• International Journal of Knowledge Content Development & Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.7-29
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• 2019

The study was carried out to investigate the influence of demographics and social media use on perceived academic stress of secondary school students in St. Thomas Aquinas College, Akure, Nigeria. This was achieved using five research questions and four null hypotheses. The population of the study consisted of 1,107 students at ISCED level 3, out of which 286 were selected based on the Israel (2003) model for determining sample size. The Ex-Post Facto (EPT) research design of the correlational type was employed to investigate the study while questionnaire was used for data elicitation. Out of the 286 copies distributed, 192 (67% response rate) were retrieved and analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (correlation and multiple regression). The findings revealed that there is high frequency of social media use among secondary school students, majorly for meeting new friends and chatting. The perceived academic stress (PAS) of the students was found to be moderate. Of the three demographics considered, only class had significant influence on PAS. Use of social media did not have significantly influence on PAS of the students. When combined, demographics and social media use predicted PAS; and when considered relatively, of the independent variables, only class as an aspect of demographics predicted PAS. Therefore, the authors concluded that PAS of secondary school students is not directly influenced by demographics (except for class) and social media use. Based on the study's conclusion, recommendations were made.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.145
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• pp.325-350
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• 2018

The overemphasis of the priority of reason over will runs the risk of resulting in intellectual determinism. On the contrary, it is also unfair to underestimate the role of reason in Saint Thomas Aquinas' theory of the free will to avoid intellectual determinism. For, according to Thomas, "the will inclines to the good, insofar as it is an appetite, and it follows the judgment of the reason in the pursuit of the good, insofar as it is a 'rational' appetite." It is the objective of this article to show that, for Thomas, the idea of the free will is not contradictory to that of the will's following the judgment of reason. For this purpose, it is decisive to adequately evaluate the role of reason in Thomas's theory of the free will. This article therefore proves that in principle Thomas argues the priority of the will over reason as well as the freedom of the will, and that he nevertheless recognizes the role of reason which precedes the choice of the will by making the second-level judgment even when the will chooses not to follow the first-level judgement of reason. It is entirely up to the will to follow the judgement and order of reason or not. It explains the freedom of the will. But 'not to follow reason' is contradictory to the essential determination of the will as the 'rational' appetite. For from the will's not following reason, wrong-doing follows; the human act which does not conform to reason. This article therefore argues that for Thomas, the 'true' liberty of the will corresponding to its determination as the rational appetite consists in its following the rule and order of reason, not in acting against the judgement of reason.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.148
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• pp.239-267
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• 2018

In the matter of ethical and moral practice, Thomas Aquinas's thought is called "intellectualism". It does not mean only that intelligence is more important than will in moral practice, but that it has epistemological, metaphysical, and psycho-psychological implications significance. The first means affirming "the first principles of knowing" as the problem of certainty of knowing. In Thomism, there are surely above suspicion notions in the domain of practice as well as in the domain of reason, which are obviously self-evident, and because of that certainty, they become the basis of certainty of all other knowings that follow. The principle to know these knowings is the first principle of knowing, reason and Synderesis(conscience). Therefore, the "intellectualism" of Tomism is the basis for providing the ground of metaphysics. In the case of reason, it is classified into superior reason and inferior reason according to whether it is object. The object of higher reason is "metaphysical object" which human natural reason can not deal with. This affirmation of superior reason provides a basis for human "autonomy" in the moral and religious domain. This is because even in areas beyond the object of natural reason, it is possible to derive certain knowledge through self-reasoning, and thus to be able to carry out the act through their own choosing. Likewise, for Thomas Aquinas, "Synderesi" as the first principle of good and evil judgment can be applied to both the superior reason and the inferior reason, and thus, except for the truth by the direct divine revelation, precedes any authority of the world, scrupulous Act always guarantees truth and good. This means "subjectivity" that virtually in the act of moral practice, it can become the master of one's act. Furthermore, "consciousness(conscientia)", which means the ability to comprehend everything in a holistic and simultaneous manner, is based on conscience(synderesis). So, at least in principle, correct behavior or moral behavior in Tomism is given firstly in correct knowledge. Therefore, it can be said that true awareness (conscious awareness) in Thomas Aquinas's thought coincide with practical practice, or at least knowledge can be said to be a decisive 'driver' for practice. This will be the best explanation of the definition of "intellectualism" by Thomism.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.289-304
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• 2017

The interdisciplinary study explores the discussion of actual infinity between Georg Cantor and Roman Catholic Church. Regarding the actual infinity, we first trace the theological background of Cantor by interpreting his correspondence and major works including ${\ddot{U}}ber$ die verschiedenen Standpunkte in bezug auf das aktuelle Unendliche(1885) and Mitteilungen zur Lehre vom Transfiniten (1887), and then investigate his argumentation for two points at issue: (1) pantheism and (2) inconsistency of the necessity with freedom of God. In terms of mathematics and theology, Cantor defined the actual infinity(aphorismenon) as characterized by (1) the transfinite infinity(Transfinitum) and (2) the absolute infinity(Absolutum). Transfinitum is conceptualized here in mathematical terms as a multipliable actual infinity, whereas Absolutum is not as a multipliable actual infinity. The results imply that Cantor's own concept of Transfinitum and Absolutum is adequate for Roman Catholic theology as well as mathematics including the reflection principle.

• Journal of Korean Philosophical Society
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• v.130
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• pp.219-246
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• 2014

Do the particular good and the common good stand in relation of opposition or superiority each other? With regard to this question, some argue that the relevant Thomas texts reveal the superiority of the common good over the particular good, while others argue for the superiority of the particular good. The argument of this articles is, however, that closer examination of texts shows that Thomas Aquinas seeks to the unity of the common good and the particular good instead of seeing the conflict between them. It is true that Thomist moral and political theory emphasizes the value of the individual, but it should be noted that for Thomas the individual as individual does not exist, but shares specific formal determination with other members of the same species and, therefore, is the individualized, concrete universal. Good, meanwhile, means perfection which each being pursues and a thing is called good in the absolute sense when it actualizes its potentialities as a whole. An individual person is said to pursue only partial good, if it only seeks its perfection as an individual. The nature of individual person should be fully realized only in and through the community pursuing the common good. But the aim of living together which is rooted in the nature of human being as a rational being is for its members to live virtuously. The political community is said to try to bring its individual members to perfection, since the virtues are what renders human beings and their acts good. In this sense the particular good of the individual person is achieved through the pursuit of the common good and the common good is realized through the pursuit of the particular good so that they coincide each other. But this unity remains imperfect, when it would not be rightly ordered to its due end which is non other than the highest good, that is God. Accordingly the goodness of the human being in an absolute sense lies in the unity of the particular good and the common good rightly oriented towards the highest good, which is also called common good which every being pursues.

• Archives of design research
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.29-40
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• 1999

Walter Gropius, famous architect of Bauhaus, once treated of pure mind which was revealed in the system of object and its phenomena through sense of sight while examining material being and illusive being. And Thomas Aquinas said that man can have a creative power only with modest mental state void of prejudice saying that he expected God to come to him after his soul went out of him. The same thing was said by so many great philosophers and thinkers other than him. I think his saying, "God comes after Soul's escape from the body for a new creation", has a real truth for all times and places and beauty itself beyond expression. Why\ulcorner The reason why the saying is so true is because it has a Yin and Yang Idea, that is, the Soul means a dark spirit correspondent to Yin between both oriental ideas and God does a bright spirit correspondent to Yang between them. By reason of this idea, I would like to assert that we should take it granted that we stand in need of the same bright Yang's spirit as God has for the new creation, and let the Yang's bright spirit come to our minds. We can call it divine 'Providence', or call it God's guidance, which we cannot help accepting as a man's fatality. As God was pleased after he made man and all the creatures by dint of his design, so man was pleased after he made everything he needed by the same design that he accepted from God. In spite of pleasure of different dimensions from what God and Man has each other, their way of empathies were all the same. In this paper I compared a worldly lower conception by which man designed his products for his sensuous satisfaction with a higher conception by which God designed his creatures for his mental satisfaction. I intended to infer what destined relation there must be between both God's and man's creations, trying to remind designers that they have to confess to have not so divine a providence as God has for creation because I think the real truth is that they had regarded their works of product design as a routine occurrence for their physical convenience in the industrial plans.ial plans.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.29
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• pp.113-131
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• 2012

In our days, we live in the world of image and imagination. Now we think that the images and imaginations are no more selective but indispensable elements in our life. The status of imagination is dramatically changed since 20 century. Many philosophers like G. Bachelard, G. Durand, Paul Ricoeur, H. Corbin, G. Deleuze made great contributions and we think that the studies of imagination began since 20 century. But the change of the status of imagination was not made in one day. In the long history of human life, the imagination kept his own value, and never stopped to give his influence to the human mentalities. The concept of imagination was born from the Plato's notion of phantasia. Plato thinks that the phantasia is a kind of drawing capacity in mind in the process of recognition. But the image which phantasia makes is not real one but pseudo one. So it is necessary to banish those false images from our recognition. Aristotle thought phantasia as an afterimage of object of sense. The sense is always true, but the phantasia is very possible to be an error. After Plato and Aristotle, the notion of phantasia developed into that of imagination, but it was always a problem full of contradictions. According to G. Durand, we can say, in some sense, the history of western philosophy is a kind of struggle against the image and imagination. In Middle Age, the iconoclasm tried to exclude image from their religion. Thomas Aquinas tried to explain the image by the rationalistic christianisme. In 16-17C Galilei and Descartes solidified the exclusion of imagination from the philosophy in the name of science and reason. The empiricism and positivism was the final and the most conclusive philosophies which exclude the imagination definitively from the field of philosophy. But the imagination continued his influence in the field of art. In the age of Renaissance, the imagination found his way of liberal expression, and this trend was inherited to Baroque. From the middle of 17c many philosophical theories supported the imagination by many philosophers like J.-B. Dubos, Baumgarten, A. Becq, J.-J. Rousseau etc. The Romanticism was the first significant wave which made the imagination come forward in front the art. The romanticism broke the narrow frame of rationalism and expand human's view of the world to the cosmos. From the romanticism, the imagination became a faculty which expresses the unity of human and nature. That was impossible by the rational thinking of rationalism. The concept of new imagination made a new future of human, 'the imagining conscious' and this imagining conscious provided a solid base of next generation's symbolism and surrealism.