The Scientific Spirit and Method in Chinese Philosophy

Abstract

This paper starts out by questioning the validity of Professor Northrop's provocative theory that culture which admits only by intuition is automatically prevented from developing science of the Western type. No culture, indeed, no man, ever admits only so-called concepts by intuition. In attempting to understand the East and the West, a historical approach is more important than any set of technical terminology for comparative philosophy. A historical approach means that all past differences in the intellectual and religious activities of man (East or West) have been historical differences, produced, conditioned, and grooved by geographical, economic, social, political, and even biographical factors, all of which can be studied and understood historically and intelligently. To seek to understand what historical forces or combinations of forces have tended to channel the intellectual activities of a certain people into a particular direction throughout historic times-that would be a legitimate ambition not unworthy of such a conference as this one.