Unlike adjunct wh’s-in-situ, argument wh’s-in-situ do not seem to be subject to island constraints in Chinese and other East Asian languages. This difference in island sensitivity between argument and adjunct wh’s-in-situ is known as argument–adjunct asymmetry in the theoretical literature. Recently, this long-established asymmetry is challenged by a formal judgment study. It was claimed in the study that this asymmetry is an illusion and both argument and adjunct wh’s-in-situ are subject to island constraints. The present study demonstrates that such a (...) claim is not convincing because it is based on problematic experimental design. We designed two experiments to test the island effects on Chinese wh’s-in-situ. The results reaffirm that the argument–adjunct asymmetry in Chinese wh’s-in-situ is indeed present, contrary to the findings of previous formal judgment study, and they also corroborate our assumption that when object wh’s-in-situ like shénme ‘what’ are located inside a relative clause, they are subject to a pragmatic constraint, suggesting that the VP in the relative clause tends to describe the prominent/salient feature of the relativized nominal head. (shrink)

As global warming becomes increasingly prominent, countries worldwide advocate for a low-carbon economy to cope with the pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Chinese government has proposed a “dual carbon” goal of peaking carbon emissions by 2030 and becoming carbon neutral by 2060. The disclosure of carbon information by Chinese enterprises has attracted widespread attention from society. This study selects the constituents of the Social Responsibility Index of China Shanghai Stock Exchange from 2016 to 2020 as samples to empirically (...) analyze the relationship between the level of carbon information disclosure and corporate value, and the moderating effect of greenwashing behavior. Results indicated that the quality of carbon disclosure is positively correlated with the enterprise value. Greenwashing behavior promotes the positive impact of carbon disclosure quality on enterprise value in the short run, but this promoting effect fades in the long run. We further found that the carbon information disclosure of non-heavy-pollution enterprises has a more obvious positive impact on enterprise value than that of heavily polluting enterprises. Additionally, the positive impact of carbon information disclosure on enterprise value is more visible among enterprises in a good legal environment than those in a poor legal environment. This study enriches the relevant literature on carbon information disclosure and enterprise “greenwashing” behavior and has practical significance for promoting China’s low-carbon development in the context of ecological civilization and improving the enthusiasm for the quality of enterprise carbon information disclosure. (shrink)

Under the wave of globalization, the ties between countries are getting closer and closer. Based on the differences in the languages of different countries, the importance of English as a universal language is becoming more and more prominent. In the past, English teaching was mainly taught by teachers and students. This mode of English learning is more of theoretical teaching, which has little effect on improving English ability. In the era of intelligence, with the upgrading of technology and the renewal (...) of ideas, interactive English teaching is more accepted by people and becomes a new solution for English teaching. Studying English teaching from the perspective of social cognition, this paper proposes to realize human-computer interaction with the help of advanced science and technology, create an interactive teaching environment, and realize interactive learning in an English environment. This paper designed a control experiment of the experimental group and the control group to verify the impact of human-computer interaction teaching on students’ English performance and investigated students’ performance and teachers’ feelings and their related opinions on human-computer interaction learning. The experimental results of this paper show that human-computer interactive English teaching can help to enhance students’ interest in English learning and improve English expression significantly. (shrink)

This paper discusses Eastern European Marxists’ consideration of science and technology concerning aesthetic dimensions. Different from most of Western Marxists who take negative or dystopian attitudes towards modern science and technology from the aesthetic utopian perspective, those Marxists who come from countries such as Hungary, Yugoslav, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Bulgaria or Romania, which once belonged to the socialist camp, under the influence of Soviet and Western culture, pay attention to the complicated tension between science-technology and aesthetics. In this paper, (...) I probe into these notions by reading György Lukács, Budapest School, Romanian theorists and the Yugoslav Praxis Group, which are divided into four key points: basic nature of science in contrast with arts; modern tension of culture between science and arts; the possibility of scientific aesthetics; and development of arts in the world of technology. There is a dialectical understanding of science and technology here which contributes to contemporary recognition of science and technology from the point of view of neo-humanism, not only in aesthetics but also human existence. This is relevant to theoretical reflection on the present and future Chinese socialist aesthetics. (shrink)

In this paper, it is argued that there are (at least) two different kinds of ‘epistemic normativity’ in epistemology, which can be scrutinized and revealed by some comparison with some naturalistic studies of ethics. The first kind of epistemic normativity can be naturalized, but the other not. The doctrines of Quine’s naturalized epistemology is firstly introduced; then Kim’s critique of Quine’s proposal is examined. It is argued that Quine’s naturalized epistemology is able to save some room for the concept of (...) epistemic normativity and therefore his doctrine can be protected against Kim’s critique. But, it is the first kind of epistemic normativity that can be naturalized in epistemology. With the assistance of Goldman’s fake barn case, it is shown that the concept of epistemic normativity that is involved in the concept of knowing, which cannot be fully naturalized. The Gettier problem indicates that Quine only gets partially right idea concerning whether epistemology can (and should) be natualized. (shrink)

Adrian Heathcote has proposed a truth-making account of knowledge that combines traditional conditions of justified true belief with the truth-making condition, which would jointly provide us with the sufficient condition of knowledge, and this truth-maker account of knowledge in turn explains why a gettiered justified true belief fails to be regarded as a genuine instance of knowledge. In this paper, by the comparison of two different casual models that are illustrated by the thermometer and the clock respectively, however, it will (...) be argued that Heathcote’s truth-making account of knowledge fails to cope with the Gettier case of the stopped clock and therefore is called for some further remedy. (shrink)

This paper offers a short history of Agnes Heller’s relationship to China through three aspects: imaginative aesthetic enjoyment, real encounters with Chinese cultural spectacles and actual audiences, and the construction of an academic community through creative dialogue. These discussions suggest that Heller felt at home in China. Although Heller has passed away, a home for us remains in her work through remembering her and engaging further with her writings.

The conceptual and methodological contributions of Marxist aesthetics from Eastern European countries like Hungary, Yugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and East Germany were productive and significant despite various hurdles faced concerning institutionalization, legitimization and differing theoretical abuses. In its mode of inquiry and discursive practices, Eastern European Marxist aesthetics is both similar and dissimilar to its Western, Soviet, Russian and Chinese counterparts. The specificity here is the function of a unique geographical and socio-historical context, as well as interaction with other (...) contemporary paradigms of thought. The innovative impulses of Eastern European Marxist aesthetics affected six scholarly domains: aesthetics of praxis, theory of realism, critique of modernity, semiotics, theory of genre and cultural theory. This paper provides a general survey of the intellectual achievements of Eastern European Marxist aesthetics across these six domains and will show how this theoretical tradition has influenced the modern history of ideas. (shrink)

From the point of view of reflected postmodernity, Ágnes Heller constructs her own discourse of aesthetics on the basis of György Lukács’s contribution. She locates aesthetics in her social philosophy, philosophy of history, and ethics, transforming aesthetics from a ‘Marxist Renaissance’ to a ‘post-Marxist’ position, and points out that the paradoxes of modern culture can be avoided by a personality that is autonomous and moral in action. The notion of the beautiful character in everyday life is a symbol of the (...) ideal type of society and of the good life in contrast to the God-forsaken world of modern dilemmas and the domination of the sublime in postmodernism. It is the expression of freedom and democracy in the contemporary age. Heller’s neo-humanist aesthetics is in essence the presentation of her cultural politics as a Great Republic. (shrink)

György Márkus, as a leading member of the Budapest School led by György Lukács in Hungary, is closely concerned with aesthetics. His final unfinished writings in political exile in Sydney were focused on the question of modern cultural autonomy. From the 1960s to the new century, from Budapest to Sydney in Australia, he established a new form of Neo-Marxist aesthetics on the basis of critical theory drawn from Lukács to the Frankfurt School. His aesthetics includes three dimensions: an aesthetics of (...) praxis, a reconstruction of Lukács’s aesthetics and a theory of aesthetic modernity. His aesthetics is characteristic of analytic philosophy, especially ‘categorical analysis’. It shifts from philosophical aesthetics in the Hungarian period, which is based on an ontological foundation, that is, materialist phenomenology, to social or sociological aesthetics in the Australian period concerning social modernity, institution, constitution, culture, and so on. This is a turn from a philosophical paradigm to a structural one as regards aesthetics, which indicates a break with Lukács’s late return in the early 1960s to Hegelian inspired Ontology of Social Being. Márkus is strictly and essentially an essayist in fragments, who distinguishes himself from the other members of the Budapest School in this way. Ironically, this genre is once again influenced by the young Lukács’s aesthetics. (shrink)

This research was aimed to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the green entrepreneurial intention of college students through green entrepreneurial self-efficacy, optimism, ecological values, and social responsibility, as well as the mediating role of green entrepreneurial motivation. This study used structural equation model to test the hypothesis on samples of 410 Chinese colleges’ students. COVID-19 has a strong beneficial effect on green entrepreneurial self-efficacy, optimism, ecological values, and social responsibility, according to the research findings. Optimism and social (...) responsibility also were found to have a significant positive impact on green entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Moreover, green entrepreneurial motivations moderated the relationship between optimism, ecological values, social responsibility, and green entrepreneurial intention in a positive and significant way. Finally, the findings indicate that a significant positive correlation exists between green entrepreneurial self-efficacy and optimism, as well as a significant positive correlation between ecological values and social responsibility. (shrink)

Kant’s published arguments for the non-spatiotemporality of things in themselves have not been well received. I argue that Kant has available to himself an argument for the non-spatiotemporality of things in themselves that is premised upon a disparity between the compositional structure of the intelligible world and the structure of space and time. I argue that Kant was unwaveringly committed to the premises of this argument throughout his career and that he was aware of their idealistic implications. I also argue (...) that this argument is consistent with Kant’s restrictive mature epistemology. If my argument is successful, then even if Kant’s published arguments for transcendental idealism fail, we need not regard his ambitious metaphysical project as a failure. (shrink)

Kant rejects the ontological argument on the grounds that the ontological argument inescapably must assume that existence is a “determination” or “real predicate,” which it is not. Most understand Kant’s argument for this claim to be premised upon his distinctive proto-Fregean theory of existence. But this leaves Kant dialectically vulnerable: the defender of the ontological argument can easily reject this as question-begging. I show that Kant relies upon two distinct arguments, both of which contend that the claim that existence is (...) a determination is inconsistent with bedrock ontological set pieces assumed by rationalist defenders of the ontological argument. (shrink)

What role does our knowledge about the ideal society play in guiding policymaking in the real world? One intuitive answer is to approximate. Namely, we have a duty to approximate the ideal within the relevant constraints of feasibility. However, political philosophers seem to have what might be called ‘approximatophobia'. Many philosophers, including idealists such as David Estlund, warn against approximation. Their criticism is chiefly motivated by ‘the problem of second best’, which points out that your second-best option may not be (...) closest to your best option. This paper aims to dispel ‘approximatophobia'. The difficulty posed by the problem of second best is often overstated. More positively, I present a novel defence of approximation, arguing that approximation of an ideal can be a reasonably reliable default strategy of action guidance in the real world. Difficulties that may afflict the project of approximation can be mitigated by sophistication of the project of approximation. After showing that critics of approximation overstep their mark in issuing the strong or moderate warning against approximation, I propose an account of sophisticated approximation. It seeks a series of reforms that make existing social institutions closer to the ideal based on careful selection of frame of analysis. Three virtuous correlations are identified as indicators for successful project of approximation, linking descriptive similarity to desirability, feasibility and knowledge of the ideal. I also explain a two-staged strategy of sophisticating the way you approximate the ideal, with an expected positive feedback effect. (shrink)

What role does our knowledge about the ideal society play in guiding policymaking in the real world? One intuitive answer is to approximate. Namely, we have a duty to approximate the ideal within the relevant constraints of feasibility. However, political philosophers seem to have what might be called ‘approximatophobia'. Many philosophers, including idealists such as David Estlund, warn against approximation. Their criticism is chiefly motivated by ‘the problem of second best’, which points out that your second-best option may not be (...) closest to your best option. This paper aims to dispel ‘approximatophobia'. The difficulty posed by the problem of second best is often overstated. More positively, I present a novel defence of approximation, arguing that approximation of an ideal can be a reasonably reliable default strategy of action guidance in the real world. Difficulties that may afflict the project of approximation can be mitigated by sophistication of the project of approximation. After showing that critics of approximation overstep their mark in issuing the strong or moderate warning against approximation, I propose an account of sophisticated approximation. It seeks a series of reforms that make existing social institutions closer to the ideal based on careful selection of frame of analysis. Three virtuous correlations are identified as indicators for successful project of approximation, linking descriptive similarity to desirability, feasibility and knowledge of the ideal. I also explain a two-staged strategy of sophisticating the way you approximate the ideal, with an expected positive feedback effect. (shrink)

Much recent attention has been paid to Kant’s account of the unity of space in the Critique of Pure Reason, not least because of the significant implications of that view for other key critical-period doctrines. But far less attention has been paid to the development of Kant’s account of the unity of space. This paper aims to offer a systematic account of Kant’s pre-critical account of the unity of space. On the view presented herein, Kant’s early account of the unity (...) of space is deeply rooted in his pre-critical cosmological views. In particular, I argue that Kant sees the unity of space as grounded in the cosmological unity of the world of substances, which is itself rooted in the divine conservation of all substances in relations of mutual causal dependence. I contend that the seeds of this view are present in the late 1740s and 1750s, but that this view receives its fullest and most complete expression in the 1770 Inaugural Dissertation. The final section of the paper considers the fate of Kant’s pre-critical account of the unity of space. I contend that the theory is excluded from the Critique of Pure Reason in light of the strict epistemological strictures adopted in that text. But considerable textual evidence shows that Kant continues to aver the theory throughout the 1770s and 1780s in the looser epistemic context of his lectures. I contend, then, that this theory is not abandoned at all. Rather, like Kant’s 1763 proof of the existence of God, it is epistemically demoted: it is Kant’s preferred view, but one that falls short of the demanding epistemic standards of the critical philosophy. (shrink)

The social, ethical and legal implications of discoveries in the neurosciences.

Kant describes the concept of freedom as "the keystone of the whole structure of a system of pure reason, even of speculative reason." Kant's theory of freedom thus plays a foundational and unifying role in all aspects of his philosophy and is thus of significant interest to historians of Kant's philosophy. Kant's theory of freedom has also played a significant role in contemporary debates in metaphysics, normative ethics, and metaethics. This volume brings historians of Kant's philosophy into conversation with contemporary (...) metaphysicians and ethicists with the aim of representing the current state of scholarship on Kant's and Kantian accounts of freedom while at the same time opening new avenues of exploration. The Idea of Freedom includes papers by leading scholars on a range of historical and contemporary topics centrally related to the Kantian theory of freedom, including transcendental idealism, determinism, Kant's normative ethical theory, Kant's conception of cognition, Kant's theory of beauty, Kant's conception of logic, and many others. (shrink)

In considering Kant’s response to the Leibnizian theory of space in the Transcendental Aesthetic, scholars have overwhelmingly emphasized Kant’s response to Leibniz’s relationalism. They have largely missed the metaphysically realistic aspects of Leibniz’s theory with which Kant is primarily concerned. As such, scholars have failed to appreciate the threat Leibniz’s theory poses to Kant’s idealism, a point made publicly as early as 1786 by H. A. Pistorius. I argue that the Aesthetic does indeed contain a compelling argument against the Leibnizian (...) theory of space. This argument crucially depends upon Kant’s claim that space is monistic: that the whole of space is prior to the parts of space and, as such, spatial representations are not decomposable. (shrink)

Typically, fair machine learning research focuses on a single decision maker and assumes that the underlying population is stationary. However, many of the critical domains motivating this work are characterized by competitive marketplaces with many decision makers. Realistically, we might expect only a subset of them to adopt any non-compulsory fairness-conscious policy, a situation that political philosophers call partial compliance. This possibility raises important questions: how does partial compliance and the consequent strategic behavior of decision subjects affect the allocation outcomes? (...) If k% of employers were to voluntarily adopt a fairness-promoting intervention, should we expect k% progress (in aggregate) towards the benefits of universal adoption, or will the dynamics of partial compliance wash out the hoped-for benefits? How might adopting a global (versus local) perspective impact the conclusions of an auditor? In this paper, we propose a simple model of an employment market, leveraging simulation as a tool to explore the impact of both interaction effects and incentive effects on outcomes and auditing metrics. Our key findings are that at equilibrium: (1) partial compliance by k% of employers can result in far less than proportional (k%) progress towards the full compliance outcomes; (2) the gap is more severe when fair employers match global (vs local) statistics; (3) choices of local vs global statistics can paint dramatically different pictures of the performance vis-a-vis fairness desiderata of compliant versus non-compliant employers; (4) partial compliance based on local parity measures can induce extreme segregation. Finally, we discuss implications for auditors and insights concerning the design of regulatory frameworks. (shrink)