The rise and development of philosophy has both an "internal history" and an "external history", both of which are related in a complex process. This paper will examine the "external history" of Western scientific philosophy and is restricted to the development of the social economy and to the influence of this change in scientific philosophy.

As a main feature, Greek civilization was generated on the basis and in the conditions of the economy of the city-state. The Greeks entered directly into the Iron Age without passing through the Bronze Age. They began to live not as a resident agricultural society, but from a city state economy. This featured a considerable development of navigation, commerce and industrial technologies, especially architecture and weaponry. This social economy pro-vided special conditions for the Greek scientific philosophy.

Firstly, Greek scientific philosophy took technology, nature and commerce as the material and object of its reflection, rather than myths and religion. The Greeks explained the structure and change of the world with help of the technological analogies, whereas the Babylonians and Egyptians did so through analogy with legends regarding their genesis.

Secondly, as migrators and conquerors, the Greeks inherited cities in the conquered lands with their navigation and commerce. Such economic activities shaped the mental quality of the nation enabling it to accept new things from others. All this made the Greeks adept at accepting the available accomplishments of science and technology as objects for reflection.

Finally, the city-state economy, with navigation, trade and industry as its main elements, was more advanced than the resident agricultural economy. The economy created leisure needed for some people in the society to devote themselves purely to spiritual activities.

At the same time, this relatively advanced economy ge-nerated higher and more urgent demands for science and tech-nology, and the Greek philosophers developed a related a scientific philosophy. Thus, the economy of Greek city-state laid down the essential premises for the Greek scientific philosophy or spe-culative natural philosophy.

The Greek philosophers used their leisure to engage in purely intellectual activities. With a speculative capability apt for meta-physical thinking, they strove to master the basic issues. In contact with the scattered knowledge in science and technology, they devoted themselves to inquiry after the general scientific principles of nature and formulated philosophical theories based on these principles. This generated Greek speculative natural philosophy of which the main achievements were the Miletian School, Plato’s ontology and Aristotle’s metaphysics and logic.

In accord with above-mentioned socio-economical conditions, an important feature of this scientific philosophy consisted in taking "objective knowledge": science, technology and nature as the object of reflection and knowledge, and seeking its principles. Its focus therefore was not human nature and human life. Of course, this natural philosophy concerned also human beings, but it reduced human nature to reason as the acquisition of knowledge.

Beginning from the 15th century, Western society gradually entered into the age of large-scale industrial production, which age continued until the 19th century.

In the 15th century, great development took place in Western society, with industry attaining unprecedented progress due to the use of advanced production techniques. This provided an essential basis for the rise of modern science in the 16th and 17th century through a focus on facts and experiment instruments. The In-dustrial Revolution in the 18th century led to a great leap in the large-scale industrial economy. This gave a tremendous impetus to science, thus making the 19th century "the century of science," culminating in classical science. Science, in turn, gave great impetus to technology and hence to production and the economy. But, in the cycle of "production-technology-science-production", production occupied the position of basis, premise, motive force and condition.

In comparison with the domination of natural philosophy by the economy of the Greek city-state economy, the large-scale industrial economy influenced philosophy not directly, but via the rise of modern science. When there had been only scattered natural knowledge, natural philosophy took technology and nature as the main objects of its reflection. But once science had been de-veloped, scientific philosophy naturally centered its attention thereupon. The great change in different aspects of society caused by large-scale industrial economy manifested the huge human power to remold and employ nature, and brought unprecedented welfare, all of which were an outcome of the rise and development of modern science.

Natural philosophy was to a great extent the activity of "philosophy for philosophy" and was carried out in leisure. What impressed the modern philosopher was primarily the tremendous material force and utility generated by the industrial economy. The expression by Francis Bacon that "knowledge is power" was a precise expression of this philosophical insight, emphasizing that knowledge became power in human action. It is worth noting here that Bacon proposed action, for the presentation of the problem after the manner of principle and action formed two poles of cultural spirit of Western science.

Closely related with this, modern scientific philosophy emphasized utility and experience. Bacon’s philosophy was dis-tinguished from previous philosophical doctrines by its concern for utility. The practice of modern industrial production obviously gave prominence to the position and role of experience as the source and content of knowledge. Bacon described his philo-sophical mission as "discovering a new continent in the intellectual world", one task of which consisted in discovering experience as the method, basis and standard. In contrast, Greek natural philo-sophy had taken "objective knowledge" as its focus for reflection.

Modern large-scale industrial economy rapidly enhanced the social status of science so that it became an important social institution, and a social "scientistic movement" took place. The movement attributed to science comprehensive social significance, and gave the greatest significance to the Enlightenment philosophy of man and society. This is to say that science was raised to a mode and norm for human life and scientific philosophy began to turn its attention to humans. In fact, the modern philosophers, Descartes, Locke, Leibnitz, Hume and Kant, devoted themselves to inquiring into human nature, the mind and human understanding.

To say that modern scientific philosophy was prescientific is relative to the proper scientific philosophy in the 20th century. It still was not entirely independent from philosophy in general. As the outcome of large-scale industrial economy and reflection on classical science, the knowledge of the human by this prescientific philosophy was still restricted to intellectual and logical under-standing, in short, to a natural scientific understanding of the human.

In the 20th century, Western society entered an age of "megaeconomy". By this term is meant that the entire social economy formed a dynamic megasystem with a process of mega-production. This magasystem consists of market, production, science and technology, exchange, consumption and finance, with a high degree of information.

This entire "megaeconomy" was supported by contemporary science; its genesis, operation and development were impossible without the development of contemporary science and continuous new discovery, invention and creation. As the condition and basis of science, the "megaeconomy" advanced the influence of science by promoting its rapid and profound creation and revolution, even a so-called "explosion of knowledge". What enabled the "mega-economy" to influence the philosophy of science was not classical science generated and developed in the modern period, but con-temporary science as the outcome of the scientific revolution at the turn of the century. The scientific revolution, with quantum mechanics, relativity and non-Euclidean geometry as its main marks, led to swift development in science. In contemporary science specific knowledge developed continuously, while inte-gration took place on a large scale. If the prescientific philosophy was related to "normal science", then "philosophy of science" is related to the "scientific revolution" and "scientific discovery".

Contemporary science governed the "megaeconomy" of the entire society in a manner without parallel for classical science. As a result reflection on science by philosophy became relatively independent from philosophy. This proper philosophy of science formulated and used its own categories. "Scientific revolution" and "scientific discovery" manifested the human factor, especially its creative abilities, to a much greater extent than did "normal science". Therefore, the philosophy of science paid great attention to the human, and its creative ability. The philosophy of science as a "Second World" (the human mind) and science as "Third World" (the creation of the human mind) consists in uncovering human "life", i.e., its creative ability, and in making the human more capable of self-transcendence.

Since its rise in the 1920s, the philosophy of science under-went three stages in uncovering human creative abilities, corres-ponding to the increasing demand of the "megaeconomy" for scientific creation and discovery.

In the first stage logical positivism proposed a so-called "specialized scientific philosophy". It took philosophy as being about science, and intended to make philosophy itself a science. Thus, the human creative ability uncovered by logical positivism was restricted only to logical skills corresponding to static and established scientific knowledge. But, in comparison with the "prescientific philosophy", it attained a higher precision and formalization, that is to say, it showed that philosophy and science both consisted in doing a linguistic analysis of the logical powers of the mind.

In the second stage, critical rationalism focused on the "scientific revolution", "scientific discovery", and the "evolution of scientific knowledge". It showed that the psychological me-chanism of scientific discovery is not logic and intuition. His-toricism explored the "scientific revolution" and "scientific dis-covery" by examining the history of science itself, including its internal and external history. In this way, it extended the inquiry of the human mind from the individual to society; it also enlarged the scope of the psychological elements to include belief, values and the aesthetic sense, on the one hand; while on the other hand, it showed scientific discovery to be social action.

Around the early 1980s, Western thinkers proposed that Western society was undergoing the shock of a "Third Wave", which megatrend was its entry into "post-industrial society". This society features the dependance on knowledge, information, specialization and diversification, as well as a rise of services. Knowledge becomes the motive force for social progress and the basis for making decisions; intellectuals become a leading force in all parts of society. Industrial society turns into information society, and decisions are made by the use of information systems. Standardization, professionalization, synchronization and concentration give place to specialization and diversification.

As the Western world begins to enter into the post-industrial society, science has evolved into so-called "megascience". The scale, advance and financing of science reaches its highest level: the interconnection between science and society is very close; science, technology and production are integrated; within science, different disciplines combine with each other and interpenetrate; natural and social sciences interact with each other; and scientific undertakings closely rely on systematic planning and management.

Especially, as megascience emerges, science appears as a cultural phenomenon, the so-called "megascientific culture". This is highly coordinated with culture, economy and society. Science is more than knowledge, and profoundly affects the idea of value, social psychology, the mode of action and other cultural activities.

It is in this context that "post-scientific philosophy" appears. It differs from the philosophy of science in its starting point for it takes science as a cultural phenomenon to be reflected upon. At the same time, it situates Western science, especially the "megascientific culture," in the broad context of science, culture and the history of all humankind.

In post-industrial society megascience plays a leading role. As science appears as a cultural phenomenon the negative effects of a megascientific culture" become more evident, especially the impact upon wisdom, freedom, ethics and environment. Therefore, post-scientific philosophy turns to inquiring into human life via science, and pays special care to the negative effects. Moreover, "post-scientific philosophy" forms part of the trends of "post-modern" thought, "post-modern philosophy" and "post-philosophical culture". For that matter, in addition to the above claims, it proposes to cancel philosophy and give a naturalistic account of science.

Post-scientific philosophy opposes rationalism and bids "farewell to reason". It stresses that rationalism eliminates the diversity inherent in things, dogmatically imposing uniformity. It shows that there is no single science, but only "the sciences".

"Post-scientific philosophy" opposes the intellectualism of Western science which puts knowledge in the form of principle in the first place. This leads humans astray through its procedure of inquiring into problems via concepts. It proposes to emancipate humans from this intellectualism, and for this purpose emphasizes science as practice, the importance of the arts and various social sciences, and concern for the mode of human life.

"Post-scientific philosophy" opposes "scientific chauvinism". It shows that Western science is no more than a particular historical tradition and never the best tradition. In a democratic and free society, it is necessary to allow all traditions to coexist. Thus it gives full play to humanism. The various negative effects men-tioned above tell us that it is essential to advocate humanism or neo-humanism, and that it is possible to build a free society where humans live in an ideal manner and develop their creative ability to the utmost. This is possible only if the arts, humanities, education, society and politics all are given equal concern.

survives to the present day. Though only folklore, it implies an ethical principles for environmental protection. The stone, if viewed merely as a stone, certainly is lifeless, but in Chinese philosophy the Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist schools all believe that everything is infused with life and is equal so that even a stone had a reason for existence and its proper soul.

Chinese Da Sheng Buddhism holds that everybody and everything has the Buddhist spirit and can turn into Buddha and display its splendid life value in the world. The idea of ecological ethics that everything in nature has equal life value, equal right and equal dignity in nature is very similar to what Chinese Da Cheng Buddhism calls the Buddha soul and spirit. It is claimed in Da Ban Yin Ban Yin ( ) that all things have an equal right to survive and evolve. This is similar to the theory of modern ecological ethics which also upholds that everything on earth has the right to exist and develop.

Modern ecology requires us to change nature and protect it. The co-existence of the objectives of nature and humanity requires that we adopt a policy of both changing and protecting the nature.

Humankind cannot use nature’s objective to replace his own, but he be at the mercy of nature. For the same reason, we cannot supplant nature’s objective by that of humanity. We must acknowledge and respect nature’s objective, and protect its ecological balance, structure and reproductive capacity. At same time, under certain conditions, we must transform nature, change the course of realizing its objective, and enable the human objective to be realized. From this starting point, we must draw upon the treasures of ancient philosophy and strive vigorously to construct and develop ecological ethics.CHAPTER XX

The development of an ideal personality is a necessity for every human and is a topic of philosophical research. In history there is a parallel between the development of the personalities of both men and a women, but the difference between the two is much more conspicuous. Generally speaking, the molding and improvement of women’s personality is more difficult and requires more attention. Of course, the forming of personality is influenced by many elements, among which is the economical activity. From the point of view historical materialism this is the primary and the most immediate factor. This study concerns the relation between development of economics and of the personality of women.

The theme here is that both males and females are subjects of a creative society, but under different socio-economic forms which imply that the female has a specific experience. During economically primitive times women held a higher position as authorities of families and society, but were not self aware in this regard. In agricultural economies, women’s authority collapsed and they lost their whole personality, manifesting thereby the antinomy which can exist between the development of the economy and of women’s personality. The development of the industrial economy and the establishment of the system of democracy awoke and helped evolve women’s personality. However, backwardness of thought regarding the development of the economy and consequent male behavior created difficulties for women’s personality development. A modernized economy will enrich the female subject’s personality and open the possibilities for women to rediscover their self and improve their personality.

Almost every nation has undergone a time when they worshiped female goddesses and had beautiful legends concerning their authority. Female goddesses could not only repair heaven and make the earth, but could also create and multiply human beings. The worship of female goddesses reflects the authoritive position of female in material things and in producing human beings during primitive economic times. With respect to material production, their level then was very low. Women collected natural fruit, while men hunted for animals, but because of poor instruments men often came back with nothing, whereas the collection of fruit by women was the main source of food. In their state of group marriage, everyone knew his or her mother without knowing the father; child bearing was considered the business of women alone. In both material and human production women occupied a dominant position and were respected by everybody. With men they worked hard for the development of humankind, but did not ride roughshod over people by means of their position. Hence, their personalities were sound and beneficial. In such a time women had both position and personality, but they could not be said to have had independent individual personalities. They were conscious of a heavy dependence upon nature and human beings; there was no place for a sense of independent personality.

Progress in productive tools changed the natural division of labor. The rise of agriculture and livestock provided a new productive force. In addition, individual marriage replaced group marriage so that people knew their own parents. Child bearing was no longer a holy affair, but a burden binding women in the family. Men came to occupy the authoritive position in society originally held by women. With the establishment of the system of private property, women no longer had an independent personality, but became an exploited and oppressed part of men’s property.

The development of economy and the progress of the marriage relation need not have led to the loss of women’s personality, but the fact is just the contrary. We have seen several antinomies above: first, women invented primitive agriculture, contributed to the invention of fire and livestock farming, and helped to bring about the development of the economy and progress in history. At the same time, women showed themselves less competent than men in such productive activities as agriculture and livestock farming, which made them subordinate to men; second, women contributed to the continuation of the human race, but child bearing bound them in families and deprived them of the opportunity to take part in social activities; third, males created the culture and value system and made themselves subjects of the society, while treating females as object and tools. Although these are historical antinomies, they were inevitable for human beings in their efforts to free themselves for the bonds of nature. In a society of low productive power, it is an axiom that the weak are prey to the strong. The backwardness of production and its corresponding feudal system and culture could not provide room for an equality of both sexes. Therefore, for the progress of the economy it was unavoidable that women’s personality would be sacrificed. In the dark ages in China as well as in the West women could not participate in politics and the praiseworthy characters of the female were also distorted: women become jealous due to living together with their husband’s concubines; they became self effacing due to being subject to maltreatment; and they became narrow-minded through living for a long time in the boudoir without going out. In the meantime, the distortion of the male personality was manifested in another way. Many men were subordinate to other men due to the social system which gave primary to the father’s rights so that they had no personality of their own. In the family, marriage for the sole purpose of child bearing and expression of the sexual impulse without love alienated the human essence of males.

The industrial economy destroyed the natural sense of the family as the basic unit. Great quantities of labor were needed by large industry. This created opportunities for women to enter social life, to participate in economic activities, to earn salaries, and hence no longer to be the property of others. This provided a good basis for their positions as social subjects. In addition, the democratic system, corresponding to the industrial economy, promoted such ideas as "all are equal in terms of money"; "all are equal before the law", "all are equal before God". This gave rise to public opinion favorable to the independence of women as regards their personality. All this was helpful in awakening women’s personalities as subjects. In industrial society women actively fulfilled their obligations while seeking their legitimate rights and interests in activities which constantly improve their personality. However, the following elements in industrial society frustrated the development of women’s personality or even subjected it to certain deviations.

First, industrial production places the machine at the center; it aims at producing material objects and is determined by the investment of human power and other resources; it emphasizes physical labor and operational technology, and the proportion of physical labor is much greater than that of mental work. This situation is unfavorable to women; they suffer sexual discrimination in seeking a job, which hinders the establishment of women’s personalties as subjects.

Second, due to the backwardness of ideas in comparison to the progress of the economy, certain feudal ideas such as "the male has dignity while the female is humble" and "a woman should be subordinate to a man" still fetter women, and influence social expectations regarding their role and value. This gives rise to certain dilemmas for women in seeking their rights and fulfilling their obligations. Many women feel a tension between their role in society and in their family, and in seeking a position in social life while feeling a sense of obligation to be a good wife and mother.

Third, the male culture inclines women to be masculine: as society has long been dominated by men the behavior of successful men in social life is taken as the pattern for all people. As women have not created their own pattern of behavior, they must conform to the pattern of man’s behavior so that their role in social life will more easily be accepted. This stage cannot be surmounted until women fully participate as subjects in society. Although the slogans such as "equality for both sexes" play a great role in freeing women from the fetters of family to become subjects in society, they are harmful to the maintenance of the distinctively female personality. In China, a trend toward the masculinization of women was strong after the 1950s, and reach its height in the 1970s. The "Iron Young Woman" in the 1950s was very similar to the male physique; in the 1970s the dress, even the style of women’s hair, was masculinized. Coming into 1980s, people exclaimed with surprising that "there are no woman in this country"; they began to doubt whether the "strong woman" was perfect in personality. Women refused to be masculinized.

However, people have no answer to the question what is the ideal personality for women? They sink into puzzlement and inertia. Men are afraid of their wives being "strong women", and women themselves fear being "strong women". In order to be thought of as tender, many women do not dare to show their talent, but then they worry about being too feminine; they do not know how to mould their personalities. The solution to the problem requires further development in the economy as well as constant progress in ideology; one is complementary to the other.

The modernized economy is a great revolution over the traditional one and will bring about change in all facets of society. The female personality will be developed and improved in the process of the modernization of society and its ideal will be realized.

First, the productive mode of the modernized economy helps manifest the personality of women as subjects. In modern industry, what determines the production is no longer physical human strength, but the application of a high level of technology, which increases the proportion of mental work. Now in some developed countries, the proportion of mental work versus physical labor approximates 1:1, while the value created by the former far exceeds that created by the latter. Therefore, the application of high level technology will reduce or eliminate the physical inferiority of women in production, and enable women to give play to their superiority in patience, carefulness and nimbleness. This is obviously indicated in developed countries: in the U.K. women have more job opportunities than men.

Second, the operational mode of a modernized economy enables women to choose the job suited to them. The open, dynamic pattern of the economy enables women to find positions of their own in a wider range of social activity. In developed countries, women are exploring molding ideal personalities. They are not the traditional good mothers and wives who sacrifice themselves in a closed family context, nor are they the so-called strong women of industrial times. They develop their own standard and hope to get a valuable job with flexible hours and a good location; they hope to take account of both family and career. Some women give up work and become housewives while bring up their children, but their return to the family is for the purpose of educating their children and giving their children the natural love of a mother so that the children can grow soundly. In the meantime, they engage in further studies to give play to their potentialities or to develop their interests, so that they will be more competitive when they take up a career after their children have grown up. Such exploration is praiseworthy under the conditions of a modernized economy; it advances the civilization of the whole society.

Third, the high educational level of society, the high degree of democracy and the modernization and socialization of house work due to the modernization of the economy will enable women to elevate their quality as human beings, to demonstrate their personality, to strengthen their competitive power in social life, and to realize a sound personality. There will be a day when we need no longer emphasize that the male and the female differ and recognize that there is something common to both sexes. Then the peculiar and varied beauty of the character and personality of the female will demonstrate itself naturally in the world.

Of course, molding the female personality depends not merely on the progress of economy and is not merely a matter for women alone. It depends on the consistent efforts of the whole society; this requires theoretical work by scholars to find the incompatibilities and in time eliminate them.