Epistemological Metaphors and the Nature of Philosophy

Abstract: This article examines some of the most important metaphors and analogies that epistemologists have used to discuss the structure and validity of knowledge. After reviewing foundational, coherentist, and other metaphors for knowledge, we discuss the metaphilosophical significance of the prevalence of such metaphors. We argue that they support a view of philosophy as akin to science rather than poetry or rhetoric.     

隐喻在文章语境中的理解--概念隐喻理论探讨

概念隐喻理论认为,语言系统中存在着广泛的隐喻一致性,人们对于隐喻的理解是通过将其匹配到基本的概念隐喻来进行的。但有研究者指出,除了一些新颖的隐喻,惯用隐喻的理解并不需要概念匹配。本研究认为,概念隐喻已经储存在长时记忆中,在文章语境中,无论惯用隐喻还是新颖隐喻的理解都可能产生概念匹配。三个实验支持了这一假设。实验一通过目标句的阅读反应时探讨不同文章版本下目标句的理解情况;实验二和实验三从事后与即时两方面对各种文章版本下的概念匹配情况进行比较。研究结果支持了概念隐喻理论。     

Resolving Multiple Visions of Nature, Science, and Religion

Abstract. I argue for the centrality of the concepts of biophysical and human nature in science‐and‐religion studies, consider five different metaphors, or “visions,” of nature, and explore possibilities and challenges in reconciling them. These visions include (a) evolutionary nature, built on the powerful explanatory framework of evolutionary theory; (b) emergent nature, arising from recent research in complex systems and self‐organization; (c) malleable nature, indicating both the recombinant potential of biotechnology and the postmodern challenge to a fixed ontology; (d) nature as sacred, a diffuse popular concept fundamental to cultural analysis; and (e) nature as culture, an admission of epistemological constructivism. These multiple visions suggest the famous story of the blind men and the elephant, in which each man made the classic mistake of part‐whole substitution in believing that what he grasped (the tail, for example) represented the elephant as a whole. Indeed, given the inescapability of metaphor, we may have to admit that the ultimate truth about the “elephant” (nature, or the reality toward which science and religion point) is a mystery, and the best we can hope for is to confess the limitations of any particular vision.     

脑科学与心理学研究

随着现代科技的进步,脑科学特别是脑成像技术能够无损伤地探测人脑,成为脑功能研究的"显微镜".这些科技的发展对心理学研究具有重大影响.它使得意识能够受到真正科学地研究,促使心理学研究从"计算机隐喻"向"脑隐喻"的转变,并将使心理学理论形态更加复杂.     

Metaphors and models in medicine

This paper aims to show how medical scientists may use metaphor in ways closely parallel to poets. Those who believe metaphor has any role at all in science may describe its use in various ways. Associationists think metaphors are based upon likenesses, and collapse the notions of model and metaphor together. But, as an example from the work of Louis Pasteur suggests, metaphor need not be based upon likenesses. Rather it may play a role in making possible a model'sexplanatory significance. Models may presuppose metaphors. The Pasteur example also suggests metaphor may play a part in creating likenesses through its role in classification and reclassification. It is in these ways that the use of metaphor in medical science most closely parallels that in poetry.     

The Power of Metaphors for Exploring Cultural Differences in Groups

Cultural differences and similarities provide rich opportunities for interpersonal learning, understanding, and growth. Metaphors may help group leaders and members explore pertinent cultural issues. Illustrations from an interpersonally oriented process group demonstrate the use of metaphors to facilitate multicultural understanding.     

类比推理的发展理论评析

类比在认知科学领域具有特殊的地位,儿童类比推理能力的发展是其认知发展的重要成分之一。本文系统介绍了类比推理发展研究中的几个重要理论,即能力限制说、知识经验说和关系转换说等。在此基础上,作者进一步对类比推理发展研究中涉及的几个焦点问题,如类比推理出现的最早年龄,类比推理发展的影响因素及类比推理的发展趋势等进行了综合评析。     

Pragmatism, Critical Realism, and the Cognitive Value of Religion and Science

Pragmatism and critical realism are different vocabularies for talking about the cognitive value of religion and science. Each can be, and has been, used to make the case for cognitive parity between religious and scientific discourse. Critical realism presupposes a particular form of cognitive psychology that entails general skepticism about the external world and forecloses scientific inquiry in the name of a preconceived idea of what the nature of human cognition must be. Thus, of the two, pragmatism is the better vocabulary for fostering mutual understanding between religion and science.     

Cultivating the Arts of Inquiry, Interpretation, and Criticism: A Peircean Approach to our Educational Practices

Peirce was a thinker who claimed that his mind had been thoroughly formed by his rigorous training in the natural sciences. But he was also the author who proclaimed that nothing is truer than true poetry. In making the case for Peirce’s relevance to issues of education, then, it is necessary to do justice to the multifaceted character of his philosophical genius, in particular, to the experimentalist cast of his mind and his profound appreciation for the aesthetic, the imaginative, and (more narrowly) the metaphorical in their myriad guises. My aim in this paper is to go some distance, however small, toward doing such justice to Peirce.     

辨明科学本质,进行科学教育

坦率的讲,作为一名受过高等教育、从事教育工作的共产党员,我对于科学与迷信的本质区别并没有深刻的认识,一切从想当然出发.鬼神之说自然不相信,但对一些诸如特异功能之类则并没有完全排斥.我想,和我有着同样思想的人并不少见,同事中赶在羊年之前生孩子的不在少数.刚接触<科学与无神论>杂志,我颇有些不以为然:科学与迷信,明摆着的事,有必要专门出一本杂志吗?看了几篇文章后,受到很大的震动."科学要尊重实践"、"科学是能够实践的"……这些并不陌生的话现在听来却如醍醐灌顶,原来科学与迷信的区别就在这里.带着浓厚的兴趣,我趁兴翻阅了一些相关的文章,终于对科学与迷信的本质区别有了清醒的认识.     

Naturalizing the Human or Humanizing Nature: Science, Nature and the Supernatural

The present paper challenges the narrow scientistic conception of Nature that underlies current projects of naturalization involving, say, evaluative or intentional discourse. It is more plausible to hold that science provides only a partial characterization of the natural world. I consider McDowell's articulation of a more liberal naturalism, one which recognizes autonomous normative facts about reasons, meanings and values, as genuine constituents of Nature on a more liberal conception of it. Several critics have claimed that this account is vitiated by the threat of supernaturalism. Responsiveness to normative facts is, I argue, a phenomenological datum that we have good reason to take at face value. I trace the source of the supernaturalist objection to a misreading of McDowell's perceptual analogy with respect to value and a related failing to clearly distinguish physical and logical notions of an object.     

The Sentient Reflexivity of Buddha Nature:Metaphorizing Tathagatagarbha

佛性或如来藏(梵文tathagatagarbha)是佛教哲学体系和教义里一个具争议的核心内容.自古以来,“谁或什么具有佛性”、“佛性是怎样显现的”,以及“佛性在佛教解脱论里起到怎样的作用”等问题在佛教实践中及佛学研讨里是一系列持续的论题.本文作者基于自己对佛教文献的解读希望表达三个有关佛性的论点.首先,佛性与其所谓的反面“众生”(sentience)是不分离的.第二,佛性不是一样具型的东西,或是某个过去的或隐藏的精神状态,而是一个当下的、持续的生命神识状态.第三,佛性在经文里是一类使用隐喻和譬喻的启发式(heuristic)辩术方式,其目的是激起佛教徒或任何对佛家哲学思想有兴致的人对自身的生命状态进行内在视觉上的观想作用.     

尊重医学的自身规律,尊重人民的选择

本刊今年第四期,集中发表了一组关于在当今形势下如何看待中医的文章,就中医的方方面面做了讨论,其中包括张功耀教授的告别中医中药一文,以期引起中医界和整个社会对中医的关切.     

Systematicity: The Nature of Science

This paper addresses the question of what the nature of science is. I will first make a few preliminary historical and systematic remarks. Next, I shall give an answer to the question that has to be qualified, clarified and justified. Finally, I will compare my answer with alternative answers and draw consequences for the demarcation problem.     

论中国佛教的“心”、“性”概念与“心性问题”

由于佛教各宗各派对于“心”与“性”的理解各别,所持的理论立场也互不相同,因此对心性的阐述便呈现出非常复杂的形态。本文既对心”、“性”两个范畴的含义进行了诠释,又对佛教心性论所涉及的主要问题作出了归纳。     

On the Light Doves and Learning on Mistakes

Each type of learning is proposed as being a three-stage process, composed of: (i) recognition of a perceptual situation and performance of an action corresponding thereto; (ii) observation of a deviation of the action result from an expected outcome; (iii) re-arrangement of the conceptual framework of reasoning to meaningfully assimilate the observed deviation. In order to evaluate a general, systemic significance of the concept of learning proposed hereby, the latter is assessed from perspectives that correspond to diverse levels of organizational complexity of Nature. Thermodynamic concepts, constructivist and autopoietic frameworks of analysis of cognitive phenomena, and the aspects of social sciences are intertwined so as to support the all-encompassing meaning of the general pathways of learning proposed herein. Numerous ethical consequences, with a particular emphasis on educational approaches, are derived from accepting such a general nature of learning and development. Naturally implied dialectical form of evolution, according to which prosperous and favorable features of human creativity arise solely from problem-solving situations, is further discussed.     

清净佛性与本来无一物——惠能“得法偈”一辩

慧能“得法偈”中“佛性常清净”到“本来无一物”的改动,历来颇多争论。而慧能偈与神秀偈的对勘以及‘坛经》中“心”、“佛法”等概念的辩析则足以表明,“佛性常清净”完全可以理解为“本来无一物”,后者表示了禅宗史对慧能禅理解的深化。