The Dialogue of East and West

In 1955, Joseph Needham delivered a presidential address to the Britain–China Friendship Association, entitled ‘The Dialogue of East and West’. Needham argues that since modern science and technology have developed in Europe after the period of the Renaissance, and since modern science and technology have become the science and technology of the world, the West has taken on the attitude that it is self-evident that everything else should become shaped after the Western viewpoints as well. The European attitude of applying Western categories to a non-Western (i.e. Chinese) object is characteristic for the modernity concept. During the ‘century of humiliation’, the conviction had grown that developing an advanced science and technology were the prerequisites for China to regain its historical position in the world.