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JOURNAL OF ZHEJIANG UNIVERSITY 2012 Vol.42 Number 4
2012, Vol.42 Num.4
Online: 2012-07-10

Article
 
Article
1
2012 Vol. 42 (4): 1- [Abstract] ( 789 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 513KB] ( 1198 )
5 Bao Aimin Luo Jianhong Dick F.Swaab
Notes on Some Fundamental Questions in the Humanities Based on Progresses in Brain Research

The rapid and strong development of brain research in the recent decades necessitates a re-thinking or re-awaking of some classical questions in the humanities,which may have significant effects on our society.As neuroscientists we would like to share with our colleagues from the humanities our points of view concerning these questions.Our points presented in this paper concern three important issues: (i) essence of the human mind, (ii) consciousness and unconsciousness of the brain,and (iii) free will. Ad (i) Our fundamental point of view is that the classical body-mind dualism has disappeared with the new development of neuroscience and should be replaced by a brain-monism.The mind is the result of our 100 billion brain cells working together,and is thus a product of the brain.The mind is produced by the brain by action potentials,neurotransmitters and synaptic changes,resulting in changes in the activities of the brain cells,and interactions of the brain areas.The results of brain work are objective since they are solely the consequences of the changes in transmitter release and activity of nerve cells in particular brain areas.There are also good neuroscientific explanations for the so-called ''subjective'' properties of one's personality or character.It is the genetic background,early brain development,and remodeling of the brain caused by later developmental experiences playing together to make each brain unique.These mind-differences can be explained on the basis of differences in brain structures and functions and they are purely objective. Ad (ii) Most of our brain work is unconscious and it can very well carry out complex tasks this way.Such unconscious processing of the brain is also one of its objective properties.In addition,the brain (= I) does have the unconscious wish ''to survive,'' which has developed during evolution and that during evolution the wish for food and reproduction are strongly coupled to our brain reward systems has proven to be an extremely efficient mechanism.These basic wishes are sublimated in the human being into products of work,science and art. Ad (iii) Scientific experiments have shown that our brain makes decisions before we are conscious of them.These observations seriously question whether we have any degree of free will.The unconscious will takes split-second decisions on the basis of what is going on in our surroundings,a process that is importantly determined by the way our brains were formed during development and by what we have learned since then (=memories).That the feeling of ''free will'' is an illusion has gained support of many experimental data,although the final answer to this important question should come from future experiments. Finally,we think that developments in neuroscience not only promote our penetration into the essence of human beings,but also significantly inspire the improvement in our social ethics and mechanism,as for example,in the case of how we should fairly and efficiently punish the offenders who have psychiatric disorders.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 5-17 [Abstract] ( 5384 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 2086KB] ( 4038 )
18 Li Hengwei
Metaphysics of Consciousness and Dual Perspective Monism

Dick Swaab presented in his recent book a claim that we are our brains.Obviously,the claim is a kind of expression on the mind body problem.The claim of ''We Are Our Brains'' gives a definite and correct recognition of the embodiment of consciousness,but it covers the fact of experiential reality of consciousness,so it is a single track which will cause unnecessary misunderstanding.A robust metaphysics of consciousness is a coherent system of ideas which should give a unified and self consistent account of the three basic facts about the phenomena of consciousness,that is,physical reality,experiential reality and reality of the corresponding unity of the two.Since the beginning of the modern times,in face of the three facts,scientific materialism and dualism have encountered their own insuperable dilemmas.Materialism can properly explain the physical aspect of the phenomena of consciousness but at the expense of the experiential aspect of the phenomena|on the other hand,dualism gives legal force to both aspects of the physical and the experiential but at the expense of the unity of the phenomena of consciousness.In order to avoid the dilemmas of the two,a reasonable resulting solution has to be a dual aspect monism or a panpsychism.Furthermore,a panexperientialism has to be developed so as to solve some problems in the traditional panpsychism.The core contributions of panexperientialism to the metaphysics of consciousness are as follows: (1) It has speculatively demonstrated that an actual entity has an aspect as epistemological object (physical aspect) as well as an aspect as ontological subject (experiential aspect).(2) There is an evolutionary developmental spectrum in the physical aspect of an actual entity,that is,its physical system will grow increasingly complicated|similarly,there is an evolutionary developmental spectrum in the experiential aspect,whose manifestation is an increasingly enriched mind.(3) There is a corresponding relation between the two spectrums of an actual entity.Panexperientialism has preliminarily solved the dilemma in materialism and dualism in a sense of speculative schema.If,however,we intend to give a further account of why there are necessarily two aspects in an actual entity and why there has to be a corresponding relation between the two aspects,we think it is more proper to call panexperientialism a dual-perspective monism.The reason of an actual entity (aE1) as a subject is that it is ontologically an agent of its own goings-on (its acts and reactions) and the undertaking of the agent is the first-person prehending of the subject.On the other hand,being relative to the other actual entity (aE2),the aE1 comes to be a ''perceived'' object,so it becomes an observed object from the first-person perspective of the aE2.As a result,the two categories of mind and body which human beings have utilized to describe the phenomena of consciousness are just respective appearances of dual perspectives of an actual entity,namely the first person perspective as experiential subject and the third-person perspective as observed object.And the relation of the physical aspect to the experiential one is a naturally-such correspondence rather than a generating/generated relation.It is inappropriate to characterize the relation of neural activities to conscious experiences with causal concepts|rather,the physical aspect of the world is causally closed,and consciousness itself is non-causal.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 18-28 [Abstract] ( 4897 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1432KB] ( 3788 )
29
Is "Neuro history" Plausible?

New developments in natural sciences have always been both opportunities for learning and challenges to humanity and social sciences.The fast development of neurology has produced much spillover that permeates studies on humans, creating many new disciplines with the "neuro-" prefix.Do we expect that a "neuro-history" will appear in the near future and occupy a predominant place in historiography? History is about the story of humans.Its subject is human being, and its content concerns human thinking, feeling and action.Neuro-disciplines of humanity, however, tend to think that all of the thinking and feeling in daily life are wrong or simply "illusions," for they depend on superficial "folk psychology." Important things happened only at the neurological level, so there is no mental substance or subject.The subject in history is the brain,or the cerebral subject.The genetic structure of the brain has decided how humans think, feel and act.Therefore, freedom is also an illusion. If such a neuro-history finally prevails, it will bring about fundamental changes on the self-understanding of humans and their history.Generally speaking, this should be regarded as a threat of naturalism to humanity.The response from humanities,however, does not have to be flight into mysterious realms. Realists agree that human history lies in solid nature.However, even as realists, we do not think neuro-history is an adequate research programme.The subjects of history can only be humans and nations, rather than brains or neuro-systems.Life goes on at a holistical level.To try to use any part of the human body to replace the whole man will make statements in historiography senseless.Moreover, one reason for our rejection of replacing mind with brain as the agent of history is that brain is a physical thing and so cannot live in a narrative or teleological way.It falls within the realm of cause and effect.Thus, if brain takes over the role of the mind and becomes cerebral subject, it will not lead to realism, but will re-enchant nature.This will be shocking to many scientists, because the disenchantment of nature has been achieved by scientists only a couple of centuries or so, with difficult struggle against the long religious tradition.Furthermore, human action is not cause-effect determined, but follows a teleological pattern.Even though we are often under serious pressures of various kinds, we are not "determined" like a thing.All the pressures will become concerns in the human mind as he or she "cares for" or plans future actions.Therefore, freedom is always there.As a matter of fact, it grows more and more in the world, which provides "meaning" to our pursuits in history. In fact, sentences and language acquire meaning only in certain forms of life. Therefore, "Subject," "freedom" and "soul" are meaningful expressions, rather than "illusions," in life, history and literature.On the other hand, the new naturalism led by neuroscience has been invading life-world with their particular languages and perspectives.This can be interpreted by the gradual predominance of commercialism and technology in modernity.Max Weber has predicted the future of human history as modernity deepens.Neuro-history or neuro-humanities may just reflect this trajectory.The question for us is:are we ready for this destiny?

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 29-36 [Abstract] ( 4711 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1399KB] ( 3419 )
37 Daniel Houser Luo Weidong
The Rising and Challenge of Experimental Economics

Experimentation has been extended to almost every subfield of economics,including microeconomics and macroeconomics.Since the 1980s,economists have come to increasingly rely on experiments to explain and predict economic phenomenon.However,it takes mainstream economists dozens of years to turn their attitude from questioning and rejecting to accepting and supporting.This was partly due to the great efforts exerted by experimental pioneers,but more important was a result of the paradigm shift that occurred in economics in 1980s when the dominant position of General Equilibrium Theory was challenged by alternative theories such as Game Theory,Industrial Organization,and Public Choices,etc. Nevertheless,many critics are calling into question the artefact,reality,validity,especially external validity of laboratory experiments.Lab experiments,indeed,are not the solution to every question,especially those questions that involve interactions among hundreds of thousands of people or involve context-dependent variables that could not be randomized.But there are many types of questions and theories that are not specific to a group of people or a place or a context.Lab experiments are an excellent tool for these questions.It's noteworthy that the uprising of field experiments in the last decades has offset the weakness of lab experiments to a large extent.When feasible,the natural field experiment is an ideal kind of experiment that combines the advantages of both lab experiments and natural experiments because the subjects do not know that they are participating in an experiment. Experimental economics is developing quickly.However,it is not driven by criticisms and pressure from outside,but largely by the interaction of experiment and theory from inside,especially from the interdisciplinary interaction between the sister subfields of experimental economics and behavioral economics.Although they have different emphases,the divide between them is increasingly narrowed.Experimental economists and behavioral economics(and psychologists) are recently increasingly interested in thinking about the same kind of questions.Indeed,some researchers would find it difficult to classify themselves into one group or the other.They start to learn from each other and employ the cumulative knowledge of both subfields in their research.The emergence of Neuro-economics is a typical example.Neuro-economics is an area that bridges the fields of psychology,economics and neuro-science.It is question and interest,not method,that direct the development of this subject. Experimental Economics could certainly play an important role in the development of China,both in theory and practice.This is not only reflected in the commonplaces of experimental economics,namely,testing theory,searching for rule,and whistling besides the ears of princes,but also in the sense that it provides a good opportunity for us to develop theories and to design mechanisms that are context-dependent by solid empirical study.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 37-46 [Abstract] ( 5751 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1288KB] ( 4482 )
47 Huang Huaxin Han Wei
The Cognitive Motivation behind Subjective Motion Expressions in Modern Chinese

In a subjective motion expression,a motion verb is used to depict an inherently static scene.This special use of motion verbs has been one of the research focuses in Cognitive Linguistics during the past two or three decades.However,research on subjective motion,in terms of both theoretical and empirical study,still has a lot of room for development.In the field of Chinese linguistics,there has been no systemic and comprehensive study on Chinese subjective motion expressions until now.In view of this situation,and taking the perspective of cognitive linguistics,this paper examines the cognitive motivation behind the formation of subjective motion and the coding process of subjective motion expressions.First of all,by drawing on conceptual integration theory and motion event theory,we start from meaning making and analyze the cognitive motivation behind subjective motion and its linguistic structure.In the analysis,we have found that conceptual integration,conceptual metonymy and Gestalt psychology play an important part in the formation and linguistic realization of subjective motion.Subjective motion,in essence,comes from the conceptual mappings between real motion and the static scene,and the cognitive operation of conceptual integration in these two input spaces.Secondly,we start from surface linguistic structures,find their characteristics and explicate the cognitive motivation behind them.The linguistic coding of subjective motion has the following features: the choice of figures (i.e.not all entities can occur as figures in a subjective motion expression),the necessity of path information (i.e.a subjective motion expression must contain information about path) and the suppression of certain manner information (i.e.not all kinds of manner information can occur in subjective motion expressions).The above three features can also be explained from a cognitive linguistic perspective.The present study has great significance for research on spatial cognition.Subjective motion expression pertains to how people cognize and express static spatial scenes.Its formation and linguistic features reveal a human being's subjective construal of spatial categories and the creativity and dynamicity of his thinking.The study also offers insights into the cross-linguistic comparative study by proposing another issue for comparison.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 47-56 [Abstract] ( 4979 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1303KB] ( 3846 )
57 Istvan Kecskes
Intercultures,Encyclopaedic Knowledge,and Cultural Models

The aim of this paper is to discuss the relationship of encyclopaedic knowledge and cultural models to intercultures that are co-constructed by interlocutors in intercultural communication.Intercultures as defined by are situationally emergent and co-constructed phenomena that rely both on relatively definable cultural models and norms as well as situationally evolving features.In the socio-cognitive approach that provides the theoretical framework for this paper,within the emerging intercultures encyclopaedic knowledge represents the relatively definable cultural models and norms that the interlocutors bring into the communicative situation based on their prior experience.This individual prior knowledge blends with the knowledge and information emerging from the actual situational context.This blend creates a third space that I call intercultures.According to this approach interculturality has both relatively normative and emergent components.This approach somewhat differs from other researchers' views that are dominated by a discoursive-constructivist perspective.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 57-86 [Abstract] ( 6084 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1488KB] ( 5220 )
87 Su Jinzhi Xiao Hang
Corpus and Sociolinguistic Methodology

Methodology of sociolinguistics is different from traditional structural linguistics, in particular, from the Chomsk's transformational-generative grammar.The distinctive methodological feature of Sociolinguistics is to analyze language elements in the speech communities with qualitative and quantitative approaches.In the earlier studies, sociolinguists paid much more attention on spoken forms because these forms could be analyzed in the speech communities and be easily explained from the relationship between language variables and sociolinguistic variables such as ethnic group, age, social class and gender.On the contrary, the study of written forms got inattention because they could not be researched as fully as spoken forms.Collecting data from the literatures, which is the traditional method used in exploring written forms in sociolinguistic, had restricted it form further development.Corpus and corpus-based approach has turned out to be useful in the study of written language since they emerged.With the use of corpus approach, a large number of achievements have been made such as in the studies of gender language, Chinese speech communities words in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao, Chinese register, and discourse analysis.These studies are pioneering ones and have accumulated experiences for the future study, but they are still limited and need to be improved in some sense.The result of loanwords studies by Su (2010) shows that 134 Chinese phonetic matching loanwords, one percent of the total loanwords in A Dictionary of Loan Words and Hybrid Words in Chinese (1984), have already been replaced by Chinese indigenous words, but this finding was not testified by the contemporary Chinese corpus.The result of the reexamination of the changing histories of 134 Chinese phonetic matching loanwords by using the Contemporary Chinese Corpus established by State Language Committee of PRC supports Su's finding and reinforces the function of corpus approach in analyzing the trends of language change.Another fact that 119 Chinese phonetic matching loanwords have zero frequency when they were searched in this corpus suggests that there are some limitations in corpus, such as it is unbalanced with time spans or no Chinese phonetic matching loanwords is tagging in this corpus.Before using corpus and corpus approach in sociolinguistic studies, one should understand the comprehensive functions of corpus and what and how corpus can help the research in sociolinguistics.In addition to representativeness,balance and good distribution as a general corpus has, the corpus sociolinguistics needs should have: 1)Universality, namely including various styles or registers, various language variants from different domains and different regions|2)much more sociolinguistic information about language producers such as ethnic group, age, social class and gender, part of which should be able to be attained from sociolinguistically annotation|3) sociolinguistic annotation.If there is a better corpus, sociolinguistic studies with the help of corpus and corpus approaches will enhance a perfect combination of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 87-95 [Abstract] ( 6476 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1283KB] ( 5945 )
96 Wang Xiaochao
Colorful Athena: On the Problem of Philosophy's Hellenism

Philosophy has always resembled a cultural gene,residing in the spiritual homeland of nations|weaving through cultures and revealing the essential spirit of the times and nation.However,once the seed of philosophy has left its native country and settled on the soil of different cultures,it would either be met with praise or with criticism. The study of ''philosophy's Hellenism'' by Chinese scholars will provide us with a new perspective for a deeper understanding of the origin and development of Western philosophy. In this way,we may further understand the general rules for cross-cultural transmission of philosophy.This may also lead to new ways of thinking about the Sinization of Marxist philosophy and the legitimacy of Chinese philosophy.  Heidegger and Derrida confirmed that the history of philosophy started from Greece,and Hellenism is its essential character.Philosophy is the product of human thinking transitioning from the non-rational into the threshold of rationality.Emerging first in ancient Greece,it has managed to carry this ''Hellenism'' throughout its developmental history. ''Hellenism'' is thus the feature or characteristic of the Greek way of life(including its way of thinking). In researching later periods of Greek philosophy,scholars need to expand their scope,so as to focus not only on the Aegean Sea,but also on the entire Mediterranean World.As such,we must use a cultural perspective and a cross-cultural research methodology to investigate the origin and development of philosophy.By studying the spread of Greek philosophy in the Mediterranean cultural world,we discover that Greek philosophy crossed cultural borders without losing its Hellenist character but diversified its content and forms.The so-called ''orthodox Greek philosophy'' did not actually exist.Having such a grasp of Greek philosophy,we must adopt a relatively broader definition of philosophy that stretches back to its original meaning of ''wisdom'' or ''thought.'' In this manner,we can avoid reducing philosophy to a skeleton of only constructed concepts and categories that neglects its profound contents. In a global context,the issue of ''philosophy's Hellenism'' is also an issue of philosophy's nationality.In comparing Eastern and Western cultures,Hegel and Husserl expressed similar ideas,namely that philosophy emerged in the West and not in the East.Philosophy is ''a critical theoretical thinking and an ultimate concern with the world(including society and the human person).'' On the horizon of the Aegean Sea,the Greeks,by absorbing other nations' cultural elements,had enhanced their own ability for rational thinking,and became the first to cross the threshold of rationality,thus creating philosophy.It is under this context of a comparative study of the history of culture that we claim that philosophy,as a way of rational thinking,has its origin in ancient Greece.However,in the present world context and from a global perspective,philosophy is universal while Greek philosophy is specific.When another nation's ability of rational thinking reaches a certain level,its culture will inevitably encounter Greek philosophy and will eventually create a new philosophy expressed in its own national language.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 96-105 [Abstract] ( 5124 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1297KB] ( 3262 )
106 Ren Xiaoming Huang Shanshan
Logic and Cognitive Problems of Bayesian Reasoning

Bayesianism has already gained a prominent role as a theory of probability interpretation. Its reasoning models are known as Bayesian inference. Keynes' formal induction system has made it evolved into a new era: Bayesian inference has got an extensive use in statistics, economics, psychology and artificial intelligence, and its application domain is still expanding. This is a revolution of reasoning method because Bayesian method has eliminated the problems caused by ignore-to-prior and subjective issues in classical statistic inference. Bayesian inference resolved the problem of deciding test statistic in classical statistic inference and avoided the difficulty of using stopping rule. Bayesianism replaces confidence interval by credible interval in order to obtain the prediction of the true value of a parameter. It also employs prior information through Bayes theorem on conditional probability. Though Bayesianism is very popular nowadays, several challenges have been raised, especially on its subjectivity, simplicity and on the problem of old-evidence. Therefore, there are a lot of issues need to be studied in the future. The criticism of subjectivity of Bayesanism is focused on a prior-constraint, and the question on simplicity of Bayesianism is echoed by the inconsistency between probability axiom and the simplicity postulate. Forster and Sober remarked that the simplicity postulate is ''an ad hoc method;'' Howson argued that it should not be taken as an essential guideline. Additionally, an old-evidence in the Bayesian framework could not serve as affirming the current hypothesis, which contradicts with our instinct. Howson insightfully revealed that ''evidence support'' mechanism actually contains a ternary relation between data e , hypothesis h and background knowledge k , and the problem of old-evidence only become evident when e is decided as evidence and e is included in k . These challenges have shown that the further improvement and development were needed in Bayesian inference. Recent developments in the research of Bayesian inference in the field of cognitive psychology have invoked a possible cognitive turn in the research of Bayesian inference, and they also provide various possible approaches for the development of Bayesian inference: to explore the possibility of the integration between Frequentism and Bayesianism|to bring the intentional factor in the extensional inductive logic, with an attempt to combine extensionality and non-extensionality.  Gigerenzer and Hoffrage has already offered a Bayesian model with frequency representation of information|Kahneman and Tversky proposed a non-extension logic theory, the support theory for subjective probability. This seems to be a prospective path for inductive logic that worth further exploring.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 106-113 [Abstract] ( 4831 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1273KB] ( 5862 )
114 Chen Tianxiang Yao Ming
Factors Influencing Individual Donations to Nonprofit Organizations:A Questionnaire Survey in Guangzhou

In recent years, the development of China's nonprofit organizations has received more and more attention, but most of them are faced with shortage of funds and thus unable to effectively take on project activities. According to the experience of some developed countries, individual giving is an important resource for the development of nonprofit organizations. However, China's individual donations have long been at a comparatively low level due to some complicated factors. Therefore, it is meaningful to conduct research on the factors which constrain individual donations to nonprofit organizations in China. Firstly, we studied related literature and research models designed by domestic and foreign scholars and proposed research hypotheses based on the “external factor-endogenous motivation-output of behavior” framework of individual donations to nonprofit organizations. In the framework, external factors are made up of relationship utility, organizational brand performance and organizational credibility; endogenous driving factors include social utility, emotional utility and demonstrable utility, and the final giving behaviors are composed of frequencies, amounts and willingness to donate. Based on the above analysis, this paper constructs a research model of interaction among external influencing factors, endogenous driving factors and output of individual giving in order to explain the incentives of individual donation to non-profit organizations. Secondly, after studying related literature and consulting experts, we made the above six key variables operable and designed a structured questionnaire— “Questionnaire Regarding Factors Influencing Individual Donations to Nonprofit Organizations.” We conducted the questionnaire survey in Guangzhou, and recovered 516 valid samples with acceptable reliability and validity. Thirdly, statistical analysis of the survey data shows that the factors of individual giving are most positively associated with giving behavior. But the factor of demonstrable utility does not have significant correlations with frequencies and amounts of donations. With the results of regression analysis, we constructed some standardized equations in order to have a better understanding of the final giving behavior. Path analysis tells us that individual giving is actually influenced by both external factors and endogenous motivations. What is worth mentioning here is that external factors may not only directly affect an individual’s giving behavior but also indirectly affect it by stimulating his/her endogenous motivation. Finally, based on the above findings and from the perspectives of the nonprofit organization, the government and the society, we brought forward some proposals and measures, for example, improving the transparency and standardization level of nonprofit organizations, regulating the fund-raising behavior of nonprofit organizations and the use of donations, and raising people’s giving awareness and participation rate in order to promote the healthy growth of China's civil society.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 114-131 [Abstract] ( 5570 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1605KB] ( 5006 )
132 Lin Ka Wu Hao
Evaluating the Charitable Efforts Made by the Governmental and Non-Governmental Organizations: Key Issues in the Development of Charity in China

The charitable efforts made by those people demonstrating great compassion to the poor and marginal groups reflect the kindess of human nature and also the degree of civilization of society. Charity should be about the voluntary engagement of all people instead of a public affair promoted only by the government. Therefore, the issue on how to mobilize citizens into charitable engagement is more significant than the issue of how governmental agents promote charitable activities. With this understanding, we expose the problems in the operation of a state-directed system in China as it relates to charity. At present, this system plays a dominant role in determining the developmental process of charity in China. However, this system also suffers from widespread criticism among the public through channels like mass media due to various charity-related incidents that have occurred recently. This study explores the resolutions to these problems and concludes that strengthening civic organizations is the main way of enhancing charity in China. This study looks at the development of charitable organisations and the donation levels in China, but stresses that this development is accompanied with many incidents that have resulted in a strong sense of distrust among the public towards state-affiliated charitable organisations. This feeling of distrust was widely reported in the mass media after the “Guo Meimei” incident and has had a strong influence on people’s views towards the strategy of development on charity. To deal with these issues, this work examines the charity situation in contemporary China through empirical studies based on data collected from opinion surveys and through social investigation into the behavioral orientations of these charitable organisations. Accordingly, this analysis consists of three dimensions of study in regard to the value, organisational features and the institutional features of this state-led charity system. We argue that the value system that influences people’s view on charity has gradually transformed into a new value system that is in support of public management in charitable efforts. Thus, it is not so much as a value issue but rather an organisational and institutional issue that has resulted in limited public participation in making donations. It is for these organisational reasons that some people complain that it is the lack of transparency in charitable efforts as being the major barrier for this development, but this study maintains that it is the shortcomings of this state-led charity system that is the major obstacle as it restricts the roles of NGOs to perform their charitable actions. Furthermore, by deploying a functional analysis about this state-led system of charitable organisations, the study illustrates several by-functions of the system on the development of charitable activities of civil organisations. This paper argues that there is a crucial need for the state to reform this system in order to modify the role of state in charitable operations. This should be the precondition for coming up with ways to further this development. Through analysis, the study raises policy proposals for strengthening the role of civil agents in the development of charity in China. In order to do so, it is very important to correct a popular viewpoint about the nature of charity; namely that it is an extension of social assistance and therefore should be undertaken by the state. Thus, with a goal of empowering civil agents in charitable efforts, we argue for a change in the governmental function in civil administration in the field of charity. The NGOs should have a space for development in the sphere of charity.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 132-142 [Abstract] ( 4877 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1314KB] ( 4120 )
143 Fu Guoyun
On Civil Procuratorial Mediation

Facing an increasing number of civil disputes and conflicts,in order to satisfy the different interest demands of both parties or all parties involved in the case and balance and coordinate the relationship between all parties,the prosecuting authority,as the legal supervision organ,should include the ''connection between prosecution and mediation'' into the pattern of social mediation,supervise the civil jurisdiction of the court and actively participate in the mediation of civil disputes.The legal supervision and the settlement of conflicts and disputes of the prosecuting authority are compatible.In other words,the mediation during civil prosecution is also the extension of legal supervision function.It is propitious to judicial economy,effective settlement of conflicts and realization of the legitimate interests and appeals of the parties.Based on both parties' high autonomy of their legal properties and legitimate interests,the retrial procedure of the court can not only withdraw or change the wrong judgment of the original trial,but also preside over the mediation between the parties involved.The latter is prevailing.Similarly,when prosecuting authority discovers the wrong civil judgment which has become effective,it can also preside over the mediation between the parties involved or guide the parties involved to reach amicable settlement (except the cases involving national interests,public interests,breach of laws and rules of the judge),and it can supervise and correct the wrong effective judgment through the way of civil counter-appeal.On the one hand,the prosecuting authority supervises and corrects the wrong effective judgment and maintains the judicial fairness by filing counter-appeal according to the orientation of the constitution and laws;meanwhile,it can intervene in the dispute mediation and conciliate conflicts and controversies in proper and reasonable way.Besides,the mediation and settlement of lawsuit made by prosecuting authority indirectly change the original effective judgment (in judicial practices,when the prosecuting authority discovers the wrong effective civil judgment,it can take civil mediation as a way to correct wrong judgment).On the other hand,according to the principles of party autonomy,when the mediation during civil prosecution intervenes in civil disputes as the public power,it should keep rational,deferential and neutral.The settlement by agreement and the contents of agreement should be decided by the parties involved and the intervention of state coercive power should be reduced.The prosecuting authority only plays a role in guiding the procedures and making suggestions.Whether the final mediation is accepted should be decided by the parties involved.The prosecuting authority should believe that the parties involved have better understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of the mediation.After all,as to the wrong judgment,the prosecuting authority has the right to start retrial procedure through counter-appeal,the original judgment might be changed and the original winning party may lose the entire case.Therefore,mediation during civil prosecution will not cause negative impact on the rights and interests of the winning party (respondent).This paper combs the relationships between civil prosecution and res judicata of the effective judgment,between legal supervision and dispute settlement,and between applicable rules and worldly wisdom from the positive perspective and brings forward the principles of mediation during civil prosecution;according to the characteristics of the current civil disputes,the scope and methods of mediation during civil prosecution are put forward so as to introduce the mediation during civil prosecution into Chinese civil action legislation and provides theoretic foundation for the present ''connection between prosecution and mediation.''

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 143-151 [Abstract] ( 4680 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1293KB] ( 5333 )
152 Ren Shaobo
City:The Spatial Order of Aggregate Transaction--An Institutional Economics Perspective on the Essence of Cities

Scholars from different areas hold divided opinions on the origin and nature of cities. There are a large number of definitions, but most of them are descriptive or separately studies. No standard academic paradigm or common theoretical concept has so far been established. In recent years, studies on the institutional nature of cities have opened up a new approach. In the field of economics, studies on the nature of cities have been overlooked for ages. From the perspective of mainstream economists, cities are just a point with a high density on the space coordinates. Their main pursuit is the inclusion of space cost into the model of mainstream economics, particularly the land and transportation costs. The crucial roles division of labor and transactions and their related institution play in the origin and development of cities has long been ignored and constitutes a significant problem in urban economics. Abstract deduction and induction based on the logic of economics reveals that product specialization and trade demand constitute the most fundamental elements in the emergence and evolution of a city and that the spatial agglomeration of transactions is the spontaneous choice of human society. In the institute of aggregate transactions, transaction costs are reduced and transaction efficiency is increased (increasing returns) based on which, comparative advantages, economy of scale and agglomeration economies (externalities) come into existence and turn out to be the sustained driving force of the urban evolution. If we expand the concept of transactions into the political and social sphere and view transactions, as in accordance with Greif's view, as a basic form of human activity and also expand the scope of participants of urban transaction from firms and residents to government and social organization, then we can ascribe the prime impetus of city formation to the political, economic and social transactions. This abstractly expanded concept of transaction, and not the concept that has been used in economics for a long time and features transportation costs and aggregate economy, develops a linking bridge between separate disciplines and illustrates the political, social and economic origin of a city. Cities appear as an image of powerful space. We often see man-made city walls and buildings, man-made social fabrics, man-made enterprises and visible markets but we overlook the spontaneous agglomeration of transactions and the institutionalization of aggregate transactions underneath. The very need of saving on transaction costs generates the natural impetus of transaction agglomeration while aggregate transaction automatically generates a corresponding spatial order and institution|which make a city. Transaction does not only engender market order. As a matter of fact, the agglomeration of transactions produces another order-spatial order, namely a city. Cities and markets, in a sense, are consistent in nature. ''City, ''the spatial order featuring aggregate transactions, measures up to the so-called spontaneous order of human beings proposed by Hayek. Under this order, the space agglomeration of the core or derived transactions are followed by the creation of rules and institution. The aggregate transactions are not only conducive to tacit knowledge learning and externalities acquisition, but also bring about transaction failure such as conflict, default and disorder, which results in the need for rules. City in this sense is a complex of institutions which guarantee and give rise to transaction agglomeration.  All in all, cities are a spontaneous spatial order linked by various transaction rules, beliefs, approaches and transaction participants. It is an institution of human space fabric on the basis of saving transaction costs and realizing aggregate economy. Cities, in the process of spontaneous ordering and institutional agglomeration, are fused as a new economic, political and social organic body, taking on distinctly different appearance and features from the rural area and playing a revolutionary role in the evolution of human society.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 152-164 [Abstract] ( 4676 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1516KB] ( 3734 )
165 Hu Kexian
Unearthed Documents and Medieval Chinese Literature

Wei,Jin,Southern and Northern,Sui,Tang and Five Dynasties are known as the middle ancient ages in the history of Chinese literature.The newly unearthed documents will contribute to a reexamination of literary background, literary evolution,literary ontology and stylistic form of these dynasties to correct the traditional heavy reliance in literary history on longitudinal combing.First,unearthed documents play an important role for the research on regional literary history to regain the initiative.Second,the research on unearthed documents is helpful to probe into the literary phenomena buried by history.Third,unearthed documents are significant for the research of essay,especially for the further study on stylistic forms dominated by practical writing.Because unearthed documents are excavated in odds and ends by accident,they should be compared with historical recordation in study.A comprehensive perspective of socialcultural science,based on the restoration of unearthed texts,will thus shed light on the natural process of birth and growth of literature.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 165-179 [Abstract] ( 5812 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1344KB] ( 5313 )
180 Chen Shuiyun
The Liu Family of Jiangshan in Zhejiang Province and the Ci Poetics in Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic of China

The Liu Family of Jiangshan in Zhejiang Province was a prominent family for its Ci Poetics study in late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic of China. From Liu Lüfen, Liu Guanzao to Liu Yupan,all the three members of this well-known literary family were keen on collection,collation and engraving of books,and also fond of literature and poem composition. Liu Lüfen and Liu Guanzao,the ancestors of this family,spent most of their lives around Suzhou area. They maintained frequent contacts with members of the ''Wuzhong School'' and had gradually accepted such poetic thoughts as emphasis on tonal patterns and rhymes,which was advocated by Ge Zai,one key member of the ''Wuzhong School.'' However,at that time (in the reign of Emperor Xian Feng and Emperor Dao Guang) the ''Changzhou School'' of Ci Poetics was rather popular throughout China, members of the Liu Family were also inevitably influenced by the ''Changzhou School.'' As a result,they accepted the notions and theories such as ''Internal Meaning Conveyed by External Language,'' ''Usage of Implied Images'' and ''Usage of Metaphors and Analogies'' of the ''Changzhou School.'' During the period of late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic of China,Liu Yupan,regarded the natural fusion of tone,rhyme and ideas advocated by the ''Wuzhong School'' as the symbol of the transition of Qing Ci poetics from its revival to the peak golden age. Furthermore,during Liu Yupan's period (Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic of China),with the rising and prospering of the higher education in modern China and the active introduce of discipline classification in western countries,the professional scholarship of Ci Poetics was formally included into the college's curriculum and gradually became the major course among courses on Chinese literature. There were some emerging signs of the changes in the study modus of Ci Poetics. The succession pattern of Ci Poetics had also been altered from the exchange of views between family members,tutors and peers to the teaching in school education. The traditional training practice featured with writing capacity had been dramatically deconstructed. Instead,the cultivation of aesthetic sense and speculative abilities became new targets of modern literature education. Therefore,it was imperative for Liu Yupan,as he taught the literature course in Peking University,to sort out systematically the traditional Chinese Ci Poetics. The first-ever book on the history of Ci Poetics in China thus appeared,which has been regarded as,together with Wang Kuowei's the History of Song and Yuan Opera and Lu Hsun's A Brief History of Chinese Fiction,the pioneering classics of the ''Literary Genre History'' in Chinese literature. This book,for the first time,sorted out in a systematical manner the history of Chinese Ci Poetics,and it summarized the evolutionary phases of Chinese Ci Poetics as ''Up-growth,''''Over-spread,''''Full Blossom,''''Dazzling Brilliance,''''Weakening,''''Break-up,''''Decline,''''Cultivation'' and ''Harvest.'' In addition,this book boasts many merits such as in the chapter lay-out,the content structure,the research methods and its aesthetic evaluation. All these largely symbolize that the Chinese Ci Poetics had developed from the traditional pattern to its modern mode. The Liu Family of Jiangshan was actually the epitome of this significant transformation in Chinese Ci Poetics during the period of Late Qing Dynasty and Early Republic of China.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 180-189 [Abstract] ( 4952 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1347KB] ( 3625 )
190 He Shihai
Analysis of Stylistic Rules and Layout in the Qing Dynasty

A salient feature of the Qing Dynasty literary criticism is the increased critical attention to ''yili''(义例),a traditional scholastic discourse on stylistic and generic matters in historiography and literary narrative.The genealogy of this discourse can be traced back to the ''yili'' scholarship on the canonical The Spring and Autumn Annals in early antiquity.In the pre-Qin era,Mencius had already pointed out that The Spring and Autumn Annals, being a classic epitome of historiography,embodies three essential compositional elements: the message ''yi''(义),the literary patterning ''wen''(文),and the recorded events ''shi''(事).In West Jin Dynasty Du Yu's Commentary to Zuozhuan(the chronicle of Zuo), there was subtle and thoughtful comments on stylistics of historical narrative.Historically,so to speak,Chinese men of letters paid great attention to the literary patterning of The Spring and Autumn Annals, thus forming a dynamic discourse about problematics in narrative prose.The Yuan Dynasty witnessed the emergence of elaborated discussions in this tradition.During the Ming Dynasty and the Qing Dynasties,men of letters had became accustomed to measuring the merits of literary composition on the basis of ''li''(例),generic or stylistic literary precedents,saying that ''it is imperative to know the literary pattern before one sets about to write''(为文必当明例).People widely believed that the ''li'' is the norm for composing a literary prose. The Qing discourse on ''yili'' was particularly appealing to the needs of practical literary criticism of the time,especially in terms of generic preference,choice of appellation,and choice of style.Generically,this discourse values narrative types such as biography and epigraph that resemble traditional historiography.Appellatively,this discourse prefers the adoption of contemporary official titles and the present custom.Stylistically,this discourse values the pure and classical masterpieces as paragons. The efflorescence of the Qing stylistic discourse is explicable to the double literary needs of mending the corrupted contemporary styles,and to the development of Chinese narrative criticism itself.As a matter of fact,most of the ever-developing prose genres and styles cannot be formulated on the basis of earlier masterpieces except for the Civil Service Exam essay composition and types of applied literary prose.As a result,the development of this ''yili'' discourse went on to spin around the art of time-honored historiography which had the richest generic and stylistic sedimentations.Nevertheless,this critical dynamism efficaciously enhanced Qing scholars' attentions to the art of narratives,breaking the seemingly predominant critical discursive locus of analyzing lyricism in the long tradition of Chinese literature.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 190-200 [Abstract] ( 5287 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1313KB] ( 3891 )
201 Yin Yuji
A Comparative Study on Peer Reviewing System of Academic Periodicals between China and the West

Peer reviewing is of vital importance to the academics and academic periodicals.The emergency of academic periodicals should have the following four prerequisites: firstly,the feudal system is weak and is almost been dispelled|the technology is relatively advanced and the system of attracting and encouraging academic research is basically formed|secondly,academic research has already been a stable occupation which the academics can live by|thirdly,the publication is not accidental but regular|fourthly,there is a party of editors engaging in the publication of academic periodicals.The four prerequisites were initially developed and matured in the west.The first four academic periodicals in the west were: Heuristic Discussion Monthly in Germany,1663, Scholar’s Journal in January,1665, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in March,1665, Oxford Communique in England,1665.It is generally believed that Scholar Journal is the first genuinely academic periodical in the world because it adopted ''Journal'' as its name.The system of peer reviewing also first appeared in the west.There are two reasons: one is that a quantity of academic periodicals have already existed|the other is that the system of peer reviewing in patent application which the system of peer reviewing in academic periodicals is based on and referred to has existed in the west for a long time. Wuyi Huijiang in the middle period of Qing Dynasty,by its nature,is a traditional book.The reviewing system of Wuyi Huijiangwas not the same as the peer reviewing in real sense. Chinese Monthly Magazine ,which was started by Morrison in 1815 and then managed by Miline and Medhurst (both of the three were Scorch missionaries),is an academic periodical.The following four reasons contribute to its nature: firstly,the editor,Marrison,was a great scholar.It was easy for him to edit such an academic magazine|secondly,Medhurst,the successor to Marrison,believeed that ''it mainly elaborates diversified theories''|thirdly,it took ''elucidating Christian doctrines as a core''fourthly,it publicized a range of articles on science and culture apart from elucidating some doctrines.Chinese Modern Academic Periodical is characterized by the trinity of writing,examining and compiling.Because most of the articles were those translated from the western,there was no need to peer review the introductive scientific knowledge.Later,academic periodicals in China were in a turbulent stage,having no time to carry out peer reviewing.A system of ''triple reviewing'' was implemented in China after liberation,which had the characteristics of planned economy and ''internal system''.It was originated from the publication thoughts proposed by Lenin and Chairman Mao Zedong in the wartime. A comparative study on peer reviewing systems of academic periodicals between China and the West shows that peer reviewing is far superior to triple reviewing.China should make great efforts to reform the current triple reviewing system,and to advance the internationalization of academic periodicals,that is,writer internationalization,peer reviewing internationalization and reader internationalization.

2012 Vol. 42 (4): 201-216 [Abstract] ( 3264 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1354KB] ( 3401 )
217 Jiang Nan
An Analysis of the Influence of the 30-year Development of Chinese Public Relations on Media Industry
Public relations (PR) was introduced into China at the beginning of the 1980's,and has been widely spread in the society,mainly through three channels.The first channel was the practical demonstration of business enterprises;the second channel was the PR courses and theoretical writings at different levels of schools,mainly in universities and colleges;and the last one was lectures given by experts at senior training classes or seminars run by the government.At the same time,mass media has also played an important role in publicizing public relations,and made it spread rapidly in the whole society.In practice,PR has experienced such a basic route: it has developed in pace with the progress of the Chinese society and economy,supporting the country's reform and opening-up policy as well as the rapid growth of the economy.PR practitioners have showed great initiative and enthusiasm,which has helped PR enter smoothly into a professional road.In the process of PR development,it has experienced the simple imitation in the 1980's,crazy pursuit of CIS topics in the 1990's,and the routine management centered on dealing with PR crises in the recent ten years of the new century. The introduction of PR has made a great impact on different aspects of social lives in our country.In particular,it has brought about deep inner changes in the development of mass media.Under the influence of PR practice in enterprises,news media has changed the communication perspectives from the original 'looking up',which was oriented by the policies of the Communist Party of China and the government,to 'looking at money',that is,paying more attention to economic interests and returns by meeting the needs of enterprises.However,after a series of corporate crises,the news media has returned gradually to 'looking down',that is,putting more emphasis on the public.Journalists have changed their values from one-way communication of political direction,and economic benefits — primarily speaking for enterprises,to the correct balance of respecting the public and letting the public make the evaluation.In the sense of profession,the news practitioners have changed from writing a news release simply and taking news articles as a mere formality to actively planning news,launching a higher level of PR news planning activities,thus driving the media to the public further,and establishing a sense of social responsibility of journalists. Needless to say,PR has also brought certain negative influences on the development of the media industry.For example,the appearance of commercialized news,namely,'PR soft articles'and media acting as public opinion control involved in the so-called 'depth PR',have led to the public doubt on the news media credibility.Under the supervision of government regulations,such chaos has been controlled to some extent.But this also explains that it is especially important for PR practitioners and journalists to comply with the professional ethics in order to guarantee a sound development of PR industry and media industry.
2012 Vol. 42 (4): 217-224 [Abstract] ( 5391 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 1278KB] ( 4233 )
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2012 Vol. 42 (4): 4- [Abstract] ( 137 ) [HTML 1KB] [PDF 0KB] ( 22 )
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