The Sociology of Philosophies

(Wang) #1

historians. Nevertheless, I will not pursue “schools” of this sort. Transmission
of intellectual influence certainly occurs, but it is not an explanation, in the
sense of showing why, out of all the persons who could read or hear of an
idea, a certain few become important by shaping their cultural capital in new
directions. Left to itself, the tracing of “influences” implies an infinite regress,
in which every thinker’s ideas can always be traced back to yet another
preceding influence. The channel that carries the energies of intellectual crea-
tivity is more than ideas floating in an atmosphere of influence, even if we can
pin down such influence to the presence of a certain text in the personal library
of a certain thinker; the central channel is the personal contact of face-to-face
encounters. I will demonstrate the paramount importance of two further kinds
of “schools” or “circles.”
One of these involves chains of personal relationships, of which the most
important are relationships between teachers and their pupils; besides these
vertical ties are horizontal links of personal contacts among contemporaries.
Finally, a “school” can be literally an organization: a place where teaching
takes place and authority and property are passed down through an explicit
succession, as in the Platonic Academy, the Aristotelean Lyceum, or Chu Hsi’s
Neo-Confucian White Deer Hollow Academy. Here the doctrine is part of the
organizational property and an emblem of its social identity.
Figures 2.1 and 2.2, as well as most of the other network figures in this
book, illustrate the third type—chains of personal relationships. It is easy to
recognize on these charts the fourth type as well—formally organized schools.^11
What, then, do the Chinese and Greek network charts show? The first thing
which should strike us is the extent to which the named figures, especially the
major ones (printed in all capitals) are linked to other philosophers. These links
are both vertical (master-pupil chains across the generations) and horizontal
(links of acquaintanceship among contemporaries). For the important figures,
these links are at all levels of eminence; the bigger stars are connected to more
major and secondary figures than anyone else is, but to more minor figures as
well.^12
The most notable philosophers are not organizational isolates but members
of chains of teachers and students who are themselves known philosophers,
and/or of circles of significant contemporary intellectuals. The most notable
philosophers are likely to be students of other highly notable philosophers. In
addition to this vertical organization of social networks across generations,
creative intellectuals tend to belong to groups of intellectual peers, both circles
of allies and sometimes also of rivals and debaters.
For Greece, I have divided philosophers into dominant, major, secondary,
and minor figures. Network links are calculated both backward (to predeces-
sors and associates) and forward (to pupils).^13 Calling these the “upstream”
and “downstream” sides of the networks, we find:


Networks across the Generations • 65
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