从“经世济民”到“计学”——翻译中的传统“经济学”的概念转型

中国经济学概念的现代转型在清末民初的演进过程常深陷于“西化”与“欧化”之漩涡,然而近代中国西方经济学译介过程并非简单地移植,亦非中国传统经济学发展的结果,而是近代救亡图存的历史语境和传统经济学双重体系影响下的产物。从西方经济学的学科名称economics的庞杂译名中可窥一斑。虽最终以“经济学”胜出而告终,但严复所译“计学”在众多译名中独树一帜,其译名概念意义凸显了西方经济学的社会功用与学科功用,也在语言层面兼顾了中国传统经济思想中的经世之说,有利于学科确立和西方经济思想进一步传播。对“计学”的深入分析将有助于加深学界对近代经济学话语体系形成初期的认识。     

“法治中国”英译新探

“法治中国”在党的十八届三中全会上被确立为法治建设的目标,成为中国法治话语的统领性概念。“法治中国”是一个完全、独特的中国表达,其英译应由中国人自主创立,以把握国际话语传播的先机和主动权。英译应规范、恰当、简洁有力,突出“治”这一理想形式,不译出“法”不影响信息的传递。文章尝试提出“法治中国”的新译,力求符合社会主义法治话语结构的逻辑关系,展现其目标内涵和表达气质。     

“民粹”概念解读

“民粹”(或“民粹主义”)是与“精英主义”相对的概念。诸多领域都已出现了民粹思维和实践,但其概念较为模糊。美国的人民党运动和俄国民粹派实践是民粹话语的经典形象。评价视角上,民粹是以草根或平民价值为导向、是富含情绪化和批判性的思维和实践。思想内核上,民粹一是主张以“大众”为中心、奉行“人民至上”,二是以“精英”的视角构建的思想体系,三是一个矛盾体。     

“政治等效”视野下“依法治国”的英译嬗变探析——以五次党代会报告英译为例

“依法治国”是中国政治话语中的一个重要术语,其英译应从建构中国国际话语权的高度来认识。文章梳理了从十五大到十九大五次党代会报告中对“依法治国”这一术语的英译,发现了“依法治国”英译在这20年间的嬗变途径和趋势,在“政治等效”视野下,从“政治性”“动态性”和“平衡性”三个标准对“依法治国”的英译嬗变进行探讨,辨其途径,析其原因,并得出结论,以期对中国特色政治术语的翻译有所启示。     

Mathematics,Philosophical and Semantic Considerations on Infinity (II): Dialectical Vision

Human language has the characteristic of being open and in some cases polysemic. The word “infinite” is used often in common speech and more frequently in literary language, but rarely with its precise meaning. In this way the concepts can be used in a vague way but an argument can still be structured so that the central idea is understood and is shared with to the partners. At the same time no precise definition is given to the concepts used and each partner makes his own reading of the text based on previous experience and cultural background. In a language dictionary the first meaning of “infinite” agrees with the etymology: what has no end. We apply the word infinite most often and incorrectly as a synonym for “very large” or something that we do not perceive its completion. In this context, the infinite mentioned in dictionaries refers to the idea or notion of the “immeasurably large” although this is open to what the individual’s means by “immeasurably great.” Based on this linguistic imprecision, the authors present a non Cantorian theory of the potential and actual infinite. For this we have introduced a new concept: the homogon that is the whole set that does not fall within the definition of sets established by Cantor.     

“经济”回溯——本体论视角下的中国近代术语翻译

严复以“计学”对译亚当·斯密《国富论》中的economics,该译词凸显了20世纪中国“经济学”概念转型的一次尝试,然而东洋“泊来品”——“经济”(之所以置“泊来品”于引号之内,皆因“经济”一词中国自古有之)后来却逐渐占据中国近代经济话语的主导地位(至少从economics的对译术语角度而言如此)。作为承载与交流知识与信息的表达系统,语言在知识本体与对象客体间架起了解释和理解的渠道,而本体(ontology)是用来描述一个系统内部知识体系的架构。人文社会术语因其特殊属性对当今计算机形式化语言下的知识本体构建提出新的要求,同时也开辟了本体视角下术语翻译的新维度。文章借西方术语 economics于近代中国的本体转型在多元译词上的反映来凸显近代术语翻译中的术语概念演变,本土语言资源选择与词汇化过程,翻译的术语化过程以及术语传播与效应,以期对中国近代术语翻译提供新的解读视角。     

“术语学派”的提法值得商讨

术语学著述中常通过列举一些有影响的术语学派来描述术语学的发展状况，但就实际现状来说，这样做已经变得不很适宜。更为重要的是，“术语学派”从来不是一个有明确定义的概念，连被称为“学派”的国家的学者都不接受这种说法。因此，对这一提法的使用要慎之又慎。     

About the Confusion Between the Course of Time and the Arrow of Time

A conclusion drawn after a conference devoted (in 1995) to the “arrow of time” was the following: “Indeed, it seems not a very great exaggeration to say that the main problem with “the problem of the direction of time” is to figure out exactly what the problem is supposed to be !” What does that mean? That more than 130 years after the work of Ludwig Boltzmann on the interpretation of irreversibility of physical phenomena, and that one century after Einstein’s formulation of Special Relativity, we are still not sure what we mean when we talk of “time” or “arrow of time”. We shall try to show that one source of this difficulty is our tendency to confuse, at least verbally, time and becoming, i.e. the course of time and the arrow of time, two concepts that the formalisms of modern physics are careful to distinguish.     

Sustainability Transitions and the Nature of Technology

For more than 20?years, sustainable development has been advocated as a way of tackling growing global environmental and social problems. The sustainable development discourse has always had a strong technological component and the literature boasts an enormous amount of debate on which technologies should be developed and employed and how this can most efficiently be done. The mainstream discourse in sustainable development argues for an eco-efficiency approach in which a technology push strategy boosts efficiency levels by a factor 10 and more in industrialised and developing countries. A minority argues for a socio-cultural lifestyle switch, relying on new values, quality of life, sufficiency and redistribution strategies, with calls for appropriate and soft technologies. It is remarkable, however, that the articles, books and policy debates on sustainability seldom explicitly draw in a discussion of the nature of technology, how technology influences and is influenced by society, and what this implies for sustainable development. The mainstream interprets technology as neutral and instrumental: technology is no more than an instrument to reach a goal; it cannot be judged on its intrinsic characteristics, only on its use. The alternative view often builds on an autonomous and substantive interpretation of technology: technology is an autonomous, almost uncontrollable power that fundamentally reshapes our culture. A more balanced approach seems to be growing in the research on socio-technical sustainability transitions where the focus shifts to the co-evolution of technology and society, and to the networks, seamless webs and complex multi-actor processes that may carry a sustainability transition forward. This approach builds on insights from recent traditions in the philosophy and sociology of technology, in particular the social construction of technology (SCOT) and actor-network theory (ANT). While this provides for a better understanding of the nature and potential role of technology in sustainability policies, it remains to be seen whether it will actually influence the choice between technologies. This article investigates the different conceptualisations of technology in the sustainability debate. It first distinguishes between different approaches of sustainability and how these are related to differing views on technology. It then moves on to how the socio-technical transitions research incorporates insights from contemporary philosophy and sociology of technology. It reflects on the potential of transitions research to give guidance in technology choices, suggesting that the transition approach might be strengthened by drawing in insights from critical theory of technology and by taking a more political stance in defining sustainable development.     

"拓扑学"探源

拓扑学(topology)是数学中的一个学科。这个学科曾经叫作“形势几何学”,这个名称是数学家江泽涵创制的,但它使用的时间不长。后来topology 翻译成了“拓扑学”。“拓扑学”是一个音意兼译词,它的产生应该在20世纪40年代。     

Coal to Diamonds

In this commentary to Napoletani et al. (Foundations of Science 16:1–20, 2011), we put agnostic science in a wider historical context of philosophy of mathematics. Secondly, the parallel to Tukey’s “exploratory data analysis” will be discussed. Thirdly, it will be argued that what is new is the mutually interdependent dynamics of data (on which Napoletani et al. focus) and of computational modeling—which puts science closer to engineering and vice versa.     

论“电子商务”简称“电商”的合理性

“电商”作为“电子商务”的缩略形式在媒体频繁出现,有研究者认为,“电商”一词表意不清,不能作为“电子商务”的缩略语。事实上,缩略语的规律具有复杂性,缩略的理据是多元的,人们对语素含义的理解会随着社会生活的变化而有所发展。评价缩略语是否规范,既要重视语言结构内部的基本规则,也不能忽视民众的语用选择。“电子商务”简称“电商”并无不可。     

Perceiving the Infinite and the Infinitesimal World: Unveiling and Optical Diagrams in Mathematics

Many important concepts of the calculus are difficult to grasp, and they may appear epistemologically unjustified. For example, how does a real function appear in “small” neighborhoods of its points? How does it appear at infinity? Diagrams allow us to overcome the difficulty in constructing representations of mathematical critical situations and objects. For example, they actually reveal the behavior of a real function not “close to” a point (as in the standard limit theory) but “in” the point. We are interested in our research in the diagrams which play an optical role –microscopes and “microscopes within microscopes”, telescopes, windows, a mirror role (to externalize rough mental models), and an unveiling role (to help create new and interesting mathematical concepts, theories, and structures). In this paper we describe some examples of optical diagrams as a particular kind of epistemic mediator able to perform the explanatory abductive task of providing a better understanding of the calculus, through a non-standard model of analysis. We also maintain they can be used in many other different epistemological and cognitive situations.     

"数"与"量","数词"与"量词",以及"常数"与"常量"

根据《物理学名词》(2019)和国际科技术语委员会(CODATA)推荐的“量表(2018)”以及量纲分析,并且通过中西语言特点对比,由“数”与“量”谈及“数词”与“量词”,论述了区别“常数”与“常量”的原则,表明将“constant”一词译为中文时,如果它所代表的物理量有量纲,则应译为“常量”,反之则译为“常数”。说明在中文科技术语中,常数与常量的区别是明确的、可规范的。     

技术民主化设计何以可能?--基于芬伯格“自我赋权”的思路

设计是当前技术哲学和技术伦理关注的核心话题,其关键问题之一是如何实现技术设计的民主化。芬伯格认为,技术设计是权力斗争的舞台,通过民主干预,人们可以在技术设计中改变现有的"技术代码",从而实现"技术民主化"的转变。以福柯的"自我技术"为参照,技术民主化设计可以被看作是一种"自我赋权"的方式,它不仅指明了一条将技术进行内在转化的研究进路,而且为社会个体提供了在技术领域中表达自我主张的机会,同时也有助于作为行动者的公众对技术设计的积极参与。     

英语中的"学院"及汉语中"学院"的英译

当前,中国部分大学建制了“学部”,与二级“学院”并存,并在“学部”及二级“学院”下设立三级“学院”和“学系”。于是,“学部”“二级学院”和“三级学院”的英译成了译界关注的现象。然而,英语中可译为汉语“学院”的词很多,常见的便有college、institute、school、academy、seminary、conservatory、faculty和division。文章首先对这些词进行较为系统的分析比较,通过列举牛津大学、芝加哥大学、伦敦大学学院等大学中的二级学院和三级学院,尝试揭示其用法上的侧重和区别,探讨如何规范汉语中的学部、二级学院和三级学院的英译。     

避雷针名称考

“避雷针”一词最早见于日本。1872年,在日本的一本德日词典中,该词用来对译德语的Blitzableiter(避雷针),此后逐渐流行。20世纪初,“避雷针”进入中国,如在《世界通史》(1903)和《日本法规解字》(1907)中,均能找到例证。不过有人认为,“避雷针”这个名称不是很适合,于是出现了“接闪杆”。理由是这个名称比较科学,符合这种装置的原理。但实际情况是,用“接闪杆”的人少,用“避雷针”的人多。     

《国富论》溯源与内涵分析

亚当·斯密巨著The Wealth of Nations自译介入中国,已呈现出多种译名,虽终以“国富论”定名并广泛应用,但在翻译学界及经济学界引起了译名之争,即“国家财富”与“国民财富”之争。译名是思想的载体,The Wealth of Nations严谨准确的译名关系到对亚当·斯密经济思想的解读及其在中国的传播、应用与发展。文章在学者研究基础上,超越词义分析层面的局限,从斯密所处的时代背景及其经济思想角度进行溯源探究,依据历史逻辑研究方法寻求理据,并结合现代经济学话语概念,发现“国家财富”更能精准呈现原作之意。     

The Deluge of Spurious Correlations in Big Data

Very large databases are a major opportunity for science and data analytics is a remarkable new field of investigation in computer science. The effectiveness of these tools is used to support a “philosophy” against the scientific method as developed throughout history. According to this view, computer-discovered correlations should replace understanding and guide prediction and action. Consequently, there will be no need to give scientific meaning to phenomena, by proposing, say, causal relations, since regularities in very large databases are enough: “with enough data, the numbers speak for themselves”. The “end of science” is proclaimed. Using classical results from ergodic theory, Ramsey theory and algorithmic information theory, we show that this “philosophy” is wrong. For example, we prove that very large databases have to contain arbitrary correlations. These correlations appear only due to the size, not the nature, of data. They can be found in “randomly” generated, large enough databases, which—as we will prove—implies that most correlations are spurious. Too much information tends to behave like very little information. The scientific method can be enriched by computer mining in immense databases, but not replaced by it.     

The Struggle for Technology: Towards a Realistic Political Theory of Technology

Pieter Lemmens’ neo-Marxist approach to technology urges us to rethink how to do political philosophy of technology. First, Lemmens’ high level of abstraction raises the question of how empirically informed a political theory of technology needs to be. Second, his dialectical focus on a “struggle” between humans and technologies reveals the limits of neo-Marxism. Political philosophy of technology needs to return “to the things themselves”. The political significance of technologies cannot be reduced to its origins in systems of production or social organization, but requires study at the micro-level, where technologies help to shape engagement, interaction, power, and social awareness.