Intellectual Discovery Research Articles

The Evolutionary Approach of Stephen Toulmin and Revision of Modern Rationality in the Philosophy of Science

Many philosophers of the 20th century guided their efforts into development of explanatory models to describe scientific change, and also tried to offer their methodologies as normative theories for scientific research. As a result, several different approaches emerged, some of which put greater emphasis on the theoretical content of science, others on the historical facts that accompanied these theoretical changes or caused them. Consequently, positions of philosophers differed on the issues of rationality, its continuity or gaps both in temporal and cultural-civilizational terms. One of those, who tried to work out a “middle” way and combine the advantages of the “relativistic” and “dogmatic” poles, was the British thinker Stephen Toulmin (1922–2009), whose famous books are “The Application of Argumentation” and “Human Understanding”. This article analyzes the main ideas and arguments of the author’s evolutionary model (most fully and densely presented in the second work), demonstrates the legitimacy of application of the evolutionary metaphor from biology to the field of history of science, the productive aspects of such approach, and the key points of critical remarks by other researchers. An attempt was made to find out why S. Toulmin abandoned the development of the project of his research program and further shifted his intellectual discoveries into issues of the genesis and revision of modern rationality. Based on this, the article summarizes those aspects of the criticism of the philosopher’s ideas, which could lead to a “negative selection” of his proposals, while similar like the works of other authors found more recognition and generated more active public discussions and further research. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that the philosopher’s contribution to the development of methodologies, in particular Karl Popper’s and Imre Lakatos’ was rather non-linear and largely underestimated in the philosophical literature for a long time.

Making Political Science: Material-Aesthetic Approaches to Knowledge Production

Abstract Making represents an important practice in political science research, but the relative unfamiliarity of “making” within the discipline often pushes discussion of it to the margins. This article helps theorize the value of making in political science and questions the idea that moves away from writerly research modes undermine or otherwise erode standards of scholarship. It argues that making processes generate unique opportunities for intellectual discovery; for data collection; for analytic practices of reflexivity, associative thinking, and the adaptation of multiple positionalities; and finally, for argumentation. As such, it suggests that boundary-pushing research that incorporates hands-on praxis to make aesthetic products may in fact augment systematicity and rigor according to established disciplinary norms.

Critical Reassessments: “My Heart Laid Bare”: A Deep Rereading of Daniel Hoffman’s Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe

Critical Reassessments: “My Heart Laid Bare”: A Deep Rereading of Daniel Hoffman’s <i>Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe</i>

A escrita de notas como artesanato intelectual: Niklas Luhmann e a escrita acadêmica como processo

Abstract Despite numerous indications that academic writing is a means toward intellectual discovery and not just a representation of thought, in Brazil, it is seen more as a product of studies and subjects than an integral part of university education. This article presents note-taking, an apparently simple and supposedly archaic activity, as a way through which academic writing is eminently oriented towards constructing an authorial thought. To this end, we discuss recent findings in the historiography of writing that show note-taking as an essential practice in the development of modern intellectuality. We also present an emblematic case, in the 20th century, of the fruitful use of a note-taking system created by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. Finally, we point out that the value of note-taking goes beyond mere historical curiosity, constituting an additional tool for a daily life in which satisfaction and a sense of intellectual development are at the center of academic life.

Research is life: The lived experiences of pre-service teachers on their research course

Research is one of the trifocal functions of higher education in the Philippines. It is further cascaded to undergraduate research to ensure that undergraduates in collaboration with their mentor contribute intellectual discoveries or creative output relative to their discipline through research. This phenomenological research was undertaken to highlight the lived experiences of preservice teachers on their research course. To achieve this purpose, twenty-four preservice teachers enrolled in the course Research in Elementary Education A.Y. 2020-2021 were interviewed through online video conferencing. Based on the accounts of the participants, partnership, interaction, guidance, and fulfillment were among the four significant experiences in the course. It was further highlighted that challenges encompassed internet connection, writing the literature review, gathering data, and time constraints. Resources, hardware, support system, and time management were found to be the best practices of the participants in terms of addressing the identified challenges in the course. In terms of the necessary skills and attitude to be successful in the course, participants emphasized the need for communication, teaming and collaboration, information, media, and technology literacy, flexibility and adaptability, critical thinking, and time management skills. Also, motivation and perseverance were among the significant attitudes to be developed in taking the course.

Три ошибки теории К. Маркса

Introduction. Marxism arose considering the level of knowledge that was achieved by the middle of the XIX century. Since that time, scientific ideas have changed significantly, which in theory requires a revision of its main provisions, and in practice leads to social and political mistakes. Methodology. The principle of systems and methodological approaches of structural and functional analysis, behaviorism and interactionism allow us to build a cultural-anthropological methodological construct using methods of mathematical modeling of demographic and economic processes. Results and its discussion. All the "three constituent parts of Marxism" initially contain errors. The philosophical one consists in ignoring the fact that human needs must be considered as vital needs that are satisfied in the cultural forms accepted by this community. Economic error consists in exaggerating the role of physical labor as a source of surplus value to the detriment of intellectual discoveries that make it possible to organize and direct the action of the forces of nature to carry out "work" useful to society, so that the added product is a gift of human intelligence and the forces of nature to human society. As a result, there is an excess product that makes it possible to improve cultural forms of satisfaction of life needs and leads to horizontal and vertical differentiation of society. The sociological error consists in insufficient consideration of the density of the connection between economic and demographic processes, which is realized as an energy saturation of the ecological niche of society, which leads to a change in its volume. These grounds allow us to build a mathematical model of the relationship between the increment of gross domestic product and the natural movement of the population.

Рукопись И. П. Сойкконена в аспекте изучения зимней повседневности якутов первой трети ХХ в.

The Yakutia Comprehensive Research Expedition of 1925–1930 proved a most essential stage in the intellectual discovery of Russia’s Arctic and North. Even nowadays the insights into climate and natural resources, socioeconomic and demographic analyses, living conditions assessments remain as topical. It is noteworthy that the efforts undertaken were largely humanitarian, thus making the collected data on socioeconomic history and everyday life rich enough. Ivan Soikkonen was heading the Yakut Ethnographic Subgroup in 1926–1927, the latter to have been working in the central part of the Republic. Long-term stationary observations resulted in materials covering ethnic culture of the Yakuts, including detailed descriptions of household life, economic activities, and family relations. Soikkonen’s papers are distinguished by ‘photographic’ reflections of rural Yakutia’s local realities typical for earliest decades of the 20th century. Goals. The article aims to introduce into scientific circulation one manuscript by the Russian ethnographer Ivan P. Soikkonen containing ethnographic materials from late 1920s Central Yakutia. Materials. The manuscript titled ‘Winter Day of the Yakut Woman’ is stored together with other unpublished Yakutia-related materials of Soikkonen at the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg Branch). Results. The expedition materials are invaluable sources for humanities research. The manuscript examined contains interesting facts that shed light on social relations, standards and qualities inherent to rural life refracted in the mirror of everyday gender. The phenomena dominating throughout the to be presented document is that of natural winter cold which limits, restrains, and regulates activities of a Yakut woman in winter everyday life in earliest decades of the past century. Soikkonen’s notes make it possible to examine aspects of the economic determinism among Yakuts to have arisen from natural and climatic conditions of the region in the period prior to the Soviet modernization in interdisciplinary perspectives. Conclusions. The paper is first to publish the manuscript, only some small fragments have been cited before. The article pioneers the interpretation of Soikkonen’s materials from the standpoint of the anthropology of cold. The author comments and transcribes Yakut terms contained in the manuscript.

Рукопись И. П. Сойкконена в аспекте изучения зимней повседневности якутов первой трети ХХ в.

The Yakutia Comprehensive Research Expedition of 1925–1930 proved a most essential stage in the intellectual discovery of Russia’s Arctic and North. Even nowadays the insights into climate and natural resources, socioeconomic and demographic analyses, living conditions assessments remain as topical. It is noteworthy that the efforts undertaken were largely humanitarian, thus making the collected data on socioeconomic history and everyday life rich enough. Ivan Soikkonen was heading the Yakut Ethnographic Subgroup in 1926–1927, the latter to have been working in the central part of the Republic. Long-term stationary observations resulted in materials covering ethnic culture of the Yakuts, including detailed descriptions of household life, economic activities, and family relations. Soikkonen’s papers are distinguished by ‘photographic’ reflections of rural Yakutia’s local realities typical for earliest decades of the 20th century. Goals. The article aims to introduce into scientific circulation one manuscript by the Russian ethnographer Ivan P. Soikkonen containing ethnographic materials from late 1920s Central Yakutia. Materials. The manuscript titled ‘Winter Day of the Yakut Woman’ is stored together with other unpublished Yakutia-related materials of Soikkonen at the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (St. Petersburg Branch). Results. The expedition materials are invaluable sources for humanities research. The manuscript examined contains interesting facts that shed light on social relations, standards and qualities inherent to rural life refracted in the mirror of everyday gender. The phenomena dominating throughout the to be presented document is that of natural winter cold which limits, restrains, and regulates activities of a Yakut woman in winter everyday life in earliest decades of the past century. Soikkonen’s notes make it possible to examine aspects of the economic determinism among Yakuts to have arisen from natural and climatic conditions of the region in the period prior to the Soviet modernization in interdisciplinary perspectives. Conclusions. The paper is first to publish the manuscript, only some small fragments have been cited before. The article pioneers the interpretation of Soikkonen’s materials from the standpoint of the anthropology of cold. The author comments and transcribes Yakut terms contained in the manuscript.

England's Life of Paradox

England's Life of Paradox

Revisiting Highlander and Its Theoretical Origins for Civic Education

Adult educators and scholars have long recognized the Highlander Education and Research Center in Tennessee as a model for adult civic education that is transformative for individuals and society. In 2004, researchers at Harvard University identified Highlander as one of the most successful initiatives worldwide with long-term impact on societal transformation. It is important for current scholars interested in adult and civic education to understand Highlander’s theoretical and practical contributions to adult learning and civic action, and how it shares many of the same theoretical streams of thought that influenced the development of transformative adult education. This article will provide an in-depth review of how Highlander’s theoretical origins, depicted through one of its founder’s intellectual discoveries, were forerunners to contemporary transformative educational theory and became a catalyst for a decades-long enterprise of transformative education. Highlander and its approach may be unfamiliar to contemporaries in adult education, but its theoretical and practical approach remains highly relevant as we seek nontraditional models and educational practices to promote civic engagement for a more socially and economically just society.

A Platonic Theory of Moral Education: Cultivating Virtue in Contemporary Democratic Classrooms by Mark E. Jonas and Yoshiaki Nakazawa

Reviewed by: A Platonic Theory of Moral Education: Cultivating Virtue in Contemporary Democratic Classrooms by Mark E. Jonas and Yoshiaki Nakazawa Frederic Clarke Putnam JONAS, Mark E., and Yoshiaki Nakazawa. A Platonic Theory of Moral Education: Cultivating Virtue in Contemporary Democratic Classrooms. New York: Routledge, 2021. viii + 202 pp. Cloth, $128; eBook, $39.16 The introduction recapitulates the authors’ 2012 article (with James Braun), “Appetite, Reason, and Education in Socrates’ ‘City of Pigs’” (also the appendix to this volume), and points out that nearly all discussions of Socrates’ “ideal society” focus on the kallipolis described in the Republic, assuming that it embodies Socrates’ “perfect” or “ideal” polis, even though he never praises it, and even though he calls it a “luxurious” city with a [End Page 380] “fever.” This approach also tends to dismiss his description of the city that Socrates praises as “true,” “happy,” and “healthy” (Republic 369d–373b)— the egalitarian city of book 2, often (unfortunately) called the “City of Pigs,” because Glaucon says that their diet suggests a “city for pigs” (372d). They further note that the purpose of the conversation about cities in the Republic was not to design a political entity but, rather, to “illuminate justice in the soul,” Socrates and his interlocutors agreeing that it is easier to see justice in something large (a city) than in something small (the soul). The city of the philosopher-kings is not intended to outline a theory of education; the Republic needs to be read alongside, for example, the Laws and the Statesman, both of which argue that every citizen should be taught to be virtuous, because everyone can become more virtuous. Plato believed that moral education has two requirements: moral epiphanies and habituation. The majority of the book fleshes out these two ideas, drawing freely from many of Plato’s writings (the authors’ approach to Plato is “Unitarian” rather than developmental). Chapter 1 defends Socrates and Plato against “intellectualism”—the charge that knowledge alone leads (inevitably) to correct actions and that wrong choices signal a lack of knowledge. Although individual statements can be cited to support the “intellectualist” reading (for example, Protagoras 352b–e), Socrates’ analogies of craftsmen (cobblers, athletes, musicians, orators) show that he believed that habituation—obeying a master over time—is mandatory for growth in virtue (for example, Crito 47b–d, Protagoras 312b, Gorgias 500c–d). Whoever fully knows the right thing will do it, because full knowledge means that one has “rationally assented” and “developed the desire and dispositions [that is, the skills] that provide the motivational impetus to perform the act.” Chapter 2 shows that the chiseling off of the soul’s “encrustations” calls for stories, myths, poetry, music, gymnasia, and games (Republic 377a–c, 399a–c, 404d–e, 410b–411e), a process that cultivates the cardinal virtues (Republic 401d–402a) and leads to (chapter 3) “kinship” between the individual and the virtues (see Laws 653b–c). Based mainly on the Seventh Letter, but also the Republic, Symposium, Lysis, and Alcibiades I, chapter 4 concludes that the role of dialogue in cultivating virtue is not to argue students into doing what is right but, rather, to induce an “epiphanic flash” in the student (this is not the “aha!” of intellectual discovery), which entails the momentary desire and motivation to do what is right (Seventh Letter 341c). Glaucon, for example, sees that he has misunderstood justice (Republic 586a–b). For students who submit to habituation under the direction of a wise mentor, this flash may lead to the pursuit of virtue (but does not always, as both Glaucon and Alcibiades show [Republic 494d–e, Symposium 216b–c]). Using Glaucon as their primary example, in chapter 5 the authors analyze Socrates’ pedagogy—his method of inducing epiphanies, which has three aspects: (1) the philosophical (the mentor knows what virtue he hopes to inculcate); (2) the psychological (the mentor understands his students’ barriers to epiphanies, as well as his own shortcomings); and (3) [End Page 381] the pedagogical (the mentor develops a means to overcome those barriers and induce an epiphany). Chapters 6 and 7 apply this Platonic pedagogy to cultivating virtue in young people in a classroom, beginning with a lengthy discussion of...

In pursuit of intellectual discovery: an interview with Michael E. Meeker

In pursuit of intellectual discovery: an interview with Michael E. Meeker

How Albania Changed My Life

ABSTRACT: The process of intellectual discovery that is so much a part of the MSA conferences continues informally on the post-conference tours. The author focuses on his first MSA post-tour, the 2011 trip through Epiros and Albania. Highlights include dashing up mountainsides with colleagues, unsanctioned explorations of old communist prisons, and Virgilian epiphanies.

XRT: A Reproducible and Scalable Training System that Produces Students Capable of Conducting Novel Molecular Biology Research

Many high‐school science education programs do not train students to be independent researchers that make novel contributions to the scientific community, which is arguably the primary goal of a scientist. There are many possible explanations for this paradox. Due to high student/teacher ratios, teachers are unable to give the individualized attention necessary to cultivate a scientist from a student. Class schedules, student motivation, and diverse intellectual support are also huge barriers. As a result, most high‐school programs struggle to establish a system that allows for university and graduate‐level laboratory education of a significant number of students.Here, we report a curriculum that trains students to design, conduct, manage, lead, and present novel research projects, but also a program that is self‐sustaining and scalable. The system produces a three‐tiered system of research students, each with an increasing set of laboratory and troubleshooting, goal‐setting, and project management skills. This management system is scaffolded. It can be completed at different speeds. These teams design projects that are novel and real. Trained teams come together and systematically create projects that can not only sustain themselves and pursue novel intellectual discovery, but also projects that are able to expand and adapt through multiple years and to a changing number of students, independent of staffing.Support or Funding InformationThis work was supported by The Nueva School.

Review of Cognitive Biases in ACGME Milestones Training Assessments in Post-graduate Medical Education Programs.

The course of study for young physicians for post-graduate training is an exciting and life-changing opportunity, one that is filled with the relentless optimism of intellectual discovery and personal growth and development. The American Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) is a non-profit private council that evaluates and accredits internship, residency, and fellowship programs. The role of the ACGME is to oversee curriculums, training environments, and specialty evaluation standards to ensure satisfactory competency leading to board eligibility and certification in the respected field of study. The ACGME has the monumental task of guiding educational standards that are designed to both protect the public welfare and further educational programs. Many educational standards are objective, such as quantitative performance on examinations, involvement in research, and involvement in systems development and quality improvement. However, key clinical performance measures are based on prior training and experience. Over the last several years, studies examining rates of abuse and discrimination during post-graduate medical training in both the United States and Canadian studies, which have reported alarmingly high rates of 50%. With the increasing utility and availability of social media, such issues have become more transparent to the public. A plethora of studies has been conducted, examining physician biases towards patients, practice changes, insurance company regulations, and evolving healthcare systems. However, a significant amount of evaluation is merited when examining individual institutional cultures and the educational environments that harbor them. We wish to examine the role of ever-evolving specialty-specific ACGME-instituted educational milestones in Internal Medicine and Opthalmology in the context of potential cognitive biases and their implementation within post-graduate training programs.

XRT: A reproducible and scalable training system that produces students capable of conducting novel molecular biology research

Many high‐school science education programs do not train students to be independent researchers that make novel contributions to the scientific community, which is arguably the primary goal of a scientist. There are many possible explanations for this paradox. Due to high student/teacher ratios, teachers are unable to give the individualized attention necessary to cultivate a scientist from a student. Class schedule, student motivation, and diverse intellectual support are also huge barriers. As a result, most high‐school programs struggle to establish a system that allows for university and graduate‐level laboratory education of a significant number of students.Here, we report a curriculum that trains students to design, conduct, manage, lead, and present novel research projects, but also a program that is self‐sustaining and scalable. The system produces a three‐tiered system of research students, each with an increasing set of laboratory and troubleshooting, goal‐setting, and project management skills. This management system is scaffolded. It can be completed at different speeds. These teams design projects that are novel and real. Trained teams come together and systematically create projects that can not only sustain themselves and pursue novel intellectual discovery, but also projects that are able to expand and adapt through multiple years and to a changing number of students, independent of staffing.Support or Funding InformationThis work was supported by The Nueva School.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Monetization Strategies of University Patents Through Paes: An Analysis of US Patent Transfers

The pressure to extract rents from academic research results has led many universities to file more patents and to rely on a growing range of monetization strategies including selling patents to Patent Assertion Entities (PAEs). We build a database of university patents granted by the USPTO and, for each of them, we collect information about the change of ownership. A first analysis of these data shows that about 12% of university patents have been transferred at least once (including reassignments to universities, hospitals, public research centres and governmental institutions) and only a minor part has been acquired by PAEs (the 0.3% of university patents). However, we also find that most transfers of university patents to PAEs occurred in the last ten years (3.4% of transfers). These acquisitions are largely concentrated in two large PAEs that acquired about 80% of all PAEs-acquired university patents: Intellectual Ventures and Intellectual Discovery. An econometric analysis on the characteristics of university patents transferred to PAEs shows that patents transferred to PAEs are of high quality, suggesting that PAEs cherry pick good patents for monetization purposes. PAEs acquire also older university patents than those transferred to producing companies. This fact suggests that these transfers are not linked to technology transfer.

Influencing Daniel Hoffman: Eureka and the Seven Poes

Abstract Daniel Hoffman's evocative motif of seven versions of Poe emphasizes the frequent shifts and transitions in Poe's stories and poems, giving us an author in constant shift and transition. By keeping his own voice prominent in his book and connecting his own struggles and intellectual discoveries with Poe's texts, Hoffman tied his own identity to Poe's, making criticism a form of autobiography and self-expression. Hoffman emphasized Poe's growing interest in metaphysics and cosmology in his later work, and considered Poe's interest in these ideas crucial to an understanding of his philosophy. In “Eureka,” sometimes read as a satire, Hoffman focused on Poe's deeply serious tone, and argued that the work was best regarded as a symbolic allegory. Hoffman connected “Eureka” with Poe's inner drives, and analyzed it as a forceful expression of Poe's cosmological vision of a universe bound for an eventual collapse into utterly unified force existing beyond materiality.

Democracy's Beginning: The Athenian Story by Thomas N Mitchell (review)

Review Article Democracy’s Beginning: The Athenian Story, Thomas N Mitchell, (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2015), 350 pages. The euphoric assumption that the collapse of communism in 1989 signalled the triumph of democracy and the arrival of a post-ideological world – the end of history, perhaps, as Francis Fukuyama suggested – is the context in which Thomas Mitchell, the distinguished classicist and former provost of Trinity College Dublin, sets his study of Athenian democracy. He notes that the number of electoral democracies decreased over the ten years to 2015 and that fully developed liberal democracy, ‘one of the rarest, most delicate and fragile flowers in the jungle of human experience’, has had a very short history since the rebirth in the seventeenth century of the ideal which first flourished inAthens in the fifth and fourth centuries bc. The study of the development of the world’s first democracy could scarcely fail to be interesting, and Mitchell presents us with a master class. He marshals the evidence for the institutional arrangements devised by the Athenians to ensure the functioning of their democracy but never loses sight of the ideals and principles which inspired these institutions. He provides a summary of the salient events of the period in so far as they are relevant to the story of the democracy. Where there are differing views on the historical narrative or the reliability of the historical sources, particularly Thucydides’s history, he discusses the evidence and gives his considered opinion. The polis, or city state, developed as the dominant form of political organisation in the Greek world between 800 bc and 500 bc and, by the end of the fifth century, there were over eight hundred such states. Each was a small, self-governing unit with an urban centre and hinterland. Two waves of Greek colonisation in the eighth and seventh centuries, the first towards Sicily and southern Italy and the second along the Hellespont and the Black Sea, led to the emergence of a well-to-do population of traders alongside the relatively prosperous farmers. This weakened the monopoly power of the ascendancy, as did the development of a new battle array for Greek armies, the hoplite phalanx of heavily-armed massed infantry. The phalanx required large manpower and was possible only because of the growing numbers who could afford to equip themselves, thanks to the wealth acquired from Studies • volume 107 • number 425 99 trade. The broader winds of change in the Greek world at this time saw the beginnings of philosophy, when people sought answers to questions about the origin and nature of the universe, not in myth, but in human powers of observation and logical reasoning. Athens and Sparta responded in diametrically opposite ways to these changes, and to the social and political unrest arising from the oppressive rule of privileged elites in the seventh and sixth centuries bc. Sparta developed a constitution which had a blend of monarchic, aristocratic and democratic features. Its dominant characteristic was the imposition on young male citizens of a strict community-based educational and military regime. The role of soldier was inseparable from that of citizen. Sparta was lauded for its adherence to the rule of law and enjoyed political stability for four centuries. Aristotle observed that Sparta’s warrior culture was appropriate only to conditions of war, while ignoring the arts of peace. Sparta did not participate in the new wave of literary and artistic creativity and intellectual discovery that was sweeping across most of the rest of Greece. Athens was ruled by a narrow group of noble families. The unrest there resulted in the election in 594 of Solon, an aristocrat, with full powers to reform the political and legal system. Solon’s vision centred on the closely connected concepts of justice (dike) and the order and harmony (eunomia) that came with it. Solon cancelled debts and freed those enslaved by the practice (which he banned) of lending on the security of the debtor’s person. He extended access to justice to all by giving the right of appeal to a court of the people. Solon’s most fundamental change was to use wealth rather than birth as a...

The Cosmic, Political, and Personal in late Ming Travel Narratives to the Home of Confucius

Historians have tended to frame the history of Qufu and Queli as a sequence of state initiatives, or of contests among branches of the Kong clan and with the state. In travel accounts by late Ming literati, however, these efforts at self-promotion frequently met with indifference, skepticism, or derision. Visitors to Qufu showed more interest in the chance to encounter artifacts associated with Confucius and other figures from the classical era and the resulting sense of a personal connection with sagehood, often perceiving in the site a numinous power credited to geomantic or cosmological principles, the metaphysical effects of sagehood, and the actions of spirits. These various forces could all be accounted for within mainstream Neo-Confucian cosmology, but Ming travelers differed as to which prevailed at Qufu. The observations in this study suggest that the cultural history of Qufu during the Ming be broadened from its current focus on court-sponsored regulation and ritual to include narratives of spiritual and intellectual discovery by literati visiting individually and in voluntarily organized groups. More than state intervention and the maneuvering of local clans, these travelers may have played a leading role in defining the cultural importance of this Confucian sacred site in the literati society of the late Ming and after.