“Epistemic safety” refers to an epistemic status in which the subject acquires true beliefs without involving epistemic luck. There is a tradition of cashing out safety-defining modality in terms of possible world semantics, and even Julian Dutant's and Martin Smith's normalcy-based notions of safety also take this semantics as a significant component of them. However, such an approach has to largely depend on epistemologists’ ad hoc intuitions on how to individuate possible worlds and how to pick out “close” worlds. In (...) contrast, I propose a probabilistic approach to safety to maximally preclude the preceding type of ad hoc-ness. The main idea is as follows: Each epistemic vignette wherein a subject S holds a true belief p has to be evaluated by a safety-ascriber, hence, S holds a true belief p safely iff according to the safety-ascriber's evaluation, the probability of the occurrence of the truth-maker of p is above a pre-fixed “safety threshold”. My theory will be applied to Lottery Cases, Gettierized Cases and Skeptical Cases to test the scope of its applicability. (shrink)

As many philosophers agree, the frame problem is concerned with how an agent may efficiently filter out irrelevant information in the process of problem-solving. Hence, how to solve this problem hinges on how to properly handle semantic relevance in cognitive modeling, which is an area of cognitive science that deals with simulating human's cognitive processes in a computerized model. By "semantic relevance", we mean certain inferential relations among acquired beliefs which may facilitate information retrieval and practical reasoning under certain epistemic (...) constraints, e. g., the insufficiency of knowledge, the limitation of time budget, etc. However, traditional approaches to relevance—as for example, relevance logic, the Bayesian approach, as well as Description Logic—have failed to do justice to the foregoing constraints, and in this sense, they are not proper tools for solving the frame problem/relevance problem. As we will argue in this paper, Non-Axiomatic Reasoning System (NARS) can handle the frame problem in a more proper manner, because the resulting solution seriously takes epistemic constraints on cognition as a fundamental theoretical principle. (shrink)

The term “epistemic shifts” refers to a widely recognized phenomenon that knowledge ascribers would ascribe different epistemic statuses to the same belief under different internal/external conditions. Mainstream theories explaining shifts can all be assimilated into a probabilistic framework, according to which the epistemic status of a belief P can be at least partially evaluated in terms of the strength of the link between this belief and its normal truth-maker, namely, a P-corresponding fact, and the strength of this link can be (...) further probabilistically measured in terms of the knowledge-undermining force of an “abnormal” truth-maker of P, namely, a P-inducing fact which itself is not a P-corresponding fact simpliciter. I will further claim that by accepting my framework, a theorist of shifts has to tolerate a pluralist view of the etiology of shifts on the philosophical level, and mainstream theories explaining shifts are flawed in the sense that they all attempt to exaggerate one single and particular factor underpinning shifts by ignoring others. (shrink)

In the current dialogue of “science and religion,” it is widely assumed that the thoughts of Darwinists and that of atheists overlap. However, Jerry Fodor, a full-fledged atheist, recently announced a war against Darwinism with his atheistic campaign. Prima facie, this “civil war” might offer a chance for theists: If Fodor is right, Darwinistic atheism will lose the cover of Darwinism and become less tenable. This paper provides a more pessimistic evaluation of the situation by explaining the following: Fodor’s criticism (...) of adaptationism (as the backbone of Darwinism), viz., his refutation of any counterfactual-supporting laws on the macro-evolutionary level, implies that a law-maker is dispensable on this level. This will either encourage skepticism against the omniscience (at least that concerning the future of macro-evolution) of the Creator, or render the notion of God less appealing. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIki is the key word of Shūzō Kuki’s The Structure of Iki, and it became one of the most widely recognized Japanese aesthetic categories mainly due to this work. However, in The Problems of Contingency, which is Kuki’s most important philosophical work, there is no discussion of iki again, and consequently, most commentators of Kuki fail to see the correlation between his theories of iki and contingency. This article, by contrast, intends to provide a new interpretation of iki in the (...) light of Kuki’s theory of contingency. The specific thesis of this paper is that aesthetic phenomena categorized as subject to the principles of iki are positively evaluated in Japanese culture just because the consciousness of iki is just one form of the consciousness of contingency, in which the awareness of alternatives to the actual situation could produce considerable spiritual entertainment for aesthetic subjects. (shrink)

ABSTRACT To have a coherent picture of Wang Chong’s Lunheng is difficult. Some of Lunheng’s chapters obviously show Wang’s hostility to a large part of the folklore (including the social institutions based on it) and traditional philosophical texts. In some other chapters, however, Wang appears to be more sympathetic to the social institutions related to folk religious beliefs. Esther Sunkyung Klein & Colin Klein attempt to explain this prima facie inconsistency in terms of ‘piecemeal non-reductionism’, which roughly means that Wang (...) would take any testimonial belief for granted until he can find a defeater of such a belief. But this explanation merely depicts Wang as a defeater-seeker rather than a thinker looking for philosophical grounds of his claims in a more positive manner. In contrast, in this paper, I intend to attribute the following epistemological thesis to Wang: A testimonial belief taken from classics or folklore will be judged as unjustified if the knowledge attributor finds a non-negligible defeater of it, and such an attributor would feel more sympathetic to the target belief if it can be at least prima facie justified in the light of analogical reasoning. (shrink)

To have a coherent picture of Wang Chong’s Lunheng is difficult. Some of Lunheng’s chapters obviously show Wang’s hostility to a large part of the folklore (including the social institutions based...

Intending to have a constructive dialogue with the combination of evolutionary theory (E) and metaphysical naturalism (N), Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN) takes the reliability of human cognition (in normal environments) as a purported explanandum and E&N as a purported explanans. Then, he considers whether E&N can offer a good explanans for this explanandum, and his answer is negative (an answer employed by him to produce a defeater for N). But I will argue that the whole EAAN goes (...) wrong by assuming that R is a qualified explanandum crying out for scientific explanations, since it cannot meet either of the two criteria for any scientifically qualified explanandum: Realizability Criterion and Informativeness Criterion. Hence, EAAN is simply setting a task that E&N, as a scientific theory, will not care at all. Therefore, EAAN cannot substantially shake E&N. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s criticism of the notion of ‘private language’ is related to the putative centrality of “being“ and the ‘subject-predicate’ distinction. However, his efforts would prove to be more f...

Abstract:A number of philosophers of language have proposed that people do not have conceptual access to‘bare particulars’, or attribute‐free individuals (e.g. Wiggins, 1980). Individuals can only be picked out under some sortal, a concept which provides principles of individuation and identity. Many advocates of this view have argued thatobjectis not a genuine sortal concept. I will argue in this paper that a narrow sense of‘object’, namely the concept of any bounded, coherent, three‐dimensional physical object that moves as a whole (Spelke, (...) 1990) is a sortal for both infants and adults. Furthermore,objectmay be the infant's first sortal and more specific sortals such ascupanddogmay be acquired later in the first year of life. I will discuss the implications for infant categorization studies, trying to draw a conceptual distinction between a perceptual category and a sortal, and I will speculate on how a child may construct sortal concepts such ascupanddog. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas has argued that the passion of hope is the movement of the sensitive appetite and the first of the irascible passion. The first part of the article aims to explore the cause and the mechanism of the passion of hope, and tries to clarify the relationship between the passion of hope and the perception. In human beings, it is possible that the passion of hope is caused by false judgement of the perception, which will lead to the result (...) of false hope. In Aquinas’s argument, the problem of false hope could be solved through the moral virtue and the prudence. In the second part of this article, the aim is to analyse how the virtue of magnanimity, humility and the prudence work impact on the passion of hope and perfect it.Contribution: This research concentrates on the topic of the passion of hope of Thomas Aquinas, and provides a new perspective on the understanding of the relationship between the passion and the virtue. (shrink)

When we say “I know why he was late”, we know not only the fact that he was late, but also an explanation of this fact. We propose a logical framework of “knowing why” inspired by the existing formal studies on why-questions, scientific explanation, and justification logic. We introduce the Kyi\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$${{\mathcal {K}}{}\textit{y}}_i$$\end{document} operator into the language of epistemic logic to express “agent i knows why φ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} (...) \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\varphi $$\end{document}” and propose a Kripke-style semantics of such expressions in terms of knowing an explanation of φ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\varphi $$\end{document}. We obtain two sound and complete axiomatizations w.r.t. two different model classes depending on different assumptions about introspection. Finally we connect our logic with justification logic technically by providing an alternative semantics and an in-depth comparison on various design choices. (shrink)

Hui Shi (370-310B.C.E.?) is a unique one among the pre-Qin scholars. The object and orientation of his scholarship emphasized on “chasing after the materials” or the research for objective knowledge of natural things. He shows a tendency of tolerating and advocating diversity and variety, and intentionally pursuing new and unusual ideas. In certain degree he judges the value of knowledge by its truthfulness rather than its usefulness. As pointed out by Wing-tsit Chan, Hui shi represents a “tendency in ancient China (...) toward intellectualism for its own sake”. (shrink)

Conscious states—state that there is something it is like to be in—seem both rich or full of detail and ineffable or hard to fully describe or recall. The problem of ineffability, in particular, is a longstanding issue in philosophy that partly motivates the explanatory gap: the belief that consciousness cannot be reduced to underlying physical processes. Here, we provide an information theoretic dynamical systems perspective on the richness and ineffability of consciousness. In our framework, the richness of conscious experience corresponds (...) to the amount of information in a conscious state and ineffability corresponds to the amount of information lost at different stages of processing. We describe how attractor dynamics in working memory would induce impoverished recollections of our original experiences, how the discrete symbolic nature of language is insufficient for describing the rich and high-dimensional structure of experiences, and how similarity in the cognitive function of two individuals relates to improved communicability of their experiences to each other. While our model may not settle all questions relating to the explanatory gap, it makes progress toward a fully physicalist explanation of the richness and ineffability of conscious experience—two important aspects that seem to be part of what makes qualitative character so puzzling. (shrink)

Recently, several studies have demonstrated that tetracyclines, the antibiotics most intensively used in livestock and that are also widely applied in biomedical research, interrupt mitochondrial proteostasis and physiology in animals ranging from round worms, fruit flies, and mice to human cell lines. Importantly, plant chloroplasts, like their mitochondria, are also under certain conditions vulnerable to these and other antibiotics that are leached into our environment. Together these endosymbiotic organelles are not only essential for cellular and organismal homeostasis stricto sensu, but (...) also have an important role to play in the sustainability of our ecosystem as they maintain the delicate balance between autotrophs and heterotrophs, which fix and utilize energy, respectively. Therefore, stricter policies on antibiotic usage are absolutely required as their use in research confounds experimental outcomes, and their uncontrolled applications in medicine and agriculture pose a significant threat to a balanced ecosystem and the well‐being of these endosymbionts that are essential to sustain health.Also watch theVideo Abstract. (shrink)

The Alexandra District Ambulance Service is the only volunteer-based ambulance service in Victoria, Australia. It provides an opportunity to reflect on the ethical issues surrounding the delivery of ambulance service by volunteers, and its impact on the community.

Individualism is not only a Western tradition. In the Zhuangzi we can also identify some elements which may be appropriately attributed to “individualism.” However, due to its particular cultural and philosophical background, Zhuangzian individualism has unique characteristics, which distinguish it from the variety of other individualist thoughts that have emerged in the West. Zhuangzi has a dynamic and open view on individual “self,” considering individuals as changing and unique beings rather than fixed and interchangeable “atoms”; he sets the unlimited Dao (...) as the ultimate source for individuals to conform to, thus releasing individual mind into a realm of infinite openness and freedom. The Zhuangzian individualism is “inward” rather than “outward,” concentrating on individual spirit rather than material interests and rights in social reality. The individualism in the Zhuangzi provides a spiritual space for the development of individuality in ancient China. It also provides an alternative understanding of individual as an existence. (shrink)

许地山(1894~1941),名赞〓,字地山,笔名落华生,乳名叔丑,著名文学家.

In the current dialogue of “science and religion,” it is widely assumed that the thoughts of Darwinists and that of atheists overlap. However, Jerry Fodor, a full-fledged atheist, recently announced a war against Darwinism with his atheistic campaign. Prima facie, this “civil war” might offer a chance for theists: If Fodor is right, Darwinistic atheism will lose the cover of Darwinism and become less tenable. This paper provides a more pessimistic evaluation of the situation by explaining the following: Fodor’s criticism (...) of adaptationism, viz., his refutation of any counterfactual-supporting laws on the macro-evolutionary level, implies that a law-maker is dispensable on this level. This will either encourage skepticism against the omniscience of the Creator, or render the notion of God less appealing. (shrink)

Critical Discourse Analysis has excelled with its functional and ideological analysis of socio-political texts. Its capacities and achievements notwithstanding, this tradition is constituted of Western concepts, values, ways of thinking, analytic tools and topics of interest; such becomes problematic when universalised and globalised in international academic discourse. It is against this backdrop of cultural and intellectual tension that a culturally conscious and critical paradigm of discourse and communication research is emerging: Cultural Discourse Studies. It is manifested in the forms of (...) participation by searchers from the Developing World in significant proportions, development of locally grounded, globally minded research frameworks; and a growing multicultural awareness in the discipline. Inspired by Third World experiences, aspirations and scholarships on the one side and drawing on culturally critical insights in the human and social sciences on the other side, this multicultural scholarship endeavours to deconstruct ethnocentrism, construct culturally diversified modes of research and propel intercultural dialogue and debate in the discipline, all with a view to enhancing human cultural coexistence, harmony and prosperity. One exemplar of this new trend is Chinese Discourse Studies, characterised by a holistic philosophy, equilibrium and discrepancy theory, all-encompassing methodology and development-minded research agenda. (shrink)

The micro-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature has underscored the economic benefits of an organization's CSR investments, such as bolstering employees' organizational commitment and improving work performance. Yet, research on the potential influence of CSR in fostering socially oriented outcomes among employees has been rather scarce. This study aims to investigate the influence of CSR on employees' internal whistleblowing behaviors and the underlying mechanisms. A three-time-point survey was distributed across the service, manufacturing, construction, and financial insurance industries in Chinese enterprises. (...) The findings reveal that both internal and external CSR positively impact employees' internal whistleblowing behaviors through the mediating role of moral courage, with internal CSR demonstrating a stronger effect. Organizational loyalty positively moderates the mediating role of moral courage in the relationship between internal CSR/external CSR and internal whistleblowing behaviors. Theoretically, this study presents a pioneering endeavor in establishing the link between CSR and employees' internal whistleblowing behaviors, underscoring the significant role that employees' perceptions of CSR play in enhancing societal well-being and ethical governance. Besides contributing to the micro-level CSR literature, this study also provides practical insights for organizations seeking to leverage CSR as a tool for promoting employees' ethical conduct. (shrink)

How do we become moral persons? What about children's active learning in contrast to parenting? What can children teach us about knowledge-making more broadly? Answer these questions by delving into the groundbreaking ethnographic fieldwork conducted by anthropologists Arthur and Margery Wolf in a martial law era Taiwanese village (1958-60), marking the first-ever study of ethnic Han children. Jing Xu skillfully reinterprets the Wolfs' extensive fieldnotes, employing a unique blend of humanistic interpretation, natural language processing, and machine-learning techniques. Through a lens (...) of social cognition, this book unravels the complexities of children's moral growth, exposing instances of disobedience, negotiation, and peer dynamics. Writing through and about fieldnotes, the author connects the two themes, learning morality and making ethnography, in light of social cognition, and invites all of us to take children seriously. This book is ideal for graduate and undergraduate students of anthropology and educational studies. (shrink)

本书辑录了作者近年来已发表的一些文章,包括:求索时代精神:个人思想历程、语言与哲学:学术研究偶得、现实与虚构:世纪之交的思想文化争论、事实与责任:历史反思等。.

Ben shu dui ke xue mei xue si xiang shi de yan jiu dui xiang, ren wu he fang fa jin xing le xi tong di lun shu.

本书介绍了职业道德的特征、社会主义职业道德的基本原则和规范,职业道德的教育、修养和评价等内容。.

Due to the differences of languages, “ontology” in its original Western sense had not been conceptualized in ancient China. The most prominent and unique feature of Confucian philosophy in early ancient China is “Zhongtaology” instead of “ontology”. Zhongtaology is the philosophical inquiring for the way of “Zhong”, which is based on all the primordially related semantic meanings embodied in the Chinese character “zhong”. Zhongtaological philosophy indicates an association between human beings and their world, a coincidence between subjectivity and objectivity, a (...) harmony of internal world and external world, an intersubjective perspective between self and others, an equilibrium among different ideas and divergences. Zhongtaology advocates inclusiveness and harmony when dealing with conflicts and contradictions. The rich historical and cultural background of Zhongtaology enriches it with profound philosophic significance, and makes it a general philosophical methodology of Confucianism. Zhongtaology not only provides a Confucian approach to some fundamental ontological and epistemological issues, a philosophical foundation for establishing ethical norms, moral standards, social justice and political principles, but also provides an angle to understand certain aspects of Chinese way of life. (shrink)