Religious Discourse in Modern Japan explores the transportation of the Western concept of “religion” in in the modern era; the emergence of discourse on Shinto, philosophy, and Buddhism; and the evolution of the academic discipline of religious studies in Japan.

Previous studies have suggested that musical training in childhood is beneficial for sociability. However, it remains unclear how age of onset of group music lessons is associated with the late sociability of children from a long-term perspective. This study investigated associations between group music lessons conducted at a music school and children’s levels of sociability by focusing on the age of onset of the lessons. We conducted a survey of 276 children aged 4–5 years (M = 58.5 months) and 6–7 (...) years (M = 82.7 months) who commenced music lessons at ages 1, 2, 4, and 6 years. We found that (1) the empathy scores of children aged 6–7 years who began lessons when 1-year-old were greater than those who began lessons when 4-years-old, (2) the communication scores of children aged 4–5 years who began lessons when 1-year-old were greater than those who began lessons when older than 1 year, and (3) the empathy and extraversion scores were high in those aged 6–7 years who began lessons in that age range. The results suggest that early onset of music lessons could positively influence children’s sociability; in contrast, after about age 7 years, children who already had high sociability may be more inclined to select group music lessons. By focusing on the impact of regular group music lessons from a very young age on later levels of sociability, these results further elucidate the effects of musical lessons. In sum, participation in group music lessons 2–4 times per month can be effective social training for very young children and foster their later sociability. (shrink)

政治社会への新しい視座を導く案内書。「正義」からではなく「不正義」から見ると自明とされている制度や規範はどのように異なって見えるのか。思想家たちが問題を発見してきた視座に注目し、この社会の政治を問い返 す。.

Children, in their everyday lives, encounter several types of humanoid robots. The purpose of this study was to investigate children’s folk knowledge of robots using the card-choice task. In the task, both adults and five- and six-year-old children were given nine questions concerning the biological and psychological properties of robots. They were asked to choose the appropriate stimuli from among five objects including living things, nonliving things, and a robot. The results revealed that the children tended to attribute certain biological (...) properties to the robot. These results accorded with previous results. However, in our study, contrary to previous such studies, even older children showed such a tendency. Moreover, the children were unable to choose all the cards in the same way as the adults. Thus, it can be concluded that children’s knowledge of robots is incomplete. And the children’s knowledge is changed by method. (shrink)

A translation of a Japanese text written by philosopher Tosaka Jun in 1935, at the moment the country had begun to embark upon a course of fascist authoritarianism that led to war and total destruction. Titled The Japan Ideology, the text purposely recalls its derivation and kinship with Marx and Engels's The German Ideology and expands on the role played by philosophic idealism in preparing the population for both the new politics of fascism and the demands of the eventual war (...) it brought. In its penetrating analysis of the relationship between philosophy and the formation of ideology in a politically critical and crucial historical time, this foundational work in the Japanese Marxist tradition remains accessible and timely, speaking forcibly to conditions that continue to persist in Japan and everywhere in today's world. (shrink)

Scientific conflicts often stem from differences in the conceptual framework through which scientists view and understand their own field. In this chapter, I analyze the ontological and methodological assumptions of three traditions in evolutionary biology, namely, Ernst Mayr’s population thinking, the gene-centered view of the Modern Syn thesis, and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Each of these frameworks presupposes a different account of "evolutionary causes," and this discrepancy prevents mutual understanding and objective evaluation in the recent contention surrounding the EES. From (...) this perspective, the chapter characterizes the EES research program as an attempt to introduce causal structures beyond genes as additional units of evolution, and compares its research methodology and objectives with those of the traditional MS framework. (shrink)

We study the computational content of various theorems with reverse mathematical strength around Arithmetical Transfinite Recursion (ATR_0) from the point of view of computability-theoretic reducibilities, in particular Weihrauch reducibility. Our main result states that it is equally hard to construct an embedding between two given well-orderings, as it is to construct a Turing jump hierarchy on a given well-ordering. This answers a question of Marcone. We obtain a similar result for Fraïssé's conjecture restricted to well-orderings.

This paper introduces a refined single-valued neutrosophic set (RSVNS) and presents a similarity measure of RSVNSs. Then a multicriteria decision-making method with RSVNS information is developed based on the similarity measure of RSVNSs. By the similarity measure between each alternative and the ideal solution (ideal alternative), all the alternatives can be ranked and the best one can be selected as well. Finally, an actual example on the selecting problems of construction projects demonstrates the application and effectiveness of the proposed method.

This paper examines the association between corporate philanthropy and tunneling by controlling shareholders. Using a unique dataset from China, the paper finds evidence that firms donating more are less likely to tunnel. The negative association between philanthropy and tunneling is stronger when firms are faced with more severe agency conflicts, as indicated by lower largest shareholding, fewer growth opportunities, lower state ownership, and weaker product market competition. The results suggest that companies engaging in philanthropy have incentives to enhance their reputations (...) and improve their relationships with stakeholders. (shrink)

Over the past decade philosophers of biology have discussed whether evolutionary theory is a causal theory or a phenomenological study of evolution based solely on the statistical features of a population. This article reviews this controversy from three aspects, respectively concerning the assumptions, applications, and explanations of evolutionary theory, with a view to arriving at a definite conclusion in each contention. In so doing I also argue that an implicit methodological assumption shared by both sides of the debate, namely the (...) overconfidence in conceptual analysis as a tool to understand the scientific theory, is the real culprit that has both generated the problem and precluded its solution for such a long time. (shrink)

Given i, j, k ∈ {1,2,3,4}, the notion of -length neutrosophic subalgebras in BCK=BCI-algebras is introduced, and their properties are investigated. Characterizations of length neutrosophic subalgebras are discussed by using level sets of interval neutrosophic sets. Conditions for level sets of interval neutrosophic sets to be subalgebras are provided.