标签：Liu Huajie

AI Regulation Must Not Become a New Despotism in the Technological Age

AI & Scholarship2026.06.24
AI Regulation Must Not Become a New Despotism in the Technological Age
Recently, the U.S. government, citing national security, asked Anthropic to suspend foreign nationals’ access to its frontier large models Fable 5 and Mythos 5. Anthropic then announced that, in order to ensure compliance, it would take both models offline for all users. This incident quickly sent shockwaves through the AI industry: if one country can, on security grounds, suddenly cut off global users’ access to frontier AI, then what exactly is AI—a commercial service, a piece of public infrastructure, or a new kind of strategic weapon? In the public discussion surrounding this incident, opinion quickly split into two camps. One side believes that frontier large models may be used for…
freedom history of technology public sphere AI
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2026年6月24日
An Interview Transcript about Zhang Xiaoyu’s Technics and Civilization

Culture & Public Commentary2021.08.09
An Interview Transcript about Zhang Xiaoyu’s Technics and Civilization
Earlier, China Science Daily recommended Zhang Xiaoyu’s book Technology and Civilization, and interviewed me for a few comments. Today I suddenly remembered this, looked it up, and found that the interview had already been used. See China Science Daily (2021-06-17, Section 5, Culture Weekly). The published piece was assembled from excerpts of my written interview responses, integrated with the introduction to Zhang Xiaoyu’s book. Overall it was organized fairly well, but from the standpoint of my own expression, it was chopped up too much. Below I am posting my original answers, which are much richer in content and also more complete. Zhang Xiaoyu’s book is of course a good one,…
philosophy technology China book reading
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2021年8月9日
Can This Really Count as a General History? — The Publication of Extension of Man: A General History of Technology

Life & Notes2020.06.09
Can This Really Count as a General History? — The Publication of Extension of Man: A General History of Technology
This year I have at least two new books coming out, and the first to appear is Shanghai Education Press’s 人的延伸——技术通史, or The Extension of Man: A General History of Technology. This book was part of a writing plan I signed at the same time back when Outdated Wisdom was published, but I dragged my feet for three years before it finally saw the light of day this year. This book is still transitional in nature. I am writing a more substantial monograph on the history of technology, and if all goes well I should finish it early next year. The reason I brought out this miniature version of the…
history of technology Introduction to Philosophy of Technology General History of Technology Liu Huajie
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2020年6月9日
The “Atmosphere” of Online Teaching, or a New Paradigm

Culture & Public Commentary2020.04.18
The “Atmosphere” of Online Teaching, or a New Paradigm
Stage-by-Stage Reflections on Online Teaching The most unusual semester in years has already passed its halfway point in the blink of an eye. I have finished eight lectures of my course on the history of technology, and of course it has always been online. The reading group I host has naturally also shifted to an online mode; during winter break we had already launched a “cloud reading group,” meeting once before the semester began and then resuming once a week after classes started. The reading group is held through Zoom cloud video conferencing, while Tsinghua’s large lecture course (history of technology) is livestreamed simultaneously via Rain Classroom and Zoom cloud…
technology culture scholarship media
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2020年4月18日
Lecture Notes on the General History of Science 7: The Middle Ages and Christian Science

History of Science & Technology2015.04.17
Lecture Notes on the General History of Science 7: The Middle Ages and Christian Science
After finishing with the Arabs and China, let us return to the West and talk about medieval science. As for the Middle Ages, I was wondering whether I should spend two classes on them, because traditionally this period has been rather neglected; people probably know very little about it, yet in fact it is extremely important. To discuss why modern science did not arise in the Arab world or in China, on the one hand we have to talk about what was lacking in Arab and Chinese civilization, and on the other hand we must also make clear what medieval Europe actually had. In this lecture we will mainly talk…
history of science scholarship course education
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2015年4月17日
The Rationality of Whig History and the Possibility of an Anti-Whig Approach

Culture & Public Commentary2013.09.18
The Rationality of Whig History and the Possibility of an Anti-Whig Approach
In the first week of the Wendao seminar at Wu, junior brother Liu Renxiang, a promising new talent, took the initiative to give a talk on “The Poverty of Anti-Whiggish Historiography.” There were many discussions in class at the time, and I even went up to the podium to draw a diagram, but afterward I kept busy writing my travel notes on Mount Lu and preparing my own seminar report, so I never got around to writing anything down. Still, this topic is quite important, so I’m taking a little time now to add some thoughts. Just from the title of Liu Renxiang’s article, you can tell that the junior…
science history of science philosophy of science history
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2013年9月18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
Natural History as a Historiographical Program—Reflections on Liu Huajie’s Lecture

History of Science & Scholarship2010.11.12
Natural History as a Historiographical Program—Reflections on Liu Huajie’s Lecture
Just after finishing a paper arguing that “natural history” should be translated as 自然史, today happened to be the day when Professor Liu came to speak on natural history and its methods of historiography, so I might as well continue and write a couple more thoughts. Like historiographical programs such as Whig history, intellectual history, and social history, “natural history,” as a program of historiography, is a pun. On the one hand, “scientific natural history” can be read as some kind of “scientific chronicle” or “scientific record.” The feature of natural history lies in its emphasis on classificatory description, but not on temporal narration, especially not on constructing causal chains…
science historiography Liu Huajie printing
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2010年11月12日
zz Liu Suli: European Cafés—The Cradle of the Birth of Modern Society

Culture & Public Commentary2009.02.21
zz Liu Suli: European Cafés—The Cradle of the Birth of Modern Society
The Cradle of Modern Society http://dzb.sznews.com/szwb/content/2007-11/05/content_1628691.htm ■ Liu Suli (book reviewer, founder of Wangshang Bookstore, Beijing) *Looking at Europe from the Café*, by Yu Zemin, published by Shandong Pictorial Publishing House in October 2007. If you take the book in your hand and regard it only as a guide map to cafés, then you have made a 50 percent mistake; if you take it as an ordinary book for leisure and diversion, then you have made a further 25 percent mistake. To each his own. What I read in the book was this: the European café—the cradle of the birth of modern society. I do not need to repeat all…
culture book reading notes history
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2009年2月21日
[Archive] Keke Forum Lecture 64: How to Solve the Underdetermination Problem—A Case Study of Cushing’s Defense of Hidden Variables

Life & Notes2008.12.26
[Archive] Keke Forum Lecture 64: How to Solve the Underdetermination Problem—A Case Study of Cushing’s Defense of Hidden Variables
http://hps.phil.pku.edu.cn/bbs/read.php?tid=882 Time: Friday, December 26, 2008, 3:00–5:00 p.m. Place: Academic Lecture Hall, Center for Science and Society, Chengze Garden Speaker: Bai Tongdong, Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy, Xavier University, USA Topic: How to Solve the Underdetermination Problem—Using Cushing’s Defense of Hidden Variables as an Example Commentator: Liu Huajie Although I couldn’t really raise any questions, and Monday’s report can’t really continue along this line, today’s lecture was quite interesting. What I found interesting was not the topic itself, but rather the many inspirations that Professor Bai mentioned in passing during his talk. As for the topic, my reaction was rather like that of the journal office supporting orthodox quantum mechanics—although…
everyday life philosophy of science Liu Huajie determinism
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2008年12月26日