Many consumers are motivated to attend Farmers’ Markets because of the opportunity to purchase fresh and local products. The subsequent interactions at FMs provide an important pathway for the direct exchange of information. While previous research suggests that people value local food and the FM shopping experience and that purchasing directly from producers can lead to transformative learning, little is known about exactly how the shopping experience at FMs can influence consumer purchasing behavior. This study examines the extent of and (...) mechanism for such “influencing.” Using data from surveys, observations, and interviews gathered at six FMs, we analyze the interactions between consumers and vendors, including the motivations and values of both parties. We explore the question, “How do farmers’ markets facilitate change in consumer purchasing behavior?” We propose that the dynamic of change in consumer purchasing behavior at FMs takes root in the exchange of information between consumers and vendors during interactions. Our results suggest that there are three specific characteristics shared by FM consumers and vendors that lead to these meaningful interactions at FMs: symmetry of motivations to attend FMs, shared values, and mutual dependence on interactions. Then, when a consumer learns new information from a FM vendor during an interaction, the consumer is more likely to make a change in their immediate purchase. Information about the products for sale and the modes of production of those items can especially impact consumers’ immediate purchases at FMs. We found that FM interactions can also impact long-term purchasing behavior, such as purchasing more organic or locally produced foods. Our results suggest that FM interactions may have significant implications for consumer health, local economies, and the environment. (shrink)

Food insecurity in the United States is a profound public health challenge that hospitals are uniquely situated to address. Through the enactment of the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program, the Affordable Care Act provides a strong economic incentive for hospitals to actively confront food insecurity within the communities they serve. While there is a spectrum of nutrition interventions that hospitals can look to when engaging in these efforts, healthy food prescriptions and medically tailored meals are two particularly innovative and promising approaches (...) that could help hospitals reduce readmissions by addressing the nutritional needs of vulnerable patients. (shrink)

This article connects value-sensitive design to Gibson’s affordance theory: the view that we perceive in terms of the ease or difficulty with which we can negotiate space. Gibson’s ideas offer a nonsubjectivist way of grasping culturally relative values, out of which we develop a concept of political affordances, here understood as openings or closures for social action, often implicit. Political affordances are equally about environments and capacities to act in them. Capacities and hence the severity of affordances vary with age, (...) health, social status and more. This suggests settings are selectively permeable, or what postphenomenologists call multistable. Multistable settings are such that a single physical location shows up differently – as welcoming or hostile – depending on how individuals can act on it. In egregious cases, authoritarian governments redesign politically imbued spaces to psychologically cordon both them and the ideologies they represent. Selective permeability is also orchestrated according to business interests, which is symptomatic of commercial imperatives increasingly dictating what counts as moral and political goods. (shrink)

To meet the specific education needs of ethics committee members (primarily full-time healthcare professionals), the Regional Ethics Department of Kaiser Permanente Northern California (KPNCAL) and Washington State University’s Elson Floyd School of Medicine have partnered to create a one-academic year Medical Ethics Certificate Program. The mission-driven nature of the KPNCAL-WSU’s Certificate Program was designed to be a low-cost, high-quality option for busy full-time practitioners who may not otherwise opt to pursue additional education. This article discusses the specific competency-focused methodologies and (...) pedagogies adopted, as well as how the Certificate Program made permanent changes in response to the global pandemic. This article also discusses in detail one of the Program’s signature features, its Practicum—an extensive simulated clinical ethics consultation placing students in the role of ethics consultant, facilitating a conflict between family members played by paid professional actors. This article concludes with survey data responses from Program alumni gathered as part of a quality study. (shrink)

Striking similarities across ape gestural repertoires suggest shared phylogenetic origins that likely provided a foundation for the emergence of language. We pilot a novel approach for exploring possible semantic universals across human and nonhuman ape species. In a forced‐choice task, n = 300 participants watched 10 chimpanzee gesture forms performed by a human and chose from responses that paralleled inferred meanings for chimpanzee gestures. Participants agreed on a single meaning for nine gesture forms; in six of these the agreed form‐meaning (...) pair response(s) matched those established for chimpanzees. Such shared understanding suggests apes' (including humans') gesturing shares deep evolutionary origins. (shrink)

Fairness of Artificial Intelligence decisions has become a big challenge for governments, companies, and societies. We offer a theoretical contribution to consider AI ethics outside of high-level and top-down approaches, based on the distinction between “reality” and “world” from Luc Boltanski. To do so, we provide a new perspective on the debate on AI fairness and show that criticism of ML unfairness is “realist”, in other words, grounded in an already instituted reality based on demographic categories produced by institutions. Second, (...) we show that the limits of “realist” fairness corrections lead to the elaboration of “radical responses” to fairness, that is, responses that radically change the format of data. Third, we show that fairness correction is shifting to a “domination regime” that absorbs criticism, and we provide some theoretical and practical avenues for further development in AI ethics. Using an ad hoc critical space stabilized by reality tests alongside the algorithm, we build a shared responsibility model which is compatible with the radical response to fairness issues. Finally, this paper shows the fundamental contribution of pragmatic sociology theories, insofar as they afford a social and political perspective on AI ethics by giving an active role to material actors such as database formats on ethical debates. In a context where data are increasingly numerous, granular, and behavioral, it is essential to renew our conception of AI ethics on algorithms in order to establish new models of responsibility for companies that take into account changes in the computing paradigm. (shrink)

Biomimicry as a design concept is indeed revolutionary in its implications for human systems of production, but it is a concept in need of further philosophical elaboration and development. To this end certain philosophical principles underlying the organization of living systems generally are identified and it is argued that not only our systems of production but also our psychocultural patterns of desire need to be reorganized in accordance with these principles if we are collectively to achieve the integration into nature (...) to which biomimicry aspires. Even were this reorganization to be effected however, there is still an ethically momentous ambiguity in biomimicry that needs to be teased out before we can be assured that biomimicry will indeed produce the bioinclusive sustainability outcomes that it seems to promise. (shrink)

. Underwater communication is usually affected by ambient noise, which may be generated by different sources, such as the wind origin sea-surface sources, ships and under water life. The properties of background noise, which are non-stationary in nature, depend on location, sea depth, wind speed and sound propagation conditions in the area. Overall performance of underwater acoustic instruments can be improved by denoising the underwater signals. This paper proposes a novel denoising method using empirical mode decomposition technique. Frequency domain based (...) thresholding has been used to denoise the signal, which involves three steps: EMD is applied to the noisy signal to decompose the signal into intrinsic mode functions. Thresholding is applied to each IMF in the frequency domain to remove the noise. Thresholded IMFs are added to obtain the denoised signal. Real-time experiments were performed to validate the proposed technique on the basis of the records of the ambient noise data recorded at sea for various wind speed. It was observed that the experimental results are in good agreement with the proposed algorithm under different wind-noise levels. (shrink)

Three types of objections have been raised against sweatshops. According to their critics, sweatshops are (1) exploitative, (2) coercive, and (3) harmful to workers. In “The Ethical and Economic Case Against Sweatshop Labor: A Critical Assessment,” Powell and Zwolinski critique all three objections and thereby offer what is arguably the most powerful defense of sweatshops in the philosophical literature to date. This article demonstrates that, whether or not unregulated sweatshops are exploitative or coercive, they are, pace Powell and Zwolinski, harmful (...) to workers. (shrink)

In this highly original work, Mathew A. Foust breaks new ground in comparative studies through his exploration of the connections between Confucianism and the American Transcendentalist and Pragmatist movements. In his examination of a broad range of philosophers, including Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Charles Peirce, William James, and Josiah Royce, Foust traces direct lines of influence from early translations of Confucian texts and brings to light conceptual affinities that have been previously overlooked. Combining resources from (...) both traditions, Confucianism and American Philosophy offers fresh insights into contemporary problems and exemplifies the potential of cross-cultural dialogue in an increasingly pluralistic world. (shrink)

As a virtue, loyalty has an ambiguous place in our thinking about moral judgments. We lauded the loyalty of firefighters who risked their lives to save others on 9/11 while condemning the loyalty of those who perpetrated the catastrophe. Responding to such uneasiness and confusion, Loyalty to Loyalty contributes to ongoing conversation about how we should respond to conflicts in loyalty in a pluralistic world. The lone philosopher to base an ethical theory on the virtue of loyalty is Josiah Royce. (...) Loyalty to Loyalty engages Royce's moral theory, revealing how loyalty, rather than being just one virtue among others, is central to living a genuinely moral and meaningful life. Mathew A. Foust shows how the theory of loyalty Royce advances can be brought to bear on issues such as the partiality/impartiality debate in ethical theory, the role of loyalty in liberatory struggle, and the ethics of whistleblowing and disaster response. (shrink)

Nature in its wider cosmic sense is not at risk from human exploitation and predation. To see life on Earth as but a local manifestation of this wider, indestructable and inexhaustible nature is to shield ourselves from despair over the fate of our Earth. But to take this wide view also appears to make interventionist political action on behalf of nature-which is to say, conservation-superfluous. If we identify with nature in its widest sense, as deep ecology prescribes, then the “self-defence” (...) argument usually advanced by deep ecologists in support of conservation appears not to work. I argue that the need for eco-activism can be reconciled with a rejection of despair within the framework of deep ecology, and that in the process of this reconciliation the meaning of the term conservation acquires a new, spiritual dimension. (shrink)

This book brings together philosophers, literary theorists, and art historians to argue for the philosophical significance of Michael Fried’s art history and criticism. It demonstrates that Fried’s analyses of absorption and theatricality, and the accounts of modernism he develops from them, can throw new light on problems in aesthetics, and questions of authenticity, scepticism, modernity, and politics. Featuring an essay by Fried and articles from world-leading scholars, this collection contributes to current debates in aesthetics, modernism studies, literary studies, art theory, (...) and both analytic and continental philosophy. (shrink)

ABSTRACT It has recently been argued that in Analects 17.21, Confucius advises a disciple to do something that he, Confucius, believes to be morally wrong. According to Frederick Choo, despite believing that it is morally wrong to not properly observe the three-year mourning ritual for a deceased parent, Confucius tells Zai Wo that he should do so. Choo offers two justifications for Confucius’s doing this. In this essay, I argue that the justifications Choo offers for Confucius’s advising Zai Wo to (...) do what he believes to be morally wrong are untenable. Indeed, I argue that Confucius does not, in fact, advise Zai Wo to do what he believes to be morally wrong. Instead, I argue that Confucius’s advice to Zai Wo in Analects 17.21 is best understood as an expression of exasperation and sarcasm. (shrink)

What is nature, and how are we to live with it rather than against it, as ecophilosophers enjoin? My own understanding of nature and of our proper relation to it is ultimately traceable to a metaphysics that could be broadly described as panpsychist, in that it attributes an internal principle, or subjectival dimension, to matter generally. I have explored such a metaphysic elsewhere, and do not propose..

Theories of political legitimacy normally stipulate certain conditions of legitimacy: the features a state must possess in order to be legitimate. Yet there is obviously a second question as to the value of legitimacy: the normative features a state has by virtue of it being legitimate (such as it being owed obedience, having a right to use coercion, or enjoying a general justification in the use of force). I argue that it is difficult to demonstrate that affording these to legitimate (...) states is morally desirable, and that obvious alternative conceptions of the value of legitimacy (notably epistemic and instrumental) are not without problems of their own. The intuitive triviality of establishing the value of normative legitimacy may mask a serious problem. (shrink)

In this article I develop Heidegger's phenomenology of poetry, showing that it may provide grounds for rejecting claims that he lapses into linguistic idealism. Proceeding via an analysis of the three concepts of language operative in the philosopher's work, I demonstrate how poetic language challenges language's designative and world-disclosive functions. The experience with poetic language, which disrupts Dasein's absorption by emerging out of equipmentality in the mode of the broken tool, brings Dasein to wonder at the world's existence in such (...) a way that doubt about its reality cannot enter the picture. (shrink)

Dr McShane’s discussion paper drew my attention to the theme of fragmentation. There is the fragmentation in our sense of our known worlds brought about by the relentless explosion of change in our collective knowledge and the related life styles which it necessitates. There is also the fragmentation in our sense of ourselves which will be our present concern. Alasdair Macintyre poses the question, how do actions and conversations add up or cohere in the unity of a human life? Translating (...) MacIntyre’s question we can ask: how might questions, insights, formulations, judgements, and decisions add up, cohere, and shape the form and identity of the self in time? It is a question which I believe students of Lonergan need to address. (shrink)

Traditional notions of civic education often introduce privilege and reproduce Eurocentric notions of citizenship. Proponents of cultural citizenship champion Black cultural knowledge, and critical race pedagogies to help marginalized individuals, including students of color, actualize their agentic selves. This manuscript presents three vignettes to demonstrate how teachers implemented the Black Lives Matter at School’s 13 Guiding Principles to develop Black cultural citizenship with students. Three salient aspects emerged: (1) the need for students to be active contributors in the current movement (...) for Black liberation; (2) a call to support students unlearning and relearning Black history; and (3) instruction that provides opportunities for students to recognize and challenge systems of oppression. (shrink)

Very soon after I began working on the identity of magic-workers in classical antiquity, I realized that it was necessary to come to terms with a thesis about depictions of erotic magic-working in Greek and Roman literature. It asserted that male writers engaged in a systematic misrepresentation of the realities of magic-working in portraying erotic magic as an exclusively female preserve; the reality was that men were the main participants in this form of magic-working. The thesis is based on the (...) supposition that the truth about erotic magic and the people who performed it is to be found in the formularies or spell-books preserved in papyrus and in defixiones. These two sources of information are said to show us that erotic magic was performed by men and not by the women who are the persons depicted engaging in love-magic in literature. The scholar who first presented the thesis was the late John Winkler. A version of it is to be found in Fritz Graf's general account of Greek and Roman magic. There is agreement over what are taken to be the facts, but views diverge over their interpretation. Winkler appeals to the Freudian notion of denial and transference to offer an explanation not only of the discrepancy between life and literature, but of what he took to be the belief held by the young men who cast erotic spells that the girls who were the objects of their spells were as sexually eager as they were: men, when overwhelmed by sexual desire for unattainable women, through a process of denial transfer that feeling to women, whether old or young, whom they fondly imagine suffer the same intense sexual longings as themselves. (shrink)

Topics in Cognitive Science, Volume 14, Issue 3, Page 550-573, July 2022.

Teacher-student relationship in India, with particular reference to Don Bosco's educational method.

Introduction: the figure of this world -- 1. The question of political ontology -- 2. The poetic experience of the world -- 3. The myth of the earth -- 4. The unbearable -- 5. The creature before the law -- 6. The animal for which animality is an issue -- 7. Understanding the happy -- 8. The picture and its captives -- 9. The passing of the figure of this world.

This article adds to previous accounts in the scholarship on Confucius's treatments of grief, mourning, death, and dying. Valuing Confucius’s remark that one must understand life to understand death, it is argued that through Confucius’s example in the Analects, we are guided in our quest for such understanding.

Near the end of W. G. Sebald’s Austerlitz, the book’s eponymous protagonist recalls visiting the zoo of the Jardin des Plantes with his friend Marie.1 The zoo is in bad shape; the pair overhear children questioning their parents: “Mais il est où? Pourquoi il se cache? Pourquoi il ne bouge pas? Est-ce qu’il est mort?” Sebald writes:I recollect that I myself saw a family of fallow deer gathered together by a manger of hay near the perimeter fence of a dusty (...) enclosure where no grass grew, a living picture of mutual trust and harmony which also had about it an air of constant vigilance and alarm. Marie particularly asked me to take a photograph of this beautiful group, and as she did so, said Austerlitz, she said... (shrink)

This essay challenges moral exemplarist interpretations of the Analects by focusing on exclusivist attitudes and actions exhibited by Confucius as he is portrayed in the Analects. Attention is drawn to what may be plausibly interpreted as culturalism and speciesism in the Analects. The case for culturalism in the Analects turns on a recurrent distinction therein between the Huá (Chinese) and Yí (non-Chinese; peoples outside of China proper), the latter commonly cast as barbarians—a term deployed similarly to yí being mán (rough; (...) reckless). The case for speciesism in the Analects turns on a number of passages of the Analects recommending a privileging of human interests over those of non-human animals. Acknowledgement of forms of Confucian exclusivism ought to provoke contemporary audiences to critically examine the text and to consider carefully that which ought to be regarded as exemplary and worthy of admiration and emulation in their own lives. (shrink)

Wai-ying Wong's Confucian Ethics in Western Discourse is an unusual book. The majority of its content is republished material, with Wong citing in the Acknowledgments twenty previously published articles duplicated in its pages. The book is organized in four parts: The Characteristics of Confucian Ethics, Confucian Ethics in Western Discourse, The Heritage and Development of Neo-Confucianism: The Thought of [the] Cheng Brothers, and Confucian Ethics and Contemporary Cultural Phenomena. These sections are mostly composed of clusters of republished articles, with the (...) fourth section, markedly shorter, consisting of two republished articles. Occasional interstitial additions enrich Wong's discussions... (shrink)

Plant‐specific NAC transcription factors (TFs) evolve during the transition from aquatic to terrestrial plant life and are amplified to become one of the biggest TF families. This is because they regulate genes involved in water conductance and cell support. They also control flower and fruit formation. The review presented here focuses on various properties, regulatory intricacies, and developmental roles of NAC family members. Processes controlled by NACs depend majorly on their transcriptional properties. NACs can function as both activators and/or repressors. (...) Additionally, their homo/hetero dimerization abilities can also affect DNA binding and activation properties. The active protein levels are dependent on the regulatory cascades. Because NACs regulate both development and stress responses in plants, in‐depth knowledge about them has the potential to help guide future crop improvement studies. (shrink)