The Convergence of Humanism and Scientific Method : Zhang Shenfu's Philosophical Thought in 1930s as a Synthesis between Confucian and Russellian Philosophy
Abstract
The paper analyzes a transformation of thought and a shift in perspective in Zhang Shenfu's philosophy which took place in the 1930s. It tries to reintegrate the characteristics of the above mentioned shift into a historical background, encompassing a newer perspective of congruence of history of science in China with a general socio-historical description, and further also to underline the phenomena of the entanglement between contemporary socio-political circumstances and China's scientific world forming a new perception of the role of scientific method in establishing a new society and culture.
As the main ideological and theoretical features of the May Fourth movements slowly sprouted into new reactionary options or experienced a transition to newly established political positions, the priorities and identity of an May Fourth intellectual have balanced itself at the point of a new cultural synthesis. Surprisingly, the dialectical nature of this synthesis did not disrupt the former integrity of his notion of scientific method, embodied in the 'universal nature' of mathematical logic, it rather added or reinstalled a humanistic level, which in turn opened the door to Confucian teachings.
This search for a golden mean was in agreement with the contemporary 'spirit' of a new cultural construction, which found it's authoritative form in Guomindang's new sociological doctrine (culturology under Huang Wenshan, Chen Lifu etc.). Hence the notion of the crisis of identity is transfigured through a loss of its fundamental integrity, for the story of Zhang Shenfu transgresses the limits of identity ascribed to him by historic models.