I am about to edit and publish my lecture notes on the history of science. The original title was to be *Fifteen Lectures on the History of Science*, but the editor suggested changing it to a more eye-catching main title. After wracking my brains, I came up with this phrase: “Outdated Wisdom.” What follows is my explanation of this title, or perhaps it can serve as the first section of the preface or introduction. Of course, this title has not been finalized; suggestions and naming proposals from teachers and friends are always welcome~
Studying Outdated Things with a Clear Conscience
When we say that something “has become history,” we often mean that it has already become “outdated.”
Today’s physicist need not cite Newton’s claims, and today’s astronomer certainly should not go fiddling with Copernicus’ model, because for today’s science, Newton and Copernicus—much less Aristotle or Ptolemy—“have long since become history.” For the modern academic world, where things change by the day, even a paper from ten years ago may already be outdated, let alone the ideas of the ancients.
But what the history of science is meant to study and tell is precisely those things that have long been outdated for science.
So why are those outdated things still worth mentioning? Shouldn’t outdated things be completely discarded?
Indeed, Aristotle’s natural philosophy was completely discarded; Ptolemy’s astronomy, scholastic philosophy, alchemy, and so on were all completely discarded. If today’s scholar were still using the style of empirical philosophy to discuss the nature of the philosopher’s stone, he would surely be scorned by the mainstream scientific community.
And yet why should we go picking up those outdated things in the history of science?
Some writers are evasive and unwilling to admit that they care about outdated things; they argue that the methods and conclusions of the ancients always contain some elements that have not become outdated, some essence that was eventually inherited by modern people, and that this is what the history of science should focus on. This is what I referred to in the first lecture as the Bergsträsser-style way of writing history: in their eyes, Huang Daopo is more important than Aristotle. In fact, what this kind of author cares about is not “history,” but ahistorical things, those seemingly eternal scientific truths.
Other authors talk quite openly about outdated things, but only from a certain “curiosity-seeking” mindset; in fact, they are no more concerned with what relation these outdated things have to our present reality.
My history of science, however, attempts to speak legitimately about outdated things—it is not because they have retained some essence that they matter, but because “being outdated” itself is what matters.
The word “outdated” is not just a label pasted onto a thing; it contains a dynamic process of change—outdated things were first of all fashionable. At some point in time they were useful or correct, and their status evolved as times changed, so that in another era they became “out of step.”
Thus every outdated thing reveals the mystery of an age—why was it once admired, and why is it now despised?
It is easy for us to stand on our own position and reject those things—they were wrong, they were stupid. Yet only when we can grasp the transformation of an era as a whole is it possible to truly understand how “outdatedness” could come to be.
If a modern person insists on heliocentrism, we may denounce him as foolish; yet the reason ancient people accepted heliocentrism was not foolishness. Thousands of years of evolutionary history do not make modern people born much smarter than the ancients; the ancients were not fools. The reason those wise ancient scholars accepted things that later became outdated was the world of their own time; and the reason we no longer accept those things is also the world of our own time. “Outdated” does not mean foolish or wrong, but simply “out of step.”
Ancient people held prejudices and misconceptions because of their historical background, but do we modern people no longer have prejudices and misconceptions? Ancient science has become history, but has modern science really stepped outside history?
Reading history can at least teach us humility: the reason we are wiser than the ancients is only that we have experienced more “history” than they did, and thus have a broader perspective. But if we abandon history, imagining that we have stepped outside history altogether; if we understand the “in-step”ness of the ancients as ignorance and stupidity, while mistaking the “in-step”ness of our own age for an eternal standard that transcends the times, then we too will eventually become self-satisfied and stagnant.
In the history of science, we see how ancient scientists were trapped by their prejudices and fixed patterns of thought, and how they in turn broke through their own times and established new fashions. From outdated things, what we investigate is the mystery of an age; through them we feel the historical limitations of the ancients, and we also explore the limitations of our own age.
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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