Ancient Learning Research Articles

Poets and Teachers in the Underworld: From the Lucianic katabasis to the Timarion

Building on the classical tradition, which was strongly emulated in the Second Sophistic, Lucian used the katabasis motif (as we know it from, e.g., the Odyssey’s book 11) and staged various meetings in Hades. These Lucianic encounters were later rewritten by Byzantine authors who adapted them in order to express comical, critical, or subversive approaches towards power structures. In the present article, special focus will be placed on twelfth-century Byzantium and the anonymous dialogue Timarion. It is argued that the author of the Timarion used the Second Sophistic tradition of Lucian in order to discuss contemporary questions of the Greek literary and rhetorical heritage. He created a fictional space that displayed ancient learning and allowed discussions of contemporary culture in a textual parody with satirical functions.

The Seongho () School's Study of the Ancient Learning () and Its Influence on the Debate about Materia Medica in the Late Joseon Dynasty

This study will determine the ways in which the ancient learning (gu xue, ) scholarship of the Seongho School, and its interest in the materia medica (ben cao xue, ) were related during the late Joseon period. The Seongho School centered its studies mainly on classical Chinese texts of the Han (206 BC－AD 220) and pre-Han (?－221 BC) (xian-qin lianghan, ) periods rather than those of the Tang and Song dynasties (618-1279). gu xue scholarship emerged during the Ming dynasty era (1368 －1644) as an alternative to the scholarly trends of the Song dynasty, which were dependent on Zhu Xi's (, 1130－1200) Neo-Confucianism and its interpretation of Han and pre-Han classical Chinese texts. This scholarly trend influenced Korean and Japanese literature, philosophy, and even medicine from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries. Focusing on Korean scholarship, we find a great deal of research regarding the influence of gu xue on Korean classical Chinese literature and Confucian philosophy in the late Joseon period; however, no study has examined how this style of scholarship influenced the field of medicine during the same period. This study will investigate how the intellectuals of the Seongho School, who did the most to develop gu xue among Joseon intellectuals, were influenced by this style of scholarship in their study of the materia medica. Jeong Yak-yong (1762－1836), the representative intellectual of the Seongho School, did not focus on complicated metaphysical medical theories, such as the Yin-Yang and Five Elements theory (yin yang wu xing shui, ) or the Five Movements and Six Atmospheres theory (wu yun liu qi shui, ). Instead, his interests lay in the exact diagnoses of diseases and meticulous herbal prescriptions which formed an essential part of the Treatise on Exogenous Febrile Disease (Shang han lun, ) written by Zhang Zhungjing (, 150－219) in the Han dynasty. The Treatise was compatible with the scholarly purpose of gu xue in that they both eschewed metaphysical explanations. The Seongho School's interest in the materia medica stemmed from a desire to improve the delivery and quality of medical practices in rural communities, where metaphysical theories of medicine did not prevail and the cost of medicine was prohibitive.

Leibniz, China, and the Problem of Pagan Wisdom

Leibniz, China, and the Problem of Pagan Wisdom Daniel J. Cook (bio) Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’ mature years coincided with the first major European encounter with the thought and civilization of China. From the 1660s onward, many European thinkers and theologians were especially fascinated with this pagan culture. Although Christendom had previously encountered the pagan traditions of Greece and Rome, they had been incorporated into European thought since the origins of Christianity. From the time of the Church fathers, Christendom had developed various strategies to appropriate and reform classical philosophical thought for its own purposes. Leibniz echoes this Christianizing attitude when he says that “the doctrine of Plato concerning metaphysics and morality is holy and just. . . .”1 China represented a challenge to Christendom in that it was seen as an advanced civilization with its own highly developed belief system, which differed markedly from any of the Abrahamic religions. Whereas the ancient Greeks were long gone, Chinese wisdom threatened the monopoly of religious truth that the Christian West believed it possessed.2 “Freethinkers” would argue—as indeed they already had—that one could be ethical and civilized without believing in a Christian God. Joachim Bouvet—a French Jesuit serving in the court in Beijing and Leibniz’ main correspondent on matters Chinese—warns him that if their venerated texts are not somehow “sanctified,” there will be a living example of a highly civilized country being completely atheistic.3 Various solutions were offered to explain how pagans gained the wisdom thought to have been revealed exclusively to the Jews and Christians.4 Leibniz is the only major Western philosopher who attempted in various ways to accommodate the pagan wisdom of the Chinese to prevailing European philosophical and theological beliefs. His goal was to demonstrate that, when properly interpreted and reformed on the basis of reason, their relevant pagan texts were compatible with his own philosophy, that is, a natural theology that was in turn compatible with a Christian belief system. The implications for his lifelong ecumenical and irenic goals are clear. In his treatment of pagan wisdom, we see strong testimony to Leibniz’ belief in humankind’s intellectual ability to arrive at the basic truths of monotheism without compromising the singular truth and location of the Judeo-Christian revelation. Leibniz held to the literal biblical view that all of humanity originated with Adam. This monogenetic view of all humankind contributed to his basic belief in the natural ability of certain individuals of all eras to arrive at the same natural theology, that is, [End Page 936] those rational truths concerning the nature of God and the human soul. Justin Smith has argued that this contributed to Leibniz’ belief in the intrinsic equality of all peoples, though there may be great cultural and intellectual differences among them.5 Leibniz sought a path that could recognize the equality (let alone the superior mores that he thought Chinese society embodied) of pagan wisdom but at the same time support the unique and supreme nature of Christianity’s doctrines and mysteries. He believed that the superior scholarship and methodology developed by the Christian tradition to convert Jews could be used to this end. His European and Christian hubris on this point is apparent: It is not absurd for discerning Europeans . . . to see something today which is not adequately known by the Chinese erudites, and to be able to interpret their ancient books better than the erudites themselves. Who does not know in our own day that Christian scholars are much better interpreters of the most ancient books of the Hebrews than the Jews themselves? . . . This is even more likely concerning doctrines more than twenty centuries removed from the Chinese, who are quite possibly not as equipped with the interpretive aids as we, informed about Chinese literature, and especially aided by European methods.”6 I Unlike many of his contemporaries, who spurned classical learning, Leibniz, both temperamentally and philosophically, never ceased stressing the importance of classical texts. Arguments that appealed to ancient learning and wisdom should be attractive to Leibniz not only on purely intellectual grounds, but for polemical reasons as well. For example, he suggested to Bishop Huét that deepening our study of ancient pagan sources (especially...

Cave wall to internet, storytelling, the ancient learning art

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show the value of storytelling in developing organisational culture and values, facilitating change and accelerating learning. Design/methodology/approach – The paper looks at why storytelling is important and how it has survived and adapted to changing technologies. Findings – Storytelling is crucial in bridging the knowledge/action gap that is at the centre of most management, change and learning problems. The fact that oral storytelling has survived so many changes in technology is testament to its value but more recent research has underlined the scientific reasons for its success. Originality/value – A story is the only way to activate parts in the brain so that a listener turns the story into their own ideas and experience. In terms of influencing there is nothing more powerful than people thinking that the idea is their own. When people believe the idea is their own they put all their energies behind implementing it thus reinforcing culture/values and facilitating learning and change.

Attitudes to ancient Greek in three schools: a case study

ABSTRACTThis study comes in response to recent changes in UK policy, whereby Ancient Greek and Latin have been included alongside modern languages as part of the curriculum at Key Stage 2. It aims to understand how Ancient Greek is surviving and thriving in three different types of schools. After a short overview of the history of Greek teaching in the UK, the study focuses on attitudes to Ancient Greek language learning. I analyse the attitudes of both students and teachers at the three case study schools, on the basis of questionnaires and individual interviews. The study of grammar has often been perceived as the aim of learning an ancient language. However, the data I collected from students show that they exhibited the most positive attitudes to the cultural aspects of the language and to its exotic otherness, while the enthusiasm and dedication of their teachers contributed to students’ positive attitudes.

Yi Hui-gyeong and Bak Je-ga’s Discourse on the Northern Learning and Ancient Learning in the Late Eighteenth Century

Yi Hui-gyeong and Bak Je-ga’s Discourse on the Northern Learning and Ancient Learning in the Late Eighteenth Century

Encyclopaedic Erasmus

Copiousness as an idea is centrally identified with Erasmus. De copia was a milestone in establishing Erasmus as a humanist scholar after its first publication in Paris in 1512. In turn, this book was a major influence on theories of rhetoric, and of writing in general, throughout the sixteenth century. Following on from Cicero, Erasmus argues that style must be abundant in order to be effective, and that abundance consists of two primary elements: variety of expression and variety of subject matter. Copiousness is the key to writing, or to language, or even to an idea of knowledge. This article analyses the theory of copiousness in Erasmus, and then examines its practical application in the Adagia – another sixteenth‐century bestseller – which renders copiousness forth as a physical entity. That work offers the principle of an anthology of all ancient learning, and thus the summation of the bonae litterae. In the process, it provides a model for the problem of how to render the encyclopaedia in literary form.

Sojourners in a Strange Land: Jesuits and Their Scientific Missions in Late Imperial China (review)

Reviewed by: Sojourners in a Strange Land: Jesuits and Their Scientific Missions in Late Imperial China John B. Henderson Sojourners in a Strange Land: Jesuits and Their Scientific Missions in Late Imperial China. By Florence C. Hsia. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2009. Pp. xv, 273. $45.00. ISBN 978-0-226-35559-7.) There is no shortage of books, in several languages, on the Jesuit missionaries in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century China, and on the European science that a few of these Jesuits taught in China. If any subject in the history of late-imperial or early-modern China has attracted enough scholarship to do it justice, it would probably be this one. But much of the more recent scholarship on this subject rather neglects the European audience and background of the scientific mission of the China Jesuits (just as Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land [New York, 1961] does not tell us much of what we might like to know about Valentine Michael Smith's Martian background and support network). But whereas Heinlein does tell us quite a bit about Smith himself, Hsia's account of the China Jesuits is cast more as a "biography in a collective mode" (p. 7) in which individual personalities do not stand out as clearly or vividly as in the Jesuit historiography of an earlier generation. Although Hsia demonstrates an admirable competence in the field of spherical astronomy (starting on p. 100), neither does the book focus on the science that Jesuits taught in China or even much on the Chinese reception. Hsia's niche in this comparatively oversubscribed field is, rather, "the historical emergence and fortunes of this puzzling figure" (p. 2) of the Jesuit missionary scientist in seventeenth-and eighteenth-century China—an individual who transmitted European science and personal discoveries to the Chinese literati, European savants, and other interested parties of the European proto-Enlightenment. But what is really mystifying about this book is Hsia's own apparent puzzlement about the figure of the Jesuit "missionary scientist," "saintly mathematician" (p. 147), and "missionary as a man of scientific expertise" (p. 2) and her presentation of such phrases as if they were evidently oxymoronic. Had Hsia read more carefully John L. Heilbron's The Sun in the Church (Cambridge, MA,1999), which is included in her bibliography, she might have been struck by the first sentence: "The Roman Catholic Church gave more financial and social support to the study of astronomy for over six centuries, [End Page 877] from the recovery of ancient learning during the late Middle Ages into the Enlightenment, than any other, and probably, all other institutions" (p. 3). Granted that the Jesuits of this era might be fairly characterized as "shape-shifters" (p. 1) or even as "masked men," where is the evidence that the guise of missionary-scientist was one of the more unusual, if not the "most peculiar" (p. 2), of these shapes? Indeed, the figure of the missionary scientist was not that uncommon a sight in colonial Latin America. In that case, the authorities, as well as the colonial audience, might have occasion to ask,"Who was that masked man?" (title of Hsia's chapter 1). The most valuable part of the book is the discussion of the literary genres through which the Jesuits communicated with one another and their various publics. It is clear that China became a sort of scientific colony in which the Jesuits began the process of mapping out the universalist pretentions of European science, which in turn transformed China into a not-so-strange land—still exquisite, perhaps, but no longer exotic. John B. Henderson Louisiana State University Copyright © 2011 The Catholic University of America Press

‘Transmigrasi Ilmu’: Dari Dunia Islam ke Eropa

It has been a sad fact that whilst the ancient Greco-Roman civilization and the so-called Renaissance have always received high praise, the period in between, popularly known as the Dark Ages, is highly obscured or just ignored. These intermediating centuries are the missing link in the history of science and civilization, when most decisive scientific inventions were made, and the foundations of modern civilisation were laid, with scholarly, literary and scientific works in their thousands, artistic creativity, great architecture, huge libraries, hospitals, universities, mapping of the world, the discovery of the sky and its secrets, and much more. It was the time when al-Biruni, al-Khwarizmi, alIdrisi, al-Razi, Ibn Sina, Ibn al-Haytham, al-Ghazali, al-Jazari and other Muslim luminaries shone on the Dark Ages. This article aims to highlight the fact that the modern Western civilization owes much to the Muslims, who did not only inherit and preserve the ancient learning but modified and developed it. It is the Muslim legacy that paved the way for the revival and enlightenment of Europe in the 15th and subsequent centuries.

Our Country's Ancient Learning Has a Mandate for Renewal

国学即中国传统学术虽然经受了西学的强烈冲击，但其命脉仍葆有生机。中华民族对于在自己的生产生活中所形成的差异互补“关系”与和谐“整体”的重视，以及通过这一关系和整体把握自己命运的努力，构成了国学的思想实质。国学之“学”是围绕着“人”展开的，儒学的“仁”道思想就是鲜明的体现。如果说中国的现代化无非是中华民族在外力作用下的“自我”变革与超越，那么，它恰恰可以通过对仁道思想继承和扩展，为现代中国人的安身立命提供重要的思想资源，但这必须经过文化与学术的充分“自觉”。 关键词: 国学儒学西学孔子 Although national learning, i.e., traditional Chinese learning, has been affected by the onslaught of Western learning, its pulse still beats strongly. Its intellectual essence consists in the Chinese emphasis on a complementary “relationship” of differences that takes shape in the course of production and life and on the harmonious “whole,” together with Chinese efforts to control their own destiny by virtue of this relationship and this whole. The “learning” in national learning revolves around man and is vividly manifested in the Confucian concept of “benevolence” or human‐heartedness (ren 仁). If one were to say that Chinese modernization is nothing other than the Chinese nation's “self‐”transformation and transcendence under the impact of external forces, then it is national learning that can provide significant intellectual resources for modern Chinese to go about their lives and work through the transmission and extension of the idea of “benevolence.” However, this can only happen if culture and scholarship are fully “self‐aware.”

Vedas and the Development of Arithmetic and Algebra

Problem statement: Algebra developed in three stages: rhetorical or pr ose algebra, syncopated or abbreviated algebra and symbolic alge bra-known as school School algebra developed rather early in India and the literature now suggests that the first civilization to develop symbolic algebra was the Vedic Indians. Approach: Philosophical ideas of the time influenced the development of the decimal system and arithmetic and that in turn led to algebra. Indeed, symbolic algebraic ideas are deep rooted in Vedic philosophy . The Vedic arithmetic and mathematics were of a high level at an early period and the Hindus used a lgebraic ideas to generate formulas simplifying calculations. Results: In the main, they developed formulas to understand the physical world satisfying the needs of religion (apara and para vidya). While geometrical focus, logic and proof type are featur es of Greek mathematics, boldness of conception, abst raction, symbolism are essentially in Indian mathematics. From such a history study, a number o f implications can be drawn regarding the learning of algebra. Real life, imaginative and creative pr oblems that encourage risk should be the focus in student learning; allowing students freely move bet ween numbers, magnitudes and symbols rather than taking separate static or unchanging view. A move f rom concrete to pictorial to symbolic modes was present in ancient learning. Real life practical n eeds motivated the progress to symbolic algebra. T he use of rich context based problems that stimulate a nd motivate students to raise levels higher to transfer knowledge should be the focus of learning. Conclusion/Recommendations: The progress from arithmetic to algebra in India was achieved th rough different modes of learning, risk taking, problem solving and higher order thinking all in li ne with current emphasis in mathematics education but at rather early stage in human history.

CONTEMPLATIVE ECOLOGY:GUAN觀 FOR A MORE-THAN-SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

Journal of Chinese PhilosophyVolume 37, Issue 1 p. 116-130 CONTEMPLATIVE ECOLOGY: GUAN ? FOR A MORE-THAN-SUSTAINABLE FUTURE GUY BURNEKO, Corresponding Author GUY BURNEKO THE INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ANCIENT LEARNINGSeattle, WashingtonGUY BURNEKO, Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies, Director, The Institute for Contemporary Ancient Learning. Specialties: evolution and future of consciousness, intercultural noetics, ecosocial mindfulness. E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author GUY BURNEKO, Corresponding Author GUY BURNEKO THE INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY ANCIENT LEARNINGSeattle, WashingtonGUY BURNEKO, Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies, Director, The Institute for Contemporary Ancient Learning. Specialties: evolution and future of consciousness, intercultural noetics, ecosocial mindfulness. E-mail: [email protected]Search for more papers by this author First published: 05 February 2010 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6253.2009.01568.xCitations: 2Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume37, Issue1March 2010Pages 116-130 RelatedInformation

Interpretations of Renaissance humanism

Preface Contributors Introduction, Angelo Mazzocco PART I 1. Kristeller's Humanists as Heirs of the Medieval Dictatores, Ronald G. Witt 2. The Origins of Robert Black 3. Humanism: Ancient Learning, Criticism, Schools and Universities, Paul F. Grendler 4. Curial Humanism Seen Through the Prism of the Papal Library, Massimo Miglio 5. Humanism and the Medieval Encyclopedic Tradition, Giuseppe Mazzotta PART II 6. Humanism and Scholasticism: Toward an Historical Definition, Riccardo Fubini 7. Religion and the Modernity of Renaissance James Hankins 8. Rethinking Christian Humanism, Charles G. Nauert 9. Renaissance Humanism: the Rhetorical Turn, Eckhard Kessler 10. Literary Humanism in the Renaissance, Arthur F. Kinney PART III 11. Petrarch: Founder of Renaissance Humanism?, Angelo Mazzocco 12. Angelo Poliziano, Aldo Manuzio, Theodore Gaza, George of Trebizond, and Chapter 90 of the Miscellaneorum Centuria Prima (With an Edition and Translation), John Monfasani 13. Reinterpreting Renaissance Humanism: Marcello Adriani and the Recovery of Lucretius, Alison Brown Bibliography Index

Practical Pursuits: Religion, Politics and Personal Cultivation in Nineteenth-Century Japan (review)

Reviewed by: Practical Pursuits: Religion, Politics and Personal Cultivation in Nineteenth-Century Japan Samuel Yamashita (bio) Practical Pursuits: Religion, Politics and Personal Cultivation in Nineteenth-Century Japan. By Janine Sawada. University of Hawai‘i Press, Honolulu, 2004. xi, 387 pages. $45.00. Janine Sawada’s Practical Pursuits: Religion, Politics and Personal Cultivation in Nineteenth-Century Japan is an important book that will elicit a range of responses from careful readers. It will especially satisfy those [End Page 492] interested in nineteenth-century popular religious movements in eastern Japan—the Tokyo and Yokohama areas—as well as those tired of intellectual biography and facile cliches about enduring traditions. Sawada’s book will, however, challenge and test those who expect a neat and uncomplicated analysis of Japanese popular religion in the nineteenth century. The greatest contribution of Sawada’s Practical Pursuits is that it maps territory new to those who know only the English-language literature on nineteenth-century Japanese religion. Sawada begins with a brief account of the Confucian scholarly community between 1750 and 1850, dividing that community into three groups. The first group is the critics of the textualism inspired by Ogyū Sorai’s neoclassicism, Igai Keishō (1761–1845) and Ōta Kinjō (1765–1825); the second group is the Eclectics, including Inoue Kinga (1739–82), Katayama Kenzan (1730–82), and Hirose Tansō (1782–1856). The third and last group consists of “followers of Yōmeigaku and Shushigaku” who, in reaction to the textualism of the ancient learning movement, sought spiritual authenticity: Satō Issai (1772–1859), Takahashi Kōsetsu (1819–70), and Imakita Kōsen (1816–92). In chapters 2 and 3, Sawada turns to three “lesser-known” figures who devised their own distinctive forms of spiritual practice: Yokoyama Marumitsu (1780–1854), a diviner who offered a form of divination that he claimed could change one’s character; Mizuno Nanboku (1760?–1864?), a physiognomist who believed that what one ate and drank determined whether one achieved virtue; and Inoue Masakane (1790–1849), the founder of a new religion who devised purification rituals that were said to enable both good health and mystical union with Amaterasu. Sawada argues that this trio, like the scholars discussed in chapter 1, created new forms of spiritual practice that resonated with their own religious experience and that of their followers. To do this, they drew on the prevailing discourses of the day, chiefly Confucian and Shintō discourses. The redefinition of Confucianism in the Meiji period (1868–1911) is the subject of chapter 4. Sawada argues, first, that Confucianism was “removed from public higher education” and, second, that it was redefined as “learning” (gakumon) and made to signify more than just personal cultivation. As such, it came to mean something more general and universal, more Western, and more practical. For example, the 1890 Imperial Rescript on Education defined “learning” as having “social and political benefits—the harmony of the family and the success of the nation” (p. 102). And finally, Confucianism was characterized as a “philosophy” and not a “religion,” with the latter becoming a catchall for popular and devotional cults. This fascinating chapter is really about the survival of Confucianism after the Restoration and its reconfiguration for a new age. In chapters 5, 6, and 7, Sawada describes how the Zen establishment in eastern Japan responded to the new Meiji government’s anti-Buddhist [End Page 493] policies. She points out that the government not only issued the Edict on Clarifying the Distinction between Gods and Buddhas but also decreed that Buddhist monks would be subject to taxation and conscription and that both they and nuns now could marry. The government even tried to undermine Buddhist temples financially by ordering them to make contributions to the state, prohibiting them from collecting debts, taking possession of their redand black-seal lands, and not allowing mendicant rounds. In response, the Rinzai establishment in eastern Japan maintained celibacy, stressed meditation, and affirmed the value of jitsugaku, or “practical learning,” a term that then acquired several different meanings. The Rinzai establishment also cultivated well-known and rich individuals as lay practitioners—called koji in the case of men and zenshi in the case of women—who offered badly needed “economic...

On their own terms: science in China, 1550-1900

List of Maps, Illustrations, and Tables Chinese Dynasties Abbreviations Preface I. INTRODUCTION Prologue Finding the Correct Conceptual Grid What Should Be the Literati Theory of Knowledge? Late Ming Classicism in the Context of Commercial Expansion Printing Technology and Publishing Naturalization of Anomalies in Ming China and Early Modern Europe 1. Ming Classification on the Eve of Jesuit Contact Ordering Things through Names Collecting the Collectors Late Ming Statecraft, Mathematics, and Christianity Mathematics, and Christianity II. NATURAL STUDIES AND THE JESUITS 2. The Late Ming Calendar Crisis and Gregorian Reform Development of the Ming Astro-calendric Bureau Evolution of the Late Ming Calendar Crisis Gregorian Reform Jesuits and Late Ming Calendar Reform 3. Sino-Jesuit Accommodations During the Seventeenth Century European Scientia and Natural Studies in Ming-Qing China Literati Attacks on Calendar Reform in the Early Qing Ferdinand Verbiest and the Kangxi Emperor 4. The Limits of Western Learning in the Early Eighteenth Century The Kangxi Emperor and Mei Wending The Rites Controversy and Its Legacy French Jesuits in the Kangxi Court The Newtonian Century and the Limits of Scientific Transmission to China 5. The Jesuit Role as Experts in High Qing Cartography and Technology Mensuration and Cartography in the Eighteenth Century Cartography, Sino-Russian Relations, and Qing Imperial Interests The Jesuit Role in Qing Arts, Instruments, and Technology III. EVIDENTIAL RESEARCH AND NATURAL STUDIES 6. Evidential Research and the Restoration of Ancient Learning Early Qing Critiques of Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming Medical Works and the Recovery of Antiquity Chen Yuanlong and the Mirror of Origins Encyclopedia Revival of Ancient Chinese Mathematics 7. Seeking the Truth and High Qing Mathematics High Qing Views of the Investigation of Things Mathematics in an Age of Evidential Research Nativism and Early Nineteenth-Century Mathematics IV. MODERN SCIENCE AND THE PROTESTANTS 8. Protestants, Education, and Modern Science to 1880 Protestant Missionaries in China Protestants and Modern Science in Shanghai Introduction of Modern Mathematics and the Calculus The Shanghai Polytechnic and Reading Room 9. The Construction of Modern Science in Late Qing China Early Science Primers Edkins's Primers for Science and the Problem of Darwin in China From the Scientific Book Depot to the China Prize Essay Contest Prize Essay Topics and Their Scientific Content Medical Missionaries since 1872 and Medical Questions as Prize Essay Topics Natural Theology, Darwin, and Evolution V Qing Reformism and Modern Science 10. Government Arsenals, Science, and Technology in China after 1860 From Chinese Working for Missionaries to Missionaries Working for the Dynasty Post-Taiping Reformers and Late Qing Science The Jiangnan Arsenal in Shanghai Technical Learning in the Jiangnan Arsenal and Fuzhou Navy Yard Naval Warfare and the Refraction of Qing Reforms into Failure Reconsidering the Foreign Affairs Movement 11. Displacement of Traditional Chinese Science and Medicine in the Twentieth Century Western Learning Mediated through Japan Naval Warfare and the Refraction of Qing Reforms into Failure Science and the 1898 Reformers From Traditional to Modern Mathematics Modern Medicine in China Influence of Meiji Japan on Modern Science in China APPENDIXES 1. Tang Mathematical Classics 2. Some Translations of Chemistry, 1855-1873 3. Science Outline Series, 1882-1898 4. Partial Chronological List of Arsenals, etc., in China, 1861-1892 5. Table of Contents for the 1886 Primers for Science Studies (Gezhi qimeng) 6. Twenty-three Fields of the Sciences in the 1886 Primers for Science Studies 7. Science Compendia Published in China from 1877 to 1903 8. Some Officially Selected Chinese Prize Essay Topics from the Shanghai Polytechnic 9. Scientific Societies Formed between 1912 and 1927 Notes Bibliography of Chinese and Japanese Sources Acknowledgments Credits Index

Sirhak in Late Chosŏn Korea and Ancient Learning in Early Modern Japan from the Perspective of the History of Interaction

Ancient Learning, an approach to overcoming Zhu Xi Neo-Confucian metaphysics, emerged and developed as an intellectual track at about the same time in Korea, China, and Japan. This school was introduced to Chosŏn via Korean elites who visited Japan as members of diplomatic embassies. Upon returning, these Sirhak elites wrote commentaries on the Japanese Ancient Learning school text. This article discusses the historical interaction between Sirhak and the Japanese Ancient Learning school and examines Sirhak commentaries on Japanese Ancient Learning writers.

Wisdom and Absolute Power in Guillaume Budé’s Institution du prince

Recognized as France's most eminent early humanist, Guillaume Bude (1468-1540), whose indefatigable efforts led to the establishment of the College des Lecteurs Royaux in 1530, stood at the forefront of the application of new philological methods to problems of ancient learning. His Latin writings range from a commentary on Justinian's sixth-century compendium of Roman law (Annotationes ad Pandectas, 1508) to his magisterial opus on money and weights in antiquity (De asse, 1515), to his final work describing the transition from philological studies of ancient and profane culture to those of the and revealed truths of the Word (De transitu Hellenismi ad Christianismum, 1535). In the vernacular is a compilation of anecdotes or apophthegmata on political governance, composed most likely in 1519. Bude himself presented this untitled French tract in manuscript form to Francis I, and it was published posthumously in 1547 as the Institution du prince. (1) The foundation of good government on humanist learning, forged by Italian humanists of the quattrocento, led to the extensive development of the mirror-for-prince genre in sixteenth-century northern Europe. Though few such treatises appeared in England, important tracts were written in France, Spain, and Germany, and Bude's Institution is a leading example of this enterprise. Northern humanists, like their Italian predecessors, believed in the conjunction of philosophy and politics, and as Quentin Skinner conveys, if philosophers cannot hope to become kings, the next best thing must be for kings to be advised as closely as possible by philosophers. (2) With that end in mind, Bude became one of Francis's Masters of Requests in 1522, which bolstered his position as humanist architect of the Valois king's reign. Bude's innovation as a political theorist lies in his rationale for absolute authority. This study examines how he legitimates absolute power on humanist grounds and in particular on a certain understanding of wisdom. Although Bude addresses Francis in the Institution as tres chretien, divin, and premier filz of the maternal saincte eglise, he does not develop the affiliation of the French monarch to the Catholic and Apostolic Church, as does Claude de Seyssel, but the nature of the king does enter his discourse. (3) The Parisian humanist opens immediately with a reference to Solomon that hardly veils his strategy for winning Francis over to the humanist agenda. Citing Solomon, Bude writes: le don presente par l'homme luy // eslargist son chemin pour soy gecter en avant, et luy fait ouverture, pour soy presenter devant la face des (77). (4) By his gift, Bude seeks to carve a space for himself and his princely program. King Solomon will serve as Bude's historical model and will justify both the means and the ends of his project, which is to explain to Francis the humanist foundations of good government. From Solomon's advice on how to influence princes to his example as the prudent and wise monarch of Israel, Bude makes a shift from Seyssel and implicitly allies the identity of the Most Christian king not with the Faculty of Theology of Paris (which he does not mention) but with humanism and the bonae literae. The sacred qualities of France's sovereign, which closely resemble the iconography of the late Middle Ages, ate revealed by a new kind of learning, so that it is no surprise that Bude repeatedly urges Francis to support poets, orators, and historians. At one point in the manuscript, Bude candidly admonishes theologians for not knowing either Greek or Latin, for that hinders them severely from understanding the early languages of Scripture, particularly the texts involving Solomon upon whom France's prince should model his actions. This critical stance does not reflect Bude's pervasive attitude towards the Church. The De transitu shows his pronounced adherence to Catholicism and mitigates the disparaging comments about the clergy made earlier in such works as De asse or De studio literarum (1532). …

Attribution Tests and the Editing of Seventeenth-Century Poetry

For Richard Bentley (1662-1742), editing was in essence a branch of stylistics. Lacking even the most rudimentary interest in the genetic relationship of sources, he directed his attention to the ratio et res ipsa of the work which were 'of greater weight than a hundred codexes'.[1] Classical texts, riddled with transmissional error, were to be perfected from a profound understanding of the author's meaning and habits of style. The editor's brilliance was displayed through the ingenuity of his emendations; nor was this so capricious a process as it is sometimes represented. Authors were assumed to use language in a way that was unique both to their age and themselves: the editor able to internalize that usus loquendi was in a position to sweep away the accretions and distortions of centuries of transmission by scribes who had lacked any such understanding. Reasoning of this kind is an accepted part of the editing of musical works and the restoration of visual art works. In the first case the principal tool is an analytic understanding of the composer's harmonic and contrapuntal practice and in the second a knowledge of brush-strokes, pigments, methods of preparing surfaces and ways of constructing a composition. Bentley, thinking along similar lines, was convinced not only that he could detect the verbal voice-leading or brush-strokes of a Horace or a Milton, but that it was his duty in cases where words or phrases in the original had been replaced by the substitutes of an inferior hand to repair the impertinence to the best of his ability. His method, under the name of divinatio, is still an acknowledged part of the editing of Greek and Latin texts, with a collection of exercises in it appearing as recently as 1974.[2] If competently performed, it should at worst provide a replacement, in a manner not remote from that of the author, for evident falsity or nonsense. Notoriously, Bentley was often wrong. His edition of Milton, published in 1732, was so arbitrary in its marginal emendations that the apparatus of Thomas Newton's edition of 1749 is largely concerned with confuting them.[3] And yet, in the famous instance of the epistles attributed to Phalaris, his triumph is still acknowledged. Here, as is well known to students of Swift's The Battle of the Books, Bentley was responding to an edition of the epistles produced at Christ Church, Oxford by the Honourable Charles Boyle. Phalaris had been recommended in Sir William Temple's 'Essay on Ancient and Modern Learning' as a representative of the simplicity and force of the earliest period of Greek composition. Among the ancients, who were generally to be preferred to the moderns, he counted as an 'ancient' ancient, and thus doubly instructive. Bentley in his Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris (1699)hadno difficulty in showing that the epistles were a Hellenistic forgery. The case of Bentley exhibits three ways in which stylistics is important to editors. The first is to test whether works were actually the work of their presumed authors. The second is to test for contributions to those works by revisers or collaborators. The third is to assist in the emendation of corrupt passages. But Bentley's career also illustrates the danger of stylistic judgements when they are made on the basis of a mistaken theory of the genesis of the work or rely on impressionism rather than the careful assessment of language use. Awareness of this led to a series of attempts to establish controls on what Sir Walter Greg deprecates in 'The Rationale of Copy-text' as 'eclectic freedom and reliance on personal taste'.[4] The nineteenth-century solution was Lachmannian textual genetics, though here the change was more apparent than real; for, while late derived readings could by this means be excluded from consideration, the identification of what classicists call 'original' readings still usually relied on stylistic judgements. A later reaction, especially among editors of mediaeval texts, led to 'best manuscript' editing in which, Greg considered, editors content themselves with producing 'not editions of their authors' works at all, but only editions of particular authorities for those works' (p. …

Giovanni Battista Doni's Interpretation of the Greek Modal System

Humanists were generally poor historians of the ancient world. Their project of applying ancient learning and ideals to contemporary situations in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often impeded a disinterested search for historical truth. Giovanni Battista Doni, like Franchino Gaffurio, Henricus Glareanus, Girolamo Mei, and Francisco de Salinas before him, gained his reputation as a promoter of ancient Greek tonal systems as a basis for modern musical composition. But, like these predecessors, Doni was also imbued with a passion for research and scholarship. In a book he drafted in the early 163os and left unfinished, the de' generi e de' modi della musica,' he indulged in pure scholarship before becoming embroiled in debates about reforming modern music. His published Compendio del de' generi e de' modi della musica (Rome, 1635) was not a true compendium of the unpublished treatise but a bowdlerization with an obvious reformist agenda that left the scholarly substance behind. Consequently we must go to the unpublished Trattato to understand Doni's view of the ancient Greek tonal

Beixi's ‘Ziyi’ and Ancient Learning Philosophical Lexicography

Yamaga Sokō (1622–85), Itō Jinsai (1627–1705), and Ogyū Sorai (1666–1728) are generally recognized as the three luminaries of thekogaku, or “Ancient Learning”, philosophical movement of Tokugawa Japan (1603–1868). One of the most conspicuous features of their masterworks is their lexicographical methodology. The origins of that methodology are found, this paper suggests, in (I) Chen Beixi's (Jpn: Chin Hokukei; 1159–1223)Xingli ziyi(Jpn:Seiri jigi; The Meanings of Philosophical Terms, c. 1226); and (2) Hayashi Razan's (1583–1657) work propagating theZiyi, theSeiri jigi genkai(Vernacular Explication of Beixi's Ziyi, 1659).