标签：book reading

Whose Responsibility? — An Excerpt from a Case Study

Philosophy & Thought2007.11.18
Whose Responsibility? — An Excerpt from a Case Study
I’ve lately found myself from time to time recalling a passage in An Invitation to Philosophy; I might as well excerpt it here: Page 113 … responsibility is the necessary product of freedom, the opposite of freedom, or perhaps, as Hume pointed out, responsibility is itself the basis of the demand for freedom: actions must be free in order for it to be possible that someone be responsible for each action. The subject has the freedom to carry out a certain action, but not the freedom to escape the consequences corresponding to it. Both Sophocles and Shakespeare like to speak of a “guilty” freedom; this is by no means…
philosophy book reading notes freedom
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2007年11月18日
[U.S.] Daniel Hausman, ed.: The Philosophy of Economics

Philosophy & Thought2007.11.07
[U.S.] Daniel Hausman, ed.: The Philosophy of Economics
[U.S.] Daniel Hausman, ed., *The Philosophy of Economics*, translated by Ding Jianfeng, Shanghai People’s Publishing House, Century Publishing Group, January 2007, 38 yuan This book is about the “methodology” of economics, or rather, an inquiry into how it can count as a “science.” It shows the profound connection between economics and the philosophy of science; in fact, as I was reading it, I would sometimes have the illusion that I was reading an introduction to the philosophy of science rather than an introduction to economics. The introduction alone is almost a primer on the philosophy of science, including an overview of the entire line of development in the philosophy of…
book reading notes philosophy of science Scientific Revolution
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2007年11月7日
[Spanish] Fernando Savater: “An Invitation to Philosophy—The Questions of Life” —☆

Philosophy & Thought2007.11.01
[Spanish] Fernando Savater: “An Invitation to Philosophy—The Questions of Life” —☆
[Spanish] Fernando Savater: *The Invitation of Philosophy—The Question of Life*, translated by Lin Jingwei, Peking University Press, September 2007, 24 yuan — ☆ Although there is no longer any need to cultivate an interest in philosophy, I still keep an eye out whenever I find a newly published introductory philosophy book on the market. Introductory books are among the easiest, most interesting, and most colorful kinds of philosophy reading. Introductory or survey works written by different people are surely bound to have their own flavors; if two introductory books read as though they were virtually identical, then chances are they were both written by Chinese people…… This book is touted…
philosophy book reading notes
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2007年11月1日
[U.S.] Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubner: Freakonomics

Web3 & Cypherpunks2007.11.01
[U.S.] Steven Levitt, Stephen Dubner: Freakonomics
[U.S.] Steven Levitt and Steven Dubner: _Freakonomics—A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything_, translated by Liu Xiangya, Guangdong Provincial Publishing Group, Guangdong Economic Press, March 2006, 28 yuan I generally don’t read popular books, especially the flashy, business-and-management-type titles that seem to be everywhere in the “social sciences” section of Xinhua Bookstore. But recently I decided to take another stab at economics, so I first picked up the lightest thing I could find, partly to whet my appetite and partly to see what these bestselling business-and-management books are really like. This book is billed as “the No. 1 business-and-management bestseller in the United States in 2005,” and it…
book reading notes human nature economy
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2007年11月1日
[English] John Lloyd, John Mitchinson: The Book of General Ignorance — 200 Questions People Commonly Overlook

History of Science & Scholarship2007.10.28
[English] John Lloyd, John Mitchinson: The Book of General Ignorance — 200 Questions People Commonly Overlook
[UK] John Lloyd and John Mitchinson: *Quips and Quibbles——200 Questions People Generally Overlook*, translated by Wang Zhanghua, Li Jian, Yang Yu, Wu Wenzhong, Shen Xianyun, and Chen Jie, Guangxi Science and Technology Publishing House, August 2007, 24.8 yuan Another book of entertaining popular-science questions, or rather, one could call this sort of book “popular-science 8g.” Still, compared with the other books of this kind I’ve read, including *Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze?* and the previous *Who Says Men Can’t Get Pregnant?*, this one is much more exciting. No wonder even Teacher Wu actually “jointly recommended” this book… (Joining him in the recommendation were also Academician Zhu Zuoyan of the Chinese…
book reading notes Wu Guosheng science communication
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2007年10月28日
A Reading Report on Schopenhauer

Philosophy & Thought2007.10.24
A Reading Report on Schopenhauer
I seriously underestimated the extent of my own decadence: I kept frittering away the time until there were barely more than two days left before I even started reading. I also seriously underestimated the difficulty of turning a reading report into prose, dragging it out until the evening of the last day before I began to write. I also seriously underestimated my ability to ramble, so that by §24 I had already run up some 4,500 characters, and when I looked at the clock it was already deep into the night. There was no time to ramble any further, and even if I finished rambling now, there would still not…
book reading notes Kant materialism
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2007年10月24日
[Canada] Sergio Sismondo: An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies

History of Science & Scholarship2007.10.21
[Canada] Sergio Sismondo: An Introduction to Science and Technology Studies
[Canadian] Sergio Sismondo: Introduction to Science and Technology Studies, translated by Xu Weimin, Meng Qiang, Cui Hailing, and Chen Haidan, Shanghai Century Publishing Group, Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press, August 2007, 25.5 yuan It is a rare introduction to “science and technology studies” (Science and Technology Studies, or, alternatively, scientific and technological studies, science and technology metrology, and so on; since this concept sometimes refers to a transdisciplinary field of study, and sometimes also denotes a certain stance or camp, while its boundaries are fuzzy, it is really hard to pin down… the translators also discuss this in the postface). Because there are still very few comparable Chinese-language books…
book reading science notes philosophy of science
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2007年10月21日
[France] Tony Anatrella: “The Forgotten Sex”

Culture & Public Commentary2007.10.14
[France] Tony Anatrella: “The Forgotten Sex”
[Fr.] Tony Anatrella, “Forgotten Sex,” trans. Liu Weixu and Xu Jun, Guangxi Normal University Press, June 2003, 18.8 yuan The author is a Freudian social psychologist. Taking sex as his thread, he discusses topics such as the body, society, love, and growing up. In terms of readability and intellectual stimulation, this is a good book. The author points out that modern people seem on the surface to have “liberated” sex and liberated the “body,” but in fact they are often negating and rejecting them, so much so that they eventually move toward forgetting them. Today’s “sex” has been stripped away from reproduction, love, morality, and “sexual relations”; “sex for sex’s…
book reading notes psychology body
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2007年10月14日
[Dutch] J. Huizinga: Man the Player, 35 yuan — ☆

Culture & Public Commentary2007.10.11
[Dutch] J. Huizinga: Man the Player, 35 yuan — ☆
[Dutch]J. Huizinga: Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture, translated by Cheng Qiong, proofread by Wang Zuohong and Chen Weizheng, Guizhou Publishing Group, Guizhou People’s Publishing House, first edition January 1998, second edition August 2007, 35 yuan—☆ Often, just when I am thinking about certain topics, I can promptly find the book I want at a bookstore, and even at the new-books counter…… This book immediately came out in two editions, one of which (the one I chose) is a reprint, and the other is the latest translation by Huacheng Publishing House (the third Chinese translation), Huizinga: 2007, 9th month, first edition. I compared these two books for quite…
book reading culture notes human nature
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2007年10月11日
[France] Michel Manson: “The Eternal Toy”

Culture & Public Commentary2007.10.06
[France] Michel Manson: “The Eternal Toy”
[French] Michel Manson: “The Eternal Toy,” translated by Su Qiyun and Wang Xinlian, Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House, August 2004, 26 yuan The reasons that attracted me to buy this book are as follows: first, it was on sale; second, it is serious scholarly work on something that appears to be an ordinary object. The seriousness of this is evident from the 46 pages of notes appended at the end of the book (the Chinese edition reproduces all the notes in facsimile, which was no small feat); third, I am very interested in this topic. After reading it, I found myself somewhat disappointed. Neither the writing nor the argument…
book reading technology notes children
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2007年10月6日