http://hps.phil.pku.edu.cn/bbs/read.php?tid=183
Time: Friday, November 30, 2007, 3:00–5:00 p.m.
Place: Academic Lecture Hall, Center for Science and Society, Chengze Garden
Speaker: Liu Bing, Professor, School of Humanities, Tsinghua University
Topic: The History of Science and the Multiculturalism of Science
Commentator: Su Xiangui
Today we were fortunate enough to have Teacher Liu Bing grace us with his presence, and there were many listeners as well. Teacher Liu’s lecture was full of passion, and the discussion that followed was even livelier.
Teacher Liu first laid some groundwork by talking about a few things that are common knowledge, and then focused mainly on Needham as an example while extending the discussion further. Teacher Liu pointed out that the crux of the Needham question lies in the fact that Needham’s way of posing the question was completely based on European science as the frame of reference. In the end, Teacher Liu mentioned Sarton’s “pyramid model,” namely “science—seeking truth,” “religion—seeking goodness,” and “art—seeking beauty” as the three sides of a pyramid, saying that from below they seem far apart from one another, whereas the higher the level one stands on, the closer they appear to be; in the end, they all converge on the same destination. Teacher Liu then invoked the metaphor of “the blind men feeling an elephant,” and on that basis proposed an ontological model of the pluralization of science.
I won’t sort out and retell the lecture content in more detail and in full here; I’m not very good at that sort of thing either……
Teacher Liu called today’s talk perhaps a bit “folk philosophy,” and the key point in that respect was probably the part about “ontology.” It is easy to see that this ontological “blind men feeling an elephant” became the focus of the later discussion. When Su Lao commented, he questioned whether this elephant-feeling metaphor might not be quite appropriate; later, Teacher Liu Huajie, Teacher Wu Guosheng, Teacher Sun Yongping, and others also raised doubts about the elephant-feeling issue from different angles. Questions from Teacher Zhou, Teacher Ren, and Teacher Wu were also, to varying degrees, related to this elephant-feeling ontology, so below I’ll mainly write about this aspect of the discussion.
First of all, “the blind men feeling an elephant” already presupposes the existence of a real, unified “elephant.” Teacher Liu Huajie mentioned that perhaps this is not the case; maybe what you are feeling is a horse, he is feeling a cow, and I am feeling a mouse—what everyone feels is not the same thing. Teacher Liu’s response was that the blind men feeling an elephant is only a metaphor, so one should not concretize the “elephant.” But I think the problem here is not simply whether one understands it concretely or abstractly. Whether taken concretely or abstractly, the metaphor of the blind men feeling an elephant at least presupposes one thing: that the elephant as ontology is unified and natural, that is, self-so. And although the process of “feeling” (knowing) may cause the impressions presented to the blind men to differ, it does not change the ontology; the ontology is natural, “just as it is.” What is involved here is precisely the “discovery of nature” and its homogeneity, which is where ancient Greek science made its distinctive contribution, whereas other cultures either took a negative attitude toward these beliefs or held ambiguous positions.
As Teacher Wu said, once one talks about “ontology,” once one talks about that “elephant,” a “monistic model” comes out. Teacher Liu also admitted that in the most ultimate sense (in some very mystical sense), it is not a bad idea to assume “monism.” Why make such an assumption? Teacher Liu said it was for “psychological comfort,” in order to remove “psychological barriers.” This ontological model is meant to explain how those inconsistent sciences can all be effective and can coexist.
But even so, many problems remain unresolved. For example, as Teacher Sun said, among the blind men feeling the elephant, is there no possibility of comparison? Isn’t modern science precisely the one that has felt the elephant better and more comprehensively? Teacher Liu still said not to concretize the elephant; the success of modern science perhaps need not be understood as a superiority inherent in it, but rather as due to other external factors, and so on. I think this comparison among the various elephant-feelers really is a problem. If people who feel the elephant differently can communicate and reach consensus—for instance, I’ve felt half of the elephant’s rump, you’ve felt the other half, and when we meet at the boundary and exchange ideas, we absorb each other’s gains, and together that counts as having felt the whole rump—then if some blind man works hard enough, he may be able to bring the insights of several other blind men entirely within his own scope. But that sounds more like a monistic line of thought in which things are mutually “reduced.” Communication among plural sciences is not that simple; the disagreements among the parties seem not to be something that can merely be understood as “what you felt is only a small piece, what I felt is another small piece.”
Perhaps one could say that the ontological metaphor of “the blind men feeling an elephant” is not meant to provide comfort for pluralists, but rather for monists. For example, Chinese medicine and Western medicine are inconsistent both in theory and in practice, but why can they nonetheless coexist effectively? Because their perspectives are different, and they feel different parts. Then how does one obtain more comprehensive and complete knowledge? Then it must be through integration; if Chinese medicine can be absorbed into Western medicine, or Western medicine into Chinese medicine, that unquestionably broadens the perspective—that is what we should pursue.
Using the distinction from the article I posted on the forum a few days ago (http://hps.phil.pku.edu.cn/bbs/read.php?tid=127): this is a “seeking common ground while reserving differences” approach. What is called pluralism here is a “tolerance” of the actual state of plurality. The very idea of positing a unified “ontology” provides psychological comfort for accepting the reality that multiple forms can coexist without being unified. But in terms of goals, one is still seeking integration. What I envision as genuine pluralism, however, is not merely to tolerate divergence, but to pursue divergence. By my standard, this kind of “blind men feeling an elephant” pluralism is not thoroughgoing. Or, as Teacher Wu said, this kind of pluralism is only a survival strategy. Teacher Wu commented that Teacher Liu did not clarify at what level monism and pluralism were being discussed. Teacher Wu said that a true pluralist is impossible: everyone must always maintain the consistency of their own thought; one cannot say one moment “a,” then “not a,” and then claim to be a pluralist in order to wriggle out of it. But what Teacher Wu raised here is a question at the most basic level; Teacher Liu’s ambiguity may not lie here. Still, I want to say that beyond this level, one can also distinguish different levels of pluralism, such as seeking common ground while reserving differences and reserving common ground while seeking differences, and so on.
That said, I myself still support this ontological metaphor of “the blind men feeling an elephant.” I once saw in Pang Sifen’s The Tree of Philosophy that he interpreted the pluralism he endorsed as “perspectivism,” and I think this term is quite apt when used here. But metaphors, after all, are mainly meant to be illuminating; when employing them, one still needs deeper discussion and finer distinctions.
Today I was delayed by many things before I got around to writing this, and I don’t remember many of the issues very clearly, so I’ll stop here. I hope other students and teachers will continue to comment or discuss.
November 30, 2007
I just forgot to mention that Teacher Liu restricted the concept of “science” to mean “human beings’ systematic understanding of the natural world.” Although Teacher Liu said that questions such as what is meant by “the natural world,” what is meant by “systematic,” and what is meant by “understanding” need not be pursued too deeply for the time being, I think some questions cannot be made clear without pursuing them. At the very least, the term “natural world” is not only part of the Western tradition, but also modern rather than ancient Greek. Moreover, does the so-called “ontology” refer precisely to “the natural world”? If ontology does not refer to the natural world, then does it refer to “essence,” that is, to “nature”? These are all lines of thought from the Western tradition. But if ontology is not the natural world, then how can science, whose aim is to understand the natural world, possibly touch upon the ultimate “ontology”?
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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