Whether there was “science” in ancient China, and whether Chinese medicine is scientific—on these questions I had previously read a set of polemical articles, and I found myself more inclined to support Tian Song’s view. Of course, if one thinks carefully about this issue, it is extremely complicated. Neither Tian Song nor the other discussants, as a rule, made clear just what “science” actually is. I have given this question some thought myself, but have not arrived at a satisfactory answer. Today I will only try to write down some preliminary ideas, and may add more later.
The question of whether “Chinese medicine” is scientific is in fact also a question about “what science really is.” Depending on how one understands the concept of “science,” one will get different answers to whether Chinese medicine is scientific.
I remember Wu Guosheng once dividing “science” into three levels in a lecture: “natural history,” science in the ancient Greek sense, and modern experimental science. If “natural history” counts as “science,” then plainly “Chinese medicine” belongs to “natural history” to some extent, and the Compendium of Materia Medica is one of the most important works of natural history.
But if one looks at it from the standpoint of the scientific spirit of ancient Greece, then Chinese medicine is hard to call “science.” For “science” is not “technology,” nor is it merely an accumulation of knowledge. In Nature and the Greeks, Schrödinger pointed out two important characteristics of ancient Greek natural philosophy: first, the belief that the world is ultimately knowable; second, the adoption of an objectifying perspective that removes the subject into the position of a detached observer. These two points are crucial to the establishment of “science.” Of course, this is not to say that ancient China lacked a pursuit of truth or lacked efforts to theorize knowledge; but objectification, analysis, reduction, and a passion for truth were far less prominent in China than in ancient Greece. The Chinese placed greater value on practicality—though this is not to say that Westerners did not value practicality as well, only that the relative priority is very important. At the very least, judged by the “scientific spirit” inherited from ancient Greece, the forms of theory and technology in ancient China were altogether different. If one were to call those forms science, it would only create conceptual confusion. In fact, many scholars who emphasize that ancient China had science often mean this: ancient China had science, only it was not as developed as in the West; it was the primitive stage of science. As Li Shen says in the article “Also on Whether Ancient China Had Science?”: “Ancient China had science, because the ancient Chinese were also understanding the natural world and were also making many judgments. These judgments were not so systematic, the theories were not so rigorous, but they were also results of humanity’s understanding of the natural world, a stage in the development of science.” (Wang Hongbo and Ma Jianbo, eds., Crossing the Chasm—Science in Cultural Perspective, Fujian Education Press, 2002, p. 110.) I oppose this view—even if we broaden the concept of science somewhat, then “Chinese medicine” and the like can indeed be called “alternative science” in the sense that it is an “alternative” with a completely different system and mode of formation. Chinese medicine and Western science may perhaps stand to each other as frog and toad, rather than as tadpole and frog.
Finally, judged by the standard of “modern experimental science,” Chinese medicine on the contrary has the possibility of becoming “scientific” (after being transformed). As Tian Song said: “Chinese medicine” has become “Chinese materia medica.” For although Chinese medicine, in terms of its theories of yin and yang, the five phases, meridians, and so on, cannot be recognized as “scientific,” its effects can withstand experimental testing. We can use the “double-blind method” to verify the efficacy of Chinese herbal medicine, acupuncture, and so forth, thereby proving that “Chinese materia medica” conforms to science. It may even be possible to use test tubes to analyze and refine the medicinal effects of Chinese materia medica, just as Western medicine does. In short, if “Chinese medicine” is transformed into “Chinese materia medica,” then one can quite plausibly say that it is “scientific.” But Chinese medicine is not limited to what Chinese materia medica can encompass. The four diagnostic methods that Chinese medicine emphasizes—observation, listening and smelling, inquiry, and palpation—especially pulse-taking, are very difficult to explain in a scientific way either qualitatively or quantitatively. The doctrines of yin and yang, the five phases, the meridians, qi, and so on are the foundation of Chinese medicine’s theoretical system; if these are completely stripped away, then Chinese medicine would probably long since no longer be Chinese medicine.
February 25, 2006
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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