This essay explores small “ordinary” experiences of moral harm as problems of social injustice. Starting with two stories, we first argue against a dominant framework of personal responsibility that assigns responsibility to particular blameworthy agents. Instead we sketch an account of why structural responsibility for social harm must be considered, drawing on the work of Iris Marion Young and Pierre Bourdieu. Finally, drawing on Margaret Walker’s notion of moral repair and Christopher Marshall’s interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan, (...) we sketch an account of Christian moral responsibility grounded in restorative justice that seeks to address daily experiences of moral harm through the moral repair work of neighbor-love. (shrink)

The problem of forgotten evidence consists of a pair of scenarios originally proposed by Alvin Goldman. In the “forgotten good evidence” and “forgotten bad evidence” scenarios, subjects hold the same memory belief while irreversibly forgetting its original, though different, pieces of evidence. The two scenarios pose a series of challenges to current time slice (CTS) theories, which posit that memory beliefs are justified solely by contemporaneous states. Goldman’s two scenarios pose an apparent dilemma to CTS theories given a naïve picture (...) of how a memory belief is successfully retained while its evidence is irreversibly forgotten. In my view, however, CTS theories may find a solution to the apparent problem by carefully examining the conditions under which a memory belief is successfully retained while its evidence is completely forgotten. Namely, the two scenarios overlook an important difference between forgetting good evidence and forgetting bad evidence. (shrink)

For decades, scholars and politicians have vigorously debated whether Confucianism is compatible with democracy, yet little is known about how it affects the process of democratization in East Asia. In this book, Doh Chull Shin examines the prevalence of core Confucian legacies and their impacts on civic and political orientations in six Confucian countries: China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Analyses of the Asian Barometer and World Values surveys reveal that popular attachment to Confucian legacies has mixed (...) results on democratic demand. While Confucian political legacies encourage demand for a non-liberal democratic government that prioritizes the economic welfare of the community over the freedom of individual citizens, its social legacies promote interpersonal trust and tolerance, which are critical components of democratic civic life. Thus, the author argues that citizens of historically Confucian Asia have an opportunity to combine the best of Confucian ideals and democratic principles in a novel, particularly East Asian brand of democracy. (shrink)

From 1915–1916 there was in Kyoto a trans-national group of Buddhists named the Mahayana Association, which published an English Buddhist periodical, Mahayanist. Two members of the Mahayana Association, William Montgomery McGovern and M. T. Kirby, were among the earliest cases of Westerners ordained in the tradition of Mahayana Buddhism in Japan. Kirby explored the temples of Jōdo Shinshū and the monastic life of Rinzai Zen and Theravada Buddhism in search of salvation. McGovern, on the other hand, had been searching for (...) an alternative to Christianity, which he found unscientific and dissatisfying. He finally found Jōdo Shinshū, which he held to be the essence of Mahayana Buddhism. His understanding of Buddhism was influenced by D. T. Suzuki's version of Mahayana Buddhism. Utsuki Nishu, who helped McGovern and Kirby run the Association, joined the Theosophical Society (Adyar, India) while he was studying at Hollywood High School in Los Angeles and later helped Beatrice Suzuki run the Mahayana Lodge of the Theosophical Society. Drawing on forgotten documents discovered only recently in a Japanese temple, this paper offers a progress report on research into these documents and explores a significant but hitherto unknown side of the history of modern Japanese Buddhism. (shrink)

Shin and DuBrow propose that a key principle driving event segmentation relates to causal analyses: specifically, that experiences that are attributed as having the same underlying cause are grouped together into an event. This offers an alternative to accounts of segmentation based on prediction error.

This paper examines philosophical foundations of Mircea Eliade's creative hermeneutics. Analyzing his concept of “terror of history” and autobiography, I will argue that his philosophy of religion is useful for Korean scholars to recognize the meaning of Korean religions, which have been overlooked by Western scholars of religions. Paying attention to the continuities between his life and thought, I will explain Eliade’s “primitive ontology” and defend recent criticisms of his method and theory. His views on “new humanism” and “cosmic religion” (...) are also included in the paper. (shrink)

Ninety-two Japanese elementary school sixth-graders (46 boys and 46 girls; 11–12 years old) learned the quota system as part of gender equality education. We used a group performance implicit association test (Mori, Uchida, and Imada, 2008) to evaluate the lesson's effect by assessing the children's image of “woman” before and after the class. The results showed that the image of “woman” among boys improved significantly from neutral to positive through the lesson. We also found that girls’ implicit image of “woman” (...) was statistically higher than that of boys before learning, and was raised considerably after the class. (shrink)

Patterns of object naming often differ between languages, but bilingual speakers develop convergent naming patterns in their two languages that are distinct from those of monolingual speakers of each language. This convergence appears to reflect interactions between lexical representations for the two languages. In this study, we developed a self-organizing connectionist model to simulate semantic convergence in the bilingual lexicon and investigate the mechanisms underlying this semantic convergence. We examined the similarity of patterns in the simulated data to empirical data (...) from past research, and we identified how semantic convergence was manifested in the simulated bilingual lexical knowledge. Furthermore, we created impaired models in which components of the network were removed so as to examine the importance of the relevant components on bilingual object naming. Our results demonstrate that connections between two languages’ lexicons can be established through the simultaneous activations of related words in the two languages. These connections between languages allow the outputs of their lexicons to become more similar, that is, to converge. Our model provides a basis for future computational studies of how various input variables may affect bilingual naming patterns. (shrink)

This essay examines the role of voice-centred media practices in promoting public engagement and enhancing academic research in a media environment dominated by platform capitalism. It argues that developing academic researchers’ media literacy is essential to their understanding of how communication spaces are created and managed. Through the ‘Let’s Read the “Terms of Service” Out Loud!’ workshop, participants explored the often-overlooked implications of digital media and platform use. This activity raises awareness of the personal data exchange inherent in platform capitalism. (...) The essay also introduces the telephonoscope, an experimental medium that combines digital apps with classic black dial phones, enabling participants to engage in personal storytelling. These media practices offer alternative methods for engaging with media platforms, fostering reflection on their societal impact. Integrating media theory into research and embracing voice-based storytelling practices can bridge the gap between academic researchers and the public, creating more profound insights into digital media. (shrink)

殺生に関し、人とそれ以外の生物を区別することをどう考えたらいいのか。区別すべきでないとする思想を検証し、異なる道を示す。.

Cerebellar Purkinje cells generate two distinct types of spikes, complex and simple spikes, both of which have conventionally been considered to be highly irregular, suggestive of certain types of stochastic processes as underlying mechanisms. Interestingly, however, the interspike interval structures of complex spikes have not been carefully studied so far. We showed in a previous study that simple spike trains are actually composed of regular patterns and single interspike intervals, a mixture that could not be explained by a simple rate-modulated (...) Poisson process. In the present study, we systematically investigated the interspike interval structures of separated complex and simple spike trains recorded in anaesthetized rats, and derived an appropriate stochastic model. We found that: (i) complex spike trains do not exhibit any serial correlations, so they can effectively be generated by a renewal process, (ii) the distribution of intervals between complex spikes exhibits two narrow bands, possibly caused by two oscillatory bands (0.5–1 and 4–8 Hz) in the input to Purkinje cells and (iii) the regularity of regular patterns and single interspike intervals in simple spike trains can be represented by gamma processes of orders, which themselves are drawn from gamma distributions, suggesting that multiple sources modulate the regularity of simple spike trains. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to compare and analyse covenantal and contractual models, which are used to arrange and order complex relationships of the business corporation. This book will show that covenant and contract are different concepts for envisioning responsible relationships, and that covenantal interpretation is superior to contractual interpretation. The difference and superiority of the covenantal model comes from its connectional understanding of human nature, the purpose of the business corporation, and moral values. Thus, this book argues that (...) business relationships based upon making a 'covenant' with others expand reasonability beyond legal contract, and integrate moral commitment and theological vision into the business realm. (shrink)

Comparing estimates of the cost-effectiveness of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) interventions can help communities select an HIV prevention portfolio to meet local needs efficiently. The authors developed a spreadsheet tool to estimate the relative cost-effectiveness of 26 HIV prevention interventions. HIV prevalence of the population at risk and the cost per person reached were the two most important factors determining cost-effectiveness. In low-prevalence populations, the most cost-effective interventions had a low per-person cost. Among the most cost-effective interventions overall were showing (...) videos in sexually transmitted disease clinics and raising alcohol taxes. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to identify Peirce?s great contribution to logical diagrams and its limit.Peirce is the first person who believed that the same logical status can be given to diagrams as to symbolic systems.Even though this belief led him to invent his own graphical system, Existential Graphs, the success or failure of this system does not determine the value of Peirce?s general insights about logical diagrams.In order to make this point clear, I will show that Peirce?s revolutionary ideas (...) about diagrams not only overcame some important defects of Venn diagrams but opened a new horizon for logical diagrams.Finally, I will point out where Peirce?s new horizon for logical diagrams stopped and will claim that this limit is mainly responsible for the discrepancy between Peirce?s and others? estimates of his contribution to logical diagrams. (shrink)

This thesis challenges a general prejudice against visualization in the history of logic and mathematics, by providing a semantic analysis of two graphical representation systems--a traditional Venn diagram representation system and an extension of it. While Venn diagrams have been used to solve problems in set theory and to test the validity of syllogisms in logic, they have not been considered valid proofs but heuristic tools for finding valid formal proofs. ;I present Venn diagrams which have been used in logic (...) as a formal system of representation equipped with its own syntax and semantics. I also show that Venn-I, with the rules of transformation that I specify, is sound and complete. The soundness of Venn-I refutes a worry that mathematicians and logicians have about graphical representation: Fallacies often have arisen from the misuse of diagrams in mathematical proofs, especially in geometry. However, the validity of the transformation rules assures us that the correct application of these rules will not lead to fallacies. ;I extend Venn-I so that this new system has a general way to convey disjunctive information. A new formation rule is introduced and new transformation rules are added. I call this extended system Venn-II. The semantics of Venn-II is formalized as an extension of the semantics of Venn-I. The soundness and completeness of Venn-II are also proven. I then show that Venn-II and a monadic first-order language are equivalent in their expressiveness. ;The analysis of Venn-I and Venn-II leads to interesting issues which have their analogues in other deductive systems. I conclude the thesis with a discussion of some fundamental differences between graphical systems and linguistic systems. (shrink)

This article looks closely at one of Paul Cézanne’s portraits of Vallier painted the last year of his life to examine how his (“fugitive”) vision works through his use of colors. The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who in his phenomenology views the body as the primary locus of having and therefore knowing the world, emphasizes the vital role of the body of the artist that must be offered to the world in order to truly manifest the world in painting. It (...) is no wonder that Cézanne’s artwork and thought are stitched into the structure of Merleau-Ponty’s aesthetics in his essay “Eye and Mind,” for Cézanne’s painting bears witness to his own account of aesthetic experience. Merleau-Ponty’s emphasis on the lived vision that seeks the depth of Being, the lived qualities of the visible world, takes Cézanne’s vision manifested in his portrait of Vallier further to see where the painting as well as Cézanne himself stand in relation to the visible world. (shrink)