Year: 2009

Reflections Inspired by Feeling

Life & Notes2009.06.17
Reflections Inspired by Feeling
Philosophy should be weaving a web, not forging chains. It should establish connections rather than draw chasms; it should move toward a more open world rather than bury itself in a closed cave. So the philosopher does not want, before himself or before others, to draw a trench or dig a pit, pressing for a decision: jump down—are you coming over, or not coming over? Philosophers like to probe and reflect, but they never force. By probing, I mean that when we step into a new world, we are not content to linger at the threshold, but must also gaze into the far distance, then move forward—and keep going; by…
philosophy everyday life intentionality philosophy talk
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2009年6月17日
Notes from Today’s Xindao Salon 09-06-13

Life & Notes2009.06.13
Notes from Today’s Xindao Salon 09-06-13
Today no one came… I’m getting ready to leave early… After finishing that assignment translation, all that was left was Sun Laoshi’s paper. Today I hauled over a pile of books about Aristotle, only to discover that after finishing the translation I was suddenly drained of energy and could hardly read them, so the latter half of the day was more or less wasted… All at once I found myself missing the days of studying at Egg Hall with A Fei. It really is true that the more one sits idly alone, the more foolish one becomes. Worse still, I didn’t bring my headphones, so I couldn’t even listen to…
everyday life book reading blog Aristotle
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2009年6月13日
A Supplement to “Poetry Is the Most Originary Rationality”:

Culture & Public Commentary2009.06.12
A Supplement to “Poetry Is the Most Originary Rationality”:
Previously, in the essay “Philosophy and Poetry,” I mentioned this line. I’ve forgotten the exact source of this formulation; it was probably from Heidegger, or perhaps from my own understanding of Heidegger. Of course, no matter what Heidegger said, since I brought up this line, I always have my own set of thoughts about it. Under Unic’s questioning I gave some explanations; since it came to more than a thousand characters, I’m整理ing it here on the blog: Of course, this is a vague way of putting it. The key is to look at what “源始” means. If reason is the use of concepts, then what kind of use is the…
philosophy culture Heidegger language
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2009年6月12日
This Issue’s Music: Jordi Savall: Celtic Double Bass: The Musical Priest / Scotch Mary [Traditional Irish]

Life & Notes2009.06.12
This Issue’s Music: Jordi Savall: Celtic Double Bass: The Musical Priest / Scotch Mary [Traditional Irish]
In a flash, it has actually been three months since I last posted music. Aside from laziness, there are mainly two reasons: first, my headphones broke, which turned my MP3 player into little more than a USB drive, and I’ve been too lazy to get the headphones repaired or buy a new pair, so my time spent listening to music has been severely reduced. The other reason is that recently, some of the music I wanted to post couldn’t be found online with a link. Now I’ve commandeered GooglePages to upload things myself, and I’ll try posting a piece, in welcome back to Unic. Still classical music with violin and…
everyday life
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2009年6月12日
The God of Luck Appeared to Me~

Life & Notes2009.06.09
The God of Luck Appeared to Me~
The situation was like this: After being hit by a car last night, I spent today resting at home during the day. Most of my body has basically recovered, except that my right hand still lacks the strength to twist bottle caps open, my legs and knees are slightly sore, and the muscles in my arms are weak and depleted… For lunch I ordered takeout. For dinner I had originally planned to go downstairs and solve it with a 7-Eleven or Yoshinoya as usual. I casually threw on a long-sleeved outer layer before heading down, as I always do—this clothes is rather hot, but for a trip of less than…
everyday life pluralism nature feeling
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2009年6月9日
How wonderful it is to fly through the air and kiss the earth when it rains…

Life & Notes2009.06.08
How wonderful it is to fly through the air and kiss the earth when it rains…
The situation was like this: This evening, after finishing my English exam at 8:30 and coming back from school, there was a drizzling rain, wet pavement, dim streetlights…… I rode my bike to the intersection of Zhongguancun Avenue and the Fourth Ring Road; the light was basically green. As I rode to the middle of the road, a car coming toward me, either making a U-turn or turning, suddenly appeared. I stopped, preparing to turn aside and go around it, but it lurched forward (it seemed to accelerate) and hit the front of my bike head-on, after which I was thrown to the ground. Since the turning car was not…
everyday life self emotion death
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2009年6月8日
Notes from Today’s Xindao Salon, 09-06-06 [and Part Two of the Announcement for the Next Round of Salons]

Life & Notes2009.06.06
Notes from Today’s Xindao Salon, 09-06-06 [and Part Two of the Announcement for the Next Round of Salons]
Today there weren’t many people who came, but the good thing was that at last a newcomer dropped by again. From our initial contact, judging by things like his motivation for study, academic background, interests, and personality, he belongs to the type I look favorably upon. I hope you’ll continue to take part in my salon or other activities next semester. As for the specific conversation, it mainly included my asking about his situation, and my restating some of my own basic ideas, introducing a bit about philosophy of technology, as well as talking about philosophy department courses and other casual chatter. I won’t go into that further here. As…
philosophy everyday life history of science Wu Fei
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2009年6月6日
Notes from Today’s New Island Salon, 09-05-30 [and a Preview of the Next Round of Salons]

Life & Notes2009.05.30
Notes from Today’s New Island Salon, 09-05-30 [and a Preview of the Next Round of Salons]
Unexpectedly, quite a few people came today, especially since someone surnamed Li happened to be passing by on the way, which made me very pleased… I’m thinking about the form of the forum next semester. In addition to keeping its current openness and spontaneity, I also want to add some more proactively organized activities, such as reading groups and regular presentations. For some reasons, I feel that perhaps the regular-presentation format is more suitable. Of course, a reading group might also be organized at the same time, but the latter requires some fixed members with particular strengths in order to function well, whereas the former is comparatively more flexible and…
everyday life book reading scholarship blog
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2009年5月30日
Notes from the New Island Salon, 09-05-23

Life & Notes2009.05.24
Notes from the New Island Salon, 09-05-23
今天……就我一个人…… Looks like this semester’s salon is getting ready to wrap up… though maybe we can still hope for a few people during those two weeks after everyone’s exams and before they go home on vacation? Anyway, if nobody comes, that’s perfect—I can use the time to study…… Today, thanks to the fact that nobody came, I finally got started on the translation assignment for the original-text course in sociology of science. The article by Winner that I chose, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” had two ready-made Chinese translations available for me to consult (I really wasn’t choosing it on purpose): one was the published translation in the *Classic Reader on…
everyday life scholarship philosophy of science translation
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2009年5月24日
The Responsibility of the Communicator

Culture & Public Commentary2009.05.22
The Responsibility of the Communicator
Today, while riding my bike in the rain on the 21st, as usual my thoughts drifted about, and I connected up a few threads I had recently run into, and so I wrote this essay. As for my attitude toward plagiarism and literary theft, I already made it clear in my undergraduate post “Why Suixuan Is Not Afraid of Plagiarism and Theft.” Now that I compare my own writing to excrement, that too signals my attitude that I am not afraid of plagiarism. And yet, of course, I have always held a deep contempt for paper plagiarism. In a certain sense, plagiarism or theft in academic papers is, in my…
culture freedom media value
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2009年5月22日