kings competed over possession of great libraries, first at Alexandria (soon after(^300) b.c.e.), at Pergamum (190 b.c.e.) and Rhodes (100 b.c.e.), and thereafter in
the houses of wealthy Romans (OCCL, 1937: 64; Rawson, 1985: 39–42). In China
there is mention of bookshops in the Han capital Loyang ca. 50 c.e., which
provided the impoverished young Wang Ch’ung his learning (CHC, 1986: 1:633–
64). Imperial libraries existed from the first unified dynasty, the Ch’in, onwards.
- The prevalence of personal ties among creative intellectuals is documented in many
other modern fields besides philosophy (Griffith and Mullins, 1972; Crane, 1972).
Zuckerman (1967) shows that Nobel Prize–winning scientists are most likely to
have been trained in the laboratories of previous Nobel Prize winners. - Later in the book I will occasionally zoom in on individuals whom we know a
great deal about, attempting to show how their trajectory through micro-socio-
logical networks shaped their personality, (e.g., Peirce, in Chapter 12; Wittgenstein
in Chapter 13; Sartre in Chapter 14). At least two of the three, I dare say, might
well have admitted the validity of this kind of analysis. - Detailed analysis, including the pattern of apparent exceptions to this general rule,
is given in Appendix 1. - These figures can hardly be taken as exact. For reasons discussed in Chapter 12,
our ability to judge the long-term reputations of intellectuals becomes less reliable
as we near our own generation; totals after 1835 are probably inflated, and after
1900 are surely unrealistic. On the one hand, the Japanese network may overstate
the number of secondary figures by including some who are publicized only in
histories of Zen Buddhism; on the other hand, the total of minor figures could be
expanded by including more from Buddhist sources. For India, the number of
important thinkers is no doubt understated owing to the large amount of creativity
before 400 c.e. which took the form of anonymous or pseudonymous religious
texts. In general, information on which the Indian network was based is sparser,
and dating more conjectural, than for the other world networks. The world total
is also incomplete insofar as several of the networks are truncated, justified by the
lesser influence of philosophers of recent centuries; for example, I have traced the
Chinese network only through 1565 c.e. In my view the most important omissions
are the networks of Buddhist philosophers in Tibet and Korea (although some of
the founders of the Tibetan lineages are found in the Indian network in the key to
Figures 5.4 and 5.5).
3. Ancient Greece
- We thus see why, as Holton ([1973] 1988) documents, the themata of intellectual
discourse usually come in opposing pairs or trios. Holton lists a large number of
opposing themata from the history of scientific theories. The fact that Holton’s list
of oppositions is much larger than the three to six positions specified in the law
of small numbers implies that what is constant is not a set of deep-rooted cognitive
schemata repeating throughout history but rather the structural condition of split-
ting.
954 •^ Notes to Pages 73–81