Just as sadness is not always a symptom of mood disorder, irrational beliefs are not always symptoms of illness. Pathological irrational beliefs are distinguished from non-pathological ones by considering whether their existence is best explained by assuming some underlying dysfunctions. The features from which to infer the pathological nature of irrational beliefs are: un-understandability of their progression; uniqueness; coexistence with other psycho-physiological disturbances and/or concurrent decreased levels of functioning; bizarreness of content; preceding organic diseases known to be associated with irrational (...) beliefs; treatment response to medical intervention, etc. Severe irrationality is sometimes caused by normal human motivation rather than by mental or physical dysfunction. Pure forms of self-deception may satisfy the diagnostic criteria of delusional disorder, but there may be no evidence that suggests that they are caused by illness. Although those with pathological delusions do not recognize their delusions as symptomatic of illness, differentiating pathological beliefs from normal irrational beliefs is vitally important: If a belief is pathological, psychiatrists must seriously consider treating the patient against her will. If it is not pathological, conversely, involuntary treatments are prohibited because they offend her basic autonomy. (shrink)

The notion of epistemic injustice was first applied to cases of discrimination against women and people of color but has since come to refer to wider issues related to social justice. This paper applies the concept of epistemic injustice to problems in the therapeutic relationship between psychiatrists and psychiatric patients. To this end, it is necessary to acknowledge psychiatrists as professionals with expertise in treating mental disorders, which impair the patient’s rationality, sometimes leading to false beliefs, such as delusions. This (...) paper classifies the characteristic features of the therapeutic relationship in psychiatry into three stages: those of a professional–client relationship, those of a doctor–patient relationship, and those of a psychiatrist–psychiatric patient relationship. Epistemic injustice is prevalent in psychiatric care owing to prejudice against patients with mental disorders. However, it is also predisposed by the roles that psychiatrists play in relation to psychiatric patients. This paper suggests some ameliorative measures based on the analysis. (shrink)

Everyday aesthetic experiences and concerns occupy a large part of our aesthetic life. However, because of their prevalence and mundane nature, we tend not to pay much attention to them, let alone examine their significance. Western aesthetic theories of the past few centuries also neglect everyday aesthetics because of their almost exclusive emphasis on art. In a ground-breaking new study, Yuriko Saito provides a detailed investigation into our everyday aesthetic experiences, and reveals how our everyday aesthetic tastes and judgments (...) can exert a powerful influence on the state of the world and our quality of life. By analysing a wide range of examples from our aesthetic interactions with nature, the environment, everyday objects, and Japanese culture, Saito illustrates the complex nature of seemingly simple and innocuous aesthetic responses. She discusses the inadequacy of art-centered aesthetics, the aesthetic appreciation of the distinctive characters of objects or phenomena, responses to various manifestations of transience, and the aesthetic expression of moral values; and she examines the moral, political, existential, and environmental implications of these and other issues. (shrink)

This paper examines the ethical aspects of organ transplant surgery in which a donor heart is transplanted from a first recipient, following determination of death by neurologic criteria, to a second recipient. Retransplantation in this sense differs from that in which one recipient undergoes repeat heart transplantation of a newly donated organ, and is thus referred to here as “reuse cardiac organ transplantation.” Medical, legal, and ethical analysis, with a main focus on ethical analysis. From the medical perspective, it is (...) critical to ensure the quality and safety of reused organs, but we lack sufficient empirical data pertaining to medical risk. From the legal perspective, a comparative examination of laws in the United States and Japan affirms no illegality, but legal scholars disagree on the appropriate analysis of the issues, including whether or not property rights apply to transplanted organs. Ethical arguments supporting the reuse of organs include the analogous nature of donation to gifts, the value of donations as inheritance property, and the public property theory as it pertains to organs. Meanwhile, ethical arguments such as those that address organ recycling and identity issues challenge organ reuse. We conclude that organ reuse is not only ethically permissible, but even ethically desirable. Furthermore, we suggest changes to be implemented in the informed consent process prior to organ transplantation. The organ transplant community worldwide should engage in wider and deeper discussions, in hopes that such efforts will lead to the timely preparation of guidelines to implement reuse cardiac organ transplantation as well as reuse transplantation of other organs such as kidney and liver. (shrink)

Neglect of everyday aesthetics -- Significance of everyday aesthetics -- Aesthetics of distinctive characteristics and ambience -- Everyday aesthetic qualities and transience -- Moral-aesthetic judgments of artifacts.

In the name of efficiency, the practice of education has come to be dominated by neoliberal ideology and procedures of standardization and quantification. Such attempts to make all aspects of practice transparent and subject to systematic accounting lack sensitivity to the invisible and the silent, to something in the human condition that cannot readily be expressed in an either-or form. Seeking alternatives to such trends, Saito reads Dewey’s idea of progressive education through the lens of Emersonian moral perfectionism (to (...) borrow a term coined by Stanley Cavell). She elucidates a spiritual and aesthetic dimension to Dewey’s notion of growth, one considerably richer than what Dewey alone presents in his typically scientific terminology. (shrink)

Maher proposed in 1974 that schizophrenic delusions are hypotheses formed to explain anomalous experiences. He stated that they are “rational, given the intensity of the experiences that they are developed to explain.” Two-factor theorists of delusion criticized Maher’s theory because 1) it does not explain why some patients with anomalous experiences do not develop delusions, and 2) adopting and adhering to delusional hypotheses is irrational, considering the totality of experiences and patients’ other beliefs. In this paper, the notion of the (...) intensity of experience is reappraised to uphold Maher’s basic conception. Regarding 1), I propose that differences in the intensity of anomalous experience are vital to whether the patient forms delusions, while partially reforming his rationality claim regarding 2). Although adopting delusions is irrational, it is inevitable and excusable, given the intensity of the patient’s anomalous experience. With the aid of this notion, it is maintained that anomalous experience is sufficient for the development of delusions, at least in some cases of schizophrenia. Compared to other theories of schizophrenic delusion, Maher’s theory, which embraces the notion of intensity of experience, better explains why such irrational mental states as delusions develop from anomalous experiences, and why delusional patients persist in believing specific thematic content. (shrink)

Kengo Miyazono’s Delusions and Beliefs: A Philosophical Inquiry is an attempt to provide a unified account of the nature, pathology, and etiology of delusions. The strength of his book resides in the clarity of arguments and its consistent adoption of a biological explanation of delusions, based on teleo-functionalism about mental states. However, there are some weaknesses in each of his arguments regarding the nature, pathology, and etiology of delusions. Regarding the nature of delusions, teleo-functionalism makes it difficult to confirm that (...) delusions are beliefs. Regarding the pathology of delusions, I suggest that the existence of harmful malfunction is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a belief to be considered pathological, and that additional evidence is needed to justify the separation of the belief and the holder’s personhood. Regarding the etiology, it is not reasonable to incorporate the prediction error theory into a kind of two-factor theory. Therefore, the details of his arguments require further modification. (shrink)

I propose that the appropriate appreciation of nature must include the moral capacity for acknowledging the reality of nature apart from humans and the sensitivity for listening to its own story. I argue that appreciating nature exclusively as design is inappropriate to the extent that we impose upon nature a preconceived artistic standard as well as appreciation based upon historical/cultural/literary associationsinsofar as we treat nature as a background of our own story. In contrast, aesthetic appreciation informed by our attempt to (...) make sense of nature, such as science, mythology, and folklore, is appropriate because it guides our experience toward understanding nature’s own story embodied in its sensuous surface. (shrink)

Yuriko Saito, the leading figure in the field, explores the nature and significance of the aesthetic dimensions of people's everyday lives. She argues that everyday aesthetics can be an effective instrument for directing humanity's collective and cumulative world-making project.

なぜ人は美・芸術に惹かれるのか。過去の学説にとらわれず、自ら思索することを促し、人生を豊かにする手がかりとなることを目指す。.

井筒俊彦の交流や思想の影響を巡り、世代も分野も全く異なる国内外の作家・学者たちが縦横無尽に語り尽くす――。.

Shinpi tetsugaku: The Birth of a Poet-Philosopher -- The Encounter with Islam -- Russia: The Spirituality of Night -- A Contemporary and the Biography of the Prophet -- Catholicism -- Words and WORD -- Translator of the Heavenly World -- Eranos-Dialogue in the Beyond -- Consciousness and Essence -- The Philosophy of Mind.

This article examines the underexplored relationship between Amartya Sen's ‘capability approach’ to human well-being and education. Two roles which education might play in relation to the development of capacities are given particular attention: (i) the enhancement of capacities and opportunities and (ii) the development of judgement in relation to the appropriate exercise of capacities.

This essay discusses how the aesthetics of body movements contributes to cultivating other-regarding moral virtues, such as respect and care. The moral and aesthetic assessment of body movements is commonly regarded as a matter of etiquette and manners, which is considered to be nothing more than a superficial convention or a means of maintaining social hierarchy. I argue instead that body movements often facilitate an aesthetic communication of social virtues. As such, body aesthetics is an indispensable ingredient of a good (...) society. The Japanese aesthetic tradition offers a particularly rich legacy of developing the moral character of a person through bodily practices in the artistic, religious, and everyday realms. I will present and analyze various examples from Japanese cultural tradition to illustrate the significance of body aesthetics as a vehicle of cultivating moral virtues. (shrink)

The project of world-making is carried out not only by professional world-makers, such as designers, architects, and manufacturers. We are all participants in this project through various decisions and judgments we make in our everyday life. Aesthetics has a surprisingly significant role to play in this regard, though not sufficiently recognized by ourselves or aestheticians. This paper first illustrates how our seemingly innocuous and trivial everyday aesthetic considerations ha ve serious consequences which determine the quality of life and the state (...) ofthe world, for better or worse. This power ofthe aesthetic should be harnessed to direct our cumulative and collective enterprise toward better world-making. Against objections to introducing a norma ti ve dimension to everyday aesthetics, 1 argue for the necessity of doing so and draw an analogy between everyday aesthetics and art-centered aesthetics which has dominated modern Western aesthetics discourse. (shrink)

To apply reinforcement learning to difficult classes such as real-environment learning, we need to use a method robust to perceptual aliasing problem. The exploitation-oriented methods such as Profit Sharing can deal with the perceptual aliasing problem to a certain extent. However, when the agent needs to select different actions at the same sensory input, the learning efficiency worsens. To overcome the problem, several state partition methods using history information of state-action pairs are proposed. These methods try to convert a POMDP (...) environment into an MDP environment, and thus they are sometimes very useful. However, their computation cost is very high especially in large state spaces. In contrast, memory-less approaches try to escape from the aliased states by outputting actions stochastically. However, these methods output actions stochastically even in unaliased states, and thus the learning efficiency is bad. If we desire to guarantee the rationality in POMDPs, it is efficient to output actions stochastically only in the aliased states and to output one action deterministically in the other unaliased states. Hence, to discriminate between aliased states and unaliased states, the utilization of χ² -goodness-of-fit test is proposed by Miyazaki et al. They point out that, in aliased states, the distributions of the state transitions by random search and a particular policy are different. This difference doesn't occur owing to non-deterministic actions. Hence, if the agent can collect enough samples to implement the test, the agent can distinguish between aliased states and unaliased states well. However, such a test needs a large amount of data, and it's a problem how the agent collects samples without worsening learning efficiency. If the agent uses random search in the course of learning, the learning efficiency worsens especially in unaliased states. Therefore, in this research, we propose a new method called Extended On-line Profit Sharing with Judgement (EOPSwJ) to detect important incomplete perception, which doesn't need large computation cost and numerous samples. We use two criterions for detecting important incomplete perceptions to attain a task. One is the rate of transitions to each state, and the other is the deterministic rate of actions. We confirm the availability of EOPSwJ using two simulations. (shrink)

This chapter traces the evolution of Japan's systems of household and land registration from c.1600 to the period of early Meiji reforms in the 1870s and 1880s, with due attention to the distinction between a system designed by the state and local forms of registration practice. In the section on the pre-Meiji period, one such local practice of having people ‘disowned’ and its consequence — registerlessness — is examined. The section on the Meiji reforms and the section that follows turn (...) to the issue of continuity and discontinuity, and the question of whether any progress was made by those reforms. In order to illustrate the actual changes that took place at the local level, the chapter begins with an eighteenth-century story about a peasant woman and ends with a case of a family dispute that another village woman brought before the court some 120 years later. (shrink)

We often derive aesthetic pleasure from nature as well as from works of art. Although our experiences of both are analogous in some respects, there are some important differences. Since nature is not created specifically for aesthetic enjoyment it can be appreciated in more various ways than art. Hence, the distinction between aesthetic and non-aesthetic experience is crucial in examining the aesthetic appreciation of nature. ;An appreciation of any object is considered aesthetic if it is directed toward the sensuous surface (...) of the object for its own sake. This notion of the aesthetic, however, does not necessarily preclude the aesthetic relevance of various conceptual considerations. Examples are provided to illustrate how associated facts can modify our perception of the object's sensuous surface. Thus, a variety of aesthetic appreciations of the same object are possible. ;Among various possible appreciations of an artwork, the range of appropriate responses is limited by cultural, historical, and institutional determinations. In contrast, nature lacks such determinations; consequently, aesthetic considerations in most cases cannot show that certain responses toward nature are inappropriate. Neither can we claim that certain aesthetic responses toward nature are improper because they do not help justify the preservation of nature, hence are ethically undesirable. An aesthetic justification for preserving nature, therefore, presupposes its ethical justification. ;Contrary to a widely held view, such ethical considerations against destroying nature are not suggested by the traditional Japanese love of nature. The Japanese traditionally have appreciated nature for its psychological, aesthetic, and metaphysical values and thus their love toward nature lacks an ethical dimension. I suggest instead that the most fundamental reason for preserving nature concerns its functional unity which is indispensable to our health and survival. In this sense, the aesthetic appreciation of nature that incorporates the scientific considerations regarding such unity helps us develop an ecologically sensitive attitude toward nature. (shrink)

We propose a novel algorithm to transliterate English to Japanese and its application to a voice controlled browser, which enable ordinary Japanese people to browse English Web site by voice. Speech recognition software designed for native English speakers do not work for most Japanese because Japanese can't pronounce English as native English speakers do. Therefore, we combined Japanese speech recognition software with English-to-Japanese transliteration software. The accuracy of our transliteration algorithm is 80% recall for the top candidate, and 92% recall (...) for the top three candidates. The browser using this transliteration algorithm makes it possible for Japanese to navigate English Web pages almost as accurate as Japanese pages by voice commands. (shrink)

Societies of the East are often contrasted with those of the West in their stances toward technology. This paper explores these perceived differences in the context of international ethics guidance for artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. Japan serves as an example of the East, while Europe and North America serve as examples of the West. The paper’s principal aim is to demonstrate that Western values predominate in international ethics guidance and that Japanese values serve as a much-needed corrective. We recommend (...) a hybrid approach that is more inclusive and truly ‘international’. Following an introduction, the paper examines distinct stances toward robots that emerged in the West and Japan, respectively, during the aftermath of the Second World War, reflecting history and popular culture, socio-economic conditions, and religious worldviews. It shows how international ethics guidelines reflect these disparate stances, drawing on a 2019 scoping review that examined 84 international AI ethics documents. These documents are heavily skewed toward precautionary values associated with the West and cite the optimistic values associated with Japan less frequently. Drawing insights from Japan’s so-called ‘moonshot goals’, the paper fleshes out Japanese values in greater detail and shows how to incorporate them more effectively in international ethics guidelines for AI and robotics. (shrink)

Performing various tasks to manage our daily lives does not fit comfortably with the predominant model of aesthetics, which consists of a disinterested spectator making a judgment on the aesthetic value of an object. Taking ‘cleaning’ as an example, this paper illuminates its rich aesthetic potential, which includes sensory and bodily engagement, development of aesthetic sensibility, activation of imagination, and cultivation of a care relationship with other people and the world.

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialtheorie und Philosophie Jahrgang: 4 Heft: 1-2 Seiten: 276-295.

This paper offers a different approach to writing about oneself—Stanley Cavell's idea of philosophy as autobiography. In Cavell's understanding, the acknowledgement of the partiality of the self is an essential condition for achieving the universal. In the apparently paradoxical combination of the 'philosophical' and the 'autobiographical', Cavell shows us a way of focusing on the self and yet always transcending the self. The task requires, however, a reconstruction of the notions of philosophy and autobiography, and at the same time the (...) destabilising of our conceptions of self and language. Cavell seeks to achieve this through the idea of finding one's voice, understood as an autobiographical exercise. This necessitates both negotiation of the inheritance from the past and innovation for the future, initiation into the language community and deviation from it. What this amounts to, in ways that the paper seeks to explain, is a process of the self and language in translation. This is a sense of 'translation' that is broader than the conventional understanding of the term. Such a conception can, it is argued, exercise a therapeutic effect on the self, destabilising the myth of self-identity. The implications of this account for the contemporary vogue for narrative in educational research, as well as for classroom practice, are considered. (shrink)

Against the prevailing outcomes-based education and the instrumentalization of education, a movement has arisen towards holistic education. This aims to go beyond objective measurement of the outcomes of education in order to treat the student as a whole person. In this paper, we shall examine some strands of education in Japan which in some way or another feature the idea of the whole person. This includes the tradition of clinical pedagogy, which originated in Kyoto University, Yukichi Shitahodo’s educational anthropology (Kyoiku-Ningengaku), (...) Kuniyoshi Obara’s Zenjin Education (the education of the whole person) and holistic education. Notwithstanding the fact that such education is benevolent in intention, it can be miseducative in some respects. In the light of this, and with some reference to criticism of the idea of the whole person, we shall point to an alternative vision of education of the whole person following Cavell’s Emersonian moral perfectionism – a perfectionism that is thoroughly anti-foundationalist and that transcends self-entrapment in circulatory discourse on the whole. In critical dialogue between the rich traditions of Japanese thought and the critical voice of liberalism raised from within the West, we hope to find a more nuanced answer to the question of how being a whole might make sense. (shrink)

Although Kripke’s skepticism leads to the conclusion that meaning does not exist, his argument relies upon the supposition that more than one interpretation of words is consistent with linguistic evidence. Relying solely on metaphors, he assumes that there is a multiplicity of possible interpretations without providing any strict proof. In his book The Taming of the True, Neil Tennant pointed out that there are serious obstacles to this thesis and concluded that the skeptic’s nonstandard interpretations are “will o’ wisps.” In (...) this paper, contra Tennant, I demonstrate how to construct alternative interpretations of the language of algebra. These constructed interpretations avoid Tennant’s objections and are shown to be interdefinable with the standard interpretation. Kripke’s skepticism is, as it were, an incarnate demon. In contrast, it is currently uncertain whether the same technique is generally applicable to the construction of an alternative interpretation of natural language. However, the reinterpretation of those aspects of natural language that directly relate to numbers seems to be a promising candidate for the development of nonstandard interpretations of natural language. (shrink)

Recently, many opportunities have emerged to use the Internet in daily life and classrooms. However, with the growth of the World Wide Web (Web), it is becoming increasingly difficult to find target information on the Internet. In this study, we explore a method for developing the ability of users in information seeking on the Web and construct a search process feedback system supporting reflective activities of information seeking on the Web. Reflection is defined as a cognitive activity for monitoring, evaluating, (...) and modifying one's thinking and process. In the field of learning science, many researchers have investigated reflective activities that facilitate learners' problem solving and deep understanding. The characteristics of this system are: (1) to show learners' search processes on the Web as described, based on a cognitive schema, and (2) to prompt learners to reflect on their search processes. We expect that users of this system can reflect on their search processes by receiving information on their own search processes provided by the system, and that these types of reflective activity helps them to deepen their understanding of information seeking activities. We have conducted an experiment to investigate the effects of our system. The experimental results confirmed that (1) the system actually facilitated the learners' reflective activities by providing process visualization and prompts, and (2) the learners who reflected on their search processes more actively understood their own search processes more deeply. (shrink)

When the existing order cannot offer a solution, the solution to climate crisis must come from the radical left, and this is precisely why Karl Marx’s idea of ecosocialism is more important than ever. In this context, it is worth revisiting not only the legacy of István Mészáros’s theory of ‘social metabolism’ and that of his successors – who can be categorised as comprising the ‘metabolic rift school’, which includes John Bellamy Foster, Paul Burkett, and Brett Clark –, but also (...) Karl Marx’s own theory of metabolism. In order to highlight the contemporary importance of Marx’s theory of metabolism after its long suppression in the twentieth century, this paper aims at classifying the three different levels of Marx’s concept of ‘metabolic rift’, which also entails clarifying three different levels of ‘metabolic shift’ as the theoretical foundation for updating Marx’s theory of postcapitalism in the age of global ecological crisis. (shrink)

In this article, we perform a thought experiment about living donor kidney transplantation. If a living kidney donor becomes in need of renal replacement treatment due to dysfunction of the remaining kidney after donation, can the donor ask the recipient to give back the kidney that had been donated? We call this problem organ restitution and discussed it from the ethical viewpoint. Living organ transplantation is a kind of ‘designated donation’ and subsequently has a contract-like character. First, assuming a case (...) in which original donor (A) wishes the return of the organ which had been transplanted into B, and the original recipient (B) agrees, organ restitution will be permissible based on contract-like agreement. However, careful and detailed consideration is necessary to determine whether this leaves no room to question the authenticity of B’s consent. Second, if B offers to give back the organ to A, then B’s act is a supererogatory act, and is praiseworthy and meritorious. Such an offer is a matter of virtue, not obligation. Third, if A wishes B to return the organ, but B does not wish/allow this to happen, it is likely difficult to justify returning the organ to A by violating B’s right to bodily integrity. But B’s refusal to return the donated organ cannot be deemed praiseworthy, because B forgets the great kindness once received from A. Rather than calling this an obligation, we encourage B to consider such virtuous conduct. (shrink)