Chinese Science, 1983, 6: 59-83 CHINESE RESEARCHES IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 1982 XI Zezong In China the number of organizations and publications in the history of science has been continuously increasing, as has the number of articles on that subject in every sort of publication devoted to the sciences and social sciences. In 1982 the number of articles published throughout the country exceeded seven hundred and fifty, an increase of one and a half times over 1981. I will survey the book and periodical literature under the following headings: 1. Discussions of the failure of modern science to develop independently in China 2. History of natural sciences 3. History of applied sciences 4. History of scientific thought 5. History of scientific organizations References and abbreviations are listed at the end of this essay. A few supplementary references have been provided in footnotes by the Editor. The Failure of Modern Science to Develop Independently in China In 1982 the first general history of Chinese science and technology, by Du Shiran and other members of the Institute for the History of Natural Science, Academia Sinica, was published in preliminary form by Science Press. Its ten chapters, in two volumes, discuss the beginnings of science, the formation of concepts from experience (to 770 B.C.), the foundations (770-221) and formation of a system of science (221-A.D. 220), its strengthening and enhancement (220- 581), its continued development (581-960), its zenith (960-1368), its slowed advance (1368 - 17th century), the first influx of Western science and technology (17th century - 1840), and modem science and technology (1840-1919). The basic structure of the book is chronological, but with some exceptions for the sake of focus. At the end of the book a "Conclusion" of about 27,000 characters takes up four questions: 1. Science as a revolutionary force that propelled history 2. The social conditions for the development of science 3. Whether ancient Chinese science was systematized 4. The reasons for the retardation of Chinese science in modem times The authors believe that, whether we consider the course of development, methods of approaching and solving problems, or content, ancient Chinese science clearly differed from that of ancient Greece, lndia, or medieval Islam, and formed an integral system. Once this system had been produced, it became an invisible barrier that remained to some extent autonomous, conservative, and Professor Xi is a Research Fellow and Director of the Ancient Division of the Institute for the History of Natural Science, Academia Sinica, Beijing, People's Republic of China. Downloaded from Brill.com10/10/2021 02:20:55PM via free access 60 exclusive. As this system itself became richer and more fully developed, these three characteristics became more prominent, constituting one of the reasons that modern science was unable to be produced or accepted in China. But the authors believe that the reasons for China's backwardness in modern science cannot be found entirely within the old system of science. Analysis must begin with the influence of China's feudal society upon scientific development: 1. The self-sufficient, small-scale agricultural and commercial economies did not develop fully. 2. The feudal oligarchy was able to enforce intellectual orthodoxies. 3. Science and technology as managed by government officials only satisfied the needs of feudal rule. This management to a very large extent meant that the outcomes of scientific research could have little effect on the development of production. 4. The feudal rulers in successive ages, unlike the bourgeoisie, never recognized the social functions of science. 5. Blindly chauvinistic attitudes toward the imperial government and toward Chinese civilization hindered learning about advanced science from foreign countries. Chen Wuquan's "The cultural tradition that shackled the development of Chinese science and technology" approaches this problem from a different angle. "A philosophical tradition that stresses practical application and despises the pursuit of cognitive understanding can rarely provide methodological or intel­ lectual inspiration for the development of science"; "an ethical tradition that ignores material well-being deprives scientific development of a fundamental stim­ ulus"; "a scholarly tradition that lacks a conceptualized cognitive logic and quantitative analysis leaves scientific development stalled at the empirical stage, so that the development of systematized theory is unlikely"; "civil service as the aim of excellence in study makes it difficult for scientific talent to matme"; "the attitude that 'those who do mental work rule others and those who do physical work are ruled by others' leads to the divorce of theory and practice, the separation of intellectuals and craftsmen." These five factors, Chen argues, prevented the development of modern science in China. Ye Xiaoqing, in her "Several factors adverse to the introduction of modern science into China," believes that, in addition to political corruption, "superficial acquaintance and eagerness for quick success led to faulty principles governing introduction." She asserts that "when the difference between the original foun­ dation and what is to be introduced is too great, the ability to digest and assimilate will be lacking," and speaks of "the bonds of the traditional view of nature." Wu Deduo, writing on "Xu Guangqi,f~'; fu llJc and Bacon," goes so far as to argue that China failed to produce modern science because religion was unable to attain a dominant position there. He says, "In Europe the Church, which represented divine authority, held a ruling position; those who held authority, as well as the common people, were merely the children of God, and equal before God.... This made matters simple.... Once the defense line of divine authority had been breached by progressives, ... science was able to strike off its fetters Downloaded from Brill.com10/10/2021 02:20:55PM via free access XI 61 and, responsive to social needs, begin developing with irresistible force. But in old China, the representatives of feudalism who possessed the highest temporal power were entirely unwilling to tolerate any interference with the diverse measures they took to bind the hands and feet of the people so as to consolidate their own political authority." Explorations in the History of Science and Technology in China was edited by Li Guohao and others in honor of the eightieth birthday of Joseph Needham, F.R.S., F.B.A. Its thirty-one essays, accompanied by a complete bibliography of Needham's wTitings, were contributed by thirty-two scholars in eleven countries. Among the contents of this book is "Why the Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in China-Or Didn't It?" by N. Sivin. An essay by Needham entitled "Poverties and Triumphs of the Chinese Scientific Tradition" is translated in the first issue of Science and Philosophy. 1 In October 1982 the publisher of Joumal of Dialectics of Natiire held a confer­ ence in Chengdu to discuss this "scientific revolution problem." An important paper presented at this conference, "The historical structure of science and technology: Reasons for the backwardness of science and technology in China compared with the West since the seventeenth century," has already been published in the J oumal. The authors, Jin Guantao et al., counted nearly two thousand achievements of science and technology in a period of two thousand five hundred years between the sixth century B.C. and the end of the nineteenth century. According to the role of each achievement in its field and its social influence, they worked out scores ranging from 1 (for the manufacture of white lead) to 1000 (for Chinese printing, gunpowder, and the compass, or for Newton's Principia). From these scores they derived curves for the cumulative increase in the level of science in China and the West. Using different temporal scales, they obtained values for the net (or absolute) increase in scientific achievement in China and the West in different historic periods. Their results clearly demonstrated different characteristics of scientific develop­ ment in China and the West. In China this was a slow increase, continuous and steady. In the West, after a major hiatus, development accelerated from the fifteenth or sixteenth century on. The authors argue that this acceleration was produced by cycles of "theory-experiment-theory" and "technology-science (including theory and experiment)-technology." The authors further point out that here "theory" refers to theories based on a structural view of nature. Scientific experiment must be controlled experiment; technology must comprise unrestricted systems. "Structural view of nature" has two levels of meaning. One 1The Needham paper was originally published as pp. 117-177 in A. C. Crombie (ed.), Scie11- tific Change (London, 1963), and was reprinted without the valuable discussion as pp. 14-54 in Neeclham, The Gra11d Titration. Science and Society in East and West (London, 1969). A revised and expancled version of the paper by Sivin has been published in Chi11ese Science, 1982, 5: ,b5-66. Note that in Chinese as in English the word "science" is frequently used in a broad sense that includes medicine and technology. It is so used for conciseness in this article. The author wishes to express his thanks to Fan Chuyui'£ f _i and Ding Wei1 f.r for their assistance, to the Editor of Chinese Scie11ce for the English translation, and to Virginia Dalton and David Cowhig for editorial help. Downloaded from Brill.com10/10/2021 02:20:55PM via free access 62 is the requirement that natural phenomena be comprehended from a structural point of view; the other is the demand that theory be expressed in logical form. "Controlled experiment" refers to the need to carry out experiments under strictly controlled conditions, so that, if anyone anywhere were to perform the same experiment under the same conditions using the same method, the results would appear with steady probability.