ABSTRACT
Starting in the 1970s, social constructivism was adopted to analyze the cause, status and validity of natural science knowledge and then widely accepted by the Western academic circle. The sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) brought social constructivism to its fullest. It denies the rationality, objectivity and truthfulness of science, and claims to replace the objective description of science with social constructivism. Associated with this, the ideological trend of postmodernism, which emerged in the 1960s and 1970s and became popular after the 1980s, has brought a destructive impact on the Western ideological and cultural field and on people’s traditional way of thinking and conveyed a critical spirit and deep concerns about the fate of mankind. Moreover, postmodernists’ basic understanding of science, from a unique and alternative perspective, has dealt a subversive blow to orthodox scientific philosophy, forcing contemporary philosophers of science to face up to their challenge.
