试论艾迪生的美学思想

约瑟夫·艾迪生美学思想的独特性表现在他对审美想像的论述上：想像快感不同于感官快感和悟性快感,它可分为初级想像快感和次级想像快感,均来自视觉对象,这种对象由“伟大、新奇和美”组成。艾迪生对想像的研究比他同时代的美学家更深刻。文章还勾勒了想像这二概念在西方美学史上的流变。     

《中国古代动物学史》一书史料引用问题

中国古代动物学史郭都、李约瑟、成庆泰著北京：科学出版社1999年2月第1版639页由郭郛、李约瑟（J0sephNeedham）和成庆泰三位学者撰写的《中国古代动物学史》本年初已由科学出版社出版，这是一件值得庆贺的事，因为她是英国著名学者李约瑟主编的《中国科学与文明》中首次先以中文出版（准备译成英文）的一卷。三位作者中的一位已经作古，另二位也已年逾古稀，他们以渊博的现代科学知识和巨大的精力撰成此书，读来使人受益匪浅。对于她的成就和价值一定会得到表彰。作为科学史著作，一个极为重要的方面就是对原始史料的正确引用、准确分析…     

中医学的科学内涵与改革思路

本文从讨论李约瑟对五行概念的阐述开始,试分析中医的精粹科学内涵.从比较中医和西医的思维方式,可以看出西医注重物质实体,中医重视协调关系;应用生物复杂性系统的科学观念,认识中医学的科学性;并讨论了当前的中医有哪些亟待改革之处.     

Scientific realism bit by bit: part I. Kitcher on reference

In this paper, I consider Kitcher’s (1993) account of reference for the expressions of past science. Kitcher’s case study is of Joseph Priestley and his expression ‘dephlogisticated air’. There is a strong intuitive case that ‘dephlogisticated air’ referred to oxygen, but it was underpinned by very mistaken phlogiston theory, so concluding either that dephlogisticated air referred straightforwardly or that it failed to refer both have unpalatable consequences. Kitcher argues that the reference of such terms is best considered relative to each token—some tokens refer, and others do not. His account thus relies crucially on how this distinction between tokens can be made good—a puzzle I call the discrimination problem. I argue that the discrimination problem cannot be solved. On any reading of Kitcher’s defence of the distinction, the grounds provided are either insufficient or illegitimate. On the first reading, Kitcher violates the principle of humanity by making Priestley’s referential success a matter of the mental contents of modern speakers. The second reading sidesteps the problem of beliefs by appealing to mind-independent facts, but I argue that these are insufficient to achieve reference because of the indeterminacy introduced by the qua problem. On the third and final reading, Priestley’s success is given by what he would say in counterfactual circumstances. I argue that even if there are facts about what Priestley would say, and there is reason for doubt, there is no motivation to think that such facts determine how Priestley referred in the actual world.     

无碍说从头——从"李约瑟"、"胆水炼铜"、"白蜡虫"到"郑和下西洋"

论述了作者30年来(1975~2004年)从认识李约瑟巨著《中国科学技术史》到对科技史产生了浓厚兴趣的过程,并对“胆水炼铜”、“白蜡虫”和“郑和下西洋”的研究经历作了详细的回顾.     

Collecting airs and ideas: Priestley’s style of experimental reasoning

It has often been claimed that Priestley was a skilful experimenter who lacked the capacities to analyze his own experiments and bring them to a theoretical closure. In attempts to revise this view some scholars have alluded to Priestley’s ‘synoptic’ powers while others stressed the contextual role of British Enlightenment in understanding his chemical research. A careful analysis of his pneumatic reports, privileging the dynamics of his experimental practice, uncovers significant yet neglected aspects of Priestley’s science. By focusing on his early experimental conduct and writing on nitrous air, I demonstrate how his methodological and rhetorical devices, far from being consequences of compulsive writing or theoretical naïveté, were deeply entwined with his chemical research. I employ the notion of ‘style of experimental reasoning’ (SER)—derived from A. C. Crombie and I. Hacking—to shed light on the intersection at which Priestley’s unique method, literary style, and epistemology converged to generate scientific knowledge. Establishing Priestley’s SER advances a finer understanding of the interactive character of his pneumatic experimentalism, peculiar dimensions of which have evaded both traditional as well as revisionist scholarship, thus infusing the longstanding historiographic debate over his scientific merits.     

李约瑟中国科技史研究动因新考

李约瑟为什么会研究中国科技史,一直以来国内外学界流行的解读为:鲁桂珍是直接的诱因。笔者通过对二十世纪三十年代英国科学的社会研究兴起的考察,认为,李约瑟之研究中国科技史,有深刻的时代背景。自1931年以后英国科学界开展的科学的社会关系的调查和研究,应该是主要动因之一,而四十年代李约瑟来到中国主持中英科学合作馆,则最终促成了他转向中国科技史研究。李约瑟难题第一部分是李约瑟站在西方科学立场上提出的,它极有可能形成于1937年科学及其社会关系委员会初成期间,难题本身推动了他对中国的追踪;第二部分则是他站在中国古代科技的立场,在二战期间深入了解中国的科学与社会后提出。至迟在1945年,他已对难题的答案进行了深入思考。     

A specimen of Tirumala hamata hamata (Macleay, 1826) (Lepidoptera: Danainae) from Captain Cook’s first voyage

On 29 May 1770 Joseph Banks described a spectacular swarming of ‘milions’ [sic] ‘of one sort’ of butterfly at Thirsty Sound, near what is now Rockhampton, Queensland, comparing it to a species from China that had been named by Linnaeus. Discovery of what appears to be an Endeavour voyage specimen of this Australian butterfly in the Hunterian Zoology Museum, Glasgow, allows us to confirm its long-suspected identity as Tirumala hamata hamata (Macleay) – a species unnamed and unknown at the time of Cook’s first voyage. Investigations into several collections that include eighteenth-century Australian Lepidoptera and associated literature have not positively identified any further specimens taken from the swarm, although a pair in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History could be from the same source. Taxonomic confusion due to mimicry, convergence and/or non-divergence affecting blue tiger patterned butterflies is most likely the principal reason such a specimen has previously gone undetected.     

道性哲学观与"李约瑟之谜"

作为中国本土文化的重要流派,道家与科学技术的关系相对密切,但道性哲学的消极作用导致了"李约瑟之谜"的产生.道性哲学观所主张的不行而知、安分知足、炼丹求仙、贵阴尚柔、小国寡民、无为而治等思想,或被统治者的政治需要所利用,或被其代表人物曲意逢迎,对中国近代科技的发展造成了一定的负面影响,使近代科学未能在中国诞生.     

从夫琅和费和阿贝看创新人才的作用

夫琅和费和阿贝对物理学进行了重要研究并做出巨大贡献,特别是地光学领域的贡献极具创新性,由此说明创新型人才对科学技术的进步和企业的发展往往具有关键的甚至是决定性的作用,创新型人才应尽可能利用最新科技成果,应经得起失败和挫折,高校应特别注意对创新型人才的培养。