Chiang Kai-Shek's View Of Science And Technology

Chiang Kai-shek lived in the period of China's transition from modern times into contemporary age in history, when conflicts between old and new values as well as Chinese and western cultures were common, also resulting in his extremely complex view of science and technology. His understanding of the essence of science and technology was that science could be defined by the following four levels. First, science used to be interpreted as tirelessly and fundamenally searching for truth which is orderly. Second, the application of science in social sciences is certain mechanism. Third, science is a knowledge system based on experience and aimed at seeking the realism of universe. Fourth, science is the embodiment of truth. He considered religions and other similar humanistic beliefs necessary supplement for science and technology in terms of the relationship between religions and science. In demarcation of science, he thought that pseudoscience differs from science in aspects of livelihood, methodology and verifiability. He defined technology as product of science's application on livelihood, and the direct means to achieve livelihood, which is a different issue to science. While comparing Chinese and western ideology on science and technology, he evaluated Chinese inherent academic tradition as "nobility instead of haughty", and stressed to treat western science and technology with a "modesty rather than inferiority" attitude. On the issue of motivation for development of science and technology, he held a human-based stand, thinking science and technology arise from the emergence of human being, meanwhile advance together with the increase of human survival capacity. He also claimed that the advance of science and technology bore both continuity and revolutionary feature in terms of the developing mode, and science and technology could be checked against their applications in solving practical problems. On the acquisition of scientific and technological knowledge, Chiang Kai-shek emphasized on the combination of learning from China and abroad, learning with empiricism and apriorism. On the interaction between science and technology and the society, he thought that politics, economy, culture and education provided security for development of science and technology, while they in return contributed to human being the benefits of the Three People's Principles (Nationalism, Democracy, People's Livelihood). Besides those positive functions, Chiang Kai-shek also proposed some negative impacts brought by science and technology:reduced happiness of people, indirectly caused problems in people's livelihood.After research into Chiang Kai-shek's life experience, it's easy to find that he used to be a person of both Chinese traditional education background and studying abroad experience, and a person with both respect to Chinese tradition and belief in western religion. Being of a strong personality, he still couldn't have a vision of overall situation on many issues, which was decided by his political position. Consequently, there were some inevitable conflicts in his view of science and technology between Chinese learning and western learning, between scientism and humanism, between moral load and value neutrality, and also between theory and practice.