Scientific Progress Doubts and Hopes

Abstract

Our scientific and technological world must be accepted, whatever the reservations guarding above all the preservation of a genuinely humane existence on this Earth. The most difficult problem facing humanity is the present population explosion which appears at present insoluble, as humanity shows itself unequal to this challenge. Equally daunting is the prospect of nuclear war, and only if we can make reason and responsibility the yardsticks of our actions, is there any hope.     

袁枚经学观及其疑经思想探析

袁枚是 1 8世纪中国知识界声名最盛 ,成就最著 ,影响最大的文学家、诗人 ,同时又是颇有造诣和建树的思想家、学者。但以往的研究多重视前者而忽略后者。本文致力于阐发袁枚的思想主张 ,对袁枚提倡的六经皆文的经学观及其疑经思想作了深入的探析 ,并论述了其所体现的价值和意义 ,认为在有清一代的学术思想领域 ,袁枚应当占有一席之地。     

关于"经世致用"思潮的几点质疑

“经世”的词义在中国古代文献中本来是非常明确的,历经2000余年而无歧义,从不与“致用”一词搭配使用。自从梁启超开始使用后,“经世致用”一词开始频繁出现在现代许多学术论著中。在研究清代学术思潮时,有的研究者认为中国在嘉庆、道光年间出现了一股“经世致用”学术思潮,并且产生了一个“经世派”,不仅如此,还把这种“经世致用”思潮与鸦片战后的“师夷制夷”相联系。其实,不仅“经世致用”的提法不妥,而且“经世派”存在的现实根据也不足,就连“经世”观念与“师夷制夷”之间的历史逻辑联系也是值得怀疑的。     

Magnetic Sourcing of Obsidians in Southern South America: Some Successes and Doubts

Sourcing of archaeological obsidians is of great importance in unravelling the cultural, social and economic development of many ancient societies. Use of magnetic properties of obsidian fragments has been reported as a cheap, fast and versatile tool for these purposes. One hundred and seventy-six obsidians from archaeological sites and sources in Argentina and southern Chile were analysed magnetically using the weight-normalized intensity of JNRM (Intensity of Natural Remanent Magnetization), the intensity of JSIRM (Intensity of Saturation of Isothermal Remanent Magnetization) at 0·35 T and the bulk susceptibility. The method allowed identification of at least two different sources for archaeological materials found respectively to the north and south of the Lago Argentino, in SW Santa Cruz province, Argentina. Comparison of values from most samples in south and central Santa Cruz with those from a known source may lead to the interpretation that most of them belong to that source. In contrast, a critical analysis of the resolution of this using a larger than usual number of samples from three well distant obsidian sources in Argentina showed that two of the sources showed an almost complete overlapping of these three parameters, and all displayed a very large dispersion of values. This different result indicates that the magnetic sourcing of obsidians may not always have the resolution previously portrayed, but is applicable in certain localities.     

Casting the Riace Bronzes: Modern Assumptions and Ancient Facts

This article argues that classical archaeologists have seriously underestimated the output of heat required to melt a large quantity of bronze and therefore have wrongly reconstructed the ancient casting process. The idea that sufficient metal for casting a bronze of monumental proportions could be heated in a crucible with a charcoal fire ventilated by bellows is not realistic. The following observations are based on solid foundry experience: Nigel Konstam, a bronze sculptor, for many years supervised the casting of monumental bronzes comparable in size to those from Riace. This article has been written by Herbert Hoffmann drawing on Konstam's notes     

Cultural Assumptions against Sustainability: An International Survey

Despite the great progress in increasing public awareness of and attention to the issue of sustainability, the measures taken so far fall dramatically short of halting deleterious cycles. This apparent deficiency can be ascribed to two main factors: insufficient efforts to finding viable and visible alternatives and the failure to thoroughly re-examine dominant cultural paradigms. The widespread resistance to adopting more sustainable habits, in spite of the patent environmental crisis, suggests that there are persisting epistemological substrates so compelling as to be called ‘secular dogmas’. Higher education should undertake to promote both empirical research and applications, and systemic cultural critique. Geographers are among the most apt coordinators for such a complex interdisciplinary task. This paper shows the results of an international survey on some spatial, taxonomic and teleological macro-coordinates that underpin people's perception and representation of reality and thus influence the above-mentioned ‘secular dogmas’, which, if not properly addressed, may inexorably hinder the adoption of sustainable development models.     

拱桥与我国古代力学

本文探讨了古代拱桥实物所体现的力学水平,并以拱桥源流为线索,结合有关文献和记载,分析了古代拱桥及相关力学的发展状况。结果表明,拱桥诸多方面符合近代力学原理,具有独特的计算方法,经历了一个春秋战国酝酿、秦汉产生、隋唐成熟、宋元发展完善、明清继承普及的过程。     

Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction from Faunal Remains: Ecological Basics and Analytical Assumptions

Paleozoologists have long used taxa represented by ancient faunal remains to reconstruct paleoenvironments. Those ancient environments were the selective contexts in which hominin biological and cultural evolution took place. Knowing about those particularistic selective environments and how organisms responded to them is increasingly seen as critically important to identifying both how biota will respond to future (to some degree anthropogenically driven) environmental change, and biological conservation and management applications that will ensure sustainability of ecological resources and services. Reconstructing paleoenvironments requires knowledge of species’ ecological tolerances, geographic ranges, habitats, environments, and niches. It also requires assumptions that extant species had the same ecological tolerances in the past as they do today and that changes in taxonomic composition or abundances reflect environmental change rather than sampling or taphonomic factors. Greater knowledge of ecological processes as well as increased analytical sophistication in paleozoology is providing increasingly rigorous and detailed insights to paleoenvironments.     

《三国志》日译本释疑

《三国志》日译本作者给我们提供的范例之一,就是其"知之为知之,不知为不知"的严谨学风。本文对日译本提出的二百四十处疑问,结合前人及时贤的研究成果,进行了初步的辨析工作。文章主要围绕日译本作者提出的、尚未引起国内学者重视的内容展开论述,这之中有些能够解决的,也有尚待方家赐教的疑难问题。     

“庄子是谁”四说献疑

＂庄子是谁＂,即历史上那个叫做＂庄子＂的人究竟是《庄子》中哪些内容的作者这一问题,是一个非常棘手的历史难题。对此,学界主要有四种认识：其一,庄子乃内篇的作者;其二,庄子乃外杂篇的作者;其三,庄子乃《庄子》中一部分内容的作者;其四,庄子乃《庄子》一书的作者。然而,这四说的主要依据,包括内篇精深外杂浅俗说、内篇与外杂篇必有一伪说、刘笑敢来自汉语词汇发展规律的证明等,都存在一定的漏洞。以上四说的漏洞,意味着＂庄子是谁＂的问题并没有真正得以解决。因此,基于一种相对审慎的考虑,不妨将庄子看作《庄子》文本统一组织下的一个作者符号。     

宋代鼎州记载之疑误考辨

文献对宋代鼎州(朗州、常德府)沿革的记载,存在一些问题,如《续资治通鉴长编》将宋初朗州误作鼎州,《宋会要辑稿》以"府州"条记事羼入"常德府"条等。本文厘清了宋代鼎州的沿革与文献中关于鼎州的书写,进而探讨了相关联的书写源流、地名避讳等问题,指出《长编》误宋初朗州为鼎州,系因避讳而以后名追改前名;宋代官修《会要》系《皇宋十朝纲要》"要"部分的重要史源;《宋史·地理志》常德府条系宋朝不同时期《国史》的混书。     

The Qing,the Manchus,and Footbinding: Sources and Assumptions under Scrutiny

Two sets of assumptions surrounding the Manchus and footbinding have crept into the historiography of the Qing period. A first set of assumptions claims that the Manchus attempted to ban footbinding among civilian Han on repeated occasions after the conquest but failed due to women’s resistance. Moreover, Qing attempts to ban footbinding made binding into a politically charged ethnic marker that embodied for Han anti-Manchu and anti-Qing sentiments and caused the bans to backfire and footbinding to spread further. A second set of assumptions claims that the overwhelming cultural allure and popularity of footbinding proved irresistible to banner women, who, thwarted by banner regulations forbidding the practice, covertly imitated footbinding by wearing platform shoes that hid natural feet and created an illusion of smallness. This paper scrutinizes the evidence put forward by Qing historians for the first of these two sets of assumptions. The claims are found to be unsubstantiated and evidence is offered that contradicts them. I argue that the weight of evidence shows that there was no prohibition on footbinding imposed in 1645 or at any time during the Manchu conquest, and that a 1664 proposal to ban footbinding was withdrawn before it could be implemented, for reasons misunderstood by historians of footbinding. Therefore there could have been no “resistance” by Han women or men to a ban on footbinding, and claims that footbinding became a politically charged ethnic marker of anti-Qing sentiment in the seventeenth century are groundless. With regard to the second set of assumptions, I provide evidence in a separate paper to be published elsewhere that banner women had distinctive roles and fashions uninfluenced by the culture of footbinding, and that in Beijing and the Northeast Manchu styles were emulated by Han, not vice versa.     

Paradigms,Assumptions, Enclosure,and Violence: The Hillforts of Strathdon

Abstract

This paper examines the assumptions and intellectual models that lie behind the debate around the connections between violence, warfare, and hillfort construction. These underlining academic paradigms have been heavily influenced by current social and political mores, which have created a context in which prehistoric and Early Medieval hillforts are studied in isolation and where the theoretical models have been developed from and with sole reference to the prehistoric period. In turn the debate in Scotland is based on a very limited number of dated hillforts. New excavation by the author from Aberdeenshire has allowed an attempt at an integrated settlement sequence and this is presented in the assumed context of violence as a dominant influencing factor in hillfort design and construction at specific periods.     

瓦当“椽头饰”说疑议——以四川汉代崖墓资料为例

以往有“瓦当之位置,正在榱头之上,或因此得名”,“瓦当的作用是用以蔽护檐头”的说法。有文物资料证明,瓦当与檐椽就数量与位置而言,均未必对应。四川汉代崖墓考古收获更提供了充分的相关信息。古来释瓦当为“椽头饰”,“椽头当”的说法,看来并不确当。