Chinese Thought, Society, and Science: The Intellectual and Social Background of Science and Technology in Pre-Modern China
Chinese Thought, Society, and Science: The Intellectual and Social Background of Science and Technology in Pre-Modern China
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press | ISBN: 0824813340 | edition 1991 | CHM | 456 pages | 12 mb
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press | ISBN: 0824813340 | edition 1991 | CHM | 456 pages | 12 mb
The Chinese have given the world paper, printing, porcelain, gunpowder, the mariner's compass and other inventions important to the history and development of science. Yet it was Europe, not China, that experienced the scientific and technological revolution that transformed the world from the 17th century onward. In this study, Derk Bodde examines the cultural requisites for science and technology in early China and other pre-modern civilizations. Bodde focuses on the wide range of intellectual and social forces that may have favoured or disfavoured the development of science and technology in China - forces overwhelmingly humanistic, such as the written classical language, concepts of time and space, religious attitudes, theories of government and society, moral and social values, and attitudes toward nature. He also compares and contrasts similar factors in the West.