The Chinese Journal for the History of Science and Technology

TheChineseJournalfortheHistoryofScienceandTechnology(knownasChinaHistoricalMaterialsofSci enceandTechnologyfrom1980to2004)istheofficialpublicationoftheChineseSocietyfortheHistoryofSci enceandTechnologyandtheInstitutefortheHistoryofNaturalScience,ChineseAc…     

The Assassin of Relativity

In his younger years—from the time they were students together at the Zurich Polytechnic—Albert Einstein was good friends with Friedrich Adler. Adler, son of the cultured leader of the Socialist Party in Vienna, was, like Einstein, a physicist very much engaged with both epistemology and politics. They shared a fascination with Ernst Mach.     

The Constructive Realist Account of Science and Its Application to Ilya Prigogine’s Conception of Laws of Nature

Sciences are often regarded as providing the best, or, ideally, exact, knowledge of the world, especially in providing laws of nature. Ilya Prigogine, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for his theory of non-equilibrium chemical processes—this being also an important attempt to bridge the gap between exact and non-exact sciences [mentioned in the Presentation Speech by Professor Stig Claesson (nobelprize.org, The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1977)]—has had this ideal in mind when trying to formulate a new kind of science. Philosophers of science distinguish theory and reality, examining relations between these two. Nancy Cartwright’s distinction of fundamental and phenomenological laws, Rein Vihalemm’s conception of the peculiarity of the exact sciences, and Ronald Giere’s account of models in science and science as a set of models are deployed in this article to criticise the common view of science and analyse Ilya Prigogine’s view in particular. We will conclude that on a more abstract, philosophical level, Prigogine’s understanding of science doesn’t differ from the common understanding.

The Similarities and Dissimilarities of “台风(Typhoon)”and “飓风(Hurricane)”

台风和飓风都是发生在北半球热带洋面上的热带气旋,因为发生在不同的洋面和影响的地区不同而名称不同,就其本质来说,都是指同一类天气系统.但是,两者不是简单的一义多词,就名词的语言来源背景和命名系统来说,存在着明显的差别,如果统一到一个名词上来,弊大于利.     

The Discovery of the Southern Sky

该文题为《南天星空的发现－－对欧洲和中国三份最早的南天星表的研究》。从１５世纪末开始，以哥伦布发现美洲大陆为标志，欧洲进入伟大的地理新发现时代。欧洲航海家们越过赤道，到达了南半球，从而南天极附近的星空开始成为欧洲人能够看到的星空。     

On Indivisibles and Infinitesimals: A Response to David Sherry, “The Jesuits and the Method of Indivisibles”

In “The Jesuits and the Method of Indivisibles” David Sherry criticizes a central thesis of my book Infinitesimal: that in the seventeenth century the Jesuits sought to suppress the method of indivisibles because it undermined their efforts to establish a perfect rational and hierarchical order in the world, modeled on Euclidean Geometry. Sherry accepts that the Jesuits did indeed suppress the method, but offers two objections. First, that the book does not distinguish between indivisibles and infinitesimals, and that whereas the Jesuits might have reason to object to the first, the second posed no problem for them. Second, seeking an alternative explanation for the Jesuits’ hostility to the method, he proposes that its implicit atomism conflicted with the Catholic doctrine of the sacrament of the Eucharist, and was therefore heretical. In response to Sherry’s first criticism I point out that the Jesuits objected to all forms of the method of indivisibles, and that the distinction between indivisibles and infinitesimals consequently cannot explain the fight over the method in the seventeenth century. With regards to the Eucharist, I agree with Sherry that the Jesuits were indeed concerned about the method’s affinity to atomism and materialism, though for a different reason: these doctrines were antithetical to their efforts to impose divine hierarchy and order on the world. In as much as the technical details of the miracle of the Eucharist mattered, they provided no grounds for objecting to a mathematical (rather than physical) doctrine.     

The Chinese Journal for the History Science and Technology

The Chinese Journal for the History of Science and Technology （known as China Historical Materials of Science and Technology from 1980 to 2004） is the official publication of the Chinese Society for the History of Science and Technology and the Institute for the History of Natural Science, Chinese Academy of Science. It is foremost vehicle for the scholarship of professional historians of science in China, published quarterly by China Science and Technology Press.     

Changing Society by Scientific Investigations? The Unexpected Shared Ground Between Early Sociology of Knowledge and the Vienna Circle

In this paper, I show that there are important but hitherto unnoticed similarities between key figures of the Vienna Circle and early defenders of sociology of knowledge. The similarities regard their stance on potential implications of the study of science for political and societal issues. I argue that notably Otto Neurath and Karl Mannheim are concerned with proposing a genuine political philosophy of science that is remarkably different from today’s emerging interest in the relation between science and society in philosophy of science.     

Usage of and Discussion on“淤” and “瘀”

为了解由“淤”“瘀”为语素构成的词的使用情况，对其中七组词进行了调查，并对照了常用语文辞书和全国科学技术名词审定委员会审定的名词，发现这些词在医学期刊和书籍中使用十分混乱。分析了这七组词使用不规范的原因，提出了如何规范的建议。     

The Epistemological Functions of Symbolization in Leibniz’s Universal Characteristic

Leibniz’s universal characteristic is a fundamental aspect of his theory of cognition. Without symbols or characters it would be difficult for the human mind to define several concepts and to achieve many demonstrations. In most disciplines, and particularly in mathematics, the mind must then focus on symbols and their combinatorial rules rather than on mental contents. For Leibniz, mental perception is most of the time too confused for attaining distinct notions and valid deductions. In this paper, I argue that the functions of symbolization differ depending upon the kind of concepts that are replaced with characters. In my view, most commentators did not sufficiently underline the distinction between two main functions of formal substitution in Leibniz’s characteristic: either increasing our knowledge or simply structuring it. In the first case, we complete our knowledge because formal substitution makes sensible and imaginary concepts more distinct. In the second case, symbolization helps to organize contents that are already conceived of by reason. Thus the process of substitution is not always identically applicable, for symbols replace different types of concepts.     

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.’     

Diversity and Globalization of Biological Sciences throughout History

WhatisGlobalization?Whenwespeakofglobalizationofknowledge,itisanunfortunatefactthatthetextbooks andmonographsinwesterncountriesgenerallytracetheirideastoancientGreecebutgonofur ther.Theydonotalwaysacknowledgethattherewereothercivilizationswhonurturedgreat…     

Transmission of Islamic Exact Science to India and its Neighbours and Repercussions Thereof

LetmefirstclarifythatscienceasdevelopedinIslamicculturalareasorsocietiesduringtheMiddleAgesisabbreviatedhereasIslamicScience.Inthatcontext,theExactScienceis confinedtoastronomy(includingmathematicalgeography)andmathematicsonly;physicswas thenapartofnatura…     

The Usage of the Word“伴随矩阵”(bansuijuzhen)

一、张肇炽先生在<一个常用矩阵命名与记法的商榷>一文中指出,在许多中文数学文献中,对两个意义完全不同的矩阵都使用"伴随矩阵"这一名称.第一种情况是把矩阵A=(aij)n×n的伴随矩阵定义为由A的元素aij的代数余子式Aij所构成的矩阵A*:     

Moral and Political Significances of Nature in Ancient China

Naturehasbeeninextricablyconnectedwithhumanlife.Thereisnature snecessity,suchasthecosmicorderorbodilyfunctionsthatmencannotchangeandhavetocomplywith.There isnature sauthority.Peopleusenaturetobuildupsocialnormsandtojustifysocialandpoliti calactions.Therea…     

‘The Economic’ According to Aristotle: Ethical, Political and Epistemological Implications

A renewed concern with Aristotle’s thought about the economic aspects of human life and society can be observed. Aristotle dealt with the economic issues in his practical philosophy. He thus considered ‘the economic’ within an ethical and political frame. This vision is coherent with a specific ontology of ‘the economic’ according to Aristotle. In a recent paper, I analysed this ontology and left its consequences, especially for Ethics and Politics, for another paper. In this article, I firstly summarise the reasoning and conclusions of the aforementioned paper. Then, I extract the ethical and political “lessons” of the Aristotelian conception. I finally add a section with epistemological “lessons”, and consequences for the teaching of Economics.     

The Classification Society’s Bibliography Over Four Decades: History and Content Analysis

The Classification Literature Automated Search Service, an annual bibliography based on citation of one or more of a set of around 80 book or journal publications, ran from 1972 to 2012. We analyze here the years 1994 to 2012. The Classification Society’s Service, as it was termed, was produced by the Classification Society. In earlier decades it was distributed as a diskette or CD with the Journal of Classification. Among our findings are the following: an enormous increase in scholarly production in this area post approximately 2000; and another big increase in quantity of publications from approximately 2004. The over 93,000 bibliographic records used is the basis for determining the research disciplines that we analyze. We make all this data available for download, formatted in text and in XML, with an accompanying Apache Lucene/Solr search interface.     

The Problem about the English Translation of“优生优育”(youshengyouyu)

蔡敬先生就<科技术语研究>2000年第2期上我写的<关于"优生优育"英译名的问题>一文提出了名词审定要注意历史和现有工具书的问题,我很同意这个观点.     

Globalization, Scientific Lexicons, and the Future of Biology

1Biologyforthe21stCentury InarecentarticleintheNewYorkTimes(3/23/05),reportingonyetanotherupsetto receivedviewsofthewaysinwhichcellsmakeuseoftheirDNA,aprominentgeneticistisquo tedasremarking,“biologistshavegottenusedtotheunexpected.Indeed,theyhave,asin d…