Decision-making adhering to the “principle of autonomy" takes place within the wider context of decision-making processes in modern society. Within the medical area, as regards the decision through informed consent, the patient's intention assumes vital importance. The principle of autonomy is derived from the modern thought that the essence of human being is the reason. It becomes difficult, however, to rely on decision-making based on the principle of autonomy when a person’s intention is not clear and the opinions of those (...) who are involved differ from each other. Here, I think that the principle of consensus, which seeks the agreement of those who are concerned, becomes as important as the principle of autonomy. This paper examines the problems of certainty, reliability, andcreativity of medical action through the consideration of the principle of consensus. (shrink)

This edited volume offers ten new essays on semantics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of linguistics by top scholars in the field. Covering a wide range of topics, the collection is sure to be of interest to scholars in those areas as well as some philosophers of mind. Because of the diversity of topics and perspectives inherent in the collection, readers will find both exposition and debate among the contributors.

We report two experiments that investigated the widely held assumption that speakers use the addressee’s discourse model when choosing referring expressions (e.g., Ariel, 1990; Chafe, 1994; Givón, 1983; Prince, 1985), by manipulating whether the addressee could hear the immediately preceding linguistic context. Experiment 1 showed that speakers increased pronoun use (and decreased noun phrase use) when the referent was mentioned in the immediately preceding sentence compared to when it was not, even though the addressee did not hear the preceding sentence, (...) indicating that speakers used their own, privileged discourse model when choosing referring expressions. The same pattern of results was found in Experiment 2. Speakers produced more pronouns when the immediately preceding sentence mentioned the referent than when it mentioned a referential competitor, regardless of whether the sentence was shared with their addressee. Thus, we conclude that choice of referring expression is determined by the referent’s accessibility in the speaker’s own discourse model rather than the addressee’s. (shrink)

The role of “craft language” in the process of teaching (learning) “Waza” (skill) will be discussed from the perspective of human intelligence.It may be said that the ultimate goal of learning “Waza” in any Japanese traditional performance is not the perfect reproduction of the teaching (learning) process of “Waza”. In fact, a special metaphorical language (“craft language”) is used, which has the effect of encouraging the learner to activate his creative imagination. It is through this activity that the he learns (...) his own “habitus” (“Kata”).It is suggested that, in considering the difference of function between natural human intelligence and artificial intelligence, attention should be paid to the imaginative activity of the learner as being an essential factor for mastering “Kata”. (shrink)

Evidence suggests that speakers can take account of the addressee's needs when referring. However, what representations drive the speaker's audience design has been less clear. This study aims to go beyond previous studies by investigating the interplay between the visual and linguistic context during audience design. Speakers repeated subordinate descriptions given in the prior linguistic context less and used basic-level descriptions more when the addressee did not hear the linguistic context than when s/he did. But crucially, this effect happened only (...) when the referent lacked the visual attributes associated with the expressions, so there was no other contextual cue available for the identification of the referent. This suggests that speakers flexibly use different contextual cues to help their addressee map the referring expression onto the intended referent. In addition, speakers used fewer pronouns when the addressee did not hear the linguistic antecedent than when s/he did. This suggests that although speakers may be egocentric during anaphoric reference, they can cooperatively avoid pronouns when the linguistic antecedents were not shared with their addressee during initial reference. (shrink)

Sociologists have argued that marriage today is based on individual desires, democratic contracts, and self-development. However, feminist scholars have criticized such a view of modern marriage, arguing that it obscures persistent inequality and social restrictions in marriage. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 26 highly educated Japanese women, this article argues that persistent gender inequalities shape women's decisions to postpone marriage in Japan. The article analyzes the emotional ambivalence and contradictions in women's decisions to postpone marriage. The women discussed here have (...) intentionally or unintentionally distanced themselves from marriage in general, which they view as inhibiting autonomy, marriage with a sexist man, marriage with a man who has rejected them, and marriage with a man who has less income and/or education than they do. (shrink)

This article examines the concept of void with the question of whether the concept forms a sign. A void in this article is defined as a spatio-temporal empty space existing in a representation. The aim of the analysis is to consider the hidden nature of signs, which cannot be highlighted only through an analysis of typical signs within social convention. As a semiotic tool to conduct the discussion, the notion of a zero sign of Lévi-Strauss is introduced. The article considers (...) all possible zeros that can exist within the Saussurian sign model and introduces three cases: an omitted sign, an ambiguous signified, and an ambiguous sign. After examining the features of each kind, the concept of void is considered in these terms, with the conclusion that it belongs to the ambiguous sign case. Analysis of void with respect to the zero sign highlights the nature of signs as being reflexive, holistic and speculative. Because the signifier is barely delimited, it influences the surrounding sign systems, including the one existing at the meta-level. An ambiguous sign is deemed to allow for concept sharing among people even when the signifier and the signified remain ambiguous. (shrink)

This article argues how one problem of computing lies in realizing a significant instance given a class or type. Analysis of a case study on digital narrative suggests two general processes for instantiating significant instances: interaction and optimization. The article then explains how the problem of universals needs to be deconstructed when trying to understand what type of entities significant instances are and what the process for obtaining them is.

Long-range correlation, a property of time series exhibiting long-term memory, is mainly studied in the statistical physics domain and has been reported to exist in natural language. Using a state-of-the-art method for such analysis, long-range correlation is first shown to occur in long CHILDES data sets. To understand why, Bayesian generative models of language, originally proposed in the cognitive scientific domain, are investigated. Among representative models, the Simon model was found to exhibit surprisingly good long-range correlation, but {\em not} the (...) Pitman-Yor model. Since the Simon model is known not to correctly reflect the vocabulary growth of natural language, a simple new model is devised as a conjunct of the Simon and Pitman-Yor models, such that long-range correlation holds with a correct vocabulary growth rate. The investigation overall suggests that uniform sampling is one cause of long-range correlation and could thus have a relation with actual linguistic processes. (shrink)

日本人はグローバル化の潮流といかに向き合うべきなのか―そのヒントは「国学」にあった。先人たちが葛藤した問いのなかを私たちはいまも生きている。.