This book examines links between post-conflict security, peace and development in Africa, Latin America, Europe and New Zealand. Young peace researchers from the Global South as well as from Italy and New Zealand address in case studies traumas in Northern Uganda, demobilisation and reintegration of ex-combatants in the Ivory Coast, economic and financial management of terrorism in Kenya, organised crime in Brazil, mental health issues in Colombia, macro realism in Europe and global defence reforms within the military apparatus since 1990. (...) The book reviews linkages between regional stability, development and peace in post-conflict societies while adding on to the post 2015 international agenda and discusses linkages between peace, security and development. (shrink)

Generative artificial intelligence systems based on transformers, including both text-generators like GPT-4 and image generators like DALL-E 3, have recently entered the popular consciousness. These tools, while impressive, are liable to reproduce, exacerbate, and reinforce extant human social biases, such as gender and racial biases. In this paper, we systematically review the extent to which DALL-E Mini suffers from this problem. In line with the Model Card published alongside DALL-E Mini by its creators, we find that the images it produces (...) tend to represent dozens of different occupations as populated either solely by men (e.g., pilot, builder, plumber) or solely by women (e.g., hairdresser, receptionist, dietitian). In addition, the images DALL-E Mini produces tend to represent most occupations as populated primarily or solely by White people (e.g., farmer, painter, prison officer, software engineer) and very few by non-White people (e.g., pastor, rapper). These findings suggest that exciting new AI technologies should be critically scrutinized and perhaps regulated before they are unleashed on society. (shrink)

A book on human communication that is worthy of its subject must introduce the reader to the dynamic interaction of a number of diverse fields. Colin Cherry's book, over successive editions, has served for twenty years as perhaps the most literate and readable introduction to this interaction available. Readers have consistently found that fields within their specialty are covered with authority; that fields far removed are covered with clarity; and that the connections among them are shown to be close (...) and natural. This third edition includes a new chapter, "Feeling, Knowledge, and Understanding," that extends the book's reach into philosophy, and in particular communicates some existential points-of-view. In it the author undertakes to demonstrate that "The language of physical science is inadequate for discussion of what is essentially human about human communication." In addition, numerous changes have been introduced throughout the text, and the bibliography has been expanded and updated. (shrink)

A notion of Education for Active Citizenship is identified in the pronouncements of certain politically influential individuals. Key elements in this are seen to include action, the citizen, appreciating the benefits of democracy and freedom, respect for the rule of law, a due balance between rights and duties, participation and service to the community. These are shown to be systematically ambiguous, simultaneously capable of evoking critical, independent-minded, socially effective citizens and docile conforming subjects. Clarification is held to be a necessary (...) precondition of translating the ideal of citizenship into specific curricular goals. (shrink)

The prima facie linguistic evidence of everyday experience suggests that human beings are bewilderingly different from each other: adults frequently complain that it is impossible to master a foreign language; indeed, many communities despise languages or dialects other than their own; serious translation is often a painful struggle, producing results that are felt to be inadequate, even by the translators themselves; and even within our own communities, most of us have had the despairing experience of not understanding a single word (...) of what someone else is saying. (shrink)

In a series of original and entertaining sketches, short stories, plays and his own 'philosophical autobiography' Professor Colin Radford expounds the nature and importance of philosophy for our everyday lives.

In this essay, McGinn argues for a version of reliabilism, contending that a belief counts as knowledge just in case ‘it is produced by a method capable of yielding true beliefs in a range of relevant cases’. This view diverges from other versions of reliabilism, notably Robert Nozick's counter‐factionalist tracking theory, which, McGinn argues, ‘localizes the conditions for knowledge into a relation between the knower and a unique proposition’. Against this local analysis of propositional knowledge, McGinn presents a global reliabilism (...) in which the notion of discrimination is basic. On McGinn's view, global reliability consists in a subject's capacity to distinguish the true from the false within a relevant class of propositions. McGinn concludes by considering the implications of his view for sceptical arguments—in particular, the claim that knowledge is not closed under known logical implication. (shrink)

In this precursor to his Mental Content, McGinn defends and explores the implications of his dual‐component theory of mental and linguistic content. According to McGinn, our concept of belief combines two components: the first consists in a mode of representation of things in the world, the second involves the semantic relations between such representations and the things represented. The case is analogous for linguistic content, which is also structurally duplex; meaning, for McGinn, consists in both reference and mode of presentation. (...) Having situated his dual‐component theory relative to several standard accounts of meaning, McGinn concludes the essay by considering its implications, notably for the conditions under which mental and linguistic content can be ascribed, and for the nature of radical interpretation. (shrink)

Background In recent years, patient advocacy has emerged as a prominent concept within healthcare. How nursing students decide what is best for their patients is not well understood. Objective The objective is to examine nursing students' views on doing what is best for patients during their clinical experiences and how they seek to establish patient interests when providing care. Research questions guiding the interview were as follows: (1) What are nursing students' perceptions of patient interests? (2) What factors influence nursing (...) students' perceptions of advocating for patient’s interests? Research design Qualitative descriptive research using thematic analysis. Participants and research context Data was collected through individual online interviews with nine nursing students with clinical experience. Ethical considerations The study was approved by the University Research Ethics Committee. Participants provided digital informed consent. Results The students asserted that they are able to understand the patients' interests by placing emphasis on the patients' needs. They believe that it is crucial to adopt a collaborative strategy for the provision of care to meet these requirements. In addition, some of them expressed concern over the most effective methods of advocating for the interests of patients. Three themes were identified. (1) Focussing on patient needs first, (2) taking a collective approach, and (3) learning how to advocate. Conclusions Students understand and value the ethical commitments associated with advocating for the patient's best interest by considering factors such as prioritising the patient's needs, adopting a strategy that involves everyone, and acquiring the ability to undertake the advocacy role. Additionally, nursing education strategies in clinical contexts require additional study to inspire students to do what is in their patient’s best interests. (shrink)

Presents a self-contained introduction to logic suitable for majors and nonmajors, and can be covered entirely in a one-semester course. Natural deduction systems of sentential logic and of first-order logic, truth tables, and the basic ideas of model theory are presented without superfluous discussion.

A newcomer to the writing of this survey quickly learns that they do not serve who only sit and wait. The expectation, in other words, that the year's major books of French philosophy will arrive unsolicited, is not fulfilled. Instead one is faced with a miscellaneous set of publications covering such varied topics as Jewish mysticism, cybernetics and a translation from Spanish of a primer of political economy. I must therefore beg readers to be indulgent enough to pay for my (...) first lesson, promising them that henceforth I shall bestir myself and forage. (shrink)

Questions about fish consciousness and cognition are receiving increasing attention. In this paper, I explain why one must be careful to avoid drawing conclusions too hastily about this hugely diverse set of species.

Colin McGinn presents his latest work on consciousness in ten interlinked papers, four of them previously unpublished. He extends and deepens his controversial solution to the mind-body problem, defending the view that consciousness is both ontologically unproblematic and epistemologically impenetrable. He also investigates the basis of our knowledge that there is a mind-body problem, and the bearing of this on attempted solutions. McGinn goes on to discuss the status of first-person authority, the possibility of atomism with respect to consciousness, (...) extreme dualism, and the role of non-existent objects in constituting intentionality. He argues that traditional claims about our knowledge of our own mind and of the external world can be inverted; that atomism about the conscious mind might turn out to be true; that dualism is more credible the more extreme it is; and that all intentionality involves non-existent objects. These are all surprising positions, but he contends that what the philosophy of mind needs now is 'methodological radicalism' - a willingness to consider new and seemingly extravagant ideas. (shrink)

In this paper, I describe grounds for dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the sciences of animal cognition and argue that a turn toward mathematical modeling of animal cognition is warranted. I consider some objections to this call and argue that the implications of such a turn are not as drastic for ordinary, commonsense understanding of animal minds as they might seem.

It is a truism among ethologists that one must not forget that animals perceive and represent the world differently from humans. Sometimes this caution is phrased in terms of von Uexküll’s Umwelt concept. Yet it seems possible (perhaps even unavoidable) to adopt a common ontological framework when comparing different species of mind. For some purposes it seems sufficient to ­anchor comparative cognition in common-sense categories; bats echolocate insects (or a subset of them) after all. But for other purposes it seems (...) necessary to find out more about how organisms organize their perceptions into biologically significant and perhaps cognitively meaningful states. Complex animals have high bandwidth sensory channels that feed into large nerve networks with very complex dynamics. Even for relatively simple animals belonging to species believed to have a small, fixed number of neurons, the odds are very much against any two animals of the same species, let alone different species, having exactly the same couplings to the environment, the same dimensionality in their nervous systems, or the same dynamics. Given such diversity (which von Uexküll himself recognized), how should we think about shared representation, shared meaning, and cognitive similarity between individuals and species? (shrink)

Whether it's conkers in the schoolyard, kicking a football in the park, or playing tennis on Wimbledon Centre Court, sport impacts all of our lives. But what is sport and why do we do it? Colin McGinn, renowned philosopher , reflects on our love of sport and explores the value it has for us and the part it plays in a life lived well. Written in the form of a memoir, McGinn discusses many of the sports he has engaged (...) in - from pole-vaulting and gymnastics to windsurfing and tennis - and describes the athletic experience from the inside, as a participant, articulating what is uniquely valuable about sport as an activity. Sport, argues McGinn, takes us to our fullest potential as human beings, it's what we fling at mortality to keep it at bay, a holiday from the Unbearable Heaviness of Being. "Sport" expresses our nature, it bears upon our self-realization. If a happy life consists in one that expresses fully our natural faculties, then sports must play an essential role in our lifes. Mind-body unity, the nature of practical knowledge and physical skill, success and failure, the ethics of competition, peak experiences, the spectacle of professional sport, aesthetics and death, McGinn discusses these and many other issues while telling of his own sporting mishaps and adventures. To use the vernacular of philosophy, "Sport" captures the phenomenology of sport - what it's like to do it - and in doing so shows how sport is a way of expressing and understanding who and what we are, way beyond whether we are a good sportsman, a bad loser or a team-player. For anyone who has ever thought that there must be less humiliating ways to enjoy yourself than being thrashed on the tennis court, "Sport" will reassure you that it's time not wasted. (shrink)

Explains Popper's views on natural and social science, ranging in Part I from metaphysical considerations to his interpretation of the formalism of quantum mechanics, and in Part II from the errors of historicism and holism to the roles of theoretical models, institutions, traditions and history.

Empirical evidence of self-deception's propositional duality is not sought; philosophically relevant links between propositions proper and mind are explored instead. Speech in unison ably indicates the social grounding of such attitudinal structures. An extra-theoretical eye – with regard to cognitivism – is cast on a case of “illusory communication.” The reinforcing of lexical analysis shows Mele's approach to be in need of non-ego concepts, wherefore it lacks soundness with respect to reference.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the masculinity politics of the ex-gay movement, a loose-knit network of religious, scientific, and political organizations that advocates change for homosexuals. Guided by Risman's gender structure theory, the authors analyze the individual, interactional, and institutional dimensions of gender in ex-gay discourses. The authors employ critical discourse analysis of representative ex-gay texts to deconstruct the movement's gender ideology and to discuss the social implications of its masculinity politics. They argue that gender is one (...) of the ex-gay movement's most potent social movement resources, enabling it to consolidate power by enlisting new populations and to globalize by adapting to cultural contexts beyond the United States. The authors conclude that the ex-gay movement is an antigay countermovement and an antifeminist Christian Right men's movement. (shrink)

Since the appearance of a widely influential book, Self-Knowledge and Self-ldentity, Sydney Shoemaker has continued to work on a series of interrelated issues in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. This volume contains a collection of the most important essays he has published since then. The topics that he deals with here include, among others, the nature of personal and other forms of identity, the relation of time to change, the nature of properties and causality and the relation between the (...) two, dualism and immortality, and the nature of mental states. All the essays show the same care and precision in argument as the earlier book, but they also reveal a substantial shift in Professor Shoemaker's position to a form of materialism. In fact, a number of papers together constitute what is probably the most subtle and rigourous defence yet of a sophisticated functionalism in the account of the mind. (shrink)

Social play is naturally characterized in intentional terms. An evolutionary account of social play could help scientists to understand the evolution of cognition and intentionality. Alexander Rosenberg (1990) has argued that if play is characterized intentionally or functionally, it is not a behavioral phenotype suitable for evolutionary explanation. If he is right, his arguments would threaten many projects in cognitive ethology. We argue that Rosenberg's arguments are unsound and that intentionally and functionally characterized phenotypes are a proper domain for ethological (...) investigation. (shrink)

With an eye on how post-colonial novels by authors Chinua Achebe and Ngugi Wa Thiong’o address aesthetic and environmental problems that preceded the Modern period, the intent of this essay is to emphasize how their fiction connects readers with a pre-industrial, premodern, and, strangely enough, radically new ways of thinking about books and the living world beyond them. To this end, the essay looks at this non-western literature through the lens of ecologist Aldo Leopold’s land-based ideas regarding epistemology, ethics, and (...) ecology. (shrink)