This paper explores Erich Fromm’s contribution to Deweyan democratic education by referring to his psychoanalytic interpretation of John Dewey’s pragmatic theory. First, it employs the work by Gert Biesta to secure a space between critical pedagogy and Deweyan democratic education, from which Fromm’s theory can be discussed. Furthermore, it argues that Biesta’s perspective offers a valuable theoretical ground to extend the emancipatory potential of Deweyan democratic education, while avoiding some pitfalls of critical pedagogy. Subsequently, the paper contrasts Marcuse’s and Fromm’s (...) views on Dewey to show how Fromm’s understanding of Dewey was more effective than that of Marcuse for developing the potential of Dewey’s philosophy. Next, the paper clarifies key similarities and differences between Fromm’s psychoanalysis and Dewey’s pragmatism, as it is applicable specifically to emancipatory education. Finally, the paper argues that despite the differences between these two thinkers, Fromm’s theory further radicalizes Deweyan democratic education by adding new elements to the list of preconditions on the role of the emancipatory teacher. (shrink)

This paper studies the welfare consequences of strategic voting in two commonly used parliamentary agendas by comparing the average utilities obtained in simulated voting under two behavioural assumptions: expected utility maximising behaviour and sincere behaviour. The average utility obtained in simulations is higher with expected utility maximising behaviour than with sincere voting behaviour under a broad range of assumptions. Strategic voting increases welfare particularly if the distribution of preference intensities correlates with voter types.

Business and Society Review, Volume 127, Issue S1, Page 223-251, Spring 2022.

Kirjasymposio Eerik Lagerspetzin Social Choice and Democratic Values – kirjasta. Kenneth Arrowia seuraten Lagerspetz pitää sosiaalisen valinnan teorian suurimpana vahvuutena sitä, että sen tuloksia voidaan käyttää monissa erilaisissa yhteyksissä. Minä taas pidän teorian suurimpana heikkoutena sen vaikeutta: tutkijat eivät ole päässeet yhteisymmärrykseen erityisesti ns. epärelevanttien vaihtoehtojen riippumattomuusehdon tulkinnasta ja muotoilusta. Lagerspetz hyväksyy kirjassaan nähdäkseni seuraavat väitteet: kaikki demokraattiset äänestyssäännöt rikkovat riippumattomuusehtoa, mutta että tuo ehto on silti normatiivisesti perusteltu. Arrow’n ehdot ovat intuitiivisesti ottaen hyväksyttävissä. Koska riippumattomuusehdon rikkoutumisesta seuraa strategista äänestämistä (...) ja strateginen äänestäminen on normatiivisesti katsottuna ei-toivottavaa tai jopa moraalisesti kyseenalaista, strategisen äänestämisen poissulkeminen olisi paras mahdollinen argumentti riippumattomuusehdon puolesta. Lisäksi säännöt jotka toteuttavat riippumattomuusehdon ovat immuuneja strategiselle käyttäytymiselle. Hyvin toimiva äänestyssääntö luo puhtaasti mekaanisen yhteyden yksilöiden mielipiteiden ja kollektiivisen valinnan välille. Tämän kirjoituksen ensisijainen tavoite on kumota jokainen edellisessä kappaleessa esitetty väite. (shrink)

This paper provides the first systematic epistemological account of simulated data in empirical science. We focus on the epistemic issues modelers face when they generate simulated data to solve problems with empirical datasets, research tools, or experiments. We argue that for simulated data to count as epistemically reliable, a simulation model does not have to mimic its target. Instead, some models take empirical data as a target, and simulated data may successfully mimic such a target even if the model does (...) not. We show how to distinguish between simulated and empirical data, and we also offer a definition of simulation that can accommodate Monte Carlo models. We shed light on the epistemology of simulated data by providing a taxonomy of four different mimicking relations that differ concerning the nature of the relation or relata. We illustrate mimicking relations with examples from different sciences. Our main claim is that the epistemic evaluation of simulated data should start with recognizing the diversity of mimicking relations rather than presuming that only one relation existed. (shrink)

The most common argument against the use of rational choice models outside economics is that they make unrealistic assumptions about individual behavior. We argue that whether the falsity of assumptions matters in a given model depends on which factors are explanatorily relevant. Since the explanatory factors may vary from application to application, effective criticism of economic model building should be based on model-specific arguments showing how the result really depends on the false assumptions. However, some modeling results in imperialistic applications (...) are relatively robust with respect to unrealistic assumptions. Key Words: unrealistic assumptions • economics imperialism • rational choice • as if • robustness. (shrink)

In my view, human rights must find an appropriate philosophical foundation/justification to be incorporated into non-Western societies and such a foundation/justification must be attractive and inspiring for ordinary citizens in those societies and be based on their own intellectual resources, including local languages. In contemporary Japan, ‘KEN RI (??)’ is considered as the Japanese term corresponding to human rights. However, Fukuzawa Yukichi, the most influential intellectual leader of the early Meiji period, introduced human rights as ‘KEN RI TSUU GI (????)’. (...) The Chinese character ‘KEN (?)’, in the most fundamental text of Confucianism, the teachings of Confucius (551-479 B.C.), Analects, means being able to weigh occurring events and determine the application of principles to them. In the account of Tomonobu Imamichi, a Japanese philosopher, ‘GI (?)’, usually considered as justice, originally meant responsibility. Thus, ‘KEN RI TSUU GI (????)’ can be reinterpreted as being able to practically apply principles (?) to those events, while assuming responsibility (?) before Heaven and the community to which the person belongs. This view of humans as being embedded in communities and as centers of responsibility in the secular and transcendental dimensions is apparently different from the Western philosophical view of humans as rational beings with the capacity to act according to the universal law, but still defends human rights and the democratic development of society. Key words: human rights, philosophical foundation, Confucianism. (shrink)

近世儒学思想史のなかで大塩平八郎に至る陽明学思想により、礼教的教養主義から仁政的政治学へと転換した思想的経緯や、神儒仏などの混交的思想からなる庶民思想と位置づけられてきた石田梅岩『都鄙問答』の思想的基 層が陽明学から構成されていたことなど、近世思想史研究に一石を投ずる問題作から構成。.

Like other mathematically intensive sciences, economics is becoming increasingly computerized. Despite the extent of the computation, however, there is very little true simulation. Simple computation is a form of theory articulation, whereas true simulation is analogous to an experimental procedure. Successful computation is faithful to an underlying mathematical model, whereas successful simulation directly mimics a process or a system. The computer is seen as a legitimate tool in economics only when traditional analytical solutions cannot be derived, i.e., only as a (...) purely computational aid. We argue that true simulation is seldom practiced because it does not fit the conception of understanding inherent in mainstream economics. According to this conception, understanding is constituted by analytical derivation from a set of fundamental economic axioms. We articulate this conception using the concept of economists' perfect model. Since the deductive links between the assumptions and the consequences are not transparent in ‘bottom‐up’ generative microsimulations, microsimulations cannot correspond to the perfect model and economists do not therefore consider them viable candidates for generating theories that enhance economic understanding. (shrink)

This book provides the first comprehensive and critical examination of Mäki's realist philosophy of economics.

Arrow's Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) has been under criticism for decades for not taking account of preference intensities. Computer-simulation results by Aki Lehtinen concerning strategic voting under various voting rules show that this intensity argument does not need to rest on mere intuition. Voters may express intensities by voting strategically, and that this has beneficial aggregate-level consequences: utilitarian efficiency is higher if voters engage in strategic behaviour than if they always vote sincerely. Strategic voting is thus unambiguously beneficial under (...) a utilitarian evaluation of outcomes. What has been considered the main argument for IIA turns out to be one against it. This paper assesses the implications of these results for interpretations of Arrow's theorem and the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem in a discussion on the methodological and philosophical arguments concerning preference intensities and IIA. (shrink)

A review of Donald Katzner's book on economic modelling is provided. In addition to characterising the book, I give critical comments on the distinction between primary and secondary assumptions.

This paper contributes to the philosophical accounts of generalisation in formal modelling by introducing a conceptual framework that allows for recognising generalisations that are epistemically beneficial in the sense of contributing to the truth of a model result or component. The framework is useful for modellers themselves because it is shown how to recognise different kinds of generalisation on the basis of changes in model descriptions. Since epistemically beneficial generalisations usually de-idealise the model, the paper proposes a reformulation of the (...) well-known distinction between abstraction and idealisation. A reformulated notion of abstraction is needed because the extant accounts yield wrong judgments when model-modifications introduce implicit assumptions. (shrink)

The Miyashita experiments are very interesting and the results should be examined from a viewpoint of attractor dynamics. Amit's target article shows a path toward realistic modeling by artificial neural networks (ANN), but it is not necessarily the only one. I introduce another model that can explain a substantial part of the empirical observations and makes an interesting prediction. This model consists of such units that have nonmonotonic input-output characteristics with local inhibition neurons.

Japanese conversational data reveal that Japanese speakers produce, and recipients orient to, smaller units of talk than what the conventional notion of a `turn constructional unit' represents. Unlike TCUs, such units may be grammatically, prosodically and pragmatically incomplete and may happen on the sub-phrasal level of discourse, as Japanese conversationalists prosodically break up even a single semantic constituent with the insertion of an interactional particle. In this article, I give numerous examples of how such practices of separating a segment of (...) talk are not random but are precisely embedded in the sequential organization of talk that participants co-create. I argue that such segmentation contributes to the interactional co-construction of a turn so as to highlight specifically a `move' Within the larger action that is implemented by the TCU. Doing so thereby provides opportunities for the participants to deal with local contingency problems without changing the global level of the pragmatic work of the turn. (shrink)

錯綜する現代の教育状況に、どうアプローチすればよいのか。教育現実のもつ複雑さと重層性に迫るため、「思想史」という回路を通して現代教育の全体像を炙り出す。教育学を学ぶための教育思想史入門。.

Derivational robustness may increase the degree to which various pieces of evidence indirectly confirm a robust result. There are two ways in which this increase may come about. First, if one can show that a result is robust, and that the various individual models used to derive it also have other confirmed results, these other results may indirectly confirm the robust result. Confirmation derives from the fact that data not known to bear on a result are shown to be relevant (...) when it is shown to be robust. Second, robustness may increase the degree to which the robust result is indirectly confirmed if it increases the weight with which existing evidence indirectly confirms it. This may happen when it strengthens the connection between the core and the robust result by showing that auxiliaries are not responsible for the result. (shrink)

This paper provides a conceptual framework that allows for distinguishing between different kinds of generalisation and applicability. It is argued that generalising models may bring epistemic benefits. They do so if they show that restrictive and unrealistic assumptions do not threaten the credibility of results derived from models. There are two different notions of applicability, generic and specific, which give rise to three different kinds of generalizations. Only generalising a result brings epistemic benefits concerning the truth of model components or (...) results. Abstracting the model and applying the model into new systems are not intrinsically epistemically beneficial in this way. The Dixit-Stiglitz model of monopolistic competition is used as an illustration. (shrink)

Robustness may increase the degree to which the robust result is indirectly confirmed if it is shown to depend on confirmed rather than disconfirmed assumptions. Although increasing the weight with which existing evidence indirectly confirms it in such a case, robustness may also be irrelevant for confirmation, or may even disconfirm. Whether or not it confirms depends on the available data and on what other results have already been established.

This study posits that Bohr failed to defend the completeness of the quantum mechanical description of physical reality against Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen’s paper. Although there are many papers in the literature that focus on Bohr’s argument in his reply to the EPR paper, the purpose of the current paper is not to clarify Bohr’s argument. Instead, I contend that regardless of which interpretation of Bohr’s argument is correct, his defense of the quantum mechanical description of physical reality remained incomplete. For example, a (...) recent trend in studies of Bohr’s work is to suggest he considered the wave-function description to be epistemic. However, such an interpretation cannot be used to defend the completeness of the quantum mechanical description. (shrink)

日本主義の精髄としての雪嶺哲学はヘーゲル批判の哲学体系を媒介に大塩陽明学を継承して形成されたことを指摘、雪嶺の実像に迫る。.

This paper offers a novel argument for fatalism: if one accepts the logical possibility of fatalism, one must accept that fatalism is true. This argument has a similar structure to the ‘knowability paradox’, which proves that if every truth can be known by someone, then every truth is known by someone. In this paper, what I mean by ‘fatalism’ is that whatever happens now was determined to happen now in the past. Existing arguments for fatalism assume that the principle of (...) bivalence holds even for future propositions, that past truths are necessarily true, and/or that possible propositions never change into impossible propositions. However, my argument does not assume such premises. It assumes only the logical possibility of fatalism. Here, what I mean by ‘fatalism is logically possible’ is that there is at least one possible world where whatever happens now was determined to happen now in the past. Since this assumption is weak (thus is plausible), I believe it to be much stronger than the existing arguments for fatalism. In addition, I also show that what will happen in the future is determined now. (shrink)