We introduce an expected-value theory of linguistic modality that makes reference to expected utility and a likelihood-based confirmation measure for deontics and epistemics, respectively. The account is a probabilistic semantics for deontics and epistemics, yet it proposes that deontics and epistemics share a common core modal semantics, as in traditional possible-worlds analysis of modality. We argue that this account is not only theoretically advantageous, but also has far-reaching empirical consequences. In particular, we predict modal versions of reasoning fallacies from the (...) heuristics and biases literature. Additionally, we derive the modal semantics in an entirely transparent manner, as it is based on the compositional semantics of Korean modal expressions that are morphosyntactically decomposed into a conditional and an evaluative predicate. (shrink)

The notion of intentionality has been in the center of the debate between dualism and physicalism quite some time. Dualism insists that intentionality is the mark of mental phenomena which separates humans from other animals whereas physicalism roughly claims that whatever there is either reducible to some physical states or explainable in terms of some physical language. But both of them are deeply troubled. Is there any other alternative? Where can we look for one? We know that Asian tradition is (...) full of organic world views. I am inclined to think that one alternative world view may come from this background. This paper tries to show that the notion of cheng(誠) intentionality is such a candidate. -/- I will advance a thesis in this paper that cheng(誠) intentionality is holistic. The notion is not only applicable to humans but also to all other phenomena. This may seem indistinguishable from physicalism in its monistic settings. Since I believe that the notion of cheng(誠) is more persuasive in explaining mental phenomena in evolutionary terms, I would argue here that the thesis can also be supported by some notions like that an information is a syntactical structure which reflects physical states and that the physicalisitic view of the world is not sufficient. (shrink)

As physicalisms of various kinds have faced difficulties in recent years, the time has come to explore possible alternatives, one of which is yinyang ontology. A yinyang theorist is expected to provide a plausible account of causation to replace the traditional notion of causation. The present paper is critical of the Humean tradition, which understands the relata of causal relations in terms of passive materiality so that humans use referential terms to describe causal relations constructively. But an alternative notion of (...) reference is available according to which causal relata are active processors of the information with which they interact. On this latter view, humans use referential language to describe the structure in which the relata interrelate themselves so that the structure can be understood hermeneutically. Reference on this view is naturalized. In this article I advance two arguments for this thesis, one concerning the informationality of states and the other related to the essentiality of properties. (shrink)

Philosophers of dispositionalism deny the Humean account of causality in terms of constant conjunction, contiguity, temporal priority and contingency. And some of them go further to explain the causal relation not between events or objects, but between properties, in terms of reciprocity, simultaneity, ubiquity, intentionality and holism. But their exposition seems to remain fragmented even though they try to make use of the notions of intentionality and holim. I would inquire reasons why it is piecemeal, by analysing that they employ (...) these notions of intentionality and holism which has been constructed within the dualistic tradition. If one wants to make the dispositional project to be powerful, she should look for the notions of intentionality and holism which are free of the dualistic traits and which have been constructed in the tradition of naturalism. The concept of integrationality may be a candidate for such a task. This conception was coined in Zhongyong under the name of cheng in that there is nothing without cheng, and was developed in one of Sok-hon Ham's thesis that any entity in the world contains "seed" within it to realize objectives shared by all involved. Humans are privileged and distinct from other natures, but there is continuity between them. An example of the integrationality applied to the case of humans would be that realization of myself and realizations of all others are one and not two. I would summarize notions of "cheng" and "seed" by offering the integrationality thesis, that is, that there is integrationality in any entity like dispositions such that the integrationality is a power to realize the embedded objective of it in the context where it interacts with all others. I would claim that integrationality is a metaphysical basis for a way of human thinking, by arguing that it is a necessary part of presupposition for our understanding of the world without which the world is not intelligible. The notion of integrationality is involved empirically as well as conceptually. Empirically, there are numerous reports from physics, biology and information science, which provide with a clue which may well be taken to show the ubiquitous integrationality. But some conceptual considerations would also indicate necessarily toward the same direction. These would include various theses of ontology, epistemology, disposition, modality, naturalized intentionality, fitting and topics like these. I will investigate some of them in order to justify my claim of this paper. (shrink)

Nothing was more important for W. E. B. Du Bois than to promote the upward mobility of African Americans. This essay revisits his “The Conversation of Races” to demonstrate its general philosophical importance. Ultimately, Du Bois’s three motivations for giving the address reveal his view of the nature of philosophical inquiry: to critique earlier phenotypic conceptions of race, to show the essentiality of history, and to promote a reflexive practice. Commentators have been unduly invested in the hermeneutic readings and as (...) a result have misunderstood it as a philosophical text. Du Bois did more than introduce the concept of race into the purview of philosophy, he provided a method for philosophical inquiry into a concept that is notoriously difficult to approach with precision. My goal here is to show why no introduction to philosophy and no discussion about the nature of philosophical inquiry is complete without consideration of “Conservation.” Certainly, it is a text about race, but it is also an important philosophical text in general. (shrink)

The notion of suffering carries with it aspects which are private and individual on the one hand and social and lingual on the other. I would pay attention to the latter part of the suffering notion, where the notion of suffering is recognized to be primitive by almost all the theories of human values. This primitive character allows a commensurable basis on the basis of which most plural theories share something in common to talk objectively to each other. In this (...) paper I would like to offer three arguments in order to advance a thesis that one’s suffering is redemptive of others First, the conservation law of mass says that matter of a closed system can neither be created nor destroyed, although it may be differently rearranged. This may be applied to the experience of suffering, to allow the conservation law of suffering: my unjust self-interest costs pains in others to the level of the same amount but if I voluntarily suffer a sacrifice others will have their pains lightened to the analogous level. Second, notion of yin-yang helps to support the redemptive thesis of suffering. The notion says that all things in the reality consist of two complementary opposite capacities that interact within a greater whole, as part of a dynamic system. Then, my acceptance of suffering and the decrease of other’s pain are two complementary capacities of one reality. Third, any person is responsible for his own act, so is a society as a whole. Then, as an individual restores his damaged person, when he commits a crime, by being suffered or punished, a society restores itself to its own proper state, when any member of the society is wronged, by suffering communally in one way or other. (shrink)

I happen to believe that though human experiences are to be characterized as pluralistic they are all rooted in the one reality. I would assume the thesis of pluralism but how could I maintain my belief in the realism? There are various discussions in favor of realism but they appear to stay within a particular paradigm so to be called “internal realism”. In this paper I would try to justify my belief in the reality by discussing a special use of (...) indexicals. I will argue for my indexical realism by advancing the thesis that indexicals can be used as an inter-agentic referential term. Three arguments for the thesis will be presented. The first argument derives from a revision of Kaplan-Kvart’s notion of exportation. Their notions of exportation of singular terms can be analyzed as intra-agentic exportation in the context of a single speaker and theirs may be revised so as to be an inter-agentic exportation in the context of two speakers who use the same indexicals. The second is an argument from the notion of causation which is specifically characterized in the context of inter-theoretic reference. I will argue that any two theories may each say “this” in order to refer what is beyond its own theory. Two theories address themselves to ‘this’ same thing though what ‘this’ represents in each theory turn out to be different objects all together. The third argument is an argument which is based on a possibility of natural reference. Reference is used to be taken mostly as a 3-place predicate: Abe refers an object oi with an expression ej. The traditional notion of reference is constructive and anthropocentric. But I would argue that natural reference is a reference that we humans come to recognize among denumerably many objects in natural states: at a moment mi in a natural state there is a referential relation among objects o1, o2, o3, . . , oj, o j+1, . . which interact to each other as agents of information processors. Natural reference is an original reference which is naturally given and to which humans are passive as we derivatively refer it by using ‘this’. (shrink)

Abstract: The so-called “crisis of the humanities” can be understood in terms of an asymmetry between the natural and social sciences on the one hand and the humanities on the other. While the sciences approach topics related to human experience in quantificational or experimental terms, the humanities turn to ancient, canonical, and other texts in the search for truths about human experience. As each approach has its own unique limitations, it is desirable to overcome or remove the asymmetry between them. (...) The present article seeks to do just that by advancing and defending the following two claims: (a) that humanity is ubiquitous wherever language is used; and (b) that anything that can be experienced by humans is in need of an interpretation. Two arguments are presented in support of these claims. The first argument concerns the nature of questions, which are one of the fundamental marks or manifestations of human language. All questions are ultimately attempts to find meanings or interpretations of what is presented. As such, in questioning phenomena, one seeks to transcend the negative space or oppression of imposed structures; in doing so, one reveals one’s humanity. Second, all phenomena are textual in nature: that which astrophysicists find in distant galaxies or which cognitive neuroscientists find in the structures of the human brain are no less in need of interpretation than the dialogues of Plato or the poems of Homer. Texts are ubiquitous. The implications of these two arguments are identified and discussed in this article. In particular, it is argued that the ubiquity of humanity and textuality points to a view of human nature that is neither individualistic nor collectivist but rather integrational in suggesting that the realization of oneself is inseparable from the realization of others. (shrink)

Would it be possible to have an alternative to the physicalist world-view? If any type of dualism is not an option, I am tempted to consider an integrational world view, which was first claimed by Confucius under the notion of cheng. I would propose an integrational thesis that cheng of an entity is a power to realize the embedded objective of it in the context where it interacts with all others. The notion of compassion may be said to be both (...) dispositional and mental. Then, this notion is one candidate to shed lights on the integrational thesis. The thesis doesn't exclude roles the causal notion has to play in the integrational system. Rather it allows the causal notion in its proper place, not having to exclude other relational notions in the system. What it denies is that the causal relation is all there is among what is there. The notion of compassion is essentialist in two senses. The first is the sense in which Mencius said that compassion is necessary for one to be a human. The second is the sense that compassion is an essentialist disposition. "Compassion" does neither refer to a mental state nor reflect a human relation, but it denotes an abstract property, or a theoretical notion, which can be singled out by a Ramsey sentence. There are many challenges for the integrational thesis to meet. Some of them are how the integrational thesis could allow an essentialism of a kind?, Is there a way for the integrational view of language to meet the requirements of modal semantics?, and so on. The present paper may not able to explain all of these questions but it will try to suggest how to approach toward the task. (shrink)

Du Bois regarded social reform as a legitimate object for the scientist. He gave a place to non-epistemic values in scientific reasoning and, to counter the effects of scientific racism, he constructed his approach around the belief that scientists must adopt an assumption or scientific hypothesis that African Americans are human. His engagement in scientific research was a way to reform the society in which he lived, which in turn, led him to defend the faithfulness to fact as his conception (...) of scientific objectivity. This essay examines his sophisticated theory of facts, account of the difference between the natural and human sciences, and unique pragmatist theory of truth. (shrink)

Notions of fitting seem to be attractive in explaining language understanding. This paper tries to interpret "fitting" in terms of holistic (cheng, 誠) intentionality rather than the dualistic one. I propose to interpret “cheng” as a notion of integration: The cheng of an entity is the power to realize the embedded objective of it in the context where it interacts with all others; "Mind" refers to the ability of not a single kind of entity but to that of all entities (...) of complex degrees in processing informations and to any agent that integrates. I would like to discuss some cases where this notion of fitting is working. First, building of a primitive language could have been done by fittings of primitive expressions which came out of people's basic needs and desires, their forms of life. Second, we do not identify an object on the basis of a criterion of similarity, but by asking questions like whether it would be more fitting to identify two objects in the present context than not to.Third, what is involved in our recognition of a fact is a context. A context does not dictate one single description but does allow any number of descriptions, some of which are more or less fitting and others of which are more or less unfitting. It may take time for the community of language involved to come to a more fitting description. For the sake of convenience, this description may come to have a grammar for the community where it can be classified as true and others as false. (shrink)

The Seed Thoughts proposed by YU Youngmo and HAM Sukhun may each be summed up by propositions expressed in “People are a May-fly seed” and “Seeds embody the eternal meaning”. They used “seed” to refer to humans or people on the one hand and placed the notion of seed in the holistic context of the Eastern Asian tradition on the other. Then, I seek to connect the anthropological notion and the holistic notion via cheng(誠) or integration. 『The Doctrine of the (...) Mean』says that any ultimate integration(至誠) reflects the total nature of objects involved(盡性) by showing that self realization and all other realizations are one and not two(成己成物) and by arriving at the stage of holiness (聖). Then, I may be allowed to say that cheng is a mind or a power not only of humans but also of all other things. Important elements of cheng intentionality can be read out of the two thinker’s various conceptual aspects. YU’s interpretation of history to be internalistic, his view of Hangul(Korean written language) as a revealational medium, his hermeneutics of Christian God as the Vacuum cannot be understood on the dichotomous model of human-nature. HAM’s seed holism, his beliefs that humans’s minds are the heavenly mind and that all things under the heaven should come to be unified are best to be understood on the model of cheng intentionality of integration. (shrink)

In his 2012 book On Global Justice, Mathias Risse makes an invaluable contribution to the literature on theories of global justice. In this paper, I offer a critique of the fourth and final part of the book, entitled “Global Justice and Institutions,” which deals with the standing of the state within the pluralist internationalism defended by the author. My focus here is on the justification of the state system and the discussion on utopian ideals. I agree with Risse that the (...) state remains the inescapable political structure that any serious theory of global justice must internalize within its conceptual framework. However, I differ from Risse’s approach in that I place greater emphasis on the historical contingency of the state system, including how prescriptions of global justice reflect historical contingencies stemming from globalization. From this point of view, pluralist internationalism should then be understood as a conceptual paradigm that mirrors its own historical contingency as embedded in our current world order. This recognition of the historical contingency of the state system serves two important purposes. One, it is a bulwark against any tendency to discredit too quickly the philosophical and practical relevance of ideal theory. Two, it buttresses the stance that we might still have the moral duty to pursue the goal of global justice beyond pluralist internationalism. (shrink)

It seems that a new notion of language played an important role in seeing how notions like knowledge and humanities are to be understood anew. I believe that our notion of language is not only pluralistic in the sense that distinct verbal languages force us to see the world in different ways but also ubiquitous in the sense that anything which is seen by human eyes or which is processed digitally is a text in need of interpretation. Then, our notion (...) of knowledge needs to be communal rather than absolutistic and the ideal of the contemporary human predicament is such that we may go beyond its passive freedom to a more active freedom. These two conditions appear to suggest a bridge by which one can relate the humanities in the academic world and the humanities in the cultural markets. (shrink)

It seems that a new notion of language played an important role in seeing how notions like knowledge and humanities are to be understood anew. I believe that our notion of language is not only pluralistic in the sense that distinct verbal languages force us to see the world in different ways but also ubiquitous in the sense that anything which is seen by human eyes or which is processed digitally is a text in need of interpretation. Then, our notion (...) of knowledge needs to be communal rather than absolutistic and the ideal of the contemporary human predicament is such that we may go beyond its passive freedom to a more active freedom. These two conditions appear to suggest a bridge by which one can relate the humanities in the academic world and the humanities in the cultural markets. (shrink)

This study investigates the relationship between mental health and emotional intelligence among senior high school students in a public school. Thus, the study employed a correlational design to measure the relationship between mental health and emotional intelligence among 152 Grade 12 senior high school students in a public school. Hence, to measure the study’s variables - Mental Health Inventory and Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) were utilized. Based on the inferential statistics, the r coefficient of 0.32 indicates a low positive correlation (...) between the variables and a p-value of 0.00, indicating a significant relationship between the respondents' mental health and emotional intelligence. Implications and recommendations were discussed in the study. (shrink)

A reality for many information technology (IT) organizations is the need to hire IT talent from other cities or countries to supplement their employee staff. As organizations extend their software development work to remote locations, however, a distinct productivity gap can emerge between co-located and distributed teams. The problem this study addresses is the reduced productivity levels for teams practicing the Agile methodology when team members are distributed by location or time zone. Specifically, it was unknown if there are organizational (...) factors which can improve the productivity of these distributed development teams. The purpose of this study was to determine whether any amount of separation of team members impacts productivity, or if various degrees of time zone overlap allows for sufficient synchronous communication to overcome the communication lag inherit with having distributed teams. Productivity was measured by the number of story points per cycle day completed by the team. Two additional variables were collected to study the impact of sourcing and task complexity on distributed team productivity. A quantitative data analysis was conducted on a large, globally distributed technology organization practicing the Agile methodology across the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. Teams were classified in the study based on the amount of time zone overlap of the team members. The results of the study found that teams which were co-located or had any amount of time zone overlap performed at similar levels of productivity, while teams with no overlapping business day experienced significantly lower levels of productivity (p < .05). Conversely, sourcing of the resources either as contractors or employees did not demonstrate a significant difference in team productivity. The data analysis on task complexity showed mixed results; there was a different level of productivity when some teams were working tasks of different complexity, but the data was further nuanced by team member location. This study indicates the importance of resource location as a key factor in team productivity. Further study on organizational design could be beneficial to better understand how organizations should select locations to optimize productivity. (shrink)

A well-ordered society faces a crisis whenever a sufficient number of noncompliers enter into the political system. This has the potential to destabilize liberal democratic political order. This article provides a formal analysis of two competing solutions to the problem of political stability offered in the public reason liberalism literature—namely, using public reason or using convergence discourse to restore liberal democratic political order in the well-ordered society. The formal analyses offered in this article show that using public reason fails completely, (...) and using convergent discourse, although doing better, has its own critical limitations that have not been previously recognized properly. (shrink)

Inspired by impossibility theorems of social choice theory, many democratic theorists have argued that aggregative forms of democracy cannot lend full democratic justification for the collective decisions reached. Hence, democratic theorists have turned their attention to deliberative democracy, according to which “outcomes are democratically legitimate if and only if they could be the object of a free and reasoned agreement among equals” (Cohen 1997a, 73). However, relatively little work has been done to offer a formal theory of democratic deliberation. This (...) article helps fill that gap by offering a formal theory of three different modes of democratic deliberation: myopic discussion, constructive discussion, and debate. We show that myopic discussion suffers from indeterminacy of long run outcomes, while constructive discussion and debate are conclusive. Finally, unlike the other two modes of deliberation, debate is path independent and converges to a unique compromise position, irrespective of the initial status quo. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In ‘Scorekeeping in a Pornographic Language Game’, Rae Langton and Caroline West borrow ideas from David Lewis to attempt to explain how pornography might subordinate and silence women. Pornography is supposed to express certain misogynistic claims implicitly, through presupposition, and to convey them indirectly, through accommodation. I argue that the appeal to accommodation cannot do the sort of work Langton and West want it to do: Their case rests upon an overly simplified model of that phenomenon. I argue further (...) that, once we are clear about why Langton and West's account fails, a different and more plausible account of pornography's influence emerges. (shrink)

Building on findings that self-uncertainty motivates attempts to restore certainty about the self, particularly in ways that highlight one’s distinctiveness from others, we show that self-uncertainty, relative to uncertainty in general, increases creative generation among individualists. In Studies 1 to 3, high (but not low) individualists performed better on a creative generation task after being primed with self-uncertainty as opposed to general uncertainty. In Study 4, this effect emerged only among those who were told that the task measured creative as (...) opposed to analytical thinking, suggesting that the positive effects of self-uncertainty on performance are specific to tasks that bolster perceptions of uniqueness. In Study 5, self-uncertain individualists experienced a restoration of self-clarity after being induced to think about themselves as more (vs. less) creative. Implications for compensatory responses to self-uncertainty and factors that influence creativity are discussed. (shrink)

This paper has three goals. The first is to defend Tristan Taromino and Erika Lust (or some of their films) from criticisms that Rebecca Whisnant and Hans Maes make of them. Toward that end, I will be arguing against the narrow conceptions that Whisnant and Maes have of what `feminist' pornography must be like. More generally, I hope to show by example why it is important to take pornographic films seriously as films if we're to understand their potential to shape, (...) or mis-shape, socio-sexual norms. (shrink)

This study examined the effectiveness of video-based instruction (VBI) as a learning remediation strategy in teaching Laws of Thermodynamics among Prospective Science Teachers at Bulacan State University. The researchers employed – a one-group pretest–posttest design to assess the 35 prospective science teachers who were purposively selected. More so, data was gathered through researcher-made pretest-posttest achievement tests and an adapted Likert survey questionnaire. The data was treated descriptively and inferentially. The findings showed that VBI as a learning remediation strategy positively affected (...) the preservice teachers’ achievement. In addition, data shows a significant difference between the pretest and posttest in teaching the laws of thermodynamics. The ease of use of VBI as learning remediation in teaching laws of thermodynamics in terms of pedagogical content, individual learning focus, ability to work at pace, and increased engagement was very effective. The learning achievement of the prospective science teachers was significantly related to the ease of use of VBI as a learning remediation. However, it was observed to have a high positive association. Future use of VBI can enhance the prospective science teacher’s competence in using VBI in teaching science subjects. (shrink)

In his article, “Equality as a Moral Ideal”, Harry Frankfurt argues against economic egalitarianism and presents what he calls the “doctrine of sufficiency.” According to the doctrine of sufficiency, what is morally important is not relative economic equality, but rather, whether somebody has enough, where “having enough” is a non-comparative standard of reasonable contentment that may differ from person to person given his/her aims and circumstances. The purpose of this paper is to show that Frankfurt’s original arguments in support for (...) his doctrine of sufficiency have critical problems that Frankfurt himself does not properly recognize. In the end, I will argue that in order to solve these problems the doctrine of sufficiency cannot help but to incorporate certain prioritarian commitments – commitments which many would view as implying economic egalitarianism. This is embarrassing for a doctrine whose raison d’être was mainly to defeat economic egalitarianism. (shrink)

In Book 1 of Plato’s Republic, Thrasymachus contends two major claims: (1) justice is the advantage of the stronger, and (2) justice is the good of the other, while injustice is to one’s own profit and advantage. In the beginning of Book II, Glaucon self-proclaims that he will be representing Thrasymachus’ claims in a better way, and provides a story of how justice has originated from a state of nature situation. However, Glaucon’s story of the origin of justice has an (...) implication that justice is the advantage of the weak rather than the stronger. This is inconsistent with Thrasymachus’ first claim which states that justice is the advantage of the stronger. This is a problem for Glaucon since Glaucon is supposed to be representing Thrasymachus’ original claims in a better way. In this paper, I provide two solutions to this puzzle with the help of elementary game theory. (shrink)

What Bar-On and Simmons call 'Conceptual Deflationism' is the thesis that truth is a 'thin' concept in the sense that it is not suited to play any explanatory role in our scientific theorizing. One obvious place it might play such a role is in semantics, so disquotationalists have been widely concerned to argued that 'compositional principles', such as -/- (C) A conjunction is true iff its conjuncts are true -/- are ultimately quite trivial and, more generally, that semantic theorists have (...) misconceived the relation between truth, meaning, and logic. This paper argues, to the contrary, that even such simple compositional principles as (C) have substantial content that cannot be captured by deflationist 'proofs' of them. The key thought is that (C) is supposed, among other things, to affirm the truth-functionality of conjunction and that disquotationalists cannot, ultimately, make sense of truth-functionality. -/- This paper is something of a companion to "The Logical Strength of Compositional Principles". (shrink)

Human mind and human body have been separated from each other as belonging to familiar different categories. But what if we are supposed to admit a category of bodily posture? This is a paper to advance a thesis that mental content in bodily posture is a basis to integrate mind and body. First, what is the basis to claim that there is such a thing as a bodily posture? We humans all communicate each other not only through an ordinary language (...) but also through human postures. Often human postures are much more efficient ways of expressing of ourselves and of understanding each other. Affirmation of this is more natural than its denial. -/- Second, human postures have a mental content. Nodding expresses an agreement to what is suggested where turning indicates disapproval or ignorance. Nodding and turning are physical acts. And so far as they are acts they carry mental contents. But it is important that we do correctly understand the mental contents in such acts. Often mental acts have been taken to be subjective or solipsistic. But contemporary discussions on mental content indicate that mental content carries a wide context rather than a narrow one. If so, this would help us to see how body and mind integrate themselves in the human conception of ourselves. (shrink)

The Western intellectual tradition is accustomed to the separation between the human sphere and the sphere of nature, whereas in the East Asian intellectual tradition the two are considered continuous. For good or bad, the Western dualist outlook, which considers mind and matter to be fundamentally distinct, received much philosophical attention in modern times. But how is the East Asian tradition of non-separation to be philosophically expounded? The idea that the human sphere and the sphere of nature are fundamentally connected (...) is attractive on many levels, but it appears to be in need of philosophical scrutiny. One of the key notions which any attempt to provide an adequate elucidation of the East Asian integrative outlook would have had to address is the notion of intentionality. For the idea of intentionality is placed at the center of discussions regarding the continuity — or lack thereof — of minds and bodies, and of nature and humanity. The present paper claims that the dualistic thesis according to which intentionality serves as a delineative mark which separates the mental from the physical and the human sphere from the sphere of nature is implausible (1st section). It further argues that the concept of intention, cheng(誠) of Zhungyong, can be taken to reflect the idea that all things have a mind as a capacity to process information at the appropriate level where they are placed (2nd section). Finally, it develops the view that the capacity for integration sustains a picture according to which integration is a case of yinyang intentionality (3rd section). (shrink)

The ‘seeds’ Thoughts proposed by YU Youngmo and HAM Sukhun may each be summed up by propositions expressed in “People are a May-fly seed” and “Seeds embody the eternal sense”. They used “seed” to refer to humans or people on the one hand and placed the notion of seed in the holistic context of the Eastern Asian tradition on the other. Then, I seek to connect the anthropological notion and the holistic notion via cheng(誠) or integration. Zhungyong-The Doctrine of the (...) Mean, one of 4 Confucian texts, says that the ultimate integration(至誠) is to reflect the total nature of objects involved (盡性) so that it will show that self realization and all other realizations are one and not two(成己成物) and it will ultimately reach the stage of holiness(聖). Important elements of cheng intentionality can be read out of the two thinker’s various conceptual aspects. YU’s interpretation of history to be internalistic, his view of Hangul(Korean written language) as a revelational medium, his hermeneutics of Christian God as the emptiness cannot be understood on the dichotomous model of human-nature. HAM’s seed holism, his beliefs that humans’s minds are the heavenly mind and that all things under the heaven should come to be unified are best to be understood on the model of cheng intentionality of integration. (shrink)

What are some metaphysical fundamentals which constitute the reality? This question has occupied philosophers for a long time. The western tradition once dealt with conceptions of earth, air, water, fire, ether whereas the eastern tradition has studied notions like yin-yang(陰陽), taiji(太極), lichi(理氣). The question is now being researched under the name of physicalism or naturalism, and yet what is not yet clarified is the relationship between electromagnetic force as the fundamental of the physical and consciousness as the fundamental of the (...) mental. What is puzzling is that most philosophers insist on the overcoming of the traditional dualism while they tend to accept the distinction between electromagnetic force and consciousness. If they decide that the metaphysical paradigm of the duality is plausible then they should first present the grammar of functions of those concepts like individual, identity, causation. If they can see that the prospect of that traditional metaphysical paradigms are not hopeful, then they better start to look for an alternative metaphysical picture where the world can be understood more holistically. There have been alternative paradigms such as metaphysics of process and integration. It’s time to take a look at one of these. This paper tries to interpret the latter. -/- The notion of integration(誠) has been the subject studied for a long time as a teaching of Zhongyong, one of the key Confucian texts. Many has taken the word “誠” of Zhongyong to mean sincerity or faithfulness. Certainly there are anthropological or ethical dimension to the meaning of the word. But the whole text seems to direct a reader to see how the world is, the metaphysical dimension of the world. I will interpret the major thrust of Zhongyong to say that integration is a metaphysical fundamental. If one is to accept the evolution thesis of the body of human being then she is also to concede the evolution thesis of the mind of human being. If one is positive toward the evolutionary theory of the human mind then she is more likely open-minded toward the powers of the mind of physical things. This may allow to proceed to a thesis that integration is an information consciousness(chapter 1). Suppose that physical things of the world are integrational. Then the integration is not to be given from the outside but from within. Then when things are integrational they become integrators. Integrators are bound to possess some sort of power. I will discuss the thesis that integration is a dispositional power(chapter 2). If all things are bundles of informations then information is ubiquitous(chapter 3) and things may be passive in certain contexts but are active toward their informations, processing them in their own ways. If these three hypotheses are reasonable then my thesis of integration as a metaphysical fundamental would be plausible. (shrink)

[Abstract] Suppose that the Big Bang was the first singularity in the history of the cosmos. Then it would be plausible to presume that the availability of the strong general intelligence should mark the second singularity for the natural human race. The human race needs to be prepared to make it sure that if a singularity robot becomes a person, the robotic person should be a blessing for the humankind rather than a curse. Toward this direction I would scrutinize the (...) implication of the hypothesis that the singularity robot is a member of the human society. I will ask how the robot is equipped to satisfy the ontological criteria such as accountability, consciousness, identity, by demonstrating a possibility that it has the epistemological capacities like conceptual role semantic understanding and non-monotonous inference, and by probing whether it can behave in the way human moral visions expect it to. -/- [Table of contents] 1. Opening: Singularity robots are coming 1) Singularity robots of strong general intelligence 2) A singularity robot is a member of the human community 2. Ontological interpretation of singularity robot 1) Responsibility: thinking, understanding, belief 2) Consciousness: three characteristics – zombie, enjoyment, sympathy 3) Identity: I, body, autonomy, unity 3. Epistmological prospects of singularity robot 1) Semantics of general intelligence: conceptual role semantics 2) Logic for general intelligence: non-monotonous logic 4. Moral horizon of singularity robot 1) When a singularity robot becomes a robot person 2) Humanity independence: singularity robot is a user of human languages 5. Concluding: preemptive humanities. (shrink)

For a while, life and environment have been regarded as two separate subjects, but recently life and environment are to be seen as different aspects of one single theme. There are able philosophers who maintain the connection of the two but Seokheon Ham is believed to present a more coherent case. To him, integration is not merely a property which is unifying various elements, but it has a deep ontological structure seen in his utterance “there is not a thing in (...) the world which does not have a reason to exist”. He is providing a model of deep integration by equivalently linking life and sense. And he offers apparent arguments of oneness as integration of animates and inanimates, seeds as an example of integration of sense and life, and suffering as a historical integration. But Ham’s arguments will be strengthened by philosophizing the notion of integration. Fortunately, I would suggest that the clue is found in the conception of integration of Zhungyong. I will take the major thrust of the book to be five theses: (1) integration of a thing is the capacity to realize its embedded objective in its interactions with all other things; (2) ‘mind’ denotes the capacity of humans as well as the capacity of all other entities: (3) integration is a capacity not only of humans but also of all other entities; (4) if the evolution demonstrates the history of species as the fittest, then the history expresses the evolution of life forms of intelligence and justice; (5) integration of an entity is a disposition to realize its embedded objective in the context of its interconnections with all others at a particular time and place. The ontology of integration I am submitting may be shown to be an alternative to traditional physicalism. The integrational ontology may be seen as virtuous in that it is coherent with the informational view of the contemporary culture and with the caring need for those who suffer. (shrink)

A speculative investigation of how Frege's logical views change between Begriffsschrift and Grundgesetze and how this might have affected the formal development of logicism.

Được cấp phép cách đây tròn 1 năm, sau 9 tháng chính thức hoạt động tính từ khi SAGA đạt 1000 người đăng ký sử dụng chính thức đầu tiên, hệ thống đã tăng trưởng 1900%, lên tới gần 19.000 người đăng ký và hàng trăm ngàn người sử dụng.

We attempt here to trace the evolution of Frege’s thought about truth. What most frames the way we approach the problem is a recognition that hardly any of Frege’s most familiar claims about truth appear in his earliest work. We argue that Frege’s mature views about truth emerge from a fundamental re-thinking of the nature of logic instigated, in large part, by a sustained engagement with the work of George Boole and his followers, after the publication of Begriffsschrift and the (...) appearance of critical reviews by members of the Boolean school. (shrink)

An overview of what Frege accomplishes in Part II of Grundgesetze, which contains proofs of axioms for arithmetic and several additional results concerning the finite, the infinite, and the relationship between these notions. One might think of this paper as an extremely compressed form of Part II of my book Reading Frege's Grundgesetze.

Một đại gia hàng đầu thế giới trong ngành kinh doanh giết mổ gia súc, chế biến thịt có xuất xứ Brazil là JBS SA đang chịu áp lực lớn từ các nhóm hoạt động môi trường toàn cầu. JBS đang làm hồ sơ niêm yết cổ phiếu tại SGD New York (NYSE), với hy vọng sẽ có thể bắt đầu niêm yết cuối 2023. Tuy vậy, họ bị tố cáo đã gây tác động tiêu cực qua việc phá rừng, (...) thúc đẩy tiêu cực biến đổi khí hậu và hàng loạt các vấn đề liên quan. (shrink)

Rae Langton and Caroline West argue that pornography silences women by presupposing misogynistic attitudes, such as that women enjoy being raped. More precisely, they claim that a somewhat infamous pictorial, ‘Dirty Pool’, makes such presuppositions, and that it is typical in this respect. I argue for four claims. (1) There are empirical reasons to doubt that women are silenced in the way that Langton and West claim they are. (2) There is no evidence that very much pornography makes the sorts (...) of presuppositions that Langton and West's explanation of silencing requires it to make. (3) Even ‘Dirty Pool’, for all its other problems, does not make such presuppositions. (4) Langton and West misread ‘Dirty Pool’ because they do not take proper account of the fact that pornography often traffics in sexual fantasy. The broader lesson is that we need to read pornography more sensitively if we are to understand its capacity to shape socio‐sexual norms (for good or for ill). (shrink)

A teaching document I've used in my courses on truth and on incompleteness. Aimed at students who have a good grasp of basic logic, and decent math skills, it attempts to give them the background they need to understand a proper statement of the classic results due to Gödel and Tarski, and sketches their proofs. Topics covered include the notions of language and theory, the basics of formal syntax and arithmetization, formal arithmetic (Q and PA), representability, diagonalization, and the incompleteness (...) and undefinability theorems. (shrink)

It has been known for some time that context-dependence poses a problem for disquotationalism, but the problem has largely been regarded as one of detail: one that will be solved by the right sort of cleverness. I argue here that the problem is one of principle and that extant solutions, which are based upon the notion of translation, cannot succeed.

This is a completely informal presentation of the ideas behind the diagonal lemma. One really can't see this important result from too many different angles. This one aims at getting the main idea across. (For the cognoscenti, it is in the spirit of Quine's treatment in terms of "appended to its own quotation".).

In two recent papers, Bob Hale has attempted to free second-order logic of the 'staggering existential assumptions' with which Quine famously attempted to saddle it. I argue, first, that the ontological issue is at best secondary: the crucial issue about second-order logic, at least for a neo-logicist, is epistemological. I then argue that neither Crispin Wright's attempt to characterize a `neutralist' conception of quantification that is wholly independent of existential commitment, nor Hale's attempt to characterize the second-order domain in terms (...) of definability, can serve a neo-logicist's purposes. The problem, in both cases, is similar: neither Wright nor Hale is sufficiently sensitive to the demands that impredicativity imposes. Finally, I defend my own earlier attempt to finesse this issue, in "A Logic for Frege's Theorem", from Hale's criticisms. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The governments and citizens of the developed nations are increasingly called upon to contribute financially to health initiatives outside their borders. Although international development assistance for health has grown rapidly over the last two decades, austerity measures related to the 2008 and 2011 global financial crises may impact negatively on aid expenditures. The competition between national priorities and foreign aid commitments raises important ethical questions for donor nations. This paper aims to foster individual reflection and public debate on (...) donor responsibilities for global health. METHODS: We undertook a critical review of contemporary accounts of justice. We selected theories that: (i) articulate important and widely held moral intuitions; (ii) have had extensive impact on debates about global justice; (iii) represent diverse approaches to moral reasoning; and (iv) present distinct stances on the normative importance of national borders. Due to space limitations we limit the discussion to four frameworks. RESULTS: Consequentialist, relational, human rights, and social contract approaches were considered. Responsibilities to provide international assistance were seen as significant by all four theories and place limits on the scope of acceptable national autonomy. Among the range of potential aid foci, interventions for health enjoyed consistent prominence. The four theories concur that there are important ethical responsibilities to support initiatives to improve the health of the worst off worldwide, but offer different rationales for intervention and suggest different implicit limits on responsibilities. CONCLUSIONS: Despite significant theoretical disagreements, four influential accounts of justice offer important reasons to support many current initiatives to promote global health. Ethical argumentation can complement pragmatic reasons to support global health interventions and provide an important foundation to strengthen collective action. (shrink)

Disquotationalism is the view that the only notion of truth we really need is one that can be wholly explained in terms of such trivialities as: “Snow is white” is true iff snow is white. The 'Classical Disquotational Strategy' attempts to establish this view case by case, by showing that each extant appeal to truth, in philosophical or scientific explanations, can be unmasked as an appeal only to disquotational truth. I argue here that the Classical Strategy fails in at least (...) two cases: attributions of truth to context-dependent utterances and uses of truth psychological explanations of behavioral success or, more fundamentally, appeals to falsity in psychological explanations of behavioral failure. -/- It's my intention to turn this paper into two papers. It's become quite unwieldy as it is---not unlike "The Strength of Truth Theories". (shrink)

(English translation from the text in Korean) -/- The assertion that both humanity and the external world share a fundamental unity has gained increasing recognition, particularly in light of the growing discourse surrounding quantum physics. This perspective draws parallels with conceptual frameworks found in Western idealism, Eastern Buddhism, and the philosophy of Zhuangzi. In examining the current state of scientific inquiry, one cannot overlook the profound impact of quantum mechanics on the field of physics, alongside the rising influence of quantum (...) technology in shaping our information-driven culture. These developments are ushering our contemporaries into an era of heightened engagement with an extended reality. -/- However, amidst this transformative landscape, a notable tension emerges. While we have made significant strides in understanding the world through the lens of classical mechanics, the central thesis positing the essential unity of ourselves and the world seems to encounter unease and perplexity. A conspicuous discord arises when we consider that our lived experiences of humans and objects occur solely within the confines of three dimensions, while we are confronted with the assertion that these three dimensions are considered 'abstract,' while eleven dimensions are held to be 'fundamental.' This disjunction between our experiential reality and its explanatory framework gives rise to a pressing question that beckons exploration. -/- In response to this challenge, various endeavors have been undertaken to bridge the perceptible gap. One such undertaking is exemplified in the work of A. Ney, titled "The World in the Wave Function: A Metaphysics for Quantum Physics." Ney takes as her primary inquiry the profound question of how the macroscopic realm can be intricately constructed from the microscopic realm, a question that stands at the forefront of quantum physics. In her pursuit, Ney endeavors to illuminate her thesis, positing that both we and the objects that populate our reality are composed of wave functions. -/- This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of Ney's work, encapsulating the content of its initial half. Subsequently, it will offer a critical analysis in the latter portion, engaging with the merits and potential limitations of her proposed metaphysical framework. (shrink)

The current assessment of behaviors in the inventories to diagnose autism spectrum disorders (ASD) focus on observation and discrete categorizations. Behaviors require movements, yet measurements of physical movements are seldom included. Their inclusion however, could provide an objective characterization of behavior to help unveil interactions between the peripheral and the central nervous systems. Such interactions are critical for the development and maintenance of spontaneous autonomy, self-regulation and voluntary control. At present, current approaches cannot deal with the heterogeneous, dynamic and stochastic (...) nature of development. Accordingly, they leave no avenues for real-time or longitudinal assessments of change in a coping system continuously adapting and developing compensatory mechanisms. We offer a new unifying statistical framework to reveal re-afferent kinesthetic features of the individual with ASD. The new methodology is based on the non-stationary stochastic patterns of minute fluctuations (micro-movements) inherent to our natural actions. Such patterns of behavioral variability provide re-entrant sensory feedback contributing to the autonomous regulation and coordination of the motor output. From an early age, this feedback supports centrally driven volitional control and fluid, flexible transitions between intentional and spontaneous behaviors. We show that in ASD there is a disruption in the maturation of this form of proprioception. Despite this disturbance, each individual has unique adaptive compensatory capabilities that we can unveil and exploit to evoke faster and more accurate decisions. Measuring the kinesthetic re-afference in tandem with stimuli variations we can detect changes in their micro-movements indicative of a more predictive and reliable kinesthetic percept. Our methods address the heterogeneity of ASD with a personalized approach grounded in the inherent sensory-motor abilities that the individual has already developed. (shrink)

這本分量十足的論文集是為祝賀劉述先先生八秩壽慶，由香港中文大學哲學系與臺灣中央研究院中國文哲研究所共同策劃出版。文集收錄了香港、臺灣、中國大陸及海外學者共三十三篇文章，分為四組：「當代新儒家」、「宋明 理學與東亞儒學」、「先秦儒學」及「全球議題」。文章的作者或是受教於劉先生的門生、與劉先生共事的同寅、曾向劉先生問學的後輩、與劉先生切磋的同道，都曾以不同方式得益於劉先生豐厚學養的教誨與指點。現在大家呈 奉研究心得匯集成書，都是懷著相同的感恩和致敬的心意，祝福劉先生壽如南山、茂如松柏。 .