Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change Series III. Asian Philosophical Studies, Volume 11 The Humanization of Technology and Chinese Culture Chinese Philosophical Studies, XI Edited by Tomonobu Imamichi, Wang Miaoyang and Liu Fangtong The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy 1 Copyright © 1998 by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy Gibbons Hall B-20 620 Michigan Avenue, NE Washington, D.C. 20064 All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication The humanization of technology and Chinese culture / edited by Tomonobu Imamichi, Wang Miaoyang, Liu Fangtong. p.cm. — (Chinese philosophical studies ; 11) (Cultural heritage and contemporary change . Series III. Asia, vol. 11) Includes bibliographies and index. 1. Technology and Civilization. 2. China—Civilization. 3. Philosophy—China. I. Imamichi, Tomonobu. II. Wang, Miaoyang. III. Liu, Fangt’ung. IV. Series. V. Series: Cultural heritage and contemporary change . Series III. Asia, vol. 11. HM221.T42 1998 98-6105 306.4’6’0951—dc21 CIP ISBN 1-56518-116-6 (pbk.) 2 Table of Contents Introduction 1 Part I. The and Challenge of Technology Chapter I. Technology and Collective Identity: Issues of an Eco-ethica 9 Tomonobu Imamichi Chapter II. Heidegger on Technology, Alienation and Destiny 23 Yu Xuanmeng Chapter III. Self-transcendence and Morality: Human Creativity in 35 the Thought of Nietzsche and Confucius Lik Kuen Tong Chapter IV. Nietzsche’s Superman: Toward a Transformation of Values 47 Wang Xinsheng Chapter V. Moral Predicament and Reconstruction in Contemporary China: 57 A Comment on Pragmatism as a Moral Theory and Its Influence in China Liu Fangtong Chapter VI. Ethical Reflections on Western Science and Technology in 85 the Philosophy of Modern China Zhou Changzhong Chapter VII. Development of Technology and Social Life 91 Wang Miaoyang Part II. From Objectivity to Subjectivity: The Humanization of Science and Technology Chapter VIII. The Change in Modern Scientific Thought and 101 the Conception of Values Li Jizong Chapter IX. Confucianism and Science --A Philosophical Evaluation 117 Vincent Shen Chapter X. The Humanization of Technology in Ancient China: 137 A Study of the "Meng Xi Notes" Cheng Chaonan Chapter XI. The Development of Biotechnology and 147 the Future of Human Civilization Fu Jizhong 3 Chapter XII. Cultural Diversity and a Path Toward Wisdom: 157 Perspectives of Gabriel Marcel K.R. Hanley Chapter XIII. Science and the Moral Life: A Philosophy of Moral Education 165 Richard A. Graham Chapter XIV. The Ethics of Communicative Action Habermas’ Discourse Ethics 179 Manuel B. Dy Chapter XV. The Philosophy of Value, the Value of Philosophy 197 Manuel B. Dy Part III. Asian Values and Technology: Humanizing the Modernization of China Chapter XVI. Confucian Harmony and Technical Progress: 209 Suggestions from Kant George F. McLean Chapter XVII. Eco-aesthetica 225 Noriko Hashimoto Chapter XVIII. The Conflict of Values: The Contemporary Transformation 231 of Values in China Chen Genfa Chapter XIX. Zhuang Zi’s Perfect Joy: 237 An Answer to the Contemporary Predicament? Manuel B. Dy Chapter XX. The Chinese View of Time, a Passage to Eternity 251 Manuel B. Dy Chapter XXI. Education in Values and Spiritual Enlightenment 269 Shi Zhonglian Chapter XXII. The Character of Japanese Thought 279 Tomonobu Imamichi Note to Chapter XXII. Technical Creativity and Japanese Literary Culture 297 Takehiko Kenmochi Chapter XXIII. The Structure of Oriental Values and Education 301 Yamamoto Yasuo 4 Chapter XXIV. Creativity as Synthesis of Contrasting Wisdoms: 309 An Interpretation of Chinese Philosophy in Taiwan since 1949 Vincent Shen Chapter XXV. Transcendence and Progress 321 Thadeusz Zasepa 5 Introduction This study of the role of Chinese culture in the humanization of technology is part of a series of joint studies by the Institutes of Philosophy of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and of Fudan University in Shanghai with the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (RVP). Begun in 1987 with Peking University, this focused first upon the perennial concern for the modernization of China. During the 1990s, along with people’s throughout the world, the Institutes of Philosophy in Shanghai extended their concerns beyond the classical Chinese issue of modernization and even beyond its critique in "postmodernism," and began to envisage a new more humane Third Millenium. Hence, in recent years these studies have examined the humanization of technology, economics, civil society, spiritual values and indeed of globalization itself. The theme of this volume is the humanization of technology and Chinese culture. Modernization had ardently been sought by the Chinese people for over a century -- often, as in the 1919 movement, at the direct expense of the Chinese cultural heritage and identity. Technology was first been envisaged hopefully as the substitution of human labor by the machine. Brutally, however, fascination with technology shifted attention from human interiority to the objective world, to which it moulded human behavior. In this sense it now has come to symbolize the dehumanizing effects of modernization. What is distinctive of the present Renaissance in all phases of life is that it renews the appreciation of culture, including its importance for the implementation of our physical and spiritual worlds. This, in turn, directs fresh attention to technology to see, not how it can be dominated, but rather how it can be developed on a new and more humane basis. Today, we look not merely for ways in which technology can be made harmonious with Chinese culture, but for how it can be stimulated, implemented and oriented thereby. This is the exceptional significance of the present study at this turn of the millennia. The chapters of this work fall into three parts: Part I studies the and challenge of technology, with special attention to China; Part Two studies the emerging awareness of the role of the human subject with regard to technology; and Part Three concerns especially values in Chinese culture which can contribute to, and shape, technology at this historic juncture. Part I "The and Challenge of Technology" begins with a study by T. Imamichi, host of the overall study, who reaches deeply into the , history and ramifications of technology. He identifies its logical, cosmological and ontological dimensions, but also provides a step by step historical account of the unfolding of technology up to its present form. This sets the horizons for the project. It is followed in Chapter II by Yu Xuanmeng’s analysis of Heidegger’s treatment of the theme. He identifies a tragic, but inevitable, human complicity in the problem by showing how it is human destiny to order and hold in reserve the force of being. The emergence of being in time is thereby promoted, but simul-taneously restricted by the limitations of the human itself. As it is destiny this cannot be avoided, but rendered conscious it can enable an attitude of watchfulness in order that our stewardship promote rather than impede the emergence of being in time. This is the essence of what humanity is now attempting to learn and implement with regard, e.g., to shaping the effects of technology on the environment. This is brought out in Chapters III and IV by Lik Kuen Tong and Wang Xinsheng on Nietzsche and Confucius, respectively. Nietzsche took an essentially aesthetic attitude. He saw the universe 7 as basically chaotic so that all order is a violent imposition by human power. In these terms the "Super-man" or "Over-man" who most exerted his will was the archetype. The results of this attitude have been so tragic in this last century that at this turn of the millennia we look desperately for alternatives. Perhaps sur-prisingly for some, a major alternative is to be found in the Confu- cian traditions of China with its sense of harmony rather than of chaos, and of life as essentially the cultivation of the divinely given image of the good. This, in turn, suggests the inadequacy of Nietzsche’s notion of the "Death of God" and its reductive humanism. Whatever be said of the Chinese tradition, it differs decidedly from this. In its choice of harmony over violence lies it possibilities for being watchful, in Heidegger’s sense, as regards tendencies toward that hubris which would shape humans to the machines they manufacture. In an exceptionally insightful and forthright Chapter V, Lui Fangtong analyses the moral dilemma which emerges from a subjection of all to a technological "overlord," and from the even more widespread attempts among individuals to constitute them-selves into imitations of the "Over-man", each in their own area. In this context he suggests that more positive attention needs to be given to the ethical possibilities of pragmatism. This was developed in the West, but in circumstances not dissimilar from those in which China now finds herself or toward which she seems to be moving. Chapter VI by Zhou Changzhong in an historical overview shows that such an ethical concern since the last half of the last century has been central in the discussions of modernization and technology. In Chapter VII Wang Miaoyang’s review of the positive and negatives aspects of technologization leads him to the conclusion that what is needed is, in sum, its humanization. Part II "From Objectivity to Subjectivity: the Humanization of Science and Technology" begins to investigate how such humanization can take place. Obviously, this requires some reconciliation of objectivity and subjectivity. Li Jizong in his wonderfully sophisticated Chapter VIII refuses to see this as a matter of compromise in a zero sum game whereby both are compromised as each cedes to the other. Instead, he follows the development of science and technology, through periods of focused objectivity, to the more recent insight that their progress requires a new appreciation of the role of subjectivity.