标签：self

Toys, Mirrors, and Art (Reflections on a Seminar and a Preview)

AI & the Future of Technology2013.09.24
Toys, Mirrors, and Art (Reflections on a Seminar and a Preview)
Today’s seminar featured, in addition to the originally scheduled report by Zhe Ran, another report volunteered by Jing Qi, who commented on Wu Ningning’s “Hansen’s Mirror.” Since I had also, in my Lushan Conference Travelogue, offered some elaborations on Wu Ningning’s research, I brought my own elaborations into the seminar as well for discussion. Jing Qi’s presentations have been improving more and more. I used to criticize him all the time for using too much jargon, but that has gradually changed quite a bit. This time I criticized him for presenting “Hansen’s Mirror” in an overly mystical way; that was aimed at the specific point being made. Overall, as for…
technology phenomenology Introduction to Philosophy of Technology self
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2013年9月24日
Post-80s: The First Generation of Young People in an Age of Twilight

Culture & Public Commentary2013.05.18
Post-80s: The First Generation of Young People in an Age of Twilight
People’s Daily published an article, “Do Not Let Youth Be Stained by a Mannered Decline,” saying that the post-80s generation had aged overnight and become listless and dispirited. Of course, the internet quickly produced many rebuttals, but many of those rebuttals were in fact still echoing People’s Daily: yes, the post-80s are dispirited, but that is because the environment has forced them into it. Those rebuttals simply blamed the environment a bit more fiercely, that’s all. Those rebuttals missed the point entirely. The key question is: are the post-80s really dispirited? Are the ones who are truly dispirited really the post-80s? The pressure of the environment—this much even People’s Daily…
culture China commentary self
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2013年5月18日
Human-Centricity or Humble Solipsism? — A Discussion of Whether Heidegger’s Philosophy Is a Philosophy of Subjectivity

Phenomenology & Heidegger2013.04.01
Human-Centricity or Humble Solipsism? — A Discussion of Whether Heidegger’s Philosophy Is a Philosophy of Subjectivity
Jing Qi reposted an article by Ran Shi, “Is Heidegger’s Early Philosophy a Philosophy of Subjectivity?,” as well as the related discussion—among the participants were Jing Qi, Ran Shi (who is this, anyway? His blog is rather interesting), Professor Meng Qiang, and Professor Li Zhangyin, among others. I also chimed in. My comments leaned toward Ran Shi, and were also endorsed by him, but as always I was still set in opposition to Jing Qi (which, of course, is a very good thing). For the context of the discussion before and after, you can go look on Jing Qi’s or Ran Shi’s blog; I won’t reproduce it here. I’ll simply…
philosophy Aristotle Heidegger discussion
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2013年4月1日
Arendt Reading Notes

Culture & Public Commentary2011.09.28
Arendt Reading Notes
Finally finished reading Arendt’s The Human Condition, and feel immensely relieved… Let me make some notes.. Wang Yinli’s Chinese translation of The Human Condition is basically pretty good. Though I didn’t compare it line by line with the English original, on the whole I could make sense of it, and there probably won’t be any major misunderstandings. The problem, however, is that her translation is still rather awkward. In the translator’s afterword, she also writes that she follows the principle of “literal translation,” saying that “literal translation has already become a consensus in the translation of academic works,” and so she tries not to change the original word order. I…
book reading notes freedom Aristotle
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2011年9月28日
[Draft] Several Issues in the Philosophy of Science from the Perspective of Media Ontology—Scientific Method, Causality, and Realism

History of Science & Scholarship2011.02.17
[Draft] Several Issues in the Philosophy of Science from the Perspective of Media Ontology—Scientific Method, Causality, and Realism
I had originally planned to write a paper that would re-interpret some issues in traditional philosophy of science from the perspective of media ontology (phenomenology). I tried to “translate” certain discussions in traditional philosophy of science from the standpoint of media theory, and thereby raise the questions anew. Roughly speaking, there were several lines of inquiry: first, realism (and so-called instrumentalism); second, causality and scientific explanation; third, scientific method and the demarcation of science. But in actual writing I dragged on for N long, and to this day still have nowhere to start. With the first report of the new term looming, I am frankly uneasy, so I decided to…
science philosophy of science media Heidegger
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2011年2月17日
On “Benefiting Others by Serving Oneself”

Philosophy & Thought2009.07.15
On “Benefiting Others by Serving Oneself”
“Wei ji li ta” is a concept that Wang Haiming loves to talk about, his eureka moment, the core term in Wang Haiming’s ethical system… For some reason, these few words suddenly came to mind, so I might as well write a little about them. As for Wang Haiming and his philosophy, I certainly have no fondness for them at all; I can’t even bear to read his books, and I don’t want to spend much time evaluating them. But on the other hand, I feel a certain sympathy for him—“new philosophy,” “new ethics,” unifying and integrating the doctrines of all schools, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, and founding…
philosophy China freedom value
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2009年7月15日
How wonderful it is to fly through the air and kiss the earth when it rains…

Life & Notes2009.06.08
How wonderful it is to fly through the air and kiss the earth when it rains…
The situation was like this: This evening, after finishing my English exam at 8:30 and coming back from school, there was a drizzling rain, wet pavement, dim streetlights…… I rode my bike to the intersection of Zhongguancun Avenue and the Fourth Ring Road; the light was basically green. As I rode to the middle of the road, a car coming toward me, either making a U-turn or turning, suddenly appeared. I stopped, preparing to turn aside and go around it, but it lurched forward (it seemed to accelerate) and hit the front of my bike head-on, after which I was thrown to the ground. Since the turning car was not…
everyday life self emotion death
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2009年6月8日
Contracts and Spells in Love

Life & Notes2009.05.18
Contracts and Spells in Love
This article is meant to lay out some matters. Since bringing these things up still leaves me with a thousand tangled threads, this essay has no fixed theme; I’ll write as far as I get. As for my own romantic experiences, I already gave some account of them in some earlier articles, but clearly that was not enough, and I also did not devote a special treatment to them in the “Talking Love — Speaking of Love” folder, which makes it seem insufficiently sincere. So here I’ll write a dedicated piece to gather my thoughts. When I was a sophomore, I had a little, short-lived romance, and afterward I lay…
philosophy autobiography pluralism self
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2009年5月18日
On the Original Content of My Philosophy

Philosophy & Thought2009.04.07
On the Original Content of My Philosophy
First of all, I myself have never cared about what so-called original content my philosophy may have. What matters is that my philosophy belongs to me; even to say that my philosophy is myself is enough. What I pursue is self-knowledge and self-improvement, and all the works that take textual form and flow outward are merely “traces” of that pursuit, not the pursuit itself. No matter how important those things may be to me, whether treated with indifference like excrement or treasured and worn like a diamond ring, they are not in themselves all that important. It is like pursuing a love affair: in the process, there will be memories,…
philosophy blog self truth
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2009年4月7日
An Explanation of the Progress of My Pursuit of mm

Life & Notes2008.12.17
An Explanation of the Progress of My Pursuit of mm
In one sentence: there has been no progress. On the Progress of My Search for a Girlfriend In one sentence: there has been no progress. There are very few applicants, but there are indeed several—at least three, in fact—mostly second-year master’s students. It seems second year is a delicate period… The applicants before this were basically all frightened away. In the previous article I already said that I merely adopt a very ordinary cool indifference; I would never pretend to be anything in order to scare people off. On the contrary, the so-called methods of frightening people amount to nothing more than laying bare my true characteristics. Judging from previous…
everyday life blog Chinese self
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2008年12月17日