Within some online communities, discussion often centers on issues on which writers take sides, and within some subset of those debate-prone communities, we find over time that particular sets of writers almost always end up on the same side of an issue. These sets we call factions. In this paper, we describe a tool to perform what we call faction discovery on online communities. Generalizing methods developed in the bibliometrics and information retrieval literature, we define a network determined by similarities (...) of content in a community of users and add in direct evidence of online ties between users. We then perform community detection on the network to find factions. Using a set of data collected from science and fantasy blogs, we show that the discovered factions accurately reflect an active conflict in the community leading to significant, politically related social fracture. (shrink)

"Co-publication agreement between China Social Sciences Press (China) and Paths International Ltd (UK)"--Colophon.

Islamic philosophy; philosophy, Ancient.

The Law Reform Association came in the wake of the Catholic Relief Act of April 1829, a period of mounting opinions for further constitutional change. Through the Law Reform Association, Bentham wanted to mobilise people to support the application of his philosophy in Britain and beyond. He argued that the English legal profession had a sinister interest in manipulating other members of society, and that only codification based on utilitarianism would rectify the defects of the common law. By August 1830, (...) 41 people had been contacted, and their attitude towards the prospect of Bentham’s Law Reform Association and his philosophy reflects the extent to which Bentham kept the hopes of the Enlightenment – for a rational basis for social organisation – alive. Although most law reformers maintained certain reservations towards Bentham’s criticism of the common law, many accepted his analytical empiricism and viewed him as an important cultural icon of the Enlightenment. They also used him to support their own versions of law reform schemes, especially in the case of Henry Brougham’s Law Amendment Society from 1844. (shrink)

In the course of modernization, the technical rationality still was the leading part of mainstream rational view in China. Modern technology brings us not only the acceleration of the modernization, but also increasingly serious condition, including of ecological crisis, environment deterioration, resource shortage, polarization of the rich and the poor, morality degradation and labor alienation. The potential phenomenon in the course of western modernization also appears in china. Maybe we can’t charged the whole fault to modern technology, but it as (...) the essential phenomenon and leading power of our Times, avoidance plays that blaming part in the result of development. Nowadays western developed countries have realized modernization and begin to step into the Time which we call as post-industrial, post-informatization, and post-knowledgeable society. In starting from the theory paradigm of postmodernism philosophy, searching for essential survey of technology’s philosophical meanings, discussing a Postmodernism view on Technology which re-unscramble transformation relationship between in human and nature, This paper presents a pattern of interpretation and construction of technology which has the meanings of sustainable development. Postmodernism View of Technology, which is the total attitude and ultimate standpoint about the essence of technology, the constitutes oftechnology, the drive of technology, the development of technology, the function of technology, the value of technology and the relation between technology and society in the postmodern context. This paper introduces and analyzes the postmodern theory system on philosophy of technology. This system is based on a kind of postmodernism worldview, through distinguishing pre-modern, modern and postmodern, the author deeply criticizes the alienation of modern technology, and tries to build up a postmodern Society which “needs take good care of and waits for being harvested” by “returning value to technology” and “transcendingmodernity”. It has the important academic value for theory innovation of technology philosophy, and important directive significance for building a harmonious society on the basis of human. (shrink)

This year is the Eightieth anniversary of the May Fourth movement, as well as the last decennial of the May Fourth movement in the twentieth century.

Yūsuf al-Shirbīnī, Brains Confounded by the Ode of Abū Shādūf Expounded. Edited and translated by Humphrey Davies. 2 vols. Library of Arabic Literature. New York: New York University Press, 2016. Pp. lviii + 425; viii + 541. $40 each. Muḥammad ibn Maḥfūẓ al-Sanhūrī, Risible Rhymes. Edited and translated by Humphrey Davies. Library of Arabic Literature. New York: New York University Press, 2016. Pp. xiv + 105. $30.

As professional football stadiums continue to grow in popularity worldwide, fans are able to watch the game in closer proximity, but the design of professional football stadiums to shorten the distance between fans and the playing field also exacerbates the impact of the home advantage on the referee’s decision to call a penalty. Studies have confirmed the existence of the home advantage and found that experienced referees can reduce the impact of this interference, but the neural mechanisms behind this phenomenon (...) have not been adequately investigated. In this study, we designed a soccer referee decision making task based on a home field effect scenario in a real soccer game, and used event-related potentials to compare the decision making and EEG differences between individuals with different experience levels when faced with foul actions under spectator noise interference. The experiments showed that individuals with different experience levels triggered a significant ERN EEG component when performing the penalty decision task under the home field effect factor, suggesting that the interference of the home field effect may lead referees to correct their previous decision-making behavior patterns in the penalty decision and reduce unfavorable calls against the home team. In contrast, referees with officiating experience elicited smaller ERN amplitudes compared to other subjects, suggesting that experience factors may inhibit this tendency to change behavioral patterns. This study suggests that in response to the increasing trend of professional football stadiums, policy makers should place more emphasis on enhancing the experience level of referees in the training of referees to ensure the fairness of the game. (shrink)

When we disagree with each other at the beginning of a debate, we are confident that we are right and the other side is just wrong, 2017). But at the end of the debate, we could be persuaded that we are wrong and the other side is right. This happens a lot when we disagree on empirical or factual claims. However, when we disagree with each other on moral issues, it is quite rare that either side is persuaded. We could (...) be frustrated by the other’s stubbornness. But sometimes we come to see that the other side has a point. Their view seems reasonable. We might even feel that we could have taken their moral perspective and values. This phenomenon of moral ambivalence is discussed extensively by David Wong as part of his argument for moral relativism that there is no single true morality. Recently, Agustín Vicente and Agustín Arrieta write to refute Wong’s argument. They argue that moral ambivalence is a phenomenon of moral pluralism, the position that there are different acceptable courses of actions, rather than moral relativism. In this paper, I argue that moral ambivalence does not support the kind of moral pluralism that Vicente and Arrieta argue for. Furthermore, I point out that moral ambivalence does not support Wong’s naturalism, the position that morality has human nature constraints, but it does support the kind of relativism that he endorses. (shrink)

By inferences from fossil records and circumstantial evidences, it is now generally postulated that angiosperms have a much longer history than hitherto believed and that they have already existed probably in Jurassic time. Studies in vascular tissues and reproductive, structures have negated the possibility of originating angiosperms from various gymnosperm groups. Chronologically, this derivation will be also an impossibility.From a consideration of various aspects in the life history of angiosperms, a hypothesis is here presented postulating that protangiosperms originated in an (...) aquatic or subaquatic environment from an algal ancestry. The enclosure of ovules in the ovary is interpretated as a means of protection necessitated for the transmigration from an aquatic to an aerial habitat for the developing reproductive parts in the bud underwater. Trimery is suggested as a primitive condition, one that affords maximum efficiency in carrying out the purpose under the conditions.In the life history of angiosperms, the endosperm is of great significance in phylogeny. From morphological, physiological, cytological as well as genetical considerations, the endosperm should be regarded as of equal status with the gametophytic and sporophytic generations. There is no comparable structure in the gymnosperm groups and the ferns and “fern-allies”, while more or less similar conditions are present in the thallophytes. In the long life histories of many red algae, however, there is an especially notable resemblance to angiosperms, with certain details approaching the unique and characteristic features of the endosperms.Land plants are presumably all evolved from aquatic ancestors but instead of the usual concept of a monophyletic origin and lineal development of all vascular plants, a more plausible suggestion is the multiple and recurrent derivation of such plants from various algal ancestral groups. The angiosperms probably represent one of such major lines that originated more or less directly from a thallophytic ancestry. (shrink)

Photographs of celebrities or objects of two incompatible cultural meaning systems were selected as experimental stimuli. By investigating bicultural individuals' naming of these photographs, and then their selection of a culture- associated beverage in the presence of a piece of background music, the present study found a profound switching between different cultural frames in response to the romantic music of China or USA. The findings suggest that the responses to the musical cue evoke more responses with strong cultural associations for (...) a dominated culture than for a dominating culture. (shrink)

This article proposes a new reading of the mirror analogy presented in the doctrine of Chinese Yogācāra Buddhism. Clerics, such as Xuanzang 玄奘 and his protégé Kuiji 窺基, articulated this analogy to describe our experience of other minds. In contrast with existing interpretations of this analogy as figurative ways of expressing ideas of projecting and reproducing, I argue that this mirroring experience should be understood as revealing, whereby we perceive other minds through the second-person perspective. This mirroring experience, in its (...) allusion to the collectivity of consciousness, yields the metaphysical explication of mutual interdependence and the prescription of norms for compassionate actions. (shrink)

Hypocrisy in corporate social responsibility has attracted increasing attention from scholars. Under the context of the digital era, we examine whether and how social media pressure affects the typical corporate hypocrisy of ESG greenwashing. Using a dataset of A-share listed firms in China from 2011 to 2021, we find that negative sentiment from stock message boards induces firms to engage in ESG greenwashing. Our results are confirmed by an array of robustness tests and additional tests. In addition, the impact of (...) social media pressure is more pronounced in firms with lower market value and poorer reputation. The channel tests show that social media pressure induces ESG greenwashing by exacerbating managerial myopia. Finally, we further find that the shareholding of institutional investors, high-quality audit and local environmental regulation can alleviate this negative impact. Overall, our study demonstrates the mechanism underlying social media pressure on ESG greenwashing and provides practical suggestions for improving the construction of the ESG system. (shrink)

Modern Confucian political philosophy has long been divided between the more comprehensive branch of theories that prioritize Confucian classics and traditions and the more moderate branch of theories that attempt to modernize Confucianism so as to better accommodate contemporary East Asian societies.1 Recently, Joseph Chan and Sungmoon Kim, two leading thinkers from the latter camp proposed their distinct approaches to advocate what for them are the most promising versions of political Confucianism. Chan advances what he calls "Confucian political perfectionism," which (...) is based on the belief that "Confucians should embrace modern institutions and measures if they are effective and tie them to the Confucian... (shrink)

In this paper, I scrutinize Mou Zongsan’s doctrine of Moral Metaphysics in which Mou fuses Kant’s architectonic of knowledge with Chinese philosophy. Through this doctrine, Mou contends that: 1) according to Chinese philosophy, humans do have access to intellectual intuition; 2) this possibility justifies the legitimacy and priority of Chinese philosophy. To examine Mou’s argument, I first present Mou’s reading of Kant’s conception of intellectual intuition; then, I elucidate the way in which Mou identifies intellectual intuition as the intuitive knowledge (...) in Confucianism; subsequently, I introduce Mou’s doctrine Moral Metaphysics and his critique of Kant and Heidegger; finally, I reflect on Mou’s readings of Kant by pinpointing issues in this interpretation. Nevertheless, this examination shall never negate Mou’s contribution to modernizing Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

This research studies the optimal consumption, investment, and life insurance choices for a wage earner with habit formation, inflation risk, and mortality risk. The wage earner has access to a risk-free asset, an index bond, and a stock in a financial market. The index bond hedges inflation risk, while life insurance hedges mortality risk. The aim of the wage earner is to maximize the expected utility of consumption, bequest, and terminal wealth, where the utility of consumption comes from the part (...) of the consumption that exceeds a minimum consumption requirement given by the habit level. By using the dynamic programming method, we provide and prove a verification theorem and obtain closed-form expressions for the value function, the optimal life insurance premium rate, and the optimal investment and consumption strategies. Numerical results reveal that habit formation and mortality force change play important roles in the financial behaviors of the wage earner. Especially, the impacts of the expected inflation rate and consumption habit on the optimal strategies are mutual restraint; increasing mortality force raises the demand for life insurance; and the effects of other parameters are also affected by consumption habit and mortality force change. (shrink)

Link prediction is a key tool for studying the structure and evolution mechanism of complex networks. Recommending new friend relationships through accurate link prediction is one of the important factors in the evolution, development, and popularization of social networks. At present, scholars have proposed many link prediction algorithms based on the similarity of local information and random walks. These algorithms help identify actual missing and false links in various networks. However, the prediction results significantly differ in networks with various structures, (...) and the prediction accuracy is low. This study proposes a method for improving the accuracy of link prediction. Before link prediction, k-shell decomposition method is used to layer the network, and the nodes that are in 1-shell and the nodes that are not linked to the high-shell in the 2-shell are deleted. The experiments on four real network datasets verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. (shrink)

Biblical scholars are divided regarding the presence of Deuteronomistic theology in Psalms 44, 74, 80 and 89. This article re-examines this issue through the lens of trauma and argues for two points. Firstly, Psalms 44, 74, 80 and 89 do not reject Deuteronomistic theology because the accusations of God in these psalms do not indicate attribution of responsibility but demonstrate trauma victims’ negative cognition and emotion associated with the traumatic event. Secondly, the concept of post-traumatic growth (PTG) helps to clarify (...) two crucial elements of Deuteronomistic theology concerning divine retribution and divine promise. Psalms 44 and 74 assume the first element; Psalms 80 and 89 presuppose the second.Contribution: This article provides a fresh angle from trauma studies to approach biblical texts in the Hebrew Bible, clarifying the connection between Deuteronomistic theology and communal laments. (shrink)

Is it possible, given culturally incongruent perspectives, to validate any common standards of behavior? Is it possible to implement human rights in societies without incorporating the idea into their fabric of culture? Is it possible for cultural communities to survive in the contemporary world without rights protection? This book addresses questions like these in the light of an inventive and original understanding of culture.