The Chinese, too, had their hot spots. The 4 generations of the late Warring
States period from 365 to 235 b.c.e. contain 5 major and 9 secondary phi-
losophers, including Mencius, Hui Shih, Chuang Tzu, Kung-sun Lung, Tsou
Yen, and Hsün Tzu. These are the most influential and sophisticated of the
ancient philosophers. Moreover, this period contains two anonymous works
whose authors rank at the top of philosophical creativity: the Tao Te Ching,
attributed anachronistically to the (probably) mythical Lao Tzu; and the Mo-
hist Canons, the high point of rationalist logic in all of Chinese history. These
give us high creative densities of 2.33 major and 2.67 secondary figures per
generation. The other concentrated period of philosophical creativity is in the
Sung dynasty, especially the 3 generations of the Neo-Confucian movement
from 1035 to 1165 c.e., and again from 1167 to 1200, which gives an average
of 2.33 major and 1.33 secondary figures per generation.^3 The high-density
periods of Chinese philosophy are about the same as those of Greece; the
Greeks merely have more of them.^4Who Will Be Remembered?
We might regard the preceding exercise as based on nothing but subjective
estimates of creative worth, arbitrarily imposing a historically situated stand-
ard that shifts from one epoch to another. Such issues are not to be passed
by lightly with a show of numbers, since every measurement rests on the
meaning of what is measured. In framing the topic, issues of method are issues
of theory.
Canons are historically situated; but let us grasp the full implications. We
cannot invoke as a foil a reservoir of “deserving” but unknown thinkers in the
shadows throughout history, just as “creative” as the ones whose names were
trumpeted, as if there were some trans-historical realm in which their achieve-
ment is measured. Ideas are creative because they hold the interest of other
people. The very concept of creativity implies the judgment of one generation
upon another. Shall we say that we are studying not creativity but reputation?
The distinction arises from our tendency to heroize, to reify the individual
apart from the context. Although it seems to violate our sense that causes ought
to be antecedent to what we are explaining, the “creativity” of a particular
philosopher is not established until several generations have passed, because it
literally is a matter of how sharp a focus that individual’s ideas become in the
long-term structure of the networks which transmit ideas.
My sociological criterion for creativity is the distance across generations
that ideas are transmitted. I have ranked philosophers in China and Greece
according to how many pages of discussion they receive in various histories of
philosophy. My ratings are based on composites of ratings from all sources.^5
58 • (^) The Skeleton of Theory