ABSTRACT: Virtue, the centerpiece of ancient ethics, has come under attack by virtue skeptics impressed by results of psychology experiments including Milgram's obedience studies. The virtue skeptic argues that experimental findings suggest that character structures are so fragile vis-å-vis situational factors as to be explanatorily superfluous: virtues and robust character traits are a myth, and should be replaced by situation-specific "narrow dispositions" (Gilbert Harman) or "local traits" (John Doris). This paper argues that the virtue skeptics' sweeping claims are ill-founded. First, (...) blending Aristotelian and contemporary insights about virtue, I reach a decision about a reasonable, non-straw definition of "virtue" and of "character trait." Next, I argue that explanations give by Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett for the Milgram findings covertly invoke character traits. Reflection reveals that more robust, cross-situationally consistent traits are needed for explanation of subject behavior, and that it is reasonable to suppose that such traits were in place. (shrink)

Philosophers of language are increasingly engaging with derogatory terms or slurs. Only few theorists take such language as a starting point for addressing puzzles in philosophy of language with little connection to our real-world problems. This paper aims to show that the political nature of derogatory language use calls for non-ideal theorising as we find it in the work of feminist and critical race scholars. Most contemporary theories of slurs, so I argue, fall short on some desiderata associated with a (...) non-ideal approach. They neglect crucial linguistic or political aspects of morally and politically significant meaning. I argue that a two-stage project is necessary to understand the perniciousness of slurs: accounting for the derogatory content of derogatory terms in general and, additionally, explaining the communicative function of slurs more specifically. I end by showing how inferentialism is well-suited to account for the content of derogatory terms whilst allowing for further explanations of the communicative functions of slurs. (shrink)

In arguing against the likelihood of consciousness in non-human animals, Descartes advances a slippery slope argument that if thought were attributed to any one animal, it would have to be attributed to all, which is absurd. This paper examines the foundations of Thomas Willis’ comparative neuroanatomy against the background of Descartes’ slippery slope argument against animal consciousness. Inspired by Gassendi’s ideas about the corporeal soul, Thomas Willis distinguished between neural circuitry responsible for reflex behaviour and that responsible for cognitively or (...) consciously mediated behaviour. This afforded Willis a non-arbitrary basis for distinguishing between animals with thought and consciousness and those without, a methodology which retains currency for neuroscience today. (shrink)

There are different narratives on mathematics as part of our world, some of which are more appropriate than others. Such narratives might be of the form ‘Mathematics is useful’, ‘Mathematics is beautiful’, or ‘Mathematicians aim at theorem-credit’. These narratives play a crucial role in mathematics education and in society as they are influencing people’s willingness to engage with the subject or the way they interpret mathematical results in relation to real-world questions; the latter yielding important normative considerations. Our strategy is (...) to frame current narratives of mathematics from a virtue-theoretic perspective. We identify the practice of mathematizing, put forward by Freudenthal’s ‘Realistic mathematics education’, as virtuous and use it to evaluate different narratives. We show that this can help to render the narratives more adequately, and to provide implications for societal organization. (shrink)

Virtue, the centerpiece of ancient ethics, has come under attack by virtue skeptics impressed by results of psychology experiments including Milgram’s obedience studies. The virtue skeptic argues that experimental findings suggest that character structures are so fragile vis-à-vis situational factors as to be explanatorily superfluous: virtues and robust character traits are a myth, and should be replaced by situation-specific “narrow dispositions” (Gilbert Harman) or “local traits” (John Doris). This paper argues that the virtue skeptics’ sweeping claims are ill-founded. First, blending (...) Aristotelian and contemporary insights about virtue, I reach adecision about a reasonable, nonstraw defmition of “virtue” and of “character trait.” Next, I argue that explanations give by Lee Ross and Richard Nisbett for the Milgram findings covertly invoke character traits. Reflection reveals that more robust, crosssituationally consistent traits are needed for explanation of subject behavior, and that it is reasonable to suppose that such traits were in place. (shrink)

An overview and comparison of the major teaching philosophies is discussed to determine their applications in the field of education. In the end, it is important to reflect on how our practices align with our philosophies.

This paper analyses the hidden use of new axioms in set-theoretic practice with a focus on large cardinal axioms and presents a general overview of set-theoretic practices using large cardinal axioms. The hidden use of a new axiom provides extrinsic reasons in support of this axiom via the idea of verifiable consequences, which is especially relevant for set-theoretic practitioners with an absolutist view. Besides that, the hidden use has pragmatic significance for further important sub-groups of the set-theoretic community---set-theoretic practitioners with (...) a pluralist view and set-theoretic practitioners who aim for ZFC-proofs. By describing this, the paper gives a more complete picture of new axioms in set-theoretic practice. These observations, for instance, show that set-theoretic practitioners interested in ZFC-proofs use tools that go beyond ZFC. The analysis is based on empirical data that was collected in an extensive interview study with set-theoretic practitioners. (shrink)

This article examines the complaint that arbitrary algorithmic decisions wrong those whom they affect. It makes three contributions. First, it provides an analysis of what arbitrariness means in this context. Second, it argues that arbitrariness is not of moral concern except when special circumstances apply. However, when the same algorithm or different algorithms based on the same data are used in multiple contexts, a person may be arbitrarily excluded from a broad range of opportunities. The third contribution is to explain (...) why this systemic exclusion is of moral concern and to offer a solution to address it. (shrink)

Beyond “A Lecture on Ethics,” Wittgenstein says little on the topic of ethics, despite professing a great respect for ethics. I argue that while Wittgenstein ceases to speak of ethics, his account fits equally within his Tractarian and post-Tractarian writing. On both accounts of language, ethics remains nonsense, but it is not insignificant nonsense. However, because Wittgenstein holds ethics to concern absolute values that are in principle inexpressible, his anti-theoretical conception of ethics fails to offer guidance in how one ought (...) to live. That is, ethics ultimately cannot be show unless it can, in some sense, be said. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that poet M. Nourbese Philip's Zong! allows us to radically rethink the possibility of historical restitution and recovery. The formal ideas in Zong!, I argue, imply a metaphysical and ontological revolution in the way memory and mnesic traces are to be conceived. The evidentiary status of the voices and narratives that Zong! retrieves cannot be certified by historical-epistemological conceptions of evidence but rather find their warrant in alternative, ontological (or hauntological) registers.

While feminist philosophy has had much to say on the topic of reason, little has been done to develop a specifically feminist account of the concept. I argue for a virtue account of mind grounded in contemporary approaches to rationality. The evolutionary stance adopted within most contemporary theories of mind implicitly entails a rejection of central elements of Cartesianism. As a result, many accounts of rationality are anti-modern is precisely the sorts of ways that feminists demand. I maintain that a (...) virtue account of rationality can provide a satisfactory answer to Benhabib’s question in Situating of the Self: what concept of reason are we willing to defend? (shrink)

Although feminists have spilled a great deal of ink criticizing Enlightenment conceptions of rationality, the time has come to consider constructing a positive account. Recent attempts to construct an account of rationality as a virtue concept reflect many feminist complaints concerning Enlightenment rationality, and, thus, I maintain that feminism should take seriously such a conception. Virtue rationality offers a more diverse account of rationality without sacrificing the fundamental normativity of the concept. Furthermore, the narrower concept of reasonableness, promises to provide (...) a ground for distinguishing among better and worse epistemic perspectives, which is a task critical to the success of the feminist project. (shrink)

In On Touching, Derrida commends philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy for ‘taking into account [the] plasticity and technicity “at the heart” of the “body proper.”’ Specifying the meaning of this plasticity and technicity, Derrida writes, the"[s]upplementarity of technical prosthetics originarily spaces out, defers, or expropriates all originary properness: there is no “the” sense of touch, there is no “originary” or essentially originary touching before it." What is ‘proper’ or ‘original’ to the body, it seems, is not any set of properties or capacities (...) – including sensorial or perceptual powers – but rather the ‘plastic and substitutive structure of prosthetics’, the very possibility of the body’s ‘technical’ supplementation. (shrink)

Feminist philosophy is highly critical of Cartesian, and more broadly Enlightenment, conceptions of rationality. However, feminist philosophers typically fail to address contemporary theories of rationality and to consider how more current thoeories address feminist concerns. I argue that, contrary to their protestations, feminists are “obsessing over an outdated conception of reason” and that even the most suspect of “malestream” philosophers express an understanding of rationality that is closer to feminist concerns than Cartesian ones. I begin by briefly examining key features (...) of Cartesian rationality and discuss how these features are largely rejected by contemporary philosophy and cognitve science. I then discuss how the philosophical accounts of Robert Nozick and Robert Audi refelect this rejection of Cartesian rationality. Finally, I discuss how the views of Nozick and Audi are in line with many feminist concerns, and I argue that feminists need to take seriously some theory of rationality. (shrink)

This volume includes nineteen articles by scholars from Asia, North America, and Europe on Chinese thinkers from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries. Included here are intellectual biographies of literati such as Zhou Dunyi, the Cheng brothers, Zhu Xi, Zhang Shi, Hu Hong, Wang Yangming, and Dai Zhen. Essays are arranged chronologically, and most begin with a biographical sketch of their subject. They provide variety rather than uniformity of approach, but all in all these essays are remarkably rich and offer (...) much new material on both familiar and lesser-known thinkers. (shrink)

The ji 己self is a site, storehouse, or depot of individuated allotment associated with the possession of things and qualities: wholesome and unwholesome desires (yu 欲) and aversions, emotions such as anxiety, and positive values such as humaneness and reverence. Each person's allotment is unique, and its "contents" are collected, measured, reflected on, and then distributed to others. The Analects, Mencius, Xunzi, Daodejing, and Zhuangzi each have their own vision for negotiating the space between self and other. Works as seemingly (...) dissimilar as the Analects and Daodejing both agree that positive qualities located within the self should be shared with others, and that the self can be optimized rather than maximized through sharing, emptying, or clearing. Sommer compares the ji self with other terms for body and person current in classical times. This self is strongly individuated, but it exists primarily in relation to other human beings (ren 人 ). These "others" are almost never one's own kind and are usually people who fall outside one's ascribed familial and social relationships. Negotiations between self and other often reflect apprehension regarding degrees of distance, intimacy, worth, recognition, or understanding (zhi 知) between people. (shrink)

Penelope Maddy’s Second Philosophy is one of the most well-known ap- proaches in recent philosophy of mathematics. She applies her second-philosophical method to analyze mathematical methodology by reconstructing historical cases in a setting of means-ends relations. However, outside of Maddy’s own work, this kind of methodological analysis has not yet been extensively used and analyzed. In the present work, we will make a first step in this direction. We develop a general framework that allows us to clarify the procedure and (...) aims of the Second Philosopher’s investigation into set-theoretic methodology; pro- vides a platform to analyze the Second Philosopher’s methods themselves; and can be applied to further questions in the philosophy of set theory. (shrink)

This paper focusses on the relationship among structural adjustment policies and practices, the business activities of transnational corporations and what Robert Reich has called the coming irrelevance of corporate nationality. The argument presented is that the force of these combined factors makes environmental sustainability impossible.

Studies of several languages, including Swahili [swa], suggest that realis (actual, realizable) and irrealis (unlikely, counterfactual) meanings vary along a scale (e.g., 0.0–1.0). T-values (True, False) and P-values (probability) account for this pattern. However, logic cannot describe or explain (a) epistemic stances toward beliefs, (b) deontic and dynamic stances toward states-of-being and actions, and (c) context-sensitivity in conditional interpretations. (a)–(b) are deictic properties (positions, distance) of ‘embodied’ Frames of Reference (FoRs)—space-time loci in which agents perceive and from which they contextually (...) act (Rohrer 2007a, b). I argue that the embodied FoR describes and explains (a)–(c) better than T-values and P-values alone. In this cognitive-functional-descriptive study, I represent these embodied FoRs using Unified Modeling Language (UML) mental spaces in analyzing Swahili conditional constructions to show how necessary, sufficient, and contributing conditions obtain on the embodied FoR networks level. (shrink)

Using artificial intelligence (AI) to make decisions in human resource management (HRM) raises questions of how fair employees perceive these decisions to be and whether they experience respectful treatment (i.e., interactional justice). In this experimental survey study with open-ended qualitative questions, we examine decision making in six HRM functions and manipulate the decision maker (AI or human) and decision valence (positive or negative) to determine their impact on individuals’ experiences of interactional justice, trust, dehumanization, and perceptions of decision-maker role appropriate- (...) ness. In terms of decision makers, the use of human decision makers over AIs generally resulted in better perceptions of respectful treatment. In terms of decision valence, people experiencing positive over negative decisions generally resulted in better perceptions of respectful treatment. In instances where these cases conflict, on some indicators people preferred positive AI decisions over negative human decisions. Qualitative responses show how people identify justice concerns with both AI and human decision making. We outline implications for theory, practice, and future research. (shrink)

The ethical issues raised by cybersecurity practices and technologies are of critical importance. However, there is disagreement about what is the best ethical framework for understanding those issues. In this paper we seek to address this shortcoming through the introduction of a principlist ethical framework for cybersecurity that builds on existing work in adjacent fields of applied ethics, bioethics, and AI ethics. By redeploying the AI4People framework, we develop a domain-relevant specification of five ethical principles in cybersecurity: beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, (...) justice, and explicability. We then illustrate the advantages of this principlist framework by examining the ethical issues raised by four common cybersecurity contexts: penetration testing, distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS), ransomware, and system administration. These case analyses demonstrate the utility of this principlist framework as a basis for understanding cybersecurity ethics and for cultivating the ethical expertise and ethical sensitivity of cybersecurity professionals and other stakeholders. (shrink)

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The MRCT Center Post-trial Responsibilities: Continued Access to an Investigational Medicine Framework outlines a case-based, principled, stakeholder approach to evaluate and guide ethical responsibilities to provide continued access to an investigational medicine at the conclusion of a patient’s participation in a clinical trial. The Post-trial Responsibilities (PTR) Framework includes this Guidance Document as well as the accompanying Toolkit. A 41-member international multi-stakeholder Workgroup convened by the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard University (...) (MRCT Center) developed this Guidance and Toolkit. Project Motivation A number of international organizations have discussed the responsibilities stakeholders have to provide continued access to investigational medicines. The World Medical Association, for example, addressed post-trial access to medicines in Paragraph 34 of the Declaration of Helsinki (WMA, 2013): “In advance of a clinical trial, sponsors, researchers and host country governments should make provisions for post-trial access for all participants who still need an intervention identified as beneficial in the trial. This information must also be disclosed to participants during the informed consent process.” This paragraph and other international guidance documents converge on several consensus points: • Post-trial access (hereafter referred to as “continued access” in this Framework [for terminology clarification – see definitions]) is the responsibility of sponsors, researchers, and host country governments; • The plan for continued access should be determined before the trial begins, and before any individual gives their informed consent; • The protocol should delineate continued access plans; and • The plan should be transparent to potential participants and explained during the informed consent process. -/- However, there is no guidance on how to fulfill these responsibilities (i.e., linking specific responsibilities with specific stakeholders, conditions, and duration). To fill this gap, the MRCT Center convened a working group in September of 2014 to develop a framework to guide stakeholders with identified responsibilities. This resultant Framework sets forth applicable principles, approaches, recommendations and ethical rationales for PTR regarding continued access to investigational medicines for research participants. (shrink)

Forms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are already being deployed into clinical settings and research into its future healthcare uses is accelerating. Despite this trajectory, more research is needed regarding the impacts on patients of increasing AI decision making. In particular, the impersonal nature of AI means that its deployment in highly sensitive contexts-of-use, such as in healthcare, raises issues associated with patients’ perceptions of (un) dignified treatment. We explore this issue through an experimental vignette study comparing individuals’ perceptions of being (...) treated in a dignified and respectful way in various healthcare decision contexts. Participants were subject to a 2 (human or AI decision maker) x 2 (positive or negative decision outcome) x 2 (diagnostic or resource allocation healthcare scenario) factorial design. We found evidence of a “human bias” (i.e., a preference for human over AI decision makers) and an “outcome bias” (i.e., a preference for positive over negative outcomes). However, we found that for perceptions of respectful and dignified interpersonal treatment, it matters more who makes the decisions in diagnostic cases and it matters more what the outcomes are for resource allocation cases. We also found that humans were consistently viewed as appropriate decision makers and AI was viewed as dehumanizing, and that participants perceived they were treated better when subject to diagnostic as opposed to resource allocation decisions. Thematic coding of open-ended text responses supported these results. We also outline the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (shrink)

Health service consumers' satisfaction with the services they receive has been a challenge over the past decade, and this has been attributed to many factors that diverse scholars have investigated using different variables. In this study, the attitude and ethical behaviours of healthcare providers as antidotes to health service consumers' satisfaction in the Primary Health Centre at Mgbuoshimini, Port Harcourt, Nigeria, were investigated. A cross-sectional descriptive research design was used to select participants from pregnant women, nursing mothers, couples for family (...) planning, and sick patients. The data were analysed using descriptive statistical tools. The results of the grand total response values were 400 (100%) and strongly agree had 190 (47.5%), agree had 160 (40%), 390 (100%) and strongly agree had 260 (66.7%), agree had 100 (25.6%), and strongly disagree had 13 (3.3%). The overall results were strongly agreed (66.7%) and agreed (25.6%); these connote that the attitudes and ethical behaviours of the healthcare providers towards healthcare service consumers in the primary healthcare facility were poor and that healthcare providers do not execute good ethical behaviour towards health service consumers in the facility, leading to low levels of health resource consumption, low patronage image promotion, and consumers' loss of confidence in the service provider. Therefore, the government should put mechanisms in place to ensure a positive attitude and favourable ethical behaviour among healthcare providers, and individual healthcare providers should also acquire soft skills to improve their attitude and ethical behaviour. (shrink)

The objective of Working Group 4 of the COST Action NET4Age-Friendly is to examine existing policies, advocacy, and funding opportunities and to build up relations with policy makers and funding organisations. Also, to synthesize and improve existing knowledge and models to develop from effective business and evaluation models, as well as to guarantee quality and education, proper dissemination and ensure the future of the Action. The Working Group further aims to enable capacity building to improve interdisciplinary participation, to promote knowledge (...) exchange and to foster a cross-European interdisciplinary research capacity, to improve cooperation and co-creation with cross-sectors stakeholders and to introduce and educate students SHAFE implementation and sustainability. To enable the achievement of the objectives of Working Group 4, the Leader of the Working Group, the Chair and Vice-Chair, in close cooperation with the Science Communication Coordinator, developed a template to map the current state of SHAFE policies, funding opportunities and networking in the COST member countries of the Action. On invitation, the Working Group lead received contributions from 37 countries, in a total of 85 Action members. The contributions provide an overview of the diversity of SHAFE policies and opportunities in Europe and beyond. These were not edited or revised and are a result of the main areas of expertise and knowledge of the contributors; thus, gaps in areas or content are possible and these shall be further explored in the following works and reports of this WG. But this preliminary mapping is of huge importance to proceed with the WG activities. In the following chapters, an introduction on the need of SHAFE policies is presented, followed by a summary of the main approaches to be pursued for the next period of work. The deliverable finishes with the opportunities of capacity building, networking and funding that will be relevant to undertake within the frame of Working Group 4 and the total COST Action. The total of country contributions is presented in the annex of this deliverable. (shrink)

This paper reports on an ongoing ARC Discovery Project that is conducting design research into learning in collaborative virtual worlds (CVW).The paper will describe three design components of the project: (a) pedagogical design, (b)technical and graphics design, and (c) learning research design. The perspectives of each design team will be discussed and how the three teams worked together to produce the CVW. The development of productive failure learning activities for the CVW will be discussed and there will be an interactive (...) demonstration of the project's CVW. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the benefits of international data sharing. Data sharing enabled the health care policy makers to make decisions based on real-time data, it enabled the tracking of the virus, and importantly it enabled the development of vaccines that were crucial to mitigating the impact of the virus. This data sharing is not the norm as data sharing needs to navigate complex ethical and legal rules, and in particular, the fragmented application of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). (...) The introduction of the draft regulation for a European Health Data Space (EHDS) in May 2022 seeks to address some of these legal issues. If passed, it will create an obligation to share electronic health data for certain secondary purposes. While there is a clear need to address the legal complexities involved with data sharing, it is critical that any proposed reforms are in line with ethical principles and the expectations of the data subjects. In this paper we offer a critique of the EHDS and offer some recommendations for this evolving regulatory space. (shrink)

Abstract: Fish are important for both nutritional and economic reasons. They are a good source of protein, vitamins, and minerals and play a significant role in human diets, especially in coastal and island communities. In addition, fishing and fish farming are major industries that provide employment and income for millions of people worldwide. Moreover, fish play a critical role in marine ecosystems, serving as prey for larger predators and helping to maintain the balance of aquatic food chains. (...) Overall, fish play a vital role in supporting human well-being and the health of our planet. . Fishes have a lots of types such that: Red Mullet, Sea Bass, Striped Red Mullet and Shrimp. Each of them has its own shape and characteristics that differ from other types. We proposed a system that recognize nine types of fishes using deep learning. We trained the model with a dataset that contain 9000 images that were slit into 6300 images for training, 1350 for validation and 1350 for testing. The proposed model achieved accuracy (99.68%), precision (99.69%), recall (99.68%), and f1-score (99.68%). This indicates that our proposed model can effectively predicate and classify different types of fish with very high accuracy. (shrink)

Opponents to consciousness in fish argue that fish do not feel pain because they do not have a neocortex, which is a necessary condition for feeling pain. A common counter-argument appeals to the multiple realizability of pain: while a neocortex might be necessary for feeling pain in humans, pain might be realized differently in fish. This paper argues, first, that it is impossible to find a criterion allowing us to demarcate between plausible and implausible cases of multiple (...) realization of pain without running into a circular argument. Second, opponents to consciousness in fish cannot be provided with reasons to believe in the multiple realizability of pain. I conclude that the debate on the existence of pain in fish is impossible to settle by relying on the multiple realization argument. (shrink)

I argue that the main theme of the Zhuangzi is that of spiritual transformation. If there is no such theme in the Zhuangzi, it becomes an obscure text with relativistic viewpoints contradicting statements and stories designed to lead the reader to a state of spiritual transformation. I propose to reveal the coherence of the deep structure of the text by clearly dividing relativistic statements designed to break down fixed viewpoints from statements, anecdotes, paradoxes and metaphors designed to lead the reader (...) to a state of spiritual transformation. Without such an analysis, its profound stories such as the butterfly dream and the Great Sage dream will blatantly contradict each other and leave us bereft of the wisdom they presage. Unlike the great works of poetic and philosophic wisdom such as the Dao de Jing and the Symposium, the Zhuangzi will be reduced to a virtually unintelligible, lengthy, disjointed literary ditty, a potpourri of paradoxical puzzles, puns and parables, obscure philosophical conundrums, monstrous interlocutors and historical personages used as mouthpieces authoritatively arguing on behalf of viewpoints humorously opposite to what they historically held. (shrink)

In this chapter we discuss some of the central ethical issues specific to eating and harvesting fish. We survey recent research on fish intelligence and cognition and discuss possible considerations that are distinctive to questions about the ethics of eating fish as opposed to terrestrial and avian mammals. We conclude that those features that are distinctive to the harvesting and consumption of fish, including means of capture and the central role that fishing plays in many communities, (...) do not suggest that eating fish is less morally problematic than eating terrestrial of avian animals. (shrink)

An attempt has been made to study the fish fauna naturally occurring in the freshwater bodies Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh. The survey was focussed mainly on fish biodiversity and undertaken during July, 2020 to June, 2021. A total of 53 species of fishes belonging to 32 genera, 17 families and 8 orders were identified. Cyprinidae were found most dominant family represented by 22 species followed by Bagridae with 6 species, Ophiocephalidae with 4 species. Rest other families were (...) represented by 2or 1 species. (shrink)

An attempt has been made to study the fish fauna naturally occurring in the freshwater bodies Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh. The survey was focussed mainly on fish biodiversity and undertaken during July, 2020 to June, 2021. A total of 53 species of fishes belonging to 32 genera, 17 families and 8 orders were identified. Cyprinidae were found most dominant family represented by 22 species followed by Bagridae with 6 species, Ophiocephalidae with 4 species. Rest other families were (...) represented by 2or 1 species. (shrink)

Kingfisher was upset. He cared little for the village but cared a lot for the wellbeing of himself.

An attempt has been made to study the fish fauna naturally occurring in the freshwater bodies Gonda district of Uttar Pradesh. The survey was focussed mainly on fish biodiversity and undertaken during July, 2020 to June, 2021. A total of 53 species of fishes belonging to 32 genera, 17 families and 8 orders were identified. Cyprinidae were found most dominant family represented by 22 species followed by Bagridae with 6 species, Ophiocephalidae with 4 species. Rest other families were (...) represented by 2or 1 species. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to analyze the thesis that an agreement between representatives of two different cultures can and should be reached at a theoretical level. The author tries to verify the Theory of Communicative Action proposed by Jürgen Habermas in the light of philosophical reflections of American neopragmatist Stanley Fish. Habermas is one of the most important and widely read social theorists in the post-Second World War era. He is also one of the authors of the (...) concept of deliberative democracy, which holds that, for a democratic decision to be legitimate, it must be preceded by authentic deliberation – disinterested exchange of reasons – not merely the aggregation of preferences that occurs in voting. The foundation of deliberative democracy is, according to the German thinker, a communicative action based on communicative rationality. Stanley Fish, in turn, is one of the most eminent American philosophers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The main area of his scientific activity is the theory of literature, law, and history. In the course of his reflections, Fish constructed the concept of an interpretive communities, which implies an original view on the nature of the process of cognition, status of human convictions or beliefs, nature of communication situation and capabilities of theory. The final conclusion stemming from the reflection on Fish’s philosophy explains why Habermas’ theory is not an adequate tool to reach an intercultural agreement. (shrink)

I discuss the famous 'happiness for a fish' exchange between Zhuāngzǐ and Huizi.

I briefly compare and contrast the philosophy of Confucius as written in the I Ching and Lao Tzu's philosophy presented in the Tao Te Ching.

This is like the old adage: “Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead.”.

The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act of 1980 requires federal agencies to provide a meaningful role for rural subsistence harvesters in management of fish and wildlife in Alaska. We constructed an interpretive analysis of qualitative interviews with residents of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Stakeholders' perceptions of their roles and motivations to participate in collaborative management are linked to unseen and often ignored cultural features and differing worldviews that influence outcomes of collaboration. Agencies need to better understand Yup'ik preferences for (...) working together and change their formats and methods of public engagement. More frequent and higher quality interactions among stakeholders in rural communities will create awareness of cultural differences. Improved awareness will allow managers to design and implement a process that is culturally appropriate and increase the meaningfulness of collaborative management. (shrink)

A study was carried out from October, 2020 to September, 2021to investigate the diversity of fishes and the conservation status of Chittaura Jheel (Bahraich), Uttar Pradesh. During the study period, 38 fish species belonging to 28 genera, 14 families and 7 orders have been identified. The order Cypriniformes was found the dominated order with 15 species(39.47%) followed by Siluriformes 10 species (26.31%), Perciformes 4 species (10.52%), Ophiocephaliformes 4 species (10.52%), Synbranchiformes2 species (5.26%), Osteoglossiformes 2 species (5.26%) and Clupiformes 1 (...) species (2.63 %), The present investigation showed that the wetland, Chittaura Jheel possesses rich fish biodiversity but proper conservation measures are required to maintain sustainability and richness of the fish species diversity of that wetland of U.P. According to IUCN, 30 were enlisted as Least Concern (LC), 2 species as near endangered (NE), 3 species as near threatened (NT), 2 listed as Endangered (EN) and 1 species was listed as Vulnerable (VU). There is a need of conservation of fish diversity of this natural wetland. The pressure is increasing day by day due to increasing population, leading to loss of fish diversity hence identifying the problem and making a better management plan is the way for conservation of the fish diversity of the Chittaura Jheel, a wetland of Bahraich district of Uttar Pradesh. (shrink)