in D. Dieks (ed.), The Ontology of Spacetime, Vol. 2. Elsevier, forthcoming.

Yuri Balashov sets out major rival views of persistence--endurance, perdurance, and exdurance--in a spacetime framework and proceeds to investigate the implications of Einstein's theory of relativity for the debate about persistence. His overall conclusion--that relativistic considerations favour four-dimensionalism over three-dimensionalism--is hardly surprising. It is, however, anything but trivial. Contrary to a common misconception, there is no straightforward argument from relativity to four-dimensionalism. The issues involved are complex, and the debate is closely entangled with a number of other philosophical disputes, (...) including those about the nature and ontology of time, parts and wholes, material constitution, causation and properties, and vagueness. (shrink)

The structures of everyday life, where religious identity is constructed, are analysed in the article of Boreyko Yuri Grigorovich «The structures of everyday life in the design of religious identity». Determined that the basis of personal and group religious identity are mental structures, symbolic actions, rituals, language.

Philosophical considerations have been essentially involved in the origin and development of the steady-state cosmological theory. These considerations include an explicit uniformitarian methodology and implicit metaphysical views concerning the status of natural laws in a changing universe. I shall examine the foundations of SST by reconstructing its early history. Whereas the strong uniformitarian methodology of SST found no support in the subsequent development of cosmology, the idea of a possible influence the global structure of the universe may have on the (...) laws of physics operative in it has been assimilated by the standard big bang theory as it made its remarkable progress in recent decades. (shrink)

In this paper I develop three different arguments against the thesis that knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that. Knowledge-that is widely thought to be subject to an anti-luck condition, a justified or warranted belief condition, and a belief condition, respectively. The arguments I give suggest that if either of these standard assumptions is correct then knowledge-how is not a kind of knowledge-that. In closing I identify a possible alternative to the standard Rylean and intellectualist accounts of knowledge-how. This alternative view (...) illustrates that even if the arguments given here succeed it might still be reasonable to hold that knowing how to do something is a matter of standing in an intentional relation to a proposition other than the knowledge-that relation. (shrink)

To state an important fact about the photon, physicists use such expressions as (1) “the photon has zero (null, vanishing) mass” and (2) “the photon is (a) massless (particle)” interchangeably. Both (1) and (2) express the fact that the photon has no non-zero mass. However, statements (1) and (2) disagree about a further fact: (1) attributes to the photon the property of zero-masshood whereas (2) denies that the photon has any mass at all. But is there really a difference between (...) saying that something has zero mass (charge, spin, etc.) and saying that it has no mass (charge, spin, etc.)? Does the distinction cut any physical or philosophical ice? I argue that the answer to these questions is yes. Put briefly, the claim of this paper is that some zero-value physical quantities are not mere “privations”, “absences” or “holes in being”. They are respectable properties in the same sense in which their non-zero partners are. This, I will show, has implications for the debate between two rival views of the nature of property, dispositionalism and categoricalism. (shrink)

I had excruciating back pain last night. The next day I went to a spa and the pain disappeared. Psychologically speaking, my pain is gone. Where is it, speaking ontologically? Atheorists have an easy time here (more or less). But B-theorists who think that persons persist by enduring are in trouble. Why am I finding myself at this particular time, with this particular set of experiences, rather than at numerous other times, with different experiences, despite the fact that all times (...) are on the same ontological footing and I am wholly present at all of them? I argue that the Puzzle of the Experience of the Present is a real challenge for B-theorists, and the best way to deal with it is to adopt the stage view of persistence. (shrink)

It is often said that ‘what it is like’-knowledge cannot be acquired by consulting testimony or reading books [Lewis 1998; Paul 2014; 2015a]. However, people also routinely consult books like What It Is Like to Go to War [Marlantes 2014], and countless ‘what it is like’ articles and youtube videos, in the apparent hope of gaining knowledge about what it is like to have experiences they have not had themselves. This article examines this puzzle and tries to solve it by (...) appealing to recent work on knowing-wh ascriptions. In closing I indicate the wider significance of these ideas by showing how they can help us to evaluate prominent arguments by Paul [2014; 2015a] concerning transformative experiences. (shrink)

We illustrate the glorious history of logical foundations and discuss the uncertain future.

This ambitious book looks into the reasons for the exceptional durability of the Chinese empire, which lasted for more than two millennia (221 B.C.E. - 1911 C.E.). Yuri Pines identifies the roots of the empire's longevity in the activities of thinkers of the Warring States period (453-221 B.C.E.), who, in their search for solutions to an ongoing political crisis, developed ideals, values, and perceptions that would become essential for the future imperial polity. In marked distinction to similar empires worldwide, (...) the Chinese empire was envisioned and to a certain extent 'preplanned' long before it came into being. As a result, it was not only a military and administrative construct, but also an intellectual one. Pines makes the argument that it was precisely its ideological appeal that allowed the survival and regeneration of the empire after repeated periods of turmoil. "Envisioning Eternal Empire" presents a panoptic survey of philosophical and social conflicts in Warring States political culture. By examining the extant corpus of preimperial literature, including transmitted texts and manuscripts uncovered at archaeological sites, Pines locates the common ideas of competing thinkers that underlie their ideological controversies. This bold approach allows him to transcend the once fashionable perspective of competing 'schools of thought' and show that beneath the immense pluralism of Warring States thought one may identify common ideological choices that eventually shaped traditional Chinese political culture. The result is a refreshingly novel look at the foundational period in Chinese intellectual history. (shrink)

This is the first part of a two part work on the monadic theory of short orders (embedding neither ω 1 nor ω 1 * ). This part provides the technical groundwork for decidability results. Other applications are possible.

Is there a successful regress argument against intellectualism? In this article I defend the negative answer. I begin by defending Stanley and Williamson's (2001) critique of the contemplation regress against Noë (2005). I then identify a new argument – the employment regress – that is designed to succeed where the contemplation regress fails, and which I take to be the most basic and plausible form of a regress argument against intellectualism. However, I argue that the employment regress still fails. Drawing (...) on the previous discussion, I criticise further regress arguments given by Hetherington (2006) and Noë (2005). (shrink)

A common belief is that evolution generally proceeds towards greater complexity at both the organismal and the genomic level, numerous examples of reductive evolution of parasites and symbionts notwithstanding. However, recent evolutionary reconstructions challenge this notion. Two notable examples are the reconstruction of the complex archaeal ancestor and the intron‐rich ancestor of eukaryotes. In both cases, evolution in most of the lineages was apparently dominated by extensive loss of genes and introns, respectively. These and many other cases of reductive evolution (...) are consistent with a general model composed of two distinct evolutionary phases: the short, explosive, innovation phase that leads to an abrupt increase in genome complexity, followed by a much longer reductive phase, which encompasses either a neutral ratchet of genetic material loss or adaptive genome streamlining. Quantitatively, the evolution of genomes appears to be dominated by reduction and simplification, punctuated by episodes of complexification. (shrink)

Background In an increasingly globalized world, legal protocols related to health care that are both effective and culturally sensitive are paramount in providing excellent quality of care as well as protection for physicians tasked with decision making. Here, we analyze the current medicolegal status of brain death diagnosis with regard to end-of-life care in Japan, China, and South Korea from the perspectives of front-line health care workers. Main body Japan has legally wrestled with the concept of brain death for decades. (...) An inability to declare brain death without consent from family coupled with cultural expectations of family involvement in medical care is mirrored in other Confucian-based cultures and may complicate care for patients from these countries when traveling or working overseas. Within Japan, China, and South Korea, medicolegal shortcomings in the diagnosis of brain death act as a great source of stress for physicians and expose them to potential public and legal scorn. Here, we detail the medicolegal status of brain death diagnosis within Japan and compare it to China and South Korea to find common ground and elucidate the impact of legal ambiguity on health care workers. Conclusion The Confucian cultural foundation of multiple Asian countries raises common issues of family involvement with diagnosis and cultural considerations that must be met. Leveraging public education systems may increase awareness of brain death issues and lead to evolving laws that clarify such end-of-life issues while protecting physicians from sociocultural backlash. (shrink)

's argumentation in favour of essential invariability of the fundamental laws of nature is critically examined. It is contended that within the realist framework Poincareé's arguments lose their apodictical force. In this sense the assumption of inconstancy of even the fundamental laws of nature is methodologically legitimate.

This article examines the method of reflective equilibrium (RE) and its role in philosophical inquiry. It begins with an overview of RE before discussing some of the subtleties involved in its interpretation, including challenges to the standard assumption that RE is a form of coherentism. It then evaluates some of the main objections to RE, in particular, the criticism that this method generates unreasonable beliefs. It concludes by considering how RE relates to recent debates about the role of intuitions in (...) philosophy. (shrink)

Knowledge-how often appears to be more difficult to transmit by testimony than knowledge-that and knowledge-wh. Some philosophers have argued that this difference provides us with an important objection to intellectualism—the view that knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that. This article defends intellectualism against these testimony-based objections.

Previous work suggests that Asians allocate more attention to configuration information than Caucasian Americans do. Yet this cultural variation has been found only with stimuli such as natural scenes and objects that require both feature- and configuration-based processing. Here, we show that the cultural variation also exists in face perception—a domain that is typically viewed as configural in nature. When asked to identify a prototypic face for a set of disparate exemplars, Japanese were more likely than Caucasian Americans to use (...) overall resemblance rather than feature matching. Moreover, in a speeded identity-matching task, Japanese were more accurate than Americans in identifying the spatial configuration of features (e.g., eyes). Together, these findings underscore the robustness of culture’s influences on cognition. (shrink)

We present a sequent calculus for the Grzegorczyk modal logic$\mathsf {Grz}$allowing cyclic and other non-well-founded proofs and obtain the cut-elimination theorem for it by constructing a continuous cut-elimination mapping acting on these proofs. As an application, we establish the Lyndon interpolation property for the logic$\mathsf {Grz}$proof-theoretically.

What is the relationship between the linguistic properties of knowledge-how ascriptions and the nature of knowledge-how itself? In this chapter I address this question by examining the linguistic methodology of Stanley and Williamson (2011) and Stanley (2011a, 2011b) who defend the intellectualist view that knowledge-how is a kind of knowledge-that. My evaluation of this methodology is mixed. On the one hand, I defend Stanley and Williamson (2011) against critics who argue that the linguistic premises they appeal to—about the syntax and (...) semantics of knowledge-how and knowledge-wh ascriptions—do not establish their desired conclusions about the nature of knowledge-how itself. But, on the other hand, I also criticize the role that linguistic considerations play in Stanley’s (2011a) response to apparent Gettier-style counterexamples to intellectualism. (shrink)

How should intellectualists respond to apparent Gettier-style counterexamples? Stanley offers an orthodox response which rejects the claim that the subjects in such scenarios possess knowledge-how. I argue that intellectualists should embrace a revisionary response according to which knowledge-how is a distinctively practical species of knowledge-that that is compatible with Gettier-style luck.

The author aims at an objective reinterpretation of L.Feuerbach's doctrine and refuting the prejudices that exist in the historical and philosophical tradition in relation to the Feuerbachian philosophical system. Through an analysis of Feuerbach's views on such concepts as the historical and philosophical paradigm, the relation of man to the world, dialectics and religion, the author concludes that these elements of Feuerbach's doctrine were distorted by K. Marx, F. Engels and their followers. The author demonstrates through Feuerbachian responses to 11 (...) theses of Marx by H.M. Sass that some aspects of Feuerbach's philosophy remain relevant to philosophy, and that the founders of Marxism distorted Feuerbach's doctrine in order to distinguish their philosophical system as more modern and true. (shrink)

In the current era of the Sustainable Development Goals, many countries are attempting to strengthen their health system and achieving Universal Health Coverage. The Korean National Health Insurance system functions as a core element of health financing, contributing to achieving UHC by promoting public health and social security through insurance benefits for prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, childbirth, and health promotion. The Republic of Korea achieved 100% NHI coverage of the target population in 1989, 12 years after the introduction of the (...) social insurance system. However, poor coverage of health services and lack of financial protection are major obstacles to achieving UHC. Therefore, the Korean government announced and implemented ‘Moon Jae-in Care’ in August 2017 to enhance the coverage rate of NHI by 70%. First, this study reviews the existing health insurance system in Korea from the perspective of health financing and UHC. Second, it analyses ‘Moon Jae-in Care’, based on the main framework of UHC. Third, it considers the ethical implications of these developments, with focus on the principles of equity, fairness, autonomy, and solidarity. Although the NHI reform is expected to propel Korean health care closer to UHC, many ethical, social, and political issues remain. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe Book of Lord Shang attributed to Shang Yang is one of the most controversial products of ideological debates in pre-imperial China. Forty years ago, Li Yu-ning summarized previous rounds of debates that peaked with the Shang Yang fervor of the early 1970s. The present article takes over where she ended, further exploring trends in studies of the Book of Lord Shang since the Open-up-and-Reform Era. The paper shows that despite a clear tendency of depoliticization of these studies, scholars are (...) still deeply influenced by the tradition of using the figure of Shang Yang as a foil in contemporary political debates. In their evaluation of Shang Yang’s legacy, many contemporary Chinese scholars continue to use traditional views, but also modern ideas such as the “rule of law,” “progress,” “evolution,” “dialectic,” or the Marxist theory of distinct social stages. They all contribute to the ongoing relevance of Lord Shang to current China. (shrink)

This introduction surveys the biography and major works of Liu Zehua, a leading scholar of China's intellectual history, political thought, and political culture. It explores the impact of Liu Zehua's personal experience, in particular the upheavals of the Cultural Revolution, on his conceptualization of Chinese political culture as subjugated to the overarching principle of monarchism. Liu Zehua's critical engagement with China's past distinguishes him from proponents of revival of traditional values and makes him one of the powerful opponents of cultural (...) conservatives in China. (shrink)

The Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Yan. Translated and annotated by Olivia Milburn. Sinica Leidensia, vol. 128. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Pp. xxx + 485. €161, $193.

Existing behavioral, neuropsychological and functional neuroimaging data suggest that at least two major cognitive strategies are used for new word learning: fast mapping via context-dependent inference and explicit encoding via direct instruction. However, these distinctions remain debated at both behavioral and neurophysiological levels, not least due to confounds related to diverging experimental settings. Furthermore, the neural dynamics underpinning these two putative processes remain poorly understood. To tackle this, we designed a paradigm presenting 20 new spoken words in association with pictures (...) in either FM or EE settings, closely matched for auditory and visual features and overall task demands. We tested word acquisition using a range of behavioral measures as well as passive event-related potential responses, an established measure of word memory trace activation, and compared brain activity elicited by novel FM and EE words before and after the learning session. Behavioral data obtained in free recall, recognition and semantic word-picture matching tasks indicated successful acquisition of new words after just 10 exposures. Crucially, we found no behavioral evidence of different acquisition outcomes between FM and EE learning. ERP data, which exhibited the main response peaks at ~170, 250, and 520 ms, also indicated successful learning, with statistically different responses between novel and familiar words present only before, but not after the training, suggesting rapid formation of new neural memory circuits matching in activation those for previously known words. Furthermore, already at the earliest peak, we found different topographic distributions for the two learning types, with left-lateralized FM dynamics, suggestive of core language system involvement, and more diffuse activity for EE items, possibly suggesting the role of attention/executive control network. A similar effect also manifested later, at ~520 ms. Our data suggest that while both EE and FM learning can be successful for rapid word acquisition at the behavioral level, the diverging electrophysiological patterns suggest a dissociation between the neural systems underpinning these learning strategies. (shrink)

O objetivo deste artigo é apontar e analisar os principais fatores que levaram uma pessoa, ou um grupo de pessoas, a assistir um jogo de futebol da Copa do Mundo 2014 em uma FIFA Fan Fest e não em outros locais. Socialização, afetividade e diversão são aspectos considerados na análise. O papel do esporte enquanto produto de entretenimento e consumo também foi contemplado no estudo. O evento, pela proliferação de imagens que proporciona, é exemplo claro do que Guy Debord definiu (...) como Sociedade do Espetáculo. Foram entrevistadas 79 pessoas em duas FIFA Fan Fests realizadas na cidade de São Paulo, em partidas da seleção brasileira na Copa do Mundo 2014. Os resultados obtidos no estudo comprovam a inserção do esporte mais popular do planeta na lógica das modernas estratégias de consumo. Também evidenciam as relações existentes entre o futebol, e seu universo, e a chamada indústria do entretenimento. (shrink)