Suixuan

标签：Plato

  • Draft Text for a Philosophy Popularization Display Board

    Philosophy & Thought

    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…

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  • We Should Not Deny the Progress of Science

    History of Science & Scholarship

    We Should Not Deny the Progress of Science

    I have by now basically established my position of pluralism, or, perhaps better put, moderate relativism; the best term for it may be perspectivism. However, just as in environmental ethics “misanthropes” are by no means any lovelier than “anthropocentrists,” relativists in the philosophy of science, if they go too far, are in my eyes even less lovable than dogmatic scientism. Some of the more militant forms of relativism even go so far as to deny scientific progress. In their eyes, science merely keeps jumping back and forth among incommensurable paradigms, and it is impossible to say whether it is approaching truth or not; thus it is also hard to say…

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  • From Afar It Looks Like Art, Up Close It Looks Like Religion

    History of Science & Scholarship

    From Afar It Looks Like Art, Up Close It Looks Like Religion

    There is a philosophical system like this: its grandeur and self-consistency are unparalleled, and not only can it effectively explain the world, it can also significantly transform the world; seen up close, it is founded on the most devout and the purest religious sentiments; seen from farther away, it displays a beauty even more profound and harmonious than any painting or music…… Can you guess what I’m talking about~? June 9, 2006 Piaotuo Cafe Latest Comments zxr 2006-06-17 02:01:27  Science zxr 2006-06-17 02:02:01  What else could it be kaikair 2006-07-13 10:42:18 http://www.magicofsarah.com  human civilization itself unic 2006-12-31 23:55:06 I know now, it’s love. I’ve thought of The Art of Loving…

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  • Plato’s Café

    Life & Notes

    Plato’s Café

    Lately I’ve been haunting Plato Cafe quite often.   It’s a newly opened cafe, next to Wan Sheng Bookstore, on the same floor as Bifengtang.   This is a rather unusual coffee shop. To be honest, I’m really worried it won’t be able to stay open. I come here often precisely because of how empty it is—such a sharp contrast to the Bifengtang next door!   What does it feel like to walk into Plato Cafe? Hmm… strange… really… it’s almost like a study room in a library! Besides the arrangement of the tables and chairs and the bright lighting, there’s even a whole wall of books here! There’s also…

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  • Ancient Greek Natural Philosophy and the Scientific Spirit

    History of Science & Scholarship

    Ancient Greek Natural Philosophy and the Scientific Spirit

    It is generally believed that the beginning of modern natural science lies in the natural philosophy of ancient Greece, and that the rational spirit of Greek philosophy made science possible. So what, exactly, was distinctive about the speculative reason of the ancient Greek philosophers? And what significance does tracing those features have for the development of modern science? The specialist in the history of ancient science, Professor Lloyd, believes that the two important characteristics that make ancient Greek natural philosophy unique are “the discovery of nature” and “rational critical and debating activity.”[1] By “the discovery of nature,” Lloyd means “learning to distinguish ‘nature’ from ‘the supernatural,’” recognizing that natural phenomena…

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  • G. E. R. Lloyd: Early Greek Science—From Thales to Aristotle

    Philosophy & Thought

    G. E. R. Lloyd: Early Greek Science—From Thales to Aristotle

    G·E·R·Lloyd: Early Greek Science—From Thales to Aristotle, translated by Sun Xiaochun, Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press, December 2004 pp. 62–63 Even so, one fundamental difference did in fact set most medical writers apart from philosophers, and this difference lay not in the kinds of theories they proposed, nor in the methods they used, but in the different motives behind their investigations. ………… Unlike philosophers, doctors ultimately had a practical goal before them, as the author of On Ancient Medicine says: medicine is a craft, and practitioners vary in their skill. The final aim in doctors’ minds was in fact to cure illness. p. 121 As I said at the…

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