are both literally and figuratively a book of divine ideographs scribed directly
into matter). “If,” Pseudo-Dionysius writes, “with one causal gesture God bestows
being on everything, in that one same act of causation he will know everything
through derivation from him and through their preexistence in him… we cannot
know God in his nature, since this is unknowable and is beyond the reach of
mind or of reason. But we know him from the arrangement of everything, because
everything is, in a sense, projected out from him, and this order possesses certain
images and semblances of his divine paradigms.”1 He further explains: “I have
spoken of the image we have of him, of the form, figures… all those images we have
of him, images shaped by the workings of the symbolic representations of God…
but my argument now rises from what is below up to the transcendent, and the
more it climbs, the more language falters, and when it has passed up and beyond
the ascent, it will turn silent completely.”2
According to Pseudo-Dionysius, God “revealed all this to us in the sacred pic
tures of the scripture so that he might lift us up through the perceptible to the con
ceptual, from sacred shapes and symbols to the simple peaks of the hierarchies of
heaven.”3 Christians—according to this pseudonymous Church Father who wears
the mask of Dionysius the Areopagite, the saint converted by Paul in 50 C.E.—are
supposed to be like Neopythagorean initiates and Hermetic adepts, in that “it is
most fitting to the mysterious passages of scripture that the sacred and hidden
truth about the celestial intelligences be concealed through the inexpressible and
the sacred and be inaccessible to the hoi polloi. Not everyone is sacred, and, as
1 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, 869b–d, in Colm Luibheid, trans., Pseudo-Dionysius:

The Complete Works (New York: Paulist Press, 1987)—all citations of Pseudo-Dionysius are from
this translation; Greek text from Migne (op. cit.). Cf. “This absolute logos was an infinite creative
subjectivity in medieval theology: the intelligible face of the sign remains turned toward the
word and the face of God. Of course, it is not a question of ‘rejecting’ these notions; they are
necessary and, at least at present, nothing is conceivable for us without them” (Jacques Derrida,
Of Grammatology: Corrected Edition, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak [Baltimore: John Hopkins
University Press, 1998], 13).
2 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Mystical Theology, 1033a–c.
3 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy, 124a.
Chapter Six: Universals and the Scholastic Theory 109
scripture says, knowledge is not for everyone.”4 Indeed, Dionysius directly encour

ages the reader to “keep these holy truths a secret in your hidden mind,”5 and
“never speak nor divulge divine things to the uninitiated.”6
In advocating the ideographic method, Dionysius argues that one should
“use whatever appropriate symbols we can for the things of God. With these anal
ogies we are raised upward toward the truth of the mind’s vision… to the extent
that is proper, we approach the ray which transcends being. Here, in a manner no
words can describe, preexisted all the goals of all knowledge.”7 And thus:
In a manner surpassing speech and knowledge, we reach a union superior to anything

Â�available to us by way of our own abilities or activities in the realm of discourse or of intel
lect. This is why we must not dare to resort to words or conceptions concerning that hidden
divinity which transcends being, apart from what the sacred scriptures have divinely
revealed… the things of God are revealed to each mind in proportion to its capacities…
we must not dare to apply words or conceptions to this hidden transcendent God. We can
use only what scripture has disclosed… by itself it generously reveals a firm, transcendent
beam, granting enlightenments proportionate to each being, and thereby draws sacred
minds upward to its permitted contemplation, to participation and to the state of becoming
like it… with a wise silence we do honor to the inexpressible. We are raised up to the enlight
ening beams of the sacred scriptures.8
With such strong ideographic assumptions:
It would be unreasonable and silly to look at words rather than at the power of the mean
ings. Anyone seeking to understand the divine things should never do this, for this is the
procedure followed by those who… do not wish to know what a particular phrase means or
how to convey its sense through equivalent but more effective phrases. People like this are
concerned with meaningless letters and lines, with syllables and phrases which they do not
4 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy, 140a–b. Alfarabi argues that “in his earlier days,
Plato used to refrain from putting any of the sciences in writing and depositing them in the interior
of books instead of in unsullied breasts and congenial intellects. When he became fearful of
becoming negligent and forgetful as well as of losing what he had inferred, discovered by thinking,
and achieved in areas where his knowledge and wisdom had been established and developed,
he resorted to allegories and riddles. He intended thereby to put in writing his knowledge and
wisdom according to an approach that would let them be known only to the deserving, to those
worthy of comprehending them” (The Harmonization of the Two Opinions of the Two Sages: Plato
the Divine and Aristotle, in Charles E. Butterworth, trans., Alfarabi: The Political Writings, Selected
Aphorisms and Other Texts [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001], 131).
5 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy, 145c.
6 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, 597c.
7 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, 592c–d.
8 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, 588a–589b.
110 Chapter Six: Universals and the Scholastic Theory
understand, which do not get as far as the thinking part of their souls… the truth we have to
understand is that we use letters, syllables, phrases, written terms and words because of the
senses. But when our souls are moved by intelligent energies in the direction of the things of
the intellect then our senses and all that go with them are no longer needed… when the soul
becomes divinized… through an unknowing union on the rays of “unapproachable light.”9
It was evidently under the auspices of ideographic theurgy that scripture accord
ingly “veiled truth with obscure imagery. It employed the palest copies of origi
nals. It resorted to dense enigmas and to symbolism whose meaning is discerned
with the maximum difficulty… varied symbolism derived from the realm of per
ception, symbolism by means of which there is a sacred uplifting to the divine.”10
Scripture, according to Dionysius, contains “sacred pictures boldly used
to represent God, so that what is hidden may be brought out into the open… to
enable the one capable of seeing the beauty hidden within these images to find
that they are truly mysterious, appropriate to God, and filled with a great theo
logical light”;11 such pictorial images “humbly and mysteriously… draw a veil
over the upward journey of divine enlightenment.”12 These ideographs have been
“passed on to us by the divinely transmitted scriptures in a way suited to us, that
is, by means of the variety and abundance of composite symbols,”13 and “we
shall recognize the stamps of which these things are impressions and the invisi
ble things of which they are images… sacred symbols are actually the perceptible
tokens of the conceptual things.”14
Following from this strong ideographic episteme, “the word is an image and
a symbol of the activity of the Deity,”15 being “the manifest image of unspeakable
and marvelous sights.”16 And thus “these divine beauties are concealed… they
reveal themselves solely to minds capable of grasping them. They shine within
our souls only by way of appropriate images, images which, like themselves, have
the virtue of being incorruptible”;17 such images, “free of all passion and material
concern… are utterly available to receive the divine visitation.”18 Consequently,
9 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, 708b–d.

10 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, 501b–d.
11 Pseudo-Dionysius, Letter 9, 1105b–c.
12 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy, 336d.
13 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, 376b.
14 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, 397c.
16 Pseudo-Dionysius, Letter 9, 1108c.
17 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, 473b.
18 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy, 205d.
by means of the inscription of the strong internal ideograph, “holy and intelligent
beings are filled in a transcendent way with hidden light.”19 And further:
These minds purely, supernaturally, and thoroughly possess the godlike and celestial lights,
but they do so in a participation proportionate to their participation in the unity which tran
scends all things… there are numerous impressions of the seal and all of those have a share
in the original prototype; it is the same whole seal in each of the impressions and none
participate in only a part… maybe someone will say that the seal is not totally identical in all
of the reproductions of it. My answer is that this is not because of the seal itself, which gives
itself completely and identically to each. The substances which receive a share of the seal
are different. Hence the impressions of the one entire identical archetype are different… if
the material is lacking in this receptivity, this would be the cause of its mistaken or unclear
imprint or of whatever else results from the unreceptivity of its participation.20
For the initiated Christian (depending on the quality of their wax), reading scrip
ture in such a way will light up in a flash and impress palimpsestically upon them
these strong internal ideographs, those “simple and interior visions of those
images which have the shape of the divine.”21 Ultimately, and, “to sum up, a dis
cerning mind would not be hard put to final a correlation between visible signs
and invisible realities.”22 Such statements make ideography the very definition of
philosophy, a fact which might give one pause to note and reflect upon. Boethius
(480–523) actually has Philosophy personified say: “I do not need your library
with its glass walls and ivory decoration, but I do need my place in your mind. For
there I have placed not books but that which gives value to books, the ideas which
are found in my writings.”23
Saadiah Gaon (Saadiah ben Joseph, Gaon, 882–942), the philosopher and
grammarian24—one of the most celebrated Geonim in history—claims that the God
of Israel “verifies with certainty unto rational beings the existence of their souls,
by means of which they assess accurately what they perceive with their senses
and apprehend correctly the objects of their knowledge.”25 He further argues
that “if we, who are but an aggregation of God’s creatures, are capable, thanks

20 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names, 641c–644c.
21 Pseudo-Dionysius, Letter 9, 1108a.
22 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy, 333c.
23 Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, trans. Richard H. Green (Mineola: Dover, 2002), 13.
24 Saadiah Gaon wrote the first Hebrew grammar, see: Solomon L. Skoss, Saadia Gaon, The
Earliest Hebrew Grammarian (Philadelphia: Dropsie College Press, 1955).
25 Samuel Rosenblatt, trans., Saadia Gaon: The Book of Beliefs and Opinions (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1948), 3—all citations are from this translation.
to the faculty with which we have been endowed by the All-Wise, of producing
the sounds of speech and of creating for each sound a special written character
so that we might thereby keep a record of our thoughts… all the more so must
divine Wisdom be in possession of the means of recording all our doings without a
book or archives.”26 The prophets, according to Saadiah, ideographically “meant
to designate lofty, exalted ideas… with their clear understanding of the underlying
thoughts.”27 And so, in terms of any particular act of interpreting scripture, “one
must understand what is spoken of by the Scriptures as an act of God.”28
John Scottus Eriugena (810–877), another early Scholastic, states that “the
authority of Holy Scripture must in all things be followed because the truth
dwells there as though in a retreat of its own, but it is not to be believed as a
book which always uses verbs and nouns in their proper sense when it teaches us
about the Divine Nature, but it employs allegories and transfers in various ways
the meanings of the verbs or nouns… for the purpose of the Divine Oracles is to
convey to us and suggest concerning what is ineffable and incomprehensible and
invisible something to think about for the nourishment of our faith.”29 Indeed,
“strictly speaking, the ineffable nature can be signified by no verb, by no noun,
and by no other audible sound, by no signified thing.”30
Eriugena insists that “all the principles of all things, extending to Â�infinity,
divinely reveal themselves everywhere to the contemplations of the mind… whether
in things which can be understood and receive a name, or in those which can be per
ceived by the intellect alone but cannot be signified, or in those which are neither
26 Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 208. Compare this to Eriugena’s “read as in a book the history
of the activities of your soul” (Periphyseon, 5:619, in I. P. Sheldon-Williams and John J. O’Meara,
trans., Iohannis Scotti Erivgenae: Periphyseon (De Diuisione Naturae), ed. I. P. Sheldon-Williams
and Édouard A. Jeauneau, 4 vols. [Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1968–1995]—all
further references to books one through four of the Periphyseon are to this edition, for book five I
have relied on John O’Meara, trans., Eriugena: Periphyseon (The Division of Nature) [Washington:
Dumbarton Oaks, 1987], 523–715, and Édouard A. Jeauneau, ed., Iohannis Scotti seu Erivgenae:
Periphyseon Liber Quintus [Turnhold: Brepolis, 2003]); also, cf. Augustine, City of God, 20.14.
27 Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 115.
28 Book of Beliefs and Opinions, 200.
29 Eriugena, Periphyseon, 1:189. Cf. “it is a very common practice of the Holy Oracles to signify
by words which signify visible things the natural existences and reasons of invisible things…
adopting the names of sensible things to signify invisible things is in accordance with a very
well-established usage of Divine Scripture” (Eriugena, Periphyseon, 3:227).
30 Eriugena, Periphyseon, 1:79. Cf. “in what way does God speak? With a corporeal voice? Not so,
but by that power which is greater than any possible voice of the body, and which pours forth
oracles; the Voice which the prophets have heard, the Voice which the faithful hear, the Voice
which the impious do not understand” (Eriugena, Periphyseon, 4:233).
comprehended by the intellect nor expressed by names because they elude every
sense and every mental concept, for they are hidden by the excessive brightness of
their transcendence.”31 Assuming that “the understanding of all things (in God) is
the essence of all things,”32 that “no philosopher of nature doubts that all things
are contained in the Divine Mind,”33 and that “He is participated by all things
which come from him, some immediately through themselves, others through
interposed mediations,”34 it becomes an irrefragable conclusion that “there is
no visible or corporeal thing which is not a symbol of something incorporeal and
intelligible.”35 And thus, ideographically, one finds that “in all things the image
exhibits the stamp of the beauty of the Primal Exemplar,”36 and further that “it is
not in the body but in the soul that the image of God is stamped on our nature.”37
As for what has thus wise been inscribed and stamped on the human soul,
according to Eriugena “they are commonly called ideai… that is, species or forms
in which the immutable reasons of things that were to be made were created
before (the things themselves) existed.”38 Hence, “the primordial causes, then…
are what the Greeks call ideai, that is, the eternal species or forms and immutable
reasons after which and in which the visible and invisible world is formed and
governed.”39 Our internal deity is the Active Intellect, which ultimately “aban
dons the fantasies of sensible things and clearly understands the reasons stripped
bare of all corporeal imagery and in their own simplicity… that is… understands
that they proceed from God through them into all things that are after them and
through them return to Him again.”40 In a fashion very much echoing Patristic
scriptural theory and prefiguring Thomas à Kempis, the Periphyseon states that
Jesus, as the pre-incarnate Word, “is the principle Exemplar of all things visible
and invisible, and therefore is called by the Greeks idea, that is, species or form—
for in Him the Father beholds the making of all things He willed to be made before
they were made—and Cause because the origins of all things subsist eternally and
immutably in Him.”41
31 Eriugena, Periphyseon, 3:37.

Using as a basic analogy the dictum that “everything that is produced by the
voice is first conceived by the mind,”42 Eriugena concludes that human language
recapitulates the cosmogony in that “as the voice precedes the word not temporally
but causally—for the word is made from the voice as a formed body is made from
formless matter—so from causes as yet unknown and, so to speak, lacking visible
space, the establishment of all visible things… all things were made in the twinkling
of an eye.”43 Having taken such as a factual basis, it is rather easy to observe that:
Everything that is understood and sensed is nothing else but the apparition of what is not
apparent, the manifestation of the hidden… for our own intellect too, although in itself it is
invisible and incomprehensible, yet becomes both manifest and comprehensive by certain
signs when it is materialized in sounds and letters and also indications as though in sorts of
bodies… while it breaks out into various figures comprehensible to the senses it never aban
dons the incomprehensible state of its nature… thus it is both silent and cries out… and it
becomes embodied at will in sounds and letters, and while being embodied it subsists bodi
less in itself; and when it makes for itself out of airy matter or out of sensible figures certain
vehicles, as it were, by means of which it can convey itself to the senses of others so that it
may quickly reach their external senses, it then abandons these vehicles and penetrates…
other intellects and becomes one with those to whom it is joined.44
Thus the material of human language, be it ‘inscribed’ in the matter of sound,

paper, parchment, bamboo, clay, stone, wax, or whatever else, is an ideographic
vehicle for theological Forms—transferring them from soul to soul. And any
communication by human language should always have the theurgical goal of
ascent to the mind of God: “the motion of the human mind by which it returns
to its beginning strives to ascend gradually, and thus according to the means
of its ascent, it comes upon verbal symbols by which, in obedience to charity,
it imparts its inner understanding to the senses of those who are ascending or
desire to ascend with it.”45
Alfarabi (Abū Nasr Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhān ibn Awzalagh
al-Fārābī, 870–950), another exemplar of the Scholastic theory of ideography,
explains the role of the Active Intellect in this way:
It follows necessarily that there is here a certain intellect, uncompounded and in act, that
has engendered the primary intelligibles in the potential intellect and has equipped it by
42 John Scottus Eriugena, Treatise on Divine Predestination, trans. Mary Brennan (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), 61.
44 Eriugena, Periphyseon, 3:59–61.
45 Eriugena, Treatise on Divine Predestination, 17–18.
nature to receive all the other intelligibles. When Aristotle investigated this intellect, he
found that it is an intellect in act, has never been potential, and has always been and will
always be (what has never been potential is not in a material, its substance and act are
Â�identical or close to being identical); when the human intellect achieves its ultimate perfec
tion, its substance comes close to being the substance of this intellect. Aristotle called this
intellect the Active Intellect… he had to… investigate what at the outset supplied “human
ity” in general, “donkeyness” in general, and the form of each species whose particular
instances then came to be generated from each other; for what are generated are only the
particular instances of each species. He had, then, to investigate what supplied the form of
that species, and, more generally, what supplied the forms of the species.46
The Active Intellect is therefore the mind of God; the human soul, when it is cor
rectly thinking the Forms, is coming close to, if not doubling as, divine thought.
Avicenna (Abu ‘Alī Husain ibn ‘Abdallāh ibn Sīnā, 980–1037) makes the argu
ment that:
It should be known that the intellect’s apprehension of the intelligible is stronger than the
sense’s apprehension of the sensible. This is because it—I mean, the intellect—conceives
and apprehends the permanent, universal thing; unites with it, becoming in some manner
identical with it; and apprehends it in its internality, not in its outward aspects. This is not
the case with the senses in relation to the sensible object… this is because of the impedi
ment of the body. If we were to set ourselves aside from the body, then, by contemplating
our essence—which would have become an intellectual world, concordant with true exis
tents… then we would find… that which is infinite.47
In terms of internal ideography, “this form, although a universal in relation to

Â�individuals, is an individual in relation to the particular soul in which it is
imprinted, being one of the forms of the mind. And, because individual souls are
numerically many, it is possible for this universal form to be numerically many
from the aspect that it is individual.”48 Under these conditions, “form is inscribed
in the imagination or rational thought.”49 For Avicenna:
If a person can acquire knowledge from within himself, this strong capacity is called “intu
ition.” It is so strong in certain people that they do not need great effort, or instruction
and actualization, in order to make contact with the active intelligence… it is not unlikely,
46 Muhsin Mahdi, trans., Alfarabi: Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle: Revised Edition (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2001), 127–129.
47 Avicenna, The Metaphysics, 8.7.17, in Michael E. Marmura, ed. and trans., Avicenna: The
Metaphysics of the Healing, A parallel English-Arabic text translated, introduced, and annotated
(Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2005)—all citations are from this edition.
48 Avicenna, The Metaphysics, 5.1.29.
49 Avicenna, The Metaphysics, 6.5.3.
indeed, that some of these actions attributed to the “Divine Intelligence” because of their
powerful and lofty nature overflow into the imagination which symbolizes them in sense-
imagery and words… thus there might be a man whose soul has such an intense purity
and is so firmly linked to the rational principles that he blazes with intuition, i.e. with the
receptivity or inspiration coming from the active intelligence concerning everything. So the
forms of all things contained in the active intelligence are imprinted on his soul either all at
once or nearly so… this is a kind of prophetic inspiration, indeed its highest form and the
one most fitted to be called Divine Power; and it is the highest human faculty.50
This uses the Active Intellect to explain the ideography of the Prophets.
Avicebron (Solomon ben Judah ibn Gabirol, 1022–1070) discusses the ideo
graphic basis of the Active Intellect as follows: “if the substance of reason is cog
nizant of itself, the structure of truth must reside within it… this apprehension
is true knowledge of things,”51 and so “what is manifest is in the image and like
ness of what is unmanifest… the primary material that underlies all structures is
something like an illustrated book or volume of diagrams.”52 He further acknowl
edges that “indeed, I view material as if it were a blank book or a tablet readied
for writing; and I see structure as the shapes portrayed or the words arranged,
from which a reader can gain the goal of understanding and fullness of wisdom.
And I discover that when my true being encompasses them and recognizes the
wonders they contain it is stirred and desires to seek out the painter of this
extraordinary design and the creator of this consummate wisdom.”53 Such strong
internal and external ideographs therefore hermetically and negative-theologi
cally “do not admit any inquiry about why they exist beyond the fact of their exis
tence… this is why it is taught of… substances in general that there is no cause for
their existence other than God their creator.”54
So, “what must be taken into consideration… is the supreme and holy God’s
production of structure in material from nonbeing into being, which is like emit
ting an idea from Its own true being upon something ideated.”55 Because it is the
case that “whatever is more perfect acts upon what is less perfect and leaves its
imprint,”56 and that “the imprint of structure on material… is like the reflection
50 F. Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology: An English Translation of Kitāb al-najāt, book II, chapter
VI, with historico-philosophical notes and textual improvements on the Cairo edition (London:
Oxford University Press, 1952), 35–37.
51 Alfred B. Jacob, trans., The Fountain of Life (Fons Vitae) by Solomon ben Judah ibn Gabirol
(Stanwood: Sabian, 1987), 33—all citations are from this translation.
52 Avicebron, Fountain of Life, 37.
of a figure in a mirror,”57 so it must be the case that “when something imprints or

depicts some design, that design has existence in it in some way.”58 Strong ideo
graphs must exist for this Realist.
According to Avicebron, “when a human being gains awareness of sense
objects early in life, his understanding increases thereby and proceeds from
potentiality to reality, because the structures of sense objects are impressed on
his senses… on his imagination… on his knowing self. Thus the relation of sensi
ble structures to the knowing self is like that of a book to a reader, because when
his sight discerns its markings, his knowing self will recall the meaning and truth
of those forms.”59 It should therefore be a natural consequence that “when you
wish to visualize these substances… you must elevate your reason to the highest
intelligible, cleanse and purify it of all meanness of sense, and release it from
enslavement to materiality… at that point it will seem that you are embracing
the whole physical universe within your own true being and you will place it as
if within a single recess of your consciousness… in your mind’s eye you will con
template them around you and above you, and you will see your own true being
as if you were indeed those very substances.”60 This is Scholastic self-recognition
through strong internal ideography.
The external ideographs of the phenomena of the world exist where they exist
and like they do by the act of divine inscription: “reasoned purpose is an actuator
comparable to a writer, while structure is an effectuation like writing, and mate
rial is their underlying substance like a tablet or papyrus… reasoned purpose…
imbues and penetrates everything; nothing exists apart from it inasmuch as
the existence and constitution of all things depends on it… it is this that is their
author, compounder and preserver… it is evident from the fact that Â�structure is
an impress… structure therefore acquires from reasoned purpose and delivers to
material”;61 in other words, “Almighty God… formed a substance, namely this
universe.”62 Human language, after all, serves as the proximate model for the
external ideographs created by the deity;63 and indeed:
Creation may be likened to a word that a man speaks, since as he utters the word its struc
ture and meaning are impressed on the hearing and understanding of the listener. By this

60 Avicebron, Fountain of Life, 184–185.
analogy it may be said that the sublime and holy Creator utters the Word and its meaning is
impressed on the true being of material, which retains it; that is to say, the created structure
is impressed on material and portrayed in it… sound is like universal material, since it is a
universal material that sustains all particular sounds… structure is revealed in the structure
of a heard word, which may be broken down into particular structures that subsist in indi
vidual particular materials… with the utterance of a word used in speech, its material gains
existence and it then sustains both the manifest and unmanifest structure of the word; that
is, the meaning that it carries.64
Under such Avicebronian assumptions, if you can understand and interpret lan
guage and the world ideographically, “you will then comprehend the universality
of material and structure; and material with all its structures will be like a book
opened before you, while you will become an observer, through your reason, of
what it reveals; your mind will take in and understand its representations; where
upon you will anticipate being able to mount to an apprehension of… its Source
and Fountainhead.”65 In other words, the express goal of the Scholastic theory of
ideography is theurgic “deliverance from mortality, and union with the Source of
all life.”66
Another exemplar of the Scholastic theory, Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109)
writes: “all words of that sort by which we express any objects in our mind, that
is, conceive of them, are likenesses and images of the objects to which they cor
respond; and every likeness or image is more or less true, according as it more or
less closely imitates the object of which it is the likeness.”67 What Anselm does
with this theory is rather striking (at least in terms of the discursive claims he
makes about internal and external ideography):
On no ground can it be denied that when a rational mind conceives of itself in meditation
the image of itself arises in its thought, or rather the thought of the mind is itself its image,
after its likeness, as if formed from its impression. For, whatever object the mind, either
through representation of the body or through reason, desires to conceive of truly, it at least
attempts to express its likeness, so far as it is able, in the mental concept itself. And the more
truly it succeeds at this, the more truly does it think of the object itself… when I think of a
man I know, in his absence, the vision of my thought forms such an image as I have acquired
in memory through my ocular vision and this image is the word corresponding to the man I
express by thinking of him. The rational mind, then, when it conceives of itself in thought,
has with itself its image born of itself that is, its thought in its likeness, as if formed from
its impression, although it cannot, except in thought alone, separate itself from its image,

67 Anselm, Monologium, 31, in S. N. Deane, trans., St. Anselm: Basic Writings, Second Edition
(La Salle: Open Court, 1994)—all citations are from this translation; Latin from Migne (op. cit.).
which image is its word. Who, then, can deny that the supreme Wisdom, when it conceives
of itself by expressing itself, begets a likeness of itself consubstantial with it, namely, its
Word? And this Word, although of a subject so uniquely important nothing can be said with
sufficient propriety, may still not inappropriately be called the image of that Wisdom, its
representation, just as it is called his likeness. But the Word by which the Creator expresses
the created world is not at all, in the same way, a word corresponding to the created world,
since it is not the world’s likeness, but its elementary essence.68
This contains the entire point of the Monologium in a nutshell—that the world in
toto is literally the composite-ideographic Word of God; it is one singularly gar
gantuan hieroglyphically-inscribed Word, annunciated and impressed on time,
space, and matter by God at the cosmogony—this “One Word” is an enormous
ideograph writ huge across everything that has even been and ever will be (which
are its ‘ideographemes’ as it were). Just as spoken words materially and exter
nally signify the soft and strong Scholastic universals inscribed upon the souls
of humans, so each and every object and event in the world materially and exter
nally signifies the strong ideographs inscribed eternally upon the mind of God.
Anselm further explains his contention:
In no wise can anything conceivably be created by any, unless there is, as it were, or (as is
more fittingly supposed) some model, or likeness, or rule. It is evident, then, that before the
world was created, it was in the thought of the supreme Nature, what, and of what sort, and
how, it should be… but this model of things, which preceded their creation in the thought of
the creator, what else is it than a kind of expression of these things in his thought itself; just
as when an artisan is about to make something after the manner of his craft, he first expresses
it to himself through a concept? But by the expression of the mind or reason I mean, here,
not the conception of words signifying the objects, but the general view of the mind, by
the vision of conception, of the objects themselves, whether destined to be, or already
existing. For, from frequent usage, it is recognized that we can express the same object in
three ways. For we express objects either by the sensible use of sensible signs, that is, signs
which are perceptible to the bodily senses; or by thinking within ourselves insensibly of
these signs which, when outwardly used, are sensible; or not by employing these signs,
either sensibly or insensibly, but by expressing the things themselves inwardly in our mind,
whether by the power of imagining material bodies or of understanding thought, according
to the diversity of these objects themselves. For I express a man in one way, when I signify
him by pronouncing these words, a man; in another, when I think of the same words in
silence; and in another, when the mind regards the man himself, either through the image
of the body, or through the reason; through the image of his body, when the mind imagines
his visible form; through the reason, however, when it thinks of his universal essence…
now, the first two kinds of expression are in the language of one’s race. But the words of
that kind of expression, which I have put third and last, when they concern objects well
known, are natural, and are the same among all nations. And, since all other words owe
68 Anselm, Monologium, 142–143.

their invention to these, where these are no other word is necessary for the recognition of an
object… for, without absurdity, they may also be said to be the truer, the more like they are to
the objects to which they correspond, and the more expressively they signify these objects…
no other word appears so similar to the object to which it is applied, or expresses it as does
that likeness which is expressed by the vision of the mind thinking of the object itself. This
last, then, should be called the especially proper and primary word, corresponding to the
thing… not without reason it may be thought that such an expression of objects existed
with (apud) the supreme Substance before their creation, that they might be created; and
exists, now that they have been created, that they may be known through it. But, though
it is most certain that the supreme Substance expressed, as it were, within itself the whole
created world, which it established according to, and through, this same most profound
expression, just as an artisan first conceives in his mind what he afterwards actually exe
cutes in accordance with his mental concept, yet I see that this analogy is very incomplete.
For the supreme Substance took absolutely nothing from any other source… whatever the
supreme Substance created, it created through nothing other than itself… all at once, by the
utterance of one word.69
For Anselm, the human mind (made up of strong internal ideographs—‘proper

and primary words’) is like an intratemporal version of the divine mind; and thus
he asks the rhetorical question—“how can it even be imagined that the supreme
Wisdom, at any time does not conceive of itself; since a rational mind can remem
ber not only itself, but that supreme Wisdom, and conceive of that Wisdom and of
itself? For, if the human mind could have no memory or concept of that Wisdom
or of itself, it would not distinguish itself at all from irrational creatures, and that
Wisdom from the whole created world, in silent meditation by itself, as my mind
does now.”70 The answer, of course, is the ostensible and always silent irrefraga
bility of the ideographic cogito.
Algazali (Abū Hāmid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Tusī al-Ghazālī, 1058–
1111) makes the assumption that “it rightly belongs to the human soul in its (very)
essence also to apprehend all things,”71 that “only that which inheres in the
senses inheres in the mind, except that it inheres in the senses as an aggregate
69 Anselm, Monologium, 101–105. Cf. “He speaks by the Word which He begat, not by the word
which is uttered, and sounds, and passes away, but by the Word which was with God, and the
Word was God, and all things were made by Him… He always and unchangeably utters Himself”
(Augustine, On the Trinity, 7.1).
70 Anselm, Monologium, 141. Cf. “if then that inner concept which is contained in the human
mind constitutes the substance of those things of which it is the concept, it follows that the
concept by which man knows himself may be considered his very essence” (Eriugena,
Periphyseon, 4:69).
71 Michael E. Marmura, ed. and trans., Al-Ghazāli: The Incoherence of the Philosophers: A
parallel English-Arabic text translated, introduced, and annotated (Provo: Brigham Young
University Press, 2000), 159—all citations are from this edition.
which the sense is unable to separate, whereas the intellect is able to separate it.
Then, once separated, the thing which is separated and singled out in the mind
from its associates remains, in its being particular, similar to the thing conjoined
with its associates. (The thing) established in the mind, however, has one and the
same relation to the thing intellectually apprehended and the things similar to
it. It is thus called ‘universal’ in this sense—namely, that there is in the mind the
form of the singled-out intelligible first apprehended by the senses.”72 These soft
internal ideographs, denuded of matter, are “the impression of the forms of the
intelligibles in the soul.”73 And “the sheer presence of an etching or the writing of
a line in our souls is sufficient for the occurrence of such a form.”74 Under these
conditions, “sensible things imprinted in the five senses can only be representa
tions of particular divisible forms. For apprehension means the occurrence of the
representation of what is apprehended in the soul of the one who apprehends.”75
And it is for this reason that “the philosophers have declared that universals exist
in the mind, not in the concrete.”76
Arguing against the soft ideographic Nominalism of such Aristotelians,
Algazali claims that all worldly phenomena actually “emanate from the bestower
of forms,”77 and that “matter is receptive of all things… it lies within God’s
power,”78 as “He is the cause of every other existent… the world’s subsistence
is through him… had it not been for the existence of the creator, the existence of
the world would be inconceivable.”79 For Algazali every object and event in the
world is inherently a form of divine intervention, a continuous and never-ending
cosmogony.
Bonaventure (Giovanni Bonaventura, 1217–1274) argues that the signifieds
of the words of normal human languages are ‘mental words’, soft ideographic
images of the Forms in the soul, which themselves have their ultimate signifieds
in strong ideographs of the eternal law of God.80 All created things for this Realist
are thus “shadows, echoes, and pictures… vestiges, images, and displays… the
72 The Incoherence of the Philosophers, 199.

80 Philotheus Boehner, trans., Bonaventure: The Journey of the Mind to God, ed. Stephen F.
Brown (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), 21 and 63n105—all citations are from this translation; Latin
from Migne (op. cit.).
divinely given signs wherein we can see God… illustrations offered to souls as yet
untrained… so that through these sensible things that they see they may be trans
ported to the intelligible which they do not see, as through signs to that which
is signified.”81 Each and every thing in “this visible world” is a theurgic trans
porter for “the invisible things of God,” and thus shows up in “the mirror of our
mind, wherein shine forth divine things.”82 One should therefore contemplate
the soft Forms present in the world and in the soul in order to contemplate the
strong Forms of the deity, as the soul is capable of partaking directly in the divine
through contemplative ascension.83
According to Bonaventure, the divine is present everywhere in everything
(omnia in omnibus), and the Forms the deity created in matter come through the
senses to reside in the perceiving soul;84 these Forms collectively are known as
‘eternal laws’ and “these laws must be changeless and incorruptible, since they
are necessary.”85 These laws are literally “stamped on the mind,” being “certain
and infallible laws as lights and beacons shining down into our mind from the
eternal law.”86 For Bonaventure, the true message of scripture is that humans
should the look for these divine Forms through the senses and the operations
of the mind (reading the book of the world written in ideographs); in this way
the Gospel was evidently able to “restore the symbolic character of the world.”87
A Christian should therefore be able to “purify the concrete sensible species of
all its contingent imperfections and to conceive it in its ideal form”;88 this activ
ity is to be considered “the result of the interaction of the eternal light with the
81 Bonaventure, Journey of the Mind to God, 16.

82 Bonaventure, Journey of the Mind to God, 16–17.
84 Bonaventure, Journey of the Mind to God, 13–14. On the term omnia in omnibus, Eriugena
states that “all things, because of their coming into being from God, participate in God according
to their proper capacity” (Periphyseon, 3:79) and that “this ineffable diffusion both makes all
things and is made in all things and is all things (quae ineffabilis diffusio et facit omnia et fit in
omnibus et omnia est)” (Periphyseon, 3:61; cf. Nicholas of Cusa, On Learned Ignorance, 2.5, 3.9,
and 3.12, in H. Lawrence Bond, trans., Nicholas of Cusa: Selected Spiritual Writings [New York:
Paulist Press, 1997], 140–142, 192, 202, and 204—all citations of Nicholas of Cusa are from this
translation; Latin text from Migne [op. cit.]). The phrase “omnia in omnibus” ultimately refers
back to several passages in the Vulgate: I Corinthians 15:28, Colossians 3:11, Ephesians 1:23 and
4:6, in Roger Gryson et al., ed., Bibla Sacra Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, 5th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche
Bibelgesellschaft, 2007), 1787a, 1823a, 1809b, and 1811a.
85 Bonaventure, Journey of the Mind to God, 15.
87 Bonaventure, Journey of the Mind to God, 50n46.
light of our reason and the contingent sense objects themselves” (i.e., the Active
Intellect).89 All of creation (including the self) is to be read in such a manner as
an ideographic language with divine signifieds; this is the essential teaching of
Christianity according to Bonaventure.
Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) argues that Jesus Christ serves as the signi
fied content of every created thing, including every word of every document any
human being has ever written in any language (literally “all books”); during the
act of reading God communicates his divine intent through signs, figures, and
beams of light to each individual reader—each getting the message tailored specif
ically for them by Jesus—though they must be listening for it to hear it Â�properly.90
Jesus communicates to the hearts and souls of the elect through uncanny “whis
pers” which are literally “written” there,91 and thus divine ideographs cannot be
represented in normal words by mere human intention,92 but rather it appears
to be the case that all meaning is transferred by the direct intervention of God.
Thus Jesus sends strong ideographic messages to the elect through the vehicle of
language (and similarly via perception of created things), and so for Christians,
all words in all languages, and indeed, every created thing that ever has existed,
does exist, or will exist in the future is literally a book of the holy teaching (liber
santae doctrinae) of Christianity.93 As White notes, “in the ages of faith, people
believed that the Universe was governed by a controlling mind and was capable
of a rational explanation. They believed that everything meant something… every
possible article in the world, and its name also, concealed a hidden message for
the eye of faith.”94
Hugh of Saint Victor (1096–1141) claims that the rational soul (i.e., the Active
Intellect) “grasps ‘not only the elements but all things that are made from them’,
since, through its understanding it comprehends the invisible causes of things
and, through sense impressions, picks up the visible forms of actual objects…
whether it goes out to sensible things through its senses or ascends to invisible
things through its understanding, it circles about, drawing to itself the likenesses
of things; and thus it is that one and the same mind, having the capacity for

90 Thomas, Imitation of Christ, 3.43 and 4.1, in Aloysius Croft and Harold Bolton, trans., Thomas
à Kempis: The Imitation of Christ (Mineola: Dover, 2003)—all citations are from this translation;
Latin from Migne (op. cit.).
91 Thomas, Imitation of Christ, 3.1 and 3.3.
92 Thomas, Imitation of Christ, 4.8.
93 Thomas, Imitation of Christ, 2.4.
94 T. H. White, The Book of Beasts: Being a Translation from a Latin Beastiary of the Twelfth
Century (New York: Dover, 1984), 244.
all things, is fitted together out of every substance and nature by the fact that
it represents within itself their imaged likenesses… in a word, the rational soul
could by no means comprehend all things unless it were also composed of all
of them… when a coiner imprints a figure upon metal, the metal, which itself is
one thing, begins to represent a different thing, not just on the outside, but from
its own power and its natural aptitude to do so. It is in this way that the mind,
imprinted with the likenesses of all things, is said to be all things.”95
This Scholastic iteration of internal and external ideography is based on the
assumption that:
Things are able to subsist in three ways: in actuality, in the intellect, in the divine Mind—
that is, in the divine Idea, in man’s idea, and in themselves. In themselves they pass away
without subsistence; in the intellect of man they subsist, to be sure, but are not immutable;
in the divine Mind they subsist without change. Likewise, what exists in actuality is an
image of what exists in the mind of man, and what exists in the mind of man is an image
of what exists in the divine Mind… just as a man, when he has conceived something in his
mind, draws an example of it externally, so that what was known only to him may be seen
plainly by others, and afterwards, to make it still more evident, explains in words how the
thing drawn as an example matches his idea of it; so, too, God, wishing to show his invis
ible Wisdom, drew its example in the mind of the rational creature, and next, by making
the corporeal creature, showed the rational creature an external example of what it itself
contained within. Thus, the rational creature was made in the first place and in the likeness
of the divine Idea, with nothing mediating between them. The corporeal creature, however,
was made in the likeness of the divine Idea through the mediation of the rational creature.96
Thus God is a two-step ideographer, as it were, creating the strong ideographs in

human minds first and foremost, then the soft ideographs of the material world
by means of and through the strong ideographs imprinted in said minds. This
explains why the inner mind has the strong and the outer world has the soft
version of the ideographic Forms.
Hugh further draws a remarkable distinction between the ‘intellectible’
(strong, Realist) and the ‘intelligible’ (soft, Nominalist) internal ideograph:
The nature of spirits and souls, because it is incorporeal and simple, participates in intel
lectible substance… through the sense organs spirit or soul descends in different ways to the
apprehension of physical objects and draws into itself a likeness of them through its imagi
nation… in different respects, therefore, the same thing is at the same time Â�intellectible and
95 Jerome Taylor, trans., The Didascalicon of Hugh of Saint Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 46–47—all citations are from this translation; Latin
from Migne (op. cit.).
96 Hugh, Didascalicon, 155–156.
intelligible—intellectible in being by nature incorporeal and imperceptible to any of the

senses; intelligible in being a likeness of sensible things, but not itself a sensible thing…
souls degenerate from being intellectible things to being intelligible things when, from the
purity of simple understanding clouded by no images of bodily things, they descend to the
imagination of visible objects… the intellectible in us is what understanding is, whereas
the intelligible is what imagination is. But understanding is pure and certain knowledge of
the sole principles of things—namely, of God, of ideas, and of prime matter, and of incor
poreal substances. Imagination, however, is sensuous memory made up of the traces of
corporeal objects inhering in the mind.97
Thus human understanding is strongly ideographic, while the human imagina

tion is softly ideographic. Regardless of how the ideograph comes to be imprinted
upon the soul, for Hugh “every nature tells of God; every nature teaches man;
every nature reproduces its essential form, and nothing in the universe in infe
cund.”98 And just as the book of the universe is a kind of Bible, so too scripture
is an ideographic book of emblems:
In the divine utterance not only words but even things have a meaning—a way of commu
nicating not usually found to such an extent in other writings. The philosopher knows only
the significance of words, but the significance of things is far more excellent than that of
words, because the latter was established by usage, but Nature dictated the former. The
latter is the voice of man, the former the voice of God speaking to men. The latter, once
uttered, perishes; the former, once created, subsists. The unsubstantial word is the sign
of man’s perceptions; the thing is a resemblance of the divine Idea. What, therefore, the
sound of the mouth, which all in the same moment begins to subsist and fades away, is to
the idea in the mind, that the whole extent of time is to eternity. The idea in the mind is the
internal word which is shown forth by the sound of the voice, that is, the external word.
And the divine Wisdom, which the Father has uttered out of his heart, invisible in Itself… is
recognized through creatures and in them. From this is most surely gathered how profound
is the understanding to be sought in the Sacred Writings, in which we come through the
word to a concept, through the concept to a thing, through the thing to its idea, and through
its idea arrive at Truth.99
Here the “concept” is the soft (intelligible, nominalist), the “idea” is the strong (intel
lectible, realist) ideograph, both ultimately signifying the “truth” of Christianity.
According to John of Salisbury (d. 1180) “forms for everything either come
from Him by Whom all things have been made, or they are nothing at all,”100 so
it is natural that “an idea… is an eternal exemplar of those things which come

98 Hugh, Didascalicon, 145.
100 John, Metalogicon, 29.
to be as a result of nature. And since universals are not subject to corruption,

and are not altered by the changes that transform particular things and cause
them to come and go, succeeding one another almost momentarily, ideas are
properly and correctly called ‘universals’… these ‘ideas’ or ‘exemplary forms’ are
the original plans of all things… they are so permanent and perpetual, that even
if the whole world were to come to an end, they could not perish. They include
all things.”101 Under these conditions, “God is author, not only of the grass, but
also of its greenness.”102 These Forms therefore subsist in “the inner sanctuary
of the divine mind,”103 and so all primary truths subsist “within the essence of
God”104—as “such are verily the thoughts of the Most High, whose depths no man
can probe.”105 However, “grace reveals hidden divine truths,”106 granting access
to those “universal concepts of the mind”;107 indeed, it is impossible for a human
to reason properly without these universals,108 as “the (thinking) soul is truly
divine.”109
How this all works is that “when our imagination operates, the images of
things are (so to speak) impressed on the soul.”110 But “reason in creatures is a
spiritual force that examines the nature of things and acquires a knowledge, not
only of material entities, but also of concepts perceptible by the intellect alone.
In addition to reason in creatures, there is also that original reason which effi
caciously comprehends all things… without any error whatsoever (this) original
reason determines the exact nature and precise power of everything. If I describe
(this) original reason as the divine power or wisdom, and the firm foundation of
all things, I am undoubtedly correct. This original reason embraces the nature,
development, and ultimate end of all things.”111 It is this “original reason” (i.e.,
the Active Intellect) that theoretically grounds all language in the Metalogicon:
“in accordance with the divine plan, man first named all those things which
lay before him, formed and fashioned by nature’s hand… and so distinguished
that they could be discerned by the senses of rational creatures and have their

diversity designated by names as well as by properties. Hence it is that (as Boe

thius observes) one entity is called ‘man’, another ‘wood’, a third ‘stone’, names
being, so to speak, stamped on all substances.”112 From the way John discusses
the issue (including such statements as “speech is true if it presents things as
they really are”),113 it is clear that he subscribes to the Scholastic theory of ideog
raphy—indeed, he argues that “letters, that is written symbols, in the first place
represent sounds. And secondly they stand for things, which they conduct into
the mind through the windows of the eyes.”114 The Metalogicon is arguing here
that even alphabetic writing should be considered ideographic in how it effects
communication.
Maimonides (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, 1135–1204) states that all created
things, ideographic mixtures of matter and Form which “He, may He be exalted,
has stamped,”115 “can be grasped in their true reality.”116 If a person “has intel
lectually cognized a thing (it is as if you said that if a man has intellectually cog
nized this piece of wood to which one can point, has stripped its form from its
matter, and has represented to himself the pure form—this being the action of the
intellect), at that time the man would become one who has intellectual cognition
in actu. Intellect realized in actu is the pure abstract form, which is in his mind,
of the piece of wood. For intellect is nothing but the thing that is intellectually
cognized… its act is identical with its essence… whenever intellect exists in actu,
it is identical with the intellectually cognized thing.”117 Because the internal ideo
graph formed by the Active Intellect “indicates the essence and true reality of a
thing,”118 one must recognize that “every existent thing endowed with a form is
what it is in virtue of its form—in fact its being passes away and is abolished when
its form passes away… in this respect it is said of him that He is the ultimate form
and the form of forms; that is, He is that upon which the existence and stability
of every form in the world ultimately reposes and by which they are constituted,
just as the things endowed with forms are constituted by their forms.”119 This is
the quiddity of scholastic ideography.

115 Shlomo Pines, trans., Moses Maimonides: The Guide of the Perplexed, 2 vols. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1963), 2:454—all citations are from this translation.
116 Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, 1:86.
Averroes (Abu I-Walīd Muhammad Ibn Rushd, 1126–1198) claims that “form
has two modes of existence, a sensible existence in matter, as in the stone there
is the form… which exists in the matter outside the soul, and an intelligible exis
tence, namely, perception and intellect, which is separate from matter and exists
in the soul… the human intellect is nothing other than the perception of the form
of the existents, in so far as they are without matter.”120 This is a basic statement
of Nominalist ontology, in which “there are immaterial forms whose existence
consists in their thinking, whereas knowledge in this sublunary world only differs
from its object because its object inheres in matter.”121 And so, epistemologically,
“knowledge is not knowledge of the universal concept, but it is a knowledge of
individuals in a universal way which the mind attains in the case of individuals,
where it abstracts from them one common nature which is distributed among the
different matters.”122 By this definition, “the universal does not exist outside of
the soul and has no transitory existence,”123 it being the case that “the intellect
apprehends, in relation to the individuals who have a common species, a single
entity, in which they participate and which is the quiddity of the species without
this entity’s being divided into the things in which individuals qua individuals are
divided… this entity must be ingenerable and incorruptible and is not destroyed
by the disappearance of one of the individuals in which it exists.”124 And so,
inscribed with soft ideographs, the “intellect is nothing but the forms abstracted
from matter… since what is intelligible in things is their innermost reality, and
since intellect is nothing but the perception of the intelligibles, our own intellect
is the intelligible by itself.”125 This is a precisely Nominalist way of explaining soft
internal and external ideography.
Why the soft ideographs of Averroes are not clear for all humans is that “this
is a theory very remote from the primitive ideas of mankind and from common
notions, so that it is not permitted to divulge it to the masses or even to many
people; indeed, the man who has proved its evidence is forbidden to reveal
it to the man who has no power to discover its truth, for he would be like his
Â�murderer.”126 It seems to be the case that “about these things the ancients gave
120 Simon van Den Bergh, trans., Averroes’ Tahafut al-Tahafut (The Incoherence of the IncoÂ�
herence), 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954), 1:128—all citations are from this
translation.
121 Averroes, The Incoherence of the Incoherence, 1:99.
some mysterious indication which the initiated, that is the most highly reputed
of the philosophers, know how to interpret.”127 And so it is “reserved for the men
versed in profound knowledge to whom God has permitted the sight of the true
realities, and therefore it must not be mentioned in any books except those that
are composed according to a strictly rational pattern… to discuss these questions
with the masses is like bringing poisons to the bodies of many animals, for which
they are real poisons. Poisons, however, are relative, and what is poison for one
animal is nourishment for another. The same applies to ideas in relation to men;
that is, there are ideas which are poison for one type of men, but which are nour
ishment for another type.”128 Even the soft ideographs of Scholastic Nominalism
take on the tinge of the Neopythagorean and the Hermetic in Averroes.
For William of Ockham (1280–1349), soft internally ideographic ‘words’ have
linguistic features, particularly grammatical case and number in nouns and
mood, number, tense, voice, and person in verbs—in other words, the mind is
a highly inflected ‘language’, remarkably similar to Latin:129 “just as those parts
of the spoken proposition which contribute to the significative power of language
are distinct, so also are the corresponding elements in mental propositions…
distinct elements must likewise be necessary in the generation of mental prop
ositions.”130 For Ockham such Nominalist internal ideography is the conceptual
language of the Active Intellect, the ‘words’ of which are universal and absolutely
ontologically stable (at least, inside the soul):
As Boethius points out in his Commentary on the first book of the De Interpretatione, dis
course is of three types—the written, the spoken, and the conceptual (the last existing only
in the mind). In the same way there are three sorts of terms—written, spoken, and concep
tual. The written term is a part of a proposition which has been inscribed on something
material and is capable of being seen by the bodily eye. The spoken term is part of a prop
osition which has been uttered aloud and is capable of being heard with the bodily ear.
The conceptual term is an intention (intentio)[131] or impression of the soul which signifies

129 Michael J. Loux, trans., Ockham’s Theory of Terms: Part I of the Summa Logicae (Notre Dame:
University of Notre Dame Press, 1974), 53–54.
130 Ockham’s Theory of Terms, 54.
131 [my note] This is technical Scholastic intentio—“in medieval epistemology, an intention
came to acquire the technical sense of a ‘natural sign in the soul.’ In the Latin translation of
Avicenna, intentio was used to render the term ma’na (viz. a notion or meaning), which referred
to the intelligible form (species) of an extramental thing (extra animam) insofar as it existed
in the soul (intra animam). For the form, in contrast to matter, was for Aristotle the essence,
quiddity, or intelligible part of a thing. But any given notion or conceptual meaning, though
expressing part of the quiddity of a thing, usually did not exhaust its essential intelligibility, so
or cosignifies something naturally and is capable of being a part of a mental proposition

and of suppositing in such a proposition for the thing it signifies. Thus, these conceptual
terms and the propositions composed of them are the mental words which, according to
St. Augustine in chapter 15 of De Trinitate, belong to no language. They reside in the intel
lect alone and are incapable of being uttered aloud, although the spoken words which are
subordinated to them as signs are uttered aloud. I say that spoken words are signs subor
dinated to concepts or intentions of the soul not because in the strict sense of “signify”
they always signify the concepts of the soul primarily and properly. The point is rather that
spoken words are used to signify the very things that are signified by concepts of the mind,
so that a concept primarily and naturally signifies something and a spoken word signifies
the same thing secondarily. Thus, suppose a spoken word is used to signify something signi
fied by a particular concept of the mind. If that concept were to change its signification, by
that fact alone it would happen that the spoken word would change its signification, even in
the absence of any new linguistic convention. This is all that Aristotle means when he says
that spoken words are signs of the impressions of the soul and Boethius means the same
thing when he says that spoken words signify concepts. In general, whenever writers say
that all spoken words signify or serve as signs of impressions, they only mean that spoken
words secondarily signify the things impressions of the soul primarily signify… the same
sort of relation I have claimed to hold between spoken words and impressions or intentions
or concepts holds between written words and spoken words. Now, there are certain differ
ences among these three kinds of terms. For one thing the concept or impression of the
soul signifies naturally; whereas the spoken or written term signifies only conventionally.
This difference gives rise to a further difference. We can decide to alter the signification of
a spoken or written term, but no decision or agreement on the part of anyone can have the
effect of altering the signification of a conceptual term.132
Existing only in the human soul, a Nominalist intentio—by definition—is onto

logically stable and always absolutely true (grounded in the epistemology of the
soft theory of ideography). As Ockham says, echoing ancient Aristotelians: “every
universal is an intention of the soul… universals of this sort are not outside the
mind… they are entities in the soul different from each other and from things
outside the mind. Some are signs of things and others are signs of those very
signs”; “every universal is an intention of the mind which, on the most proba
ble account, is identical with the act of understanding… that the universal is an
intention of the soul is clearly expressed by Avicenna… ‘an intention is also called
that intention took on the character of a formal aspect of the thing (a little ‘form’ or formalitas),
as it were, and like ratio and logos was used not only for the formal concept in the mind but also
for its precise objective correlate… these formal aspects, though found inseparably united in the
thing, were separable in thought” (Felix Alluntis and Allan B. Wolter, trans., John Duns Scotus:
God and Creatures, the Quodlibetal Questions [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975], 517).
132 Ockham’s Theory of Terms, 49–50.
a universal…’. From these remarks it is clear that the universal is an intention of

the soul”; “every universal, I have shown, is an intention of the soul.”133
As the recent translators of the Port-Royal Grammar note, “the notion of
intentionality as activity of the mind… is Scholastic, and can be found in the
works of Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, Thomas, and William of Occam, among
others. More recently in the nineteenth century, the concept is revived in the work
of Franz Brentano (who derived his usage from that of the Scholastics),[134] and is
carried on as the key concept in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology.”135
133 Ockham’s Theory of Terms, 104, 81, and 99.

134 [my note] On the highly technical topic of intentio in Brentano, see: Franz Brentano, On the
Several Senses of Being in Aristotle, trans. Rolf George (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1975), 8, 50, 52, and 148; Franz Brentano, Aristotle and His World View, trans. Rolf George and
Roderick M. Chisholm (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 16, 23, 50, 58, 68, 82, and 88;
Franz Brentano, The Psychology of Aristotle, In Particular His Doctrine of the Active Intellect: With
an Appendix Concerning the Activity of Aristotle’s God, trans. Rolf George (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1977), 8, 105–106, 112, 148, 159, 171, 186n32, 189n39, 190n48, 191n50, 191n52,
244n142, and 244n148; Franz Brentano, The Theory of the Categories, trans. Roderick M. Chisholm
and Norbert Guterman (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1981), 2, 9, 24, 68, 81, 87, 90, 101, 108, 110,
120, 169, 175–176, 181, 184–186, 197, 199–200, and 205; Franz Brentano, Descriptive Psychology,
trans. Benito Müller (London: Routledge, 1995), x-xiv, xix-xxii, xxvi, 5, 7, 14, 23–24, 26, 29, 39, 42,
70, 84, 87, 89, 103–104, 106, 108, 139, 143, 155, and 160; Franz Brentano, On the Existence of God:
Lectures given at the Universities of Würzburg and Vienna (1868–1891), trans. Susan F. Krantz
(Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), 7, 87, 99, 162, 183, 215, 283–284, 306, and 319.
135 Jacques Rieux and Bernard E. Rollin, trans. and ed., The Port-Royal Grammar by Antoine
Arnauld and Claude Lancelot (The Hague: Mouton, 1975), 143n4. For Husserl, “intentional
psychology already has the transcendental hiddenly within itself” (Edmund Husserl, Cartesian
Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology, trans. Dorion Cairns [Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic, 1991], 147), and “no interpretive skill in the world can in fact eliminate ideal objects
from our speech and our thought” (Edmund Husserl, Logical Investigations, trans. and ed. J. N.
Findlay and Michael Dummett, 2 vols. [New York: Routledge, 2001], 1:250), as “what is in question
here, in fact, are the universal essential properties” (Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining to a Pure
Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy: Second Book, Studies in the Phenomenology
of Constitution, trans. Richard Rojcewicz and André Schuwer [Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1989],
12—emphatic italics in all cases are Husserl’s), and “the essential components of thingness and
the necessary essential interweavings, without which what is meant by a thing at all cannot be
thought” (Husserl, Ideas II, 38); in other words, “any science of matters of fact (any experimental
science) has essential theoretical foundations in eidetic ontologies” (Edmund Husserl, Ideas
Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy: First Book, General
Introduction to a Pure Phenomenology, trans. F. Kersten [The Hague: Martinus Nijoff, 1983], 18), as
“the truth is that all human beings see ‘ideas’, ‘essences’, and see them, so to speak, continuously;
they operate with them in their thinking, they also make eidetic judgments” (Husserl, Ideas I,
41); thus the “universal principle that every individual event has its essence, which can be
seized upon in eidetic purity” (Ideas I, 67) such that “this universal essence can be unfolded in
Ockham continues:
An intention (intentio) of the soul is something in the soul capable of signifying something
else. Earlier we indicated how the signs of writing are secondary with respect to spoken
signs. Among conventional signs spoken words are primary. In the same way spoken signs
are subordinated to the intentions of the soul. Whereas the former are secondary, the latter
are primary. It is only for this reason that Aristotle says that spoken words are signs of the
impressions of the soul. Now, that thing existing in the soul which is the sign of a thing and
an element out of which a mental proposition is composed (in the same way as a spoken
proposition is composed of spoken words) is called by different names. Sometimes it is
called an intention of the soul; sometimes an impression of the soul; and sometimes the
similitude of the thing. Boethius, in his commentary on the De Interpretatione, calls it an
intellect. He does not, of course, mean that a mental proposition is composed of intellects
in the sense of intellectual souls. He only means that a mental proposition is composed of
those intellective things which are signs in the soul signifying other things. Thus, when
ever anyone utters a spoken proposition, he forms beforehand a mental proposition. This
proposition is internal and it belongs to no particular spoken language. But it also happens
that people frequently form internal propositions which, because of the defect of the lan
guage, they do not know how to express externally. The parts of such mental propositions
are called concepts, intentions, likenesses, and “intellects.” But with what items in the soul
are we to identify such signs? There are a variety of opinions here. Some say a concept is
something made or fashioned by the soul. Others say it is a certain quality distinct from
the act of the understanding which exists in the soul as in a subject. Others say that it is
simply the act of understanding… for the moment, we shall simply say that an intention is
something in the soul which is either a sign naturally signifying something else (for which
it can supposit) or a potential element in a mental proposition.136
Although these soft ideographic so-called “Intentions”—which are the first-stage

or primary signifieds of all spoken languages for Ockham—are shared by all, it is
unfortunately the case that normal human languages cannot unproblematically
represent this ideographic language of the Active Intellect: “authentic [spoken
and written] words are often false in the sense which they convey, i.e. in their
literal and proper sense, and yet are true in the sense in which they were uttered
thought, and its unfolding necessarily leads to an ontology” (Edmund Husserl, Ideas Pertaining
to a Pure Phenomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy: Third Book, Phenomenology and
the Foundations of the Sciences, trans. Ted E. Klein and William E. Pohl [The Hague: Martinus
Nijhoff, 1980], 21), and, ultimately, “the idea of the real (entity) itself… the idea as a pure form…
which is proper to it but which is never the last idea but rather a starting point, in a certain way
a representation of the infinitely distant and unattainable idea, of which only the form, as an
absolute norm for the construction of all starting points, is given” (Edmund Husserl, The Crisis
of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological
Philosophy, trans. David Carr [Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1970], 305).
136 Ockham’s Theory of Terms, 73–74.
or written. The reason for this is that authors frequently speak equivocally and
improperly and metaphorically. And thus in exposing philosophical authori
ties one ought mainly to penetrate their underlying meaning and thought pro
cesses and intention (intentio) rather than to take the words as they sound, i.e.
literally.”137 In Ockham’s Nominalist iteration of the Scholastic theory of ideog
raphy, when one hears a speaker or reads a text written in human language what
one is really trying to do is decipher the ideographic language of ‘conceptual
terms’ behind the material signs; one is trying to extract the intentio that each
material word and phrase does not signify transparently.
The Scholastic debate between Realism (strong ideography) and Nominalism
(soft ideography) was central to the intellectual culture of the European Middle
Ages. Spinoza argued that this debate came down to a split between Platonists
and Aristotelians: “these Ideas, they state, are in the understanding of God, as
many of Plato’s followers have said, namely that these general ideas (such as
Rational, Animal, and the like) have been created by God; and although those
who follow Aristotle say, indeed, that these things are not real things, only things
of Reason, they nevertheless regard them frequently as (real) things.”138 Nicholas
of Cusa similarly contended that “the Platonists maintained that the true forms
exist in the soul of the world prior to their existing in things, not however in time
but in nature. The Peripatetics disagree, for they insist that the only existence
forms have is in matter and, by abstraction, in the intellect, but the abstraction,
of course, occurs after the thing.”139 Compare Copleston: “they discussed partic
ularly two sorts of class-names, species and genera; and they asked themselves
whether species and genera, like ‘man’ and ‘animal’, are mere words, or whether
they are words which express simple ideas and concepts, or whether they denote
actually existing specific and generic entities. Or one can put the question this
way. Do species and genera possess a merely verbal existence, or do they possess
an intramental existence, in concepts, but not an extramental existence, or do
they possess an extramental existence? The problem of universals is constantly
recurring in the history of philosophy; but in the early Middle Ages it took a
simple form, namely that of asking what is the ontological status of species and
genera.”140
137 Alfred J. Freddoso and Henry Schuurman, trans., Ockham’s Theory of Propositions: Part II of
the Summa Logicae (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980), 100.
138 Benedictus de Spinoza, Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being, 1.6.2, in Michael L.
Morgan, ed., Spinoza: Complete Works, trans. Samuel Shirley et al. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002),
55—emphatic italics original.
139 Nicholas of Cusa, On Learned Ignorance, 151.
140 Frederick C. Copleston, Medieval Philosophy (New York: Harper & Row, 1961), 33.
None of the Scholastics mentioned above seriously considered the proposi

tion that the Forms possessed merely a verbal existence (i.e., only existing in spe
cific languages, nowhere else); they could not accept this possibility, as it would
destroy the foundation of their Abrahamic religions, their personal identity, and
their entire world. Only under the conditions of globalized modernity have West
erners been able to grapple with semantic and ontological relativity.
Whether Nominalist or Realist in orientation, all of the philosophers—Jewish,
Christian, and Muslim—examined in this chapter have a theory of ideography,
which, although it is both discursively and historically related to the strong, soft,
primitivist, scriptural and hermetic theories, is nonetheless distinctly Scholastic.
The Scholastic debate over the nature of internal and external ideography was
ultimately never resolved, but only laid aside (the paradigm inexorably shifted
with the publication of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason in 1781). Hume rather con
cisely sums this up when he remarks that “as to those impressions, which arise
from the senses, their ultimate cause is, in my opinion, perfectly inexplicable by
human reason, and ‘twill always be impossible to decide with certainty, whether
they arise immediately from the object, or are produced by the creative power of
the mind, or are deriv’d from the author of our being.”141
141 David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature: Second Edition, ed. P. H. Nidditch (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1978), 84. Cf. Kant’s statement that “we are wholly ignorant of the manner in
which the supreme Being acts and of His ideas” (Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment, trans.
James Creed Meredith [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991], 2:67).
Chapter Seven: Renaissance Neoplatonism and
the Emblematic Theory
Of all the Neoplatonists who flourished in fifteenth century Europe, the most
important was the Florentine scholar, Hermetic magus, philosopher, and transla
tor Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499). As Iversen notes, Renaissance Hermeticism “was
inaugurated about 1463 when Marcilius Ficino made a Latin translation of 14 trea
tises from a Greek manuscript brought to Florence from Macedonia in 1460 by
Lionardo da Pistoia. They were published shortly afterwards together with a com
mentary, hailing Trismegistus as priscus theologus, and reviving the tradition
considering him a contemporary or maybe even predecessor of Moses. He was
supposed to have obtained a knowledge of things divine surpassing that of the
Hebrew prophets and in certain respects comparable to that of the Evangelists,
and also to have been responsible for the Greek philosophical tradition, because
Pythagoras during his stay in Egypt was supposed to have become acquainted
with his teachings and to have transmitted them to Plato, whose dialogues,
especially the Timaeus, were therefore considered directly based on Hermetic
Â�doctrines.” 1
Ficino discusses the Active Intellect in extraordinarily complex detail, taking
it to be the case that “man’s soul comes down stamped with the forms of things by
the giver of form Himself”;2 that “the sublime mind, when it is about to give form
to our mind daily via the ideas, has prepared our mind earlier for this forming,
and imprinted it with the characters of the ideas”;3 that “the Aristotelians think
that the receptive intellect understands the universal rational principles of
natural things precisely when it receives the absolute and intelligible forms of
these things. But since the forms it receives are not (in fact) the forms in them
selves, and since they can only become the intelligible forms in act through an
intellectual and active nature, the Aristotelians introduced a certain and efficient
intellect as the procreator of absolute forms”;4 that “for the Peripatetics what is
the species that the intellect has given birth to but a spark both of that image the
phantasy has culled from physical objects, and of the active power via which the
mind produced it? And what is our mind but a spark of a higher mind?” and that
“mind, therefore, which naturally generates the universal species of all things
1 Erik Iversen, Egyptian and Hermetic Doctrine (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press,
1984), 27.
2 Ficino, Platonic Theology, 4:61.
136 Chapter Seven: Renaissance Neoplatonism and the Emblematic Theory
through its own being, in its own essence too seems to have originally possessed
the universal species of all things in order for it to generate like from like… if the
divine mind, which is filled with all the Ideas, through this fullness of its essence
begets the soul without an intermediary, then the soul must issue from the divine
mind full of Ideas.”5 And so when Ficino makes the statement that “the intellect
almost becomes the object it understands—becomes the object, I repeat, in act,”6
one must recognize that “only divine action makes it possible for the intellect
to exist,”7 and that the “soul participates in mind… but God is the all-effecting
source of mind. As Plotinus would put it, God is understanding itself.”8
According to Ficino, “the human mind in its day-to-day activities proceeds
from particular forms to universal and absolute forms. From natural forms, which
are limited to definite bits of matter, it customarily ascends… to metaphysical
forms, which have no need of matter, definite or otherwise.”9 The act of percep
tion becomes a vehicle of Neoplatonic ascension, as “in this way we ascend to the
divine idea… from that nature to (its) rational principle, which exists above all
space and time and which Plato calls an idea. At this point the intellect receives
the divine idea itself, which either exists on its own or in the divine light.”10 This
ascension occurs through the medium of strong and soft, internal and external
ideographs: “what each of our five senses perceives separately our phantasy dis
cerns in summary fashion and to some extent more excellently. What the phantasy
sees in many images, the intellect sees in a single image and more clearly: it sees
the individual objects that the phantasy sees, but in addition it sees the universal
rational principles which the phantasy in unaware of.”11 Indeed, “the intellect
does not understand anything… unless it acquires a universal form, the general
signifier… which they call the intelligible form or species. Once it acquires this
form, it makes a judgment… this judgment is called sometimes a concept or con
ception of the mind, sometimes the rational principle and definition of the object
to be known, which we usually refer to also as knowledge”;12 further, “it knows
by understanding as long as it recognizes its essence as spiritual and free from
the limitations of matter. For it is knowledge of such which is called understand
ing. We can see in our own case that knowledge is nothing other than spiritual
5 Ficino, Platonic Theology, 3:209 and 3:223–225.

12 Ficino, Platonic Theology, 2:297–299.
Chapter Seven: Renaissance Neoplatonism and the Emblematic Theory 137
union with some spiritual form. Sight occurs when its spirit is joined to the spir
itual image… our mind too, having been joined by our spiritual power with the
incorporeal species and reasons of things, understands objects themselves.”13
Ficino assumes that “it is by means of this form that the mind learns what
the substance of a thing is. A thing’s substance is understood first and foremost
as its definition,”14 and these “universal definitions of things… are everlasting.”15
And so “whence do we suppose,” Ficino asks, “the soul receives what is eternal
and unchangeable if not from the one, eternal, and unchangeable God?”16 The
answer to that rhetorical question is the Active Intellect: “the divine ideas print
absolute and distinct images of themselves on us.”17 These strong internal ideo
graphs are like “a seal or character that the soul uses to direct its gaze towards
the idea itself”;18 and “these seals are immobile and unchanging; for they inhere
unchangeably in the rational soul… such seals are implanted in the rational soul
by the ideas.”19 Because “true images of things divine are resplendent in it… the
soul is eternal.”20 And so when “Aristotle… writes that this mind understands
nothing without images,”21 it seems to be the case that “following the intellect’s
command, a new image is often fashioned in the phantasy conforming to that
universal species, and image in which the mind’s universal species is blazingly
reflected.”22 In other words, while perception may fashion soft internal ideo
graphs, it is the strong internal ideograph from the Active Intellect that is “an
intellectual form, the image in our mind of an intelligible essence.”23
These strong internal ideographs are the proper signifieds of human lan
guages: “the meanings of words reaching our hearing, which are also Â�spiritual and
are neither made by body nor attached to body, but are transmitted from one soul
to another, come into being and are kept in being through the power of souls,”24
as “images of this sort do not come from the bodies whose image they are, for a
body does not produce anything incorporeal: they come from the spiritual light

that surrounds the bodies… in the mind the idea of the object itself is naturally
innate and gives birth to the notion of the object which includes everything that
is necessary… so the mind truly receives bodies’ forms to the extent that it has
them even more truly than bodies’ matter has them.”25 Consequently, “the fact
that it is proper for me to speak and write indicates that a divine mind, which the
beasts lack, is present in us.”26 All human communication, therefore, is essen
tially the strong ideographs in one soul communicating with the strong ideo
graphs in another soul.
In the act of human speech “the soul uses the tongue as an instrument to
break up the air. The fractured air resounds and its resounding has meaning. That
sound is a sort of living creature, composed of the fractured air as its body and of
the meaning as its soul. The meaning, like soul, lies hidden in the words we utter:
it is the particular unheard life as it were of the heard word. Whence comes the
meaning of the sound? From the soul itself of the man who is speaking.”27 The
soul of the spoken word is the silent, unheard internal ideograph which has been
externalized by means of the sound—speech is an ideographic vehicle in that the
idea is inscribed in the material sound by the speaker as a living-but-invisible
composed image. Under these conditions, the act of reading becomes doubly
theurgic: “those who learn from reading cannot imbibe knowledge, which is spir
itual and alive, from letters, which are corporeal and lifeless; rather, provoked by
the way of letters, they produce knowledge within themselves”;28 similarly “the
influence that crosses over from higher and angelic minds to lower minds should
be called an illumination… the thoughts of the divine movers are unfolded, like
letters.”29 Ficino’s vision of ideography forms the epistemological ground of
Renaissance emblem theory.
For Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) “the intellectual nature is above time and
not subject to temporal corruption. From its nature it enfolds within itself incor
ruptible forms… these forms are directive signs to us of intellectual nature’s incor
ruptibility. For the intellectual nature is the incorruptible place of incorruptible
forms.”30 In the act of Cusan perception “what the mind sees are intelligibles,
and they are prior to sensibles. The mind, therefore, sees itself.”31 Thus “all
created things, therefore, are signs of the Word of God. All corruptible speech is

31 Nicholas of Cusa, On the Summit of Contemplation, 24.8.
a sign of a mental word; the cause of every corruptible mental word is an incor
ruptible word, which is its underlying principle.”32 Cusa calls the soft internal
ideograph the “corruptible mental word” and the strong internal ideograph the
“incorruptible word.” It therefore follows that “visible things are truly images of
invisible things… from creatures the Creator can be seen in a recognizable way
as if in a mirror or in an enigma… spiritual things, unattainable by us in them
selves, may be symbolically investigated… our only approach to divine things is
through symbols.”33 These statements also exemplify the emblematic theory of
Â�ideography.
Another important Renaissance instantiation of emblematic theory appears
in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of Francesco Colonna (1433–1527). During
his dream-journey, Poliphili describes the ideographic images he travels
through and the hieroglyphic inscriptions he encounters. Here hieroglyphic
is an ancient—perhaps even prelapsarian—form of writing that uses objects to
“signify” ideas, and so it must be “interpreted;” hieroglyphs are “mysterious
and unfathomable,”34 “ineffable… hard to comprehend… unspeakable… insep
arable… inscrutable.”35 Hieroglyphs contain hidden theological messages (e.g.,
what the Trinity means); they are “divine images”; each hieroglyph is by nature
ambiguous, “so as to perplex the mind that would understand its divine idea.”36
And “the sight of these things induced the viewer to inspect them minutely and
admiringly, to his extreme delight… the content and meaning of the things I have
mentioned were elegantly written in ancient characters.”37 The ideographic geog
raphy of the dreamscape is “indelibly depicted” in his mind,38 but occasionally
Poliphili needs (allegorically personified, invariably female) guides to explicate
some of the more difficult hieroglyphic inscriptions on various portals—instruc
tions which allow him, through grasping the obscure but divine message of the
symbols, to pass through the gate to the next stage of his journey.39 The entire
dreamscape of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili has been composed in a complex
and rich ideographic language that needs to be deciphered by the reader.

33 Nicholas of Cusa, On Learned Ignorance, 100–101.
34 Joscelyn Godwin, trans., Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: The Strife of Love in a Dream (New York:
Thames & Hudson, 1999), 133, 41, and 42—all citations are from this translation.
35 Colonna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, 125, 129–130, and 469n.
36 Colonna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, 129, 193, and 132.
37 Colonna, Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, 200.
The Elizabethan scholar and magus John Dee (1527–1608) notes that “each
one of these signs will not be difficult to explain according to the hieroglyphi
cal manner.”40 This is because “the most secret mystery is clearly and perfectly
shown… by the hieroglyphic figure.”41 Indeed, “the hieroglyph… speaks to us
very distinctly, and we should listen to what it says.”42 And what it says are “the
most sublime secrets, and terrestrial arcane mysteries.”43 Such are the mysteries
“which, it is preferable, should be studied silently rather than divulged openly in
words.”44 And so “in this manner the pure magical spirit… will speak hieroglyph
ically without words.”45 The hieroglyphic emblem “is not mythical dogma but
mystic and secret… it is to be sought in the Voice of the Creator of the Universe, so
that men, inspired by God… learn through the perfect disquisition of the mystical
languages.”46 Dee, describing himself as one “to whom God has given the will
and the ability to know in this way the Divine mystery through the eternal mon
uments of literature,”47 goes so far as to ask for forgiveness for revealing in print
that “God has stamped and sealed all created things with this character of Trinity,
as a kind of hieroglyphical writing, whereby His own Nature might be known,”48
stating: “O God! Pardon me if I have sinned against Thy Majesty in revealing such
a great mystery in my writings which all may read, but I believe that only those
who are truly worthy will understand.”49
The first published emblem book was the (self-titled) Emblematum liber of
Andrea Alciato (1492–1550). Egyptian hieroglyphs, understood as ideographic
signs of the ancient theology (prisca theologia),50 were the main inspiration—with
40 John Dee, The Hieroglyphic Monad, trans. J. W. Hamilton-Jones (Boston: Red Wheel/Weiser,
2000), 15.
41 Dee, Hieroglyphic Monad, 19.
50 For discussion of the prisca theologia, see: D. P. Walker, The Ancient Theology: Studies in
Christian Platonism from the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1972); Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition; Don Cameron Allen, Mysteriously Meant:
The Rediscovery of Pagan Symbolism and Allegorical Interpretation in the Renaissance (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Press, 1970); Edgar Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (London: Faber
and Faber, 1968); Jean Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and
Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art, trans. Barbara F. Sessions (New York: Harper, 1953).
the recently-rediscovered Hieroglyphica of Horapollo as the explicit model—for

this treatise. Alciato’s Book of Emblems ran through 150 editions in multiple lan
guages and set off a flurry of publication of more than five thousand other emblem
books. Emblem books were essential textbooks in the classrooms and universities
of the Renaissance, and the emblems featured within them ending up decorat
ing almost every conceivable object of daily life. The picture part of the emblem
was considered to be its body or matter, the explanatory epigram was an attempt
to help guide the reader to the soul or Form signified by the emblem; emblems
hence work as figures and symbols to help create mental images in their viewers
and therefore seem to offer an alternative path to contemplating the Forms—as
emblems were considered to be an ideographic language.51
The general circulation and prevalence of the emblematic theory of ideog
raphy during the Renaissance is typified by François Rabelais (1494–1553), who
applies characteristic irony to those gentlemen who have “shaped their maxims
and proverbs, caparisoned their mules, dressed their pages, quartered their
breeches, embroidered their gloves, fringed their bed-curtains, painted their stan
dards, composed their songs, and—what is worse—perpetrated impostures and
foul tricks clandestinely among chase matrons” with these emblems, as they are
“such an absurd, stale, clownish, and barbarous collection of puns, that anyone
henceforth attempting to use them in France… ought to have a fox’s tail tied to his
collar and his nose rubbed in a cowpat… the sages of ancient Egypt followed a very
different course, when they wrote in letters that they called hieroglyphs—which
none understood who did not understand, and which everyone understood who
did understand, the virtue, property, and nature of things described.”52
The Hieroglyphica sive de sacris Aegyptiorum literis commentarii of Giovanni
Pierio Valeriano Bolzani (1477–1558) was the largest and most comprehensive
emblem manual of the Renaissance.53 Valeriano, as Manning argues,
Believed that God himself was held to communicate with us in such a sacred script. In the
Old Testament the Mysteries of the Gospel were thought to have been delivered to the Chil
dren of Israel under the veil of allegorical types and figures, so God’s great book of nature
was believed to contain mysterious impressions of the Creator, natural hieroglyphs, signifi
cant images that declare His glorious Being. These witty contrivances of the Egyptian priests
51 John F. Moffitt, ed. and trans., A Book of Emblems: The Emblematum Liber in Latin and
English (Jefferson: McFarland, 2004), 6–13.
52 Rabelais, The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel, trans. J. M. Cohen (Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1975), 58.
53 For a convenient and easily accessible reprinted edition (albeit in French translation), see:
Jean de Montylard, trans., Les Hiéroglyphiques (Lyon, 1615) (New York: Garland, 1976).
were designed to bring the human race to a greater knowledge of the meaning of God’s
works and of the Creator himself… his work is not, however, a rag-bag of citations. It is built
on a disciplined scholarly approach: he collates relevant biblical and classical texts, he is
aware that these traditions have been moderated by recent developments in learning, and
he applies the tools of etymology and philology in an attempt to crack the code of concealed
meaning.54
Allen further explains that:
Valeriano’s compendium, which brought together the hidden meanings of almost all things
beneath the sun… imagines a connection between the form of writing used by Egyptians
and that employed by antediluvian men, who inscribed figures of animals or other things
on columns of brick or stone in order to preserve the occult wisdom of poets, philosophers,
and historians. The fame of the wise Egyptian priests gained them clients like Pythagoras,
Plato, and Moses; oddly enough, the modus interpretationis of the hieroglyphics in which
the hierarchs concealed their meaning was not unlike that of the allegories used by Moses,
David, the Prophets, and Christ. The same type of metaphoric expression was also employed
by the Apostles, lest God’s word be scattered before dogs and hogs. “Antiquity concealed
science both human and divine, wrapped as it were in things which the most skillful among
them used by custom in enigmas.” Valeriano admits to no blame for attempting to decipher
the messages of the past.55
Iversen also mentions that:
These “hieroglyphical” enigmas, inserted as decorative details into allegorical art by the
combined efforts of artists and theoreticians, were seen as secret indications of the esoteric
meaning of the work as a whole. They were considered of equal importance for artist and
spectator, for by indicating the artistic intentions of the former they inspired the latter to
serious contemplation, initiating and preparing him for the ultimate revelation of the art
ist’s idea, the final miracle of understanding, and in this respect “the sacred language of the
hieroglyphs” became the language of art itself. The final formulation of this hieroglyphic
theory is found in the most compendious of all hieroglyphic compilations, the Â�Hieroglyphica
of Pierio Valeriano, which from its appearance in 1556 until… the end of the seventeenth
century remained the bible of the allegorizing hierogrammates of arts and letters. Outlin
ing in a preface the origin and purpose of the book, Valeriano recalls… “this mysterious
knowledge, used in the paintings and the architecture of the Ancients, who—undoubtedly
on the authority of Egyptian priests—had invented a silent language, conceivable by means
of pictures of things alone without any sound of the voice or combination of letters.” It was
the fervent ambition of Valeriano to reconstruct “this sacred language of ideas,” and the
fifty-eight books of the Hieroglyphica were the results of his efforts to transcribe the total
ity of his period’s philosophical and theological knowledge into a magnum opus of hiero
glyphic pictures and fables. Although greatly admired by contemporaries, and reprinted in
54 John Manning, The Emblem (London: Reaktion Books, 2002), 60–62.
55 Allen, Mysteriously Meant, 115–117.
numerous translations and revised editions, the book of “the divine Pierio” very quickly
lost its influence among the learned, but became an inexhaustible source of inspiration for
emblematic art and literature—which would probably not have appealed to the author, who
saw a higher destiny for his hieroglyphs, for, as he himself states, “to speak hieroglyphically
is to disclose the true nature of things divine as well as humane.”56
Emblematic theory is the historical product and discursive fusion of the strong,
soft, primitivist, scriptural, hermetic, and scholastic theories. Gabriel de Magail
lans, S.J. (1610–1677), a descendant of the explorer Ferdinand Magellan (1470–
1521), published one of the most important 17th century treatises on China. In this
work he describes Chinese characters in near-perfectly emblematic terms; we
conclude our discussion of the emblematic theory of ideography with his words:
Altho’ the Egyptians vaunt themselves to have been the first that ever made use of letters
and hieroglyphicks; yet certain it is that the Chinese had the practice of letters before them.
All other nations have had a way of writing in common, consisting of an alphabet of about
four and twenty letters, which have almost all the same sound, tho’ differing in shape. But
the Chinese make use of fifty four thousand four hundred and nine letters, which express
what they signify with so much grace, vivacity and efficacy, that you would think them
not to be characters, but voices and languages that spoke, or rather figures and images
that represent and express to the life what they signifie; so wonderful is the contrivance
of their letters… In the first place I am apt to believe, if we consider their first original, that
without doubt they are hieroglyphicks. For that the ancient letters which the Chineses say
were made use of in the first ages of the empire, were the images and figures, tho’ imperfect,
of the things visible which they signifi’d… these hieroglyphick letters which extreamly help
the memory to remember them, and contribute much to know and distinguish what they
signifie, in regard that every genus and every species has a distinct letter which is to be
found in all those that signifie the things contain’d in the same species.57
Chinese writing, evidently consisting of 54,409 singular emblematic “hieroglyph

ick letters” (one for each Form—“every genus and every species”) that “repre
sent and express to the life what they signifie,” is here the very definition of
Â�ideography.
56 Iversen, “The Hieroglyphic Tradition,” 187–188.

57 Gabriel Magaillans, A new history of China, containing a description of the most considerable
particulars of that vast empire, written by Gabriel Magaillans, of the Society of Jesus, Missionary
Apostolick: Done out of the French (London: Thomas Newborough, 1688), 68–73.
Chapter Eight: Athanasius Kircher on Egyptian and
Chinese Ideography
In his monumental three-volume Oedipus Aegyptiacus hoc est universalis hiero-
glyphicae veterum doctrinae temporum iniuria abolitae instauration (1652–1655),
the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680) lays out a full explanation
of the history and function of hieroglyphs and hieroglyphic wisdom throughout
the world. With his characteristic lack of modesty—and a great deal of psychoan
alytic resonance—Kircher has himself illustrated in the role of Oedipus confront
ing the Sphinx on the frontispiece (deciphering hieroglyphic equated to solving
the riddle). Malcolm points out that Kircher:
Seeks out a common core, a common tradition or derivation that unites the foreign cul
tures and religious beliefs with his own. His is a sort of crypto-universalism: it postulates a
shared essence, but a hidden one. That common core was the prisca theologia (ancient the
ology), the Hermetic wisdom, the body of esoteric knowledge associated with the ancient
sage Hermes Trismegistus. For Hermeticism played a central part in Kircher’s philosophical
system… Kircher presented the early history of this tradition of ‘secret wisdom’ in the first
volume of his Oedipus Aegyptiacus. The wisdom was imparted by God to Adam; through
his descendants it was transmitted to Noah, and thus survived the Flood. Roughly three
hundred years after the Flood, Noah and his sons and grandsons passed on this body of
knowledge to a gifted Canaanite who was known as Idris to the Arabs, Thouth (i.e., Thoth)
to the Egyptians, and Hermes Trismegistus to the Greeks. Hermes traveled widely through
the ancient world before settling in Egypt as scribe and counselor to Misrain, the Egyptian
king; there he helped to set up an ideal political order, based on the principles of harmony
contained in the ancient wisdom. This was a monarchy in which kings were advised (and
the successors chosen) by wise philosophers and priests. Hermes knew that religion was
essential for human society and government, and he set up an elaborate system of religious
institutions, including colleges of priests, cantors, augurs, scribes, prophets, and ‘hiero
grammatists.’ The task of the hierogrammatists was to inscribe the sacred doctrine on stone
in symbolic hieroglyphs, the meaning of which was known only to initiates. Unfortunately,
however, these hieroglyphs were easily misunderstood by the common people. Before long,
symbolic images (for example, the asp, lion, and dog, signifying royal virtues) were misread
as pictures of gods or idols, and moral allegories (such as the stories of Horus, Typhon,
Isis, and Osiris) were taken literally as narratives from a polytheist theology. This distorted
version of the ancient wisdom, corrupted into polytheism and idolatry, then spread much
further afield, undergoing further local modifications to give rise to all the heathen religions
of the world.1
1 Noel Malcolm, “Private and Public Knowledge: Kircher, Esotericism, and the Republic of
Letters,” in Paula Findlen, ed., Athanasius Kircher: The Last Man Who Knew Everything (New
York: Routledge, 2004), 302–303.
Chapter Eight: Athanasius Kircher on Egyptian and Chinese Ideography 145
Among the heathen peoples to receive a corrupt version of Edenic ideographic

wisdom were, of course, the Chinese. This ancient hieroglyphic wisdom in fact
explained their form of writing—it was obviously malversated ideographs diffused
from Egypt. And as discussions of the Chinese writing system became inextricably
wrapped up in European ideographic theory in the 17th century, we should take a
momentary aside to summarize their earlier existence in European scholarship.
Juan González de Mendoza’s Historia de las cosas más notables, ritos y costum-
bres de gran Reyno de la China (1585) was the first major European publication to
describe and include examples of Chinese characters. Mendoza was an Augustin
ian monk, and the Historia was compiled at the request of Pope Gregory XIII. By
1600 this book had gone through thirty editions and had been translated into seven
European languages (reaching a grand total of fifty-seven editions by 1674)—and it
was to definitively inspire European intellectuals.2 As Löwendahl points out, “it is
probably no exaggeration to say that Mendoza’s book had been read by the major
ity of well-educated Europeans at the beginning of the 17th century. Its influence
was naturally enormous.”3 Mendoza writes:
It is an admirable thing to consider how that in that kingdome they doo speake manie lan
guages, the one differing from the other: yet generallie in writing they doo understand one
the other, & in speaking not. The occasion is, for… one figure or character unto them all doth
signifie one thing… and in this order doo communicate with them, the Iapones, Lechios
those of Samatra, and those of the kingdome of Quachinchina and other borderers unto
them: whereas in their speech or language, there is no more understanding than betwixt
Greeks and Tuskanes.4
Francis Bacon (1561–1626), on the basis of Mendoza, argues in The Advancement of

Learning (1605) that: “it is the use of China, and the kingdoms of the High Levant,
to write in Characters Real, which express neither letters nor words in gross, but
Things or Notions; insomuch as countries and provinces, which Â�understand not
2 See: Carlos Sanz, “Bibliografía sinóptica de la ‘Historia de… China’ por fray Juan González de
Mendoza,” in Carlos Sanz, Primitivas relaciones de Espaňa con Asia y Oceanía: los dos primeros
libros impresos en Filipinas, mas un tercero en discordia (Madrid: Librería General, 1958), 386–397;
Timothy James Billings, “Illustrating China: Emblematic Autopsy and the Catachresis of Cathay,”
(Ph.D. Diss., Cornell University, 1997), xi, 130n88, 131n89; Honey, Incense at the Altar, 3–4.
3 Björn Löwendahl, China Illustrata Nova: Sino-Western Relations, Conceptions of China, Cultural
Influences and the Development of Sinology: Disclosed in Western Printed Books 1477–1877; The
catalogue of the Löwendahl-von der Burg collection, 2 vols. (Hua Hin: The Elephant Press, 2008), 1:11.
4 Juan González de Mendoza, The Historie of the Great and Mightie Kingdome of China, and
the Situation Thereof: together with the great riches, huge citties, politike gouernment, and rare
inuentions in the same, trans. R. Parke (London: Edward White, 1588), 93.
146 Chapter Eight: Athanasius Kircher on Egyptian and Chinese Ideography
one another’s language, can nevertheless read one another’s writings, because
the characters are accepted more generally than the languages do extend.”5 What
Bacon meant by “Characters Real” might best be explained by Berkeley: “the
ideas imprinted on the sense by the Author of nature are called real things: and
those excited in the Imagination being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more
properly terms ideas, or images of things, which they copy and represent. But then
our sensations, be they never so vivid and distinct, are nevertheless ideas, that
is, they exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as the ideas of its own
framing… they are excited by the will of another and more powerful Spirit; yet
they are still ideas, and certainly no idea, whether faint or strong, can exist oth
erwise than in a mind perceiving it” and “visible ideas are the Language whereby
the Governing Spirit on whom we depend informs us what tangible ideas he is
about to imprint upon us.”6 In other words, Bacon was talking about strong or
soft external ideographs, naturally modeled on the soft and strong internal ideo
graphs mentioned here by Berkeley.
It is only in Nicholas Trigault’s edited Latin translation of Matteo Ricci’s Jour-
nals (1615), however, that the Chinese writing system gets explicitly compared to
hieroglyphic:
First, a few words about Chinese writing in general, in which they employ ideographs
resembling the hieroglyphic figures of the ancient Egyptians. In style and composition their
written language differs widely from the language used in ordinary conversation, and no
book is ever written in the colloquial idiom… the Chinese are not accustomed to speak of
vowels and consonants because every word, just as every object, is represented by its own
ideograph, or symbol, used to represent a thought. The number of ideographs is, therefore,
equal to the number of words… many of the symbols have the same sound in pronunciation,
though they may differ much in written form and also in their signification. Hence it results
that the Chinese is probably the most equivocal of all languages… I am of the opinion that
the equivocal nature of the Chinese language is due to the fact that, from time immemo
rial, they have devoted most of their attention to the development of the written language
and did not concern themselves overmuch with the spoken tongue… while this method of
writing, in which a definite symbol is employed to indicate each separate object, throws
a very heavy burden on the memory, it also possesses a singular advantage to which we
had never previously adverted. Nations which differ widely from one another with respect
to their spoken language, but have a written language in common, will eventually come
into contact through the exchange of books and letters, which contact could never be made
through their spoken vernacular. For instance, the Japanese, the Koreans, the people of
5 Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, in James Spedding, Robert Ellis, and Douglas
Heath, ed., The Works of Francis Bacon, 14 vols. (New York: Garret Press, 1968), 3:399–400.
6 George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning Human Knowledge; Three Dialogues between Hylas and
Philonous (La Salle: Open Court, 1986), 80 and 85.
Cochin, and the Leuhians have books which are common to all, but they differ so widely in
their spoken tongue that no one of them can understand the others. They all understand the
written word in the same sense but each people speaks its own particular dialect. Even in
the various provinces of China the spoken language differs so widely that their speech has
little in common. Yet the common writing forms a thorough basis for contact.
Apart from the fact that writing in Chinese is in itself an accomplishment, and not a
common one, any book written in Chinese was sure to find its way with profit into the fifteen
provinces of the kingdom. Moreover, it would also be understood by the Japanese, the
Koreans, the inhabitants of Cochin China, the Leuchians and even by people of other coun
tries, who would be able to read it as well as the Chinese. While the spoken languages of
these different races are as unlike as can be imagined, they can understand written Chinese
because each individual character in Chinese writing represents an individual thing. If this
were universally true, we would be able to transmit our ideas to people of other countries in
writing, though we would not be able to speak to them.7
That Matteo Ricci, S.J. (1552–1610), who impressed officials of the Ming imperial
court with his excellent spoken Mandarin and shocking erudition—for a for
eigner—in the Chinese classics (having memorized by rote the standard textbook
of the imperial examination, the Four Books with the commentaries of Zhu Xi),
would also give his stamp of approval to such an ideographic vision of Chinese
was quite enough evidence for even the non-Jesuits of his European audience. But
before learning Chinese Ricci had first been trained in Western theology and phi
losophy, and therefore his encounter with and descriptions of the Chinese script
would of necessity consist of preformed inclinations for ideographic theorizing.
Álvaro de Semedo, S.J. (1585–1658) visited Xi’an in 1625 and examined a
recently unearthed Nestorian Christian monument (dated to 781 C.E.), writing the
first page in the long history of this object, which later forms the basis of Kirch
er’s China Illustrata.8 He also published the History of the Great and Renowned
Monarch of China (1641), wherein Semedo expresses a similar ideographic vision
of the Chinese script:
The language which is used in China is of so great antiquity, that many believe it to be one of
the 72, which were at the Tower of Babel… the letters which they use, seem to be as ancient
as the people themselves, for according to their histories it is since the invention of them
3700 years to this present year 1640, in which I wrote this relation. I wil be bold to say that
this is one of the most admirable things in that kingdome: for the number of their letters
being excessive, almost all have some skill in them, at least as much as is sufficient for the
7 Louis Gallagher, trans., China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals of Matthew Ricci: 1583–
1610, translated from the Latin (New York: Random House, 1953), 26–29 and 446–447.
8 For a thorough treatment of the trials and tribulations of this Nestorian monument in European
scholarship (especially that of Kircher), see: Billings, “Illustrating China,” 158–223.
exercise of their trades; and though they are proper only to China, yet they are used in all
the neighboring kingdomes, every one reading them in their own language; as among us
it is in the figures of numbers & of the starres; which are the same all over Europe; and yet
every nation calleth them by different names. They are very proper for embassies, bills, and
bookes. These, although each province have a different language, are common and under
stood of all, as if they had been written in their owne language.9
It is easy to see why the Chinese writing system seemed the ideal model for a univer
sal written language—as there was seemingly solid, documented, and current evi
dence of its use as an ideographic writing system by speakers of unrelated languages.
Andreas Müller (1630–1694) made a stir with his claim that Chinese itself could
serve as a universal written language, and that he had found the key to making it
work; Mungello explains: “when the sinological novice, Andreas Müller of Berlin,
announced in 1674 that he had discovered a ‘Key’ to mastering the Chinese lan
guage which he would reveal upon payment of a premium—half in advance into
escrow, half on delivery—there was a ready-made audience. The story behind
Müller’s Clavis Sinica (Key to the Chinese Language) is surely one of the more
obfuscatingly fascinating tales of scholarship of this age… the apparent end of the
Key clouded the story even more since it and other manuscripts were said to be
destroyed by a discouraged Müller just before his death”; “Müller himself felt that
his Key was largely complete for he estimated that after the payment of the agreed-
upon sum, he would need only a half-year or less in order to prepare the Key for
distribution. With the completed result, he claimed that he would be able to teach
even women and boys within a few days’ instruction to translate a Chinese book
or sheet of Chinese writing into common European tongues.”10
In a letter of 8 October, 1707, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646–1716) wrote:
“‘this study seems to me to be of utmost importance, for if we could Â�discover the
key to the Chinese characters we would find something useful for the analysis
of thought’… and in his great language article in the Miscellanea Berolinesia in
9 The history of the great and reknowned monarch of China: Wherein all the particular provinces
are accurately described: as also the dispositions, manners, learning, laws, militia, government,
and religion of the people, together with the traffick and commodities of that countrey; lately
written in Italian by F. Alvarez Semedo, a Portughess, after he had resided twenty two yeares at
the court, and other famous cities of that kingdom. Now put into English by a person of quality,
and illustrated, with several mapps and figures, to satisfie the curious, and advance the trade of
Great Brittain. To which is added the history of the late invasion, and conquest of that flourishing
kingdom by the Tartars. With an exact account of the other affairs of China, till these present times
(London: E. Tyler, 1655), 31–33.
10 David E. Mungello, Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology (Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner, 1985), 198 and 213.
1710 Leibniz said that if God had taught mankind a language it would have been
something like Chinese.”11 Leibniz had been extremely enthusiastic “when in
1697 he received a letter from Müller’s sinological successor at Berlin, Â�Christian
Mentzel (1622–1701), claiming to have discovered a Clavis Sinica… as with Müller,
Leibniz urged Mentzel to publish his Key. A reply to Leibniz’ letter was quick in
coming. Unfortunately it was from Mentzel’s son, Johann Christian, who explained
that his father was too paralyzed to answer. The young Mentzel wrote that
although his father was practically finished his Key, the printing of the Chinese
characters had presented insuperable difficulties.”12
On the topic of devising such a universal written language, the scholars of the
Port-Royal Abbey (Grammar 1660; Logic 1662) concisely summed up the desider
ata: “we have already said that our need to use external signs to make ourselves
understood causes us to connect our ideas to words in such a way that we often
pay more attention to the words than to the things. Now this is one of the most
common causes of confusion in our thoughts and discourse… the best way to
avoid the confusion in words encountered in ordinary language is to create a new
language and new words that are connected only to the ideas we want them to
represent.”13 Externally displaying (by means of such “a new language” and “new
words”) the semantic universals of soft internal ideography (the “ideas”) is the
basic epistemological assumption underlying all early modern European specu
lation about the possibility of a universal written language. In the mid-17th century,
the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III actually ordered Athanasius Kircher to
construct such a language. Saussy explains that:
A language permitting communication “with all the peoples of the world” would have been
particularly handy for a seventeenth-century Hapsburg monarch whose domains cover
several dozen distinct linguistic areas (including languages as far apart as Italian, Hun
garian, Polish, German, and Croatian) and who had the Turks intermittently at his gates.
What sort of idiom might Ferdinand III have had in mind when he issued his command,
probably in the early 1650s? The projects for universal languages that circulated in the first
half of the seventeenth century promised, in general, to make language learning easy and
universal (one would acquire, in a few hours’ time, a single system of writing applicable
to every language on earth) and, as a prelude to this universal writing, to draw all known
languages back to their “original” or to their “primitive” form. The best-known version
of a universal language project from this period is unfortunately unknown to us except
11 Knud Lundbæk, T. S. Bayer (1694–1738): Pioneer Sinologist (Odder: Curzon Press, 1986), 103.
12 Mungello, Curious Land, 200–201.
13 Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, Logic or the Art of Thinking: Containing, besides common
rules, several new observations appropriate for forming judgment, ed. and trans. Jill Vance Buroker
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 58–60.
through Â�Descartes’s response to it, written in a letter to Mersenne. The project discussed
by Â�Descartes mingles purely technical considerations (simplification of grammar, the avail
ability of a dictionary that could be translated into all existing languages) with the historical
ones (the proposition that by using the new language we might “explain the thoughts of the
ancients through the words that they used, by taking each word as the true definition of
the thing”): it would reunite what had been dispersed not only in space (French, Germans,
English, Italians, and so forth) but in time (ancient Greeks, ancient Romans, contemporary
French, Italians, and so forth). Some aspects of the project discussed by Descartes recall
Francis Bacon’s praise of the Chinese writing system… and that is the only part of the project
that Descartes found praiseworthy: “the whole utility I see resulting from this invention is
its application to writing… with common characters for each primitive word, characters that
would correspond to the sense, not the syllables.” Insofar as they came equipped with a
theory, the newly created languages that adopted the option of the “Characters Real” mostly
held themselves apart from prior history, either presenting themselves as pure conveniences
of communication or describing their new beginning as a chance to do away with the dispu
tatious history of language and translation up to then.14
Compare this to the project discussed by John Locke (1632–1704) in the second
half of the seventeenth century: “but a Dictionary of this sort, containing,
as it were, a Natural History, requires too many hands, and well as too much
time, cost, pains, and sagacity, ever to be hoped for; and till that be done, we
must content our selves with such Definitions of the Names of Substances, and
explain the sense Men use them in… but though such a Dictionary, as I have
above mentioned, will require too much time, cost, and pains, to be hoped for in
this Age; yet, methinks, it is not unreasonable to propose, that Words standing
for Things, which are known and distinguished by their outward shapes, should
be expressed by little Draughts and Prints made of them. A Vocabulary made
after this fashion, would, perhaps with more ease, and in less time, teach the
true signification of many Terms, especially in Languages of remote Countries or
Ages, and settle truer Ideas in Men’s Minds of several Things, whereof we read the
Names in ancient Authors, than all the large and laborious Comments of learned
Criticks… such things are these, which the Eye distinguishes by Draughts made
of them, and more determine the signification of such Words, than any other
Words set for them, or made use of to define them.”15
As a specialist in interpreting the Egyptian hieroglyphs, Kircher seemed the
obvious choice for Ferdinand—the Jesuit father perforce must possess knowledge
of the ideographic components of the universe, the human soul, and the mind of
14 Haun Saussy, “Magnetic Language: Athanasius Kircher and Communication,” in Findlen,

Athanasius Kircher, 267–269.
15 John Locke, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1979), 521–523.
God, so why should he not be able to reduce them to an easy system of writing that
was, on the model of Chinese, applicable to all earthly languages?16 Ferdinand
was especially interested in his youngest brother, Prince Karl Joseph, becoming
fluent in such a universal written language. Wilding describes the outcome of this
project, published by Kircher as Polygraphia nova et universalis (1663), in detail:
By 1660, Kircher had already sent the eleven-year-old prince a copy of the polygraphic
manuscript, which van Hollant claimed he liked immensely. That the manuscript was actu
ally read by its recipient, unlike so many other dedicatory tracts of the time, is shown by
a comment forwarded by van Hollant from the young prince who was being subjected to
Kircher’s experimental pedagogics: in the published version of the polygraphic language,
the manuscript’s use of icons to organize the fifty-four tables of terms was replaced with thir
ty-two tables marked by Roman numerals. The manuscript version organizes its vocabulary
conceptually: all the language’s animals, as well as the terms “animal” and “quadruped,”
are found under the icon of a cow; instruments, from pens to ploughs, are designated by an
icon of a compass, plus their corresponding number. For some of the more abstract terms,
letters are used, which abbreviate the group’s organizing principle; so “CB” (cibus) desig
nates “food.” The fifty-four categories derive from Lullist Combinatory Art, the icons mainly
from Kircher’s interpretations of hieroglyphs. Kircher did not regard them as an arbitrary
system, but as a way of gaining direct access to the universe as it really was. The icons were
later to provide the conceptual vocabulary for The Great Art of Knowing (1669). In terms of
the general development of artificial languages in the seventeenth century, the movement
from a polygraphy based on an alphabetic word list to a conceptually based vocabulary has
been seen as a critical paradigm shift. Kircher’s production moves in the opposite direc
tion, which has led some historians to regard it as the “wrong” direction. Van Hollant’s
letter shows that far from withdrawing from an impending epistemological crisis, Kircher’s
transformation of his polygraphy from a conceptual to an alphabetic system was due to his
patron’s practical requirements. The supposedly fundamental paradigm shift was, in fact,
all too easy to negotiate, and its explanation is rather banal: the eleven-year-old Karl Joseph
found the little icons of angels, trees, and the like, too difficult to draw. Numerical codes were
suggested as an easier option. This point may seem insignificant, but it opens up two very
different notions of early modern writing: Kircher used his icons because they were instru
mental signs—leading, in themselves (and not via an arbitrary linguistic system), to enlight
ening meaning. Thus writing (or drawing) is seen as a means of access to a higher reality.
For the prince, the graphic sign is above all a means of writing as a technology—its efficacy
and ease is more important than the status of the symbol. The construction of philosophical
symbolism comes into conflict with its writing, at the material level of sign production.17
16 Harbsmeier notes that “Kircher considered Chinese as a suitable model for an artificial
universal language built up according to rational principles” (Christoph Harbsmeier, “John Webb
and the Early History of the Study of the Classical Chinese Language in the West,” in Wilson and
Cayley, Europe Studies China, 299).
17 Nick Wilding, “Publishing the Polygraphy: Manuscript, Instrument, and Print in the Work of
Athanasius Kircher,” in Findlen, Athanasius Kircher, 289. For discussion of the “Combinatory Art”
Although both the Emperor and the young prince were ultimately satisfied with
the outcome, what Kircher had actually created, rather than a universal written
language (based on soft or strong ideography), was a cryptography, as “basically
the system is nothing but a one-part code in Latin, with equivalent values in
Italian, French, Spanish, and German. A one-part code is that type which uses
but a single list of the cryptographic symbols called code groups, since when
the latter are arranged in alphabetical or numerical order, their corresponding
meanings will also be in alphabetical order.”18
The users of Polygraphia encryption system must have the manual for decryp
tion (a polyglot dictionary set in numerical, or in the case of the manuscript,
iconic sets) and must also know Latin syntax—which Kircher used for the code.
Thus even the Egyptian Oedipus, master of ideography, was unable to escape the
clutches of normal human language in his attempt to create a practical universal
writing system; all semantic meaning in the code is derived from distinct existing
languages (without the decryption manual and its glosses in actual words from
specific spoken languages, the code is entirely meaningless). In the practical work
of designing a universal writing system, it seems that even Kircher discovered that
the ideograph—soft or strong—has always “presented insuperable difficulties.”
The China monumentis qua sacris qua profanis nec non variis naturae et artis
spectaculis aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrata (1677) is Atha
nasius Kircher’s strangely parallel history of early modern Christianity moving
east and the evidence to be found there of a similar but ancient movement of
knowledge from Egypt to China. It furthermore describes the remarkable differ
ence between Egyptian hieroglyphs and Chinese characters. But lest we forget
the nature of the Jesuit language game, in the section entitled The Idolatry Which
Came from the West First to Persia and India, Then Later Spread to Tartary, China,
and Japan, Kircher prefaces the following: “we marvel, when contemplating the
monuments of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, that a wise nation can fall into
of Ramon Lull (1235–1315), see: J. N. Hillgarth, Ramon Lull and Lullism in Fourteenth-Century
France (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971); Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2001). Historically, it was Leibniz who first used the term “Combinatory Art,” Lull
himself called it the Ars Magna or “Great Art.”
18 George E. McCracken, “Athanasius Kircher’s Universal Polygraphy,” Isis 39.4 (1948): 219.
McCracken adds: “it constitutes, however, a landmark in the history of cryptography even
though its author failed to emphasize its value as a cryptographic system; his primary idea was to
provide an easy means of interlingual communication. It was his intention that a reader knowing
only one of the five languages could write a message in that language and convert it into code
form, and that the recipient knowing only another of the languages, could thereupon read the
message with ease in his own tongue” (221).
blindness, so vile, abject, shameful, and abominable that it honors anything with
the status of a god. We marvel, I say, since a major part of the world is labor
ing under this same insanity, even after the salvation of man has been revealed.
Seeing this causes us pain, so let us stop marveling. To use the language of
physics, a cause always produces the same effect. The old evil one always is tor
menting the world with his tricks.”19
One of the historical tricks of the Adversary, as it turns out, was to remove the
prisca theologia from hieroglyphic writing on its way to China. Because Kircher
needs to preserve the theological purity of the hieroglyphic wisdom of the ancient
Egyptians, he creates a sharp distinction between Chinese (soft) and Egyptian
(strong) ideographs, wherein the Chinese graphs are ‘imperfect’ descendants of
the Egyptian:
We are not speaking here of letters or signs which constitute an alphabet, but of significa
tive characters which show an entire concept in a single character… we read in the Chinese
annals that they began to write about 300 years after the flood. The inventor and king at
that time was named Fohi… I can scarcely doubt that he learned this from the sons of Noah.
In the first book of my Oedipus it is told how Cham first came from Egypt to Persia and then
planted colonies in Bactria. We understand that he was the same as Zoroaster, the king of
the Bactrians. Bactria is the farthest kingdom of the Persians and it borders on the Mogor or
Indian empire. It is opportunely situated for the colonization of China, which was the last
place on earth to be colonized. At the same time the elements of writing were instituted by
Father Cham and Mercury Trismegistos, the son of Nasraimus. Although they learned them
imperfectly, they were able to carry them to China. The old Chinese characters are a very
strong argument for this, for they completely imitate the hieroglyphic writings. First, the
Chinese constructed the characters from things of the world. Then the chronicles teach,
and the form of the characters amply demonstrate, that like the Egyptians they formed their
writing from pictures of animals, birds, reptiles, fishes, herbs, branches of trees, ropes,
threads, points, then later developed a more abbreviated system, which they use right down
to the present date.20
While the Chinese may have imitated the natural world in a manner similar to the
Egyptian priests (Hermes Trismegistus in particular) in the process of creating
their characters, they evidently did not understand the strong ideographs God
delivered to Adam and passed down through the Patriarchs to Hermes Trismegis
tus (and kept secret de rigueur). The only knowledge the Chinese scriptographers
19 Athanasius Kircher, China Illustrata, trans. Charles D. Van Tuyl (Muskogee: Indian University
Press, 1987), 121—all citations are from this translation; Latin text from Athanius Kircher, China
monumentis qua sacris qua profanis, nec non variis naturæ & artis spectaculis, aliarumque rerum
memorabilium argumentis illustrate (Amsterdam: Jacobum a Meurs, 1677).
20 Kircher, China Illustrata, 214.
received was how to create an external representation of the soft ideographs, as

was plainly evident in the East Asian diffusion of this form of writing:
Their characters are used through the entire empire as also in Japan, Korea, Cochin China,
and Tonchin, but the languages are very different. Hence the books and the letters of Cochin
China, Korea, and Tonchin are all written in the same characters, but the people cannot
speak to each other. Just so the Arabic numerals are understood and used all over Europe,
but with quite different pronunciations, so these characters are pronounced differently, but
have the same meaning. It is one thing to know the characters and another to be able to
speak Chinese. A foreigner who has a good memory and studious habits can learn to read
the Chinese books, but still not be able to speak, nor understand speech… A character such
as chun can be pronounced one way in the Mandarin language, another way in Japan, and
still differently in the other kingdoms, yet the meaning of the one character is the same… so
I can tell you that one person who knows one of these languages can get around easily not
only in China, but in all other countries.21
Kircher is here simply reproducing the scholarly consensus of his European con
temporaries, including insisting that the peoples of East Asia read the Chinese
script as if it wrote words in their own languages (which it obviously could not
have done, being by nature ideographic):
Moreover, the Chinese letters are not arranged as an alphabet, as with other nations, nor
do they have words written with letters and syllables. Particular characters do show a par
ticular syllable or pronunciation, but each character has a specific sound and meaning, and
so there are as many characters as there are concepts which the mind wishes to express. If
someone wanted to translate the whole Calepinum into their language, he would have to
use as many different characters as there are different words in that book. Nor do they use
declensions or conjugations, for all these things, as will be seen later, are implicit in their
characters.22
Mere crude nominalism for Kircher, the association of what should properly be
soundless, wordless, and pristine strong ideographs with words and sounds in
Chinese disturbed him. And yet here were all these reports flooding in from his
Jesuit brethren in East Asia, where a supposedly ideographic writing system was
being associated with various forms of speech and used for day-to-day human
activity. Some sort of theoretical model had to be fashioned to explain this:
We said in the preceding chapter that the Chinese formed their first characters from every
thing that they saw in nature, and that they expressed their thought with the arrangement
of these characters. Therefore, when they are describing things with a fiery nature, they
21 Kircher, China Illustrata, 224–225.

22 Kircher, China Illustrata, 214–215.
use serpents, asps, and dragons which by their particular arrangement will indicate a par
ticular word. For describing airy things they used pictures of birds, and for water matters,
fish. When they are creating characters from nature, they use branches, flowers, or leaves.
For stars, they use points or circles, each of which expresses a different star. For indifferent
things they used wood, globes, or thread.23
I have already said it is likely that the descendants of Cham started colonies all the way to
China, and that they spread their writing also. Not that they brought along the Egyptian
hieroglyphs with all their mysteries, but they brought the concepts which are necessary for
expressing the thoughts of the mind… although we find that the Egyptians also derived their
characters from various animals, vegetables, and instruments, there is a great difference in
the two writing systems. The Egyptians did not use the characters in common conversation
with each other, nor was it legal to teach one unless he had been legally and politically del
egated to learn it. Nor did they use these figures of animals casually or in an unlearned way,
but they used them to express hidden powers and functions, and they signify the greatest
mysteries in nature, as is shown in my book Oedipus. Moreover, the hieroglyphic figures
do not show simple syllables or names, but whole concepts so that if you look at a scarab,
it does not refer just to the animal, or to the physical sun, but the occult operations which
its archetype causes in the intelligible world. All these things are completely lacking in the
Chinese characters so that when you look at the sound of a name, this is all that is indicated
and there is no hidden mystery.24
Kircher is wroth to see the historical machinations of Abaddon—causing the

strong ideographs of Egyptian hieroglyphic to transmogrify through time and
space into the soft ideographs of Chinese characters. Perhaps it was enough
that Chinese writing encoded and expressed soft ideographic universals without
intrinsic reference to the common sounds of human languages, that it was a uni
versal writing system throughout East Asia and hence a partial preservation (soft
ideography) of the hieroglyphic wisdom (strong ideography) of ancient Egypt.
Athanasius Kircher’s distinction between Egyptian ideographs (strong theur
gical symbols, never spoken or attached to sound in any way) and Chinese ideo
graphs (graphically representative of soft universals, which can be voiced by
different words in any number of languages) is the perfect dénouement of our
history of ideographic theory in Europe. Similar to Prémare’s analysis of shan 譱,
it simultaneously exemplifies elements of the strong, soft, primitivist, scriptural,
hermetic, scholastic, and emblematic theories.

Chapter Nine: The Great Chinese Encyclopedia
一部名為“天朝仁學廣覽”的中國百科全書… 書中寫道, 動物分為 (a) 屬於皇帝的; (b) 塗香料

的; (c) 馴養的; (d) 哺乳的; (e) 半人半魚的; (f) 遠古的; (g) 放養的狗; (h) 歸入此類的; (i) 騷
動如瘋子的; (j) 不可勝數的; (k) 用駝毛細筆描繪的; (l) 等等; (m) 破罐而出的; (n) 遠看如蒼
蠅的.1
I suspect that anyone reading the above passage—the same passage that
Foucault made so famous with his preface to Les Mots et les choses—will laugh
out loud. The Chinese translation may even be funnier than the Spanish origi
nal. The reason why this passage is so amusing is that Borges characteristically
intended it to be humorous; it is a brilliant parody of European misunderstand
ings of Chinese culture. Perhaps the most ironic aspect of this passage is how
many readers have misread Borges’ intention and taken this description to be
representative of what goes on in Chinese encyclopedias and other lexicographic
works. The presumption on the part of such misreaders is that Chinese language
theory and lexicographic classificatory practices must be so alien as to be unfath
omable—a kind of “kettle logic”2—that it must represent something beyond the
pale because the writing system appears to be so radically dissimilar. As Du
Ponceau pointed out nearly two centuries ago: “It is a just and true remark of the
Rev. M. Gutzlaff, that ‘nothing has so much puzzled the learned world of Europe
as the Chinese language.’ We need not go very far to find out the cause of this
embarrassment. It is produced, like many other difficulties that occur in almost
every science, by the abuse of words, by the use of metaphors instead of plain
intelligible language, and by looking beyond nature for the explanation of her
most simple operations.”3
Some of the most revered figures in the Chinese tradition actually wrote dic
tionaries (and commentaries, and subcommentaries, and marginalia to the sub
commentaries of dictionaries for that matter), and while the harmless drudgery
of philology in the West has never been terribly celebrated (e.g., the early English
1 Wang Yongnian 王永年, trans., Boheshi quanji 波赫士全集, 4 vols. (Taibei: Taiwan shangwu
yinshuguan, 2002), 2:104—this is a complete translation of Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), Obras
Completas. For a compact but informed discussion of traditional Chinese encyclopedias, see:
Hu Daojing 胡道靜, Zhongguo gudai de leishu 中國古代的類書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2005).
2 On the term “kettle logic,” see: James Strachy et al., trans. and ed., The Standard Edition of the
Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 24 vols. (London: Hogarth Press, 1999), 8:205.
3 Du Ponceau, Dissertation, ix.
Chapter Nine: The Great Chinese Encyclopedia 157
definition—“phylologie: love of much babling”4), philology, xiaoxue 小學, was

a mainstay of Chinese civilization and hermeneutic practice for more than two
millennia. It would not be stretching the imagination to say that the philological
practices that inform traditional jingxue 經學 (the study of the Chinese classics)
were held in even greater esteem than poetry—in fact, Chinese poetry was read
using the same fundamental (and largely unquestioned) hermeneutic method.
The practice of philology in China was intended to help the reader better
understand the text, and message of the text was considered to be irremediably
ethical; indeed, the task of reading the classics was ideally supposed to transform
the reader into a sage (i.e., a profoundly sensitive, empathetic, and politically
engaged human being whose ultimate concern was with the rectification of social
injustices perpetrated by those in power, with an eye to preventing such injus
tices in the future insofar as that might be possible via the consumption, produc
tion, and historical transmission of written culture).
Kongzi 孔子 (551–479 B.C.E.), known to Western audiences as “Confucius,”
served as the most important example of what a Chinese sage (sheng 聖) is sup
posed to be, and Confucius was intimately associated with the texts of the clas
sics; it was his politically-charged intentions (alongside but overshadowing the
intentions of earlier sages) that the traditional reader of the texts was looking for.
Confucius, whose convictions can be readily compared to those of a modern-day
social activist, actually describes himself as an utter failure—he was not able to
succeed in making his world a better place (such being a thankless, hopeÂ�less,
and impossible job, while simultaneously being a vocation that can never be
laid aside), and so instead he took up the task of producing and transmitting
written culture in the hopes that he might thereby be able to effect a better future
(in a manner strongly reminiscent of Nietzsche, though with expressly different
goals).5 Chinese philology was a tool specifically formulated by scholars to help
readers discover and feel for themselves these exact ethical intentions. As Van
Zoeren points out, “the central problematic of Chinese hermeneutics was not
how to understand the text but how to be affected by it… the point of study was
less intellectual apprehension of and reflection upon explicit, discursive norms
than it was their internalization and realization. Intellectual understanding of
4 Henry Cockeram, The English Dictionarie: or, An Interpreter of Hard English Words (1623), s.v.
See also the discussion of this definition in: DeWitt T. Starnes and Gertrude E. Noyes, The English
Dictionary from Cawdrey to Johnson (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1946), 28.
5 Cf. “This book belongs to the very few. Perhaps not one of them is even living yet… only the day
after tomorrow belongs to me” (Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist, in Kaufmann, The Portable
Nietzsche, 568–569).
158 Chapter Nine: The Great Chinese Encyclopedia
the meaning of the text was not an end in itself; rather, it was one of the precon
ditions of being moved by it.”6
In introducing the language theory that ultimately serves as the groundwork
of Chinese lexicographic and commentarial practice, we must explain a theory
that was, by definition, always considered to be fundamentally grounded in the
troubled relationship between the writer, the reader, and the political order of the
state. As Bao notes, “the classical conception of language does not view language
as a mere descriptive tool that is a separate entity independent from the world it
describes. Rather, the language and the world are inseparably bound up.”7
For various reasons (especially its macrostructure), the oldest surviving
Chinese dictionary—the Erya 爾雅 (3rd century B.C.E.)—is often called a kind
of thesaurus and has been compared to Roget.8 Calling the Erya a ‘thesaurus’,
however, is extremely problematic for historical analysis (as a certain kind of cul
tural blind spot or ethnocentrism). To explain this, we will be required to make a
brief excursus into the history of Western lexicography and Roget’s Thesaurus of
English Words and Phrases (1852) in particular.
The Thesaurus of Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869), the eponymous thesaurus of
the English-speaking world, has sold more than thirty million copies in innumer
able editions, including 28 editions within Roget’s lifetime9—in fact, it has been
argued that the “vast distribution of this book” is “almost comparable to that of
the Bible.”10 This should not be entirely surprising, Hüllen further explains, as
6 Steven Van Zoeren, Poetry and Personality: Reading, Exegesis, and Hermeneutics in Traditional
China (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), 4.
7 Bao Zhiming, “Language and World View in Ancient China,” Philosophy East & West 40.2
(1990): 195. Cf. “The Chinese are merely interested in the inter-relations between the different
signs, without being bothered by the substance underlying them” (Chang Tung-sun, “A Chinese
Philosopher’s Theory of Knowledge,” Yenching Journal of Social Studies 1.2 [1939]: 172).
8 See, for example: Sin Sing Kong, “A Synthesis of Traditional Linguistic Methodology in the
Shuowen tongxun dingsheng,” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1986), 253–262;
Christoph Harbsmeier, Science and Civilization in China, vol. 7, pt. I, Language and Logic (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1998), 68 and 68n2. Another designation commonly used is
“synonymicon,” see: Arthur von Rosthorn, “Das Er-ya und andere Synonymiken,” Wiener Zeitschrift
für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 49 (1942): 126–144. For a fuller discussion of modern Western
designations for the Erya, which further include such as “a glossary, classified ideologically,” see:
Weldon South Coblin, “An Introductory Study of the Textual and Linguistic Problems in Erh-Ya,”
(Ph.D. Diss., University of Washington, 1972), 8–11; Michael Edward Carr, “A Linguistic Study of the
Flora and Fauna Sections of the Erh-Ya,” (Ph.D. Diss., University of Arizona, 1979), 1.
9 Simon Winchester, “Roget and his brilliant, unrivaled, malign, and detestable thesaurus,” The
Atlantic Monthly 287.5 (2001): 53.
10 Werner Hüllen, A History of Roget’s Thesaurus: Origins, Development, and Design (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2004), 1.
“Roget subscribed to the conviction that the classification of animals and plants
mirrored the order of the universe as designed by God… indeed, his lifelong inter
est in the orderly classification of natural phenomena acquired a quasi-religious
status. He launched a bitter attack against Lamarck (1744–1829), whose mecha
nistic explanations and ideas on evolution competed, he felt, with God’s original
design”; “for Roget, the permanent labour to find the mot juste was guided by
rational ideas on the natural order and taxonomy of words.”11
Roget’s philosophical inclinations were decidedly of the strong and soft
ideographic variety: “the assumption of a pre-existing reality which is to be mir
rored in the ordered arrangement of words.”12 Why it would be an error to project
ideographic theory into the Chinese tradition and onto the Erya itself is exempli
fied in a more recent preface to Roget’s Thesaurus (1965), written by the editor
Robert Dutch, which in describing the macrostructure states: “Since an arbitrary
element cannot be excluded from our choice of heads [i.e., headwords, lemmata],
it would be gratifying if we had an accepted alphabet of ideas under which to list
our vocabularies. If, like the Chinese, we had adopted a system of pictograms to
write our language, symbolizing words by sense not by sound, we should long
ago have been forced to arrange our lexicons by categories of thought, and our
dictionaries would, in effect, be thesauruses.”13
In Roget’s original “Introduction” (1852), he explicitly states his intention in
compiling the Thesaurus: “the present Work is intended to supply, with respect
to the English language, a desideratum hitherto unsupplied in any language;
namely, a collection of the words it contains and of the idiomatic combinations
peculiar to it, arranged, not in alphabetical order as they are in a Dictionary, but
according to the ideas which they express… the object aimed at in the present
undertaking is… the idea being given, to find the word, or words, by which that
idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed.”14
The implication of this ideographic classification system, Roget claims, is
such that:
A work constructed on the plan of classification I have proposed might, if ably executed,
be of great value, in tending to limit the fluctuations to which language has always been
subject, by establishing an authoritative standard for its regulation… nor would its utility
11 Hüllen, History of Roget’s Thesaurus, 15–16 and 26.

12 Hüllen, History of Roget’s Thesaurus, 284.
13 Robert A. Dutch, ed., The Original Roget’s Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: new
edition completely revised and modernized; for the first time American spelling and usage are
incorporated in the original Roget (New York: St. Martin’s, 1965), x.
14 Dutch, Original Roget’s Thesaurus, xxvii.
be confined to a single language; for the principles of its construction are universally appli
cable to all languages, whether living or dead. On the same plan there might be formed a
French, a German, a Latin, or a Greek Thesaurus, possessing, in its respective sphere, the
same advantages as those of the English model. Still more useful would be a conjunction of
these methodized compilations in two languages, the French and the English, for instance;
the columns of each being placed in parallel juxtaposition… in a still higher degree would
all those advantages be combined and multiplied in a Polyglot Lexicon constructed on this
system.15
Metaphysicians engaged in the more profound investigation of the Philosophy of Language

will be materially assisted by having the ground thus prepared for them in a previous analy
sis and classification of our ideas; for such classification of ideas is the true basis on which
words, which are their symbols, should be classified… the principle by which I have been
guided in framing my verbal classification is the same as that which is employed in the
various departments of Natural History. Thus the sectional divisions I have formed cor
respond to Natural Families in Botany and Zoology, and the filiation of words presents a
network analogous to the natural filiation of plants or animals. The following are the only
publications that have come to my knowledge in which any attempts have been made to
construct a systematic arrangement of ideas with a view to their expression.16
Roget follows this last statement by claiming three works as his inspiration: an
English translation of a Sanskrit dictionary with an ideographic macrostructure,
the Pasigraphie of Jean de Maimeieux (1797), and John Wilkins’ An Essay towards
a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668).
John Wilkins (1614–1673) was one of the first Europeans to attempt to create a
soft ideography-based pasigraphy from scratch.17 And Wilkins could not help but
discuss Chinese in the Essay, writing:
As for the China Character and Language so much talked of in the world, if it be rightly rep
resented by those that have lived in that Country, and pretend to understand the Language,
there are many considerable faults in it, which make it come far short of the advantages
which may be in such a Philosophical Language as is here designed. The Multitude of Char
acters and Words, of which there are about 80000, others say 120000, and of these a man
must have in readiness about eight or ten thousand before he is to be counted one that can
write the Character, or judged fit to express his mind by it… these Characters are strangely
complicated and difficult as to the Figure of them… besides the difficulty and perplexedness
of these Characters, there doth not seem to be any kind of Analogy (so far as I am able to
judge) betwixt the shape of the Characters, and the things represented by them, as to the
Affinity or Opposition betwixt them, nor any tolerable provision for Â�necessary Â�derivations…
15 Dutch, Original Roget’s Thesaurus, xli.

16 Dutch, Original Roget’s Thesaurus, xliii and xliii n20.
17 The Oxford English Dictionary (Second Edition) defines pasigraphy as: “a name given to
a system of writing proposed for universal use, with characters representing ideas instead of
words, so as to be (like the ordinary numerals 1, 2, 3 etc.) intelligible to persons of all languages.”
though in some particulars they seem to found their Character upon the Philosophy of
things, yet ‘tis not so in others. The Character put for a precious Stone (saith Semedo) must
be used with additions to it for several kinds of Gems, as Pearls, &c. So the character for
any kind of Tree, must have joined to it, the Character for Wood; and the letter that signi
fies Metals, must be annexed to the Character of Iron, Copper, Steel, &c. The meeting with
which passage, was no small satisfaction to me, in reference to that way which I had before
pitched upon for the most natural expression of things. But this (saith he) is no constant
Rule among them. It should seem to be observed only in some few Species of nature which
are most obvious, there being reason to doubt whether they have any such general Theory
of Philosophy, as might serve for all other things and notions.18
While one cannot but agree with Wilkins’ conclusion—that the Chinese had a
philosophy of language that was in no way comparable to that of the European
tradition—it should be made clear how and why the Erya cannot be explained
inside the episteme of ideography.
The problem with ideographic language theory is that it presumes from the
outset a Eurocentric framework for discussing language, in which “the central
question was the way in which words mirror reality… reality is given precedence…
and language is seen as following it with the identifying function of a name…
a direct consequence of this was… the replacement of an object of reality by a
word… in… dictionaries or word lists which show a strong influence from phil
osophical categories, it is obvious that the word entry was seen as the result of
an act of naming… there was no general skepticism about the epistemological
ability of humans to represent reality in words.”19 Hence we find that, underlying
the assertion that the Erya should be understood as a thesaurus like Roget, there is
the Eurocentric assumption that Chinese language theory is similarly ideograph
ic.20 Taking even the most cursory look at the macrostructure and microstructures
of Roget’s Thesaurus—exactly 1000 entries, every single headword of which is a
noun—it is obvious how implicated in the European ideographic tradition the
lexicographic principle of the Roget-type thesaurus is: it means to be a treatise
explicating the soft ideographic Forms. But if the Erya was not designed to be
18 John Wilkins, An Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (London:
Royal Society, 1668), 450–452.
19 Hüllen, History of Roget’s Thesaurus, 161–162.
20 Hüllen reserves the term thesaurus for Roget-type dictionaries, as “the term ‘thesaurus’
can rightly be reserved for this sort of arrangement. Before Roget, no other dictionary, properly
speaking, had been organized in this way, although at least two works were also thesauri in this
sense, namely John Wilkin’s ‘Tables’ [in the Essay] and Jean de Maimieux’s list and nomenclators
[in the Pasigraphie]… however, neither are dictionaries in the usual sense, but are rather the
semantic part of universal language schemes” (History of Roget’s Thesaurus, 283–284).
such an ideographic book of emblems, how then was it designed? What language
theory underlies the organization and structure of the Erya? How was the Erya
read and used and theorized?
Before one can read the Erya with any degree of precision, everything pre
sumed by the history of European ideographic theory must be resolutely laid
aside. The weight of the discursive habits of more than two thousand years of
European civilization incline us to assume that the non-arbitrariness of the lin
guistic sign is somehow the natural state of all pre-modern discourse on lan
guage. This is simply not the case, and applies in no way to the Chinese tradition.
As Hall and Ames note, “such a resort to the ‘transcendental pretense’ would
lead, as it has often in the past, to a skewed understanding of classical China.”21
The Erya is not a book concerned with strong or soft Forms and how they
relate to human words, but rather entirely with words as ming 名, that is, artificial
(i.e., arbitrary), socially, historically determined signifiers for arbitrarily, socially,
historically determined signifieds.22 In the late third century C.E. a Warring
States-era tomb was looted and dozens of cartloads of books were hauled out
of it.23 This cache most famously included the Zhushu jinian 竹書紀年 and the
Mutianzi zhuan 穆天子傳, but it also included a text which is described in the
Jinshu biography of Shu Xi 束皙 as “名三篇, 似禮記又似爾雅論語; the Ming, in
three pian, resembling the Liji, the Erya, and the Lunyu.”24 It is noteworthy that a
Warring States text even partially resembling the Erya would be called the Ming
名 (and also quite interesting that it would further resemble both the Liji and the
Lunyu). The fragments of the Eastern Han Erya commentary by Li Xun 李巡 are
the first to explicitly identify the entries of the Erya as ming 名. The Shiming 釋名
(200 C.E.), one of the Han imitations of the Erya, obviously follows suit.
The most important aspect of traditional Chinese culture—at least in refer
ence to language theory—is ancestor worship. Rather than devotion to a deity or
deities who created the universe via a cosmogony of divine words or projected
light beams, the deepest religious concern of the ancient Chinese elite was in
21 David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Anticipating China: Thinking Through Narratives of Chinese
and Western Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 11–12.
22 As Knoblock astutely points out, “the term ming was used for all words, whatever their kind
and however they functioned” (John Knoblock, trans., Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the
Complete Works, 3 vols. [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988–1994], 3:113).
23 For discussion, see: Edward Shaughnessy, Rewriting Early Chinese Texts (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2006).
24 Fang Xuanling 房玄齡 (578–648), Jinshu 晉書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1974), 21:1433; cf. the
discussion in Coblin, “An Introductory Study,” 509–510, where he elides the Lunyu for unknown
reasons.
understanding how historically embedded human beings (some, albeit, quasi-

mythological—yet still very much human) politically established and artificially
manipulated the use and meaning of otherwise quite arbitrary words; although
there are a few recognizable cosmogonies in early Chinese texts (e.g., in the
Chuci, Huainanzi, Daodejing, etc.), none have any sort of agent—the cosmos just
happens to come about of its own accord. All knowledge of the cosmos in the
early Chinese tradition, therefore, is considered concrete historical intervention
by humans—literally what the sages had to say about it (rather than “what it is”
by cosmogonic fixation of its ontological nature, content, and structure at the
moment of creation). This forms the foundation (if not the basement, subfloors,
and entire architectonic structure) of all classical Chinese discussions of lan
guage. Although Hobbes might famously argue that “there is no Common-wealth
in the world, wherein there be Rules enough set down, for the regulating of all
the actions, and words of men (being a thing impossible),”25 this is precisely
the premise that Chinese metalinguistic theory is based upon—that it is indeed
Â�possible.
Rather than approaching the Erya under the assumption that Chinese lexi
cographers were ignorant of the real truth about their language because their defi
nition of language and technical linguistic terminology differs significantly from
Western definitions and terms,26 we here presume that the compilers of Chinese
dictionaries and other philological works were making sophisticated claims about
language; these philologists actually began their theoretical tradition with the
arbitrary signifier and—even more crucial in that it is quite distinctively Chinese—
the arbitrary signified. It is strange to suppose that because Chinese philologists
did not in their metalinguistic discussions use terms instantly Â�recognizable to
us, such as equivalents of the word-classes “noun” or “verb” (which have their
25 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), 147.
26 For example: “the doctrine of the Rectification of names is one that Liu Hsi believed in very
strongly… it would seem that Liu Hsi, very naively from a modern point of view, really believed
in his sound glosses” (Nicholas Cleaveland Bodman, A Linguistic Study of the Shih Ming: Initials
and Consonant Clusters [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954], 6–7); “such is the history of
Chinese writing as outlined in the Preface to the Shuo wên, and it has been generally accepted
during the eighteen centuries since Hsü Shên wrote his famous dictionary. No more striking
example of the conservative immobility of Chinese thought could be found than the persistence of
these legends. Western writers still reproduce them as historical data in textbooks on the evolution
of the script. Only in comparatively recent times have a few writers, native and foreign, tackled the
subject in a scientific spirit, freed from the trammels of immemorial tradition” (W. Perceval Yetts,
The George Eumorfopoulos Collection Catalogue of the Chinese & Corean Bronzes, Sculpture, Jades,
Jewellery, and Miscellaneous Objects, 3 vols. [London: Ernest Benn, 1929–1932], 1:1–2).
origins in Greek metaphysics, and are not ultimately in themselves without ques
tion), that they did not possess viable categories for breaking down language and
lexicon into significant units and classifications.
As previously mentioned, the Erya is the oldest Chinese dictionary extent.
While there are many pre-Han (and Han-era) dictionaries preserved only in frag
ments, they are in most cases lexicographically almost useless—the macrostruc
ture is completely gone, and the microstructures of individual entries, as they
come down to us, are problematic (for example, if we accept the authenticity
of the microstructures of the surviving fragments of the Cangjie pian as is, this
would imply that fanqie was in use during the Qin dynasty).27 The Erya has been
described in recent Western scholarship as a collection of glosses on old texts
topically or taxonomically (i.e., ideographically) organized.28 This is a misleading
frame of reference for approaching the Erya that can end up misrepresenting the
entire history of Chinese language theory; it needs to be significantly modified.
In order to dignify the linguistic claims of the Erya, to give it the respect we
may unquestionably grant such as Varro’s De Lingua Latina,29 let us assume that
27 The early dictionary fragments, however, cannot be completely neglected, and Ma Guohan
馬國翰 (1794–1857) has carefully and conveniently collected many of them in his Yuhanshanfang
ji yishu 玉函山房輯佚書 (Changsha: Langhuan guan, 1883). The fragments of pre-Han and Han
dictionaries contained in this work are as follows: “Shizhou pian 史籀篇,” 59.2a–59.15b; “Cangjie
pian 蒼頡篇 [which includes the Yuanli pian 爰歷篇 and Boxue pian 博學篇],” 59.16a–59.78b;
“Fanjiang pian 凡將篇,” 60.1a–60.4a; “Xunzuan pian 訓纂篇,” 60.5a–60.7a; “Cangjie xungu 蒼頡
訓詁,” 60.8a–60.11a; “Sancang 三蒼 [which includes the Pangxi pian 滂喜篇],” 60.12a–60.29b;
“Guwen guanshu 古文官書,” 60.30a–60.52a; “Zazi zhi 雜字指,” 60.53a–60.55b; “Quanxue pian
勸學篇,” 60.56a–60.57b. For discussion of many of these lost dictionaries, see: Françoise Bottéro,
“Les manuels de charactères à l’époque des Han occidentaux,” in Christine Nguyen Tri and
Catherine Despeux, ed., Education et instruction en Chine (Paris: Peeters, 2003), 99–120; Liu Yeqiu
劉葉秋, Zhongguo zidian shilue 中國字典史略 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1983), 11–14 and 51–54.
28 Coblin describes the organization of the Erya as follows: “Erya has been considered by
generations of traditional scholars as an authoritative guide to the Classics… it may have been
intended as a reference work, a teaching tool, or perhaps both; but for the present we must
content ourselves with the observation that it appears to be the result of an effort to collect and
to a certain extent arrange topically an extensive body of information on the vocabulary of early
Chinese texts” (“An Introductory Study,” 11). Carr describes the Erya in a slightly different fashion:
“The Erya is the archetypal nucleus of early Chinese lexicography” (“A Linguistic Study,” 1); “the
semantic and lexical fields of the Erya can to some extent be viewed as analogous with the world
views of the Erya compiler. There is a general correspondence between taxonomic nomenclature
and taxonomic classifications” (“A Linguistic Study,” 103).
29 As Law notes, “Varro, like Plato, is anxious to discover unchanging, absolutely true aspects
of language… from this Varro draws a linguistic conclusion: ‘Because there are four basic kinds
of things, there are correspondingly four basic kinds of words’” (Vivien Law, The History of Linguistics
the Chinese tradition of theorizing language deserves to be taken seriously on its

own terms. It is immediately clear upon attempting to do so that simply by means
of its macrostructure the Erya argues that there are 19 lexical classes (consider
them, if need be, along the lines of the Greek metaphysical word classes “verb,”
“noun,” etc.), and has divided up its lexicon accordingly. Once this interpretive
leap is made, the first step into the world of traditional Chinese lexicography
proper can be taken.
While this step may seem dubious to some, let me reiterate once again that the
Chinese, unlike Europeans, were not obsessed with transcendental—not of this
world, eternal, unchanging, and absolutely true in all cases—distinctions when
analyzing language (i.e., the Forms, God, the Active Intellect, universals, nouns,
etc.); the philological discussions of the nature of language and its role in society
that began during the Warring States period in China always took for granted
that language is arbitrary and artificial—that words are units of articulated
sound with socio-politically agreed-upon meaning, that words change in pro
nunciation, meaning, and written form through space and time, and that words
have no ontologically fixed reference outside of their historical usage by specific
human beings.30
Hence, in approaching the Erya, we will also presume, as is traditional in its
interpretation in China, that it is structured by some sort of authorial intent; we
will not assume that it is a heterogeneous collection of glosses cobbled together
in a haphazardly topical or conceptual fashion by many different people. Looking
at it from the perspective of its interpretation by lexicographers and philolo
gists, and seeing its influence on dictionary-making and commentary-writing, it
appears that the nineteen lexical classes (and thirty-nine subclasses) of the Erya,
presumed by all commentators to be intentional, really do mean something—
something of import to the history of Chinese lexicography and subsequent lan
guage theory.
Before examining the lexical classifications of the Erya, however, it would
perhaps behoove us to look in some more detail at the Chinese writing system.
in Europe from Plato to 1600 [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003], 44). Remarking
upon the historical influence of the Greek and Latin grammarians (and the ideographic theories
they all shared) on fundamental aspects of modern linguistics is, one hopes, not necessary. As
Benveniste says, “everyone knows that Western linguistics originated in Greek philosophy… our
linguistic terminology is made up in large part of Greek terms adopted directly or through their
Latin translations” (Émile Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics, trans. Mary E. Meek [Coral
Gables: University of Miami Press, 1971], 18).
30 For discussion of the history of this Chinese language theory, see: Hu Qiguang 胡奇光,
Zhongguo xiaoxue shi 中國小學史 (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 2005).
We will do this, first and foremost, by analyzing classical Chinese discussions of

language. No matter how many times European theologians and philosophers
(and twentieth century critical theorists for that matter) have posited some form
of ‘non-phonetic writing’ (a.k.a., ideographs, pasigraphy, soul-inscription, etc.)
and identified Chinese as being such, Chinese writing is—at least according to
the claims of traditional Chinese scholars, philologists, and lexicographers—pho
netic in nature; it writes words. How else could it record direct discourse, like
what “子曰; Confucius said”?
The phonetic nature of Chinese lexigraphic writing is not just seen in ono
matopoeia—e.g., the dictionary definition “唧唧, 鼠聲也; ‘*tshjit-*tshjit’ (Eng.
‘squeak-squeak’) is the sound mice make,” 31 or the poetic “關關; *kwran-*kwran
(Eng. ‘caw-caw’),” the sound ospreys make32—but can be also seen in something
as prosaic as the typo. Typos in Chinese texts are most often sound-based; this
phenomenon was so obvious that even nineteenth century missionaries in China
were able to recognize it:
It is not easy to procure a cheap copy of any Chinese book which does not abound in false
characters. Sometimes the character which is employed is more complex than the one
which should have been used, showing that the error was not due to a wish to economize
work, but it is rather to be credited to the fact that ordinary accuracy is considered as of
no import. A like carelessness of notation is met with in far greater abundance in common
letters, a character being often represented by another of the same sound, the mistake being
due as much to illiteracy as to carelessness.33
31 Tongsu wen, frag. 366, in Fu Qian 服虔 (fl. 2nd century C.E.), Tongsu wen jijiao 通俗文輯校, ed.
Duan Shuwei 段書偉 (Zhengzhou: Zhongzhou guji chubanshe, 1993), 91. For a good discussion
of this lost dictionary, see: Lin Mingpo 林明波, Tang yiqian xiaoxueshu zhi fenlei yu kaozheng
唐以前小學書之分類與考證 (Taibei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1975), 723–730. This and all
following reconstructions of Old Chinese are according to the system of Li Fanggui: Fang-kuei
Li, “Archaic Chinese,” in David N. Keightley, ed., The Origins of Chinese Civilization (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1983); Gilbert L. Mattos, trans., “Fang-kuei Li’s ‘Studies on Archaic
Chinese’,” Monumenta Serica 31 (1974–1975): 219–287; Li Fanggui 李方桂, Shangguyin yanjiu 上古
音研究 (Beijing: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1971).
32 The onomatopoeic binomial guan-guan 關關 is the first word of the first poem of the oldest
collection of Chinese poetry, the Shijing 詩經 “Classic of Poetry,” traditionally dated 10th-6th
centuries B.C.E.
33 Arthur H. Smith, Chinese Characteristics: Enlarged and Revised Edition with Marginal and
New Illustrations (Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1970), 55–56. Smith’s infamous Chinese
Characteristics, originally published in 1894 and translated into Japanese in 1896, ended
up playing a rather unpleasant role in the development of modern Chinese identity politics
and nationalism, particularly via the writings of Lu Xun 魯迅 (1881–1936)—see: Lydia H. Liu,
Translingual Practice: Literature, National Culture, and Translated Modernity: China, 1900–1937
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 51–60; David E. Pollard, The True Story of Lu Xun
This passage points out a practical phenomenon that has always been recognized
by Chinese philologists—the fact that one of the most common errors in writing
and textual transmission is the accidental (or sometimes intentional) substitu
tion of one written word with another word whose pronunciation is identical or
near-identical. In order to discover where and when such typos slipped into texts,
it is incumbent upon the reader to know how the word was pronounced when
the text was written, copied, edited and/or re-edited, printed, and reprinted—one
cannot perform even the most basic textual criticism on a classical Chinese text
without a general understanding of historical phonology (yinyunxue 音韻學 or
shengyunxue 聲韻學).34
In using classical Chinese dictionaries, a general understanding of historical
phonology is also essential. While some of the entries found in dictionaries are
quite simple, such as, “鼻塞曰鼽; ‘*gjəgw’ is the word for a stuffy nose,”35 many
of the glosses to be found in lexicographic works (and philological commentar
ies for that matter) are paronomastic. The term paronomasia, a ‘pun’ or ‘play on
words’, has been defined in traditional European linguistic discourse as “a slight
change of a verb or a noun when the alternation of a letter or a syllable changes
the meaning,”36 and plays an important role in the history of the study of etymol
ogy. The Chinese definition of paronomasia—as appropriate for a morphologi
cally isolating language that uses a lexigraphic writing system—is slightly differ
ent (though still playing a key role in historical etymology): “其字雖異, 其音與義
頗同; although the written graphs are different, the pronunciation and meaning
of the words are more or less the same.”37 Again, a ‘pun’ or ‘play on words’.
To give the reader a working example of lexical paronomasia in classi
cal Chinese, I have chosen a concrete and visceral word, a term coming out of
魯迅正傳 (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 2002), 26–27. For a discussion of the “lack of
accuracy” identified as being “essentially Oriental,” see: Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York:
Random House, 1979), 38 and 47.
34 On the history of historical phonology in China, see: Zhang Shilu 張世祿, Zhongguo yinyunxue
shi 中國音韻學史, 2 vols. (Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1998).
35 Shiming shuzheng, 8.260.2, in Bi Yuan 畢沅 (1730–1797), Shiming shuzheng 釋名疏證 (Taibei:
Guangwen shuju, 1977). It is an open question whether or not the word *gjəgw is intended to be
onomatopoeia for nasal congestion.
36 Martianus Capella, The Marriage of Philology and Mercury, 200; cf. Isidore of Seville,
Etymologies, 1.36.12. Of course this definition can only hold true for languages with inflectional
morphology that use alphabetic or syllabaric writing systems.
37 Yanshi jiaxun, 17.106a11, in Yan Zhitui 顏之推 (531–597), Yanshi jiaxun huizhu 顏氏家訓彙注,
ed. Zhou Fagao 周法高 (Taibei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1994).
medical discourse: zhi 痔 “hemorrhoids.”38 The key definition of this term comes
from the Shiming 釋名 “Explaining Words,” compiled by the Eastern Han scholar
Liu Xi 劉熙 (fl. 200 C.E.), a dictionary which is one of the most important early
imitations of the Erya.39 Lexicographically, the microstructures of the Shiming are
centered around 1502 paronomastic head-entries.40 The definition of the word
zhi “hemorrhoids” in the Shiming reads: “痔, 食也. 蟲食之也; the word ‘hemor
rhoids’ is etymologically related to the word ‘to feed’. This is because worms ‘feed
off’ the hemorrhoids.”41 Comparing a few other traditional Chinese definitions of
this word, one can see that Liu Xi’s intriguing gloss was important in the lexico
logical tradition:
“痔, 後病也; hemorrhoids are an ailment of the behind.”42
“痔… 病也; hemorrhoids… are a type of ailment.”43
38 In translating zhi 痔 into English, there is a choice between the more British-sounding “piles”
and the more American-sounding “hemorrhoids” (coming from the Latin noun pilae “balls” or
the Greek adjective haimorroida “discharging blood,” respectively), I have chosen “hemorrhoids”
for etymological reasons, as we shall see below.
39 As Bodman mentions, “the Shih ming’s topical categories are most clearly an adaptation of
those in the Erh ya” (A Linguistic Study, 7). The Shiming was later renamed and included among
the wuya 五雅, the “five Erya-type dictionaries”—see: Dou Xiuyan 竇秀艷, Zhongguo yaxue shi
中國雅學史 (Jinan: Qilu shushe, 2004), 77–84.
40 The best work on the Shiming in English is still Ronald Eugene Dolan, “A Semantic Study of
the ‘Shih Ming’,” (Ph.D. Diss., Georgetown University, 1978), which includes an excellent (if brief)
chapter on its authorship, textual issues, and a summary of traditional and modern scholarship
(1–27), and further includes a translation and discussion of the first nine lexical classes (28–206).
For the modern punctuated and annotated edition of the Shiming that has become the standard
edition, see: Ren Jifang 任繼昉, Shiming huijiao 釋名匯校 (Jinan: Qilu shushe, 2006).
41 Bi Yuan, Shiming shuzheng, 8:264.5.
42 Shuowen jiezi, 7B.6a3, in Xu Xuan 徐鉉 (917–992), ed., Songkan shuowen jiezi 宋刊說文解字,
6 vols. (Beijing: Xianzhuang shuju, 2005)—unless otherwise mentioned, all references to the
Shuowen jiezi are to this edition.
43 Guangya shuzheng, 1A.22b8–9, in Wang Niansun 王念孫 (1744–1832), Guangya shuzheng 廣雅
疏證 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004). I have also consulted two other editions: Wang Niansun,
Guangya shuzheng 廣雅疏證 (Taibei: Guangwen shuju, 2005); Wang Niansun, Guangya shuzheng
廣雅疏證 (Sibu beiyao 四部備要), in Xiaoxue mingzhu liuzhong 小學名著六種 (Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 1998).
44 Yupian, B.8b5, in Gu Yewang 顧野王 (519–581), Daguang yihui yupian 大廣益會玉篇, ed. Chen
Pengnian 陳彭年 (961–1017) et al. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004), 56. I have also consulted three
other editions of the Yupian: Yuanben yupian canjuan 原本玉篇殘卷 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
“痔, 蟲食後之病也; hemorrhoids are an ailment in which worms feed off the behind.”45
“痔, 蟲食下部漉血也; as for hemorrhoids, worms feed off blood dripping from the bottom
parts.”47
“痔, 後分病也…下部病也; hemorrhoids are an ailment of the crack in the behind… an

ailment of the bottom parts.”48
“痔, 病也; hemorrhoids are a type of ailment.”49
“痔… 蟲食後病也; as for hemorrhoids… they are an ailment in which worms feed off the
behind.”50
From the perspective of modern physiological knowledge, we would say that Liu
Xi’s definition contains a basic misunderstanding of the symptoms (i.e., itchi
ness, burning sensations, rectal bleeding) of two distinct medical conditions:
pouch-like swollen ruptured blood vessels versus actual parasite infestations.
The reason for the Shiming definition, however, has very little to do with medical
etiology; it has everything to do, rather, with the historical etymology of the two
words of the paronomastic gloss. Liu Xi’s argument is that because the pronun
ciation of the word *drjəgx 痔 “hemorrhoid” is very similar to that of the word
*sdjəgh 食 “to feed” (Jiyun: 祥吏切),51 then it may well be the case that these
words are indeed etymologically related—that they derive from the same histor
ical etymon—and so one might even translate the word zhi 痔, at least in this
2004); Guozi zhengli xiaozu 國字整理小組, ed., Yupian 玉篇, 2 vols. (Taibei: Guoli zhongyuan
tushuguan, n.d.); Gu Yewang, Yupian (Sibu beiyao), in Xiaoxue mingzhu liuzhong (op. cit.).
45 Jijiu pian zhu, 4:271.4, in Yan Shigu 顏師古 (581–645), Jijiu pian zhu 急就篇注 (Changsha:
Yuelu shushe, 1989).
46 Li Shan wenxuan zhu, 19.10a10, in Li Shan 李善 (d. 689), Wenxuan zhu 文選注 (Taibei:
Huazheng shuju, 1989), 269. Cf. Zengbu liuchen zhu wenxuan 增補六臣註文選 (Taibei: Huazheng
shuju, 1980), 349.
47 Huilin yiqie jing yinyi, 63.19a2, in Huilin 慧琳 (737–820), Yiqie jing yinyi 一切經音義, 8 vols.
(Taibei: Datong shuju, 1984), 4:1391.
48 Xu yiqie jing yinyi, 6.21b, in Shi Xilin 釋希麟 (fl. 985), Xu yiqie jing yinyi 續一切經音義, in
Huilin, Yiqie jing yinyi (op. cit.), 5:44 (separately paginated).
49 Guangyun, 253.2, in Chen Pengnian 陳彭年 (961–1017) et al., Jiaozheng songben guangyun
校正宋本廣韻 (Taibei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 2004).
50 Shuowen jiezi yizheng, 22.57a7, in Gui Fu 桂馥 (1736–1805), Shuowen jiezi yizheng 說文解字義
證, 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998).
51 Ding Du 丁度 (990–1053) et al., Songke jiyun 宋刻集韻 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1989),
7.15b3–4. For further evidence that this was the reading that Liu Xi was intending, cf. the Shuowen
entry (Xu Xuan, Shuowen jiezi, 7B.6a3) that correctly identifies 寺 *sdjəgh (also 祥吏切) as the
phonetic of 痔 *drjəgx.
Â�
lexicological context, as “feeders,” a word which combines both medical condi
tions noted above.
This entire discussion (and hence the whole language-theoretical backdrop
for the Shiming) is based on the fact that Chinese characters write words and
words are sounds and that if the sounds of two words are similar then it is pos
sible that these words may be historically and etymologically related (i.e., the
Chinese version of paronomasia taken to its methodological extreme in Liu Xi’s
etymological glosses). Although the Romanized Old Chinese reconstructions of
these two words may look different, within the bounds of traditional Chinese
phonology *drjəgx and *sdjəgh are pronounced similarly enough to be consid
ered almost homophonous in Old Chinese (and thus could have replaced each
other as ‘typos’ or loan characters in ancient texts).52
If, due to the enormous influence of the ideographic episteme in Western
civilization, one assumes that lexigraphic writing is not by definition a type of
phonetic writing, then everything the Chinese philological tradition has ever
said must somehow be in error. For example, a certain Chinese philologist, in
remarking on the type of sound glosses that occur in the Shiming, says “以音定
字; it uses the pronunciation to define the written words.”53 Another Chinese
philologist reminds us of how historical etymology works, stating “解義則可通
聲; if one explicates the meaning of a word then one can understand the sound
of that word.”54 Yet another Chinese philologist reiterates: “夫形聲相生, 音義
相轉; in any particular case, the graphic structure of a written word produces
the sound and sound produces the graphic structure, and if the pronunciation
changes then the meaning of the word changes and vice versa.”55 And again a
Chinese philologist explains: “有形而後有聲, 有形聲而後有意與事; you have the
graphic structure of the written word and from that you have the sound of the
52 The linguistic criteria for just how close is phonologically close enough is that at least one of
the consonants in the initial consonant cluster is in the same place of articulation and that the
words rhyme, with the caveat that Old Chinese rhymes need not agree in tone, as Old Chinese in
fact had no tones. Gu Yanwu 顧炎武 (1613–1682) was the first to point this out, stating: “古無平
上去入, 四聲通為一音; in antiquity there was no distinction between ‘even’, ‘rising’, ‘falling’ and
‘entering’ tones, the four tones were understood to be the same in pronunciation” (Yinxue wushu,
56.2b3, in Gu Yanwu, Yinxue wushu 音學五書 [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2005]).
53 Gu Yanwu, Yinxue wushu, 39.18b2. Cf. “按字求音; rely on the written word to seek out the
pronunciation” (Yunjing, 序, 1.8, in Li Xinkui 李新魁, ed., Yunjing jiaozheng 韻鏡校證 [Beijing:
Zhonghua shuju, 2006]. The first preface of the Yunjing is dated 1203 C.E.).
54 Jingdian shiwen, 8.24b9, in Lu Deming 陸德明 (550–630), Jingdian shiwen 經典釋文, 2 vols.
(Jinan: Shandong youyi shushe, 1991).
55 Shuowen jiezi xizhuan, 陳敘, 1.5–6 and 3.3–4, in Xu Kai 徐鍇 (920–974), Shuowen jiezi xizhuan
說文解字繫傳 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998).
word, then, when you have the graphic structure and the sound, from that there
is the meaning and use-value of the word.”56
The assumption of the phonetic basis of lexigraphic writing in the Chinese
tradition actually goes all the way back to narratives of the creation of writing in
China: “書契之作, 先有聲音而後有訓詁; as for the creation of writing, first there
were the sounds and the pronunciations of the words and only after there were
explanatory glosses.”57 The “explantory glosses” to which this philologist refers
are the definitions of the meanings of words found in dictionaries, such as the
Erya, and in commentaries, such as the Gongyang zhuan 公羊傳 (an early canon
ical commentary on the Chunqiu 春秋 “Spring and Autumn Annals,” one of the
original classics considered to have been compiled by Confucius himself).
The Gongyang zhuan, for its part, says: “習其讀而問其傳… [何休注曰] 讀謂
經, 傳謂訓詁; practice reading the Chunqiu out loud, and ask about its explana
tions… [on which the subcommentary of He Xiu 何休 (129–182 C.E.) says:] the word
‘reading out loud’ in this case refers to reading the text of the classic out loud, the
word ‘explanations’ in this case refers to asking one’s teacher for explanatory
glosses (such as the definitions recorded in dictionaries and commentaries).”58
One of the three branches of Chinese philology is xunguxue 訓詁學 “the study of
explanatory glosses”—explanatory glosses being the definitions of words found
in dictionaries, commentaries, and other lexicographic works, exemplified above
in the various glosses of word zhi 痔 “hemorrhoids.”
The mainland abstract artist and MacArthur grant recipient Xu Bing (1955- )
exhibited his strangely remarkable Tianshu 天書 “Writings from Heaven” instal
lation in the late 1980s in Beijing. He took recognizable graphic components from
Chinese characters, combined them in new ways to make nonsense neoscrip
tisms, and hand-carved these freshly invented characters into thousands of indi
vidual woodblocks. Xu then used the woodblocks to print up handsomely bound
books and scrolls—in the format of the most dignified classical texts (including
several that were clearly imitating dictionaries)—and displayed them in the instal
lation. His Chinese viewers found the whole thing very disturbing, a few even
56 Shuowen tongxun dingsheng, 自敘, 1a2, in Zhu Junsheng 朱駿聲 (1788–1858), Shuowen
tongxun dingsheng 說文通訓定聲 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998).
57 Gui Fu, Shuowen jiezi yizheng, 1.4b5–6.
58 Gongyang zhuan, 定 1, 25.1b3, in Chunqiu Gongyang zhuan Heshi jiegu 春秋公羊傳何氏解詁
(Taibei: Taiwan zhonghua shuju, 1992). Reading was traditionally done out loud in China (and
is still done that way in certain Chinese educational settings today); the classical Chinese word
du 讀, used in the context of reading, always meant “read out loud.” See the discussion in: Jack
Chen, “On the Act and Representation of Reading in Medieval China,” Journal of the American
Oriental Society 129.1 (2009): 57–71.
claiming that it induced heart palpitations. As Abe says, “Xu described A Book from
the Sky as a kind of teasing or joke. The tension produced through the repeated
frustration of the desire to read meaning into the text, however, is a strategy
that is limited to those who are literate in Chinese. For the Beijing audience who
experienced A Book from the Sky in 1988 and 1989, there was much force to his no-
sense characters. A non-Chinese-reading audience, however, cannot be seduced
into the game of searching the text for readable forms, and therefore there is no
impulse to read and no shock of illegibility.”59 Scanning through hundreds, if not
thousands of pseudo-characters—whose prestigious context makes it look like
the ‘texts’ in which they are printed should be both reverenced and read with
care (and the neoscriptisms were after all combinations of instantly recognizable
graphemes)—that are utterly meaningless because they cannot be read as a word
in any language, is a sound reminder of just how the Chinese script works.
Some of the most common glosses in Chinese philological works are sound
glosses, which generally use the fanqie 反切 spelling method. After the third
century C.E. Chinese dictionaries (and commentaries and other lexicographic
works) almost without exception used fanqie to gloss how words are pronounced.
According to traditional philological history, it was actually one of the early
commentaries to the Erya that was the first text to use such fanqie glosses. As
Yan Zhitui says, “孫叔言創爾雅音義, 是漢末人獨知反語; Sun Yan compiled the
Erya yinyi, and this goes to show that it was only near the end of the Eastern
Han dynasty that people knew the fanqie method.”60 The fanqie method “以聲
求字; uses sound to seek out the written word.”61 One needs such sound glosses
because “讀書難字過不知音… 即音而知字; in reading books, when a difficult
word is encountered one does not know its pronunciation… when62 one can
59 Stanley K. Abe, “No Questions, No Answers: China and A Book from the Sky,” Boundary 2
25.3 (1998): 184.
60 Yanshi jiaxun, 18.119a6–8. Cf. Wang Liqi 王利器, ed., Yanshi jiaxun jijie 顏氏家訓集解 (Taibei:
Mingwen shuju, 1982), 436 and 473. There has been a minor revision of this argument in the 20th
century, placing the origins of fanqie slightly earlier in the Eastern Han (by showing its use, for
example, in the Hanshu commentary of Ying Shao 應劭 [140–204 C.E.])—see: Ogawa Tamaki 小川
環樹, “Hansetsu no kigen to shisei oyobi goin 反切の起源と四聲及び五音,” Gengo kenkyū 言語
研究 19/20 (1951): 35–42; Weldon South Coblin, A Handbook of Eastern Han Sound Glosses (Hong
Kong: Chinese University Press, 1983), 6, 6n10, and 14.
61 Jingshi zhengyin qieyun zhinan, 序, 1.12, in Liu Jian 劉鑒 (fl. 1336), Jingshi zhengyin qieyun
zhinan 經史正音切韻指南, in Dengyun wuzhong 等韻五種 (Taibei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 2003).
62 “廣雅曰則, 即也… 即與則同”(Wang Yinzhi 王引之 [1766–1834], Jingzhuan shici 經傳釋詞
[Taibei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1966], 8:415). See also the newer (and much finer) edition:
Wang Yinzhi 王引之, Jingzhuan shici 經傳釋詞 (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 2000), 8.15b5–6.
Â�
pronounce it then one understands the word.”63 In other words, what the Yunjing
preface is saying here is if you do not know how to pronounce a word in any par
ticular Chinese text, this means you simply do not understand the word. In order
to help readers understand words, the fanqie method was introduced.
Gu Yanwu defines fanqie as follows: “用二字聚作一體謂之切; using two
written words amalgamated together to make one whole (sound) is what is
referred to as fanqie.”64 Another definition is perhaps more perspicuous: “切語之
法, 以二字為一字之音: 上字與所切之字雙聲, 下字與切之字疊韻; the method of
fanqie uses two written words to fashion the pronunciation of one written word.
The upper-speller word and the glossed word alliterate, the lower-speller word
and the glossed word rhyme.”65 Due to the phonological structure of Chinese syl
lables, fanqie is a relatively unproblematic way to reproduce in writing the pro
nunciation of any particular word, to ‘spell’ it. So, it being the case that “同歸一
母則為雙聲; 同出一韻為疊韻; if words have the same initial consonant then they
alliterate, and if the words have the same end-rhyme then they rhyme,”66 one
can in this manner use two written words in a lexigraphic writing system (such
as Chinese) to spell another word, to formulaically annotate its pronunciation—
presuming, of course, that the reader already knows how to pronounce both the
upper-speller (initial) and the lower-speller (medial, final, coda) words in any
particular fanqie gloss.
To illustrate this further, imagine for a moment that the English language
had an entirely different morphological structure—that all basic morphemes
in English consisted of a single (albeit complex) syllable and that there was no
inflection performed on any of them, and therefore all English words were as a
rule constructed out of one or more meaning-bearing syllables, syllables which
as distinct units of meaningful sound are always pronounced the same (at least
synchronically). Imagine further that English was normally written with a lexi
graphic script, each distinct meaningful syllable being assigned a different graph.
In this imaginary and all too simplistic lexigraphically-written isolating-mor
phology English, let us pretend for a moment that the word bud is designated in
writing by the rebus of a flower bud [{], that the word bat is designated in writing
by a rebus of a bat [d], and that the word mud is designated in writing by a rebus
63 Yunjing, 序, 1.1–2.
64 Yinxue wushu, 53.17b1–2.
65 Qieyun kao, 1:3, in Chen Li 陳澧 (1810–1882), Qieyun kao 切韻考 (Guangzhou: Guangdong
gaoji jiaoyu chubanshe, 2004); cf. Qieyun kao, 6:156.
66 Qieyun zhizhangtu, 序, 4.5–6, in (Pseudo-)Sima Guang 司馬光, Qieyun zhizhangtu 切韻指掌圖,
in Dengyun wuzhong (op. cit.).
of a mudpie [Î]. Given these three English words, one could perform a Â�Chinese-style
fanqie sound gloss as follows: {: d, Î 切—“the word bud is pronounced ‘bud’.”
In other words, the pronunciation of the English word { [bud] is in this case pho
netically ‘spelled’ by the initial sound b- from the word d [bat] and the medial
and final sound -ud from the word Î [mud]. This only works, of course, if you are
reading the rebuses { d Î as written English; rebus-writing is by definition
always language-specific, and so, for example, if you tried to read this as German
using the same rebuses: { [Knospe]: d [Fledermaus], Î [Schlamm] 切, it clearly
would not work—you would get something like “the word Knospe is pronounced
‘Flamm’,” in that it takes the initial sound fl- from Fledermaus and final sound
-amm from Schlamm, which is all wrong and has nothing to do with the pronun
ciation of the word Knospe. Just so traditional Chinese fanqie glossing only works
if you are reading the graphs as words in Old or Middle Chinese.
Above and beyond textual criticism, paronomasia, and fanqie, the phonetic
nature of the writing system was something taken for granted in all traditional
Chinese discourse on language; it is actually the nature of speech itself that was
discussed in a radically different manner—speech without ideography under
neath it.
A few basic definitions from the history of Chinese language theory may set
us on the path toward the specifics: “口, 所以言食; the mouth is what is used for
speaking and eating.”67 “心既託聲於言, 言亦寄形於字; the heart, indeed, sends
out sounds by means of spoken words—spoken words, for their part, reside in
concrete form in written graphs.”68 “生於心, 有節於外, 謂之音; born in the heart,
having articulation on the outside, refer to this as ‘pronunciation’.”69 “凡音者,
生人心者也. 情動於中, 故形於聲. 聲成文謂之音; in all cases ‘pronunciation’ is
what is produced from the human heart. The emotion is moved on the inside,
and thereafter takes shape in sound. When sound becomes patterned, refer to
it as ‘pronunciation’.”70 “知聲而不知音者, 禽獸是也; as for those who under
stand sound but do not understand ‘pronunciation’, these are the birds and
the beasts.”71 “察音以知其心… 出口為言; investigate what someone has ‘pro
nounced’ in order to know their heart… what comes out of their mouth is spoken
67 Yan Shigu, Jijiu pian zhu, 3:209.2.

68 Wenxin diaolong, 8.39, in Zhan Ying 詹韺, Wenxin diaolong yizheng 文心雕龍義證, 3 vols.
(Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1999).
69 Xu Kai, Shuowen jiezi xizhuan, 5.17a2.
70 Liji Zhengzhu, 11.7a9–10, in Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 (127–200 C.E.), Liji zhengzhu 禮記鄭注, 2 vols.
(Taibei: Taiwan zhonghua shuju, 1981). Cf. “聲成文謂之音; when sound becomes patterned,
refer to this as ‘pronunciation’” (Yan Shigu, Jijiu pian zhu, 3:199.2).
71 Zheng Xuan, Liji Zhengzhu, 11.8a4.
words.”72 “凡音者, 產乎人心者也. 感於心則蕩乎音… 故聞其聲… 而知其志; in all

cases the word ‘pronunciation’ means something produced in the human heart.
Something is felt in the heart and then moves outward as ‘pronunciation’… there
fore one hears their sound… and knows their intention.”73
What speech ultimately signifies in traditional Chinese theory is human
emotion—visceral emotions which are physically located in the bodily organ of
the heart of human individuals in historical time. These visceral emotions, which
are directly expressed in otherwise undifferentiated sounds by both humans
and animals, become human speech when they are ‘patterned’, when they take
on the ‘pronunciations’ of human language. As one Chinese philologist says,
“語成而後有格; language is established and thereafter there are standards.”74 The
meaning-bearing aspect of spoken human language, then, is a combination of
visceral emotion from the heart and socially agreed-upon and politically-Â�enforced
linguistic norms (‘sound-patterns’). The intentions that humans can detect in
one another’s speech are the speaker’s visceral emotions, emotions which have
guided their use (or misuse) of otherwise-arbitrary linguistic norms. As one
Chinese theorist puts it, “物生而有情, 情發而為聲, 聲以類合, 皆足相知. 人聲為
言, 述以為字, 字雖人之製, 本實出於自然; all creatures are born with the capacity
for having emotions.75 These emotions are expressed and under those conditions
become sound. When these sounds are combined by means of ‘classifications’,
then this is in all cases sufficient for mutual intelligibility. The sounds humans
make are called ‘speech’. Speech is transmitted in written words. Written words,
although they are human inventions, can thus be said to have actually come
from nature.”76 Hence, according to this: written words ultimately “come from
nature” in that they are representations of spoken words, because spoken words
are a direct expression of emotions and having emotions is an inborn capacity
shared by all living things, a capacity that “comes from nature” in that all living
things are born with it. The difference between human and animal sounds (both
of which are by definition conveyors of emotion) is that human sounds follow the
arbitrary linguistic ‘classifications’ invented by the sages in antiquity, and are

73 Lüshi chunqiu, 音初, in Chen Qiyou 陳奇猷, ed. Lüshi chunqiu xin jiaoshi 呂氏春秋新校釋, 2
vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2006).
74 Lu Deming, Jingdian shiwen, 2.32b4.
75 “情, 有欲也” (Leipian, 10C.10b8, in Sima Guang 司馬光 [1019–1086] et al., Leipian 類篇
[Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2003]).
76 Wang Anshi 王安石 (1021–1086), Jin zishuo biao 進字說表, in Zhang Zongxiang 張宗祥 and
Cao Jinyan 曹錦炎, ed., Wang Anshi zishuo ji 王安石字說輯 (Fuzhou: Fujian renmen chubanshe,
2005), 161.5–6.
thereby much more complex and nuanced conveyors of emotion (i.e., intention).
As an early ritual text says, “先祖, 類之本也; the ancestors are the foundation of
the ‘classifications’.”77 We will examine these sage-created lei 類 “classifications”
in greater detail in the following chapters, as, in Chinese Â�language theory, it was
these sage-fashioned classifications that drew the distinguishing line between
humans and animals.
77 Dadai liji, 42, in Huang Huaixin 黃懷信, ed., Dadai liji huijiao jizhu 大戴禮記彙校集注, 2 vols.
(Xi’an: Sanqin chubanshe, 2004).
Chapter Ten: Zhengming 正名 “Making Words
Correct” and Chinese Language Theory
According to classical Chinese epistemology, it was the historical interven
tion of the ancient sages—a process and activity aptly termed zhengming 正名
“making words correct”—that allowed humans to have and to use language and
thus create social order. Before the sages came up with the classifications of lan
guage, human speech was exactly equivalent to animal sounds, in that it only
expressed emotions in entirely idiosyncratic ways: “古者, 民始生, 未有刑政之時,
蓋其語人異義, 是以一人則一義, 二人則二義, 十人則十義… 天下之亂, 若禽獸然;
in antiquity, in the time when people had first been born and there was not yet
criminal punishments nor governments, it was probably the case that in their
language each person used different meanings—that being, if it was one person,
then there was one meaning, two people then two meanings, ten people then ten
meanings… and due to this the disorderliness throughout the human world was
just like that of the birds and beasts.”1
The sages had to do something to fix this problem: “古者, 聖王為政… 恐後
世子孫不能知也, 故書之竹帛, 傳遺後世子孫… 故先王之書, 聖人之言… 先王之
書, 聖人之言; in antiquity, the sages instituted government… because they feared
that their descendants in later ages would not be able to understand what they
had done, they therefore wrote about it on bamboo and silk, transmitting and
handing it down to their descendants in later ages… therefore the writings of the
early kings are the spoken words of the sages… the writings of the early kings
are the spoken words of the sages.”2 This historical intervention relied on the
assumption that “耳目人與禽獸視聽一也. 聖人制律, 所以導耳之聰. 制字, 所以擴
目之明. 耳目根於心, 聰明發於外; in terms of ears and eyes, humans and the birds
and the beasts have the same sight and hearing. The sages instituted regulated
diction, and this is what they used to guide the acuity of the ear, they instituted
written words, and this is what they used to magnify the perspicacity of the eye.
1 Mozi, 尚同上, in Sun Yirang 孫詒讓 (1848–1908), Mozi jiangu 墨子閒詁 (Taibei: Huazheng
shuju, 1996). Cf. “天下之人異義, 是以一人一義, 十人十義, 百人百義… 是以人是其義而非人之
義… 天下之亂也, 至如禽獸然; as for everyone in the world using different meanings, this was
a case of one person one meaning, ten people ten meanings, one hundred people one hundred
meanings… this situation came about from each person considering their own meaning to be
correct and considering other people’s meanings to be wrong… and the disorderliness of the
human world reached even the point of being like that of the birds and beasts” (Mozi, 尚同中).
2 Mozi, 明鬼下.
178 Chapter Ten: Zhengming 正名 “Making Words Correct” ...
The ear and the eye alike take their beginnings from the heart, and acuity and
perspicacity are thereby expressed on the outside (i.e., in speech and writing).”3
What the sages said, what was recorded in writing and transmitted through
time, thus became a model not only for the standardization of both the signi
fiers and the signifieds of language, but also simultaneously for harmonious
social order: “孔子對曰所謂賢人者, 好惡與民同情… 言足法於天下; Confucius
responded saying: as for so-called ‘worthy men’, in terms of emotions what they
consider good and what they consider bad are the same as that of other people…
their spoken words, however, are sufficient to serve as an model for everyone in
the world.”4 Thus “通聖人之言而察其辭; one should thoroughly understand the
spoken words of the sages and investigate their expressions.”5 The word ci 辭,
which I am translating as “expressions,” has nothing to do with anything even
remotely resembling Husserlian Ausdruck (which comes out of Scholastic ideog
raphy intentio theory), but rather means that given the fact that words have mul
tiple meanings combined with the fact that there are often multiple nearly-synon
ymous words that can be used to describe any particular situation, then it is the
case that one must intentionally make the choice to select a particular word to
use in each and every circumstance of the speech-act. These “expressions” were
highly theorized in the Chinese philological tradition beginning with the first
commentaries on the Chunqiu—which read the text of the classic with this exact
definition of ci 辭 taken for granted. In other words, traditional commentators
assumed that Confucius intentionally and meticulously selected each and every
word of the text of the Chunqiu for ethical reasons, using word choice to express
his critical judgments of historical personages and events. It seems possible that
the word ci 辭 also became the common designation for grammatical particles in
classical Chinese because one must likewise specifically choose particular parti
cles out a large variety of oft-quite-similar (nearly synonymous) possibilities when
composing sentences.
The spoken words of the sages, recorded in written form, are what contain
and encode their original intent, their original emotions expressed in ritualized
language—and it is the duty of later generations to read their writings, empathize
with and feel their feelings, and attempt to carry out the ritualized intentions
displayed therein to the best of their ability. Indeed, “凡人之所為人, 禮義也; in
3 Qiyin lue, 序, 1.3–5, in Zheng Qiao 鄭樵 (1104–1162), Qiyin lue 七音略, in Dengyun wuzhong
(op. cit.).
4 Dadai liji, 40.
5 Mozi, 魯問.
Chapter Ten: Zhengming 正名 “Making Words Correct” ... 179
all cases what makes a human being ‘human’ is ritual and propriety.”6 Compare
this to Heidegger: “in contrast to animals, all men think… reflecting, we pursue
the thing represented… we get an idea of it. We seek the universal… grasp of
the universal through re-presentation.”7 The basic difference between how the
word “human” is defined in the two traditions could not be given a more specific
and critical example than this—to be “human” is to engage in ritual behaviors
(including language) that have specific historical origins versus to be “human”
is to “rationally think” in “universals” and “ideas” that have divine origins (i.e.,
in ideographic theory). The basic distinction between “human” and “animal”
remains the same, as there is a fundamental difference to be considered; what
distinguishes human from animal, however, is portrayed in entirely different
terms. Presuming that “thought” or “reason” or “rationality” or “ideas” is what
make humans distinct from animals is not a universal presumption throughout
all time across the globe, but rather historically specific to the outgrowths of ideo
graphic theory in Europe; it is not a basic assumption of Chinese language theory.
According to the Mengzi, “論古之人, 頌其詩, 讀其書, 不知其人可乎?; in dis
cussing the people of antiquity, chant8 their poetry, read their writings out loud,
how could it be that one would not thereby know what they were like as human
beings?”9 This definition of “human beings” relies on the above Chinese defini
tion of what it means to be “human”—that is, one can know their ritualized behav
iors and emotional commitments. This says nothing about so-called “thoughts”
or “ideas.” It accords with the Chinese epistemology present in such statements
as: “言者, 行之指也. 作於中, 則播於外… 故曰聽其言也, 可以知其所好矣. 觀說
之疏, 可以知其術也… 可以知其人矣; as for spoken words, they are indicators
of behavior. Produced on the inside, they are then broadcast on the outside…
therefore I say that when you listen to someone’s words you can indeed know
what they consider good. Observe how their explanations explicate things, and
one can know their methodology… one can indeed know what they are like as a
6 Kong Yingda 孔穎達 (574–648), Liji zhengyi 禮記正義, 43, in Ruan Yuan 阮元 (1764–1849),
Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben 十三經注疏整理本, ed. Li Xueqin 李學勤, 46 vols. (Taibei: Taiwan
guji chubanshe, 2001), 28:1883.
7 Martin Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph Manheim (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1987), 118–119.
8 “頌, 歌也” (漢書顏師古注); “頌, 誦也” (周禮鄭注, 經典釋文—this gloss is paronomastic
‘頌 [*rjungh] means 誦 [*rjungh]’); “頌, 贊詠也” (Xuanying, Yiqie jing yinyi, 24.9, in Xuanying
玄應 (fl. 645), Yiqie jing yinyi 一切經音義, ed. Zhou Fagao 周法高 [Taibei: Taiwan shangwu
yinshuguan, 1992]). Cf. “頌, 或作誦. 聲類云誦” (Huilin, Yiqie jing yinyi, 4.3a); “頌, 假借謂誦”
(Zhu Junsheng, Shuowen tongxun dingsheng, 1.33b2).
9 Mengzi, 萬章一鄉, in Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 46:342.
human being.”10 It follows from this that “口言之, 身必行之; if the mouth speaks
it, the rest of the body should necessarily enact it,”11 which is speaking of the
ordered intentions of the sages that readers should reenact within themselves to
create and sustain political and social harmony.
The ordering of the state, the ordering of the self, and the ordering of language
are inextricably linked and always historically embedded: “古之治天下者, 必聖
人; those who in antiquity caused the world to become ordered were of necessity
sages.”12 And “凡將立國… 聖人之立法化俗; in all cases when someone desired13
to establish a state… it was the sages who established new rules and altered old
customs.”14 And “昔之能制天下者, 必先制其民者也; as for those who were able
to regulate the world in antiquity, they necessarily first regulated their people.”15
How the sages did this was through regulation of language via education: “善為
國者, 其教民也; as for the one who was good at putting a state in order,16 he was
the one who educated the people”;17 “昔者, 黃帝始以仁義攖人之心; in antiquity,
the Yellow Emperor was the first to use empathy18 (humaneness) and propriety
to stir up the hearts of human beings”;19 “古者, 未有君臣上下之時, 民亂而不治.
10 Dadai liji, 49. Cf. “仲尼曰志有之: 言以足志, 文以足言, 不言誰知其志; Confucius said: there
is an old record which says this: spoken words are sufficient to express intention and writing is
sufficient to record spoken words, but if you don’t say anything (one way or the other), who will
understand your intentions?” (Kong Yingda, Zuozhuan zhengyi 左傳正義, 襄 25, in Shisanjing
zhushu zhengli ben, 32:1176).
11 Mozi, 公孟.
12 Dadai liji, 71.
13 “將, 欲也” (廣雅, 李善文選注, 玉篇).
14 Shangjunshu, 壹言, in Zhuzi jicheng 諸子集成, 8 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1996).
15 Shangjunshu, 畫策.
16 “為, 治也” (Xiaoerya, 1.7, in Yang Lin 楊琳, ed., Xiaoerya jinzhu 小爾雅今注 [Shanghai:
Hanyudacidian chubanshe, 2002], 18. Cf. Xiaoerya xunzuan 小爾雅訓纂, 1.2a10 and Xiaoerya
yizheng 小爾雅義證, 1.6b5 [both in Xiaoerya erzhong 小爾雅二種 (Taibei: Yiwen yinshuguan,
1988)]).
17 Shangjunshu, 農戰.
18 “無惻隱之心, 非人也…惻隱之心, 仁之端也; a heart that does not sympathize with suffering
is not human… a heart that sympathizes with suffering is the starting point of empathy” (Mengzi,
Shisanjing zhushu, 2:2691a); “仁者, 自然用心; as for ‘empathy’, it is the natural use of the heart”
(Yan Zhitui, Yanshi jiaxun, 16.90a1); “仁者, 人也. 人之行也; as for ‘empathy’, it is what it means
to be human. It is human behavior” (Xu Kai, Shuowen jiezi xizhuan, 33.4a5–6). Cf. “其言甚忠,
其行甚平, 其志無私… 曰有仁心者也; their words are the most honest, their behavior the most
upright, their intentions unselfish… call these people ‘those who have an empathetic heart’”
(Dadai liji, 72).
19 Zhuangzi, 在宥, in Guo Qingfan 郭慶藩, ed., Zhuangzi jishi 莊子集釋, 3 vols. (Beijing:
Zhonghua shuju, 2004).
是以聖人別貴賤, 制爵位, 立名號, 以別君臣上下之義; in antiquity, in the time

before there were lords and retainers or social superiors and inferiors, the people
were in chaos and disorderly. For this reason the sages then differentiated the
noble and the base, stipulated ranks and positions, established words and titles,
and thereby differentiated the proper behavior of lord and retainer and social
superior and inferior”;20 “禮君臣, 正上下, 為治而已矣; establishing the etiquette
to be observed by lord and retainer, making the status of social superior and infe
rior correct, this is producing order and that’s absolutely it”;21 “名分未定… 以下
為上也. 此所謂名分之不定也… 先聖人為書而傳於後世, 必師受之乃知所謂之名.
不師受之而人以其心意議之, 至死不能知其名與其意… 故聖人… 定名分也. 分名
定… 而各自治也… 名正… 而皆以自治也… 故天下大治也; if the words and duties
were not yet defined… then social inferior would be become a superior. This is
what ‘words and duties not yet being defined’ means… the early sages wrote texts
and transmitted them to later ages, and it is necessary to receive instruction in
these texts from a teacher—as then and only then can one understand the words
which the texts write. If someone has not received instruction from a teacher then
that person will use the intentions in their own heart to deliberate on the inten
tion of the texts—and that person will grow old and die and still never be able to
understand the words of the text and their intention… therefore, it was for this
reason that the sages… defined words and duties. When words and duties are
defined… then each person regulates themself. When words are made correct…
then the people in all cases regulate themselves22… and therefore making words
correct brings about great order in the world.”23 It appears that the activity of
zhengming, “making words correct,” is the quintessential Chinese method of
lexical statecraft, a method specifically crafted for producing the social hierarchy
fundamental to human coexistence.
In his commentary to the “Xici” line “辨物正言; differentiate things and
make spoken words correct,” Kong Yingda states: “辨物正言謂辨天下之物, 各以
20 Shangjunshu, 君臣. Cf. “無君臣上下長幼之節, 父子兄弟之禮. 是以天下亂焉; because the

divisions between lord and retainer, social superior and inferior, and senior and junior were
lacking, and the ritual behavior of father and son, elder and younger brother were also lacking,
the human world was in disorder—it was in disorder precisely because these distinctions were
lacking” (Mozi, 尚同中).
21 Zhuangzi, 刻意.
22 Cf. “聖人云: 我無為而民自化, 我好靜而民自正; the sages say: we don’t do anything and
yet the people transform themselves, we are found of being silent and yet the people make
themselves correct” (Wang Bi 王弼 [226–249 C.E.], Laozi daodejing zhu 老子道德經注 [Taibei:
Wenshizhe chubanshe, 1997], 126.7).
23 Shangjunshu, 定分.
類正定言之; the line ‘differentiate things and make spoken words correct’ refers
to differentiating each and every thing in the world and correctly speaking of it
according to its ‘classification’.”24 Conversely, if “未察吾言之類, 未明其故; you
have not yet investigated the ‘classifications’ of my words, you are not yet clear
about the reasons for them.”25 One should therefore “慎因其類; scrupulously rely
on their ‘classifications’”;26 and thus “正名審分… 以求其情, 聽其言而察其類; as
for making words correct and investigating their divisions… in order to seek out
the ‘real signified’27 of something, listen to its spoken word and investigate its
‘classification’.”28
Assuming that “其言一也. 言者異, 則人心變矣; their words should be the
same. If what is spoken is different then human hearts are utterly changed,”29 it
should be the case that “分辨事物… 善惡各有其類… 學記: 知類通達. 鄭注曰知
類, 知事義. 故繫辭傳曰以類萬物之情也… 為惡為善, 各如其類…以辨別之則謂之
辨物; dividing and distinguishing events and things… good and bad, each has its
‘classification’… the ‘xueji’ [section of the Liji says]: know the ‘classifications’ to
the point of understanding them thoroughly. Zheng Xuan’s commentary on this
section says: ‘knowing the classifications’ means knowing the meaning of events,
therefore the ‘Xici zhuan’ says: ‘classify’ the signifieds of the myriad things… what
is bad and what is good, each resembles its ‘classification’… if one distinguishes
and separates them then this is called ‘distinguishing things’.”30
These lei 類 “classifications” are encoded in the ritualized language estab
lished by the sages—artificially-contrived, arbitrary and conventional “classifi
cations”—the social rules and lexical definitions that allow people to get along.
These lei are perhaps the greatest contribution made by the sages outside of
establishing ritual activity itself (and are indeed a form of ritual activity in and
of themselves), and, as the Xunzi unequivocally states: “類不可兩也, 故知者擇
一而壹焉; there cannot be more than one ‘classification’, therefore, those who
know select one and cause things to conform with it,”31 “大儒… 其言有類, 其行
有禮; as for great Ruists…in their speech ‘classifications’ exist, in their actions
24 Kong Yingda, Zhouyi zhengyi 周易正義, in Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 2:367.
25 Mozi, 非攻下.
26 Liji Zhengzhu, 5.20a3.
27 “情, 猶實也”(禮記鄭注).
28 Lüshi chunqiu, 審分.
29 Zhanguoce 戰國策, 2 vols. (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2007), 1:693.
30 Jingyi shuwen, 2.18a2-b4, in Wang Yinzhi 王引之 (1766–1834), Jingyi shuwen 經義述聞
(Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe, 2000).
31 Xunzi, 解蔽, in Wang Tianhai 王天海, ed., Xunzi jiaoshi 荀子校釋, 2 vols. (Shanghai: Shang
hai guji chubanshe, 2005).
ritual exists,”32 “多言而類, 聖人也; using many spoken words but according
with ‘Â�classifications’, this is a sage,”33 and, finally, “志以禮安, 言以類使, 則儒
道畢也矣; if intentions are resolved according to ritual, if spoken words are used
according to ‘classifications’, then by definition the way of the Ruist is utterly
complete.”34
In his commentary to the Shijing line “我思古人; I consider the people of antiq
uity,” Zheng Xuan states: “古人謂制禮者. 我思此人定尊卑, 使人無過差之行, 心喜
之也… 古之聖人制禮; ‘ancient people’ refers to those who established the regu
lations of ritual. The poet ponders those people who established the ritual defi
nitions which distinguish between noble and base, definitions which allowed the
people not to make mistakes in their behavior—and in his heart, the poet consid
ered them to be good… thus ancient sages established the regulations of ritual.”35
These regulations included such as: “父父子子兄兄弟弟夫夫婦婦而家道正. 正
家而天下定矣; when a father acts like the definition of the word ‘father’, a son
acts like the definition of the word ‘son’, elder brother like ‘elder brother’, younger
brother like ‘younger brother’, husband like ‘husband’, wife like ‘wife’, then the
way of the family is correct. When the family has been made correct, then the
entire world will be definitively settled”;36 and “事君猶事父也; serving your lord
is just like serving your father.”37 “故聖人以禮示之, 故天下國家可得而正. 注: 民
知禮則易教; therefore the sages used ritual to instruct them, therefore the states
and families of the world are able to be correct. [Zheng Xuan’s] commentary says:
If the people come to know the rituals then they will be easily educated.”38 And it
is precisely these stipulations of education in ritual behavior, lexicon and speech
that allow for political stability and social order.
Ritual speech and behavior, again, are based in the emotions: “故聖人之所
以治人七情… 飲食男女, 人之大欲存焉, 死亡貧苦, 人之大惡存焉, 故欲惡者, 心
之大端也; therefore what the sages used to make the people orderly were the
seven emotions… food, drink, and sexual relations between men and women:
the great desires of humans subsist in these. Death, destruction, poverty, and
suffering: the great hatreds of humans subsist in these. Therefore, objects of
32 Xunzi, 儒效.
33 Xunzi, 大略.
34 Xunzi, 子道.
35 Maoshi Zhengjian, 2.2b7–3a1, in Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 (127–200), Maoshi zhengjian 毛詩鄭箋 (Tai
bei: Xuehai chubanshe, 1999).
36 Zhouyi zhengyi, in Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 2:185.
37 Gongyang zhuan, 定 4, 25.7b4. Cf. “有異志, 不君君矣; he had a different intention, which was
definitely not to treat his lord according to the definition of the word ‘lord’” (Zuozhuan, 昭 17).
38 Zheng Xuan, Liji Zhengzhu, 7.2b4–5.
desire and hatred are the starting point of human hearts.”39 And “故聖人作則…
禮義以為器, 人情以為田. 注: 器, 所以操事. 田, 人所捊治也; therefore the sages
created standards… ritual and propriety can be considered to be like agricultural
tools, human emotions can be considered to be like an agricultural field. [Zheng
Xuan’s] commentary says: as for the word ‘tools’, they are what is used to ‘handle’
events.40 As for ‘agricultural field’, this is what has been ‘cultivated’ and put in
order by humans.”41 And so “以治人情, 故人情者, 聖王之田也. 脩禮以耕之, 陳
義以種之; they took up the task of controlling human emotion. Therefore, as for
human emotions, they are the ‘agricultural field’ of the sage-kings. They culti
vated ritual in order to ‘plough’ it, they laid out propriety in order to ‘sow’ it”;42
“有治民之意而無其器則不成. 禮之於正國也, 猶衡之於輕重也; if one has the
intention to make the people orderly but lacks the tools then there will be no
success. As for ritual (as such a tool) making the state correct, it resembles a steel
yard measuring light and heavy.”43
Thus “欲治其國者, 先齊其家. 欲齊其家者, 先脩其身. 欲脩其身者, 先正其
心. 欲正其心者, 先誠其意. 欲誠其意者, 先致其知. 注: 知善惡… 知致而后意誠.
意誠而后心正. 心正而后身脩. 身脩而后家齊. 家齊而后國治. 國治而后天下平;
one who desires to put their state in order must first set their family in order.
One who desires to set their family in order must first regulate their own body. One
who desires to regulate their own body must first make their heart correct. One
who desires to make their heart correct must first make their intention sincere.
One who desires to make their intention sincere must first bring about knowledge
in themselves. (Zheng Xuan’s commentary says: ‘knowledge’ here means knowl
edge of what is good and what is bad)… knowledge is brought about and there
fore intention is sincere. Intention is sincere and therefore the heart is correct.
The heart is correct and therefore the body is regulated. The body is regulated
and therefore the family is set in order. The family is set in order and therefore
the state is controlled. The state is controlled and therefore the entire world is at
peace.”44
This sage-created method for bringing about language-based ritually-Â�
organized world order is resolutely grounded in controlling human emotions

40 Cf. “器… 皆聖人之所作也; tools… are in all cases things that were fashioned by the sages”
(Zhouli Zhengzhu, 39.3a6–7, in Zheng Xuan 鄭玄, Zhouli Zhengzhu 周禮鄭注, 2 vols. [Taibei:
Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 1967]).
43 Kong Yingda, Liji zhengyi, in Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 28:1599–1600.
44 Zheng Xuan, Liji Zhengzhu, 19.9a5–b2.
(which are the ultimate signifieds of language): “聖人感人心而天下和平;

the sages affect people’s hearts and therefore the world is at peace.”45 And so
“國家百姓之所以治者, 何也? 上之為政得下之情則治. 不得下之情則亂. 何以知其
然也? 上之為政得下之情則是明於民之善非也… 是能以尚同一義為政… 古者… 一
人一義, 十人十義, 百人百義, 千人千義… 皆是其義而非人義; as for what is used
to bring order to states, families, and the people, what is this? If the social supe
rior in governing is able to satisfy the emotions of their inferiors then there will be
order. But if they are not able to satisfy the emotions of inferiors then there will be
disorder. How is it that you know this to be so? If the social superior in governing
is able to satisfy the emotions of their inferiors then it is the case that they are
clear about what the people consider good and what the people consider wrong…
in this case they are then able to govern by means of causing everyone to iden
tify with their superior and to use the same meanings… In antiquity… it was one
person one meaning, ten people ten meanings, one hundred people one hundred
meanings, a thousand people a thousand meanings… in all cases they considered
their own meaning to be correct and considered the meanings of others to be
wrong.”46
The assumption here is that “人情而有好惡, 故民可治也… 人君設二者, 以御
民之志而立所欲焉; humans are by nature emotional and under those conditions
they have things they consider good and things they consider bad,47 due to this fact
the people can be governed… the lord of the people establishes these two things
(what is to be considered good and what bad), and therefore strictly controls their
intentions and definitively establishes what they are to desire by these means.”48
And thus “莫敢不為其所好而避其所惡; there are none who dare not to do what
the lord considers good and consequently avoid what the lord considers bad.”49
Because “好惡形於心; what is considered good and what is considered bad take
shape in the heart,”50 “王試廢其心則口不能言; if the king attempts to reject what
is in his heart then his mouth will not be able to speak words”;51 and so “凡民從上
也, 不從口之所言, 從情之所好者也. 上好勇則民輕死, 上好仁則民輕財; in all cases
45 Kong Yingda, Zhouyi zhengyi, in Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 2:164.

46 Mozi, 尚同下.
47 Cf. “人心有所去取, 去取謂之好惡; the human heart has that which it prefers to reject and
that which it prefers to obtain, as for what it prefers to reject and what it prefers to obtain, refer
to these as ‘good’ and ‘bad’” (Yan Zhitui, Yanshi jiaxun, 18.123a13–b1).
48 Shangjunshu, 錯法.
50 Guanzi, 立政, in Li Xiangfeng 黎翔鳳, ed., Guanzi jiaozhu 管子校注, 3 vols. (Beijing:
51 Liezi, 5.7b3–4, in Songben liezi 宋本列子 (Taibei: Guangwen shuju, 1994).
of the people following their social superiors, they do not exactly follow what the
superior’s mouth says, but rather follow that which the emotion of the superior
considers to be good. If the superior considers bravery to be good then the people
will take death lightly, if the superior considers humaneness (empathy) to be good
then the people will take wealth lightly.”52
Under these conditions “上之所是, 必皆是之, 所非必皆非之… 能壹同天下之
義… 能壹同國之義, 是以國治也… 是以天下之治也; as for what the social superior
considers to be correct, it is necessary in all cases to consider this correct, as for
what they consider wrong, it is necessary in all cases to consider this wrong…
thus one is able to unify and make meaning the same for everyone in the entire
world… one is able to unify and make meaning the same for everyone in the state,
and this is how the state is governed… and this is how the world is governed”;53
“凡人君者, 欲民之有禮義也. 夫民無禮義則上下亂而貴賤爭; in all cases of
someone being the ruler of people, that person desires the people to have ritual
behavior and propriety. In any particular case, if they lack ritual behavior and
propriety then the status of social superior and inferior with be in disorder and
the noble and the base will be at war.”54 It was in order to forestall such class
warfare (or even all-out war of every person against every other) that the sages
instituted ritual language and behavior.
The tradition says: “古之制… 制之以義… 行之以禮, 辯之以名, 書之以文, 道
之以言; as for the regulations of antiquity… they regulated them using propri
ety… they enacted them using ritual, they differentiated them using words, they
wrote them using writing, they spoke them using speech”;55 and “一人辨論是非,
謂之語; when one person distinguishes and demarcates what is right and what
is wrong, refer to this as ‘language’.”56 And thus “言必有主, 行必有法; speech
necessarily has guidelines, just as behavior necessarily has rules.”57
Accordingly, “非先王之法言, 不敢道; if it is not using the exemplary words of
the former kings, I dare not say it”;58 and so “今天之所同義者, 聖王之法… 是故
古之知者之為天下度也, 必慎慮其義而後為之行; what is used in the present day
to make meanings the same for everyone are the institutions of the sage-kings…
Â� it
52 Guanzi, 法法.
53 Mozi, 尚同上.
54 Guanzi, 版法解.
55 Guoyu zhu, 549, in Wei Zhao 韋昭 (204–273), Guoyu zhu 國語注 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji
chubanshe, 2007).
56 Duan Yucai 段玉裁 (1735–1815), Shuowen jiezi zhu 說文解字注 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji
chubanshe, 2004), 3A7.14.
57 Dadai liji, 49.
58 Xiaojing, 卿大夫, in Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 42:13.
was for this reason that those who knew things in antiquity made such iÂ� nstitutions
for the world, and it is necessary that we should sincerely ponder the meanings of
the ancient sages-kings and afterwards strive to enact them.”59
Language is the ultimate tool of statecraft: “孔子曰…吾欲以語言取人… 改
之; Confucius said… I want to use language to take hold of people… to change
them.”60 Further, “子曰: 必也正名乎… 名不正則言不順, 言不順則事不成… 故
君子名之必可言. 言之必可行也; Confucius said: it is of the utmost necessity to
make words correct… if words are not correct then speech is incoherent, if speech
is incoherent then actions will not turn out right… therefore the gentleman in
using the correct words is necessarily able to speak, in speaking correctly he is
necessarily able to act properly.”61 In a famous anecdote, “子曰: 觚不觚. 觚哉!
觚哉!; Confucius said: a so-called ‘ritual wine vessel’ that is not used as a ritual
wine vessel!62 How is it then a ‘ritual wine vessel’?63 How could it possibly be a
‘ritual wine vessel’?”64
Ultimately, “名者, 人治之大者也. 文者, 名治之大者也. 文忒則名亂, 名亂則實
易… 君子如欲善治, 其必由正名号. 古之明民者… 以正天下之名, 以定天下之文…
記曰黃帝正百物; as for words, they are the important thing for bringing order
to humans. As for writing, it is the important thing in bringing order to words.
59 Mozi, 非攻下.
60 Dadai liji, 62. Cf. “吾以言取人; I use words to take hold of people” (Sima Qian 司馬遷, Shiji 史
記, 10 vols. [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1999], 67:2206); “以辭取人; I use expressions to take hold
of people” (Kongzi jiayu 孔子家語).
61 Lunyu, 子路, in Cheng Shude 程樹德, ed., Lunyu jishi 論語集釋, 4 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 2006).
62 “觚, 禮器也” (Ma Rong 馬螎 [79–166 C.E.], Lunyu zhu 論語注, in Shisanjing zhushu zhengli
ben, 40:88); “觚失其禮, 故曰觚不觚, 猶言君臣不君臣耳; the word ‘ritual wine vessel’ has lost its
ritual connotation, and therefore Confucius says: a so-called ‘ritual wine vessel’ that is not used
as a ritual wine vessel! This is very much similar to saying that lords and retainers are not acting
like the definition of the words ‘lord’ and ‘retainer’” (Cheng Shude, Lunyu jishi, 2:413).
63 “哉, 句絕而有嗟嘆之意… 口以為然, 心不以為之意… 疑辭也… 嘆辭… 口然而心不然之辭也;
as for the particle zai 哉, at the end of a sentence it has the intended meaning of denoting that
the speaker is very upset and literally sighing out loud… the intended meaning is that while
the person’s mouth has said something is so, that person’s heart considers it not to be so… it is
an expression indicating rhetorical doubt… it is an expression indicating the person is literally
sighing out loud… it is an expression of the fact that their mouth has said something is so but
their heart actually considers it not to be so” (Wang Kezhong 王克仲, ed., Zhuyuci jizhu 助語辭集
注 [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998], 16–17; the preface of the Zhuyuci is dated 1324, and it is the
first Chinese dictionary solely devoted to grammatical particles).
64 Lunyu, 雍也. This is one of the paradigmatic cases of Confucius decrying the abuse of
language and advocating “making words correct”—if the object is not used as a wine vessel in a
ritual context, then it should not be called a “ritual wine vessel.”
If writing is in error then words are disorderly, if words are disorderly, then the
‘signified reality’ changes… the gentleman, if he desires to be good at bringing
about order, of necessity starts from making words and names correct. Those who
in antiquity clearly understood the people… took up the task of making all the
words in the world correct, they took up the task of making all the writing-down
of words correct… as the Liji says: the Yellow Emperor made the words for the
hundred things correct.”65
Out of all the classical Chinese discussions of language—particularly those
on “making words correct,” many of which I have gathered up and translated
above—it is the “Zhengming pian” 正名篇, the “Treatise on Making Words
Correct” that stands out as the most critically important discussion. This treatise
was written by Xunzi 荀子 (313–238 B.C.E), an early Ruist scholar. The theory of
language displayed in the Xunzi serves as the original template for the philologi
cal tradition—although there are clearly alternative theories of language in early
China (just as there were in Europe, e.g., the Skeptics), the formulations laid out
in the “Zhengming pian” can be identified as the first sustained articulation of
the language-theoretical master narrative of Chinese philology. It was under the
auspices of this theory that the Erya was read, edited, commentated upon, and
imitated (and perhaps even originally compiled).
65 Liushu gu, 通釋, 1, in Dai Tong 戴侗 (1200–1284), Liushu gu 六書故 (Shanghai: Shanghai
shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 2006).
Chapter Eleven: Chinese Language Theory and
the Interpretation of the Classics
The “Zhengming pian” 正名篇, “Treatise on Making Words Correct” says: “名無固
宜, 約之以命. 約定俗成謂之宜, 異於約則謂之不宜. 名無固實, 約之以命實, 約定
俗成, 謂之實名; words do not have a fixed meaning, delimit the meaning in order
to take command over the meaning. When the delimitation is settled, when the
convention is established, refer to it as an ‘appropriate meaning’; if it is different
from the delimitation then refer to it as an ‘inappropriate meaning’. Words do
not have fixed signifieds. Delimit the signified in order to take command over the
signified. When this delimitation is settled, when the convention is established,
refer to it as a ‘word that has a signified’.”1 Xunzi argues here that words are arbi
trary and conventional, that signifier and signified are entirely fluid and therefore
amenable to artificial manipulation and artificial fixation—that words and the
things words refer to only become properly meaningful after they have been nar
rowed down and exactly delineated by sages.
The Xunzi continues: “後王之成名: 刑名從商, 爵名從周, 文名從禮; 散名之
加於萬物者, 則從諸夏之成俗曲期; 遠方異俗之鄉, 則因之而為通; as for the later
kings prescriptively defining words, words for punishments came from the Shang
dynasty, words for titles of nobility came from the Zhou dynasty, and words for
cultural refinement came from ritual. As for the scattered words applied to the
myriad things, it is the case that this was from a widespread conformity to a
single established convention among the various central Xia states. Villages of
distant regions with different customs were able to communicate on the basis of
this.”2 According to this passage, it was the job of sage-kings to determine con
ventionally correct language through prescriptively defining every single word in
the lexicon.3 These conventionally correct words were hence a kind of common
1 Xunzi, 正名篇. Cf. “實無名, 名無實. 名者, 偽而已矣; signifieds have no (natural) signifier, sig
nifiers have no (natural) signifieds. As for ‘signifiers’, they are artificial and that’s absolutely it”
(Songben Liezi, 7.1a13–14).
2 Xunzi, 正名篇.
3 As Makeham notes, “it is evident that for Xun Qing ‘the way of dividing reality into objects
to be named’ was the prerogative of the ruler. ‘Common acceptance’ and ‘conventional prac
tice’ were to be matters subsequent to the ruler’s ‘ordination’ of a name, names being based on
his conception, arbitrary or otherwise, of how objects should be differentiated, how the world
should be cut up and named… The names ordained by rulers were normative standards seen as
fundamental to the implementation and maintenance of social, political, and ethical objectives
and were not conceived as having any inherently appropriate applicability to the objects they
190 Chapter Eleven: Chinese Language Theory and the Interpretation of the Classics
Â�
language that allowed people of distant regions with different linguistic customs
to effectively communicate.
But this prescriptive language was more than a simple koine—it was also, and
more fundamentally, a tool of social engineering.4 The Xunzi goes to great lengths
to explicate this function of language, stating: “散名之在人者: 生之所以然者謂
之性… 精合, 感, 應, 不事而自然謂之性; 性之好惡喜怒哀樂謂之情; 情然而心為之
擇謂之慮; 心慮而能為之動謂之偽; 慮積焉, 能習焉, 而後成謂之偽; as for various
words being inside humans, what is natural at birth is called ‘inborn nature’…
the selective faculty (i.e., perception) comes into contact with something, is
affected, and responds, and if the response is effortless, and hence natural, refer
to it as ‘inborn nature’. As for liking, hating, delight, anger, sorrow, and joy—
which belong to inborn nature—refer to them as ‘emotions’. The emotions being
so, when the heart, for the benefit of the thing it encounters, selects among one
of the emotions, this is what is called ‘pondering’. When the heart ponders and
one’s capabilities, for the benefit of the emotion, takes action, refer to this as
‘artificial’. When ‘ponderings’ accumulate from this process, and capabilities
become skilled due to this process, and then afterwards accomplish something,
refer to it as ‘artificial’.”5 This passage contends that humans are hardwired with
two things: perceptive faculties and emotions. When we perceive something, we
respond to it with one of six basic emotions. The selection of a particular emotion
to respond to a particular object or event is what the Xunzi calls “pondering.”
“Pondering” is thus a matter of discipline and training; “ponderings” as such
and by definition are a product of sagely artifice. In other words, if a group of
people happen to share the same training, they will respond to any particular
object or event with the same emotion, and they will therefore be likely to behave
in exactly the same way in any particular situation—as emotions are the only real
motivation for action.
The sages were the first to “ponder” in such a way (i.e., they disciplined and
trained themselves) and thereby become skilled in artifice—as the Xunzi states:
“聖人化性而起偽; the sages transformed inborn nature and caused artifice to
arise”; “聖人積思慮, 習偽故; the sages accumulated such considerations and
‘ponderings’ and practiced artificial behavior6”; and, “禮義者, 是生於聖人之偽,
named” (John Makeham, “Names, Actualities, and the Emergence of Essentialist Theories of
Naming in Classical Chinese Thought,” Philosophy East and West 41.3 [1991]: 345–346).
4 Cf. “Words are tools. Language is a pattern, and defines the way word-tools are used… Marvel
ous! …this is human engineering indeed!” (Jack Vance, The Languages of Pao [New York: Ace,
1958], 56–58).
5 Xunzi, 正名篇.
6 “故, 事也”(廣雅).
Chapter Eleven: Chinese Language Theory and the Interpretation of the Classics 191
非故生於人之性也; as for ritual and propriety, these were produced by the artifice
of the sages, they were not intrinsically produced by human nature.”7
But how does perception, which is obviously the first step in this whole
process, actually work? The Xunzi asks: “何緣而以同異? 曰: 緣天官. 凡同類同情
者, 其天官之意物也同; on what basis then can one make distinctions between
what is similar and what is different? I say: ‘on the basis of the sense organs’. In
all cases of a person with the same ‘classification’ (for the thing) and the same
emotion (in response to the thing), their sense organs’ assessment of the thing
will also be the same.”8 According to this passage, how we distinguish between
objects of perception is consequently based on these artificial classifications.
When the senses perceive objects or events, the heart of necessity requires a con
ventional and arbitrary classification system—otherwise it will have no way to
comprehend what it is that it’s perceiving. As the text further says: “心有徵知. 徵
知則緣耳而知聲可也, 緣目而知形可也. 然而徵知必將待天官之當簿其類, 然後可
也. 五官簿之而不知, 心徵之而無說, 則人莫不然謂之不知. 此所緣而以同異也; in
the heart experiential knowledge exists. Since there is such experiential knowing,
one can on the basis of the ears know sounds, and one can on the basis of the
eyes know shapes. That being so, experiential knowledge necessarily still awaits
the appropriate recording of the ‘classification’—only after that happens is it pos
sible to know something. If the five senses record it but do not understand the
‘classification’, if the heart experiences it but lacks an explanation for the ‘clas
sification’—and this is so for everyone—then refer to it as ‘not knowing’. This is
the basis for making distinctions between what is similar and what is different.”9
The lei 類 “classifications,” in other words, are necessary for the sense organs to
record the sense data they collect from the world—and, subsequently, if a heart
has no “classification” system it cannot process the sense data and is left dumb
founded. So where do these “classifications” come from? We can recognize from
some of the above-cited passages that the “classifications” exist in the spoken
words of sages and Ruists, but that is not especially helpful. Or is it?
The “classifications,” in fact, come from the prescriptive definitions, the
correct words, delimited and fixed by the later kings and espoused by the sages.
The implication of what the text is saying about language here is staggering—it
claims that every single word in the koine lexicon (i.e., classical Chinese), if it has
been properly and prescriptively defined, encodes not only what we might con
sider to be “signifieds,” but also the appropriate way for a human to perceive it
7 Xunzi, 性惡.
8 Xunzi, 正名篇.
9 Xunzi, 正名篇.
with their senses, the proper emotional response that a human heart should have
upon encountering it (i.e., “considering” and “pondering” according Xunzi’s
explicit definitions), and the proper behavior towards it that this emotion moti
vates—these four aspects of the word put together constitute its “classification.”
What we have here is not just social engineering, but is rather the literal and phys
ical training of the fundamental workings of human sense perception, emotion,
volition, and behavior through prescriptive linguistic “classifications.”
Language, according to this view, controls both sense perception and what
has been called “thought” in European ideographic theory—with “thought” here
being defined as the physical selection in the heart of a particular emotion to
respond to what has been perceived (emotions which then motivate a person to
behave in a certain, and entirely artificial, way). Hence the prescriptive definition
of a word is all of these things—what is being signified, how to go about perceiv
ing it with the senses, how to respond to it emotionally (a.k.a., how to consider,
ponder, or think about it), and how to behave towards it. It is quite easy to see
why the “classifications” of correct words must be arbitrary and conventional,
and why some kind of social authority must promote and enforce them through
education. Language here is the very definition of culture.
The Xunzi further argues that this prescriptive language system, while it may
have functioned perfectly in the past, has in more recent times broken down and
failed: “今聖王沒, 名守慢, 奇辭起, 名實亂; but now the sage kings are dead, the
preservation of words is neglected, strange expressions have arisen, and words
and their signifieds are in disorder.”10 Should a new sage-king arise, their first job
would obviously be to make words correct. The text goes on: “王者之制名: 名定
而實辨, 道行而志通, 則慎率民而一焉. 故析辭擅作名, 以亂正名, 使民疑惑, 人多
辨訟, 則謂之大姦. 其罪猶為符節度量之罪也. 故其民莫敢托為奇辭以亂正名. 故
其民愨, 愨則易使; as for one who would rule as king establishing words: if words
are defined and the signifieds distinguished, if this way of establishing words
is enacted and the king’s intentions are effectively communicated, then he will
carefully lead the people and make them the same by means of correct words.
Therefore, if someone splits phrases or arbitrarily creates words so as to bring
disorder to correct words—causing the people to be doubtful and confused, so
they have many arguments and quarrels—then refer to it as ‘great wickedness’.
This person’s crime is similar to the crime of creating false tallies and measures.11
Therefore, among the king’s people, none will dare to rely on strange phrases to
10 Xunzi, 正名篇.
11 A crime deserving the death penalty according to the Liji.
bring confusion to correct words. Hence the king’s people will be guileless—and
if they are guileless then they will be easy to control.”12
This is a very stark portrayal of language—language as a tool used by the elite
to ensure that a subservient population perceives, feels, “thinks,” and behaves in
a particular manner. It is surely no coincidence that two of Xunzi’s greatest stu
dents, Li Si and Han Feizi, were advisors to the First Emperor of Qin—the actual
first emperor of China—who conquered all the other states and whose policies
unified and standardized spoken and written language (among other things).
This is how the Xunzi portrays language, and this view of language is the epis
temological ground of Chinese philology. Chinese lexicographers and commen
tators were “harmless drudges” in no way, shape, or form—they were actually
engaged in the deadly serious endeavor of making words correct, and were there
fore literally attempting to modify humans at a profound level—right inside their
biological organs of intention.
Language, by this definition, produces specific intentions in the human
hearts it occupies, causing these intentions (i.e., those of scholars and sages) to
take up residence inside the organ itself by means of “classifications.” The point
of making words correct is to produce correct intentions in the heart, which will
by default produce correct behavior. The Xunzi argues that language is the single-
most crucial tool of governance (and the First Emperor of Qin certainly relied on
it, as for that matter did Mao Zedong in the twentieth century). In other words, if
the political program of making words correct is successfully enacted, then every
human in the polity will actually possess the same intentions—they will be com
pletely homogenous in perceiving, feeling, “thinking,” and behaving—following
what language has predetermined according to the “classification” of each word.
And if some subversive dissident somehow manages to violate this perfect order
by toying with words, he should perforce be summarily executed. As the text of
the Xunzi clearly states, this single legal statute, alongside the policy of making
words correct, allows for a population to be easily controlled. Indeed, “習俗不同,
言語不通… 得其民不得使… 習俗同, 言語通… 得其民能使之; if their customs are
not the same and their language is not the same… although you have conquered
a people you cannot impose corvée labor13 upon them… if their customs are the
same and their language is the same… then when you conquer a people you can
indeed impose corvée labor upon them.”14
12 Xunzi, 正名篇.
13 “使, 役也” (呂氏春秋高誘注).
14 Lüshi chunqiu, 知化.
The Erya—as a dictionary which “makes words correct”—comes out of this

intellectual and language-theoretical milieu. How the Erya came to be (most
likely the 2091 entries were glosses on various texts and groups of synonymous
words collected together over a number of centuries and organized by several
generations of scholars) and how it was interpreted by the lexicographic tradition
(becoming the archetypal model for the majority of later dictionaries) are two
completely distinct areas of inquiry. The first topic has been studied extensively,
if not exhaustively; the second, however, has never been seriously examined by
Western scholars. The best comparison that comes to mind for this is the Chunqiu
春秋 “Spring and Autumn Annals.”
From the perspective of modern scholarship, we are fairly certain that the text
of the Chunqiu was not edited by Confucius, that it does not contain his hidden
praise and criticisms of political figures, nor does it encode his cultural-political
frustrations and linguistic “classifications.”15 However, from Mengzi to Sima
Qian, and from the Shiji to the Draft History of the Qing, this hermeneutically
loaded tradition of historiography and language theorizing—having its origin
in what we consider a historical inaccuracy—has on every level informed one of
the most awe-inspiring bodies of historical writing in existence. One cannot just
casually dismiss the almost unbelievable power and influence of Confucius pur
portedly authoring the Chunqiu as a simple fiction (it would be like dismissing
the “ideograph” as a simple fiction); a good exercise might be to stand in front
of a set of shelves containing the complete dynastic histories of imperial China,
and ask yourself what relationship this configuration of books has to the story of
Confucius authoring the Chunqiu.
In the traditional interpretation of the Chunqiu, an interpretation which
was central to Chinese hermeneutics, the Chunqiu was a work concerned with
“making words correct”—as Duan Yucai says, “春秋, 正名之書也; the Chunqiu
is a book about making words correct.”16 One early interpretive framework for
the classics also suggests, “詩以道志, 書以道事, 禮以道行… 春秋以道名分; the
Shijing speaks of intentions, the Shangshu speaks of events, the Liji speaks of
behavior… and the Chunqiu speaks of words and duties.”17 And it was precisely
to discuss such “making words correct” that “仲尼修春秋; Confucius edited
15 See, for example: George A. Kennedy, “The Interpretation of the Ch’un-chiu,” Journal of the
American Oriental Society 62.1 (1942): 40–48; Ssu-ho Ch’i, “Professor Hung on the Ch’un-chiu,”
Yenching Journal of Social Studies 1.1 (1938): 49–71.
16 Shuowen jiezi zhu, 3B.28b3. Cf. the phrase “正名而已矣; making words correct and that’s
Â�absolutely it” (Guliang zhuan, 僖 19).
17 Zhuangzi, 天下.
the Chunqiu.”18 The Gongyang commentary directly asks: “君子曷為為春秋? 撥

亂世. 反諸正, 莫近諸春秋… 制春秋之義, 以俟後聖; for what19 reason did Con
fucius compile the Chunqiu? So as to bring order20 to a disordered age.21 As for
returning22 things to correctness, nothing compares to23 the Chunqiu… Confucius
regulated the meaning of the words of the Chunqiu in order to await the sages
of later times.”24 Indeed, it was in terms of such discourse on hierarchy (lexical
and social—if such can really be separated) that “修春秋以正君臣父子之法; Con
fucius edited the Chunqiu in order to make the rules for lord and retainer and
father and son correct.”25 It is almost as if language was considered to be a game
(like in Wittgenstein), and the Chunqiu a kind of rule-book for this game. One
could even go so far as to say this basic principle held true for all of the clas
sics—as the Zuozhuan remarks, “詩書, 義之府; the Shijing and the Shangshu are
an archival treasure-trove26 of propriety.”27
In traditional accounts, the generations of court scribes who originally wrote
the records that Confucius later edited and compiled into the text of the Chunqiu
were also engaging in this particular form of discourse: “史用辭; scribes use
expressions”;28 “史辭, 以禮焉; the scribes chose a particular word among many
near-synonymous choices for a particular reason (i.e., “expressed” themselves),
and by these means their expressions accorded with ritual.”29 And so, “春秋, 孔子
約史記而修之也; in the Chunqiu, Confucius codified the language30 of the records
of the scribes and thereby edited them.”31 And further, “情見乎辭; his emotions
18 Yan Zhitui, Yanshi jiaxun, 17.109b1.

19 “曷, 何也”(說文). This gloss is paronomastic: “曷 [*gat] means 何 [*gar].” Cf. Yuan Renlin 袁
仁林 (fl. 1710), Xuzi shuo 虛字說 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2004), 121.
20 “撥, 治也” (公羊傳何休注).
21 Cf. “為書以定國; he compiled this text in order to fix the state” (Zuozhuan, 襄 10).
22 “這個意義後來寫作返” (Wang Li 王力 et al., Wang Li guhanyu zidian, 王力古漢語字典
[Â�Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2005], 99). Cf. Zong Fubang 宗福邦 et al., Guxun huizuan 故訓匯纂
(Beijing: Shangwu yinshuguan, 2003), 304sub90.
23 “諸, 於也” (Wang Yinzhi, Jingzhuan shici, 514).
24 Gongyang zhuan, 哀 14, 28.6a6–b5.
25 孝經注疏序.
26 “府, 文書藏也”(說文); “府, 文書財物藏也” (Xuanying, Yiqie jing yinyi, 9.13).
27 Zuozhuan, 僖 27.
28 Zuozhuan, 昭 17.
29 Zuozhuan, 成 5.
30 “約, 言語之約束” (周禮鄭玄注). Cf. “所以治者, 約… 藏乎志… 發乎聲; as for what is used
to bring about order, it is language codification… it becomes part and parcel of people’s inten
tions… it is expressed in the sounds they make” (Dadai liji, 65).
31 Yan Shigu, Jijiu pian zhu, 4:290.3. Cf. “詩, 孔子所刪為三百篇者也… 尚書, 孔子所修帝王之書也;
the Shijing is the collection of poems that Confucius edited down to three hundred in number… the
can be observed in these expressions.”32 Confucius’ emotions were considered to

be expressed in the Chunqiu in an elegant and refined way: “不知文雅之辭… 忿
怒說喜不以義; if one does not know elegant and refined expressions… then the
expression of anger, fury, delight, and joy will not accord with propriety,”33 and it
was “是故聖人之記事… 行之以禮… 記之以義; for this reason the sages recorded
events… they enacted behavior according to ritual… and recorded it according to
propriety.”34
According to Kong Anguo 孔安國 (fl. 2nd century B.C.E.), in the text of the
Chunqiu Confucius “expresses his indignation” (fafen 發憤),35 it being the case
that “昔, 孔子發憤於舊史; in antiquity, Confucius expressed his indignation by
means of36 what the ancient scribes had written.”37 A good deal of this indig
nation on the part of Confucius was directed towards particularly heinous acts
of unfilial behavior that the Chunqiu recorded: “春秋記臣弒君者, 以百數; as for
the Chunqiu recording retainers murdering their lords, there are more than one
hundred instances of this.”38 On the half-Oedipal crime of murdering one’s lord,
one Qing philologist notes: “引之謹案… 其意以著其惡; I, Wang Yinzhi, respect
fully note the following… Confucius’ intended meaning was to make known the
how repellent the murderer was.”39
This traditional reading of the Chunqiu uses the hermeneutic method that
Confucius supposedly established in the Chunqiu itself in order to read Con
fucius’ intent in editing the Chunqiu. For example, “孔子曰其禮與其辭足觀矣;
Confucius said: his rituals and his expressions are utterly sufficient for observ
ing and judging him.”40 And so readers attempt to closely examine the rituals
Confucius engaged in and the subtle distinctions of the expressions he used in
order to observe and judge Confucius as a human being. Indeed, according to
Shangshu is the collection of the writings of the emperors and kings that Confucius edited” (Jijiu pian
zhu, 4:289.7–290.5). The ten wings of the Yijing, for their part, were also traditionally considered to
have been written by Confucius—see the critical discussion in: Gu Jiegang 顧頡剛 et al., Gushi bian
古史辨, 7 vols. (Taibei: Landeng wenhua shiye, 1993), 3:89–94.
32 Du Yu 杜預 (222–284), Chunqiu xu 春秋序.
33 Dadai liji, 48.
34 Liji Zhengzhu, 6.23a5–7.9.
35 古文孝經序.
36 “於, 以也” (Yang Shuda 楊樹達 [1885–1956], Ciquan 詞詮 [Shanghai: Shanghai guji chuban
she, 2006], 381:15).
37 Wei Zhao, Guoyu jiexu 國語解敘, in Guoyu zhu, 661.
38 Zhanguoce, 1:15.
39 Jingyi shuwen, 24.20b10–21a1. This is Wang Yinzhi’s comment on shi jun 弒君 “he murdered
his lord,” as the phrase appears in Gongyang zhuan, 宣 1.
40 Gongyang zhuan, 昭 25, 24.7a1–2.
classical tradition, Confucius himself said that readers could find his intentions
in the Chunqiu: “昔者, 孔子有云: 吾志在春秋; in antiquity, Confucius said: my
intentions are found in the Chunqiu”;41 “子曰吾志在春秋; Confucius said: my
intentions are found in the Chunqiu.”42
The sagely intentions encoded in the Chunqiu were critical to the followers
and imitators of Confucius—as Mengzi says, comparing the authorial efforts of
Confucius with the flood-control project of the ancient sage-king Yu, “昔者, 禹抑
洪水而天下平… 孔子成春秋而亂臣賊子懼… 我亦欲正人心; in antiquity Emperor
Yu controlled the flood waters and thereby brought peace to the world… Con
fucius completed the Chunqiu and thereby disorderly retainers and rebellious
sons were made to be afraid… I, for my part, also desire to thus make the hearts
of the people correct.”43 And it was following just this interpretive model that
the Chunqiu became a classic: “若民煩, 可教訓… 教之春秋而為之聳善而抑惡焉;
if the people are causing you trouble by being disorderly,44 you can educate and
explain things to them.… teach them the Chunqiu and thereby cause45 them to
encourage46 the good and condemn47 the bad by means of it.”48 The Chunqiu was
considered in this manner to have established ethical norms (inseparably lexical
and social), and thus could be used as an effective tool in education and gover
nance: “春秋之所治, 人與我也. 所以治人與我者, 仁與義也. 以仁安人, 以義正我,
故仁之為言人, 義之為言我也. 言名之別矣; what the Chunqiu brings order to is
others and the self. What it uses to bring order to others and the self is empathy
(humaneness) and propriety. It uses empathy to pacify ‘others’; it uses propriety
to make the ‘self’ correct, therefore ‘empathy’ (仁) is talking about others (人),
propriety (義) is talking about the self (我). This is exactly how the Chunqiu talks
about the distinctions between words.”49
The Guliang commentary to the Chunqiu carefully explicates why Confucius
intentionally used words according to or not according to correct lexical Â�propriety
41 Gongyang zhuan, 何休序, 1.3.

42 孝經序.
43 Mengzi, 文公好辯, in Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 45:211.
44 “煩, 亂也” (國語韋昭注).
45 “為, 使也” (國語韋昭注; cf. Cheng Changying 呈昌瑩, Jingci yanshi 經詞衍釋 [Beijing: Zhon
ghua shuju, 2003], 32).
46 “聳, 獎也” (國語韋昭注).
47 “抑, 貶也” (國語韋昭注).
48 Wei Zhao, Guoyu zhu, 527–528.
49 Chunqiu fanlu, 29:562, in Zhong Zhaopeng 鍾肇鵬, ed., Chunqiu fanlu jiaoshi 春秋繁露校釋,
2 vols. (Shijia: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 2005). Note the simultaneous paronomasia and gra
phemic puns.
(these being explicitly identified as Confucius’ ci 辭 “expressions”) by using

the formulaic comments “非正, 不正, or 非禮”50 when not in accordance, and
“正也”51 when in accordance. Commentators simply could not believe that Con
fucius’ expressions were anything but a combination of the canonical codifica
tion of language and the subtle (or not so subtle) expression of political criticism:
“春秋貴賤不嫌同號, 美惡不嫌同辭; in the Chunqiu, the noble and the base are not
considered so alarmingly similar52 as to be given the same name, what is beau
tiful and what is ugly are not considered so alarmingly similar as to be assigned
the same expression”;53 “春秋之文, 有事同而辭同… 有事同而辭異; in the text of
the Chunqiu, there are examples where events are the same and the expressions
are the same… there are examples where the events are the same but the expres
sions are different.”54 And so if Confucius used different words to describe the
same events, it must be the case that this is an example of intentional authorial
intervention (via his choice of which words to use to “express” himself). As the
Lunyu states: “子曰辭, 達而已矣; Confucius said: as for expressions, they convey
something and that’s absolutely it.”55
It was the ultimate judgment of the Chunqiu commentators that Confucius’
expressions reestablished the lexical-and-social norms espoused by the former
sages. The Chunqiu itself is then a kind of dictionary, in that it codifies language,
controls behavior, encodes authorial intent, and aims to regulate the world by
means of literally and physically modifying the heart of every reader. As He Xiu’s
subcommentary to the Gongyang zhuan formulaically states: “X何以名而Y不名?
X從正… [何休注曰] 從君臣之正義言也; why is the word ‘X’ used, and not the
word ‘Y’? Because the word ‘X’ is in accordance with what is correct… [He Xiu’s
commentary says:] that is, the word is in accordance with the correct propriety for
the social statuses of lord and retainer.”56
50 E.g., Guliang zhuan, 隱 9, 桓 5, 桓 8, 桓 15.

51 E.g., Guliang zhuan, 僖 1, 文 1, 成 16, 襄 7.
52 “嫌, 不平於心” (說文); “嫌, 心不平也” (Huilin, Yiqie jing yinyi, 5.24); “嫌, 近也” (呂氏春秋高
誘注). Malmqvist translates this xian 嫌 as “deceptive resemblance (giving rise to uncertainty as
to the correct identification)”—see: Göran Malmqvist, “Studies on the Gongyang and Guuliang
Commentaries I,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 43 (1971): 82.
53 Gongyang zhuan, 隱 8, 3.5b10–6a1.
54 Hu Anguo 胡安國, Chunqiu zhuan 春秋傳, as cited in Zhao Boxiong 趙伯雄, Chunqiuxue shi
春秋學史 (Jinan: Shandong jiaoyu chubanshe, 2004), 38.
55 Lunyu, 衛靈公. According to Kong Yingda, “此章明言語之法也; this sentence is making clear
the rules of language” (論語正義). According to Zhu Xi, “辭取達意而止; expressions, once they
have successfully conveyed their intended meaning, stop right there” (論語集注). Cf. “書以道事,
詩以達意; the Shangshu speaks of events, the Shijing conveys intended meaning” (Shiji, 126:3197).
56 Gongyang zhuan, 隱 8, 3.8b9–10.
The interpretive model exemplified above actually covers not just the Chunqiu
itself, but all the classics traditionally associated with being edited and trans
mitted by Confucius. The Shijing “Classic of Poetry,” for example, was supposed
to function in very similar ways: “先王以是: 經夫婦, 成孝敬, 厚人倫, 美教化,
移風俗; the former kings used the Shijing to do the following: to make the rela
tionship between husband and wife constant, to define what it means to be
respectful of elders and parents, to deepen social relationships, to make educa
tional transformation attractive, and to alter local customs.”57 The historiographic
and language-theoretical tradition embedded in the canonical Mao commentary
comes out of exactly the same epistemic and hermeneutic framework that we see
above in the Chunqiu: “至于王道衰, 禮義廢, 政教失, 國異政, 家殊俗, 而變風變雅
作矣. 國史, 明乎得失之迹, 傷人倫之廢, 哀刑政之苛, 吟詠情性以風其上, 達於事
變而懷其舊俗者也. 故變風發乎情, 止乎禮義. 發乎情, 民之性也. 止乎禮義, 先王
之澤也; coming down to the time when the kingly way failed, ritual and propriety
were abandoned, the political system of transformational education was lost, the
states altered their political systems, and each family modified their customary
practices, and under those conditions the ‘Mutant Airs’ and the ‘Mutant Elegan
tiae’ were composed. The scribes of the states were those who: clearly understood
the marks of governmental success and failure, grieved over the abandonment of
proper social distinctions, were distressed about the harshness of punishments
and decrees, expressively sung out these poems in accordance with their funda
mental emotional nature in order to criticize their superiors, and conveyed their
understanding that events were undergoing change but yet yearned to stay in
accord with the old customs. Therefore the ‘Mutant Airs’ vented these emotions
but stopped when they reached the point of ritual and propriety. Venting such
emotion, this is nature of the people. Stopping when one reaches the point of
ritual and propriety, this is the favor bestowed by the former kings.”58
The language theory that the Mao preface relies on sounds exactly like that
of the Xunzi (and other philological discussions) examined above: “情動於中而
57 毛傳大序. Cf. “訓五方而觀新物. 注: 以教天下, 使知世所善惡… 新物出則觀之以知民志所

好惡… 當以政教化正之; on the line ‘educate the five regions and observe new things’, [Zheng
Â�Xuan’s] commentary says: ‘educate’ means teaching everyone in the world, causing them to
know what is good and bad in their era… if new things emerge then observe and judge them
in order to know what the people’s intentions are in reference to good and bad… one ought to
use this method to govern, teach, transform, and make the people correct” (Zheng Xuan, Zhouli
Zhengzhu, 33.12a2–4); “風, 是諸侯政教也… 所以風天下; as for the ‘Airs’, these are the various
marklords’ political system of transformational education… they are what is used to critique and
transform the world” (Lu Deming, Jingdian shiwen, 3.2a8).
58 毛詩大序.
形於言. 言之不足, 故嗟嘆之. 嗟嘆之不足, 故永歌之. 永哥之不足, 不知手之舞之,

足之蹈之也; the emotions are moved inside the heart59 and take shape in spoken
words. If spoken words are insufficient, the person then sighs the emotion. If
sighs are insufficient, the person then sings out the emotion.60 If singing out is
insufficient, then the hands of the person unknowingly dance out the emotion
and the feet stamp it out.”61 As the poems contained in the Shijing were ritual
songs sung to the accompaniment of music and dance, this drives home the fact
that traditional Chinese aesthetic theory is fundamentally based in the ritualized
expression of emotion (the preface to the Maozhuan being the first and most his
torically influential key text of Chinese literary and aesthetic theory).
The first poem in the collection serves as the paradigmatic case of the political
use of the Shijing (and, indeed, as the definition of what the word “poetry” should
mean): “關雎, 后妃之德也. 風之始也, 所以風天下而正夫婦也. 故用之鄉人焉, 用
之邦國焉; Guanju (the name of the poem) is the virtue of the Queen-consort. The
beginning of the ‘Airs’ section is what is used to educate the world and make the
relationship between husband and wife correct. Therefore its use among the vil
lages and the people comes from this—its use among the fiefdoms and the states
comes from this.”62 Poetry, by this definition (in that it is a slightly more intense
form of political speech), is a tool used by the elite to control the emotions and
behavior of the populace, while at the same time being a tool that could be used
by social inferiors to assert control over their superiors (through open mockery or
indirect forms of criticism). But in each case, poetry comes down to the ritualized
expression of intense emotion. Later Chinese discussions of poetry, even mostly-
linguistic ones such as that of Zhou Deqing, fall within such traditional discursive
boundaries, as obviously, and always, “必正言語; it is necessary to make lan
guage correct.” 63
59 “中, 謂中心”(孔穎達).
60 Cf. “言之不足故長言之, 長言之不足, 故嗟嘆之… 嗟嘆之辭; if spoken words are not suffi
cient, the person then melodically intones it, if melodically intoning it is not sufficient, the per
son then sighs it out… using expressions for sighing” (Gu Yanwu, Yinxue wushu, 59.8a1); “長言
之, 引其聲也” (禮記鄭注).
61 毛詩大序.
62 毛詩大序.
63 Zhongyuan yinyun, 自序, 7.10, in Zhou Deqing 周德清 (1277–1365), Zhongyuan yinyun 中原
音韻 (Taibei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 2002). Cf. “正其語, 便其作; make the language correct, and
this will expedite the writing of poetry” (Zhongyuan yinyun, 羅宗信序, 15.6–7); “欲作樂府必正
言; if one desires to write ‘song verse’, it is necessary to make spoken words correct” (Zhongyuan
yinyun, 自序, 7.10); “正語作詞; make language correct in order to write song verse” (Zhongyuan
yinyun, 77.4); “正語作詞之法… 然能正其語之差; in following the method of making language
The discipline of the study and interpretation of the classics (jingxue 經學)
and that of traditional Chinese lexicography and philology (xiaoxue 小學) share
exactly the same epistemology regarding the nature and function of language (the
language theory most explicitly advocated in Xunzi’s “Making Words Correct”),
an epistemology which is radically different from European ideographic theory.
The Erya, as both a classic and a dictionary, should be read and analyzed accord
ing to the Chinese episteme.
correct in order to write song verse… one is able to correct the differences between languages”
(Zhongyuan yinyun, 後序, 21.9–22.5).
Chapter Twelve: The Erya and Lexicographic
Classification
I will work through the Erya backwards as a formal propadeutic to defamiliarize
the text for those who overemphasize the importance of the first three chapters:
the nineteenth chapter is of the Erya is entitled shichu 釋畜 “explaining domestic
animal-class words,”1 It is divided into six lexical subclasses: mashu 馬屬 “horse-
class words,” niushu 牛屬 “cow-class words,” yangshu 羊屬 “sheep-class words,”
goushu 狗屬 “dog-class words,” jishu 雞屬 “chicken-class words,” liuchu 六畜 “six
domestic animal-class words.”2 Six other chapters of the Erya are also divided
into subclasses (shishou 釋獸, shishui 釋水, shiqiu 釋丘, shidi 釋地, shitian 釋天,
shiqin 釋親).
We begin with mashu 馬屬 “horse-class words.” This subclass uses four dif
ferent microstructures:
1.) The most basic microstructure in the Erya is to simply list a headword under
the rubric of a lexical class or subclass: [ X.] meaning “X is a word of this
lexical class or subclass.” An example in mashu 馬屬 is [野馬.] “wildhorse”
(2652b),3 a binome with no direct syntactic relationship to any of the words
1 I have generally followed the commentary of Guo Pu 郭璞 (276–324 C.E.) and the subcommen
tary of Xing Bing 郉昺 (931–1010) on the chapter and subclass titles. I am also following tradi
tional Chinese language theory and the Han Erya commentary fragments (see chapter 13 below)
in presuming that “words” as such are ming 名 and that these ming 名 are the entire topic of the
Erya, and hence form the basis of all its microstructures—both headword and gloss.
2 Although the technical word shu 屬 “class” is unique to the subclass titles of chapters eigh
teen and nineteen within the Erya, it is highly influential in later lexicography, as witnessed for
Â�example by the bushou 部首 formula 凡X之屬, 皆从X in Shuowen jiezi. Guo Pu seems to be the
first to explicitly call other chapters of the Erya such, e.g., “釋詁釋言之屬” (Yang Xiong 楊雄,
Fangyan 方言 [Taibei: Guomin chubanshe, 1959], 7n—I use this edition of the Fangyan zhu as a
base text, as it is a photolithographic reprint of the Sibu congkan edition that has been contin
uously paginated; I have also found Hua Xuecheng’s edition invaluable: Hua Xuecheng 華學誠
et al., Yang Xiong fangyan jiaoshi huizheng 揚雄方言校釋匯證, 2 vols. [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
2006]). It is also terminologically significant that on the basis of the methodological principle
that “類篇以說文為本; the Leipian takes the Shuowen as its foundation” (Sima Guang, Leipian,
序, 2a4), the Leipian takes the Shuowen formula 凡X之屬, 皆从X and turns it into 凡X之類, 皆从
X. Following from this, one should probably translate the title of this important Song dictionary
as the “Tablet of Classifications.”
3 I use the Erya zhushu 爾雅注疏 (in Shisanjing zhushu 十三經注疏, 2 vols. [Shanghai: Shanghai
guji chubanshe, 1997], 2:2563–2658) for a base text, as it is the standard critical edition (see: Wel
don South Coblin, “Erh Ya 爾雅,” in Michael Loewe, ed., Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical
Guide [Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China, 1993], 96). I have also benefited from
consulting Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, vols. 43–44.
Chapter Twelve: The Erya and Lexicographic Classification 203
around it.4 This microstructure is found within lexical class and subclass
enumerations (two of which, shishou shushu 釋獸鼠屬 and shishui jiuhe 釋水
九河, consist solely of [X.] [X.] [X.], etc.).
2.) The second microstructure is purely syntactic, consisting of a definiendum
(that which is being defined) and a definiens (that which serves to define):
4 On the topic of binomes (and other polynomials) vs. analyzing the language as monosyllables,
echoing the first attempt by Western sinology to show that Chinese is not monosyllabic (Jean-
Pierre Abel-Rémusat, “Utrum Lingua Sinica sit vere monosyllabica?,” Fundgraben des Orients 3
[1813]: 279–288), over a century later Kennedy is still arguing that even at its earliest stages the
classical Chinese lexicon was never exclusively mononomial (George A. Kennedy, “The Mono
syllabic Myth,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 71.3 [1951]: 165). The huge percentage of
binomial and polynomial words in the Erya—which even the most cursory perusal of the Erya
gulin (Yang Wei 楊薇, ed., Erya gulin jingwen ciyu suoyin 爾雅詁林經文詞語索引 [Wuhan: Hubei
jiaoyu chubanshe, 1999]) will show make up about half the total words in the text—does not
belie these arguments, nor the fact that out of about 675 total entries in the Fangyan (varying
slightly depending on the edition), according to my count no less than 175 (following the Sibu
congkan punctuation) contain at least one binome—the formulaic syntax of Fangyan microstruc
tures generally makes the identification of binomes unambiguous; in cases of ambiguity, I have
identified the word boundaries according to Dai Zhen 戴震 (1724–1777), Fangyan shuzheng 方言
疏證 (Sibu beiyao), in Xiaoxue mingzhu liuzhong (op. cit.). Han lexicographers never seem to have
tagged binomes, or the rare triple or quadruple polynomials, as anything special or out of the
ordinary, but rather seem to regard them as unremarkable words and treated them as such in the
macro- and microstructures of dictionaries. In fact, there is not a shred of historical evidence that
anyone in imperial China ever considered their own language to consist of monosyllables—the
analysis of writing as consisting of distinct singular characters (zi 字) was only historically intro
duced in the middle of the Eastern Han by Xu Shen and his contemporaries. Tjan Tjoe Som 曾珠
森 (1903–1969) laconically remarks, “the expression yen 言 [‘word’] is curious; it either means tzŭ
字 ‘character’, or ‘word unit’ consisting of a combination of two characters” (Po Hu T’ung: The
Comprehensive Discussions in the White Tiger Hall, 2 vols. [Leiden: Brill, 1949–1952], 1:148n524).
In the above article Kennedy identifies John Webb’s An Historical Essay Endeavoring a Probabil-
ity That the Language of the Empire of China is the Primitive Language (1669) as the first text to
claim that Chinese is monosyllabic (“The Monosyllabic Myth,” 161), but the “monosyllabicity” of
Chinese had previously been mentioned by Semedo (1653), Ricci/Trigault (1615), Haklyut (1599),
and even in the earliest letters of China missionaries to the Jesuit General (e.g., one from Michele
Ruggieri, dated July 22, 1583—for discussion, see: Rüdiger Schreyer, The European Discovery of
Chinese (1550–1615), or The Mystery of Chinese unveiled [Amsterdam: Stichting Neerlandistik
VU, 1992], 23). However, of much greater antiquity than Webb, Semedo, Ricci, Trigault, Haklyut,
and Ruggieri is European ideographic theory, assuming a one-to-one correspondence between
individual written characters/letters and singular Forms, which clearly informs the Western
Â�typification of Chinese as monosyllabic to no small degree.
204 Chapter Twelve: The Erya and Lexicographic Classification
[X, Y.]5 meaning “Y is another word for X.”6 This microstructure is found only
in chapters eight through nineteen, which is solid internal evidence for the
claim that the Erya should be divided formally into three sections: chapters
1–3 covering lexical classes of glossing words (it is readily apparent even at a
glance that this is a separate section), chapters 4–7 generally covering lexical
classes of human culture, and chapters 8–19 generally covering lexical
classes of the natural world (which use the microstructure [X,Y.], while the
other two sections do not).7
3.) The third microstructure is designative: [X曰Y.] meaning “as for X, call it Y.”
This microstructure is most often used in long chain glosses (e.g., [一X曰A,
二X曰B, 三X曰C, 四X曰D…]; [X在time1曰A, 在time2曰B, 在time3曰C…], etc.).
It is a generally a gloss only inasmuch as it lists out the words to be used
for particular parts, sets, divisions, and enumerations of phenomena (which
presumably were established—by fiat—by the former sages).
4.) The fourth is the single-most important microstructure in the history of
Chinese lexicography, [X,Y也.] generally meaning “one of the meanings of the
word X is the most common meaning of the word Y.”8 Uncertainty about how
this technical microstructure works in the dictionary tradition can lead to mis
reading. It is inconceivable that educated people during the late Warring States
and early Han period did not know that the meanings of words change through
time—if they simply sang one of the songs of the Shijing, or read through a few
5 As for the range of my use of the microstructure variables XYZ and ABC, these can represent
single words or long phrases, and complex clusters of combined microstructures are ubiquitous
throughout the Erya (e.g., [謂X者, Y謂之Z也.])—I am here attempting to identify the simplest
base-microstructures that serve as the building blocks for the many complex microstructures.
6 I here use the Latinate terminology of modern lexicography (for discussion, see: Sidney I.
Landau, Dictionaries: The Art and Craft of Lexicography [New York: Scribner, 1984], 120–121), as
it is quite convenient for discussing this particular glossing microstructure. Carr also uses this
terminology, and further argues that “in terms of traditional Chinese lexicography, the definien
da are (almost always) 雅 ya ‘elegant, literary’ words—and the definientia are 俗 su ‘common,
vulgar’ words” (“A Linguistic Study,” 461). This, however, is anachronistic when dealing with the
Erya before Guo Pu. Guo Pu introduces the refined vs. vulgar technical linguistic distinction into
his Erya commentary, which cannot be considered to be part of the Erya before the Western Jin
(though it appears in some Han commentary fragments, see chapter 13 below).
7 Carr further subdivides chapters 8–19 into two sections, explaining “chapters 8–12 define
words concerning the physical world, and chapters 13–19 define names of flora and fauna” (“A
Linguistic Study,” 5).
8 For discussion, see: Xue Shiqi, “Chinese Lexicography Past and Present,” in R. R. K. Â�Hartmann,
ed., Lexicography: Critical Concepts, 3 vols. (London: Routledge, 2003), 2:159–160; Coblin, “An
Â�Introductory Study,” 37–39; Carr, “A Linguistic Study,” 465–467, 470–471, 544, and 582–583.
years of the Chunqiu, they must have instantly recognized that otherwise quite
familiar words had different meanings in old texts (the contemporary meaning
of many words would and could make no literal sense); as Lu Deming says,
“古今名異; in antiquity and the present the words are different.”9 The entire
Chinese philological and commentarial tradition, and all of Han and later
jingxue, is based on this theoretical assumption—and so are all of the dictionar
ies, including the Erya. As one early ritual text says, “子曰… 制禮以行政… 辨言
以遂志… 爾雅以觀其古, 足以辨言矣; Confucius said… establish ritual in order
to enact government… distinguish words in order to fulfil one’s intentions (or,
perhaps, “make the communicated meaning the same for everyone”)10 …in
the Erya11 one can observe the antiquity of words, and thus the Erya is totally
sufficient for distinguishing words.”12
The subclasses niushu 牛屬 “cow-class words” and yangshu 羊屬 “sheep-

class words” both use the microstructures [X.] and [X,Y.]. Goushu 狗屬 “dog-class
words” uses [X,Y.] and [X,Y也.]. The jishu 雞屬 “chicken-class words” subclass
uses [X,Y.]. The liuchu 六畜 “six domestic animal-class words” subclass, however,
only uses the common microstructure [X為Y] meaning “consider X to be Y.” This
presumptive copular microstructure is used in more than half of the chapters
of the Erya, but with no discernable pattern of distribution (it does not occur in
shishou 釋獸, shiyu 釋魚, shichong 釋蟲, shiyue 釋樂, shiqi 釋器, shiyan 釋言, and
shigu 釋詁).
The eighteenth chapter is entitled shishou 釋獸 “explaining wild animal-
class words.” It is divided into four lexical subclasses: yushu 寓屬 “Â�migratory
Â�animal-class words,” shushu 鼠屬 “rat-class words,” yishu 齸屬 “Â�rumination-
class words,” and xushu 須屬 “hyperventilation-class words.” The “migratory
9 Jingdian shiwen, 6.12b8.

10 “遂, 通也” (淮南子高誘注); “遂志, 通意也… 方能通絕代別國之言之意也” (阮元大戴禮記注,
in Huang Huaixin, Dadai liji huijiao jizhu, 2:1178).
11 All of the Qing commentators—with one exception (see: Dadai liji, 74.1114)—read 爾雅 here
as the dictionary Erya; this rather than the noun-phrase “refined standard language.” In all
likelihood, it is the noun-phrase here in Dadai liji, rather than the dictionary—hence literally:
“in refined standard language one can observe the antiquity of words, and thus refined stan
dard language is totally sufficient for distinguishing words.” However, because the philological
tradition spanning from Liu Xi to Ruan Yuan unquestionably considered the Erya to contain a
lexicographic codification of the “refined standard language” of the ancient sages, it is probably
best here to continue to read 爾雅 as the dictionary (albeit a dictionary literally entitled Nearing
the Refined Standard).
12 Dadai liji, 74.
Â�
animal-class words” subclass has some of the most fascinating descriptions of
creatures outside the Shanhai jing 山海經 “the Classic of Mountains and Seas,”
e.g.: “猶如麂, 善登木; the you resembles a musk deer (Moschus chinensis), it is
good at climbing trees”(2651b); “狒狒如人, 被髮, 迅走, 食人; the baboon resem
bles a person, it is covered with hair, runs fast, and eats people” (2651c).13 This
Â�subclass uses the microstructures [X.], [X,Y.], and another common microstructure
[X謂之Y.] meaning “as for X, refer to it as Y.” The [X謂之Y.] microstructure is used
in thirteen chapters of the Erya, again with no visible pattern to the distribution
(it does not occur in shishou 釋畜, shimu 釋木, shiqiu 釋丘, shiyan 釋言, and shigu
釋詁, but is the only microstructure used in shiyue 釋樂).
The yushu 寓屬 “migratory animal-class words” subclass also contains
the only example of a regional word or so-called “dialect” gloss in the Erya—
[X, 秦人謂之Y.] (2651a). It is a bit of a misnomer to call a gloss of this nature
‘dialectal’, as Yang Xiong himself argues in the Fangyan that regional lan
guages originally had autochthonous lexicons with no contact or borrowing
(we might say these languages were not even of the same language family),
that only slowly over time began to influence one another through contact and
converge into shared regional common tongues and finally a single common
standard language.14 This definition of fangyan 方言 “regional spoken words”
(which is the original definition for the tradition) is exactly the opposite of
13 The Shanhai jing itself can be viewed as engaging in a form of lexical cataloging; like the
Zhouli and the Erya, the Shanhai jing is very careful to assign ming 名 to everything it contains—
geographic features, fabulous and mythological creatures, and strange oddities. Thus the Shan-
hai jing, like the Zhouli, is basically another form of dictionary.
14 See Chapter 13 below. Again, this may be a historically, factually incorrect account of the
Chinese language; we traditionally tend to describe the overall process of language change in
exactly the opposite fashion—from a theoretically unified singular proto-language splitting and
diversifying into various branches, ultimately based on the Tower of Babel model (for discus
sion, see: Arno Borst, Der Turmbau von Babel: Geschichte der Meinungen über Ursprung und
Vielfalt der Sprachen und Volker, 6 vols [Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1957–1963])—which is frankly
just as problematic as what Yang Xiong describes. The Fangyan model is, however, one of the
foundation stones of Chinese language theory, and has been used to describe the history and
nature of Chinese languages up to the present day; it must be given prime consideration when
examining the philological and lexicographic tradition (consider it reverse stammbaumtheorie if
that is helpful). Western sinologists have sometimes dismissed what lexicographic texts actually
have to say about language, simply because it is “wrong” according to our narrow epistemolog
ical standards. This is unfortunate, as Chinese philologists and lexicographers had genuinely
intriguing ways of analyzing and theorizing language. As my aim here is to explicate the lan
guage theory implicit in the native Chinese lexicographic tradition on its own terms (insofar is
that is humanly possible), I will on principle try to avoid the use of such anachronistic terms as
“dialect.”
what the English word “dialect” means; it is therefore disingenuous to trans

late fangyan as “dialect” in classical Chinese sources.
As for the shushu 鼠屬 “rat-class words” subclass, as previously mentioned it
only uses the microstructure [X.]. The yishu 齸屬 “rumination-class words” sub
class uses the designative [X曰Y.] to list the words for chewing cud, depending
on the animal doing the masticating and vomiting. The xushu 須屬 “hyperven
tilation-class words” subclass similarly uses [X曰Y.] to enumerate the distinct
words for heavy breathing (due to excitation of one sort or another) among wild
animals, people, fish (e.g., when they have been pulled out of water), and birds.
Chapter seventeen is entitled shiniao 釋鳥 “explaining bird-class words.” It has
no subclasses and uses the following microstructures: [X,Y.], [X曰Y.], [X,Y也.],
[X為Y.], and [X謂之Y.]. Chapter sixteen is shiyu 釋魚 “explaining fish-class
words.” It has no subclasses and uses the microstructures [X.], [X,Y.], [X曰Y.],
[X,Y也.], and [X謂之Y.]. Chapter fifteen is shichong 釋蟲 “explaining creature-
class words.” It has no subclasses and uses [X,Y.] and [X謂之Y.].
Chapter fourteen, shimu 釋木 “explaining tree-class words” is also without
subclasses and uses [X,Y.], [X曰Y], and [X為Y.]. Chapter thirteen shicao 釋草
“explaining vegetation-class words,” lacks subclasses and uses the microstruc
tures [X,Y.], [X,Y也.], [X為Y.], and [X謂之Y.]. It also uses the existential locative
microstructure [X, Y有之.] meaning “X exists there in Y place.” This microstruc
ture has the common variants [X有Y.] “X place has Y there,” and [X有Y焉.] “X
place has Y in/on/near it.”
Chapter twelve, shishui 釋水 “explaining moving water-class words,” has
four subclasses: shuiquan 水泉 “sources of moving water-class words,” shuizhong
水中 “in the midst of moving water-class words,” hequ 河曲 “twisting water
course-class words,” and jiuhe 九河 “nine tributaries-class words.” The shuiquan
水泉 “sources of moving water-class words” subclass uses [X,Y.], [X曰Y.], [X為Y.],
and [X有Y.]. It also uses the conditional microstructure [X, Y則Z.] meaning “if X is
in Y state then refer to it with the word Z.” This subclass also displays some inter
esting lexico-social encoding in specific divisions of nautical terminology, e.g.:
“天子, 造舟. 諸侯, 維舟. 大夫, 方舟. 士, 特舟. 庶人, 乘泭; as for boats, for the Son
of Heaven the word to be used is ‘floating bridge’; for the various marklords it is
‘linked vessel’; for grandees it is ‘catamaran’; for officials it is ‘solitary ship’; for
common people the word is ‘riding raft’” (2619c).15
15 For a detailed discussion of nautical vocabulary in the Fangyan and Erya, see: Paul Leo-Mary
Serruys, “Prolegomena to the Study of the Chinese Dialects of Han Time According to Fang yen,”
(Ph.D. Diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1955), 542–568.
The shuizhong 水中 “in the midst of moving water-class words” subclass uses
[X曰Y.] and [X為Y.]. The hequ 河曲 “twisting watercourse-class words” subclass
for its part uses [X,Y.], and the jiuhe 九河 “nine tributaries-class words” subclass,
as previously mentioned, only uses the enumerative [X.] microstructure.
Chapter eleven is entitled shishan 釋山 “explaining mountain-class words.”
It has no subclasses and uses the microstructures [X,Y.], [X曰Y.], [X,Y也.],
[X為Y.], and [X謂之Y.]. Chapter ten is shiqiu 釋丘 “explaining hill-class words,”
with two subclasses: qiu 丘 “hill-class words,” and ya’an 涯岸 “shoreline-class
words.” The first subclass uses [X,Y.], [X為Y.], and [X有Y.]; the second uses [X,Y.]
and [X為Y.]. The subclasses of geographic features closely parallel sections of the
Zhouli—indeed, the phrase “辨其名物; distinguish its words and things” is used
ubiquitously throughout the Zhouli, e.g., “山師: 掌山林之名, 辨其物… 川師: 掌川
澤之名, 辨其物… 邍師: 掌四方之地名; the ‘Master of Mountains’ is responsible
for the words for mountains and forests, and thus for distinguishing the things in
them… the ‘Master of Rivers’ is responsible for the words for rivers and marshes,
and thus for distinguishing the things in them… the ‘Master of Plateaus’ is respon
sible for the words for all earthen outcroppings everywhere.”16
Chapter nine is shidi 釋地 “explaining earth-class words,” with seven sub
classes: jiuzhou 九州 “nine districts-class words,” shisou 十藪 “ten still waters-class
words,” baling 八陵 “eight mounds-class words,” jiufu 九府 “nine treasuries-class
words,” wufang 五方 “five directions-class words,” ye 野 “countryside-class
words,” and siji 四極 “four extremes-class words.” The jiuzhou 九州 “nine dis
tricts-class words” subclass uses [X曰Y.]. The shisou 十藪 “ten still waters-class
words” subclass uses [X有Y.]. Baling 八陵 “eight mounds-class words” uses [X,Y.]
and the microstructure [X,Y是也.] meaning “as for X, Y is this.” Jiufu 九府 “nine
treasuries-class words” uses only [X有Y焉.], while wufang 五方 “five Â�directions-
class words” uses [X有Y焉.] in addition to the designative microstructure [X, 其名
謂之Y.] meaning “as for X, when referring to its ming use the word Y.” The ye 野
“countryside-class words” subclass uses [X曰Y.] and [X謂之Y.], and siji 四極 “four
extremes-class words,” for its part, uses [X,Y.], [X為Y.], and [X謂之Y.].
Chapter eight is entitled shitian 釋天 “explaining heaven-class words.” It
has twelve subclasses: sishi 四時 “four seasons-class words,” xiang 祥 “auspi
cious-class words,” zai 災 “disaster-class words,” suiyang 歲陽 “Jupiter stem
calendar-class words,” suiming 歲名 “Jupiter branch designation-class words,”
yueyang 月陽 “lunar stem calendar-class words,” yueming 月名 “lunar month
16 Zheng Xuan, Zhouli Zhengzhu, 33.12b1–8. The preface of the Shuijing explicitly compares the
Zhouli to the Erya (see: Li Daoyuan 酈道元 [d. 527 C.E.], Shuijing zhujiao 水經注校, ed. Wang
Guowei 王國維 [Taibei: Xinwenfeng chubanshe, 1988], 8.3).
Â�designation-class words,” fengyu 風雨 “wind and rain-class words,” xingming

星名 “star designation-class words,” jiming 祭名 “sacrifice designation-class
words,” jiangwu 講武 “military preparation-class words,” and zuqi 族旗 “clan
flag-class words.”
The sishi 四時 “four seasons-class words” subclass uses [X,Y也.] and [X為Y.].
Xiang 祥 “auspicious-class words” uses [X為Y.] and [X謂之Y.]. The zai 災 “disas
ter-class words” subclass uses [X為Y.], while suiyang 歲陽 “Jupiter stem calen
dar-class words” uses [X曰Y.]. Suiming 歲名 “Jupiter branch designation-class
words,” for its part uses [X曰Y.] and [X,Y也.]. This subclass also makes the claim
for strongly distinct diachronic word usage in the enumeration: “[X, 夏曰A, 商
曰B, 周曰C, 唐虞曰D.]; during the Xia dynasty X was called A, during the Shang
dynasty X was called B, during the Zhou X was called C, and during the time of
Yao and Shun X was called D.”17
The yueyang 月陽 “lunar stem calendar-class words” subclass uses [X曰Y.];
the yueming 月名 “lunar month designation-class words” subclass uses [X為Y.].
As for the fengyu 風雨 “wind and rain-class words” subclass, it uses [X曰Y.], [X,Y
也.], [X為Y.], and [X謂之Y.]. Xingming 星名 “star designation-class words” uses
[X,Y也.], [X為Y.], and [X謂之Y.], while jiming 祭名 “sacrifice designation-class
words” uses [X曰Y.], [X,Y也.], and the temporally enumerative [X, 周曰A, 商曰
B, 夏曰C.]. The jiangwu 講武 “military preparation-class words” subclass uses
[X,Y.], [X,Y也.], [X為Y.], and [X謂之Y.]. The zuqi 族旗 “clan flag-class words” sub
class uses [X.], [X,Y.], and [X曰Y.].
Chapter seven is shiyue 釋樂 “explaining music-class words.” It has no sub
classes, and, as previously mentioned, only uses [X謂之Y.]. Chapter six, shiqi
釋器 “explaining implement-class words,” has no subclasses and uses the [X曰
Y.], [X,Y也.], and [X謂之Y.] microstructures. The fifth chapter is entitled shiguan
釋宮 “explaining building-class words.” It has no subclasses and uses [X曰Y.],
[X,Y也.], [X為Y.], and [X謂之Y.].
Shiqin 釋親 “explaining familial relationship-class words” is the fourth
chapter. It is the most prescriptively loaded chapter in the Erya, and any cul
tural anthropologist would be delighted with it. As the ancient Chinese elite
were ancestor worshipers, and considered that the fabric of society was main
tained by properly ritualized human interaction, it is not surprising that single
words meaning such as “great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather”
and “great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson” are commonplace—they
would have been used repeatedly by the elite in sacrifices in the ancestral temple.
Also, specific words for how people of different levels and layers in incredibly
17 Cf. Mengzi, 騰文公為國, in Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 45:162.

complex family relationships should refer to other members are identified and
explained in great detail.
This lexical class is divided into four subclasses: zongzu 宗族 “paternal clan-
class words,” mudang 母黨 “maternal group-class words,” qidang 妻黨 “spousal
group-class words,” and hunyin 婚姻 “marriage-class words.” Obviously, patrilo
cal marriage customs were considered correct by the early sages, and therefore
inculcated into the lexicon so as to control humans and enforce gender norms.
The zongzu 宗族 “paternal clan-class words” subclass uses [X,Y也.] and [X為Y.].
It also includes complex microstructures such as [X相謂為Y.] meaning “when
people of X social relationship are referring to one another, they are to be con
sidered Y.” The mudang 母黨 “maternal group-class words” subclass only uses
[X為Y.]. The qidang 妻黨 “spousal group-class words” subclass uses [X為Y.] and
[X謂之Y.]. As for the hunyin 婚姻 “marriage-class words” subclass, it uses [X曰Y.]
and [X,Y也.].
Chapter three, shixun 釋訓 “explaining explanatory gloss-class words,” has
no subclasses and uses the microstructures [X,Y也.], [X為Y.], and [X謂之Y.]. This
chapter, along with chapter two, shiyan 釋言 “explaining spoken word gloss-class
words” (no subclasses, uses only [X,Y也.]) and chapter one, shigu 釋詁 “explain
ing old word gloss-class words” (no subclasses, also uses only [X,Y也.]), forms a
distinct section of the Erya.18 These three chapters have been studied lexicologi
cally by Coblin, who concludes that the Erya as a whole is a merely an organized
collection of glosses to ancient texts. It is of some interest to note that if the nine
teen lexical classes are to be taken seriously as a macrostructure, then basically
every headword of the microstructures of the first three chapters has been explic
itly identified in the Erya itself as a type of glossing-class word. That Coblin and
many prior scholars of the tradition, beginning with Guo Pu (and, of course, his
lost Han sources), were able to track down textual evidence for the usage of words
in the sense specifically glossed in chapters 1–3 is therefore quite natural. Two
minor points to be raised concerning Coblin’s otherwise superb dissertation: first,
while Guo Pu cites authoritative texts to comment on and explain the content of
the Erya itself, Coblin does exactly the opposite, presuming that the Erya is lit
erally a body of concrete glosses to specific earlier texts (collected together and
called the Erya without any direct reference to the original texts), and hence the
conclusion must be that the Erya is not really a cohesive text in and of itself;19
18 For discussion of the meaning of gu 詁, yan 言, and xun 訓 in the titles of these chapters, see:
Coblin, “An Introductory Study,” 8, 41–42n6, and 521–528.
19 Following Karlgren’s basic assumption that “the Er ya is not a dictionary in abstracto, it is a
collection of direct glosses to concrete passages in ancient texts” (Bernhard Karlgren, “The Early
second, Coblin routinely collapses distinct microstructural sets into hypothetical

lexicological meaning-affinity units, on the principle that if any microstructural
set shares a word with another microstructural set then all the words in both must
be related in meaning. Coblin’s argument takes for granted that the Erya is hetero
geneous and compiled over a long period of time by many different hands—which
would account for the broken-apart state of such microstructures in the first three
chapters.20
These interpretations of the Erya are alien to the Chinese lexicographic tra
dition, which first of all assumed that the Erya was a cohesive text (and would
likely have been scandalized by any other presumption), and moreover assumed
that the technical lexicographic microstructure [X,Y也.] usually meant “the most
common meaning of the word Y is one of the meanings of the word X.”21 Within
the tradition the complex microstructure of chapters one through three—[A, B,
C, D, …X也. C, Y也.]—means “one of the meanings of the word A is X, one of the
meanings of the word B is X, one of the meanings of the word C is X, one of the
meanings of the word D is X…; also, one of the meanings of the word C is Y.” There
History of the Chou Li and Tso Chuan Texts,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities
3 [1931]: 46—emphasis original), Coblin expresses wonderment over Guo Pu’s commentary on
exactly this point: “there are numerous places where Kuo does gloss the Erh-Ya passage in some
way. In most cases his gloss is a short explanation of the meaning of some word in the Erh-Ya
text, but there are also instances where he gives a quote from an early text. The interesting thing
about these quotes is that Kuo never states that he has cited for our convenience the very pas
sage to which the Erh-Ya gloss refers… it is far more likely that Kuo’s quotes are merely examples
supplied because he felt that they clearly illustrate the use of particular words in their Erh-Ya
senses” (“An Introductory Study,” 33–34; cf. Karlgren, “Early History,” 46; Carr, “A Linguistic
Study,” 11 and 539–540). At issue here is whether or not the Erya in its transmitted form (i.e., Guo
Pu’s edition) is to be read as an abstract treatment of language per se, without concrete reference
to “commentary-glossalia” on the classics (which, according to one of the standard teleologies
of Western historiography, must precede dictionary-making, philology, and linguistics—in that
order). When one looks at how the early Chinese commentators interpreted the Erya (see chap
ter 13 below), it seems that they read it both as a cohesive text and as a complex, abstract, and
sophisticated treatise on the history and nature of language and lexical usage, and, as many
early commentators evidently considered the Erya to be as old or older than most of the clas
sics themselves (or at least that it came from the same august layer of ancient written culture),
they obviously could not have assumed that it originated from the later commentarial tradition
on the classics. Whether or not their discourse is credible according to the dictates of present
day text-critical epistemology is extraneous to the question of what these people were actually
saying about language and, consequently, how they were going about reading and compiling
dictionaries.
20 See: Coblin, “An Introductory Study,” 288–296, 429–433, 502–503, and 505–509.
21 For discussion, see: Liu Yeqiu, Zhongguo zidian shilue, 31.
is no need to presume that Y and X are in any way related words (besides that they
each happen to share one possibly entirely distinct meaning with the word C).
Collapsing such terms together into meaning-affinity sets seems questionable.
Here is a table illustrating the macrostructure of the Erya in proper sequential
order:
1.) Shigu 釋詁 “explaining old word gloss-class words”
2.) Shiyan 釋言 “explaining spoken word gloss-class words”
3.) Shixun 釋訓 “explaining explanatory gloss-class words”
4.) Shiqin 釋親 “explaining familial relationships-class words”
i.) zongzu 宗族 “paternal clan-class words”
ii.) mudang 母黨 “maternal group-class words”
iii.) qidang 妻黨 “spousal group-class words”
iv.) hunyin 婚姻 “marriage-class words”
5.) Shiguan 釋宮 “explaining building-class words”
6.) Shiqi 釋器 “explaining implement-class words”
7.) Shiyue 釋樂 “explaining music-class words”
8.) Shitian 釋天 “explaining heaven-class words”
i.) sishi 四時 “four seasons-class words”
ii.) xiang 祥 “auspicious-class words”
iii.) zai 災 “disaster-class words”
iv.) suiyang 歲陽 “Jupiter stem calendar-class words”
v.) suiming 歲名 “Jupiter branch designation-class words”
vi.) yueyang 月陽 “lunar stem calendar-class words”
vii.) yueming 月名 “lunar month designation-class words”
viii.) fengyu 風雨 “wind and rain-class words”
ix.) xingming 星名 “star designation-class words”
x.) jiming 祭名 “sacrifice designation-class words”
xi.) jiangwu 講武 “military preparation-class words”
xii.) zuqi 族旗 “clan flag-class words”
9.) Shidi 釋地 “explaining earth-class words”
i.) jiuzhou 九州 “nine districts-class words”
ii.) shisou 十藪 “ten still waters-class words”
iii.) baling 八陵 “eight mounds-class words”
iv.) jiufu 九府 “nine treasuries-class words”
v.) wufang 五方 “five directions-class words”
vi.) ye 野 “countryside-class words”
vii.) siji 四極 “four extremes-class words”
10.) Shiqiu 釋丘 “explaining hill-class words”
i.) qiu 丘 “hill-class words”
ii.) ya’an 涯岸 “shoreline-class words”
11.) Shishan 釋山 “explaining mountain-class words”

12.) Shishui 釋水 “explaining moving water-class words”
i.) shuiquan 水泉 “sources of moving water-class words”
ii.) shuizhong 水中 “in the midst of moving water-class words”
iii.) hequ 河曲 “twisting watercourse-class words”
iv.) jiuhe 九河 “nine tributaries-class words”
13.) Shicao 釋草 “explaining vegetation-class words”
14.) Shimu 釋木 “explaining tree-class words”
15.) Shichong 釋蟲 “explaining creature-class words”
16.) Shiyu 釋魚 “explaining fish-class words”
17.) Shiniao 釋鳥 “explaining bird-class words”
18.) Shishou 釋獸 “explaining wild animal-class words”
i.) yushu 寓屬 “migratory animal-class words”
ii.) shushu 鼠屬 “rat-class words”
iii.) yishu 齸屬 “rumination-class words”
iv.) xushu 須屬 “hyperventilation-class words”
19.) Shichu 釋畜 “explaining domestic animal-class words”
i.) mashu 馬屬 “horse-class words”
ii.) niushu 牛屬 “cow-class words”
iii.) yangshu 羊屬 “sheep-class words”
iv.) goushu 狗屬 “dog-class words”
v.) jishu 雞屬 “chicken-class words”
vi.) liuchu 六畜 “six domestic animal-class words”
Now that we have a general overview of the lexical class and subclass macrostruc
ture and all the formal microstructural elements of the Erya, we can examine its
early commentaries in order to begin to analyze what all this lexicographic data
might actually mean.
Chapter Thirteen: The Erya and Chinese
Language Theory
The earliest somewhat reliable fragments of Erya commentary are those of Liu
Xin 劉歆 (46 B.C.E.-23 C.E.).1 And although there are only seven fragments pre
served from Liu Xin (not really a statistically significant sampling), it is remark
able that none of these contain sound glosses, regional word glosses, “modern
language” glosses, or any other possible anachronisms.2
The second Han commentary is that of Fan Guang 樊光, who was a Grand
Master Palace Attendant 中散大夫 during the mid-late Eastern Han, and other
than the fact that Guo Pu claims him as a source and that he is presumed to have
written this commentary sometime before the middle of the second century C.E.,
nothing is known of him.3 The commentary fragments include examples of fanqie
(49.6b, 49.7b, 49.8a, 49.8b, 49.9a, 49.9b, 49.10a, 49.12b, 49.13a, 49.14a, 49.15b),
direct sound glosses (49.10b, 49.12b, 49.13b), regional word glosses (49.11a,
49.13b, 49.14a, 49.14b, 49.15a), and even a single “vulgar language” 俗語 gloss
(49.12b). Now, if we take the only reliable terminus a quo of systematic “common
language” (通語) glosses, systematic “modern language” (今語) glosses, and sys
tematic “regional word” (方言) glosses to be Yang Xiong and his contemporaries,
that of systematic sound (讀若, 聲) glosses to be Xu Shen and his Â�contemporaries,
1 The only earlier fragments we have are those of the Erya jian wei wenxue zhu 爾雅犍為文學注
attributed to Guo Sheren 郭舍人, who was generally considered to have lived during the reign
of Han Wudi (r. 140–87 B.C.E.); for discussion, see: Coblin, “An Introductory Study,” 65–70. The
problem with these fragments is their obvious anachronisms, including examples of fanqie (Ma
Guohan, Yuhanshanfang ji yishu, 48.65a, 48.75b, 48.77a), regional word glosses (48.73b, 48.79a,
48.79b, 48.80b, 48.81b), and “modern language” 今語 glosses (48.79b, 48.80b, 48.81b, 48.86a,
48.86b, 48.87a). While the latter two glossing-types are not theoretically impossible for the West
ern Han, it seems unlikely these were systematically used before Yang Xiong. For discussion of
Liu Xin’s commentary, see: Coblin, “An Introductory Study,” 70–71. In terms of the basic meth
odological problem with using fragments, the conclusion of this author is that if Creel can write
a 446 page monograph on the basis of 27 presumed pre-Han fragments (Herrlee G. Creel, Shen
Pu-hai: A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century B.C. [Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1974]), it seems reasonable that many hundreds of Han and Sanguo period Erya commen
tary fragments should not be considered out of bounds strictly on sinological principle.
2 Ma Guohan, Yuhanshanfang ji yishu, 49.2a–49.4b. All further references will be to this edition
of the fragments. Although Sun Fengyi 孫馮翼 (fl. 1801) compiled a fine edition of the Han com
mentary fragments (Erya hanzhu 爾雅漢注, in Wenjingtang congshu 問經堂叢書, 16 vols. [Jinling:
Chengde sunshi, 1797–1802], vols. 1–3), as it is organized with each Erya entry listing the relevant
fragments, it is less convenient for examining the commentaries separately.
3 See: Coblin, “An Introductory Study,” 71.
Chapter Thirteen: The Erya and Chinese Language Theory 215
that of systematic fanqie and direct sound (音) glosses to be Sun Yan and his
contemporaries, and that of systematic “vulgar language” glosses to be Guo Pu
and his contemporaries (see below), we have constructed a theoretical chronol
ogy of the development of metalinguistic discourse during the Han, Wei, and Jin
periods, and concomitantly given ourselves criteria to judge the validity of frag
ments such as the above. According to these hypothetical historical criteria, the
regional word glosses are unproblematic in Fan Guang, while the fanqie, direct
sound glosses, and “vulgar language” glosses are anachronistic. It is also note
worthy that Fan Guang illustratively quotes some authoritative texts, specifically
the Zhouli, Shijing, Lunyu, Chunqiu, Bencao, and Liji.
The final Han commentary preserved in fragments is that of Li Xun 李巡
(fl. 184 C.E.), a Eunuch Palace Attendant 中黃門 of the later Han.4 This commen
tary is the first to explicitly identify the content of Erya microstructures as ming
名. It uses fanqie (49.23b, 49.25a, 49.25b, 49.27b, 49.37a, 49.39b, 49.48a), direct
sound glosses (49.23b, 49.26b, 49.53b), “common language” glosses (49.28b),
“modern language” glosses (49.30a, 49.33b, 49.47b, 49.55b, 49.56a, 49.58b,
49.63a), “regional word” glosses (49.28b, 49.59a, 49.61a, 49.61b, 49.64b)—and it
even cites the Fangyan twice (49.26b, 49.65a). Other than the fanqie and direct
sound glosses, every glossing type above is chronologically possible according
to our criteria. The Li Xun commentary further analyzes the microstructure of
the Erya with such statements as “所以古今通語明實同而兩名; these are the
common languages of antiquity and the present that it has used to make clear
that there are two words for the same signified” (49.30a);5 “分別異名以曉人也;
it divides up and separates out the different words in order to cause people to
understand” (49.59b); “皆分別五方之語而名不同也; as in all cases it divides up
and separates out the languages of the five regions, the words are dissimilar”
(49.61b); “皆分別[X]異方之語也; in all cases it divides up and separates out X in
the languages of the different regions” (49.61b); “別[X]異方之言; it separates out
the spoken words for X in different regions” (49.64b); “分別[X]之名; it divides up
and separates out the words for X” (49.66b).
Li Xun also glosses such microstructures as [X,Y.] with “一物, 二名; one
thing, two words” (49.58a, 49.58b), and [X,Y也.] with “[X]一名[Y]; X is one word
for Y” (49.66b). He even explains a lexical subclass (shidi shisou 釋地十藪 “ten
4 See: Coblin, “An Introductory Study,” 72.

5 Cf. the Zhuangzian commonplace “異名同實, 其指一也; it is a different word for the same
signified, what it points to is the same thing”(Zhuangzi, 知北遊). As one can imagine, this
commonplace is constantly referred to when discussing synonymous and near-synonymous
terms in dictionaries and commentaries.
216 Chapter Thirteen: The Erya and Chinese Language Theory
still waters-class words”) with “藪澤之別名也; these are the separated out
words for swamps and marshes” (49.47b–49.48a). This commentary furthermore
includes the technical term zongming 總名 “general word” (49.59a, 49.62b), which
seems to have first appeared in Chinese linguistic discourse with Xu Shen (55–149
C.E.), and hence is not anachronistic here.6
The two Sanguo period commentarial fragments that we have are the Erya
Sunshi zhu 爾雅孫氏注 and Erya Sunshi yin 爾雅孫氏音 by Sun Yan 孫炎 (fl. early
3rd century C.E.), a disciple of Zheng Xuan.7 These are perhaps the most famous
lost commentaries in Chinese metalinguistic history; they were traditionally con
sidered to be the first commentaries to use fanqie. And with the single exception
of a “vulgar language” gloss (50.48a), these fragments contain nothing anachro
nistic. Very similar to Li Xun, they contain “regional word” glosses (50.8a, 50.9b,
50.10b, 50.18a, 50.47a, 50.48a)—including the fantastic comment “方言有輕重, 故
謂火為燬; regional spoken words have a ‘light and heavy distinction’, therefore
when referring to 火 [*hwərx] ‘fire’ they consider it to be 燬 [*hwjərx] ‘blazing’”
(50.10b).8 They also contain “modern language” glosses (50.20a, 50.21a, 50.37a,
50.39a, 50.47a, 50.49a, 50.51b, 50.57b), endless examples of fanqie and direct
sound glosses (50.28b–50.66a), and such analysis of Erya microstructures as “[X]
之言, 古[Y]之名也; as for the spoken word of X, in antiquity it was the word Y”
(50.16a); “一物, 五名, 方言異也; one thing, five words, the regional spoken words
are different” (50.21b); “[爾雅曰] 苕, 陵苕. 黃華, 蔈. 白華, 茇. [孫注曰] 苕華, 色
異, 名亦不同; [the Erya says] Trumpetflower is another word for Trumpet Flower,
6 See: Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 141a, 258b, 265a, 267b, 270a, 326b, 335b, 353a, 478b, 638a,
644b, 674b, and 720a.
7 On Sun Yan, see: Coblin, “An Introductory Study,” 72–75.
8 This is far more than simple paronomasia, as Sun Yan, like Yang Xiong before him, is here
identifying some sort of abstract linguistic cause for the phenomena (which we would identify
phonologically as the difference between first and third division)—which is what he presumed
to have motivated the Erya compiler to write this entry in this way in the first place (now we
really begin to see that the early commentators, pace Karlgren, read the Erya as a lexicographic
treatise on language in abstracto). And we are not surprised to find that the word 火 *hwərx, to
gether with [火+果] and [火+尾], listed in one of the five sets of regional spoken words explicitly
identified by Yang Xiong as exhibiting zhuanyu 轉語 “language change” (Fangyan, 2). Xu Shen
also has three relevant paronomastic entries, namely “火, [火+尾]也… [火+尾], 火也… 燬, 火也”
(Duan Yuacai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 840a); finally, Guo Pu links them up with direct sound glosses
in his commentaries, saying “[火+尾]音毀” (Fangyan, 114) and “燬音毀” (Erya zhushu, 2584b). It
is of no small import that Yang Xiong seems to have almost single-handedly invented traditional
philological methodology in China by authoring the Fangyan—the basic linguistic theory stated
in the first chapter and used consistently throughout the Fangyan is followed without fail by
most of philological and lexicographic tradition.
Yellow Bignonia is another word for Yellowbignonia, White Bignonia is another

word for Whitebignonia. [Sun Yan’s commentary says] as for Chinese Trumpet
flower (Bignonia grandiflora) blossoms, when the color is different, the word, for
its part, is dissimilar” (50.48a).9 Finally, Sun Yan cites the Fangyan extensively
(50.3b, 50.11a, 50.23b, 50.51a, 50.54a), in addition to the Shuowen jiezi, Shangshu,
Lunyu, Gongyang zhuan, Shijing, Zhouli, Bencao, and Liji.
The Jin scholar Guo Pu wrote the earliest Erya commentary preserved intact.
Guo Pu was an excellent philologist; what he says can be taken seriously.10 He
wrote the first preface to the Erya, which should be examined in detail:
郭璞爾雅序
Guo Pu, “Preface to Nearing the Refined Standard ”11
9 For discussion of the relevant botanical facts, see: Carr, “A Linguistic Study,” 262–264. The
point of Sun Yan’s commentary seems to be not only to remark upon the color difference between
the three otherwise botanically similar plants, but also that there must be some specific slight
color distinction between the mononomial versus binomial words for each plant (which might
explain why the Erya compiler made explicit both the cluster of the six together and the word
distinctions between the three pairs individually). The presumption of authorial intent in the
Erya on the part of these commentators is so obvious that it simply must affect how we read and
understand their commentaries, even if we cannot help but consider what they are doing to be a
drastic hermeneutic mistake (cf. the Gongyang zhuan and Guliang zhuan). Not making allowance
for—and attempting to genuinely understand—the strategies of reading these commentators
were practicing would be an equally drastic hermeneutic mistake on our part.
10 Guo Pu also wrote commentaries on the Fangyan, the Shanhai jing, the (recently unearthed)
Mutianzi zhuan, Han fu, and moreover penned treatises on prognostication, astrology, and geo
mancy (on these later treatises, see: Joseph Needham et al., Science and Civilization in China,
vol. 2, History of Scientific Thought [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956], 350, 356,
and 360).
11 As Guo Pu himself did, I here follow Liu Xi’s interpretation of the title: “爾雅. 爾, 昵也; 昵,
近也. 雅, 義也; 義, 正也. 五方之言不同, 皆以近正為主也; as for the binome Erya, one of the
Â�meanings of the component word er 爾 is ni 昵 ‘intimate with’, one of the meanings of the word
ni 昵 is jin 近 ‘come close to’; one of the meanings of the component word ya 雅 is yi 義 ‘meaning’,
one of the meanings of the word yi 義 is zheng 正 ‘correct’. As the spoken words of the five regions
are dissimilar, one should in all cases consider what is near to the correct to be authoritative”
(Shiming 釋名, 20:47b [Sibu congkan edition]; cf. Coblin’s discussion and rather different transla
tion of this passage, “An Introductory Study,” 1–2). Liu Xi’s interpretation of the title of the Erya
is anachronistic, making a major theoretical presumption not encoded in any explicit fashion in
the Erya itself (i.e., a refined standard language vs. numerous regional languages), but important
to consider nonetheless—as witness how this interpretation of the title (and hence the overall
content of the macrostructure and microstructures) follows both from Yang Xiong’s paradigmat
ic language theory and the presumption of authorial intention made by the Han Erya commen
taries; witness also how precisely Liu Xi’s explication of the meaning of the title influences Guo
夫爾雅者, 所以通詁訓之指歸. 敘詩人之興詠, 總絕代之離詞, 辯同實而殊號者也. 誠九流之

津涉, 六藝之鈐鍵, 學覽者之潭奧, 摛翰者之華苑也. 若乃可以博物不惑, 多識於鳥獸草木之
名者, 莫近於爾雅. 爾雅者, 蓋興於中古, 隆於漢氏, 豹鼠既辯, 其業亦顯. 英儒贍聞之士, 洪筆
麗藻之客, 靡不欽玩耽味, 為之義訓. 璞不揆檮昧, 少而習焉. 沉研鑽極, 二九載矣. 雖注者, 十
餘, 然猶未詳備, 並多紛謬, 有所漏略. 是以復綴集異聞, 會萃舊說, 考方國之語, 采謠俗之志,
錯綜樊孫, 博關群言, 剟其瑕礫, 搴其蕭稂. 事有隱滯, 援據徵之. 其所易了, 闕而不論. 別為音
圖, 用袪未寤; 輒復擁彗清道. 企望塵躅者, 以將來君子為亦有涉乎此也.
In any particular case, Nearing the Refined Standard is what is used to understand the purport
of old word glosses and explanatory word glosses.12 It puts in order the songs composed by
the Shijing poets and assembles the dissimilar expressions of distant ages, differentiating
those which are the same practical matter but distinct in appellation. It is truly the ferry-port
of the nine traditional schools,13 the doorkey of the six classics, the quiet and remote inner
chamber of erudites who study broadly, and a flower garden for those who grasp the brush
to write. Now then, as for being able to know many things without being confused or having
extensive knowledge of birds, beasts, grasses and trees, nothing comes nearer (i.e., excels)
Nearing the Refined Standard. As for Nearing the Refined Standard, it more than likely arose
during middle antiquity,14 and was made glorious by people of the Han—the wildcat-marked
rat was then distinguished, and the achievements of Nearing the Refined Standard were for
Pu, and, following him, the majority of the later lexicographic and philological tradition (cf.
Carr’s comment above on ya 雅 ‘refined’ vs. su 俗 ‘vulgar’ as the basis for all dictionary glossing
microstructures—this is absolutely true after Guo Pu, as everyone follows him). For example,
Zhu Junsheng says “以雅正俗… 以古正今; use the refined to make the vulgar correct… use the
ancient to make the modern correct” (Shuowen tongxun dingsheng, 定聲, 11b4–5).
12 This preface has previously been translated by Coblin, “An Introductory Study,” 76–78. As my
interpretations are often different, I translate it here anew.
13 This analogy stems from the binome jiuliu 九流 “nine traditional schools”—one of the gener
al meanings of component word liu 流 is “flow, current, what has come down the river.” Hence
the Erya, as a jinshe 津涉 “ferry-port,” is the place one presumably goes to find the word-vehicles
that will ferry one safely across the various streams of traditional written learning.
14 According to Jin dynasty usage, the extremely ambiguous word zhonggu 中古 “middle
Â�antiquity” can mean anything from the beginning of the Xia to the end of the Qin dynasty. One
suspects that Guo Pu was hesitant to assign a date of composition to the Erya any more specific
than this. However, since zhonggu is clearly juxtaposed with the Han dynasty, one also suspects
that he meant at least early Warring States and possibly even Western Zhou. By the time Guo Pu
was writing, there were two major arguments about the provenance of the Erya, that of Zheng
Xuan—who claimed that the Erya was compiled by the disciples of Kongzi (see: Xing Bing’s
subcommentary, Erya zhushu, 2567b–2567c; Coblin, “An Introductory Study,” 8–9)—and that of
Zhang Yi 張揖 (fl. 230 C.E.), who argued that the Duke of Zhou wrote the Erya (see: Xing Bing
in Erya zhushu, 2567b–2567c; Coblin, “An Introductory Study,” 19–23). Following Zhang Yi, both
Yan Zhitui and Lu Deming say: “爾雅, 周公所作; the Erya was compiled by the Duke of Zhou”
(Yanshi jiaxun, 17.109a13 and 經典釋文序錄). Guo Pu’s use of the word “middle antiquity” conve
niently covers them both without assigning too much weight to either, and it is easy to see here
that Guo Pu is a very careful scholar. I will consequently assume that “middle antiquity” here is
a qualified dodge between the Western Zhou and the early Warring States period.
their part displayed.15 Among scholars of unexcelled scholarship and abundant learning,
literateurs of great literary skill and elegant artistry, none failed to appreciate it and enthu
siastically savor it, and they made glosses for it to explain the meaning. I, Guo Pu, taking no
account of my ignorance, from a young age began to study Nearing the Refined Standard. I
was drawn deep into its investigation, drilling down to the utmost point for eighteen years.
Although there have been more than ten prior commentators, Nearing the Refined Standard
has still not yet been definitively explained—alongside many confusions and absurdities,
there are omissions and careless things.16 Thus I now piece together divergent opinions,
collect old explanations, investigate the languages of the states of various regions, gather the
records of popular sayings and songs, interlock and make composite the Nearing the Refined
Standard commentaries of Fan Guang and Sun Yan, extensively browse among the flock of
words preserved in texts, pare away their blemishes and detritus and pluck out troublesome
weeds. If something is mysterious or obdurate, I have cited proof to make it evident.17 What
is easy to understand in Nearing the Refined Standard is left out of the commentary and not
discussed. I have separately made a sound gloss manual and a set of charts,18 to be employed
so as to remove what has not yet been comprehended. The reason I have been so bold as to
repeatedly grasp the broom in order to cleanse and purify the road (of learning), to stand on
tiptoe gazing at the dusty footprints (of the sages via their writings), is so that for their part,
future gentlemen will have some legwork already done by this commentary.
15 Coblin discusses the “rat incident” at the court of Han Wudi—perhaps historically apocry
phal, as it only first appears here and in Guo Pu’s Erya commentary (2652a)—in detail, see: “An
Introductory Study,” 110–113n9; cf. Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 479a, Wang Yinzhi, Jingyi
shuwen, 28.35b7–37a8. It is of relevance to note that Guo Pu states in the “Preface” that the Erya’s
first real claim to fame was the fact that it contains a word classified under one of only two lexical
subclasses that use nothing but the bare headword ([X.], [X.], [X.] …) microstructure (Shishou
shushu 釋獸鼠屬). The assertion is therefore not that the Erya was able to be used at the court
of Han Wudi to explain anything about the “wildcat-marked rat” itself (as the entry provides no
information whatsoever outside the bare headword and its macrostructural classification), but
rather that the Erya users were able to identify an otherwise unfamiliar creature by means of an
ancient (gu 古) and refined (ya 雅) word (ming 名), that had been lexically classified by the sages
of middle antiquity (assigned to “wild animal class-words,” “rat class-words subclass”). On why
one should understand bao 豹 to mean “wildcat,” see: Paul Leo-Mary Serruys, “The Study of Old
Chinese Dialects: The Name for the Wildcat in Fang-yen, viii.2,” Oriens 6.2 (1953): 365.
16 As the innumerable annotations “未詳; not yet explained” throughout his commentary make
abundantly clear, Guo Pu does not claim to have definitively explicated the content of the Erya.
17 Guo Pu is presumably referring to his illustrative citations of authoritative texts, including,
but not limited to, the Yijing, Shijing, Maozhuan, Maoshi Zhengjian, Shangshu, Yizhoushu, Shu
dazhuan, Zuozhuan, Gongyang zhuan, Guliang zhuan, Yanzi chunqiu, Lüshi chunqiu, Guoyu,
Hanshu, Liji, Dadai liji, Zhouli, Guanzi, Lunyu, Kongzi jiayu, Mengzi, Zhuangzi, Mutianzi zhuan,
Huainanzi, Shanhai jing, Chuci, Cangjie pian, Bencao, Fangyan, Guangya, and Diaoquyuan fu. Guo
Pu also cites entries from Erya itself to explain other entries in the Erya, e.g., “釋言曰” (2630b);
“釋草曰” (2636c). In his Fangyan zhu, Guo Pu also cites the Zuozhuan, Hanshu, Erya, Shanhai
jing, Chuci, Liji, Zhuangzi, Zhouli, Fayan, Shijing, Yijing, Guangya, Xiao erya, Lunyu, and Guoyu.
18 For the fragments, see: “Erya yinyi 爾雅音義,” and “Erya tuzen 爾雅圖譖,” in Ma Guohan,
Yuhanshanfang ji yishu, 51.2a–51.36b.
The “Erya Preface” is divided into two clearly recognizable sections: the first
answering basic questions about the nature of the Erya—What is it? How does it
work? What is it good for?—and the second is Guo Pu’s explanation of what his
new commentary is about.
In answer to “what is it?” Guo Pu states that the Erya is a book used to under
stand the purport of old and explanatory glosses (i.e., what commentators were
trying to say when they wrote glosses on classical texts). As any sinologist knows,
classical Chinese commentaries are occasionally more difficult to understand
than the original texts themselves, and Guo Pu was evidently well aware of this
fact—hence he identifies the nature of Erya, right from the outset, as a reference
work helpful for understanding explanatory glosses (of which many commen
taries consist). According to this interpretation (which is actually quite an astute
observation of the utility of the microstructures, especially those of chapters 1–3),
the Erya is not only a dictionary, but a specialized dictionary, what is traditionally
called a xungu 訓詁 dictionary.
As for “how does it work?” the “Erya Preface” says that the Erya puts various
types of words (poetic diction, ancient expressions, synonymous designations)
in order—i.e., divides them up according to the macrostructure of 19 lexical
classes and 39 subclasses, and groups and lists them out by means of the various
microstructures.
To answer “what is it good for?” Guo Pu writes that not only is this dictionary
an extremely useful tool for engaging the complexities of xunguxue, but also that
it unlocks the classics (via clarifying their glosses) and helps one to read all the
various didactic literature. The “Erya Preface” further explains that the Erya is
the busy scholar’s best friend, a synonym bonanza and boon for writers looking
to lard their prose with learned phraseology, and finally that it is the definitive
reference work for looking up words for creatures and plants, better than any
other lexicon (and that it owes its early fame to such a specific use during the “rat
incident”).
In the second half of the “Erya Preface,” Guo Pu says that he began his study
of the Erya at a young age—which reminds us that, even as late as the Jin dynasty,
xiaoxue 小學 “philology” should probably still be understood to mean “elemen
tary education (for children),” which was unquestionably the primary meaning
during the Han period;19 as Wang Yinzhi notes, “古者… 八歲入小學, 十五歲入
19 Guo Pu further reminds us in his preface to the Fangyan that he studied the Fangyan along
side the Erya as a child. Cf. Xu Shen’s description of xiaoxue in the “Shuowen Postface” (see
chapter 15 below).
大學; in antiquity… at seven years old a boy entered ‘elementary education’, at

fourteen years old he entered ‘higher education’.”20
Guo Pu typifies the Erya as a difficult book not easily explained, and states
that his new commentary relies on earlier commentaries, old explanations, the
refined old words of the regional vernaculars, and even that he will not deign to
use spoken words from “vulgar languages” to aid in his analysis. He further cites
every authoritative text he can get his hands on to concretely illustrate the sense
of the Erya microstructures, and gives sound glosses in every case where the pro
nunciation of a particular word might not be instantly recognizable to his reader.
Turning to the commentary itself, in his note on the first entry of the first
chapter Guo Pu unambiguously defines the literal purpose of the Erya micro
structure: “此所以釋古今之異言, 通方俗之殊語; this is what is used to explain
different spoken words of antiquity and the present, and understand the distinct
Â�languages of (ancient) regional spoken vernaculars”(2568a).21 These metalin
guistic distinctions were understood by Guo Pu to be implicit in the very design
of the microstructures. He is therefore arguing that the Erya is a sophisticated lin
guistic treatise on the diachronic and areal aspects of the Chinese lexicon based
on five principles:
1.) traditional Chinese language theory

2.) slim internal evidence22
3.) the fact that the Erya consists of lists of distinct ming 名23
4.) the intentionalist hermeneutics of the Han Erya commentators24
5.) Yang Xiong’s metalinguistic theory
20 Jingyi shuwen, 11.19a6. On the distinction between xiaoxue and daxue, see also: Zheng Xuan,
Liji Zhengzhu, 4.6b1–3 and 4.11a9.
21 It is impossible to construe the subject of this sentence as anything but the Erya entry as a
whole unit [A, B, C, D…X也]—a.k.a. the microstructure—and this exactly mimics how Yang Xiong
discusses his own head-entries in the Fangyan.
22 As previously mentioned, the text of the Erya itself has only one “regional word” gloss (2651a)
and two diachronic (夏曰X, 商曰Y, 周曰Z, etc.) glosses (2608a, 2609b). While three entries make
for slim textual pickings, they are consequential in the early interpretation of the Erya.
23 Guo Pu follows the Han Erya commentators here, and writes such glosses as: “異語別四名也;
different languages differentiating four ming” (2641b), etc.
24 Not only does he cite familiar lines from the Han commentaries such as “所以古今通語明
實同而兩名; these are the common languages of antiquity and the present that it has used to
make clear that there are two words for the same signified” (2597a; cf. Li Xun above), but Guo Pu
also recognizes some of their more abstract linguistic distinctions, e.g., “方俗語有輕重; ancient
regional vernacular languages had a ‘light and heavy distinction’” (2569c, cf. Sun Yan above).
Since we have not yet closely examined Yang Xiong’s metalinguistic theory (which
is important for understanding how Guo Pu—and the entire philological tradition
following him—reads the Erya), let us take a moment to look at the Fangyan itself.
The Fangyan is a rather small dictionary, containing about 675 entries, total
ing about 3200 characters.25 Although there has been some debate about the
authenticity of this text (e.g., the negative judgment of the Siku tiyao editors),
because the work of Serruys “solves the various problems connected with its text
and author,”26 nothing further need be said on the matter except that the text was
probably unfinished at the time of Yang Xiong’s death,27 and was likely first edited
by Guo Pu.28 As Chang Qu remarks, “典莫正於爾雅, 故作方言; among the canon
ical texts, none were more correct than the Erya, and thus Yang Xiong wrote the
Fangyan (in imitation).”29 As Liu Junhui astutely points out, Yang Xiong “仿易而
作太玄, 仿論語而作法言…仿爾雅而作方言; imitates the Yijing and writes the Taix-
uanjing, imitates the Lunyu and writes the Fayan… imitates the Erya and writes
the Fangyan.”30 The merest glance at the macrostructure and Â�microstructures of
25 See: Serruys, “Prolegomena to the Study,” 2 and 125n4. Malmqvist gives the number of en
tries as 658 (Göran Malmqvist, “Chinese linguistics,” in Lepschy, History of Linguistics, 1:7); pre
sumably he was either working with a different edition or punctuating it differently. My count
matches Serruys’ figure of 675.
26 “Prolegomena to the Study,” 1. It only appears late in the bibliographic literature, in the
Â�Suishu “Jingji zhi” (see: Serruys, “Prolegomena to the Study,” 90), but the first solid mention of
the Fangyan by name was by Ying Shao in his commentary to Sima Xiangru’s Hanshu biography
and in the preface to the Fengsu tongyi 風俗通義 (see: Liu Junhui 劉君惠, Yang Xiong fangyan
yanjiu 楊雄方言研究 [Chengdu: Bashu shushe, 1992], 10–11; Serruys, “The Study of Old Chinese
Dialects,” 354). Ying Shao was a Han guwen 古文 scholar, and often cites the Erya, the Fangyan,
and the Shuowen in his writings (see: Hou Hanshu, 48:1609–1615; Michael Nylan, “Ying Shao’s
Feng su t’ung yi: An Exploration of Problems in Han Dynasty Political, Philosophical and Social
Unity,” [Ph.D. Diss., Princeton University, 1982], 6, 85, and 161). For discussion and translation of
relevant portions of the Fengsu tongyi preface, see: Serruys, “Prolegomena to the Study,” 25–26;
Nylan, “Ying Shao’s Feng su t’ung yi,” 4–6, 8–11, 55, and 67–68.
27 See: Serruys, “Prolegomena to the Study,” 95–96.
28 As Serruys remarks, Guo Pu assigned the full title “輶軒使者絕代語釋別國方言; The Light
Chariot Envoys’ Languages of Distant Ages Explaining the Regional Spoken Words of Different
States” on the basis of the letters exchanged by Yang Xiong and Liu Xin that were quoted by Ying
Shao in the Fengsu tongyi preface (see: “Prolegomena to the Study,” 125n3 and 141n3). The let
ters Ying Shao cites have been translated and discussed by Knechtges, see: David R. Knechtges,
“The Liu Hsin/Yang Hsiung Correspondence on the Fang yen,” Monumenta Serica 33 (1977–1978):
309–325.
29 Chang Qu 常璩 (265–316), Huayang guozhi jiaozhu 華陽國志校注, ed. Liu Lin 劉琳 (Chengdu:
Bashu shushe, 1984), 705.
30 Yang Xiong fangyan yanjiu, 2. Cf. Liu Yeqiu, Zhongguo zidian shilue, 47.
the Fangyan shows this statement to be true. Although none of the thirteen chap
ters (or, theoretically, chapter subdivisions) of the Fangyan have been given clas
sificatory titles, take a look at their content:31
Chapter 1.) abstract words

Chapter 4.) words for clothing
Chapter 5.) words for tools and instruments
Chapter 6.) words from the Northern and Eastern languages
Chapter 7.) more words from the Northern and Eastern languages
Chapter 8.) words for animals
Chapter 9.) words for weapons and implements, carts and their parts, and
boats and rafts
Chapter 10.) words from the Southern languages
Chapter 11.) words for insects and creatures
Chapter 12.) m
iscellaneous words, much more simple microstructures, not orga
nized according to any recognizable classification (incomplete?)
Chapter 13.) more miscellaneous words, much more simple microstructures, not
organized according to any recognizable classification (incomplete?)
Unless we assume that the text was radically reorganized by Guo Pu to fit some
thing like the classificatory scheme of the Erya (which seems quite unlikely, as
such a skilled philologist could have done a better job of making the macrostruc
ture exactly parallel), the remarkable consistency between chapter and word clas
sification—especially the first three chapters as a distinct unit marked off from the
others—makes the conclusion that the macrostructure of the Fangyan was largely
modeled on the Erya hard to deny. The nonaccidental design of the microstruc
tures in the Fangyan provide even more solid evidence of lexicographic imitation.
Yang Xiong takes the various microstructures of the Erya and combines
them in a manner unparalleled in the Erya itself. The most common structure
of the entry in the Fangyan is to take the [A, B, C, D…X也] microstructure, with
which we are so familiar from the first three chapters of the Erya, and use it as a
31 Cf. Serruys, “The Study of the Old Chinese Dialects,” 358–359; Serruys, “Prolegomena to the
Study,” 5–6.
head-entry.32 Yang Xiong then comments—by means of minor variations of Erya

microstructures—on the areal aspects of the words within the head-entry (i.e.,
where and in which languages they are used), and often on which word in the
head-entry is the “common standard language” word. This is sophisticated lexi
cographic and lexicological analysis, and by looking closely at what he says and
how he says it, it is clear that in the Fangyan Yang Xiong postulates a common
standard language used by everyone in the empire—tongyu 通語33—in addition
to unique politico-geographic subsets of specific common languages (i.e., 楚語,
齊語, etc.); he moreover presumed that these languages change through time.
The Fangyan asserts that in ancient times, each state had its own language—a
language both refined and elegant, that had no contact with any other language.
Ancient books (e.g., Shijing), and fragments of the records of the light chariot
envoys, evidently record the quite distinct languages of these different states. Yet
over time, with more and more contact between the states, distinct languages
began to coalesce into common regional languages, and finally into a common
standard language. However, by realizing that the contemporary vernacular
(non-standard) languages of different regions still use some of the ancient words no
longer part of the common standard language (though sometimes the sounds of
the words have changed in some way), Yang Xiong argues that a better understand
ing of regional vernacular words will clear up the lexicological issues Â�surrounding
the interpretation of old texts—and this is the entire point of the Fangyan.34
32 As mentioned above in discussing Guo Pu’s Erya commentary, the syntax of Yang Xiong’s
entries makes it impossible to construe the subject of some of his comments to be anything but
the head-entry as a whole (rather than any particular word within it), e.g., in [A, B, C, D, E, X也….
X, 其通語也], the pronominal possessive qi 其 “its” must be referring to the [A, B, C, D, E, X也.]
head-entry as a whole.
33 Fangyan, 2. There are twenty-one other textual examples of Yang Xiong stating [X, 其/凡/四
方之/亦通語也] in the sense of a common, non-area specific language, see: Fangyan, 2, 3, 17(x2),
28, 37, 44, 56(x2), 58, 60, 88, 90, 93, 114, 115, 120, 123, 125, 170, and 172. Serruys has explained
tongyu, stating “by standard word must be understood the word of the language concerned
with the whole community, used in schoolbooks and dictionaries as the most common and
widespread word capable of explaining the other terms” (“Prolegomena to the Study,” 6 bis);
Serruys also speculates that the common standard language of the Fangyan and the Shuowen are
the same common standard Han language (“Prolegomena to the Study,” 18–19).
34 As Serruys notes, the Fangyan “could well have been for the study of literature”; it “has
Â�always been used as a source for the interpretation of difficult passages in the old literary texts
with great profit”; it “was intended as a tool for correct philological interpretations of ancient
literature” (Serruys, “Prolegomena to the Study,” 3, 13, and 20). While there is nothing method
ologically wrong with considering the Fangyan to be a book containing information about dia
lects, as its purpose was clearly to discuss how time and space have affected different languages,
Yang Xiong writes: “皆古今語也. 初別國不相往來之言也. 今或同, 而舊書

雅記故俗語不失其方. 而後人不知, 故為之作釋也; [these words] are in all cases
both ancient and modern language. Originally the different states did not have
spoken words in contact with each other. Now some terms are the same, but in
ancient writings and elegant records the old vernacular languages had not yet
lost their ubiety.35 Because later people do not understand this, I have therefore
made explanations for their benefit.”36 That the philological tradition follows Yang
Xiong can be readily seen in the following: “言因方易; words change depend
ing on their location”;37 “五方殊語; in the five regions the languages differ”;38
“古今言語, 時俗不同; as for ancient and modern languages, both the time and the
customs are not the same”;39 “五方之人, 語音不類; among the peoples of the five
regions, languages and pronunciations are unlike”;40 “五方言語, 又復不類; the lan
guages of the five regions, for their part, are also unlike”;41 “五方之言不同… 正而
主也; the words of the five regions are not the same… consider what is correct to be
authoritative”;42 “夫九州之人言語不同… 而古語與今殊別; in any particular case, the
languages of the peoples of the nine regions are not the same… and ancient languages
are significantly different from modern languages”;43 “蠻夷諸夏… 言語不合; as for
the Man and Yi and the various Xia people… their languages are not the same”;44 “胡
與越人, 言語不相知, 志意不相通; as for the Hu and the Yue people, their languages
are not mutually intelligible, their intended meanings are not communicated to one
another”;45 “五方之民, 言語不同, 名稱不一, 文字不通; as for the people of the five
regions, their languages are not the same, their words and designations for things are
not unified, and their writing systems are not the same”;46 “五方之民, 言語不通, 嗜
欲不同, 達其志, 通其欲; as for the people of the five regions, their languages are not
it is extremely important to recognize—as Serruys did—that the Fangyan was compiled to be an

aid in the interpretation of old texts (i.e., as the Chinese tradition defined it, a dictionary per se).
35 Cf. “…皆古雅之別語也, 今則或同; [these words] are in all cases ancient and refined distinct lan
guages [of the various states just identified], some words of which are now the same” (Fangyan, 8).
36 Fangyan, 7. Cf. Serruys, “The Study of the Old Chinese Dialects,” 358.
37 Zhu Junsheng, Shuowen tongxun dingsheng, 自敘, 1b3–4.
38 Jingji zuangu, 王引之序, 1a2–3, in Ruan Yuan 阮元, Jingji zuangu 經籍纂詁, 2 vols. (Beijing:
39 Yan Zhitui, Yanshi jiaxun, 18.121a5.
40 Pseudo-Sima Guang, Qieyun zhichangtu, 序, 5.2–3.
41 Zhou Deqing, Zhongyuan yinyun, 自序, 2.4.
42 Ren Jifang, Shiming huijiao, 20.18.
43 Yan Zhitui, Yanshi jiaxun, 18.118a1–b3.
44 Dadai liji, 39.
45 Zhanguoce, 2:1110.
46 Dai Tong, Liushu gu, 通釋, 4.
the same, what they delight in and desire is not the same, so for conveying their intent
and communicating their desires (they must rely on translators)”;47 “五方之民, 言語
不通, 嗜欲不同, 達其志, 通其欲; as for the people of the five regions, their languages
are not the same, what they delight in and desire is not the same, so for conveying their
intent and communicating their desires (they rely on the following translators …)”48
In the Fangyan Yang Xiong also coins the extremely important technical philo
logical term zhuanyu 轉語 (or 語之轉) “language change,” (i.e., sound similarities
between synonymous words in contemporary regional vernacular languages which
point to prior lexical identity or influence via contact—in other words, evidence of
sound change at the level of the word through time and space), and directly identi
fies five head-entry sets in the Fangyan in which he suspects this has happened.49
From this we can see how profoundly the Fangyan influenced the interpreta
tion of the content and structure of the Erya. Guo Pu’s “Fangyan Preface” should
make this point even more explicit:
郭璞輶軒使者絕代語釋別國方言序
Guo Pu, “Preface to The Light Chariot Envoys’ Languages of Distant Ages Explaining the
Regional Spoken Words of Different States”50
47 Liji Zhengzhu, 4.11a4–5.

48 Zhouli Zhengzhu, 37.11a1–2.
49 Fangyan, 43, 114, 116, 125, 133. On the definition of this term and its specific use by Yang Xiong
(including phonological evidence for the examples), see: Wang Li 王力, Zhongguo yuyanxue shi
中国语言学史 (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 2006), 35–37. Malmqvist translates zhuanyu
as “phonetic variant” (“Chinese linguistics,” in Lepschy, History of Linguistics, 1:7), which is dis
ingenuous. Guo Pu’s Fangyan commentary later adds more terminology identifying the same
phenomenon—yushengzhuan 語聲轉 “language sound change,” sheng zhi zhuan 聲之轉 “change
of sound,” shengzhuan 聲轉 “sound change”—to the original zhuanyu 轉語 of Yang Xiong (see:
Fangyan, 7, 64–65, 66, 68, 92, 113, 114, 123, 131, 155). Guo Pu also uses the similar terms 語之轉,
語轉, 語聲轉, and 語之變轉 in Erya zhu (2573b, 2593b, 2600c, 2628b, 2649a). Zhuanyu became
a common technical philological term after Guo Pu. In his discussion of the word bi 筆 and its
possible dimidiation in the Shu (according to Guo Pu) or Wu (according to Xu Shen) language
term bulu 不律 (Paul Leo-Mary Serruys, Chinese Dialects of Han Times According to Fang Yen
[Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959], 60; cf. “The Study of the Old Chinese Dialects,”
368), Serruys, though undoubtedly familiar with the line, surprisingly does not mention that
in Guo Pu’s commentary to the Erya entry “不律, 謂之筆,” there is the enormously suggestive
explanation: “蜀人呼筆為不律也, 語之變轉” (2600c). Cf. Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 117a-b;
Wang Yinzhi, Jingyi shuwen, 27.36b10–37a6; Cai Fengqi 蔡鳳圻, “Fangyan shengzhuan shuo 方言
聲轉說,” in Yang Xiong fangyan jiaoshi huizheng, 2:1436–1446.
50 This preface has previously been translated by Serruys, “Prolegomena to the Study,” 27–30.
As my interpretations are different, I translate it here anew. On this translation of the title, cf.
Serruys, “Prolegomena to the Study,” 2 and 125n3.
蓋聞方言之作, 出乎輶軒之使, 所以巡遊萬國, 采覽異言, 車軌之所交, 人跡之所蹈, 靡不畢

載, 以為奏籍. 周秦之季, 其業隳廢, 莫有存者. 暨乎楊生沉淡其志, 歷載構綴, 乃就斯文. 是以
三五之篇者而獨鑒之功顯. 故不出庭而坐照四表, 不勞疇咨, 而物來能名. 考九腹之逸言, 摽
六代之絕語, 類離詞之指韻, 明乖途而同致, 辨章風謠而區分, 曲通萬殊而不雜. 真洽見之奇
書, 不刊之碩記也. 余少玩雅訓, 旁味方言, 復為之解. 觸事廣之, 演其未及, 摘其謬漏. 庶以燕
石之瑜補琬琰之瑕, 俾後之瞻涉者可以廣寤多聞爾.
I have generally heard that the flourishing of (collections of) regional spoken words
emerged from the light-chariot envoys, whose job was to do inspection tours of the myriad
states, gathering up all the different words. Wherever chariot tracks crossed (roads), wher
ever footprints trod (footpaths), they did not fail to record anything, and they used this for
the reports that they submitted to the court. At the end of the Zhou and Qin dynasties, their
undertakings were destroyed and abandoned, and nothing survived. Arriving at Scholar
Yang making it his intention to sincerely and tranquilly live (without seeking fame and
wealth), he spent many years compiling and writing, and only then completed this text.
This is a work that consists of 15 pian,51 and it is a manifestation of the achievements of
unique reflection. Therefore, Yang Xiong could, without leaving his door and courtyard,
simply by sitting at home, come to know the external limits in all directions; with no efforts
he made inquiries, and as things came to him he was able to put them into words. He inves
tigated the scattered and lost words of the nine regions, demarcated the distant languages
of the six ages,52 categorized them by the significators of sound53 of different epideictic
51 Serruys has a long note attempting to explain the discrepancy between the received text (13
pian) and this number, see: “Prolegomena to the Study,” 28–30nA. This phrase may also be re
ferring to Yang Xiong’s use of fifteen earlier lexica.
52 Serruys interprets this as the times of “Huang-ti, Yao, Shun, Yu, Yin, Chou” (“Prolegomena
to the Study,” 30nB), but it seems to me that Guo Pu likely used this rather ambiguous word to
specifically avoid assigning any such concrete dates, similar to “middle antiquity” in the “Erya
Preface” above.
53 This word, zhiyun 指韻, is unusual—this passage is the only usage recorded in Peiwen yunfu
(Zhang Yushu 張玉書 et al., Peiwen yunfu 佩文韻府, 4 vols. [Shanghai: Shanghai shudian
Â�chubanshe, 1997], 2:2910a). To better understand what Guo Pu could possibly have meant by it,
one can examine his fanqie and direct sound glosses in the Fangyan zhu. While there are only
two examples of exact lower fanqie speller matches in different words of a single head-entry—
“大和反; 他和反.” and “惡恨反; 五恨反.” (Fangyan, 1, 16)—Guo Pu (like many of the early users
of sound glosses) also identifies rhymes by playing games with the phonetics of synonymous
characters, direct sound glosses, and both upper and lower fanqie spellers, including such puns
as: glossing the microstructure set [倚, 踦, 奇也.] with “倚, 立寄反. 踦, 郤奇反” (Fangyan, 22),
glossing one synonym of a head-entry set “音雅” and another “呼雅反” (Fangyan, 58), glossing a
synonym in a head-entry set that includes the word “碓” with “錯碓反” (Fangyan, 63)—cf. Fang-
yan, 169 for a lower speller with a phonetic that matches a different character in the head-entry
set (and cf. Fangyan, 2, 79, 105, 109, 120, and 153 for lower spellers with the same phonetic as the
glossed word itself)—but over and above this, more than half of the direct sound glosses (A音
B) in Fangyan zhu are either simply the phonetic of the glossed word itself, or another common
character with the exact same phonetic—following this model: “[糸+兩]音兩. [糸+爽]音爽. 絞音
校” (Fangyan, 56). There is obviously more than a fair amount of alliteration and rhyming going
Â�
expressions, elucidated those which deviate from the road and yet head toward the same
goal (i.e., synonyms), clearly analyzed local folk songs and divided them accordingly;54 he
was able through various convolutions to lend coherence to the various differences so that
they were not so disparate. The Fangyan truly is a marvelous text of vast learning, a grand
record that will never be erased. From a young age I have dallied with refined explana
tory glosses (i.e., Nearing the Refined Standard), and alongside I had a taste for Regional
Spoken Words, and then made explanations for its benefit. In various places I expanded the
glosses, elaborating on what had not been fully explained, exposing its errors and omis
sions. I wanted to use the brilliancy of the false-jade stone of Mt. Yan (i.e., this commentary,
Guo Pu himself) to supplement flaws in the beautiful jade (i.e., the Fangyan, Yang Xiong
himself),55 only so that those who later respectfully set foot upon the road (of learning) can
use it to broaden their comprehension and increase their knowledge.
Divided into three recognizable sections, Guo Pu addresses the following ques
tions in his “Fangyan Preface”: What is the history of the practice of writing down
regional spoken words? What is this book that we have here? And what is this
commentary all about?
In answer to the first question, Guo Pu explains that ancient ambassadors
Â�collected all the different spoken words of the various languages they encoun
tered while traveling around the myriad states in order to submit written documen
tation of these words to the court. The court libraries, then, would have Â�contained
complete, if not perfect, records of all the various regional languages. This ideal
documentary record of pre-Han languages, however, was completely destroyed
and lost before the beginning of the Han. And this, by any account (fictional or
no), is a lexical catastrophe. In discussing what the nature of the Fangyan is (since
it is obviously not these ancient records), Guo Pu asserts that it is a dictionary,
written by Yang Xiong, which can help one read books that contain unusual words
(i.e., “broaden comprehension and increase Â�knowledge”). He further asserts that
on in the head-entry sets of the Fangyan, and Guo Pu delights in pointing this phenomenon out
when Yang Xiong did not originally identify it with the term zhuanyu 轉語 “language change.”
More than likely, Guo Pu’s zhiyun 指韻 here in the “Fangyan Preface” is referring to Yang Xiong’s
explicit use of this term zhuanyu 轉語, as rhyming is involved its the technical definition of sound
similarity. Liu Junhui Â�explains that “郭璞還認識到, 方言是根據詞的意旨和聲韻把分散的絕語,
方言彙集在一起; Guo Pu also Â�recognized that Fangyan assembles together scattered distant lan
guages and regional words on the basis of the meaning and sound of words” (Yang Xiong fangyan
yanjiu, 280).
54 Serruys explains that fengyao 風謠 is ellipsis for 風俗歌謠, see: “Prolegomena to the Study,”
30nC. This sentence is likely referring to Yang Xiong regionally demarcating the vocabulary of
the local songs that ostensibly served as a gauge of popular sentiments.
55 For a detailed explanation of this literary allusion, see: Serruys, “Prolegomena to the
Study,” 30nD.
this dictionary conveniently allows one to see the areal and Â�diachronic nature
of language from the comfort of one’s own armchair. According to the “Fangyan
Preface,” Yang Xiong spent years collecting lost words—that Â�presumably had
been perfectly recorded in the pre-Han period—and organizing them microstruc
turally in such a way that keeps the different languages distinct, yet having the
synonymous words conveniently located together. The sound similarities of the
words of different languages then become clear, which consequently informs us
of their etymological, temporal and regional relationships. As for what the com
mentary is all about, Guo Pu states that the Fangyan has certain errors and omis
sions, and that he has humbly edited and supplemented it in order to help later
scholars use it to read difficult texts (i.e., use it as a dictionary).
Now that we have the examined the textual core of Guo Pu’s metalinguistic
theory, let us give a synoptic account of it—so as to clearly see how it affects his
reading of the Erya. According to the examples available in his Erya and Fangyan
prefaces and commentaries, it appears that Guo Pu recognized at least four dis
tinct types of language:
1.) a common standard language that changes through time (通語)56

2.) modern “vulgar” languages (今俗語)57
56 For example, while Yang Xiong identifies hao 好 as the common standard language term of
a Fangyan head-entry set [好, 其通語.], and identifies the synonymous term shu 姝 as commonly
used between the states of Zhao, Wei, Yan, and Dai [趙魏燕代之間曰姝], Guo Pu instead states
that shu 姝 is also a common standard language term he knew [姝…亦四方通語] in that head-en
try set (see: Fangyan, 2). Guo Pu found it remarkable enough to comment upon that the common
standard language had evidently changed from Han to Jin. In Fangyan zhu he uses various des
ignations (“今通語也,” “亦中國之通語也,” “今中國語亦然,” and “今中國亦云” [Fangyan, 1, 43,
76, 114, 170]) when pointing out common standard language distinctions that Yang Xiong either
did not have, or did not identify. Cf. the discussion in Serruys, “Prolegomena to the Study,” 5.
57 Guo Pu takes great pains in the Erya zhu to point out which words are refined (i.e., ancient)
regional vernacular language (方俗) as opposed to modern vulgar language (俗), making a very
sharp distinction between “方俗語” and “方俗異語” on the one hand, and “今俗語,” “今俗,”
and “俗” on the other (2569c, 2576c, 2577c, 2581a, 2582a, 2585b, 2593a, 2593b, 2609c, 2627b).
In Fangyan zhu he uses only the terms: “今俗語,” “今俗,” and “俗” (Fangyan, 38, 39, 49, 52, 59,
85, 91, 95, 120), never “方俗”—as he assumed the Fangyan microstructures contain and label
such, pointing it out in his commentary would have been redundant. This is strong evidence
that Guo Pu made the kind of linguistic distinction we are describing. Hence, in reading Guo Pu,
su 俗 should be understood as “any modern vulgar language word,” rather than “any particular
regional vernacular word with dignified and ancient provenance (方俗).”
3.) refined ancient regional vernaculars (方俗語), encapsulating all the languages

of the pre-Qin states (齊語, 楚語, etc.)—hence much of what is included in the
Fangyan
4.) the refined speech of Jiangdong (今江東語)58
According to the historical record, as early as the Qin period people were openly
mocked in elite circles for using non-standard language words, or even associ
ating with those who do—witness Chen She 陳涉, who during the six months he
ruled as king lost prestige and was ridiculed because an old friend of his used the
Chu word huo 夥 “heaps” at court; after someone told Chen She that this person
was destroying his royal prestige by speaking in such a vulgar tongue, the king
quickly had his former friend executed. But this one incident ended up earning
Chen She the historical moniker Huoshe 夥涉 “Heaps ‘o She” and is the origin
of the amusing quadronomial huosheweiwang 夥涉為王 “even ol’ ‘Heaps ‘o She’
became king” (meaning “anything’s possible!”) that was in common use during
the former Han.59 The story of Chen She and his anonymous friend provides iron
clad evidence for how important and immediately recognizable the distinction
was between the common standard language and the “vulgar” regional lan
guages, even as early as the Qin and Western Han. It seems, however, that Guo Pu
was the first to oppose “vulgar language” to “refined regional vernacular” within
the lexicographic tradition and use it in his analysis of dictionaries.60
Now, there is a major methodological question in the modern-day study of
the Erya—that being, do we accept Guo Pu’s interpretive schema in reading the
58 Guo Pu is especially keen in both his Fangyan and Erya commentaries to discuss Jiangdong
江東 words, stating literally dozens of times, “今江東呼為X; in modern Jiangdong it’s called X,”
etc. And because he further makes the statement “俗人呼X, 江東通言Y; vulgar people call it X,
the common spoken word in Jiangdong is Y” (Fangyan, 52), it may not be entirely speculative to
assume that Jiangdong language was considered a prestige language by the Jin elite, and that
deviation in speech from either the Jiangdong refined tongue or the common standard language
was perceived as quite “vulgar” (hence this gives a further nuance to his “modern vulgar lan
guage” distinction, which should not include Jiangdonghua).
59 Sima Qian glosses the word huo 夥 right in the text while narrating this story: “楚人謂多為
夥; when referring to a large amount, people from Chu consider it to be ‘heaps’” (Shiji, 48:1960).
60 While there are five earlier examples of the simple “vulgar language” distinction—once
in Fan Guang (above), once in Sun Yan (above), and three times in Xu Shen (see: Duan Yucai,
Shuowen jiezi zhu, 10a, 494a, 496a)—these could well be anachronisms, as they have no sepa
ration between “vernacular” and “vulgar” regional languages like in Guo Pu. I have therefore
adjudged “vulgar language” vs. “vernacular language” to be a language-theoretical distinction
of Jin Â�provenance.
Erya, or do we consider it anachronistic? Dismissing Guo Pu’s arguments before

understanding what he is trying to say and do with the Erya is a serious mistake—
after all, we literally have no texts of the Erya preserved before Guo Pu’s edition.
So what shall our conclusions be on the structure and content of the Erya?
There has been constant debate, from the Han dynasty to the present, about
the nature and (greatly influencing how one understands what the text is and
what it means) the date of composition of the Erya.61 However, what is most
important for understanding how the Erya itself influenced, if not established,
the lexicographic tradition in China is to realize that as soon as the Erya was
recognized as a paradigmatic metalinguistic construct, as soon as its technical
macrostructure and microstructures began to be used by dictionary compilers, as
soon as it began to be imitated as a way of formally talking about language (e.g.,
in the Fangyan and Shuowen jiezi), it no longer matters what the intrinsic nature
or date of the original text was (other than the fact that it must have preceded the
Fangyan and the Shuowen, a point on which everyone agrees)—by the Eastern
Han it has, as it were, spawned its lexicographic offspring, who in turn breed
their own progeny, and so on and so forth, while Erya remains only on the side
lines of the later families of dictionaries—a respected elder statesman, a cherished
relic of presumed antiquity.
Although many dictionaries of the later tradition are based loosely on the
macrostructure of the Erya, close examination of their prefaces and microstruc
tures shows that the real resemblance is actually to the Han, Wei, and Jin inter
pretations of how the Erya is organized. However the generations of compilers
who originally put it together went about crafting the Erya itself is ultimately
only important from an abstract text-critical perspective, as its lexicographic and
language-theoretical impact on the tradition was always filtered through its Han
exegesis, especially in the Fangyan and the Shuowen; the Shuowen jiezi itself is,
like the Fangyan, in many ways a literal imitation of the Erya.
In his discussion of the nature of the Erya macrostructure, Carr agues that
“the Erh-Ya was the first known Chinese lexicon to be arranged on this basis of
semantic fields, and as such it served as a prototype for other lexica,” and that
“semantic categorization is the fundamental principle on which the Erh-Ya text is
organized. The nineteen chapters of the Erh-Ya are semantic fields, and seven of
these chapters are subdivided into taxonomies.”62 On first reading, it seems like
this might be a promising angle from which to approach the macrostructure of the
61 For the best summary in English, see: Coblin, “An Introductory Study,” 11–31.
62 Carr, “A Linguistic Study,” 36 and xiv.
Erya. Quickly, however, one runs into theoretical and historical difficulties—Carr
further writes:
The semantic field model has more than theoretical importance, it also has a practical
application as a lexicographic division. In Chinese lexicography, the semantic field model
can be traced back over twenty-two centuries to the Erh-Ya—while in Western lexicography,
the semantic field model has been in use for only a little over one century. Perhaps the
best known Western lexicon to be divided on the basis of semantic fields is Peter Roget’s
thesaurus, which was first published in 1852… the chapters of the Erh-Ya are divided on the
basis of semantic category, and these divisions can be said to be functionally equivalent to
semantic fields. This is a functional parallel, and not a theoretical equivalence; the Erh-Ya is
a lexicon, and not an abstract linguistic statement.63
Whatever the term “semantic field” might mean, it indubitably contains the
word “semantic,” which in history of Western ideographic theory is the central
problematic. The supposition that we can somehow escape particular languages
in order to talk about “ideas,” or that speech is somehow a direct representa
tion of “thought” (which further implies that there must be extralinguistic, but
“morphologically” distinct, units of thinking shared by all humans, traditionally
known in the West as Forms or ideas), is not an epistemological presumption in
early China—it is, as I have been arguing throughout this book, a Western projec
tion upon a culture with no even near-equivalent metaphysical claims.
So what are we to make of the macrostructure of the Erya? What is the basis
of the classifications of words that it makes with its 19 classes and 39 subclasses?
If it is not to be pure “semantic” considerations (which would then imply that the
macrostructure is ideographic along the lines of Roget), what is it to be? Carr’s
further discussion of the “semantic fields” of chapters 13 and 14 of the Erya actu
ally leads us in the right direction, albeit in a roundabout manner:
The vast majority of Chinese logographs are graphically composed of a phonetic (which
roughly indicates pronunciation) and a signific (which roughly indicates semantic class).
Both of these elements are only rough indicators of the pronunciation and meaning of a
graph, and there are always exceptions. To illustrate this general grapho-semantic rela
tion, consider the signific 鹿 *luk/luk/lu ([Berhard Karlgren, Grammata Serica Recensa,
sub]1209a), deer (the “deer radical”). The majority (but not all) of the words written with
this signific are semantically associated with deer. The semantic field of this signific 鹿
*luk can be elucidated by listing the thirteen logographs in [Grammata Serica Recensa]
with this signific… in sum, of the thirteen graphs defined in [Grammata Serica Recensa]
with this 鹿 signific, ten are names for deer (or deer-like animals) and three are not… not
all words written with this signific 鹿 are names of deer, or words associated with deer,
63 Carr, “A Linguistic Study,” 34.

but (Â�depending upon the lexical sample) the majority are. This proposed grapho-semantic
relationship between graphic classifier and meaning is by no means clear cut or absolute,
but the fact that there is a general grapho-semantic pattern at all is interesting. If this pro
posed relationship between meaning and written form is true, then one would expect the
majority of the plant names in Erh-Ya 13 to have the “plant classifier” 艸, and the majority
of tree names in Erh-Ya 14 to have the “tree classifier” 木… [we find that] two-thirds of the
plant words in Erh-Ya 13 have the “plant signific” 艸, and over two thirds of the tree words
in Erh-Ya 14 have the “tree signific” 木. It would be of interest to compare these figures with
those for the significs of other segments of the Erh-Ya, but the above data tends to confirm
the thesis of a grapho-semantic correspondence in Chinese.64
Being cognizant of the fact that an estimated 90% of Chinese characters can
be graphemically analyzed as consisting of one classifier (a.k.a., determinative
or interlexical disambiguator) and one phonetic, and that the classifier (itself
a written word) many times seems to have something to do with the meaning
of the word, Western sinologists have often called such classifiers “semantic.”
Hence, similar to the Erya, all dictionaries organized by such “semantic classifi
ers” would be, in essence, “semantically” organized (i.e., an ideographic macro
structure like Roget).
Using an extralinguistic model of understanding the Chinese character
one then could, for example, create an artificial writing system based on this
ideographic principle—like Wilken’s pasigraphy, the graphemes of which were
literally based on such “semantic classifiers.” If one attributes distinct extra
linguistic “ideas” or “semantic” values (sememes) to Chinese classifiers, which
are then somehow magically associated with the actual word the character as a
whole writes, one has not exactly left the realm of ideographic theory behind. If,
however, one understands Chinese characters and their graphemes to directly
and only represent specific words—which they obviously do—the only possible
“semantic” value that a graph or grapheme as a whole can have is the meaning
of the specific word it writes, and, presumably, enough of an identifiable written
lexical classification to distinguish between otherwise homophonous words (i.e.,
the function of the classifier grapheme as lexical determinative, associating the
word with other pre-existing words in the same writing system).
In a recent philological treatment of the Chinese writing system, Boltz
writes that “words, of course, may stand for ideas, but that is a matter for phi
losophers and poets, and has no bearing on writing.”65 In saying this, he is—I
64 Carr, “A Linguistic Study,” 416–426. A quick comparison shows that this does seem to play
out in chapters 15, 16, and 17 (i.e., creature-class, fish-class, and bird-class words), but not in
any others.
65 Boltz, Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System, 59.
would imagine quite consciously—nodding to the fact that the Chinese tradition
itself never had any sort of ideographic theory, and that it is dubious to discuss
“ideas” and language in the same breath, especially when dealing with tradi
tional China. If my point is not to say that the connection between the classif
icatory macrostructure of the Erya and the classificatory macrostructure of the
Shuowen jiezi is based on “semantic” concerns—which it could not be according
to the Chinese episteme—then what is it based on? To explain, we must return to
Chinese interpretations of the Erya.
According to all its early exegetes, the Erya was put together by a sage or
sages (be it the Duke of Zhou, Confucius and his disciples, or even anonymous
Warring States Ruists, the compilers were granted a large portion of respect as
culture-heroes). Hence the classificatory scheme of the macrostructure is con
sidered to be something that these historical human beings did to the lexicon—
they classified otherwise arbitrary words for arbitrary things under otherwise
arbitrary headings. The momentous importance of the classification scheme is
that these particularly intelligent, particularly refined, and particularly respected
individuals were considered to have done it.66 The content is far less important
than the authors; the content is a completely artificial historical artifact of value
only because it is filled with the intentions of these sages (and we should be hard-
pressed to describe it in any other terms without recourse to ideographic theory).
The zhengming episteme—similar in ways to modern semantic and ontological
relativity—assumes that such classification is always the work of specific people
in specific places at specific historical junctures, in this case Chinese sages in the
ancient past.
So, according to this “making words correct” understanding of the Erya, the
fact, for example, that all the words in chapter 16 are “fish-class words” says
nothing at all about the “semantic” value of the particular words per se, nor does it
say anything about fish in terms of their ontological status, but rather it is making
the inherent argument that ancient sages put those words in that classification
for some reason. In the case of “fish-class” words, the reason is presumably that
they are words that were—or should be—used for fish, such as to cause humans
to perceive, identify, talk about, and act toward creatures thereby called “fish” in
certain ways; likewise, in the case of “explanatory gloss-class” words, the reason
is because they are words that were—or should be—used in explanatory glosses
in commentaries, so as to cause humans to perceive, identify, talk about, and act
toward such commentaries and such words in certain ways, and so on and so
forth in each lexical class and subclass. It is the Â�practical use of words by humans
66 Cf. the paradigmatic case of Confucius authoring/editing the classics.

according to proper social order that matters, not what the words “mean” in some
kind of abstract ideographic sense. As Hall and Ames note, “without a stand
point or basis for asserting objective truths, the line between description and
prescription blurs because subjects are always reflexively implicated in the way
in which they organize the world. To say something about the world is to say
something about oneself, one’s disposition, and one’s values. A further conse
quence of having no objective perspective is that saying… something about the
world is doing something to the world.”67 This is how zhengming theory works:
it is what the sages had to say about words (constructing the world and human
consciousness by means of language), how they thereby delineated both signi
fier and signified and passed this knowledge—more or less Â�successfully—down
through time.
The historical consequence of this intentionalist understanding of classifica
tory schemes such as the Erya macrostructure (and the Fangyan macrostructure
for that matter) is that during the Eastern Han philological scholars reached the
conclusion that perhaps the Chinese writing system—itself a historically created
artifact—includes such a classificatory scheme in its set of graphemic classifiers.
And if this were the case, then by analyzing the history of the graphemic struc
tures of the writing system one just might be able to better understand how the
ancient sages who invented and transmitted the writing system classified and
used words. As it was commonly recognized that words and the signification of
words (both signifier and signified) changed through time and space, it seems
natural that a better understanding of how the sages of former eras had classi
fied and used their words should actually help one to better comprehend and
interpret the remains of what they wrote. And right at this precise moment in the
history of Chinese language theory the Shuowen jiezi appears.
67 David L. Hall and Roger T. Ames, Thinking From the Han: Self, Truth and Transcendence in
Chinese and Western Culture (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 247–248.
Chapter Fourteen: The Shuowen jiezi and Chinese
Language Theory
The Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (submitted to the emperor on October 19, 121 C.E.)1 is
one of the most important documents in the history of Chinese language theory—
indeed, it establishes the philological tradition. As Zhu Junsheng cogently
remarks, “說文解字… 小學之元始也; the Shuowen jiezi… is the original beginning
of philology.”2 Following traditional Chinese language theory, “聖人正名之義
也, 然則[許]作說文; the sages established meaning by making words correct—Â�
following from the fact that was so, Xu Shen thus made the Shuowen,” it being the
case that “[許]按聖人正名之義; Xu Shen relied on the meaning of the sages who
made words correct.”3 In discussing the microstructures of the Shuowen, Duan
Yucai even goes so far as to say: “此豈正名之義乎?… 既[許]正其名矣; could this
be the proper meaning established by making the word correct?… Of course Xu
Shen makes the word utterly correct!”4
The Shuowen Postface appears to be a composite work, written by Xu Shen
許慎 and his son Xu Chong 許沖 (fl. 121), and includes the imperial rescript and
endorsement of the simultaneous submission of the Shuowen jiezi and Kong
Anguo’s Explanations of the Guwen Version of the Classic of Filial Piety 孝經孔
氏古文說 to the court of Emperor An (r. 107–125 C.E.). The Shuowen jiezi itself is
a monument of world lexicography, and to the present day its macrostructual
Â�
1 An erroneous calculation of this date according to the Western calendar—September 19, 121
C.E.—was unfortunately published by Paul Pelliot (1878–1945) in his review “Les Bronzes de la
Collection Eumorfopoulos Publiés par M. W. P. Yetts (I et II),” T’oung Pao 27 (1930): 366. Due to
the extreme authority and generally unmatched erudition of Pelliot, this incorrect date has been
followed without question by Western sinologists writing on the Shuowen (e.g., Roy Andrew
Miller, “Problems in the Study of Shuo-wen chieh-tzu,” [Ph.D. Diss., Columbia University, 1953],
297n36; William G. Boltz, “Shuo wen chieh tzu 說文解字,” in Loewe, Early Chinese Texts, 430;
Mark Winter, “…und Cang Jie erfand die Schrift”: Ein Handbuch für den Gebrauch des Shuo Wen
Jie Zi [Bern: Peter Lang, 1998], 32). But while Pelliot correctly follows the textual emendations of
Yan Kejun 嚴可均 (1762–1843) on the cyclical dates (changing jihai 己亥 and wuwu 戊午 to jimao
己卯 and wushu 戊戍 according to Quan shanggu sandai qin han sanguo liuchao wen 全上古三代
秦漢三國六朝文, 9 vols. [Taibei: Shijie shuju, 1969], vol. 2, Quan houhan wen 全後漢文, 49.5b),
one can only guess that he made a minor slip and mistook the 9th month of the Chinese calendar
for “September,” as opposed to the 9th month of the first year of the Jian’guang 建光 reign period
of Han Andi, which ran from September 30 through October 28, 121 C.E.
2 Zhu Junsheng, Shuowen tongxun dingsheng, 後敘, 41a4.
3 Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 14A48.7–8 and 12B7.9.
4 Shuowen jiezi zhu, 13B50.45.
Chapter Fourteen: The Shuowen jiezi and Chinese Language Theory 237
innovation (bushou 部首, “radical” or “classifier” divisions) is still commonly

used in Chinese dictionaries in a modified form.5
Like the earlier lexicons Erya 爾雅 and Fangyan 方言, the Shuowen was
compiled for the express purpose of helping scholars to read difficult texts
(especially the classics) by means of organized and classified lists of words and
explanations. The Shuowen, however, is the first dictionary in the Chinese lex
icographic tradition to have prefatory material written by its compiler (albeit
placed at the end of the text). And this Postface is of singular importance, as it
allows us to understand the content, structure, and lexicographic method of the
Shuowen jiezi—which are inevitably built upon the episteme of Xu Shen’s lan
guage theory. The Postface of the Shuowen gives an autobiographical account
of the compilation of the dictionary,6 and a narrative account of the history of
writing itself. Xu Kai notes that “凡文, 有古今異; in all cases writing has dif
ferences between the ancient and modern,”7 and this is what the Shuowen sets
out to explain. Explaining how the writing system works, how it writes words, is
of the utmost import in reading the classics—as Gu Aiji says, “字不辨則經不解;
if written words are not distinguished then the classics cannot be explicated.”8
Presuming that “語多不正; in language there is much that is not correct,”9 and
that “今之學士, 語亦不正; as for scholars of the present day, their language is
also for its part not correct,”10 the task of the scholar, the philologist, the lexi
cographer, and the sage is to correct it in such a manner.
Dai Zhen 戴震 (1724–1777)—one of the most influential Qing scholars and
teacher of Duan Yucai and Wang Niansun—discusses the history of Chinese lan
guage theory in the following terms: “古人之小學亡, 而後有故訓. 故訓之法亡, 流
而為鑿空… 嗚乎! 經之至者, 道也. 所以明道者, 其詞也. 所以成詞者, 未有能外小
學文字者也. 由文字以通乎語言, 由語言以通乎聖賢之心志; the philology of the
ancients was lost, and after this there were glossing commentaries. The methods
5 As Xu Xuan states, “分部相自許始也; dividing words into mutually distinct bushou first began
with Xu Shen” (Songkan shuowen jiezi, 15A4.1–2n). Since the publication of the Zihui 字彙 (1615),
the lexicographic system of 214 classifiers (thereafter used in the Zhengzi tong 正字通 and in the
canonical Kangxi zidian 康熙字典) has been the standard—which is less than half of Xu Shen’s
original 540 bushou.
6 As Wang Yun points out, Xu Shen’s postface “與太史公自序同法; uses the same methodology
as the autobiographical postface of Sima Qian” (Wang Yun 王筠 [1784–1854], Shuowen jiezi judu
說文解字句讀 [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998], 凡列, 7a3–4).
8 Gu Aiji 顧藹吉 (fl. 1718), Libian 隸辨 (Beijing: Zhonghuan shuju, 2003), 序, 1a2.
9 Yan Zhitui, Yanshi jiaxun huizhu, 18.125a8.
10 Yan Zhitui, Yanshi jiaxun huizhu, 18.121a5.
238 Chapter Fourteen: The Shuowen jiezi and Chinese Language Theory
of glossing commentary were lost, and what was thereupon transmitted became
fabricated and groundless gibberish… ah, so reprehensible! As for where the clas
sics take you, that is the Way. As for what is used to make the Way clear, it is their
words. As for what is used to define words, there has never been someone who
was able to do this outside of philology and written words. From written words
one can comprehend language, from language one can comprehend the intent in
the hearts of sages and worthies.”11 As this passage exemplifies, the whole point
of Chinese philology was to correct hermeneutic mistakes by reading specifically
for authorial intention (and the rhetoric here duplicates Han dynasty writers,
including Xu Shen, furiously engaging in the project of restoring language that
has been lost, broken, misrepresented, and misunderstood). Gu Aiji confirms that
“經典之文亂於字… 夫讀書必先識字, 欲識字必先察形… 古之小學今乃為絕; the
texts of the classics are disorderly in terms of their written words… in any partic
ular case, when one reads books it is necessary to first have knowledge of written
words, if one desires to have knowledge of written words it is necessary to first
investigate graphic structures… the philology of antiquity has now, in modern
times, been cut off.”12 This is the paradigmatic complaint of traditional Chinese
philologists—perhaps even a good definition of philological practice itself, in that
in the act of doing philology per se one must always begin with the assumption
that something has been lost, misread, or misunderstood beforehand.
Wang Niansun takes for granted that there is a zhengwen 正文, an Urtext—
that there must have been a perfectly understandable, perfectly transparent lin
guistic statement that perfectly represented the original author’s precise intent.
Wang is, as the Miscellaneous Notes on Reading Texts states, “因文求義; relying
on the written text to search for the proper meaning,”13 and presuming that
“必欲求其本義也; one necessarily desires to search for its original meaning.”14
One of the driving forces of the Miscellaneous Notes is the desire to point out
when commentators and exegetes have misread an author’s intent—e.g., “非太
史公意, 班氏失之也; this was not Sima Qian’s intention, Ban Gu was mistaken
about it,”15 “是晏子之意; this was Yanzi’s intent,”16 “不曉荀子之意; he did not
understand Xunzi’s intent”17—these are representative philological comments.
11 Dai Zhen, Dai Zhen wenji 戴震文集 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2006), 145–146.
12 Gu Aiji, Libian, 目錄, 2b5–9.
13 Wang Niansun 王念孫 (1744–1832), Dushu zazhi 讀書雜誌 (Nanjing: Jiangsu guji chubanshe,
2000), 3.6.19.9.
14 Dushu zazhi, 4.7.27.3–4.
15 Dushu zazhi, 3.6.30.9–10.
16 Dushu zazhi, 6.1.7.1.
17 Dushu zazhi, 8.7.18.18–20.
Wang Niansun makes historical transmitters and unskilled editors respon

sible for basically all textual corruption—understanding that what ‘textual cor
ruption’ encompasses here is everything in a text that is not perfectly and easily
comprehensible to the philologically-trained reader. As Wang states ubiquitously
throughout the Miscellaneous Notes: “後人以意改之; later people intentionally
changed it (based on their own opinion)”;18 “後人不曉X字之義而以意改之; later
people did not understand the meaning of this word and so intentionally changed
it”;19 “後人不識古字而改之; later people did not comprehend the ancient word
and so changed it”;20 “後人不曉文義而改之也; later people did not understand
the meaning of the written text and so changed it.”21 In other words, “志意不通;
the intended meaning was not understood,”22 and so something was done to the
text to make it more accessible to the untrained reader.
Sloppy and egregious textual emendation drove the Qing philologists to dis
traction—as it further corrupted already problematic texts. Part of the damage
done by such unskilled editors and commentators, outside changing individual
words, actually stemmed from deleting text (tuowen 脫文)—as Wang Niansun
says: “後人不曉文義而以意刪之; later people did not understand the meaning
of the text and so intentionally deleted this”;23 “今本脫之則語意不完; since
the modern edition excises this, the intended meaning of the language is not
complete”;24 “脫去X字則文義不明; if one excises this word, the meaning of the
written text is not clear”;25 “脫去X字則文義不明而句法亦不協矣; if one excises
this word, the meaning of the written text is not clear and the syntax is also totally
incongruous”;26 “脫去X字則語意不完; if one excises this word, then the meaning
of the language is not complete.”27 If one excises words or even whole syntactic
units from the original text, it damages the original intent of the author, makes the
language unclear and obscure, and therefore stymies the hermeneutic process.
18 Dushu zazhi, 5.2.17.10 and 9.9.1.5–6. For a more extended discussion, see: Wang Yinzhi, Jingyi
shuwen, 32.63–67.
19 Dushu zazhi, 4.5.14.5–6, 4.14.26.19–20, and 6.1.15.20–16.1. Cf. “乃後人不知古義而妄改之; it
was only later people who did not understand the ancient meaning and therefore ignorantly
changed it” (Wang Yinzhi, Jingyi shuwen, 16.20b7–8).
20 Dushu zazhi, 4.1.23.3–4.
21 Dushu zazhi, 1.2.12.20.
22 Dushu zazhi, 6.1.30.13.
23 Dushu zazhi, 9.14.16.9–10.
24 Dushu zazhi, 4.8.23.2–3.
25 Dushu zazhi, 4.12.11.5–6.
26 Dushu zazhi, 4.15.15.14–15.
27 Dushu zazhi, 4.8.20.9.
Superfluously adding text (yanwen 衍文) is equally harmful, as the Miscellaneous

Notes says: “不曉X字之義而以意加Y字也; someone did not understand the
meaning of this word and so intentionally added that word.”28
Wang Niansun’s Miscellaneous Notes is a veritable ‘Summa Philologica’ for
the Chinese tradition; the Miscellaneous Notes on Reading Texts, in substance
and in fact, is a set of blueprints designed to aid the reader of ancient texts in
sloughing off the accretions of shoddy scholarship and the vagaries of historical
transmission in order to recover the original intent of the original sage-authors
as it was originally stated in the original texts. And, in espousing this particu
lar hermeneutic project, Wang Niansun is largely following a paradigm that was
established by the philologists and exegetes of the Han dynasty—by scholars like
Xu Shen.
Very few people would deny that the study of the classics is at the core of
traditional Chinese civilization, and consequently the place philology occupies
in Chinese intellectual history is simply monumental. As the prefatory materials
to Duan Yucai’s Commentary on the Shuowen jiezi state: “小學明而經學明; philol
ogy is made clear and so the study of the classics is made clear”29 and “小學明
而經無不可明矣; philology is made clear and so the classics cannot but be made
clear.”30
In terms of analyzing language, the prefatory materials to this Commentary
further state: “文與字古亦謂之名… 名者, 王者之所重也. 聖人曰必也正名… [段]
真能推廣聖人正名之旨; in antiquity written words were also referred to as ming
‘words’… as for these ‘words’, they are what those who rule consider weighty. The
sages said ‘it is of necessity to make words correct’… Duan Yucai has been truly
able to extend and expand the purpose of the sages in making words correct.”31
That Duan’s preface-writers considered his commentary to be about zhengming
正名 “making words correct” should come as no surprise, as this is what Xu
Shen’s dictionary was supposed to be about in the first place.
Duan Yucai was reading the Shuowen for authorial intention, engaged in the
project of being as true as possible to Xu Shen’s original intent—as one of the
prefaces explains: “[段]先生亦自信於許氏之志… 許書之要在明文字之本義而
已… 孔子曰必也正名, 葢形聲義三者正而後可言可行也. 亦必本義明而後形聲義
28 Dushu zazhi, 8.1.7.16–17. Cf. the comment “後人以意增之; later people intentionally added
this” (Wang Yun, Shuowen jiezi judu, 凡列, 2a10). For a more extended discussion, see: Wang
Yinzhi, Jingyi shuwen, 32.42–44 and 32.52–63.
29 Shuowen jiezi zhu, 王序.
30 Shuowen jiezi zhu, 陳跋.
31 Shuowen jiezi zhu, 盧序.
三者可正; Duan Yucai has himself also been true to Xu Shen’s intention… the
main purpose of Xu Shen’s book was only and ever to make clear the original
meaning of written words… Confucius said ‘it is necessary to make words correct’,
and likely this means that when the three aspects of graphic structure, pronunci
ation, and meaning are made correct only then can one speak and act. Over and
above this, it is necessary that the original meaning is made clear, and only then
can the three aspects of graphic structure, pronunciation, and meaning be made
correct.”32 Modern scholarship has had difficulties with understanding what this
benyi 本義 “original meaning” could possibly be.33
The Commentary states: “凡稱經傳而又釋其義者, 皆必其義與字本義不同; every
time someone has evaluated the classics and their commentaries and alongside
Â�explicated the meaning of a word therein, it must have been the case that the
meaning was not the same as the original meaning of the word.”34 And this comment
might really give one pause—as the claim that all the changes in the meaning of a
word through time must have stemmed ultimately from a single original meaning
has quite interesting implications. Following from the theory that words are arbi
trary, socially and historically agreed upon, politically enforced artifacts created
and manipulated by sages (which underpins all traditional Chinese philology
and explains rather well why dictionaries were commonly submitted to emper
ors), it requires no leap of faith to postulate an originary moment when each
particular word took shape in the written lexicon.
And it is this historical moment that Xu Shen was so keen on explicating; he
compiled the Shuowen as a guide to help readers search through the past for this
defining moment in the life of each word. Duan’s Commentary says that “許用其本
義也… 凡說字必用其本義. 凡說經必因文求義; Xu Shen uses the original meaning
of words… Every time he explains a written word, he must be using its original
meaning. Every time he explains the classics, he must be relying on the written
words to search for the meaning,”35 and “凡言某與某同意者, 皆謂字形之意有相
似者; every time he says this word and that word have the same meaning, in all
cases it is referring to the fact that the meanings of the graphic structures (which
are themselves words) out of which the written words are composed are similar to
one another.”36 That the graphic structures of Chinese characters are motivated
32 Shuowen jiezi zhu, 江序.

33 See appendix for extended definition and discussion of the metalinguistic terms of Chinese
language theory.
34 Shuowen jiezi zhu, 3A26.2–3.
is not a particularly spectacular insight—it is however the fundament underlying

Xu Shen’s entire project. The Commentary further states: “許書每字依形說其本
義. 其說解必用本義之字… 許說義出於形. 有形以範之而字義有一定. 有本字之說
解以定之; for every word in Xu Shen’s book, he relies on the graphic structure
in order to explain its original meaning. His explanation and analysis must be
using the written word that has the original meaning… Xu Shen’s explanations of
the meaning come from the graphic structure. There is a graphic structure which
establishes a norm for it and so the meaning of the word has a single definition.
The explanation and analysis which come from the fact that there is an original
written graph are what he uses to define the word.”37 In other words, it is “造字之
本義; the original meaning from when the written word was first created,”38 and
“皆古今字變, 許說未變之義; in all those cases where there has been a change in a
written word from antiquity to the (Han dynasty) present, Xu Shen’s explanation
is of the meaning which never changed.”39
In terms of the written form, what is this ‘original meaning’ associated with
the benzi 本字, the ‘original written word’? As the Commentary explains, “古文, 本
字也; the guwen word is the original written word,”40 “許從古文; Xu Shen follows
the guwen,”41 and “許意, 從古文也; Xu Shen’s intended meaning comes from the
guwen.”42 And as for what the term guwen 古文 could possibly mean, Duan notes:
“凡言古文者, 謂倉頡所作古文也; every time he says guwen, what he is referring
to is the guwen writing system created by Cangjie,”43 “故言倉頡造字; therefore he
says that Cangjie created written words.”44
In the Postface and also throughout the macrostructure and microstructures
of the Shuowen, Xu Shen postulates three basic writing systems—guwen 古文, the
oldest and original writing system crafted by Cangjie (which is the source of all orig
inal written words and their original meanings), zhouwen 籒文 (a.k.a., dazhuan
大篆), the modified system created by Scribe Zhou at the end of the Western
Zhou, and zhuanwen 篆文 (a.k.a., xiaozhuan 小篆), the even more modified (and
perhaps somehow perverted) writing system codified by Li Si. Because Xu Shen
is most concerned with unearthing the oldest meaning, “故以古文之形釋小篆;

38 Shuowen jiezi zhu, 2A30.13.
41 Shuowen jiezi zhu, 3A3.6 and 9A27.15.
therefore he uses the graphic structure of the guwen to explicate the xiaozhuan.”45
Wang Yun’s comment, “未必合許君意, 即未必合倉頡籒斯意也; it is not neces
sary to agree with Xu Shen’s intended meaning, it is also not necessary to agree
with Cangjie, Scribe Zhou, or Li Si’s intended meaning,”46 goes to show that even
the grand pillars of traditional Shuowenxue 說文學 (“the study of the Shuowen
jiezi”) still took guwen to literally encode Cangjie’s intention, zhouwen to encode
Scribe Zhou’s intention, and zhuanwen to encode Li Si’s. What is meant here by
‘encode an intention’ is the historical individual’s highly motivated choice of gra
phemic components used to construct the characters that write a particular word
(all aspects of this process having profound implications according to Chinese
theory); the overall point is that advocating specific meanings of a word through
graphemic selection can literally—insofar as humans are concerned—maintain or
change the nature of the world through manipulation of signifier and signified.
As for the xiaozhuan writing system, Duan’s Commentary states: “李斯所作
曰篆書; what Li Si created is called zhuanshu (a.k.a., xiaozhuan)”;47 “然李斯變
古籒謂篆文; that being so, Li Si changed the guwen and zhouwen and called it
zhuanwen”;48 “小篆改古文省之; xiaozhuan changes the guwen by abbreviating
it”;49 “李斯省改古文… 妄人不知; Li Si abbreviated and changed guwen… careless
people don’t know this.”50 According to the Shuowen, at a rough estimate only
about 13% of the original guwen written words had their graphic structure specifi
cally altered by Scribe Zhou and Li Si, and Duan notes that “不改者多則許所列小
篆固皆古文大篆. 其不云古文作某籒文作某者, 古籒同小篆也… 小篆又云古文作
某, 籒文作某者, 則所謂或頗省改者也; as for written words that did not change,
there are many of them—and therefore Xu Shen’s xiaozhuan examples are in all
these cases simultaneously guwen and dazhuan. When he does not mention that
the guwen is written thus and zhouwen is written so, this means that the guwen
and the zhouwen are the same as the xiaozhuan… if, in addition to the xiaozhuan,
he also says the guwen is written thus and the zhouwen is written so, then these
are those xiaozhuan that have been somewhat or considerably abbreviated and
changed.”51 In other words, when there is an exact historical continuity in graphic
45 Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 14B18.18.

46 Wang Yun 王筠, Shuowen shili 說文釋例 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1998), 序, 2b8–9.
51 Shuowen jiezi zhu, 15A10–16. Cf. “古體經典通行, 不必改而從篆; when the ancient graphic
structures of the characters in classical texts were transmitted, it was not necessarily the case
that they were always changed so as to accord with the graphic structure of zhuanwen” (Zhang
structure between the characters in the guwen, the zhouwen, and the zhuanwen
writing systems there is no need to mention it—as nothing has been lost, broken,
misrepresented, or misunderstood—the sages’ desired construction of the world
has been maintained. Lu Deming very simply asserts that in the vast majority
of lexicographic entries Xu Shen “用隸書寫古文; uses official script to write out
the guwen (structure).”52 As Xu Kai notes in those cases where the guwen has not
changed, “所書字體與小篆不異; the structure of the written (guwen) graph is not
different from xiaozhuan.”53 If, however, a historical intervention and break in the
continuity has occurred, if some reviser has intentionally stepped in and modi
fied the graphic structure of the guwen word by changing, deleting, adding, or
otherwise modifying its graphemic components (which, again, literally changes
the world for humans), Xu Shen steps forward in the gloss and rhetorically says
(via the chong 重 “repeat” characters)—“please carefully note that some serious
change has occurred here.”
The similarity between how Wang Niansun approaches the task of textual
criticism and how both Xu Shen and Duan Yucai analyze graphs is quite striking.
As Duan’s Commentary states, “皆釋造字之指. 其說解必用本義之字… 有為後人
所亂者, 則必更正之; in all cases he explicates what is pointed to by the original
creation of the written word. His explanation and analysis must use the written
word that has the original meaning… when there are confusions perpetrated by
later people, it is necessary for us to change and correct them.”54 The text-critical
endeavor that Duan Yucai engages with his Commentary is not at all dissimilar
from the graph-critical analysis that Xu Shen’s text engages in—the difference
comes down to a theoretical distinction between the macrocosm of the history
of an entire text and the microcosm of the history of an individual written word.
When the Commentary says: “疑皆淺人改作, 非許書本字; I suspect that all these
cases are from men with superficial learning changing and creating things, that
it is not the original written word that was in Xu Shen’s book,”55 or “恐皆非許語;
I fear that in these cases it is not Xu Shen’s own language,”56 one could replace
the name “Xu Shen” with “Cangjie” and then these exact statements could easily
have been made by the author of the Shuowen jiezi himself. This is a crucial
Can 張參 [fl. 776], Wujing wenzi 五經文字, in Ganlu zishu wujing wenzi 干祿字書五經文字 Â�[Beijing:
Zhonghua shuju, 1985], 序, 5a5).
52 Jingdian shiwen, 3.2a8.
53 Shuowen jiezi xizhuan, 39.3b2.
element of zhengming theory—rectifying words through understanding the his

torical corruption of language, how they fell away from correct usage.
The Shuowen Postface, for the most part a complicated historical narrative,
can be divided into fourteen recognizable sections. For purposes of a general intro
duction to and overview of the text I here reiterate the content in a synoptic chart:
i. Proto-writing.
ii. Creation of the guwen writing system by Cangjie.
iii. History of guwen from Cangjie to the Western Zhou (1045–771 B.C.E.).
iv. Creation of the zhouwen writing system, Eastern Zhou (770–256 B.C.E.) break
in the written tradition, the sages attempt to preserve guwen by using it to
write the classics. Cultural chaos.
v. Qin unification (221 B.C.E.), complete loss of guwen, creation of the zhuanwen
writing system based on the zhouwen model. Eight calligraphic styles of Qin
writing (based on two of the historical writing systems—zhouwen and Â�zhuanwen).
vi. Han law codes prescribe literacy for officials in the eight styles of Qin writing.
vii. Western Han Emperor Xuan (r. 73–49 B.C.E.) finds only four living scholars
who can still read zhuanwen. Emperor Ping (r. 1–5 C.E.) summons more than
one hundred scholars for a great conference on writing systems—Yang Xiong
attends the conference, collates everything, and compiles a lexicographic
treatise summing up all current knowledge of the writing systems (which
includes the rediscovered guwen).
viii. Xin Emperor Wang Mang (r. 9–23 C.E.) attempts to reform writing and sys
tematically unify the classifiers of all known writing systems, creating errors
in guwen in the process. Six types of writing (based on two of the historical
writing systems—guwen and zhuanwen).
ix. How guwen was rediscovered, what it is, what it means, the ignorance of
jinwen scholars who consider it fake, the bad methodology of jinwen scholars
in general, how politically and culturally vital guwen really is.
x. Structure of, content of, and motivation for writing Shuowen jiezi, how
important the Shuowen is to governmental policy as the key to understand
ing the history of the writing systems in general and guwen in particular—
the Shuowen being the basis for knowledge of the writing systems, writing
systems being the basis of the classics, the classics being the basis of all
Â�government policy.
xi. The encomium of the Han.
xii. Xu Shen’s autobiography.
xiii. Xu Chong’s petition.
xiv. Imperial rescript and endorsement.
In the first section, the Postface describes the proto-writing of Fuxi and Shen
nong. The import of these two proto-writing systems is that they form the core
cultural artifacts—standardized conventional representations of information,
passed down from generation to generation through history, bringing order to
political affairs via their use by a bureaucracy, allowing for cultural complex
ity—which are ultimately to become the foundation of much of the function of
the practice of actual writing. Hence the artifacts of proto-writing underlie the
conventional, historical, political, and cultural elements of writing (i.e., all of its
nonlinguistic aspects). Such “proto-writing” obviously has nothing whatsoever
to do with spoken language—or language at all for that matter—and everything to
do with concrete social order and its preservation through time.
The second section describes how Cangjie created writing and what the con
sequences of this momentous historical intervention were. As Xuanying notes,
“說文: 昔者, 蒼頡造書, 依類象形, 故謂之文. 其後, 形聲相益, 即謂之字. 字, 生也.
孳乳浸多也; the Shuowen says: in antiquity, Cangjie created writing, first relying
on the classification xiangxing ‘resemble the shape’, and therefore called written
words ‘patterns’ (i.e., rebus writing). After this, such written words were com
bined together according to the xingsheng ‘classifier and phonetic’ classification,
which are therefore referred to as ‘offspring’ written words (in being the ‘children’
of two or more earlier graphs combined together to write new words—generally
one grapheme used for sound only, one grapheme used to help identify which
spoken word that sound represents). The word ‘offspring’ in and of itself originally
meant ‘something that has been born’. These ‘offspring’ written words grew and
multiplied, gradually increasing in number (and hence the term ‘offspring’).”57
Based on using a combination of conventional graphs as phonetics and classifi
ers to write words, the first effect of the creation of guwen was that it allowed for
the better discrimination of things—by having human discourse on such things
recorded and preserved through time—and regulated the bureaucracy (that had
evidently itself been created by the cultural artifacts of proto-writing).
Wang Yun argues that “人之不識字也, 病於不能… 分一字為數字; as for people
not having knowledge of written words, the error is due to them not being able… to
divide a single graph into multiple graphemes.”58 It was in Cangjie’s original com
bination of graphemes that guwen was formed and established as the first writing
57 Xuanying, Yiqie jing yinyi, 24.5. Cf. “古者, 文字少… 後代事繁, 字轉滋, 益形聲; in antiquity
there were few written words… but in later ages events became more complicated, and the num
ber of written words changed and grew, having been combined together as classifer and phonet
ic” (Xu Kai, Shuowen jiezi xizhuan, 39.1a4).
58 Wang Yun 王筠, Wenzi mengqiu 文字蒙求 (Taibei: Yiwen yinshuguan, 1995), 自序, 1.1–2.
system. It should be noted that guwen—a set of written words consisting of simple
and complex graphs—was created by such a bureaucrat, and that its origin is impli
cated in the complicated relationship between the bureaucracy and the central
authority.
The historical transmission of guwen from Cangjie to the Western Zhou is
explained in the third section. Although there were at least seventy-two different
calligraphic styles (ti 體), the writing system remained guwen because the struc
tural components were not altered (i.e., the classifiers and phonetics remained
the same). During the Western Zhou period (and perhaps earlier), elite children
were taught how to write guwen by means of the liushu 六書 “six ways of writing.”
The fourth section describes the breakdown of the ideal order of antiquity—
and the first attempt to reform the writing system by changing its structural ele
ments—at the end of the Western Zhou period. Although Scribe Zhou evidently
created zhouwen during the reign of King Xuan (r. 827–782 B.C.E.), it was literally
only during the third year of the reign of his son King You (r. 781–771 B.C.E.) that
the acknowledgement came: “太史… 讀史記曰周亡矣; the Grand Scribe… while
reading the scribal records, said ‘Zhou has been utterly destroyed’.”59 Xu Shen
identifies this era as one of the three extremely problematic periods in Chinese
history during which the writing system was irrevocably altered (the other two
being the short-lived Qin and Xin periods).
The writings of Confucius and Zuo Qiuming reach back to pre-Spring and
Autumn period culture by using the guwen writing system, and the Chunqiu and
the Zuozhuan themselves are understood to be stern ethical judgments made by
these sages on the decadent state of the political culture of the Eastern Zhou.
The use of guwen by the sages is seen as the reflection of a very critical and
very pointed attempt on their part to return to the traditional ideal state of the
Western Zhou and high antiquity. The creation of zhouwen, therefore, was one
of the harbingers of the fall of the Zhou house, and hence zhouwen should be
regarded as somewhat flawed, as having something of the fragrance of a doomed
state about it.
The efforts of Confucius and Zuo Qiuming were apparently for naught, as
immediately after their era the world completely fell apart—all of the high culture
of antiquity (rites, music, canons, records) was discarded, and cultural artifacts
(including measurements, transportation, law, dress, language, writing) became
heterogeneous, scattered, and completely lacking in order. Chaos was the watch
word of the day, regicide ran rampant, and kings used the lacquered skulls of
their enemies as drinking cups.
59 Sima Qian, Shiji, 4:147.

After the First Emperor of Qin (r. 246–210 B.C.E.) reunified the world in
section five, his officials homogenized all of these cultural artifacts, including
standardizing the disparate writing systems by reforming them into a newly
fixed system called xiaozhuan (a.k.a., zhuanwen). The consequence of this
reform in the history of the writing systems is that guwen was completely lost.
It should be noted here that the Qin dynasty (221–207 B.C.E.) is also purported
to have destroyed all the remains of the refined ethical culture of high antiquity
(rites, music, canons, etc.), and that its success in stamping out the use of guwen
is tied up in this purgative activity—all the books that had been written in guwen
were burned by the Qin and hence, except by sheer good fortune and a little
planning on the part of certain individuals, might have been lost forever (see
below, section nine).
Section six explains that according to Han law, court officials should be
trained in the eight calligraphic styles of Qin writing. Xu Shen then complains
about the laissez-faire attitude toward this policy and its historical conse
quences, which in section seven he states to be that very few people during the
Han knew much of anything about the old writing systems and even less about
the genuine historical differences between them. The role of Yang Xiong as com
piler of the conference volume Xunzuan pian 訓纂篇 is then shown to be the
most important philological work done during the Han—considering that there
were several Erudites (boshi 博士) in guwen versions of the classics at that time,
the explanations the Xunzuan contained must have come at least partially from
guwen scholars.
Section eight decries the damage done to guwen by Wang Mang, which is
further specifically identified in the main body of the text of the Shuowen with
such statements as “亡新以從三日大盛, 改為三田; the destroyed Xin dynasty
took it to be the case that the words that had been classified under the triple ri 日
of the jing 晶 ‘bright’ classifier had been used in the sense of ‘great abundance’,
so they changed the classifier of these words to three tian 田 instead (which is
not a historical classifier according to Xu Shen).”60 One can see that for a scholar
passionately concerned with the historical changes in the writing systems—and
especially with how to properly interpret the original guwen of Cangjie and the
sages—what Wang Mang was doing (and what Scribe Zhou and the Qin reformers
60 Shuowen jiezi zhu, 7A23.15. Presumably, three ‘agricultural fields’ seemed like a better way
of classifying words meaning ‘great abundance’ to the Xin reformers—better, at least, than three
‘suns.’ As Xu Shen’s illuminating glosses of the five words listed under the jing 晶 classifier
(Shuowen jiezi zhu, 7A22–23) show, three ‘suns’ (i.e., the word jing 晶 “bright”) actually makes
perfect historical sense as a classifier for these words.
had done before) would be extremely disconcerting, in fact an outrage; they were
literally restructuring the world in a way the sages had not approved of. Feng
Yan notes that “王莽… 校定文字, 頗改古文; Wang Mang… edited and ‘fixed’ the
writing systems, and thereby somewhat changed guwen.”61 If one wants to under
stand what classifications the sages had applied to their words, and hence how
they had used them (and furthermore how these words should be used for the
proper maintenance of the constructed order of the world), the last thing anyone
would like to see is a committee of vulgar reformers coming along and ‘fixing’ it.
And this is exactly what Wang Mang’s officials did according to the Postface. The
eighth section further lists out the six types of writing in use at the time of Wang
Mang (based on guwen and zhuanwen).
Section nine is by far the longest—and most important—section of the Shuowen
Postface. Xu Shen first of all defines what he means by guwen,62 which is:
1.) The writing system invented by Cangjie in high antiquity.

2.) The writing system used in the texts hidden away during the Qin bibliocaust
and later found in the walls of the Kong family dwelling when it was demol
ished sometime during the reign of either Emperor Jing (r. 157–141 B.C.E.)
or Emperor Wu (r. 140–87 B.C.E.), which included Liji, Shangshu, Chunqiu,
Lunyu, and Xiaojing.63 As Xu Kai notes, “慎與安國義通也; the meanings
referred to by Xu Shen and by Kong Anguo are the same.”64
61 Feng Yan 封演 (fl. 756), Fengshi wenjianji jiaozhu 封氏聞見記校注, ed. Zhao Zhenxin 趙貞信
(Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2005), 2.8.2.
62 Western scholars who have worked closely with the Shuowen recognize that there is some
thing odd going on with guwen, e.g., “the Shuo wen postface clearly contrasts ku wen script
(dated to the pre-Ch’in period) with the small and large seal script types sponsored by Ch’in…
thus not all texts written in pre-Han script were labeled ku wen” (Michael Nylan, “The Chin Wen/
Ku Wen Controversy in Han Times,” T’oung Pao 80 [1994]: 87n13); few are willing to state defin
itively what this might mean. One of the exceptions seems to be Serruys, who, following Wang
Guowei (Wang Guowei, “Shizhou pian xulu” 史籀篇敍錄, in Wang Guantang xiansheng quanji
王觀堂先生全集, 16 vols. [Taibei: Wenhua shuju, 1968], 7:2371), argues that guwen represents
eastern Chinese dialects: “this would mean that when Shuo-wen gives a ku-wen graph, where
the structure suggests a different reading than the hsiao-chuan graph, we can suspect a dialect
difference between the central and the eastern States” (Serruys, “Prolegomena to the Study,”
290n91). While this is an interesting hypothesis, I only bring it up here as a contrast to what Xu
Shen says in the Postface.
63 This rare find is extensively documented in Han historical records, see, for example: Ban Gu
班固 (32–92 C.E.), Hanshu 漢書 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1997), 30:1706, 36:1969, 53:2414, and
88:3607.
64 Xu Kai, Shuowen jiezi xizhuan, 16.7b6.
3.) The writing system used in text of the Zuozhuan submitted to the Han court
by Zhang Cang 張蒼 (256–152 B.C.E.),65 and the Mao version of the Shijing
(provenance unexplained by Xu Shen).
4.) The writing system used on ancient bronze vessels with structurally consis
tent inscriptions (i.e., those whose classifiers and phonetics match up with
the graphs from the above texts).
The Postface argues on the basis of these four items that guwen is authentic, inter
nally consistent, and structurally explainable as a writing system even if the tra
dition was entirely broken during the depredations of the Eastern Zhou and Qin
and further confused by the ill-advised reforms of the Xin. While acknowledging
that many Eastern Han (25–220 C.E.) scholars consider guwen to be a spurious
writing system created by ambitious scholars outside the mainstream seeking
favor and jobs at court and by the followers of Wang Mang, by historicizing the
writing systems Xu Shen explains that the jinwen scholars who make these claims
have themselves actually been using Qin lishu 隸書 (a calligraphic style based on
the zhuanwen writing system) to graphemically analyze and interpret the words
of the classics and even to adjudicate legal cases.
Beginning with the inherently flawed assumption that writing has never
changed, jinwen scholars were therefore blindly working with what they wrongly
perceived to be the genuine intentions of the sages as encoded graphemically in
the writing system—that is, interpretations of words based on the structure of the
characters that write them. It is almost a slap in the face of the jinwen scholars that
Xu Shen presents them with the historicist argument that they have been basing
at least a select portion of their exegetical and governmental policy work on the
drastically harmful—if not immoral—alterations to the writing system Â�specifically
made by Qin officials. Hence a portion of the intentions the jinwen scholars were
finding in their graphemic analysis of the classics (shuozi jiejing 說字解經 “explain
ing characters in order to explicate the classics”) were the intentions not of sages,
but of vile Qin criminals—one of whom was a eunuch regicide, no less.66
65 As Zhang Cang had been an official under the Qin, his personal copies of texts (like the
Zuozhuan) would presumably have been spared the flames of both the bibliocaust itself and the
destruction of the Qin imperial library when the capital burned to the ground. Hence Zhang Cang
becomes one of living conduits through which the guwen tradition is passed across the otherwise
impenetrable historical barrier of the Qin.
66 This parallelism in the Postface to the title of the work provides a strong argument for
Â�understanding the original title of the Shuowen jiezi to mean something like “analyzing the [three
distinct] writing systems 文 in order to explicate their [component] offspring characters 字.”
Following Xu Shen’s partisan line of argument, it makes sense that the study
of guwen should be made a priority at court. It is absolutely necessary to honor
and cultivate guwen—in fact, one of the key messages contained within the clas
sics themselves is that guwen can provide a link between high antiquity and the
present, and hence has the ability to make the present more like the ideal past.
As Zhu Junsheng remarks, “讀書貴先識字. 識字然後能通經. 通經然後能致用; in
reading books you must first have knowledge of written words. Once you have
knowledge of written words you are able to understand the classics. Once you
understand the classics you are able to cause them to be properly used.”67
The lexicographic macrostructure and microstructures of the Shuowen are
designed to prove that the changes in the writing systems are historically and gra
phemically observable, and consequently that the original intentions of the sages
who used guwen to write the classics are literally recoverable by working back
wards through the reforms and changes in writing to a proper understanding of
how they classified and used their words in the guwen writing system. In section
ten, Xu Shen takes up the task of explaining the methodology he has used in com
piling the Shuowen jiezi. Because zhuanwen, rather than guwen, is the underlying
structure of the writing system of the Eastern Han (for the problematic historical
reasons discussed above), the Shuowen uses this writing system as the apparent
written form for its macrostructure. Duan Yucai explains that “許重復古而其體例
不先古文籀文者, 欲人由近古以攷古也. 小篆因古籀而不變者多, 故先篆文正所以
說古籀也; as for Xu Shen giving great weight to reviving the past yet not putting
guwen and zhouwen first in the Shuowen layout, he wanted people to investigate
further antiquity through using recent antiquity. As much of xiaozhuan relies on
guwen and zhouwen and doesn’t change, for that reason putting xiaozhuan first is
correctly what is used to explain guwen and zhouwen.”68
How Xu Shen distinguishes what the classifiers are that he writes in zhuan-
wen is according to their ancestry in guwen. In other words, using (recent antiq
uity) zhuanwen as the formal writing system for the macrostructure was a meth
odological ploy ultimately designed to ease the Eastern Han reader back to the
(further antiquity) guwen writing system; as zhuanwen was the underlying struc
ture of the familiar official script of everyday contemporary literacy, it became
the stepping-stone for getting back to guwen.
67 Shuowen tongxun dingsheng, 進表, 2a3–4.

68 Shuowen jiezi zhu, 15A21.17–18. Cf. Wang Guowei 王國維, “Shuowen ‘jin xu zhuanwen he yi gu
zhou’ shuo” 說文今敍篆文合以古籀說, in Guantang jilin 觀堂集林, 4 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 1959), 2:317–318.
Xu Shen will point out when a guwen grapheme has come down unchanged
into zhuanwen but is misunderstood because the word that the classifier itself
wrote in guwen has taken on a different graphemic structure in zhuanwen (and
hence the guwen grapheme is no longer understood properly as a classifier,
because the original classifier-as-character-writing-the-word has been lost).69
Duan Yucai again clarifies: “凡全書有先古籀後小篆者, 皆由部首之故也; as for
each and every example in the book that has the guwen or zhouwen first and the
xiaozhuan after, in all cases the reason is due to the classifier.”70
Wang Guowei further explains that “故敍所云今敍篆文合以古籀者, 當以正
字言而非以重文言. 重文中之古籀, 乃古籀之異於篆文及其自相異者. 正字中之古
籀, 則有古籀篆文俱有此字者… 然則說文解字實合古文籀文篆文而為一書… 昔人
或以說文正字皆篆文而古文籀文惟見於重文中者, 殆不然矣; therefore, what was
said in the Postface—‘in the present era I have put zhuanwen in order together by
means of guwen and zhuanwen’—should be talking about the lemmata charac
ters and not talking about the ‘repeat’ characters. As for the guwen and zhuan-
wen among the ‘repeat’ characters, it is then the case that there is a difference
between the guwen and zhouwen on the one hand and the zhuanwen on the other,
and this difference extends to there being a difference between the guwen and the
zhouwen graphs themselves. If there are guwen and zhouwen among the lemmata
characters, then it is the case that guwen, zhouwen, and zhuanwen are all this
same graph… that being so, the Shuowen jiezi really brings together guwen,
zhouwen, and zhuanwen to make a unitary text… as for earlier people, some took
it to be that lemmata characters in the Shuowen were in all cases zhuanwen and
that guwen and zhouwen were only seen among the ‘repeat’ characters, but I am
afraid that this is really not the case.”71 In discussing such unusual lemmata,
Gui Fu for his part writes that “此古文上者, 小篆之未變古文者也… 籒文大改古
文… 非故本體也; as for this being a guwen word as headword, it is an example
of where the xiaozhuan did not change the guwen structure… but the zhouwen
greatly changed the guwen… and so it is not the original graphic structure.”72
This explains why the guwen/zhuanwen graph is structurally the same but the
zhouwen graph, which differs, is found among the ‘repeat’ characters.
Both the microstructural gloss of the classifier head-entry lemma (that is,
his explanation of the bushou word), and all the glosses of the headwords listed
beneath it have been explained, according to the Postface, based on what Xu
69 See, e.g., the guwen classifier lü 呂 in Shuowen jiezi zhu, 7B16.

71 Guantang jilin, 2:319–320.
72 Gui Fu, Shuowen jiezi yizheng, 1.6b10–7a2.
Shen has heard from authoritative men who had evidence. And the evidence, it
seems, was their analysis of the graphemic components used to write the word in
question. And in every case (about 13%) where Xu Shen has detected structural
change between guwen, zhouwen, and zhuanwen, he relies on the structural com
ponents of the guwen character to give his main etymological definition gloss
(i.e., how the sages were advocating the use of that word based on how they clas
sified and composed it in the guwen writing system). He also plainly states that
in every single case he has double-checked the structure of the zhuanwen char
acter against that of the guwen character to make sure that they correspond, and
this by means of the contents of the guwen texts of the Yi, Shu, Shi, Liji, Chunqiu,
Zuozhuan, Lunyu, and Xiaojing. According to his analysis, for about 87% of the
words there has been no change and therefore no difference between the orig
inal guwen structure and the zhuanwen structure—hence he does not in these
cases need to make any note of it by marking it out. Wang Guowei reiterates
that “說文本叙篆文合以古籀, 古籀與篆異者出之, 同則不復出也; the lemmata
of the Shuowen are arranged such that the zhuanwen is the same as the guwen
and the zhouwen—in those cases where the guwen and zhouwen are different
from zhuanwen it appears, but if they were the same then it does not repeti
tiously show up.”73
Without exception, every single explicitly marked example of guwen and
zhouwen in the Shuowen is structurally (not simply calligraphically) different
from the zhuanwen—changed classifier, changed phonetic, or both, marking dia
chronic structural change in the writing systems—and that is why Xu Shen has
listed them out specifically in those cases. The guwen and zhouwen graphs in the
Shuowen are not simply “variant graphs” (yitizi 異體字), with which we are so
familiar from the later lexicographic tradition, but rather are the undeniable evi
dence of Xu Shen’s historicist method of differentiating the three writing systems.
As such they represent, in every microstructure in which they appear, the overar
ching lexicographic principle used throughout the Shuowen jiezi, the very same
principle that the author—repeatedly and quite explicitly—states in the Postface.
At the end of section ten, Xu Shen lists out the 540 classifiers of the guwen
writing system in their zhuanwen forms (which exactly match zhuanwen classifi
ers most of the time). These classifiers, he argues, are the inherent structures of
guwen, and were therefore used by Cangjie and the later sages to classify words
(establishing both signifier and signified)—hence passing down their intentions
73 Wang Guantang xiansheng quanji, 7:2377–2378. Cf. “no variant [chong 重] indicated that the
[zhuanwen] is the same as in [guwen] and [zhouwen]” (Xue Shiqi, “Chinese Lexicography Past and
Present,” in Hartmann, Lexicography: Critical Concepts, 2:162).
through time, through all the vagaries of diachronic change in the usage of par
ticular words. And if he has understood aright the regularities of the rules of
word composition and classification, the Shuowen becomes the perfect tool to
crack the code of the historically intended message of the classics through a
proper understanding of the written forms of their words. It is noteworthy that
Xu Shen mentions nothing whatsoever about the liushu “six ways of writing”
as part of his design of the Shuowen (in fact he only mentions it in the context
of juvenile pedagogy). Finally, he reiterates that his macrostructure and micro
structures will help the reader understand the ultimate origins and oft-problem
atic changes in the writing systems and how these have mirrored oft-problematic
changes in human culture through time (that being the end of the Western Zhou,
the Qin, and the Xin).
Section eleven is an encomium in praise of the Han dynasty, its awesome
glory and how it supports traditional scholarship (especially, hopefully, guwen
scholarship). The twelfth section is Xu Shen’s autobiography, wherein he narrates
the story of his elite ancestry, his own fascination with the classics, and his inabil
ity to keep his nose out of canonical books and their explanations. He also notes
that his scholarship is very, very careful, and that he has genuinely assisted the
intentions of the sages by serially arranging and clarifying their words. Finally,
he asks any reader who has a better understanding of the structure of the writing
systems to please correct any mistakes that he has made. Taking a look at the 182
commentaries and marginalia appended to the lemmata of the gulin edition of the
Shuowen, one would not hesitate to say that his readers have taken this request
quite seriously over the past two millennia.74
Xu Chong’s petition, which constitutes the thirteenth section of the Postface,
reveals his father’s scholarly affiliation to the guwen erudite Jia Kui 賈逵 (30–101
C.E.), who had been commanded by Emperor He (r. 89–105 C.E.) to revise and
put in order the different explanations of the writing systems (not reform writing
itself, which was very dangerous, but rather explicate its historical problems
and structural differences in a comprehensible way). Xu Chong states that the
Shuowen fulfills this task by giving explanations of the old glosses, and that it
records a proper interpretation of how the sages intended words to be used for
(and thereby literally construct) everything in the entire world, all in one conve
nient and orderly package—the ultimate in reference manuals. We also learn that
Xu Shen has been compiling the Shuowen by imperial command (presumably to
complete the project Jia Kui began), and that Xu Shen’s parallel work on Kong
74 Ding Fubao 丁福保 (1874–1952), ed., Shuowen jiezi gulin 說文解字詁林, 66 vols. (Shanghai:
Shangwu yinshuguan, 1930).
Anguo’s Explanations of the Guwen Version of the Classic of Filial Piety was sub
mitted—presumably unasked for—side by side with the Shuowen jiezi. And, last
but not least, the fourteenth section consists of the imperial rescript and endorse
ment. Here we see that Xu Chong was allowed to present these two books to the
Emperor in person in an informal setting at the gate of one of the palace apart
ments, and that he received 40 bolts of cloth as remuneration for his troubles.
While the Postface has an enormous amount of material to offer us on the
historical context and the macrostructure of the Shuowen—which can be quickly
summed up by stating that Xu Shen’s argument is essentially that the 540 bushou
classifiers are the structural classificatory system of guwen (albeit written here in
their zhuanwen-descended state) as it was created by Cangjie and pointedly used
by Confucius and Zuo Qiuming to write the classics—the lexicographic microstruc
tures of the Shuowen itself are also incredibly important for a proper understand
ing of the Postface. The guwen classifier, including all of its glossalia, forms the
bushou head-entry. All of the so-called lemmata then listed after the head-entry
form the second half of a larger microstructure, which makes them microstruc
tural units belonging to—and derived from—the head-entry (“凡X之屬皆從X;
the classification of every X-class word in all cases comes from the X-classifier”).
Hence the Shuowen, though it may not seem immediately obvious because it is
so large, has only 540 recognizable lexicographic entries, only 540 true lemmata.
What Xu Shen had discovered in the graphemic structure of guwen (and presumed
to have been assigned to the words by Cangjie) is something nearly equivalent to
the classificatory macrostructure of the 19 word classes and 39 subclasses of the
Erya (presumed by the Han commentators to have been assigned to the words by
the sages who wrote it). Let us for a moment examine what the macrostructure of
the Shuowen is not, so as to realize the full import of what it actually is.
In his Shuowen tongxun dingsheng 說文通訓定聲 (1833), the Qing philol
ogist Zhu Junsheng reorganized the macrostructure of the Shuowen into 18 Old
Chinese rhyme groups according to the 1137 sheng 聲 “phonetics” that he identi
fied, further broken down into categories by the liushu. And, besides the 18 rhyme
groups, these criteria are fully evidenced in the microstructures of the original
Shuowen itself. So why, we might ask, did Xu Shen not organize the Shuowen by
the phonetics that he identifies almost ninety percent of the time? Or, similarly,
why did he not make the liushu part of the macrostructure, dividing up the mass
of almost 10,000 words into six large but easily recognizable categories? If the
liushu are to be understood as the main analytical principle Xu Shen supposedly
used, why are they not forefronted in this manner? There was certainly enough
information in the text of the Shuowen on these things for Zhu Junsheng to have
done his editorial revision—so why did Xu Shen not do it that way originally? In
other words, why did he do what he did the way he did it?
It seems that Xu Shen was much less concerned with which word uses
which phonetic, or which word uses which of the liushu, than with which word
historically used which classifier. From the way Xu Shen discusses words in the
Shuowen, both in the Postface and in the text itself, it is evident that he makes
no distinction between the sound, written shape, and usage of a word—they are
analytically inseparable.75 When he lists out the structurally different “repeats”
(chong 重), the claim may well be that these are what we would call different
words—words that have undergone changes not only in the graphic structure of
the written character, but also in either sound or usage or both. As he is basing
his understanding of the use of a word (i.e., the historical etymology, or so-called
benyi “original meaning”) in large measure on the classifier, then if the classifier
has changed Xu Shen must consequently understand the usage of the word to
be different; if the phonetic has changed, he likewise takes it to mean that the
sound—if not likewise the usage—of the word has been modified in some way
(which changes the world, at least insofar as humans can perceive it, “think” it,
say it, and behave toward it through language).
In the microstructures outside of the bushou head-entries, so long as the gra
phemic structures of the guwen graph remained intact into zhuanwen, these anal
yses remain the same. However, when a word has changed historically in any way,
that is, in every case of a “repeat” (chong), new intentions have been introduced,
historically identifiable as distinct from those of Cangjie and the sages. In other
words, in these cases it is rather the intentions of Scribe Zhou, the highly ques
tionable folk of the Warring States period, the Qin or the Xin criminals damaging
or distorting the words—what one might call “lexical corruption,” a phenom
ena quite similar to the more familiar “textual corruption.” For example, when
zhuanwen breaks graphemically with the guwen word, it may well have been
understood that Qin meddlers were purposefully trying to change the usage (and
perhaps also the sound) of the original word coming down from the guwen (con
sequently modifying the nature of the world encoded in language by signifier and
signified). According to Xu Shen this is exactly where the graphemic analyses of
the vulgar jinwen scholars were mistaken—and why they were recovering tainted
and mutant intentions from the texts of the classics written in Qin official script.76
75 As Serruys remarks in passing, “if they were different in graphic structure or in phonetic
composition they may be different words”(“Prolegomena to the Study,” 291n98).
76 That this was generally recognized by the tradition is further exemplified in the following
question (as one has to first assume it to even begin to question it): “小篆, 豈李斯作字之本意乎?;
as for the xiaozhuan, could it really have the original meaning that Li Si intended in creating those
written words?” (Gui Fu, Shuowen jiezi yizheng, 1.3a5).
Besides mentioning that Xu Shen additionally points out in his microstruc

tures those places where a phonetic has been abbreviated (shengsheng 省聲) and
that he gives duruo 讀若 “read it out loud like” glosses, which in some instances
are more than just homophones (i.e., paronomasia wherein a meaningful link
in usage is implied), this is the sum total of the macrostructural and microstruc
tural elements of the Shuowen. It is only by viewing this text through the lens
of authorial intention (rather than by anachronistic application of contemporary
knowledge of the history of writing in China) that the greater scope of the lexico
graphic principles of the Shuowen jiezi can be seen; this method of reading makes
Xu Shen’s language theory clear. It is zhengming 正名 “making words correct”
theory.
Second only to Xunzi’s “Treatise on Making Words Correct” in the history of
the key texts of Chinese language theory, the Shuowen jiezi is the first large scale
work to explicitly lay out the philological episteme which then spans nearly two
millennia in East Asia. While from the perspective of modern epigraphy Xu Shen’s
analysis of the history of the Chinese writing system is factually flawed (today
we have far more published archaeological material to work with—oracle bones,
bronzes, excavated texts—and far better analytical tools), this does not change
the historical importance and influence of Xu Shen’s critical language theory—
which was, in essence, the proximate origin of the classical Chinese philological
episteme.
Chapter Fifteen: The “Shuowen Postface”
(Annotated Translation)
i.) 古者, 庖犧氏之王天下也, 仰則觀象於天, 俯則觀法於地. 視鳥獸之文與地之
宜. 近取諸身, 遠取諸物, 於是始易八卦以垂憲象. 及神農氏結繩為治而統其
事, 庶業其繁, 飾偽萌生.
In antiquity, as Paoxi ruled the world as king, looking up, he observed celes
tial phenomena in the heavens, looking down, he observed regularities on
the earth.1 He saw suitable matches between the earth and the marking-
patterns on birds and wild animals. From nearby he took such marking-
patterns from various parts of his own body, from afar he took them from
various parts of things, and thereby created the eight trigrams2 in order to
hand down Â�normative representations.3 Coming to Shennong knotting cords
1 The Shuowen Postface has been partially translated several times in Western languages: Miller,
“Problems in the Study of Shuo-wen chieh-tzu,” 273–297; Kenneth Lawrence Thern, Postface of the
Shuo-wen Chieh-tzu: The First Comprehensive Chinese Dictionary (Madison: Dept. of East Asian
Languages and Literature, University of Wisconsin, 1966), 8–78; Nils Göran David Malmqvist, “Xu
Shen’s Postface to the Shuo Wen Jie Zi,” in David Pankenier, ed., On Script and Writing in Â�Ancient
China: Translations with Annotations (Stockholm: Föreningen for Orientaliska Studier, 1974),
48–53; Françoise Bottéro, Sémantisme et classification dans l‘écriture chinoise: Les systèmes de
classeÂ�ment des caractères par clés du Shuowen jiezi au Kangxi zidian (Paris: Institut des Hautes
Études Chinoises, Collège de France, 1996), 17–43 and 58–60. It has also been completely translat
ed once: Winter, “…und Cang Jie erfand die Schrift,” 557–586. As my interpretations are often differ
ent, I translate it here anew, using the Song woodblock edition of Xu Xuan (op. cit.) as base text.
2 Significant portions of these first two paragraphs are direct citation of the Yijing (易繫辭下, in
Ruan Yuan, Shisanjing zhushu, 1:86b). There are also large chunks lifted from the “Yiwenzhi” 藝
文志, with some modifications, see: Ban Gu, Hanshu, 30:1704–1706 and 30:1719–1722. Sporadical
ly throughout the Postface Xu Shen and Xu Chong also quote and make allusions to the Shang-
shu, Shijing, Zuozhuan, Guliang zhuan, and Lunyu.
3 There is probably an allusion here to the “Xici” passage “天垂象. 見吉凶, 聖人象之; heaven hangs
down celestial phenomena; upon observing what is auspicious and inauspicious in them, the sages
represented it (by means of the hexagrams)” (易繫辭上; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:82b), and perhaps also
to the Shangshu passage “以垂憲乃後; in order to hand down norms to your descendants” (書蔡仲
之命; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:227b). What is being handed down by Paoxi (a.k.a., Fuxi), therefore, is a
normative manner of representing omenological phenomena, to be used in divinatory practice—i.e.,
the eight trigrams are a standard (and standardizing) method of representing the distinctions and
nuances between good and bad omens, upon which divination using the Yijing is then based (the
punning polysemy of the word xiang 象, here on the one hand “celestial phenomena” and on the
other “to represent,” “representation,” provides the ultimate justification for this). Compare the
syntax of this clause to similar passages in other Han writers, such as Zhao Qi 趙岐 (107–201 C.E.),
“恥沒世而無聞焉, 是故垂憲言以詒後人; Mengzi was ashamed that he would die without being
Chapter Fifteen: The “Shuowen Postface” (Annotated Translation) 259
(as quipu)4 for the purpose of bringing order and thereby controlling his
affairs,5 the numerous professions greatly6 flourished, ornamentation and
artifice came forth like sprouts.
ii.) 黃帝之史倉頡見鳥獸蹏迒之迹, 知分理之可相別異也. 初造書契, 百工以乂,
萬品以察, 蓋取諸夬. 夬, 揚于王庭. 言文者, 宣教明化於王者朝廷, 君子所以
施祿及下, 居德則忌也. 倉頡之初作書, 蓋依類象形, 故謂之文. 其後形聲相
益, 即謂之字. 字者, 言孳乳而浸多也. 箸於竹帛謂之書. 書者, 如也.
The Scribe of the Yellow Emperor, Cangjie, observing the traces of the
Â�footprints and tracks of birds and wild animals, understood that their
linear structures could be distinguished from one another by the differ
ences between them. When he first created writing by carving in wood, the
hundred officials became regulated, the myriad things became discrimi
nated. Cangjie probably took this from the hexagram guai 夬.7 One of the
meanings of the word guai is “to present something at the royal court.”8
This is saying that wen 文 “cultured pattern” (writing) is a means to dis
seminate education and illuminate ethical influence for the king at court,
it is also a means by which the gentleman bestows emoluments upon sub
ordinates, and it is a means for storing up virtue and making clear what is
prohibited.9 When Cangjie first created writing, he probably relied on the
known by anyone, for this reason he handed down normative words in order to teach his message
to later people” (孟子題辭解; Shisanjing zhushu, 2:2662), and Yang Xiong, “大度檢檢. 于天示象,
垂其范. 測曰 ‘大度檢檢,’ 垂象貞也; the great measures examine and reexamine; in heaven display
ing celestial phenomena, it hands down its exemplars. The Fathoming (autocommentary) says: as
for ‘the great measures examining and reexamining,’ this means heaven hands down that which
Â�represents the correct” (太玄經; Dim Chuek Lau et al., ed., Taixuan jing zhuzi suoyin 太玄經逐字索
引 [Xianggang: Shangwu yinshuguan, 1995], 38; cf. Michael Nylan, trans., The Canon of Supreme
Mystery by Yang Hsiung: A Translation with Commentary of the T’ai Hsüan Ching [Albany: State Uni
versity of New York Press, 1993], 321). Malmqvist’s translation, “to hand down the regular patterns”
(“Xu Shen’s Postface to the Shuo Wen Jie Zi,” 48), shows that his understanding of the syntax is
similar.
4 Quipu—an English word etymologically derived from Quechua Mayan khipu—is the Â�modern
Â�anthropological term for the practice of knotting cords in order to record events, keep Â�accounts, etc.
5 Yijing citation (易繫辭下; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:87b).
6 Following Duan Yucai’s reading of 其 [*gjəg] as 綦 [*gjəg] (Shuowen jiezi zhu, 15A1.11); cf. the
comments in Winter, “…und Cang Jie erfand die Schrift,” 558n4.
7 Yijing citation (易繫辭下; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:87b).
8 Yijing citation (易夬; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:56c).
9 Yijing citation. (易夬; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:56c). I am here following Gui Fu’s suggested emen
dation of 則 to 明 based on Wang Bi’s and Kong Yingda’s reading of the Yijing passage (Shuowen
jiezi yizheng, 49.2b9; Li Xueqin, Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 2:212), and also Wang Yun’s sug
gested interpretation of 居 (Shuowen jiezi judu, 29.2b8–10; Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 2:212).
260 Chapter Fifteen: The “Shuowen Postface” (Annotated Translation)
variety of things and Â�therefore made xiangxing 象形 “represent the shape”

(i.e., rebus) graphs. Therefore he referred to such written words as wen 文
“written units of a cultured pattern.”10 After this, xingsheng 形聲 “classifier
and phonetic” were added together, accordingly he referred to them as zi 字
“offspring characters.”11 As for the word “offspring-characters,” this speaks
of gradual increase through reproduction and multiplication. One refers to
such writing 箸 [*trjagh] on bamboo and silk as “writing” 書 [*hrjag]. One of
the meanings of the word “writing” 書 [*hrjag] is “to resemble” 如 [*njag].
iii.) 以
迄五帝三王之世, 改易殊體. 封於泰山者, 七十有二代, 靡有同焉. 周禮八歲
入小學, 保氏教國子先以六書. 一曰指事. 指事者, 視而可識, 察而見. 上下是
也. 二曰象形. 象形者, 畫成其物, 隨體詰詘. 日月是也. 三曰形聲. 形聲者, 以
事為名, 取譬相成. 江河是也. 四曰會意. 會意者, 比類合誼以見指撝. 武信是
也. 五曰轉注. 轉注者, 建類一首, 同意相受. 考老是也. 六曰假借. 假借者, 本
無其字, 依聲託事. 令長是也.
During the ages of the Five Emperors and the Three Kings there were
changes in the distinct calligraphic styles.12 As for the Feng sacrifices on
10 This “therefore” syntactically stretches back all the way to the first wen—this polysemic defi
nition of wen is simultaneously the “simple” written forms of particular words and the ethical
norms (within the social hierarchy) that words as ming are intended to portray. Even the histor
ical invention of writing, Cangjie’s first use of “simple” rebus-graphs to write down a limited
number of spoken words, is inextricably bound up here in the Postface with the complicated
ritual behavior (constructed inside and by means of language) prescriptively required, for exam
ple, of social superior and inferior.
11 All zi 字 “offspring characters” must be derived, according to this, from a specific wen 文 “writing
system” that intrinsically bears profound cultural implications (guwen, zhouwen, or zhuanwen), the
“offspring” of the mating of (at least) two graphs of the parent wen. This is earliest explanation of
why the word zi “offspring” also means “written word”—and it seemingly only means “character”
as graph because the graphemic structure of each zi is understood to have been parturited from
the structural components of the parent wen—produced first by combining graphs together to form
complex graphs. Although she unfortunately uses the English word ‘emblem’, Bottéro’s explanation
is not radically dissimilar (see: Françoise Bottéro, “Revisiting the wén 文and the zì 字: The Great
Â�Chinese Character Hoax,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 74 [2002]: 14–33).
12 Ti 體 is here is a calligraphic distinction rather than a structural one. In other words, accor
ding to Xu Shen the individual written characters may have appeared dissimilar during the
stretch of time spanning from the Yellow Emperor to the Western Zhou, but they all relied on the
same structural pattern of a specific writing system that had cultural implications (i.e., guwen).
The stated claim is that although the calligraphic appearance changed, guwen as a writing sys
tem never changed its set of graphic components, nor its manner of putting them together, nor
its Â�cultural implications (the role of the politically ordained meaning of the otherwise arbitrary
word—Â�encoded in the writing system with classifiers by Cangjie—in social activity and its contin
uation through time). Thus guwen is considered to be an unbroken tradition from Cangjie down
Mt. Tai, during the seventy-two occasions in which they occurred they were
never the same in regards to calligraphic style.13 According to the rites of
Zhou, in the eighth year one enters elementary education.14 The Palace
Protector teaches the children of the state first by means of the liushu
六書 “six ways of writing.”15 The first is called zhishi 指事 “point to the
thing.” As for zhishi, observe and one can recognize it, investigate and one
sees it; shang 上 and xia 下 are examples of this. The second is xiangxing
象形 “represent the shape.” As for xiangxing, achieve the thing by drawing
according to the bends and curves of its shape; ri 日 and yue 月 are exam
ples of this. The third is xingsheng 形聲 “classifier and phonetic.” As for
xingsheng, regard the thing as a ming “word” and grasp the classificatory
analogy so as mutually achieve it; jiang 江 and he 河 are examples of this.
The fourth is huiyi 會意 “combined intentions.” As for huiyi, pair up their
classifications and combine their meanings in order to see what points and
waves; wu 武 and xin 信 are examples of this.16 The fifth is zhuanzhu 轉注
“mutual cross-gloss.” As for zhuanzhu, establish a classification under one
(bushou) heading, with the same intended meaning and mutually exchange
able; kao 考 and lao 老 are examples of this. The sixth is jiajie 假借 “loan
borrowing.” As for jiajie, as the word originally lacks its own written graph,
rely solely on the phonetic to stand in for the thing, ling 令 and chang 長 are
examples of this.
to the Western Zhou. Hulsewé also interprets ti in this manner, see: Anthony François Paulus
Hulsewé, “The Shuo-wen Dictionary as a Source for Ancient Chinese Law,” in Søren Egerod and
Else Glahn, ed., Studia Serica Bernhard Karlgren Dedicata: Sinological Studies Dedicated to Ber-
nhard Karlgren on his Seventieth Birthday, October Fifth, 1959 (Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard,
1959), 248.
13 On the seventy-two sacrifices performed on Mt. Tai, see: Sima Qian, Shiji, 28:1355–1404.
14 Wang Anshi similarly mentions that “以書用於世久矣, 先王立學以教之; as for writing being
used in later ages and for a really long time, the early kings established schools in order to teach
it” (Wang Anshi zishuo ji, 161.3).
15 Cf. Zheng Xuan, Zhouli zhengzhu, 14.3b4. This liushu “six ways of writing” is not described in
the Shuowen Postface as a set of graphemic analytical principles (which it became later in the
Â�lexicographic tradition, and was often used to anachronistically interpret the microstructures of the
Shuowen), but rather as a pedagogical tool used to teach raw illiterate children how to even begin
to approach guwen, so as to learn how to write from the ground up. I have therefore translated them
here in the prescriptive active. The other liushu “six types of writing” in the Postface is an entirely
different list of the writing systems prevalent from the Xin period up to the time of Xu Shen. As Duan
Yucai notes, the later list “與周禮保氏六書同名異實; is the same word as the liushu of the Palace
Protector according to the rites of Zhou but a different signified” (Shuowen jiezi zhu, 15A16.11).
16 Strictly speaking, a huiyi is graphemically a combination of two or more classifiers.
iv.) 及宣王太史籀著大篆十五篇, 與古文或異. 至孔子書六經, 左丘明述春秋傳, 皆

以古文. 厥意可得而說. 其後諸候力政, 不統於王, 惡禮樂之害己而皆去其典
籍. 分為七國, 田疇異畮, 車涂異軌, 律令異法, 衣冠異制, 言語異聲, 文字異形.
Coming down to the time of King Xuan, Scribe Zhou wrote the Dazhuan in
fifteen pian, which is somewhat different from guwen.17 Arriving at the time
of Confucius writing down the six classics, and Zuo Qiuming narrating the
tradition of the Spring and Autumn Annals, in all cases—even though they
used guwen—their intended meaning can for the most part be obtained and
explained.18 After them, the various marklords warred with one another;19
they were not unified under one king. They considered the ‘harmful’ effects
of the rites and music to be bad and in all cases discarded their canons and
records. The realm was divided into seven states. Agricultural field divisions
had different measures, carts and road-ruts different axle-widths,20 laws
and commands different rules, ritual garb different sumptuary regulations,
spoken words and language different sounds, and writing different graphic
structures.21
17 According to the Postface, this is the first cultural break from the longstanding guwen tra
dition, and has massive historical consequences. It must be remembered that Scribe Zhou is
supposedly compiling this revisionary lexicon right at the end of the Western Zhou period (in
fact only a few short years before the capital was sacked and burned, and the line of legitimate
succession broken), and his tradition-breaking lexicographic work is implicated in the cultural
collapse of the Zhou state. As Sima Qian notes, during this time “周將亡矣; Zhou is about to be
utterly destroyed” (Shiji, 4:145).
18 Xu Shen is implying here that Confucius and Zuo Qiuming purposely chose the conservative
ancient writing system, guwen, in opposition to the somewhat morally suspect and altered sys
tem of Scribe Zhou (which had been in circulation for some three centuries by their time), and
further, that if one wants to properly understand the intentions of such sages as Confucius and
Zuo Qiuming, one must perforce understand guwen, the writing system these two writers specif
ically chose to use to write down the classics.
19 Following Gui Fu and Wang Yun’s emendation of 政 to 征 (Shuowen jiezi yizheng, 49.6a5;
Shuowen jiezi judu, 29.4a10).
20 Cf. “王者制天下, 必使車軌同, 書同文, 故教人; when those who ruled as kings regulated the
world, they necessarily caused cart axles to be the same width and writing to use the same writ
ing system, by these means they educated the people” (Zhang Can, Wujing wenzi, 序例, 1b4–5).
If cart axles are the same width then the wheel-ruts in dirt roads will be the same everywhere,
facilitating practical ease of transport across long distances.
21 The Postface is here ascribing cultural unity to the pre-Eastern Zhou period. The breakdown
of the political body—and the material and social culture it was unified by—has a direct correla
tion to the chaotic condition of having no fixed standards of measurement, transportation, laws,
dress, speech, language, and writing. Scribe Zhou’s break with guwen (as opposed to Confucius
v.) 秦始皇帝初兼天下, 丞相李斯乃奏同之, 罷其不與秦文合者. 斯作倉頡篇, 中

車府令趙高作爰歷篇, 太史令胡毋敬作博學篇, 皆取史籀大篆或頗省改, 所謂
小篆者也. 是時秦燒滅經書, 滌除舊典, 大發隸卒, 興役戍, 官獄職務繁. 初有
隸書以趣約易而古文由此絕矣. 自爾秦書有八體. 一曰大篆. 二曰小篆. 三曰
刻符. 四曰蟲書. 五曰摹印. 六曰署書. 七曰殳書. 八曰隸書.
When the First Emperor of Qin first unified the world, Counselor-in-Chief
Li Si then petitioned to homogenize these things, so as to remove what did
not conform to the Qin pattern of culture. Li Si wrote the Cangjie pian. Zhao
Gao, the Eunuch Palace Director of the Livery Office, wrote the Yuanli pian.
Huwu Jing, the Grand Scribe, wrote the Boxue pian. In all cases they took
the writing system from the dazhuan of Scribe Zhou, with some partial sim
plifications and reforms—this is what is referred to as xiaozhuan.22 And
just at this time (when xiaozhuan was complete) Qin burned and utterly
extinguished the classics and other (guwen) writings, washing and sweep
ing away the old canons. And then, in massive fashion, they sent out offi
cial troops, raised border corvée laborers, and the duties of officials and
overseers—and the frequency of criminal cases—were all thus greatly multi
plied. At this time lishu “official script” first appeared, which was simplified
for the purposes of speed in writing and for standardization—and guwen,
due to these reasons, was completely cut off.23 Qin writing had eight styles:
the first was called large seal (dazhuan); the second, small seal (xiaozhuan);
and Zuo Qiuming’s attempt to uphold the old standard) has prefigured the general breakdown of
order during the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods.
22 Attempting to break entirely from the past in all things (at least according to this Â�narrative),
the Qin reformers seem to have recognized that basing the new standard writing system on zhou-
wen would be best—guwen was just too conservative and too traditional (and too deeply associat
ed with the classics as written by Confucius). Thus Xu Shen is claiming here that they did to zhou-
wen what Scribe Zhou had done to guwen, i.e., more simplification and reform of the structural
elements (which have cultural and constructed-cosmological implications). These three writers,
it must be remembered, were implicated in burning books, murdering scholars, and committing
the greatest cultural crimes in the history of early China according to Han historiography—in
deed, they were considered to have almost succeeded in entirely wiping out Â�reliable knowledge
of an idealized past.
23 At exactly this point, the Postface has historicized the three distinct writing systems basic to
the macrostructure and microstructures of the Shuowen: guwen, zhouwen (dazhuan), zhuanwen
(xiaozhuan). Each of the major writing systems after guwen is a simplification and reform of the
structural elements of the prior one, hence a visible break in the tradition and a cultural change.
By the time of official script, which is a calligraphic style of zhuanwen (based on the third histor
ical writing system), the structural break has become so profound that guwen is for the most part
unrecognizable and unreadable to those literate only in lishu.
the third, tally engraving; the fourth, creature script; the fifth, copy stamp;
the sixth, public official script; the seventh, spear script; the eighth, official
script (lishu).
vi.) 漢興有艸書. 尉律學僮十七已上始試, 諷籀書九千字, 乃得為吏. 又以八體試
之. 郡移大史并課. 最者, 以為尚書史. 書或不正, 輒舉劾之. 今雖有尉律不課,
小學不修, 莫達其說久矣.
When the Han arose, draft script appeared. According to the codes of the
Commandant of Punishment, when students reach their 17th year or more,
they begin the exams—memorizing and reciting the writings to the tune
of some 9000 characters—only then do they obtain the position of Bureau
Clerk. The eight styles of writing are also used to test them. The provinces
send them to the Grand Scribe, who examines them on both counts (i.e., the
9000 and the eight styles). The best are made Imperial Secretary Scribes. If in
writing something is not correct, these Scribes abruptly report and censure it.
Now, although the codes of the Commandant of Punishment exist, there are
no examinations. Elementary education (xiaoxue) is not cultivated. No one
has gone through the explanations for a really long time now.
vii.)孝宣時, 召通倉頡讀者, 張敞從受之, 涼州刺史杜業, 沛人爰禮, 講學大夫秦近,

亦能言之. 孝平時, 徵禮等百餘人, 令說文字未央廷中. 以禮為小學元士. 黃門
侍郎楊雄采以作訓纂篇. 凡倉頡已下十四篇, 凡五千三百四十字. 群書所載,
略存之矣.
During the time of Filial Emperor Xuan, the Emperor summoned all those
who could read the Cangjie pian. Zhang Chang had received it from someone.
Du Ye, the Regional Inspector of Liangzhou, Yuan Li from Pei, and Qin Jin,
Grandee for the Exposition of Education, for their part were able to recite
it. During the time of Filial Emperor Ping, the Emperor summoned Yuan Li
and others, more than one hundred men. He ordered them to explain writing
systems and written words in the Weiyang Palace. He made Yuan Li the Par
amount Serviceman of Elementary Education. The Gentleman Attendant at
the Palace Gate, Yang Xiong, gathered their explanations in order to make
the Xunzuan pian. In all, from the Cangjie pian to the most recent, there are
14 pian, totaling 5340 characters. As for that which has been recorded in the
various writings, these lexicographic works have roughly preserved it.
viii.)及亡新居攝, 使大司空甄豐等校文書之部. 自以為應制作, 頗改定古文. 時有

六書. 一曰古文, 孔子壁中書也. 二曰奇字, 即古文而異者也. 三曰篆書, 即小
篆, 秦始皇帝使下杜人程之所作也. 四曰左書, 即秦隸書. 五曰繆篆, 所以摹印
也. 六曰鳥蟲書, 所以書幡信也.
Coming down to the overthrown Xin dynasty temporarily occupying the
throne, Wang Mang ordered the Censor-in-Chief, Zhen Feng, and others, to
comparatively edit the word classifications (bushou) of the writing systems

used to write. Wang Mang himself regarded these as that which ought to be
systematized. Zhen Feng therefore somewhat revised and “fixed” guwen.
At that time there were six types of writing. The first was called guwen, the
writings found in the walls of Confucius’ house. The second was called qizi
“strange offspring,” that is, guwen with some things that are different.24 The
third was called zhuanshu “seal script,” that is, xiaozhuan, which was made
by Cheng Miao, a person from Xiadu, who was ordered to do so by the first
emperor of Qin. The fourth was called zuoshu “civil official writing,” that is,
Qin lishu. The fifth was mouzhuan “coiled seal,” which was used on copy
seals. The sixth was niaochongshu “bird and creature script,” which was used
to write on banners and tallies.
ix.) 壁中書者, 魯恭王壞孔子宅而得禮記, 尚書, 春秋, 論語, 孝經. 又北平候張倉
獻春秋左氏傳. 郡國亦往往於山川得鼎彝. 其銘即前代之古文, 皆自相似. 雖
叵復見遠流, 其詳可得略說也, 而世人大共非訾, 以為好奇者也, 故詭更正文,
鄉壁虛造不可知之書, 變亂常行以燿於世. 諸生競說字解經誼, 稱秦之隸書為
倉頡時書, 云父子相傳, 何得改易. 乃猥曰馬頭人為長, 人時十為斗, 虫者屈中
也. 廷尉說律, 至以字斷法. 苛人受錢, 苛之字止句也, 若此者甚眾, 皆不合孔
氏古文, 謬於史籀. 俗儒啚夫, 翫其所習, 蔽所希聞, 不見通學, 未嘗覩字例之
條. 怪舊埶而善野言, 以其所知為祕妙, 究洞聖人之微恉. 又見倉頡篇中, 幼子
承詔, 因號古帝之所作也, 其辭有神僊之術焉. 其迷誤不諭, 豈不悖哉! 書曰予
欲觀古人之象. 言必遵修舊文而不穿鑿. 孔子曰吾猶及史之闕文, 今亡也夫.
蓋非其不知而不問. 人用已私, 是非無正, 巧說衺辭使天下學者疑. 蓋文字者,
經藝之本, 王政之始, 前人所以垂後, 後人所以識古, 故曰本立而道生, 知天下
之至嘖而不可亂也.
As for the writings from the wall, King Gong of Lu (fl. mid-2nd century B.C.E.)
demolished the Kong (Confucius) family dwelling and found the Record of
Rites, the Classic of Documents, the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Ana-
lects, and the Classic of Filial Piety. Furthermore, the Marklord of Beiping,
Zhang Cang, offered up the tradition of Zuo Qiuming on the Spring and
Autumn Annals. Prefectures and states for their part often obtain cauldrons
and ritual vessels from mountains and rivers (i.e., from hidden caches of
ancient bronzes washed up or unearthed). Their inscriptions are indeed the
guwen of former ages—in all cases themselves structurally similar to one
24 Presumably this is what Wang Mang had obnoxiously created by ‘fixing’ guwen, or Eastern
Â�
Zhou mutant graphs that did not correspond exactly to Xu Shen’s postulated guwen. See the
discussion in: Zhang Nengfu 張能甫, Lidai yuyanxue wenxian duben 歷代語言學文獻讀本
(Â�Chengdu: Bashu shushe, 2003), 13n22.
another. Although one cannot again see their origin and development, their
particulars can always be obtained and explained in summary form. Yet
among the people of this age, the great consensus is to reject and slander
guwen. They consider it to come from those who like oddities—who pur
posefully fake and alter the correct writing system, who from the wall falsely
create writings that cannot be understood, who change and disorder the
constant and prevailing writing system so as to make themselves shine bril
liantly in this age. Various scholars compete over the suitable matchings
between explaining characters and explicating the classics (shuozi jiejing
說字解經).25 They consider Qin lishu to be the writing of the time of Cangjie,
saying that from father to son it was transmitted one to the other—how
could it receive revisions and changes? Then they rashly say the head of ma
馬 and ren 人 together makes chang 長, that ren 人 holding26 shi 十 makes
dou 斗, and that as for hui 虫, it is a bent zhong 中. The Chamberlain of Law
Enforcement, in explaining the legal codes, has reached the point of using
the structures of graphs to give judgments about the laws. In reproving (ke
苛) a person who received bribes, he wrongly considers that this offspring
character is from zhi 止 “stop” and gou 句 “taking.” Things like this are
extremely numerous—in all cases not in accord with the guwen of Kong
Anguo, and even erroneous according to the dazhuan of Scribe Zhou. Vulgar
Ruists and despicable rustics, content with what they are familiar with,
blind to that which they have seldom heard, have never seen comprehensive
learning—they have not yet even once observed the regularities of the rules
of offspring characters. They consider the old skills as strange and consider
wild talk as good. They regard their own knowledge as secret subtleties—
examining and comprehending the subtle intentions of the sages. More
over, they see in the Cangjie pian the sentence, “my young son has received
the imperial mandate,” and due to this say Cangjie pian was written by an
ancient emperor—that its passages possess the art of the supernatural and
25 Again, as this four character parallelism exactly matches the syntax of the title Shuowen jiezi
說文解字, it reiterates that Xu Shen’s main purpose is not, as with other Han scholars, to argue
directly from the graphic components of Qin lishu—or even Qin xiaozhuan—in order to interpret
words in the texts of the classics (e.g., the apocryphal “broken-character” readings prevalent
during the Han), but rather to analyze characters by first historicizing the different writing sys
tems of which they are the “offspring”—which obviously further leads to a better understanding
of the original intentions of the sages who specifically wrote the classics with the oldest writing
system (guwen).
26 Accepting Xu Kai’s emendation of 持 [*djəg] for Xu Xuan’s 時 [*djəg], see: Shuowen jiezi xi-
zhuan, 28.8a5; Shuowen jiezi zhu, 15A.19b3.
the immortal due to this. Their delusions and mistakes are incomprehensi
ble. Are they not foully perverse? The Classic of Documents says: “I desire
to observe the representations of the men of antiquity.”27 This is saying that
it is necessary to honor and cultivate the old writing systems and not bore
through and carve them.28 Confucius said: “I still reach back to the scribe’s
not writing something down. Now this is lost forever—alas!”29 This criticizes
them for not knowing and failing to make inquiries. People use their own
selfish opinions, right and wrong have no correct standard, facile explana
tions and deviant expressions have made the scholars of the present world
worthy of suspicion. Now, as for writing systems and their offspring char
acters, these are the root of the classics, the origin of kingly government,
what former men used to hand down to posterity, and what later men use to
remember antiquity. Therefore it is said: “when the root is established, the
way is born,”30 and “knowing the world’s extreme subtleties, there cannot
be disorder.”31
x.) 今敘篆文, 合以古籀. 博采通人, 至於小大, 信而有證. 稽譔其說, 將以理群類,
解謬誤, 曉學者, 達神恉. 分別部居, 不相雜廁. 萬物咸覩, 靡不兼載. 厥誼不召,
爰明以諭. 其偁易孟氏, 書孔氏, 詩毛氏, 禮周官, 春秋左氏, 論語, 孝經, 皆古文
也. 其於所不知, 蓋闕如也.… 此十四篇, 五百四十部也. 九千三百五十三文, 重
一千一百六十三. 解說凡十三萬三千四百四十一字. 其建首也, 立一為耑. 方
以類聚, 物以群分. 同牽條屬, 共理相貫. 雜而不越, 據形系聯. 引而申之, 以究
萬原. 畢終於亥, 知化窮冥.
Recently, I have arranged the xiaozhuan writing system such that it
accords with guwen and zhouwen. I have extensively selected (glosses)
from authoritative men, both greater and lesser, and they are believ
able and verifiable. I have investigated and compiled their explanations
for the purpose of putting in order the various classifications—so as to
explicate errors and mistakes, enlighten scholars, and convey the fab
ulous meanings of words. I have split up and divided the explanations
into word classification (bushou) locations, so they would not be jumbled
27 Shangshu citation (書益稷; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:141c).

28 That is, not make a hash of them for one’s own agenda—as was done by Scribe Zhou, the Qin
officials, Wang Mang, jinwen scholars, etc.
29 Lunyu citation (論語衛靈公; Shisanjing zhushu, 2:2518a).
30 Lunyu citation (論語學而; Shisanjing zhushu, 2:2457b).
31 Yijing citation (易繫辭上; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:79b). In other words, if the emperor un
derstands and respects the history of the writing systems (i.e., guwen, zhouwen, and zhuan-
wen)—“the root established”—and supports guwen scholarship on the classics—“the extreme
subtleties”—the state will function as it should: morally, smoothly, and without disruption.
up together. The myriad things all together are observed, and there are
no words that are not properly recorded together under such headings.
When their meaning is not clear, I make things clear by informing the
reader (via the microstructures). I have consulted the following works: the
Changes of Meng, the Documents of Kong, the Poetry of Mao, the rituals of
the Zhouguan (a.k.a., the Zhouli), the Spring and Autumn Annals of Zuo,
the Analects, and the Classic of Filial Piety—in all cases guwen. Where
there is something that is not known, I leave the matter open… [bushou
list excluded here]32 …this dictionary has 14 sections, 540 word classifica
tions, 9353 graphs as units of a specific writing system (文), 1163 “repeat”
words with different structures that show how the writing systems have
changed over time (重),33 analysis and explanation altogether 133441
written words.
As for their established headings

I set up the word yi “one” as the beginning
Words that are comparable are clumped together by means of classifications
Things are separated by means of such groupings34
What has the same (graphic) rules is placed under one classification35
All the graphic structures are strung together with one another
Mixed yet not transgressive36
Relying on graphic structures systematically joined together
Drawing out and extending them
I use them to investigate the myriad origins of words
And conclude, at the end, with the terminus hai 亥
Knowing the transformations, sifting through the mysteries37 (of Â�etymology)
32 For a description, discussion, and full analytical translation of the 540 classifiers, see: Paul
Leo-Mary Serruys, “On the System of the Pu Shou 部首 in the Shuo-wen chieh-tzu 說文解字,”
Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica 55.4 (1984): 651–754.
33 This innocuous-seeming number is the most important single piece of lexicographic infor
mation we have in the Shuowen Postface. Xu Shen is here telling us that, according to his cal
culations, of the 9353 units of the particular writing system examined, he has been able to track
changes in the structure and give examples of such for almost 13% of them. And while 13% may
not seem to be a large amount of structural change overall, imagine a Han dynasty scholar fun
damentally misunderstanding the meaning and usage of about one out of every ten words in the
texts of the classics. The significance of the figure 13% should now be clear.
34 Yijing citation (易繫辭上; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:76a).
35 Accepting Xu Kai’s emmedation of 同條牽屬 for Xu Xuan’s 同牽條屬 (Shuowen jiezi xizhuan,
30.1b1; Shuowen jiezi zhu, 15B.1b5).
36 Yijing citation (易繫辭下; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:89a).
37 Yijing citation (易繫辭下; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:87c).
xi.) 于時大漢, 聖德熙明, 承天稽唐, 敷崇殷中. 遐邇被澤, 渥衍沛滂. 廣業甄微, 學

士知方. 探嘖索隱, 厥誼可傳.
Now the Great Han dynasty, its sagely virtue shining and illuminating, has
inherited (the mandate of) heaven and investigated Tang,38 broadcast its
virtue and regulated the center. The distant and near are covered with bene
fits, as it overflows with an abundance of greatness.39 The Han broadens its
endeavors and investigates the subtle—its scholar-officials know the rites.40
Searching into the primal, inquiring into the hidden—their meaning can be
transmitted.
xii.)粵在永元, 困頓之秊, 孟陬之月, 朔日甲申. 曾曾小子. 祖自炎神, 縉雲相黃, 共

承高辛, 太岳佐夏, 呂叔作藩, 俾候于許, 世祚遺靈. 自彼徂召, 宅此汝瀕. 竊卬
景行, 敢涉聖門. 其弘如何? 節彼南山, 欲罷不能, 既竭愚才. 惜道之味, 聞疑載
疑. 演贊其志, 次列微辭. 知此者稀. 儻昭所尤, 庶有達者, 理而董之.
It is January 29, 100 C.E. Great-grandson of a great-grandson, I am but an
insignificant child. My ancestry is from the Flaming Emperor; from Jin Yun,
minister to the Yellow Emperor; from Gong Gong, who succeeded Gao Xin;
from Taiyue, who assisted the Xia dynasty; from Lü Shu, who acted as border
defender (for King Wu of Zhou). He was made marklord of Xu—for generations
enfeoffed, passing down this charisma.41 From Xu my ancestors advanced to
Shaoling,42 settling in this place on the bank of the river Ru. I have presumed
to look up at the great road,43 I have dared to direct my feet toward the gate
of the sages (i.e., the classics). What does their magnitude resemble?—lofty
38 That is, ancient sage-king Yao 堯, from whom the Liu house claimed to descend.
39 With five characters in a row containing the water classifier, it makes one almost want to
read this passage as “distant and near are covered over and enriched, drenched to overflow by
an abundance of heavy rain (good for the crops and hence for everyone)”—a kind of water-filled
encomium of the greatness of the Han—which is exactly the reading you get if you look up the
Shuowen gloss of each of the five graphs. Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether Xu Shen is using
the normal meaning of a word or his own etymological glosses to inform his lexical choices in
the Postface.
40 Lunyu allusion (論語先進; Shisanjing zhushu, 2:2500b); “方, 禮法也” (鄭玄論語注, in Tang
Wen 唐文, Zheng Xuan cidian 鄭玄辭典 [Beijing: Yuwen chubanshe, 2004], 228).
41 On interpretive cum philological grounds Duan Yucai argues that this 靈 [*ling] “spirit” or
“charisma” should be understood as 令 [*ljingh] “good”; Miller follows this reading (“Problems
in the Study,” 282 and 282n25). Here, however, we take no umbrage with an elite ancestor wor
shiper talking about a vital charismatic “spirit” of excellence passing down through generations
in particular aristocratic families (especially his own).
42 I follow Duan Yucai on the identification of the Shao 召 here as Shaoling 召陵 (Shuowen jiezi
zhu, 15B4.7).
43 Shijing allusion (毛詩頍弁; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:482b).
as the southern mountain.44 I desired to quit pursuing this but was unable,
hence I have completely exhausted my inadequate abilities. I have taken
great care with the flavor of the Way—hearing a doubt, I recorded a doubt.45
I have expanded on and assisted the sages’ intentions, putting their subtle
expressions into a serial arrangement. Those who understand this are rare.
Perhaps mistakes in my work will be revealed—in fact, I hope that there is
someone who understands this, who puts them in order and corrects them.
xiii.)召陵萬歲里公乘艸莽臣沖稽首再拜, 上書皇帝陛下. 臣伏見陸下神明盛德承
遵聖業. 上考度於天, 下流化於民, 先天而天不違, 後天而奉天時, 萬國咸寧,
神人以和. 猶復深惟五經之妙, 皆為漢制. 博采幽遠, 窮理盡性以至於命. 先帝
詔侍中騎都尉賈逵修理舊文殊藝異術. 王教一耑, 苟有可以加於國者, 靡不悉
集. 易曰窮神知化, 德之盛也. 書曰人之有能有為, 使羞其行而國其昌. 臣父,
故太尉南閣祭酒慎, 本從逵受古學. 蓋聖人不空作, 皆有依據. 今五經之道昭
炳光明而文字者其本所由生. 自周禮漢律皆當學六書貫通其意. 恐巧說衺辭
使學者疑, 慎博問通人, 考之於逵, 作說文解字. 六藝群書之詁皆訓其意而天
地鬼神, 山川艸木, 鳥獸蜫蟲, 雜物奇怪, 王制禮儀, 世閒人事, 莫不畢載. 凡十
五卷, 十三萬三千四百四十一字. 慎前以詔書校東觀, 教小黃門孟生, 李喜等.
以文字未定, 未奏上. 今慎已病, 遣臣齎詣闕. 慎又學孝經孔世古文說. 古文孝
經者, 孝昭帝時魯國三老所獻, 建武時給事中議郎衛宏所校, 皆口傳. 官無其
說, 謹撰具一篇并上. 臣沖誠惶誠恐, 頓首頓首, 死辠死辠, 臣稽首再拜以聞皇
帝陸下. 建光元年九月己亥朔二十日戊午上.
Grandee of the Eighth Order, currently unemployed administrator,46 and
your retainer, I, Xu Chong from Wansui village in Shaoling, bowing my
head and repeatedly doing obeisance, submit this petition to Your Majesty
the August Emperor (Han Andi). This retainer humbly observes your
supernatural brilliance and abundant virtue that inherits and follows the
achievements of the sages. Above, you have examined the measures in the
heavens; below, you have caused transformations to flow out among the
people. You anticipate heaven and heaven does not contradict you; you
follow heaven and serve heaven’s seasons,47 and the myriad states are all
at peace,48 the supernatural and the people are thereby in harmony. Sim
ilarly, you also have deeply pondered the subtleties of the five Â�classics,
44 Shijing citation (毛詩節南山; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:440a–b).

45 Guliang zhuan allusion (榖梁桓五年; Shisanjing zhushu, 2:2374b).
46 I follow Duan Yucai’s interpretation of caomang 艸莽, see: Shuowen jiezi zhu, 15B7.10. Miller
translates it as “rustic minister,” while stating that the term means “unemployed” (“Problems in
the Study,” 285 and 285n2).
47 Yijing citation (易乾; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:17b).
48 Yijing citation (易乾; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:14b).
which in all cases constitute the Han legal code. You have extensively
selected from the hidden and the distant, exhausted the structures of
things, and completed inborn natures in order to reach (an understanding
of) fate.49 The former Emperor (Han Hedi) commanded the Palace Atten
dant and Commandant of the Cavalry, Jia Kui, to revise and put in order the
distinct divergences of the different theories of the old writing systems.50
The educational influence of kings has a single starting point—if there is
something of use to the state, it is without fail gathered up in its entirety.51
The Classic of Changes says: “thoroughly investigating the marvelous and
knowing the transformations is the acme of virtue.”52 The Classic of Doc-
uments says: “as for officials who have ability and have done something
worthwhile, allow them to present what they have done—then your state
will be prosperous.”53 This retainer’s father, Xu Shen, formerly Director
of the Archival Section subordinate to the Defender-in-Chief,54 originally
received training in guwen studies from Jia Kui. Certainly sages do not
rashly create new things, but in all cases have reliable evidence.55 In the
present era, the Way of the five classics is luminously illuminating and
gloriously bright—and the writing systems and their offspring-characters
are the root from which the classics were born. From the rituals of Zhou to
the Han legal codes, in all cases one must study the six types of writing to
completely and thoroughly comprehend their intended meaning. Fearing
that facile explanations and harmfully incorrect phrases were causing
scholars to become worthy of suspicion, Xu Shen extensively questioned
49 Yijing citation (易說卦; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:93c).

50 Jia Kui, from whom Xu Shen received his training, was an important guwen scholar who
Â�participated in the White Tiger Hall conference of 79 C.E. He was a major player at court who
almost single-handedly convinced the Emperor to promulgate the Edict of 83 C.E.—establishing
the Zuozhuan, Guliang zhuan, and the guwen texts of the Shijing and Shangshu as official edu
cational curriculum—which was a historic victory for the guwen advocates (as, following this
political masterstroke, nearly all Jia Kui’s disciples, evidently including Xu Shen, received at
least temporary positions at court). See: Fan Ye 范曄 (398–445 C.E.), Hou hanshu 後漢書 (Beijing:
Zhonghua shuju, 1996), 36:1234–1241; discussion in: Tjan Tjoe Som, Po Hu T’ung, 1:153–164.
51 Zuozhuan citation (左定九年; Shisanjing zhushu, 2:2143c).
52 Cf. 易繫辭下; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:87c–88a.
53 Cf. 書洪範; Shisanjing zhushu, 1:190a. More than likely Xu Chong selected this exact passage
from the “Hongfan” because it suits the rhetorical needs of the petition (i.e., these two books are
worthwhile things done by an official with ability)—the rhetorical force of this citation is that
Emperor An’s acceptance of the books will help to cause prosperity throughout the Han empire.
54 I follow Duan Yucai’s reading here, which emends ge 閣 to he 閤, see: Shuowen jiezi zhu,
15B9.7; Miller, “Problems in the Study,” 288–291n16.
55 Lunyu allusion (論語述而; Shisanjing zhushu, 2:2483b).
knowledgeable people, checked their explanations against what Jia Kui

had said, and thereby wrote the Shuowen jiezi. As for the old glosses on the
six classics and other various writings, this dictionary gives explanatory
glosses of their intended meaning, and, as for words for heaven and earth
and ghosts and the supernatural, mountains and rivers and vegetation and
trees, birds and wild animals and insects and creatures, miscellaneous
things and the strange and the odd, the institutions of kings and the cer
emonies of ritual, the divisions of the ages of the world and the affairs of
people, there are none that are not completely recorded therein.56 In total,
15 pian, 133441 written words. Xu Shen formerly, by imperially proclaimed
written command, was collating the Shuowen jiezi in the Eastern Pavilion
and teaching the Eunuch Palace Attendants Meng Sheng, Li Xi, and others.
As the text (or “the writing systems and their offspring characters”) had
not yet been fixed in final form, the Shuowen jiezi has heretofore not been
submitted to you. Now Xu Shen is ill, and has sent this retainer to present
the Shuowen jiezi to you at the palace. Xu Shen also studied Kong Anguo’s
Explanations of the Guwen Classic of Filial Piety. As for the Guwen Classic
of Filial Piety, during the time of Filial Emperor Zhao (r. 86–74 B.C.E.) it was
presented by the Elders of the state of Lu; during the Jianwu reign period
of Emperor Guangwu (r. 25–56 C.E.) it was collated by the Palace Steward
and Court Gentleman for Consultation, Wei Hong (fl. 25–57 C.E.)57—and
in all cases the explanations were orally transmitted. As officials do not
have these explanations, my father has attentively compiled one pian and
submits it side by side with the Shuowen jiezi. This retainer, Xu Chong, is
truly frightened and sincerely terrified, I kowtow and kowtow, I deserve
death for this crime, death for this crime, bowing my head and repeatedly
making obeisance in order to report to Your Majesty the August Emperor.
Submitted on October 19, 121 C.E.
xiv.)召上書者, 汝南許沖, 詣左掖門會, 令并齎所上書. 十月十九日, 中黃門饒喜以
詔書賜召陵公乘許沖布四十匹即日受詔朱雀掖門, 敕勿謝.
We decree that the person who submitted this petition, Xu Chong from
Runan, proceed to a meeting at the gate on the left side of the palace
apartments, where he will be commanded to present the writings, about
which he petitioned us, both together. [Imperial endorsement of receipt]
56 This is an allusion to the macrostructure of the Erya.

57 Wei Hong was a guwen scholar of the Shijing and Shangshu, and likely wrote the “Great Pref
ace” to the Maoshi. See: Fan Ye, Hou hanshu, 27:936 and 79:2584; Tjan Tjoe Som, Po Hu T’ung,
1:150.
November 16, 121 C.E., the Eunuch Palace Attendant, Rao Xi, according to
the written proclamation of the Emperor, grants forty bolts of cloth to the
Grandee of the Eighth Order from Shaoling, Xu Chong. Having on this day
received the proclamation at the Vermilion Bird Gate (the southern gate
of the Northern Palace),58 you are ordered not to render thanks for this
endorsement.
58 On the Vermilion Bird Gate, see: Hans Bielenstein, “Lo-yang in Later Han Times,” Bulletin of
the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 48 (1976): 33.
Conclusion: Ideography and Chinese
Language Theory
With the publication of the hypothesis, the scientific world was torn by one of the most
violent controversies of the century. Revered and universally accepted theories foundered;
the specialist literature was swamped by outrageous and heretical treatises; ‘sentient
ocean’ or ‘gravity-controlling colloid’—the debate became a burning issue. All this hap
pened several years before I was born. When I was a student—new data having accumu
lated in the meantime—it was already agreed that there was life on Solaris, even if it was
limited to a single inhabitant… the ocean as a source of electric and magnetic impulses and
of gravitation expressed itself in a more or less mathematical language… this correspon
dence convinced the scientists that they were confronted with a monstrous entity endowed
with reason, a protoplasmic ocean-brain enveloping the entire planet and idling its time
away in extravagant theoretical cognition about the nature of the universe. Our instruments
had intercepted minute fragments of a prodigious and everlasting monologue unfolding in
the depths of this colossal brain, which was inevitably beyond our understanding… these
hypotheses resurrected one of the most ancient of philosophical problems: the relation
between matter and mind, and between mind and consciousness. Du Haart was the first
to have the audacity to maintain that the ocean possessed a consciousness. The problem,
which the methodologists hastened to dub metaphysical, provoked all kinds of arguments
and discussions. Was it possible for thought to exist without consciousness? Could one, in
any case, apply the word thought to the processes observed in an ocean?1
In this 1961 Polish science fiction novel, Stanislaw Lem (1921–2006) tells the story
of Kris Kelvin, a clinical psychologist sent out to a space station in geosynchro
nous orbit above the planet Solaris to determine why the crew of researchers there
have broken off regular communications with Earth. Upon arriving, Kelvin discov
ers that the world-spanning alien brain—the colloid-ocean of Solaris—is in fact
in contact with the crew. This contact, however, takes the form of fully-memoried,
correctly-behaving, colloid-generated clones of the most tragic figure from each
individual researcher’s emotional past, materializing in their quarters suddenly
during the night—come hauntingly in the flesh to bewilder, fascinate, and torment
them. The embodied specter of a jilted lover who had committed suicide ten years
before soon appears to the bemused and shaken Kelvin. Could the living ocean of
Solaris be somehow telepathically or even unconsciously reading off—and then
generating these homunculi out of—the traumatic and repressed memories that
populate the dreams of the researchers and of Kelvin himself?
1 Stanislaw Lem, Solaris, trans. Joanna Kilmartin and Steve Cox (San Diego: Harcourt, 1987),
19–24.
Conclusion: Ideography and Chinese Language Theory 275
Under the surface of Solaris runs a critical subtext dedicated to discussing

the European philosophical and theological tradition, perhaps having its origin
in Plato’s analogy of the “great sea” which “gives birth to many gloriously beau
tiful Forms (eidē).”2 This Platonic analogy itself is likely an allusion to Homer’s
description of “a sea so great that the very birds do not return from it in the space
of a year, so great it is and terrible,”3 and the enormous number of Homeric epi
thets for the ocean in the Odyssey: the ‘wine-dark sea’, ‘gray sea’, ‘violet sea’,
‘violet-blue sea’, ‘bright sea’, ‘broad sea’, ‘boundless sea’, ‘great sea’, ‘wide sea’,
‘barren sea’, ‘loud-sounding sea’, ‘unresting sea’, ‘monster-harboring sea’, ‘misty
sea’, ‘surging sea’, ‘fish-filled sea’; ‘the deep’, ‘the depths’, ‘fish-filled deep’,
‘misty deep’, ‘broad deep’, ‘boundless surging deep’; ‘deep eddying Oceanus’,
‘deep-flowing Oceanus’, ‘softly-gliding deep-flowing Oceanus’, ‘backward-Â�
flowing Oceanus’; ‘the gulf of the sea… hidden in mist and cloud’, ‘great gulf of
the sea’, ‘frightening gulfs of the unresting sea’, ‘great gulf of the sea, danger
ous and dismaying’; when ‘monstrously roused’ and ‘mightily foaming’, it has
a ‘broad back’, ‘black water’, ‘towering waves’, ‘swollen waves’, ‘great waves’,
‘high waves’, ‘grievous waves’, ‘glistening waves’, ‘great roiling waves’; this is
the ocean whose contents are ‘crusted with brine’.4 According to Homer “there is
nothing worse than the sea to confound a man.”5
This analogy is taken further in the Middle Platonic, Patristic, and Scholastic
image of the mind of god as an infinite ocean of substance, a vast yet monadic
ousia which consists of the sum total of all the Forms. In this classical European
meme, the Forms are “thoughts in the mind of god”6 and the mind of god is “like
some great sea of ousia, limitless and unbounded,”7 “a sea of ousia infinite and
unseen,”8 an “infinite and limitless sea of substantia.”9
2 Plato, Symposium, 210d; cf. Plato, Theatetus, 152e, Plato, Phaedo, 109a–110b. Compare these to
Aristotle’s statement that the ocean is by definition “eternal” (Meteorology, 356b).
3 Homer, Odyssey, 3.319–322, in A. T. Murray and George E. Dimock, ed. and trans., Homer: Odyssey,
2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998)—all citations are from this revised Loeb edition.
4 Homer, Odyssey, passim.
5 Homer, Odyssey, 8.138.
6 John Dillon, The Middle Platonists: 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977), 48.
7 Gregory of Nazianzus (330–391), Orations, 38.7, in Schaff, A Select Library of Nicene and Post-
Nicene Fathers, Second Series, 7:346; Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus series graeca, 36:317.
8 John of Damascus (675–749), Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, 1.9, in Schaff, Select Library of
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, 9:12 (separately paginated); Migne, Patrologiae
cursus completus series graeca, 94:835.
9 John Duns Scotus (1266–1308), Quodlibetal Questions, 1.7–8, 6.15, and 14.69, in Alluntis and
Wolter, The Quodlibetal Questions; John Duns Scotus, Opera omnia, ed. Luke Wadding, 26 vols.
(Paris: Vivès, 1891–1895), vols. 25–26.
276 Conclusion: Ideography and Chinese Language Theory
The inability of humans to come to terms (literally or figuratively) with such

an otherworldly Ocean was mentioned in passing by Clement and Origen, who
both discuss, in the context of the Forms, “the ocean, which is impassible to men,
and the worlds beyond it.”10 It is also mentioned by Augustine, who significantly
adds that “the waters of the sea are filled, and their waves stand for the various
meanings of signs.”11 As for the “mind” (Gk. nous) itself, be it human or divine or
both simultaneously, the usage of this word comes from Anaxagoras of Clazome
nae (500–428 B.C.E.), who was evidently the first Greek philosopher to postulate
a non-physical nous as separate from the material world and simultaneously an
organizing principle thereof.12 Kant remarks that “in the history of Greek philos
ophy before Anaxagoras there is no definite trace of pure rational theology.”13
Brentano further claims that “because of an almost inconceivable blindness no
philosopher before Anaxagoras realized that the beauty and order of the cosmos
indicates an organizing intelligence, in the same way as a work of art which is
created by a human intelligence”—this is “the nous that becomes all things.”14
Without such a vast sea of Forms, without “ideas” (and “minds” or “souls”
wherein they might be scribed internally as ideographs), it would obviously be
impossible to have external ideographs (graphic representations of said Forms,
soft or strong, in the material world). This ancient Oceanic nous—containing all
the Forms—has actually been brought back into academic discourse by poststruc
turalists in the last quarter of the twentieth century, not a few of whom describe
language itself as such an “ocean of being.”15 Derrida has called it “the mystic
10 Clement of Alexandria, “To the Corinthians,” 20.5.8, in Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The
Apostolic Fathers, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), 1:45; Origen, On First Prin-
ciples, 2.3.
12 See: Freeman, Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, 84–86; Plato, Cratylus, 400a; Plato,
Phaedo, 97c; Aristotle, On the Soul, 405a–b and 429a–b; Aristotle, Metaphysics, 984b–985b;
Â�Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 1.26–27; Augustine, City of God, 22.20; Hegel, Lectures on the Phi-
losophy of Religion, 1:247n166 and 2:571; George Wilhem Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the His-
tory of Philosophy, trans. E. S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson, 3 vols. (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 1995), 1:319–349; Brentano, The Psychology of Aristotle, 22, 75, 130, 163–164,
and 251n246; Brentano, Aristotle and His World View, 78–80; Brentano, On the Existence of God,
57–58, 129, 144, and 152.
13 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1956), 145.
14 Brentano, Aristotle and His World View, 58; Brentano, The Psychology of Aristotle, 196n100.
15 E.g., Michael de Certeau, “The Weakness of Believing: From the Body to Writing, a Christian
Transit,” in Graham Ward, ed., The Certeau Reader (London: Routledge, 2000), 237; Jacques
Â�Derrida, Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 179,
Ocean of a secret cult which little by little invades the entire world,”16 and an
Ocean which in its “depths, endless and unfathomable… philosophical discourse,
blinded, founders on these shoals and is hurled down these depthless depths to
its ruin.”17 As Gibbon notes, “the ocean [has] remained an object of terror.”18
According to Kant’s Dissertation on the Form and Principles of the Sensible and
Intelligible World (1770), it is wiser to “hug the shores” of phenomena, rather than
to brave the “open sea” of the noumena.19 Kant continues with this meme in his first
Critique (1781), describing the noumena collectively as “a wide and stormy ocean,
the native home of illusion, where many a fog bank and many a swiftly melting
iceburg give the deceptive appearance of farther shores, deluding the adventurous
seafarer ever anew with empty hopes, and engaging him in enterprises which he
can never abandon and yet is unable to carry to completion” and as “a shoreless
ocean which, after alluring us with ever-deceptive prospects, compels us in the
end to abandon as hopeless all this vexatious and tedious endeavor.”20 In the third
Critique (1790) Kant identifies this Ocean with the ‘sublime’: “its aspect is horrible,
and one must have stored one’s mind in advance with a rich stock of ideas, if such
an intuition is to raise it to the pitch of a feeling which is itself sublime—sublime
because the mind has been incited to abandon sensibility, and employ itself upon
ideas involving higher finality,” and thus “the sublime is not to be looked for in the
things of nature, but only in our own ideas.”21
279, and 303–304; Jacques Derrida, Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles, trans. Barbara Harlow (Chicago: Uni
versity of Chicago Press, 1979), 43–45; Derrida, Glas, 38a–39a, 63b–64b, 87a, 89a–90a, and 186b;
Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod (Â�Chicago: Univer
sity of Chicago Press, 1987), 159–163; Jean-François Lyotard and Jean-Loup Thébaud, Just Gaming,
trans. Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 13; Paul de Man, Blind-
ness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism, Second edition, Â�Revised (Min
neapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1983), 239. Cf. Brentano, On the Existence of God, 129 and
162; Catherine Keller, Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming (London: Routledge, 2003), 217.
16 Jacques Derrida, The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond, trans. Alan Bass
(Â�Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 227.
17 Derrida, Spurs, 51.
18 Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 6 vols. (New York: Everyman’s
Library, 1993–1994), 1:23.
19 John Handyside, trans., Kant’s Inaugural Dissertation and Early Writings on Space (Chicago:
Open Court, 1929), 71. Cf. Burton’s recommendation to “behold the raging sea from a safe spot
on shore” (Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. Holbrook Jackson, 3 vols. [New York:
New York Review of Books, 2001], 2:188).
20 Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason: unabridged edition, trans. Norman Kemp Smith
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965), 257 and 361.
21 Kant, Critique of Judgment, 1:92 and 1:97.
Such an uncanny vision of the “dark tempestuous ocean,” “the Â�boundless

ocean rising with rebellious force,” which when disturbed threatens “to
Â�overwhelm and engulf everything,”22 is based in an “inability on the part of our
faculty of sense to attain to this idea… the awakening of a feeling of a supersen
sible faculty within us… the sublime is that, the mere capacity of thinking which
evidences a faculty of mind transcending every standard of sense.”23 It is “a super
sensible substrate (underlying both nature and our faculty of thought) which is
great beyond every standard of sense,” and “it is an object (of nature) the repre-
sentation of which determines the mind to regard the elevation of nature beyond
our reach as equivalent to a presentation of ideas,” thus “the sublime must in
every case have reference to our way of thinking.”24
As Derrida explains, “the example of the ocean does not come fortuitously…
the true sublime… relates only to the ideas of reason. It therefore refuses all ade
quate presentation. But how can this unpresentable thing present itself?” And
thus “the sublime is never encountered in the things of nature, only in ideas.”25
This sublime Ocean had earlier been mentioned by Locke in his admonition and
admission that “we began at the wrong end, and in vain sought for Satisfaction
in a quiet and secure Possession of Truths, that most concern’d us, whilst we let
loose our Thoughts into the vast Ocean of Being, as if all that boundless Extent,
were the natural, and undoubted Possession of our Understandings, wherein
there was nothing exempt from its Decisions, or that escaped its Comprehension.
Thus Men, extending their Enquiries beyond their Capacities, and letting their
Thoughts wander into those depths, where they can find no sure Footing; ‘tis no
Wonder, that they raise Questions, and multiply Disputes, which never coming
to any clear Resolution, are proper only to continue and increase their Doubts,
and to confirm them at last in perfect Scepticism.”26 For his part, Berkeley called
such noumena the “unknown Ideas in the Mind of God,”27 while Leibniz dubbed
them “the sea of divinity.”28 As Brentano says, such are the “eternal truths,
which for Leibniz, like Augustine, have their being in the mind of God.”29 On
these unknown transcendental “ideas” (which, again, are the signifieds of all
22 Kant, Critique of Judgment, 1:104, 1:110, and 1:122.

23 Kant, Critique of Judgment, 1:97–98 (all emphasis original).
24 Kant, Critique of Judgment, 1:104, 1:119, and 1:127.
25 Derrida, The Truth in Painting, 129–131 and 137.
26 Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 47—emphasis original.
27 Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, 103.
28 Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, ed. and trans., Leibniz: New Essays on Human Under-
standing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 59.
29 Brentano, The Theory of the Categories, 129.
Â�
ideographs), Hegel notes that “no feeling is so homogenous with the desire for
the infinite, the longing to merge into the infinite, as the desire to immerse one’s
self in the sea. To plunge into it is to be confronted by an alien element… we are
taken away from the world and the world from us.”30
According to the Western ideographic episteme, “Being speaks through
every language, everywhere and always.”31 It therefore makes perfect sense that
“the nature of language is one of the most mysterious questions that exists.”32
Gadamer contends that history itself is composed of “hieroglyphs” which contain
the “thoughts of God”—finally encapsulated in that statement that history is like
“an enormous alien text that one needs the help of hermeneutics to decipher.”33
This has a lexical parallel in De Man: “language is an alien and self-sufficient
entity.”34 Such a view of language is the “transcendental experience of what is
alien,”35 of something “descriptively alien,”36 of “alien consciousness,”37 of an
“alien animate organism,” the “interpretive apprehension… of an alien animate
organism,”38 which undergirds the claim that “we can reach the absolute being
and process in which the being of the world shows its ultimate truth and in which
the ultimate problems of being reveal themselves.”39
This would be “a ‘world’ which is alien,” “a far and alien world,” “an alien
power… an alien manifestation of such a power… it is something like an alien
voice… [which] discourses in the uncanny mode of keeping silent.”40 It is like
“alien mental influences,”41 “something wholly alien” which has “clung to alien
Beings,”42 something “holding back and not exposing itself… [yet] not itself
concealed, as if it were something, a mysterious Being in the occult zone of
30 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Early Theological Writings, trans. T. M. Knox and Richard
Kroner (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996), 275.
31 Jacques Derrida, Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs, trans.
David B. Allison (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 160 (here quoting Martin
Â�Heidegger, Holzwege [Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1957], 338).
32 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Crossroad, 1975), 340.
33 Gadamer, Truth and Method, 213, 182, and 460.
34 De Man, Blindness and Insight, 69.
35 Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, 149.
36 Husserl, Logical Investigations, 2:157.
37 Husserl, Ideas III, 97 and 101–102.
38 Husserl, Ideas III, 98 and 7.
39 Husserl, Cartesian Meditations, 52n1.
40 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York:
Harper & Row, 1962), 407, 216, and 320–322—emphasis is Heidegger’s.
41 Husserl, Logical Investigations, 1:48.
42 Derrida, Glas, 50a and 40a.
Â�nonknowing”;43 like “a purely spiritual substance alien to man,” “an alien intel
lectual substance,” “a special substance, alien to man’s being,” “it could be an
alien mind,”44 or “a being alien to it,”45 or “a real being which entirely transcends
us.”46
According to Hegel, “the universal is necessarily and always something
alien,”47 an “alien inheritance” (169), “an alien thing” (239) which has “clung to
alien Beings” (205)—“something alien” (88, 210, 227, 229, 231–232, 247, 327), “an
alien law” (238), “an alien code” (145), an “alien power” (203, 227, 238), an “alien
might” (284); “the intrusion of something alien” (219), “an alien object… and an
alien being” (240); “a Being completely outside the world” (176), “apparently
alien” (230), “wholly alien” (265), “formally alien” (210)—“a Being who is alien”
(175); “an absolutely alien being” (318), “a superior Being altogether alien” (176),
“an alien being” (231, 235—italics original), “alien, remote, inaccessible” (317);
“something wholly alien… the concealment of God in the Holy of Holies” (193),
“an alien Lord” (206n30, 244), “the God who was alien” (187); “connected with
an alien Geist, felt as alien” (294); “an alien Being; it is this Being which presents
man with everything” (304).
When Heidegger so famously claimed that “Language is the House of Being”
this alien being—from whom we have evidently been alienated—is what he was
talking about.48 Foucault, for his part, tried to bring about the end of this alien
ation by engaging in transvaluative narratives about the possible, perhaps even
inevitable, coming changes to the “Being of Language” (and hence to the politi
cal, cultural, and social order that Language—as such a divinity—sustains).49
43 Derrida, Speech and Phenomena, 134.

44 Brentano, The Psychology of Aristotle, 13, 49, 110, 113, and 158.
45 Brentano, On the Several Senses of Being in Aristotle, 14.
46 Brentano, On the Existence of God, 312n.
47 Hegel, Early Theological Writings, 211—all following intertextual citations are from this
Â�translation.
48 Martin Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism,” trans. Frank Capuzzi, in David Farrell Krell, ed.,
Heidegger: Basic Writings (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 213; Martin Heidegger, On the Way to
Language, trans. Peter D. Hertz (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), 5, 21–22, 24, 26, 63, 90, and 135;
Martin Heidegger, What is Called Thinking? trans. J. Glenn Gray (New York: Harper & Row, 1968),
206; Martin Heidegger, Identity and Difference, trans. Joan Stambaugh (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1967), 38–39; Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and Other
Essays, trans. William Lovitt (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), xx. Cf. Hans-Georg Gadamer, Phil-
osophical Hermeneutics, trans. and ed. David E. Linge (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1976), 208; Derrida, The Post Card, 65.
49 See, e.g., Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge & The Discourse on Language,
trans. A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Random House, 1972), 47–49 and 216; Michel Foucault,
According to Foucault (and many intellectual historians), Nietzsche, Marx,

and Freud are the key figures of critical modernity. Nietzsche, characteristically,
cracks a joke about this sublime Ocean: “alas, I cast my net into their seas and
wanted to catch good fish; but I always pulled up the head of some old god.”50
Speaking with similar irony of ideographic theory, Marx called the value of a
Â�commodity a “social hieroglyphic” which needs to be deciphered—here adopting
the term “hieroglyphic” for his critique of the commodity, which he defines as “a
very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological nice
ties.”51 Freud, although he understood the phonetic nature of hieroglyphic (and
even the role of determinatives in the script),52 considered dreams to be like an
ideographic language; he even mentions Chinese in this context: “an extremely
ancient language and script… is the Chinese. You must not suppose that I under
stand it. I only obtained some information about it because I hoped to find anal
ogies in it to the indefiniteness of dreams. Nor has my expectation been disap
pointed.”53
Freud also had a running debate with his fellow psychoanalyst and protégé
Jung about the nature of religion and the unconscious, and observed that,
The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Random House, 1994),
286, 298–300, 327–328, and 386; Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 3 vols., trans. Â�Robert
Hurley (New York: Random House, 1978–1986), 1:5–8, 1:159; Michel Foucault, Discipline & Â�Punish:
The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Random House, 1979), 261–262; Michel
Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception, trans. A. M. Â�Sheridan
Smith (New York: Random House, 1994), xix; Michel Foucault, Madness and Â�Civilization: A His-
tory of Insanity in the Age of Reason, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Vintage, 1988), 19 and 34;
Michael Foucault, ed., I, Pierre Rivière, having slaughtered my mother, my sister, and my brother: A
Case of Parricide in the 19th Century, trans. Frank Jellinek (Lincoln: University of Â�Nebraska Press,
1982), 206; Michel Foucault, This is Not a Pipe, with illustrations and letters by René Â�Magritte,
ed. and trans. James Harkness (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 31 and 54; Syl
vère Â�Lotringer, ed., Foucault Live (Interviews, 1966–84), trans. John Johnston (New York: Semi
otext(e), 1989), 20–21; Michel Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collège de
France, 1975–1976, trans. David Macy (New York: Picador, 2003), 10–11, 80, 88, 110, 135, and 236;
Michel Foucault, Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1974–1975, trans. Graham Burchell
(New York: Picador, 2003), 47 and 129.
50 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche, 240–241.
51 Karl Marx, “Capital: A Critique of Political Economy,” in Richard Dixon et al., trans., Karl
Marx Friedrich Engels Collected Works, 49 vols. (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1975–1996), 35:85
and 35:81.
52 Strachy, Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 15:179.
53 Strachy, Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 15:230; cf.
11:155–161.
Â�
historically, “the oceanic feeling became connected with religion.”54 Jung had
argued that “the true source of religious sentiments… [is] a sensation of ‘Â�eternity’,
a feeling as of something limitless, unbounded—as it were, oceanic,” but Freud
himself never felt this feeling; as he says, “I cannot discover the ‘oceanic’
feeling in myself.”55 Jung, after he broke with Freud, went on to describe the
“Â�numinousity of the unconscious,”56 and further identified the human uncon
scious as being analogous to an ocean and an unknown sea.57 He claimed that in
“the dark depths of the psyche” there is an “ocean… where, as we have said, the
god dwells,” that this “ocean is ‘the spirit of the world’,”58 the “ocean of divini
ty,”59 and that “the vast ocean of the unconscious… is undoubtedly the same as
the idea of an absolute God who encompasses everything that exists.”60 Jung
also argued that “the ancients saw the imago Dei [i.e., Active Intellect] in men not
as a mere imprint, as a sort of lifeless, stereotyped impression, but as an active
force,” that “this idea is nothing more than an analogy of the animating princi
ple in man which inspires his thoughts and acts of cognition,”61 and further that
“dreams, visions, and mystical experiences do, however, suggest the existence
of a consciousness in the unconscious. But if we assume a consciousness in the
unconscious, we are at once faced with the difficulty that no consciousness can
exist without a subject,” and so “there must be a transconscious disposition in
every individual which is able to produce the same or very similar symbols at all
times in all places. Since this disposition is usually not a conscious possession of
the individual I have called it the collective unconscious.”62 I, on the other hand,
have called it a basic episteme in European intellectual history: ideographic
theory.
When Deleuze and Guattari argue that “no one has been able to pose the
problem of language except to the extent that linguists and logicians have first
54 Strachy, Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 21:72.
55 Strachy, Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 21:64–65.
56 Carl Gustav Jung, Aion: Researches in the Phenomenology of the Self, trans. R. F. C. Hull (Princ
eton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 194.
57 Carl Gustav Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious: Second Edition, trans.
R. F. C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 177–178, 301n40, 369, and 380; Jung,
Aion, 106, 142, and 182.
58 Jung, Aion, 22, 212, and 142.
59 Carl Gustav Jung, Two Essays on Analytical Psychology: Second Edition, trans. R. F. C. Hull
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972), 287.
60 Jung, Aion, 143.
61 Jung, Aion, 260 and 142.
62 Jung, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 283 and 384—emphasis is Jung’s.
eliminated meaning,”63 the ‘meaning’ they are referring to here is, of course,
the internally ideographic Forms. As we have seen over the course of this study,
the theories of ideography developed and displayed in the European tradition
are very different from the language theories developed and displayed in the
Â�classical Chinese tradition. The nearest synonym to the epistemology of tradi
tional Chinese philology in the history of Western language theory may well be
what is sometimes called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (though Wittgenstein and
Nietzsche are much more sophisticated exemplars of this)—the contention that
both signifier and signified are culturally constructed, and consequently that
language controls and affects how humans perceive and think and behave on a
fundamental level via the words they have and use. If you change the definitions
of the words that humans use (or teach them new words or a new language),
you are actually changing the nature of the world for these people. This is the
underlying premise of the Chinese zhengming “making words correct” episteme;
it is displayed prominently in the “Treatise on Making Words Correct,” in early
interpretations of the Erya, in the Shuowen jiezi, and thereafter spans the length
and breadth of imperial Chinese history in the philological and commentarial
tradition on the classics—xiaoxue 小學 and jingxue 經學.
The ultimate signifieds of words in Chinese language theory are the intentions
(not ideographic intentio, but rather emotions regulated by ritual) in the hearts
of human beings who work and breathe and live and die on the planet Earth; the
meanings that words have are not alien or extraplanetary, but grounded in the
daily lives of ordinary humans: in what they see and how they see it, in what they
say and how they say it, in what they do and how they do it, in the choices they
make, in the rules they live by, in the governments they live under, in the books
they read, in the social practices they perform, in their emotional commitments,
in their understanding of the past. People. Not oceans. Humans. Not alien beings.
This world. Not another. Language is not the house of being; it is an enormous
cluster of houses that men and women continuously build, preserve, live in, ret
rofit, paint, wallpaper, and otherwise modify to suit their tastes. In Chinese lan
guage theory, language is a verb, not a noun.
So, one might ask, is it possible that traditional Chinese language theory is
closer than European ideographic theories to how any particular language in any
particular culture in any particular place at any particular time practically func
tions? To answer this, I would like to pose a direct question to the reader: has
this monograph, through analysis and historicization of the language theories of
63 Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, The Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans.
Â�Robert Hurley et al. (New York: Viking, 1977), 109.
two distinct cultural traditions, changed the way you understand the definition
of the English word “ideograph”? If it has, then Xunzi and Xu Shen and all the
scholars who worked within and according to the Chinese philological episteme
were correct, and the world has now actually been changed—for you at least—by
the active lexical intervention of a single human being whose intentions were
historically embedded in time, space, culture, and language.
I have “正名而已矣; made the word correct and that is all.”64
64 榖梁僖十九年; Shisanjing zhushu, 2:2399c.

Appendix: The Metalinguistic Terms Ming 名,
Yi 義, Yi 意, and Zhi 志
In this appendix I translate a series of dictionary and commentarial definitions
of four terms in traditional Chinese language theory: ming 名, yi 義, yi 意, and
zhi 志. These four words carry the burden of metalinguistic weight that such terms
as onoma, stoicheion, eidos, idea, and intentio carry in European tradition; the
episteme built upon these terms, for theorizing language in China, is the historical
equivalent of the episteme of ideographic theory in European tradition. Without
these terms nothing could mean what it means in classical Chinese discourse. The
glosses I translate below only scratch the surface of traditional discourse on these
four terms; I have translated these definitions in this appendix in order to give the
reader a taste of the richness, complexity, and temporal depth of Chinese philo
logical practice (as opposed to postulating a Borgesian phantasmagoria of “kettle-
logic” ideography). In the same way that Platonists and Aristotelians played
with multiple meanings of words such as stoicheion (“element” and “sound”
and “letter”) and eidos (“that which is seen” and “form” and “idea”) and logos
(“word” and “concept” and “thought” and “sentence” and “statement”) to create
strong and soft ideography in European tradition, so too did Chinese language
theorists play with such words as ming 名 (“word” and “term” and “signifier”
and “name” and “reputation”) and yi 義 (“meaning” and “propriety” and “proper
behavior” and “ceremony”) and yi 意 (“meaning” and “intention” and “expres
sion”) and zhi 志 (“intention” and “emotional state” and “ambition” and “knowl
edge” and “written record”). Although these four technical metalinguistic terms
are intrinsically important to Chinese discussions of language, they are by no
means in and of themselves lexicologically unusual; almost any common word in
classical Chinese will have just as many (and just as varied) dictionary definitions
and subsequent philological discussions.
1. 名 ming [*mjing]: “word (spoken or written), term, signifier, name, title,

reputation, fame”
a.) “所以謂, 名也. 所謂, 實也; that which is used to refer is the ming, that which
is referred to is the signified.”1
1 Mozi, 經.
286 Appendix: The Metalinguistic Terms Ming 名, Yi 義, Yi 意, and Zhi 志
b.) “名, 人治之大者; ming are what is important for bringing about human
order.”2
c.) “凡名, 所以名物, 物非名不辨, 名不辨則實不應而治不行. 故曰名者, 人治之
大者也… 黃帝始正百物之名以明民… 古之制治者, 正名以明民… 故名不可不
正也; in all cases ming are what are used to name things. If things are not
named then they will not be distinguished, if ming are not distinguished then
the signifieds will not correspond and orderliness (i.e., government) will not
be enacted. Therefore [the Liji] says: ming are important things for putting
human beings in order… the Yellow Emperor began making the ming for the
hundred things correct in order to make the people understand… those who
established order in antiquity made the ming correct in order to make the
people understand… therefore the ming are such that they cannot but be
made correct.”3
d.) “名者, 所以別物也; as for ming, they are what is used to differentiate things.”4
e.) “名者, 聖人之所以真物也; as for ming, they are what the sages used to make
things real.”5
f.) “名者, 聖人之所以紀萬物也; as for ming, they are what the sages used to put
the myriad things in order.”6
g.) “名正則治, 名倚則亂… 故先王貴名; if ming are correct then there is order, if
ming are biased (i.e., each person assigning them different meaning) then
there is disorder… therefore the early kings greatly respected ming.”7
h.) “正名為禮… 之原; making the ming correct… was the origin of ritual.”8
i.) “名正則治, 名喪則亂; if the ming are correct then there is order, if the ming
are harmed then there is disorder.”9
j.) “有名則治, 無名則亂. 治者, 以其名… 帝王者, 用之而天下治矣; if there are
ming then there is order, if there are no ming then disorder. One who brings
about order does so by using ming… as for emperors and kings, they use ming
and therefore the world is utterly put in order.”10
2 Liji, 大專, in Wang Wenjin 王文錦, ed. Liji yijie 禮記譯解, 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
2007).
3 Dai Tong, Liushu gu, 11.14a2–b4.
4 Chunqiu fanlu, 天道施.
5 Chunqiu fanlu, 名號.
6 Guanzi, 心術上.
7 Guanzi, 樞言.
8 Zhu Junsheng, Shuowen tongxun dingsheng, 說文, 6a2.
9 Lüshi chunqiu, 正名.
10 Guanzi, 樞言.
Appendix: The Metalinguistic Terms Ming 名, Yi 義, Yi 意, and Zhi 志 287
k.) “以牛為馬, 以馬為牛, 名不正也… 國之亡, 名之傷也, 從此生矣; if someone

considers a ‘cow’ to be a ‘horse’ or considers a ‘horse’ to be a ‘cow’, this is a
case of the ming being incorrect… the destruction of the state and the harming
of the ming are inevitably produced from such as this.”11
l.) “夫名以制義, 義以出禮, 禮以體政, 政以正民; in any particular case, ming are
used to establish propriety, propriety is used to cause ritual to come about,
ritual is used to give shape12 to government, government is used to make the
people correct.”13
m.) “左傳: 名以制義. 廣雅: 名, 成也; the Zuozhuan says: ming are used to estab
lish meaning. The Guangya says: ming are definitions.”14
n.) “名, 明也. 名實使分明也; the word ming 名 [*mjing] and the word ming 明
[*mjiang] ‘clear’ are etymologically related. The ming and the signifieds are
made distinct and clear.”15
o.) “王先謙[釋名]疏證補: 荀子正名篇: ‘制名以指實, 上以明貴賤, 下以辨同異.’…
是名訓為名之義也; the Wang Xianqian [1842–1918] sub-subcommentarial
addition [to the Shiming] says: the ‘Treatise on Making Words Correct’ of the
Xunzi says: they established ming in order to point out signifieds—first in
order to make clear what is noble and what is base, and second in order to
distinguish what is the same and what is different…’ [Wang Xianqian says:]
this is the gloss of the word ming that is the meaning of the word ming.”16
p.) “名, 大也; a ming is something important.”17
q.) “名, 號也; a ming is a name.”18
r.) “號, 呼也. 以其善惡呼名之; a name is something called out. Whether a thing
is good or bad is ‘called out’ and made a ming by means of such a name.”19
s.) “名者, 聲聞之稱也; as for ming, it is a designation for being famous.”20
11 Lüshi chunqiu, 審分.

12 “體, 成形也” (Zheng Xuan, Maoshi Zhengjian).
13 Zuozhuan, 桓 2.
14 Xuanying, Yiqie jing yinyi, 24.5.
16 Ren Jifang, Shiming huijiao, 12.47n1.
17 禮記鄭玄注, 戰國策高誘注, 廣韻, 經義述聞.
18 孟子趙岐注, 國語韋昭注,玉篇,玄應一切經音義, 廣韻.
19 Bi Yuan, Shiming shuzheng, 4.113.10.
20 Li Shan, Wenxuan zhu, 9.9a5; Liuchen zhu wenxuan, 9.11b5–6 (this is originally the commen
tary of Xu Yuan 徐爰 [394–475]); cf. David Knechtges, trans., Wen Xuan, Or Selections of Refined
Literature, 3 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982–1996), 2:153.
t.) “古曰名, 今曰字; in antiquity they were called ming, in the present they are
called ‘written words’.”21
u.) “名, 書文. 今謂之字; ming are written words. In the present they are called
‘written words’.”22
v.) “正名, 謂正書字也. 古者曰名, 今世曰字; ‘making ming correct’ refers to
making the writing of written words correct. In antiquity they called them
ming, in the present era they are called ‘written words’.”23
w.) “名, 字也; a ming is a written word.”24
x.) “名, 謂文字; ming refers to written words.”25
y.) “正名… 皆謂字也; ‘making ming correct’… in all cases refers to written
words.”26
z.) “書名, 書文字也. 古曰名; written ming are written words. In antiquity they
were called ming.”27
A.) “名者, 聲名聞之謂也; as for ming, it refers to the hearing of a reputation.”28
B.) “名, 所以名質也. 名, 号也; ming are what is used to designate what is correct,29
a ming is a name.”30
C.) “名, 必也. 大也. 成也. 功也. 号也. 聞也; ming are of necessity, they are import
ant things, they are settled things, they are achievements, they are names,
they are reputations.”31
D.) “必正於名言, 名言不正則性相義差; it is of necessity to be correct in using
ming in speech, if the ming of speech are not correct then what is produced in
speech32 and what the meaning is will be different from one another.”33
21 Zheng Xuan, Zhouli Zhengzhu, 26.11b10.

22 Yili Zhengzhu, 聘禮, in Zhang Erqi 張爾岐 (1612–1677), Yili Zhengzhu judu 儀禮鄭注句讀
(Â�Taibei: Xuehai chubanshe, 1998).
23 論語正義.
24 戰國策高誘注.
25 Lu Deming, Jingdian shiwen, 10.18b9.
26 Jingdian shiwen kaozheng, 1.7, in Lu Wenchao 盧文弨, Jingdian shiwen kaozheng 經典釋文考
證 (Taibei: Xinwenfeng chubanshe, 1985).
27 Zheng Xuan, Zhouli Zhengzhu, 37.11a3.
28 Lu Deming, Jingdian shiwen, 2.6b10–11. cf. Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 1:97.
29 “質, 正也” (鄭玄).
30 Xuanying, Yiqie jing yinyi, 19.13.
31 Tenrei banshō meigi, 69b, in Kūkai 空海 (774–835), ‘Tenrei banshō meigi’ jiaoshi 篆隸萬象名
義校釋, ed. Lü Hao 呂浩 (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 2007). For discussion of Kūkai’s dictio
nary, see: Lü Hao 呂浩, ‘Tenrei banshō meigi’ yanjiu 篆隸萬象名義研究 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji
chubanshe, 2006).
32 “性, 生也” (鄭玄).
33 Shi Xingjun, Longkan shoujing, 序, 2.7–8.
E.) “名… 志也; ming… are intentions.”34

F.) “發志為言, 發言定名; a spoken word is an expressed intention, the expres
sion of the spoken word defines the ming.”35
G.) “名, 成也. 大也. 功也. 号也; ming are settled things, they are important things,
they are achievements, they are names.”36
H.) “名, 大也; ming are a big deal.”37
I.) “名宣于口; ming are declared by the mouth.”38
J.) “名, 文字也… 書文也, 今謂之字… 名者, 即今之文字也… 書名, 書之字也. 古
曰名… 名, 明也. 明實事, 使分明也; ming are written words… written down
words are now called ‘written words’… as for ming, they are indeed what we
now call written words… written ‘ming’ are written words. In antiquity they
were called ming… ming are perspicuous. They make clear the signifieds and
events, causing them to become distinct and clear.”39
K.) “黃帝正名百物; the Yellow Emperor made the ming for the hundred things
correct.”40
L.) “正名百物自軒轅; making the ming for the hundred things correct began
with the Yellow Emperor.”41
M.) “黃帝正名百物; the Yellow Emperor made the ming for the hundred things
correct.”42
N.) “正名百物以義為本… 由形以求其音, 由音以考其義; making the ming for
the hundred things correct uses meaning as its foundation… relying on the
34 Sima Guang, Leipian, 2A.19b1.

35 Dadai liji, 69. Cf. “志以定言, 言以出令; intention is what defines spoken words, spoken words
are what allows one to give orders” (Zuozhuan, 昭 9, in Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 33:1467).
36 Chen Pengnian, Guangyun, 192.6.
37 Mei Yingzuo 梅膺祚 (fl. 1615), Zihui 字彙, 232:473a3, in Xuxiu siku quanshu 續修四庫全書 (jing
bu xiaoxue lei 經部小學類), 232:388–597 and 233:1–442. For discussion of Mei Yingzuo’s dictio
nary, see: He Jiuying 何九盈, Zhongguo gudai yuyanxue shi: xin zengding ben 中國古代語言學史:
新增訂本 (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2006), 225–227.
38 Zhengzi tong, 135b15, in Zhang Zilie 張自烈 (1598–1673) et al., Zhengzi tong 正字通 (Beijing:
Zhongguo gongren chubanshe, 1996).
39 Zhang Yushu 張玉書 (1642–1711) et al., Kangxi zidian 康熙字典 (Tainan: Dafu shuju, 2002),
s.v. I have also regularly consulted two other editions: Wang Yinzhi 王引之 (1766–1834), Kangxi
zidian jiaogai ben 康熙字典校改本 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji chubanshe, 2002); Kangxi zidian
biaodian zhengli ben 康熙字典標點整理本 (Shanghai: Hanyu dacidian chubanshe, 2005).
40 Zheng Xuan, Liji Zhengzhu, 14.4b6.
41 Wang Anshi, 進字說表, 165.2.
42 Wang Niansun, Guangya shuzheng, 3B.24b2.
graphic structure one can seek out the pronunciation, relying on the pronun
ciation one can investigate the proper meaning of the ming.”43
O.) “名, 大也… 高誘注…曰名山, 大山也… 其義一也… 韋昭注曰名魚, 大魚也… 高
誘注曰名, 大也… 此皆古人謂大為名之證; ming means a ‘big deal’… Gao You’s
commentary… says: a ming-mountain is a big mountain… their meaning is
the same… Wei Zhao’s commentary says: a ming-fish is a big fish… Gao You’s
commentary says: ming is a ‘big deal’… these are in all cases evidence that
ancient people considered a ‘big deal’ to be a meaning of ming.”44
P.) “必也正名; it is of necessity to make the ming correct.”45
Q.) “名者, 發也… 辨之以名… 名, 成也… 名, 大也… 名者, 人治之大者… 名, 聲也…
名者, 聲聞之稱也… 夫名者, 所以相別… 名者, 聖人之所以真物也… 名者, 聖
人之所以紀萬物也… 名, 書文也. 今謂之字… 正名謂正書字也. 古者曰名, 今
世曰字… 書名, 書文字也… 古曰名, 今曰字… 名謂文字; as for ming, they are
what is expressed… one differentiates things by means of ming… ming are
achievements… ming are a ‘big deal’… as for ming, they are what is important
in bringing about human order… ming are sounds… as for a ming, it is a des
ignation for being famous… in any particular case, ming are what is used to
differentiate things from one another… as for ming, they are what the sages
used to make things real… as for ming, they are what the sages used to put
the myriad things in order… as for ming, they are written-down written words,
which we now call ‘written words’… ‘making ming correct’ refers to making
the writing down of written words correct. In antiquity they were called ming,
in the present era they are called ‘written words’… written ‘ming’ are written
words… In antiquity called ming, now called ‘written words’… ming refers to
written words.”46
R.) “黃帝正名百物… 必也正名乎, 鄭注: 謂正書字也. 古曰名今曰字… 必得其名…
辨號名之用, 注: 號名者… 所以相別也… 名, 明也. 名實使分明也; the Yellow
Emperor made the ming of the hundred things correct… it is indeed of neces
sity to make ming correct, on which Zheng Xuan’s commentary states that
this refers to making the written words in books correct. What in antiquity
were called ming in the present day are called ‘written words’… it is necessary
to obtain their ming… on the use of distinguishing the names and the ming,
[Zheng Xuan’s] commentary states: as for names and ming, they are what is
43 Wang Yun, Shuowen shili, 序, 2a3–4.

44 Wang Yinzhi, Jingyi shuwen, 16.8a10–b8.
45 Zhu Junsheng, Shuowen tongxun dingsheng, 聲母千文, 28a5.
46 Ruan Yuan, Jingji zuangu, 23B.19a5–20a6.
used to differentiate between things… ming are perspicuous. Ming and signi
fied are made distinct and clear.”47
2. 義 yi [*ngjarh]: “meaning, conventional meaning, proper behavior, propriety,

righteousness, correct”
a.) “義, 宜也; yi [*ngjarh] is what is proper [*ngjar].”48

b.) “義, 人之正路; yi is the correct path for people.”49
c.) “黃帝作為君臣上下之義, 父子兄弟之禮; the Yellow Emperor established and
put in order the yi of lord and retainer, superior and inferior, and the ritual
behavior of father and son, elder and younger brother.”50
d.) “夫義者, 所以濟志也, 諸德之發也; in any particular case, yi is what is used
to accomplish one’s intentions, on all occasions51 it is the expression of
Â�virtue.”52
e.) “義也者, 萬事之紀; as for the definition of yi, it is what puts the myriad events
in order.”53
f.) “事得其宜之謂義; when events turn out right it is referred to as yi.”54
g.) “義者, 正也. 何以知義之為正也? 天下有義而治, 無義而亂. 我以此知義之為
正也; yi means correct. How do we know that yi means ‘correct’? If the world
47 Zhu Junsheng, Shuowen tongxun dingsheng, 7.31a10–b7.

48 Wei Zhao, Guoyu zhu, 91n5; cf. 禮記祭義, 韓非子, 毛傳, 淮南子齊俗, 百虎通義情性, 漢書,
詩鄭玄箋, 禮記鄭玄注, 周禮鄭玄注, 廣雅, 大戴禮記, 孔子家語, 尚書孔安國傳; 呂氏春秋高誘
注, 經典釋文, 左傳孔穎達疏, 禮記孔穎達疏, 尚書孔穎達疏, 周易孔穎達疏, 墨子閒詁. On the
unquestioned etymological relationship between yi 義 and yi 宜, see: Wang Li 王力, Tongyuan
zidian 同源字典 (Taibei: Wenshizhe chubanshe, 1991), 433–434.
49 Mengzi, 離婁上, in Jiao Xun 焦循, ed., Mengzi zhengyi 孟子正義, 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 2007).
51 “諸, 猶凡也” (Sun Jingshi 孫經世, Jingzhuan shici zaibu 經傳釋詞再補 [Taibei: Yiwen yinshu
guan, 1961], 21.10). Cf. Mashi wentong, 2.5.3.3 in Ma Jianzhong 馬建忠 (1845–1900), Mashi wen-
tong duben 馬氏文通讀本, ed. Lü Shuxiang 呂叔湘 et al. (Shanghai: Shanghai jiaoyu chubanshe,
2005), 124.
52 Liji, 祭統, in Sun Xidan 孫希旦, ed., Liji jijie 禮記集解, 2 vols. (Taibei: Wenshizhe chubanshe,
1991).
53 Lüshi chunqiu, 論威. Cf. “禮, 國之紀也… 禮以紀政; ritual is what puts the state in order…
ritual is what is used to order the government” (Wei Zhao, Guoyu zhu, 345–347).
54 楊雄法言, in Wang Rongbao 汪榮寶, ed., Fayan yishu 法言義疏, 2 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 1997).
has yi then it is orderly, if it lacks yi then it is disorderly. We use this fact to

know that yi indeed means ‘correct’.”55
h.) “義, 正也. 五方之言不同… 皆以近正而主也; yi means correct. The languages
of the five regions are not the same… in all cases what is closest to the correct
should be taken as authoritative.”56
i.) “子墨子曰今天之君子之欲為仁義者, 則不可不察義之所從出… 義者, 善政
也… 天下有義則治, 無義則亂, 是以知義之為善政也; Master Mozi said: if the
gentlemen of the present day desire to be humans who have empathy and yi,
then they cannot but investigate where yi comes from… the word yi means
‘good government’… if the world has yi then it is orderly, if it lacks yi then it is
disorderly, and therefore we know that yi indeed means ‘good government’.”57
j.) “義, 所以制斷事宜; yi is what is used to regulate and judge the properness of
events.”58
k.) “義, 宜也. 裁制物, 使合宜也; yi is what is proper. It is making decisions and
regulating things, causing them to accord with what is proper.”59
l.) “義, 裁斷合宜也; yi are decisions and judgments in accordance with what is
proper.”60
m.) “能用禮義以成治; it is sufficient to use ritual and yi in order achieve order.”61
n.) “夫義, 天下之大器也; in any particular case, yi is the greatest tool in the world.”62
o.) “禮以治之, 義以正之; ritual is used to put them in order, yi is used to make
them correct.”63
p.) “事得其宜, 故謂之義; events have turned out right, therefore refer to it as yi.”64
q.) “義, 人心之裁制; yi are the decisions and regulations of the human heart.”65
r.) “義, 所以等貴賤, 明尊卑; yi are what are used to rank the noble and the base,
to make clear what is to be esteemed and what considered lowly.”66
s.) “義, 從宜; yi means to follow what is proper.”67
55 Mozi, 天志下.
57 Mozi, 天志下.
58 國語韋昭注.
60 禮記孔穎達疏.
62 Mozi, 公孟.
64 孟子趙岐注.
65 孟子朱熹集注.
66 大戴禮記盛德.
67 左傳杜預注.
t.) “合宜為義; according with what is proper is yi.”68

u.) “義者, 於事合宜; as for yi, it is when69 events accord with what is proper.”70
v.) “義, 得其宜也; yi means obtaining what is proper.”71
w.) “義, 事之宜也; yi is what is proper about events.”72
x.) “義者, 事之宜也… 人言之, 己斷之; as for yi, it is what is proper about events…
others say something, and one judges it for oneself.”73
y.) “惡惡為義; considering the bad to be bad is yi.”74
z.) “義, 善也; yi means good.”75
A.) “義, 善致也; yi means something good is made to come about.”76
B.) “義, 善也; yi means good.”77
C.) “義, 宜也; yi means proper.”78
D.) “義, 善也; yi means good.”79
E.) “義, 謂各得其宜; yi refers to each thing coming out right.”80
F.) “義, 徐鍇曰此與善同意; as for yi, Xu Kai says: this word has the same meaning
as the word ‘good’.”81
G.) “義者, 心之制, 事之宜; as for yi, it is what regulates the heart and makes
events proper.”82
H.) “義者, 宜也. 載制事物, 使合宜也; as for yi, it is what is proper. Making deci
sions and regulating events and things, it causes them to accord with what is
proper.”83
I.) “義者, 宜於事也; as for yi, it is what is proper about events.”84
68 左傳孔穎達疏.
69 “於, 猶云至於” (Liu Qi 劉淇 [fl. 1711], Zhuzi bianlue 助字辨略 [Beijing: Zhonghua shuju,
2004], 1:40).
70 左傳孔穎達疏; 論語邢昺疏.
71 周易孔穎達疏.
72 鹽鐵論刑德, 論語朱熹集注.
73 Xu Kai, Shuowen jiezi xizhuan, 33.4a2–4.
74 國語韋昭注.
75 毛傳, 文選呂向注, 集韻, 經義述聞.
76 墨子天志中.
77 Lu Deming, Jingdian shiwen, 7.1b5–6 and 14.8b3.
78 Lu Deming, Jingdian shiwen, 7.19a11.
79 Kūkai, Tenrei banshō meigi, 40a.
80 荀子楊倞注.
81 Sima Guang, Leipian, 12C.6a1.
82 孟子朱熹集注.
84 孝經邢昺疏.
J.) “義, 亦作誼; the word yi 義 [*ngjarh] ‘proper’ is also written using the homo
phone graph 誼 [*ngjarh], thus ‘proper’.”85
K.) “義… 宜也. 裁制事物, 使合宜也. 或作誼; yi is… what is proper. Making deci
sions and regulating events and things, it causes them to accord with what is
proper. The word yi 義 [*ngjarh] ‘proper’ is also written with the homophone
graph 誼 [*ngjarh], hence ‘proper’.”86
L.) “古者, 書儀但為義, 今時所謂義為誼; in antiquity, in writing the word 儀
[*ngjar] ‘ceremony’87 was only ever88 written as yi 義 [*ngjarh], thus ‘cere
mony’, nowadays what is called yi 義 [*ngjarh] is actually 誼 [*ngjarh] ‘prop
er’.”89
M.) “義與儀通… 師古曰義讀曰儀… 儀作義; the word yi 義 [*ngjarh] and the word
儀 [*ngjar] are the same… Yan Shigu says, as for yi 義 [*ngjarh], read it as
儀 [*ngjar]… the word 儀 [*ngjar] is written with the graph yi 義 [*ngjarh].”90
N.) “儀者, 度也… 古者, 書儀但為義, 今時所為義為誼… 據鄭許之言可以知其
意… 義之本訓謂禮容各得其宜. 禮容得宜則善矣. 故… 曰義, 善也; as for the
word yi 儀 [*ngjar], it means a system of standards… in antiquity, in writing
the word 儀 [*ngjar] ‘ceremony’ was only ever written as yi 義 [*ngjarh] thus
‘ceremony’, nowadays what is called yi 義 [*ngjarh] is actually 誼 [*ngjarh]
‘proper’… if one relies on the words of Zheng Xuan and Xu Shen, one can
understand the meaning… the basic gloss of the word yi 義 [*ngjarh] ‘proper’
or ‘ceremony’ is that in accordance with ritual practice each thing turns out
properly. If ritual practice turns out properly then it is perfectly good. There
fore… it is said that yi means what is good.”91
85 Liyun, 7.8a1, in Liu Qiu 劉球 (fl. 1175), Liyun 隸韻 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2003), 142b.
86 Gujin yunhui juyao, 17.10b5, in Huang Gongshao 黃公紹 (fl. 1265) and Xiong Zhong 熊忠
(fl. 1297), Gujin yunhui juyao 古今韻會舉要 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2000), 303b. I have also
consulted another edition (in which the printing is of a better quality): Huang Gongshao and
Xiong Zhong, Gujin yunhui juyao 古今韻會舉要 (Taibei: Zhongwen chubanshe, 1990). For discus
sion of this dictionary, see: Jiang Yuhua 姜聿华, Zhongguo chuantong yuyanxue yaoji shulun 中国
传统语言学要籍述论 (Beijing: Shumu wenxian chubanshe, 1992), 435–438.
87 “儀, 所以行禮; [*ngjar] ‘ceremony’ is what is used to enact ritual (i.e., behave in a ritual man
ner)” (Wang Yinzhi, Jingyi shuwen, 26.35b6).
88 “但, 特也”(Pei Xuehai 裴學海, Gushu xuci jishi 古書虛詞集釋 [Taibei: Guangwen shuju,
2003], 470).
89 周禮鄭玄注.
90 Zhang Yushu, Kangxi zidian, s.v. On the topic of reading 義 [*ngjarh] as 儀 [*ngjar], cf. 尚書孔
穎達疏, 漢書顏師古注, 文選李善注, 讀書雜誌, 經義述聞, 墨子閒詁.
91 Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 12B43a6–b2. Duan’s characteristically lucid explanation com
bines three of the most common glosses of the word.
O.) “義, 宜也. 中庸云: 義者, 宜也; yi means proper. The Zhongyong says: as for yi,
it is what is proper.”92
P.) “義, 善也… 毛傳曰義, 善也… 字通作儀. 說文: 義, 己之威儀… 鄭注: 義讀為儀…
鄭注: 故書儀為義… 義讀為儀. 古者, 書儀但為義. 今時所謂義謂誼… 鄭注: 儀當
為義… 爾雅: 儀, 善也… 毛傳與爾雅同; yi means what is good… the Maozhuan
says: yi means good… this word can also be written with the graph 儀 [*ngjar].
The Shuowen says: yi means one’s own etiquette and protocol (in accord with
the rites)93… Zheng Xuan’s commentary says: read yi as 儀 ‘ceremony’… Zheng
Xuan’s commentary says: therefore in writing the word 儀 [*ngjar] ‘ceremony’
is written yi 義 [*ngjarh] thus ‘ceremony’… yi should be read as 儀 [*ngjar] ‘cere
mony’… in antiquity, in writing the word 儀 [*ngjar] ‘ceremony’ was only ever
written as yi 義 [*ngjarh] ‘ceremony’, nowadays what is called yi 義 [*ngjarh] is
actually 誼 [*ngjarh] ‘proper’… Zheng Xuan’s commentary says 儀 [*ngjar] ‘cerÂ�e
mony’ ought to be yi 義 [*ngjarh] ‘proper’… the Erya says: 儀 [*ngjar] ‘Â�ceremony’
means ‘what is good’… the Maozhuan and the Erya use the same gloss.”94
Q.) “案: 儀, 度也… 說文曰儀, 度也… 鄭注: 儀者, 儀度… 是儀訓為度之證; note
as follows: the word 儀 [*ngjar] ‘ceremony’ means a system of standards…
the Shuowen says: as for ‘ceremony’, it means a system of standards… Zheng
Xuan’s commentary says: as for ‘ceremony’, it means a system of ritual stan
dards… this is evidential proof for my glossing the word 儀 [*ngjar] as a
system of standards.”95
R.) “義, 古儀字也; the graph yi 義 [*ngjarh] is the older graph for 儀 [*ngjar] ‘cer
emony’.”96
S.) “別之以禮義, 義讀為儀… 治其禮義… 書儀為義… 古禮儀字本作義也… 以儀辨
等… 禮儀足以別貴賤, 即此所謂禮儀立則貴賤等也… 儀之位辨貴賤之等… 知
非仁義之義… 裁制人情以禮義, 引之謹案: 義亦讀為儀… 漢書禮樂志正作制
之禮儀 (荀悅漢記同)… 義亦讀為儀; in the sentence ‘distinguish them using
ritual and yi’, yi should be read as 儀 [*ngjar] ‘ceremony’… in the sentence
‘put in order their rituals and yi’, 儀 [*ngjar] ‘ceremony’ is being written with
92 Wang Niansun, Guangya shuzheng, 5A.24b5–6.

93 “威儀: 禮儀細節; weiyi means the details and particulars of etiquette and protocol (according
to the rites)” (Ciyuan: xiuding ben, heding ben 辭源: 修訂本, 合訂本 [Beijing: Shangwu yinshu
guan, 1999], 405.4sub2); see also: “言語有章… 謂之有威儀; when language has been patterned…
refer to this as having the ‘details and particulars of etiquette and protocol (according to the
rites)’” (Zuozhuan, 襄 31).
94 Wang Yinzhi, Jingyi shuwen, 3.23b8–24a4. Cf. Jingyi shuwen, 13.16a10–b6, 18.46b4–47a1, and
21.28a3–b8.
95 Wang Yingzhi, Jingyi shuwen, 12.28a7–b3.
96 Wang Yinzhi, Jingyi shuwen, 13.13b10.
the graph 義 [*ngjarh] thus ‘ceremony’… the ancient written form of the word
‘ceremony’ in the phrase ‘ritual and ceremony’ was originally written with the
graph 義 [*ngjarh]… use ‘ceremony’ to distinguish and rank things… ‘ritual and
ceremony’ are sufficient to distinguish between what is noble and what is base,
therefore this is what is being referred to in the line ‘if ritual and ceremony are
established then the noble and the base will be ranked’… the establishment of
‘ceremony’ distinguishes the ranks of noble and base… one can see that this
is not the same yi as in ‘empathy and propriety’… in the sentence ‘decisively
regulate the emotions of the people using ‘ritual and yi’, I respectfully note
as follows: the word yi 義 [*ngjarh] ‘proper’ can also be read as 儀 [*ngjar]
‘Â�cerÂ�emony’… the ‘Treatise on Ritual and Music’ of the Hanshu correctly writes
‘regulate them with ritual and ceremony’ (and Xun Yue’s Hanji does likewise)…
therefore yi 義 [*ngjarh] can also be read as 儀 [*ngjar] ‘ceremony’. ”97
Y.) “儀, 善也… 刑法以善其民也… 即魯語… 刑法以儀民; the word 儀 [*ngjar]
‘Â�ceremony’ means good… punishments and legal institutions make the people
good… thus in the Guoyu… the line reads ‘punishments and legal institutions
make the people ceremonially inclined’ (i.e., good, well-behaved).”98
U.) “義, 宜也… 義者, 所以合宜也… 義者, 事之宜也… 義, 謂各得其宜… 事得其宜
故謂之義也… 義也, 謂斷以事宜也… 義, 所以制斷事宜… 義, 文之制也… 義, 正
也… 義, 法也… 義, 天下之制也… 義以正之… 義, 所以節也…義, 行之節也… 夫
義, 所以濟志也… 義, 正事也… 義也者, 萬事之紀也… 所謂義者, 同惡者也; yi
is what is proper… as for yi, it is that which is used to accord with what is
proper… as for yi, it is the propriety of events… as for yi, it refers to each thing
coming out right… things have come out right, therefore refer to it as yi… the
definition of yi refers to judging the propriety of events… yi is that which is
used to regulate and judge the propriety of events… yi are the Â�regulations
of civilization… yi means correct… yi are institutions… yi are the regulators
of the world… use yi to make it correct… yi are what are used to ensure
reÂ�straint… yi is restrained behavior… in any particular case, yi are what are
used to achieve one’s intention… yi are correct events… as for the definition
of yi, they are what put the myriad events in order… a so-called ‘person who
has yi’ is someone who has the same dislikes.”99
97 Wang Yinzhi, Jingyi shuwen, 15.35a1–36a1. cf., Jingyi shuwen, 17.15a10–b4 and 20.11a3–b7. Al
though Wang Yinzhi makes a strong case, it should be noted that the meaning of “ceremony”
and the meaning of “propriety” are almost in themselves identical in the tradition. Cf. Duan
Yucai above.
98 Wang Yinzhi, Jingyi shuwen, 16.12b6–13a1.
99 Ruan Yuan, Jingji zuangu, 63A.9b2–11a8.
V.) “人言之, 己斷之, 為義也… 以義為斷制… 以仁安人, 以義正我, 古仁之為言

人也, 義之為言我; other say it, I judge it, this is what yi means… use yi in
order to judge and regulate… use empathy to pacify the people, use yi to make
yourself correct, this is why in antiquity the word ‘empathy’ is talking about
others, and why yi is talking about oneself.”100
W.) “今時所謂義為誼. 自鄭司農已言之. 故許君以人所宜說誼. 以威儀說義, 存
古訓也; in present times so-called yi 義 [*ngjarh] is actually 誼 [*ngjarh]
‘proper’. From as early on as Zheng Zhong’s commentary to the Zhouli people
have already been saying this. Therefore, Xu Shen uses the gloss ‘it is what
people ought to do’ to explain the word 誼 [*ngjarh] ‘proper’. As for his using
the gloss ‘etiquette and protocol (in accord with the rites)’ to explain the word
yi, this is from a surviving ancient explanatory gloss (i.e., it is not Xu Shen’s
own gloss, but one he copied from earlier sources).”101
X.) “儀下云度也… 鄭注: 儀, 度… 此用儀之古訓者. 義下云己之威儀也, 以儀釋
義… 鄭司農云義讀為儀, 古者書儀作義. 今時所謂義為誼, 故許君說誼曰人之
所宜也與禮記義者宜也正合… 韓詩儀為義… 故書儀為義… 皆知古人用義而
改之為儀… 然經典中有義字古訓, 未經改為儀; as for [the Shuowen] gloss of
the word ‘ceremony’ as ‘system of standards’… Zheng Xuan’s commentaries
also say that ‘ceremony’ is a ‘system of standards’… this is using the ancient
explanatory gloss of the word ‘ceremony’. As for [the Shuowen] gloss of the
word yi as ‘one’s own etiquette and protocol (in accord with the rites)’, this is
using the word 儀 [*ngjar] ‘ceremony’ to explain the word yi… Zheng Zhong’s
Zhouli commentary says that yi should be read as 儀 [*ngjar] ‘ceremony’, that
in ancient times they wrote the word 儀 [*ngjar] ‘ceremony’ with the graph
yi 義 [*ngjarh]. In the modern era so-called yi 義 [*ngjarh] ‘proper’ is actu
ally 誼 [*ngjarh] ‘proper’, and so Xu Shen’s defintion of 誼 [*ngjarh] ‘proper’,
which says ‘it is what people ought to do’, correctly accords with the Liji defi
nition that yi 義 [*ngjarh] is what is ‘proper’ 宜 [*ngjar]… the Hanshi waizhuan
says that 儀 [*ngjar] is yi 義 [*ngjarh]… and therefore writes the word ‘cere
mony’ 儀 [*ngjar] with the graph 義 [*ngjarh]… in all cases one knows that
ancient people used the word yi 義 [*ngjarh], and only later changed the
written form to 儀 [*ngjar]… that being so, if in the classics there is the word yi
義 [*ngjarh] with the ancient explanatory gloss [viz. 義, 儀也.], it is Â�therefore
the case that this is an instance in which the word in text of the classic has
not yet been changed to 儀 [*ngjar].”102
100 Wang Yun, Shuowen jiezi judu, 24.32b2–3.

101 Wang Yun, Shuowen shili, 10.17b5–6.
102 Wang Yun, Shuowen shili, 18.4a5–b7.
3. 意 yi [*ſjəgh]:103 “meaning, intended meaning, intention, expression,

consideration”
a.) “意, 志也; yi means intention.”104

b.) “意, 志意也; yi is intentional meaning.”105
c.) “意, 民之志也; yi is the people’s intention.”106
d.) “意者, 志也… 心之所在, 謂之意; yi means intention… what is located in the
heart is referred to as yi.”107
e.) “心之所之謂意; where the heart goes is referred to as yi.”108
f.) “思之於內, 表施於外… 言其意; considering it on the inside, expressing and
extending it outwardly… this is speaking its yi.”109
g.) “言者, 所以在意; as for words, they are what is used to give the yi a place to
be.”110
h.) “意, 思也; yi means consideration.”111
i.) “意, 安也. 一曰度也… 辭也; yi are settled. Another definition is that yi are
systems of institutions… they are expressions.”112
j.) “意者, 心之所發也; as for yi, they are what the heart expresses.”113
k.) “言… 執所言而意得見, 心之辨也; as for ‘words… when one grasps what is
said and the yi is made to appear, this is the distinction the heart makes.”114
l.) 詞, 意內而言外也… 以言表意; as for the definition of ‘word’, it is an yi inside
the physical body and a word outside the physical body… one uses words to
express yi.”115
m.) “夫辭者, 意之表也… 聽言者以言觀意也; in any particular case ‘expressions’
are the expression of yi… the one who listens to words uses the words to
observe and judge the yi.”116
103 I am using the symbol ‘ſ’ for the reconstructed glottal stop.
104 說文, 廣雅, 國語韋昭注, 呂氏春秋高誘注, 玉篇, 廣韻.
105 國語韋昭注.
106 國語韋昭注.
107 Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 3A13.13.
108 Chunqiu fanlu, 循天道.
109 Bi Yuan, Shiming shuzheng, 6.199.2–5.
110 Zhuangzi, 外物.
111 玉篇, s.v.
112 Sima Guang, Leipian, 10C.3b5. On the etymological relationship between yi 意 and du 度,
see: Wang Li, Tongyuan zidian, 248.
113 大學朱熹章句.
114 Mozi, 經.
115 Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 4B15.14–16.
116 Lüshi chunqiu, 離謂.
n.) “以辭抒意; one uses ‘expressions’ to express yi.”117

o.) “欲而不言情, 見於色, 此意也; if someone desires something but does not speak
of their feelings, and yet it appears on their countenance, this is also yi.”118
p.) “子曰: 書不盡言, 言不盡意; Confucius said: writing does not exhaust speech,
and speech does not exhaust the yi.”119
q.) “文有不得盡言, 言有不得盡意; in writing there is such that does not exhaust
the spoken, in speech there is such that does not exhaust the yi.”120
r.) “其語盡… [注:] 盡者, 盡其心意; on the sentence ‘his discourse was exhaus
tive’… [Wei Zhao’s commentary] says: As for the word ‘exhaustive’, here it
means that he exhausted the yi in his heart.”121
s.) “心之起為意; what arises in the heart is called the yi.”122
t.) “意, 私意也; yi means private meaning.”123
u.) “無以私意, 以上為意; one ought not do things according to one’s own private
yi, but rather accord with the yi of one’s social superior.”124
v.) “察言而知意也… 徐曰見之於外曰意. 意… 心所嚮也; investigate the words
and thereby know the yi… Xu Kai says: what appears on the outside is called
yi. Yi… are what the heart is guided toward.”125
w.) “意, 心所嚮也; yi are what the heart is guided toward.”126
x.) “意… 繫辭: 言不盡意… 學禮義, 考制度, 必求聖人之意… 說文: 意, 志也. 察言
而知意也; as for yi… the ‘Xici’ says: words do not exhaust yi… study ritual
and propriety, examine regulations and systems of institutions, then one is
Â�necessarily seeking the yi of the sages.… the Shuowen says: yi means inten
tion. Investigate the words and thereby know the yi.”127
y.) “意, 志之發也… 與抑通. 徐鍇曰見之於外曰意. 意猶抑… 其言欲出而抑之…
抑猶意, 古通用; yi are expressions of intention… yi 意 [*ſjəgh] is the same as
抑 [*ſjək] ‘what has been made orderly’.128 Xu Kai says: what appears on the
outside is called yi. Yi is like ‘something made orderly’… the words desire to
117 Mozi, 小取.
118 Xu Kai, Shuowen jiezi xizhuan, 35.6a1–2.
119 繫辭上, in Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 2:342.
121 Wei Zhao, Guoyu zhu, 89 and 90n6.
122 Dai Tong, Liushu gu, 13.11a5.
123 論語朱熹集注.
124 Shangjunshu, 戰法.
125 Huang Gongshao and Xiong Zhong, Gujin yunhui juyao, 17.16b8–17a1.
126 Mei Yingzuo, Zihui, 232:563a13.
127 Zhang Zilie, Zhengzi tong, 374a11–b4.
128 “抑, 治也” (Wang Niansun, Guangya shunzheng, 3B.8a10–b1).
come out and under those conditions are made orderly… the word 抑 [*ſjək] is
similar to the word yi 意 [*ſjəgh], and in ancient times these words were used
interchangeably.”129
z.) “廣雅… 抑, 治也. 孟子: 禹抑洪水而天下平… 韓詩: [抑], 意也; the Guangya
says: the word 抑 [*ſjək] means ‘to put in order’. The Mengzi says: the sage-Â�
emperor Yu put in order the turbulent waters of the great flood and therefore
the world was made orderly… the Han version of the Shijing says: the word 抑
[*ſjək] means yi 意 [*ſjəgh].”130
A.) “大學曰欲正其心者, 先誠其意; the ‘Daxue’ [section of the Liji] says: one who
desires to make their heart correct must first make their yi sincere.”131
B.) “意於內…言於外謂之詞… 意即意內, 詞即言外. 言意而詞見, 言詞而意見. 意
者, 文字之義也; what is yi on the inside… when spoken on the outside is
referred to as a ‘word’… if one is referring to yi, then it is what the meaning is
on the inside, if one is referring to the ‘word’, then it is what is spoken on the
outside. Speak the yi and the ‘word’ is what appears, speak the ‘word’ and the
yi is what appears. As for yi, this is the meaning of written words.”132
C.) “意… 意內而言外也. 馥案: 言者, 心之聲也; as for yi… it is what has meaning
on the inside and is spoken on the outside. I, Gui Fu, rely on the fact that
‘words’ are the sounds that the heart makes.”133
D.) “意… 心之所之謂意… 意, 學者之心意也; as for yi… ‘where the heart goes’ is
what yi refers to… yi is the meaning in the hearts of those who study.”134
E.) “意, 志意也… 孟子: 以意逆志, 注: 意, 學者之心意也; yi is intentional
meaning… the Mengzi says: use yi to herald135 intention, on which the com
mentary says: yi is the intended meaning in the hearts of those who study.”136
F.) “意與抑同義; the words yi 意 [*ſjəgh] ‘meaning’ and 抑 [*ſjək] ‘what has been
made orderly’ have the same meaning.”137
129 Zhang Yushu, Kangxi zidian, s.v.

131 Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 10A.25a2.
132 Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 9A.29b7–30a1.
133 Gui Fu, Shuowen jiezi yizheng, 32.3b7–8.
134 Ruan Yuan, Jingji zuangu, 63A.5b6–7.
135 “逆, 迎也” (說文).
136 Zhu Junsheng, Shuowen tongxun dingsheng, 5.42a1.
137 Sun Yirang, Mozi jiangu; Wang Niansun, Dushu zazhi; Wang Yinzhi, Jingyi shuwen.
4. 志 zhi [*tjəgh]: “intention, intended meaning, record, knowledge”
a.) “君子以辯上下, 定民志; gentlemen established the distinctions between

social superior and inferior, and thus defined and made correct138 the zhi of
the people.”139
b.) “上下交而其志同也; superior and inferior have a proper relationship and
therefore their zhi is the same.”140
c.) “儒有合志同方; Ruists have the same zhi and use the same methods.”141
d.) “合志如同方… 曰至友者; someone who has the same zhi and142 uses the
same methods… call this person the best of friends.”143
e.) “諸侯有異志矣; the various marklords have utterly different zhi.”144
f.) “異德則異類… 同德則同心, 同心則同志; if the virtue145 is different then the
‘classification’ is different… if the virtue is the same then the heart is the
same, if the heart is the same then the zhi is the same.”146
138 “定, 定正”(周易正義).
142 “如, 猶而也” (Cheng Changying, Jingci yanshi, 119).
143 Dadai liji, 72.
144 Zuozhuan, 襄 16.
145 “德, 得也. 得事宜也; the word ‘virtue’ [*tək] is etymologically related to the word ‘to get it
done’ [*tək], this is because ‘virtue’ causes events to ‘turn out’ properly” (釋名); “義而行之謂
德禮; using propriety and behaving properly are referred to as the ritual behavior of ‘virtue’”
(Zuozhuan, 文 7); “德, 正德也; ‘virtue’ means correct virtue” (左傳杜預注); “善善為德, 惡惡為
義; considering the good to be good is ‘virtue’, considering the bad to be bad is ‘propriety’”
(Wei Zhao, Guoyu zhu); “德, 善行; ‘virtue’ means good behavior” (禮記孔穎達疏); “德, 德行; ‘vir
tue’ means virtuous behavior” (廣韻); “德者, 在內未見之言; the word ‘virtue’ is talking about
Â�something on the inside that has not yet been seen” (毛詩鄭箋); “內得於心曰德; on the inside
what satisfies the heart is called ‘virtue’” (Xu Kai, Shuowen jiezi xizhuan); “在心為德, 施之為行;
in the heart it is ‘virtue’, once enacted it is ‘proper behavior’”(周禮鄭注); “德, 國家之基; ‘virtue’
is the foundation of the state and the family” (Zuozhuan, 襄 24); “始治天下為德; the origin of
putting the world in order is ‘virtue’”(新書); “德, 政之始也; ‘virtue is the origin of government”
(孔子家語); “德, 教也; ‘virtue’ means being educated” (禮記鄭注); “德, 善教也; ‘virtue’ means
being well-educated” (禮記鄭注); “德謂教化, 使知分義; the word ‘virtue’ refers to being trans
formed by education, being caused to understand the distinctions of propriety” (荀子楊倞注);
“在身為得德, 施行為化; in oneself it is called ‘obtaining virtue’, enacted in behavior it is called
‘transformative education’” (毛詩鄭箋).
146 Wei Zhao, Guoyu zhu, 356.
g.) “禮以行事… 志以定言; ritual is used to enact proper conduct… zhi is used to
define spoken words.”147
h.) “禮… 所以正其志也; ritual… is what is used to make their zhi correct.”148
i.) “吾將一其志; I want to make the zhi of the troops the same.”149
j.) “易人之志; the point is to change the zhi of the people.”150
k.) “探取其志, 以觀其情; search out and take hold of the zhi in order to observe
and judge their emotions.”151
l.) “不觀其事而觀其志, 可謂能觀人矣; not observing and judging someone’s
activities but rather observing and judging their zhi, this can be referred to as
being able to totally observe and judge a person.”152
m.) “知其人心… 無不如志; for knowing another person’s heart… there is nothing
better than zhi.”153
n). “心之所注為志; what preoccupies the heart is called zhi.”154
o.) “志, 意也; zhi [*tjəgh] is yi [*ſjəgh] ‘intended meaning’.”155
p.) “志, 心之所之也; zhi [*tjəgh] is where the heart ‘goes’ [*tjəg].”156
q.) “志, 心之所知也; zhi [*tjəgh] is what the heart ‘knows’ [*trig].”157
r.) “詩者, 志之所之; as for poetry [*hnjəg], it is where the zhi [*tjəgh] goes [*tjəg].”158
s.) “故說詩者, 不以文害辭, 不以辭害志, 以意逆志, 是為得之; therefore, one who
explains poetry does not use the written word to damage the expression, nor
does he use the expression to damage the zhi, but rather uses the meaning to
meet up with159 the zhi, and in so doing he is able to get it.”160
t.) “志, 識也; zhi [*tjəgh] is ‘knowledge’ [*sthjək].”161
147 Zuozhuan, 昭 9.
148 Zheng Xuan, Zhouli Zhengzhu, 12.3b5–6.
149 Sunzi bingfa, 九地, in Sunzi bingfa xinzhu 孫子兵法新注 (Bejing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007).
150 Songben Liezi, 8.6a2.
151 Dadai liji, 72.
152 Lüshi chunqiu, 觀表.
153 Zuozhuan, 僖 15.
154 Dai Tong, Liushu gu, 13.12a2.
155 說文, 禮記鄭玄注, 廣雅, 玉篇, 荀子楊倞注.
156 字林, 孟子朱熹集注, 論語朱熹集注. For the surviving fragments of the lost dictionary Zilin,
see: Jian Qixian 簡啟賢, Zilin yinzhu yanjiu 字林音注研究 (Chengdu: Bashu shushe, 2003).
157 論語朱熹集注.
158 Zheng Xuan, Maoshi Zhengjian, 1.1a6.
159 “逆, 迎也” (說文).
160 Mengzi, 5A4.
161 廣雅, 左傳杜預注, 國語韋昭注, 漢書顏師古注, 荀子楊倞注. On the etymological
relationship between 志 [*tjəgh] “intention” and 識 [*sthjək] “knowledge,” see: Zheng Xuan,
Liji Zhengzhu, 7.1a6–8; Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 10A.24b3–9; Wang Niansun, Guangya
u.) “志, 人心之志也; zhi is the intention in a person’s heart.”162

v.) “心以守志, 辭以行之; the heart is what contains the zhi, expressions are what
the zhi travels (to other hearts) through.”163
w.) “志, 望也; zhi means looking forward to something.”164
x.) “志有所至; zhi has that to which it reaches.”165
y.) “孔子曰志之所至, 詩亦至焉. 詩之所至, 禮亦至焉; Confucius said: as for
where zhi reaches, poetry for its part also reaches there. As for where poetry
reaches, ritual for its part also reaches there.”166
A.) “志, 擬也; zhi [*tjəgh] is what has been ‘planned’ [*ngəgx].”167
B.) “志, 私意也; zhi is the private meaning.”168
C.) “各言其志; each one speaks their zhi.”169
D.) “在心為志; when it is in the heart it is zhi.”170
E.) “詩言志; poetry speaks of zhi.”171
F.) “詩, 言其志; poetry speaks of the poet’s zhi.”172
G.) “志, 詩人志所欲之事; zhi is the Shijing poem author’s intention as to the
desired outcome of an event.”173
H.) “詩… 謂法度之言也; ‘poetry’… refers to speech that has been systematically
regulated.”174
I.) “志, 記也; zhi [*tjəgh] are ‘written records’ [*kjəgh].”175
J.) “志, 古記也; zhi are ancient records.”176
shuzheng, 2B.29a5–b2; Wang Yinzhi, Jingyi shuwen, 16.31a1–7 and 19.40b4–41a9; Zhu Junsheng,
Shuowen tongxun dingsheng, 5.43b1–3; Wang Li, Tongyuan zidian, 95; Zong Fubang, Guxun
huizuan, 771sub66–101. Cf. Shi Xingjun, Longkan shoujing, 59.6.
162 淮南字高誘注, in He Ning 何寧, ed., Huainanzi jishi 淮南子集釋, 3 vols. (Beijing: Zhonghua
shuju, 2006).
163 Wei Zhao, Guoyu zhu, 452.
164 左傳杜預注.
165 Zheng Xuan, Liji Zhengzhu, 14.6a7–8.
166 Zheng Xuan, Liji Zhengzhu, 15.11a2–3.
167 儀禮鄭玄注.
169 Li Daoyuan, Shuijing zhu, 敘, 1.7.
170 書孔安國傳, 詩大序, 左傳杜預注, 漢書顏師古注, 荀子楊倞注.
171 尚書正義, in Shisanjing zhushu zhengli ben, 3:95.
173 孟子趙岐注.
174 Wang Anshi, Zishuo, 20.7.
175 Guliang zhuan, 隱 9; Zheng Xuan, Zhouli Zhengzhu, 26.11b6, 孟子趙岐注, 左傳杜預注, 國語
韋昭注, 經典釋文, 文選李善注, 漢書顏師古注, 荀子楊倞注, 左傳孔穎達疏.
176 呂氏春秋高誘注.
K.) “志, 古書; zhi are ancient writings.”177

L.) “志, 意也. 慕也; zhi is the meaning, it is what is yearned for.”178
M.) “情動為志; the emotions are stirred and that is what zhi is.”179
N.) “孔子對曰生乎今之世, 志古之道… 志不在於飲食; Confucius responded
saying: ‘although I was born in the present age, my zhi is directed toward the
way of antiquity… my zhi is not directed toward drinking and eating.”180
O.) “內志正, 外體直; on the inside one’s zhi is correct, on the outside one’s body
is straight.”181
P.) “善教者, 使人繼其志; a good educator causes people to carry out his zhi.”182
Q.) “六情…在心未見為志; the six emotions… when they are in the heart and have
not yet appeared on the outside, that is zhi.”183
R.) “志, 望也. 念也. 慕也. 知也. 記也. 擬也; zhi means looking forward to
Â�something, it means being anxious about something, it means what is
yearned for, it means knowledge, it means a written record, it means what is
planned.”184
S.) “心有所之為志. 詩者, 志之所之也. 天下之人, 其志不同, 各有所之也; when
the heart has that to which it is inclined, this is zhi. As for poetry, that is
where the zhi goes. As for the people of the world, their zhi is not the same,
each person has that to which they are so inclined.”185
T.) “臣鍇據詩序: 在心為志, 發言為詩; I, Xu Kai, rely on the ‘Great Preface’ to
the Shijing, which says: in the heart it is zhi, expressed in spoken words it is
Â�poetry.”186
U.) “志, 意慕也; zhi is meaningful yearning.”187
V.) “詩: 在心為志. 論語注: 謂心之所主也; the Shijing says: in the heart it is called zhi.
The commentary to the Lunyu says: this refers to what the heart is focused on.”188
W.) “志, 心所注為志; as for zhi, what the heart is focused on is called zhi.”189
177 左傳杜預注.
178 Gu Yewang, Yupian, 1.80b2.
179 左傳孔穎達疏.
180 Dadai liji, 40.
183 禮記孔穎達疏.
184 Kūkai, Tenrei banshō meigi, 123a.
188 Huang Gongshao and Xiong Zhong, Gujin yunhui juyao, 17.13a2.
189 Zhang Zilie, Zhengzi tong, 357a3.
X.) “義, 正事也; 志, 私意也… 左傳昭二十五年: 以制六支. 註: 為禮以制好惡喜怒

哀樂六志… 又記也… 師古曰志, 記也; yi 義 ‘meaning’ means ‘correct view of
events’, in contrast zhi means ‘private meaning’… in the Zuozhuan, Duke Zhao
25th year it says: regulate the six branches, on which the commentary says: this
means that ritual regulates the six zhi, i.e., considering something to be good,
considering something to be bad, being glad about something, being furious
about something, mourning something, and being happy about something…
zhi also means a written record… Yan Shigu says: zhi is a written record.”190
Y.) “志者, 記也. 知也… 詩序曰詩者, 志之所之也. 在心為志, 發言為詩. 志之所之
不能無言; as for zhi, it means a written record. It also means knowledge… the
‘Great Preface’ to the Shijing says: as for poetry, it is where the zhi goes. In the
heart it is zhi, expressed in words it is poetry. Where the zhi goes is something
that cannot but be spoken of in words.”191
Z.) “詩志聲相近, 故諸書皆訓詩為志… 說文及楚辭九章注竝云詩, 志也; the
words 詩 [*hnjəg] ‘poetry’ and zhi 志 [*tjəgh] ‘intention’ were pronounced
quite similarly, therefore various books all glossed the word ‘poetry’ as
‘intention’… from the Shuowen to Wang Yi’s commentary on the ‘Jiu zhang’
section of the Chuci, they all say: ‘poetry’ means ‘intention’.”192
Aa.) “志謂心志… 志謂心知… 志, 心之所念慮也… 志, 私意也… 志者, 在心之謂
也… 在心為志; zhi refers to the heart’s intention… zhi refers to what the heart
knows… zhi is what the heart is anxious about and ponders… zhi is private
meaning… as for zhi, it is referred to as what is in the heart… what is in the
heart is zhi.”193
Bb.) “志與知同義… 志謂心知… 志謂心智; the word zhi 志 [*tjəgh] ‘intention’ and the
word 知 [*trig] ‘knowledge’ have the same meaning… zhi refers to what the heart
knows… zhi 志 [*tjəgh] refers to what the heart ‘understands’ 智 [*tjigh].”194
Cc.) “志, 意也… 思慮為志… 志者, 欲之使也… 志為心知… 志為記也… 志, 古書
也… 謂思意也… 私意也; zhi is the intended meaning… what is considered
and pondered is called zhi… as for zhi, it is the enactment of desire… zhi is
what the heart knows… zhi is a written record… zhi are ancient writings… zhi
refers to the meaning that has been considered… zhi is the private intentional
meaning.”195
190 Zhang Yushu, Kangxi zidian, s.v.

191 Duan Yucai, Shuowen jiezi zhu, 10B.24b5–8.
192 Wang Niansun, Guangya shuzheng, 5A.11a4.
193 Ruan Yuan, Jingji zuangu, 63A.6a3–7a4.
194 Wang Yingzhi, Jingyi shuwen, 19.41a5–9.
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Ideography and Chinese Language Theory

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek

Introduction: Egyptian Hieroglyphic and Chinese Characters —— 1

Chapter 1: Platonism and the Strong Theory —— 18

Chapter 2: Aristotelianism and the Soft Theory —— 32

Chapter 3: Hellenized Egypt, Pythagoreanism, and the Primitivist Theory —— 42

Chapter 4: Patristic Apologetics and the Scriptural Theory —— 59

Chapter 5: Neoplatonism and the Hermetic Theory —— 85

Chapter 6: Universals and the Scholastic Theory —— 108

Chapter 7: Renaissance Neoplatonism and the Emblematic Theory —— 135

Chapter 8: Athanasius Kircher on Egyptian and Chinese Ideography —— 144

Chapter 9: The Great Chinese Encyclopedia —— 156

Chapter 10: Zhengming 正名 “Making Words Correct” and Chinese Language

Chapter 11: Chinese Language Theory and the Interpretation of

Chapter 12: The Erya and Lexicographic Classification —— 202

Chapter 13: The Erya and Chinese Language Theory —— 214

Chapter 15: The “Shuowen Postface” (Annotated Translation) —— 258

Conclusion: Ideography and Chinese Language Theory —— 274

Appendix: The Metalinguistic Terms ming 名, yi 義, yi 意, and zhi 志 —— 285

being written in cuneiform, Akkadian being written in hieroglyphic, Greek being

phonetically with syllabographs, then its lexigraph is given, followed by a definition

Champollion was inspired by Abel-Rémusat’s description of the traditional

to wait for Lepsius’ groundbreaking revision of Champollion’s work),22 he never

22 Lepsius, “Lettre à Monsieur le Prof. Hippolyte Rosellini,” 5–89.

or Hieroglyphics.”26 Considering the abysmal state of contemporary knowledge,

Du Ponceau’s doubts about the contemporary dogma of ideographic theory led

One of the more persuasive arguments Du Ponceau makes in his investigation is

39 Du Ponceau, Dissertation, 95.

Instead of accepting the doctrinaire thesis of ideography to explain the use of

The hard evidence Du Ponceau provides for lexigraphy is the comparison of

41 Du Ponceau, Dissertation, 86–87.

This typology of scripts—considered ridiculous by his contemporaries—is now

Chữ nôm, as Du Ponceau points out, is written Vietnamese—the adaptation of the

Du Ponceau’s conclusion, “that an ideographic system of writing is a creature of

47 Du Ponceau, Dissertation, 115.

things, in fact, are incapable of change—the world of Forms is therefore eternal,

specific things is a matter of speaking truly or falsely—correctly representing or

24 Plato, Cratylus, 429d–431e.

In order to get a clearer picture of how this stamping, impressing, Â�inscribing,

it is of the proper consistency… we make impressions upon this of everything we wish to

39 Plato, Theaetetus, 191c–191e.

Ancient Platonism further—and significantly—argues that human souls must

use human language—learning to speak is also a form of recollection. Without

But what Â�conventional means here is that the particular sounds or graphic shapes

Accordingly, perception begins with the universal elements (stoicheia): “the

10 Aristotle, On The Soul, 431b.

Although Aristotelianism does not allow for an ontologically distinct realm of

21 Aristotle, On Memory, 450a–b.

ultimate signifieds of all of our words, no matter which particular language we

From the perspective of modern relativist epistemology (after e.g., Nietzsche,

26 Aristotle, On Interpretation, 16a.

Pythagoras was a student of Thales, who encouraged him to travel to Egypt

for normal human speech, that most definitively characterizes Pythagoreanism

manner of instruction [was] entirely like the teaching which he learned in

It appears that Pythagorean symbols, based on an ideographic exegesis of Egyp­

24 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 354d–354f.

35 Plutarch, Isis and Osiris, 382d–383a.

of animals which they called hierographic writing (hierographicas litteras).”37 Dio

37 Ammianus Marcellinus, 22.15.30.

documents of human history, are visible today, impressed on stone”;49 “suppose

It appears that Pythagorean symbols, based on an ideographic exegesis of Egyp

In the ethnology of Diodorus, the Ethiopians were childlike proto-humans inca

(synchronically eternal by definition). As a non-discursive method of communi

scripture says, knowledge is not for everyone.”4 Indeed, Dionysius directly encour

Thus human understanding is strongly ideographic, while the human imagina