Bending and Fitting: Disciplinarized Institutionalization of Modern Science in China during the ‘Treaty Century’

Kai Wang
Additional contact information
Kai Wang: Department of Philosophy of Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China

Social Sciences, 2017, vol. 6, issue 4, 1-12

Abstract: This article investigates how Western science established itself through disciplinarized institutionalization in China as the country entered the modern era, delineating China’s science and technology (S&T) enterprises evolving within the social settings primarily decided by Confucianism doctrines including Scholar-bureaucrat virtue. Although the perspective of this study is mainly historical, I also adopt a sociological approach to scientific knowledge production in order to argue that, the socialization of Western science during the ‘Treaty Century’ (1842–1943) has shaped and channeled the growth of modern S&T as well as its governance in contemporary China in a normative manner. It is this sociological interpretation of the history of modern science in China that sheds new light on our understanding of scientific knowledge as a component element of belief system that crosses countries, social structures, and civilizations. The main findings also include the premises on which the S&T governance issues are explored in China’s case, in particular, the increased social mobility at the intrusion of the Western.

Keywords: disciplinarized institutionalization; modern science; scholar-bureaucratic virtue; utilitarian view (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/6/4/153/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/6/4/153/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:6:y:2017:i:4:p:153-:d:123500

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().