Research On The Development And Evolution Of Chinese "Lei" Category

“Lei” is a core category in the logical thinking. However, it was not initiallyappears as a logical category, only after a long period of countless practice andcontent conversion, it is determined gradually become a law of logical thinking. Thedevelopment and evolution of “lei” category has experienced a long historical process,it reflects a different era of human knowledge and stages of human logical thinkingdevelopment, and run through the Chinese logical thought. This paper chooses thesubject of the development and evolution of “lei” category, is aim to clarify thedevelopment characteristics of “lei” category in different stages and reveals thecharacteristics of Chinese logic with “lei” category perspective.In the pre-Qin period,“lei” category experienced three stages from the budding,formation to establishing. The first stage is the budding stage, namely “‘lei’ issimilar” stage. In this phase “lei” is similar to the surface of things, reflecting thecommon of surface and accidental contact. The second stage is the formation stage,namely “investigating lei to determine the cause”, the idea of “determine the cause”that Mo Tzu put forward is to clear “lei” by the essence of things,“lei” is essence.The third stage is the establishing stage, namely “the proposition ‘proceeds’ accordingto the ‘lei’” stage. On the basis of “‘lei’ is essence”, later Mohist made theoreticgeneralization on “lei”.From the Qin and Han Dynasties to the period of “entrance of the westernculture”, the category of “lei” shows different characteristics which were deepenedand changed along its development.The period from the end of the Qin Dynasty toEmperor Han Wu adopted the dogma of “oust others doctrines, the overwhelmingConfucianism” is the deepening stage of “lei” category. This period has basicallyinherited logical thinking of the pre-Qin, and made a deep research on “tuilei”,presented the idea that “one can infer from one member of a lei to another of the samelei” and “one cannot with certainty infer from one member of a lei to another of thesame lei”, and analyzed the reasons of “one cannot with certainty infer from onemember of a lei to another of the same lei”. However, since Emperor Han Wu put forward “oust others doctrines, the overwhelming Confucianism”, Mohist logicaltheory has gradually declined. In this case, the development of “lei” category changed.This transform is mainly appeared that the essential issue of “lei” category researchhas turned from logical area to the interconnection of logical and other disciplines,and emerged the cultural and philosophical significance of the “lei” category.In the late Ming and early Qing, along with “entrance of the western culture”,the development of “lei” category appeared brand-new situation. The late Ming andearly Qing, the early “entrance of the western culture”, the study of “lei” category ismainly represented as the interpretation of the western “class” category. In the lateQing and early republic(late “western learning spreading east”), the western logicthoughts has been input again, numbers of Chinese scholars who familiar withwestern logic knowledge studied the Chinese ancient logic according to the westernlogic. Thus, the “lei” of ancient Chinese logic theory have developed from a closedand self-progressive process entered in a new period of Chinese and Westerncomparative studies.Contemporary western scholars also show a keen interest in Chinese “lei”category. According to the findings of them, the achievement of western scholars onChinese “lei” category research mainly concentrated in three aspects. The first is toanalyze the nature of Chinese “lei” category. This paper summarized their argumentof Chinese “lei” category in three points：“lei” in non-abstract meaning;“lei” inpart-whole;“Lei” as “similarity”. The second is to interpret the meaning evolution ofthe “lei” category. The third is to point out the problems in comparative study of “lei”category.Through the investigation of Chinese “lei” category, this paper argues that focuson the connotation analysis is one of the main characteristics of “lei” in Chineselogical thought, in another word,“lei” in Chinese logic is essence, this is an importantdifference between western “class” and Chinese “lei”.“Tuilei” in “Mojing” is basedon “the same in ‘lei’”, the Mohist logic and even the ancient Chinese logic has notthoroughly discussed the extension relationship between “class” and “member”, theirreasoning theory was not established on the inclusion relationship of the extension ofgenus and species, but based on “the same in ‘lei’”. As the ancient Chinese accept “lei” concept from the connotation perspect,“tuilei” focus on substantive analysis,although the Mohist logic also use the specific forms of inferences such as “illustrate”,“parallelize”,“adduce”,“infer” etc., but Mohist has not study these inference formsindependently and abstractly, these forms and content are closely linked, and finallydecides the non-formalization characteristics of Chinese logic.