- Han Fei Tzu mentions eight schools (Han Fei Tzu, [sect. 50], 1964: 118), Hsün
Tzu mentions 5 major schools of Confucian ju (scholars), although perhaps only
a smaller number survived down into contemporary times (250 b.c.e.) (Knoblock,
1988: 214–220, 224–229). - Mo Ti himself led 180 soldiers. All the Mohists in the state of Ch’u—a total of
83—were wiped out in a siege in 381 b.c.e. (Fung, 1952–53: 1:82). By 280 the
major armies were perhaps on the order of 100,000 men (Knoblock, 1988: 8);
Eberhard (1977: 49), however, suggests only around 10,000. - A parallel development occurred in Europe during the 1600s: the international
network of diplomats, religious emissaries, and soldiers of fortune became for
several generations the base of the new intellectual community which formed
outside traditional positions in the church (see Chapter 10). - This collection of intellectuals also produced what was becoming the prestige
intellectual product: an encyclopedia of knowledge under the standard title, Spring
and Autumn Annals (in this case) of Master Lü (the prime minister). Spring and
Autumn Annals was the title of a Confucian text, attributed to Confucius himself. - There remained for a while groups such as the augurs in Rome, but even in this
religiously conservative city-state the college of pontifices was monopolized by
politicians (OCCL, 1937: 65, 342; Rawson, 1985). There were some hereditary
priests in Greece as late as 500 b.c.e. who played an occasional role in philosophy;
Heraclitus came from such a priestly family in the cult center of Ephesus, and his
imprecations upon the new secular philosophers were probably related to their
professional challenge. There are also shamanistic aspects to figures such as Em-
pedocles and Heraclides Ponticus and in the medical cult of the Asclepiades. But
even they were not especially concerned to restore the ancient rites, which would
have seemed outside the realm of political possibility. - Plato is the principal exception here. Of all the Greek philosophers, he is closest
to the Chinese pattern of centering his analysis on political projects, and in the
Laws he proposes an ideal state centered on a compulsory but non-traditional cult.
But this political interest was confined to Plato’s own lifetime; the Academy, in
both its phases of astral religion and skepticism, quickly fell back into the main-
stream pattern of Greek intellectuals in focusing on the inner lives of individuals.
If there is a tradition of “Western individualism,” it originated in the autonomy
of political struggle from religious legitimation. - In the absence of Hui Shih’s own texts and with minimal survivals of Kung-sun
Lung’s, there have been widely divergent interpretations of their positions. Fung
Yu-lan (1952–53: 192–220) regards Hui Shih’s as a metaphysics of particulars in
ceaseless change, Kung-sun Lung’s as a realism of universals. Graham (1989:
82–83) argues that all philosophers of this period took nominalism for granted,
and interprets the paradoxes as explorations of part-whole relations. Farther afield,
Reding (1985) suggests that Hui Shih’s statements derive from political arguments.
The most extreme position is that of Hansen (1983), that classical Chinese lan-
guage lacks abstractions and thus constrains thought into channels totally different
from those of the West. This linguistic determinism is rejected by Schwartz (1985:
12, 165, 168) and moderated by Graham (1989: 389–428).
Notes to Pages 140–149^ •^959