标签：scholarship

When Reading a Philosopher, One Must Pay Attention Not Only to What He Says on the Surface, but Also to the Emotions and Intentions Lurking Behind His Words.

History of Science & Scholarship2009.06.19
When Reading a Philosopher, One Must Pay Attention Not Only to What He Says on the Surface, but Also to the Emotions and Intentions Lurking Behind His Words.
When reading a philosopher, one must pay attention not only to what he says literally, but also to the emotions and intentions lurking behind his words. This is where the key and the pleasure of interpreting philosophical texts lie. Of course, if we are to interpret a text by means of the text itself, extracting what the philosopher said is only the most elementary procedure. But if your interpretation is merely a straightforward paraphrase of the philosopher’s views, then what is the point of such an interpretation anyway?—and by “point” I always mean both “meaning” and “interest.” If you can express a philosopher’s thought in a more concise and lucid…
philosophy scholarship Aristotle intentionality
阅读全文

2009年6月19日
Notes from Today’s New Island Salon, 09-05-30 [and a Preview of the Next Round of Salons]

Life & Notes2009.05.30
Notes from Today’s New Island Salon, 09-05-30 [and a Preview of the Next Round of Salons]
Unexpectedly, quite a few people came today, especially since someone surnamed Li happened to be passing by on the way, which made me very pleased… I’m thinking about the form of the forum next semester. In addition to keeping its current openness and spontaneity, I also want to add some more proactively organized activities, such as reading groups and regular presentations. For some reasons, I feel that perhaps the regular-presentation format is more suitable. Of course, a reading group might also be organized at the same time, but the latter requires some fixed members with particular strengths in order to function well, whereas the former is comparatively more flexible and…
everyday life book reading scholarship blog
阅读全文

2009年5月30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
阅读全文

2009年5月24日
Today’s Xindao Salon Jottings 09-05-16

Life & Notes2009.05.16
Today’s Xindao Salon Jottings 09-05-16
With finals approaching, maybe this was a dying flash of the setting sun? This issue of New Island saw an astonishing number of people showing up, especially those rare and hard-to-see exotic beasts, including four old-timers I had summoned, as well as Senior Brother Botian, who parachuted in on his own! Originally I had pulled those folks together for lunch; as it happened, there are usually no outsiders around before and after noon, which gave the old-timers plenty of room to let loose. Who would have thought that a certain group of people wouldn’t show up for lunch until around half past one or two o’clock = =||| In the…
everyday life China scholarship blog
阅读全文

2009年5月16日
Miscellaneous Notes from Today’s Xindao Salon 09-04-25

Life & Notes2009.04.25
Miscellaneous Notes from Today’s Xindao Salon 09-04-25
Given that not many people came today and I’ve had a pretty heavy load these past two days = =, I won’t write much…… In the afternoon and evening, one person came each time, but the exchanges both seemed to feel pretty good. In the afternoon we discussed political philosophy, and in the evening we talked about aesthetics—both fields where I am extremely weak and am just about to start wading into, so what I said seemed rather superficial, but by and large the direction was still fairly on target, right? I’ll keep honing myself slowly…… Spotted here today: dr/xxj Next time I’ll try to proactively drag in a few…
philosophy everyday life scholarship politics
阅读全文

2009年4月25日
On How to Write a Book Report

History of Science & Scholarship2009.04.03
On How to Write a Book Report
Today someone asked me over QQ about the “format” of a reading report, and someone else on the department forum raised the same question too. I happened to say a few words about my personal view, so I’m reposting it here: —————————————————— When you quote something, cite the source. Don’t think too much about the rest. This is not writing in an ossified eight-part style; the form of the essay is flexible. Sort out your thinking in whatever way seems clearest and most straightforward to you, and it is best to have a clear thread. A reading report does not necessarily have to summarize every single point in the original…
scholarship writing reading
阅读全文

2009年4月3日
New Island Dialogues, Zero: Cafés and Scholarship

History of Science & Scholarship2009.03.07
New Island Dialogues, Zero: Cafés and Scholarship
A Niu: Hello, everyone! Thank you for coming to open my event. Xiaoming: Hello, Senior Brother Niu! A Niu: Hmm… what should we talk about? … Let me start by asking about your purpose for coming—what exactly were your intentions or thoughts in coming here to look for me? Xiaoming: Ah, actually I still haven’t figured out what kind of event this is. I just heard that, in legend, Senior Brother Niu was here, so I specially came to pay my respects… A Niu: How polite. It would be better to say you came to visit. I feel a bit like an absurdly ugly wild buffalo in a zoo—nothing much…
philosophy scholarship Aristotle discussion
阅读全文

2009年3月7日
How Do I Read?

History of Science & Scholarship2009.01.21
How Do I Read?
About reading and writing, I said earlier that these two activities alternate in a cycle and become my mode of thinking: thought begins in reading and comes to a pause in writing. But that is too general a way of putting it, so the essay “The writer, one who pours forth” described my style of writing, and the more recent “How I choke out a paper” added a discussion of the specific mode of writing called paper-writing. Now, if I add a note on my method of reading, the picture is even more complete. Still the old saying: my style is not worth boasting about, much less imitating. In particular,…
philosophy culture scholarship writing
阅读全文

2009年1月21日
Four Readings of “Scholarship”

History of Science & Scholarship2009.01.18
Four Readings of “Scholarship”
The people who claim to be walking the path of “academia” often take very different routes. Although, in the final analysis, each person’s path is unique, still, in broad and rough terms, there are probably the following four ways of understanding the word “academia.” Of course, a given person may fall somewhere between several paths, but the general direction is probably these four. The first kind of “academia” I call “the power of the academy,” though that sounds somewhat unsavory. Yet this is indeed the path taken by most so-called “scholars.” What they seek is not their own growth, but labels such as titles, ranks, and authority; the only difference…
philosophy scholarship Peking University art
阅读全文

2009年1月18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
阅读全文

2009年1月15日