Page 1 The Orientation of Science and Technology A Japanese View 12:51:19:12:08 Page 1 Page 2 Shigeru Nakayama 12:51:19:12:08 Page 2 Page 3 The Collected Papers of Twentieth-Century Japanese Writers on Japan VOLUME 3 Collected Papers of SHIGERU NAKAYAMA The Orientation of Science and Technology A Japanese View 12:51:19:12:08 Page 3 Page 4 Series: COLLECTED PAPERS OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY JAPANESE WRITERS ON JAPAN Volume 3 Shigeru Nakayama: The Orientation of Science and Technology: A Japanese View First published 2009 by GLOBAL ORIENTAL LTD PO Box 219 Folkestone Kent CT20 2WP UK www.globaloriental.co.uk © Shigeru Nakayama 2009 ISBN 978-1-905246-72-4 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library Set in Plantin 10 on 11.5pt by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed and bound in England by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham, Wilts 12:51:19:12:08 Page 4 Page 5 Contents Preface vii Foreword by Tessa Morris-Suzuki viii Introduction xiv 1. The First Appearance of Aristotelian Cosmology in Japan, Kenkon Bensetsu 1 2. On the Introduction of the Heliocentric System into Japan 4 3. Japanese Studies in the History of Astronomy 18 4. Abhorrence of ‘God’ in the Introduction of Copernicanism into Japan 29 5. Cyclic Variation of Astronomical Parameters and the Revival of Trepidation in Japan 35 6. The Role Played by Universities in Scientific and Technological Development in Japan 45 7. Diffusion of Copernicanism in Japan 63 8. Grass-Roots Geology – Ijiri Sho¯ji and the Chidanken 90 9. Problems of the Professionalization of Science in Late- Nineteenth-Century Japan 99 10. History of Science: A Subject for the Frustrated – Recent Japanese Experience 105 11. Science and Technolgy in Modern Japanese Development 114 12. Public Science in the Modernization of Japan 137 13. Japanese Scientific Thought 148 14. The Future of Research – A Call for ‘Service Science’ 194 15. The Transplantation of Modern Science to Japan 207 16. The American Occupation and the Science Council of Japan 222 17. Independence and Choice: Western Impacts on Japanese Higher Education 238 18. Human Rights and the Structure of the Scientific Enterprise 253 19. History of East Asian Science: Needs and Opportunities 266 20. The Chinese ‘Cyclic’ View of History vs. Japanese ‘Progress’ 282 21. The Ideogram versus the Phonogram in the Past, Present and Future 289 22. Preface and Historical Introduction to ‘A Social History of Science and Technology in Contemporary Japan’ 297 23. The Scientific Community Post-Defeat 318 v 12:51:19:12:08 Page 5 Page 6 CONTENTS 24. Overcoming the Digital Divide between Phonetic and Ideographic Languages 330 25. Eighteenth-Century Science: Japan 337 26. Technology in History: Japan 355 27. Colonial Science: An Introduction 362 28. Thomas Kuhn: A Historian’s Personal Recollections 366 Bibliography (Writings of Shigeru Nakayama in English) 371 Index of Names 381 General Index 000 vi 12:51:19:12:08 Page 6 Page 7 Preface hen Professor Erich Pauer of Philipps-University Marburg suggested that I Wpublish a book of my collected papers in a Japanese studies series, I initially limited it to works on Japanese science. The scope of the collection has, however, been extended to include technology and geographically it now includes China and the East Asia region. I have arranged the various papers in historical order. Some of the studies show attempts to assimilate Western science, and others emphasize efforts to find alternatives to Western science. The second stage of my work was marked by my interest in the concept of ‘service science’ which was applicable not only to Japanese science but science in general. The article where I discuss this had limited citations but William Cummings took up the concept with enthusiasm and even extended it to the idea of a ‘Service University’. Interest in the concept eventually died out but I was heartened when, a quarter of a century later at the Siegen symposium, 7–8 December 2004, Berthel Sutter seemed to revive the concept in a paper entitled ‘A new kind of societal knowledge creation?’. I originally hoped that the concept of ‘service science’ would appeal to those scientists and researchers who weren’t merely motivated by profit or intellectual curiosity but sought to work towards social justice. But the idea has currency beyond scientific workers and is also highly relevant if one considers the general title of this book, namely The Orientation of Science and Technology. The publisher Mr Paul Norbury of Global Oriental was pleased and encouraged me to address the concept in this collection. I would like to thank, for their assistance in editing the original papers, Dr Morris Low of the University of Queensland and Professor Nathan Sivin of the University of Pennsylvania. Finally, but not least, I am most grateful for the editorial help provided by Professor Pauer, and Professor Regine Mathias of Ruhr-University Bochum, without whose kind assistance this book would not have been possible. Shigeru Nakayama Tokyo, October, 2008 vii 12:51:19:12:08 Page 7 Page 8 Foreword Tessa Morris-Suzuki Professor of Japanese History, Division of Pacific and Asian History, Australian National University higeru Nakayama, whose essays are collected in this volume, has played a Sunique and far-reaching role in advancing knowledge of the history of Japanese and Chinese science and technology. His prolific writings cover the span from ancient Chinese cosmology to the social, economic and political impact of the Internet (Nakayama 1969, 24–43; Nakayama 2000, 187–258). All are marked by his rigorous scientific training. (He majored in astrophysics before becoming a historian.) But they are also characterized by a profound interest in the way in which evolving social and political structures interact with scientific and techno- logical development. Nakayama’s research has opened up important new theoretical perspectives, helping to introduce key concepts such as ‘service science’ and ‘techno- nationalism’, which are now widely used by other scholars. His influence on the history of science and technology has been further enhanced by his work as a teacher and as an enthusiastic participator in, and organizer of, collaborative projects. As one of the first Japanese historians of science and technology to receive a doctorate from a US university, Nakayama has played a key role in introducing the history of East Asian science to English-speaking audiences, working alongside other leading figures in the field such as Joseph Needham in Cambridge and Nathan Sivin in Philadelphia. Several influences can be seen as having shaped Nakayama’s distinctive approach to the past and present. He was born in 1928, and spent the first part of his life in Amagasaki. This port city in Kobe Prefecture was one of the centres of Japan’s pre-war industrialization, becoming host to an expanding array of steel, electrical and other industries. During his high-school years Nakayama lived in Hiroshima, and (as he mentions in his introduction to this volume) he was there when the first atomic bomb was dropped on the city on 6 August 1945. Many of his school friends were killed by the blast. Although he has seldom discussed this experience in his writings – perhaps because, more than six decades after the event, it is still too difficult to put into words – there can be no doubt that it had a formative impact on his perception of science, and of its potential both for creation and for destruction. After graduating from Hiroshima High School in 1948, he entered Japan’s most prestigious university, the University of Tokyo, where he majored in viii 12:51:19:12:08 Page 8 Page 9 FOREWORD astrophysics, and in 1955 he joined the small but highly influential group of outstanding young Japanese scholars who studied in the US under the Fulbright Program. This scheme had in fact been proposed by Senator J. W. Fulbright just a few weeks after the dropping of the atomic bombs ‘to plant the seeds of peace through international exchange’.1 The first scholars to participate in the scheme were selected in 1946, and many of those Japanese students who became Fulbrighters over the two decades that followed went on to become leading fig- ures in their country’s post-war scientific, intellectual and political life. Nakayama’s years in the US, as a researcher of the history of science at Harvard Graduate School, and his visit to England to work with Joseph Needham in 1957, had a lasting impact on his view of the history of science and technology. In Harvard he worked closely with Thomas Kuhn, and was later to play a key role in introducing the Kuhnian concept of scientific paradigm change to Japan, and in applying this concept to the Chinese and Japanese context (see for example Nakayama and Ishiyama 1987, 29–32; Nakayama 2000). His meeting with Needham was the start of a collaboration which continued until the latter’s death in 2004 – and indeed the link to Needham’s legacy has been maintained through Nakayama’s ongoing connections with the Needham Institute in Cambridge. At the same time, however, Nakayama’s work was shaped by the distinctive conditions of scientific research in Japan during the immediate post-war decades. The war years had seen the growing militarization of science and technology, as the Japanese government had mobilized scholars to work on war-related projects.