Cultural Essentialism and Cohen’s Eurocentric–cum–Neo-Eurocentric Argument Concerning the Breakthrough into Modern Science

Both experimentation and the mechanical philosophy had arisen from the alchemical tradition originally borrowed from the Arabs. Floris Cohen’s argument of experimentation being the ‘consolidation’ by Bacon of a ‘specifically European-colored mode’ of ‘coercive empiricism’ is contrary to historical facts. Descartes’ kinetic rendering of Democritean atomism was inspired by Galileo’s work on motion, and his mathematization of nature on that basis depended on synthesizing Hindu-Arabic algebra with Greek geometry. Cohen’s argument that Descartes directly transformed Democritean atomism into ‘Athens-plus’ is, hence, Eurocentric. Cohen’s argument concerning why the breakthrough into modern science occurred turns the outdated ideological ‘voyages of discovery’ narrative into a neo-Eurocentric pseudo-explanation. As support, Cohen cites a long, sweeping statement from Needham that contrasts Europe with China. Needham’s view concerning Europe is derived from that very same narrative, while each and every claim made by him concerning China is contrary to the simplest historical facts.