Cognitive Models Of Key Concepts In Neo-Confucianism

This dissertation analyses 23 key concepts of Zhu Xi's school with the theories of conceptual metaphor,conceptual metonymy,image schema,and space theory from the relation between yili(universal knowledge)and cognition so that we can find out some special aspects of cognitive models in Neo-Confucianism.On the whole,the relationship between the concepts of Neo-Confucianism is that between Body and Function,which can be classified into two parts: those of becoming a saint and those of becoming external standard.The concepts of Body and Function of Neo-Confucianism have three pairs of aspects of inside and outside,anterior and posterior,activeness and inactiveness,belonging to three dimensions of space,time,and movement.Space and movement can be sensed directly by us.The conceptual change of Body to Function happens in space in the way of position transition and the change of state or status.This change has time sequence and the conditional relation of cause and effect.The direction of change is from inside to outside,while the change of status or state is from Body to Function.In the theory of Mind and Human Nature,the conceptual structure of the four human virtues of human nature??humanity,righteousness,property,and wisdom??corresponds to that of Yuan Heng Li Zhen(the four heaven virtues),which derives from the attributes of four seasons reflected in CYCLE schema of yin and yang.Since the correspondence between the attributes of four seasons and four directions of east,south,west,and north,the Human Mind and Human nature have the features of time and space.The alternation of the four seasons is a process of movement.The four seasons,the four human virtues,and the four heaven virtues are metaphorically regarded as moving entities of the world,reflected by Heart(Mind)that contains all li(Truth)of the world.Therefore the concepts of Human Mind and Human nature are of space and movement,and Tianli(the truth of Heaven)is experiential to human mind.We can attribute being internally sainted and externally practicing ideally to the Eight Wires from Daxue(Great Learning),and the Sincerity from Zhongyong(The Doctrine of Mean).The whole process is a JOURNEY metaphor explained by the theory of event-structure metaphor.It has several important image schemas: PATH schema,CONTAINER schema,and FORCE schema.The conceptual metaphor of Neo-Confucianism may happen before metonymy.The mapping appears not only from an abstract source to a more abstract target,which is for abstract understanding,but from an abstract source to a concrete target as well,which endows concrete content with an abstract meaning.The conceptual categories of Neo-Confucianism have metaphorical relationship of social operational system,life system,and physical properties,so that the concepts are correlated to one another.The concepts of Heart(Mind)and Human Nature in Neo-Confucianism have metonymic mutual replacement,hence literal understanding would bring about misunderstanding.Those metonymic expressions have special pragmatic highlights.We should understand fully the relation between the concepts.Only in this way can we have a correct interpretation of their metonymic meaning.Besides,the verification of metaphor and metonymy to the same expressions sometimes depends on the way we see the relation of cognitive domains between the concepts in Neo-Confucianism.The image schemas of Yiguan,Taiji,and Zhong can represent the conceptual relation of Neo-Confucianism.Yiguan has three basic image schemas overlapping to form complex schemas,indicating that the concepts of Neo-Confucianism have fixed relation of Body and Function.Taiji has a flexible nexus of image schemas,the dynamic ones indicate that the relation of Body and Function is unfixed,while the static ones indicate that the relation of Body and Function is fixed.Zhong has a BALANCE schema,which exists in all the concepts of Mind and Nature.Zhong becomes the standard of moral behavior mentally and physically because of the stability in its BALANCE schema.The space relationship among the concepts of Neo-Confucianism is hierarchical and mutually involved,especially among Wuchang concepts,each of which is holographic so that the traditional Chinese ethics are mutually and regularly involved into a whole.