BOOK REVIEWS

New Confucianism: A Critical Examination. Edited by JohnMakeham. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 262 pp. Hardback.$55.00. ISBN 0-40396-140-9).

At the heart of New Confucianism: A Critical Examination is a ques-tion of definition: How should we understand the contested notion of“New Confucianism”? Is it a matter of genealogy, philosophical doc-trine, political orientation, or personal experience? Does it matter in what terms individuals identified themselves or whether they sawthemselves as part of a shared intellectual movement? Who, ulti-mately, gets to answer these questions? Of course, there is much morein the essays than these questions—including, most notably, astuteanalyses of several philosophers’ ideas, thought-provoking reflectionson some of the roles played by Buddhism in modern Chinese thought,and historical/sociological scholarship on the invention of tradition. Iwill turn to these matters later. I start with definitions, both becausethey are necessary for understanding much of the rest, and becauseit is here that I find some of the most interesting ground for criticalengagement with the volume’s authors.

A summary of the essays will help to make clear the centrality ofthe definition of “New Confucianism.” The volume opens with JohnMakeham’s Introduction and his two essays, “The RestrospectiveCreation of New Confucianism” and “The New Daotong.”The formeressay argues that there was no “group identity” of “New Confucians”prior to the 1970s; the latter looks at the ways that thinkers like MouZongsan used the notion of daotong—”the interconnecting thread of the way”—as a strategy of orthodoxy formation. Next comes Song Xianlin’s article on the political and cultural reasons for the riseof discussion of “New Confucianism” in the PRC during the 1980s.Rounding out the two essays in Part II is “Li Zehou and New Confucianism” by Sylvia Chan, which argues that Li ought to be seenas a New Confucian despite his many differences with figures morecanonically associated with the movement. Part III contains twoessays, the first of which is N. Serina Chan’s excellent and self-explanatory, “What is Confucian and New about the Thought of MouZongsan?” This is paired with an essay by Lauren Pfister that arguesagainst labeling Feng Youlan as a New Confucian, though not for the

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reasons (alleged flaws in his personal character) that some critics have asserted. The volume closes with two articles on earlier figures,Liang Shuming and Xiong Shili. John Hanafin argues vigorously that the former should be understood as Buddhist, not Confucian; NgYu-kwan praises the latter’s foundational role in New Confucianismand surveys some key points in Xiong’s metaphysical theory. Alltogether, this is clearly a high-quality and wide-ranging collection.

“New Confucianism” is a translation of “dangdai xin rujia” andseveral variations thereto (p. 1). Broadly speaking, the volume revealstwo very different ways of thinking about what “New Confucianism”is. Some authors, and some of the philosophers and scholars aboutwhom they write, take New Confucianism to be a specific line of intel-lectual orthodoxy or a school of thought determined as much bygenealogical relations as by philosophical content. Makeham explainsthat one way this commitment to genealogy is rationalized is throughreference to the spiritual legacy of Xiong Shili (1885–1968). Makehamcites Liu Shuxian, understood by many to be a contemporary leaderof the New Confucian movement, as follows: “One may say that Mr.Xiong initiated a spirit; it was this spirit that Tang, Mou, and othersfastened on to” (p. 59); and “That which is transmitted by overseas,Hong Kong, and Taiwan New Confucians is definitely not the systemof Mr. Xiong’s [thought], but rather his spirit” (Ibid). A similar atti-tude can be detected in Ng Yu-kwan’s essay in the volume, whereinhe writes that “Xiong Shili . . . was the first Confucian after WangYangming to inherit and promote moral spirituality in general, andmoral metaphysics in particular” (p. 219). “Inheritance” is a keyconcept in this framework and allows enormous flexibility to thosewho would define New Confucianism in a given way. Just as financialinheritance often follows genealogical lines, but can diverge fromthem, spiritual inheritance tends to follow teacher-disciple lines, butneed not all the time be the case. It can thus be difficult to know howto argue against a claim (or denial) of spiritual inheritance, nor is italways clear how to adjudicate competing claims. As Makeham’sessay on the “new daotong” makes clear, though, such disputes canoften be perceived as having high stakes.

A radically different way of thinking about New Confucianism canbe found in Sylvia Chan’s contribution. She points out that Confu-cianism is not a homogeneous body of teachings, and she concludesthat “the spirit of tolerance of diversity is characteristic of the Con-fucian school. New Confucianism, if it is true to the Confucian tradi-tion, should not be dogmatic or sectarian, but should be broad enoughto accommodate and creatively transform all the trends either alreadyin the Confucian canon, or which can be adopted to harmonize withConfucian teachings” [106]. This might be compared to Makeham’s

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own view, namely: “Rather than thinking of New Confucianism asbeing a single line of intellectual orthodoxy, or even a complex intellectual movement comprising many threads of thought, I wouldprefer to think in terms of twentieth-century Confucian or Confucian-inspired philosophies that embrace a variety of forms of intellectualexpression. To privilege New Confucianism seems unjustified” (p. 44).

Now there are issues that we might raise about both Chan’s andMakeham’s formulations. Chan’s claim about tolerance as a charac-teristic of “the Confucian school” does not follow from the presenceof diversity within the tradition; indeed, part of the interest ofMakeham’s article on daotong is the way it allows us to see a tradi-tional mechanism of self-definition and exclusion at work. It isnonetheless true that many Confucians have tried to accommodateand transform, as she urges. Of course, transforming is a critical, cre-ative, and synthetic process with which others might differ, but that isjust to say that Chan is not advocating being all things to all people:as can be seen in the arguments of her subject, Li Zehou, Chan’svision of Confucianism has philosophical teeth.

To get at the issue I want to raise with Makeham’s vision of NewConfucianism, ask yourself: What does he mean by “To privilege NewConfucianism seems unjustified”? He has just said that he thinks“New Confucianism” should be understood as “twentieth-centuryConfucian . . . philosophy.” Is it this which should not be privileged?Or, more likely, does he mean that the New Confucianism-as-intellectual-orthodoxy should not be privileged—that is, the “school”defined by Mou or Liu should not be privileged? The confusion arises,I think, from Makeham’s ambiguous feelings about the label “NewConfucian.” One can read his essays in this volume and come awaywith the impression that there really is no justification for the claim(by Mou, Liu, or whomever) that a single, coherent school of thoughtcalled New Confucianism has ever existed. Alternatively, one canread Makeham as saying that there is something called New Confu-cianism, though it is not exactly what some of its proponents think itis. Thus: “It is only with the advent [in the 1980s] of this ‘third gener-ation’ that we can speak of New Confucianism as having cohesion andself-identity, thus making the ‘third’ generation the first real genera-tion of new Confucians” (p. 43). I would argue, though, that Makehamhas not demonstrated much cohesion, nor agreement on self-identity,among the individuals variously identified as making up the “thirdgeneration.” In light of all the problems with narrower definitions ofNew Confucian than Chan’s, why does Makeham seem so resistant?

The clearest answer comes when Makeham considers three defini-tions of New Confucian proposed by Yü Ying-shih. According to thefirst, anyone who researches Confucian learning counts. According to

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the second, only those who “have contributed new philosophicalinterpretations and developments to Confucian learning” count.The third, finally, includes only those “who belong to Xiong Shili’s‘school’.” Based on what we have seen, we might wonder whyMakeham does not simply embrace the second definition, which isessentially similar to Chan’s. His reason is that “the problem with thissecond definition is that it still begs the question of how to distinguishNew Confucianism from Confucianism in the twentieth century”(pp. 38–9). Fair enough, but why is such a distinction important? Thelesson of both Makeham’s essays and of the collection as a wholemight well be that unless one is prepared to accept an unfalsifiablecriterion like “inheritance of Xiong Shili’s spirit,” no consistent dis-tinction is forthcoming.

Let me turn from definitions to highlighting some other themesthat emerge from reading the essays. One important issue is the rel-evance to New Confucianism, however defined, of multiple centersand multiple philosophical traditions. New Confucians are funda-mentally in dialogue with texts and traditions from Indian andChinese Buddhism, and from German, French, and Anglo-Americanphilosophy. Marxism is important to those engaged with New Confucianism in the PRC, whether as scholar and critic (here seeespecially pp. 95–6 of Song’s essay) or as participant. Tu Weiming hasemphasized that “the possibility of Confucianism having a thirdperiod of development will be determined by whether it can respondcreatively to the challenges of Western culture” (quoted on p. 42);here it is important to note that Tu’s “third period” includes all Con-fucians in the twentieth century and beyond, as well as to say that allthe figures covered in this volume one way or another have sought tomeet Tu’s challenge.

It is worth dwelling briefly on the multifaceted relation these essaysreveal between New Confucianism and Buddhism. The essays onLiang Shuming, Xiong Shili, and Mou Zongsan all discuss at lengththeir subjects’ use of Buddhist concepts and methodologies. In eachcase, we also see that the philosophers had some criticism for Buddhism, although one—Liang Shuming—insisted that he person-ally was nonetheless a Buddhist. I have nothing but praise for theclarity with which each author elucidates the intricacies of Buddhistdoctrine from a variety of schools and traditions: this is an importantcontribution to the understanding of each man’s thought. Only oneauthor spends much time on the question of “was he Buddhist or Con-fucian?” Partly in reaction to Alitto’s well-known characterization ofLiang as “The Last Confucian,” Hanafin is determined to show thatLiang was in fact a Buddhist. I must say that I found this aspect ofhis essay less interesting, and less convincing, than the excellent dis-

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cussion of Liang’s ideas themselves. Hanafin notes that most ofLiang’s comments on Buddhism and Confucianism give us “seeminglyconfusing and mixed messages” (pp. 193–4). Hanafin is not to blamefor being unable to offer a satisfying resolution to the confusion, butthe confusion is only exacerbated by attempting to insist that therereally is a single answer (viz., that he is Buddhist).

A final theme worth exploring is the future of New Confucianism.This future can be thought about within at least two frameworks. Onthe one hand, what does the future hold for New Confucianism asphilosophy and/or as philosophical movement? On the other hand,what might the future popular role of New Confucianism be? The factthat this latter question is raised at all serves to highlight some of theways in which, for all the volume’s appropriate stress on New Con-fucianism as philosophical movement, New Confucianism is nonethe-less different from neo-Aristotelianism or neo-Kantiansm. For someproponents, at least, it will not be successful unless it can reach beyondacademic discussion and exert broad influence on “modern and EastAsian peoples” (p. 72). Proponents of “Boston Confucianism” mightset their goal higher still, hoping for substantial Confucian impact onpublic conversations outside of East Asia. None of the essays in thevolume could be described as optimistic about the public future ofNew Confucianism, though they vary in their prognoses. Makehamwrites, for instance, that “If there is to be a future for a socially rele-vant Confucianism, it surely cannot ignore the small but growinglobby of those in China and Taiwan who have been calling for ‘secu-larized’ and grass-roots forms of Confucianism” (p. 72). In contrast,Song concludes his essay by noting that the cultural critic Ge Hong-bing has charged that intellectuals who have rediscovered Confu-cianism are “like spiritual vagrants who, having lost their own culturalidentity at the time of disintegration of discursive power, sought newclothes from all sorts of ‘isms’ to empower themselves in discourse.Their experiments with New Confucianism . . . are acts of despera-tion” (p. 100). Song does not explicitly endorse Ge’s accusation, butlets it stand as a challenge, adding that all the discussion of New Confucianism has done little to revive a “humanistic spirit” in China.

The sorts of cultural transformation at which New Confucianismmight aim are different, of course, in Taiwan, China, Singapore,Boston, and so on. But all look to be difficult goals. Two more modestgoals that New Confucians—on anyone’s definition—can set forthemselves are continued, critical engagement with the Confucianphilosophical tradition, and broadening, creative participation inglobal philosophical dialogue. Both of these have been goals of theNew Confucians (again, according to any definition) throughout thetwentieth century, and major figures have made significant contribu-

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tions to both. We should hope and expect that future New Confucianswill continue this trend, and thank the contributors to this valuablecollection for their part in facilitating further engagement and dialogue.

Stephen C. AngleWesleyan University

Confucius and the Analects: New Essays. Edited by Bryan W. VanNorden. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. 342 pp).

This volume of insightful and innovative essays will animate Confu-cian studies for years to come. It begins by introducing the reader toConfucius’s life and the Analects, the text that constitutes the focusof this collection. The ten collected essays are divided into two sec-tions with differing methodologies. The first section, “Keeping Warmthe Old” includes philosophical reflections on the Analects, while thesecond section, “Appreciating the New,” focuses on philological andhistoriographical questions. Therefore, it has a broad appeal for his-torians and philosophers alike.

In “Keeping Warm the Old,” leading scholars address ongoingdebates in the philosophical interpretation of Confucian thought aswell as the relevance of the tradition to contemporary ethical con-cerns, particularly the field of virtue ethics. Joel Kupperman’s “Natu-ralness Revisited” asks “How do I develop as a person?” Accordingto Kupperman, this is the central ethical question of the Analects. Fas-cinated by the Master’s ability to present views of everyday life thatsynthesize psychological observation with normative interpretationlargely neglected in contemporary Anglo-American philosophy,Kupperman reasons, through a discussion of the ethics of naturalnessin Analects 1.12 and 6.16, that the text is uniquely endowed with theability to fill a major gap in contemporary Western philosophy.Kwong-Loi Shun’s “Ren and Li in the Analects” elucidates the relationship between these two concepts critical to the Master’steachings. While recognizing that both the instrumentalist and definitionalist interpretations find textual support, the author posits amiddle ground, arguing that ren is both shaped by li and yet not totallydetermined by it. Robert Louden’s article, “What Does HeavenSay?,” addresses the contemporary relevance of Confucian ethicsthrough an analysis of the hermeneutics employed by the influentialenlightenment figure Christian Wolff in a public lecture on Confucius.Through Wolff’s example, Louden reminds us of the daunting chal-lenges of cross-cultural understanding, which requires us to both

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utilize and suspend our beliefs in a spirit of sympathy that, ironically,sometimes contributes to further misunderstanding. In “Conformity,Individuality, and the Nature of Virtue,” Stephen Wilson charts a persuasive interpretive course between that of Fingarette and Halland Ames, contending that Confucian ritual should be seen neitheras wholly innovative nor as simply the internalization of commonvalues.

The second section, “Appreciating the New,” questions the inte-grity of the received Analects and highlights aspects of Confucius’simage that have been neglected in the interpretative literature. In“Whose Confucius? Which Analects?,” P.J. Ivanhoe traces the historyof six seminal interpretations of Analects 5.13 from the Wei throughthe Song and Qing dynasties. In so doing, he not only reveals thedepth and diversity of the Chinese commentarial tradition associatedwith the Analects, but also demonstrates that an adequate under-standing of Confucian philosophy requires that we comprehend thehistory of the commentarial tradition. As Ivanhoe observes, shouldsuch a methodology become more pervasive it would redress anumber of interpretive weaknesses in the field, such as the tendencyamong translators to draw upon a number of different commentarialperspectives in their translations in an unsystematic and unreflectivemanner, or the proclivity to construe early figures of the Confuciantradition based on much later interpretations of their thought.Csikszentmihalyi’s article, “Confucius and the Analects in the Han,”further clarifies the historical role of Confucius by illuminating themultiple contending images of Confucius during the Han and howthese were linked to particular texts, political agendas, and the socialgroups that promoted them. In “Word Philology and Text Philologyin Analects 9.1,” E. Bruce Brooks and A. Taeko Brooks propose anew reading of this enigmatic passage. Building on the notion that theAnalects is an accretional text that grew by an orderly process, achapter at a time, over an extended period, consisting of a fifth centuryBCE disciple-dominated segment (Analects 4–9), followed by a fourthcentury BCE, and later Kong-dominated segment (Analects 10–20and 3,2,1), they argue that the passage is a later interpolation insertedquite intentionally by members of the Kong family to reorient thereader toward their decidedly ritual-centered political agenda. BrianVan Norden’s “Unweaving the ‘One Thread’ of Analects 4.15” alsoaddresses a decidedly problematic passage of the text. Based ongrammatical and philological considerations, Van Norden likewisecontends that this passage is a later interpolation, added by MasterZeng’s disciples after Book 4 was compiled to purposefully enhancethe status and authority of their teacher. The second half of the articlereviews several philosophical interpretations of the passage and

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argues that the view of cardinal virtues suggested by this passage isneither shared by Confucius nor supported by the rest of the Analects.Lee Yearley’s “An Existentialist Reading of Book 4 of the Analects”explores how the text might be treated historically and read existen-tially, seeking to combine two methods of reception often seen inopposition. Finally, Lisa Raphals’ “A Woman Who Understood theRites” rounds out the volume with a consideration of Confucius’sviews on women. Since the Analects contains little on the subject,Raphals focuses her investigation on two women praised by Confu-cius in the Lienu zhuan (Collected Life Stories of Women): “JingJiang of Lu” and “The Girl of Agu.” Raphals then examines the latertransformations of Jing Jiang in the Song and Ming accounts ofwomen’s virtue. The author concludes that, whereas earlier WarringStates and Han accounts portray her as an exemplary woman whosewords seem to uphold the system of gender separation, while heractions undermine traditional prohibitions again women’s concernswith matters external to the home, Song and Ming accounts exhibitno such tension, portraying Jing Jiang as an unequivocal exemplar ofthe gender system. Despite this difference, Raphals thoughtfully cau-tions us to reflect upon the extent to which Jing Jiang’s recognitionmay have been the product of her unusual circumstances as the youngwidow of a high official, suggesting that her preeminence was far tooparticular to represent early Confucian views of the status or poten-tial of women. It does suggest, however, a degree of flexibility thatwas lost or de-emphasized in later Confucian and Neo-Confucian presentations.

While the articles are provocative and perceptive, it is the method-ology of the volume that is most compelling. The first five essaysfollow the well-trodden path of Chinese and Western commentators,who through the ages have read the Analects ahistorically, that is, asa text that articulates a coherent worldview whose teachings areviable and relevant today. In contrast, the last five essays generallyquestion this assumed integrity and coherence, and explore suchissues such as the different meanings of the Analects and multiple representations of Confucius in particular historical contexts. What ismost exciting is the way in which these disparate ways of approach-ing the Analects stand side by side in this volume, presenting testi-mony to the viability and durability of these different, but equallyfruitful, ways of reading the text. Gone are the naive days of Sinol-ogy where interpreters could bask in their methodological innocenceas they charted the Confucian waters for the first time. The thought-ful reflections on methodology that pervade this volume will stand asan important model for students first dipping their toes in the murkywaters of cross-cultural interpretation. On a more specific note, old

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friends of Confucius will encounter new avenues of inquiry throughwhich to pursue the historical Confucius. The volume generates newand important ways of thinking about the composition of the Analectsand the text’s historical coalescence and reception.

Sarah A. QueenConnecticut College, New London

The Siren and the Sage: Knowledge and Wisdom in Ancient Greeceand China. By Steven Shankman and Stephan Durrant. (London:Cassell, 2000. Pp. x + 257).

Early China/Ancient Greece: Thinking Through Comparisons. Editedby Steven Shankman and Stephan Durrant. (Albany: State Univer-sity of New York Press, 2002. Pp. x + 305).

We often encounter two extreme views concerning comparativestudies of cultures/philosophies in the East and West. One is that com-parative studies are legitimate simply because we can compare anytwo things. The other is that comparative studies are undesirablebecause concepts, doctrines, and practices can be understood onlywithin particular cultural contexts. Now, an important implication ofSteven Shankman and Stephen Durrant’s The Siren and the Sage andEarly China/Ancient Greece is that both opinions err, albeit in differ-ent ways. As they manage to show, comparative study is a culturalphenomenon, and the legitimacy of comparative studies is self-evident in the contemporary world, wherein any one culture is awareof another and is eager to understand and communicate with theothers. If one argues that the possibility of comparing any two thingsmeans the possibility of comparative studies, one mistakenly assumesthat comparative study is a non-cultural practice. On other hand, theview that cultural products can be grasped only internally means anoverly conservative attitude toward one’s culture, which does notquite meet the needs of the contemporary global world. Moreover, itis futile to debate whether comparative studies are fruitful withoutactual experiment. As Shankman and Durrant show, we can answerthe question of its fruitfulness only after doing comparative studies.In other words, we need to both reflect on the question (an inten-tional, reflective consciousness) and participate in comparativestudies. Indeed, a major theme of The Siren and the Sage is the unityof intentionality and participation.

The Siren and the Sage and Early China/Ancient Greece nicely com-plement each other with their contrasting scopes. While the former

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compares ancient Greece and China from a broad perspective, thelatter is a collection of essays that provides details to link two greatcultures. The Siren and the Sage has three parts. In the first part,Shankman and Durrant compare the Classic of Poetry and theOdyssey, and they discuss how certain views in the Dao De Jing canbe connected with the earliest Chinese poetic tradition. According tothem, both pieces enacted the drama of intentional behavior from the primal experience of oneness. In the second part, Shankman andDurrant explore the tension between participation and intentionalityin the Chinese historian Sima Qian and the Greek historian Thucy-dides. While Sima Qian’s aim was to participate in the grand designof the dynastic history of China, Thucydides fully articulated theintentionalist nature of the Athenian character. Yet, Sima Qian’s goalwas somehow undone by his recurrent intentionality. Thucydides,while recognizing intentionalism as the cause of catastrophe, did notrecommend a therapy for the cure of the excess of intentionalism. Inthe last part, Shankman and Durrant put Confucius, Laozi, andZhuangzi on a par with Plato and Aristotle, arguing that they all aimtoward a unification of intentionality and participation.

Early China/Ancient Greece is a collection of thirteen essays.The first five contain methodological discussions of cross-culturalcomparisons. In the first essay, the late David Hall suggested that collaborative work between sinologists and scholars in the history ofWestern thought is necessary in comparing Chinese and Westernthought. In the subsequent three essays, Haun Saussy, Michael Puett,and Steven Shankman all argue that we should not stereotype oneculture in relation to the other, imposing a rigid, distinctive essencefor each culture. In “Thinking Through Comparisons,” Roger Amespresents a contrast between Western thought that seeks definitionsand the Chinese tradition that emphasizes the historical genealogy.C. H. Wang, in “Alluding to the Text, or the Context,” pursues aninvestigation similar to that in The Siren and the Sage: an examina-tion of how Chinese and Greek cultures developed out of the earli-est poetic traditions. In “Epistemology in Cultural Context,” DavidKeightley studies the prevalence of the theme of disguise in earlyGreece in contrast to its absence in early China. David Schaberg, in“The Logic of Signs in Early Chinese Rhetoric,” argues that Aristo-tle’s notions of the “sign” and of “the tools of non-truth” can be usedto enhance our understanding of certain features of the argumenta-tion of the Chinese ritualists. In the subsequent essay, Andrew Plaksstudies the similarities and differences between the theory of meanin Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and that in the Zhongyong. LisaRaphals, in “Fatalism, Fate, and Stratagem in China and Greece,”explores the difference between the Chinese ming (fate) and Greek

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moira (fatalism). In “Cratylus and Xunzi on Names,” Anthony Yuargues that unlike the Socratic notion of “name,” Xunzi’s “name” isconventional and fixed by sages and kings for political purposes.Michael Nylan’s “Golden Spindles and Axes” challenges the view thatthe elite Han dynasty women are less powerful and aggressive thantheir ancient Greek counterparts. In the last essay, Stephen Durrantdiscusses the relation between Sima Qian and his predecessors andcharacterizes the relation as somewhere between blind devotion andscornful criticism.

Comparative studies can yield exciting results and provide insightsinto the development of our own culture. For example, in the contextof discussing the Confucian participation in society in The Siren andthe Sage, Shankman and Durrant present a contrast between the actsof deference and non-competition in Confucian living and the com-petitive struggles and rivalries in the Greek life (p. 182). While def-erence and non-competition are conducive to social harmony, theysuppress or distort the natural way to satisfy human desires. Com-petitive struggles certainly foster desires and wills and encourage self-improvement, but they could disrupt social stability. This comparisonnaturally leads us to wonder whether there is a way to combine thestrengths of the two models and yet to avoid their weaknesses.Perhaps internally we could foster a spirit of competition that carriesa deep respect for one’s competitors, and externally we could avoidpublicizing the competitive agenda when we have public contests.However, there are also pitfalls in comparative studies. As Shankmanand Durrant rightly recognize in the Afterwords to The Siren and theSage (p. 255), when comparison is conducted broadly, there is the riskof overgeneralizing and creating pseudo-themes for comparison. Inthe last part of book, the authors draw together Confucius, Laozi, andZhuangzi on one side and Plato on the other side on the basis of theclaim that they all aim at a certain combination of intentionality andparticipation (pp. 212–214). Unfortunately, this is a sweeping claim ofovergeneralizations, for two reasons.

First, the distinction between intentionality and participation—theoperative distinction in The Siren and the Sage—is not clear. Thenotion of “intentionality” does not have a univocal sense. It is firstintroduced as the Husserlian intentionality at the beginning of thebook (pp.10–11, note 34). Later on it is taken as Laozi’s “you yu”(“having an intention”) at the end of Part I (pp. 69–70), and as a dis-interested way of viewing the reality at Part II (p. 140). The notion of“participation” not only does not have a univocal sense, but it alsoseems to lack a focal meaning. The term is first introduced as oneinherited from the Platonic “participation” (metechein) (p. 11, note34). And then “participation” is explained as the execution of our

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roles in family and society (pp. 25–48). After that it is understood asLaozi’s “wu yu” (“having no intention”) (p. 70), which the authorsinterpret as the feeling of oneself being a part of a larger whole (p. 205). Finally, in the context of discussing Plato and Aristotle, it istaken as the Dionysiac experience of being in the unity of the cosmos(p. 214).

Second, the authors’ claim that Plato is similar to Laozi andZhuangzi in that they all emphasize participation (in the similar senseof participation) is not well justified. The authors put Plato’s theory ofparticipation and Laozi’s view of participation on a par by interpret-ing Plato’s participation as the Dionysiac experience of being in theunity of the cosmos. As support, the authors quote the followingpassage from Plato’s Symposium: “[The beautiful exists] by itself, initself, as a single form, eternally, and all other beautiful things partici-pate [metechonta] in it in such a way that, while they come into beingand perish, it does not” (211b). But this interpretation of Plato is notthe standard one. There does not seem to be evidence in the quotedpassage that supports the authors’ interpretation, and there is nothingin the passage that suggests that Plato’s technical notion of “partici-pation” is a psychological experience or a feeling. The standard inter-pretation is that Plato’s participation is a metaphysical relation(between form and its instances or participants) that could be used toexplain predication.1 It is not obvious that this metaphysical relationcan be linked with the Dionysiac experience of being in the unity ofthe cosmos, let alone being equated with it. Moreover, Plato’s techni-cal notion of “participation” is neither identical nor connected to anyof the senses of participation that the authors introduce in the book.Hence, the claim that Plato and Laozi both advocate participatorymode of consciousness seems to hold only at the cost of equivocation.

On the whole, The Siren and the Sage and Early China/AncientGreece are valuable contributions to cross-cultural conversations.Although The Siren and the Sage is more accessible to general readersthan Early China/Ancient Greece, they are both readable andprovocative. Regardless of one’s cultural orientation, one will expandone’s mind after reading these two books.

Yiwei ZhengSt. Cloud State University

Endnote

1. For example, see G. Vlastos, “The Third Man Argument in the Parmenides,”Philosophical Review 63 (1954): 319–349.

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Daoism: A Short Introduction. By James Miller. (Oxford: OneworldPublications, 2003. xviii, 174 pp. Paperback, $17.95, ISBN 1-85168-315-1).

At a time when there seems to be little agreement on how best tounderstand Daoism, James Miller brings us a book that, like Daoism,itself resists a singular interpretation. In an attempt to synthesize andinterpret the monumental Daoism Handbook (Kohn, 2000), this bookinterweaves concise accounts of the many religious and philosophicalviews and practices that are known as “Daoism.” Miller’s work offersan alternative to the standard historical approach, for it explores themotivations and intellectual influences that have shaped the appro-priation of Daoism in the modern West.

The book organizes its discussion by focusing on a different themein each of its eight chapters: identity, way, body, power, light, alchemy,text, and nature. Readers who are familiar with the history of Daoismwill appreciate Miller’s ability to consistently condense difficult ideas,movements, traditions, and practices into a manageable discussionwithout sacrificing the tangible stories of how Daoism has shapedhuman lives. Each chapter is subdivided into sections that focus onhistorical movements or specific views and practices, which creativelyshows the breadth of Daoism. For example, the chapter on “Nature”includes discussions ranging from the One Hundred and Eighty Pre-cepts (Yibaibashi jie), to the five sacred mountains, to the significanceof caves in Daoism. These are the discussions that are typicallymissing in works that claim to be “short” introductions, but they areretained here, alongside descriptions of the central concepts of ziranand wuwei. There are only a few places where important details getlost, one of which is the introduction to Confucianism in the chapteron the “Way.” This section briefly introduces two controversial con-temporary secondary works on Confucianism (pp. 38–39), which israther puzzling in light of the fact that only one direct quotation fromthe Analects is given, and Mengzi and Xunzi are not even mentioned.A book designed to be a short introduction to Daoism should at leastpoint students to a source that will introduce them to the main themesand figures in Confucianism. (See Joel Kupperman’s review of PhilipJ. Ivanhoe’s Confucian Moral Self-Cultivation in the June 2002 issueof this journal for an example of such a work.)

It is worth noting that Miller gets many of the small things rightfrom the beginning. The preface contains a clear and informative dis-cussion of Romanization systems. The glossary lists terms in pinyinand Wade-Giles Romanization forms, together with Chinese charac-ters and English translations. Also included is a timeline of Daoisthistory with just enough information to be a helpful point of refer-

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ence. The structure of the book makes it relatively easy to use as aclassroom text. It does not have to be read in a linear fashion, and soit will work well as a supplement to primary texts and lectures regard-less of the order in which various themes are discussed. It will also bea good tool for leading students away from popular one-dimensionalviews of Daoism. Each chapter is followed by suggestions for furtherreading. Although some of the sources are beyond the level of intro-ductory students, these suggestions can guide more advanced studentsto important secondary works by authors such as Girardot, Kohn,LaFargue, Robinet, and Roth.

Miller is explicit about the fact that he is addressing a Western audi-ence with this book. His stated goal is not only to introduce Daoismgenerally, but “specifically to introduce what it means to someone, likemyself, who lives in the twenty-first century Western cultural context”(p. x). Indeed, one of the strengths of this work is its discussion of theinterplay between the history of Daoism and contemporary Westernattempts to make use of Daoist ideas and practices. The chapter on“Identity” in particular uncovers disagreements among scholars ofDaoism, offering an analysis of why Western intellectuals have pre-ferred certain understandings of Daoism to others. For example, hecompares the mindset of scholars who view Daoist religious practicesas a later degeneration of an originally pure philosophical form ofDaoism, with the mindset of Protestant Christians who argue that theBible represents the true form of Christianity, which they believedegenerated over time into the rituals and social controls of RomanCatholicism (pp. 31–32). Although many of the scholars who havebeen dismissive of religious Daoism will not be happy to see them-selves aligned with the thinking of certain Protestant Christians,Miller’s account is thoughtful and compelling, and he is to be com-mended for confronting the interpretive baggage that is frequentlyattached to Western scholarship on Daoism.

While one of the strengths of this work is its treatment of Daoismin the West, a weakness is its discussion of Daoism in modern China.The book states that during the Cultural Revolution, temples wereclosed or destroyed and priests were forbidden from conductingrituals. Miller writes that “the bitter loss of a whole generation of thetransmission of Daoism cannot be underestimated” (p. 14). But thisis not the whole story. A number of Zhengyi priests continued tosecretly perform rituals and train their grandsons in the priesthoodduring this time, putting their lives at risk in the process. It wouldaugment the book’s account to point out that Daoism could not beentirely suppressed even during the Cultural Revolution, and thatthese stories are an important part of its history. As for the currentsituation, the book claims that although temples have been reopened

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and new priests ordained, “nothing happens without the official sanc-tion of the government.” After stating that there is only one Daoisttemple in the entire city of Chengdu, the book concludes that religion“is functioning but only in the spaces where it can be officially author-ized” (p. 88). This is an oversimplification that scholars who do fieldresearch in China will recognize. In some cities, large jiao rituals areconducted in all their glory by Zhengyi priests without authorizationfrom anyone but the Master of High Merit and the family hosting theritual. In addition, although guidebooks and tour guides will typicallyonly point you to one or two prominent Daoist temples, often claim-ing that they are the only Daoist temples in the city, this is almostnever the case. Conversations with taxi drivers and local people willquickly lead you to smaller temples, all of which are usually veryactive. This, of course, illustrates the main point of the book—Daoismis a living, thriving religious tradition, both in China and in the West.Daoism:A Short Introduction offers an informative glimpse into whatDaoism means in both contexts.

Erin M. ClineBaylor University

The Rivers of Paradise: Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muham-mad as Religious Founders. Edited by David Noel Freedman andMichael J. McClymond. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B.Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001).

In his introduction to Rivers of Paradise, David Noel Freedmanexplains how the book finds a guiding metaphor in a passage fromGenesis (2:10–14) that relates how a river emerges from Eden andsplits into four different rivers that flow to different parts of the world.He associates these five rivers with five “great personality religions ofthe world,” which are traditions “originating in and centering aroundthe person, the life and experience, of a single individual—as ithappens all of them men” (p. 2). These “founding fathers” are Moses,the Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad, in that order; no oneafter them has accomplished anything comparable to their achieve-ments. Rivers is an edited volume of five essays on these figures andtheir legacies. Of the five “founders” mentioned in the title, I am com-petent only in primary sources that deal with Confucius, and so I shallfocus my comments accordingly.

Carl S. Erlich contributed “Moses, Torah, and Judaism”; Richard S. Cohen, “Shakyamuni: Buddhism’s Founder in Ten Acts”; MarkCsikszentmihalyi, “Confucius”; Michael J. McClymond, “Jesus”; and

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Daniel C. Peterson, “Muhammad.” A foreword by Hans Küng cri-tiques Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” model and advo-cates dialogue and conflict resolution between religious traditions. Abrief introduction by David Noel Freedman outlines the inspirationfor the book, and the work concludes with Michael J. McClymond’s“Prophet or Loss? Reassessing Max Weber’s Theory of ReligiousLeadership” and a response to that article by each of the authors.

In Freedman’s introduction, Moses is given pride of place and isassociated with the original river that flows from Eden, which is “thesource of all the others, and hence of prime importance” (p. 2). Theauthor finds it significant that the remaining four figures appear onearth in 600-year cycles (the Buddha and Confucius appearing atroughly the same time). He struggles unsuccessfully with the questionof how the Buddha and Confucius might have flowed from the riversof Eden and wisely soon gives up. Freedman claims that these fivefigures are the only ones that merit investigation, and he asserts thatfor “the world today and perhaps for the foreseeable future, we havethese five, no more and no less, to reckon with” (p. 7). For variousreasons, he weeded out a few “failed candidates” not worthy of atten-tion: Zoroaster, Mani, and almost anyone who has appeared since1800, which, given the 600-year cycle that began with Moses’s appear-ance in 1200 BCE, would seem the likely time for a new foundingfather to appear. Oddly, after having in effect dismissed the vastmajority of the world’s population that does not fall within one of thefive rivers, the author believes that in order to decrease strife in theworld, one should accept a model of “diversity and plurality” (p. 8).Fortunately, all the rivers will meet again at the same place eventu-ally (Eden?). Given the primacy accorded the Mosaic tradition andthis linear notion of time, one wonders how other worldviews couldbe accommodated here.

One would expect to find in the introduction an explanation of acommon focus, structure, scope, or direction that might provide thefive essays some cohesion, but none is offered, other than to say thatthe five rivers are a model for the “origins, development, history, anddestiny” (p. 2) of the personality religions. McClymond’s closingarticle on Max Weber could have served as a kind of introduction, asit addresses each of the essays in turn with theoretical questions aboutreligious leadership. Nowhere, however, does it critically question thenotion that “religions” are established by “founders.”

The notion that Confucius founded a tradition called “Confucian-ism” that originates and centers upon his person, life, and experienceis of course untenable. “Confucianism” as understood in the West isa jumble of several phenomena: ancestral rites to Confucius originallybased in Qufu, his hometown; post-Tang bibliolatry, which elevated

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texts such as the Analects to iconic status; the state-sponsored ritualsystem, in which Confucius had a relatively minor status; the institu-tions of officialdom and learning; and even “Chinese values” writlarge. Of these, only the first two are centered on Confucius. Of therites of the old imperial system, those to Confucius are almost theonly ones still performed, and that is perhaps why they appear rela-tively more important to us today.

Confucius in his own time was but one thinker in a rich intellec-tual milieu that already possessed a large body of texts and exhibiteda wide variety of religious beliefs and practices, and he shared manyideas in common with his contemporaries. In Han times he was con-sidered by some an “uncrowned king,” but (Mencius notwithstand-ing) he was just as often considered a person of inferior wisdom whohad much to learn from the mythic figures of the Laozi, Zhuangzi,and Liezi and even from child prodigies such as the legendary XiangTuo. In the state-sponsored system of commemorative offerings, hisfame was eclipsed by the Duke of Zhou until at least Tang times. Evenlater, when he was anointed “premier teacher,” offerings to him andother mere mortals were ranked at the bottom of the ritual hierarchyfar below those accorded to heaven, earth, or the altars of the landand grain.

In his essay on Confucius, Mark Csikszentmihaly focuses on theways in which thinkers over the centuries have constructed variousimages of Confucius. Focusing primarily on biographical and pseudo-biographical (my term) accounts of Confucius’s life, he considers thevarious versions of Confucius that are depicted in such texts as theAnalects, the Spring and Autumn Annals and its commentaries, SimaQian’s Records of the Historian, apocryphal texts, the writings of ZhuXi and Kang Youwei, and modern dictionaries such as the Ciyuan. Hedraws also upon Japanese scholarship and Chinese sources that arenot well known. His discussion will be accessible to sinologists, but itwill often be difficult for nonspecialists to sort out the many layers ofhistoriographical interpretation addressed. It seems that McClymond,for example, does not succeed in doing so in his “Prophet or Loss,”for even when commenting on Csikszentmihaly’s article, he uncriti-cally accepts both the Mencius and Records of the Historian as usefulbiographical accounts of the life of Confucius (pp. 645–646). Moreaccessible to the nonspecialist is Csikszentmihaly’s discussion ofimportant concepts from the Analects as well as his critique of theways Weber and others have interpreted and misinterpreted Chinesetraditions.

What is not included here is a discussion of the cultural system ofreligious beliefs that Confucius was born into, nor does it focus on hisown attitudes toward such phenomena as the spirit world, heaven, or

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the afterlife. In a book on religious founders, one might like to knowmore about the founder’s own belief system, especially since the bookwill be consulted by nonspecialists. Attention is given to the notionof ritual, although in the Weberian contexts of this volume, ritual isunderstood largely in its political and social aspects. Also missing isthe Confucius of the Book of Rites, a work that depicts him as anexpert on all matters of belief and praxis.

Overall, the assumptions the editors make about religious foundersare not helpful for understanding early Chinese traditions. Csiks-zentmihaly’s essay, however, is a solid analysis of Chinese biographi-cal accounts of Confucius and their fate in Western scholarship.

Deborah SommerGettysburg College, Pennsylvania

Innovation in Chinese Medicine. Edited by Elisabeth Hsu.(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 426 pp. 60 PoundsSterling. ISBN 0521800684).

Western stereotypes of Chinese medicine depict an unchangingsystem of ancient practices. The contributors to this volume challengethis stereotype in a series of highly detailed studies that show theworkings of innovation within diverse aspects of Chinese medicinefrom the fourth century BCE to the present. Its topics include diag-nostic and therapeutic techniques, pharmaceutical therapies, and theorigins and development of genres of medical writing and schools ofmedical thought. These essays are organized under six sections of twopapers each.

Section 1 begins with the development of the foundational con-cepts of mai and qi during the Western Han and the implications of correlative cosmology for medical theory. Vivienne Lo examinesthe relations between “nurturing life” (yangsheng) practices and early understandings of the acumoxa points and vessel therapy. Tombtexts reveal a “nurturing life” culture including physical cultivation,longevity, and sexual techniques such as therapeutic gymnastics andtheir contemporary descendants, taiji quan and qigong. Lo usesmedical texts excavated from Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan and theHuang Di neijing to show how images of the social world were usedto “landscape” the human body. She also uses tomb texts to questionthe assumption that yangsheng practices emerged from the samesocial and intellectual milieu as acumoxa therapy, and she shows thatthe names of the acumoxa points derive less from them than from the

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sexual cultivation literature. Elisabeth Hsu provides a detailed struc-tural analysis of the medical case histories of the Han physicianChunyu Yi within the biographies of physicians in Shi ji 105. Sheshows how pulse diagnosis was used to examine mai and qi in orderto precisely locate illness (bing). This account of bing as including thename, cause, and “quality” of a disorder resembles the accounts ofbing and mai in the vessel texts from Mawangdui.

In Part 2, Donald Harper uses medical divinations excavated atBaoshan, Jiudian, and Shuihudi to show how Han correlative cos-mology partly originates in iatromancy. He uses the Shi ji and tombtexts to show how third and fourth-century physicians blendedmagico-religious beliefs and naturalistic theories of yin-yang imbal-ance as the cause of disease. The Baoshan manuscripts reflect noso-logical theories based on demonic and other invasive influences. TheJiudian and Shuihudi divinatory manuscripts shift to a more mechan-ical notion of illness with the rise of hemerology and correlative cos-mology and the introduction of diagnosis based on the sexagenarycycle of stems and branches. Catherine Despeux takes up a secondcase of an imposition of numerology onto medical theory with theSong dynasty system of five circulatory phases and the six seasonalinfluences. Like the hemerology of the Jiudian and Shuihudi texts, thissystem uses the sexagenary cycle to predict the outcomes of illnesses.But the Song system is based on correspondences between five cir-culatory phases (wu yun), which are quite distinct from the five phasesof Han correlative cosmology, and the six seasonal influences (liu qi).

Part 3 addresses innovations in the bencao genre in Tang and SongChina. Ute Engelhardt explores the growth of a new medical genreof dietetics in the Tang dynasty, its differences from earlier bencaotexts, and its possible relationships to earlier “nurturing life” tradi-tions. Frédéric Obringer uses a distinction between “radical” and“non-radical” innovation in medical drugs (yao) to explore the caseof a toxic therapy: the use of arsenical derivatives. He addresses inno-vations in production methods, therapeutic efficacy and the problemsof assessing it, economic factors relevant to the technology for pro-ducing arsenical compounds, and the eventual shift away from bothexternal alchemy and strong drugs.

Part 4 concerns reinterpretations of the medical canons in lateimperial China. Georges Metailié examines the status of Li Shizhenas a naturalist and innovator on a par with the botanists of the European Renaissance. He argues that Li’s interests were distantfrom those of European scientific botanists, and that such compari-sons obscure the actual strengths of Li’s Bencao gangmu (ClassifiedMateria Medica). Metailié views it as both a medical work and a workof Confucian scholarship in the sense of “investigating things” (gewu),

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and argues that its innovation lies not in its entries but in its struc-ture. Marta Hanson takes up the “invention” of a medical traditionin the nineteenth-century debates about cold-damage and warm-factor disorders. During the Qing dynasty a “warm factor disorders”(wenbing) tradition grew up in opposition to the cold-damage tradi-tion of the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Disorders(Shanghan zabing lun). After tracing the complex trajectory of theseperceptions, she argues that physicians used the geographic polaritiesof space and bodies in the Huang Di neijing to “imagine” a dichotomybetween a northern cold-damage and southern wenbing tradition.This dichotomy in turn was “mapped” onto the bodies of “robustnortherners” and “delicate southerners.”

Part 5 addresses innovation in medical case histories. ChristopherCullen argues that the “medical case records” (yi ‘an) genre is a Minginvention. He examines the growth of this genre of specialized,concise, and exact medical writing as an aspect of the authority of the physician, and in terms of demographic changes that increasedcompetition among medical practitioners. Bridie Andrews turns tothe “professionalization” of medical case records into the modernmedical genre of case histories during the first half of the twentiethcentury.

Part 6 discusses “Medical rationale” in the People’s Republic ofChina. Kim Taylor traces the beginnings of the institutionalization ofChinese (and Western) medicine to the guerilla warfare of the forties,and the changing status of acumoxa during this process. Volker Scheidmoves forward fifty years and uses two case studies from the ninetiesto assess the integration of Western and Chinese medicine in con-temporary China. He pays particular attention to the role of individ-ual innovation in combining traditional treatments and developingnew therapies.

This volume displays some tension between a leitmotif of innova-tion, which serves to unify the volume, and the actual diversity andrange of its parts (originally contributions to a conference in memoryof Lu Gwei-djen at the Needham Research Institute in 1995). For ageneral audience, the unifying theme refutes a popular stereotype ofChinese medicine as static and unchanging. For a more technicallyminded readership, this volume presents a rich variety of detailedessays on many aspects of the historical development of traditionalChinese medicine.

Lisa RaphalsUniversity of California, Riverside

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Chinese Glossary

Bencao

Chunyu Yi

Mai

Qi

Wenbing

Endnote

1. For example, see Vlastos, G., “The Third Man Argument in the Parmenides,”Philosophical Review 63 (1954) 319–349.

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Wuyun

Yangsheng

Yao

Yi’an