Powerful Arguments

Martin Hofmann, Ph.D. (2007) is Assistant Professor for East Asian Intellectual History at Heidelberg University’s Centre for Asian and Transcultural Studies. He has mainly published on historical cartography, practices of argumentation, and the text-image relation in late imperial China.Joachim Kurtz, Ph.D. (2003), is Professor of Intellectual History at Heidelberg University. He is the author of The Discovery of Chinese Logic (Brill, 2011), and has published widely on circulations of knowledge between China and Europe.Ari Daniel Levine, Ph.D (2002) is Associate Professor of History at the University of Georgia. The author of Divided by a Common Language (University of Hawai'i Press, 2008), he is currently the Editor of the Journal of Song-Yuan Studies.

• ContentsAcknowledgementsList of FiguresNotes on ContributorsIntroduction: Toward a History of Argumentative Practice in Late Imperial ChinaMartin Hofmann, Joachim Kurtz, and Ari Daniel LevinePart 1: Comparison, Collation, Validation1 Historical and Political Arguments: Debates on the Veritable Records in the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)Peter Ditmanson2 A Performance of Transparency: Discourses of Veracity and Practices of Verification in Li Tao’s Long DraftAri Daniel Levine3 Learning with Metal and Stone: On the Discursive Formation of Song EpigraphyJeffrey MoserPart 2: Visualization, Demonstration, Calculation4 The Persuasive Power of Tu: A Case Study on Commentaries to the Book of DocumentsMartin Hofmann5 Inductive Arguments in the Midst of Smoke: “Proving” Rhetorically and Visually That Algorithms WorkAndrea Bréard6 Keeping Your Ear to the Cosmos: Coherence as the Standard of Good Music in the Northern SongYa Zuo7 The Textual Nature of Nature: Astronomical Debates in Eighteenth-Century ChinaOri SelaPart 3: Verification, Evaluation, Authentication8 Identity Verification as a Standard of Validity in Late Imperial Civil Service ExaminationsJohn Williams9 Standards of Validity and Essay Grading in Early Qing Civil Service Examinations Li Yu虞莉10 Some Problems with Corpses: Standards of Validity in Qing Homicide CasesMatthew H. Sommer11 Value and Validity: Seeing through Silver in Late Imperial ChinaBruce RuskPart 4: Corroboration, Refutation, Presentation12 Philological Arguments as Religious Suasion: Liu Ning and His Study of Chinese CharactersPingyi Chu13 A Moral Verdict of Reasonable Doubts: Ouyi Zhixu’s Argumentative Strategies in the Collection of Refutations against Vicious DoctrinesManuel Sassmann14 Reasoning in Style: The Formation of “Logical Writing” in Late Qing ChinaJoachim KurtzIndex