Food prices are a daily concern in many households’ decision-making, especially when people want to have healthier diets. Employing Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 710 Indonesian citizens, we found that people from wealthier households are less likely to have concerns about food prices. However, the degree of health considerations in food consumption was found to moderate against the above association. In other words, people of higher income-based social classes may worry more about food prices if they (...) care more about the health impacts of their food choices. These findings provide more insights for policymakers on the psychological aspects of promoting the balance between finance and health in food consumption. (shrink)

Darwinian ideas were developed and radically transformed when they were transmitted to the alien intellectual background of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century China. The earliest references to Darwin in China appeared in the 1870s through the writings of Western missionaries who provided the Chinese with the earliest information on evolutionary doctrines. Meanwhile, Chinese ambassadors, literati and overseas students contributed to the dissemination of evolutionary ideas, with modest effect. The ‘evolutionary sensation’ in China was generated by the Chinese Spencerian Yan Fu’s (...) paraphrased translation and reformulation of Thomas Huxley’s 1893 Romanes Lecture ‘Evolution and ethics’ and his ‘Prolegomena’. It was from this source that ‘Darwin’ became well known in China – although it was Darwin’s name, rather than his theories, that reached Chinese literati’s households. The Origin of Species itself began to receive attention only at the turn of the twentieth century. The translator, Ma Junwu (1881–1940), incorporated non-Darwinian doctrines, particularly Lamarckian and Spencerian principles, into his edition of the Chinese Origin. This partially reflected the importance of the pre-existing Chinese intellectual background as well as Yan Fu’s progressive ‘evolutionary paradigm’. In this paper, I will elucidate Ma Junwu’s culturally conditioned reinterpretation of the Origin before 1906 by investigating his transformation of Darwin’s principal concepts. (shrink)

It has been widely reported that women are underrepresented in academic philosophy as faculty and students. This article investigates whether this representation may also occur in the domain of journal article publishing. Our study looked at whether women authors were underrepresented as authors in elite ethics journals — Ethics, Philosophy & Public Affairs, the Journal of Political Philosophy, and the Journal of Moral Philosophy — between 2004-2014, relative to the proportion of women employed in academic ethics (broadly construed). We found (...) that women are indeed underrepresented overall in prestigious ethics journal publishing. Though this is not our focus, we discuss possible causes for this finding, such as top ethics journals’ tendency not to publish much feminist philosophy; the impact of women’s lesser professional status or rank within philosophy on their prospects for, and success in, journal publishing; and the review process itself, which may disadvantage or discourage women authors — perhaps especially when their gender, rank, and affiliation are known to the editor or reviewer, or if their work is explicitly feminist. We discuss possible avenues for future research on the "woman problem" in philosophy, noting how our study relates to existing research on this issue. (shrink)

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, shortages of scarce healthcare resources consistently presented significant moral and practical challenges. While the importance of vaccines as a key pharmaceutical intervention to stem pandemic scarcity was widely publicized, a sizable proportion of the population chose not to vaccinate. In response, some have defended the use of vaccination status as a criterion for the allocation of scarce medical resources. In this paper, we critically interpret this burgeoning literature, and describe a framework for thinking about vaccine-sensitive resource (...) allocation using the values of responsibility, reciprocity, and justice. Although our aim here is not to defend a single view of vaccine-sensitive resource allocation, we believe that attending critically with the diversity of arguments in favor (and against) vaccine-sensitivity reveals a number of questions that a vaccine-sensitive approach to allocation should answer in future pandemics. (shrink)

A primary argument against the badness of death (known as the Symmetry Argument) appeals to an alleged symmetry between prenatal and posthumous nonexistence. The Symmetry Argument has posed a serious threat to those who hold that death is bad because it deprives us of life’s goods that would have been available had we died later. Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer develop an influential strategy to cope with the Symmetry Argument. In their attempt to break the symmetry, they claim that (...) due to our preference of future experiential goods over past ones, posthumous nonexistence is bad for us, whereas prenatal nonexistence is not. Granting their presumption about our preference, however, it is questionable that prenatal nonexistence is not bad. This consideration does not necessarily indicate their defeat against the Symmetry Argument. I present a better response to the Symmetry Argument: the symmetry is broken, not because posthumous nonexistence is bad while prenatal nonexistence is not, but because (regardless as to whether prenatal nonexistence is bad) posthumous nonexistence is even worse. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy offers an alternative mode of engagement for public philosophy, in which the public can play a participatory role. We organized two public events on the aesthetics of coffee that explored this alternative mode of engagement. The first event focuses on issues surrounding the communication of taste. The second event focuses on issues concerning ethical influences on taste. -/- In this paper, we report back on these two events which explored the possibility of doing experimental philosophical aesthetics as public (...) philosophy. We set the stage by considering the significance and current state of efforts in public philosophy, and by introducing the emerging sub-discipline of experimental philosophical aesthetics. Then, we discuss the research and outreach aspects of the two events on the aesthetics of coffee. Finally, we conclude by reflecting on the prospects and potential pitfalls of experimental philosophy as public philosophy. (shrink)

The central claim of the Parfitian psychological approach to personal identity is that the fact about personal identity is underpinned by a non-branching psychological continuity relation. Hence, for the advocates of the Parfitian view, it is important to understand what it is for a relation to take or not take a branching form. Nonetheless, very few attempts have been made in the literature of personal identity to define the non-branching clause. This paper undertakes this task. Drawing upon a recent debate (...) between Anthony Brueckner and Harold Noonan on the issue, I present three candidates for the non-branching clause. (shrink)

Here I respond to Anthony Brueckner and John Martin Fischer’s “The Evil of Death: A Reply to Yi.” They developed an influential strategy in defense of the deprivation account of death’s badness against the Lucretian symmetry problem. The core of their argument consists in the claim that it is rational for us to welcome future intrinsic goods while being indifferent to past intrinsic goods. Previously, I argued that their approach is compatible with the evil of late birth insofar as an (...) earlier birth would have generated more goods in the future. In reply, Brueckner and Fischer argue that my critique fails to appreciate an important aspect of their thought experiment, which aims only to show that the deprivation of past goods per se is not bad for us. Thus, purportedly, my critique poses no threat to their view. Here I argue that since the deprivation account explains the evil of death with recourse to how one’s life would have fared had one lived longer, it ought to respond to the symmetry problem with reference to how one’s life would have fared had one been born earlier. However, it is not generally true that the life one would have had with an earlier birth is not preferable to one’s actual life, because in many cases such a life would contain more future goods. (shrink)

Consider a specific type of fission where psychological continuity takes a branching form, and one of the offshoots comes into being later than the other offshoot. Let us say that the earlier offshoot comes into being in the left branch at t, and the later offshoot comes into being in the right branch at t+1. With regard to the question how many persons are involved in this case, three answers are worth considering: (i) The original subject persists up to t; (...) a distinct person comes into being immediately after t and continues to exist in the left branch; and the third person comes into being in the right branch at t+1. (ii) The original subject persists up to the moment immediately before t+1; a distinct person comes into being at t+1 and continues to exist in the left branch; and the third person comes into being in the right branch at t+1. (iii) The original subject continues to exist in the left branch; a distinct person comes into being in the right branch at t+1. For those who hold that personal identity consists in psychological continuity of some sort, the aforementioned three options exhaust the sensible ways of understanding how one persists in delayed fission. However, I argue that complications arise for each answer. Hence, delayed fission poses a challenge for the psychological approach to personal identity. (shrink)

Working in academia is challenging, even more so for those with limited resources and opportunities. Researchers around the world do not have equal working conditions. The paper presents the structure, operation method, and conceptual framework of the SM3D Portal's community coaching method, which is built to help Early Career Researchers (ECRs) and researchers in low-resource settings overcome the obstacle of inequality and start their career progress. The community coaching method is envisioned by three science philosophies (cost-effectiveness, transparency spirit, and proactive (...) attitude) and established and operated based on the Serendipity-Mindsponge-3D knowledge (SM3D) management framework (i.e., mindsponge thinking and Bayesian Mindsponge Framework analytics serve as the coaching program's foundational theory and analytical tools). The coaching method also embraces Open Science's values for lowering the cost of doing science and encouraging the trainees to be transparent, which is expected to facilitate the self-correcting mechanism of science through open data, open review, and open dialogue. Throughout the training process, members are central beneficiaries by gaining research knowledge and skills, acquiring publication as the training's product, and shifting their mindsets from “I can't do it” to “I can do it,” and at the same time transforming a mentee to be ready for a future mentor's role. The coaching method is thus one of the members, for the member, by the members. -/- • The paper provides the structure, operation method, and conceptual framework of the SM3D Portal's community coaching method, which is built to help Early Career Researchers (ECRs) and researchers in low-resource settings overcome the obstacle of inequality and start their career progress. • The paper presents three major science philosophies envisioning the establishment and operation of scholarly community coaching. • The paper employs the mindsponge theory and BMF analytics to construct a conceptual framework explaining how an environment is created to help shift members’ mindsets from “I can't do it” to “I can do it.”. (shrink)

Chinese international students who studied in the United States received “double stigmatization” from American and Chinese authorities because of the “political othering” tactic during COVID-19. The research used a phenomenological approach to examine why and how specifically the transnational identity of Chinese international students in the United States shifted during the double stigmatization. The researcher conducted a total of three rounds of interviews with 15 Chinese international students who studied in the United States and returned to China between 2018 and (...) 2020, which culminated in 45 interviews through a longitudinal study to probe the transnational identities of this population before and during the double stigmatization; the study also examined how the mindsponge mechanism worked during the identity shifts and the interplay among stigmatization, transnational identity shifts, and the mindsponge mechanism. The study concluded that before COVID-19, Chinese international students had been stigmatized in both China and the United States. (shrink)

In this essay, I develop the concept of episodic value, which describes a form of value connected to a particular object or individual expressed and delivered through a narrative. Narrative can bestow special kinds of value on objects, as exemplified by auction articles or museum collections. To clarify the nature of episodic value, I show how the notion of episodic value fundamentally differs from the traditional axiological picture. I extend my discussion of episodic value to argue that the notion of (...) episodic value readily incorporates the role of narratives into the construction of identity in personal and social contexts. My main contentions are twofold. First, events or experiences from our personal narratives are episodically valuable insofar as they contribute to shaping our narrative identities. Second, when engaged in a collective action, we write a joint narrative with other participants that confers special meanings on the actions of each participant. (shrink)

Xunzi's philosophy provides a rich resource for understanding how ethical relationships between humans and nature can be articulated in terms of harmony. In this paper, I build on his ideas to develop the concept of reciprocal harmony, which requires us to reciprocate those who make our lives liveable. In the context of the environment, I argue that reciprocal harmony generates moral obligations towards nature, in return for the existential debt that humanity owes towards heaven and earth. This can be used (...) as a normative basis for an environmental ethic that enables humanity and nature to flourish together. (shrink)

David Lewis argues that centered worlds give us a way to capture de se, or self-locating, contents in philosophy of language and philosophy of mind. In recent years, centered worlds have also gained other uses in areas ranging widely from metaphysics to ethics. In this paper, I raise a problem for centered worlds and discuss the costs and benefits of different solutions. My investigation into the nature of centered worlds brings out potentially problematic implicit commitments of the theories that employ (...) them. In addition, my investigation shows that the conception of centered worlds widely attributed to David Lewis is not only problematic, but in fact not his. (shrink)

A plurality or plural object is a single object that is also many, and pluralitism is the thesis that there is such an object. This paper argues that pluralitism and closely related theses (e.g., the many-one identity thesis and the composition as identity thesis) violate logic. To do so, it formulates an approach to the logic and semantics of plural constructions that results in plural logic and relates treatments of plural constructions to accounts of natural number. And it gives a (...) critical examination of Frege’s views of numbers and plural constructions, and sketches the view of plural constructions as devices for talking about the many (as such), and an account of natural numbers as properties of a special kind, plural properties. (shrink)

In analyzing oppressive systems like racism, social theorists have articulated accounts of the dynamic interaction and mutual dependence between psychological components, such as individuals’ patterns of thought and action, and social components, such as formal institutions and informal interactions. We argue for the further inclusion of physical components, such as material artifacts and spatial environments. Drawing on socially situated and ecologically embedded approaches in the cognitive sciences, we argue that physical components of racism are not only shaped by, but also (...) shape psychological and social components of racism. Indeed, while our initial focus is on racism and racist things, we contend that our framework is also applicable to other oppressive systems, including sexism, classism, and ableism. This is because racist things are part of a broader class of oppressive things, which are material artifacts and spatial environments that are in congruence with an oppressive system. (shrink)

Issues of pretense and imagination are of central interest to philosophers, psychologists, and researchers in allied fields. In this entry, we provide a roadmap of some of the central themes around which discussion has been focused. We begin with an overview of pretense, imagination, and the relationship between them. We then shift our attention to the four specific topics where the disciplines' research programs have intersected or where additional interactions could prove mutually beneficial: the psychological underpinnings of performing pretense and (...) of recognizing pretense, the cognitive capacities involved in imaginative engagement with fictions, and the real-world impact of make-believe. In the final section, we discuss more briefly a number of other mental activities that arguably involve imagining, including counterfactual reasoning, delusions, and dreaming. (shrink)

Chapter 1 What Do Zen Masters Teach Us Today? The Case of Sŏn Master Hyeam Sŏnggwan Jin Y. Park Introduction Korean Sŏn Master Hyeam Sŏnggwan (慧菴性觀, 1920–2001) is a relatively unknown figure within English-language scholarship.1 However, among Korean Buddhists, his rigorous Zen practice has been well recognized. One-meal-per-day (K. ilchongsik 一種食), no-meal-in-the-afternoon (K. ohu pulsik 午後不食), and staying-sitting-in-meditation-without-lying-down (K. changjwa purwa 長坐不臥) are all well-known practices that frequently appear when describing Hyeam as a Zen master. What is less frequently asked (...) is what these rigorous Zen practices might mean to us commoners who live in a secular world or to monastics whose practice might not be as rigorous as Hyeam’s. Should Zen masters such as Hyeam who appear to exhibit superhuman capacity for religious practice be only an object of awe and admiration in our secular modern times? Even if so, what do the awe and admiration indicate? In this chapter, I try to bridge the gap between the rigorous practice typically seen in Korean Zen masters’ lives and its meaning for people living in modern times. What questions does a Zen master like Hyeam raise for us, and how should scholars address these issues? These are the inquiries with which I hope to engage. (shrink)

Space tourism is an emerging field where few people have direct experience. However, considering the potential in the near future, it is beneficial to better understand how related information influences people’s attitudes about this new form of tourism. Employing information-processing-based Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 361 respondents consuming content related to space tourism on Chinese social media, we found that induced happiness and impression are positively associated with willingness to try space tourism. Information authenticity positively moderates (...) these two associations. Our findings emphasize three aspects of information during the processes of reception and filtering: meaning, intensity, and trust. Since promotional materials for space tourism rely heavily on mental simulations rather than objective feedback, creative uses of digital technology are advantageous. However, precautions must be taken to prevent exploitation, such as false advertising, exaggeration, and emotional manipulation. (shrink)

Our goal in this paper is to articulate a novel account of the ordinary concept ART. At the core of our account is the idea that a puzzle surrounding our thought and talk about art is best understood as just one instance of a far broader phenomenon. In particular, we claim that one can make progress on this puzzle by drawing on research from cognitive science on dual character concepts. Thus, we suggest that the very same sort of phenomenon that (...) is associated with ART can also be found in a broad class of other dual character concepts, including SCIENTIST, CHRISTIAN, GANGSTER, and many others. Instead of focusing narrowly on the case of ART, we try to offer a more general account of these concepts and the puzzles to which they give rise. Then, drawing on the general theory, we introduce a series of hypotheses about art concepts, and put those hypotheses to the test in three experimental studies. (shrink)

Cheating is a major problem in society, especially in the educational system. From the viewpoint of subjective cost-benefit analysis, concerns about reputation damage as well as considerations of cultural values against unethical behavior can help increase the perceived costs of cheating. To explore deeper into the psychological processes in such assessments, we employ Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics – an information-processingbased method. Conducting Bayesian analysis on 493 university students from Germany, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, and Japan, we found that reputation concern (...) is negatively associated with cheating behavior. If a student embraces Confucian values, the above negating effect is stronger. Our findings support the notion that mentally simulated negative consequences of cheating reduce the probability of carrying out such behavior. As the educational system is changing rapidly due to technological advancement, a better understanding of the influences of sociocultural factors can be helpful in cheating prevention efforts. (shrink)

Cheating is widely considered a condemnable behavior in society and a big problem in the educational system. In this study, we employ the information-processing-based Bayesian Mindsponge Framework to explore deeper the subjective cost-benefit evaluation involving the perceived value of cheating. Conducting Bayesian analysis on 493 university students from Germany, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, and Japan, we found that students who have more positive attitudes toward cheating are more likely to cheat. However, a higher capability of cognitive reflection acts as a moderator (...) that negates the above effect. Re-evaluation of prior thoughts allows for more accurate assessments of the associated risks and possible costs, which help reduce the probability of carrying out cheating behavior. As rapid technological advancement may introduce new and efficient cheating methods, a better understanding of the psychology of cheating in students can help schools prepare better countermeasures. (shrink)

For the past three years, Coronavirus-19 (Covid-19) has become one of the major global health problems. Unlike any previous virus in the past decades, Covid-19 has shown its unprecedented spreading speed, infection rate, fatality rate, etc. Under this urgent disease outbursting event, scientists around the globe, through the myriad of research and experiments, successfully developed effective vaccines. However, like many other medical innovations, Covid-19 vaccines are categorized as intellectual properties and a scarce resource. As a consequence, the citizens of developed (...) and developing countries face an imbalanced distribution of affordable vaccines. The formation of this issue is not only due to manufacturing, transportation, and other infrastructures, but also strongly correlated with aspects in the legal field, such as intellectual property rights (IPRs). With a humane common sense of vaccination many people, through comparative research method, this article aims to discuss the conflicts between the global crisis of Force Majeure and the interests of certain countries or corporations, possible solutions to resolve this conflict, and future coping strategies that ought to be published. (shrink)

This article aims to unify all scientific theories based on the concept of “intrinsicality of nature”, including the fundamental theories in physics. First, the general property within existing natural phenomena, say “intrinsicality of nature”, was deduced as “logicality” and "imperfectness". Then, the identical intrinsicality was deduced out for the science to unify all scientific theories. Finally, with this intrinsicality and the novelties of consciousness, the unification of physics theories, say Theory of Everything, was framed by a physical model of more (...) fundamental element (MFE), which had managed to cover the concepts of quantum mechanics, general relativity, and the physics of consciousness altogether, to test this model of unification. Since the MFE is only a theoretical model, two methods were introduced for its experimental verification. While its application to explain yet unanswered questions in science was tested, and further verification of this model in a lab by measuring consciousness signals was discussed. (shrink)

One aim of this essay is to contribute to understanding aesthetic communication—the process by which agents aim to convey thoughts and transmit knowledge about aesthetic matters to others. Our focus will be on the use of aesthetic adjectives in aesthetic communication. Although theorists working on the semantics of adjectives have developed sophisticated theories about gradable adjectives, they have tended to avoid studying aesthetic adjectives—the class of adjectives that play a central role in expressing aesthetic evaluations. And despite the wealth of (...) attention paid to aesthetic adjectives by philosophical aestheticians, they have paid little attention to contemporary linguistic theories of adjectives. We take our work to be a first step in remedying these lacunae. In this paper, we present four experiments that examine one aspect of how aesthetic adjectives ordinarily function: the context-sensitivity of their application standards. Our results present a prima facie empirical challenge to a common distinction between relative and absolute gradable adjectives because aesthetic adjectives are found to behave differently from both. Our results thus also constitute a prima facie vindication of some philosophical aestheticians’ contention that aesthetic adjectives constitute a particularly interesting segment of natural language, even if the boundaries of this segment might turn out to be different from what they had in mind. (shrink)

Psychological Sequentialism holds that no causal constraint is necessary for the preservation of what matters in survival; rather, it is sufficient for preservation if two groups of mental states are similar enough and temporally close enough. Suppose that one’s body is instantaneously dematerialized and subsequently, by an amazing coincidence, a collection of molecules is configured to form a qualitatively identical human body. According to Psychological Sequentialism, these events preserve what matters in survival. In this article, I examine some of the (...) main arguments for the view and argue that they fail to establish that no causal constraint is necessary. I also argue that Psychological Sequentialism yields implausible consequences that render it hard to accept the view. (shrink)

It is well-known that racism is encoded into the social practices and institutions of medicine. Less well-known is that racism is encoded into the material artifacts of medicine. We argue that many medical devices are not merely biased, but materialize oppression. An oppressive device exhibits a harmful bias that reflects and perpetuates unjust power relations. Using pulse oximeters and spirometers as case studies, we show how medical devices can materialize oppression along various axes of social difference, including race, gender, class, (...) and ability. Our account uses political philosophy and cognitive science to give a theoretical basis for understanding materialized oppression, explaining how artifacts encode and carry oppressive ideas from the past to the present and future. Oppressive medical devices present a moral aggregation problem. To remedy this problem, we suggest redundantly layered solutions that are coordinated to disrupt reciprocal causal connections between the attitudes, practices, and artifacts of oppressive systems. (shrink)

Imaginative resistance refers to a phenomenon in which people resist engaging in particular prompted imaginative activities. On one influential diagnosis of imaginative resistance, the systematic difficulties are due to these particular propositions’ discordance with real-world norms. This essay argues that this influential diagnosis is too simple. While imagination is indeed by default constrained by real-world norms during narrative engagement, it can be freed with the power of genre conventions and expectations.

The goal of this short paper is to show that esthetic adjectives—exemplified by “beautiful” and “elegant”—do not pattern stably on a range of linguistic diagnostics that have been used to taxonomize the gradability properties of adjectives. We argue that a plausible explanation for this puzzling data involves distinguishing two properties of gradable adjectives that have been frequently conflated: whether an adjective’s applicability is sensitive to a comparison class, and whether an adjective’s applicability is context-dependent.

However, people might wonder, did all Chinese students engage in school learning before the creation of electronic games? The answer is definitely no, and apart from gaming, students back in the day would skip classes to attend other activities perceived as “irrelevant” to school learning.

One response to the Frankfurtian attack on the Principle of Alternate Possibilities is to advert to the observation that the agent’s actual action (or the particular event resulting from that action) is numerically distinct from the corresponding action (or the resultant event) he would have generated in the relevant counterfactual scenario. Since this response is based on taking actions and events to be fragile, I shall call it the fragilist account of alternative possibilities. This paper addresses an anti-fragilist argument delivered (...) by John Martin Fischer. I contend that, on close examination, Fischer’s counterargument does not undermine the fragilist account. (shrink)

Western psychology primarily studies human emotions via physiological reactions to external stimuli. Research suggests that cultural variations lead East Asians and Western-heritage individuals to experience distinct emotional patterns beyond bodily responses. A more thorough understanding of affect, involving culturally influenced emotions, remains unexplored in cross-cultural contexts. Influenced by Confucianism, East Asian cultures show unique emotional patterns. Unlike the Western focus on rationality, Confucian philosophy values human affect (qing 情), going beyond conventional emotions. This paper delves into the transformative nature of (...) Confucian affect, specifically its four facets: (1) philosophized (zhelihua 哲理化), (2) moralized (dehua 德化), (3) ritualized (lihua 禮化), and (4) aestheticized (meixuehua 美學化). These dimensions redirect human emotions towards mutual care and moral elevation. Despite limited empirical research, contemporary East Asian experiences shed light on Confucian affect's ongoing significance in daily life. This paper illuminates existing research to elucidate Confucian affect and proposes future directions for exploration. By recognizing the interplay of cultural influences and emotions, a richer comprehension of affective experiences across cultures emerges, offering insights into the intricate tapestry of human emotions shaped by diverse philosophical and cultural foundations. (shrink)

We develop a theory of necessity operators within a version of higher-order logic that is neutral about how fine-grained reality is. The theory is axiomatized in terms of the primitive of *being a necessity*, and we show how the central notions in the philosophy of modality can be recovered from it. Various questions are formulated and settled within the framework, including questions about the ordering of necessities under strength, the existence of broadest necessities satisfying various logical conditions, and questions about (...) their logical behaviour. We also wield the framework to probe the conditions under which a logicist account of necessities is possible, in which the theory is completely reducible to logic. (shrink)

Though scholars of Chinese Theology have expanded the inter-religious dialogue between Christian theology and traditional Chinese philosophy and culture from Neo-Confucianism to other fields such as Taoism, the dialogue with Chinese Buddhism, especially Chan Buddhism, has not been carried out yet. This article mainly reflects on the starting point of Leung In-sing’s Chinese Theology through the perspective of Dharma as Nonduality in Chan. Firstly, it briefly outlines the background and basic ideas of Chinese Theology formulated by Leung In- sing, focusing (...) on discussing the two fundamental theological categories: “Relationship” and “Rapport.” Then, it annotates and analyzes Huineng’s“Dharma as Nonduality.”Finally, from the perspective of Huineng, it rethinks the starting point of Chinese Theology itself and proposes further research questions. (shrink)

Normal interpersonal treatment is often based on the existence of the rational nature of both the agent and the target of the treatment, and their relationship is reciprocal and mutual. However, when the rational person confronts the irrational person, such as the mentally retarded or vegetative person, the reciprocal relationship cannot be maintained because the targeted person loses his or her rational capacity. But this inequality does not deprive the object of action of the right to be treated rationally, because (...) people treat the irrationally disabled not according to the principle of reason but according to the principle of emotion - specifically, the principle of love. The principle of love often disregards the specific conditions of the object of treatment and still treats them reasonably. Thus, the emotional principle has a broader application in interpersonal treatment. (shrink)

As more and more scholars deepened the study of the Dunhuang version of The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, many significant research questions were raised. The questions such as when the book was completed, who actually wrote the book, and the historical authenticity of Huineng’s story, especially his identity of the Sixth Patriarch, were extensively discussed and questioned by many scholars. This essay attempts to conduct a more profound analysis and thinking based on the current academic studies with respect (...) to this historical book, and seeks to critically and profoundly rethink the methods of contemporary criticism concerning religious studies. (shrink)

Tscha Hung was a member of the Vienna Circle who achieved high international academic recognition. He dedicated his entire life to spreading the philosophy of the Circle to China and developed deep insights in his criticisms to that philosophy. Hung was a witness to the encounter of Western and Chinese philosophy in the twentieth century. His debate with Fung You-lan on metaphysics reflects different understandings of the nature of philosophy and metaphysics as well as different perspectives. Hung defended the position (...) of metaphysics in Chinese philosophy in his own way and engaged in a contemporary reconstruction of Chinese philosophy. (shrink)

In addressing the Lucretian symmetry problem, the content-based approach attends to the difference between the contents of the actual life and those of relevant possible lives of a person. According to this approach, the contents of a life with an earlier beginning would substantially differ from, and thus be discontinuous with, the contents of the actual life, whereas the contents of a life with the same beginning but a later death would be continuous with the contents of the actual life. (...) In this paper, I examine two versions of the content-based approach: the identity account and the preference account. The identity account holds that, in the sense of identity which is relevant to the evil of nonexistence, the subject of the actual life, though identical to the person in the life with a later death, is distinct from the subject of the life with an earlier beginning. The preference account maintains that, given one’s attachments to actual particulars, a life with an earlier beginning is not rationally preferable to one’s actual life, whereas a life with a later death is. I argue that each version of the content-based approach is implausible, while discussing some of the complications that face each of them. (shrink)

Various writings by the later Wittgenstein on the philosophy of psychology, published posthumously, express his basic critical attitude toward certain concepts and issues in the philosophy of psychology. His attitude towards folk psychology is negative in principle, leaving him opposed to the foundation of current psychological research. This critique of folk psychology and of the philosophy of psychology in general is in accord with the general method of his later philosophy, that is, dealing with philosophical problems by dissolving them. However, (...) his critical attitude towards folk psychology has been less influential in the development of contemporary philosophy, and is in opposition to the philosophy of psychology and folk psychology as practiced today. In this paper I will analyze Wittgenstein's understanding of the concept of psychology, offering a different interpretation from that of other scholars, and explain why and how contemporary philosophers of psychology misunderstand Wittgenstein. (shrink)

The poem is my image of the traditional Chinese understanding of “there is nothing new under the sun.” It was written originally in Chinese during a launch time at the South Hill School in Vancouver, where I was taking English Foundation courses in 2014. I only spent a few minutes completing the poem. The words came out of my mind naturally and smoothly. The moment for me was sacredly silent even though I was sitting in a noisy environment at Dairy (...) Queen; as if time suddenly stopped, as if I was not a part of this world, and as if I was not who I was. It has been said that everything has its season; a time to be born, and a time to die. If everything has its time and place in which I still have the ultimate freedom to choose, I will prefer to stay where I am, letting myself be out of the circle of birth, death and rebirth, not be obsessed with either the beauty of bygones or the hope of hereafter. (shrink)

“Don’t measure a gentleman’s heart with a petty man’s scheming” is an old Chinese adage describing the cognitive bias towards others based on one’s egocentric and negative worldview.

This chapter explores the interaction between the moral value and aesthetic value of food, in part by connecting it to existing discussions of the interaction between moral and aesthetic values of art. Along the way, this chapter considers food as art, the aesthetic value of food, and the role of expertise in uncovering aesthetic value. Ultimately this chapter argues against both food autonomism (the view that food's moral value is unconnected to its aesthetic value) and Carolyn Korsmeyer's food moralism (the (...) view that moral flaws can only make food aesthetically worse). Instead, it argues for the position of food immoralism: sometimes a moral flaw can make an item of food aesthetically better. This chapter concludes by drawing out broader implications of this position for discussions on the ethics of food and discussions on the interaction between the moral and aesthetic values of art. (shrink)

The Purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of cloud mobile learning and creative environment on college student’s creativity performance. A nonequivalent pretest-posttest quasi-experimental design was used in this research. The objects were two freshman classes selected from a public university and randomly assigned to the experimental group and the control group. A learning activity named Amphibious Mechanical Beast was conducted in this teaching experiment. The experimental was taught using cloud mobile learning, while the control group was taught (...) using the traditional (usual) way. Participant student’s design performances before and after the experiment were evaluated. Creative Environment Scale was used to collect data of student’s perception of creative environment. Additionally, an open ended questionnaire was used to realize student’s learning processes. The one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and the two-way analysis of covariance were performed in this research. After data coding, relative concepts, themes, and theories were integrated and developed. Finally, the findings were proposed according to result of qualitative data analysis. Those main results of this research were: 1.Cloud mobile learning had a positive effect on student’s creative process. Most participant students thought cloud mobile device using convenient and prompt while learning. Cloud mobile learning improved student active participation, and was student-centered rather than teacher-centered. Participant student’s high order thinking abilities could be improved by receiving information and discussing anytime and anywhere. Those high order thinking included problem solving, critical thinking, and creative thinking. Nevertheless, minor participant students’ learning was influenced by past learning habits and insufficient devices. 2. Cloud mobile learning had positive effects on newness, elaborateness, and total aspect of creative products. 3. Perceptions of creative environment had positive effects on preparation stage and reaction stage of creative process. 4. Perceptions of creative environment which were above a certain level had positive effects on creative products. 5. Cloud mobile learning had positive effects on preparation stage of students’ creative process who had lower perceptions of creative environment. 6. Cloud mobile learning had positive effects on value of students’ creative products who had lower perceptions of creative environment. 7. Cloud mobile learning had positive effects on total aspect of students’ creative products who had higher perceptions of creative environment. Finally, recommendations and suggestions were addressed for implementation of cloud mobile learning and future studies based on results of this research. (shrink)

Trong thời đại hiện nay, chúng ta thường cảm thấy bị choáng ngợp bởi sự hỗn loạn của thế giới bên ngoài và khao khát những khoảnh khắc tỉnh thức. “Meandering Sobriety” (tạm dịch “Lang thang trong sự tỉnh thức”) của PGS.TS Vương Quân Hoàng (Trường Đại học Phenikaa và Quỹ Phát triển Khoa học và Công nghệ Quốc gia - NAFOSTED) có thể mang đến cho độc giả những khoảnh khắc đó qua tuyển tập truyện ngắn hài hước và (...) giàu tính suy tưởng. Cuốn sách hiện đang được xếp hạng thứ nhất trong danh sách các tựa sách nhận được nhiều đơn hàng nhất về Triết học của Amazon (Amazon Bestsellers). Ở Amazon US (toàn cầu), Amazon AU (Úc) và Amazon JP (Nhật), sách đang được xếp hạng thứ hai trong cùng hạng mục. (shrink)

Critics across the political spectrum have worried that ordinary uses of words like 'racist', 'sexist', and 'homophobic' are becoming conceptually inflated, meaning that these expressions are getting used so widely that they lose their nuance and, thereby, their moral force. However, the charge of conceptual inflation, as well as responses to it, are standardly made without any systematic investigation of how 'racist' and other expressions condemning oppression are actually used in ordinary language. Once we examine large linguistic corpora to see (...) how these expressions are actually used, we find that English speakers have a rich linguistic repertoire for qualifying the degree to which and dimensions along which something is racist, sexist, homophobic, and so on. These facts about ordinary usage undermine the charge of conceptual inflation. Without awareness of facts about ordinary usage, theorists risk making linguistic prescriptions that are unnecessary or counterproductive. (shrink)

In this study, we examine some factors of the subjective emotional influences that may affect volunteers’ likelihood to respond negatively to requests for favors.

This poem metaphorically depicts how a person overcomes his fear and anxiety by inwardly and faithfully relating oneself to the One. The person was seriously scared of water, which is symbolic of his fear of the storm such as failure, death, or perhaps COVID-19.