This paper examines farmer intentions to adapt to global climate change by analyzing responses to a climate change scenario presented in a survey given to large-scale farmers across the US Corn Belt in 2012. Adaptive strategies are evaluated in the context of decision making and farmers’ intention to increase their use of three production practices promoted across the Corn Belt: no-till farming, cover crops, and tile drainage. This paper also provides a novel conceptual framework that bridges a typology of adaptation (...) with concepts that help predict intentionality in behavior change models. This conceptual framework was developed to facilitate examination of adaptive decision making in the context of agriculture. This research effort examines key factors that influence farmers’ intentions to increase their use of the practices evaluated given a climate change scenario. Twenty-two covariates are examined across three models developed for no-till farming, cover crops, and tile drainage. Findings highlight that farmers who believed they should adjust their practices to protect their farm from the negative impacts of increased weather variability were more likely to indicate that they would increase their use of each of the practices in response to climate change. Additionally, visiting with other farmers to observe their practices was positively associated with farmers’ intentions to increase their use of the adaptive strategies examined. Farmers who were currently using no-till farming, cover crops, and tile drainage were also more likely to plan to increase their use of these practices in response to increased weather variability associated with climate change. However, farmers who reported high levels of confidence in their current practices were less likely to plan on changing their use of these practices in response to climatic changes. (shrink)

Since European settlement, the Western calendar has insufficiently accounted for the seasonal nuances and multiple temporalities of Australia. Beginning with Tim Entwistle’s recent proposal to revise the four-season Australian norm, this article traces the emergence of the Western calendar in Europe and its institutionalization ‘Down Under.’ With its emphasis on land-based calendars, the Indigenous Weather Knowledge Project is a partnership between Aboriginal communities and the Bureau of Meteorology aimed at preserving and promoting knowledge of the endemic seasons of Australian regions. (...) As themost recent addition to the IWKP, the six-season Nyoongar calendar of the South-West of Western Australia is based on meteorological conditions, such as wind directions and temperatures, but also on the procurement of food, maintenance of cultural knowledge, and performance of ceremonies. Through the fusion of phenomenological and phenological approaches, the endemic seasons of Australia can be appreciated in their depth and extent. (shrink)

In the years following the end of the Second World War Carol Reed directed three films, Odd Man Out, The Third Man, and The Man Between, that all dealt with individuals somehow cast alone into post-war urban environments that shared certain characteristics of division and violence. This article argues that they can be usefully analysed through the lens of Walter Benjamin's notion of the creaturely, especially through Eric Santner's explication of the concept. It considers the films from three aspects of (...) Santner's creaturely life: natural history, the state of exception, and undeadness. These qualities of the creaturely as an analysis of the human condition help to encompass some of the strangeness of Reed's apparently conventional film narratives. The films' characters can be seen as overtly modelling a kind of Benjaminian natural history, the history of the brutal twentieth century, in which the vulnerable, mortal, dying human beings at the centre of these tales stumble around in rea... (shrink)

This book deals with the possibility of an ontological and epistemological account of the psychological category 'neurosis'. Intertwining thoughts from German idealism, Continental philosophy and psychology, the book shows how neurosis precedes and exists independently from human experience and lays the foundations for a non-essentialist, non-rational theory of neurosis; in cognition, in perception, in linguistics and in theories of object-relations and vitalism. The personal essays collected in this volume examine such issues as assimilation, the philosophy of neurosis, aneurysmal philosophy, and (...) the connection between Hegel and Neurosis, among others. The volume establishes the connection between a now redundant psycho-analytic term and an extremely progressive discipline of Continental philosophy and Speculative realism. (shrink)

Distinctive for its pungent and oftentimes rotten odor, the thorny fruit of durian (Durio spp.) is considered a delicacy throughout Asia. Despite its burgeoning global recognition, durian remains a fruit of contradiction—desirable to some yet repulsive to others. Although regarded commonly as immobile, mute, and insentient, plants such as durian communicate within their own bodies, between the same and different species, and between themselves and other life forms. As individuals and collectives, plants develop modes of language—or phytodialects—that are specific to (...) certain contexts. Focused on vegetal semiosis or sign processes, a phytosemiotic lens views plants as dynamic and expressive subjects positioned within lifeworlds. Absent from phytosemiotic theory, however, are the cultural sign processes that take place within and between plants—what I call cultural phytosemiotics. The framework I propose calls attention to the interlinked biological, ecological, and cultural dimensions of signification between plants and non-plants. From a phytosemiotic standpoint, this article examines historical, cinematographic, and literary narratives of durian. Reflecting the fruit’s divisive sensory effects, historical accounts of Durio by Niccolò de’ Conti, Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, Georg Eberhard Rumphius, and William Marsden alternate between praise and disdain. Moreover, films such as Fruit Chan’s Durian Durian (2000) and Anthony Chen’s Wet Season (2019) narrativize the polarities that similarly figure into historical depictions of the species. Literary narratives, including the poems “Durians” (2005) by Hsien Min Toh and “Hurling a Durian” (2013) by Sally Wen Mao, investigate the language of durian’s olfactory and gustatory sensations. Along a continuum between adoration to revulsion, durian embodies the otherness of vegetal being. In an era of rampant biodiversity loss, learning to embrace botanical difference should be a human imperative. (shrink)

An ontological and epistemological framework and foundation for the psychological symptom 'neurosis'.

Studies the context of Giordano Bruni's Eroici furori in the light of two traditional literary forms; prose commentaries on verses, and Platonic love treatises.

Hegel and Speculative Realism has two main objectives. Firstly, to assess the speculative realist formulations of the real regarding the ‘withdrawn’ object, radical contingency, the absolute register of extinction, and the current interest in ‘powers philosophy’, with special attention to their possible relation to the absolute scope of Hegelian philosophy. Secondly, to invite the reader to reconsider Hegel in a new way; uncovering rare insights into his thoughts on astronomy, actuality, the concrete and non-being. Johns’ inclination is to not mistake (...) the necessary path to the absolute as the only path. Johns argues that Hegel describes the unique trajectory of the dialectical relationship between Nature and Idea as a Spirit oriented by both logical and physical (spatio-temporal) dimensions. Johns reads this as a theory of singularity and makes the bold claim that there may be other paths not taken by the Hegelian spatio-temporal path synonymous with the dialectic; synthesis, sublation and unfolding. In-fact, speculative philosophy should not be satisfied to study only “what exists” but also what “could exist” or what it means to “inexist” and should entertain multiple modes of potential becoming between Hegel’s initial triad of logical categories; Being, Non-Being and Becoming. (shrink)

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to help bridge the digital divide that arises from people having such different viewpoints that little communication is possible, even though all have access to the internet and speak the same language. Design/methodology/approach The method is to catalog the best practices in collaboration and cooperation in the form of a pattern language. After describing pattern languages, some examples are given. Findings People have been trying to cooperate in many cultures over many centuries, and (...) there are many the best practices that can be useful to find a common ground. Research limitations/implications The patterns suggested do not easily allow empirical and objective A/B testing. Practical implications Any pattern or guideline will be applied by most people in most contexts. There will always be practical limitations in the appropriate scope of application. Social implications A more widespread use of the patterns should help heal the divisiveness in society. Originality/value While pattern languages have been used in many fields, this is the first attempt to do so in fostering civil engagement. (shrink)

The time of vegetal life itself—denoted as plant-time in this article, following the work of Michael Marder—is essential to human-plant relations. Conceptualized as a multi-dimensional plexity, vegetal temporality embodies the endemic land-based seasons, rhythms, cycles, and timescales of flora in conjunction with human patterns. The contemporary poet Judith Wright invoked a time-space continuum throughout her writing as a means to convey the primordial character of Australian plants while resisting the imposition of a colonialist schema of time. Wright’s bold textualization of (...) vegetal temporality embodies her commitment to fostering botanical ethics and locally-grounded activism on behalf of Aboriginal people and the Australian environment. (shrink)

_Forest Family_ highlights the importance of old-growth forests to Australian art, community, culture, history, and politics. The volume will be of interest to general readers of environmental history, as well as scholars in critical plant studies and the environmental humanities.

In many ways, digital practices have precipitated remarkable changes in the global accessibility of art. However, the digital revolution has also radically influenced the conservation processes surrounding art, including archiving, preserving, and remembering. This paper explores the conservation of digital artworks for the future benefit of culture, with particular peference to creators and viewers of art, as well as participants in interactive artworks. More specifically, this paper focuses on the philosophical and technical approaches adopted by creators, conservators, and philosophers involved (...) in the preservation of variable media artworks. Issues of programming, interoperability between archival systems, and enhanced public access increasingly inform the design of digital archives. Indeed, the continuously shifting technological landscape—marked by the centrality of digital technologies to everyday life—problematizes the preservation of digital art through mainstream museological paradigms. Part of this analysis of digital art conservation will be drawn from the archival philosophies of Boris Groys and Rick Prelinger. (shrink)

This is an interesting addition to the history of philosophy generally and an incredible expansion of the history of Idealistic philosophy in particular. The subject is John Scottus Eriugena, a ninth century philosopher and member of The Carolingian intellectual renewal, who, claims Dermot Moran, developed a form of idealism that owed as much, or more, to the Greek neo-platonic tradition as to St. Augustine. Eriugena’s thought anticipated the priority of the subject in the radical way that most scholars believe (...) originated only a thousand years later in German Idealism. Moran, of St. Patrick’s College in Maynooth, Ireland, bases these fascinating claims on an analysis of Eriugena’s most important work, The Periphyseon, or the fourfold division of nature, completed around 867 A.D. (shrink)

Drawing out literal and metaphorical meanings of 'foreignness' this wide-ranging volume offers much to scholars of postcolonial, gender, and cultural studies seeking new approaches to the study of alterity.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE PROBLEM OF THING AND OBJECT IN MARITAIN JOHN c. CAHALAN Methuen, Massachusetts I N THE essay, "Critical Realism," Jacques Maritain said, "The problem of thing and object is the crux of the problem of realism." 1 Since then, the distinction between thing and object has received little attention, except for some helpful discussions by Yves Simon. Either Maritain and Simon were very mistaken, or we have (...) been missing something very important. This study will attempt to explain the importance of the thing/object distinction by showing how it applies to a wide range of questions about human knowledge, from the nature of metaphysics to the problem of conceptual relativity in the philosophy of science and hermeneutics. Skeptics and idealists grant that our awareness has objects. Skeptics question whether we can make extramentally existing things objects of awareness as they are. Idealists deny that things have an existence other than being objects of awareness.2 Maritain considered the presuppositions of calling something an " object " of awareness: what are we doing when we call something an object of awareness and what conditions are necessary for knowing that something is such an object. He found that the conditions necessary for knowing that something is an object of awareness provide the basis for refutations of skepticism and 1 Jacques Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge, trans. Gerald B. Phelan (New York: Scribners, 1959) 107 (translation corrected). Hereafter, I refer to this work as DK, followed by a page number. 2 Maritain uses " idealism " for both ways of denying that we directly attain extramental existents, that is, for any position holding that we must begin from awareness of our mental states. 21 22 JOHN C. CAHALAN idealism. But his analysis also gives us a tool, the distinction between things as things and things as objects, capable of illuminating many other epistemological problems. I will begin by explaining the thing/object distinction and how it enables us to refute idealism. Then, I will apply the distinction to problems concerning the knowledge of being in metaphysics. Next, I will show how the distinction reveals, for the first time, the nature of that " conformity" between the mind and things which we call truth. Finally, I will apply the distinction to the problems of skepticism and conceptual relativity. I How do the conditions required for knowing that something is an object enable us to defend realism? We can ask epistemological questions because we are reflexively aware of our own awareness. The reality we call "awareness" is a way of relating to terms that we call its "objects." "Object" is a relational term here; to call something an "object" of awareness is to describe it as a term of a knowledge relation (where " knowledge " means cognition in general, not just knowledge of truth). " We must distinguish," Maritain says, "between the thing as thingas existing or able to exist for itself-and the thing as objectwhen it is set before the faculty of knowing and made present to it" (DK, 91). "The object is the correlative of a knowing subject... which precisely takes the name 'object' from the fact that it is presented to the mind" (DK, 93; my emphasis). When we describe something as known, conceived, imagined, heard, referred to, expressed, meant, thought about, remembered, etc., we are describing it as an object, in Maritain's sense. The subjectobject polarity is a fundamental fact that reflexive self-awareness reveals to us: A state of awareness has an object that is distinct from itself at least to the extent that the term of any relation is distinct from the relation, and just as we can describe awareness as a relation to something, we can describe that something as a term of a relation of awareness, an object. But we cannot describe objects solely as objects; for whatever we are first aware of, we must be aware of other than as an ob- THING AND OBJECT IN MARITAIN 23 ject. To be an object is to be a term of a knowledge relation; consequently, to be aware that X is an object is to have a knowledge relation whose term is the existence of a knowledge relation to X. But what are... (shrink)

The volume contains studies by eleven distinguished scholars, concerning changes in ethical and religious consciousness during this important era of Western ...

We discuss how academically-based interdisciplinary teams can address the extreme challenges of the world’s poorest by increasing access to the basic necessities of life. The essay’s first part illustrates the evolving commitment of research universities to develop ethical solutions for populations whose survival is at risk and whose quality of life is deeply impaired. The second part proposes a rationale for university responsibility to solve the problems of impoverished populations at a geographical remove. It also presents a framework for integrating (...) science, engineering and ethics in the efforts of multidisciplinary teams dedicated to this task. The essay’s third part illustrates the efforts of Howard University researchers to join forces with African university colleagues in fleshing out a model for sustainable and ethical global development. (shrink)

For forty years, Harvey Mansfield has been worth reading. Whether plumbing the depths of MachiavelliOs Discourses or explaining what was at stake in Bill ClintonOs impeachment, MansfieldOs work in political philosophy and political science has set the standard. In Educating the Prince, twenty-one of his students, themselves distinguished scholars, try to live up to that standard. Their essays offer penetrating analyses of Machiavellianism, liberalism, and America., all of them informed by MansfieldOs own work. The volume also includes a bibliography of (...) MansfieldOs writings. (shrink)