The concept of 'science' in modern Chinese thought.

This paper investigates the formation of the concept of science in modern Chinese thought from four perspectives. The first aspect concentrates on the Japanese origin of the concept of science, analyzing this concept through the formation of the late Qing branches of learning, fenke zhixue, and the knowledge system of positivism. The second aspect takes gezhi (investigating things and extending knowledge), qiongli (exhaustion of principle) and other concepts as clues and analyzes the relationship between the concepts of modern science and the study of the school of principle lixue to show the breakdown and connection between scientific concepts fused in the three aspects of nature, morality and politics and the Confucian world view. The third aspect takes as its focus the systematization of scientific research, analyzing the agencies of science, scientific publications and the scientific community's formation and the influence of these elements on society and culture. The fourth aspect takes the May Fourth debate on East-West notions of civilization and the debate on science and metaphysics as its focus, discussing scientific language, the debate between civilizations and the formation of the fields of humanities and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]