-
John Makeham's
review: Part 2.
[The review continues with an analysis of the pairing and
sections in chapters 5 to 8.]
The findings above confirm not only the author's admission
that pairing is "often based on trivial features" (p.207), but also
the extent to which their rigid commitment to pairing as a pervasive structural
feature compels them to make forced and subjective links between passages. In
sum, there is no consistency in the way pairing is used to structure the Lun yu text. This being so, as a general
principle, pairing per se cannot be appealed to as justification for identifying
interpolations. While acknowledging that there is evidence to support the identification
of pairing and periodic thematic clustering, neither is on a scale or pattern
that supports the authors' thesis. The failure to show that pairing is a feature
that "characterizes the entire text," in addition to the many unconvincing examples of unpaired
section final sayings, also undermines the formal criteria employed by the authors
for identifying sectioning as a "pervasive structural
device."
The Twenty-four Passages Argument
Having identified putative interpolations in each chapter,
the authors argue that nearly all chapters are composed of twenty-four passages.
Those that do not are Lun yu
4 (sixteen passages), 8 (four passages), 1 and 16 (twelve passages each), 18
(five passages), and 20 (three passages). In the case of 4 and 8, later extensions
are said to have been used to make up the standard complement. In the case of
1 and 16, it is suggested that "they may be an intentional halving of the
then normal 24-passage form" (p.248). The shortfall of the passages at
Lun yu 18 is explained
by identifying nineteen (!) passages that the author of 18 had interpolated
into other chapters. Thus the only real anomaly is Lun
yu 20, which is explained as being "preliminary to the intended chapter
form."
- When were interpolations introduced into different chapters?
The earliest examples are said to date from around 370 B.C., when the compiler
of Lun yu 10 (identified
as Zisi) is said to have begun making additions to 7 and 9 "as a way
of maintaining consistency in a text which up to that point had simply accumulated,
any internal conflicts being allowed to stand" (p.65). [Note: The skeptic
might note that Zisi would only have seen Lun yu 4 in its sixteen-passage
version and Lun yu 8 in its four passage version (8A).] From then on, interpolation
became established practice. Yet if this is so, one wonders how the 24 passages
formula was preserved if it was continually being hidden. Even assuming
that there was some transmission mechanism that preserved a knowledge of
the formula, why were earlier accretions not removed? Consider also the
case of 9.1, which is treated as an interpolation and dated circa 360. Many
ingenious attempts have been made to reconcile the claim made in this passage
that Confucius rarely spoke of ren with the 108 references to the term in the standard text. The
Brookses provide a ready solution: "The accretional theory of the text
obviates such ingenuity by noting that rvn (ren)
is common in the 05c layers but vanishes from
LY 10-11. 9.1... is an attempt by the LY 11 people (for whom rvn (ren) was obsolete) to protect
their li-based theory of Confucianism by denying the rvn basis of the original
school" (p.76) Yet given that these same "LY 11 people" were
the transmitters of the accretional text to that point, why would they not
rather have simply expunged all or most references to the term? It would,
after all, have been hard to deny the common occurrence of this term in
the text at that point in its proposed transmission.
-
- Chapter 4.
- The authors maintain that this chapter consists of only
16 original passages. While this in itself is inconsistent with the 24 passages
argument, it is further claimed that 8 passages were later interpolated
to achieve the requisite number. The formal criterion used to distinguish
4.1-17 from 4.18-25 (a block of passages treated as a "later extension")
is that the focus of the former is said to be official while the latter
is said to emphasize domestic and personal virtues. Yet this often rests
on little more than subjective emphasis. Why, for example, could not passages
4.1-7 unproblematically be interpreted as being concerned with personal
virtues as applied to interpersonal relationships? Similarly, why should
passages 4.22-24 relate only to the domestic/personal domain of the gentleman
as opposed to his public persona? There are certainly notable thematic clusters
in this chapter, but none sustains the blanket demarcation between 4.1-17
and 4.18-25 underpinning the original-extension distinction.
[The 24 passages argument in chapters 5 and 6 is analyzed here in the review.]
- Chapter 7
- 7.11 and 7.31. These are identified as interpolations
on the grounds that they "are anecdotes with narrative change of scene,
for which there is no earlier precedent" (p.214). Yet there is as much
a narrative change of scene at 5.8, 5.19b, and 6.4 as there is at 7.11.
More to the point, however, the argument that it is justifiable to remove
a passage on stylistic grounds if there is no earlier precedent is both
self-serving and inconsistent. The authors are arguing for an accretional
model; thus, on the one hand, those innovations that are found in, say,
chapter 5, but not in chapter 4, serve to confirm difference and hence accretional
growth. Yet, on the other hand, we have the same rationale being used to
argue that a lack of precedent is sufficient grounds for a passage's removal.
In the case of this chapter, the cost is high: no less than 15 of the 39
passages that the authors identify in this chapter are classed as interpolations.
7.36 and 7.37. These are dismissed on no better ground than
that they do not form a pair. Actually, using the author's own criteria, it
would be quite easy to identify these as a pair on formal grounds, given that
both are concerned with contrastive types. Of course, if they were to be recognized
as a pair, this would contravene the Brookses' prescriptive formula that a chapter
can only have 24 passages.
[John Makeham also analyzes the 24 passages argument in chapter 8.]
- Clearly, it is not the case that "24 sayings is
the full complement for a standard chapter" (p.216). The Procrustean
frame of 24 passages is unconvincing. This being so, then, in the chapters
that I have examined, as a general principle, there is no justification
for identifying a passage as having been interpolated simply on the basis
of its being descriptive rather than a saying. Another problem is the way
in which the authors date those passages they identify as interpolations.
One of the texts unearthed at Guodian tomb no.1 in 1993, named "Yu
cong," includes a passage that matches Lun
yu 9.4 (although where the received text reads
yi bi gu wo, the "Yu
cong" reads yi gu wo bi).
The tomb has been dated circa 300 B.C. (give or take a few years), so the
"Yu cong" material cannot be later. The Brookses, however, assign
a date circa 262 B.C. to the 9.4 passage. If the "Yu cong" passage
is, in fact, a Lun yu quotation,
this would leave them wide of the mark, even on the most conservative estimate,
by forty years.
- Appendix 2
I also have difficulty in concurring with some of the "contextual"
evidence that is mustered in Appendix 2 in support of the argument that the
authors' arrangement of the chapters is confirmed by "items of intellectual
and material culture whose developmental direction is either intrinsically plausible
of archaeologically attested" (p.249). This is a potentially powerful methodology,
but as presented in Appendix 2, it is insufficiently/inadequately developed.
- Confucius' Rank.
- Here a sequence of passages is adduced to evidence that
early chapters portray Confucius as an "unsuccessful statesman,"
while later chapters show his career developing at "increasingly higher
levels" (p.250). Counterexamples might include the following. (In citing
them my purpose is not to actually argue that Confucius did hold office,
but merely to show how the authors' developmental thesis is not without
difficulties. Again, I will limit counterexamples to chapters 4-8.) On the
evidence of 6.4 and 6.5, Confucius did hold significant office. At 5.8 Confucius
is consulted by Meng Wubo about the appropriateness of three of his disciples
for office. At 6.8 Confucius is consulted by Ji Kang zi about the appropriateness
of three of his disciples for office. If Confucius was an "unsuccessful
statesman," why would he have been consulted by these powerful figures?
[ ]
-
- Ren versus li.
- The authors propose a developmental sequence in which
li becomes more important
than ren. The evidence
adduced includes the identification of a cluster of passages on ren at 4.1-7 (which the authors
date ca. 479 B.C.) and the two clusters of passages on li at 10.1-19 and 3.1-23. Yet this clustering is more suggestive
of deliberate editorial arrangement of related themes. For the accretional
theory to be persuasive, it would require a more random distribution of
li in later chapters.
It is also claimed that it is only in the fourth century B.C. that "an
entirely new ethos, based on li, suddenly supervenes" (p.254). Yet li
is specifically mentioned six times in chapters
4 through 8: 4.13, 6.27, 7.18, 7.31, 8.2, and 8.8 - as are a range of li related activities. (For reasons
already outlined, 7.18, and 7.31 cannot be dismissed on appeal to interpolation.)
-
- Courage: Too few examples
are cited to be meaningful.
-
- The Shr [Shi] and the Yi.
- Regarding the argument "No text is cited or mentioned
in the original sayings of LY 4, or in those of LY 5-6, which have [sic] some claim to have been written
within the living memory of Confucius" (p.255), I am not quite sure
what the point is. The argument from absence is, in any case, questionable,
as there are "late" chapters that also make no mention of texts.
Significantly, texts, reading, and the recitation of texts are referred
to and cited in the "early" chapters 7 and 8, at 7.18, 8.3, and
possibly 8.8. Some would also argue that 7.17 includes a possible reference
to the Changes. The
authors treat 7.18 as an interpolation on the grounds that it is descriptive,
but, as I have shown, this alone provides insufficient justification for
identifying interpolations.
In conclusion, I believe that the biggest methodological gamble
taken by the authors is their insistence that the basic accretional unit is
a chapter. An alternative would be to regard individual passages (zhang), rather than chapters (pian), as the basic unit of transmission.
In the process of transmission, individual passages, pairs of passages, and
clusters of passages would have been added, modified, excised, combined, and
recombined according to the needs and interests of different advocacy groups
and editorial hands at different periods. Nor would all of these individuals
and groups necessarily have had to identify themselves as ru.
(It also remains an open question whether the ru only transmitted material that was
consonant with ru teachings.)
This model would also help to explain the inclusion of identical or nearly identical
passages and also the irregular nature of pairing and thematic clustering that
is in evidence in the received text. Such an alternative model accommodates
a far greater degree of fluidity in the transmission process than is allowed
in the Brookses' rigid structuralist model. It also requires minimal, if any,
rearrangement of the received text. As for the received text, it simply represents
one particular combination of zhang and pian. [Note:
for an argument that it was not until around 150-140 B.C. that the Lun yu came into existence as a book
and that this book was based on a number of early "collected sayings"
of the Master, see my Article, "On the Formation of Lun
yu as a Book" Monumenta
Serica 44, (1996) 1-25.] I cannot prove this hypothesis,
but neither, as I have argued, have the authors proven theirs.
Yet even if one is finally left unpursuaded by their reconstruction,
one cannot fail to be impressed by the tremendous intellectual creativity and
passion that distinguishes this study as a tour de force of sinological virtuosity,
both conceptually and in its execution. The rich and diverse possibilities their
work opens up promises a sea of change in Lun yu studies.
- John Makeham
- University of Adelaide, Australia.
- (with permission of the author)
note: ren: humaneness; li: ritual; Yi: the I Ching, Book of
Changes; Shi: the Book of Poetry; ru: a scholar, a Confucian.
-