后期墨家

墨家是战国初期由墨子创立的一个学派。墨家在墨子死后即分为相里氏之墨、相夫氏之墨,邓陵氏之墨三派,这就是后期墨家。今存《墨子》一书中的《经上》、《经下》、《经说上》、《经说下》、《大取》、《小取》等六篇就属后期墨家的重要著作,人们统称之为《墨辩》或《墨经》,是我们研究后期墨家逻辑思想的基本资料。后期墨家在总结墨子和各家逻辑思想成果的基础上,终于创立了一个相当科学的完整的古典逻辑科学体系,被今人称为“墨辩逻辑学”或“墨经逻辑学”。     

试述《墨辩》中若干范畴的理论

《墨辩》是指《墨子》一书中的《经上》、《经下》、《经说上》、《经说下》,《大取》和《小取》六篇。它们是后期墨家所写。 《墨辩》有完整的、深刻的逻辑思想,其中包含着卓越的、朴素的辩证思想。 李约瑟教授研究了中国科学技术史,指出:“当希腊人和印度人很早就仔细地考虑形式逻辑的时候,中国人则一直倾向于发展辩     

从墨辩说“且”看应当如何对多义词进行语言逻辑分析

《经上》曰:“且,言然也”。《经说上》曰:“且,自前曰且,自后曰且,方然亦且”。这说明墨家在研究思维中的逻辑问题时,敏锐地发现同“名”异“实”(即同一语词表达不同概念)的现象,并对这种“一词多义”的问题做了细致的概括分析。墨辩逻辑在对同名异实的多义词进行研究时有何独到之处?它与当代语言逻辑理论对多     

中国古代逻辑中的推理论(上)

中国古代的逻辑家把推理(包括论证)叫做“说”。他们对于“说”即推理论证的实质、作用、原理和方式等都有深刻的论述。一、说的实质和作用。《经上》说:“说。所以明也。”《小取》说:“以说出故。”“说”的原意是说明、解说。作为思维形式的“说”的实质,在于揭示一个“辞”(结论或论题)所以成立的理由,即确立结论对前提,或论题对论据的依赖关系。这种依赖关系是事物因果联系的反映。事物的“故”(原因)是必然引起另一现象的现象。《经说上》说:“故     

论推类逻辑与中国古代科学

一丰富的中国古代逻辑大致可以分为墨家逻辑、正名逻辑和论证逻辑三个传统,但处于主体地位的还是墨家逻辑,中国古代逻辑的基本内容也主要体现在墨家逻辑之中。正名逻辑以名家、儒家的“正名”思想与推知方法为主线,直指宋明理学的“正名”逻辑思想与方法。论证逻辑以王充的论证理论和方法为主体,主要是关于认识事物的辩证思维与方法。墨家逻辑以“类”概念为基础,以“推类”为基本方法,主要推理成分是“名”、“辞”、“说”,主导推理范式是“推类”。什么是“名”?《墨辩》说:“以名举实,以辞抒意,以说出故。”《荀子.正名》说:“实不喻然…     

上博简《鬼神之明》学派考辨——兼论鬼神研究中的思维定式问题

学者们研究《鬼神之明》时,无论是肯定、部分肯定还是否定简文与墨家的关系,均多围绕墨家展开讨论。运用同样的逻辑进行分析,《鬼神之明》也可以是儒家的佚文或儒家别派的作品。春秋战国时期怀疑鬼神的公正、能力,甚至怀疑鬼神存在者并不鲜见,可见《鬼神之明》中"鬼神有所明有所不明"的思想不属墨家特有,而是春秋战国时期不少有识之士的共同看法,因而仅仅凭借"鬼神"思想来判定学派属性是靠不住的。当今学界判定学派属性,出现"鬼神"观念便联想与墨家有关,于是使用各种方法加以论证,甚至不惜"削足适履"。这种思维定式值得我们反思。     

《易传》解《易》方法析论

本文通过《易传》来研究解《易》方法,共分四个部分:一、认为卦名反映一卦之主旨,《杂卦传》《大象传》为探寻卦名意义作过若干努力。二、认为《大象传》反映《周易》之精髓,它揭示了《周易》以六十四卦为形式探讨在不同的境遇下,君子所应具备的境界。三、《说卦传》揭示了《周易》取象比类的思维方法。四、《彖传》《系辞传》揭示了"当位"说、"得中"说、"正应"说、"贵贱"说等解卦方法。     

墨家的领导者心理素质思想

领导者心理素质是管理心理学研究的重要内容,先秦墨家的代表作《墨子》一书包含了丰富了领导者心理素质思想。该文拟从领导者的知识结构、道德品质、语言能力、工作态度、为人原则等方面对墨家的领导者心理素质思想作一整理和阐述,并分析其现代意义。     

《二程集》中《中庸解》作者考辨

现《程氏经说》中第八卷《中庸解》,未题何人所著。晁公武《郡斋读书志》“目录”载:“明道《中庸解》一卷。”而《伊川大全集》亦载有《中庸解》。但是,《经说》宋刻,原止七卷。陈振孙《书录解题》称:“《河南经说》凡《系辞》一,《书》一,     

墨子矛盾律思想的表述与应用

在中国古代逻辑学中,形式逻辑矛盾律的理论概括是由后期墨家作出的(约在公元前4至3世纪)。后期墨家在《墨经》中把判明和争辩一对矛盾命题的真假值,叫做“争彼”。如针对一个动物,甲说“这是牛”,乙说“这不是牛”,这就是“争彼”。而矛盾命题的真假值规律是“不俱当,必或不当”,即不能同真,必有一假。假如这个动物被判明是狗,那么说“这是牛”就是假的,而说“这不是牛”就是真的。但是早在对矛盾律作出正式的理论概括以前,即在公元前5世纪,墨子(约前480至前420)已经朴     

2001: A Counseling Odyssey

Futurists can be categorized as extrapolators, romantics, or systems thinkers. They make predictions about the future in response to current and impending world crises emerging from the impact that humans haue on this earth. Many of these crises have a direct bearing on the functions performed by the counselor. How does the counselor view the future? Can the counselor be classified in the same way as the futurists? In this article futurists, crises, and counseling strategies are discussed in an attempt to bring about congruence and to assist counselors to become aware of and recognize their role in shaping the future.     

Culture and dialogue: Positioning,mediation or style?

Dialogicality has become a key notion in current cultural psychology. Strikingly, whereas mediational and semiotic thinkers have developed the dialogical view by emphasizing the role of psychological distancing in semiotic and dialogical processes, dialogical self-theorists following the work of Hermans remain caught up in a perspective that naively privileges non-mediated interaction. In this article I argue that both accounts lack an adequate ontological understanding of dialogicality. In looking for an alternative, I will first discuss how Bakhtin offers a spatial account of dialogicality that is quite different from the positional account proposed by DST. For an ontological explication of the deep dialogicality underlying all signification, I will then turn to Merleau-Ponty's ontology of flesh and show how it allows us to see our embodied presence as always already part of a field of divergences, a carnal intersubjectivity, by which we participate in a particular style of being. I argue that the work of Bakhtin and Merleau-Ponty allows us to recognize a primordial dialogicality in the stylized, poetic and deeply equivocal nature of human expression. This primordial dialogicality defies the logic of positioning and distancing and reveals a deeper entwinement of self and other, with different psychological and developmental implications than those of DST.     

Information,Bodies, and Heidegger: Tracing Visions of the Posthuman

Discussion of the posthuman has emerged in a wide set of fields through a diverse set of thinkers including Donna Haraway, Ray Kurzweil, Nick Bostrom, N. Katherine Hayles, and Francis Fukuyama, just to name a few. Despite his extensive critique of technology, commentators have not explored the fruitfulness of Heidegger's work for deciphering the various strands of posthumanism recently formulated in response to contemporary technological developments. Here, I employ Heidegger's critique of technology to trace opposing visions of the posthuman, visions that are both tied intimately to new information technologies. For those seeking to extend humanist ideals, information technologies are employed to extend the vision of an ultra-humanist view of a ‘scientific posthuman’ that dangerously understands the body to be a forfeitable nuisance, rather than an inherent aspect of being human. Along Heideggerian lines, thinkers such as N. Katherine Hayles and Thomas Carlson have developed an alternative trajectory related to Dasein's Being-in-the-world. This trajectory posits the self as constituted by a lack or abyss, enabling the formulation of a ‘mystical posthuman,’ celebrating, rather than forfeiting, humanity's embodied existence.     

RENAISSANCE HUMANISM AND PHILOSOPHY AS A WAY OF LIFE

A long-established view has deprecated Renaissance humanists as primarily literary figures with little serious interest in philosophy. More recently it has been proposed that the idea of philosophy as a way of life offers a useful framework with which to reassess their philosophical standing. This proposal has faced some criticism, however. By looking again at the work of three important figures from the period, this essay defends the claim that at least some thinkers during the Renaissance did see philosophy as a way of life, while also acknowledging the force of reservations made by recent critics.     

The fleck affair: Fashions v. heritage

The problem of how to handle interesting but ignored thinkers of the past is discussed through an analysis of the case of Ludwik Fleck. Fleck was totally ignored in the ‘30s and declared an important thinker in the 70s and ‘80s. In the first case fashion ignored him and in the second it praised him. The praise has been as poor as the silence was unjust. We may do such thinkers more justice if we recognize that intellectual society is fickle, that we cannot make amends in many cases, but that we can do such thinkers justice by treating them critically ‐ even if this means explaining away any impact they might have had. If we wish to be autonomous and independent of fashion, we must abandon efforts to use the making of amends the occasion for making intellectual society seem fairer than it is.     

Comparing performance of pupils with high spatial-low numerical and high numerical-low spatial scores on a standardized mathematics test in the United Kingdom

Questions from a national mathematics test taken by over a 1,000 12- and 13-yr.-olds in the United Kingdom were perused for heavily loaded spatial and numerical items. Pupils' answers to the two types of item were examined, and those who answered well in one of the categories but poorly in the other were selected to form two groups, those high in spatial thinking but low in numerical thinking and those high in numerical thinking but low in spatial thinking to assess whether the approaches to solve the item used by each group were different. The two groups did indeed utilize different thinking strategies to solve the questions. For example, questions involving angle and volume, items thought to require a high spatial facility, were answered correctly by the predominantly numerical thinkers as often as by the predominantly spatial thinkers. This would indicate that one of the samples, i.e., numerical thinkers, used a different strategy than the other, i.e., spatial thinkers. This was verified by examination of students' work in the test booklets and personal interviews of them. Also, the same proportion of boys in each group was recorded, but a higher percentage of girls was recorded in the spatial group than in the numerical. This reflected the large number of boys who scored high on the spatial measures also doing moderately well on the numerical items and so, being moved out of the solely spatial group. Since the tests used by mathematics educators to assess learning are so heavily laden with linguistic/analytical rather than holistic/spatial types of questions, pupils high in spatial but low in numerical thinking face a severe handicap in schools.     

When Virtues,Roles and Duties Fail: Early Greek and Chinese Accounts of Akrasia

Both the Mohist canon and the works of Aristotle recognize that people sometimes fail to act according to virtues, roles and duties, what in a Western context is called akrasia or “weakness of will,” an important topic in both Greek and contemporary philosophy. I argue that questions of akrasia are treated different in the early Chinese and ancient Greek philosophy. Greek accounts focus on issues of will and control, while some Chinese thinkers treat akrasia as a lack of a skill, and the failure to act in the right way is less lack of will than lack of skill. I begin with a brief account of the problem of akrasia as first presented by Plato in the “Protagoras” and Republic, and developed by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics. I then turn to akrasia in an early Chinese context, focusing on a very different Mohist view of akrasia as lack of a skill. Finally, I contrast the “skill” the Mohists find lacking with a very different account of skill in the Zhuangzi.     

An Ancient Virtue and Its Heirs: The Reception of Greatness of Soul in the Arabic Tradition

This essay examines the reception of the ancient virtue of greatness of soul (or magnanimity) in the Arabic tradition, touching on a range of figures but focusing especially on Miskawayh and even more concertedly on al‐Ghazālī. Influenced by a number of Greek ethical texts available in Arabic translation, both of these thinkers incorporate greatness of soul into their classifications of the virtues and the vices. Yet a closer scrutiny raises questions about this amicable inclusion, and suggests that this virtue stands in an uneasy relationship to the larger ethical schemes of both thinkers. This is substantiated by a careful probing of these thinkers’ considered views on the value of honor and the ethics of self‐evaluation. Yet if the values embedded in the virtue of greatness of soul conflict with these thinkers’ ethical standpoints, there is then an interesting question to ask as to why this conflict should be obscured from view.     

Jankélévitch and Gusdorf on Forgiveness of Oneself

In this article, I examine the issue of forgiveness of oneself by looking at the writings of two postwar French philosophers: Georges Gusdorf and Vladimir Jankélévitch. Gusdorf believes that forgiving oneself is necessary for being able to forgive others. On the other hand, Jankélévitch sees no possibility of forgiveness for oneself and for similar reasons is very suspicious of traditional views of the role accorded to repenting and penitence. In short, the main view that separates the thinkers is, quite literally, whether work on oneself—such as repentance and penitence—comes first before forgiveness, or whether repentance and penitence are the result of some prior gracious act, such as forgiveness. Somewhat ironically, their views, when all is said and done, may not really be all that far apart from each other, especially in light of how each views the nature of the self. In the end, the main factor dividing the two thinkers is metaphysical allegiances. Reflecting a tendency that is shown in most—if not all—of his early works, Gusdorf views the self more from the perspective of anthropology. Jankélévitch, like his mentor Henri Bergson, has faith in science and does not have a supernatural view of the human soul.