Zhenming Zhai

The correspondence of a sensory object to the category of a descriptive statement requires a reflexive-identity of the object, and such a reflexive-identity is primarily based on the cognition of spatiality. Spatiality is, however, constituted through visual perception. There are only two occasions on which definitive reflexive-identity is exemplified: the infinitesimal point and the infinite "One," and others are just human stipulations that meet pragmatic needs of rough identification of things at hand. However, if a spatial point is not different from any so-called "other" spatial point, to validate the reflexive identity of any spatial point implies a validation of the reflexive identity of all spatial points. Thus, as "one" and "many" here become absolutely unitary, the infinitely small and the infinitely immense are identical. /// 感觉对象如果要与描述的范畴结构对应，必须以对象的自返同一性为基点，这 种自返同一性原始地建基于对空间性的认知。然而，空间性是通过视觉感知才得到建 构的。确切的自返同一性只有在以下两种情形中才可以被简单为民义地建构:即，无 穷小的点与无穷大的 "太一"。对于在元穷大与无穷小之间的各种客体对象而言，其 自返同一性只是思想强加的，是按照实用目的进行概念化加工的结果。由于任一空间 点和任何所谓"其他"的空间点是无差别的，对任一空间点的同一性的确立也就是对 所有空间点的同一性的确立。结果是，既然 "一" 与 "多" 是绝对同一，无穷小与无 穷大也必然是绝对同一。.

As the core paradigm of modern economics, the rational economic man hypothesis has constructed a behavior model oriented towards utility maximization by pushing instrumental rationality to the extreme. However, this hypothesis has triggered a profound self-referential paradox at the philosophical level: when most economists include themselves in the subject category of theoretical presuppositions, their theoretical construction behavior itself becomes an object of utility calculation, which shakes the legitimacy of economics as a "discipline in pursuit of truth". Starting from the split between instrumental rationality and value rationality, this paper reveals the deep mechanism of this paradox by analyzing the logical isomorphism between theoretical subjects and research objects, and explores possible ways to resolve the paradox in the perspectives of phenomenology, hermeneutics and critical theory. The study shows that the essence of the self-referential paradox is the one-dimensional colonization of the human spiritual world by modern instrumental rationality. Only by reconstructing the relationship between theoretical rationality and practical rationality can a more inclusive philosophical foundation be laid for economics.

In the deontic tradition, "telling the truth" has always been one of its important ethical tenets. This tenet, in principle, requires that a person who believes they know the truth literally state the truth they believe, without requiring them to consider whether the audience actually obtains the desired truth. In other words, this tenet seems unconcerned about what the recipient at the end of the communication is actually led to believe, as long as what they believe to be the truth is stated. This article refers to this situation as "telling the truth," while considering whether the audience obtains the truth is called "conveying the truth." In this article, I will provide a philosophical analysis of the differences and connections between conveying the truth and telling the truth, and the possible ethical problems arising therefrom.

Starting from Bostrom's simulation argument, this paper introduces Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles and clarifies its ontological attribute. Through four parts of philosophical arguments, it expounds that the empirical world experienced by humans has an extremely high probability of being virtual rather than necessarily virtual; there is no essential difference between real and simulated consciousness, they are identical at the experiential level, and only consciousness possesses authenticity. The virtuality of the world is not falsity, but the empirical form in which consciousness appears. As an ontological criterion, Leibniz's Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles provides a core philosophical basis for judging the truth and boundary of Bostrom's simulation proposition.

This paper offers a philosophical judgment on the latest fruit fly whole neural network emulation experiment announced in March 2026, pointing out that the experiment merely reproduces the biological neural structure and external behaviors of the fruit fly, and fails to prove that the emulated system possesses subjective conscious experience. By definition, the digital drosophila is equivalent to the philosophical zombie in the philosophy of mind. The achievements of the experiment have only addressed the "easy problems" of consciousness research, without touching on or being able to resolve the "hard problem" of consciousness at all. Far from constituting a breakthrough in understanding the essence of consciousness, the experiment further confirms that physicalism and functionalism are incapable of exhausting the core issues surrounding consciousness.

The correspondence of a sensory object to the category of a descriptive statement requires a reflexive-identity of the object, and such a reflexive-identity is primarily based on the cognition of spatiality. Spatiality is, however, constituted through visual perception. There are only two occasions on which definitive reflexive-identity is exemplified: the infinitesimal point and the infinite “One,” and others are just human stipulations that meet pragmatic needs of rough identification of things at hand. However, if a spatial point is not different from any so-called “other” spatial point, to validate the reflexive identity of any spatial point implies a validation of the reflexive identity of all spatial points. Thus, as “one” and “many” here become absolutely unitary, the infinitely small and the infinitely immense are identical.

For the logical positivists, protocol statements are points of contact between experience and knowledge. But within the Vienna Circle there were controversies with regard to how protocol statements are to play the key role in the process of verification. The uniqueness of Schlick's concept of protocol statement consists in the unity between its intelligibility and its validity. When the protocol statements are formulated during observations, the statements themselves are not verified but the whole body of the theory is. The momentary experience confirms the protocol statement at the moment, and the satisfaction of the knower attained through confirmations is the end of scientific inquiries.

My dissertation is an inquiry into the possibility of providing an ethical axiology through communicative argumentation. It attempts to undertake a normative justification from a standpoint that transcends the opposition between the Anglo-American and Continental traditions. The concept that provides this bridge is that of communicative rationality, and the so-called "is-ought" problem is to be dealt with in this project by practicing this kind of rationality. Here rationality is understood in terms of communicative action as proposed by such philosophers as Habermas and Apel. But the engagement in a choice of life-and-death, which makes possible the choice of being a participant in any process of argumentation, will enable us to go beyond Habermas' discourse ethics so that the "committed members of a communication community can assign a normative value to human life qua its human-ness. This choice we call "Radical Choice." ;The human-ness of human life, as suggested by phenomenologists such as Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre, is what we call "Subjectivity" that gives meaning to all aspects of experience. As we continue to engage in communicative argumentation, we will move from personal Radical Choice back to the intersubjective dimension of human life which we set out as a precondition for rational communication. Thus we may derive all intersubjective moral principles from the single pre-moral value we have established through Radical Choice.

Traditionally, the proponents of empiricism sought for the starting point of knowledge in sensations that happen to us when we open our sense organs to the world. They analyzed the functioning of human faculties of sensation and cognition and the way these faculties are activated so as to discover the origin of ideas. Thus, they insisted on the priority of particulars to universals in the body of synthetic knowledge, and granted empirical facts the authority of truth. For that reason, they are opposed to the rationalists, who maintained that the most important part of synthetic knowledge is derived solely from first principles or ideas, and that these principles or ideas are “innate”—that reason can ascertain their truth intuitively without the use of the senses.Logical positivism belongs to the empiricist tradition. However, it distinguishes itself from its empiricist predecessors in a very important way, so that its proponents thought they could overcome the difficulties raised against the older empiricists.