Suixuan

Year: 2010

The Blog’s Indenture

Site Matters2010.11.12
The Blog’s Indenture
When we register for a free online service, its “terms of service” are often completely ignored. In fact, this thing really ought to be taken seriously; otherwise, before you know it, you’ve signed a deed of sale for yourself. Recently I’ve been looking for alternatives to Ycool Blog, but I still haven’t found anything suitable. I absolutely won’t use Sina Blog, because its terms of service are basically a deed of sale. What I care about mainly are two things: first, privacy protection; second, protection of intellectual property rights. The policies involved differ greatly from one blog to another, and the difference between blogs inside the firewall and those outside…
blog website knowledge law
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2010年11月12日
Natural History as a Historiographical Program—Reflections on Liu Huajie’s Lecture

History of Science & Scholarship2010.11.12
Natural History as a Historiographical Program—Reflections on Liu Huajie’s Lecture
Just after finishing a paper arguing that “natural history” should be translated as 自然史, today happened to be the day when Professor Liu came to speak on natural history and its methods of historiography, so I might as well continue and write a couple more thoughts. Like historiographical programs such as Whig history, intellectual history, and social history, “natural history,” as a program of historiography, is a pun. On the one hand, “scientific natural history” can be read as some kind of “scientific chronicle” or “scientific record.” The feature of natural history lies in its emphasis on classificatory description, but not on temporal narration, especially not on constructing causal chains…
science historiography Liu Huajie printing
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2010年11月12日
Reviving the Culture of the Court Historian——The Institution of the Court Historian as a Religious System

Culture & Public Commentary2010.11.09
Reviving the Culture of the Court Historian——The Institution of the Court Historian as a Religious System
Earlier I wrote a paper on “natural history,” but it was rather hasty, and there is still much work to be done. On the one hand, the inner connection between the rise of natural history and the rise of historiography in modern Western thought still awaits examination from the standpoint of intellectual history; on the other hand, the relationship between history and nature also deserves further philosophical reflection. Senior Brother Ke suggested that I read Foucault’s The Order of Things; he seemed to mean that the book would support the translation “natural science” [博物学], but when I flipped through it roughly, it was clearly supporting my line of thought. In…
China history politics faith
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2010年11月9日
“Natural History” Should Be Translated as “Natural History”

History of Science & Scholarship2010.11.07
“Natural History” Should Be Translated as “Natural History”
Natural history is generally translated as “博物学” (bowuxue, “studies of things”). In the Western tradition, natural history stands in opposition to natural philosophy, representing a way of studying nature that emphasizes observation, recording, and classification rather than reasoning or experiment. In the Chinese tradition, by contrast, though we lack a tradition of natural philosophy, we do have a developed tradition of “博物学.” But did ancient China really have a so-called tradition of bowuxue corresponding to Western natural history? Is it really appropriate to translate natural history as bowuxue? I have always been skeptical. In this article, I will revisit this translation, trace the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western…
history of science history paper natural history
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2010年11月7日
Reexamining Medicine, Reexamining Human Nature—Reflections on Wang Yifang’s Lecture

History of Science & Scholarship2010.11.05
Reexamining Medicine, Reexamining Human Nature—Reflections on Wang Yifang’s Lecture
Today, Teacher Wang spoke about many aspects centered on the question “What is medicine?”, with the emphasis on reflecting on the contemporary situation of medicine under the influence of modern science and technology. How medicine is defined is bound up with what role it plays in contemporary society. Is medicine a science? Or is it a technology? Or should one say that medicine is a combination of science and technology? These definitions are probably all inadequate. Medicine is not something that can be defined simply by the concepts of science, or science + technology—especially since science and technology in the modern sense of “big science” and “high technology” are very…
science tradition value human nature
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2010年11月5日
“The Two Cultures”: Science and Literature, or Science and the Humanities? — Reflections on Liu Bing’s Lecture

History of Science & Scholarship2010.10.29
“The Two Cultures”: Science and Literature, or Science and the Humanities? — Reflections on Liu Bing’s Lecture
Today Teacher Liu Bing’s topic was “STS and Science Communication in Drama and Fiction.” He first introduced some background on what Snow called the “two cultures,” and then discussed three dramatic works: *Life of Galileo*, *The Physicists*, and *Copenhagen*. There wasn’t time to talk about the fiction section, and the presentation was mainly a display of examples rather than a line of argument, so I’ll write my reflections on one issue from the background material. When Snow spoke of the “two cultures,” he meant scientific culture and literary culture. Teacher Liu mentioned that nowadays we more often speak of “science and the humanities.” “Humanities” is much broader in meaning than…
culture science science communication Confucianism
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2010年10月29日
Civilization History as History of Science—A Review of Sarton’s Ancient Science in the Golden Age of Greece

History of Science & Scholarship2010.10.24
Civilization History as History of Science—A Review of Sarton’s Ancient Science in the Golden Age of Greece
As the founder of the discipline of the history of science, George Sarton was the first generation of professional historians of science, and he is by no means unfamiliar to scholars in China. In 2007, Jiang Xiaoyuan and Liu Bing edited Sarton’s History of Science Series, bringing Sarton’s ideas on historiography into the Chinese context in a comprehensive way. One of the monumental representative works that reflects Sarton’s achievements in the history of science, Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece, has also recently been introduced by Xiangxiang Press. Regarding Sarton’s value, the translator Lu Xudong says in the preface: “Anyone reading the history of science cannot but read…
book reading history of science Aristotle book review
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2010年10月24日
Tradition as the Condition for Creation—Reflections on Dong Guangbi’s Lecture

Culture & Public Commentary2010.10.22
Tradition as the Condition for Creation—Reflections on Dong Guangbi’s Lecture
Today Professor Dong talked about the relationship between scientific creation and freedom and tradition. Professor Dong believes that “freedom” is the source of creativity, while “tradition” is a necessary condition for creativity. What is tradition? Why must one respect tradition in order to create anything? Professor Dong did not make this clear, and I would like to say a bit more on this point. At the outset, Professor Dong defined tradition mainly as “the classics and their interpretations.” Thus, in China, “tradition” means the Four Books and Five Classics, the canonical texts of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. Defined in this way, it is hard to understand why those texts are…
China culture tradition innovation
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2010年10月22日
Know Yourself, and Do Nothing in Excess—Reflections on Wang Yifang’s Lecture

Culture & Public Commentary2010.10.15
Know Yourself, and Do Nothing in Excess—Reflections on Wang Yifang’s Lecture
Scientific development is proceeding at high speed, and humanity is forging ahead rapidly on the road to knowledge—but does such development need a braking mechanism? Does science need to be “negatively thought”? This is the question Teacher Wang raised. Does science need ethical constraints? Beyond what is “correct,” is there also a standard of “justice”? When people discuss the ethical constraints or social responsibility of science, they are often referring to the personal conduct of scientists. Of course, scientists, as citizens and as members of society, are subject, like people in any other profession, to corresponding social and ethical constraints in their work and lives. Scientific ethics in this sense…
culture science knowledge pursuit
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2010年10月15日
Space and Geometry—Questions for Reflection and Suggestions for Discussion from Teacher Wang’s Lecture

History of Science & Scholarship2010.10.13
Space and Geometry—Questions for Reflection and Suggestions for Discussion from Teacher Wang’s Lecture
http://hps.phil.pku.edu.cn/bbs/read.php?tid=1169 Although Professor Wang’s lecture this time was rather jumpy in content, the reading materials assigned this time are relatively readable. If you read the materials in advance, listening to Professor Wang’s lecture can serve to help the two illuminate each other. I hope everyone will be sure to read the relevant materials, and at the very least must read the second part of *Science and Hypothesis*. In tomorrow’s discussion class, the main speakers and the TAs should discuss more around the materials, and not wander too far afield. Broadly speaking, the issues involved in this lecture and the reading materials are these: 1. What is space? 2. What is…
science Kant space Newton
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2010年10月13日