标签：knowledge

The Re-Creation of the World: How Modern Science Came Into Being

History of Science & Scholarship2012.04.08
The Re-Creation of the World: How Modern Science Came Into Being
[荷]H·弗洛里斯·科恩：《The Re-Creation of the World: How Modern Science Came into Being》，translated by Zhang Butian, Hunan Science and Technology Press, 2012 This is a slim booklet written for ordinary readers, and may be regarded as a popularized version of the author’s other weighty scholarly work, *How Modern Science Was Born: Four Civilizations, One Breakthrough in the Seventeenth Century*. The Needham Question has long been a topic of particular concern to Chinese historians of science and even to the general public. The Hong Kong scholar Chen Fangzheng recently published *Inheritance and Rebellion: Why Did Modern Science Appear in the West?* Teacher Zhou Cheng translated a book also called *Why Did Modern…
China book reading history of science notes
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2012年4月8日
Western Learning as Substance, Chinese Learning as Application

Culture & Public Commentary2012.03.28
Western Learning as Substance, Chinese Learning as Application
Previously I mentioned that I wanted to write about “why study the West,” and that made me think of the phrase “Western essence, Chinese utility” (西体中用). A quick search online showed that Mr. Li Zehou had already brought it up. He explained “food, clothing, housing, and transportation” as the “essence,” and what he meant by Western essence, Chinese utility was “the ‘Western essence’ of modernization put to use on Chinese soil.” Some of Mr. Li Zehou’s ideas are excellent, but my line of thought is different from his. Mr. Huang Yinong also seems to have mentioned “Western essence, Chinese utility,” but in a more general way. What I mean by…
China culture scholarship education
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2012年3月28日
The “Natural Selection” of Technology—A Critique of Levinson’s Theory of Media Evolution

History of Science & Scholarship2012.03.13
The “Natural Selection” of Technology—A Critique of Levinson’s Theory of Media Evolution
The “Natural Selection” of Technology — A Critique of Levinson’s Media Evolution Theory Hu Yilin© (Department of Philosophy, Peking University, Beijing 100871) Abstract: Levinson inherits the tradition of media ecology, but only superficially. He believes that traditional critics of technology merely focus on technology’s drawbacks and do not evaluate technology from an evolutionary perspective. Levinson thinks that the drawbacks inherent in technology in its infancy will be eliminated or remedied in the course of evolution. But Levinson’s evolutionism faces three problems: Who is doing the selecting? By what criterion is selection made? How are the results of selection evaluated? Levinson’s answers to these three questions are all “nature—human nature,”…
technology media knowledge value
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2012年3月13日
Mathematics, Education, and Machines

AI & the Future of Technology2011.11.02
Mathematics, Education, and Machines
Today in discussion section, I listened to Brother Donglin’s report, and it felt wonderfully intriguing; some of my earlier scattered thoughts have become much clearer. What Brother Donglin discussed was the concept of “diagramming” in ancient Greek geometry. He pointed out that the geometrical constructions of the ancient Greeks cannot be understood as “construction” in the Kantian sense: the meaning of diagramming is not to provide some kind of “ontological proof.” Diagramming is undertaken for pedagogical and instructional purposes; the original meaning of “proof” is also a kind of showing, a process by which the teacher displays something to the student. “Geometrical diagramming, geometrical knowledge, and phronesis (practical knowledge, that…
philosophy technology science media
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2011年11月2日
Printing, Natural History, and the Birth of Modern Science

History of Science & Scholarship2011.10.24
Printing, Natural History, and the Birth of Modern Science
Introduction This article attempts to point out a certain connection among the three things named in the title—what is the relation between the invention of printing, the revival of natural history, and the birth of modern science? Is there perhaps some profound link among them, such that if we want to understand the essence of modern science and even “modernity,” we must begin by examining the influence of printing? Among these three matters, the date of printing’s appearance in Europe is the clearest: in the 1440s, Gutenberg in Mainz, Germany, invented movable-type printing. Whether or not Chinese printing indirectly influenced Gutenberg’s invention, the fact that the era of print in…
history of science scholarship media knowledge
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2011年10月24日
My New Mobile Device: HTC Flyer

Life & Notes2011.09.08
My New Mobile Device: HTC Flyer
The smartphone (HTC G7) I bought half a year ago got lost a few days ago, and the Xiaomi phone still hadn’t come out, so I had no choice but to find another way… and that’s how I ended up with this HTC Flyer. I hadn’t originally planned to buy a tablet so early. I was biding my time, waiting for the open-source release of Android 3.X, or for Amazon to make some new move with a tablet or reader, and I was also keeping an eye on Asus’s new models—Asus’s Eeepad sits somewhere between a tablet and a laptop. If my phone had still been around, I would have been…
everyday life knowledge script printing
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2011年9月8日
Revisiting “Natural History” (Natural Science) as a Historiographical Program

Culture & Public Commentary2011.08.26
Revisiting “Natural History” (Natural Science) as a Historiographical Program
I previously wrote “Natural History as a Historiographical Program—Thoughts on Liu Huajie’s Lecture,” where I briefly raised this idea. I noted that although what I call natural history as a historiographical program differs from Liu Huajie’s “historiographical program of natural history” only in translation (I argue that Natural History should be translated as “自然史” rather than the more usual “博物学”), my conception of this way of writing history is quite different from Liu’s. Recently I chatted again with my student Wang Liang about related topics, and then I saw a conversation record between Liu and Jiang Xiaoyuan, Liu Bing, and the others about “the good should be attributed to natural…
philosophy history of science history knowledge
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2011年8月26日
On “Knowledge Changes One’s Destiny”

Culture & Public Commentary2011.08.08
On “Knowledge Changes One’s Destiny”
Recently I saw an article in Southern Weekend, “Do Poor Children Have No Spring? — Why Are Students from Humble Families Increasingly Farther Away from First-Rate Universities?” In the past few days, while eating with my family and relatives, this kind of topic has also come up often. Today someone mentioned that Fudan University may completely abolish admissions through straight Gaokao scores next year—that is, you would have to get in through independent admissions or other such routes. Such a move will of course further increase the difficulty for students from impoverished regions to enter top universities. Just the round-trip transportation and lodging costs for making a special trip to…
China culture scholarship education
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2011年8月8日
Media and the Externalization of “Knowledge”

AI & the Future of Technology2010.11.15
Media and the Externalization of “Knowledge”
Reply to a netizen’s question: Why did knowledge change from a “virtue” into a “power”? Is it possible to reveal the root of this shift from the perspective of media? This is a great question ~ and it really can be revealed from the perspective of media. Roughly speaking, the media through which knowledge is displayed move from the age of oral speech, to manuscripts, and finally to printed books. In the oral age, the only or main way knowledge could be displayed was through speech; knowledge was displayed in lectures or debates. In such a situation, it is easy to imagine that the display of knowledge was always tied…
technology culture media knowledge
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2010年11月15日
The Blog’s Indenture

Site Matters2010.11.12
The Blog’s Indenture
When we register for a free online service, its “terms of service” are often completely ignored. In fact, this thing really ought to be taken seriously; otherwise, before you know it, you’ve signed a deed of sale for yourself. Recently I’ve been looking for alternatives to Ycool Blog, but I still haven’t found anything suitable. I absolutely won’t use Sina Blog, because its terms of service are basically a deed of sale. What I care about mainly are two things: first, privacy protection; second, protection of intellectual property rights. The policies involved differ greatly from one blog to another, and the difference between blogs inside the firewall and those outside…
blog website knowledge law
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2010年11月12日