The Needham Question: 서양이 동양을 압도할 수 있었던 이유는 (1) 정부의 중앙집권적 기술 독점 및 상공인에 대한 특허권이 없었기 때문, (2) 과학적 방법론이 없고 경험적 과학에 의존했기 때문, (3) 지나치게 많은 인구 때문에 농업에서 충분한 잉여생산물을 만들 수 없었고, 결과적으로 산업혁명에 쏟아부을 자원이 없었기 때문에
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Needham
The Needham Question
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"Needham's Grand Question", also known as "The Needham Question", is this: why had China been overtaken by the West in science and technology, despite their earlier successes? In Needham's words,
“Why did modern science, the mathematization of hypotheses about Nature, with all its implications for advanced technology, take its meteoric rise only in the West at the time of Galileo?”, and why it “had not developed in Chinese civilization” which in the previous many centuries “was much more efficient than occidental in applying” natural knowledge to practical needs? [19] [20]
In October 1988, Needham wrote: “Francis Bacon had selected three inventions, paper and printing, gunpowder, and the magnetic compass, which had done more than (anything else), he thought, to transform completely the modern world and mark it off from the antiquity of the Middle Ages. He regarded the origins of these inventions as ‘obscure and inglorious’ and he died without ever knowing that all of them were Chinese. We have done our best to put this record straight”.[21]
Needham's works attribute significant weight to the impact of Confucianism and Taoism on the pace of Chinese scientific discovery, and emphasises the "diffusionist" approach of Chinese science as opposed to a perceived independent inventiveness in the western world. Needham thought the notion that the Chinese script had inhibited scientific thought was "grossly overrated".[22]
His own research revealed a steady accumulation of scientific results throughout Chinese history. In the final volume he suggests "A continuing general and scientific progress manifested itself in traditional Chinese society but this was violently overtaken by the exponential growth of modern science after the Renaissance in Europe. China was homeostatic, but never stagnant."[20]
Nathan Sivin, one of Needham's collaborators, while agreeing that Needham's achievement was monumental, suggested that the "Needham question", as a counterfactual hypothesis, was not conducive to a useful answer:
It is striking that this question – Why didn't the Chinese beat Europeans to the Scientific Revolution? – happens to be one of the few questions that people often ask in public places about why something didn't happen in history. It is analogous to the question of why your name did not appear on page 3 of today's newspaper.[23]
There are several hypotheses attempting to explain the Needham Question. Yingqiu Liu and Chunjiang Liu[24] argued that the issue rested on the lack of property rights and that those rights were only obtainable through favour of the emperor. Protection was incomplete as the emperor could rescind those rights at any time. Science and technology were subjugated to the needs of the feudal royal family, and any new discoveries were sequestered by the government for its use. The government took steps to control and interfere with private enterprises by manipulating prices and engaging in bribery. Each revolution in China redistributed property rights under the same feudal system. Land and property were reallocated first and foremost to the royal family of the new dynasty up until the late Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) when fiefdom land was taken over by warlords and merchants. These limited property rights constrained potential scientific innovations.
The Chinese Empire enacted totalitarian control and was able to do so because of its great size. There were smaller independent states that had no choice but to comply with this control. They could not afford to isolate themselves. The Chinese believed in the well-being of the state as their primary motive for economic activity, and individual initiatives were shunned. There were regulations on the press, clothing, construction, music, birth rates, and trade. The Chinese state controlled all aspects of life, severely limiting any incentives to innovate and to better one's self. "The ingenuity and inventiveness of the Chinese would no doubt have enriched China further and probably brought it to the threshold of modern industry, had it not been for this stifling state control. It is the State that kills technological progress in China".[25] Meanwhile, the lack of a free market in China escalated to a new affair whereby the Chinese were restricted from carrying trade with foreigners. Foreign trade is a great source of foreign knowledge as well as the capability of acquisition of new products. Foreign trade promotes innovation as well as the expansion of a countries market. As Landes (2006)[26] further puts it, in 1368 when the new emperor Hongwu was inaugurated, his main objective was war. (p. 6).[26] A lot of revenue that can otherwise be used for innovative procedures are as a result lost in wars. Heavy participation in war significantly hindered the Chinese to have the capability of focusing on the industrial revolution. Landes (2006)[26] further explains that Chinese were advised to stay put and never to move without permission from the Chinese state. As illustrated, “The Ming code of core laws also sought to block social mobility" (Landes, 2006, p. 7).[26] How can you expect the industrial revolution to a country that prohibited its people from performing social mobility? From the above, you will come to find that it is clear that the Chinese would not be able to achieve industrial revolution since they were heavily tamed by their state government who were naïve about the aspect of innovation.
According to Justin Lin,[27] China did not make the shift from an experience-based technological invention process to an experiment-based innovation process. The experience-based process depended on the size of a population, and while new technologies have come about through the trials and errors of the peasants and artisans, experiment-based processes surpasses experience-based processes in yielding new technology. Progress from experimentation following the logic of a scientific method can occur at a much faster rate because the inventor can perform many trials during the same production period under a controlled environment. Results from experimentation is dependent on the stock of scientific knowledge while results from experience-based processes is tied directly to the size of a population; hence, experiment-based innovation processes have a higher likelihood of producing better technology as human capital grows. China had about twice the population of Europe until the 13th century and so had a higher probability of creating new technologies. After the 14th century, China's population grew exponentially, but progress in innovation saw diminishing returns. Europe had a smaller population but began to integrate science and technology that arose from the scientific revolution in the 17th century. This scientific revolution gave Europe a comparative advantage in developing technology in modern times.
Lin blamed the institutions in China for preventing the adoption of the experiment-based methodology. Its sociopolitical institution inhibited intellectual creativity, but more importantly, it diverted this creativity away from scientific endeavours. Totalitarian control by the state in the Chinese Empire inhibited public dispute, competition, and the growth of modern science, while the clusters of independent European nations were more favourable to competition and scientific development. In addition, the Chinese did not have the incentives to acquire human capital necessary for modern scientific experimentation. Civil service was deemed the most rewarding and honourable work in pre-modern China. The gifted had more incentives to pursue this route to move up the social status ladder as opposed to pursuing scientific endeavours. Further the laxity and lack of innovation exhibited by China made her to be surpassed by the growing European levels of technological advancement and innovation. As Landes (2006)[26] puts forward, the Chinese lived as they wanted. They were ruled by an emperor "Son of Heaven" who they termed to be unique, and he was godlike. As he further adds, this emperor had arrogant representatives who were chosen in terms of "competitive examinations in Confucian letters and morals.” As explained, these representatives were submissive to their subordinates as they possessed a high degree of self-esteem. Just as put forward by Landes (2006),[26] the downward tyranny combined with the cultural triumphalism had made China as a state to become a bad learner. (p. 11). It is clear China could not be able to accept any information from their inferiors.
The High-Level Equilibrium Trap. High population, although sometimes it can be a cheap source of labor which is necessary for economic development, sometimes the high population can be a great setback when it comes to development. The land which a factor of production can be negatively affected by high population. The ratio of person-to-land-area will eventually decrease as the population of a community grows. During the thirteenth century, China was significantly affected by this population factor when it came to the point of ignition of an industrial revolution. As Lin (1995) puts forward, initially, the culture of the Chinese has valued the males in the society; as a result, early marriages were experienced which boosted the fertility rates leading to the rapid increase in the China population. (p. 271).[28] An increase in population with no equivalent increase in economic and technological development will ultimately suppress the available resources causing laxity to the general economic development. The high population experienced in China significantly raised the man to land ratio. The China population was massive. Just as Lin (1995)[28] elaborates, the raising man-land-ratio in the Chinese meant that there was a diminishing surplus per capita. Due to this, China were not able to have surplus resources which can be tapped and used to ignite the industrial revolution. Just as Lin (1995)[28] puts forward, Europeans were enjoying an optimum man to land ratio with no land strain. The Europeans also had vast unexploited technologies as well as economics possibilities. All these advantages were possible because of the feudal system that the European had embraced, (p. 272). The availability of unexploited ventures made European have significant potential in the execution of a fully-fledged industrial revolution. Lin (1995)[28] further adds that although Europe was lagging behind China during the pre-modern era in terms of economic and technological advancements, the right time finally came for Europe to use the accumulated sufficient knowledge. A strong need to save labor was finally felt in Europe. The agrarian revolution experienced before also provided agricultural surplus that ultimately served as the core assets towards financing the industrial revolution. (p. 272). The accumulation of adequate labor and knowledge to their threshold was a significant step that the European embraced to ignite an industrial revolution. It is also clear that the agrarian revolution experienced in Europe was a tangible asset towards industrialization. The issue of the abundance of land was also at the forefront in ensuring that industrial revolution was realized in Europe contrary to what was experienced in China whereby the large populations put a lot of strain to the available resources as a result making industrial revolution unattainable in China during the early fourteenth century.
Evaluations and critiques
Needham's work has been criticised by most scholars who assert that it has a strong inclination to exaggerate Chinese technological achievements and has an excessive propensity to assume a Chinese origin for the wide range of objects his work covered. Pierre-Yves Manguin writes, for instance:
J Needham's (1971) monumental work on Chinese nautics offers by far the most scholarly synthesis on the subjects of Chinese shipbuilding and navigation. His propensity to view the Chinese as the initiators of all things and his constant references to the superiority of Chinese over the rest of the world's techniques does at times detract from his argument.[29]
In another vein of criticism, Andre Gunder Frank's Re-Orient argues that despite Needham's contributions in the field of Chinese technological history, he still struggled to break free from his preconceived notions of European exceptionalism. Re-Orient criticizes Needham for his Eurocentric assumptions borrowed from Marx and the presupposition of Needham's famous Grand Question that science was a uniquely Western phenomenon. Frank observes:
Alas, it was also originally Needham's Marxist and Weberian point of departure. As Needham found more and more evidence about science and technology in China, he struggled to liberate himself from his Eurocentric original sin, which he had inherited directly from Marx, as Cohen also observes. But Needham never quite succeeded, perhaps because his concentration on China prevented him from sufficiently revising his still ethnocentric view of Europe itself.[30]
T. H. Barrett asserts in The Woman Who Discovered Printing that Needham was unduly critical of Buddhism, describing it as having 'tragically played a part in strangling the growth of Chinese science,' to which Needham readily conceded in a conversation a few years later.[31] Barrett also criticizes Needham's favoritism and uncritical evaluation of Taoism in Chinese technological history:
He had a tendency — not entirely justified in the light of more recent research — to think well of Taoism, because he saw it as playing a part that could not be found elsewhere in Chinese civilization. The mainstream school of thinking of the bureaucratic Chinese elite, or 'Confucianism' (another problematic term) in his vocabulary, seemed to him to be less interested in science and technology, and to have 'turned its face away from Nature.' Ironically, the dynasty that apparently turned away from printing from 706 till its demise in 907 was as Taoist as any in Chinese history, though perhaps its 'state Taoism' would have seemed a corrupt and inauthentic business to Needham.[32]
Daiwie Fu, in the essay "On Mengxi bitan's World of Marginalities and 'South-pointing Needles': Fragment Translation vs. Contextual Tradition", criticises Needham, among other Western scholars, for translations that select fragments deemed “scientific,” usually without appreciating the unity of the text, the context of the quotation, and taxonomy in which those fragments are embedded, then reorganize and reinterpret them in a new, Western taxonomy and narrative. Needham used this process of selection and re-assembly to argue for a Chinese tradition of science that did not exist as such.[33]
Justin Lin argues against Needham's premise that China's early adoption of modern socioeconomic institutions contributed heavily to its technological advancement. Lin contends that technological advancements at this time were largely separate from economic circumstance, and that the effects of these institutions on technological advancement were indirect.[34]
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