分类：Philosophy & Thought

Why Do I Need Ethics? — An Unconventional Introductory Book on Ethics

Philosophy & Thought2008.11.02
Why Do I Need Ethics? — An Unconventional Introductory Book on Ethics
This is an article written for submission. Although this was the first time I ever submitted anything truly of my own free will and initiative (see https://yilinhut.net/2008/09/21/2750.html), it was still awkwardly written. And because no word limit had been agreed on, it is obviously too long; if it were published in some other medium, it would certainly be excerpted, and that would depend on the editor’s deft touch. Whether it is published or not, I am posting the original text on the blog; please do not repost it before the final version appears. Why Do I Need Ethics? — An Unusual Introductory Reader on Ethics Gu Chi With the bestseller…
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2008年11月2日
The Joy of “Dissatisfaction”

Philosophy & Thought2008.10.12
The Joy of “Dissatisfaction”
In my philosophy, “love” is an extremely central concept. A detailed exposition of this concept has not yet been worked out; but to give a preliminary indication, one may say that before we get to the level of “overflow” and “outpouring,” that is, before speaking of “giving” or “offering oneself,” the most primitive and basic meaning of “love” is after all “desire” and “need,” and its root is “dissatisfaction.” What I want to talk about here is precisely this “dissatisfaction.” People usually regard “dissatisfaction” as a bad state, associating it with pain and resentment; correspondingly, “satisfaction” is seen as a good state, associated with comfort and happiness. Yet I say:…
philosophy pursuit emotion love
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2008年10月12日
The Philosopher’s “Manifest” and “Hidden”

Philosophy & Thought2008.10.10
The Philosopher’s “Manifest” and “Hidden”
In the comments received not long after the posting of “Pinned Post 2,” one mm mentioned that I was “a manifest type” rather than “an implicit type,” and so on. The specifics can be seen directly in that post, so I won’t repeat them here. Typical feminine-style comments are headache-inducing, because they are hard to deal with. As that mm said, “…more intuitive”: once a comment is made “from intuition,” then it becomes very hard to criticize. Only when a theory is built on “reasons” is it possible to inspect and criticize it, because “reasons” are public, whereas “intuition” is always private; I cannot criticize another person’s “intuition.” In addition,…
philosophy culture scholarship public sphere
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2008年10月10日
[US] Jacques Thillo, Keith C. Lassman: Ethics and Life (9th Edition)

Philosophy & Thought2008.10.01
[US] Jacques Thillo, Keith C. Lassman: Ethics and Life (9th Edition)
[US] Jacques Thirou, Keith Klusmann: Ethics and Life (9th Edition), translated by Cheng Lixian, Liu Jian, et al., reviewed by Zhou Fucheng, World Book Publishing Company, August 2008, 58 yuan Not recommended. Although I only flipped through it for about half an hour before putting it aside. But I can confirm that this book is not to my taste. First let’s look at the promotional slip attached to the cover (what is the technical term for this thing?): “On February 2, 2006, the very day the revised manuscript of the ninth edition of this book was completed, Professor Jacques Thirou suddenly passed away, leaving the world this labor-of-love work that…
philosophy book reading book review experts
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2008年10月1日
[Spanish] Fernando Savater: “The Invitation to Ethics” —★

Philosophy & Thought2008.09.21
[Spanish] Fernando Savater: “The Invitation to Ethics” —★
[西]Fernando Savater: “An Invitation to Ethics,” translated by Yushi Yang, Peking University Press2008, 9月,20 yuan——★ As for the earlier An Invitation to Philosophy (see https://yilinhut.net/2007/11/01/1070.html), I had a very high opinion of it; the author’s better-known An Invitation to Ethics was also long anticipated. It finally went on sale a few days ago, and after buying it I finished it in a little over an hour. It is indeed quite good, and worth recommending. Printed at the top of the cover of this book is the sentence: “The only purpose of ethics is to strive to improve oneself, rather than to drone on condemning others.” Even if I had not…
philosophy book reading notes freedom
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2008年9月21日
Re-reading “Big Questions—A Brief Introduction to Philosophy”

Philosophy & Thought2008.08.26
Re-reading “Big Questions—A Brief Introduction to Philosophy”
The second edition of *Big Questions* has been on the market for some time. During the Olympics, on a whim, I read it all over again from start to finish, and was filled with a thousand thoughts and feelings. The first Chinese edition of *Big Questions* came out in 2004. That was when I had just entered university, just begun taking philosophy courses, and was fortunate enough to encounter this book. I bought the book roughly in the second week of classes, the exact date being around September 20, 2004. Why do I remember it so precisely? Because in the forum for the “Introduction to Philosophy” course at the time,…
philosophy book reading notes Peking University
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2008年8月26日
Ways of Creating Concepts (Jottings)

Philosophy & Thought2008.08.09
Ways of Creating Concepts (Jottings)
Passive creation (mass communication) and active creation (scholarly invention). There are two active modes of creation: the natural-history style of “defining by pointing to the thing” and defining concepts through concepts. The latter is a way of abbreviating some meaning that was originally associated with a long string of concepts like A, B, C, D, E, F, or even with an allusion, or even with an entire philosophical system, into a convenient concept. Why create new concepts? Very simple: because the old concepts are not enough. If an intuition is so unfamiliar that people cannot naturally and smoothly place it in its proper position within the net of concepts, then…
philosophy knowledge Chinese language
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2008年8月9日
A “Systematic Study” Plan for Philosophy of Science

History of Science & Scholarship2008.08.05
A “Systematic Study” Plan for Philosophy of Science
Recently, a number of friends have gradually found me through KKBBS and blogs and the like, hoping to consult me about the graduate entrance examination and about systematic methods for studying philosophy of science and technology. I’m sorry to say that, as a lazy student admitted by recommendation, I know virtually nothing about the graduate entrance examination; as for studying philosophy of science and technology, while I can hardly claim to have no experience at all, I am still, after all, only at the beginner stage—at most I can offer and share some beginner’s-beginner experience. But most of the people who come seeking help need guidance at the beginner level…
China science scholarship philosophy of science
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2008年8月5日
What Is the Difference Between Philosophy and Natural History?

Philosophy & Thought2008.08.03
What Is the Difference Between Philosophy and Natural History?
Today I was asked a question that, at first hearing, seemed baffling: “What is the difference between philosophy and natural history?” The questioner felt that philosophy deals with everything, and natural history also touches on everything, so the two seemed more or less the same… My answer was: philosophy is directed toward problems, whereas natural history faces things. Or, to put it another way, philosophy asks after the ultimate meaning of concepts—such as “What, ultimately, is science?” “What, ultimately, is essence?”—these are the ways philosophy poses its questions. A typical way natural history poses a question is: point at a tree and ask, “What is this?”—“A poplar.” That sort of…
philosophy scholarship knowledge natural history
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2008年8月3日
Following the Grain and Finding Order: “Li means to work jade.”

Philosophy & Thought2008.07.22
Following the Grain and Finding Order: “Li means to work jade.”
“Wen” and “li” have undergone thousands of years of evolution in China, and then, further reshaped by modern Western languages and influenced by modern science, they long ago became unrecognizable. Hence the talk of choosing between the humanities and the sciences, of emphasizing li over wen, of the integration of wen and li, and so on. But what exactly is wen, and what exactly is li? These notions have long since become ambiguous and obscure, seeming to be something and yet not quite. In people’s minds, “li” probably means mathematics and physics, or more generally those activities that resemble “calculation”; while “wen” seems to mean handling brush and ink, or…
philosophy China Heidegger tradition
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2008年7月22日