Metaphorical Thinking Of Chinese Medicine And Metaphorical Discourse In The Context Of Yin - Yang And Five Elements

Metaphor is ubiquitous in the thinking of traditional Chinese medicine(TCM). In the context of the argument of existing or abolishing of TCM over the past 100-odd years, influenced by the "Third Path" concept for TCM development in the past 10 years, many scholars from China has heated up the trend of studying TCM from the perspective of cognitive metaphor theory in recent years, in which the metaphorical feature of TCM language is proved and TCM discourses are analyzed from the existing metaphorical theories, however its major limitations lie in its inadequacy in terms of methodology and its ignorance of the plausibility, faultiness, and complement of TCM theory. In view of above-mentioned situation, this dissertation focuses on Yin-Yang & Five-Agent Doctrines, which are regarded as the foundation of TCM theory and the essence of TCM thinking, in order to analyze TCM metaphorical discourses, reveal the mental process of the construction of TCM theory, discuss the cognitive root of TCM criticism and provide a dialectic analysis and judgement for the advantages and disadvantages of TCM theory by means of newly-proposed metaphor theory.Metaphorical Thinking Pattern of TCM (MTPT) is explicitly defined, which is a proper integration of many concepts in traditional Chinese philosophy and medicine, such as "Correspondence between Man and Universe" (CBMU), "Yin-Yang & Five-Agent Doctrines", "Image-abstraction, Categorization and Analogy" (IACA), "Syndrome Differentiation and Treatment", "Theory of Visceral Manifestation", "Six Climate Exopathogens and Seven Emotions". Three essential features of MTPT are proposed:double mapping structures including simple and categorization styles, complementary relation between entity-based and process-based thinking patterns, co-occurrance of descriptive and deductive metaphorical functions. Simple-style and categorization-style mapping structures are applied respectively to the classification of TCM metaphorical discourse and to the revelation of the cognitive mechanism of the integration between IACA of TCM and Yin-Yang & Five-Agent Doctrines, while double-based thinking patterns and double metaphorical functions are applied to the explanation of the plausibility, faultiness and complement of Yin-Yang & Five-Agent Doctrines of TCM.In TCM, the placement of highly abstract medical knowledge into the framework of Yin-Yang Doctrine and Five-Agent Doctrine contributes to the cross-reference and interpenetration between medical science and philosophy, especially, to the "immortality" of TCM, however, it turns out to be the focus of criticism and controversy. This thesis claims that the main root of criticism related to TCM lies in the imperfection of metaphorical thinking pattern, whose incomplete interpretation of TCM necessitates the shift of the focus of criticism from TCM theories themselves to thinking patterns. This claim can be justifiably proved by the reasoning that the inherent defect of entity metaphor and entity-metaphor-based thinking pattern in the interpretation of TCM naturally leads to the invalidity of TCM criticism based on entity-oriented consciousness, as a result, process metaphor, a complement to entity metaphor, is proposed. Process metaphor features its reflection on Whitehead’s process philosophy, its theoretical basis on the processal feature of TCM "image", its adherence to the expression method and term system adopted by ontological metaphor, its representation of functional and dynamic features of TCM "image", its accordance with the basic meaning of Yin-yang and Five-agent, its characteristic of deep-going embodied basis, explicit etymological proof and unison with related findings of linguistic typology and cognitive psychology, an effective resolution to the age-old puzzles of TCM and a powerful linguistic theoretical backup to justify the unreliability of pseudo-scientific viewpoint of TCM.Quantitative analysis of process metaphorical expressions under the theme of [GENERATION], [RESTRICTION], [MOVEMENT] is carried out based on the closed text corpus of Yellow Emperor’s Canon of Medicine, in which 8 process metaphors of the theme [GENERATION], namely, [PROMOTION (IN NATURE) IS GENERATION], [CHEMICAL PROMOTION (IN PHARMACY) IS GENERATION], [FUNCTIONAL PROMOTION (OF VISCERA) IS GENERATION], [OCCURRENCE (OF DISEASE) IS GENERATION], [OCCURRENCE OF DISEASE (IN MERIDIANS) IS GENERATION], [PHYSICAL FACILITATION (OF FIVE MATERIALS) IS GENERATION], [TRANSFORMATION (OF FUNCTIONAL ACTIVITIES OF QI) IS GENERATION], [ATTRIBUTIVE BOOST (OF SIX QI) IS GENERATION]; 9 process metaphors of the theme [RESTRICTION], namely, [FUNCTIONAL INHIBITION (OF VISCERA) IS RESTRICTION], [RESTRAIN (OF CLIMATE) IS RESTRICTION], [COMBAT (OF YIN-YANG) IS RESTRICTION], [DEPRESSION (OF EMOTION) IS RESTRICTION], [RESTRAIN (OF FUNCTIONAL ACTIVITIES OF QI) IS RESTRICTION], [PHYSICAL INHIBITION (OF FIVE MATERIALS) IS RESTRICTION], [CONTROL (OF MERIDIANS) IS RESTRICTION], [CONFLICTION (OF CONSTELLATIONS) IS RESTRCION], [ATTRIBUTIVE INHIBITION (OF SIX QI) IS RESTRICTION]; 2 types of process metaphors of the Theme [MOVEMENT], namely, "A [MOVE] B" and "A [MOVE]" are summarized. This dissertation also finds the proportion of word frequencies of five viscera and five agents in process metaphor corpus and in Yellow Emperor’s Canon of Medicine. The conclusion is arrived at that the operational law of internal functional activities of Qi, meridians, viscera, the interaction between Six Qi (Evils) and human body are expounded by means of process metaphor in Yellow Emperor’s Canon of Medicine, and knowledge of functional activities of Qi in TCM is imparted through proess metaphor, which is a proof of the important role played by process metaphor in TCM thinking.This dissertation rebuilds the thousand-year-old defect-free MTPT:enlightened by the concept of ubiquitous resemblance, various images that are essentially different but seemingly similar are selected through embodied cognition for the inference of the attributes, path, purpose and effect of the new process. This thinking path is perfectly blended with human body, viscera, meridian, disease and health by means of the reasoning of Yin-Yang & Five-Agent Doctrines; it endows the dynamic process of human life with the functional, integrative and dynamic features of nature and is described and interpreted by imagistic concepts (such as Qi, Visceral Manifestation, Five Movements and Six Qi) and TCM discourse system; it is verified and feed back by repeated and long-time clinical practice and serves as a robust drive for the cognitive confidence, methodological confidence and theoretical confidence in terms of the law of human life, and a perfect backup for mankind to unlock the door to the essence of life.