Reflecting Rational Civilization

Philosophy is the spirit of our times, whose historical mission is concerned with man's social development. In the course of the historical development of human society, philosophy is regarded as the reflections on the ways of human existence. Rationalism is the inner logic of the western philosophy, and the rational way of existence is the way of human existence that carries through the western history. Because of the differences in the meanings of rationality in different historical stages, the rational ways of existence that men have chosen are also different. In ancient times, the dominant role was played by the reason of the nature, which enabled man to pursue a philosophical mode of existence. With the establishment of modern reason of science, scientism's mode of man's existence was formed. At this stage, science infiltrated every field and thus formed a new historical period---rational civilization, which refers to man's historical state of civilization and is characterized by the infiltrations of scientist reason into every field in society. Spiritually, it set aside the thinking mode of scientism; on the layer of outside institution, it established the predominant position of law and commodity economy. This enabled man to rise from the ancient philosophical mode of existence to that of scientism.On the basis of revealing the relationships between modern scientific reason and man's mode of existence, the present dissertation aims to analyze the nature and social demonstrations of the modern reason of science that is dominant in various social fields, and to expose the nature of the scientism's mode of existence. Besides, appropriate evaluation and sincere reflections will be put on it, based on which man's shared civilization can be constructed. With the rational mode set by the modern and contemporary science and in the various phases of man's realistic life controlled by science, scientism has become our mode of...