This study of the role of Chinese culture in the humanization of technology is part of a series of joint studies by the Institutes of Philosophy of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and of Fudan University in Shanghai with the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (RVP). Begun in 1987 with Peking University, this focused first upon the perennial concern for the modernization of China. During the 1990s, along with people’s throughout the world, the Institutes of Philosophy in Shanghai extended their concerns beyond the classical Chinese issue of modernization and even beyond its critique in "postmodernism," and began to envisage a new more humane Third Millenium. Hence, in recent years these studies have examined the humaniza-tion of technology, economics, civil society, spiritual values and indeed of globalization itself.

The theme of this volume is the humanization of technology and Chinese culture. Modernization had ardently been sought by the Chinese people for over a century -- often, as in the 1919 move-ment, at the direct expense of the Chinese cultural heritage and identity. Technology was first been envisaged hopefully as the substitution of human labor by the machine. Brutally, however, fascination with technology shifted attention from human interiority to the objective world, to which it moulded human behavior. In this sense it now has come to symbolize the dehumanizing effects of modernization.

What is distinctive of the present Renaissance in all phases of life is that it renews the appreciation of culture, including its importance for the implementation of our physical and spiritual worlds. This, in turn, directs fresh attention to technology to see, not how it can be dominated, but rather how it can be developed on a new and more humane basis. Today, we look not merely for ways in which technology can be made harmonious with Chinese culture, but for how it can be stimulated, implemented and oriented thereby. This is the exceptional significance of the present study at this turn of the millennia.

The chapters of this work fall into three parts: Part I studies the and challenge of technology, with special attention to China; Part Two studies the emerging awareness of the role of the human subject with regard to technology; and Part Three concerns especially values in Chinese culture which can contribute to, and shape, technology at this historic juncture.

Part I "The and Challenge of Technology" begins with a study by T. Imamichi, host of the overall study, who reaches deeply into the , history and ramifications of technology. He identifies its logical, cosmological and ontological dimensions, but also provides a step by step historical account of the unfolding of technology up to its present form. This sets the horizons for the project. It is followed in Chapter II by Yu Xuanmeng’s analysis of Heidegger’s treatment of the theme. He identifies a tragic, but inevitable, human complicity in the problem by showing how it is human destiny to order and hold in reserve the force of being. The emergence of being in time is thereby promoted, but simul-taneously restricted by the limitations of the human itself. As it is destiny this cannot be avoided, but rendered conscious it can enable an attitude of watchfulness in order that our stewardship promote rather than impede the emergence of being in time. This is the essence of what humanity is now attempting to learn and implement with regard, e.g., to shaping the effects of technology on the environment.

This is brought out in Chapters III and IV by Lik Kuen Tong and Wang Xinsheng on Nietzsche and Confucius, respectively. Nietzsche took an essentially aesthetic attitude. He saw the universe as basically chaotic so that all order is a violent imposition by human power. In these terms the "Super-man" or "Over-man" who most exerted his will was the archetype. The results of this attitude have been so tragic in this last century that at this turn of the millennia we look desperately for alternatives. Perhaps sur-prisingly for some, a major alternative is to be found in the Confu-cian traditions of China with its sense of harmony rather than of chaos, and of life as essentially the cultivation of the divinely given image of the good. This, in turn, suggests the inadequacy of Nietzsche’s notion of the "Death of God" and its reductive humanism. Whatever be said of the Chinese tradition, it differs decidedly from this. In its choice of harmony over violence lies it possibilities for being watchful, in Heidegger’s sense, as regards tendencies toward that hubris which would shape humans to the machines they manufacture.

In an exceptionally insightful and forthright Chapter V, Lui Fangtong analyses the moral dilemma which emerges from a subjection of all to a technological "overlord," and from the even more widespread attempts among individuals to constitute them-selves into imitations of the "Over-man", each in their own area. In this context he suggests that more positive attention needs to be given to the ethical possibilities of pragmatism. This was developed in the West, but in circumstances not dissimilar from those in which China now finds herself or toward which she seems to be moving.

Chapter VI by Zhou Changzhong in an historical overview shows that such an ethical concern since the last half of the last century has been central in the discussions of modernization and technology. In Chapter VII Wang Miaoyang’s review of the positive and negatives aspects of technologization leads him to the conclusion that what is needed is, in sum, its humanization.

Part II "From Objectivity to Subjectivity: the Humanization of Science and Technology" begins to investigate how such humanization can take place. Obviously, this requires some reconciliation of objectivity and subjectivity. Li Jizong in his wonderfully sophisticated Chapter VIII refuses to see this as a matter of compromise in a zero sum game whereby both are compromised as each cedes to the other. Instead, he follows the development of science and technology, through periods of focused objectivity, to the more recent insight that their progress requires a new appreciation of the role of subjectivity. Conversely, a notable degree of objectivity is required for authentic subjectivity, thereby allaying the twin fears of subjectivism and relativism. It is most significant that Li Jizong is able to elaborate this position precisely by locating objectivity in terms not merely of sense data, but of the metaphysical dimensions of truth, goodness and beauty.

In chapter IX Vincent Shen complements this masterpiece with specific attention to Confucius’s ambiguity with regard to science and technology. His fusion of empirical knowledge with intelligibility enabled him to focus not upon the mathematically rational, but upon the reasonable as found through humane life practice. On this basis Prof. Shen introduces with deep insight the position that modernization and its technology can be developed better and more humanly on the Confucian, than on the rationalist basis to which historically it has been wed in the West.

Chapter X by Cheng Chaonan complements this insight by a study of ways in which subjectivity was salient in ancient Chinese thought, where it implied not a domination of , but an affinity therewith. This is echoed also in the subsequent chapters. In Chapter XI Fu Jizhong finds analogues of this in biotechnology’s new methods of somatic cell hybridization. In Chapter XII K. R. Hanley finds in the plays of G. Marcel philosophical suggestions for the integration of subjectivity.

Richard Graham in Chapter XIII shows how this is a matter of taking personal possession of one’s tradition by comparing it and correcting it in relation to more universal ethical principles. M. Dy in Chapter XIV brings the thought of J. Habermas to this task. Indeed Habermas uses the stages of development elaborated at the Kohlberg Center which R. Graham initially developed. Habermas would stress an ethics not of facts, but of dialogical process in which all have equal voices and cooperate in the development of the life world. M. Dy notes in Chapter XV that in this work philosophy must play an indispensable reflective and critical role, which is open as well to feeling and to love.

Part III "Asian Values and Technology: Humanizing the Modernization of China" suggests that this integration of human subjectivity requires levels of human awareness which classically have been central in the Chinese tradition. Chapter XVI by G. McLean traces the progression of the thought of Kant in his three critiques from science, to ethics, and thence to aesthetics. It is the third which, by synthesizing the earlier two, makes it possible to realize human freedom in the context of science and technology, and the converse. At this aesthetic level, on the one hand, it is possible to take account of cultural traditions as cumulative human freedom and to shape them for new circumstances. On the other hand, Confucius’s humane concern for harmony between human-kind and becomes not an addition alongside technology, but the very manner of its assimilation and elaboration today. This is developed into an eco-aesthetic by N. Hashimoto in Chapter XVII.

Chapter XVIII by Chen Ganfa illustrates the importance of this for the new China where interests can seem to submerge righteousness, egoism overcome altruism, and individualism eclipse the community. In Chapter XIX M. Dy responds to this with the alternate view of Zhuang Zi, namely, that perfect joy is found not in grasping, but in letting go. This is the deep message of the Hindu Bhagavad Gita as well. Prof. Dy goes further in Chapter XX noting that the Chinese tradition has means to right the imbalance due to its cyclical view. This was never the Greek sense of repetition, but rather of ongoing development with cosmic propor-tions and endless possibilities. This enables one to overcome the exteriority of consumption and to find the meaning of reality in the deep center of human life as sacred, uniting the infinite and the finite, and .

Obviously to implement this requires developments in education and Chapter XXI by Shi Zhonglian points out that this must have two dimensions. One of these is the permanent value context of a tradition. The other is the spiritual enlightenment by which one is able to appreciate the present situation and apply the tradition creatively thereto.

Chapter XXII by T. Imamichi looks into Japanese culture’s deep resources for this and finds a rich bonding to and its elements, and Chapter XXIII by Yamamoto Yasuo outlines the structure of values founded thereupon. Chapter XIV by Vincent Shen reviews the development in Taiwan of attempts to provide Chinese philosophy with additional dimensions in order to enable it to fulfill the demands put upon it for life in our times. Chapter XXV by T. Zasepa provides a spiritual grounding for this vision.

In sum, the work does not see technology as a threat. That would be the case were it interpreted only in terms of the philosophical context, insensitive to subjectivity and focused upon control, which unfortunately has been too characteristic of the modern and even the postmodern periods. Instead, the work sees technology as able to be a much needed and important help when appreciated in the context of an Asian vision centered on harmony and interiority, and with a sense of transcendence which invites human initiative and creativity.