Asia, Europe, and the Emergence of Modern Science

This volume brings together essays from leading thinkers, including natural and social scientists, historians, philosophers and educationists to examine what role Asian traditions of knowledge played in the rise of modern science in Europe, the implications this has for the epistemology of science, and whether pre-modern Asian traditions can provide resources for advancing scientific knowledge in future. Although studies in the past have attempted to address these issues they have generally been motivated by area studies concerns so that the approach has been dominated by binary perspectives which look at how dialogue with a particular Asian tradition - such as Chinese, Indian or Arabic-Islamic - impacted or can impact modern science. By contrast this study draws writers from a plurality of Asian cultures so as to not only better situate the contributions of the different Asian scientific traditions into a more balanced perspective, but also promote deeper insights into the ways in which influences from a diversity of civilizations get transmitted and modified as they cross boundaries of culture and become contextualized in new intellectual milieus.