Defends and transforms naturalism and materialism to show how culture itself is formed by nature. Bryant endorses a pan-ecological theory of being, arguing that societies are ecosystems that can only be understood by considering nonhuman material agencies such as rivers and mountain ranges alongside signifying agencies such as discourses, narratives and ideologies.

Tragic moral conflicts are situations from within which whatever one does—including abstaining from action—will be seriously wrong; even the overall right decision involves violating a moral responsibility. This article offers an account of recovery predicaments, a particular kind of tragic conflict that characterizes the current extinction crisis. Recovery predicaments occur when the human-caused extinction of a species or population cannot be prevented without breaching moral responsibilities to animals by doing violence to or otherwise severely dominating them. Recognizing the harm of (...) acting from within recovery conflicts adds force to appeals for interrogating and dismantling the systems of thinking, valuing, and acting that bring species to the brink of extinction. (shrink)

I introduce the symposium on Anjan Chakravartty’s Scientific Ontology by summarizing the book’s main claims. In my commentary, I first challenge Chakravartty’s claim that naturalized metaphysics cannot be indexed to science simpliciter. Second, I argue that there are objective truths regarding what conduces to particular epistemic aims, and that Chakravartty is therefore too permissive regarding epistemic stances and their resultant ontologies. Third, I argue that it is unclear what stops epistemic stances from having unlimited influence. Finally, I argue that Chakravartty’s (...) epistemic stance voluntarism is inadequately motivated and lacks empirical support for its psychological content. (shrink)

We explored the differential impact of auditory information and written contextual information on the recognition of verbal irony in spontaneous speech. Based on relevance theory, we predicted that speakers would provide acoustic disambiguation cues when speaking in situations that lack other sources of information, such as a visual channel. We further predicted that listeners would use this information, in addition to context, when interpreting the utterances. People were presented with spontaneously produced ironic and nonironic utterances from radio talk shows in (...) written or auditory form, with or without written contextual information. When the utterances were read without written contextual information, all utterances were rated as equally ironic. But when they were heard as opposed to read, or when they were presented in irony-biasing contexts, originally ironic utterances were rated as more sarcastic than originally nonironic utterances. This evidence suggests both acoustic and contextual information are used when inferring ironic intent in spontaneous speech, and validates previous manipulations of intonation in studies of irony understanding. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently highlighted substantial affinities between causation and grounding, which has inclined some to import the conceptual and formal resources of causal interventionism into the metaphysics of grounding. The prospect of grounding interventionism raises two important questions: exactly what are grounding interventions, and why should we think they enable knowledge of grounding? This paper will approach these questions by examining how causal interventionists have addressed (or might address) analogous questions and then comparing the available options for grounding interventionism. I (...) argue that grounding interventions must be understood in worldly terms, as adding something to or deleting something from the roster of entities, or making some fact obtain or fail to obtain. I consider three bases for counterfactual assessment: imagination, structural equation models, and background theory. I conclude that grounding interventionism requires firmer epistemological foundations, without which the interventionist's epistemology of grounding is incomplete and ineffectually rationalist. (shrink)

Unethical pro-organizational behaviors are unethical, but prosocially-motivated, acts intended to benefit one’s organization. This study examines the extent to which employees are willing to perform UPB to benefit a liked leader. Based on social exchange theory, we hypothesized that LMX would mediate the association of interpersonal justice with UPB willingness. Moral identity and positive reciprocity beliefs were examined as moderators. Higher LMX was significantly and positively related to UPB willingness, and the indirect effect of interpersonal justice on UPB via LMX (...) was significant and positive. These findings suggest that LMX and interpersonal justice could have a previously-unexplored dark side. Moral identity had a negative direct relationship with UPB, but it did not moderate the relationship of LMX with UPB. Thus, LMX facilitates UPB willingness even when employees are high in moral identity. LMX is associated with many positive outcomes, but our results show that high LMX may also increase willingness to perform unethical behaviors to benefit one’s leader. These results contribute to the literature by identifying a potential negative outcome associated with high LMX. (shrink)

Some philosophers challenge the advisability of naturalizing social metaphysics by appeal to social science. They argue that social science fails to meet criteria for realist commitment, such as unity and novel predictive power, and that social science would therefore be a poor basis for naturalization. These skeptical challenges are rooted in traditions in the philosophy of science that have held the social sciences in poor esteem. Through a case study that highlights the ways in which archaeology is methodologically converging on (...) hard science, I show that the philosophical bias against social science is outmoded. I suggest that at least some of the methodological advances of archaeology and other social sciences are epistemologically significant and are relevant to the question of realism. However, I conclude with the thought that realist commitment need not be a precondition for naturalization. The paper therefore accomplishes two main things: 1) it allays objections to using social science to naturalize social metaphysics, and 2) it motivates a higher estimation of the epistemological credentials of social science as compared with more skeptical traditions. (shrink)

How do we know what is possible or impossible, what is inevitable or unattainable, or what would happen under which circumstances? Since modal facts seem distinctively mysterious and difficult to know, the epistemology of modality has historically been fraught with uncertainty and disagreement. The recent literature has been dominated by rationalist approaches that emphasise a priori reasoning (sometimes including direct intuition of possibility). Only recently have alternative approaches emerged which recognize a broader range of sources of modal knowledge. Yet even (...) emerging non-rationalist views have tended to assign scientific investigation at best a supporting role. Our project in this Element is to develop and defend a new approach to the epistemology of modal facts which assigns a central role to scientific investigation. According to modal naturalism, science (construed broadly) is our primary source of evidence concerning the modal facts. (shrink)

Jan Bryant looks at the strategies visual artists and filmmakers are using to criticise the social and economic conditions shaping our historical moment. She then assesses how the world is being positively re-imagined through their work today.

This chapter considers the assumptions required to make scientisms of different forms genuinely threatening to philosophers, where a genuine threat would consist of a concrete risk to their statuses, the value of their teaching and research, their livelihoods, their preferred research methods, or the health of the discipline. I will find that strong and weak forms of scientism alike require substantive assumptions to make them threatening in those regards. In particular, they require sometimes heavy-handed circumscriptions of philosophy and science, as (...) well as their epistemic credentials and achievements, methods, and subject matters. They also require restrictive pronouncements upon the epistemic and non-epistemic goods that are valuable, worth promoting in academic contexts, and relevant to disciplinary health. My aim in this chapter will not to be defeat those assumptions but rather to make them explicit and to emphasize their frequent strength and contentiousness. (shrink)

A dictionary definition of Bioethics is, 'the ethics, or moral principles and rules of conduct, of medical and biological research'. This book is an introductory text of just biological and not medical bioethics. It covers the ethics of experimentation, including genetic manipulation, in plants and animals; ethics and biodiversity, ethics and the environment. There is increasing interest in bioethics - both in academia and by the media and the general public. Awareness of bioethics is incorporated into Biological / Environmental Science (...) courses, plus the first dedicated modular courses on bioethics are starting up. Includes case studies Has questions for students Chapters include environmental, animal, agricultural and reproductive ethics as well as a wide range of issues regarding genetic manipulation. (shrink)

Initial evidence suggests that suppressing a thought prior to sleep results in subsequent dreaming of that thought. The present research examined the influence of cognitive load on dreaming following suppression. In Experiment 1, 100 participants received either a suppression instruction or no instruction for an intrusive thought prior to sleep, and subsequently completed a dream diary. Participants instructed to suppress reported dreaming about the target thought more than controls; dream rebound was predicted by poorer performance on a working memory task. (...) In Experiment 2, 126 participants received either a suppression instruction or no instruction for an intrusive thought prior to sleep, and half of participants also had cognitive load of learning a 9-digit number. Participants receiving the suppression instruction under cognitive load reported greater dream rebound than other participants. These findings indicate that thought suppression prior to sleep leads to dream rebound, and this effect is enhanced by cognitive load. (shrink)

The authors review the historical development of the field, explain what is distinctive about Third World political ecology, and suggest areas for future ...

We explored the frequency with which typical adults make Theory of Mind attributions, and under what circumstances these attributions occur. We used an experience sampling method to query 30 typical adults about their everyday thoughts. Participants carried a Personal Data Assistant that prompted them to categorize their thoughts as Action, Mental State, or Miscellaneous at approximately 30 pseudo-random times during a continuous 10-h period. Additionally, participants noted the direction of their thought and degree of socializing at the time of inquiry. (...) We were interested in the relative frequency of ToM and how prominent they were in immediate social exchanges. Analyses of multiple choice answers suggest that typical adults: spend more time thinking about actions than mental states and miscellaneous things, exhibit a higher degree of own- versus other-directed thought when alone, and make mental state attributions more frequently when not interacting than while interacting with others . A significant 3-way interaction between thought type, direction of thought, and socializing emerged because action but not mental state thoughts about others occurred more frequently when participants were interacting with people versus when alone; whereas there was an increase in the frequency of both action and mental state attributions about the self when participants were alone as opposed to socializing. A secondary analysis of coded free text responses supports findings 1–3. The results of this study help to create a more naturalistic picture of ToM use in everyday life and the method shows promise for future study of typical and atypical thought processes. (shrink)

The word ‘naturalism’ has a bewildering array of uses in philosophy. Roughly speaking, it connotes pro-scientific attitudes and approaches. This article introduces the subject of naturalism by sketching a history of pro-scientific attitudes and approaches in philosophy, from their origins in the early modern period through to the present day. It then distinguishes a number of distinct families of naturalism: metaphysical, logico-linguistic, epistemological, and methodological. The resulting taxonomy encompasses a plurality of loosely related views rather than a number of variations (...) on a single clear and unified theme. (shrink)

It is often assumed that a commitment to scientific realism naturally, if not necessarily, accompanies a commitment to naturalizing metaphysics. If one denies that our scientific theories are approximately true, it would be unclear why one should index metaphysics to them. My aim is to show that the project of naturalizing metaphysics does not require realist assumptions. I will identify two success conditions for the project of disentangling naturalized metaphysics from realism: 1) the narrow success condition, which requires the antirealist (...) to explain why naturalized metaphysics is preferable to non-naturalized metaphysics, and 2) the broad success condition, which requires the antirealist to explain why naturalized metaphysics is preferable to metaphysical quietism. I believe that the antirealist can meet these conditions. Although I will not defend any definitive way of meeting them, I will explore argumentative avenues open to the antirealist. In particular, I will consider some conceptions of naturalized metaphysics, discuss their antirealist-compatible expected payoffs, and consider whether those payoffs enable the antirealist to meet the success conditions of the project. I will find that the antirealist has several argumentative avenues open to them. (shrink)

The economic development of the West is under examined in terms of lessons there may be for development strategies employed in the global South today. This article examines the emergence of sustained change in economic growth in Britain in the 19th century, in light of the normative poverty eradication strategies of today. The article focuses not so much on what happened in Britain and why, as on what did not happen during this period of rapid economic development. The purpose of (...) this anachronistic examination is to search for helpful correctives to current poverty eradication thinking and practice. There are two major lessons. First, Britain’s experience of rapid economic growth suggests that social change is unpredictable and thus immune to today’s linear planning models. Second, Britain’s development is a story of changes in the individual and social identity of the British people themselves – the British people changed. A set of proposals in response to these findings is then described. (shrink)

Considering Greece from the Dark Age to the early Hellenistic era, Bryant (sociology, U. of New Brunswick, Canada) examines the main structural changes within the economic, political,.

Vocal affect is a subcomponent of emotion programs that coordinate a variety of physiological and psychological systems. Emotional vocalizations comprise a suite of vocal behaviors shaped by evolution to solve adaptive social communication problems. The acoustic forms of vocal emotions are often explicable with reference to the communicative functions they serve. An adaptationist approach to vocal emotions requires that we distinguish between evolved signals and byproduct cues, and understand vocal affect as a collection of multiple strategic communicative systems subject to (...) the evolutionary dynamics described by signaling theory. We should expect variability across disparate societies in vocal emotion according to culturally evolved pragmatic rules, and universals in vocal production and perception to the extent that form–function relationships are present. (shrink)

The gig economy has become a hot topic. The term itself derives from the world of entertainment, particularly live music, where performers striving for recognition hope to get a few ‘gigs’ – i.e. short-term and sporadic opportunities for paid employment, with the understanding that such engagements are limited and without any future obligation on either party – employer or employee. This seemingly gives both parties significant autonomy, albeit not in equal measure. Indeed, the terms ‘employer’ and ‘employee’, with respective connotations (...) of extended and enduring responsibility, and mutual obligation, are hotly disputed. Are they self-employed contractors or employees of the company? In what follows, I show how key aspects of Zygmunt Bauman’s work prepare us for an understanding and appreciation of the gig economy, and other more extensive ramifications; particularly those exemplified in the success of the Open Source model, and its potential – or not – to provide the basis for new institutional forms appropriate and acceptable for our current context. (shrink)

Justice and Power in the Sociolegal Studies asks what interdisciplinary work in the law and society tradition tells us about the relationship of law and justice, as well as the way power operates in and through law. The fundamental concepts of justice and power provide points of departure for leading scholars to explore the various domains of socio-legal research. As they note the explicitness of the engagement with issues of power and the relative silence about -- or indirectness in taking (...) on -- questions of justice found in most law and society research, they ask how engagement with issues of power and silence about justice constituted law and society as a research field caught between a desire to have political impact and, at the same time, to maintain its scientific respectability. (shrink)

The paper addresses a plea by accounting educators that ethics should be integrated into the accounting curriculum (Poje and Zaman Groff 2022). Further, accountants should teach ethics. Case learning is consistent with Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy of six levels of learning. The ethics literature supports using cases to teach ethics because cases allow each student to put themselves in the position of a decision-maker. Case selection should engage the learner emotionally. Therefore, current issues are preferable. With these goals—engaging the student as (...) a learner, ensuring action learning, and meeting the learning taxonomy of Bloom, the paper provides educators with a suggested road map of case materials that can be employed in accounting courses across the program. Road maps are a means to demonstrate a holistic view of curriculum design and learning execution across specific accounting courses. (shrink)

This paper argues that the thought of Lacan and Žižek are to be distinguished at the level of the formal structure of discourse. Although Žižek often situates his own theoretical project in terms of the discourse of the analyst, his work occupies an uneasy place in this position insofar as the discourse of the analyst is directed at the singularity of the subject’s symptom, rather than shared political causes. Drawing on his “Milan Discourse” where Lacan presents the discourse of the (...) capitalist, this paper argues that Žižek discourse inhabits the universe of capitalism, rather than the universe of mastery. Through the development of a modified version of Lacan’s discourse of the capitalist, it is shown that it is possible to derive three additional discourses-- the discourses of biopower, immaterial labor, and critical theory --from the initial discourse of the capitalist. A psychoanalytic approach to these discourses using Lacanian discourse theory goes beyond standard accounts of biopolotical production and immaterial labor by revealing the function of the unconscious and real at work in these discourses, thereby opening new possibilities of engagement. Žižek’s theoretical project is shown to be an important cartography of this new universe of discourse, revealing both how the discourses inhabiting this universe contain certain constitutive deadlocks and devising strategies for engagement where the foe is no longer entirely clear. (shrink)

The general theory developed by Ben Yaacov for metric structures provides Fraïssé limits which are approximately ultrahomogeneous. We show here that this result can be strengthened in the case of relational metric structures. We give an extra condition that guarantees exact ultrahomogenous limits. The condition is quite general. We apply it to stochastic processes, the class of diversities, and its subclass of $L_1$ diversities.