标签：tradition

On the Historiographical Program for a General History of Science

History of Science & Scholarship2014.07.10
On the Historiographical Program for a General History of Science
According to Professor Wu, the historiographical program for a general history of science should primarily address the problem of how to make things “comprehensive.” In addition to the continuity of historical development across periods, we also hope to connect science and technology, Western science and Chinese science, and tell their story within a larger whole. I discussed this with Senior Brother Shengli, Jin Shixiang, and others, and we reached some basic common ground. First, we can still hold high the banner of “intentional history” as a basic defensive strategy. Of course, when explaining the outline of the historiographical program, there is no need to get too deeply into its philosophical…
China science history of science media
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2014年7月10日
On the Question of the Scientificity of Traditional Chinese Medicine

History of Science & Scholarship2013.12.11
On the Question of the Scientificity of Traditional Chinese Medicine
Yesterday, Senior Brother Shengli came back to the discussion group to take our brickbats, and the result turned into Senior Brother Shengli holding the floor against the assembled scholars, arguing from class all the way through dinner in unflagging high spirits. After graduating, Senior Brother Shengli’s research focus shifted entirely to the question of Chinese medicine, and he tried to vindicate the “scientificity” of Chinese medicine on the basis of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology. Senior Brother Shengli extended Merleau-Ponty’s distinction between the “phenomenal body” and the “objective body” into a distinction between “phenomenal science” and “objective science,” and argued that the scientificity of Chinese medicine could be supported under the category of…
science media phenomenology tradition
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2013年12月11日
Settling Accounts After the Fall and Talking About Shoes

Life & Notes2013.03.27
Settling Accounts After the Fall and Talking About Shoes
A few days ago I reposted and mocked Xi’s “shoe theory” on Weibo, and my dad got unsettled. He immediately called to warn me to be careful with what I said, so as to avoid settling accounts after the autumn harvest. Generally speaking, it is rather awkward when the blogs and Weibo accounts of people born in the 1980s and 1990s come under the gaze of their parents, and I am no exception. Although my writing is addressed to anyone, and even if it is watched by parents and relatives it will not place any real pressure on me, it would be a lie to say that it causes no…
China freedom history tradition
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2013年3月27日
Equality or Freedom: On the Question of Attending School Outside One’s Hometown

Culture & Public Commentary2012.12.17
Equality or Freedom: On the Question of Attending School Outside One’s Hometown
Recently, the case of the non-Shanghai girl Zhan Haiter has drawn a lot of attention, especially because it happened in Shanghai, so I can’t help but offer a few comments as well. Of course, I support Zhan Haiter’s struggle, and I support every citizen’s open expression of his or her demands; but as for the content of those demands, I do not support it. This matter involves too many questions, all tangled together, making an already complicated issue even more complicated. So first we need to break down the questions involved. There are two big issues: one is education, the other is regionality. It should be noted that the problem…
China culture freedom commentary
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2012年12月17日
On Elitism and Esoteric Truth

Culture & Public Commentary2012.10.18
On Elitism and Esoteric Truth
Today I went to sit in on the World Congress of Chinese Philosophers, took a look at some academic celebrities whose names I had only heard before, and was greatly disappointed. I’m too lazy to go again tomorrow. That Tang Yijie was unreliable I already knew; that Chen Lai was reliable I also already knew. But I didn’t know many of the other famous figures very well. After listening to one round today, basically the only one of any interest was Chen Lai; the others, such as Lin Yusheng, sounded academically fairly sound, but the reports themselves were a little dull. As for the much-vaunted Gan Yang and Liu Xiaofeng,…
philosophy China culture media
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2012年10月18日
My Book-Writing Plan

Life & Notes2012.07.10
My Book-Writing Plan
Yesterday, at a dinner gathering, we happened to mention publishing books. I heard that in some places one book counts for the equivalent of three papers; in others it counts for nothing at all. But in any case, it can at least be regarded as one kind of achievement. For me, perhaps writing three books would be easier than publishing ten papers, so if writing books could also earn me some credit, that would be a good thing. Of course, I am indeed willing to write books, and not only for the sake of credit. Although, in my view, philosophical texts in the pre-network era may have been mainly in…
everyday life scholarship media blog
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2012年7月10日
Joining the Party Burdened by Guilt

Life & Notes2012.06.04
Joining the Party Burdened by Guilt
On this special day today, I served as a Party introducer for the first time and signed the recommendation statement. Why am I not only willing to join the Party, but also willing to recommend others to join? I need to explain. Indeed, this is not only something I am willing to explain, but something I must explain. I joined the Party when I was in high school; if I had not joined then, I would probably be too lazy to apply now. But I would never simply attribute that decision to youthful ignorance. Certainly, as I have grown older, my life plan has changed enormously: from initially wanting to…
China history tradition autobiography
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2012年6月4日
The Left and Right, Chinese Style

Enlightenment & the Spirit of Freedom2012.05.15
The Left and Right, Chinese Style
Recently I’ve been mentioning the left and the right quite often, but always rather cautiously, always wanting to add a couple of lines: I don’t like taking sides, I only use labels because I have no choice, and so on. To keep on like that is not really a solution, so I might as well write an article and talk through my understanding of the so-called left and right. My first acquaintance with the concepts of left and right probably came in middle school political class, where the teacher explained that the left was progressive and reformist, while the right was backward and conservative. We children, brainwashed by China’s rote-learning…
China freedom tradition politics
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2012年5月15日
Satisfaction and Choice—Reading Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants

AI & the Future of Technology2012.04.24
Satisfaction and Choice—Reading Kevin Kelly’s What Technology Wants
I recently read this book: Kevin Kelly: 《What Technology Wants》, and what especially caught my attention throughout the book was the discussion of the Amish. The original title plainly says Technology, yet the Chinese translation from CITIC Press has actually turned most of the instances of Technology into “科技” (“science and technology”)—utterly baffling. As a product of this “brand” called CITIC Press, notes, indexes, and so on are of course uniformly absent; the fact that an “Acknowledgments” section was preserved is already extraordinarily rare. In itself, this book, though not especially profound academically, is still a very good popular introduction to philosophy of technology, somewhere between the academic and the…
technology book reading freedom media
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2012年4月24日
In Praise of “Rumors”

Culture & Public Commentary2012.04.15
In Praise of “Rumors”
Recently the word “rumor” has once again become a hot topic, and a full-scale “war” against “rumors” is plainly about to break out. At a time like this, it is all the more necessary to reflect on what “rumor” really means. On Weibo, I saw Sun Haifeng repost Deng Wenchu’s “Nine Theses on Rumor,” written several years ago, and applauded it enthusiastically (you can find it among some of the earliest posts on his blog, though it seems a few of the theses have been harmonized?). Later I read Kapferer’s Rumor: The World’s Oldest Media, and found it quite rewarding as well. So let me offer a few casual remarks…
China book reading tradition politics
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2012年4月15日