Pre-Han philosophical tradition did not address issues for which the concept of truth was central. Classical Chinese philosophy had virtually no metaphysical theory. The theory of language was mainly pragmatic. The semantic doctrines that were developed focused on terms rather than sentences or sententials. The Chinese theory of knowledge was primarily a theory of know-how and was not based on contrast between knowledge and belief. Chinese philosophy of mind treated heart-mind as a cluster of dispositional attitudes to make distinctions and to act upon, not as a repository of cognitive content about the world. Discussions of inference and semantic paradoxes used explicitly pragmatic terms rather than semantic ones. These differences can be partially explained by features of classical Chinese language in which compositional sentencehood is not important or syntactically obvious, and in which the counterparts of propositional attitudes take terms rather than sentences as objects.

Savariraya Pillai (1801–1874), a teacher whose entire life was spent in villages and towns of Tinnevelly District, never learned English. Moreover, in his writing, he never departed from the local Tamil. For this reason, the record of his observations upon social life and public affairs is a priceless source for historical investigation. His diaries and journals which span a period of forty years, can be compared with those of Ananda Ranga Pillai, the astute agent (dubash) of Joseph-François Dupleix, the French governor of Pondicherry whose observations were recorded a full century earlier. Nothing quite like the Pillai source material for the local history of this agrarian society has hitherto been available to scholars. The translation and publication of materials such as those discussed in this article would make a significant contribution to historiography.

Indonesians, like other Southeast Asians, have been extensive users of mild narcotic analgesics throughout history. Until a century ago the most widespread narcotic was the chewed quid of betel, comprising the areca nut, betel leaves, lime, and sundry optional additives. Europeans introduced both tobacco and opium around 1600, and Indonesians quickly took up the growing of tobacco. Initially smoked by a relatively small elite, tobacco became used almost universally as part of the betel chew by the end of the eighteenth century. At the end of the nineteenth century cigarette-smoking for men became associated with the transformation to “modern” attitudes, and it rapidly replaced betel-chewing. Today virtually all Indonesian men smoke and virtually none chew betel. Among women betel-chewing has no such substitute and is disappearing more slowly.

Tobacco has relaxant and sedative effects similar to betel. Whereas the betel ingredients were very cheap, tobacco now consumes about 5 percent of the incomes of Indonesian families, including the poorest. Although betel-chewing provided protection against tooth decay, intestinal parasites, and bacteria, tobacco-smoking is injurious to health in a variety of ways.

Opium smoking has long since disappeared as a social phenomenon in Java. But in the last century, and during the early decades of this one, smoking opium was a widespread custom in much of the island—the daily habit of hundreds of thousands, a routine part of social life among men in many regions, and a source of considerable profit to the Dutch colonial state. This article addresses the subject of opium in Java; it concentrates on the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the historical period during which opium smoking was most widespread in Java and for which the most abundant documentary resources exist.

This article surveys the available English translations of contemporary Chinese literature from the People's Republic. In view of the post-Mao Party policy of relative freedom for creative writing, more works are pouring out of China than ever before. Of the most recent translations, the largest share belongs to Panda Books, a publishing subunit of the Foreign Languages Press in Beijing. Under the leadership of the Yangs (Xianyi and Gladys), a husband-and-wife team of great renown, this new Panda series has published more than a dozen titles as of 1984, and new ones continue to be received.

Despite its voluminous production, the editors of the Panda series have made certain choices that are of dubious value. Especially weak is the representation of traditional literary works, which are often drastically abridged or collected in slender anthologies. In comparison, coverage of modern and contemporary works is more exciting. The translations are generally correct, the most felicitous from the hands of Gladys Yang. However, the translations suffer from a certain uniformity of style and sometimes from severe cuts. Volumes in the series are nevertheless a useful addition to the increasing library of English translations of contemporary Chinese literature, now more than adequate for an undergraduate course.