This article develops and defends a new functional approach to scientific progress. I begin with a review of the problems of the traditional functional approach. Then I propose a new functional account of scientific progress, in which scientific progress is defined in terms of usefulness of problem defining and problem solving. I illustrate and defend my account by applying it to the history of genetics. Finally, I highlight the advantages of my new functional approach over the epistemic and semantic approaches (...) and dismiss some potential objections to my approach. (shrink)

The study aims to help characterize the sort of structures about which people can acquire unconscious knowledge. It is already well established that people can implicitly learn n-grams and also repetition patterns. We explore the acquisition of unconscious structural knowledge of symmetry. Chinese Tang poetry uses a specific sort of mirror symmetry, an inversion rule with respect to the tones of characters in successive lines of verse. We show, using artificial poetry to control both n-gram structure and repetition patterns, that (...) people can implicitly learn to discriminate inversions from non-inversions, presenting a challenge to existing models of implicit learning. (shrink)

This book offers an integrated historical and philosophical examination of the origin of genetics. The author contends that an integrated HPS analysis helps us to have a better understanding of the history of genetics, and sheds light on some general issues in the philosophy of science. This book consists of three parts. It begins with historical problems, revisiting the significance of the work of Mendel, de Vries, and Weldon. Then it turns to integrated HPS problems, developing an exemplar-based analysis of (...) the development and the progress in early genetics. Finally, it discusses philosophical problems: conceptual change, evidence, and theory choice. Part I lays out a new historiography, serving as a basis for the discussions in part II and part III. Part II introduces a new integrated HPS method to analyse and interpret the historiography in Part I and to re-examine the philosophical issues in Part III. Part III develops new philosophical accounts which will in turn make a better sense of the history of scientific practice more generally. This book provides a practical defence of integrated HPS: the best way to defend integrated HPS is to do it. (shrink)

Evidential Pluralism maintains that in order to establish a causal claim one normally needs to establish the existence of an appropriate conditional correlation and the existence of an appropriate mechanism complex, so when assessing a causal claim one ought to consider both association studies and mechanistic studies. Hitherto, Evidential Pluralism has been applied to medicine, leading to the EBM+ programme, which recommends that evidence-based medicine should systematically evaluate mechanistic studies alongside clinical studies. This paper argues that Evidential Pluralism can also (...) be fruitfully applied to the social sciences. In particular, Evidential Pluralism provides (i) a new approach to evidence-based policy; (ii) an account of the evidential relationships in more theoretical research; and (iii) new philosophical motivation for mixed methods research. The application of Evidential Pluralism to the social sciences is also defended against two objections. (shrink)

The functional approach to scientific progress has been mainly developed by Kuhn, Lakatos, Popper, Laudan, and more recently by Shan. The basic idea is that science progresses if key functions of science are fulfilled in a better way. This chapter defends the function approach. It begins with an overview of the two old versions of the functional approach by examining the work of Kuhn, Laudan, Popper, and Lakatos. It then argues for Shan’s new functional approach, in which scientific (...) progress is defined as an increase of usefulness of exemplary practices. (shrink)

This study adopted a mixed-method study design to investigate the acquisitional features of English existential constructions at the syntax-pragmatics interface by Chinese learners, and explore the factors for non-native performance from the perspective of the Interface Hypothesis. A questionnaire was administered online to 300 Chinese learners of English and 20 English natives at a university in China, which included a picture description test and a context-matching test. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 30 Chinese learners. The experimental data were conducted using (...) comparing means and generalized linear mixed model. Results showed that Chinese learners overproduced existential constructions and reached a native-like level until the advanced stage. Moreover, Chinese learners displayed different preference patterns for existential constructions from English natives, and basically reached a native-like level by the intermediate stage. The qualitative data provided possible explanations for non-native performance. The analysis revealed that non-native performance in production attributed to L1 negative transfer and input frequency, while that in comprehension resulted from underspecification of form-function mapping, input frequency and contexts. Based on the findings, some implications on syntax-pragmatics teaching and L2 interface studies are provided. (shrink)

We present a general theory of scope and binding in which both crossover and superiority violations are ruled out by one key assumption: that natural language expressions are normally evaluated (processed) from left to right. Our theory is an extension of Shan’s (2002) account of multiple-wh questions, combining continuations (Barker, 2002) and dynamic type-shifting. Like other continuation-based analyses, but unlike most other treatments of crossover or superiority, our analysis is directly compositional (in the sense of, e.g., Jacobson, 1999). In (...) particular, it does not postulate a level of Logical Form or any other representation distinct from surface syntax. One advantage of using continuations is that they are the standard tool for modeling order-of-evaluation in programming languages. This provides us with a natural and independently motivated characterization of what it means to evaluate expressions from left to right. We give a combinatory categorial grammar that models the syntax and the semantics of quantifier scope and wh-question formation. It allows quantificational binding but not crossover, in-situ wh but not superiority violations. In addition, the analysis automatically accounts for a variety of sentence types involving binding in the presence of pied piping, including reconstruction cases such as Whose criticism of hisi mother did each personi resent? (shrink)

The nature of scientific explanation is controversial. Some maintain that all scientific explanations have to be contrastive in nature (contrastivism). However, others argue that no scientific explanation is genuinely contrastive (non-contrastivism). In addition, a compatibilist view has been recently devloped. It is argued that the debate between contrastivism and non-contrastivism is merely a linguistic dispute rather than a genuine disagreement on the nature of scientific explanation. Scientific explanations are both contrastive and non-contrastive in some sense (compatibilism). This paper examines the (...) debate between contrastivism and non-contrastivism in scientific explanation. It begins with a critical review of the arguments for contrastivism, for non-contrastivism, and for compatibilism and concludes with some remarks on the prospect of the issue. (shrink)

Historiographical analyses of the development of genetics in the first decade of the 20th century have been to a great extent framed in the context of the Mendelian-Biometrician controversy. Much has been discussed on the nature, origin, development, and legacy of the controversy. However, such a framework is becoming less useful and fruitful. This paper challenges the traditional historiography framed by the Mendelian-Biometrician distinction. It argues that the Mendelian-Biometrician distinction fails to reflect the theoretical and methodological diversity in the controversy. (...) It also argues that that the Mendelian-Biometrician distinction is not helpful to make a full understanding of the development of genetics in the first decade of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Alexander Bird indicates that the significance of Thomas Kuhn in the history of philosophy of science is somehow paradoxical. On the one hand, Kuhn was one of the most influential and important philosophers of science in the second half of the twentieth century. On the other hand, nowadays there is little distinctively Kuhn’s legacy in the sense that most of Kuhn’s work has no longer any philosophical significance. Bird argues that the explanation of the paradox of Kuhn’s legacy is that (...) Kuhn took a direction opposite to that of the mainstream of the philosophy of science in his later academic career. This paper aims to provide a new way to understand and develop Kuhn’s legacy by revisiting the development of Kuhn’s philosophy of science in 1970s and proposing a new account of exemplar. Firstly, I propose my diagnosis of Kuhn’s “wrong turning” by identifying Kuhn’s two novel contributions: the introduction of paradigm and the proposal of the incommensurability thesis. Secondly, I argue that Kuhn made a conceptual/terminological turn from paradigm to theory, which undermined Kuhn’s novel contributions. Thirdly, I propose a new articulation of exemplar and propose an exemplar-based approach to analysing the history of science. Finally, I show how the exemplar-based approach can be applied to analyse the history of science by my case study of the early development of genetics. (shrink)

Protective measurement is a new measuring method introduced by Aharonov, Vaidman, and Anandan, with the aim of measuring the expectation value of an observable on a single quantum system, even if the system is initially not in an eigenstate of the measured observable. According to these authors, this feature of protective measurements favors a realistic interpretation of the wave function. These claims were challenged by Uffink. He argued that only observables that commute with the system's Hamiltonian can be protectively measured, (...) and that an allegedly protective measurement of an observable that does not commute with the system's Hamiltonian does not actually measure this observable, but rather another related one that commutes with the system's Hamiltonian. In this paper we identify a number of unresolved issues in Uffink's proofs and argue that his alternative interpretation of what happens in a protective measurement has not been justified. (shrink)

In Heidegger’s Black Notebooks some ideas about political embodiment can be found, which have come under suspicion to justify the Third Reich’s race law. In the following article, the analysis and discussion of Heidegger’s political embodiment will firstly be traced back to the traditional understanding of the human as a “rational animal”, and will then look at how the “racial being” is subsequently developed and eventually transformed into political absolute subjectivism. Moreover, Heidegger’s in-depth explanation and critique on Nietzsche’s metaphysics, which (...) he views as having transformed human experiences to a metaphysical representation and thus misunderstanding human nature, will also be clarified. Through Heidegger’s critic on biologism, a profound disclosure which potentially imply an attack of the racism at his time can be shown. Furthermore, Heidegger’s thinking of Being as a kind of emancipation of European political embodiment will also be analyzed. Lastly, although Heidegger and Confucianism have different ideas of lived-body, both schools basically show the same fundamental understanding of human nature. In regard to this, their understanding of political embodiment, their similarities and divergences, will be elucidated. (shrink)

本书是对中国文化思想史的研究,主要包括资政新篇;论世变之亟;中国国民党第一次钱国代表大会宣言等内容。.

本书包括:从特拉西到拿破仑;一个难于“终结”与“清算”的概念;从“美是难的”说到艺术定义问题等内容。.

Although many studies have previously examined medicalisation, we add a new dimension to the concept as we explore how contemporary oncological medicine shapes the dying self as predominantly medical. Through an analysis of multiple case studies collected within a comprehensive cancer centre in Ontario, Canada, we examine how people with late‐stage cancer and their healthcare providers enacted the process of medicalisation through engaging in the search for oncological treatments, such as experimental drug trials, despite the incurability of their disease. The (...) seven cases included 20 interviews with patients, family, physicians and nurses, the analysis of 30 documents and 5 hr of field observation. A poststructural perspective informed our study. We propose that searching for life extension enacts medicalisation by shaping the dying person afflicted with terminal cancer into new medical subjectivities that are knowledgeable, active, entrepreneurial and curative. Participants initially took up medical thinking from the formal oncology system, but then began to apply and internalise medical rationalities to alter their personhood, thereby generating new curative possibilities for themselves. For people seeking life extension, the embodied and day‐to‐day experiences of suffering and being close to death became expressed and moderated in fundamentally medicalised terms. (shrink)

This study examines whether the chief executive officer’s poverty experience has an impact on firms’ corporate social responsibility. We find that firms’ CSR performance increases with CEOs’ poverty experience; specifically, firms with CEOs who experienced early-life poverty are associated with more socially responsible activities and fewer socially irresponsible activities, such as on-the-job consumption, and are more associated with key stakeholder-related rather than community-related CSR. We further find that the positive relationship between the CEO’s poverty experience and CSR strengthens for well-educated (...) or powerful CEOs. Our evidence is consistent with our conjecture that CEOs who experienced early-life poverty have stronger compassion and prosocial psychology. Consequently, these CEOs are more willing to make long-term investments in socially beneficial activities, leading to better CSR performance, which further confirms the altruistic motivation of CSR. (shrink)

This book takes concepts developed by researchers in theoretical computer science and adapts and applies them to the study of natural language meaning. Summarizing over a decade of research, Chris Barker and Chung-chieh Shan put forward the Continuation Hypothesis: that the meaning of a natural language expression can depend on its own continuation.

To explore the motivations underpinning corporate social responsibility (CSR) decisions in China, a country characterized by extensive government intervention, this paper investigates whether building a good relationship with the government is a political incentive that is driving firms to conduct CSR by examining the effects of political connections on the latter. Our results indicate that politically connected firms exhibit better CSR. However, the effect is considerably more significant for firms with existing political relationships. Additionally, findings show that the effect is (...) more prominent in firms for which political connections are more valuable, namely, non‐state‐owned enterprises, small firms, and firms operating in less market‐oriented cities, indicating that CSR can serve as a differentiation strategy to compete against other bidders. Dividing CSR activities into economic, environmental and social aspects, we find that the social‐based activities are more likely to be driven by political motivations. By categorizing CSR and political connections, this paper not only expands the scope of political CSR and renders the generated results that have been mixed together more distinguishable, but also provides a more precise understanding of the fundamental drivers of CSR in China from the perspective of resource exchange. (shrink)

It has been widely received that one of Gregor Mendel’s most important contributions to the history of genetics is his novel work on developmental information (for example, the proposal of the famous Mendelian ratios like 1:2:1, 3:1, and 9:3:3:1). This view is well evidenced by the fact that much of early Mendelians’ work in the 1900s focuses on the retrodiction (viz. the re-analysis of the pre-exist data with Mendel’s approach). However, there is no consensus on what Mendel meant by development (...) (Entwicklung). Nor is there an agreement on the interpretation of Mendel’s laws of developmental series (Entwicklungsreihe). This chapter revisits Mendel’s notions of development and developmental series. Firstly, I argue that Mendel’s use of development is greatly influenced by Gärtner’s. Secondly, I show Mendel’s work on developmental series are novel and important for its new ways of experimentation, conceputalisation, and analysis. Thirdly, I argue that Mendel’s laws of developmental information were not about heredity. (shrink)

According to Penrose, the fundamental conflict between the superposition principle of quantum mechanics and the principle of general covariance of general relativity entails the existence of wavefunction collapse, e.g. a quantum superposition of two different space–time geometries will collapse to one of them due to the ill-definedness of the time-translation operator for the superposition. In this paper, we argue that Penrose's conjecture on gravity's role in wavefunction collapse is debatable. First of all, it is still a controversial issue what the (...) exact nature of the conflict is and how to resolve it. Secondly, Penrose's argument by analogy is too weak to establish a necessary connection between wavefunction collapse and the conflict as understood by him. Thirdly, the conflict does not necessarily lead to wavefunction collapse. The reason is that the conflict or the problem of ill-definedness for a superposition of different space–time geometries also needs to be solved before the collapse of the superposition finishes, and once the conflict has been resolved, the wavefunction collapse will lose its physical basis relating to the conflict. In addition, we argue that Penrose's suggestions for the collapse time formula and the preferred basis are also problematic. (shrink)

It is shown that Uffink's attempt to protect the interpretation of the wave function against protective measurements fails due to several errors in his arguments.

Quantum mechanics and experience -- The wave function: ontic vs epistemic -- The nomological view -- Reality of the wave function -- Origin of the Schrödinger equation -- The ontology of quantum mechanics (I) -- The ontology of quantum mechanics (II) -- Implications for solving the measurement problem -- Quantum ontology and relativity.

We study the possible connection between self-consciousness and quantum process. It is shown that the self-consciousness function can help to measure the collapse time of wave function under some condition, while the usual physical device without self-consciousness can't. Furthermore, we show that the observer with self-consciousness can distinguish the definite state and the superposition of definite states under some stronger condition. This provides a practical physical method to differentiate man and machine, and will also help to find the possible existence (...) of self-consciousness in the animal kingdom. We finally give some further discussions about these new results. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical review of the debate over the philosophical foundations of mixed methods research and examines the notion of philosophical foundations. It distinguishes axiology-oriented from ontology-oriented philosophical foundations. It also identifies three different senses of philosophical foundations of mixed methods research. The weak sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., pragmatism) merely allows the possibility of the integration of both quantitative and qualitative methods/data/designs. The moderate sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., transformativism) provide a good reason to use mixed methods (...) in (at least some) social scientific research. The strong sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., dialectical pluralism) justifies a normative thesis that mixed methods research should be encouraged in (at least some) social scientific research. (shrink)

This thesis is an attempt to reconstruct the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics. First, we argue that the wave function in quantum mechanics is a description of random discontinuous motion of particles, and the modulus square of the wave function gives the probability density of the particles being in certain locations in space. Next, we show that the linear non-relativistic evolution of the wave function of an isolated system obeys the free Schrödinger equation due to the requirements of spacetime translation (...) invariance and relativistic invariance. Thirdly, we argue that the random discontinuous motion of particles may lead to a stochastic, nonlinear collapse evolution of the wave function. A discrete model of energy-conserved wavefunction collapse is proposed and shown to be consistent with existing experiments and our macroscopic experience. In addition, we also give a critical analysis of the de Broglie-Bohm theory, the many-worlds interpretation and other dynamical collapse theories, and briefly discuss the issue of unifying quantum mechanics and special relativity. (shrink)

Philosophical progress is one of the most controversial topics in metaphilosophy. It has been widely debated whether philosophy makes any progress in history. This paper revisits the concept of philosophical progress. It first identifies two criteria of an ideal concept of philosophical progress. It then argues that our accounts of philosophical progress fail to provide such an ideal concept. Finally, it argues that not only do we not have a good concept of philosophical progress, we also do not need a (...) concept of philosophical progress in order to arrive at a good understanding of the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Among biologists and philosophers, there is an ongoing debate over the Modern Synthesis and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Some argue that our current evolutionary biology is in need of (at least) some substantial revision or nontrivial extension, while others maintain that the Modern Synthesis remains the foundational framework for evolutionary biology. It has been widely debated whether the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis provides a more promising framework than the Modern Synthesis. The nature and methodological implications of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis were (...) also examined. This paper offers an integrated historical and philosophical examination of the debate over the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. It reviews the development of evolutionary biology of the twentieth century. It argues that there are substantial conceptual and theoretical differences between the Modern Synthesis and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis, but they are not incommensurable paradigms in the Kuhnian sense. It also argues for a functional approach to the debate over these two frameworks of evolutionary theory. (shrink)

The relation between quantum collapse, consciousness and superluminal communication is analyzed. As we know, quantum collapse, if exists, can result in the appearance of quantum nonlocality, and requires the existence of a pre- ferred Lorentz frame. This may permit the realization of quantum superluminal communication (QSC), which will no longer result in the usual causal loop in case of the existence of a preferred Lorentz frame. The possibility of the existence of QSC is further analyzed under the assumption that quantum (...) collapse is a real process. We demonstrate that the combination of quantum collapse and the consciousness of the observer will permit the observer to distinguish nonorthogonal states in principle. This provides a possible way to realize QSC. Some implications of the existence of QSC are briefy discussed. (shrink)

Social scientists often draw on a variety of evidence for their causal inferences. There is also a call to use a greater variety of evidence in social science research. This topical collection examines the philosophical foundations and implications of evidential diversity in the social sciences. It assesses the application of Evidential Pluralism in the context of the social sciences, especially its application to economics and political science. It also discusses the concept of causation in cognitive science and the implications of (...) evidential diversity for the social sciences. (shrink)

Scientific progress is a hot topic in the philosophy of science. However, as yet we lack a comprehensive philosophical examination of scientific progress. First, the recent debate pays too much attention to the epistemic approach and the semantic approach. Shan’s new functional approach and Dellsén’s noetic approach are still insufficiently assessed. Second, there is little in-depth analysis of the progress in the history of the sciences. Third, many related philosophical issues are still to be explored. For example, what are (...) the implications of scientific progress for the scientific realism/antirealism debate? Is the incommensurability thesis a challenge to scientific progress? What role does aesthetic values play in scientific progress? Does idealisation impede scientific progress? This book fills this gap. It offers a new assessment of the four main approaches to scientific progress (Part I). It also features eight historical case studies to investigate the notion of progress in different disciplines: physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, seismology, psychology, sociology, economics, and medicine respectively (Part II). It discusses some issues related to scientific progress: scientific realism, incommensurability, values in science, idealisation, scientific speculation, interdisciplinarity, and scientific perspectivalism (Part III). (shrink)

Most recently, two distinctions—echoing the cross-disciplinary critique of the teleological and “quantitative” approach of human arts and sciences at the expanse of the “qualitative”—have been foregrounded by Amzallag (Philosophy and Technology 34, 785–809, 2021) and Crease (2011), respectively, between the modern understanding of “technology” (as technopraxis) and the “forgotten dimension/phase of technology” (called technopoiesis) and between the ontic and ontological measurement. Pace gently the denotation of technopoiesis as a juvenile phase of technological development and the “ontological measurements” as logical and (...) practical impossibility in the modern, mathematized metroscape, the paper reexamines the relevancy of the distinctions (ontic/ontological and po[i]etic/practical, both recalling Heidegger’s “hermeneutical” critique of Husserl’s phenomenology) in non-Platonic/Aristotelian contexts and, in the process, seeks to refine the vital notion of technopoiesis by looking at the intersection of these fuzzy domains. In particular, the ancient Chinese measurements and their understudied onto-poietic dimension in the shifting econ-political contexts may offer an alternative approach to the otherwise elusive presence of technopoiesis and its ontological roots. Arguing that the techno-onto-poiesis does not necessarily belong to the foregone Arcadian past, the paper proposes refined “signals” for recognizing the technopoietic as well as new “forms” of its presence—“interactive emergence” (the cross-stimulating agonistic interactions between techniques of different “stages”) and “poietic clusters” (poietic ideas and/or implements that survive as “cluster” into the future), calling for future investigation of technical inventiveness (even in modern times) that reveal the process of how technopoietic elements enter the lives of technology through least expected embodiment. (shrink)

本书共分佛学、宋明理学、清初朴学、专题探讨、附录五部分。主要内容包括: 自汉魏至宋初的儒佛道三教关系和道学的形成 ; 试说大乘佛教的兴起 ; 论张载思想 ; 程朱理学批判 ; 论王夫之思想 ; 论王廷相思想 ; 关于我国封建社会土地所有制的一些意见等.

Due to excessive greenhouse gas emissions, carbon emission-reducing measures are urgently needed. Important emission-reduction measures mainly include carbon trading and low-carbon cost subsidies. Comprehensive consideration of these two policies is a research hotspot in the field of low-carbon technology investment. Based on this background, this paper considers the impact of consumer low-carbon preferences on market demand and the impact of uncertainty in carbon emission-reduction behaviour. We construct a stochastic differential game model with upstream and downstream enterprises based on cost-sharing coordination (...) under a cost subsidy. From a dynamic perspective, this paper researches the optimal equilibrium strategy and evolution characteristics of the joint emission-reduction mechanism in a supply chain. This paper discusses the sensitivity of the parameters and uses numerical simulation to verify the impact of each parameter on the emission-reduction decision-making activities of stakeholders after introducing the cost subsidy. The results show that a cost subsidy policy can promote carbon emission-reduction investment and supply chain profit. Thus, it is important to strengthen technical cooperation and exchange among enterprises. (shrink)