Summary To understand the present situation we must know something about its history. The ‘Rise of the West’, which grew out of the ‘European Miracle’, is a special case of cultural evolution. The development of science is an important element in this process. Cultural evolution went hand in hand with biological evolution. Evolutionary epistemology illuminates the achievements and the evolution of cognitive sensory apparatus of various species. Man's cognitive sensory apparatus is adapted to the ‘mesocosmos’, the world of medium-sized dimensions. (...) The biological structures constitute the hardware of the cognitive sensory apparatus, while certain expectations and theories, which are ontogenetically apriori, constitute the corresponding system software. A distinction is introduced between ‘primary theories’ (linked to the sensory apparatus) and ‘secondary theories’. The latter are the result of attempts to meet the demand for an explanation of phenomena that cannot be explained in terms of ‘primary theories’. Two subsets of ‘secondary theories’ are compared: spiritualistic-personalized theories and scientific theories. From the historical point of view the scientific secondary theories are but a special subset of the class of secondary theories. From the systematic point of view it is instructive to focus on a comparison of the two subsets: what do they have in common? in what respects do they differ? The rise of scientific thinking is closely linked to the ‘European Miracle’. How (and when and why) did the West grow rich? To answer this question we must first produce an explanation of the principle: theories about the consequences of institutional arrangements. Then we can give a historical explanation of why this development took place in Europe and only there. It is claimed that the secret of success, economic wealth and the first approximations to relatively free societies, was the taming of the state, the taming of cleptocracy (independent of the nature of the agency having cleptocratic appetites, be it princes or parliaments). The taming of the state is a pre-democratic achievement. Finally, the consequences of institutional arrangements for scientific progress and innovation are examined. Only if the system is market-like, will it link individual effort with reward and, through the competitive process, encourage the wide dissemination and use of new ideas. There is no tradeoff between freedom on the one hand and economic success and the growth of scientific knowledge on the other. Freedom and the ensuing flexibility is the key to the past and to the future. (shrink)

Résumé L’article propose un aperçu des relations entre le droit et les sciences dans la Chine des Qing (1644-1911), mises en perceptive avec la façon dont ces liens ont été décrits par les historiens de l’Europe moderne. Savoirs scientifiques et savoir juridique découlaient en Chine d’une matrice commune déterminant les conditions d’accès au savoir. Cette théorie de la connaissance, fixée dans les Classiques confucéens, somme d’ouvrages au cœur du curriculum des lettrés et au fondement de l’organisation bureaucratique, était commune à (...) l’ensemble des champs disciplinaires. Se dégageaient ainsi une heuristique ou encore des formes communes de structuration du raisonnement semblables quelles que soient les sciences considérées. Nous illustrons ces points à travers l’étude de plusieurs facettes de l’organisation du savoir juridique, mis au regard des principes structurant le savoir mathématique. (shrink)