A Chinese Study on the Nature of Science
Hongming Ma
Monash University, Australia
Are the images of science held by learners the same across cultures? What are the
implications for science education? This book explores the nature of science from
a cultural perspective. Located in the Chinese cultural context, the book examines
the nexus between characteristics of Chinese thinking and the understanding of
the nature of science in Chinese traditional culture. The dramatic cultural change
as a result of the introduction of Western culture was accompanied by the dramatic
reconstruction of the image of science. The Chinese science education echoes the
understanding of the nature of science in each cultural historical period. Reflecting
the tension and dilemmas of understanding the nature of science at the policy
making level, the images of science held by Chinese science teachers represent
a mixture of influences by values and beliefs that are embedded in the imported
science and by Chinese native cultural beliefs. The book concludes with suggestions
of change of practice in science education for a more realistic image of science not
only within the field of education but also in society at large.
SensePublishers
DIVS
Hongming Ma
ISBN 978-94-6091-940-4
The Images of Science Through Cultural Lenses
The Images of Science Through
Cultural Lenses
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6.807 mm
The Images of
Science Through
Cultural Lenses
A Chinese Study on the Nature
of Science
Hongming Ma
The Images of Science Through Cultural Lenses
The Images of Science Through Cultural Lenses
A Chinese Study on the Nature of Science
Hongming Ma
Monash University, Australia
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
vii
Introduction
ix
1. Understanding the Nature of Science from Different Cultural Perspectives:
A Chinese Study
1
2. Images of Science in Traditional Chinese Culture: Views of Nature
and Ways of Thinking
11
3. When the Chinese Meet the West: The Assimilated and the Marginalised
23
4. The Images of Science in Chinese Science Education: The History
and the Contemporary
37
5. The Functional Images of Science: A Study with Chinese Science Teachers 49
6. The Images of Science and Science Education: Reflection and Implications
73
Endnotes
85
Appendices
87
References
103
Index
111
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to acknowledge the support of my family who enabled me to put a
significant amount of energy into writing this book. A special thank-you to Cassie
Leran Yang, for being such a wonderful baby and an inspiration all of the time.
I am most grateful for the guidance I have received from my supervisors, John
Loughran and Lesley Farrell, in completing my PhD dissertation on which this
book is based. John also provided generous support and wise advice on generating
the book.
I also offer my warm thanks to the science teachers who generously gave their
time to be interviewed and were so open in their responses. The empirical study
presented in this book would have been impossible without the cooperation of the
participant teachers.
My thanks are also extended to the staff and research students of the Faculty of
Education at Monash University who have helped me with my study and the book
in one way or another. A special thank-you to Miriam Potts who not only proofread the draft but also provided critical feedback to improve the manuscript for
publication. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the financial support of Monash
University which greatly assisted me in conducting the research presented in this
book and writing the manuscript for publication.
vii
INTRODUCTION
This book began with the question: ‘Are the images of science held by learners the
same across cultures?’ In an effort to provide some answers to this question, a
study was designed as a preliminary enquiry into the images of science held within
the Chinese cultural context. I asked this question as a science learner with a nonWestern (Chinese) cultural background but influenced profoundly by Western
science. Thinking about the influence of cultural factors on the construction of the
images of science was inspired by what my family has experienced.
My great grandfather devoted his whole life and developed a reputation as a
herbal doctor. My mother is also a doctor. However, she studied Western medicine.
She once told me that having learned Western medical knowledge and formed a
view on the relationship between health, disease and the structure of the human
body in such a way, it was hard for her to accept the alternative explanation
provided by Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). Thus, she did not inherit much
TCM knowledge from her grandfather. The conflict between Western medicine
and TCM in China’s education system has a long and complex history. Nowadays,
there are specialties in university and specialist schools for TCM in China.
However, there is no content introducing TCM knowledge into primary or
secondary school curricula, rather, all knowledge related to health and disease is in
line with Western medicine (and therefore with Western science).
What I am interested in is not evaluating both medicines professionally. Rather,
my concerns are how this ambivalent attitude may reflect Chinese people’s
understanding of the nature of science and how the image of science within
Chinese cultural context may therefore be shaped by the conflict. I often wonder if
my mother and my great grandfather could get together, how their understandings
of the nature of science would be influenced by their different engagement with
medicine. Would my mother say that TCM is not scientific because it is so
ambiguous and based on theories that lack rational and empirical support? Would
my great grandfather say that a method, which tolerates more uncertainty and
contains more flexibility, would be useful for the study of a holistic and complex
system such as the human body? Or would they just not understand each other, as
if they were talking in different languages? These questions prompted me to bring
culture and the understanding of the nature of science together.
What has been experienced by my family in many ways can be seen as the
epitome of these matters in China’s history and in contemporary Chinese society.
‘Modern science’ in China is a knowledge system mainly introduced from the
West. Meanings of science were decoded and reconstructed within Chinese cultural
contexts. Chinese people’s images of science may represent a mixture of influences
by values and beliefs that were embedded in the imported science and already
existed in the host Chinese knowledge system.
The images of science held within the Chinese cultural context is an issue that
can be approached from various perspectives and has multiple connections with
other socio-cultural issues. Identifying myself as a science teacher educator, my
primary interest is in the field of education, more specifically, science education.
ix
INTRODUCTION
As a result, the book is located in a general context of cultural study, with a
specific focus on science education. This principle underpins the review of
historical issues, the description of the empirical study and the discussion of
implications of exploring diverse images of science across cultures.
Exploring the images of science from a cultural perspective means that the
emphasis of this book is the nexus and interplay between the understanding of the
nature of science and the cultural context within which the understanding develops.
Some understandings of the nature of science are more sophisticated than others.
However, the book is not an effort to assess people’s understanding against set
criteria. Rather, the focus of the exploration is the ‘relationship’ between the
understanding and the context instead of isolating the ‘understanding’ itself.
Valuing ‘relationship’ above individual elements is one of the characteristics of
traditional Chinese culture. These characteristics provide a framework with which
the cultural factors related to the construction of the image of science are made
meaningful.
The purpose of the book is to portray the profile of the images of science in
relation to Chinese culture. The book is written for science educators, especially
those in the field of ‘nature of science’, ‘cultural studies in science education’ and
‘cross-cultural comparative studies in science education’. The book should provide
valuable information to educators and scholars who have a general interest in
Chinese culture and issues in science education. Understanding how the image of
science is constructed in the Chinese cultural context will provide information on
how to deal with Western values and beliefs aligned with school science on the one
hand; and, on the other, how to treat culturally local knowledge. Ascertaining
whether culturally based beliefs and values may facilitate or impede a better
understanding of the nature of science may guide future development of cultureoriented curriculum and classroom practice.
The book should also provide valuable information for those who are interested
in intercultural exchange and do not necessarily have a particular interest in
Chinese culture (e.g., researchers with non-western cultural background may be in
a similar situation when examining the images of science in their own cultures).
Understanding the ideas and beliefs of other cultures can not only improve mutual
understanding, but also provide a broad frame of reference for the reflection of
one’s own culture. Investigation of the nature of science in each cultural context
can be specific. The way of investigating developed within the Chinese cultural
background may not necessarily be universally applied. However, it can provide a
reference point and comparative information for how to investigate similar issues
in more culturally pertinent ways.
The book has six chapters. Chapter one introduces the theoretical and
conceptual framework which underpins the adopted cultural perspectives. These
include the challenges of defining the concept ‘culture’ and making connection
between the images of science and the cultural context. The construction of the
images of science is seen as a process of cultural practice. During this process,
science finds its niche in the cultural webs of meaning. The dilemmas of selecting
appropriate terms to reflect a particular point of view are also discussed.
x
INTRODUCTION
Chapter two describes some major philosophical ideas in traditional Chinese
culture. These ideas include views of Nature and ways of thinking which serve as
‘shared cultural codes’ for understanding the image of science in traditional
Chinese culture. There are two main themes of views of Nature in Chinese
traditional culture, with one seeing humans and Nature as one body and the other
emphasising the differences between humans and Nature. The former has a more
profound influence on the development of Chinese culture and is also closely
related to traditional Chinese ways of thinking. A major characteristic of Chinese
thought is holism which holds that understanding of anything has to be placed in a
meaningful relationship with everything else. The holist thought favours dialectical
thinking (the Yin-Yang principle) and intuition is also highly valued.
Chapter three examines the cultural change that came as a result of the
introduction of Western culture. Along with the increasing influence of Western
science, Chinese native knowledge was seriously challenged and Chinese people’s
images of science changed fundamentally. During the period when native
knowledge experienced identity crisis, several varieties of scientism formed.
Scientism influenced Chinese society for a long time in the 20th century. At the
turn of the century, Chinese scholars began to re-evaluate the value of Chinese
native knowledge from a pluro-centric perspective.
Chapter four reviews the changing image of science in Chinese science
education at the policy-making level. The review is roughly in chronological
order – from ancient times, through the westernisation period, to the
globalisation era. Science and technology education existed in ancient times.
Although its pragmatic function was recognised, it was not highly valued by
rulers and society. The westernisation of Chinese science education system was
accompanied by the power struggle between native and Western cultures. The
situation remains the same in the current globalisation era.
The empirical study presented in Chapter five offers a glimpse of the functional
understanding of the nature of science held at an individual level in contemporary
Chinese society. The study looks at the images of science held by a group of
Chinese secondary school science teachers. It is designed in a way that teachers’
views can be explored and understood within the Chinese cultural context. In doing
so, Chinese native knowledge was adopted as part of the investigation method and
proved to be productive.
The final chapter, Chapter six, reflects the exploration track and discuss the
educational implications of the interplay of culture and the image of science. The
discussion of teachers’ views is located within the debates of realism and
universalism. This chapter also considers the tension between native knowledge
and Western science in shaping teachers’ views. It ends with an assertion that the
dynamic images of science held within Chinese society will keep changing as
Chinese cultural change continues to be driven by both internal and external forces.
xi
CHAPTER ONE
UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF SCIENCE FROM
DIFFERENT CULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
A Chinese Study
The underpinning belief of this book is that constructing the images of science is
cultural practice. The particular context described in this book is the Chinese
culture. On the one hand, Chinese culture has influenced the understanding of
Western science to be different from the way it is understood in the West. Some
Chinese scholars have noticed such differences. For example, Li (2004) criticises
that Chinese people lack the spirit of science such as rationalism and empiricism,
as it is not supported by Chinese traditional culture. Further, he argues that the lack
of the spirit of science in turn has led to the overabundance of superstition and
pseudoscience in modern Chinese society. He also argues that rationalism and
empiricism have become part of the collective unconsciousness of Western people.
More or less, his opinions were influenced by Eurocentric views on the
development of science. Researchers in the field of cultural studies in science
education may challenge his view of the spirit of science being part of the
‘collective unconsciousness’ of Western people. For example, Aikenhead (1996)
argues that science is a subculture of Western culture and being with Western
cultural background does not spontaneously guarantee a smooth border crossing
from one’s home culture into the culture of school science. Although Li’s critique
of Chinese people’s understanding of science and his own understanding of the
Western culture may themselves be controversial from a multicultural perspective,
the point is that this example shows recognition of differences in the understanding
of science across cultures and demonstrates an effort to find reasons from a cultural
dimension.
On the other hand, Western science has influenced Chinese modern culture as
surely as it has influenced Western culture. In the science learning field, one of
these influences is the change of people’s attitude towards traditional knowledge.
Some traditional knowledge has been integrated into the system of Western
science; some has been labelled as ‘superstition’; and, some are still struggling for
a legitimate status as ‘science’. Taking Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) as an
example, the legitimate status of TCM as scientific knowledge is still a
controversial issue in contemporary China. Compared with Western medicine, it
has very different ways of interpreting health, disease, the human body and Nature
and is based on different epistemology from that of Western science. However, it
has shown a curative effect to a certain degree, which makes it more difficult to be
simply labelled as ‘superstition’ or ‘pseudo-science’. Examining the images of
science through cultural lenses faces challenges and dilemmas which involve how
to define ‘culture’, ‘science’, and, concepts related to both culture and science.
1
CHAPTER 1
First in this chapter, the challenges in establishing theoretical framework of the
book are considered. Then the dilemmas in defining some key concepts that shape
the book are discussed.
THE NEXUS OF CULTURE AND THE IMAGES OF SCIENCE – THE CHALLENGES
Having highlighted the importance of ‘culture’ in the construction of the images of
science, I face the challenge of ‘defining culture’. The term ‘culture’ is central to
studies in many fields, however, its meaning shifts over time and is always
contested in sharp debate (Rosaldo, 2006). It seems to be futile to try to give a
universal definition of culture, because the meanings of the word are often situated
in different contexts.
Understanding the diversity of perspectives of ‘culture’, Hecht et al. (2006)
suggest that culture “is an empty sign that everyday actors – and social scientists –
fill with meaning. Culture, as a signifier, can be understood only in the context of
its use” (p. 72). With this in mind, instead of defining culture in any absolute and
complete sense, I attempt to describe the way in which the term ‘culture’ is
understood in this book, focusing on how this way of understanding culture helps
in shaping the theoretical framework of exploring the images of science.
Culture is about “shared meanings” (Hall, 1997a, p.1). According to Hall,
culture “is concerned with the production and the exchange of meanings – the
‘giving and taking of meaning’ – between the members of a society or group”
(p. 2). The focus on meanings resonates with the concept of culture defined by
Geertz (1973, p. 5): “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he
himself has spun. I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be
therefore not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in
search of meaning”. He further clarifies that culture “denotes an historically
transmitted pattern of meaning embodied in symbols, a system of inherited
conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate,
perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life” (p. 89).
In this way, culture is understood as shared meanings based on symbols. Then how
are meanings produced and exchanged through symbols? From a constructivist’s
perspective, Hall (1997b) argues that meaning is constructed rather than fixed:
Things don’t mean: We construct meaning, using representational
systems – concepts and signs. … Constructivists do not deny the
existence of the material world. However, it is not the material world
which conveys meaning: it is the language system or whatever system we
are using to represent our concepts. It is social actors who use the
conceptual systems of their culture and the linguistic and other
representational systems to construct meaning, to make the world
meaningful and to communicate about that world meaningfully to others.
(p. 25)
Hall (1997a) points out that it is the shared cultural codes that make it possible for
the exchange or dialogue of meanings to take place. He argues, “members of the
2
UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF SCIENCE
same culture must share sets of concepts, images and ideas which enable them to
think and feel about the world, and thus to interpret the world, in roughly similar
ways” (p. 4). Particularly, Hall observes that “the receiver of messages and
meanings is not a passive screen on which the original meaning is accurately and
transparently projected. The ‘taking of meaning’ is as much a signifying practice as
the ‘putting into meaning’” (p. 10).
It is worth noting that both individual and community are involved in the
process of the communication of meaning. It is the interplay between individual
construction and socio-cultural interaction that underpins the production and the
exchange of meanings. Indeed, the meaning construction at an individual level is
often called ‘learning’. Also from a constructivist’s perspective, Fosnot (1996a)
argues:
[Learning is] a self-regulatory process of struggling with the conflict between
existing personal models of the world and discrepant new insights,
constructing new representations and models of reality as a human meaningmaking venture with culturally developed tools and symbols, and further
negotiating such meaning through cooperative social activity, discourse, and
debate. (p. ix)
This perspective implies an understanding of the interplay between individual
cognitive structure and culture. As Fosnot (1996b) explains:
Meanings, indeed world views, may be unique to the cognizing, selfregulating individual, but that is not to say that they are idiosyncratic: First,
because the symbols themselves used in cognizing are the result of previous
“taken-as-shared” meanings by a community – and thus are linked to culture
right from the start; and second, because when the new constructions are
communicated to the community, they are further reflected upon and
discussed, a process which is likely to generate both further possibilities and
contradictions until new, temporary, “taken-as-shared” meanings are
consensually agreed upon as viable. (p. 28)
From these constructivist-based perspectives, culture is understood as meanings
constructed and shared by members of the same group in every personal and social
interaction. In this sense, culture is both the product and the resource of meaning
construction. It provides ‘shared codes’ for effective meaning exchange and it shifts
as a result of unequal meaning exchange. Once again, in the words of Hall (1997b):
It is us – in society, within human cultures – who make things mean, who
signify. Meanings, consequently, will always change, from one culture or
period to another. There is no guarantee that every object in one culture will
have an equivalent meaning in another, precisely because cultures differ,
sometimes radically, from one another in their codes – the ways they carve
up, classify and assign meaning to the world. (p. 61)
In this book, I look at one particular kind of meaning construction – the
construction of the images of science. That is, people’s understanding of the nature
3
CHAPTER 1
of science is seen as a process of meaning construction within a certain cultural
context.
Compared with ‘culture’, defining science proves to be an even greater
challenge. Although in the field of philosophy of science, a huge body of literature
has been devoted to distinguish science from non-science, the ‘demarcation of
science’ still remains as a domain that is open to debate. This book, however, does
not intend to argue for or against a certain body of knowledge as science, rather, it
intends to explore how this issue is presented within the Chinese cultural context
and its implications for science education. It is with this purpose that the notion of
‘the image of science’ emerges.
By adopting the term ‘image of science’, I emphasise the understanding of the
epistemology of science, or, the nature of science. Driver et al. (1996, p. 3, italics
in original) define ‘the nature of science’ as “knowledge about science as opposed
to scientific knowledge (knowledge about the natural world)”. According to
Lederman (1992), it “most commonly refers to the values and assumptions inherent
to the development of scientific knowledge” (p. 331). For McComas et al. (1998):
The nature of science is a fertile hybrid arena which blends aspects of various
social studies of science including the history, sociology, and philosophy of
science combined with research from the cognitive sciences such as
psychology into a rich description of what science is, how it works, how
scientists operate as a social group and how society itself both directs and
reacts to scientific endeavors. (p. 4)
Given the above definitions of the nature of science, the use of this term in this
book mainly refers to knowledge about how science functions as seen from
multiple dimensions such as philosophy, history, sociology and cognitive sciences.
Talking about people’s understanding of the nature of science, terms such as
‘the image of science’ and ‘the images of science’ (where the diversity of opinions
is emphasised) are used. The use of the word ‘image’ is taken from constructivist
theories, where people’s understanding of the nature of science is a process of
culturally dependent image construction. In other words, people of different
cultures construct the images of science drawing on cultural resources available to
each culture, and, as a result, these constructed images of science themselves
become cultural resources taking part in further meaning constructing activities. As
science is communicated from one culture to another, the giving and taking of
meanings happens through cultural practice and the diversity of images of science
across cultures depends on how cultures differ from one another. Taking Japanese
people’s images of science as an example, Ogawa (1998) points out:
What Japanese people call “science” is an interpretation that integrates
information from various sources available to the Japanese. “Science” is a
constructed image that the Japanese believe to be culturally independent.
And they even believe that their image of “science” is universal for other
people. … This image construction is true for people in other cultures
including westerners. … The process of image construction is deeply
buried under the cultural webs of meaning. (pp. 139–140)
4
UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF SCIENCE
In line with this understanding, Taylor and Cobern (1998) argue that science
education should recognise “the need for reciprocal accommodation of the beliefs,
values and practices of modern science and the host culture” (p. 205).
Viewing science as a cultural enterprise and recognising learning science as
culture acquisition, Aikenhead (1996) proposes that science education should be
seen as cross-cultural practice “which requires students to cross cultural borders
from their life-world subcultures (associated with, for example, family, peers,
school and media) to the subcultures of science and school science” (p. 40).
This perspective suggests that Western science is a subculture among diverse
Western or Euro-American subcultures and school science is closely aligned,
though not synonymous, with Western science. According to Aikenhead (1996),
“border crossing may be facilitated in classrooms by studying the subculture of
students’ life-worlds and by contrasting them with a critical analysis of the
subculture of science (its norm, values, beliefs, expectations, and conventional
actions)” (p. 41). This suggests that cross-cultural science education should be
based on the understanding of both the nature of science and the culture of a
learner’s life-world.
Since ‘cultural webs of meaning’ or ‘shared cultural codes’ play a crucial role in
understanding science across cultures, then what kind of cultural factors are closely
related to the construction of the images of science? One of the cultural factors
identified is ‘the belief system’. Cobern argues:
It is important for science educators to understand the fundamental, culturally
based beliefs about the world that students bring to class, and how these
beliefs are supported by students’ cultures; because, science education is
successful only to the extent that science can find a niche in the cognitive and
socio-cultural milieu of students. (1996, p. 603)
Cobern (1989, March) defines these culturally based beliefs as ‘worldview
systems’ and developed ‘worldview theory’ particularly for science education
research. According to Cobern, a certain kind of knowledge can only be accepted if
it is compatible with a person’s worldview system.
Views of Nature are part of worldview systems. Science investigates Nature in
order to understand it. Therefore, Nature is the focus of a scientific worldview.
Cobern’s worldview theory gives special emphasis on views of Nature. Cobern
(1996) defines ‘worldview’ as “metaphysical levels antecedent to specific views
that a person holds about natural phenomena, whether one calls those views
common-sense theories, alternative frameworks, misconceptions, or valid science”
(p. 585, italics in original). Given this understanding, when trying to portray the
images of science within the Chinese cultural context, both historical and
contemporary views of Nature held by Chinese people are examined.
Another cultural factor is identified as ‘the host knowledge system’, which is
deeply rooted in the host culture and interacts with the understanding of modern
science. It is worth noting that treating ‘belief’ and ‘knowledge’ as two separate
cultural factors does not suggest a strict distinction between the two. Cobern (2000,
p. 237) argues that “all epistemologies are grounded worldview presuppositions”.
5
CHAPTER 1
Acknowledging the existence of underlying beliefs, ‘knowledge system’ as a
conceptual tool here focuses more on systematic ways of reasoning and practicing.
Aikenhead and Ogawa (2007), from science educators’ point of view, identify
three categories of knowledge systems, which are: indigenous ways of living in
nature; neo-indigenous ways of knowing nature; and, Eurocentric sciences. They
use ‘Eurocentric sciences’ to refer to the knowledge system within which
professional science communities organise their thinking and practice. The plural
‘sciences’ represents the heterogeneity among these science communities. The label
‘Eurocentric sciences’ also includes knowledge “appropriated over the ages from
many other cultures (e.g., Islam, India, and China)” and “modified sufficiently to fit
Eurocentric worldviews, metaphysics, epistemologies, and value systems” (p. 6). By
‘Indigenous’, they refer to “descendents of the first people to inhabit a locality or
place” (p. 23) (e.g., First Nations of Canada). They use ‘neo-indigenous’ to refer to
“a long standing, non-Eurocentric, mainstream culture” (p. 23) (e.g., Japan). The
distinction between ‘Indigenous’ and ‘neo-indigenous’ “simply serves as a way to
distinguish between two highly heterogeneous groups whose ways of knowing
nature are both non-Eurocentric and often place-based, but whose political standing
in terms of privilege and colonization are quite different” (p. 23). Aikenhead and
Ogawa argue that all three categories of knowledge systems are culture-laden
though they share some similarities and are also diverse to varying degrees in terms
of worldviews, metaphysics, epistemologies and value systems.
Understanding the nature of science across cultures is a learning process that
involves the interplay of meanings between new and existing knowledge systems.
In this sense, the ‘host knowledge system’ is used to describe the existing
knowledge system. As culture is dynamic, in any given cultural context of a given
period, the ‘host knowledge system’ can only be treated as a historically and
dynamically formed hybrid of new knowledge and of what has already existed.
Considering Aikenhead and Ogawa’s three categories of knowledge system, a host
knowledge system of a given culture during a given period can fall solely into one
category (e.g., knowledge systems in ancient China can fall into the category of
‘neo-indigenous’) or into more than one category (e.g., knowledge systems in
modern China include both native knowledge and that that has been introduced
from Eurocentric sciences). In China, in terms of the formation of knowledge
systems, the understanding of Eurocentric sciences is an ongoing event. The
meaning construction of Eurocentric sciences has been influenced by the host
knowledge system and the host knowledge system itself has changed and been
reconstructed because of the influence of Eurocentric sciences. As a result, an
individual’s image of science is influenced by both knowledge systems and the
diversity of images of science among a given cultural group depends on its
members’ personal interactions with different knowledge systems.
CONCEPTS THAT SHAPE THE BOOK – THE DILEMMAS
This book is about portraying the profile of the images of science in relation to
Chinese culture. ‘Views of Nature’ and ‘the host knowledge system’ have been
identified as two main cultural factors that make a connection between culture and
6
UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF SCIENCE
the images of science. There are several terms related to these two factors that are
also crucial in shaping a conceptual framework for addressing the issue concerned.
Similar to ‘defining culture’, clarifying their meanings are challenging. The
difficulty lies in choosing one term or another to better convey meanings. There are
different expressions that have roughly the same meaning, however, the differences
between them imply different connotations.
Western science(s)/Eurocentric science(s)
The terms ‘Western science’ and ‘Eurocentric science’ both roughly refer to European
post-renaissance science. Some educators use the term ‘Western science’ to emphasise
Euro-American values and beliefs aligned with modern scientific knowledge and
argue that the teaching and learning of science is cross-cultural practice (Kawasaki,
1996; Lewis & Aikenhead, 2001; Aikenhead & Jegede, 1999). Not denying Western
influences on science, some scholars criticise that discussing science only from a
Euro-American perspective implies an ignorance of non-Western contribution to the
development of so called ‘Western science’ and standardising Western values in
science leads to a marginalisation of non-Western scientific knowledge (Harding,
1991, 1998; Woodrow, 2001; Groenfeldt, 2003). Acknowledging non-Western
contributions and for the purpose of making comparisons in the field of science
education, Aikenhead and Ogawa (2007) use the term ‘Eurocentric science’ to refer to
the knowledge system and way of knowing Nature in line with Eurocentric
worldviews, metaphysics, epistemologies and values systems.
It used to be much more natural to call science ‘Western science’ in China in the
early 1900s, when this different knowledge system was gradually introduced from
the West. Even the Chinese word for ‘science’ itself, ‘Kexue’, emerged during this
period. Although no one would deny this history, however, to call science ‘Western
science’ may sound strange to many Chinese people nowadays, except in the field of
medicine where in the presence of TCM, modern medicine is often called ‘Western
Medicine’. For many Chinese people, calling modern science ‘Western science’ in
contemporary discourse means ignorance of the contribution of non-Western people.
Both ‘Eurocentric science’ (as defined by Aikenhead and Ogawa) and ‘Western
science’ are used in this book interchangeably, while the term ‘Western science’ is
either related to particular historical context (e.g., China in the early 1900) or
adopted to emphasise the context where the concept of ‘the West’ is raised as
opposed to the concept of ‘the Chinese’. In addition, reflecting a certain
understanding of the nature of science, the plural term ‘sciences’ is used mainly in
two situations, where the heterogeneity among scientists working within the
framework of ‘Eurocentric science’ is emphasised and where the possibility of the
existence of different ‘science’ based on different worldviews, metaphysics,
epistemologies and values systems is acknowledged.
Chinese science/Chinese native knowledge
In today’s Chinese society, the term ‘Chinese science’ mainly refers to the
contemporary scientific enterprise in China. Controversy remains when this term is
7
CHAPTER 1
used to describe some Chinese traditional knowledge (Hart, 1999; Wu, 2002).
Although there is a high degree of agreement that all cultures contribute to science,
some educators are concerned that to claim different knowledge systems to be
equally valid to ‘Western science’ weakens the justification of scientific
knowledge (Matthews, 1994; Siegel, 2002). Different kinds of traditional
knowledge could be labelled as ‘science’, ‘technology’, or ‘superstition’, which
reflects people’s understanding of the nature of science. Arguing whether or not a
certain Chinese traditional knowledge can be called science is beyond the concern
of this book (though the ‘possibility’ of the existence of different culturally based
science is acknowledged). To avoid misleading, the term ‘Chinese native
knowledge’ is used to refer to Chinese traditional ways of knowing and interacting
with Nature (with the word ‘native’ emphasising the origin and ‘local’ nature of the
knowledge).
The term ‘native knowledge’ has a similar meaning to the term ‘indigenous
knowledge’ where it refers to ‘non-Eurocentric’ knowledge, and, to the term ‘neoindigenous knowledge’ as proposed by Aikenhead and Ogawa (2007) where it
refers to knowledge related to ‘a long-standing non-Eurocentric mainstream
culture’ (p. 23). Most of the time, the word ‘native’, rather than ‘indigenous’ is
used in this book. The main reason is that the word ‘indigenous’ often carries a
political connotation that is associated with colonialism. Given the historical,
geographical, and political situation in China, this word can be ambiguous and may
cause confusion as China has never been completely colonised by the Europeans
(though sometimes the word ‘half-colonised’ is used to describe the situation in
China in the early 1900s). In order to distinguish the cultural context in China from
that of some immigration countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia
and New Zealand, in this book, the term ‘native knowledge’ is used to refer to
knowledge that is closely related to Chinese traditional culture.
Moreover, sometimes the terms ‘Chinese native knowledge’ and ‘Chinese
traditional knowledge’ are used interchangeably for want of a really suitable term.
Contemporary Chinese culture consists of both ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ cultural
forces. The late 1800s and the early 1900s are usually seen as the turning periods in
Chinese history, since when Chinese culture has been dramatically influenced by
external (mainly Western) cultural forces. Given this history, ‘Chinese native
knowledge’ is more closely related to Chinese ‘traditional’ culture. The term
‘native knowledge’ seems more relevant as opposed to the ‘imported’ Eurocentric
science. However, where the need arises for a comparison between ‘traditional’
and ‘modern’ in a Chinese cultural context, the term ‘traditional knowledge’
appears more pertinent. It should also be noted that ‘traditional’ does not mean that
‘native knowledge’ is a stable body of knowledge that only belongs to the past. As
is the case with many knowledge systems, native knowledge is dynamic and
developing.
Chinese culture/modern and traditional/unity and diversity
The empirical study described in the book was conducted in mainland China, so it
is the ‘contemporary culture’ of mainland China that played a central role in the
8
UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE OF SCIENCE
individuals’ construction of the image of science. Contemporary Chinese culture is
a hybrid of Chinese traditional culture and increasing external (mainly Western)
influences. In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, Western culture (accompanying
the European expansion) began to influence Chinese culture dramatically. Since
then, the development of Chinese culture has always struggled to keep a balance
between ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’, as well as ‘Chinese’ and ‘Western’ forces.
‘Chinese traditional culture’ refers to the culture which is rooted and developed
in ancient China. Some fundamental ideas of traditional culture continue to have an
impact upon contemporary Chinese societies. In a broad sense, Chinese traditional
culture is held by people not only in mainland China – it has been carried
worldwide by Chinese emigrants and reserved and changed in respective local
contexts. In contrast, ‘Chinese modern culture’ mainly refers to the culture
developed in mainland China since the early 1900s and shaped by both internal
(traditional) and external (mainly Western) cultural forces. In this sense, Chinese
contemporary culture can be seen as Chinese modern culture. However, the word
‘modern’ as used in this context, has more historical connotations than the word
‘contemporary’ usually carries.
It is also worth remembering that there are officially more than fifty ethnic
groups in China, each of which has its unique cultural tradition. Although each
ethnic group has contributed to the formation of Chinese culture as a whole,
Chinese culture highlighted and examined in this book consists of characteristics
generally shared by the majority groups in the population in China. No special
attention is paid to unique traits of any ethnic minority, or to unique local cultural
traits of the majority group.
The Chinese, the East, and the West
Ideas of the ‘East’ and the ‘West’, according to Hall (1992), “are not primarily
ideas about place and geography … they represent very complex ideas and have no
simple or single meaning” (p. 276). The emergence of the concept of ‘the West’
and its connotations related to the concepts such as ‘developed’, ‘industrialised’
and ‘modern’ have been traced by Hall (1992). The image of ‘the West’ that many
Chinese people hold, roughly refers to Europe and Euro-America with similar
connotations to those that Hall has reviewed. What Chinese people mean by saying
‘the East’, however, is quite different from what Said (1995) called ‘the Orient’,
which mainly refers to the Middle East. ‘The East’, for many Chinese people,
usually though not always, means regions that have been greatly influenced by
Chinese traditional culture, such as China, Japan and Korea. In this sense,
sometimes, ‘Eastern culture’ simply refers to Chinese traditional culture. In this
book, the expression ‘Eastern culture’ is avoided unless it appears in literature or
quotation and can be analysed in context. The concepts ‘the West’ or ‘Western
culture’ are used most of the time with the connotations related to cultural forces
which have roots in European or Euro-American traditions. This is in line with the
way ‘Western science’ is used, although sometimes, from a European view,
science education in China is rather too ‘Americanised’ (Buck, 1981). By treating
the terms in this way, this study actually focuses more on the similarities of cultural
9
CHAPTER 1
characteristics among Europe and Euro-America than on the differences between
them.
The clarification of the meanings of key concepts used in this book is certainly
not exhaustive. Some other key concepts will be discussed in relevant chapters
where they can better be made sense of (e.g., the concept of Nature). Last but not
least, it is worth noting that different people may use the same word with different
meanings in different contexts. This means that the same words or terms in cited
literature may not always be consistent with the way these words are used in this
book. The ‘situated’ meanings have to be negotiated and understood in their
respective contexts. Having established the theoretical framework of the book and
defined the use of key concepts, in the next chapter, the book starts to explore the
specific views of Nature and the host knowledge system within Chinese traditional
culture.
10
CHAPTER TWO
IMAGES OF SCIENCE IN TRADITIONAL
CHINESE CULTURE
Views of Nature and Ways of Thinking
Science has changing images in Chinese culture. Images of science and Chinese
culture influence each other while they change. During some periods, the change of
Chinese culture together with the change of images of science is more dramatic
than during other periods. Although trying to find a clear-cut line always proves to
be futile, for the purpose of examining the change of images of science, Chinese
cultural history can be roughly divided into two periods – before and after the
systematic introduction of ‘Western science’. The Opium War in the early 1840s is
often seen as the beginning of China’s modern history. After the Opium war,
Chinese society started to change fundamentally due to increasing Western
influences. After the Opium War, Western science started to be introduced to
China in a systematic way. The terms ancient China or ancient times are used to
address the period before the Opium War. This chapter deals with the period
during which Chinese culture developed comparatively free from the influence of
the West.
In ancient times, science was not identified as an independent phenomenon,
rather, it was deeply embedded in various cultural practice and shared the same
ontological, epistemological and methodological perspectives with other cultural
activities. As a result, to understand the images of science in this period, one has to
understand science and Chinese culture as a whole. A conceptual framework is
developed in this chapter which includes views of Nature and ways of thinking. As
discussed in the previous chapter, views of Nature as part of people’s worldviews
are one of the important cultural factors that influence the construction of images
of science. Similarly, ways of thinking underpin the host knowledge system which
is another identified cultural factor. It is hoped that this framework can provide a
broader cultural background for the understanding of the images of science in the
traditional Chinese culture.
VIEWS OF NATURE
The term that signifies ‘Nature’ in modern Chinese language is ‘Zi Ran’. The
empirical study described later in this book adopted the term ‘Zi Ran’ in the
interviews with Chinese teacher participants to generate Nature-related issues. The
shift of the meanings of the term ‘Zi Ran’ in the Chinese language, to some extent,
reflects a certain view of Nature in Chinese culture.
The term ‘Zi Ran’ was first used in the Taoist classic Dao De Jing1 (The Book
of Tao and Teh). Originally it means that ‘the development of everything in the
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CHAPTER 2
universe takes its own course’. The original meaning of ‘Zi Ran’ can be translated
into English as the ‘law(s) or principle(s) of Nature’. It is worth mentioning that in
traditional Chinese thoughts, Zi Ran as the ‘law of Nature’ is more likely to be
associated with ‘chaos’ (the original state of the universe meaning that it may not
be well organised, but not totally disordered either) than with ‘logos’ (i.e., inherent
order).
Nowadays, the meaning of ‘Zi Ran’ has been extended to refer to ‘the natural
world’ (Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Yuyan Yanjiusuo Cidian Bianjishi
(ZSKYYCB), 2005) That is, ‘Zi Ran’ means ‘the existence’ itself. Given the
original meaning of the term, it may imply that the existence develops in its own
course without human interference. There are several terms in the Chinese
language that have Nature-related meanings. Among them, terms ‘Zi Ran Jie’ and
‘Da Zi Ran’ usually refer to the physical world and can also be translated into
English as ‘the natural world’. Compared with ‘Zi Ran Jie’ or “Da Zi Ran’, the
term ‘Zi Ran’ has a much broader denotation and connotation that are rooted in,
adapting and growing with the development of Chinese cultural practice and has
broader usage. For example, unlike ‘Zi Ran Jie’ and ‘Da Zi Ran’, ‘Zi Ran’ can also
be used to describe things meaning ‘inartificial’ or ‘not human-made’ (Cihai Bianji
Weiyuanhui (CBW), 1979). Moreover, ‘Zi Ran’ carries much metaphysical
significance than any other term in the modern Chinese language.
It is important to note that although the word ‘Nature’ in English and the term
‘Zi Ran’ in Chinese can refer to the same things, it would be problematic to assume
that when a Chinese-speaker uses ‘Zi Ran’ and an English-speaker uses ‘Nature’,
they have exact the same image in mind. Hall and Ames (1995, p. xvi) argue “more
often than not, the filter of one’s own language serves to make otherwise alien
ways of thinking seem almost familiar”. This dilemma is noticed by Kawasaki
(1996) when comparing the meanings of ‘Nature’ in English and the word for
Nature in Japanese, ‘shizen’:
It may appear that both ‘nature’ and ‘shizen’ can point to the same thing, but
there are two items that differ from each other. The denotation of the two
words may appear the same, but their connotations essentially differ from
each other. Their different associative relations prevent the two words from
having the same connotation. (p. 13)
The same is true when comparing ‘Nature’ and ‘Zi Ran’. Therefore, the extent to
which the word ‘Zi Ran’ carries the same meaning in Chinese as the word ‘Nature’
does in English may determine the extent to which this report makes the same
sense to Chinese-speaking readers and English-speaking readers respectively.
When trying to summarise the characteristics of Chinese views of Nature and
make comparison with those of the West, I found it difficult to simply categorise
them as ‘monistic versus dualistic’, ‘mechanistic versus organic’ or ‘holistic versus
analytic or reductionist’. One reason is that views of Nature, as part of Chinese
culture, develop dynamically and diversely along with Chinese cultural change.
Although one particular view may dominate during a certain period, there have
always been simultaneous competing views. As a result, there are diverse opinions
12
SCIENCE IN TRADITIONAL CHINESE CULTURE
in contemporary Chinese society and at the individual level, adopting one view or
another is a matter of personal choice with cross-influence of other public views.
In Chinese traditional philosophies and in contemporary Chinese society, the
relationship between Nature and humans has always been in the centre of debate
about Nature. There are mainly two themes addressing the relationship with one
emphasising the similarities between Nature and humans and the other the
differences.
The theme that emphasises the similarities is usually called ‘Tian Ren He Yi’ in
Chinese, which has dominated Chinese ways of thinking for a long time. The term
can literally be translated as ‘Nature and humans form one body’. However, its
meanings are often interpreted from diverse dimensions and sometimes those
interpretations do not agree with one another. Some basic ideas include: Nature and
humans have the same origin and belong to the same unity; Nature and humans
follow the same law; and, Nature and humans are interconnected (Ma, 2009).
A fundamental understanding of ‘Tian Ran He Yi’ is that Nature and humans
have the same origin and belong to the same unity. Taoism is a Chinese philosophy
developed from the writings of Lao Zi2 (about 600 B.C. – 500B.C.). Taoists
believe that Tao is the origin of everything. In his seminal classic Dao De Jing,
Lao Zi gives original description of ‘The Tao’:
There was something emerging out of chaos
It came into existence before heaven and earth,
silent and boundless,
standing alone eternally,
moving around forever.
It may be regarded as the mother of all things.
I do not know its name,
So I call it the Tao.
(Dao De Jing, chap. 25)3
According to the description above, Lao Zi sees the Tao as the origin of all things
(“existence before heaven and earth” and “regarded as the mother of all things”).
It comes from ‘chaos’, free from external influences (‘standing alone eternally’),
and always in motion (‘moving around forever’).
The nature of the Tao is complex. Elsewhere in the book Dao De Jing, Lao Zi
gives a comprehensive explanation of the Tao, using suggestive and concise
language. On the one hand, it is shapeless and cannot be felt through the senses –
“facing it, you cannot see its front; following it, you cannot see its back” (chap. 14)4.
On the other hand, “it represents images and embodies substance out of the vague
and the formless” (chap. 21)5. In other words, the Tao can be both substantial and
immaterial. In fact, dichotomous concepts, such as ‘substantial’ and ‘immaterial’,
‘material’ and ‘spiritual’, ‘body’ and ‘soul’, are not distinguished in Dao De Jing.
Lao Zi says, “Existence sprang from non-existence” (chap. 40)6 and “the existence
and the non-existence mutually sprout” (chap. 2)7. ‘Existence’ and ‘non-existence’
are not seen as opposite to one another, rather, they are interdependent. Instead of
standing statically, they are dynamic and always changing toward the opposite.
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CHAPTER 2
Another influential figure in Taoism, Zhuang Zi8, consciously makes no distinction
between ‘self’ and ‘others’. He argues that ‘self’ and ‘others’, just like ‘life’ and
‘death’, are words that are used to describe the same thing in its course of change
(Zhuang Zi – Qi Wu Lun9).
Since Nature and humans are the same thing, they are believed to follow the
same law. According to Lao Zi, the Tao is the way that everything follows:
Humans follow the way of the Earth;
The Earth follows the way of Heaven;
Heaven follows the way of the Tao.
The way of the Tao is its being what it is.
(chap. 25)10
For Lao Zi, everything (Nature (the Earth and the Heaven) and humans) in the
universe has its intrinsic way of existence, “being what it is”.
Cheng Yi11, a Confucian in the Song Dynasty (960 – 1279), also argues, “There
is no distinction between laws of Nature and human laws. The same law apply to
Heaven, it is called law of Heaven; to the Earth, called law of the Earth; to humans,
called law of humans”12 (Yi Shu, Vol. 22)13. Compared with Lao Zi’s ‘Tao’, Cheng
Yi’s ‘law’ are more ethics-oriented. He further explains law as virtues such as
“benevolent, righteous, respecting etiquette, wise, and honest”14 (Yi Shu, Vol. 25).
For Cheng Yi, these virtues are both inherent human characteristics and intrinsic
values of Nature.
‘Tian Ran He Yi’ also leads to the idea that Nature and humans are
interconnected. This idea is sometimes described as ‘responsiveness’ or
‘resonance’. Very early in history, Chinese people noticed the phenomenon of
acoustic resonance and believed that ‘things (e.g., musical instruments) of the same
tune resonate to each other’ is an intrinsic law of Nature. This explanation was
further generalised as ‘things of the same kind respond to each other’. Hu (1997)
gives a detailed summary of how this generalisation is adopted in explaining many
other natural phenomena. For example, the cause of tide was explained in terms of
the resonance between sea water and the moon and the sun; and, magnets and iron
respond to each other because they belonged to the same kind. Ancient Chinese
people also observed biological periodicity and explained it as living things
resonating to their environment.
Given the above examples, it is not a surprise that ‘responsiveness’ is also
adopted in explaining the relationship between Nature and humans since they are
seen as forming one body. Wang Yang Ming15, an influential philosopher in the
Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644), once said, “Eyes echo with the colour of Nature; ears
echo with the sound of Nature; nose echoes with the odour of Nature; mouth
echoes with the taste of Nature; heart echoes the ethical spirit of Nature”16 (Chuan
Xi Lu)17. A fundamental idea in the book Huang Di Nei Jing – Su Wen18 (The
canon of internal medicine – Pure questions of the emperor Huang), the oldest
theoretical book in existence about Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), is that
the human body and spirit are in correspondence with Nature. Therefore, changes
in state of the human body and emotions are a response to the changes in seasons
14
SCIENCE IN TRADITIONAL CHINESE CULTURE
and the weather. Dong Zhong Shu19, a Confucian in the Han Dynasty (206 BC –
220), strongly argues that “Nature and humans belong to the same class”20, (Chun
Qiu Fan Lu, chap. 49)21. Using the phenomenon of acoustic resonance as his
metaphor, he claims that “things of the same kind resonate to each other”22 (Chun
Qiu Fan Lu, chap. 57). For him, Nature and humans can respond to each other just
like strings with the same pitch resonating one to the other.
Another representation of this idea is the belief that human social and ethical
activities can cause the change of natural phenomena. Nature is seen as having will
and feelings and being able to show its praise or blame to human activities. This
belief dates back to the Spring and Autumn period (770 BC – 476 BC?), but
became the most influential thought in the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220). It is
claimed that “if the ruler makes serious mistake in his government, disaster would
fall to show Nature’s condemnation”23 (Dong Zhong Shu, Chun Qiu Fan Lu, chap.
30). Nature was personified but not referred to any religious god. This idea was
more closely linked to the development of divination and astrology in ancient
China.
The belief of ‘Nature and humans form one body’ strongly supports the view
that the perfect state of existence is everything being in harmony with each other.
Particularly, in the dynamic Nature-and-human unity, as an interdependent part,
humans should try to keep themselves in harmony with Nature. This ideal state is
expressed in Zhou Yi24 (The Book of Change) as “in harmony with the virtues of
Nature; in harmony with the glory of the Sun and the Moon; in harmony with the
order of the seasons; in harmony with the destiny of spirits and gods”25 (Vol. 1).
There are diverse visions of being in harmony with Nature. Although both
Taoists and Confucians emphasise self-perfection as the way towards harmony,
their dimensions are different. Always concerning the ethical and moral values of a
society, Confucians argue that humans should try to improve their ethical
consciousness in order to be in harmony with Nature as Nature embodies the
highest good and beauty. For example, Wang Yang Ming says, “What the sage
concerns is to civilise the public with virtue of Nature”26 (Chuan Xi Lu). Mencius
argues that humans are born with virtue given by Nature. Therefore, one can work
toward harmony with Nature by trying to understand one’s own innermost virtue.
Believing that Nature is “spontaneously being what it is”27 and without any
moral implications (Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, chap. 25), Taoists pay more attention to
individual’s innermost cognition and suggest that one could become in harmony
with Nature by understanding the Tao through meditation – “When he has cleansed
away distracting thoughts and illusions from meditation, he can become without a
flaw”28 (Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, chap. 10). The purpose of meditation is to forget
both self and others so as to become true one with Nature. For Lao Zi, the ideal
situation is doing nothing against Nature so that everything will develop naturally
(Lao Zi, Dao De Jing, chap. 37).
Throughout ancient Chinese history, the theme that Nature and humans form
one body has been in the centre of Chinese views of Nature. Whether it is
understood in terms of moral ethical values or of cognitive experience, Nature
is seldom seen as any religious god, even though in some situations, Nature is
15
CHAPTER 2
personified. As opposed to the Newtonian mechanistic view of Nature, Needham
(1956, p. 281) uses the word “organism” to describe this characteristic of the
Chinese view. From a rather modern perspective, Wang and Jin (2004) identify
several characteristics of an organic system:
1. There is inseparable connection between each part of the organism. Once
detached from the whole, the detached part will lose its original property and
function; While if some important connections are cut, the organic system as a
whole will not be able to exist.
2. Each part of the organic system should be able to automatically adjust
themselves according to the requirement of the whole. In this way, the stability
of internal holistic property and function can be kept regardless of the
disturbance from inside or outside of the system.
3. An organic system should have the function of evolution, development, and
reproduction. (p. 212)
Wang and Jin’s description can be seen as a modern understanding of this rather
ancient view of Nature.
The other theme of Chinese views of Nature, which emphasises the differences
between Nature and humans, also dates back to pre-Qin period (before 221BC).
This theme is often described as ‘Tian Ren Xiang Fen’ in Chinese, which can be
translated as ‘the distinction between Nature and humans’. The fundamental
argument of this theme is that Nature and human society have their own respective
ways of existence and development and humans can make progress by actively
exploiting what Nature has to offer.
Xun Zi29, a representative of this view in the Warring States period
(476 BC? – 221 BC), argues that “those who know the differences between the
duty of Nature and that of humans are perfect ones”30 (Xun Zi – Tian Lun)31.
Xun Zi believes that Nature changes with regularity. The change of Nature has
no purpose and is not influenced by human will. He says, “Nature changes
following its own course. It does not exist for Yao (a wise monarch) and nor
does it die because of Jie (a dissolute and brutal monarch)”32 (Xun Zi – Tian
Lun). Xun Zi does not argue against that Nature and humans form one body,
however, he strongly argues that Nature and humans function differently. Xun
Zi identifies several characteristics that distinguish humans from other living
creatures. These characteristics include intellectuality (Xun Zi – Fei Xiang)33,
moral and ethical consciousness (Xun Zi – Wang Zhi)34, and, sociability (Xun
Zi – Wang Zhi). According to Xun Zi, intellectuality enables human to think
and analyse; moral and ethical consciousness helps to keep society in order;
and, sociability facilitates division of labour and collaboration. These
characteristics give humans power and ability to understand laws of Nature and
to use those laws positively to serve human purpose. Xun Zi says, “instead of
obeying Nature and eulogising it, why not mastering the laws of Nature and
making use of it?”35 (Xun Zi – Tian Lun). He therefore insists that the
prosperity and decay of human society depend on humans’ own activities and
had nothing to do with Nature.
16
SCIENCE IN TRADITIONAL CHINESE CULTURE
Liu Yu Xi36, a scholar in the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907), also agrees that Nature
and humans are different in function, “the function of Nature is to reproduce
everything; while the function of humans is to govern everything”37 (Liu Yu Xi –
Tian Lun)38. Thus, humans cannot do Nature’s work, and vice versa. Liu Yu Xi
also points out that what dominates the laws of Nature is that the stronger
overwhelms the weaker, whereas humans distinguish right and wrong based on
rules and morals (Liu Yu Xi – Tian Lun). He asserts that Nature surpasses humans
in one area, while humans surpass Nature in the other (Liu Yu Xi – Tian Lun). It
is worth noting that Xun Zi and Liu Yu Xi’s view is not necessarily mechanistic or
reductionist even though it has something in common with the mechanistic view of
Nature in Western thought (e.g., regularity). As a Confucian scholar, Xun Zi
concentrates more on sociological debates than on ontological speculation.
Xun Zi and Lu Yu Xi’s views were not pervasive and were often ignored in
ancient China. However, it is highly valued in modern Chinese thoughts. The change
of the status of this view reflects the cultural change in modern China. Since the early
1900s, Western thoughts together with Western modern science and technology have
greatly influenced Chinese society and Chinese scholars’ thinking. The view that
Nature and humans form one body was often criticized in that its holist inclination
hinders the analytical thinking which is believed essential for developing modern
science. On the other hand, the achievements of modern science and technology have
given humans great confidence in controlling and conquering Nature.
The establishment of the People’s Republic of China has also seen a revolution
in ideology. Influenced mainly by Marxist dialectical materialism, a new view of
Nature has emerged in modern China. This view asserts that Nature is material and
the materiality involves both the natural world and human society. According to
Wang (1995):
Dialectical materialism points out that the world is material in nature. Nature,
society and human being are different formations of the material world.
Consciousness, which is a spiritual phenomenon, is also a product of the
long-term development of material world, a property of the highly developed
matter, human brain. They (Nature, society, human being, and
consciousness) are unified on the basis of the objective existence, matter.
(p. 38, italics added)
In terms of the materiality of the natural world, this view is more in line with the
view of Nature depicted by Western modern science and has a rather reductionist
flavour. For example, the natural world consists of life and non-life systems, both
of which have a hierarchical structure – the non-life system includes basic
particles, atoms, molecules, the Earth, the solar system, galaxies and metagalaxy;
while the life system is built from biomacromolecules, nucleic acid and protein, to
cells, individual organisms and families (Huang, 1984). The term ‘humanised
Nature’ is often used to refer to the materiality of human society. According to
‘The Encyclopaedia of China – Philosophy’:
A broad sense of Nature includes human society, which developed from the
natural world. Humans interact with Nature during production activities.
17
CHAPTER 2
Through production practice and the development of science and technology,
humans change the image of Nature to an increasing extent. The part of
natural world changed by human activities is materialisation of human social
production and is usually called “the second Nature” or “humanised Nature”.
(Liu, 1987, p. 1253)
In a sense, Marxist dialectical materialism argues that human production practice is
the connection which unifies the natural world and human social world. Its strong
belief in the power of science and technology has significantly facilitated the
development of ‘technological determinism’ in modern China (a theme that will be
further discussed in the next chapter).
In the early years after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the
idea ‘to battle against Nature’, put forward by Chairman Mao in 1957, was
officially promoted. As Wang and Jin (2004) noticed:
In the technical activities in areas such as industry, transportation, irrigation,
health, and national defence, ‘conquer Nature, bring benefits to human
beings’ was a popular slogan. This tendency penetrated into science and
technology education of all kinds of schools at all levels. From the beginning
of learning basic scientific and technological knowledge, students had been
infused with the concept of ‘conquer Nature’ through textbooks,
extracurricular readings and by teachers. Therefore they took it for granted.
(p. 40)
The positive aspect of the movement of conquering Nature is that it inspired
people to change the dreadful natural environment and improve living conditions
through human efforts. However, seeking quick success and short-term benefits
severely damaged the sustainability of the development of society and economy.
Although the massive use of chemical fertiliser and pesticides increased the
productivity of land, it has also led to soil pollution. Turning grassland and
forests into farmlands, to some extent, relieved the pressure of population
growth, while at the same time, has worsened soil erosion and desertification.
The environmental problems were not realised for a long time until the
continuous deterioration of the environmental conditions, such as food pollution
and dust storms, had a direct impact on people’s daily lives. Given this
background, debates about different views of Nature, either ‘Nature and human
form one body’ or ‘conquer Nature’, have more concern on environmental issues
rather than philosophical speculation. There is no denying that humans should be
in harmony with Nature, however, seeking a compatible view of Nature is still an
ongoing issue.
WAYS OF THINKING
Traditional Chinese views of Nature, especially the ontological speculation, have
influenced the development of Chinese ways of thinking to a great extent. To
understand the image of science in Chinese traditional culture, it is inevitably
important to look at some traditional Chinese ways of thinking. If views of Nature
18
SCIENCE IN TRADITIONAL CHINESE CULTURE
can be seen as examination of traditional Chinese culture at the ontological level,
looking at traditional Chinese ways of thinking is to explore traditional Chinese
culture at the epistemological level. The nature of science, as well as the nature of
any other kinds of knowledge was understood according to some traditional
Chinese ways of thinking, which, as Liu (1991) argues, “were almost embodied in
all ancient Chinese thoughts and social activities such as academic activities, folk
custom, politics, economics, military science, diplomacy, religion and language”
(p. 2). In that sense, the nature of science was mostly understood in ancient China
in an implicit and unconscious way – what was accepted and functioned as valid
knowledge (including scientific knowledge) had to be in line with some
fundamental Chinese traditional ways of thinking.
When looking at characteristics of traditional Chinese ways of thinking, it is
worth noting that these ways of thinking were not listed explicitly by people when
they were thinking and acting, rather, they lay beneath complex socio-cultural
phenomena in Chinese history. These ways of thinking have been identified by
scholars in modern times when trying to understand those phenomena in terms of
ways of thinking. It is also important to note that this does not mean that these
identified characteristics belong to Chinese ways of thinking exclusively, neither
does this mean that there have been only these identified ways of thinking in
Chinese history. Among many different ways of thinking, these characteristics
have been identified because they were valued, dominant and influential for a long
time in Chinese history.
A fundamental characteristic of traditional Chinese ways of thinking is ‘holism’.
Holism is in line with the long-term dominant view of Nature in Chinese history,
‘Tian Ren He Yi’, that is, seeing Nature and humans as an integrated whole. This
belief supports a holistic way of thinking at an epistemological level. According to
Peng and Nisbett (1999):
[The holistic thought] holds that nothing is isolated and independent, but
everything is connected. If we really want to know something fully, we must
know all of its relations – how it affects and is affected by everything else –
or to borrow a slogan from Gestalt psychology, the whole is more than the
sum of its parts. Anything regarded in isolation is distorted because the parts
are meaningful only in their relations to the whole, like individual musical
notes embedded in a melody. (p. 743)
This leads to lack of discrimination between humans and Nature in traditional Chinese
epistemology. Meng (1991) notices that a holistic thought does not entirely distinguish
the subject and the object as dualistic opposites – they are both in the same holistic
system and can mutually transform. He also argues that in Chinese traditional thought,
cognition and emotion are fused together and cannot be completely separated.
Similarly, Xiao (2004) points out that a holistic thought determines that “the subject
can only experience the existence of, feel the life of, and understand the spirit of an
object by way of blending and coexisting with the object” (p. 112). In this sense, a
holistic thought underpins a context-dependent cognitive model and experience-based
knowledge system (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001).
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A holistic thought also makes a desire for harmony intrinsic. As Needham
(1956) argued:
The harmonious cooperation of all beings arose, not from the orders of a
superior authority external to themselves, but from the fact that they were all
parts in a hierarchy of wholes forming a cosmic pattern, and what they
obeyed were the internal dictates of their own natures. (p. 582)
A state of harmony does not mean that things in the same system become identical.
On the contrary, the difference and contradiction are highly acknowledged. The
way of viewing contradiction involves another characteristic of Chinese traditional
thinking.
The holistic thought is closely aligned with another characteristic of Chinese
traditional thinking, the Yin-Yang principle, or dialectical thinking. This way of
thinking can be understood from two dimensions. One is the dimension of ‘change
and balance’. The universe is seen as a dynamic and flexible process that is in
perpetual flux. The internal impetus of change comes from the interaction of Yin
and Yang (Zhou Yi – Xi Ci Shang)39. Here, Yin and Yang represent two inseparable
forces that exist in any holistic system. They attract, as well as repel each other,
and at the same time they are interchangeable – “things will develop in the
opposite direction when they become extreme”40 (Cheng Yi41, Yi Shu42, Vol. 15).
In this sense, the static state is temporary – it is a state in which the interaction of
the two forces reaches a dynamic balance. Although dynamic, the balance is
important. Because only in a dynamically balanced state, can everything co-exist
without mutually jeopardising each other (Jiang, 1991).
This point is expressed thoroughly in the other dimension which is about
‘contradiction and harmony’. Yin and Yang represent any dualistic sides of a thing
or a process. For example, there is masculine/feminine, big/small, strong/weak,
hard/soft, inside/outside, static/dynamic, and so forth. Contradictions exist in
everything and the two sides of any contradiction are mutually controlling.
However, the relationship between Yin and Yang is not simply two absolute
extremes but complementary parts of a whole – they are interdependent of each
other and even contain one another. As there is an interdependent and
interchangeable nature of any two sides, the best way to solve the contradiction is
to seek harmony by compromise and reconciliation rather than by resistance.
According to Fung (1960),
Harmony is the reconciling of differences into a harmonious unity. …
[Harmony] is not incompatible with difference; on the contrary, it results
when differences are brought together to form a unity. But in order to achieve
harmony, the differences must each be present in precisely their proper
proportion. (p. 174)
Thus, working toward harmony becomes the highest and ultimate aim and is highly
valued in Chinese traditional culture.
The holistic thought and dialectical principle causes Chinese ways of thinking to
rely heavily on intuitive strategies. The traditional Chinese way of intuitive thinking,
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SCIENCE IN TRADITIONAL CHINESE CULTURE
as Xu (1991, p. 129) points out, “is a strategy that goes beyond both perceptual and
rational thoughts. One of the important properties of this strategy is to understand
fuzzily, directly and quickly the essence and laws of an object in its entirety”. The
intuitive strategies are based on the holistic thought. This can be seen from two
perspectives. First of all, a holistic thought requires the understanding of things in
their entirety, which are usually complex, dynamic and difficult to define precisely
through language. Therefore, intuitive strategies do not favour logical argumentation
and rely more on non-logical intuitive experience and therefore show great elasticity
and tolerance to paradox. Furthermore, a holistic thought also requires that the
subject understands the object by becoming one with it. It is emphasised in such a
way as to bring into play the body, mind and soul as a whole to experience the
process of understanding. Here, insight and inspiration are highly valued.
A story found in the classic Zhuang Zi(Yang Sheng Zhu)43 is a fine example of
how intuitive strategies are valued:
Cook Ding was butchering an ox for Duke Wen Hui. … Harmonising with
the rhythm of music from ancient times, he moved the blade like dancing.
Duke Wen Hui exclaimed: “How excellent your skill is!” Cook Ding
answered: “It is Tao that I follow, which transcends all skills. … Instead of
seeing it with my eyes, I meet the ox with my mind. My senses are inactive
while my mind is moving. … There are gaps between joints while the blade
has no thickness. Moving the ‘thicknessless’ in the gaps, no wonder it can be
accomplished with great ease. … Every time I come across the tricky parts of
the joints, I concentrate and my movement slows down. I move the knife very
slightly and the ox is separated in an instant.”
In this story, carving an ox is turned into an art by Cook Ding. The performance
needs harmonious cooperation between mind and body and the profound
experience of mind and the skilful movement of body have to be in perfect unison
(e.g., “I concentrate and my movement slows down”). It has always been highly
valued in traditional Chinese culture to explore both an individual’s mental and
physical potential and work to the limits of one’s capacity. This ideal state is
reached by following the Tao through intuition (e.g., “meet the ox with my mind”
and “my senses are inactive while my mind is moving”).
The story of Cook Ding is a metaphor of the tacit nature of knowledge and skills
valued in the traditional Chinese culture. Polanyi (1967) proposed the term ‘tacit
knowledge’ as opposed to ‘explicit knowledge’. Compared with explicit
knowledge which is based on logical reasoning and can be communicated in
words, diagrams or formulae, tacit knowledge can be sensed through the use of
intuition but cannot be articulated through language. It is highly individualised,
experience-based and context-dependent. More often than not, the acquisition and
dissemination of tacit knowledge require the integration of an individual’s thought
and emotion and the integration of an individual and the context within which she
or he is situated.
Although tacit knowledge may exist in any knowledge system, it is particularly
sophisticated in traditional Chinese culture. This is mainly because, to a great
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extent, tacit knowledge possesses the characteristics that are in line with traditional
Chinese thinking such as dialectical rather than logical, holistic rather than
analytical. Wang and Jin (2004) noticed that much traditional Chinese scientific
and technological knowledge “was carried by individual practitioners as tacit
knowledge, which was difficult to extract, detach and share” (p. 150).
Nevertheless, there were documents in ancient times recording verbal instructions
for practice. However, instead of emphasising logic and regulation, these
documents often adopted languages that are full of imagery, metaphors, symbolic
and analogical representations that rely on individual intuition to decode.
Interlinked holistic thought, dialectical principles and intuitive strategies lie
behind much of Chinese thought. They not only greatly influenced the
development of Chinese traditional knowledge but also underpin the principles for
the understanding of the nature of knowledge (including what we now recognise as
‘scientific knowledge’) in epistemological terms. They had been taken for granted
for a long time until the coming of the most serious challenge started from the late
19th century after China was defeated in the Opium War and along with the
introduction of ‘Western Science’. This will be examined in the next chapter.
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