Rationalism In Taoism

A text is a language system's actualization in the specific scenario. Therefore, we can conclude that a text is systematic, for language belongs to a kind of system. Chen Zhonghua, Lin Xinwu and Yang Chunyuan assume that a piece of discourse can constitute a world; the world is the underlying mental representation of the discourse, on the other hand, the discourse is the mapping of the world projected onto the surface of the language. In other words, the final construction of a textual world is actually a formation of a cognitive world characterized by coherence. However, with respect to the textual coherence, so many linguists'viewpoints vary considerably. For instance, Gleasm and Halliday hold that since textual study belongs to grammatical stratum, the cohesion defines the coherence of the text. On the contrary, the cognitive linguists, like Lakoff and Hu Zhuanlin argue that coherence falls into the cognitive category; human beings understand text mostly through the coherence, which can be achieved by an intrinsically integrated cognitive world. It is constructed via the message offered by the sentences and the human beings'own world knowledge. For another instance, Wang Yin holds that if the information provided by a text can form a unified cognitive world in our mind, this text is coherent. On the other hand, Lakoff and Johnson assume that metaphor is not only a phenomenon of language, but also, essentially, a tool for human being to construe and form concepts about the world around him; consequently, we often construct our cognitive world by means of conceptual metaphors. In other words, the nature of our bodies and our physical and cultural environment imposes a structure on our experience in terms of natural dimensions. This recurrent interaction leads to the formation of categories, which are experiential gestalts with natural dimensions. Such gestalts define coherence in our experience. Therefore, we can understand a gestalt in a category through another one, in other words, we can figure out things metaphorically.Based on the theories above, this thesis analyzes the fables'coherence in Liezi. Firstly, the author construes Liezi's profound philosophy implied in these fables in terms of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Actually, these fables constitute a grand text, so we can pry out Liezi's cognitive world through them. After careful analysis, the author finds all of Liezi's philosophical viewpoints can be reduced to one, that is,'it is best and natural for us to act in accordance with Tao'. And then, based on this, the thesis further analyzes the conceptual metaphors implied in these philosophical viewpoints, the author finds these metaphors can also be reduced to one, that is, TAO IS NATURE.From the analysis above, this thesis comes to a conclusion, that is, all the fables in Liezi can construct a unified cognitive world, and thus they are cohered with each other.