Among the many theories that explain the becoming of all things in the universe, there is a metaphysical viewpoint that all things are originated from one pure origin which is preceded by nothing. This metaphysical viewpoint can be called the idea of genesis. Derrida proposes that this concept of ‘genesis’ itself is founded upon a contradiction; ‘genesis, …, brings together two contradicting meanings in its concept: one of origin, one of becoming.’, p. xxi.) Based on this paradox, Derrida proposes that (...) all philosophical attempts to recover the pure origin here-and-now, which are categorized as the metaphysics of presence, are impossible. In this paper, I argue that Derrida’s criticism is based on the Augustinian question of time which presupposes that only the present moment is real. Recovery of the origin therefore means to reduce the non-present to the present. I contend that Daoism can respond to Derrida’s criticism because it possesses a nested idea of time—the idea that each present is encompassed by a deeper level of present as the background context. Accordingly, the recovery of origin does not mean to return to an elapsed past but a deeper context of all occurrence. This explains why dao, when it is understood as the origin of things in the world, does not succumb to Derrida’s criticism. Furthermore, it provides an alternative solution to the Derridean paradox of genesis. (shrink)

ABSTRACTDerrida’s philosophy starts with a law stated in The Problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Philosophy: “No analysis could present, make present in its phenomenon or reduce to the point-like natur...

ABSTRACT Many recent works on the methodology of intercultural philosophy point to a fundamental dilemma of the discipline: if there is a common ground for intercultural understanding, then the essence of this ground is universal instead of multi-cultural; if there are irreducible and incommunicable factors in different cultures, then complete understanding seems to be impossible. In this paper, I propose that this dilemma is founded on the assumption that intercultural philosophy is equivalent to intercultural understanding. I argue that, however, intercultural (...) philosophy should begin with questioning. Instead of understanding another culture using one’s own conceptual scheme, intercultural questioning puts one’s conceptual scheme and traditional worldview into question. The new questions obtained by phenomenologically reducing traditional thought will become a ground for intercultural dialogue without reducing one’s culture to another culture. Finally, I will use a case in Chinese philosophy to demonstrate the process of intercultural questioning. (shrink)

It is usually believed that the concept of ‘qiwu 齊物’ in the Zhuangzi means ‘equalizing things’. This reading of the Zhuangzi, however, presupposes that things are originally separated and exist independently. The equality of things is just a mental construct in a specific state of mind. In this paper, we will argue that this reading does not stand; what Zhuangzi does in the ‘Qiwulun 齊物論’is to examine how myriad things are created from the original oneness. According to Zhuangzi’s philosophy of (...) thing, things are created by objectification through fact and value imposing. Oneness is therefore not a mere perspective but the condition for things being objectified. This understanding of the things’ being is comparable to Heidegger’s classification of thing and equipment, but it differs from Heidegger by its special implication on the Daoist liberation. (shrink)

He (和), or harmony, has traditionally been a central concept in Chinese thought, and to this day continues to shape the way in which people in China and East Asia think about ethics and politics. Yet, there is no systematic and comprehensive introduction of harmony as has been variously articulated in different Chinese schools. This edited volume aims to fill this gap. The individual contributions elaborate the conceptions of harmony as these were exemplified in central Chinese schools of thought, including (...) Daoism, Confucianism, Legalism, Mohism, Buddhism, and trace their impact on contemporary Chinese philosophy. The volume explores the various meanings and implications of harmony so as to consider its relevance as a value and virtue in the modern world. It provides an accessible but substantial introductory work for readers interested in learning about pertinent core concepts and theories in Chinese thought, as well as engages specialists in Chinese philosophy by explicating its implications for ethical, political, epistemological, and metaphysical reflection as the basic point of reference. (shrink)

This book approaches the topic of intercultural understanding in philosophy from a phenomenological perspective. It provides a bridge between Western and Eastern philosophy through in-depth discussion of concepts and doctrines of phenomenology and ancient and contemporary Chinese philosophy. Phenomenological readings of Daoist and Buddhist philosophies are provided: the reader will find a study of theoretical and methodological issues and innovative readings of traditional Chinese and Indian philosophies from the phenomenological perspective. The author uses a descriptive rigor to avoid cultural prejudices (...) and provides a non-Eurocentric conception and practice of philosophy. Through this East-West comparative study, a compelling criticism of a Eurocentric conception of philosophy emerges. New concepts and methods in intercultural philosophy are proposed through these chapters. Researchers, teachers, post-graduates and students of philosophy will all find this work intriguing, and those with an interest in non-Western philosophy or phenomenology will find it particularly engaging. (shrink)

Junior researchers can be abused and bullied by unscrupulous senior collaborators. This article describes the profile of a type of serial abuser, the White Bull, who uses his academic seniority to distort authorship credit and who disguises his parasitism with carefully premeditated deception. Further research into the personality traits of such perpetrators is warranted.

AbstractIn many cultures, interactions between humans and plants are rooted in what is called “relational values”—values that derive from relationships and entail reciprocity. In Mexico, biocultural diversity is mirrored in the knowledge and use of some 6500 plant species and the domestication of over 250 Mesoamerican native crop species. This research explores how different sets of values are attributed to plants and how these influence management strategies to maintain plant resources in wild and anthropogenic environments. We ran workshops in two (...) communities in a highly biodiverse region in western Mexico, to ascertain the values and management activities related to important plant resources. The relationship between values attributed to plants and management activities was examined through redundancy analysis. A total of 180 plant resources were mentioned during the workshops, with a broad spectrum of values attributed to them, including material, non-material, and regulatory dimensions. We divided plant management strategies into three general categories of increasing intensity and complexity. We found that participants in the Indigenous community value and manage more wild plant resources than people in the non-Indigenous community. We also identified relationships between plant resource values and the type of management performed; for example, more intensive forms of management, such as sowing seeds, were used for seasonal plants that had a food value. By valuing and managing different sets of plant resources from forest, agricultural plots, and home gardens, people enabled multi-functional landscapes to form, illustrating a key feature of relational values in agroecosystems, which promotes both conservation and domestication of plants. (shrink)

This article examines Schelling’s understanding of Laozi 老子. It begins with Schelling’s reception of Laozi’s text and its translation. The main part of this article focuses on Schelling’s discussion of Laozi in his Philosophy of Mythology. It then compares some of the key concepts mentioned in Schelling’s comments and their respective counterparts in Laozi: nothingness and wu 無, portal and abyss, reason and dao 道, name and concept, nature and ziran 自然, and so on, and analyzes the possible reasons for (...) his sympathetic understanding of Laozi as against his own philosophical system. The main argument is that Schelling’s romantic tendency means that he can have an alternative understanding of Laozi. Finally it concludes with a few remarks on the differences between Schelling and Laozi in terms of their philosophical systems and methods. (shrink)

William C. Frederick proposes a naturalistic business ethics. Many commentators focus on the issues of naturalistic fallacy, deprivation of freedom of the will, and possibility of important and universal moral values in business ethics. I argue that an ethics being naturalistic is not a worry. The issue of deprivation of free will is irrelevant. Yet there are urgent questions regarding the possibility of important and universal moral values, which may prevent Frederick’s view from getting off the ground.

L’activité physique (AP) et les comportements de santé des élèves des classes et des écoles d’éducation spéciale (SECS) sont largement sous-étudiés. Le but de cette étude est de rendre compte du processus d’adaptation à ce public des enquêtes réalisées en population générale pour en améliorer la faisabilité et la comparabilité.Une série d’études a été réalisée. 1. Adaptation et test de l’enquête dans le SECS, 2. Recueil des données de l’étude pilote, 3. Tests supplémentaires pour une version simplifiée, 4. Recueil national (...) des données auprès des élèves du SECS. Les items du Washington Group Child Functioning Module (CFM) ont été progressivement améliorés. Des échelles visuelles analogiques et des items simplifiés ont été ajoutés. Le temps passé à répondre et la facilité de compréhension des questions ont été retenus comme critères de faisabilité de l’enquête. Près de la moitié des élèves (n=396/889) ont terminé la version simplifiée et ce, sur un temps de classe. De plus, les enseignants ont fait un retour positif sur la passation de l’enquête. Dans les enquêtes représentatives nationales, les instructions données doivent être claires. Les élèves du SECS peuvent avoir besoin d’aide pour comprendre les questions posées et des investigations supplémentaires sont nécessaires pour étudier les effets de cette aide sur la réalisation des enquêtes. (shrink)

This book opens with the emergence and development of the discipline of aesthetics in western countries, specifically the history of Western Music Aesthetics, to study and delve into the development of Chinese Music Aesthetics. The book provides a clear timeline throughout the writing - from the history of Chinese Music Aesthetics, to the construction of a theoretical framework, and the intersections and conversations between Western and Chinese Music Aesthetics. This academic piece is fundamentally consistent with the developing field of Chinese (...) philosophical and literary research. This book also discusses important music aesthetic categories of Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, and metaphysics, and uses critical thinking to analyse the relationship between these categories and relevant schools of thought, reflecting the author's academic vision and thought process. (shrink)

This paper explores contemporary Jewish identity-formation and the centrality of official Holocaust memory and Zionism – understood as the ongoing settler-colonial project aiming at the formation and maintenance of a Jewish-exclusivist state in Palestine – to this process. It argues that identity politics within the Jewish community are based on an understanding of identity, which assumes it to be static and individual. In doing so, this political approach reproduces the essentialisation of Jewish communities under the banner of Zionism and official (...) state history. The paper aims to show how this process of identification between Judaism, official Holocaust memory and Zionism has been a state-led process, rooted in the historical development of antisemitism and European colonialism. In order to do so, it builds on a critique of classical Marxist analyses of the Jewish question. It finally proposes a more fluid approach to identity, which understands it as socially constructed, contested, and subject to political contestation. (shrink)

This paper explores the prospects for a Pritchardean epistemological disjunctivist account of memory knowledge. We begin by providing an overview of Duncan Pritchard's epistemological disjunctivist account of perceptual knowledge, as well as the theoretical advantages of such an account. Drawing on that account, we present and motivate our own Pritchardean epistemological disjunctivist account of memory knowledge. After distinguishing different sorts of memory and the different roles that memory can play in knowledge acquisition, we set out our account and argue that (...) the case for epistemological disjunctivism enjoys parity with the case for epistemological disjunctivism of perceptual knowledge. We also consider objections to our account. The first is from Joe Milburn and Andrew Moon, who argue against a general epistemological disjunctivism of memory on the basis of differences in memory types. The second objection arises from a Radford-like case whereby one's true belief is from memory even though one lacks rational support that is reflectively accessible to one. (shrink)

In Prajñā and Reason Nishitani presents a powerful vision of philosophy as Absolute knowing. Nishitani’s conclusions are striking: Absolute knowing can only fulill its potential by beginning without any presuppositions and affirming the truth of contradiction. Because Hegel’s philosophy also purports to be a science of Absolute knowing, in Prajñā and Reason Nishitani develops his own account of the Absolute in conversation with Hegel’s philosophy. We reconstruct Nishitani’s reading and various critiques of Hegel, and thereafter evaluate its merits. Our inquiry (...) shows that Hegel too begins without presuppositions and affirms the truth of contradiction. As a result, we argue that Nishitani’s profound reflections on Absolute knowing draw him into close proximity with Hegel’s thinking and call us to re-think the very being of philosophy and philosophical practice today. (shrink)

Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated disease is an immune-mediated demyelinating disease of the central nervous system that is present in both adults and children. The most common clinical manifestations are optic neuritis, myelitis, acute disseminated encephalomyelitis, and brainstem syndrome. Cerebral cortical encephalitis is a rare clinical phenotype of myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated disease, which usually begins with seizures, headaches, and fever, and may be misdiagnosed as viral encephalitis in the early stages. Herein, we report two typical MOG antibody -positive patients presenting (...) with CCE, both of whom presented with headache, fever, seizures, and who recovered completely after immunotherapy. In addition, we performed a systematic review of the present literature from the perspectives of population characteristics, clinical symptoms, MRI abnormalities, treatments, and prognosis. Among the patients reported in 25 articles, 33 met our inclusion criteria, with the age of onset ranging from 4 to 52 years. Most of the patients had seizures, headache, fever, and unilateral cortical lesions on brain MRI. For acute CCE, 30 patients were treated with high-dose intravenous methylprednisolone, and the symptoms of most patients were completely relieved after immunotherapy. This study reported our experience and lessons learned in the diagnosis and treatment of MOG-Ab-positive CCE and provides a systematic review of the literature to analyse this rare clinical phenotype. (shrink)

For a large proportion of our daily lives, spontaneously occurring thoughts tend to disengage our minds from goal-directed thinking. Previous studies showed that EEG features such as the P3 and alpha oscillations can predict mind-wandering to some extent, but only with accuracies of around 60%. A potential candidate for improving prediction accuracy is the Steady-State Visual Evoked Potential, which is used frequently in single-trial contexts such as brain-computer interfaces as a marker of the direction of attention. In this study, we (...) modified the sustained attention to response task that is usually employed to measure spontaneous thought to incorporate the SSVEP elicited by a 12.5-Hz flicker. We then examined whether the SSVEP could track and allow for the prediction of the stickiness and task-relatedness dimensions of spontaneous thought. Our results show that the SSVEP evoked by flickering words was able to distinguish between more and less sticky thinking but not between whether a participant was on- or off-task. This suggests that the SSVEP is able to track spontaneous thinking when it is strongly disengaged from the task but not off-task thought in general. Future research should determine the exact dimensions of spontaneous thought to which the SSVEP is most sensitive. (shrink)

Transplant centers and physicians in the United States have limited guidance on the information which they can and cannot provide to transplant candidates regarding donors of potential organs. Patients may refuse organs for a variety of reasons ranging from pernicious requests including racism to misinformation about emerging medicine as with the COVID-19 vaccine and infection. Patient autonomy, organ stewardship, and equity are often at odds in these cases, but precedent indeed exists to help address these challenges. This work uses such (...) cases to highlight the urgent need for uniform, national policy prohibiting informational requests unrelated to well-established risks. (shrink)

Work is an integral part of modern society. However, the question of the normative conditions that distinguish just from unjust work has been under-investigated in political theory. This article, b...

Volume 53, Issue 2, February 2021, Page 181-196.

To help College Students improve their entrepreneurial psychology and enrich their innovative achievements, this paper investigates College Students’ entrepreneurial behavior based on the theory of positive psychology under the background of multiculturalism. Firstly, the background and development status of multiculturalism are expounded, and the main features of the multicultural era are pointed out; Secondly, the current situation is explained for College Students’ mental health and entrepreneurial behavior, and the specific connotation of College Students’ entrepreneurial psychology is summarized according to entrepreneurial (...) behavior, including entrepreneurial consciousness, entrepreneurial will, entrepreneurial capability, and entrepreneurial personality; Thirdly, the positive effects of inspirational films and roles on the psychology of College Students are discussed. From the connotation of film and television culture, the main features of films are reviewed: intuitiveness, immediacy, universality, entertainment, and orientation. Finally, according to the psychological impact of inspirational films on College Students, a Questionnaire Survey is designed and distributed among the local College Students, and assumptions are put forward. The results show that the differences of College Students’ entrepreneurial level are mainly reflected in gender, urban, and rural household registration, only-child-or-no, and entrepreneurial experience, and the gender differences are mainly in entrepreneurial consciousness, will, and personality ; There are significant differences in consciousness, will, capability, and personality between urban and rural household registration and entrepreneurial experience ; The differences between the only-child and non-only-child are obvious in three aspects: will, capability, and personality. After the intervention of inspirational films, the average scores of all dimensions of the entrepreneurial level of students in the intervention group are 35.45, 36.41, 38.17, and 37.22, respectively, which have a certain improvement compared with the situation before the intervention. There are significant differences in the four dimensions, which is statistically significant, indicating that the intervention of inspirational films has a positive impact on students’ entrepreneurial level. (shrink)

Over the past two decades, there has been a growing interest in the use of meditation to improve cognitive performance, emotional balance, and well-being. As a consequence, research into the psychological effects and neural mechanisms of meditation has been accumulating. Whether and how meditation affects decision making is not yet clear. Here, we review evidence from behavioral and neuroimaging studies and summarize the effects of meditation on social and non-social economic decision making. Research suggests that meditation modulates brain activities associated (...) with cognitive control, emotion regulation and empathy, and leads to improved non-social and social decision making. Accordingly, we propose an integrative model in which cognitive control, emotional regulation, and empathic concern mediate the effects of meditation on decision making. This model provides insights into the mechanisms by which meditation affects the decision making process. More evidence is needed to test our explanatory model and to explore the function of specific brain areas and their interactive effects on decision making during meditation training. (shrink)

Happiness can be regarded as an evaluation of life satisfaction. A high level of wellbeing can promote self-fulfillment and build a rational, peaceful, self-esteem, self-confidence, and positive social mentality. Therefore, the analysis of the factors of happiness is of great significance for the continuous improvement of the individual’s sense of security and gain and the realization of the maximization of self-worth. Emotion is not only an important internal factor that affects happiness, but it can also accurately reflect the individual’s happiness. (...) However, most of current happiness evaluation methods based on the emotional analysis belong to shallow learning paradigm, making the deep learning method unexploited for automatically happiness decoding. In this article, we analyzed the emotions of graduates during their employment and studied its influence on personal happiness at work. We proposed deep restricted Boltzmann machine for graduates’ happiness evaluation during employment. Furthermore, to mitigate the information loss when passing through many network layers, we introduced the skip connections to DRBM and proposed a deep residual RBM for enhancing the valuable information. We further introduced an attention mechanism to DRRBM to focus on the important factors. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method on the happiness evaluation tasks, we conducted extensive experiments on the statistical data of the China Comprehensive Social Survey. Compared with the state-of-the-art methods, our method shows better performance, which proves the practicability and feasibility of our method for happiness evaluation. (shrink)

Exocyclic DNA adducts are mutagenic lesions that can be formed by both exogenous and endogenous mutagens/carcinogens. These adducts are structurally analogs but can differ in certain features such as ring size, conjugation, planarity and substitution. Although the information on the biological role of the repair activities for these adducts is largely unknown, considerable progress has been made on their reaction mechanisms, substrate specificities and kinetic properties that are affected by adduct structures. At least four different mechanisms appear to have evolved (...) for the removal of specific exocyclic adducts. These include base excision repair, nucleotide excision repair, mismatch repair, and AP endonuclease‐mediated repair. This overview highlights the recent progress in such areas with emphasis on structure–activity relationships. It is also apparent that more information is needed for a better understanding of the biological and structural implications of exocyclic adducts and their repair. BioEssays 26:1195–1208, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Based on video-taped data from five televised 1998 Taipei mayoral debates, this article examines the use of reported speech in Chinese political discourse, with a particular focus on direct quotation. The findings are that direct quotation or constructed dialogue not only creates the rhetorical effect of vividness and immediacy but also establishes interpersonal involvement. More importantly, the three debaters in this study use direct quotation as an indirect strategy for self-promotion and for denigration. Citing someone else's words objectifies debaters' praise (...) of themselves and vilification of their opponents, thereby heightening the reliability of their claims: these claims are presented as shared knowledge and reference is made to an external source. However, direct quotation is also a strategy of evasion: the speakers disclaim responsibility and distance themselves from the source of knowledge. Finally, the different use of citations made by the three debaters also marks their different communicative styles. While the two politicians who speak more formally generally tend to cite figures from newspapers or magazines, the one who speaks most casually frequently employs direct quotations. (shrink)

The last millennium saw rapid change, spreading globalization, and shifting populations. These have posed moral, ethical, and social dilemmas that have challenged the very foundations of our beliefs and radically changed our way of life. In this volume, some of the world's greatest thinkers in philosophy, music, religion, and the arts share their insights on the future shape of human civilization. How can old cultural legacies fit new contexts? Can there be a universalist values coexist with local differentiation? Are literature (...) and music still relevant in a world where technology is dominant? By discussing these important issues in an interdisciplinary framework, these scholars have provided a provisional blueprint for our new society. (shrink)