Academic Self-Colonization and the Crisis of Higher Education in Taiwan and Mainland China

Abstract

The phenomenon of academic self-colonization prevailing in the contemporary scientific communities of both Taiwan and mainland China can be traced to the three ideologies popular among Chinese intellectuals since the May Fourth Movement in the early twentieth century, namely, social Darwinism, scientism, and anti-traditionalism. Under the ideology of scientism, Chinese scientific communities concentrated on the indoctrination of various research methodologies in graduate education, while the neglect of the Western philosophy of science led them to ignore issues related to ontology and epistemology. As a consequence, most Chinese researchers tend to follow Western paradigms of research without significant contribution to theoretical construction.