미래주의적 시각에서 한국교육의 개혁방향을 모색한 연구서. 미래사회가 오늘의 교육에 어떠한 의미와 시 사를 던져주는지, 미래에 일어날 사회변동 추세에 맞 추어 한국교육을 어떠한 방향으로 개혁해야하는가 등 등을 검토하였다.

미래주의적 시각에서 한국교육의 개혁방향을 모색한 연구서. 미래사회가 오늘의 교육에 어떠한 의미와 시 사를 던져주는지, 미래에 일어날 사회변동 추세에 맞 추어 한국교육을 어떠한 방향으로 개혁해야하는가 등 등을 검토하였다.

The paper studies the nature of understanding in condensed matter physics (CMP), mediated by the successful employment of its models. I first consider two obvious candidates for the criteria of model-based understanding, Van Fraassen's sense of empirical adequacy and Hacking's instrumental utility , and conclude that both are unsatisfactory. Inspired by Hasok Chang's recent proposal to reformulate realism as the pursuit of ontological plausibility in our system of knowledge, we may require the model under consideration to be understood (or intelligible) (...) before claiming model-based understanding. Here the understanding of a model typically consists of the following: figuring out at least one plausible (preferably realistic) physical mechanism for the model, determining the theoretical consequences of the model by mathematically probing it and developing our physical intuitions about the model. I consider the q-state Potts model to illustrate. After having understood a model, we may employ the model to understand its target phenomena in the world. This is done by matching one of the interpretative models of the model with the central features of the phenomena. The matching should be motivated (ideally both theoretically and empirically) in the sense that we have good reason to believe that the central features of the phenomena can be thought of as having more or less the same structure as postulated by the interpretative model. In conclusion, I propose a two-stage account of model-based understanding in CMP: (1) understanding of a model and (2) matching a target phenomenon with a well-motivated interpretative model of the model. Empirical success and instrumental utility both play their roles in the evaluation of how successful the model is, but are not the essential part of model-based understanding. (shrink)

In this paper we give a full account of the work of William Thomson on absolute temperature, which to this day provides the theoretical underpinnings for the most rigorous measurements of temperature. When Thomson fashioned his concepts of ‘absolute’ temperature, his main concern was to make the definition of temperature independent of the properties of particular thermometric substances . He tried out a succession of definitions based on the thermodynamics of ideal heat engines; most notably, in 1854 he gave the (...) ratio of two temperatures as the ratio of quantities of heat taken in and given out at those temperatures in a Carnot cycle. But there were difficulties with using such definitions for experimental work, since it was not possible even to approximate an ideal Carnot engine in reality. More generally, it is not trivial to connect an abstract concept with concrete operations in order to make physical measurements possible. In the end, Thomson argued that an ideal gas thermometer would indicate his absolute temperature, and that the deviation of actual gas thermometers from the ideal could be estimated by means of the Joule‐Thomson effect. However, the measurement of the Joule‐Thomson effect itself required measurements of temperature, so there was a problem of circularity. (shrink)

Lawrence Sklar in his book, Physics and Chance (1993), proposes a sophisticated account of reduction of thermodynamics (TD) by statistical mechanics (SM). I argue that Sklar's analysis of the alleged reduction of TD by SM is problematic in several respects. I consider a few counterexamples to show that none of what Sklar takes to be the central features of successful reduction in science (unification and identification) holds in the case of TD and SM. I suggest the broader conclusion that a (...) more useful way of understanding the relationship between TD and SM is as collaboration and competition among alternative methodologies rather than reduction of one theory to another. (shrink)

성호 이익의 저서 『성호사설』의 글 중에서 저자 성호 선생의 사유와 생애를 뚜렷이 보여주는 작품만을 선별하여 구성하였다. 『성호사설』에 수록된 글들은 성호가 40세 전후부터 평소에 공부하거나 생활하거나 제자들을 가르치다가 떠오른 생각이나 의문들을 적어둔 것들이다. 성호는 그 글들을 차곡차곡 모아두었다가 나이가 80세에 가까워지자 그 글들을 꺼내어 정리했다. 40여년에 걸친 학문의 총 결산이 곧 『성호사설』인 것이다. 여기에서‘사설’은 한자로 僿說로 ‘자질구레한 논설’이라는 뜻이다. 『성호사설』은 폭넓은 지식을 담고 있다는 점에서는 백과사전과 비슷하지만 그와 결정적으로 구분되는 점은 실학자로서의 ‘투철한 문제의식’과 ‘높은 식견’을 보여준다. 『성호사설』에 담긴 광범위한 지식은 그저 (...) 흥밋거리나 ‘지식을 위한 지식’으로 나열된 것이 아니다. 어떻게 하면 하층민이 더 잘살 수 있을까, 열심히 일하는 사람이 더 가난해지고 놀고먹는 자들이 특권을 유지하는 부조리를 어떻게 하면 청산할 수 있을까, 어떻게 하면 부당하게 잊힌 사람들이 정당한 평가를 받게 할 수 있을까 등의 질문에 답하며 문제를 구체적이면서도 치밀하고 깊이 있게 파고들기 위한 지식인 것이다. (shrink)