早期现代哲学中的语言问题

The view of language is greatly changed from early modern philosophy to later modern philosophy and to postmodern philosophy. The linguistic question in early modern philosophy, which is characterized by rationalism and empiricism, is discussed in this paper. Linguistic phenomena are not at the center of philosophical reflections in early modern philosophy. The subject of consciousness is at the center of the philosophy, which makes language serve purely as an instrument for representing thoughts. Locke, Leibniz and Descartes consider language from a representationalist point of view. To them, language itself is idealized and represents thought as if it were thought representing itself. Like the structural linguist Saussure, the founders of phenomenology and analytical philosophy give much attention to the logical or static structure of language, and stick up for the representationalism of early modern philosophy. However, their successors refuse to accept this attitude, meaning the final collapse of representationalism. Translated by Cui Zengbao and Yang Dachun from Zhexue Yanjiu 哲学研究 (Philosophical Research), 2007, (8): 62–67     

Varieties of early modern materialism

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses how early modern materialism can be defined and delineated, before turning to a brief survey of the main philosophical resources early modern materialist theories draw on. Subsequently, I discuss competing overall narratives concerning early modern materialism, and conclude with a defence of the controversial view that material soul theories belong to materialism proper.     

Materialism in the mainstream of early German philosophy

ABSTRACT

Discussions of the reception of materialist thought in Germany in the first half of the eighteenth century tend to focus, naturally enough, upon the homegrown freethinkers who advanced the cause of Lucretius, Hobbes, and Spinoza in clandestine publications and frequently courted the ire of the state for doing so. If the philosophers belonging to the mainstream of German intellectual life in that period are accorded a place in the story, it is only insofar as they actively set themselves against the materialist threat and, in the course of working to undermine it, actually only succeeded in inadvertently drawing more popular attention to it. By contrast, in this paper I will show that it was not just insofar as the thinkers of the early eighteenth century played the role of the diligent critic and unwittingly propagated the views of their opponents that materialism can be said to have penetrated into the very mainstream of the German Enlightenment. Rather, as I will argue, there was a striking degree of uptake of distinctively materialist claims even among its most vociferous mainstream critics, and that this is the case for thinkers in both the Wolffian and the Thomasian traditions.     

Women,philosophy and the history of philosophy*

ABSTRACT

It is only in the last 30 years that any appreciable work has been done on women philosophers of the past. This paper reflects on the progress that has been made in recovering early-modern women philosophers in that time and the role of the history of philosophy in that process. I argue that as women are integrated into the broader picture of philosophy, there is a danger of overlooking the different conditions under which they originally philosophized and which shaped their philosophies. Having retrieved them from oblivion, we now face the challenge of avoiding a ‘new amnesia’ by developing historical narratives and modes of analysis which acknowledge the different conditions within which they worked, without diminishing their contribution to philosophy. I offer these remarks as a contribution to current debates about the forms that historical narrative should take, and the best way to promote women in philosophy today, in the belief that we can learn from our own more recent history.     

Modelling the history of early modern natural philosophy: the fate of the art-nature distinction in the Dutch universities

The ‘model approach’ facilitates a quantitative-oriented study of conceptual changes in large corpora. This paper implements the ‘model approach’ to investigate the erosion of the traditional art-nature distinction in early modern natural philosophy. I argue that a condition for this transformation has to be located in the late scholastic conception of final causation. I design a conceptual model to capture the art-nature distinction and formulate a working hypothesis about its early modern fate. I test my hypothesis on a selected corpus of 25 works published in the Dutch academic milieu between 1607 and 1748. I analyse the corpus through a procedure based on concordancing of keywords associated with the model. I argue that the results obtained constitute a successful pilot study for the implementation of the model approach on larger scale research.     

Discretionary activity and happiness: The role of materialism

The current study examined the moderating impact of materialism on the relationship between discretionary activities (creative activities, experiential purchases, and material purchases) and happiness. It was hypothesized that materialistic persons would associate more happiness with discretionary material purchases and that persons lower in materialism would associate other types of discretionary activity (experiential purchases and creative activity) with happiness. Participants were randomly assigned to recall a recent material purchase, experiential purchase, or creative activity. Subsequently, participants reported the amount of happiness and self-relevance associated with the event and then completed a measure of materialism. As predicted, materialists associated happiness with material purchases and than non-materialists.     

Introduction

The articles in the symposium “Teaching Early Modern Philosophy: New Approaches” provide theoretical reflections and practical advice on new ways of teaching undergraduate survey courses in early modern philosophy. This introduction lays out the rationale for the symposium and summarizes the articles that compose it.     

《哲学通论》与当代中国哲学

本文以《哲学通论》对哲学的追问为线索,阐述了当代中国哲学对哲学的重新理解,以及由此实现的哲学自身的思想解放和哲学的理论自觉。     

Caricatures,Myths, and White Lies

Pedagogical situations require white lies: in teaching philosophy we make decisions about what to omit, what to emphasise, and what to distort. This article considers when it is permissible to distort the historical record, arguing for a tempered respect for the historical facts. It focuses on the rationalist/empiricist distinction, which still frames most undergraduate early modern courses despite failing to capture the intellectual history of that period. It draws an analogy with Michael Strevens's view on idealisation in causal explanation to distinguish between myths and caricatures. Myths are distortions of the historical record that undermine students' understanding of the past, despite having other pedagogical benefits (being illuminative of some other period, or helping uptake of philosophical skills and methods). Caricatures are distortions that either increase or are indifferent to understanding of the past. Mythmaking, the article argues, is unjustified.     

Five-Factor Model personality traits,materialism, and excessive buying: A mediational analysis

Previous research has shown consistent relationships between the Five-Factor Model personality traits, materialism and excessive buying. However, little is known about the channels of influence through personality traits and materialism leading to excessive buying. Therefore, the main objective of this current study is to examine whether materialism is a mediating variable in the relationship between the Five-Factor Model and excessive buying. The results of the path analysis using a sample of 667 women generally confirm the suitability of materialism as a vehicle for the effects of Big-Five personality traits on excessive buying. Specifically, neuroticism exerts both positive direct and indirect influences on excessive buying. Moreover, materialism mediates the influence of extraversion, openness, and agreeableness on excessive buying. Whereas extraversion shows a positive association with materialism, openness and agreeableness present negative relations with materialism which, in turn, is associated with higher excessive buying propensity. Conscientiousness is the only exception to the mediating model, and presents a direct and negative relation with excessive buying. Generally speaking, the finding that five factors effects are mediated by materialism increases the probability that preventive and interventive efforts aimed at reducing materialistic values effectively influence the associated risk for excessive buying originating from certain personality traits.     

Philosophizing with a historiographical figure: Descartes in Degérando’s Histoire comparée des systèmes de philosophie (1804 and 1847)

Abstract

The writings by the ‘state philosophers’ of nineteenth-century France are often seen, either as entirely driven by political or ideological concerns, or reduced to mere history of philosophy. Hence, ironically, those who established the philosophical canon that still now informs philosophy teaching in France were themselves excluded from that canon. Using the heuristic concept of a philosophical figure, this article intends to show how, for these philosophers, historiography represented a seemingly inoffensive, but in reality, extremely efficient means of searching out philosophical alternatives to the institutionally dominant philosophy of Victor Cousin (1792–1867). Focusing on the almost forgotten case of Joseph-Marie Degérando (1772–1842), I show how he used the philosophical figure of Descartes and how he used it to counter Cousin.     

On experimental philosophy and the history of philosophy: a reply to Sorell

In this paper, we reply to Tom Sorell’s criticism of our engagement with the history of philosophy in our book, The Theory and Practice of Experimental Philosophy. We explain why our uses of the history of philosophy are not undermined by Sorell’s criticism and why our position is not threatened by the dilemma Sorell advances. We argue that Sorell has mischaracterized the dialectical context of our discussion of the history of philosophy and that he has mistakenly treated our use of the history of philosophy as univocal, when in fact we called on the history of philosophy in several different ways in our text.     

李大钊易学思想及其早期哲学

李大钊作为中国激进的民主主义者和中国共产党的创始人之一,其早期对易学有着独特体认和理解,并运用这种体认和理解建立起自己的宇宙观与人生观。他认为周与易体现着体与用、常与变之"宇宙二相",吾人只要"以其不变应其变",就能"以宇宙之生涯为自我之生涯",实现宇宙无尽,即"青春无尽"的人生理想。他用太极、阴阳、变易等易学原理解释、说明进化论,并力图为进化论寻求形上学根据,使之更加合乎中国人的思维习惯;他用进化论来说明易学之阴阳、变易、生生、日新等观念,从而升进了易学的变易观,使大易哲学由传统活转于近代。在他那里,实现了中学与西学、哲学与科学的有机对接。本文认为,在注重易学本身的发展、演化研究的同时,也应注意像李大钊这种对易学援引、运用的研究,进而全面评估易学对中国近代社会进程的影响。     

New Perspectives on Agency in Early Modern Philosophy

ABSTRACT

This introductory article outlines the themes and aims of this special issue, which offers new perspectives on early modern debates about agency in two ways: First, it recovers writings on agency and liberty that have been widely neglected or that have received insufficient attention, including writings by Anne Conway, Henry More, Ralph Cudworth, William King, Gabrielle Suchon, Elizabeth Berkeley Burnet, Mary Astell, and Anthony Ashley Cooper, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury. Second, it reveals the richness of early modern debates about agency and liberty.