An Archaeological Perspective on Song Yingxing's "Tiangong Kaiwu": Text Mining and Knowledge Structure Analysis

Abstract

"Tiangong Kaiwu," authored by Song Yingxing at the end of the Ming Dynasty, is a comprehensive work encompassing various production technologies. The book is divided into three volumes and eighteen chapters, covering fields such as agriculture, handicrafts, and mining, detailing the production techniques, processing methods, and scientific principles of the time. This work not only reflects the technological level of the Ming Dynasty but also serves as a crucial document for the study of ancient Chinese intellectual history and the history of science. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach and incorporating archaeological perspectives, this research utilizes text mining tools such as topic modeling, word embedding, and entity recognition to systematically analyze the text catalog and knowledge structure of "Tiangong Kaiwu." The study reveals that the sequence of chapters in the book is not a result of Song Yingxing's lack of careful consideration but rather an intentional arrangement. Song Yingxing's pragmatic, agrarian, and anti-extravagance thoughts fundamentally shaped the intellectual writing of "Tiangong Kaiwu." Furthermore, Song's compilation of this work stems from his critique of the vanity in the academic style of the late Ming Dynasty, leading him to shift towards practical learning. This shift essentially follows the Confucian idea of practical application, critiques the inherited Confucian concept of "Gwu," and reconstructs the method of poor reasoning and the understanding of the heavenly way under the context of Ming Dynasty's Confucianism focused on the study of human nature. This research not only uncovers the deep knowledge structure of "Tiangong Kaiwu" but also provides a new archaeological perspective for understanding the interaction between technology and culture during the Ming Dynasty.