In the final years of his life, the Belgian phenomenologist Marc Richir started to question if philosophical writing would become pointless when artists, great poets for example, have already achieved so well what philosophers have always aspired to achieve. There is no doubt that Richir considers himself in alliance with artists, since he basically believes that “phenomenology is trying to say the same thing as poets or musicians, or even possibly painters, but with philosophical language”. He seems thereby to imply (...) that phenomenology is destined to become self-aware as a sort of art. There is no surprise in this regard if we notice how frequently, throughout his entire career of philosophical production, he employs the Kantian term of the sublime to express what constitutes the phenomenon as nothing but phenomenon. This article goes through his phenomenological interpretation of Kantian aesthetics, his elaboration of the affinity between phenomenology and art, and then his genealogical conception of art, in order to introduce an original thought on what he calls “the moment of the sublime”. (shrink)

The phenomenal character of dreaming has long been a matter of philosophical debates. Most of the time, dreaming is either likened to perception or likened to imagination, in order to decide whether it gets closer to normal or abnormal states of consciousness. This line of debates extends from the traditional dream argument to the contemporary movement of phenomenology. This article presents what specific contributions phenomenology has made to the millennial investigations of dreaming. Its structure is twofold. Firstly, we introduce how (...) pioneering phenomenologists, including Edmund Husserl, Jan Patočka, Jean-Paul Sartre, Eugen Fink, and Jean Héring, analyse the lived characters of dreaming respectively. Secondly, we show that those pioneering phenomenologists, by engaging with the traditional dream argument, have laid out the worldliness of dreams as a crucial criterion for deciding how similar dreams and reality can be. (shrink)

What kind of impact did social networks of Song literati have on their lives in exile? This paper focuses on Sun Di 孫覿, a prominent literary figure in the Northern to Southern Song transition, and studies his epistolary writings in connection with his banishment to Xiangzhou 象州 in the years 1133 and 1134. Through an in-depth analysis of the contents of his letters, the paper shows how Sun Di established ties with officials in different localities and how he responded to (...) the humiliation of banishment. I argue that Sun Di’s reputation as a literary stylist among his contemporaries helped him to develop a good rapport with local officials, particularly in the Guangnan West circuit, which was essential to creating a relatively comfortable exile journey and a pleasant life during his confinement. This study highlights the value of letters as historical sources pertaining to Song political and literati culture and sheds light on literati responses to life’s many challenges. (shrink)

We have refined entropy theory to explore the meaning of the increasing sequence data on nucleic acids and proteins more conveniently. The concept of selection constraint was not introduced, only the analyzed sequences themselves were considered. The refined theory serves as a basis for deriving a method to analyze non-coding regions (NCRs) as well as coding regions. Positions with maximal entropy might play the most important role in genome functions as opposed to positions with minimal entropy. This method was tested (...) in the well-characterized coding regions of 12 strains of Classical Swine Fever Virus (CSFV) and non-coding regions of 20 strains of CSFV. It is suitable to analyze nucleic acid sequences of a complete genome and to detect sensitive positions for mutagenesis. As such, the method serves to formulate the basis for elucidating the functional mechanism. (shrink)

Jensen’s inequality is one of the fundamental inequalities which has several applications in almost every field of science. In 2003, Mercer gave a variant of Jensen’s inequality which is known as Jensen–Mercer’s inequality. The purpose of this article is to propose new bounds for Csiszár and related divergences by means of Jensen–Mercer’s inequality. Also, we investigate several new bounds for Zipf–Mandelbrot entropy. The idea of this article may further stimulate research on information theory with the help of Jensen–Mercer’s inequality.

Background Individual physicians and physician-associated factors may influence patients’/surrogates’ autonomous decision-making, thus influencing the practice of do-not-resuscitate orders. The objective of this study was to examine the influence of individual attending physicians on signing a DNR order. Methods This study was conducted in closed model, surgical intensive care units in a university-affiliated teaching hospital located in Northern Taiwan. The medical records of patients, admitted to the surgical intensive care units for the first time between June 1, 2011 and December 31, (...) 2013 were reviewed and data collected. We used Kaplan–Meier survival curves with log-rank test and multivariate Cox proportional hazards models to compare the time from surgical intensive care unit admission to do-not-resuscitate orders written for patients for each individual physician. The outcome variable was the time from surgical ICU admission to signing a DNR order. Results We found that each individual attending physician’s likelihood of signing do-not-resuscitate orders for their patients was significantly different from each other. Some attending physicians were more likely to write do-not-resuscitate orders for their patients, and other attending physicians were less likely to do so. Conclusion Our study reported that individual attending physicians had influence on patients’/surrogates’ do-not-resuscitate decision-making. Future studies may be focused on examining the reasons associated with the difference of each individual physician in the likelihood of signing a do-not-resuscitate order. (shrink)

The complexity of calcium profiles observed in plant cells has led to the realization that specific patterns of calcium propagation (now termed calcium signatures) encode specific information and relay it to downstream elements (effectors) for translation into corresponding cellular responses in higher plants. The concept of calcium signatures is now well established and the tight control of the temporal and spatial characteristics of cytosolic calcium alterations is considered to be responsible for the specificity of various cellular responses, in particular to (...) environment‐induced stresses. To date, three major classes of plant calcium sensors responsible for drought‐stress signal transduction during soil water deficit have been identified. Valuable pieces of the calcium signal‐specificity puzzle are being put together and are illustrated here for the calcium‐mediated signal‐transduction cascades that operate in the responses of higher plants to soil environmental deficits. BioEssays 30:634–641, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Both glycemic control and handgrip strength affect microvascular function. Multiscale entropy of photoplethysmographic pulse amplitudes may differ by diabetes status and hand activity. Of a middle-to-old aged and right-handed cohort without clinical cardiovascular disease, we controlled age, sex, and weight to select the unaffected,the well-controlled diabetes, and the poorly controlled diabetes groups. MSEs were calculated from consecutive 1,500 PPG pulse amplitudes of bilateral index fingertips. Thesmall-, medium-,and large-scale MSEs were defined as the average of scale 1, scales 2–4, and scales (...) 5–10, respectively. Intra- and intergroups were compared by one- and two-samplet-tests, respectively. The dominant handMSE5–10was lower in the poorly controlled diabetes group than the well-controlled diabetes and the unaffected groups, whereas the nondominant handMSE5–10was lower in the well- and poorly controlled diabetes groups than the unaffected group. TheMSE1of dominant hand was higher than that of nondominant hand in the well-controlled diabetes. In conclusion, diabetes status and hand dominance may affect the MSE of PPG pulse amplitudes. (shrink)

During the late Ming and early Qing period, Jesuit missionaries introduced European science into China, and thereby profoundly influenced the later development of Chinese astronomy. Not only did European astronomy become the official system of the Qing dynasty, but the traditional way to ‘attain up above’ by connecting the study of astronomy and Yi learning gradually fell into disuse. However, the astronomers in this period expressed different views on these two processes. As one of the most important early Qing (...) astronomers, Xue Fengzuo’s case presents a distinctive and important example. Firstly, under the influences of both Chinese tradition and European science, Xue Fengzuo rebuilt the way to ‘attain up above’ based on his three-fold ‘calendrical learning’, i.e. calendrical astronomy, astrology and related pragmatic applications, through which he could realize the highest Confucian ideal. Secondly, he integrated Chinese and Western knowledge for all three aspects of his ‘calendrical learning’, instead of ceding the dominant position to Western methods. From Xue Fengzuo’s example, many of the complex effects of the encounter between different cultures and the process of knowledge transfer can be revealed. (shrink)

Ben shu shou ci dui ming mo qing chu zui fu sheng ming de hui zu san da han wen yi zhu jia--Wang Daiyu, Ma Zhu, Liu Zhi de zheng zhi lun li si xiang, jing ji lun li si xiang, hun yin jia ting lun li si xiang, ren xing shan e guan, dao de xiu yang guan jin xing le quan fang wei, duo jiao du de shu li, gou chen he kao cha.

There is a view that Ruists never put much emphasis on qing and even saw it in a negative light. This is perhaps a misunderstanding, especially in regard to pre-Qin Ruism. In the Guodian Xing zi ming chu, the passage "dao begins in qing" (dao shi yu qing) plays an important role in our understanding of the pre-Qin notion of qing. This article concentrates on the "theory of qing" in both pre-Qin Ruism and Daoism and attempts a philosophical interpretation (...) of "dao begins in qing," and in the process offers philosophical interpretations of a number of important notions. (shrink)

本书考察了颜钧思想产生的社会历史背景及颜钧生平;构建了表述颜钧“大中哲学”的理论框架,包括它的经典依据、它的心性论和工夫论、它的人生价值观和社会理想;阐释了颜钧思想的特征及其在当时和对后世的影响。.

The _Xing Zi Ming Chu_ 性自命出 (_Nature Derives from Decree_) is one of the eighteen pieces that were recorded in Guodian 郭店 bamboo slips, which were excavated in 1993 and thought to be buried around 300 BCE. We can observe from this text detailed discussions surrounding terms such as _xing_ 性 (nature), _qing_ 情 (emotion), _xin_ 心 (heart-mind), and _yue_ 樂 (music), which played crucial roles in producing early Chinese philosophical discourses, particularly in the area of moral psychology. Since (...) its publication in 1998, this text has gained huge interest from Chinese scholars. This article illustrates how Chinese scholars, through their concrete studies, reveal the complicated textual nature of the _Xing Zi Ming Chu_ and its intricate relations to different philosophical streams which followed. This article also points out a problematic assumption that lies in the majority of Chinese scholarship and proposes a more sensible approach to examine this text. (shrink)

In both content and historical position, the “ Xing Zi Ming Chu ” is of obvious significance for understanding the development of classical Chinese philosophy, particularly Confucian moral psychology. This article aims to clarify one aspect of the text, namely, its account of human motivation. This account can be divided into two parts. The first describes human motivation primarily in passive terms of response to external forces, as emotions arise from our nature when stimulated by things in the world. (...) The second comes from the role of the heart, which takes a more active role in shaping our responses to the world. This article focuses on the role of the heart. At stake is the status of human agency, in particular, the degree to which the heart, through the formation of a stable intention, allows us to go beyond being simply pulled along by external forces. (shrink)

What is an emotion? Recent studies of cultural psychology suggest that there is no universally shared way of drawing the boundaries around the domain of emotion. In early Chinese philosophy, the abstract category of emotion that superordinates joy, anger, and sadness is sometimes identified with the term qing. This paper extracts, crystallizes, and examines the conception of qing from the excavated “Xing Zi Ming Chu” (XZMC) text, the most important philosophical work on emotion from early China. The paper argues (...) that XZMC presents a philosophically profound way of thinking about emotion, focusing on its normative role, cognitive features, and functional plasticity. Moreover, the paper explores how the ancient view offers a critical lens to reassess the prevailing assumption that emotions are first and foremost internal states with phenomenal and/or intentional characteristics. The paper highlights the potential for early Chinese philosophy to enrich contemporary conceptualization of emotion and vice versa, suggesting a more cross-cultural approach to philosophizing the category of emotion. (shrink)

The Xing Zi Ming Chu 性自命出 presents a distinctive account of human dispositions that centers on the spontaneous arising of affects like joy and sadness. This focus on emotion grounds a particular conception of the function of music and ritual that gives music a central role in self-cultivation. Although the account of human dispositions in XZMC was ultimately overshadowed by the opposing views of Mengzi 孟子 and Xunzi 荀子 and the question of whether our dispositions are good or bad, (...) its views remained central for Ru 儒 philosophy of music. The first three parts of the essay trace the development of the ideas appearing in XZMC through the “Discourse on Music” chapter of the Xunzi and parts of the Yueji 樂記. The fourth section highlights the distinctiveness of XZMC’s account through a contrast with the views of Mengzi and Xunzi. The essay concludes by examining the ways in which, in accounting for ritual and music, both the Mengzi and Xunzi employ views like those of the XZMC, even if those are in tension with their core philosophical theories. (shrink)