The debate on the problems in aesthetics now is focused on the most basic question, the question of whether beauty is subjective or objective. More than a year of debate has shown that idealism still has great influence. The reason for this is that, on the one hand, idealist aesthetics offers explanations, which although fictitious, are capable of misleading people; and on the other hand, mechanical materialist aesthetics provides only mechanical and vulgar explanations of the problems in aesthetics, and it (...) leaves loopholes in its attacks on idealist aesthetics. (shrink)

Patients with schizophrenia have a higher risk of cardiovascular diseases and higher mortality from them than does the general population; however, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Impaired cerebral autoregulation is associated with cerebrovascular diseases and their mortality. Increased or decreased cerebral blood flow in different brain regions has been reported in patients with schizophrenia, which implies impaired cerebral autoregulation. This study investigated the cerebral autoregulation in 21 patients with schizophrenia and 23 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. None of the participants (...) had a history of cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, or diabetes. All participants underwent 10-min blood pressure and cerebral blood flow recording through finger plethysmography and Doppler ultrasonography, respectively. Cerebral autoregulation was assessed by analyzing two autoregulation indices: the mean blood pressure and cerebral blood flow correlation coefficient (Mx), and the phase shift between the waveforms of blood pressure and cerebral blood flow determined using transfer function analysis. Compared with the controls, the patients had a significantly higher Mx (0.257 vs. 0.399, p = 0.036) and lower phase shift (44.3° vs. 38.7° in the 0.07–0.20 Hz frequency band, p = 0.019), which indicated impaired maintenance of constant cerebral blood flow and a delayed cerebrovascular autoregulatory response. Impaired cerebral autoregulation may be caused by schizophrenia and may not be an artifact of coexisting medical conditions. The mechanism underlying impaired cerebral autoregulation in schizophrenia and its probable role in the development of cerebrovascular diseases require further investigation. (shrink)

pSarah A. Mattice’s emExploring the Heart Sutra/em is an ambitiously creative, well researched, clearly explained, and richly transdisciplinary work. Mattice’s use of music sampling is inspired, and her survey of translation theories and contextualization of the philosophical traditions in Chinese cultures lay out the reasons for her own translation and line commentary on the Heart Sūtra that privileges its Chinese cultural heritage. It would be a fine book even if without the two long chapters in the middle, whose connections with (...) the emHeart Sūtra/em are tenuous./p. (shrink)

Hsiao has recently developed what he considers a ‘simple and straightforward’ argument for the moral permissibility of corporal punishment. In this article we argue that Hsiao's argument is seriously flawed for at least two reasons. Specifically, we argue that a key premise of Hsiao's argument is question-begging, and Hsiao's argument depends upon a pair of false underlying assumptions, namely, the assumption that children are moral agents, and the assumption that all forms of wrongdoing demand retribution.

This is a critique of Timothy Hsiao’s ‘A Moral Defense of Trophy Hunting.’ I argue that Hsiao’s arguments on pain, consciousness, behavior, cruelty, and necessity all fail. More importantly, I argue against his broader conclusion that non-human animals ‘do not have any inherent moral significance.’ My conclusion is that Hsiao’s moral defense of trophy hunting fails.

The present work investigates whether the hemispheric processing of both verbal and emotional stimuli, studied by means of a dichotic listening task, differs between normal high and low dissociators as assessed by the Dissociative Experiences Scale . Development, reliability and validity of a dissociation scale. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 174, 727–735). Two groups of subjects , participated in the experiment. The task consisted in identifying both verbal and emotional stimulus-targets, respectively, on successive sessions. Reaction time and response accuracy (...) were registered and analysed using ANOVA . The interaction between stimuli , channel , and dissociation level reached statistical significance in terms of accuracy measures = 4.75; p < .05). Both high and low dissociators exhibited the expected right ear advantage on verbal targets. On the other hand, whereas low dissociators exhibited the expected left ear advantage on emotional targets, high dissociators failed to follow this typical pattern of hemispheric asymmetry: both hemispheres exhibited similar performances. These results confirm the hypothesis that dissociation is related to changes in hemispheric processing, specifically of emotional information. (shrink)

In the article the possibility of using a smartphone with an integrated set of necessary technical means for implementing the technology of video recording of vehicle speed is investigated and established. The main algorithmic and software components of a smartphone are proposed, which allow to identify and to accompany a vehicle, as well as to determine its speed. Installation and initial setup of the device is simple. It is only necessary to measure and enter in the device height of its (...) arrangement. In the article the possibility of using a smartphone with an integrated set of necessary technical means for implementing the technology of video recording of vehicle speed is investigated and established. The smartphone has a low cost and power consumption, the ability to operate in the required temperature range, as well as a set of physically built-in necessary technical means: several video cameras, accelerometers, gyroscope, magnetometer, GPS sensor, GSM and Wi-Fi wireless communication. Due to its low power consumption, it can also run on solar panels during the day when no other power source is available. The cost of a smartphone with very good characteristics does not exceed 10,000 UAH. The paper proposes the main components of the algorithmic support of the device. The use of the Lucas-Kanade method for the implementation of tracking and the calculation in the interpixel space of the coordinates of the points of the vehicle's trajectory will improve the accuracy of measurements of the traveled distance and the vehicle's speed on short sections of the trajectory. The proposed algorithm for calculating the vehicle speed requires entering only one parameter - the height of the device. Therefore, installation and initial setup of the device is simple. It is enough to measure and enter this parameter into the device. Large-scale introduction of a device for measuring vehicle speed, built on the basis of a smartphone, is possible due to relatively small investments in the development of its mechanical part, algorithmic and software. (shrink)

The complex of cultural, political and societal affiliations, both in a historic and a contemporary perspective, is expressed by a special term in the Nordic languages, 'faellesskab', often with the addition of 'folkelig', as 'folkeligt faellesskab', where 'folkelig' means of the people. No corresponding term exists in English. For medical ethics the concept 'faellesskab', or whatever wording is chosen to serve the semantics of this term, is vital. In research ethics and clinical decision-making complex ethical analyses and normative evaluations are (...) necessary. They cannot be based solely on moral relativism, whether being based on results of opinion polls or on a widespread 'every man minds his own business' concept. 'Faellesskab' possesses the necessary base of common values. (shrink)

The role of emotions in ethics is often taken by philosophers and others as antithetical to rationality. On the most basic level (in undergraduate philosophy exams and elsewhere), stating an opinion in the form "I feel that p" can be a way of sidestepping the demand for reasons. But emotions can sometimes also be seen as supplying reasons for moral judgment to the extent that they involve evaluations--and a way of communicating them across different moral perspectives.

Th e con fusion a nd b arren ness o f psycho logy is no t to be e xplain ed b y calling it a “yo ung science”; its state is not comparable with that of physics, for instance, in its beginnings. (Rather with that of certain branches of mathematics. Set theory.) For in psychology there are experimental methods and conceptual confusion. (As in the oth er case, con cep tual co nfusion and m ethod s of pro of.) (...) The existence of the experimental method makes us think we have the means of solving the problems that trouble us; though problem and method pass one another by. (PI p. 232). (shrink)

Three experiments explore the role of working memory in motor skill acquisition and performance. Traditional theories postulate that skill acquisition proceeds through stages of knowing, which are initially declarative but later procedural. The reported experiments challenge that view and support an independent, parallel processing model, which predicts that procedural and declarative knowledge can be acquired separately and that the former does not depend on the availability of working memory, whereas, the latter does. The behaviour of these two processes was manipulated (...) by providing or withholding visual (and auditory) appraisal of outcome feedback. Withholding feedback was predicted to inhibit the use of working memory to appraise success and, thus, prevent the formation of declarative knowledge without affecting the accumulation of procedural knowledge. While the first experiment failed to support these predictions, the second and third experiments demonstrated that procedural and declarative knowledge can be acquired independently. It is suggested that the availability of working memory is crucial to motor performance only when the learner has come to rely on its use. (shrink)

In this paper I start discussing "originalism" as a practice of interpretation purporting the intent of the framers as "the" governing factor in interpretation. My first step is to contrast it with the approach of non-interpretivism. Then I discuss "interpretation" itself as a package to depict social practices of meaning production, focusing on three peculiar historical settings : Alexandria, Scholasticism, and the "birth" of Hermeneutics. My aim is to show the "essentialist" move of posing the concept of "meaning" as a (...) key factor in the "ideology" of interpretation. Such a discussion is introductory to a reappraisal of the current debate about criticism and of the distinction between interpretation and use-of-the-texts. I then examine archeology as a radical alternative to interpretive practices. But my final step will be to shift away from the blunt opposition between interpretivism and non interpretivism, to suggest a more complex arrangement based on an ironic misuse of interpretivism, and a framing of interpretation as an antagonistic process. (shrink)

Mental Symbols is an essay on mind and meaning, on the biological implementation of mental symbols, on the architecture of mind, and on the correct construal of logical properties and relations of symbols, including implication and inference. The book argues against the main contemporary trends in the cognitive sciences, preferring rather the classical early-modern tradition. The author looks at some logical paradoxes in the light of that tradition, and offers a novel answer to the problem of the biological implementation of (...) the mind in the brain. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Heidegger's Hidden Sources: East Asian Influences on His WorkGereon KopfHeidegger's Hidden Sources: East Asian Influences on His Work. By Reinhard May. Translated with a complementary essay by Graham Parkes. London and New York:Routledge, 1996. Pp. xviii + 121.Reinhard May's Ex Oriente Lux: Heidegger's Werk Unter Ostasiatischen Einfluss (1989), translated into English by Graham Parkes as Heidegger's Hidden Sources: East Asian Influences on His Work, makes a significant contribution (...) to the growing body of work that explores the intellectual connections between early twentieth-century German philosophers and Chinese classical texts on the one side and contemporary Japanese philosophers on the other. In particular, May explores similarities [End Page 122] between the work of Martin Heidegger and contemporary translations of Taoist writings available to and known by Heidegger such as Martin Buber's Reden und Gleichnisse des Tschuang-Tse (1910), Richard Wilhelm's Laotse: Tao te King: Das Buch des Alten vom Sinn und Leben (1911), Jan Ulenbrook's Lao Tse: Tao te King: Das Buch vom Rechten Weg and von der rechten Gesinnung (1980), and Paul Shih-yi Hsiao's translation of the Tao te Ching. Hsiao himself describes the latter project in his "Heidegger and our Translation of the Tao te Ching," which was published in Graham Parkes' Heidegger and Asian Thought (1987). On the basis of this comparative reading, May argues that Heidegger's essay "Aus einem Gespräch von der Sprache," published in Unterwegs zur Sprache (1953/1954), constitutes a fictionalization of the conversation he had with the Japanese Germanist Tezuka Tomio and, ultimately, a confession of his indebtedness to Chinese and Japanese philosophy.May's argument evolves in four steps. In chapter 1, he establishes Heidegger's familiarity with the above-cited German translations of the Laozi and the Zhuangzi as well as with the fundamental Taoist concepts. May cites Heidegger's correspondence with Hsiao on their collaborative translation of the Laozi as well as commentaries by Heinrich Wiegand Petzet and Otto Pöggeler, who document Heidegger's familiarity with the translations by Buber and Ulenbrook, and thus establishes Hei-degger's knowledge of fundamental Taoist ideas and writings.In his second chapter, May reads Heidegger's "Aus einem Gespräch von der Sprache" in light of Tezuka's own account of their conversation and concludes that Heidegger poetically constructs his version in order to support his own philosophy and, ultimately, as May argues in chapter 5, to confess his intellectual debt to the Japanese philosophical tradition. May suggests that a note at the end of Unterwegs zur Sprache, which claims that the conversation that "has remained unpublished for some time, originates in 1953/4, and was occasioned by a visit from Professor Tezuka of the Imperial University in Tokyo" (p. 14), is "clearly incomplete and inaccurate" (p. 14). In addition, May cites discrepancies between the accounts of Heidegger and Tezuka with regard to crucial aspects of their conversation: while Tezuka observes "that the kind of indefiniteness conveyed by this film [Rashmon] concerning our knowledge of reality may have intrigued Heidegger as an East Asian phenomenon," Heidegger makes his Japanese interlocutor say that "[w]e Japanese are not disconcerted when a conversation leaves indefinite [im Unbestimmten] what is really meant" (p. 14). Similar discrepancies can be observed in their accounts of passages dealing with the Japanese rendition of the Heart Sūtra's shiki soku ze kū and the Japanese word kotoba. Tezuka's own report furthermore emphasizes Hei-degger's tendency to force similarities, as in the case of Heidegger's rendition of kotoba as Ding. Confronted with these "indications," May concludes that Heidegger did not report a conversation but rather presented a fictionalized conversation in such a way as to enable the readers to mistake it for the historical record.In chapter 3, May meticulously identifies similarities between Heidegger's work and the German translations of the Laozi and Zhuangzi to which Heidegger had access. Thus Heidegger paraphrases von Strauss' observation "that one is only [End Page 123] through the other" as "the Other to it [Being] is simply Nothing"; "Being and Nothing are not given beside one another. Each uses itself on behalf of... (shrink)

The Limits of the Formal Treatment of Language. Within the philosophy of language, there is a distinction between the natural language philosophers and the ideal language philosophers. The distinction is drawn based on the way these philosophers reflect on language and the world. Natural language philosophers stress the context-based feature of meaning, while the ideal language philosophers emphasize the context-free feature of meaning. In my study I want to show that that even within the formal study of language, in the (...) apparent absence of any context, the notions of valuation and interpretation help us to understand the meaning of sentences. (shrink)