Zhuangzi is considered a creative poet-philosopher because of his use of imaginative images. He used the imaginative images of his system to construct the world of the Dao. He left the essence of material things as they are to speak for the mystery of existence itself, and let them express both the state of and the dream for human freedom. Zhuangzi’s way of using images shows his own lack of the understanding about images, and his lack of adequate assessments. He (...) used images in accord with his own personal preferences and fixed characteristics. He also had a tendency to equate the Dao which he experienced in his mind with the Dao itself. These shortcomings limit his improving and understanding of the Dao, so that his Dao failed to become more open to a wider existence. (shrink)

In the formal semantics based on modern type theories, common nouns are interpreted as types, rather than as predicates of entities as in Montague’s semantics. This brings about important advantages in linguistic interpretations but also leads to a limitation of expressive power because there are fewer operations on types as compared with those on predicates. The theory of coercive subtyping adequately extends the modern type theories and, as shown in this paper, plays a very useful role in making type theories (...) more expressive for formal semantics. It not only gives a satisfactory solution to the basic problem of ‘multiple categorisation’ caused by interpreting common nouns as types, but provides a powerful formal framework to model interesting linguistic phenomena such as copredication, whose formal treatment has been found difficult in a Montagovian setting. In particular, we show how to formally introduce dot-types in a type theory with coercive subtyping and study some type-theoretic constructs that provide useful representational tools for reference transfers and multiple word meanings in formal lexical semantics. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn Chinese scholarship, Xunzi is often regarded as an eclectic Confucian master who accepted some form of utilitarian thoughts. This characteristic was also observed by some western scholars such as Benjamin I. Schwartz. In a recent study, I argued that the basic character of Xunzi’s philosophy is utilitarianism in a broad sense based on an examination on his intellectual criticism and political criticism. Xunzi asserts that humans are innately driven by self-interested desires, and he evaluates all intellectual works and political (...) behaviours by their utility. However, he does not limit utility to only basic animal desires such as food and sex. In Xunzi’s view, humans also have innate emotions; hence, these emotions should also be accounted for in their utility. This is similar to John Stuart Mill’s redefinition of Bentham’s concept of utility. Are Xunzi’s and Mill’s concepts of utility exactly the same? This question has yet to be examined. This article is a comparative study between utilitarianism and Xunzi’s philosophy which especially explores the compatibility of these two philosophies. (shrink)

Although the prevalence of facial recognition-based COVID-19 surveillance tools and techniques, China does not have a facial recognition law to protect its residents’ facial data. Oftentimes, neither the public nor the government knows where people’s facial images are stored, how they have been used, who might use or misuse them, and to what extent. This reality is alarming, particularly factoring in the wide range of unintended consequences already caused by good-intentioned measures and mandates amid the pandemic. Biometric data are matters (...) of personal rights and national security. In light of worrisome technologies such as deep-fake pornography, the protection of biometric data is also central to the protection of the dignity of the citizens and the government, if not the industry as well. This paper discusses the urgent need for the Chinese government to establish rigorous and timely facial recognition laws to protect the public’s privacy, security, and dignity amid COVID-19 and beyond. (shrink)

In this study, we aimed to address three comments proposed by Ogihara on a recent study where we found that unique names in China have become increasingly popular from 1950 to 2009. Using a large representative sample of Chinese names, we replicated the increase in uniqueness of Chinese names from 1920 to 2005, especially since the 1970s, with multiple uniqueness indices based on name-character frequency and name-length deviation. Over the years, Chinese characters that are rare in daily life or naming (...) practice were more often used in given names, and the length of given names became more deviant from typical practice. Taken together, these findings not only reconfirmed the increasing prevalence of unique names but also demonstrated the validity of various indices in assessing name uniqueness in China. (shrink)

Cyberloafing is prevalent in the workplace and research has increasingly focused on its antecedents. This study aims to extend the cyberloafing literature from the perspective of perceived overqualification among civil servants. Drawing on equity theory, we examined the effect of POQ on cyberloafing, along with the mediating role of harmonious passion on the POQ–cyberloafing relationship and the moderating role of the need for achievement on strengthening the link between POQ and harmonious passion. Using time-lagged data from a sample of 318 (...) civil servants in China, we found that POQ was positively related to cyberloafing; harmonious passion mediated this relationship; the need for achievement moderated the effect of POQ on harmonious passion as well as the indirect effect of POQ on cyberloafing via harmonious passion. Based on the findings, we discussed theoretical and managerial implications and provided future research avenues. (shrink)

This study examines why and when negative workplace gossip promotes self-serving behaviors by the employees being targeted. Using conservation of resources theory, we find that targets tend to increase their political acts as a result of ego depletion triggered by negative gossip. We also show that sensitivity to interpersonal mistreatment and moral disengagement moderate this process. Specifically, we demonstrate that targets with high levels of sensitivity to interpersonal mistreatment are more likely to experience ego depletion, and that targets with high (...) levels of moral disengagement will find it easier to persuade themselves to engage in political acts. We conducted a three-wave time-lagged survey of 265 employees in Guangdong, China, to test our hypotheses. The results support our theoretical model and indicate that COR theory can be used to explain the impacts of negative workplace gossip. Alongside our important and timely theoretical contributions, we provide new perspectives on how managers can avoid or mitigate these political acts. (shrink)

This study examined lexical bundles used differently by Chinese and American PhD students of linguistics in their dissertation abstracts. Two corpora were built, with each having 700 dissertation abstracts produced by Chinese and American PhD students of linguistics, respectively. The study then used lexical analysis software to retrieve frequently used three-word LBs, from which LBs having different frequencies at a significant level across the two corpora were identified and termed as bundles used differently. BUDs were then categorized and analyzed manually (...) in terms of structure, function, and distribution in rhetorical moves. The major findings were: 57.14% of the frequently used LBs were BUDs, of which 90.67% had occurrences in both corpora. The BUDs distributed inequivalently across categories and moves, with the text-oriented category and the move of Result having the most BUDs; and BUDs exhibited two major patterns: the Chinese and American students filled different constituents into structurally and functionally similar constructions, and used LBs of dissimilar functions to fulfill the same communicative purposes. These findings indicate that variations in LB use have a high pedagogic value and confirm the need for using corpora to identify and teach core genre-specific vocabularies to second/foreign language learners. (shrink)

Although some cognitive studies provided reasons that children with low socioeconomic status (SES) showed poor mathematical achievements, there was no explicit evidence to directly explain the root of lagged performance in children with low SES. Therefore, the present study explored the differences in neural correlates in the process of symbolic magnitude comparison between children with different SES by the event-related potentials (ERP). A total of 16 second graders from low SES families and 16 from middle/high SES families participated in this (...) study. According to the results of anterior N1 (early attention) and P2 (extraction of numerical meaning) over frontal region, the differences among children with different SES were manifested as differences in general neural activities in terms of attention and top-down cognitive control. In the late stage of cognitive processing, there was no significant difference in the average amplitude of the LPC between the children with different SES, indicating that low SES did not influence the information encoding and memory updating of numerical representation responsible by the parietal lobe. The educational implications of this study were mentioned in the discussion. (shrink)

The Chinese character, he (和), “harmony,” occurs more than 100 times in the Liji (禮記; the Book of Rites). This accounts for over one‐third of the term's total number of occurrences in the 13 pre‐Qin Confucian classics. In this study, we engage with existing scholarship on the concept of “harmony” in Chinese culture and contribute to the discussion by analyzing the variety of senses that “harmony” has in the pre‐Qin Confucian classics, especially the Liji. We find that usages of the (...) term “he” (“harmony”) in the Liji fall into six categories, namely, self, external things, music, human relations, politics, and the universe. We hold that the ways in which harmony features in the Liji and other Confucian classics can help us understand the Chinese cultural presupposition that there exists “only one world,” meaning that this world encompasses both the natural and the supernatural, and that human beings are a holistic blend of body and heart‐mind, which does not give rise to any dualistic tension between body and mind. Based on our understanding of the unique Chinese worldview and the corresponding view on life, this study aims to give an account for the importance of harmony as a guideline within various areas of Chinese life. (shrink)

本书试图论证: 法治、自由、民主、人权等价值是植根于西方社会历史和文化土壤的西方文化价值, 并至少并不完全适合于中国文化的习性. 未来中国现代性的发展可能在一定程度上与这些价值相融, 甚至在一定程度上需要吸收或发展它们, 但是它们决不能构成未来中国现代性的核心价值.--.

In this paper we present a study of adjectival/adverbial modification using modern type theories, i.e. type theories within the tradition of Martin-Löf. We present an account of various issues concerning adjectival/adverbial modification and argue that MTTs can be used as an adequate language for interpreting NL semantics. MTTs are not only expressive enough to deal with a range of modification phenomena, but are furthermore well-suited to perform reasoning tasks that can be easily implemented given their proof-theoretic nature. In MTT-semantics, common (...) nouns are interpreted as types rather than predicates. Therefore, in order to capture the semantics of adjectives adequately, one needs to meet the challenge of modeling CNs modified by adjectives as types. To explicate that this can be done successfully, we first look at the mainstream classification of adjectives, i.e. intersective, subsective and non-subsective adjectives. There, we show that the rich type structure available in MTTs, along with a suitable subtyping framework, offers an adequate mechanism to model these cases. In particular, this modelling naturally takes care of the characterising inferences associated with each class of adjectives. Then, more advanced issues on adjectival modification are discussed: degree adjectives, comparatives and multidimensional adjectives. There, it is shown that the use of indexed types can be usefully applied in order to deal with these cases. In the same vein, the issue of adverbial modification is discussed. We study two general typings for sentence and VP adverbs respectively. It is shown that the rich type structure in MTTs further provides useful organisational mechanisms in giving formal semantics for adverbs. In particular, we discuss the use of \-types to capture the veridicality/non-veridicality distinction and further discuss cases of intensional adverbs using the type theoretic notion of context. We also look at manner, subject and speech act adverbials and propose solutions using MTTs. Finally, we show that the current proof technology can help mechanically check the associated inferences. A number of our proposals concerning adjectival and adverbial modification have been formalised in the proof assistant Coq and many of the associated inference patterns are checked to be correctly captured. (shrink)

In this paper we propose a way to deal with natural language inference by implementing Modern Type Theoretical Semantics in the proof assistant Coq. The paper is a first attempt to deal with NLI and natural language reasoning in general by using the proof assistant technology. Valid NLIs are treated as theorems and as such the adequacy of our account is tested by trying to prove them. We use Luo’s Modern Type Theory with coercive subtyping as the formal language into (...) which we translate natural language semantics, and we further implement these semantics in the Coq proof assistant. It is shown that the use of a MTT with an adequate subtyping mechanism can give us a number of promising results as regards NLI. Specifically, it is shown that a number of inference cases, i.e. quantifiers, adjectives, conjoined noun phrases and temporal reference among other things can be successfully dealt with. It is then shown, that even though Coq is an interactive and not an automated theorem prover, automation of all of the test examples is possible by introducing user-defined automated tactics. Lastly, the paper offers a number of innovative approaches to NL phenomena like adjectives, collective predication, comparatives and factive verbs among other things, contributing in this respect to the theoretical study of formal semantics using MTTs. (shrink)

Preferential model is one of the important semantical structures in nonmonotonic logic. This paper aims to establish an isomorphism theorem for preferential models, which gives us a purely algebraic characterization of the equivalence of preferential models. To this end, we present the notions of local similarity and local simulation. Based on these notions, two operators Δ(·) and μ(·) over preferential models are introduced and explored respectively. Together with other two existent operators ρ(·) and ΠD(·), we introduce an operator ∂D(·). Then (...) the isomorphism theorem is obtained in terms of ∂D(·), which asserts that for any two preferential models M₁ and M₂, they generate the same preferential inference if and only if ∂D(M₁) and ∂D(M₂) are isomorphic. Based on ∂D(·), we also get an alternative model-theoretical characterization of the well-known postulate "Weaken Disjunctive Rationality". Moreover, in the finite language framework, we show that Δ(μ(·)) is competent for the task of eliminating redundancy, and provide a representation result for k-relations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT There are two views on the nature of Chinese nationalism. The one view treats Chinese nationalism as political nationalism while the other recognises it as cultural nationalism. This paper argues that Chinese nationalism had been deeply shaped by Confucianism, which has two important and influential concepts of nationalism: tianxia天下and yi-xia夷夏. These two concepts reflect the two facets of Confucian nationalism. With the first facet, manifested in the concept of tianxia, Confucianism emphasizes cultural identity and the pursuit of a kind (...) of benevolent politics; the second facet, manifested in the concept of yi-xia, stresses political identity. As in Mencius, the concept of nationalism is based on his theory of human nature and self-cultivation, and the self-identity of a politician is transformable between the two levels of the yi-xia distinction, along with his self-cultivation. Thus, Confucian nationalism is based on self-cultivation, rather than self-identity. (shrink)

In Chinese scholarship, Xunzi is often regarded as an eclectic Confucian master who accepted some form of utilitarian thoughts (e.g. Fung Yu-lan, Mou Zongsan and Xu Fuguan). This characteristic was also observed by some western scholars such as Benjamin I. Schwartz. In a recent study, I argued that the basic character of Xunzi’s philosophy is utilitarianism in a broad sense based on an examination on his intellectual criticism and political criticism. Xunzi asserts that humans are innately driven by self-interested desires, (...) and he evaluates all intellectual works and political behaviours by their utility. However, he does not limit utility to only basic animal desires such as food and sex. In Xunzi’s view, humans also have innate emotions; hence, these emotions should also be accounted for in their utility. This is similar to John Stuart Mill’s redefinition of Bentham’s concept of utility. Are Xunzi’s and Mill’s concepts of utility exactly the same? This question has yet to be examined. This article is a comparative study between utilitarianism and Xunzi’s philosophy which especially explores the compatibility of these two philosophies. (shrink)

This paper introduces valuation structures associated with preferential models. Based on KLM valuation structures, we present a canonical approach to obtain injective preferential models for any preferential relation satisfying the property INJ, and give uniform proofs of representation theorems for injective preferential relations appeared in the literature. In particular, we show that, in any propositional language (finite or infinite), a preferential inference relation satisfies INJ if and only if it can be represented by a standard preferential model. This conclusion generalizes (...) the result obtained by Freund. In addition, we prove that, when the language is finite, our framework is sufficient to establish a representation theorem for any injective relation. (shrink)

New Zealand is a multilingual and multicultural society, where English, Maori, and the New Zealand sign language are designated as its official languages. However, some heritage languages are also taught either within or outside the national education system. During the past decade, an increasing number of students have chosen Mandarin Chinese as an additional language because of its fast-growing importance. To date, studies regarding CAL are mainly based on the mainstream Chinese programs or online platforms, with less attention paid to (...) other types of teaching contexts where there also exist many potential challenges awaiting teachers. To fill in this gap, this study, based on a teaching program consisting of two families in New Zealand, explored the trajectories of a CAL teacher’s emotional labor for 47 weeks to understand how she managed her emotions when she taught the language as well as balanced the relationship among the three parties: the institution, the two families, and herself. Narrative inquiry was used as a methodological approach. The data involved written and spoken narratives. Using inductive and deductive thematic analysis, findings revealed her different understandings of the emotional labor in the two families, respectively, during the program. Further analysis of the data revealed some factors that impacted her emotional labor and how they impacted her teaching in a family-based context. We concluded our study with a discussion of the implications of these findings for teaching CAL in similar contexts. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn Western and non‐Western societies, it is a widely held belief that the concept of human rights is, by and large, a Western cultural norm, often at odds with non‐Western cultures and, therefore, not applicable in non‐Western societies. The Universal Draft Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights reflects this deep‐rooted and popular assumption. By using Chinese culture as an illustration, this article points out the problems of this widespread misconception and stereotypical view of cultures and human rights. It highlights the (...) often ignored positive elements in Chinese cultures that promote and embody universal human values such as human dignity and human rights. It concludes, accordingly, with concrete suggestions on how to modify the Declaration. (shrink)

This research explores the harmful effects of negative workplace gossip (NWG) on targets and organizations, including its impacts on helping behavior and knowledge hiding. The mediating role of guanxi closeness and the moderating role of need for affiliation are also examined. The study, based on conservation of resources theory, collected data from 526 employees in the hospitality industry in China, using a three-wave survey design. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was employed to test the hypotheses. The empirical results showed that NWG (...) was a strong predictor of reduced helping behavior and increased knowledge hiding; and that guanxi closeness mediated both the negative relationship between NWG and helping behavior, and the positive relationship between NWG and knowledge hiding. Additionally, need for affiliation was shown to act as a moderator between NWG and guanxi closeness: high need for affiliation amplified the negative impact of NWG on guanxi closeness, and then further affected employees’ helping behavior and knowledge hiding. This study therefore offers an important new perspective for interpreting the detrimental effects of negative gossip in organizations, providing not just theoretical advances but practical ways in which managers can proactively reduce these impacts. (shrink)

A logic-enriched type theory is a type theory extended with a primitive mechanism for forming and proving propositions. We construct two LTTs, named and , which we claim correspond closely to the classical predicative systems of second order arithmetic and . We justify this claim by translating each second order system into the corresponding LTT, and proving that these translations are conservative. This is part of an ongoing research project to investigate how LTTs may be used to formalise different approaches (...) to the foundations of mathematics.The two LTTs we construct are subsystems of the logic-enriched type theory , which is intended to formalise the classical predicative foundation presented by Herman Weyl in his monograph Das Kontinuum. The system has also been claimed to correspond to Weyl’s foundation. By casting and as LTTs, we are able to compare them with . It is a consequence of the work in this paper that is strictly stronger than .The conservativity proof makes use of a novel technique for proving one LTT conservative over another, involving defining an interpretation of the stronger system out of the expressions of the weaker. This technique should be applicable in a wide variety of different cases outside the present work. (shrink)

Coercive subtyping offers a general approach to subtyping and inheritance by introducing a simple abbreviational mechanism to constructive type theories. In this paper, we study coercion completion in coercive subtyping and prove that the formal extension with coercive subtyping of a type theory such as Martin–Löf's type theory and UTT is a conservative extension. The importance of coherence conditions for the conservativity result is also discussed.

Since the late 1970s, American appraisals of Chinese medical ethics and Chinese responses to American bioethics range from frank criticism to warm appreciation, from refutation to acceptance. Yet in the United States as well as in China, American bioethics and Chinese medical ethics have been seen, respectively, as individualistic and communitarian. In this widely-accepted general comparison, the great variation in the two medical moralities, especially the diversity of Chinese experiences, has been unfortunately minimized, if not totally ignored. Neither American bioethics (...) nor Chinese medical ethics is a field with only one dominant way of thinking. Medical moralities in America and China--traditional and modern--have always been plural and diverse. For example, American and Chinese cultures and medical moralities both exhibit individualistic and communitarian traditions. For this reason, bioethics in general and cross-cultural bioethics in particular must be fundamentally interpretive. Interpretive cross-cultural bioethics appreciates the plurality of medical morality within any culture. It can serve as a vital means of social and cultural criticism through engaged interpretations. (shrink)

In Western and non-Western societies, it is a widely held belief that the concept of human rights is, by and large, a Western cultural norm, often at odds with non-Western cultures and, therefore, not applicable in non-Western societies. The Universal Draft Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights reflects this deep-rooted and popular assumption. By using Chinese culture(s) as an illustration, this article points out the problems of this widespread misconception and stereotypical view of cultures and human rights. It highlights the (...) often ignored positive elements in Chinese cultures that promote and embody universal human values such as human dignity and human rights. It concludes, accordingly, with concrete suggestions on how to modify the Declaration. (shrink)

“Deathbots,” digital constructs that emulate the conversational patterns, demeanor, and knowledge of deceased individuals. Earlier moral discussions about deathbots centered on the dignity and autonomy of the deceased. This paper primarily examines the potential psychological and emotional dependencies that users might develop towards deathbots, considering approaches to prevent problematic dependence through temporary use. We adopt a hermeneutic method to argue that deathbots, as they currently exist, are unlikely to provide substantial comfort. Lacking the capacity to bear emotional burdens, they fall (...) short of meeting idealistic expectations. By repositioning deathbots, we aim to mitigate the risk of emotional dependency and respect the natural grieving process. Our goal is to propose the use of deathbots as a novel means of mourning through transitory use, rather than as a method to alleviate grief or as a patterns for communication with the deceased. (shrink)

Emotion recognition plays an important part in human-computer interaction. Currently, the main challenge in electroencephalogram -based emotion recognition is the non-stationarity of EEG signals, which causes performance of the trained model decreasing over time. In this paper, we propose a two-level domain adaptation neural network to construct a transfer model for EEG-based emotion recognition. Specifically, deep features from the topological graph, which preserve topological information from EEG signals, are extracted using a deep neural network. These features are then passed through (...) TDANN for two-level domain confusion. The first level uses the maximum mean discrepancy to reduce the distribution discrepancy of deep features between source domain and target domain, and the second uses the domain adversarial neural network to force the deep features closer to their corresponding class centers. We evaluated the domain-transfer performance of the model on both our self-built data set and the public data set SEED. In the cross-day transfer experiment, the ability to accurately discriminate joy from other emotions was high: sadness, anger, and fear on the self-built data set. The accuracy reached 74.93% on the SEED data set. In the cross-subject transfer experiment, the ability to accurately discriminate joy from other emotions was equally high: sadness, anger, and fear on the self-built data set. The average accuracy reached 87.9% on the SEED data set, which was higher than WGAN-DA. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed TDANN can effectively handle the domain transfer problem in EEG-based emotion recognition. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the promise and pitfalls of medium as environment by tracking the twin developments of environmental thinking and set design in China, considering it as a problematic of epistemology, technology, and aesthetics. I treat huanjing (environment) as a neologism, a new episteme, a dispositif, and a mode of power, taking set design as the companion medium that reconnects art and technology, aesthetics and politics. Reconceptualizing set, design, and environment at the intersection of industrial design and progressive (...) education, I focus on modernist and propagandistic practice of set design in China in the 1930s and ’40s, moving from set design in film and theater to the design and practice of human/environment that constitutes the landscape of the social. How these aesthetic and technical experiments rework the social will help us reconfigure the human in the reassemblage of our medium/environment complex. (shrink)