The Sociology of Philosophies

(Wang) #1

sophical mysticism, rather, was created by just this effort to forge a position
uniting and transcending a host of philosophical and political schools.
The “hundred schools” were winnowing down. In addition to the Mohist
and the Tao Te syntheses, two other important synthesizers were the natural-
istic Confucianism of Hsün Tzu and the Yin-Yang/Five Agents doctrine of Tsou
Yen. Hsün Tzu was another systematizer, in some ways reminiscent of the style
of the Mohist summists, whom he probably contacted on his sojourns in Ch’u.
His school at Lanling was the center of the networks at the end of the Warring
States. With his multiple contacts throughout the factions of the intellectual
world (see Figure 4.2), Hsün Tzu was in good position to be a synthesizer. He
coordinated concepts and laid out the relation among fields of knowledge in
a fashion parallel to that other synthesizer, Aristotle. Hsün Tzu occupied the
middle of the field, maintaining naturalism but without the radicalism of the
Mohists; his followers were above all ju, epitomizing the archetypal Confucian
role of preserving the classical texts and defending the ancient rites.
The most successful faction in gathering external sponsorship was the
Yin-Yang school. It too was a syncretism of the period around 265 b.c.e. Tsou
Yen combined two different divination schemes, which apparently went back
to the previous century: the ebb and flow of yin (dark, female, passive) and
yang (light, masculine, active) with a cycle of five basic elements or processes
(water, fire, wood, metal, earth). This seems reminiscent of pre-Socratic cos-
mologies, especially of Empedocles;^10 but in this case Tsou Yen was less
oriented toward displaying a naturalistic cosmology, and more concerned to
demonstrate an immediate appeal by using his device for political prediction.
He produced an encyclopedic ordering of natural phenomena—rivers, moun-
tains, plains, celestial bodies—progressing through the cycle of the elements.
Human events were also cyclical, and hence the rise of fall of dynasties could
be predicted. Tsou Yen made a great splash in the court debates, embarrass-
ing Kung-sun Lung at P’ing-yuan, and motivating Hsün Tzu to leave Ch’i
(Knoblock, 1988: 11, 63). In sheer longevity of his ideas, Tsou Yen is one of
the most influential figures in Chinese history.
In the lineup of rival positions, the chief political philosophies up to this
time were polarized between the Confucians, who claimed that traditionally
correct ritual would restore social order; and the Mohists, who advocated a
virtuous military activism based on universal altruism. The intellectual di-
lemma was that the Confucians were political ultra-conservatives advocating
a long-lapsed dynasty, while their religious stance (anchored against the Mo-
hists) was detached and instrumental. The Mohists in turn were politically
utopian radicals, but religious conservatives with their belief in benevolent and
avenging spirits. Tsou Yen reshuffled the ingredients with a religious doc-
trine justifying political change—indeed, precisely the opportunistic changes


152 •^ Intellectual Communities: Asian Paths

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