According to the theory of natural pedagogy, humans have a set of cognitive adaptations specialized for transmitting and receiving knowledge through teaching; young children can acquire generalizable knowledge from ostensive signals even in a single interaction, and adults also actively teach young children. In this article, we critically examine the theory and argue that ostensive signals do not always allow children to learn generalizable knowledge more efficiently, and that the empirical evidence provided in favor of the theory of natural pedagogy (...) does not defend the theory as presented, nor does it support a weakened version of the theory. We argue that these problems arise because the theory of natural pedagogy is grounded in a misguided assumption, namely that learning about the world and learning about people are two distinct and independent processes. If, on the other hand, we see the processes as interrelated, then we have a better explanation for the empirical evidence. (shrink)

荷田春満が活躍した「荷田派の時代」に光を当て、近世の祭祀、神社・神職の実践的な活動と国学の思想を関連づけ、神道学による国学研究の枠組みを広げる意欲作。.

The problem of the other was one of the central problems for the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. He investigated the other as the alter ego intensively in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, in which he introduced the conceptions of “analogical apperception'' and “pairing'' as fundamental forms of “passive synthesis.'' Although it is no doubt Husserl who investigated the other most seriously and intensively, there is anaporiain his theory of the other. If the other is an object of ego's intentional consciousness, (...) the other turns out to be no more than a modification of the ego. In the face of such anaporia, some phenomenologists embarked upon inquiry into the other. This paper focuses primarily on Alfred Schutz's discussion of the “other'' in general and about the “stranger'' in particular. (shrink)

The problem of the other was one of the central problems for the founder of phenomenology, Edmund Husserl. He investigated the other as the alter ego intensively in the Fifth Cartesian Meditation, in which he introduced the conceptions of “analogical apperception'' and “pairing'' as fundamental forms of “passive synthesis.'' Although it is no doubt Husserl who investigated the other most seriously and intensively, there is anaporiain his theory of the other. If the other is an object of ego's intentional consciousness, (...) the other turns out to be no more than a modification of the ego. In the face of such anaporia, some phenomenologists embarked upon inquiry into the other. This paper focuses primarily on Alfred Schutz's discussion of the “other'' in general and about the “stranger'' in particular. (shrink)

Sheaves of structures are useful to give constructions in universal algebra and model theory. We can describe their logical behavior in terms of Heyting‐valued structures. In this paper, we first provide a systematic treatment of sheaves of structures and Heyting‐valued structures from the viewpoint of categorical logic. We then prove a form of Łoś's theorem for Heyting‐valued structures. We also give a characterization of Heyting‐valued structures for which Łoś's theorem holds with respect to any maximal filter.

The possibility of a Derridian theory of the university lies not in the discussion of the “as if” in “The University without Condition” but, rather, in a theoretical crack that Derrida's book promised to elucidate—between the “as if” and the “perhaps,” the performative and the event, transcendence and immanence. Moreover, we see a kind of rupture between this book and numerous texts from the 1970s and 80s, which are collected and published under the title of Right to Philosophy. Here lies (...) a real philosophical stake. We see between the early Derrida and the later Derrida not only an ethico-political turn but also, so to speak, a radical transition from the problematic of institution or case law (jurisprudence) to the axiomatic of law (loi) by aggravation of the transcendental. (shrink)

This essay aims to interpret Japanese university reform plans in terms of knowledge. For this aim, a history of attempts at university reform after Second World War is described briefly, and the underlying tone of these reform plans is explored by asking why the university had to start attempts at reforming their education and research system, what these plans signify, and what results from them. Then, it is asked where such reform plans lead the Japanese university, and a conclusion is (...) drawn that as regards to knowledge expected to be produced and transmitted in university, the present Japanese university becomes to be a different kind of institution from the university based on the W. von Humboldt’s ideas. This leads attention to A. Schutz’s theory of knowledge, especially his distinction between knowledge and information, his insight into horizonal structure of knowledge as well as his ideas about higher education founded on his theory of knowledge, and why and in which context Schutz’s theory of knowledge is significant for elucidating a university “crisis” in Japan is explicated. (shrink)

The evolution of altruism in human societies has been intensively investigated in social and natural sciences. A widely acknowledged recent idea is the “parochial altruism model,” which suggests that inter- group hostility and intragroup altruism can coevolve through lethal intergroup conflicts. The current article critically examines this idea by reviewing research relevant to intergroup conflicts in human evolutionary history from evolutionary biology, psychology, cultural anthropology, and archaeology. After a brief intro- duction, section 2 illustrates the mathematical model of parochial altruism (...) and some critiques of the model and its interpretation, primarily from an evolutionary biology point of view. Section 3 delves into the archaeological evidence of prehistoric intergroup conflicts in the Japanese archipelago’s Jomon and Yayoi periods, Europe’s Mesolithic period, and North America’s Pacific period as counter examples of the paro- chial altruism model. In section 4, the ethnographies of intergroup relationships and conflicts reveal that intergroup relationships in many ethnic groups are not as simple as the assumption in the mathematical model of parochial altruism. In section 5, we outline psychological research on intergroup conflicts which suggest that intergroup hostility and ingroup altruism are not necessarily correlated. In conclusion, we argue that the assumption and parameter settings of the parochial altruism model are inconsistent with empirical data. (shrink)

In a dynamic environment, even if an agent makes a plan to obtain a goal, the environment might change while the agent is executing the plan. In that case, the plan, which was initially valid when it was made, might later become invalid. Furthermore, in the process of replanning, it is necessary to take into account the side effects of actions already executed. Nowadays, HTN planning is becoming popular among agent researchers because its task decomposition algorithm is efficient and suitable (...) for joint planning in multi-agent systems. However, the dynamic replanning algorithm of HTN planning has not yet been established. In order to solve this problem, we have previously presented an agent life cycle that integrates HTN planning, action execution, knowledge updates, and plan modification. In that agent life cycle, the plans are always kept valid according to the most recent knowledge and situation. However, when one plan does not work and the agent starts using an alternative plan, it sometimes undoes some actions that do not have to be undone. The source of this problem lies in the need to have total-order plans. In other words, all the actions have to be sequentially ordered even when the order is not important in some parts of the plan. This paper extends our previous agent life cycle and presents new ways to avoid unnecessary action cancellation. This enables the agent to handle partial-order plans and to make use of two kinds of undoing actions: sequential undoing actions and concurrent undoing actions. (shrink)

Estimation of Distribution Algorithms, which employ probabilistic models to generate the next population, are new promising methods in the field of genetic and evolutionary algorithms. In the case of conventional Genetic and Evolutionary Algorithms are applied to Constraint Satisfaction Problems, it is well-known that the incorporation of the domain knowledge in the Constraint Satisfaction Problems is quite effective. In this paper, we constitute a memetic algorithm as a combination of the Estimation of Distribution Algorithm and a repair method. Experimental results (...) on general Constraint Satisfaction Problems tell us the effectiveness of the proposed method. (shrink)

Many researchers have assumed that punishment evolved as a behavior-modification strategy, i.e. that it evolved because of the benefits resulting from the punishees modifying their behavior. In this article, however, we describe two alternative mechanisms for the evolution of punishment: punishment as a loss-cutting strategy (punishers avoid further exploitation by punishees) and punishment as a cost-imposing strategy (punishers impair the violator’s capacity to harm the punisher or its genetic relatives). Through reviewing many examples of punishment in a wide range of (...) taxa, we show that punishment is common among plant and animal species and that the two mechanisms we describe have often been important for the evolution of punishment. (shrink)

The present study collected a larger set of three-dimensional data on human crania from the Kofun period (as well as from previous periods, i.e., the Jomon and Yayoi periods) in the Japanese archipelago (AD 250 to around 700) than previous studies. Three-dimensional geometric morphometrics were employed to investigate human migration patterns in finer-grained phases. These results are consistent with those of previous studies, although some new patterns were discovered. These patterns were interpreted in terms of demic diffusion, archaeological findings, and (...) historical evidence. In particular, the present results suggest the presence of a gradual geological cline throughout the Kofun period, although the middle period did not display such a cline. This discrepancy might reflect social changes in the middle Kofun period, such as the construction of keyhole-shaped mounds in the peripheral regions. The present study implies that a broader investigation with a larger sample of human crania is essential to elucidating macro-level cultural evolutionary processes. (shrink)

Mind attribution may be divided into the subcategories of attribution of agency, associated with moral agency, and attribution of experience and emotion, associated with moral concern and moral patiency (Gray et al. Science 315(5812):619, 2007; Gray et al. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108(2):477–479, 2011b; Robbins and Jack Philosophical Studies 127(1):59–85, 2006). In this paper I attend to social context and the different psychological needs influencing the different types of mind attribution. A (...) need for social connection drives the attribution of experiences and emotions. The individual’s capacity to regulate emotional reactions is crucial for empathic concern. I further relate differences of mind attribution, attention, and emotional processing, to two different modes of functioning: In an interactive state of mind (comparable to the “second-person perspective” described by Schilbach et al. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, in press), social and emotional cues are attended to; In a detached task-oriented state of mind it may be beneficial to predict the behaviors of others but emotional information may not be attended to. The complexity and plasticity of mind attribution, including the possibility to train attentional mechanisms and regulation of emotions, is promising for the field of moral enhancement. (shrink)

This study aims to investigate the role of self-construal in sharpening reputation judgment on earnings management cases. This study involves a personality variable that can provide sharper insights into individual assessments, namely self-construal. The study uses an experimental case with involved participants to judge the ethics of earnings management done by other managers (the target managers). Participants of this study consist of 109 master’s degree students majoring in accounting and management who acts as fellow managers. Participants provide ethical judgment and (...) reputation judgment of the target managers. This study indicates that ethical judgment on earnings management behavior differs depending on the target managers’ self-construal. In addition, ethical judgment has a positive and significant effect on reputation judgment. The following analysis showed that ethical judgment mediates the effect of earnings management behavior that self-construal moderates on reputation judgment. Studies that highlight the impact of managers’ reputation engaging in earnings management are still limited. This study used a behavioral approach, especially involving self-construal, to scrutinize the behavior of individuals within the organization, which is previous studies have not yet involved that personality factor. This research’s results imply that a manager’s response to peer’s behavior is helpful to design an appropriate management control system for organizations. This study only used earnings management scenarios in order to increase earnings. Earnings management can be in the form of actions to increase or decrease earnings. (shrink)

Whether man is predisposed to lethal violence, ranging from homicide to warfare, and how that may have impacted human evolution, are among the most controversial topics of debate on human evolution. Although recent studies on the evolution of warfare have been based on various archaeological and ethnographic data, they have reported mixed results: it is unclear whether or not warfare among prehistoric hunter – gatherers was common enough to be a component of human nature and a selective pressure for the (...) evolution of human behaviour. This paper reports the mortality attributable to violence, and the spatio-temporal pattern of violence thus shown among ancient hunter–gatherers using skeletal evidence in prehistoric Japan (the Jomon period: 13000 cal BC–800 cal BC). Our results suggest that the mortality due to violence was low and spatio-temporally highly restricted in the Jomon period, which implies that violence including warfare in prehistoric Japan was not common. (shrink)

One of the main features of Italian feminism of "difference," as seen from an international perspective, is its distinctly political vocation. This vocation is not only, nor especially, limited to the perimeter of a gender politics, but is to be found in the radical critique or in the rethinking of traditional political categories, in the invention of new practices, in the redefinition of the very sphere of politics and in the modes of its transformation. The Italian case, as far as (...) feminism is concerned, is also characterised by the fact that this feminist political critique has been carried on for more than three decades alongside a crisis of traditional politics. The aim of this essay is twofold: one the one hand I analyse the relationship between political crisis and a critique of politics as seen in the larger framework of the relationship between the demise of patriarchy and the end of modern politics; on the other, I examine the resources which may derive from a feminist thought and practice in the present season, which, in Italy, seems marked not only by a crisis but by the collapse of democratic politics. (shrink)

The present research used archaeological data, i.e., the data obtained from kamekan jar burials in the Mikuni Hills of the northern Kyushu area in the Mid- dle Yayoi period, to test the parochial altruism model. This model argued that out-group hate and in-group favor coevolved via prehistoric intergroup conflicts. If this model is accurate, such an out-group hate and in-group favor could be re- flected in the archaeological remains, such as pottery making; the more frequent intergroup conflicts are and the (...) more each group is opposed, the more independent and coherent each group will be and more evident cultural identity could be estab- lished within each group. We employed an elliptic Fourier analysis for the shapes of kamekan jar burials. We examined whether frequent intergroup conflicts in the period influenced kamekan jar pottery between subareas of the Mikuni Hills. The results suggested that the shapes of kamekan jar burials after the KIIIa type are slightly different between subareas, which is partially consistent with the model. However, the results do not support the model directly. (shrink)

Various disciplines, including evolutionary biology, anthropology, archaeology, and psychology, have studied the evolution of rituals. Archaeologists have typically argued that burial practices are one of the most prominent manifestations of ritual practices in the past and have explored various aspects of burial practices, including burial directions. One of the important hypotheses on the cultural evolution of burial practices in Japan is the kitamakura hypothesis, which claims that burial directions (including Kofuns and current burials) were intended to be oriented toward the (...) north after the Kofun period under the influence of Confucianism or Buddhism. This hypothesis would be more plausible if burial directions were not oriented northward before the Kofun period. This research focused on the burial directions in the northern Kyūshū area of the Yayoi period, i.e., the directions of the kamekan jar burials. The results are almost consistent with the hypothesis, although one notable exception is found, and its possible interpretations and implications are discussed. (shrink)