标签：Aristotle

Notes from Today’s New Island Salon 09-12-12

Life & Notes2009.12.12
Notes from Today’s New Island Salon 09-12-12
Today B brought a little report, first talking about the theory of “subculture,” then briefly mentioning Weber, and we played a few rounds of Three Kingdoms Kill. Although a small turnout is normal, the recent salons do seem to be slipping into something of a lull. With the end of the term looming, let’s see whether this semester can manage one last dying burst of brilliance…… There are still a little over five hundred yuan left on the New Island membership card; what should we do after it’s used up? Today’s sightings here: byz/dr Possible topic for next time: “The Age of Enlightenment” Latest Comments Cheng Shan 2009-12-12 18:24:37 The…
everyday life Aristotle The Two Cultures salon
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2009年12月12日
(For the first assignment in the General History of Science—“Briefly describe the basic features of Greek cosmology and astronomy”) A few words before I’ve even graded the assignment~

Teaching & Courses2009.10.27
(For the first assignment in the General History of Science—“Briefly describe the basic features of Greek cosmology and astronomy”) A few words before I’ve even graded the assignment~
Before the homework is graded, let me say a few words~ The third question on this assignment, namely “briefly describe the basic features of Greek cosmology and astronomy,” was set by me and will also be graded by me. Perhaps because the topic seemed difficult, or because it was listed last, in any case comparatively the fewest students chose my topic. I only received 36 submissions, which just so happens to make it possible for me to offer a bit of special kill-you-while-serving-you (service)~ That is to say, in addition to learning their scores, everyone will also know exactly why they were inevitably killed by the TA~~ I will explain…
philosophy history of science course Aristotle
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2009年10月27日
Mirror and Glass: Tactility and Reality (Postscript to “Aristotle’s Tactile World”)

Philosophy & Thought2009.06.19
Mirror and Glass: Tactility and Reality (Postscript to “Aristotle’s Tactile World”)
The little essay I finished the day before yesterday, “Aristotle’s Tactile World,” was an assignment for Teacher Sun’s course in Selected Readings from Original Works in Natural Philosophy. This semester we’ve been reading the first two parts of The Mechanization of the World Picture. I should say that I chose the topic in close relation to the course theme. I also kept the length to four thousand characters, which for me is rather unusual. Although this paper itself only touches the matter lightly, I believe it points to a huge problem. Behind all kinds of philosophical questions about causality, reality, modernity, and so-called embodied phenomenology, there lies a profound connection…
philosophy Aristotle being consciousness
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2009年6月19日
When Reading a Philosopher, One Must Pay Attention Not Only to What He Says on the Surface, but Also to the Emotions and Intentions Lurking Behind His Words.

History of Science & Scholarship2009.06.19
When Reading a Philosopher, One Must Pay Attention Not Only to What He Says on the Surface, but Also to the Emotions and Intentions Lurking Behind His Words.
When reading a philosopher, one must pay attention not only to what he says literally, but also to the emotions and intentions lurking behind his words. This is where the key and the pleasure of interpreting philosophical texts lie. Of course, if we are to interpret a text by means of the text itself, extracting what the philosopher said is only the most elementary procedure. But if your interpretation is merely a straightforward paraphrase of the philosopher’s views, then what is the point of such an interpretation anyway?—and by “point” I always mean both “meaning” and “interest.” If you can express a philosopher’s thought in a more concise and lucid…
philosophy scholarship Aristotle intentionality
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2009年6月19日
Aristotle’s Tactile World

History of Science & Scholarship2009.06.17
Aristotle’s Tactile World
Before discussing propositions such as modern science’s “mechanization of the world picture”[1], one should note that the concept of the “world picture” is quite extraordinary. Before the world can possibly be mechanized as a picture, there is a prior step: the picturing of the world. The world does not become a picture for human beings from the very beginning; in fact, once the world has come, as a matter of course, to be a picture, whether that picture is mechanized or not, some vitally important change in human knowledge has already quietly taken place. As Heidegger put it: “The world picture does not change from a medieval world picture into…
philosophy of science Aristotle Heidegger paper
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2009年6月17日
Notes from Today’s Xindao Salon 09-06-13

Life & Notes2009.06.13
Notes from Today’s Xindao Salon 09-06-13
Today no one came… I’m getting ready to leave early… After finishing that assignment translation, all that was left was Sun Laoshi’s paper. Today I hauled over a pile of books about Aristotle, only to discover that after finishing the translation I was suddenly drained of energy and could hardly read them, so the latter half of the day was more or less wasted… All at once I found myself missing the days of studying at Egg Hall with A Fei. It really is true that the more one sits idly alone, the more foolish one becomes. Worse still, I didn’t bring my headphones, so I couldn’t even listen to…
everyday life book reading blog Aristotle
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2009年6月13日
New Island Dialogues, Zero: Cafés and Scholarship

History of Science & Scholarship2009.03.07
New Island Dialogues, Zero: Cafés and Scholarship
A Niu: Hello, everyone! Thank you for coming to open my event. Xiaoming: Hello, Senior Brother Niu! A Niu: Hmm… what should we talk about? … Let me start by asking about your purpose for coming—what exactly were your intentions or thoughts in coming here to look for me? Xiaoming: Ah, actually I still haven’t figured out what kind of event this is. I just heard that, in legend, Senior Brother Niu was here, so I specially came to pay my respects… A Niu: How polite. It would be better to say you came to visit. I feel a bit like an absurdly ugly wild buffalo in a zoo—nothing much…
philosophy scholarship Aristotle discussion
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2009年3月7日
On Saturday, I Was on New Island. (A Manifesto for Launching a Truly Café Philosophy Club)

Life & Notes2009.02.15
On Saturday, I Was on New Island. (A Manifesto for Launching a Truly Café Philosophy Club)
As the main project of increasing my offline activities this year, the point is to return to cafés. About three years ago around this time, I used to frequent Plato Café; this was mainly during the second half of my sophomore year. Besides Plato, there were also Beifengtang and Azhudan (at the time Plato was not open 24 hours, while the latter two were). These were all places I frequented. Reading and grinding through papers in those places was most efficient. But I soon drifted away from them for several reasons. First, later on I rented a place outside the South Gate, namely “mutton-soup alley,” which gave me a fixed…
philosophy everyday life China Aristotle
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2009年2月15日
Classroom Presentation Script on Realism and Anti-Realism

History of Science & Scholarship2008.12.28
Classroom Presentation Script on Realism and Anti-Realism
Realism can be said to be one of the major questions in the history of science and a problem that reaches far back and ramifies widely. It can at least be traced to the dispute between Plato and Aristotle, and it was also one of the main topics of medieval scholastic philosophy. In contemporary philosophy of science, as well as in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and so on, realism is also an inescapable theme. The definition of realism and anti-realism is likewise highly uncertain. What counts as realism from one angle may count as anti-realism from another. The treatment of realism in this material is rather…
science philosophy of science Aristotle truth
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2008年12月28日
The Mechanization of “Force”

History of Science & Scholarship2008.12.12
The Mechanization of “Force”
Force = mechanics? — Raising the question Scholars often say: the Scientific Revolution was accompanied by (or led to) the “mechanization of the world picture.” We are also told that this so-called “mechanization” means “mechanization into mechanics,” which means “mathematization,” which means “quantification”… It is indeed the case that in modern Western languages mechanics and machinery are the same word (mechanics), and that the modern “mechanical world” is indeed mathematized, while mathematization does indeed imply quantification—that is, the flattening of singularity and quality, and the “disenchantment” of the world. However, once we trace this situation back into history, the matter is by no means so simple—the above-mentioned “equal signs” are…
Aristotle Scientific Revolution paper physics
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2008年12月12日