论牟宗三易学思想的演变

牟宗三的易学是其原创性哲学的重要内容,体现着时代精神。他的早期著作《从周易方面研究中国之元学及道德哲学》,以罗素哲学、数理逻辑、新实在论解读《周易》,阐述了自然哲学和自然主义道德论,对缺乏科学与逻辑并高度意识形态化而成为人性之桎梏的中国传统文化补缺救失;在中后期,面对物质主义和唯科学主义在世界的泛滥,寻求人类的终极关怀,创立道德形上学,其易学即为这一体系的构成部分。牟氏易学的发展既反映了时代的变化,也显示出其视野由中国到世界的逐步开阔化。     

THE DISPOSITIONALIST DEITY: HOW GOD CREATES LAWS AND WHY THEISTS SHOULD CARE

How does God govern the world? For many theists “laws of nature” play a vital role. But what are these laws, metaphysically speaking? I shall argue that laws of nature are not external to the objects they govern, but instead should be thought of as reducible to internal features of properties. Recent work in metaphysics and philosophy of science has revived a dispositionalist conception of nature, according to which nature is not passive, but active and dynamic. Disposition theorists see particulars as being internally powerful rather than being governed by external laws of nature, making external laws in effect ontologically otiose. I will argue that theists should prefer a dispositionalist ontology, since it leads them toward the theory of concurrentism in divine conservation, rather than occasionalism, and revives the distinction between internal and external teleology. God on this view does not govern the world through external laws of nature, but rather through internal aspects of powerful properties.     

Getting Luck Properly Under Control

This article proposes a new account of luck and how luck impacts attributions of credit for agents' actions. It proposes an analogy with the expected value of a series of wagers and argues that luck is the difference between actual outcomes and expected value. The upshot of the argument is that when considering the interplay of intention, chance, outcomes, skill, and actions, we ought to be more parsimonious in our attributions of credit when exercising a skill and obtaining successful outcomes, and more generous in our attributions of credit when exercising a skill but obtaining unsuccessful outcomes. Furthermore, the article argues that when agents skillfully perform an action, they deserve the same amount of credit whether their action is successful or unsuccessful in achieving the goal.     

Socially Constructed Technology

The concepts of omniscience and omnipotence are defined in 2 × 2 ordinal games, and implications for the optimal play of these games, when one player is omniscient or omnipotent and the other player is aware of his omniscience or omnipotence, are derived. Intuitively, omniscience allows a player to predict the strategy choice of an opponent in advance of play, and omnipotence allows a player, after initial strategy choices are made, to continue to move after the other player is forced to stop. Omniscience and its awareness by an opponent may hurt both players, but this problem can always be rectified if the other player is omniscient. This pathology can also be rectified if at least one of the two players is omnipotent, which can override the effects of omniscience. In some games, one player's omnipotence ‐ versus the other's ‐ helps him, whereas in other games the outcome induced does not depend on which player is omnipotent. Deducing whether a player is superior (omniscient or omnipotent) from the nature of his game playing alone raises several problems, however, suggesting the difficulty of devising tests for detecting superior ability in games.     

THE ARTIFICIALIZATION OF MIND AND WORLD

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to renewed ambitions of developing artificial general intelligence. Alongside this has been a resurgence in the development of virtual and augmented reality (V/AR) technologies, which are viewed as “disruptive” technologies and the computing platforms of the future. V/AR effectively bring the digital world of machines, robots, and artificial agents to our senses while entailing the transposition of human activity and presence into the digital world of artificial agents and machine forms of intelligence. The intersection of humans and machines in this shared space brings humans and machines into ontological continuity as informational entities in a totalizing informational environment, which subsumes both cyber and physical space in an artificially constructed virtual world. The reconstruction of mind (through AI) and world (through V/AR) thus has significant epistemological, ontological, and anthropological implications, which constitute the underlying features in the artificialization of mind and world.     

Before and beyond dialogicality: Transformative trialectics of human dialogues

I first revisit Bakhtin's discourse-driven account of dialogue to situate the concept in its broad sociohistorical, political, and philosophical (i.e., epistemology-ontology-ethics-aesthetics-praxis) meaning context. Not only is the concept of dialogicality highly relevant for the psychology of difference but it also poses many strong meta/theoretical challenges. Second, therefore, I rapidly evaluate psychology's disciplinary developmental status and transformative potentials of Bakhtinian dialogicalism in/for psychological discourses. I pay particular attention to the (im)possibilities of a potential dialogue between psycho-logic/-logy and dia-logic/-logue in reference to our biosociocultural (real-symbolic-imaginary) human be(com)ings. Thus, while triangulating, reframing and refracting with/in my seemingly more radically pluralist and dynamic perspective, using some core notions from its conceptual matrix for(potentially) self-reflective transformative-transformations, such as triopus and transformational trialectics, it is hoped that the fascination with pragmatics of dialogicality would not overshadow the concept's hermeneutically transformative utility which asks for serious dialogical confrontations, insights, bold philosophical commitments and consistent knowledge-practices in/towards all areas of our human(e) worlds.     

Reducing reductionism: on a putative proof for Extreme Haecceitism

Nathan Salmon, in his paper Trans-World Identification and Stipulation (1996) purports to give a proof for the claim that facts concerning trans-world identity cannot be conceptually reduced to general facts. He calls this claim ‘Extreme Haecceitism.’ I argue that his proof is fallacious. However, I also contend that the analysis and ultimate rejection of his proof clarifies the fundamental issues that are at stake in the debate between the reductionist and haecceitist solutions to the problem of trans-world identity. These issues hinge on the ability of modal logic and possible worlds semantics to draw a hard and fast distinction between the logic and the metaphysics of modal logic. I shall claim that the considerations in this paper call into question the viability of such a distinction.

EVIDENCE AND FALSIFICATION: CHALLENGES TO GREGORY PETERSON

In this reply to Gregory Peterson's essay “Maintaining Respectability,” which itself is a response to my “Is Theology Respectable as Metaphysics?” I elaborate upon my claims that theology treats God's existence as an absolute certainty immune to refutation and that modern science constitutes the canons of respectable reasoning for metaphysical disciplines. I conclude with some comments on Peterson's “In Praise of Folly? Theology and the University.”