Chinese medicine culture is also Chinese medicine science.
The name "Traditional Chinese Medicine" came into being after modern western medicine entered China. In ancient China, doctors and doctors had their own names, such as Huang Qi, Xinglin, Highland Barley and Langzhong. /kloc-Western missionaries who have entered China since the 20th century are the earliest users of the concept of "traditional Chinese medicine". As a native knowledge system in China, TCM has been developing continuously for more than 2,000 years. Huangdi Neijing is the earliest extant classic of traditional Chinese medicine in China, which laid a theoretical foundation for diagnosis, treatment and health preservation of traditional Chinese medicine. His thought of harmony between man and nature, yin and yang and five elements condensed China's ancient philosophy's cognition of the world. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has absorbed the essence of Confucianism and Taoism in the development process, and has become one of the most representative essences of China traditional culture. It can be seen that Chinese medicine not only has distinct cultural attributes, but also has the important function of treating diseases and saving lives, which is indisputable. It was only in modern times that western science was introduced into China, and western medicine began to be known and widely spread. However, the theoretical basis of treating diseases and saving lives of TCM is obviously different from that of western medicine, which has triggered a debate on whether TCM is scientific or not. This involves scientific standards and boundary issues.
Sociology of knowledge advocates explaining and understanding science in historical background and cultural context, but in fact, the demarcation standard of science in philosophy of science has been developing and changing with the changes of history. The early scientific view of logical positivism was replaced by falsificationism; Then Kuhn, an American philosopher of science, put forward the theory of "paradigm", holding that science is the same belief of science in a certain period, including concepts, theories, methods and discourse systems. It can be seen that whether we admit the scientific attribute of TCM or not, we can't deny that TCM has developed into a logical and self-consistent knowledge system a long time ago, and has its own concept category, which has been recognized by all members of TCM.
Lakatos, a contemporary British philosopher of science, developed "exquisite falsificationism" on the basis of Popper's "naive falsificationism". He thinks that science is "a progressive research project". The methodology of scientific research program put forward by lakatos includes four parts: hard core, protective belt, negative incentive and positive incentive. From the development of traditional Chinese medicine, the concept of "harmony between man and nature" and the concept of harmony between man and nature constitute its consistent "core" since ancient times; The theory of meridians and acupoints, the theory of five zang-organs and the theory of yin-yang balance constitute the "auxiliary hypothesis protection zone" In this sense, the theoretical system of TCM is a "progressive research program".
Philosophy of science actually failed to answer the contradiction between Chinese medicine as a culture and science. Cultural and humanistic education, in a narrow sense, mainly refers to the content of literary and artistic spiritual life. Culture in a broad sense refers to all human creations, whether spiritual or material. In this sense, science also belongs to the cultural category. Judging from the long evolutionary history of human society, "science" is a cultural phenomenon that has only appeared in recent hundreds of years, and the humanistic trend of thought has spawned modern natural science. Science originated from culture, and then gradually became independent from it. Generally speaking, culture in a narrow sense has regional attributes; "Science without borders" means that scientific knowledge that pursues objective truth and universal laws must transcend regional attributes and have universal applicability.
Traditional Chinese medicine belongs to local knowledge from its origin. It can be seen from the classics of Chinese medicine that at the beginning of its development, Chinese medicine consciously tried to draw a clear line with witchcraft. Joseph Needham, a British historian of science, classified ancient science in China, including Chinese medicine, as "pre-science". Early western medicine also originated from European native knowledge. Because of its close relationship with modern natural science, it has developed rapidly and expanded into a global knowledge system. Of course, the early Chinese medicine was limited to China and even the Han nationality, but in the process of development, it constantly absorbed the beneficial components of traditional ethnic medicine such as Tibetan medicine, Miao medicine and Persian medicine. Since modern times, Chinese medicine has made great strides abroad. The epidemic in COVID-19 is raging all over the world. Chinese medicine has played an important role in China's domestic anti-epidemic and sending medical teams to participate in the global anti-epidemic process, which shows that Chinese medicine is of universal significance to all mankind. As the entry "Science" in Encyclopedia Britannica explains, "Science involves a pursuit of knowledge, including the pursuit of the application of various universal truths or basic laws". For thousands of years, the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine in saving lives, overcoming plagues and ensuring racial continuity shows that its theory can reflect objective laws and is scientific.
The holistic thinking of TCM is highly consistent with the systematic view of complexity science.
As far as the guiding ideology and basic principles are concerned, western medicine can be attributed to reductionism medicine, and the theory follows formal logic and experimental rationality. Traditional Chinese medicine is a holistic medicine, following dialectical logic and practical rationality.
Reductionism is consistent with the development of modern natural science: the whole is composed of parts, and the advanced movement is composed of the low-level movement. As a modern medicine, the basic theory of western medicine is based on solid science such as physics, chemistry, biology, human anatomy and psychology. , and formed a complete set of subdivision systems such as pathology, pharmacology, internal medicine, surgery, gynecology and pediatrics. The etiology, pathogenesis and treatment principles of most diseases can be explained at the molecular level. The molecular formula of the drug and the protein structure of the recipient cells should be clear, and the efficacy of the drug must be tested by carefully designed double-blind experiments. Testability and interpretability make the scientific nature of western medicine beyond doubt.
The principle of disease diagnosis and treatment in TCM is to regard the individual as a whole life, and all parts of the human body are interrelated, further to regard man and nature as a whole, to link human health and diseases with climate, season and geographical environment, and to distinguish yin and yang from cold and heat deficiency. Traditional Chinese medicine is basically a natural animal and plant product, so it is called "Chinese herbal medicine". There are different dosage forms of "Pill, Powder, Paste, Dan and Tang", and the prescriptions of "Jun, Chen and Zuo" are compatible, paying attention to balance and coordination. In addition to drugs, Chinese medicine has more non-drug means, such as acupuncture, moxibustion, cupping, scraping, massage, bonesetting and so on. According to the meridian points, you can "treat headaches and prick your ears". Traditional Chinese medicine also emphasizes "homology of medicine and food" and "prevention of disease" in prevention and health care.
Since the middle of the 20th century, the development of natural science has increasingly turned to complexity as the main object, and complexity science came into being. The core tool of complexity science is system theory, which emphasizes interconnection, balance and coordination, and "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts". It is not difficult to see that the holistic thinking and systematic thinking of traditional Chinese medicine are completely consistent and highly consistent. Qian Xuesen, a famous scientist in China and a leader in systems science, once pointed out that "the theory of traditional Chinese medicine contains many thoughts of system theory, which is a serious shortcoming of western medicine." Therefore, the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine is the correct way for medical development, which will eventually lead to the change of the scientific and technological system-the scientific revolution. "
On the scientific nature of TCM theory from the perspective of development
The history of scientific development shows that the progress of science is a process of "guessing and refuting" approaching the truth. For example, the artificial intelligence "Alpha Dog" has reached an invincible level in playing Go, but its winning mechanism is not easy to explain. The top human chess player said "I can't understand it", but the team of engineers who developed and designed "Alpha Dog" said that "Alpha Dog" won chess by "deep learning", which was the result of a large number of repeated games and accumulated experience. However, we know that "deep learning" is only a formal imitation of the multi-layer neural network structure and thinking cognitive process of the human brain, and it is the "bottom algorithm" for artificial intelligence to make a breakthrough, and it cannot explain how "Alpha Dog" plays chess and wins chess. In order to give an explanation of "non-interpretability", artificial intelligence scientists put forward the concept of "dark knowledge": machine learning can extract "knowledge that human beings cannot feel and express". "Bright knowledge" corresponding to "dark knowledge" is knowledge that people can feel, understand and express. The proposition of "tacit knowledge" reflects the limitations of human cognition. The "dark knowledge" that contemporary people can't perceive may be understood and expressed in the future, and "dark knowledge" will be transformed into "bright knowledge". Practice is the only criterion for testing truth. The scientific nature of TCM theory has been proved by thousands of years' practice, and will be further tested in the future development. It can't be easily denied and denied because of a temporary lack of understanding of mechanism and principle.
In short, with the help of the analysis of traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine and their relationship from the sociology of knowledge, we can know that both of them have cultural attributes, because they originated from local knowledge and formed their own unique traditional Chinese medicine culture and western medicine culture due to historical reasons; Both of them are medical sciences, but they belong to two different paradigms of scientific system. Historically, the standards and boundaries of science have been changing, and human cognitive ability and cognitive vision are also constantly improving and expanding. Therefore, it is our correct attitude to pursue truth and explore the unknown to look at the scientific nature of TCM theory from a developmental perspective.
(Author: Ying Shi, Professor, School of Humanities and Social Development, Northwest A&F University, Vice President of Chinese Society of Society)