On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Birth of China, the author reminisces about the circumstances that led to the writing of this book. This memoir covers the graduate years at the University of Chicago, literati culture in 1930s China, and the return to teach at Chicago.

Addressing in part the arguments advanced by Morgan, and depending upon more recent anthropological studies from Madagascar, Sarawak, and elsewhere, it is argued in Part I that the evidence from Yangshao burials resembles that of many modern primitive peoples whose collective secondary burials were not defined by kin unit. The matrilineal view of Yangshao society is also challenged by the widespread existence of single-person burial, which appears to have both pre- and postdated, as well as co-existed with, the practice of collective burial. Similar comparative and contextual criticisms are brought to bear, in Part II, on the argument that Yangshao burial customs reveal the dominance of women. There was evidently no system in which children had to be buried with the mother, there is no evidence that the primary burial of women in multi-person collective burials was either common or prevalent, there is no evidence that single Yangshao female burials were generally more richly furnished with grave goods than those of single males. Finally, in Part III, it is shown that same-sex collective burials were rare; they reflect not social organization but the accident of several contemporary deaths. In short, none of the arguments for Yangshao matriliny are found to be adequate. At present, we lack an effective method for using burial customs to reconstruct social organization. The article ends by raising a series of methodological desiderata for future research.

Having demonstrated in a previous article entitled “On the Authenticity of the Bamboo Annals” that the “Current” Bamboo Annals can be a surprisingly reliable source for the history of early China and particularly for the Western Zhou period, in this article the author again examines a brief series of entries from this text, in this case dealing with the death of King Wen and the succession of King Wu. The analysis is divided into three sections, historical, philological, and chronological, all of which show that although this section of the “Current” Bamboo Annals has been revised, apparently just after the text's exhumation in the late-third century, and is no longer accurate per se, it is still possible to use it to reconstruct the original tomb text, which can be shown to be historically reliable. In addition to demonstrating once again the reliability of the Bamboo Annals, the discussion also verifies that the date of the Zhou conquest of Shang was 1045 B.C.

Dealing with China's oldest and second oldest intellectual documents (Lun-yü and the genuine parts of Mo-tzu), this paper views them as “laying” the intellectual foundations of China's axial civilization” and sharing a distinctive concept of knowledge, “epistemological optimism.” Epistemological optimism, in turn, was a necessary corollary of “this-worldliness,” the preoccupation, especially intense in the case of Lun-yü, with evaluating people and distributing sanctions in a morally perfect way during this life, as opposed to depending on a bar of judgment in the afterlife. The combination of “this-worldliness” with epistemological optimism has dominated Chinese thought to this day, in striking contrast to the major role of “epistemological pessimism” in the intellectual world of the modern West. Mo-tzu was more reflexive than Confucius. Yet instead of leading to “epistemological pessimism,” his reflexivity was combined with not only epistemological optimism but also his assumption that the development of doctrine can resolve all moral questions and bring about moral action. This paper also explores other ways in which Mo-tzu was a seminal thinker, one introducing words and ideas that are missing in Lun-yü, and that came to be commonplaces of Chinese thought. It also argues that the emphasis on evaluation found in the thought of Confucius and Mo-tzu must be considered when we describe how these two thinkers envisaged the relation between self and group, and its methodology differs somewhat from the approaches used in previous studies of Chou thought.

During the Warring States, Ch'in, and Han periods the influence of the arts of disputation and rhetoric increased. Disputation affected the form and content of philosophical arguments and, mainly during the Han dynasty, contributed to the process of ideological synthesis. Furthermore, debate and argumentation came to play a central role in resolving social difficulties and determining government policy. Along with rhetoric, as represented by the Chan-kuo-ts'e, disputation also helped define the style and nature of a wide variety of literary genres, espeically the Fu and historiographical works of the Han period.

In this paper, the “program” for disputation attributed to Tsou Yen in the Shih chi is presented and its influence on other philosophical schools traced. Then the tradition of debate, both court debates from their Warring States origins on into the Han, and the rise of legal disputes within society as a whole are examined. Finally, the role of the Tsung Heng school in creating, preserving, and transmitting a tradition of rhetoric Is described. Analysis of the rhetorical devices of this school suggests the close connection of debaters, persuaders, logicians, and authors of Fu.

In conclusion, the author seeks to identify some of the social and economic causes for the increasing influence of disputation, such as the emergence of private property and the concept of “individualism,” the development of a scholar class and patrons, and the increase of cultural and intellectual pluralism and diversity.

In 1977, some 17,000 pieces of pyromantic turtle-shell, of which nearly 300 pieces were inscribed, were discovered at the site of the Zhou ancestral temple in Qishan, Shaanxi. Scholarship on this important inscriptional source has been hampered by the piecemeal nature of its publication. Now, Wang Yuxin, in his XiZhou jiagu tanlun, has brought together the information and conclusions of sixteen studies published through 1981. In addition, Wang has also presented his own research into the nature and periodization of these inscriptions. The author of this review article acknowledges Wang's contributions to the study of the Zhouyuan oracle-bone inscriptions, but finds fault not only with Wang's periodization but also with his assertion that a number of these inscriptions recording sacrifices to Shang ancestors manifest instead an exogamic relationship between the Shang and Zhou kings.

If one were to speak of the “incipient period” of research on Western Zhou oracle bones, he would have to refer to that period of time after the discovery in 1950 at Sipanmo (SP 11) of oracle bones whose “writing was not consistent with inscriptional standards,” and before November of 1956 when Professor Li Xueqin pointed out that the inscribed oracle bones from Fangdui village of Shanxi's Hongzhao County were artifacts of the opening period of the Western Zhou. Through the study of these oracle bones discovered at Sipanmo and Fangdui village, as well as in Bin county in Shaanxi and Taishanmiao in Luoyang, it was then possible for the first time to recognize that in addition to Shang oracle bones there were also Western Zhou oracle bones, thus debunking the traditional belief that all oracle bones were produced by the Shang. The excavation in 1956 of inscribed oracle bones at Fengxi in Shaanxi then provided positive proof of the existence of Western Zhou oracle bones.

I believe that Professor Edward L. Shaughnessy's review of Professor Wang Yuxin's book XiZhou jiagu tanlun is an important essay, pointing out several problems in the study of the Zhouyuan oracle bones worthy of attention. I intend here to discuss only one of these, the question of whether there are any Shang inscriptions among the Zhouyuan oracle bones.

I should first explain that, based on my understanding, this question pertains to only a very small portion of the Zhouyuan oracle bones, actually only four pieces, all of which come from pit H11 at Fengchu in Qishan County. In a conference paper entitled “Once Again on the Western Zhou Oracle Bones” presented to the “International Chinese Paleography Conference” in Hong Kong in 1983, I already pointed out that these four pieces are H11:112, H11:82, H11:84, and H11:1, and also attempted an interpretation of them (see Li 1985).

There is no doubt that the discovery of the Zhouyuan oracle-bone inscriptions Is one of the most important achievements in recent Chinese archaeological work. It not only enables oracle-bone inscription research to develop a new branch but it provides sources for studying the history and culture of the early Zhou, even before they conquered the Shang empire. Consequently, as soon as they were found, the Zhouyuan oracle-bone inscriptions came under observation by scholars at home and abroad. Present research, however, has not yet reached a mature stage. Different views exist on quite a few questions. It is obvious that more research and discussion about the Zhouyuan oracle-bone inscriptions is still necessary.

I would like to thank Professors Fan, Li, and Wang for what has been for me a most stimulating exchange of ideas on a problem of seminal importance in the history of early China. From these three scholars, we have seen three interpretations, radically different both from each other and also from the interpretation I presented above, of a small set of oracle-bone inscriptions. I believe that these four interpretations represent virtually every possible alternative and, by having them presented together in a forum such as this, the scholarly world should now be better able to evaluate their relative merits.

I believe it is clear from each of the above discussions that the differences in interpretation here owe more to anthropology than to paleography (although a correct paleographic interpretation of these inscriptions, and especially of H11:84, is an essential starting point). Would it have been possible for the leader of one kinship group to offer cult to the ancestors of a separate kinship group? I am grateful to Professor Fan Yuzhou for his citation of Sumerian evidence showing that such indeed has been possible in other historical situations. Nevertheless, as Professor Wang Yuxin has properly pointed out in critique of my own reference to Xiongnu sacrifices in honor of Han emperors, this type of evidence, being either temporally or culturally distinct from the society that produced these inscriptions, cannot be used to describe Shang or Zhou practice.