## 1. Fung Yu-lan's "Why China Has No Science"



In a paper titled "Why China Has No Science," published
in 1922, Fung Yu-lan [Feng Youlan] Feng You Lan 
(1895-1990), then a student of John Dewey, argued that: "what
keeps China back is that she has no science," but that:
"China has no science, because according to her own standard of
value she does not need any."(1922, 237 and 238). To make
this argument, he introduces what he calls two tendencies in Chinese
philosophy, which he calls "nature" and "art"
or "human," referring to the products of human
artifice. On his account, the Warring States period (475-221 BCE)
developed two philosophies, Daoism and Mohism respectively, which
followed these two tendencies to extreme, and a third, Confucianism,
which he represents as a compromise between them. On Fung's
explanation, the Daoists considered nature perfect while the Mohists
sought to improve on it (1922, 238-39). They valued utility above all
else, and Fung considers them "scientific" in spirit,
including their interest in logic and definition. Mohism, as he
puts it, stood for art as over against nature (1922, 244-50). He
does not explain how his "Confucianism" is a compromise
between these two extremes, all the more so since he distinguishes the
"nature" oriented Confucianism of Mencius (372-289 BCE)
from the "art"-oriented Confucianism of Xunzi (313-238
BCE), who aspired to conquer nature instead of returning to it:
"It is better to treat nature as a thing and regulate it than to
consider it very great and always think of it. It is better to control
nature and use it than to follow and admire it." This, Fung
remarks, is nearly the same as the Baconian conception of power
(1922, 256, quoting from an unspecified passage in the
"Discourse on Heaven" (*Tian lun*) chapter of the
*Xunzi*. For a study of this chapter see Machle 1993).



Fung goes on to argue that, after the Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE) the
"art" or scientific tendency within Chinese philosophy all
but disappeared. Buddhism, like Daoism, was an extreme
"nature" philosophy, and the interactions of Daoism,
Buddhism and Confucianism did not produce interest in the understanding
of the natural world. In the tenth century CE the Song Neo-Confucians
combined Daoist, Confucian and Buddhist teachings into a new philosophy
that has persisted to the present. According to the "Great
Learning" (*Da xue*), the ancients who wished to enlighten
their bright virtue "investigated things":



> 
> Wishing to be sincere in their thoughts, they first extended to the
> utmost their knowledge. Such extension of knowledge lay in the
> investigation of things (*zhi zhi zai ge wu*
> Zhi Zhi Zai Ge Wu ). Things being investigated,
> knowledge became complete (*Da xue*, 412).



But Neo-Confucian philosophers disagreed about what
"things" to investigate. Some took
"things" as external, but did not pursue the investigation
of the empirical world. The other, prevailing view took
"things" to refer to the mind. Fung points out that
the Song dynasty (960-1279) corresponded to the period of the
development of modern science in Europe, but Europeans developed
techniques for understanding and controlling matter, while the Chinese
Neo-Confucians developed techniques for understanding and controlling
mind (1922, 256-58).



The point of this discussion of Fung's study is his argument that,
ever since the disappearance of the "nature" tendency,
Chinese philosophy has devoted itself to the cultivation of the mind
(*xin* Xin ), at the expense of any interest in, or need
for, science, or any inquiry into nature. (Because the meaning of
*xin* - "mind," or more properly
"heart-mind" - is much broader than the English term
mind, cultivating it refers to a much broader kind of cognitive,
intellectual, physical and spiritual cultivation than the phrase
"cultivation of the mind" suggests.) By contrast, he
argues, the ancestors of modern European philosophy had two
"uses" for science: according to Descartes, it provided
certainty; according to Bacon, it offered power. But, Fung
argues, China did not discover the scientific method because Chinese
thought started from the mind, and did not require proof or logical or
empirical demonstration. Instead, Chinese philosophers preferred
the certainty of perception, and thus: "would not, and did not
translate their concrete vision into the form of science. In one word
China has no science, because of all philosophies the Chinese
philosophy is the most human and the most practical" (1922,
260). Fung concludes: "it is because of the fact that the
Chinese ideal prefers enjoyment to power that China has no need of
science, even though science, according to Bacon, is for power. The
Chinese philosophers, as I said just now, had no need of scientific
certainty, because it was themselves that they wished to know; so in
the same way they had no need of the power of science, because it was
themselves that they wished to conquer" (1922, 261).



In summary, although Fung Yu-lan's account of Warring States
philosophy is open to question, he gives a compelling version of a type
of claim for philosophical reasons why science did not develop in
China. I now turn to the opposite argument that science did
develop - and flourish - in both early China and the Song
"Neo-Confucian" period.


## 2. Joseph Needham's History of Science in China



The question of the relation of Chinese philosophy and science is
complicated by several factors. One is the need to define what we mean
by science in the context of early China and early Chinese
philosophy. This question includes the relationship of
"science" to "technology," as well as the
question of what disciplines were considered sciences, and where they
stood in indigenous hierarchies of knowledge.



These questions partake of an ongoing debate on the nature of
Chinese science, which initially arose from the pioneering work of
Joseph Needham. This debate focuses on the problematic question
of why (or whether) the revolution that transformed scientific
disciplines in Europe did not take place in China. It has tended
to focus on the mathematization of science and on the activities of
court astronomical officials (Needham 1956b, 1979). But these debates
do little to clarify the relations between the origins and development
of the sciences in China and Chinese philosophy.



This debate about the nature of Chinese science, which has been
referred to as the "Needham problem," has focused on
variants on the important question of why (or whether) the scientific
revolution that transformed scientific disciplines in Europe did not
take place in China. In Needham's terms, the answers lie in the history
of Chinese science itself, but Fung Yu-lan's argument provides an
answer of a very different kind, which Needham would probably not
entertain at all. (Although Needham's (1956b) own account of the
history of Chinese philosophy and science repeatedly cites the
scholarship of Fung Yu-lan, especially Fung 1983, he makes no mention
of Fung 1922.)



Needham, himself an eminent embryologist (Needham 1931, 1934) was
the primary author of the multi-volume ongoing *Science and
Civilisation in China* (1954- ). His approach to the problem
of the history of science in China was to try to fit the Chinese
scientific tradition into the categories of twentieth-century western
science. On the one hand, this approach enabled Needham and his
collaborators to engage the wealth and variety of the many Chinese
sciences from a perspective that took them seriously as contributors to
an ongoing and universal history of science. This approach also
allowed Needham's group to consistently and coherently refute
"orientalist" claims or prima facie assumptions that
science was the sole property of a European tradition extending
backward in time to ancient Greece, with little or no influence from
any other cultural tradition. On the other hand, Needham's
"universalist" approach to the history of science in China
has been rejected as anachronistic and culturally inappropriate (Yates
2003, 658).



As Nathan Sivin (1990 and 1995) has argued, Chinese accounts focused
on specific sciences, rather than on one unified notion of science.
These Chinese sciences were both quantitative and qualitative. Sivin
(1982 and 1990) breaks down the quantitative sciences into three
disciplines: mathematics (*suan* Suan ), mathematical
harmonics or acoustics (*lu* Lu  or l*u
lu* Lu Lu ) and mathematical astronomy (*li*
Li  or *li fa* Li Fa ), considered related to
harmonics. Sivin describes the qualitative sciences as: astronomy
or astrology (*tian wen* Tian Wen ), medicine
(*yi* Yi ) and siting (*feng shui*
Feng Shui ). *Tian wen* included the observation of
celestial and meteorological events whose proper reading could be used
to rectify the political order. Medicine included "Nurturing
Life" (*yang sheng* Yang Sheng ), a broad category
that included a wide range of self-cultivation techniques with
important philosophical implications. In later periods, medicine also
included materia medica (*ben cao* Ben Cao ) and
internal (*nei dan* Nei Dan ) and external (*wai
dan* Wai Dan ) alchemy.


## 3. Chinese Science as "Daoist"?



The "Needham" problem overlaps, but is distinct from two
other issues. One is the Chinese philosophical attitudes towards
"nature." Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin (2002) note that
"nature" was not a conceptual category in early China. Derk
Bodde (1991) distinguished at least seven premodern Chinese attitudes
toward what contemporary philosophy and science call nature, ranging
from antagonistic and indifferent to wholly receptive. Nonetheless,
Bodde - for slightly different reasons than Fung - argued
that a wide range of obstacles hindered the development of science in
China. These included: a written language ill adapted to the expression
of scientific ideas, attitudes toward space and time that were out of
step with the facts of nature (1991, 133), and the combined influence
of an authoritarian imperial government, a conservative academic elite
and a philosophical tradition preoccupied with morals and burdened by
"organicist" thinking. Robin Yates (2003) has also noted
the importance of the lack of an ex nihilo creator deity and the
"non-privileged" status of humans in the cosmos of early
Chinese philosophy. Humans were not distinct from other natural
phenomena, and were part of a *dao* that was ultimately
mysterious and incomprehensible.



The other is the topic of this essay: the problem of the specific
engagement between science and early Chinese philosophy, and whether
Chinese philosophy was in some way inimical to scientific inquiry. To
answer the latter questions it is necessary to consider both the
intellectual and social contexts of Chinese philosophy and Chinese
science. Which sciences are relevant to Chinese philosophy? Using
Sivin's categorization, the quantitative sciences are largely separate
from the engagement between science and early Chinese philosophy. The
greatest degree of engagement between philosophy and science comes from
the qualitative sciences of astronomy (or astrology) and medicine.



How do we reconcile these two entirely different accounts, one by a
Chinese philosopher and the other by several eminent historians of
science in China? Part of the answer lies in clarifying several
shared intellectual contexts for the origins of science in China, as
well as several intellectual and social contexts that fostered their
complete divergence, probably by the end of the Han dynasty (206
BCE-220 CE).




Chinese philosophy is often identified with
"Confucianism," understood to include both the teachings of
the historical Confucius, his immediate intellectual descendants in the
Warring States and Han periods, and later developments known as
Neo-Confucianism in the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties and the present
day. One source of this view is the explicit adoption of
Confucian ideologies by the rulers of most but not all dynasties. 
Another is the intellectual sympathies of many generations of Chinese
commentators, and also of particularly Anglophone Sinologists who have
tended to focus on Confucian philosophies. Confucian philosophers
- as distinct from rulers of a broadly Confucian persuasion
- were often portrayed as humanists in the sense that they were
more interested in problems of ethics and society than in the
investigation of the natural world. This is very much the picture
presented by Bodde in his negative assessment of the potential for
science in premodern China.




But a perception that the history of engagement between philosophy
and science is limited to "Confucianism," would present
only a partial picture. It is widely recognized that the earliest of
what we would call scientific studies were conducted by the early
Mohists, who wrote treatises on logic, optics and mechanics (Graham
1978, Needham 1956b, Fung 1922). Mohism did not persist beyond the Han
dynasty as a textual lineage, but at least some Mohist texts are
preserved in the *Daoist Canon* (discussed below). As such,
while Mohism is fundamentally important to any history of science in
China, it is not central to an account of the engagement between
science and Chinese philosophy.




Needham - in complete contrast to Fung Yu-lan -
represents the Daoists as both naturalistic and interested in natural
phenomena. He described Daoism as "religious and poetical,
yes; but it was also at least as strongly magical, scientific,
democratic, and politically revolutionary" (1956a, 32). On
this reading, the history of Daoism also presents a very different
picture of science and medicine, especially.




But there are several problems with this picture. An initial
problem is anachronistic understandings of the nature of early Daoism.
These include an oversimplified emphasis on the schools and legendary
authors of Daoist texts. There is also a problematic distinction
between the so-called "philosophical" Daoism (*Dao
jia* Dao Jia ) of the *Daode jing*,
*Zhuangzi*, and *Huainanzi* and the so-called
"religious" Daoism (*Dao jiao* Dao Jiao ) of
longevity practices, popular religion, and organized Daoist churches.
As Sivin (1978, 1995b) pointed out in a series of article begun over
thirty years ago, simplistic stereotypes of Daoism as mystical or
naturalistic obscure understanding of the relations between Daoism and
science.




Sivin (1995a) points to important differences between popular
religion and specifically Daoist religious movements that had little
conection to either philosophy or the study of nature. His point
is that most scientific and technical expertise arose from popular
sources and not from Daoist schools; and once this key distinction is
made, we no longer need to mis-classify all or most Chinese science as
Daoist (as did Needham). This move also allows us to clarify that
some Daoist masters, whose objective was union with divinity, were not
pursuing the study of rational inquiry or systematic
experimentation. Rather, they were making use of existing
technical knowledge and practices, and adapting them to their own ends,
but not generally improving on them in any way. However, the
important point is that the Daoist schools kept written records, which
the artisans who developed the original expertise, did not. As a
result, historians of science have tended to credit the Daoists with
innovations that they probably recorded, rather than developed.




Sivin's account usefully explains why the fact that many records
of scientific innovation appear only in the *Daoist Canon* does
not make them inherently Daoist. The *Daoist Canon* (*Dao
zang* Dao Cang ) was first printed in about 1477, and was
reprinted in a commercial edition in 1924-1926. The original
edition consisted of some 5,305 volumes, on a wide range of subjects,
including astronomy and cosmology, biology and botany, medicine and
pharmacology, chemistry and mineralogy, and mathematics and
physics. Much of the engagement with science after the Han dynasty is
relegated the "non-philosophical" texts classified as
*Dao jiao*, and often in ways that obscure the relation between
philosophy and science in early China.


## 4. Shared Intellectual Contexts




There were important differences between the social and
institutional contexts of early philosophy and science, as well as
important differences between sciences. The authors of
philosophical or "Masters" texts (discussed below) were
private individuals who often sought, but rarely achieved political
influence. By contrast, astronomy and calendrics in particular were
closely linked to government and court patronage, and from Han times
on, located in the Bureau of Astronomy (Loewe 1994, Pankenier 2013,
Raphals 2013, Sivin 2009).




The origins of science in China seem to lie in an amalgam of ideas
from both Masters textualists (philosophers) and technical
specialists. According to Sivin (1988 and 1990) the basic Chinese
sciences were established some time between the first century BCE and
the first century CE through what he describes as a combination of Ru
("Confucian") ideas and ideas from technical specialists,
especially experts in yin-yang, Five Agents (*wu xing*) and
technical expertise traditions associated with "Numbers and
Techniques" (*shu shu*) and "Recipes and
Methods" (*fang ji,* both discussed below.)




Key to this amalgam were several concepts shared by both groups but
deployed in very different ways. Early cosmological thinking
depicts a cosmos ultimately composed of *qi* Qi  (the
energy that constitutes and organizes matter and causes growth and
change) in processes of constant change, based on the interactions of
yin and yang Yin Yang  and the Five Agents (*wu xing*
Wu Xing , Graham 1986, Raphals 1998 and 2013).




Philosophers deployed these ideas in (1) the yin-yang cosmology of
the *Yi jing*, (2) theories of correlative correspondence
between Heaven, Earth and Humanity as a shared representation of cosmic
order, and (3) the idea of a "classic" or
"canon" as the founding text of a textual lineage.
Practitioners of several sciences also deployed these concepts, in
particular in models of the human body and of the movements of the sun,
moon and stars.




Finally, both groups created textual lineages and accounts of
textual authority. In a scientific context, authoritative texts
were nominally attributed to a culture hero or divine source. 
Examples include the medical "classic" *The Yellow
Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine* (*Huang Di nei
jing*, Unschuld 2003, Unschuld and Tessenow 2011) and the *Zhou
[dynasty] Classic of Gnomon Calculation* (*Zhou bi suan
jing*, Cullen 1976 and 1996). By contrast, the evidence of
recently excavated texts indicates that such texts derived from prior
textual traditions that were subsequently lost (Harper 1998). Other
Masters created their own texts and apocryphal lineages, but did not
appear to have debated each other extensively or to have taken
self-consciously critical stances toward their human or textual
predecessors (Lloyd 1996, Lloyd and Sivin 2002).


## 5. Generalist versus Specialist Knowledge




No one account categorizes the sciences of early China, but we find
some account of them in the last two sections of the Bibliographic
Treatise of the Han Dynastic History (Han shu, chapter 30). We see in
the categorizations and authorship of the Treatise a polarization
between two groups whom can be called Masters textualists and technical
experts.




The *Han shu* Bibliographic Treatise consists of six
sections: (1) the Six Arts (*liu yi* Liu Yi ) or
Classics (*liu jing* Liu Jing ), (2) Masters (*zhu
zi* Zhu Zi ) texts of Warring States philosophy, (3)
Poetry (*shi fu* Shi Fu ), (4) Military works (*bing
shu* Bing Shu ), (5) Numbers and Techniques (*shu
shu* Shu Shu ), and (6) Recipes and Methods (*fang
ji* Fang Ji ).




The "Numbers and Techniques" (*shu shu*) section
includes the names of texts on astronomy, and cosmology in the sections
titled Patterns of Heaven (*tian wen* Tian Wen ) and
Calendars and Chronologies (*li pu* Li Pu ).
Additional information appears under sections titled Five Agents
(*wu xing* Wu Xing ), and morphoscopy. Patterns of
Heaven includes texts on divination by stars and weather phenomena
(clouds, mists, qi configurations), and mapping the constellations.
Calendars and Chronologies includes texts on calendric computations and
movements of the heavenly bodies. Five Agents also contains mantic
texts concerning prognostication by yin and yang and the Five Agents,
including portents, hemerology, calendric astrology. A subsection
titled Turtle and Yarrow (*shi gui* Shi Gui ) contains
texts on turtle-shell and yarrow divination, including the *Zhou yi
(Zhou Changes),* the original text of the *Yi jing* or
*Book of Changes*. Two other subsections address Miscellaneous
Divination (*za zhan* Za Zhan ) and Morphoscopy
(*xing fa* Xing Fa ), including works on geography,
physiognomy, and topomancy.




Information on medicine and pharmacology appears in the sixth
section, Recipes and Methods. It includes works on medicine and
longevity, including medical classics, classical recipes, sexual arts,
and immortality practices. These chapters reflect the concerns and
expertise of the technical and ritual specialists closely associated
with the "Recipe Masters" (*fang shi*
Fang Shi ) associated with the Han court. But their concerns
also appear in early philosophical texts, and the separation of
philosophy from the categories of religion and science is artificial
and problematic (Harper 1998 and 1999; Kalinowski 2004). Recipes and
Methods (*fang ji* Fang Ji ) includes: Medical Classics
(*yi jing* Yi Jing ), Classical Recipes (*jing
fang* Jing Fang ), Sexual arts (*fang zhong*
Fang Zhong ) and Immortality practices (*shen xian*
Shen Xian ).




Several things are striking about this categorization. The first is
the relative confinement of "Chinese philosophy" to the
first two (or arguably three) sections of the Treatise, particularly
the Masters section. The eight sections of the Masters category include
most of the texts of early Chinese philosophy. They are grouped under
the rubrics of: "Ru" (*Ru jia* Ru Jia ,
often mistranslated as "Confucian"), Daoists (*Dao
jia* Dao Jia ), *Yin-yang* (*Yin-yang jia*
Yin Yang Jia ), Legalists (*Fa jia*
Fa Jia ), Names (*Ming jia* Ming Jia ) Mohists
(*Mo jia* Mo Jia ), vertical and horizontal alliances
(*Zong heng jia* Zong Heng Jia , also known as
"Militarists"), Miscellaneous (*Za jia*
Za Jia ), the school of Shen Nong (S*hen Nong jia*
Shen Nong Jia ) and Smaller Teachings (*Xiao Shuo*
Xiao Shuo ). But it is important to note that these are the
"schools" of Han anthologists and commentators. Recent
scholarship and the evidence of texts excavated from tombs has shown
the arbitrariness of these classifications. For example, texts
excavated from Guodian Guo Dian  and the so-called Shanghai
Museum texts resist classification as Ru or Daoist (*Shi ji*,
130, 3288-92; Csikszentmihalyi and Nylan 2003, Smith 2003).




A second important point is the very different preservation and
authorship of the first and second half of the Treatise. While the
first three sections contain many titles that are no longer extant,
they all contain significant numbers of extant texts. By contrast, the
last three sections consist almost entirely of the titles of lost
texts.




The two halves of the treatise also differ in their authorship. The
first three sections were compiled by Liu Xiang. The last three, by
contrast, were compiled by technical experts. The fourth
"Military Works" section of the Bibliographic Treatise was
compiled by Ren Hong Ren Hong , a Colonel of Foot Soldiers under
Han Chengdi (Yates 1988). The "*Shu shu*" category
was compiled by an astronomical official: the *Taishi*
Tai Shi  Yin Xian Yin Xian  (*Han shu*, 30,
1775). The Recipes and Methods section was compiled by the imperial
physician Li Zhuguo Li Zhu Guo . This distinction between
what appear to be three generalist and three specialist categories of
the Treatise can be seen as a continuation of Warring States claims for
the superiority of a flexible and general intellect over specific and
technical arts. In this kind of Warring States argumentation, claims
for comprehensive wisdom and universality sought to establish sole
possession of way of the sage kings of antiquity, of which competing
traditions possessed only part. Such claims appear in the
*Zhuangzi* and in attacks on competing schools by Xunzi and Han
Fei (Lewis 1999, Raphals 2008-2009). Thus the authors of Han
collectanea privileged generalists in their comprehensive syntheses of
competing traditions (Lewis 1999). In this way, the organization of the
Treatise asserted the superiority of general and universal knowledge
over military, mantic, and medical knowledge, deliberately framed as
technical and limited in nature.




Finally, Masters texts suggest active competition between the
textual specialists of the Masters schools and the technical experts
whose knowledge and expertise is reflected in the last three sections
of the Treatise. This competition involved career choice, patronage,
students and the status of genres and modes of knowledge. For
example, Michael Puett (2002) argues for an interwoven history of
interactions between *fang shi* and the court officials in which
court sponsored interpretations of ancient philosophical texts were in
part a response to the *fang shi*.




Late Warring States claims for the superiority of a flexible and
general intellect over specific and technical arts continued into the
Han dynasty. In particular, claims for universal and comprehensive
wisdom sought to establish sole possession of way of the sage kings of
antiquity, of which competing traditions possessed only part. This
attitude is reflected in the structure of Han collectanea, which also
privileged general and universal knowledge over any specialist
expertise, including science. The result is the formation and
propagation of two distinct and sometimes competing intellectual
communities of "philosophical" literary elites and
technical experts.


## 6. Social Contexts of Practitioners




There were important differences between the social and
institutional contexts of early philosophy and science, as well as
important differences between sciences. Masters textualists were
private individuals who often sought, but rarely achieved political
influence. By contrast, astronomy and calendrics in particular were
closely linked to government and court patronage, and from Han times
on, located in the Bureau of Astronomy (Loewe 1994, Raphals 2013, Sivin
2009).




A closer examination of what we know of some of the early
"scientists" shows close links to philosophical traditions.
The apocryphal founder of scientific thought in China was Zou Yan
Zou Yan  (305-240 BCE), who is associated with the so-called
"Yin-Yang school" (Yin-yang jia). Zou Yan is credited with
combining and systematizing yin-yang and the theory of Five Agents
(Needham 1956b: 231-34), but none of his works survive. Sima
Qian's biography in *Shi ji* 76 describes Zou Yan as a
member of the Jixia Ji Xia  Academy, originally from the state
of Qi (in present day Shandong). The Jixia Academy is also associated
with Warring States philosophers. Figures associated with it include
Mencius, Xunzi, the Mohist philosopher Song Xing, as well as Tian Pian,
Shen Dao, Peng Meng, and possibly Zhuangzi (Needham 1956a, 93; Sato
2003, 75-77). The Jixia Academy is also associated with the growth of
Huang-Lao Daoism (Graziani 2008). According to the *Shi ji*
biography of Zou Yan:



> 
> he examined deeply into the phenomena of the increase and decrease
> of yin and yang, and wrote essays totaling more than 100,000 words
> about their strange permutations, and about the cycles of the great
> sages from beginning to end. His sayings were vast and far-reaching,
> and not in accord with the accepted beliefs of the classics. First he
> had to examine small objects, and from these he drew conclusions about
> large ones, until he reached what was without limit. First he spoke
> about modern times, and from this he went back to the time of Huang Di.
> The scholars all studied his arts. Moreover he followed the great
> events in the rise and fall of ages, and by means of their omens and
> (an examination into their systems), extended his survey (still
> further) backwards to the time when the heavens and the earth had not
> yet been born, (in fact) to what was profound and abstruse and
> impossible to investigate.
> 
> 
> 
> He began by classifying China's notable mountains, great
> rivers and connecting valleys; its birds and beasts; the fruitfulness
> of its water and soils, and its rare products; and from this extended
> his survey to what is beyond the seas, and men are unable to observe.
> Then starting from the time of the separation of the Heavens and the
> Earth, and coming down, he made citations of the revolutions and
> transmutations of the Five Powers (Virtues), arranging them until each
> found its proper place and was confirmed (by history). (*Shi ji*
> ch 76, slightly modified from Needham 1956b, 232-33).
> 
> 
> 




On this account, Zou Yan's interests included both the
"classical" learning of the Masters traditions and direct
inquiry into natural phenomena, large and small. While this account
gives no indication of specific direct contact between Zou and Masters
textualists, it does suggest that the Jixia Academy patronized a range
of thinkers who included what we would today call both philosophers and
practitioners of the early sciences.




The *Han shu* describes Zou Yan as a "Recipe
Master" or *fang shi* Fang Shi . This term was
applied to a wide range of practitioners of medical, mantic and
technical arts. (The titles of their mostly lost works are listed
in the *shu shu* and *fang ji* sections of the *Han
shu* Bibliographic Treatise, discussed above.) *Fang
sh*i practiced divination and claimed to possess secret texts and
formulae. They gained great influence during the earlier part of the
Han dynasty, though their influence waned by the later Han (Kalinowski
2010; Ngo 1976). They used yin-yang and Five Agents cosmology, and seem
to have originated from the Shandong peninsula. They were particularly
associated with the mantic arts, including the use of the sexagenary
cycle of stems and branches, the *Yi jing*, and divination by
stars, dreams, physiognomy, the winds, and by the use of pitch pipes
(Li Ling 1993, 2000). The *fang shi* became an important
force in the Han court during the reign of Han Wu Di (r. 141-29 BCE),
but their origins are probably much older. Practices
attributed to them have clear antecedents in Warring States
philosophical texts such as the *Zhuangzi* and the "Inner
Cultivation" (*Nei ye*) chapter of the
G*uanzi*.




References to their presence in the court of Qin Shi
HuangQin Shi Huang  (259-210 BCE), who ruled Qin from
246 to 221. They remained influential to the early part of the Six
Dynasties (to the fourth century CE). Most came from outlying
regions, and gained influence for their skills in medicine,
astronomical prediction and omen interpretation, all of which were
linked to the growth of science in early China. They used
magico-medical practices on behalf of the health and vitality of the
emperor, but also introduced standardized measurement of time, space,
weight, and musical pitch.




An important source for our knowledge of their interests and expertise
is the collected biographies of *fang shi* are recorded in
the *Standard History of the Later Han* (*Hou Han shu*)
under the heading "Fang Techniques" (*fang sh*u
Fang Shu ). The preface lists their expertise and interests as:
fate calculation and prognostication, including astrology and the
prediction of eclipses), medicine and a variety of magical
practices. Over half of the fifty-seven specialists listed in the
collected biography (twenty-nine) practiced some form of astrology
(biographies 1, 11, 12,16, 18-20, 22, 23, 26, 27, 30-33,
35, 38-41, 43-46, 49, 51-53 and 55, as listed in
Kalinowski 2010, 359-66). But they were also credited with
expertise in classical texts and in Huang-Lao and Daoist
lore. (*Hou Han shu* 82A and 82B. Most of these techniques date
from the late Zhou. See Li Ling 1995 and Kalinowski 2010, especially
Appendix 2.)




In summary, although Masters textualists and *fang shi* had
some areas of overlapping expertise and interest, their practices and
textual lineages diverged in very different directions.


## 7. The Early Science(s)




I conclude with a brief account of areas of relation between Chinese
philosophy and the Chinese sciences, remembering that Chinese accounts
focused on specific sciences, rather than on one unified notion of
science. We find these primarily in the qualitative sciences of 
astronomy and astrology and medicine.



An important area of overlap between philosophy and science occurred
in cosmology, mathematics and calendrics. An important aspect of
cosmological interest is observational astronomy or astrology (*tian
wen*). In an important recent study of Chinese
archaeo-astronomy, David Pankenier (2013, 5) traces the Chinese
coordination of human activities with the observation and positions of
the sun, moon, and stars as far back as the Neolithic cultures of the
fifth millennium BCE. Written evidence of royal interest in stars
and winds clearly dates back to the Shang oracle bone inscriptions. As
Nathan Sivin (1990, 181) puts it: "The difference between
astronomy and astrology was a contrast of emphasis on the quantitative
as opposed to the qualitative and on objective motions as opposed to
the correlation between celestial and political events."



These areas have only slight links to philosophy. Astronomical
and astrological observation was an important part of court ritual,
since they were used to determine auspicious times for a wide variety
of events. It could be said that textualists approved of them as
an aspect of the conduct of ritual, but there was little philosophical
engagement with their details. (There are also slight but
important connections between philosophy and mathematics. This question
has been in many ways obscured by focus on the idea of mathematical or
logical proof and its presence or absence in China (Chemla 2012, Chemla
and Guo 2004).




During the Han dynasty, questions about the nature of the heavens
were pursued by the *fang shi* (discussed in section 2). Fang
expertise also included divination by the heavens, both by the stars,
and by interpreting sub-celestial phenomena, including weather, clouds,
mists, and winds (Ngo 1976, Li Ling 1993).




These activities were not invented by the *fang shi*. The
*Han shu Bibliographic Treatise* also provides evidence of
*fang* activity through the titles of lost books. Other evidence
comes from late Warring States and Han texts such as the *Lu
Shi chunqiu* and *Huainanzi*. The *Huainanzi*
contains several chapters of astronomical interest (Major 1993). One
passage describes the technical interests of the sage emperor Yu, who
ordered his officials to measure the distances to the ends of the earth
by pacing the distance to the eastern, western, northern and southern
extremities of the earth (*Huainanzi* 4, 56). The exact
numbers given are problematic to say the least, but the point is that
the sage rulers of antiquity, in legendary accounts, interested
themselves in the physical observation of the earth.




The third chapter of the *Huainanzi* ends with a section on
the use of the measurements cast by shadows (gnomons) to calculate
distances. This passage is probably a later addition, but for our
purposes, its inclusion in the *Huainanzi* is indicative of the
scientific concerns of the text. It gives directions for a series of
measurements, including how to determine the directions of sunrise,
sunset, and the cardinal directions. It also explains how to measure
the "breadth and length of east, west, north, and
south":



> 
> If you wish to know the figures for the breadth and length of east,
> west, north, and south set up four gnomons to make a right-angled
> figure one li square. More than ten days before the spring or autumn
> equinox sight along the northern gnomons of the square on the sun from
> its first appearance to its rise above the horizon. Wait for [the day
> when] they coincide. When they coincide they are in line with the sun.
> Each time take a sight on it [the sun] with the southern gnomons, and
> take the amount by which it is within the forward gnomons as the
> divisor. Divide the whole width and divide the length [between] the
> standing gnomons in order to know the measurements east and west from
> here (*Huainanzi* 3, 53-54, translation after Cullen 1976,
> 116).



Another area of potential Ru interest in astronomy is calendrics,
based on detailed observation of seasonal changes. One example is the
Monthly Ordinance (Yueling Yue Ling ) calendars of the
*Huainanzi*. Monthly Ordinances use Five Agents correlations to
specify the correct social, ritual, and agricultural activities for
each season. Rulers could use these texts to regulate state ritual
activities over the course of the year. The ordinances cover such
topics as state activities (fortification, planting, etc.) and the
consequences of performing activities at incorrect times. These are the
first texts in the received tradition to link the twenty-eight Lunar
Lodges to the months of the year, associating each month with a lodge,
which indicates the position of the sun among the stars for that month.
(Ancient Chinese astronomers divided the celestial equator around the
pole star into twenty-eight "lodges" (*xiu*
Su ), each named by a star within it and each comprising some 13
degrees (*du* Du ) of the circle.) The calendric tables
list the days of the year in stem-branch sexagenary order, with
annotations on the nature of different kinds of days, and which days
were auspicious or inauspicious for particular activities. (Such
calendars also appear in almost identical form in the *Guanzi*
and *Lu* *Shi chunqiu*, and were incorporated into
the *Li ji* in the Later Han dynasty. See *Guanzi*, chs.
3.8 and 3.9, Rickett 1985, 148-192) They also included monthly and
seasonal correlates. For example, the lodges were associated with the
position of the sun, and dusk and dawn correlated to the five
pentatonic tones, pitch pipe notes, numbers, tastes, smells, color of
the emperor's clothing, presiding deity, and yin and yang
sacrificial organs, all described in terms of the Five Agents (Major
1993, 220-225).




It is almost impossible to separate Chinese ideas of body, state,
cosmos and "nature." Nathan Sivin (1995, 3n1) points out
that there is no indigenous term for "nature" in China
before the nineteenth century. Over the course of the last three
centuries BCE, Chinese understandings of the physical world developed
to reflect, and mirror, political consolidation (Sivin 1995). These new
ideas of cosmic order--correspondence between microcosm (the body)
and macrocosm (the cosmos)--appeared in new representations of the
body, the state, and the cosmos that were based on systematic
applications and correlations of the ideas of yin and yang and of the
Five Agents (*wuxing*). They appear in medical texts such as the
*Huang Di neijing*, in calendrics, in observational astronomy
and the study of astronomical portents with political implications, and
in the "correlative cosmologies" of many Han dynasty texts
(Lloyd 1996, Lloyd and Sivin 2002).




Another important area of engagement between philosophy and medicine
was in the theory and practice of "nurturing life"
(*yang sheng* Yang Sheng ). *Fang shi* medical
practices and ideas included "recipes" for "Nurturing
Life." This broad category included a wide range of
self-cultivation techniques.



References to *yang sheng* techniques appear in both accounts
of self-cultivation in Masters texts and in the titles of (lost)
recipes in the *Han shu* Bibliographic Treatise. Mark
Csikzentmihalyi has argued that "material virtue"
traditions drawing on *yang sheng* techniques appear prominently
in the *Mencius* and in two versions of *the Wu xing*
Wu Xing  or "Five Kinds of Action" recovered from
Guodian and Mawangdui. These texts provide "a detailed moral
psychology describing the process of the cultivation of the
virtues" (Csikszentmihalyi 2004, 7). Mencius (2A2) famously
refers to "cultivating flood-like qi" and the third chapter
of the *Zhuangzi* is titled "The Lord of Nurturing
Life" (*Yang sheng zhu*). By contrast, references to
*yang sheng* in popular culture and in the recipes in the
"Recipes and Methods" section of the Treatise seem directly
concerned with health and longevity (V. Lo 2001 and 2005, Raphals
2008-2009).



*Yin-yang,* *q*i and the Five Agents also informed
medical theories, which were systematized in a cosmological framework
in the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine or *Huang
Di neijing* (Veith 1972, Unschuld and Tessenow 2011). This complex
and multi-layered text, probably compiled in the first century BCE,
presents a systematic cosmology that analogizes the body, the state,
and the cosmos in complex systems of "correlative
cosmology" (Graham 1986; Sivin 1995; Lloyd and Sivin 2002). For
example, the *Huang Di neijing* describes correspondence between
the articulations of the body and the cosmos, specifically between
heaven and earth and the upper and lower parts of the body, including
relations and analogies between body, state and the cosmos, all
expressed in terms of yin-yang and the Five Agents (*Huang Di
neijing lingshu,* 71.2, 446). Such correlations seem a far
cry from either cosmological speculation or empirical science in any
modern sense. Between those extremes stand the mostly lost arts of
technical traditions described in the *Han shu* Bibliographic
Treatise: astronomy, medical, pharmacological, and mantic arts, whose
practitioners were the counterparts and potential competitors of the
Masters textualists or philosophers (Lloyd and Sivin 2002). Expertise
initially developed by diviners and technical specialists became part
of the *Daode jing*, *Zhuangzi*, and *Huainanzi*.
It was also incorporated into the systematic cosmology and medicine of
the Han (Lloyd 1996, Lloyd and Sivin 2002). The *Huang Di
neijing* is listed (and first appears) in the Recipes and Methods
section of the *Han shu* Bibliographic Treatise under the
heading of Medical Classics (*Han shu* 30, 1776).




A particular problem raised by the application of yin-yang theory to
medicine was the implications of yin-yang theories for accounts of
gender (Furth 1986, Raphals 1998, Yates 2005), including the problem of
the androgyny of what Charlotte Furth calls "the Yellow
Emperor's body." Furth argues that the human body is
understood as androgynous before the development of gynecology in the
Song dynasty. These models of the body inform the early history of
*yin-yang* theory, and the gender analogies that form part of
that discourse. A central text to these analogies is the
*Huang Di neijing*, which is striking for its overall
androgyny. Overall, women are not specified as medically distinct
from men, and where they do occur, discussions of sexual difference are
usually linked to specific questions of fertility and reproduction
(e.g., *Huang Di neijing suwen* 1.3.8 and 7.2.26).




Of more interest for a consideration of science and philosophy are a
group of analogies in medical and philosophical texts between yin and
yang and male and female. They describe the conditions of men and women
by analogy with *yin* and *yang*, heaven and earth, and
sometimes right and left. For example, the statement that women and men
have opposite pulse patterns: "In women the right [pulse]
manifests opposition, the left manifests obedience; in men the left
[pulse] manifests opposition, the right manifests obedience"
(*Huang Di neijing suwen,* 15.2.45).




Theories of yin-yang, qi and Five Agents were applied to the
diagnosis and treatment of disease, using techniques such as acumoxa
and herbal medicine. These theories were also applied to
longevity practices designed to extend health and life and in some
cases to produce literal, physical immortality.




Another very important area of overlap between philosophy and
medicine is the significant number of important explicitly Daoist
thinkers who were also practicing physicians and authors of important
medical texts. (For more information on all these topics, see the
entry "Chinese Medicine and Chinese Philosophy".)


## Conclusions



In conclusion, this brief account addresses important issues in the
complex relations between philosophy and the early history of science
in China, especially as they informed the qualitative sciences of
medicine and astronomy, and their relations with early Chinese
philosophy overall. It shows that the harsh assessment of Chinese
philosophy quoted at the beginning of this essay over-simplifies
several complex questions. The work of Joseph Needham, Nathan Sivin and
others demonstrates that Chinese philosophy is not inherently
"anti-science." But it could be argued - and
persuasively in the view of this author - that the priorities
associated with the vexed term "Confucianism" have often
(though not always) steered Chinese philosophy away from scientific
concerns. A second question raised here is whether Chinese philosophy
contributes to science in ways that constitute a culturally specific
"Chinese science" that is different from modern science.
This point remains a locus of strong disagreement among historians of
science in China.