Previous studies carried out in Western countries on mother-infant and father-infant interactions in play activities revealed the following tendencies. (1) Play activities between fathers and their children are physical and unusual, whereas, play between mothers and their chil-dren are conventional and moderate. (2) Boys prefer to play with their fathers, whereas, girls prefer to play with their mothers. The previous studies by the author on outdoor play interactions in Japanese families suggest that these tendencies may be an adaptation to hunter-gatherer lives. In the present study, this suggestion was investigated by examining whether (1) fathers tend to teach their sons how to fish more frequently they teach their daughters, and (2) boys taught fishing skills by their fathers tend to have better fishing skills other same-aged boys taught fishing skills by persons other their fathers. The experiment was performed by obtaining information through a questionnaire from third and fifth grade students in four elementary schools. The results indicate the followings. (1) Fathers tend to teach their sons fishing more often they tend to teach their daughters. (2) Male students mostly taught fishing by their fathers tend to gain better skills in fishing those mostly taught fishing by persons other their fathers.

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Being a highly traditional question of metaphysics, the so-called “Ultimate -Question” still interests some contemporary philosophers. To ask this question amounts to asking where, if anywhere, “-chains” can stop.
Whereas the most traditional approach to the Ultimate -Question has been to try to answer it by “God”, i. e., “Necessary Existence/Being”; the most usual ap-proach in contemporary analytical philosophy has been to dismiss it as a nonsense pseudo-problem because it is “logically unanswerable”. I call the former tradition as a whole the “old tradition” and the latter the “new tradition”.
In this article, I propose a “third alternative”, by suggesting that the Ultimate -Question is not necessarily unanswerable but can be answered by a kind of “Necessary Existence/Being”, which cannot be anything in particular at all (in-cluding even “God”) but only the “Absolute Totality of Reality”.
The following three procedures would be required to make the above sugges-tions assertions:
(1) to show whether the “Absolute Totality of Reality” exists at all,
(2) to specify the necessary and sufficient conditions for to be the “Nec-essary Existence/Being” that would stop all possible -chains,
(3) to decide whether only the “Absolute Totality of Reality” satisfies the above conditions.

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Practitioners of tariff reforms have been recommending tariff reforms toward uniformity since they fear that divergences among tariff rates cause price distortions among imports. On the other hand, the optimal tax theorists have been insisting that the revenue-constrained optimum tariff structure must be non-uniform. The present paper formalizes practitioner's hunch within the framework of the optimum tax theory. Using this formulation, the paper observes that the uniform tariff structure must be a good approximation of the revenue-constrained optimum tariff structure as long as substitutability among commodities is dominant.

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Attempts to preserve retro game elements or ‘the classic feeling’ through remixing retro elements with modern ones are not a new method. However, it is an effective preservation method. According to Newman, videogame preservation goes beyond simply preserving hardware. In order to deliver “authentic play (and aesthetic) experiences”, it also necessary to determine what are the most significant, qualitative aspects or properties that make a particular videogame what it is (Newman 2012, 122–23). Part of the success of classic characters like Mario is how often they are reused and reimagined (Suominen 2012, 8). Even if you have never played the original Mario games, you have still likely been exposed to the franchise’s most ‘basic’ elements through their various iterations. However, while the game industry typically aims for continual innovation and reinvention (Newman 2012, 9), the changing market and gaming landscape is allowing for alternative opportunities for remixing retro elements. One notable example includes Mega Man 9, which garnered praise for their gorgeous, realistic graphics. While all three games were made for modern consoles, Mega Man 9 was made in classic retro style, not only to return the series to its roots but also to give players a new story and “the classical feel” (Takeshita 2008). By studying the approaches developers have used, it is possible to study what ‘feeling’ they were attempting to preserve, what elements were considered most essential, how these elements were translated, and what new meanings occur.

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Intention-based semantics (IBS) serves as the paradigm in the field of speaker meaning analysis. However, it has grappled with a well-known problem: the infinite regress of a speaker's intentions. Theorists such as Grice, Schiffer, Davis, and Green have tried to remedy the situation; however, no one has found any solutions until now. The present paper claims that the inability of IBS theorists to resolve the regress problem may be attributed to the conflict between two basic assumptions that they espouse: representationalism and the transparency of speaker meaning. When both are adopted alongside each other, as the current paper shows, the regress problem immediately emerges. It follows, then, that it would be prudent to reject IBS to sufficiently analyze speaker meaning.

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The redundancy theory of truth is normally considered to be a form of the deflationist theory of truth. Frege is sometimes counted as an advocate of the deflationist theory, because he emphasizes the redundancy of the truth predicate. In this paper, following Thomas Ricketts's interpretation, I will argue that this is a misunderstanding of Frege's view. Even if Frege is a deflationist, it cannot be because he accepts the redundancy thesis. Indeed, truth plays an indispensable role in Frege's picture of judgement and assertion. In light of his notion of judgement and assertion, what the redundancy of the truth predicate means to Frege will be clarified.

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Based on the videotaped interaction between Japanese and American workers at a Japanese manufacturing plant in the US, this paper examines their use of gesture as an indispensable communicative strategy. Unlike most intercultural interactions examined in previous studies, the informants of the two groups had limited knowledge of one another's language. Nevertheless, they needed to communicate as accurately as possible in order to accomplish tasks. Two functions of gesture were found in the present data. Firstly, the interactants used iconic gesture together with some of the most commonly appearing vocabulary in their interactions: namely, gestures of ‘assembly’, ‘stamping’, ‘finish’, and the like. This type of gesture was far from redundant. Instead, it served to secure the currently discussed major topic as a reference point for the interactants. That is, by amplifying the major topic being discussed such as ‘assembly’ through combining speech and gesture, the interactants could make sure that they were talking about assembly. Secondly, when the interactants were temporarily lost in their interaction, iconic gesture was used as a means to elicit clarification. In the example segment, a Japanese engineer repeated the ‘stamping’ gesture used by his American interlocutor. This repetition of gesture functioned to request clarification from the interlocutor. These findings present ways in which gestures were actively and creatively utilized as an important communicative strategy in the intercultural work setting.

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Interesting works on the evolutionary origins of consciousness have been published recently. They are interesting especially because they try to solve the hard problem of consciousness through the study of the evolutionary origins of consciousness. This paper critically examines one of these works, a book by Feinberg and Mallatt. Though it seems that they fail to offer a new and plausible solution to the hard problem of consciousness, studying evolutionary origins remains to be one of the most promising strategies for the naturalization of consciousness.

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This paper presents a theory of akrasia that draws essentially on the notion of time preference. When we make a decision over which course of action to pursue, it often happens that what can be obtained in the near future motivates us more strongly what lies temporally further afield, although we are aware that the latter is to be evaluated more highly the former. This is the effect of time preference, and I will argue that it plays a crucial role if we are to understand how our behaviour can exhibit weakness of will.

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Before invention of the printing process, architecture operated within society as a type of literal narrative. That does not mean that architecture is no longer the embodiment of meaning. Today the meanings, however, are simply different, corresponding to a different type of culture. This paper argues that it is still possible to approach, create, and understand architecture as a narrative discipline. Bernard Franken developed a series of spatial narratives derived from selected actual sites and implemented architectonic responses. Likewise, parallel ordering principles that included narrative elements, characterization, integration and imagination were examined, providing the structural framework for various formal and spatial experimentations. From a descriptive perspective the paper considers the architectural process as the imaginative opportunities of the narrative of architectural production in forms other , but leading toward building.

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This article examines realism in architecture based on Aldo Rossi′s architectural works and Jacques Rancière′s discourse on realism. Rancière views realism as an artistic capacity that gives impetus to new art as a specific art movement. In addition, he considers realism not only in terms of this role in the history of art but also in terms of its aim even today to discover new aspects of art among art and non-art, that is everyday objects. This view is comparable to the idea of architecture espoused by Aldo Rossi. Rossi discovers the boundary between architecture and non-architecture in the process of searching for the architectural archetype, the hut (cabin). Furthermore, he proposes architecture that diverges from architectural methods, placing high value on his personal viewpoint and expression in architecture. In spite of the negative evaluation of his later architectural works, Rossi′s architecture can be viewed as realism since they connect architecture with ordinary objects that are beyond the level of architecture. This article elaborates the discourse on realism in architecture and the prospect of Rossi′s architecture are still valid today.

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According to a prevailing view, a self is reflective solely by virtue of the self-referential nature of a human mind. Relationship with fellow beings, according to this view, concerns merely a contingent matter of psychological developments, and has conceptually nothing to do with the self-reflectivity. This view, however, seems to me totally wrong. To be sure, both 'self-locating' information processing and 'other-oriented' information processing may be necessary and sufficient for purposeful movements and social transactions. But selfhood requires an ability to entertain an "I"-thought. To have this ability is manifested by being able to identify an image in a mirror as one's own image though no one can see one's own face. This sort of self-identification requires in turn the mastery of the concept of 'being seen by' fellow beings.

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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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