Land-based climate mitigation schemes such as REDD+ imply the creation of ‘rights to carbon’ for actions that enhance carbon sinks. In many cases, the legal and normative foundations of such rights are unclear. This article focuses on special rights on the basis of improvement. Considering improvement in relation to carbon sinks requires asking what it means to ‘improve’ an environmental resource. Our answer departs in two significant respects from the standard conception of improvement, namely by reconceiving action in relation to (...) ecosystem services, and accordingly, making the case for a counterfactual baseline to be used to compare an improved and unimproved state. Our modifications potentially allow for a variety of agents to claim special carbon rights on the basis of beneficial interactions with land-based carbon sinks. We give three archetypical examples of agents who may claim pro tanto special rights to carbon based on their interaction with carbon sinks. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Exclusivity and ParticularityJohn Dominic CrossanSeveral of the authors spoke of the imperial exclusivity so characteristic of Christianity. For José Ignacio Cabezón, “What Buddhists find objectionable is (a) the Christian characterization of the deity whose manifestation Jesus is said to be, and (b) the claim that Jesus is unique in being such a manifestation” (p. 56). For Bokin Kim, “most Christians hold to an exclusive view of Christ that (...) claims his uniqueness” (p. 76). For Rita Gross, “the exclusive claims made on behalf of Jesus by Christians appalled me even as a teenager, and my repugnance for exclusive truth claims on the part of religions—any religion—has not diminished since. Thus, part of my journey is working out both a theory and a praxis of religious pluralism that is neither relativistic nor universalistic, that encourages both commitment to one tradition and appreciation of other traditions” (p. 64). I myself find such exclusivistic claims for Christianity, or any other religion, insulting in theory and lethal in practice, objectionable in history and obscene in theology. They are implicitly genocidal even if political impotence limits the divine ethnic cleansing they imagine. But how, as Gross repeats, does one establish “a position that is neither relativistic nor exclusivistic”? (p. 65). My own answer is particularity, but I must explain that in terms of my understanding of Trinity, divinity, and particularity.Trinity seems a particularly and peculiarly Christian understanding of God, but my proposal is that the structure of the Holy is Trinitarian in all religions that I know about and even in all those I can imagine. I speak very deliberately about the Holy (not about God) as the infinite mystery that surrounds and supports, fascinates and terrifies us. It is that against which we interact as meaning-seeking beings. Be it absolute open meaninglessness or absolute univocal meaning, our interaction with it does not seem to be an option but a necessity. And my point is that the Holy is Trinitarian in structure. It is not just on the one hand that religion is Trinitarian in structure. But it is not on the other hand that the Holy in itself and apart from us is Trinitarian in structure. It is, I propose, that the Holy in itself as seen by us across the spectrum of world religious experience is Trinitarian in structure. That Trinity [End Page 97] involves, first, ultimate metaphor, that foundational image that imagines the Holy as, for example, power, person, state, or order, as nature, god/goddess, nirvana, or mandate of heaven. It involves, second, material manifestation, some physical object in which that metaphorical vision is peculiarly, specially, or even uniquely incarnated, some person, place, or thing, some individual or collectivity, some cave or shrine or temple, some clearing in the forest or tree in the desert where that ultimate referent is encountered and experienced. It involves, finally, preliminary preparation, for there must be at least one believer to begin with and eventually more to end with. But, as there are always nonbelievers as well, some prior affinity must exist, as it were, between this metaphor rather than that, this manifestation rather than that, and this believer rather than that. For me, therefore, all faith and all religion, not just my own Christianity, is Trinitarian in structure and that structure seems to inhere in the Holy itself, at least insofar as we can see it. For me, therefore, Christianity and Buddhism differ most profoundly on their ultimate metaphor for the Holy: it is person (God) for the former but state (nirvana) for the latter. In Christianity, of course, our ultimate metaphor is rather overinvested: it is person; and that person is parent; and that parent is father. But I leave those specifications aside for the moment.Divinity is the term I use for any material manifestation. By calling such manifestations divine I mean precisely that a religion’s ultimate metaphor is experienced by believers as peculiarly, specially, or even uniquely present in that physical phenomenon. In that sense I understand both Christ and the Buddha to be divine in exactly the same way—that is, as incarnations of the Holy but within different ultimate metaphors. Christ did... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionSpatial, Environmental, and Ecocritical Approaches to Holocaust MemoryEmily-Rose Baker (bio), Michael Holden (bio), Diane Otosaka (bio), Sue Vice (bio), and Dominic Williams (bio)The successful implementation of genocide during the Holocaust depended on the spatial organisation of mass murder. From the concentrated ghettos and camps delimited by walls and barbed wire to the open fields and camouflaged forests where victims were shot en masse, Anne Kelly Knowles et al. (...) argue, specific locations, patterns of migration, deportation and evacuation, and other spatial elements such as scale, were all central to the Nazi regime's creation of a "comprehensive geography of oppression."1 This is hardly surprising given the biopolitical logics and colonial fantasies underpinning Lebensraum ('living space'), the territorial concept guiding the genocidal aims of the Third Reich, which designated zones of life as well as the inverse on the European continent. The Holocaust was also experienced spatially by its victims, who were forced to navigate new (and at times familiar) sites and landscapes as those of genocide, and whose testimonies in the aftermath of the event conjured these very places in detail.In recent years, the spaces of the Holocaust have been variously revisited, reconstructed, and reimagined within Holocaust studies scholarship. As a broader part of the 'spatial turn' in the humanities, Holocaust scholars have increasingly employed spatial perspectives of the event to deepen our understanding of the environments in which the Holocaust took place and the transformation of these spaces over time—particularly in the fields of history and social science.2 While drawing on diverse modes of spatialisation from interdisciplinary perspectives, contributions from these fields have tended to privilege methods we might describe as variously 'forensic,' including mapping, model-making, and investigations of material traces of the past.3 This work has resulted in many significant insights, not only into the [End Page 1] contexts and structures of Nazi genocide and the perpetrator imaginings of space, but also the experiences of victims and survivors.4Another significant body of work has attended to space and culture within Holocaust contexts. From early on in the postwar period, particular locations and buildings became identified with the Holocaust, such as the notorious entrance guard house at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which appears on countless book covers as well as within films and artworks. Engaging with spatial insights and methodologies from the perspective of cultural and memory studies, scholars have attested to the production and mnemonic significance of these and less well-known sites, as well as the symbolic spatial worlds and experiences to which they give rise. These include Paul Jaskot and Gavriel Rosenfeld, who have turned respectively to Holocaust and post-Holocaust architectures as commonly overlooked sites of history and memory. Drawing attention to the construction of Holocaust space, Jaskot shows how reading architecture 'as process' rather than static structures laden with symbolic meaning reveals unique histories of forced labor in which "the goals of the SS intersected with victims' experience."5 Rosenfeld demonstrates the ways in which spaces built in response to Nazi genocide after 1945 have been variously "imbued with Jewish significance" by their users and creators, resulting in the rise to prominence of Jewish-identified architects.6 Along similar lines, Michael Meng's work has explored the ways in which Jews and gentiles interact with ruined synagogues, cemeteries and Jewish districts as important remnants of pre-war Jewish life in the post-war period in German and Polish cities.7Studies such as those noted above have tended to focus on cities and public buildings, as well as state and civic policy. But as the spatial histories and geographies of the Holocaust have helped to show, extermination often took place in rural settings (mostly located in Central and Eastern Europe), such as the killing fields where Jews were shot en masse; the forests where victims hid and were hunted by Germans and local collaborators; or the open spaces of the dissolving Reich through which former concentration camp inmates were forced to march during the final year of the war—sites in which, owing to less contained spatial dynamics, violence played out differently.8These kinds of sites, which are sparsely documented and often simply thought of... (shrink)

One of the most striking features observed throughout tropical agricultural frontiers is the extreme variability in land-use strategies from one farmer to the next. This article analyzes the forest conversion process and predominant land uses associated with smallholder settlement expansion in the Amazon frontier. The discussion seeks to increase understanding of the micro and macro-level forces that propel land-use decisions in the Amazon and offer insights about how farmers' land-use decisions may be altered to bring about forms of resource (...) use that are consistent with the constraints and opportunities of the frontier environment. Recognizing that no frontier area can be truly representative of the Amazon as a whole, this article also introduces some detailed evidence from another Amazon country (Ecuador) within a topic that has been previously dominated by research mainly in Brazil. The analysis suggests that to be effective, any policy or technology-based effort on the part of governments or researchers to alter colonist land-use systems must begin to look systematically at the production systems of agricultural colonist populations already present in frontier environments. This knowledge is essential to understand the social and economic factors affecting present land use and choice of technology. It is also important for understanding factors influencing farmers' demand for more optimal systems of land use that are consistent with varying agroecological potentials, demographic situations, and the management capacity of the farmer. (shrink)

With increased urbanization, ecological challenges such as climate change and loss of biodiversity, and stress-related disorders globally posing a major threat to public health and wellbeing, the development of efficient multiple-use strategies for urban green spaces and infrastructures is of great importance. In addition to benefits such as climate and water regulation, food production, and biodiversity conservation, green spaces and features have been associated with various health and wellbeing outcomes from a psychological perspective. Research suggests links between exposure to green (...) environmental qualities and restoration from psycho-physiological stress and attention fatigue, promotion of physical activity, increased neighborhood satisfaction and even reduced mortality. Especially strong associations have been observed in urban and socio-economically challenged areas. Usually such salutogenic, i.e. health-promoting, effects are explained through theories related to the notion of biophilia, i.e. the idea that humans share innate tendencies to attend to natural environments and features that have been beneficial during evolution. This paper assumes an ecological approach to perception and behavior to be fruitful in order to analyze the salutogenic potential of environments such as urban green spaces and to step beyond the “green vs. gray” dichotomy that has been prevalent through much of the research on health-promoting environments. Through an analysis of environmental affordances for certain perceived qualities such an approach is explored through a proposed concept for urban green space use and management, the edible forest garden. Such gardens, based on agroecological principles, have emerged as one of the most promising models regarding ecologically sustainable food production. In addition to potential contributions of importance for urban sustainability and biodiversity, we argue that the inclusion of edible forest gardens in urban green spaces – today globally dominated by lawns – also potentially could reinforce several affordances of salutogenic importance, both in terms of e.g. social cohesion but also in regard to restoration from psycho-physiological stress and attention fatigue. Increased opportunities for contact with nature and processes of food production may also reinforce pro-environmental behaviors in the population and thus also affect long-term sustainability. (shrink)

As one of the most widely read genres of literature, travel writing plays a crucial role in forming popular images and understandings of foreign places and foreign peoples. This essay examines the dominant images of rainforests and rainforest peoples portrayed in accounts of travels in tropical America published in National Geographic. Special attention is paid to the issues of how particular representations are privileged in this magazine's travel accounts and how these representations relate to questions of authority and power. The (...) analysis shows that the prevailing representations of the tropical forests and tropical forest-dwellers in the travel accounts of National Geographic rely on historically changing, but equally categorical distinctions between 'good' and 'bad', and 'natural' and 'unnatural'. (shrink)

There is a continuing debate in the field of perceptual organization as to whether the locus of global processing is early or late perceptual, as previous studies have yielded contrary results. The conducted behavioural study explored this issue with the paradigm of collating global processing with other process of perceptual organization, namely illusory contours processing. Interaction between these two processes of perceptual organization would indicate that global processing has an early perceptual locus, whereas the lack of such interaction would suggest (...) the late perceptual locus of global processing. In experiment 1, the effect of global dominance was obtained with the use of a compound figure composed of geometrical shapes with real edges. Results showed that the processing of the figure at the global level was faster and that it disrupted the processing of the figures from the local level. In experiment 1b, the compound figure was composed of local geometrical shapes generated with the use of the line-end induced illusory contours. Local elements with illusory contours did not affect the processing of the hierarchical structure and the effect of global precedence occurred without any changes. In experiment 2a, a global advantaged effect within a compound figure with local elements with real edges was obtained in the paradigm of attention divided between levels of the hierarchical structure. When illusory contours of local elements of a compound figure were introduced to this paradigm, this again had no effect on the perceptual global advantage. The results demonstrate the lack of interaction between global processing and illusory contour processing, indicating that the locus of global processing is rather late perceptual. (shrink)

Neo-positivism is dead. Let that imperfect designation stand for the project that dominated and defined the philosophy of science, especially in its Anglophone form, during the fifty or so years following the end of the Second World War. While its critics were many,1 its death was slow, and some think still to find a pulse.2 But die it did in the cul-de-sac into which it was led by its own faulty compass.

Modern and historical Japanese societies are and were quite comfortable with a nature defined, designed, and dominated by humans. While contemporary Japanese are concerned about the environment, especially about non-timber (“green”) forest resources, conservation organizations are generally small and locally focused. Public forests, accounting for 40 percent of all Japan's forests, are intensively managed. At the national level, the timber program is operating below cost and there is increasing emphasis on non-timber management and rural economic development. A professional elite (...) largely determines forest management goals and cultural barriers minimize broad public participation. Increasingly aware of the environmental impacts of their industrial society at home and abroad, the Japanese are becoming more environmentally concerned. Government agencies are especially proactive in enhancing environmental understanding among Japanese citizens and in sharing their resource management expertise with other Pacific Rim nations. (shrink)

The transformation of forests to agriculture is a dominant theme in human history, previously associated with progress, increasingly associated with local and global danger. A workshop at the Smithsonian Institution brought together scholars interested in one very large and fragile deltaic forest system of international importance: the Sundarbans. We found that land-hungry peasants are not quite the villain of the piece, as often portrayed; destruction and deterioration of the forest reflected pre-colonial dynamics of community and state formation, colonial (...) land and forest policy, international economics, and failure to solve international commons dilemmas. Preservation of the remaining Sundarbans depends on profound shifts in values concerning nature as well as changes in political structure and national economic pressures. Conventional wisdom in the form of the “tragedy of the commons” in explaining environmental degradation stands in need of revision. (shrink)

The landscape of the Sundarbans today is a product of two countervailing forces: conversion of wetland forests to cropland vs. sequestration of the forests in reserves to be managed for long-term sustained yield of wood products. For two centures, land-hungry peasants strove to transform the native tidal forest vegetation into an agroecosystem dominated by paddy rice and fish culture. During the colonial period, their reclamation efforts were encouraged by landlords and speculators, who were themselves encouraged by increasingly favorable state (...) policies (land grants, tax incentives, cadastral surveys, and eventually colonization projects and subsidized irrigation) designed by revenue officials to maximize the rate of transformation of wetland forest to taxable agricultural land.In the late nineteenth century, as the rate of agricultural conversion increased, the colonial Forest Department succcessfully sought to preserve large areas of the remaining Sundarbans tidal forest by giving them legal status as Reserved or Protected Forests. These forests were intensively managed to provide a sustainable supply of timber and firewood for the increasing population of southern Bengal. Institutionalization of conflicting policies by the Revenue and Forest Departments reflected the escalating needs for both food and forest products as the colony grew. Today, supplies of some economically valuable trees have been depleted, and some mammals are locally extinct (although the Bengal tiger remains), but government policy in both Bangladesh and India now favors use of the Sundarbans as forest rather than its transformation to agricultural land. Further expansion of cropland to meet the grain demands of the burgeoning Bengali population in both nations has largely taken place outside the boundaries of the Sundarbans. Overexploitation of these forests for wood products remains a possibility, but large-scale clearing for rice paddies is unlikely under present policies. (shrink)

Edward Harold Fulcher Swain (1883?1970) developed a unique idea about the importance of forests, advocating the creation of a new society based upon forests, and he pursued policies to implement his unique vision of forestry when he served as the Director of Queensland's Forestry Board from 1918 to 1924 and the Forestry Commissioner for New South Wales from 1935 to 1948. Swain's beliefs developed out of a combination of his Australian experiences and connections with foresters in the British Empire and (...) America. When he could not convince Australian elites about the need to create a forest-based society, he asked foresters at the 1947 Empire Forestry Conference in London to assert the primacy of forestry in land management in the British Empire. Many foresters positively received parts of Swain's argument, but his ideas could never be fully implemented in the British Empire because of the dominance of agrarian doctrines of development in post-Second World War colonial planning and the rapid process of decolonization. Swain's life sheds light onto current debates among historians about the origin and legacy of forestry in Australia and the British Empire. His ideas, many that parallel the basic tenets of modern environmentalism, require historians to rethink the relationship between Empire forestry and environmentalism. (shrink)

A commitment to engage with the structural and historical processes that result in discrimination and injustice in the utilisation of natural resources and landscapes is an epistemic responsibility that must be achieved in order to imagine a just society in which environmental justice is a feasible possibility. Indian author Bhoopal’s Forests, Blood & Survival: Life and Times of Komuram Bheem (2023), translated from Telugu by P A Kumar, is one such literary narrative that vividly portrays the injustices endured by tribal (...) communities in India at the hands of colonial forest officers, money lenders, capitalist extractive authorities, and other oppressive authorities. In this context, the article explicates this narrative of tribal communities to demonstrate and encourage alternative viewpoints and positions of tribal cultures that may confront the dominance of colonial-capitalist logic as a monolithic framework in environmental discourse. In doing so, the first section discusses the natural environment of the tribes and their way of life, followed by an intervention on the colonial brutality and injustices that tribals have been subjected to, and finally, how their resistance is deemed to be subaltern environmentalism. (shrink)

Consider the significance of Anne Frank's horse chestnut tree. During her years of hiding in the secret annex, Anne thought of the tree as a symbol of freedom, happiness, and peace. As a stand-in for all of Nature, Anne saw the tree as that part of the universe that could not be destroyed by human evil. In this essay, I use Anne's tree as a starting point for a discussion of the domination of both nature and humanity. I connect the (...) concept of domination to the policy of ecological restoration, to national and historical narratives of the connection to forest landscapes, and to the environmental policies of the Third Reich, the specific evil entity that confronted Anne Frank. Domination is also intertwined with the idea of the “paradox of progress,” viz., that human progress cannot be separated from acts and policies of domination. (shrink)

This paper examines the socio-economic and environmental implications of soy development in Santarém, Pará, located in the Brazilian Amazon. The settlement history of the region contributes directly to the way in which soy agriculture is currently proceeding in Santarém. Government policies and perspectives have been shaped by a history of agrarian colonization of Amazon forests, and the small farmers, or colonos, who are now being bought out by soy agribusiness are also rooted in this history. As a means of ascertaining (...) the current state and interaction of soy actors with the burgeoning soy-based economy in the area, field research was conducted on the role of primary and secondary forests for soy production. Research also included an analysis of valuation discourses – that is, how the differing soy actors (local government, agribusiness, conservation NGOs, and small farmers) assign value to types of forests and their different interpretations of what constitutes environmental degradation. The ways in which these different actors assign such values to forests and how they structure the definition of environmental degradation is a key factor in determining who “wins” and “loses” in the realm of Amazon development. Significant environmental and socio-economic implications of soy expansion, especially for the colonos, are not taken into account because the dominant rhetoric of Amazonian development ignores their contribution to social and ecological diversity. This omission keeps colono communities living at poverty level and even exacerbates colono poverty under the soy development project. The colonos and their representatives are responding by setting forth their own, competing valuations of primary and secondary forests that contrast sharply with state soy growing schemes and NGO plans for “sustainable soy.” These have their roots in local knowledge and best practices. (shrink)

Deliberative democracy is a dominant paradigm in normative political philosophy. Deliberative democrats want politics to be more than a clash of contending interests, and they believe political decisions should emerge from reasoned dialogue among citizens. But can these ideals be realized in complex and unjust societies? Deliberative Democracy in Practice brings together leading scholars who explore debates in deliberative democratic theory in four areas of practice: education, constitutions and state boundaries, indigenous-settler relations, and citizen participation and public consultation. This dynamic (...) volume casts new light on the strengths and limitations of deliberative democratic theory, offering guidance to policy makers and to students and scholars interested in democratic justice. Contributors inlcude James Bohman, Harry Brighouse, Simone Chambers, Glen Coulthard, James Fishkin, John Forester, Duncan Ivison, Micheline Milot, Henry S. Richardson, Jorge M. Valadez, and Paul Weithman. (shrink)

Is it OK to lie to Siri? Is it bad to mistreat a robot for our own pleasure? Under what condition should we grant a moral status to an artificial intelligence (AI) system? This paper looks at different arguments for granting moral status to an AI system: the idea of indirect duties, the relational argument, the argument from intelligence, the arguments from life and information, and the argument from sentience. In each but the last case, we find unresolved issues with (...) the particular argument, which leads us to move to a different one. We leave the idea of indirect duties aside since these duties do not imply considering an AI system for its own sake. The paper rejects the relational argument and the argument from intelligence. The argument from life may lead us to grant a moral status to an AI system, but only in a weak sense. Sentience, by contrast, is a strong argument for the moral status of an AI system—based, among other things, on the Aristotelian principle of equality: that same cases should be treated in the same way. The paper points out, however, that no AI system is sentient given the current level of technological development. (shrink)

Is it OK to lie to Siri? Is it bad to mistreat a robot for our own pleasure? Under what condition should we grant a moral status to an artificial intelligence system? This paper looks at different arguments for granting moral status to an AI system: the idea of indirect duties, the relational argument, the argument from intelligence, the arguments from life and information, and the argument from sentience. In each but the last case, we find unresolved issues with the (...) particular argument, which leads us to move to a different one. We leave the idea of indirect duties aside since these duties do not imply considering an AI system for its own sake. The paper rejects the relational argument and the argument from intelligence. The argument from life may lead us to grant a moral status to an AI system, but only in a weak sense. Sentience, by contrast, is a strong argument for the moral status of an AI system—based, among other things, on the Aristotelian principle of equality: that same cases should be treated in the same way. The paper points out, however, that no AI system is sentient given the current level of technological development. (shrink)

It may soon be possible to generate human organs inside of human-pig chimeras via a process called interspecies blastocyst complementation. This paper discusses what arguably the central ethical concern is raised by this potential source of transplantable organs: that farming human-pig chimeras for their organs risks perpetrating a serious moral wrong because the moral status of human-pig chimeras is uncertain, and potentially significant. Those who raise this concern usually take it to be unique to the creation of chimeric animals with (...) ‘humanised’ brains. In this paper, we show how that the same style of argument can be used to critique current uses of non-chimeric pigs in agriculture. This reveals an important tension between two common moral views: that farming human-pig chimeras for their organs is ethically concerning, and that farming non-chimeric pigs for food or research is ethically benign. At least one of these views stands in need of revision. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Psychedelics have again become a subject of widespread interest, owing to the reinvigoration of research into their traditional uses, possible medical applications, and social implications. As evidence for psychedelics' clinical potential mounts, the field has increasingly focused on searching for mechanisms to explain the effects of psychedelics and therapeutic efficacy of psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT). This paper reviews three general frameworks that encompass several prominent models for understanding psychedelics' effects—specifically, neurobiological, psychological, and spiritual frameworks. Following our review, the implications of each (...) framework for ethics and professional competencies in the implementation of psychedelics as medicines are explored. We suggest that interdisciplinary education may be necessary to improve communication between researchers, develop models that effectively incorporate multiple levels of analysis, and facilitate collaboration between professionals with diverse backgrounds in the implementation of psychedelic medicines. We also address pitfalls associated with overemphasis on neuro-mechanisms, risks associated with instigating vulnerable states of consciousness, and hurdles associated with the integration of spiritual frameworks in medicine. Ultimately, as psychedelics push the boundaries of explanatory frameworks focused on one level of analysis, developing new and more useful models to reflect knowledge being produced in this field should be a central aim of psychedelic science going forward. (shrink)

Perception of a property (e.g. a colour, a shape, a size) can enable thought about the property, while at the same time misleading the subject as to what the property is like. This long-overlooked claim parallels a more familiar observation concerning perception-based thought about objects, namely that perception can enable a subject to think about an object while at the same time misleading her as to what the object is like. I defend the overlooked claim, and then use it to (...) generate a challenge for a standard way of thinking about the relationship between visual experience and rational belief formation. Put informally, that view holds that just as we can mislead others by saying something false, illusory experience misleads by misrepresenting how things stand in the world. I argue that we ought to abandon this view in favour of some radical alternative account of the relationship between visual experience and rational belief formation. (shrink)

Pautz has argued that the most prominent naive realist account of hallucination—negative epistemic disjunctivism—cannot explain how hallucinations enable us to form beliefs about perceptually presented properties. He takes this as grounds to reject both negative epistemic disjunctivism and naive realism. Our aims are two: First, to show that this objection is dialectically ineffective against naive realism, and second, to draw morals from the failure of this objection for the dispute over the nature of perceptual experience at large.

_Imagination, Philosophy and the Arts_ is the first comprehensive collection of papers by philosophers examining the nature of imagination and its role in understanding and making art. Imagination is a central concept in aesthetics with close ties to issues in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language, yet it has not received the kind of sustained, critical attention it deserves. This collection of seventeen brand new essays critically examines just how and in what form the notion of imagination (...) illuminates fundamental problems in the philosophy of art. (shrink)

Despite the fact that psychedelics were proscribed from medical research half a century ago, recent, early-phase trials on psychedelics have suggested that they bring novel benefits to patients in the treatment of several mental and substance use disorders. When beneficial, the psychedelic experience is characterized by features unlike those of other psychiatric and medical treatments. These include senses of losing self-importance, ineffable knowledge, feelings of unity and connection with others and encountering ‘deep’ reality or God. In addition to symptom relief, (...) psychedelic experiences often lead to significant changes in a patient’s personality and worldview. Focusing on the case of psilocybin, we argue that the peculiar features of psychedelics pose certain novel risks, which warrant an enhanced informed consent process–one that is more comprehensive than what may be typical for other psychiatric medications. We highlight key issues that should be focused on during the consent process and suggest discussion prompts for enhanced consent in psychedelic psychiatry. Finally, we respond to potential objections before concluding with a discussion of ethical considerations that will arise as psychedelics proceed from highly controlled research environments into mainstream clinical psychiatry. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell was neither the first nor the last philosopher to engage in serious theorizing about propositions. But his work between 1903, when he published The Principles of Mathematics, and 1919, when his final lectures on logical atomism were published, remains among the most important on the subject. And its importance is not merely historical. Russell’s rapidly evolving treatment of propositions during this period was driven by his engagement with – and discovery of – puzzles that either continue to shape (...) contemporary theorizing about propositions, or ought to do so. Russell’s creative responses to these puzzles also laid the foundation for many later accounts (most obviously, contemporary ‘Russellian’ accounts of propositions). In this entry we provide an opinionated overview of Russell’s influential treatment of propositions, with a focus on the evolution of his views from 1903 to 1919. A growing secondary literature is dedicated to Russell’s changing views during this period, and their often complex or opaque motivations. We do not intervene overmuch in this ongoing scholarly discussion. Instead, our aim is to trace some of the central motivations for Russell’s evolving views, and highlight the extent to which these motivations remain relevant to contemporary theorizing about propositions. (shrink)

Environmental justice seeks fairness in how environmental burdens and risks are visited on poor people, women, communities of color, Indigenous peoples, minorities, and citizens of developing countries. It also concerns whether members of these same groups have fair access to environmental goods such as urban green spaces, forested areas, and clean water. Environmental goods extend, also, to opportunities to benefit from enterprises such as tourism and green infrastructure (Shrader-Frechette 2002; Bullard 2000; Taylor 2000; Whyte 2010). The moral wrongs characteristic of (...) environmental injustices often do not resonate with members of dominant societies. In some cases, those injustices are unknowable. To say that .. (shrink)

Hindu texts call into question our own gender conceptions; they tell us that desire for bisexual pleasure and the wish to belong to both sexes at the same time are very real, but unrealizable, except by those with magic gifts. Many myths bear witness to the existential perception of human beings as bisexual and to active bisexual transformations. Some may show the desire to be androgynous and, contrary to the dominant homophobic paradigm, present veiled images of a bisexuality fulfilled in (...) happiness and satisfaction. The episode evoking Chudala as a mistress of initiation and some variants in the magical forests of Shiva and Parvati illustrate this carefree, joyous way of crossing the gender barrier. (shrink)

Background: Besides regulatory learning skills, learning also requires students to relate to their social context and negotiate it as they transition and adjust to medical training. As such, there is a need to consider and explore the role of social and cultural aspects in student learning, particularly in problem-based learning, where the learning paradigm differs from what most students have previously experienced. In this article, we report on the findings of a study exploring first-year medical students’ experiences during the first (...) semester of an undergraduate problem-based learning medical program at an African medical school. Method: We employed a qualitative case study approach using in-depth interviews with 23 first-year medical students. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 25 years. All students were bi/multilingual (some spoke three to five languages), with English as the learning language. We conducted an inductive thematic analysis to systematically identify and analyze patterns in the data using the Braun and Clarke framework. Results: Before medical school, students worked hard to compete for admission to medical school, were primarily taught using a teacher-centered approach, and preferred working alone. At the beginning of medical school, students found it challenging to understand the problem-based learning process, the role of the case, speaking and working effectively in a group, managing a heavy workload, and taking increased responsibility for their learning. By the end of the first semester, most students were handling the workload better, were more comfortable with their peers and facilitators, and appreciated the value of the problem-based learning approach. Conclusions: Our study highlights the importance of interrogating contextual sociocultural factors that could cause tension when implementing problem-based learning in non-western medical schools. Adjustment to problem-based learning requires a conceptual and pedagogic shift towards learner-centered practice, particularly concerning self direction, the role of the case, and collaborative learning. As such, there is a need to develop and implement research informed learning development programs that enable students to reflect on their sociocultural beliefs and practices, and enhance their regulatory learning competence to optimize meaningful and early engagement with the problem based learning process. (shrink)

Two widely shared but diametrically opposed views inform what theories we have on the everyday: one, which we might call the feminine or feminist, though it is not necessarily held by women or self-described feminists, links the everyday with the daily rituals of private life carried out within the domestic sphere traditionally presided over by women; the other, the masculine or masculinist, sites the everyday in the public spaces and spheres dominated especially, but not exclusively, in modern Western bourgeois societies (...) by men. According to the one, the everyday is made up of the countless repetitive gestures and small practices that fall under the heading of what the existentialists called the contingent. According to the other, the everyday is made up of the chance encounters of the streets; its hero is not the housewife but the flâneur. In the word of Maurice Blanchot:The everyday is human. The earth, the sea, forest, light, night, do not represent everydayness, which belongs first of all to the dense presence of great urban centers. We need these admirable deserts that are the world’s cities for the experience of the everyday to begin to overtake us. The everyday is not at home in our dwelling-places, it is not in offices or churches, any more than in libraries or museums. It is in the street—if it is anywhere.1 1. Maurice Blanchot, “Everyday Speech,” trans. Susan Hanson, in “Everyday Life,” ed. Alice Kaplan and Kristin Ross, special issue of Yale French Studies, no. 73 : 17. Naomi Schor is the William Hanes Wannamaker Professor Romance Studies at Duke University and coeditor of differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. Her most recent book is Reading in Detail: Aesthetics and the Feminine . She is currently completing a book entitled George Sand and Idealism. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom suggests that the Platonist philosophers of Late Antiquity, from Plotinus (third century) to the sixth-century schools in Athens and Alexandria, neglected the political dimension of their Platonic heritage in their concentration on an otherworldly life. Dominic O'Meara presents a revelatory reappraisal of these thinkers, arguing that their otherworldliness involved rather than excluded political ideas, and he reconstructs for the first time a coherent political philosophy of Late Platonism.

Memoir and the Re-reading of Fiction: Rudy Wiebe's of this earth and Peace Shall Destroy Many Canadian novelist Rudy Wiebe's award-winning memoir, of this earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest, invites readers into a warm subjective realm in which a meditative Wiebe recounts his growing-up years from birth to age thirteen. As self-reflexive "rememberer," Wiebe explores the sensate freshness of a boy's ways of seeing, touching, and, not least, hearing the world. The young Wiebe lives with his (...) parents and siblings and neighbours in an emotionally warm Christian community of 1920s immigrants to Canada who have fled from the Soviet Union in the wake of the 1917 Revolution and who struggle for economic survival in a remote corner of rural Saskatchewan during the 1930s and 1940s. But Wiebe's memoir of childhood is not only autobiography and social history; it is also a linguistic text that subtly invites readers to look beyond its textual boundaries to his earlier work. In particular, it has the effect of carrying alert readers back to the setting—at least physically and geographically if not altogether socially and culturally—of Wiebe's first novel, Peace Shall Destroy Many. That early novel was a caustic work notoriously controversial especially among Mennonite readers in Canada when it appeared almost a half-century ago. The 2006 memoir—with intertextual allusion—invites readers to recall especially one layer of that early novel barely noticed by readers, a layer eclipsed and partially hidden by the dominant narrative. Specifically, it invites readers to see the virtually sinless and prelapsarian world of the idealistic young Hal Wiens whose idyllic life in the fictional spaces of Peace Shall Destroy Many goes unnoticed because it is so very much in the shadow of the doubts and tensions that inform the much larger world of his spiritually troubled older brother, nineteen-year old Thom Wiens. The memoir pushes readers into re-thinking the reception of that novel, and into finding anew beneath its severe and satiric treatment of the austere adult world the linguistic and spiritual joy of life given shape in the playful perceptions of the young Hal. The memoir becomes a stimulus for a transformational re-reading of the novel. This essay explores the two works in light of each other and of conventions that govern the two respective genres. It attempts, also, to account for the reading strategies that Wiebe's 2006 memoir proposes to readers of his first novel, and for key influences informing the two respective works. (shrink)

This paper examines a struggle over the future use of Nordic forests, which took place from 2009 to 2012 within a major research program, Future Forests—Sustainable Strategies under Uncertainty and Risk, organized and funded by Mistra, The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research. We explore the role of strategic environmental research in societal constructions of long-term challenges and future risks. Specifically, we draw attention to the role played by environmental research in the creation of future images that become dominant for (...) how societies structure action for the long term. We also show that this process is on several accounts problematic. Research labeled “strategic” or “relevant” is intended to manage long-term risks and challenges in a sustainable way, by taking into account the “open” and “plural” nature of the future. The case of Future Forests suggests, rather, that by contributing to the emergence of dominant future images, environmental research is entangled with a process of gradual consensus creation around what may be highly selective or biased narratives of the long term, which may conceal or postpone key forms of future conflict. (shrink)

An early work in which Baudrillard became Baudrillard. When Fatal Strategies was first published in French in 1983, it represented a turning point for Jean Baudrillard: an utterly original, and for many readers, utterly bizarre book that offered a theory as proliferative, ecstatic, and hallucinatory as the postmodern world it endeavored to describe. Arguing against the predetermined outcomes of dialectical thought with his renowned, wry, ambivalent passion, with this volume Jean Baudrillard mounted an attack against the “false problems” posed by (...) Western philosophy. If his Marxist days were firmly behind him, Baudrillard here indicated that metaphysics had also gone the way of sociology and politics: the contemporary world demanded nothing less than Pataphysics, Alfred Jarry's absurdist philosphy that described the laws of the universe supplementary to this one. In effect, with Fatal Strategies, Baudrillard became Baudrillard. In his extrapolationist manner, Baudrillard sought to replace Western philosophy's circular arguments with a ritualistic Theater of Cruelty. Using this line of thought developed in Fatal Strategies, Baudrillard went on, throughout the 1980s, to find new and shatteringly accurate ways of discussing American corporatocracy, arms build-up, and hostage taking. Fatal Strategies asserts a profound critique of American politics, and it is an important step towards his examination of evil.Jean Baudrillard was a philosopher, sociologist, cultural critic, and theorist of postmodernity who challenged all existing theories of contemporary society with humor and precision. An outsider in the French intellectual establishment, he was internationally renowned as a twenty-first century visionary, reporter, and provocateur. His Simulations instantly became a cult classic and made him a controversial voice in the world of politics and art. (shrink)

Klugman et al. (2018) describe how new medical devices track treatment adherence more accurately than a clinician relying on his or her patient’s self-report. For example, these devices promise to...

Consider the existence of six identical trees of the same species across a variety of environments. The first tree is in a wild and isolated landscape. The second is in a wilderness park. The third is in a heavily forested “tree plantation” owned by International Paper. The fourth is in the Ramble in Central Park. The fifth is in a suburban yard. The sixth is inside the six-story atrium of a Manhattan skyscraper. This paper begins with the intuition that the (...) identical trees have different values because they exist in different environments and biological-social contexts. To understand the different evaluations of the trees we must think along a spectrum that incorporates both axiology and ontology. This thought experiment is useful in exploring arguments about both the management and the preservation of the natural world. The conclusion is that we must think along a spectrum of natural being and value to understand the dualism between humanity and nature and thereby avoid the domination of the natural environment. (shrink)

Jonathan Kvanvig has proposed a non-cognitive theory of faith. He argues that the model of faith as essentially involving assent to propositions is of no value. In response, I propose a Thomistic cognitive theory of faith that both avoids Kvanvig’s criticism and presents a richer and more inclusive account of how faith is intrinsically valuable. I show these accounts of faith diverge in what they take as the goal of the Christian life: personal relationship with God or an external state (...) of affairs. For this reason, more seriously, the non-cognitivist project likely requires rejecting traditional Christianity and its picture of salvation. (shrink)

Everybody assumes (1) that musical performances are sonic events and (2) that their expressive properties are sonic properties. This paper discusses recent findings in the psychology of music perception that show that visual information combines with auditory information in the perception of musical expression. The findings show at the very least that arguments are needed for (1) and (2). If music expresses what we think it does, then its expressive properties may be visual as well as sonic; and if its (...) expressive properties are purely sonic, then music expresses less than we think it does. And if the expressive properties of music are visual as well as sonic, then music is not what we think it is—it is not purely sonic. (shrink)

Diverse micro‐organisms populate a global deep biosphere hosted by rocks and sediments beneath land and sea, containing more biomass than any other biome except forests. This paper reviews an emerging palaeobiological archive of these dark habitats: microfossils preserved in ancient pores and fractures in the crust. This archive, seemingly dominated by mineralized filaments (although rods and coccoids are also reported), is presently far too sparsely sampled and poorly understood to reveal trends in the abundance, distribution, or diversity of deep life (...) through time. New research is called for to establish the nature and extent of the fossil record of Earth's deep biosphere by combining systematic exploration, rigorous microanalysis, and experimental studies of both microbial preservation and the formation of abiotic pseudofossils within the crust. It is concluded that the fossil record of Earth's largest microbial habitat may still have much to tell us about the history of life, the evolution of biogeochemical cycles, and the search for life on Mars. (shrink)

In recent years biomimicry has emerged as a powerful response to the problem of sustainability and today exerts an important influence on both architecture and urbanism. The implications of this trend for the humanities have, however, been largely overlooked. Taking a historical approach, the first key argument of this article is that throughout Western history the dominant model for the polis, qua both city and State, has been the human being and that it was also this basic model that underlay (...) traditional understandings of the place of humans in cities and States. With the transition to biomimetic cities and States, the key model of which is the forest ecosystem, the question of the place of humans arises once again. In response to this question, the article proposes a speculative philosophical anthropology based on a combination of Heidegger’s thinking of the clearing and recent insights from the study of human evolution and pre-history with a view to grounding a new model of the polis not simply on the forest, but rather on the forest and the clearing. (shrink)

Homegardens are traditional food systems that have been adapted over generations to fit local cultural and ecological conditions. They provide a year-round diversity of nutritious foods for smallholder farming communities in many regions of the tropics and subtropics. In southwestern Uganda, homegardens are the primary source of food, providing a diverse diet for rural marginalized poor. However, national agricultural development plans as well as economic and social pressures threaten the functioning of these homegardens. The implications of these threats are difficult (...) to evaluate, because the structure and functions of the homegardens are not well understood. The aim of the study was to identify patterns and influencing factors in the diversity of homegardens by documenting the floristic diversity and its interactions with spatial, environmental and socio-economic factors. A geographically and socially focused assessment of floristic diversity in 102 randomly selected homegardens in three districts of southwest Uganda was conducted along a deforestation gradient following a human ecology conceptual framework and testing multiple quantitative hypotheses regarding the above mentioned factors. A merged mixed-method approach was followed to provide context and feedback regarding quantitative findings. Results show a high total richness of 209 crop species dominated by food species, which constituted 96 percent of individuals and 44 percent of all species. Forest-edge homegardens maintained higher plant diversity compared to homegardens in deforested areas and near degraded wetlands. Multiple linear regression models indicated elevation, location, homegarden size, distance to market, additional land ownership and livestock ownership as significant predictors of crop diversity. Cluster analysis of species densities revealed four garden types: ‘diverse tree gardens’, ‘small forest-edge gardens’, ‘large, old, species-rich gardens’, and ‘large, annual-dominated herb gardens’, with 98% correct classification. Location, elevation, and garden size were also important determinants in the cluster assignment. We conclude that the diversity of the studied homegardens may be changing as part of adaptive traditional practices and in response to external drivers. The identified patterns illustrate the importance of homegardens for rural livelihoods and may offer some ways to support farmers to maintain these systems as relevant mechanisms for development in Uganda. (shrink)

Public concern for ecological and environmental values is making the job of forest management increasingly complex and uncertain and is gradually undermining the domination of timber value as the primary organizing goal of forest policy. The key question is how to balance the pursuit of short-term economic self-interests with the long-term public good. I articulate a moral theory that affirms the existence of a public good that is understood teleologically as an objective purpose to be pursued. I argue (...) that there is a connection between the philosophical and moral concept of creativity and the scientific concept of biological diversity. I suggest that these concepts are both linked to the political question of the public good. The maximization of the ethical good of creativity according to this theory is linked to the maximization of the public good. In forestry, the management of forest ecosystems in order to maximize their creative good is linked to the maximization of the public good and vice versa. This ethical theory isessentially a religious one in the neoclassical theistic tradition, in which authentic human existence is defined in terms of our relationship to reality and a metaphysically and cosmologically informed world view. (shrink)

In the 1930s, the Bengali philosopher K. C. Bhattacharyya proposed a new theory of rasa, or aesthetic emotion, according to which aesthetic emotions are feelings that have other feelings as their intentional objects. This paper articulates how Bhattacharyya’s theory offers a novel solution to the puzzle of how it is both possible and rational to enjoy the kind of negative emotions that are inspired by tragic and sorrowful tales. The new solution is distinct from the conversion and compensation views that (...) dominate the existing literature, and it derives its significance from how it ties aesthetic experience to self-awareness. (shrink)

Who were the true forerunners of the seventeenth-century theorists of innate ideas? Credit should go, not to Plato, despite the common label Platonist, but to the Stoics—or so this challenging new study claims. Plato’s celebrated doctrine of knowledge as recollection differed from these others’ theories not merely in its extravagant postulate of a prenatal knowing state but in many hitherto unrecognized ways, Scott argues. Among those who shared the belief that all men are endowed at birth with considerable epistemological resources, (...) Plato alone is a pessimist both about how few of us make any use of these—only those who make philosophical progress—and about the difficulty of unearthing these resources. Contrary to a prevalent view, Scott holds that Plato invokes recollection to explain not “ordinary learning,” the acquisition or application of everyday concepts such as equality or beauty, but “higher learning”—the province of the philosopher. (shrink)

Human cooperation is held to be an evolutionary puzzle because people voluntarily engage in costly cooperation, and costly punishment of non-cooperators, even among anonymous strangers they will never meet again. The costs of such cooperation cannot be recovered through kin-selection, reciprocal altruism, indirect reciprocity, or costly signaling. A number of recent authors label this behavior ‘strong reciprocity’, and argue that it is: (a) a newly documented aspect of human nature, (b) adaptive, and (c) evolved by group selection. We argue exactly (...) the opposite; that the phenomenon is: (a) not new, (b) maladaptive, and (c) evolved by individual selection. In our perspective, the apparent puzzle disappears to reveal a biological and evolutionary logic to human cooperation. Group selection may play a role in theory, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient to explain human cooperation. Our alternative solution is simpler, makes fewer assumptions, and is more parsimonious with the empirical data. (shrink)

Knowledge of the structure of the cosmos, Plato suggests, is important in organizing a human community which aims at happiness. This book investigates this theme in Plato's later works, the Timaeus, Statesman, and Laws. Dominic J. O'Meara proposes fresh readings of these texts, starting from the religious festivals and technical and artistic skills in the context of which Plato elaborates his cosmological and political theories, for example the Greek architect's use of models as applied by Plato in describing the (...) making of the world. O'Meara gives an account of the model of which Plato's world is an image; of the mathematics used in producing the world; and of the relation between the cosmic model and the political science and legislation involved in designing a model state in the Laws. Non-specialist scholars and students will be able to access and profit from the book. (shrink)

Our awareness of the boundedness of the spatial sensory field—a paradigmatic structural feature of visual experience—possesses a distinctive epistemic role. Properly understood, this result undermines a widely assumed picture of how visual experience permits us to learn about the world. This paper defends an alternative picture in which visual experience provides at least two kinds of non-inferential justification for beliefs about the external world. Accommodating this justification in turn requires recognising a new way for visual experience to encode information about (...) the world. Reflection upon the epistemic contribution of sensory experience's structural features thus forces us to revise our understanding of how perception, cognition, and the world fit together. (shrink)

Access to education for undocumented migrant children in South Africa remains a significant challenge. While the difficulties related to their inability to access education within the country have been highlighted elsewhere, there remains a lack of clarity on an approach to how this basic human right can be achieved. In this conceptual paper, we draw on the distinction between equality and equity, and describe the various ways in which education has been conceptualised in the South African Constitution – which in (...) part contributes to the existing confusion on education for various groups, including undocumented migrant children. In this paper, we critically reflects on the need to develop an integrated approach for creating a platform that allows all undocumented migrant children access to education in South Africa. We argue that an integrated approach – which entails ways through which access to education can be delivered through the lens of equity – will enhance the right to education for undocumented migrant children in South Africa. We conclude that the South African government must urgently consider this integrated approach to enable access to education for undocumented migrant children, so that they can achieve their full educational potential. (shrink)