Ancient China: The Degeneration of the State and the Critical Question

Having gorged ourselves on enough theory, let us return now to the previous discussion.

A small recap (with pictures!).   I had said previously that the prevailing norms of a society (structure, religious values, moral code, etc.) has an effect on the types of questions pondered by that civilization - which includes questions that we would identify today as being part of the domain of Science.

So we want to ask:  What happened when this....

....became this...

The first map shows the borders of the later half of the Zhou dynasty, when the Zhou kings were in decline. 

A Side Note: Notice the size of the actual Zhou State in comparison to the rest of China as it exists today.

The second map shows the Spring and Autumn Era, when the veneer of Zhou kingship is at its breaking point.   Most of the states that you see on the map: Qin, Qu, Wu, Jin, Yan, Qi, Lu, etc. were at this times openly maneuvering against one another while still paying lip services to the Zhou King.

To make things simple, think of the following:

Map 1: Unified Polity.

Map 2: Warring States competing for Supremacy.


How we got from Map 1 to Map 2 was a rather large time interval wherein the people of Ancient China enjoyed a rather lengthy period of peace and prosperity due to the Zhou System.

The System, fengjian in Chinese, has often been compared to Medieval Feudalism in Western Europe.  Its manner of operation would work something like this.

                 1.) The Zhou State either conquers or incorporates a new piece of territory.
                
                 2.) In order to bring the area under control, the Zhou king delegates authority to an individual
                      who shall rule over this piece of territory in his name.

                 3.) The Vassals in most cases were kinsmen, who owed loyalty to the ruling house based on a
                       mix of history and a strong religious sentiment about the role of kingship. [See previous
                       blogpost regarding Tian.]

                       Even vassals who were not related by blood, such as local power-holders who were
                       voluntarily incorporated into the Zhou State, owed fealty to the Zhou King as they were
                       beneficiaries of the system.

                       In essence the Vassals, whatever their origin, were as Benjamin Schwartz stated "the fence
                       and protecting wall of the Zhou dynasty."

 Now i'm sure this all sounds very familiar to those who understood how European Feudalism operated, except there are two small points that need to be raised about differences.

• The Zhou King is the apex of political and religious life.   

          Given the manner in which the Zhou Kings justified their rule (personal relationship with Heaven, a
          transcendent power), the Zhou Kings were the ultimate authorities within Ancient China.  The
          political wrangling between the Church and various States did not exist here.  The Zhou King was
          both Monarch and Pope combined.

• There is a Proto-Bureaucratic element within the Fengjian System.

          The rise of Bureaucracy in the West came with the advent of the modern Nation-State.   A type of
          "bureaucracy" was already forming within the Chinese feudal systems revolving around the dictates of
          the Zhou King's court.    This was not a meritocracy however, as kinsmen were usually appointed to
          positions.  The offices and their portfolios were quite vague and often fluctuated.


So, what's the takeaway?    Here's a hint, think a Chinese Peasant.

During the Era of Map 1 - what does Mr. Peasant see?    Yeah sure, this isn't a democratic society where political leaders are often competing to keep you happy, but for the time period the Zhou State seems perfect.  

There is Order.  Crimes are Punished.  You can go about the business of living, acquiring wealth, and getting that 4th or 5th wife if you are lucky.

Best of all, the Supreme Ruler, the Guy who Commands your Local Ruler, he's the Best Friend of God (or the Universe).   His State encompasses the Known World.   His moral and ritual actions keep humanity as a whole in tune with the Cosmos.

And then we hit the Era of Map 2 - and the whole system Crashes and Burns.

That Order which your father and father's father, etc. lived under just got thrown out the window.

That State which you believed wasn't some kind of contrivance of Man but was as natural as a blue sky or the rocky ground, has fallen apart.

What do you do?

Well if you are a Chinese Peasant, you are probably suffering greatly at this time period.  That or you were dead.

But if you are a member of that lower-rank of nobles who are looking at their superiors waste resources and lives (perhaps even your own if you aren't too careful), then you may start to wonder.

And with wondering comes the Critical Question -  What is the Dao?

Dao being Chinese for "The Way."  So it could be asked, "What is the Way?"

As in "What is the Way that we can Fix things?"

Where is the Road Back toward Map 1, when life was relatively Better.

Heck, some start to argue for the Road Back to the time Before Map 1, even before the Shang Dynasty which the Zhou replaced.  Some wished to find a way to return to the days of the Ancient Sage Kings who ruled without avarice or force.

So a political crisis serves to jumpstart Chinese philosophy with that critical question.  

But that question, What is the Dao?, will serve to ignite speculation in a variety of different fields.    The Search for the Way will take thinkers well beyond the boundaries of politics and ethical philosophy as contemplation turns to the Natural World in the hopes of finding a solution.

And here lies the beginning of Chinese science.

Foundations: And Finally..Religion and Science in Different Cultures

Since the early debates about Evolution in the 1990s and the tragic circumstances of 9/11, its rather safe to say that if you've live somewhere in the Western world you have undoubtedly tripped over the great debate about Religion's relationship to Science.

I would really really love to avoid all the polemics involved in that debate, often dubbed by professional historians of science as the "warfare thesis."  Mainly because, I don't really find the whole exercise to be intellectually fruitful or stimulating.

But, for the purposes of this blog, we need to address the differences in the relationship of Religion and Science between the cultures we are investigating.

1.) The great big "firewall" that exists between science and religion/spirituality in the West does not exist in Asia. 

We should recognize that the reason we divide up our mental activities into categories such as "religion" or "philosophy" or "science" in the first place is a direct outcome of the trajectory of Western civilization.   The advent of Christianity in the West resulted in a predominate religious institution, the Catholic Church, whose internal hierarchy and authority was nearly autonomous from the various states it resided in.   That separation of religious and civil concerns was further accelerated by the secularization of the West.



Long Story Short:  Religion has slowly fallen out of orbit with the rest of the other academic disciplines or fields of knowledge so that it is considered merely a private concern.

Contrast this for a moment with the Chinese experience, where religious institutions were tied to and regulated by the state.  In essence, religious establishments and the issues they specialized in where never considered "separate" or autonomous from the State.

2.) Religion, as a category of thought, was not demarcated as such in the traditional civilizations of China and India.

We got the same exact problem with chopping up religion in these cultures that we did with trying to chop up what could be considered as science in these places.   Their historical experiences simply did not differentiate these subjects in the manner in which we did.

Which leads to the interesting situation where Metaphysical Ideas are shared in common between science, philosophy, and religion in historical India and China. 

I would argue that this is probably one of the reasons why many people tend to look upon Asian philosophy and spirituality as being holistic.   You can derive a type of Organic Interlocking view of the world where disparate disciplines seem to have underlying connections with one another.

Follow the chain of logic:

1.) Philosophy in Asia, regardless of its speculative nature, had the conduct of human life as its  ultimate concern.

2.) Conduct generally amounted to following a Metaphysical Idea, like Dharma or the Dao, which would make one ethically good and happy.

3.) The reason why it would make one ethically good and happy, is because following the Dharma or Dao would essentially mean your life is in accord with the natural patterns of the universe.

4.) Consequently the reverse is true.   Failing to follow these ethical rules not only causes disruption or social embarrassment, it threatens the natural order.

As one can guess, this is quite different from the manner in which the West approaches the same type of concerns and issues.  Modern man generally denies that there is a connection between ethics and the structure of the universe.   One is "made up" and the other is "real."


Those who reject this disjunction between Man and the Universe have, since the 1960s, generally "gone East" in search of wisdom that might reconnect the two.  However, they did so on their own terms.
Take for example the fact that Indian and Chinese spirituality is often associated with modern counterculture.   Yet the hedonistic tendencies of that counterculture do not show up in the traditional sources.

Whereas the West is given over to Protest and Rebellion, the East tends to advocate a Withdrawal from the World.  That links back into the whole "Follow the Natural Order" business.

The answer to social problems and dilemmas in classical India or China were not necessarily greeted by calls for social change (which itself is a big shot in the arm toward innovation and scientific development).   Rather the solution was thought to be in a return to the pre-established order.

Extol exemplary behavior, make sure Ritual Observances were not neglected, and punish those who violated social roles or propriety.


If not, then understand that you have gone against Nature itself.   Prepare to suffer the Wrath of Heaven.

Foundations: Metaphysics and Cross-Cultural Issues

There are unique issues to studying the history of science in Asia and drawing comparisons with the West, namely that there is no self-conscious category within either India or China that corresponds to the notion of modern science or even natural philosophy.

So our first order of business is to figure out what cultural elements or techniques within traditional Chinese and Indian civilization can overlap with our current notions of science.  

We need to be careful here for a second - remember that concern I brought up in a previous blogpost about "cherry-picking" results?   Our goal isn't just to use the current body of scientific knowledge as a standard and rifling through history to see what these ancient peoples got right.   Trust me, it would probably be a very short exercise.

Rather what we need to do is correlate intellectual and practical activities between civilizations. 
Sometimes its going to be very easy to do that.  Heck, I can do that for you right now.  How about: 

Modern Biomedicine vs. Traditional Chinese Medicine vs. Ayurveda.

Western Astronomy vs. Chinese Astronomy vs. Indian Astronomy

Particle Physics vs. Yin/Yang Dualism vs.  the Hindu school of Advaita Vedanta

Yeah - i know what your thinking.  "Wait!!  The Last one doesn't sound right!"   Comparing medicine and astronomy across cultures seems a lot more intuitive because they are concrete practices that informed by theoretical ideas.

It is a lot harder to compare the theoretical ideas themselves with each other.

But I believe this highlights a point that I am yet again going to stress to you.  

Remember, how did we define Science again?   Instead of a wordy definition, let's just use a quick breakdown.
    1.) Focus = External World
    2.) Approach = Systematic (collect knowledge, generate hypothesis)
    3.) Development = Self-Corrective (Modify or kick out older theories when they fail)
    4.) Method = Experimentation (in order to accomplish 3)
As you may recall from the previous blogpost, Number 4 is the kicker.   Without the notion of empirical investigation, we can't really validate what we claim.

ie:  I can come up with a theory in the field of Particle Physics as to how matter (and therefore the universe) is constructed, but it won't be accepted as true until I can demonstrate it via a set of experiments.

Contrast this with the notions of Yin/Yang Dualism and Advaita Vedanta, which incidentally inform some practices within traditional Medicine and Astronomy in China and India.

Scientific statements, by their nature, can be disproven.   These two ideas can't - they are metaphysical.   

LET ME BE EMINENTLY CLEAR ABOUT THIS - i am not saying that Yin/Yang Dualism and Advaita Vedanta are wrong or right for that matter.   Rather, because they are metaphysical propositions which deal with what is beyond direct experience they cannot be empirically verified or falsified.

Metaphysical statements tend to be the products of pure thought and therefore cannot be considered scientific.  I can't run an experiment and prove to you the existence of Chi or Yin/Yang.

Now for the theoretician and historian, this is all just fascinating and perfectly fine.  The comparative approach we are undertaking will simply bring into focus why things developed differently.

But for those interested in the practical application of disciplines informed by these concepts, a standard reaction would probably go something like... "WTF!?   Why are people even engaging in these types of practices?  Why do they do Tai Chi or use Ayurveda and TCM if they can't prove it scientifically?  Shouldn't we just ban all of these outdated practices and be done with it?"

Stop.  Right.  There.

Think on the following:

    1.) I point to the sky and say it is blue because it is made of Smurfs.
                  

  You know, Smurfs. - La la la la la la.   etc.

    2.) You say i'm crazy, because Smurfs do not exist.

    3.) But does that make the sky any less Blue?

 Of course not - my explanation is wrong but the Phenomena is still verifiable.   And as such we can Test that.

Again, I should note and beat into your head that not once during this whole blogpost have I actually disproven any of these metaphysical concepts.   Not once.

However, even if you are skeptical about these things, you don't have to "buy into" Chi or the Three Gunas to accept the validity of say certain methods or formulas in Chinese Medicine.    You can still focus on Outcomes through testing.

A further thought of the systematic thinkers amongst you.

Does a system of interpretation necessarily need to be correct in order to derive useful results?

Could a set of ideas retain a form of internal logic or consistency within a practice?

Or to put it more plainly - Do all the assumptions in a body of knowledge need to be correct in order for it to "work?"

Foundations: Modern Science in Reverse - Natural Philosophy, Knowledge, and Know-How

In my last blogpost, I stated that we couldn't just examine the history of science by simply looking back at the past, picking out examples of technologies or methods that anticipate the modern discipline, and just rubber stamping our approval of it.

From a purely historical perspective, such an action would deny us a true picture of how people in previous times and eras conceived of the world they lived in.

Furthermore, for those of interested in making comparisons between the West and other civilizations' understanding and methods of investigating Nature, we would need to be cognizant of certain key ideas that may have existed in one culture but do not exist in another. 

With that in mind, I propose that we reverse engineer the Modern Natural Sciences, in order to comprehend the assumptions that lay behind this enterprise.

Moving backward in time......



1.) Although the accumulated body of knowledge which we call Science is ever-changing, the outlines and boundaries of the discipline we are familiar with were formed largely in the 19th century.

This was the period of time when the word scientist, a term coined by the philosopher William Whewell, entered into public discourse to identify a trained professional class who were paid to examine the natural world.  Consequently, this is also the era where the formal concept of peer review appears, which we can define as the repetition of experiments by colleagues in order to verify their results.  

At the heart of this field of study lays the scientific method, which is essentially the observation of natural phenomena through the use of controlled and repeatable experiments.

ie:  "I take this substance, i alter these conditions in its environment, i let it perform a given action.  The result is observed and measured."

It is the drive toward experimentation that is the defining characteristic of modern science.

Taking the results of our experiments, we then try to develop laws or generalized explanations of why this experiment produced these results.  The hope is to eventually develop a theory that generates predictions that can be tested.

However, this dependence on experimentation as the key ingredient to establish the veracity of theories was not always held to be the case.

2.) Prior to the rise of modern science, the central category for inquiry into the workings of Nature was a field of study called natural philosophy.  Although sharing a number of similarities, the manner in which Natural Philosophy organized man's understanding of Nature differs with the modern approach on a number of issues.  Two major points must be stressed.

Method - Instead of experimentation, natural philosophers generally preferred a much more speculative approach that made use of historical or anecdotal observations of empirical phenomena.  The philosophical tradition relied heavily on the authority of the Greek Philosopher Aristotle, who favored a type of deductive abstract reasoning instead of the inductive experimentalist method for deriving truths about the natural world.

Furthermore, Aristotle's theory on substances defined the basis for matter in terms of essential forms and qualities, which is quite different from our modern understanding of physical properties.

An Example:  Why is Snow white?

Modern Science - "Snow, which is a configuration of water molecules below a specific temperature, carries certain physical properties.  These properties are transmitted to the sensory organ of your eyes via light, which possess a specific type of behavior under normal circumstances.  The light stimulates receptors on your eyes which sends a signal to your brain via an optic nerve and which is interpreted as the color white."

Aristotlean - "Because Snow possess the Quality of Whiteness in it.   The Quality/Property/Attribute may be deemed essential - in other words it is an attribute that makes any entity or substance what it fundamentally, and without which it loses its identity."

As you can see, two very different ways of reasoning about a natural phenomenon.


3.)  Relationship to Technology - The other issue that needs to be pointed out, is that Natural Philosophy's relationship with technology is very different from Modern Science.   We often associate technological innovation with new discoveries or refinements of scientific principles.  

This was not always the case.   The theoretical "understanding" of the world (philosophy) was very much divided from the practical aspects/methods associated with technology.  

An example:  Does a farmer need to know biology, geology, and meteorology to grow crops?

Of course not - while those fields are quite helpful in the process and planning of farming, the theoretical knowledge does not equate with the practical know-how of growing crops.

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The Point of This Whole Blog

Think about this for a second.

When we are drawing comparisons between the ways people look at nature in different cultures, we need to be very carefully as to what we are in fact comparing.

We need to acknowledge that up until the 20th century, a vast swath of humanity lacked the conception of Modern Science. 

These civilizations may have had teachings or philosophies that approximate the Western conception of natural philosophy.   However, their starting assumptions about the way the Cosmos, Nature, and Man work are in fact different from the Western tradition.

But what we definitely know all civilizations had, was know-how/technology.  

So fields like Astronomy, Metallurgy, and Medicine exist in all of these places - except that they lacked a unifying framework.

Whereas we could group all these disciplines under the Natural Sciences, these indigenous cultures lack the category and theoretical underpinning to do just that.

   

Foundations: What IS Science?

So, let's jump to the heart of the matter - the whole point of the blog.

 Question 1: What IS Science?

Sounds like a simple question.  Although we all have an intuitive sense of what Science is, allow me to refer to the Oxford Companion's definition:

"Modern Science is a discovery as well as an invention.  It was a discovery that nature generally acts regularly enough to be described by laws and even by mathematics; and required invention to devise the techniques, abstractions, apparatus, and organization for exhibiting the regularities and securing their law-like descriptions."

Or to put it more plainly, Science is a systematic enterprise to investigate the natural world and form testable explanations and predictions about that world.  Usually this results in the creation of technologies and techniques that allow us to shape our environment - for better or worse.

But our definition of modern science, whether it refers to the accumulated body of knowledge or the methodology used, was not a timeless axiom.   Science as we understand it today, was an outcome of a centuries long process that involved continual shifts of mankind's perception and relationship with the natural world.

This presents a problem for those interested in either:

1.) History of Science and its development in Western Civilization.

2.) Comparison of Modern Science toward alternative understandings of the world from other Cultures.

Think about it this way - if we only label past historical practices (whether coming out of the West or another region), as "scientific" insofar as they reflect our modern understanding then all we're going to get is a distorted caricature of the beliefs of people in previous times.

To quote the historian David C. Lindbergh:

"Distortion would be inevitable because science has changed in content, form, method, and function.   We would not be responding to the past as it existed, but looking at the past filtered through a grid."

What Mr. Lindbergh is describing is "Whiggism," a type of historical lens which only concerns itself with developments in the past that lead directly to the current outcome.

Question 2:  Ok I get all that.  But, how does the point you raise feed into the other stated goal of comparing non-Western practices whose concerns overlaps with modern Science's focus on Nature?

Too often there are attempts to either conflate or disavow these different systems of thought or practices.

My approach is "simple" - let's just deconstruct the assumptions built into each viewpoint and see where they contrast.  

To do that in a comprehensive way, I've decided to adopt a historical view so we can see where those critical foundational differences popped up and why they did so in the first place.

However, I also know some of you could care less about why things turned out the way they did and you want to know how a concept like say Yin-Yang "works" or functions.  All I can tell those folks for now is to sit tight, as there will be future blogs that focus on the practical or applied portions of these concepts.   

Question 3: So, what now?

Many of you who have started to read my China blogposts are beginning to see how the ancient Chinese looked upon the world and humanity's place in it.  You are starting to see the pre-philosophical axioms and a priori cultural beliefs that held together the Chinese world order.

And next your going to see that intricate order crash into a brick wall.   From that wreckage, in the midst of that crisis will come what we know today as Chinese philosophy, a branch of which investigates the area we are interested - namely Nature.

But before we go any further with that, let's cover some important concepts that are necessary to understand before we attempt to do a comparison between Modern Science and the various metaphysical systems which it is often compared to.

Foundations: A Prologue

One of my friends who has been reading this blog from the start with great interest and enthusiasm made a comment to me recently that gave me pause regarding my blog posts (a long pause as you can probably guess).

The comment was simply, "Very interesting!  But what did the last few posts about ancient Chinese culture have to do with Chinese science?  Or the greater enterprise of comparative science and philosophy between the three cultures you've targeted?"

With that in mind, I felt it necessary to write a tighter theoretical framework for those who didn't want to lose the thread of the narrative.  For those who are simply interested in the tidbits I bring forth from philosophy, history of science, and the actual disciplines of the natural sciences you might want to skip the next few posts.   They will probably put you to sleep.

But for those seeking a scaffold or structure or at least a little insight into what will appear on this blog, you might want to pay some attention. 

So my stated goals are:

 1.) Understanding the history and development of the Natural Sciences in the West.  This would also imply figuring out all the political, social, cultural, theological, and philosophical inputs into what shaped our current understanding on how we investigate Nature.

 2.) Taking all of that in Number 1 and comparing it against alternative approaches to Nature found in two other great civilizations - India and China.   This also implies figuring out the major inputs cited above and how their assumptions differ from our own.

 3.)  Give special focus to the role of medicine in each of these societies, for the reasons I said in a blog post a while back.

Yeah - I know what you are thinking.  I'm trying to catch too many eggs in one basket.   But you see, the strange thing is that I do view all of these issues as being completely interconnected.  

To help folks along, I've decided to write a set of posts called "Foundations" - which will hopefully offer a road map to the reader for future posts.

As the great English writer John Donne wrote in his work Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, "No man is an Island, entire of himself, every man is a piece of the Continent."   So before launching into it, I would like to acknowledge the debt I owe to my teachers and scholars whose works I have oftened read and pondered on these matters.

If anything I write sounds halfway intelligible - praise them for I am merely a transmitter not an originator.