Science is truth, was there science in ancient China?

The Taoist system of thought is a unique mixture of philosophy and religion that also contains primitive science and square techniques, and is the only mystical system in the world that is not extremely anti-scientific." In discussing the specific contributions of Taoist culture to ancient Chinese science, Joseph Lee notes, "At a time when science was not yet distinguished from the square arts, the act of an alchemist carefully mixing and heating a number of chemicals while performing alchemical experiments would have looked no different from the action of a witch pounding away in a cauldron while using charms to sedate others. In the West, the distinction between science and magic was not realized until the 17th century, and it was never really realized in traditional China. What is important, however, is that the philosophers of the Taoist school experimented with their own hands in order to discover the laws of nature, and whatever their purpose, they trusted their hands as much as they trusted their minds, and it is for this reason that the study of alchemy in China was mainly carried out by Taoist scholars. The fact that the thinkers of the Taoist school personally performed manual labor in order to explore nature clearly demonstrates another fundamental difference between the Confucian and Taoist schools. No Confucian scholar would condescend to engage in any manual labor, whereas for the Taoist scholar it is part of his quest for the Way. The act of engaging in manual labor effectively allowed Taoist scholars to step outside the narrow cultural circle of feudal aristocratic philosophy and, later, bureaucratic scholarship" (Joseph Lee, "Taoism and Its Quest for Nature," from Twenty Lectures on Taoism, Hwa Hsia Publishing House, 2008 edition, 83-84).

The book of Zhuangzi contains many records of the wonders of earthly craftsmanship, which to a large extent reflects the Taoist school's admiration for the "Taoist arts" of absorbing the essence of nature. "Butcher for the gentleman Wenhuijun cattle, the hands of the touch, the shoulders of the leaning, the feet of the foot, the knees of the shin, like to the right, playing the knife, all the sound, in the "Sanglin" of the dance, is in the "Jingshou" of the meeting". ("Zhuangzi - Nourishing Lord") a chef to Wenhuijun dismemberment of cattle, his hands touch, shoulder relies on, feet stepped on, knee against the, all rustling; knife inserted, then Huohuo sound, all cut in the rhythm. This is in line with the rhythm of the Sanglin dance and the music of the Jingshou. Xu Wugui" chapter has a Zhuangzi story of his own: "Ying people chalk slow the end of the nose, if the fly wing, so that the carver stone carving. Carpenter stone transport catty into the wind, listen to the carving, all chalk and nose is not hurt, Ying people stand not lose face." The meaning of the story is: Ying land a man put lime on the tip of the nose, thin as a fly's wing, and then asked the stonemason to use an axe to cut off this small white spot. The stonemason swung his axe round and round, and chopped it down smoothly, and cut away the lime completely, while the nose was not hurt at all, and the man in Yingdi stood there without a change of countenance.

"Zhuangzi" in these strange skills, stunts represented by science or technology? These are more like "Taoist" "art" on the development of science and technology in ancient China played what role?

For a long time, there has been a view that there was only technology but no science in ancient China. In my opinion, this view is based on the results of the development of the history of science and technology in China, which is inevitably one-sided. As a matter of fact, ancient Chinese science and technology made brilliant development achievements. Joseph Li edited seven volumes of the English version of the "History of Science and Technology in China" published by Cambridge University Press from 1954 onwards, which shows the world with vast historical materials and solid evidence that "Chinese civilization has played a great role in the history of science and technology that has never been recognized". "More than ten centuries before the advent of modern science and technology, China's accumulation of technology and knowledge was far superior to that of the West." However, Dr. Joseph Li also raised the famous "Joseph Li Dilemma" - although China's science and technology (except for the glorious theory-building climax in Greece) was much more advanced than Europe's between the 3rd century B.C. and the 15th century A.D., China's science and technology was much more advanced than Europe's in the early 17th century after the time of Lillo. the early 17th century after the time of Lillo, what about the lack of development of modern science in China, or, one might say, the complete lack of development? In writing his History of Science and Technology in China, he asked several fundamental questions: Why did modern science and the ensuing Industrial Revolution, linked to systematic experimentation and the mathematization of natural hypotheses, first emerge rapidly in the West? Why was China more effective and far ahead of the West in developing science and technology during the long period from the 1st to the 15th centuries A.D.? Why did traditional Chinese science remain in a primitive empiricist stage and failed to spontaneously emerge into modern science and the ensuing industrial revolution?

How to answer the "Joseph Lee puzzle" correctly? Was there really only technology but no science in ancient China?

What is science? What is technology? Science as a specific concept did not exist in ancient China. It is said that some people saw from the comparison of Chinese and Western cultures that Western learning was divided into subjects, such as numbers, physics, chemistry, and so on, and then collectively referred to these subjects as the concept of "science". From this, we can see that people initially recognize modern Western science from the refinement and systematization of knowledge, which is one of the fundamental differences between Chinese and Western cultures.

Science is a system of knowledge about the laws of nature, society and the development of thinking, and can be divided into two categories: natural science and social science. In a nutshell, science is the process and result of human beings exploring nature and society as well as human beings themselves, seeking their inherent regularities, the process of which is scientific research activities, and the result of which is a system of scientific theories. Technology, on the other hand, is the method and means by which human beings transform nature in order to satisfy their needs - from simple food, clothing, shelter and transportation to complex social needs - and its method is skill and its means are tools. Science is mainly in the form of knowledge, while technology is in the form of materialization. Science provides the possibility of materialization and technology provides the reality of materialization. Scientific breakthroughs are called discoveries and technological innovations are called inventions. Science is the study of knowledge creation, and technology is the study of synthesizing and utilizing knowledge for needs. The evaluation of science mainly depends on its creativity and truthfulness, while the evaluation of technology firstly depends on whether it is feasible and whether it can bring practical value.

Science and technology have both existed since ancient times. In his 4,000-page monograph An Introduction to the History of Science, George Sarton (1884-1956), the founder of the Western discipline of the history of science, who studied the subject from antiquity to the 14th century AD (i.e., the beginning of China's Ming Dynasty), listed a large number of scientists, of whom there were 249 in China. Of these men, the most studied astronomy, medicine and mathematics came next, while only five were actually involved in technology. In any case, it cannot be said that there was only technology but no science in ancient China. Of course, this situation may be due to the fact that most of China's technological inventors came from the lower strata of society, skilled craftsmen, and it is difficult to leave the names of these "little people" in history. According to Joseph Lee, the Chinese have made remarkable contributions to science and technology, "without which the whole development of our Western civilization would not have been possible. For without gunpowder, paper, printing and the compass, the disappearance of feudalism in Europe would have been inconceivable." (Pan Jixing, The Collected Works of Joseph Lee. (Liaoning Science and Technology Press, 1986).

The brilliant achievements of ancient China's scientific and technological development can be reflected in the many technological achievements recorded in the book "The Book of Kao Gong Ji" alone. The Kaogongji is a document that describes the specifications and manufacturing processes of various types of official handicrafts during the Spring and Autumn Period of China. At the beginning of the Western Han Dynasty, when the Zhou Rites - Winter Officials was lost, the book was supplemented by the Kao Gong Ji, which was preserved in the Zhou Rites and handed down to the world. Kao Gong Ji is the earliest technical literature on handicrafts in China, which preserves a large amount of pre-Qin handicraft production technology, arts and crafts, and records a series of production management and construction systems, reflecting the ideology of the time to a certain extent. The book is not very long, with about 7,000 words, but the content of scientific and technological information is quite large. It describes 6 categories and 30 types of work such as carpentry, goldsmithing, leatherwork, dyeing, jade, pottery, etc., of which 6 have been lost and 1 has been derived, and the content of 25 types of work exists, which involves the handicraft technology of the pre-Qin period such as car-making, weaponry, ceremonial weapons, bells and chimes, dyeing and practicing, construction and water conservancy, etc., and it covers the following topics It also covers natural science knowledge such as astronomy, biology, mathematics, physics and chemistry. The book occupies an important position in the history of Chinese science and technology, arts and crafts, and culture.

It is obvious that human beings initially had only technology but no science. The soil for the origin of science was produced by people in the initial process of recognizing nature, transforming nature and social reality. So, where did the scientific and technological achievements of ancient China come from?

Traditional Chinese culture was built on the foundations of continental, agricultural and patriarchal civilizations, of which continental and agricultural civilizations intertwined and greatly contributed to the development of ancient Chinese science and technology. The continental civilization provided a wide space for frequent interactions between peoples from different tribes. In addition, the continental civilization is also the root cause of frequent wars, different tribes in order to occupy more land and population, it is necessary to master more involved in the war of all kinds of military technology. The technological starting point of the agricultural civilization was much higher than that of the nomadic civilization in the West. In order to satisfy the survival needs of a large population, the ancient Chinese had to know more practical and empirical techniques, such as plant cultivation, astronomy and geography, climate and water conservancy, and other kinds of knowledge involving agricultural production.

Ancient Chinese science and technology mainly embodied the wisdom qualities of pragmatism and empiricism, and its purpose was to satisfy the survival needs of human beings. However, why were the achievements of ancient Chinese science and technology not transformed into capitalist-style advanced productive forces like those in the modern West, thus generating huge socio-economic benefits?

True science is based on logic, paradigm, etc., which is reflected in the systematic, systematic, and theoretical nature of knowledge, and has a relatively independent value orientation. Science and technology are inextricably linked, and science is essentially the integration of technology based on universal logic. Such as from the study of different forces in the form of movement of technical inventions, are derived from **** the same theoretical knowledge of mechanics. Although the technical disciplines are different, they are all based on the same or similar scientific logic, and the attributes of technology are similar.

Could ancient China have produced scientific and technological disciplines similar to those of the modern West?

The answer is yes. From the fact that the Chinese could have numerous technological inventions, we can see that the ancient Chinese were fully capable of producing countless scientific and technological monographs similar to the Kao Gong Ji, thus forming a systematic, systematic, and theoretical scientific discipline. We can draw this conclusion from the rigor with which the Mohist school of the Warring States period approached science. The Mojing, which is very much like a modern teacher's teaching notes, covers a wide range of natural sciences such as mathematics and physics, including geometry, mechanics, optics, and so on. It can be realized from this that the natural science knowledge of the Chinese was not backward than that of the ancient Greeks, for example, the definitions of circle, line and plane in the Mojing are more than 100 years ahead of the definitions of Euclid's geometry. What is especially valuable is that the Mozi scholars were able to move from spontaneity to self-awareness of scientific progress, had a more systematic knowledge of epistemology and logic, and put forward the "Three Tables of Law", a relatively scientific methodology to regulate people's understanding of the world, which is very clearly different from the ambiguity, abstraction, and mysticism of the other schools of thought of the same period in China. This is very different from the vague, abstract and mystical mode of thinking of other schools of thought in China during the same period. Mozi's scholars had a low social status, and most of them were directly involved in the production of labor, most of them being craftsmen. Most of them were craftsmen. Mozi himself was an artisan skilled in mechanical engineering. It was natural for the Mozi scholars to accumulate and summarize their knowledge of natural sciences in their usual labor practices. They were real laborers, representatives of common people's culture, and therefore, only they could produce real knowledge of natural science. Although their knowledge about natural science was not systematic enough, in those times, if there was a normal path to develop, it was possible to breed any systematic knowledge of natural science. In fact, the dispersed way of thinking of the Mohist scholars involved any field of knowledge was possible. It is conceivable that if this school had always been able to exist, even if the rest of mainstream Chinese culture had only been compatible and tolerant of its existence, the history of the development of science and technology in ancient China would surely have been completely rewritten.

However, why couldn't ancient China produce a science and technology discipline similar to that of the modern West?

Science and technology play a very important role in the development of human civilization as a technical civilization in the human cultural system. It is regrettable that the Chinese science and technology civilization can not rise to the height of the institutional civilization, early withdrawal from the valuable opportunity to participate in the design of the Chinese institutional civilization, science and technology can only be reduced to the physical sense of the "use" of the apparatus, and can not be raised to the institutional civilization itself and accepted by the Chinese culture. Science and technology did not have an independent value orientation, and could only remain at the level of technological civilization, and could not become an object of study for the mainstream culture as a discipline of learning. Although the Chinese made brilliant scientific and technological achievements in the 1st-15th centuries, they could not ultimately develop a scientific and technological system similar to that of the modern West. What the ancient Chinese lacked was not technology, but the systematic, systematic, logical nature of technology and the ability to develop it in a sustainable manner driven by a social system.

What is going on here?

Confucianism, Taoism, law and other components of China's mainstream and sub-mainstream culture, is the basic paradigm of China's institutional civilization *** with the designer of their attitude towards science and technology, determining the development of China's scientific and technological institutional arrangements. Obviously, the basic ideas in Confucian and French cultures are extremely unfavorable to the progress of science and technology. For example, Confucianism, which advocated a hierarchical system, regarded all matters involving labor as "petty" matters. Activities such as agricultural production were laborious and tedious, so Confucians naturally would not be involved in them, and they were willing to be proud of being the ones who got something for nothing. As a result, the Confucian-led imperial examination system of future generations simply could not incorporate science and technology. The Confucians did not understand science, and they very often appeared as anti-science. Systematic knowledge systems such as astronomy, agronomy, and military science had to be learned systematically, and the core of the political utilitarianism advocated by Confucianism was "learning and excellence", and the act of devoting oneself to scientific and technological inventions could not bring glory and wealth to people. This is very different from the modern Westerners who are passionate about the mysteries of the world, and who have devoted themselves to scientific and technological inventions but have been able to gain wealth and honor, thus greatly promoting the rapid progress of science and technology.

The progress of science and technology in ancient China obviously could not rely on the aristocratic culture represented by Confucianism and the law, so could Taoist culture give a strong impetus to the development of science and technology in China?

Unlike the Mohist school, the Taoists promoted only a kind of "Taoism" that originated from the "Great Way," rather than creating new and different technologies for utilitarian and pragmatic purposes in order to promote scientific and technological progress. This is particularly evident in the doctrine of Zhuangzi.

There is a story recorded in the chapter "Dasheng" that a craftsman named Ziqing chipped wood to make a rack in the shape of a beast, which could be used to hang bells and drums. When it was made, everyone who saw it marveled at it, as if it had been made by a ghost or a god. When the Marquis of Lu met Ziqing and asked him how he made it, Ziqing replied, "Before I prepared to make the bell stand, I never dared to lose my energy, and I had to fast to calm my heart. I fasted for three days, not daring to think of rewards and honors; I fasted for five days, not daring to think of reputation and skill; I fasted for seven days, as if I had forgotten my own body and limbs. At this time, I no longer thought of working for the court, but only concentrated on my skills, and let all external concerns disappear. Then I went deep into the mountains and forests to observe the natural nature of the trees; I chose the ones that best suited the shape and form of the trees, as if I had seen a ready-made bell frame, and only then did I work on it; if I did not have such an opportunity, I would not do anything at all. This is to match nature with nature, and the objects made are suspected to be the work of gods and demons, probably for this reason!"

Forget about utilitarianism, forget about fame, forget about oneself, in order to make skillful and exquisite utensils. Technology does not have an independent value orientation, but rather follows the natural path. Take the chef in The Lord of Health as an example, his preference is for the "Tao", and when he started to slaughter cows, all he saw was a whole cow; after three (or more) years, he never saw a whole cow. He had used the knife for nineteen years and had dismembered thousands of oxen, and the blade was as sharp as if it had just been sharpened on a whetstone. What on earth is this for? "His knuckle is interspersed while the blade is without thickness. With no thickness into the intervals, restored to the edge of the blade will have room to maneuver, is to nineteen years and the blade as if new hair on the whetstone." There is a gap between the bones of the cow, and the blade of the knife is almost no thickness, with no thickness of the blade into the gap between the bones, naturally, is wide and have room for maneuver. That's why after nineteen years of using my knife, the blade still looks like it's just been sharpened from a whetstone.

In Zhuangzi's eyes, what he saw was not the rapid changes in science and technology that we imagine today, that is to say, he did not advocate the constant progress of science and technology to change the way of life of human beings. The world does not develop infinitely upwards, but is a cycle of weeks and weeks. "There are a few species, get water is followed, get water and soil occasion for frog-oyster clothes, born in Lingshtun is Lingshouli, Lingshouli get Yuqi is the foot of the crows ...... Cheng born horses, horses born people, people and then back into the machine. All things are out of the machine, all into the machine" ("Zhuangzi - to music"). Species from the tiny a few to come, a few encountered water will grow intermittent as silk following grass, in the junction of water and soil will grow into moss. Falling on the hilly high ground will grow into the plantain, plantain get the nourishment of dung will grow into the foot grass ...... big bugs give birth to horses, horses give birth to people. The human being returns to the few at the beginning of creation. All things are born in a few, and all return to a few.

Chuang Tzu is against man-made wisdom that violates nature. Joseph Lee said, "Although Taoists respected the skill of manual labor, adopted an empirical perspective, and trusted and appreciated the ingenuity of craftsmen and inventors, they sometimes paradoxically expressed opposition to technological innovation. At first glance this phenomenon seems strange and in direct contradiction to the Taoist philosophy of naturalism and the connection of Taoist thought with science and technology as we know it, and together with the Taoist negative attitude toward knowledge, this phenomenon has led many exegetes down a wrong path. Upon careful examination of their arguments, however, we find that the Taoists object to the misuse of technology, not to technology itself." (Joseph Lee, "Taoism and Its Search for Nature," from Twenty Lectures on Taoism, Huaxia Publishing House, 2008 edition, 105)

A story told in the chapter of Zhuangzi - Heaven and Earth illustrates Zhuangzi's ideological point of view very well. In the story, it is said that Zigong saw a farmer who was using a bucket to fetch water from a well, and Zigong told him that there was a very simple labor-saving instrument, orange pulley, which could be used to improve the efficiency of his work, and the farmer said, "I have heard of my teacher: 'He who has machinery must have a machine, and he who has a machine must have a machine. The machine must have a machine mind. Machine heart in the chest, then pure white is not ready; pure white is not ready, then the gods are not sure; gods are not sure, the road is not loaded also'. I am not unaware of this, but I am ashamed not to do it." What the farmer meant to say was, "I heard my teacher say, 'The use of machinery and the like is bound to give rise to ingenuity; and he who carries out ingenuity is bound to develop an ingenious mind. If the mind of ingenuity exists in the chest, the heart cannot remain pure; if it cannot remain pure, the mind will not be stabilized; if the mind cannot be stabilized, it will not be able to experience the Great Way.' It's not that I don't know the way you're talking about, but it's that I don't want to do that because I feel ashamed."

This story was originally a satire on the Confucian's over-intentionality and going against the nature of things, but it also represents the Taoist school's attitude toward science and technology. The Taoist school of thought lacks due interest in the principles of technological happenings, and has an anti-intellectual cultural tendency to know only what science and technology are, but not what they are. What Taoism promotes can only be cyclical, repetitive, and skillful technology. Taoist culture, based on subtractive thinking and reverse thinking, does not need a Western-style refined scientific world, where everything is obscurantist and chaotic but natural.

In this way, because the Mohist culture could not rise to the level of the dominant form of culture in China, the Chinese people naturally lost touch with true scientific knowledge. After the unification of imperial power, Chinese science and technology could only emerge from the uninformed, sloppy and spontaneous scientific thinking of Taoist culture.

Causing modern China's science and technology backwardness in addition to the mainstream culture, sub-mainstream cultural reasons, the main scientific and technological development and the relationship between the Chinese imperial authoritarianism. Imperial authoritarianism "family world" seriously constrained the normal development of science and technology. It is said that the gunpowder technology used in the military during the Ming Dynasty had reached a fairly high technical level, but became backward during the Qing Dynasty. This example can to a certain extent illustrate the hindering effect of Chinese imperial authoritarianism on science and technology. Of course, the existence of the imperial authoritarian system itself is also a cultural problem, because the mainstream culture, sub-mainstream culture is not only the "legal philosophy" of the imperial authoritarian system, but also for the imperial authoritarian political ideology.