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标签：Arendt

Is the University a Public Sphere? — Further Thoughts on Publicly Posting Grades and Publicly Critiquing Assignments

History of Science & Scholarship2011.10.10
Is the University a Public Sphere? — Further Thoughts on Publicly Posting Grades and Publicly Critiquing Assignments
It’s once again time for grading in the history of science survey course. This course has always had the tradition of publishing grades, and this time should be no exception. Of course, I seem to be getting softer and softer lately; the harsh roasting of bad assignments may more likely be shifted into private messages rather than being publicly posted under real names. But the excellent students still absolutely deserve public praise. Last year I explained: Why post the grades? Now that I’ve recently finished reading Arendt, it may be worth giving that earlier account a further interpretation. It is said that American universities place enormous emphasis on “privacy”; information…
scholarship freedom public sphere university
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2011年10月10日
Arendt Reading Notes

Culture & Public Commentary2011.09.28
Arendt Reading Notes
Finally finished reading Arendt’s The Human Condition, and feel immensely relieved… Let me make some notes.. Wang Yinli’s Chinese translation of The Human Condition is basically pretty good. Though I didn’t compare it line by line with the English original, on the whole I could make sense of it, and there probably won’t be any major misunderstandings. The problem, however, is that her translation is still rather awkward. In the translator’s afterword, she also writes that she follows the principle of “literal translation,” saying that “literal translation has already become a consensus in the translation of academic works,” and so she tries not to change the original word order. I…
book reading notes freedom Aristotle
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2011年9月28日
What Can Chinese Tradition Bring to Modern Politics?

Chinese Civilization & the Way of Chinese2010.12.21
What Can Chinese Tradition Bring to Modern Politics?
Of course, restoring China’s traditional Confucian ritual order and bureaucratic politics is impossible. That would first require the restoration of the imperial system and the revival of the clan order. A wholesale return to the old is hopeless, and unnecessary as well. No matter how Chinese politics develops in the future, it is bound to be Westernized and modernized. So, amid all this, what can Chinese tradition still bring, what elements can it still provide? Of course, you may think that not a single element of so-called Chinese tradition is needed at all, and that it would be enough simply to introduce Western modern democratic institutions. But a complete…
culture China democracy Arendt
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2010年12月21日
“Co-being” and the Horse of Seahorse-ism

Philosophy & Thought2010.12.18
“Co-being” and the Horse of Seahorse-ism
The progress of the Being and Time reading group has been fairly smooth so far, and we have now reached the part on being-with and the Anyone. At the time, I stopped where I did in “A Preliminary Exploration of Heidegger’s Ontology of Media,” and I wrote then: “Speaking of the ‘Anyone,’ Heidegger’s related discussions of ‘being-with,’ ‘falling,’ and so on will also be drawn in. Dasein’s being-in-the-world is not only always dealing with things, but is also always dealing with others, and this is precisely where the concepts of ‘dealing with’ and ‘media’ ought to apply. However, as a very preliminary glimpse into Heidegger’s ontology of media, this article…
philosophy philosophy of science media Heidegger
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2010年12月18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 faith religion
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2010年11月9日
How Should We Understand Why “Proof” Is the Core Concept of the “Foundations of Mathematics”?

History of Science & Scholarship2010.07.02
How Should We Understand Why “Proof” Is the Core Concept of the “Foundations of Mathematics”?
First, it is necessary to note that “proof” is an ancient concept, whereas “mathematical foundations” is a much newer one; ever since ancient Greece, “proof” has been one of the central concepts in the Western mathematical tradition, whereas the topic or subdiscipline of “mathematical foundations” emerged mainly only in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The demand for “proof” makes mathematics in Western culture different from arithmetic and surveying. Mathematics pursues not merely the obtaining of a valid result, but even more the process of rigorous deduction and argumentation. But even within the Western tradition, the understanding of mathematical proof has by no means been static. And the reason…
philosophy science mathematics logic
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2010年7月2日
Application for Confirmation of Party Membership

Life & Notes2005.07.31
Application for Confirmation of Party Membership
Dear Party Organization: I was accepted as a probationary member of the Communist Party of China on April 30 last year. The probationary period is one year, and it expired on April 30, 2005. I now solemnly apply to the Party organization to be converted into a full member. In the past year, I came from Shanghai to Beijing, transformed from a high school student into a university student, experienced many things, and also gained much growth and maturity. Yet my faith in, and enthusiasm for, the Party have never changed. From high school to university, one’s experience grows richer, one’s knowledge increases, one’s emotions mature, one’s learning improves… all…
everyday life faith trust Arendt
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2005年7月31日