The aim of this paper is to demonstrate what Descartes’ purpose of philosophy is by raising questions concerning the style of Descartes’ writing. In particular, I shall focus on investigating the characteristic style of Descartes’ Discourse on the Method. It is often considered that Descartes is not only the founder of modernphilosophy but also the father of foundationalism in epistemology. In fact, Descartes’ most celebrated argument of cogito is sometimes understood only in the context of epistemological foundationalism. However, Descartes’ epistemology (...) is quite different from the one that is often understood as the theory of knowledge in the contemporary scene of philosophy. Paying attention to Descartes’ style of writing, we realize that it is necessary for us to see his epistemology in a different framework from the contemporary philosophers’. I shall show that the purpose of philosophy for Descartes is not to present disputations for propounding anddefending his own theory in philosophy, but to let the readers of his writing engaged with philosophy. (shrink)

Own-age bias is a well-known bias reflecting the effects of age, and its role has been demonstrated, particularly, in face recognition. However, it remains unclear whether an own-age bias exists in facial impression formation. In the present study, we used three datasets from two published and one unpublished functional magnetic resonance imaging study that employed the same pleasantness rating task with fMRI scanning and preferential choice task after the fMRI to investigate whether healthy young and older participants showed own-age effects (...) in face preference. Specifically, we employed a drift-diffusion model to elaborate the existence of own-age bias in the processes of preferential choice. The behavioral results showed higher rating scores and higher drift rate for young faces than for older faces, regardless of the ages of participants. We identified a young-age effect, but not an own-age effect. Neuroimaging results from aggregation analysis of the three datasets suggest a possibility that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex was associated with evidence accumulation of own-age faces; however, no clear evidence was provided. Importantly, we found no age-related decline in the responsiveness of the vmPFC to subjective pleasantness of faces, and both young and older participants showed a contribution of the vmPFC to the parametric representation of the subjective value of face and functional coupling between the vmPFC and ventral visual area, which reflects face preference. These results suggest that the preferential choice of face is less susceptible to the own-age bias across the lifespan of individuals. (shrink)