标签：philosophy of science

On the Intrinsic Reasons for the Integration of the Mathematical-Traditional and Experimental Traditions

History of Science & Scholarship2009.12.28
On the Intrinsic Reasons for the Integration of the Mathematical-Traditional and Experimental Traditions
Sender: EPR (Gu Bu | JOKER | Pingtian Dasheng | the homebody who wants to become the Pirate King), Board: KXTS标　 Subject: My own conjecture about the second essay question Posting site: Peking University Weiming BBS (2009-12-28 22:20:24, Monday), internal message This year’s short-answer questions were relatively easy. The first essay question was a homework problem from previous years, and the third homework question was fairly open-ended. Only the second question was especially difficult; I was completely stumped by it at first. Still, it is quite interesting. Although I didn’t set the question, I also want to try to guess at a possible line of thought. First, the question asks…
science philosophy of science Scientific Revolution knowledge
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2009年12月28日
Notes from Today’s Xindao Salon, 09-10-10 [Part 1 of the Special Topic on “Science and the View of Life”]

Life & Notes2009.10.11
Notes from Today’s Xindao Salon, 09-10-10 [Part 1 of the Special Topic on “Science and the View of Life”]
One of the themes in Science and View of Life Today’s plan was to kick off the activities of the “Science and View of Life” discussion group. Yesterday I sent a mass email to the students who had signed up with me for the group, saying that they were welcome to drop by my salon today for an informal chat. Although I had not set my expectations very high, I had still hoped that at least two or three of the twelve would come, so that there would be something to discuss. The result was regrettable: only Xiao Zhou showed up. Although Xiao Zhou was a newcomer, visiting the salon…
philosophy everyday life philosophy of science blog
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2009年10月11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 Aristotle Heidegger paper
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2009年6月17日
Notes from the New Island Salon, 09-05-23

Life & Notes2009.05.24
Notes from the New Island Salon, 09-05-23
今天……就我一个人…… Looks like this semester’s salon is getting ready to wrap up… though maybe we can still hope for a few people during those two weeks after everyone’s exams and before they go home on vacation? Anyway, if nobody comes, that’s perfect—I can use the time to study…… Today, thanks to the fact that nobody came, I finally got started on the translation assignment for the original-text course in sociology of science. The article by Winner that I chose, “Do Artifacts Have Politics?” had two ready-made Chinese translations available for me to consult (I really wasn’t choosing it on purpose): one was the published translation in the *Classic Reader on…
everyday life scholarship philosophy of science translation
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2009年5月24日
Latour: Drawing Things Together Class Report

History of Science & Scholarship2009.04.28
Latour: Drawing Things Together Class Report
Postscript: The report’s effect should not count as bad, and it also received Teacher Ren’s highest praise. Still, I feel that many things were not explained clearly, because I myself was only able to read this article through after reading Science in Action. However, since the issues discussed in this article are not the same as those in Science in Action in terms of emphasis, when explaining this article it was very hard to weave in material from Science in Action and similar books. I tried to introduce some of it, but the result may not have been very good: on the one hand, a few words do not make…
book reading science notes history of science
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2009年4月28日
The Structure of a Pirate Ship

Life & Notes2009.01.15
The Structure of a Pirate Ship
Noolat has a famous metaphor, roughly to the effect that science is like a ship sailing on the boundless sea: if something goes wrong, people can only repair it with whatever is on hand, or with things that can be salvaged from the sea. You might say it would be better to dismantle the ship and rebuild it from scratch, but the problem is that in this boundless sea the ship is our foothold; we can only keep sailing while repairing it. This metaphor is a good one; however, what those philosophers of science have not sufficiently noticed is that science is not an isolated, freely drifting thing in human…
technology scholarship philosophy of science autobiography
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2009年1月15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
Why Do You Read or Not Read My Articles?

Site Matters2009.01.04
Why Do You Read or Not Read My Articles?
Those who do not read my blog out of contempt or disdain are people I respect quite a lot. Indeed, there are so many things worth reading, in China and abroad, past and present, that one lifetime would not be enough to get through them all—so why insist on reading my blog? Although I believe that one day my writing may well become a classic, it is certainly not now. So the people who look down on me are right. If my blog is worth reading right now, that is only on the basis of the following fact—I am alive! And I am right here within your reach, opening my…
philosophy philosophy of science blog website
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2009年1月4日
Classroom Presentation Script on Realism and Anti-Realism

History of Science & Scholarship2008.12.28
Classroom Presentation Script on Realism and Anti-Realism
Realism can be said to be one of the major questions in the history of science and a problem that reaches far back and ramifies widely. It can at least be traced to the dispute between Plato and Aristotle, and it was also one of the main topics of medieval scholastic philosophy. In contemporary philosophy of science, as well as in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and so on, realism is also an inescapable theme. The definition of realism and anti-realism is likewise highly uncertain. What counts as realism from one angle may count as anti-realism from another. The treatment of realism in this material is rather…
science philosophy of science Aristotle truth
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2008年12月28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 quantum mechanics
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2008年12月26日