Advantages and Disadvantages: Some Reflections on Philosophy and STS Studies in Mainland China

Professor Li Xia's article provides an overall picture of the status of philosophy of science and STS studies in mainland China through a detailed overview of their history, their status, and the interactions between them. It must have been a quite difficult task, because the two disciplines have a long history and involve a large number of researchers; it would be impossible to present all the details within a limited space. If we want the big picture, we need to take a chance on a partial—and possibly unclear—image. However, Li has successfully presented the core elements. I will not attempt here to address any of the technical issues surrounding the subjects, but only to provide some personal views and comments regarding a few background issues on philosophy of science and STS studies, the status quo, and the interactions between the two disciplines in mainland China.

Overall, Li offers a relatively optimistic assessment for the development of philosophy of science and STS studies in China. He writes, "In recent decades, philosophy of science and STS studies have made substantial progress in China." However, as Professor Liu Huajie has already noted, measurements of progress must take into account expectations and criteria. In this regard, I differ slightly from Li, since I am more concerned about the existing constraints on the development of the disciplines in the unique social and academic context that mainland China provides. Specifically, I believe that STS studies are now facing a remarkable challenge. Of course, it would also be interesting to ask whether mainland China encourages the future development of philosophy of science and STS studies.

1 The Meanings of "Philosophy of Science" and "STS Studies" in Mainland China

At first sight, defining "philosophy of science" and "STS studies" does not seem to be a real problem. In spite of some variation, aggravated by STS studies' shifting borders, a basic consensus does exist. Nonetheless, the terms are often used differently in China from other places.

This point becomes clear when we consider the special historical background of those two disciplines in China. Since the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, Marxism has been the dominant ideology. Thanks to the influence of Friedrich Engels's Dialectics of Nature (1883), which had long been studied in the Soviet Union, the philosophical research on the natural sciences (including technology) carried out in mainland China was known as the dialectics of nature (ziran bianzheng fa 自然辨證法). Much influenced by the philosophical criticism of science and technology produced in the Soviet Union, China's own dialectics of nature was subjected to a campaign on criticism during the Cultural Revolution. Subsequent changes to academic practices restored this field, and a commitment to teaching dialectics of nature shaped Chinese views on nature, the methodology of science and technology, and how science and technology were viewed.

A group of science-related disciplines, vividly referred to as the "Big Bag," includes philosophy of science (narrowly conceived) and disciplines such as history and sociology of science, both introduced from the West. The contents of the Big Bag are suggested by the subtitle of a leading academic publication, the Journal of Dialectics of Nature (Ziran bianzheng fa tongxun 自然辨證法通訊), namely, "a comprehensive, theoretical journal of the philosophy, history, and sociology of the natural sciences." More important, this Big Bag also includes the work done to evaluate science policy as it confronts practical social problems and many other interdisciplinary areas related to science and technology.

Graduate students of science, engineering, agriculture, and medicine in China's universities and colleges were long required to take the dialectics of nature as a course of political theory. (Students of political theory in China's universities and colleges have also long required to take a dialectics of nature course.) But in the early 1980s, with the implementation of the new discipline-oriented system established to train graduate students, dialectics of nature was renamed philosophy of science and technology (Gong 2005). However, the inertia of history has not been overcome. When people speak of "philosophy of science" (kexue zhexue 科學哲學), they could have in...