Mencius (385-303/302 BCE) and Aristotle (384-322 BCE) were contemporaries, but are often understood to represent opposite ends of the philosophical spectrum. Mencius is associated with the ecological, emergent, flowing, and connected; Artistotle with the rational, static, abstract, and binary. Douglas Robinson argues that in their conceptions of rhetoric, at least, Mencius and Aristotle are much more similar than different: both are powerfully socio-ecological, espousing and exploring collectivist thinking about the circulation of energy and social value through groups. The agent performing the actions of pistis, "persuading-and-being-persuaded," in Aristotle and zhi, "governing-and-being-governed," in Mencius is, Robinson demonstrates, not so much the rhetor as an individual as it is the whole group. Robinson tracks this collectivistic thinking through a series of comparative considerations using a theory that draws impetus from Arne Naess's "ecosophical" deep ecology and from work on rhetoric powered by affective ecologies, but with details of the theory drawn equally from Mencius and Aristotle.
| ISBN: | 9781438461069 |
| Publication date: | 2nd January 2017 |
| Author: | Douglas Robinson |
| Publisher: | SUNY Press an imprint of State University of New York Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 337 pages |
| Series: | SUNY Series in Chinese Philosophy and Culture |
| Genres: |
Social and political philosophy Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy East Asian and Indian philosophy |