SCIENCE, CAPITALISM AND CULTURE - II
Western science is the most dominant system of knowledge and is usually referred to as science, modern science etc., very often spelt as Science and not simply science, giving it a universal character. Very few people refer to it as western or western Judaic Christian science and the system of knowledge is not confined to western physics, chemistry, biology and other allied "natural" sciences but extends to economics, political science, sociology and other so-called social sciences. Strictly speaking even humanities, as taught in the universities and the schools, are not spared and all these systems could be referred as western knowledge. Though Dr. Joseph Needham tried to explain the origin of western science in terms capitalism, in the first article of this series published on 16th July 2003, we saw that long before capitalism came into existence, people like Copernicus, Galileo and Newton were busy with western science as such. In fact it could be said that western science, especially the technology associated with it has been instrumental in the origin and the development of capitalism in the west.
If it was not capitalism, that gave rise to western science, then what was the cause for its origin. We can talk of an origin of something if there are characteristics that distinguish itself from other similar "systems" that are man made or that have been evolved "naturally". Western science is a system(s) of knowledge and as such has to be compared with other systems of knowledge. If there are no differences between the system referred to as western science and other systems of knowledge then there is no reason to talk of a western science, let alone its origin. However, it is not only Dr. Joseph Needham who has identified "western science" as a different system of knowledge, and even in Peradeniya, where there seem to be more than one person who does not know the west from the east, as exemplified by a person whom I met last week, close to the University Grants Commission of all the places, who tried to argue that the west cannot be known from the east, there are academics who are recognised as Philosophers of Science, meaning of course western science. To my knowledge no academic referred to as a philosopher of science considers eastern sciences as science and studies the philosophies of those sciences, except perhaps in a way of comparison.
Philosophy as taught in the universities is also a western discipline and I was not surprised to find a professor of (western) philosophy arguing that the teaching in Buddhism has not been presented as a philosophy. What he meant was that Buddhistic teaching has not been presented in the categories of western philosophy and the question arises whether it is necessary to do so. In fact one could have asked whether there is only one philosophical system and question the use the word philosophy instead of philosophies. Why not have departments of philosophies rather than departments of philosophy and I hope that the "pluralists" in the academia would welcome this suggestion. In fact I would like to see the creation of faculties of sciences, medicines etc., if not faculties of eastern science, western science, ayurvedic medicine, western medicine etc. Would the Asian Development Bank which has been very generous in giving loans, yes I repeat loans, to the universities, in the last few years, with some intention not yet known to the universities, would consider giving the University of Kelaniya a loan to create a school of Jathika Chinthanaya. If somebody objects to the word Jathika, I am prepared to put up a proposal for the establishment of a school of Eastern Chinthanyas.
In the universities, instead of faculties of western medicine and ayurvedic medicine, we have faculties of medicine and institutes of ayurvedic or indigenous medicine. The faculties of western medicine are named faculties of medicine as if western medicine is a universal medicine and the other medicines are called indigenous medicines, etc. In some universities there are departments of traditional knowledge, again reflecting the western hegemony in the universities. While western knowledge is presented as universal, without boundaries in geography (space) and history (time) the other systems of knowledge are introduced as that is confined to a particular place and a particular time. Though some people may find traditional knowledge to be an innocent value free term, it gives the impression that it was knowledge valid sometime ago in this part of the world, without much relevance in the context of the modern world. Western knowledge has to be identified as such and should be taught as a system of knowledge that has been created in the last five hundred years in the western Judaic Christian culture.
Western science, contrary to the opinion of those who cannot differentiate the west from the east, exists as a system of knowledge different from the other sciences. If it was not different Dr. Needham would have identified Chinese science with western science and would not have questioned as to why western science was not created in China. Even those who cannot identify the west from the east should be able to identify a western medical hospital from an ayurvedic medical hospital. Some of these people do not know the difference between absorbtion and imitation and simply because cultures absorb from other cultures they tend to think that cultures cannot be differentiated. What they do not know or tend to ignore is the fact that once a culture absorbs something from a different culture what is absorbed is not the same as that was found in the culture from it was absorbed, and in the process of absorbtion something new is created. The trousers that were worn by the Chinese have been absorbed by the westerners into their culture. However, the trousers of the westerners are not the same as that of the Chinese and one cannot say that "trousers" are common to the Chinese and the westerners. This is only a very trivial example but even in knowledge absorptions have taken place.
Western science is not only different from other sciences, under western cultural colonialism, that goes hand in hand with the western political and economic colonialism, it has been assigned the status of a universal science. Western science has become a "universal science" not due to its superiority over the other sciences but because of the sponsorship of the western colonialism. In order to hide this fact an entirely new discipline, called philosophy of science has been created in the academia. The purpose of philosophy of science is to show that the so called science (universal and omnipresent) has a philosophy and a methodology of its own, that is not found in the other systems of knowledge. The methodology has been given a name and at present is called the scientific method. It is not only physics, chemistry and biology that are supposed to follow the scientific method. Even disciplines such as sociology , economics and the other so-called social sciences are said to adopt the methodology of "scientific method". The so-called scientific method has been used to give western science a superiority over the other systems of knowledge.
The existence of a sub system of knowledge called philosophy of science, dealing with western science and not any other sciences shows the importance attached to western science by the westerners. It is not us, the Sri Lankans or the easterners, including those Mahayanists in the department of philosophy at Peradeniya, who created this sub discipline called the philosophy of science. Philosophy of science deals with western science and there is an attempt by the westerners to show that western science is the only positive knowledge. The emergence of positivism as a system of philosophy in the west has some links with this project and some leading philosophers of science such as Mach and Popper have been influenced by positivism. To some philosophers in the west, western science is the only knowledge and any system of knowledge that is not compatible with the former is considered as a myth. This is part of cultural colonialism and western science has been made the yard stick for evaluating other systems of knowledge. There are some "enlightened Buddhists", in the western sense and not those who have attained Nibbana, who would be happy to say that Buddhism is scientific not knowing that they have been made instruments, if not agents of western cultural colonialism. It is a pity that these "enlightened Buddhists" have decided to test the "validity" of Buddhism using western science, which is a creation of the western Judaic Christian culture. There are some people who think that quantum physics has been created outside this milieu but those who are familiar with the developments in the recent years know that it is not the case. It is true that Bohr who was influenced by Chinese philosophy, though not so much by Buddhist philosophy, together with Heisenberg and Pauli gave the world what is known as the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, that questioned the reality of the world as it was known to the westerners. However, it is now known that what was questioned by them was locality or local reality and the western physicists and philosophers have been able to reinterpret quantum physics within their familiar paradigm on reality.
It is an irony in western knowledge that while Marx claimed his creation that came to be known as Marxism was scientific, Popper, the recognised figure in western philosophy of science, compared Marxism with Astrology. Popper formulated his "falsification" as the acid test to wean away non scientific systems from western science. In western science, according to Popper, theories are formulated in such a way that they could be falsified. However, Popper showed that systems such as Marxism and Astrology could not be falsified as any failure in predictions in them could be "explained" using some auxiliary arguments within the system. Though I am not a Marxist, and I consider Marxism as complementary to the so-called right wing theories within the western system of knowledge (after all Marxism was created in the western Judaic Christian culture and it is based in the Greek Judaic Christian Chinthanaya) I have a fundamental question on the entire methodology of Popper. Does Popper's falsification belong to western science? If so can falsification be falsified? If not, that is if falsification cannot be falsified or if falsification does not belong to western science, then what is the justification for applying Popper's falsification to decide between western science and so called non scientific knowledge? On the other hand if falsification can be falsified, then it has to be considered as another theory awaiting falsification. In other words Popper's falsification would be replaced by some other "theory" in time to come. The "new theory" would have other criteria to determine what is western science and what is not, and are we justified in using Popper's falsification criteria to identify western scientific knowledge?
Professor Nalin de Silva
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