The Way and the Word: Science an Medicine in Early China and Greece

Rating:
Summary: logos and tao---Chemical Heritage magazine
Review: I would have thought that to be an expert on early Chinese science was enough to occupy at least one lifetime, and the same can be said about expertise in early Greek science. Only amateurs would claim to know enough to write about early science in both civilizations and make comparisons. And yet, in this slim work, a leading authority on ancient Greek science and an equally knowledgeable China expert have talked and corresponded and shared drafts with each other and with other scholars at conferences over a ten-year period resulting in a truly pathbreaking work. Geoffrey Lloyd (now Sir Geoffrey) is emeritus professor of ancient history at the University of Cambridge and author of definitive works on early Greek science. Nathan Sivin is professor of Chinese culture and of the history of science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is probably the world's leading expert on Chinese science and has written extensively on most of its aspects. He is the author of the section on the theoretical background of Chinese alchemy in volume V part 4, and edited the medical volume, volume VI part 6, of Joseph Needham's monumental Science and Civilization in China. The dustcover begins our education depicting an ancient Chinese character for tao, the Way, and the Greek ëïãïò, logos, the Word. The Way carries with it the sense of process, of change, which is not implicit in the Word. The chapter headings give us pause for they suggest, though erroneously it turns out, that the book is assembled from individual writings by the two authors. The chapters are: Aims and Methods; The Social and Institutional Framework of the Chinese Sciences; The Social and Institutional Framework of Greek Science; The Fundamental Issues of Greek Science; The Fundamental Issues of the Chinese Sciences; Chinese and Greek Sciences Compared. Although the headings suggest sharp separation, every chapter includes significant comments regarding corresponding characterisitics in the other civilization. There is no change in style when a Chinese chapter gives way to one on Greece, a truly remarkable achievement. If readers are looking for a description of early Greek and Chinese scientific and technical achievements, they will be disappointed. The three classic Chinese innovations of gunpowder, printing, and the compass without which, according to Francis Bacon, the modern world would be unthinkable, cannot be found in this book. They all came later than the period 400 B.C. to 200 A.D. that the book discusses. Bacon of course had no idea those novelties came from China. Nor can one find more than a mention or two of some of the many dozens of innovations known to the Chinese centuries before the West as described by Joseph Needham. No, the purpose of this book is not to summarize what is already well known. Rather The Way and the Word tries to understand how two independent civilizations managed to create scientific worldviews whose basic approaches, presuppositions, and concepts were fundamentally different, and yet which ordered their awareness of the natural world in ways that led to major advances we would still call scientific. We can no longer ask which of the two is superior. In fact, the authors inform us, historians today trace the ancestry of modern natural science to "the cosmopolitan blend of Syriac, Persian, ancient Middle Eastern, Indian, East Asian, and Greco-Roman traditions that formed in the Muslim world" (p. xiii). Long before the book reaches the concepts of the sciences, the authors ask about the social, political, and institutional aspects of the two cultures and these not as separate entities. The authors realized that the interactions that united these aspects into a single whole had to be studied also. The authors speak of a cultural manifold as the context of the emerging sciences. This is cultural history at its best. Within that manifold they place those individuals who chose to devote their time to scientific questions. They ask what social strata these persons came from and how they earned their living. One fascinating and unexpected emphasis is the fact that in Greece thinkers kept on thinking of new alternative ways of looking at natural phenomena because only in this way would they gain recognition, students, a following, a livelihood. In China, controversy tended to be avoided and new views, although equally frequent, were carefully tailored to look like essential consequences of classic formulations. We can no longer say that the Greek view of nature was a particulate view, the atomistic, granular picture of Leucippus and Democritus, because the alternative continuous picture of nature also had its proponents. And wheras Plato's Timaeus builds nature from a few defined triangles Aristotle's concept of nature is qualitative rather than geometric. Still there is a fundamental divide between Greek and Chinese conceptions characterized by the tao and the Word. Helpfully an appendix outlines the evolution of the Chinese consmological synthesis showing how, within the tao, the cycles of yin and yang and of the five phases (often mistaken for elements) became ways to characterize the activity of ch'i. The Chinese cosmology turns out to be enormously appealing, as it unites macrocosm and microcosm, seeing the heavens, earth, society, and the human body as existing in or straining towards harmonious resonance. It is the underlying worldview of the modern ecologist. Until I read this book, my own picture of Chinese science was granular, staccato, disjointed. I had dipped into numerous books and articles that gave me insights into the astounding achievements of Chinese thinkers and doctors. Never did an overview of the Chinese world emerge. This book finally gave me that overview not only of the Chinese but also of the classic Greek world. To help the reader, a chronology of Chinese and Greek historical events covering the book's six-hundred year timespan is included. It is a book that I strongly recommend. It will greatly enlarge our understanding of the world we live in.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting dichotomy, but underdeveloped and repetitive.
Review: This book has an interesting conceit: two leading historians of science, one of Ancient Greece, one of Ancient China will examine the sciences of both great civilizations and provide an comparative outlook. It looks at a period from roughly the fifth century BC to the end of the second century AD. Nathan Sivin looks at China and Geoffrey Lloyd looks at Greece. There is a discussion of the social background to science, followed by one of the leading scientific concepts. The basic contrast between the two can be simply stated. Chinese scientists lived in a system of patronage, originally to the various warring states, then as bureaucrats to the emperor. Patronage was capricious, and it was limited, but the result was a society that thoroughly accepted highly conservative and authoritarian attitudes. Higher education per se did not exist in the way Greek academies did. Books were slower to develop than in the Greek world. Learning was based on the understanding and memorization of philosophical classics. Most striking of all was the way that scholars did not encourage debate; instead there was a firm emphasis on consensus and agreement, and an uncontested idea of serving the great ruler. The world of Greek scientists was very different: this was a world of city states, many of which were very democratic. In the absence of consistent state patronage and vigorous debate, especially in the field of law, Greek scientists engaged in their own constant debates as they competed with each other and sought to demonstrate the truth as they saw it.

The results were distinct scientific attitudes. The Greeks saw the world in causes and in elements, while the Chinese invoked "the Way," yin-yang, and the five phases. The Greeks spent much of their time dealing with the difference between appearance and reality, while the Chinese did not. Interestingly, the authors note how the Greeks sought to search for mathematical like certainty in other sciences where such certainty was not and is not possible. The Greek emphasis on causality and nature reflects the intensely confrontational nature of the classical world. Chinese scientific theory emphasized, instead of utility or accuracy, its historical lineage. In discussing the cosmos some Greek thinkers argued for the independence of key elements, not unlike the way they stressed in the political sphere the "independence" of the free from the slaves they depended on. Chinese cosmological discussion, on the other hand, stressed the interdependence of the elements of the cosmos, again like Chinese political theory. In contrast to some Greek theories of medicine, Chinese theories emphasized not simply monarchical authority over the body, but the body as governed by a harmonious and wise bureaucracy.

Such anyway is the thesis. What can be said for it? It seems interesting, and accurate so far as it goes, but it is somewhat repetitive. The book is written at a high level of abstraction, and this can make reading somewhat difficult. For a western reader such as myself, it seems hard to imagine that how Chinese science could advance with such a narrow-minded commitment to orthodoxy and a refusal to debate. But this is not a book that compares the successes of the two sciences. If you did not know much about the achievements of Chinese science before reading the book, you will know little more after it. Apparently the Chinese studied astronomy a lot (the state subsidized work on the calendar) and had a complex medical tradition. But you will not learn anything about Chinese mathematics or zoology or botany or physics. Indeed, one may read the book and wonder whether Chinese science achieved anything at all. This is a discussion of science that does not seek to explain what a layman would be most interested in, to wit, how "accurate" ancient science was. We know that Euclidean mathematics holds good for ordinary everyday use and that Ptomelian astronomy is fatally flawed, but the authors do not discuss how accurate their Chinese counterparts were. There appears to have been a larger gap in Chinese society between scientists and inventors. We know that China has a glorious history of invention, but it is not one that the authors discuss. All in all, this is an account that only covers the surface, padded out by many repetitions.

Rating:
Summary: An interesting dichotomy, but underdeveloped and repetitive.
Review: This book has an interesting conceit: two leading historians of science, one of Ancient Greece, one of Ancient China will examine the sciences of both great civilizations and provide an comparative outlook. It looks at a period from roughly the fifth century BC to the end of the second century AD. Nathan Sivin looks at China and Geoffrey Lloyd looks at Greece. There is a discussion of the social background to science, followed by one of the leading scientific concepts. The basic contrast between the two can be simply stated. Chinese scientists lived in a system of patronage, originally to the various warring states, then as bureaucrats to the emperor. Patronage was capricious, and it was limited, but the result was a society that thoroughly accepted highly conservative and authoritarian attitudes. Higher education per se did not exist in the way Greek academies did. Books were slower to develop than in the Greek world. Learning was based on the understanding and memorization of philosophical classics. Most striking of all was the way that scholars did not encourage debate; instead there was a firm emphasis on consensus and agreement, and an uncontested idea of serving the great ruler. The world of Greek scientists was very different: this was a world of city states, many of which were very democratic. In the absence of consistent state patronage and vigorous debate, especially in the field of law, Greek scientists engaged in their own constant debates as they competed with each other and sought to demonstrate the truth as they saw it.

The results were distinct scientific attitudes. The Greeks saw the world in causes and in elements, while the Chinese invoked "the Way," yin-yang, and the five phases. The Greeks spent much of their time dealing with the difference between appearance and reality, while the Chinese did not. Interestingly, the authors note how the Greeks sought to search for mathematical like certainty in other sciences where such certainty was not and is not possible. The Greek emphasis on causality and nature reflects the intensely confrontational nature of the classical world. Chinese scientific theory emphasized, instead of utility or accuracy, its historical lineage. In discussing the cosmos some Greek thinkers argued for the independence of key elements, not unlike the way they stressed in the political sphere the "independence" of the free from the slaves they depended on. Chinese cosmological discussion, on the other hand, stressed the interdependence of the elements of the cosmos, again like Chinese political theory. In contrast to some Greek theories of medicine, Chinese theories emphasized not simply monarchical authority over the body, but the body as governed by a harmonious and wise bureaucracy.

Such anyway is the thesis. What can be said for it? It seems interesting, and accurate so far as it goes, but it is somewhat repetitive. The book is written at a high level of abstraction, and this can make reading somewhat difficult. For a western reader such as myself, it seems hard to imagine that how Chinese science could advance with such a narrow-minded commitment to orthodoxy and a refusal to debate. But this is not a book that compares the successes of the two sciences. If you did not know much about the achievements of Chinese science before reading the book, you will know little more after it. Apparently the Chinese studied astronomy a lot (the state subsidized work on the calendar) and had a complex medical tradition. But you will not learn anything about Chinese mathematics or zoology or botany or physics. Indeed, one may read the book and wonder whether Chinese science achieved anything at all. This is a discussion of science that does not seek to explain what a layman would be most interested in, to wit, how "accurate" ancient science was. We know that Euclidean mathematics holds good for ordinary everyday use and that Ptomelian astronomy is fatally flawed, but the authors do not discuss how accurate their Chinese counterparts were. There appears to have been a larger gap in Chinese society between scientists and inventors. We know that China has a glorious history of invention, but it is not one that the authors discuss. All in all, this is an account that only covers the surface, padded out by many repetitions.