In this chapter, we will address criticisms to the theory of ecological functions introduced by Nunes-Neto et al. (2014). In doing so, we intend to further develop the theory, as a possible basis for naturalizing the teleological and normative dimensions of ecological functions. We will also take the first steps in the construction of an integrated scientific and ethical approach to sustainability that is intended to avoid an anthropocentric perspective.

In this research, the authors present a model that demonstrates that motivating managers to change unpopular or irresponsible corporate behavior may be required when the stakeholders desire such a change. Using agency theory, they then test part of the model and demonstrate why it may be necessary for an organized protest to impact on share prices before managers choose to change the behavior. Investors' reactions to announcements of product boycotts and stock divestitures made over the 23-year period 1969-1991 were examined. (...) Announcements about boycotts were associated with significant negative market reactions, whereas divestiture announcements resulted in no significant market responses. From a pure stock market perspective, boycotts appear to be a more effective tool in influencing managers to change a company's behavior. (shrink)

Take part... and you will bear witness to the semiotic nature of human animals. This event, commented by Charbel Niño El-Hani (Federal University of Bahia) and chaired by Elma Berisha (Lyceum Institute), is part of the activities of the 2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics: a Tribute to John Deely on the Fifth Anniversary of His Passing, cooperatively organized by the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, the Lyceum Institute, the (...) Deely Project, Saint Vincent College, the Iranian Society for Phenomenology at the Iranian Political Science Association, the International Association for Semiotics of Space and Time, the Institute for Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Maritain Association, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies, the International Center for Semiotics and Intercultural Dialogue, Moscow State Academic University for the Humanities and the Mansarda Acesa with the support of the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the Government of Portugal under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project. *** Jamin Pelkey is Associate Professor and Program Director in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Ryerson University, Toronto, where he is also an active faculty member in the Ryerson-York graduate program in Communication & Culture. He serves as Co-Editor of Semiotica, Vice President of the International Association for Cognitive Semiotics, and executive board member for the International Cognitive Linguistics Association, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies, and the Semiotic Society of America. Jamin’s research explores semiotic dimensions of language evolution and embodied cognition. He is the recipient of the 2017 Mouton d’Or Award for best article in Semiotica and has edited or co-edited twelve collections in linguistics, anthropology, and semiotics, including Tropological Thought and Action (2022), Cognitive Semiotics (2019), Applied Brand Semiotics (2018), Archaeology of Concepts (2018), Sociohistorical Linguistics in Southeast Asia (2017), Virtual Identities (2016), and The Semiotics of Paradox (2015). His authored books include Dialectology as Dialectic (2011) and The Semiotics of X (2017). He is currently editing Bloomsbury Semiotics, a major reference work in four volumes. *** Charbel N. El-Hani is full professor in the Institute of Biology, Federal University of Bahia, Brazil. Coordinator of the LEFHBio - History, Philosophy, and Biology Teaching Lab and the INCT IN-TREE - National Institute of Science and Technology in Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary Studies in Ecology and Evolution. Between January 2020 and July 2021, he was visiting researcher at the CES - Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, Portugal. He works in the areas of philosophy of biology, ecology, ethnobiology and science education research. *** Homepage: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s Auditorium: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s/auditorium *** Technical support assured by Robert Junqueira. The cover image for the video was designed by Zahra Soltani. (shrink)

Mimicry and deception are two important issues in studies about animal communication. The reliability of animal signs and the problem of the benefits of deceiving in sign exchanges are interesting topics in the evolution of communication. In this paper, we intend to contribute to an understanding of deception by studying the case of aggressive signal mimicry in fireflies, investigated by James Lloyd. Firefly femmes fatales are specialized in mimicking the mating signals of other species of fireflies with the purpose of (...) attracting responding males to become their prey. These aggressive mimics are a major factor in the survival and reproduction of both prey and predator. It is a case of deception through active falsification of information that leads to efficient predation by femmes fatales fireflies and triggered evolutionary processes in their preys’ communicative behaviors. There are even nested coevolutionary interactions between these fireflies, leading to a remarkable system of deceptive and counterdeceptive signaling behaviors. We develop here a semiotic model of firefly deception and also consider ideas advanced by Lloyd about the evolution of communication, acknowledging that deception can be part of the explanation of why communication evolves towards increasing complexity. Increasingly complex sign exchanges between fireflies evolve in an extremely slow pace. Even if deceptive maneuvers are played out time and time again between particular firefly individuals, the evolution of the next level of complexity—and thus the next utterance in the dialogue between species—is likely to take an immense amount of generations. (shrink)

Ethnobiology has become increasingly concerned with applied and normative issues such as climate change adaptation, forest management, and sustainable agriculture. Applied ethnobiology emphasizes the practical importance of local and traditional knowledge in tackling these issues but thereby also raises complex theoretical questions about the integration of heterogeneous knowledge systems. The aim of this article is to develop a framework for addressing questions of integration through four core domains of philosophy - epistemology, ontology, value theory, and political theory. In each of (...) these dimensions, we argue for a model of “partial overlaps” that acknowledges both substantial similarities and differences between knowledge systems. While overlaps can ground successful collaboration, their partiality requires reflectivity about the limitations of collaboration and co-creation. By outlining such a general and programmatic framework, the article aims to contribute to developing “philosophy of ethnobiology” as a field of interdisciplinary exchange that provides new resources for addressing foundational issues in ethnobiology and also expands the agenda of philosophy of biology. (shrink)

This article intends to show that the defense of “understanding” as one of the major goals of science education can be grounded on an anti-reductionist perspective on testimony as a source of knowledge. To do so, we critically revisit the discussion between Harvey Siegel and Alvin Goldman about the goals of science education, especially where it involves arguments based on the epistemology of testimony. Subsequently, we come back to a discussion between Charbel N. El-Hani and Eduardo Mortimer, on the one (...) hand, and Michael Hoffmann, on the other, striving to strengthen the claim that rather than students’ belief change, understanding should have epistemic priority as a goal of science education. Based on these two lines of discussion, we conclude that the reliance on testimony as a source of knowledge is necessary to the development of a more large and comprehensive scientific understanding by science students. (shrink)

Transdisciplinary research challenges the divide between Indigenous and academic knowledge by bringing together epistemic resources of heterogeneous stakeholders. The aim of this article is to explore causal explanations in a traditional fishing community in Brazil that provide resources for transdisciplinary collaboration, without neglecting differences between Indigenous and academic experts. Semi-structured interviews were carried out in a fishing village in the North shore of Bahia and our findings show that community members often rely on causal explanations for local ecological phenomena with (...) different degrees of complexity. While these results demonstrate the ecological expertise of local community members, we also argue that recognition of local expertise needs to reflect on differences between epistemic communities by developing a culturally sensitive model of transdisciplinary knowledge negotiation. (shrink)

In this article, we draw upon the Conceptual Profile Theory to discuss the negotiation of meanings related to the energy concept in an 11th grade physics classroom. This theory is based on the heterogeneity of verbal thinking, that is, on the idea that any individual or society does not represent concepts in a single way. According to this perspective, the processes of conceptualization consist of the use of a repertoire of different socially stabilized signifiers, adjusted to the context in which (...) they occur. We start by proposing zones of a conceptual profile model for energy, each zone being characterized by its own commitments and identifiable by certain modes of talking about energy. Based on classroom evidence, we claim that teachers and students negotiate meanings that interpenetrate the domains of everyday and scientific knowledge. Being inevitable and necessary, this heterogeneity of conceptual thinking needs to be considered in teaching design in order to allow its awareness on the part of the students. We argue that students’ conceptual development goals should be considered in terms of general goals of science education, which points to the need of overcoming the encapsulation of scientific school knowledge. We show that the Conceptual Profile Theory provides a basis for science education that can promote the crossing of cultural boundaries, seeking relations between science and the spheres of everyday life. (shrink)

Genetic determinism can be described as the attribution of the formation of traits to genes, where genes are ascribed more causal power than what scientific consensus suggests. Belief in genetic determinism is an educational problem because it contradicts scientific knowledge, and is a societal problem because it has the potential to foster intolerant attitudes such as racism and prejudice against sexual orientation. In this article, we begin by investigating the very nature of belief in genetic determinism. Then, we investigate whether (...) knowledge of genetics and genomics is associated with beliefs in genetic determinism. Finally, we explore the extent to which social factors such as gender, education, and religiosity are associated with genetic determinism. Methodologically, we gathered and analyzed data on beliefs in genetic determinism, knowledge of genetics and genomics, and social variables using the “Public Understanding and Attitudes towards Genetics and Genomics” instrument. Our analyses of PUGGS responses from a sample of Brazilian university freshmen undergraduates indicated that belief in genetic determinism was best characterized as a construct built up by two dimensions or belief systems: beliefs concerning social traits and beliefs concerning biological traits; levels of belief in genetic determination of social traits were low, which contradicts prior work; associations between knowledge of genetics and genomics and levels of belief in genetic determinism were low; and social factors such as age and religiosity had stronger associations with beliefs in genetic determinism than knowledge. Although our study design precludes causal inferences, our results raise questions about whether enhancing genetic literacy will decrease or prevent beliefs in genetic determinism. (shrink)

This article discusses how to deal with the relations between different cultural perspectives in classrooms, based on a proposal for considering understanding and knowledge as goals of science education, inspired by Dewey’s naturalistic humanism. It thus combines educational and philosophical interests. In educational terms, our concerns relate to how science teachers position themselves in multicultural classrooms. In philosophical terms, we are interested in discussing the relations between belief, understanding, and knowledge under the light of Dewey’s philosophy. We present a synthesis (...) of Dewey’s theory of inquiry through his naturalistic humanism and discuss its implications for the concepts of belief, understanding, and knowledge, as well as for the goals of science teaching. In particular, we highlight problems arising in the context of possible conflicts between scientific and religious claims in the school environment that result from totalitarian positions. We characterize an individual’s position as totalitarian if he or she takes some way of thinking as the only one capable of expressing the truth about all that exists in the world, lacks open-mindedness to understand different interpretative perspectives, and attempts to impose her or his interpretation about the facts to others by violent means or not. From this stance, any other perspective is taken to be false a priori and, accordingly, as a putative target to be suppressed or adapted to the privileged way of thinking. We argue, instead, for a more fallibilist evaluation of our own beliefs and a more respectful appraisal of the diversity of students’ beliefs by both students and teachers. (shrink)

Currently there are persistent doubts about the meaning and contributions of the gene concept, mostly related to its interpretation as a stretch of DNA encoding a single functional product, i.e., the classical molecular gene concept. There is, however, much conceptual variation around genes, leading to important difficulties in genetics teaching. We investigated whether and how conceptual variation related to the gene concept and gene function models is present in school science and what potential problems it may bring to genetics teaching (...) and learning. Here, we report results on how ideas about genes and gene function are treated in textbooks and appear in students’ views and, also, about a teaching strategy for improving higher education students’ understanding of scientific models and conceptual variation around genes and their functions. (shrink)

This paper examines how employees’ career aspirations benefit organizations, i.e., contribute to strengthening organizational capabilities and connections, by means of two aspects of contemporary work: proactive and relational. Data were collected from alumni of a public university in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in two waves with a one-year time lag. The results showed that employees with career aspirations strengthen: a) organizational capabilities; and b) organizational connections through their instrumental and psychosocial relationships. Interestingly, although employees’ career aspirations were positively associated with taking (...) charge, we did not find that taking charge mediates the relationship between career aspirations and employees’ individual contributions to organizational capabilities. This study is the first to examine how individual career aspirations benefit organizations, and it discusses the results in light of their novel contributions to theory and practice. (shrink)

The ternary xV2O5–(40 − x)Li2O–60B2O3 glass system, where x = 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 mol%, was prepared by normal quenching. Ultrasonic velocities and attenuation were measured at room temperature using a pulse-echo technique. Various parameters, such as elastic moduli, micro-hardness, Poisson's ratio and Debye temperature, were determined from the measured densities and velocities. The composition dependence of these parameters, in addition to the glass-transition temperature, suggested that vanadium ions were incorporated into these glasses as a network modifier, resulting (...) in the reconversion of BO4 tetrahedra to BO3 triangles by the breaking of B–O–B linkages and the formation of nonbridging oxygens (NBOs). The outcome was a reduction in network connectivity and rigidity with increasing V2O5 content. The results are explained quantitatively in terms of fractal bond connectivity, average atomic volume, network dimensionality, packing density, number of network bonds per unit volume, cross-link density and atomic ring size. The Makishima and Mackenzie model appears to be valid for the studied glasses when the fate of BO4 tetrahedra and creation of NBOs are taken into account. (shrink)

Functional language is ubiquitous in ecology, mainly in the researches about biodiversity and ecosystem function. However, it has not been adequately investigated by ecologists or philosophers of ecology. In the contemporary philosophy of ecology we can recognize a kind of implicit consensus about this issue: while the etiological approaches cannot offer a good concept of function in ecology, Cummins’ systemic approach can. Here we propose to go beyond this implicit consensus, because we think these approaches are not adequate for ecology. (...) We argue that a sound epistemological framework to function in ecology is to be found in organizational approaches. In this line, we define function in ecology as a precise effect of a given constraint on the ecosystem flow of matter and energy performed by a given item of biodiversity, within a closure of constraints. We elaborate on this definition by developing a case study of a bromeliad ecosystem. (shrink)

A recent idea of “ecosystem health” was introduced in the 1970s and 1980s to draws attention to the fact that ecosystems can become ill because of a reduction of properties such as primary productivity, functions and diversity of interactions among system components. Starting from the 1990s, this idea has been deeply criticized by authors who argued that, insofar as ecosystems show many differences with respect to organismic features, these two kinds of systems cannot share a typical organismic property such as (...) health. In recent years, an organisational approach in philosophy of biology and ecology argued that both organisms and ecosystems may share a fundamental characteristic despite their differences, namely, organisational closure. Based on this kind of closure, scholars have also discussed health and malfunctional states in organisms. In this paper, we examine the possibility of expanding such an organisational approach to health and malfunctions to the ecological domain. Firstly, we will see that a malfunction is related to a lower effectiveness in the functional behaviour of some biotic components with respect to other systemic components. We will then show how some introduced species do not satisfactorily interact in an organisational closure with other ecosystem components, thus posing a threat to the self-maintenance of the ecosystem in which they are found. Accordingly, we will argue that an ecosystem can be said to be healthy when it is a vital environment organisationally grounded on its intrinsic capacity to ensure, under favourable conditions, appropriate functional behaviours for ecosystem components and ecosystem self-maintenance. (shrink)