In a recent paper, Francis Y. Lin proposes a “memory-challenge” to two main interpretations of Wittgenstein’s private language argument: the “no-criterion-of-correctness” interpretation and the “no-stage-setting” interpretation. According to Lin, both camps of interpretation fail to explain why a private language is impossible within a short time period. To answer the “memory-challenge”, Lin motivates a grammatical interpretation of the private language argument. In this paper, I provide a critical discussion of Lin’s objection to these interpretations and argue that Lin’s objection fails. (...) In the case of the “no-stage-setting” interpretation, Lin suggests that the private language user can establish a stage within a short time period. However, I show that this stage is insufficient for a private language to be used correctly. In the case of the “no-criterion-of-correctness” interpretation, Lin believes that since memory is reliable within a short period, no criterion is needed for the correct use of a private language. However, I argue that his objection attacks a strawman, since the interpretation concerns the structure of justification, rather than the weakness of memory itself. I conclude with a critical discussion on memory and primitive expressions, the latter of which are crucial to Wittgenstein’s approach to public language. This discussion will help to draw a sharp line between private language and public language, and cast some doubt on Lin’s grammatical interpretation. (shrink)

: Perhaps the central problem which preoccupies Spinoza as a moral philosopher is the conflict between reason and passion. He belongs to a long tradition that sees the key to happiness and virtue as mastery and control by reason over the passions. This mastery, however, is hard won, as the passions often overwhelm its power and subvert its rule. When reason succumbs to passion, we act against our better judgment. Such action is often termed 'akratic'. Many commentators have complained that (...) the psychological principles that Spinoza appeals to in his account of akrasia are mere ad hoc modifications to his philosophical psychology. I show, on the contrary, that these principles follow from some of the most important and interesting aspects of Spinoza's philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Metaphysical rationalism, the doctrine which affirms the Principle of Sufficient Reason (the PSR), is out of favor today. The best argument against it is that it appears to lead to necessitarianism, the claim that all truths are necessarily true. Whatever the intuitive appeal of the PSR, the intuitive appeal of the claim that things could have been otherwise is greater. This problem did not go unnoticed by the great metaphysical rationalists Spinoza and Leibniz. Spinoza’s response was to embrace necessitarianism. Leibniz’s (...) response was to argue that, despite appearances, rationalism does not lead to necessitarianism. This paper examines the debate between these two rationalists and concludes that Leibniz has persuasive grounds for his opinion. This has significant implications both for the plausibility of the PSR and for our understanding of modality. (shrink)

The social sciences face a problem of sample non-representation, where the majority of samples consist of undergraduate students from Euro-American institutions. The problem has been identified for decades with little trend of improvement. In this paper, I trace the history of sampling theory. The dominant framework, called the design-based approach, takes random sampling as the gold standard. The idea is that a sampling procedure that is maximally uninformative prevents samplers from introducing arbitrary bias, thus preserving sample representation. I show how (...) this framework, while good in theory, faces many challenges in application. Instead, I advocate for an alternative framework, called the model-based approach to sampling, where representative samples are those balanced in composition, however they were drawn. I argue that the model-based framework is more appropriate in the social sciences because it allows for systematic assessment of imperfect samples and methodical improvement in resource-limited scientific contexts. I end with practical proposals of improving sample quality in the social sciences. (shrink)

Call ‘radical moral theorizing’ the project of developing a moral theory that not only tries to conform to our existing moral judgments, but also manifests various theoretical virtues: consistency, simplicity, explanatory depth, and so on. Many moral philosophers assume that radical moral theorizing does not require any particular metaethical commitments. In this paper, I argue against this assumption. The most natural justification for radical moral theorizing presupposes moral realism, broadly construed; in contrast, there may be no justification for radical moral (...) theorizing if moral anti-realism is true. (shrink)

Cover Date: July 2006.Source Info: 115(3), 317-354. Language: English. Journal Announcement: 41-2. Subject: ACTION; CAUSATION; METAPHYSICS; REPRESENTATION; TELEOLOGY. Subject Person: SPINOZA, BENEDICT DE (BARUCH). Update Code: 20130315.

In ‘Equity and Marxist Buddhism,’ Tzu-wei Hung engages with the Marxist Buddhism developed by Taiwanese philosopher Lin Qiu-wu in the 1920s, brings this underexplored theory to the table and discusses a few merits and insights of the theory. Building on Hung’s analysis, this paper paper elaborates on the lessons and insights that Taiwanese Marxist Buddhism provides for modern times. The first three lessons are distinctive points that Taiwanese Marxist Buddhism brings to the discussion on combining Marxism and Buddhism: the connections (...) between the ethical and political, the responsibility for pursuing social justice and the nonviolence means towards social justice. The last lesson comes at the meta-philosophical level, focusing on how Hung’s engagement with Taiwanese Marxist Buddhism sheds light on the issue of diversifying the discipline philosophy. Overall, I argue that Taiwanese Marxist Buddhism not only makes contributions to theoretical frameworks while providing a practical means for pursuing equity and social justice, but it also manifests the epistemic and moral values for engaging with under-represented philosophical traditions. (shrink)

Many philosophers have suspected that the normative importance of morality depends on moral realism. In this paper, I defend a version of this suspicion: I argue that if teleological forms of moral realism, those that posit an objective purpose to human life, are true, then we gain a distinctive kind of reason to do what is morally required. I argue for this by showing that if these forms of realism are true, then doing what is morally required can provide a (...) life with meaning, which is a widespread human need. I also argue that rival meta-ethical views, like anti-realism or non-naturalist realism, cannot make morality meaning-conferring in this way. (shrink)

The safety condition is supposed to be a necessary condition on knowledge which helps to eliminate epistemic luck. It has been argued that the condition should be globalized to a set of propositions rather than the target proposition believed to account for why not all beliefs in necessary truths are safe. A remaining issue is which propositions are relevant when evaluating whether the target belief is safe or not. In the literature, solutions have been proposed to determine the relevance of (...) propositions. This paper examines a case of luckily true belief—thus a case of ignorance—and a case of knowledge. It argues that no solution in the literature offers a correct verdict in either case. Therefore, the strategy to globalize safety remains unsatisfactory. (shrink)

This paper calls for a paradigm shift in studying academic dependency, towards the paradigm of brokered dependency. Using Chinese academia as an example, I demonstrate how the neocolonial condition of academic dependency is always mediated through blockage-brokerage mechanisms. The two most salient blockage-brokerage mechanisms of dependency in the Chinese context are linguistic barrier and authoritarian malepistemization, and the effects of the latter consist of three layers: institutional, informational and incorporational. On top of their domestic impacts, those mechanisms jointly exacerbate spectacularized (...) postcoloniality in anglophone-hegemonic global academic publishing. The paradigm of brokered dependency not only represents a more nuanced approach to the study of academic dependency, but also underscores the fact that the dismantling of the neocolonial condition cannot be conceived and pursued in isolation from comprehending and confronting the authoritarian condition, especially when the latter pertains under the disguise of anticolonialism. (shrink)

According to the sensitivity account of knowledge, S knows that p only if S’s belief in p is sensitive in the sense that S would not believe that p if p were false. The sensitivity condition is usually relativized to belief-formation methods to avoid putative counterexamples. A remaining issue for the account is where methods should be mentioned in the sensitivity subjunctives. In this paper, I argue that if methods are mentioned in the antecedent, then the account is too strong (...) to accommodate inductive knowledge; if methods are mentioned in the consequent, then the account is too weak to eliminate some luckily true beliefs from the realm of knowledge. Therefore, the strategy to relativize the sensitivity condition is undermined by inductive knowledge and some luckily true beliefs. (shrink)

Many philosophers assume that, when making moral decisions under uncertainty, we should choose the option that has the greatest expected moral value, regardless of how risky it is. But their arguments for maximizing expected moral value do not support it over rival, risk-averse approaches. In this paper, I present a novel argument for maximizing expected value: when we think about larger series of decisions that each decision is a part of, all but the most risk-averse agents would prefer that we (...) consistently choose the option with the highest expected value. To the extent that what we choose on a given occasion should be guided by the entire series of choices we prefer, then on each occasion, we should choose the option with the highest expected moral value. (shrink)

This paper summarizes the evolution of analytic philosophy in Taiwan, examines its impact within and beyond academia, and discusses the future of the discipline. The roots of modern philosophy in Taiwan can be traced back to the Japanese colonial era, and analytic philosophy was introduced to the country in the late 1940s when many intellectuals in China moved to Taiwan. However, massive curbs were imposed on philosophy during Chiang Kai-shek’s dictatorship, and the discipline began to thrive again only after Taiwan’s (...) democratization in the late 1980s. Nonetheless, since its introduction in the colonial era, modern philosophy has made significant contributions in Taiwan, encouraging interdisciplinary engagements, advancing civic education, and promoting the spirit of democracy and political liberation. Philosophy has played a key role in Taiwan’s remarkable transformation from an island colonized for hundreds of years to a country that recognizes democracy, freedom, and human rights. The themes of anti-colonialism and anti-domination seen in the works of modern Taiwanese philosophers not only reflect the discipline’s political and historical underpinnings but also signal how Taiwanese philosophy can acquire a distinct identity, despite being influenced by many other philosophical traditions. While still at a nascent stage, Taiwanese philosophy has the potential to join forces with other philosophical traditions in advancing the vision of decolonizing philosophy. (shrink)

It has been argued that an advantage of the safety account over the sensitivity account is that the safety account preserves epistemic closure, while the sensitivity account implies epistemic closure failure. However, the argument fails to take the method-relativity of the modal conditions on knowledge, viz., sensitivity and safety, into account. In this paper, I argue that the sensitivity account and the safety account are on a par with respect to epistemic closure once the method-relativity of the modal conditions is (...) taken into account. Therefore, epistemic closure is no longer an arbiter in the debate. (shrink)

Although the idea that sexual violence is a “structural” problem is not new, the lack of specification as to what that entails blocks effective responses to it. This paper illustrates the concept of sexual violence as structural in the sense of containing a type of moral wrong called “structural wrong” and discusses its practical implications. First, I introduce a distinction between two types of moral wrongs—interactional wrongs and structural wrongs—and I argue that the moral problem of sexual violence includes both (...) types, each of which calls for a different set of moral responses. Second, drawing on Iris Marion Young’s social connection model of responsibility, I argue that recognizing the structural-wrong element of sexual violence does not reduce individual perpetrators’ responsibility for it. Instead, it implies that a broader group of agents are required to join collective actions to reform the social structure. I conclude by evaluating some preventive programs against sexual violence through the lens of structural wrongs and providing directions to advance them. (shrink)

Structural injustice exists when the influence of social structure exposes some groups of people to undeserved burdens while conferring unearned power to others. It has been argued that the responsibility for addressing structural injustices should be shared among those participating in the social structure and can only be discharged through collective action; however, the proper form of collective action does not happen easily. To address structural injustice effectively, we need to gain clarity on the practical challenges that are involved and (...) explore possible means of implementing shared responsibility. This chapter thus aims to contribute to the study of addressing structural injustice in the following two ways. First, building on previous studies, I categorize three forms of practical challenges that have been encountered by existing proposals for discharging shared responsibility for structural injustice. Second, I offer an alternative proposal, which I will refer to as the deliberative mini-public proposal, and argue that it has the potential to mobilize structural change and better overcome the identified practical challenges. (shrink)

This paper examines the role existence plays in measurement validity. I argue that existing popular theories of measurement and of validity follow a correspondence framework, which starts by assuming that an entity exists in the real world with certain properties that allow it to be measurable. Drawing on literature from the sociology of measurement, I show that the correspondence framework faces several theoretical and practical challenges. I suggested the validity-first framework of measurement, which starts with a practice-based validation process as (...) the basis for a measurement theory, and only posits objective existence when it is scientifically useful to do so. (shrink)

A scarcity mindset is considered to impact consumer behaviors. Our research aimed to examine the moderating effect of the scarcity mindset on the relationship between mental accounting and hedonic (vs. utilitarian) consumption. We conducted an online experimental design (mental accounting: windfall gains vs. hard-earning gains; consumption: hedonic products vs. utilitarian products) and verified our hypotheses in two distinct samples: a student sample and an adult sample. Our results showed that consumers who received windfall gains tended to use it for hedonic (...) consumption rather than utilitarian consumption. Intriguingly, such an effect was insignificant under a high level of a scarcity mindset but significant under a low level of the scarcity mindset. Moreover, consumers who received hard-earning gains tended to spend the money on utilitarian (vs. hedonic) consumption. However, we did not detect the impact of the scarcity mindset on such effects. Our research suggested an asymmetric effect of the scarcity mindset on hedonic (vs. utilitarian) consumption under two different mental accounts. It highlights the important role of the scarcity mindset in consumer behaviors, which leaves avenues for future research to understand marketing promotion strategies for distinct products. (shrink)

The desire-satisfaction theory of welfare says that what is basically good for a subject is the satisfaction of his desires. One challenge to this view is the existence of quirky desires, such as a desire to count blades of grass. It is hard to see why anyone would desire such things, and thus hard to believe that the satisfaction of such desires could be basically good for anyone. This suggests that only some desires are basically good when satisfied, and that (...) desire satisfactionists owe us an account of which desires these are, and why. In "Quirky Desires and Well-Being," Donald Bruckner proposes such an account: a desire is welfare-relevant (i.e., such that its satisfaction would be basically good for its subject) if and only if and because its subject could describe its object in a way that makes it comprehensible what about the object attracts him or appeals to him. We are inclined to view quirky desires as welfare-irrelevant because we assume that their objects cannot be described in such a way. But if there were a quirky desire whose object could be so described by the subject whose desire it is, then this desire would be relevant to that subject's welfare. I will argue that while Bruckner's view delivers plausible verdicts about the cases to which it is meant to apply, its account of what makes a desire welfare-relevant is unmotivated and implausible. Desire satisfactionists can retain what is plausible about his view while endorsing a better explanation of why welfare-relevant desires have that status if they accept the following account instead: a desire is welfare-relevant if and only if and because something about its object attracts, or appeals to, the subject who has the desire. (shrink)

According to the received account of guilt in the philosophical literature, one cannot feel guilt unless one takes oneself to have done something morally wrong. But ordinary people feel guilt in many cases in which they do not take themselves to have done anything morally wrong. In this paper, I focus on one kind of guilt without perceived wrongdoing, guilt about being merely causally responsible for a bad state-of-affairs. I go on to present a novel account of guilt that explains (...) guilt about mere causal responsibility, according to which guilt represents part of the self as bound up with what is bad. (shrink)

Locke is often thought to have introduced the topic of personal identity into philosophy when, in the second edition of theEssay,he distinguished the person from both the human being and the soul. Each of these entities differs from the others with respect to their identity conditions, and so they must be ontologically distinct. In particular, Locke claimed, a person cannot survive total memory loss, although a human being or a soul can.

A few purported counterexamples to the Adams thesis have cropped up in the literature in the last few decades. I propose a theory that accounts for them, in a way that makes the connections between indicative conditionals and counterfactuals clearer.

According to the safety account of knowledge, one knows that p only if one’s belief could not easily have been false. An important issue for the account is whether we should only examine the target belief when evaluating whether a belief is safe or not. In this paper, it is argued that, if we should only examine the target belief, then the account fails to account for ignorance of necessary truths. But, if we should also examine beliefs in other relevant (...) propositions, then the account fails to account for knowledge from falsehood. Therefore, the safety account of knowledge is undermined by knowledge from falsehood and ignorance of necessary truths. (shrink)

As robots slip into more domains of human life-from the operating room to the bedroom-they take on our morally important tasks and decisions, as well as create new risks from psychological to physical. This book answers the urgent call to study their ethical, legal, and policy impacts.

Evaluative studies of inductive inferences have been pursued extensively with mathematical rigor in many disciplines, such as statistics, econometrics, computer science, and formal epistemology. Attempts have been made in those disciplines to justify many different kinds of inductive inferences, to varying extents. But somehow those disciplines have said almost nothing to justify a most familiar kind of induction, an example of which is this: “We’ve seen this many ravens and they all are black, so all ravens are black.” This is (...) enumerative induction in itsfullstrength. For it does not settle with a weaker conclusion (such as “the ravens observed in the future will all be black”); nor does it proceed with any additional premise (such as the statistical IID assumption). The goal of this paper is to take some initial steps toward a justification for the full version of enumerative induction, against counterinduction, and against the skeptical policy. The idea is to explore various epistemic ideals, mathematically defined as different modes of convergence to the truth, and look for one that is weak enough to be achievable and strong enough to justify a norm that governs both the long run and the short run. So the proposal is learning-theoretic in essence, but a Bayesian version is developed as well. (shrink)

At its strongest, Hume's problem of induction denies the existence of any well justified assumptionless inductive inference rule. At the weakest, it challenges our ability to articulate and apply good inductive inference rules. This paper examines an analysis that is closer to the latter camp. It reviews one answer to this problem drawn from the VC theorem in statistical learning theory and argues for its inadequacy. In particular, I show that it cannot be computed, in general, whether we are in (...) a situation where the VC theorem can be applied for the purpose we want it to. (shrink)

This article reviews and develops an epistemological tradition in philosophy of science, called convergentism, which holds that inference methods should be assessed in terms of their abilities to converge to the truth. This tradition is compared with three competing ones: (1) explanationism, which holds that theory choice should be guided by a theory's overall balance of explanatory virtues, such as simplicity and fit with data; (2) instrumentalism, according to which scientific inference should be driven by the goal of obtaining useful (...) models, rather than true theories; (3) Bayesianism, which features a shift of focus from all-or-nothing beliefs to degrees of belief. (shrink)

The problem of theory choice and model selection is hard but still important when useful truths are underdetermined, perhaps not by all kinds of data but by the kinds of data we can have access to ethically or practicably—even if we have an infinity of such data. This article addresses a crucial instance of that problem: the problem of inferring causal structures from nonexperimental, nontemporal data without assuming the so-called causal Faithfulness condition or the like. A new account of epistemic (...) evaluation is developed to solve that problem and justify a standard practice of causal inference in data science. (shrink)

Solidarity is a widespread but under-explored phenomenon. In this paper, I give a philosophical account of solidarity, answering three salient questions: What motivates acts of solidarity? What unifies different acts into tokens of a single type of act, one of solidarity? And what values do acts of solidarity exhibit? The answer to all three, I argue, involves a certain way of relating to others: identifying with them on the basis of shared features, and identifying with the larger group that one (...) and the others both belong to. (shrink)

Forgiveness is mostly seen as a virtuous human response to wrongful conduct. But what happens when there is no acknowledgement of wrongdoing on the part of the wrongdoer? Does the forgiveness of the unrepentant still count as forgiveness? The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, for instance, is a figure who highly promotes the value of forgiveness. His homeland has been occupied by China since 1950, yet he maintains that he forgives and feels no enmity towards the Chinese government. The Chinese authorities, for (...) their part, have never admitted to wrongful invasion of the ‘roof of the world’, hence there has been no acceptance of the Dalai Lama’s forgiveness. Can the Dalai Lama’s forgiving under these circumstances, however, still be seen as forgiveness? In the present contribution, I shed light on the Buddhist view on forgiveness in the hope of inspiring ideas that might contribute to the pursuit of peace. Firstly, I explore certain matters surrounding the general idea of forgiveness and subsequently introduce Buddhist perspectives. Secondly, I respond to the key question of this paper by highlighting the Dalai Lama’s views as a means to elaborate on the Buddhist stance. I conclude by comparing Buddhist points of view with some contemporary philosophical perspectives and illustrating some distinguishing features of the Buddhist notion of forgiveness. From the above, I endeavour to establish that the Buddhist take on forgiveness is ultimately unconditional. (shrink)

According to many philosophers, "the meaning of life" refers to our cosmic purpose, the activity that we were created by God or a purposive universe to perform. If there is no God or teleology, there is no such thing as the meaning of life. But this need not be the last word on the matter. In this paper, I ask what the benefits provided by a cosmic purpose are, and go on to argue that thinking of our lives in a (...) particular way—in terms of a unified life narrative—can supply us with many of those benefits. We might lose little if there is no such thing as the meaning of life, since there is still something that can provide much of what is valuable about it. (shrink)

There has long been an impression that reliabilism implies externalism and that frequentist statistics, due to its reliabilist nature, is inherently externalist. I argue, however, that frequentist statistics can plausibly be understood as a form of internalist reliabilism -- internalist in the conventional sense, yet reliabilist in certain unconventional and intriguing ways. Crucially, in developing the thesis that reliabilism does not imply externalism, my aim is not to stretch the meaning of ‘reliabilism’ merely to sever the implication. Instead, it is (...) to gain a deeper understanding of frequentist statistics, which stands as one of the most sustained attempts by scientists to develop an epistemology for their own use. (shrink)

Depending on whether we are somewhat tolerant of nearby error-possibilities or not, the safety condition on knowledge is open to a strong reading and a weak reading. In this paper, it is argued that induction and conjunction introduction constitute two horns of a dilemma for the safety account of knowledge. If we opt for the strong reading, then the safety account fails to account for inductive knowledge. In contrast, if we opt for the weak reading, then the safety account fails (...) to accommodate knowledge obtained via the method of conjunction introduction. (shrink)

In this paper, I respond to criticisms of my book Being and Reason recently made by Yitzhak Melamed.

In the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA) and The Legend of Korra (LOK) —let’s call it the Bending World—some people (“benders”) are endowed with telekinetic superpowers to maneuver surrounding objects without physical interaction, by mentally steering (“bending”) one of the four classical “elements of nature” composing the objects: air, fire, water, and earth. Perhaps, in a world where the fundamental laws of nature are radically different from those of our world, the fundamental conditions and manifestations of politics should (...) be radically different too. That, of course, is not to deny that political bodies familiar to us are depicted in ATLA and LOK: tribes, monarchies, autonomous townships, city-states, loose federations, colonial empires, and democracies. Despite those familiar depictions, however, it’s worth contemplating how the existence of supernatural power might fundamentally alter the norms and rationales of politics—and how it might in turn help us better understand our own political reality. (shrink)

Driven by the use cases of PubChemRDF and SCAIView, we have developed a first community-based clinical trial ontology (CTO) by following the OBO Foundry principles. CTO uses the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) as the top level ontology and reuses many terms from existing ontologies. CTO has also defined many clinical trial-specific terms. The general CTO design pattern is based on the PICO framework together with two applications. First, the PubChemRDF use case demonstrates how a drug Gleevec is linked to multiple (...) clinical trials investigating Gleevec’s related chemical compounds. Second, the SCAIView text mining engine shows how the use of CTO terms in its search algorithm can identify publications referring to COVID-19-related clinical trials. Future opportunities and challenges are discussed. (shrink)

Emotion is an important issue in Wittgenstein’s philosophy of psychology, yet the literature on this topic is quite small. Wittgenstein’s philosophical investigation is a grammatical one, and he tries to dissolve philosophical problems by using many philosophical methods. In this paper I examine the grammatical rules for some emotion words and the methods he employs in dealing with the philosophical problem of emotion. To facilitate this examination, I first analyze Wittgenstein’s treatment of the problem of sudden understanding, where the grammar (...) and methods are easier to comprehend. I will then show that the grammar and methods used by Wittgenstein in the cases of sudden understanding and emotion are rather similar. (shrink)

In “Confucianism and Same-Sex Marriage,” published recently in Politics and Religion, Professor Tongdong Bai argues for a “moderate Confucian position on same-sex marriage,” one that supports its legalization and yet endeavors “to use public opinion and social and political policies to encourage heterosexual marriages, and to prevent same-sex marriages from becoming the majority form of marriages” (Bai 2021:146). Against the backdrop of downright homophobia prevalent among vocal Confucians in mainland China today, Bai claims that his pro-legalization rendition “show[s] a different (...) version of Confucianism that challenges the received perception of Confucianism that it is deeply conservative, a perception that often lies at the core of the rejection of its contemporary relevance, especially by the so-called ‘liberals’ in China and elsewhere” (Bai 2021:133). Furthermore, Bai claims that his moderate Confucianism is normatively preferrable to “the typical liberal or individualist position” of a marriage equality supporter, because the specter of polygamy – the conservative trope of invoking polygamy as a reductio ad absurdum against same-sex marriage – imposes “a serious challenge” to liberals but not to moderate Confucians (Bai 2021:146, 153). -/- Both of Bai’s claims falter upon scrutiny, however. Granted, it is applaudable that Bai tries to dissuade his more conservative Confucian colleagues from opposing the legalization of same-sex marriage. But as Section 1 of this Response will show, the alternative rendition of Confucianism he presents, along with the way he presents it, is premised on a highly contested conception of what shared Confucian values are; does injustice to Confucians who embrace marriage equality more unreservedly (i.e., without caveats à la Bai); fails to produce new arguments that “enrich the theoretical basis for same-sex marriage” (Bai 2021:133); and, ironically, reinforces – rather than “challenges” – the “received perception” of Confucianism as deeply conservative. Meanwhile, Section 2 will show that Bai’s comparison between liberalism and moderate Confucianism relies both upon an apparent unfamiliarity with the extensive and nuanced liberal discussions on polygamy, and upon fallacious methods of assessing comparative normative valence. -/- Finally, Section 3 will offer some concluding thoughts from the perspective of decolonial theory, examining the dynamic of spectacularized postcoloniality that propels the production and consumption of dubious theoretical projects like Bai’s. As it turns out, this case serves not only as a cautionary tale of how not to conduct comparative normative theorizing, but also as a cautionary tale of how not to let the spectacle of postcoloniality derail the pursuit of academic decolonization. (shrink)

This paper presents an original dialectical logic symbol system designed to transcend the limitations of traditional logical symbols in capturing subjectivity, qualitative aspects, and contradictions inherent in the human mind. By introducing new symbols, such as “ὄ” (being) and “⌀” (nothing), and arranging them based on principles of symmetry, the system’s operations capture complex dialectical relationships essential to both Hegelian philosophy and Buddhist thought. The operations of this system are primarily structured around the categories found in Hegel’s Logic, and it (...) allows users to incorporate their own subjectivity into the logical processes, opening up new possibilities in the philosophy of subjectivity. This symbol system also has the potential to help us explore fundamental questions of language and to precisely describe processes of consciousness transformation through symbols. This form of logic offers a new, irreducible tool for qualitative methods, and it will spark a new philosophical reflection on its relationship with traditional logic and mathematical symbols. (shrink)

Saturated free fatty acids-induced hepatocyte lipoapoptosis plays a pivotal role in non-alcoholic steatohepatitis. Theactivation of endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress isinvolved in hepatocyte lipoapoptosis induced by thesaturated free fatty acidpalmitate (PA). However, the underlying mechanismsof the role of ER stress in hepatocyte lipoapoptosis remain largely unclear.In this study, we showed that PA and tunicamycin (Tun), a classic ER stress inducer, resulted in differential activation of ERstress pathways. Our data revealed that PA inducedchronic and persistent ER stress response, but Tuninduced acute and (...) transientER stress response. Compared with Tun treatment, PAinduced much lower glucose-regulated protein 78 (GRP78), a centralregulator of ER homeostasis, accumulation. It is noteworthy that GRP78 over-expression not only inhibited PA-induced ERstress but also decreased PA-induced apoptosis. Taken together, our data suggest that the differentialactivation of ER stresssignal plays an important role in PA-induced hepatocyte lipoapoptosis. More detailed studies on the mechanisms of PA inrepressing the accumulation of GRP78 will contribute to the understanding of molecular mechanisms of lipoapoptosis. (shrink)