The literature on public perceptions of, and attitudes towards, nanotechnology used in the agrifood sector is reviewed. Research into consumer perceptions and attitudes has focused on general applications of nanotechnology, rather than within the agrifood sector. Perceptions of risk and benefit associated with different applications of nanotechnology, including agrifood applications, shape consumer attitudes, and acceptance, together with ethical concerns related to environmental impact or animal welfare. Attitudes are currently moderately positive across all areas of application. The occurrence of a negative (...) or positive incident in the agri-food sector may crystallise consumer views regarding acceptance or rejection of nanotechnology products. •Acceptance of agrifood nanotechnology based on perceptions of risk, benefit and ethics.•Attitudes towards nanotechnology in general are currently moderately positive.•Occurrence of a major nanotechnology-related "event" may crystallise consumer attitude. (shrink)

Presented alongside these seminal essays are aphoristic fragments from Simmel’s last journal, providing a beguiling look into the mind of one of the twentieth century’s greatest thinkers.

According to Anselm, all Divine qualities are tightly interrelated: they are implied by the unique central property of being absolutely perfect. In the second chapter of the Proslogium , Anselm claims that it is the essence of our concept of God that He is a being greater than which nothing can be conceived. From this, he argues, it is possible to infer that He is eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and so on. In other words, given an absolutely perfect being we (...) can derive all the attributes commonly ascribed to Him. (shrink)

In recent years a number of arguments have been advanced to show that there are conceptual difficulties with a variety of divine attributes. Some have claimed that there is an inherent inconsistency in the notion of omnipotence, others that omnipotence was logically incompatible with omniscience or omnibenevolence, and yet others that omniscience is irreconcilable with immutuability.

The Sweep of Probability broadly surveys this burgeoning field of philosophical inquiry. The book is unique because it engages the reader in contemporary debates about a variety of issues in probability theory without requiring a background in probability and mathematics. It also illustrates how the concerns of probability relate not only to philosophical inquiry but to aspects of everyday life. The primary aim of this book, claims George N.Schlesinger in the introduction, is to illustrate, by discussing a wide variety (...) of topics, that elementary probability belongs to one of those rare intellectual ventures where the returns are disproportionately high to the initial investment of effort. (shrink)

Focusing on political and interpersonal conflict in the U.S., particularly racial conflict, but with an eye to similar conflicts throughout the world, we argue that the enactive approach to mind as life can be elaborated to provide an exigent framework for present social-political problems. An enactive approach fills problematic lacunae in the Western philosophical ethics project by offering radically refigured notions of responsibility and language. The dual enactive, participatory insight is that interactional responsibility is not singular and language is not (...) an individual property or ability, something that someone simply and uniformly 'has' or 'controls'. These points have not been integrated into our self-understanding as moral actors, to everyone’s detriment. We first advocate for adequate appreciation of Colombetti and Torrance’s 2009 suggestion that participatory sense-making necessarily implies shared responsibility for interactional outcomes. We argue that the enactive approach presents open-ended cultivation of virtue as embodied, contextualized, and dynamic know-how and destabilizes an individualist metaphysics. Putting this framework to work, we turn to the interactional challenges of conversations that concern differences and that involve potentially oppositional parties, offering a reading of Claudia Rankine’s Just Us. Finally, we make explicit Rankine’s normative project of mindful navigation of multiple perspectives in an interaction. We abstract three interrelated spheres of participatory intervention: location, language, and labor. These also indicate routes for empirical investigation into complex perspective-taking in dynamic interactions. (shrink)

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Webb's scheme for classifying behavioral models is applicable to a wide range of theories and simulations, nonrobotic as well as robotic. It is suggested that a meta-analysis of existing models, characterized according to the proposed scheme, could identify regions of the seven-dimensional modelling space that are particularly likely to lead to new insights in understanding behavior.

This book explores recently opened avenues in logic and philosophical analysis to offer new perspectives on time-honored religious beliefs. Topics covered include the nature of divine attributes, the implications of divine benevolence and divine justice, arguments in support of theism and atheism, and religion and morality.

According to popular opinion, thought experiments are limited in scope, since no novel empirical results could be expected to be produced by thought alone. Yet consider the spectacular 16th century experiment by Stevin. leading to the discovery of the principles of the resolution and combination of forces. He conducted no experiments, for he derived his novel and highly important conclusions by several steps of ingenious reasoning alone. To understand why mental experiments may serve as very effective scientific tools. we need (...) to explicate carefully their underlying mechanism. Thought experiments invariably involve the widely debated notion of “counterfactual conditionals.” A variety of historical examples are offered designed to illustrate the nature of thought experiments, their associated counterfactual conditionals. as well a the nature of the vital link between the two. (shrink)

Here, the claim that Middle Eastern persons are racialized is a response to complexities that define the United States ; namely, the language of race is seen as antiquated or misleading, and thus it fails to capture MENA American experiences, leading some to call for different terminology. The author argues that we should call social-political violence committed against MENA people racism because to name it otherwise is to ground the experience in an incomplete description which affords lighter moral responsibility and (...) omits historical conflict. The article first elaborates the problem of racial conflict in the US and the specific problem of MENA racialization. It then responds with a historical argument that emphasizes key genealogical markers in the co-emergence of orientalism, colonialism, and racialization. The article closes by contrasting the idea of race with competing terms to defend its use on descriptive and normative grounds. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to contribute to a conceptualization of organizational politics that underscores the possibility of developing positive political behavior at the workplace. In this respect, we seek to provide a context of re-evaluating the normative foundations of organizational politics. Normative issues are critically discussed in the context of mainstream ethical theories that illuminate the interaction of ethics and political behavior. More specifically, it is argued that a deontological framework is of particular importance for the proper management (...) of negative political behavior, whereas a virtue-ethics context can be employed so as to foster positive political behavior at the workplace. Finally, the implications of this approach for organizational life and HRM processes and practices are taken into consideration. (shrink)

Basic yet familiar and non-technical features of time are investigated. Two novel and detailed arguments are advanced defending the common view that 'time rolls relentlessly'. A number of hitherto neglected but important differences between spatio-temporal location and every other physical property are discussed. Also explored are the locations of circular time; the uniformity of nature, temporal positions and possible worlds, as well as the famous, unresolved problem, 'Why do we know so much more about the past than about the future?'. (...) For those who wish to delve deeper, a portion of the book consists of problems to ponder and their possible solutions. (shrink)

This article revisited the concept of 'Inculturation' in modern Africa. Through the use of a historical phenomenological method, the article averred that Inculturation of Christianity in modern Africa is a herculean task that demands absolute caution. Hence, the article discussed some salient issues such as the evolutionary nature of African culture; the unity of the Christendom; and the Christian ecological concern, which should be put into serious consideration in the entire process of inculturation in Africa to safeguard the essence of (...) the gospel of Christ and to meet contemporary challenges. (shrink)

Kant insists that our actions ought to conform to objective moral rules, and that these rules apply to us regardless of whether we feel inclined to conform to them. Can he establish the truth of these claims? ;His writings on moral philosophy contain not a single answer to this question but two distinct and incompatible ones. In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argues that the basic norm that underlies our moral judgments, the Moral Law, is valid for (...) us because it is rooted in the freedom of our rational nature. But, in the Critique of Practical Reason, he argues that the Law is a fact that requires no justification and that this fact allows us to reason from morality to freedom. Is one of these arguments more convincing than the other? ;It would seem not. For each argument, I try to show, begs the question against an empirically-minded view of morality. More specifically, in the Groundwork Kant uncritically assumes that the freedom of rational agency enjoys a kind of independence from the motivational influence of sensible desires; while, in the second Critique, he similarly assumes that this motivation plays no role in an account of the validity of moral judgments. ;But I also try to show that Kant would have offered a more satisfying solution to the problems of moral theory had he modelled his views about agency more closely upon other views he holds about the self in its theoretical employment. The idea is this: Kant holds that theoretical knowledge requires a unified knowing subject, that a subject as varied as are its individual sense-experiences can never know the way the world is. I suggest that he could have defended an analogous claim about the connection between moral knowledge and the unity of agency; that is, were an agent as varied as are its individual desires, it could never know the way the world ought to be. I do not contend that this alternative solution is completely convincing, but I do hold that it offers an attractive response to central difficulties in the Groundwork and second Critique. (shrink)

A unified axiomatic theory that embraces both mechanics and thermodynamics is presented in three parts. It is based on four postulates; three are taken from quantum mechanics, and the fourth is the new disclosure of the existence of quantum states that are stable (Part I). For nonequilibrium and equilibrium states, the theory provides general original results, such as the relation between irreducible density operators and the maximum work that can be extracted adiabatically (Part IIa). For stable equilibrium states, it shows (...) for the first time that the canonical and grand canonical distributions are the only stable distributions (Part IIb). The theory discloses the incompleteness of the equation of motion of quantum mechanics not only for irreversible processes but, more significantly, for reversible processes (Part IIb). It establishes the operational meaning of an irreducible density operator and irreducible dispersions associated with any state, and reveals the relationship between such dispersions and the second law (Part III). (shrink)

Philosophy Then and Now provides an innovative and engaging blend of introductory text with classic and contemporary readings. Each of the eight parts begins with an introductory section on the major ideas associated with a seminal figure from the history of philosophy. This is followed by key selections from the essential writings of that philosopher, as well as influential selections from contemporary figures. Key figures covered include: Socrates, Aquinas, Locke, Descartes, Mill, Nietzsche, Marx, and Sartre. By focusing on the core (...) themes, issues and problems of philosophy, the volume motivates student interest in the subject, and represents a distinctive text for all introductory courses in philosophy. (shrink)

In the United States people of Middle Eastern descent are legally/politically categorized as white, but in social encounters and popular representations Middle Eastern people are treated as a nonwhite inferior collective. In the absence of explicit systemic recognition through a protected class status, Middle Eastern Americans are not just vulnerable to the social-systemic violence that accompanies racialization; that violence is being tacitly permitted. I address this problem by describing the historical and political conditions that afford this racialization in the United (...) States. I argue that the racialization of Middle Easterners, best understood from a historical perspective, is rooted in the repetitive treatment of certain peoples as objects of war to be degraded, exploited, dominated, and destroyed. To be treated as inferior and disposable is a general function of racism, which is afforded by racialization; but, the historical conditions of the mistreatment of Middle Eastern peoples create a unique set of problems and tensions that assign specific meanings which must be addressed in combating racism. Included among these tensions is a problematic narrative that claims Middle Eastern peoples are an almost naturally warlike and thus fragmented collective. The problem of disunity results from being created and treated as objects of war. Thus, social recognition, or solidarity, is needed along with systemic recognition. As a more effective means of countering the repetitious practices of subjugation, I plea for a solidarity among Middle Eastern Americans in response to Orientalist-racist scripts that claim disunity and war are the preferred condition of Middle Eastern peoples. (shrink)