分类：Culture & Public Commentary

If you can’t live without it, can’t you rebel against it?

Culture & Public Commentary2006.04.10
If you can’t live without it, can’t you rebel against it?
Many people are very disdainful of the so-called “anti-science cultural figures.” There is a very simple piece of logic: those who are always shouting about opposing science are themselves enjoying technology, using computers to write articles, and in no way can they do without technology—so isn’t opposing technology horribly hypocritical? This logic seems pretty reasonable? In fact, it is ridiculously childish. To use an analogy: we depend on tap water every day, but if there is a problem with water quality, should we not point it out and criticize it? Could a water company use this logic—“You criticize tap water, but can you do without tap water? You’re enjoying our…
culture technology scientism tech ethics
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2006年4月10日
Human Nature and Human Essence—A Discussion in Everyday Language

Culture & Public Commentary2006.04.03
Human Nature and Human Essence—A Discussion in Everyday Language
What is meant by “essence” is “the fundamental nature of a thing.” The essence of human beings refers to the fundamental reason by which a human being becomes human, qualifies as human, and is distinguished from other things. What is meant by “human nature” is, in the most general dictionary sense: “the normal feelings and reason possessed by human beings.” Clearly, for example, the criterion of biological classification—for instance, saying that a human being is an animal “with two legs and no feathers”—is not a matter of philosophical concern. What, then, can the “essence of human beings” discussed in a philosophical sense include, besides feelings and reason? It is clear…
philosophy culture human nature self
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2006年4月3日
Further Thoughts on Guo Degang

Culture & Public Commentary2006.03.26
Further Thoughts on Guo Degang
I do like listening to crosstalk, but I don’t know much about the performing arts, and I’ve not thought about them very deeply either. So in the first place, there was no need for me to choose this topic and write an essay about it. Still, lately I’ve begun to feel that, however much of a philosopher one may be, one ought at least to cultivate a sufficient concern for problems—on any topic worth discussing, if you put in a certain amount of effort, you can immediately spin out a few opinions. Since I’ve always hoped that friends would comment on the topics I discuss on my blog, even when…
culture China commentary humor
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2006年3月26日
The Superstition of Economics

Culture & Public Commentary2006.03.18
The Superstition of Economics
Economics is also part of science, and economic superstition is a part of “scientific superstition”; however, economic superstition has its own distinctive features. In China, not only is scientific superstition very serious, economic superstition is also especially prominent. There are two reasons for superstition: first, ignorance of the object; second, the object displays some kind of powerful force. This is true of science, and even more so of economics. Since reform and opening up, China’s economic takeoff has displayed what seems to be the tremendous power brought by economics, while the public’s ignorance of economics is no less than its ignorance of science. Like scientific superstition, the effects of economic…
culture China economy superstition
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2006年3月18日
Some Reflections on Confucius’s Birthday and China’s Teachers’ Day

Culture & Public Commentary2006.03.11
Some Reflections on Confucius’s Birthday and China’s Teachers’ Day
At this year’s Two Sessions, CPPCC members Li Hanqiu, Wei Minglun, and others proposed that China’s Teachers’ Day should be changed from the current September 10 to September 28, Confucius’s birthday. Once again, the topic of Confucius and China’s Teachers’ Day has drawn people’s attention. In fact, Taiwan adopted Confucius’s birthday as Teachers’ Day quite early, and on the mainland the call to change Teachers’ Day is by no means something that only became lively at this year’s Two Sessions. Last September, Mr. Hu Xingdou, professor of economics at Beijing Institute of Technology (peace ambassador of the Global Peace Alliance, council member of the World Chinese Exchange Association), initiated and…
culture history education ritual
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2006年3月11日
Liu Huajie: “China-like Science—From the Perspectives of Philosophy and Sociology”

Culture & Public Commentary2006.02.22
Liu Huajie: “China-like Science—From the Perspectives of Philosophy and Sociology”
Liu Huajie: *China-Style Pseudoscience—From the Perspectives of Philosophy and Sociology*, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, January 2004 I will read this book again later; mainly because in it, Liu has “collected a great deal of precious historical documentary material” (p. 1, Wu Guosheng’s preface), and it “is a valuable attempt at research into the local social history of science” (ibid.). It is a bit of a pity that “this book has omitted some parts that are not yet suitable for public publication” (ibid.), and the names of many officials in the text are rendered as “×××.” I have absolutely no interest in those hidden names, but the fact that such…
book reading China notes Liu Huajie
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2006年2月22日
[Eng.] Raymond Firth: “Human Types,” translated by Fei Xiaotong

Culture & Public Commentary2006.02.10
[Eng.] Raymond Firth: “Human Types,” translated by Fei Xiaotong
[UK] Raymond Firth: “Human Types,” translated by Fei Xiaotong, Huaxia Publishing House, January 2002 Page 124 Science and magic are usually regarded as the two extremes of the rational and the irrational. Yet if human behavior is sharply divided into two parts, the rational and the irrational, this boundary is not easy to draw. Take, for example, the relation between technical knowledge and magic: we see that in various kinds of attitudes and activities, there are elements of both rationality and irrationality. Some of the substances used in healing magic do seem to have curative effects. Other healing magicians are enthusiastic about reasonable experiments. On the other hand, science in…
book reading culture notes faith
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2006年2月10日
Jin Kemu: “Candle Flame Ashes—The Melody of Thought”

Culture & Public Commentary2006.02.06
Jin Kemu: “Candle Flame Ashes—The Melody of Thought”
Jin Kemu: “Wind, Candle, Ash — The Melody of Thought,” Sanlian Bookstore, July 2002 Recommended by ZW. This was the last collection the old man personally compiled before his death, so naturally there is nothing to be said about its contents. ZW said I could learn from his style, but how on earth could I manage that?!? To write essays that come so effortlessly, so gracefully and fluently, one needs, beyond vast learning and a mind that remembers widely and knows both ancient and modern, China and the West, decades of hard practice as well. Besides, my own style is only suited to science or philosophy; I can’t do literature…
philosophy book reading notes scholarship
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2006年2月6日
A Brief Discussion of “Money Worship”

Culture & Public Commentary2006.02.01
A Brief Discussion of “Money Worship”
Many scholars, when mentioning the term “money worship,” often simply treat it as a “label” — especially from the standpoint of humanistic scholars, “money worship” is obviously a bad thing. This is somewhat like “idealism,” “agnosticism,” and so on: for example, when a thought has an “idealistic” tendency, it is tantamount to saying that it has a “bad” tendency, and in the case of an idealist philosopher’s agnostic thought, this sort of criticism is almost as good as saying nothing at all and can simply be ignored. Likewise, criticisms of money worship, relativism, and nihilism must avoid falling into this kind of childishness. In certain groups where rejection of money…
culture faith human nature pursuit
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2006年2月1日
[German] Ernst Cassirer: An Essay on Man

Culture & Public Commentary2006.01.29
[German] Ernst Cassirer: An Essay on Man
[German] Ernst Cassirer: An Essay on Man, translated by Gan Yang, Xiyuan Publishing House, 2nd edition, July 2004 It seems I read this book a very long time ago, and it was the Shanghai Translation Publishing House edition; but I have forgotten almost everything I read. Now I happened to pick up a discounted copy bought somewhere for 30 percent of the original price, and I don’t even know whether it is genuine or pirated, a good edition or a bad one. In any case, I just picked it up and gave it another quick read. This book is also introductory in nature. In a not very long span of…
philosophy book reading culture notes
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2006年1月29日