With "science", everything is fine. "With the development of science, problems can always be solved", which has almost become a mindset. In fact, this is scientism, also known as science.Learning doctrine-
What is "science"
The definition of science in Ci Hai is a knowledge system that reflects the essence and laws of various phenomena in the real world by using categories, theorems and laws. According to the different research objects, it can be divided into natural science, social science and thinking science, as well as philosophy and mathematics, which are all in the three fields.
What is "scientism"
Scientism refers to an ideological trend or movement in epistemology and philosophy of science. Scientism holds that natural science is real scientific knowledge, and only the method of natural science can be effectively used to acquire knowledge, which can be popularized in all research fields and solve various problems faced by mankind. Scientism pursues instrumental rationality, ignores value rationality, and extrapolates the concepts and methods of natural science without restrictions and regulates humanities and social sciences, which is contrary to the scientific spirit.
"Democracy" and "science" (called "Mr. De" and "Mr. Sai") are the most common categories in China’s academic discourse in modern times. For a long time, we have talked more about the origin and origin of "democracy", but less about this aspect of "science". In view of this, the author focuses on the relevant situation and problems of "science".
How did "science" rise?
In modern China, "science", like "democracy", was imported from the West. In the west, after rationalism provided a methodological basis for science, science developed in great strides. The main achievements in the 16th century were in astronomy and anatomy. Newton was the most representative figure in the 17th century, and there were many scientific achievements in the 18th century, covering a wide range of fields, which was closely related to the wide spread of rationalism. In terms of scientific theory, or philosophy of science, Bacon in Britain and Descartes in France have made indelible contributions to the construction of modern scientific theory, and they are the foundation figures.
Bacon’s scientific theory has several principles: the first principle is to attach importance to experience, and most British people have such ideological characteristics. Bacon’s theory is also empirical. He particularly emphasized the experimental nature of science and pointed out that science must be experimental, which became the first principle of modern science. Anyone with scientific common sense knows that all scientific conclusions come from experiments. Without experiments, there is no science, and only the results tested by experiments are reliable. The so-called experimental test has a basic requirement, that is, no matter how many times you do it, where you do it, and who does it, as long as the experimental conditions are the same, the conclusions you get should be exactly the same. Bacon’s second principle is that science must be useful and can be used. About this point of view, it depends on how we understand it, because early European scientists were all idle people, basically aristocratic gentlemen, who had nothing to do after eating, and did not want to hunt and play poker like other nobles, so they squatted on the ground to observe ants, or went to the Woods to observe leaves-whether they were three or four, and so on. What’s the use of observing these things? It depends on how we understand it-it may be useless to themselves and they can’t make money. In fact, they don’t need to make money; But it will be useful to human beings and the world, and it can be used to understand and transform nature in the end. This is the third principle of Bacon’s scientific theory-you can transform nature.
Descartes is the French, and most the French have the same ideological characteristics. Unlike the British, they like abstraction. French thinkers sit there all day thinking hard, reasoning abstractly, designing many theoretical models and imagining many solutions to problems from theory to theory. Most French enlightenment thinkers are like this. Descartes can’t get rid of the French’s ideological characteristics. His greatest contribution to scientific theory is that he believes that all science-as long as it is science, it can be expressed by numbers. This is of decisive significance to the later development of natural science. As we all know, natural science can be expressed by mathematical formulas.
Bacon put forward the principle of experiment and Descartes put forward the principle of mathematics. Add these two together and it becomes a modern natural science. People who study science actually learn two things, one is to do experiments, and the other is to express them with mathematical formulas. It can be said vividly that Bacon and Descartes are the modern natural sciences, and these two men are tied as the founders of modern natural sciences.
Does "science" exist objectively?
Science is a pillar of modern society, which will not be a problem. But if you ask: What is science? To put it another way, does science exist objectively? I believe most of us will think that science is an objective existence, just like other objective existence; All we need to do is to find out the objective existence of "science", just like finding a tree in the Woods. For many people, "science" already exists, but people don’t know it. We found it out, thus "discovering" science. But the fact is: what we can find is only natural phenomena, or the laws of object change and movement.
In fact, science is man’s creation and man’s exploration of nature. Man knows all kinds of natural phenomena through his own activities, and the accumulation of these activities and knowledge is science. Science is the result of human activities, it is not a kind of existence in nature, it is the same as literature, philosophy and so on-these "studies" did not exist originally, but human activities created them; Philosophy is man’s creation, literature is man’s creation, and science is man’s creation. They are all man’s creative activities. Today, many people hold "science" very high, reaching the supreme position and overriding everything, as if it is nature itself, but there are only phenomena in nature, and people know these phenomena through their own activities, and science is the understanding of these phenomena. Science appears because of human activities, and there is no science without human activities.
In this way, science is not so sacred. Now some people think that all problems in human society can be solved by science. With "science", everything is fine. Science is then combined with the concept of "progress": under the protection of science, human society continues to "progress". Some problems can’t be solved today because science is not yet in place and the level is not high enough. When the scientific level is higher, all problems can be solved. However, science cannot solve all the problems.
What problems can science solve?
Science is only human’s exploration of nature. Although the goal of science is to observe and study nature, trying to thoroughly understand the objective existence and find ways to use it, science can’t completely uncover the mystery of nature, and it is impossible to exhaust knowledge of nature. Science can only make people as close as possible to all objective existence and understand as many natural phenomena as possible, which is the limit of science. Therefore, science cannot solve all problems, and the "problems" here only refer to problems related to natural phenomena. But there are more "problems" in human society: problems unrelated to natural phenomena, many social problems, "ideological problems" and so on, which cannot be solved scientifically.
In addition, on the one hand, science can solve some problems, on the other hand, it creates and causes new problems, so science is not only solving problems, but also creating problems. After comparing the problems solved with those created, the result may be more and more problems, not less and less. This point is clear now, for example, bioengineering has solved many problems, which can increase agricultural output, but at the same time it has created transgenic problems; Furthermore, non-GM crops may be eliminated, which becomes another problem. Pollution problems, environmental problems, fertilizer problems and pesticide problems are all like this, especially the problem of ozone reduction. Are these problems caused by science? Science has brought us so much trouble that some problems may never be solved. Some people will say: With the development of science, problems can always be solved. I don’t think so. Let me give you an example: in the hundreds of years of great scientific development, one-third of the world’s biological species have been destroyed. Can these extinct species be restored?
This involves the direction of science. The biggest problem of science is that it has no direction. I mean, science can benefit human beings, destroy their well-being, and even cause human disasters. For example, the use of nuclear energy is a well-known example, and so is cloning. Obviously, the direction of science determines the fate of mankind, and the wrong direction may cause the destruction of mankind. The poisonous milk, poisonous air, poisonous soil, poisonous vegetables, etc., which are now plaguing China, are actually the evil consequences caused by the wrong scientific direction, which has seriously threatened the survival of Chinese. But the direction of science is in people’s hands. It is not science, but people’s morality and scientists’ sense of responsibility for human destiny that can grasp the direction of science.
Having said that, I want to emphasize that science has its limitations. Don’t think that science can solve all problems. Science is a good thing, but scientism is a bad thing. Scientism is also called scientism, and scientism is unacceptable.
What are the conditions for the development of "science"
Scientific development needs conditions. In my opinion, these conditions mainly include the following two aspects:
First, science must be recognized by society. Without social recognition, science cannot exist. Science is not an objective existence, it comes from human activities, and now everyone understands that science does not exist if society does not recognize it. For example, science could not exist in Copernicus’ time. If someone advocated science, he and his science would be destroyed together. Therefore, social recognition is the first condition for the existence of science. Second, there must be social needs. This brings me back to my proposition: science is not an objective existence, and it will only appear when society needs it; If society doesn’t need it and thinks it is useless, it won’t appear. In fact, there is no essential difference between science and literature, history and philosophy. Science is a creative activity of human beings, but the object of science is an objective natural phenomenon, while the object of literature is poetic imagination, such as the Monkey King the Monkey King or Harry Potter and the like. The object of science is real existence, while the object of literature is imaginary imagination. (author:Qian Chengdan Professor, History Department, Peking University)