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()(Japan alone in the non-Western world has in the past century fully adopted and applied modern science and technology in industry, economy, education, and public welfare. It has thereby moved rapidly into the circle of LdevelopedL countries and today shares with them various uncertainties as to the future role of science and technology in society. JapanLs mastery of modern science and technology for its LmodernizationL was, nonetheless, a remarkable achievement, one viewed generally with admiration, not least by those nations still engrossed in the developmental struggle.^@The place of natural science in the cultural history of pre-modern Japan, with which this volume deals, is interesting by itself ; at the same time, its analysis is indispensable to an understanding of JapanLs modernization. Among reasons why it is inherently interesting is that, compared with JapanLs religious, literary, and aesthetic traditions, the tradition of premodern science --and of Confucian learning as well-- is relatively new. Science and Confucianism became established in Japan as comprehensive systems only in the seventeenth century.^@LScienceL in the above context means science borrowed from China, and this suggests another point of interest. All science in premodern Japan was initially imported, first from China and then from the West. Nearly a millennium transpired between the time when full-fledged borrowing from China began in the seventh century and the seventeenth-century rooting of Chinese-style science in Japanese soil. Meantime, Western science made its first appearance in the middle of the sixteenth century, only to be ruled out in mid-seventeenth century by the Tokugawa governmentLs isolation policy. Remaining Western influences were meager compared with the subsequently flourishing tradition of Chinese-style science, although from the eighteenth century this tradition came to be criticized by a growing number of professional scholars thoroughly trained in its concepts and methods. Indeed, it was precisely professionals aware of the defects of their own tradition who first grasped the merits of modern Western science and in the nineteenth century urged its adoption --as the necessary basis for mastery of Western military technology-- If Japan were to remain independent in an age of colonization by Western powers.^@The importance of appraising JapanLs premodern scientific enterprise becomes clear, then, if one asks how Japan managed to meet, not merely see, the need for acquiring modern Western science and technology. Although the specific forms and most of the content of traditional science were discarded in the acquisition process, it was not simply a matter of jettisoning an outworn tradition in order to import a newer, better one. ^@While we argue, in Chapter 3, that, but for isolation, Japan could have made a much earlier entry into the process of comparing its traditional science with that of the West, Adapting and adopting where feasible, the actual process would have been exceedingly difficult without most of the elements of the Tokugawa legacy of learning available by the middle of the nineteenth century. That legacy consisted, at its best, of a deep love for learning, a disciplined pursuit of detailed knowledge, an appreciation of rational criticism, and a respect --often despite poverty-- for the scholarly profession. This legacy was manifested in an ever-growing body of professionals who, because of their thorough grounding in traditional learning and science, knew from experience something of what the role of science in society should be.^@Mid-nineteenth-century Japan did not lack advocates of radical change --those spokesmen of the need for drastic reform who tend to be well remembered and reported at the expense of the professionals without whom change could not have been premised upon the uses of modern science. Advocates and also administrators to plan and carry out changes are necessary, but not sufficient. Professional skills and knowledge are needed to produce factories, railroads, communications systems, and the like ; and professional scholars are needed to prepare a society for these things. The work of introducing modern science into Japan was in the hands of such professionals who, rooted in traditional learning and science, had late in the eighteenth century already begun to acquire a considerable understanding of Western Science. By the mid-nineteenth century their grasp of Western learning and science had expanded sufficiently for them to serve as the transitional figures needed to undergird the work of planners and politicians.^@This book and its projected companion volume on science in modern Japan are intended neither for specialists in Japanese history nor for specialists in the history of science, but for the general reader attracted to the theme of Lscience in Japan within a wider social and intellectual context.L To offer a reliable perspective on science in Japan, data on each phase of Japanese history have been selected and organized to indicate the social and intellectual situations relative to the scientific scene ; for further details the reader should consult the widely available literature on Japanese history and society. Those with specific interests in scientific matters will, we hope, find it easier to consult specialized monographs and articles after reading this more general survey. A few basic features of this book do, however, warrant further clarification.^[from LINTRODUCTIONL]@¥CONTENTS^@1.Science in JapanLs First Cultural Transformation^Chinese Cultural Wave I : ca.600-894^Learning in Chinese Wave I^Science in Chinese Wave I^@2.Five Centuries of Indigenous Development^The Semiseclusion Era : 894-1401^Learning^The Specific Sciences^@3.Pressures toward Modern Society^Early Chinese Cultural Wave II : 1401-1639^Western Cultural Wave I : 1543-1639^Transitions in Japanese Culture^Techniques Strategic to Modernizing Processes^Learning in the Transitional Period^The Sciences in Transition^@4.The Seventeenth-Century Intellectual Outburst^National Isolation and the Peak of Chinese Cultural Wave II : 1639-1720^Learning in the Seventeenth Century^The Sciences@5.The Shift from Traditional to Modern Science^Challenge to Isolation : 1720-1854^Learning and Science^Developments in the Sciences^Aftermath of Chinese Wave II and Western Wave II^) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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