End-of-life issues have become an urgent problem in Japan, where people are among the longest lived in the world and most of them die while connected to high-technology medical equipment. This study examines a sensitive end-of-life ethical issue that concerns patients, families and nurses: the withdrawal of artificial food and fluid from terminally ill patients. A sample of 160 Japanese nurses, who completed a questionnaire that included forced-choice and open-ended questions, supported this act under only two specific conditions: if the (...) patient requested it, and if it relieved the patient’s suffering. They considered that the doctor’s orders, the family’s request, or the patient’s advanced age did not ethically justify this act. A small number of people who had recently lost a relative took part in semistructured interviews focusing on their experiences of their terminally ill relatives being given artificial food and fluid. Ethical, social and cultural factors surrounding this issue are discussed. (shrink)

This paper extends studies on intertextuality into a more explicitly interactional context. I examine the actual process of intertextuality where comedy audiences construct recombinant selves through making sense of various membership categories as well as through making sense of a certain kind of comedy. The examination of this process requires receptive research; however, most studies leave the interpretive process unanalyzed. Conducting both a sequential analysis and a membership categorization analysis will reveal that categories are not “pre-formed” but “per-formed” in situ. (...) To illustrate these points, I report on a receptive study of Local comedy in Hawai‘i. (shrink)

This book is an unprecedented consideration of the challenges of what we can do for generations yet to come. Many growing intergenerational conflicts of interest, such as climate change and fiscal sustainability, are the result of the historically new progress of increasing human power, and the resolution of those conflicts demands a new intergenerational ethic. The book offers fresh new ideas for resolving intergenerational conflicts through the exploration of an entirely new field, conceptualized in philosophy, developed in economics, and tested (...) in experiments. In particular, this work develops the theory of intergenerational cooperation based on a new relationship of direct reciprocity between generations. From experimental results, the possibility of intergenerational cooperation through Kantian categorical imperative is shown. The book also examines the effectiveness of inviting representatives of future generations, which are called "imaginary future generations", into the deliberations for current policy decisions. The original Japanese edition of this book was awarded the 66th Nikkei Prize for Excellent Books in Economic Science. The prize was established in 1958 to contribute to the advancement of academics and knowledge in the fields of economics, management, and accounting, as well as to its general dissemination and application. (shrink)

西田幾多郎の中心概念「永遠の今」を外部の多様な言説に向けて開放することで、西田哲学の新たな可能性を切り開く。プラトン、アウグスティヌス、ハイデッガー、九鬼周造、デリダ、アガンベン、木村敏といった西洋哲 学、宗教学、現代思想、精神病理学の代表者たちの議論と西田の言説を突き合わせ、その緻密な解釈と検証を通して、これまで時間論で見逃されてきたカイロスの系譜とその意義を照らし出す。既成の西田研究に問題を投げ かける著者十年の集大成。岩波現代文庫オリジナル版。.

Since the discovery that the characteristics of dreaming sleep are far stronger in Stage 1 rapid eye movement sleep than in any other biological state, investigators have attempted to determine the relative responsibility of the tonic versus the phasic properties of REM sleep for the different characteristics of dreaming–features such as the amount of information in the dream report, the brightness and clarity of the visual images, shifts in thematic continuity, and incongruities of image and meaning. The present experiment is (...) designed to identify dream characteristics that are specifically associated with tonic changes in level of cortical activation within sleep. It samples reports of imagery and thought during spontaneous variations within one phase of the 24-h diurnal rhythm and across the REM-NREM sleep cycle in order to identify the independent and joint contributions of the two cycles to imagery and thought. The rising phase of the diurnal cycle in the late night and morning was estimated from clock time during the late night and early morning and was varied by delaying the sleep onset and waking time of the subjects. Considered together with other studies, the results suggest that the major determinant of vivid visual imagery and enhanced cognitive activity during sleep is a pattern of subcortical and cortical activation that is common to both the REM phase of the REM-NREM cycle and the activated phase of the 24-h diurnal wake-sleep cycle. (shrink)

In this article Kobayashi Toshiaki discusses the importance in all periods of Karatani’s oeuvre of the notion of an “exterior” that necessarily falls beyond the bounds of a system, together with the notion of “singularity” as that which cannot be contained within a “universal.” The existential dread vis-à-vis the uncanny other that Karatani in his early works of literary criticism had initially found to be the underlying tone in Sōseki’s works remained with Karatani himself throughout his career and is (...) what had drawn him closer to philosophy. This sense of the “exterior” to—or other than—the normality of consciousness and the meaningfulness of the world is then extended and applied as the “exterior to systems” in his analyses of logical, mathematical, and linguistic systems, in his reading of Marx’s discussion of capitalist economics, and most recently in his analysis of commodity exchange between communities. (shrink)

西田幾多郎(一八七〇‐一九四五)の人生。それは一人の人間の個別的な営みを超え、明治から昭和に至る奔流のただなかに姿を見せ始めた「日本」を集約し、体現するものだった。同時代の多彩な資料に基づく実証的手法 によって克明に描き出される哲学者の苦悩と格闘の人生に、近代日本の成立過程に現出した幾多の問題系を照射する斬新な評伝的批評。.

「主体」はもちろんsubjectの翻訳語である。明治以降、この語がわが国に入ってくると、「主観」「主体」「主語」などさまざまな翻訳語があらわれる。たとえば西田幾多郎は、初期は「主観」をつかっているが、 後期になると「主体」しか出てこなくなる。この移行ははたして何を意味するのだろうか。戦後には、「主体性論争」がわき起こり、たとえば学生運動では「主体性」という言葉がキーワードとなった。明治期の受容から、 戦後、そして現代に至るまで、それぞれの時代の趨勢となった思想に伏流する「主体」を追い続け、日本近代思想史にあらたな視座を提供する、知的興奮にあふれた一冊。.

Covisibility-based mapping is a paradigm for robotic map building research in which a mobile robot estimates multiple object positions only from ``covisibility'' information, i.e., ``which objects were recognized at a time''. In previous studies on this problem, a solution based on a combination of heuristics - ``closely located objects are likely to be seen simultaneously more often than distant objects'' and Multi-Dimensional Scaling (MDS) was proposed, and it was shown that qualitative spatial relationships among objects are learned with high accuracy (...) by this method. However, theoretical validity of the heuristics has not been sufficiently discussed in these studies. Besides, the existing method has a defect that the quantitative accuracy of built maps is very low. In this paper, we first prove that the heuristics is generally valid in a certain condition, and then present several enhancements to the original method in order to improve the quantitative accuracy of the maps. In the experiments, it was found these enhacements are quite effective. (shrink)

The present study investigated the comprehension processes of verbal irony by clarifying the temporally distinct contributions of three information sources, namely, salience-based lexical meaning, egocentric context, and allocentric Theory of Mind. We predicted that salience-based lexical meaning initially activates the literal representation of an ironic utterance. This is immediately followed by the activation of the ironic representation supported by the automatic interaction between salience-based lexical meaning and egocentric context. Finally, overall interpretation is achieved by incorporating the information from Theory of (...) Mind, which is provided by effortful processing. Salience-based representations are retained rather than suppressed. Cognitive load prevents incorporating the allocentric information given by Theory of Mind, resulting in an egocentric interpretation. The experimental results supported our hypothesis: both ironic representations (Experiment 1) and salience-based literal representations (Experiment 2a) become active early on. Cognitive load prevented the deactivation of unintended ironic representations (Experiment 3) and did not affect the retention of salience-based representations (Experiment 4). Intentional irony required longer reading times than unintentional irony and literal utterances (Experiment 5). (shrink)

IntroductionWind instrument players sometimes suffer from erosion of the mucous membrane of the lip. This is caused by the action and pressure of the mouthpiece of the wind instrument against teeth. To address this problem, a lip shield is fitted over the dental arch to prevent direct contact between the lips and teeth. However, there are a few studies on the influence of the lip shield on the acoustics of wind instruments. The purpose of this study was to analyze the (...) psychoacoustics of a clarinet performance with the player wearing a custom-made soft lip shield to prevent mucosal erosion of the lower lip.Case DescriptionA lip shield was custom-made with a soft thermoplastic material for a female clarinetist who complained of mucosal erosion and pain of the lower lip. The psychoacoustics of her musical performance played in different dynamics, fortissimo, mezzo forte and pianissimo were analyzed, including loudness and sharpness. A self-evaluation questionnaire with items rated on a 10-point scale was administered. After wearing the lip shield, the patient reported that the mucosal erosion and pain of her lower lip when playing clarinet resolved. The lip shield had little effect on the loudness. There was a slight decrease in sharpness when the lip shield was worn compared to when it was not, describing the reduction of high frequencies. Furthermore, fewer variations in sharpness between the tones were observed.ConclusionThe results suggest that lip shields made of soft materials can eliminate mucosal erosion and pain of the lower lip while having little effect on performance, although, a slight change in timbre is possible. (shrink)

Un articol cu un asemenea titlu pare să nu mai aibă nevoie de precizări referitoare la obiectivul său. Ce alt obiectiv aş putea avea decât acela de a răspunde la întrebarea din titlu? Principalul meu scop este, într-adevăr, definirea şi prezentarea cât mai exhaustivă a tezelor multiculturalismului (în limitele de spaţiu de care trebuie să ţin seama în cadrul articolului). Am în vedere, trebuie menționat, doar multiculturalismul ca teorie politică normativă, nu şi multiculturalismul ca multiculturalitate sau pluralism cultural, ca prezenţă (...) pe teritoriul unui stat a mai mult de o comunitate culturală (etnică, naţională, religioasă) care doreşte să-şi protejeze identitatea, valorile şi practicile pe care le împărtăşeşc membrii săi. (shrink)

This paper compares the concepts of Japanese and German primary school children as they relate to the “ethics of care.” To do this we have used the research methodology of expanding and replicating an experiment to test whether the results can be interculturally confirmed. In our design we replicated the experiment in children’s philosophy on the question “What are Family Ties?” carried out by Toshiaki Ôse in September 2002 with the 5th grade of the municipal .primary school Hamanogô in (...) Chigasaki. (shrink)