Strategic fouling and sport as play

This essay argues that defences of strategic fouling in sport are enriched and supported by better recognizing the role of play in sport. A common characteristic of play is its disengagement from the everyday, in particular its moral disengagement. If sport in its best manifestations is a species of play, then we should expect to find some moral disengagement there. And indeed we do in a variety of ways. Strategic fouling affords a useful example to illustrate and support this claim and to examine the limits of that sort of disengagement. It is argued that while strategic fouling is morally problematic, it can be a sort of playful ‘competitive shenanigan’ that should be tolerated at times for the way it adds to the challenge and drama of sport. This allows us to better recognize the complexity and depth of sport and the way it reflects fundamental human values. Like everyday life, sport challenges us to weigh morality, perfection, and play against each other in ways that give each sphere of value its due and that contribute to rewarding and meaningful activities and lives.     

PHILOSOPHY AS ART IN ARISTOTLE’S PROTREPTICUS

Observing certain affinities with Plato’s Alcibiades, this paper argues that a distinction between care (epimeleia) of the soul and philosophy as its art (technê) is reflected in Aristotle’s Protrepticus. On the basis of this distinction, it claims that two notions of philosophy can be distinguished in the Protrepticus: philosophy as epistêmê and philosophy as technê. The former has the function of contemplating the truth of nature, and Aristotle praises it as the natural telos of human beings; whereas philosophy as technê helps nature to accomplish the end it designed for human beings. It emerges that according to Aristotle in the Protrepticus philosophy is the art of making oneself coincide with one’s nature as a human being.     

Danto’s Dialectic

Arthur C. Danto’s Analytical Philosophy of History has a Kantian ambition: to state the conditions that make historical knowledge possible and to show “the unhappy destiny” that attends attempts to extend modes of representation beyond these conditions. Even though Danto’s book fails to achieve this ambition, it succeeds in making a number of important—if neglected—suggestions in the course of its attempt. One concerns the significance of the progressive tense for our thinking about human agency. Another concerns the way agency can impact negatively on the possibility of foreknowledge.

INTERNISTS OF THE MIND OR PHYSICIANS OF THE SOUL: DOES PSYCHIATRY NEED A PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY?

Although psychiatry is interested in what both body and mind contribute to behavior, it sometimes emphasizes one more than the other. Since the early 1980s, American psychiatry has shifted its interest from mind and psyche to body and brain. Neuroscience and psychopharmacology are increasingly at the core of psychiatry. Some experts claim that psychiatry is no longer interested in problems in living and positive goals such as mental health, happiness, and morality but rather has narrowed its focus to mental disorders addressed with psychotropic drugs. In view of this trend, psychiatry needs to confront two questions in social philosophy. If it is no longer directly concerned with health and happiness, how does it relate to these positive goals? And how does it relate as a medical institution to religious institutions, schools, and other organizations that directly promote health, happiness, morality, and the purposes of life? It is not enough for psychiatry to renounce its moral role; its practices still shape cultural values. Psychiatry should take more responsibility for developing a public philosophy that addresses these issues.     

A defense of intuitions

Radical experimentalists argue that we should give up using intuitions as evidence in philosophy. In this paper, I first argue that the studies presented by the radical experimentalists in fact suggest that some intuitions are reliable. I next consider and reject a different way of handling the radical experimentalists’ challenge, what I call the Argument from Robust Intuitions. I then propose a way of understanding why some intuitions can be unreliable and how intuitions can conflict, and I argue that on this understanding, both moderate experimentalism and the standard philosophical practice of using intuitions as evidence can help resolve these conflicts.

博物学能给中医带来什么

博物学是指关于现实生活中具体物质世界的综合实用知识。在对中医药学的科学性评价中,有学者从博物学传统的回归入手加以论述,但科学从来不是静止不动的,而是不断向前发展的,博物学毕竟是前科学时代的产物,它的性质如何,它能给中医药学带来什么,这都是需要正确审视的．     

评“自己讲”、“讲自己”的哲学史观——与张立文先生商榷

近年来,走出中国哲学的合法性危机、探索中国哲学史研究的范式创新是学者们关注较多的话题。在讨论中,也出现了一些有建设性的意见。其中,著名学者张立文先生的“自己讲”、“讲自己”的观点尤其引人瞩目。张先生在此方面的系列观点,对于增进中国学者研究中国哲学的自主性来说,有一定的积极意义。然而,张先生关于“自己讲”、“讲自己”、“中国哲学转生规律”以及“和合学”的论述尚存在诸多待改进的方面。全面、客观地评价“自己讲”、“讲自己”的哲学史观,对于提高中国哲学研究的理论水平来说具有重要意义。     

Towards a hermeneutic of technomedical objects

In this article I consider some central aspects of the naturalist philosophy of science and science and technology studies in dealing with the contested status of technoscience in medicine. Focusing on the concepts of realism and representation, I argue that theories of science-as-practice in naturalist philosophy of science should expand their scope so as to reflect more thoroughly on the social and political context of technoscience. I develop a hermeneutic of technomedical objects in order to highlight the internal connectedness between social action, material agency, and the actions of scientific communities. The framework thus developed is used to re-consider the genomic turn in medicine. Pointing to the discrepancies between socially dominant representations of genomic technology and the actual interventions brought about through those technologies, I raise the question of how and where to address problems of theory and policy.

Hilbert's epsilon as an operator of indefinite committed choice

Hilbert and Bernays avoided overspecification of Hilbert's ε-operator. They axiomatized only what was relevant for their proof-theoretic investigations. Semantically, this left the ε-operator underspecified. After briefly reviewing the literature on semantics of Hilbert's epsilon operator, we propose a new semantics with the following features: We avoid overspecification (such as right-uniqueness), but admit indefinite choice, committed choice, and classical logics. Moreover, our semantics for the ε simplifies proof search and is natural in the sense that it mirrors some cases of referential interpretation of indefinite articles in natural language.     

《庄子》哲学中的名与言

The examination of names and words constitutes an important aspect of the philosophy of Zhuangzi. With the debate over the relationship between name and reality as its background, this examination not only involves the connection between form and meaning, but also targets at the connection between concepts and objects. The debate over the relationship between name and reality correlates with the discussion of the connection between words and meanings or ideas. For Zhuangzi, the function of names and words is first and foremost embodied as the classification and distinction of being, while the Dao, as the universal principle of being, is characterized by equality and throughness. This leads to an inherent disparity and tension between names, words and the Dao. Zhuangzi℉s thinking and argument concern the connections between name and reality, words and ideas, and the Dao and words. This displays multiple theoretical perspectives and the complexity of its thought. Translated by Xiao Mo from Zhongguo Shehui Kexue 中国社会科学(Social Sciences in China), 2006, (4): 38–49