A Brief Discussion on the Relationship between Rationality and Freedom

                  A Brief Discussion on the Relationship between Rationality and Freedom

   The relationship between rationality and freedom is an important and complex problem in fields like politics and economics, and for centuries, many important thinkers in differentfields all have discussed this important and basic issue, and they get many valuable conclusions; generally speaking, the cause of this problem is complexand profound, involving basic issues at many levels such as individual, socialorganization and science, and meanwhile, its influence is also profound andextensive, involving many different aspects like individual life, managementand education. In this paper, we want to investigate this important problemfrom several different basic perspectives, and in the examining process, wewill try to make our thought vision systematic, profound and wide.

(I) Rationality and Freedom at Individual Level

  Firstly, we want toanalyze the many-sided intension of the rationality and freedom issue atindividual level, and through the analysis from several different perspectives,we can see, the relationship between rationality and freedom has profoundmeaning at individual level.

  1 Individual’srational behavior in actual work and life. It is easy to understand, individual’smany thoughts and behaviors in real life all need to be rational and organized,namely, in many cases, individual should not overemphasize personal willing andfree behavior. Firstly, as for actual work, for many individuals who work indifferent kinds of organizations such as company and government department,their daily work naturally needs to be regular and planned, and he should notoveremphasize personal willing and subjective behavior; for example, for atechnical staff of a machinery company, he must comply with his company’s manyspecific rules and discipline, and also needs to speak and behave properly inthe workplace, and also needs to complete different specific tasks according tothe arrangement of company’s management group, while if he casually behaves accordingto his subjective willingness, overvalues personal ideas and needs, then it isobviously inappropriate. To conclude, in the busy and intense work, at most ofthe time, we should rationally think and behave; the deeper reason is,individual does not isolatedly live in the society, but lives in various kindsof big and small organizations, while these organizations naturally all need tokeep certain discipline, and correspondingly, individual’s many ideas andbehaviors at actual work should be rational.

   Secondly, as forvarious problems in daily life, in many cases, we also need to keep rationalthinking. Take the treatment of disease as example, when catching a cold orinjuring, we often need to go to hospital or clinic and receive diagnosis ofprofessional physician, and take the medicine and get an injection, though weourselves can also make some analysis about the illness, the doctor’s manydiagnosis will be more professional and comprehensive, and thereby, mostly weall need to obey the doctor’s diagnosis and treatment plan. In brief, in thecomplex actual life, mostly we also need to keep rational thinking, and shouldnot overvalue personal subjective opinion; the reason behind it is, the variousproblems we face in actual life all have much experience which has beenaccumulated by many predecessors, and there are also some professional peoplewho can provide solutions, and thus, when solving these problems, we don’t needto blindly grope by ourselves, but should rationally think and treat them. Inconclusion, in most cases, our actual work and life should be rational.

2The basic role of luck. As our general experience, luck has great impact inlife’s various aspects such as work, life, education, money, etc, and in ourlong and complex life journey, luck will play an important role in many aspectssuch as study opportunity, critical period of career, health, life affairs,etc. Luck is obviously very important in various things, and if we examine thecomplex and difficult real life, we can see, in aspects like human relationshipand career development, we will all meet many important moments, and at thistime, the external factors like some critical ideas, figures and events willhave a big impact, and the internal factors such as our behaviors, ideas andmentalities at these moments are also very important, while these often allneed luck. If we have good luck, our career and life will go well, and thedevelopment of many things will even go beyond our expectation, while ifwithout luck, our work and life will be difficult, or even with big setbacks;to sum up, the basic role of luck in life is undeniable.

Certainly,though the basic function of luck is difficult to deny, we cannot thereby denythe basic meaning of individual’s subjective initiative, and about it,Rockefeller once writes: “The business wizard (old McCormick) who originally canonly do a common tools business, said an esoteric saying ‘luck is the remnantof design.’ This sentence sounds really puzzling, and does it mean that luck isthe result of planning and strategy? Or luck is the rest of thing afterplanning? My experience tells me, these two kinds of meaning both exist, inother words, we create our own luck, and we are unlikely to take any action whichcompletely eliminates luck, and luck is the Gospel in the planning processwhich is hard to get rid of.” On one hand, Rockefeller’s this passage affirmsthe basic meaning of luck in life, on the other hand, it also emphasizes theprofound value of people’s active action in various affairs, and these twoaspects are both consistent with our practical experience. About therelationship between luck and people’s rational planning, Rockefeller alsosays: “I admit, like people cannot live without money, people cannot livewithout luck. But, if we want to make a difference, we cannot wait the comingof luck. My creed is: I do not live with the gift of luck, instead, I becomesuccessful by planning luck.”[1]Rockefeller’s this passage is not difficult to understand, indeed, we need luckin many things, but luck often shows up only after we make full preparation;take the career development as example, to achieve a somewhat big goal, we needto clearly think about many things, and make full preparation, and then, luckwill show up, while if we do not make many-sided preparation, luck is alsodifficult to emerge, namely, to achieve a somewhat big goal, luck andindividual’s subjective efforts are both indispensible. In summary, from luckthis basic thing, we can also see the profound impact of rationality andfreedom at individual level.

3Rational authority and individual’s autonomous choice. In human society, thecontrol in thoughtful level caused by rational authority has been an importantand also difficult problem since ancient times, and we want to firstly give anexample, Sidgwick once writes: “A physician assumes that his patient wantshealth: he tells him that he ought to rise early, to live plainly, to take hardexercise. If the patient deliberately prefers ease and good living to health,the physician’s percepts fall to the ground: they are no longer addressed tohim.”[2]WhatSidgwick says is a simple example, and in the practical everyday life, I thinkwe can still somewhat easily reject the doctor’s certain suggestion, althoughwill probably be criticized by the family member and other people. While Balzacmentions a more universal and influential situation: “‘That is the owner of thebrougham!’ he said to himself. ‘But is it necessary to have a pair of spiritedhorse, servants in livery, and torrents of gold to draw a glance from a womanhere inParis?’The demon of luxury gnawed at his heart, greed burned in his veins, his throatwas parched with the thirst of gold.”[3]WhatBalzac says is probably a situation which often happens in practical life,especially for many young people who are still wet behind the ears, since theystill lack rich life experience, when facing the lure of money and success,young people are eager to be impetuous. As individual, when facing thespiritual oppression of popular notions such as ‘success’ and money, can wecalmly, flexibly and confidently persist with our personal choices? When thesociety measures us with the benchmark of success and money, do we have thecourage and wisdom to make independent choices? When the majority of peoplearound us do not acknowledge, can we keep following our own interests and ideasin aspects such as art, academic, social service and professional choice? Ithink these are all very universal problems since ancient times, and everygeneration of people will also think about these problems; certainly, we canprobably think, when facing these rational authority at institutional andnotional level, there are still many people who can insist on their personalchoices.

Aboutthe influence of rational authority, we can also quote a passage of Montesquieuin the 18thcentury: “At first, those that produce some newpropositions are calledheretics.Each heresy has its own name, whichis like a rallying-cry for those who support it; but no one is aheretic unless he wants to be; all thatis required is to divide the point at issue into two, and provide thoseaccusing their opponents ofheresy witha distinction-a subtle nuance-and no matter what that distinction is, whetherit’s intelligible or not, it renders a man white as snow, and he can callhimselforthodox.”[4]WhatMontesquieu says is about religious belief issue, and today in the 21stcentury, these problems have mostly been solved in various societies; but, inmany other aspects, such as career choice, marriage, personal idea and companymanagement, we will still meet the issue of pressure from public opinion, whileit often requires great wisdom to solve these problems. To conclude, rationalauthority and individual’s autonomous choice is also a wide-ranging basicissue, and also has somewhat strong realistic meaning.

(II)    Rationality and Freedom at Enterprise Level

Afterexamining certain influence derived from the relationship between rationalityand freedom at individual level above, now we prepare to extend the examiningrange to enterprise level, and similar to the individual situation, the rationalityand freedom issue at enterprise level also has intricate relationship.

1The importance of entrepreneur’s independent thinking and free creative spirit.A simple fact is, at enterprise level, entrepreneur’s free creative spirit isvery important; as we know, in the development of various companies, theentrepreneurs all need to have good management idea and need to have strong originality,and if the entrepreneur just conforms with the old idea, and merely followsother companies’ development mode, then one company is unlikely to develophugely. Here, we want to use the Ikea in household enterprise as an example tomake some analyses; in 1943, the then only 17-year-old Kamprad founded Ikea,and after several years of management, he realized that the furniture markethas huge potential, and thereby, in 1953, he decided to abandon all the otherbusiness, and focused on the management of low-price furniture, and also raisedthe important concept of “public household”. In 1956, he raised another famous conceptof assemblable furniture and flat package, namely, Ikea company will decomposethe furniture into various parts, and provide flat package which is easy forbuyers to transport and carry, and also can enable the buyers to assemble at theirhome, and this original business mode gets enormous success in the marketpractice, and therefore, is successively used for half a century, after that,Ikea also gradually develops from a Swedish company into a large-scalemultinational enterprise. From this concrete example of Ikea, we can see, forthe development of company, since many industries are all burgeoning industries,and their market environments are all in the process of continuous developmentand change, and thereby, the entrepreneurs need to carefully analyze and judgethe whole industry’s developing feature and internal tendency, and raise someimportant original ideas, while if one entrepreneur lacks the necessaryoriginality, then one company is difficult to develop into large scale. If weexamine the development process of other famous companies, the situation isalso similar; for example, Benz company benefits from Benz’s originalcontribution in car invention, Apple has successful original products such asiPad and iPhone, Sumsung realizes the developing trend of smart phone and alsokeeps up with the changing tendency, and Google has search engine this originalcritical technology, and there are certainly many similar situations. To sumup, through this examination, we can easily understand, for the development ofone company, it is not enough for an entrepreneur to just rationally analyzeand understand many issues, instead, he must have independent thinking and freecreative spirit, and must have good originality in the complex marketsituation; namely, for entrepreneurs, rationality and freedom are bothindispensible.

2The importance of rational operation such as management. In the aboveparagraph, we point out that the entrepreneurs need to have original managementidea and concept, but it does not mean that the company’s rational managementis no longer important. For one company, especially large company, the role ofmanagement is also notable. About business management, Drucker, the master ofmanagement, once raises many valuable views, for example, about the overallpositioning of business management, he writes: “The manager is the dynamic,life-giving element in every business. Without his leadership the resources ofproduction remain resources and never become production. In a competitiveeconomy, above all, the quality and performance of the managers determine thesuccess of a business, indeed they determine its survival. For the quality andperformance of its managers is the only effective advantage an enterprise in acompetitive economy can have.”[5]Fromthis paragraph, we can see, business management and managers are very importantfor a company, and they can permit one company to function orderly andefficiently, and can turn potential resources into mass products, or else thecompany will be inefficient and chaotic, without clear goal and orderlyfunctioning. Drucker further writes: “Management is the specific organ of thebusiness enterprise. Whenever we talk of a business enterprise, say, the UnitedStates Steel Company or the British Coal Board, as deciding to build a newplant, laying off workers or treating its customers, fairly, we actually talkof a management decision, a management action, a management behaviour. Theenterprise can decide, act and behave only as its managers do-by itself theenterprise has no effective existence.” Meanwhile, Drucker also criticizes somepeople’s view, and in his opinion, they overemphasize the function of resourcesand capital for a company, while overlook the basic value of management in businessoperation: “The enterprise cannot therefore be a mechanical assemblage ofresources. To make an enterprise out of resources it is not enough to put themtogether in logical order and then to throw the switch of capital as thenineteenth-century economists firmly believed (and as many of their successorsamong academic economists still believe). What is needed is a transmutation ofthe resources. And this cannot come from an inanimate resource such as capital.It requires management.”[6]In themasterpieceThe Practice of Management,Drucker raises many important concepts, such as performance, objectivemanagement, personnel management, decision, enterprise structure, motivationand etc, and based on these concepts, he makes systematic investigation anddetailed and practical analyses about enterprise management issue; throughreading Drucker’s many management works, we can see, enterprise management isactually a very complex and extensive issue, involving many different aspectsand levels, which cannot be well characterized simply by a few sentences, whichalso fully proves, rational planning and decision is very important forenterprise. Through these facts, we can understand, rational thinking plays abasic role for enterprise; meanwhile, combining the exposition of the aboveparagraph, we can realize, at enterprise level, the relationship between rationalityand freedom is also complex.

 (III) Rationality and Freedom in Science and Technology

Becausescience and technology is a very important component of human society, andthus, in this part, we prepare to do certain investigations about therationality and freedom issue in science and technology field.

   Firstly, as is wellknown, in science and technology, the basic idea of academic freedom andindependent thinking is important; as the general awareness of most people, thedevelopment condition of science and technology cannot be predicted andrationally planned by certain people in advance, instead, it relies on manyscientists’ individual efforts, while these scientists often have their owndifferent research goals, about it, famous thinker Polanyi once does somewhatsystematic exposition, and he writes: “This interplay of background and figureillustrates a general principle: the principle that whenever we are focusingour attention on a particular object, we are relying for doing so on ourawareness of many things to which we are not attending directly at the moment,but which are yet functioning as compelling clues for the way the object of ourattention will appear to our senses. An obvious and often commented instance ofthis is our tendency to overlook things that are unprecedented.”

Aboutthe developing feature of science, Polanyi further elaborates: “We make sensesof experience by relying on clues of which we are often aware only as pointersto their hidden meaning, this meaning is an aspect of a reality which as suchcan yet reveal itself in an indeterminate range of future discoveries. This is,in fact, my definition of external reality: reality is something that attractsour attention by clues which harass and beguile our minds into getting evercloser to it, and which, since it owes this attractive power to its independentexistence, can always manifest itself in still unexpected ways. If we havegrasped a true and deep-seated aspect of reality, then its futuremanifestations will be unexpected confirms of our present knowledge of it.”[7]

Ifwe examine the complex conditions in various scientific fields, we can see,Polanyi’s this passage is somewhat consistent with the developing features inscientific fields; here, as a concrete illustration of Polanyi’s aboveargument, we want to expound the developing feature of one mathematicalarea-abstract algebra. As a pioneer of abstract algebra, in the 18thcentury (1770), Lagrange developed the resolvent method to solve polynomialequations, namely, reducing one polynomial equation to a lower-orderpolynomial, which has certain impact on the subsequent development of algebra,while in 1813, Cauchy studied permutation group, which initiated the study ofgroup theory. In 1824, Abel published the well-known paper “5thorderequation of one variable has no algebraic general solution”, which solves theproblem of 5thorder equation has no radical solution, and it is animportant development in group theory. In 1831, Galios further studied theclassical problem whether 5thor higher degree equations haveradical solution, and he founded the very important and profound Galois theoryby combining ideas of group theory and field theory, and also gave the generalmethod to determine whether polynomial equations have radical solution, namely,judging which types of polynomial equations have algebraic solutions. For ringtheory, to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem, Kummer created the ideal theory in1844-1847 (which was later developed into general ideal theory by Dedekind),and also got many conclusions about algebraic number, based on them, he provedexcept p=37, 59, 67, when p<100, Fermat’s Last Theorem is always correct; in1843, Hamilton created quaternion, which is one important type ofnon-commutative ring. From the above developments, we can see, the creatingprocess of abstract algebra is the result of joint efforts of many importantmathematicians, and in it, the development of group theory, ring theory andfield theory are interlaced and interactive, and we need to introduce a greatmany new concepts, new ideas and new theories, and this complex process alsoran through the whole 19thcentury. Obviously, for abstract algebra,many key breakthroughs all cannot be predicted in advance, and its theoreticalframework also did not reach the mature stage at once, but was gradually formedover a quite long period of time; to sum up, the whole development process ofabstract algebra is somewhat similar to Polanyi’s expositions we quote above, andthese basic developing features also have great universality in variousscientific fields.

Here,to better understand the complex relationship between rationality and freedomin scientific fields, we also want to raise another typical example, namely, thediscovery process of natural radiation by Becquerel. As is well known, in 1896,Becquerel discovered natural radiation phenomenon, which lays experimentalfoundation for the birth and development of nucleus physics and particlephysics, and is also one of the most important physical discoveries at thebeginning of 20thcentury. The process of this significant discoveryis: when Roentgen discovered X ray in November, 1895, Poincare reported it in ameeting of French Academy of Sciences in January, 1896, and Becquerel was alsothere, therefore, he wanted to study the generation mechanism of X ray,Poincare then thought that this ray’s generation mechanism is the same asfluorescence, and he also suggested Becquerel that he could try to test whetherfluorescence is accompanied by X ray. Therefore, back to his laboratory,Becquerel began to test whether fluorescence will radiate a kind of ray which isinvisible but can penetrate thick paper and sensitize the plate; after sometrials, he found one substance with expected effect, namely, uranium salt.Becquerel put the uranium salt on the plate wrapped by thick paper, and let itbe exposed to the sun for several hours, and the plate was indeed sensitive andshowed shadow; hence, Becquerel thought it shows that the uranium salt radiatesX ray with the excitement of sunlight. After it, Becquerel wanted to furtherinvestigate this new phenomenon, but unfortunately, Paris was rainy for manydays, and there was no sunlight, and he had to put all the apparatus in onedrawer, including the plate wrapped by the black paper and uranium salt; duringthis time, for no particular reason, Becquerel suddenly came up with an idea,and he wanted to see whether the plate will become black even without exposureto the sunlight. Thus, he printed the plate out, while the black shadow on theplate was still very clear, facing this unexpected phenomenon, he instantly realized,he must abandon the previous hypothesis, and this ray has no directrelationship with fluorescence, and different from fluorescence, it does notneed the excitement of exterior light. Through further study, he knew that thisphenomenon applies to all the tested uranium salt, and thereby, he understoodthis ray is radiated by the uranium itself, which is the general process ofnatural radiation’s discovery. The process of Becquerel’s this importantdiscovery is naturally quite interesting, if it was not rainy for days, and hedid not decide to keep trying, the radiation phenomenon perhaps will bediscovered several years later; certainly, on the other hand, Becquerel himselfoften says, the discovery of radiation in his laboratory is “completely logical”,and the deeper reason is, Becquerel receives systematic and deep training inatomic physics, and he is familiar with various aspects of theory andexperiment in atomic physics, and meanwhile, he also has rich, subtle physicalthought, and based on the good foundation of these two aspects, he discovers thissignificant physical phenomenon. In summary, in the example of naturalradiation, the complex relationship between rationality and freedom is welldisclosed: on one hand, if without special reason in weather, Becquerel willprobably not consider to change his experimental procedure, which cannot becontrolled by individual rationality; on the other hand, Becquerel’s thisdiscovery in essence still relies on his fundamental and physical quality, andis not as simple as good luck; to sum up, rationality and freedom in thisexample are mutually infiltrative.

The above paragraphs investigates the relationship between rationality and freedomin science from several different perspectives, about this basic issue, wethink, in the complex process of the development of science and technology,rationality and freedom also have mutually producing and influencedrelationship, and about it, we can give an appropriate example. In the 18thcentury, the smallpox was very common, and to deal with this somewhat seriousdisease, after a long period of practice, people found out that they couldeffectively prevent it by inoculation, and about this process, Voltaire writes:“ The Circassians found that, upon computation, in a thousand persons there washardly one that was ever twice seized with smallpox completely formed; thatthere had been instances of a person’s having had a slight touch of it, orsomething resembling it, but there never were any two relapses known to bedangerous; in short, that the same person has never been known to have been twiceinfected with this disorder. They further remark, that when the disease ismild, and the eruption has only to pierce through a thin and delicate skin, itleaves no mark on the face. From these natural observations, they concluded,that if a child of six months or a year old was to have a mild kind ofsmallpox, not only would the child certainly survive, but it would get betterwithout bearing any marks of it, and would assuredly be immune during the remainderof its life.”

“Hence it followed, that their only method would be to communicate the disorder totheir children betimes, which they did, by insinuating into the child’s body apustule taken from the body of one infected with smallpox, the most completelyformed, and at the same time the most favorable kind that could be found. Theexperiment could hardly fail. The Turks, a very sensible people, soon adoptedthis practice; and, at this day, there is scarcely a pasha inConstantinoplewho does not inoculate his children while they are at the breast.”[8]

Voltaire’sdescription of curing smallpox is somewhat detailed and objective, namely, peoplefound out inoculation can effectively prevent smallpox only after a long periodof empirical observation, which cannot be achieved merely by human’s rationalthinking, but requires long-term actual observation and experiments; to sum up,people found out that inoculation is an effective method to prevent smallpoxafter empirical observation and repeated experiments, and what this processrequires is not merely rational ability, but much actual experience to test,and people’s related perceptions also go through a gradually deepening and improvedprocess, namely, after decades of long-term practice, they mastered the methodto inoculate. To conclude, in using inoculation to prevent from smallpox, human’srational ability plays a part, but many facts in actual experience and variouschanges in the experimental process also plays a fundamental role, namely, rationalityand freedom both play basic functions. Obviously, in various scientificdevelopments, similar situations are very common.

Inthis part, we make some analyses about the basic relationship betweenrationality and freedom in scientific fields, and from them, we can see, thisissue is quite complex, and these illustrations also show that, the developmentof science and technology indeed requires human’s rational ability, but also requiresvarious changes in practical experience and free thinking, and meanwhile,rationality and freedom both have complex and broad intension, which alsoincreases the complexity of this issue; to conclude, it is indeed a complexissue, which cannot be clearly generalized simply by a few sentences, and italso reminds us, we should not oversimplify the developing features of science,but must keep a dialectical and wide perspective.

(IV)   Rationality and Freedom at Social Level

Afterthe investigations at several levels above, now we turn to the investigationsabout rationality and freedom at social level, and it is also a wide-rangingand profound issue, including many different dimensions, angles and contents.

1The social view of rationalism. Generally speaking, in many areas such aspolitics, economics and philosophy, there are quite a number of thinkers whohold the rationalism social view; firstly, as we know, Hegel’s social view ismainly a rationalism type, and as an illustration, we want to firstly quote hisone passage: “The only Thought which Philosophy brings with it to thecontemplation of History, is the simple conception ofReason; that Reason is the Sovereign of the World; that the historyof the world, therefore, presents us with a rational process. This convictionand intuition is a hypothesis in the domain of history as such. In that ofPhilosophy it is no hypothesis. It is there proved by speculative cognition, thatReason-and this term may here sufficeus, without investigating the relation sustained by the Universe to the DivineBeing-isSubstance,as well as Infinite Power; its ownInfinite Materialunderlying all thenatural and spiritual life which it originates, as also theInfinite Form-that which sets thisMaterial in motion. On the one hand, Reason is thesubstanceof the Universe; viz., that by which and in which allreality has its being and subsistence. On the other hand, it is the Infinite Energyof the Universe; sinceReason is not so powerless as to be incapable of producing anything but a mereideal, a mere intension-having its place outside reality, nobody knows where;something separate and abstract, in the heads of certain human beings. It isthe infinite complex of things, theirentire Essence and Truth. It is its own material which it commits to its ownActive Energy to work up; not needing, as finite action does, the conditions ofan external material of given means from which it many obtain its support, andthe objects of its activity. It supplies its own nourishment, and is the objectof its own operations. While it is exclusively its own basis of existence, andabsolute final aim, it is also the energizing power realizing this aim;developing it not only in the phenomena of the Natural, but also of theSpiritual Universe-the History of the World.”[9]In thispassage, Hegel’s esteem and even worship for “reason” is obvious, and it isalso consistent with the admiration for “reason” in his epistemology,certainly, Hegel’s this passage is somewhat reasonable, since human’s thinkingpower is so strong, and it indeed is one of the major driving forces of worldhistory; but, it is also inappropriate to overly worship the function ofreason, because many things in human society cannot be controlled by rationality,and they comes from many jumbled accidents; broadly speaking, Hegel’s thissocial view is just one kind of macroscopic view, which can not replace manyscattered concrete events in realistic history.

Hegelalso says: “These observations may suffice in reference to the means which theWorld-Spirit uses for realizing its idea. Stated simply and abstractly, thismeditation involves the activity of personal existences in whom Reason ispresent as their absolute, substantial being; but a basis, in the firstinstance, still obscure and unknown to them. But the subject becomes morecomplicated and difficult when we regard individuals not merely in their aspectof activity, but more concretely, in conjunction with a particularmanifestation of that activity in their religion and morality-forms ofexistence which are intimately connected with Reason, and share in its absoluteclaims.”[10]Namely, Hegel thinksreason, in many cases, does not directly show in human’s activities, but hidesbehind concrete activities such as religion and morality, and constitutes thedeeper essence of them. Generally speaking, Hegel’s these views also havepartial validity, because human’s thought and rational power are indeedimportant, but he overlooks many things at empirical level, while in manycases, these empirical things are also essential, because many empiricalcomponents cannot be provided by reason, and in many cases, rationality alsocannot grasp considerable empirical elements; to conclude, about Hegel’s thesestatements, we need to dialectically view.

Aboutthe rational social view, we can also examine the well-known Leontiefinput-output model. In this model, we need to examine the n-sector economy,here, the input for ith commodity to produce one unit of product j is a fixedquality[if !vml]

[endif],[if !vml]

[endif] iscalled input coefficient; for n-sector economy, the input coefficient canarrange into a matrix A=[[if !vml]

[endif]], and each column represents the requiredinput to produce one unit of products of particular industry. After somecomputations, we can get: (I-A)x=d, and in it, x is the variable vector and dis the ultimate demand vector. The matrix (I-A) is called Leontief matrix; if(I-A) is nonsingular matrix, then it can be inversed, and then we can computethe required quantity of ith commodity to produce the jth commodity. Thiswell-known input-output model naturally has strong rational control color, andcertainly, it has certain positive function for the overall planning of nationaleconomy, the improvement of economy’s management level, and the prevention fromunnecessary resource waste; but, since the function of economy is so complex,and there are so many economics sectors, and the operation situation of theseindustries is also highly complex, and their operation is also in rapid change,and thereby, we can hardly imagine only by such a model can we grasp the supplyand demand situation of national economy. To sum up, we think, the input-outputmodel has certain meaning, but also should not overly exaggerated; in a broadersense, for the rationalism social view, it probably has certain rationality,but we also should not exaggerate the meaning of reason in social operation,and generally speaking, the social view of rational perspective probably onlyhas partial validity.

2The social view of freedom and empiricism. Different from the rationalismsocial view, many thinkers hold the empiricism and freedom perspective socialview, such as Hume and Dewey, etc. For example, Hume once writes: “When a mandeliberates concerning his conduct in any particular affair, and forms schemesin politics, trade, economy or any business in life, he never ought to draw hisarguments too fine, or connect too long a chain of consequences together.Something is sure to happen, that will disconcert his reasoning, and produce anevent different from what he expected. But when we reason upon generalsubjects, one may justly affirm, that our speculations can scarcely ever be toofine; provided they be just.”[11]If wecompare Hume’s this passage and Hegel’s expositions we quote above, we can see,the difference of their basic notions is large, and Hegel firmly believes inhuman reason’s power, while Hume holds a prudent attitude towards the reason’sfunction, and he more emphasizes the influence of empirical level. If weexamine many practical fields, such as politics, economy, history and science,we can see, Hume’s these views are quite reasonable, for example, the burst ofthe first World War and the invention of microwave, these events all havecontingency and empirical color; to conclude, the social view of empiricismalso has a profound foundation.

Aboutthe social view of empiricism, we also want to quote Nozick’s one passage, andhe says: “It is reason that is the dependent variable, shaped by the facts, andits dependence upon the facts explains the correlation and correspondencebetween them. It is just such an alternative that our evolutionary hypothesispresents. Reason tells us about reality because reality shapes reason,selecting for what seems ‘evident’.”[12]n thispassage, Nozick thinks human’s reason is not fixed, but undergoes developmentand evolution, because the constantly changing experience is changing people’srational opinion, namely, human reason, to a large extent, is one kind of empirical reason; Nozick’s this view can also deepen our understandings aboutthe relationship between experience, free thinking and rationality.

Ifwe observe the wide-ranging realistic life, we can see, many things in life andsociety are indeed not the result of rational design, but gradually emergeafter people’s repeated practice over a long period of time; for example, our surrounding schools, supermarkets, hospitals, government departments,companies, people’s apartments and banks are all not designed in advance by certainindividuals or a group, but gradually form during decades of people’s dispersedactions, and meanwhile, the popular songs, movies and scientific things in oursocial scope are also not the result of rational planning, but gradually formthrough the form of experience; to conclude, experience and the spontaneousgrowth of things, to a large extent, shape our life and social composition,which also shows, the social view of freedom perspective is one kind ofprofound social view.

Aboutthe freedom and empiricism social view, other scholars also express meaningfulviews, for example, the famous philosopher Gadamer once writes: “The person whonever produces anything new has also done that. It is imagination [phantasie]that is the decisive function of the scholar. Imagination naturally has ahermeneutical function, and serves the sense for what is questionable. Itserves the ability to expose real, productive questions, something in which,generally speaking, only he who masters all the methods of his sciencesucceeds.” “They can think of nothing at all to ask. Nothing at all occurs tothem that is worth while going into and trying to answer.”[13]Namely,Gadamer thinks only imagination can expand human thought’s range, and cancreate something completely new, while the pure training and learning is merelysolving existed problems, and such a view certainly has great validity. Deweyalso says: “Experience becomes an affair primarily of doing. The organism doesnot stand about, Mecawber-like, waiting for something to turn up. It does notwait passive and inert for something to impress itself upon it from without.The organism acts in accordance with its own structure, simple or complex, uponits surroundings. As a consequence of the changes produced in the environmentreact upon the organism and its activities. The living creature undergoes,suffers, the consequences of its own behavior. This close connection betweendoing and suffering or undergoing forms what we call experience. Disconnecteddoing and disconnected suffering are neither of them experience.”[14]Here,Dewey also thinks experience has an enormous impact on human’s thought andaction, and human’s reason is strongly affected by the constantly changingenvironment, and pure reason does not exist, and human’s thought and actioncome out only by the stimulation of experience in particular environment;obviously, Dewey’s this view in philosophy also can lead to freedom orientedand empiricism social view. In summary, at social level, the impact of freespirit and experience is very extensive and profound, and thus, empiricalsocial view also has many places worth our attention.

3The mutual infiltration of rationality and freedom. Certainly, no matter therationalism or the empiricism social view actually both have one-sidedness, andthe real condition of our society’s development probably lies between them, andis the mixed condition of them. About the interrelation of rationality andfreedom, we want to quote Dewey’s one passage: “For reason is experimentalintelligence, conceived after the pattern of science, and used in the creationof social arts; it has something to do. It liberates man from the bondage ofthe past, due to ignorance and accident hardened into custom. It projects abetter future and assists man in its realization. And its operation is alwayssubject to test in experience. The plans which are formed, the principles whichman projects as guides of reconstructive action, are not dogmas. They arehypotheses to be worked out in practice, and to be rejected, corrected andexpanded as they fail or succeed in giving our present experience the guidanceit requires. We may call them programmes of action, but since they are to beused in making our future acts less blind, more directed, they are flexible.Intelligence is not something possessed once for all. It is in constant processof forming, and its retention requires constant alertness in observingconsequences, an open-minded will to learn and courage in re-adjustment.”[15]Dewey’sthis passage well characterizes the relationship between rationality andexperience, freedom: indeed, we need reason, because reason can guide ourthought and action, but, we also need experience and the free change ofexternal environment, and only in this way can our reason be more mature andreasonable, and can we create better condition. In a word, at social level,rationality and freedom are often mutually permeated and interactive.

Gadamer also expresses similar views, and he says: “The nature of the hermeneutical experienceis not that something is outside and deserves admission. Rather, we arepossessed by something and precisely by means of it we are opened up for thenew, the different, the true.” “What I am describing is the mold of the wholehuman experience of the world. I call this experience hermeneutical, for theprocess we are describing is repeated continually throughout our familiarexperience. There is always a world already interpreted, already organized inits basic relations, into which experience steps as something new, upsettingwhat has led our expectations and undergoing reorganization itself in theupheaval. Misunderstanding and strangeness are not the first factors, so thatavoiding misunderstanding can be regarded as the specific task of hermenetucis.Just the reverse is the case. Only the support of familiar and commonunderstanding makes possible the venture into the alien, the lifting up ofsomething out of the alien, and thus the broadening and enrichment of our ownexperience of the world.”[16]Fromthis paragraph, we can see, Gadamer also values new experience and new changes,but he thinks only by relying on our existed intellectual world can weunderstand these new various changes, and thus, incorporating these newexperience and new things into our familiar intellectual and emotionalframework. In conclusion, Gadamer’s this passage also can help us to deepen theoverall understanding about the interrelationship between rationality andfreedom.

Certainly,about the interrelationship between rationality and freedom, not only westernthinkers have done much thinking, Chinese thinkers also repeatedly think aboutthis basic issue, and here, we want to take one passage of Han Fei as anexample, and he says: “Things have normal condition, and we just need to accordwith them. We should comply with things’ condition, and thus, keeping static isreasonable, while moving also complies with Tao.”[17]Namely,Han Fei also thinks, since the external environment and situation we live in constantlychanging, and thereby, our rationality and thought should also comply withthese changes, and cannot stick to some existed notions. Obviously, this basicview Han Fei’s this passage expresses is somewhat similar to Dewey’s andGadamer’s views in the above several paragraphs, namely, the change of externalenvironment will react to our reason, while after the adjustment andimprovement of reason, it can better guide practical activities; in a word, onthis basic issue, the views of eastern and western thinkers are linked, whichalso reflects that the relationship between rationality and freedom is indeedan universal issue in various human societies.

(V)   Some discussions of holistic property

Afterexamining the complex relationship between rationality and freedom from severaldifferent levels above, we also want to do some discussions of holisticproperty about this issue. Firstly, from the perspective of subject attribute,the relationship between rationality and freedom is roughly a basic issue inpolitics and economics, but, it also has close connections with philosophy,science and etc, for example, the famous philosopher Charles Taylor oncewrites: “This control over things which has grown with modern science andtechnology is often thought of as the principal motivation behind the sciencerevolution and the development of the modern outlook. Bacon’s often-quotedslogan, ‘knowledge is power’ can easily give us this impression, and this ‘technological’view of the seventeenth-century revolution is one of the reason why Bacon hasoften been given a greater role in it than he deserves, alongside Galileo and Descartes. But even in Bacon’s case, when he insists on the nullity of aphilosophy from which there cannot be ‘adduced a single experiment which tendsto relieve and benefit the condition of man’, we can read his motivation in adifferent way. We rather see the control as valuable not so much in itself asin its confirmation of a certain view of things: a view of the world not as alocus of meanings, but rather of contingent, de facto correlations.Manipulability of the world confirms the new self-defining identity, as itwere: the proper relation of man to a meaningful order is to put himself intotune with it; by contrast nothing sets the seal more clearly on the rejection ofthis vision than successfully treating the world as object of control.”[18]Taylor’sthis paragraph discusses about the situation in the philosophical world,namely, modern philosophers more and more value human’s subjectivity and thefunction of reason, while they treat the object as the objection to becontrolled, and this problem of the relationship between subject and object isa philosophical problem, but we can see, it also has considerable connectionswith the theme of rationality and freedom. To conclude, the issue ofrationality and freedom is not an isolated problem, and it has closeconnections with many other problems, such as important economic problems likefree market and government regulation, important political problems like thelimit of individual freedom, and philosophical problems like reason andexperience, which I think is a basic fact we need to recognize.

Meanwhile,if we consider from the perspective of realistic life, we can see, therelationship between rationality and freedom is a basic issue in life, and manyissues people often discuss are related with it, such as the relationshipbetween plan and change, luck, company management, etc; certainly, in thecomplex life, there are many other basic issues, such as physical health, work andleisure, career development, technology, taking care of children, familyrelationship, country, economic condition, military, life experience, dobusiness, culture, money, athlete, etc, which also shows our life is not madeup of several simple elements, but is the mixed and interwoven condition ofmany elements, and the relationship between rationality and freedom is one ofthem, from this perspective, I think we can also better feel the basic meaningof this theme.

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[1]John Rockefeller,Rockefeller’s 38 Letters to His Son, the second letter.

[2]Henry Sidgwick,The Methods of Ethics, Book I, Chapter I, Section 4,London: Macmillan and Company, 1907.

[3] Honore de Balzac, Le Pere Goriot, Chapter I.

[4]Brede et de Montesquieu,Persian Letters, Letter 27,Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2008.

[5]Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management, Chapter I, p. 3,London and New York: Routledge,2001.

[6] See the above book, Chapter II, pp. 7-11.

[7]Michael Polanyi,Knowing and Being, “The Unaccountable Element in Science”, pp. 113-120,Chicago: TheUniversity of Chicago Press, 1969.

[8]Voltaire,Philosophical Letters, “Inoculation”.

[9]G.W.F. Hegel,The Philosophy of History, Introduction, pp. 22, 23,Kitchener:Batoche Books, 2001.

[10]See the above book, p. 52.

[11]David Hume,Political Essays,“Of Commerce”,Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1994.

[12]Robert Nozick,The Nature of Rationality, Chapter IV, p. 112, Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1993.

[13]Hans Gadamer,Philosophical Hermeneutics, “The Universality of the Hermeneutical Problem”, pp. 12,13,Berkeley:Universityof California Press,1977. 

[14]John Dewey,Reconstruction in Philosophy, Chapter IV, “Changed Conceptions of Experience and Reason”, p.86,New York:Henry Holt and Company, 1920. Dewey’s this view on reason and experience is nota special case, but a universal phenomenon of American pragmatism, and peoplelike James also have similar viewpoints.

[15]See the above book, pp. 96, 97.

[16]Philosophical Hermeneutics, pp. 9, 15.

[17]Han Feizi, “Explaining Laozi”.

[18]Charles Taylor,Hegel,Chapter I, p. 8 ,Cambridge:Cambridge UniversityPress, 1999.