BackgroundThe U.S. Food and Drug Administration traditionally has kept confidential significant amounts of information relevant to the approval or non-approval of specific drugs, devices, and biologics and about the regulatory status of such medical products in FDA’s pipeline.ObjectiveTo develop practical recommendations for FDA to improve its transparency to the public that FDA could implement by rulemaking or other regulatory processes without further congressional authorization. These recommendations would build on the work of FDA’s Transparency Task Force in 2010.MethodsIn 2016-2017, we convened (...) a team of academic faculty from Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Yale Medical School, Yale Law School, and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to develop recommendations through an iterative process of reviewing FDA’s practices, considering the legal and policy constraints on FDA in expanding transparency, and obtaining insights from independent observers of FDA.ResultsThe team developed 18 specific recommendations for improving FDA’s transparency to the public. FDA could adopt all these recommendations without further congressional action.FundingThe development of the Blueprint for Transparency at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. (shrink)

Este trabajo surge a partir de la investigación general de las técnicas hidropónicas teniendo en cuenta sus ventajas y desventajas para de esta forma poder encontrar aquel factor determinante a través de una comparación de técnicas hidropónicas que permitan clasificarlas y escoger la mejor opción que genere menos impacto ambiental negativo y demuestre ser más productivo en los entornos urbanos. Adicionalmente, un factor determinante en las ciudades es su espacio limitado por lo que la mejor opción también deberá incluir un (...) óptimo manejo del espacio que permita a casi cualquier individuo poder aplicarlos desde su entorno sin recurrir a excesivas modificaciones. Como principal resultado se escogió a la Hidroponía recirculante como método predominante por los excelentes resultados que se obtienen con relación a los demás, adicionalmente, este puede ser fácilmente aplicado en los ambientes urbanos por su versatilidad y buen manejo de recursos. Palabras Clave: Hidroponia, ambiente, urbano, comparativa, técnicas, cultivo. Referencias [1]J. López, «La producción hidropónica de cultivos,» IDESIA, vol. 36, nº 2, pp. 139-141, 2018. [2]J. Lee, A. Rahman, J. Behrens, C. Brennan, B. Ham, H. Seok Kim, C. Won, S. Yun, H. Azam y M. Kwon, «Nutrient removal from hydroponic wastewater by a microbial consortium,» New Biotechnology, vol. 41, pp. 15-24, 2018. [3]H. Ku, C. Tiong, A. Suresh y B. Ong, «“Active” hydroponic greenhouse system to kick-start and augment reforestation program through carbon sequestration e an experimental and theoretical feasibility study,» Journal of Cleaner Production, vol. 129, pp. 637-646, 2016. [4]J. Beltrano y D. Gimenez, Cultivo en hidroponía, Buenos Aires: Universidad de la Plata, 2015. [5]L. Ramírez, M. Pérez, P. Jiménez, H. Giraldo y E. Gómez, «Evaluación preliminar de sistemas acuapónicos e hidropónicos en cama flotante para el cultivo de orégano,» Revista Facultad de Ciencias Básicas, vol. 7, nº 2, pp. 242-259, 2011. [6]S. Hosseinzadeh, D. Testai, M. BKheet y J. De Graeve, «Degradation of root exudates in closed hydroponic systems using UV/H2O2: Kinetic investigation, reaction pathways and cost analysis,» Science of the Total Environment, vol. 1, pp. 1-9, 2019. [7]N. Camarena, A. Rojas y M. Santos, «Fluoride bioaccumulation by hydroponic cultures of camellia,» Chemosphere, vol. 136, pp. 56-62, 2015. [8]W. Wang, Y. Ma, L. Fu, Y. Cui y M. Yaqoob, «Physical an mechanical properties of hydroponic lettuce for automatic harvesting,» Informatión processing in agriculture, vol. 1, pp. 2214-3173, 2020. [9]M. Zárate, Manual de Hidroponia, Coyoacán: Universidad Autónoma de Mexico, 2014. [10]S. Magwaza, L. Magwaza, A. Odindo y C. Buckley, «Partially treated domestic wastewater as a nutrient source for tomatoes grown in a hydroponic system: effect on nutrientabsorption and yield,» Heliyon, vol. 6, nº 12, pp. 2405-8440, 2020. [11]C. ARANO, «Hidroponía: Algunas paginas de historia,» Tecnología de Producción, nº 58, pp. 24-32, 2007. [12]G. Guzmán, Hidroponia en Casa: Una actividad familiar, Costa Rica: Ministerio de Agricultura y ganaderia, 2004. [13]J. Gilsanz, HIDROPONIA, Montevideo : Unidad de Comunicación y Transferencia de Tecnología, 2007. [14]C. Miller, «El debate de hidroponia orgánica: Perspectivas norteamericanas sobre si la producción hidropónica merece ser certificada como orgánica.,» Productores de Hortalizas, nº 6, pp. 36-38, 2017. [15]A. Herrera, «Manejo de la solución nutritiva en la producción de tomate en hidroponía,» Terra Latinoamericana, vol. 17, nº 3, pp. 221-229, 1999. [16]C. Espinal y D. Matulić, «Recirculating Aquaculture Technologies,» Biomedical and Life Sciences, pp. 35-76, 2020. [17]H. Resh, «Técnicas de cultivo con flujo laminar de nutrientes,» de Cultivos Hidroponicos, España, Mundi-Prensa, 2001, pp. 35-37. [18]P. Blanca y L. Teresa, «Sistemas recirculantes y su interés en el cutlivo de ornamentales,» Tecnología de producción, nº 35, pp. 34-36, 2006. [19]C. Magán, «Recirculación de las soluciones nutritivas, Manejo y Control Microbiologico,» InfoAgro, nº 2, pp. 1-2, 2016. [20]S. Goddek, A. Joyce, B. Kotzen y M. Dos-Santos, «Aquaponics and Global Food Challenges,» Aquaponics Food Production Systems. Springer, vol. 1, nº 1, pp. 3-17, 2019. [21]S. G. Verdoliva, D. Gwyn Jones, A. Detheridge y P. Robson, «Controlled comparisons between soil and hydroponic systems reveal increased water use efficiency and higher lycopene and β-carotene contents in hydroponically grown tomatoes,» Scientia Horticulturae, pp. 3002-4238, 2020. [22]A. Chaudhry y V. Mishra, «A Comparative Analysis of Vertical Agriculture Systems in Residential Apartments, » de 2019 Advances in Science and Engineering Technology International Conferences, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, United Arab Emirates, 2019. [23]T. Mazhar, G. Jianmin, L. Imran, S. Kashif, Q. Waqar, S. Sher y C. Jiedong, «Modern plant cultivation technologies in agriculture under controlled nvironment: a review on aeroponics,» Journal of Plant Interactions, vol. 13, nº 1, pp. 338-352, 2012. [24]K. Janiak, A. Jurga, J. Kuźma, W. Breś y M. Muszyński, «Surfactants effect on aeroponics and important mass balances of regenerative life support system – Lettuce case study,» Science of the Total Environment, vol. 718, nº137324, pp. 1-12, 2020. [25]F. Rahman, I. Jahan, R. Biplob, N. Farhin y J. Uddin, «Automated Aeroponics System for Indoor Farming using Arduino,» de 2018 Joint 7th International Conference on Informatics, Electronics & Vision and 2018 2nd International Conference on Imaging, Vision & Pattern Recognition, Kitakyushu, Japan, 2018. [26]M. Caldeyro Stajano, «La Hidroponía Simplificada como Tecnología apropiada, para implementar la Seguridad Alimentaria en la Agricultura Urbana.,» Cuadernos del CEAgro, nº 8, pp. 71-76, 2006. (shrink)

This article undertakes a deconstructive reading of astrobiology’s search for extraterrestrial life. Taking its lead from Derrida’s ‘White Mythology’, it explores ‘metaphor in the text of astrobiology’—and includes within the astrobiological ‘text’ not only scientific publications and work on astrobiology in the philosophy of science, but also ‘life detection technologies’. I situate astrobiology in the tradition of a metaphysical analogy that goes back through the enlightenment and early modern astronomy to the ancient Atomists’ notion of the ‘plurality of worlds’. This (...) analogy, which constitutes an identification of life with being and therefore serves as the conceptual basis for the notion that life must exist on other worlds, experiences a mutation in the middle of the twentieth century when molecular biology refigures life in terms of a scriptural metaphor as text. The result is an aporia whose logic Derrida formalised in ‘White Mythology’. (shrink)

The alienation of labour is both classical and contemporary. In its classical form, it speaks to the potential dehumanisation of workers in capitalist societies. In its contemporary form, it manifests itself in the disenfranchisement of the individual because of changes in organised global workplaces. Over the years, Africa’s labour transition from traditional spirituality to contemporary organised global workplaces has fuelled new forms of public labour alienation. Civil servants, in some African countries, experience labour alienation reminiscent of work under capitalism. This (...) is in contradiction to the pre-colonial and traditional view of work as a vocation. Zimbabwe is undergoing negative economic, social, and political growth that has resulted in the alienation of civil servants. The government reneges on its public role of providing space for individual growth and well-being in preference for ‘public capitalism’ and cultural alienation. The potential for an effective public service lies in changing the work culture. Contribution: This article interrogates the impacts of the work culture within the public service in Zimbabwe in an attempt to proffer a return to the African traditional spirituality of work that was founded on the principles of ubuntu. It recognises the traditional symbiotic relationship between being and doing among the indigenous African communities as the panacea for the continent’s human capital development. (shrink)

Bernat argues for a unified brain-based determination of death (UBDD), noting that it “conceptually justifies” death determination both in Donation after Circulatory Determination of Death (DCDD) a...

This article explores both the significance and difficulty of the work of Paul Valéry (1871–1945), arguing that his challenging ideas on Europe and its crisis have much to contribute to recent debates on the philosophy of Europe. For Valéry, Europe is inseparable from its (spiritual) history, caught up in the process of self-understanding and self-alienation. In order to examine this process, the article focuses on Valéry’s tripartite composition of Europe’s “influences,” namely the institutions and laws of the Roman Empire, the (...) self-examination of Christianity, and the discipline of spirit and development of science in ancient Greek culture. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In the present paper I describe a general formal semantic scheme for the interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM), and on the basis of this scheme I examine the modal interpretation of QM — both the Copenhagen and the anti-Copenhagen variants — proposed by van Fraassen [19, 20, 21], This is intended to be a fragment of a larger work [12] which additionally investigates a number of closely related interpretations, including ones proposed by Bub and Demopoulos [1, 2, 3, 4], Fine (...) [5, 6], and Krips [16, 17].Formal semantically speaking (see, e.g., Thomason [18]), a logic L may be characterized as an ordered pair, where SYN is the underlying syntax (language) of L, and SEM is the semantics of L, which consists of a class of semantic assignments on SYN. (shrink)

Most methodological writing on economics is by economists. Although the bulk is produced by lesser members of the profession, almost all leading economists have at one time or another tried their hand at methodological reflection. The results are usually poor. If one read only their methodology, one would have a hard time understanding how Milton Friedman or Paul Samuelson could possibly win Nobel Prizes. It thus is less surprising that the economics profession professes such scorn for philosophizing than that its (...) members spend so much of their time doing it.Methodological reflections on economics pose other puzzles, too. Although this literature is heavily influenced by philosophy—both current and, especially, out-dated—, it is cut off from philosophical discourse. This quasi-autonomy is puzzling, since this literature is concerned with questions that appear to be instances of, if not the same as the questions with which philosophers of science are concerned. (shrink)

The article considers regional issues of the Kazakh transtoposystem. There are a number of problematic issues related to cross-border Kazakh toponymy. The article analyzes only one aspect – the status of binary names in the cross-border toposystem. The goal is to study how obvious the binary opposition is there, considering the etymology of toponyms based on semantic opposition. The toposystem of the Northern and Western regions bordering Russia was used as the empirical material for the study. According to the border (...) administrative-regional division, a number of districts of such regions of the country as North Kazakhstan, Pavlodar, Kostanay, Western Kazakhstan, Aktobe, and Atyrau border with Russia. In the article, a series of binary names along the toponyms of this cross-border zone is formed. In particular, Úlken-Kіshі (Big-Small), Aq-Qara (Black-White), Qara-Sary (Black-Yellow), Jaqsy-Jaman (Good-Bad), Jyly-Sýyq (Warm-Cold), and Ashy-Tushy (Bitter-Fresh) are analyzed. The difference between toponymic binary names and lexical antonyms is considered. We discuss the fact that the contradiction in lexical antonyms is clearly expressed, but in binary opposition along toponyms, the contradiction may not be complete. It is reported that the contradiction of toponyms is recognized only in the toponymic context, and sometimes it is even possible to form a related pair, rather than a semantic contradiction. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es estudiar las llamadas Achaica de Polibio (2.37-70). Se propone dejar de lado indemostrables hipótesis, tanto sobre una escritura independiente, como también con respecto a la supuesta inserción tardía e inorgánica de este texto en las Historias. En cambio, se busca relacionar las Achaica con la situación histórica en Grecia en ca. 150 a.C. a fin de entender la construcción discursiva de una imagen internacional de los aqueos fundada en una fama histórica de pístis y (...) philanthropía como una respuesta del historiador aqueo a una situación amenazante contemporánea sobre la Confederación aquea por parte de Roma. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Logic of God Incarnate. By THOMAS V. MORRIS. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986. Pp. 220. $19.95. Thomas V. Morris, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has written a technical yet provocative study on the Incarnation. As a faithful Christian he believes in and desires to defend the traditional Christian doctrine of the Incarnation proclaimed in the New Testament and defined by the (...) early councils of the Church, especially Chalcedon, that is, that Jesus is the One eternal Son existing in two natures. He also holds that, while the truth of the Incarnation is revealed, it must nonetheless stand the test of logic and reason. The Incarnation cannot be illogicaJ or meaningless. " If the church has been guided by God in such matters as the formulation of its creeds, conciliar decrees, and catechisms,.... we would not expect glaring logical flaws in its central doctrinal affirmations" (p. 46). The stated purpose of Morris's study is to defend the traditional doctrine against those who would hold it to be logically incoherent and meaningless. "In the course of thinking about the Incarnation for some years now, I have come to see that a few simple metaphysical distinctions and a solid dose of logical care will suffice to explicate and defend the doctrine against all extant criticisms of a philosophical nature" (p. 9). Morris meticulously analyzes and critiques a number of arguments that oppose the possibility of coherence of the Incarnation by attempting to demonstrate that such arguments are.either false and illogical themselves, or that they do not apply to a true understanding of the Incarnation. Moreover, Morris proposes a novel understanding of the Incarnation which he believes is both logical and intelligible, and which conforms to the Christian tradition. This goal of upholding the intelligibility of the Incarnate leads Morris to a three-fold task. He first of all must refute his chief adversaries, those who would deny the sensibleness of saying God became man in Jesus. Such critics deny the validity of the Incarnation on the ground..'! that it is meaning·less, and the'l'efore impossible to juxtapose the incommensurable. attributes of divinity and humanity, e.g., perfection/imperfection, immutability/corruptibility. They hold that Jesus could not have had both these sets of properties at once (cf. p. 20). Morris refuses to capitulate to such arguments. He nevertheless insists that any solution to the issue which would undermine human logic or which would fail to uphold the Christian's belief is no solution at all (cf. p. 32). 367 368 BOOK REVIEWS Secondly, Morris's task leads him to refute any attempts at a " OneNature " solution, which would "squash" together the human and divine natures in Jesus to form a single nature. Such proposals jeopardize either the integrity of Jesus's divinity (Arianism) or his humanity (Docetism, Monophysitism), inevitably composing a mythical tertium quid (cf. pp. 33-38). Morris presents a clear case against such corruptions of the Incarnation. Thirdly, Morris's task brings him to analyze contemporary kenotic Christology. He thoroughly discusses this approach, for the reason that it is directly involved in the issue at hand, namely, the incompatibility between divine and human properties in Christ. Secondarily, however, Morris's interest in kenoticism reflects his own hope that some variation of the approach might posibly arrive at a Christological solution (cf. p. 92). While he ultimately rejects kenoticism, Morris flirts with the various alternatives, and, as we shall see, his own perception of the Incarnation remains tinged with a kenotic flavor. How then is it possible to predicate of one and the same individual divine and human attributes intelligibly and coherentlyT To use contemporary computer jargon, the question might be phrased: is it possible that God and man can he "incarnation-friendly¥" Morris believes so. Morris first of all sets out to define the terms-divine nature and human nature. He believes part of the incompatibility problem lies in attributing to Jesus's humanity unnecessarily hostile aspects. He distinguishes between being "merely human" and being "fully human"· To be " merely human " is to possess not only those properties that narrowly define one's nature or kind, such as rationality, but... (shrink)

Twentieth century philosophers introduced the distinction between “objective rightness” and “subjective rightness” to achieve two primary goals. The first goal is to reduce the paradoxical tension between our judgments of what is best for an agent to do in light of the actual circumstances in which she acts and what is wisest for her to do in light of her mistaken or uncertain beliefs about her circumstances. The second goal is to provide moral guidance to an agent who may be (...) uncertain about the circumstances in which she acts, and hence is unable to use her standard moral principle directly in deciding what to do. This paper distinguishes two important senses of “moral guidance”; proposes criteria of adequacy for accounts of subjective rightness; canvasses existing definitions for “subjective rightness”; finds them all deficient; and proposes a new and more successful account. It argues that each comprehensive moral theory must include multiple principles of subjective rightness to address the epistemic situations of the full range of moral decision-makers, and shows that accounts of subjective rightness formulated in terms of what it would reasonable for the agent to believe cannot provide that guidance. (shrink)

Much has been published about the ethical issues encountered by clinicians in genetics/genomics, but those experienced by clinical laboratory scientists are less well described. Clinical laboratory scientists now frequently face navigating ethical problems in their work, but how they should be best supported to do this is underexplored. This lack of attention is also reflected in the ethics tools available to clinical laboratory scientists such as guidance and deliberative ethics forums, developed primarily to manage issues arising within the clinic.We explore (...) what ethical issues are being experienced by clinical scientists, how they think such issues could be best analysed and managed, and whether their practice might be enhanced by more situated approaches to ethics deliberation and practice such as ethical preparedness. From thematic analysis of cases presented by clinical scientists at a specially convened meeting of the UK Genethics Forum, we derived three main ethical themes: (1) the redistribution of labour and responsibilities resulting from the practice of genomic medicine; (2) the interpretation and certainty of results and (3) the proposal that better standardisation and consistency of ethical approaches (for example, more guidelines and policy) could resolve some of the challenges arising.We argue that although standardisation is important for promoting shared understandings of good (including ethical) practice, supplementary approaches to enhance and sustain ethical preparedness will be important to help clinical scientists and others in the recently expanded genetic/genomic medicine environment foster quality ethical thinking. (shrink)

This volume offers the first-ever complete English translation of Leibniz’s Dissertatio De Arte Combinatoria together with a critical edition of the original Latin text on fa...

IntroductionBisphenol A is highly debated and studied in relation to a variety of health outcomes. This large variation in the literature makes BPA a topic that is prone to selective use of literature, in order to underpin one’s own findings and opinion. Over time, selective use of literature, by means of citations, can lead to a skewed knowledge development and a biased scientific consensus. In this study, we assess which factors drive citation and whether this results in the overrepresentation of (...) harmful health effects of BPA.MethodsA citation network analysis was performed to test various determinants of citation. A systematic search identified all relevant publications on the human health effect of BPA. Data were extracted on potential determinants of selective citation, such as study outcome, study design, sample size, journal impact factor, authority of the author, self-citation, and funding source. We applied random effect logistic regression to assess whether these determinants influence the likelihood of citation.ResultsOne hundred sixty-nine publications on BPA were identified, with 12,432 potential citation pathways of which 808 citations occurred. The network consisted of 63 cross-sectional studies, 34 cohort studies, 29 case-control studies, 35 narrative reviews, and 8 systematic reviews. Positive studies have a 1.5 times greater chance of being cited compared to negative studies. Additionally, the authority of the author and self-citation are consistently found to be positively associated with the likelihood of being cited. Overall, the network seems to be highly influenced by two highly cited publications, whereas 60 out of 169 publications received no citations.ConclusionIn the literature on BPA, citation is mostly driven by positive study outcome and author-related factors, such as high authority within the network. Interpreting the impact of these factors and the big influence of a few highly cited publications, it can be questioned to which extent the knowledge development in human literature on BPA is actually evidence-based. (shrink)

This paper investigates the attitudes of two Islamic and Christian thinkers, Saint Aquinas and Mulla Sadra Shirazi, about occurrence and eternity hypothesis issue. Aquinas faces two ideas. The first approach is eternity of the world based on Aristotle's theory and his followers another approach is the world temporal occurrence derived from Christian scriptures. Aquinas believes that the reasons presented for proving the world's occurrence are not convincing and therefore criticizes them. Although he accepts the universe occurrence he has a worshiping (...) view to it and finally regards the world's eternity and occurrence as an antinomical problem. In contrast, Mulla Sadra who has accepted the occurrence does not consider a starting point for the issue and in turn tries to prove it by Substantial Motion approach and therefore regardless of worship aspect of the issue and by employing a rational approach he gains a higher status than Aquinas. (shrink)

The relevance of the research is the intensity of noise emitted by lorries depends on the regime of the vehicle movement. One of the main negative factors caused by road vehicles is air pollution with exhaust gases. The article presents results for noise caused by lorries and gas usage while the vehicle is accelerating. The subject of the study is 4 lorries, and they also feature fuel recording systems which are less than 5 years old. Research methodology. The level of (...) noise emitted by heavyweight transport vehicles is measured according to Lithuanian standard LST ISO 1996-2:2008 requirements. During the tests the noise levels of L A,eq, L C,eq, L C,peak were measured. The tests were done 5 times each and the results are presented as arithmetical averages. Fuel consumption is registered in vehicle data registration system. The researched vehicles have to comply with environmental safety normative requirements; that the vehicle carbon monoxide, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, unburned fuel and other hazardous substances contained in the combustion gases must not exceed the prescribed limits. The results of the experimental studies show that EURO6 lorries noise level is the lowest compared to the EURO4 and EURO5. After carrying out the analysis of the caused noise and gas usage, it was found that noise pollution and gas usage are higher without speed control system. The noise caused by lorries can be described in square polynomial which defines the noise inclination change while vehicle is accelerating. Scientific novelty of the research a complex research on noise and fuel consumption of lorries by using and not using speed control system. Research idea and problem is to achieve sustainable transport development objectives, in particular the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol. It is very important to find ways to forecast and reduce transport noise pollution, while also reducing overall pollution, as well as mitigating the impact on the global climate., Conclusion – after conducting a lorry noise and fuel consumption analysis, it was determined that not using speed control system increases the noise and fuel consumption and if the system is used both of these factors decrease drastically. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss why in some circumstances people express their intentions indirectly: the use of Indirect Speech Acts. Based on Parikh’s games of partial information and Franke’s IBR model, I develop game-theoretic models of ISAs, which are divided into two categories, namely non-conventional ISAs and conventional ISAs. I assume that non-conventional ISAs involve two types of communication situations: communication under certain cooperation and that under uncertain cooperation. I will analyse the cases of ironical request and implicit bribery (...) as typical instances of non-conventional ISAs of each situation type, respectively. I then apply the models to analyse the use of conventional ISAs from an evolutionary perspective, which is inspired by Lewisian convention theory. The models yield the following predictions: the use of non-conventional ISAs under certain cooperation relies on the sympathy between interlocutors, which blocks their evolution towards conventional ISAs; in unc... (shrink)

In Chinese scholarship, Xunzi is often regarded as an eclectic Confucian master who accepted some form of utilitarian thoughts (e.g. Fung Yu-lan, Mou Zongsan and Xu Fuguan). This characteristic was also observed by some western scholars such as Benjamin I. Schwartz. In a recent study, I argued that the basic character of Xunzi’s philosophy is utilitarianism in a broad sense based on an examination on his intellectual criticism and political criticism. Xunzi asserts that humans are innately driven by self-interested desires, (...) and he evaluates all intellectual works and political behaviours by their utility. However, he does not limit utility to only basic animal desires such as food and sex. In Xunzi’s view, humans also have innate emotions; hence, these emotions should also be accounted for in their utility. This is similar to John Stuart Mill’s redefinition of Bentham’s concept of utility. Are Xunzi’s and Mill’s concepts of utility exactly the same? This question has yet to be examined. This article is a comparative study between utilitarianism and Xunzi’s philosophy which especially explores the compatibility of these two philosophies. (shrink)

The paper deals with the understanding of proper names. Though the theme goes across various disciplines – e.g. semantics, epistemology, psychology – the paper examines only selected semantic and cognitive aspects of the problem. The question runs: How should we comprehend the thesis of understanding a proper name as knowing what the name refers to? What kind of knowledge is involved here? The question is posed within the direct reference theory framework enriched by the notion of singular proposition and the (...) compositionality principle. The distinction between an expression and an utterance of it is accepted and the original question is split up accordingly. As for expressions , to understand a proper name is to grasp a meaning axiom along the lines of D. Davidson and J. McDowell. As for utterances of expressions, to understand an utterance of a proper name is to know a piece of information concerning the referent of the name; ideally, it is a fact that can be expressed by an identity statement claiming that the referent of the name under discussion is identical with the individual about which the speaker has a mental file at her disposal. (shrink)