“科玄之战”百年反思

Reflections on the Century-Old″Debate of Science and Metaphysics″

科学与玄学的论战是新文化运动中的华彩一章,中国人自维新变法以来第一次全方位地探讨了科学的本质及其社会功能。在此后的近百年间,论战双方的观点以不同的形式反复重现,上演了诸如"两种文化"与"科学战争"的论战。然而,启蒙的逻辑并未协调好科学与人文的冲突,也缺乏基本的历史意识。事实上,科学活动的内容与形式在百年间发生了巨大的变迁,人们对科学及其功能的认知存在明显的分歧。价值冲突尚在,诸如此类的论战还会改头换面地发生。

The″Debate of Science and Metaphysics″is a brilliant episode in the New Culture Movement.Chinese people had comprehensively investigated the nature of science and its social function for the first time since the Constitutional Reform and Modernization.The″metaphysics″camp represented by Liang Qichao and Zhang Junmai,launched fierce debates with the″science″camp represented by Chen Duxiu and Hu Shi based on Chinese people＇s awareness of science at that time.In Hu Shi＇s words,this is a″gift on the first meeting″when science first came into China.A century has passed since this debate,and the society generating the views of these two sides no longer exists,but similar debates recur in different forms at home and abroad,such as the″Two Cultures″and the″Science Wars.″In these debates,scientists and their agents find different″others″,trying to establish their own dominance in their societies by debating.This requires us to reflect seriously on what has caused people＇s different views on science in the first place.Many scholars have made profound criticisms on the modernity since the Enlightenment.First,the logic of Enlightenment did not coordinate the two conflicting values well.As Kant said,in fact we lived in different worlds,dominated by two different laws.Second,Enlightenment lacked basic historical awareness,i.e.,as Kuhn said,accepting happenings in a given period of history as an eternal truth.One century later,we are no cleverer than our predecessors in dealing with the relationship between science and traditional culture,but at least we have witnessed the development of science,as well as its evolution from″sanctification″to″secularization.″The so-called″secularization″refers to that science is no longer guided by sanctified goals,but is driven by secular″innovation″goals.In the new forms such as″Big Science″and″Industrial Science″,science carries technological means,and penetrates into every aspect of people＇s lives to an unimaginable extent.Even though science still produces new value conflicts,the controversy between realism and instrumentalism will reappear in other forms.We will certainly not be caught up in the dilemma of our predecessors in the New Culture Movement of whether to choose science or tradition,because science has already been integrated into our cultural tradition.