 However, due to the specific economic and political factors that determined traditional Chinese culture, the traditional Chinese concept of moral Self could not provide (or, at least, formulate) the possibilities for gaining “objective” knowledge (i.e., knowledge not necessarily linked to morality) and exploring “natural” phenomena. For Mou Zongsan (1909–1995), this was the key ideological factor that explained why traditional Chinese culture did not develop discourses of science and democracy. He therefore argued that the traditional Confucian moral Self should (temporarily) negate itself (ziwo kanxian 自我坎陷), in order to make it possible for these discourses to develop.