The Way and the Word

The rich civilizations of ancient China and Greece built sciences of comparable sophistication, each based on different foundations of concept, method and organization. In this text, two scholars compare the cosmology, science and medicine of China and Greece between 400 BC and AD 200, casting light not only on the two civilizations but also on the evolving character of science. Sir Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin investigate the differences between the thinkers in the two civilizations: what motivated them, how they understood the cosmos and the human body, how they were educated, how they made a living, and whom they argued with and why. The authors' new method integrally compares social, political and intellectual patterns and connections, demonstrating how all affected and were affected by ideas about cosmology and the physical world. They relate conceptual differences in China and Greece to the diverse ways that intellectuals in the two civilizations earned their living, interacted with fellow inquirers, and were involved with structures of authority. By AD 200 the distinctive scientific strengths of both China and Greece showed equal potential for theory and practice.
Lloyd and Sivin argue that modern science evolved not out of the Greek tradition alone but from the strengths of China, Greece, India, Islam and other civilizations, which converged first in the Muslim world and then in Renaissance Europe.