自然的发现

The Discovery of Nature

洛伊德提出"自然的发现"作为科学诞生的标志,但只给出了一个简单的实证主义的阐释。实际上,"自然"一词在西方经历了一个由"本性"向"自然界"的转义过程。希腊人的"自然的发现"包含两个相互联系的方面,一是指通过追究本质、根据的方式来把握存在者之存在,二是指通过与制作物的对比开辟出一个被称为"自然物"的存在者领域。"自然"作为希腊人最原始的存在领悟,经历了一再地跌落。本来属于内在性领域的自然,最终反而成了外在性本身。中国古代未作出这种"自然的发现",因而未成为科学的故乡,这不是错失,而是存在的命运。

G.E.R. Lloyd, a Cambridge historian of science, claimed that the discovery of nature was the one of two important signs of the birth of science, with a rough positivist explanation. The word Nature has undergone a semantic transformation from Essence to Natural World. The Greek discovery of nature means two interconnected things. The first aspect is to invent a way to grasp the Being of beings by searching the Essence and Reason. The second one is to develop a areas of beings called Natural World by comparing the Physis and Techne. As the Greek primary recognition of Being, Nature has experienced several declinations once and again. Nature as internality became externality since then. It＇s destiny instead of mistake that there is no such discovery of nature and no such natural science in ancient China.