Something should be done for a better global environment as soon as possible. This paper investigates the direction of management of the global environment and proposes new, concrete ideas for it.

With agents relying more and more on information from central servers rather than their own sensors, knowledge becomes property not of a specific agent but of the data that the agents can access. The article proposes a dynamic logic of data-informed knowledge that describes an interplay between three modalities and one relation capturing the properties of this form of knowledge. The main technical results are the undefinability of two dynamic operators through each other, a sound and complete axiomatisation, and a (...) model checking algorithm. (shrink)

Biobanks act as the custodians for the access to and responsible use of human biological samples and related data that have been generously donated by individuals to serve the public interest and scientific advances in the health research realm. Risk assessment has become a daily practice for biobanks and has been discussed from different perspectives. This paper aims to provide a literature review on risk assessment in order to put together a comprehensive typology of diverse risks biobanks could potentially face. (...) Methodologically set as a typology, the conceptual approach used in this paper is based on the interdisciplinary analysis of scientific literature, the relevant ethical and legal instruments and practices in biobanking to identify how risks are assessed, considered and mitigated. Through an interdisciplinary mapping exercise, we have produced a typology of potential risks in biobanking, taking into consideration the perspectives of different stakeholders, such as institutional actors and publics, including participants and representative organizations. With this approach, we have identified the following risk types: economic, infrastructural, institutional, research community risks and participant’s risks. The paper concludes by highlighting the necessity of an adaptive risk governance as an integral part of good governance in biobanking. In this regard, it contributes to sustainability in biobanking by assisting in the design of relevant risk management practices, where they are not already in place or require an update. The typology is intended to be useful from the early stages of establishing such a complex and multileveled biomedical infrastructure as well as to provide a catalogue of risks for improving the risk management practices already in place. (shrink)

This article conducts a decision theoretic analysis of the effect of dual candidacy on voting decisions in the Japanese variant of the mixed electoral system, where each candidate can run in both a single-member district (SMD) and a proportional representation (PR) block, and dual candidates can be ranked either individually or equally in parties' PR lists: their post-election ranking is determined by their SMD votes. The model shows that dual candidacy differentiates the mixed system from merely the simultaneous use of (...) the SMD and PR systems. That is, if an SMD candidate also runs in the PR block, it lowers voters' utility increment obtained by casting their SMD votes for him. If he is ranked equally in the PR list, however, SMD votes for him may help him win a PR seat against other equally ranked dual candidates, which enables dual candidacy accompanied by equal ranking to attract more SMD votes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Report on the Thirtieth Annual Conference of the Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesYagi YōichiTranslated by Paul L. SwansonIn Japan, the disasters of the giant tsunami and the resulting crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant on 11 March 2011 have been grim reminders of the unprecedented tragedies of the nuclear bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki just sixty-six years ago. These are experiences in which one becomes speechless, when words (...) are no longer able to convey what used to be their usual meaning.At that time, people were faced with basic and universal questions concerning the fundamental constitution of human existence. What is the ultimate basis for our thoughts and actions? Is there a way to know? If there is a way to know these answers, how do we attain them? The state of intellectual inquiry in postwar Japan, however, was not able to face these questions and come up with answers. Rather, there was a tendency to avoid facing these questions directly and instead rely on absorbing the pronouncements of Western thought.Within this postwar intellectual environment in Japan, the Japan Society for Buddhist- Christian Studies has continuously attempted in an academic way to discuss comprehensive themes, based on Buddhist-Christian or Christian-Buddhist foundations, and is perhaps the only forum in Japan that has consistently sought answers to these basic and universal questions of human existence.It was in this time of crisis that the thirtieth annual conference of the Japan Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies met 5-7 September 2011 at Hanazono University in Kyoto. Discussion of a recent book, Dialogue and Commentary: The Words of Jesus and the Words of Zen (対談評釈 イエスの言葉／ 禅の言葉, Iwanami Shoten, 2010, in Japanese), a series of dialogues and discussions between Ueda Shizuteru and Yagi Seiichi, was chosen as an appropriate theme for this meeting. This book was chosen because it is a splendid synthesis of the activity and discussion carried out by our Society over the past thirty years. Through the magnificent dialogue of these two men, we hoped to open a "living horizon" for a mutual understanding of "the words of Jesus and the words of Zen." The main themes were "direct experience," "self-awareness," "place," and "words."The two dialoguers—Ueda and Yagi—have not only both served and provided [End Page 139] leadership for the Society over many years, as presidents and in other capacities, but also share a basic sense of fundamental questions. They are also leading philosophers of religion who represent the attempt to seek answers to fundamental questions within Buddhism and Christianity in postwar Japan. Ueda Shizuteru, a leading authority and internationally recognized scholar of Meister Eckhart, is also known for his contributions on the philosophy of religion (especially the idea of "place"/basho) in the tradition of Nishida Kitarō, Nishitani Keiji, and Zen Buddhism. His basic philosophical statement is "I am I when I am not I." Yagi Seiichi, on the other hand, is known for promoting religion (philosophy) as "a logic of place" as seen in the New Testament, and for his historical and essentialist critique of New Testament thought. To Yagi, the essence of "the religion of Jesus" is religion as a "logic of place," and if we return to this place we can (to borrow the exquisite phrasing of Yagi himself) "drink directly from the same fountain that was discovered by Jesus." Through this experience we can transcend not only biblical fundamentalism and the exclusivist absolutism of Christianity, but also make it possible to have a true dialogue with other religions. For Yagi, the dialogue between Buddhism and Christianity not only should deepen common understanding, but also open the way to mutual reform, clarify the truth that flows at the basis of both religions, and probe into the fundamental constitution of human existence, and this is why he has constantly sought after dialogue with Buddhists.Yagi Seiichi has stood out as a partner in dialogue for many years. His discussions with the Zen master Hisamatsu Shin'ichi (A Religion of Awakening, published in 1980) was an epochal event in intellectual history from the perspective of "Buddhism and Christianity." Yagi has also been involved in important dialogues with Nishitani... (shrink)

This article argues that Mariam uses its eponymous heroine's lived and embodied experiences of veiling to explore the impact of French secular legislation on Muslim schoolgirls' everyday lives in F...

It is one of the main allegations impelled by feminist theorists against Kant's philosophy that the subject Kant placed at the base of his understanding of rationality is masculine, a Westerner and belongs to upper/middle class. In fact, there is considerable supporting evidence to promote this claim for mainstream Western philosophy in general and Kant's philosophy in particular. On the other hand, while reckoning with the history of philosophy, and examining whether it is possible to break away from philosophical concepts (...) and categories or not, is another matter of discussion. In this article, I try to focus on various possibilities that can reconcile Kant's philosophy with the demands of liberal feminism and an inclusive democratic participation principle. It is important that to discuss whether it is possible to make a new reading that can be reconciled with feminist demands by ignoring the misogynistic discourses in Kant's works, especially starting from the concepts of autonomy and personality. Today, many factors like traditions, prejudices, oppressive forms of government, etc. prevent women from taking part in public life as free agents and autonomously, and from being considered as “subjects with the status of rights”. Therefore, I argue that Kant's concepts such as autonomy, becoming a person and having the conditions for free action, do have something in common with feminist demands. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article I discuss Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other as a transmodern narrative that gives voice to a marginalised group of black women living in Britain. Written in a hybrid style that combines prose and poetry and eschewing punctuation and long sentences, the novel interweaves sundry stories from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first century set in countries ranging from Africa, the Caribbean, and America to Britain. This networked structure exposes transtemporal and transnational patterns of diversity, connectedness and (...) relationality, as well as the distinctive genealogy of black British women and their maternal empowerment. I argue that the resilience of the characters in the face of social, racial and gender marginalisation springs from their empathic relatedness and solidarity. This emphasis on the importance of care for the other highlights the need for improving not only women’s rights and socioeconomic opportunities but of benefiting humanity on a broader scale. (shrink)

Sewall Wright and Gustave Malécot developed important theories of isolation by distance. Wright’s theory was statistical and Malécot’s probabilistic. Because of this mathematical difference, they were not clear about the relationship between their theories. In this paper, I make two points to clarify this relationship. First, I argue that Wright’s theory concerns what I call ecological isolation by distance , whereas Malécot’s concerns what I call genetic isolation by distance . Second, I suggest that if Wright’s theory is interpreted appropriately, (...) a previously unnoticed connection between the two theories emerges. †To contact the author, please write to: Yoichi Ishida, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Stein has raised a fundamental problem for any attempt to characterize instrumentalism and realism as substantive alternatives. This is the distinguishability problem, which consists in the problem of developing a form of instrumentalism that is substantially different from a plausible realist alternative and the problem of showing that this form of instrumentalism does justice to actual scientific practice. Using Stein’s own discussion of Maxwell, I formulate instrumentalism and realism as a scientist’s attitudes toward models, where an attitude is understood to (...) be a complex of the scientist’s belief and intention regarding models. Developing a case study of Benzer’s modeling practice, I show that each attitude can structure inquiry differently and argue that to understand certain aspects of scientific practice, such as the practice of genetic mapping in Benzer’s work, we sometimes need to appeal to the coexistence of these attitudes. (shrink)

Seit einiger Zeit mehren sich in der Fichte-Forschung die Versuche, Fichtes Philosophie aus ihrer Interpretation durch Hegel herauszulösen und damit ihre Eigenständigkeit neu sichtbar zu machen. Dabei wird u.a. die Auffassung vertreten, Hegel habe Fichte falsch oder zumindest einseitig verstanden, wenn er in seiner Differenzschrift oder in Glauben und Wissen dessen Philosophie als »Reflexionsphilosophie« oder »formalen Idealismus« bezeichnet. Dagegen gibt es Stimmen, die Hegels Interpretation Fichtes als gerechtfertigt verteidigen. Diese Diskussion verweist nicht nur auf Defizite in den philosophischen Theorien von (...) Fichte und Hegel, die nicht geleugnet werden können, sondern mehr noch darauf, dass es in den Standpunkten beider erhebliche Unterschiede gibt, die zunächst herausgearbeitet und bedacht werden müssen. (shrink)

Seit einiger Zeit mehren sich in der Fichte-Forschung die Versuche, Fichtes Philosophie aus ihrer Interpretation durch Hegel herauszulösen und damit ihre Eigenständigkeit neu sichtbar zu machen. Dabei wird u.a. die Auffassung vertreten, Hegel habe Fichte falsch oder zumindest einseitig verstanden, wenn er in seiner Differenzschrift oder in Glauben und Wissen dessen Philosophie als »Reflexionsphilosophie« oder »formalen Idealismus« bezeichnet. Dagegen gibt es Stimmen, die Hegels Interpretation Fichtes als gerechtfertigt verteidigen. Diese Diskussion verweist nicht nur auf Defizite in den philosophischen Theorien von (...) Fichte und Hegel, die nicht geleugnet werden können, sondern mehr noch darauf, dass es in den Standpunkten beider erhebliche Unterschiede gibt, die zunächst herausgearbeitet und bedacht werden müssen. (shrink)

Robert MacArthur's mathematical ecology is often regarded as ahistorical and has been criticized by historically oriented ecologists and philosophers for ignoring the importance of history. I clarify and defend his approach, especially his use of simple mathematical models to explain patterns in data and to generate predictions that stimulate empirical research. First I argue that it is misleading to call his approach ahistorical because it is not against historical explanation. Next I distinguish three kinds of criticism of his approach and (...) argue that his approach is compatible with the first two of them. Finally, I argue that the third kind of criticism, advanced by Kim Sterelny and Paul Griffiths, is largely irrelevant to MacArthur's approach. ‡I am especially grateful to Thomas Nickles for encouragement and helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper. Thanks also to Guy Hoelzer, Stephen Jenkins, and Jay Odenbaugh for comments on an earlier draft, Kim Sterelny for clarifications of the Tasmania example, Gregory Mikkelson for references, and the audience at PSA 2006 for discussions. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, Pittsburgh, PA 15260; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Understanding whether the long and elaborate songs of male gibbons have syntax and hierarchical structures is an interesting question in the evolution of language, because gibbons are near humans in the phylogenetic tree and a hierarchically organized syntax is considered to be a basic component of human language. We conducted field research at Danum Valley Conservation Area in northern Borneo to test the hypothesis that gibbon songs have syntax and chunks. We followed one Mueller’s gibbon group for 1 week in (...) the dry and rainy seasons every year from 2001 to 2009, collecting vocal and behavioral data. Results show that songs emitted by the studied male gibbon were governed by combinatory rules. Some context-dependent songs had different combinatory rules, although they overlapped with the songs whose contexts were uncertain. The male Mueller’s songs had characteristics that suggest existence of chunk structure. These results provided an important perspective in the study of language origin. (shrink)

Tarihin başlangıcından itibaren insan ile yaşamış olduğu mekân arasındaki ilişki ve sosyal olarak inşa ettiği bu mekândan kopuş dikkat çekici bir meseledir. Bu ilişki sadece inşa edilen sosyal mekândan kopuş ile cereyan etmemekte, mekânsal değişikliğin ardından gelinen yerdeki sosyal inşa da yeni bir ilişkinin ve sosyal değişimin kapısını aralamaktadır. Bu bağlamda, insanlığın varoluşundan itibaren temel ihtiyacı olan güvenli çevre oluşturma gayretinin toplumsal değişime ve göç olgusuna olan etkisi, günümüzde özellikle Avrupa devletlerinde klasik güvenlik anlayışının dışında Kopenhag Okulu’nun sosyal inşacı bir (...) anlayış ile ortaya koyduğu “güvenlikleştirme” yaklaşımının ana unsurları olan siyasal, ekonomik, çevresel ve toplumsal anlamda bir güvenlik tehdidi olarak ele alınmaktadır. Avrupa ülkelerinde son yıllarda politika yapıcılar, devlet dışı aktörler ve göçmenlerin varlığından rahatsız olan kitleler göçü toplumsal güvenliğin alt unsuru olan kültürel güvenliklerine bir tehdit olarak görmektedir. Güncel politikalarında ve gelecek stratejilerinde bu olguyu dikkate almışlardır. Politika yapıcıların kültürel güvenliğe ilişkin yaklaşımlarını hem literatür derlemesi hem de göç karşıtı söylemler üzerinden analiz eden bu çalışmanın temel amacı, toplumsal güvenlik içerisinde yer alan kültürel güvenlik ile göç arasındaki ilişkiyi ortaya koymaktır. Çalışmanın argümanı göçün güvenlik unsuru haline getirilmesi sürecinde kültür konusunun niçin ve nasıl ele alındığına açıklık getirmektedir. Göçmenlerin genellikle söylemsel olarak hedef ülkenin sosyal uyum, kültürel doku ve kimliğine bir tehdit olarak sunulması, devamında “yabancı istilası” olarak güvensizlik yaratan bir sosyal aktör gibi düşünülmesi; çalışmanın yöntemi olan eleştirel söylem analizinin mikro boyutu ile çıkarım yaratma aracına karşılık gelmektedir. (shrink)

There is a confusion over and inchoate understanding of how the past is made understandable through postmodernist historical orientation. The purpose of the article is to outline the characteristic features of the postmodernist movement in social sciences, to explain its confrontation with history, to document its critique of the conventional practice of history, and to discuss its implications for history education. The postmodernist challenge to the foundations of the discipline of history is elucidated with an emphasis on its epistemological underpinnings. (...) Implications of postmodernism for the teaching and learning of history are discussed. (shrink)

Along with Turkey’s changing refugee policy from the Eurocentric, secular nation-state ideology to the neo-Ottomanist one on the state level, there also exist main handicaps on the micro power level concerning the successful coordination of the refugee issue with full respect of the human rights. Economic, cultural and especially political factors play a role in the relationship between Syrians and Turkish residents. Fragmentation within the Syrian community living in Turkey is also evident. On the other hand, different from the state (...) policy, Turkish people implicitly show their reluctance towards this migration wave without creating a social turmoil. In this line, it is suggested here that Neo-Ottomanism, as a rising trend, helps a considerable majority of the society to take a moderate stance towards the immigration flux. (shrink)