标签：paper

Was Heidegger a Technological Pessimist?

History of Science & Scholarship2011.08.19
Was Heidegger a Technological Pessimist?
This article is a rewriting based on the earlier Heidegger’s Thinking on Technology. In fact, very little was changed, but after changing the title it suddenly became much more to the point and more complete. What I presented at this year’s Yangma Island conference was this very article, so before posting the conference record, let me post this article first. Is Heidegger a Technological Pessimist? Hu Yilin, Department of Philosophy, Peking University Abstract: Heidegger’s philosophy of technology is often described as a typical kind of pessimism. Starting from the question of whether Heidegger is in fact a technological pessimist, this article selectively expounds Heidegger’s analysis of modern…
philosophy technology Heidegger Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
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2011年8月19日
The Blind Spots of Modern Medicine as Seen from “Double-Blind Experiments”

History of Science & Scholarship2010.12.30
The Blind Spots of Modern Medicine as Seen from “Double-Blind Experiments”
Is medicine a science? The usual answer is yes, or at least that “medicine is not merely a science,” but in any case, one believes that medicine is first of all a science, or at least “scientific.” Like other modern sciences, the “scientificness” of medicine is embodied in its goals and methods: the goal of science is to reveal the (natural, reductionist) causes and laws of things; the method of science is quantitative and experimental. The scientificness of modern medicine is first grounded in biology and physiology. But even the most stubborn reductionists will admit that medicine is not physiology, and that besides studying physiological phenomena, the basic theme…
culture science history of science philosophy of science
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2010年12月30日
“Natural History” Should Be Translated as “Natural History”

History of Science & Scholarship2010.11.07
“Natural History” Should Be Translated as “Natural History”
Natural history is generally translated as “博物学” (bowuxue, “studies of things”). In the Western tradition, natural history stands in opposition to natural philosophy, representing a way of studying nature that emphasizes observation, recording, and classification rather than reasoning or experiment. In the Chinese tradition, by contrast, though we lack a tradition of natural philosophy, we do have a developed tradition of “博物学.” But did ancient China really have a so-called tradition of bowuxue corresponding to Western natural history? Is it really appropriate to translate natural history as bowuxue? I have always been skeptical. In this article, I will revisit this translation, trace the similarities and differences between Chinese and Western…
history of science history paper natural history
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2010年11月7日
Theses on Media Ontology

History of Science & Scholarship2010.08.09
Theses on Media Ontology
Abstract: As a philosophical program, media ontology points to a new philosophical line of thought whose origins lie in traditions associated with thinkers such as Heidegger and McLuhan. Media ontology develops its thinking around the everyday meaning of the concept of media, but it seeks to go beyond the everyday understanding of media as a neutral conduit for transmitting messages. Media, as the “extension of man,” also prompts us to rethink media as a way of understanding human nature. Media ontology implies an anthropology that transcends traditional dualism, and it is both a continuation and a surpassing of the Western classical philosophical tradition. Modern philosophy “discovered media,” but media ontology…
philosophy media Heidegger phenomenology
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2010年8月9日
A Preliminary Exploration of Heidegger’s Media Ontology

History of Science & Scholarship2010.05.11
A Preliminary Exploration of Heidegger’s Media Ontology
I’ve once again squeezed this out at the very last moment… abstract and table of contents still pending… A Preliminary Inquiry into Heidegger’s Media Ontology 1 When Heidegger’s philosophy of technology is mentioned, what often comes first to mind is Heidegger’s late “question concerning technology,” the thought of technology as revealing, as a mode in which truth happens, as the consummated form of metaphysics, as well as propositions such as the fourfold of earth and sky, mortals and divinities, and poetic dwelling. Technology is unquestionably a keyword of Heidegger’s late thought. Yet the crucial significance of the technological question in Heidegger’s thought, and Heidegger’s important status as a philosopher of…
media Heidegger phenomenology paper
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2010年5月11日
The Debate between Science and Metaphysics in Educational Modernization: The Case of Zhang Junmai

Enlightenment & the Spirit of Freedom2009.12.30
The Debate between Science and Metaphysics in Educational Modernization: The Case of Zhang Junmai
【Abstract】To define the “Science-CXuan debate” in China’s modernization process as either a dispute between the ancient and the modern, or between East and West, misses the point. The Science-CXuan debate reflects a certain tension internal to the process of modernization itself. What the Xuanxue faction, represented by Zhang Junmai, was proposing was precisely the demand of modernization, or “enlightenment.” At the core of enlightenment lies the education of national character, the cultivation of a free will. What Zhang Junmai was concerned with was not whether science could explain a worldview, but how to cultivate and establish a new worldview. And the establishment of a new worldview, or a new culture,…
China education paper human nature
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2009年12月30日
Media · Sensation · Space-Time — A Preliminary Inquiry into McLuhan’s Media Ontology

History of Science & Scholarship2009.11.08
Media · Sensation · Space-Time — A Preliminary Inquiry into McLuhan’s Media Ontology
Although I’m said to write articles very quickly, that quickness has conditions: that is to say, only after I’ve dawdled and dawdled and dawdled until the very last moment can I possibly squeeze out a paper at lightning speed…… This time I’ve finally squeezed it out again at the last possible moment; as for how effective it is…… well…… I don’t care anymore…… entering dead-pig-doesn’t-fear-boiling-water mode…… Media•Sensation•Space-Time ——A Preliminary Inquiry into McLuhan’s Media Ontology Abstract: The basic position or method of McLuhan’s media theory can appropriately be called “media ontology.” In McLuhan’s view, media are not neutral channels for the transmission of information between subjects, or between subject and object;…
media Heidegger paper McLuhan
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2009年11月8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 Heidegger Aristotle paper
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2009年6月17日
How Is Scientific Realism Possible?

History of Science & Scholarship2009.01.10
How Is Scientific Realism Possible?
Although every paper I write leaves me feeling revolted and miserable, it has been a long time since a paper made me this uncomfortable. After finishing it, I barely even read through it once before hastily printing it out and rushing to school to hand it in. The process of composing this paper was especially unpleasant too—I did read a lot of books: Quine, Dummett, Goodman, Putnam… all sorts of textbooks and handbooks on philosophy of science, metaphysics, epistemology… of course, all in Chinese translation. You ask why I still didn’t look for English materials? First, there wasn’t enough time; second, I really didn’t want to read them. I found…
history of science philosophy of science paper truth
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2009年1月10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 Galileo
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2008年12月12日