On Living with Technology through Renunciation and Releasement

Marc Van den Bosche suggests that Heidegger’s conceptions of Gestell and Gelassenheit, taken together with his analysis of Nietzschean Nihilism (interpreted especially by Wolfgang Schirmacher), depicts our era in a way that “supplements” Andrew Feenberg and Don Ihde’s work. Weaving these sources together, he sees the possibility of our becoming (quoting Schirmacher) “technicians” that “live, in a released way, within the groundless.” Here, I raise some questions about whether the author has really fitted all these sources together and argue that his idea of becoming post-modern “technicians” appears to require that we first practice a very un-Heideggerian kind of “renunciation.”     

Releasement and Nihilism in the Art of Living with Technology

In this contribution the author tries to formulate an approach to the art of living with technology based on Heidegger’s The Principle of Reason, a work often overlooked by contemporary commentators in the philosophy of technology. This approach couples the concept of releasement to insights hailing from Wolfgang Schirmacher concerning Heidegger’s nihilism.     

活性自由基聚合

19世纪,科学家更多地从原子层次上认识和研究化学。20世纪科学家则更多地从分子层次上认识和研究化学。进入21世纪,化学会在哪些方面取得重大突破?会遇到哪些挑战和难题?什么是未来化学的新生长点?化学在整个科学体系中占有什么地位?这些都是对化学有全局性、战略性指导意义的问题。中国科学院院士徐光宪先生曾说过这样一段耐人寻味的话,“我的专业是化学,我从学化学,教化学,到研究化学已有几十年了,可是现在我却有点搞不清楚化学的定义了。我深深感到科学的发展太快了,需要对本门科学重新认识,重新定位。这是我进入21世纪首先要关注的问题”。在新的世纪如何定位和审视化学,中科院文献情报中心《世界科学前沿发展态势分析》课题组对此进行了探讨。课题组首先选定了化学领域具有代表性的20种期刊,对这些期刊1999—2003年出现的关键词进行了统计分析,确定出了化学领域这几年的热点词,并通过与有关专家进行讨论,进一步整合出了下面13个重要研究方向:催化不对称合成、单分子、多孔材料、分子器件、光子晶体、化学动力学、活性自由基聚合、密度泛函理论、烯烃复分解反应、组合化学、酶催化、超分子化学分子自组装、燃料电池。课题组针对这些研究方向,邀请国内专家学者就这些研究方向的发展趋势进行了分析,同     

Living in Conceivable Worlds

Certain cognitive and philosophical aspects of the concept of conceivability with intended or established diversion from (putative) reality are discussed. The “coherence gap problem” arises when certain fragments of the real world are replaced with imaginary situations while most details are (intentionally or not) ignored. Another issue, “the spectator problem”, concerns the participation of the conceiver himself in the world conceived. Three different examples of conceivability are used to illustrate our points, namely thought experiments in physics, a hypothetical world devoid of consciousness (zombie world), and virtual reality. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

透过动物的眼睛

Look at a butterfly. You see its beautiful shape and colors. You notice lines and spots on its wings. You may even see the fine dust that covers the wings, giving them their colors. And you see its rounded, shining dark eyes.     

工程哲学何以回归生活世界

回归生活世界的普遍趋势所引发的工程哲学的变革表现为三个向度的建构:研究方法上,远离形而上学的超越论视角,响应走向"经验"的"实事本身"的召唤;研究对象上,重点关注工程物的被给与方式,即"生活实践";研究旨趣上,以人的向世生存为旨归,实现工程美的建构和工程伦理的"解蔽"。它们分别从方法论、本体论和价值论层面引导工程哲学回归生活世界。     

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.     

基础研究应更好地为国家战略目标服务

本文分析了基础研究工作发展沿革和时代特点,从三个方面论述了基础研究工作必须为国家发展战略目标服务,并就我国的基础研究工作如何为国家战略目标服务提出了三点建议.     

诗意生存:后现代建造观哲学解读

20世纪下半叶,生态观念开始从理论向现实转换.本文从自然观角度,通过分析各时代建筑观的历史特点,论证生态建筑观的合理性及现实重要性.     

从“科学救国”到“科学不能救国”——近代中国“科学救国”思潮的演进

以魏源"师夷长技以制夷"为序幕的"科学救国"思潮,在甲午战争之后让位于"改良"与"革命"的"政治救国"浪潮。民国建立后,在实业建国和"政治并不能救国"的影响下,"科学救国"思潮再次勃兴,并促成了五四新文化运动的兴起与发展。但就在五四新文化运动高涨之际,"科学不能救国"的声音出现,表现为三个方面:一是中西文化论争中,科学成为第一次世界大战的"祸首";二是在政治革命实践如火如荼影响下,政治革命再次取代科学成为救国的工具;第三,随着中国科学的发展与社会历史的变动,国人逐渐认识到科学不仅仅是救国工具,它自身还具有丰富的内涵,其本质是扩展人类知识视野,科学终于完成了从救国工具向追求真理的学术事业转变,回归科学本身。"科学救国"思潮在近代中国的演化,展现了学术与政治的一种关系:如果不是因为学术本身而是其他因素诸如外敌入侵或意识形态等外在力量使学术成为某种工具,那么,一旦这种外在因素与条件不存在了,学术作为工具的作用也就消失,最终恢复其本身的面目,其发展也就步入正轨。但吊诡的是,学术在中国大多时候总是作为一种工具被利用,不能显现其本来的面目。     

A Non-confrontational Art of Living in the Technosphere and Infosphere

Several trends in contemporary philosophy have revived the question of the good life. This article addresses the more elaborate notion of an “art of living” in the specific context of the technosphere on the basis of recent works in philosophy of technology. It also brings ideas from Asian philosophy and from Buddhism in particular into the discussion. The focus is on the notion of non-confrontation, which could lead to a decisive change in the methods and scope of technology assessment within the humanities. The art of living in the technosphere emerges as an existential virtuosity that pertains to practical wisdom.     

Abstraction and Insight: Building Better Conceptual Systems to Support More Effective Social Change

When creating theory to understand or implement change at the social and/or organizational level, it is generally accepted that part of the theory building process includes a process of abstraction. While the process of abstraction is well understood, it is not so well understood how abstractions “fit” together to enable the creation of better theory. Starting with a few simple ideas, this paper explores one way we work with abstractions. This exploration challenges the traditionally held importance of abstracting concepts from experience. That traditional focus has been one-sided—pushing science toward the discovery of data without the balancing process that occurs with the integration of the data. Without such balance, the sciences have been pushed toward fragmentation. Instead, in the present paper, new emphasis is placed on the relationship between abstract concepts. Specifically, this paper suggests that a better theory is one that is constructed of concepts that exist on a similar level of abstraction. Suggestions are made for quantifying this claim and using the insights to enable scholars and practitioners to create more effective theory.     

Dimensionally Reduced Model-Based Clustering Through Mixtures of Factor Mixture Analyzers

Dimensionally reduced model-based clustering methods are recently receiving a wide interest in statistics as a tool for performing simultaneously clustering and dimension reduction through one or more latent variables. Among these, Mixtures of Factor Analyzers assume that, within each component, the data are generated according to a factor model, thus reducing the number of parameters on which the covariance matrices depend. In Factor Mixture Analysis clustering is performed through the factors of an ordinary factor analysis which are jointly modelled by a Gaussian mixture. The two approaches differ in genesis, parameterization and consequently clustering performance. In this work we propose a model which extends and combines them. The proposed Mixtures of Factor Mixture Analyzers provide a unified class of dimensionally reduced mixture models which includes the previous ones as special cases and could offer a powerful tool for modelling non-Gaussian latent variables.     

科学的技术创新观--生态化技术创新

通过解读熊彼特的“创新”理论，分析技术创新过程中的“技术”构成，考察技术创新理论的演变历程．论证了技术创新是自然技术创新、社会技术创新和人文技术创新的有机统一，并在此基础上提出科学的技术创新观——生态化技术创新。     

技术传统与技术哲学视界

本文提出了一个理解和描述各种传统技术的基本概念——技术传统。技术传统的最直接含义是一个技术能够存在的最小单位，由一个操作规则系统、一套工艺学知识所构成，同时还要有稳定的可传习性。技术传统构成着我们人类的生存方式。在我们生存方式的构成中技术传统不仅是一个技能共同体，而且还是生存共同体，它所完成的是文明的伦理功能，是支撑德性社会的世俗基础。考察技术传统能够给知识、技术、世界、生存等概念带来富有意义的变化。     

植物高效利用土壤养分潜力和土壤环境良性循环：国家自然科学基金重大项目完成情况总结

国家自然科学基金重大项目"挖掘生物高效利用土壤养分潜力,保持土壤环境良性循环"围绕氮和磷在土壤中损失量大、作物利用率低和污染环境等问题开展系统研究.揭示了小麦等作物通过根系与根际微生物活动,改善土壤微生态环境,活化土壤中难溶性营养元素(以磷为主),提高其利用效率的机理;并从小麦及其具异源遗传背景的杂种中筛选能活化和高效利用土壤养分的种质资源,研究其遗传控制及品种改良技术,开辟了作物高效利用土壤养分育种新途径.系统研究了氮磷施入土壤后的去向以及如何提高其利用效率,减少养分对环境的污染,为高效肥料研制和农作物持续增产提供了科学依据.     

生物能量在生命体中传递的新理论及应用

从Davydov理论的短处和蛋白质分子的结构与构象变化及功能的特点出发,提出了一个新的生物能量传递的理论.在这个理论中,我们用包含有两个量子的准相干态代替了Davydov的单粒子激发态,并且把由偶极-偶极相互作用所引起的相邻氨基酸残基的相对位移加进了原来的D氏哈氏量中,从而使由蛋白质中的相互作用所形成的集体激发具有高度对应性和对称性,并能表现出体系中集体激发的相干性和强相关性,能反映出蛋白质分子具体特征.由这一理论得出的传递ATP水解作用释放的生物能量的孤子的寿命达到10-10s.在这段时间内和生理温度情况下,孤子能传递通过500到1 000个氨基酸残基,并且它能对抗热扰动、量子涨落、结构无序和杂质干扰等影响而保持稳定,从而使它具有传递生物能量的功能,能在生物学过程中扮演重要角色.我们运用这个理论解释或解决了肌肉收缩、电子传递、红外光的非热效应机理及生物光子发射等重要生物学问题.     

技术学的兴起及其与技术哲学、技术史的关系

技术学是以技术作为研究对象的一系列学科的统称，是介于人文社会科学与自然科学之间的交叉性学科门类，仿照科学学的学科结构，可将技术学的分支学科区分为理论技术学，专门技术学，应用技术学三个学科系组，技术学经历了长期的孕育过程，同技术哲学，技术史有着难分难解的交叠关系，技术学与技术哲学，技术史既有研究视角，基本内容的差异，又有某些共同性的研究课题。