Emissions arising from the production and consumption of food are acknowledged as a major contributor to climate change. From a consumer’s perspective, however, the sustainability of food may have many meanings: it may result from eating less meat, becoming vegetarian, or choosing to buy local or organic food. To explore what food sustainability means to consumers, and what factors lead to changes in food practice, we adopt a sociotechnical approach to compare the food consumption practices in North West England with (...) two differing consumer groups. The first, supermarket shoppers ‘embedded’ in the mainstream food regime; and the second, who self-identify as sustainable food practitioners, and who perform a range of sustainable food consumption practices. We examine how our two groups experience changes in food practices and identify ‘fractures’ stemming from lifecourse and public events that emerge as points where change might occur. We suggest that ‘sharing spaces’ would be one possibility for prompting and nurturing fractures that can lead to greater sustainability in food practices. (shrink)

In ‘The nature of moral judgments and the extent of the moral domain’, Fraser criticises findings by Kelly et al. that speak against the moral/conventional distinction, arguing that the experiment was confounded. First, we note that the results of that experiment held up when confounds were removed . Second, and more importantly, we argue that attempts to prove the existence of a M/C distinction are systematically confounded. In contrast to Fraser, we refer to data that support our view. We highlight (...) the implications for the moral/conventional theory. (shrink)

Postulating the subcortical organization of human consciousness provides a critical link for the construal of pain in patients with impaired cortical function or cortical immaturity during early development. Practical implications of the centrencephalic proposal include the redefinition of pain, improved pain assessment in nonverbal humans, and benefits of adequate analgesia/anesthesia for these patients, which certainly justify the rigorous scientific efforts required. (Published Online May 1 2007).

This study aimed to investigate whether a range of tasks that have been generally classed as requiring insight form an empirically separable group of tasks distinct from tasks generally classed as non-insight. In this study, 24 insight tasks, 10 non-insight tasks, and tests of individual differences in cognitive abilities and working memory were administered to 60 participants. Cluster analysis of the problem-solving tasks indicated that the presumed insight problems did tend to cluster with other presumed insight problems, and similarly the (...) presumed non-insight problems tended to cluster with other presumed non-insight tasks. Performance on presumed insight problems was particularly linked to measures of ideational flexibility with a different pattern of results for the non-insight tasks. Spatial insight problems were linked to spatial flexibility and verbal insight tasks were linked to vocabulary scores. The results are discussed in relation to recent developments of dual process theories of thinking. (shrink)

In recent years there has been an upsurge of research aimed at removing the mystery from insight and creative problem solving. The present special issue reflects this expanding field. Overall the papers gathered here converge on a nuanced view of insight and creative thinking as arising from multiple processes that can yield surprising solutions through a mixture of “special” Type 1 processes and “routine” Type 2 processes.

For centuries medical schools in Britain and elsewhere had a fairly static curriculum based on what might be called the 'three Rs' of medicine, and consequently had to make room for new subjects as the need arose in a fashion which was sometimes makeshift. However, Southampton University has only had a medical school for six years, and therefore their course on medical ethics and legal medicine was carefully integrated into the curriculum after some preliminary experiments carried out by a subcommittee (...) which is continually reviewing the situation. Medical ethics has now a definite place in the fourth year, preceded by an introduction to ethical problems encountered in medicine in the first year. Not only do members of the medical faculty participate in this teaching but also members of the faculties of law and the arts. (shrink)

This volume is a collection of ten essays by Douglas Gasking (1911–1994), a significant figure in Australian philosophy. There are three previously published papers, “Mathematics and the World” (proposing a form of conventionalism), “Causation and Recipes” (expounding a manipulation account of causation), and “Clusters”, (an account of certain varieties of class-membership). The seven previously unpublished papers include further work on causation, some epistemological issues, subjective probability, a carefully worked out account of the sense in which observable behaviour can be criterial (...) for mental states, and the distinction between deductive and inductive arguments.The introduction to the volume describes Gasking’s life and work, and a bibliography lists Gasking’s publication, and also works of other philosophers who have engaged with Gasking’s ideas. (shrink)

Two firm points in the chronology of Antiphon's speeches are VI περ το χορευτο in 419/81 and the Defence in 411/02. Speech V περ τσ 'Hρδου is now generally dated between these two; only the vaguest attempts have been made to date I κατ τσ μητρυασ; there is no general agreement on either the date or the authorship of the Tetralogies. The main purpose of this paper is to adduce linguistic as well as external evidence for the dating of V (...) in the neighbourhood of 414 and to show grounds for dating I between VI and V. Its secondary purpose is to apply some of the results gained in this inquiry to the fragments and the Tetralogies. (shrink)

The integrated information theory is a promising theory of consciousness. However, there are several problems with IIT's axioms and postulates. Moreover, IIT entails that some twodimensional grids of identical logic gates have more consciousness than humans. Many have found this prediction to be implausible, and as will be argued here, this prediction also exacerbates the so-called 'hard problem of consciousness'. Recently, it has been argued that if we treat the phenomenological aspects of consciousness as an illusion, we can avoid the (...) hard problem altogether by replacing it with the more tractable illusion problem: the problem of explaining how introspection systematically misrepresents experiences as having phenomenology. IIT is intended to be a theory of the phenomenological aspects of consciousness. However, it is possible to reformulate the axioms and postulates of IIT consistently with illusionism. Here it is argued that the resulting theory -- illusionist integrated information theory -- removes several problems for IIT including the hard problem and the logic gate problem, and also enables meaningful progress for illusionists on solving the illusion problem. (shrink)

Most of the economic models on basic income account just for pecuniary forms of work, i. e. “time spent making money”, in employment. This restriction is a drawback of these analyses and of the standard economic labor supply model itself. If one wants to understand the potential effects of basic income on individual and social welfare, one should not restrict observation to the pecuniary uses of time. The objective of this contribution is to rethink the meaning of work usually applied (...) in economic models, based on contributions of other social scientists. This reassessment is undertaken through the development of a microeconomic model, which discusses the effects of basic income on time use and interprets work not just as a source of income, but also of non-pecuniary benefits. Further, we disentangle the usual work-leisure dichotomy in two other ones. (shrink)

The present study investigated the role of thought suppression in incubation, using a delayed incubation paradigm. A total of 301 participants were tested over five conditions, viz., continuous work control, incubation with a mental rotations interpolated task, focussed suppression, unfocussed suppression and a conscious expression condition. Checks were made for intermittent work during the incubation condition. The target task was alternative uses for a brick. In the incubation and suppression conditions, participants worked for 4 minutes, then had a break during (...) which suppression or the mental rotations interpolated task was carried out for 3 minutes before conscious work was resumed for a further 4 minutes on the alternative uses task. Results indicated that both incubation with an interpolated distractor task and incubation with suppression were effective in enhancing performance relative to controls. The intermittent work hypothesis (that effects of an incubation period are simply due to illicit con.. (shrink)

This paper reports a study of planning processes in the five-disc Tower of London (TOL) task in 20 younger and 20 older adult participants. A concurrent direct ''think-aloud'' method was used to obtain data on planning processes prior to moving discs in the TOL. A check was made of the effects of verbalising by comparing performance data from the experimental groups with data from control groups who did not verbalise during planning or moving. Verbalising slowed down planning and moving but (...) did not appear to distort the participants' approaches to the task. Older and younger participants did not differ in average moves taken to solve the tasks. However, older participants' planning was less complete and more error-prone than that of younger participants. The planning processes were characterised as showing a means-ends ''goal selection'' strategy. In this strategy participants (1) identify a single active goal disc at the start, (2) select moves and move sequences to enable the placing of the current goal disc in its target position, and (3) continue in this way until all discs are in their target positions. Age differences were found in the planning stage, during which there was no stimulus support and hence a substantial working memory load. During the move phase there was stimulus support and hence little loading of working memory. Age differences in moves required were not found in the move phase. As older participants tend to have depleted working memory capacity the present results suggest that working memory is heavily loaded in TOL planning but less so in the move phase of TOL. (shrink)

This historical survey of Greek literature from 700 BC to 550 AD concentrates on the principal authors and quotes many passages from their work in translation, to allow the reader to form his own impression of its quality, including Homer, Plato, Aristophanes, and Euripides. Attention is drawn both to the elements in Greek literature and attitudes to life which are unfamiliar to us, and to the elements which appeal most powerfully to succeeding generations. Although it is recognized that this appeal (...) lies above all in the most creative and inventive period, an account is given of the eight hundred years which followed, which saw the impact of earlier inspirations. Poetry, tragedy, comedy, history, science, philosophy, and oratory are all examined through the available literature. This new edition has been revised to take account of recent scholarship, such as the influence of oriental traditions of Greek literature, and includes several new translations and a thoroughly updated bibliography. (shrink)