Claims concerning processes, claims of the form “xisφing”, have been the subject of renewed interest in recent years in the philosophy of action. However, this interest has frequently limited itself to noting certain formal features such claims have, and has not extended to a discussion of when they are true. This article argues that a claim of the form “xisφing” is true when what is happening withxis such that, if it is not interrupted, a φing will occur. It then applies (...) itself more directly to the case of action, arguing that when “xisφing” describesx's intentional action, it is true iffxis acting from a method she knows to be sufficient to φ, in the sense that if she is not interrupted in carrying out this method, she will φ. I use this criterion to argue that the carbon‐copier example Donald Davidson gives in “Intending” fails to refute Elizabeth Anscombe's claim that an agent who is φing intentionally knows that she is, because the agent in Davidson's example is not intentionally making the copies. (shrink)

ウェーバーの主題を発展的に継承し、社会を多元的に豊穣化するための来るべき人間像を彫琢する。.

This article explores the narrative potency and ritual efficacy of a medieval Japanese esoteric Buddhist text in relation to the process of awakening and the construction of imperial legitimation, perceived as two interrelated objectives. Entitled the _Kinpusen himitsuden_, ‘The Secret Transmission of the Golden Peak’, the text was written by the Shingon monk Monkan Kōshin in 1337, soon after the outbreak of the civil war, at the stronghold of the southern court in Yoshino. The text is treated here as a (...) complex ritual platform of metamorphosis and empowerment, intermingling the local cultic structure and the esoteric Buddhist ritual stage of the imperial court as well as realities internal and external to the text, which mutually inform and impregnate one another. Focusing on the articulation of a rock—the body/abode of Zaō, a tutelary mountain deity—we explore its transformation from the site of a local legend of apparition into a Buddha, an object of contemplation, the centerpiece of the imperial stage and a mold for the practitioner’s liturgical body, an achievement allowed by the text taken as a transformative agent. We demonstrate that as an epitome of esoteric Buddhist power, Zaō becomes the source of the emperor’s renewed authority as a Buddhist king, and that in turn, the emperor’s participation in the semiotic sphere of the text endows the deity with sovereign power. As such, this article shows that rather than a vessel of knowledge, the text-as-an-event, is a powerful mechanism of transformation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 95-99 [Access article in PDF] The Distinction between ego (e) and ego-Self (e/S): Notes on Religious Practice Based upon Buddhist-Christian Dialogue Yagi Seiichi Toin University The Goal of Religious Practice We cannot see the transcendent as an object. Nor is it the case that the transcendent and the human are two separated realities that are united afterwards. When the Self (Christ in me--Gal. 2:19-20) (...) reveals itself to and in the ego (Gal. 1:16), the ego becomes aware of the Self, which is divine--human or transcendent--immanent. This is called enlightenment.In enlightenment, the ego (hereafter: e) does not vanish.When the Self (hereafter: S) appears to and in the ego, the ego (now a relatively independent part of S) becomes the function of S. The ego, understanding itself as the knot of inner and outer reality, plays the role of the reason of the whole body, the center of which is S. In this case we represent such a person as e/S. e/S is the subjectivity of the religious life. D.T.Suzuki and one of his disciples, Ryomin Akizuki called e/S the "individual qua trans-individual." 1 In enlightenment, e/S as the authentic subject, which remains potential before enlightenment, is actualized or realized so that it understands itself as e/S, no more as the mere ego. In order for e/S to be realized and understand itself as e/S, egocentricity, egoism and the confusion of the verbalized reality with "reality as it is" must be overcome. This is the goal of religious practice. e/S From the point of view of interreligious dialogue,"Christ who lives in me" corresponds to "actualized Buddha-nature" or "the Formless Self" in Buddhist language, that is, the Self as we call it. 2 In the case of Paul,"Christ who lives in me" is the ultimate subject of him on the one hand, and "Christ the Son of God" is the object of his faith on the other (Gal. 2:19-20). That means: the ego of Paul that believes in the Son of God is borne by "Christ in me"; as Paul says, "Christ was revealed to and [End Page 95] in me" (Gal. 1:16). In this way, the subjectivity of Paul consists of e/S. Of S, namely, Paul is aware as e/S--neither as e, which is ignorant of S, nor as S. It is impossible for S to exist alone. Egocentricity and Egoism The distinction between e and e/S is of fundamental importance to our theme. e means in this essay the mere ego that is ignorant of S.When it becomes aware of S we represent it as the ego of e/S. e is egocentric and egoistic. It goes without saying that the ego-centered "I" driven by desires produces immorality and social anomies. The biblical word for this is sin, the transgression of the Law.But there is another problematic concerning e, namely egoism, which can be at work even in the effort to attain a high level of morality. We understand the egoistic ego as follows: the ego is to itself the only reality that concerns and moves it. It posits itself solely on itself apart from the relation to others and to S. By itself it projects itself and strives to realize itself. It can, among others, set up its own ideals and pursue their realization. It can, for example, conceive the moralistic ideal that seems to be the reverse of immorality and social anomie. Indeed, it can succeed in controlling egocentricity so that it seems to have attained perfect morality. In reality, it is interested only in its own moral perfection, not in the person encountered (moralistic egoism). Such e is illustrated in Luke 18:9-14 and described in Romans 7:7-24. Egoistic ego must die to itself and must be freed from egoism. (In Romans 6, for example, Paul does... (shrink)

Well-Being and Death addresses philosophical questions about death and the good life: what makes a life go well? Is death bad for the one who dies? How is this possible if we go out of existence when we die? Is it worse to die as an infant or as a young adult? Is it bad for animals and fetuses to die? Can the dead be harmed? Is there any way to make death less bad for us? Ben Bradley defends the (...) following views: pleasure, rather than achievement or the satisfaction of desire, is what makes life go well; death is generally bad for its victim, in virtue of depriving the victim of more of a good life; death is bad for its victim at times after death, in particular at all those times at which the victim would have been living well; death is worse the earlier it occurs, and hence it is worse to die as an infant than as an adult; death is usually bad for animals and fetuses, in just the same way it is bad for adult humans; things that happen after someone has died cannot harm that person; the only sensible way to make death less bad is to live so long that no more good life is possible. (shrink)

In this paper, we outline how one might conduct a comprehensive ethical evaluation of human brain organoid transplantation in animals. Thus far, ethical concerns regarding this type of research have been assumed to be similar to those associated with other transplants of human cells in animals, and have therefore not received significant attention. The focus has been only on the welfare, moral status, or mental capacities of the host animal. However, the transplantation of human brain organoids introduces several new ethical (...) issues. Many of these are related to uncertainty regarding whether or not brain organoids might be conscious. While these concerns might not be immediately relevant, they warrant closer scrutiny. We discuss how various ethical issues are relevant to different stages of human brain organoid transplantation and can guide the ethical evaluation of research. Our examination would broaden the horizons of the debate on the transplantation of brain organoids. (shrink)

Philosophers of logic are particularly interested in understanding the aims, epistemology, and methodology of logic. This raises the question of how the philosophy of logic should go about these enquires. According to the practice-based approach, the most reliable method we have to investigate the methodology and epistemology of a research field is by considering in detail the activities of its practitioners. This holds just as true for logic as it does for the recognised empirical and abstract sciences. If we wish (...) to systematically understand the aims and epistemology of logic, we are best placed achieving this by looking at what logicians do, rather than reflecting upon the nature of logic itself. In this entry, we outline the motivations for a practice-based approach towards the philosophy of logic and highlight its advantages over more “top-down” approaches, which attempt to infer conclusions about the nature of logic and its methodology on the basis of traditional assumptions about knowledge, metaphysics, or logic itself. We end by addressing several prominent concerns raised against the practice-based approach. (shrink)

一八世紀後半から一九世紀初頭の徳川期日本においてひとつの潮流を形成した本居宣長の古学古道論が、「世界を再‐結集する」信条や世界観をどのように創出しようとしたのかを、差異と反復をめぐる新たな思考を通して 考察する。.

Human brain organoids (HBOs), three-dimensional neural tissues derived from human pluripotent stem cells, are at the forefront of biomedical research, provoking intricate ethical quandaries (Sawai...

Drawing on recent work in the contemporary philosophy of economics, this book presents new ideas on liberalism, including the concept of 'growth-oriented liberalism'. Since the end of the Cold War, questions and definitions of liberalism have moved from the sphere of political systems (the socialism versus liberalism debates) to the sphere of ethics (what it means to live in a liberal society). The chapters in this work trace the trajectory of the concept of liberalism in the philosophy of economics by (...) exploring the ideological implications of the methodological debate between socialism and liberalism, the idea of liberty as real freedom, the ethical implications of Max Weber's methodology on autonomy and liberty, and new typological theories of ideologies in the context of contemporary economic ethics. This book marks a significant contribution to the literature on liberalism in the philosophy of economics and economic methodology, and is highly recommended for readers who seek updated ideas on liberal society in its ethical and philosophical contexts. Tsutomu Hashimoto is a Professor at Hokkaido University and the President of the Synodos Institute of International Studies in Japan. (shrink)

This study examined the effects of mood and risk-taking on divergent and convergent thinking using a Q-learning computation model. The results revealed that while mood was not significantly related to divergent or convergent thinking (as creative thinking types), risk-taking exerted positive effects on divergent thinking in the face of negative rewards. The results were consistent with the representational change theory in insight problem solving. Although this theory accounts directly for insight, the underlying idea of going beyond current contexts and implicit (...) constrains could be applied to creative thinking as well. The results indeed accounted for the relevance of this theory to divergent thinking. The current study is one of the first empirical studies simultaneously examining the role of mood and risk-taking in creativity. In particular, no related studies exist that took a computational approach to estimate the relevant parameters in the framework of dynamic optimization. Our Q learning model enables to distinguish and identify the different roles of mood and risk-taking in updatingQvalues and making decisions. (shrink)

Quelle est la nature de la liberté réelle (réelle) dans notre société? Je présenterai ici une nouvelle théorie du libéralisme que j’appelle « libéralisme orienté vers la croissance ». D’abord, j’examine le concept de liberté positive et négative d’Isaiah Berlin et je pose la question fondamentale en matière de liberté, à savoir que la liberté est un idéal paradoxal. J’identifierai deux paradoxes : l’un porte sur la liberté ordinaire et les valeurs sophistiquées, l’autre sur la question de la libération et (...) de l’apathie des individus ou des populations. Comment pouvons-nous surmonter ces paradoxes? Pour répondre à cette question, j’examinerai l’argument de Charles Taylor sur la liberté positive (liberté) et en élargirai les implications. Le paradoxe est d’autant plus lorsqu’il s’agit de communautés, comme la société japonaise. Au-delà du mode de pensée communautaire de Taylor, par exemple, je construis une nouvelle théorie de la liberté en proposant de suivre trois principes : le principe de la vertu (estime de soi), le principe du changement générateur et le principe de la différenciation. Je soutiens que la pierre de touche d’une société libre dépend de la façon dont nous concevons notre gouvernance sociale sur la base de ces principes. JEL Codes : Z10, B25. (shrink)

9.11以後に、もう一つの世界は可能か?善き帝国の世界を構想する倫理的実践の試み。.

新型コロナ対策でも注目された科学者の倫理とは? AI時代に科学とどう向き合うべきか? 最先端の研究をわかりやすく解説する。.

I argue that extant accounts of harm all fail to account for important desiderata, and that we should therefore jettison the concept when doing moral philosophy.

An evaluation method, similar to the two-valued one for the classical logic, is introduced to give a decision procedure for some of intermediate logics. The logics treated here are obtained from some logics by adding the axiom av a.

Some healthcare systems are said to be grounded in solidarity because healthcare is funded as a form of mutual support. This article argues that health care systems that are grounded in solidarity have the right to penalise some users who are responsible for their poor health. This derives from the fact that solidary systems involve both rights and obligations and, in some cases, those who avoidably incur health burdens violate obligations of solidarity. Penalties warranted include direct patient contribution to costs, (...) and lower priority treatment, but not typically full exclusion from the healthcare system. We also note two important restrictions on this argument. First, failures of solidary obligations can only be assumed under conditions that are conducive to sufficiently autonomous choice, which occur when patients are given ‘Golden Opportunities’ to improve their health. Second, because poor health does not occur in a social vacuum, an insistence on solidarity as part of healthcare is legitimate only if all members of society are held to similar standards of solidarity. We cannot insist upon, and penalise failures of, solidarity only for those who are unwell, and who cannot afford to evade the terms of public health. (shrink)

The philosophical study of well-being concerns what makes lives good for their subjects. It is now standard among philosophers to distinguish between two kinds of well-being: - lifetime well-being, i.e., how good a person's life was for him or her considered as a whole, and - temporal well-being, i.e., how well off someone was, or how they fared, at a particular moment in time or over a period of time longer than a moment but shorter than a whole life, say, (...) a day, month, year, or chapter of a life. Many theories have been offered of each of these kinds of well-being. A common view is that lifetime well-being is in some way constructed out of temporal well-being. This book argues that much of this literature is premised on a mistake. Lifetime well-being cannot be constructed out of temporal well-being, because there is no such thing as temporal well-being. The only genuine kind of well-being is lifetime well-being. The Passing of Temporal Well-Being will prove essential reading for professional philosophers, especially in moral and political philosophy. It will also be of interest to welfare economists and policy-makers who appeal to well-being. (shrink)

I argue that we can visually perceive others as seeing agents. I start by characterizing perceptual processes as those that are causally controlled by proximal stimuli. I then distinguish between various forms of visual perspective-taking, before presenting evidence that most of them come in perceptual varieties. In doing so, I clarify and defend the view that some forms of visual perspective-taking are “automatic”—a view that has been marshalled in support of dual-process accounts of mindreading.

Insulators play a central role in subdividing the chromosome into a series of discrete topologically independent domains and in ensuring that enhancers and silencers contact their appropriate target genes. In this review we first discuss the general characteristics of insulator elements and their associated protein factors. A growing collection of insulator proteins have been identified including a family of proteins whose expression is developmentally regulated. We next consider several unexpected discoveries that require us to completely rethink how insulators function (and (...) how they can best be assayed). These discoveries also require a reevaluation of how insulators might restrict or orchestrate (by preventing or promoting) interactions between regulatory elements and their target genes. We conclude by connecting these new insights into the mechanisms of insulator action to dynamic changes in the three‐dimensional topology of the chromatin fiber and the generation of specific patterns of gene activity during development and differentiation. (shrink)

Strategies to increase influenza vaccination rates have typically targeted healthcare professionals and individuals in various high-risk groups such as the elderly. We argue that they should focus on increasing vaccination rates in children. Because children suffer higher influenza incidence rates than any other demographic group, and are major drivers of seasonal influenza epidemics, we argue that influenza vaccination strategies that serve to increase uptake rates in children are likely to be more effective in reducing influenza-related morbidity and mortality than those (...) targeting HCPs or the elderly. This is true even though influenza-related morbidity and mortality amongst children are low, except in the very young. Further, we argue that there are no decisive reasons to suppose that children-focused strategies are less ethically acceptable than elderly or HCP-focused strategies. (shrink)

According to hedonism about well-being, lives can go well or poorly for us just in virtue of our ability to feel pleasure and pain. Hedonism has had many advocates historically, but has relatively few nowadays. This is mainly due to three highly influential objections to it: The Philosophy of Swine, The Experience Machine, and The Resonance Constraint. In this paper, I attempt to revive hedonism. I begin by giving a precise new definition of it. I then argue that the right (...) motivation for it is the ‘experience requirement’ (i.e., that something can benefit or harm a being only if it affects the phenomenology of her experiences in some way). Next, I argue that hedonists should accept a felt-quality theory of pleasure, rather than an attitude-based theory. Finally, I offer new responses to the three objections. Central to my responses are (i) a distinction between experiencing a pleasure (i.e., having some pleasurable phenomenology) and being aware of that pleasure, and (ii) an emphasis on diversity in one’s pleasures. (shrink)

This paper defends the view, put roughly, that to think that p is to guess that p is the answer to the question at hand, and that to think that p rationally is for one’s guess to that question to be in a certain sense non-arbitrary. Some theses that will be argued for along the way include: that thinking is question-sensitive and, correspondingly, that ‘thinks’ is context-sensitive; that it can be rational to think that p while having arbitrarily low credence (...) that p; that, nonetheless, rational thinking is closed under entailment; that thinking does not supervene on credence; and that in many cases what one thinks on certain matters is, in a very literal sense, a choice. Finally, since there are strong reasons to believe that thinking just is believing, there are strong reasons to think that all this goes for belief as well. (shrink)

Several critics of realist theories of political legitimacy have alleged that it possesses a problematic bias towards the status quo. This bias is thought to be reflected in the way in which these...