State, Literati and Neo-Confucians: an Analysis of Literati Social Network in 1160-1241

This paper uses formal techniques in social network analysis to reconstruct the social space in which leading philosophers of Neo-Confucianism were embedded. By examining the network structure and statistics, it tries to give a new interpretation about the development of Neo-Confucianism and its dissemination among the literati in Southern Song Dynasty. 1 Neo-Confucianism in History Neo-Confucianism, with its ample meanings and influences in later centuries, has been an important subject for researchers in philosophy, history, sociology as well as the political science. The last century of the Song Dynasty had witnessed the development of Neo-Confucianism, from the time when Zhu Xi, Lü Zuqian, Zhang Shi and Lu Jiuyuan were developing their theories in parallel, to the ascendancy of Zhu Xi’s idea. It had also encountered with suppressions from the government, as well as the final recognition among the authorities in 1241. (Liu, 1989, p148) How can we trace its history in this critical periods? 1 Most of ”pure philosophy” study of Neo-Confucianism will focus on the main figures who contributed most to the development of ”universal ideas” in Neo-Confucianism. However, this kind of view could be a misleading illustration of the development of Neo-Confucianism, because to select whom to include in the research is based on the accumulated fame of the philosopher in later centuries, with the assumption that works of philosophers contain ”dateless wisdom” which can transcend the historical process of fame gaining. (Skinner, 1969) I think the genesis of the development of Neo-Confucianism should follow the eyes of contemporaries of philosophers, instead of the canons of philosophy, which rely on the accumulated fame of the philosopher. The recent research in both the study of the internal development of Neo-Confucianism and its external relationship with state and society will challenge the pure philosophical research of Neo-Confucianism. Hoyt Tillman offers a great example of putting Neo-Confucianism in historical background to trace its internal development. (Tillman, 1992) He convincingly reconstructs the world of Zhu 1To be more precise, I have restricted the period to 1160 to 1241, for around the former most influential NeoConfucianism philosophers died, like Hu Hong(1159) and Zhang Jiucheng(1159). Zhu Xi, Zhang Shi and Lü Zuqian are the new leader of Neo-Confucianism. The latter is the year when Emperor Lizong has recognized NeoConfucianism as the state orthodoxy.