Thinking with Cases

Specialist Knowledge in Chinese Cultural History
Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8248-3049-6
Verlag: University of Hawaii Press

Buch, Englisch, 344 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 165 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 721 g

Case studies fascinate because they link individual instances to general patterns and knowledge to action without denying the priority of individual situations over the generalizations derived from them. In this volume, an international group of senior scholars comes together to consider the use of cases to produce empirical knowledge in premodern China. They trace the process by which the project of thinking with cases acquired a systematic and public character in the ninth century CE and after. Premodern Chinese experts on medicine and law circulated printed case collections to demonstrate efficacy or claim validity for their judgements. They were joined by authors of religious and philosophical texts. The rhetorical strategies and forms of argument used by all of these writers were allied with historical narratives, exemplary biographies, and case examples composed as aids to imperial statecraft.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Furth, Charlotte

Zeitlin, Judith T

Hsiung, Ping-Chen

Über Autor(innen)

Charlotte Furth is professor of history at the University of Southern California. Judith T. Zeitlin is professor of Chinese literature and chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago. Ping-chen Hsiung is fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica, and dean of the College of Liberal Arts, National Central University, in Taipei.