Jixia xue yanjiu: Zhongguo gudai de sixiang ziyou yu baijia zhengming (A study of Jixia academic thought: Freedom of thought in ancient China and the fighting of the hundred schools) (review)

In the late Warring States period the ruler of the state of Qi sponsored an academy at Jixia , where large numbers of scholars gathered to debate the philosophical and political questions of the time. In his book A Study of Jixia Academic Thought: Freedom of Thought in Ancient China and the Fighting of the Hundred Schools, Bai Xi reconstructs the historical setting of the academy, its role in the Warring States period, and its intellectual heritage. In this work he presents the most comprehensive study of the subject to date.

Bai Xi tackles his subject from two different angles. In the first part he gathers from the historical sources what scarce information is available on the history of the Jixia Academy and discusses the coming about of this unique academic institution, the personalities involved in its founding, and the scholars who worked at the academy.

Following his analysis we get a taste of the difficulty of his task. Even such simple facts as the date of the founding of the Jixia Academy necessitate a critical analysis of the historical sources, which present us with different stories. Extolling the historical relevance of the academy, Bai Xi sees in its founding the first and only instance in Chinese history of an institution where academic freedom is institutionalized. The scholars were employed by the state with the explicit mandate to pursue their studies and give critical advice to the ruler. The state did not interfere in the scholarly discourse, nor did the scholars have any formal administrative responsibilities. This made possible a free voicing and exchange of differing views, and it is in this climate that the fighting of the hundred schools really took place.

In this environment a specific integrative, syncretic thinking emerged as exemplified in the nature of the Huang-Lao and Yin-Yang schools. The reconstruction and analysis of these two schools constitutes the second part of the book. The theory of yin and yang develops out of the combination of yin and yang with political phenomena in the Huangdi sijing (The four classics of the Yellow emperor), and is further formulated in the Guanzi, where different stages of development are documented in differing combinations of yin and yang with the wuxing (five elements). In the theories of Zou Yan , the school's founder, yin-yang theory gets its final form.

As with the majority of Chinese scholars, for Bai Xi the Huang-Lao school consists of the combination of a Daoist philosophical basis with a Legalist political outlook, the combination of dao and fa (law) in the sources. Into this framework are integrated all the important strains of thought of the time, most important of which is the integration of the Confucian notion of li (rites) into the Legalist fa (law), which is further elaborated by the ming of the mingjia (logicians). The founding text of this school is the Huangdi sijing. Its further development is traced through some fragments to the Guanzi sipian (the so-called four Huang-Lao chapters in the Guanzi). Further on in the book the influence of the Huang-Lao school on other texts such as the Mencius and the Xunzi becomes a major focus. So far, a general outline of the book; what follows will focus on Bai Xi's treatment of Huang-Lao thought, which constitutes the largest part of the analytical section of his book.

Bai Xi discusses the contents of the Huang-Lao texts between the two poles of Daoism and Legalism. In the analysis of the Huangdi sijing, for example, the concept of dao in this text...