Towards a Confucian geopolitics: A critical remark

This commentary reviews An et al.’s (2021) article, ‘Towards Confucian Geopolitics’. It first acknowledges the article’s achievement in highlighting the importance of reading geopolitics by excavating the Chinese traditions and cultural perspectives. However, the commentary also points out that An et al.’s article has failed to understand the complex nature of the Confucian ideology by differentiating between real-world political struggle and cultural idealism. The lack of an evolving political geography has made their reading of Confucianism as either an official ideology or spatialisation unable to correspond with concrete historical realities. Specifically, it has resulted in over-simplification in benchmarking Chinese history and the dichotomous understanding of Hua-Yi division. The commentary further points out that the above problem is a general issue with the culturalist approach to world politics.

Islam and Muslims in “non-religious” Japan: caught in between prejudice against Islam and performative tolerance

This paper examines how Islam in Japan tends to be tolerated as (foreign) “culture,” especially within the framework of tabunka kyōsei, multicultural coexistence, and cosmetic multiculturalism to circumvent religious apathy, phobia of religion, and prejudice against Islam. In doing so, this paper will: first provide a history of Muslim–Japanese relations and Muslim communities in Japan as well as an overview of the total estimate of the Muslim population in Japan as of 2018; historicize and denaturalize religious apathy, phobia of religion, and prejudice against Islam among the general Japanese public; analyze the rhetoric of tabunka kyōsei and its relation to cosmetic multiculturalism as well as its problematics; investigate the cases of local oppositions to the building projects of mosques and my observations made at events organized by Muslim groups; and conclude with a critical remark on the cosmetic multiculturalist understanding of “Islamic culture” and its approach to tabunka kyōsei.

A Critical Remark - Some Fixed Point Results Using Property (E.A.)

The aim of this note is to point out some mistakes in some recent xed point results using property (E.A.). Also, we rectify these mistakes and improve the results.

On derivative consequence argument

The article gives critical remarks to the derivative consequence argument proposed by Bogdan Faul. The first critical remark concerns the ontological status of the laws of nature, the second remark deals with the term «physicalism». It is demonstrated that conceptual vagueness of the terms used by B. Faul in his article undermines the validity of the proposed derivative argument

Roman Ingarden’s “The Logical Attempt at a New Formulation of Philosophy: A Critical Remark”

Translated by Bernard Linsky This is the first English translation of Roman Ingarden’s paper presented at the 8th World Congress of Philosophy held in Prague in 1934: “Der Logistische Versuch einer Neugestaltung der Philosophie: Eine Kritische Bemerkung”, translated here as “The Logical Attempt at a New Formulation of Philosophy: A Critical Remark”. Also translated here are brief discussions by Rudolf Carnap and Otto Neurath. These essays were published in the original German in the Proceedings of the Congress in 1936. This statement of Ingarden’s criticisms of the doctrines of the Vienna Circle has been mentioned in print, but his views have not been discussed, or indeed accurately reported to date.

The wisdom of delay

In schools, the volume and frequency of questions and deci­sions can be smothering on some days. With fast- paced inqui­ries and lickety- split decisions, we may forget the value and necessity of pausing. • “I’ll get back to you about that.” • “Let me think about how I want to respond.” • “Tomorrow I’ll let you know what the consequences will be.” • “I’ll consider your request and let you know of my decision.” Replying immediately is not always a good idea. Whether react­ing to a proposal, an infraction, or a critical remark, delaying our reply can be wise. Of course, there are times when a delay may be inappropri­ate or ineffective. One way to choose is to take three seconds to decide whether a situation or a person is demanding an imme­diate response. Then make a judgment about how to offer the best response. • In response to a co- worker’s request to change a schedule or delay a project: “Let me consider what is involved with that change, and I’ll let you know shortly.” • A parent notifies you that her child will miss an upcoming, required event: “I’m startled to hear that. I want to consider the implications before I give you my response.” • An administrator expects you to discontinue your beloved annual school program: “This comes as a shock. I want to have a conversation about this, but not right now. I’ll make an appointment for tomorrow.” Brief postponement of a response can offer the strength of a deep breath, the perspective of further query, and the potential of a calm, reasoned rejoinder. Whether our delay is twenty- four minutes or twenty- four hours, we take time to craft our response. And we often feel the vivid sense of strength, centeredness, and power that results. For self- preservation, as well as fair- mindedness and even­handedness toward others, consider the wisdom of delay. Hesitation can have its benefits.

Maxi-Min Language Use A Critical Remark on a Concept by Philippe van Parijs

Philippe van Parijs explains in Linguistic Justice for Europe and for the World the concept of maxi-min language use as a process of language choice. He suggests that the language chosen as a common language should maximize the minimal competence of a community. Within a multilingual group of people, the chosen language is the language known best by a participant who knows it least. For obvious reasons, only English would qualify for having that status. This article argues that maxi-min is rather a normative concept, not only because the process itself remains empirically unfounded. Moreover, language choice is the result of complex social and psychological structures. As a descriptive process, the maxi-min choice happens in the reality fairly seldom, whereas the max-min use of languages seen as a normative process could be a very effective tool to measure linguistic justice.