Author ｜
Chen Yu-fang
Abstract ｜
The word “superstition” appears lately in China. Before 1990, the frequency of its appearance was low, largely referred to the supernatural beings or religions. However, the times of its appearance have obviously increased and its meanings have been extended and become more abundant since 1902. The meanings of the word include not only the supernatural beings or religious beliefs, but the unconfirmed worship. The statistics show that there are two climates in terms of the times of using the word. One occurs from 1902 to 1905 and the other from 1915 to 1921. The Confucianism as the core value in the traditional Chinese society functioned as the substitution for the religion, which caused the idea of the superstition related to the religion occur less frequently. After nineteenth century, due to the strong military and economic invasion of the west, the China could not resist beginning to adopt the technology and the institution from the west, which the science was also introduced at that time. “The religion” (representing the word entry) began to be noticed because of being opposed to “the science” (representing the word entry). This phenomenon caused the word “superstition” to be popular and used widely. Nevertheless, with the ideology of New Culture Movement being shifted to embracing the science and democracy from applying the western science and technology on the basis of the Chinese traditional standards (Zhong Xue Wei Ti, Xi Xue Wei Yong 中學為體，西學為用), the Confucianism, which was originally against superstition, was changed into signifying the superstition. This change of the ideology is enough to reveal that the intellectuals had the absolutely different concepts with respect to the Confucianism. By means of the investigation of the word “superstition” on the different contexts, it is concretely shown how the ideology in the New Cultural Movement was changed.
keywords ｜
superstition, science, religion, Confucianism