IPCC SPECIAL REPORT ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND LAND (SRCCL) -/- Chapter 3: Climate Change and Land: An IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.

This paper analyses how security affects well-being. Security is understood as someone’s sureness of enjoying some good in the future; well-being is treated as a matter of human flourishing. Security can contribute to our well-being in various ways: if we are in fact bound to enjoy a good, in principle this is positive for our flourishing in the future; if we also believe that we will enjoy this good, we can be more efficient in pursuing our well-being; if we also (...) feel secure, this supports our enjoyment of our physical and mental capacities. For some of these benefits to obtain fully, however, it is important that our beliefs and feelings align with the facts. Furthermore, mirroring security’s upsides, there are also ways in which security can hamper our flourishing: it can obstruct the change, surprise, and pleasurable fear that are sometimes required for a good life too. (shrink)

The ability to reflect on and monitor memory processes is one of the most investigated metamemory functions, and one of the important ways consciousnesses interacts with memory. The feeling-of-knowing is one task used to evaluate individual’s capacity to monitor their memory. We examined this reflective function of metacognition in older adults. We explored the contribution of metacognition to episodic memory impairment, in relation to the idea that older adults show a reduction in memory awareness characteristic of episodic memory. A first (...) experiment showed that age affects the accuracy of FOK when predictions are made on an episodic memory task but not on a semantic memory task, suggesting a particular role for episodic memory awareness in metacognitive evaluations. A second experiment showed that the age-difference in episodic FOK accuracy was removed if one took into account subjective reports of memory awareness, or recollection. We argue that the FOK deficit specific to episodic memory is based on a lack of memory awareness manifest as a recollection deficit. (shrink)

Much of the progress in the fields constituting cognitive science has been based upon the use of explicit information processing models, almost exclusively patterned after conventional serial computers. An extension of these ideas to massively parallel, connectionist models appears to offer a number of advantages. After a preliminary discussion, this paper introduces a general connectionist model and considers how it might be used in cognitive science. Among the issues addressed are: stability and noise‐sensitivity, distributed decision‐making, time and sequence problems, and (...) the representation of complex concepts. (shrink)

Some philosophers hold that philosophy is what you do to a problem until it’s clear enough to solve it by doing science. Others hold that if a philosophical problem succumbs to empirical methods, that shows it wasn’t really philosophical to begin with. Either way, the facts seem clear enough: questions first mooted by philosophers are sometimes coopted by people who do experiments. This seems to be happening now to the question: “what are propositional attitudes?” and cognitive psychology is the science (...) of note. (shrink)

Forty years’ experience as a bacterial geneticist has taught me that bacteria possess many cognitive, computational and evolutionary capabilities unimaginable in the first six decades of the twentieth century. Analysis of cellular processes such as metabolism, regulation of protein synthesis, and DNA repair established that bacteria continually monitor their external and internal environments and compute functional outputs based on information provided by their sensory apparatus. Studies of genetic recombination, lysogeny, antibiotic resistance and my own work on transposable elements revealed multiple (...) widespread bacterial systems for mobilizing and engineering DNA molecules. Examination of colony development and organization led me to appreciate how extensive multicellular collaboration is among the majority of bacterial species. Contemporary research in many laboratories on cell–cell signaling, symbiosis and pathogenesis show that bacteria utilise sophisticated mechanisms for intercellular communication and even have the ability to commandeer the basic cell biology of ‘higher’ plants and animals to meet their own needs. This remarkable series of observations requires us to revise basic ideas about biological information processing and recognise that even the smallest cells are sentient beings. Previous article in issue. (shrink)

What role, if any, should emotions play in clinical reasoning and decision making? Traditionally, emotions have been excluded from clinical reasoning and decision making, but with recent advances in cognitive neuropsychology they are now considered an important component of them. Today, cognition is thought to be a set of complex processes relying on multiple types of intelligences. The role of mathematical logic or verbal linguistic intelligence in cognition, for example, is well documented and accepted; however, the role of emotional intelligence (...) has received less attention—especially because its nature and function are not well understood. In this paper, I argue for the inclusion of emotions in clinical reasoning and decision making. To that end, developments in contemporary cognitive neuropsychology are initially examined and analyzed, followed by a review of the medical literature discussing the role of emotions in clinical practice. Next, a published clinical case is reconstructed and used to illustrate the recognition and regulation of emotions played during a series of clinical consultations, which resulted in a positive medical outcome. The paper’s main thesis is that emotions, particularly in terms of emotional intelligence as a practical form of intelligence, afford clinical practitioners a robust cognitive resource for providing quality medical care. (shrink)

The paper explores the distinction between two doctrines, both of which inform theory construction in much of modern cognitive psychology: the representational theory of mind and the computational theory of mind. According to the former, propositional attitudes are to be construed as relations that organisms bear to mental representations. According to the latter, mental processes have access only to formal (nonsemantic) properties of the mental representations over which they are defined.The following claims are defended: (1) That the traditional dispute between (...) “rational” and “naturalistic” psychology is plausibly viewed as an argument about the status of the computational theory of mind. Rational psychologists accept a formality condition on the specification of mental processes; naturalists do not. (2) That to accept the formality condition is to endorse a version of methodological solipsism. (3) That the acceptance of some such condition is warranted, at least for that part of psychology which concerns itself with theories of the mental causation of behavior. This is because: (4) such theories require nontransparent taxonomies of mental states; and (5) nontransparent taxonomies individuate mental states without reference to their semantic properties. Equivalently, (6) nontransparent taxonomies respect the way that the organism represents the object of its propositional attitudes toitself, and it is this representation which functions in the causation of behavior.The final section of the paper considers the prospect for a naturalistic psychology: one which defines its generalizations over relations between mental representations and their environmental causes, thus seeking to account for the semantic properties of propositional attitudes. Two related arguments are proposed, both leading to the conclusion that no such research strategy is likely to prove fruitful. (shrink)

We investigate the expressive power of second-order logic over finite structures, when two limitations are imposed. Let SAA ) be the set of second-order formulas such that the arity of the relation variables is bounded by k and the number of alternations of second-order quantification is bounded by n . We show that this imposes a proper hierarchy on second-order logic, i.e. for every k , n there are problems not definable in AA but definable in AA for some c (...) 1 , d 1 . The method to show this is to introduce the set AUTOSAT of formulas in F which satisfy themselves. We study the complexity of this set for various fragments of second-order loeic. For first-order logic FOL with unbounded alternation of quantifiers AUTOSAT is PSpace complete. For first-order logic FOL n with alternation of quantifiers bounded by n , AUTOSAT is definable in AA . AUTOSAT) is definable in AA for some c 1 , d 1. (shrink)

The opinions that people hold about the nature of consciousness are important not only to researchers in philosophy and science, but also in many professional fields such as clinical medicine, law, and education. However, in spite of this importance and how controversial the topic is, there is remarkably little empirical data concerning what these opinions are. Here we describe the results of a multi-year survey of university students concerning their beliefs about the nature of consciousness and about what entities are (...) conscious. We find that these students are split fairly evenly between dualists and materialists, and that they also include a significant number of idealists. Almost all of the participants attribute consciousness to other people, and the vast majority attributes it to at least some animal species but not to computers. These results, especially when combined with those from the few existing previous surveys that we review, do not support past statements in the consciousness studies literature that dualism is by far the dominant viewpoint in the general population. The results also indicate that most people resolve the problem of other minds in a way that includes some animals as being conscious. (shrink)

"This book contains ideas to develop interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary views on economy and society. It aims to disseminate heterodox ideas on various subjects related to economics and global society. The book is organised in six parts. Part 1 contains the key lectures of Backhaus on the concept of state sciences and of Klamer on the importance of culture for economics. Parts 2- 6 contain successively contributions in the areas of economic paradigms and theories, population and society, corporate issues, environment, and (...) international relations. Examples of the content are: - the changes of family life cycles due to the rise of non-traditional households; - subjective and objective inflation rates after the introduction of the Euro; - the economics of genetic engineering; - the contribution of foreign direct investment to the economic development of host countries; - the inaccuracy of economic models applied in places characterized by extreme income disparities; - the improvement of political and corporate governance; - evolutionary thinking and emission trading; - freedom and order in the European Union; - the reform of social policy in Europe. The book provides interesting creative multi-disciplinary ideas with respect to various topical issues concerning the contemporary global society. It is highly recommended for economists and social scientists in search of broad views on social science and society.". (shrink)

The expression used in the Periplus M.E. has attracted a certain amount of attention. It is generally held to mean ‘a legal mart where foreign trade was officially allowed and taxed’ : and this translation has sometimes been made the ground of comparison with the treaty ports of China or the échelles of the Levant. On closer examination of the usage of the Periplus M.E. it seems difficult to accept this meaning, and possible to suggest another.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.3 (2000) 381-395 [Access article in PDF] Minds, Forms, and Spirits: The Nature of Cartesian Disenchantment Han van Ruler What is Descartes's contribution to Enlightenment? Undoubtedly, Cartesian philosophy added to the conflict between philosophical and theological views which divided intellectual life in the Dutch Republic towards the end of its "Golden Age." 1 Although not everyone was as explicit as Lodewijk Meyer, who (...) said that his theological doubts were inspired by Descartes's philosophical method, Cartesianism along with Copernicanism, Socinianism, and Cocceianism played an important part in the growing skepticism towards the authority of Scripture. 2 Apart from Descartes's general method, however, specific Cartesian ideas encouraged a new view towards nature and towards God's role in governing it. In physics and physiology the new philosophy replaced the image of mind working on matter with the image of a self sufficient mechanism. This new causal metaphor led to a typically Cartesian form of "disenchantment." In this article I argue that on account of their approval of a Cartesian theory of causality, even authors with sincere religious motives came close to accepting radical and nearly Spinozistic ideas. I start with disenchantment in a very literal sense: Balthasar Bekker's denial of the activities of devils, angels, and other spirits. A comparison of Bekker's arguments with those of another Cartesian, Arnold Geulincx will, I hope, bring out the nature and importance of what I shall present as [End Page 381] Descartes's "mechanical reduction" in physics. Finally, I argue that the Cartesian separation of mind and body gave rise to a form of disenchantment that reached far beyond contemporary debates. Devils, Ghosts, and God's Omnipotence Balthasar Bekker's classic book The World Bewitched (1691-93) does not so much deal with the practice of sorcery as with its theory. Bekker offers a wide range of theological and philosophical arguments in order to combat the idea that ghosts, devils, and angels influence natural or historical events. In particular Bekker draws some important conclusions from the philosophy of Descartes. Yet it is immediately clear to the reader that the motives for his critique are religious rather than philosophical. 3 The World Bewitched is not written as a scientific assault on superstition. Bekker, at the time serving as a Calvinist minister in Amsterdam, presents his work as a new and perhaps final phase in the perfection of Christianity. For two centuries it had been a goal of the Protestant Reformation to accentuate God's majesty and to establish the idea of His absolute power over creation. Bekker's World again expresses this idea. His denial that ghosts and devils are active in the world is a logical consequence of the belief that there is no room for demigods in nature. Bekker thus adds a final touch to the project of the Reformation. The World Bewitched will testify to the fact "that I return as much of the honor of His Power and Wisdom to the Almighty, as they took from Him who gave it to the Devil. I ban [the Devil] from the World and I bind him in Hell." 4 Removing devils and spirits from nature, Bekker aims to distinguish superstition from true faith. The battle against superstitious beliefs had formed a characteristic element of Protestant tactics. Dutch Calvinists, for instance, took offense at the continuing practices of blessings and incantations. 5 Bekker wanted to go even further. The Protestantization of Christian dogma could only be completed by making everything in nature's course depend on God's unique power and providence. 6 "Science" in our sense of the word was a subsidiary matter. 7 Still, Bekker saw the new scientific theories of his day as useful allies. In particular it was the new philosophy of Descartes that attracted him. Following Descartes, Bekker reasons "that I think, that I will, [End Page 382] [and] that I understand something," without any part of my body being involved in this type of consciousness. Mind and body in fact have nothing in common: My... (shrink)

The metaphor is derived from archery. The epithet πτερόες is appropriate to arrows [πτερόεντες ỏịστοί E 171, ỉờν βλτα πτερόεντα Δ 117, οì πτερόεντες π 773, πτερόεντα 68]. Just as πτερόεντα means ‘feathered arrows,’ so πεα πτερόεντα means ‘feathered words.’ The early Greeks, when they formed a picture of words in their minds, thought of them as missiles—not as birds. Whence ‘to utter’ words is ένα or ένα. Missiles so light are more readily imagined as arrows than as spears or (...) stones. (shrink)

FRANTZEN: KRIT. B. Z. FISCHARTS ÜBERS. RABELAIS' AST 3.

An article on the aspect of the League which most concerns the present study is Larsen, "Representative Government in the Panhellenic Leagues," CP 20..

Mr. M. P. Charlesworth seems to have been too sceptical when he remarked that ‘the names of the Indian princelets given in the Periplus are unidentifiable, or rather too easily identifiable with any one, to be of any use’. Actually, the ruler mentioned in ch. 41 is identifiable beyond reasonable doubt, and his date is practically certain.

The first English translation of the commentary of Alexander of Aphrodisias on Aristotle's De Sensu.With notes.