1. Shuken to jiyū -- 2. Keimo, kaikaku, kakumei -- 3. Kindai no hen'yō -- 4. Kokka to shakai -- 5. Risei no ryōgisei.

This paper aims to evoke an alternative viewpoint on surrogacy, moving beyond popular Western feminist beliefs on the practice, by introducing the history and current context of East Asian surrogacy. To elaborate a different cultural perspective on surrogacy, this paper first introduces the East Asian history of contract pregnancy systems, prior to the emergence of the American invention of ‘modern’ surrogacy practice. Then, it examines Japanese mass media portrayals of cross‐border surrogacy in which white women have become ‘convenient’ entities. The (...) results of the analysis show how Japanese culture has adopted a rhetoric about the use of white women as convenient surrogate mothers in the global commercial surrogacy market. An essential aspect of surrogacy is the premise that a woman’s reproductive function should be accessible to others. Past discussions among feminists have neglected this important point. Moreover, they share the assumption that white surrogacy clients are exploiters, who take advantage of women of colour as surrogate mothers. The current situation in Asia flips this perspective—with white women regarded as easier targets for exploitation by wealthy people of colour. For Asian clients, Westerners can be easily regarded as ‘others’ whom they can use for their reproductive needs. In today's globalized era, the surrogacy industry is no longer for affluent Westerners only. Considering this change, it is crucial to discuss surrogacy issues by reconstructing feminist perspectives with a globalized view, to help protect women’s bodies, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, skin colour, or religion. (shrink)

A biosemiotic view of living things is presented that supersedes the mechanistic view of life prevalent in biology today. Living things are active agents with autonomous subjectivity, whose structure is triadic, consisting of the individual organism, its Umwelt and the society. Sociality inheres in every living thing since the very origin of life on the earth. The temporality of living things is guided by the purpose to live, which works as the semantic boundary condition for the processes of embodiment of (...) the subjectivity. Freedom at the molecular and cellular levels allows autonomy and spontaneity to emerge even in single cell organisms, and the presence of the dimension of mind in every living thing is deduced. Living things transcend their individualness, as they live in historically formed higher order structure consisting of the lineage-species and the society. They also transcend materiality, having the dimension of mind. (shrink)

In this paper we contend that the ability to engage in meta-dialog is necessary for free and exible conversation. Central to the possibility of meta-dialog is the ability to recognize and negotiate the distinction between the use and mention of a word. The paper surveys existing theoretical approaches to the use-mention distinction, and brie y describes some of our ongoing e orts to implement a system which represents the use-mention distinction in the service of simple meta-dialog.

Living things are autonomous agents distinguished from nonliving things in having the purpose to actively maintain their existence. All living things, including single-celled organisms, have certain degrees of freedom from physical causality to choose their actions with intentions to fulfill their purpose. This circumstance is analogous to that of human intention-actions guided by mind, and points to the ubiquitous presence of the dimension of mind in the living world. The primordial form of mind in single-celled organisms eventually evolved into the (...) human mind by virtue of the adaptive value of mind for survival. Life seems to have originated from nonliving matter in processes that are continuous. Thus the dimension of mind must extend to the nonliving world, and the origin of mind should be taken to relate to the origin of matter. Inasmuch as matter exists in a hierarchy of levels of complexity extending from quarks up to the whole universe, mind must also be presumed to exist in a hierarchy of levels of complexity associated with matter. (shrink)

BackgroundBoth impairment and sex differences in social cognition and neurocognition have been documented in schizophrenia. However, whether sex differences exist in the association between social cognition and neurocognition are not known. We aimed to investigate the contribution of areas of neurocognition to theory of mind and hostility bias, representing social cognition, according to sex in early course schizophrenia.MethodsIn this cross-sectional study, we assessed neurocognition using the Japanese version of the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Schizophrenia and assessed the ToM and (...) hostility bias subdomains of social cognition using the Social Cognition Screening Questionnaire in 131 participants diagnosed with schizophrenia within 5 years of onset. Sex differences were analyzed using t-tests. The associations of neurocognitive subdomains with ToM and hostility bias according to sex were analyzed using multiple regression analysis. Results were adjusted by age, estimated premorbid intelligence quotient, and symptomatology.ResultsNo sex differences were found in ToM or hostility bias. Higher verbal fluency was significantly associated with higher ToM in females, whereas higher executive function was significantly associated with higher ToM in males. Higher verbal fluency was significantly associated with lower hostility bias in females, whereas neurocognition and hostility bias were not significantly associated in males.ConclusionThe results suggest that neurocognition associated with social cognition differ according to sex. These differences should be considered for more effective treatment of social cognition. (shrink)

Esta pesquisa tem como tema a prática da análise de necessidades de formação de professores, e como principal objetivo compreender as condições que favorecem essa prática a se tornar um referencial de saberes para a legitimação das práticas de formação continuada para professores. Para alcançar esse objetivo, serão utilizadas as ferramentas teórico-metodológicas foucaultianas próprias da genealogia e arqueologia na análise de documentos pertencentes ao âmbito da atual política educacional brasileira e de trabalhos científicos sobre a análise de necessidades de professores. (...) Como resultados parciais desta pesquisa, este texto apresenta o levantamento bibliográfico de trabalhos a respeito da temática investigada, nos programas de pós-graduação do Brasil e de Portugal. (shrink)

This paper examines prospects for and content of a global regime for human rights. Competing schools of thought forecast convergence and divergence of national standards under stress of globalization. No such regime exists, and there is no compelling theory of international corporate social responsibility. However, elements of an emerging global regime can be identified and partially overlap with environmental protection issues. This regime is highly fragmented, underdeveloped, and only partially enforceable—but it is in development. The UN Global Compact, the Global (...) Reporting Initiative (GRI), ISO 26000 (expected in 2010), the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) of 1789 and the permanent international criminal court established in 2002 are illustrations of such elements. The third Ruggie Report, issued 2008, is an important summary of conditions and proposes a strategy for forward progress. Human rights impose important obligations on multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating across highly diverse political, legal, and cultural realities. (shrink)

The interview is a follow-up from Samantha Frost’s article, ‘The Attentive Body’, in Body & Society 26. Tomoko Tamari invites Frost to explore her interest in ‘biocultural creatures’, with its focus on ‘bodies’ responsive self-transformation’ in epigenetic processes, and unfolds Peirce’s account of the index for understanding meaning-making in biological processes. Tamari also introduces Katherine Hayles’s notion of ‘cognitive nonconscious’ to raise the question of the possible theoretical and mechanical similarities/discrepancies between epigenetic processes in organisms and the meaning-making process in (...) computational systems. Drawing on Jacob von Uexkull’s notion of ‘umwelt’ and introducing Yoshimi Kawade’s remarks on a living being’s subjective orientation in environments, a further question about ‘intention’ and ‘subjectivity’ enables Frost to further unpack her notion of ‘the attentive self’ and discuss its relation to ‘intentionality’ and ‘referentiality’ in epigenetic processes. Finally, Samantha Frost mentions her current projects on the connection between ‘attention-as-responsive-self-transformation’ and ‘mode-of-living-as-form-of-life’. (shrink)