In this essay, I challenge the use of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) in the premodern Chinese setting. The dominant, implicit assumption in the literature is that conclusions reached by CMT on the ways in which cognition operates can be applied in toto and without qualification onto the makers of classical Chinese texts. I want to challenge this assumption and argue that textual evidence from premodern Chinese points to a different cognitive process. Differences in the use and conceptualization of image-based thinking as well as differences in the understanding of the relationship between words, images, and the world reveal a different cognitive process. However, I do not wish to argue for a total abandonment of the insights of CMT. Rather, I call for the need to properly qualify its findings in light of premodern Chinese use and conceptions of image-based language.

In this paper, I explore the connections between meta-ontological and metaphilosophical issues in two of Nāgārjuna's primary works, the Mūlamadhyamakārikā and the Vigrahavyāvartanī. I argue for an interpretative framework that places Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka as a meta-and ultimately non-philosophical evaluation of philosophy. The paper's primary argument is that an interpretative framework which makes explicit the meta-ontological and meta-philosophical links in Nāgārjuna's thought is both viable and informative. Following Nāgārjuna, I start my analysis by looking at the positions that exist within the ontological debate and show that the Mādhyamika should be understood as an ontological deflationist who aims to discredit ontological questions altogether. I argue, however, that the Mādhyamika does not wish to engage in meta-ontological debates either and that Nāgārjuna's ontological deflationist arguments necessarily lead to a position of philosophical deflationism: the rejection of all philosophical and meta-philosophical debates. Further on, I provide a sketch of denegation, the language operator in Madhyamaka that allows Nāgārjuna to make seemingly philosophical claims while not having the commitments that traditional philosophical claims do. I conclude with a defense of my interpretation of Madhyamaka as weak philosophical deflationism compared to other deflationist construals, an explicit discussion of the ways in which my understanding differs from contemporary western interpretations that prima facie resemble weak philosophical deflationism, and an identification of weak philosophical deflationism with dequitism, a variant of quetism.

Collecting and hoarding are distinguished by order. An agglomeration of objects is defined by chaos while a collection comes into being through its organization. The largest collection of texts undertaken in Chinese dynastic history, the Complete Writings of the Four Repositories (Siku quanshu 四庫全書), is the high point of late imperial compilation projects (congshu 叢書). While much scholarship has been devoted to explaining the criteria of inclusion, the question of order remains largely unexplored. In this article, I investigate the link between the collection of knowledge and its organization in the high Qing. Specifically, I explore the poetic understanding of knowledge, the intellectual, non-political purposes behind the collection and its fundamental principle of order. I end this essay offering some remarks on the nature of the Complete Writings, high Qing scholarship, and contemporary attitudes towards classification.

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