scott b. noegel -- the rise of early modern science- islam, china, and the west, toby e. huff

8/13/2019 Scott B. Noegel -- The Rise of Early Modern Science- Islam, China, And the West, Toby E. Huff

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he R i se of Ea rly M od ern Science:T s lam China an d the WestToby E HuffCambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993,409pages. 54.95cloth (ISBNO-521-43496-3),

18.95 paperback (ISBNO-521-49833-3).Review byScott B. Noegel, Ph.D.University of Washington, Seattle

uff s intriguing study in historical a nd comparative sociologyH aims to answer the long-debated question why a scientificrevolution occurred in early modern Europe in the thi rteenth century,despite the fact th at the early Islamic and Chinese civilizations weretechnologically fa r superior . The Muslim astronomers al-Tusi andIbn-Shatir, or example, had dismissed Ptolemaic astronomy in favorof a mathematical model that anticipated that of Copernicus (thoughthe Islamic model was not heliocentric). Similar were th e Islamicadvances in the a rea of optics, which far exeeded those of the Westbefore 1300. China, too, was more technologically advanced t han theWest, especially in mathematics, but like Islamic science, it failed toprogress in any significant way after the fourteenth century.

Expanding on the works of Max Weber, Thomas Kuhn, JosephNeedham, Robert Merton, and hisownmentor Benjamin Nelson, TobyHuffapproaches the questionofwhy the West, and not the E as t, gavebirth to the scientific revolution, by estab lishing the legal, social,philosophical, and theological contexts of th e respective cultures. Ofkeen interest to Huff is how the underlying cultu ral values an ddynamics of each society served to inhibit or catalyze scientificadvancement. Huff remarks:

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Ear4 ScienceSo I would argue that insofar as we can speak of a specificinstitution of science, its normative operatives are derivedfrom afar more general cultural ambience and, aboveall,relyupon religious and legal presuppositions that long antedatethe rise of modern science in the seventeenth century p.25).Key to Huffs analysisis the role ofmedieval beliefsin contributing

to the transformation of Europeanlegal institutions in he twelfth andthirteenth centuries. Here, Huff credits the emergence of autonomouscorporations with giving rise to autonomous ra tional inquiry. Thecorporation which Huff singles out as being most important to theseadvances is the university. To Huff, it is the university alone whichencouraged a search for universal truths and which set the stage fortransformation. Consequently, the corporate format of Europeanuniversities with its corporate certification of knowledge ultimatelyserved to promote a universalistic worldview of rational trut hs thattranscended the individual. Huff asserts:

Whereas the Western legal systems had adopted reason andconscience as well as the idea of natural law as the ultimatestandards for accepting or rejecting a specific legal practice orprinciple, Islamic law opted for tradition and the scholarlyconsensus p. 133 .For this reason, Greek philosophy and scientific works were

embraced and incorporated into the university curriculum.Indeed, some would say that it was the Greek heri tage of intellec-

tual thought; above all its commitment to rational dialogue anddecision making through logic and argument , ha t set the course forintellectual development in the West ever after p. 13 .

By contrast, Huff argues that the Islamic civilization sufferedfrom a n inability to reconcile rat ional inquiry with its theology. It semphasison the shariusacred law,established once and for all hepatterns of conduct and proper management of human affa irs for allMuslims p.67 .Greek science and philosophy were tolerated onlyinsofar as they served to underscore the Quranic conceptionof humanaffairs and nature . Autonomous legal, philosophical, and theologicalthinking were frowned upon. As Huffputsit:Innovation,in mattersofreligion, wasequivalent to heresy p. 117 .Consequently, the legaland educational institutions tha t sprouted in the early West did notappear in the Islamic East. Moreover, the educational focus of thein dr s s was on Islamic law and logic; the sciences remained in t he

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hands of private instructors. Thus, there was no corporate certifica-tion of knowledge, only the certification of individual instructors.

Though Huff admits that China was more advanced than the Westin mathematics, he also makes str ides to separate science fromtechnology (and indeed these enterprises were distinguished untilthe twentieth century) and to characterize Chinese mathematicaladvancement as a progress in technology. This enables him tomaintain h is argument th at the Chinese civilization did not advancescientifically.

The factors responsible for the decline in Chinese scientificadvancement, according to Huff, were somewhat different t han thosein the Islamic world.

Whde the Chnese acknowledgeda type ofpositive law enactedby men, their greater commitment is to li to the sacred ritesof the past, and this commitment is rooted in powerfulinterlocking assumptions p.263 .

Moreover, while the Chinese administrat ion exerted some effort toinhibit original and autonomous rational inquiry, Chinese scientificadvancement was hindered equally by the lackof anEuclidian systemof proofs as well a s accompanying advances in astronomy. Accordingto Huff, the Chinese civilization also suffered from an inaccessibilityto Greek science and philosophy and from an intellectual dispositiontoward modes of thinking that preferred exploring the relat ionshipsbetween paired opposites to the determiningof causes.

Instead of moving toward mechanical and causal modes ofthinking that recognized impersonal natural forces, the Chi-nese th rust has ever been toward creating a harmoniousworldview that linked al l forces and elements together in aman-centeredcosmic harmony p.299 .

Additionally, and somewhat as a consequence, the Chinese govern-ment placed its emphasis on the maintenance of a n orderly andeffective administration.

At the same time, Chinese thought stressed the importance ofpreserving exemplary traditions that reflected the harmoni-ous realization of the tao through collective responsibility.While all people are called upon to live exemplary lives, theemperor and his officials have the primary duty to rightly

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Ear6 Scienceorder thei r conduct (and state affairs) to facilitate the correctorderingof the social world in harmony with nature p.271 .

Thus , Huff concludes:The problem with Chinese science, was not fundamentallythat it was technologically flawed, bu t that Chinese author i-ties nei ther created nor tolerated independent insti tutions ofhigher learning within which disinterested scholars couldpursue their insights p. 318 .

Therefore, unlike the West which tolerated independent rationalinquiry, the world of early Islamic and Chinese scientific inquiry wasinherentlypoised for decline.

Though in the main this work contributes to our understandingof how powerful social, intellectual, and theological dynamics candetermine the ethos and scientificadvancement of a civhzation, t alsowarran ts some critical comment. Foremost, is the looming questionposed by Huffs thesis; that is, if we accept Huffs plentiful andpersuasive answer for why Islamic and Chinese science stagnatedafter the thwteenth century, we also must as k how the Islamic andChmese c idzat ions ascended to technological and scientific superior-ity prior to 1300.If the Islamic and Chinese civilizations were legally,intellectually, and theologically disposed to non-advancement, how didthey advance in the first place?

Huffs evolutionary approach toward scientific advancement isequally problematic. His trea tment of Western scientific advance-ment, for example, is based on the notion that the history of science issomehow a linear and static progression. Certainly, this is toosimplistic a paradigm, one th at betrays the powerful interlockingassumptions p. 263 of Huffs own time, and one that overlooksperiodic historical moments of scientific regression, such as theHumanistsrejection of scholastic curriculum in favor of the texts ofclassical antiquity. Moreover, the so-called scientific revolution ofthe 1600s appeared in its day, not as an evolutionary stage in a nalways progressive chain of events, but as a knee-jerk reaction to along period of stiflement and decline.

Yet, Huffs approach to Islamic and Chinese scientific advance-ment t akes an opposite stance and suggests that we see Islamic andChinese institutions and theologies as fixities. For example, Huffargues that the madrasas could not evolve into corporations becausethey were legally bound to the intentions of their founders. However,

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this is not the case historically, for the intentions of the Islamicinsti tutional founders could be, and often were, superseded by theneeds of an nstitutions contemporaries (as a perusal through studieson earlyfutwas demonstrates). Similarly, Huffs discussionof Chinesethought a t times appears tendentiously selective. For instance, thework pays no attention to the frequent and informative strugglesbetween factions, such as ha t between the Bud dh st sand Confucians.Sucha monolithlc treatment ofthe Islamic and Chinese belief systemsobscures the often significant, multifaceted intellectual undercur-rent s tha t bear fundamentally upon his thesis.Consequently, though unintentional, one senses in Huff s fre-quent generalizations latent notions of cultural superiority. Similarly,and this goes back to Huffs treatment of scientific advancement a slinearally progressive, the question which this work attempts toanswer ispremised on overt scientfic optimism and on the assumptionthat cul tural advancement can be guaged or measured by a civiliza-tions scientific outpu t. In thi s reviewers opinion, this remains to bedemonstrated.

Nevertheless, one cannot help but be impressed with Huffsbreadth and command of the primary and secondary literature.Always well-argued anddocumented in detail, thisbook demonstratesthe usefulness of a holisticperpsective for explaining the dynamics ofcul tural and scientific change. I recommend this work for advanceduniversity students nterested in engaging the difficult questions thatface the sociologist of science.

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scott b. noegel -- the rise of early modern science- islam, china, and the west, toby e. huff

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