关于《“扬州八怪”批判》的思考

由徐建融《扬州八怪批判》引发的争论,是近20年扬州八怪研究中最值得引起重视的争论。归纳起来,这些争论和分歧主要集中在扬州八怪成员的人品、画品、绘画商品化、师承、在中国绘画史上的地位几方面。     

Supporting trust: credit assessment and debt recovery through Trade Protection Societies in Britain and Ireland, 1776–1992

From an initial foundation in London in 1776, Trade Protection Societies grew in numbers to reach a peak of about 120 in 1910. They provided inter-business and some consumer credit assessment, debt management and recovery. From the 1850s they coordinated activities through a national association that covered Britain and Ireland. The societies were processing millions of credit assessments for thousands of members in the 1960s, reaching over 100,000 assessments per day in the 1980s. They provided a voluntary institutional base drawing on networks of mutuality, supplying information between members and societies that was judged privileged by the Courts. This offered transaction costs advantages for the high frequency, short duration activity provided, and hedged against the risks of complex Court actions. They became a large-scale mechanism to encourage honouring of commitments, thus underpinning the trust necessary across an increasingly geographically integrated economy. Their evolution demonstrates the importance of city size and regional centres, with diffusion down the city rank-size distribution. However, some smaller centres, mainly in resorts, also developed TPSs. The spatial process linked individual traders and the smallest places into a national system of credit management. By the 1920s smaller TPSs became difficult to sustain and were taken over or became branches of the larger societies; but overall membership continued to increase. True consolidation occurred after 1971 when demand exploded after the removal of credit controls, with unit costs pressed down, leading to de-mutualisation.     

SEARLEWORLD1

John Searle's most recent effort to account for human social institutions claims to provide a synthesis of the explanatory and the normative while simultaneously dismissing as confused and wrongheaded theorists who held otherwise. Searle, although doubtless alert to the usual considerations for separating the normative and the explanatory projects, announces at the outset that he conceives of matters quite differently. Searle's reason for reconceiving the field rests on his claim that both ends can be achieved by a single “underlying principle of social ontology” (7). This principle, he maintains, proves basic both to any explanation of how the social arises and sustains itself as well as to all justifications of core common norms, for example, human rights. His approach transforms what previously appeared to be ontological/explanatory questions (and so prima facie empirical/causal matters) completely into semantic/conceptual issues. By situating language as constitutive of the social, and intentionality as a necessary conceptual precursor to language, Searle claims to join by semantic necessity philosophical projects that the philosophical tradition that he rejects held distinct. Searle's notion of the social comes for free once one has language as a conventional cloak for prelinguistic, semantically well‐formed intentional contents, individual and collective. But upon examination, Searle's key argument for displacement of the tradition depends upon the viability of his linguistic mechanism, and that in turn requires prelinguistic necessity for all forms of intentionality. But he can produce no compelling connection, conceptual or empirical, to establish the role that collective intentionality supposedly must play.     

江苏高邮龙虬庄史前墓葬人口状况分析

本文利用江苏高邮龙虬庄史前墓地发掘材料探讨了龙虬庄史前人口的性别比例、平均年龄和死亡高峰、人口规模等问题。笔者认为史前龙虬庄人们可能有意控制了女性人口的数量。艰苦的生活、繁重的劳动、危险的生育过程都是导致人们过早死亡的原因。最后笔者通过静止人口模式和新石器人口增长模式两种方法探讨了龙虬庄当时大致的人口规模以及可能的增长过程。     

改革开放以来宋史研究若干热点问题述评

改革开放以来,宋史研究取得长足进步,这不仅表现为典章制度史、财政问题与部门经济史、城市史、人口史、货币史、区域经济史、法制史、社会史、家族史、妇女婚姻、文化思想等领域都有颇见功力的专著问世,而且对诸多热点问题,如历史分期与宋代的历史地位、积贫积弱、宋代经济发展水平、南宋历史地位、皇帝与士大夫共治天下、宋太祖不杀大臣、相权消长、士风、士人转型与唐宋变革以及王安石变法等都有广泛而深入的讨论,大大推进了对宋代在中国历史上的地位及其特点的认识。思想解放、研究方法和倾向的多样化、宋代文献的整理和出版均对宋史研究的进步产生了巨大的推动作用。但研究中也存在不讲求学术规范、重复研究、短期速成等缺陷。     

美国第三次三K党运动兴起原因探析

美国第三次三K党运动始于二战结束,持续至今。第三次三K党运动是美国社会文化传统、特定社会环境和特殊政治机制的产物,它的兴起和长期存在有其必然性。南部同盟传统、暴力传统、言论自由与结社传统是三K党长期存在与发展的历史原因;美国部分白人经济地位的困窘成为该运动的经济根源;美国种族政策的变迁与极端宗教信仰的出现为该运动提供了种族信条与宗教信仰的错误指导;美国行政制度的不力为该运动觅得繁衍的空间。     

Disability and Active Life Expectancy Among Older Cambodians

Older adults in Cambodia are survivors of harsh living conditions, including poverty and periods of extreme violence. Although these experiences may affect health outcomes, little data has existed to monitor Cambodia's older population. The current paper uses data from the 2004 Study of the Elderly in Cambodia (SEC) and focuses on disability status. The data is the first of its kind for Cambodia—a comprehensive survey employing a representative sample of adults 60 and older living across the country. Disability prevalence by age and sex, Active Life Expectancy (ALE) and common correlates of disability, using Activity of Daily Living (ADL) items, are examined. In addition, disability prevalence rates are compared to those for older adults living in other countries in South-east Asia. The results indicate that older Cambodians are more disabled than their counterparts living elsewhere. Possible reasons include long-term influence of social disruption and poverty. Women live longer than men, but spend a greater proportion of their remaining life in states of disability and severe disability. Correlates of disability show that younger age, being male, having higher income satisfaction, being married and living in urban areas associate with lower probabilities of reporting disability. A contribution of the analysis is the examination of a basic measure of health among a population of which little is known.     

Food for Rome: A stable isotope investigation of diet in the Imperial period (1st–3rd centuries AD)

During the Empire, the population of Rome was composed mostly of lower-class free citizens and slaves. Viewed from historical records, the Roman diet included primarily olives, wine, and wheat, but poor and enslaved Romans may have eaten whatever they were able to find and afford, leading to significant heterogeneity in the Roman diet. Previous carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of skeletons from Imperial Italy have begun to reveal variation in diet, but little is known about what people ate in the capital city. This study complements previous work by adding new isotope data from human skeletons found in two Imperial-period (1st–3rd centuries AD) cemeteries in Rome. These data suggest that urban and suburban diets differed, most notably in the consumption of the C₄ grain millet. Comparing these new data with all published palaeodietary data from Imperial Italy demonstrates that significant variation existed in the diet of the common people.     

论党的三代领导集体关于经受执政地位考验的重要思想

党必须经受执政地位的考验 ,是我们党三代领导集体一贯坚持和强调的重要思想。毛泽东估计了在民主革命胜利以后国内外阶级斗争的新形势 ,及时警告资产阶级的“糖衣炮弹”将成为对无产阶级、对已经取得执政地位的中国共产党的主要危险 ;建国后 ,毛泽东继续坚持和发展了经受执政地位考验的思想。建国初期 ,邓小平作为第一代领导集体的重要成员着重指出了党在执政地位取得以后可能产生的一些危险倾向 ,强调注意和重视执政党的特点 ,在执政全过程中都要坚持为人民服务的正确态度 ,要十分珍惜来之不易的执政党地位 ;改革开放时期 ,邓小平成为第二代领导集体的核心 ,对我党几十年执政经验教训进行了总结 ,特别是针对“文化大革命”和结合改革开放时期的新形势、新特点进行了深刻思考 ,从而对党如何在新的历史条件下经受住执政地位的考验提出了许多新的思想。党的第三代领导集体与第一、第二代领导集体一样 ,都特别注意和善于把握住巩固执政地位关键在于党的自身状况这一根本点 ,都注重保持和加强党和人民群众的血肉联系 ,从而为党提供最深厚的力量源泉 ;同时 ,第三代领导集体在经济全球化、政治多极化趋势日益明显地时代背景下 ,善于及时提出、提升、提炼出执政党建设的经验教训 ,并对我们党的发展、巩固提出     

20世纪九十年代以来《庄子》神话研究综述简

《庄子》中存在着大量的神话材料,自王国维开启以神话眼光看《庄子》的先河后,鲁迅、郎擎霄、闻一多、茅盾、顾颉刚等许多学者开始关注《庄子》与神话的关系,并取得了一定的成绩。进入新时期后,对《庄子》神话的研究进入了一个更深更全面的阶段,鉴于此,有必要对研究成果进行一番梳理,有利于推动《庄子》神话研究的发展。《庄子》神话研究成果主要集中在神话与寓言研究、神话原型和意象研究、神话思维研究、神仙思想研究。