近代仏教の確立者と称される清沢満之の思想を解明するだけでなく、その思想が夏目漱石、正岡子規などをはじめとする同時代の人々や、後世の社会に与えた影響にも着目することで、今後の清沢研究にまったく新しい視座 を提供する刺激的な入門書!

Anime is exploding on the worldwide stage! Anime has been a staple in Japan for decades, strongly connected to manga. So why has anime become a worldwide sensation? A cursory explanation is the explosion of online streaming services specializing in anime, like Funimation and Crunchyroll. Even more general streaming services like Netflix and Amazon have gotten in on the game. Anime is exotic to Western eyes and culture. That is one of the reasons anime has gained worldwide popularity. This strange (...) aesthetic draws the audience in only to find it is deeper and more sophisticated than its surface appearance. Japan is an honor and shame culture. Anime provides a platform to discuss “universal” problems facing human beings. It does so in an amazing variety of ways and subgenres, and often with a sense of humor. The themes, characters, stories, plotlines, and development are often complex. This makes anime a deep well of philosophical, metaphysical, and religious ideas for analysis. International scholars are represented in this book. There is a diversity of perspectives on a diversity of anime, themes, content, and analysis. It hopes to delve deeper into the complex world of anime and demonstrate why it deserves the respect of scholars and the public alike. (shrink)

明治期に、はじめて宗教的伝統に基づく他力の発想と西洋から学んだ論理とを結びつけて語ることを試みた清沢満之。これまで清沢が残した思想を高く評価する人物は何度か現れたものの、いまだ忘れられた宗教人・哲学者 である。夏目漱石や正岡子規らとの関係、そして西田幾多郎ら京都学派に与えた影響を辿り、彼の思想が日本思想史に残した大きな影響とその可能性に光を当てる。.

Life in the Market Ecosystem argues that of all the political philosophies, Objectivism is the one that is most fit for humanity.

We focus on the implications of De Dreu and Gross's findings for the evolutionary perspective on out-group aggression and in-group cooperation. Although their experimental protocols are potentially useful in determining the origins of out-group aggression in humans, they so far provide inconclusive evidence only. We suggest ways of furthering our understanding of the connection between parochial cooperation and intergroup conflict.

This article proposes a methodological schema for engaging in a productive discussion of ethical issues regarding human brain organoids, which are three-dimensional cortical neural tissues created using human pluripotent stem cells. Although moral consideration of HBOs significantly involves the possibility that they have consciousness, there is no widely accepted procedure to determine whether HBOs are conscious. Given that this is the case, it has been argued that we should adopt a precautionary principle about consciousness according to which, if we are (...) not certain whether HBOs have consciousness—and where treating HBOs as not having consciousness may cause harm to them—we should proceed as if they do have consciousness. This article emphasizes a methodological advantage of adopting the precautionary principle: it enables us to sidestep the question of whether HBOs have consciousness and, instead, directly address the question of what kinds of conscious experiences HBOs can have, where the what-kind-question is more tractable than the whether-question. By addressing the what-kind-question, we will be able to examine how much moral consideration HBOs deserve. With this in mind, this article confronts the what-kind-question with the assistance of experimental studies of consciousness and suggests an ethical framework which supports restricting the creation and use of HBOs in bioscience. (shrink)

Appreciating human movement can be a powerful aesthetic experience. We have used apparent biological motion to investigate the aesthetic effects of three levels of movement representation: body postures, movement transitions and choreographic structure. Symmetrical and asymmetrical sequences of apparent movement were created from static postures, and were presented in an artificial grammar learning paradigm. Additionally, “good” continuation of apparent movements was manipulated by changing the number of movement path reversals within a sequence. In an initial exposure phase, one group of (...) participants saw only symmetrical sequences, while another group saw only asymmetrical sequences. In a subsequent test phase, both groups rated all sequences on an aesthetic evaluation scale. We found that posture, movement, and choreographic structure all influenced aesthetic ratings. Separate ratings for the static body postures presented individually showed that both groups preferred a posture that maximized spatial symmetry. Ratings for the experimental sequences showed that both groups gave higher ratings to symmetrical sequences with “good” continuation and lower ratings to sequences with many path reversals. Further, participants who had been initially familiarized with asymmetrical sequences showed increased liking for asymmetrical sequences, suggesting a structural mere exposure effect. Aesthetic preferences thus depend on body postures, apparent movement continuation and choreographic structure. We propose a hierarchical model of aesthetic perception of human movement with distinct processing levels for body postures, movements and choreographic structure. (shrink)

In Western countries, the ideal professional and ethical attributes of healthcare providers and the ideal patient-doctor relationship have been analysed in detail. Other cultures, however, may have different norms, arising in response to diverse healthcare needs, cultural values and offering alternative perspectives. In this paper, drawing a case study, we introduce the concept of Shinmi, used in Japan to describe a desirable approach to medical care. Shinmi means kind or cordial in Japanese. In the medical context, it refers to doctors (...) treating patients with a degree of emotional closeness as if they were the doctors’ own family. We analyse the concept of Shinmi, drawing on virtue ethics. We distinguish two different elements to a Shinmi-na attitude. As illustrated in our example, excessive Shinmi can be problematic for patients and doctors. Furthermore, elements of Shinmi may conflict with existing Western values (for example, norms that encourage emotional detachment and discourage doctors’ treatment of family members). However, if pursued appropriately, we argue that a balanced Shinmi-na approach can be conducive to the goals of medicine. The concept of Shinmi may be valuable for medical students, in Japanese and potentially other health care systems, and help them to cultivate a virtuous approach to meeting the emotional needs of patients. (shrink)

Anime is exploding on the worldwide stage! Anime has been a staple in Japan for decades, strongly connected to manga. So why has anime become a worldwide sensation? A cursory explanation is the explosion of online streaming services specializing in anime, like Funimation and Crunchyroll. Even more general streaming services like Netflix and Amazon have gotten in on the game. Anime is exotic to Western eyes and culture. That is one of the reasons anime has gained worldwide popularity. This strange (...) aesthetic draws the audience in only to find it is deeper and more sophisticated than its surface appearance. Japan is an honor and shame culture. Anime provides a platform to discuss "universal" problems facing human beings. It does so in an amazing variety of ways and subgenres, and often with a sense of humor. The themes, characters, stories, plotlines, and development are often complex. This makes anime a deep well of philosophical, metaphysical, and religious ideas for analysis. International scholars are represented in this book. There is a diversity of perspectives on a diversity of anime, themes, content, and analysis. It hopes to delve deeper into the complex world of anime and demonstrate why it deserves the respect of scholars and the public alike. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate what Descartes’ purpose of philosophy is by raising questions concerning the style of Descartes’ writing. In particular, I shall focus on investigating the characteristic style of Descartes’ Discourse on the Method. It is often considered that Descartes is not only the founder of modernphilosophy but also the father of foundationalism in epistemology. In fact, Descartes’ most celebrated argument of cogito is sometimes understood only in the context of epistemological foundationalism. However, Descartes’ epistemology (...) is quite different from the one that is often understood as the theory of knowledge in the contemporary scene of philosophy. Paying attention to Descartes’ style of writing, we realize that it is necessary for us to see his epistemology in a different framework from the contemporary philosophers’. I shall show that the purpose of philosophy for Descartes is not to present disputations for propounding anddefending his own theory in philosophy, but to let the readers of his writing engaged with philosophy. (shrink)

Ph.D. University of Hawaii at Manoa 2013.

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of imagination in environmental ethics and introduce an imaginative dimension as an essential part of environmental ethics. Imagination constitutes a basic condition for ethical thinking and action. Matters of environmental ethics have revealed the indispensable role of imagination in ethics. I’ll advance an imagination-based environmental ethics by developing Hans Jonas’ ethical thought. From his viewpoint, various effects of our action on nature and future generations, generally out of our sight, have (...) become an ethical concern. This necessitates the exercise of imagination because we must “imagine” those distant effects to act in an environmentally responsible way. Jonas’ “heuristics of fear” is an imaginative approach necessary for responsible action. Further, I reinterpret the role of imagination as motivating our “will to know.” In conclusion, I suggest the importance of environmental education as cultivating ecological imagination from the standpoint of environmental ethics. (shrink)

In their target article, Peterson et al. discuss the intriguing prospect of using psychedelics as a treatment for patients with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (AD/ADRD) (Peterson et al....

Persons infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus often experience intermittent life-threatening infections, a progressive decrease in cognitive abilities, and a loss of capacity to communicate their wishes to their family and medical care providers. Accordingly, AIDS patients are among those most likely to benefit from the increased availability of legally recognized forms of advance care planning. Although the three countries examined in this article differ greatly in the prevalence of HIV infection, the legal status of advance directives, and in the (...) attitudes toward their use, a collection of case studies is used to demonstrate that an ability to address the specific needs, values and goals of individual patients is promoted by the availability of a variety of options for implementing advance directives or health care proxies. The conclusion of the analysis is that the best option in a specific context will depend upon differences in individual values and medical objectives of the sort discussed in the case studies. Das mit der HIV-Infektion verbundene Krankheitsbild ist durch wechselnde lebensbedrohliche Infektionen und den fortschreitenden Verfall kognitiver Fähigkeiten gekennzeichnet. Es führt zudem häufig zum Verlust der Möglichkeit, Behandlungswünsche gegenüber Ärzten und Angehörigen zu äußern. Deshalb gehören besonders AIDS-Patienten zu denjenigen, die von rechtlich anerkannten vorsorglichen Patientenverfügungen profitieren werden.In diesem Artikel werden drei Länder betrachtet, die sich hinsichtlich der Häufigkeit des Auftretens der HIV-Infektion sowie des rechtlichen Status von und der Einstellung zu Patientenverfügungen erheblich unterscheiden. Fallstudien belegen allerdings, daß nicht allein die kulturellen und sozialen Bedingungen für die jeweils beste Form der Patientenverfügung ausschlaggebend sind. Voraussetzung für die Möglichkeit, den Bedingungen, Wert- und Zielvorstellungen des individuellen Patienten zu entsprechen, ist auf jeden Fall die Verfügbarkeit unterschiedlicher Formen von Patienten- und Betreuungsverfügungen. Auch innerhalb eines Kulturkreises müssen daher verschiedene Formen vorsorglicher Willensäußerungen des Patienten rechtlich anerkannt werden. Welche Art von Verfügung jeweils die beste Option darstellt, ist dabei abhängig von medizinischen Bedingungen und persönlichen Wertvorstellungen, wie sie in den Fallstudien diskutiert werden. (shrink)

Hunting Down Social Darwinism addresses the manner in which free-market advocacy is often criticized as social Darwinism. It explores the term’s meaning and the reasons such criticisms prove to be misleading. Hayashi examines whether it is fair to describe nineteenth-century free-market advocates Spencer and Sumner as social Darwinists.

We associate with any game G another game, which is a variant of it, and which we call . Winning strategies for have a lower recursive degree than winning strategies for G: if a player has a winning strategy of recursive degree 1 over G, then it has a recursive winning strategy over , and vice versa. Through we can express in algorithmic form, as a recursive winning strategy, many common proofs of non-constructive Mathematics, namely exactly the theorems of the (...) sub-classical logic Limit Computable Mathematics [6], Hayashi and Nakata [7]). (shrink)

Neurons of organisms with complex and flexible behavior, especially humans, must precisely control protein localization and activity to support higher brain functions such as learning and memory. In contrast, simpler organisms generally have simpler individual neurons, less complex nervous systems and display more limited behaviors. Strikingly, however, many key neuronal proteins are conserved between organisms that have very different degrees of behavioral complexity. Here we discuss a possible mechanism by which conserved neuronal proteins acquired new attributes that were crucial in (...) the evolution of complexity of nervous system structure and function. Specifically, we hypothesize that vertebrate‐specific post‐translational palmitoylation sites and PDZ‐binding protein‐protein interaction motifs act as gain‐of‐function mutations, increasing the regulatory potential of conserved proteins without affecting their core functions. We further hypothesize that the additional regulation of neurotransmitter receptors and other membrane proteins made possible by these sites and motifs is critical for the function of complex nervous systems. (shrink)

Considerando as mudanças que ocorreram no contexto histórico-social e também na pesquisa em Educação no Brasil a partir da década de 1990, este estudo analisou a produção científica do PPGE-UFSCar, tendo como objeto 55 teses defendidas na Área de Fundamentos da Educação, entre 1993 e 2007, submetidas à análise bibliométrica e epistemológica, objetivando determinar qual o paradigma foi predominante no período. O resultado revelou que o Marxismo foi utilizado em mais de 60% das pesquisas; e também identificou a presença de (...) tendências pós-modernas fundamentando 17 teses e da Fenomenologia em 3 teses. (shrink)

本巻は、「他者」とされた異教・女性・被差別民の問題と、「境界」に位置した北海道・沖縄という異文化に焦点をあて、宗教との関価を論じる。.

A sense of agency (SoA) is the experience of subjective awareness regarding the control of one’s actions. Humans have a natural tendency to generate prediction models of the environment and adapt their models according to changes in the environment. The SoA is associated with the degree of the adaptation of the prediction models, e.g., insufficient adaptation causes low predictability and lowers the SoA over the environment. Thus, identifying the mechanisms behind the adaptation process of a prediction model related to the (...) SoA is essential for understanding the generative process of the SoA. In the first half of the current study, we constructed a mathematical model in which the SoA represents a likelihood value for a given observation (sensory feedback) in a prediction model of the environment and in which the prediction model is updated according to the likelihood value. From our mathematical model, we theoretically derived a testable hypothesis that the prediction model is updated according to a Bayesian rule or a stochastic gradient. In the second half of our study, we focused on the experimental examination of this hypothesis. In our experiment, human subjects were repeatedly asked to observe a moving square on a computer screen and press a button after a beep sound. The button press resulted in an abrupt jump of the moving square on the screen. Experiencing the various stochastic time intervals between the action execution button-press) and the consequent event square jumping caused gradual changes in the subjects' degree of their SoA. By comparing the above theoretical hypothesis with the experimental results, we concluded that the update (adaptation) rule of the prediction model based on the SoA is better described by a Bayesian update than by a stochastic gradient descent. (shrink)

O artigo apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa que investigou a apropriação do referencial teórico de Paulo Freire em teses e dissertações nas áreas de Ensino de Ciências e Educação CTS. Através de uma análise bibliométrica e epistemológica de quatro matrizes que agregam os niveis epistemológico, ontológico e gnosiológico foi identificada a presença do referencial teórico de Paulo Freire nesses trabalhos.