"石狮"、"风水"与"吉祥"

谁都知道,在古老的中国,不管是衙门、宫殿、庙宇的门前,还是豪宅、大户人家的门口,人们都能看到摆着一对石狮。据说,这对石狮子在许多中国人的心目中,它不但是一种气派的象征,而且还是一种被人认为是好的“吉祥物”。如今,旧时的衙门没有了,但遗留下来的宫殿、庙宇的门前,其中有些石狮仍有保存。然而,想像不到的是,这号称“吉祥物”的石狮今天却开始“走”进某些党政机关的大门口,它们(石狮)在那里时时都在保护着这些政府要员“平平安安”、“吉祥如意”。这不仅使我联想起一些极端的报道,有些政府官员为升迁,请算命先生定位,用风水术为政府…     

"与时俱进"和"相适应"

道教思想源远流长,经久不衰,很重要的一点就在于道教思想深深的扎根于中华民族文化古老而不断更新的土壤之中,既保留了中华文化的精髓,又能随时代的变化发展而变化发展。道教发展到今天已有两千余年,始终同中华民族的发展历史息息相关。现在,我国已经进入了社会主义初级阶段,开始全面建设小康社会,中国道教必须与时俱进,也就是要与社会主义社会相适应,这已经是人们普遍的共识和一个不争的事实。当前人们关心的问题是:道教要“与时俱进”,进什么,怎么进?说同社会主义社会“相适应”,什么需要去“适应”,怎样才算“适应”?就此问题,谈谈个人的…     

"做人"与"做事"

"做人"与"做事"是两个既重要又具有普遍性和活力的日常道德规范概念,在传统道德和现代性道德转型日益显著的今日中国,分析这两个看似普通实则艰难的伦理语汇具有重要性.在这样的背景下,笔者就廖申白教授作出的这方面论证进行了分析讨论,指出两者在日常伦理学方面的一些特点,以及在基础德性论与内部外部论证上的逻辑推导关系,并论述了这一基于"做人"和"做事"两个概念形成的初步理论的其他特征.     

"正是者"的"思"与"爱"

本文分析奥古斯丁三一神学中人的“是”的来源、方式、内容和品质。(1)人的“是”来源于创造主,上帝作为“我正是我所正是”的“正是者”,创造了人的“是”,故而人的“是”是“正是”。(2)由于上帝是一而不是多,上帝有其固有的“同一性”,故而人亦有其“同一性”。(3)但由于人不是上帝,而是介于上帝与虚无之间,因此人“是”的方式不是“永恒”,而是作为“永恒”尘世形象的“时间”。(4)人的时间之“是”中,集中体现了上帝形象的,乃是“现在”或“正是”,作为“活生生的现在”,“正是”将“过去的现在、现在的现在、将来的现在”统一在一起,构成人的活生生的同一性。(5)奥古斯丁对“活生生的现在”分析是与意识分析结合在一起的,过去一记忆、现在一理解、将来一预期。(6)人“正是”的内容主要是“思”。(7)决定“正是”的品质的,是与“思”紧密连结在一起的“爱”。     

"敌人"与"筵席"

近日再读诗篇23篇时,我的心经历了强烈的震撼,特别是第5节——“在我敌人面前,你为我摆设筵席;你用油膏了我的头,使我的福杯满溢”。这句话让我大得安慰,也让我惭愧不已。这句话是作者大卫的心灵独白,是他在困苦当中发出的感恩与赞美。他承     

"人本"与"民本"

"人本"与"民本"是两个既有联系又有区别的概念.这两个概念可以说都是中国传统的思想,而又是近现代的表述[1].简言之,"人"相对于神和物而言,"人本"是普遍的哲学或文化的概念;"民"相对于国家和执政者而言,"民本"是政治哲学或政治理念的概念.     

"爱心"与"见识"

第六期<天风>在"媒体扫描"一栏中有一篇题为<忧心:乐于助人成'另类'>的文章,读后很受启发.尤其是编者写的一段"随感",觉得很有见地.的确是这样,我们不能让这个社会失去诚心和爱而变得越来越冷漠,我们需要付出真善美,去融化假丑恶.既然那些人知道在教堂里能够获得更多一点的爱心,那就让我们这些基督徒凭着自己的力量去证明这一点吧!     

"六家"、"九流十家"与"百家"

本文认为,先秦时期所称的"家",主要有两种不同的含义."六家"、"九流十家",与先秦至汉代所称的"百家",不是同一范畴内的概念,它们之间并不互相排斥.后人不了解"家"的这两种含义,更不了解"六家"、"九流"所产生的背景,对于先秦学术思想史有误解.     

"曾经"到"如今"

曾经我「们是一叶浮萍在急流中随波飘荡主啊你敞开博大的胸怀让我们扎根在你的心房曾经我,们是一株蔓藤生活在只有黑暗的地方主啊你却甘作嶙峋的篱笆支撑着我们去感受阳光曾经我们是失巢的孤雁展着稚翼在海空徘徊主啊你让我们成了归鸿恩典漫及弯苍曾经我们是小小的莹火虫无法照亮前行的方向主啊你用柔和的声音为我们导航让我们进入那属我心灵净地的教堂曾经我们的心灵流失在荒野无法适从那份冷清和凄凉主啊踏着你殷红的足迹许多迷失的羊儿回到这片菌茵草场曾经我们在传福音的路上困难重重··一曾经我们在十字架前潜然泪下……就这样我们从…     

Quine, Putnam, and the ‘Quine–Putnam’ Indispensability Argument

Much recent discussion in the philosophy of mathematics has concerned the indispensability argument—an argument which aims to establish the existence of abstract mathematical objects through appealing to the role that mathematics plays in empirical science. The indispensability argument is standardly attributed to W. V. Quine and Hilary Putnam. In this paper, I show that this attribution is mistaken. Quine’s argument for the existence of abstract mathematical objects differs from the argument which many philosophers of mathematics ascribe to him. Contrary to appearances, Putnam did not argue for the existence of abstract mathematical objects at all. I close by suggesting that attention to Quine and Putnam’s writings reveals some neglected arguments for platonism which may be superior to the indispensability argument.

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No Reservations Required? Defending Anti-Nominalism

In a 2005 paper, John Burgess and Gideon Rosen offer a new argument against nominalism in the philosophy of mathematics. The argument proceeds from the thesis that mathematics is part of science, and that core existence theorems in mathematics are both accepted by mathematicians and acceptable by mathematical standards. David Liggins (2007) criticizes the argument on the grounds that no adequate interpretation of “acceptable by mathematical standards” can be given which preserves the soundness of the overall argument. In this discussion I offer a defense of the Burgess-Rosen argument against Liggins’s objection. I show how plausible versions of the argument can be constructed based on either of two interpretations of mathematical acceptability, and I locate the argument in the space of contemporary anti-nominalist views.     

Strict Finitism and the Happy Sorites

Call an argument a ‘happy sorites’ if it is a sorites argument with true premises and a false conclusion. It is a striking fact that although most philosophers working on the sorites paradox find it at prima facie highly compelling that the premises of the sorites paradox are true and its conclusion false, few (if any) of the standard theories on the issue ultimately allow for happy sorites arguments. There is one philosophical view, however, that appears to allow for at least some happy sorites arguments: strict finitism in the philosophy of mathematics. My aim in this paper is to explore to what extent this appearance is accurate. As we shall see, this question is far from trivial. In particular, I will discuss two arguments that threaten to show that strict finitism cannot consistently accept happy sorites arguments, but I will argue that (given reasonable assumptions on strict finitistic logic) these arguments can ultimately be avoided, and the view can indeed allow for happy sorites arguments.     

Kepler’s optics without hypotheses

This paper argues that Kepler considered his work in optics as part of natural philosophy and that, consequently, he aimed at change within natural philosophy. Back-to-back with John Schuster’s claim that Descartes’ optics should be considered as a natural philosophical appropriation of innovative results in the tradition of practical and mixed mathematics the central claim of my paper is that Kepler’s theory of optical imagery, developed in his Paralipomena ad Vitellionem (1604), was the result of a move similar to Descartes’ by Kepler. My argument consists of three parts. First, Kepler borrowed a geometrical model and experiment of optical imagery from the mélange of mixed and practical mathematics provided in the works of the sixteenth-century mathematicians Ettore Ausonio and Giovanni Battista Della Porta. Second, Kepler criticized the Aristotelian theory of light and he developed his own alternative metaphysics. Third, Kepler used his natural philosophical assumptions about the nature of light to re-interpret the model of image formation taken from Della Porta’s work. Taken together, I portray Kepler’s theory of optical imagery as a natural philosophical appropriation of an innovative model of image formation developed in a sixteenth-century practical and mixed mathematical tradition which was not interested in questioning philosophical assumptions on the nature of light.     

Pragmatic antirealism: a new antirealist strategy

In everyday speech we seem to refer to such things as abstract objects, moral properties, or propositional attitudes that have been the target of metaphysical and/or epistemological objections. Many philosophers, while endorsing scepticism about some of these entities, have not wished to charge ordinary speakers with fundamental error, or recommend that the discourse be revised or eliminated. To this end a number of non-revisionary antirealist strategies have been employed, including expressivism, reductionism and hermeneutic fictionalism. But each of these theories faces forceful objections. In particular, we argue, proponents of these strategies face a dilemma: either concedes that their theory is revisionary, or adopt an implausible account of speaker-meaning whereby the content of certain types of utterance is opaque to their speakers. In this paper we introduce a new type of antirealist strategy, which is thoroughly non-revisionary, and leaves speaker-meaning transparent to speakers. We draw on work on pragmatics in the philosophy of language to develop a theory we call ??pragmatic antirealism??. The pragmatic antirealist holds that while the sentences of the discourses in question have metaphysically contentious truth conditions, ordinary utterances of them are pragmatically modified in context in such a way that speakers do not incur commitment to those truth conditions. After setting out the theory, we show how it might be developed for both mathematical and ethical discourse, before responding to some likely objections.     

Defending the Indispensability Argument: Atoms, Infinity and the Continuum

This paper defends the Quine-Putnam mathematical indispensability argument against two objections raised by Penelope Maddy. The objections concern scientific practices regarding the development of the atomic theory and the role of applied mathematics in the continuum and infinity. I present two alternative accounts by Stephen Brush and Alan Chalmers on the atomic theory. I argue that these two theories are consistent with Quine’s theory of scientific confirmation. I advance some novel versions of the indispensability argument. I argue that these new versions accommodate Maddy’s history of the atomic theory. Counter-examples are provided regarding the role of the mathematical continuum and mathematical infinity in science.     

关于克里普克模态性的一个自然主义解释

The Kripkean metaphysical modality (i.e. possibility and necessity) is one of the most important concepts in contemporary analytic philosophy and is the basis of many metaphysical speculations. These metaphysical speculations frequently commit to entities that do not belong to this physical universe, such as merely possible entities, abstract entities, mental entities or qualities not realizable by the physical, which seems to contradict naturalism or physicalism. This paper proposes a naturalistic interpretation of the Kripkean modality, as a naturalist’s response to these metaphysical speculations. It will show that naturalism can accommodate the Kripkean metaphysical modality. In particular, it will show that naturalism can help to resolve the puzzles surrounding Kripke’s a posteriori necessary propositions and a priori contingent propositions. __________ Translated from Zhexue yanjiu 哲学研究 (Philosophical Researches), 2008, (1): 18–26     

New directions for nominalist philosophers of mathematics

The present paper will argue that, for too long, many nominalists have concentrated their researches on the question of whether one could make sense of applications of mathematics (especially in science) without presupposing the existence of mathematical objects. This was, no doubt, due to the enormous influence of Quine’s “Indispensability Argument”, which challenged the nominalist to come up with an explanation of how science could be done without referring to, or quantifying over, mathematical objects. I shall admonish nominalists to enlarge the target of their investigations to include the many uses mathematicians make of concepts such as structures and models to advance pure mathematics. I shall illustrate my reasons for admonishing nominalists to strike out in these new directions by using Hartry Field’s nominalistic view of mathematics as a model of a philosophy of mathematics that was developed in just the sort of way I argue one should guard against. I shall support my reasons by providing grounds for rejecting both Field’s fictionalism and also his deflationist account of mathematical knowledge—doctrines that were formed largely in response to the Indispensability Argument. I shall then give a refutation of Mark Balaguer’s argument for his thesis that fictionalism is “the best version of anti-realistic anti-platonism”.     

Coffa’s Kant and the evolution of accounts of mathematical necessity

According to Alberto Coffa in The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap, Kant’s account of mathematical judgment is built on a ‘semantic swamp’. Kant’s primitive semantics led him to appeal to pure intuition in an attempt to explain mathematical necessity. The appeal to pure intuition was, on Coffa’s line, a blunder from which philosophy was forced to spend the next 150 years trying to recover. This dismal assessment of Kant’s contributions to the evolution of accounts of mathematical necessity is fundamentally backward-looking. Coffa’s account of how semantic theories of the a priori evolved out of Kant’s doctrine of pure intuition rightly emphasizes those developments, both scientific and philosophical, that collectively served to undermine the plausibility of Kant’s account. What is missing from Coffa’s story, apart from any recognition of Kant’s semantic innovations, is an attempt to appreciate Kant’s philosophical context and the distinctive perspective from which Kant viewed issues in the philosophy of mathematics. When Kant’s perspective and context are brought out, he can not only be seen to have made a genuinely progressive contribution to the development of accounts of mathematical necessity, but also to be relevant to contemporary issues in the philosophy of mathematics in underappreciated ways.     

Discussions Quinton’s Neglected Argument for Scientific Realism

Summary  This paper discusses an argument for scientific realism put forward by Anthony Quinton in The Nature of Things. The argument – here called the controlled continuity argument – seems to have received no attention in the literature, apparently because it may easily be mistaken for a better-known argument, Grover Maxwell’s “argument from the continuum”. It is argued here that, in point of fact, the two are quite distinct and that Quinton’s argument has several advantages over Maxwell’s. The controlled continuity argument is also compared to Ian Hacking’s “argument from coincidence”. It is pointed out that both arguments are to a large extent independent from considerations about high-level scientific theories, and that both are abductive arguments at the core. But these similarities do not dilute an important difference related to the fact that Quinton’s argument cleverly seeks to anchor belief in unobservable entities in realism about ordinary objects, which is a position shared by most contemporary scientific anti-realists.