Argumentation dans les textes classiques chinois traduits

1. “The disputers of the Tao” (Graham): Tsou-Yen program

• Warring States :
School of Forms and Names  — hsing ming chia.
the ‘Dialecticians’ — pien che

• Han  “school of names” ming chia

• Aussi :
des disputeurs, bianzhe

There was one group of philosophers which was known as the School of Names (ming chia) by Han scholars, but which during the Warring Stares period was generally known as the ‘School of Forms and Names (hsing ming chia),’ or as the ‘Dialecticians’ (pien che). Fung Yu-lan, History… T1 1952, p. 192

La tradition des “disputers of the Tao”

Tsou Yen (Zou Yan) (-340, -260?)

« The least misleading appoach to Chinese disputation is through the thinkers who actually describe and operate the apparatus of disputation, the later Mohists.» (Graham, p.19-20)

Graham prend comme point de départ de cette tradition de disputers le “programme ” de Tsou Yen

Tsou Yen (Zou Yan) (-340, -260?) « joua un rôle déterminant dans le développement de la théorie du Yin-Yang et des Cinq éléments (W), metal, wood, water, fire, earth. La succession est régie par l’alternance du yin et du yang.

“Program”

The disputation recognised throughout the world has ‘five wins and three arrivals”. Th disputant distinguishes separate kinds of things so that

The disputant distinguishes separate kinds of things so that they do not interfere with each other, arranges in sequences different starting-points, so that they do not confuse each other,

dredges his ideas and makes his meaning intelligible, and clarifies what he has to say; he shares his knowledge with others and does not busy himself with misleading them.

In this way, the winner does not fail to make his point and the loser finds what he is seeking.

When it comes to elaborating style in order to put up a pretence, adorning phases in order to make nonsense of the other’s case, using subtle comparisons to make it shift his ground, stretching what he litterally says so that he cannot get back to his own idea, to behave like this is harmful to the Great Way.

Engaging in tangled debates and competing to keep talking the longest cannot but be harmful to being a gentleman

(Graham, p. 23)

Xun zi : Comment approcher le Maître?

« Xun Zi ou Siun Tseu est un penseur chinois confucéen ayant vécu tout à la fin de la période des Royaumes combattants, au IIIe sièce av. J.-C. », (Wikipedia, Xun Zi)

Do not answer one who asks about something improper.
Do not ask questions of one who speaks on something improper.
Do not listen to one who tries to persuade you of something improper.
Do not debate with a person of combative demeanor.
Only if people approach you in the proper way should you receive them. And so, only if they follow ritual and are reverent should you discuss the methods of the Way with them.
Only if their countenance is agreeable should you discuss the pattern of the Way with them.
Only if their speech is calm should you discuss the culmination of the Way with them.
To discuss these things with those unfit to discuss them is called being presumtuous. Not to discuss these things with those fit to discuss them is called being secretive. To discuss these things without first observing the merson’s manner and countenance is called being blind.
The gentleman is neither presumptuous nor secretive nor blind; he carefully acts according to the other person’s character. The Odes says: The gentlemen are not indolent or haughty — Rewarded by the Son of Heaven shall they be.

Xunzi. The complete text. Chap. 1, “Exhortation to Learning”. Translated and with an Introduction by Eric L. Hutton. Princeton / Oxford, Princeton University Press. 2014. p. 6-7