Very few attempts have been made to survey patient opinions, particularly regarding the use of residual biospecimens and health information in research, to clarify their values. We conducted a questionnaire survey that targeted outpatients of a university hospital to gauge their awareness levels and understand patient perspectives on research that uses these items. Few patients felt that obtaining individual consent for each research study was necessary. Most patients expressed the view that researchers should be obligated to inform them about the (...) research use of their items and be subject to self-directed rules. The research community should try to obtain “societal consent regarding an opt-out system” from the public. A salient value-sharing-based governance structure is necessary for obtaining public trust. (shrink)

In a study concerning visual body part recognition, a “self-advantage” effect, whereby self-related body stimuli are processed faster and more accurately than other-related body stimuli, was revealed, and the emergence of this effect is assumed to be tightly linked to implicit motor simulation, which is activated when performing a hand laterality judgment task in which hand ownership is not explicitly required. Here, we ran two visual hand recognition tasks, namely, a hand laterality judgment task and a self-other discrimination task, to (...) investigate whether the self-advantage emerged even if implicit motor imagery was assumed to be working less efficiently and how individual traits [such as autistic traits and the extent of positive self-body image, as assessed via the Autism Spectrum Quotient and the Body Appreciation Scale-2, respectively] modulate performance in these hand recognition tasks. Participants were presented with hand images in two orientations [i.e., upright and upside-down ] and asked to judge whether it was a left or right hand. They were also asked to determine whether it was their own, or another person’s hand. Data collected from men and women were analyzed separately. The self-advantage effect in the hand laterality judgment task was not revealed, suggesting that only two orientation conditions are not enough to trigger this motor simulation. Furthermore, the men’s group showed a significant positive correlation between AQ scores and reaction times in the laterality judgment task, while the women’s group showed a significant negative correlation between AQ scores and differences in RTs and a significant positive correlation between BAS-2 scores and dprime in the self-other discrimination task. These results suggest that men and women differentially adopt specific strategies and/or execution processes for implicit and explicit hand recognition tasks. (shrink)

Ongoing research on making “human-animal chimeras” or “animals containing human material” to solve the shortage of organs available for transplantation has raised many ethical issues regarding the creation and utilization of such constructs, including cultural views regarding the status of those creations. A pilot study was conducted to explore Japanese public attitudes toward human-animal chimeras or ACHM. The February 2012 study consisted of focus group interviews with citizens from the Greater Tokyo Area, aged between 20 and 54. The 24 participants (...) were divided into four groups. Transcripts of the interviews were analyzed and participants’ attitudes categorized. Five categories of participant attitudes were identified: resistance to the unnatural, concerns about animal welfare, concerns about controlling human-animal chimeras, concerns about the possible birth of intermediate entities, and resistance to creating and utilizing animals containing my material or my child’s material. Our FGI results showed a broader and greater variety of public concerns than those reported in previous studies. While researchers have tried to establish new methods to avoid creating intermediate entities, our participants expressed concerns about not only intermediate entities but also animals containing their own material or their child’s material. Based upon their responses in the interviews, we are introducing a new ethical concern: “animals containing my material/my child’s material.”. (shrink)

Die Arbeit widmet sich den zentralen Gedanken Ferdinand Ebners als einem Vertreter der Ich-Du-Philosophie. Ebner sieht im "Wort, das im Anfang war" (Joh 1,1) den Ursprung des menschlichen Wortes. Da er die Bedeutung des Pneumas in der Ich-Du-Beziehung betont und dieses mit der Liebe in Beziehung setzt, ist es naheliegend, im Ursprung der Liebe den Heiligen Geist zu sehen. Wahrend Ebner in einem engen menschlichen Rahmen bleibt, erweitert Daishiro Nakajima die Sicht auf die gesamte Schopfung. Er sieht in ihr (...) die Grundstruktur von Wort und Liebe als Grundoffenbarung des drei-einigen Schopfers als Ursprung des Seins. Sein - Wort - Liebe ist die gemeinsame Wesensstruktur fur den Schopfer und das Geschopf. Von hier versucht Nakajima unter Einbeziehung asiatischer Denktraditionen auch die Beziehung zwischen Wort und Schweigen zu klaren. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Guest Editor’s IntroductionNakajima Takahiro 「東京学派」とは聞きなれない名称であろう。日本研究において「京都学派」は大変よく知られている。たとえ「京都学派」が、「無の論理は論理ではない」と述べた上で、戸坂潤が発明した批判的な概念であったとしても 、現在ではそれは西田幾多郎や田辺元を中心とした一大哲学運動として世界的に認知されている。ところが、西田にしても田辺にしてももともとは東京帝国大学で学んだ学生であった。また、戦前においては、井上哲次郎か ら桑木厳翼へと続く東京帝国大学哲学科の流れは、当時の社会状況と相互に影響しあって、一定の意義を示していたのである。また、大森荘蔵、廣松渉、坂部恵といった戦後の東京大学の哲学者たちは、「京都学派」の問題 系を乗り越えることを重視していた。 この特別号では、発見的概念として「東京学派」を用いて、戦前・戦後におけるその意義と広がりを探究することにした。それは東京大学もしくは東京帝国大学に限定されたものではなく、それ以外の東京圏の大学との相互 交流も含まれるものである。「京都学派」に対しては、政治との距離をどう測るかがしばしば議論されてきたが、「東京学派」は政治により密着したものである。日本の近代の哲学の有している政治性そして倫理性を考える のであれば、やはり「東京学派」の議論は避けて通る ことのできないものである。 無論、「学派」というほどのまとまりを「東京学派」が有しているわけではないことも確かである。西田幾多郎が「京都学派」で果たした中心性は、「東京学派」にはない。そこで、トマス・カスリスが示唆するように、「 学派」の代わりに「サークル」や「スタイル」という言葉を使った方がより正確かもしれない。それでも、あえて「東京学派」と呼ぶのは、「京都学派」に比べて関心を持たれることの少ない、しかし当時は圧倒的な影響力 を有し、戦後決定的に忘却されていった東京の哲学者たちに光をあて、近代日本の哲学の総体を明らかにしたいからである。「東京学派」の研究は緒についたばかりである。今後、国際的な研究の高まりを期待しながら擱筆 する。The “Tokyo School” may be an unfamiliar term to readers. The Kyoto School is very well known in Japanese studies. Even if the Kyoto School is a critical concept invented by Tosaka Jun, who stated [End Page 2] that “the logic of nothingness is not logic,” it is now recognized worldwide as a major philosophical movement led by Nishida Kitarō and Tanabe (...) Hajime. However, both Nishida and Tanabe were originally students at Tokyo Imperial University. In addition, before the war, the output of the Department of Philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University, from Inoue Tetsujirō to Kuwaki Gen’yoku, had a certain significance because it interacted with the social conditions of the time. In addition, postwar philosophers at the University of Tokyo, such as Ōmori Shōzō, Hiromatsu Wataru, and Sakabe Megumi emphasized overcoming the problematics of the Kyoto School.In this special issue, we use the Tokyo School as a heuristic concept to explore its significance and spread in the prewar and postwar periods. It is not limited to the University of Tokyo or Tokyo Imperial University but includes interactions with other universities in the Tokyo area. While the Kyoto School has often been discussed in terms of how to measure its distance from politics, the Tokyo School is more closely connected to politics. If we consider the political and ethical dimensions of modern Japanese philosophy, we cannot avoid discussing the Tokyo School.Of course, it is true that the Tokyo School is not as coherent as a “school.” The central role that Nishida fulfilled in the Kyoto School is perhaps lacking in the Tokyo School. Therefore, as Thomas P. Kasulis suggests, it might be more accurate to use the term “circle” or “style” instead of “school.” Nevertheless, I dare to call it the Tokyo School because I would like to shed light on the Tokyo philosophers who were less popular than those of the Kyoto School but whose influence was overwhelming at the time and who were definitively forgotten after the war, so as to clarify the totality of philosophy in modern Japan.Research on the Tokyo School has only just begun. I am writing this introductory note in anticipation of further international research on the Tokyo School. [End Page 3]Copyright © 2023 State University of New York Press... (shrink)

Pragmatism emphasizes practical consequences and empirical explanations rather than introspective contemplations. However, the arguments of pragmatists are not uniform, as shown by the four prominent pragmatists presented in this article. The major difference between them is that Peirce and Haack acknowledge an objective truth, whereas James and Rorty do not. Thus, for a fuller understanding of the pragmatist view of our knowledge, both camps must be consulted. In the nursing field, pragmatism is occasionally referred to as a guiding philosophy. However, (...) the influence of James and Rorty has been greater than that of Peirce and Haack on pragmatists, which may risk leading to a skewed understanding of pragmatism by nursing scholars. Still, the four pragmatists share naturalism, which rejects a metaphysics that defines the nature of knowledge before our enquiry and emphasizes experience and practice. Pragmatic naturalism can help ensure that nursing theory does not deviate from clinical practice. This article also explores the broad adaptability of the ideas of all four pragmatists to philosophical issues in nursing, such as mixed‐methods research, epistemic relativism and realism. By showing that pragmatism can be relevant and stimulating to each of these topics, the article demonstrates that the different approaches to pragmatism can provide more inspiration for nurses and nursing researchers in the future. (shrink)

Background The number of medical lawsuits in Japan was between 14 and 21 each year before 1998, but increased to 24 to 35 per year after 1999. There were 210 lawsuits during this 10-year period. There is a need for skills and knowledge related to ethics, which is as fundamental to the practice of medicine as basic sciences or clinical skills. in Japan education in ethics is relatively rare and its importance is not yet recognized. Establishing ethics education using legal (...) precedents, which has already been achieved in Western countries, will be a very important issue in Japan. In the present study, a questionnaire survey was conducted among graduate intern doctors, in order to investigate whether ethics education using precedents might have a positive effect in Japan. Methods In 2002, a questionnaire survey entitled Physicians' Clinical Ethics was carried out in a compulsory orientation lecture given to trainees before they started clinical practice in our hospital. The attendees at this lecture were trainees who came from colleges in various districts of Japan. During the lecture, 102 questionnaires were distributed, completed by attendees and collected. The recovery rate was 100%. The questionnaire consisted of 22 questions (in three categories), of which 20 were answered by multiple choices, and the other two were answered by description. The time required to complete the questionnaire was about 10 minutes. Results The recovered questionnaires were analyzed using statistical analysis software (SPSS for Windows, Release 10.07J-1/June/2000), in addition to simple statistical analysis. answers using multiple choices for the 20 questions in the questionnaire were input into SPSS. The principal component analysis was performed for each question. As a result, the item that came to the fore was "legal precedent". Since many intern doctors were interested in understanding laws and precedents, learning about ethical considerations through education using precedents might better meet with their needs and interests. Conclusion We applied a new method in which the results of principal component analysis and frequencies of answers to other questions were combined. From this we deduced that the precedent education used in Western countries was useful to help doctors acquire ethical sensitivity and was not against their will. A relationship was found between reading precedents and the influence of lawsuits, and it was thought that student participation-type precedent education would be useful for doctors in order to acquire ethical sensitivity. (shrink)

Background Against a background of on the one hand, a declining demography and a conservative family register system that emphasizes the importance of the blood line, and on the other hand, an increase in the number of people undergoing fertility treatment, the absence of a legal regulatory framework concerning ART matters is likely to result in an increasing number of contradictory situations. It is against this background that the paper sets out to examine the judgements of court cases related to (...) ART, with a particular focus on the legal determination of parental status, and to link these to aspects of the legal and socio-ethical environment within which the courts make their judgements. Methods The methods used were thorough investigation of all the court cases concerning ART in the public domain in Japan, including the arguments of the concerned parties and the judgements so far delivered. With the court cases as a central focal point, trends in Japan, including deliberations by government and academic societies, are reviewed, and the findings of surveys on the degree of understanding and attitudes among the people toward ART are summarized. Results In terms of the judgements to date, the central criteria used by the courts in determining parental status were the act of parturition and the consent of the husband of the concerned couple. The government and academic societies have displayed a cautious attitude toward ART, but the findings of attitude surveys among the people at large show a generally positive attitude toward ART. Attitudes toward the overwhelming importance hitherto attached to the bloodline are also seen to be changing. Conclusion The main conclusion is that in the absence of a legal regulatory framework for ART, there is likely to be an increase in the contradictions between the use of outdated legal precedents and the technical development of ART. Since much of the specialist discussion necessary for the formulation of a legal framework has already been carried out, the speedy enactment of comprehensive and at the same time flexible legislation would be highly desirable, but further wide-ranging discussion involving the general public is likely to be needed first. (shrink)

The Zhuangzi is a deliciously protean text: it is concerned not only with personal realization, but also with social and political order. In many ways the Zhuangzi established a unique literary and philosophical genre of its own, and while clearly the work of many hands, it is one of the finest pieces of literature in the classical Chinese corpus. It employs every trope and literary device available to set off rhetorically charged flashes of insight into the most unrestrained way to (...) live one's life, free from oppressive, conventional judgments and values. The essays presented here constitute an attempt by a distinguished community of international scholars to provide a variety of exegeses of one of the Zhuangzi's most frequently rehearsed anecdotes, often referred to as "the Happy Fish debate." The editors have brought together essays from the broadest possible compass of scholarship, offering interpretations that range from formal logic to alternative epistemologies to transcendental mysticism. Many were commissioned by the editors and appear for the first time. Some of them have been available in other languages—Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish—and were translated especially for this anthology. And several older essays were chosen for the quality and variety of their arguments, formulated over years of engagement by their authors. All, however, demonstrate that the Zhuangzi as a text and as a philosophy is never one thing; indeed, it has always been and continues to be, many different things to many different people. (shrink)

The Zhuangzi is a deliciously protean text: it is concerned not only with personal realization, but also with social and political order. In many ways the Zhuangzi established a unique literary and philosophical genre of its own, and while clearly the work of many hands, it is one of the finest pieces of literature in the classical Chinese corpus. It employs every trope and literary device available to set off rhetorically charged flashes of insight into the most unrestrained way to (...) live one's life, free from oppressive, conventional judgments and values. The essays presented here constitute an attempt by a distinguished community of international scholars to provide a variety of exegeses of one of the Zhuangzi's most frequently rehearsed anecdotes, often referred to as "the Happy Fish debate." The editors have brought together essays from the broadest possible compass of scholarship, offering interpretations that range from formal logic to alternative epistemologies to transcendental mysticism. Many were commissioned by the editors and appear for the first time. Some of them have been available in other languages—Chinese, Japanese, German, Spanish—and were translated especially for this anthology. And several older essays were chosen for the quality and variety of their arguments, formulated over years of engagement by their authors. All, however, demonstrate that the Zhuangzi as a text and as a philosophy is never one thing; indeed, it has always been and continues to be, many different things to many different people. (shrink)

El libro ilustra un caso de migración de ideas a través de un análisis contextual e histórico-filosófico que introduce al lector en la traducción de la tesis doctoral del filósofo japonés Nakajima Rikizo (1858-1918), La doctrina kantiana de la cosa en sí (1889), defendida en la Universidad de Yale. En el estudio introductorio se examina la aportación del pensador a la luz de la querella sobre la cosa en sí de Kant y esta se enmarca en la corriente neokantiana (...) del siglo XIX, extrayéndose, de ahí, consecuencias para situar el papel de la disertación en el interior de la recepción del idealismo alemán y el neokantismo en la historia de la modernidad filosófica en Japón a partir de la época Meiji (1868). En la tarea de la edición literaria que acompaña a la traducción, el lector encontrará referenciadas de manera sistemática las muchas fuentes que cita Nakajima en su tesis doctoral, aunque, como signo de su tiempo, en el original lo haga sin una convención coherente y, en ocasiones, sin detalles suficientes. Así pues, al aportar al lector acceso a las referencias a los libros que manejó el filósofo, se contribuye a que el texto tenga, además, un interés histórico que se suma al eminentemente filosófico, con el objetivo de impulsar y potenciar estudios sobre la red de interacciones filosóficas que atraviesan el escrito del autor japonés. Por último, el libro se suma a las publicaciones que, en torno a la obra de Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), ganan relevancia filosófica en un momento en el que se está a las puertas de la celebración del 300 aniversario de su nacimiento. (shrink)

Different aspects of competition in stock exchanges have been discussed from either a positive or normative perspective, but this article seeks to come up with an approach encompassing both positive and normative dimensions of competition in various aspects of stock exchanges' activities. As far as the positive nature of the securities market and industry is concerned, conflicting trends are emerging. The liberalization of securities markets and the disappearance of technical barriers have dismantled the monopoly of national stock exchanges but led (...) to more consolidation. However, we are also witnessing a destabilizing and fragmenting effect of competition on these markets. Following an analysis of the normative/positive dichotomy in approaching competition in financial services, we discuss the centrality of information disclosure in creating a competitive and stable financial market. Disclosure of information, therefore, reinforces both competitive and prudential objectives alike. In a further attempt, we discuss the tension between the principles of competition and prudence alongside the conflict between competition objectives and economies of scope and scale. While arguments in weighing competition against economies of scope and scale are evenly balanced, the unique characteristics of such markets do not allow the absolute application of competition principles when it comes to prudential concerns. (shrink)

Short-term motor practice leads to plasticity in the primary motor cortex. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that determine the increase in corticospinal tract excitability after motor practice, with special focus on two factors; “the level of muscle activity” and “the presence/absence of a goal of keeping the activity level constant.” Fifteen healthy subjects performed four types of rapid thumb adduction in separate sessions. In the “comfortable task” and “forceful task”, the subjects adducted their thumb using (...) comfortable and strong forces. In the “comfortable with a goal task” and “forceful with a goal task”, subjects controlled the muscle activity at the same level as in the C and F, respectively, by adjusting the peak electromyographic amplitude within the target ranges. Paired associative stimulation, which combines peripheral nerve stimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation, with an inter-stimulus interval of 25 ms was also done. Before and after the motor tasks and PAS25, TMS was applied to the M1. None of the four tasks showed any temporary changes in behavior, meaning no learning occurred. Motor-evoked potential amplitude increased only after the FG and it exhibited a positive correlation with the MEP increase after PAS25, suggesting that FG and PAS25 share at least similar plasticity mechanisms in the M1. Resting motor threshold decreased only after FG, suggesting that FG would also be associated with the membrane depolarization of M1 neurons. These results suggest task-dependent plasticity from the synergistic effect of forceful muscle activity and of setting a goal of keeping the activity level constant. (shrink)

In this study, we explored how the modality would affect the input, visuo-motor coordination, and execution in the advanced pianist's sight-reading processes, as well as relations among these three phases. Thirty-two advanced pianists with 5–54 years of piano training participated in the study. All participants sight-read three two-voice pieces in either major or minor mode while their eye movements were measured by an eye-tracking device. All pieces were 20-measure long written in 4/4 m, adapted from unfamiliar Baroque pieces. Results showed (...) that sight-readers fixated more frequently and tended to spend more time performing in a minor score than in a major score. This implies that modality of a score affects an efficiency of input and visuo-motor coordination in the advanced pianist's sight-reading. Spearman's correlation coefficients showed that errors were correlated positively with the number of fixations and the duration of performance. These results add more evidence to the notion that efficiencies in input and visuo-motor coordination are related to the accuracy in execution. (shrink)

Cultural differences in daily emotions were investigated by administering emotion questionnaires four times a day throughout a one-week period. Respondents were American students, Japanese students living in the United States, and Japanese students living in Japan. Americans rated their emotional lives as more pleasant than did the Japanese groups. The dimension of emotional pleasantness (unpleasant-pleasant) was predicted better by interdependent than independent concerns in the Japanese groups, but this was not the case in the American group where the variance predicted (...) by interdependent and independent concerns did not significantly differ. It is argued that cultural differences in the concerns most strongly associated with pleasantness are related to differences in ideals, norms, and practices of what it means to be a person. Cultural differences in the concerns are assumed to implicate differences in the nature of emotional experience. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to investigate how the subjective impression of English speech would change when pause duration at punctuation marks was varied. Two listening experiments were performed in which written English speech segments were rated on a variety of evaluation items by both native-English speakers and non-native speakers. The ratings were then subjected to factor analysis. In the first experiment, the pauses in three segments were made into the same durations, from 0.075 to 4.8 s. Participants rated (...) the segments on 23 evaluation items on a rating scale from 1 to 10. A varimax rotation after PCA led to two factors that were related to speech style. These two factors could be interpreted as representing speech naturalness and speech rate. Speech segments with a pause duration of 0.6 s received the highest naturalness evaluation, while perceived speech rate decreased as the physical pause duration increased, without any changes in utterance segments. In the second experiment, a full-factorial design of pause durations within and between sentences, i.e., for commas and for periods, was implemented in two speech segments. The original speech segments and speech segments without any pauses were also included as control conditions. From ratings on 12 evaluation items, similar to Experiment 1, two factors representing speech naturalness and speech rate were obtained. The results showed again that the perceived speech rate decreased with an increase only in pause duration. As for speech naturalness, the highest evaluations occurred when pause durations were 0.6 s within sentences, and either 0.6 or 1.2 s between sentences. This recommends fixing all pause durations to 0.6 s as a practical way to train non-native speakers to make their spoken English appear more natural. (shrink)

The German end-of-life vehicle take-back system is described and analyzed in terms of its impact on the environment and the car companies involved. It is concluded that although this system is often cited as an example of a successful take-back scheme, it is not one that maximizes the value recovered from end-of-life vehicles. As a result, corporations do not achieve the potential benefits that can be realized from an alternate value chain based on recovering value from end-of-life products. Neither is (...) society benefiting from the potential reduction in pollution and from making its way of life more sustainable. Without bringing these potential benefits to all stakeholders, the system is not likely to have a future. (shrink)

In the decades to come, the authors expect growing pressures to reform current production systems to make them more compatible with the biosphere. A proactive approach to this pressure involves consideration of an alternate value chain based on a comprehensive engineering and marketing approach to recover value from end-of-life products. To estimate the potential advantages of the new value chain, the authors calculate the minimum throughput advantages and environmental advantages that can be realized from a comprehensive strategy of recovering value (...) from end-of-life products. The efforts of corporations and other organizations to make modern ways of life more environmentally sustainable are evaluated against this benchmark in terms of activities in the area of selling services, product take back, life cycle assessment, Responsible Care, voluntary emission reduction initiatives, and engineering and management education. It is concluded that in general, these efforts make only a minor contribution toward achieving. (shrink)

本書は、人間的営みとしての学びの広さ・深さ・自由さを確認していく。人間の成長、人間形成という視点から、学びの実践を通して「学び」の人間学的原理、学ぶ主体にとっての意味を考察。個人の具体的な経験を通して 、多様な学びのあり方を提示。日本人の学び方、教え方の伝統や特徴とその問題について考察。.

Product take-back (also called extended producer responsibility) has become a trend for dealing with the garbage resulting from categories of problematic products. Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) is one such category with computer equipment being of particular significance. This article provides a description of the European Union’s program to require the take-back of WEEE as well as the status of similar programs in Canada and the United States. It is concluded that although these programs meet the goal of reducing (...) the quantity of hazardous materials going to landfills, they do not go to the root of the problem by means of preventive approaches that create more circular materials flows. Plastics used in WEEE pose a serious problem, as they are generally not recycled. (shrink)

It has not been sufficiently emphasized that there existed two kinds of modification theory of colours, Aristotle's modification theory and Descartes-Hook's modification theory. This seems to have caused some confusion in the interpretation of the optical controversy between Newton and Hooke in 1672. The aim of the present paper is to prove that these two kinds of modification theory really coexisted, and on that basis to present a new interpretation of the optical controversy of 1672. The characteristics and the historical (...) role of each of these theories will be described. Newton's colour theory was formed under the influence of Aristotle's modification theory, which had been disseminated through the work of an English Gassendist, Walter Charleton. Newton's optical theories were created not only under the influence of Descartes, as we have been often told, but also under the conspicuous influence of corpuscular philosophers. (shrink)

The German packaging ordinance is an example of legislated extended producer responsibility (also known as product take-back). Consumers can leave packaging with retailers, and packagers are required to pay for their recycling and disposal. It can be considered to be successful in reducing waste, spurring the redesign of packaging to be more environmentally sustainable, and increasing refilling and recycling. The exception is waste packaging made of plastics, which faces the problems of export due to lack of markets for recycled products (...) within Germany, the lack of capacity for recycling, the allowance for energy recovery within the ordinance, and the manufacturers’ focus on back-to-feedstock rather than back-to-plastics as a solution. This article looks at the ordinance and its effects to consider why this take-back program worked better than others. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es tratar sobre el concepto la cultura en la generación conocida como los patriarcas o fundadores del pensamiento filosófico latinoamericano. Luego de establecer la relación entre la cultura la filosofía, y de justificar el recurso a los fundadores para tratar sobre el concepto de cultura, intentaré describir las características más importantes de la filosofía de algunos filósofos de esta generación, como Alejandro Korn, Carlos Vaz Ferreira, Alejandro Deústua, Enrique Molina y Antonio Caso, y señalar las (...) principales ideas en torno al concepto de cultura, y su relación con la identidad latinoamericana. (shrink)

When faced with an environmental problem, corporations can either deal with it or merely give the appearance of managing it. The latter is often the case cause the corporation can maintain a positive public image while not actually doing anything to solve the problem. Advertising and public relations are the tools that are commonly utilized to create this illusion. The first part of this article illustrates the variety of ways in which green advertising and green public relations are exploited to (...) mislead the public regarding environmental issues. The many examples cover issues such as global warming, toxic chemicals, the precautionary principle, and environmental education. The second part of the article shows that Jacques Ellul’s theory of integration propaganda provides a good explanation for what has been observed about green advertising and green public relations. (shrink)

Harmony is one of the most fundamental Japanese values. It is derived from Confucianism and encompasses a state of mind, an action process and outcomes of the action. This article draws on research data and discusses Japanese nurses’ perceptions of harmony as reflected in their everyday practice. The most important virtues for these nurses were reported as politeness and respect for other persons. The outcome from the nurses’ harmonious practice, it is claimed, benefited patients and created peaceful, harmonious relationships for (...) all. Because of the unique link between harmony and the location of interaction, the ideal ‘workplace harmony’ threatened some nurses’ professional decision making. These nurses confused harmony with conformity by superficial agreement. The Japanese seniority system could be a major factor contributing to this problem. Ethics education that includes traditional values and concepts in Japanese culture is strongly urged. (shrink)

この世の悪は、一人ひとりがその行いを改めれば払拭できるものだろうか?自然災害に見舞われ、多くの人が苦しめられているとき、そこに悪の問題はないのだろうか?孔子や孟子、荘子、荀子などの中国古代の思想家たち も、悪という問題に直面し、格闘してきた。清代にいたるまでの、そうした悪をめぐる哲学的思考を辿りなおし、その可能性と限界を描き出す。悪にあらがい、その残酷さを引き受け、乗り越えるための方途を探る哲学の書 である。.

This article provides a comprehensive synthesis of state-of-the-art approaches used by industry to improve human, social, and environmental sustainability. Currently available methods such as product stewardship, industrial eco-park design, industrial ecology, Design for Environment (DfE), and others areexplained and their contribution summarized. Particular attention is paid to practices that make the material flows of a society more circular, as in natural ecosystems, and to the idea of companies selling services rather than products. It is concluded that the widespread implementation of (...) these frontier practices are a necessary but not sufficient condition for achieving human, social, and environmental sustainability. Nevertheless, the methods synthesized in this paper reveal a largely untapped potential for improving industrial practices. (shrink)