The article examines the case of springtime bird hunting in Åland from a moral point of view. In Åland springtime hunting has been a cultural practice for centuries but is now under investigation due to the EU Directive on the protection of birds. The main question of the article is whether restrictions on bird hunting have a sound basis. We approach this question by analysing three principles: The animal rights principle states that if hunting is not necessary for survival, it (...) cannot be morally justified. Therefore hunting merely to engage in a cultural custom is morally suspect. In the light of the species conservation principle the hunting is questionable due to the fact that it seems to have a diminishing effect on the species populations. The formal principle of justice makes up a more difficult question since the special position of the minorities in regard to the use of natural resources is generally recognised so that they have the right to maintain their cultural practices. We claim, however, that even though cultural practices have substantial value and can be the object of special rights, they should be coherent with other principles. The springtime bird hunt in Åland does not accord with the relevant moral principles and for this reason we conclude that the basis for its continuation is weak. (shrink)

The article examines the case of springtime bird hunting in Aland from a moral point of view. In Aland springtime hunting has been a cultural practice for centuries but is now under investigation due to the EU Directive on the protection of birds. The main question of the article is whether restrictions on bird hunting have a sound basis. We approach this question by analysing three principles: The animal rights principle states that if hunting is not necessary for survival, it (...) cannot be morally justified. Therefore hunting merely to engage in a cultural custom is morally suspect. In the light of the species conservation principle the hunting is questionable due to the fact that it seems to have a diminishing effect on the species populations. The formal principle of justice makes up a more difficult question since the special position of the minorities in regard to the use of natural resources is generally recognised so that they have the right to maintain their cultural practices. We claim, however, that even though cultural practices have substantial value and can be the object of special rights, they should be coherent with other principles. The springtime bird hunt in Aland does not accord with the relevant moral principles and for this reason we conclude that the basis for its continuation is weak. (shrink)

This paper shows how to conservatively extend classical logic with a transparent truth predicate, in the face of the paradoxes that arise as a consequence. All classical inferences are preserved, and indeed extended to the full (truth—involving) vocabulary. However, not all classical metainferences are preserved; in particular, the resulting logical system is nontransitive. Some limits on this nontransitivity are adumbrated, and two proof systems are presented and shown to be sound and complete. (One proof system allows for Cut—elimination, but the (...) other does not.). (shrink)

The Exclusion Argument for physicalism maintains that since (1) every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause, and (2) cases of causal overdetermination are rare, it follows that if (3) mental events cause physical events as frequently as they seem to, then (4) mental events must be physical in nature. In defence of (1), it is sometimes said that (1) is supported if not entailed by conservation laws. Against this, I argue that conservation laws do not lend sufficient (...) support to (1) to render its denial ‘unscientific’, and that those who accept (3) and deny (4) may consequently respond to the Exclusion Argument by denying (1) without thereby setting themselves at odds with current science. I also argue that conservation laws are compatible with (3) and the negation of (4), and that one can therefore accept conservation laws and (3) while denying both (1) and (4). (shrink)

A conservation principles tell us that some quantity, quality, or aspect remains constant through change. Such principles appear already in ancient and medieval natural philosophy. In one important strand of Greek cosmology, the rotatory motion of the celestial orbs is eternal and immutable. In optics, from at least the time of Euclid, the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence when a ray of light is reflected. According to some versions of the medieval impetus theory of (...) motion, impetus remains in a projected body (and the associated motion persists) permanently unless the body is subject to outside interference. These examples could be multiplied. But it was in the seventeenth century that conservation principles began to play an absolutely central role in scientific theories. Each of Galileo Galilei, René Descartes, Christiaan Huygens, Gottfried Leibniz, and Isaac Newton founded his approach to physics upon the principle of inertia—that unless interfered with a body will undergo uniform rectilinear motion. A multitude of other conservation principles gained currency during the seventeenth century—some still with us, some long ago left behind. Descartes provides an interesting example of an author who attempted to derive all of his physical principles from conservation laws (Principles of Philosophy, see especially articles 36 to 42 of Part II). Descartes believed that the principles of his physics could be derived from the immutability of God, supplemented only by very weak assumptions about the existence of change in the world. He claims, in fact, that we ought to postulate the strongest conservation laws consistent with such change. These include. (shrink)

This introduction to biological conservation assesses the value judgments at the heart of conservation. The author elaborates on such questions as: how much habitat does an endangered species require?; does this particular species deserve to be saved?; who will pay for its upkeep?; and much more.

Parents can benefit their offspring by conserving resources that the offspring stand to inherit. Thus, inheritance of resources should promote the evolution of propensities to conserve. But inheritance also has another, less obvious effect: it can reduce the fertility of the conserver’s grandchildren, thus reducing the expected number of great-grandchildren. Consequently, inheritance of resources promotes the evolution of conservation less than might be supposed.

We discuss two desirable properties of deflationary truth theories: conservativeness and maximality. Joining them together, we obtain a notion of a maximal conservative truth theory - a theory which is conservative over its base, but can't be enlarged any further without losing its conservative character. There are indeed such theories; we show however that none of them is axiomatizable, and moreover, that there will be in fact continuum many theories of this sort. It turns out in effect that the deflationist (...) still needs some additional principles, which would permit him to construct his preferred theory of truth. (shrink)

Native peoples have often been portrayed as natural conservationists, living a “balanced” existence with nature. It is argued that this perspective is a result of an imprecise operational definition of conservation. Conservation is defined here in contrast to the predictions of foraging theory, which assumes that foragers will behave to maximize their short-term harvesting rate. A behavior is deemed conservation when a short-term cost is paid by the resource harvester in exchange for long-term benefits in the form (...) of sustainable harvests. An example of the usefulness of such an operational definition is presented using data on patch and prey choice decisions of a group of subsistence hunters, the Piro of Amazonian Peru. Results indicate that the area around the Piro village is depleted of prey, and that hunters allocate more time to patches where return rates are highest. This response is consistent with both a conservation strategy and foraging theory. Contrary to the expectation of the conservation strategy, however, hunters do not restrain from pursing opportunistically encountered prey in the depleted areas. The implications for conservation policy are briefly discussed. (shrink)

Deflationists argue that ‘true’ is merely a logico-linguistic device for expressing blind ascriptions and infinite generalisations. For this reason, some authors have argued that deflationary truth must be conservative, i.e. that a deflationary theory of truth for a theory S must not entail sentences in S’s language that are not already entailed by S. However, it has been forcefully argued that any adequate theory of truth for S must be non-conservative and that, for this reason, truth cannot be deflationary :493–521, (...) 1998; Ketland in Mind 108:69–94, 1999). We consider two defences of conservative deflationism, respectively proposed by Waxman :429–463, 2017) and Tennant :551–582, 2002), and argue that they are both unsuccessful. In Waxman’s hands, deflationists are committed either to a non-purely expressive notion of truth, or to a conception of mathematics that does not allow them to justifiably exclude non-conservative theories of truth. Tennant’s conservative deflationism fares no better: if deflationist truth must be conservative over arithmetic, it can be shown to collapse into a non-conservative variety of deflationism. (shrink)

This chapter surveys the ethical and metaphysical issues raised by the restoration of paintings and sculptures.

In this paper we introduce the concept of conservative translation between logics. We present some necessary and sufficient conditions for a translation to be conservative and study some general properties of logical systems, these properties being characterized by the existence of conservative translations between the systems. We prove that the class constituted by logics and conservative translations between them determines a co-complete subcategory of the bi-complete category constituted by logics and translations.

: "Conservative" bioethics is informed by a rich view of human personhood, a decent respect for the well-considered views of people across the political spectrum, and a philosophy of the state carefully calibrated to ensure that imperfect people can live together in community. The deepest disagreements between conservatives and liberals are rooted in different ways of understanding the moral ideal of equality.

Analysis of conservative political participation in local food initiatives tends to be critical and dismissive, positing this participation as self-serving, individualistic, exclusionary, nativist, or reactionary. While there are nefarious aspects to certain forms of conservative local food politics, my research at three farmers’ markets in the Upper Midwest reveals that self-identified conservatives can and do hold more nuanced positions. Those with whom I met recognize the need for both local and broader change, are concerned about marginalized and struggling people, are (...) troubled by the impacts of conventional agriculture on the health of farmers, consumers, and other species, and are humble and willing to listen to other perspectives. Most analyses of food systems miss these nuanced perspectives because they approach American political ideology through a rigid left–right binary. Using more fluid approaches to understanding political ideology can create room for recognizing the complexity and diversity of views pigeon-holed under the label of “conservatism.” Along with these different approaches, a politics of empathy and mutual respect across ideological difference can help reveal common values, concerns, and aspirations for changing the food system. Recognizing these commonalities can help build a broader base of support for food system transformation. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the two main philosophical questions that are raised by the prospect of extinct species being brought back from the dead—namely, the ‘Authenticity Question’ and the ‘Ethical Question’. It distinguishes different types of de-extinction, and different methods by which de-extinction can be accomplished. Finally, it examines the aims of wildlife conservation with a view to whether they are compatible with de-extinction, or not.

We develop a conceptual framework that connects biological heredity and organization. We refer to heredity as the cross-generation conservation of functional elements, defined as constraints subject to organizational closure. While hereditary objects are functional constituents of biological systems, any other entity that is stable across generations—and possibly involved in the recurrence of phenotypes—belongs to their environment. The central outcome of the organizational perspective consists in extending the scope of heredity beyond the genetic domain without merging it with the broad (...) category of cross-generation stability. After discussing some implications, we conclude with a reflection on the relationship between stability and variation. 1Introduction2From Extended Heredity to Cross-generation Stability 2.1Extending the scope of heredity: A brief state of the art2.2Rethinking heredity: Conceptual challenges3Biological Heredity in Light of Organization 3.1Biological organization within organisms and beyond3.2Extending organization in time3.3What is biological heredity?4Implications and Objections 4.1Heredity as a specific kind of cross-generation stability4.2Heredity at various levels of description4.3Non-functional and dysfunctional objects5Conclusions: From Conservation to Variation. (shrink)

Conservativeness has been proposed as an important requirement for deflationary truth theories. This in turn gave rise to the so-called ‘conservativeness argument’ against deflationism: a theory of truth which is conservative over its base theory S cannot be adequate, because it cannot prove that all theorems of S are true. In this paper we show that the problems confronting the deflationist are in fact more basic: even the observation that logic is true is beyond his reach. This seems to conflict (...) with the deflationary characterization of the role of the truth predicate in proving generalizations. However, in the final section we propose a way out for the deflationist — a solution that permits him to accept a strong theory, having important truth-theoretical generalizations as its theorems. (shrink)

_Conservative Reductionism_ sets out a new theory of the relationship between physics and the special sciences within the framework of functionalism. It argues that it is wrong-headed to conceive an opposition between functional and physical properties and to build an anti-reductionist argument on multiple realization. By contrast, all properties that there are in the world, including the physical ones, are functional properties in the sense of being causal properties, and all true descriptions that the special sciences propose can in principle (...) be reduced to physical descriptions by means of functional reduction, despite multiple realization. The book develops arguments for from the metaphysics of properties and the philosophy of physics. These arguments lead to a conservative ontological reductionism. It then develops functional reduction into a fully-fledged, conservative theory reduction by means of introducing functional sub-types that are coextensive with physical types, illustrating that conservative reductionism by means of case studies from biology. (shrink)

Conservation biology emerged as an organized academic discipline in the United States in the 1980s though much of its theoretical framework was originally developed in Australia. Significant differences of approach in the two traditions were resolved in the late 1990s through the formulation of a consensus framework for the design and adaptive management of conservation area networks. This entry presents an outline of that framework along with a critical analysis of conceptual issues concerning the four theoretical problems that (...) emerge from it: (i) place prioritization for conservation action; (ii) the selection of surrogates for biodiversity in conservation planning; (iii) the assessment of vulnerability of conservation areas; and (iv) the synchronization of incommensurable criteria including socio-economic constraints on conservation planning. (shrink)

The topics of gravitational field energy and energy-momentum conservation in General Relativity theory have been unjustly neglected by philosophers. If the gravitational field in space free of ordinary matter, as represented by the metric g ab itself, can be said to carry genuine energy and momentum, this is a powerful argument for adopting the substantivalist view of spacetime.This paper explores the standard textbook account of gravitational field energy and argues that (a) so-called stress-energy of the gravitational field is well-defined (...) neither locally nor globally; and (b) there is no general principle of energy-momentum conservation to be found in General Relativity. I discuss the nature and justification of the zero-divergence law for ordinary stress-energy, and its possible connection with the failure of General Relativity to realise Mach's principle. (shrink)

A conservation law in physics can be either a constraint on the kinds of interaction there could be or a coincidence of the kinds of interactions there actually are. This is an important, unjustly neglected distinction. Only if a conservation law constrains the possible kinds of interaction can a derivation from it constitute a scientific explanation despite failing to describe the causal/mechanical details behind the result derived. This conception of the relation between “bottom-up” scientific explanations and one kind (...) of “top-down” scientific explanation is motivated by several examples from classical and modern physics. (shrink)

Conservatives commonly claim that systems of formal education are biased against conservative ideology. I argue that this claim is incorrect, but not because there is no bias against conservatives in formal education. A wide swath of psychological evidence linking personality and ideology indicates that conservatives and liberals differ in their learning orientations, that is, in the values, motivations, and beliefs they bring to learning tasks. These differences in operative epistemologies explain many demographic phenomena relating educational achievement and political ideology. Systems (...) of formal education thus disadvantage conservatives, especially in the later stages of formal education. Conservatives are therefore ‘selected against’ in the process of formal education, not due to their values or ideology but because their learning orientations are not especially conducive to academic success beyond a certain point. However, because the bias against conservatives in not ideological in origin, a case cannot be made that conservatives are victims of institutional injustice. This bias against conservatives in formal education could be mitigated were the purposes of formal education radically modified (the education of the military class in Plato’s Republic serves as a model). But such a model of formal education would ill serve the needs of modern, industrialized, information-driven societies. (shrink)

Religious conservatives in the U.S. have frequently opposed public-health measures designed to combat STDs among minors, such as sex education, condom distribution, and HPV vaccination. Using Rawls’s method of conjecture, I will clear up what I take to be a misunderstanding on the part of religious conservatives: even if we grant their premises regarding the nature and source of sexual norms, the wide-ranging authority of parents to enforce these norms against their minor children, and the potential sexual-disinhibition effects of the (...) above public-health measures, their opposition to at least one of these measures, HPV vaccination, cannot be justified. In fact, their comprehensive doctrines, when properly interpreted, should lead them to back this measure and thereby draw closer to a policy consensus with other citizens regarding teenage sexual health. (shrink)

The uniquely human emotion of disgust is intimately connected to morality in many, perhaps all, cultures. We report two studies suggesting that a predisposition to feel disgust is associated with more conservative political attitudes, especially for issues related to the moral dimension of purity. In the first study, we document a positive correlation between disgust sensitivity and self-reported conservatism in a broad sample of US adults. In Study 2 we show that while disgust sensitivity is associated with more conservative attitudes (...) on a range of political issues, this relationship is strongest for purity-related issues—specifically, abortion and gay marriage. (shrink)

We systematically study conservation theorems on theories of semi-classical arithmetic, which lie in-between classical arithmetic $\mathsf {PA}$ and intuitionistic arithmetic $\mathsf {HA}$. Using a generalized negative translation, we first provide a structured proof of the fact that $\mathsf {PA}$ is $\Pi _{k+2}$ -conservative over $\mathsf {HA} + {\Sigma _k}\text {-}\mathrm {LEM}$ where ${\Sigma _k}\text {-}\mathrm {LEM}$ is the axiom scheme of the law-of-excluded-middle restricted to formulas in $\Sigma _k$. In addition, we show that this conservation theorem is optimal (...) in the sense that for any semi-classical arithmetic T, if $\mathsf {PA}$ is $\Pi _{k+2}$ -conservative over T, then ${T}$ proves ${\Sigma _k}\text {-}\mathrm {LEM}$. In the same manner, we also characterize conservation theorems for other well-studied classes of formulas by fragments of classical axioms or rules. This reveals the entire structure of conservation theorems with respect to the arithmetical hierarchy of classical principles. (shrink)

In response to calls for greater interdisciplinary involvement from the social sciences and humanities in the development, governance, and study of artificial intelligence systems, this paper presents one sociologist’s view on the problem of algorithmic bias and the reproduction of societal bias. Discussions of bias in AI cover much of the same conceptual terrain that sociologists studying inequality have long understood using more specific terms and theories. Concerns over reproducing societal bias should be informed by an understanding of the ways (...) that inequality is continually reproduced in society—processes that AI systems are either complicit in, or can be designed to disrupt and counter. The contrast presented here is between conservative and radical approaches to AI, with conservatism referring to dominant tendencies that reproduce and strengthen the status quo, while radical approaches work to disrupt systemic forms of inequality. The limitations of a conservative approach to racial bias are discussed through the specific example of biased criminal risk assessments and Indigenous overrepresentation in Canada’s criminal justice system. This illustrates the dangers of treating racial bias as a generalizable problem and equality as a generalizable solution, emphasizing the importance of considering inequality in context. Societal issues can no longer be out of scope for AI and machine learning, given the impact of these systems on human lives. This requires engagement with a growing body of critical AI scholarship that goes beyond biased data to analyze structured ways of perpetuating inequality, opening up the possibility for interdisciplinary engagement and radical alternatives. (shrink)

Misconceptions about energy conservation abound due to the gap between physics and secondary school chemistry. This paper surveys this difference and its relevance to the 1690s–2010s Leibnizian argument that mind-body interaction is impossible due to conservation laws. Justifications for energy conservation are partly empirical, such as Joule’s paddle wheel experiment, and partly theoretical, such as Lagrange’s statement in 1811 that energy is conserved if the potential energy does not depend on time. In 1918 Noether generalized results like (...) Lagrange’s and proved a converse: symmetries imply conservation laws and vice versa. Conservation holds if and only if nature is uniform. The rise of field physics during the 1860s–1920s implied that energy is located in particular places and conservation is primordially local: energy cannot disappear in Cambridge and reappear in Lincoln instantaneously or later; neither can it simply disappear in Cambridge or simply appear in Lincoln. A global conservation law can be inferred in some circumstances. Einstein’s General Relativity, which stimulated Noether’s work, is another source of difficulty for conservation laws. As is too rarely realized, the theory admits conserved quantities due to symmetries of the Lagrangian, like other theories. Indeed General Relativity has more symmetries and hence more conserved energies. An argument akin to Leibniz’s finally gets some force. While the mathematics is too advanced for secondary school, the ideas that conservation is tied to uniformities of nature and that energy is in particular places, are accessible. Improved science teaching would serve the truth and enhance the social credibility of science. (shrink)

American sociologist Robert Nisbet once described conservatives and libertarians as “uneasy cousins.” The description is apt. While sharing a family resemblance and many of the same political rivals, conservatism and libertarianism are fundamentally at odds. This paper explains why this is so from the conservative perspective. It surveys the starting points and major themes of conservatism and libertarianism. It identifies what conservatives and libertarians agree about. It concludes by showing what conservatives have against libertarianism.

Since Leibniz's time, Cartesian mental causation has been criticized for violating the conservation of energy and momentum. Many dualist responses clearly fail. But conservation laws have important neglected features generally undermining the objection. Conservation is _local_, holding first not for the universe, but for everywhere separately. The energy in any volume changes only due to what flows through the boundaries. Constant total energy holds if the global summing-up of local conservation laws converges; it probably doesn't in (...) reality. Energy conservation holds if there is symmetry, the sameness of the laws over time. Thus, if there are time-places where symmetries fail due to nonphysical influence, conservation laws fail there and then, while holding elsewhere, such as refrigerators and stars. Noether's converse first theorem shows that conservation laws imply symmetries. Thus conservation trivially nearly entails the causal closure of the physical. But expecting conservation to hold in the brain simply assumes the falsehood of Cartesianism. Hence Leibniz's objection begs the question. Empirical neuroscience is another matter. So is Einstein's General Relativity: far from providing a loophole, General Relativity makes mental causation _harder_. (shrink)

As Harvey Brown emphasizes in his book Physical Relativity, inertial motion in general relativity is best understood as a theorem, and not a postulate. Here I discuss the status of the "conservation condition", which states that the energy-momentum tensor associated with non-interacting matter is covariantly divergence-free, in connection with such theorems. I argue that the conservation condition is best understood as a consequence of the differential equations governing the evolution of matter in general relativity and many other theories. (...) I conclude by discussing what it means to posit a certain spacetime geometry and the relationship between that geometry and the dynamical properties of matter. (shrink)

In 1959, the Charles Darwin Station and the Galápagos National Park were established, formally inaugurating conservation on the archipelago. In the same year, a utopian colony from the United States arrived. Whereas scholars have dismissed the latter and focused on the former, this essay unveils the science-inspired utopianism common to both enterprises. Investing science with the exclusive role of producing all knowledge and steering politics, leaders of the two initiatives aspired not only to protect nature but also to forge (...) a new humanity. Describing how such ambitions burst along lines of race, class, and nationality, I argue that these enterprises consolidated the current understanding of the Galápagos as “pristine”: a site fit for research and tourism but unhospitable to people. Drawing on archival and historical documents, this essay aims to reinvigorate two conversations: one between science and technology studies and conservation, and the other between STS and utopian studies. If recent attempts at bridging the divide between science and imagination have emphasized how powerful actors shape human society, this essay considers the long-lasting effects of scientific imaginaries on a politics of nature. (shrink)

We study the conservation of energy, or lack thereof, when measurements are performed in quantum mechanics. The expectation value of the Hamiltonian of a system changes when wave functions collapse in accordance with the standard textbook treatment of quantum measurement, but one might imagine that the change in energy is compensated by the measuring apparatus or environment. We show that this is not true; the change in the energy of a state after measurement can be arbitrarily large, independent of (...) the physical measurement process. In Everettian quantum theory, while the expectation value of the Hamiltonian is conserved for the wave function of the universe, it is not constant within individual worlds. It should therefore be possible to experimentally measure violations of conservation of energy, and we suggest an experimental protocol for doing so. (shrink)

One of the main problems plaguing neo-logicism is the Bad Company challenge: the need for a well-motivated account of which abstraction principles provide legitimate definitions of mathematical concepts. In this article a solution to the Bad Company challenge is provided, based on the idea that definitions ought to be conservative. Although the standard formulation of conservativeness is not sufficient for acceptability, since there are conservative but pairwise incompatible abstraction principles, a stronger conservativeness condition is sufficient: that the class of acceptable (...) abstraction principles be strictly logically symmetrically class conservative . The article concludes with an examination of which classes of abstraction principles meet this criteria. (shrink)

Conservation can occur anywhere regardless of scale, political jurisdiction, or landownership. We present a framework to help managers at protected areas practice conservation at the scale of relationships. We focus on relationships between stakeholders and protected areas and between managers and other stakeholders. We provide a synthesis of key natural resources literature and present a case example to support our premise and recommendations. The purpose is 4-fold: 1) discuss challenges and threats to conservation and protected areas; 2) (...) outline a relationship-scale approach to address conservation threats; 3) describe the tools and techniques that can be used to implement this approach; and 4) present a case example from rural Alaska, USA, to illustrate relationship-scale conservation. Our case example illustrates how aspects of this approach to conservation were applied to address a wildlife population decline. Tools needed to implement relationship-scale conservation include 1) collecting and documenting narratives of place; 2) measuring and monitoring trust and commitment; and 3) identifying and mitigating threats. We recommend that planners and managers, working with their research partners, redefine and refocus their goals and objectives to include these practices. Doing so will enable them to gain substantial applied knowledge about their stakeholders and foster and maintain place relationships as desired outcomes of conservation. The ultimate outcome is a better prognosis for long-term global survival of protected areas and biodiversity. Published 2014. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. (shrink)

Biodiversity and Conservation 4: 916-928.

Are laws of nature necessary, and if so, are all laws of nature necessary in the same way? This question has played an important role in recent discussion of laws of nature. I argue that not all laws of nature are necessary in the same way: conservation laws are perhaps to be regarded as metaphysically necessary. This sheds light on both the modal character of conservation laws and the relationship between different varieties of necessity.

In this article, I present a semantically natural conservative extension of Urquhart’s positive semilattice logic with a sort of constructive negation. A subscripted sequent calculus is given for this logic and proofs of its soundness and completeness are sketched. It is shown that the logic lacks the finite model property. I discuss certain questions Urquhart has raised concerning the decision problem for the positive semilattice logic in the context of this logic and pose some problems for further research.

An eloquent introduction to the ethical and philosophical values at stake in biological conservation, this book familiarizes readers with the general issues and possible solutions to the problems societies face in simultaneously conserving nature and promoting culture.

Santayana may be read as a conservative in behavior, thought, and feeling, if not in creed. A close reading of Scepticism and Animal Faith (SAF), Santayana’s autobiography, Persons and Places (PP), and Santayana’s ontology as articulated in Realms of Being (RB), supports an interpretation of Santayana’s philosophy as one of human imperfection and limits, which includes a conservative vision of human flourishing.

Some axiomatic theories of truth and related subsystems of second-order arithmetic are surveyed and shown to be conservative over their respective base theory. In particular, it is shown by purely finitistically means that the theory PA ÷ "there is a satisfaction class" and the theory FS of [2] are conservative over PA.