Edward Slingerland’s essay “Metaphor and Meaning in Early China” published in Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 10: 1–30 wins the 2011 Dao Annual Best Essay Award.
The official citation can be found at http://www.kutztown.edu/academics/liberal_arts/philosophy/Dao/daowhatisnew.htm and reads as follows:
“This is a ground-breaking essay. Slingerland debunks a fairly common assumption that Chinese way of thinking is metaphoric, while the Western way of thinking is logical, an assumption shared by both earlier Orientalists, who claimed the superiority of the Occidental, and more recent “reverse Orientialists,” who claim the superiority of the Oriental. In contrast, using his expertise in contemporary cognitive sciences, Slingerland argues convincingly that metaphor is a universal and fundamental feature of human cognition. What makes the Chinese way of thinking unique is thus not that it is metaphoric but that early Chinese thinkers were more self-aware of the metaphoric nature of language, while modern Western thinkers are more self-deluded about what they are doing. The essay as a whole is thus original in its interdisciplinary, comparative, and philosophical natures. It is the type of work that Dao aims to promote.”
