Year: 2012
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The 1000th Blog Post
The 1000th Blog Post
Suixuan opened for business on July 31, 2005, on Yiku Blog. On December 10, 2010, I switched blogs to Ixiezi. My original plan was to make it a transit station and first move the articles over to WordPress. Later I did settle down there for a while as well, but for various reasons I ultimately gave it up. On January 8, 2011, I finally made up my mind to buy my own virtual space and independent domain name, and truly set foot on the proper road of an “independent blog”; before I knew it, almost a year and a half had passed. As early as July 23, 2007, I had…
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A Further Discussion of “Formal Indication”
A Further Discussion of “Formal Indication”
Watching Jing Qi struggle on the issue of “this” and formal indication, I can’t help but keep pushing back, and for that reason I have also read, intermittently, some material on Heidegger’s early concept of “formal indication,” gradually coming to some understanding. Basically speaking, I have never placed much weight on the concept of “formal indication” (formale Anzeige, 形式指引), for several reasons: first, the phrase feels too Westernized, too specialized, and is easily read as jargon, leaving outsiders completely baffled. If there is a more plain and straightforward way of putting it, then there is no need to go through this phrase at all; second, this concept belongs to the…
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Christian Creationism and the Rise of Modern Science
Christian Creationism and the Rise of Modern Science
Abstract: The Christian doctrine of creation is the metaphysical foundation of modern science, and an important thread for sorting out the historical relationship between science and religion. Foster’s essay “The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the Rise of Modern Natural Science” represents a typical line of thought: it emphasizes the connection between God’s free will and the empirical tendency of modern science, though its argumentative details are open to question. The key is to clarify the general points of the Christian doctrine of creation and the ways these points correspond to the characteristic features of modern science. The doctrine of creation, at the very least, includes four aspects: 1. There…
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Reading Foster: “The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the Rise of Modern Natural Science”
Reading Foster: “The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the Rise of Modern Natural Science”
On the relationship between science and religion, if one were to say that the two are irreconcilable, then the focal point of the conflict often lies in Christianity’s doctrine of creation, where Christian teachings about the universe or nature come into direct collision with natural science. Conversely, if one were to say that science and religion complement and support one another, one would still have to begin from creation theory. In 1934 Michael Foster wrote the article “The Christian Doctrine of Creation and the Rise of Modern Natural Science,” attempting to reduce Christianity’s doctrine of creation to a necessary condition for the rise of modern natural science, and offering a…
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Joining the Party Burdened by Guilt
Joining the Party Burdened by Guilt
On this special day today, I served as a Party introducer for the first time and signed the recommendation statement. Why am I not only willing to join the Party, but also willing to recommend others to join? I need to explain. Indeed, this is not only something I am willing to explain, but something I must explain. I joined the Party when I was in high school; if I had not joined then, I would probably be too lazy to apply now. But I would never simply attribute that decision to youthful ignorance. Certainly, as I have grown older, my life plan has changed enormously: from initially wanting to…
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Knowledge Is Connection
Knowledge Is Connection
Earlier I spoke of “phenomenological education,” which also made me recall the as-yet-unwritten essay I mentioned last year, “Knowledge Is Linkage.” Why is it that I, someone just about to begin a PhD dissertation on “media ontology,” “ have suddenly, and quite off the beaten track, decided to take up “education”? Have I changed direction? Of course not. My turn toward educational questions is on the one hand driven by my interest in Neil Postman (who is in essence an educational theorist), and on the other hand it is also a question I have long cared about. In fact, the question of education involves the whole range of philosophy, from…
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Recommended Introductory Reading on Phenomenology: “Studies in Lived Experience”
Recommended Introductory Reading on Phenomenology: “Studies in Lived Experience”
[+] Max van Manen: “Lived Experience Research: Pedagogy in the Perspective of the Human Sciences,” trans. Song Guangwen et al., ed. Li Shuying, Educational Science Press, 2003 Lately I have been paying attention to the phenomenology of education, and I came across this book. But rather than a work on pedagogy, this book is really more like an introduction to (applied) phenomenology; the whole book is trying to describe a human-scientific mode of inquiry—phenomenology. The author, Van Manen, is a Canadian scholar and one of the founders of “phenomenological pedagogy.” He edits the journal *Phenomenology + Pedagogy*. But he is originally from the Netherlands, and his native language is Dutch;…
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The Flush Toilet: City, Civilization, Modernity
The Flush Toilet: City, Civilization, Modernity
Yesterday, Professor Jiang Jinsong came to Chengze Garden to give a talk titled “Observations and Reflections on the Flush Toilet,” and Professor Tian Song offered comments. Professor Jiang did not say very much, and Professor Tian’s comments were also rather hurried, but the discussion was still very lively. Indeed, the flush toilet can be counted as one of the greatest achievements of modern civilization. It is not only a device that makes “going to the bathroom” more convenient, but also a hub that helped assemble the whole modern urban way of life and the entire urban system. Professor Wu commented that Professor Jiang’s presentation should be divided into the issue…
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Nature as Raw Meat or Bacon
Nature as Raw Meat or Bacon
Today in discussion class, Liu Ping’s paper, which he will be presenting next week, came up. He wants to write on “wilderness and flesh,” attempting an environmental-philosophical reading of Merleau-Ponty’s later philosophy. It sounds very interesting. This important concept in Merleau-Ponty’s later philosophy is usually translated as “flesh,” but Liu Ping said this translation is not good, because it misses a great deal of meaning. But don’t be like Liu Zhe: since we are using Chinese to do phenomenological thinking, rather than working as mere scholars of texts—and foreign scholars of texts at that—to do philological research, of course we should still ultimately translate these concepts. Even if some meaning…
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