Students of Chinese medicine

[Guest guest]

All,

 

Here is another quote from the recently published

translation of the Dao De Jing that I mentioned

the other day. It's by Roger Ames and David Hall.

 

from p.56 of the hard cover edition:

 

" If Wittgenstein is insightful in observing that the limits of our

language are the limits of our world, then perhaps in order to

understand the Chinese philosophical tradition, we are going to need

more language. It will only be when students of Chinese philosophy

are able to bring a sophisticated understanding of dao and tian to a

reading of a Chinese text in the philosophically astute way that they

understand terms such as kosmos, logos, and nous in their reading of

the classical Greek corpus that they can really begin to take the

Chinese world on its own terms. "

 

If you substitute the word " medicine " for the word

" philosophy " in the foregoing quote, the statements

are no less true. And when you consider that medicine,

particularly Chinese medicine, is the application of

certain philosophical notions to the solution of matters

that concern life and death, the compelling truth of

these remarks only becomes more powerful.

 

If you consider yourself a student of Chinese

medicine, a teacher of Chinese medicine, a

practitioner of Chinese medicine, or even

a patient of Chinese medicine, then perhaps

these comments can help bring the so-called

language debate into clearer forcus.

 

Ken