Intellectual Developments in Greece and China: Contingency, Institutionalization and Path Dependency Intellectual Developments in Greece and China: Contingency, Institutionalization and Path Dependency By Raymond W.K. Lau Intellectual Developments in Greece and China: Contingency, Institutionalization and Path Dependency By Raymond W.K. Lau This book first published 2020 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2020 by Raymond W.K. Lau All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-4703-5 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-4703-2 To my deceased parents; and to Yuk-ying, Miriam, Rose, Aaron and Yeshu CONTENTS List of Figures and Tables .......................................................................... xi Chronology of Greek Thinkers .................................................................. xii Chronology of Chinese Dynasties ............................................................ xiv Chronology of Chinese Thinkers .............................................................. xvi Glossary .................................................................................................. xviii Preface ....................................................................................................... xx Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One ............................................................................................... 16 Theoretical Framework Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 30 The Poverty of Externalist and Essentialist Explanations 2.1 Externalist explanations 2.2 Essentialist explanations Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 49 Contingency, Institutionalization and Path Dependency in the Development of Writing in Greece and China 3.1 The invention of morphographic writing in Sumer and China 3.2 How and why writing subsequently took the phonographic turn in Mesopotamia and the East Mediterranean area 3.3 Why writing in post-Shang China retained its morphographic nature 3.4 Putting our argument to a triple empirical test 3.5 Appendix: Writing systems and their purported effects on abstract, logical thinking viii Contents Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 75 The Synthesis of Contingency and Mysticism in Greece’s Starting-point (I): Greece’s “Reality vs Appearance” Contrast 4.1 Were the Greeks consummately rational beings? 4.2 Parmenides’ thesis of “it is” vs “it is not” 4.3 From Parmenides’ “it is” to Plato’s doctrine of transcendent Forms Chapter Five ............................................................................................ 104 Path Dependency and Ironies of History: Greece’s Argumentative Rigour and the Atomic Theory 5.1 The debate on Parmenides and Greece’s quantum leap in argumentative rigour 5.2 Archê doctrines before the atomic theory 5.3 Reactive path dependency and the atomic theory 5.4 Appendix: Comparing Zeno and Hui Shi, and why there was no atomic theory in China Chapter Six .............................................................................................. 145 Unanticipated Consequences in History: The Starting-point of pre-Qin’s Intellectual Tradition 6.1 Unanticipated consequences in history: The starting-point of pre- Qin’s intellectual tradition 6.2 Natural philosophy from late Western Zhou to the turn of the -5th century Chapter Seven .......................................................................................... 171 Laozi’s Dao and the Concept of the Unobservable 7.1 Laozi the person and the book of Laozi 7.2 Laozi’s Dao and the concept of the unobservable Chapter Eight ........................................................................................... 201 Post-Laozi Natural Philosophy and pre-Qin’s Understanding of the Empirical and the Non-empirical 8.1 The various concepts and doctrines named qi of the Warring States period 8.2 Zhuangzi’s doctrine of qi 8.3 Pre-Qin’s understanding of the empirical and the non-empirical, and its problematization of sense perception Intellectual Developments in Greece and China ix Chapter Nine ............................................................................................ 241 The Revenge of History: The Abrupt Trajectory Reversal of China’s Natural Philosophical Tradition under the Han Dynasty 9.1 Sympathy and correlative thinking 9.2 The revival of mysticism (I): The Huanglao School, the Yin-Yang School, and the Five-Element doctrine 9.3 The revival of mysticism (II): The Commentary on the Book of Changes 9.4 The abrupt trajectory reversal of China’s natural philosophical tradition under the Han Dynasty Chapter Ten ............................................................................................. 277 The Synthesis of Contingency and Mysticism in Greece’s Starting-point (II): Greece’s Mathematical Tradition 10.1 Pythagoras, the early Pythagoreans and their natural philosophy 10.2 Early Pythagorean natural philosophy and the approach to mathematics 10.3 The founding of Greece’s mathematical tradition Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 316 A priori Mystical Notions and ad hoc Modifications: Greece’s Astronomical Model 11.1 Mysticism, the “perfection” of roundness and Greece’s astronomical notions 11.2 Plato’s model and Eudoxus’ model and its ad hoc modifications 11.3 Aristotle’s finite universe of multiple physical crystalline spheres 11.4 Ptolemy’s ad hoc “saving [of] the phenomenon” 11.5 Appendix: Arabic astronomers’ modifications of Ptolemy, Copernicus’ plagiarism, and the Kerala School of India Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 337 China’s Naturalistic Astronomical Modelling and Ironies of History 12.1 The school of hemispherical sky dome 12.2 The Infinite-Universe School 12.3 The geometric model of Chenzi 12.4 The Celestial-Sphere model and its replacement of the Chenzi model 12.5 China’s and Greece’s astronomical modelling and ironies of history x Contents Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 372 Argumentative Rigour in Greece and China, and China’s Trajectory Reversal under the Han Dynasty 13.1 Greece’s marriage of philosophy and mathematics and its effects 13.2 China’s divorce of philosophy and mathematics 13.3 Pre-Qin’s increasing rigour in argument 13.4 Trajectory reversal under the Han Dynasty Concluding Remarks ............................................................................... 400 Appendix ................................................................................................. 409 Is Greece the “childhood” of the “West”? Bibliography ............................................................................................ 432 Index ........................................................................................................ 460 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Table I of the Introduction: The different trajectories of Greece’s and China’s intellectual developments Table 5-1: Greek source of all things/ archê doctrines before the atomic theory Figure 5-1: Reactive path-dependent sequence and the atomic theory Table 9-1: Huanglao’s correlations between direction, season and element Table 9-2: Correlations in Zou Yan’s doctrine Figure 12-1: Cross-section of relative positions in Chenzi’s model Figure 12-2: Plane view of relative positions in Chenzi’s model Figure 12-3: Sunrise, sunset and day-night proportion at winter solstice in Chenzi’s model Figure 12-4: Chenzi’s derivation of the principle of differential shadow lengths CHRONOLOGY OF GREEK THINKERS Dates of thinkers refer to their floruit, all dates are indicative only. The idea of this table comes from Lloyd (1970, n.p.; 1973, n.p.). Thinkers Important events Thales of Miletus, Ionia -585 Anaximander of Miletus, -555 Ionia Anaximenes of Miletus, -535 Ionia Pythagoras of Samos, Ionia -525 to -520 Pythagoras’ migration to Magna -500 Graecia Xenophanes of Colophon, -520 Ionia -510 First political attack on Pythagorean societies -508 Cleisthenes’ reforms in Athens Hippasus reputed to be a younger contemporary of Pythagoras Heraclitus of Ephesus, Ionia -500 Parmenides of Elea, Magna -480 Graecia -478 Delian League formed Socrates born ca. -470 Philolaus born ca. -470 Zeno of Elea, Magna Graecia Fl. of Gorgias of Leontinoi, Sicily these Empedocles of Akragas, four Sicily from Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, -460s Ionia (but migrated to to - Athens) 450s Melissus of Samos, Ionia -440 Leucippus of Miletus, Ionia -435 -431 Peloponnesian War began Hippocrates of Chios, Ionia -430 (but migrated to Athens in - 450) Intellectual Developments in Greece and China xiii Democritus of Abdera, -410 Thrace Theodorus of Cyrene, North -405 Africa -404 End of Peloponnesian War -399 Death of Socrates Philolaus died around the same time Archytas of Tarentum, -385 Magna Graecia Plato of Athens Theaetetus