The Book of Rites is an important classic in the history of Chinese ethical thought, especially the two chapters of the Great Learning and Doctrine of the Mean, which have had a great influence on future generations. The ideas of the ideal society contained in the Book of Rites, as well as the provisions of the Book of Rites on the relationship between men and women and between husband and wife, are also worthy of in-depth study.

The article studies the Jewish cemetery which provides a significant amount of historical information about various aspects of the life of the Jewish community which have long been out of focus. The objective of the research lies in proving the relevance of marginal culturally significant objects in the context of postmodern philosophy, as well as explaining and analyzing the compositional ways and peculiarities of plastic images of the facades of the gravestones in Kremenets, one of the Volyn areas of the (...) Jewish culture in the 18th century – the early 19th century. The article focuses on the most common method of studying the monuments of Jewish gravestone epigraphy. The methodology of the research is based on the regionalist approaches to the problem and the application of culturological, retrospective comparative-historical methods and the use of critical analysis. For the first time, the artistic and style peculiarities of the memorial plastic arts of Jewish cemetery in Kremenets are analysed and the historical factors that influenced them are explicated. It was proved that the historical and cultural value of the Jewish necropolis in Kremenets lies in its originality. The cemetery is one of the oldest in Europe and contains unique information on the history, customs and culture of the Jewish people. It can become a promising object of visit for postmodern consumers, interested in unpopular and marginal tourist artefacts. (shrink)

Resumen: El artículo busca observar el hecho religioso mapuche, a partir de la reflexión de Rudolf Otto respecto de lo numinoso y lo santo. Para ello se utiliza su metodología de análisis fenomenológico aplicada a los conceptos de mysterium, tremendum y fascinans o las dimensiones del temor, incorporadas en la cultura mapuche. Se concluye que el análisis de estos diversos momentos de la experiencia santo-numinoso en la vida religiosa del mapuche, permite constatar el dinamismo existente en la idea religiosa del (...) mapuche, lo que a su vez representa adecuadamente la relación entre el hombre religioso y lo santo.: This article seeks to observe the Mapuche religious fact, starting from Rudolf Otto’s reflection on the numinous and the holy. For this, it uses its methodology of phenomenological analysis applied to the concepts of mysterium, tremendum and fascinans or the dimensions of fear, incorporated in the Mapuche culture. It is concluded that the analysis of these different moments of the saint-numinous experience in the religious life of the mapuche, allows to verify the dynamism existing in the religious idea of ​​the mapuche, which in turn represents adequately the relationship between religious man and the Holy. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to the study and classification of previously unexamined book monuments and the works contained within them, which are part of the collection of Protestant literature from the "Rare Book" fund of the State Museum of the History of Religion. The religious views of the authors—scholars, travelers, collectors, doctors, politicians, and lawyers—significantly influenced the content of their works. In turn, the ideas presented in these writings reflected major changes occurring in religion, various fields of science, and art, (...) as well as influencing the formation of new perspectives and ideas that became rooted in the European religious and cultural paradigm. The Protestant book monuments of the State Museum of the History of Religion, due to their wide confessional and genre diversity, can be highlighted as a unique collection that requires study and can be utilized in the museum’s exhibition and educational work. The research employed quantitative (this method helped specify the number of works, from which the most important examples were selected), historical-typological (which allowed for the systematization of the selected works), hermeneutic (directly related to working with the source—the texts of the selected works) methods, as well as methods of synthesis, induction, and deduction. The experience of studying, describing, and systematizing secular literature by Protestant authors in the "Rare Book" fund of the State Museum of the History of Religion shows that: 1) works of both religious and secular nature constitute an integral part of the unique book collection of Protestant literature in the Museum 2) the wide thematic, linguistic, and geographical diversity of secular works created by Protestant authors helps fill several gaps of a historical, political, bibliographic, and religious studies nature 3) the Protestant book collection of the Museum (both as a whole and within the framework of a conditional division into "religious" and "secular" works) is unique not only within the specific museum but also on a national scale 4) the previously unexamined book collection requires further research for use in the scientific, educational, and exhibition activities of the State Museum of the History of Religion. (shrink)

Mark Changizi et al. (2008) claim that it is possible systematically to organize more than 50 kinds of illusions in a 7 × 4 matrix of 28 classes. This systematization, they further maintain, can be explained by the operation of a single visual processing latency correction mechanism that they call “perceiving the present” (PTP). This brief report raises some concerns about the way a number of illusions are classified by the proposed systematization. It also poses two general problems—one (...) empirical and one conceptual—for the PTP approach. (shrink)

A profusion of jobs has arisen in contemporary capitalism involving ‘connective labor’, or the work of emotional recognition. Yet the expansion of this interpersonal work occurs at the same time as its systematization, as pressures of efficiency, measurement and automation reshape the work, generating a ‘colliding intensification’. Existing scholarship offers three different ways of understanding the role of emotions in connective labor – as tool, commodity or vulnerability – depending on their view of systematization as useful, inseparable or (...) dehumanizing. Based on 106 in-depth interviews and 300+ hours of observations, I found that vestiges of all three models lurked in the experience of providing connective labor, yet none fully captured the profound meaning practitioners reported finding in their work. Systems varied on three dimensions, reflecting the relative worth of worker, recipient or the work, extracting value from the forged connections, while the meanings workers derived shaped their perspective on its systematization. (shrink)

The trolley problem, first described by Foot (1967) and Thomson (The Monist, 59, 204–217, 1976), is one of the most famous and influential thought experiments in deontological ethics. The general story is that a runaway trolley is threatening the lives of five people. Doing nothing will result in the death of those persons, but acting in order to save those persons would unavoidably result in the death of another, sixth person. It appears that, depending on the situation, we have different (...) moral judgments about the permissibility of action. We will review and systematize all the proposals in the literature of the past 35 years that have attempted to grasp our moral intuitions in a simple deontological principle. In particular, seventeen proposals will be classified: six algorithmic, seven psychological, and four other invalid accounts. This review and classification sheds light on some subtle differences and clarify a few issues. (shrink)

Mill appears to be committed to two incompatible accounts of laws. While he seems to defend a Humean account of laws similar to Ramsey’s and Lewis’s, he also appears to rely on modal notions to distinguish lawful relations from accidental regularities. This paper will show that Mill’s two accounts of laws are in fact equivalent. This equivalence results from a proper understanding of the necessity involved in laws and a proper understanding of systematization. This equivalence reveals the true source (...) of the intimate connection between laws and systematization. Mill also provides an account of natural necessity that makes clear why experimentation is essential for gaining knowledge of laws. In contrast, Lewis’s account will be shown to have counterintuitive consequences regarding the relationship between laws and experimentation. Moreover, it will be shown that Mill’s views about inference result in a distinction between two modes of systematizing: subsumption and derivation. This distinction is overlooked in contemporary accounts of systematization, but Mill rightly notes that the metaphysical implications and epistemic role of these two modes are importantly different. (shrink)

The essays collected in this volume have a strong thematic and interpretative unity. Their underlying concern is with the overall nature of Kant's philosophical system, and thus with his deepest intentions and basic commitments. The book falls into three parts. The first three essays deal with Kant's approach to things in themselves and with the realm of noumenal causality. The second part considers Kant's approach to the methodology of rational inquiry, and, in particular, his views on cognitive systematization and (...) the limits of philosophizing itself. The third section focuses on the role played by the categorical imperative in both the theoretical and practical philosophy. The aim throughout, one that many Kant scholars and students will find provocative, is to show that in an important sense Kant is prepared to assert the primacy of practical over theoretical philosophy. (shrink)

La Filosofía en su desarrollo epistemológico ha sufrido muchos cambios, en especial la filosofía de la educación, por ende, se considera oportuno analizar si actualmente es válido el carácter epistemológico que tiene; con esto se pretende ayudar en el desarrollo reflexivo sobre la educación de modo claro, preciso y en relación a sussoportes fundamentales. Para ello, la estructura de este texto consiste en dos puntos: primero, realizar un breve análisis filosófico sobre la existencia de la educación, y segundo, destacar algunos (...) aspectos del status epistemológico que posee la filosofía educativa. (shrink)

This chapter examines coherentist approaches to the justification of normative judgments in law. First, it provides a survey of the main approaches to normative coherence defended in the literature on legal coherentism and discusses the principal objections that threaten to undermine the coherence theory of legal justification. One problem with coherentism, namely the problem of the coherence bias, has not, however, received enough attention in the literature. This chapter states this problem in detail and argues that a modified version of (...) legal coherentism—namely virtue coherentism—has the resources to address this problem. The chapter then engages in a second-order debate about the relevance of coherence in justification by inquiring into the reasons why coherence is worth pursuing when reasoning in law. Finally, this chapter concludes by assessing the value and limits of coherentist reasoning in the legal domain. (shrink)

This article examines the Śrīvaiṣṇava validation of the doctrine of self-surrender to the Supreme God Viṣṇu (prapatti). Prapatti is mentioned by Rāmānuja (traditional dates: circa 1017–1137 CE), the most authoritative teacher (ācārya) of the tradition, as an auxiliary to the path of devotion (bhaktiyoga) that he teaches as a means to mokṣa. After the time of Rāmānuja, prapatti was developed as an alternative means. However, the post-Rāmānuja teachers were committed to arguing that Rāmānuja teaches prapatti as an independent means. The (...) article focuses on Vedāntadeśika (traditional dates: circa 1268–1369 CE), the most influential post-Rāmānuja teacher, and his interpretation of Rāmānuja’s prapatti as a teaching of soteriological prapatti in Vedāntadeśika’s under-researched Nikṣeparakṣā. Vedāntadeśika’s interpretation reflects his harmonization of Rāmānuja’s ambivalent statements regarding prapatti and synthetization of traditional authorities. This study thus contributes to the understanding of Vedāntadeśika’s Nikṣeparakṣā and its development of the doctrine of prapatti and to his critical role in systematizing this doctrine. (shrink)

Kant tells us that just as understanding unifies appearances under concepts, reason seeks to unify empirical concepts into a system. But why do empirical concepts require unification in a system? The text of the Critique of Pure Reason provides the basis for starkly divergent answers to this question. On the one hand, Kant seems to take the Transcendental Analytic to have demonstrated the ability of the understanding to employ both pure and empirical concepts without participation by reason. On the other (...) hand, in a number of places Kant says things that imply that reason’s assumption that empirical concepts can and ought to be unified in a hierarchical system implicates understanding in addition to the categories, perhaps even elevating systematicity to a condition of the possibility of experience on a par with the categories. I argue for the intermediary position that systematization is necessary for the coherence of our empirical concepts, which is for Kant the criterion of empirical truth. The goal of complete coherence among our concepts is part of reason’s task of criticizing itself, and thus for the project of setting metaphysics on the “secure course of a science.” (Bvii). (shrink)

Over the history of the study of visual perception there has been great success at discovering countless visual illusions. There has been less success in organizing the overwhelming variety of illusions into empirical generalizations (much less explaining them all via a unifying theory). Here, this article shows that it is possible to systematically organize more than 50 kinds of illusion into a 7 × 4 matrix of 28 classes. In particular, this article demonstrates that (1) smaller sizes, (2) slower speeds, (...) (3) greater luminance contrast, (4) farther distance, (5) lower eccentricity, (6) greater proximity to the vanishing point, and (7) greater proximity to the focus of expansion all tend to have similar perceptual effects, namely, to (A) increase perceived size, (B) increase perceived speed, (C) decrease perceived luminance contrast, and (D) decrease perceived distance. The detection of these empirical regularities was motivated by a hypothesis, called “perceiving the present,” that the visual system possesses mechanisms for compensating neural delay during forward motion. This article shows how this hypothesis predicts the empirical regularity. (shrink)

The two Han dynasties represent the systematizing period of Chinese political thought, namely when all of the pre-Qin schools of political thought shaped up into a logically self-consistent organic whole, and became the orthodox political ideology of society after gaining official approval, forming the more complete logical system of Chinese political thought. Considering the effects of the systematization of political thought, Confucian classics scholarship and the classicist form of thought, which influenced traditional Chinese society for nearly two thousand years, (...) took shape in the two Han dynasties, and the sage worship and classics worship advocated by Confucian classicism became the normative dogmas that were widely popular in society. (shrink)

A globalized world, some argue, needs a global democracy. But there is considerable disagreement about whether global democracy is an ideal worth pursuing. One of the main grounds for scepticism is captured by the slogan: “No global demos, no global democracy.” The fact that a key precondition of democracy—a demos—is absent at the global level, some argue, speaks against the pursuit of global democracy. The paper discusses four interpretations of the skeptical slogan—each based on a specific account of the notion (...) of “the demos”—and concludes that none of them establishes that the global democratic ideal must be abandoned. In so doing, the paper (i) systematizes different types of objections against global democracy, thus bringing some clarity to an otherwise intricate debate and (ii) offers a robust but qualified defense of the global democratic ideal. (shrink)

In recent years, political philosophers have been fiercely arguing over the virtues and vices of utopian vs realistic theorizing. Partly due to the lack of a common and consistently used vocabulary, these debates have become rather confusing. In this chapter, I attempt to bring some clarity to them and, in doing so, I offer a conciliatory perspective on the “utopian vs realistic theorizing” controversy. I argue that, once the notion of a normative or evaluative theory is clearly defined and distinguished (...) from the desiderata that any good theory should satisfy, many of the disagreements between supporters and opponents of “utopian” or “ideal” theorizing can be easily dissolved. I conclude that, in general, political philosophers should be cautious when theorizing at the extreme ends of the “utopian-realistic” spectrum, but that, setting extremes aside, the correct level of realism or idealism depends on the particular question a theory aims to address. (shrink)