罗素与实用主义者

罗素与他曾遇见过的,并就哲学问题进行过交流的好几位实用主义哲学家相互影响。这些相互影响同罗素与他的朋友和合作者如摩尔、怀特海、维特根斯坦等之间的相互影响性质不同。这是一种敌对的性质。事实上罗素与唯心主义者的相互影响也是如此。不同的地方只在于罗素本人曾经历新黑格尔主义这一阶段。至于就实用主义来说,罗素自始至终把它作为对手,实用主义者的主张对他来说是不相容的。尽管罗素自己思想发展过程中在这一点上没有改变过,但是,正如我们将看到的,他思想上的变化使他比他自己承认的更接近这些实用主义的观点。1896年,罗素在他第一次访问美国时结识了詹姆斯和皮尔斯。后来罗素又从W.维尔比(Welb     

创造性思维与创造力培养的概念

创造性思维是适应性思维或称重新概念化。其绝大部分不是外显行为,而是内隐的认知。我们日常大部分认知和行为是自动化的。它们满足着我们的日常需要。而满足我们需要的方式有一定导向,甚至变得刻板严格。在我们日常生活的所有方面,象饮食社交、宗教艺术、学术训练等等,我们都发展了动作的、自动化的认知和行为来满足基本的需要。我们去餐馆吃饭来满足饥饿的需要,与亲属的社会交往在家庭团聚中已经仪式化,我们的医生每月     

系统属性的产生问题

《哲学问题》1992年第2期上刊登了C.и.雅科夫连柯一篇内容丰富的文章《论自然界中的组织作用和破坏(随机的)作用,该期还登载了B.и.阿尔申诺夫和я.и.斯维尔斯基的文章《从涵义的读出到涵义的产生》。按照编辑部的意图,后一篇文章大概是前一篇文章的评论。但我以为,这篇文章并没有起到多大的评论作用,因为这篇论涵义的有趣     

人对动物有道德义务吗?

自从10年以前彼得·辛格的《动物解放》一书出版以来,在英国人的书籍中便对动物的道德处境的问题展开了激烈的讨论,在这期间,这个问题也在我们国家引起了较大的重视。从历史上看,这种关心无疑是对于自然的新意识的结果,而这种对于自然的新意识又是由于那些不能再忽视的生态问题产生的。可是按照事情的性质,我们这里所谈的与两个不同的问题有关。适当同自然环境打交道的问题是个我们共同的切身利益的问题,不是一种“生态     

Role of eye and hand initial position in the directional coding of reaching

To investigate the nature of the frames of reference used to control an arm movement aimed at a visual target, we studied the accuracy of movements differing by the initial arm and eye positions. The results support the assumption that in darkness target location is internally represented in an egocentric frame of reference. Furthermore, when movements carried out with and without eye saccade are compared, it appears that foveating the target changes the reference used to generate the reaching arm movements, that is, the oculocentric reference is replaced by a head-trunk reference. An explanation for this phenomenon could be that a steady body-related landmark is needed to insure stable registering of the target location in the surrounding space, despite displacement of the body segments with respect to one another.     

Harming future people

Hanser examines Derek Parfit's contention in his treatise on rationalism, Reasons and Persons (Oxford University Press; 1984) that acts that are not reproductive in nature can nonetheless predictably affect the identities of future people, and that this fact has unexpected and important consequences for ethical theory. Hanser argues tht this fact is not as significant as Parfit believes it to be. The arguments of both scholars concern the morality of choices that, while causing future persons to be badly off, do not make them worse off than they would have been if the choices had not been made. Hanser concludes his essay with a discussion of responsibility for acts that will affect the health of future offspring.     

Natural ways are better: Adolescents and the ‘anti-obesity’ gene

Empirical research with young people in Finland, Germany, Spain and Britain was carried out as part of the BIOCULT project funded by the European Union. The project focused on their attitudes to biotechnology and, in particular, the formation of arguments about risk and safety. This paper looks at the responses of 14–18 year olds to a story about the so called anti-obesity gene, in the form of advice to a friend who is taking it. The majority advised against taking it with some differences by gender and country. Most reservations were on grounds of safety and the feeling that ‘natural’ ways to lose weight are better: A minority questioned the idea of striving for a ‘perfect’ body. The types of arguments used by the young people reveal underlying perspectives on the place of human beings in the world and whether they have a right to manipulate nature and their own bodies. Marie Levitt is a sociologist with research interests in attitudes and values in relation to biotechnology, health and religion.     

Gender Differences in Intercepting A Moving Target by Using a Throw or Button Press

Humans are a throwing species just as much as a talking species (Calvin, 1982), but preadaptations for throwing remain largely unexplored. The ability of undergraduate students (N = 165) to intercept a stimulus with a thrown object was determined for 10 stimulus speeds, ranging from 2 to 5 m/s. The inclusion of a condition in which the moving stimulus was intercepted. via button press allowed the role of the perceptual aspect of velocity estimation to be evaluated separately from the act of throwing. Gender differences were observed in both the button and the throwing intercept tasks: The men had smaller timing errors and higher accuracy than the women. Contrary to expectations, the male and female patterns of intercept errors as a function of stimulus speed were more similar in the throwing task than in the button intercept task