Online research in philosophy

Both cognitive science and phenomenology accept the primacy of the organism-environment system and recognize that cognition should be understood in terms of an embodied agent situated in its environment. How embodiment is seen to shape our world, however, is fundamentally different in these two disciplines. Embodiment, as understood in cognitive science, reduces to a discussion of the consequences of having a body like ours interacting with our environment and the relationship is one of contingent causality. Embodiment, as understood phenomenologically, represents (...) the condition of intelligibility of certain terms in our experience and, as such, refers to one aspect of that background which presupposes our understanding of the world. The goals and approach to modeling an embodied agent in its environment are also fundamentally different dependent on which relationship is addressed. These differences are highlighted and are used to support our phenomenologically based approach to organism-environment interaction and its relationship to brain function. (shrink)

Current cognitive science models of perception and action assume that the objects that we move toward and perceive are represented as determinate in our experience of them. A proper phenomenology of perception and action, however, shows that we experience objects indeterminately when we are perceiving them or moving toward them. This indeterminacy, as it relates to simple movement and perception, is captured in the proposed phenomenologically based recurrent network models of brain function. These models provide a possible foundation from which (...) predicative structures may arise as an emergent phenomenon without the positing of a representing subject. These models go some way in addressing the dual constraints of phenomenological accuracy and neurophysiological plausibility that ought to guide all projects devoted to discovering the physical basis of human experience. (shrink)

This paper reports on an ongoing ARC Discovery Project that is conducting design research into learning in collaborative virtual worlds (CVW).The paper will describe three design components of the project: (a) pedagogical design, (b)technical and graphics design, and (c) learning research design. The perspectives of each design team will be discussed and how the three teams worked together to produce the CVW. The development of productive failure learning activities for the CVW will be discussed and there will be an interactive (...) demonstration of the project's CVW. (shrink)

Virtue ethics has often been regarded as complementary or laissez-faire ethics in solving business problems. This paper seeks conceptual and methodological improvements by developing a virtue character scale that will enable assessment of the link between organizational level virtue and organizational performance, financial or non-financial. Based upon three theoretical assumptions, multiple studies were conducted; the content analysis of 158 Fortune Global 500 firms ethical values and a survey of 2548 customers and employees. Six dimensions of organizational virtue (Integrity, Empathy, Warmth, (...) Courage, Conscientiousness and Zeal) are identified through confirmatory factor analysis, and validated against satisfaction measure. Strategic implications of virtue characters are discussed. (shrink)

SmartData is a research program to develop web-based intelligent agents that will perform two tasks: securely store an individual’s personal and/or proprietary data, and protect the privacy and security of the data by only disclosing it in accordance with instructions authorized by the data subject. The vision consists of a web-based SmartData agent that would serve as an individual’s proxy in cyberspace to protect their personal or proprietary data. The SmartData agent (which ‘houses’ the data and its permitted uses) would (...) be transmitted to, or stored in a database, not the personal data itself. In effect, there would be no personal or proprietary raw data out in the open—it would instead be housed within a SmartData agent, much like we humans carry information in our heads; extending the analogy, it would be the human-like clone that would be transmitted or stored, not the raw data. The binary string representative of a SmartData agent would be located in local or central databases. Organizations requiring access to any of the data resident within the agent would query it once it had been activated. In this paper, we provide a preliminary overview of the SmartData concept, and describe the associated research and development that must be conducted in order to actualize this vision. (shrink)

For most people, pronouns are just a matter for linguists. In linguistics, pronouns are classified according to the various linguistic functions they perform: for instance, deictic or anaphoric, definite or indefinite, personal or demonstrative, etc. But a closer look at the issue reveals that pronouns have a great deal to do with philosophy as well. This paper presents a brief sketch of some classical philosophical problems to show how dealing with pronouns has played a part in the formulation and advancement (...) of important philosophical issues including spatial orientation, dialectics, cognition, existential experiences, social relationships, the philosophy of rights, and so forth. For Elmar Holenstein on his Seventieth Birthday. (shrink)

Despite the increasingly multinational nature of the workplace, there have been few studies of the convergence and divergence in beliefs about ethics-based leadership across cultures. This study examines the meaning of ethical and unethical leadership held by managers in six societies with the goal of identifying areas of convergence and divergence across cultures. More specifically, qualitative research methods were used to identify the attributes and behaviors that managers from the People’s Republic of China (the PRC), Hong Kong, the Republic of (...) China (Taiwan), the United States (the U.S.), Ireland, and Germany attribute to ethical and unethical leaders. Across societies, six ethical leadership themes and six unethical leadership themes emerged from a thematic analysis of the open-ended responses. Dominant themes for ethical and unethical leadership for each society are identified and examined within the context of the core cultural values and practices of that society. Implications for theory, research, and management practice are discussed. (shrink)

Industrial pollution is of both national and international concern in the context where one country's emissions contribute to the problem of global warming. Existing studies have focused on government and regulations rather than on employees. The context of this study is in respect of 472 workers in seven Chinese energy companies in Shanxi province in China, one of the biggest coal mining regions and a region most responsible for environmental pollution. The key findings are two-fold: first, employees' values were positively (...) correlated with attitudes toward the environment, which also correlates with perceived corporate citizenship; second, the ownership type of the firm had a significant influence on corporate citizenship, employee values and their attitudes toward environment. Contrary to existing beliefs, Stateowned enterprises in China have much poorer ratings on all the three constructs compared to privately owned companies. The results highlight the role of the government and policy makers in shaping employees' attitudes toward the environment, and in turn the corporate citizenship of the Chinese energy industry. (shrink)

The phenomenological goal of grounding the content of conceptual thought in the background understanding of everyday, skillful coping was approached using evolutionary autonomous agent (EAA) methodology. The behavior of an EAA evolved to perform a specified motor task was identified with skillful coping. Changes in the dynamics of the EAA controller occurred when the EAA encountered an unexpected obstacle with loss of longer time scale components in its hierarchical temporal organization. These temporal (...) changes are consistent with the phenomenological changes which we experience with breakdown during equipment use with our adoption of a more immediate, determinate stance. Since this latter experience is the basis of conceptual thought, the EAA paradigm goes some way in providing a naturalized explanation for the grounding of the content of conceptual thought in everyday, skillful coping in a manner that is physiologically plausible and phenomenologically accurate. (shrink)

The so-called "Harvard Team Report," commissioned by the Hong Kong government (Hong Kong SAR Government, 1999), suggests significant institutional changes to the local health care system, including a partial shift of the financial burden directly to the citizens. I argue that 1) the Report's adoption of the contextuality principle as its research framework encounters practical problems in collecting data for a reliable analysis; 2) the existing health care system already satisfies the Report's first guiding principle; 3) the Report's employment of (...) the "working assumption" of the government (i.e., not increasing its financial support of health care) as its second guiding principle is questionable, for the share of the percentage of GDP as represented by the existing system (4.6% in 1996) is small enough; and 4) because of 3), the Report is unnecessarily constrained in its choices of considered options and seems to overlook some feasible ones. In conclusion, the methodological reasonableness of the Report is questioned. (shrink)

Children are surrounded by a lot of problems here and there, and they often show any tendency to answer them promptly. In this paper, I argue that helping children understand their problems properly before answering them is one of the good ways of meta-thinking teaching in philosophy for children, and then I suggest how teachers help them do so.

While interest in doing business continues to rise steadily, information concerning the evolving social ethics of Chinese managers is sparse. This study reports the findings obtained from intensive interviews with thirty-nine Chinese advertising executives. In general, there appears to be developing a cautious optimism about the role of advertising in the Chinese economy. Findings are compared with earlier studies of American and Hong Kong managers and it is suggested that further research and observation is needed to track the development of (...) business ethics in this largest of the world's developing nations. (shrink)

T'ang Chün-i's early work Ai-ching chih fu-yin (Gospel of love) has been much neglected by T'ang scholars. This essay argues that this text is not a caprice, and that it marks an important stage in T'ang's life and studies. Furthermore, in the history of Chinese philosophy, it is probably the first book ever written on the philosophy of love.

Huang, Chun-chieh, Konfuzianismus: Kontinuität und Entwicklung: Studien zur chinesischen Geistesgeschichte (Confucianism: Continuity and Development: Studies in Chinese Intellectual History), Edited and translated by Stephan Schmidt Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11712-010-9191-0 Authors Heiner Roetz, Faculty of East Asian Studies, Ruhr University, 44780 Bochum, Germany Journal Dao Online ISSN 1569-7274 Print ISSN 1540-3009 Journal Volume Volume 9 Journal Issue Volume 9, Number 4.

Kwan, Tze-wan 關子尹, Articulation-cum-Silence: In Search of a Philosophy of Orientation 語默無常: 尋找定向中的哲學反思 Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11712-010-9180-3 Authors King-pong Chiu 趙敬邦, Department of Religions and Theology, University of Manchester, Opal Hall G.B13, Cavendish Street, Manchest, M15 6BB UK Journal Dao Online ISSN 1569-7274 Print ISSN 1540-3009 Journal Volume Volume 9 Journal Issue Volume 9, Number 3.

Borrett, Kelly, and Kwan follow the lead of Merleau-Ponty and develop a theory of neural-network modeling that emerges out of what they find wrong with current approaches to thought and action. Specifically, they take issue with "cognitivism" and its tendency to model cognitive agents as controlling, representational systems. While attempting to make the point that pre-predicative experience/action/place (i.e. grasping) involves neither representation nor control, the authors imply that control-theoretic concepts and representationalism necessarily go hand-in-hand. The purpose of the present (...) paper is to demonstrate that this is not the case. Rather, it will be argued that such necessity is only assumed because the authors attempt to apply the control theory of servo-mechanisms to the behavior of organisms. By adopting this engineering control-theoretic perspective, the authors are led, as are most of the cognitivists with whom they disagree, to overlook critical aspects of how it is that biological systems do what they do. It is the ignoring of these critical aspects of biological control, due to the acceptance of an engineering approach to control, that makes it appear as though control theory and representationalism necessarily go hand-in-hand. (shrink)

to read this you need Chinese characters.

Drawing upon the work of Merleau-Ponty, Borrett et al. (2000) have attempted to model the primordial, "empty heads turned towards the world." Putting the issue of embodiment aside for another day, they propose two separate models, one of movement and the other of perception. While I am sympathetic to the point of their project, I argue in this commentary that their models are insufficiently vague. The following analytic abstractions to which they commit themselves seem seriously at odds with the nature (...) of their task: action versus perception; vision versus the other senses; spatial properties versus, for example, colour and meaning; and 'a controller' versus the body and its environment. (shrink)

The assumption that a system described as ‘Confucianism’ formulated by Dong Zhongshu became accepted as the norm during the Western Han dynasty (202 BCE – 9 CE) is challenged and his supposed authorship of the Chunqiu fanlu examined.

This article examines whether and to what extent Confucianism as a resilient Chinese cultural tradition can be used as a sound basis of business practice and management model for Chinese corporations in the twenty-first century. Using the core elements of Confucianism, the article constructs a notion of a Confucian Firm with its concepts of the moral person ( Junzi ), core human morality ( ren, yi, li ) and relationships ( guanxi ), as well as benign social structure (harmony), articulated (...) in corporate and organizational terms. The basic character of the Confucian Firm is described, and its philosophical and cultural foundation is critically assessed with respect to its moral legitimacy and relevant to today’s China. China’s recent Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) development is a high profile response to global business ethics concerns. Efforts have been made to emulate and develop good business practice fashioned in CSR norms and visions. The so-called “human-based” and “virtue-based” business practices rooted in local cultural heritage have been touted as a Chinese response to this problem. This investigation is particularly relevant in the context of the increasingly prominence of the Chinese corporations (China Inc.) in the wake of the rise of China as a global power. How relevant is Confucianism to the building of a modern Chinese corporation that is willing and able to practice reasonable norms of business ethics? The findings of this discussion, which include the organizational implications of the Confucian familial collectivism, have implications for other Chinese communities (Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore) where Confucian tradition is endorsed and practiced. (shrink)

The challenge of developing a business ethics in China in response to today’s increasing demands of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is examined within the context of recent business scandals, food scare, labor issues, and environmental degradations the country is now experiencing. Two surveys on CSR are reported. This paper reports the recent CSR development in China and outlines the profile of a prospective business ethics for China. The formal constraints and substantive components of this business ethics are proposed against the (...) background of China’s cultural and ideological heritage. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the conception of gender as illustrated in the Analects and the Mencius is basically a functional one that assigns women a domestic role. I show how this conception might imply the exclusion of women from the moral ideal of chun-tzu, which would result in the further subordination of women as wives to men as husbands in the context of the Confucian role system. On the other hand, I show how the Confucian role system can (...) have a positive influence on the status of women through its elements of reciprocity and respect. Finally, I argue that the conception itself is not justified. (shrink)

Confucian ethics as applied to the study of business ethics often relate to the micro consideration of personal ethics and the character of a virtuous person. Actually, Confucius and his school have much to say about the morals of the public administration and the market institutions in a more macro level. While Weber emphasizes the role of culture on the development of the economy, and Marx the determining influence of the material base on ideology, we see an interaction between culture (...) – specifically Confucian business ethics – and the economy. In this paper, we are going to study this interaction in several crucial stages of development of Confucianism. The paper concludes by postulating the relevance of Confucian business ethics to the global knowledge economy. (shrink)

I show how the Taoist philosophy, as examplified by both Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, is capable of providing a metaphysical foundation for environmental ethics. The Taoist concept of nature, the notions of ontological equality and axiological equality of beings, together with the doctrine of Wu Wei can fulfil, at least in a preliminary way, our purpose. The notion of a minimally coherent ethics is introduced and is shown to be pertinent to the construction of an ethics which bears a (...) close relationship to science. (shrink)

This article introduces and summarizes selected papers from the first World Business Ethics Forum held in Hong Kong and Macau in November 2006, co-hosted by the Hong Kong Baptist University and by the University of Macau. Business Ethics in the East remain distinct from those in the West, but the distinctions are becoming less pronounced and the ethical traffic flows both ways.

This paper analyses the ethical performance of foreign-investment enterprises operating in China in comparison to that of the indigenous state-owned enterprises, collectives and private enterprises. It uses both the deontological approach and the utilitarian approach in conceptualization, and applies quantitative and econometric techniques to ethical evaluations of empirical evidences. It shows that according to various ethical performance indicators, foreign-investment enterprises have fared well in comparison with local firms. This paper also tries to unravel the effect of a difference in business (...) culture and competitive market forces on ethical performance by comparing the behavior of foreign-investment enterprises with that of the indigenous state-owned enterprises and collectives on the one hand, and with that of the indigenous private enterprises on the other. (shrink)

What is central to the progression of a sequence is the idea of succession, which is fundamentally a temporal notion. In Kant's ontology numbers are not objects but rules (schemata) for representing the magnitude of a quantum. The magnitude of a discrete quantum 11...11 is determined by a counting procedure, an operation which can be understood as a mapping from the ordinals to the cardinals. All empirical models for numbers isomorphic to 11...11 must conform to the transcendental determination of time-order. (...) Kant's transcendental model for number entails a procedural semantics in which the semantic value of the number-concept is defined in terms of temporal procedures. A number is constructible if and only if it can be schematized in a procedural form. This representability condition explains how an arbitrarily large number is representable and why Kant thinks that arithmetical statements are synthetic and not analytic. (shrink)

In a paper that I presented in Berlin in 2005,1 I argued that Wilhelm von Humboldt, widely acclaimed as the father of general linguistics, can also be regarded as a German idealist. This is especially true if we, following in the footsteps of Heidegger2 and Mahnke,3 further broaden the concept of German idealism to cover the entire trend of the German humanistic tradition for which the formation and development of the human intellect remained a lasting concern. But as a German (...) idealist, Humboldt’s basic philosophical position is much closer to that of Kant than to that of his immediate contemporary and professional colleague, Hegel. My key observation is that, while subscribing to the basic tenets of idealism or .. (shrink)

The self-interest paradigm predicts that unethical behavior occurs when such behavior benefits the actor. A recent model of lying behavior, however, predicts that lying behavior results from an individual''s inability to meet conflicting role demands. The need to reconcile the self-interest and role conflict theories prompted the present study, which orthogonally manipulated the benefit from lying and the conflicting role demands. A model integrating the two theories predicts the results, which showed that both elements — self benefit (...) and role conflict — influenced lying, separately and interactively. Additionally, the relative strength of the roles in conflict affected their level of influence. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly popular in advanced economies in the West. In contrast, CSR awareness in Asia is rather low, both on the corporate and state level. However, recent events have shown that the CSR is receiving more attention by corporations in Asia. Recent development in CSR in Taiwan is one example of such a trend. A 2005 survey on the 700 publicly listed companies in Taiwan on␣CSR has highlighted the current CSR situation. Concurrently, the numbers of (...) corporate scandals and corruption have dramatically increased over the past 6 years. Corporate CSR activities co-existing with pervasive corporate scandals create a phenomenon of contradictions. This article aims to report via the survey findings the current development of business ethics in corporate Taiwan; and to interpret the findings in context of Taiwan’s business ethos, especially its Confucian familism and crony capitalism. (shrink)

In this article, we analyzed the effect of various factors on moral judgment and ethical attitudes of working persons. It was found that the effect of various socio-demographic factors on ethical attitudes varied between the two different categories of ethical issues under study, issues which involve explicit violation of laws vis-à-vis issues which involved social concerns. Our results did not support the implication of Callahan’s hypothesis that males are more sensitive to rule-based ethical issues while women are to issues involving (...) social concerns; it was found that females have a lower acceptability of unethical behaviors related to both categories of issues in Hong Kong, whereas gender effect was not statistically significant in Mainland China. University education also had no significant effect on ethical attitudes. Religion played an important role in affecting ethical attitudes, however, its effect varied with different types of religions; Christianity was found to be most favorable to higher ethical standards, but people of traditional Chinese religion had a higher acceptability of unethical behaviors involving social concerns compared to people with no religion. Our finding also indicated that employees in state-owned enterprises, private employees, employees in foreign-investment firms, and employers in Mainland China all had a higher acceptability of unethical law-breaking behaviors compared to workers in collectives, throwing doubt on the validity of convergence theory in Mainland China. (shrink)

Since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008, the exchange rate between China and USA has drawn a lot of attention. Because of the balance of payments surplus, China has accumulated a large amount of foreign exchange reserves, and there is much pressure on the Renminbi (RMB) to appreciate. The appreciation of RMB has raised a series of intertwining economic and ethical concerns in China. This paper is an inter-disciplinary study to illustrate the inter-relationship between economics and ethics. (...) We analyze the major economic factors affecting the trend of exchange rate of RMB and the effects of its appreciation. We then discuss the ethical implications of the appreciation and conclude with some policy suggestions to address the economic and the ethical concerns. (shrink)

The phenomenon of academic dishonesty among college students is prevalent, but its damage cannot be underestimated because the students' decisions to cheat were related to decisions to engage in similar unethical behavior in the workplace after graduation. To examine the influential factors of the cheating intention among part-time students with several years of work experience, we included an additional variable?unethical beliefs related to the workplace (professional unethical beliefs) into the theory of planned behavior. First-year business students on the job were (...) investigated from a university in northern Taiwan, resulting in a valid sample of 215 students. Our findings indicate that perceived behavioral control toward cheating and professional unethical beliefs have a greater impact on the intention to cheat. In addition, the subjective norm and attitudes also affect the students' cheating intention. Implications for managers and researchers are discussed, and suggestions for future research are offered. (shrink)

The high turnover of nurses has become a global problem. Several studies have proposed that nurses' perceptions of the ethical climate of their organization are related to higher job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and thus lead to lower turnover. However, there is limited empirical evidence supporting a relationship between different types of ethical climate within organizations and facets of job satisfaction. Furthermore, no published studies have investigated the impact of different types of ethical climate on the three components of organizational (...) commitment. This study attempts to explore the different types of ethical climate that exist in hospitals, and the degree of job satisfaction and organizational commitment of nurses in Taiwan. It uses path analysis to understand which types of ethical climate influence different facets of job satisfaction. The study also examines the impact of different types of ethical climate and facets of job satisfaction on the three components of organizational commitment. Questionnaires were distributed to 352 nurses. The relationships among variables were assessed by factor analysis, reliability, descriptive statistics, correlations, and regression. The important conclusion is that hospitals can increase job satisfaction and organizational commitment by influencing an organization's ethical climate. Hospital administrators can foster within organizations the climate types of caring, independent, and rules climate that increase satisfaction, while preventing organizations from developing the type of instrumental climate that decreases it. (shrink)

Extending the work of Davidson and Worrell (1988), we further investigate the stock market''s reaction to announced corporate illegalities. We examine a sample of 535 announcements of corporate crime and obtain an overall insignificant stock market reaction. However, when the sample is divided by type of crime, we find that the stock market reacts significantly to announcements of bribery, tax evasion, and violations of government contracts. We also find a significantly negative reaction to announcements of corporate crime when the (...) company had been previously accused of other illegal activity. For companies accused of crime in the 1970s, 51% of them were accused again in the 1980s. (shrink)

Tang Junyi (T’ang Chun-i 唐君毅) was among the founders of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the first chair of the Department of Philosophy at CUHK, an influential scholar of Chinese philosophy, and one of the leaders of the New Confucian movement. In this article, I take issue with the line of interpretation he develops in a provocative 1955 study of Mencius and Mozi. Though I don’t make the connections explicit, Tang’s views and my critique of them are relevant to (...) issues in contemporary discussions of action and motivation, particularly the debate between motivational Humeanism and anti-Humeanism. (shrink)

Since China opened herself up to the world in the late 70s, privately-owned companies of different trades began to emerge along side with the state-owned enterprises. Among these successful private enterprises, a few have distinguished themselves from the rest by their distinct corporate cultures. Despite an increasing number of research on private enterprises in China, little has been done to unveil the ethical aspects of their corporate cultures. This paper attempts to fill the gap. This paper focuses on one company (...) named the Weizhi Group in Xian. The Weizhi culture is indeed the basis of a company which I refer to as "virtuous corporation". An empirical survey on the values and perceptions of the employees of Weizhi Group was conducted to probe the values and perceptions of business ethics of its employees. (shrink)

The ideal of human life as a life of sagehood is the core of Confucian thought. In neo?Confucianism the stress is on the self?perfectibility of man, and the central concern of neo?Confucianist thinkers has accordingly been with the question of how man can cultivate his own potentiality to be a sage. The different answers they give are in the form of teachings about the ?way?, these teachings incorporating different philosophical views of mind, human nature, and the universe. The author outlines (...) the views of successive neo?Confucianists and their versions of the ?way?, seeing their teachings as developments towards the doctrine presented by Wang Yang?ming (b. 1472), whose thought can be seen in particular as a synthesis of the views of Chu Tzu and Lu Shiang?shan. (shrink)

Borrett, Kelly and Kwan claim to provide neural-network models of important aspects of subjective human experience. To sidestep the long-standing and assumedly insurmountable problems with providing models of inner experience, they turn to a body-centered interpretation of experience, drawn from the work of Merleau-Ponty. This body-centered interpretation makes experience more tractable by linking it closely with bodily movement. However, when it comes to modeling, Borrett et al. ignore this body-centered interpretation and revert back to the traditional view of inner (...) experience as existing apart from the body. The result is uninteresting on two counts. The models that they present cannot be taken seriously as models of real inner experience. Additionally, these models do not apply to or extend the idea of a different, body-centered interpretation of experience either. (shrink)

This paper investigates the relationship between ethics and income among individuals of different religions in the HKSAR of China. The presence of both traditional Chinese religion and Christianity from the West makes our study particularly interesting. The content of ethical beliefs varies with religion and thus the effect of ethics on income may also vary across religion. Furthermore, a reverse causal relationship may run from income to ethics. Since culture and taste affect the consumption behavior of a person, depending on (...) the religion of the person, a person with a higher income may or may not like to ‘acquire’ more ethics. Our empirical results find that there is indeed a simultaneous relationship between income and being ethical so that a single equation estimation of income on ethics and vice versa generates biased estimates. Using a two-stage instrumental variable estimation, our study finds that being ethical contributes to higher income for Christians and the non-religious group, but lowers it for people of traditional Chinese religion. On the other hand, an increase in income increases the likelihood of a person’s being ethical for both Christians and the people of traditional Chinese religion, but reduces it for the non-religious group. (shrink)

The main idea of S-curve diagram is to assign different angle values (from 0° to 180°) to different nucleotide acid residues or to different protein amino acids, and then according to cos α j and sin α j , the values are accumulated to construct an S-curve diagram, which is in strict one-to-one correspondence with the biological sequence. In addition, the S-curve diagram proves to be without the degeneracy phenomenon, so that (...) both the degeneracy problem represented by diagrams and the problem of visualization for biological sequence data are solved. Meanwhile, a new approach to differentiate the similarity of biological sequences—the degree of similarity—is put forward on the basis of the S-curve diagram. To put it in detail, the least square approach is first adopted to obtain a straight line equation according to the S-curve diagram, then according to the distance formula of the point to the straight line, the average ratio of square sum for the distance between the S-curve and the straight line is calculated, and finally, the similarity of the biological sequences is presented by the new standard—the degree of similarity. As is shown by the experimental results, the S-curve diagram can better represent biological sequences (such as protein’s) within Cartesian coordinate system, and the mutation point of biological sequence. Thus, it turns out that the new standard—the degree of similarity is of obviously great advantage. (shrink)

Government supported digitalization initiatives with high expectations have motivated scholars from differing cultures to work together. Often, however, such collaboration results in critical and annoying ethical conflicts. Three examples are depicted. A key introduction to Chinese ethics is followed by discussion of major differences in ethical concepts between Western society and Chinese society. Chinese, instead of focusing on actions (task or matter) focus on relationships. We recommend rethinking Chinese ethics concepts as part of a discussion of communication ethics in general. (...) In addressing virtual reality and communication ethics, we believe some vital conclusions might be reached in the understanding of ethical problems raised by information technology. (shrink)

Borrett, Kelly and Kwan [(2000) Phenomenology, dynamical neural networks and brain function, Philosophical Psychology, 13, 000-000] claim that unbiased, self-evident, direct description is possible, and may supply the data that brain theories account for. Merleau-Ponty's [(1962) Phenomenology of perception, London: Routledge] description of Schneider's apraxia is offered as a case in point. According to the authors, Schneider's apraxia justifies brain components (...) of predicative and pre-predicative experience. The description derives from a bias, however, that parallels modularity's morphological reduction. The presence of biasing presuppositions contradicts the goal of direct description. Moreover, the authors' brain account is not necessary to explain Schneider's apraxia, and morphological reduction is not sufficient to explain emergent phenomena of motor control. (shrink)

An exploration of Chinese during a time of monumental change, The period after the fall of the Han dynasty.

It has limitations to understand “fidelity” of the Analects of Confucius in the thinking pattern of subject-object. The interpretation patterns of self-other and private-public ethics can’t also completely explain the philosophical meaning of “fidelity” in the Analects of Confucius. “Fidelity”, in Confucian theory and practice, has important place, therefore, the paper will try to explore the philosophical meaning of “fidelity” of Confucius from the following suppositions in order to find a new way of philosophical explanation. The suppositions are as the (...) following: First of all, “fidelity” can’t be understood, in Chinese, as a verb which means “faithful to sb”. It is a noun or a gerund. Basing on the distinction of “material world” and “meaning world”, the paper holds that the connotation of “fidelity” has its inner regulation and its meaning is, first of all, regulated not by the material world but by the other contextual logic categories, in this way, it has the characteristic of independence and transcendence. The core meaning of “fidelity” is “center”, the paper calls it as “the centric wisdom” from the epistemological perspective. Wesuppose that Confucius has presupposed that every life has enough wisdom to know what the affirmative value is. For Confucius, his philosophical thinking on “fidelity” has both traditional heritage and personal innovation. We should pay attention to the latter. Basing on the understanding that takes “fidelity ”as “the centric wisdom”, the paper holds that one of the meanings of “fidelity”, as an ethical concept, in the Analects of Confucius, is personal ethics which includes thereorganization of individual values. One part of the individual value is to recognize and practice the value which is independent of social value. Another part of the value is to practice and exhibit the wisdom of “fidelity” in personal speech and behavior including the spiritual activities. The “fidelity” of the Analects of Confucius, as an ethical concept, has another meaning, i.e. the inter-personal relationship which shows the affirmative value under the guidance of wisdom. The inter-personal relationship under the guidance of wisdom can exhibit the affirmative value and can be called as the “ethical” relation. The main requirements are as the following: we have to bring the reflective factor of “wisdom” into inter-personal relation and, under the guidance of wisdom, try to take our social responsibilities required by the social role, or to abide by the public or the professional ethics. We have to maintain positive value direction in the verticalinter-personal relation which means supervision so as to realize the political affirmation. In the horizontal interpersonal relationship, basing on the individual wisdom, we have to keep the keen feeling of morality so as to realize our affirmative values. The understanding of these meanings concerning the word of “fidelity” is naturally resulted from our concern for the inner logic relation in the Analects of Confucius and for the form of idea-expressing of Confucius. (shrink)

Ch'en Ch'un: An Introduction . CHEN CH'UN THE MAN Ch'en Ch'un (-), honored as Master of Pei-hsi (the river in the northern part of the prefecture) was one ...