科学隐喻的方法论意义

The essential significance of scientific metaphor lies in applying the general metaphorical theory to specific interpretations and elaborations of scientific theories to form a methodology of scientific explanation. It is a contextual grasp of objective reality. A given metaphorical context and its grasp of the essence of reality can only be valid when the context is continually restructured. Taking the context as a whole, the methodological characteristic of scientific metaphor lies in the unity of understanding and choice, experience and concepts, semantic structures and metaphorical domains, rationality and irrationality. As a form of thinking based on reasons, scientific metaphor plays an important role in invention, representation, explanation, evaluation, and communication. Translated by Liu Yiyu from Zhongguo Shehui Kexue 中国社会科学 (Social Sciences in China), 2004, (2): 92–101     

生物自然主义:塞尔对自由意志的解释

在对自由意志问题的解答中,传统的相容论和心理决定论都存在一定的缺陷,未能令人满意地回答这一问题。塞尔试图把自由意志的心理状态说明与神经生物学解释结合起来,认为在自由意志行为中存在间隔。在解释我们的自由意志行为时我们有必要先设一个不可约减的非休谟式的自我。这种阐释虽然符合我们的日常经验和科学说明,但却引发了一个新难题:我们的神经元系统的决定性是如何与意志自由行动中的间隔相一致的?     

Back to the future: Temporal perspective in the explanation of events

Prospective hindsight involves generating an explanation for a future event as if it had already happened; i.e., one goes forward in time, and then looks back. In order to examine how shifts in perspective might influence people's perceptions of events, we investigated two possible factors: temporal perspective (whether an event is set in the future or past) and uncertainty (whether the event's occurrence is certain or uncertain). In the first experiment, temporal perspective showed little influence while outcome uncertainty strongly affected the nature of explanations for events. Explanations for sure events tended to be longer, to contain a higher proportion of episodic reasons, and to be expressed in past tense. Evidence from the second experiment supports the view that uncertainty mediates not the amount of time spent explaining, but rather subjects' choice of explanation type. The implications of these findings for the use of temporal perspective in decision aiding are discussed.     

Stories we tell each other: A comparison of families' and their therapists' explanations of presenting problems

This study reports the explanations of presenting problems given by 10 mothers of children referred to a department of child and family psychiatry and their therapists. Video-recordings of therapists' pre-session meetings and the initial therapy sessions were searched for explanatory statements. These statements were then coded. It was found that therapists referred to past events, present circumstances, relationships, and possible future events in their explanations of presenting problems significantly more frequently than mothers. It was rare for mothers to speak in terms of past or future events at all. The mothers explained difficulties in terms of character traits significantly more often than did the therapists. The implications of these findings are discussed.Thanks to all of the child and family consultation team at 1 Wolverton Gardens for their participation in this research and particularly to Ruth Kossoff for her great help with organising data collection.     

Deterministisches Chaos: Einige Wissenschaftstheoretisch Interessante Aspekte

Deterministic Chaos: Some Interesting Points of View from the Philosophy of Science. A comparatively simple example is used to present some of the main features of deterministic chaos. From the point of view of the philosophy of science, three questions are dealt with: if the equations of motion of chaotic systems are falsifiable in a strict sense; whether experiments on chaotic systems are reproducible; to what extent the development of chaotic systems is predictable. It emerges that in these respects chaotic systems, though being deterministic, behave essentially in the same way as stochastic (indeterministic) systems do.     

THEORIZING RELIGION AND QUESTIONING THE FUTURE OF ISLAM AND SCIENCE

Will there be any joint future for science and Islam? Although such questions have recently received considerable attention, more basic questions are often ignored. This article aims at addressing some of those more basic questions through exploring the assumptions that underlie different possible understandings of the question about the future of Islam and science. By investigating the relation between conceptualizations of religion and the question about the future of Islam and science, it will be argued that different understandings of the concept of religion (i.e., whether it denotes real objects, whether it is universal, and whether it is belief centered) lead to extremely different readings of the question. Besides, it will be argued that different answers to the question about the future of Islam and science can be understood in terms of the inference to best theological explanation; thus, the criteria that one assumes for the best theological explanation result in different criteria for evaluation of the answers.     

疾病的进化论解释：——读《我们为什么生病》

现代医学重在对疾病的近因研究,而疾病的进化史原因,像机体设计上的缺陷,遗传基因与新环境因素的冲突,进化过程中病原同宿主的竞争等,却几乎完全被忽视。事实上,人类机体在漫长的进化过程中,每获得一种益处,几乎都要付出相应的代价,这就是相关的疾病。达尔文医学的新科学,这部全新视野的著作,全面地向人们展示了疾病的进化论解释,并正在创造其学术范式迥然不同的医学科学新领域。