The Modeling of Nature provides an excellent introduction to the fundamentals of natural philosophy, psychology, logic, and epistemology.

This book brings together contributions from scholars across the humanities. A wide-ranging exploration of the interface between performance and nature. Examines the use and usefulness of ideas of ‘performance’ for understanding human-nature relationships. Draws on different disciplines and intellectual traditions and on different conceptions of ‘performance’ and ‘nature’. Contributions are rooted in real-world contexts and problems, explored through detailed ethnographic work. Explores domains as diverse as allotments and bioinvasion, fox hunting and green politics. Makes a distinctive contribution to the ‘cultural (...) turn’ in environmental research. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider recent attempts to metaphysically explain agentive modality in terms of conditionals. We suggest that the best recent accounts face counterexamples, and more worryingly, they take some agentive modality for granted. In particular, the ability to perform basic actions features as a primitive in these theories. While it is perfectly acceptable for a semantics of agentive modal claims to take some modality for granted in getting the extension of action claims correct, a metaphysical explanation of agentive (...) modality cannot, at least not in the way that conditional approaches to agentive modality do. We argue that this problem was present even in the classical conditional analysis. By a pessimistic induction, we suggest that, probably, no conditional approach to agentive modality will succeed. (shrink)

Fear is a preventer, sometimes robustly so. When fear robustly prevents, it changes or diminishes what an agent is able to do. Various popular conceptions of fear focus on its negative role: fear sometimes prevents us from acting as we should, as in certain cases of akrasia. But by the same token, fear sometimes prevents us from acting as we shouldn’t, as in certain other cases of inverse akrasia. We end with a plea on behalf of fear, both in light (...) of its preventing role and its broader connection to other ways we express concern, in particular, to hope. (shrink)

The extraction of natural resources is a controversial business practice that has profound ethical and economic risk implications for both firms involved in extractive activities and society at large. In response to these implications, the Dodd–Frank Act of 2010 directed the Securities and Exchange Commission to create the first ever rules requiring annual corporate responsibility disclosures. The two proposed rules, requiring disclosure of the source of “conflict minerals” and of payments to foreign governments by extractive firms, conjured intense debate among (...) stakeholders, largely related to the risks of firms providing the information. These risks span from required disclosures increasing compliance costs for firms to non-disclosure threatening human rights. In this study, we seek to understand the way in which stakeholders perceive the risks associated with corporate responsibility disclosures. We analyze comment letters submitted to the SEC related to the two disclosure rules through the lens of Douglas’s cultural perspectives of risk. We find consistencies across the two proposed disclosures with regard to the presence of three risk perspectives within the comment letter discourse for each proposal. We find inconsistencies, however, in the underlying nature of risk perceived across the two rules, which we argue reveals an aspect of risk that incorporates ethicality and is ultimately linked to reputational considerations. We complement these insights by analyzing the market reaction to the proposed regulations. Overall, our analysis suggests that stakeholders’ perceptions of risk have consequences for how risk is perceived and acted upon in the market. (shrink)

During the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, it was crucial that providers take steps to protect patients by managing HIV with the perspective of ‘HIV exceptionalism’. However, in 2020, the social and historical barriers erected by this concept, as demonstrated in this patient’s case, are considerably impeding progress to end the epidemic. With significant medical advances in HIV treatment and prevention, the policies informed by HIV exceptionalism now paradoxically perpetuate stigma and inequities, particularly for people of colour. To improve overall (...) HIV care, the medical community must move past HIV exceptionalism by liberalising diagnostics, instituting clinician implicit bias training and advocating to fully decriminalise HIV non-disclosure. (shrink)

Haecceitism is the thesis that, necessarily, in addition to its qualities, each thing has a haecceity or individual essence. The purpose of this paper is to expose a flaw in haecceitism: it entails that familiar cases of fission and fusion either admit of no explanation or else only admit of explanations too bizarre to warrant serious consideration. Because the explanatory problem we raise for haecceitism closely resembles the Euthyphro problem for divine command theory, we refer to our objection as the (...) haecceitic Euthyphro problem, or the Haecceitic Euthyphro for short. We conclude that the objection is decisive against haecceitism. (shrink)

This chapter outlines the basic elements that underwrite Kant's cosmopolitanism. In doing so, the chapter looks at the moral principles behind Kant's cosmopolitanism and the problem of Kant's cosmopolitan teleology, and develops a brief overview of Kant's more coherent principles of cosmopolitan law. It makes a connection between Kant's critical philosophy and the moral foundations of his cosmopolitanism. By framing Kant's overall cosmopolitan vision, this chapter further explores Kant's theory of history and suggests that it is based on a problematic (...) teleology. The chapter concludes by linking the various aspects of Kant's cosmopolitanism into a single coherent narrative that provides a basis for future developments. (shrink)

This article presents empirical evidence to address how some visitors build relationships with a wildland place over time. Insights are drawn from qualitative interviews of recreation visitors to the backcountry at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. The article describes relationship to place as the active construction and accumulation of place meanings. The analysis is organized around three themes that describe how people develop relationships to place: time and experience accrued in place, social and physical interactions in and with the (...) setting, and an active reflective process of regulating sense of identity to affirm commitment to place. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to extend and replicate previously published results from a random probability sample of university faculty. The sample assessed reasons given for companion-animal guardianship and for belief in the beneficial health effects of owning pets. In this replication and extension design, these two non-random samples responded to the same questionnaire items as those addressed to university faculty. Results indicated that avoidance of loneliness was the most frequent reason for owning pets among both students and middle-aged (...) community members. This result is consistent with the view that animals provide social support and companionship to humans at various stages of the life cycle. Suggesting an emergent feature of the human-nonhuman animal bond, both groups selected, “the pet helps keep me active” as the second-most common reason. Older women reported a greater belief in the health-giving benefits of pet ownership than did younger persons or men. This belief may contribute to human benefits of pet ownership and requires further research. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:130 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY statesmen who, for reasons of international politics, would wish this to be so; but if it were so, it would not in itself mean that American philosophy was any better. Although it is a useful literary device to select one theme by which to discuss major figures in a given period, and while the particular theme that Smith has selected is fairly appropriate (once we (...) have reconciled ourselves to the loss of Santayana), it is, I think, a mistake to overlook the diversity that has characterized American philosophic effort from colonial days to the present. But these criticisms, even if just, cannot detract from an extremely wellorganized, beautifully expressed, and immensely readable discussion of four or five American philosophers. Whether there is one spirit or several, its (or theirs) expression in American philosophers has been handsomely dealt with by Professor Smith. GERALD RUNKLE Southern Illinois University The Varieties of Goodness. By Georg Henrik von Wright. (New York: The Humanities Press, International Library of Philosophy and Scientific Method [12], 1963. Pp. xiv + 222. $5.50.) To review this volume critically and adequately is out of the question here; it is a major contribution to the theory of values and deserves to be studied carefully from this point of view. Here we can merely call attention to its historical significance and relation to other classics. It already has won a place in the history of the analysis of the good and should take its place in the series of classics, especially in the series which von Wright himself suggests--the ethical writing of Aristotle, Kant, and G. E. Moore. The relation to Aristotle is most evident and most rewarding, and the following comments are made in order to stress this historical relation. In 1959 and 1960 the author delivered the Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews and entitled them "Norms and Values, an Inquiry into the Conceptual Foundations of Morals and Legislation." This volume contains the second series, the one on values; the first, on norms, is to follow. The fact that the lectures on norms came first and this publication on values comes first is philosophically significant. A system of ethics, according to von Wright, is a body of normative concepts whose aim is practical rather than theoretical. But this volume, he insists, is not a system of ethics but an inquiry into how judgments of value are true or false. This conceptual analysis of the good lays a "conceptual foundation" for a theory of norms. Values and norms are definitely distinguished and given independent analyses. The transition from BOOK REVIEWS 131 an analysis of the varieties of goodness to the theory of norms is indicated in the last three chapters (VIII, 'good' and 'must'; IX, Duty; X, Justice), but the theory itself is to come in the second volume, based on the first series of the Gifford Lectures. Both volumes are intended as "conceptual analyses": instrumental value, technical excellence, beneficence, hedonic good, good man, good action, etc. --these varieties of good are treated here not as "states of affairs" but as concepts (p. 91). Though the general range of subject-matter is similar to that of Aristotle's Ethics, von Wright wishes to be clear in distinguishing between the concepts or judgments of goodness and the actual affairs of morals and legislation, a distinction which is ambiguous in Aristotle. Subjectmatter for Aristotle is "'legomena" and in practical or teleological sciences (such as is the case of this volume) the legomena (things-said) become in effect prolegomena. But for von Wright a philosophical analysis should concern itself not with the arts of morals and politics themselves but solely with their "conceptual foundations." The notion that practical affairs have conceptual foundations (not mere formulations) is characteristic of contemporary analysis and would probably be repudiated by Aristotle, who was careful to keep legomenaand phenomena intimately related; if either were foundational to the other, the arts themselves and not their concepts or "verbalizations " would be the basic factor. It is significant that even in von Wright's meticulous analysis, the distinction between the concepts and the affairs conceptualized is less evident in the later chapters, and the problems of the true... (shrink)

This article supplements the article by Fubin Yang in vol. 39 (2010) of this journal. The goal is to account for the recent surge of interest in process thought in China.

In this study we explored how the science department shaped the relationship between a science department head, Mr Greg, and a teacher, Ms Horton, as they grappled with their expectations of, and responsibilities for, teaching and leadership in the daily life in the department. We found that, from their life histories and their positions in the department, Mr Greg and Ms Horton have developed different values and visions that shape the ways they construct their work, particularly in relation to the (...) place of subject matter, goals for students, teamwork, roles and responsibilities and accountability. Although both shared a commitment to their students and to their subject, Mr Greg saw his contribution in subject organizational terms and Ms Horton saw hers in personal student terms. Orderliness and stability were important to the department head whereas Ms Horton valued spontaneity and innovation. Collaboration was Mr Greg's method of achieving the business of the department; working alone allowed Ms Horton the freedom and flexibility she needed. Accountability for Mr Greg was framed in organizational terms; Ms Horton was more concerned with the learning that took place in her classroom. Our case study looks at the range and intensity of the forces shaping the work of teachers and the way they organize themselves at work. We argue that, if we wish to continue to improve teaching and learning, particularly in secondary schools, we need to know a great deal more about the forces that operate in subject departments. (shrink)

In this study we explored how the science department shaped the relationship between a science department head, Mr Greg, and a teacher, Ms Horton, as they grappled with their expectations of, and responsibilities for, teaching and leadership in the daily life in the department. We found that, from their life histories and their positions in the department, Mr Greg and Ms Horton have developed different values and visions that shape the ways they construct their work, particularly in relation to the (...) place of subject matter, goals for students, teamwork, roles and responsibilities and accountability. Although both shared a commitment to their students and to their subject, Mr Greg saw his contribution in subject organizational terms and Ms Horton saw hers in personal student terms. Orderliness and stability were important to the department head whereas Ms Horton valued spontaneity and innovation. Collaboration was Mr Greg's method of achieving the business of the department; working alone allowed Ms Horton the freedom and flexibility she needed. Accountability for Mr Greg was framed in organizational terms; Ms Horton was more concerned with the learning that took place in her classroom. Our case study looks at the range and intensity of the forces shaping the work of teachers and the way they organize themselves at work. We argue that, if we wish to continue to improve teaching and learning, particularly in secondary schools, we need to know a great deal more about the forces that operate in subject departments. (shrink)

It is argued that future research capacity building for the social sciences needs to incorporate methods to accelerate the acquisition by researchers of holistic expertise relevant to their roles as researchers and as developers of others. An agenda is presented, based on a model of learning that highlights missing elements of current provision, and two approaches currently under development are described.

What mysteries lie at the heart of fiction's power to enchant and engage the mind? Empty Revelations considers a number of philosophical problems that fiction raises, including the primary issue of how we can think and talk about things that do not exist. Peter Alward covers thought-provoking terrain, exploring fictional truth, the experience of being "caught up" in a story, and the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. At the centre of Alward's argument is a figure known as the "narrative informant" (...) who mediates the reader's encounter with fictional events through - sometimes unreliable - reporting. Developing a theory in which the author is a sculptor who constructs works of fiction out of words, Alward demonstrates that much of the confusion about fiction stems from a failure to properly distinguish between writing fiction and telling stories. Combining clarity, philosophical sophistication, ingenuity, and originality, Empty Revelations is a rewarding read for both scholars of philosophy and anyone interested in the complex ways that fiction works. (shrink)

Upshot: We focus on the following issues: our intentions behind establishing the new Research Through Design conference series; epistemological concerns around “research through design”; and how we might find a balance between openness and specificity for the conference series going forward.

© 2014 Taylor Francis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends routine human immunodeficiency virus testing of every client presenting for services in venues where HIV prevalence is high. Because older adults have particularly poor prognosis if they receive their diagnosis late in the course of HIV disease, any screening provided to younger adults in these venues should also be provided to older adults. We examined aging-related disparities in recent and ever HIV testing in a probability sample of at-risk (...) adults seeking services in needle exchange sites, sexually transmitted disease clinics, and Latino community clinics that provide HIV testing. Using multiple logistic regression with generalized estimating equations, we estimated associations between age category and each HIV testing outcome. Even after controlling for covariates such as recent injection drug use, older adults had 40% lower odds than younger adults did of having tested in the past 12 months or ever. Aging-related disparities in HIV testing exist among clients of these high HIV prevalence venues and may contribute to known aging-related disparities in late diagnosis of HIV infection and poor long-term prognosis. (shrink)

This article introduces a new conceptualisation of the relationship between global distributive justice, development, and the study of peace, which we label the Responsibility for Peace (R4P). In doing so, the article examines the notion of positive peace within peace studies, its relation to arguments within global distributive justice, and to what degree this important relationship is recognised in the primary international framework to prevent and protect populations from mass atrocity crimes, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). The article argues that (...) despite growing recognition about the links between peace and development within both R2P and global justice discussions, it remains insufficient in terms of positive peace, thus requiring a new heuristic. In response, we argue that global justice demands refocused moral commitments to jus ante bellum (establishing global justice before war) and that this necessitates greater focus on the study of positive peace mechanisms, the identification and reform of structural injustices (against structural violence), and a retooled emphasis on human-centred development that can transcend existing legacies. In other words, we need to better focus on causes and not symptoms. It is this triangulation that we label the Responsibility for Peace (R4P), which should operate both prior to, and independently of, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). (shrink)

All of our information about the world is derived from the function of our senses, and thus they are the principal source of all our knowledge. This was recognized explicitly by early Greek philosophers, remained an important point of discussion for nineteenth‐century philosophers, and continues to be a key issue for present‐day philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists. It is a key issue in cognitive science because, by initiating the processes that store and evaluate information, sensory information transmission can be considered a (...) cognitive initiator. In a very real sense, who we are and how we see the world are the result of the experiences that are mediated by our sensory systems. These are some of the reasons why the study of sensory systems has occupied such a prominent place in modern cognitive neuroscience. (shrink)

We extend the comparatively simple processes of group symmetry-breaking in physical systems to groupoid/equivalence class phase transitions characterizing adiabatically, piecewise stationary, information transmission in prebiotic, biological, and social phenomena: High vs. Low probability paths $$\rightarrow$$ Interior and Exterior Interact $$\rightarrow$$ Multiple Interacting Tunable Workspaces Application to nonstationary processes seems possible via generalizations of the symmetry algebra, for example, to semigroupoids. The dynamic probability models explored here can be transformed into statistical tools for the analysis of real-time and other data across (...) a spectrum of important disciplines confronted by biological and other forms of cognition and their dysfunctions. (shrink)