This special 10th anniversary edition of the David Suzuki classic, re-examines our place in the natural world in light of sweeping environmental changes and recent advances in scientific knowledge.

We show that Kubota and Levine’s characterization of the HPSG-based theory of non-constituent coordination proposed in Yatabe Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, CSLI, Stanford, pp 325–344, 2001) and later works is inaccurate, and that the theory in question does not require any ad hoc mechanisms to account for the long-known fact that right-node raising and left-node raising can affect semantic interpretation. In the course of demonstrating this, we fill in some details of this HPSG-based (...) theory that were left unspecified in the previous literature, and we also present novel accounts of split-antecedent relative clauses and of respectively interpretation that are consistent with the theory. Furthermore, we argue that the phenomenon of summative agreement may provide a reason to prefer this theory over CG-based theories like Kubota and Levine’s. (shrink)

Depois de breve contextualização, este texto estuda a herança da psicologia experimental de Christian Wolff em Karl Philipp Moritz, Immanuel Kant e Søren Kierkegaard. Esses três autores transformaram as premissas mais científicas e técnicas da disciplina em formas mais abertas de experimentação romanesca ou teatral.

「権利」概念に対する「義務」、「人格主義」に対する「非人格」を基盤にした思考など、近代的人間観の矛盾を根底的に問うたヴェイユの思想と核心とその現代的意義を鮮やかに示す気鋭の野心作。第5回「河上肇賞」本 賞受賞作。.

Neo-Confucian influence in early modern Japan was highly intellectual, indicating that Confucian ideals did not change the nature of Japanese norms of social lives. For early modern Japanese intellectuals, the conflict and contradiction between reality and ideals had always been a source of debate and inspiration. Within the theme of Neo-Confucian rites, the contradiction was highlighted owing to the fact that it included a guideline for authentic ancestral worship and religious policy. Once introduced within the Japanese circumstances of the day, (...) Confucian understanding on spirits and proper rites lead Japanese scholars to define what was legitimate worship in the format of state religion: it was necessary to authorize traditional Japanese worship toward domestic shrines. Within thepractical process of policy making, it must be noted that a keen interest toward local beliefs had emerged through the discussion. Arai Hakuseki (1657‐1725) reflects such political interest within his work ‘Kishinron’. In order to understand the impact of Japanese interpretation of Neo-Confucian ideals, it is essential to focus on the interrelationship between religious policy and interest toward local beliefs. (shrink)

This paper revisits one of the most celebrated verses on dao and ming in the Opening Chapter of the received Laozi Daodejing. I shall clarify two types of English interpretations which are possibly applicable to the verse and demonstrate that they are equally sustainable. It follows that a commitment to either one of these interpretations may thereby spoil the meta-perspective effect which the verse skillfully creates.

To become more broadly applicable, positions on AI ethics require perspectives from non-Western regions and cultures such as China and Japan. In this paper, we propose that the addition of the concept of harmony to the discussion on ethical AI would be highly beneficial due to its centrality in East Asian cultures and its applicability to the challenge of designing AI for social good. We first present a synopsis of different definitions of harmony in multiple contexts, such as music and (...) society, which reveals that the concept is, at its core, about well-balanced relationships and appropriate actions which give rise to order, balance, and aesthetically pleasing phenomena. The mediator for these well-balanced relationships isTaktwhich is an ability to act thoughtfully and sensibly according to the specific situation and to put things into proportion and order. We propose that the central challenge of building harmonizing AI is to make intelligent systems tactful and also to design and use them tactfully. For an AI system to become tactful, it needs to be able to have an advanced sensitivity to the specific contexts which it is in and their social and ethical implications and have the capability of approximately inferring the emotional and cognitive states of people with whom it is interacting. (shrink)

Homology is a fundamental concept in biology. However, the metaphysical status of homology, especially whether a homolog is a part of an individual or a member of a natural kind, is still a matter of intense debate. The proponents of the individuality view of homology criticize the natural kind view of homology by pointing out that homologs are subject to evolutionary transformation, and natural kinds do not change in the evolutionary process. Conversely, some proponents of the natural kind view of (...) homology argue that a homolog can be construed both as a part of an individual and a member of a natural kind. They adopt the Homeostatic Property Cluster theory of natural kinds, and the theory seems to strongly support their construal. Note that this construal implies the acceptance of essentialism. However, looking back on the history of the concept of homology, we should not overlook the fact that the individuality view was proposed to reject the essentialist interpretation of homology. Moreover, the essentialist notions of natural kinds can, in our view, mislead biologists about the phenomena of homology. Consequently, we need a non-essentialist view of homology, which we name the “persistently reproducible module” view. This view highlights both the individual-like and kind-like aspects of homologs while stripping down both essentialist and anti-essentialist interpretations of homology. In this article, we articulate the PRM view of homology and explain why it is recommended over the other two views. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Nature (Ziran 自然) of Technological and Economic Development in Early DaoismYumi Suzuki (bio)I. IntroductionEric Nelson's Daoism and Environmental Philosophy: Nourishing Life provides comprehensive guidance on how early and later Daoist thought could offer both ideological and practical solutions to contemporary environmental issues. Nelson does not simple-mindedly claim that Daoists are environmentalists or that Daoism is comparable with modern environmental thought. His monograph has a more sophisticated, and (...) also more ambitious and consequently philosophically provocative, goal: to evolutionally develop old Daoist thought to directly address contemporary philosophical discourses on the environment.1I have summarized elsewhere what I find to be the most significant and meaningful contributions this book has made.2 I think its goal has successfully been achieved in various ways: Nelson gives careful and accurate interpretations to each passage from the original texts.3 What he calls "the new Daoism" deployed on the basis of these interpretations is reasonable and uncontroversial. The monograph overall offers an exemplary model of how wisdom acquired through studying the history of philosophy can be adapted to cogitating on newly emerging philosophical questions, despite differences in the intellectual contexts that we are required to warily distinguish. Moreover, by focusing on the Daoist tradition in East Asia, it well demonstrates how other systems of philosophical thought can be usefully employed to critically reflect on fundamental assumptions that an existing system is already committed to and that could be the very cause of relevant philosophical and pragmatic problems.While I mostly agree with his arguments in chapters 1–4 and 6, the only part I found unsatisfactory is chapter 5, "Early Daoist Biopolitics and a New [End Page 771] Daoist Political Ecology" (pp. 100–118). The present review aims to elaborate reasons for my resistance to Nelson's all-out endorsement of what he regards as the sociopolitical implications of Daoism. When it comes to politics, it appears to me, early Daoist texts such as the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi express often disappointingly ambiguous and agnostic attitudes toward what can be done with respect to their doctrinal opponents and outsiders. My suggestion is that if we examine the explorations of their contenders, that is, mainly Confucians and Legalists, concerning political and technological devices, they may present an altogether less biased and more balanced range of solutions to a question Nelson raises regarding an environmental challenge associated with a competitive globalized economy and rapidly developing technologies in our modern age.II. A Challenge to the Current Environmental MovementChapter 5 begins with the following statement:Appeals to encountering the myriad things in their environmental contexts and relations are necessary for an ecological transformation of existing cultures and societies. Yet an environmental ethos and culture of nature is not sufficient given how systematically reproduced social-economic processes in advanced capitalist societies meditate, entangle, and obstruct the transformative potential of such encounters. To this extent, an adequate environmental philosophy must concurrently be social-political philosophy that can offer an environmentally oriented critique of existing social structures and institutions that directly and indirectly harm creatures and degrade ecosystems in myriad ways such that transformations must transpire in economic and societal structures as well as at the level of individual cultivation and reflections.(p. 100)Nelson maintains that even though it is cardinal to transform the ways in which the myriad things encounter and mutually correspond with each other, as well as alter their own existential state, by cultivating an environmental ethos and culture of nature in each individual and society, one of the most serious challenges for such transformations could originate with already existing capitalist, materialist, and consumerist social structures and institutions widely prevailing and deeply embedded in the highly complex economic and political systems of our age.This, I think, captures the core problem of modern environmentalism. An individual, a group of people such as nonprofit or nongovernmental organizations, or a single city or country might be convinced by the Daoist "biospiritual" mode of life. Nevertheless, it appears to be far more difficult in practice to have certain countries or multinational mega-firms abandon their steadfast, primary commitment to national, industrial, commercial, or corporate missions to pursue their own benefits that deprioritize or... (shrink)

30th Nov. and 1st Dec. 2013 at Kyoto University. Organizer: Takeshi Sakon.

Zen Buddhism as it has been discovered by the West in our time emerges as one of the great challenges to Western philosophy, psychology, and religion. The present volume, composed of the work of D. T. Suzuki, Zen's chief exponent in English, and presented to Western readers by William Barrett, is intended to introduce the general reader to the history and spirit of Zen.

When an agent’s motivation is sensitive to how his supervisor thinks about the agent’s competence, the supervisor has to take into account both informational and expressive contents of her message to the agent. This paper shows that the supervisor can credibly express her trust in the agent’s ability only by being un- clear about what to do. Suggesting what to do, i.e., “directives,” could reveal the supervisor’s “distrust” and reduce the agent’s equilibrium effort level even though it provides useful information (...) about the decision environment. There is also an equilibrium in which directives are neutral in expressive content. However, it is shown that neologism proofness favors equilibria in which directives are double- edged swords. (shrink)

The human environment is currently undergoing massive change amid the rapid adoption of information and communications technology (ICT). ICT can be characterized as offering an opportunity to consider the nature of humanity, create new values, and foster new cultures. As humans, the question that technical innovation relating to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robots thrusts before us is, “What is a human?” What exactly are the things that AI will never be able to do, no matter how close it gets to (...) human capabilities? What makes us humans, and what is it that only humans can do? This essay discusses the impact of AI technology on humans and society from the perspective of a turning point in how people perceive themselves and humanity. (shrink)

Wabi Sabi is the Japanese Zen philosophy that all things are imperfect, unfinished and impermanent. It is a fresh way of seeing and moving through the world when our lives, literally and figuratively, feel cluttered. This book shows us how to apply this concept in the context of daily life and offers ideas on how to see it, embrace it and incorporate it into everyday thoughts, objects and situations."--Publisher description.

Extending techniques of Dowd and those of Poizat, we study computational complexity of in the case when is a generic oracle, where is a positive integer, and denotes the collection of all -query tautologies with respect to an oracle . We introduce the notion of ceiling-generic oracles, as a generalization of Dowd's notion of -generic oracles to arbitrary finitely testable arithmetical predicates. We study how existence of ceiling-generic oracles affects behavior of a generic oracle, by which we show that is (...) not a subset of is comeager in the Cantor space. Moreover, using ceiling-generic oracles, we present an alternative proof of the fact (Dowd) that the class of all -generic oracles has Lebesgue measure zero. (shrink)