从“技术”的概念定义看“丛林效应”

由“技术”的多样化定义出发，引出了认识事物进行定义时所表现的“丛林效应”现象，并给出了“丛林效应”的来源、产生的原因及其判断原则。     

柬埔寨“女野人”逃回丛林

柬埔寨“丛林少女”博良3年前被人发现时赤身裸体,形似野人,走路像猴子,充饥挖虫子。经过心理医生和家人的悉心照料,这名颇受全球关注的“丛林少女”过去3年逐步恢复了语言能力,举手投足也开始正常。不过,她的父亲和当地警方说,“丛林少女”已经走失数日．多半又逃回丛林回归“原始”生活了。     

“千克”的量子化定义

科学实在论和反实在论的主要争论焦点在于"可观察"和"不可观察"概念的区分以及"不充分论证说"和"无奇迹说"。"千克"的定义经历了三次演变,2018年确定的量子化定义恰恰包含了"观察"与"不可观察"概念的明确区分;采用此次定义中所包含的稳定且准确的实物基准克服了"不充分论证说";基于"不可观察"的理论抽象转变为"可观察"的实物支持了科学实在论的"无奇迹"说。因此,"千克"的量子化定义成为科学实在论的新论据。     

珍·古道尔:野生黑猩猩研究第一人

珍·古道尔是世界著名的动物行为学家,享誉世界的野生黑猩猩研究先驱,世界环境保护的倡导者。珍·古道尔曾深入非洲丛林致力于黑猩猩的野外研究,第一次揭开了黑猩猩群落中鲜为人知的秘密,包括首次发现黑猩猩能制造和使用工具,从而改写了人类对自身的定义。在丛林研究数年后,在目睹黑猩猩不断被猎杀和贸易后,充满智慧和力量的她,又毅然走出丛林,创立"根与芽"环保组织,转入环境教育和保护事业。年过八旬的她,今天依然在四处讲学和募捐,为环境保护、为野生动物、为万物生而平等而奔走呼号。     

“风化”还是“粉化”?

正看到"风化"两字,很容易想到地表的岩石在风吹、日晒、雨淋下逐渐破碎、分解的过程。这一理解是不错的。"风化"是一个涉及面很广的词。全国科学技术名词审定委员会(以下简称全国科技名词委)公布的《地理学名词》《土壤学名词》《地质学名词》中都收了"风化作用"。《地质学名词》无定义。《地理学名词》中的定义是"地球表面的岩石受太阳辐射、温度变化、氧、二氧化碳、水和生物等     

技术知识的“葛梯尔问题”刍议

柏拉图提出了信念、真和辩护三要素的知识定义,该定义无法将各种类型的技术知识纳入其中,且"三元论定义"的"葛梯尔问题"同样也存在技术知识之中。有效性是技术知识的主要特征,从认识论的角度提出以有效、信念和辩护为三要素的技术知识定义,使各类型的技术知识都统一在这定义之下。技术知识在人的技术实践下,以成功物化为技术人工物作为标准为其有效性提供辩护,且可通过人们的使用进一步检验技术人工物是否有用。对技术知识的定义及"葛梯尔问题"进行深入的研究,不仅促进了对技术知识的认识论探讨,而且丰富了技术知识与技术认识论的关系内涵。     

支持保留“原子量”“分子量”术语

我支持保留"原子量"、"分子量"这一既方便又实用的术语.理由如下: 1. 原子量与相对原子质量各有不同的内涵或不同的定义.某元素的原子量定义为"该元素所有稳定同位素的相对原子质量的加权平均值".     

“风化”还是“粉化”?

<正>看到"风化"两字,很容易想到地表的岩石在风吹、日晒、雨淋下逐渐破碎、分解的过程。这一理解是不错的。"风化"是一个涉及面很广的词。全国科学技术名词审定委员会(以下简称全国科技名词委)公布的《地理学名词》《土壤学名词》《地质学名词》中都收了"风化作用"。《地质学名词》无定义。《地理学名词》中的定义是"地球表面的岩石受太阳辐射、温度变化、氧、二氧化碳、水和生物等     

“原子量”和“分子量”还是保留为好

"原子量"和"分子量"这两个词对于学自然科学的人来说,是实在太熟悉了.谁都知道它是指原子和分子的相对质量,而非为重量,定义也十分严格.     

魏斯曼论“实指定义”

本文以魏斯曼对"实指定义"的哲学思考为切入点,将魏斯曼和维特根斯坦对"实指定义"的思想进行对比分析。基于维特根斯坦的"意义使用论"和"语言游戏论",为了更好理解语言和实在之间的关系,魏斯曼提出了"语言层次论"。尽管魏斯曼大部分哲学思想源于维特根斯坦,但是不能否认他对维特根斯坦哲学思想系统融贯的阐释以及发展所做的杰出贡献。最后笔者对学界存在对魏斯曼的两个误解进行了反驳。     

The Radical Constructivist View of Science

From the constructivist perspective, science cannot transcend thedomain of experience. Scientific theories are seen as models that helpto order and manage that domain. As the experiential field expands,models are replaced by others based on novel conceptual constructs. Thepaper suggests the substitution of ‘viability’ or ‘functional fit’ forthe notions of Truth and objective representation of anexperiencer-independent reality. This by-passes the sceptics'incontrovertible arguments against certain real-world knowledge andproposes the Piagetian conception of cognition as the function thatgenerates ways and means for dealing with the world of experience.     

Lines of Descent: Kuhn and Beyond

Thomas S. Kuhn is famous both for his work on the Copernican Revolution and his ‘paradigm’ view of scientific revolutions. But Kuhn later abandoned the notion of paradigm (and related notions) in favour of a more ‘evolutionary’ view of the history of science. Kuhn’s position therefore moved closer to ‘continuity’ models of scientific progress, for instance ‘chain-of-reasoning’ models, originally championed by D. Shapere. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate around Kuhn’s new ‘developmental’ view and to evaluate these competing models with reference to some major innovations in the history of cosmology, from Copernicanism to modern cosmology. This evaluation is made possible through some unexpected overlap between Kuhn’s earlier discontinuity model and various versions of the later continuity models. It is the thesis of this paper that the ‘chain-of-reasoning’ model accounts better for the cosmological evidence than both Kuhn’s early paradigm model and his later developmental view of the history of science.     

Reasons of Love: Response to Wolf

According to Wolf’s fitting fulfillment view, meaningfulness depends on the person’s subjective attraction to an activity being grounded in ‘reasons of love’ that concern the objective value of those activities. In this short comment, I argue that ‘reasons of love’—and thus reasons for regarding as meaningful—are not limited to those having to do with the objective value of activities and relationships, but include also what I call ‘reasons for the initiated’ and ‘reasons for me’.     

The Art of Living with Technology: Turning Over Philosophy of Technology’s Empirical Turn

In this article we seek to lay bare a couple of potential conceptual and methodological issues that, we believe, are implicitly present in contemporary philosophy of technology (PhilTech). At stake are (1) the sustained pertinence of and need for coping strategies as to ‘how to live with technology (in everyday life)’ notwithstanding PhilTech’s advancement in its non-essentialist analysis of ‘technology’ as such; (2) the issue of whether ‘living with technology’ is a technological affair or not (or both); and (3) the tightly related question concerning the status of the methodological bedrock of contemporary PhilTech, the ‘empirical turn.’ These matters are approached from the perspective of the philosophical notion of the ‘art of living,’ and our argumentation is developed both as a context for and on the basis of the contributions to the special issue ‘The Art of Living with Technology.’     

Gould, Hull, and the Individuation of Scientific Theories

When is conceptual change so significant that we should talk about a new theory, not a new version of the same theory? We address this problem here, starting from Gould’s discussion of the individuation of the Darwinian theory. He locates his position between two extremes: ‘minimalist’—a theory should be individuated merely by its insertion in a historical lineage—and ‘maximalist’—exhaustive lists of necessary and sufficient conditions are required for individuation. He imputes the minimalist position to Hull and attempts a reductio: this position leads us to give the same ‘name’ to contradictory theories. Gould’s ‘structuralist’ position requires both ‘conceptual continuity’ and descent for individuation. Hull’s attempt to assimilate into his general selectionist framework Kuhn’s notion of ‘exemplar’ and the ‘semantic’ view of the structure of scientific theories can be used to counter Gould’s reductio, and also to integrate structuralist and population thinking about conceptual change.     

The Intentionality of Formal Systems

One of the most interesting and entertaining philosophical discussions of the last few decades is the discussion between Daniel Dennett and John Searle on the existence of intrinsic intentionality. Dennett denies the existence of phenomena with intrinsic intentionality. Searle, however, is convinced that some mental phenomena exhibit intrinsic intentionality. According to me, this discussion has been obscured by some serious misunderstandings with regard to the concept ‘intrinsic intentionality’. For instance, most philosophers fail to realize that it is possible that the intentionality of a phenomenon is partly intrinsic and partly observer relative. Moreover, many philosophers are mixing up the concepts ‘original intentionality’ and ‘intrinsic intentionality’. In fact, there is, in the philosophical literature, no strict and unambiguous definition of the concept ‘intrinsic intentionality’. In this article, I will try to remedy this. I will also try to give strict and unambiguous definitions of the concepts ‘observer relative intentionality’, ‘original intentionality’, and ‘derived intentionality’. These definitions will be used for an examination of the intentionality of formal mathematical systems. In conclusion, I will make a comparison between the (intrinsic) intentionality of formal mathematical systems on the one hand, and the (intrinsic) intentionality of human beings on the other hand.     

The Documentary Real and the Shoah

Without the support of imagination, one would not have the slightest idea of the cruel ‘real’ that has occurred in the Nazi extermination camps. Yet, in documentaries imaging the events of the Shoah, one runs the risk of missing their most basic property, namely their unimaginability. The mere idea that one is able to imagine the unimaginable comes down to a denial of the Shoah’s status as an event that defies our understanding. The unimaginable ‘real’ of the Shoah, however, is not simply located in its object, in the cruelty of what happened in the camp. The Shoah makes us at the same time facing the unimaginable ‘real’ of the modern subject—the blind spot in our own identity. If we need imagination to deal with the Shoah, it is also because of an ungraspable ‘real’ in ourselves. This is why adequate Shoah representations, acknowledging their object as being beyond representation, include the same ‘beyond’ concerning the subject of the Holocaust memory. The essay makes this clear in an elaborated comparison of Claude Lanzmann’s 1985 film, Shoah, with some conceptual works of art from the late nineties—all of this ‘fine-tuned’ in a reflection upon Ingmar Bergman’s Persona.     

Pro-Latour

In this comment I want to clarify five topics. The first topic concerns the importance of looking back at the very principles of the foundations of Western society. The second comment argues for the original position of Latour within the field of (social) constructivism. In the third comment, I argue that Haraway adds to the science-politics discussion by elaborating her philosophy beyond dichotomy. In the fourth comment, I argue that the terms ‘objective’ and ‘rational’ are central philosophical concepts which should be retained. Finally I will make the connection between ‘what’ is represented and ‘how’ to represent it.     

Citizenship and Voluntarism: A Meaningful Combination or the Basis for Exploitative Relationships?

The author starts from the observation that citizenship and voluntarism are contested terms with diverse meanings. They have also been appropriated by politicians of various persuasions and imbued with meanings associated with ‘feel good’ factors that emphasize serving in a community. Therefore, voluntarism has the potential to continue the exclusion of minority groups, marginalized individuals and collective groupings at the expense of their citizenship rights, particularly those identified by Hannah Arendt as the ‘right to have rights’ that have been endorsed through public policy but today are being undermined by the ‘age of austerity’ in publicly funded welfare states. Against the background of the political context of UK, and the public rhetoric on the ‘Big Society’, the author examines whether citizenship discourses allied with voluntarism support a meaningful endorsement of altruistic solidarity or whether they endorse exploitative relationships under the guise of meeting the public needs.