Engineering failure investigations seek to reconstruct the actual causes of major engineering failures. The investigators need to establish the existence of certain past events and the actual causal relationships that these events bear to the failures in question. In this paper, I examine one method for reconstructing the actual causes of failure events, which I call "feature dependence". The basic idea of feature dependence is that some features of an event are informative about the features of its causes; therefore, the (...) investigators can use the features of a known failure event to reconstruct details of its causes. I make explicit the structure of feature dependence and the evidential basis of its key premises, and show how feature dependence works in the investigation of the American Airlines Flight 191 accident. (shrink)

When a major engineering product failed, a failure investigation is often conducted to prevent similar failures in the future. In this dissertation, I propose an account of the epistemology and methodology of engineering failure investigations, based on a close examination of the documentations on five major plane crash investigations conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). -/- The dissertation is divided into three parts. The first part consists of the five case studies arranged in chronological order: the American Airlines (...) Flight 191 accident in 1979; the United Flight 232 accident in 1989; the United Flight 585 accident in 1991; the USAir Flight 427 accident in 1994; and the TWA Flight 800 accident in 1996. In each case study, I summarize the entire investigation process, focusing on articulating the questions that arise and the evidential reasoning that helped resolve each question. -/- The second part of the dissertation examines how the investigators infer causes of failure events. The type of causal inference used in failure investigations typically proceeds from effects to causes, hence it is called reverse causal inference. This is in contrast with forward causal inference, where researchers start with an intervention and infer the effects of that intervention. I identify three types of reverse causal inference in engineering failure investigations: feature dependence, additional outcomes, and process tracing. -/- The third part of the dissertation examines how the investigators construct narratives of failure events. At the end of each failure investigation, the investigators come up with a narrative detailing the sequence of events leading to the outcome. This part of the dissertation examines how the investigators construct such narratives and support them with evidence. I argue that both the construction and the justification of a narrative of a failure event depend on the question-and-answer process in the investigation, which I call the question dynamics of the investigation. I examine three main components of the question dynamics: the resolution of questions, the significance of questions, and the arising of questions. I conclude the dissertation with an account of the coherence of narratives, which is a measure of the evidential status of narratives. My account of coherence relies on the question dynamics, and it captures the intuitive idea that the pieces of a coherent narrative “fit together” very well. (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)

Philosophical analyses of causation have been centred on the question of what causation is. More precisely speaking, philosophers tend to address four different issues: metaphysical (what is causation out there?), epistemological (how can a causal claim be established and assessed?), conceptual (what does the word ‘cause’ mean?), and methodological (what methods ought one to use in order to establish and assess causal claims?). This chapter argues that the practical issue of causation (what is a causal claim for in practice?) is (...) highly relevant to the metaphysical, epistemological, conceptual, and methodological issues of causation. Any philosophical enquiry into causation without an examination of this practical issue is incomplete. In other words, a promising approach to causation ought to take all of the metaphysical, epistemological, conceptual, methodological, and practical issues into account. (shrink)

Divergences and controversies are inevitable in the discussion of freedoms and rights, especially in the matter of reproduction. The Chinese first social egg freezing lawsuit raises the question: is the freedom to freeze eggs for social reasons justified because it is an instance of reproductive rights? This paper accepts social egg freezing as desirable reproductive freedom, but following Harel's approach and considering two theories of rights, the choice and interest theories of rights, we argue that social egg freezing is not (...) a reproductive right because one cannot justify a right or an instance of rights via merely describing the function of those instances that have been justified as right, that is, the choice theory lacks justifying normativity. Since reserving fertility and a suspension from reproduction do not serve reproductive ends per se, the sufficient reason for demanding social egg freezing as a right should be found in other ends rather than in right‐to‐reproduce, that is, the interest theory denies the demand as a right‐to‐reproduce. Permitting it on any grounds without guaranteeing adequate and accessible resources, especially in light of cross‐border reproductive care, raises serious questions about reproductive equality and violates the idea of reproductive rights. Therefore, any ground for social egg freezing should be weighed against whether more pressing reproductive needs, specifically those that are justified as rights, have been met. It would be social progress to shoulder these burdens for the vulnerable and then allow social egg freezing—if right‐to‐reproduce were not the only privilege of the few. (shrink)

Nazi evil makes the people of Eichmann, this is the whole context of the banality of evil. The destruction of Nazi evil is so unprecedented that it forms a whole new evil- Radical evil. Radical evil is not the change in the degree of evil, but the lack of traditional cognition or conception that suits it. Compared with the traditional evil, Radical evil cancels the concept of man itself. The banality of evil does not oppose Radical evil is a new (...) evil, does not deny its destruction, it criticizes the understanding of this evil as the devil. Replacing Radical evil with Extreme evil highlights the feature of no thinking of this evil. The banality of evil goes against words and thought, and it cannot be understood in the way of exploring the roots. The banality of evil is about thinking rather than knowing, aiming to seek meaning rather than knowledge. Thinking is a political activity, which does not directly bring knowledge and directly guide behavior, but generates independent judgment, thus helping to deal with evil. (shrink)

本书收集了2002年10月在中国矿业大学举行的“全国政治哲学第二届学术研讨会”的部分论文,全书分为:政治哲学基础理论研究、政治哲学范畴研究、政治哲学史研究、政治哲学与政治学等几部分。.

王玉玺先生用隶、行两体书写“墨经”,内容包括:世界观;认识论;逻辑学;方法论;历史观;经济学等。.

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)

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)

本书是浙江大学王元骧教授七十寿庆暨浙江大学文艺学研究所成立五周年纪念文集。全书分为王元骧先生的文艺学道路、文艺学思想的自由探索、文艺学思想的现代性解释三辑。.

Causation is one of the most controversial topics in philosophy. There is a wide range of philosophical accounts of causation, for example, the regularity account, the probabilistic account, the counterfactual account, the interventionist account, which can be all classified as ‘difference-making’ accounts; and the mechanistic account. Many argue that only one of these accounts is correct as there is only one type of causal relation (causal monism), while others maintain that there are multiple types of causation (causal pluralism). In addition, (...) there are eliminativists argue that science has no need of causation at all, while primitivists maintain that causation is unanalysable. Recently, the difference-making and mechanistic approaches have dominated recent philosophical discussion of causation. Other approaches and positions have been insufficiently discussed and assessed, especially in the context of philosophy of science. This volume explores and examines alternative approaches to causation. It revisits causal primitivism and causal eliminativism in the context of recent literature. It further explores the pluralistic approach, the fictionalist approach, the inferentialist approach, and the informational approach. It also examines the application of the dispositional approach, the epistemic approach, and the powerful particulars approach to the natural and social sciences. Overall, the volume is complementary to the recent discussion on the difference-making and mechanistic approaches and sheds new light on the metaphysical, epistemological, conceptual and methodological issues on causation. As such, it provides foundations for further research and teaching of this hotly debated topic. (shrink)

本书收录作者研究中国古近代军事思想、毛泽东军事思想、邓小平新时期军队建设思想,及现代战役理论中重要问题的24篇相关文章。.

本书研究了西方科学哲学中的八个主要问题,即:认知意义的判断标准、归纳与验证、科学说明模型及其问题、科学的发展模式、科学划界、科学实在论、科学与价值、社会科学哲学。.

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)

Shows how John Dewey’s visit to China from 1919 to 1921 influenced his social and political thought.

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)

Through case studies in sociology, economics and legal studies, this book advances new philosophical foundations for the methods of the social sciences, providing an account of how to establish or evaluate causal claims, and offering a new way of thinking about evidence-based policy, basic social science research and mixed methods research.

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)

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)

The discussion of collective agency involves the reduction problem of the concept of a collective. Individualism and Cartesian internalism have long restricted orthodox theories and made them face the tension between an irreducible concept of a collective and ontological reductionism. Heterodox theories as functionalism and interpretationism reinterpret the concept of agency and accept it as realized on the level of a collective. In order to adequately explain social phenomena that have relations as their essence, in this paper we propose a (...) relational, holistic account of collective agency and argue that functionalism and interpretationism can be integrated into such an account. (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)

This book treats Chinese philosophy today as a global project, presenting the work of both Chinese and Western philosophers.

该书分为五编,反映了作者的文化观,以及对学术界相关研究动态的把握;展示了对西方文化源头和本质的理解;分析了中国社会与基督教的关系等内容。.

本书共分三篇,即:现时代与马克思主义哲学的反思;马克思主义认识论探要;全球化、全球问题及社会发展理论研究.

本书从本体论和神学背景出发,将谢林哲学与现当代西方哲学联系起来。对“谢林哲学的转向”、“潜能学说”、“神话哲学”、“自由学说”等作了研究。.

本书就文化哲学的核心问题文明论,对法兰克福学派理论研究,强调其学派文明论的重要性,论述其学派对启蒙精神、文化工业、合法化危机的批判等。.

本书收录的10篇讲稿,是作者于1994年至1998年间记录下来的。其中7篇以“文化格局与人的表述”为名于1997年结集出版,8年后在此改版,补充了3篇而成本书。.

本书是对后现代主义文化思潮研究的文集,文章内容涉及对后现代主义哲学景观、后现代主义文化美学、后现代主义文艺形态的讨论。.

本书记述了历史上两个幽默大师,即战国时期的齐国人淳于髡和西汉武帝时期的东方朔的生平事迹。.

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)

本书从传统人伦关系的视角,探讨传统中国的民间秩序,以社会心理学的观点进行现代诠释,揭示传统民间社会诸多隐而不显的人伦现状,真实地展现传统人伦关系的本来面目。.

本书主要从传统文化与民族精神、诚信的思考、传统与时代、德治与法制等八个方面,阐述了中国的传统文化与道德建设。.

本书集中反映了作者近几年对艺术与审美问题的思考,收录论文有:《中国古代文学批评模式浅论》、《优美与崇高》、《论音乐艺术的审美特征》等。.

本书探讨了中国传统伦理道德问题,包括中国传统道德哲学和道德教育、中国传统道德思想和道德教育思想的基本特点、孔子以“仁”为核心的道德观和道德教育思想等内容。.

本书内容包括:四岳之后、姓氏称谓、东海上人、早年坎坷、时定入周、为文王师、封建齐国、强国方略、政略特色等。.

Shang juan. di 1 bu Li yu wu, di 2 bu Di guo yu guo jia -- Xia juan. di 1 bu Gong li yu fan gong li, di 2 bu Ke xue hua yu gong tong ti.

本书内容包括:四岳之后、姓氏称谓、东海上人、早年坎坷、时定入周、为文王师、封建齐国、强国方略、政略特色等。.

The concept of yinyang lies at the heart of Chinese thought and culture. The relationship between these two opposing, yet mutually dependent, forces is symbolized in the familiar black and white symbol that has become an icon in popular culture across the world. The real significance of yinyang is, however, more complex and subtle. This brilliant and comprehensive analysis by one of the leading authorities in the field captures the richness and multiplicity of the meanings and applications of yinyang, including (...) its visual presentations. Through a vast range of historical and textual sources, the book examines the scope and role of yinyang, the philosophical significance of its various layers of meanings and its relation to numerous schools and traditions within Chinese philosophy. By putting yinyang on a secure and clear philosophical footing, the book roots the concept in the original Chinese idiom, distancing it from Western assumptions, frameworks and terms, yet also seeking to connect its analysis to shared cross-cultural philosophical concerns. (shrink)

本书着重研究惩罚的社会必要性和心理基础,并分析惩罚的客体、根据、内容和主体,进而构建惩罚的公正、人道和功利原则,并提醒人们注意正义的局限所在以及宽恕的意义。.

本书从法哲学角度对理性及由它而引申出来的法理性和法理念作了系统的研究,并进而对当代吕国法治实践的理念进行了探讨,提出了自己对相关的问题的一些思考.

本书是著者晚年耗费十年心血完成的一部巨著。它以晚清孙诒让《墨子闲诂》为底本,参考近百年学术界有关《墨子》校释的重要见解和发现,提出了许多新的见解。.

A variety of philosophical positions have been proposed and developed to motivate, justify, and guide mixed methods research. This chapter provides a brief overview of the main positions in the debate over the philosophical foundations of mixed methods research. It shows that ‘philosophical foundations’ means differently while different positions provide ‘philosophical foundations’ in different senses. It also highlights the significance of the collaboration between researchers and philosophers in the examination of the philosophical foundations of mixed methods research.

《传习录》包含了王阳明心学所有的重要观点.全书分为上,中,下三卷.上卷经王阳明本人审阅,阐述了知行合一,心外无理,心外无物等观点;中卷里的书信均出自王阳明亲笔,是他晚年的著述;下卷较为具体地解说了他晚 年的思想,并记载了王阳明提出的"四句教".此为全译+经典点校版本,读者可以译文+原文两册对照阅读,尽享超好的阅读体验!