On Chinese Anti-scientism

In recent years, there is a trend of criticizing science in Chinese academia. When the anti-scientists criticize the views that advocate scientific thoughts, scientific methods and scientific ethos, their attitudes are wholly negative. There are some responses to this, which are basically defensive. However, there are some limits in them.It's necessary to investigate the recourses of anti-scientistic ideology, the historically social contexts of the rise of anti-scientism, its basic attitudes and its academic purposes. The investigation is important in the reality as well as hi the theory.The thesis, an initial work according to above conception, is divided into four parts.In the first part, the basic meanings of western anti-scientism and the historically social contexts of its rise are analyzed. The basic conclusion is that the concept "scientism" was neutral but became derogatory when the anti-scientists made it a goal to criticize. Then, the meanings of anti-scientism should be found hi the alleged scientism. The contents of anti-scientistic ideology were rooted in the traditional tend to deny the values of science, and the political and economical crisis in the west in the sixties and seventies hi the 20th century. So anti-scientism is not distinguished from other attitudes to science by specific contents but by its emotionally negative attitude.In the second part, the social contexts of the rise of Chinese contemporary anti-scientism are analyzed. The conclusion is that the recourses of Chinese anti-scientistic ideology come from the west, especially from oversea newconfUcianism which actually stem from a metaphysics hi Chinese history. Be contrast to western anti-scientism, Chinese anti-scientism is blind in a sense, and appears some evidently different academic purpose.hi the third part, Chinese anti-scientists' criticisms to The May Fourth Science Trend of Thoughts are analyzed. The conclusion is that the unsuitableness in those criticisms is as follows: not historic in the negative positions and attitudes; using the abstract concept "scientism" to settle concrete historical thoughts; exaggeration andunreasoning deduce made on their arguments; an unconstructive method------deconstruction that primarily adopted in their analysis, etc.The last part is the conclusion that the essence of Chinese anti-scientism is in three aspects: The thoughts of basal not native, methods and attitudes of net historic, the purposes inclined to unconstructive.