Frontmatter -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: Egyptian Hieroglyphic and Chinese Characters -- Chapter One: Platonism and the Strong Theory -- Chapter Two: Aristotelianism and Soft Theory -- Chapter Three: Hellenized Egypt, Pythagoreanism, and the Primitivist Theory -- Chapter Four: Patristic Apologetics and the Scriptural Theory -- Chapter Five: Neoplatonism and the Hermetic Theory -- Chapter Six: Universals and the Scholastic Theory -- Chapter Seven: Renaissance Neoplatonism and the Emblematic Theory -- Chapter Eight: Athanasius Kircher on Egyptian and Chinese Ideography -- Chapter Nine: The Great Chinese Encyclopedia -- Chapter Ten: Zhengming 正名"Making Words Correct" and Chinese Language Theory -- Chapter Eleven: Chinese Language Theory and the Interpretation of the Classics -- Chapter Twelve: The Erya and Lexicographic Classification -- Chapter Thirteen: The Erya and Chinese Language Theory -- Chapter Fourteen: The Shuowen jiezi and Chinese Language Theory -- Chapter Fifteen: The "Shuowen Postface" (Annotated Translation) -- Conclusion: Ideography and Chinese Language Theory -- Appendix: The Metalinguistic Terms Ming 名,Yi 義,Yi 意, and Zhi 志 -- Bibliography