末法到来

中国净土宗的成立，其背景是末法思想的出现-这是由于人们产生了佛教将要灭亡的危机意识。公元440年至441年中国佛教史上出现了第一次灭佛事件，北魏太武帝镇压佛教，破坏寺院．焚烧经典，逼迫佛教徒还俗。这一事件称为北魏废佛。由此，在佛教徒中产生了强烈的危机意识。     

松果体是人类"洞悉一切"的第三只眼吗?

及时识别和积极抵制“人类有第三只眼”之类的巫术式的奇谈怪论2004年8月9日《江南时报》第二十一版以“本报综合消息”开头,刊发了题为“隐藏的视力竟可洞悉一切人类‘第三只眼’确实存在?”的文章。同日,在人民网上也见到这篇文章(却没有署名)。同日QQ网以“俄罗斯专家研究认为人类‘第三只眼’确实存在”为题从人民网全文转载了这篇文章,同时加了一个“声明:本网站刊发此文并不表明赞成其观点或证实其描述,仅为传达更多信息。”现代教育网奇闻博览——功能神奇的“第三只眼”热荐[作者:佚名｜转贴自:搜狐网｜点击数:113｜更新时间:2005-…     

On Stage with Gunk

A structure is temporally gunky just in case all of its temporal parts have proper temporal parts. Joshua Stuchlik [2003] objects to the stage theory of persistence from temporal gunk by arguing that the former requires instantaneous entities while the latter precludes them. It is argued here that stage theory can accommodate temporal gunk by invoking short-lived persisting stages. However, a new and more serious problem for stage theory is not far to seek. The short-lived stages that are needed to accommodate gunk accord with stage theory only if they are appropriately qualitatively static. The problem is that, unless stage theory abandons much of its dialectical force, some of the required stages fail this condition. Thus, Stuchlik is right that gunk shows a large class of worlds not to be stages, but wrong about which worlds these are.     

"爵禄或刑罚"之外的第三条道路

稷下先生们的身份不是官僚而是学者，因此，对于齐国的灭亡，他们不应承担任何责任。这一责任当然应由统治者来承担，这一点不容混淆。秦国的统一非常短暂，对其胜利的意义不宜无限夸大。秦亡除了不重视文化，最直接的原因是其法家政策。典型的法家思维认为，君主以外的任何人若想生存，无非“爵禄或刑罚”两条道路，这是非常愚昧的专制、集权思想，必须建立起“市民社会”以制衡之。     

Reaching the Champions of Social Justice

Since the formation of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1948, the ecumenical voice against social injustice in the church and society has been strengthening. As one expression of unity among the fellowship, the WCC embarked in 2013 on a Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace to work, pray, and walk together for life-affirming economies, climate change, nonviolent peace building, and reconciliation and human dignity. Champions of these issues exist within the ecumenical movement. Yet one also finds that champions of one theme are pushing back on another theme. Sometimes it is due to diversity of contexts and biblical and theological interpretations. At other times it is due to unconscious bias about the holistic nature of God's mission of justice for all God's people and creation. This paper grapples with this question: Why are people who are so alive to economic and ecological injustice sometimes blind to racial and gender injustice? To answer this, I explore the existence of conscious and unconscious bias despite the many powerful ecumenical statements that have been issued on racial justice.     

道尔顿:"休谟的第三种原因"

一般公认为休谟区分了两种因果性:一、两个"对象"的"相继性关联";二、两个"对象"的"必然性联系".     

Reaching a verdict

Two experiments, using a mock legal case, confirmed the causal role of arguments in verdict decisions and explored the process involved. Experiment 1 showed that verdicts varied with the strength of counter-arguments and Experiment 2 showed that the use of background information that undermined such arguments determined the verdict reached. Such results confirm the causal role of arguments but do not speak to the representations constructed. In both experiments we analysed the reasons proposed for verdicts. Participants generally represented the state of affairs, and conjectured state of affairs, to which the arguments referred. Experiment 2 also asked participants about the number of causal possibilities they envisaged. Confidence in the verdict was moderated by the strength of counter-arguments but in different ways for those who envisaged a single causal account as opposed to two causal accounts. In the former case, confidence decreased with the rated strength of counter-arguments. In the latter case, confidence increased. We suggest that verdicts are abductive explanations of the events generated through a process of mental simulation.     

On How to Get Beyond the Opening Stage

Any well-structured argumentative exchange must be preceded by some preparatory stages. In the pragma-dialectical four-stage model of critical discussion, the clarification of issues and positions is relegated to the confrontation stage and the other preparatory matters are dealt within the opening stage. In the opening stage, the parties involved come to agree to discuss their differences and to do so by an argumentative exchange rather than by, say, a sequence of bids and offers. They should also come to agree on the rules of dialogue, on roles, on logical principles, on types of argument, and on the propositions that can be used as basic premises. All in all, a lot of work needs to be done before the first topical argument can be put forward. Especially the opening stage seems prone to further disagreements and protracted discussions, e.g., about the admissibility of particular kinds of argument or particular basic premises. There is also the problem that a successful opening stage threatens to settle matters beforehand and thus put the argumentation stage out of business. The paper suggests some measures that could alleviate the workload of the opening stage, without making the argumentation stage otiose.     

Reaching while walking: Reaching distance costs more than walking distance

Surprisingly little is known about how people plan and control everyday physical actions, such as walking along and picking up objects. In order to explore this topic, we conducted an experiment in which university students were asked to pick up a common object (a child’s beach bucket) that stood on a table several meters from the participant’s start position. The bucket stood either on the left side, in the middle, or on the right side of the table and, depending on instructions, was to be carried to a farther target whose horizontal position was also varied. The questions were which side of the table the participant would walk along when picking up the bucket and which hand the participant would use to pick up and carry the bucket. Participants, most of whom were righthanded, preferred to walk along the left side of the table and to pick up the bucket with the right hand, although they departed from that preference when the reaching distance across the table was uncomfortable or if the target was too far to the right. The data were well fit with a mathematical model that included a right-hand bias and an estimate of functional distance that expressed the cost of reaching over some distance as approximately twice the cost of walking over the same distance.     

一部深入探索道德信仰重建之道的学术力作--评《道德信仰论》

信仰的失落 ,无论在当代世界 ,还是在当代中国 ,似乎已成为一个不争的事实 ,已经引起社会各界的广泛关注。西方不少学者试图通过重新唤起人们的宗教情绪来重建信仰 ,一些人更因此而陷入邪教的痴迷。显然 ,这都不是中国特色社会主义社会所需要的信仰 ,更与马克思主义的原则立场背道而驰。重建正确而高尚的信仰 ,是社会主义精神文明建设的重大问题 ,也是伦理学研究者责无旁贷的理论使命。任建东同志新近出版的学术专著《道德信仰论》(宗教文化出版社 2 0 0 4年版 ) ,通过回应现时代道德信仰的各种问题以及深入探索道德信仰的重建之道 ,成为一…     

第三代新儒家对儒学的诠释与创新

第三代新儒家在儒学诠释与创新中做出了超迈前贤的成就,代表了现代新儒学发展的四个新趋向:儒学本位坚持下的思想多元化的倾向;对知识论的注重与方法论的自觉,彰显"道问学"的转向;凸显批判精神和对话意识;批判"现代性"与"后现代"的儒学重建方向的肯定.与此同时,其思想也存在着内在的紧张.     

Perception of Maximum Reaching Height When the Means of Reaching Are No Longer in View

Previous research has shown that perception of maximum reaching height is relative to reaching ability even when the means of performing this behavior would bring about (future) changes in reaching ability. Two experiments investigate whether this continues to be the case even when the means of reaching are no longer in view. The results show perception of maximum reaching height reflects impending changes to reaching ability both when the means of performing the reaching task (and changing reaching ability) are present and when they are no longer in view. The results are discussed in the context of prospectivity, retrospectivity, and flexibility—3 fundamental hallmarks of goal-directed behavior.     

On the assessment of genetic technology: Reaching ethical judgments in the light of modern technology

The “Model for Reaching Ethical Judgments in the context of Modern Technologies — the Case of Genetic Technology”, which is presented here, has arisen from the project “Ethical Criteria bearing upon Decisions taken in the field of Biotechnology”. This project has been pursued since 1991 in the Zentrum für interdisziplinäre Technikforschung (ZIT) of the Technical University of Darmstadt, with the purpose of examining decision-making in selected activities involving the production of transgenic plants that have a useful application. The model is the basis of an outline for interviews to investigate how far decisions concerning the development of such plants with genetic techniques take ethical criteria into account. It was necessary to design this new model because other models for reaching judgments of this kind were not conceptually suited for concrete application. This model represents a problem related approach and combines methodological with substantive typology. In this it differs from comparable models for reaching ethical judgments.