Ucheniye o simvolakh i chislakh v kitaiskoi klassicheskoi filosofii (The teaching of symbols and numbers in classical Chinese philosophy) (review)

Abstract

332 China Review International: Vol. 3, No. 2, Fall 1996 Artyom I. Kobzev. Ucheniye 0 simvolakh i chislakh ? kitaiskoi klassicheskoi filosofii (The teaching of symbols and numbers in classical Chinese philosophy ). Moscow: Nauka [Science], Vostochnaya Literatura [Eastern Literature ] Publishers, 1993. 432 pp. Because Russian is not commonly understood by Occidental scholars, it may prove difficult to try to introduce a good sinological book written in this language . But even under the present difficult conditions, Russian sinologists have continued to produce some truly important works, and I hope that this review will contribute to the process ofreestablishing communication and understanding between Russian and Western sinological circles. Artyom I. Kobzev (b. 1953) now holds the position ofLeading Research Fellow at the Institute of Orientology in the Russian Academy of Science. His new book offers a comprehensive study of the logical and methodological foundations for philosophical and scholarly knowledge as they developed in the Chinese spiritual tradition. The publication of this comprehensive study of ancient Chinese logic and methodology (or, to use the author's terms, protologic and numerology ) may be said to constitute an essential logical stage in the development of Russian studies in the history of Chinese philosophy. During the postwar period, Russian scholars have concentrated primarily on studying individual thinkers and examining classical texts, thus creating a sort of critical mass of translations and descriptive research monographs. Kobzev's previous book on Neo-Confucianism also contributed to this body ofresearch (Ucheniye Van Yanmina i klassicheskaya kitaiskayafilosofiya [The teaching ofWang Yangming and classical Chinese philosophy ] [Moscow: Nauka Publishers, 1983]). Recently, Russian scholars of Chinese thought have become more interested in analyzing philosophical categories and terms and their interpretations, and this has resulted in a turn toward studies in methodology and metatheory. As a theoretical prerequisite for Kobzev's book, we should mention the first high-quality text published on this topic, by V. Spirin of the St. Petersburg Division of the Institute of Orientology of the Russian Academy of Science (see his Postroyeniye drevnekitaiskih tehtov [Construction of ancient Chinese texts] [Moscow, 1976]). His development of a unique structural-textological method used to analyze Chinese texts has since been further developed by other scholars (Kobzev, A. Karapetyants, and S. Zinin). 6 by UniversityKobzev describes this method ofresearch in Chinese methodology as "basically a way of singling out and analyzing the nonlinear (two-dimensional, as a rule, but possibly also three-dimensional) structure of a canonical, or canon-congruous , text with a theory-pertinent semantics of its own that constitutes an inofHawai 'i Press Features 333 alienable component ofthe given work's general contents" (p. u). The book focuses on the study of the conceptual and methodological basis ofthis kind of structure treated within the framework ofthe numerological "Teaching ofSymbols and Numbers." The author dedicates his work to the "reconstruction of the complete system ofthe 'symbols and numbers teaching' (xiangshu zhi xue IMS.^-^), the widelyaccepted formal methodology ofphilosophical and scholarly knowledge in traditional China—that is, an original conception of Chinese numerology as a specific methodological theory ofsymbolizational spatial-numerical patterns; the explication ofthe standard content interpretation ofnumerological theory; the elucidation ofits origin and the main stages ofits historical evolution; the analysis ofthe interaction of the theory with the alternative and defeated methodological system —protologic; the comparison with analogous phenomena in European philosophy , that is, the contradiction ofAristotelian-Stoic formal logic and the Pythagorean-Platonic numerology of structurology (arithmology)" (p. 425). The book examines three types ofobjects that make up the foundations of Chinese numerology. They are geometric shapes or "symbols" represented by the trigrams and hexagrams of the Book ofChanges; "numbers" found in the numerical diagrams he tu ?»G? and luo shu &?; and the "ontological hypostases" ofthe "symbols" and "numbers" expressed in ideographic forms of the "yin-yang" binary and the "five elements" (wu xing i-fr) (see pp. 1, 339-340). Kobzev regards these "symbols" and "numbers" as the result of a formal combinatorial thinking. They can function as variables allowing for different interpretations of content, and combine to form complete linear sequences and spatial patterns, that is, graphic schemes ofa higher order, with the help ofrigidly formalized procedures (PP· 339-340), whereas the numerological methodology that relied on them used...