Time, Science, and Society in China and the West: The Study of Time V

282 Pages·1986·4.67 MB·English

by  J. T. Fraser (editor)

‘The instrument shown as our frontispiece combines a sundial to tell the time of day, a calendar that
lists the climactic periods of the year, and a compass, which is a tool for geomancy, an intricate lore of
ritual, geography, and numerology used in selecting sites for such things as buildings or graveyards.
‘The device was made at the turn of the nineteenth century in Beijing.
The hour plate, hinged across the base plate, is supported by a bracket that allows it to be positioned
according to latitude.
The gnomon is close to the center of a number of circular bands. They show an arrangement of the
twelve terrestrial branches—names of parts that divide anything into twelve—here used to designate
the twelve Chinese double-hours. The outermost band is divided into ninety-six quarter-hour seg-
ments, corresponding to European hours.
‘The notches on the back of the base plate are marked with the twenty-four climactic periods of the
year, rain water, waking of insects, ... forming of grain, grain in ear, ... frost’s descent, ... slight cold,
great cold.
‘The front half of the base plate has a geomagnetic compass inset.
The first band around the compass shows the eight trigrams, the ancient divinatory symbols from
the Book of Changes. ‘The second band has the names of the four cardinal directions of the map. The
third band identifies twenty-four directions, using the numerological devices of the twelve terrestrial
branches and the ten celestial stems—names of parts that divide anything into ten.
‘The outermost circle records the astrological correspondences of pre-Han classical Chinese geo-
graphical divisions from before 300 B.c.
Reproduction, courtesy of M. Alain Brieux, Paris, and Dr. Silvio A. Bedini, Washington, D.C.
Photo by Kim Nielsen, Smithsonian Institution.
Time, Science, and Society in
China and the West
The Study of Time V
Edited by J.T. Fraser, N. Lawrence, and F. C. Haber
The University of Massachusetts Press
Amherst, 1986
Copyright © 1986 by J. T. Fraser
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
LC 79-640956
ISBN 0-87023-495-1
Set in Monotype Plantin by Asco Trade Typesetting Ltd, Hong Kong
‘The Library of Congress has cataloged this serial
publication as follows:
The Study of time. v. 1-
Berlin, New York, Springer-Verlag, 1972-
v. ill. 26cm.
Vols. for 1972- are the proceedings of the 1st— conference of the
International Society for the Study of Time.
Vol. for 1972 unnumbered but constitutes v. 1.
Vols. 1-2 in English or German.
ISSN 0170-9704 = The study of time.
1. Time—Congresses—Collected works. I. International Society for the
Study of Time.
[DNLM: W1 ST952s]
QB209.S85 529 79-640956
MARC-S
Library of Congress 79[8502]
Acknowledgment is made to the following publishers for the use of material under copyright.
Macmillan Publishing Company, from The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats, lines
from ‘“‘Lapis Lazuli.’’ Copyright 1940 by Georgia Yeats, renewed 1968 by Bertha Georgia
Yeats, Michael Butler Yeats, and Anne Yeats. Reprinted with permission of Macmillian
Publishing Company, Michael Butler Yeats, and Macmillan London, Ltd.
Research Centre for Translation, for material from A Golden Treasury of Chinese Poetry,
trans. John A. Turner, A Renditions book, published by The Chinese University Press, 1976,
and distributed by The University of Washington Press, Seattle and London.
European American Music for Alban Berg, Kammerkonzert, copyright 1925 by Universal
Edition, copyright renewed.
Sheila Lalwani Payne for material from The White Pony, ed. Robert Payne. Copyright 1947
by the John Day Company; renewed 1975 by Sheila Lalwani Payne. Reprinted by permission
of Sheila Lalwani Payne.
Harcourt, Brace and Company for a selection from ‘“The Dry Salvages”’ from Four Quartets
by T. S. Eliot, © 1943 by T. S. Eliot; renewed 1971 by Esme Valerie Eliot. Reprinted by permission
of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., and Faber and Faber Ltd.
For foseph Needham

Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Opening Remarks by the President GEORGEH. FORD Xi
A Message from DR. JOSEPH NEEDHAM, FRS, FBA_ XIili
A Communication from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences YU GUANYUAN xvii
The Problems of Exporting Faust J.T. FRASER 1
Part I. Time
Introduction J.T. FRASER 21
The Origins of Time NATHANIEL LAWRENCE 23
Scientific Explanation and the Evolution of Time CONRAD DALE JOHNSON 39
J. T. Fraser’s “‘Levels of Temporality’’ as Cognitive Representations
JOHN A. MICHON 51
Part Il. The Non-Chinese World
Introduction J.T. FRASER 67
The Emergence of Time DENIS CORISH 69
Time, Technology, Religion, and Productivity Values in Early Modern
Europe FRANCISC. HABER 79
Literary Images of Progress SAMUELL. MACEY 93
Reflections on Time in Indian Philosophy ANINDITA NIYOGI BALSLEV_ 104
The Shape of Time in African Music RUTHM. STONE 113
‘Temporal Linearity and Nonlinearity in Music JONATHAN D. KRAMER 126
Intermezzo
Humanities and the Experiences of Time GEORGEH. FORD 141
Part IIT. China
Introduction J.T. FRASER 149
On the Limits of Empirical Knowledge in the Traditional Chinese Sciences
N. SIVIN 151
The Evolution of Chinese Science and Technology JIN GUANTAO,
FAN DAINIAN, FAN HONGYE, and LIU QINGFENG 170
Contents viii
-
Cultural and Intellectual Attitudes That Prevented the Spontaneous Emergence of
Modern Science in China QIU RENZONG 181
Progressive and Regressive Time Cycles in Taoist Ritual KRISTOFER SCHIPPER
and WANG HSIU-HUEI! 185
Mohist Views of Time and Space ZHANG YINZHI 206
Chinese Traditional Medicine HANS AGREN 211
Zi Wu Flow Theory and Time LO HUISHENG 219
Time in Archaeological Thought SYNN@VE VINSRYGG 225
Space and Time in Chinese Verse FREDERICK TURNER 241
Envoi J.T. FRASER 253
Biographical Notes on the Contributors 255
Constitution and By-laws of the International Society for the Study of Time 259
Acknowledgments
The editors wish to express their appreciation to those who helped them, over and above
the call of their duty, in the labor of preparing the manuscript: Hans Agren, M.D., Jacob A.
Arlow, M.D., Prof. Margaret Mary Barela, Prof. Richard A. Block, Prof. Kenneth E.
Folsom, Prof. George H. Ford, Prof. Eugene D. Genovese, Dr. Christine King, Dr. Liang
Luen-chu, Dr. Richard Martin, Dr. Joseph Needham, FRSs, FBA, Prof. Lewis E. Rowell,
Prof. Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer, Prof. Kristofer M. Schipper, Prof. Albert J. Schmidt,
Prof. Barry Schwartz, Prof. Mark Selden, Prof. Nathan Sivin, Prof. Eviatar Zerubavel,
and Howard D. Zucker, M.D.
The senior editor would like to add his personal note of thanks to the Burndy Library for
its ever ready welcome.

Opening Remarks by the President
Ladies and gentlemen,
For the past four years, since 1979 when our last conference was held in Austria, I have
been serving as your President, and in that role it is my privilege to officiate at the opening
of this conference.
In many countries, opening ceremonies are festive occasions such as when a president
breaks a bottle of champagne over the bow of a newly constructed ship. In my country, the
United States, there is a special kind of opening ceremony every spring in which our
president inaugurates the baseball season by pitching the first ball. In our organization we
have no symbolic rituals such as champagne bottles or baseball pitching; instead it is all
accomplished by a simple and prosaic declaration, and I therefore hereby declare that the
Fifth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Time is now officially open.
In 1976, one of my predecessors as president, David Park, noted in his opening remarks
that the effect of presenting a scattered assortment of papers, during the first three
conferences of our Society, had been “‘kaleidoscopic,”’ and he advised us that the Society
had decided its future meetings were to be less kaleidoscopic and more unified. This
decision was implemented. Our Fourth Conference focused on the “‘single though many-
headed” theme of “‘beginnings and endings”’ (see Foreword to The Study of Time ITI, ed.
J. T. Fraser, N. Lawrence, D. Park [New York: Springer-Verlag, 1978] ). Our Fifth Con-
ference likewise has a unifying theme; it is of time in its relation to society and science in
China and the West. The setting of our present conference in this ancient hilltop Castello di
Gargonza, with its surrounding Tuscan landscape, is surely evocative of the medieval heri-
tage of Western society, and it will be interesting here to reconsider that heritage in juxta-
position with the great intellectual heritage of China.
Surely all of us must rejoice to be meeting in these glorious surroundings, and we can
express our thanks to Dr. and Mrs. Fraser who for many years have demonstrated an
extraordinary skill in discovering beautiful locations for our conferences, as they did at
Oberwolfach in the Black Forest, and at Lake Yamanaka in Japan, and twice at the lovely
setting of Alpbach in Austria. And now they have done it again. For the arrangements
for our present conference, we are also indebted to the strenuous efforts of the members
of the Conference Committee: Professors Hans Agren, Brian Goodwin, F. C. Haber,
S. Kamefuchi, Nathaniel Lawrence, and Nathan Sivin. We are also indebted to Albert
Mayr who has been serving as our one-man Italian local committee; he has been extraor-
dinarily helpful in taking care of the innumerable preparatory details. And, most espe-
cially, we are indebted to our treasurer, Professor Rowell, who is ending his term of office
with a dazzling display of ways to make sure that this meeting at Gargonza will achieve its
desired objectives.