仁斎にとっての「学問」とは、世界の見え方を刷新させるものである。そして、そのような「学問」の道を開いたのが孔子であった。.

Some understand forgiveness as a normative power. Here we raise an objection to such views. They cannot explain certain instances when forgiveness is beyond our grasp. A victim of a wrong, despite thinking forgiveness is the right thing to do, and wishing she could forgive, may find herself unable to do so. No good explanation of this impossibility, consistent with forgiveness being a normative power, is available.

This article argues that Bernard Mandeville's ideas were more likely to have influenced Jeremy Bentham's writings than previously believed. The conventional interpretation of Mandeville as a forerunner of the Hayekian “theory of spontaneous order” has obscured Mandeville and Bentham's shared emphasis on legal and interventionist solutions for the issues of prostitution and prisoners. This influence is evinced by focusing on some of Mandeville's minor works, which anticipated some of Bentham's arguments. It is unlikely that Bentham directly knew of Mandeville's minor (...) works, but his reformist and interventionist bent was consistent and discernible in the Fable, which Jeremy Bentham read in his youth. (shrink)

Car driving is supported by perceptual, cognitive, and motor skills trained through continuous daily practice. One of the skills that characterize experienced drivers is to detect changes in the driving environment and then flexibly switch their driving modes in response to the changes. Previous functional neuroimaging studies on motor control investigated the mechanisms underlying behaviors adaptive to changes in control properties or parameters of experimental devices such as a computer mouse or a joystick. The switching of multiple internal models mainly (...) engages adaptive behaviors and underlies the interplay between the cerebellum and frontoparietal network regions as the neural process. However, it remains unclear whether the neural mechanisms identified in previous motor control studies also underlie practical driving behaviors. In the current study, we measure functional magnetic resonance imaging activities while participants control a realistic driving simulator inside the MRI scanner. Here, the accelerator sensitivity of a virtual car is abruptly changed, requiring participants to respond to this change flexibly to maintain stable driving. We first compare brain activities before and after the sensitivity change. As a result, sensorimotor areas, including the left cerebellum, increase their activities after the sensitivity change. Moreover, after the change, activity significantly increases in the inferior parietal lobe and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, parts of the FPN regions. By contrast, the posterior cingulate cortex, a part of the default mode network, deactivates after the sensitivity change. Our results suggest that the neural bases found in previous experimental studies can serve as the foundation of adaptive driving behaviors. At the same time, this study also highlights the unique contribution of non-motor regions to addressing the high cognitive demands of driving. (shrink)

As its title suggests, this work provides a wide-ranging discussion and interpretation of David Hume’s political philosophy. McArthur’s main arguments are threefold. First, the watershed between civilized and barbarous societies for Hume lies in the establishment of the rule of law. According to the author, what Hume called a “civilized monarchy,” though falling short of the ideal republic, can be regarded as a civilized form of government. This is because Hume believed that, with the exception of the monarch him- or (...) herself, people could be governed by the rule of law in such a political system. Second, McArthur coins the term ‘precautionary conservatism’ to define Hume’s political standpoint. This is an attempt to bridge the division between those commentators who define the philosopher as liberal, on one hand, and those who style him a conservative, on the other. The author notes that Hume regarded liberty as a universal ideal and espoused a doctrine of mankind’s natural rights, an element of Hume’s thought that has often been underplayed in conservative interpretations. Finally, McArthur not only pays due attention to the significance of commerce for Hume as a driving force of civilization; he also makes it clear that Hume’s support for luxury is backed up by his keen awareness of the importance of constitution in preserving manners. Unlike what. (shrink)

Here I distinguish two things jurisprudence might take itself to explain. A theory of law can be either concept-first or practice-first. Concept-first theories investigate the concept we implicitly deploy to label some things as law and not others. Practice-first theories investigate directly, and uncover interesting features of, a particular social practice. That practice could be, for instance, the practice of lawyers and officials which prevails in the United States. I identify Hershovitz's Law Is a Moral Practice with a practice-first approach. (...) Then I elaborate on the distinction and show that a practice-first approach is more defensible than many assume. Finally, I argue a practice-first approach rules out predictive theories of law. (shrink)

Perspectivalism is a popular way to understand legal obligations. That there is a legal obligation, on this view, is equivalent to there being a moral obligation from the legal perspective. But Adam Perry argues that perspectivalism cannot account for arguments going from legal premisses to a factual conclusion. Take, for instance, the premisses (i) only those over 18 have a legal right to vote and (ii) Sarah has a legal right to vote. Seemingly we should be able to arrive at (...) the valid conclusion that Sarah is over 18. Perry says perspectivalism cannot explain the validity of this conclusion. We show that it can. So his objection – that perspectivalism cannot make sense of an important feature of legal argumentation – fails. Along the way, our discussion reveals an important lesson: those who endorse perspectivalism must take care to ensure that all parts of a legal argument, both premisses and conclusions, are true according to the legal perspective. (shrink)

Demonstrates the uniqueness of Hume as an Enlightenment thinker, illustrating how his 'spirit of scepticism' often leads him into seemingly paradoxical positions. This book will be of interest to Hume scholars, intellectual historians of 17th- to 19th-century Europe and those interested in the Enlightenment more widely.

Since 2016, my embodied avatar performance (EAP) has explored healing rituals and life review at the intersection of arts, health and virtual reality (VR) for a variety of individuals, including older adults and cancer patients. EAP established a format in which the avatar mirrors the participant’s behaviours and speech, facing them during the life review process. The aspect of mirroring and facing is crucial in EAP for facilitating engagement, embodiment and empathy and a symbiotic relationship between avatar and human. This (...) article outlines the symbiosis between humans and avatars within the EAP process, focusing on the interactions where participants face and mirror their avatars. The avatars are presented as if participants are looking into a mirror. As the avatars face the participants and mimic their movements, they create an illusion similar to seeing one’s reflection in a virtual setting. The article discusses a range of mirroring aspects, including virtual mirrors in VR, echoing techniques in drama and movement therapy, and broader concepts like empathy, embodiment, we-ness and the Korean emotional concept of Cheong. Early EAP avatars, especially in the case of technical failures, will be discussed as examples. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that in early modern Britain, chivalry—allegedly typified by the Crusades—was considered a negative or even ridiculous ideology until its rehabilitation by the pre-Romantic movement. However, this paper argues that Hume and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers had already shown a deep interest in its historical role and influence on modern civilization. That Hume shared a broad interest in chivalry with contemporary philosophers does not undermine the novelty of his thought on this topic. In fact, the pioneering and (...) unique aspects of his contributions can be clarified by setting them in context. (shrink)

The significance of Hume's positive attitude towards luxury might have been overemphasized by his commentators. In fact, arguments in favor of "moderate" luxury had already been entertained before the emergence of Hume's position. Therefore to argue that Hume's argument entailed the defense of moderate luxury is not to identify in it anything particularly unique. Thus, the first aim of this paper is to clarify the nature of Hume's contribution to the ongoing luxury debates. This does not consist merely of an (...) assertion of the compatibility of moral virtue with the enjoyment of luxury, but lies rather in Hume's emphasis on two aspects of the beneficial interaction between morality and luxury. First, the historical process of the introduction of luxury is regarded by Hume as fostering new morals peculiar to the commercial age; and secondly, the enjoyment of luxury is seen as a condition favorable to the maintenance of morals. The second aim of this paper is to shed some new light on an aspect of Hume's thought that, so far, has been relatively neglected, namely, his distinction between "innocent" and "vicious" forms of luxury, as well as his acknowledgement of the possibility of the emergence of the latter, as well as the former, in the modern commercial world. However, this does not necessarily lead us to a more pessimistic interpretation of Hume's view of luxury than those accepted thus far; only to the awareness of how difficult and delicate, in Hume's view, is the maintenance of the balance between the interlinked concepts of industry, knowledge, and humanity. (shrink)

1. Hōriron -- 2. Hōshisō -- 3. Jitteihō no kiso riron.

Jinul (1158-1210) is one of the most important scholar monks in Korean history. His view on the awakening in Zen Buddhism, called 'sudden awakening and gradual practice,' has recently been criticized by Seongcheol (1912-1993), one of the representative monks in Modern Korea. Seongcheol's criticism isbased upon the fact that Jinul's argument on sudden awakening and gradual practice cannot be allowed in authentic Zen Buddhism according to his own observation. Instead, Seongcheol argues that real awakening need no further practice. The choice (...) between Jinul and Seongcheol might become a serious concern among Zen practitioners. We should, however, be concerned rather with what their arguments can signify to their own contemporary humanbeings. We should understand their arguments against their historical backgrounds and social contexts. Especially, Seongcheol also argues that we should practice strenuously in order to achieve Zen awakening. This argument does not accord properly with Chinese traditional Zen Buddhism in that Huineng, the founder of Chinese Zen Buddhism, bases his own argument on the thesis that true awakening needs no prior practice. Jinul and Seongcheol, though commonly understanding the power of such thesis, recognized the peril of no practice. So there is their emphasis on practice, though there is the difference of before or after the awakening between them. The two Korean Zen monks can contribute commonly to us in that they caution the perils of easily misunderstanding authentic Zen awakening and wrongly conceiting themselves over their own awakening. (shrink)

Hume's repeated mentions of the vicissitudes of civilization have thus far been neglected, overlooked, or misinterpreted by Hume scholars. Although his references to the “death” or “ruin” of a nation are somewhat hyperbolic, his cyclical view of history was neither mere rhetoric nor necessarily pessimistic. This paper aims to show that Hume's notion of historical fluctuations was deeply connected with his understanding of the universality of human nature. It also placed Hume in a strategic position from which he could criticize (...) both those who believed in the possibility of perpetual progress and those who forecast the successive decline of the human world. To explore Hume's position in more detail, we must first examine the reasons his argument was often misunderstood, especially in the context of the “rich country–poor country” debate. We also need to examine how Hume's view of the cyclical nature of history, consistently held, can be reconciled with his status as one of the champions of modern civilization. (shrink)