Discussion About The Rationality Of The "needham Question" And Its Inspiration

The inner logic of the standard statement of Joseph Needham Questions is in fact based on a syllogism as follows:Major premise: any civilization which was, between the first century B.C. and the fifteenth century A.D. and much more efficient than the occidental in obscuring knowledge and applying it to human needs was the possible birthplace of modern science.Minor premise: China was, between the first century B.C. and the fifteenth century A.D., much more efficient than the occidental in obscuring knowledge and applying it to human needs.Conclusion: therefore, China was the possible birthplace of modern science. This syllogism enables the rationality of "Joseph Needham Questions". To query the rationality of the questions means to query the two premises of this syllogism.As the two premises result from Joseph Needham's conception of the history of science which determines the reliability of the premises, any effort to question the rationality of the Questions has to focus on his conception of the history of science.His conception includes that modern science is universal and that science is unitary. These are the theoretical basis of the major premise.And about the truth of the minor premise, Joseph Needham had made a lot of discussion which is based on his research on the science and civilization of China. Some foreign scholars tend to query "Joseph Needham Questions" by querying his conception of the history of science, which includes the statement that the modern science is universal and that science is unitary.The academic circles in China pay a certain attention to the rationality of the "Joseph Needham Questions", although they mainly try to find the answers to them. The arguments on whether there was science or not in ancient China may be taken as a query about the minor premise. These arguments have lasted for a long period of time and they have deepened the understanding of science and China's traditional science. And finally they usher in a philosophical perspective on therationality of the Questions.In my opinion, too much emphasis has been given by some of the scholars, including Joseph Needham, to the universalism of the development of science. Though they agree on the scientificness of China's system of traditional natural knowledge, they have not been aware of its particularity; and in the end, they have been trapped in the Occidentalism.Some scholars in China have delved into the particularity, yet they excessively emphasize the relative individuality of China's traditional knowledge system and the western modern science system. This practice has gone to the other extreme by denying the unity between these two systems. Under such a circumstance, the Questions are irrational.The right way is to deal with the essence of science historically and dialectically; only then, can we gain a clear picture of science and evaluate properly Chinese traditional science. Therefore, the way to deal with science and Chinese traditional science, as well as the way to understand the rationality of Joseph Needham Questions concerns the conception of the history of science and is a philosophical outlook in the last analysis.Simultaneously, there are some other scholars in China who, when they admit that there is universalism among different traditions of science, undertaken some valuable exploration into the particularity of Chinese traditional science. They discovered that there were at least two ways in the development of human science. They have provided a new and valuable way to answer Joseph Needham Questions.Science is a dialectical union of universalism and particularity. The plurality of the development of science is traceable either within a civilization or among civilizations. Though science is universal and the universalism exists in different traditions of science, or different stages of development, it is particular, with the influence of the characteristics of different civilizations or different times. At the post-Needham era, the research based on this perspective is at the start.