Book review: An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy

Having dissed the Greeks, it's time for the Chinese. I assure you that this is a coincidence. But what isn't a matter of chance is the illustrations used on the covers of the books: here, the Chinese one is a restful well-ordered garden such as a Zen Buddhist might contemplate within. Whereas the Greek one is of a science-y, analytic nature. That's kinda the overall distinction I had coming into this book, and I didn't lose it in the course of my reading.

Of itself it says: This second edition of An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy presents a comprehensive introduction to key ideas and arguments in early Chinese philosophy. Written in clear, accessible language, it explores philosophical traditions including Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, Legalism and Chinese Buddhism, and how they have shaped Chinese thought. Drawing on the key classical texts as well as up-to-date scholarship, the discussions range across ethics, metaphysics and epistemology, while also bringing out distinctive elements in Chinese philosophy that fall between the gaps in these disciplinary divisions, hence challenging some prevailing assumptions of Western philosophy. Topics include human nature, selfhood and agency; emotions and behaviour; the place of language in the world; knowledge and action; and social and political responsibility. This second edition incorporates new ideas and approaches from some recently excavated texts that change the landscape of Chinese intellectual history.

I don't think the book managed to impart to my somewhat careless reading much of value of their philosophy, so consider this a rather shallow review, of the book and of the ideas it covers, but that very shallowness is also a judgement. There's a lot of "correlative" stuff: "as above, so below" which is of course drivel, at least if the "above" is the heavens; though the book is far too polite to say so. Perhaps "above" could be interpreted as the character of the rulers, and so we learn by analogy the idea of having virtuous rule? It is a bit like that all the way through: you can make your own interpretations.

Similarly, towards the end and so fresh in my mind, there's the Book of Changes. Literally, this is divination and therefore drivel, but the book is far too polite to say so. Metaphorically, it is a set of ideas and images that can be applied to various situations, an idea which the book likes. But sometimes those images don't chime with modern life: the proper place for the woman is inside the family, the proper place for the man is outside. How should we interpret this? Perhaps those were just ideas for their times, and we treat it as illustrating historical sociology but of no great philosophical import. Or perhaps it was timeless wisdom, and we're wrong (naturally I take for granted the classical-liberal "treat people as individuals, not members of tribes or sex"). Or perhaps it is telling us that a "family unit" is better if nurtured from within by one, who we can label for these purposes "woman", and represented to the outside by someone labelled "man". That's not an interpretation the antients would have liked; the book has no discussion of this, effectively it just says "oh dear".

Most of it seems to be "how to rule", but in a way distinctly different to the approach the Greeks would use. No-one attempts to collate different constitutions and study them; no-one tries to start from first principles and design a constitution however ineptly; instead, if there is a theme, it is to have virtuous rulers.

The last chapter is on Chinese Buddhism, of interest to me because my wife is Buddhist. And it helpfully describes the waves of ideas coming over from India, and then fermenting in place. For my lack of sympathy with Buddhism, see-also This Being That Becomes and Living With Awareness.

Book review: Greek Science

I happened to pick up a copy of Greek Science by Benjamin Farrington - well, time hangs heavy on retired hands, as Kipling warned us. The book is not new - part one was published in 1944, part two in 1949 - so is missing any more modern scholarship; perhaps also importantly BF was a professor of classics and in some respects seems uncomfortable with the actual science. Time and again he veers off into philosophy. Perhaps this is unavoidable; so much of the antient Greek stuff is actually that, and it is what they are really famous for, but nonetheless he lets himself get distracted at the expense of actually talking about science.

To get my headline thought out of the way early: it becomes ever clearer to me that, using the - correct - paradigm that science is characterised by conjectures and refutations, the antient Greeks were fertile in their conjectures but never really knuckled down to the hard work of refutations. And I can't resist adding that any old fool can come up with fairy stories. I'll also stick to my previous idea that none of this actually mattered to them, and it is unlikely that you will knuckle down to hard work about things that don't really matter.

BF himself evolves the idea that their problem was their slave society: since no self-respecting freeman ever did any manual work, they were a bit stuck for observing the proscessing of metal in forges, or even tinkering around. BF is a Marxist, though, so I'm suspicious of his sociology.

They had also fairly early on realised that, in a philosophical sense, it was difficult to see how you can acquire certain true knowledge as opposed to mere informed opinion about the world, from observation; and took the fork of retreating into the world of Ideals and Forms in search of Truth, which of course failed; but again, left them disinclined to spend much effort looking at the world.

But what, I hear you ask, of the actual science? This was most of my reason for picking up the book and I was disappointed by the thinness. We get, of course, Euclid; but that is maths, not science; BF gives no hint that he understands the difference. At one point he tells me that Archimedes invented the Archimedian screw, which does not fill me with confidence; and that no-one knows how it works; ditto. There is some geography, and some medicine, but of the latter very little of what they could actually do, and rather more of opinions.

BF wonders how it was that they achieved so much, and yet failed to step over into Modern Science - well, modern meaning the slow gradual rise that started ~1500 years after them. My answer would be that their apparent "so much" is largely illusion and exaggerated crippling respect; they were missing so much basic tech.

Overall BF is too deeply in thrall towards the antients-called-greats to be useful as anything other than a superficial introduction.

Oops: bits I forgot: BF think that experimentation, and the experimental method, and the hallmarks of Science, and so is ecstatic at the few occasions he finds the Greeks doing it. We cannot expect our professor of classics to have read the 1934 Logik der Forschung. Zur Erkenntnistheorie der modernen Naturwissenschaft and I doubt he read the 1959 English version either; but nonetheless he is subtly wrong; science is grounded in experience or experiment; but the hallmark is testing theories. He's also rather keen on Bacone, which is also an error.

Refs

* Randomized Controlled Trials of Medicare and Medicaid, Please.

* Attitude networks as intergroup realities: Using network-modelling to research attitude-identity relationships in polarized political contexts.

* Why I Distrust Social Trust Rationales for Immigration Restrictions.