Emotional intelligence (EI) has been put forward as a distinctive kind of intelligence and, by popularizers such as Daniel Goleman, as an indicator of moral and life skills. Critics, however, have been concerned EI-testing measures conformity or the ability to manipulate own or others' emotions, and relies on a problematic assumption that there are definitive, universal “right” answers when it comes to feelings. Such worries have also been raised about the original concept developed by Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer; (...) that version is the focus here. While it improves on the largely unreflective reliance on particular belief- and value-systems in Goleman's account, however, it does not entirely succeed in being context- and value-neutral. A useful way forward is to apply Ronald de Sousa's notion that emotions are shaped by ideology: this in turn affects attempts to measure any putative “intelligence” with respect to them. Once the ideological dimension is bracketed, a clearer picture of both the usefulness and the limitations of the EI-concept can emerge—and also a better sense of its possible contributions to value theory and moral psychology. The ideological dimension itself may also be unavoidable; squarely facing this possibility is preferable to ignoring it. (shrink)

To begin with -- Genealogy of the cerebral subject -- Disciplines of the neuro -- Cerebralizing distress -- Brains on screen and paper -- Up for grabs.

Fernando Coni Campos é considerado um dos maiores roteiristas da nossa cinematografia, autor de filmes importantes como 'A Viagem Ao Fim do Mundo', 'Ladrões de Cinema' e 'O Mágico e o Delegado'. 'Cinema - Sonho e Lucidez' é uma reunião da reflexão sobre cinema do cineasta, morto em 1988, acrescida de alguns contos que mostram todo o seu domínio em contar histórias.

Nada hay más confortable para el hombre, ni más peligroso, que las certezas. Nuestra mejor defensa es la filosofía, que consiste engran medida en el arte de cuestionarlas, de atreverse a pensar, de interpelar las verdades establecidas y ver qué esconden. En estepaseo por la historia de la filosofía, Fernando Savater nos presenta a los grandes personajes que con sus preguntas, y en ocasiones con sus respuestas, han marcado el pensamiento occidental. Platón, Aristóteles, Hobbes, Tomás de Aquino, Nietzsche, Marx, (...) Ortega, Wittgenstein y hasta dieciocho filósofos más desfilan por estas páginas de la mano de Savater, que con su habitual estilo lúcido, ameno e inteligente explica sus ideas más importantes y resume sus trayectorias. Un canto al irrenunciable ejercicio de la libertad intelectual, este libro es en realidad una invitación a huir de los tópicos y a compartir con los grandes filósofos la maravillosa aventura de pensar. (shrink)

This work offers an analysis of all the legal and moral issues surrounding humanitarian intervention: the deaths of innocent persons and the Doctrine of Double Effect Governmental legitimacy - The Doctrine of Effective Political Control; UN Charter and evaluation of the Nicaragua ruling; The Morality of not intervening; US-led invasion of Iraq; Humanitarian intervention authorised by the UN Security Council - Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, and Bosnia among others highlight NATO's intervention in Kosovo; The Nicaragua Decision; and The precedents of (...) Panama, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The book's features include: a new framework based on the doctrine of double effect; basic principles of international ethics; outline of the moral argument for humanitarian intervention; explores the morality and legality of military action to end tyranny or anarchy; arguments in a much more detailed and complete fashion than in previous editions; in-depth examination of philosophy of international law; the relationship between custom and moral theory; new discussion of the question of right authority; and a full analysis of recent interventions in Kosovo and Iraq. book addresses a broad interdisciplinary audience of international lawyers, philosophers, and political scientists. In this new edition, the author responds to critics while updating the discussion in the light of the momentous events that took place at the beginning of the new millennium. (shrink)

Why should sovereign states obey international law? What compels them to owe allegiance to a higher set of rules when each country is its own law of the land? What is the basis of their obligations to each other? Conventional wisdom suggests that countries are too different from one another culturally to follow laws out of mere loyalty to each other or a set of shared moral values. Surely, the prevailing view holds, countries act simply out of self-interest, and they (...) eventually consent to norms of international law to regulate matters of common interest.In this groundbreaking book, Fernando Tesón goes against this prevailing thought by arguing, in the Kantian tradition, that a shared respect for individual human rights underpins not just the obligation countries feel to follow international law but also international laws themselves and even the very legitimacy of nations in the eyes of the international community. Tesón, both a lawyer and a philosopher, proposes that an overlapping respect for human rights has created a moral common ground among the countries of the world; and moreover, that such an outlook is the only one that is rationally defensible. It is this common set of values rather than self-interest that ultimately provides legitimacy to international law. Using the tools of moral philosophy, Tesón analyzes the concepts of sovereignty, intervention, and national interest; the contributions of social contact theory, game theory, and feminist theory; and the puzzles of self-determination and group rights.More than simply outlining his theory, Tesón goes on to give detailed examples of international laws, international institutions, and their human rights foundations, putting his ideas to work and addressing legal reforms called for by the theory. He suggests that treaties, for example, should be considered binding if, and only if, the consent to the treaty was given by a genuinely representative government, one that acts out of interest for the human rights of its citizens. Although the theoretical achievement of this book is to challenge received wisdom on the foundation of international law, the practical ambition is a call to reform the international legal system for the post–Cold War era, to substitute for the old order one that gives primacy to human dignity and freedom over state power. (shrink)

Originally conceptualised as a set of capacities for understanding and managing emotions, emotional intelligence (EI) has become associated, mainly due to the work of Daniel Goleman, with life success skills, prosocial attitudes and moral and civic virtues. But EI, which may not in itself be teachable, need not lead to these outcomes, which may not necessarily converge. Also, what counts as life success, prosocial attitudes and moral and civic virtues can only be determined, if at all, by facing the value (...) questions involved as value questions, not by conflating them with applied science. (shrink)

Recent philosophical work on responsibility for emotion has tended to focus on what responsibility we can have for our own emotions. Folk psychology suggests we can also be responsible for others’ emotions, and they for ours, and that this can be reason for praise or blame. However, many branches of applied psychology, and some schools of philosophy, deny there can be interpersonal responsibility for emotion. I shall be arguing here against this view, and for an account on which we can, (...) albeit in varying degrees and on some rather diverse grounds, be responsible for each others’ emotions. (shrink)

Claims that emotions are or can be rational, and crucially enabling of rationality, are now fairly common, also outside of philosophy, but with considerable diversity both in their assumptions about emotions and their conceptions of rationality. Three main trends are worth picking out, both in themselves and for the potential tensions between them: accounts that defend a case for the rationality of emotions A) by assimilating emotions closely to beliefs or judgements; B) in terms of the very features that traditional (...) views of emotions as irrational/a-rational emphasized; C) by arguing that emotions exhibit a more sui generis kind of rationality, often one based on a narrative or dramaturgic “inner logic”. (shrink)

This thesis aims to elucidate an apparent paradox about the role of emotion in moral agency. A number of lines of concern suggest emotion may have serious negative impact on moral agency. On the other hand, there are considerations that suggest emotion also plays a crucial role in motivating, informing and even constituting moral agency. Significantly, there is a strong connection between participant reactive attitudes and ascription of moral status as agent or subject. Nonemotional agents could not hold such attitudes. (...) Also, removing participant reactive attitudes imposes a peculiar and incoherent form of solipsism about moral agency. Given this necessary role for emotion, can we give an account of emotion that will also meet the worries? I examine, as crucial examples, three recurrent lines of concern about emotion - that it threatens our capacities for objectivity, rationality, and autonomy - to tease out the descriptive assumptions about emotion, and the normative assumptions about moral agency, that these objections are based on. I then offer three lines of argument towards resolving these worries. The first addresses the worries directly, and the other two shift blame off emotion. First, then, I argue that the normative concerns can largely be met by a descriptive account that views emotion as cognitive. However, “judgementalist” cognitive accounts that assimilate emotion to belief may make emotion metaethically respectable at the cost of making it meta-ethically redundant. Also, such accounts are descriptively less than plausible. A better approach, I argue, is to allow that belief may play a significant role in emotion but to also allow at least a quasicognitive role to the distinctively affective element in emotion: feeling. I also argue for a hrther revision of cognitive accounts to emphasise that emotions reflect features of those who feel them. If we were different, our emotions would be different. So, secondly, I argue that a number of the features that power worries about emotions have their sources in what those who feel them are like, rather than in emotions as such. However, both human nature and emotion are capable of significant plasticity and diversity. We are also capable of a considerable - but not infinite - degree of self-determination both about what we are like and what our emotions are like. Finally, I argue that the normative assumptions that power the objections to emotion are themselves in need of revision - and in some tension with each other. This leads to a McGufin-theory of emotion in moral agency: Problems with emotion’s place in moral agency serve as indicators of unresolved tensions in our thinking about moral agency, rather than just indicators of problems with emotion as such. In view of this, I also argue for caution in any attempts to change emotion to fit particular ideals of moral agency. (shrink)

Utilitarianism has frequently been criticized for lacking psychological realism, but what this means and why it is thought to matter varies. This article distinguishes and examines three main relevant kinds of appeals to psychological realism: (a) A minimalist, self-avowedly metaethically neutral and empirically based ‘ought implies can’ approach, exemplified by Owen Flanagan. (b) Arguments from psychological costs and flourishing, exemplified by Michael Stocker and Bernard Williams. (c) ‘Thick’ psychological realism, exemplified by Elizabeth Anscombe, where a conception of human nature does (...) not simply provide constraints on value theory, but forms the substantive basis on which it builds. The main challenge raised for utilitarianism turns out to be metaethical, not a matter of empirical psychology. The question is not so much whether utilitarianism can accommodate (putative) descriptive facts of human psychology as such, but what normative weight these facts should be given and why. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] Copyright of Utilitas is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to alls.). (shrink)

The study aimed to comprehensively overview the experiences encountered by public school employees during the recruitment, selection, and placement (RSP) process within the DepEd Bohol Division. Employing a qualitative-descriptive research design, the researchers utilized a phenomenological approach to delve deeply into these experiences, shedding light on the nuances and intricacies of the division's RSP process. As Lambert et al. (2013) described, qualitative- descriptive studies aim to provide a comprehensive and detailed summary of specific events experienced by individuals or groups in (...) everyday terms. To achieve this, Colaizzi's (1978) data analysis method was applied, meticulously gathering, transcribing, and analyzing recorded participant responses. The rigorous analysis revealed that an overwhelming 81% of the participants recognized significant challenges within the current RSP system of the division, underscoring the pressing need for a renewed approach to address these identified challenges. This highlighted the necessity for an RSP policy that is responsive and innovative, tailored to meet the evolving needs and expectations of applicants, schools, and the division. By implementing improvements to the RSP process, a more efficient and timely filling of vacated and newly available positions is anticipated, contributing to the seamless functioning of the educational system and ultimately enhancing the prospects of success. (shrink)

This electronic document serves as a guide on how to get a LAMP stack running on a Google Compute Engine virtual machine instance running Debian.

We present an experiment designed to investigate three different mechanisms to achieve impartiality in distributive justice. We consider a first-person procedure, inspired by the Rawlsian veil of ignorance, and two third-party procedures, an involved spectator and a detached observer. First-person veiled stakeholders and involved spectators are affected by an initially unfair distribution that, in the stakeholders’ case, is to be redressed. We find substantial differences in the redressing task. Detached observers propose significantly fairer redistributions than veiled stakeholders or involved spectators. (...) Risk preferences partly explain why veiled stakeholders propose less egalitarian redistributions. Surprisingly, involved spectators, who are informed about their position in society, tend to favour stakeholders holding the same position as they do after the initial distribution. (shrink)

The war in Iraq has reignited the passionate humanitarian intervention debate. President George W. Bush surprised many observers in his second inaugural address when he promised to oppose tyranny and oppression, and this in a world not always willing or ready to join in that fight. Humanitarian intervention is again on the forefront of world politics.

The article deals with the chances of illustration of Mohammed: is it forbidden to depict Mohammed in the Islam? What the history or the religion say about it? The following sentences try to get a brief but deep approaching to that issue, underlying the importance that just a few time ago when several problems related to misunderstanding and hatred set the Muslim world in front of the Western people as violent in a behavior that no one could share. Through the (...) article we will see the lack of respect there was in some images that were published provoking all kind of reactions in the world. (shrink)

El autor expone las dimensiones y circunstancias de una investigación cualitativa realizada en un prestigioso instituto de docentes en Uruguay. Indagando en los rituales de interacción aplicados en el ámbito educativo, se observan los modelos de relación, la construcción de la identidad de docente y demás elementos propios de la institución educativa. En ese contexto, se identifican distintos contextos y situaciones cotidianas que reproducen procesos sociales en los que la finalidad está clara: la enseñanza y el aprendizaje.

The emigration is an arduous and complex process that includes practically all the aspects of the life of a human being. One is a sociological phenomenon: the challenging of the emigrant, the decision making, the election of the destination place, and so on; they are determined by the social issue, by the family, the friends and social networks. Normally the studies on the subject are of a quantitative type, as a matter of fact, the topic has a so deep meaning (...) and it affects so much the human being and its surroundings that seemed essential to me a qualitative approach to respond to the question: what desires, anxieties, fears and frustrations move the people to leave their homes and get themselves to a distant and practically unknown country? (shrink)

This research tackled the challenges public secondary schools in Sagbayan District, Bohol, faced regarding records management. The study employed a mixed research design, combining both descriptive-qualitative and descriptive- quantitative methods. The qualitative phase involved conducting in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with relevant stakeholders involved in records management. On the other hand, the quantitative phase utilized survey questionnaires to gather data from relevant stakeholders to determine the acceptability of the proposed MIS among end-users. The first phase findings revealed various challenges (...) in records management faced by the schools, such as inefficient manual record-keeping systems, difficulties in data retrieval, and the risk of data loss due to inadequate backup procedures. These challenges highlighted the need for a comprehensive, technology-driven solution to streamline records management processes and ensure data security. The evaluation results in the second phase showed that the developed Management Information System (MIS) was well-accepted among the end users. The absence of any significant difference in the level of acceptability among the participants further validated the system's suitability for addressing their specific needs. The successful implementation of the MIS proved to be an effective solution to the records management challenges faced by the public secondary schools in Sagbayan District, Bohol. (shrink)

Abstract The article addresses three aspects of the humanitarian intervention doctrine. It argues, first, that the value of sovereignty rests on the justified social processes of the target state ? the horizontal contract. Foreign interventions, even when otherwise justified, must respect the horizontal contract. In contrast, morally objectionable social processes (such as the subjection of women) are not protected by sovereignty (intervention, of course, may be banned for other reasons). In addition, tyrants have no moral protection against interventions directed at (...) them. Second, the article addresses the internal legitimacy of humanitarian intervention. It concludes that the liberal state may only use voluntary soldiers (either the voluntary army or mercenaries) to conduct humanitarian intervention. Conscription for that purpose is not permissible. The article shows that the long-standing criticism of mercenaries stems from a romantic prejudice and is thus unfair. Third, the article makes a distinction between intention (the determination to perform an action) and motive (a further goal that the agent seeks with that action) and shows that only intention is relevant for humanitarian intervention. A justified humanitarian intervention requires the intention to liberate the victims, but not necessarily a good further motive. It shows how mainstream doctrine has impermissibly confused the two concepts. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende señalar aquellos puntos de la Fenomenología del espíritu en los que Hegel transforma el concepto moderno de identidad y lo abre al tiempo, al proceso y al desarrollo, dando paso a la identificación como nuevo fundamento del fenómeno identitario. Se ha señalado muchas veces que, por el hecho mencionado, Hegel está en la base de Freud, pero pocas veces se ha hecho una lectura cercana de ciertos pasajes y términos de la Fenomenología como formulaciones del fenómeno de (...) la identificación. La identificación aparece así, entre otras cosas, como un dejar atrás el sujeto protegido de la modernidad y un tomar la diferencia, la otridad, como el único camino para que el sí-mismo avance. (shrink)

En el terreno de la moral, el contraste entre lo ¿que el filósofo Wilfrid Sellars denominó «la ¿imagen manifiesta» y la «imagen científica» es enorme y tiene unas consecuencias prácticas ineludibles. Este libro reduce la distancia entre esa imagen manifiesta y la imagen científica, dotando al lector de referencias fundamentales, enfoques diversos y un amplio abanico de temáticas a partir de investigaciones experimentales sobre nuestra conducta moral.

Both questions as abstract objects and the speech acts, here called requests, by which we ask them play an enormous role in all argumentative practices. Nonetheless, there is hardly a proper systematic treatment of questions and requests in current argumentation theories. This paper is a first attempt at providing such a systematic treatment. This is achieved by following the ideal model of a critical discussion as elaborated over the years by the Amsterdam school of pragma-dialectics. After introducing the distinction between (...) questions and requests, the paper sets forth and illustrates the norms of questioning which implicitly underlie the four stages of a critical discussion in the standard order: confrontation, opening, argumentation, and conclusion. Among other things, it is shown that crucial insights of pragma-dialectics are illuminated by the questioning perspective, in particular the distinction between single and multiple differences of opinion, the duties of the antagonist and protagonist roles, the precise character of the argumentation stage, and the different ways in which a disagreement can be resolved. (shrink)

In this article, I seek to present some examples of the philosophy of myth in Japan during the early Shōwa era (1926–1945), especially in works by Tanabe Hajime, Kihira Tadayoshi, Isobe Tadamasa, Kōsaka Masaaki and Miki Kiyoshi. While the concept of myth is closely linked to the question of nationality, I intend to show that the philosophical concept of myth is also related to a fundamental ambiguity that prevents an absolutisation of myth and offers specific conceptual tools for a critique (...) of nationality. (shrink)

This article introduces the little-studied figure of Saigusa Hiroto, a twentieth century Marxist philosopher who reconstructed the history of technical thought in Japan. The article focuses on Saigusa’s thought between 1939 and 1942, contextualizes his thinking in relation to the technology controversy of the 1930s and presents his critique of the dualism between spiritual and technological culture. Saigusa defines technology as a “means as a process” and not a skill or system of things. The author argues that Saigusa’s notion of (...) “means as a process” dislocates the idea of Western technology as superior to Eastern technology, paving the way for current debates in the field of post-European philosophies of technology. (shrink)

The book explores Peirce's non standard thoughts on a synthetic continuum, topological logics, existential graphs, and relational semiotics, offering full mathematical developments on these areas. More precisely, the following new advances are offered: (1) two extensions of Peirce's existential graphs, to intuitionistic logics (a new symbol for implication), and other non-classical logics (new actions on nonplanar surfaces); (2) a complete formalization of Peirce's continuum, capturing all Peirce's original demands (genericity, supermultitudeness, reflexivity, modality), thanks to an inverse ordinally iterated sheaf of (...) real lines; (3) an array of subformalizations and proofs of Peirce's pragmaticist maxim, through methods in category theory, HoTT techniques, and modal logics. The book will be relevant to Peirce scholars, mathematicians, and philosophers alike, thanks to thorough assessments of Peirce's mathematical heritage, compact surveys of the literature, and new perspectives offered through formal and modern mathematizations of the topics studied. (shrink)

Research Articles Fernando R. Tesón, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.

I propose to consider the interpersonal character of testimony as a kind of social bond created by the mutual intention of sharing knowledge. The paper explores the social mechanism that supports this mutual intention starting from an initial situation of modelling the other’s epistemic perspective. Accepting testimony as a joint action creates epistemic duties and responsibilities and the eventual success can be considered as a genuine achievement at the social level of epistemology. Trust is presented here as the symptom that (...) both parties are involved in such a social bond. (shrink)

If personhood is the quality or condition of being an individual person, brainhood could name the quality or condition of being a brain. This ontological quality would define the `cerebral subject' that has, at least in industrialized and highly medicalized societies, gained numerous social inscriptions since the mid-20th century. This article explores the historical development of brainhood. It suggests that the brain is necessarily the location of the `modern self', and that, consequently, the cerebral subject is the anthropological figure inherent (...) to modernity (at least insofar as modernity gives supreme value to the individual as autonomous agent of choice and initiative). It further argues that the ideology of brainhood impelled neuroscientific investigation much more than it resulted from it, and sketches how an expanding constellation of neurocultural discourses and practices embodies and sustains that ideology. (shrink)

Este artículo busca reconstruir en lo que consideramos sus tres momentos principales el ideal renacentista y moderno de una República literaria. Conforme a esos momentos, el trabajo se divide en tres secciones. La primera estará dedicada a la República literaria tal como la concibieron los humanistas del Renacimiento y la temprana Modernidad. La segunda, buscará comprender el peso que tuvieron los periódicos literarios en la transformación de aquella República. En la tercera, finalmente, trataremos de reconstruir la República literaria en la (...) España de mediados del siglo XVIII, la España del Padre Feijoo, quien asume buena parte del pasado erudito europeo buscando recrearlo en la medida de lo posible conforme a las circunstancias locales. (shrink)

Teson critiques a recent article by John Rawls in which Rawls extends his acclaimed political theory to include international relations.

O presente artigo conta investigar o processo de constituição da estética musical a partir da teoria da arte elaborada por F. W. J. von Schelling. Para tanto, espera-se mostrar a maneira pela qual o filósofo alemão procura redimensionar as bases que davam sustentação à chamada estética sistemática para, a partir de uma ponderação extremamente inovadora, caracterizar a música como um objeto original de saber.

Western philosophers have made significant contributions to the establishment of government around the world. Philosophers like Plato, Locke, Hobbes, and Machiavelli dramatically influenced the government system not just in foreign countries but also in the Philippines. Hence, this seminar paper explored the political notions of four Western philosophers and positioned them in Duterte’s six years of presidency. In pursuit of this study, the researcher employed a systematic literature review. A systematic review process is used to collect articles, and then a (...) qualitative approach is used to assess them. The researcher came up with four major themes in this study particularly (1) Duterte is a Dictator, not a Philosopher-King, (2) Violators of natural rights, (3) the Sea-monster of Davao, and lastly (4) Love, fear, cruelty, and Duterte. Thus, the researcher concurred that all of the philosophical ideas of the four Western philosophers did not fit or even violated during Duterte’s six years of presidency in the Philippines. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Miki’s concept of myth offers a continuation and consolidation of his Philosophy of History, providing an important conceptual tool to comprehend his philosophica...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Tetsugaku Companion to Nishida Kitarō ed. by Matsumaru Hisao, Arisaka Yoko, and Lucy Christine SchultzFernando Wirtz (bio)Tetsugaku Companion to Nishida Kitarō. Edited by Matsumaru Hisao, Arisaka Yoko, and Lucy Christine Schultz. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2022. Pp. v + 240. Hardcover $109.99, isbn 978–3-319417-83-7.This collection of essays has several virtues. First, although Nishida is one of the most widely translated Japanese philosophers into English, this is the first collection (...) of interpretative essays that attempts to cover the different aspects and stages of his work in a comprehensive manner.Second, this collection gives voice to several Japanese scholars who have long been working on Nishida's philosophy, but who are nevertheless little known outside Japan. Of course, as the editors explain in the introduction, the book intentionally seeks to incorporate perspectives that may dislocate the reader given the "fact that academic authors in countries other than the English-speaking Anglo-American regions write differently to express their ideas" (p. vii). This is a significant gesture, since Japanese philosophy has from its very beginnings been wracked by the problem of translation and counter-translation. It is an act of courage for the book to acknowledge that there are different "forms of expression" that, even if they may confuse the Anglo-American reader, serve to broaden the reader's philosophical sensibility (p. xiii–xiv).Third, rather than each chapter limiting itself to expounding Nishida's thought in a general way, each in turn problematizes specific aspects of the philosopher's work, connecting it with other authors and problems.As the editors explain, the book has a bipartite structure. In the first part, several contributors explore "seven principal concepts" that are intended to reflect Nishida's perception of his own system, while in the second part, contributors investigate the place of Nishida's thought in the global history of philosophy, drawing connections between Nishida's thought and other fields such as religion, science, and art. In addition, the relevance of his thought to both the present and the future is discussed. The book includes an appendix with a chronology of Nishida's life and work and also a glossary of fundamental concepts.In Chapter 1, Nakajima Yuta explores the concept of "pure experience," highlighting its importance in Nishida's later philosophy and its relation to the self-developing structure of consciousness. In particular, Nakajima analyzes the influence of Wilhelm Wundt's Outlines of Psychology in the work An Inquiry into [End Page 1] the Good. In that sense, this article provides the historical context in which Nishida developed his ideas in contrast to the psychologist. As the author points out: "The main point of criticism is that Nishida regards the foundational elements in Wundtian psychology as mere virtual abstractions of the primordial systematic unity of experience" (p. 7). This last statement leads to the recognition that any linguistic limitation of this primordial unity becomes an abstraction, since pure experience is the framework of the meaningful, where all meanings are dynamically generated and superimposed (p. 10).Itabashi Yūjin, in Chapter 2, establishes the transition from pure experience to "absolute free will" in the work, Intuition and Reflection in Self-Awareness, by comparing Nishida's text with the philosophies of Cohen and Schopenhauer. To understand this transition, we must not lose sight, as the author says, that when the self reflects itself in itself, it is self-producing and self-determining. This self-determination is not purely intellectual, but a total activity in which "thinking and sensation are one" (p. 20). Thus, the will is absolute because there is nothing prior to the self-productive activity of the will. For this reason, it is precisely in religious experience that "authentic life" (p. 22) emerges from the negation of the subjective self, that is, from the fiction of a foundation of absolute will.The person responsible for presenting the concept of "self-awareness" is Okada Katsuaki. In Chapter 3, Okada takes as a starting point the "subjectless" (p. 28) character of the Japanese language in order to explain the paradoxical possibility of experience experiencing itself. (p. 30). The self-awareness of the activity of the previous chapters becomes... (shrink)