The Idea of Science in Modern China

CECS is hosting a series of international lectures on Global Constitutional Struggles this autumn. Our second guest is Wang Hui, who will speak on The Idea of Science, the Reclassification of Knowledge and the Question of Culture in Modern China.

Wang Hui (Chinese: 汪晖; pinyin: Wāng Huī) is a professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Tsinghua University, Beijing. His researches focus on contemporary Chinese intellectual history and literature.

Abstract:
The extensive application of the concept of science is one of the main characteristics of Chinese thought in the twentieth century. The power of science lies in the fact that it established an intimate connection between a universalist worldview and a kind of cosmopolitan/nationalist social system, and, through a rationalized classification of knowledge and social division of labor, incorporated in its broad genealogy human life in all its forms and tendencies.

The process by which a scientific “worldview based on universal secular principles” (gongli shijie guan) reformed and replaced the traditional “worldview based on heavenly principles” (Tianli shijie guan) constitutes the basic aspect of the transformation of modern thought. This new worldview paves the way for the division and specialization of knowledge and institutions in modern society.

In the new knowledge system, the traditional worldview and its epistemology (morality, traditional education, etc.) continued to exist only as elements of the new knowledge education and lost their status as a worldview. From “the controversy on Eastern and Western cultures” (1910s) to “the debate on science and metaphysics,”(1920s) the affirmation of the autonomy, special status, and internal values of culture was incorporated into a rationalized classification of knowledge. The defense of the autonomy of ethics, aesthetics, feelings, and culture not only secured their positions in the rationalized knowledge system or the empire of science, but also re-organized the dichotomy of East and West into a new taxonomy of knowledge.

Time: Monday, 4 November 2013, 15:15 – 16:45

Place: The staff canteen 02-3-44, Studiegaarden, Studiestraede 6, 3rd floor, DK-1455 Copenhagen K

Refreshments will be served after the lecture.

Everyone is welcome.