Institutionalization And Its Effects On Chinese Philosophy Of Technology

Since the reform and opening up, China’s technology philosophy, just like other academic areas, achieved a development in the process of learning from the West since the 1980 s and embarked on the road of institutionalization. The number of professional researchers and academics is growing rapidly. However, human rational knowledge is always rooted in a certain social and cultural background and the production of a particular philosophy of technology has its specific social and cultural background. Following or studying Western philosophy of technology is significant for Chinese philosophy of technology. But at the same time of caring of the development results of Western philosophy of technology, the Chinese philosophy of technology needs "Academic Consciousness". Cleaning and reflecting on the experience and problems of the Institutionalization Process of Chinese philosophy of technology since the reform and opening up is the precondition the process of academic consciousness and has an important influence on the future development of Chinese philosophy of technology and China’s technological practice.Studying the history of Chinese philosophy of technology since the 1980 s, we find that Chinese philosophy of technology was first developed in the background of the institutionalization of Dialectics of Nature and obtained a legal status because of Deng Xiaoping’s instructions. The setting up of "Introduction to Dialectics of Nature" as a political theory course for graduate students made the academic team of natural dialectics has its institutionalized protection and also prepared a basic staff team for technical philosophy. Under "The Chinese Society for Dialectics of Nature", "The Society for Philosophy of Technology" also won the institutionalized recognition. The setting up of "Philosophy of Technology" column in specialized academic journals and the "National Academic Symposium On Philosophy of Technology" since 1985 and the later "National Conference on Philosophy of Technology" provide a platform for the academic exchange of technological philosophy. In some Universities, Science and Technology MPhil and PhD in philosophy of technology become an important research direction in conjunction with a number of universities offering postgraduate training in the "Philosophy of Technology" course. The unique procedure of institutionalization as above directly affects the research characteristics of Chinese philosophy of technology during this period. Compared with the development of 1950 s to 1970 s of Chinese Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of Technology won the recognition of institutionalization and the research team and research achievements are growing significantly. In these studies the introducing and researching of foreign technological philosophy and the study of technology philosophy yuan accounted for a large proportion; in the three journals, most of the authors of philosophy technology articles belong to universities and research institutions; among the election problem of doctoral dissertation, the study of foreign technology philosophers accounted for a certain proportion; conference attendees are single and only a small part of them outside the system. More and more achievements of professional technical philosophy scholars are increasingly concentrated in the "three journals." The analysis of these studies prompts us to properly evaluate the significance of the establishment of the Chinese philosophy of technology; technology philosophy to maintain the necessary tension between theory and practice; to make philosophy of technology meaningful and sustainable, the technical practitioners must take part in it.