Investigation Of The Technological View In Ancient Chinese Literature

The modern technology has demonstrated its enormous power to the world since the Industrial Revolution. The rapid development of technology induces the impact of the tool rationality on value rationality. How to coordinate the relationship between modern technological development and social life has became an issue of common concern.The concepts of "poetic wisdom", "poetic thinking" and "poetic logic" were presented by Vico before the Industry Revolution. After the tremendous effects of modern technology on social life were shown, Heidegger realized that the ancient Greek word "artistry" had already contained the implications of beauty and morality in itself, however, such implications gradually fell off after Plato, which resulted in the later separation of technology and art. The "limiting" and "over demanding" of modern technology in the material world produce the conflicts among "truth", "goodness" and "beauty", the "poetic dwelling" is sequentially ruined. Both Vico and Heidegger were calling for a kind of poetic technology as the ideal model of technology development, which essentially unifies the truth, goodness and beauty.The ideas of Vico and Heidegger have provoked many deep ideas, unfortunately, the self-development of technology is not touched. Through investigating the technological view contained in ancient Chinese literatures, we can find that the ancient Chinese technology just provides an example that the poetic technology used to exist. This does not mean all the processes and achievements of Chinese traditional technology could meet the standards of poetic technology, but the basic ideas and specifications agree well with the essential characteristic of poetic technology.Most technical books of ancient China recorded specific rules and applications of technology, less technological view is involved, actually, the interpretation of technological view is often reflected in ancient Chinese literatures. Literatures provide not only the reappearances of the social life to some extent, but also an effective carrier for the writers to affect the social life using their own ideas and shape the poetic technique. The technological view reflected in the ancient literatures could be more abundant and vivid than that in the ancient technical books. Investigating the technological view through ancient Chinese literatures not only is feasible, but also provides an important way to study the poetic technology of ancient China.This dissertation investigates the technological view contained in the literatures, including the ancient myths, pre-Qin philosophers’ fables, rhyme proses of the Han Dynasty and the Ming-Qing fictions. The comparative study with the myths of ancient Egypt and Hebrew shows that the origin of ancient Chinese technique has the characteristic of organic naturalism, which is specifically manifested in the following aspects:the origins of technology and world, the births of technology and human, modifying the nature by technique, "Zhi Qi Shang Xiang (making objects, we should be guided by its images)" in technological invention, consecration of inventors of technology, "Tian Ren Jiao Gan (telepathy between nature and human)" in technological activities.It has been fully proved that the poetic technique is the essential characteristic of ancient Chinese technique in pre-Qin philosophers’ fables. Harmony between the key factors of technique is always emphasized, whatever between the human and nature or inside the technological system, the pursuit of "You Ji Ru Tao (understanding Tao through technology)" is manifested. "Ji (technology)" is only the appearance of technological activities, "Tao" is the ideal status of technique. Chinese ancients usually pursue the inside spiritual realm "De Dao (understanding Tao)" through the outside technological activities. And "Tao" is the high level summarization of the unification of truth, goodness and beauty.Because of the essential property of ancient Chinese technique "You Ji Ru Tao (understanding Tao through technology)", the characteristic of "Jing Shi Zhi Yong (putting the technology into practice)" is naturally given to the technique from the view of social function. By investigating rhyme proses of the Han Dynasty, it is not hard to find that the ancient Chinese technique has the strong social function "Jing Shi Zhi Yong (putting the technology into practice)" due to the influence of practical rationality. The technique could develop comprehensively and further be integrated into the mainstream of ancient social life only if it coexists harmoniously with other key social factors."Yi Dao Yu Shu (guiding the technology by Tao)" is emphasized in ancient China to handle the relationship between technique and morality, which is clearly demonstrated in theing-Qing fictions. The development of ancient Chinese technique is heavily influenced and restricted by the ethics of technique. The development is regulated to a great extent by many factors, including the goodness oriented awareness of professional ethics, the awareness of ecological ethics "Min Bao Wu Yu (granting benevolence to mankind and creatures)", the awareness of social ethics "Zhong Yi Qing Li (valuing justice above material gains)" and "Yi She (suppression of extravagance)"The poetic technique reflected in the literatures inevitably affects the specific technological practice. The mutual intersection of literature practice has been created, which makes the poetic technique affect the development of traditional society profoundly. The poetic technique certainly has some inherent shortcomings, etc. being lack of the investigation of technical mechanism, the technical standard is not accurate, technical innovation is not market-driven. Nevertheless, its existence proves that the poetic techique is not just an echo which could only be searched in ancient times, it is a practical activity which truly promotes the development of society. This provides an important reference on the transformation of the modern technology into the poetic technology.