The Way and the Word: Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece (review)

Geoffrey Llyod and Nathan Sivin, The way and the word: science and medicine in early China and Greece, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 2002, pp. xvii, 348, £25.00 (hardback 0-300-09297-0). - Volume 48 Issue 4

Reviews of Books

"Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin, The Way and the Word: Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002. xvii, 348 pp." published on 05 Jul 2004 by Brill.

The way and the word. Science and medicine in early China and Greece: Geoffrey Lloyd & Nathan Sivin; Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2002, pp. xvii+348, Price £25.00 hardback, ISBN 0-300-09297-0, Price £14.50 paperback, ISBN 0-300-10160-0.

The Way and the Word Science and Medicine in Early China and Greece. by Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2002. 368 pp. $35, £25. ISBN 0-300-09297-0. Comparing the cosmology, science, and medicine in Greek and Chinese civilizations in the six centuries from 400 B.C., Lloyd and Sivin discuss the social, political, and intellectual context of scientific concepts and thinkers and relate conceptual differences to these circumstances.

In the late first century CE, the myth of Narcissus became one of the most frequently represented subjects in Roman wall painting. The well-known, often reproduced images from the House of Octavius...

For the early Chinese, sagehood represented something of a preoccupation. Since the fourth century bce, few ancient thinkers have refrained from issuing pronouncements about sages—who sages were, what paths they took to achieve perfection, and even what they looked like. In addition, early Chinese thinkers also speculated about how sages “saw.” They asked whether sages were endowed with extraordinary powers of sight and sound, they contemplated whether there were things that sages alone were able to detect, and they debated whether sages detected ruses. Despite the importance of sagehood—and indeed, recent interest in the epistemology of the senses—scholars have paid scant attention to the issue of sagely perception. The topic, for example, is notably absent from Jane Geaney’s important recent study, On the Epistemology of the Senses in Early China. 1 Nor does it surface in important essays on epistemology in Chinese thought by Lisa Raphals, Christoph Harbsmeier, and David Keightley. 2 Indeed, with the notable exception of Mark Csikszentmihalyi’s brief discussion of the problem in his book, Material Virtue: Ethics and the Body in Early China, the subject has yet to occasion a full-length article or book. 3 The omission is somewhat surprising since scholars have been aware of the linguistic connection between the term for sage (sheng ) and words for aural perception. As Ning Chen observes, sheng was cognate for “sound” (sheng ) and “to listen” (ting ). The fact that the sage was something of a perceptual “virtuoso” has moreover been duly noted. “[F]rom the perspective of ancient Chinese,” Chen writes, “he who is keen in hearing is at the same time a wise man, able to distinguish between true and untrue.” 4 As Csikszentmihalyi similarly remarks, Warring States authors understood sagehood not as a “store of knowledge,” or an ability to impart simple truths (as in ancient Greece), but as the “consequence of superhuman perceptions.” 5

Towards the end of his life, Lord Ling of Wei (r. 534-493 BCE) effectively abdicated in favor of his wife, Lady Nanzi. Such a transfer of power seems to have been unique in Zhou dynasty China, and these events were discussed at some length in ancient historical and philosophical texts. Throughout the imperial era scholars and commentators continued to study Lord Ling and Lady Nanzi, producing a considerable body of research which reflects changing attitudes to the nature of ruler's rights and authority, and which also documents responses to the couple's apparent rejection of accepted social and gender roles. Although their actions were often portrayed positively in early Chinese texts, the overwhelming majority of scholars who studied their biographies in the imperial era were hostile to the concept of a woman taking control of the government of a state. The tension between the accounts found in ancient texts and subsequent scholarship is the subject of this paper.

This book examines the construction of space and place in early China and the ancient Mediterranean through the lens of performances conducted in specific locations. It highlights conceptions of place and performance, seeing both as crucial to the production of cultural meaning and communal cohesion, and as heavily dependent on the prevailing political culture. Whether urban or rural, global or local, central or fringe, public or private, real or imagined, theatrical or ritual, the places and performances highlighted serve to show both commonalities and differences between the ancient Mediterranean and early China. The range of places of comparison is also very diverse, including roads, gardens, neighbourhoods, hydraulic infrastructures, funerary performance, spectacles at court, and the everyday display of authority through clothing and fashion. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

How did the critical scholarship doubting the authenticity of ancient texts originate and theorize? In the case of East Asia, one can quickly think of Gu Jiegang 顧頡剛 (1893-1980), the representative of the so-called Doubting Antiquity School. But there must have been a long history advocating the idea preceding Gu Jiegang. Based on the criticism on the discrepancies inherent in the ancient texts such as the Venerated Document (Shangshu) suggested by Wang Chung 王充 (27-96?), Liu Zhiji 劉知幾 (661-721), and Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 (1007-1072), it was not until the 18th century when the scholarly quest for the cause behind the contradictions indeed began.BR The first step in theorizing the doubting of antiquity was the theory of superseding (kajō 加上) proposed by Tominaga Nakamoto 富永仲基(1715-1746). According to Tominaga, competitions between scholars to overcome previous explanations stimulated them to attribute their narratives to far-earlier sages deliberately. It was Cui Shu 崔述 (1740-1816) who applied a similar idea to history and found a fabricating pattern, in which he hypothesized that later the work, the farther in time the purported knowledge of the past is pushed back and the more complex the historical knowledge. All the same, it was not until the early 20th century when Shiratori Kurakichi 白鳥庫吉 (1865-1942) for the first time initiated the iconoclasm of sage kings such as Yao, Shun and Yu as the premise for establishing the doubting antiquity theory. Refining the relatively weak basis of Shiratori’s argument elaborately, Gu Jiegang completed the approach with the idea of the “accumulated creation of ancient history.”BR However, the sheer accumulation of archaeological discoveries in China during the second half of the 20th century exposed limitations in the idea of fabricated ancient texts promoted by the Doubting Antiquity School. Especially, Li Ling convincingly points out that they oversymplified the complicated long-term process of textual formation in early China. In this regard, studying the canonization process from the stream of textual tradition in the newly unearthed Warring States bamboo slips would provide a new vista to overcome the limitations inherent in the theory of doubting antiquity.

Neuropathy is a medical condition that primarily affects the peripheral nerves. Symptoms include pain, numbness, tingling, and weakness of muscles, especially in the extremities. The history of neurological disorders is as old as human history itself, with evidence of various conditions and their manifestations dating back to ancient civilizations. Ancient texts from cultures such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and China contain descriptions of symptoms that are now recognized as neurological disorders. Conditions like epilepsy, stroke, and paralysis were observed and often attributed to supernatural causes. Ancient Mesopotamian medical texts, such as the “Diagnostic Handbook” and the “Therapeutic Treatises,” offer valuable insights into the medical practices of the time. These texts contain descriptions of symptoms such as pain and weakness, which could potentially be related to neuropathic conditions. In ancient Greece, physicians such as Hippocrates and Galen made significant contributions to medical knowledge, including the understanding of neurological disorders. Treatments recommended by these physicians included dietary interventions, exercise, and medicinal herbs, based on the principles of balancing bodily humors and restoring bodily harmony. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) dates back thousands of years and includes a rich repository of knowledge about various medical conditions and their treatments. While there is no direct evidence of neuropathy in ancient Chinese texts, TCM does recognize the concept of “bi” syndrome, which encompasses symptoms such as pain, stiffness, and numbness in the limbs.

Divination was an important and distinctive aspect of religion in both ancient China and ancient Greece, and this book will provide the first systematic account and analysis of the two side by side. Who practised divination in these cultures and who consulted it? What kind of questions did they ask, and what methods were used to answer those questions? As well as these practical aspects, Lisa Raphals also examines divination as a subject of rhetorical and political narratives, and its role in the development of systematic philosophical and scientific inquiry. She explores too the important similarities, differences and synergies between Greek and Chinese divinatory systems, providing important comparative evidence to reassess Greek oracular divination.

This essay explores a call for non-action in certain ancient Chinese texts that, contrary to expectation, implicitly upholds definitions of action that are comparable to Western understandings of the term. The call for non-action in ancient Chinese texts differs significantly, however, from what Western theorists usually define as legitimate, agent-led action through its negation of viewing means-end calculations as the basis of action. Closer analysis of such formulations on non-action reveal that that there is room for a broader definition in action theory of what constitutes a coherent, unified, creative agent.

This essay explores a call for non-action in certain ancient Chinese texts that, contrary to expectation, implicitly upholds definitions of action that are comparable to Western understandings of the term. The call for non-action in ancient Chinese texts differs significantly, however, from what Western theorists usually define as legitimate, agent-led action through its negation of viewing means-end calculations as the basis of action. Closer analysis of such formulations on non-action reveal that that there is room for a broader definition in action theory of what constitutes a coherent, unified, creative agent.

The topic of this compact volume is extensive and has, in this format, not yet been tackled, arguably for good reasons. Ancient Chinese thought centers on “embodied cognition” with body and mind (the term is xīn 心, the physical heart) cooperating for self-cultivation, moral conduct, and happy life. Hardly any ancient text and, consequently, sinological work on intellectual history does not touch on the three concepts of body, heart-mind, and spirit. Raphals investigates their occurrence in major texts from the Book of Songs down to medical materials from the first century CE, relying on her own previously published research and sources she reads in very close dependence on selected previous scholarship. Her interest lies in spirit (shén 神), immaterial and everywhere in resemblance to deities and thought, that in the Zhuāngzǐ 莊子, medical texts, and, to be added, Daoist sources of a later date disturb the neat body and mind configuration humans are supposed to be made of. Raphals points to Catherine Despeux, an eminent specialist in Daoist and medical traditions who translates the term shén as “soul” (l'âme). In which way a tripartition is really an option for the great pre-Qín philosophical works needs more discussion. The volume is hampered by, at times, spurious attention to sources, a certain over-standardization in labeling what they say, and some disregard for previous, more scholastic attempts to understand the three terms. However, many passages are informative and read well; the general topic is important enough to deserve interest.