In his Knowledge and Belief (1962), Hintikka establishes his system of epistemic logic with the KK (Knowing that One Knows, in symbols, Kp→KKp) principle (KK for short). However, his system of epistemic logic and the KK principle are grounded upon his strong notion of knowledge, which requires that knowledge is infallible, that is, it makes further inquiry pointless, and becomes ‘discussion-stopper’; knowledge implies truth, to wit, cognitive agents will not be mistaken in their knowledge; cognitive agents will be ‘perfect logicians’, (...) i.e. they have infinitive capability of logical inference. Hintikka calls the argument for KK from the strong notion of knowledge as the ‘transcendental argument’ for KK. Obviously, the strong notion of knowledge is far away from our ordinary conception of knowledge; based on such a strong sense of knowledge, epistemic logic has met the problem of logical omnipotence, and is difficult to apply in our ordinary cognitive practice. Moreover, there is no close connection of the KK principle with internalism or externalism. (shrink)

With the global spread of Chekhov’s plays in the 20th century, his works have transcended their literary origins to become foundational texts in modern theatre, influencing both dramatic realism and avant-garde experimentation. Beyond their structural and thematic innovations, Chekhov’s plays engage deeply with existential, metaphysical, and spiritual questions, making them fertile ground for religious and philosophical inquiry. His dramatic texts possess a _meta-theatrical_ quality, not only reflecting the human condition but also serving as a medium for grappling with themes of (...) faith, meaning, and transcendence. This study examines Chekhov’s plays as philosophical theatre, exploring how they resonate with religious and metaphysical thought in their engagement with fate, suffering, and the search for purpose. Through an analysis of theatrical interpretations—including Stanislavsky’s psychological realism, the metaphysical dimensions in productions by the Koriada Theater, Red Torch Theater, and Alexander Linski Theater—this research reveals how Chekhov’s works have been adapted to reflect contemporary existential and spiritual concerns. His dramas often evoke a sense of waiting, disillusionment, and silent prayer, mirroring theological reflections on divine silence, existential uncertainty, and the search for redemption in a seemingly indifferent world. By examining the interplay between _theatrical realism_, _meta-theatrical awareness_, and _philosophical reflection_, this study highlights Chekhov’s enduring influence as a dramatist whose works not only depict reality but also invite meditations on the sacred, the absurd, and the metaphysical. This research contributes to the broader discourse on religious philosophy and dramatic arts, arguing that Chekhov’s theatre functions as a _metaphysical space_ where philosophical and theological themes—such as the confrontation with mortality, the longing for transcendence, and the ethical dilemmas of human agency—are staged and explored. Future studies should further investigate how Chekhov’s dramaturgy engages with religious existentialism and the spiritual dimensions of theatrical performance, deepening the connection between theatre, philosophy, and metaphysical inquiry. (shrink)

Is a language truly suited for transcendental phenomenology possible? Can philosophers unambiguously express their thoughts after the phenomenological reduction? By exploring the perspectives of Fink and Levinas, I examine the thesis that philosophers do not possess a language uniquely their own—specifically, a proper transcendental language capable of expressing their thoughts adequately and unambiguously. In confrontation with Husserl, who maintains that such a language is attainable, both Fink and Levinas uncover a fundamental tension: while transcendental insights demand articulation, language remains bound (...) to mundane experience, risking the distortion of those very insights. Though both thinkers advocate for a reduction of language, this reduction necessarily remains incomplete. The philosopher’s desire to thematize is thus overshadowed by the limitation of language itself. Yet, it is precisely this tension that reflects their shared commitment to a primordial ethical openness, albeit through distinct pathways. (shrink)

The perception of speech tempo is influenced by both the acoustic properties of speech and the cognitive state of the listener. However, there is a lack of research on how speech comprehension affects the perception of speech tempo. This study aims to disentangle the impact of speech comprehension on the perception of speech tempo by manipulating linguistic structures and measuring perceptual speech tempo at explicit and implicit levels. Three experiments were conducted to explore these relationships. In Experiment 1, two explicit (...) speech tasks revealed that listeners tend to overestimate the speech tempo of sentences with low comprehensibility, although this effect decreased with repeated exposure to the speech. Experiment 2, utilizing an implicit speech tempo task, replicated the main findings of Experiment 1. Furthermore, the results from the drift‐diffusion model eliminated the possibility that participants’ responses were based on the type of sentence. In Experiment 3, non‐native Chinese speakers with varying levels of language proficiency completed the implicit speech rate task. The results showed that non‐native Chinese speakers exhibited distinct behavioral patterns compared to native Chinese speakers, as they did not perceive differences in speech tempo between high and low comprehensibility conditions. These findings highlight the intricate relationship between the perception of speech tempo and the comprehensibility of processed speech. (shrink)

Resumo: Para revelar como esculturas de gelo e neve redefinem a beleza natural no contexto da arte moderna e explorar suas implicações para o design de arquitetura paisagística, este artigo usa uma combinação de revisão de literatura e análise de caso, a fim de explorar o valor estético, forma artística e fundamento filosófico de esculturas de gelo e neve em jardins, e examina casos específicos de formas de arte de escultura de gelo e neve na arquitetura paisagística. Pesquisas mostraram que (...) a compreensão da filosofia da arte moderna da beleza natural ultrapassou o escopo da estética tradicional e está mais preocupada com a interação entre a natureza e os seres humanos. A escultura de gelo e neve é uma forma única de arquitetura paisagística, que não só incorpora as características estéticas dos materiais naturais, mas também expressa reflexões profundas sobre o ambiente natural, através da inovação tecnológica, criação artística e outros meios. Este texto fornece uma nova perspectiva para a criação da arquitetura paisagística e enriquece ainda mais a conotação estética dos jardins modernos. (shrink)

Recent advances in molecular biology and microanatomy have supported homologies of body parts between vertebrates and extant invertebrate chordates, thus providing insights into the body plan of the proximate ancestor of the vertebrates. For example, this ancestor probably had a relatively complex brain and a precursor of definitive neural crest. Additional insights into early vertebrate evolution have come from recent discoveries of Lower Cambrian soft body fossils of Haikouichthys and Myllokunmingia (almost certainly vertebrates, possibly related to modern lampreys) and Yunnanozoon (...) and Haikouella (evidently stem-group vertebrates). The earliest vertebrates had an unequivocally marine origin, probably evolved mineralised pharyngeal denticles before the dermal skeleton, and evidently utilised elastic recoil of the visceral arch skeleton for suction feeding. Moreover, the new data emphasise that the advent of definitive neural crest was supremely important for the evolutionary origin of the vertebrates. BioEssays 23:142–151, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

In this article, we consider the possible application of the European General Data Protection Regulation to “citizen scientist”-led health research with mobile devices. We argue that the GDPR likely does cover this activity, depending on the specific context and the territorial scope. Remaining open questions that result from our analysis lead us to call for lex specialis that would provide greater clarity and certainty regarding the processing of health data by for research purposes, including these non-traditional researchers.

Studies have shown that performance‐dependent monetary rewards facilitate visual perception. However, no study has examined whether such a positive effect is limited to the rewarded task or may be generalized to other tasks. In the current study, two groups of people were asked to perform two visual perception tasks, one being a reward‐relevant task and the other being a reward‐irrelevant task. For the reward‐relevant task, the experimental group received performance‐dependent monetary rewards, whereas the control group did not. For the reward‐irrelevant (...) task, both groups were not rewarded. The two tasks were randomly intermixed trial by trial (Experiment 1) or presented block by block (Experiment 2) or session by session (Experiments 3a, 3b, and 3c). Results showed that performance‐dependent monetary rewards improved participants' performance on the relevant task in all experiments and impaired their performance on the irrelevant task in Experiments 2, 3a, 3b, and 3c. These results suggested that monetary rewards might incur a cost on reward‐irrelevant tasks. Finally, the benefit of monetary rewards disappeared when they were no longer provided during the final session. This is the first study that reveals both the bright and dark sides of the performance‐dependent monetary rewards in visual perception. (shrink)

This article considers the idea of medicine’s internal morality as it is understood by its various proponents. Although the use of the phrase ‘internal morality’ in relation to medicine predates Ed...

Participation in service-learning courses has always been considered a part of the informal education in tertiary education worldwide. Originating from the assumption that service-learning courses increase students’ civic engagement and bridge the gap between knowledge and practice, service-learning courses have gradually acquired the status of compulsory courses at universities. This being as it may be, it would seem that the nature of such courses would benefit from further analysis and discussion regarding their function in knowledge reproduction, and their role in (...) teaching and education. The aim of this article is to examine and analyze a university service-learning course—the National Taiwan University Star-Rain course with a commitment to serving children with autism—from a Foucaultian perspective, and reflect on how the process of putting knowledge during a service-learning course into practice comes to constitute the subjectivity of students who work with children who are autistic. We argue that the course under investigation has, in effect, become wholly entangled in the medical system’s treatment of autism in Taiwan. The service-learning process involves knowledge acquisition as well as long-term, detailed, concrete hands-on experience, and shapes, in a very complete way, students’ construction of their subject knowledge of autism. (shrink)

This study investigated the possible prosodic transfer influences native regional dialects may have in the perception of English lexical stress by speakers of three Chinese dialects [Beijing (BJ), Changsha (CS), and Guangzhou (GZ)] compared to 20 American English (AE) speakers. F0, duration, intensity, and vowel reduction were manipulated in nonce disyllabic words. Participants performed four-word sequence recall tasks to identify lexical stress location. They performed better with natural sounds than with manipulated words. This study focused on the performance differences in (...) manipulating words. The results showed that all four-group members performed similarly processing F0 condition nonce words. BJ and CS participants were more accurate than GZ participants in duration and vowel reduction cues. Reaction time (RT) suggested that the processing time of acoustic cues differed significantly across language groups. The findings indicate that first language (L1) dialect effect is robust in second language (L2) stress perception tasks. (shrink)

In this study, we conducted a pseudosign repetition task with 22 children acquiring American Sign Language as a first language from deaf parents. Thirty-nine pseudosigns with varying complexity were developed and organized into eight categories depending on number of hands, number of simultaneous movement types, and number of movement sequences. Pseudosigns also varied in handshape complexity. The children’s performance on the ASL pseudosign task improved with age, displaying relatively accurate production of location and orientation, but much less accurate handshape and (...) movement, a finding in line with real sign productions for both L1 and L2 signers. Handshapes with higher complexity were correlated with lower accuracy in the handshape parameter. We found main effects of sequential and simultaneous movement combinations on overall performance. Items with no movement sequence were produced with higher overall accuracy than those with a movement sequence. Items with two simultaneous movement types or a single movement type were produced with higher overall accuracy than those with three simultaneous movement types. Finally, number of hands did not affect the overall accuracy. Remarkably, movement sequences impose processing constraints on signing children whereas complex hands and two simultaneous movement types do not significantly lower accuracy, indicating a capacity for processing multiple simultaneous components in signs. Spoken languages, in contrast, manifest greater complexity in temporal length. Hearing children’s pseudoword repetition still displays high levels of accuracy on disyllabic words, with complexity effects affecting only longer multisyllabic words. We conclude that the pseudosign repetition task is an informative tool for studies of signing children’s phonological development and that sheds light on potential modality effects for phonological development. (shrink)

Traditional portfolio selection models mainly obtain the optimized portfolio ratio by focusing on the prices of financial products. However, investors’ multiple preferences and risk appetites are also significant factors that should be taken into account. In consideration of these two factors simultaneously, we propose a double-hierarchy model in this paper. Specifically, the first hierarchy quantifies investors’ risk appetite based on a historical simulation method and probabilistic preference theory. This hierarchy can be utilized to describe investors’ variable risk appetites and ensure (...) the obtained investment ratios meet investors’ immediate risk requirements. Then, using the cross-efficiency evaluation principle, the optimal investment ratios can be derived by fusing investors’ multiple preferences and risk appetites in the second hierarchy. Lastly, an illustrative example about evaluating the 10 largest capitalized stocks on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange is given to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of our newly proposed model. We make the theoretical contribution to improve the traditional portfolio selection model, especially considering investors’ subjective preferences and risk appetite. Moreover, the proposed model can be practical for assisting investors with their investment strategies in real life. (shrink)

BackgroundFried physical frailty, with mobility frailty and non-motor frailty phenotypes, is a heterogeneous syndrome. The coexistence of the two phenotypes and cognitive impairment is referred to as cognitive frailty. It remains unknown whether frailty phenotype has a different association with hearing loss and tinnitus.MethodsOf the 5,328 community-dwelling older adults, 429 participants aged ≥58 years were enrolled in the study. The participants were divided into robust, mobility, and non-mobility frailty, mobility and non-mobility CF, and cognitive decline [subdivided into mild cognitive impairment (...) and pre-MCI] groups. The severity and presentations of HL and/or tinnitus were used as dependent variables in the multivariate logistic or nominal regression analyses with forward elimination adjusted for frailty phenotype stratifications and other covariates.ResultsPatients with physical frailty or who are robust were found to have lower probability of developing severe HL and tinnitus, and presented HL and/or tinnitus than those with only cognitive decline, or CF. Patients with RCF and non-mobility RCF had higher probability with less HL and tinnitus, and the presentation of HL and/or tinnitus than those with PRCF and mobility RCF. Other confounders, age, cognitive and social function, cardiovascular disease, depression, and body mass index, independently mediated the severity of HL and tinnitus, and presented HL and/or tinnitus.ConclusionFrailty phenotypes have divergent association with HL and tinnitus. Further research is required to understand the differential mechanisms and the personalized intervention of HL and tinnitus.Clinical Trial RegistrationClinicalTrials.gov identifier, NCT2017K020. (shrink)

Recent interest in the external validity of prediction models has produced many methods for finding predictive distributions that are invariant to dataset shifts and can be used for prediction in new, unseen environments. However, these methods consider different types of shifts and have been developed under disparate frameworks, making it difficult to theoretically analyze how solutions differ with respect to stability and accuracy. Taking a causal graphical view, we use a flexible graphical representation to express various types of dataset shifts. (...) Given a known graph of the data generating process, we show that all invariant distributions correspond to a causal hierarchy of graphical operators, which disable the edges in the graph that are responsible for the shifts. The hierarchy provides a common theoretical underpinning for understanding when and how stability to shifts can be achieved, and in what ways stable distributions can differ. We use it to establish conditions for minimax optimal performance across environments, and derive new algorithms that find optimal stable distributions. By using this new perspective, we empirically demonstrate that that there is a tradeoff between minimax and average performance. (shrink)

Historically, Chinese educational philosophy has been dominated by Confucianism and, since 1949, by Marxism. However, rapid industrialization, ideological demands, and loyalty to traditions have now led to a situation where various Western philosophies have been adopted into vocational education in hopes of moving the country forward without challenging the status quo too vigorously. The result is that China presently has no clear philosophical foundation that can help the country make solid decisions on how vocational education shall contribute to economic growth (...) and social improvements. Awareness of one's philosophy, however, is important for vocational educators so that they can make well-founded decisions about their teaching. The authors hope that by presenting an overview of which philosophies have been adopted in the past and the influence they have had on practitioners and policymakers, scholars can engage in a debate on which vocational education philosophy can help train China's workforce most effectively and support continued economic growth. (shrink)

Editor’s AbstractAccording to philosopher Chen Yun in this essay, only by reorienting Confucianism around the idea of (Chinese) civilization will it be able to critique modernity, instead of passively accommodating itself to modernity. Like many other MNCs, Chen views all of the contemporary narratives of world history as fundamentally Eurocentric, based on presuppositions that emerged in Western modernity but without acknowledging their reliance on what is really only one among several other civilizational options.

This article analyses and compares the classical science fiction film Blade Runner and its recent sequel Blade Runner 2049 from the perspective of Zizek's subjectivity theory. Through Zizek's tracing and weaving the concept of subjectivity from Descartes' radical doubt to metaphysical subject and then death drive in Lacanian psychoanalysis, it will argue that the principle concern of this film is the issue of subjectivity, and while carefully scrutinizing replicants in the films with the multi-faceted conception of Zizekian subject, a detailed (...) comparison between these two films could be accomplished. Subsequently, by analyzing from the genre, namely noir and cyberpunk, it will point out the world delineated in both film is a claustrophobic and paranoid one, as well as a postmodern multicultural world. The denizens of this world lead a machine-like and unreflecting life due to the decline of the Big Other. Finally, by associating subjectivity with death drive, the ultimate significance of subjectivity is revealed as a weapon to antagonize the repressing symbolic order and redeem our world from an apocalyptic future presaged in the films. (shrink)

本书内容包括:“法律政治人——人的光明,法的黑暗”;“再论律师——朦胧选项里的清楚选择”;“检察官——正义守卫或贪腐共犯”;“再论检察官——人与制度的双面期待”等。.