Transformations of the Concept of Reason

This outline of the transformations of the concept of reason is based on the idea that this can be presented/illustrated by means of a historical sketch of the criticism of reason, because all essential differentiations in that concept can be understood as consequences of critical arguments. In Kant's work, the Critique of Speculative Reason reaches its first conclusion; it was followed by a Critique of Critical Reason by Hegel and his followers, and Schopenhauer established a new type of critical argument: the Critique of Functional Reason which dominates the radical criticism of reason in our time. This radical criticism is the great challenge for the philosophy of reason today.     

经济活动中的道德理性

经济活动不仅是人们的物质生产活动,也是人们“理性化”的认知活动和实践活动。它既体现了人类主体对技术、工具手段的认知理性,又体现了人类主体“合理性”、“合目的性”的价值理性。而道德价值理性是一切合理有序的经济活动的价值标矢和理性基础。     

Freedom and Practical Reason

Practical reasons, roughly, are reasons to have our desires and goals, and to do what might secure these goals. I argue for the view that lack of freedom to do otherwise undermines the truth of judgments of practical reason. Thus, assuming that determinism expunges alternative possibilities, determinism undercuts the truth of such judgments. I propose, in addition, that if practical reason is associated with various values in a specified way, then determinism precludes such values owing to determinism's imperiling practical reason.

知性思维的合理性问题

本文认为,知性思维尽管是一种“呆板”的、“教条”的思维范式,可它在人的认识过程中还是有一定的合理性存在的范围和根据的。它同辩证思维一样都是人的生存方式和需要的产物,都是人的创造性思维的表现,都是人的认识过程的环节。因此,不能简单地把知性思维与形而上学的思维方式划上等号。我们既要防止知性思维的不合理越界,即用它来反对、否定,甚至取代辩证思维的意义,也要防止辩证思维的不合理越界,即用它来贬低、消解,甚至取代知性思维的作用。     

Happiness,Rationality, Autonomy and the Good Life

The paper starts with a general discussion of the concepts of happiness and the good life. I argue that there is a conceptual core of happiness which has to do with one’s life as a whole. I discuss affective and attitude or life satisfaction views of happiness and indicate problems faced by those views. I introduce my own view, the life plan view, which sees happiness as the ongoing realizing of global desires of the person. I argue that on such a view one’s life could be happy without a high level of rationality or a high level of autonomy; such rationality and autonomy are not built into the concept of happiness. So while happiness is a final value, and good for the person, it is not the only final value. Rationality and autonomy are also final values and, where they exist, are good as ends for the person, part of the good life.     

Resilience and Rationality

In this article, I consider the relationship between rationality and resilience. First, I outline six responses to life’s adversities: (a) a true disturbed response; (b) a feigned disturbed response; (c) a feigned indifferent response; (d) a true healthy response; (e) a feigned healthy response; and (f) a mixed response. These responses underpin two rational resilience credos, which will be then outlined: an ideal rational resilience credo and a realistic rational resilience credo. The implications of these credos for coaching will be explored.     

善的多元论与合理性

当代西方伦理学家布兰特和罗尔斯,一个注重现实的伦理道德规范,一个深究善的合理性之所在,都是既诉诸现实的人类理性、又关注社会生活实际,但分别独特地阐明了善恶规则的多元性与道德善的合理性,并致力于解答个人与社会、功利与道德、情感与理性、个人的自由平等与社会公平正义等的矛盾统一.他们的基本出发点和主要理论极富启发意义,而缺乏历史观的共同缺陷则是我们应当引以为戒的.     

Defending the bad against the worse: Education and democracy

Recent writings in philosophy of education have expressed pessimism about the possibility of educating students to think for themselves. Similarly, recent writings in political philosophy have expressed pessimism about the possibility of attaining democracy. In this paper, I suggest that such pessimism is premature and may be alleviated, if not removed, by interpreting both educational enlightenment and the democratic ideal as processes, rather than end states. They are, moreover, processes which exist in symbiotic relationship with one another. Thus educational practices may improve the prospects of attaining democracy, and political practices may strengthen education.     

对话：医学人人文中的普世关怀与公共理性

对话主张,我们不妨暂时放弃最高限度的理想化方式（终极关怀）,转而寻求宽容、宽泛前提下的公共理性,医学不仅是科学的,更是人文的。而要推动技术教育至上背景下生长的一代青年学子完成这样一次沉重的转向,有两门学科不可绕过,一门是科学史,另一门是科学哲学。     

心理史学的发展对心理学史教学与研究的启示

心理史学的发展给心理学史的教学与研究带来如下启示:心理学史专业工作者应加强史学修养,明确自己的史学研究立场和原则;心理学史不只是心理学的学科发展史,也是人类社会历史发展的缩影;从拒绝到接受精神分析作为一种史学研究方法的态度转变,蕴涵着当代人文社科研究发展的趋势和走向。     

Instrumental Rationality and Carroll's Tortoise

Some philosophers have tried to establish a connection between the normativity of instrumental rationality and the paradox presented by Lewis Carroll in his 1895 paper “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles.” I here examine and argue against accounts of this connection presented by Peter Railton and James Dreier before presenting my own account and discussing its implications for instrumentalism (the view that all there is to practical rationality is instrumental rationality). In my view, the potential for a Carroll-style regress just shows us that since instrumental rationality involves a higher-order commitment to combine our willing an end with our taking the necessary means, it therefore cannot, on pain of regress, itself be added as a conjunct to one of the elements to be combined. This view does not support instrumentalism.     

决策与决策执行的关系——一种行动理性的观点

本文以分析决策与执行的关系为出发点,对人类理性的本质进行了讨论。指出决策研究中存在的“理性分析范式”偏面地把认知分析当作人类理性的本质,忽视了行动的作用,提出了人类理性是“行动理性”的思想。行动既是一种分析方法,是人们深化对客观世界的认识,理解决策问题的独特手段,也是人们创造外界环境、实现决策目标的有效途径。由此提出,决策研究,尤其是组织决策研究,应该重视“行动分析范式”。     

Rationality and reflection

Christine Korsgaard claims that an agent is less than fully rational if she allows some attitude to inform her deliberation even though she cannot justify doing so. I argue that there is a middle way, which Korsgaard misses, between the claim that our attitudes neither need nor admit of rational assessment, on the one hand, and Korsgaard's claim that the attitudes which inform our deliberation always require justification, on the other: an agent needs reasons to opt out of her concerns – not reasons to opt into them or to stay in. As long as an agent has no good reason to abandon some concern of hers, she is reasonable to harbour it, and to allow it to inform her view of what reasons she has. A rational agent must therefore have the capacity to form higher-order attitudes toward her concerns; but rationality only requires that she exercise that capacity when she has some good reason to do so.     

Practical Reasons, Practical Rationality, Practical Wisdom

There are a number of proposals as to exactly how reasons, ends and rationality are related. It is often thought that practical reasons can be analyzed in terms of practical rationality, which, in turn, has something to do with the pursuit of ends. I want to argue against the conceptual priority of rationality and the pursuit of ends, and in favor of the conceptual priority of reasons. This case comes in two parts. I first argue for a new conception of ends by which all ends are had under the guise of reasons. I then articulate a sense of rationality, procedural rationality, that is connected with the pursuit of ends so conceived, where one is rational to the extent that one is motivated to act in accordance with reasons as they appear to be. Unfortunately, these conceptions of ends and procedural rationality are inadequate for building an account of practical reasons, though I try to explain why it is that the rational pursuit of ends generates intuitive but misleading accounts of genuine normative reasons. The crux of the problem is an insensitivity to an is-seems distinction, where procedural rationality concerns reasons as they appear, and what we are after is a substantive sense of rationality that concerns reasons as they are. Based on these distinct senses of rationality, and some disambiguation of what it is to have a reason, I offer a critique of internalist analyses of one’s reasons in terms of the motivational states of one’s ideal, procedurally rational self, and I offer an alternative analysis of one’s practical reasons in terms of practical wisdom that overcomes objections to related reasons externalist views. The resulting theory is roughly Humean about procedural rationality and roughly Aristotelian about reasons, capturing the core truths of both camps.

重型肝炎治疗方案的理性选择

针对我国重型肝炎治疗现状,对重型肝炎常用的以及部分有争议的治疗药物和方法进行分析和讨论,就如何选择治疗方案提出医疗原则,认为应采取内科治疗-人工肝-肝移植的综合治疗模式,结合患者的治疗愿望及经济承受力,理性地选择治疗方案,以期达到合理、有效和经济的目的。     

Morality, Self-Interest, and Two Kinds of Prudential Practical Rationality

In this article it is assumed that human goodness is to be judged with respect to how well one does at practical reasoning. It is acknowledged that (1) there is a difference between moral practical reasoning (MPR) and prudential practical reasoning (PPR) and (2) what these would recommend sometimes conflict. A distinction is then made between absolute PPR and relative PPR and it is argued that doing well at absolute PPR is always consistent with MPR. It is also argued that since it is more reasonable to assess prudential practical rationality in terms of the absolute standard than the relative standard, there is no conflict between the demands of MPR (morality) and PPR (self-interest).

Reason,Representation, and Participation

This paper argues that the contrast between direct and representative democracy is less important than that between simple majoritarianism and deliberative i.e., public reason centred, democracy, as only the latter is sufficiently sensitive to the problem of domination. Having explored a range of arguments in favour of direct democracy it is argued that moves in this direction are only warranted when the practice of public reasoning will be enhanced. Both symbolic representation and delegate democracy are rejected in favour of substantive measures to formalise communication between voters and representatives and permit the formal contestation of political decision on the ground that these will provide stronger defences against domination within the political system.     

Language,Thought, and the History of Science

Topoi - Language and thought are intimately related: philosophers have long debated how a given language may condition the oral and written expression of thought. The language chosen to communicate...     

Belief Revision,Rational Choice and the Unity of Reason

Hans Rott has argued, most recently in his book Change, Choice and Inference, that certain formal correspondences between belief revision and rational choice have important philosophical implications, claiming that the former strongly indicate the unity of practical and theoretical reason as well as the primacy of practical reason. In this paper, I confront Rott's argument with three serious challenges. My conclusion is that, while Rott's work is indisputable as a formal achievement, the philosophical consequences he wants to draw are not forthcoming. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

理性的定位与思想的复兴

理性实为人类思想之根本。近代理性哲学,主要是在认识论的层面探讨精神何以可能的问题。理性是一种行动指南,更是一种批判的能力。理性的定位既是人类的自我重新定位,又是思想复兴的表征和开端。