Physics Develops Unaffected by Constructivism

The way physics and other parts of science work can be explained in the framework of radical constructivism. However, this constructivist view itself shows that a uniquily accepted epistemology, constructivism or any other, would not be an advantage for the developmentof science. Unlike physics some parts of science successfully use constructivist concepts inside their theories. Because this is the case particularly in learning theory, constructivist ideas can help to improve physics teaching.     

Models in Biology and Physics: What’s the Difference?

In Making Sense of Life, Keller emphasizes several differences between biology and physics. Her analysis focuses on significant ways in which modelling practices in some areas of biology, especially developmental biology, differ from those of the physical sciences. She suggests that natural models and modelling by homology play a central role in the former but not the latter. In this paper, I focus instead on those practices that are importantly similar, from the point of view of epistemology and cognitive science. I argue that concrete and abstract models are significant in both disciplines, that there are shared selection criteria for models in physics and biology, e.g. familiarity, and that modelling often occurs in a similar fashion.     

Constructivism, Cognition, and Science – An Investigation of Its Links and Possible Shortcomings

This paper addresses the questions concerningthe relationship between scientific andcognitive processes. The fact that both,science and cognition, aim at acquiring somekind of knowledge or representationabout the “world” is the key for establishing alink between these two domains. It turns outthat the constructivist frameworkrepresents an adequate epistemologicalfoundation for this undertaking, as its focusof interest is on the (constructive)relationship between the world and itsrepresentation. More specifically, it will beshown how cognitive processes and their primaryconcern to construct a representation of theenvironment and to generate functionallyfitting behavior can act as the basis forembedding the activities and dynamics of theprocess of science in them by making use ofconstructivist concepts, such as functionalfitness, structure determinedness, etc.Cognitive science and artificiallife provide the conceptual framework of representational spaces and their interactionbetween each other and with the environmentenabling us to establish this link betweencognitive processes and thedevelopment/dynamics of scientific theories.The concepts of activation, synaptic weight,and genetic (representational) spaces arepowerful tools which can be used as“explanatory vehicles”for a cognitivefoundation of science, more specifically forthe “context of discovery” (i.e., thedevelopment, construction, and dynamics ofscientific theories and paradigms).Representational spaces do not only offer us abetter understanding of embedding science incognition, but also show, how theconstructivist framework, both, can act as anadequate epistemological foundation for theseprocesses and can be instantiated by theserepresentational concepts from cognitivescience. The final part of this paper addresses somemore fundamental questions concerning thepositivistic and constructivist understandingof science and human cognition. Among otherthings it is asked, whether a purelyfunctionalist and quantitative view of theworld aiming almost exclusively at itsprediction and control is really satisfying forour intellect (having the goal of achieving aprofound understanding of reality).     

俄罗斯认知术语学的创新

俄罗斯认知术语学与语言学、心理学、逻辑学、科学学、信息技术科学密切相关。术语学家认为,认知术语学的产生得益于俄罗斯得天独厚的语言学土壤。它从问世之初就沿用了俄罗斯认知语言学的研究范式。在新的研究范式下,俄罗斯认知术语学研究主要遵循外延主义、人本中心主义、新功能主义和阐释主义等原则。扩张主义主张以跨学科的视角审视术语研究,主张不同学科相互交融,即坚持术语研究要秉持多学科主义的理念。俄罗斯认知术语学呈现出跨学科发展的态势,为心理学、逻辑学、科学学、计算机科学、哲学、语言学的发展注入了新鲜血液。这种范式主张研究术语的认知、交际、民族和文化属性。     

道家哲学与现代物理哲学的契合性考察

与儒家"向内觅理"有别,道家重视外向的"天之道",对自然之源和万物之本多有探讨,形成了独特而深刻的自然哲学思想,诸如"道""朴""无""有""阴阳"等自然哲学概念,在此基础上形成了"道生万物"的宇宙创生观,"负阴抱阳"的自然运行观,"道通为一"的世界统一观等自然哲学思想.这些概念和思想被现代物理科学,特别是量子物理学所...     

Towards a Darwinian Approach to Mathematics

In the past decades, recent paradigm shifts in ethology, psychology, and the social sciences have given rise to various new disciplines like cognitive ethology and evolutionary psychology. These disciplines use concepts and theories of evolutionary biology to understand and explain the design, function and origin of the brain. I shall argue that there are several good reasons why this approach could also apply to human mathematical abilities. I will review evidence from various disciplines (cognitive ethology, cognitive psychology, cognitive archaeology and neuropsychology) that suggests that the human capacity for mathematics is a category-specific domain of knowledge, hard-wired in the brain, which can be explained as the result of natural selection.     

试论新中国“规划科学”模式的延续和发展——以“自然辩证法研究规划草案”为中心的考察

新中国成立后,哲学社会科学走上由国家主导的"规划科学"模式的道路。但受政治运动冲击、制度缺失等因素的影响,制定的各项哲学社会科学规划大都形同虚设,只有1956年制定的《自然辩证法(数学和自然科学中的哲学问题)十二年(1956-1967)研究规划草案》幸运地成为集中体现并延续上述"规划科学"模式的一个成功特例。虽然草案本身还只是一个不完善的学术性工作计划,但它依然充分发挥了"规划科学"模式的积极作用,推动了具有中国特色的自然辩证法事业的发展,在中国自然辩证法发展史上具有极其重要的地位和作用。     

建构主义与主体性

建构主义与主体性密切联系在一起.随着主体性概念的变化,建构主义也呈现出不同的样式.在原初意义上,建构主义是关于概念起源的分析,这种分析和客观性相连,在社会建构主义那里,建构主义作为形而上的原则存在着,对科学知识给予了不同于现代视野的理解,科学知识是社会建构的产物.从根本上来说,这是一个与主体性概念变化相关的逐渐走向相对主义的过程.     

How Future Depends on Past and Rare Events in Systems of Life

The dependence on history of both present and future dynamics of life is a common intuition in biology and in humanities. Historicity will be understood in terms of changes of the space of possibilities (or of “phase space”) as well as by the role of diversity in life’s structural stability and of rare events in history formation. We hint to a rigorous analysis of “path dependence” in terms of invariants and invariance preserving transformations, as it may be found also in physics, while departing from the physico-mathematical analyses. The idea is that the (relative or historicized) invariant traces of the past under organismal or ecosystemic transformations contribute to the understanding (or the “theoretical determination”) of present and future states of affairs. This yields a peculiar form of unpredictability (or randomness) in biology, at the core of novelty formation: the changes of observables and pertinent parameters may depend also on past events. In particular, in relation to the properties of synchronic measurement in physics, the relevance of diachronic measurement in biology is highlighted. This analysis may a fortiori apply to cognitive and historical human dynamics, while allowing to investigate some general properties of historicity in biology.     

Thinking Through the Prism of Life

The article provides an overview of the argument in Robert Scharff’s paper “Displacing epistemology: Being in the midst of technoscientific practice” (Scharff 2011), focusing on his central objective, to articulate a hidden ground of the current controversies in the philosophy of science and technology studies, between objectivism and constructivism, through a deeper confrontation with Heidegger’s legacy. The commentary addresses two aspects of Scharffs argument that deserve to be developed further, namely how it both criticizes and cultivates itself an ideal of the meta-knower, and how the idea of thinking from the perspective of life in Dilthey’s sense can be critically reflected through Heidegger’s later criticism. By rehearsing Heidegger’s understanding of truth as aletheia, and also his gradually increased criticism of the very concept of life, the commentary tries to show how Scharff’s intervention can in fact be strengthened against possible criticism.     

科技知识的地方性与全球性——走向后殖民技科学观研究

在关于科技跨文化和跨国家传播的研究中,巴萨拉模型和佩尔森的文化帝国主义,是一种全球西方化的实证主义科技观;后殖民科学观,其理论基础是社会建构主义,强调地方性科技之间的永久隔阂,走向文化相对主义;当前的后殖民技科学观从全球性与地方性之间相互冲撞的关系视角去关注着全球性与地方性之间各种异质性要素的辩证冲撞与互利发展,这种视角的理论基础实际就是拉图尔的行动者网络理论。     

The Anti-philosophical Stance, the Realism Question and Scientific Practice

In recent years a general consensus has been developing in the philosophy of science to the effect that strong social constructivist accounts are unable to adequately account for scientific practice. Recently, however, a number of commentators have formulated an attenuated version of constructivism that purports to avoid the difficulties that plague the stronger claims of its predecessors. Interestingly this attenuated form of constructivism finds philosophical support from a relatively recent turn in the literature concerning scientific realism. Arthur Fine and a number of other commentators have argued that the realism debate ought to be abandoned. The rationale for this argument is that the debate is sterile for it has, it is claimed, no consequence for actual scientific practice, and therefore does not advance our understanding of science or its practice. Recent “softer” accounts of social constructivism also hold a similar agnostic stance to the realism question. I provide a survey of these various agnostic stances and show how they form a general position that I shall refer to as “the anti-philosophical stance”. I then demonstrate that the anti-philosophical stance fails by identifying difficulties that attend its proposal to ban philosophical interpretation. I also provide examples of instances where philosophical stances to the realism question affect scientific practice.     

走出形而上学的区分--论社会建构主义中的本体论问题

社会建构主义的直接批判对象是自主性的科学观，即认为科学知识构成了一个独立的王国，它以某种形而上学的存在为基础，或者是先验的理性逻辑，或者是先验的认识能力，它们使得科学世界和人类的其他领域区分开来。因此，自主性的科学观是以形而上学的本体论区分为前提的。社会建构主义通过将科学的基础还原为历史性的存在，超出了这种形而上学的区分。     

“人文主义”还是“人道主义”?——从白璧德新人文主义思想的译介论学术著作中的术语翻译

哲学社会科学术语涉及精神领域概念,是“形式”的形式,译名尤其要注意控制词义的不良延伸。术语翻译的首要原则是“名副其实”。白璧德的新人文主义思想是通过对诸如人文主义/人道主义、低级自我/高级自我、生命冲动/生命控制、人性法则/自然法则等二元对立体的解说,而逐渐阐述成形、区别于其他思想流派的。然而,正是在这些最显豁、最具主题意义的关键术语的翻译上,白璧德著作的中译本出现了实质性的错误。     

后信任社会的形成与应对

信任对于维系人类的认知秩序和社会秩序具有十分重要的意义.在风险社会下,传统的人际信任已然无法应对科技不确定性,这就催生了以专家系统为核心的系统信任机制.但是,在后常规科学和后学院科学范式下,专家系统可信性的基础——专家专长的真理性和专家行为的至善性,面临着失灵和失范.如此,面对不确定性风险,一方面公众需要依赖专家系统,...     

A Physical Approach to the Construction of Cognition and to Cognitive Evolution

It is shown that the method of operationaldefinition of theoretical terms applied inphysics may well support constructivist ideasin cognitive sciences when extended toobservational terms. This leads to unexpectedresults for the notion of reality, inductionand for the problem why mathematics is sosuccessful in physics.A theory of cognitive operators is proposedwhich are implemented somewhere in our brainand which transform certain states of oursensory apparatus into what we call perceptionsin the same sense as measurement devicestransform the interaction with the object intomeasurement results. Then, perceivedregularities, as well as the laws of nature wewould derive from them can be seen asinvariants of the cognitive operators concernedand are by this human specific constructsrather than ontologically independent elements.(e.g., the law of energy conservation can bederived from the homogeneity of time and bythis depends on our mental time metricgenerator). So, reality in so far it isrepresented by the laws of nature has no longeran independent ontological status. This isopposed to Campbell's `natural selectionepistemology'. From this it is shown that thereholds an incompleteness theorem for physicallaws similar to Gödels incompletenesstheorem for mathematical axioms, i.e., there isno definitive or object `theory of everything'.This constructivist approaches to cognitionwill allow a coherent and consistent model ofboth cognitive and organic evolution. Whereasthe classical view sees the two evolutionrather dichotomously (for ex.: most scientistssee cognitive evolution converging towards adefinitive world picture, whereas organicevolution obviously has no specific focus (the`pride of creation').     

What Second Order Science Reveals About Scientific Claims: Incommensurability,Doubt, and a Lack of Explication

The traditional sciences often bracket away ambiguity through the imposition of “enabling constraints”—making a set of assumptions and then declaring ceteris paribus. These enabling constraints take the form of uncritically examined presuppositions or “uceps.” Second order science reveals hidden issues, problems and assumptions which all too often escape the attention of the practicing scientist. These hidden values—precisely because they are hidden and not made explicit—can get in the way of the public’s acceptance of a scientific claim. A conflict in understood meaning—between the scientist’s restricted claims and the public’s broader understanding of those same claims can result in cognitive dissonance or the equivalent of the Mori Uncanny Valley. Scientists often react to these differences by claiming “incommensurability” between their restricted claim and the public’s understanding. Second order science, by explicating the effects of variations in values assumed for these uceps and associated impacts on related scientific claims, can often moot these assertions of incommensurability and thereby promote greater scientific understanding. This article explores how second order science can address issues of public doubt regarding the scientific enterprise using examples from medicine, diet and climate science.     

Philosophy of chemistry and the image of science

The philosophical analysis of chemistry has advanced at such a pace during the last dozen years that the existence of philosophy of chemistry as an autonomous discipline cannot be doubted any more. The present paper will attempt to analyse the experience of philosophy of chemistry at the, so to say, meta-level. Philosophers of chemistry have especially stressed that all sciences need not be similar to physics. They have tried to argue for chemistry as its own type of science and for a pluralistic understanding of science in general. However, when stressing the specific character of chemistry, philosophers do not always analyse the question ‘What is science?’ theoretically. It is obvious that a ‘monistic’ understanding of science should not be based simply on physics as the epitome of science, regarding it as a historical accident that physics has obtained this status. The author’s point is that the philosophical and methodological image of science should not be chosen arbitrarily; instead, it should be theoretically elaborated as an idealization (theoretical model) substantiated on the historical practice of science. It is argued that although physics has, in a sense, justifiably obtained the status of a paradigm of science, chemistry, which is not simply a physical science, but a discipline with a dual character, is also relevant for elaborating a theoretical model of science. The theoretical model of science is a good tool for examining various issues in philosophy of chemistry as well as in philosophy of science or science studies generally.     

Whose Agency Now?

I agree with my readers on the necessary alliance of personal agency and collective agency. My point is to prioritize the former. The reasons to prioritize the latter were excellent, and it was undoubtedly a sound decision to start with this scenario: political and institutional improvement of the collectives, enlightened by progressive social sciences. My argument for suggesting a different priority—toward personal microactions and their emergent effects—relies on the opinion that we are stuck in a sustainability crisis due to our current approach. In the question “whose agency now?”, my stress is on “now”.     

电气化工程的社会影响及其文化意蕴

这里针对两个问题展开讨论，一个是工程的社会影响究竟有多大？从历史发展脉络中我们看到了电气化工程促进了人类社会工业化进程；加快了人类社会城市化发展；改变了人类社会农业生产方式；改善了人类社会的生活方式和家庭生活质量；推动了人类社会全球化变迁；但也对生态环境造成相当程度的破坏。另一个问题是电气化工程的社会影响何以可能？通过实证主义、实用主义、历史主义和建构主义等哲学思想，我们看到了在工程中所蕴合的科技理论的逻辑性和经验性；工程运行的实用性和简单性；工程范式的历史性和转换性以度工程实践的建构性和境遇性等文化意蕴。