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E. Sosa provides an interpretation of René Descartes as a foundationalist, a coherentist, and a reliabilist, or partially an externalist of knowledge. I mainly examine Sosa’s interpretation of Descartes (Meditaions) as an externalist. Sosa interestingly defines Descartes’s term “cognitio” as a kind of “externalist knowledge.” But I argue that his interpretation does not reflect Descartes’s overall view. There exists some textual evidence against Sosa’s externalist approach to cognitio. Besides, our commonsensical notion of knowledge resists to endorse Descartes’s cognitio as genuine knowledge. Moreover, I think that Sosa’s interpretation conflicts with the project of Meditaions.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the change of the concept of happiness in Kant’s moral philosophy. In general, the moral philosophy of Kant has received criticisms that it neglects happiness. These criticisms point out that Kant criticizes the Eudemonism. However, Kant doesn’t oppose to happiness itself but to happiness used as a moral principle. From the pre-critic era to the post-critic one, he develops concepts of happiness broadly in his own system of practical philosophy. He sees the dignity in happiness and places it as the principle of hope. Moreover, he relates his own concept of happiness to the highest good in the system of practical philosophy. Happiness as the highest good in ideal is changed to the concept of self-satisfaction as a possible experience to happiness. It is only possible happiness, i.e. one should pursue happiness only as a result of moral acts and promote happiness of others. Therefore, in Kant’s moral philosophy happiness is not an end, nor a principle of moral conduct, but a means of pursuing the end of nature and moral.

The aim of this paper is to disclose the problems of a modern scientific concept of life and to claim that we need to define a new concept of life. The modern scientific concept of life which was based on theories of evolution and gene has exerted an effect on the domains of knowledge of human society, politics and ethics beyond the realm of biology. This effect claims to support reductionism through the modern scientific concept of life, which exceeds simple theoretical exchanges. Therefore, there are attempts to embrace other domains of knowledge through this concept which is regarded as a foundation for modern science. But whether this attempt is reasonable or not should be carefully reexamined because there are reasons to doubt some justifications of the scientific concept of life. Though it is evident that the scientific concept of life was developed by theories of evolution and gene, it is obscure whether this concept is supported by these theories. This being so, I will try to explain why this concept is obscure and that this concept is deficient to be foundation of reductionism and eliminates phenomena of life. Then, I will examine where we can seek for the possibility of a new concept of life.

This paper analyzes the narrative of the dream in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in order to understand Nietzsche as the forerunner of psychoanalysis. Nietzsche took a profound interest in the unconsciousness and the mechanism of dream. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he used the narrative of a dream for presenting his own important thoughts, namely “the will to power,” the theory of “eternal return” and so on. He thought that the dream was the expression of the unconsciousness and “the will to power,” and that the intuition of dream was adequate for expressing his own irrational and creative ideas. Zarathustra in Thus Spoke Zarathustra was characterized as the teacher of “overman” and “eternal return.” And Zarathustra as a poetic narrator is the Nietzsche’s “Persona.” But He is not only a storyteller but also an oneirocritic. The story of Zarathustra is a “psychodrama” in the perspective of a dream-interpretation. He is a wanderer who seeks for “das Selbst,” that is to say the genuine “Ich” concealed in the unconsciousness. The dream is like the fountain which springs incessantly from the will to power and the unconsciousness. The dream-image is a kind of riddle about the consciousness. According to Jung, the interpretation of dreams is the process of “individuation.” Zarathustra’s dreams are quite similar to the myth. We can find symbols and archetypes here and there in Thus spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche intended to create a kind of myth through the various dreams. His intuitional thinking was related to dreaming, imaging and creating. Also, the many artists were influenced by his creative thinking. Therefore, to view Nietzsche as the narrator of the dream will be an opportunity to discover his another personae as a creative dreamer and storyteller.

This purpose of this study is to examine a change of mode in avant-garde art that was popular in Europe in the early 20th century and was at first referred to as a performing and visual art belonging to Dada and surrealism. Combination of language and images that form the characteristics of visual art shows the communication and the similarity of the art genres appearing in the avant-garde art. This study has investigated the early 20th century European avant-garde art in surrealist theater and visual art as a basic project to pave the way for a new style of art in the era of visual culture. This study delved into how the avant-garde art exceeded the limit of the “rule of three unities” in traditional theater and aimed to develop the concept of the space of theater. This extension of the play sector broke down the physical limitation of the actual space of stage. Furthermore, it attempted to freely express the complex emotions and thoughts beyond the limit of time constraints. In particular, Freud’s new theory that the unconscious dominates the conscious exerted a great impact on the culture and art of the West. Picasso and Cubism showed an evident tendency to pursue the style of other surrealists in terms of what they visualize the invisible, which were committed to visualizing the unconscious. Then Ionesco’s Theater of the Absurd visualized what is invisible, such as spatialization, emotions, thoughts, and memories of dreams; languages were projected onto the stage. And Robert Lepage presented an image theater that achieved the expansion of a theater stage through the images. Beyond the traditional theatrical elements that form dialogues, monologues and narrations based on the time of stage, there emerged a new theater visualizing the inner feelings and imagination and forming a physical theater stage. And the uses of staging and visual media were intended to expand the limited stage space further through the ultimate stage of visualization for the audience.

In 1623, when Shakespeare’s colleague playwrights, John Heminge and Henry Condell published his first Folio edition of the complete plays, they put his plays in three categories, comedies, histories, and tragedies, following the Elizabethan standard criteria about dramatic genre. In catalogue, 35 plays were entered; fourteen comedies, ten histories, and eleven tragedies. Troilus and Cressida which was missed in this catalogue, however, was inserted between histories and tragedies without pagination. Therefore, the total number of his plays entered in this edition was 36. While Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen which are proved to be collaborated plays, were not entered in the first Folio edition, they are considered now as plays belonged to the legitimate Shakespeare’s canon, according to the effort of the academic circle. A number of editors of the complete Shakespeare’s works these days include these plays in their edition, however, they usually classify them not as ‘tragicomedies’ but as ‘romances’ along with Bard’s last plays, ..Cymbeline.., ..The Winter’s Tale.., and ..The Tempest... About this, a polemical challenge would be elicited to suggest ‘tragicomedy’ as a better terminology rather than ‘romances’. In style and subject matter, they are belated examples of the old ‘romance’ tradition of literature, to which Sidney’s Arcadia and Spencer’s The Faerie Queens belong, a fact that may be related to a strain of nostalgia running through them for the Elizabethan era. This tradition explains the label them as ‘romances’. In urging the case for Shakespeare’s last plays to be thought of as ‘tragicomedies’, I inspect the Italian definition(s) of the tragicomedy by Cinthio and Guarini, as well as English counterpart by Fletcher, and suggest the fact that ‘tragicomedy’ as a literary terminology is a lot better than ‘romance’ for the Shakespeare’s last plays.

A picture book refers to a book format combining visual and verbal narratives. A picture book may be written either by a single author in charge of both pictures and writing or by an author-illustrator team. In the case of jointly producing a picture book by an author and an illustrator, the collaboration of the two creators is necessary. The two should coordinate their own voice for the whole aesthetic value of the picture book. This process of collaboration is not easy to verify as it is inferred from the relationship between the pictures and the words in a picture book. This study has examined the dynamic process of picture book storytelling manifested in Mr. Rabbit and The Lovely Present – an outcome of an author and an illustrator. For this, we have analyzed the process of picture book storytelling by examining the verbal text and the visual one separately. The results of this study were as follows: In Mr. Rabbit and The Lovely Present, the written text was created based on monotonous repetitions with minor changes, which is possibly attested to the limitation of a verbal text as a vehicle of narrative. But the study has discovered that such a characteristic can rather be interpreted as a necessary step to promote the potential of the visual text. In other words, if a text – verbal or visual – has relative deficiency to the other text in a picture book, the limit may function as a significant strategy for the opposite text and, furthermore the whole text from the perspective of dynamic interaction between the two.

The era of convergence and integration requires a person equipped with the capability of creative problem-solving. Therefore, it is hard to go against the tide of times that the goal of college education is changing to develop students’ creative problem-solving capability. In this sense, writing education can and should reinforce student’s convergent creativity as a core capability of creative problem-solving. In order to develop writing education into an efficient method of achieving the proposed goal, students should be encouraged to use convergent and divergent thinking harmoniously to write better. Particularly, writing can be an efficient tool for developing this capability in major classes which are designed as a space for convergent and integrative study. In these classes, students are able to exercise creative problem-solving through writing, because writing is not only an activity for convergent and divergent thinking but also an activity for using various pieces of knowledge and information together. For example, the WAC (writing across the curriculum) program can be a good model for the combination of a convergent and an integrative class for writing. Therefore, it is important to seek for a new direction of writing education at college to educate creative and multi-aspect students in the era of convergence and integration.

Despite a close relationship between the growth and the changes of enterprises in modern China and the nation’s modernization, it has not been closely examined in earnest from the perspective of historical studies. One of the possible factors, among many others, would be the lack of materials as it is hard to make an advance in academic studies without them. With a view to offer basic materials for further research in the area, this paper has analyzed the corporate governance and the operation of film corporation during the period of the Republic of China (1912-1949) based on their registration records, which are the collection at the Academia Sinica in Taiwan. This study has focused largely on the company regulations of film producers – i.e. the general meetings of shareholders and the meetings of the boards of directors as corporate governance. It has also examined the guanli (官利) system – which hamper the sustainable development of the companies – from the perspective of the settlement of accounts for profits. With regard to the general meetings of shareholders and the meetings of the boards of directors, the study has found that related regulations were non-existent or small in number in case of youxiangongsi (有限公司), wuxiangongsi (無限公 司), and lianghegongsi (兩合公司) and either limitations or preferential treatment related to stock holding existed in case of stock companies. The aspects of reduction in voting rights, certain shareholders’ rights to convene extraordinary meetings of shareholders, and the right or eligibility for election of members of board of directors or auditors differed according to the number of stocks held by shareholders. Despite the discrimination in voting rights, the founder, the projector, and major shareholders were in charge of members of board of directors, auditors, or chief accountants. So its was difficult to considerably limit the rights of large shareholders and therefore the separation of ownership and management was not made. Second, 10 percent of profits, or legal common reserve funds, were set in the category of profit distribution in all companies and some companies saved special common reserve funds separately. This shows that film companies systematically provided an institutional strategy to guarantee their sustainability under the situation that the guanli system had almost been abolished (except one among all the target companies for analysis). Third, many film companies set funds for the well-being of employees by 5 to 10 percent (more than one thirds). This shows that the payment of funds for well-being was not uncommon despite their official non-existence in the corporate law. After all, this settlement system for profits fully reflects the trend of the systematic modernization of the corporation during the period of the Republic of China.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the operation of modern media as a social and cultural mechanism which called in female pansori singers. Until the 19th century, in the heyday of traditional pansori, female pansori singers had been prohibited from performing on stage. While there existed some cases of exceptions such as Jin Chae-seon, Heo Geum-pa and Gang So-chun . though intermittently . their public appearance always hit the news. It was not until the early 20th century that female pansori singers were called on stage in earnest in the wake of the appearance of modern media. Such a phenomenon was the outcome of the reciprocal interaction between the “literary media” . letters, books, and publications such as newspapers, magazines, the Maewol Shinbo (the Monthly Report of New Music) and the collection of lyrics and the “sound media-technology” such as gramophones and the radio. Besides, the conventional and patriarchal macho tastes continued to dominate society as the code of popular culture. Under the context, female singers had a strong character of a cultural icon who only corresponded to the tastes. This trend continued until the 1950s when pansori almost lost its vigor as the main contents of modern popular culture and remained until the 1960s when pansori was promoted into a high artistic cultural item showcasing a trace of cherished old Korean cultures. The status of female pansori singers was promoted to that of female master singers, and furthermore to the state-authorized singers (gukchang) or instructors during the period when pansori was completely freed from the influence of popular culture. At that time, female pansori singers were at the center of preserving and inheriting the tradition of pansori. Only after they were liberated from the gaze of the public could they find they own way as artists and master singers dauntlessly. This paper has analyzed the socio-cultural changes of the female pansori singers in the early 20th century from the perspective of modern media and gender. And this research has consequently found that modern media resulted in the emergence of women and the subsequent differentiation of gender on one hand and imposed restrictionw on the female pansori singers in the process of calling them out as the cultural products on the other hand.

This article is written to offer some theoretical bases for the use of hanja (Chinese letters) along with Korean (or hangeul) in school textbooks. Since the announcement of the 2015 draft curriculums combining liberal arts and science courses by the Ministry of Education on September 24, 2014, there had been heated year-long debates both for and against the use of hanja along with Korean. Although the curriculums were confirmed on September 22, 2015, the original plan for using hanja with Korean in textbooks was postponed until the end of 2016. Under the notion that the boycott against the use of hanja mainly derived from a poor theoretical bassis on this issue, this article aims to offer some explanations on it in three different aspects. First, this study will discuss the starting point of the debate in depth. Many are likely to understand the use of hanja as a matter of using Chinese letters only, which is misleading and lets them miss the true nature of the problem. The new curriculum was planned to select some major Sino-Korean (hanja-eo) referring to a set of words in the Korean language vocabulary that originated from or were influenced by hanja) used in textbooks and write them down in hanja along with Korean. So it is a matter of emphasizing the importance of Sino-Korean words, not the Chinese letters themselves. Second, the importance of elementary school education should be further examined in-depth. Primary school education plays a very important role as the first step for the Korean educational system. Especially the third grade year in elementary schools is a watershed period when “learning to read” shifts to “reading to learn.” Therefore, the ministry’s plan to let the students learn hanja from the third graders is highly meaningful. In this respect, this study will examine the three important meanings of the policy. Third, this study will discuss in depth the correct recognition of the relation between Korean and hanja, and appropriate ways to express our love of Korean as well. The pros and cons opinions of the use of hanja came from a gap in terms of perceiving the relation between these two writing systems. I will try to discuss different opinions of both the advocates and opponents in a more theoretical way. A boycott against hanja does not reflect the real love of Korean. People should show their love of Korean by introducing this writing system to the illiterate people. Misunderstanding of, prejudice against and opposition to the use of hanja in textbooks can be resolved by understanding the three basic ideas mentioned above. In conclusion, there are three advisable ways which we can expect from the use of hanja: 1) a proper hanja education plan that copes with the situation of Korean society; 2) a proper hanja education plan that meets the needs of cultivating creative future leaders; and 3) a low-cost, high-efficient hanja education plan based on the active utilization of Korean dictionary.