Community psychologists address social inequalities and problems by employing ecological principles, multiple methodologies, and participatory approaches to empower individuals, organizations, and communities to organize action and systems change. This article aims to contribute to mixed methods literature by presenting three models of mixed methods participatory research across a variety of geographic and sociocultural contexts. The models outline participatory processes and points of qualitative and quantitative data integration. Challenges related to the interplay between participatory approaches and mixed methods studies as well (...) as implications on social science research are discussed. (shrink)

Marine ecosystems are under increasing pressure from human activity, yet successful management relies on knowledge. The evidence-based policy (EBP) approach has been promoted on the grounds that it provides greater transparency and consistency by relying on ‘high quality’ information. However, EBP also creates epistemic responsibilities. Decision-making where limited or no empirical evidence exists, such as is often the case in marine systems, creates epistemic obligations for new information acquisition. We argue that philosophical approaches can inform the science-policy interface. Using marine (...) biosecurity examples, we specifically examine the epistemic challenges in the acquisition and acceptance of evidence to inform policy, discussing epistemic due care and biases in consideration of evidence. (shrink)

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

Fortunately, to be a commentator on a lecture does not entail that one disagrees with it! I heartily endorse a great deal of what Jonathan has argued for in this lecture; and I cannot think of a more timely moment to speak up for respect for human dignity in an absolute opposition to humiliation, when In the USA and in the UK political leaders have used public humiliation of minority groups as a way of gaining power, and such denial of (...) basic human rights has seemingly become acceptable to large section of the population. (shrink)

We agree that the relationship between phenomenology and accessibility can be fruitfully investigated via meshing, but we want to emphasise the importance of proper comparison between meshes, as well as considerations that make comparison especially difficult in this domain. We also argue that Block's interpretation of the neural data in his exemplar mesh is incorrect, and propose an alternative.

The so-called “Levelling Down Objection” is commonly believed to occupy a central role in the debate between egalitarians and prioritarians. Egalitarians think that equality is good in itself, and so they are committed to finding value even in such equality as may only be achieved by “levelling down”–i.e., by merely reducing the better off to the level of the worse off. Although egalitarians might deny that levelling down could ever make for an all-things-considered improvement, they cannot deny that it may (...) make things better in at least one respect. Prioritarians, on the other hand, do deny this; according to them, levelling down cannot make things better in any respect. In this paper I argue that the Levelling Down Objection leans far too heavily on a heretofore unanalysed notion: namely, the notion of “being better in this or that respect.” I propose what I take to be a plausible analysis of that notion, and show that, given the proposed analysis, the prioritarian is no less vulnerable to the Levelling Down Objection than is the egalitarian. I conclude that proponents of the Levelling Down Objection need either to suggest a better analysis or abandon the Levelling Down Objection altogether. (shrink)

Der Artikel spürt den subtilen Veränderungen nach, die bei Patienten, die mit tiefer Hirnstimulation behandelt werden, möglicherweise beobachtet werden können. Dabei sollen im Rückgriff auf Konzeptionen zur narrativen Identität mittels einer möglichst genauen Beschreibung und Analyse der Selbstwahrnehmung der Patienten sowie der Wahrnehmung ihres Umfelds die Änderungen im praktischen Selbstverhältnis untersucht werden, u. a. am Beispiel technomorpher Metaphern, die von den Patienten in ihren Selbstbeschreibungen verwendet werden. Ziel ist es, die Neuartigkeit und das Spezifische der Neurotechnologien – über die bisherigen (...) Untersuchungen hinaus – hinsichtlich des Umgangs mit sich selbst herauszuarbeiten und greifbar zu machen. Abschließend werden auf Basis der Analyse der Patienten-Narrationen die entsprechenden normativen Implikationen für eine ethische Bewertung des Einsatzes von Neurotechnologien benannt. (shrink)

The design inference uncovers intelligent causes by isolating the key trademark of intelligent causes: specified events of small probability. Just about anything that happens is highly improbable, but when a highly improbable event is also specified (i.e., conforms to an independently given pattern) undirected natural causes lose their explanatory power. Design inferences can be found in a range of scientific pursuits from forensic science to research into the origins of life to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

In his early lecture courses, Martin Heidegger exhibited an abiding interest in human life. He believed that human life has philosophical import while it is actually being lived; language has philosophical import while it is being spoken. In this book, Scott Campbell traces the development of Heidegger's ideas about factical life through his interest in Greek thought and its concern with Being. He contends that Heidegger's existential concerns about human life and his ontological concerns about the meaning of Being (...) crystallize in the notion of Dasein as the Being of factical human life. Emphasizing the positive aspects of everydayness, Campbell explores the contexts of meaning embedded within life; the intensity of average, everyday life; the temporal immediacy of life in early Christianity; the hermeneutic pursuit of life's self-alienation; factical spatiality; the temporalizing of history within life; the richness of the world; and the facticity of speaking in Plato and Aristotle. He shows how Heidegger presents a way of grasping human life as riddled with deception but also charged with meaning and open to revelation and insight. (shrink)

In [STU 00, KUT 03] we introduced a family of ‘modal' languages intended for talking about distances. These languages are interpreted in ‘distance spaces' which satisfy some of the standard axioms of metric spaces. Among other things, we singled out decidable logics of distance spaces and proved expressive completeness results relating classical and modal languages. The aim of this paper is to axiomatize the modal fragments of the semantically defined distance logics of [KUT 03] and give a new proof of (...) their decidability. (shrink)

Cascades of Grace was formed within the United Reformed Church through Global and Intercultural Ministries to network and empower Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic women in the churches. In the article, two of the founding members describe the formation of the group, and their own experiences in URC and other churches, and in candidating for ministry.

Experience the richness of classical literature and philosophy with this insightful analysis of the language used by two of its most famous practitioners: Lucretius and Cicero. Katharine C. Reiley provides a detailed examination of key terms and concepts, shedding new light on the complexity and sophistication of their foundational works. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In this chapter, I shall give an account of the emergence of bioethics as a field of study and then describe its common features in an international context. In the final section I shall suggest how some concept of public reason might be used to meet the challenges thrown up by the contentious nature of the field.

Clothing is central to the worlds described in early modern utopian texts: of twenty-three utopian texts written and published in England between 1516 and 1656, 91 percent mention dress, and 82 percent contain more extensive description or comment upon clothing. Written by elite authors for elite readers, these texts assign clothing a leading role in the establishment and maintenance of social order in a range of areas, including governance, social and religious control, personal expression, and ideological stance. Separated from the (...) material constraints of the physical world, dress in these worlds has meaning rather than substance; we see how the authors think about dress and fashion—not how... (shrink)

Interpreters of Socrates’ argument at Gorgias 466A4-468E5 that rhetoricians and tyrants have little power because they do almost nothing they want tend either to think that the argument is invalid, or that Socrates relies upon peculiar uses of the terms ‘power’ and ‘want.’ By examining this passage within its larger dialectical context, I show that Socrates’ argument is valid and relies only on his interlocutor’s conventional use of the terms ‘power’ and ‘want.’.

Definitional slippage threatens to equate secondary sociopathy with mere criminality and leaves the status of noncriminal sociopaths ambiguous. Primary sociopathy appears to show more environmental contingency than would be implied by a strong genetic trait approach. A reinterpretation in terms of hypermasculinity and hypofemininity is compatible with the data.

There is no agreement about the supplement at the end of the first line. almost certainly refers to marriage, discussion of which is postponed till something becomes black or turns dark. Theiler's hardly fits thecontext, and Burkert's with the sense ‘when the grapes ripen’ is not convincing. A metaphorical sense for ‘grapes’ is preferable, e.g. or, better, , , ‘when youwill be old enough to marry’; but the phrase comes with a jolt in the absence of any preparation or immediate (...) follow-up: in the passages of Philodemus andHorace quoted as parallel by Ebert-Luppes the metaphor is not simply a singleword but is extended over two or three lines. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft Jahrgang: 24 Heft: 2 Seiten: 205-212.

Truthlikeness in historiography would allow us to be optimistic fallible realists about historiography – to hold that historical knowledge is about the past, true albeit fallible, and can increase over time. In this paper, three desiderata for a concept of truthlikeness in historiography will be outlined. One of the main challenges for truthlikeness is historiographic skepticism which holds that historiography is indistinguishable from fiction and cannot therefore furnish us with true knowledge about the past. Such skepticism rests on the postmodern (...) challenge, which will be criticized on the grounds that it rests on an implausible theory of meaning. It will be shown that Peirce’s semeiotic and pragmatist theory of truth, interpreted dialogically or game-theoretically, provides a suitable framework within which to pursue the project of defining a concept of truthlikeness for historiography. Finally, directions for possible future research into truthlikeness in historiography, including ways of defining a measure of truthlikeness, will be considered. (shrink)