Hao Wang was one of the few confidants of the great mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel. _A Logical Journey_ is a continuation of Wang's _Reflections on Gödel_ and also elaborates on discussions contained in _From Mathematics to Philosophy_. A decade in preparation, it contains important and unfamiliar insights into Gödel's views on a wide range of issues, from Platonism and the nature of logic, to minds and machines, the existence of God, and positivism and phenomenology. The impact of Gödel's theorem (...) on twentieth-century thought is on par with that of Einstein's theory of relativity, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, or Keynesian economics. These previously unpublished intimate and informal conversations, however, bring to light and amplify Gödel's other major contributions to logic and philosophy. They reveal that there is much more in Gödel's philosophy of mathematics than is commonly believed, and more in his philosophy than his philosophy of mathematics. Wang writes that "it is even possible that his quite informal and loosely structured conversations with me, which I am freely using in this book, will turn out to be the fullest existing expression of the diverse components of his inadequately articulated general philosophy." The first two chapters are devoted to Gödel's life and mental development. In the chapters that follow, Wang illustrates the quest for overarching solutions and grand unifications of knowledge and action in Gödel's written speculations on God and an afterlife. He gives the background and a chronological summary of the conversations, considers Gödel's comments on philosophies and philosophers, and his attempt to demonstrate the superiority of the mind's power over brains and machines. Three chapters are tied together by what Wang perceives to be Gödel's governing ideal of philosophy: an exact theory in which mathematics and Newtonian physics serve as a model for philosophy or metaphysics. Finally, in an epilog Wang sketches his own approach to philosophy in contrast to his interpretation of Gödel's outlook. (shrink)

This cogent and knowledgeable critique of the tradition of modern analytic philosophy focuses on the work of its central figures -- Russell, Carnap, and Quine -- and finds it wanting. In its place, Hao Wang unfolds his own original view of what philosophy could and should be. The base of any serious philosophy, he contends, should take as its point of departure the actual state of human knowledge. He explains the relation of this new tradition to mathematical logic and reveals (...) the crucial transitions and mistakes in mainstream Anglo-American philosophy that make a new approach so compelling.Equally at home in philosophy and mathematics, Wang is uniquely qualified to take on the task of critically examining modern philosophy. He carefully traces the path of ideas from Russell and Wittgenstein through the Vienna Circle to modern British and American philosophy, and makes use of his familiarity with the profound thought of Kurt Gödel with whom he has had numerous discussions. He also presents the broader significance of Russell's philosophy, provides a comprehensive and unified treatment of Quine's work in logic and in philosophy, and delineates what is common between Carnap and Quine. (shrink)

The influential stage of Internet of Things has reformed all fields of life in general but specifically with the emergence of artificial intelligence has drawn the attention of researchers into a new paradigm of life standard. This revolution has been accepted around the globe for making life easier with the use of intelligent devices such as smart sensors, actuators, and many other devices. AI-enabled devices are more intelligent and capable of doing a specific task which saves a lot of resources (...) and time. Different approaches are available in the existing literature to tackle diverse issues of real life based on AI and IoT systems. The role of decision-making has its own importance in the AI-enabled and IoT systems. In-depth knowledge of the existing literature is dire need of the research community to summarize the literature in effective way by which practitioners and researchers can benefit from the prevailing proofs and suggest new solutions for solving a particular problem of AI-enabled sensing and decision-making for the IoT system. To facilitate research community, the proposed study presents a systematic literature review of the existing literature, organizes the evidences in a systematic way, and then analyzes it for future research. The study reported the literature of the last 5 years based on the research questions, inclusion and exclusion criteria, and quality assessment of the selected study. Finally, derivations are drawn from the included paper for future research. (shrink)

本書分為思維與語言關係研究、認識與真理關係探析、學術研究與學術創新三大專題，書中從發生學的視角提出了人類思維的發生先於語言的獨到見解，進而闡明了語言對人類思維發展的促進作用；探討了真理與認識的關係和真 理有無階級性問題。闡明了真理，包括相對真理均不包含錯誤。用真理的科學性論證了任何真理，包括社會科學的真理都沒有階級性；從哲學的角度論述了獨立思考之于學術創新的重大意義。.

In this paper I argue that Leibniz's ethics is a kind of virtue ethics where virtues of the agent are explanatorily primary. I first examine how Leibniz obtained his conception of justice as a kind of love in an early text, Elements of Natural Law. I show that in this text Leibniz's goal was to find a satisfactory definition of justice that could reconcile egoism with altruism, and that this was achieved through the Aristotelian virtue of friendship where friends treat (...) each other as “other selves.” Following this decisive moment, Leibniz adopted an Aristotle‐inspired ethical framework where the virtuous agent is central for moral evaluations. I then show that, despite certain developments, Leibniz's ethics retained this essential feature throughout his career. In Leibniz's later writings, God constitutes the foundation of the moral realm, and the fundamental moral endeavor of human beings consists in the imitation of God. (shrink)

The debate between Zhuangzi and Huizi has profound epistemological significance, however, the main body of their debate comprises logical inferences and refutations. Therefore, this paper mainly focuses on the logical aspects of the debate. Some scholars have suggested that Huizi’s argument is self-contradictory; however, in fact, based on such evaluations of Huizi’s argument, we can conclude that Zhuangzi’s logic is also self-contradictory. By utilizing modern logical analysis tools, this study reveals what and how the propositions and inferences contained in the (...) language of the debate are articulated accurately and strictly. Moreover, by elaborating on the implicit premises omitted by Zhuangzi and Huizi, the actual logical process of the debate can be restored, and the logical fallacy of clandestine change of argumentative issue are revealed. This study presents clear modern logic analysis of the debate; it can also provide a more reliable logical basis for the discussions of Zhuangzi and Huizi’s related philosophical thoughts. (shrink)

In the dissertation I have presented a historical, comparative, and systematic study on the issue of the relation between aesthetic subjects and ethical subjects by focusing on the philosophers Lao-zi, Zhuang-zi, Mencius, Tu Wei-ming, Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault, and Levinas. By "aesthetic" I mean "amoral" in the Kierkegaardian sense, and by "ethical" I mean care and compassion for others in the Levinasian sense. The dissertation is correspondingly divided into two parts: "Part : Aesthetic Subjects," and "Part : Ethical Subjects." In Part (...) I, I argue that in Lao-zi and Zhuang-zi there is a tranquil poetic-religious-aesthetic subject, in Heidegger a heroic-existential-aesthetic subject and a poetic-aesthetic subject , and in Confucianism a metaphysical-moral-aesthetic subject. In Part II, one can see that in Derrida there is an ethical-religious subject, in Foucault, an ethical-political subject, and in Levinas, a pious religious-ethical subject. ;By investigating, interpreting and comparing three kinds of ethics, metaphysical moral theory, originary ethics, and postmodern ethics, I try to provide an answer to the question asked by contemporary philosophers "Who comes after the subject?" The subject, as I understand it, means the subject of representation, the metaphysical subject. This subject is essentially aesthetic. The end of the subject is my starting point. The central theme of my present study is that an ethical subject is possible only on the condition that it is first a situated subject. However, this does not mean that a situated subject is necessarily an ethical one. After the death of the subject there are at least two possibilities of being a situated subject, the aesthetic one and the ethical one: for example, the Nietzschean subject in early Derrida and the Levinasian subject in later Derrida respectively. ;My conclusion is that if the subject in "Who comes after the subject?" is a knowing subject, then in postmodern ethics, the subjectivity of the subject is constituted in its ethical responsibilities. (shrink)

本书从研究王朝闻审美关系思想出发,分析其美学研究形而下的方法论特征及其优势,梳理其从匡正艺术审美关系特征走向构建人生审美关系的学术历程,诠释其审美关系论的基本内容.

This research paper aims to explore the images of Israel in the eyes of college students in Shanghai, China. The author chooses students from East China Normal University, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics together with some other small groups of college students as the subjects of the questionnaire. These target college students are supposed to represent the mainstream discourse concerning the public images of Israel among Shanghai young intellectual groups. In the survey, the author discovers (...) the responses are both positive and negative, though not half to half, mostly depending on from what ( which )channels they have learned about Israel. (shrink)

I propose to sketch my views on several aspects of the philosophy of mathematics that I take to be especially relevant to philosophy as a whole. The relevance of my discussion would, I think, become more evident, if the reader keeps in mind the function of (the philosophy of) mathematics in philosophy in providing us with more transparent aspects of general issues. I shall consider: (1) three familiar examples; (2) logic and our conceptual frame; (3) communal agreement and objective certainty; (...) (4) the transcommunal universality of mathematics; (5) the big jump to the potential infinite; (6) the reconciliation of local creation with the hypothesis of discovery; (7) Platonism as realism plus conceptualism; (8) foundational studies and mathematical practice; and (9) the decomposition of philosophical disagreements. The views of Gödel and Wittgenstein are emphasized in order to add specificity to the discussions. (shrink)

The essay centers on Gödel's views on the place of our intuitive concept of time in philosophy and in physics. It presents my interpretation of his work on the theory of relativity, his observations on the relationship between Einstein's theory and Kantian philosophy, as well as some of the scattered remarks in his conversations with me in the seventies — namely, those on the philosophies of Leibniz, Hegel and Husserl — as a successor of Kant — in relation to their (...) conceptions of time. (shrink)

For more than 200 years, America’s images in Chinese popular as well as public discourse have experienced both positive and negative phases. This paper is exploring the general images of America in China, focusing on 6 critical periods when Sino-U.S. relations was at the cross-road. The author chose three regions: Shanghai?Jiangsu and Anhui as the subjects of the questionnaires. To follow ground-to-up method, the subjects are all ordinary people and they are supposed to represent the tendency of popular discourse regarding (...) the general images of America in China. The author finds that the general images of America have experienced ups and downs since Shanghai Communique signed in 1972, and one of the driving forces is the two-way operation between the public and the popular discourse, which in the end affects or constrains the thinking of Chinese decision makers who are responsible for China policy towards U.S. (shrink)

Love is often seen as the most intimate aspect of our lives, but it is increasingly engineered by a few programmers with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Nowadays, numerous dating platforms are deploying so-called smart algorithms to identify a greater number of potential matches for a user. These AI-enabled matchmaking systems, driven by a rich trove of data, can not only predict what a user might prefer but also deeply shape how people choose their partners. This paper draws on Jürgen Habermas’s “colonization (...) of the lifeworld” thesis to critically explore the insidious influence of delegating romantic decision-making to an algorithm. The love lifeworld is colonized inasmuch as online dating algorithms encroach into our romantic relations to the extent that communicative action within romance is replaced by the technocratic rules of an algorithm. (shrink)

Naming or names (ming 名) is one of the key concepts in Daodejing (道德經). According to a popular understanding, names in Daodejing correspond to features (xing 形) of things; ordinary things have names, but Dao is featureless and nameless. What is missing, however, is atheory of the relationship between names and features explaining why ordinary things have names but Dao does not. In this paper, I develop a theory of names in Daodejing that explains how names relate to things and (...) their features. According to this theory, a name corresponds to a feature that is shared by a group of things, and names provide identity conditions for individuating ordinary things. Further, this theory implies that the various descriptions of Dao in Daodejing do not include names; therefore, talking about Dao while insisting that it is unnamable is not committed to any paradox. (shrink)

In this first extended treatment of his life and work, Hao Wang, who was in close contact with Godel in his last years, brings out the full subtlety of Godel's ideas and their connection with grand themes in the history of mathematics and ...

Franke Philosophy & Technology, 35(4), 1-7, (2022) offers an interesting claim that algorithmic transparency as manipulation does not necessarily follow that it is good or bad. Different people can have good reasons to adopt different evaluative attitudes towards this manipulation. Despite agreeing with some of his observations, this short reply will examine three crucial misconceptions in his arguments. In doing so, it defends why we are morally obliged to care about the manipulative potential of algorithmic transparency. It suggests that we (...) as society have a moral duty to incorporate the value of transparency into algorithmic systems while keeping algorithmic transparency itself sensitive to power relations. (shrink)

Preparative and analytical methods developed by separation scientists have played an important role in the history of molecular biology. One such early method is gel electrophoresis, a technique that uses various types of gel as its supporting medium to separate charged molecules based on size and other properties. Historians of science, however, have only recently begun to pay closer attention to this material epistemological dimension of biomolecular science. This paper substantiates the historiographical thread that explores the relationship between modern laboratory (...) practice and the production of scientific knowledge. It traces the historical development of gel electrophoresis from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, with careful attention to the interplay between technical developments and disciplinary shifts, especially the rise of molecular biology in this time-frame. Claiming that the early 1950s marked a decisive shift in the evolution of electrophoretic methods from moving boundary to zone electrophoresis, I reconstruct various trajectories in which scientists such as Oliver Smithies sought out the most desirable solid supporting medium for electrophoretic instrumentation. Biomolecular knowledge, I argue, emerged in part from this process of seeking the most appropriate supporting medium that allowed for discrete molecular separation and visualization. The early 1950s, therefore, marked not only an important turning point in the history of separation science, but also a transformative moment in the history of the life sciences as the growth of molecular biology depended in part on the epistemological access to the molecular realm available through these evolving technologies. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's Tractatus contains an insubstantial form of transcendental idealism. It is insubstantial because it rejects the substantial a priori. Yet despite this, the Tractatus still contains two fundamental transcendental idealist insights, (a) the identity of form between thought and reality, and (b) the transcendental unity of apperception. I argue for (a) by connecting general themes in the Tractatus and in Kant, and for (b) by giving a detailed interpretation of Tractatus 5.6ff., where Wittgenstein talks about solipsism and the metaphysical subject. (...) Tractarian solipsism, on this interpretation, is a special, insubstantial form of transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Since the rise of modern natural science there has been deep tension between the conceptual and the natural. Wittgenstein's discussion of how we learn a sensation-language contains important resources that can help us relieve this tension. The key here, I propose, is to focus our attention on animal nature, conceived as partially re-enchanted. To see how nature, so conceived, helps us relieve the tension in question, it is crucial to gain a firm and detailed appreciation of how the primitive-instinctive, a (...) central part of animal nature, actually serves the conceptual. I offer such an appreciation by closely examining §244 of the Philosophical Investigations and Peter Winch's discussion of it. The general aim is to bring out a certain kind of Wittgensteinian “naturalism”, a “naturalism” that is fully alive to the rootedness of conceptuality in nature. A concomitant aim is to illustrate the truth of Wittgenstein's saying that in philosophy one often has to pay close attention to details. (shrink)

This paper corrects a mistake in John McDowell’s influential reading of Wittgenstein’s attack on the idea of private sensations. McDowell rightly identifies a primary target of Wittgenstein’s attack to be the Myth of the Given. But he also suggests that Wittgenstein, in the ferocity of his battles with this myth, sometimes goes into overkill, which manifests itself in seemingly behavioristic denials about sensations. But this criticism of Wittgenstein is a mistake. The mistake is made over two important but notoriously difficult (...) sections in the so-called Private Language Argument, namely §304 and §293 of the Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein, maximally charitably read, commits no overkill in these two sections. This correction strengthens McDowell’s overall reading, but it is only a first step toward fully bringing out the deep but obscurely expressed insights in §304 and §293, the full treatment of which must await another occasion. (shrink)

Prediction is one of the major challenges in complex systems. The prediction methods have shown to be effective predictors of the evolution of networks. These methods can help policy makers to solve practical problems successfully and make better strategy for the future. In this work, we focus on exporting countries’ data of the International Trade Network. A recommendation system is then used to identify the products that correspond to the production capacity of each individual country but are somehow overlooked by (...) the country. Then, we simulate the evolution of the country’s fitness if it would have followed the recommendations. The result of this work is the combination of these two methods to provide insights to countries on how to enhance the diversification of their exported products in a scientific way and improve national competitiveness significantly, especially for developing countries. (shrink)

Detailed summary in vernacular field only.

This paper aims both to tackle the technical issue of deciphering Hobbes’s derivation of the sine law of refraction and to throw some light to the broader issue of Hobbes’s mechanical philosophy. I start by recapitulating the polemics between Hobbes and Descartes concerning Descartes’ optics. I argue that, first, Hobbes’s criticisms do expose certain shortcomings of Descartes’ optics which presupposes a twofold distinction between real motion and inclination to motion, and between motion itself and determination of motion; second, Hobbes’s optical (...) theory presented in Tractatus Opticus I constitutes a more economical alternative, which eliminates the twofold distinction and only admits actual local motion, and Hobbes’s derivation of the sine law presented therein, which I call “the early model” and which was retained in Tractatus Opticus II and First Draught, is mathematically consistent and physically meaningful. These two points give Hobbes’s early optics some theoretical advantage over that of Descartes. However, an issue that has baffled commentators is that, in De Corpore Hobbes’s derivation of the sine law seems to be completely different from that presented in his earlier works, furthermore, it does not make any intuitive sense. I argue that the derivation of the sine law in De Corpore does make sense mathematically if we read it as a simplification of the early model, and Hobbes has already hinted toward it in the last proposition of Tractatus Opticus I. But now the question becomes, why does Hobbes take himself to be entitled to present this simplified, seemingly question-begging form without having presented all the previous results? My conjecture is that the switch from the early model to the late model is symptomatic of Hobbes’s changing views on the relation between physics and mathematics. (shrink)

Noted logician and philosopher addresses various forms of mathematical logic, discussing both theoretical underpinnings and practical applications. After historical survey, lucid treatment of set theory, model theory, recursion theory and constructivism and proof theory. Place of problems in development of theories of logic, logic’s relationship to computer science, more. Suitable for readers at many levels of mathematical sophistication. 3 appendixes. Bibliography. 1981 edition.

First published in 1974. Despite the tendency of contemporary analytic philosophy to put logic and mathematics at a central position, the author argues it failed to appreciate or account for their rich content. Through discussions of such mathematical concepts as number, the continuum, set, proof and mechanical procedure, the author provides an introduction to the philosophy of mathematics and an internal criticism of the then current academic philosophy. The material presented is also an illustration of a new, more general method (...) of approach called substantial factualism which the author asserts allows for the development of a more comprehensive philosophical position by not trivialising or distorting substantial facts of human knowledge. (shrink)

Shame is by and large dichotomized into hrī and apatrāpya in the Buddhist context. In the Sarvāstivāda and Yogācāra scholasticism, both hrī and apatrāpya are subsumed under the wholesome states. In this paper, firstly, previous studies and the etymologies of the two terms above will be closely reviewed; secondly, the exposition and contrast of hrī and apatrāpya between the Sarvāstivāda and Yogācāra will be minutely contextualized; thirdly, the merit of possessing dichotomized states of shame will be thoroughly investigated. Central to (...) my research is a glimpse of the scholastic Indian Buddhist sophistication, exemplified by two kinds of shame, as well as the initial consideration of hrī and apatrāpya in the context of shame, guilt, and conscience in the Anglophone philosophy, while also taking their association with Buddhist morality and concentration into account. (shrink)

WANG Bi 王弼 develops a metaphysic of Dao 道 in his Commentary on Laozi and “The Structure of Laozi’s Subtle Pointers.” I summarize this metaphysic as the following thesis: Dao is featureless and is the ultimate reason why the myriad things exist and are the ways they are. I develop a systematic account of this thesis: I provide an interpretation of the featurelessness of Dao and show how Dao’s featurelessness relates to its fundamental explanatory role as the ontological ground for (...) the myriad things. (shrink)