We explore the possibility of teaching philosophy through the teaching of computer programming. It is pedagogically useful to use programming because it is extremely popular (especially due to the recent breakthroughs in machine learning), and it can provide a novel, interesting, and clear introduction to a variety of classic philosophical issues. We discuss two examples. The first is using programming to solve digital image manipulation tasks as a way of introducing and clarifying debates over external world skepticism. The second is (...) programming a simulation of a simple 2-D cellular automaton as a way of introducing and clarifying debates over determinism and free will. (shrink)

Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire is a self-report measure of perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness with five versions in recent studies. There are five versions of INQ. But results from studies using different versions are quite different. Current suicide behavior among teenagers has attracted much attention. But which version is more suitable for teenage samples is still uncertain. It is important to compare the potential differences in different versions of INQ to identify the most psychometrically available version to predict teenagers' acquired capability (...) for suicide and provide them with timely help to reduce teenagers' suicide rates. This study compared the construct validity, internal consistency, validity, and average test information of each version in the sample of teenagers. Results showed the 10-item version provided the most average test information in both thwarted belongingness subscale and perceived burdensomeness subscale, and the INQ-10 is more suitable for teenage samples. (shrink)

Background and PurposeTranscranial direct current stimulation is an emerging non-invasive neuromodulation technique for focal epilepsy. Because epilepsy is a disease affecting the brain network, our study was aimed to evaluate and predict the treatment outcome of cathodal tDCS by analyzing the ctDCS-induced functional network alterations.MethodsEither the active 5-day, −1.0 mA, 20-min ctDCS or sham ctDCS targeting at the most active interictal epileptiform discharge regions was applied to 27 subjects suffering from focal epilepsy. The functional networks before and after ctDCS were (...) compared employing graph theoretical analysis based on the functional magnetic resonance imaging data. A support vector machine prediction model was built to predict the treatment outcome of ctDCS using the graph theoretical measures as markers.ResultsOur results revealed that the mean clustering coefficient and the global efficiency decreased significantly, as well as the characteristic path length and the mean shortest path length at the stimulation sites in the fMRI functional networks increased significantly after ctDCS only for the patients with response to the active ctDCS. Our prediction model achieved the mean prediction accuracy of 68.3% after the nested cross validation. The mean area under the receiver operating curve was 0.75, which showed good prediction performance.ConclusionThe study demonstrated that the response to ctDCS was related to the topological alterations in the functional networks of epilepsy patients detected by fMRI. The graph theoretical measures were promising for clinical prediction of ctDCS treatment outcome. (shrink)

This study investigates how abnormally hot temperatures affect firms’ environmental behaviors in China. We find that firms exposed to abnormally hot temperatures participate in more environmental engagement. We also find that this improvement effect is driven mainly by environmental concerns, including public concerns, CEOs, and governments. Our results remain intact after an array of robustness tests. Further analysis shows that the effect of abnormally hot temperatures on corporate environmental engagement is more pronounced in SOEs, heavily polluting firms, and firms located (...) closer to local environmental protection agencies. Based on the political pressure channel, our results indicate that the improvement effect is more prominent in politically connected firms, cities where local officials can wield more influence, local governments have larger financial slack, and local governments disclose their environmental targets. Moreover, the positive impact of environmental engagement on firm value is stronger when firms are exposed to abnormally hot temperatures. Overall, this study sheds light on the potential stimulation of firms’ environmental actions by global warming, which is yet to be fully understood. (shrink)

Resumo: Chuang Tzu (《庄子》), como um cânone tradicional chinês, foi traduzido para o inglês por mais de 100 anos, desde 1881, conquistando com sucesso um nicho no reino da literatura mundial, que se tornou um evento cultural devastador na academia de sinologia ultramarina e literatura mundial. Segundo as estatísticas, o livro foi traduzido em 12 traduções completas, 50 traduções selecionadas e duas adaptações. No processo de metamorfose da “tradução completa - tradução profunda - retradução diversificada”, passou por quatro fases, nomeadamente (...) fases religiosas, literárias, filosóficas e reinterpretações diversificadas. Assim, na perspectiva da visão de Damrosch a respeito da literatura mundial, o artigo resume as características de diferentes estágios, com base em diferentes contextos espaço-temporais. À luz da forma tradutória, dos resultados tradutórios e do modo de leitura tradutória, especifica-se o caminho pelo qual Chuang Tzu entrou no campo da literatura mundial, para apreender o mecanismo operacional de promoção da literatura nacional à literatura mundial, que se dedica ao esclarecimento para o trabalho prático de tradução da introdução da literatura chinesa no exterior. Enquanto isso, revisando a história das traduções inglesas de Chuang Tzu, o artigo resume as deficiências das atuais atividades de tradução e pesquisa, com a tentativa de fornecer sugestões construtivas, bem como apontar a direção para o desenvolvimento futuro de estudos de Chuang Tzu no exterior. (shrink)

Resumo: Como uma heresia confucionista, Mozi inicialmente chamou a atenção do missionário inglês Joseph Edkins, em 1858. Posteriormente, o missionário holandês Johann Jakob Maria de Groot traduziu a Doutrina Funerária de Mozi, que tem fortes tonalidades religiosas. Joseph e Groot, que representavam os missionários do protestantismo, interpretaram Mozi em uma variedade de narrativas teológicas. Os dois missionários, que procuravam conexões entre Mozi e o cristianismo, consideravam Mozi um cânone teológico, contendo doutrina cristã. Eles também atacaram o confucionismo, a antítese do (...) cristianismo, apontando que Mozi era um herege, na tradição confuciana. Através dessa imaginação religiosa sobre Mozi, mais missionários e sinologistas se juntaram à tradução de Mozi, e a jornada da transmissão do cânone para o Ocidente começou. (shrink)

Resumo: O clássico cultural chinês Chuang Tzu foi amplamente traduzido para versões em inglês, durante o século passado. Como resultado, essas traduções em inglês refletem, parcialmente, a conceituação da China antiga que mudou, ao longo do tempo, entre os falantes de inglês de outras nações. Desse modo, o presente artigo investiga as imagens reconstruídas da China antiga, tal como se manifestam nas refrações e transcriações das traduções inglesas de Chuang Tzu, as quais foram interpretadas por tradutores estrangeiros, a partir da (...) perspectiva da imagologia na literatura comparada. Todos esses fatos contribuíram para a descoberta de inúmeras imagens nacionais, através da exploração de Chuang Tzu do mundo anglófono, incluindo uma China antiga mestiça, uma China antiga misteriosa, uma China antiga ecológica e uma China antiga multifacetada. O mecanismo operacional da comunicação translacional sino-estrangeira foi elucidado através de um exame cuidadoso das variações das imagens, a fim de melhor compreender como os ocidentais constroem sua percepção geral sobre a nação oriental. (shrink)

This paper considers the connection between automaticity, control and agency. Indeed, recent philosophical and psychological works play up the incompatibility of automaticity and agency. Specifically, there is a threat of automaticity, for automaticity eliminates agency. Such conclusions stem from a tension between two thoughts: that automaticity pervades agency and yet automaticity rules out control. I provide an analysis of the notions of automaticity and control that maintains a simple connection: automaticity entails the absence of control. An appropriate analysis, however, shows (...) that actions are forms of control and pervasively automatic even if automaticity implies the absence of control. Consequences are drawn for the theory of mental agency and the psychological concepts of automaticity and control. (shrink)

This article provides a detailed overview of the neuroscience of consciousness.

Is it possible for historical materialism to have a specific normative basis that allows the scientific aspects of Marx’s theory to be compatible with his political philosophy and ethics? No consensus has so far been reached on this question. The debate between the normative Marx and the non-normative Marx starts with an acknowledgement of a dichotomy between facts and value. In order to resolve this dichotomy, many studies tend to place value rather than facts at the heart of their arguments (...) – they attempt to demonstrate that Marx explored issues of justice, equality, and liberty at the normative level. However, by drawing on John R. Searle’s answer to the Humean question of ‘is’ and ‘ought’, we can adopt a different approach to the study that puts facts, rather than values, at the heart of the argument. Under this approach, Marx’s analysis of the facts of estrangement, surplus-value, and the like, does not consist of factual statements that exclude value and the scientific theories that result from them. Rather, it consists of the statement of institutional facts that contain values. In Marx’s case, a fact-sensitive normative theory is fully possible. (shrink)

Due to the individual differences controlling brain-computer interfaces, the applicability and accuracy of BCIs based on motor imagery are limited. To improve the performance of BCIs, this article examined the effect of transcranial electrical stimulation on brain activity during MI. This article designed an experimental paradigm that combines tES and MI and examined the effects of tES based on the measurements of electroencephalogram features in MI processing, including the power spectral density and dynamic event-related desynchronization. Finally, we investigated the effect (...) of tES on the accuracy of MI classification using linear discriminant analysis. The results showed that the ERD of the μ and β rhythms in the left-hand MI task was enhanced after electrical stimulation with a significant effect in the tDCS group. The average classification accuracy of the transcranial alternating current stimulation group and transcranial direct current stimulation group were improved significantly compared to the pre-and pseudo stimulation groups. These findings indicated that tES can improve the performance and applicability of BCI and that tDCS was a potential approach in regulating brain activity and enhancing valid features during noninvasive MI-BCI processing. (shrink)

Research showed that action real-time strategy gaming experience is related to cognitive and neural plasticity, including visual selective attention and working memory, executive control, and information processing. This study explored the relationship between ARSG experience and information transmission in the auditory channel. Using an auditory, two-choice, go/no-go task and lateralized readiness potential as the index to partial information transmission, this study examined information transmission patterns in ARSG experts and amateurs. Results showed that experts had a higher accuracy rate than amateurs. (...) More importantly, experts had a smaller stimulus-locked LRP component than amateurs on no-go trials, while the response-locked LRP component on go trials did not differ between groups. Thus, whereas amateurs used an asynchronous information transmission pattern, experts used a reduced asynchronous information transmission pattern or a synchronous pattern where most of processing occurred prior to response execution – an information transmission pattern that supports rapid, error-free performance. Thus, experts and amateurs may use different information transmission patterns in auditory processing. In addition, the information transmission pattern used by experts is typically observed only after long-term auditory training according to past research. This study supports the relationship between ARSG experience and the development of information processing patterns. (shrink)

In this book, Xin Conan-Wu presents a radically revisionist analysis on Zhu Xi’s (1130–1200) Neo-Confucian philosophy of education. She argues that landscape and poems in twelfth-century academies bespeak his natural pedagogy and reveal unsuspected contributions to Chinese cultural sensibility by this emblematic figure of a stultifying orthodoxy.

本书收《祖坟——叛逆与创作》、《绍兴闲话》、《寰宇觅知音》、《油画的联想》、《漓江》等百余篇文章。.

Executive control of attention refers to processes that detect and resolve conflict among competing thoughts and actions. Despite the high-level nature of this faculty, the role of awareness in executive control of attention is not well understood. In this study, we used interocular suppression to mask the flankers in an arrow flanker task, in which the flankers and the target arrow were presented simultaneously in order to elicit executive control of attention. Participants were unable to detect the flanker arrows or (...) to reliably identify their direction when masked. There was a typical conflict effect (prolonged reaction time and increased error rate under flanker-target incongruent condition compared to congruent condition) when the flanker arrows were unmasked, while the conflict effect was absent when the flanker arrows were masked with interocular suppression. These results suggest that blocking awareness of competing stimuli with interocular suppression prevents the involvement of executive control of attention. (shrink)

This article compares the use of Romantic metaphor with the Chinese literary device xiang 象 (which I translate as “thing-metaphor”) in regard to how they embody different metaphysical relations between humans and things. Whereas Romantic metaphor transports a physical thing to the immaterial realm of imagination, xiang is a literary device in which the material qualities of the thing, while creatively interpreted to generate human meaning, retain ontologically a strong physical presence. Xiang therefore epitomizes a theory of creation that challenges (...) the Western dualistic paradigm: that the poet creates not virtual copies of the thing, but meanings of the thing, and therefore our relationships with things. The article concludes with Heidegger’s discourses on metaphor to suggest that my discussion of thing-metaphor has universal applicability. (shrink)

De-anthropocentrism is the leitmotif of philosophy in the twenty-first century, encouraging diverse and competing thoughts as to how this goal may be achieved. This article argues that the method by which we may achieve de-anthropocentrism is ethical rather than metaphysical – it must involve a creation of the self, rather than an interpretation of the given human conditions. Through engagements with the thought of Nietzsche, Levinas, and Foucault, and a close reading of Baudelaire’s poem “La Beauté,” I will illustrate three (...) ethical commitments essential to de-anthropocentrism: to abandon the claim to knowledge associated with human reason, to remain in perpetual quest of an object, and to transgress the given perceptual structure through aesthetic experience. In contrast to Kantian philosophy built upon universal human reason, art is the ethical arena where each artist creates their own way to relate to the object, while de-anthropocentrism occurs – this article argues – when the artist includes the self as the field of creation. Object-Oriented Ontology in my assessment is the only branch of philosophy that truly achieves de-anthropocentrism. (shrink)

EDITOR’S ABSTRACTThis article argues that Shang Yang’s philosophy of law was not only a means to enrich the state and strengthen its army, but also envisioned the orderly rule of all All-under-Heaven. Through a fair, universal, and reliable use of rewards, punishments, and also teaching, this vision of laws could ultimately lead to the promotion of moral values, popular consensus, and people’s self-governance. While the authors admit that in Shang Yang’s own historical context, law was no more than a tool (...) used by the ruler to suppress his people, potentially his ideas could contribute to a future Chinese society fully ruled by law and morality, and inspired by the rule of law. (shrink)

本书分别论述了理学开创者周敦颐的濂溪学、邵雍的象数学、张载的关学、程颢、程颐的洛学、朱熹的闽学、陆九渊的心学、王守仁的阳明学及王夫之对中国理学和各种虚妄邪说的批判等。.

In defense of anti-essentialism, pragmatist Richard Rorty holds that we may think of all objects as if they were numbers. I find that Rorty’s metaphysics hinges on two rather weak arguments against the essences of numbers. In contrast, Plato’s metaphysics offers a plausible definition of essentiality by which numbers do have essential properties. Further, I argue that Rorty’s argumentative mistake is mischaracterizing Plato’s definition. I conclude that Plato’s definition of “essential” is a robust one which implies that many properties, beyond (...) those we might intuitively think of, can count as essential properties of objects. (shrink)

本书以专题的形式对哲学的一些基本理论、基本知识作了既有一定理论深度又有比较通俗易懂的阐述.