In the Classical world, the language of cosmology was a means for framing philosophical concerns. Among these were issues of time, motion, and soul; concepts of the limited and the unlimited; and the nature and basis of number. This is no less true of Indian thought-Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, and Ājivika-where the prestige of the cosmological idiom for organizing philosophical and theological thought cannot be overstated. This essay focuses on the structural similarities in the thought of Plotinus and Buddhist cosmological/philosophical speculation. (...) It builds on research concerning the Buddha-field (buddhakṣetra), which identified two discrete numerologies central to this speculation: the thousands of worlds (sāhasralokadhātu) comprising the field of a single Buddha (buddhakṣetra), characteristic of the Hinayana, and the innumerable or incalculable (asaṃkhyeya) Buddha-fields filling the ten regions of space, characteristic of the Mahāyāna. The Enneads of Plotinus serve as a lens through which to view in a fresh way a broad range of difficult issues associated with Buddhist cosmology in three general areas. First, it asks whether Plotinus' understanding of Intellect and his treatment of infinite and essential number afford an understanding of the innumerables and thousands central to the concept of the Buddhā-field. This analysis involves a consideration of the Hindu creator god, Brahma, as 'demiurge.' Second, it suggests analogies between the One, Intellect, and Soul of Plotinus and the three Buddhist Realms-the Formless Realm, the Realm of Form, and the Realm of Desire. Finally, it explores the possibility that an understanding of the Enneads can provide a model for relating the cosmologies of the Hīnayāna and the Mahāyāna. (shrink)

ブッダとは誰か?仏教とは何か?3・11の震災後の言葉を探して仏教に問いかける―仏教と真剣に向き合う僧侶、研究者との対話を通して、仏教の「新しいいま」が見えてくる。.

I. Introduction Two kinds of remedies have traditionally been employed for breach of contract: legal relief and equitable relief. Legal relief normally takes the form of money damages. Equitable relief normally consists either of specific performance or an injunction – that is, the party in breach may be ordered to perform an act or to refrain from performing an act. In this article I will use a “consent theory of contract” to assess the choice between money damages and specific performance. (...) According to such a theory, contractual obligation is dependent on more fundamental entitlements of the parties and arises as a result of the parties' consent to transfer alienable rights. My thesis will be that the normal rule favoring money damages should be replaced with one that presumptively favors specific performance unless the parties have consented to money damages instead. The principal obstacle to such an approach is the reluctance of courts to specifically enforce contracts for personal services. The philosophical distinction between alienable and inalienable rights bolsters this historical reticence, since a right to personal services may be seen as inalienable. I will then explain why, if the subject matter of a contract for personal services is properly confined to an alienable right to money damages for failure to perform, specific enforcement of such contracts is no longer problematic. Finally, I shall consider whether the subject matter of contracts for corporate services is properly confined to money damages like contracts for personal services, or whether performance of corporate services can be made the subject of a valid rights transfer and judicially compelled in the same manner as contracts for external resources. (shrink)

There is a driving need computationally to interrogate large bodies of text for a range of non-denotative meaning (e.g., to plot chains of reasoning, detect sentiment, diagnose genre, and so forth). But such meaning has always proven computationally allusive. It is often implicit, ‘hidden’ meaning, evoked by linguistic cues, stylistic arrangement, or conceptual structure – features that have hitherto been difficult for Natural Language Processing systems to recognize and use. Non-denotative textual effects are the historical concern of rhetorical studies, and (...) we have turned to rhetoric in order to find new ways to advance NLP, especially for sophisticated tasks like Argument Mining. This paper highlights certain rhetorical devices that encode levels of meaning that have been overlooked in Computational Linguistics generally and Argument Mining particularly, and yet lend themselves to automated detection. These devices are the linguistic configurations known as Rhetorical Figures. We argue for the importance of these devices for Argument Mining, especially in collocations, and we present an XML annotation scheme for Rhetorical Figures to make figuration more tractable for computational approaches, particularly with an eye on the improvements they offer Argument Mining. We also discuss the intellectual and technical challenges involved in figure annotation and the implications for Machine Learning. (shrink)

The Muslim woman wearing the veil, the female anorexic and the from-male-to-female transsexual constitute three different figures that, despite their striking differences, have a common symbolic ground. By focusing on the similarity between the veiled woman and the other two figures, the article sheds a different light on the debate about the Muslim veil in western societies. It is argued that the western notion of woman is based on a structural ambivalence of transcendence and immanence. On the one hand, woman (...) is expected to be liberated, in control and active in public life and in all ways just as free as the man, on the other she represents a deficiency compared to the man; it is expected of her that she takes up a complementary, subordinate position in relation to the man. The subordinate position, however, is seldom pronounced. Officially, the gender hierarchy is not a part of egalitarian societies, that is, the modern configuration that formally rejects a hierarchical worldview. Is this the reason why the three figures are regarded as pathological? Does their way of demonstrating extraordinary transcendence combined with extraordinary immanence make them monstrous? (shrink)

Is the reason that majorities exert an undue influence on the actions of individuals revealed through changes in subjective experience? Using an adaptation of the response interference paradigm in which participants are trained to introspect on their own experience of conscious conflict, two studies reported here show that the mere act of recalling counter-majority stances or opinions is associated with stronger subjective effects than recalling stances or opinions that coincide with majorities. Thus, an intention to conform to a majority seems (...) to interfere with people’s recall of their own stance or opinion. These results provide novel evidence for recent yet under-supported suggestions that majorities can influence individuals even when it is improper or illogical because human social cognition is primarily and involuntarily cooperative at the implicit level. (shrink)

This article argues that we live in a highly technical world in which people are disappearing. Religion does not have the tools to help us resist this extinction since it has itself diminished humanity by positing a perfect Other Being, which controls our lives. The author argues that we need to reclaim a sense of ourselves as essentialising animals. We need to have a more body-based sense of humanity, which will lead to a fuller awareness and acceptance of difference and (...) combat hierarchical and alienating thinking. (shrink)

COVID-19 pandemic has claimed thousands of lives around the world. Among the casualties are doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals. Those who defy the danger of death and continue to render their services have to deal with psychological and mental stress due to the lack of protective measures and equipment, the overwhelming number of patients, and the experience of discrimination. In fact, some left their job. In this paper, I will argue that the motivation of health care professionals and (...) the outcome of their sacrifices, as against assuring personal safety, can be explained by the principle of the common good. First, they are faithful to their oath as health care professionals since it is their commitment as part of an institution that assumes the responsibility of providing health care to people in need. Second, restoring the patients’ condition goes beyond health issues since the recovery of each COVID-19 patient diminishes the spread of the virus, which, if not for the care of HCPs, could worsen the situation with snowballing consequences to society as a whole. While it is expected for any health care professional as a frontliner in times of pandemic, their motivation to serve exemplifies the greater value for the common good. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of ethical fit on employee attitudes and intentions to turnover. The results of this investigation provides support for the conjecture that ethical work climate is an important variable in the study of person-organization fit. Ethical fit was found to be significantly related to turnover intentions, continuance commitment, and affective commitment, but not to job satisfaction. Results are discussed in regard to some of the affective and cognitive distinctions among satisfaction, commitment, and behavioral intentions.

It is hypothesized that human faces judged to be attractive by people possess two features—averageness and symmetry—that promoted adaptive mate selection in human evolutionary history by way of production of offspring with parasite resistance. Facial composites made by combining individual faces are judged to be attractive, and more attractive than the majority of individual faces. The composites possess both symmetry and averageness of features. Facial averageness may reflect high individual protein heterozygosity and thus an array of proteins to which parasites (...) must adapt. Heterozygosity may be an important defense of long-lived hosts against parasites when it occurs in portions of the genome that do not code for the essential features of complex adaptations. In this case heterozygosity can create a hostile microenvironment for parasites without disrupting adaptation. Facial bilateral symmetry is hypothesized to affect positive beauty judgments because symmetry is a certification of overall phenotypic quality and developmental health, which may be importantly influenced by parasites. Certain secondary sexual traits are influenced by testosterone, a hormone that reduces immunocompetence. Symmetry and size of the secondary sexual traits of the face (e.g., cheek bones) are expected to correlate positively and advertise immunocompetence honestly and therefore to affect positive beauty judgments. Facial attractiveness is predicted to correlate with attractive, nonfacial secondary sexual traits; other predictions from the view that parasite-driven selection led to the evolution of psychological adaptations of human beauty perception are discussed. The view that human physical attractiveness and judgments about human physical attractiveness evolved in the context of parasite-driven selection leads to the hypothesis that both adults and children have a species-typical adaptation to the problem of identifying and favoring healthy individuals and avoiding parasite-susceptible individuals. It is proposed that this adaptation guides human decisions about nepotism and reciprocity in relation to physical attractiveness. (shrink)

The most important contemporary development in rhetoric for the theory of argumentation is Jeanne Fahnestock's program of figural logic, the ruling insight of which is that figures epitomize arguments. Working primarily with the antimetabolic formula at the heart of Gregor Mendel's paper “Experiments in Plant Hybridization,” I investigate the figural bases of the logic anchoring this foundational essay in genetics. In addition to antimetabole, the formula also depends crucially on ploche, polyptoton, onomatopoeia, antithesis, synecdoche, reification, and metaphor.

Identifying rhetorical figures with marginal to non-existent lexico-syntactic signatures poses significant challenges for computational approaches reliant upon structural definitions or descriptions. One such figure is prolepsis ([Formula: see text]ó[Formula: see text]), which this essay charts out in some detail, addressing the challenges and the benefits of rendering such figures computationally tractable through the use of argument schemes with attention to metadiscursive or macro-discursive norms offered by pragma-dialectical traditions.

Consists in part of papers developed at the Sixth International Whitehead Conference, held in the summer of 2006 at the Universit'at Salzburg, Austria.

This article looks at two strains of urban community organizing, distinguished by philosophy and often by gender, and influenced by the historical division of American society into public and private spheres. The authors compare the well-known Alinsky model, which focuses on communities organizing for power, and what they call the women-centered model, which focuses on organizing relationships to build community. These models are rooted in somewhat distinct traditions and vary along several dimensions, including conceptions of human nature and conflict, power (...) and politics, leadership, and the organizing process. The authors conclude by examining the implications of this analysis and questions for further research and practice. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between the ethical climate of the organization and the development of person-organization fit. The relationship between an individual's stage of moral development and his/her perceived ethical work environment was examined using a sample of 86 working students. Results indicate that a match between individual preferences and present position proved most satisfying. Subjects expressing a match between their preferences for an ethical work climate and their present ethical work (...) climate indicated that they were less likely to leave their positions. (shrink)

The generalised, automated reconstruction of the reasoning structures underlying persuasive communication is an enormously challenging task. While this work in argument mining is increasingly informed by the rich tradition of argumentation studies outside the computational field, the rhetorical perspective on argumentation is thus far largely ignored. To explore the application of rhetorical insights in argument mining, we conduct a pilot study on the connection between rhetorical figures and argumentation structure. Rhetorical figures are linguistic devices that perform a variety of functions (...) in argumentative discourse. The textual form of some of these figures is easy to identify automatically, such that an established connection between the figure and a preponderance of argumentative content would improve the performance of argument mining techniques. Furthermore, the automated mining of rhetorical figures could be used as an empirical, corpus-based testing ground for the claims made about these figures in the rhetorical literature. In the pilot study, we explore the connection between eight rhetorical figures the forms of which we expect to be relatively easy to identify computationally, and argumentation structure (concretely, we consider the six schemes ‘anadiplosis’, ‘epanaphora’, ‘epistrophe’, ‘epizeuxis’, ‘eutrepismus’, and ‘polyptoton’, and the two tropes ‘antithesis’ and ‘dirimens copulatio’, and relate their occurrences to relations of inference and conflict). The data of the study is collected in the MM2012c corpus of 39,694 words of argumentatively annotated transcripts from the BBC Radio 4’s Moral Maze discussion program. We show that some of the figures indeed correspond to passages of high argumentative density, relative to the text as a whole. (shrink)

This provocative book outlines a powerful and original theory of liberty structured by the liberal conception of justice and the rule of law. Drawing on insights from philosophy, political theory, economics, and law, he shows how this new conception of liberty can confront, and solve, the central societal problems of knowledge, interest, and power.

Unchangeable. Unwavering. Let God's Truth Anchor You. The world is a sea of clashing beliefs and thoughts. Your own feelings and circumstances change from one day to the next. Your heart longs for something to hold on to...something to steer you in the right direction and give you peace. Only God's truth can satisfy that longing. Bestselling author Randy Alcorn shares daily meditations, Scripture readings, and inspirational quotes to help you grasp the wisdom and love found in the eternal (...) Word of God. When you know the truth, you'll be better prepared to... recognize your place in God's plan detect the deceit you encounter in the world point others to Jesus, who is Truth personified God's truth is real, alive, and able to transform you into the person you long to be. This is your invitation to refresh your heart and find lasting security. (shrink)

BackgroundThis paper discusses the contentious issue of reuse of stored biological samples and data obtained from research participants in past clinical research to answer future ethical and scientifically valid research questions. Many countries have regulations and guidelines that guide the use and exportation of stored biological samples and data. However, there are variations in regulations and guidelines governing the reuse of stored biological samples and data in Sub-Saharan Africa including Malawi.DiscussionThe current research ethics regulations and guidelines in Malawi do not (...) allow indefinite storage and reuse of biological samples and data for future unspecified research. This comes even though the country has managed to answer pertinent research questions using stored biological samples and data. We acknowledge the limited technical expertise and equipment unavailable in Malawi that necessitates exportation of biological samples and data and the genuine concern raised by the regulatory authorities about the possible exploitation of biological samples and data by researchers. We also acknowledge that Malawi does not have bio-banks for storing biological samples and data for future research purposes. This creates room for possible exploitation of biological samples and data collected from research participants in primary research projects in Malawi. However, research ethics committees require completion and approval of material transfer agreements and data transfer agreements for biological samples and data collected for research purposes respectively and this requirement may partly address the concern raised by the regulatory authorities. Our concern though is that there is no such requirement for biological samples and data collected from patients for clinical or diagnostic purposes.SummaryIn conclusion, we propose developing a medical data and material transfer agreement for biological samples and data collected from patients for clinical or diagnostic purposes in both public and private health facilities that may end up in research centers outside Malawi. We also propose revision of the current research ethics regulations and guidelines in Malawi in order to allow secondary use of biological samples and data collected from primary research projects as a way of maximizing the use of collected samples and data. Finally, we call for consultation of all stakeholders within the Malawi research community when regulatory authorities are developing policies that govern research in Malawi. (shrink)

Mesoamericans' rich spiritual beliefs about the importance of animals and about the correlation between the well-being of animals and that of human beings contrast with a diminutive respect accorded to animals in industrialized cultures. Some vestige of a parallel sensibility, however - granting animals an aura of dignity relatively independent of anthropocentric constructions - may be detected in the animal poetry of selected Western writers including Marianne Moore, Gary Snyder, and José Emilio Pacheco. Such animal poetry, although possessing no explicit (...) links to Mesoamerican spirituality, may represent an ethos extant in industrial-world culture that quietly celebrates - as Mesoamerican culture does more unabashedly - the sanctity and parity of nonhuman animals. (shrink)