科学与宗教的融合与分离——与大学生谈有的科学家为什么信教

编者按：这是一位从事科学与人文教学的学者写给大学生的一封信。信中就大学生普遍存在的科学与宗教的关系“科学家为什么信教”的问题有理有据,言之凿凿。从科学与宗教的融合与分离和科学家信仰的社会、伦理及精神层面进行分析,值得一读。     

萨顿的新人文主义及其意义

萨顿提出的新人文主义观,分析批判了科学与人文的分裂对立,指出科学人性化是科学与人文融合的方法,其人性化的科学现有利于我们今天深度解读、审视医学的人性化,张扬价值理性,在实践中克服目前医学异化的倾向,开掘医学和人文融合的路径,实现医学人性化的真正回归。     

“畅神”说的现代人文价值

正传统美学中的"畅神"说,体现了魏晋时期生命意识的觉醒和张扬,无疑是传统美学中自然审美观的真谛,其现代人文价值不可小觑。它能够调动现代人的生态意识和生态智慧,促使现代人自觉地和自然融合在一起,因而具有生态美学的现实意义。"畅神"说的现代人文价值,还在     

放弃独白,构造对话——整体论的医学人文素质教育途径

解决我国现代医学人文素质教育课堂与实践的脱节这一问题的重要途径,是构建整体论医学人文素质教育模式:弱化医学规范理性对人文素质教育的强约束,放弃独白;发掘医学科学理性教育中的人文素质内涵,构造对话;推进医学科学教育与人文教育的融合,整体论思想.     

当下高等医学人文教育的困境与出路

医学人文教育是医学教育不可或缺的重要组成部分,医学科学精神与医学人文精神的融合是医学学科发展的目标和方向.当下医学人文教育的困境在于:医学人文教育与政治教育混谈,人文教育目标不明;医学人文教学与社会现实脱节,人文教学效果不佳.破解医学人文教育的困境,必须从顶层设计,跳出医学人文教育看教育,实施医学人文教育发展战略,实现医学教育的全面、协调、可持续发展.     

传统文化在艺术设计中的融合与体现

中国市场经济的繁荣发展提高了人们对生活品质的要求,人民群众的审美意识以及审美水平都在不断提高。中国传统文化具有丰富的人文底蕴,其审美情趣以及鉴赏价值不言而喻。在艺术设计中有效融合传统文化,是创新艺术设计的重要体现,传统文化以自身所特有的文化内涵,为艺术设计的多样化发展提供了可能。     

白璧德的新人文主义教育思想与医学人文素质教育

借鉴白璧德的新人文主义思想,在医学院校人文素质教育中树立三种理念:以人为本、科学精神与人文素质并重的理念、模仿想象与创新的理念;推崇传统经典,开设多层次分阶段相互融合的人文素质课程和教学体系;加强心理健康教育,发挥道德想象的正向导向功能;摆正教师的位置,加强人文素质教师队伍建设.     

科学与价值关系研究述评

长期以来,科学与价值的关系问题一直是国内外学术界密切关注又争论不休的问题.克莱姆克(E.D.Klemke)深刻地洞察到,在“科学与价值”这一词汇下面,所涉及到的方面是复杂的,包括理性、客观性、主观性、纯科学、应用科学等范畴,[1]甚至现在讨论得很激烈的科学主义与人文主义、科学文化与人文文化之争也可以看做是这一问题在当代水平上的拓展.     

科技伦理教育:医学研究生科学精神与人文精神融汇的契机

科学精神是指人们在科学活动中形成的,体现于科学知识、科学思想、科学方法中的一种观念、意识和态度。理性精神、实证精神、求真精神、批判精神构成了科学精神的核心内涵。与科学精神形成对比,人文精神是在人文认识活动中形成的一系列价值观念和态度。其核心是主张以人为本,强调人的价值和尊严,重视对人类的无限关怀。“人文精神是医学科学的旗帜,……面对现代社会医学与人文的冲突及由此带来的种种矛盾和问题,必须高扬人文精神的旗帜,重新找回医学与人文亲和的‘蜜月’,建立两者之间和谐融合、共生互动的关系,让医学科学朝着人类希望的方向发展。”培养兼具科学精神与人文精神的医学研究生是21世纪医学人才培养的重要目标之一。     

医学人文社科系列课程的整合优化及教学模式改革

医学院校人文教育主要存在观念上的唯科学取向、内容上的唯知识取向、方法难输化和组织形式化等弊端.提出促进学科间的交叉融合是高校医学院校人文科学课程改革的根本目的之一.以学科为基础的实质性融合是人文学科体制改革的基本点.     

Psychology and phenomenology: a clarification

Controversies are rampant in contemporary psychology concerning the appropriate method for observing consciousness and the role inner experience should play in psychological theorizing. These conflicting orientations reflect, in part, methodological differences between natural science and human science interpretations of psychology. Humanistic psychology and philosophical phenomenology both employ a human science approach to psychology that seeks to explain behavior in terms of a person's subjective existence. Maslow's and Heidegger's formulations are both fulfillment theories in that they specify moral values that suggest how life ought to be lived. Natural science methodology rejects the possibility that moral imperatives can be validated, whereas human science methodology allows phenomenological convictions to justify recommendations about a fulfilled life and a good society. The social role of psychology is analyzed within the framework of phenomenological convictions and scientific truth.     

Abstraction and Finitude: Education, Chance and Democracy

Education in the west has become a very knowing business in which students are encouraged to cultivate self-awareness and meta-cognitive skills in pursuit of a kind of perfection. The result is the evasion of contingency and of the consciousness of human finitude. The neo-liberalism that makes education a market good exacerbates this. These tendencies can be interpreted as a dimension of scepticism. This is to be dissolved partly by acknowledging that we are obscure to ourselves. Such an acknowledgement is fostered by the mythic dimension of experience, which also recommends a degree of humility to the citizens of democratic states.     

The consciousness of being conscious

Starting with the therapeutic advantage gained when insight acquires consciousness, an investigation of the nature and function of consciousness is undertaken. Consciousness is a state of awareness, having a range of higher mental functions serving a regulatory, controlling, and integrating role in mental activity. There are high levels of thinking, reality testing, experiencing, judging, anticipating; self-awareness and self-reflection enter into these controlling activities. Psychoanalysis has rightly been a science that studies the workings and contents of the unconscious portions of the mind. It has perhaps overlooked the important role that consciousness plays in ordinary life and in providing the levels of control and self-awareness individuals both experience and require. That pathology and disturbances of function may accompany normal states of consciousness as well as altered states of consciousness is a common clinical phenomenon. Psychoanalysis as a therapy widens the scope of the conscious control systems.     

A terror management analysis of self-awareness and anxiety: The hierarchy of terror

Abstract

In this article, we apply terror management theory to the operation of self-awareness processes. According to the theory, self-esteem consists of accepting a cultural conception of reality and believing that one is living up to the standards of value inherent in that conception. The function of self-esteem is to buffer the anxiety that results from the awareness of human vulnerability and mortality that results from our capacity for self-awareness. We argue that self-awareness leads to comparisons with standards, and to behavior aimed at reducing any discrepancies that are detected, because of the potential for existential terror that self-awareness creates. Existential terror is seen as the emotional manifestation of the instinct for self-preservation. Management of this terror is conceptualized as the superordinate goal in a hierarchy of standards through which behavior is regulated. A hierarchical terror management model is proposed. This structure provides a unique analysis of the self-system and its relationship to other attitudes, values, and beliefs. The theory posits several dynamic principles that specify how self-awareness and disruptions determine the movement of conscious attention through various levels of the hierarchy. The implications of this analysis for unresolved theoretical questions about self-awareness processes, unconscius sources of motivation, and clinical problems are discussed.     

The functional role of consciousness: A phenomenological approach

In this paper, a theoretical account of the functional role of consciousness in the cognitive system of normal subjects is developed. The account is based upon an approach to consciousness that is drawn from the phenomenological tradition. On this approach, consciousness is essentially peripheral self-awareness, in a sense to be duly explained. It will be argued that the functional role of consciousness, so construed, is to provide the subject with just enough information about her ongoing experience to make it possible for her to easily obtain as much information as she may need. The argument for this account of consciousness' functional role will proceed in three main stages. First, the phenomenological approach to consciousness as peripheral self-awareness will be expounded and endorsed. Second, an account of the functional role of peripheral perceptual awareness will be offered. Finally, the account of the functional role of peripheral self-awareness will be obtained by straightforward extension from the functional role of peripheral perceptual awareness. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The exploration of meditation in the neuroscience of attention and consciousness

Many recent behavioral and neuroscientific studies have revealed the importance of investigating meditation states and traits to achieve an increased understanding of cognitive and affective neuroplasticity, attention and self-awareness, as well as for their increasingly recognized clinical relevance. The investigation of states and traits related to meditation has especially pronounced implications for the neuroscience of attention, consciousness, self-awareness, empathy and theory of mind. In this article we present the main features of meditation-based mental training and characterize the current scientific approach to meditation states and traits with special reference to attention and consciousness, in light of the articles contributed to this issue.     

HUSSERLIAN INTENTIONALITY AND THE CHINESE CONCEPT OF "MIND"

The phenomenology of Edmund Husserl is, in one sense, a theory of pure consciousness that aims to set forth an absolute, ultimate, rigorous ground for the sciences based on the field of pure consciousness. Husserl believed that, on the basis of this field of pure consciousness, he could secure eternal significance for the spiritual life of man. Intentionality is the key element in this theory of pure consciousness and it plays a crucial part in the realization of Husserl's philosophical goal. By contrast, traditional Chinese philosophy was not concerned to seek an absolute, ultimate ground for the sciences or to derive a set of moral norms and a theory of value for human life from logical and scientific truths. Rather, Chinese philosophy sought to adjust the relationships between man and nature and between man and man in their ordinary, secular existence. It placed no value in the ideas of pure logic, pure science, or pure consciousness. Traditional Chinese philosophers inquired into the experiential, intuitive 'mind' ( xin ^a). This approach to 'mind'was understood by the Chinese to require rigorous logical proof or scientific theory:— anyone can perceive one's 'mind'in daily life and, by analogy, anyone can 'perceive'other 'minds'. If Husserl's intentionality is the transcendental reason of Western philosophy, the 'mind'is the practical reason of Chinese philosophy. What, then, are the essential features of Husserl's 'intentionality'and the Chinese 'mind'? What are their respective theoretical features? Can they be brought together and compared in a philosophically significant fashion?     

Basing Science Ethics on Respect for Human Dignity

A “no ethics” principle has long been prevalent in science and has demotivated deliberation on scientific ethics. This paper argues the following: (1) An understanding of a scientific “ethos” based on actual “value preferences” and “value repugnances” prevalent in the scientific community permits and demands critical accounts of the “no ethics” principle in science. (2) The roots of this principle may be traced to a repugnance of human dignity, which was instilled at a historical breaking point in the interrelation between science and ethics. This breaking point involved granting science the exclusive mandate to pass judgment on the life worth living. (3) By contrast, respect for human dignity, in its Kantian definition as “the absolute inner worth of being human,” should be adopted as the basis to ground science ethics. (4) The pathway from this foundation to the articulation of an ethical duty specific to scientific practice, i.e., respect for objective truth, is charted by Karl Popper’s discussion of the ethical principles that form the basis of science. This also permits an integrated account of the “external” and “internal” ethical problems in science. (5) Principles of the respect for human dignity and the respect for objective truth are also safeguards of epistemic integrity. Plain defiance of human dignity by genetic determinism has compromised integrity of claims to knowledge in behavioral genetics and other behavioral sciences. Disregard of the ethical principles that form the basis of science threatens epistemic integrity.     

NATURE, REALITY, AND THE SACRED: A MEDITATION IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Abstract. Many scientists now recognize the participation of the knower in the known. Not many admit, however, that scientists rely upon intuitions about reality commonly attributed to philosophy and religion: that sensory experience relates us to an order in nature congruent with our minds and of value congruent with our fulfilled being. Nature has disclosed itself to scientists—albeit fragmentarily—as power, life, order, and unity or meaning. In science these remain limit questions, raised but unanswered. In the unity of these qualities, assumed by science, the sacred begins to appear. Addressing the limit questions, not only of scientific but of human experience, is the province of philosophy and religion.     

Five levels of self-awareness as they unfold early in life

When do children become aware of themselves as differentiated and unique entity in the world? When and how do they become self-aware? Based on some recent empirical evidence, 5 levels of self-awareness are presented and discussed as they chronologically unfold from the moment of birth to approximately 4-5 years of age. A natural history of children's developing self-awareness is proposed as well as a model of adult self-awareness that is informed by the dynamic of early development. Adult self-awareness is viewed as the dynamic flux between basic levels of consciousness that develop chronologically early in life.