The inconsistencies in Wang Chong’s Lunheng eliminated in the light of analogical reasoning

Abstract

ABSTRACT To have a coherent picture of Wang Chong’s Lunheng is difficult. Some of Lunheng’s chapters obviously show Wang’s hostility to a large part of the folklore (including the social institutions based on it) and traditional philosophical texts. In some other chapters, however, Wang appears to be more sympathetic to the social institutions related to folk religious beliefs. Esther Sunkyung Klein & Colin Klein attempt to explain this prima facie inconsistency in terms of ‘piecemeal non-reductionism’, which roughly means that Wang would take any testimonial belief for granted until he can find a defeater of such a belief. But this explanation merely depicts Wang as a defeater-seeker rather than a thinker looking for philosophical grounds of his claims in a more positive manner. In contrast, in this paper, I intend to attribute the following epistemological thesis to Wang: A testimonial belief taken from classics or folklore will be judged as unjustified if the knowledge attributor finds a non-negligible defeater of it, and such an attributor would feel more sympathetic to the target belief if it can be at least prima facie justified in the light of analogical reasoning.