Author: He Zhaowu, born in Beijing in September 1921, originally from Yueyang, Hunan, was admitted to Southwest Associated University in 1939, served as a researcher at the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences from 1956 to 1986, and has been a professor at the Institute of Ideology and Culture of Tsinghua University since 1986, and a visiting professor at Columbia University in the United States and a visiting professor at the University of Marburg in Germany. He passed away on May 28, 2021.
In ancient times and the Middle Ages, China was at the forefront of science for a long time. However, after the Renaissance, when the West made great strides to establish a modern scientific system, Chinese science fell behind in comparison, and until the middle of the 19th century, it was still ignorant of the modern scientific system that had been established in the West in the 17th century. Why is that?
The birth and development of modern science must first of all be closely integrated with the interests of a certain social class, that is to say, the interests of this class itself need science. This condition is precisely possessed by the rising burgher class in Western Europe and who soon gained the right to rule, but which is not possessed by all classes in the history of other countries.
At that time, the emerging class in Western Europe urgently needed knowledge of astronomy, geography, navigation, manufacturing, artillery, and even the world's politics, economy, society, and history, which were closely related to their vital interests, but these knowledge and the interests of the ruling classes in traditional society were not very related. As late as the beginning of the 20th century, although some princes and nobles from underdeveloped countries in Asia and Africa also sent their children to Oxford and Cambridge for education, these people did not introduce Western technology into their own countries after returning to China.
The mystery here is that science plays a disintegrative role in the hierarchy both intellectually and socially. All human beings, no matter how great or small, are equal in value before science, and are subject to the same iron laws, and there is no distinction between high and low. At that time, there was no such social class in the history of China, and the whole society has not been able to break through the shackles of hierarchical concepts and systems.
Related to this,Another condition for the birth and development of modern science is that science must be respected and encouraged by the existing political and social system, that is, the existing political and social system must be able to attract a large number of talents to the cause of science. After the Renaissance, the establishment and development of various societies and academies in Western Europe became a common practice, which greatly promoted the development of modern science.
But such conditions did not exist in China at the time. In traditional Chinese society, the way out for an intellectual, his status, honor and value are not linked to knowledge. As early as the Han Dynasty, not long after the exclusive respect for Confucianism, Ban Gu once lamented that Confucianism had become a path of profit. Since then, the imperial examination system has further satisfied the purpose of the hierarchical system to make "the heroes of the world enter our ranks".
In the West, just as Galileo was laying the foundation stone for modern science, Song Yingxing, the encyclopedic Chinese scientist, was writing "Heavenly Creations", and at the same time he sadly declared that "this book has nothing to do with fame and fortune." It can be seen that until modern times, the interests of the ruling class did not require scientific knowledge of its own value, and people's ingenuity could not be directed to the road of scientific research. China's social conditions are far from mature enough for the birth and development of modern science in China.
The reasons why modern science was born in the West rather than in China can be traced back to the long cultural backgrounds of both sides. Compared with China, Western thought is more or less Orthophytic. The word "philosophy" is etymically "love wisdom". Even people with strong ethical overtones, like Socrates, proclaimed the slogan: "Knowledge is virtue." ”
The tradition of Chinese thought is dominated by virtue rather than wisdom, and knowledge has always been subordinate to virtue and serves virtue, and it has no independent value in itself, so the pursuit of truth in China does not first and foremost refer to the acquisition of knowledge, but to the fulfillment of moral obligations. Confucianism reveres virtue in the upper position, and Taoism not only requires "absolute sage", but also "abandons wisdom".
But in the West, even in medieval theological arguments, there is often a strong tendency towards subjectivism, which requires false logical deductions to justify one's beliefs, such as the ontological proof of God's existence. Chinese philosophy, on the other hand, is Xi in using metaphors rather than logical inferences. In the final analysis, it is the belief that higher moral truths cannot be guaranteed or proven by lower knowledge.
In this way, it is determined that in traditional Chinese culture, knowledge or truth itself has no independent intrinsic value: we cannot (or should not) pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but only for the sake of humanity. The dedication of Chinese people with lofty ideals throughout the ages was for the sake of benevolence and morality, not for the pursuit of some pure rationality, that is, the truth of scientific knowledge (e.g., Galileo suffered for believing in Copernicus's heliocentric theory).
The contrast between Chinese and Western thought can be said to be the contrast between morality and wisdom, between morality and knowledge, that is, between ethics and science.
Perhaps it is precisely because of the emphasis on human ethics and morality in traditional Chinese culture that China does not have a religion in the Western sense. Western religion can be said to have a duality: it is incompatible with scientific reason in terms of its emphasis on its creed, but it has similarities and similarities with science in terms of its insatiable pursuit of the infinite.
One of the most remarkable historical facts related to this is that in the history of Chinese thought, there is neither the ancient Western atomic theory nor the modern Western mechanism. These two are in the same vein, and constitute the most basic and decisive factor for the development of modern science and scientific thinking.
By and large, most Chinese thinkers are Xi of examining the individual under and within the totality, and their worldview has always been holistic and organic, rather than atomistic or mechanistic. If, as Dr. Joseph Needham suggested, the development of scientific thought in the future will shift from a mechanical, analytic orbit to an organic, integrated orbit, then the ancient Chinese way of thinking and wisdom will certainly make a significant contribution to this.
However, a mechanical, analytical way of thinking is still an indispensable and insurmountable first step in modern science. "No jump in knowledge" is likely to be an exact and universal law, after all, it is necessary to conduct isolated analysis first, and then there is an overall synthesis.
The ancient Chinese way of thinking, whether Confucianism or Taoism, set aside mechanical analysis and directly demanded a grasp of the Taoist body. This may be the ideological reason why China has not been able to enter the temple of modern science on its own.