The Sociology of Philosophies

(Wang) #1

who founded the T’ang dynasty. His contemporaries were very impressed:
“Since the time of Confucius there has been nobody like him... He perpe-
trated the Odes and the History, rectified the Rites and music, compiled the
First Classic [i.e., chronicle of 289–589 c.e., in imitation of Confucius’ Spring
and Autumn Annals] and extolled the teaching in the Changes. With him, the
great principles of the sages and all things that can be done in the world, have
been brought to completion” (quoted in Fung, 1948: 2:407). Yet the modern
historian Fung Yu-lan calls him a minor figure who produced unremarkable
editions of the classics. Some of the other modern historians mention him (e.g.,
Needham, 1956: 452), others neglect him; his fame was ephemeral and without
historical impact. There are hundreds more like him, in every part of the world:
long lines of Stoic, Epicurean, Academic teachers—Diogenes of Babylon, Cli-
tomachus, Apollodorus “the Tyrant of the Garden,” and many others—whose
names are not of much interest even to specialists. But these men wrote
numerous books, packed lecture halls, were sent as ambassadors by their cities.
The most eminent academics of today are cast in their mold.
Some persons get a minor level of attention in our histories, not so much
because of their own fame but because they were associates of more important
people, or happened to figure in some curious or noteworthy historical event.
We know of associates of Confucius or Mencius who appear only as interlocu-
tors in their dialogues, of bystanders in the Zen histories, of Philostratus (172
in Figure 3.5) who happens to have been a teacher of Cleopatra. On the China
chart, the incidental figure (311 in Figure 6.4) above the Ch’eng brothers,
connecting them to the preceding philosophers Chang Tsai and Chou Tun-I,
is Ch’eng Hsiang, the father of these key Neo-Confucians. I preserve such
figures in the charts because they sometimes have this facilitating effect; at
times without them crucial linkages would not be made.^9
Such figures give us a sense of the routine parts of the intellectual world,
the minor leagues and sub-minor leagues on which major centers of network
attention occasionally peak. If we like, we can push further. More specialized
historians magnify the milieu with which they deal, and bring other minor or
sub-minor figures into view. Li T’ung-hsuan (232 in Figure 6.2) is not even
mentioned in the main histories of Chinese or Buddhist philosophy, but gets
considerable space in Odin (1982) on Hua-yen philosophy. The magnifying
glass, where available, sometimes shows us intellectuals possessing consider-
able skill in rearranging, systematizing, and popularizing a position; but it
confirms our picture that creativity is rare. Such glimpses are useful, too, in
understanding the barren periods on our chart. Is it just our unsympathetic
bias that makes the Yuan and early Ming dynasties (1300–1450 c.e.) look so
devoid of philosophy? No, the records are there; some figures can be dragged
into the light (see, e.g., Dardess, 1983: 131–181, who shows us some Con-


Networks across the Generations • 63
Free download pdf