We paraphrase Descartes’ famous dictum in the area of AI ethics where the “I doubt and therefore I am” is suggested as a necessary aspect of morality. Therefore AI, which cannot doubt itself, cannot possess moral agency. Of course, this is not the end of the story. We explore various aspects of the human mind that substantially differ from AI, which includes the sensory grounding of our knowing, the act of understanding, and the significance of being able to doubt ourselves. (...) The foundation of our argument is the discipline of ethics, one of the oldest and largest knowledge projects of human history, yet, we seem only to be beginning to get a grasp of it. After a couple of thousand years of studying the ethics of humans, we (humans) arrived at a point where moral psychology suggests that our moral decisions are intuitive, and all the models from ethics become relevant only when we explain ourselves. This recognition has a major impact on what and how we can do regarding AI ethics. We do not offer a solution, we explore some ideas and leave the problem open, but we hope somewhat better understood than before our study. (shrink)

Dr. Viktor Dörfler combines his background in developing and implementing AI with scholarly research on knowledge and cultivating talent to address misconceptions about AI. The Element explains what AI can and cannot do, carefully delineating facts from beliefs or wishful thinking. Filled with examples, this practical Element is thought-provoking. The purpose is to help CEOs figure out how to make the best use of AI, suggesting how to extract AI’s greatest value through appropriate task allocation between human experts and (...) AI. The author challenges the attribution of characteristics like understanding, thinking, and creativity to AI, supporting his argument with the ideas of the finest AI philosophers. He also discusses in depth one of the most sensitive AI-related topics: ethics. The readers are encouraged to make up their own minds about AI and draw their own conclusions rather than accepting opinions from people with vested interests or an agenda. (shrink)

In this paper, we conceptually explore the role of empathy as a connectedness organising mechanism. We expand ideas underlying positive organisational scholarship and examine leading-edge studies from neuroscience and quantum physics that give support to our claims. The perspective we propose has profound implications regarding how we organise and how we manage. First, we argue that empathy enhances connectedness through the unconscious sharing of neuro-pathways that dissolves the barriers between self and other. This sharing encourages the integration of affective and (...) cognitive consciousness which facilitates the ability to find common ground for solution building. Second, empathy enhances connectedness through altruistic action. In giving to others, feelings of joy and harmony are activated. This in turn allows personal freedom to be enriched and transcendence from the rational ego-self is reduced to develop a more expansive, integrated and enlightened state underlying connectedness. Finally, empathy enhances connectedness which results in sharing the quantum field of coherence where there is little separation between self and other. This means living beyond self-interest in a coherent world based upon interdependent wholeness rather than atomization and separation. Empathy allows us to find that state of coherent connectedness. (shrink)

The QR code recognition often faces the challenges of uneven background fluctuations, inadequate illuminations, and distortions due to the improper image acquisition method. This makes the identification of QR codes difficult, and therefore, to deal with this problem, artificial intelligence-based systems came into existence. To improve the recognition rate of QR image codes, this article adopts an improved adaptive median filter algorithm and a QR code distortion correction method based on backpropagation (BP) neural networks. This combination of artificial intelligence algorithms (...) is capable of fitting the distorted QR image into the geometric deformation pattern, and QR code recognition is accomplished. The two-dimensional code distortion is addressed in this study, which was a serious research issue in the existing software systems. The research outcomes obtained after emphasizing on the preprocessing stage of the image revealed that a significant improvement of 14% is observed for the reading rate of QR image code, after processing by the system algorithm in this article. The artificial intelligence algorithm adopted has a certain effect in improving the recognition rate of the two-dimensional code image. (shrink)

The notion of shared value presents business with a challenge: to generate social benefit and profit simultaneously. This challenge involves resolving tensions/paradoxes inherent when integrating the apparent contradictory elements of social and economic values. Unfortunately, resolving such tensions is difficult due to the habitual, automatic nature of sensemaking. This paper offers a mechanism whereby individuals can, over time, begin to overcome habitual sensemaking and potentially resolve tensions inherent in shared value. The mechanism is labeled inner knowledge creation. IKC is described (...) and its role in creating shared value for businesses is illustrated through a conceptual model. The model shows how IKC develops metacognitive capabilities, builds capacities to resolve tensions/paradoxes, and cultivates openness to others’ perspectives. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

We propose conscious awareness as a mechanism for creating “shared value”; a form of value that Porter describes as putting social and community needs before profit. We explore the mechanism empirically in an entrepreneurial context and find that spiritual practices increase conscious awareness which, in turn, shapes entrepreneurial intentions and venture characteristics focused on shared value.

The dependency of a speech recognition system on the accent of a user leads to the variation in its performance, as the people from different backgrounds have different accents. Accent labeling and conversion have been reported as a prospective solution for the challenges faced in language learning and various other voice-based advents. In the English TTS system, the accent labeling of unregistered words is another very important link besides the phonetic conversion. Since the importance of the primary stress is much (...) greater than that of the secondary stress, and the primary stress is easier to call than the secondary stress, the labeling of the primary stress is separated from the secondary stress. In this work, the labeling of primary accents uses a labeling algorithm that combines morphological rules and machine learning; the labeling of secondary accents is done entirely through machine learning algorithms. After 10 rounds of cross-validation, the average tagging accuracy rate of primary stress was 94%, the average tagging accuracy rate of secondary stress was 94%, and the total tagging accuracy rate was 83.6%. This perceptual study separates the labeling of primary and secondary accents providing the promising outcomes. (shrink)

Purpose. Institutionalism is gaining strength as a dominant point of view on the world. Its philosophical basis is the postulate of the uncertainty of the development, which comes to replace the neoclassical certainty characteristic of industrial society. The postulate of uncertainty is closely connected with the idea of subjectivization and individualization of post-industrial society. All these were very important components of the new paradigm, although they do not exhaust the problem. In the heart of postmodernism is a mass identity as (...) a spiritual substance, while the more recently mass of people to realize themselves as natural and social beings. Person has absolute freedom in the acceptance and rejection of culture and civilization; it is pluralistic in their actions and in their consciousness. It is the subject of history and it should be creative, fluent mastering all the achievements of culture. Methodology. The dialogue system of the Postmodern, which is the basis of human communication with another person, human with society is a model of convergent formation of the world community and world economy. The same model of rationalism and adequate industrial society is a monologue, which is easily builds a bridge to violence, even if it is carried out in the name of the man behind him and the pathos of the exaltation of man as the bearer of unlimited creation possibilities. However, it is very important not just to modify rationalism, and to understand the origins of civilization. Scientific novelty. The postmodern era begins is not easy. Modern defending, using all their reserves: public thirst for justice, the priority of rationality, monologist public agencies and politicians in contrast to the dialogic postmodern imperative modality in the spiritual existence of man instead the freedom. Finally, the world of the story is set a trap – the anthropological paradigm of the globalization ideology formation. In this paradigm, people see materialistic rational measure of space and society building, i.e. the natural and social being, not a spiritual person. All this was evident in the course of transformation in Ukraine. Its main weakness is obvious. This narrows the field of mass participation in the market or by the adopted symbolism, the field of subjectivity. The population is invited to wait and endure, i.e. plays the role of the object of political and economic manipulation. Even more unacceptable monopolization of subjectivity government, for which everything is regarded as a subject of state regulation. Conclusions. For civilization of cardinal feature is the treatment of the person as the subject of history. The need for the development of civilization to increase the degree of subjectivity in an economy where people can express themselves freely and responsibly through a system of private property relations: economic entity is the subject of property. Policy enhancing the role of human rights and the development of the principle of subjectivity means deepening the democratic foundations of the state structure. In the social sphere the subjectivity is expressed in the individualization of the social existence of man and the personification of public relations and it is implemented through the mechanisms of liberal institutions. It seems that the civilizational unity of the economy, democratic state and liberal society has the value of a scientific paradigm. Whatever the great cultural peaks of the postmodern, the main processes of a new society formed at its foot: in the area of formation of public consciousness and public preferences with the mass participation of the individual in the economy, in the field of state-building and the formation of social institutions on the principles of Amateur participation. (shrink)

Purpose. Institutionalism is gaining strength as a dominant point of view on the world. Its philosophical basis is the postulate of the uncertainty of the development, which comes to replace the neoclassical certainty characteristic of industrial society. The postulate of uncertainty is closely connected with the idea of subjectivization and individualization of post-industrial society. All these were very important components of the new paradigm, although they do not exhaust the problem. In the heart of postmodernism is a mass identity as (...) a spiritual substance, while the more recently mass of people to realize themselves as natural and social beings. Person has absolute freedom in the acceptance and rejection of culture and civilization; it is pluralistic in their actions and in their consciousness. It is the subject of history and it should be creative, fluent mastering all the achievements of culture. Methodology. The dialogue system of the Postmodern, which is the basis of human communication with another person, human with society is a model of convergent formation of the world community and world economy. The same model of rationalism and adequate industrial society is a monologue, which is easily builds a bridge to violence, even if it is carried out in the name of the man behind him and the pathos of the exaltation of man as the bearer of unlimited creation possibilities. However, it is very important not just to modify rationalism, and to understand the origins of civilization. Scientific novelty. The postmodern era begins is not easy. Modern defending, using all their reserves: public thirst for justice, the priority of rationality, monologist public agencies and politicians in contrast to the dialogic postmodern imperative modality in the spiritual existence of man instead the freedom. Finally, the world of the story is set a trap – the anthropological paradigm of the globalization ideology formation. In this paradigm, people see materialistic rational measure of space and society building, i.e. the natural and social being, not a spiritual person. All this was evident in the course of transformation in Ukraine. Its main weakness is obvious. This narrows the field of mass participation in the market or by the adopted symbolism, the field of subjectivity. The population is invited to wait and endure, i.e. plays the role of the object of political and economic manipulation. Even more unacceptable monopolization of subjectivity government, for which everything is regarded as a subject of state regulation. Conclusions. For civilization of cardinal feature is the treatment of the person as the subject of history. The need for the development of civilization to increase the degree of subjectivity in an economy where people can express themselves freely and responsibly through a system of private property relations: economic entity is the subject of property. Policy enhancing the role of human rights and the development of the principle of subjectivity means deepening the democratic foundations of the state structure. In the social sphere the subjectivity is expressed in the individualization of the social existence of man and the personification of public relations and it is implemented through the mechanisms of liberal institutions. It seems that the civilizational unity of the economy, democratic state and liberal society has the value of a scientific paradigm. Whatever the great cultural peaks of the postmodern, the main processes of a new society formed at its foot: in the area of formation of public consciousness and public preferences with the mass participation of the individual in the economy, in the field of state-building and the formation of social institutions on the principles of Amateur participation. (shrink)

Sociological theories of space have so far not provided an in-depth analysis of online spaces. The paper addresses this issue by means of Löw’s relational theory of space. As this theory mainly focuses on material spaces, it is necessary to embrace the phenomenological perspective in order to apply it to the virtual realm. More recent phenomenological research has highlighted the ongoing mediatization or virtualization of the life-world. These theories, and presence research more generally, are useful for examining the layers of (...) virtual presence. This paper focuses on two emblematic types of spaces: multiplayer online role-playing games and Skype video chats. The first represents an online version of a Schutzian finite province of meaning, while Skyping is an example of how the paramount reality of everyday life expands into the virtual realm. Albeit differently, actors in both cases constitute hybrid, virtual-material spaces with various forms and degrees of virtual presence. User experiences in these spaces are in line with contemporary sociological diagnoses indicating the vanishing experience of living in space and the general tendency of late modernity to question previous social forms of modernity. (shrink)

The purpose. Critical social philosophy of education strives to provide a radical critique of existing models of education in the so-called Western models of democracy, creating progressive alternative models. In this context, the proposed integrative metatheory, which is based on classical and modern sources, concepts, aims for a comprehensive understanding and reconstruction of the phenomenon of education. One of the main tasks in the sphere of education’s democratization today, therefore, is to bring to education the results of restructuring and democratization (...) of the society, to reflect changes in conditions of life and thinking, experience and transformation of subjectivity in the context of the technological revolution and globalization. Methodology. The critical social theory, which developed in the framework of contemporary neo-Marxism, indicates the need for a thorough analysis of society, however, unlike other theoretical concepts and research programs in order to analyze not a fixation and a statement of the existing social givens. On the contrary, critical analysis of society involves the identification of existing antagonistic, alienating factors that distort public communication.The subject of social analysis is the whole sphere of human and non-human nature, which interacts a person depend on it, the whole system of relations between society and nature, society and man, which is covered by the historical practice of conscious – "praxis". The representative of "pure science" isn't the learning, research subject. He is a public a person, which is the totality of all social definitions included in society and its constituent individuals. For such a "total subject" Object of interest is not something external; on the contrary, the latter appears as a product of his own activity. The scientific novelty examines trends in educational institutions and models of globalizing society in the context of our particular relationship of education and society, man and the state, and processes. The research and systematic analysis of neoliberal reforms at the level of society in general and education in particular are conducted. It examines substantive, structural and functional characteristics of the concept of «critical social philosophy of education» in the context of institutional tendencies of social life, as well as forms and possibilities of its methodological application. It consider a model of «critical social philosophy of education», as embodied in the programs of social development and learning, which are primarily designed to teach people how to lead an independent and original research themselves, society and knowledge systems. However, it is proved that the models and programs should not be cut off from any individual and the collective system of moral and social values, theoretical and applied training, nor from further use of the acquired values, norms and skills in everyday life, science, or in production, sphere of all social institutions. Conclusions. Critical philosophical, educational, pedagogical-psychological surprisingly theory, its models and concepts seek to redefine public and private and the public mind. Based on these grounds, in the future, it allows philosophy of education to develop a more inclusive philosophical vision of education, to apply directly to the problems of democratization and changes in social relations in the direction of equality and social justice in the field of education. The point of view of socio-philosophical and philosophical-еducational, pedagogical-psychological, normative understanding and social critics also requires the use of active efforts in the reconstruuction of education and society, the social vision of what education and human life can be and what their specific limitations in existing societies. (shrink)

The purpose. Critical social philosophy of education strives to provide a radical critique of existing models of education in the so-called Western models of democracy, creating progressive alternative models. In this context, the proposed integrative metatheory, which is based on classical and modern sources, concepts, aims for a comprehensive understanding and reconstruction of the phenomenon of education. One of the main tasks in the sphere of education’s democratization today, therefore, is to bring to education the results of restructuring and democratization (...) of the society, to reflect changes in conditions of life and thinking, experience and transformation of subjectivity in the context of the technological revolution and globalization. Methodology. The critical social theory, which developed in the framework of contemporary neo-Marxism, indicates the need for a thorough analysis of society, however, unlike other theoretical concepts and research programs in order to analyze not a fixation and a statement of the existing social givens. On the contrary, critical analysis of society involves the identification of existing antagonistic, alienating factors that distort public communication.The subject of social analysis is the whole sphere of human and non-human nature, which interacts a person depend on it, the whole system of relations between society and nature, society and man, which is covered by the historical practice of conscious – "praxis". The representative of "pure science" isn't the learning, research subject. He is a public a person, which is the totality of all social definitions included in society and its constituent individuals. For such a "total subject" Object of interest is not something external; on the contrary, the latter appears as a product of his own activity. The scientific novelty examines trends in educational institutions and models of globalizing society in the context of our particular relationship of education and society, man and the state, and processes. The research and systematic analysis of neoliberal reforms at the level of society in general and education in particular are conducted. It examines substantive, structural and functional characteristics of the concept of «critical social philosophy of education» in the context of institutional tendencies of social life, as well as forms and possibilities of its methodological application. It consider a model of «critical social philosophy of education», as embodied in the programs of social development and learning, which are primarily designed to teach people how to lead an independent and original research themselves, society and knowledge systems. However, it is proved that the models and programs should not be cut off from any individual and the collective system of moral and social values, theoretical and applied training, nor from further use of the acquired values, norms and skills in everyday life, science, or in production, sphere of all social institutions. Conclusions. Critical philosophical, educational, pedagogical-psychological surprisingly theory, its models and concepts seek to redefine public and private and the public mind. Based on these grounds, in the future, it allows philosophy of education to develop a more inclusive philosophical vision of education, to apply directly to the problems of democratization and changes in social relations in the direction of equality and social justice in the field of education. The point of view of socio-philosophical and philosophical-еducational, pedagogical-psychological, normative understanding and social critics also requires the use of active efforts in the reconstruuction of education and society, the social vision of what education and human life can be and what their specific limitations in existing societies. (shrink)

We present results from a single case study based on semi-structured interviews with a student (a boy in school year 3) diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and his school staff after participating in a short and small-scale intervention carried out in a socio-economically disadvantaged Swedish elementary school in 2019. The student participated in a seven week long intervention with a total of 12 philosophical dialogues (ranging from 45 to 60 minutes). Two facilitators, both with years of facilitation experience and teacher (...) degree and at least BA in philosophy, facilitated the majority of the dialogues and mainly followed a ”routine” procedure. The student was interviewed in direct connection to the end of the intervention about his experiences from the dialogues and his perceptions about whether and how the dialogues had influenced him. The student’s two teachers, who had participated in the dialogues as participants, were interviewed as a pair, also in direct connection to the end of the intervention, while the school principal was interviewed two years after the study. These staff interviews concerned the staff’s experiences of the influence of the dialogues on the students within the intervention as well as transfer effects to other contexts in school. The data from the study include detailed elaborations from a student perspective of different effects on the student’s communicative and cognitive development, which are in several respects supported also by staff reports. The results show that the student was able, interested, and willing to participate in philosophical dialogues, and our data point to several positive outcomes for the student in the communicative and cognitive domains. (shrink)

Concerns over the organising of food are widespread, stemming from unsustainable production practices that focus on extractive ‘use’ of resources that privilege wealth creation over planetary flourishing, care and well-being. We propose a conceptual framework based on _ecologies of care_ to assist in the re-entanglement of food systems. The concept of ecologies of care brings together theoretical understandings of relationality, ecology and care, along with an Aotearoa New Zealand indigenous Māori perspective. We examine how food production can be underpinned by (...) interdependent webs of relationships (whanaungatanga), stewardship (kaitiakitanga), and care and support (manaakitanga) with healthy land and healthy people at the core of organising. (shrink)

Discoverers of “market failures” as well as advocates of the general efficiency of a “true, unhampered market” sometimes seem to disregard the fundamental fact that there is no such thing as a “market as such.” What we call a market is always a system of social interaction characterized by a specific institutional framework, that is, by a set of rules defining certain restrictions on the behavior of the market participants, whether these rules are informal, enforced by private sanctions, or formal, (...) enforced by a particular agency, the “protective state,” in J. M. Buchanan's terminology. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to improve our understanding of bracketing, one of the most central philosophical and theoretical constructs of phenomenology, as a theory of mind. Furthermore, we wanted to showcase how this theoretical construct can be implemented as a methodological tool. -/- Design/methodology/approach – In this study we have adopted an approach similar to a qualitative metasynthesis, comparing the emergent patterns of two empirical projects, seeking synergies and contradictions and looking for additional insights from new (...) emerging patterns. -/- Findings – On a philosophical level, we have found that bracketing, as a theoretical construct, is not about the achievement of objectivity; quite to the contrary, it embraces subjectivity and puts it centre-stage. On a theoretical level, we have achieved a better understanding of Husserl’s phenomenology, as a theory of mind. On a methodological level, we have achieved a powerful way of supplementing and/or clarifying research findings, by using a theoretical construct as a methodological tool. -/- Originality/value – Our paper contributes to the phenomenology literature at a philosophical, theoretical and methodological level, by offering a better understanding and a novel implementation of one of the central theoretical constructs of phenomenology. (shrink)

In this chapter we offer a reflection on the notion of sample representativeness from an interpretivist-qualitative perspective. Specifically we are looking into the idea of learning about a phenomenon through examining extraordinary individuals characterized by that phenomenon; to describe them we use the term ‘extraordinary’ as a noun, thereby building on Howard Gardner’s notion of ‘extraordinary minds’ (Gardner, 1997). We are looking at the ‘extraordinary’ in their professional socio-historical contexts, as the phenomena we are interested in cannot be divorced from (...) the contexts in which they are embedded. In this particular book chapter we are interested in the phenomenon of creativity, and the two research projects on which we base our argument are also concerned with creativity. However, we do not see any reason why similar considerations could not be made in other areas – but we do not suggest that a simple generalizability is possible. -/- The basis of our reflection are two research projects we have done in the past: In the first one, we conducted ‘insider interviews’ (the second-named author used to be a chef in Michelin-starred restaurants) with 18 extraordinary chefs in order to gain a better understanding of how creativity manifests itself socio-culturally in the culinary domain (Cousins, O’Gorman, & Stierand, 2010; Stierand, 2015; Stierand & Dörfler, 2012b, 2016; Stierand, Dörfler, & MacBryde, 2014; Stierand & Lynch, 2008). In the second one, we interviewed 20 extraordinary scientists, including 17 Nobel Laureates in order to gain a better understanding of cognitive complexity and how cognitive complexity is manifested in the socio-cultural acceptance of creative outcomes in the scientific world (Dörfler & Eden, 2014a, 2014b, 2017). -/- We have presented our research at various conferences, and, perhaps as we were so passionate about it, we have received a great deal of interest from others, mainly PhD students and early career researchers, who were keen to undertake similar research projects. But, although we believe that the methodological journey we have taken can be an excellent path to very interesting and meaningful research, we cannot wholeheartedly recommend it to junior colleagues, knowing the difficulties they will face when trying to justify their findings and methodological choices and the uncertain profits in the form of publication of the results (see an excellent overview of the difficulties and profits in Lebuda, 2014). We made our initial methodological choices, i.e. interviewing extraordinary chefs and scientists, purely intuitively that is, we just knew that the insights we could gain from these people would potentially lead to excellent findings. However, this is not an acceptable justification in the academic world. Therefore, we started to develop a framework for conducting this type of research, but we are not quite there yet. This reflection chapter is a midway point for taking stock of the convincing arguments we have developed over time and of the problems we still need to solve. (shrink)

Nudges have been criticized for working ‘in the dark’, influencing people without their full awareness. To assess whether this property renders nudging an illegitimate policy tool in liberal democracies, we argue that in scrutinizing nudge transparency, we should adequately divide our focus between nudging techniques, the nudgers employing them, and the nudgees subjected to them. We develop an account of what it means for nudgees to be ‘watchful’, a disposition that enables them to resist and circumvent nudges. We argue that (...) such ‘watchfulness’ should be cultivated if we want to implement nudges in legitimate, accountable, and democratic ways. (shrink)

Si dejamos a un lado la teoría, son tiempos difíciles para el republicanismo y uno de sus conceptos centrales: la virtud cívica. A contramano de ello, cabe la pregunta respecto a las nociones aristotélicas que, en tal sentido, podrían pervivir en las sociedades complejas contemporáneas. Se repasarán algunos conceptos políticos clave del pensador estagirita y también de Marco Tulio Cicerón, autor romano que sigue sus pasos, para luego intentar actualizar aquellos elementos que, entendemos, aún pueden aplicarse a nuestras sociedades, mientras (...) que otros deberán ser dejados a un lado. Asimismo, en un momento de alta apatía en relación a la democracia, y de cierta anomia provocada por un individualismo exacerbado, entendemos que es clave la pregunta por la existencia, actualidad y posibilidades de la virtud cívica en el siglo XXI. Y, en caso de respuesta afirmativa a dicha posibilidad, cabe preguntarnos cuánto de aristotélico tendría hoy esa virtud. (shrink)

In this article, we distinguish between three approaches to ethics in school, each giving an interpretation of the expression ‘ethics in school’: the descriptive facts about ethics approach, roughly consisting of teaching empirical facts about moral matters to students; the moral fostering approach, consisting of mediating a set of given values to students; and the philosophical ethics (PE) approach, consisting of critically discussing and evaluating moral issues with students. Thereafter, three influential arguments for why there ought to be ethics in (...) school are discussed, and each argument is interpreted given each approach to ethics in school, respectively. Thereby, we evaluate which interpretation of ‘ethics in school’ produces the strongest arguments, and thus, which approach is best supported by these arguments. The conclusion is that there ought to be PE in school. (shrink)

The paper reveals the ideological, cultural, structural and typological, philosophical, doctrinal features of Old Believers in Ukraine.

This article explores the concept of knowledge as an internal process of inner knowing. In the educational context, we describe our experiences in using art in the classroom to assist our students in accessing this inner knowing. We describe the design and use of such creative expressions. Our findings indicate that students have to integrate both right- and left-brain thinking to access their inner tuition. This slows down linear thinking in order to access the more affective-based learning process. Further, it (...) encourages students to experiment with non-linear methods of learning. We argue that these findings assist students in accessing more choices in their decision making, which in turn will build managers who energize, revitalize and facilitate the growth of humanity through organizational compassion and understanding. (shrink)

This paper provides an alternative narrative for organizing food systems. It introduces meshwork as a novel theoretical lens to examine the ontological assumptions underlying the shadow and informal dynamics of organizing food. Through a longitudinal qualitative case study, we place relationality and becoming at the centre of organizing food and food systems, demonstrating how entangled relationships can create a complex ontology through the meshwork knots, threads and weave. We show how issues of collective concern come together to form dynamic knots (...) of interactions, how the threads within the meshwork indicate processes of movement, and how the weave suggests degrees of food system resilience—but always in flow. This theoretical approach thus provides a platform for addressing thoughtful concerns about “food matters” including the integrity of our global food system, the negative health and environmental impacts of industrialized food production, and food safety issues. (shrink)

The geometrical algebra hypothesis was once the received interpretation of Greek mathematics. In recent decades, however, it has become anathema to many. I give a critical review of all arguments against it and offer a consistent rebuttal case against the modern consensus. Consequently, I find that the geometrical algebra interpretation should be reinstated as a viable historical hypothesis.

I present a systematic interpretation of the foundational purpose of constructions in ancient Greek geometry. I argue that Greek geometers were committed to an operationalist foundational program, according to which all of mathematics—including its entire ontology and epistemology—is based entirely on concrete physical constructions. On this reading, key foundational aspects of Greek geometry are analogous to core tenets of 20th-century operationalist/positivist/constructivist/intuitionist philosophy of science and mathematics. Operationalism provides coherent answers to a range of traditional philosophical problems regarding classical mathematics, such (...) as the epistemic warrant and generality of diagrammatic reasoning, superposition, and the relation between constructivism and proof by contradiction. Alleged logical flaws in Euclid can be interpreted as sound operationalist reasoning. Operationalism also provides a compelling philosophical motivation for the otherwise inexplicable Greek obsession with cube duplication, angle trisection, and circle quadrature. Operationalism makes coherent sense of numerous specific choices made in this tradition, and suggests new interpretations of several solutions to these problems. In particular, I argue that: Archytas’s cube duplication was originally a single-motion machine; Diocles’s cissoid was originally traced by a linkage device; Greek conic section theory was thoroughly constructive, based on the conic compass; in a few cases, string-based constructions of conic sections were used instead; pointwise constructions of curves were rejected in foundational contexts by Greek mathematicians, with good reason. Operationalism enables us to view the classical geometrical tradition as a more unified and philosophically aware enterprise than has hitherto been recognised. (shrink)

A particularly strong reason to vaccinate against transmittable diseases, based on considerations of harm, is to contribute to the realization of population-level herd immunity. We argue, however, that herd immunity alone is insufficient for deriving a strong harm-based moral obligation to vaccinate in all circumstances, since the obligation significantly weakens well above and well below the herd immunity threshold. The paper offers two additional harm-based arguments that, together with the herd immunity argument, consolidates our moral obligation. First, we argue that (...) individuals should themselves aim not to expose others to risk of harm, and that this consideration becomes stronger the more non-vaccinated people there are, i.e., the further we are below herd immunity. Second, we elaborate on two pragmatic reasons to vaccinate beyond the realization of herd immunity, pertaining to instability of vaccination rates and population heterogeneity, and argue that vaccinating above the threshold should serve as a precautionary measure for buttressing herd immunity. We also show that considerations of harm have normative primacy in establishing this obligation over considerations of fairness. Although perfectly sound, considerations of fairness are, at worst secondary, or at best complementary to considerations of harm. (shrink)

Ethics is of vital importance to the Swedish educational system, as in many other educational systems around the world.Yet, it is unclear how ethics should be dealt with in school, and prior research and evaluations have found serious problems regarding ethics in education.The field of moral education lacks clear and widely accepted definitions of key concepts, and these ambiguities negatively impact both research and educational practice. This thesis draws a distinction between three approaches to ethics in school – the descriptive (...) ethics approach, the value transmission approach, and the inquiry ethics approach – and studies in what way (if at all) they are prescribed by the national curriculum for the Swedish compulsory school, how they relate to students’ moral reasoning about technology choices and online behaviour, and what pedagogical merits and disadvantages they have. Hopefully, this both contributes to reducing the ambiguities of the field, and to answering the question of how ethics should be dealt with in education. The descriptive ethics approach asserts that school should teach students empirical facts about ethics, such as what views and opinions people have. The value transmission approach holds that school should mediate some set of predefined values to the students and make sure the students come to accept these values.The inquiry ethics approach is the view that school should teach students to reason and think critically about ethics and to engage in ethical inquiry. The role of ethics in the curriculum has not been studied in light of the above distinction, in prior research,and such an investigation is undertaken here.The results suggest that ethics has a prominent, but complicated, role in the Swedish national curriculum. Although no explicit distinction is drawn or acknowledged in the curriculum, all three approaches are prescribed throughout the curriculum, albeit to different degrees. In the general section of the curriculum, the value transmission and inquiry ethics approaches are more extensively prescribed than the descriptive ethics approach. It was found that most of the syllabi contained explicit references to ethics, while some only contained implicit references to ethics, and two syllabi lacked references to ethics altogether. In the syllabi, the inquiry ethics approach is the most dominant, both in the sense of being present in the most syllabi, and in the sense of being more strongly prescribed in many of the syllabi where several approaches occur.The value transmission approach has the weakest role in the syllabi. In total, the inquiry ethics approach is the approach most strongly prescribed by the curriculum. But prior research has shown that inquiry ethics is very rarely implemented in the classroom. In this thesis, it is found that the inquiry ethics and the value transmission approaches are incompatible, given certain reasonable interpretations, which makes the finding that inquiry ethics is rarely implemented less surprising, since value transmission is practiced in schools. Some possible causes, and some consequences, of this is discussed. The students, in their moral reasoning about technology choices, reasoned in accordance with several classical normative theories – including consequentialism, deontological ethics and virtue ethics – and in doing so, they expressed reasoning that in the discussion is found to be in conflict with the values of the value foundation in the curriculum. These findings complement earlier findings, for example that students in their actions contradict the value foundation, by adding that such conflicts also exist in their reasoning. The existence of these conflicts is found to be problematic for a value transmission approach. Many of the students defended very restrictive views on disclosing personal information online, and prior research as well as the present data has shown that adults typically hold views that are very similar to these, concerning how they think that young people ought to act online. On the other hand, youths’ actual online behaviour, as reported in earlier studies, differs considerably from this. In line with this, the students also seemed to endorse a form of private morals view, according to which moral choices are simply up to one’s own taste, which would yield an escape exit from the restrictive views mentioned above, and permit any behaviour. In the discussion, it is argued that this is the result of an attempt at value transmission from the grown-up community, probably including teachers, which might seem to work, since the students claim to hold certain views, but which likely instead constitutes a false security, since these values are not actually accepted, but only paid lip service to, and the adults are therefore wrong in their belief that the students are protected by a certain set of values (that they think the students are upholding), since the students in fact do not uphold, and therefore do not act based upon, these values. This situation risks making the students more vulnerable than had no value transmission attempt been taken in the first place. Hence, the attempted value transmission runs the risk of counteracting its purpose of helping the students acquire a safe online behaviour. Throughout the moral reasoning mentioned above, extensive variations in the students’ reasoning were found, both interpersonally and intrapersonally, both in the decision method and in the rightness criterion dimensions, as well as in between the dimensions.The existence of such variations is a novel finding, and while possible applications in future research are discussed, it is also noted that this existence constitutes a reason to question the successfulness of both the value transmission and the inquiry ethics endeavours of the educational system. The results and discussions described above highlight the importance of investigating the merits of the different approaches. Several arguments that arise from the material of this thesis are presented, evaluated and discussed. The ability of each approach to fulfil some alleged key aims of ethics education is scrutinised; their abilities to educate for good citizenship, to educate for quality of life of the individual, and to facilitate better educational results in other subjects are all investigated, as well as the ability of each approach to help counteract the influence from online extremist propaganda aimed at young people and to promote safe online behaviour in general. It is concluded that the inquiry ethics approach has the strongest support from the material of this thesis. Some consequences for school practice are discussed, and it is concluded that changing the role of ethics in the curriculum would be beneficial, downplaying the role of value transmission and further increasing, and making more explicit and clear, the role of inquiry ethics. It is also shown that there are strong reasons for the inclusion of a new subject in the Swedish compulsory education with special focus on ethics. (shrink)