Regional planning has been regarded as a design activity. Usually planners focus on physical design rather than on societal issues. Nowadays, mass communication, environmental issues and social awareness lead to often complex and conflicting needs and interests of the public in regional planning. This paper focuses on the regional planning as a group problem solving process from the view of information processing. It offers an analysis of the causes of conflicts in the group decision process, and defines the characteristics of (...) group decision process support systems. (shrink)

In the era of natural law, the foundation of the law was grounded upon something beyond the law itself, i.e., external factors such as a higher authority, nature, or even the reason and ontological essence of man. According to this reasoning, man has in effect been clandestinely elevated to an equal plain with God and operates in the external realm, essentially observing the world „from outside“. Thus, any attempt to provide a basis for legal decisions by such external factors depends (...) on an „observer„ who assumes a privileged position with respect to the law and its ground. Lawyers continue to maintain this position of interpreting the positive law by seeking the ground of the law outside of itself, i.e., the external factors such as the „source of laws“, the „intention of the author“, and the “fundamental norm“, for example. While simultaneously claiming to be under the rule of law, they paradoxically take the position of an external „observer“ who perceives the law “from outside”. This position leads us to aporia, or an insoluble contradiction, regarding external grounds. This paper proposes a means by which to emerge from the above aporia. Using the theory of social systems as its basis, the legal system is viewed as a closed system and „the ground of the law“ is by no means derived from external factors; rather, it can be stated only through an internal operation within the closed system itself. (shrink)

This volume concludes the two-volume sequel to Masao Abe's Zen and Western Thought. Like its companion, Buddhism and Interfaith Dialogue, this work contains many previously published essays and papers by Abe. Here he clarifies the true meaning of Buddhist emptiness in comparison with the Aristotelian notion of substance and the Whiteheadean notion of process.

Wenn auch das Postulat vollständiger Autarkie in der Gegenwart an Bedeutung verloren hat, so ist doch die Forderung nach einer begrenzten Autarkie der Staaten wenigstens in bestimmten Wirtschaftsbereichen grundsätzlich unentbehrlich für ihr friedliches Nebeneinanderbestehen. Das damit angesprochene Problem läßt sich am negativ zu bewertenden Beispiel Japans sehr deutlich aufzeigen, einem Land, das einerseits seinen ungewöhnlichen Reichtum der Ausbeutung anderer nicht industrieller Staaten verdankt, das andererseits jedoch im Bereich der Agrarwirtschaft vom Ausland abhängig ist. In einer solchen unbalancierten wechselseitigen Abhängigkeit liegen (...) prinzipielle Gefahren für eine friedliche Koexistenz. (shrink)

1 Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: Its Significance and Future Task1 The contemporary world is rapidly shrinking due to the remarkable advancement of science ...

Written by one of Japan's foremost contemporary thinkers and scholars, Zen and Modern Society is the third in a series of essay collections on Zen Buddhism as seen in the context of Western thought. Throughout his career, Masao Abe has articulated the meaning of Zen thought in a uniquely compelling way - at once, true to the original tradition and appropriately relevant to a variety of comparative standpoints, ranging from Biblical Judeo-Christianity to modern existentialism, phenomenology, and postmodernism. As a (...) leading representative of the Kyoto School, which has sought a critical, comparative linking of Eastern and Western thought, Abe has based his approach on constructive, mutually respectful yet critical intellectual interaction and dialogue with some of the leading figures in the West (including Paul Tillich, Hans Kung, and Eugene Borowitz) as well as dozens of colleagues, students, and disciples. Together with the previous volumes, this work examines and exemplifies some key features of Kyoto School thought. While the essays presented here should be read in light of the socio-political criticism that has since been lodged against the Kyoto School and, more particularly, i. (shrink)

サンデルや現代コミュニタリアンは、なぜ今、古代からの西洋政治思想「共通善」を改めて説くのか。新たな実践哲学が、ここから始まる。.