Confucianism and science

Abstract

China made phenomenal progress in science and technology during the long twentieth century. However, in the literature, there are contrasting opinions on the role Confucianism played here. To answer the question regarding whether Confucianism served as a stumbling block or a stepping stone, we must first disentangle some of the multifaceted connotations of “Confucianism,” such as its worldviews, learning traditions, and “the teaching of Confucius” in a religious sense. The sectarian division of Confucian learning, particularly Neo-Confucianism and evidential learning, which corresponded to Song learning and revived Han learning in the Qing context, respectively, is given special consideration. We exploit several rare datasets of scientists and engineers for the era of the modern period and contemporary times, as well as data on the first wave of the new-style schools, measures of Neo-Confucianism, and the spatial distribution of prolific evidential scholars. We then show that the accumulation of human capital due to the imperial examination system and evidential scholarship contributed to the rise of modern science in China, whereas Confucian values as represented by various Neo-Confucian measures did not.