The mission of philosophy of science and technology is to “reflect” on science and technology. It is to use philosophical thought to explore topics such as the meaning, foundations, significance, value, and influence of science and technology. Of course, an important prerequisite for carrying out reflection is that one must have some understanding of scientific activity.
As the saying goes, “One does not know the true face of Lu Mountain, because one is in the mountain itself” (不识庐山真面目，只缘身在此山中): even the most seasoned natural scientist may not necessarily have a complete understanding of the question of what science is. And to step outside science in the narrow sense and observe it from afar—for instance, through the perspectives of sociology, history, communication studies, culture, psychology, and so on—is extremely meaningful. This is precisely where the greatest value of philosophy of science and technology lies.
However, it is worth stressing that if one merely wanders around outside without actually entering the mountain to take a look oneself, one’s understanding will be even more one-sided. Many present-day “anti-science cultural critics” have in fact never had any firsthand experience of the natural sciences; they merely speak about science from a kind of “watching the fire from across the river” attitude, seeing only some external manifestations and social effects of scientific activity, yet never truly understanding how real scientific exploration is carried out. It is hardly surprising that such a position and attitude would arouse the resentment of many scientists.
Therefore, if philosophers of science and “science cultural critics” want to comment on science, they first need some firsthand experience of science, rather than merely a “bird’s-eye view”; without personally taking a stroll in the mountain, it is equally impossible to know the true face of Lu Mountain!
In fact, many of the more important scholars in science humanities, both in China and abroad, were mostly people who “changed fields” from science and engineering. And now the undergraduate program in philosophy of science and technology at Peking University also requires students to take a certain number of foundational “natural science” courses as compulsory work, which is quite important.
But aside from taking courses in natural science departments, the discipline most helpful for understanding science does not actually have to be sought outside the philosophy department. I think logic—for philosophy of science and technology—is extremely important!
First of all, logic is crucial for philosophy itself, just as Professor Zhou Beihai pointed out in October 2005 in an interview with Wang Jing and Gong Jie on the teaching of logic: “The vitality of philosophy lies in argumentation. Our philosophical views and theories may differ, but our methods of argument must be the same. Whether one is thinking through problems on one’s own or communicating with others, there must be a common platform of argumentation, and this platform should, and can only, be built by logic.” What I want to add and emphasize is “logic” as a discipline (and not merely “logic” in the abstract—for the importance of logic to any philosophy or science goes without saying and does not need to be emphasized at all. Even if we say ‘logic cannot solve everything,’ to argue for that view still cannot do without logic; poetry may allow incoherent leaps, philosophy does not. Although this importance also seems to be ignored by some science humanists who talk increasingly mystically, I will not discuss that here for now.) For philosophy of science and technology, its significance is even more pronounced. For the ordinary philosophy major, although it is necessary, learning one or two basic modern logic courses—say, a course in first-order logic—would probably be about enough; but a philosophy of science and technology major should study more.
What are the “methods” of science, the “spirit” of science? The “attitude” of science? Which discipline can best help us grasp these features of science, as the “spokesperson” of science? I think the typical representative of the natural sciences is obviously physics. Of course, there is another kind of natural science, namely “natural history” (博物学). It is quite necessary to attach importance to “natural history,” since physics after all cannot represent the entirety of science; nevertheless, this does not detract from physics being a typical case within science.
So what, then, is the foundation of physics? It is a discipline with a special status: mathematics. Mathematics perhaps cannot count as a “natural science,” because it does not seem to study natural objects. But without a doubt, mathematics also studies natural laws—only in the most, most abstract way. Mathematics stands apart from physics; physics is not simply an extension of mathematics. Yet surely very few people would deny the foundational role of mathematics in physics.
And logic is the foundation of mathematics—of course, mathematics is not entirely an extension of logic, and there are even many non-logical things within mathematics. Nevertheless, the foundation of modern mathematics is still logic. Modern logicians of the highest order are also mathematicians of the highest order; what is called “mathematical logic” is logic expressed and constructed in mathematical language and methods. Moreover, the purpose for which Frege and others established mathematical philosophy was to build a solid foundation for the edifice of mathematics. Although this effort did not fully succeed, in the broad sense of “foundation”—for example, just as mathematics is the foundation of physics and physics is the foundation of the natural sciences—logic is undoubtedly the foundation of mathematics. That is to say, modern logic is not merely a simple branch of mathematics; its position within mathematics is also unique. Modern logic emerged through the introduction of mathematical methods, yet this new discipline born from mathematics simultaneously became the field in which the thought and methods of mathematics are most concentratedly manifested!
According to the current disciplinary classification, “Mathematical Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics” is one of the most important second-level disciplines under “mathematics” (ranked only after “history of mathematics”). Under it are included third-level disciplines such as symbolic logic, metamathematics, axiomatic set theory, and mathematical logic. Just from the name of the second-level discipline alone, one can see that logic is obviously the “foundation” of mathematics, the starting point of all the other branches of mathematics.
One can begin to understand the natural sciences through physics, understand physics through mathematics, and understand mathematics through logic. Why are the natural sciences often rigorous, emphasize deduction, pursue objectivity, strive for simplicity, seek universality, abstraction, and systematization, and should not be subjective, arbitrary, ambiguous, or vague? By personally participating in mathematical activity, especially in logical activity, one can come to feel this.
Perhaps some may proclaim a masculine physics, a proletarian biology, and so on. But how many people can proclaim that mathematics and logic are like that as well? (One should not state things too absolutely; it seems there may even be a logic of dialectics with Chinese characteristics. But in any case, if one wants to make it into a theoretical system of logic, then even if intuitionism and the like reject some of the presuppositions of classical logic, the character of logic as a discipline does not change.)
It is difficult to grasp the whole picture of science from the perspective of any single discipline, and logic is precisely the discipline least able to reflect the whole picture of science—because it is the most abstract and most basic. By contrast, fields such as biology and geology, because their research has to involve chemistry, physics, and even mathematics and other disciplines at the same time, may perhaps better reflect the overall connections of science. But mathematics and logic are meaningful in another respect, because what they reflect is the core of science, the heart of science!
In this era in which science is increasingly specialized, the impression of science as a whole gained merely from working in a single specific scientific field is like “the blind men touching an elephant.” Schrödinger put it well: “We are not trying to abolish specialization completely; even if we wished to do so, it would be impossible. However, one must realize that specialization is not a virtue but an unavoidable drawback, and realize that all specialized research is valuable only when placed within a complete system of knowledge.”[①] And not only must one strive to relate one’s specialty to the whole of science, one must also relate it to what lies outside science. Schrödinger also said: “You must keenly observe the role that your special field plays on the stage of humanity’s tragicomedy of life; you must connect it with life—not only with practical life, but also with the ideal background of life, which is usually even more important. At the same time, you must keep yourself abreast of the times. If you cannot ultimately tell others what you have been doing all along, then your research is worth nothing at all.[②]” If one does not connect with the perspectives of life, culture, and the times, then even if a “blind man” has touched the elephant from trunk to tail, and can even mount its back to “direct” its movements, he still can hardly attain a comprehensive understanding of the elephant. Two aspects are still missing: first, the important significance of disciplines and schools such as philosophy of science, history of science, sociology of science, sociology of scientific knowledge, and communication studies of science—that is, to step farther away and examine science from a broader perspective; second, what I want to emphasize in this article: drawing close to and experiencing the “heart” of science, experiencing mathematics and logic, and feeling the “pulse” of science. Looking from afar, relating to the whole, and experiencing the core—these three perspectives are indispensable. What is called philosophy of science and technology is precisely philosophical reflection on science from all three of these angles.
Finally, let me add one more point: mathematics is also one of the disciplines in the natural sciences (excluding natural history) most likely to make people feel “beauty.” Many of the influences brought by science and technology may be ugly, but the activity of scientific exploration itself ought to be suffused with the joy of feeling beauty—this is what any greatest scientist will tell us. Merely wandering around outside the mountain can never replace the mood one has when personally probing and exploring in the deep, secluded reaches of the mountain.
February 22, 2006
[①] [Austria] Erwin Schrödinger, Nature and the Ancient Greeks, trans. Yan Feng, Shanghai Scientific and Technological Press, May 2002, p. 99
[②] [Austria] Erwin Schrödinger, Nature and the Ancient Greeks, trans. Yan Feng, Shanghai Scientific and Technological Press, May 2002, p. 100
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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