A Criticism of M. Siderits and J. L. Garfield’s ‘Semantic Interpretation’ of Nāgārjuna’s Theory of Two Truths

This paper proposes a critical analysis of that interpretation of the Nāgārjunian doctrine of the two truths as summarized—by both Mark Siderits and Jay L. Garfield—in the formula: “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth”. This ‘semantic reading’ of Nāgārjuna’s theory, despite its importance as a criticism of the ‘metaphysical interpretations’, would in itself be defective and improbable. Indeed, firstly, semantic interpretation presents a formal defect: it fails to clearly and explicitly express that which it contains logically; the previously mentioned formula must necessarily be completed by: “the conventional truth is that nothing is conventional truth”. Secondly, after having recognized what Siderits’ and Garfield’s analyses contain implicitly, other logical and philological defects in their position emerge: the existence of the ‘conventional’ would appear—despite the efforts of semantic interpreters to demonstrate quite the contrary—definitively inconceivable without the presupposition of something ‘real’; moreover, the number of verses in Nāgārjuna that are in opposition to the semantic interpretation (even if we grant semantic interpreters that these verses do not justify a metaphysical reconstruction of Nagarjuna’s doctrine) would seem too great and significant to be ignored.     

The Role of the Jurist: Reflections around Radbruch

Many different kinds of professionals work with law, but often they seek to use law for particular governmental or private purposes, they focus on some specific areas or aspects of its creation, interpretation or application, or they study it for its interest judged by criteria that are given by fields of scholarly practice outside it. Is there a special significance for a role exclusively concerned with analysing, protecting and enhancing the general well‐being or worth of law as a practical idea? This article argues that such a role is important. Building on Gustav Radbruch's juristic thought, it asks how that role could be elaborated and how a professional responsibility for discharging it might be envisaged. Many professionals concerned with law adopt such a role incidentally or intermittently, but it needs more prominence and clear demarcation. The article suggests that it might be seen as the specialised role of the jurist, treated as a particular kind of legal professional. The term “jurist” would then have not just an honorific connotation. It would indicate a Weberian “pure” type that may approximate some current understandings of “juristic” practice; but it would also identify a normative ideal—something intrinsically valuable. Seen in this way, the jurist is one who assumes a certain unique responsibility for law.     

Trademark parody and the mass media: Going beyond survey evidence in the determination of “a likelihood of confusion”

This article examines trademark parody in statutory and mass media case law by, in part, analyzing several key cases which illustrate the use of quantitative social science research in the determination of trademark parody infringement. Although the definition and nature of trademark parody has not been settled definitively, courts’ attitudes toward survey evidence, particularly its probative value and materiality in the determination of copyright and trademark infringement litigation, have evolved over time. Courts now admit survey evidence if it meets certain methodological conditions. In trademark parody litigation, survey evidence pointing to a “likelihood of confusion” has evolved as the standard test of trademark infringement. However, there are questions whether vague, subjective concepts like “a likelihood of confusion” and “perception of substantial similarity” between trademarks can be adequately measured by consumer surveys. It is argued that multi‐method research which has both quantitative and qualitative aspects would provide more reliable data than the “one‐shot” surveys or case studies that are widely used in settling trademark infringement cases.     

Reductionism in Alf Ross's Early Philosophy: A Comparison with Georges Politzer and Theodor Geiger

Ross's Kritik der sogenannten praktischen Erkenntnis pertains more to moral philosophy than to the philosophy of law, even if its contents are important for the latter, too. Its main objective is to show the theoretical groundlessness of any evaluative judgment. This happens when Ross takes the behaviourist approach of reducing psychology to physiology, which opens up fruitful comparisons with Marxist materialism, and in particular with that of Georges Politzer. Another fundamental question concerns the assumption that theoretical nihilism would lead to practical nihilism, as argued by Theodor Geiger (but denied by Ross). And yet, if Geiger is right, can this have no effect on people's everyday lives?     

Legal Justification by Optimal Coherence*

This paper examines the concept of coherence and its role in legal reasoning. First, it identifies some problem areas confronting coherence theories of legal reasoning about both disputed questions of fact and disputed questions of law. Second, with a view to solving these problems, it proposes a coherence model of legal reasoning. The main tenet of this coherence model is that a belief about the law and the facts under dispute is justified if it is “optimally coherent,” that is, if it is such that an epistemically responsible legal decision‐maker would have accepted it as justified by virtue of its coherence in like circumstances. Last, looking beyond the coherence theory, the paper explores the implications of the version of legal coherentism proposed for a general theory of legal reasoning and rationality.     

THE TWELVE PEOPLE WHO SAVED REHABILITATION: HOW THE SCIENCE OF CRIMINOLOGY MADE A DIFFERENCE

Three decades ago, it was widely believed by criminologists and policymakers that “nothing works” to reform offenders and that “rehabilitation is dead” as a guiding correctional philosophy. By contrast, today there is a vibrant movement to reaffirm rehabilitation and to implement programs based on the principles of effective intervention. How did this happen? I contend that the saving of rehabilitation was a contingent reality that emerged due to the efforts of a small group of loosely coupled research criminologists. These scholars rejected the “nothing works” professional ideology and instead used rigorous science to show that popular punitive interventions were ineffective, that offenders were not beyond redemption, and that treatment programs rooted in criminological knowledge were capable of meaningfully reducing recidivism. Their story is a reminder that, under certain conditions, the science of criminology is capable of making an important difference in the correctional enterprise, if not far beyond.     

Busting the Myth of the Unavailability of Insurance Rule's Application to Loss Allocation for Pollution Liability Claims Since 1986

Tens of millions of dollars in pollution liability losses have been mistakenly allocated to general liability insurers under the “Unavailability of Insurance” rule in jurisdictions that employ it. Under this rule, a policyholder is not allocated losses for years when they claim that pollution liability was unavailable – mainly after the advent of the 1986 “absolute” pollution exclusion. Recent research has been compiled to include thousands of pages of evidence that by 1986 and to this date there was and has been a viable pollution liability insurance market that would not only underwrite a current year's risks, but also erase any prior pollution insurance coverage gaps by insuring decades of prior acts. This article looks at this rule and the enormous impact it could have on insurers' pollution liability reserves if it continues to be misapplied.     

论“套路贷”犯罪的刑事规制及其完善

“套路贷”犯罪是以非法占有为目的,假借民间借贷之名、行非法侵占他人财物之实的新型犯罪,具有犯罪意图的侵财性、犯罪手段的隐蔽性、犯罪团伙的组织性和犯罪后果的严重性等特征。我国对“套路贷”犯罪的立法规制,总体上契合惩处“套路贷”犯罪的情势与实际需要,但也存在一些问题。当前,对“套路贷”犯罪的司法规制呈现民多刑少的格局,规制的主要罪名是诈骗罪、敲诈勒索罪,规制的核心标准是划清“套路贷”犯罪与高利贷、非法讨债行为的界限。改进“套路贷”犯罪的刑事规制,应确立“重重轻轻,以重为主”的刑事政策,在《刑法》中增设套路贷诈骗罪,健全“套路贷”案件的刑民衔接机制,探索“套路贷”犯罪案件专业化办理机制,积极推行“套路贷”犯罪案例指导制度。     

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil: the unsightly Milosevic case

To ignore evil is to cause it to cease to exist, thought the ancients, and so, perhaps, think those who accuse former leaders of now dismembered countries, no longer in existence, of war crimes, and who would prevent those they accuse of raising the aggression which was committed against their country. Can the evil of aggression be willed out of existence if it goes unmentioned, and if international ad hoc bodies do not consider it a crime within their jurisdiction? And if the defendant is gagged, if judgments permit him to be removed from the courtroom altogether, will we be free from having to see and hear the evil he persistently identifies, and for which he points out there will be no justice? The Milosevic trial has been underreported to the point where “speaking evil” – that is, expressing criticism of the persistent procedural irregularities that have plagued the proceedings, and indeed the outright erosion of fair trial rights (heralded as “progress” in some quarters) – has become a demanding exercise. It is one we attempt here.     

Pistol image retrieval by shape representation

Databases have been used to record data in forensic science, such as fingerprints, shoeprints, and photos. In traditional databases, we use “text” as the “keyword” for retrieving data (text-keyword retrieval); however, in some applications, “text” is not proper to describe the searching target, and in this case, “image” plays an important role. In this paper, we use “image features” as the “keywords”, and show its potential for building up a prototype of pistol image databases.In current firearm databases of forensic science, the retrieval method is still by text-keyword retrieval. For experienced forensic examiners, this kind of databases may satisfy their requirement. However, for people who have little gun knowledge, how can they find the possible gun candidates or similar guns in the databases, if there are not any available words or marks on the gun? In this paper, we try to retrieve similar pistol images by the pistol shape instead of “text-keyword”. This method can narrow down the searching range while identifying pistols by firearm databases.There are more than 300 pistol images in our pistol image database. From the experimental results, we can retrieve the similar pistol images in top five candidates for each pistol image.     

How Can the Word “Cow” Exclude Non-cows? Description of Meaning in Dignāga’s Theory of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Apoha</Emphasis>

Dignāga’s theory of semantics called the “theory of apoha (exclusion)” has been criticized by those who state that it may lead to a circular argument wherein “exclusion of others” (anyāpoha) is understood as mere double negation. Dignāga, however, does not intend mere double negation by anyāpoha. In his view, the word “cow” for instance, excludes those that do not have the set of features such as a dewlap, horns, and so on, by applying the semantic method called componential analysis. The present paper aims to prove this by referring to the fragments quoted by Jinendrabuddhi and Siddhasenaga?i. Dignāga logically proves that the denotation of the referent Q by the word “P” cannot be derived from the joint presence (anvaya) of “P” with Q. Instead, he derives it from the joint absence (vyatireka) of “P” with the nonexistence of Q. Anyāpoha is nothing but verbal vyatireka. Componential analysis is used for describing what is to be excluded. Dignāga draws taxonomic hierarchies of words based on their customary use, and assumes componential analysis to operate in the background of the hierarchies formed in semantic fields, stating that a general term is restricted to having the same reference with one of its specific terms insofar as the former is connected (yukta) with the characteristics of the latter’s referent. Moreover, he states that a proper name also denotes its referent by excluding those that do not have the cluster of a certain number of qualities.     

动产他物权的善意取得探析

动产质权可经设定而善意取得 ,但在构成上有其特殊性。留置权的构成与善意取得的构成存在结构性冲突 ,故不可能经“设定”而善意取得。动产抵押权可经设定而善意取得 ,并且该取得不以取得占有为要件 ,但不可能因对占有的信赖经受让而善意取得动产抵押权     

Automated communication and basic rights

Nowadays communication does not necessarily originate from humans, but also from “machines” such as “social bots” or “things” in the Internet of Things. From a basic rights perspective, this phenomenon raises the question if such communication benefits from the same level of protection as communication created by human beings. With regard to the basic rights of the Grundgesetz, the Federal Constitutional Court for years has been excluding some forms of communication from the scope of protection as not needing or deserving protection. The ratio of these decisions must not be applied to cases of automated communication without noticing possible differences. Automated communication can mostly be linked to the human beings or legal entities applying it. Therefore, its prohibition or regulation is a matter of proportionality of infringements with fundamental rights.

     

Methodological issues in marital violence research

Recent interest in all aspects of domestic violence has stimulated rapid proliferation of research and literature. Although the knowledge base has grown, what we don't know still far exceeds what we do know. Starting from nothing, initial research tended to “sweep with a wide broom” in an effort to develop direction. The absence of an accepted methodology produced wide sample and design variations and inconsistent findings. The urgent press for information promoted a desire to disseminate “facts” that may have been less than factually derived from research that may have originally been seen as pilot in nature. This paper discusses the methodological issues that may have contributed to some of the inconsistencies in the marital violence literature and makes suggestions for the design and interpretation of research.     

The Continuing Problem of the Universal to Questions of Justice: A Feminist Reading of Lars von Trier’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Dogville</Emphasis>

What are the terms of evaluation that seem relevant in deciding whether a film is feminist or anti-feminist? Which critical practices should be engaged in such an evaluation? In recent and contemporary critical feminist practices, feminist arguments are no longer based on a stable subject category of “woman” and there is no longer any particular methodology upon which feminist theorists rely. The category of “woman” has been revealed to be not an ahistorical, stable category but an effect of material and representational practices. Further, feminist methodologies have been concerned to contextualize the framing of the questions they ask, as well as their place in the methodologies they employ. In addition to the refusal of an essentialized female subject, feminists have called into question the idea that it is possible to produce a “feminist method” based on the standpoint of a female subjectivity, even where this subjectivity is admitted as a construct, arguing that this extrapolation to the general from a particular point of view produces political, and frequently racist, effects. In this essay, I consider Lars von Trier’s controversial film Dogville (2003) as a case study to explore the relation of practices of representation to questions of feminist justice. I argue that the film does a lot of good critical work in showing the ways in which certain practices of representation can be mobilized to produce a collectivity (or “sovereignty”) that is seen to emanate from “the people” and to thereby instantiate authority, while simultaneously disguising the material and political effects of its subjugation of “others.” However, in doing this work the film produces its own problematic construction of universality and particularity. Further, the film instrumentalises representations of sexual violence and subjection in order to prove its point, and as productive as these tactics are to illuminating questions of social justice, I argue that this representational practice produces effects that need to be read as anti-feminist.     

Causation, ‘Humean’ Causation and Emptiness

One strategy Mādhyamikas use to support their claim that nothing has intrinsic nature (svabhāva) is to argue that things with intrinsic nature could not enter into causal relations. But it is not clear that there is a good Madhyamaka argument against ultimate causation that understands causation in ‘Humean’ terms and understands dharmas as tropes. After exploring the rationale behind the intrinsic-nature criterion of dharma-hood, I survey the arguments Mādhyamikas actually give for their claim that anything dependently originated must be devoid of intrinsic nature, and suggest that none actually succeeds in ruling out this hypothesis about how ultimate causation might work.     

BEYOND ADOLESCENCE‐LIMITED CRIMINOLOGY: CHOOSING OUR FUTURE—THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CRIMINOLOGY 2010 SUTHERLAND ADDRESS*

For over a half century, criminology has been dominated by a paradigm—adolescence‐limited criminology (ALC)—that has privileged the use of self‐report surveys of adolescents to test sociological theories of criminal behavior and has embraced the view that “nothing works” to control crime. Although ALC has created knowledge, opposed injustice, and advanced scholars’ careers, it has outlived its utility. The time has come for criminologists to choose a different future. Thus, a new paradigm is needed that is rooted in life‐course criminology, brings criminologists closer to offenders and to the crime event, prioritizes the organization of knowledge, and produces scientific knowledge that is capable of improving offenders’ lives and reducing crime.     

Alexy on Necessity in Law and Morals*

Robert Alexy has built his original theory of law upon pervasive claims for “necessary” features of law. In this article, I show that Alexy's claims suffer from two difficulties. First, Alexy is never clear about what he means by “necessity.” Second, Alexy writes as if there have been no challenges to claims of conceptual necessity. There have been such challenges and Alexy needs to answer them if his project is to succeed.