The roots of the silver tree: Boyle,alchemy, and teleology

Though Robert Boyle called final causes one of the most important subjects for a natural philosopher to study, his own treatise on the subject, the Disquisition about Final Causes, has received comparatively little scholarly attention. In this paper, I explicate Boyle's complex argument against the use of teleological explanations for inanimate bodies, such as metals. The central object of this argument is a mysterious allusion to a silver plant. I claim that the silver plant is best understood as a reference to alchemical product: the Arbor Dianae, an offshoot of George Starkey's recipe for the Philosophers' Stone. Then, I show how the context of alchemy not only clarifies Boyle's argument but also places it within a wider dialectic about matter and teleology. I then contrast the parallel arguments of Boyle and John Ray on the question of whether metals have divine purposes and show that the difference is explained by Boyle's belief in the transmutation of metals.     

Newtonianism and the enthusiasm of Enlightenment

The career of John Jackson (1686-1763), Arian theologian and controversialist, provides a key to unlocking the early reception and quick collapse of a Newtonian natural apologetic originally developed by Samuel Clarke. The importance of friendship and discipleship in eighteenth-century intellectual enquiry is emphasised, and the links between Newton and his followers are traced alongside those of a group of Cambridge Lockeans, led by Jackson’s direct contemporary Daniel Waterland, who proved instrumental in the initial dismantling of Clarke’s brand of Newtonian apologetic. The controversial context of this engagement is shown to have been largely provided by the religiously compromising rise of freethinking, and Tindal’s Christianity as old as the creation (1731) signalled the dangers to proponents of natural religion as an adjunct of Christian apologetic in such a heated atmosphere. Religious division of the sort that resulted paradoxically played into the hands of the freethinkers in the anticlerical atmosphere of the 1730s, and accusations were exchanged between Newtonians and Lockeans accordingly. The dynamic of England’s Enlightenment experience is, then, a complicated one, and, as the career and writings of Jackson and William Whiston demonstrate, it was one which absorbed as well as repudiated ‘enthusiasm’.     

谈新课程理念及实践中的"杜威情结"

20世纪以来,中国的教育、教学改革一直深受杜威(John,Deney)的启发、影响。杜威坚持教育"实验"研究,他的教育理论著作不仅有其深厚的实用主义课程哲学理想,而且始终贯穿其心理学理念。他的"儿童中心"(学生为本),"做中学"(实践出真知),"教育即生活"(体验生活、回归生活)的本质诉求等等都充分体现在2001年以来中国基础教育课程改革理论与实践中。然而中国的现实结构,国情变化发展又不断冲击着成长变化迅猛的青少年"独生子女",为此,思考中国课改中的"杜威情结",一方面检讨现实儿童世界应予关注的问题,另一方面梳理"杜威现象"对中国教育进程、教育改革的影响,从而进一步反思"教育即生活"的基础教育教学。     

现代科学的复杂性审视--齐曼科学社会学思想的新发展

约翰·齐曼是一位科学家出身的科学社会学家。他认为现代科学正在从学院时代走向了后学院时代,因此其传统的学术规范即默顿规范随之也要作出相应的修正;科学进步也像生物进化,有自然选择但也有自组织能力;科学虽然并不具有绝对可靠性,但它仍然有理由值得我们去信赖。     

罗尔斯的正义原则及其启示

罗尔斯的正义论对我国社会转型时期制度正义、社会公正的建设有重大启发意义。现代中国社会面临的主要问题之一是社会正义的缺失，正义论的思想无疑会给我们重建社会正义提供很多有益的启示。     

Early eighteenth-century Newtonianism: the Huguenot contribution

John Theophilus Desaguliers’s allegorical poem The Newtonian system of the world, the best model of government (1728) crystallizes the contribution of several important French Protestant exiles to the construction of early Newtonianism. In the context of diverging interpretations of Newton’s scientific achievement in terms of natural religion, writers such as Des Maizeaux, Coste, Le Clerc and others actively disseminated a version of Newtonianism which was close to Newton’s own intention. Through public experiments, translations, correspondence, reviews and books, they managed to convey a vision of Newtonian science which coincided with their propaganda of English liberties in Church and State. Therefore their effort on behalf of Newtonianism can be interpreted as part of a wider strategy of assimilation into English society at a time when most exiled Huguenots had given up hope of ever recreating a French Reformed Church at home.     

约翰·厄普代克《兔子归来》中的电视媒介与现实

约翰·厄普代克兔子系列小说中引入大量的电视节目,显出其独特的文本特征。用新现实主义理论和麦克卢汉媒介理论可解读其“兔子四部曲”之二《兔子归来》中电视节目的文学功能。他大胆引用电视节目,让现实中真实的电视滑稽剧、广告、新闻报道成为虚构文本的一部分,使观众,即小说人物“卷入”电视节目内容,以此刻画人物形象、暗示小说情节、拓宽小说主题,这无疑体现出厄普代克作为新现实主义小说家创造模式上的多元化。     

生态视角下对福尔斯《魔法师》的解读

阐述英国当代著名的后现代主义作家约翰·福尔斯通过代表作《魔法师》,从自然生态、社会生态、道德生态的独特的、生态整体主义的视角,为读者揭示了生态失范的后现代社会的、人类赖以生存的环境状况。生态的失衡,给自然环境乃至人类的精神世界带来的种种危机,具有一定的社会和文化渊源。福尔斯希望建立的人与自然、人与人和谐相处的生态观,对于人类社会的生存、发展、前途和命运具有深远、现实的指导意义。     

The material theory of induction and the epistemology of thought experiments

John D. Norton is responsible for a number of influential views in contemporary philosophy of science. This paper will discuss two of them. The material theory of induction claims that inductive arguments are ultimately justified by their material features, not their formal features. Thus, while a deductive argument can be valid irrespective of the content of the propositions that make up the argument, an inductive argument about, say, apples, will be justified (or not) depending on facts about apples. The argument view of thought experiments claims that thought experiments are arguments, and that they function epistemically however arguments do. These two views have generated a great deal of discussion, although there hasn't been much written about their combination. I argue that despite some interesting harmonies, there is a serious tension between them. I consider several options for easing this tension, before suggesting a set of changes to the argument view that I take to be consistent with Norton's fundamental philosophical commitments, and which retain what seems intuitively correct about the argument view. These changes require that we move away from a unitary epistemology of thought experiments and towards a more pluralist position.     

John Dewey's pragmatist alternative to the belief-acceptance dichotomy

Defenders of value-free science appeal to cognitive attitudes as part of a wedge strategy, to mark a distinction between science proper and the uses of science for decision-making, policy, etc. Distinctions between attitudes like belief and acceptance have played an important role in defending the value-free ideal. In this paper, I will explore John Dewey's pragmatist philosophy of science as an alternative to the philosophical framework the wedge strategy rests on. Dewey does draw significant and useful distinctions between different sorts of cognitive attitudes taken by inquirers, but none can be used to support the wedge strategy.