Microsoft Teams: https://go.um.edu.mo/rx3pei7o   Abstract Properties inscribed under the UNESCO World Heritage Convention face a persistent ethical challenge: reconciling internationally mandated conservation standards with diverse cultural ontologies. This article explores this tension through a comparative analysis of Japan’s Hōryū-ji Temple Complex and Norway’s Urnes Stave Church, two wooden religious structures preserved through different methods rooted in distinct cultures. At Hōryū-ji, cyclical reconstruction embodies the Buddhist principle of impermanence, challenging the Venice Charter’s emphasis on material authenticity. Conversely, Urnes prioritises minimal intervention and the preservation of original fabric, reflecting a Nordic ethic of material authenticity that complicates the Nara Document’s focus on living heritage. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s concept of “family resemblances” and François Jullien’s critique of homogenized universality, this paper underlines […]

Microsoft Teams: https://go.um.edu.mo/7mnk1eav   Abstract In his lectures on the Presocratic philosopher Parmenides from 1932, Martin Heidegger not only speaks about the “question of Being” (Seinsfrage), but also about the “question of the Way” (Wegfrage). This is understandable, because Parmenides distinguishes three ways. I would like to assume that Parmenides and Lǎozǐ ask both the “question of Being” and the “question of the Way”. In the case of Parmenides, Being can be said to take precedence, although the two attach very different, even opposite, meanings to it. For Lǎozǐ, on the other hand, the Way is in the foreground. For Parmenides, only the first way (the way of Being) is walkable, whereas the second way (the way of Non-being) is […]

Microsoft Teams: https://go.um.edu.mo/rx3pei7o   Abstract With the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs), scholars are starting to discuss the epistemological problems related to them. Recently, there are literatures that argue on the topic of whether LLMs' outputs can be classified as testimony. Scholars give arguments that they cannot be classified as testimony by the reason that LLMs do not satisfy varies conditions. This paper introduces and analyize these conditions. And further argues that even if LLMs can satisfy all the said conditions in the future. However, by way they understand the content of their own outputs is fundamentally different from humans. Therefore, we still cannot classify LLMs' outputs as testimony.   Bio Lai Hei Wai is a Ph.D. Student in […]