The Flexibility of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Gua</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Yao</Emphasis>—Based on an interpretation of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Yizhuan</Emphasis>

In Yizhuan’s interpretation of The Book of Changes, the book’s fundamental concepts, xiang 象 (images) and ci 辞 (words), play different roles. Concepts, including yin and yang, firmness and gentleness, sancai 三才 (three fundamentals), and the wuxing 五行 (five active elements), are used to interpret The Book of Changes through the interpretation of images, while the core Confucian values, such as benevolence and righteousness, are used to interpret The Book of Changes because of their connection with words of gua and yao. In order to expand the meaning of the words of gua and yao, Yizhuan sometimes connects words with images; in other occasions, however, it simply takes these words as independent guides. The Confucian scholars who wrote Yizhuan, therefore, not only revered the classic, but also used it to send their own message. Out of reverence, they “shu 述 (recited)”; in using it, they “zuo 作 (created)”. The combination of recitation and creation made the words of gua and yao very flexible in the process of interpretation, while the interpretation changed the meaning of the classic to a great extent.     

The Role of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Umwelt</Emphasis> in Husserl’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Aufbau</Emphasis> and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Abbau</Emphasis> of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Natur/Geist</Emphasis> Distinction

In this essay I argue that Husserl’s development of the nineteenth century Natur/Geist distinction is grounded in the intentional correlate between the pre-theoretical natural attitude and environing world (Umwelt). By reconsidering the Natur/Geist distinction through its historical context in the nineteenth century debate between Wilhelm Dilthey and the Neo-Kantians from the Baden or Southwest school, it is possible to understand more clearly Husserl’s appropriations and novel contributions. One of Husserl’s contributions lies in his rigorous thematization and clarification of the constitutive features proper to the natural and human sciences as they arise from the pre-theoretical experience of an environing world. This ordinary lived experience between the lived body and environing world is presupposed by and forms a unity with both Natur and Geist, thereby acting as the unified ground that is inclusive of naturalized Geist and a geistig nature. This unbuilding (Abbau) of the Natur/Geist distinction is necessary, according to Husserl, for the radical clarification of the respective methodologies of the natural and human sciences.     

Frege’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Begriffsschrift</Emphasis> as a <Emphasis Type="Italic">lingua characteristica</Emphasis>

In this paper I suggest an answer to the question of what Frege means when he says that his logical system, the Begriffsschrift, is like the language Leibniz sketched, a lingua characteristica, and not merely a logical calculus. According to the nineteenth century studies, Leibniz’s lingua characteristica was supposed to be a language with which the truths of science and the constitution of its concepts could be accurately expressed. I argue that this is exactly what the Begriffsschrift is: it is a language, since, unlike calculi, its sentential expressions express truths, and it is a characteristic language, since the meaning of its complex expressions depend only on the meanings of their constituents and on the way they are put together. In fact it is in itself already a science composed in accordance with the Classical Model of Science. What makes the Begriffsschrift so special is that Frege is able to accomplish these goals with using only grammatical or syncategorematic terms and so has a medium with which he can try to show analyticity of the theorems of arithmetic.     

Don’t Ever Do That! Long-term Duties in <Emphasis Type="Italic">PD</Emphasis><Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">e</Emphasis></Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">L</Emphasis>

This paper studies long-term norms concerning actions. In Meyer’s Propositional Deontic Logic (PD _e L), only immediate duties can be expressed, however, often one has duties of longer durations such as: “Never do that”, or “Do this someday”. In this paper, we will investigate how to amend PD _e L so that such long-term duties can be expressed. This leads to the interesting and suprising consequence that the long-term prohibition and obligation are not interdefinable in our semantics, while there is a duality between these two notions. As a consequence, we have provided a new analysis of the long-term obligation by introducing a new atomic proposition I (indebtedness) to represent the condition that an agent has some unfulfilled obligation. Presented by Jacek Malinowski     

Interval estimation of gamma for an<Emphasis Type="Italic">R</Emphasis>×<Emphasis Type="Italic">S</Emphasis> table

When the underlying responses are on an ordinal scale, gamma is one of the most frequently used indices to measure the strength of association between two ordered variables. However, except for a brief mention on the use of the traditional interval estimator based on Wald's statistic, discussion of interval estimation of the gamma is limited. Because it is well known that an interval estimator using Wald's statistic is generally not likely to perform well especially when the sample size is small, the goal of this paper is to find ways to improve the finite-sample performance of this estimator. This paper develops five asymptotic interval estimators of the gamma by employing various methods that are commonly used to improve the normal approximation of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE). Using Monte Carlo simulation, this paper notes that the coverage probability of the interval estimator using Wald's statistic can be much less than the desired confidence level, especially when the underlying gamma is large. Further, except for the extreme case, in which the underlying gamma is large and the sample size is small, the interval estimator using a logarithmic transformation together with a monotonic function proposed here not only performs well with respect to the coverage probability, but is also more efficient than all the other estimators considered here. Finally, this paper notes that applying an ad hoc adjustment procedure—whenever any observed frequency equals 0, we add 0.5 to all cells in calculation of the cell proportions—can substantially improve the traditional interval estimator. This paper includes two examples to illustrate the practical use of interval estimators considered here.The authors wish to thank the Associate Editor and the two referees for many valuable comments and suggestions to improve the contents and clarity of this paper. The authors also want to thank Dr. C. D. Lin for his graphic assistance.     

Advertising <Emphasis Type="Italic">Fantasy</Emphasis>: Consuming Passion -‘Consumed’ <Emphasis Type="Italic">Desire</Emphasis>

Advertisements (n = 400) published in Bengali periodicals in four different time periods, 1947–48, 1971–72, 1991–92 & 2008–09 drawn following a multistage sampling were analyzed to see the pattern of change in concepts associated with products. They included four categories of products/ services : Jewellery, cosmetics, garments and banking. The analysis of advertisements indicated that diverse values are associated with products that have social and cultural connotations. Through such value addition, as if consumption of these commodities provides the consumer with an opportunity to construct, maintain and communicate identity and social meanings. However, the consumer emerged not as a passive victim, but an active agent in the construction of meaning.     

Psychological Aspects of Retirement: <Emphasis Type="Italic">About Schmidt</Emphasis> (2002), and <Emphasis Type="Italic">Everybody’s Fine</Emphasis> (2009)

With the films About Schmidt and Everybody's Fine as his main point of reference, the author elucidates the complex and often melancholic sojourn that follows ordinary men's retirement from their jobs. As this usually occurs during late middle age, the complicating variable of spousal loss, departure of children from the family home, a failing body, and social marginalization also get added to the picture. The vicissitudes of the resulting intrapsychic and interpersonal upheaval can lead to depressive withdrawal or a renewed effort at finding meaning in life. Ego resilience is tested and sublimation and creativity, if possible, save the day.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">Above</Emphasis>, <Emphasis Type="Italic">on</Emphasis>, or <Emphasis Type="Italic">shang</Emphasis> (上)? Language and spatial representations among English–Mandarin bilinguals

This study investigated if exposure to spatial language could affect spatial cognition in English-Mandarin bilinguals by focusing on contact/noncontact distinctions, an area that has been a source of contention in the language-and-thought literature. Sixty-three participants were first primed with sentences containing spatial terms (e.g., above, on) before performing a spatial decision task. Approximately half of the participants (n = 33) were primed in English; for the remaining participants (n = 30), primes comprising Mandarin spatial terms―which mark spatial distinctions differently than in English (e.g., shang in Mandarin signifies both above and on in English)―were employed instead. Our findings revealed that participants’ performance was influenced by spatial primes in the English experiment, thereby proffering evidence for thinking-for-speaking effects. However, these findings were not mirrored for the Mandarin experiment, confirming that the contact/noncontact specificity of spatial terms may have been instrumental in engendering the thinking-for-speaking effects observed in English.     

<Emphasis Type="Bold">W</Emphasis><Emphasis Type="Bold">ang</Emphasis><Emphasis Type="Bold">Fuzhi’s Criticism of Buddhism and Its Limitations</Emphasis>

Wang Fuzhi’s 王夫之 remarks on Buddhism have not been given sufficient attention despite increasing research on him. The few works on this topic either focus on just one aspect of his view of Buddhism or fail to disclose the purpose and uniqueness of his attack of it. This essay analyzes his view of Buddhism comprehensively, in particular his insight into the paradox of Buddhist universal love and his rejection of Buddhist retribution and reincarnation from Confucian righteousness and qi 氣-monism. In addition, it also explores the reason, context, and limitations of his criticism, that is, his reaction to the popular approach of “understanding Confucian classics through learning Buddhism” in the late Ming 明, his response to Zongmi’s 宗密 criticism of Confucian cosmology and human nature, and his misunderstanding of some Buddhist concepts. Yet his criticism is still illuminating to our understanding of the interaction of Confucianism with Buddhism and other religions.     

Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology in the light of Kant’s Third <Emphasis Type="Italic">Critique</Emphasis> and Schelling’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Real</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">Idealismus</Emphasis>

In this paper I offer a selective, systematic rather than historical account of Merleau-Ponty’s highly complex relation to classical German philosophy, focussing on issues which bear on the question of his relation to transcendentalism and naturalism. I argue that the concerns which define his project in Phenomenology of Perception are fundamentally those of transcendental philosophy, and that Merleau-Ponty’s disagreements with Kant, and the position he arrives at in The Visible and the Invisible, are helpfully viewed in light of (1) issues which Merleau-Ponty identifies as raised by Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgement, and (2) Schelling’s conversion of Kantian idealism into a Real-Idealismus. Finally I address the question of whether, and on what basis, Merleau-Ponty’s claim to have surpassed systematic philosophy can be defended.     

Wilt Chamberlain <Emphasis Type="Italic">Redux</Emphasis>?

According to Eric Mack, the Wilt Chamberlain Argument makes two distinct points against all patterned and end-state theories of justice. First, the pattern theorist cannot explain how innocuous actions can give rise to an injustice. Second, the enforcement of a pattern theory requires constant redistribution of holdings, and that prevents people from forming legitimate expectations about their future holdings. This paper responds to both of these points. Mack’s first point denies or disregards the relevance of harmful consequences to the justice or injustice of a distribution. The second point is based on a requirement that is either too demanding to be plausible, or too permissive to undermine pattern theories. The failure of Mack’s arguments illustrates the difficulty of resolving substantive political debates with a priori arguments alone. When faced with objections, the only possible defense of the Wilt Chamberlain argument resorts to empirical claims, which stand in need of empirical evidence.     

Understanding the Heart-Mind Within the Heart-Mind of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Nèiyè</Emphasis> (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Inward Training</Emphasis>)

The Nèiyè 內業 (Inward Training) talks of “a heart-mind (xīn 心) within a heart-mind” that is somehow connected to or prior to language. In the context of the overall advice on looking “inward” or “internally” as part of the meditation and mysticism practice that the Nèiyè introduces, this talk of a heart-mind within a heart-mind arguably invites comparisons with a Cartesian “inner theater” conception of mentality. In this paper, I examine the “inner” talk of the Nèiyè in order to tease out its identifiable commitments in philosophical psychology. I consider the ways in which the “inner” talk of the text might be read as marking out one or more of three different inner/outer distinctions, and I argue that we can consistently read the Nèiyè without seeing it as marking any inner/outer distinction that is related to what is often referred to in English as “inner experience.”     

Do humans use episodic memory to solve a <Emphasis Type="Italic">What</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">Where</Emphasis>-<Emphasis Type="Italic">When</Emphasis> memory task?

What-Where-When (WWW) memory tasks have been used to study episodic(-like) memory in non-human animals. In this study, we investigate whether humans use episodic memory to solve such a WWW memory task. Participants are assigned to one of two treatments, in which they hide different coin types (what) in different locations (where) on two separate occasions (when). In the Active treatment, which mimics the animal situation as closely as possible, participants are instructed to memorize the WWW information; in the Passive treatment, participants are unaware of the fact that memory will be tested. In both groups, the majority of participants report using a mental time travel strategy to solve the task, and performance on a different episodic memory test significantly predicts performance on the WWW memory task. This suggests that the WWW memory task is a good test of episodic memory in humans. Participants remember locations and coins from the first hiding session better than they do those of the second hiding session, suggesting their memories may be reinforced during the second hiding session. We also investigated how well episodic memory performance predicted performance on the three aspects of the WWW memory task separately. In the Passive treatment, episodic memory performance predicts performance on all three aspects of the WWW memory task equally. However, in the Active treatment it only predicts performance on the what component. This could imply that during active encoding a different memory system is used for where and when information than during passive encoding. Encoding of what information seems to rely on episodic memory processing in both conditions.