Volunteering and Ethical Meaningfulness

Drawing on Victor Frankl’s observations, this comment illustrates how human beings are prior to any initiative that is pre-directed towards meaning. In pointing to this human condition, it introduces a subtle distinction between striving for happiness and a will for meaning, yet it is in the trans-ethical meaningful acts that a relation can be found with the wit(h)nessing as referred to by Note and Van Daele.     

Meaningfulness,Volunteering and Being Moved: The Event of Wit(h)nessing

This paper draws on an in-depth phenomenological analysis of some interviews taken from volunteers, inviting them to reflect on their lived experiences of meaningfulness in the context of volunteering and citizenship. It is found that while some testimonies reinforce the standard conceptions of meaningfulness, other testimonies vary from it. The main challenge of this contribution consists in phenomenologically describing this alternative picture of meaningfulness, depicted as the event of wit(h)nessing. In a final part, the authors consider how volunteering is at times especially prone to further experiences of wit(h)nessing.     

Being-with: Response to Mikael Lindtfelt and Roger Burggraeve

This final comment provides, a theoretical framework on how to conceive the self as presented in the key-note paper ‘Meaningfulness, volunteering and being moved. The event of wit(h)nessing’. This is deemed requisite to achieve a full understanding of how depth in meaningfulness comes about.     

大学术语学教育与培训的影响因素

文章从宏观层面论述了在中国大学开展术语学教育与培训时要考虑的一些影响因素,例如,术语教学与培训的理论层面、实践层面、技术层面、职业与专业发展层面、国家宏观的术语政策、教学的规划设计及各个层次的宣传推动等,为将来顺利实施教学计划做好必要的准备,并对其中涉及的术语学教育与术语学培训的概念做了区分。     

范·弗拉森反最佳说明推理的无动于衷论证

最佳说明推理的有效性是当前科学哲学研究备受关注的话题.范·弗拉森反驳这种推理的有效性.他通过质询正确的好说明是否在那堆被考虑的可能说明中,表明如果遗漏正确说明,在考虑它时"无动于衷",那就无法认为一堆可能说明中最佳的那个说明是正确的.范·弗拉森对这种推理的理解实际上并不充分.结合他的相关表述,就能看到他的无动于衷论证存...     

Mediating Mars: Perceptual Experience and Scientific Imaging Technologies

The philosophical tradition of phenomenology, with its focus on human bodily perception, can be used to explore the ways scientific instrumentation shapes a user’s experience. Building on Don Ihde’s account of technological embodiment, I develop a framework of concepts for articulating the experience of image interpretation in science. These concepts can be of practical value to the analysis of scientific debates over image interpretation for the ways they draw out the relationships between the image-making processes and the rival scientific explanations of image content. As a guiding example, I explore a contemporary debate over images of the surface of Mars which reveal a landmass that resembles river delta formations on Earth, and which thus has important implications for the history of Martian climate and water flow. The phenomenological framework I develop can be used to help evaluate the different interpretations on offer for these images, and to analyze the roles in this discussion played by spacecraft equipped with cameras and laser and thermal imaging devices.     

《物种起源》的论证结构

20世纪60年代到80年代中期，学界多是事先假定达尔文遵循着某种单一的科学方法，相信《物种起源》有单一的论证结构；80年代中期开始，一些学者放弃了寻找《物种起源》中某种单一论证结构的努力，相信达尔文在《物种起源》中采用了多种论证策略。根据不同的理论有不同的理论成功标准，自然选择理论是由多个理论构成的，这就决定了《物种起源》中不可能存在单一的论证逻辑。     

现象空间的诞生——斯特拉顿实验的现象学解释

梅洛-庞蒂在《知觉现象学》中借助斯特拉顿实验对客观空间进行了现象学还原,揭示出了一种内在于原初知觉经验的现象空间。无论是实在论的客观空间,还是观念论的客观空间,其结构都包含着绝对的确定性,因而它们都无法解释斯特拉顿实验中空间经验发生分解与重构的内禀动力学机制。这种动力学机制只有通过现象空间的概念才能获得阐明。现象空间起源于现象身体对于世界的原初把握,象征着形式与质料的原初综合。但是,现象空间的概念也面临着客观空间的现象学起源等有待解决的理论问题。     

Love and Realism

In this reply I try to show that, contrary to Milberry’s apparent assertion, the general intellect of the multitude does not have the explanatory robustness she accredits to it (following both Virno and the Hardt and Negri of the Empire trilogy). Digital network technologies are currently overwhelmingly effective in proletarianizing and disempowering the cognitariat and only an active technopolitics of deproletarianization could reverse this hegemonic situation. In my response to Verbeek, I attempt to correct his misinterpretation (shared by Milberry) of the Stieglerian approach as being dialectical in nature and show that, far from reinstating the humanist dichotomy between human beings and technologies, my analysis assumes their original, albeit fundamentally ambiguous and even ‘uncanny’ [unheimlich] interconnection. I conclude with pointing out some implications of this view for a ‘really realistic’ political theory of technology.     

传播:从身体的界面到界面的身体

技术传播史发展至今,媒介技术一直在霸道地延伸着人类的某些感观功能,然而,以往的延伸无一例外都只是人身体某些感官功能的单向度延伸.虚拟实在技术所显示的以往媒介不曾有过的种种品质,让我们有理由预测,在人类发展至今的传播史上,虚拟实在技术有可能破天荒地对以往因技术对人体器官功能的片面延伸所导致的人类感观失衡担负起补偿责任,人类有可能在赛博空间通过沉浸式面对面交流而找回在场效应.     

意识的"难问题"及其解释进路

自笛卡尔提出二元论以来,身心关系一直是一个未解的"世界之结"和"难问题".随着神经科学的快速发展,这个困难问题集中到了主观性和主观特性(qualia),即意识经验如何可能从脑的神经过程中产生出来.为了解释这个难问题是否是一元论还是二元论,一些相应的方案被提出来,诸如,斯佩里的突现相互作用论、塞尔的生物学自然主义和查默斯的自然主义二元论.     

认知能力与真理

自然选择保证人类认知能力具有适应上的可靠性,但后者并不能保证认知能力在获得真理上是可靠的。由于我们不具有确切的证据肯定真信念比假信念更能增加有机体的总适应度这一前提,因此连接自然选择与认知能力真理可靠性的原始论证是不成功的。但对该前提的某些质疑大多是没有真正根据的,而在归纳意义上的“诱人论证”可能是成立的。     

安慰剂效应中的方法论挑战与身心关系

安慰剂和安慰剂效应是现代科学研究方法论的重要组成部分。对安慰剂效应的新的科学研究表明,安慰剂效应是真实存在的生理现象,且表现出主体性和情境性,这给科学研究对医疗有效性的检验带来了方法论上的挑战,给关于自我实现的信念、预期与反思意识中的身心关系等问题带来知识论上的挑战。文章提出,意义响应为回应这些挑战提供了可能的视角。从意义响应出发,从病人的主体性和社会文化体验来考查医疗过程,沟通了文化、心理和生理的身体,可以解决安慰剂效应在定义、方法与机制解释方面的模糊和混杂,避免条件反射、预期理论等在安慰剂效应的解释中对身体和心理非此即彼的强调带来的矛盾,并启发生物医学研究在证据判断上关注实践者。     

修辞参与科学:从文本到实践

修辞作为一种实践在三个重要层面上参与了处于社会情境之中的科学。在科学交流部分,修辞参与了科学文本的制式化过程、同行评议、争论和理论选择;在科学家个人独白式的写作中,修辞发明协助构成了好的论证;在科学认知中,修辞贯穿了从个人经验到形成理论到确立知识的整个过程。     

Approximation,Mad Men and the Death of JFK

In this article I take the US television series Mad Men (2007—present) as an exemplary ‘approximation’, a term I adopt to signal the way in which certain texts construct a changeable, fluid ‘truth’ resulting from collisions, exchange and dialectical argument. Approximations are layered, their formal layerings mirroring a layered, multifaceted argument. Mad Men integrates and represents real historical events within a fictional setting, and act that suggests that an event or action can never be finished, fixed and not open to reassessment. Specifically, this article examines ‘The Grown Ups’, Episode 12 of Season 3, which charts the events of 22 November 1963, the day Kennedy was assassinated. Although we might be able to bring to mind the images and conspiracy theories that have been made available since (such Abraham Zapruder’s 8 mm home movie footage of the assassination), these images were not available at the time. Mad Men as a series always strives to represent its historical milieu as authentically as possible, so the characters re-enact 22 November 1963 as authentically as possible by watching only what was on television that day (the news bulletin, Walter Kronkite’s announcement that Kennedy is dead). The contemporary backdrop to these events, including the resonances of ‘9/11’ through Mad Men, inform and collide with the authenticity on the screen.     

斯特劳森的客观性论证

斯特劳森主要把康德的先验演绎当作是先验论证的典范,并且尝试运用日常语言分析学派的方法去改造先验演绎,摒弃康德的综合概念和先验心理学主体,转而从单纯的一般经验概念的分析出发证明"经验可能性的必要条件是特定的客观性和统一性"。先验论证正逐渐成为一种重要的哲学方法论工具,值得我们去研究。     

李约瑟的世界和世界的李约瑟

中国人的“李约瑟情结”主要表现在３个方面：（１）将李约瑟的贡献片面地理解成为中国古代科技成就树碑立传；（２）将其写作《中国的科学与文明》的最终目的理解成回答“中国何以未能产生近代科学”的问题；（３）为中国的历史由外国人书写的事实感到不安。因此，要想对这位当代文艺复兴式的学者有一更清楚的认识，就必须跳出中国的圈子来审视他的思想和工作；而要想看清“世界的李约瑟”，就得对“李约瑟的世界”有所了解。 所谓“李约瑟问题”并非始于李约瑟，早年来华的耶稣会士和欧洲一些启蒙思想家就已关注到中国社会与科技的“落后”问题，任鸿隽１９１５年的文章《说中国无科学之原因》首开中国知识界讨论这一问题的先声，２０世纪 ４０年代李约瑟与中国知识分子的讨论互相启发，构成他日后写作《中国的科学与文明》的一个重要动力。 受到生物进化论和马克思主义唯物史观的影响，李约瑟成为一个“科学进步论”的坚定信奉者。他与当时在剑桥的一批左翼知识分子一样，对社会问题倾注了极大的热情，并相信科学是一种推进社会进步的强大力量。这导致他投身反法西斯运动来到中国领导中英科学合作馆，其后又担任联合国教科文组织科学部的首任主席。但是李约瑟又是一个虔诚的基督徒，基督教的博爱精神     

Postphenomenological Re-embodiment

The phenomenological tradition has had a long interest in embodiment, and bodily experience beyond the confines of the “skinbag” body. Here I respond to Helena De Preester’s analysis of different types of protheses: limb, perceptual, cognitive. In her paper “Technology and the body: the (im)possibilities of re-embodiment”, she wants to make finer distinctions between extensions and incorporations. Today’s hi-tech developments make this refinement necessary and possible. I respond to the three levels or types of prostheses taking note of the increasing difficulty at each level and express certain worries about cognitively framed notions of bodily experience.     

Being Post-Positivist . . . or Just Talking About it?

Hans Ruin and Patrick Heelan join me in celebrating the rise of post-positivist and phenomenological approaches to scientific and technological practice. Yet as they both know, I am also concerned that the very presence of all the new accounts which give voice to this trend may tempt us into concluding prematurely that the traditional understanding of science and technology has already been displaced. With especially Ruin’s encouragement, I expand my original discussion of this concern by explaining why I agree with him about the ontologically mistaken suppositions that one might become post-positivistic by doing philosophy “meta-philosophically,” or become phenomenological by making “life” more basic that “nature.”