How Aristotle Became A Pawn In A Cold War Between China And The West
Eastern scholars are saying the great philosopher didn’t exist
Certain well-educated academics in China claim that Aristotle never existed. You can say this is an odd shot to fire in a modern-day Cold War between the West and East. But it’s a heavier salvo than you think.
Wars between nations aren’t only fought with guns and armies. Words and acts are cheaper. This can take on the form of standard propaganda, or even the sports arena, which is usually an easy sale with no bloodshed and little loss of treasure.
But then you have your non-standard propaganda. While sports heroes and current events are a quick spark, sometimes the national advocacy aims its dart gun at the strangest victim. In this case, it’s Aristotle.
Dannie Peng at the South China Morning Post says it’s part of a wider effort to remove “West-centric views” from social sciences. Since Aristotle and Classic Greece are such a large layer of this foundation, their removal would undermine the legitimacy of the West.
It’s an interesting punch, especially as China promotes its own ancient cultural history as a stepping stone for ascendance on the world stage. Like many things today, it all started with a social media post.
Chinese Scholars Undermine Greece’s Ultimate Philosopher
Peng reports that Jin Canrong, a PhD of Political Science at Renmin Univ. of China, created a viral post on Douyin (China’s version of TikTok) claiming Aristotle was a work of fiction. Canrong’s speech generated a firestorm of comments. Many of which supported his claim.
While anyone can post on social media, Canrong’s weighty resume gives him a bit more credence as an influencer. He’s written over a hundred academic papers and seven books, is an associate dean at his college, plus an advisor to China’s National People’s Congress.
Canrong’s attack focuses on the following points:
No records of Aristotle appear before the thirteenth century. He just suspiciously “popped up,” with an “all-encompassing body of knowledge.”
The philosopher couldn’t have written the incredible volumes of work attributed to him due to the wide variety of subjects, workload, and the nature of the material he had to write during those times.
The first point has a kernel of truth in it. Many of Aristotle’s works were passed back to the West by Arabic scholars in the thirteenth century, who came into possession of documents and translated them from Greek. Although Conrong skips over a few things. We’ll return to this later.
As for the incredible volume of work, Conrong claims it would be physically impossible to write the nearly two million words claimed to be associated with Aristotle in the time he lived. The Greeks mainly wrote on sheep skin or parchment back then.
In other words, you’d require a mutton holocaust to produce that much-written material. It’d be outrageously expensive, if possible. Plus, the output isn’t logically feasible, especially since Chinese scholars of this time only wrote thousands of words versus Aristotle’s attributed millions.
This second attack immediately set off my B.S. detector, but we’ll give Mr. Conrong a bit of respect and analyze this and his first point in more depth.
A Deeper Look At Aristotle
When you hear the word “papyrus,” it’s often associated with ancient Egypt. However, there was a strong cultural relationship between the Egyptians and Greeks. In fact, the Greeks often copied from them.
Peng confirms with history professors from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard that in Aristotle’s time, the Greeks had access to papyrus. Also, this paper could be reused by scratching off the writing. So, the material to write on may not have been prohibitively expensive.
Even if it was, Aristotle wasn’t hurting for money.
His father was the physician for the king of Macedon, Amyntas III. And speaking of Macedonians, after Aristotle left Plato’s Academy, he got a job teaching Alexander the Great, who later became a benefactor.
Historian Will Durant in The Story of Philosophy says both Macedonians were obsessed with conquest. Alexander pursued political targets and Aristotle wanted to conquer the philosophical realm. Durant calls them two “diverse sides of one noble and epic project: two magnificent Macedonians unifying two chaotic worlds.”
Alexander also became fabulously wealthy. F.S. Naiden in Soldier, Priest, and God explains the conqueror created the first mints in Egypt, and more around the old Persian Empire, turning its gold and silver into coins. He also paid off his entire army’s debts and still had a fortune. Naiden says:
“He was still the richest man in the world; the richest who’d ever been. The coins he minted for his troops and government contained more gold and silver than the US currency of the sound money decades after the Civil War. That made him richer than all “gilded age” American millionaires put together.”
So, Aristotle not only had an innate desire to research biology, rhetoric, botany, philosophy, zoology, and logic but had near-unlimited funding and power behind him for a time. This alone casts doubt on Conrong’s claims, but there’s much more.
The Machine Behind Aristotle, And Older Evidence Of Existence
In Peng’s interview with historians and classical scholars, they relay that Aristotle probably didn’t write everything himself. He ran a school called the Lyceum. The money and power behind him attracted many thinkers who joined Aristotle, like engineers working for Thomas Edison.
So, incredible output was possible.
It’s also not true that Aristotle suddenly appeared in the thirteenth century. Peng interviews Dr. Jeremy McInerney from the University of Pennsylvania who says there’s plenty of evidence of Aristotle from other Greek writers mentioning and quoting him from as early as the third century BC.
As for comparisons between Aristotle's and Chinese scholars’ output, Greek and Chinese written texts vary dramatically. Plus, Aristotle had a team helping him write. So, even though the Encyclopedia Britannica attributes about two hundred works to Aristotle, it wasn’t just a single intelligent polymath scribbling on sheepskin.
However, there’s something deeper than a historical debate going on here. The true conflict centers on international politics.
Aristotle As A Political Target
Peng and other Chinese academics she interviews claim China’s government and intellectual community are working to diminish the West’s relevance and achievements to boost their own nation. Call it nationalism in the philosophic arena.
According to Peng, this started around 2013, when a former researcher for the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, He Xin, wrote a book called Research on Pseudo-history of Greece. In it, he claims the works of Homer and many other Greek influential writings are Renaissance frauds.
Others have joined this pseudo-history club and claim everything from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome are fakes. But whether they truly believe it doesn’t matter. Eliminating any Western influence is a good thing.
Now, that brings us to Aristotle. With so many works, on so many subjects, his removal would be like chopping the trunk away from the Western tree. It makes Alexander’s former tutor a desirable target.
Fortunately, Peng interviews other Chinese scholars who call the efforts of Xin, Conrong, and their kind the real frauds. But a tidal wave is flowing in the other direction. The reporter explains that Chinese social media is dominated by questions of whether ancient Greek civilization is “fabricated.”
So, don’t be surprised in the near future if you come across local characters questioning the existence of Aristotle, Plato, Epicurus, or Marcus Aurelius. Memes tend to spread. Especially ones designed to pull up the foundational roots of a society.
If you can effectively erase the footprint of such a large character, any could be removed. Now, that’s a powerful political propaganda weapon. And as Aristotle rightly reminds us in his work Politics, humans are political animals.
-Originally posted on Medium 11/12/23