unschuld and scholarly criticism

[Guest guest]

marnae,

i think what distinguishs the work of Unschuld and

Sivin is its level of carefulness in hermeneutic

analysis and interpretation. Often times it seems

Unschuld almost waxes personal philosophical bias on

his interpretation of the history of medicine, without

stating the " fuzziness " of the terrain. He almost

appears uninformed on much recent daoist and huang-lao

research only completed in the last few years, that

percieve an almost complete continuum between early

daoist meditation " inner observation " techniques,

correspondence theory, huang-lao salons and early

taoist religious movements. Sivin wrote an essay

concerning the social, physiological(medical) and

political metaphysical unifications and their role in

the development of cosmos in early han china. he

manages to be careful in assigning such thought too

any particular warring states camp, but in the end

characterizes its literary and ideological form with

the category of Huang-Lao.

In Unschulds recent study of the Nei-Jing, he

says...

" Acupuncture in particular was not meant to bring a

sick organism back to harmony with nature, as the

Daoists might have preferred it; it aimed at restoring

a complicated system of exchanges among different

centers of production and consumption. In other words,

acupuncture serves to maintain a system that runs

counter to the social structures conducive to peace

and harmony demanded by the daoist worldview. "

He then goes on to quote the daodejing's emphasis on

simplicity in community and wuwei practice.

By equating early daiosm with the sociological views

of a text born three centuries before the han, is

misleading at best. Daoists(Daojia) certainly sought

political favor in the Emperors court. Fang-shih,

immortality seekers, physicians, and many other

eclectic specialists many times fell under the rubris

of Daojia.

Sima Tan(sima qians father( grand historian of the

han) had this to say about " Daoists " ( a category he

himself invented) in his offical history of the six

schools of thought in the warring states period. " the

daoist school enables mans numinous essence to be

concentrated and unified, enables him to move in

unison with the formless, and to provide adequately

for the myriad things. As for it's methods, it

follows the general tendency of the naturalists, picks

out the best of the Confucians and Mohists and adopts

the essentials of the terminologists and the

legalists. it shifts with the times,changes in reponse

to things and in establishing customs and in pratical

applications it is nowhere unsuitable. "

A.C> Graham has labeled this group as syncretists

and recent studies have further and further reduced

the discrepancy between daoism and huang-lao.

On a last note for now, Unschuld refers to Huang-Lao

as a philosophy. This does not seem to be the case.

Huang-Lao is merely a convenient taxonomy of early han

apochrya, organized to emphasis it from the its

counterpart; the texts of confucians(RU) and mohists.

if interested, there are many more issues to

establish with this study.

 

p.s. Sivin may not be a clinician, but who else has

practically studied the intimate instructions of

Sunsimiao's alchemical formulas and produces a working

6-1 lute, going on to perform the experimentation in

the labs of MIT...publishing the results. that too me

is certainly some interesting work.

 

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

, Matthew Facteau <luria57>

wrote:

He almost

> appears uninformed on much recent daoist and huang-lao

> research only completed in the last few years, that

> percieve an almost complete continuum between early

> daoist meditation " inner observation " techniques,

> correspondence theory, huang-lao salons and early

> taoist religious movements.

 

Matthew

 

Are you saying that recent research suggests a stronger correlation between

taoist thought and the medicine of systematic correspondence. I believe one of

Unschuld's points that he has stressed over the years is that han dynasty

taoists were NOT influenced by systematic correspondence, while that

paradigm dominated confucian/legalist medical thought of the same era. Is

that the position you are challenging? Unschuld's case largely rests on his

thesis that herbalism was largely a taoist pursuit for the first millenium AD.

And that during this period of time, as he exhaustively shows in A History of

Pharmaceutics, the materia medica genre of literature was fairly devoid of

references to systematic correspondence until the jin-yuan dynasties.

However it may be true that his leap of logic is not the corrrect explanation

for

this gap in the literature.

 

 

> In Unschulds recent study of the Nei-Jing, he

> says...

> " Acupuncture in particular was not meant to bring a

> sick organism back to harmony with nature, as the

> Daoists might have preferred it; it aimed at restoring

> a complicated system of exchanges among different

> centers of production and consumption. In other words,

> acupuncture serves to maintain a system that runs

> counter to the social structures conducive to peace

> and harmony demanded by the daoist worldview. "

 

It would seem there are both feudal metaphors and naturalistic ones in the nei

jing. I thinking lending to much weight to either is not necessary. they are

just maps, not the terrain itself. having no inherent reality, it only matters

if

the metaphors give us guidance. But to paraphrase Bensky from the CHA

conference. don't rigidly interpet the classics. they are not gospels.

explore

tradition, but don't be a traditionalist.