Abstract Objective To investigate the attitudes of Chinese parents regarding the storage of dried blood spots collected for newborn screening (NBS) and their use in research. Methods We conducted a hospital-based survey of parents and examined parental attitudes regarding (a) allowing NBS sample storage, (b) permitting use of children’s NBS samples for research with parental permission, and (c) permitting use of children’s NBS samples for research without parental permission. Results The response rate was 52 percent. Of parents surveyed, 68 percent (...) would permit their infant’s NBS sample to be stored for at least some length of time. If permission is obtained, 69 percent of parents “strongly agreed” or “agreed” to permit use of the NBS sample for research. If permission is not obtained, only 14 percent of parents “strongly agreed” or “agreed.” There was no significant association between permitting use of NBS samples for research and parental gender, education, household income, number of children, or site of residence. Conclusions This is the first survey of Chinese parents regarding the use of NBS samples for different types of research, with results indicating that most parents would permit their infant’s sample to be stored and would support the use of NBS dried blood spots for research purposes. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Research Pages 1-5 DOI 10.1007/s11673-012-9368-9 Authors Li-Ming Gong, Key Laboratory of Cell Engineering, Hospital of Zunyi Medical College, Zunyi, 563003 China Wen-Jun Tu, Center for Clinical Laboratory Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Science and Peking Union Medical College, D101, 29 Zhongguancun Life Sciences Park, Beijing, 102206 People’s Republic of China Jian He, Center for Clinical Laboratory Development, Chinese Academy of Medical Science and Peking Union Medical College, D101, 29 Zhongguancun Life Sciences Park, Beijing, 102206 People’s Republic of China Xiao-Dong Shi, China Rehabilitation Research Center, Beijing, 100068 China Xin-Yu Wang, Department of Pediatrics, Beijing Haidian Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Beijing, 100080 China Ying Li, Department of Pediatrics, Beijing Haidian Maternal and Child Health Hospital, Beijing, 100080 China Journal Journal of Bioethical Inquiry Online ISSN 1872-4353 Print ISSN 1176-7529. (shrink)
The ideas of fixed points (Kripke in Recent essays on truth and the liar paradox. Clarendon Press, London, pp 53–81, 1975; Martin and Woodruff in Recent essays on truth and the liar paradox. Clarendon Press, London, pp 47–51, 1984) and revision sequences (Gupta and Belnap in The revision theory of truth. MIT, London, 1993; Gupta in The Blackwell guide to philosophical logic. Blackwell, London, pp 90–114, 2001) have been exploited to provide solutions to the semantic paradox and have achieved admirable (...) success. This happy situation naturally encourages one to look for other philosophical areas of their further applications where paradoxical results seem to follow from intuitively acceptable principles. In this paper, I propose to extend the use of these ideas to give two new treatments of abstract objects. Sections 1 and 2 below check several abstractionist theories and their main defects. Section 3 shows how the two ideas can be applied to generate consistent theories of abstract objects without any ad hoc restriction on any principle. (shrink)
Guanxi, or social networks common in Confucian cultures, has long been recognized as one of the major factors for success when doing business in China. However, insider networks in business are certainly not confined to Asian cultures, nor is the attendant possibility for corruption. This study obtained original data to investigate current Taiwanese perceptions of (1) how guanxi is established and cultivated; (2) how guanxi actually is practiced now and people's acceptance of it; and (3) the effects of guanxi on (...) business operations, employment/promotion, and social justice and fairness. The researchers also hope to (4) verify some arguments made by pioneering researchers. The authors speculate on how these attitudes may affect behavior in business transactions in hopes of making readers more aware of differing cultural values that may create unexpected ethical dilemmas. They suggest that professional ethical codes should provide guidance on the practice of guanxi in a Confucian society and that special emphasis or training in interpreting those codes may be required. (shrink)
Gideon Rosen proposes a view called "modal fictionalism" which Rosen thinks has all the benefits of modal realism without its ontological costs. Whereas modal realists have a paraphrase r(0) of a modal claim "0", modal fictionalists claim that the correct translation of "0" is rather the result of prefixing "according to the hypothesis of a plurality of worlds" to r(0). Rosen takes the prefix to be primitive and defines other modal notions in terms of it. Bob Hale, however, thinks the (...) fictionalist's project suffers from a "simple" dilemma. The purpose of this paper is to show that Rosen is right in taking the prefix as primitive and Hale is wrong in thinking fictionalism as being threatened by the dilemma. (shrink)
In several articles, Putnam claims that the direct reference theory (DRT) he endorses has startling consequence for the theory of necessary truth and essentialism, for if DRT is correct, so he claims, it follows that things belonging to natural kinds have their deep structures necessarily. Inspired by Donnellan, Nathan Salmon tries to spell out what Putnam seems to have in mind when making the claim, and Salmon calls the result "the OK mechanism". Salmon shows, in the OK mechanism, it is (...) not DRT, but some other essentialism-entailing premise, that has the claimed startling consequence. In this paper, I argue that Salmon's OK is not the right interpretation of Putnam's intended mechanism. Instead, I present Putnam's intention as the OK* mechanism, and show that, in OK*, DRT does have the startling consequence for the theory of necessary truth and essentialism when supplemented only with other metaphysically innocent, purely empirically verifiable premises. (shrink)
I show in this paper how Putnam’s model-theoretical argument can be modified so as to generate a new general tool for Nominalism. I call such a tool “Ockham’s New Razor”. Section I illustrates how the model-theoretical technique that I have in mind can be applied to argue against Meinongian theories. Section II shows how the technique can be generalized to other cases as well. It also contains a brief discussion of the major assumption in the technique. Section III discusses possible (...) objections to my so-called “Ockham’s New Razor”. (shrink)
Jiang, Wenye 江文也, A Discourse on Confucius’s Music 孔子的樂論. Translated from 上代支那正樂考—孔子の音樂論 by Y ang Rubin 楊儒賓 Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11712-009-9148-3 Authors Huaiyu Wang, Georgia College & State University Department of History, Geography, and Philosophy Campus Box 47 Milledgeville GA 31061 USA Journal Dao Online ISSN 1569-7274 Print ISSN 1540-3009 Journal Volume Volume 9 Journal Issue Volume 9, Number 1.
The essay centers on Gödel's views on the place of our intuitive concept of time in philosophy and in physics. It presents my interpretation of his work on the theory of relativity, his observations on the relationship between Einstein's theory and Kantian philosophy, as well as some of the scattered remarks in his conversations with me in the seventies — namely, those on the philosophies of Leibniz, Hegel and Husserl — as a successor of Kant — in relation to their (...) conceptions of time. (shrink)
Concentrated attention on institutional investors' activism has been perceived in the last few decades and further intensified in the post-Enron era. A new area of particular significance that has emerged is institutional investors' growing awareness and practice of socially responsible investment (SRI). This article starts by reviewing the importance of institutional investor activism and the historical implication of SRI. Significantly, various elements that give rise to the growth of SRI in the modern business world are considered in detail. It is (...) recognized that, although current empirical evidence suggests ambiguous effects of SRI, the positive impact of institutional investors' activism on SRI is likely to have been undermined due to the underdevelopment of evaluation systems, and SRI should stand out as a good investment option for its joint financial and societal concerns. Nevertheless, obstructions still exist in the exercise of investor activism and the pursuit of SRI strategy, which implies that, at least in the near future, SRI strategy will remain as a minor investment trend for institutional investors in Anglo-American countries. Additional regulatory methods and awarding schemes are, therefore, expected to motivate institutional investors' activism on SRI, and subsequently to promote global sustainability. (shrink)
Although the history of adopting the Western Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) concept in China spans less than 20 years, the core principles of CSR are not new and can be legitimately interpreted within traditional Chinese culture. We find that the Western CSR concepts do not adapt well to the Chinese market, because they have rarely defined the primary reason for CSR well, and the etic approach to CSR concepts does not take the Chinese reality and culture into consideration. This article (...) resolves these problems and contributes a new definition of CSR, called here – the Harmony Approach to CSR. Simply, the Chinese harmony approach to CSR means 'respecting nature and loving people'. It is the first time CSR has been defined in relation to Confucian interpersonal harmony and Taoist harmony between man and nature. Conceptually, this definition will broaden our understanding and will fit the characteristics of the Chinese market better. The idea of incorporating cultural contexts into CSR concepts could also contribute to future CSR studies. In business practice, it will help corporations to adopt CSR on their own initiative. The proposed virtues of traditional Chinese wisdom, in particular, will guide corporations to a new way of improving their CSR performance. (shrink)
We look at lying as an act of communication, where (i) the proposition that is communicated is not true, (ii) the utterer of the lie knows that what she communicates is not true, and (iii) the utterer of the lie intends the lie to be taken as truth. Rather than dwell on the moral issues, we provide a sketch of what goes on logically when a lie is communicated. We present a complete logic of manipulative updating, to analyse the effects (...) of lying in public discourse. Next, we turn to the study of lying in games. First, a game-theoretical analysis is used to explain how the possibility of lying makes such games interesting, and how lying is put to use in optimal strategies for playing the game. Finally, we give a matching logical analysis. Our running example of lying in games in liar’s dice. (shrink)
Noted logician and philosopher addresses various forms of mathematical logic, discussing both theoretical underpinnings and practical applications. After historical survey, lucid treatment of set theory, model theory, recursion theory and constructivism and proof theory. Place of problems in development of theories of logic, logic’s relationship to computer science, more. Suitable for readers at many levels of mathematical sophistication. 3 appendixes. Bibliography. 1981 edition.
This Whiteheadian Dialogue explores a fresh and important cross-elucidatory path: What have we, and what can be learned from a dialogue with Eastern worldviews?
For a putative knower S and a proposition P , two types of skepticism can be distinguished, depending on the conclusions they draw: outer skepticism , which concludes that S does not know that P , and inner skepticism , which concludes that S does not know whether P . This paper begins by showing that outer skepticism has undesirable consequences because that S does not know that P presupposes P , and inner skepticism does not have this undesirable consequence (...) since that S does not know whether P does not presuppose P . We indicate that the two types of skepticism aim to different loci of doubts: while outer skepticism doubts whether we can gain an epistemic warrant for the actuality, inner skepticism doubts whether we can gain epistemic identification of the actuality. It is further indicated that responses to skepticism from externalist theories, as well as from fallibilist internalist theories, can only respond to outer skepticism but not to inner skepticism. (shrink)
An investigation into what kind of knowledge is necessary for interpretation is an important research project for the two fields of the theory of meaning and epistemology, through which they are combined. By examining the two basic requirements for a theory on the interpretation of language drafted by Donald Davidson, this paper analyzes several kinds of knowledge which are necessary for interpretation. The goal is to explore the knowledge of radical interpretation and the distinctions and connections between this knowledge and (...) radical translation and Convention-T, thus revealing its characteristics and possibility to interpretation. (shrink)
I propose to sketch my views on several aspects of the philosophy of mathematics that I take to be especially relevant to philosophy as a whole. The relevance of my discussion would, I think, become more evident, if the reader keeps in mind the function of (the philosophy of) mathematics in philosophy in providing us with more transparent aspects of general issues. I shall consider: (1) three familiar examples; (2) logic and our conceptual frame; (3) communal agreement and objective certainty; (...) (4) the transcommunal universality of mathematics; (5) the big jump to the potential infinite; (6) the reconciliation of local creation with the hypothesis of discovery; (7) Platonism as realism plus conceptualism; (8) foundational studies and mathematical practice; and (9) the decomposition of philosophical disagreements. The views of Gödel and Wittgenstein are emphasized in order to add specificity to the discussions. (shrink)
The epistemological version of structural realism, proposed by Cao Tianyu, has great influence in the philosophy of science. Syntheses has published a special volume discussing the topic. Cao criticizes anti-realism, as well as the epistemic and ontic versions of structural realism. From the concepts of structure, ontology, and construction, he analyzes the objectivity of scientific theories as having five aspects: construction, historicity, holism, revision, and revolution. This paper systematically analyzes and comments on Cao's structural realism. The author agrees with his (...) criticism of the under-determination thesis, is neutral to his argument against ontological discontinuity, and questions his universal language argument. (shrink)
In this study, we aim to investigate how multinational corporations (MNCs) balance ethical pressures from both the home and host countries. Drawing on theories from institutional theory, international business, and business ethics, we build a theoretical framework to explain the ethical behavior of MNCs. We apply the institutional logic concept to examine how MNCs with established logics and principles that have grown in the home country respond to local ethical expectations in the host country. We differentiate the core values from (...) the peripheral components of a MNC’s institutional logic and propose that a MNC will pursue distinctive ethical strategies under different scenarios and choose the “right” configuration of core values and peripheral components that align with institutional environment in host countries. (shrink)
We construct a a system PLRI which is the classical propositional logic supplied with a ternary construction , interpreted as the intensional identity of statements and in the context . PLRI is a refinement of Roman Suszko’s sentential calculus with identity (SCI) whose identity connective is a binary one. We provide a Hilbert-style axiomatization of this logic and prove its soundness and completeness with respect to some algebraic models. We also show that PLRI can be used to give a partial (...) solution to the paradox of analysis. (shrink)
Historical introduction -- Human being -- Identity and human incompletion in Sartre -- Identity and human incompletion in Aquinas -- Human understanding -- The subjective nature of objective understanding in Sartre -- The subjective nature of objective understanding in Aquinas -- Human freedom -- Freedom, choice, and the indetermination of reason in Sartre -- Freedom, choice, and the indetermination of reason in Aquinas -- Human fulfillment -- The possibility of human happiness in Sartre -- The possibility of human happiness in (...) Aquinas. (shrink)
Jean-Paul Sartre argues that human beings are fundamentally incomplete. Self-consciousness brings with it a presence-to-self. Human beings consequently seek two things at the same time: to possess a secure and stable identity, and to preserve the freedom and distance that come with self-consciousness. This is an impossible ideal, since we are always beyond what we are and we never quite reach what we could be. The possibility of completion haunts us and we continue to search for it even when we (...) are convinced it can never be achieved. Sartre suggests that we have to continue seeking this ideal in the practical sphere, even when our philosophical reflection shows it to be an impossibility. Sartre puts this existential dilemma in explicitly theological terms. 'God' represents an ideal synthesis of being and consciousness which remains a self-contradictory goal. This dilemma remains unresolved in his thinking. (shrink)
Despite the fact that the number of neurons in the human brain has been identified in cognitive and neural sciences, the magnitude of human memory capacity is still unknown. This paper reports the discovery of the memory capacity of the human brain, which is on the order of 10 8432 bits. A cognitive model of the brain is created, which shows that human memory and knowledge are represented by relations, i.e., connections of synapses between neurons, rather than by the neurons (...) themselves as the traditional container metaphor described. The determination of the magnitude of human memory capacity is not only theoretically significant in cognitive science, but also practically useful to unveil the human potential, as well as the gap between the natural and machine intelligence. (shrink)
Most observers of the Chinese consumer market have seen its linear evolution from a traditional culture toward a more Westernized consumer society during the country's three-decade experimentation of the free market. Recent development, however, shows a cultural renaissance in China wherein Chinese people have increasingly demanded their traditional culture components to be part of their consumption experience, coinciding with China's re-emergence as a country of economic and political power. We identify this shift, explore its causes, and discuss its managerial and (...) theoretical implications. (shrink)
This essay discusses a number of questions which arise from attempts to reduce the mental to the physical or the mental and the physical to the computational. It makes, in an organized way, several basic distinctions between different kinds of accounts of the mind. It reconstructs and elaborates many discussions between Gödel and the author on the nature of the human mind, with special emphasis on its mathematical capabilities.
In his Experiments in Ethics , Appiah focuses mostly on the dimension of naturalism as a naturalism of deprivation - naturalism’s apparent robbing us of aspects of the world that we had held dear. The aim of this paper is to remind him of that naturalism has a dimension of plenitude as well - its capacity to enrich our conception of the world as well. With regard to character, we argue that scientific psychology can help provide a conception of character (...) as dynamic, in a way that may preserve many key aspects of eudaimonistic ethics from the situationists’ challenge. With regard to intuition, we address Appiah’s worry that naturalistic explanations of the sources of our intuitions may leave us feeling that those intuitions have been thereby debunked. We suggest that it may be that feeling of debunking that should itself be debunked. (shrink)
The interlink between myth and wisdom in Hellenic heritage is characteristically embodied in the Platonic philosophizing as regards the education and enculturation of the human psyche. As is read in the end of The Republic , the myth of Er turns out to be a philosophical rewriting of poetry to a large degree. For it engagingly reveals Plato’s moral inculcation, philosophical instruction and poetic wisdom in particular, all of which are intended to guide human conduct along the right track for (...) the bliss of the postmortem cycle, and put philosophy learning into first priority for the choice of the future life. Moreover, the transmigrate experience in the mystic overtone of “the Orphic-Pythagorean conglomerate” is discussed with a intercultural reference to the Buddhist doctrines of samsara and karma. (shrink)
The traditional Christian version of the Golden Rule, some modern philosophical reformulations, and the Confucian version are compared. It is argued that the Confucian version, in contrast with its Western parallels, is based on shu as bodily or somatic interpersonal care and love, and thus should be understood first of all as a human "way" rather than as a divine rule, a way grounded in the human heart and a way for the human community.
Kuhn's alleged taxonomic interpretation of incommensurability is grounded on an ill defined notion of untranslatability and is hence radically incomplete. To supplement it, I reconstruct Kuhn's taxonomic interpretation on the basis of a logical-semantic theory of taxonomy, a semantic theory of truth-value, and a truth-value conditional theory of cross-language communication. According to the reconstruction, two scientific languages are incommensurable when core sentences of one language, which have truth values when considered within its own context, lack truth values when considered within (...) the context of the other due to the unmatchable taxonomic structures underlying them. So constructed, Kuhn's mature interpretation of incommensurability does not depend upon the notion of truth-preserving (un)translatability, but rather depends on the notion of truth-value-status-preserving cross-language communication. The reconstruction makes Kuhn's notion of incommensurability a well grounded, tenable and integrated notion. (shrink)
This is a philosophical investigation of the linguistic strategy of Chinese Chan Buddhism. First, it examines the underlying structure of Chan communication, which determines the Chan pragmatics of 'never tell too plainly'. The examination of the structural features of Chan communication reveals what the Chan 'special transmission' means. The Chan definition of communication is very different from the Aristotelian conception of communication in the West. The Aristotelian hierarchy of speaker over listener, or the direct over indirect, is absent is Chan (...) communication. Communication in the Chan context is interactive, open-ended and determined by its existentio-practical concern. Second, this essay investigates the different types of the Chan strategies of indirect communication, such as the use of paradoxical, tautological and poetic language, which best demonstrate the principle of 'never tell too plainly'. The whole study indicates that Chan Buddhism provides the resources for our contemporary inquiry into the issue of indirect communication. (shrink)
In this paper1, we develop an epistemic logic to specify and reason about the information flow on the underlying communication channels. By combining ideas from Dynamic Epistemic Logic (DEL) and Interpreted Systems (IS), our semantics offers a natural and neat way of modelling multi-agent communication scenarios with different assumptions about the observational power of agents. We relate our logic to the standard DEL and IS..
Dong Zhongshu (Tung Chung-shu) (179-104 B.C.E.) was the first prominent Confucian to integrate yin-yang theory into Confucianism. His constructive effort not only generates a new perspective on yin and yang, it also involves implications beyond its explicit contents. First, Dong changes the natural harmony (he ﾈﾱ) of yin and yang to an imposed unity (he 合). Second, he identifies yang with human nature (xing) and benevolence (ren), and yin with emotion (qing) and greed (tan). Taken together, these novelties grant a (...) philosophical basis for the theory and practice of gender inequality in their specifically Chinese manifestations. An analysis of Dong's work shows that the merce complementarity of yin and yang does not guarantee gender equality; they are not fixed categories, but together form a transformative dynamic harmony. (shrink)
This study attempts to identify customer retention strategies for legal software and discusses their effectiveness for three consumer groups (stayers, dissatisfied switchers, and satisfied switchers). Although previous studies propose several antipirating strategies, they do not discuss how to enhance customer intentions to use legal software, which is crucial for software companies. The authors provide four generic retention strategies developed from both antipiracy and customer loyalty literature. The results indicate lower-pricing, legal, communication, and product strategies all enhance customer purchase intentions toward (...) legal software. The lower-pricing strategy is more useful for stayers and dissatisfied switchers, and the communication strategy is most useful for dissatisfied switchers. Both the legal and product strategies have similar impacts on purchase intentions across the three segments. From a firm perspective, a product strategy is most worthwhile and useful across all segments. (shrink)
While it is widely assumed that greater diversity in corporate governance will enhance a firms corporate social performance, this study considers an alternative thesis which relates managerial control to corporate philanthropy. The study empirically evaluates both board diversity and managerial control of the board as possible predictors of corporate philanthropy. The demonstration of a positive relationship between managerial control and corporate philanthropy contributes to our understanding that corporate social performance results from a complex set of economic and social motives. Possible (...) future research and managerial implications are discussed. (shrink)
Based on original texts this essay attempts to describe two main conceptual constructions and practices of ideal womanhood in the Chinese tradition: Lienu (exemplary women) as the Confucian social inspirations for women and Kundao (way of female) as the Daoist commitment to bodily and spiritual transformation.
