IMAGING THE IMAGELESS: SYMBOL AND PERCEPTION IN EARLY CHINESE THOUGHT

Abstract

The “revivification of philosophy through contact with the fundamental symbols of consciousness” which the Hermeneutician Paul Ricoeur so eloquently called for in his Symbolism of Evil has, I believe, particular relevance for the study of traditional Chinese thought.1 Beginning in the Warring States period, a number of Chinese thinkers began to appreciate evocative symbols as a more apt medium to reflect reality than descriptive language. Concluding, like the modern theologian Paul Tillich, that “symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate,” they began to devise a conscious theory of symbolism which reached full articulation by the early Han era. By borrowing upon some modern critical ideas, I hope to show that this theory of symbolism discloses aspects of early Chinese thinking about perception and reality that are not always fully delineated or appreciated in contemporary studies of Chinese thought.