Going beyond the theory/practice and discourse/matter divides -- Learning and becoming in an onto-epistemology -- The tool of pedagogical documentation -- An intra-active pedagogy and its dual movements -- Transgressing binary practices in early childhood teacher education -- The hybrid-writing-process: going beyond the theory/practice divide in academic writing -- An ethics of immanence and potentialities for early childhood education.

This chapter reviews fundamental ethical controversy surrounding the ongoing effort to revise the Uniform Determination of Death Act in the United States. Instead of focusing on the process of the revision itself, the chapter explores the underlying ethical debate over brain death that has been ongoing for many decades and finally culminated in this revision. Three issues are focused: the requirement for consent and personal exemptions before applying brain death for the diagnosis of death; redefining the areas of the brain (...) that have ceased to function in the definition of brain death; and codifying the American Academy of Neurology as the authority to issue the standards of the diagnosis of brain death. The chapter concludes that allowing the personal choice of death determination gives a pragmatic compromise to the disputed definition and practice of diagnosing brain death. So long as all risks and imperfections of the diagnosis are accepted through the consenting process, there is nothing ethically objectionable to continuing the current practice of diagnosing brain death as a successful tool to facilitate heart-beating organ donation without violating the dead-donor rule. By contrast, precluding personal choice and imposing legal restrictions to consent and exemptions would further erode public trust. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate the possibility of a dictatorship in the context of Harsanyi's Social Aggregation Theorem. Preliminarily, some propositions about Harsanyi's Theorem are presented using an alternative principle that I name Quasi-strong Pareto, which is the latter part of Strong Pareto. Then I define dictatorship as a requirement that social preference agrees with a dictator's preference or those of members of dictatorial group even if their preferences strictly contradict those of all other people in the society. Conclusively, although (...) in each version of Harsanyi's Theorem with Pareto Indifference, Weak Preference Pareto or Weak Pareto the social utility function may have a form of dictatorship, however if individuals' vNM utility functions are all 'individualistic' and Quasi-strong Pareto is satisfied, then the dictatorship is excluded. (shrink)

日常においてはいつも素通りされている豊かな経験の世界がある―。“自明”であるがゆえに眼を向けられることのないこの経験の世界を現象学は精査し、われわれにとっての「現実」が成立する構造を明るみに出す。創始 者フッサール以来続く哲学的営為の核心にあるものは何か。そしていまだ汲みつくせないその可能性とは。本書は粘り強い思索の手触りとともに、読者を生と世界を見つけなおす新たな思考へと誘う。.

現代人が直面する、安楽死、臓器移植、死刑といった倫理問題に、徳、善、良心、愛を基礎として、読者と共に考えぬく強靱な思索。.

This paper investigates the semantics of measure phrases in Japanese. Based on new data, we argue that the interpretation of measure phrases in Japanese is sensitive to scale structure such that (i) measure phrases are introduced by a degree morpheme that selects only for gradable predicates whose scale contains a minimal element (i.e., a lower closed scale) and (ii) violations to this restriction are repaired via coercion, which forces a comparative interpretation with a contextually determined standard and hence a minimal (...) element. We compare the Japanese facts to data in other languages and argue that the requirement of having a minimal element is not specific to Japanese, but universal. We show that languages may vary in how they deal with potential violations of this universal constraint, including coercion of a contextually recoverable derived minimal element (Japanese), ungrammaticality (e.g., Spanish, Korean, Russian), and a hybrid system of ungrammaticality for some adjectives and allowed constraint violation for others (e.g., English, German, Italian). (shrink)

Naturalistic teleological accounts of mental content rely on an etiological theory of function. Nanay has raised a new objection to an etiological theory, and proposed an alternative theory of function that attributes modal force to claims about function. The aim of this paper is both to defend and to cast a new light on an etiological theory of function. I argue against Nanay’s “trait type individuation objection,” suggesting that an etiological theory also attributes modal force to claims about function. An (...) etiological theory of function can be thought to analyze claims about function with modal force, not relying on any theory of counterfactuals. (shrink)

The social and cultural causes behind the widespread use and acceptance of robots in Japan are not yet completely understood. This study compares humans and robots in images gathered through Google searches in Japanese and in English. Numerous pictures obtained by the search in Japanese were found to have a human and a robot looking together at something else (“third item”), whereas many of the images acquired by search in English show a human and a robot facing each other. This (...) is similar to the composition of mother and child in paintings: in _ukiyo-e_ that was painted mainly in the Edo period of Japan, the mother and child are often depicted together viewing something other than themselves, whereas this is not the case in Western paintings of mother and child. It has also been pointed out that, in modern Western paintings, the world inside the picture is separated from the outside world, forming an independent microcosmos, whereas the inside and outside are continuous in Japanese paintings. These may indicate that, in Japanese society, robots are to a certain extent regarded as fellow human beings who can share the third item. In Western society, on the other hand, no code is embedded that can fix robots’ superiority or inferiority to humans, which would easily trigger an antagonistic view toward artificial intelligence (AI)/robots as threatening entities, as shown in most of Western literature and movies. We suggest that such cultural characteristics of Japanese society can contribute to enhance coexistence with AI/robots. (shrink)

The Japanese comparative adverb motto has two different uses. In the degree use, motto compares two individuals and denotes that there is a large gap between the target and a given standard with a norm-related presupposition. On the other hand, in the so-called ‘negative use’ it conveys the speaker’s attitude toward the utterance situation. I argue that similarly to the degree motto, the negative motto is a comparative morpheme, but unlike the degree motto it compares a current situation and an (...) expected situation at the level of conventional implicature /expressive. I argue that the speaker’s negative evaluation of the utterance situation in question comes from the large gap between the expected degree and the current degree. The theoretical implications of this paper are that there is a natural extension from semantic comparison to expressive comparison and that there is a type in natural language that can be called an ‘indirect expressive’, as opposed to ‘direct expressives’ like bastard and man. (shrink)

This study investigates interpretations of the Japanese initial mora-based minimizer “X.Y...”-_no_ “X”-_no ji-mo_ ‘lit. even the letter “X” of “X.Y...”.’ Although initial mora-based minimizers have a literal interpretation of _ji_ ‘letter’, they have a non-literal interpretation as well. The non-literal interpretation has several distinctive features that are not present in ordinary minimizers. First, it is highly productive in that various expressions can appear in the form “X.Y...”-_no_ “X”-_no ji_. Second, non-literal minimizers typically co-occur with predicates that relate to knowledge, information, (...) concepts, thought, and habituality, as seen in the corpus data (Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese [BCCWJ]). I argue that in the non-literal use, X refers to the minimum on the scale of the main predicate concerning “X.Y...”. I suggest that the non-literal use was developed as a result of the conventionalization of the pragmatic inference derived from the literal reading, and that the co-occurrence with predicates related to knowledge, information, knowledge, concepts, thought, or habituality is due to the interpretation of “X.Y...”, which were originally interpreted as letters as an abstract concept. The theoretical implication of this study is that, in addition to a non-compositional (lexically specified) minimizer whose scale is lexically fixed (e.g., _give a damn_, _lift a finger_), there also exists a compositional (lexically unspecified) minimizer in natural language, whose scale is specified via the predicate with which the minimizer co-occurs. The last section of this paper briefly discusses similar/related phenomena in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Korean, and English from a cross-linguistic perspective. (shrink)

This book, written by one of the leading Japanese scholars in the philosophy of agricultural science, examines the relationship between human life, the natural environment, and agriculture.

Rauszer and Sabalski proved in [2] that distributivity with respect to infi- nite joins and meets is a sucient and necessary condition making the RasiowaSikorski Lemma valid in distributive lattices. The main part of their proof is a direct construction of a required filter under distributivity. In this note we show that a generalization of the result can be obtained from the Rasiowa-Sikorski Lemma for Boolean algebras by using Gornemann’s result in [1] instead of a direct con- ¨ struction. Suppose (...) A is a distributive lattice and Q; R 2 A f;g. We call A complete if 8M 2 Q9 M 2 A and 8N 2 R9 F N 2 A. M 2 Q is -dis if 9 M 2 A and 8a 2 A a t M = m2M. N 2 R is F -dis if 9 F N 2 A and 8a 2 A a u F N = F n2N. is called distributive if every M 2 Q is -dis and every N 2 R is F -dis. Suppose A is complete and C; D A. By rC we mean the filter in A generated by C, in particular, let r; = ; = ;. is called complete if and , where 8M 2 Q 9m 2 MrC \ D[fmg = ;) 8N 2 R 9n 2 NrC[fng \ D = ;). (shrink)

This research examined the extent to which pragmatic comprehension, namely accurate and speedy comprehension of conversational implicatures, is related to cognitive processing skills and general listening abilities. Thirty-five Japanese students learning English as a second language completed five tasks: a pragmatic listening test that measured the ability to comprehend implied speakers' intentions, a phonemic discrimination test, a listening section of the institutional TOEFL, a working memory test, and a lexical access test that measured the ability to make speedy semantic judgment. (...) The students' pragmatic comprehension was analyzed for accuracy and comprehension speed. Results revealed a significant relationship between accuracy scores of the PLT and the TOEFL listening scores, but not with phonemic discrimination ability. Response time of pragmatic listening significantly correlated with the semantic access speed, but not with working memory. (shrink)

In this essay we critically evaluate the progress that has been made in solving the problem of meaning in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. We remain skeptical about solutions based on deep neural networks and cognitive robotics, which in our opinion do not fundamentally address the problem. We agree with the enactive approach to cognitive science that things appear as intrinsically meaningful for living beings because of their precarious existence as adaptive autopoietic individuals. But this approach inherits the problem of (...) failing to account for how meaning as such could make a difference for an agent’s behavior. In a nutshell, if life and mind are identified with physically deterministic phenomena, then there is no conceptual room for meaning to play a role in its own right. We argue that this impotence of meaning can be addressed by revising the concept of nature such that the macroscopic scale of the living can be characterized by physical indeterminacy. We consider the implications of this revision of the mind-body relationship for synthetic approaches. (shrink)

This paper replies to Nanay’s response to my recent paper. My suggestions are the following. First, “should” or “ought” does not need to be deontic. Second, etiological theories of function, like provability logic, do not need to attribute modal force to their explanans. Third, the explanans of the homological account of trait type individuation does not appeal to a trait’s etiological function, that is, what a trait should or ought to do. Finally, my reference to Cummins’s notion of function was (...) intended to note that the homological account is permitted to use this non-etiological notion of function. (shrink)

Transcendental reflection does not simply withdraw from natural life and go somewhere else. On the contrary, it is a self-elucidation of natural life performed within this life itself. However, natural life has an inherent automatic system for concealing itself. Therefore, in order to make manifest the truly natural state of natural life, we need a deliberate method of outfoxing the natural attitude as it constantly tries to trick us. If so, the transcendental perspective is closely related to Husserl’s perplexing concept (...) of “primal I”. It expresses a primitive perspective of our experience that cannot be identified with the first-person perspective. Phenomenology is not merely an investigation of experience from the first-person point of view, but a philosophical thinking from a “zero person” perspective that makes it possible for us to understand the relativity of our own first-person experience, and how it is related to other first-person experiences and the third-person perspective. (shrink)

Husserl’s theory of the phenomenological reduction is often explained by a radicalchange of attitude. Such an explanation is useful but sometimes misleading. TheIdea of Phenomenology clearly shows that the original idea of the reduction wasachieved through a radicalized critique of evidence. Although Husserl’s appealto evidence has often been criticized as an unjustified limitation of philosophicalthinking, a close examination of Husserl’s lectures reveals that the very ‘limitation’ to the phenomenological evidence breaks our naturalinclination toward objective identities and liberates our thinking from (...) the naturalbut misleading division between ‘transcendence’ and ‘immanence.’ Thus, thephenomenological reduction can be interpreted as a transition from the thinkingwithout regard to evidence to the philosophizing intrinsically mediatedby evidence, which can secure access for intuitive analysis to every conceivabletype of givenness insofar as it manifests itself. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a possible reinterpretation of phenomenology using a newly defined concept of ‘mediation.’ First, I address the question: What are the ‘things themselves’ that are given as the result of the phenomenological epoché? I would answer that they are neither material objects nor merely subjective experiences, but rather specific occurrences of ‘mediations.’ Second, under the influence of the Japanese philosopher Hajime Tanabe, I will define ‘mediation’ as a non-separable occurrence of differentiating and connecting. Third, I shall (...) claim that the concept of ‘phenomenon’ itself should be reinterpreted in terms of its character of mediation. Then, I will discuss central issues in phenomenology such as intentionality, time, and intersubjectivity in order to test the applicability of the proposed concept of mediation. To conclude, I shall summarize the potential of the idea that phenomenology can be reinterpreted using the concept of mediation. (shrink)

BackgroundThis essay provides an ethical and conceptual argument for the use of informed consent prior to the diagnosis of brain death. It is meant to enable the family to make critical end-of-life decisions, particularly withdrawal of life support system and organ donation, before brain death is diagnosed, as opposed to the current practice of making such decisions after the diagnosis of death. The recent tragic case of a 13-year-old brain-dead patient in California who was maintained on a ventilator for over (...) 2 years illustrates how such a consent would have made a crucial difference.MethodsConceptual, philosophical, and ethical analysis.ResultsI first consider a conceptual justification for the use of consent for certain non-beneficial and unwanted medical diagnoses. I suggest that the diagnosis of brain death falls into this category for some patients. Because the diagnostic process of brain death lacks the transparency of traditional death determination, has a unique epistemic structure and a complex risk-benefit profile which differs markedly from case to case, and presents conflicts of interest for physicians and society, I argue that pre-diagnostic counseling and informed consent should be part of the diagnostic process. This approach can be termed as “allow cardiac death”, whose parallel logic with “allow natural death” is discussed. I also discuss potential negative impacts on organ donation and health care cost from this proposal and offer possible mitigation. I show that the pre-diagnostic counseling can improve the possibility for well-thought-out decisions regarding organ donation and terminating life-support system in cases of hopeless prognosis. This approach differs conceptually from the pluralism of the definition of death, such as those in New Jersey and Japan, and it upholds the Uniform Determination of Death Act.ConclusionsMy intention is not to provide an instant panacea for the ongoing impasse of the brain death debate, but to point to a novel conceptual ground for a more pragmatic, and more patient- and family-centered approach. By enabling the family to consent to or decline the diagnostic process of brain death, but not to choose the definition of death, it upholds the current legal definition of death. (shrink)

Nakamura proposed two three-valued temporal logics. We present two extended Gentzen-type formulations of these logics. Then we prove the soundness as well as the completeness theorem.

We prove the strong normalization theorem for the natural deduction system for the constructive arithmetic TRDB (the system with Definition by Transfinite Recursion and Bar induction), which was introduced by Yasugi and Hayashi. We also establish the consistency of this system, applying the strong normalization theorem.

This article explores the possibilities of considering how ‘matter and meaning are mutually constituted’ in the production of knowledge (Barad, 2007: 152) through presenting a diffractive analysis of a piece of interview data with a six-year-old boy in a preschool class. Inspired by Donna Haraway’s (1997) and Karen Barad’s (2007) theorising, I understand diffractive analysis as an embodied engagement with the materiality of research data: a becoming-with the data as researcher. Understanding the body as a space of transit, a series (...) of open-ended systems in interaction with the material-discursive ‘environment’, diffractive analyses constitute transcorporeal engagements with data. Stacy Alaimo’s (2010) theorisation of the transcorporeal is put to work diffractively with Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s (1987) thinking on the process of becoming minor or minoritarian. This implies a reconceptualisation of the very act of thinking as a transcorporeal process of engagement, going beyond the idea of reflexivity and interpretation as inner mental activities taking place in the mind of the researcher understood as separated from the data. Through my example, I argue that diffractive analysis can make visible new kinds of material-discursive realities that can have transformative and political consequences. (shrink)