To better understand the purchasing decision-making process of humane pork, and examine the internal relationship between consumers’ preferences in rational consumption and irrational decoy scenarios, 405 consumers in Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province, and China were surveyed. Attributes were set for breeding time, breeding mode, diet cleanliness label, and price, and the first three among them reflect animal welfare conditions. The results show that in the rational consumption scenarios, consumers pay the most attention to the price attribute, followed by the attribute (...) of diet cleanliness label, breeding mode, and breeding time. In the irrational decoy scenarios, consumers are most likely to be affected by the attribute decoy of diet cleanliness label, which have the utility of avoiding food safety risks. In addition, the decoy effect triggered by the price attribute which owned the highest degree of rational preference among consumers is also substantially higher, but lower than that of the diet cleanliness label attribute. The decoy effect caused by the breeding time attribute with the lowest degree of consumers’ rational preference is also the lowest. Therefore, the government should strengthen the publicity of the humane treatment of pigs before slaughter, and improve the certification and management system of pigs’ diet cleanliness. Besides, marketers are suggested to emphasis the product attributes that customer’s value the most in their advertising. (shrink)

If the Past Hypothesis underlies the arrows of time, what is the status of the Past Hypothesis? In this paper, I examine the role of the Past Hypothesis in the Boltzmannian account and defend the view that the Past Hypothesis is a candidate fundamental law of nature. Such a view is known to be compatible with Humeanism about laws, but as I argue it is also supported by a minimal non-Humean "governing'' view. Some worries arise from the non-dynamical and time-dependent (...) character of the Past Hypothesis as a boundary condition, the intrinsic vagueness in its specification, and the nature of the initial probability distribution. I show that these worries do not have much force, and in any case they become less relevant in a new quantum framework for analyzing time's arrows---the Wentaculus. Hence, the view that the Past Hypothesis is a candidate fundamental law should be more widely accepted than it is now. (shrink)

A gourd is a sort of pumpkin whose shell is frequently used to keep food and water. Gourds are also used as kitchen utensils, musical instruments or decoration. This paper draws attention to the time framework in gourd image representations, which symbolize universality and immortality as well as the positive notions of regeneration and emptiness. By analyzing the artistic expressions in the form of gourd representations reflected in literature and art, this paper reveals the complex notion of time in Chinese (...) civilization. (shrink)

The Great Divide in metaphysical debates about laws of nature is between Humeans, who think that laws merely describe the distribution of matter, and non-Humeans, who think that laws govern it. The metaphysics can place demands on the proper formulations of physical theories. It is sometimes assumed that the governing view requires a fundamental / intrinsic direction of time: to govern, laws must be dynamical, producing later states of the world from earlier ones, in accord with the fundamental direction of (...) time in the universe. In this paper, we propose a minimal primitivism about laws of nature (MinP) according to which there is no such requirement. On our view, laws govern by constraining the physical possibilities. Our view captures the essence of the governing view without taking on extraneous commitments about the direction of time or dynamic production. Moreover, as a version of primitivism, our view requires no reduction / analysis of laws in terms of universals, powers, or dispositions. Our view accommodates several potential candidates for fundamental laws, including the principle of least action, the Past Hypothesis, the Einstein equation of general relativity, and even controversial examples found in the Wheeler-Feynman theory of electrodynamics and retrocausal theories of quantum mechanics. By understanding governing as constraining, non-Humeans who accept MinP have the same freedom to contemplate a wide variety of candidate fundamental laws as Humeans do. (shrink)

The wave function in quantum mechanics presents an interesting challenge to our understanding of the physical world. In this paper, I show that the wave function can be understood as four intrinsic relations on physical space. My account has three desirable features that the standard account lacks: it does not refer to any abstract mathematical objects, it is free from the usual arbitrary conventions, and it explains why the wave function has its gauge degrees of freedom, something that are usually (...) put into the theory by hand. Hence, this account has implications for debates in philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of science. First, by removing references to mathematical objects, it provides a framework for nominalizing quantum mechanics. Second, by excising superfluous structure such as overall phase, it reveals the intrinsic structure postulated by quantum mechanics. Moreover, it also removes a major obstacle to ``wave function realism.''. (shrink)

This paper explores iconicity in the metrical structure and the cultural value of Artistic Chinese calligraphy along the lines of Carles S.Peirce’s theory. It drawsattention to the fact that there is a simple categorical correspondence between the outer forms of Artistic Chinese Calligraphy and their subject-matter, presenting it a mixed form of representation, based on resemblances but also creating its own metaphysical meanings simultaneously.

This paper explores iconicity in the metrical structure and the cultural value of Artistic Chinese calligraphy along the lines of Carles S.Peirce’s theory. It drawsattention to the fact that there is a simple categorical correspondence between the outer forms of Artistic Chinese Calligraphy and their subject-matter, presenting it a mixed form of representation, based on resemblances but also creating its own metaphysical meanings simultaneously.

A strongly deterministic theory of physics is one that permits exactly one possible history of the universe. In the words of Penrose (1989), "it is not just a matter of the future being determined by the past; the entire history of the universe is fixed, according to some precise mathematical scheme, for all time.” Such an extraordinary feature may appear unattainable in a world like ours. In this paper, I show that it can be achieved in a simple way and (...) discuss its implications for metaphysics and philosophy of science, including natural properties, free will, explanation, and modality. First, I propose a precise definition of strong determinism. Next, I discuss its philosophical ramifications and a toy example. Finally, I provide a realistic example of a strongly deterministic (and simple) physical theory---the Everettian Wentaculus. A surprising consequence is that whether or not our world is strongly deterministic may be empirically underdetermined. (shrink)

Two of the most difficult problems in the foundations of physics are (1) what gives rise to the arrow of time and (2) what the ontology of quantum mechanics is. They are difficult because the fundamental dynamical laws of physics do not privilege an arrow of time, and the quantum-mechanical wave function describes a high-dimensional reality that is radically different from our ordinary experiences. -/- In this paper, I characterize and elaborate on the ``Wentaculus” theory, a new approach to time’s (...) arrow in a quantum universe that offers a unified solution to both problems. Central to the Wentaculus are (i) Density Matrix Realism, the idea that the quantum state of the universe is objective but can be impure, and (ii) the Initial Projection Hypothesis, a new law of nature that selects a unique initial quantum state. On the Wentaculus, the quantum state of the universe is sufficiently simple to be a law, and the arrow of time can be traced back to an exact boundary condition. It removes the intrinsic vagueness of the Past Hypothesis, eliminates the Statistical Postulate, provides a higher degree of theoretical unity, and contains a natural realization of “strong determinism." I end by responding to four recent objections. In a companion paper, I elaborate on Density Matrix Realism. (shrink)

Emotion regulation plays a vital role in individuals’ well-being and successful functioning. In this study, we attempted to develop a computerized adaptive testing to efficiently evaluate ER, namely the CAT-ER. The initial CAT-ER item bank comprised 154 items from six commonly used ER scales, which were completed by 887 participants recruited in China. We conducted unidimensionality testing, item response theory model comparison and selection, and IRT item analysis including local independence, item fit, differential item functioning, and item discrimination. Sixty-three items (...) with good psychometric properties were retained in the final CAT-ER. Then, two CAT simulation studies were implemented to assess the CAT-ER, which revealed that the CAT-ER developed in this study performed reasonably well, considering that it greatly lessened the test items and time without losing measurement accuracy. (shrink)

本书是一本关于陈冲体验人生感悟人生的书法集子。内容包括:悟道篇;明理篇;做人篇;处世篇等。.

This study examines the relation between firms' corporate philanthropic giving and their performance in three other social domains - employee relations, environmental issues, and product safety. Based on a sample of 384 U.S. companies and using data pooled from 1998 through 2000, we find that worse performers in the other social areas are both more likely to make charitable contributions and that the extent of their giving is larger than for better performers. Analyses of each separate area of social performance, (...) however, indicate that the relation between giving and negative social performance only holds for the environmental issues and product safety areas. We find no significant association between corporate philanthropy and employee relations concerns. In general, these findings suggest that corporate philanthropy may be more a tool of legitimization than a measure of corporate social responsibility. (shrink)

Human behavior depends on the ability to effectively introspect about our performance. For simple perceptual decisions, this introspective or metacognitive ability varies substantially across individuals and is correlated with the structure of focal areas in prefrontal cortex. This raises the possibility that the ability to introspect about different perceptual decisions might be mediated by a common cognitive process. To test this hypothesis, we examined whether inter-individual differences in metacognitive ability were correlated across two different perceptual tasks where individuals made judgments (...) about different and unrelated visual stimulus properties. We found that inter-individual differences were strongly correlated between the two tasks for metacognitive ability but not objective performance. Such stability of an individual’s metacognitive ability across different perceptual tasks indicates a general mechanism supporting metacognition independent of the specific task. (shrink)

本书分为三个部分。第一部分是自序,包括前言、序、代序、序言等;第二部分是他序,即为他人所撰之序;第三部分是自跋。.

Chen Guying’s _Laozi_ includes some of the most significant traditional commentary and influential contemporary scholarship. This book completely changed _Laozi_ studies in China, and its English translation gives scholars a unique inroad to Chinese perspectives on the _Laozi_.

本书收录了作者22篇文章。全书共分三部分,第一部分七篇,是基本的概念分析工作;第二部分八篇,是对文化、艺术等方面的思考;第三部分六篇,是对西方哲学的研究。.

As a response to the problems of language in Chinese modern and avant-garde art from 1988 to 1998, early video art reclaimed the independence of language from social reality and political influence and established it on the basis of the time phenomenon. By comparing the category of time in the Western philosophical tradition and in Chinese traditional thought, we find that the “immediacy” of Zen provides a hermeneutical approach to the nature of language as a reflective medium, closely related to (...) the silent experience. In line with the three basic principles of transcendental Zen, video media purifies body language into the immaterial language in three ways – through disembodied video movement, the de-objectified video image, and discontinuous video narrative. (shrink)

Why is education in the open society not open? Why is this option not even considered in the debate over which education is most suited for the open society? Many consider such an option irresponsible. What, then, are the minimal responsibilities of education? The present volume raises these questions and many more. It is a book we have been waiting for. It offers a rare combination of two seemingly opposite, unyielding attitudes: critical and friendly. Dr. Yehezkely applies a rigorous fallibilist-critical (...) approach to issues regarding contemporary education. His diagnosis is that the source of our trouble is the closed undemocratic character of education, which causes education to become, in effect, a fifth column in the open democratic society. Following Popper, he concedes that democracy is every bit as flawed and as problematic as its enemies accuse it of being, particularly in education; still it is our only hope, since open responsible debate of vital problems cannot do without it. Democracy is risky: yet its absence guarantees failure, especially in closed undemocratic education, even when inspired by the most progressive ideas extant, charged with tremendous good will, and executed with selfless love and devotion. Kibbutz education is a case in point. (shrink)

本书包括:科学与技术;技术哲学;技术;技术与社会;产业与产业技术;可持续发展等内容。.

Ben shu ba zhe xue shi yan jiu, bi jiao zhe xue yan jiu, wen hua wen ti yan jiu he wen xian shi liao yan jiu he wei yi ti, dui Wang Yangming zhe xue de nei rong jin xing le quan mian he shen ru de fen xi, bing dui qi zhe xue de nei rong jin xing le quan mian he shen ru de fen xi, bing dui qi zhe xue de bu tong fa zhan jie duan (...) jin xing le xi zhi de kao cha, li tu cheng xian chu Wang Yangming zhe xue de ji ben xing ge he zheng ti mian mao. (shrink)

The problem of race has typically been treated as a problem of individual or institutional prejudice. However, more attention needs to be paid to structural racism, which shows how racialized opportunity structures sustain racial injustice even when actors are not prejudiced. Because Catholic social thought treats social structures as mere aggregates of individual behavior, however, it is unable to explain how opportunity structures constrain human agency, how social positions condition the behaviors of people who occupy them, and how harms may (...) occur without intent. A critical realist approach to understanding social structure corrects the reductive tendencies of dominant perspectives on race, such as colorblindness and antiracism, and helps explain how nonracists can perpetuate racial injustice. An analysis of the case of residential segregation shows how the pursuit of individual goods in racialized opportunity structures like the housing market simultaneously hinders the common good. (shrink)

In his Knowledge and Belief (1962), Hintikka establishes his system of epistemic logic with the KK (Knowing that One Knows, in symbols, Kp→KKp) principle (KK for short). However, his system of epistemic logic and the KK principle are grounded upon his strong notion of knowledge, which requires that knowledge is infallible, that is, it makes further inquiry pointless, and becomes ‘discussion-stopper’; knowledge implies truth, to wit, cognitive agents will not be mistaken in their knowledge; cognitive agents will be ‘perfect logicians’, (...) i.e. they have infinitive capability of logical inference. Hintikka calls the argument for KK from the strong notion of knowledge as the ‘transcendental argument’ for KK. Obviously, the strong notion of knowledge is far away from our ordinary conception of knowledge; based on such a strong sense of knowledge, epistemic logic has met the problem of logical omnipotence, and is difficult to apply in our ordinary cognitive practice. Moreover, there is no close connection of the KK principle with internalism or externalism. (shrink)

Despite its apparent complexity, our world seems to be governed by simple laws of physics. This volume provides a philosophical introduction to such laws. I explain how they are connected to some of the central issues in philosophy, such as ontology, possibility, explanation, induction, counterfactuals, time, determinism, and fundamentality. I suggest that laws are fundamental facts that govern the world by constraining its physical possibilities. I examine three hallmarks of laws-simplicity, exactness, and objectivity-and discuss whether and how they may be (...) associated with laws of physics. (shrink)

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between cognitive abilities and age differences in information search and the moderating role of task self-relevance by measuring the decision-making process of participants in both high and low self-relevance decision tasks. The participants were 57 young adults and 65 older adults who viewed five alternatives ☓ five attributes decision matrices in which they needed to open the information cells they wanted to explore by clicking the mouse. Processing speed, verbal fluency, working memory and (...) vocabulary were measured as cognitive abilities. The dependent variables were search engagement (including time-related engagement and frequency-related engagement) and search pattern (calculated based on alternative-based or attribute-based search). Results from a structured equation model showed that age negatively predicted these cognitive abilities (processing speed, verbal fluency, working memory and vocabulary), and positively predicted information searching engagement. Processing speed mediated the impact of age on study time per cell under tasks with both high and low self-relevance; whereas verbal fluency mediates total searching time and searching time per check only when the task is highly self-related, but not in the task with low self-relevance. These results suggested that self-relevance could moderate the mediation effect of verbal fluency on the relationship between age and information searching time, which means that older adults whose verbal fluency was limited need relatively more time to search information to make an informed decision. However, this impact is only sufficient when the decision task is highly self-related and draws more engagement motivation into it. (shrink)

All concepts, methods, and techniques of the philosophy of language arise from its conceptions of language. Conceptions of language have determined the character of the philosophy of language and the direction of its philosophical research. Various schools and currents within the philosophy of language differ from each other, mainly in the way they understand the referential character of the sign—that is, the relationship between the meaning of a word and its referential object.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis asserts that people who organize their experience with the help of different languages can have different pictures of the world.

本书围绕“儒学与全球化”的中心议题,就全球化与文化多元发展的关系、全球化发展趋势下儒学的价值及面临的问题等议题,收入了64篇文章。.

本书主要内容有:先秦社会与伦理思想、德治与法治、伦理道德的理论基础、伦理精神和道德原则、道德规范等。.

Mystical religious experiences typically purport to engage with the transcendent and often claim to involve encounters with spiritual entities or a detachment from the material world. Daoism diverges from this paradigm. This paper examines Daoist mystical experiences of bodily transformations and explores their epistemological implications. Specifically, we defend the justificatory power of Daoist somatic experiences against the disanalogy objection. The disanalogy objection posits that mystical experiences, in contrast to sense perceptions, are not socially verifiable and thereby lack prima facie epistemic (...) value. We argue that some Daoist mystical bodily states, being essentially spatiotemporal, are exempt from this challenge. This leads to a broader understanding of mysticism and offers a partial resolution to the disanalogy objection. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions became the most widely read book about science in the twentieth century. His terms 'paradigm' and 'scientific revolution' entered everyday speech, but they remain controversial. In the second half of the twentieth century, the new field of cognitive science combined empirical psychology, computer science, and neuroscience. In this book, the theories of concepts developed by cognitive scientists are used to evaluate and extend Kuhn's most influential ideas. Based on case studies of the Copernican revolution, (...) the discovery of nuclear fission, and an elaboration of Kuhn's famous 'ducks and geese' example of concept learning, this volume, first published in 2006, offers accounts of the nature of normal and revolutionary science, the function of anomalies, and the nature of incommensurability. (shrink)

Banks play a unique role in society. They not only maximize profits but also consider the interests of stakeholders. We investigate whether banks consider firms’ pollution records in their lending decisions. The evidence shows that banks offer significantly higher loan spreads, higher total borrowing costs, shorter loan maturities, and greater collateral to firms with higher levels of chemical pollution. The costly effects are stronger for borrowers with greater risk and weaker corporate governance. Further, the results show that banks with higher (...) social responsibility account for their borrowers’ environmental performance and charge higher loan spreads to those with poor performance. These results support the idea that banks with higher social responsibility can promote the practice of business ethics in firms. (shrink)

Verbs in the passive voice have been described as linguistic features which can exert ideological effects because they typically omit the agent, or ‘doer’ of an action. These missing agents are said to be potentially ‘mystified’ to readers. But to what extent are these agents actually mystified to readers, and can we predict when mystification is likely to occur? A text-based analytical framework for inference prediction focusing on agency mystification was applied to two corpora of US newspaper editorials. Eighty-four percent (...) of passive verbs were predicted not to mystify agency for casual readers. To test this method of inference prediction, a reader response study was carried out in which readers were asked to identify agents that had been deleted from texts via the addition of agentless passives. By a standard of 50% accuracy, 74% of passives were found to be non-mystifying. These results suggest that agents missing from texts are likely to be inferred correctly by readers in a majority of cases and that mystification may be predictable from text analysis. (shrink)