Tosaka Jun (1900-1945) was one of modern Japan's most unique and important critics of capitalism, the emperor system, imperialism, and everyday life in wartime Japan. This collection of translations contains some of Tosaka's most important essays and original articles on Tosaka.

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung: In Abschnitt (1) dieses Aufsatzes diskutiere ich Rawls’ theologische Kritik des Verdienstes in seiner frühen Schrift Über Sünde, Glaube und Religion. Im Gegensatz zur Theorie der Gerechtigkeit kritisiert der frühe Rawls eine Berufung auf das eigene Verdienst nicht als kognitiven Irrtum oder moralische Willkür, sondern sieht darin den sündhaften Ausdruck menschlichen Stolzes. Diese Kritik des Stolzes beruht auf einem schöpfungstheologischen Argument und mündet in ein Plädoyer für religiöse Demut. Abschnitt (2) zeigt, dass Rawls’ Diskussion von Verteilungsgrundsätzen in den übergreifenden (...) Versuch einer gerechtigkeitstheoretischen Zähmung des Zufalls eingebettet ist. Rawls entwickelt in der Theorie der Gerechtigkeit eine bestimmte Typologie des Zufalls und diskutiert, wie die vier von ihm diskutierten Lesarten des zweiten Grundsatzes der Gerechtigkeit auf den Zufall reagieren. Die gerechtigkeitstheoretische Zähmung des Zufalls distanziert sich sowohl von der Dystopie einer völligen Eliminierung des Zufalls als auch von einer fatalistischen Affirmation des Zufalls. In Abschnitt (3) erläutere ich zunächst die unterschiedlichen Begriffe des Verdienstes, welche Rawls in der Theorie der Gerechtigkeit vorstellt. Ich versuche Rawls’ Kritik des Verdienstes zu klären, indem ich diese gegen ein Missverständnis in Schutz nehme, welches Samuel Schefflers und Thomas Scanlons Interpretationen kennzeichnet. Schließlich beschäftige ich mich mit Robert Nozicks Suche nach dem „positive argument“ von Rawls’ Kritik des Verdienstes, komme dabei jedoch zu einem ganz anderen Ergebnis als Nozick. Meiner Meinung findet sich das „positive argument“, nach dem Nozick vergeblich sucht, nicht in der Theorie der Gerechtigkeit, sondern verdankt sich dem kreatürlichen Egalitarismus von Rawls’ theologischer Frühschrift. (shrink)

How much does ethics demand of us? On what authority does it demand it? How does what ethics demand relate to other requirements, such as those of prudence, law, and social convention? Does ethics really demand anything at all? Questions of this sort lie at the heart of the work of the Danish philosopher and theologian K. E. Logstrup, and in particular his key text The Ethical Demand. In The Radical Demand in Logstrup's Ethics, Robert Stern offers a full (...) account of that text, and situates Logstrup's distinctive position in relation to Kant, Kierkegaard, Levinas, Darwall and Luther. For Logstrup, the ethical situation is primarily one in which the fate of the other person is placed in your hands, where it is then your responsibility to do what is best for them. The demand therefore does not come from the other person as such, as what they ask you to do may be different from what you should do. It is also not laid down by social rules, nor by God or by any formal principle of practical reason, such as Kant's principle of universalizability. Rather, it comes from what is required to care for the other, and the directive power of their needs in the situation. Logstrup therefore rejects accounts of ethical obligation based on the commands of God, or on abstract principles governing practical reason, or on social norms; instead he develops a different picture, at the basis of which is our interdependence, which he argues gives his ethics a grounding in the nature of life itself. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

The first history of American medical ethics published in more than a half century, Before Bioethics tracks the evolution of American medical ethics from colonial midwives and physicians' oaths to current bioethical controversies over abortion, AIDS, animal rights, and physician-assisted suicide.

This book argues that the last eight years in particular have shown us that our democracy has largely evaporated, leaving behind only an exoskeleton that was once its original vertebrae of ends and principles. It is critical to our form of democracy in the U.S. that citizens become active participants.

In order to explain the behavior of a human organism, it is necessary to take its environment into consideration. Except for very severe psychotic withdrawal, this has been recognized as a near triviality since Aristotle. But although consideration of the environment may be necessary, it is not sufficient, and it is now generally conceded that a man's behavior cannot be explained solely from a consideration of his present environment and a history of his responses to past environments.

On scientific and moral revolutions -- Using the dead for the living: the benthamite moral revolution -- Immoralizing and criminalizing abortion: the doctors revolution -- Irredentism and counter-revolutions in geology and abortion -- The american bioethics revolution -- The structure of moral revolutions.

Democracy is not only a form of government. It is also the moral aspiration for a society of self-governing political equals who disagree about politics. Citizens are called on to be active democratic participants, but they must also acknowledge one another's political equality. Democracy thus involves an ethic of civility among opposed citizens. Upholding this ethic is more difficult than it may look. When the political stakes are high, the opposition seems to us tobe advocating injustice. Sustaining Democracy poses the (...) question: why should we uphold democratic relations with those whose politics we despise? (shrink)

The fifteen essays collected here set out to demonstrate why the critical philosophy of race needs to take a historical turn. Genealogies of the concepts of both race and racism are deployed to clarify why some of the dominant strategies for combatting racism tend either miss the target altogether or give it only a glancing blow. For example, relying on biology to reject the concept of race as a way of disarming racism misses the fact that racism precedes the biology (...) of race. It also ignores the prevalence of forms of racism, such as cultural racism that do not take their starting point in biology. Drawing on the work of Frantz Fanon, the late Sartre, and Michel Foucault, Robert Bernasconi argues for a holistic approach that integrates the concrete experience of racism faced by individuals into the study of institutional, structural, and systemic racism. Studying the interventions of such Black philosophers as Ottobah Cugoano, Anténor Firmin, and W. E. B. Du Bois, shows the value of allowing them to set the terms of the debate, instead of trying to fit them into debates shaped by other areas of philosophy. If race is indeed a social construct, then it is necessary to uncover the different forces, material as well as intellectual, that at different times shaped the various forms the concept of race has taken and the value then placed on preserving racial purity. Critical philosophy of race has a role to play in rendering both the material and psychological effects of slavery and segregation more intelligible as forms of systemic racism. When critical philosophers of race ignore the history of racism, they are in danger of being complicit with that part of society that seeks to erase that history. (shrink)

This book provides a comprehensive and critical account of Gadamer's hermeneutical philosophy. Robert J. Dostal shows that at the heart of Gadamer's enterprise is the thesis that "being that can be understood is language.".

I want to begin by saying that the terms of reference of this series of lectures grated on me, in particular, the word ‘power’. One thing it conjured up was the criticism made by people who say we use our power over our patients to brainwash them, that the psychotherapeutic relationship is inescapably authoritarian, domineering, coercive. This was widely said in the sixties by leftist and feminists and others who sought a therapeutic relationship that was more equal, co-counselling, for example, (...) where the client and the therapist took turns exposing their problems. In my experience, most people who took up that position eventually saw the merits of relatively orthodox psychotherapy, and many have trained in conventional psychodynamic psychotherapy. I asked my partner, who is also a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, what the term power conjured up for her and got an uncharacteristically sharp response. She said, ‘I hate that word. It’s used by humanistic therapists who are afraid of authority, difference and knowledge and want us all to be the same. It’s like saying colour doesn’t matter. They confuse the abuse of power with the use of power. They assume that all exercise of power is abusive.’. (shrink)

What is the relation of politics to theory? Theories make political claims, theorists make political critiques, and academics use theory in the pursuit of institutional ends: theory is not only about politics but is itself a political practice.

In approaching the future, i.e. in planning projects and decision-making, the role of both affective and non-affective factors is considerable. But given that affectivity is not a homogeneous realm and that it is difficult, if not impossible, to isolate the affective and non-affective elements of a description, anticipation can be hardly described as purely affective, and, on the other, it is necessary to consider what kind or level of the hierarchical realm of affectivity is involved in the anticipation move. In (...) the paper several distinction are made in order to elucidate the role of affectivity in anticipating a person’s approach to the future. (shrink)

In 1763, the young James Boswell left Great Britain for a 'Grand Tour' of the Continent. The tour was a tradition among British and Scottish youths; by visiting the great historical sites, especially those of Roman and Greek antiquity, they would complete the studies they had begun at universities back home. Boswell's tour, however, was different: he was less concerned with the ruins of the past than the thinkers of the present. In particular, he was eager to question the leading (...) figures of the Enlightenment on matters of faith and God--of particular importance to Boswell, who had been raised in the dour and dire atmosphere of the Church of Scotland. In his remarkable conversations with figures like Voltaire, Rousseau, and Hume, we see a man struggling with the claims of reason and needs of faith--a struggle that remains very much our own 250 years later. (shrink)

The author shows how Protagoras's notion that justice is teachable because it is behavioral conditioning (punishment) in cities that are gangsterism incarnate.

Obwohl Husserl und Deleuze ihre Philosophien unter den Leitbegriff des Transzendentalen stellen, scheint es schwer, sie in ein konstruktives Gespräch miteinander zu bringen. Zu einer solchen produktiven Konfrontation soll hier der Versuch unternommen werden, indem die von der Mathematik des 19. Jahrhunderts inspirierte Idee der Mannigfaltigkeit als zentraler Operator bei Deleuze wie auch bei Husserl identifiziert wird. In dieser kritischen Auseinandersetzung schärfen sich auch der Sinn und die Aufgabenstellung der Phänomenologie als einer Philosophie reiner Immanenz, deren grundlegende metaphysische Dimension die (...) Zeit sein muss. (shrink)

Agriculture’s dominant focus is feeding the human population. From an ethical perspective, this is clearly very positive, but it does not absolve agriculture from critical, ethical examination of the totality of agriculture’s effects. To earn the public’s ongoing support, agriculture must be trusted to vigilantly examine its full range of effects and be sure they align with the highest ethical values. Agriculture’s record is enviable in the science and technology associated with its primary ethical concern, but we need to do (...) more to address the broader ethical issues that are the public’s increasing concern. The entire agricultural community needs to become engaged in the discussion. The classroom offers an effective starting place. Yet, curricular offerings are rarely available at public universities. Opportunity for ethics study should become a key component of agricultural education. (shrink)