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Ideographic Chinese Writing and Abstract Thought

by zhang¹ju¹li³

Research in comparative philosophy has found that while the Western philosophy abounds with abstraction, or Platonic one-many inquiries, this mode of thought is lacking on the Chinese side. Chad Hansen points out: '[W]e can satisfactorily interpret Chinese philosophical writings without attributing a philosophical commitment to abstract or mental entities' (p.39). It has also been observed that traditional Chinese science, though highly sophisticated, is not abstract theoretical science, but non-abstract practical science (Logan:64). Robert K. Logan further proposes that the absence of abstraction in Chinese science, technology, legal system, religion and general culture comes from the ideographic (logographic in Logan's term) writing system. Study in this page corresponds to Logan's opinion.

Abstraction is the mental activity of seeking ideal form of individual objects. For instance, there are numerous goats in the world. They are different from one another in terms of color, size, time of birth, gender, weight, length of legs, amount of fleece, and so forth. No two goats are exactly same. Every one is unique. But all of them share essential qualities, and bear the name of 'goat'. Abstraction is the process of defining the essence of goats. The question for abstraction in this case is to ask: 'What is the ideal form or goatness of all these goats?' Or ontologically, 'what is the being of goat?' In such inquiries, individual objects, such as the goats, are also called 'particulars', and the ideal form for the particulars is the 'universal.' As stated above, it is hypothesized in this study that the lack of abstraction in Chinese thought is caused by the language being written in an ideographic, but not phonetic, script.

It is said that spoken language existed long before writing. But human beings must also have communicated with drawings long before the advent of writing. For instance, a hunter from a pre-literate tribe left the camp on a morning, and later saw a flock of goats galloping across the ground in front of him. He had never seen this type of animals. So, upon returning to the camp in the evening, he described what he had seen to his tribesmen. He might have uttered a sound or sequence of sounds from his mouth (language), or drawn one or more pictures on the ground, to describe his findings. Or he might have employed both. The concept of goat, which stands for the type of animals as a whole or any individual of them, thus emerged. Either the writing or drawing could be more efficient or convenient than the other in communication about this concept. But at this time, the language and drawing were not related to each other. The drawing was not writing. As a means for communication, it was predecessor of writing. Relationship between these three elements, namely, the concept, language and drawing, is illustrated in Diagram I.

In above diagram, the drawing and language represent the concept independently, but not one another in any manner. Gradually, the drawing became conventionalized and simplified. More important, the language and drawing started to connect with each other. The drawing thus became ideographic writing. The following two diagrams, Diagrams II and III, facilitates discussion about this type of writing.

Diagram II seems to be the natural next step of Diagram I. The language and drawing now become related to each other. The drawing in Diagram I develops into ideographic writing in Diagram II. A prevalent linguistic theory says that writing is merely a way recording language by visual marks. Accordingly, relations between the three elements are seemingly supposed to transmit from Diagram II into Diagram III. But the fact is that the relationships in Diagram II are still current, at least to certain extent. Following table provides relevant evidence.

Chinese is a highly homophonic language. A speech sound can represent up to several dozens of words. In the last row of above table, the sound se⁴ is shared by five different words. You can move the computer cursor to a Chinese character to see its English translation. Thereafter, on the one hand, the speech sound represents the concept directly, but on the other, it has to rely on the ideographs to precisely distinguish the semantic values of homophonic words and overcome the ambiguity. The upward arrow in Diagram II stands for this phenomenon, i.e., the language has to go to the concept through the ideograph.

Furthermore, it can also be seen in the table that only the sound currently in use, that is, the se⁴, has several written forms in the ideographic writing system, but not all the other three legitimate sounds, namely, se¹, se², se³. This is an important difference between ideographic writing and phonetic writing. In phonetic writing, all possible sounds, both in use and not, have a written form which is its spelling, so the relationship between language and writing is independent from the concepts. But this is not the case in the ideographic writing, in which possible legitimate sounds that are not representing any concept have no written forms. In Diagram II, the upward-downward arrow between the ideograph and language stands for this reciprocal relationship between language and writing. This is why that Diagram II is still current.

On the other hand, the difference between Diagrams II and III does not affect our discussion about the influence exerted by ideographic writing upon relationships between concept, language and writing, because the writing in both diagrams symbolizes the concept directly, and is associated with the language in the meantime albeit in different manners. In contrast, spelling in phonetic writing represents language only, but not the concept directly, as illustrated by Diagram IV as follows:

In phonetic writing, a spelling consists of meaningless phonemic letters for meaningless phonemic elements (sound). The meaningless nature of sound is thus revealed. Or the fact that the sound has no inherent semantic value stands out. This relationship between sound and concept entails the perception of arbitrariness of language. With this perception, a concept can associate with Sound A, Sound B, Sound C, or any other sound, because no sound has intrinsic meaning. They are all meaningless. Therefore, the phonetic value of a concept is irrelevant to other aspects of it, such as chemical, physical, social, physiological or so forth. Only when the arbitrary relationship between concept and language is perceived, can occur the intent on inquiring into what the concept really is, or what the being of the concept is.

The animation in Diagram IV stands for the arbitrary nature of linguistic sign. Ferdinand de Saussure defines the arbitrariness as 'the first principle of language' (p.67). According to this theory, a concept is not linked by any inner relationship with the sound, and could be represented equally by just another sound in the language. Jonathan Culler (p.29) describes the arbitrary nature of linguistic sign as:

There is no natural or inevitable link between the signifier and signified. Since I speak English I may use the signifier represented by dog to talk about an animal of a particular species, but this sequence of sounds is no better suited to that purpose than another sequence. Lod, tet, or bloop would serve equally well if it were accepted by members of my speech community. There is no intrinsic reason why one of these signifiers rather than another should be linked with the concept of a "dog." (Note that here, . . . I use italics to cite linguistic forms [e.g., dog, lod] and quotation marks to designate meanings [e.g., "dog"].)

It can be seen from Diagram IV that the principle of arbitrariness is well embodied by phonetic writing, as the phonetic spelling has no direct relationship with the concept. The relationship between the sound and spelling is that meaningless phonemic elements (sound) are represented with equally meaningless visual signs, that is, the letters of alphabet. On the other hand, in Diagrams II and III, the ideograph graphically stands for the concept, so that the writing is inherently meaningful. And when the meaningful ideograph is also associated with the language sound in the meantime, in either Diagrams II or III, the meaningless nature of the sound is consequently covered up. And the arbitrary relationship between the sound and concept does not show up. Therefore, users of ideographic writing have no chance to perceive the arbitrary connection between the sound and concept.

I contend that it is exactly the perception of arbitrary relationship between the sound and concept of language that invokes ontological curiosity in the human mind. It helps detach the sound from concept, to allow meditation going on in the sphere of pure sounds without intervention of concrete concepts. Perception of meaninglessness of the sound comes from the meaningless alphabetic writing. On the other hand, the ideographic writing does not facilitate perception of the arbitrary relationship between the sound and concept. It can be seen that what happens on Diagram IV is not possible for Diagrams II and III. Therefore, ontological meditation does not occur.

It is argued in this study that difference between Chinese and Western philosophy and science comes from different writing systems. Phonetic writing encourages ontological contemplation, while ideographic writing blocks this intellectual pattern. This is the reason that abstract philosophy and science have been developed in the West only, but not in China. As Marshall McLuhan (1962:25) claims: 'By the meaningless sign linked to the meaningless sound we have built the shape and meaning of Western man'.

An immediate question is that whether or not abstract thinking can happen among people in a pre-literate society. In other words, when the concept, language and writing being in the relationship of Diagram I, are the people, such as the hunter who observed the goat running, and his tribesmen, able to conceive of the abstract goat? They are not, according to analysis in this page. Abstract meditation comes from consciousness or sub-consciousness of the arbitrary relationship of linguistic sign. Only phonetic writing represents this relationship. Therefore, until the language is written in a phonetic system, will not occur the abstract thinking. When there was no writing, let alone phonetic writing, the people have no way to detach the sound from the concept, thus to perceive the arbitrary relationship between these two elements, which is conductive to abstract thought, it was thus not possible for them to conceive of the ontological being.

In his discussion on different writing systems, Logan suggests that a medium of communication is not merely a passive conduit for the transmission of information, but rather an active force independent of its content or message. The medium has its own intrinsic effects on our perception which are its unique message (pp.7-8). In Marshall McLuhan's famous adage: "the medium is the message." (1964:23) Discussion in this page follows this thesis. In connection with above examples, I propose that the meaningless alphabetic spelling 'goat' and meaningful ideograph '羊' exert substantially different effects on our perception of the linguistic sign, that is, the relationship between language and concepts. And the different perceptions evoke abstract thinking on one side, and non-abstract thinking on the other.

In another page listed in my web site, I discussed the difference in representing phonetic possibility between phonetic and ideographic writing. Diagrams in that page can also help the investigation into different thought patterns. The last figure in that study is modified as follows, to help discussion in this page.

Animation in above diagram is programmed with the svg code, not Javascript. So the reader has to open this page with IE browser and install the Adobe Svg Viewer (ASV) in computer, to view the movements in it. In connection with above Table I, it can be observed from Diagram V that the ideographic writing only represents the language's existence or reality, but not possibilities, because all possible but not currently used syllables have no written forms in it. whereas phonetic writing represents both. Therefore, there are no elements in the area for possible sound in the part for ideographic writing. It is blank. On the other hand, possible sounds are presented by the phonetic writing.

In both the left and right parts of Diagram V, the sound in red, se⁴, is associated with concrete concepts. But not are all the other sounds in the right part. Linguistically those are possible sounds. Philosophically they are mental entities. Therefore, linguistic possibilies that are not associated with particular concepts stand for mental entities or abstraction. There is no linguistic possibility in the left part of Diagram V, which is caused by the ideographic writing.

• Culler, Jonathan. 1986. Ferdinard de Saussure. Revised Edition. Cornell University Press.

• Hansen, Chad. 1983. Language and Logic in Ancient China. University of Michigan Press.

• Logan, Robert K. 2004. The Alphabet Effect: A Media Ecology Understanding of the Making of Western Civilization. 2nd Edition. Hampton Press Communication Series.

• McLuhan, Marshall. 1962. The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. University of Toronto Press.

• McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding media: the extensions of man. New York: McGraw-Hill.

• Saussure, de Ferdinand. 1986. Course in General Linguistics. (English translation and editorial matter by Roy Harris.) Open Court.

• Zhang¹ Ju¹ Li³. Models for China's Language Planning.