This edited volume is the first in English that covers the philosophy of feeling and related topics in Japanese philosophy on Nishida Kitarō and fellow thinkers. Part I focuses on Nishida Kitarō’s philosophy of feeling, including, but not limited to, comparisons with Tanabe Hajime, Koyama Iwao, and provides coverage of Buddhist, moral and Chinese philosophy. Part II goes beyond Kitarō into topics such as Japanese aesthetics, Nietsche’s reception in Japan, and the philosophy of AI. This is a comprehensive scholarly text (...) on feeling in Japanese philosophy, aimed at researchers and students working in the field. (shrink)

This paper studies a fundamental mechanism by which conflicts between arguments are drawn from sentiments regarding acceptability of the arguments. Given sets of arguments, an inverse abstract argumentation problem seeks attack relations between arguments such that acceptability semantics interprets each argument in the sets of arguments as being acceptable in each of the attack relations. It is an inverse problem of the traditional problem we refer to as the forward abstract argumentation problem. Given an attack relation, the forward abstract argumentation (...) problem seeks sets of arguments such that acceptability semantics interprets each argument in the sets of arguments as being acceptable in the attack relation. We give a probabilistic model of argumentation-theoretic inference. It is a generative model formalising the process by which acceptability semantics interprets acceptability of arguments in a given attack relation. We show that it gives a broad view of solutions to the forward and inverse abstract argumentation problems. Specifically, solutions to the inverse and forward abstract argumentation problems are shown to be equivalent to a maximum likelihood estimate and maximum likelihood prediction, respectively, which are both available with the generative model. In addition, they are shown to be special cases of the posterior distribution and the evidence, respectively, which are both obtained by probabilistic inference on the generative model. We report an experiment result and application example of the generative model in the inverse problems. (shrink)

Volume 6, Issue 3, September 2015, Page 292-309.

Volume 6, Issue 3, September 2015, Page 292-309.

There is a puzzle about why self-deception, a process that obscures the truth, is so pervasive in human behavior given that tracking the truth seems important for our survival and reproduction. William von Hippel and Robert Trivers argue that, despite appearances, there is good reason to think that self-deception is an adaptation by arguing: self-deception leads to a positive self-perception and a positive self-perception increases an individual’s fitness. D.S. Neil Van Leeuwen, however, gives persuasive arguments against both steps. In response, (...) we will defend both propositions, thereby supporting the conclusion that self-deception indeed has adaptive value. The first premise will be bolstered by a survey of the philosophical literature and empirical work on self-deception, whereas the second will be strengthened by empirical research on a behavioral phenomenon known as the winner effect. (shrink)

In this book, Jason Kido Lopez argues that self-deception is a matter of intentionally using the strategies and methods of interpersonal deception on oneself. This conception demonstrates interesting connections between Sartre’s notion of bad faith, interpersonal deception and lying, pretense, wishful thinking, akrasia, and unintentional biases.

Though many hold Søren Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death contains psychological descriptions of those who suffer from despair, I will argue that this is not so. Kierkegaard makes three claims—the conjunction of which I call ‘the triple reduction’—that take contradictory stances on whether people in despair are aware of their despair and whether they want to be their true self. Indeed, if the triple reduction were true, people in despair would be both aware and unaware of their despair, and would (...) both want and not want to be their true self. Unless we want to attribute to Kierkegaard this paradoxical psychological view of the despairer, then we must, I will argue, read Sickness not as a work that answers the question of what is happening in the mind of someone in despair. Instead, it is a therapeutic work meant to help its readers out of despair. (shrink)