CHAPTER V

SCIENCE, CIVIL SOCIETY AND METAPHYSICS

ZHOU CHANGZHONG

            The origin and nature of civil society, can be illumined not only by contrasting it to feudal society but by considering two revolutions in the history of modern Western science. One is its initiation in the 17th century: the other is its contemporary crisis. Both correspond loosely to the modern formations of civil society and its development. Reflecting on these coordinated developments in science and society enables deeper insight into present social changes.

            Modern science was generated in the West and diffused through other parts of the world, including China. Just as the rise of modern science in China generated an "objective turn" in culture, today’s "subjective turn" in science could have important implications for the renewal of society. These developments in science will be the focus of this comparative study, with special attention to their impli-cations for civil society.

WESTERN SCIENCE: OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE

            At its birth in ancient Greece, Western science was strictly speaking only a philosophy of nature. Metaphysics or ontology provided both the premises for the philosophy of nature and reflection thereupon. It distinguished two worlds: one of objective phenomena and the other of essence, and focused upon the latter. Science, in contrast, was concerned with the representations of objective reality. For it the objective world is primary; in the last analysis even the knowing subject is an objective being. Western philosophy has long reflected this objective orientation, considering humans and their social construct as objective beings.

            But modern Western philosophy took also a subjective turn in attending to the thinking subject. As science entered its contemporary phase in post-industrial society, this subjective turn was pushed further by attending to the human person as a cultural subject freely creating his or her social world. This is central to the new devel-opments regarding civil society. Let us look more closely at these objective and subjective phases.

            The Development of Objectivity in the Physical Sciences: The rise of modern science is closely related with the transition of Western society from medieval society to a modern society. As B. Barber noted in his Science and the Social Order, modern science emphasizes the combination of rational thinking and directly observable experience. This entails attention to natural facts, experience and experimentation. In addition, there was a secularization of knowledge related in the tol-erance and then promotion by states and governments of inquiry into natural knowledge.

            Viewed externally, modern science appears for the first time as a social phenomena in the establishment of scientific societies. These promoted a process of professionalization and specialization in sci-ence. These, in turn, evoked a strong utilitarian demand for science by modern Western society. Such internal and external changes in mo-dern science were intimately interrelated. Supported by these soci-eties, the experimental sciences gave full play to the naturalistic spirit, and at the same time obtained the necessary material facilities (sites, equipment and money for experiments) from their work so that the experimental sciences were able to meet the societies’ utilitarian demands. This generated a progressively reinforcing cycle between greater support for the scientific societies and further developments in the experimental sciences.

            The rise of science in the modern Western society engendered philosophical refection, which, in turn, led to developments in meta-physics. Alfred North Whitehead in his Science and the Modern World pointed out that the new way of thinking generated by modern science completely changed metaphysical premises and content. This modern change in the Western philosophy was attributed mainly to Francis Bacon who, on the one hand, proposed an inductive methodology for experimental science, but more importantly and fundamentally reflec-ted philosophically upon science from the social point of view. His philosophy sowed the social foundations for the revolution of know-ledge (see J. Dewey, Reconstruction in Philo-sophy). According to Bacon, science not only shows human beings to be a mirror of nature, but also tells us that humans contribute to the welfare of society by pro-ducing knowledge via experiments.

            The Development of Subjectivity through Social Concerns: While contemporary science has had decisive influence in various fields of society, it appears to have had a serious negative impact upon spiritual civilization. H. Marcuse in his One Dimensional Man stated that under the rule of advanced science and technology, contempo-rary society mainly suppressed free human development. High pro-ductivity based on high technology is destructive of human involve-ment and the free development of human talents; this, in turn, leads society back to barbarism.

            To this social attack from contemporary science, philosophy has responded by focusing on the life of the human person in society. E. Husserl in The Crisis of European Science and Transcendental Phe-nomenology stated that positive science which considers facts, but does not envisage their human meaning, means nothing for us as free subjects and completely misses the reality of subjectivity. Hence in his philosophy he intended to override Platonism’s emphasis on objective essences by turning to the subjective aspect of the human life and action in the "life-world".

            At the beginning of modern science, however, the subjective turn had consisted only in concern for the human being as agent, which action consisted mainly in experimental activities remolding nature. This subjectivity, however, was soon cancelled by positivistic philosophy, especially operationalism according to which conceptions are thoroughly reducible to operations, so that all that is human is ob-jectified in operational behaviors. In response, in this century meta-physicians discovered that in order to overcome an essentialistic definition of the human being it is imperative to carry subjectivity to the utmost, that is, to define humans as subjective existents, which the existentialists placed prior to essence. Hence, they attributed ontological status to this subjective existence and proposed that philosophy should begin from subjectivity as its first principle.

            What is the "human as subjective existence"? In his "Essay on Man" E. Cassirer replied that a human being is a subject acting freely to create culture; and that human nature is a system composed of activities including language, myths, religion, arts, science and his-tory. This points to the importance of civil society in which all this is lived.

CHINESE TRADITIONAL METAPHYSICS

            Chinese traditional metaphysics is characterized mainly by the integration of heaven and the human. In turn, humans are one with the world which, in the last analysis, is the subjective experience of hu-mans. Thus, to a great extent, Chinese traditional metaphysics fea-tures subjectivity.

            However, as Chinese feudal society, which had existed for more than 1000 years, began to turn toward civil society in the middle of the last century, the science and technology diffused from the West played a major role, generating an objective turn in the traditional Chinese metaphysics. The absorption of science and technology by society, and hence the objective turn in the metaphysics, were profound.

            This modernization of Chinese society consists of two important consecutive phases: a period of Westernization and Reformation and the May 4 movement.

            Objectivity in the Period of Westernization and Modernization: The rise of modern Chinese civil society came simultaneously with the introduction of Western science and technology, which entailed an objective turn.

            With the second Opium War the closed Chinese empire sought arms reflecting Western science and technology. There resulted a great transformation in the common opinion of the court and the community consisting essentially in adopting modern civilization. The program of the Westernization Movement called for learning science and technology from the West, developing modern industries such as arms and machines, self-strengthening, and striving to become rich.

            To these great changes, philosophy immediately responded with such doctrines as "Chinese scholarship as Tao (metaphysics) and Western scholarship as Qi (visible things)", "Chinese scholarship as Tao and Western scholarship as Yi (practical technology)". In these views, Western scholarship concerned only the practical arts or the level of Qi, and should only supplement Chinese scholarship as Tao. But even this meant facing up to Western scholarship, which due to the fundamental differences from Chinese scholarship meant an "ob-jective turn" for Chinese thought.

            The Chinese Reform Movement promoted the diffusion of Western scholarship, extending its scope to philosophy and the social sciences, and hence to social reformation in politics, law and education. This reformation, in turn, promoted further change in pat-terns of thought. By reflection on Western science and technology at the levels of theory and culture, it absorbed Western scholarship in a fusion of Chinese and Western scholarship.

            By virtue of this fusion the objectivity which characterized Western scholarship came to manifest itself in Chinese scholars. Thus, Liang Qi-chao grasped the objectivity of Bacon’s philosophy, and considered subjectivity an obstruction to knowledge. Yan Fu reflected the profoundly objective character of Western scholarship in promoting its following features: grasping things in their essence and striving for a knowledge of systems with certainty and precision. On this basis he insisted on following the Western approach to objective nature and reality. Thus the objective turn was inserted within Chinese traditional philosophy as a ruling principle.

            Objectivity and the period of the May 4 the Movement: As China began to move toward modern society in the May 4th Movement the interaction of Chinese and Western cultures took place in a broad social and historical context.

            In this period, Chinese society was in a process of radical change. It was still in a semi-feudal and semi-colonial state, but was beginning a forward movement toward escape from this backward state. The May 4th the Movement, as a Chinese renaissance, reflected this social state and its implications for the field of ideas. Chinese philosophy enhanced the importance of objectivity derived from Western science, making it a norm of thought which it suffused through the entire Chinese culture.

            Whereas in the Reformation movement the fusion of Chinese and Western scholarship rested basically upon a static comparison of Chinese and Western cultures, in the May 4 Movement, the comparison shifted consciously to the longitudinal historical flow of so-ciety, and thus penetrated more deeply. Science occupied a pro-minent place in philosophical reflection, at the same time that science became the focus of the comparison of Chinese and Western cultures. Thus, Hu Shi grasped the need and importance of science for the transition of Chinese culture in the social and historical conditions of China.

            In this period, fascination with material achievements and the experience of science as a phenomenon of knowledge led to efforts to grasp the scientific spirit; this became a main aim of philosophical reflection on science. Both Hu Shi and Lian Qi-chao emphasized that the fundamental spirit of Western science consisted in the search for objective knowledge. Truth was seen to consist in knowledge of things themselves that was inter-individual, transitive and corresponded to objective reality. The development of this objective spirit of science at a profound level led naturally to deepening the objective turn in Chinese traditional philosophy.

            Firstly, this manifested itself in enhancing science from the level of Yi and Qi to that of Tao. The celebrated debate of science and philosophy in this period with regard to the outlook on life strikingly reflected the deepening of the objective turn. In the debate the school of science with its objective spirit strove to replace the Tao as the outlook on life.

            Secondly, an effort was made to inquire into the doctrines of scientific objectivity in non-orthodox philosophy which, in conjunction with the objective spirit of Western science, gave renewed momentum to the objective turn in traditional Chinese philosophy.1

Institute of Philosophy

Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences

Shanghai, PRC

NOTE

            1. Through the structure of his three critiques, Kant suggests how the universal and necessary laws of science are distinct from the realm of freedom and how the two are synthesized only through the third critique of aesthetic judgement. A parallel role for the Confucian sense of harmony is described in chapter III of G. McLean, Tradition, Harmony and Transcendence (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1994).

DISCUSSION

            This paper traces the developments of the issue of subjectivity vs objectivity in science with special attention to its implications for civil society and the overall philosophy of life. It thereby situates the dis-cussion of civil society in the more general issue of concern for technological progress in China.

            The general schema of the paper sees scientific knowledge in feudal times as being relatively subjective, with its development in modern times as being oriented principally toward objective know-ledge, but more recently beginning to reintegrate subjectivity.

            The paper sees as parallel to this pattern the evolution of both social life and philosophy. The discussion takes up a number of es-sential issues.

            1. Science. It is true that key figures in the development of science in early modern times, such as Francis Bacon, sought ob-jectivity and were willing rigorously to expunge any elements of sub-jectivity in order to work with exclusively objective knowledge. At the time, others, such as Gianbattista Vico, objected that this was to abandon what was properly human. Nevertheless, the project pro-ceeded and became even more radical and ideological.

            This trend has been exemplified by Mario Laserna ("Kant’s Relation to Thalesian Geometry and to Galilean Physics") in relation to the notion of demonstration. Galileo, who was pivotal in developing the new science wrote the work: Discorsi e dimonstrazioni matematiche, intorno a due nuove scienze (first edition; Leiden 1638). On the title page the largest type is given to the word "Demonstration". To him this meant not analytic deduction, but the work of the mind in thinking a priori in functional terms in order to assemble the available data in a coherent manner (the precise task which Kant attributes to the imagination in his third Critique). The importance he saw in the work of the subject having been forgotten, however, the translators of the work, Henry Crew and Alfonso de Salvio, simply omitted the term "demonstration" from the title. Similarly, where in his pivotal Critique of Pure Reason (Bxi-xii) Kant wrote: "the first man . . . who demonstrated the isosceles triangle", this has been translated as "the first man . . . who demonstrated the properties of the isosceles triangle", thereby reducing Kant’s more open notion of demonstration to merely that of logical inference of properties according to the Euclidean axiomatic-deductive method.

            This is not to say that there was intentional deceit on the part of the translators or that some type of conscious plot was afoot. Rather the dynamic was much more dangerous precisely because more insidious and unconscious. Namely, having embarked upon a radical objectivism, succeeding generations of practitioners and theoreticians of science were blinded to the human capabilities involved in scientific work. This led to reinforcing the blindness progressively by translating the very texts which could have helped to balance the matter in a way which instead closed off such a path.

            Like a miner destroying the tunnel behind him, this cut off the possibility of taking Heidegger’s "step backward" in order to open up new and as yet unexplored avenues of understanding. This closure of access to alternate and complementary resources turns an advance in thought into a reductionism and an ideology from which there is no escape: all loops back to this same objectivist position. Escape becomes logically impossible; one is trapped in this objectivism which thus becomes exclusivist and ideological.

            2. Subjectivity and Civil Society. The paper notes that this was paralleled by a development of the notion of civil society in these early modern times. This appeared in the writings of the Scottish thinkers, Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson (An Essay on the History of Civil Society [Edinburgh:1767]), where it played the role of a safety net protecting against the human ravages of capitalism’s blind hidden hand of the market. It would not be incorrect then to consider civil society as related to (though more as a protection against) the objectivism of knowledge operative in the development of science in the early modern period. The social implication of that objectivism was rather an insensitivity to human freedom and creativity, and a pro-gressive ideologization of capitalism which culminated in the Cold War.

            In this context, the notion of civil society could not receive adequate development in modern times; even such prime theo-reticians as Hegel and Marx considered it to be inadequate and destined to be superseded. Hence, only in the present post-modern period is this able to be radically rethought as the basis for a newly integrating vision of social life.

            Some would see this as having been repeated in the history of China during this century. When in 1919 Mr. Science and Mr. Demo-cracy were invited in it was hoped that the combination would provide for the modernization of China. The combination, however, proved unstable, for science was taken too simply to imply objective know-ledge and to reject subjectivity. But without subjectivity the reality of freedom, on which democracy must be based, was itself depreciated and undermined. Thus, the path was opened to a "scientific" view of history in which objective laws would rule and individual activity would be of value only to the degree that it operated exclusively as a replaceable function in the larger machine. Where this occurred in Eastern Europe the subjectivity and creativity of a people was lost, and with it their ability truly to provide themselves, resulting in the collapse of `89.

            3. Objectivity and Hypothesis in Scientific Theory. Within developments in the theory of scientific method one road was sug-gested by which the civil society could be developed. The implication of #1 above was that objectivism in science could have been salutary for its realist implications, i.e., for engaging the human mind in the dynamics of the world beyond it. However, the reductionist mode of its development turned it into a structure only of ideas, an ideology, which closed human horizons and desensitized humankind precisely to what it meant to be human. Thus, freedom could be no more than choices between external goods chosen for utilitarian, that is, external material purposes. This is the heart of consumerism which thereby becomes inescapable.

            One way in which these negative effects might be attenuated, would be to delineate closely the proper achievements available through an objective method, while the non-essential restrictions are identified and put aside. In this sense it was suggested that scientific thought does not in fact provide objective knowledge or truth, but only develops hypotheses which one attempts to verify and which lead in turn to further hypothesis. This brings one not to objective knowledge, but rather to mystery, for which the appropriate method is aesthetics. In this light scientific knowledge can be seen as integral to culture as the more important and integrative outlook and practice of life. Con-versely, one can understand the disastrous implications of the sub-stitution of Tao by science earlier in this century, as described by Zhou Chang-zhong above.

            4. Aesthetic Criteria. The opening to subjectivity in modern science is the positive correlate to the negative roots traced above. There is a relation here between philosophy and scientific theory. The phenomenological school of Edmund Husserl set out to clarify the ca-tegories of science through an eidetic reduction. From Brentano’s Aristotelianism he rediscovered the intentional or conscious elements involved. Hence, rather than being limited in a purely external objec-tivism, he was able to enter into the inner constitution of knowledge and restore what was properly human to the scientific endeavor.

            Husserl’s successor, Martin Heidegger, turned this awareness from science to an appreciation of being; in turn, his successor H.-G. Gadamer applied it to culture. Correlatively, and probably as a result in the varied ways in which ideas interact in a culture, this was reflected in an increasing attention to the importance of aesthetic criteria in the selection from among alternate possibilities, e.g., in mathematical theory the characteristic of simplicity, and in the development of science the search for a unified field theory.