Peace is normally understood as the absence of war among nations. But that definition presupposes the overarching importance of nations as the key units of human association. There are, however, many other non-national entities, such as races, ethnic communities, religions, cultures, and civilizations. These entities, too, engage in conflict from time to time, as exemplified by the interracial violence and religious antagonisms in various parts of the world today and, of course, that which took place in the past. Yet why (...) do we preserve the terms “war” and “peace” only for interstate relations? This is a very limited perspective, inasmuch as wars are a phenomenon whose appearance long preceded the formation of nations in the modern centuries; and besides, a presumed state of peace among countries can conceal serious hostilities between races or religions within and across national boundaries. Nazi Germany was technically at peace with all countries till 1939, and yet violent acts were committed there against groups of people domestically who were not considered racially acceptable. In today's world, there are no large-scale international wars, but domestic tensions and physical assaults occur daily within many countries. Terrorists wage war against states and their citizens alike, but they are not nations. To counter their threat, war preparedness in the traditional sense may be useful, perhaps, but it is much less effective than the coming together of individuals and groups to create a condition of interdependence and mutual trust. World peace must fundamentally be founded on a sense of shared humanity, regardless of which country people happen to live in. To consider war and peace purely in the context of international relations, therefore, is insufficient, even anachronistic. What we need is less an international than a transnational idea of peace. (shrink)

At the turn of the twenty-first century, historical studies of internationalism--above and beyond the call to the workers of the world to unite--have become the norm in a relatively short space of time. This shift has occurred in the context of a historical vogue for 'transnationalism,' that is, capturing experiences that traversed and transcended the borders of nation-states both within and beyond the European world. The work of the diplomatic historian Akira Iriye has been central to these developments, (...) illuminating the traces of a distinctively twentieth century history of 'cultural internationalism' that resonated through the realms of politics. Following in the footsteps of Iriye and others--including feminist and pacifist historians who had long engaged the internationalist past--a new cohort of international historians, often sensitive to cultural analyses and with expertise in imperial and transnational as well as national histories, are now accruing broad-ranging evidence of the geographies of internationalism and the political and economic reach of its various strands at critical moments in the twentieth century. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 3, Page 370-394, September 2022.

Assessing learners’ individual differences helps identify students who need teacher support in classrooms. Previous studies have examined second language achievement based on reading anxiety because reading is an input-based activity essential for successful L2 learning. This study applied a latent rank model to identify L2 learners who are likely to be struggling or successful in classrooms according to their L2 reading anxiety symptoms. Moreover, a psychometric function was developed to determine the cutoff anxiety scores that discriminate against their substantial differences. (...) The model was applied to responses from the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale provided by 335 Japanese learners of English. The results showed that the FLRAS classified students into three ranked groups with ordinal information regarding L2 reading anxiety. Rank 1 exhibited good conditions in L2 reading anxiety. Rank 2 reported high anxiety toward unfamiliar grammar during L2 reading. Rank 3 had even higher anxiety levels, especially for vocabulary and grammatical knowledge deficits and reading difficulty. The cutoff anxiety scores estimated by the model detected students who failed their L2 class with 79% accuracy. Theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical issues in language anxiety were discussed in terms of diagnosis and different approaches to teaching L2 reading. (shrink)

The pervasive use of distributional semantic models or word embeddings for both cognitive modeling and practical application is because of their remarkable ability to represent the meanings of words. However, relatively little effort has been made to explore what types of information are encoded in distributional word vectors. Knowing the internal knowledge embedded in word vectors is important for cognitive modeling using distributional semantic models. Therefore, in this paper, we attempt to identify the knowledge encoded in word vectors by conducting (...) a computational experiment using Binder et al.'s (2016) featural conceptual representations based on neurobiologically motivated attributes. In an experiment, these conceptual vectors are predicted from text‐based word vectors using a neural network and linear transformation, and prediction performance is compared among various types of information. The analysis demonstrates that abstract information is generally predicted more accurately by word vectors than perceptual and spatiotemporal information, and specifically, the prediction accuracy of cognitive and social information is higher. Emotional information is also found to be successfully predicted for abstract words. These results indicate that language can be a major source of knowledge about abstract attributes, and they support the recent view that emphasizes the importance of language for abstract concepts. Furthermore, we show that word vectors can capture some types of perceptual and spatiotemporal information about concrete concepts and some relevant word categories. This suggests that language statistics can encode more perceptual knowledge than often expected. (shrink)

This paper argues that the Lockean proviso can be utilized as a relevant principle of justice for food security under global climate change. Since reducing GHG emissions is key to enhancing food security, we suggest a global food security scheme that systematically allots, among all people, access to GHG sinks in food systems impacted by global climate change. For consideration of the scheme, it is important to have a principle of justice. Furthermore, it should incorporate the value of fairness. A (...) relevant principle of climate justice for food security should meet the following criteria: (1) the parties concerned under the scheme are states; (2) fairness does not undermine the requirement that the basic needs of all people must be met; (3) when determining fair burdens, a fair distribution of the rights to use GHG sinks should be sensitive both to each state’s responsibility for its GHG emissions and to (4) each state’s effort to reduce such emissions. With them in mind, first, we argue that the Lockean proviso can provide legitimate guidance for each state. Second, the Lockean proviso reasonably enjoins that a state has a right to a food system that secures its citizens’ basic needs, and a duty to meet the basic needs of other people. Third, the Lockean proviso can be deployed as a principle of both global justice and intergenerational justice for food security. Finally, the Lockean proviso enables us to count the reduction of GHG emissions by each state as “the fruits of its labors”. (shrink)

AbstractThe Belmont Report continues to be held in high regard, and most bioethical analyses conducted in recent years have presumed that it affects United States federal regulations. However, the assessments of the report’s creators are sharply divided. Understanding the historic reputation of this monumental report is thus crucial. We first recount the historical context surrounding the creation of this report. Subsequently, we review the process involved in developing ethical guidelines and describe the report’s features. Additionally, we analyze the effect of (...) unfolding events on the subsequent creation of federal regulations, especially on gene therapy clinical trials. Moreover, throughout this paper we evaluate the ethical principles outlined in this report and describe how they overlap with the issue of protecting socially vulnerable groups. Based on the analysis, we conclude that the features of the Belmont Report cannot be considered as having affected the basic sections of the federal regulations for ethical reviews that were made uniform in 1981. Nevertheless, regarding the regulations on gene therapy clinical trials—which were at first expected to be applicable to research involving children—in addition to implementing policies regarding the public review of protocols that passed ethical review, this report’s principles are clearly reflected in the key notes that should have been referred to when the report was created. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic exposition of mathematical economics, presenting and surveying existing theories and showing ways in which they can be extended. One of its strongest features is that it emphasises the unifying structure of economic theory in such a way as to provide the reader with the technical tools and methodological approaches necessary for undertaking original research. The author offers explanations and discussion at an accessible and intuitive level providing illustrative examples. He begins the work at an elementary (...) level and progessively takes the reader to the frontier of current research. This second edition brings the reader fully up to date with recent research in the field. (shrink)

Informed consent, decision-making styles and the role of patient-physician relationships are imperative aspects of clinical medicine worldwide. We present the case of a 74-year-old woman afflicted with advanced liver cancer whose attending physician, per request of the family, did not inform her of her true diagnosis. In our analysis, we explore the differences in informed-consent styles between patients who hold an "independent" and "interdependent" construal of the self and then highlight the possible implications maintained by this position in the context (...) of international clinical ethics. Finally, we discuss the need to reassess informed-consent styles suitable to the needs of each patient regardless of whether he or she resides in the United States or in Japan. (shrink)

時間を超え、様々な遺物から過去の記憶を読みとり、未来に引き継ぐものとして、人文知の意義を問い直す。.

ポストモダン思想は教育学に何をもたらしたのか。戦後から現在に至る教育学の変遷と、ポストモダン以後の教育思想・教育哲学の新動向を描き出し、教育と教育学の未来を展望する。.

Was Nāgārjuna a thinker of philosophy or religion? This must be a question of the kind to which the answer depends heavily on the definition of “philosophy” and “religion”. Therefore, we may prefer to rephrase this question as: “Can Nāgārjuna legitimately be called a thinker of philosophy or religion?” Although it has been and may still be defined by its method or the objects of “philosophical thinking”, philosophy is, in most cases, expected to have the following characteristics: (1) Philosophy is (...) a type or product of human thought. (2) It is motivated by the human inclination for inquiry into the fundamental basis of being, whether human, social, or natural. (3) It is, theoretically at least, free from any types of dogmatic premises, whether traditional, social, or religious. (4) It requires a thoroughly logical and unequivocal usage of words and sentences. Likewise, although it has been and may still be defined by the existence or number of the absolute(s), be they god(s), spirit(s) or mental state(s), religion is, in most cases, expected to have the following characteristics: (1) Religion is a type of human beliefsystemor a product thereof. (2) It is motivated by the human inclination for ultimate reliance upon the absolute being or state. (3) It is, in practice, not completely free from some types of authoritative premises, whether traditional, customary, or founded by a certain individual. (4) It requires a purified mind, a deep understanding oftradition, constant practice and a careful observance of certain rules and regulations. Taking into account of the above characteristics of philosophy and religion, can we legitimately regard Nāgārjuna as a thinker of philosophy, religion, both, or neither? Let me focus on this question with an analysis of Nāgārjuna’s discussion as found in his magnum opus, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, and related works. (shrink)

The two competing camps of theorists in moral psychology share one common view on the disagreement between their theories: moral foundations theory presupposes basic emotion theory, while dyadic morality theory presupposes constructionist theory of emotion. The paper challenges this common view. First, it reviews the four theories. Second, it clarifies the issue about the relation between the moral contents and emotions on which the two camps of moral-psychological theorists dispute. Third, it identifies the explananda for the moral-psychological theories, and examines (...) the two distinctive types of explanations that each of the two theories offers to them. Finally, it concludes that the deepest disagreement between the two morality theories consists in the role that the theories give to emotions in explaining moral judgments. (shrink)