In der Reihe werden herausragende monographische Untersuchungen und Sammelb nde zu allen Aspekten der Philosophie Kants ver ffentlicht, ebenso zum systematischen Verh ltnis seiner Philosophie zu anderen philosophischen Ans tzen in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Ver ffentlicht werden Studien, die einen innovativen Charakter haben und ausdr ckliche Desiderate der Forschung erf llen. Die Publikationen repr sentieren damit den aktuellsten Stand der Forschung.

This research examines how one’s construal level of a crisis differs by crisis type, and how the interplay of crisis type and apology appeal type impacts the effectiveness of apology messages in a corporate crisis context. Findings indicate that one’s mental construal toward a crisis varies by crisis type, with a self-threatening crisis leading to a lower level of construal than a society-threatening one. Findings further suggest that in a society-threatening crisis condition, an informational apology was more effective than an (...) emotional one. However, in a self-threatening crisis condition, there was no significant difference between two different message types. These findings offer valuable guidelines for developing effective crisis response strategy. (shrink)

Background Nurses providing care to patients with end-of-life or terminal illnesses often encounter ethically challenging situations leading to moral distress. However, existing quantitative studies have examined moral distress using instruments that address general clinical situations rather than those specific to end-of-life care. Furthermore, qualitative studies have often been limited to participants from a single unit or those experiencing moral distress-induced circumstances. A comprehensive and integrated understanding of the overarching process of moral distress is vital to discern the unique circumstances surrounding (...) end-of-life care and its consequential impacts. Research objectives To explore the moral distress experiences of nurses who are frequently involved in caring for patients with end-of-life or terminal illnesses and apply it to two existing theories: the model of moral distress and the ecological model. Research design A qualitative descriptive approach was employed. Participants and research context Seven focus group interviews involving 30 nurses were performed. The subsequent transcriptions underwent rigorous content analysis. Ethical considerations We obtained Institutional Review Board approval from a university. Focus group interviews were conducted with nurses who agreed to participate and signed the consent form. Findings The moral distress-inducing factors and nurses’ perceived impact of moral distress were identified and categorized based on moral distress theories and ecological models. A total of 15 categories and 30 subcategories across the following 4 domains were derived: (1) intrapersonal, (2) interpersonal, (3) organizational, and (4) structural factors. Conclusions End-of-life-specific circumstances induced moral distress among nurses, with both negative and positive impacts identified. Effective organizational and policy support is essential to manage conflicts, form a healthy organizational culture, provide training, and prevent unnecessary expenses due to the negative consequences of moral distress. (shrink)

This paper begins from the fact that human beings can genuinely respond to revealed fragments of others: a beautiful face, an attractive gesture, an excellent performance, an impressive text, a public attitude, or repeatedly encountered online content. Such affective responses are neither false nor shallow. They may bring pleasure, admiration, consolation, familiarity, and enduring significance. Yet the reality of affective response does not justify claiming to know the other as a whole, imagining that a specific relationship has been established, or (...) imposing expectations and obligations upon the other’s life. To analyze this transition, the paper introduces the concepts of the revealed fragment, fragmentary affective response, whole-person leap, relational imagination, and fabrication of relational rights. A revealed fragment is a socially accessible part of a person, such as appearance, speech, work, achievement, interview, social media post, vlog, or public attitude. Such fragments may genuinely come from the person, but they are not identical with the whole person. The whole-person leap occurs when one excessively determines another person’s character, morality, relational style, or private life on the basis of limited fragments. The relational imagination occurs when this partial judgment is extended into the belief that the person would understand, accept, or be specially compatible with oneself. The paper then argues that the most serious ethical error emerges when affective response and relational imagination become the fabrication of relational rights: the construction of expectations, obligations, or rights of intervention that have never been formed in an actual reciprocal relationship. A fan’s affection, emotional investment, financial support, or repeated exposure to a public figure may be real and meaningful, but these do not automatically generate rights over the other’s romantic life, privacy, creative direction, or self-disclosure. The truth of a feeling does not guarantee the legitimacy of a right. The paper further examines how fandom, influencer culture, and platform-based intimacy industries intensify this problem by organizing public fragments as pseudo-intimacy and monetizing the feeling of closeness. However, industrial responsibility does not justify fans’ fabricated relational rights; rather, it requires criticism of structures that induce relational misrecognition. In response, the paper proposes metacognition of projection and affective literacy as ethical capacities for distinguishing what one has observed, inferred, imagined, desired, and mistakenly turned into evidence. Ultimately, this paper argues for an ethics of non-possessive affective response: one may be deeply moved by a part of another person without turning that person into an object of one’s projection, expectation, or possession. The other is not someone who becomes mine in proportion to my affective response, but someone whom I must treat all the more ethically precisely because I can never fully know them. (shrink)

The Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Arising (paṭicca-samuppāda) is often interpreted as a causal explanation of suffering, rebirth, or psychological conditioning. This paper argues that such readings obscure the distinctive philosophical function of the chain. Rather than describing how phenomena are caused in the world, the Twelvefold Chain offers a phenomenological analysis of how cognition, once distorted by ignorance (avijjā), necessarily organizes experience into a structure that culminates in suffering. A central distinction is drawn between causality, as observed in vipassanā practice, (...) and dependent arising. Causality refers to the non-evaluative observation that phenomena arise and pass away in dependence on conditions. Dependent arising, by contrast, does not describe this observational stance, but presupposes its failure. The necessity governing the chain is therefore not physical or deterministic, but structural: given the misrecognition of fluid experience as fixed and substantial, certain cognitive consequences follow with internal coherence. The paper locates the origin of suffering not in perception or feeling themselves, but in the emergence of craving (taṇhā), where valuation and fixation first enter experience. This point is identified as the true beginning of phenomenological distortion. The role of sati (mindfulness) is analyzed as a meta-cognitive awareness that interrupts the transition from feeling to craving, thereby suspending the automatic progression of the chain. By reinterpreting non-abiding mind (apratiṣṭhita-citta) as a mode of cognition free from reification rather than as a mystical or moral state, the paper clarifies why compassion and affirmation arise naturally as cognitive consequences. In doing so, it repositions the Twelvefold Chain as an epistemological contribution that extends phenomenological description into a practical account of liberation. (shrink)

The study hypothesizes that the environmental, social, and governance of the host country have a significant effect on clean development mechanism implementation. As CDM incorporates sustainable development as one of the objectives for the green transition, many countries endeavor to adopt and implement CDM as their cleaner production method. Based on the institutional theory, the study aims to investigate the mechanism by which the institutional process of each ESG pillar makes an opportunity for a host country and to see how (...) such country-specific factors influence the implementation of CDM projects. A county-year unbalanced sample drawn from World Bank and multinational CDM project data was analyzed using panel logistic and Poisson regression. Panel regression results show that high-energy intensity and low renewable electricity output as an environmental pillar positively affect CDM implementation. Unemployment and undernourishment as a social pillar positively affect CDM whereas low government effectiveness and the high rule of law positively affect CDM. In the results of zero-inflated Poisson regression, the direction of government effectiveness was upturned. The findings have broadened and deepened the ESG pillar based on the institutional theory and emphasized sustainable development rather than economic outputs. (shrink)

This paper examines the transformation of ālaya-vijñāna through the deconstruction of manas and explores how this shift prepares the doctrinal horizon articulated in Awakening of Faith. Rather than treating ālaya-vijñāna as a metaphysical ground or a passive store of karmic seeds, the study argues that its character depends on its structural relation to manas, the reflexive consciousness that appropriates the flow of experience as self. As long as manas identifies with continuity, ālaya-vijñāna functions as a self-reinforcing current of defilement. When (...) this appropriative reflex is deconstructed, the dynamic of reinforcement weakens and true dharma perfuming becomes effective. The so-called transformation of the basis (āśraya-parāvṛtti) is thus interpreted not as ontological replacement but as a reorientation of lived continuity. Read in this light, the non-dual formulation of one mind with two aspects in Awakening of Faith can be understood as a structural clarification of Yogācāra analysis rather than a metaphysical departure from it. The paper concludes that awakening consists in the release of self-referential appropriation, whereby the turbulent stream of defiled consciousness is disclosed as the open field of suchness within arising and ceasing. (shrink)

Human relationships produce divergent outcomes even under identical interactional conditions. Some relationships remain stable, while others exhibit recurrent conflict, accumulate distorted expectations, or eventually collapse. Existing relationship theories have explained these phenomena in terms of emotions, interaction structures, roles, or internal conditions. However, they fail to adequately explain why outcomes diverge under the same structural conditions. This study argues that this explanatory gap does not arise from a lack of relational components, but from the exclusion of a higher-level structure that (...) generates and organizes those components. Accordingly, this paper proposes Meta-Operational Architecture (MOA) as a generative higher-level structure that explains individual differences in relational outcomes. MOA is defined as a structure that generates how individuals form reference points, interpret information, and execute judgments. It explains the differentiation of relational outcomes through four core variables: Reference Orientation, Processing Mode, Execution Dynamics, and Stability Profile. This paper shifts the analytical focus from outcome-level explanation to generative structure, and demonstrates how MOA connects to recognition–respect structures, interaction patterns, expectation formation, and trust formation. The contribution of this study lies in extending the analytical position of relationship theory beyond describing outcomes to explaining the structure that generates them. In doing so, it proposes the possibility of a middle-range theory capable of structurally explaining individual differences. (shrink)

Family disputes over the diagnosis of brain death have caused much controversy in the bioethics literature over the conceptual validity of the brain death standard. Given the tenuous status of brain death as death, it is pragmatically fruitful to reframe intractable debates about the metaphysical nature of brain death as metalinguistic disputes about its conceptual deployment. This new framework leaves the metaphysical debate open and brings into focus the social functions that are served by deploying the concept of brain death. (...) In doing so, it highlights the epistemic injustice of medicolegal authorities that force people to uniformly accept brain death as a diagnosis of death based on normative considerations of institutional interests, such as saving hospital resources and organ supplies, rather than empirical evidence of brain death as death, which is insufficient at best and nonexistent at worst. In light of this injustice, I propose the rejection of the uniform standard of brain death in favor of a choice-based system that respects families’ individualized views of death. (shrink)

The central theme of this paper is the dispositional/categorical distinction that has been one of the top agendas in contemporary metaphysics. I will first develop from my semantic account of dispositions what I think the correct formulation of the dispositional/categorical distinction in terms of counterfactual conditionals. It will be argued that my formulation does not have the shortcomings that have plagued previously proposed ones. Then I will turn my attention to one of its consequences, the thesis that dispositional properties are (...) not susceptible to intrinsic finks. This thesis was first advanced by me and has ever since stirred up a big controversy, endorsed by some philosophers like Handfield, Bird, and Cohen but rejected by others like Clarke and Fara. Against this background, I will remedy my defense of the impossibility of intrinsically finkable dispositions and then refute some of apparently powerful criticisms of it. And so the upshot is that it is much more reasonable to hold on to the thesis that dispositions are intrinsically unfinkable. This will have the effect of putting the dispositional/categorical distinction on firmer and more secure ground. (shrink)

Abstract:What if a prostitute had expressed the idea of individual rights to property based on labor, even before John Locke? The London Jilt presents Cornelia, a prostitute who endorses her stigmatized job on the grounds that sexual labor is the same as any other profession. By analyzing self-ownership embodied in the prostitute figure, I claim that The London Jilt significantly anticipates Locke's labor theory. Cornelia adopts the emerging discourse of labor and property and situates prostitutes as economic subjects who turn (...) female sexuality into profits. This fiction also reveals marriage is an unfair financial trade that exploits women's sexual labor. (shrink)

This paper offers a reinterpretation of the Confucian concept of 仁 (ren, 인) as presented in the Analects, arguing that ren should not be understood primarily as a moral virtue, social ideal, or emotional benevolence. Instead, ren is examined as a transformed condition of human existence in which ego-centered will loosens its grip and ethical harmony arises spontaneously. Focusing on Confucius’s formulation 克己復禮爲仁, this study interprets 克己 (keji, 극기) not as moral self-restraint, but as the overcoming of ego-centered identification rooted (...) in the illusion of absolute individuation. Within this framework, 禮 (li, 례) is reinterpreted as the natural ethical form that manifests once ego-driven calculation has fallen silent, rather than as an externally imposed system of ritual or propriety. To articulate the philosophical depth of this transformation, the paper places Confucian thought in dialogue with Arthur Schopenhauer’s analysis of the will. Schopenhauer’s notion of the identity of the will provides a metaphysical articulation of the experiential shift implied by 극기, while his concept of aesthetic contemplation illuminates Confucius’s appreciation of the Book of Songs, encapsulated in the remark 詩三百 思無邪. The absence of 邪 is interpreted as freedom from the highest form of the will’s objectification—reflective human egoism—thereby revealing 사무사 as a poetic analogue to aesthetic contemplation. On this basis, 禮 is defined as the ethical counterpart of aesthetic contemplation: action arising without ego-centered calculation. By integrating ontological, aesthetic, and ethical dimensions, this paper argues that ren names a lived realization of shared human ground rather than a system of moral prescriptions. In doing so, it presents Confucian ethics as a deeply philosophical tradition that addresses the roots of human conflict and articulates the possibility of non-coercive ethical harmony through transformed perception and practice. Keywords. (shrink)

This epilogue extends the reflective horizon of Mindfulness and the Unconscious: A Buddhist Response to Freudian Psychology by reconsidering the implications of mental opacity for freedom and self-understanding. While Freudian psychoanalysis reveals the depth and persistence of unconscious dynamics that resist full rational transparency, Buddhist philosophy approaches this opacity not as a hidden substance to be mastered, but as a conditioned process to be observed without identification. Drawing on Yogācāra thought and the Awakening of Faith, this discussion reframes ignorance (avidyā) (...) as a non-substantial boundary of discrimination rather than a metaphysical obstacle. The unconscious, though etiologically rooted in past conditions, need not exert compulsive authority when its surface manifestations are mindfully contemplated. This epilogue argues that liberation does not arise from complete knowledge or control of the unconscious, but from sustained wakefulness within its unfolding—allowing conditioned mental patterns to appear and pass without being mistaken for a self. In doing so, it clarifies how Buddhist mindfulness complements, rather than competes with, Freud’s discovery of the mind’s hidden depth. (shrink)

Sun Hee Park, MD, Chulmin Park, PhD, Jin‐Hong Yoo, MD, Su‐Mi Choi, MD, Jung‐Hyun Choi, MD, Hyun‐Ho Shin, Dong‐Gun Lee, MD, Seungok Lee, MD, JaYoung Kim, MD, So Eun Choi, RN, MS, Young‐Mi Kwon, RN, MS, Wan‐Shik Shin, MD, Emergence of Community‐Associated Methicillin‐Resistant _Staphylococcus aureus_ Strains as a Cause of Healthcare‐Associated Bloodstream Infections in Korea, Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, Vol. 30, No. 2, February 2009.

It is held by some philosophers that it is possible that x has a disposition D but, if the stimulus condition obtains, it won’t manifest D because of an intrinsic interference. I will criticize this position on the ground that it has a deeply sceptical consequence, for instance, that, assuming that I am not well informed of the micro-properties of a metal coin, I do not know that it is not water-soluble. But I urge that this is beyond the pale, (...) especially in light of the weight of the practical considerations we take when we use dispositional concepts in everyday life or science. In doing so, further, I will formulate a type of belief-forming inference and claim that it confers justification on commonsensical dispositional beliefs like the one that a metal coin isn’t water-soluble. (shrink)

Background Caring practice begins with awareness of the suffering of patients in a given context. Understanding the interrelationship between the perceived ethical climate of the clinical environment and the ethical sensitivity and caring efficacy of nurses is crucial for strengthening the caring competency of nurses. Research aim This study aimed to examine the associations between the ethical climate of the clinical environment and the ethical sensitivity and caring efficacy of nurses and to investigate the mediating effect of ethical sensitivity on (...) the association between ethical climate and caring efficacy. Research design This was a quantitative study with a cross-sectional descriptive correlational design. The participants completed an online survey that measured the ethical climate, ethical sensitivity and caring efficacy using the Hospital Ethical Climate Survey, Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire-Revised and Caring Efficacy Scale, respectively. Participants and research context The study recruited 293 nurses from two general hospitals that provided acute in-patient and extended care in Hong Kong. Ethical considerations Ethical approval was obtained from the ethics committee of the university and the hospitals involved. Written consent was obtained from the participants. Results Ethical climate was associated with caring efficacy ( β = 0.340, p <.001) and ethical sensitivity ( β = 0.197, p <.001). After adjusting for ethical climate, ethical sensitivity was associated with caring efficacy ( β = 0.860, p <.001). Ethical sensitivity showed a significant mediating effect on the association between ethical climate and caring efficacy (indirect effect = 0.169, 95% confidence interval: 0.097 to 0.261), which accounted for 50% of the total effect. Conclusions The study reveals the complex and interwoven relationship between contextual and personal factors that affect nurses’ caring efficacy from an ethical perspective. It provides insights into the significant roles of ethical climate and ethical sensitivity in strengthening caring efficacy. The results suggest theoretical and clinical implications for professionalisation. (shrink)

In this paper I examine Salmon's response to two counterexamples to his conserved quantity (CQ) theory of causation. The first counterexample that I examine involves a time‐wise gerrymandered world line of a series of patches of wall that is absorbing energy as a result of being illuminated in an astrodome. Salmon says that since the gerrymandered world line does not fulfill his “no‐interaction requirement,” his CQ theory does not suffer from the counterexample. But I will argue that his response fails (...) both at a theoretical level and at a practical level. In so doing I point out a problem for CQ theorists' definition of a causal interaction. The second counterexample is concerned with a time‐wise gerrymandered world line of a series of patches that are in shadow, in Hitchcock's well‐known example. Salmon's response is based on a principle that Salmon thinks is derivable from the concept of a conserved quantity. However, I argue that the principle has a counterexample. (shrink)

In this paper I will discuss Richard Holton’s defence of dispositionalism that all properties are essentially dispositional. By way of countering the objection that dispositionalism generates an infinite regress, Holton attempts to advance a consistent model of possible worlds where all truths are dispositional truths. But I will argue that the simple conditional analysis of dispositions, on which Holton’s model is built, is so mistaken that Holton’s model fails to serve his goal. What is more, it is not likely that (...) we can successfully materialize the driving idea of Holton’s model on an appropriately revised version of the conditional analysis of dispositions. Finally, I will discuss the lesson on the methodology of philosophy that we can learn from Holton’s failure. (shrink)

Elizabeth Prior claims that dispositional predicates are incomplete in the sense that they have more than one argument place. To back up this claim, she offers a number of arguments that involve such ordinary dispositional predicates as ‘fragile’, ‘soluble’, and so on. In this paper, I will first demonstrate that one of Prior’s arguments that ‘is fragile’ is an incomplete predicate is mistaken. This, however, does not immediately mean that Prior is wrong that ‘fragile’ is an incomplete predicate. On the (...) contrary, I maintain that she has offered another valid argument that does indeed establish the claim that ‘fragile’ is an incomplete predicate. I will argue further that Prior is right that ‘soluble’ is an incomplete predicate. Then does this mean that all dispositional predicates are incomplete? I don’t think so. I will suggest that there are complete dispositional predicates that have no more than one argument place. Finally, by relying on my discussion of the incompleteness of dispositional predicates, I will attempt to provide a better understanding of the context-dependence and intrinsic nature of dispositional ascriptions. (shrink)

This study has two goals. First, we present much‐needed empirical linguistic data and systematic analyses on the spatial semantic systems in English and Korean, two languages that have been extensively compared to date in the debate on spatial language and spatial cognition. We conduct our linguistic investigation comprehensively, encompassing the domains of tight‐ and loose‐fit as well as containment and support relations. The current analysis reveals both cross‐linguistic commonalities and differences: From a common set of spatial features, each language highlights (...) a subset of those features for its principal categorization, and those primary features are importantly different between English and Korean: English speakers categorize events predominantly by containment and support relations (and do so with prepositions), whereas Korean speakers categorize them by tight‐fit and loose‐fit relations (and do so with verbs), with a further distinction of containment and support within the loose‐fit relation. The analysis also shows that the tight‐fit domain is more cross‐linguistically diverse in categorization than is the loose‐fit domain. Second, we test the language data against the nonlinguistic categorization results reported in Choi and Hattrup (2012). The results show a remarkable degree of convergence between the patterns predicted from the current linguistic analysis and those found in C&H's nonlinguistic study and thus provide empirical and strong evidence for an influence of language on nonlinguistic spatial cognition. At the same time, the study reveals areas where the two systems closely interact with each other as well as those where one is independent from the other. Taking both parts of the study together, we identify the specific roles that language and spatial perception/cognition play in spatial categorization. (shrink)

In the Choui, the way of worldly change is presented with symbols of Yin and Yang, but the actual situations are discussed with the phase of Gue Hyo (卦爻). And, the operation to determine the phase of Gue Hyo is made by the number. So, the phase number of Gue Hyo and the way order always go along. When we call theoperation that reveals the future world with the specific phase of Gue Hyo as the Jeom (Prediction) of Choui, the (...) Jeom is operated with the number. At this time, the operation method of the number is called Seobeop. In this paper, by examining the Seobeop in the book of Hongbeomhwangeuk (洪範皇極) along with that in Choui, the numerological research will be carried out about the coincidence and difference between the Samjaeron (Three element theory) in theCheonbugeong and the Yin-Yang theory of Choui in the Seobeop. (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker has advanced a theory of properties that serves as a locus classicus of the view that properties must be individuated by the causal powers that they confer on their instances. His theory is not only important in its own right but also it has deep and far-reaching implications for plenty of philosophical issues, for instance, dispositional essentialism, the dispositional/categorical distinction, the ontological status of laws of nature, to name a few. Curiously enough, however, its validity hasn’t been carefully (...) examined so far. In the early part of this paper, I will defend Shoemaker’s view that properties are not powers but nonetheless clusters of conditional powers from one possible objection. In its later part, however, I will point out a crucial flaw of Shoemaker’s view, presenting a counterexample to the idea that properties are necessarily associated with certain sets of conditional powers. From this I will conclude that Shoemaker’s theory of properties is in trouble. (shrink)

Many recently released Hollywood films feature superheroes like Superman, Ironman, the Hulk, Optimus Prime, and so on who possess amazing superpower and defeat supervillains with unassailable commitment to moral justice. Interestingly, different superheroes possess and exercise their superpower in very different fashions. What is more, this aspect of their difference is intimately related to an issue that is lately in intense debate among metaphysicians of powers and dispositions, the issue of the possibility of intrinsic interferers with dispositions. This paper will (...) argue that a strong case can be made against this possibility when we give due weight to the commonsensical understanding of superheroes and their superpower. Whilst other arguments have been raised against the possibility of intrinsic interferers with dispositions in the latest literature, this will present further difficulties for those who accept it. (shrink)

It is often said that a correct logical system should have no counterexample to its logical rules and the system must be revised if its rules have a counterexample. If a logical system (or theory) has a counterexample to its logical rules, do we have to revise the system? In this paper, focussing on the role of counterexamples to logical rules, we deal with the question. We investigate two mutually exclusive theories of arithmetic - intuitionistic and paraconsistent theories. The paraconsistent (...) theory provides a (strong) counterexample to Ex Contradiction Quodlibet (ECQ). On the other hand, the intuitionistic theory gives a (weak) counterexample to the Double Negation Elimination (DNE) of the paraconsistent theory. If any counterexample undermines the legitimate use of logical rules, both theories must be revised. After we investigate a paraconsistent counterexample to ECQ and the intuitionist’s answer against it, we arrive at the unwelcome conclusion that ECQ has both a justification and a counterexample. Moreover, we argue that if a logical rule were abolished whenever it has a counterexample, a promising conclusion would be logical nihilism which is the view that there is no valid logical inference, and so a correct logical system does not exist. Provided that the logical revisionist is not a logical nihilist, we claim that not every counterexample is the ground for logical revision. While logical rules of a given system have a justification, the existence of a counterexample loses its role for logical revision unless the rules and the counterexample share the same structure. (shrink)

The most valuable finding of my first sightseeing trip was that medieval Europe was the seat of Christendom and that Christianity defines the West. I was amazed to see that Europe reveals so much of its past. I had not had such an experience in the United States, where I had lived as a student and then as a professor of economics.As I glimpsed the West, I found myself rediscovering Confucian civilization and how much I am still Confucian, although I (...) was born into a Presbyterian family in Korea. But then, Korea is the most Confucian country. Curious about the West since my first trip, whenever I can I have toured Europe in search of the meaning of the West.While travelling in Europe, my mind often jumps back to my early life in Korea and Japan. I am struck by the vivid contrast in appearance between medieval European towns and Asian towns, which were grey and as flat as pancakes. Medieval towns are stony and solid. Nothing is flimsy. Shaped by spires, domes, and towers, a European town's silhouette rises and falls like a stock market graph. Europeans obviously loved the vertical emphasis. A traveller can see either a soaring church tower or a castle keep miles away on the horizon. Churches predominate, as if to emphasize that the main business of the town is the worship and glorification of God. (shrink)

Sungmoon Kim’s Im Yunjidang explores the philosophical contributions of Im Yunjidang (임윤지당 任允摯堂, 1721–1793), a prominent female Korean Confucian scholar of the late Chosǔn Dynasty (朝鮮 1392–1910). Part of the Elements on Women in the History of Philosophy series from Cambridge University Press, the volume is the only one (of fifteen so far) to introduce an East Asian philosopher. Based on Kim’s deep expertise in both the political and philosophical dimensions of Confucianism, the book offers a concise yet comprehensive framework (...) for situating Im’s philosophical thought within the Neo-Confucian discourse of 18th–19th century Chosǔn Korea as well as in contemporary discussions about the applicability of Confucianism... Read More. (shrink)

This paper challenges a popular thesis which we call the explanatory primitiveness thesis (for short, EPT), namely, the thesis that identities leave no logical space wherein explanatory questions may be formulated and explanatory gaps may reside. We argue that while EPT is, in all likelihood, flawless when the relevant domain consists of identity statements flanked by proper names of individuals it is a mistake to hold that the thesis generalizes to cover all identity statements. In particular, we argue that EPT (...) fails decisively with respect to an important class of identity statements, viz., those in which natural kinds are identified across different theoretical levels (i.e., the so-called inter-level type-identities). If correct, our result shows EPT to be much more limited in scope than is usually supposed. Moreover, and perhaps more significantly, it shows that there is no inherent absurdity in the idea that certain type-identity statements, in particular psychophysical type-identity statements, suffer from an explanatory gap. (shrink)

Chapter Thirteen investigates syndicated leveraged loans that fall along the continuum between one-off bespoke contracts and public bonds. These instruments are tradable, albeit the markets for them are not as thick as those for public bonds. In addition, because the debts are secured and the loans are high yield, presumably greater attention is paid to contract terms than in the sovereign bond world. So, in this yet different world from the ones examined before, the authors ask about the presence of (...) landmines and their repair. The unearthed story is different from any of those already studied. To be sure, there are landmines and there are coordinated (but ultimately unsuccessful) efforts to repair them. But, unlike the other markets, this is a world where there is a thriving business in the active pursuit of landmines by highly compensated lawyers whose clients are seeking to restructure “sacred” creditor priorities. The inability of market players to eliminate the embedded loopholes in the original debt contracts leads to costly reliance on lawyers to find creative ways of restructuring the contract so as to favor one group of creditors over others. (shrink)

Having documented the existence and persistence of landmines in sovereign bond contracts, Chapter Nine asks whether they are unique to the world of sovereign debt and its particular types of agency costs. At the opposite end of the thick liquid market, such as that for sovereign bonds, is the classic one-off or “bespoke” contract. Traditional theory assumes that these bespoke transactions are individually negotiated and designed and thus are free from landmines. That conception is likely wrong in most cases because (...) few, if any, contracts are drafted on a blank piece of paper with fresh clauses. Even in so-called bespoke contracts, the document is typically constructed out of bits and pieces from precedent. And to the extent that precedent fits imperfectly, and the drafting lawyers don’t fully understand the differences in contexts, there is the possibility for landmines. Litigation over the continuing use of ambiguous and undefined terms in clauses purporting to exclude “consequential damages” illustrates the issue. (shrink)

Chapter Fourteen concludes by asking why do landmines persist in the contract documents for many financial markets, and can the problems they cause be solved either through state or collective action. One culprit is agency costs—the costs that result from drafters’ failure to meet the markets’ demand for both speed and accurate documentation. A failure to revise or even review the artifact contract inevitably leads to strategic manipulations, blunders, and obsolescence. Another culprit is the textualist mode of interpretation where courts (...) give language a plain meaning even when it violates common commercial usage or understanding. Once we understand the production process, we cannot simply assume either that contract words mean what the parties meant for them to mean or that the parties are capable of correcting any errors going forward. In a world where production costs impede the scrutiny of precise language at the drafting stage, there is an argument for a “landmine exception” to the dominant textualist view. But there is no easy way to implement this exception under current contract doctrine. If contract interpretation doctrine remains resistant to reform, the landmine problem might also be addressed by stimulating networks of drafters to coordinate on removing mutations to the standard form. But this, too, is a daunting challenge especially in thick liquid markets. Perhaps the best hope for solving the contract production paradox is to elevate the plight of the drafting lawyer so that the profession itself can be mobilized to create mechanisms for coordinating landmine removal. (shrink)

People use language to communicate their perceptions and conceptions of the world, and underlying this communication is the linguistic system that interacts with the human perceptual and conceptual machinery. This is supported by research on sentence comprehension among adults. This chapter examines theories of sentence processing in children and adults. It comments on a study John Trueswell et al. in which they demonstrated that five-year-old children appeared to be unable to use contextual cues to resolve ambiguity in sentences such as (...) “Put the frog on the napkin into the box.” Trueswell et al. explained this finding by arguing that children have limited working memory capacity that prevents them from using information from the context to disambiguate linguistic input. The chapter first discusses real-time sentence processing in adults before presenting a developmental account of sentence comprehension. It then considers the so-called Kindergarten-path Effect along with referential scenes, definite reference, and restrictive modifiers. It also looks at the effects of discourse and pragmatics on parsing by children and concludes with a discussion of the development of attention in children. (shrink)

The object of this research is the mass culture and art of China in the second half of the XX – early XXI centuries. The subject of the study is the calligraphic graffiti of Tsang Tsou Choi, the so–called "king of Kowloon", as a phenomenon of art and mass culture in modern China. During the consideration of the topic, questions are raised about the degree of study of the issues under consideration, the problems of research are outlined, the stages (...) of formation of Tsang Tsou Choi as an icon of culture and art of Hong Kong are analyzed. The article traces the content of the artist's work, gives an idea of the specifics of the perception of his works in the mass consciousness, in addition, describes the transformation of the perception of his street calligraphic inscriptions in the context of historical and cultural processes that took place in Hong Kong in the second half of the XX – early XXI centuries. The main methods of the study were historical, cultural, systemic and functional analysis, which allowed us to create an idea of the calligraphic graffiti of Tsang Tsou Choi as a phenomenon of art and mass culture in modern China. For the first time in Russian science, the work attempts to highlight the phenomenon of calligraphic graffiti of King Kowloon and trace their influence on the art world and mass consciousness of Hong Kong in the context of historical and cultural processes that took place in Hong Kong in the second half of the XX – early XXI centuries. The study concludes that for Hong Kong residents, Tsang Tsou Choi's street calligraphy has become a discovery and inspiration, inspiring perseverance and determination in the struggle for their ideals in an era of great change. It is also important that his inscriptions embodied a unique collective memory: they touched on topics that traditionally remained unspoken, such as, for example, the history of mass dispossession. They became a statement that nothing is forgotten. Despite being declared an outsider in academic calligraphy circles, his fame only grew on the streets. Obviously, in the years leading up to the handover of Hong Kong to China, his naive activism became an expression of the general mood of the era. Thus, his figure gained importance not so much as a calligrapher, but as a pioneer of political graffiti. (shrink)

This paper offers a novel, phenomenological reinterpretation of the Twelvefold Chain of Dependent Origination (Paṭicca-samuppāda), departing from traditional linear and temporal readings. The author proposes a structural bifurcation of the chain: the first half (from Ignorance to the Six Bases) as the architecture of a "Fixed Subject" (Atman), and the second half (from Feeling to Old Age and Death) as the "Solidification of the Fixed Object." ​Central to this discourse is the author’s unique identification of the third link, Consciousness (Viññāṇa), (...) specifically as Manas-consciousness (말라식). In this framework, Manas acts as the "Hidden Architect" that misinterprets fluid reality to construct a permanent egoic center. By engaging in a "Regressive Inquiry" (환멸연기), the paper traces the roots of existential suffering back to this egoic pivot. The author argues that the dissolution of Manas leads to a spontaneous collapse of the entire chain—an "Automatic Extinction" of ignorance and volitional formations. ​Ultimately, this study defines the moment of liberation as a paradoxical "Leap" that is, in essence, a "Return" to the Ordinary Mind (평상심). By dismantling the artificial boundaries between subject and object, the individual transitions from ego-driven confinement to "Non-Egoic Action," reclaiming a state of original clarity and non-dual freedom. (shrink)