摘要
李约瑟从开始写作 Science and Civilization in China时就说明中国文明产生不了伽利略、哈维和牛顿水平的现代科学。那么 ,为什么现代科学只在伽利略的时候崛起于西方 ?14年后他又提出 ,为什么公元前一世纪起中国在应用自然知识于人类需要方面领先西方 160 0年 ?席文指出这里所谓的自然知识有些虽在历史上也可以叫科学 ,却并未在哲学领域下整合、革命为现代科学。现代科学在发展中留下的欧洲烙印太强 ,不能认为科学革命在全球别处均属可能。对李约瑟明知故问的启发式问题牵扯过多容易引起误解。果然它在中国引起了“李约瑟难题”的误会 ,在港、台亦曾引起牟宗三教授的无端指责。
In the earliest volumes of Science and Ciuvilization in China , Needham held that nothing could bring Chinese science to the level of Galileo, Harvey and Newton. Fourteen years later he asked since for 16 centuries China had led the world in applying natural knowledge to human needs, why did modern science take its rise only in the West at the time of Galileo? Sivin points out that though some of the natural knowledge Needham mentioned could be historically called sciences, they were not integrated under philosophy in to revolutionized modern science as in Europe. Modern science is still too marked by the special Europan circumstances of its development to considered universal. He comments that Needham's heuristic questions tend to grow murky. And indeed in China they have given rise to misunderstanding in the form of “the Needham dilemma”, and in Hongkong and Taiwan, they even caused unwarranted charges by the late leading philosopher Professor Mu Zong san. Needham's works shows no signs of such dilemma.
出处
《上海交通大学学报（哲学社会科学版）》
2002年第1期8-10,共3页
Journal of Shanghai Jiao tong University(Philosophy and Social Sciences)
