For a robot to cohabit with people, it should be able to learn people’s nonverbal social behavior from experience. In this paper, we propose a novel machine learning method for recognizing gestures used in interaction and communication. Our method enables robots to learn gestures incrementally during human–robot interaction in an unsupervised manner. It allows the user to leave the number and types of gestures undefined prior to the learning. The proposed method (HB-SOINN) is based on a self-organizing incremental neural network (...) and the hidden Markov model. We have added an interactive learning mechanism to HB-SOINN to prevent a single cluster from running into a failure as a result of polysemy of being assigned more than one meaning. For example, a sentence: “Keep on going left slowly” has three meanings such as, “Keep on (1)”, “going left (2)”, “slowly (3)”. We experimentally tested the clustering performance of the proposed method against data obtained from measuring gestures using a motion capture device. The results show that the classification performance of HB-SOINN exceeds that of conventional clustering approaches. In addition, we have found that the interactive learning function improves the learning performance of HB-SOINN. (shrink)

倫理学における『正義論』革命の全貌。「反照的均衡」という方法論を軸とした『正義論』は、規範倫理学・政治哲学の分野を活気づけた。しかしそれだけが『正義論』革命なのではない。ロールズの理論は、道徳の根本問 題を考える道徳哲学・倫理学の分野にも衝撃を与えたのである。 -/- This book explores the full story of A Theory of Justice revolution in ethics. A Justice of Theory, centered on the methodology of "reflective equilibrium," has energized the fields of normative ethics and political philosophy. However, this is not the only revolution in A Theory of Justice. Rawls's theory has also impacted the fields of moral philosophy and metaethics, which deal with fundamental questions of morality.

This paper examines the relationship between the generation and suspension of meaning in Dostoevsky’s Demons with reference to Bakhtin’s thesis that one’s meaning is defined by someone else’s answer. By generation I mean both the generational conflict between fathers and children and the generative power of language. It is the division between what one says and what one means that troubles Stavrogin. He has his authorship usurped by others and is not in control of his own discourse. Although the document (...) headed “From Stavrogin” in the unpublished chapter “At Tikhon’s” has traditionally been called a confession by critics, that is misleading, for, as the narrator points, the pages look very much like a political tract, and what is at stake in his dialogue with Tikhon is the very question: is it a confession or not? This document also raises questions about the authenticity of signatures, as does Prince Myshkin’s counterfeiting of someone else’s signature in The Idiot. (shrink)

In the context of the telegraphic distribution of Greenwich time, while the early experiments, the roles of successive Astronomers Royal in its expansion, and its impacts on the standardization of time in Victorian Britain have all been evaluated, the attempts of George Biddell Airy and his collaborators in constructing the Royal Observatory's time signals as the authoritative source of standard time have been underexplored within the existing historical literature. This paper focuses on the wide-ranging activities of Airy, his assistant astronomers, (...) telegraph engineers, clockmakers and others, which served to increase the reliability of the Royal Observatory's time service between the 1850s and 1870s. Airy and his collaborators aimed to mechanize and automate their telegraphic time distribution system in order to improve its accuracy and reliability. The accomplishment of such technological innovations was disseminated via public lectures, journal articles and correspondence with experts, secondary distributors of standard time and the general public. These communications were used to build public trust in the Greenwich time service. However, the unexplored archival material used in the present paper provides fresh insight into the unstable nature of the Greenwich time system, including its clear limits in terms of its scale of automation and degree of accuracy. (shrink)

Tanabe Hajime développa sa philosophie dans la perspective d’une « ontologie sociale » à travers la « logique de l’espèce » et la « logique de l’Amour ». La première, développée de 1934 à 1941, vise la rationalisation de la société japonaise en temps de guerre, la seconde le salut de la société japonaise après la Seconde Guerre mondiale dans le cadre d’une philosophie de la religion. Le but de cet article est de mettre au jour le développement de la (...) logique de l’espèce vers la logique de l’Amour et de présenter l’histoire de l’ontologie sociale tanabéenne dans le cadre de la « métanoétique ». (shrink)

Jecker and Au’s paper raises important issues concerning health equity in pandemic responses, and the importance of considering the long-term effects of pandemic strategy on population health and well-being.1 We welcome their focus on the experience of Asian countries, including Japan. However, we have some concerns with both the distinction which they draw between elimination and mitigation, and their account of the nature and origins of the Japanese response to the COVID-19 pandemic. First, we believe that the distinction between elimination (...) and mitigation is not fine grained enough to capture the various strategies which countries have taken towards the pandemic. Many of Jecker and Au’s criticisms of the elimination strategy relate to specific policies such as lockdowns, travel restrictions and restrictions on businesses, which have been employed by numerous countries irrespective of their end goal. By contrast to the simple elimination/mitigation dichotomy with which Jecker and Au work, Baker et al have identified five separate COVID-19 strategies, namely: exclusion, elimination, suppression, mitigation and no substantive strategy.2 Baker et al define an elimination strategy as ‘maximum action to exclude disease and eliminate community transmission’ with the goal of reaching ‘zero [disease] transmission in the community’. On this account, Japan’s strategy does …. (shrink)

Disaster planning challenges our morality. Everyday rules of action may need to be suspended during large-scale disasters in favour of maxims that that may make prudential or practical sense and may even be morally preferable but emotionally hard to accept, such as tsunami-tendenko. This maxim dictates that the individual not stay and help others but run and preserve his or her life instead. Tsunami-tendenko became well known after the great East Japan earthquake on 11 March 2011, when almost all the (...) elementary and junior high school students in one city survived the tsunami because they acted on this maxim that had been taught for several years. While tsunami-tendenko has been praised, two criticisms of it merit careful consideration: one, that the maxim is selfish and immoral; and two, that it goes against the natural tendency to try to save others in dire need. In this paper, I will explain the concept of tsunami-tendenko and then respond to these criticisms. Such ethical analysis is essential for dispelling confusion and doubts about evacuation policies in a disaster. (shrink)

This article asks whether our moral duties are created by others’ non-compliance and whether we should fulfill them or not. For example, do we need to donate more of our income to eradicate world poverty because billionaires do not donate? If so, how much should we donate? In short, should we make up for others’ defaulting on their moral duties – and if so, how and to what extent? Such situations are called non-ideal circumstances in political philosophy. With the increasing (...) importance of non-ideal theories of justice and ethics, the question of how we should act in non-ideal situations has received more attention in the ethics literature in recent years. This article poses and addresses the question of whether we should take up the slack when others do not comply with their own moral duty. This article examines how consequentialism and contractualism might respond to non-ideal situations of taking up the slack and then defends a contractualist-constructivist approach to dealing with these situations. (shrink)

As is well known, John Rawls opposes the idea and policy of basic income. However, this paper posits that his view of self-respect and activity could accommodate its implementation. Rawls lists the social basis of self-respect in social primary goods as the most important good, but does not assume that it is derived from wage labor alone. It appears that his theory of justice aims to criticize the work-centered (wage-labor) society and to overcome it. Besides, as Rawls desires, for our (...) work to be meaningful and our life worthwhile, we should institutionalize basic income because it can improve workers’ bargaining power and their attitude toward work, in addition to enhancing their leisure time. In this paper, by considering the normative relationship between meaningful work, worthwhile life, and self-respect from a Rawlsian perspective, I inquire into the potential of basic income in his well-ordered society. (shrink)

The present study examined the direct and indirect relationships between competitive work environments and subjective unhealthiness. It also examined the effects of adjusting for cognitive distortions in the relationship between a competitive work environment and subjective unhealthiness and between a competitive work environment and workaholism. Data were collected from 9,716 workers in various industries, occupations, and positions. The results show that competitive work environments were positively related to subjective unhealthiness, both directly and through workaholism. Furthermore, cognitive distortions moderated the positive (...) effect between a competitive work environment and workaholism, and the positive relationship was stronger when cognitive distortions were high. This study has important and practical implications for companies that are increasingly concerned about the health of their employees. (shrink)

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)

Why is John Rawls less popular than other philosophers in Japan? In what follows, I explain how Rawls’ philosophy has been received in Japan, especially in relation to Japanese culture, politics, and economy. After giving an overview of the framework of Rawls’ philosophical view, I outline the background of the reception of Western philosophy in Japan . Then, I proceed to explain the reason why the early reception of Rawls’ work in Japan was mainly started not by ethicists and philosophers (...) but by economists and jurists . I discuss the first Japanese translation of A Theory of Justice , the publication of .. (shrink)

「3・11」大震災は哲学に何を突きつけたか。大震災は、日本に張りめぐらされた権力構成体=「原発ペンタゴン」を明るみに出したが、これを機に哲学が問うべきは、近代において理性が、技術・テクノロジーに依存す る「技術的理性」に変貌したという事実である。本書は、原発をはじめとする技術問題を俎上に載せて「技術的理性」の諸特質について論じ、その変革可能性を考察する。.

In general, the ultimate end is the end beyond which there can be no further end. However, almost all the ultimate ends considered so far— “a man’s ultimate end”, “humanity’s ultimate end”, “the ultimate end of the universe”, and so on—are relative, in that they can in fact have a further end. Additionally, many of the ideas are based on dubious presuppositions such as teleology. Can there, then, be a meaningful idea of the absolute ultimate end without dubious presuppositions, beyond (...) which there can never be any further end? And if so, what will it be like? This paper, by raising such questions, suggests a possible study of the absolute ultimate end, which has never been attempted before, at least explicitly. At first, the classic ideas of the ultimate end and modern criticisms of them are surveyed; then, postulates for the concept of the absolute ultimate end are presented. Next, a definition of the absolute ultimate end is presented, and it is argued that the idea of AUE is not based on dubious presuppositions, and that AUE is the strongest meaningful ultimate end. Further, it is suggested that a study of AUE would be highly metaphysical—or even mystical—in character. Lastly, the possible relationships between us human and AUE are suggested. (shrink)

Hirschi and Gottfredson (1983) claim that the relationship between age and crime is similar in all social and cultural conditions and that no current sociological or criminological theory can account for this similarity. We introduce the new field of evolutionary psychology and extend Daly and Wilson's (1988) work on homicide to construct a general theory of male criminality, which explains why men commit violent and property crimes. The theory can also explain the age-crime curve. It might also account for some (...) empirical anomalies such as why physically smaller boys are more delinquent, and why violent criminals desist more slowly. (shrink)

Today Asia is attracting attention in the area of bioethics. In fact, the potential of bioethics is beginning to be discussed seriously at academic centers across Asia. In Japan, this discussion began a decade ago with the publication The book is one of the principal explorations of biomedical ethics involving Japan to date. Tom Beauchamp, an author of one of the book's chapters, compares Japanese and American standards of informed consent and refutes relativistic positions, concluding that.

In the Böhm theorem workshop on Crete, Zoran Petric called Statman’s “Typical Ambiguity theorem” the typed Böhm theorem. Moreover, he gave a new proof of the theorem based on set-theoretical models of the simply typed lambda calculus. In this paper, we study the linear version of the typed Böhm theorem on a fragment of Intuitionistic Linear Logic. We show that in the multiplicative fragment of intuitionistic linear logic without the multiplicative unit the weak typed Böhm theorem holds. The system IMLL (...) exactly corresponds to the linear lambda calculus with multiplicative pairing. The system IMLL also exactly corresponds to the free symmetric monoidal closed category without the unit object. As far as we know, our separation result is the first one with regard to these systems in a purely syntactical manner. (shrink)

Sloppy identity under ellipsis is generally attributed to the pronoun in ellipsis being a bound variable. However, sloppy identity can be licensed in structural configurations in which variable binding is ordinarily blocked. This paper provides a solution for this mismatch by reanalyzing the pronouns with the unexpected sloppy readings as E-type pronouns. Under the proposed analysis, the distribution of such pronouns is correctly predicted. It will also be shown that the analysis is successfully extended to sloppy identity in association-with-focus cases.

The Fist-Edge-Palm task, a manual hand task, has been used to detect frontal dysfunctions in clinical situations: its performance failures are observed in various prefrontal cortex -related disorders, including schizophrenia. However, previous imaging studies reported that the performance of the FEP task activated motor-related areas, but not the PFC. Here, we aimed to investigate the relationships between the performance of the FEP task and PFC functions. Hemodynamic activity in the PFC, including the dorsolateral PFC and frontal pole, was recorded. Healthy (...) young subjects performed the FEP task as well as a palm tapping task three times. The subjects also completed a Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and Schizotypal Personality Scale questionnaire. We found that hemodynamic activity in the PFC increased in the first trial of the FEP task but decreased considerably in the second and third trials compared to the PT task. The number of performance errors in the FEP task also decreased in the second and third trials. Error reduction in the FEP task between the first and second trials was negatively correlated with schizotypal trait and the number of perseveration errors in the WCST. Furthermore, changes in the PFC hemodynamic activity between the first and second trials were positively correlated with error reduction in the FEP task between the first and second trials, and negatively correlated with the number of perseveration errors in the WCST. These results suggest that learning in the FEP task requires PFC activation, which is negatively associated with perseveration errors in the WCST. The results further suggest that the FEP task, in conjunction with near-infrared spectroscopy, may be useful as a diagnostic method for various disorders with PFC dysfunction. (shrink)

Artificial agents, which are embedded in a virtual world, need to interpret a sequence of commands given to them adequately, considering the temporal structure for each command. In this paper, we start with the semantics of natural language and classify the temporal structures of various eventualities into such aspectual classes as action, process, and event. In order to formalize these temporal structures, we adopt Arrow Logic. This logic specifies the domain for the valuation of a sentence as an arrow. We (...) can connect, or give order to, arrows by defining inter-arrow operations, and can give different views for sentences. Thereafter we formalize the rules of aspectual shifts in situated inference, in the style of a logic programming language. Thus, we not only describe the static representation of temporal features, but also show the dynamic process to deduce how each eventuality is viewed. The rules are applied to the information flow through the sequence of commands; therefore, we consider how the temporal structure of a command affects the succeeding commands. (shrink)

仏教における「業思想」は、倫理思想であり行為の哲学でもある。様々に変遷してきたこの思想の歴史と論理をスリリングに読み解く!

Combined with recent evolutionary psychological theories, Crespi & Badcock's (C&B's) intragenomic conflict theory of the social brain suggests that schizophrenics are more religious, and autistics are less religious, than the normal population. Combined with the generalized Trivers-Willard hypothesis (gTWH), it suggests that schizophrenics have more daughters, and autistics have more sons, than expected.