再探李约瑟之谜:科学发生还需什么前提

A New Examination of the Needham Puzzle:Any Other Prerequisites for the Birth of Science?

2015年笔者曾撰文探讨为什么中国在历史上未产生科学,结论是缺乏一个必要前提--逻辑,而缺乏主谓结构的逻辑跟汉语不以主谓句式为主相关。本文给出科学成立的三项必要前提:齐一性、逻辑、实证观,随之探讨两个问题:1.科学发生除了逻辑是否还有其他未满足的必要条件?答案是还需要齐一性和实证观。齐一性的产生与语言中的主语必要性高度相关。在中国历史上实证在实践方面存在,但在认识论上很缺乏。2.为什么其他文化如印度、阿拉伯或印第安文化也没发展出科学?答案是在那些文化中三项前提都至少缺少一项。李约瑟之谜是一个针对特殊现象使用否定句来提的问题:“为什么在某地不产生某物?”这样提问容易得出特设性答案;应该用肯定句来问一个一般性问题:“某物产生的一般条件是什么?”这样提问才能引向科学研究。

In his previous paper on the Needham Puzzle in 2015,the author offered a conclusion that science could not originate spontaneously in China due to the lack of logic and the subject-predicate structure in antient Chinese sentences.This paper further explores the following issue:Are there any other prerequisites for the birth of science?The answer is uniformitarianism and positivism.The generation of uniformitarianism is in high correlation with the necessity of subject in a sentence.Positivism did exist in the practice in Chinese history,but it was absent in epistemology.In this way,this paper argues for three prerequisites for the emergence of science:uniformitarianism,logic and positivism.Moreover,why science did not emerge in Indian,Arabic,native American and other cultures?The reason is that they lack one or more of the three prerequisites for science.The Needham Puzzle is asked in a negative form for a specific phenomenon,i.e.,“Why did something not emerge in somewhere?”This tends to induce ad hoc hypotheses.The question should be asked in an affirmative form:“What are the general conditions for the emergence of something?”Only this question will lead to scientific research.