A Study On The Question About Combining Science And Humanity Education In The Context Of Modern China

Since the second half the 20th century, the combination of humanities education with science education has been the common topic of the world education. The background of the topic includes the separation of"two cultures", people's emphasis on scientific ration, and the decline of the humanities education. Thus the educational purposes of a comprehensive physical and psychological development will be realized with the fusion of the two kinds of culture or education by strengthening the importance of humanities education, highlighting the significance of the humanities in science and technology education, and promoting the revitalization of the humanities.In face of such education phenomena as the marginalization of the humanities and the loss of the humanistic spirit, sugguestions are made to strengthen the cultural and education quality of university students and to promote the fusion between the science education and humanities education so that talents are cultivated hamoniously with intelligence as well as emotion, knowledge as well as morality, leaning as well as quality. In this way, they are able to contribute to the socialist modernization instead of becoming a disappointing generation who are knowlegable but without ideal, educated but without cultivation, ambitious but without convition. In fact, early in 1936, Zhu Kezhen, president of ZheJiang University, has concerned about the fusion of science education and humanitied education. He believed that the university is the place for seeking the way for living rather than food. In other words, the general education should be implemented in university, namely, the pursuit of truth, the development of learning and the promotion of science. MeiYiqi worried about the separation of the science and humanities with the development of science and technology, so he emphasized the importance of the humanities education.Obviously, the fusion of science education and humanities education is of great necessity and importance, and it is also a requirement for human development. The conflicts of these two single-culture, the marginalization of the knowledge of humanity as well as the humanities education spur us to find the origin of the problem. The discourse of the conflicts of two single-culture originated from the western countrie, but it did not come into being from the very beginnig. Early in human society, there was no clear distinction between sciecne and the humanities, and they were united in the philosophy of human culture. But the emergence of modern science began giving rise to the polarization of scientific culture and humanistic culture, the two being world apart in tendencies and academic characteristics, thus giving the foreshadowing and possibility of human culture's spliting. However, there was no fundamental differences between science education and humanities education until the mid-19th century. At that time, the natural science had with itself a strong humanistic qualities and spirits and, together with the humanities, they served moral training and personality perfecting. Thus the science education and humanities education are consistant and intergrated. After the mid-19th century, with the emergence of empirical science and rational technology as well as the deeping specialization of science, the cracks between science and humanities began to emerge and universities became"a place full of tension between arts and science". Since the very beginning of the 20th century, empirical science have made a dominent position. Thus it concluded scientific spirits as emprirical spirits, science the origin of knowledge and the scientific method the only reliable one. So the conflict and confrontation between the two cultures became acuted. This was demonstrated by the dominated science education, the decline of human education and the loss of human spirit.In the first half of the 20th century, the origin of the conflicts between science and humanities existing in universities is the science which ambitiously tried to unify the whole domain of knowledge. Originated from scientific empiricism, the scientism advocated unprincipled expansion of a set of research norms and logical standards of science and thus it began to resemble regulating and trampling on human science to some extent. Although there were some humanists'pathetic callings and thorough attacks on science, the dominent science bore obvious pressure on humanities. In order to change its situation, humanities aimlessly served natural science to meet the needs of science, which formed the phenoma of"science suppresses humanities'.That"science suppresses humanities"was built on highly developed science and was the influence and control of science on humanities. The West has a long history of incessantly-accumulated development of scientific culture, from which originated rationalism and impricism. Meanwhile, the"metaphysical"science belief and science spirit were well inherited and retained. Therefore, since the last century under the background of western culture, great success of scientific culture was achieved based on natural science, at a time leading to"science suppresses humanities"and engendered a crisis of humanities education.Although the conflicts between science and humanities is a common term worldwide, and the gloom of humanities education becomes the basic topic internationally, it dosen't mean that they have the same meaning and cultural connotation under the background of Chinese and Western cultures without location differences, which need contextual analysis. Therefore, it can be elicited that no science in the modern sense, a kind of a fruit resulted from learning from the west, had ever been developed in old China. Because of the severe attack from the West, the old China introduced science and technology from the West to serve as the purpose and meet the need for survival. So the scientific spirit and the rational science never developed. New culture movement brought with it the great liberation of"science"and"democracy". And some men of insight, such as Hu Shi, Yan Fu, promoted the development of science in the aspects of scientific method and scientific spitits. However, the strength of our cultural tradition and the mentality of salvaging and powering the country made us accustomed to comprehend science only in the aspects of technology, material and function. The traditional ideology of social management for material benefits made the scientific culture hard to develop regularly. After the liberation, in order to meet the needs of economic construction, science and education became more prominent and the application of it became more urgent,. After 1980s, the understanding of science and the implementation of scientific education from the angle of technical and pratical aspects still existed. As a result, science didn't develop well in old China, compared to the prosperous western scientific culture. The science in our mind seemed to be still in material and technological level and the technology we advocate is one that can yield significant economic benefits as an overt"productivity". While such concepts as scientific rationality, scientific empiricism and scientific spirits were not well developed, thus they have no so-called autocratic hegemony of scientific discourse. Therefore, in the Chinese cultural context,"science suppresses humanities"lacked precondition, or at least, the predition was not abundant. Besides, the conflicts of science and humanities in China were different from those of the West, which featured the conflicts between two word power and thinking model as well as the fierce contradition of science and humanities.Then, how to probe into the basic reasons of the neglect of humanities education and the loss of spirits if"science suppresses humanities"is not a definite proposition in China? It is known that one of the main characters of our tradtional culture is humanism tradition which is a kind of humanism cultures, and the traditional education reflects the significant style of humanities education. After the modern academic transformation, the classic humanities education has turned into the contemporary displine education and the paradigm of humanities has changed. The contemporary humanities education needs the exploitation of resources from tradional culture and put them into the concrete practise of humanities education. It is true that the criticism and negation of traditional culture cut off our traditional spirits resources since the New Culture Movement. The separation of human traditions undoubtedly leads to the loss of spirit lifeline and essence of humanities education, and causes the tendency of insignificance, politicalization and pragmatism. There is no doubt that the marginalization of humanities education accompanies its politicalization and the ideological change since modern times, and politicalized humanities education( so called politicalized humanlistic spirits), although unilateral and dissimilated, plays an unique part in spirit control in a certain period. However, such humanities education has gradually lost its function of word power and spiritual guidance after the transformation of social value and the founding of market of economy—that is the reason why we have the deeply painful feeling of the loss of humanistic spirits since the 1980s.The neglect of humanities education and the loss of humanistic spirits is the educational problem toword which we feel severe pressure, and the analysis of its reason and essence is the centre topic of this treatise, which is concerned with the comprehensive context consitituted with the aspects of education, politics, economy and culture in the simple binary thinking pattern beyond science and humanity. However, what can't be ignored is how to promote the integration of science and humanities education and how to cultivate talents with an equal stress to both scientific ration and humanistic accomplishment. As to me, the strengthening of humanistic nature and significance, the emphasizing on the development of humanities education from the viewpoint of system and the implementing general education to some degree are what we should strive for.