Pragmatism, Realism and Hermeneutics

This paper explores themethodological consequences of AmericanPragmatism for the social sciences. It alsocriticises some rival perspectives onmethodology of social research, in particularfalsificationist, realist and someanti-naturalist views. It is argued thatAmerican Pragmatism shows striking affinitieswith the genealogical method of history and thereflexive turn in cultural anthropology. It isalso argued that Pragmatism forces us to thinkdifferently about the relationship betweentheory and empirical research.     

Business Process Reengineering (BPR) Versus Outsourcing—Critical Perspectives

This article presents a case example involving the renaming of an organizational change process from BPR to outsourcing. The paper discusses the important ramifications of such a name change in that the recognition of outsourcing allowed an organizational commitment to counseling and termination advice. The paper discusses two ways of looking at the name change, one from a critical theory perspective and one from a realist perspective. It demonstrates how theory can provide useful yet markedly different interpretations of such organizational events. Critical theory operates from within what can be termed the transitive epistemological dimension, whereas critical realism tends to emphasize the importance of ontological issues. Each has important things to say about the situation and improves our understanding overall.     

西欧中世纪时期理性主义的复兴

西欧中世纪理性主义，历经唯名论与唯实论之争和理性与信仰之争和16世纪宗教改革运动，最终实现了自身意识主体的回归，为西欧近代思想意识自由发展揭开了序幕。     

量子宇宙学的发展及影响

半个世纪以来，人们普遍接受了建立在广义相对论基础上的大爆炸学说，后来又确立了大爆炸早期的暴涨阶段，对于在这个标准模型中存在的疑难，人们试图从宇宙的创生期，应运量子理论来找出答案，文章尝试着从这个探索过程中，理清量子宇宙学的形成、内涵及影响，并期望能为以后的研究理清一个思路。     

对人性现实主义的解读

对人性的正确把握是顺利进行制度设计的前提条件之一，通过对先贤们的人性观的梳理和评述，文章认为人性是人自为的结果，是现实、具体和可变的，是善与恶的混合体，故制度设计应防恶、扬善。     

论量子测量解释中的实在观

本文通过对不同量子测量解释的共同基本特征的考察,系统地阐述了量子测量解释中隐含的实在观的三个基本信条,(1)在本体论意义上,承认世界的独立存在性;(2)可以对物理过程进行统计因果性的说明;(3)物理世界具有非分离性或整体性.提出了以这种整体性实在观为前提,对量子力学的实在论解释要求重新审查传统真理观的观点.     

回溯推理与经济解释

皮尔士提出的回溯推理是根据事实尝试性地提出理论假说,应用演绎推理从前提推出一些结论,作出预言,然后,根据实验来验证.如果预言得到实验的证实,那么,我们可以在一定程度上接受这一假说,把它转化为理论.回溯推理是一类独立的逻辑推理形式,其特点在于作出最佳解释.最佳解释推理要求具备一致性、简单性、类比性等特点.回溯推理在经济解释和经济学方法论中比归纳和演绎更为适用.     

Extensional scientific realism vs. intensional scientific realism

Extensional scientific realism is the view that each believable scientific theory is supported by the unique first-order evidence for it and that if we want to believe that it is true, we should rely on its unique first-order evidence. In contrast, intensional scientific realism is the view that all believable scientific theories have a common feature and that we should rely on it to determine whether a theory is believable or not. Fitzpatrick argues that extensional realism is immune, while intensional realism is not, to the pessimistic induction. I reply that if extensional realism overcomes the pessimistic induction at all, that is because it implicitly relies on the theoretical resource of intensional realism. I also argue that extensional realism, by nature, cannot embed a criterion for distinguishing between believable and unbelievable theories.     

现实主义诗歌的个人化表达——李皓诗歌论

通过对李皓诗歌的文本细读,阐述了李皓作为现实主义诗人,他的诗歌关注乡土与都市的现实世界,感时忧国,多角度、多侧面地书写生活,同时又拥有纯正的个人情怀的表达,对自我的言说、独特的情感体验和生活阅历建构了属于诗人自己的时间与空间之维。     

Scientific progress as increasing verisimilitude

According to the foundationalist picture, shared by many rationalists and positivist empiricists, science makes cognitive progress by accumulating justified truths. Fallibilists, who point out that complete certainty cannot be achieved in empirical science, can still argue that even successions of false theories may progress toward the truth. This proposal was supported by Karl Popper with his notion of truthlikeness or verisimilitude. Popper’s own technical definition failed, but the idea that scientific progress means increasing truthlikeness can be expressed by defining degrees of truthlikeness in terms of similarities between states of affairs. This paper defends the verisimilitude approach against Alexander Bird who argues that the “semantic” definition (in terms of truth or truthlikeness alone) is not sufficient to define progress, but the “epistemic” definition referring to justification and knowledge is more adequate. Here Bird ignores the crucial distinction between real progress and estimated progress, explicated by the difference between absolute (and usually unknown) degrees of truthlikeness and their evidence-relative expected values. Further, it is argued that Bird’s idea of returning to the cumulative model of growth requires an implausible trick of transforming past false theories into true ones.