The Contrastive Study Of Ming Li'tan

In Universam Dialecticam Aristotelis is an annotation edition of Aristotle's works on Logic, edited by the Coimbra College of Arts. It was first published in 1606. The book is the best among books that are titled Commentarii Collegii Conimbricensis Societatis Iesu. Between 1627 and 1630, Li Zhizao and Francois Furtado translated the book into Chinese as Ming Li'tan for they believed that the Chinese people were lacking in logical thinking training. This is the first contact in language and logic between China and the West. Ming Li'tan can be regarded as the classic of Compare Logic, or even the bedrock of Chinese compare logic. In that sense, it's illuminating to study Chinese language and logic through comparing In Universam Dialecticam Aristotelis and Ming li'tan. Differences in logical thinking between China and the West which are showed in the contact between the intellectuals in late Ming Dynasty and western logical thinking can be discovered in the study. Thus this present paper intends to compare intensely In Universam Dialecticam Aristotelis and Ming Li'tan and explore the issues on Chinese language and logic.The paper is structured as follow:In Chapter Two, we talk about ancient Chinese language and logic. With the premise that China has its own logic, what we need to discuss is that whether China has a systematic study on logic and whether it is persistent.In Chapter Three, Li Zhizao's life story is introduced for his role in pushing the communication of Chinese and Western culture is significant. It is because of his and his companions'relentless effort for years that the Chinese people can get in contact with western culture then.For Chinese Ontology is a whole-part ontology, Chinese people emphasize on the relation between name and existence. In another word, the ancient Chinese thinking which developed from Chinese language is the thinking of common sense and utilitarianism. So there is no systematic study on logic in ancient China except for Muo Jing.In Chapter Four we take a look at the specific content in In Universam Dialecticam Aristotelis and the relation between the two books mentioned above. Why Li Zhizao and Francois Furtado would translate the book and what the Chinese intellectuals think about this translated work? Answers are provided in this section and some mistakes in previous conclusions are pointed out.In Chapter Five we compare the content in the two books and will focus on the questions that were raised up by intellectuals in late Ming Dynasty during the construction of concept and proposition.In Chapter Six the meaning of comparing the two books is discussed both horizontally and vertically. By horizontal we mean between the logic of Indo-European system of languages and that of Sino-Tibetan languages, while by vertical we mean to redress the mistakes and prejudices that have existed for a long time in order to give the readers the truth.