The Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region is a distinct geographic, economic and cultural area with a place in the climate change landscape. LAC has suffered the impacts of climate change at a level disproportionate to the amount of emissions it produces. Awareness of this experience, in addition to factors such as the region’s large young population, increasing middle class, vast natural resources and considerable economic growth potential provide reasons to hope LAC can implement significant climate change policies (...) to meet its Paris commitments. Springing from its cultural and historical affinities, the region has borne a flurry of polycentric initiatives promoting exchange, integration and coordinated approaches to common problems. Climate policy implementation to meet Paris commitments is still incipient, with some of its countries serving as models, some as laggards and the rest positioned somewhere in between. For this reason, partnerships with regions which have advanced more in this area can prove useful. The EU-CELAC summits and the Euroclima program are two examples. Due to its high levels of inequality and social unrest, the key challenge to implementing climate policies in LAC will be the strengthening of a political atmosphere where human rights, the rule of law and democratic values prevail. (shrink)

In this text, I consider two examples in the history of emancipation and manumission of enslaved, Black populations in the Caribbean and South America in order to theorize a colonial mode of conceiving of freedom at play in the first half of the nineteenth century. This mode is marked by the figure of the promise, enacting a notion of freedom as a constantly deferred, external compensation. Indeed, instead of an immediate decision deeming the practice of enslavement and trade of (...) human beings unacceptable, and an effective liberation of the enslaved Black populations in these different emancipation proclamations, the various histories of manumission in Latin America and the Caribbean show a long series of political and legal attempts to reduce and limit the extent of the slave trade that deferred the process of liberation for decades. Moreover, in many of these territories the practice did not end with the official proclamation of emancipation but was continued by illegal practices and mutations into legal forms of exploitation and oppression that are still operative today. After outlining this first trajectory, reconstructing the promise of manumission in the historical examples of Martinique (as read by Édouard Glissant) and La Gran Colombia and the Republic of Nueva Granada (contemporary Panamá, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador), I analyze a second mode of investigation in examples of individual and collective strategies of liberation coming from the enslaved themselves, as reconstructed by contemporary feminist scholars in South America. These strategies appropriate liberation not as a promise, but as a negotiation and calculation that begins with the enslaved’s resistance to their oppressive conditions and that ultimately depends on the external concession by juridical authorities. In the third section of the chapter, I read these practices not as marronage, as they are sometimes approached, but as a different mode of turning back to these glimpses of freedom that more effectively challenge the narrative of emancipation and, with it, the promise of manumission in our present. -/- . (shrink)

The Caribbean is a site where multiple cultures, peoples, waysof thinking and acting have come together and where new formsof philosophy are emerging. The promise of Caribbean philoso-phy lays in its ability to give shape to an intellectual tradition which is both true to and beneficial to Caribbean peoples whilesimultaneously being provocative enough to engage wisdom-seekers of various geographies and identities. I argue that onlyby pursuing a “New Dialogic” which engages the philosophicaltraditions of Africans, African Americans, and (...) Native Ameri-cans can we hope to assert a unique philosophy of value toCaribbean peoples and cultures. The highest form of Caribbeanphilosophy thus must be plural and dialogical. Unfortunately,dialogues in philosophy have been typically characterized bya fixation with Europe, and a lack of consideration of otherphilosophical traditions or sources. The “New Dialogic” thatI propose here involves a more dynamic model of dialogue toopen or intensify different and multiple avenues of conceptualelaboration. I provide general guidelines or principles for this“New Dialogic” and demonstrate the extent to which Caribbeanphilosophers can both contribute to the expansion of this projectand be aided by it in their formulations of the field. (shrink)

El estudio evalúa los vínculos entre la transición energética existentes en América Latina y el Caribe y los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS) relacionados con la innovación (ODS 9), la igualdad (ODS 10) y las instituciones (ODS 16). El estudio sostiene que si las opciones de tecnología energética en la región continúan siendo impulsadas por la racionalidad tecnoeconómica, muchas demandas impuestas a la transición energética seguirán sin satisfacerse, es decir, no se resuelven los desafíos preexistentes (ODS 9, 10 y 16). (...) Por tanto para que la transición energética sea equitativa y compatible con el clima, es necesario conceptualizar e implementar en la práctica nuevas formas de integrar y actuar sobre el conocimiento inter y transdisciplinario, lo que implica la creación de una interfaz entre las comunidades locales (conocimiento indígena y comunidad), comunidad de investigación (conocimiento local e internacional sobre clima-energía) y formuladores de políticas (conocimiento sobre políticas). (shrink)

The place of Glissant’s philosophy of decolonisation in relation to Fanon and Césaire has been theorised by some authors, but the emphasis has not been placed on the fact that Glissant refers to both his predecessors as examples of the absence of a link between the two tactics of resistance – un détour [a tactical diversion] and un retour [a return]. For Glissant, both Césaire and Fanon are still diverters and not properly producers of a new reality, of a real (...) Caribbean territory and history. Thus, following previous analyses by commentators, but departing from them (or adding a new layer, the layer of spatiality that should be combined with a traditional analysis of temporality), this chapter defends the idea that Glissant locates his decolonial thought between Césaire and Fanon: it neither advocates a reconstruction that points to a past located elsewhere (Africa), nor recommends the rejection and replacement of the here/now with a different, unknown spatiality and temporality. For Glissant, the locus of resistance is located in the present and in the possibilities of decolonisation already contained in the Caribbean, although concealed and understated. This chapter begins by showing what is, according to Glissant, the necessary conjunction between the different tactics of resistance, then focuses on some of Césaire’s and Fanon’s texts in order to show why they do not offer this necessary link. The final section comes back to Glissant to analyse the notion of l’antillanité as the possibility of truly focusing on a here/now as a multilayered strategy of resistance. (shrink)

What do we mean when we describe the history of the Caribbean as traumatic? Is it possible to use the term ‘trauma’ here in a more technical sense, or should we give it the less strict connotation of an extreme form of an event in which the past no longer stays just in the past and the future never ceases to demand something from the present? In this paper I analyze the image of the abyss, used by Édouard Glissant (...) to evoke poetically one of the beginnings of the Caribbean, as leading to a paradox on the attitude toward history: Caribbean communities have been burdened with a non-history that feels, at the same time, like too much history. I show that this image resembles the paradoxical structure of trauma developed in the works of Cathy Caruth, according to whom trauma is a paradoxical structure of experience in which the subject (or a community) is painfully possessed by an image that they have barely perceived and that is so minimal that it cannot be controlled. However, I argue, there are limits to this resemblance. I focus on the question whether the (traumatic) paradox is escapable in this region of the world, that is, whether Caribbean communities can be de-traumatized, and what are the connections of this possibility with the question, central to Glissant, of decolonization. In order to answer these questions, I analyze a central feature of the Caribbean history according to Glissant, transversality, to show in what way the paradox of history can be loosened. (shrink)

This essay develops an argumentative position which implies that historically Caribbean political philosophers have engaged in establishing a theoretical position that is trapped, and entrenched, within European hegemony. The essay traverse the works of some noted Caribbean thinkers and highlight limitations in logic, and or tactical approach, to the question of Caribbean decolonisation, and establishes the essay’s principal hypothesis. The article revealed three (3) Philosophers; namely C.L.R. James, Franz Fanon, and Walter Rodney as the principal thinkers whose (...) philosophical approaches gave intellectual keys that were adjacent to unlocking European dominance. The paper then suggest that the method in breaking the false decolonisation notion rest in making a cultural link with ancient cosmology of Kemet and dialectics of Pharaonic Egypt. A task all philosopher thought-out Caribbean history failed to established as a matter of principle. (shrink)

This dissertation takes up questions of access at the level of language itself, as well as in the context of cultural institutions in emerging global communities. Using the texts of James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, and Shani Mootoo, I argue experimental narrative techniques develop new understandings of mental disability by pushing against the limits of language, particularly in relation to mentally disabled women. The novels and plays examined function as creative objects that refigure the reader’s relationship to mental disability through embodied (...) reading practices. In resisting previous tendencies to read literary representations of mental disability as metaphor, I offer an alternative framework for understanding mental disability as an ongoing interactive process between bodies. Drawing on work from disability studies, critical gender studies, and trauma theory, I call for approaches to mental disability in literature that understand reading as an interactive process between reader and text, proposing a methodology for understanding how embodied reading practices inspire new understandings of mental disability and trauma in emerging global communities. In appreciating mental disability as an ongoing interactive process between bodies, readers can better attend to the nuanced ways in which complex embodiment calls for innovative modes of storytelling that challenge histories of representation. (shrink)

Imagine a world where three out of every four wild animals have disappeared. This isn’t science fiction – it’s our reality. The World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) Living Planet Report 2024 reveals a shocking truth: in just 50 years, wildlife populations worldwide have dropped by 73% on average. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the situation is even worse, with up to 95% of wildlife lost.

The Afro-Latin dance known as ‘salsa’ is a fusion of multiple dances from West Africa, Muslim Spain, enslaved communities in the Caribbean, and the United States. In part due to its global origins, salsa was pivotal in the development of the Figuration philosophy of dance, and for ‘dancing with,’ the theoretical method for social justice derived therefrom. In the present article, I apply the completed theory Figuration exclusively to salsa for the first time, after situating the latter in the (...) dance studies literature. My first section explores Juliet McMains’ recent history, Spinning Mambo into Salsa, with an emphasis on the dynamics of class, race and sex therein. My second section explores a resonant Afro-Latin dance history, Marta E. Savigliano’s Tango and the Political Economy of Passion, where she deploys salsa’s sister-dance (tango) as a ‘counter-choreography’ to the choreography of postmodern neocolonialism. And my third section applies Figuration’s four central aspects of dance (or ‘Moves’) to salsa qua member of its ‘societal’ family of dance. In conclusion, through partnering with salsa, Figuration emerges as a member of its own ‘discursive’ family of dance, while salsa emerges as a gestural discourse capable of helping reconstruct a more socially-just world from the postmodern ruins of today. (shrink)

The discourses of Antillanité and Créolité are both based on the absence of women. This is more important in the discourse of Créolité since it silences the grandmothers, great aunts and village midwives who are the transmitters of folk tales, folk medicines and oral culture. In the struggle for recognition between Caribbean males and western males folk medicine may be too closely associated with the denigrated female role to be considered a suitable inclusion into modern development.

The current debate on why colonialism is wrong overlooks what is arguably the most discernible aspect of this particular historical injustice: its exreme violence. Through a critical analysis of the recent contributions by Lea Ypi, Margaret Moore and Laura Valentini, this article argues that the violence inflicted on the victims and survivors of colonialism reveals far more about the nature of this historical injustice than generally assumed. It is the arbitrary nature of the power relations between colonizers and the colonized (...) which is at the heart of the injustice of colonization, and violence was the way arbitrariness and domination was cemented. The example of colonialism in the Caribbean during the 16th and 17th centuries is used to expose the full extent of this historical injustice. (shrink)

The conceptual model of United Nations reform - "UN 3.0" includes the General Program of Action on UN Reform, consisting of two stages. The first stage for 2020-2025 envisages the transformation of the main organs of the UN - the General Assembly and the Security Council with measures to improve the effectiveness of the management system, address the "veto problem", problem of financing, improve staff work and administrative and financial control, strengthen UN media, improvement of work with the global civil (...) society. The General Assembly is converted into the General All-Parliamentary Assembly of the UN. In the structure of the Assembly, the Council for Law is being established, which coordinates the activities of UN structures in the field of law. To coordinate the activities of the UN in the field of human rights and civil society, ethical issues, the General all-parliamentary Assembly creates the Council on ethics, human rights and civil society and transforms the Committee on information into the Council on public information and communication with civil society. The structure of the Council includes all UN media. The reform of the UN Security Council is carried out in three sub-stages. At the 1st sub-stage (2020-2021) the Security Council is transformed into the Council of Existential Security (CES). The membership of the CES is increased to 25 member countries, of which five countries have the right of the unconditional (absolute, eternal) veto: Great Britain, France, China, Russian Federation, USA. The General All-Parliamentary Assembly elects 15 new permanent members of the Council of Existential Security with the right of the conditional (limited) veto: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, South Africa, Nigeria, Pakistan , Turkey, Japan (if they fulfill the mandatory restrictive conditions). At this sub-stage, the CES elects also five non-permanent members with the right of a conditional (limited) veto when they meet the mandatory restrictive conditions, with a rotation period of 2 years from geographical regions (or regional unions): Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific Ocean (2 places), Eastern Europe. On the second sub-stage (2022-2023), subject to the effective activity of the CES of the enlarged composition and compliance with mandatory restrictive conditions, new permanent members of the "Existential Security Council" are elected with the right of a conditional (limited) veto: Iran, Spain, Poland, Saudi Arabia. Members of the CES may be regional unions, whose member countries are not represented in the CES, but still have one vote with the right of a conditional (limited) veto. -/- Two essential levels of the veto: 1. Unconditional (absolute, eternal) veto is the historical right of veto of the five permanent members of the Council of Existential Security - Great Britain, China, Russia, USA, France; 2. Сonditional (limited) veto is the veto of other permanent and non-permanent members of the Council of Existential Security. The right of veto is a unique international school for the achievement of consensus, a school of high democracy for Humanity, a reliable guarantee of the viability of the UN structure. The Council for Existential Security centralises the management of the UN subsidiary bodies with the expansion of their security functions: the Military Staff Committee, the Counter-Terrorism Committee, the Committee for the Prevention of the Spread of Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Weapons, the Sanctions Committees and other committees. On the basis of the decision of the Council of Existential Security, the General All-Parliamentary Assembly creates permanent contingents of UN peacekeeping and counter-terrorism forces. In addition, two Centers are being created in the structure of the Council for Existential Security: the World Center for the Elimination of the Effects of Technogenic and Natural Disasters with branches on all continents and the World Center for the Analysis of Existential Risks and the Overall Security Strategy. The Center is developing the Programs of research and monitoring of global existential threats and risks. In order to increase the level of legitimacy and authority of the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Rules of procedure for elections to this post are changing. Each member country of the Council for Existential Security represents one of the most authoritative candidates for election to the post of Secretary General at the session of the General All-Parliamentary Assembly, with the possibility of nominating candidates from other countries, including those not members of the Council for Existential Security. Elections are held in two rounds during one day of the session of the Assembly. The Legal Committee of the UN General Assembly is developing a Program for the Reform of the Judicial System of the United Nations, which takes into account the proposals of the previous international discussion and determines the scope and terms of the reform of the courts. In accordance with the Program of Action on UN Reform for 2020-2025, reforms are under way in the structure of the Economic and Social Council. The central task of the reform is to strengthen the coordinating role of ECOSOC in the entire system of UN-related specialized agencies, funds and programs related to the Council. The key task of the UN reform is the solution of the financing problem. A unified "UN Open Budget "Solidarity XXI" is being created, including the financing of peacekeeping operations and other expenses. Each country, a member of the United Nations, lists in an established period, once a year, an Existential contribution - the Earth Tax. The Earth Tax for each UN member state is established on the basis of four scales of calculation: Scale I - for 5 permanent members of the Council of Existential Security, who have the right of absolute (absolute) veto; Scale II - for the permanent members of the SEB, who have the right to a conditional (limited) veto; Scale III - for non-permanent members of the SEB, who have the right to a conditional (limited) veto; Scale IV - for all other UN member countries. The program of action on UN reform includes a set of measures to ensure transparent work of the International Civil Service Commission with the involvement of the UN media. To strengthen control functions in the sphere of personnel policy, administrative and financial management, the General All-Parliamentary Assembly of the United Nations establishes the Permanent Commission on Ethics and Administrative and Financial Control. All members of the Commission, members of the Committees and auditors are independent in their activities from the leadership of the United Nations, its funds and programs. The General All-Parliamentary Assembly completes the first stage of the Program of Action on UN Reform in 2025 and, following an open discussion, introduces a single language of international communication - Esperanto and approves it as the official language of the United Nations. With a view to more effective work of the central UN governing bodies in the face of increasing existential threats and risks, reducing the current expenses for the maintenance of the central bodies of the UN, the Council for Existential Security and the General All-Parliamentary Assembly decide on the relocation of the UN headquarters to Iceland. The UN building complex in New York is transferred to preferential use of non-governmental organizations, which contribute to the implementation of the goals of the United Nations. At the second stage of the UN reform in the period 2026-2028, additional necessary transformations are being made in the UN system. At the end of the first stage of the reform, taking into account the reforms carried out by the main organs of the United Nations and the internal improvement of the work of all its structures, the United Nations Program of Action for the years 2026-2028 is being developed. (shrink)

The importance of a healthy environment cannot be overemphasized since a healthy environment is not only fundamental to our own health but is also our life-support system. Surprisingly, the state of our environment today bears a sour testimony to destructive anthropogenic activities. It suffices us to argue that untamed human activities on the environment have led to the degradation and pollution of the air, water and land; thereby threatening the existence of life on the planet earth. In response, many environmentally (...) concerned scholars have come up with different arguments aimed at solving, as well as checking the environment from the apparent current spate of deterioration. The most noticeable argument among all is the one that anchors its vehemence of environmental sustainability on the interest of future generations. Consequently, this paper argues that the quest for environmental sustainability would be more plausible and less controversial should the efforts centre more on the present generation of all organisms. This view is predicated on the fact that, as currently advanced, the future generations’ argument is fallacious and cannot carry the burden of environmental sustainability that is predicated on it. -/- . (shrink)

Through the prism of archipelicity, the artistic production of the Afro-American Diaspora reveals its diffractive potential: at once close to and far from its original origins, it unfolds in the in-between of a double consciousness. In his seminal essay, Paul Gilroy calls for the overcoming of binary oppositions in order to better apprehend the complexity of Afro-diasporic intellectual culture, which he sees as specifically transnational (Gilroy, 1993). As inclusive as this theoretical framework may seem, it is challenged by the inherent (...) transcoloniality of the artistic dynamics animating the region of the Black Island Americas. To this day, avatars of the colonial model persist in the Lesser and Greater Antilles and in the majority of the coastal nations of the Caribbean basin. To a certain extent, these schemes continue to influence the aesthetic-political choices of the region’s visual artists and performers, while providing them with symbolic codes that can be interpreted as signs of belonging to the Afro-Trans American diaspora. It is therefore a challenge to claim any form of diasporic citizenship in such a shifting and uncertain configuration. What is thought to be relevant from an individual or community perspective may prove to be institutionally subversive. In the syncretic tradition of Cuba and Brazil, the same code can be given different semiotic meanings depending on the political and pragmatic context. This article therefore takes an ethno-critical look at the contribution of such practices to the broader framework of archipelagic networks and map zones of Afro-diasporic connectivity in a trans-American context. (shrink)

Most current techniques to deal with invasive species are ineffective or have highly damaging side effects. To this end suppression-drives based on clustered regularly inter-spaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR/Cas9) have been touted as a potential silver bullet for the problem, allowing for a highly focused, humane and cost-effective means of removing a target species from an environment. Suppression-drives come with serious risks, however, such that the precautionary principle seems to warrant us not deploying this technology. The focus of this paper (...) is on one such risk – the danger of a suppression-drive escaping containment and wiping out the target species globally. Here, I argue that in most cases this risk is significant enough to warrant not using a gene-drive. In some cases, however, we can bypass the precautionary principle by using an approach that hinges on what I term the ‘Worst-Case Clause’. This clause, in turn, provides us with a litmus test that can be fruitfully used to determine what species are viable targets for suppression-drives in the wild. Using this metric in concert with other considerations, I suggest that only three species are currently possible viable targets – the European rabbit, ship rat and Caribbean Tree Frog. (shrink)

This paper aims to highlight the articulation of skin memory with trans-Caribbean aesthetics by exploring the diasporic works of female diasporic artists born in the West Indies who emigrated to the United States. We intend to show how these contemporary female artists rewrite the codification and reception of the skin-related memory by connecting their artwork to a genealogy of traumas and healing practices that call for the empowerment of the Caribbean skin ego.

This paper focuses on the conception of an endogenous aesthetic matrix in the Caribbean and the Americas within a decolonial perspective.

This paper zooms in on the notion of coloniality with a view to understanding how it is rehearsed in trans-colonial contexts. From the earliest stages of coloniality - the elision mode of encounter (or 'discovery' of the Americas) to its latest developments in global art performance.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.3 (2000) 453-471 [Access article in PDF] Liberty, Authority, and Trust in Burke's Idea of Empire Richard Bourke When Edmund Burke first embarked upon a parliamentary career, British political life was in the process of adapting to a series of critical reorientations in both the dynamics of party affiliation and the direction of imperial policy. During the period of the Seven Years' War, (...) a reconstituted militia became a focus for patriotic enthusiasm, uniting national sentiment against France and effectively eradicating the remnants of Jacobite rhetoric and aspiration. Traditional opposition between Tory and Whig became irrelevant, while Court and Country jointly came to the support of the Pitt-Newcastle ministry. However, in due course the Old Corps disintegrated as George III succeeded to the throne with the promise of an end to factional strife and the beginning of a patriotic alliance in government. But while competing ideologies and interests on the domestic political scene were undergoing comprehensive realignment, the pursuit of a blue-water policy in tandem with strategic continental campaigns brought Britain's struggle against France into North America, the Caribbean, and India. Trade continued to expand into Asia and West Africa, but the principles of commercial advantage were continually brought into open conflict with the exigencies of war. The division of power in Europe became embroiled in a substantial redivision of empire, and by 1763 British territorial expansion had reached its zenith.When Burke was appointed private secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham, with the national debt standing at an all time high and the demands of imperial defense unlikely to diminish, the politics of empire called for urgent attention from all sections of the political establishment. In particular the Rockinghamites, adopting a posture of aloofness from venality and petty interest, were obliged to advance policies for imperial government on the solid basis of political principle. 1 Coming into parliament as a member for Wendover in the wake of [End Page 453] Grenville's Stamp Act, at a time when the East India Company was assuming control of the revenue in Bengal, Burke set about formulating a doctrine of imperial sovereignty which would be serviceable to the party either in power or in opposition and which would be adequate to the complex reality of detached and extensive empire. The immediate reception of that inquiry, both in Britain and on the Continent, into the fraught world of post-Revolutionary political debate has had the long-term effect of distorting the order of emphasis in terms of which his career as a whole ought properly to be understood.The vigorous elaboration, in opposition to the Jacobin experiment in France, of the conditions under which moderate government could be exercised within the context of an absolute sovereignty was expressed in terms which had originally been invoked as part of a sustained attempt to reconcile civility with empire. As we shall see, that attempt involved a process of delicate coordination by means of which the interests of freedom would be brought into harmony with the demands of public power. In that sense the effort to make liberty and authority mutually responsible can be said to constitute the core ambition of Burke's political rhetoric. In this context responsibility defines the optimally beneficial relation between government and people on the one hand and national sovereignty and the extended empire on the other. This article outlines the practical and theoretical exploration of those relations within the frame of Burke's intervention in the world of eighteenth-century political discourse.Burke was of course well placed in 1765 to evolve a theory of imperial government that was at once ideologically compelling and politically viable. In his capacity as secretary to William Gerard Hamilton in the early 1760s he had already examined the corruption of legitimate empire as represented by the introduction of penal legislation into Ireland after 1694. The Tracts Relating to Popery Laws set out to convict the Irish Parliament in Dublin of flagrant misrule. A subordinate legislature within the empire is charged with having employed... (shrink)

Derek Walcott's colonial schoolhouse bears an interesting relationship to space and place: it is both a Caribbean site, and a site that disavows its locality by valorizing the metropolis and acting as a vital institution in the psychic colonization of the Caribbean peoples. The situation of the schoolhouse within the Caribbean landscape, and the presence of the Caribbean body, means that the pedagogical relationship works in two ways, and that the hegemonic/colonial discourses of the schoolhouse are (...) inherently challenged within its walls. While the school was used as a means of colonial subjugation, as a method of privileging the metropolitan centre, and as a way of recreating that centre within the colonies, Walcott's emphasis on place complicates and ultimately rewrites colonial discourses and practices. While the school attempts to legitimize colonial space, it in fact fosters what Walter Mignolo has termed "border thinking.". (shrink)

Evil is an unpleasant reality which every cultural civilization grapples with. It is at the centre of the existentialist discourse, due to the fact that, in their view, it causes meaninglessness in human existence. In Yorùbá intellectual tradition, there are prescribed ways by which evil can be suppressed, including sacrifice (ẹbọ), good character (ìwà pẹ ̀lẹ ́) and inner head (Ori). However, these measures have certain fundamental implications when considered critically through the lens of existentialism. This is because, on a (...) closer examination, they are ultimately ineffective in the light of the reality of some higher forces, namely the Ajogun, headed by the Witches. These forces are believed to be irredeemably evil, because they have the power to render any of those measures impotent. This power, however, is believed to have been given to them by Olodumare. Accordingly, evil becomes what human beings cannot conquer, but have to live with. Consequently, we recommend, following Albert Camus, that human beings learn to live with the reality of evil, like the stone of Sisyphus. This is because any human attempt to take evil out of existence, by appealing to those measures, amounts only to Kierkegaardian “leap of faith”, which Albert Camus describes as a “philosophical suicide.” We substantiate the above claims by critically engaging some verses of Ifá which is believed to be the backdrop of Yorùbá philosophy. (shrink)

Using a qualitative method of research, the study investigated the increasing use of traditional medicine in Ghana, focusing on Afigya Kwabre South District. Traditional medicine has gone through various stages since time immemorial, especially with regard to how its patronage has evolved over time. The period ranges from the pre-colonial era, when it was the only source of remedy for the entire continent of Africa including Ghana, to the colonial period which marked another phase when European influence diverted the attention (...) of Africans from the use of traditional medicine to orthodox. This suggests that traditional medicine is unorthodox (not normal) medicine, and thus the post-colonial era has witnessed emphases on medical pluralisation (concurrent use of traditional medicine and orthodox medicine). In the 21st century, traditional medicine practices have undergone several changes. The use of traditional medicine seems to be gaining traction in health care delivery in Ghana. This article addresses varied reasons that have accentuated these changes over time. Salient factors include demographics, economic status, patient-doctor interaction and other relevant causes. (shrink)

This paper looks at nearly four dozen world religion textbooks used in western academia to show the lack of discussion, and even mention, of Tulsidas and Ram bhakti in the Hindu tradition in the vast majority of the texts.

Owing to its grappling with a motley of intricate socioeconomic, as well as medico-legal, crises, Haiti has found itself bereft of some of its people, many of whom have had to leave the Caribbean country in search of improved lives elsewhere. Receiving some of the Haitian refugees fleeing abject poverty, unemployment, and other harms and barriers has been the United States, one of Haiti's northern neighbors and a country that has played an outcome-determinative, if not outsized, role in steering (...) the country toward its presently hobbled state. Drawing on the U.S.’s recent treatment of Haitian refugees, this paper argues that U.S. reception of Haitian immigrants rubs salt in the wound of a long history of dehumanizing and oppressive abuses endured by Haitians. Furthermore, and more importantly, this paper posits that U.S. failure to wholly embrace its legal obligation to accept Haitian refugees under international law needs to be understood in the light of the specific horrors inflicted by science, in pre-independence Haiti, on non-consenting, Afro-Haitian experimental subjects. And by extension, such a contextually-nuanced understanding is crucial in shaping the delivery of healthcare services to Haitian refugees fortunate enough to remain in the U.S. —as an awareness and appreciation of the socio-historical context of patients' lived experiences, i.e., their complete social history, can furnish important clues vis-à-vis the presence and etiologies of disease, influence the foci of physical exams, and generally pave the way for the provision of cost-efficient and evidence-based care. (shrink)

About death, grief, mourning, life after death and immortality. Why should we die like humans to survive as a species. -/- "No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears (...) out the old to make way for the new." (Steve Jobs) -/- CONTENTS: -/- Death - Philosophy of death - Religions - - Animism - - Atheism - - Buddhism - - Christianity - - Hinduism - - Islam - - Jainism - - Jehovah's Witnesses - - Judaism - - Latter-day Saints - - Spiritism - Symbolism - Personification of Death - - Notable personifications - - In mythologies - - - Hindu mythology - - - In Japan - - - Slavic paganism - - - Lithuanian paganism - - In the three monotheistic religions - - - Judaism - - - Christianity - - - In Mexico - - - Islam - Axiochos - - The characters of dialogue - - Dialogue - - Prologue - - Arguments - - Citations - Paradise - - Greco-Roman mythology - - Mesopotamian mythology and influences - - According to Judaism - - According to Christianity - - - According to Catholicism - - - According to Protestantism - - - According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - - According to Islam - - According to Hinduism - - According to modern spiritualities - - - According to the esoteric - Hell - - Mesopotamian origins - - According to Christianity - - - Names appearing in the biblical texts - - - Medieval artistic representations - - - Concepts according to Christian movements - - According to Judaism - - According to Islam - - According to Buddhism - - According to Hinduism - - According to modern esotericism - - - According to Aïvanhov - - - According to Allan Kardec - - Philosophy - - - Jewish Kabbalah - - - Sartre - - - Popular wisdom Funerals - The funeral ritual: a rite of passage - Prehistory - Ancient death customs - - The family bereavement - - Mummification - - Sarcophagi - - Funerals - - Ancient Greece - - Ancient Rome - - Celts, Germans and Scandinavians - Religious funeral rites - - Buddhism - - Judaism - Christianity - - Protestantism - - Islam - Funeral rites by continent - - In Africa - - In Europe - The contemporary era - Mourning (Grief) - - Steps - - - Death of a close - - Loss events without mourning value (white factors) - - Duration and manifestations - - Risks - - Colors - Graveyards (Cemeteries) - - First cemeteries - - Cemeteries today - Funerary art - Dolmens - - Types of dolmens - - Function - - Location - Passage graves - Cenotaphs - - Famous cenotaphs - Lanterns of the Dead Afterlife - History - Questions about death and immortality - Testimonials - - Spiritualistic experiences - - Popular literature on the afterlife - - "Memories" and reminiscences - - Early studies of the science of the 19th century and early 20th century - Types of scenarios - Some religious and philosophical concepts - - Afterlife in Buddhism - - Afterlife in Christianity - - According to Hinduism - - According to Islam - - According to Judaism - - According to Mormonism - - According to the ancient philosophies - - According to Spiritism - - According to Native American traditions - - According to Vedism - - According to Esotericism - In science - Near-death experiences - - Clinical death - - NDE frequency - - Effects of depth of NDE on survival - - Near-death experiences and shared-death experience - - - The first contemporary testimonials - - - Experience according to Moody - - - The concept of "shared death" - - - The NDE scales - - The study of Pim van Lommel - - Spiritual and patient point of view - - - Survivalists studies - - - The religious understanding of the phenomenon - - Scientific views - - - Physiological explanation - - - Psychological explanation - Reincarnation - - Religions - - - In Hinduism - - - In Jainism - - - In Buddhism - - - In Judaism - - - In Christianity - - - In Islam - - In contemporary times - - - Esotericism - - - Works of the psychiatrist Ian Stevenson - - - Radical increase in life expectancy and artificial reincarnation - - Criticism - - - Arthur Schopenhauer - - - Ramana Maharshi - - - Rene Guenon - - - Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy - Metempsychosis - - Theories - - Ideas - Maschalismos Immortality - Immortality of the soul and religious traditions - - Buddhism - - Christianity - - Islam - - Mormonism - Contemporary perception of the immortality of the body - - Observation in the animal kingdom - - Perspectives for mankind - Immortality in science - - Alexis Carrel - - Jean Rostand - - Hayflick limit - - Étienne-Émile Baulieu and DHEA - - Aubrey de Grey - - Professor Skulachev - - Regenerative medicine - - Professor Christopher Jaeger - Eternal Return - - According to the Mesopotamians - - According to Heraclitus and the Stoics - Fountain of Youth - - History of myth and relatives myths - - - In Roman mythology, Germanic, Celtic and Irish - - - In the Middle-East - - - In Spain - - - In the Bible - - The fountain in art and literature - - Painting - - - Literature and cinema - - Persistent of the myth until today - Senescence - - Why do we age? - - Gene regulation - - Cellular senescence Undead - Ghoul - Lich - Mummy - Skeleton - Vampire - Zombie - Other legendary creatures - Creatures specific to a particular universe - Spiritism - - Point out - - Origins of spiritism - - - The traditions through the ages - - - Advent of Christianity in Europe - - - The survival of necromancy - - - The precursors - - - Relations of spiritualism to science - Mediumship - - History - - Skeptical point of view - - Favorable doctor's viewpoint - Ghosts - - Appearance - - Belief in ghosts - - Origin - - - Duality and return dead - - - Ancient roots - - Typology - - - Poltergeists - - - Revenants - - - Ghosts - - - Banshees - - - Apparitions of crisis - - - Phantasms of the living - - - Vision of his own double - - - Ghost armies - - - Ghosts of animals - - - Means of transport - - Science perspective - - - Hallucinations - - - Sleep paralysis - - - Induced ghosts - - - Aches and infrasounds - - - Magnetic fields - Vampires - - Characteristics - - - Vampire transformation - - - Identification - - - Faculties - - Protection against the vampires - - - Precautions at death and burial - - - Apotropaic objects and places - - Destruction of vampires - Zombie - - The concept - - Africa and voodoo - - - West Africa - - - South Africa - - - In Haiti (and the Caribbean) - - - Scientific research - - The "revenants" in the Western imaginary Death in art - Memento mori - - History - - - Antiquity - - - Christianity - - - Mexican syncretism - - Performing arts - - - In painting - - - In literature - - - In movies - - - In video games - - - In Japanese animation - - - In music - The iconography of Weighing of souls (Particular judgment) - - Origin - - Written sources - - Weighing in Romanesque art - - Weighing in Gothic art - - Weighing in the late Middle Ages: to a new iconography - - Weighing of souls or actions? - Poems - - Charlotte Brontë, “On the Death of Anne Brontë” - - Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee” - - Edna St. Vincent Millay, “And you as well must die” - - Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death” - - Emily Dickinson, “If I Should Die” - - Lord Byron, “Epitaph to a Dog” - - Pablo Neruda, “Only Death” - - Stephen Crane, “God Lay Dead in Heaven” - - W. B. Yeats, “He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead” - - Rainer Maria Rilke, “Death” - Paintings - - The Three Dead Kings - - The Death of Nelson - - Beata Beatrix - Sculptures - - The Kiss of Death - - Background - - Imagery - - Angel of Grief - - Fallen Astronaut - Quotes References About the author - Nicolae Sfetcu - - By the same author - - Contact Publishing House - MultiMedia Publishing -/- DOI: 10.58679/TW44411. (shrink)

This essay proposes a new way to read José Martí's idea of "Nuestra América," one that focuses on the mode of the call for unity toward liberation and decoloniality. In particular, I offer the arguments for this Latin American unity that would define a collective form of resistance against our colonial past and present (Europe) and an imperialist future (USA). It can be argued that it is extremely difficult to translate the Cuban author's thought by itself to our contemporary struggles, (...) and that this notion runs the risk of being an outdated, naïve, and even detrimental reduction of a too complex racial reality. In this essay, I defend a way in which this notion is still relevant today by alluding to the mode of a decolonial return to one's own land in the works of Édouard Glissant and Gloria Anzaldúa. In these two authors I see elements of the criticism of a colonial rootedness and filiation, linking a decolonial attitude toward the land with a particular way of returning to it: one that challenges a mythical, pure territorial space, and also reimagines the temporality of the return by focusing on the present. With the help of this novel gesture of returning to the land, I argue that Martí's nuestra América voices a call for unity and independence that still has value beyond its undeniable shortcomings. (shrink)

In this article, Catherine Kirchner-Blanchard et Frédéric Lefrançois question the decolonial stance of Caribbean artists who pursue artistic freedom and agency without relating or comparing their work to the great models of Western art history.

In the 6th century, Paul the Persian used his own pen to write a summary of Aristotle's Peri Hermeneias in the Persian language. Severus Sebokht translated it into Syriac. This book is a transcription and translation of the Syriac manuscript of Paul the Persian's Peri Hermeneias and a comparison of it with Aristotle's original Greek text.

I offer a philosophical account of vowing and the rationality of vow-making. I argue that vows are most productively understood as exceptionless resolutions that do not have any excusing conditions. I then articulate an apparent problem for exceptionless vow-making: how can it be rational to bind yourself unconditionally, when circumstances might change unexpectedly and make it the case that vow-keeping no longer makes sense for you? As a solution, I propose that vows can be rational to make only if they (...) are implicitly conditional on a personal identification or social role that is itself escapable. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's Nachlass: The Bergen Electronic Edition is the only CD-ROM to give you instant facsimile and text access to the 20,000 pages of the philosopher's Nachlass as catalogued by Professor von Wright in his 1982 publication The Wittgenstein Papers. -/- The result of 10 years of academic research and editorial work by the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen this electronic edition is the first scholarly resource to apply a uniform, well-documented, consistent set of editorial principles to the writings. (...) The CD-ROM is a joint publication between Oxford University Press and the Wittgenstein Archives and is published in Text & Facsimile and Text Only formats. (shrink)

Michael Tye proposed a way of understanding the content of hallucinatory experiences. Somewhat independently, Mark Johnston provided us with elements to think about the content of hallucination. In this paper, their views are compared and evaluated. Both their theories present intricate combinations of conjunctivist and disjunctivist strategies to account for perceptual content. An alternative view, which develops a radically disjunctivist account, is considered and rejected. Finally, the paper raises some metaphysical difficulties that seem to threaten any conjunctivist theory and to (...) lead the debate to a dilemma: strong disjunctivists cannot explain the subjective indistinguishability between veridical and hallucinatory experiences, whereas conjunctivists cannot explain what veridical and hallucinatory experiences have in common. This dilemma is left here as an open challenge. (shrink)

Several particles are not observed directly, but only through their decay products. We consider the possibility that they might be fakeons, i.e. fake particles, which mediate interactions but are not asymptotic states. A crucial role to determine the true nature of a particle is played by the imaginary parts of the one-loop radiative corrections, which are affected in nontrivial ways by the presence of fakeons in the loop. The knowledge we have today is sufficient to prove that most non directly (...) observed particles are true physical particles. However, in the case of the Higgs boson the possibility that it might be a fakeon remains open. The issue can be resolved by means of precision measurements in existing and future accelerators. (shrink)

There is an as yet unacknowledged and incomparable contribution to the philosophical debates about know-how to be found in the writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein. It is sourced in his investigations into knowledge and certainty in On Certainty, though it is not limited to these late passages. Understanding the ramifications of this putative contribution (even if one does not agree with it) highlights the extent to which (i) there is now a new range of issues pertaining to know-how which no future (...) philosophical consideration of the topic can ignore, except on pain of failing to engage comprehensively with the subject; (ii) the topic of know-how has been inappropriately marginalised by naturalized epistemology, and may well be as central to epistemology as the propositional knowledge which currently dominates epistemology’s attention; and (iii) any engagement with these potential Wittgensteinian contributions will need to be conducted in tandem with a reflection on the meta-philosophy of epistemology, since their potential impact extends to epistemology’s main methodology, i.e., naturalized reflective equilibrium. These three conclusions, together with a diagnosis of where and why all the current intellectualist accounts of know-how are either internally inconsistent, or irreconcilably flawed on their own terms, provide the motivation and the opportunity for a New Epistemology of Know-How. These conclusions established, I offer one possible Wittgensteinian-orientated version of the New Epistemology of Know-How, providing the first example of a non-naturalized philosophical approach to the topic since Gilbert Ryle. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolution, distinguishes between two types of sciences-one, normal; the other, revolutionary. However, the transition from normal to revolutionary science (what he calls paradigm-shift) is initiated by anomaly. This anomaly arises when the paradigm guiding a particular community of scientists malfunctions, thus resisting all efforts to reposition it. Hence, science for Kuhn, grows through the paradigm-shift initiated by tension. However, Kuhn argues that the process of choosing another paradigm that will guild scientific practices requires (...) a thorough debate among a community of scientists. In this debate, a new paradigm is selected out of numerous competing others by the method of elimination. This selection is based on their ability to solve problems and to guide research work without developing further faults. Nevertheless, in this understanding of scientific growth, in our view, inheres some contradictions. In the first places, Kuhn attributes growth to paradigm-shift through tension and anomaly but argues that a new paradigm must be selected based on its ability not to develop fault. It is not, however clear how paradigm-shift can occur if there is no fault, tension or anomaly in research. Secondly, he bases the selection of a new paradigm on the inarticulate aesthetic sentiments, faith and destiny, which contradicts the initial argument that it must be selected based on its observed inherent problem-solving ability out of the numerous others. We shall discuss these notable flaws in Kuhn's view of scientific growth, using the method of critical argumentation and conceptual clarification. (shrink)

Public sentiment regarding climate change in the United States is starkly divided, with the Republicans and Democrats holding markedly different views. Given the inherent connection between the water crisis and climate change, this research aimed to investigate the interplay between the residents’ beliefs about the impact of climate change on water supply unpredictability, their political identity, and their willingness to adopt direct and indirect potable water reuse. The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was conducted on a dataset of 1,831 water (...) users in the arid region of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The findings reveal a complicated interplay among examined factors. Specifically, we discovered a positive association between the belief in the impacts of climate change and the willingness to adopt potable water reuse among non-Republican water users. In contrast, Republican water users exhibit a negative association between climate change belief and willingness to adopt potable water reuse. Interestingly, despite this, Republicans generally show a higher overall willingness to adopt potable water reuse compared to non-Republicans. These findings suggest that contextual factors in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in which challenges of aridity and economic dependence on water resources are pronounced, might be important aspects contributing to the Republican’s high willingness to adopt potable water reuse. Also, the current climate change communication strategy with the Republicans might not be appropriate, and it should be tailored to align with the Republicans’ beliefs and persuade them better. (shrink)

Background: Overnutrition, undernutrition, and micronutrient deficiency present a major global public health challenge due to food insecurity. Micronutrient deficiencies are prevalent among children and result in impaired intellectual growth. Policy guidelines at the national level are essential for the success of micronutrient supplementation programs for children during school feeding. Aim: This study aims to analyze how various national policies guiding the school meal programs—such as those related to school feeding, nutrition, health, food safety, agriculture, and the private sector—associate with the (...) implementation of in-school micronutrient supplementation among countries with school meals programs. Methods: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework, combining the reasoning strengths of Mindsponge Theory and inference advantages of Bayesian analysis, was employed on a dataset of 126 government representatives who manage large-scale school meal programs in 126 different countries. Results: Findings showed that school feeding policies were positively associated with in-school micronutrient supplementation, while nutrition policy had a negative association with these practices. Both associations were only moderately reliable. Policies on health, food safety, agriculture, and the private sector had ambiguous relationships with micronutrient supplementation among countries implementing school meal programs. Conclusions: Findings highlight the evidence of school feeding policy’s positive association with micronutrient supplementation in school meal programs, indicating effective policy guidance on these practices. There is a need to re-assess the implemented nutrition policy due to its negative association with these practices. Enhancing and strengthening the national policies on health, food safety, agriculture, and the private sector may increase their potencies in supporting in-school micronutrient supplementation among countries implementing school meal programs. (shrink)

The free will problem is defined and three solutions are discussed: no-freedom theory, libertarianism, and compatibilism. Strict determinism is often assumed in arguing for libertarianism or no-freedom theory. It assumes that the history of the universe is fixed, but modern physics admits a certain degree of randomness in the determination of events. However, this is not enough for a compatibilist position—which is favored here—since freedom is not randomness. It is the I that chooses what to do. It is argued that (...) the core of the free will problem is what this I is. A materialist view is favored: The I is an activity of the brain. In addition to absence of external and internal compulsion, freedom involves absence of causal sufficiency of influences acting on the I. A more elaborate compatibilist view is proposed, according to which causal determination is complete when we add events occurring in the I (of which the subject is not conscious). Contrary to what several authors have argued, the onset of the readiness potential before the decision to act is no problem here. The experience of agency is incomplete and fallible, rather than illusory. Some consequences of different views about freedom for the ascription of responsibility are discussed. (shrink)

Background Retraction is a mechanism for alerting readers to unreliable material and other problems in the published scientific and scholarly record. Retracted publications generally remain visible and searchable, but the intention of retraction is to mark them as “removed” from the citable record of scholarship. However, in practice, some retracted articles continue to be treated by researchers and the public as valid content as they are often unaware of the retraction. Research over the past decade has identified a number of (...) factors contributing to the unintentional spread of retracted research. The goal of the Reducing the Inadvertent Spread of Retracted Science: Shaping a Research and Implementation Agenda (RISRS) project was to develop an actionable agenda for reducing the inadvertent spread of retracted science. This included identifying how retraction status could be more thoroughly disseminated, and determining what actions are feasible and relevant for particular stakeholders who play a role in the distribution of knowledge. -/- Methods These recommendations were developed as part of a year-long process that included a scoping review of empirical literature and successive rounds of stakeholder consultation, culminating in a three-part online workshop that brought together a diverse body of 65 stakeholders in October–November 2020 to engage in collaborative problem solving and dialogue. Stakeholders held roles such as publishers, editors, researchers, librarians, standards developers, funding program officers, and technologists and worked for institutions such as universities, governmental agencies, funding organizations, publishing houses, libraries, standards organizations, and technology providers. Workshop discussions were seeded by materials derived from stakeholder interviews (N = 47) and short original discussion pieces contributed by stakeholders. The online workshop resulted in a set of recommendations to address the complexities of retracted research throughout the scholarly communications ecosystem. -/- Results The RISRS recommendations are: (1) Develop a systematic cross-industry approach to ensure the public availability of consistent, standardized, interoperable, and timely information about retractions; (2) Recommend a taxonomy of retraction categories/classifications and corresponding retraction metadata that can be adopted by all stakeholders; (3) Develop best practices for coordinating the retraction process to enable timely, fair, unbiased outcomes; and (4) Educate stakeholders about pre- and post-publication stewardship, including retraction and correction of the scholarly record. -/- Conclusions Our stakeholder engagement study led to 4 recommendations to address inadvertent citation of retracted research, and formation of a working group to develop the Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern (CORREC) Recommended Practice. Further work will be needed to determine how well retractions are currently documented, how retraction of code and datasets impacts related publications, and to identify if retraction metadata (fails to) propagate. Outcomes of all this work should lead to ensuring retracted papers are never cited without awareness of the retraction, and that, in public fora outside of science, retracted papers are not treated as valid scientific outputs. (shrink)

Many philosophers working on the branches of philosophy that deal with the normative questions have adopted a " Reasons First" program. This paper criticizes the foundational assumptions of this program. In fact, there are many different concepts that can be expressed by the term 'reason' in English, none of which are any more fundamental than any others. Indeed, most of these concepts are not particularly fundamental in any interesting sense.

This short piece of communication has the sole purpose of identifying some evidence, supporting our view regarding a possible missing environment-nurturing cultural value. Here, we attempt to examine the presence of cultural studies within the boundary of waste management research.

Today, many people have realized that the climate change and biodiversity loss issues lie in how and to what extent humans consume products for their lives in the Anthropocene era. Consumerism has pushed natural resource exploitation to its peak, and the depletion of resources is becoming increasingly prevalent. The beauty and personal care industry has a large market and high profits, especially in the high-income segment. However, this advantage also carries the risk of facing scrutiny, investigations, and criticism from civil (...) society organizations, environmental activists, and consumers. More than anyone else, the industry is vulnerable to the perils of unfavourable societal assessments, particularly the repercussions of consumer-led boycott actions. In this discourse, we suggest that, given the current circumstances, it is imperative for multinational beauty corporations to take a proactive role in allocating resources towards the development of sustainable agriculture practices. This entails not only advocating for the widespread adoption of environmentally conscious production methods but also dedicating efforts towards conducting research and innovation in the area of nature-friendly manufacturing techniques. Doing so will help demonstrate their commitment to the environment and actively provide convincing evidence to consumers of their social responsibility through emission reduction and biodiversity conservation activities. (shrink)

Empirical evidence suggests that people naïvely represent time as dynamical (i.e. as containing robust temporal passage). Yet many contemporary B-theorists deny that it seems to us, in perceptual experience, as though time robustly passes. The question then arises as to why we represent time as dynamical if we do not have perceptual experiences which represent time as dynamical. We consider two hypotheses about why this might be: the temporally aperspectival replacement hypothesis and the moving open future hypothesis. We then empirically (...) test the moving open future hypothesis. According to that hypothesis, we represent the past as objectively fixed and the future open. And we represent that this objective openness moves as events that were open become fixed, such that in doing so, we represent a privileged moving present. We found no evidence for the moving open future hypothesis, which suggests that further investigation of the temporally aperspectival replacement hypothesis is called for. Our results also shed further light on our understanding of the respects in which we represent the future to be open, which, in turn, has implications for our theorising about the open future. (shrink)

Adaptation and stress are two main concepts useful for better understanding the phases of illness and health-related human behavior. The two faces of adaptation, adaptation as a process and adaptation as a product, have raised the question of how long the adaptation process will take in cancer trajectories. The care setting transition from clinical-based into home-based cancer care has stressed the role of family caregivers (FCG) in cancer management. This study examines how types of demanded healthcare information affect the FCG’s (...) role in catalyzing the adaptation of female cancer patients. The mindsponge theory was used in conceptual development and results interpretation. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was used for statistical analysis on a dataset of 48 spouses (husbands) and 12 other family members in five congested communities of Surabaya, Indonesia. Results showed that among the six types of demanded healthcare information, FCGs with a higher tendency to demand cancer-specific information are more likely to need support in catalyzing the adaptation of female cancer patients. Meanwhile, FCGs with a higher demand for information on alternative therapies are less likely to need support in catalyzing cancer adaptation. Other types of healthcare information have ambiguous effects on the need for support in cancer adaptation assistance. This study reveals that the demanded cancer-specific information, e.g., cancer’s prognosis or likely outcome, must be prioritized to assist FCG’s role in catalyzing adaptation among female cancer patients. Cancer prognosis and outcomes reflect the future of cancer care results. (shrink)

This short piece of communication has the sole purpose of identifying some evidence, supporting our view regarding a possible missing environment-nurturing cultural value. Here, we attempt to examine the presence of cultural studies within the boundary of water pollution research.

This paper proposes a classificatory framework for disjunctivism about the phenomenology of visual perceptual experience. Disjunctivism of this sort is typically divided into positive and negative disjunctivism. This distinction successfully reflects the disagreement amongst disjunctivists regarding the explanatory status of the introspective indiscriminability of veridical perception and hallucination. However, it is unsatisfactory in two respects. First, it cannot accommodate eliminativism about the phenomenology of hallucination. Second, the class of positive disjunctivism is too coarse-grained to provide an informative overview of the (...) current dialectical landscape. Given this, I propose a classificatory framework which preserves the positive-negative distinction, but which also includes the distinction between eliminativism and non-eliminativism, as well as a distinction between two subclasses of positive disjunctivism. In describing each class in detail, I specify who takes up each position in the existing literature, and demonstrate that this classificatory framework can disambiguate some existing disjunctivist views. (shrink)

Few scholars have explored the founding documents to identify the deliberate social change strategy that led to America's independence and a new form of government that was of, by, and for the people. This study aimed to apply a post-hoc polytheoretical framework of power to the findings of a democratic social change study to understand the dynamics of power between Great Britain and the American colonists. The original study employed the constructivist grounded theory tradition to explore democracy in the Declaration (...) of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, The Federalist Papers, and the United States Constitution. This produced two frameworks of power strategies, one empowering and the other demoralizing: principles of democracy and anti-democratic tenets. To gain a holistic perspective of the interplay of power, a polytheoretical framework of power consisting of theories of power proposed by Marx and Engels, Bourdieu, and Foucault was employed to discuss the findings. The findings suggested that democratic social change interacts with structural forces, culture, and power strategy selection. This could provide an alternative lens through which to explore whether people of color in America were used instrumentally to sustain democracy. (shrink)

We discuss the social-epistemic aspects of Catherine Elgin’s theory of reflective equilibrium and understanding and argue that it yields an argument for the view that a crucial social-epistemic function of epistemic authorities is to foster understanding in their communities. We explore the competences that enable epistemic authorities to fulfil this role and argue that among them is an epistemic virtue we call “epistemic empathy”.

In May 2023, Fakhraee et al. published a research article titled “Ocean alkalinity enhancement through restoration of blue carbon ecosystems” in Nature Sustainability. In this essay, we discuss an assessment of the costs of restoring and maintaining the mangrove-seagrass ecosystems indicated in the article.