最近事情太多，凡事都想速战速决。这个陈述急急写好马上就交了，现在看来语句有点不通，内容也似乎太随意了点。不过将就着吧。
Peking University 2008 Admissions for Recommended Exempt-Examination Graduate Study
P e r s o n a l S t a t e m e n t
Please use about 1,500 Chinese characters to introduce your academic background, the research work you have done in the field you are applying for, as well as your study and research plans during graduate school and your career goals after graduation, etc. The personal statement should be completed independently by the applicant; if it is found to have been completed with assistance from others, the applicant’s exemption qualification will be canceled. Please handwrite or print this page; the back may be used. Be sure to mail (or deliver) it together with the other application materials so that it reaches our university before September 19.
Before entering university, I underwent long-term training in Olympiad mathematics, so I have some foundation in the natural sciences and in learning ability. After entering Peking University, I studied in the philosophy department’s logic and philosophy of science and technology track, took all of the courses in philosophy of science and technology offered, and at the same time studied a variety of courses in philosophy and religion, from which I benefited greatly. In all 7 courses offered by the faculty members of the philosophy of science and technology teaching-and-research section that I took as electives, I earned a GPA of 4.0.
My undergraduate years were centered on study. My greatest gain was broadening my range of knowledge and establishing a strong interest in the philosophy of science and technology, but I have not yet carried out in-depth specialized research.
If I am able to go on to graduate study, I will begin learning from the ground up under the guidance of the teachers. The humanities require a rather long period of groundwork, and the main task at the master’s stage will still be to lay that foundation; I will need to devote a great deal of effort to foreign language study and reading the original texts. As for specific study and research plans, these should in principle become clear gradually only after more systematic and in-depth study, and many ideas may well change in the future. But since this space requires enough words, I will have no choice but to talk about some immature thoughts:
Broadly speaking, my research ideal is to try to restate the pluralism of science starting from the classical tradition. I hope to find a way out between the two poles of scientism or absolutism on the one hand, and relativism or postmodernism on the other. This position is not merely a compromise or balance, but an attempt to move forward. And in the history of philosophy, whenever one seeks transcendence, one must first step back, reestablish the tradition, and then search for historical clues; history will reveal to us our own location and the direction of the path. As for myself, I am trying to take Kant as my starting point. German classical philosophy, especially its bookends—from Kant to Marx and Schopenhauer—are of particular interest to me. Whether or not I can find inspiration for the philosophy of science and technology from them, even as a mere avocational interest, these are fields I will continue to study during graduate school. In any case, among the universities in China, Peking University’s base in the philosophy of science and technology is the one most closely connected with philosophy, and this advantage should not be missed.
My contact with the philosophy of science and technology at university began with environmental ethics. The environmental issue is a “point of entry”: concern with this issue will inevitably draw in reflections on a series of questions concerning nature, technology, science, ethics, religion, and so on. In my later study and research, of course, I will continue to return to this issue. As for environmental ethics, I still hope to start from the classical tradition—for example, from virtue ethics rather than modern normative ethics. Much of the discussion in environmental ethics today about the intrinsic value of nature, anthropocentrism, and so on still takes place within the paradigm of normative ethics, while the general paradigm of modern ethics (pursuing norms, order, rigor, precision, quantification, effectiveness, control, operation…) is precisely a product of technical rationality, and within such a paradigm it is very difficult to introduce “awe and reverence.” In short, I hope to seek new paths for environmental ethics through a reexamination of the traditions of philosophy and ethics.
I am also quite interested in the social study of science, including the sociology of scientific knowledge. But I will also remain calm toward some doctrines that seem highly subversive. In fact, many of the startling positions in SSK are not entirely new; for example, the claim that science, and even mathematics, are socially constructed can be traced not only back to Wittgenstein, but even further back to the philosophy of mathematics of intuitionism, from which one can find a thread and lineage extending from Kant onward. In short, I still hope to approach the social study of science from a philosophical standpoint. In addition, discussions of knowledge and power, science and freedom, and related issues will inevitably involve some political philosophy, and I will sooner or later have to touch on that area.
History is extremely important to human beings (at present I am rather sympathetic to historicism). For the study of philosophy of science or any meta-study of science, the work of the history of science and technology is vitally important. I am interested in both intellectual history and social history, but judging from my own abilities and preferences, I would tend to do some research in the history of scientific thought. In particular, I am interested in the connections among science, philosophy, and religion in intellectual history. The relationship between science and religion is an extremely important topic, and also a line of inquiry that runs through all the other fields.
Finally, since the third year of middle school I have read many excellent popular science books (in high school, mainly the First Push series and the Philosopher’s Stone series), and later I also read various essays and miscellanies on the humanities of science compiled by Teacher Wu, Teacher Liu, and others, which have had a tremendous influence on me. I also hope to take part in the dissemination of science humanities.
What I have written above is not only about the graduate stage, but also my long-term research direction. Naturally, there will be different research emphases at different stages, and the graduate stage will mainly still be about laying the foundation. But these will be the questions I face one by one on my future academic path. In order to have the possibility of touching on and studying so many issues, I will of course continue to engage in academic research after graduating from graduate school.
2007-09-15 14:14:43 anonymous 124.17.17.43 [reply]
This kind of writing skill is truly something someone like me can only aspire to.
It would be wonderful if my PS could be written like this
mimi
2009-09-05 22:38:29 anonymous 58.30.97.13 [reply]
Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.
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