Abstract

Philosophy of science in the West has been traditionally concerned with the analysis and interpretation of Western science, an abstract system that emerged from the industrial culture of modern Europe. Few philosophical excursions have looked into non-Western science; many "primitive", non-Western cultures did engage in some form of scientific behavior. ;As an example of the investigation of a non-Western science, the ethnonavigation that was practiced by island-cultures in the Pacific is chosen. The cognitive traits that enthnonavigation reveals and its philosophical importance are discussed. ;The source material ranges from the circumnavigation of Magellan in 1521 to the experimental voyages of Lewis in 1964. European visitors to these island-cultures learned the techniques of Pacific ethnonavigation through a variety of methods. Among the direct methods were interrogation of natives, actual voyages in native canoes and observations of native seamanship. Among the indirect methods were inferences that were drawn from the inspection of stone and stick models and demonstrations of native sailing. The translation of native chants was another example of the indirect method of learning about the state of ethnonavigational knowledge. The ethnographic evidence reaffirms the opinion of some scholars that a system of ethnonavigation was practiced among the pre-literate, pre-industrial, non-Western cultures of the Pacific. ;As a technical achievement, the system of ethnonavigation blends several categories of traditional scientific knowledge: the astronomy of local stars, the meteorology of local weather and wind phenomena, the oceanography of interatoll swells and ocean currents and lastly, the biology of oceanic birds. Although it was too difficult to assess the commonality of ethnonavigating techniques among the scattered island cultures, a hypothetical Pacific ethnonavigator who was assumed to possess complete knowledge of the total system is constructed. ;The explanation and interpretation of the ethnonavigating system draws upon the theoretical frameworks of several philosophers of human cultural development: Cassirer, Frazer, Hempel, Nash, Piaget and Werner. The theories of the developmental psychologists suggests that the systemization of astronomical and geographic knowledge was accomplished with the aid of simpler cognitive processes than are employed in Western science. The analyses of philosophers of science suggests that Pacific enthnonavigation is an instance of science oriented thinking that was taking place in an oral culture. Pacific ethnonavigation strongly resembles Western science: its language terms refer to empirical observations; its mental constructs schematize concrete colligative relations; its models of sticks and stones depict the oceanic and astronomic space that was known. Pacific ethnonavigation is dominated by geometric and spatial thinking in comparison with Western science which employs algebraic and discursive reasoning. Pacific ethnonavigation is tied to concrete phenomena. Possessing no theoretical terms, it is an example of a theory-free science, exemplifying the empirical as opposed to the explanatory character of scientific thought