China Social Science Review

No.1, 2022

Two-Wheel Drive Big Data Features Seen from the Perspective of Integration of the Sciences and Humanities

(Abstract)

Wang Guocheng

Data symbolizes human cognition of objective things and social reality. Big data, depicting as it does subjects’ multiple behavioral attributes and human society, should not only draw on the frontier technologies brought about by the natural sciences and engineering and the new rounds of scientific and technological revolution, but also display people-oriented features. Our examination of the data needs to dive into their intrinsic nature and externalization, their origin and development, and their application scenarios, value assessments and scientific quality tests. On this basis, we can discuss how research in the humanities and social sciences can take advantage of big data to shift concepts, broaden horizons, and instill and activate humanist genes into the core of underlying logic and theory. Further, we can rely on digitalization to provide a detailed picture of subjects’ key behavioral characteristics and relevant complexities in various scenarios and promote intellectual and cognitive change. Conditional analysis and endogenous stimulus will enable two-wheel drive data to fuel the substantive integration and innovation of the sciences and humanities.