Język, Yin Yang, i sztuka perswazji: słowo o Guiguzi (鬼谷子)

This article introduces an ancient Chinese treatise on the art of persuasion known in the Chinese literary tradition under the title of Guiguzi. The text is deeply rooted in the pre-Qin Daoism and Yin Yang cosmological doctrines that flourished between IV and III century BCE, and as such presents a unique theory of persuasion tightly woven into the Yin Yang conceptual fabric. This article presents the Yin Yang-based concept of language and its cosmo-ontological ramifications as emerging notions in Guiguzi, and illustrates why, according to the text, no one but a true shengren, can master the Guigucian art of persuasion. Thus persuasion as a unique domain of shengren’s activity becomes Dao and constitutes a vital energy that co-creates reality. In addition, care is taken to differentiate a Guigucian shengren from a characteristic Confucian or Daoist shengren as bearing certain traces of remnant shamanism.