The Sociology of Philosophies

(Wang) #1

The reader is free to reassign the boundaries between the ranks and reanalyze;
I doubt this would materially change our picture of the structural patterns in
the networks.
The sources closest to the ancient philosophers were also attempting to
make historical judgments as to what ideas were influential, and what ideas
were worth remembering or combatting. Modern histories of Chinese philoso-
phy rely ultimately on ancient sources such as the early historian Ssu-ma T’an
(ca. 120 b.c.e.) and the criticism of schools in contemporary memory by
Mencius, Hsün Tzu, Han Fei Tzu, and the Chuang Tzu. The modern histories,
like their predecessors, often quote entire passages from these ancient sources,
building on the amount of attention that earlier philosophers received from
others closer in time. We cannot jump outside of history. But this is not a
limitation on what we can understand of intellectual creativity; it is the nature
of the beast. Intellectual greatness is precisely one’s effect on the course of
intellectual history, influencing generations downstream from one’s own.
In my rankings, greatness is based on the degree to which a philosopher
remains of interest to other thinkers across long periods of time. Canons do
change, but only among those figures who have entered into the long-term
chain of reputation in the first place. The first threshold is reputation that
carries down beyond one or two generations. For this reason, the level of
structural creativity is not easy to discern among one’s own contemporaries.
Plato in his own lifetime was no better known—and perhaps less so—than
other offshoots of Socrates’ circle such as Aristippus, founder of the Cyrenaic
school, or Antisthenes, who pioneered the social iconoclasm that later became
Cynicism. Aristotle made more of a stir in his own day; it is said that when
he returned to Athens in triumph upon the victory of his patron Alexander the
Great, he wore a gold crown and rings and was carried in a throne-like chair.
Yet Aristotle had to flee for his life when Alexander died in 323 (Grayeff, 1974:
44–45). His philosophical doctrines, balanced carefully between materialism
and the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, were propagated in pure form for only two
generations, and for the next hundred years his school gave out under his name
a much more materialist doctrine consisting largely of empirical science. There
were more ups and downs to come. After the rediscovery of Aristotle’s origi-
nal texts and their propagation during the rearrangement of all the philosophi-
cal factions around 80–50 b.c.e., Aristotle’s fame rose to moderate levels for
some 600 years; yet his doctrines typically circulated in a syncretistic form
under the dominance of Platonism. It was only in medieval Islam and Chris-
tendom that Aristotle became the master in his own right, “The Philosopher”
tout court, reaching the height of reputation in the generations from 1235 to
1300 c.e. Again in the 1500s Aristotle’s reputation was touted by one faction
of the Humanists, enhancing his reputation yet again because he became the


Networks across the Generations • 59
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