Science and the Scientific Revolution in China: Selected Works on the Needham Question and Related Issues

Author: Liu Dun, Wang Yangzong
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-04-01
Features: Preface Dr. Joseph Needham (1900–1995), a well-known expert in the history of Chinese science and technology, is renowned for his multi-volume work Science and Civilisation in China (usually translated into Chinese as The History of Science and Technology in China, abbreviated as SCC). For a long time, "Needham" has almost become synonymous with "the history of Chinese science and technology" in China, and the recent trend of solving the "Needham Question" has been on the rise. The answers to this question have appeared not only in serious academic journals but also frequently in popular mass readings. According to preliminary statistics, since 1980, there have been no fewer than 260 papers and more than 30 books published in China on the "Needham Question." The participants in the discussion include scholars of Chinese history and culture, as well as individuals from the fields of science, economics, and education. It can almost be said that anyone concerned with the future of China has some interest in this question. Regardless of how future generations view Needham's research, his work stands as an academic monument of the 20th century; regardless of how the "Needham Question" is criticized or deconstructed, its position in the historiography of science is undeniable. Regrettably, the immense enthusiasm of China's intellectual community for Needham and his famous question stands in stark contrast to our indifference toward relevant historical and literary documents both within and outside China. This is one of the important reasons that prompted us to organize and translate some of the fundamental documents related to the "Needham Question" and present them to the general public in the form of a collection.
The "Needham Question," also known as the "Needham Problem," "Needham Puzzle," or "Needham Thesis," is translated from the English. Its general formulation is: Why was China more effective than the West in applying natural knowledge to practical purposes between the 2nd century BCE and the 16th century CE? Or, why did modern science, with its mathematicalization of hypotheses about nature and related advanced technologies, only flourish briefly in Europe during the time of Galileo? Evidence suggests that as early as the late 1930s, when Needham began seriously considering the relationship between science and society, similar thoughts emerged; after coming to China in 1942, through interactions with many top Chinese scholars and mutual inspiration, this idea became clearer. In the 1950s and 1960s, Needham repeatedly emphasized the significance of this historical question in different works and contexts. However, it was not until 1976 that the American economist Kenneth Boulding explicitly coined the term "Needham Question." After the and critiques by the American science sociologist Restivo and the historian Needham and others, the term "Needham Question" spread rapidly and soon entered China, attracting widespread attention. In Chinese academia, the "Needham Question" is often understood as an exploration of the historical phenomenon of why modern Chinese science lagged behind. While this enhances the problem's relevance, it also often entangles people in various practical considerations when trying to answer this historical question.
China's long-standing scientific and cultural tradition has undergone a process of rediscovery in the past century. For a long time after the Opium War, China was regarded by Westerners as an unenlightened nation, let alone one with a scientific and civilized tradition. In the late Qing Dynasty, although some Chinese scholars were defiant, they greatly elaborated on the "Western Learning Originated in China" theory, which claimed that Western science had long existed in ancient China. However, by the early 20th century, amid the wave of introducing Western science, the ancient Chinese scientific tradition was completely forgotten by the mainstream scientists, leading to the argument that "China had no science." Since the 1920s and 1930s, especially in the past half-century, scholars of Chinese science and technology at home and abroad, including Needham, have revealed the long history and tradition of Chinese science and technology, not only correcting the one-sided Western perception but also, to some extent, restoring the confidence of contemporary Chinese as inheritors of ancient Eastern civilization. More importantly, ancient Chinese science and technology have now been recognized by academia as a model demonstrating the diversity of human civilization, and therefore Needham's contributions should by no means be underestimated. At the same time, modern Chinese science and technology remain relatively backward, which is a reality that several generations of Chinese have had to confront over the past century. In stark contrast, throughout China's modernization process, the wise have consistently placed science and technology in a crucial position. From Wei Yuan's proposal of "learning from the strengths of the barbarians to restrain them" after the Opium War, the "seeking strength and wealth" movement during the Self-Strengthening Movement, to the "saving the nation through Western learning" theory proposed by Yan Fu and others, as well as the "saving the nation through science" trend of the early 20th century, and even the "Four Modernizations" of the 1970s and the "Rejuvenating China through Science and Education" policy of today, all reflect the modern Chinese desire to develop science and technology to transform China's backward state.
Therefore, it is natural that when discussing the historical development of Chinese science and technology, we cannot help but feel a sense of urgency, which gives our discussion of the "Needham Question" a special meaning. While this can promote the discussion of related issues, it sometimes also mixes in non-academic factors. As academic endeavors are still underdeveloped and academic norms are not yet in today's China, it is common to see unfounded claims without any basis, which need not be elaborated upon.
Thus, when preparing to compile a collection of studies on the "Needham Question" and related issues, the editors' intention was not to add fuel to the already fervent trend of solving the question but rather to provide readers with as much fundamental academic information and new research findings as possible within the limited space. Therefore, the focus of the selection was placed on representative studies by foreign scholars and some early discussions by Chinese scholars.
Let us now introduce the book—China and the Scientific Revolution: An Academic Review of the Needham Question—which includes group of essays, or the articles themselves, or the discussions they involve, all date from before Needham posed his famous historical question. The "Needham Question" was not originally coined by Needham; this is a fact revealed by recent research. As early as the late 16th century, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci, who introduced Western scientific traditions to China, questioned why Chinese astronomy and mathematics had stagnated and explored the reasons from the perspective of Chinese social customs and the imperial examination system. In the mid-Qing Dynasty, the French Jesuit Father Jean-Baptiste du Halde provided a more in-depth analysis of the reasons for the stagnation of Chinese science, and some Enlightenment thinkers in Europe also began to notice this issue. In the late Qing Dynasty, when scholars discussed the "Western Learning Originated in China" theory, some pointed out that while the Chinese had created the methods of science, the Westerners had developed and advanced them, leaving the Chinese, after creating the methods, disdainful of pursuing them. This extreme form of self-congratulation certainly does not belong to academic inquiry, but to some extent, it touches on the essence of the "Needham Question," which is to explore why the superiority of Western science and technology began only in modern times and to seek reasons for this phenomenon.
In 1915, Ren Hongjun wrote an article titled "Why China Has No Science" in the inaugural issue of the Science magazine, marking the beginning of modern Chinese scholars' discussions on this issue. In the 1920s and 1930s, pioneers in science such as Zhu Kezhen began to seriously explore questions such as "Why did Chinese experimental science not develop" and "Why did chemistry, which originated in China, decline later," which were extremely similar to the later "Needham Question." The publication of China's Economy and Society by the German Weitao in 1931 soon attracted the attention of Chinese scholars and had a significant influence on Needham. The collection includes an excerpt from a text translated from his book in the 1940s, titled "Why Did China Not Produce Natural Science." Han Qi's recent work provides a detailed introduction and analysis of the discussions by 17th- and 18th-century Europeans on the reasons for the stagnation of Chinese science.
The second group of essays directly discusses and introduces the "Needham Question." To demonstrate Needham's own reflections on this issue, the collection includes one of his most representative articles, "Science and Civilisation in East and West," which is widely recognized by academia as the classic formulation of the "Needham Question." This group also includes a dialogue between Needham and two renowned Japanese historians of science, through which Needham briefly outlines his thoughts. It is generally expected that the final answer to the "Needham Question" will be found in the "Conclusion" volume of SCC. The editors are honored to have received permission from Joseph Needham of the Needham Research Institute at Cambridge to publish a new work here, introducing the content of the upcoming volume, which reveals some of the long-awaited answers in the SCC edition. Meanwhile, this group also includes classic works by several prominent Western scholars on the "Needham Question."
The third group consists of essays that attempt to solve the "Needham Question." Among them, the influential works of the renowned Chinese psychologist Chen Li, "A Psychological Analysis of the Reasons for the Underdevelopment of Science in China," and the famous philosopher Tang Junyi, "The Ancient Historical Reasons for the Underdevelopment of Chinese Science and Religion," were written over half a century ago but remain weighty arguments. However, they have been read less frequently than they have been cited. Seeing these works by scholars today, contemporary academics should reflect on the recent texts that merely repeat others' arguments or are vague and speculative. On the other hand, the long essay by Jin Guantao and others, "Cultural Background and the Evolution of the Structure of Science and Technology," which was published more than 20 years ago, had a broad impact in the specific social and cultural context of the time and still retains its value today. The economist Lin Juyi's work, "The Needham Puzzle: Why Did the Industrial Revolution Not Originate in China," differs from the views of most historians and historians of science, offering fresh insights and being the only work by a domestic scholar included in the collection in recent years on solving the question. Unlike the enthusiasm in China for answering the "Needham Question," Western scholars rarely approach it with the goal of solving it. The collection includes a new work by the renowned sinologist John K. Fairbank, which explores the reasons why ancient China did not produce probabilistic thinking, offering a perspective quite different from common discussions.
The fourth group of essays focuses on the "Needham Question and the Historiography of Science." Among them, Needham's influential essay, which has long been known both in China and abroad and has had a significant impact on Chinese historiography of science in solving and questioning the "Needham Question," is now included in its revised version of 1992, which differs considerably from the old version familiar to Chinese academia. Bu Lü, who served as Needham's secretary for a long time, analyzes the multifaceted background of Needham's research on the history of Chinese science and its achievements and value. Anto Azzenaga applies recent theories in the historiography of science, postmodern theory, and cultural studies of science to analyze the intrinsic logic of the "Needham Question." Roger criticizes the limitations of the "Science and Civilisation" analytical framework in the study of Chinese science history and proposes a new research framework using advanced theories of science. Fan Dainian divides the discussion in Chinese academia over the past 80 years about the reasons for the underdevelopment of modern Chinese science into four stages, and Fan played a role in promoting the later two stages, making his analysis both academically valuable and historically significant. The collaborative paper by Dong Yingzhe and Wu Guoyuan offers a convincing critique of the recent tendency to question the "Needham Question" from the perspective of dialectical thinking.
The fifth group is titled "Chinese Science and World Science," which elaborates on traditional Chinese science from the perspective of world science history. There are many documents on this topic, but due to space limitations, the editors have selected only three essays. The paper by the renowned Japanese historian of science Yamaoka Masanori provides an insightful and in-depth analysis of China's unique scientific thought. Although this paper has long been translated and introduced, it has clearly not been noticed by recent proponents of the "China had no science" theory. The American sociologist and philosopher Steven Fuller reinterprets the Needham thesis from the perspective of metahistory, proposing a new theory of world science history. Two Indian scholars analyze the difficulties in applying Needham's historiographical methods to the history of Indian civilization, thereby addressing why no Needham-style history of Indian science has emerged.
As seen above, many scholars view the "Needham Question" as equivalent to a proposition about the scientific revolution. Therefore, the last part of the collection includes several papers on the modern European scientific revolution to provide references for discussions on the scientific revolution in China. Two of these are general overviews of the Copernican Revolution and the scientific revolution of the 17th century, and one is the classic paper by the renowned historian of science Alexandre Koyre. The editors have also translated the famous paper by the Austrian historian of science Richard Zelcer, "The Sociology of the Origins of Science," which inspired and influenced Needham, and the "Zelcer Thesis" in the study of the historiography of science is named after this paper.
The collection includes 32 essays. Among them, only 5 are works that attempt to solve the "Needham Question." This seems contrary to the public's desire to solve the question. However, the editors' intention in compiling this book was primarily to provide some basic documents for the discussion of the "Needham Question" and its related issues, rather than to summarize the recent trend of solving the "Needham Question" in China over the past two decades.
Here, we would like to offer a somewhat untimely perspective on the current fervor in China to solve the "Needham Question." Many Chinese people are now devoted to the "Needham Question," attempting to provide one solution after another to the puzzling proposition of why ancient China did not produce modern science, much like mathematicians attempting to solve mathematical problems such as Fermat's Last Theorem. Most of them understand the "Needham Question" as an exploration of why modern Chinese science lagged behind, which, while enhancing its relevance, tends to obscure the profound historiographical significance of the question and often gets entangled with various practical considerations in the "case-by-case" narrative. China once had a glorious past, but in the past few centuries, it has been left far behind in the global trend. This background can easily influence the mindset of those seeking solutions, making them believe that finding a "special solution" to this question will reveal the root cause of "backwardness" and provide guidance for the development of modern Chinese science and technology. However, to be candid, many of the answers are repetitive, and some even repeat arguments from two or three hundred years ago. Many proponents lack the necessary academic training or do not adhere to basic academic norms, so most of the answers have not yet reached the level of academic research, much like amateur mathematicians attempting to solve Fermat's Last Theorem and Goldbach's Conjecture.
To ensure that our exploration of the "Needham Question" is conducted at a high academic level, it is essential to examine and reflect on its academic connotations and implications. In this regard, the relevant research included in this collection demonstrates a high degree of academic depth, which should not be ignored. The current Chinese "Needham Question" fever reminds us of the intense discussions about the "emergence of capitalism" in Chinese historiography nearly half a century ago, which was once hailed as one of the "five golden flowers" of historical research but has long since faded from public attention. The discussions on the "emergence of capitalism" in the Ming and Qing dynasties were largely based on a premise detached from the actual history of the Ming and Qing dynasties, although they temporarily promoted the study of Chinese economic history, they were eventually abandoned with the progress of historical research. In our view, the "Needham Question" also faces a similar issue of being driven by a preconceived idea. Perhaps if we study the development of traditional Chinese science and technology objectively, neither the argument that "China had no science" nor the belief that "China's science and technology were far behind the West before the 16th century" would exist. The reasons for the underdevelopment of modern Chinese science and technology can certainly be traced back to history, but they should be explored more from the historical process of the past century. Modern science did indeed arise only in Western Europe, but this does not prevent it from thriving healthily in many other regions that were scientifically backward or late-developing. We believe that as China's economy and culture continue to develop, the exploration of the "Needham Question" will return to the track of academic research and become a genuine issue within the field of history.