Life is a relationship among various kinds of agents interacting at different scales in ways that are multifarious, complex, and emergent. Life is always a part of an ecological embedding in communities of interaction, which in turn structure and influence how life evolves. Evolution is essential for understanding life and biodiversity. Henri Bergson's Creative Evolution suggests a way of examining “tendencies” without “teleology.” In this paper I reexamine that work in light of recent concepts in evolutionary ecology, and explore how (...) agential aspects of life are essential for understanding how emergence provides a basis for a process-based metaphysics of life. In support of this project, I will explore how the major transitions of life on Earth have proceeded through increasing levels of cooperation among agents (e.g., mitochondria in animal cells forming a mutualistic relationship), which have allowed further emergences and complexity to evolve. This complexity always, however, emerges in the context of ecological relationships and a nonteleological evolutionary process. Yet, while nonteleological, the progression of life thus far on this planet seems to hold the promise of certain tendencies that seem inherent in life itself. (shrink)

Early 20th century philosopher Henri Bergson posited an initial push that propelled the diversity of life forward into a varied, novel future: The élan vital, a necessary force or impulse that animated life’s progress and development. His idea had largely been abandoned by mid-century. Even so, much of the conceptual and explanatory work this impulse targeted is yet in want of an explanation. In particular, Bergson’s derelict ideas on evolution addressed three areas that have once again become relevant in the (...) effort to unite evolutionary genetics, biological development, and ecological context : the purposeful nature of individual organisms and their parts; the integrative, holistic, non-linear emergent dynamics seen in evolutionary processes; and how genuine novelty emerges into the universe :422, 2016; Simondon et al. in On the mode of existence of technical objects. Univocal series, Univocal Publishing LLC, Minneapolis, 2017; Bang, in: Winther-Lindqvist, Bang, Valsiner Nothingness: philosophical insights into psychology, Transaction Publishers, Somerset, 2016; Moreno and Mossio in Biological autonomy: a philosophical and theoretical enquiry. History, philosophy and theory of the life sciences, Springer, Dordrecht, 2015). In this paper I argue that Bergson’s ideas may yet be relevant to these questions, and his work warrants a reexamination in light of current problems in evolutionary biology. This is not a call to ‘return’ to Bergson, nevertheless his notions about complexity suggest ways of looking at current biological problems in ways that offer a heuristic insight worth entertaining. Bergson’s Nobel Prize-winning book, Creative Evolution, provided a strikingly prescient early 20th century framework for understanding how Darwinian evolution acts as an engine for generating new forms, University Press of America, Lanham, Bergson 1911). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hobbes on the Grand Tour: Paris, Venice, or London?Linda Levy PeckHobbes scholars have long been frustrated by how little contemporary evidence exists for the period when, after graduating from University in 1608, Hobbes was appointed by Lord Cavendish as tutor to his son Sir William Cavendish. Based on a license to travel granted in February 1610 1 and a parenthetical date in a late seventeenth-century source, 2 scholars from (...) George Croom Robertson (1886) to John Stoye (1952 and 2nd ed. 1989), Miriam Reik (1977), Noel Malcolm (1981), Arnold A. Rogow (1986), Richard Tuck (1989 and 1993), and Johann Sommerville (1992) have asserted that Hobbes and Cavendish left on the Grand Tour in 1610. Scholars have claimed that the trip to France, Italy, and perhaps Germany lasted anywhere from three to five years, and they have speculated as to where Hobbes and Cavendish went and whom they met. Robertson wroteThe first journey, which lay through France, Germany, and Italy, was begun in the year when France and Europe were thrown into consternation by the deed by Ravaillac; and so readily does the fanatic’s name slip from his pen even half a century later, that we may well suppose the future apostle of the inviolability of the sovereign to have been moved by what he may have heard or seen of the tragic event and its consequences at the time. 3 [End Page 177]Arnold A. Rogow in Thomas Hobbes, Radical in the Service of Reaction, expands on Robertson’s point by suggesting thatthe tour of 1610, close in time to the murder of Henry IV, if not overlapping it, may have been decisive in convincing Hobbes of the dangers to society and civil peace of religious fanaticism. Guy Fawkes and his coconspirators in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot and François Ravaillac were all fanatical Catholics, and Hobbes, although he wrote nothing about these conspiracies at the time, may have decided when still a young man that the single most important condition for domestic order and stability was the total and absolute submission of religion to political authority. 4While noting that the first forty years were the “dark years” in Hobbes life, Miriam Reik agrees on the date of the trip: “In 1610, the Baron sent his son for that indispensable part of a seventeenth century nobleman’s education, the Grand Tour; Hobbes went along as an escort the journey receives scant notice in his writing.” 5 Stoye commented that “Perplexed biographers can only state that Hobbes accompanied Cavendish on a journey to France and Italy, commencing in the year 1610.” 6Noel Malcolm tried to establish a chronology for the Grand Tour in his article “Hobbes, Sandys and the Virginia Company,” 7 demonstrating that Cavendish was back in England for the Parliament of 1614 to which he was elected although he was soon back in Venice on a second trip. 8 Later, in his De Dominus (1984), 9 Malcolm suggested in a footnote that the account book of the first Earl of Devonshire (Chatsworth, Hardwick Ms. 29), supported only one trip between 1614 and 1615 but he provided no detailed evidence. In his edition of Thomas Hobbes: The Correspondence (1994) Malcolm remains cautious and does not address the issue. Richard Tuck, however, is more confident: he writes that “And when Lord Cavendish sent his son off on what would later be called ‘the Grand Tour’ between 1610 and 1615, Hobbes accompanied him as a tutor.” 10 Tuck argues that Hobbes and Cavendish met Paolo Sarpi and other Venetian controversialists at the height of the Venetian interdict controversy between 1610 and 1615. [End Page 178]Between 1610 and 1615 Hobbes accompanied Cavendish as his tutor... on a tour of Europe in which Venice seems to have been a particularly important stopping-place. (Noel Malcolm (1981, pp. 319–20) claims that Cavendish sat in the 1614 Parliament, and that therefore the tour must have been interrupted; but it is probable that Cavendish’s cousin (also called William), later the Earl of New-castle, was elected for both East Retford and the county of Derbyshire, and that he was the only William Cavendish in the 1614 Parliament... (shrink)

Amongst intellectuals and activists, neoliberalism has become a potent signifier for the kind of free-market thinking that has dominated politics for the past three decades. Forever associated with the conviction politics of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the free-market project has since become synonymous with the 'Washington consensus' on international development policy and the phenomenon of corporate globalization, where it has come to mean privatization, deregulation, and the opening up of new markets. But beyond its utility as a protest slogan (...) or buzzword as shorthand for the political-economic Zeitgeist, what do we know about where neoliberalism came from and how it spread? Who are the neoliberals, and why do they studiously avoid the label? Constructions of Neoliberal Reason presents a radical critique of the free-market project, from its origins in the first half of the 20th Century through to the recent global economic crisis, from the utopian dreams of Friedrich von Hayek through the dogmatic theories of the Chicago School to the hope and hubris of Obamanomics. The book traces how neoliberalism went from crank science to common sense in the period between the Great Depression and the age of Obama. Constructions of Neoliberal Reason dramatizes the rise of neoliberalism and its uneven spread as an intellectual, political, and cultural project, combining genealogical analysis with situated case studies of formative moments throughout the world, like New York City's bankruptcy, Hurricane Katrina, and the Wall Street crisis of 2008. The book names and tracks some of neoliberalism's key protagonists, as well as some of the less visible bit-part players. It explores how this adaptive regime of market rule was produced and reproduced, its logics and limits, its faults and its fate. (shrink)

Although it has been shown that immersive virtual reality can be used to induce illusions of ownership over a virtual body , information on whether this changes implicit interpersonal attitudes is meager. Here we demonstrate that embodiment of light-skinned participants in a dark-skinned VB significantly reduced implicit racial bias against dark-skinned people, in contrast to embodiment in light-skinned, purple-skinned or with no VB. 60 females participated in this between-groups experiment, with a VB substituting their own, with full-body visuomotor synchrony, reflected (...) also in a virtual mirror. A racial Implicit Association Test was administered at least three days prior to the experiment, and immediately after the IVR exposure. The change from pre- to post-experience IAT scores suggests that the dark-skinned embodied condition decreased implicit racial bias more than the other conditions. Thus, embodiment may change negative interpersonal attitudes and thus represent a powerful tool for exploring such fundamental psychological and societal phenomena. (shrink)

Prime Matter Pluralism (PMP) states that while the prime matter of all terrestrial bodies is the same, there is a unique prime matter for each celestial body. Prime matters are distinct in virtue of being in potentiality to different forms. Steven Baldner argues that although Thomas Aquinas endorsed PMP in Summa theologiae I, he ultimately rejected it in his De caelo commentary and De substantiis separatis. Besides exegetical evidence for this claim, Baldner presents a philosophical objection to PMP: according to (...) PMP, distinct prime matters are restricted in their respective potentialities; such restriction requires form, however; therefore, prime matter is not pure potentiality. Since prime matter is pure potentiality, PMP is false. Pace Baldner, I argue that Aquinas endorses PMP as heartily in the later works as in STh I. Moreover, he resisted substantially the same objection to PMP as Baldner’s several times. In particular, Aquinas repeatedly rejected the claim that the restriction of prime matter’s potentiality requires form. In that case, when Aquinas calls prime matter “pure potentiality,” he means that it is formless of itself, not that it is in potentiality to any form whatsoever. (shrink)

Aristotelians traditionally motivate the doctrine of first (“prime”) matter by claiming that substantial change requires a subject. Without gainsaying that motivation, I propose another: first matter is a necessary postulate for the sort of unity proper to a substance. This motivation arises if one examines a claim that Patrick Toner and Robert Koons share: (TM′) the possession of emergent causal powers is necessary for substancehood. I first explain how TM′ represents the application of “Merricks’s Dictum” (“For a macrophysical object to (...) exist is to have causal powers”) to an Aristotelian framework. Next, I argue that, as Toner’s and Koons’s respective theories use TM′, it is incompatible with the denial that substances have substances as proper parts. In Toner’s hylomorphism, TM′ entails that an entity’s matter and form are independent substances. As part of Koons’s theory, TM′ implies that an entity’s elementary parts are substances. Happily, a hylomorphist need not accept TM′. For example, Aquinas rejects TM′ as incompatible with the doctrine of first matter. An ontology like Aquinas’s that includes first matter navigates the dialectical straight between the dualism and atomism. If she commits to first matter, the hylomorphist can deny that substances have substances as proper parts. (shrink)

It is important to recognize that the problem dealt with by Plato in the central part of the Sophist is one which arises from the use of certain Greek phrases, and has no necessary or direct connexion with metaphysics. We tend to obscure this fact if we use English terms such as ‘Being’, ‘Reality’, ‘Existence’, etc., in discussing the dialogue, and indeed make it almost impossible to understand what Plato is trying to do. It is the way in which die (...) Greek terms ỗν and μή ỗν and other such terms are used by the ‘sophists’ which gives rise to the problem. (shrink)

The cornerstone of contemporary nursing practice is the provision of individualised nursing care. Sustaining and nourishing the stream of research frameworks that inform individualised care are the findings from qualitative research. At the centre of much qualitative research practice, however, is an assumption that experiential understanding can be delivered through a thematisation of meaning which, it will be argued, can lead the researcher to make unsustainable assumptions about the relations of language and meaning‐making to experience. We will show that an (...) uncritical subscription to such assumptions can undermine the researcher's capacity to represent experience at the high level of abstraction consistent with experience itself and to thus inform genuinely individualised care. Instead, using qualia as a touchstone for the possibilities of understanding and representing experience, we trace the ‘designative’ and ‘expressive’ distinction to language in order to raise critical questions concerning both these assumptions and common practices within qualitative research. Following the ‘expressive’ account of language, we foreground in particular the hermeneutic work of Gadamer through which we explore the possibilities for a qualitative research approach that would better seek the mot juste of individual experience and illuminate qualia in order to better inform genuinely individualised care. (shrink)

"Peck's approach is less to document the land than to experience herself as part of its living systems. Her exquisite photographs are the artist's attempt to share that process." --Tim McNulty.

The great number of contradictory statements which confront us when we examine the various explanations of Anaxagoras' philosophy make it more than usually important to decide what is to be admitted as first-hand evidence and what is not. I purpose, then, to begin by accepting the barest minimum of data, and I shall try to exclude any direct comments upon Anaxagoras' work by later writers. Sufficient justification for such a course may be found in the bewildering masses of confusion which (...) have gathered around his teaching. (shrink)

Understanding ecological boundaries is recognized by ecologists as important for understanding ecosystem dynamics. All borders are borders in relation to some organism. However, much of the literature on habitat change ignores this basic ecological fact. In addition, borders are highly influenced by accidental or historical features of ecosystems, and researchers have in many cases defined them only in terms of convenience. Several viewpoints explored in this article reflect this skepticism about identifying ecosystems as real structured entities. I draw on Ghiselin’s (...) hypothesis that species are not natural kinds but individuals, to develop a relational approach to ecological boundaries. I argue that with regard to ecology a border is always a border for a specific organism, and is a border in a specific manner for that organism. I draw on studies of two species of tsetse fly found in the Mauhoun river basin in Burkina Faso to illustrate why this relational approach is important. This approach may also help identify weaknesses in conservation efforts that have not properly asked the question, “Boundary for what?”. (shrink)

Frigg and Reiss (2009) argue that philosophical problems in simulation bear enough resemblance to recognized issues in the philosophy of modeling that they only pose challenges analogous to those found in standard analytic models used to represent natural systems. They suggest that there are no new philosophical problems in computer simulation modeling beyond those found in traditional mathematical modeling. Winsberg (2009) has countered that there appear to be genuinely new epistemological problems in simulation modeling because the knowledge obtained from them (...) is ‘downward, motley, and autonomous.’ Here I draw out some specific ways that these epistemological problems are manifest in complex ecological simulation, especially in agent-based models. These models contain novel features that were impossible to anticipate prior to the computer revolution, and continue to present difficulties and challenges of both a practical and philosophical nature (Humphreys 2002). (shrink)

Computer simulation has become important in ecological modeling, but there have been few assessments on how complex simulation models differ from more traditional analytic models. In Part I of this paper, I review the challenges faced in complex ecological modeling and how models have been used to gain theoretical purchase for understanding natural systems. I compare the use of traditional analytic simulation models and point how that the two methods require different kinds of practical engagement. I examine a case study (...) of three models from the insect resistance literature in transgenic crops to illustrate and explore differences in analytic and computer simulation models. I argue that analyzing simulation models has been often inappropriately managed with expectations derived from handling analytic models. In Part II, I look at simulation as a hermeneutic practice. I argue that simulation models are a practice or techné. I the explore five aspects of philosophical hermeneutics that may be useful in complex ecological simulation: (1) an openness to multiple perspectives allowing multiple levels of scientific pluralism, (2) the hermeneutic circle, a back and forth in active communication among both modelers and ecologists; (3) the recognition of human factors and the nature of human practices as such, including recognizing the role of judgments and choices in the modeling enterprise; (4) the importance of play in modeling; (5) the non-closed nature of hermeneutic engagement, continued dialogue, and recognizing the situatedness, incompleteness, and tentative nature of simulation models. (shrink)

Both group agents (for group agency theorists) and individual agents (for enactivists) are themselves constituted by agents. This raises a similar challenge for both group agency and enactivism, namely to explain the constitutive relationship between sub-agential agents and the agents themselves. In this paper, I propose an enactivist account of what constitutes collective action. I conclude that non-human processes—both natural and artificial—may be constitutive of group agents typically recognized as human. In particular, I argue that machine learning recommendation algorithms should (...) be recognized as constitutive of certain group agents on an enactivist account of what constitutes collective action. (shrink)

In modern work on the Parmenides it is commonly supposed that in the First Part of the dialogue Plato's main concern is criticism of his own doctrine of Forms, or of some formulations of that doctrine, and that the criticisms have some sort of validity and are in some degree ‘damaging’ to the doctrine. It is thus often assumed that Plato's purpose is to make the reader ask himself, ‘Where is Plato wrong? Where is his doctrine of Forms, or his (...) statement of it, inadequate?’ This is no doubt due partly to the fact that no reply is offered to the criticisms, and partly to the fact that they are put into the mouth of Parmenides, for whom Plato had a very great respect. Nevertheless, Plato can hardly have had a greater respect for Parmenides than he had for Socrates; and therefore on general grounds it is at least as likely that he intends us to ask ourselves the question, ‘Where is Parmenides wrong, or inadequate?’ It is, of course, obvious that Socrates is represented as a young man, who, in his enthusiasm for a new doctrine which he has invented himself, has not thought out all the difficulties involved in it or prepared replies to all the possible criticisms. Yet again, on general principles it is not likely that Plato would have written a dialogue primarily to represent Parmenides' position as substantially more satisfactory than that of Socrates. It is therefore of the first importance not merely to have clearly in our minds the nature and purpose of the doctrine of Forms, but also to examine carefully the basis of the criticisms which Parmenides is made to bring against Socrates, and the methods by which Parmenides conducts his arguments. (shrink)

Each story is presented as a narrative, so readers can ponder: What would I do if this happened to me? When they've finished the book, they'll feel prepared with an array of theoretical and practical approaches for thinking on their feet.

This article examines the relationship between action research and policy and the kind of confidence teachers, policy makers and other potential users may have in such research. Many published teacher action research accounts are criticised on the grounds that they do not fully meet the conventional standards for reporting social scientific research, and by implication are held to be less trustworthy. Action research is nevertheless often seen by some academics and policy makers as a potential method for developing theory, disseminating (...) good practice, or raising standards. Through a discussion of three major approaches to action research—seen variously as professional learning, practical philosophy and critical social science—it is argued that judgements about confidence depend upon understanding the various kinds of knowledge claim that can be made by action researchers, and appropriate judgements concerning the strength of evidence or reasons. (shrink)

Oxford Scholarly Classics brings together a number of great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in a uniform series design, they will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.

Active white ignorance is accompanied by an epistemic and affective insensitivity that allows American white people to avoid the negative affect that might typically accompany harmdoing. Resisting active ignorance about racism and white supremacy, therefore, often gives rise to shame. Yet, thinkers have debated the value of shame for white people’s antiracism. This article asserts that shame is an appropriate response for white people recognizing our culpability for and complicity in racist injustices and violence. However, the article exposes problems with (...) philosophical accounts of white shame, and draws on recent psychological research to show that contextual factors actually determine whether shame can support white antiracism. The article proposes a role for shame in what José Medina calls an “ethics and epistemology of discomfort,” arguing that there are conditions under which shame may encourage the sustained self-interrogation, sensitivity, and humility required if white people are to contribute meaningfully to antiracist action. (shrink)

This paper presents a view of action research as a valuable way in which teachers can pose fertile questions and engage in inquiry with transformative possibilities. This counters claims of its being at best a sterile method of teacher research and at worst a perilous trap for teachers.Chris Higgins has argued that AR has lost its original intention of empowering teachers and sealing the theory practice divide. He claims that it has degenerated into a method devoid of thought. In its (...) social science versions, it is harmful to the teacher–student relationship and teachers have been mislead into an impoverished idea of professional development. The impossible challenge for action research is to recover its original intention; impossible because the landscape of educational policy militates against it. The authors challenge Higgin's deep pessimism, his versions of AR and his negative account of the intellectual capacity of teachers. We argue that AR does empower teachers, integrates theory and practice and is alive and well, even though conditions in schools are not optimum. This argument is exemplified with numerous illustrations of actual AR projects, which evidence teachers’ participatory and collaborative work, in which they engage in positive change. There is scope for teachers wishing to develop ‘customised’ AR projects of their own in current conditions which have transformative potential in changing the practice of the individual teacher. This in turn supports building and participating in a ‘community of practice’, which strengthens the communal endeavour to contribute to good teaching and good education. (shrink)

Apology is arguably the central act of the reparative work required after wrongdoing. The analysis by Claudia Card of complicity in collectively perpetrated evils moves one to ask whether apology ought to be requested of persons culpably complicit in institutional evils. To better appreciate the benefits of and barriers to apologies offered by culpably complicit wrongdoers, this article examines doctors’ complicity in a practice that meets Card's definition of an evil, namely, the non-medically necessary, nonconsensual “normalizing” interventions performed on babies (...) born with intersex anatomies. It argues that in this instance the complicity of doctors is culpable on Card's terms, and that their culpable complicity grounds rightful demands for them to apologize. (shrink)

Researchers developed and tested an online training module with both experienced public relations professionals and newcomers to the field with the hopes of helping them sharpen and refine their ethical decision-making skills. The study found that although most testers reported the Web site was difficult to navigate and/or found the ethical content to be complex, the majority believed their ethical decision-making abilities were improved.

The former part of this paper attempted to show— 1. That in Anaxagoras' scheme of physics the following substances were elements: The animal substances ; The vegetable substances ; The so-called Opposites ; and 2. That there is no evidence that Anaxagoras asserted any substances to be homoeomerous, and that, even if he had done so, the word ‘homoeomerous’ does not bear the meanings often attached to it by those theories which assume he made the assertion. The meaning of is, (...) μοιομερς is, not ‘simple in substance,’ i.e. ‘elementary,’ but ‘simple in formation.’. (shrink)

Aristocrats and Archaeologists: An Edwardian Journey on the Nile. By Toby Wilkinson and Julian Platt. Cairo: the American University in Cairo Press. 2017, Pp. xv + 144, illus., maps. $29.95. [Distributed by Oxford University Press].

The present essay is intended to supply amplification, and where necessary correction, to my previous article on Anaxagoras' philosophy. Since its publication important essays on the same subject have been written by Mr. Cyril Bailey and by Mr. F. M. Cornford, and the present essay is also an attempt to examine some of the theories put forward in them. There are one or two points which may be stated at the outset. The conclusions which I put forward five years ago (...) I still believe to be valid. Some of the presentation of the evidence, however, I now see to be misleading and inadequate, notably the treatment of Aristotle's evidence, which I now hope to deal with more fully, and to show that it lends even stronger support to my thesis. I should also say that my former use of ‘Elements’ as a convenient collective term to refer to the four Empedoclean Elements has proved confusing, since it was never intended to suggest that these substances were elements in Anaxagoras' system. I now refer to them by their names in full. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss the ways in which not recognizing that the death of organisms plays a part in our food producing systems, distances us from life’s ecological processes and explore how this plays a role in devaluing the sources of our food. I argue that modern society’s deep separation from our agricultural systems play a part in our current ecological illiteracy.

This paper explores Wittgenstein’s early work as it relates to emerging philosophical problems in ecological modeling. Here I use his thought to structure a logical framework from which to discuss ecological simulation models in a way that captures how these dynamic representations describe a world from which we can draw logical inferences about real-world ecological processes. I argue that Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus provides a way of reading problems that arise in using simulation as a way to make inferences about the (...) world. Conversely, ecological simulation provides an illustration of a Tractarian system, because the digital world it creates completely describes and is defined by the programing language. This reading is a novel, but productive, way that notes that the language used in modeling requires a hermeneutical approach to make inferences about modeling/real-world relationships. (shrink)

Dawn of Egyptian Art. Edited by Diana Craig Patch. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. Pp. xii + 275, illus. $60. [Distributed by Yale University Press].

Nursing and nurses rely upon qualitative research to understand the intricacies of the human condition. Acknowledging the subjective nature of reality and commonly founded in a constructivist epistemology, qualitative approaches offer opportunities for uncovering insights from the perspective of the individual participants, the insider's view, and the construction of representations that maintain an intimacy with the subject's realities. Debate continues, however, about what is needed for a qualitative construction to be considered an authentic understanding of a subject's realities. Authenticity in (...) the context of qualitative research has been described as entailing consideration of a number of well‐trodden dimensions: fairness, ontological, educative, catalytic and tactical. Taking these dimensional requirements as key, this paper argues that authenticity may not always be as well‐developed through some of the standard practices in qualitative research as perhaps expected. In particular, qualitative understandings of authenticity stress that participants should not be merely reported on but instead should be dynamically involved in and changed by the constructions and interpretations of data developed throughout the research process. As this paper illustrates, such engagements appear problematic for qualitative research approaches that are beholden to designative commitments in the context of language and meaning‐making and which tend to prioritise commonality and generality at the expense of individual authenticity. An alternative qualitative approach, Hermeneutic Constructivism, is proposed as better able to achieve the requirements of the dimensions of authenticity. As outlined, this approach is well‐placed to present an understanding of human experience through a genuinely expressivist approach and transcends the stress upon the common or the general that can be pervasive and problematic. (shrink)