This is a second major text on ancient Daoism, one with multiple aspects and dimensions.

_Care of the Self: Ancient Problematizations of Life and Contemporary Thought_, by Lívia Flachbartová, Pavol Sucharek, and Vladislav Suvák, focus on different manifestations of “taking care of the self” present in ancient and contemporary thought.

New Visions of the Zhuangzi is a collection of thirteen essays on the ancient Daoist philosophical work, presenting new angles and approaches. It overcomes the traditional division of schools in favor of topics, sheds new light on key philosophical notions, examines Zhuangzi's use of language, and explores issues of his use of language. In addition, it also applies modern neuroscience to its instructions, explores its vision of the ideal mind, and connects Zhuangzi's teachings to issues of education and community relevant (...) in contemporary society. (shrink)

The latest academic discussion has focused on the potential and risks associated with technological systems. In this perspective, defining a set of legal rules could be the priority but this action appears extremely difficult at the European level and, therefore, in the last years, a set of ethical principles contained in many different documents has been published. The need to develop trustworthy and human-centric AI technologies is accomplished by creating these two types of rule sets: legal and ethical. The paper (...) aims to critically analyse and compare these rule sets in order to understand their possible relationships in the regulation of legal problems, not only theoretically but also, where present, in some practical applications of AI, such as self-driving cars, smart toys, smart contracts and legal design. Indeed, the purpose is to identify how legal rules and ethical principles can interact for adequate regulation of AI, with particular regard to the fields of application that will be analysed. (shrink)

I argue for the role of trust and cooperation as part of the foundation of digital commerce by expanding the reach of the Integrative Social Contract Theory of Donaldson and Dunfee. I propose that a digital business community can be a community in the morally relevant ways that Donaldson and Dunfee describe, and that the basic framework of ISCT can apply to the digital business world similarly to its application in the offline business world. I then analyze the roles of (...) trust and cooperation in e-commerce, showing how they are important to the digital business community and explaining their moral relevance under a digital form of ISCT. I use the ISCT framework to show that trust and cooperation are an instantiation of the hypernorm of necessary social efficiency, and that authentic microsocial norms developed for the ends of trust and cooperation carry moral responsibility. (shrink)

"Time, and in particular timelessness, plays a key role in Daoism, both in its more speculative and practical dimensions. This book explores different aspects of its vision in close comparison with other thinkers, religions, and cultures. It alternates presentations of a more theoretical, speculative nature with those that focus on concrete life situations, discussing in turn issues of personal perception, philosophical speculation, visual representation, self-cultivation, and meaning in life. Contributors explore the psychological potentials of time perception, examine what exactly constitutes (...) a situation, outline Daoism's holistic worldview, compare Laozi and Plotinus, and examine Daoist versus Greek geometric models of the cosmos. They further study the role of Daoist notions in New Wave Taiwanese cinema, relate Daoist ideas to modern thinkers and its cultivation techniques to Zen Buddhism, trace the relevance of the Yijing to the Jungian concept of synchronicity, and explore the problem of boredom and predictability in prolongevity and immortality. The book as a whole offers a wide range of topics and perspectives, engaging with new materials while stimulating innovative insights and opening new avenues of exploration. A must for all interested in the nature of Daoism, issues of time, and comparative philosophy"--. (shrink)

The Daode jing is an essential work in both traditional Chinese culture and world philosophy. This guide provides an overview of the text, presenting its historical unfolding, its major concepts, and its contemporary use.

Ljudski se mozak polako otvara znanstvenoj spoznaji. Novi uvidi u način rada ovog vrhunski sofisticiranog ljudskog/digitalnog »stroja« bacaju povratno svjetlo na načine »aktiviranja « ljudske osjetilnosti, načine doživljavanja i spoznavanja svijeta.Cilj je ovog rada istražiti moguću povezanost tehničkih naprava kao ljudskih ekstenzija i procesa u mozgu koji povratno određuju načine percepcije svijeta. Istovremeno riječ je o promišljanju zanimljive i u znanosti prisutne teze o podijeljenosti hemisfera ljudskoga mozga kao oblika podijeljenosti temeljnih ljudskih sposobnosti.U tom kontekstu želimo propitati bioetičku dimenziju McLuhanovog (...) razmišljanja o paraleli podijeljenosti hemisfera ljudskoga mozga i hemisfera civilizacija nastanjenih na istočnoj odnosno zapadnoj strani zemaljske kugle.Područja istraživanja su dakle sljedeća: tehnologije kao ekstenzije i ljudski mozak; lijeva i desna hemisfera mozga; tehnologije, kultura, mozak; ekstenzije jezika i pisma u predjezičkom i predpismenom; »digitalno« ustrojstvo mozga; mozak kao krajnji korektiv tehnocivilizacijskih zabluda.Postoje poveznice između neurolingvističkih, teoloških, filozofijskih i biologijskih stavova o mozgu. Tragajući za svojim odgovorima o izvorima jezika, o determiniranosti ljudskoga mišljenja, o odnosu potencijalnoga i realiziranoga, o sukobima u čovjeku između utilitarnog i empatije… u konačnici promišljanje želi odgovoriti na pitanje regulativnog karaktera ljudskog mozga u uspostavljanju balansa moći kako pojedinih ljudi tako i civilizacija.Science is slowly revealing secrets of the human brain. Latest discoveries on the functioning of this digital, highly sophisticated human “device” reflect the ways how sensations, experience and understanding of the world are “activated”.The aim of this study is to investigate the eventual link between technical devices as human extensions and brain processes that in return determine the ways of the perception of the world. At the same time it is a reflection on interesting thesis which exists in the science on the split of the human brain hemispheres as a form of a division between basic human abilities.In this context we want to investigate the bioethical dimension of McLuhan’s thought on the parallel between two hemispheres of the human brain and civilisations which exists on Eastern and Western hemisphere of our planet.The areas of investigation are the following: technologies as extensions and human brain; left and right hemisphere of the brain; technologies, culture, brain; extensions of spoken and written language in pre-linguistic and pre-literacy; “digital” configuration of the brain; brain as the final corrective of the techno-civilisations delusions.There are links between neurolinguistical, theological, philosophical and biological standpoints on human brain. Research into the origins of language, determination of human thoughts, relation between potential and realised, the internal conflict between utilitarian and human empathy… at the end the contemplation tries to answer the question on the regulatory nature of the human brain in establishing the balance of power of both individuals and civilizations. (shrink)

Drawing on the status characteristic theory, we investigate the effect of gender on board directors’ status ranking and find that all else being equal, female directors’ status ranking is 81.48% of one position lower than that of male directors, a discrepancy that is attributable to gender. We theorize on the mechanism that determines the ways in which the status value of gender on a board affects board interactions, and we predict how this mechanism influences firm outcomes, including excessive managerial spending, (...) social responsibility performance, and firm risk. We test our hypotheses in Chinese firms using an unbalanced panel that includes 5396 firm-year observations for a period of 6 years and find them supported. (shrink)

Did Chinese mysticism vanish after its first appearance in ancient Taoist philosophy, to surface only after a thousand years had passed, when the Chinese had adapted Buddhism to their own culture? This first integrated survey of the mystical dimension of Taoism disputes the commonly accepted idea of such a hiatus. Covering the period from the Daode jing to the end of the Tang, Livia Kohn reveals an often misunderstood Chinese mystical tradition that continued through the ages. Influenced by but (...) ultimately independent of Buddhism, it took forms more various than the quietistic withdrawal of Laozi or the sudden enlightenment of the Chan Buddhists. On the basis of a new theoretical evaluation of mysticism, this study analyzes the relationship between philosophical and religious Taoism and between Buddhism and the native Chinese tradition. Kohn shows how the quietistic and socially oriented Daode jing was combined with the ecstatic and individualistic mysticism of the Zhuangzi, with immortality beliefs and practices, and with Buddhist insight meditation, mind analysis, and doctrines of karma and retribution. She goes on to demonstrate that Chinese mysticism, a complex synthesis by the late Six Dynasties, reached its zenith in the Tang, laying the foundations for later developments in the Song traditions of Inner Alchemy, Chan Buddhism, and Neo-Confucianism. (shrink)

Usando expressões da linguagem comum e personagens de romances de DanielDefoe e Eliza Haywood como exemplos, procuro, nesse artigo, fazer umrecorte de gênero sobre os conceitos de controle, domínio e autonomia. Noinício da modernidade, freqüentemente, seu exercício por mulheres associavaseàs idéias de corrupção e incapacidade moral. Em minha hipótese, enquantoDefoeretrata a aplicação diferenciada para homens e mulheres, podemosinterpretarHaywood como fazendo sua denúncia.In this paper, I take ordinary language meanings and characters in the novelsof Daniel Defoe and Eliza Haywood as evidencing (...) gender biases in the earlymodern concepts of autonomy, dominion and control. Frequently, a woman’sattempt to achieve self-reliance signals or results in complete moral corruption.In my hypothesis, while Defoe confirms, Haywood challenges and subvertssuch biases. (shrink)

Neste ensaio, parto da pergunta acerca da motivação original dos Diálogos sobre a religião natural de Hume : de onde a propensão para o argumento pelo desígnio obtém força suficiente para prevalecer sobre a propensão natural a se acreditar nos sentidos e na experiência? Em minha hipótese, os Diálogos, não obstante seu título, representam uma falha na compreensão mútua. Enfocando o drama da peça, pretendo mostrar que, em Cleantes, eles expõem um viés prosélito no teísmo moderno; mais especificamente, que apontam (...) subterfúgios ad hominem que se acoplam aos argumentos teístas, com o fim de evitar os argumentos do ceticismo irreligioso de Fílon. Assim, no que concerne aos argumentos filosóficos, a força do desígnio, parece-me, deve-se a uma má retórica, indício do que denomino Hipótese Prosélita, denunciada por Fílon em, pelo menos, três momentos dos Diálogos. Acredito que esse fator, pouco observado na literatura, ajuda a explicar a perseverança da propensão ao desígnio, fenômeno que sempre intrigou Hume. (shrink)

Retomar la revisión del pensamiento sartriano podría parecer una pretensión démodé para el debate filosófico contemporáneo. Sin embargo, los problemas que otrora se planteara Sartre respecto a la libertad, al sujeto y, más concretamente, al lugar de este último en la historia, vuelven a recobrar su vigencia, si es que se puede decir que la habían perdido. El presente trabajo constituye una primera aproximación al pensamiento sartriano de la posguerra, tomando como premisa y aceptando la tesis planteada por otros autores, (...) de que las obras escritas para este período, incluidas las póstumas, perfilan una línea de continuidad entre el joven Sartre y el Sartre de la Crítica. Intentaremos trazar esta línea a partir de la noción de situación, teniendo en cuenta que la situación se constituirá como el escenario en el cual el sujeto como libertad se arrojará en el mundo y del cual, por tanto, se hará responsable. Veremos también que la noción de situación permitirá a Sartre establecer los puentes de acercamiento al marxismo, caracterizando la situación, relativa siempre a la época, a partir de las relaciones de clase. Palabras clave : libertad;sujeto histórico; situación; historialidad, historicidad. The Situation and the Role of Subject in History: From “Being and Nothingness” to Postwar SartreResuming the revision of Sartrian thought might seem an old-fashioned aim to the contemporary philosophical debate. However, the problems once posed by Sartre regarding freedom, the subject and, more concretely, the latter’s place in History, have come to regain their force, in case one could say they had actually lost it. This work is a first approach to Sartre’s postwar thought, assuming the thesis proposed by other authors that the works written in this period, including the posthumous ones, outline some continuity between the young Sartre and the Sartre of the Critique. We will try to reconstruct this continuity from the notion of situation, bearing in mind that the situation will be the setting in which the subject as freedom will throw himself into the world, and for which he, therefore, will be responsible. We shall also see that the notion of situation will allow Sartre to come closer to Marxism, characterizing the situation, always relative to one time, from class relations. Keywords : Freedom; Situation; Historiality; Historicity. (shrink)

Este artigo evidencia algumas breves fotografias de uma dissertação de mestrado realizada entre 2020 e 2022 na Universidade Federal de São Paulo. A pesquisa objetivou buscar traços da produção de significado de alunos de um curso de licenciatura em matemática em relação às questões de gênero e apresentar uma leitura plausível dos documentos oficiais desta mesma licenciatura de uma instituição pública do estado de São Paulo. Para a produção de dados realizamos conversas com dois alunos e uma aluna da respectiva (...) licenciatura e, também, desenvolvemos uma análise documental deste curso através da grade de disciplinas, ementas e projeto político pedagógico. Para este artigo apresentaremos uma síntese da discussão teórica entre gênero, educação matemática e formação de professores; um pequeno recorte das conversas que realizamos com os três estudantes e algumas conclusões; a leitura dessas conversas foi realizada por meio do Modelo dos Campos Semânticos e este trecho será apresentado no formato de narrativas, assim como consta na pesquisa original. (shrink)

Is there a compensation gap between female CEOs and male CEOs? If so, are there mechanisms to mitigate the compensation gap? Extending role congruity theory, we argue that the perception mismatch between the female gender role and the leadership role may lead to lower compensation to female CEOs, resulting in a gender compensation gap. Nevertheless, the compensation gap may be narrowed if female CEOs display agentic traits through risk-taking, or alternatively, work in female-dominated industries where communal traits are valued. Additionally, (...) we expect that female CEOs’ risk-taking is less effective in reducing the gender compensation gap in female-dominated industries due to the conflicting emphases on agentic and communal traits. Leveraging a sample of Chinese publicly listed firms, we find support for our hypotheses. Overall, this study contributes to the ethics literature on income inequality issues, by highlighting the effectiveness of potential mechanisms to close the gender compensation gap between female and male CEOs. (shrink)

Starting from the stake of the Kantian philosophy to enclose everything within the firm limits of the system of reason and to exclude the external, threatening rest that is outside these limits, Jacques Derrida tried to deconstruct the effort of metaphysics to build artificial bridges over the ruptures of the philosophical systems, usually caused by the intrusion of this uncontrollable external remainders that does not submit to the authority of the metaphysical logos. Given that in the Kantian system this external (...) remainders received the name parergon, we followed this paradoxical structure of parergon, first on the ground of mystical-religious experience, and then on the ground of aesthetic-artistic experience. We point out that Derrida reverses the metaphysical perspective and argues that the parergon is rather a reliable, permeable, undecidable border structure, irreducibly involved between everything that is enclosed within formal limits and the a-formal rest that escapes outside. The original Derridean argumentation deconstructs the ergon / parergon distinction and the entire suite of metaphysical oppositions and rather leads us to an undecidable parergonal border. (shrink)

Ethical considerations arise when individuals who were contracted and paid to conduct a research study and write it up for publication, are denied authorship on a scholarly publication on the grounds that their work was contracted and paid for. Each of the various stakeholders should be considered. Researchers need to make sure that the contract recognizes their intellectual contribution and their right to be named as authors if and when the contracted study is published. If authorship disputes of published works (...) arise, journal editors should have mechanisms in place for addressing such disputes. They should be able to see the contract and have all disputing parties agree to any changes in authorship. If the dispute cannot be resolved, the manuscript should be retracted. Contractors should develop a publication plan and include in the contract stipulations ensuring transparent and unambiguous authorship on any publication ensuing from contracted work. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors and the Committee for Publication Ethics should update their guidance for authors to include advice regarding researchers involved in contracted work and how to resolve an authorship disputes around it. (shrink)

Livia Kohn presents the first Western introduction to this central text of medieval Daoist mysticism.

Obesity is a widespread and broadly consequential health condition associated with numerous medical complications that could increase mortality rates. As personality concerned individual’s patterns of feeling, behavior, and thinking, it may help in understanding how people with obesity differ from people with normal-weight status in their typical weight-relevant behavior. So far, studies about personality and BMI associations have mainly focused on broad personality traits. The main purpose of this study was to explore the personality and health associations among a clinical (...) group composed of 46 outpatients with overweight/obesity in comparison to a healthy control group that included 46 subjects. Both the clinical and control groups were composed of 14 males and 32 females. Several personality and psychopathological aspects were assessed with the Personality Assessment Inventory. The results of the analysis of variance of aligned rank transformed showed that patients with overweight/obesity reported higher scores for Somatic Complaints, Depression, and Borderline Features than the control group. Logistic regression highlighted specifically that the subscales of the Borderline Features assessing the Negative Relationship contributed to the increased risk of belonging to the clinical group. For the purpose of this study, the role of gender was considered. The present findings highlight the importance of focusing on assessing personality functioning in the health context and on specific characteristics of interpersonal relationships to promote more tailored treatments. (shrink)

The French-Japanese movie Ai no corrida is one of the most controversial movies in the history of cinematography. Nagisa Oshima found inspiration in a famous true story from 1936 imperialist Japan and then his movie about a destructive passion without limits was presented at Cannes in 1976. L’Empire des sens, as the translation of the title in French referring to Barthes’s L’Empire des signes, is the story of a destiny and of a psychic structure. In the end of the movie (...) there is a powerful scene with an open air theatre and the image of a young girl who plays hide and seek with an old man and keeps asking him if he is ready or not, the old man saying not yet and then vanishing: here the eternized use of the object can be understood in the framework of what French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan called forclusion. In the case of the psychotic structure there has never been an extraction of object a due to which the reality field could find its frame. And thus, the destiny of Sada Abe finds itself bounded to an object without cession and to its fulfillment in the Japanese kareiakana, that is clear open sky. Yet, since the phantasm is the writing of the non-sexual relation, as the subject’s entrance to the real, Oshima’s movie is not only about the phantasm, it is about the real. (shrink)

Our perspective aims to fathom to what extent Emmanual Lévinas’s philosophical and Talmudic texts deliver a manner of assuming anxiety or a resolution of anxiety. To achieve this, we propose the Lacanian concept of the Name of the Father, and we use a reading of the Lévinasian corpus aided by the theoretical developments offered by mainly Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalysis. We analyze the relation to the Face as a condition for the occurrence of the Other in his transcendence, from his (...) height, as well as the interdiction against killing. The Face is simultaneously gaze and voice. We analyze the Lévinasian responsibility in relation to the Face as a resolution in the symbolic order of the radical anxiety in front of the Face of A-Elohim, in a face-to-face relation which could be a face-to-face relation with the text of the Torah that is the written trace of Infinity. (shrink)

The paper examines the relationship between ancient Cynicism and his modern counterpart – cynicism. Ancient Cynicism is a strictly ethical way of life, while modern cynicism despises all ethical values. Ancient Cynicism is said to be a „shortest way to virtue“ and characterized by its commitment to a life in agreement with nature, radical freedom, self-sufficiency and by the absence of philosophical theory in favour of practical, lived philosophy. Modern cynicism is a result of a long lasting history of interpreting (...) and misunderstanding of ancient Cynicism . However, cynicism is the consequence of „the unfulfilled promises“ of Enlightenment. It is a reason which turned against reason itself. The paper offers a brief history of the reception of Cynicism on its way toward the modern cynicism. (shrink)

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is a neurodevelopmental disorder with a childhood prevalence of 5%. In about two-thirds of the cases, ADHD symptoms persist into adulthood and often cause significant functional impairment. Based on the results of family and twin studies, the estimated heritability of ADHD approximates 80%, suggests a significant genetic component in the etiological background of the disorder; however, the potential genetic effects on disease risk, symptom severity, and persistence are unclear. This article provides a brief review of the genome-wide and (...) candidate gene association studies with a focus on the clinical aspects, summarizing findings of ADHD disease risk, ADHD core symptoms as dimensional traits, and other traits frequently associated with ADHD, which may contribute to the susceptibility to other comorbid psychiatric disorders. Furthermore, neuropsychological impairment and measures from neuroimaging and electrophysiological paradigms, emerging as potential biomarkers, also provide a prominent target for molecular genetic studies, since they lie in the pathway from genes to behavior; therefore, they can contribute to the understanding of the underlying neurobiological mechanisms and the interindividual heterogeneity of clinical symptoms. Beyond the aforementioned aspects, throughout the review, we also give a brief summary of the genetic results, including polygenic risk scores that can potentially predict individual response to different treatment options and may offer a possibility for personalized treatment for the therapy of ADHD in the future. (shrink)

Drawing on the similarity-attraction perspective and social identity theory, we argue that male versus female interlocking directors are likely to have different experiences when they work alongside female board directors of other firms. The theorized source of such experiences for male interlocking directors is in-group favoritism and/or a social identity threat-related discomfort. Interlocking female directors are theorized to be ambivalent between desiring social support versus experiencing identity threat-based career concerns. These experiences are predicted to motivate male versus female interlocking directors (...) in different ways to reduce or, conversely, to potentially facilitate female representation on focal boards. We additionally predict that economic crisis reduces the biases of male directors against appointing female directors to boards. We test our hypotheses based on a novel data set that includes 25,460 directors in Chinese A-share public companies with a sample of 27,058 firm-quarter observations for 1635 firms between 2006 and 2010 and find most of our hypotheses supported. (shrink)