标签：philosophy

What Do the Mythic Theology, Civic Theology, and Natural Theology of Ancient Greece and Rome Refer To, and How Are They Related?

Culture & Public Commentary2006.10.29
What Do the Mythic Theology, Civic Theology, and Natural Theology of Ancient Greece and Rome Refer To, and How Are They Related?
宗教学导论第一次作业 What Do the Mythological Theology, Civic Theology, and Natural Theology of Ancient Greece and Rome Mean, and What Is Their Relationship? The Roman scholar Varro (Terentiu Varro) distinguished these three kinds of theology—that is, three different ways of explaining the gods: the mysterious (mythicon) (that is, the mythic (fabula)), the civic (civile), and the natural (physicon). Myth is directed toward the theater; it is the stories of the gods told in poetry. Civic theology is directed toward the city; it is the worship of the gods and the activities of festivals and celebrations. Natural theology, by contrast, is directed toward the world; it comes from philosophers’ rational reflections…
philosophy culture Aristotle religion
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2006年10月29日
Some Questions from the Classroom Discussion on “Studies of Globalization Issues”

Culture & Public Commentary2006.10.25
Some Questions from the Classroom Discussion on “Studies of Globalization Issues”
On the Question of Quoting Authorities I would never deny the importance of basic reading of the literature, and I certainly would not oppose making citations in an article; my own style of writing places quite a strong emphasis on quotation. But writing is one thing, discussion is another. At first I mistakenly thought that the text written in ZW’s class was aimed at our earlier discussion, and so I reacted with displeasure. If it was only written as a private note to himself, then of course there is no problem. In discussion, even in scholarly discussion, the ultimate purpose of citing the classics is either to explicate another person’s…
philosophy culture humanities
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2006年10月25日
From “Pursuit” to “Demand” — The Idea of “Truth, Goodness, and Beauty”

Philosophy & Thought2006.10.02
From “Pursuit” to “Demand” — The Idea of “Truth, Goodness, and Beauty”
“Truth, Goodness, and Beauty” have been themes of philosophy from antiquity to the present, but the meaning these three words have for people seems to have changed in certain ways. In the eyes of the ancients, “truth, goodness, and beauty” represented the highest “pursuits.” Just as philosophy is “the love of wisdom,” the pursuit of wisdom, people pursued “truth, goodness, and beauty,” regarding them as supreme ideals. For example, the question traditional ethics asks is: for the sake of “goodness,” what ought we to do? What kind of behavior is worthy of goodness? Modern so-called “normative ethics,” represented by utilitarianism, asks instead: for what purpose do we do good? For…
philosophy Aristotle pursuit truth
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2006年10月2日
The Philosophy of History Is Quite Interesting

Life & Notes2006.10.01
The Philosophy of History Is Quite Interesting
Inspired by an offhand suggestion from ZW, I thought of and chose the course “Popper’s Philosophy of History.” This course falls under the category of Marxist philosophy, but however the class may be taught, this topic is in itself well worth choosing for me. Popper is a very special philosopher. His primary identity is that of a philosopher of science, the founder of the so-called “falsificationism,” which is often paired with Kuhn’s historicism. He is also a liberal thinker of enormous influence, and moreover an important critic of Marx and Hegel. In philosophical circles, it would be more accurate to say that Popper is widely looked down upon than widely…
philosophy everyday life philosophy of science history
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2006年10月1日
Recent Life Jottings (October 1, 2006)

Life & Notes2006.10.01
Recent Life Jottings (October 1, 2006)
Some time ago I was living in a very abnormal way, wasting a long stretch of time again in games and cartoons. My grandfather’s death hit me very hard. It was the sort of blow that others could not see. Apart from choking up uncontrollably at his bedside when he passed away, I did not cry again when the coffin was laid out, and after I returned to school everything seemed normal. But at bedtime every night, and when I called home every week—only Grandma would answer the phone now; it could no longer be Grandpa… In the past, when I called Grandpa, I actually did not say much: ask…
philosophy everyday life Peking University psychology
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2006年10月1日
The Actual Effect of the Philosophy Popularization Display Boards

Life & Notes2006.09.17
The Actual Effect of the Philosophy Popularization Display Boards
Today, as soon as I got off the train in Beijing, I headed straight to the Ditan Book Fair. Going on a wild book-buying spree is the best way to brighten one’s mood; Sanlian Bookstore and many other academic presses were all at 50% off, so I bought a whole pile in one go…… And of course, while I was at it, I had to take a look at how the display boards I wrote had turned out. What I provided was the (original) text and the (excerpted from Philosophy Coffeehouse) illustrations; the boards were produced by the Beijing Philosophical Society and exhibited at Ditan in the Social Science Popularization…
philosophy everyday life sociology experts
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2006年9月17日
Selected Philosophical Aphorisms

Philosophy & Thought2006.09.02
Selected Philosophical Aphorisms
《蔡志忠哲理漫画》系列，三联书店 Montesquieu: Everyone has a sense of shyness! But one must know how to overcome it, and never abandon it. ////—To overcome it without abandoning it: nicely put. Pascal: It is no shame for a person to yield to pain; it is shameful to yield to pleasure. ////—Much admired. Pascal: Man’s greatness lies in the fact that humanity knows itself to be unhappy; a tree does not know itself to be unhappy. Thus, to know oneself unhappy is unhappiness, but man’s greatness lies precisely in knowing himself unhappy. Pascal: Man is like a reed, the most fragile thing in nature, yet a thinking reed. In the universe, anything can destroy…
philosophy book reading notes faith
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2006年9月2日
Draft Text for a Philosophy Popularization Display Board

Philosophy & Thought2006.08.29
Draft Text for a Philosophy Popularization Display Board
The images were too hard to match! I first rushed out a text draft: ten panels in all, each centered on a single “question.” Nearly five hundred Chinese characters, including three excerpts of philosophers’ own words. Doing academic work in Shanghai is really inconvenient. All my books are at school, and after several days of buying and borrowing books I didn’t gain much. With resources this scarce, this is about as far as I can get. Draft Text for Philosophy Popularization Display Panels Xingding published on 2006-08-29 03:52:57 1. What is philosophy? “What is philosophy?” This is precisely the most fascinating, and most bewildering, question in philosophy. Like philosophy’s many…
philosophy Aristotle Marx Plato
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2006年8月29日
The Mathematical Roots of Postmodern Thought

History of Science & Scholarship2006.08.25
The Mathematical Roots of Postmodern Thought
[Addendum] Vladimir Tasic: _The Mathematical Roots of Postmodern Thought_, translated by Cai Zhong and Dai Jianping, Fudan University Press, October 2005 Page 5: I think we can subdivide the theoretical edifice of postmodernism. First, one may regard postmodernism as influenced by Romanticism, as a revival—or, to use slightly different terminology, a reinvention—of the ideas of those mathematicians who once challenged logical inductivism; second, one may regard postmodernism as an extreme departure from Romantic humanism, a departure whose roots can in part be traced back to mathematics, and whose postmodern version has become a rather extreme form of formalism. ////——Tasic’s perspective is highly distinctive. Indeed, whenever philosophy discovers that something has…
philosophy book reading notes mathematics
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2006年8月25日
Do Not Forget Popularization

Life & Notes2006.08.25
Do Not Forget Popularization
Whether in philosophy or in science, “popularization” is needed—that is to say, the public outside the field needs to be brought to some degree of understanding in some way. Most people would agree with this; the question is only—who should popularize, to whom should it be popularized, in what way, how should the effects of popularization be defined, and so on. In modern times, learning has become increasingly specialized, increasingly profound, and thus increasingly distant from the grasp of ordinary people. In such circumstances, “popularization” instead appears ever more important. But the current state of popularization is worrying. Looking at science popularization: in fact, modern times can be said to…
philosophy everyday life scholarship science communication
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2006年8月25日