This paper has three tasks. First, I offer an interpretation of Jeremy Bentham’s theory of language which I hope can conciliate or integrate the three rival interpretations of its epistemological implication: reductionist realist, pragmatist, and fictionalist. It is accompanied by an interpretation of Bentham’s strategy for improving the state of language, which characterizes it as a “two-level” strategy. Second, by focusing on the linguistic thoughts of three philosophers, Locke, Condillac, and Tooke, I inquire into the sources of Bentham’s theory of (...) language, and then try to evaluate the originality of Bentham’s theory in the context of the empiricist tradition of linguistic thought of the age of the Enlightenment. The inquiry also enables us to understand how Bentham’s theory came to have such a complex structure as is revealed in the first part of this paper. Third, I ask the question as to why Bentham, after about a thirty-year hiatus, suddenly resumed writing on the problems of language and logic around 1811. Through exhibiting the outline of my answer to this question, I argue that his discovery of “delusion” led him to fight the “war of words” in various fields of society, and his awareness of the strong force of delusion for aggravating the state of language made him realize the urgent necessity to develop at length “an entirely new system of Logic, in which shall be comprehended a theory of language, considered in the most general point of view.”. (shrink)

A dialectical contradiction can be appropriately described within the framework of classical formal logic. It is in harmony with the law of noncontradiction. According to our definition, two theories make up a dialectical contradiction if each of them is consistent and their union is inconsistent. It can happen that each of these two theories has an intended model. Plenty of examples are to be found in the history of science.

While the concept of Bildung has acquired international currency in educational and philosophical studies, its moral implications have been obscured by existing educational accounts. I present the moral implications inherent in the term through specific reference to the early works of Wilhelm von Humboldt. In contrast to previous scholarships, where Humboldt’s theory of Bildung has been deployed for drawing on the account of the true end of the human being and the inner process of interaction between the self and the (...) world, I draw on Bildung as a moral conception of promoting a good life for others. To illustrate this conception, I (a) demonstrate the basic structure of Humboldt’s theory of Bildung by examining its four core components, (b) reconstruct Humboldt’s notion of virtue balanced state of various faculties as a moral ideal (c) consider Humboldt’s philosophical historiography to illustrate how Bildung can be mediated at individual and collective levels, and (d) present the concrete forms of the obligation to promote the good lives of others in his anthropological writings. (shrink)

Higher education has often been accused of its anti-social character, represented by the metaphor of the ‘ivory tower’. However, the idea of the pursuit of knowledge per se, which is associated with the ivory tower, has not been widely recognized as a public ideal of higher education. In this study, by drawing on the 20th-century British educational philosopher Paul H. Hirst’s theory of liberal education, I revisit and re-evaluate the Newmanian idea of pursuit of knowledge as an end itself as (...) a public ideal for higher education. I argue that the public criteria provided by discipline-rooted knowledge are among the criteria that are most able to define and legitimise higher education. These public criteria are compatible with the distinctive nature of higher education, which is essentially aimed at adult citizens and linked to research as the creation of knowledge, and can even serve to legitimise the cognitive structure of the society. (shrink)

Originally published as 「明治の哲学界：有機体の哲学とその系譜」in 井上克人編『豊饒なる明治』, Kansai Daigaku Shuppannbu, 2012, 3–22. Translated by Morisato Takeshi. German Idealism was introduced to Japanese intellectuals in the middle of Meiji era and was mainly received from a mystical or religious perspective, as we see in Inoue Tetsujirō’s “harmonious existence,” Inoue Enryō’s “unity of mind and body,” and Kiyozawa Manshi’s “existentialism.” Since these theories envisioned true reality as a unified and living whole, I group them under the label “philosophy of organism” and from (...) there argue that their conviction that “all is truth and truth is all” was shaped in large part by the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana. The understanding of Buddhist concepts by Meiji philosophers was philosophical in its content, and those who devoted themselves to the study of Western philosophy were encouraged to describe Eastern thought in Western philosophical terms. As a result, the philosophical world of the Meiji era developed an original standpoint that unified Eastern and Western perspectives by means of a logic of “phenomena-in-reality.”. (shrink)

In recent years many essays have been made public and various opinions have been advanced on youth. I would like to conceive one of the salient characteristics in the consciousness and the behavior pattern of today's youth as “play-orientedness” and center my discussion on that particular inclination. “Play-orientedness” here is not intended to mean merely “activeness in sports and hobbies,” nor is it synonymous with “pleasure-orientedness.” It is a broader term and is rather close in meaning to what is commonly (...) called “the spirit of play.” We might perhaps define it as “play as a way of life,” or an inclination to introduce elements of “play” into one's daily life and make his actual life “play-like.”. (shrink)

In political philosophy, reflective equilibrium is a standard method used to systematically reconcile intuitive judgments with theoretical principles. In this paper, we propose that survey experiments and a model selection method—i.e., the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)-based model selection method—can be viewed together as a methodological means of satisfying the epistemic desiderata implicit in reflective equilibrium. To show this, we conduct a survey experiment on two theories of distributive justice, prioritarianism and sufficientarianism. Our experimental test case and AIC-based model selection method (...) demonstrate that the refined sufficientarian principle, a widely accepted principle of distributive justice, is no more plausible than the prioritarian principle. This tells us that some changes of certain intuitions revolving around sufficientarianism should be examined (separately) based on the findings of the survey experiment and AIC model selection. This shows the potential of our approach—both practically and methodologically—as a novel way of applying reflective equilibrium in political philosophy. (shrink)

Understanding whether the long and elaborate songs of male gibbons have syntax and hierarchical structures is an interesting question in the evolution of language, because gibbons are near humans in the phylogenetic tree and a hierarchically organized syntax is considered to be a basic component of human language. We conducted field research at Danum Valley Conservation Area in northern Borneo to test the hypothesis that gibbon songs have syntax and chunks. We followed one Mueller’s gibbon group for 1 week in (...) the dry and rainy seasons every year from 2001 to 2009, collecting vocal and behavioral data. Results show that songs emitted by the studied male gibbon were governed by combinatory rules. Some context-dependent songs had different combinatory rules, although they overlapped with the songs whose contexts were uncertain. The male Mueller’s songs had characteristics that suggest existence of chunk structure. These results provided an important perspective in the study of language origin. (shrink)

In contemporary political philosophy, reflections on poverty demand careful treatment in the light of key ethical concepts—especially autonomy. While the negative effects of poverty on autonomy are acknowledged, the welfare dependency of the poor is seen as an autonomy-undermining factor, which I call the “autonomy–poverty dilemma.” This chapter discusses contemporary political theories about autonomy and poverty in terms of how they relate to this dilemma. The features and problems of three pertinent theories are addressed in such a way as to (...) resolve the autonomy–poverty dilemma. The first is luck egalitarianism, which weighs individual responsibility in defining just distributions, but may leave some of the incapacitated unattended in order not to annul their personal responsibility and may stigmatize those who are dependent (such as people with mental disabilities) who are not personally responsible. Such stigmatization is also a problem with relational egalitarianism, which bases egalitarian justice on the equal standing of individuals, in that the ideal of socially embedded autonomous agents could be degrading to the dependent. While the capability approach overcomes that problem by providing a powerful buttress for the dependent and allowing them to emerge from poverty, it runs the risk of a paternalistic, perfectionist idealism. In closing, this chapter proposes an alternative view, which I call the “radical pluralist view of egalitarian justice,” based on a consideration of the features and problems of these three key theories. (shrink)

of (from Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy).

Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 3, Page 370-394, September 2022.

This theoretical paper develops a conceptual framework that explains how companies can influence consumer behavior in terms of both social and business benefits through their corporate social marketing initiatives. Drawing from the source credibility literature, the article asserts that the effectiveness of CSM depends largely on the corporate credibility of a company in supporting a social cause. Based on this assertion, the framework identifies ten different antecedents of CSM credibility, which are organized into attributes of the company, attributes of the (...) CSM initiative, and attributes of the cause. Furthermore, this framework shows that CSM credibility affects the two examined consequences, intended prosocial behavior and consumer loyalty. Several research and managerial implications are developed based on the propositions specified in the framework. (shrink)

Mating activity of a wild Mueller’s gibbon group was observed in the Danum Valley Conservation Area, Sabah, Malaysia. The purpose of this study was to investigate the function of copulation calls in gibbons. The female emitted copulation calls at the time of intromission and pelvic thrusting. Copulation calls were composed of two notes and one of them was sung only while mating. Approximately half of copulation calls were sung near the range boundary. Mating with copulation calls sometimes occurred while singing. (...) According to the model that female copulation calls have evolved under the selective pressures of risk of infanticide and sperm competition, copulation calls should be rare in species with little female promiscuity. As gibbons usually live in pair-living social organization and have a monogamous mating system, no vocal signals by female gibbons are considered to be needed. However, clear copulation calls were emitted by the female. It suggests that the relationship between paired gibbons is unstable. Copulation calls by the female Mueller’s gibbon may function to increase mate guarding and strengthen the pair bond. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 29, Number 2, November 2003, pp. 205-221 The Origin of the Indirect Passions in the Treatise: An Analogy between Books 1 and 2 HARUKOINOUE 1. The Analogy Between Book 1 and Book 2 If the central design of the Treatise is to demonstrate that "the subjects of the Understanding and Passions make a complete chain of reasoning by themselves" (T 2; SBN xii), as Hume advertises, (...) it seems unquestionable that his intention lies in the illustration of the human mind as an integrated system dependent upon the cooperation of the understanding and the passions, which are discussed separately in Book 1 and Book 2, respectively.1 What is yet to be determined is whether any internal or systematic connection between these two books was originally intended by the author. Is it too fanciful to agree with John Passmore, and to suggest that some dynamic system of the human mind would emerge when we open the door which stands between the first two books?2 The key for this door seems to be found in Hume's account of personal identity. We may well remember how he distinguished two aspects of our identity, one regarding the understanding and another regarding the passions, and claimed that the latter "serves to corroborate" the former "by the making our distant perceptions influence each other, and by giving us a present concern for our past or future pains or pleasures" (T 1.4.6.19; SBN Haruko Inoue is Professor of Philosophy, Sapporo University 3-7-3-1 Toyohira-ku, Sapporo 062-8520, Japan. e-mail: [email protected] 206 Haruko Inoue 261). It seems reasonable to agree with Jane Mclntyre, who suggests that "Hume recognized questions about personal identity not addressed in Book 1, and that Book 2 makes an important contribution to our understanding of Hume's account of the self and its identity."3 And once we get a good understanding of this integrated mechanism of the human mind operating with both wheels, as it were, of the imagination and the passions, all we have to do is to accept his invitation and enjoy the efficiency of this two-wheeled car, driving through the fields of "Morals, Politics, and Criticism." For, if we take his words in his Advertisement seriously,4 it seems quite likely that the Treatise was published first as a set of Book 1 and Book 2, as Passmore suggests,5 and that Book 3 was written as the demonstration of the consistency of his system through the application of the hypothesis established in the first two books. This paper is a modest attempt to illustrate the intimate connection between Book 1 and Book 2: the latter, planned as a proof and reinforcement of the system Hume had established in Book 1, depends on the former. His basic strategy in the Treatise is to explain both systems of the mind by means of the easy transition of the imagination, which connects different perceptions with each other according to two kinds of principles or "properties of human nature " (T 2.1.4.2; SBN 283), viz. "the association both of impressions and ideas, and the mutual assistance they lend each other" (T 2.1.5.5; SBN 284). In Book 1 Hume establishes the system of the understanding in terms of the first association, viz. the association of ideas, and in Book 2 he proceeds to illustrate the system of passions by involving not only the second association but also the concurrence of both kinds of association which he calls "a double relation of impressions and ideas." His basic strategy is thus to apply the same method of reasoning to the illustration of both systems, assuming that "there is an attraction or association among impressions, as well as among ideas" (T 2.1.4.3; SBN 283). The intimate connection between the two systems of the understanding and the passions is illustrated through the demonstration of the "influence of the imagination upon the passions" (T 2.3.6.1; SBN 424), or in terms of the dependence of the latter on the former. It is owing to the dependence of the association of... (shrink)

Research ethics consultation services (RECS), which function as an advisory service to facilitate the resolution of complex ethical issues in clinical research, have been proliferating over the last decade. However, the qualification of an individual who provides RECS, or “a research ethics consultant,” has not been thoroughly investigated, in contrast to healthcare ethics consultants, whose core competencies have been discussed and clarified to a great extent. In this study, we investigated core competencies necessary for research ethics consultants, referring to the (...) core competency models of ethics consultants developed in the healthcare practice context, and propose a competency model for research ethics consultants. (shrink)

明治の世には、西欧的近代化の流れの中にあっても「日本人としての矜持と風格」といったものがあった。それはいわば凜乎とした倫理意識と、土着的な共同体意識である。それらは漢籍の教養に裏打ちされた至高なる精神 性であったと言ってよい。明治は、思想・文化の面において、日本の精神史上、「豊饒の時代」であった。.

法は危機をこえてどう変容するのか!法的議論の分裂、立憲主義の錯綜、正統性のゆらぎ―法が危機にあるいま、従来の支配的見解を根本的に問い、オルタナティヴ理論を提示する。.

The purpose of this paper is to show the plausibility of John Rawls’s treatment of efficiency within the system of justice. While in political philosophy efficiency is often treated as an independent condition for establishing justice, or more precisely, as a necessary condition for establishing justice, Rawls considers efficiency as a non-negligible factor that has normativity in general circumstances. This is similar to the view that efficiency is a presumptive condition for evaluating social arrangements. However, Rawls’s view is salient in (...) a more substantive way. This paper demonstrates the salience of Rawls’s view of efficiency by responding to G. A. Cohen’s Impure Justice Objection to Rawls’s theory of justice. This shows that there is no impure connection between Rawls’s justice and efficiency. Moreover, the combined thesis of Rawls’s justice and efficiency is superior to Cohen’s pluralist theory of justice, making it a fruitful approach. (shrink)