needham-question

This chapter examines the question posed by Joseph Needham and Feng Youlan regarding why modern science did not develop in China, distinguishing science from technics and exploring the influence of Chinese philosophical schools on this outcome. Feng attributes the absence of science to the dominance of Confucianism, which suppressed the scientific spirit by prioritizing moral and metaphysical principles over empirical inquiry, while Needham counters this by highlighting the advanced artisanal technical culture in China. The chapter critiques Feng's reductionist conflation of science and technology and emphasizes the importance of Needham's detailed historical analysis for understanding the development of Chinese technics and its eventual eclipse by European modernity.

This chapter examines the confrontation between Chinese and Western technological thinking, highlighting that Chinese philosophy is rooted in an organic worldview lacking a systematic geometry and a developed concept of time. It critiques Joseph Needham's analysis of why modern science and technology did not emerge in China, suggesting that the difference lies deeper in the fundamental philosophical structures, particularly the absence of axiomatic geometry and underdeveloped notions of time. The chapter proposes that overcoming modernity requires reinventing a cosmotechnics rather than reverting to traditional ontologies.