This paper discusses what constitutes good teaching, taking as its cue the ‘aesthetic’ concept treated in everyday aesthetics and ‘internal good’ accounted by McIntyre. Teaching is viewed as practice, not merely as a basic action, due to its epistemological nature as everyday work. What everyday aesthetics teaches us is that even in the practice of teaching, sensory experiences such as comfort, familiarity, discomfort, ordinariness, etc. can be viewed as aesthetic experience. This kind of aesthetic experience constitute intuition supporting ’good teaching’ (...) that confirmed by examining Dreyfus et al. This ‘good teaching’ sensitivity is not specific to the individual practitioner, but is considered to be an ‘in-practice value (internal good?)’ (McIntyre) shared by the community of practice. From the aesthetic perspective, this value could be called ‘aesthetic value in practice’. In the teaching community of practice, ‘good teaching’ is both ‘beautiful teaching’ and ‘ethically good’ teaching. Teaching should be seen as a relational practice, and for this reason, The Ethico-Aesthetics of Teaching should be constructed. (shrink)

Ascidian tadpole larvae, composed of only about 2500 cells, have a primitive nervous system which is derived from the neural plate. The stereotyped cell cleavage pattern and well characterized cell lineage in these animals allow the isolation and culture of identified blastomeres in variable combinations. Ascidian embryos express cell‐type‐specific markers corresponding to their cell fates, even when cultured under cleavage‐arrest by cytochalasin B. This system provides us with a unique opportunity to study the roles of cell lineage and cell contact (...) in early neuronal differentiation in the absence of events associated with complex morphogenesis. In addition, the isolated, cleavage‐arrested blastomeres are ideally suited to electrical recording, permitting the use of ionic channels as specific markers for differentiation. In the cleavage‐arrested embryos, suppression of one type of K+ channel, and induction of two types of Na+ channels, occur following cell contact with the vegetal blastomere. The combination of molecular and electrophysiological analyses on this simple animal system may provide insights into the nature of the cell interactions important in early neurogenesis, both in ascidians and in vertebrates. (shrink)

To articulate their understanding of Hume’s discussion of ‘distinctions of reason’, commentators have often taken what I refer to as a ‘respect-first view’ on resemblance, in which they cat...

Many scholars have claimed that the psychology of the indirect passions in the Treatise is meant to capture how we come to regard persons as morally responsible agents. My question is exactly how the indirect passions relate to responsibility. In elucidating Hume’s account of responsibility, scholars have often focused not on the passionate responses themselves, but on their structural features. In this paper, I argue that locating responsibility in the structural features is insufficient to make sense of Hume’s account of (...) responsibility. I argue this on the grounds that without reference to the passions, Hume does not have the resources to distinguish between responsible and non-responsible entities. Instead, I attribute to Hume a distinctive, sympathy-based response-dependent conception of responsibility. (shrink)

In the concluding section of the Book One of the Treatise, Hume confronts radical scepticism about the standards of correct reasoning. According to the naturalistic interpretations, Hume resolves this scepticism by appealing to some psychological facts. A common criticism of this interpretation is that the alleged naturalistic epistemic norm seems to be merely Hume’s report of his psychology, and it remains unclear why this seemingly mere psychological description can provide a principled reason to overcome his scepticism. In this paper, I (...) will argue that Hume’s discussions of the ”indirect passions” and social identity provide a constitutivist ground for the naturalistic epistemic standards in the “Conclusion”: being the object of the indirect passions constitutes what kind of person one is, and being the kind of person (philosopher in Hume’s case) gives non-optional reason to pursue certain kinds of reasoning. (shrink)

大阪大学大学院文学研究科が所蔵する、会沢正志斎書簡を活字翻刻。会沢正志斎は、後期水戸学を代表する儒学者の一人。本書簡群は、会沢が、弟子で甥でもある寺門政次郎およびその父喜太平に対して宛てた書簡を主とし 、江戸に滞在していた寺門が水戸の会沢に対して定期的に府下の情報を送り続けた、その返答としての性格をもっている。また、会沢著作の書肆とのやりとりに関する記述が多く存在するのも特徴。緊迫する幕末の情勢と、 そのなかで行われた思想の営為を解明するための一級史料。.

Dynastic politicians, defined as those whose family members have also served in the same position in the past, occupy a sizable portion of offices in many parts of the world. We develop a model of how dynastic politicians with inherited political advantages affect electoral outcomes and policy choices. Our model predicts that, as compared with non-dynastic legislators, dynastic legislators bring more distributions to the district, enjoy higher electoral success, and harm the economic performance of the districts, despite the larger amount (...) of distributive benefits they bring. We test the implications of the model using data from Japan between 1997 and 2007. (shrink)

This volume brings Bergson's key ideas from Matter and Memory into dialogue with contemporary themes on memory and time in science, across analytic and continental philosophy. Focusing specifically on the application of Bergson's ideas to cognitive science, the circuit between perception and memory receives full explication in 15 different essays. By re-reading Bergson through a cognitive lens, the essays provide a series of alternative analytic interpretations to the standard continental approach to Bergson's oeuvre, without fully discounting either approach. The relevance (...) of philosophies of mind and memory sit alongside the role of a metaphysics of time in exploring connections to psychology, biology, and physics. This eclecticism includes an exciting focus on numerous topics that are not given sufficient attention in extant studies of Bergson, including the precise nature of his ideas on dualism, memory, and ecological theories of perception, especially in relation to his contemporaries. Led by leading Bergson scholars from France and Japan, this book maps the rich terrain of Bergson's contemporary relevance alongside the historical context of his ideas. (shrink)

トリアージ、ワクチンの分配、ゲノム編集、さらに倫理、思想、文学、政治社会まで、様々な領域の喫緊の問題として「尊厳」を論じる。.

Ethics education for professionals has become popular in Japan over the last two decades. Many professional schools now require students to take an applied ethics or professional ethics course. In contrast, very few courses of professional ethics for teaching exist or have been taught in Japan. In order to obtain suggestions for teacher education, this paper reviews and examines practices of ethics education for engineers and nurses in Japan that have been successfully implemented. The paper concludes that difficulties in professional (...) ethics education in Japan are caused by the fact that both teachers and students lack experience in leading and participating in discussion-based classes and misunderstand the effectiveness of a case-based pedagogy. It also suggests that we need to offer teachers systematic opportunities to be trained to be proficient in enabling students to be active and critical in class. (shrink)

Thomas Nagel's conservative position of the political conception for world politics and his insightful ?Minimum Humanitarian Morality? (MHM) view on global justice are laudable. He admits that the path from anarchy to justice must go through injustice. But Nagel does not clearly identify the conditions under which we put up with global injustice. This paper reviews the conception of MHM through the lens of the institutional political economy. In my view, to recognize the degree of structural failure (weakness in governance) (...) as well as the degree of transition failure (elite bargain or personalization of power being interlocked) in each state can give us a hint on how to conceptualize and apply Nagel's MHM. We also argue that the scope and degree of humanitarian aid may vary in accordance with the options to global justice open to each state. (shrink)

Surface and line elements in three-dimensional space are given in terms of the delta function. We extend the representation to N-dimensional phase space to obtain the relation between the equi-energy surface and the density of states.

The purpose of the study was twofold: Experiment 1 tested the possibility that the mere recollection of food aroused a state of hunger and that different types of food influenced the state of hunger differently; Experiment 2 tested the possibility that food cues affected altruistic behavior. In Experiment 1, 28 participants reported how hungry they felt before and after their recollection of certain foods. Results suggest that recollection of food increased hunger and that the type of food influenced the degree (...) of hunger = 31.88, p <.001, η2 =.54). In Experiment 2, 63 participants were randomly assigned to one of three recollection conditions: noodles, pudding, and control. Participants in the two conditions described each food in detail; control group participants did not. Participants were then asked how much they would be willing to participate in an ostensible experiment. Results indicate that recollection-induced hunger reduced altruistic behavior = 4.11, p =.021, η2 =.12). Cue reactivity theory and the hierarchy of needs could explain these results. (shrink)

Teaching has been one of the central themes in educational research. Not only empirical researchers of education but also philosophers of education inquire into the activity. Philosophers used to analyse the concept of teaching. The merely analytic approach, however, is no longer the main one in educational research. Will philosophical consideration of teaching, then, never contribute to our educational activity or any other activities in our life at all? In order to explore the possibilities for philosophical consideration of teaching, I (...) will examine three philosophers' distinction between teaching and telling. The philosophers are Israel Scheffler, Karatani Kojin, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. I will conclude that Wittgenstein deconstructs the distinction between teaching and telling, and that he requires us to change our attitude to the recognition of the others. (shrink)

Teaching has been one of the central themes in educational research. Not only empirical researchers of education but also philosophers of education inquire into the activity. Philosophers used to analyse the concept of teaching. The merely analytic approach, however, is no longer the main one in educational research. Will philosophical consideration of teaching, then, never contribute to our educational activity or any other activities in our life at all? In order to explore the possibilities for philosophical consideration of teaching, I (...) will examine three philosophers' distinction between teaching and telling. The philosophers are Israel Scheffler, Karatani Kojin, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. I will conclude that Wittgenstein deconstructs the distinction between teaching and telling, and that he requires us to change our attitude to the recognition of the others. (shrink)

Ethics education for professionals has become popular in Japan over the last two decades. Many professional schools now require students to take an applied ethics or professional ethics course. In contrast, very few courses of professional ethics for teaching exist or have been taught in Japan. In order to obtain suggestions for teacher education, this paper reviews and examines practices of ethics education for engineers and nurses in Japan that have been successfully implemented. The paper concludes that difficulties in professional (...) ethics education in Japan are caused by the fact that both teachers and students lack experience in leading and participating in discussion‐based classes and misunderstand the effectiveness of a case‐based pedagogy. It also suggests that we need to offer teachers systematic opportunities to be trained to be proficient in enabling students to be active and critical in class. (shrink)

The mode and timing of germ-cell specification has been studied in diverse organisms, however, the molecular mechanism regulating germ-cell-fate determination remains to be elucidated. In some model organisms, maternal germ-cell determinants play a key role. In mouse embryos, some germ-line-specific gene products exist as maternal molecules and play critical roles in a pluripotential cell population at preimplantation stages. From those cells, primordial germ cells (PGCs) are specified by extracellular signaling mediated by tissue, as well as cell–cell interaction during gastrulation. Thus, (...) establishment of germ-cell lineage in mammalian embryos appears to be regulated by a multistep process, including formation and maintenance of a pluripotential cell population, as well as specification of PGCs. PGCs can be generated from pluripotential embryonic stem (ES) cells in a simple monolayer culture in which tissue interaction does not occur. This raises the possibility that ES cells, as well as, possibly, pluripotential cells in preimplantation embryos, are more closely related to the PGC precursors than pluripotential cells after implantation. BioEssays 27:136–143, 2005. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)