creative aspects of idea imports, in the usual context of multi-sided intellectual
conflict which drives creativity everywhere. The viewpoint will give us an
unexpected bonus: we will see that not only importing but also exporting ideas
to an eager recipient can stimulate its own form of creativity.Philosophy within a Religious Context
What difference does it make when intellectual communities arise as offshoots
of religious organization? One might suppose that this circumstance affects
only arbitrary aspects of the context of thought. Once an intellectual network
becomes organized, it generates its own problems and standards. Intellectuals
competitively appropriate whatever cultural capital exists, and will produce
contrasting positions by the dynamics of creation through opposition. The
QurÁan, the Bible, the Vedic hymns, the sayings of the Buddha are so many
starting points which become increasingly overlaid by the accumulated de-
bates of generations of intellectuals. Abstract issues of metaphysics and logic
emerge and become autonomous questions in their own right: religion spawns
philosophy.
Religious doctrines are put forward as charismatic revelation or as inalter-
able tradition; they are to be learned, recited, and put into practice as guides
for ritual or for living. They are not, on the face of it, subjects for discussion
and intellectual development. There is a limited exception in the period when
a religion first assembles its written canon, for example, the period ca. 150–200
c.e. (Aland and Aland, 1987) when the Christian Gospels, letters of Saint Paul,
and a few other texts of the founding generations were accepted as holy
scripture while other candidate texts were excluded, along with rival organi-
zations (such as the Gnostic circles) which carried them. Similarly in Islam, the
generations after the death of Muhammad were devoted to the redaction of
Muhammad’s revelations (the QurÁan, ca. 632–656) and to compiling (which
went on into the mid-800s) hadith, the recollections of the Prophet’s compan-
ions used as alternate sources of legal tradition (Watt, 1985: 57; Lapidus, 1988:
103–104). Beyond this point the canon is closed, and the activities of the
scholars should now be reduced to a simple transmission of the received word.
The extent to which this closure happens is a sociological phenomenon in
its own right. Quasi-canonical literature may continue to grow, if the religion
lacks an authority which monopolizes the definition of the holy texts. Buddhist
sutras claiming the status of charismatic revelations and bolstered by allega-
tions of antiquity continued to appear for many centuries, from 400 b.c.e.
down to 300 c.e. and later (Conze, 1962: 200). The Hindu world was ex-
tremely decentralized after the breakdown of the old Vedic priest guilds;
scriptural status could be claimed not only for later commentaries and super-
388 •^ Intellectual Communities: Western Paths