David S. Nivison

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David S. Nivison (born 1923) is a sinologist in the United States. His Chinese name is Ni Dewei (倪德卫).

[edit] Biography

Nivison received his Ph.D. in Chinese from Harvard University. He was originally a professor of Chinese at Stanford University, and later held a joint appointment at Stanford in three departments: Philosophy, Religious Studies and Chinese and Japanese. He is currently a professor emeritus at Stanford.

In the field of philosophy, his major contribution is the application of the techniques of analytic philosophy to the study of Chinese thought. In Sinology, one of his most important contributions has been the effort to precisely date the founding of the Zhou Dynasty, based on archaeoastronomy. The traditional date was 1122 B.C., but Nivison initially argued that the likely date was 1045, and then later suggested that it was 1040 B.C.

[edit] Major Works

Key to the Chronology of the Three Dynasties: The "Modern Text" Bamboo Annals, Philadelphia: Dept. of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Pennsylvania, 1999. ASIN B0006R6NXK
The Ways of Confucianism: Investigations in Chinese Philosophy. Bryan W. Van Norden, ed. Chicago: Open Court Press, 1997. ISBN 081269340X
Mathematics, Matter and Method. Philosophical Papers, vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. 2nd. ed., 1985.
The Life and Thought of Chang Hsueh-cheng. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966.