BMCR 2004.10.23, G.E.R. Lloyd, Ancient worlds, modern

G.E.R. Lloyd, Ancient worlds, modern reflections: philosophical
perspectives on Greek and Chinese science and culture.  Oxford:  Oxford
University Press, 2004.  Pp. 240.  ISBN 0-19-927016-3.  $35.00.

Reviewed by Youngmin Kim, Bryn Mawr College (y2kim@xxxxxxxxxxxx)
Word count:  2913 words
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Since 1987, G. E. R. Lloyd, an eminent Hellenist, has produced a series
of comparative works on ancient Greece and China: Demystifying
Mentalities (Cambridge, 1990), Adversaries and Authorities (Cambridge,
1996), The Ambitions of Curiosity (Cambridge, 2002), and The Way and
the Word (Yale, 2002, with Nathan Sivin). Ancient Worlds, Modern
Reflections, published by Oxford University Press in 2004, is the most
recent in this line of sustained comparative studies. It shares the
comparative approach of his previous work, but what distinguishes this
book is the extent and degree to which he foregrounds the relevance of
ancient civilizations to challenges and problems we face today. His
intention to make sense of contemporary concerns in the context of
ancient civilizations is explicit in the very title of the book.

The first part divides the contemporary challenges that Lloyd addresses
into two areas: questions of the philosophy of science and of
socio-political thought. For the former, he starts with the big
question: "Is there science in the ancient world?" The apparent fact
that there was no science as we know it today in ancient civilizations
does not prevent him from comparing various analogous activities, based
on our shared general ambition to understand the physical world. The
apparent differences between ancient Greek and Chinese "science-like"
activities, thus, do not eliminate the possibility of fruitful
comparison but rather serve as a healthy warning that we should
approach ancient civilizations with great care and sophistication.
Lloyd proceeds by fleshing out a comparison of Chinese and Greek
"science" with the following sub-questions. First, the question of
common logic -- Is there a common logic? Second, the relativity of
notions of truth -- Does each ancient society have the same notion of
the truth? Third, the challengeability of belief -- Have we any right
to treat belief as a cross-cultural category? How do beliefs come to be
challenged, on what kinds of subjects, and by whom? Fourth, the
question of a common ontology -- Is there a common ontology, a common
world from which all world-views derive? Lastly, Lloyd returns to a
version of the first question, investigating systems of classification
and the modes of exemplification.

While all the questions deserve serious consideration in their own
right, the common thread running through them is the tension between
the correspondence conception of truth and its production of realism on
the one hand, and the coherence conception of truth and its production
of relativism/constructivism, on the other. As Lloyd understands them,
neither position allows nuanced comparative analysis of ancient
civilizations. The former tends to distort the fruitful diversity of
ancient civilizations by assuming cross-cultural universals; the latter
is preoccupied with internal consistency, thus leading to relativism.
According to Lloyd, these positions are based on overdrawn dichotomies,
and it is misleading to demand a single theory of truth because the
multidimensionality of reality allows room for different programs of
inquiry. At the same time, there are insufficient grounds for supposing
incommensurability among different ancient civilizations.

How, then, can we avoid this theoretical impasse caused by these
overdrawn dichotomies? Though these problems are philosophical by
nature, Lloyd approaches them historically. He asks, what light can be
shed on these philosophical questions if we focus on the ancient
civilizations of China and Greece? That is to say, instead of getting
involved in analytical discussions of the issues to offer new
philosophical analysis, he examines empirical data of ancient
civilizations in order to demonstrate that neither realism nor
relativism meshes well with those data.

As Lloyd shows, in such issues as logic, belief, ontology, and
classification, we do find differences in ancient civilizations. This
confirms Lloyd's assertion that there are no cross-cultural universals.
The differences then make sense in the context of different styles of
inquiry, perspectives, leading preoccupations, and other socio-cultural
influences. In other words, in order to explain why the various
sciences that the Chinese and the Greeks developed took the form that
they did, Lloyd considers the social, cultural, and political
backgrounds of the philosophers and scientists. This does not mean that
social factors determined the developments of science and philosophy;
rather, it means that the differences can be comprehended only with
such historical contexts. Here, he draws upon points from his earlier
works to prove his case. For one thing, distinctive styles of Chinese
and Greek intellectuals' inquiries are explained in terms of their
relation to the seats of political power. Indeed, entities such as
world, logic, and belief in either ancient world are not defined
independently of social contexts. Yet the differences in perspective do
not rule out points of contact between the objects of study. These
points of contact serve as foundations on which to evaluate or
negotiate controversy without lapsing into relativism. In statements
like "Our primary obligation is to make sense of our subject in their
terms, to allow them their voice, their differing viewpoints on
fundamental issues," the vision of ancient civilizations Lloyd is
offering is that of pluralism based on shared fundamental human
conditions.

In the second half of his book -- which draws on ancient civilizations
to address contemporary socio-political issues -- Lloyd starts by
making the case for such a comparison. The specific issues he takes up
are higher education, the discourse of human rights and human nature,
and the strengths and weaknesses of democratic institutions.

In the case of human rights and human nature, Lloyd questions the
universal applicability of such politically charged concepts. According
to him, the concepts of human rights and human nature do not constitute
cross-cultural universals. As in the first section of the book, he
substantiates his claim by drawing on empirical data from ancient
civilizations. His historical analysis shows that what was presented as
an ideal for humankind is merely a reflection of interest groups. If we
lose sight of corresponding contexts, we would be in danger of
uncritically applying Western values. This does not necessarily lead to
relativism or lack of objectivity in social and political issues. Lloyd
emphatically says, "Evaluation is, in any event, inevitable, in this
domain ... We carry, accordingly, a particular responsibility to be
both self-aware and self-critical, where again there are plenty of
Chinese and Greek examples that serve to underline the point. One way
in which we can help ourselves, in that task, is precisely to study how
other people in other cultures and at other times have dealt with the
problems" (p.167). In other words, studies of ancient civilizations
allow us to see beyond the narrow geographical, temporal, and cultural
bounds of our immediate neighborhood in employing such notions as human
rights and human nature. His methodology places our judgments on more
concrete and sound ground.

Apart from the benefit of a broader perspective, what exactly can we
learn from ancient civilizations to cope with today's socio-political
problems? Here, the way in which Lloyd connects ancient civilizations
and contemporary society becomes more direct. He suggests that we can
find usable lessons for today's problems in the very content of ancient
thought, not simply the diverse trajectories of their developments. For
example, when universities are suffering from the loss of a broad
vision of higher education's purpose, we can look to ancient
civilizations where intellectuals took seriously the virtue of
self-criticism and make connections among different fields with the
ideal of universal knowledge. Also, when democratic institutions betray
their weaknesses at national and international levels, particularly as
exemplified by the United States and its political leaders, we can
learn from the ancient civilizations. On the one hand, we can learn
from ancient Chinese civilization the rich notion of solidarity,
specifically the sense of the interdependence of all humans and the
principle of collective responsibility for the common welfare. On the
other hand, we can learn both positive and negative models of
democratic behavior and accountability from the ancient Greeks. In
conclusion, Lloyd argues that we need to substitute the discourse of
justice and equity for that of human nature, and replace the discourse
of rights with one that focuses on responsibilities, ties, and
obligations.

As compared to his earlier works, which set out to prove detailed
arguments through a great deal of empirical research, this book
consists of broad thematic essays comparing the two civilizations in
order to prove the relevance of ancient civilizations to today's world.
To the extent that this book contains many of his earlier research's
conclusions as well as the most updated methodological discussion, it
can serve as a gateway to Lloyd's scholarship and methodology.

I think we can make sense of the core of his methodology in terms of
his nuanced command of distinctions/dichotomies. In so-called East-West
studies in general, and in comparison between ancient China and Greece
in particular, certain levels of dichotomies/distinctions are
inevitable. Such a comparative framework itself presupposes the
distinctions between the objects of comparison. As his critique of the
dichotomy between realism and relativism shows, Lloyd argues that a
framework of distinction should not assume that the objects of study
are self-contained entities. This kind of methodological stance is most
clear in his critical attitude toward the approach of "mentalities",
which used to be popular in comparative studies. (His critique of
"mentalities" in comparative work can be found in his earlier,
Demystifying Mentalities, and is briefly repeated in this book.) Once
we associate the differences among the ancient civilizations with
abstract and mystical "mentalities", there is little room for
conversation among civilizations. In other words, the mystical
conception that an entire culture somehow has a unique and distinct way
of thinking serves relativism in the sense that those distinct
mentalities are mutually unintelligible and incommensurate. Instead of
relying on "mentalities", Lloyd explains the differences in terms of
the social frameworks and institutions from which the distinctive
styles of early Chinese and Greek thought emerged. In this sense, Lloyd
is a severe critic of Marcel Granet, a French sinologist who conducted
comparative studies based on the notion of "mentalities." If we
understand the historical contexts enough, the differences cease to be
mystical but turn out to be comprehensible, despite all the enormous
differences that do exist. In this sense, no matter how much Lloyd
emphasizes the danger of the notion of cross-cultural universals, he
does not view the East-West or Greek-Chinese as self-contained
distinctions.

In a similar vein, he denies that both Chinese and Westerners are
prisoners of their native languages. According to Lloyd, no matter how
difficult it is to recover ancient aims, goals, preoccupations, and
expectations, "the notion of the possibility of two natural languages
that are mutually completely unintelligible and across which no
communication can be made is a philosophical speculation for which
there is no empirical evidence." "Univocity is a limiting case, not a
norm to which most terms should be expected to comply. Rather we should
recognize that every term can exhibit a degree of what I call semantic
stretch. But so far from aggravating such problems as the indeterminacy
of translations, we can see that this enables us to establish the
continuity between translations between natural languages and
interpretations of one another's own idiolects." This kind of
conclusion clashes with what Jacques Gernet found in the cultural
encounter between Jesuits and Chinese literati in late imperial China.
In his China and the Christian Impact: A Conflict of Cultures, Gernet
argued that Jesuits and Chinese literati mis-communicated with one
another as prisoners of their own languages.

In this book Lloyds bridges other sets of rigid distinctions --
ancient/modern, and history/philosophy -- in addition to East and West,
China and Greece, realism and relativism. Once gain, it is true that we
should not impose our own modern preconceptions and expectations on
ancient civilizations, but recover ancient perspectives. However, the
ancient and the modern are not incommensurable. If we do justice to the
historical contexts, then ancient civilizations become not only
comprehensible but also usable pasts. Furthermore, when history is used
to offer insights into contemporary philosophical problems, the
distinction between history and philosophy is no longer watertight. By
synergistically combining philosophy and history, Lloyd avoids
accusations of anachronism and antiquarianism at the same time.

If it is Lloyd's nuanced command of various distinctions that makes the
distinction porous, thereby bringing ancient civilizations into
fruitful encounter and mutual illumination, now we can turn to the
validity of the distinctions themselves as manageable units of
analysis. How much and in what context can such big conceptual building
blocks as Greek and Chinese civilizations be effective? Though Lloyd
does not usually lose sight of internal differences and diversities
within each ancient civilization, he does offer grand contrasts between
them. In the case of the operative concepts of class and
classification, he suggests a broad contrast between a Greek insistence
on stable essence and a Chinese focus on processes, transformation, and
interdependence (p.116). Lloyd also argues for the contrast between
Greek argumentativeness and Chinese traditionalism by saying that
intellectual life in ancient Greece centered around fierce argument and
polemical confrontation while ancient Chinese intellectuals favored
lineages of authority and harmonious accommodation.

While many of his grand contrasts are valid, some contrasts are made at
the expense of internal diversity. For example, Lloyd says, "One of the
Chinese lessons is to value the past, though that should not be to the
neglect of the present and the future. One of the Greek ones is to
value education in and for itself -- as opposed to valuing it for the
qualifications for a career that it may provide" (p.142). However, the
problem of careerism was an object of sustained attention throughout
Chinese intellectual history as well, at least from the time of
Confucius, as the famous tension between "learning for the sake of
oneself" and "learning for the sake of others" evinces. The differences
and similarities between the Chinese conception of "learning for the
sake of oneself" and the Greek conception of "education in and for
itself" remain to be further discussed, while "learning for the sake of
others" clearly contains a strong element of careerism. Neo-Confucians
also emphasized the importance of the moral significance of learning by
criticizing what they viewed as learning for career, "vulgar learning"
(su xue) in their terms.

Another example of broad contrasts is his assertion that "There was ...
never any question, in premodern China, of any other ideal than that of
the benevolent rule of a wise monarch" (p.164). It is true that we
cannot find political arrangements other than monarchy in premodern
China. However, Chinese thinkers' conceptions of the ruler's virtue are
so diverse that the term "benevolent" cannot encompass the diversity of
Chinese political thought. Many of the Chinese political thinkers who
advocated legalist ideals and emphasized dynamic statecraft go beyond
the rubric of "benevolent".

If we broaden the scope of the comparison from the ancient to the
premodern as a whole, there are more examples resisting grand
contrasts. For example, Lloyd says, "the format for the presentation of
Greek ideas was often the public lecture or debate ... [T]here was a
considerable development of interest in, and the teaching of, rhetoric
-- the art of persuasion. That was needed not just in intellectual
contexts, but also frequently in practical ones, to win arguments in
the law courts and political assemblies. Neither of those institutions
had any parallel in China" (p.34). Lloyd's argument is valid only for
the ancient period. However, the view that the ancient characters of
each civilization set the pattern for its later development, it is
worth noting that there were traditions of public debate as
"discoursing on learning" (jiangxue) in late imperial China. In fact,
no account in Lloyd's book rules out the possibility that Chinese
culture has undergone significant changes since antiquity.

These sort of quibbles in historical specificity are of small account
in this kind of collection of thematic essays. And yet, the same thing
can be said of the sections on socio-political thought. To be sure,
Lloyds' book is very inspiring for many readers who still think that
ancient civilizations no longer hold relevance for modern periods. For
the specialists of socio-political thought, however, the lesson Lloyd
draws from antiquity seems somewhat abstract. Part of the reason for
this is that Lloyd does not engage in specific debates on a given
topic. For one thing, he does not offer a detailed critique of the
political thinkers, e.g., George Kateb among many, who argue that the
notion of human rights should occupy the primary position in the
discourse of democracy despite the range of alternative ideas.
Likewise, although there was no concept of human rights as such in the
ancient world, there are many scholars like Irene Bloom who put the
concept of human rights in hermeneutical dialogue with analogous
ancient Chinese concepts. As for the virtues of obligation and
responsibility as opposed to "right", many thinkers like Hwa Yol Jung
have been articulating the significance of such virtues in political
theory. To join such existing relevant discourses in more concrete and
nuanced ways, it seems necessary to narrow down the unit of analysis
into a particular thinker's thought rather than Greek or Chinese
ancient thought in general. Although we cannot expect this level of
specificity in this sort of inspiring essays, I believe more
specificity is not contradictory to the overall spirit of Lloyd's
methodology, which indeed notes that there are internal differences and
diversities within each ancient civilization. In Lloyd's own words: "we
have to raise similar questions concerning the differences between not
just Greeks and Chinese, but also between different Greeks, and again
among different Chinese thinkers" (p.79).