中西会通下晚明江南地区的技术科学与儒匠群体的科学精神

Technical Science and the Scientific Spirit of Confucian Craftsman Group in Jiangnan Area in Late Ming Dynasty

儒匠,是指兼具儒家学说思维与西方科学理论的群体。随着西学东渐的到来,儒学与西学在机遇和碰撞中不断地融合、互补和贯通,客观上促进了晚明江南地区技术科学的发展。而儒匠群体的出现,带动了科学知识的广泛传播,表现出了技术科学化的倾向,这些倾向主要体现在标准化和数理化两个方面,最终形成了高效务实、兼容并包、开拓创新和崇尚卓越的科学精神。他们的科学精神贯穿于当时社会技术和科学的内生层面,不仅具备了科学化的“遗传基因”,而且是自觉的、本性的传统技术理念的延伸,其影响十分深远,这也为“李约瑟难题”的解决提供了新的思路。

Confucian craftsman refers to a group of people who have both Confucian thinking and western scientific theory.With the arrival of the eastward spread of Western learning,Confucianism and Western learning continued to integrate,complement and link up in opportunities and conflicts,which objectively promoted the development of technological science in the Jiangnan region in the late Ming Dynasty.The emergence of the Confucian craftsman group has led to the wide dissemination of scientific knowledge,showing the tendency of scientific technology.These tendencies are mainly reflected in two aspects of standardization and mathematicalization,and ultimately form a scientific spirit of high efficiency,practicality,inclusiveness,innovation and excellence.Their scientific spirit runs through the endogenous level of social technology and science at that time.It not only has a scientific “genetic gene”,but also is an extension of the traditional technology concept of consciousness and nature.Its influence is very profound,and it provides a new idea for the solution of “Joseph Needham Problem”.