标签：scholarship

My Qualification to Recruit PhD Students Was Revoked (with an Attached Record of Communication with Prospective Applicants)

History of Science & Scholarship2019.08.24
My Qualification to Recruit PhD Students Was Revoked (with an Attached Record of Communication with Prospective Applicants)
Today, just as doctoral applications were opening at Tsinghua University, I only learned of the bad news from a student’s reminder: Tsinghua University had suddenly changed its policy again and taken back the admissions rights of assistant professors and pre-tenure associate professors. In other words, at least for these next two years, I won’t be able to take students—unless I wait until I’ve slogged my way into a tenured position…… As for the policy change, I don’t want to comment too much. In fact, the overexpansion of doctoral admissions really is not a good thing, and there is reason to tighten it. But to announce the change only at this…
scholarship history of technology autobiography admissions
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2019年8月24日
Course Summary for “A General History of Technology” (Second Year)

Teaching & Courses2019.07.13
Course Summary for “A General History of Technology” (Second Year)
The course “A General History of Technology” was already taught once last year, and I had already written a detailed course summary at the time (see here). This semester the second run has just ended, and one could say that the course has gradually entered the right track. At the end of the first year, 29 students had enrolled; this year, after withdrawals were deducted, there were 69 students. It has finally grown somewhat larger. I hope the students will tell ten people, ten people will tell a hundred, and that next year the number of enrollments will rise again~ Final Exam Let me begin with the final exam….
history of science scholarship course General History of Technology
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2019年7月13日
Personality Philosophy vs. Propositional Philosophy: On the Inevitability of the Decline of Continental Philosophy and the Immortality of Its Significance

History of Science & Scholarship2019.04.20
Personality Philosophy vs. Propositional Philosophy: On the Inevitability of the Decline of Continental Philosophy and the Immortality of Its Significance
I had mentioned this in passing on Weibo before, and because it was rather short, I didn’t plan to put it on the blog. Yesterday, at the small reading group, this question came up again, and after thinking it over I decided to post it after all, since it is ultimately a question about the basic orientation of philosophy. Byzantines Should Regard Themselves as Romans As a student of Wu, my philosophical position is of course inclined toward continental phenomenology, but in fact I am not very willing to call myself a phenomenologist or a continental philosopher. It is much like how, after the division of the Eastern and Western…
philosophy scholarship media philosophy of science
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2019年4月20日
From Melamine to Thesis Plagiarism Checks: A Completely Meaningless Detection-and-Evasion Battle

Culture & Public Commentary2019.02.15
From Melamine to Thesis Plagiarism Checks: A Completely Meaningless Detection-and-Evasion Battle
An impromptu submission to Jiemian; I finished writing it at noon and it went up in the afternoon~ The recent Zhai Tianlin incident made “CNKI” and its plagiarism-checking technology quite the sensation. Netizens spontaneously helped run plagiarism checks on Zhai Tianlin’s paper and found the rate of duplication to be as high as 40%, causing his image as a top student to collapse. I’m not particularly interested in Zhai Tianlin’s image crisis; I’m more inclined to hitch a ride on the hot topic and talk about my own views on plagiarism-checking technology for theses. Plagiarism checking has been popular for many years now. I have always taken a critical and…
technology China scholarship commentary
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2019年2月15日
A Compilation of Feedback on the Homework for Introduction to Philosophy of Technology

Teaching & Courses2019.01.28
A Compilation of Feedback on the Homework for Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
After grading the final papers, the semester is finally over. This semester’s *Introduction to the Philosophy of Technology* was a brand-new course, and over the next two years it will probably be offered alternately with *A General History of Technology*. I’ll write a separate course summary a bit later. For now, let me first gather together the comments I gave on the assignments. In fact, ever since I started teaching I’ve always insisted on giving students written feedback on their papers, but why did I want to post it this time? On the one hand, I wanted to blow my own horn a bit. Some students said that there really…
philosophy scholarship course Introduction to Philosophy of Technology
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2019年1月28日
On Shanzhai: On the Advantages of Being a Latecomer

AI & the Future of Technology2018.08.07
On Shanzhai: On the Advantages of Being a Latecomer
Recently, Pinduoduo, which bills itself as a platform for “consumption downgrading,” went public and stirred up plenty of controversy; I also said a few things on Weibo. It is not the case that anything with market demand is worth doing. For example, what is equally hard for city people to understand is that in China there are widespread customs such as abandoning baby girls and trafficking in people. Should there then be an app for human trafficking to serve them? If this app were hugely popular, should we then educate those city people who are thunderstruck that you just don’t understand China? Nonsense! Everyone knows that the lower strata of…
technology China scholarship commentary
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2018年8月7日
Course Summary for “A General History of Technology” (Student Comments and Summaries of Each Lecture)

AI & the Future of Technology2018.07.09
Course Summary for “A General History of Technology” (Student Comments and Summaries of Each Lecture)
The grades for the course have come out, and the first round of this course is now more or less a complete success. As for grading, I gave about half the students an A- or above, far exceeding the university’s recommended standard of 20%; I added an extra note and hope the university will approve it. At the same time, the number of students who failed because of plagiarism reached five, also beyond the recommended limit. But all of this was according to my own standards: giving high grades was not to curry favor with students, and failing students was not to make things difficult for them. My course also…
philosophy technology history of science scholarship
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2018年7月9日
On Plagiarism (A Zero Without Appeal and Unsparing Mockery)

History of Science & Scholarship2018.06.30
On Plagiarism (A Zero Without Appeal and Unsparing Mockery)
The deadline for submitting assignments for the History of Technology survey course has now passed. Although I had already previously talked about plagiarism, it still wasn’t enough, so I’m posting a special article here to explain the matter and to lay down rules for how I will deal with plagiarism in the future. This time there were 29 students in the course altogether. One student withdrew from the class (not taking the exam and not submitting the assignment), so the actual number was 28. Looking at their midterm assignments now, I found a total of 5 plagiarized pieces! That’s almost one-fifth! Of course, among them were 2 international students (though…
China scholarship course paper
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2018年6月30日
The Spirit of Science: Struggle or Harmony?

History of Science & Scholarship2018.06.20
The Spirit of Science: Struggle or Harmony?
This one was also commissioned, but it seems it was never published. It began because an editor at a newspaper or magazine wanted to put together a special issue on the scientific spirit and hoped to commission some related articles. The various keywords she gave included: tireless effort, fearless before power, daring to question, breaking through old prejudices, indifferent to fame and fortune, content with loneliness, even sacrifice of one’s life…… I disliked every single one of those words, so I proposed that these ideas were too cliché and too naïve. If we were going to talk about “the scientific spirit,” why not turn things around and talk about chasing…
science history of science scholarship scientific spirit
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2018年6月20日
Final Exam Paper for General History of Technology

Teaching & Courses2018.06.12
Final Exam Paper for General History of Technology
Notes As I said before, the final exam is “completely open-book,” and you may bring electronic devices to search the internet. The “attendance questions” are also my own new idea, something I wanted to try while the class size was still small. Why set attendance questions? I think students who take a course can roughly be divided into three broad types: first, those who are habitually diligent and honest, who will keep coming no matter whether the teacher’s lectures are good or bad; second, those who are habitually coasting, who will almost never come no matter whether the teacher’s lectures are good or bad; and third, those who are free-spirited…
scholarship course paper writing
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2018年6月12日