"Selbst-Erweisung": Der Ursprung des ziran-Gedankens in der chinesischen Philosophie des 4. und 3. Jhs. v. Chr. (review)

© 1999 by University ofHawai'i Press Reviews 237 Classicism, Politics, andKinship: The Ch'ang-chou SchoolofNew Text Confucianism in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1990); idem, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and SocialAspects ofChange in Late Imperial China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984); John Henderson, The Development and Decline ofChinese Cosmology (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984); Yu Yingshi, "Some Preliminary Observations on the Rise of Ch'ing Confucian Intellectualism," Ch'ing-huaJournal ofChinese Studies 4 (1976): 105-136; and idem, Zhongguo sixiangchuantong de xiandai quanshi (Taibei: Lianjing Chubanshe, 1987). 3.Keith McMahon, Misers, Shrews, and Polygamists: Sexuality and Male-Female Relations in Eighteenth-Century Chinese Fiction (Durham: Duke University Press, 1995), chap. 7. 4.See Huang, Literati and SelfRe/Presentation, chap. 4. Hermann-JosefRöllicke. "Selbst-Erweisung": Der Ursprung des ziranGedankens in der chinesischen Philosophie des 4. und 3. Jhs. v. Chr. Europäische Hochschulschriften. Reihe XXVII, Asiatische und afrikanische Studien, 0721-3581; Bd. 51. Frankfurt am Main and New York: Peter Lang, 1996. DM 118.00, isbn 3-631-30226-6. Treatises attributed to "Masters" . . . have not always profitedfrom being called, and thus considered, "philosophy." —Carine Defoort.1 This is not the easiest book that I remember; nor will it be for most ofits readers. The academic publishing process in most European countries offers, as the most common option, the opportunity to publish doctoral and "habilitation" theses as independent publications with corrections and only slight revision. They frequently find their place in monographic series established by academic institutions in conjunction with commercial organizations. This differs from the practice in the United States, where academic manuscripts are substantially rewritten as monographs to be published by university or commercial presses, which means they undergo a professional review and editing process. They are intended to reach a readership not restricted by specialization. Authors and editors also aim to make them suitable for undergraduate teaching. There are different styles of accountability involved in these publishing processes. The American approach requires placing the materials studied in a given book in the context of the public discourse in its field. The author undertakes to let the readers retrace such methodical steps as will lead them to the results arrived at in the work in question. They in turn expect to do that without 238 China Review International: Vol. 6, No. ?, Spring 1999 encountering seemingly esoteric elements shared only by readers educated in die cultural setting that gave rise to the study as published. European scholars, by and large, work in a different mode ofpublic accountability . Authors ofbooks like the one reviewed here may allow their texts to reveal the actual genesis ofthe thoughts offered, rather than the public perspective of their possible logical derivation. Their actual thought processes remain more easily traceable in a realistic, even intimate, way. A larger share ofwhat has been called "private science" (Gerald Holton) in the history ofthe natural sciences can thus be revealed and, equally, more of an author's individual formation.2 Zi ran or Ziran ^M One initial difficulty needs to be noted in the present case: we find no easy way of establishing what Röllicke means, exactly, by Selbsterweisung? From his own usage (p. 54), we deduce that it comes close to "self-proving." Actually, the rendering turns out to be a response to A. C. Graham, who says of the phrase, "Mohists would be more likely to use it ofself-evidence than the Taoist ideal of spontaneity."4 Röllicke's credit to Graham occurs in an out-of the-way place (pp. 89-90).5 For a rendering of Selbsterweisung, we might look to formulations akin to "self-demonstrating," "self-affirming," or "self-proving." Röllicke spells out the procedure ofhis investigation in an introductory section (pp. 13-19), and again in his summation (pp. 437-441). He starts out from the intellectual sphere of the Zhuangzi Neipian ("Inner Chapters"), with links to segments ofthe Mohist Canons,6 which further includes the debate with Hui Shi M- ÍÉ, a debate focused on the defining characteristic ofhuman beings and the field ofgovernance. He then proceeds to incorporate various connections to the socalled "Four Chapters" ofthe Guanzi ^~F corpus concerned with so-called...