East and West in the History of Science

I: "Science" in the History of Science

The scope of science studied in the history of science goes beyond what we mean by science in everyday life. The history of science deals with science in a broader sense, which generally includes the following:

• The rational science of ancient Greece
• The mathematical-experimental science born of the Scientific Revolution
• Natural history in a broader sense
• Science in the widest sense, including technological systems

The main line of the "history of Western science" that the question refers to runs:

• Ancient Greece
• Rome
• The Middle Ages
• The Renaissance
• The Scientific Revolution
• The present

"Science" in what follows is also used in this broad sense, but the main line and the side branches of Western scientific development will be obvious at a glance. One very important thread is the relationship between the type of civilization and the type of science.

II: East and West in the History of Science

If we trace science back to its origins, there are two fairly typical types of science in its history: the "practical science" of the East and the "rational science" of ancient Greece. The civilizations that carried these two types of science also fall into two types: hydraulic civilizations and non-hydraulic civilizations.

Hydraulic Civilizations and Practical Science:

The representatives are the four great ancient civilizations:

• The Mesopotamian civilization between the Tigris and the Euphrates
• The Egyptian civilization of the Nile valley
• The Indian civilization of the Indus and Ganges valleys
• The Chinese civilization of the Yangtze and Yellow River valleys

All of these civilizations grew up beside water, with people gathering along well-developed river systems to farm. In this kind of civilization, keeping the state running normally and keeping the people fed were the ruling class's first concerns. Accordingly, science, which was held by the ruling class, leaned toward the practical, concentrating on water management (indispensable for irrigation), astronomy (needed for farming, for daily life, and for predicting the fate of the dynasty), and medicine.

Non-Hydraulic Civilization and Greek Rational Science:

Geographically, Greece lies on the Mediterranean coast. The land is mountainous, with no large rivers and no broad, fertile alluvial plains, so irrigation depended more on rain than on river water management. Unable to sustain themselves on local conditions alone, the Greeks gradually developed strong seafaring and trade. At the same time, Greece was neither too close to nor too far from Mesopotamia and Egypt: close enough for exchange, far enough not to be fully assimilated. In addition, the mountains split Greek political life into many small city-states, which both cooperated and competed with one another. In this environment the Greeks developed the democratic city-state and slavery, which guaranteed the emergence of a leisured class, while a free, democratic environment made political debate the norm. All of this cultivated the Greek spirit of reason. Unlike the administrators of the East, who had to strain to keep a centralized empire running, the Greek leisured class paid more attention to thinking about questions such as political legitimacy. These conditions made Greece a remarkable anomaly in the history of science. The Greeks were good at argument, had a passion for getting to the bottom of things, and had a scholarly spirit that rose above worldly concerns. Greek astronomy, for example, differed from the practical astronomy of the East: it was a mathematical planetary astronomy whose aim was to explain nature, not to serve farming, astrology or other practical ends. Explaining nature by nature itself, without appealing to gods or other external agents, and moving from Thales's "water is the origin of all things" to Plato's theory of Forms and on to Aristotle's comprehensive natural philosophy, clearly shows how rational science emerged. This is also the oldest source of modern science.

III: How the Two Types of Science Developed

The Inheritance and Development of Greek Rational Science:

Greece developed a rational scientific tradition that was disinterested, fairly systematic and driven by its own internal logic: Ptolemy's Almagest and Euclid's Elements, for example, and, more importantly, the rational paradigms founded by Plato and Aristotle. Plato's theory of Forms and Aristotle's natural philosophy differ, but both are rational systems with an internal logic. After the fall of Greco-Roman civilization, this rationality was absorbed into Christian doctrine, forming patristic philosophy in the earlier period and scholasticism in the later. Greek culture was at the same time transplanted into the Islamic world, and after the Crusades it began to revive in Europe. After the Age of Discovery, the Reformation and the Renaissance, the main line of Greek rational science was joined up again in Copernicus. Close behind came the Scientific Revolution of the early modern period. Note that this was the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: capitalism played a role in the development of science, but its influence was nowhere near what it would be during the Industrial Revolution. The main driving force in this period was still the internal logic of rational science, and the religious spirit also gave it a considerable push. (The role of religion in the birth of modern science is also very important, but discussing it would take a great deal of space. The "strict constraints of religion" mentioned in the question are not quite fair.)

The Development of Practical Science in the Hydraulic Civilizations of the East:

Practical science has no internal logic of development. It develops according to the needs of its external environment, and once that environment no longer demands anything, it loses its momentum. This shows very clearly in Chinese history. China is a very typical hydraulic civilization, characterized by centralized politics and officially controlled science. Science driven by external demand of this kind is tied very closely to those demands, and over the long run this shows up as a discontinuous development of science and technology that never forms a system. Moreover, in a highly centralized state like China, once a corresponding culture of statecraft has formed, that culture strongly restricts scholarship that is transcendent and useless. (Whether this is religion or culture is a question in itself.) Over two thousand years of history, China's science and technology (in the sense of technological systems and natural history) was in fact always very strong, reaching its peak in the Ming dynasty. By that point external needs had largely been met. Unless there was a change in social structure (like capitalism and the rise of cities), or science itself developed a structure like Greek rational science, it was hard for science and technology to move further forward. Both were difficult: in the first case, feudal forces kept stifling the sprouts of capitalism; in the second, China's political culture had already set and become a strong constraint. This happened to be exactly when the West picked up the thread of Greek rationality and began its revival, and from then on China began to fall behind in technology as well.

IV: Conclusion

In short, from a Whig-history perspective, the logic of Western scientific development is fairly clear at the macro level. The main line is the Greek thread of rationality; the side branch is the transplanting and re-transplanting of Greek learning by the Islamic world during the Middle Ages. The Islamic world, however, always remained a typical Eastern civilization. Even though it transplanted Greek learning and had an extremely important influence on the birth of modern science, it never managed to become the birthplace of modern science.

Aristotle held that free scholarship requires three conditions:

• A leisured class
• A critical tradition
• Wonder at the world

Looking at the history of science, both ancient Greece and early modern Europe fit these conditions fairly well, while centralized states find them hard to meet. Note that "democracy" is not emphasized here. The point is only that scholarship needs a relatively free environment to develop; once a centralized state has shed its ignorance, it can also create similar conditions.

Huilongguan, Beijing, January 7, 2016