Research On Origin And Initial Development Of Practicing Tradition Of Philosophy Of Technology Of China

As the movement of the western technological philosophy “empirical turn”develops, cognition, design and ethics of technology itself started to get theattention of western technological philosophy, making technology “coming back tothe living world” the new research direction of western technological philosophy.Chinese technological philosophers have been interpreting the research direction ofwestern technological philosophy for a long time; however, they have fewinnovation of their owns, and have always been in a “following” status; to someextent, technological philosophy is also different from Chinese technologicalpractice.“Coming back to life” brings us the inspiration that local technologicalphilosophy and practice, localizing Chinese technological research, is important tonot only international technological philosophical research, but also Chinesetechnological practice.This paper is based on the social concept: every single type of knowledge hasits own social origin, technological philosophy will also differ as society andcultural background differs. Therefore, the hypothesis of this paper is that thephilosophical explanation of technology and the problem that technologicalphilosophy faces is not necessarily western tradition; the fact is, the “empiricalturn” in western context has appeared in China at the50’s and60’s of the twentiethcentury. This paper put Chinese technological philosophy in the unique socialdevelopment and cultural background of China by investigating Chinese history;promulgate the social and historical background that new Chinese technologicalphilosophy produced by analyzing international environment, political economy,technical polices and education plan of China at the50’s and60’s of the twentiethcentury. Based on this, this paper also does some textual research on the key eventof new Chinese technological philosophy:“Cordwood Machine Tool”; thephilosophical research of “Cordwood Machine Tool” is produced by HarbinUniversity of Technology during the special circumstances of facing the problemsleft behind by the experts from Soviet Union,“Movement of studying ChairmanMao’s work” and “Wide school collaboration”. This paper thinks that thephilosophical research of “Cordwood Machine Tool” by Harbin University ofTechnology started the history of technological philosophical research in China;after Chairman Mao’s affirm, the whole country started the technologicalphilosophical research that works toward engineering technological practice; andformed a type of research that works toward field practice at the60’s and70’s of twentieth century which further affects the development of Chinese machineindustry. Finally, the paper points out specialty of initial stage of Chinesetechnological philosophy, and indicates technological philosophy, as a type ofknowledge, has its own social origin; as a type of local knowledge, the developmentand formation of technological philosophy is based on certain social and culturebackground.