Differences of Ancient Greek and Chinese

Both Ancient Greek and Ancient Chinese are remarkably magnificent, a billion people believe the intellectual from Ancient Greece and Chinese traditional thoughts. The achievements of ancient Greek and Chinese from 2000 years or more before are remarkably different. Those civilizations were formed in different regions and climates with different ancestors. In some parts, of course, they have similarities. For example, both developed with empire. Ancient Greek's political approach shares some similarities with the Confucianism of China in a sense.
However, Ancient China and Ancient Greece were vastly dissimilar. The basic ideas of both civilizations that I learned in the class are those. In Ancient Greek, they emphasize on personal identities. Ancient Chinese emphasize on collective identities. In political view, China built a strongly centralized bureaucratic system which is strongly supported by hierarchy and obedience. In contrast, Ancient Greece valued on participation, including the idea of citizenship. Here I would like to make it clear that what are the differences between those in specific areas, like science or medicine or so on. In addition what are the causes of these differences.
Geoffrey Lloyd and Nathan Sivin mentioned that Greek was not required to produce any "formal qualifications" in order to teach or to practice as a philosopher or scientist or doctor. As they mentions, there are different actions to develop science and medicine.

At first, Ancient Chinese were not helpful as Ancient Greek were in the development of science. The great inventions of scientific discoveries can be attributed in the discovery of the nature itself. The Greeks defined that nature is universe minus human being and their culture. No other civilization, including Chinese civilization, came up on it. The reason why this definition is generated is because they had a clear understanding of subjectivity from the tradition of debate. So they remarkably divided the external, objective world and the internal, subjective world. Unless you comprehend that other is better than mine, like the statement or affairs of others are superior to mine, you never try to persuade of me. Therefore Western people like to debate. Moreover, due to their position as a trading center, they regularly encountered people who have different notions of the world.
In contrast, Chinese culture was united early on and it probably seldom to encounter people who have different religious views radically. Moreover, Chinese were lack of the curiosity of outsiders. It would have blocked to develop the science in any case. For Chinese it is difficult to ask “why” without the mental concepts, which correspond to nature not them self. It is related to the value of identities. Since they tend to focus on the relationship in complex and interconnected field, Chinese does not value on personal identities but collective. It also influenced on another factors.
Secondly, Ancient Chinese and Greek have different idea in medicine. The specific example is about surgery. In Ancient Chinese surgery has been a great rarity, although it has been practiced in Western societies for thousands of years. The reluctant of surgery is attributed in the views of harmony and relationship. The balance of forces in body lead to be healthy and also the body are all related. They believe that, for example, the surface of ears and internal organs are related each other. So they cured by “Acupuncture”. It is not understandable for Chinese that to remove or disease the part of malfunctioning is beneficial. It is too simply for them.
In addition to “Acupuncture”, there is another unique Chinese culture. It is “Fen Shui”. Fen Shui master advices on where to locate the structure by using compass, prevailing wind, bodies of water or stars. As I mentioned above, this also is attributed in the tendency of focusing on the relationship in complex and interconnected field. Chinese believed that the land is alive and filled with energy and the land's energy could either make or break the kingdom. So it is obviously that Chinese were convinced of the fundamental relatedness of all things. It shows that Chinese cherished the family relationship.
On the other hand, Greek did not believe in those relationships. Hence they were in needed for categorizing objects. The third differences are about the faith in categories and contextualize. Ancient Greek supported making the category, but Chinese were not interested in it. As a result of categorizing, Greek made classifications of the natural world from biological attempt that other peoples did to the theory of real explanatory power. While Chinese failed to discover the law. Ancient Chinese concerned that objects are converted by context, like situation or conditions, so that they concerned that the world were too complex and interactive to understanding objects or control them by making categories or rules. Then they have not taken the categorizing in their societies. Also apparently they are contextualized civilization. On the other hand, in order to a corrupt society, Greek must make the categories to apply rules. They tended to oversimplify by explaining of the property of object that is not existent. The rules help people to apply maximally so it would be as a constant “upward press” toward abstraction.
Moreover there is one more important invention in Ancient Greek. The basic rules of logic were invented by Aristotle. Since they have made a definition, like rule, they started to argue with those definitions. However there would be the contradictions. After a while they noticed that when arguments are flawed by definitions, their structure result in the contradictions. He was annoyed at hearing bad arguments. The basic rules of logic are related to the Greek tendency of de-contextualize, because logic is contributed by ignoring the meaning of statements and leave only structures. This makes it easy to see whether an argument is valid or not, although it is said that sorts of de-contextualize are in danger in East Asians, who are more reasonable rather than rational.

In conclusion, there are three differences between Ancient Greek and Chinese. First is scientific development in order to the understanding of the subject and object. Second is medicine, especially the consciousness of surgery due to different the understanding of relationships. Thirdly the categorizing and contextualize are extremely difference. In some parts, those differences are still taking over now, like “Fen Shui”. Those differences show both success and failure in each civilization. However, in any areas, Ancient Greek had huge effect on their own society and others for long times. I wonder if Ancient Chinese could take place of Ancient Greek. Especially, looking at scientific advanced in Ancient Greek, there is no present development of science without endeavor for competition, confrontation, and challenges.