On Quine on Philosophical Analysis

Philosophical analysis is for Quine the replacement of a defective expression by another, sound expression, which performs the same work. In general, then, an analysis consists of two stages: (a) identifying the work that a defective expression performs, and (b) imbedding it in a safe domain. In this essay I argue that Quine's view does not truly reflect what we do in philosophy. The problem, I think, lies in both stages (a) and (b), but stems from Quine's assumption that we can control the work performed by language.     

Spinoza's Definition Of Attribute: An Interpretation

Since it has generally been accepted that to Spinoza attributes are real features of substance, the interpretation of his attribute definition has become a notorious problem. The reason is that interpreters have failed to see that the definition formulates a purely epistemological account of the state of affairs. The article presents and justifies such an interpretation. It will be shown that the definition in spite of its epistemological character implies a real ontological definition, which specifies the critical features of an attribute. As to the reason why Spinoza has stated the definition in an ‘indirect way’, it is shown that it is likely that he has done so in order to have a more efficient, a more unambiguous and a more elegant definition. The relevance of the new interpretation is not only that it provides us with an interpretable, transparent attribute definition, but it also contributes to the establishment of a coherent picture of Spinoza’s metaphysics around this definition.     

Spinoza on the Essences of Modes

This paper examines some aspects of Spinoza's metaphysics of the essences of modes.2 ²I would like to thank John Carriero, Calvin Normore, Eliot Michaelson, Eileen Nutting, Paul Nichols, Alexi Patsaouras, Rachel Johnson and Sarah Jansen for reading and commenting on earlier versions of this paper. I situate Spinoza's use of the notion of essence as a response to traditional, Aristotelian, ways of thinking about essence. I argue that, although Spinoza rejects part of the Aristotelian conception of essence, according to which it is in virtue of its essence that a thing is a member of a kind, he nevertheless retains a different part of such a conception, according to which an essence is some structural feature of a thing which causally explains other, non-essential features. I go on to develop an account of Spinoza's metaphysics of essence, according to which essences, what he sometimes calls formal essences, are produced by the divine essence prior to and independent of the creation of finite modes, and according to which essences are the formal or exemplar causes of finite modes. I then argue that finite modes, in virtue of the formal essences which they actualize, are genuine causal relata. Finally, I offer some speculations about Spinoza's answer to the question, ‘Why, in a necessitarian cosmos filled with formal essences, should there be temporal finite modes at all?’     

Essence in abundance

Fine (1994 “Essence and Modality”, Philosophical Perspectives, 8: 1–16) is widely thought to have refuted the simple modal account of essence, which takes the essential properties of a thing to be those it cannot exist without exemplifying. Yet, a number of philosophers have suggested resuscitating the simple modal account by appealing to distinctions akin to the distinction Lewis (1983. “New Work For a Theory of Universals”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 61: 343–377; 1986. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell) draws between sparse and abundant properties, treating only those in the former class as candidates for essentiality. I argue that ‘sparse modalism’ succumbs to counterexamples similar to those originally posed by Fine, and fails to capture paradigmatic instances of essence involving abundant properties and relations.     

Teleological Essentialism

Placeholder essentialism is the view that there is a causal essence that holds category members together, though we may not know what the essence is. Sometimes the placeholder can be filled in by scientific essences, such as when we acquire scientific knowledge that the atomic weight of gold is 79. We challenge the view that placeholders are elaborated by scientific essences. In our view, if placeholders are elaborated, they are elaborated by Aristotelian essences, a telos. Utilizing the same kind of experiments used by traditional essentialists—involving superficial change (study 1), transformation of insides (study 2), acquired traits (study 3), and inferences about offspring (study 4)—we find support for the view that essences are elaborated by a telos. And we find evidence (study 5) that teleological essences may generate category judgments.     

从西地那非的研发过程探讨医学研究的规律

西地那非研制成功20余年,用于治疗男性勃起功能障碍（erectile disorder,ED）。而近几年来,越来越多的证据表明西地那非可以明显降低各种原因所导致的肺动脉高压（pulmonary arterial hypertension,PAH）。西地那非对肺动脉高压的治疗作用,再次引起了人们对西地那非进行深入研究的兴趣。西地那非的研究历程给人们带来很多有益的启示。     

"人造美女"热的冷思考

"人造美女"是对美的本质的亵渎,是对女性价值全面性的否定,同时也是对医学人道主义和医学伦理基本原则的全面践踏.作为一名医务工作者,应该避免经济利益的驱动,全心全意地践行医德誓言,把治疗伤疾、维护人们的身心健康作为自己的神圣信条和基本准则.     

用现代医学理论阐明阴虚证的本质和发病学机理

用现代医学理论阐明阴虚证的本质具有重大科学意义,但我国半个世纪的研究未能取得根本突破。用现代医学理论阐述了阴虚证的本质和发病学机理,即阴虚证的本质是细胞因子,其发病学机理是由于机体在各种致病因素的作用下,白细胞介素1和肿瘤坏死因子等炎性细胞因子基因的表达水平增强、生物学活性相对升高,引起细胞因子网络紊乱的结果。     

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.