around 1 c.e. (Fung, 1952–53: 2:133–167). But Wang Ch’ung lacks an impor-
tant contemporary rival on the occultist side. Here we encounter a seeming
exception to the pattern of contemporary rival creativity.
Among the Greeks, the apparent exceptions are as follows:
Major Year SecondaryCarneades (^180) b.c.e.
(^120) c.e. Calvenus Taurus
220 Origen
Plotinus 250 Mani
Porphyry 280
Proclus 450
Once again I do not count mismatches based only on small differences in
ranking or timing. Pythagoras and Plato, although having no contemporaries
in their maturity to match their truly eminent stature, nevertheless have quite
a bevy of rivals. Not only is Plato the most eminent of the Greeks, but also he
lived in the generation richest in new developments, matched against six
philosophers listed as secondary in Figure 3.4. Arcesilaus and Chrysippus both
overlapped in time and personally debated; Carneades, the great Academic
Skeptic, comes close on Chrysippus’ heels. What we have here is a succession
of overlapping generations, the Academic and Stoic schools, counterpunching
at a pace of about thirty years. Carneades himself recognized this: “If there
were no Chrysippus, there would be no me” (Tarrant, 1985: 127).
Plotinus seems a mismatch against Gnostic Mani, a secondary figure for
philosophy, and Porphyry in the next generation lacks important rivals. But
the parallel is closer when we realize that Mani is founder of the Manichaean
heresy, which was to receive great philosophical attention within Christianity
just as Plotinus was founding a religious version of Platonism that was to
become the philosophical rallying point for pagans in their struggle against
Christianity. Moreover, Origen, Plotinus, and Porphyry overlap and take off
on one another’s turf, and Porphyry turns up the anti-Christian note into an
explicit polemic, for the first time in the Neoplatonist tradition. The close
personal contact among these builders of rival positions confirms their mutual
orientation to a common division in the field. Augustine is contemporary in
the west with the great Church Fathers of the east, Gregory of Nyssa and
Gregory Nazianzen, although Augustine’s work in philosophy lacks the rival
counterpart it has in theology. Proclus still eludes the structural generalization:
a major figure without significant rivals or contemporaries. Although he is
connected to all the important chains of adjacent generations, these include
only minor figures in terms of long-run importance.
It is worth briefly comparing the lists of horizontal isolates from contem-
The Clustering of Contemporaneous Creativity^ •^885