Theoretical evidence suggests that corporate social irresponsibility (CSI) should produce long-lasting negative influences on firm performance. Yet, little empirical evidence exists in the literature to support this time-embedded research frame. This research was conducted by collecting a large set of firm data and by employing a series of vector autoregressive models to map out the longitudinal dynamic relationships between CSI and firm value under high versus low levels of two external factors, environmental dynamism and competition intensity, and one internal factor, (...) firm capability. The results show that CSI’s negative influences endure in scenarios such as high dynamism, high competition intensity, and low capability, but it has only a short-term impact on low-dynamism markets and does not produce significant effects on firm value under low-competition or high-capability conditions. These findings yield useful implications for CSI, resource-based theory, and environment theories as well as for managerial effectiveness of coping with social negativities. (shrink)

Ben shu ji yu Wang Chuanshan zhe xue wen ben, can zhao "nei zai quan shi" de li lu yi ji quan shi zhi "dao" "shu" de ce lüe ji qiao, dui wang chuan shan zhe xue jin xing yan jiu, ti chu zhu ru Song Ming ru xue "san xi shuo", "wu zhong shi" ji xian shi shi jie de yu zhou lun, "tai ji" ben ti lun, xing zhi qian zai yu shi xian, liang ge ceng mian de (...) gong fu lun, ji yu "jin hua" de xun huan li shi guan, jun quan de "he fa xing" "zheng dang xing"yi ji "zi zhi lun" deng yi xie xin de guan dian, bing ti chu ru xue "shi cun dao de miao shu" "xing shang xue" "xing shang dao de shi jian" san zhong xing tai, tong guo jiang Wang Chuanshan yu Huang Zongxi deng tong shi dai de ru zhe yi qi zhi yu Ming mo Qing chu ru xue "xing shang dao de shi jian" xing tai, dui Wang Chuanshan zhe xue jin xing ru xue shi ding wei, wei Qing dai yi hou ru xue bao kuo xian dai xin ru xue dian ding ji ben fang xiang. (shrink)

This highly original work explores the concept of self-awareness or self-consciousness in Buddhist thought. Its central thesis is that the Buddhist theory of self-cognition originated in a soteriological discussion of omniscience among the Mahasamghikas, and then evolved into a topic of epistemological inquiry among the Yogacarins. To illustrate this central theme, this book explores a large body of primary sources in Chinese, Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan, most of which are presented to an English readership for the first time. It makes (...) available important resources for the study of the Buddhist philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The purpose of the Chinese Environmental Information Disclosure System is to protect the environment through public participation and public opinion. This paper uses data from listed Chinese companies in heavily polluted industries from 2008 to 2013 to examine the influence that corporate political connection has on corporate environmental information disclosure level. The results show that firstly, while environmental disclosure level has improved over time, negative information that reflects the real status of environmental management has also been concealed. Secondly, although corporate (...) political connection can influence companies to more actively disclose environmental information, it can also mask political rent-seeking in the guise of protecting the environment. This is especially prevalent in state-owned enterprises where political connection has a significant positive impact on CEID in the eastern and western parts of China. If political connections influence CEID, it will be difficult to improve the quality of environmental disclosure and provide useful information for decision makers. There is an urgent need to standardize and strictly regulate listed companies’ system for environmental information disclosure. (shrink)

In recent years, the self-representational theory of consciousness emerged as a trend that moves beyond the debates between first-order and higher-order theorists, and the HOP (higher-order perception) versus HOT (higher-order thought) debates among higher-order theorists. This theory seems to offer us a model of consciousness that is closer to truth, but it also has limitations. My study will particularly address these limitations and attempt to overcome them by developing a theory of consciousness that is deeply rooted in the Buddhist epistemological (...) tradition. I will illustrate the dual-aspect structure of consciousness and criticize the self-representational theory for collapsing the distinction between these aspects. This study will lead to what I call a theory of the accumulation of aspects. (shrink)

The parable of the butterfly dream is one of the most interesting and influential passages among Zhuangzi's beautiful writings. This article interprets the butterfly dream from an interdisciplinary approach. The review of mythological and religious sources reveals that the image of the butterfly is widely understood to symbolize the human self or soul. The scientific study of dream experience touches upon the issue of self-consciousness and the sense of two-tiered self. The philosophical and psychological perspectives further highlight the tension between (...) the wu 吾-self and the wo 我-self, self and ego, bodily and spiritual soul, and allow me to test my hypothesis of self-alienation. (shrink)

Multi-person pose estimation is a challenging problem. Bottom-up methods have been greatly studied because the prediction speed of top-down methods is related to the number of people in the input image, making these methods difficult to apply in real-time environments. To solve the problems of scale sensitivity and quantization error in bottom-up methods, it is necessary to have a model that can predict multi-scale keypoints and refine quantization error. To achieve this, we propose context feature and refined network for multi-person (...) pose estimation (CRNet), which can effectively solve the problems of scale sensitivity and quantization error in bottom-up methods. We use a multi-scale feature pyramid and context feature to achieve scale invariance of the network. We extract global and local features and then fuse them by attentional feature fusion (AFF) to obtain context feature that adapt to multi-scale keypoints. In addition, we propose an efficient refined network to solve the problem of quantization error and use multi-resolution supervised learning to further improve the prediction accuracy of CRNet. Comprehensive experiments are conducted on two benchmarks: COCO and MPII datasets. The average precision of CRNet reached 72.1 and 80.2%, respectively, surpassing most state-of-the-art methods. (shrink)

In a bipartite quantum system, quantum states are classified as classically correlated and quantum correlated states, the later are important resources of quantum information and computation protocols. Since correlations of quantum states may vary under a quantum channel, it is necessary to explore the influence of quantum channels on correlations of quantum states. In this paper, we discuss CC-preserving, QC-breaking and strongly CC-preserving local quantum channels of the form \ and obtain the structures of these three types of local quantum (...) channels. Moreover, we obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for a quantum state to be transformed into a CC state by a specific local channel \ in terms of the structure of the input quantum state. Lastly, as applications of the obtained results, we present a classification of local quantum channels \ and describe the quantum states which are transformed as CC ones by the corresponding local quantum channel. (shrink)

Parmenides expelled nonbeing from the realm of knowledge and forbade us to think or talk about it. But still there has been a long tradition of nay-sayings throughout the history of Western and Eastern philosophy. Are those philosophers talking about the same nonbeing or nothing? If not, how do their concepts of nothing differ from each other? Could there be different types of nothing? Surveying the traditional classifications of nothing or nonbeing in the East and West have led me to (...) develop a typology of nothing that consists of three main types: 1) privative nothing, commonly known as absence; 2) negative nothing, the altogether not or absolute nothing; and finally 3) original nothing, the nothing that is equivalent to being. I will test my threefold typology of nothing by comparing the similarities and differences between the conceptions of nothing in Heidegger, Daoism and Buddhism. With this study, I hope that I will clarify some confusion in the understanding of nothing in Heidegger, Daoism and Buddhism, and shed light on the central philosophical issue of “what there is not”. (shrink)

The problem of empty terms is one of the focal issues in analytic philosophy. Russell’s theory of descriptions, a proposal attempting to solve this problem, attracted much attention and is considered a hallmark of the analytic tradition. Scholars of Indian and Buddhist philosophy, e.g., McDermott, Matilal, Shaw and Perszyk, have studied discussions of empty terms in Indian and Buddhist philosophy. But most of these studies rely heavily on the Nyāya or Navya-Nyāya sources, in which Buddhists are portrayed as opponents to (...) be defeated, and thus do not truly reflect Buddhist views on this issue. The present paper will explore how Dignāga, the founder of Buddhist logic, deals with the issue of empty subject terms. His approach is subtle and complicated. On the one hand, he proposes a method of paraphrase that resembles Russell’s theory of descriptions. On the other, by relying on his philosophy of language—the apoha theory, he tends to fall into a panfictionalism. Through the efforts of his follower Dharmakīrti, the latter approach would become more acceptable among Indian and Tibetan Buddhists. Dignāga’s Chinese commentators, who were free from the influence of Dharmakīrti, dealt with the empty term issue in three ways: (1) by adhering to Dignāga’s method of paraphrase; (2) by allowing exceptions for non-implicative negation; and (3) by indicating the propositional attitude of a given proposition. Among these, the third proved most popular. (shrink)

Communication can be risky. Like other kinds of actions, it comes with potential costs. For instance, an utterance can be embarrassing, offensive, or downright illegal. In the face of such risks, speakers tend to act strategically and seek ‘plausible deniability’. In this paper, we propose an account of the notion of deniability at issue. On our account, deniability is an epistemic phenomenon. A speaker has deniability if she can make it epistemically irrational for her audience to reason in certain ways. (...) To avoid predictable confusion, we distinguish deniability from a practical correlate we call ‘untouchability’. Roughly, a speaker has untouchability if she can make it practically irrational for her audience to act in certain ways. These accounts shed light on the nature of strategic speech and suggest countermeasures against strategic speech. (shrink)

本书将牟宗三哲学研究置于当前国内外关于牟氏研究现状的大环境, 大视野之中, 着眼于牟氏道德的形上学, 紧扣牟氏著述文本, 不仅考察和梳理了牟宗三的学思历程, 学术资源, 而且重点从良知论, "现象" 与 "物自身", 两层存有论, 内圣与新外王, 宗教论, 圆善论, 道德的形上学之完成等方面展开对牟宗三哲学的阐发和剖析.

本书共分五个章节，依次为：一、竹简《文子》研究；二、竹简《文字》成书年代反思；三、竹简《文子》、进本《文字》、《淮南子》三书关系反思；四、今本《文子》与《淮南子》之关系；五、当代学者新近出版《文子》论 著评述。.

The dissertation explores the historical development of the Yogacara doctrine of self-cognition. The concept "self-cognition " refers to the reflexive nature of the human mind, which is also a main subject in modern psychology and the rapidly-growing field of cognitive science. My central thesis is that the Buddhist doctrine of self-cognition originated in a soteriological discussion of omniscience among the Mahasam&dotbelow;ghikas, an early Buddhist school established right after the first schism of Buddhist community. The doctrine then evolved into a topic (...) of epistemological inquiry among the Yogacarins. ;Based on the primary sources in Chinese, Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan, I trace the origin of the doctrine of self-cognition back to the Mahasam&dotbelow;ghikas. In their discussion on the omniscience of Srota-apanna, an initial stage of Buddhist sagehood, they admit that this omniscience and, consequently, the self-cognition of the mind and mental activities occur in a single moment. In their view, the mind is like a lamp: it illuminates other things while it also illuminates itself. ;The dissertation then explores the subsequent development of this doctrine in a series of Buddhist scholars, including Sarvastivadins, Sautrantikas, and Yogacarins. The Sarvastivadins set forth a systematic refutation to the Mahasam&dotbelow;ghika doctrine in terms of causality, epistemology, soteriology, the relationship of self and other, the distinction between particular and universal, and supportive similes. The Sarvastivadins also developed a reflective model, in which they saw self-cognition as possible only in multiple moments rather than in a single moment. ;The Sautrantikas developed their doctrine of self-cognition by synthesizing the views of their predecessors. They discussed self-cognition in a more epistemological context, and especially in a framework of successively arising moments of cognition. They conclude that only mental consciousness is endowed with the capacity of self-cognition. ;The early Yogacara doctrine of self-cognition bears a strong mark of Sautrantika influence, although it was modified by contact with the Yogacara idealism. Dignaga was the first Yogacara scholar to systematize a doctrine of self-cognition in his epistemological system. I argue, against several eminent contemporary scholars, that self-cognition is a separate type of perception for Dignaga. Finally, I introduce Dharmapala's concept of the cognition of self-cognition, which signifies a further level of reflexivity of the mind. (shrink)

In the field of comparative religion, many scholars believe that there are essentially two groups: the historical religions, such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and the mystical religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Daoism. These, respectively, represent the basic spiritual attitude of the Western and Eastern worlds. Is it really the case that the Eastern world knows nothing about history, or is their idea of history different from that of the West? In this article, I will focus on a Japanese (...) philosopher, Keiji Nishitani, a representative of the Kyoto School, and examine his constructive engagement with the Buddhist and Christian ideas of historicity for the purpose of constructing “a proper view of history suitable for future mankind.” I will unfold this “proper” view of history in three parts: 1) time: linear or circular; 2) history and karma; 3) eschatology and nirvāṇa. (shrink)

The article provides a conceptualization of self(-illness) ambiguity and investigates to what extent self(-illness) ambiguity is ‘special’. First, we draw on empirical findings to argue that self-ambiguity is a ubiquitous phenomenon. We suggest that these findings are best explained by a multidimensional account, according to which selves consist of various dimensions that mutually affect each other. On such an account, any change to any particular self-aspect may change other self-aspects and thereby alter the overall structural pattern of self-aspects, potentially leading (...) to self-ambiguity. Second, we propose that self-ambiguity comes in degrees and should be understood as a spectrum (as opposed to there being qualitative differences among instances of self-ambiguity). Third, we argue that complexity is the most useful dimension to organize cases of self-ambiguity, with mundane instances of self-ambiguity on the one end and self-illness ambiguity on the other end of the spectrum. Fourth, we address the promises and perils of narrativity with regard to self-ambiguity. Finally, we link our deflationary account of self(-illness) ambiguity to pattern theories of self. (shrink)

This book explores how one can bring about changes in the brain through meditation, both through attention-focus training and through compassion training. Recent findings in the natural sciences have confirmed that it is possible for humans to achieve these structural and functional changes through various life-style practices. It is argued that meditation enables us to influence some aspects of our biological make-up and, for example, could boost our cognitive flexibility as well as our ability to act compassionate. Such changes are (...) likely to facilitate the instilling of a number of epistemic virtues which have great bearing on our quality of life. This book offers the reader an accessible introduction to a set of neuro-enhancement methods, with a special focus on meditation techniques, and explores how such practices could contribute to make us better decision-makers and improve our moral virtues. The book is suitable for anyone looking for a text discussing the effects of neuro-enhancement from a secular ethics perspective. (shrink)

This study deals with the tensions between old and new Yogācāra, as seen in the Huayan sources, which, in turn, reflect discontinuity between Indian Yogācāra and its reception in China. Its particular focus is on the concept of karmic appearance , as developed in the Awakening of Faith and further elaborated on by many Huayanmasters. This concept illustrates the sudden arising of deluded thoughts and provides us with a paradigm for the approach to the problem of delusion, a problem that (...) is deeply rooted in Tathāgatagarbha Thought and addresses the origin of deluded thoughts against the backdrop of the pure mind. This Huayan solution resembles the concept of free will, as developed in mainstream Christian theology after Augustine attempted to solve the problem of evil, and the concept of playfulness found in Indian Vedānta theology to explain the creation of the illusory world. (shrink)

The present paper discusses some concepts and materials that may be linked to Īśvarasena’s theory of non-cognition. These include the concept of feiliang 非量 as found in the writings of Dharmapāla, Asvabhāva, Jinaputra and their Chinese counterparts, and apramāṇatā (or apramāṇatva), as found in the works of Dharmakīrti and his commentators. I shall demonstrate that the two concepts in many ways mirror the theory of three pramāṇas, proposed by Īśvarasena. As most of these materials are from the sixth to eighth (...) century, they are extremely helpful for clarifying the early development of the theory of non-cognition and filling gaps in our understanding of the early development of this theory. (shrink)

The present paper explores some pre-Vibhāṣika sources including the Kathāvatthu, *Śāriputrābhidharma, and Vijñānakāya. These sources suggest an early origin of the concept of the cognition of nonexistent objects (asad-ālambana-jñāna) among the Mahāsāṃghikas and some of its sub-schools. These scattered sources also indicate some different aspects of this theory from that held by the Dārṣṭāntikas and the Sautrāntikas. In particular, some Mahāsāṃghika arguments for the cognition of nonexistent objects reveal how a soteriologically-oriented issue gradually develops into a sophisticated philosophical concept.

Among various opinions in the controversy over the the cognition of non-existent objects (asad-ālambana-vijñāna) among various Buddhist and Indian philosophical schools or in the debate on the objectless presentations (gegenstandslose Vorstellungen) happened in the early development of phenomenology and analytic philosophy, I find that Dharmakīrti and Husserl hold similar views. Both of them have less interest in redefining the ontological status of nonexistent objects than Russell and Meinong. Rather they engage themselves in analyzing the experiential structure of negative cognition and (...) come up with a similar conclusion that negative judgments presuppose affirmative perceptions. This study will enrich our understanding of both thinkers. (shrink)

The current paper reflects my own personal struggle between two different fields of my training and career: religious studies and philosophy. Scholars with training in religious studies are understandably less interested in philosophical issues and more interested in such issues as myth, ritual, practice, eschatology, and, in the case of Buddhism and other Indian religions, soteriology. I will mainly address the tension between soteriological and philosophical discourses. I do agree that philosophy, Eastern philosophy in particular, is a byproduct of religious (...) activities. But I do not agree with a popular view among scholars of Buddhist studies that all the Buddhist philosophical discourses serve a soteriological goal. On my view, Buddhist philosophy may have been developed out of asoteriological context, but it takes its own life and cannot be reduced too quickly to soteriology. I will illustrate this point with the well-known silence of the Buddha. (shrink)

Affordances are possibilities for action offered by the environment. Recent research on affordances holds that there are differences in how people experience such possibilities for action. However, these differences have not been properly investigated. In this paper I start by briefly scrutinizing the existing literature on this issue, and then argue for two claims. First, that whether an affordance solicits action or not depends on its relevance to the agent’s concerns. Second, that the experiential character of how an affordance solicits (...) action depends on the character of the concern to which it is relevant. Concerns are conceived of as bodily forms of responsiveness, and solicitations are experienced through this responsiveness. The main aim of this paper is to make clear that an understanding of experiential differences in solicitations has to be based on a phenomenological appreciation of how one experiences one’s responsiveness to those solicitations. In the remainder of the paper I show how such a phenomenological appreciation reveals several characteristics of our responsiveness and I briefly explore three of them: valence, force and mineness. In the final section I discuss the self-referentiality of affordances in light of the current proposal, and argue that this self-referentiality is broader than is typically acknowledged. (shrink)

This book shows how pressing issues in bioethics – e.g. the ownership of biological material and human cognitive enhancement – successfully can be discussed with in a virtue ethics framework. This is not intended as a complete or exegetic account of virtue ethics. Rather, the aim here is to discuss how some key ideas in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, when interpreted pragmatically, can be a productive way to approach some hot issues in bioethics. In spite of being a very promising theoretical (...) perspective virtue ethics has so far been underdeveloped both in bioethics and neuroethics and most discussions have been conducted in consequentialist and/or deontological terms. ​. (shrink)

It has been argued that affordances are not meaningful and are thus not useful to be applied in contexts where specifically meaningfulness of experience is at stake (e.g. clinical contexts or discussions of autonomous agency). This paper aims to reconceptualize affordances such as to make them relevant and applicable in such contexts. It starts by investigating the ‘ambiguity’ of (possibilities for) action. In both philosophy of action and affordance research, this ambiguity is typically resolved by adhering to the agents intentions (...) and concerns. I discuss some recent accounts of affordances that highlight these concerns but argue that they tend to adopt an ‘atomistic’ approach where there is no acknowledgement of how these concerns are embedded in the agents wider concerns, values, projects and commitments. An holistic approach that does acknowledge this can be found in psychological research on agents having a sense of what they’re doing. I will discuss this research in the second part of the paper and argue that agents can analogously have a sense of what is afforded. This is deemed the entry point for understanding the meaningfulness of affordances. In the final part of the paper I apply this analysis to recent attempts which seek to make sense of authentic and autonomous agency in terms of affordances. (shrink)

Many experiential properties are naturally understood as dispositions such that e.g. a cake tastes good to you iff you are disposed to get gustatory pleasure when you eat it. Such dispositional analyses, however, face a challenge. It has been widely observed that one cannot properly assert “The cake tastes good to me” unless one has tried it. This acquaintance requirement is puzzling on the dispositional account because it should be possible to be disposed to like the cake even if this (...) disposition has never been manifested. We argue that familiar response strategies on behalf of the dispositionalist fail. These include appeals to conversational implicatures, expressivism, semantic presuppositions and norms of assertion. Against this background, we propose a new analysis in terms of what we call tendencies, where a tendency is a disposition that has been manifested. The acquaintance requirement comes out as an entailment. We point out a hitherto unnoticed parallel to sentences ascribing character traits such as “Hannah is brave,” and extend our tendency-based analysis to this domain. (shrink)