ABSTRACTVirtual games are played by millions of people today. Almost everyone has the means to access virtual worlds in most places in the world. Virtual games are new worlds for the players waiting to be discovered. Video games in this new world are considered to be sports activities by some people, while some oppose to this conception. In this regard, philosophical approaches set out and the current state of whether video games are considered as sports activities is presented. In addition (...) to this classificatory issue an ethical one concerning the level of addiction for the players who immerse into the virtual worlds is also discussed, since the level of immersion is sometimes so high that some people die while playing video games on the computer. The answer to the question of how these video games can be so addictive is considered in relation to Johan Huizinga’s Homo ludens, and the notion of phantasm by Gilles Deleuze. It is argued that the fantasy aspect of video games is more dominant their being the... (shrink)

For four decades _Sources of Chinese Tradition_ has served to introduce Western readers to Chinese civilization as it has been seen through basic writings and historical documents of the Chinese themselves. Now in its second edition, revised and extended through Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin-era China, this classic volume remains unrivaled for its wide selection of source readings on history, society, and thought in the world's largest nation. Award-winning China scholar Wm. Theodore de Bary--who edited the first edition in 1960--and (...) his coeditor Richard Lufrano have revised and updated the second volume of Sources to reflect the interactions of ideas, institutions, and historical events from the seventeenth century up to the present day. Beginning with Qing civilization and continuing to contemporary times, volume II brings together key source texts from more than three centuries of Chinese history, with opening essays by noted China authorities providing context for readers not familiar with the period in question. Here are just a few of the topics covered in this second volume of _Sources of Chinese Tradition:_ • Early Sino-Western contacts in the seventeenth century; • Four centuries of Chinese reflections on differences between Eastern and Western civilizations; • Nineteenth- and twentieth-century reform movements, with treatises on women's rights, modern science, and literary reform; • Controversies over the place of Confucianism in modern Chinese society; • The nationalist revolution--including readings from Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek; • The communist revolution--with central writings by Mao Zedong; • Works from contemporary China--featuring political essays from Deng Xiaoping and dissidents including Wei Jingsheng. With more than two hundred selections in lucid, readable translation by today's most renowned experts on Chinese language and civilization, _Sources of Chinese Tradition_ will continue to be recognized as the standard for source readings on Chinese civilization, an indispensable learning tool for scholars and students of Asian civilizations. (shrink)

Although the political and consumer consciousness has turned increasingly green, many firms continue to resist the adoption of environment-friendly technological innovations—even in the face of higher costs, negative health effects, and stricter government oversight. This article examines how business owners weigh the trade-offs associated with environment-friendly innovations by examining the role of prosocial motivation in their decision-making process. We use primary data to overcome a common restriction in studying environmental innovations—the scarcity of relevant data—to analyze how business owners’ expectations, perceptions, (...) and motivations affect innovation in organizational processes and, consequently, the level of environmental friendliness of their products or services. We found that prosocial motivation had a significant negative impact on innovation adoption and that it is expressed differently under high and low levels of customer compatibility—possibly because business owners have a larger number of competing social objectives and priorities. Our results further showed that the innovation’s ability to satisfy downstream customer demands has the greatest impact on environment-friendly innovation adoption decisions by business owners. This study enhances our understanding of how business owners make innovation decisions based on competing business, environmental and social objectives and provides a foundation for future research in this area. (shrink)

Well known as a scholar of Asian culture, de Bary examines the concepts of self-understanding and self-cultivation in neo-Confucian thought from the 12th to the 17th centuries, in relation to the social, political, and scholarly roles of educated men in late imperial China. Rejecting the notion that.

This paper attempts to clarify the meaning of the term ‚professional’ in its current use in our daily lives, mainly by making use of Weber’s discussion of the Protestant work ethic and rationalization. Identifying professionalism primarily as a particular lifestyle, it questions whether professionalism is a virtue to be encouraged or an alienated way of life. Rather than conclusively answering this question in the affirmative or negative, it contends that professionalism is an evolving concept, and endeavors to capture and formulate (...) a favorable understanding of it which would foster less alienating and more fulfilling ways of doing business. It concludes by observing structural similarities between alternative managerial approaches and different conceptualizations of professionalism. (shrink)

This book bears witness to the current reawakening of interest in Reid's philosophy. It first examines Reid's negative attack on the Way of Ideas, and finds him to be a devastating critic of his predecessors.

Globalization refers to more and more interdependence and Integration of relations among people, trade, capital flows, and migration, ideas and culture, religion and customs. Scholars and experts have been disagreeing about the denotation and effect of globalization. For some it is the salvation of humanity, the only way to promote universal prosperity and peace. But some Scholars also realize the fact that as a result of globalization states and its citizens faces the problems of social fragmentation: creating critical vulnerabilities violence (...) and conflicts. The impact of globalization cannot be restricted only to economic process but the sphere of globalization is very wide it has influenced almost every aspect of human life. On the contrary the world is witnessing the scenario where few booming dominions or few influential countries because of the blessings of modernization trying to supersede the rest of the world or the weaker nations in every aspect: economically, socially, politically, through hard power and through cultural imperialism. This situation is a threat to positive and sustainable peace. (shrink)

For readers of Women in Clothes, a philosophical guide to fashion. We all get dressed. But how often do we pause to think about the place of our clothes in our world? What unconscious thoughts do we express when we dress every day? Can a philosophy of living be wrapped up in a winter coat? Can we see clothes not as objects, but as ideas? Dressed is the thinking person's book about clothes, exploring these questions by ranging freely from suits (...) to suitcases, from Marx's coat to Madame X's gown. Through literature and art, film and philosophy, philosopher Shahidha Bari unveils the surprising and subconscious ways what we wear communicates with us, about us, and for us. Dressed is about the hidden power of clothes in our culture and our daily lives, addressing the deepest questions of who we are, how we frame ourselves, and how we choose to face the world. (shrink)

Increased and active involvement of multinational corporations in the promotion of social welfare, in developing countries in particular, through the facilitation of partnerships and cooperation with public and nonprofit sectors, challenges the existing framework of our social and political institutions, the boundaries of nation-states, the distinction between the private and public spheres of our lives, and thus our freedom. The blurring of certain distinctions, which ought to be observed between the political and the economic is most manifest in the gradual (...) saturation of the field of business ethics with rights-based arguments and analyses. In this article, I first argue against endorsing positive rights as having the same status as negative rights, and then try to demonstrate that, with the transportation of 'rights talk' into business ethics, the dangers of conflating positive and negative rights are superimposed on the dangers of conflating the private and the political. I conclude by presenting my own stance on the debate on what our basic institutionally sanctioned rights should be, and what the corresponding duties of multinational corporations really are. (shrink)

Like the cracking of the genetic code and the creation of the atomic bomb, the discovery of how the brain's neurons work is one of the fundamental scientific developments of the twentieth century. The discovery of neurotransmitters revolutionized the way we think about the brain and what it means to be human yet few people know how they were discovered, the scientists involved, or the fierce controversy about whether they even existed. The War of the Soups and the Sparks tells (...) the saga of the dispute between the pharmacologists, who had uncovered the first evidence that nerves communicate by releasing chemicals, and the neurophysiologists, experts on the nervous system, who dismissed the evidence and remained committed to electrical explanations. The protagonists of this story are Otto Loewi and Henry Dale, who received Nobel Prizes for their work, and Walter Cannon, who would have shared the prize with them if he had not been persuaded to adopt a controversial theory (how that happened is an important part of this history). Valenstein sets his story of scientific discovery against the backdrop of two world wars and examines the fascinating lives of several scientists whose work was affected by the social and political events of their time. He recounts such stories as Loewi's arrest by Nazi storm troopers and Dale's efforts at helping key scientists escape Germany. The War of the Soups and the Sparks reveals how science and scientists work. Valenstein describes the observations and experiments that led to the discovery of neurotransmitters and sheds light on what determines whether a novel concept will gain acceptance among the scientific community. His work also explains the immense importance of Loewi, Dale, and Cannon's achievements in our understanding of the human brain and the way mental illnesses are conceptualized and treated. (shrink)

Genetics: Medical, Theological and Ethical Aspects Tibbi, Dini ve Etik Boyutlariyla Genetik -/- Genetik bilimi biyolojinin botanik ve zooloji alanındaki uygulamalarını aşarak, sınırlarını önce antropolojiye sonra tıbba doğru hızla genişletmiştir. Öyle ki artık biyokimyadan onkolojiye kadar neredeyse tüm biyomedikal disiplinler, genetiğin kavramları, ilkeleri ve metodolojisi ile aşılanmıştır. Modern tıbbın uygulama alanında geniş bir yer tutan genetik bilimi, bir hastalığa dair risk analizi, teşhis ve tedavi seçeneklerinin belirlenmesi, prognozun değerlendirilmesi gibi klinik uygulamanın farklı evrelerinde söz sahibi olmaktadır. İçinde bulunduğumuz 21. yüzyılda (...) ise bu etkileşim eskisinden daha da güçlü hale gelerek devam etmektedir. Genetik biliminin klinikteki etkilerinin kapsamlı bir şekilde değerlendirildiği bu kitap, tüm dünyada tıbbın seyrini değiştirecek gelişmelere zemin teşkil eden genetik disiplininin olumlu ve olumsuz etkileri hakkında okuyucuya yetkili ağızlardan bilgiler taşımayı ve daha net bir fikir oluşturmayı hedeflemektedir. Kitapta dört ana bölüm bulunmaktadır. İlk bölümde doğum öncesi genetik uygulamalara, ikinci bölümde doğum sonrası (çocuk ve erişkinde) genetik testlere, üçüncü bölümde tıbbi genetiğin sıcak tartışma konusu olan Spinal Müsküler Atrofi’ye (SMA) ve dördüncü bölümde ise genetik bilgiyi felsefi bakışla ele alan makalelere yer verilmiştir. Genetiğin tıp pratiğini değiştirici ve dönüştürücü etkisine multidisipliner bir yaklaşımla ışık tutmayı amaçlayan bu eserin genetik hakkındaki Türkçe literatüre katkıda bulunmasını ümit ediyoruz. (shrink)

The social order of the current system has brought an increase in the public dissents and turned to a ‘normalized sociological pathology’ of the postmodern world. The unyielding public resistance examples in different cultural geographies, which are fragmented, limited and yet significant and expanding struggles, convey the message that the global order of the Powerful has entered the age of stagnation. This article aims to shed new light on the relationship between the social protests and global order that has given (...) rise to new identities of local and global injustice. I argue that social protests in the last years display discernible patterns of a change in cultural perceptions of the activists in different public spaces. On the one hand, this signals the emergence of a new public order in the 21st century. On the other hand, the ravages of social catastrophe shape the very dynamics of the same public culture. ‘Enduring and resisting public cultures’ is introduced in this article as a benchmark to identify ethnographic struggles of the activists for the quest of a new public space, which represents ‘Another World’. (shrink)

John Keats remains one of the most familiar and beloved of English poets, but has received surprisingly little critical attention in recent years. This study is a fresh contribution to Keats criticism and Romantic scholarship, positioning Keats as a figure of philosophical interest who warrants renewed attention. Exploring Keats's own Romantic accounts of feeling and thinking, this study draws a connection between poetry and the phenomenological branches of modern philosophy. The study takes Keats's poetic evocation of touching hands, wandering feet, (...) beating hearts and breathing bodies as a descriptive elaboration of consciousness and a phenomenological account of experience. The philosophical terms of analysis adopted here challenge the orthodoxies of Keats scholarship, traditionally characterised by the careful historicisation of a limited canon. The philosophical framework of analysis enhances the readings put forward, while Keats's poems, in turn, serve to give fuller expression of those ideas themselves. Using Keats as a particular case, this book also demonstrates the ways in which theory and philosophy supplement literary scholarship. (shrink)

Since the time of Confucius and Mencius, no other work has stood out so clearly as a major critique of Chinese dynastic institutions. In a lucid translation with a helpful introduction by de Bary, this is the most powerful affirmation of a liberal Confucian political vision in premodern times.

This essay offers a process-ontological account of work, addressing two challenges in particular. First, I try to show that even though the phenomenon of work is extremely diverse, all occurrences to which the word work correctly applies — according to the current semantic intuitions of the relevant linguistic community — share the feature of being: the creation of something of value. Second, guided by this initial conceptual delineation of the phenomenon, I argue that traditional ontology would face fundamental difficulties in (...) giving an ontological analysis of work, which can be surmounted in a Whiteheadian framework. I take Whitehead's analysis of an actual occasion as a model for an analysis of work that explains how toil (exertion of effort) can result in the accomplishment of a desired end. On this basis of this explanatory model the complex dynamicity that we experience in work as the creation of something of value can be accounted for in the well-defined terms of an ontological theory. (shrink)

A major addition to our understanding of the development of Neo-Confucianism--its complexity, diversity, richness, and depth as a major component of the moral and spiritual fiber of the peoples of East Asia.

Is the Confucian tradition compatible with the Western understanding of human rights? Are there fundamental human values, regardless of cultural differences, common to all peoples of all nations? At this critical point in Communist China's history, eighteen distinguished scholars address the role of Confucianism in dealing with questions of universal human rights.

This paper contributes to two debates: (i) the debate about whether or not ancient Greek has Free Indirect Discourse (FID), and (ii) the debate about how we should analyze FID semantically. We do this by showing that there is a distinction between FID and what we call Unembedded Indirect Discourse (UID). The semantic analysis that we develop for the latter shows that the two phenomena, though superficially similar, are semantically fundamentally different. We conclude that UID would have been more deserving (...) of the title ‘free indirect discourse’ than the more quotative and direct discourse-like narrative technique that is now confusingly called so. 1. (shrink)

For almost fifty years, _Sources of Japanese Tradition_ has been the single most valuable collection of English-language readings on Japan. Unrivalled in its wide selection of source materials on history, society, politics, education, philosophy, and religion, the two-volume textbook is a crucial resource for students, scholars, and readers seeking an introduction to Japanese civilization. Originally published in a single hardcover book, Volume 2 is now available as an abridged, two-part paperback. Part 1 covers the Tokugawa period to 1868, including texts (...) that address the spread of neo-Confucianism and Buddhism and the initial encounters of Japan and the West. Part 2 begins with the Meiji period and ends at the new millennium, shedding light on such major movements as the Enlightenment, constitutionalism, nationalism, socialism, and feminism, and the impact of the postwar occupation. Commentary by major scholars and comprehensive bibliographies and indexes are included. Together, these readings map out the development of modern Japanese civilization and illuminate the thought and teachings of its intellectual, political, and religious leaders. (shrink)

狄百瑞就中心宋明理學的傳統討論中心思想中的自由主義特質。書中論及新儒學「學以為己」的個人自發色彩，其強調自得，相互激勵等價值的教育思想，以及明代 知識分子自任於天下的責任感，認為黃宗羲正代表了這種自由主義特質的新綜合。在最後一章中，狄百瑞並討論這種自由思想在當代中國所遭遇的困境。.

Based on lectures delivered at the Collège de France in May 1986.

Drawn from a series of lectures that Wm. Theodore de Bary delivered in honor of the Chinese philosopher Tang Junyi, _Confucian Tradition and Global Education_ is a unique synthesis of essay and debate concerning the future of Chinese education and the potential political uses of Confucianism in the contemporary world. Rapid modernization and the rise of English as a global language increasingly threaten East Asia's cultural diversity and long-standing Confucian traditions. De Bary argues that keeping Confucianism alive in China is (...) not only a matter of "Chinese identity," but also a critical part of achieving a multicultural global education. Scholars take different views on what is worth preserving in Confucian tradition, and whether it is possible for the classical teachings to remain relevant in today's high-tech educational environment. De Bary and his contributors assert that the Chinese classics are the key to this survival, and therefore their inclusion in a global humanities curriculum is essential. De Bary also believes in the power of the classics to humanize the modernization process and to shape a more democratic East Asia. Kwan Tze-wan discusses the difficulty of teaching the Chinese humanities in English when certain ideas and values are best expressed in a native language, and Cheung Chan Fai demonstrates how it is still possible for Confucian humanism to contribute to a modern liberal education. Timely and passionately argued, _Confucian Tradition and Global Education_ is a major work emphasizing the importance of Chinese philosophy in the post-World War II era. (shrink)

Informed consent to medical intervention is fundamental in both ethics and law. But in practice it is often not taken seriously in developing countries. This paper provides an appraisal of informed consent practices in Bangladesh. Following a review of the ethical and legal principles of informed consent, it assesses the degree to which doctors adhere to it in Bangladesh. Based on findings of non-compliance, it then investigates the reasons for such non-compliance through an appraisal of informed consent practices in Bangladesh (...) and provides recommendations aimed at improving such practices. The significance of this paper lies in unveiling the interdependence between the ethical and legal traits of informed consent and their ramifications on strengthening the patient-oriented approach of duty to care. (shrink)

_Finding Wisdom in East Asian Classics_ is an essential, all-access guide to the core texts of East Asian civilization and culture. Essays address frequently read, foundational texts in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese, as well as early modern fictional classics and nonfiction works of the seventeenth century. Building strong links between these writings and the critical traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, this volume shows the vital role of the classics in the shaping of Asian history and in the development (...) of the humanities at large. Wm. Theodore de Bary focuses on texts that have survived for centuries, if not millennia, through avid questioning and contestation. Recognized as perennial reflections on life and society, these works represent diverse historical periods and cultures and include the _Analects of Confucius_, _Mencius_, _Laozi_, _Xunxi_, the _Lotus Sutra_, Tang poetry, the _Pillow Book_, _The Tale of Genji_, and the writings of Chikamatsu and Kaibara Ekken. Contributors explain the core and most commonly understood aspects of these works and how they operate within their traditions. They trace their reach and reinvention throughout history and their ongoing relevance in modern life. With fresh interpretations of familiar readings, these essays inspire renewed appreciation and examination. In the case of some classics open to multiple interpretations, de Bary chooses two complementary essays from different contributors. Expanding on debates concerning the challenges of teaching classics in the twenty-first century, several pieces speak to the value of Asia in the core curriculum. Indispensable for early scholarship on Asia and the evolution of global civilization, _Finding Wisdom in East Asian Classics_ helps one master the major texts of human thought. (shrink)