Puett, MichaelWu, Shan2025-11-2020252025-09-052025Wu, Shan. 2025. Scaling and Ruling: The Measuring Passion in Ancient China. Doctoral Dissertation, Harvard University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.32239544https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/42720747The changing understanding of truth and information in the history of ancient technology invite the search for new and justifiable ways of measure. Part I In Chapter 1 I offer an overview of the problems of past and current scholarship, laying the ground for introducing a new concept techno-onto-poiesis, foregrounding the prevailing, manifest importance of the technical ingenuity and process upon the end-product itself, in comparison to teleologically determined technopraxis largely governing today’s technological production. In Chapter 2 I argue that the approach via ontological poiesis and “movements” in action is the most successful to studying the specificities of ancient Chinese measurement (arithmetic and non-arithmetic) in transmitted and excavated literature and technical practice. Part II. In Chapter 3 I use this analysis to set up a new narrative based on the standards which any complex and more elusive ways of “measure” must meet if they were to be considered by this method. In Chapter 4 I apply this method respectively to a dual system of cosmological measurement that eventually gave rise to the formal yin-lü-shu-liang-du in Imperial period. Part III. Chapter 5 is comprised of a series of case studies of ancient techniques (woodworking, handcrafting, and handling), developing a theory of somaesthetics of technics that serve as new tools for further analysis for the survival of poiesis. Chapter 6 is a study of early Chinese texts and practice, specifically those linked to the Han period shu (“number”) or xiangshu (“pattern/image and number”) manner of interpreting the divination methods in the Book of Changes [henceforth Yishu]), and their material expression in standardized measuring vessels.application/pdfenAestheticsHistory of technologyMeasurementtechniquesRegional studiesThesis or Dissertation2025-11-200000-0001-5445-0945