The Scientific Spirit and Method in Chinese Philosophy

Abstract

In the course of the past work in East-west philosophy, the question has been raised as to whether there was science in the East, and why the East developed little or no science.

Chapter Note: Charles A. Moore, ed., The Chinese Mind: Essentials of Chinese Philosophy and Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1962. pp. 104–131.

1 “Main Contrasts Between Eastern and Western Philosophy,” in Charles A. Moore, ed., Essays in East-west Philosophy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1951), p. 291.

2 “The Complementary Emphases of Eastern Intuitive and Western Scientific Philosophy,” in Charles A. Moore, ed., Philosophy—East and West (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944), p. 212.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid., p. 173.

5 Ibid., p. 223.

6 F. S. C. Northrop, The Meeting of East and West (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1946), p. 448.

7 Philosophy—East and West, p. 183.

8 Ibid., p. 216.

9 Ibid., p. 183.

10 Ibid., p. 185.

11 Northrop may be interested to know that the “Logos” in the opening sentence of the Fourth Gospel has been translated “Tao”—the same Tao as appears in the first sentence of the Lao Tzu (Tao-te ching). A scholar trained in modern linguistics will probably translate “Logos” as “ming” (the Word)—the same “ming” which appears in the second sentence of the Lao Tzu and which is erroneously translated as “the name,” as quoted by Northrop. Ibid., p. 204.

12 James B. Conant, On Understanding Science (New York: Mentor Books, 1951), pp. 23–24. See also, Conant, Science and Common Sense (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951), pp. 10–13.

13 Editor’s note: Because of serious illness and death of Dr. Hu it has been impossible to provide complete references for some of his quotations from classical texts.

14 Lun heng, chap. 24.

15 Ibid., chap. 42.

16 Ibid., chap. 43.

17 Ibid., chap. 14.

18 Ibid., chap. 53.

19 Ibid., chap. 62.

20 Chap. 78.

21 Ibid., chaps. 66 and 67.

22 The Chinese Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934), pp. 70–71.

23 “A Grammarian’s Funeral,” in Augustine Birrell, ed., The Poetical Works of Robert Browning (London: John Murray, 1951), Vol. I, pp. 424–426.