Constructing the New Science of the Second Beginning

LIU Xiaoting (School of Philosophy, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China) 

The crisis of civilization has now become an urgent and severe reality, and many insightful individuals like Stephen Hawking and Frank Fenner have voiced warnings. Various analyses indicate that this is a theoretical fact for the time being, and the most fundamental task and responsibility for humanity at present is to prevent it from becoming an empirical fact. 

With this in mind, we attempt to revive the return pattern of the ancient sages’ holistic view of civilization and to develop a U-shaped diagram depicting the “path” of civilization as a whole, in order to fulfill the mission of self-salvation. The turning point of this return pattern marks the beginning of a new stage of civilization, which can be referred to as the “second beginning.” In order to move towards this second beginning, there is a need to develop a new science oriented towards it. 

Since the science of the first beginning was primarily mathematical and dominated by instrumental value, the science of the second beginning must be guided by values related to survival or existential value. Such a science will shift in its themes from constitutive to generative theories, from axiomatic to model theories, from material to information theories, from substantial to relational theories, and from materialistic to virtual theories. Furthermore, in terms of its fundamental principles, it will adhere to constructiveness, including acknowledging the diversity of things and the unity of all things at the ontological level; emphasizing symbiosis, mutual benefit, and win-win outcomes at the axiological level; advocating mutual assistance, tolerance, beauty, and sharing at the methodological level; and making efforts in practical actions to bring the strong and the weak to the same negotiating table, with negotiation as the fundamental mode of communication. 

At the same time, the philosophy, worldview, ethics, education, spiritual life, and even human nature of the second beginning will undergo fundamental transformations, leading towards a new state of unity between humankind and the cosmos, featuring wholistic harmonious coexistence between all individuals and between humans and non-humans. 

Modernity as an Age of Transition 

Benjamin Schewel (Center on Modernity in Transition) 

This presentation examines the idea of modernity as an age of transition. It begins by situating the idea in relation to the consistently polarized narratives of modernity as (i) a dawning age of rational-scientific enlightenment and ii) a darkening nightmare of fracture and self-delusion. Here, specific attention is paid to how the age of transition thesis helps dissolve the sense of polarized contest between these two, widely influential narratives by providing a framework from within which to their respective insights and limitations can be effectively engaged. The presentation then further explores the nature and implications of the age of transition thesis by considering its suggestion to analogically liken modernity to a period of collective adolescence. Some possible empirical pillars of the age of transition narrative are subsequently considered. The presentation concludes by examining the vision of future oneness upon which the age of transition thesis is based, focusing in particular on how this vision helps productively reorient ongoing debates about science, religion, and the future of civilization.