Adornos "asthetische theorie" ist als ambivalente theorie uber die autonomie der kunst charakterisiert. er verteidigt die autonomie der kunst als abgehobenheit von der gesellschaft, obwohl er den avantgardischen versuch der aufhebung der autonomen kunst als notwendigen anspruch vesteht. seine forderung ist nicht die verweigerung, sondern die rettung des asthetischen scheins, in dem das autonome kunstwerk das utopische moment als augenblicklichen gluck verspricht. aber adorno sagt nicht nur die massen- und engagierte kunst, sondern auch die rezeptive seite der kunst uberhaupt ab, (...) weil auch das autonome kunstwerk den gefahr nicht vermeiden kann, in heteronomie zur warenwelt zuruckzufallen, sobald der schein in beziehung zur wirklichkeit kommt. (edited). (shrink)

Previous studies have shown different developmental trajectories for object recognition of solid and non-solid objects. However, there is no evidence as to whether infants have expectations regarding certain attributes of objects, such as surface hardness, in the absence of tactile information. In the present study, we examined infants’ perception of the hardness of object surfaces from visually presented penetration events using the familiarization–novelty preference procedure. Experiment 1 showed that by 11 months old infants distinguished a relatively soft surface from a (...) crusty surface based on changes in the velocity of a moving object as the moving object penetrated the surface of the target object. Experiment 2 ruled out the possibility that infants were merely sensitive to differences in the velocity changes in the stimuli. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 3, Page 370-394, September 2022.

AbstractThe Belmont Report continues to be held in high regard, and most bioethical analyses conducted in recent years have presumed that it affects United States federal regulations. However, the assessments of the report’s creators are sharply divided. Understanding the historic reputation of this monumental report is thus crucial. We first recount the historical context surrounding the creation of this report. Subsequently, we review the process involved in developing ethical guidelines and describe the report’s features. Additionally, we analyze the effect of (...) unfolding events on the subsequent creation of federal regulations, especially on gene therapy clinical trials. Moreover, throughout this paper we evaluate the ethical principles outlined in this report and describe how they overlap with the issue of protecting socially vulnerable groups. Based on the analysis, we conclude that the features of the Belmont Report cannot be considered as having affected the basic sections of the federal regulations for ethical reviews that were made uniform in 1981. Nevertheless, regarding the regulations on gene therapy clinical trials—which were at first expected to be applicable to research involving children—in addition to implementing policies regarding the public review of protocols that passed ethical review, this report’s principles are clearly reflected in the key notes that should have been referred to when the report was created. (shrink)

Assessing learners’ individual differences helps identify students who need teacher support in classrooms. Previous studies have examined second language achievement based on reading anxiety because reading is an input-based activity essential for successful L2 learning. This study applied a latent rank model to identify L2 learners who are likely to be struggling or successful in classrooms according to their L2 reading anxiety symptoms. Moreover, a psychometric function was developed to determine the cutoff anxiety scores that discriminate against their substantial differences. (...) The model was applied to responses from the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale provided by 335 Japanese learners of English. The results showed that the FLRAS classified students into three ranked groups with ordinal information regarding L2 reading anxiety. Rank 1 exhibited good conditions in L2 reading anxiety. Rank 2 reported high anxiety toward unfamiliar grammar during L2 reading. Rank 3 had even higher anxiety levels, especially for vocabulary and grammatical knowledge deficits and reading difficulty. The cutoff anxiety scores estimated by the model detected students who failed their L2 class with 79% accuracy. Theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical issues in language anxiety were discussed in terms of diagnosis and different approaches to teaching L2 reading. (shrink)

In this article, we address the problem of how people understand predicative metaphors such as “The rumor flew through the office,” and argue that predicative metaphors are understood as indirect (or two-stage) categorizations. In the indirect categorization process, the verb (e.g., fly) of a predicative metaphor evokes an intermediate entity, which in turn evokes a metaphoric category of actions or states (e.g., “to spread rapidly and soon disappear”) to be attributed to the target noun (e.g., rumor), rather than directly evoking (...) a metaphoric category as argued by CitationGlucksberg's (2001) categorization theory. We test our argument using two experiments, namely, offline comprehension and online priming. The offline comprehension experiment showed that interpretation of predicative metaphors had greater overlap with words indirectly associated with the verb than those directly associated with the verb. The online priming experiment demonstrated that indirectly associated words were activated during predicative metaphor comprehension, but directly associated words were not. These results provide convergent evidence for our argument, and thus the psychological validity of two-stage categorization as a process of predicative metaphor comprehension was confirmed. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Lockean proviso can be utilized as a relevant principle of justice for food security under global climate change. Since reducing GHG emissions is key to enhancing food security, we suggest a global food security scheme that systematically allots, among all people, access to GHG sinks in food systems impacted by global climate change. For consideration of the scheme, it is important to have a principle of justice. Furthermore, it should incorporate the value of fairness. A (...) relevant principle of climate justice for food security should meet the following criteria: (1) the parties concerned under the scheme are states; (2) fairness does not undermine the requirement that the basic needs of all people must be met; (3) when determining fair burdens, a fair distribution of the rights to use GHG sinks should be sensitive both to each state’s responsibility for its GHG emissions and to (4) each state’s effort to reduce such emissions. With them in mind, first, we argue that the Lockean proviso can provide legitimate guidance for each state. Second, the Lockean proviso reasonably enjoins that a state has a right to a food system that secures its citizens’ basic needs, and a duty to meet the basic needs of other people. Third, the Lockean proviso can be deployed as a principle of both global justice and intergenerational justice for food security. Finally, the Lockean proviso enables us to count the reduction of GHG emissions by each state as “the fruits of its labors”. (shrink)

The pervasive use of distributional semantic models or word embeddings for both cognitive modeling and practical application is because of their remarkable ability to represent the meanings of words. However, relatively little effort has been made to explore what types of information are encoded in distributional word vectors. Knowing the internal knowledge embedded in word vectors is important for cognitive modeling using distributional semantic models. Therefore, in this paper, we attempt to identify the knowledge encoded in word vectors by conducting (...) a computational experiment using Binder et al.'s (2016) featural conceptual representations based on neurobiologically motivated attributes. In an experiment, these conceptual vectors are predicted from text‐based word vectors using a neural network and linear transformation, and prediction performance is compared among various types of information. The analysis demonstrates that abstract information is generally predicted more accurately by word vectors than perceptual and spatiotemporal information, and specifically, the prediction accuracy of cognitive and social information is higher. Emotional information is also found to be successfully predicted for abstract words. These results indicate that language can be a major source of knowledge about abstract attributes, and they support the recent view that emphasizes the importance of language for abstract concepts. Furthermore, we show that word vectors can capture some types of perceptual and spatiotemporal information about concrete concepts and some relevant word categories. This suggests that language statistics can encode more perceptual knowledge than often expected. (shrink)

This paper analysed the nature of autonomy, in particular respect for autonomy in medical ethics/bioethics in Japan. We have undertaken a literature survey in Japanese and English and begin with the historical background and explanation of the Japanese wordJiritsu (autonomy). We go on to identify patterns of meaning that researchers use in medical ethics / bioethics discussions in Japan, namely, Beauchamp and Childress’s individual autonomy, relational autonomy, and O’Neill’s principled autonomy as the three major ways that autonomy is understood. We (...) examine papers discussing these interpretations. We propose using the term ‘a form of autonomy’ first used by Edmund Pellegrino in 1992 and examine the nature of ‘a form of autonomy.’ We finally conclude that the crux of what Pellegrino calls ‘something close to autonomy,’ or ‘a form of autonomy' might best be understood as the minimization of physician paternalism and the maximization of respect for patient preference. Simultaneously, we introduce a family-facilitated approach to informed consent and respond to criticism by Laura Sullivan. Finally, we discuss cross-cultural approaches and global bioethics. Furthermore, we use the term ‘Bioethics across the Globe’ instead of ‘Global Bioethics’, calling for international scholars to write works to provide an in-depth understanding of each country. We conclude that deep understanding of others is pivotal for dialogue to be of value. We hope this article will deepen the reader’s understanding of Japan and will contribute to the progress of bioethics worldwide. (shrink)

The two competing camps of theorists in moral psychology share one common view on the disagreement between their theories: moral foundations theory presupposes basic emotion theory, while dyadic morality theory presupposes constructionist theory of emotion. The paper challenges this common view. First, it reviews the four theories. Second, it clarifies the issue about the relation between the moral contents and emotions on which the two camps of moral-psychological theorists dispute. Third, it identifies the explananda for the moral-psychological theories, and examines (...) the two distinctive types of explanations that each of the two theories offers to them. Finally, it concludes that the deepest disagreement between the two morality theories consists in the role that the theories give to emotions in explaining moral judgments. (shrink)

時間を超え、様々な遺物から過去の記憶を読みとり、未来に引き継ぐものとして、人文知の意義を問い直す。.

Debates concerning mask wearing continue in Japan. Here we critically examine the reasons for relaxing these regulations from a public health ethics perspective. We focus on three issues: government responsibility, political motivation, and cultural orientation, also discussing how these issues might have broader application in other parts of the world.

Was Nāgārjuna a thinker of philosophy or religion? This must be a question of the kind to which the answer depends heavily on the definition of “philosophy” and “religion”. Therefore, we may prefer to rephrase this question as: “Can Nāgārjuna legitimately be called a thinker of philosophy or religion?” Although it has been and may still be defined by its method or the objects of “philosophical thinking”, philosophy is, in most cases, expected to have the following characteristics: (1) Philosophy is (...) a type or product of human thought. (2) It is motivated by the human inclination for inquiry into the fundamental basis of being, whether human, social, or natural. (3) It is, theoretically at least, free from any types of dogmatic premises, whether traditional, social, or religious. (4) It requires a thoroughly logical and unequivocal usage of words and sentences. Likewise, although it has been and may still be defined by the existence or number of the absolute(s), be they god(s), spirit(s) or mental state(s), religion is, in most cases, expected to have the following characteristics: (1) Religion is a type of human beliefsystemor a product thereof. (2) It is motivated by the human inclination for ultimate reliance upon the absolute being or state. (3) It is, in practice, not completely free from some types of authoritative premises, whether traditional, customary, or founded by a certain individual. (4) It requires a purified mind, a deep understanding oftradition, constant practice and a careful observance of certain rules and regulations. Taking into account of the above characteristics of philosophy and religion, can we legitimately regard Nāgārjuna as a thinker of philosophy, religion, both, or neither? Let me focus on this question with an analysis of Nāgārjuna’s discussion as found in his magnum opus, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, and related works. (shrink)

Stuttering is a neurodevelopmental speech disorder characterized by the symptoms of speech repetition, prolongation, and blocking. Stuttering-related dysfluency can be transiently alleviated by providing an external timing signal such as a metronome or the voice of another person. Therefore, the existence of a core motor timing deficit in stuttering has been speculated. If this is the case, then motoric behaviors other than speech should be disrupted in stuttering. This study examined motoric performance on four complex bimanual tasks in 37 adults (...) who stutter and 31 fluent controls. Two tasks utilized bimanual rotation to examine motor dexterity, and two tasks used the bimanual mirror and parallel tapping movements to examine timing control ability. Video-based analyses were conducted to determine performance accuracy and speed. The results showed that individuals who stutter performed worse than fluent speakers on tapping tasks but not on bimanual rotation tasks. These results suggest stuttering is associated with timing control for general motor behavior. (shrink)

Informed consent, decision-making styles and the role of patient-physician relationships are imperative aspects of clinical medicine worldwide. We present the case of a 74-year-old woman afflicted with advanced liver cancer whose attending physician, per request of the family, did not inform her of her true diagnosis. In our analysis, we explore the differences in informed-consent styles between patients who hold an "independent" and "interdependent" construal of the self and then highlight the possible implications maintained by this position in the context (...) of international clinical ethics. Finally, we discuss the need to reassess informed-consent styles suitable to the needs of each patient regardless of whether he or she resides in the United States or in Japan. (shrink)

日本人が追求してきた「生き方と生活の美学」を古代から近世の日本文化に即して解き明かす、意欲的な日本論。.