In recent years many significant works in epistemology from the standpoint of analytic philosophy have been published in Japan. This paper provides a survey of such research by reviewing relevant books and articles published in Japan from 2000 to 2005. The literature is divided into nine categories: foundationalism and internalism/externalism, skepticism, formal epistemology, a priori knowledge, naturalized epistemology, evolutionary epistemology, socialized epistemology, and so forth.

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Higher-order theories of consciousness, such as those of Armstrong, Rosenthal and Lycan, typically distinguish sharply between consciousness and phenomenal character, or qualia. The higher-order states posited by these theories are intended only as explanations of consciousness, and not of qualia. In this paper I argue that the positing of higher-order perceptions may help to explain qualia. If we are realists about qualia, conceived as those intrinsic properties of our experience of which we are introspectibly aware, then higher-order perception might have an explanatory role as the means by which we are aware of these properties. This would also allow us to treat qualia as the inner appearances resulting from inner perceptions, and therefore to treat them as intentional objects.
It is fair to say that “inner sense” theories of consciousness are not widely accepted. Though Lycan (1987, 1996) and Armstrong (1984, 1993) are heavy hitters in their favour, the arguments against are formidable.¹ Some are arguments against the very notion of an inner sense, and others are arguments against the inner sense as a theory of consciousness in particular. In this paper I will argue that whether or not inner sense theories of consciousness are viable, it is worth considering an inner sense theory of the introspectible quality of sensory states-that is to say of qualia. An inner sense theory of qualia faces few of the objections to the former, and solves many of the problems associated with the latter; including, I believe, the explanatory gap. Here I introduce a dispositional inner sense theory of qualia.

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In this paper I give consideration to some apparent impossibilities for the time travelers to the past. After criticizing the views of D. Lewis and K. Vihvelin, I will show in what sense they are really impossible.

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We will speculate on the theory of the effective sequence of unifomities on a set and its effective limit as a methodology to vest a sequence of real functions which have different points of discontinuities with some notion of computability. Some model examples which explain the necessity of such a methodology are presented.

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Concepts can be arranged in a taxonomical order by means of a partial ordering relation, and a taxonomical structure of concepts is usually supposed to have a linkage to reality. However, here is a logico-ontological jump of significant theoretical importance: a taxonomical structure of concepts does not include in itself any logical ability to relate concepts to objects. That is to say, a mere arrangement of concepts does not logically require at all of any linkage between concepts and reality. There can logically be no direct jump from concepts to reality.
The partial ordering relation required to describe a conceptual taxonomy is in close logical relation to the particle known historically as copula in syllogistic systems. By and large the copula corresponds to the relation IS-A that is today widely used in describing a conceptual taxonomy. We use the symbol ‘⊂’ for IS-A relation. Another relation that relates concepts to objects often called today ‘an-instance-of relation’ will be introduced by definition. This relation will be expressed by the symbol ‘ε’. To define this relation we shall use the functor of (non-reflexive) identity to which we assign the symbol ‘=’.
We aim in this paper to construct a logical system that is appropriate to describing the logical relations between a taxonomy of concepts and reality, which is tantamount to constructing a version of logical Ontology (first constructed by Lesniewski in 1920) on the basis of two primitive functors, i. e. ⊂ and =.

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