This article deals with questions that arose during a 2-week university course in nonhuman animal laboratory science. Doctoral students and researchers take the course to acquire the knowledge necessary for future independent work with nonhuman animal experimentation. During the course, participants learn to handle animals in the laboratory, both in theory and in practice, and to do so in a humane way with a feeling for the animals. The paper analyzes how this knowledge, in other tacit contexts, is constructed and (...) learned and focuses on two main aspects of handling rodents in the laboratory: habituation and killing. The course's focus on good handling works as a means of doing good research, as a strategy of including animal welfare as a legitimate agenda, while keeping intact traditional scientific norms—such as standardization. In this case, standardization has a wider scope than commonly assumed: Not only are the animals standardized but also the experimentalists who become standardized through courses and curricula. However, this process of standardization is not complete; thus, a feeling for the animal implies, as the case study shows, individual animal and human-animal interaction. (shrink)

Since its inception, analytic philosophy has failed to attain dominance in Japan. However, the 21st century has seen analytic philosophy gain traction among Japanese philosophers. This paper, which examines the status quo of analytic philosophy in Japan since 2000, consists of two parts. The first part deals primarily with organizations—specifically, relevant associations, journals, conferences, universities, and publishers are illustrated. The second part explores key works in each area—namely, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, philosophy of logic and mathematics, philosophy of (...) mind, and metaphysics. Key works in other areas are also briefly addressed. (shrink)

Modal realism is an ontological claim according to which there exist many possible worlds just like our actual world. Since it is so hard to believe, modal realism has only a few advocates. However, it is well known that alternative theories have serious problems. It is one of the central issues of metaphysics to find a persuasive way to reject modal realism. In this paper, I will suggest that it could be accomplished with help of metaontology-one of the topics of (...) metaphysics which has recently discussed intensely. I will show how we could argue against modal realism from the metaontological point of view. (shrink)

The roles of linguistic, cognitive, and social-pragmatic processes in word learning are well established. If statistical mechanisms also contribute to word learning, they must interact with these processes; however, there exists little evidence for such mechanistic synergy. Adults use co-occurrence statistics to encode speech–object pairings with detailed sensitivity in stochastic learning environments (Vouloumanos, 2008). Here, we replicate this statistical work with nonspeech sounds and compare the results with the previous speech studies to examine whether exclusion constraints contribute equally to the (...) statistical learning of speech–object and nonspeech–object associations. In environments in which performance could benefit from exclusion, we find a learning advantage for speech over nonspeech, revealing an interaction between statistical and exclusion processes in associative word learning. (shrink)

This article addresses the embodied nature of laboratory human—animal practices in order to understand the notions of care that take place within an institution of domination — the apparatus of animal experimentation. How is it possible to both love and harm in this context? Building on animal studies and feminist ethics, the theme of emotionality is explored in the section ‘loving animals’. Here it is demonstrated that empathy and affection for individual animals, as well as species, are strong components of (...) an experimental ethos expressed by the informants. The second empirical section deals with the issue of ‘killing well’. The good kill is supposed to be done with care: quickly and compassionately. This is performed by way of bodily measures of care, technological refinement and personal skills and, sometimes, with the help of a division of labour. In the concluding section, the empirical findings are read through the framework, where the feminist theoretical analysis of love, dependency and care from an embodiment perspective understands the dialectics of instrumentalisation and exploitation of — and care for — animals, not as something that goes on above or outside of relations, but rather as something that can be understood from within. ‘Mortal love’ is the attempt to capture and theorise this dialectic, arguing that emotions of love and friendship are not mere justifications for the harm and killing performed, but rather intrinsic dimensions of the embodied animaling of experimental human—animal relations. (shrink)

As I have pointed out in a series of papers, which appeared about fifteen years ago in the Revue de l'histoire des religions, there are numerous resemblances between the ancient myths of the Indo-Europeans, on the one hand, and those of Japan, on the other. These resemblances, relating both to the fundamental structures of the two mythological systems and to a number of curious details, constitute an assemblage which seems too conspicuous to be regarded as either accidental or the result (...) of a similitude of human mentalities, manifesting itself, so it seems, through the creation of a great many similar myths and legends throughout the length and breadth of the surface of our planet. (shrink)

Luck egalitarianism assigns a central role to personal responsibility in egalitarian justice. In the context of healthcare, luck egalitarianism is the view that the distribution of medical and healthcare resources—or common resources in general—should respond to the (im)prudence of individuals. Recently, Joar Björk, Gert Helgesson, and Niklas Juth have argued that it is impractical to use luck egalitarianism as a normative framework in healthcare because it has no reasonable way of dealing with the imprudent. In response to their argument, this (...) paper first suggests that the epistemic problems of applying luck egalitarianism to the healthcare context raised by Björk et al. can be circumvented by using the exemption system as a policy application of luck egalitarian healthcare justice. This paper then shows that an _ex ante_ policy, a tax system with refunds, can reasonably be adopted as a luck egalitarian institutional design of healthcare policy. We argue that the proposed conception of luck egalitarianism can deal with the problem of differential option luck. Finally, we show that the threshold problem for the definition of imprudence does not refute the proposed _ex ante_ policy. (shrink)

In concluding section 2, chapter VI of part II of [6], Duhem claimed:... the physicist can never subject an isolated hypothesis to experimental test, but only a whole group of hypotheses...... when the experiment is in disagreement with his predictions, what he learns is that at least one of the hypotheses constituting this group is unacceptable and ought to be modified; but the experiment does not designate which one should be changed'.

Name der Zeitschrift: Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Jahrgang: 20 Heft: 1 Seiten: 279-300.

In this paper, I try to defend Presentism. First of all, I explore how Presentism diverges to its versions and show that none of them, which include the currently standard Presentism that invokes tense logic, are tenable. Next, I point out that some philosophers argue that by replacing the Quinean criterion of existence with the Truthmaker Principle, another version of Presentism, which invokes tensed properties, can emerges. However, this version has a highly implausible conclusion. Finally, I argue that it can (...) be avoided by taking the evidences of the past or future truths to be typical truthmakers of them. (shrink)

McTaggart’s paradox and his A-theory and B-theory are basic notions in the contemporary philosophy of time. It is well known that the paradox was introduced by McTaggart’s paper called “The Unreality of Time” published in 1908, so that it has a one-hundred-year history. As for A-theory and B-theory, in contrast, McTaggart himself didn’t consider both of them at all. The notions of A-theory and B-theory came much later, 60 years after the paradox. Moreover, they had not been as popularized as (...) they are today until quite recently, at least after the 1990s. This paper aims to trace the origin of the notions of A-theory and B-theory and show how the debates behind them, especially objections to “spatialising time,” form the notions. (shrink)

What is the exact relationship between analytic philosophy and philosophy of science? In this paper, I will address this question from the perspective of research traditions, with the help of recent histor- ical studies on analytic philosophy. The two groups are particularly focused: the Polish philosophers and the logical empiricists in Berlin. Neither of them is unknown to us. However, by taking seriously their connection to the development of analytic philosophy and philosophy of science as research traditions, I believe, the (...) understanding of our own tradition may be improved. (shrink)

Modal realism is an ontological position made familiar by David Lewis, according to which there exist possible worlds other than the actual world that we inhabit. It is hard to uphold modal realism, and indeed modal realism has only a few advocates. However, as most contemporary metaphysicians agree, this does not mean that it is easy to refute modal realism. In this paper, I argue against modal realism from a metaontological point of view. First, I provide a precise formulation of (...) modal realism based on Lewis’ discussion of modal realism. Second, I argue that modal realism is undermined unless it incorporates a view of metaontology known as ontological realism. Third, I point out that if modal realism incorporates ontological realism, it comes into conflict with its own formulation. (shrink)

Cells utilize diverse organelles to maintain homeostasis and to respond to extracellular stimuli. Recently, multifaceted aspects of organelle stress caused by various factors have been emerging. The endosome is an essential organelle, functioning as the central hub for membrane trafficking in cooperation with the ubiquitin system. However, knowledge regarding endosomal stress, which refers to organelle stress of the endosome, is currently limited. We recently revealed ubiquitin‐mediated endosomal stress of early endosomes (EEs) and its responsive signaling pathways. These findings shed light (...) on the relevance of ubiquitin‐mediated endosomal stress to physiological and pathological processes. Here, we present a hypothesis that ubiquitin‐mediated endosomal stress may have significant roles in biological contexts and that ubiquitin‐specific protease 8 is a key regulator of ubiquitin clearance from EEs. (shrink)

Previous research suggests that children learning a variety of languages acquire similar early noun vocabularies and do so by similar and universal processes. We report here results from two studies that show differences in the early noun learning of English- and Japanese-speaking children. Experiment 1 examined the relative numbers of animal names and object names in vocabularies of English-speaking and Japanese-speaking children. English-speaking children's vocabularies were heavily lopsided with many more object than animal names whereas Japanese-speaking children's vocabularies were more (...) evenly balanced. Experiment 2 used a novel noun extension task to examine what young children know about the different organizations of animal and artifact categories. The results suggest that early learners of English but not Japanese over-generalize what they know about object categories to animal categories. The role of culture, input and linguistic structure in early noun acquisitions is discussed. (shrink)

「近代の超克」から「近代の止揚」への“燎爛たる分裂”。西田幾多郎、三木清、戸坂潤の哲学を「個人‐市民‐大衆」形成論として捉える。.

We show, within the framework of Bishop's constructive mathematics, that (sequential) completeness of the locally convex space $\mathcal{D} (\mathbb{R})$ of test functions is equivalent to the principle BD-N which holds in classical mathemtatics, Brouwer's intuitionism and Markov's constructive recursive mathematics, but does not hold in Bishop's constructivism.

In studies publishing identifying personal information, obtaining consent is regarded as necessary, as it is impossible to ensure complete anonymity. However, current journal practices around specific points to consider when obtaining consent, the contents of consent forms and how consent forms are managed have not yet been fully examined. This study was conducted to identify potential issues surrounding consent to publish identifying personal information.

This paper reports on an analysis of the work of Leni Riefenstahl, and German expressionism, through the use of trans-disciplinary semantic associative search in specialized databased dictionaries1. Within this database space (Kitagawa and Kiyokim 1993), the quantitative data of objects as representation can be visualized by number. While the method of image analysis is qualitative, it is based on a quantitative analysis of visual representation. Through this analysis, Riefenstahl's film Olympia Fest der Vlker is compared with the Nazi ideology of (...) the body image. The film is often categorized as romantic; however, this paper proposes a new interpretation based on theories of Jonathan Crary, and Martin Jay, which are combined using the mechanism of connotation in searching database systems. We proposs that, in the context of Visual Culture Studies, the use of digital technologies may provide new possibilities for research in the humanities. (shrink)

We prove in the framework of Bishop's constructive mathematics that the sequential completion equation image of the space [MATHEMATICAL SCRIPT CAPITAL D] is filter-complete. Then it follows as a corollary that the filter-completeness of [MATHEMATICAL SCRIPT CAPITAL D] is equivalent to the principle BD-ℕ, which can be proved in classical mathematics, Brouwer's intuitionistic mathematics and constructive recursive mathematics of Markov's school, but does not in Bishop's constructive mathematics. We also show that equation image is identical with the filter-completion which was (...) provided by Bishop. (shrink)

This article offers a characterization of what I call multiple-models juxtaposition, a strategy for managing trade-offs among modeling desiderata. MMJ displays models of distinct phenomena to...

Perceptual grouping has traditionally been thought to be governed by innate, universal principles. However, recent work has found differences in Japanese and English speakers' non-linguistic perceptual grouping, implicating language in non-linguistic perceptual processes (Iversen, Patel, & Ohgushi, 2008). Two experiments test Japanese- and English-learning infants of 5-6 and 7-8 months of age to explore the development of grouping preferences. At 5-6 months, neither the Japanese nor the English infants revealed any systematic perceptual biases. However, by 7-8 months, the same age (...) as when linguistic phrasal grouping develops, infants developed non-linguistic grouping preferences consistent with their language's structure (and the grouping biases found in adulthood). These results reveal an early difference in non-linguistic perception between infants growing up in different language environments. The possibility that infants' linguistic phrasal grouping is bootstrapped by abstract perceptual principles is discussed. (shrink)