Background. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated drastic changes to undergraduate medical training at the University of Botswana (UB). To save the academic year when campus was locked down, the Department of Medical Education conducted a needs assessment to determine the readiness for emergency remote teaching (ERT) of the Faculty of Medicine, UB. Objectives. To report on the findings of needs assessment surveys to assess learner and teaching staff preparedness for fair and just ERT, as defined by philosopher John Rawls. Methods. Needs (...) assessment surveys were conducted using Office 365 Forms distributed via WhatsApp, targeting medical students and teaching staff during the 5 undergraduate years. Data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. Results. Ninety-two percent (266/289) of students and 73.5% (62/84) of teaching staff responded. Surveys revealed a high penetration of smartphones among students, but poor internet accessibility and affordability in homes. Some teaching staff also reported internet and device insufficiencies. Only WhatsApp was accessible to students and teaching staff. Conclusions. For equitable access to ERT in the future, the surveys revealed infrastructural improvement needs, including wider, stronger, affordable WiFi coverage within Botswana and enhanced digital infrastructures in educational institutions, with increased support for students. (shrink)

Griffiths and Russell D. Gray (1994, 1997, 2001) have argued that the fundamental unit of analysis in developmental systems theory should be a process – the life cycle – and not a set of developmental resources and interactions between those resources. The key concepts of developmental systems theory, epigenesis and developmental dynamics, both also suggest a process view of the units of development. This chapter explores in more depth the features of developmental systems theory that favour treating processes as (...) fundamental in biology and examines the continuity between developmental systems theory and ideas about process in the work of several major figures in early 20th century biology, most notable C.H Waddington. (shrink)

Mindfulness-based interventions are reported as being efficacious treatments for a variety of psychological and somatic conditions. However, concerns have arisen relating to how mindfulness is operationalized in mindfulness-based interventions and whether its ‘spiritual essence’ and full potential treatment efficacy have remained intact. This qualitative study used interpretative phenomenological analysis to examine participant experiences regarding the acceptability and effectiveness of a newly designed secularized intervention called meditation awareness training (MAT) that follows a more traditional Buddhist approach to meditation. Participants (with issues (...) of stress and low mood) reported experiencing improvements in psychological well-being due to receiving MAT. The wider implications are discussed. (shrink)

The prevalence of workaholism in Western populations is approximately 10%,although estimates vary considerably according to how “workaholism” is defined.There is growing consensus that workaholism is a bona fide behavioral addiction that exists at the extreme end of the work-engagement continuum and causes similar negative consequences to other behavioral addictions such as salience, conflict, tolerance, withdrawal symptoms,and mood modification. Other more specific consequences include burnout, work compulsion,work–family conflict, impaired productivity, asociality,and psychological/somatic illness.

Objectives. The purpose of this study was to conduct the first randomized controlled trial (RCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of a second-generation mindfulness-based intervention (SG-MBI) for treating fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Compared to first generation mindfulness-based interventions, SG-MBIs are more acknowledging of the spiritual aspect of mindfulness. Design. A RCT employing intent-to-treat analysis. Methods. Adults with FMS received an 8-week SG-MBI known as meditation awareness training (MAT; n = 74) or an active control intervention known as cognitive behaviour theory for groups (...) (n = 74). Assessments were performed at pre-, post-, and 6-month follow-up phases. Results. Meditation awareness training participants demonstrated significant and sustained improvements over control group participants in FMS symptomatology, pain perception, sleep quality, psychological distress, non-attachment (to self, symptoms, and environment), and civic engagement. A mediation analysis found that (1) civic engagement partially mediated treatment effects for all outcome variables, (2) non-attachment partially mediated treatment effects for psychological distress and sleep quality, and (3) non-attachment almost fully mediated treatment effects for FMS symptomatology and pain perception. Average daily time spent in meditation was found to be a significant predictor of changes in all outcome variables. Conclusions. Meditation awareness training may be a suitable treatment for adults with FMS and appears to ameliorate FMS symptomatology and pain perception by reducing attachment to self. (shrink)

The paper by Monteiro, Musten and Compson (2014) is to be commended for providing a comprehensive discussion of the compatibility issues arising from the integration of mindfulness – a 2,500-year-old Buddhist practice – into research and applied psychological domains. Consistent with the observations of various others (e.g., Dunne, 2011; Kang & Whittingham, 2010), Monteiro and colleagues have not only highlighted that there are differences in how Buddhism and contemporary mindfulness interventional approaches interpret and contextualize mindfulness, but there are also differing (...) interpretations of mindfulness within Buddhism. These apparent differences within Buddhism are arguably more noticeable when making comparisons across Buddhist vehicles (i.e., Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana), but to a lesser extent intra-vehicular differences can also be said to exist (i.e., differences between Buddhist traditions of the same vehicle). This commentary investigates the validity of some of these different Buddhist constructions of mindfulness, and then discusses how a better understanding of their scriptural and conceptual soundness (or lack thereof) may help to reconcile some of the actual and perceived incompatibility between Buddhist practice and contemporary secular mindfulness-based approaches. (shrink)

Basic Emotion Theory, or BET, has dominated the affective sciences for decades (Ekman, 1972, 1992, 1999; Ekman and Davidson, 1994; Griffiths, 2013; Scarantino and Griffiths, 2011). It has been highly influential, driving a number of empirical lines of research (e.g., in the context of facial expression detection, neuroimaging studies and evolutionary psychology). Nevertheless, BET has been criticized by philosophers, leading to calls for it to be jettisoned entirely (Colombetti, 2014; Hufendiek, 2016). This paper defuses those criticisms. In addition, (...) it shows that we have good reason to retain BET. Finally, it reviews and puts to rest worries that BET’s commitment to affect programs renders it outmoded. We propose that, with minor adjustments, BET can avoid such criticisms when conceived under a radically enactive account of emotions. Thus, rather than leaving BET behind, we show how its basic ideas can be revised, refashioned and preserved. Hence, we conclude, our new BET is still a good bet. (shrink)

Bence Nanay has argued that we must abandon the etiological theory of teleological function because this theory explains functions and functional categories in a circular manner. Paul Griffiths argued earlier that we should retain the etiological theory and instead prevent the circularity by making etiologies independent of functional categories. Karen Neander and Alex Rosenberg reply to Nanay similarly, and argue that we should analyze functions in terms of natural selection acting not on functional categories, but merely on lineages. Nanay (...) replies that these lineages cannot be individuated except by reference to functional categories. Worryingly, Neander and Rosenberg themselves have previously argued persuasively that homology often depends on function. This article addresses their arguments and shows how to escape them: Regardless whether the arguments are right about long-term homological categories, they do not apply to generation-to-generation homology. The latter, moreover, is sufficient for individuating the lineages needed to explain teleological functions. (shrink)

This analytical study explores the nature of scientific progress connected to current philosophical definitions and the role of institutional governance in promoting this progress. This paper examines how public and private initiatives intersect to create a wartime level of scientific progress during peacetime, as promoted in detail by Vannevar Bush, Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD) from 1941-47. This study suggests that the public benefit from the war footing approach to scientific progress should outweigh the losses (...) to the public good that accumulate due to wartime restrictions on scientific discourse during times of peace. The interaction and dependence of scientific progress on military development, public health and public needs in general, the tax code and the patent system form the foundation of Bush’s program for sustaining wartime levels of scientific progress during peacetime. This study references the COVID-19 period and the solutions that were applied to emergent public needs through scientific programs. Justice of the United States (U.S.) Supreme Court Neil Gorsuch noted in May 2023 that “…we may have experienced the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.” This study proposes that the dilution of scientific truth in public policy is the result of a collective institutional mindset among scientists. This mindset endorses public programs that provide society with a wartime risk response in peacetime. In this study, from an epistemological standpoint and considering the work of other researchers in this field, these developments in scientific progress will be analyzed. (shrink)

O artigo oferece uma breve exposição da biografia e do contexto histórico do filósofo neoplatônico Damáscio (c. 458 - c. 538) para, na sequência, apresentar a tradução de um dos seus poemas líricos do período final de sua vida. O procedimento adotado justifica-se pelo caráter lutuoso e decididamente pessoal dos versos, nos quais Damáscio lamenta consigo próprio as perdas sofridas no decorrer de sua longa e fascinante vida. Como veremos, tais perdas estão, em verdade, diretamente ligadas ao colapso do mundo (...) antigo e ao derradeiro golpe proferido por Justiniano contra a filosofia helênica pagã. (shrink)

The article attempts to show how the dialog Charmides is a skillful and subtle response by Plato to the contradictions and challenges of his time and not, as one could assume, a fruitless search for a definition or a vain intellectual exercise. To do that, we’ll contextualize the dialog through a reconstruction of the historical and political conjuncture of the archaic and classical periods, using the notion of temperance (σωφροσύνη) as our guide.

Cooperation is vital to our survival and progress. Evolutionary game theory offers a lens to understand the structures and incentives that enable cooperation to be a successful strategy. As artificial intelligence agents become integral to human systems, the dynamics of cooperation take on unprecedented significance. Decentralized frameworks like Web3, grounded in transparency, accountability, and trust, offer a foundation for fostering cooperation by establishing enforceable rules and incentives for humans and AI agents. Guided by our Incentivized Symbiosis model, a paradigm aligning (...) human and AI agent goals through bidirectional incentives and mutual adaptation, we investigate mechanisms for embedding cooperation into human-agent coevolution. We conceptualize Incentivized Symbiosis as part of a contemporary moral framework inspired by Web3 principles, encoded in blockchain technology to define and enforce rules, incentives, and consequences for both humans and AI agents. By integrating these principles into the very architecture of human-agent interactions, Web3 ecosystems catalyze an environment ripe for collaborative innovation. Our study traverses several transformative applications of Incentivized Symbiosis, from decentralized finance to governance and cultural adaptation, illustrating how AI agents can coevolve with humans to forge a trajectory of shared, sustainable progress. (shrink)

A focussed issue of The Reasoner on the topic of 'Infinitary Reasoning'. Owen Griffiths and A.C. Paseau were the guest editors.

It is proposed that our memory is made up of individual, unconnected Records, to each of which is attached a Heading. Retrieval of a Record can only be accomplished by addressing the attached Heading, the contents of which cannot itself be retrieved. Each Heading is made up of a mixture of content in more or less literal form and context, the latter including specification of environment and of internal states (e.g. drug states and mood). This view of memory allows an (...) easy account of a number of natural memory phenomena as well as a variety of laboratory findings such as the differences between recall and recognition. The theory further proposes that Headed Records can neither be deleted nor modified. Data apparently against such a hypothesis can be accounted for in terms of the retrieval process. (shrink)

In a world increasingly defined by machine intelligence, the future depends on how we govern the development and integration of AI into society. Recent initiatives, such as the EU AI Act, EDPB opinion, U.S. Bipartisan House Task Force, and NIST AI Risk Management Report, highlight the urgent need for robust governance frameworks to address the challenges posed by advancing AI technologies. However, existing frameworks fail to adequately address the rise of AI agents or the ongoing debate between centralized and decentralized (...) governance models. To bridge these gaps, we propose the Ethical Technology and Holistic Oversight System framework, which leverages Web3 technologies, including blockchain, smart contracts, decentralized autonomous organizations, and soulbound tokens, to establish a decentralized global registry for AI agents. ETHOS incorporates the concept of AI-specific legal entities, enabling these systems to assume limited liability and ensuring accountability through mechanisms like insurance and compliance monitoring. Additionally, the framework emphasizes the need for a collaborative, participatory approach to AI governance, engaging diverse stakeholders through public education, transparency, and international coordination. ETHOS balances innovation with ethical accountability, providing a forward-looking strategy for the responsible integration of AI agents into society. Finally, this exploration reflects the emergence of a new interdisciplinary field we define as Systems Thinking at the Intersection of AI, Web3, and Society. (shrink)

Initial responses to questionnaires used to assess participants' understanding of informed consent for malaria vaccine trials conducted in the United States and Mali were tallied. Total scores were analyzed by age, sex, literacy (if known), and location. Ninety-two percent (92%) of answers by United States participants and 85% of answers by Malian participants were correct. Questions more likely to be answered incorrectly in Mali related to risk, and to the type of vaccine. For adult participants, independent predictors of higher scores (...) were younger age and female sex in the United States, and male sex in Mali. Scores in the United States were higher than in Mali (P = 0.005). Despite this difference participants at both sites were well informed overall. Although interpretation must be qualified because questionnaires were not intended as research tools and were not standardized among sites, these results do not support concerns about systematic low understanding among research participants in developing versus developed countries. (shrink)

A brief article introducing *One True Logic*. The book argues that there is one correct foundational logic and that it is highly infinitary.

Bios Philosophos. Philosophy in Ancient Greek Biography (Brepols, 2016), organized by Mauro Bonazzi and Stefan Schorn, delivers deep and wide tours through the philosophical aspects of Greek biographical production. On the one hand, it does not concentrate only on the later periods of Greek philosophy, when biographical production abounded; instead, it goes all the way back to the fourth century BCE, when biographical texts were fragmentary and mingled with other styles. On the other, it tries to unveil the philosophical motives (...) in authors' works who tend to be disregarded as historians, biographers, hagiographers, or even as mere fans of the most prominent figures of their own schools. -/- In our review, we will attempt to give a brief account of the ten articles that make up this volume, which, in turn, will hopefully provide an overview of the different connections between the biographies and biographers and their philosophical motives. (shrink)

Mindfulness is a form of meditation that derives from Buddhist practice and is one of the fastest growing areas of psychological research. Studies investigating the role of mindfulness in the treatment of behavioural addictions have – to date – primarily focused on gambling disorder. Recent pilot studies and clinical case studies have demonstrated that weekly mindfulness therapy sessions can lead to clinically significant change among individuals with gambling problems. Although preliminary findings indicate that there are applications for mindfulness approaches in (...) the treatment of gambling disorder, further empirical and clinical research utilizing larger-sample controlled study designs is clearly needed. (shrink)

Some ‘naturalist’ accounts of disease employ a biostatistical account of dysfunction, whilst others use a ‘selected effect’ account. Several recent authors have argued that the biostatistical account offers the best hope for a naturalist account of disease. We show that the selected effect account survives the criticisms levelled by these authors relatively unscathed, and has significant advantages over the BST. Moreover, unlike the BST, it has a strong theoretical rationale and can provide substantive reasons to decide difficult cases. This is (...) illustrated by showing how life-history theory clarifies the status of so-called diseases of old age. The selected effect account of function deserves a more prominent place in the philosophy of medicine than it currently occupies. _1_ Introduction _2_ Biostatistical and Selected Effect Accounts of Function _3_ Objections to the Selected Effect Account _3.1_ Boorse _3.2_ Kingma _3.3_ Hausman _3.4_ Murphy and Woolfolk _4_ Problems for the Biostatistical Account _4.1_ Schwartz _5_ Analysis versus Explication _6_ Explicating Dysfunction: Life History Theory and Senescence _7_ Conclusion. (shrink)

About six weeks ago, our post referred to the long-winding path to a new theoretical innovation as the pursuit of “useless knowledge” in Flexner’s terms. That little creation is the freshly minted informational entropy-based definition of value, presented in a very short paper, initially regarded by its authors as a research note. (And it still is.) Well, only two and a half months since its birth, this new concept of value has had enough time to power up several of our (...) publications in different disciplinary fields. The first published paper using the new definition deals with climate change denialism. The second paper (forthcoming) discusses the problem of academic retractions amidst the growing influence of generative AI. And the third, just accepted, explains the underlying mechanism of submission mechanism employed by journal editors and peer-reviewers, and the information-value nexus associated with it. (shrink)

Shortages of new therapeutics to treat coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have forced clinicians, public health officials, and health systems to grapple with difficult questions about how to fairly allocate potentially life-saving treatments when there are not enough for all patients in need (1). Shortages have occurred with remdesivir, tocilizumab, monoclonal antibodies, and the oral antiviral Paxlovid (2) -/- Ensuring equitable allocation is especially important in light of the disproportionate burden experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by disadvantaged groups, including Black, Hispanic/Latino and (...) Indigenous communities, individuals with certain disabilities, and low-income persons. However, many health systems have resorted to first-come, first-served approaches to allocation, which tend to disadvantage individuals with barriers in access to care (3). There is mounting evidence of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in access to medications for COVID-19 (4, 5). -/- One potential method to promote equitable allocation is to use a weighted lottery, which is an allocation strategy that gives all eligible patients a chance to receive the scarce treatment while also allowing the assignment of higher or lower chances according to other ethical considerations (6). We sought to assess the feasibility of implementing a weighted lottery to allocate scarce COVID-19 medications in a large U.S. health system and to determine whether the weighted lottery promotes equitable allocation. (shrink)

In this paper we distinguish two issues that are often run together in discussions about physicalism. The first issue concerns levels. How do entities picked out by non-physical terminology, such as biological or psychological terminology, relate to physical entities? Are the former identical to, or metaphysically supervenient on, the latter? The second issue concerns physical parts and wholes. How do macroscopic physical entities relate to their microscopic parts? Are the former generally determined by the latter? We argue that views on (...) these two issues are independent of one another and should not be conflated. (shrink)

Global challenges such as climate change, food security, or public health have become dominant concerns in research and innovation policy. This article examines how responses to these challenges are addressed by governance actors. We argue that appeals to global challenges can give rise to a ‘solution strategy' that presents responses of dominant actors as solutions and a ‘negotiation strategy' that highlights the availability of heterogeneous and often conflicting responses. On the basis of interviews and document analyses, the study identifies both (...) strategies across local, national, and European levels. While our results demonstrate the co-existence of both strategies, we find that global challenges are most commonly highlighted together with the solutions offered by dominant actors. Global challenges are ‘wicked problems' that often become misframed as ‘tame problems’ in governance practice and thereby legitimise dominant responses. (shrink)

Recent research has relied on trolley-type sacrificial moral dilemmas to study utilitarian versus nonutili- tarian modes of moral decision-making. This research has generated important insights into people’s attitudes toward instrumental harm—that is, the sacrifice of an individual to save a greater number. But this approach also has serious limitations. Most notably, it ignores the positive, altruistic core of utilitarianism, which is characterized by impartial concern for the well-being of everyone, whether near or far. Here, we develop, refine, and validate a (...) new scale—the Oxford Utilitarianism Scale—to dissociate individual differences in the ‘negative’ (permissive attitude toward instrumental harm) and ‘positive’ (impartial concern for the greater good) dimensions of utilitarian thinking as manifested in the general population. We show that these are two independent dimensions of proto-utilitarian tendencies in the lay population, each exhibiting a distinct psychological profile. Empathic concern, identification with the whole of humanity, and concern for future generations were positively associated with impartial beneficence but negatively associated with instrumental harm; and although instrumental harm was associated with subclinical psychopathy, impartial beneficence was associated with higher religiosity. Importantly, although these two dimensions were independent in the lay population, they were closely associated in a sample of moral philosophers. Acknowledging this dissociation between the instrumental harm and impartial beneficence components of utilitarian thinking in ordinary people can clarify existing debates about the nature of moral psychology and its relation to moral philosophy as well as generate fruitful avenues for further research. (shrink)

Representationalism (aka intentionalism) has been the most significant weapon in the late twentieth century defence of direct realism. However, although the representationalist objection to the Phenomenal Principle might provide an effective response to the arguments from illusion and hallucination, plausible representationalist theories of perception are, when fleshed-out, incompatible with metaphysical direct realism’s directness-claim. Indeed within cognitive science, direct perception is the avowedly-radical anti-representationalist heterodoxy. Drawing on both the philosophy and cognitive science, we develop a robust argument against representationalist direct realism (...) which does not rest on illusory cases or the notion of an object of immediate awareness. None of the representations so far posited, or in prospect, can supply the content required of a representation in a direct realist theory of veridical perception. (shrink)

This is the first chapter to our edited collection of essays on the nature and ethics of blame. In this chapter we introduce the reader to contemporary discussions about blame and its relationship to other issues (e.g. free will and moral responsibility), and we situate the essays in this volume with respect to those discussions.

This page provides a quick glance at official publications that use either the bayesvl package in R or the BMF analytics (or both). The data will tell a bit about the research community’s efforts made over time and the growth of the bayesvl/BMF analytics community.

The aim of this paper is to bring recent work on metaphysical grounding to bear on the phenomenon of social construction. It is argued that grounding can be used to analyze social construction and that the grounding framework is helpful for articulating various claims and commitments of social constructionists, especially about social identities, e.g., gender and race. The paper also responds to a number of objections that have been leveled against the application of grounding to social construction from Elizabeth Barnes, (...) Mari Mikkola, and Jessica Wilson. (shrink)

It is not always obvious for even well-trained researchers to appreciate their peer’s scientific pursuits. In many cases, research results obtained from strenuous work processes could even be regarded as “useless knowledge”. -/- Only in very few places on this planet had the notion of useless knowledge been respected and sought after. That’s the famous IAS of Princeton University powered by the conception of the usefulness of useless knowledge of Abraham Flexner. That’s why brilliant scientists such as Albert Einstein, Kurt (...) Godel, and John von Neumann were among its first recruited members. -/- Our team has for many years now gone through various research problems. Still, it is difficult for even experienced and highly accomplished researchers to identify the type of IAS “useless knowledge” problems. But we never stopped trying. -/- Our latest try has led to the informational entropy-based definition of value. At first, it sounded weird for one to ponder the long-existing notion of value, which is used on a daily basis by everybody on Earth. In short, kind of... useless. But gradually, we have come to an understanding that the very familiarity of the word “value” has long obscured our question of its nature. -/- So, a bit about this newly minted definition is here for your perusal. (shrink)

Thanks to the Internet, Information Communication Technology (ICT), and international transportation, the world has become more globalized than ever. In such an era, people are required to obtain high tolerance and inclusiveness levels. For the young generation to survive and thrive, equipping them with a mindset with high tolerance and inclusiveness is essential while they are schooling. The current study has two objectives: Examine whether discussions with parents about cultural-historical knowledge and social skills and participation in multicultural school events improve (...) children’s and youth’s tolerance toward different viewpoints; Examine whether discussions with parents about cultural-historical knowledge and social skills and participation in multicultural school events improve children’s and youth’s general inclusiveness. (shrink)

For Foucault, Hobbes is important for the transition from sovereignty to governmentality, but he does not always go into great detail how. In “Society Must Be Defended”, Hobbes’s reactions against the political historicism of his time lead him to an ahistorical foundation to the state. In Security, Territory, Population, his contract is emblematic of the art of government still caught in the logic of sovereignty. Management techniques, one of which being inheritance laws like primogeniture, inducing changes in a population’s milieu (...) so that its interest is properly directed allow the art of government to escape this logic. Hobbes supports primogeniture, but its historical position in the common law makes this support unexpected. This article examines the historical context of primogeniture and the reasoning for Hobbes’s support of it in light of Foucault’s claims about him in order to give more precision to those claims. The result is that primogeniture as a law of nature produces the family as an interested unit of the population. Yet this interest is itself historicized, so Hobbes’s attempt to de-historicize politics did not fully succeed. (shrink)

The current study has two objectives: - Examine whether the residents’ perceived impact of climate change on water supply affects their water conservation behaviors. - Examine whether being a member of the Republican party moderates the relationship between the perceived impact of climate change on water supply and water conservation behaviors. Findings from this study are expected to contribute to promoting the eco-surplus culture for achieving the environmental semiconducting principle.

This thesis explores, thematically and chronologically, the substantial concordance between the work of Martin Heidegger and T.S. Eliot. The introduction traces Eliot's ideas of the 'objective correlative' and 'situatedness' to a familiarity with German Idealism. Heidegger shared this familiarity, suggesting a reason for the similarity of their thought. Chapter one explores the 'authenticity' developed in Being and Time, as well as associated themes like temporality, the 'they' (Das Man), inauthenticity, idle talk and angst, and applies them to interpreting Eliot's poem, (...) 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'. Both texts depict a bleak Modernist view of the early twentieth-century Western human condition, characterized as a dispiriting nihilism and homelessness. Chapter two traces the chronological development of Ereignis in Heidegger's thinking, showing the term's two discernible but related meanings: first our nature as the 'site of the open' where Being can manifest, and second individual 'Events' of 'appropriation and revelation'. The world is always happening as 'event', but only through our appropriation by the Ereignis event can we become aware of this. Heidegger finds poetry, the essential example of language as the 'house of Being', to be the purest manifestation of Ereignis, taking as his examples Hölderlin and Rilke. A detailed analysis of Eliot's late work Four Quartets reveals how Ereignis, both as an ineluctable and an epiphanic condition of human existence, is central to his poetry, confirming, in Heidegger's words, 'what poets are for in a destitute time', namely to re-found and restore the wonder of the world and existence itself. This restoration results from what Eliot calls 'raid[s] on the inarticulate', the poet's continual striving to enact that openness to Being through which human language and the human world continually come to be. The final chapter shows how both Eliot and Heidegger value a genuine relationship with place as enabling human flourishing. Both distrust technological materialism, which destroys our sense of the world as dwelling place, and both are essentially committed to a genuinely authentic life, not the angstful authenticity of Being and Time, but a richer belonging which affirms our relationship with the earth, each other and our gods. (shrink)

Transoral laser microsurgery applies to the piecemeal removal of malignant tumours of the upper aerodigestive tract using the CO2 laser under the operating microscope. This method of surgery is being increasingly popularised as a single modality treatment of choice in early laryngeal cancers (T1 and T2) and occasionally in the more advanced forms of the disease (T3 and T4), predomi- nantly within the supraglottis. Thomas Kuhn, the American physicist turned philosopher and historian of science, coined the phrase ‘paradigm shift’ in (...) his groundbreaking book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. He argued that the arrival of the new and often incompatible idea forms the core of a new paradigm, the birth of an entirely new way of thinking. This article discusses whether Steiner and col- leagues truly brought about a paradigm shift in oncological surgery. By rejecting the principle of en block resection and by replacing it with the belief that not only is it oncologically safe to cut through the substance of the tumour but in doing so one can actually achieve better results, Steiner was able to truly revolutionise the man- agement of laryngeal cancer. Even though within this article the repercussions of his insight are limited to the upper aerodigestive tract oncological surgery, his willingness to question other peoples’ dogma makes his contribution truly a genuine paradigm shift. (shrink)

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.

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: 1) How is the residential proximity to the coast during childhood, and nature connectedness, associated with peace of mind when visiting the coast? 2) Does the residential proximity to the coast during childhood moderate the relationship between nature connectedness and peace of mind when visiting the coast? 3) How is the peace of mind associated with improved thinking when visiting the coast?

This article offers a prolegomenon for an African feminist philosophy. The prompt for this as an interrogation of Oluwole’s claim that an African feminist philosophy cannot develop until identifiable African worldviews that guide the relationship between men and women have been established. She argues that until there is general agreement about the nature of African philosophy itself, African feminist philosophy will remain impoverished. I critique this claim, unpacking Oluwole’s argument, and examine the contested nature of both African and Western philosophy. (...) Drawing from the work of Mignolo and decolonial thinking, I then argue for the possibility of “epistemic disobedience” concerning the emergence of an African feminist philosophy. Engaging with precolonial African examples which disrupt modern normative gender assumptions and looking at the project of decoloniality, I issue a call for an African feminist philosophy unfettered by the falsely universal claims of modernity/coloniality. My call is for an African feminist philosophy from African loci of enunciation, rooted in the epistemes and experiences of African women. (shrink)

The three most recent reviews of Wild Wise Weird received this week follow. Review contents will be used for a statisical analysis subsequently.

Colonialism’s legacy in South Africa includes persistent economic inequality which, since the country’s universities charge fees, bars many from higher education, perpetuating the marginalisation of those previously disadvantaged by the apartheid regime. In 2015-6, country-wide unrest raged across university campuses, as students protested the yearly cycle of tuition increases under the slogan #FeesMustFall, demanding “free, decolonised education”. Protests ended in December 2017 when the government announced a sliding-scale payment policy alleviating the economic burden for poorer students. This paper sets the (...) #FMF movement and its twin demands within the context of decoloniality, and argues that while free education has been achieved, imagining and implementing decolonised education for South Africa in an increasingly globalised world is a more challenging, elusive goal. (shrink)

Today marks the 7th anniversary of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Social Research (ISR), at Phenikaa University. ISR has for seven years now the place where the co-founders of this portal have been working and producing publications. A special event occurs now as the Current Conservation magazine publishes a new writing piece by our member, Dr Minh-Hoang Nguyen.

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: 1) How are coastal activities enabling close connections to nature associated with the mental health condition of the visitors in the previous year? 2) How are coastal activities that have close connections to nature associated with the perceived general health condition of the visitors in the previous year?

The current study is conducted to examine the following research question: How are healthy eating information-seeking ability and e-health literacy associated with healthy eating intention?

Trong quá trình công tác, việc triển khai những thay đổi có khả năng tạo ra tiến triển tích cực với kết quả diễn ra khá thường xuyên. Một cách gọi khác khá phổ biến hiện nay là: “innovation”. Đối với lĩnh vực nghiên cứu, các “innovation” cũng có khả năng tạo ra giá trị gia tăng rất đáng kể, nhất là khi phương pháp được cải thiện. Ở một mức độ nhỏ nhưng sâu hơn, và cũng hiếm hơn, đó (...) là thay đổi/bổ sung về phương diện “khái niệm”. Hiếm là bởi không mấy khi ta có nhu cầu cải tiến một “khái niệm”. Đó là tiền đề sâu xa của những thông tin và thảo luận xây trên đó. Nếu cải tiến, bổ sung, hệ quả khá chắc chắn là có thể phải xới tung một trật tự logic của lập luận, cũng như gây ra thay đổi các khái niệm liên quan mật thiết. Tuy thế, có một trường hợp cần thay đổi: Mục tiêu nghiên cứu chính là khái niệm đó. (shrink)

The current study is conducted to examine the following research question: What are the factors associated with the sensitivity towards the air quality rating index to reduce outdoor activities?

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: 1) How is engaging children with nature interactions associated with their pro-environmental behaviors? 2) Is the association between engaging children with nature interactions and their pro-environmental behaviors conditional on the children’s sex? 3) Is the association between engaging children with nature interactions and their pro-environmental behaviors conditional on the children’s grades? 4) Is the association between engaging children with nature interactions and their pro-environmental behaviors conditional on the children’s family (...) income? 5) Is the association between engaging children with nature interactions and their pro-environmental behaviors conditional on the frequency of environmental discussion with parents? (shrink)

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: 1) How are health information-seeking ability and e-health literacy associated with illness response capability? 2) How are health information-seeking ability and e-health literacy associated with the frequency of health checkups?

The current study is conducted to examine the following research question: How are the temperature and rainfall associated with the countries’ cultural values of embeddedness and hierarchy cultural values?

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: 1) What information sources on social media are associated with the general intention to try space tourism? 2) Does the automatically recommended information moderate the associations between multiple sources of information and the intention to try space tourism?

The current study is conducted to examine the following research questions: 1) Is the relationship between the enjoyment of and connection to the coastal environment and the visitors’ mental health and perceived general health conditional on the duration of daily visits to the coast in the previous year? 2) Is the relationship between the enjoyment of and connection to the coastal environment and the visitors’ mental health and perceived general health conditional on the duration of stay visits to the coast (...) in the previous year? (shrink)