Suixuan

分类：History of Science & Scholarship

Liu Huajie: “Not Everything Enshrined in the Hall Is a Buddha” (Including Some Free Thoughts on Needham’s Question)

History of Science & Scholarship2006.02.27
Liu Huajie: “Not Everything Enshrined in the Hall Is a Buddha” (Including Some Free Thoughts on Needham’s Question)
Liu Huajie: “What Is Offered in the Hall Is Not All Buddha,” Jiangsu People’s Publishing House, January 2004 This is one of Liu teacher’s more recent personal essay collections, and it is just as interesting as ever. These books are all to be read as “novels.” I noticed that in the essay “The Influence of Cultural Traditions on Science,” Liu teacher responds to Mr. Qi Zesong’s argument that “the rise of modern science has little to do with, or nothing to do with, Greek civilization.” Liu teacher points out: “The emergence of modern science was not merely a simple process of accumulating specific bodies of knowledge; it is more likely…
book reading culture notes history of science
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2006年2月27日
Preliminary Thoughts on Whether Traditional Chinese Medicine Is Scientific

History of Science & Scholarship2006.02.25
Preliminary Thoughts on Whether Traditional Chinese Medicine Is Scientific
Whether there was “science” in ancient China, and whether Chinese medicine is scientific—on these questions I had previously read a set of polemical articles, and I found myself more inclined to support Tian Song’s view. Of course, if one thinks carefully about this issue, it is extremely complicated. Neither Tian Song nor the other discussants, as a rule, made clear just what “science” actually is. I have given this question some thought myself, but have not arrived at a satisfactory answer. Today I will only try to write down some preliminary ideas, and may add more later. The question of whether “Chinese medicine” is scientific is in fact also a…
China science Wu Guosheng scientific spirit
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2006年2月25日
The Significance of Psychology for the Philosophy of Science and Technology

History of Science & Scholarship2006.02.24
The Significance of Psychology for the Philosophy of Science and Technology
Today, when I went to the academic affairs office to register, I casually asked: aside from math, physics, chemistry, and biology, what else does the “natural science” category of courses required for the philosophy of technology track include—for example, do computer science and psychology count? The answer was: computer science probably counts, but psychology clearly does not. And yet when I once asked a classmate majoring in psychology, I was explicitly told that “psychology belongs to the natural sciences”! In people’s minds, psychology is the sort of thing discussed together with philosophy—in Peking University’s general education course center, psychology and philosophy are placed in the same category, and the building…
philosophy science philosophy of science sociology
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2006年2月24日
The Significance of Mathematics and Logic for Philosophy of Science

History of Science & Scholarship2006.02.22
The Significance of Mathematics and Logic for Philosophy of Science
The mission of philosophy of science and technology is to “reflect” on science and technology. It is to use philosophical thought to explore topics such as the meaning, foundations, significance, value, and influence of science and technology. Of course, an important prerequisite for carrying out reflection is that one must have some understanding of scientific activity. As the saying goes, “One does not know the true face of Lu Mountain, because one is in the mountain itself” (不识庐山真面目，只缘身在此山中): even the most seasoned natural scientist may not necessarily have a complete understanding of the question of what science is. And to step outside science in the narrow sense and observe it…
philosophy science philosophy of science mathematics
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2006年2月22日
A Few Metaphors About “Drawing Boundaries”—Reflections Organized from My Winter Vacation Reading in 2006 (1)

History of Science & Scholarship2006.02.21
A Few Metaphors About “Drawing Boundaries”—Reflections Organized from My Winter Vacation Reading in 2006 (1)
Reflections from Reading During the 2006 Winter Break I. Several Metaphors Concerning “Boundary Drawing” 1. “Pure Water” and “Soda Water” We know that human beings can never produce anything that is 100% pure; perhaps not even God could do so—for even in the imagined “absolute vacuum,” there must inevitably be virtual-real particle pairs produced along with quantum fluctuations. What we call “pumping out a vacuum” merely yields extreme rarity; it can never eliminate impurities. When factories manufacture “pure water,” at best it is only 99.99% pure, with a few more nines besides, and the very process of making pure water often adds new impurities that were not there before. So…
book reading notes history of science philosophy of science
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2006年2月21日
Huang Aihe (Interview): “Drift—The Story of Peking University Scholar Liu Huajie”

History of Science & Scholarship2006.02.19
Huang Aihe (Interview): “Drift—The Story of Peking University Scholar Liu Huajie”
Huang Aihe (interview): “Drift—The Story of Peking University Scholar Liu Huajie,” Hebei University Press, September 2001 I happened upon this today in Guolinfeng, outside my reading plan, hehe~~ Ahem~~ Any fans of Liu Huajie out there~~? This book is so cute! Hehe, I’m not anyone’s fan, but I very much admire Teacher Liu~~ Page 4 Journalist: I saw in a newspaper that when you were little your family lived in a small mountain valley on Changbai Mountain? Liu Huajie: The full name was “Bahao, Seventeenth Team, Sidaojiang Brigade, Yuanyuan Commune, Tonghua City, Jilin Province.” My family wasn’t even in the team’s settlement area; we lived by ourselves in “Banmiao Valley,”…
book reading science notes philosophy of science
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2006年2月19日
[U.S.] Gerald Holton: “Science and Anti-Science”

History of Science & Scholarship2006.02.19
[U.S.] Gerald Holton: “Science and Anti-Science”
[US] Gerald Holton: “Science and Anti-Science,” translated by Fan Dainian and Chen Yanghui, Jiangxi Education Press, January 1999 P128 p. 161 On the other hand, “cyclicists” often imagine science as an activity that is not goal-directed, progressive, or cumulative.………… Cyclicists are more common among social scientists and historians; and, unlike linearists, they believe that science is driven conspicuously or even primarily by social processes. In extreme cases, they think that science is merely the performance of some general spirit of the age, or even chiefly the product of “social construction,” essentially no different from the game of chess. Generally speaking, for such views that are opposed in their fundamental aims,…
book reading notes philosophy of science faith
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2006年2月19日
[Austrian] Erwin Schrödinger: “Nature and Ancient Greece”

History of Science & Scholarship2006.02.19
[Austrian] Erwin Schrödinger: “Nature and Ancient Greece”
[Austrian] Erwin Schrödinger: *Nature and Ancient Greece*, translated by Yan Feng, Shanghai Scientific and Technical Publishers, May 2002 (Translator’s Preface) p. 3 Although Schrödinger loved mathematics and physics in middle school, he did not reject the liberal arts; he did very well in both Greek and Latin, and also taught himself French and English. Later, he read and wrote the four modern languages of English, French, Italian, and Spanish just as well as Greek and Latin. He once translated Homer’s epic poems into English, and translated French poetry into German. He also published a personal poetry collection in 1949. He loved drawing and sculpture, and had a special passion for…
book reading notes philosophy of science Greece
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2006年2月19日
[French] Jean Ladrière: “The Challenge of Science and Technology to Culture”

History of Science & Scholarship2006.02.18
[French] Jean Ladrière: “The Challenge of Science and Technology to Culture”
[French] Jean Ladrière: “The Challenge of Science and Technology to Culture,” translated by Lü Naiji, Wang Zhuojun, and Lin Xiaoyu, Commercial Press, November 1997 Page I (Publisher’s Preface) This book was prepared by the philosopher and scientist Jean Ladrière at the invitation of UNESCO, in response to the organization’s “Science, Ethics, Aesthetics” symposium, held in 1974 at its philosophy division in Paris and attended by philosophers and scientists from around the world. Pages 2–3 However, it is becoming increasingly clear that science, as a method for understanding reality, relies primarily not on imagination but on action; this is the meaning of “knowledge is power.” ………… Today, science is no longer…
book reading culture technology science
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2006年2月18日
Wang Hongbo and Ma Jianbo, eds., Crossing the Chasm—Science in a Cultural Perspective

History of Science & Scholarship2006.02.16
Wang Hongbo and Ma Jianbo, eds., Crossing the Chasm—Science in a Cultural Perspective
Wang Hongbo Ma Jianbo eds.: Cross the Gorge—Science in a Cultural Perspective, Fujian Education Press, February 2002 Kang Yanwu: An Incomprehensible Humanistic Spirit (Second Paragraph) Page 16 In the fourth paragraph of Zhou Wen, he says: “The real danger of modern technology does not lie in visible consequences such as the explosion of an atomic bomb, but in this mode of dealing with things already contained in its very essence: it strips all things of their real existence and intrinsic value, leaving them only a functional, false existence.” This is truly an arcane piece of abstruse talk. What exactly is “this mode of dealing with things”? How does it “strip all things…
book reading notes philosophy of science value
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2006年2月16日