标签：philosophy

Summary of the Introduction to Philosophy of Technology Course (Fall Semester 2022–23)

Teaching & Courses2023.04.05
Summary of the Introduction to Philosophy of Technology Course (Fall Semester 2022–23)
Because last semester’s final assignment was not due until the beginning of this semester, and after the term started I was, on the one hand, busy with all sorts of pointless odds and ends, while on the other hand I ran straight into allergy season. Every spring my allergies torment me half to death, and this year was no exception; when my rhinitis flares up I can do absolutely nothing. In short, I dawdled and dawdled until now before finally writing this summary. “Introduction to Philosophy of Technology” is an old course. I taught two rounds of it in the autumn of 2018 and the autumn of 2019 (see the…
philosophy technology course Heidegger
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2023年4月5日
NFT Value Viewed Through The Philosophy of Money

Philosophy & Thought2023.01.03
NFT Value Viewed Through The Philosophy of Money
This article was published in China Book Review. For reprints, please contact the magazine. Citation format as follows: Hu Yilin.The Value of NFT from the Perspective of The Philosophy of Money[J]. China Book Review, 2022(12):7-17 Introduction: Simmel’s The Philosophy of Money elaborates a relativist version of Kantian transcendental philosophy, explaining the origin of value through “distanciation” and the formation of objectivity through exchange activity. Simmel criticizes the modern monetary economy for inverting means and ends, severing property possession from the freedom of the subject. Seen from Simmel’s perspective, cryptocurrencies or NFTs, supported by blockchain, seem to contain certain opportunities to help people reshape their values, prompting them to recall the…
philosophy technology Web3 Heidegger
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2023年1月3日
“Selected Readings in Original Works of Philosophy of Technology” Course Summary for 2022

Teaching & Courses2022.07.12
“Selected Readings in Original Works of Philosophy of Technology” Course Summary for 2022
The courses I teach are mainly undergraduate general-education courses, and among graduate courses, this reading course is basically the only one I still have now. This is the second run of this course that I’ve taught. I don’t seem to have written a summary after the first run either, probably because there was no exam component then, so there was nothing to comment on. As for the course content, it was just reading, so there wasn’t much to summarize anyway. But in this run I added an exam component, so it became necessary to write a set of comments. This course itself is taught in a fairly lazy way: I…
philosophy course Heidegger Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
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2022年7月12日
In Memory of Master Xianglong

Life & Notes2022.06.09
In Memory of Master Xianglong
Teacher Zhang Xianglong passed away yesterday… I was fortunate, as an undergraduate, to sit in on his introductory philosophy course, and later I also had quite a bit of academic and personal contact with him. I always got used to calling him Master Xianglong, because he was the first person who made me feel what the bearing of a master was really like: truly bringing together Chinese, Western, and Indian thought, and making one feel the profundity and richness of thought. Although Master Xianglong’s thought leaned toward antiquity, his horizon was broad and he kept up with the cutting edge. He insisted on reading the latest technology magazines, and when…
philosophy everyday life China Confucianism
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2022年6月9日
Commentary on the Autumn 2021 Final Exam for A General History of Technology and Showcase of Outstanding Answer Papers

Teaching & Courses2022.01.18
Commentary on the Autumn 2021 Final Exam for A General History of Technology and Showcase of Outstanding Answer Papers
As usual, every course needs a closing summary. This time, the summary of A General History of Technology will be in two parts: for now I’m posting the commentary on the final exam, and in the next post I’ll summarize the student questionnaire and think through possible plans for improving the course in the future. Note: This was an online open-book exam, two hours long, with books and computers allowed, and with internet access for searching materials. The exam consisted of 7 open-ended essay questions. Each examinee chose any 3 to answer, with 100 points for each question, and the final exam score was the average of the three questions….
philosophy technology course Aristotle
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2022年1月18日
A Guide to Understanding Media: Means Are the Measure

AI & the Future of Technology2022.01.17
A Guide to Understanding Media: Means Are the Measure
This was a lecture program I recorded at Super Star half a year ago; a cut version can be found here https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1W34y1z7QD?from=search&seid=5300241720853418317&spm_id_from=333.337.0.0. The full version is probably on Super Star. The transcript of this lecture was handed to Li Shi for revision and enrichment, and was rewritten into a book review published in issue 10 of Chinese Media Technology in 2021, titled “Embracing McLuhan in Fragments—A New Perspective on Reading Understanding Media.” Here I’m posting the original spoken version of the script. McLuhan is an oddity in the history of scholarship: it is hard to categorize what sort of “-ist” he actually was. Naturally, when that happens, we generally just…
philosophy technology book reading media
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2022年1月17日
Basic Skills in Studying Philosophy: Avoid Reifying Abstract Entities, Resist the Universalization of Holism

History of Science & Scholarship2021.10.30
Basic Skills in Studying Philosophy: Avoid Reifying Abstract Entities, Resist the Universalization of Holism
Recently I have been supervising students’ thesis proposals, and I have had a lot of thoughts. In fact, I have always hoped that students would do history rather than philosophy, because then my supervision would be a bit easier. Doing history requires inspiration and thought, but more important is steady, painstaking labor: I give some broad conceptual inspiration and advice, and then the student just buries their head in the books. But if students want to do philosophy, then I get a headache, because philosophy is the easiest thing to fake and the hardest thing to fool. If you run into a teacher who is happy to look the other…
philosophy scholarship Marx God's-eye view
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2021年10月30日
In an increasingly impossible-to-take-seriously world, an earnest run-in with JD.com customer service

Life & Notes2021.09.16
In an increasingly impossible-to-take-seriously world, an earnest run-in with JD.com customer service
My most recent after-sales experience on JD was extremely poor. In fact, the matter was very simple: I returned the item, but they still shipped it; when it came time to refund me, they also wanted me to bear the shipping fee. After I filed a transaction dispute, JD did nothing, and the merchant impersonated JD customer service and called to say that a refund was possible. Right up until the end, JD still refused to give me a simple ruling, and instead defined my behavior as “refusal without reason.” To be a bit more detailed: I bought something, and when the expected delivery time had passed I saw that…
philosophy everyday life modernity responsibility
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2021年9月16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
A Course Summary on Media History and Media Philosophy (Spring 2021)

Teaching & Courses2021.07.16
A Course Summary on Media History and Media Philosophy (Spring 2021)
This is a new course, though not all of its content is actually new; some of it has “overflowed” from my two other courses, “A General History of Technology” and “Introduction to the Philosophy of Technology.” Since I keep adding content to both of those courses, I plan to transfer the sections on media technologies in “A General History of Technology” (including writing, printing, the telegraph, and so on) to this course. Of course, in the new course I will give more prominence to the relevant philosophical reflections, with both history and philosophy in view. As usual, I am writing up a course summary. I’ll make this first one a…
philosophy media course history of technology
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2021年7月16日