关于中国古代有无科学问题的思考-兼论古代中医的科学性

科学是一个历史范畴和演变过程,不同时期有不同的内涵、形态和标准.西方学者习惯以近代科学作为衡量历史上科学存在与否的标准,并以此否认中国古代存在科学.笔者认为,这种非历史性地以现成标准反注历史上某一区域和民族"文本"的做法并不合理.事实上,中西方不同的文化背景孕育了不同形态和特征的科学.尽管古代西方科学中公理化方法和实验初具雏型,但亦不是近代意义上的科学.即便是在近代西方社会,牛顿力学在严格的定量实验基础上建立起完整、严密的公理化体系,但在其他领域并无如此鲜明特点,医学尤其如此.但人们并不因此否认古代西方科学和近代西方牛顿力学之外科学的存在.评判某一区域或民族存在科学与否,应深入考察该地区或民族把握自然及人与自然关系的特殊方式及其表现形态.古代中西医相异的发展源流与模式典型地说明了科学有无的衡量标准不是惟一的,而是历史的、多元的.本文拟从中西方不同的文化背景出发,深入发掘科技史料,探索衡量古代科学的基本标准及不同地区或民族科学的特殊标准,兼论中医的科学性.

Consideration on the Problem Whether Ancient China Has Science--The Scientific Nature of Ancient Chinese Medicine

Science is a historical category and developmental process. There are various meanings, appearances and standards on history.The western scholars are used to taking the modern times science as the criterion to judge whether has science or not in history, and therefore deny the existence of science in Ancient China. The authors hold that noting the "text" of some district and race in history by the ready-made standard is not reasonable. Actually different culture background between China and western conceived the science of different appearance and characteristics. Despite the axiom method and experiment of ancient western science had the embryonic form, but it was still not modern history science. Even if in the modern western society, although Newton mechanics has established the complete, meticulous axiom system based on the strict and fixed amount experiments, there weren't so distinctive characteristics in other realms, particularly medical science. But people don't therefore deny the existence of ancient western science and the science which is not inside the modern age of western Newton mechanics. To adjudicate whether has science or not in some district or race, we should investigate district or race deeply to ascertain the special way and its performance of the nature and the relations between man and nature. The different developing course and mode between China and Western has typically explained that the standard to judge whether has science or not is not unique, but historical and diverse. The paper intends to dig science and technology historical data from different culture background between China and Western, and investigates the basic standard to measure the ancient science and the special standard of different regions or races' science, what's more, discusses the scientific nature of the Chinese Medicine.