Early modern humans developed mental capabilities that were immeasurably greater than those of non-human primates. We see this in the rapid innovation in tool making, the development of complex language, and the creation of sophisticated art forms, none of which we find in our closest relatives. While we can readily observe the results of this high-order cognitive capacity, it is difficult to see how it could have developed. We take up the topic of cave art and archeoacoustics, particularly the discovery (...) that cave art is often closely connected to the acoustic properties of the cave chambers in which it is found. Apparently, early modern humans were able to detect the way sound reverberated in these chambers, and they painted artwork on surfaces that were acoustic “hot spots,” i.e., suitable for generating echoes. We argue that cave art is a form of cross-modality information transfer, in which acoustic signals are transformed into symbolic visual representations. This form of information transfer across modalities is an instance of how the symbolic mind of early modern humans was taking shape into concrete, externalized language. We also suggest that the earliest rock art found in Africa may constitute one of the first fossilized proxies for the expression of full-fledged human linguistic behavior. (shrink)

Using artificially synthesized stimuli, previous research has shown that cotton-top tamarin monkeys easily learn simple AB grammar sequences, but not the more complex AnBn sequences that require hierarchical structure. Humans have no trouble learning AnBn combinations. A more recent study, using similar artificially created stimuli, showed that there is a neuroanatomical difference in the brain between these two kinds of arrays. While the simpler AB sequences recruit the frontal operculum, the AnBn array recruits the phylogenetically newer Broca’s area. We propose (...) that on close inspection, reported vocal repertoires of Old World Monkeys show that these nonhuman primates are capable of calls that have two items in them, but never more than two. These are simple AB sequences, as predicted by previous research. In addition, we suggest the two-item call cannot be the result of a combinatorial operation that we see in human language, where the recursive operation of Merge allows for a potentially infinite array of structures. In our view, the two-item calls of nonhuman primates result from a dual-compartment frame into which each of the calls can fit without having to be combined by an operation such as Merge. (shrink)

Nous avons trois objectifs dans cet article. Le premier est de montrer la pensée et le comportement de Yasuma Takata (1883-1972), auteur quasiment inconnu en Occident, mais qui donna pourtant au Japon ses premières théories sociologiques et socio-économiques générales. Le deuxième est d’examiner comment ces pensée et comportement sont liés à la responsabilité de la guerre dans la seconde guerre mondiale. Le troisième consiste à montrer que cette pensée est profondément connectée au courant de la pensée japonaise moderne à travers (...) la théorie de Maruyama et des opinions des Ôe et Kawabata. Classification JEL : B15, B31, N45. (shrink)

One of the most important of Japan's movements in search of a national identity during the 17th-18th centuries was known as kokugaku (national studies). It was the first major movement through which the intrinsic values inherent in ancient Japanese life were rediscovered from studies of early Japanese texts. Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) was its greatest leader.

Husserl’s theory of the phenomenological reduction is often explained by a radicalchange of attitude. Such an explanation is useful but sometimes misleading. TheIdea of Phenomenology clearly shows that the original idea of the reduction wasachieved through a radicalized critique of evidence. Although Husserl’s appealto evidence has often been criticized as an unjustified limitation of philosophicalthinking, a close examination of Husserl’s lectures reveals that the very ‘limitation’ to the phenomenological evidence breaks our naturalinclination toward objective identities and liberates our thinking from (...) the naturalbut misleading division between ‘transcendence’ and ‘immanence.’ Thus, thephenomenological reduction can be interpreted as a transition from the thinkingwithout regard to evidence to the philosophizing intrinsically mediatedby evidence, which can secure access for intuitive analysis to every conceivabletype of givenness insofar as it manifests itself. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to reveal Socrates as a thorough democrat. In the first section, I will disprove the credibility of Xenophon’s Memorabilia, a common source for scholars who view Socrates as an antidemocratic thinker. I will then argue, in the second section, that the views of a few scholars who portray Socrates as a prodemocratic thinker represent a far-from-satisfactory depiction of his political views. In the third section, I will then demonstrate that Socrates’ criticism of democracy is (...) not of democracy itself nor of Athenian laws, but instead a criticism of a particular sort of democracy seen in the period of Athenian imperialism, and that it derives from his fundamental recognition of human ignorance. After pointing out Socrates’ special preference for the democratic laws of Athens, seen in the Crito, I will establish, in the fourth section, a preference in his philosophy showing him as a staunch democrat who upheld the concept of the rule of law. (shrink)

本書の第1部は近代日本の思想家がグリーンの理想主義をどのように受容し、それをどう批判し、日本の伝統的思想とどのように融合させ、独自の思想を展開してきたかを中心問題とする。とりあげられる思想家・学者は中 島力造・高山樗牛、綱島梁川、西田幾多郎、河合榮治郎の五人である。第2部はグリーンの形而上学、道徳哲学、政治哲学、宗教思想の中心問題を永遠意識の視点から体系的に再検討することを目的とした。.

Pockett has drawn an alternative conclusion from the data of Libet, Alberts, Wright, and Feinstein , and suggested that it takes 80 ms, rather than 500 ms, for the sensation evoked by a stimulus to enter awareness. Here, I suggest that our conscious sensation evolves over time, during the period from 80 to 500 ms after a stimulus, until the sensation is stably localized in space.

In this essay we critically evaluate the progress that has been made in solving the problem of meaning in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. We remain skeptical about solutions based on deep neural networks and cognitive robotics, which in our opinion do not fundamentally address the problem. We agree with the enactive approach to cognitive science that things appear as intrinsically meaningful for living beings because of their precarious existence as adaptive autopoietic individuals. But this approach inherits the problem of (...) failing to account for how meaning as such could make a difference for an agent’s behavior. In a nutshell, if life and mind are identified with physically deterministic phenomena, then there is no conceptual room for meaning to play a role in its own right. We argue that this impotence of meaning can be addressed by revising the concept of nature such that the macroscopic scale of the living can be characterized by physical indeterminacy. We consider the implications of this revision of the mind-body relationship for synthetic approaches. (shrink)