标签：book reading

Constructing a DN Account of Leopold’s Essay (Thinking Like a Mountain);

History of Science & Scholarship2006.04.06
Constructing a DN Account of Leopold’s Essay (Thinking Like a Mountain);
1. Constructing a DN explanation for Leopold’s article “Thinking Like a Mountain”; For the original text, see http://www.pep.com.cn/200406/ca429154.htm 1) Any animal’s survival requires enough food. —— universal law 2) Any animal can obtain food only within its own range of activity. —— universal law 3) If there is not enough food within its range of activity, then that animal cannot obtain enough food. —— corollary of 2 4) If there is not enough food source within its range of activity, then that animal cannot maintain survival. —— corollary of 1 and 3 5) If a group of animals remains stable in a certain place, then there must be a stable…
book reading notes ecology biology
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2006年4月6日
The Religious Views of Great Scientists: Quotation Piling

Philosophy & Thought2006.03.28
The Religious Views of Great Scientists: Quotation Piling
The Big Scientists’ View of Religion: A Heap of Quotations Einstein: You will have a hard time finding among scientists of deep attainment anyone who does not have his own religious feeling. — “The Religious Spirit of Science,” in The Collected Works of Einstein, vol. 1, p. 67 A person inspired by religion has already, to the greatest possible extent, freed himself from the shackles of selfish desire, and is wholly devoted to thoughts, feelings, and aspirations that possess transpersonal value and which he holds fast to. What I consider important is the power of this content that transcends the individual, and the depth of the belief in its far-reaching…
book reading notes history of science philosophy of science
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2006年3月28日
I read a crank-science paper… @_@

History of Science & Scholarship2006.03.03
I read a crank-science paper… @_@
Today I finally, astonishingly, read through an entire paper by a “popular-science crank”: http://hk.netsh.com/eden/bbs/6214/html/tree_7386694.html Alas, every paper by a popular-science crank is a classic. They have quite distinctive features: their first-order research is a mess, but their second-order research is actually quite meaningful. Since reading 《Four-Dimensional Mechanics》 back in high school, this is once again the chance encounter that has led me to a complete popular-science-crank article; revisiting it a bit is fine too, fortunately I still remember what a popular-science crank is all about…… First let me quote a few funny lines: This paper is the product of the author’s many years of thought, and has recently been thoroughly…
book reading notes Scientific Revolution Liu Huajie
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2006年3月3日
G. E. R. Lloyd: Early Greek Science—From Thales to Aristotle

Philosophy & Thought2006.03.01
G. E. R. Lloyd: Early Greek Science—From Thales to Aristotle
G·E·R·Lloyd: Early Greek Science—From Thales to Aristotle, translated by Sun Xiaochun, Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press, December 2004 pp. 62–63 Even so, one fundamental difference did in fact set most medical writers apart from philosophers, and this difference lay not in the kinds of theories they proposed, nor in the methods they used, but in the different motives behind their investigations. ………… Unlike philosophers, doctors ultimately had a practical goal before them, as the author of On Ancient Medicine says: medicine is a craft, and practitioners vary in their skill. The final aim in doctors’ minds was in fact to cure illness. p. 121 As I said at the…
book reading notes philosophy of science Aristotle
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2006年3月1日
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
Liu Huajie: “China-like Science—From the Perspectives of Philosophy and Sociology”

Culture & Public Commentary2006.02.22
Liu Huajie: “China-like Science—From the Perspectives of Philosophy and Sociology”
Liu Huajie: *China-Style Pseudoscience—From the Perspectives of Philosophy and Sociology*, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press, January 2004 I will read this book again later; mainly because in it, Liu has “collected a great deal of precious historical documentary material” (p. 1, Wu Guosheng’s preface), and it “is a valuable attempt at research into the local social history of science” (ibid.). It is a bit of a pity that “this book has omitted some parts that are not yet suitable for public publication” (ibid.), and the names of many officials in the text are rendered as “×××.” I have absolutely no interest in those hidden names, but the fact that such…
book reading China notes Liu Huajie
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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
Winter Vacation Reading Notes, 2006: Introduction / Conclusion / Contents

Life & Notes2006.02.19
Winter Vacation Reading Notes, 2006: Introduction / Conclusion / Contents
2006 Winter Vacation Reading Notes: Preface/Conclusion/Contents Last year, in order to write a paper on ecological philosophy, I “finished” 117 books within two months. It looked “fierce,” but in fact, aside from a little over a dozen books I read closely, the rest were mostly skimmed by reading the beginning, the end, and selected relevant passages, and that was that; it was not solid work, and the books I read then will need to be read again in the future. This winter vacation, however, I made a major change in style: for the vast majority of books I adopted a “read through” method, meaning that I made sure my eyes…
philosophy book reading science notes
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2006年2月19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