Granoff, Phyllis, Frits Staal and Michio Yano, eds., "The Emergence of Artificial Languages. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Asian Contributions to the Formation of Modern Science I." International Institute of Asian Studies. Leiden University, September 20-21, 2002.
Journal of Indian Philosophy 34. 2006.89-141
PREFACE
Discussions on science and philosophy, vague as they are when the terms are not defined, have always been more common in Europe than in India. They have also excluded serious consideration of Indian philosophy in their efforts to see the origins of science as something uniquely European. The essays that are gathered here attempt to redress the balance and bring India and Indian philosophy firmly into the debate about the nature and origins of science. They also attempt to study the origins of science from the broadest perspective possible. Many of the sciences of Eurasia were in contact with each other during the ancient and medieval period. The history of science during those millennia can only be adequately understood if the Eurasian continent is treated as an undivided unit. Hence the papers that are published here are concerned not only with India, but with Babylonia and China, and touch upon the Arab world as well.
The very use of the English word "science" invokes a widespread and persistent but erroneous picture of its development. According to a popular theory, the quest began in Ancient Greece. It is admitted that somewhere along the line the Arabs played a role, but the appearance of science is thought to have been unique, not replicable, and to a large extent inexplicable. The idea, seductive to some, is supported by several facts. One is that there is a straight line that leads from Euclid's Elements to Newton's Principia. But there is no need to go further and suppose that Euclidian geometry determines modern science. That much has in fact been refuted by historians of science such as Otto Neugebauer, Joseph Needham and David Pingree, to name but a few.
The new insights explain what the old idea did not. It is certainly true that modern science involves a wealth of mathematics, but this mathematics is one of algebraic symbols, not geometrical figures. These symbols do not depict algebra in any conventional sense; they make use of an algebraic language or some other form of artificial language. Focusing on these artificial languages changes our understanding of the development of science dramatically. One consequence is the refutation of the idea of "le miracle grec", for none of these forms of language originated in Greece. Some algebra was written in Hellenistic Greek, but it continues an Ancient Mesopotamian tradition. Aristotle created an artificial language for his logic, which was studied and developed during the Christian and Islamic middle ages, but it did not lead to modern science. There is no doubt that algebra, and many of the expressions of its artificial language (e.g., the unknown quantity x), came to Europe from the Arabs who stood at the geographical and historical center of pre-modern science. But it is not known how much of Arab science itself was inspired or even derived from any of the earlier civilizations with which the Arabs were in touch. These include Mesopotamia, China and India (where, for example, yavattavat was used to refer to an unknown number).
The emergence of artificial languages presents us with various puzzles. Artificial languages play a role in philosophy, logic and mathematics, fields of inquiry that evolved in different directions and situations and are not confined to any one civilization. But the metalanguage of linguistics, the science of language itself, is also artificial. Our attempt to understand the development of science, therefore, restores to India a forgotten role. Anyone familiar with Indian philosophy and grammar can readily attest to the crucial importance of artificial languages for both fields of inquiry. Artificial languages of different kinds were regularly employed by ancient Indian grammarians and logicians. Grammar influenced all the sastras, while logic was important not only to philosophers but even to poets and rhetoricians. The connections between Indian philosophy and mathematics are perhaps less obvious, although Vyasa's Yogasutrabhasya and Sankara¹s Brahmasutrabhasya exhibit knowledge of the place-value system.
The task we have set for ourselves in these essays and in subsequent work is to study how artificial languages developed and ramified in different ways in different cultures. The papers that are published here are based on presentations that were originally made at a workshop on the emergence of artificial languages which was organized as the first in a series of meetings on "Asian contributions to the formation of modern science." It took place in Leiden, on September 20-21, 2002.
The key speakers were Charles Burnett (Warburg Institute) who described the slow penetration of Indian numerals into Arabic, Greek and Latin. Karine Chemla (Paris) demonstrated how permutations of characters in a Chinese mathematical text of the thirteenth century performed the function of brackets as used in modern notations. Jens Hoyrup (Roskilde) showed that Old-Babylonian ideograms do not constitute an algebraic symbolism, but are mnemonic abbreviations of geometric operations. Kim Plofker (Providence) analyzed al-Biruni¹s comparison of Indian and Islamic mathematical techniques and notations. Frits Staal (Berkeley), convener of the workshop, argued that modern science is not a product of Europe or world history, but the result of an advance in human cognition through language. Michio Yano (Kyoto) studied oral and written methods of transmission of expressions for numerals and numerical tables in Sanskrit.
The presentations were followed by lively discussions in which a crucial role was played by the chairs of the sessions: Kamaleswar Bhattacharya (Paris), Christoph Harbsmeier (Oslo and Peking), Jan P. Hogendijk (Utrecht), and Dominik Wujastyk (London).
Both editors and participants are pleased to see these papers published in the Journal of Indian Philosophy. We hope that the articles will be of interest to scholars of Indian philosophy, who may see in them new avenues of inquiry.
We are grateful to Marloes Rozing who organized our meetings on behalf of the International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS), which also supported the workshop financially along with the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Leiden Research School of Asian, African and Amerindian Studies (CNWS). We express our deep appreciation for the generous support of these institutions.
Phyllis Granoff, Frits Staal and Michio Yano