With fourteen individual contributions, a substantial "Theme Introduction," and numerous postscripts and "Engaging Remarks," this is a sprawling text that, by dint of its sheer volume, will interest a diverse readership engaged in problems of language in Chinese philosophy. The explicitly stated methodological objectives of the editor, Bo Mou, function as the guiding thread, stitching together all the various explorations in this volume under a common rubric that he designates the "constructive-engagement strategy." Mou inaugurates the proceedings by marking a sharp (...) distinction between phonetic and ideographic languages, and, drawing our attention to the preponderance of philosophical investigations into the former... (shrink)