Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognize that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackle...

Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one.

Over 200 health journals call on the United Nations, political leaders, and health professionals to recognise that climate change and biodiversity loss are one indivisible crisis and must be tackle...

> Wealthy nations must do much more, much faster. The United Nations General Assembly in September 2021 will bring countries together at a critical time for marshalling collective action to tackle the global environmental crisis. They will meet again at the biodiversity summit in Kunming, China, and the climate conference 26) in Glasgow, UK. Ahead of these pivotal meetings, we—the editors of health journals worldwide—call for urgent action to keep average global temperature increases below 1.5°C, halt the destruction of nature (...) and protect health. Health is already being harmed by global temperature increases and the destruction of the natural world, a state of affairs health professionals have been bringing attention to for decades.1 The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5°C above the preindustrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.2 3 Despite the world’s necessary preoccupation with COVID-19, we cannot wait for the pandemic to pass to rapidly reduce emissions. Reflecting the severity of the moment, this editorial appears in health journals across the world. We are united in recognising that only fundamental and equitable changes to societies will reverse our current trajectory. The risks to health of increases above 1.5°C are now well established.2 Indeed, no temperature rise is ‘safe’. In the past 20 years, heat-related mortality among people aged over 65 has increased by more than 50%.4 Higher temperatures have brought increased dehydration and renal function loss, dermatological malignancies, tropical infections, adverse mental health outcomes, pregnancy complications, allergies, and cardiovascular and pulmonary morbidity and mortality.5 6 Harms disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, including children, older populations, ethnic minorities, poorer communities and those with underlying health problems.2 4 Global heating is also contributing to the decline in …. (shrink)

Recent studies have provided evidence of associations between neurochemistry and reading (dis)ability (Pugh et al., 2014). Based on a long history of studies indicating that fluent reading entails the automatic convergence of the written and spoken forms of language and our recently proposed Neural Noise Hypothesis (Hancock et al., 2017), we hypothesized that individual differences in cross-modal integration would mediate, at least partially, the relationship between neurochemical concentrations and reading. Cross-modal integration was measured in 231 children using a two-alternative forced (...) choice cross-modal matching task with three language conditions (letters, words, and pseudowords) and two levels of difficulty within each language condition. Neurometabolite concentrations of Choline (Cho), Glutamate (Glu), gamma-Aminobutyric (GABA), and N- acetyl-aspartate (NAA) were then measured in a subset of this sample (n = 70) with Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS). A structural equation mediation model revealed that the effect of cross-modal word matching mediated the relationship between increased Glu (which has been proposed to be an index of neural noise) and poorer reading ability. In addition, the effect of cross-modal word matching fully mediated a relationship between increased Cho and poorer reading ability. Multilevel mixed effects models confirmed that lower Cho predicted faster cross-modal matching reaction time, specifically in the hard word condition. These Cho... (shrink)

Undergraduate students with no prior classroom instruction in mathematical logic will benefit from this evenhanded multipart text by one of the centuries greatest authorities on the subject. Part I offers an elementary but thorough overview of mathematical logic of first order. The treatment does not stop with a single method of formulating logic; students receive instruction in a variety of techniques, first learning model theory (truth tables), then Hilbert-type proof theory, and proof theory handled through derived rules. Part II supplements (...) the material covered in Part I and introduces some of the newer ideas and the more profound results of logical research in the twentieth century. Subsequent chapters introduce the study of formal number theory, with surveys of the famous incompleteness and undecidability results of Godel, Church, Turing, and others. The emphasis in the final chapter reverts to logic, with examinations of Godel's completeness theorem, Gentzen's theorem, Skolem's paradox and nonstandard models of arithmetic, and other theorems. Unabridged republication of the edition published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1967. Preface. Bibliography. Theorem and Lemma Numbers: Pages. List of Postulates. Symbols and Notations. Index. (shrink)

Book Information Life's Intrinsic Value: Science, Ethics\nand Nature. By Nicholas Agar. Colombia University Press.\nNew York. 2001. Pp. x + 200. Paperback,\n{Â}\textsterling17.00.

Everson presents a comprehensive new study of Aristotle's account of perception and related mental capacities. Recent debate about Aristotle's theory of mind has focused on this account, which is Aristotle's most sustained and detailed attempt to describe and explain the behavior of living things. Everson places this account in the context of Aristotle's natural science as a whole, showing how Aristotle applies the explanatory tools he developed in other works to the study of perceptual cognition.

In Return to Reason, Stephen Toulmin argues that the potential for reason to improve our lives has been hampered by a serious imbalance in our pursuit of ...

Stephen Toulmin argues that the potential for reason to improve our lives has been hampered by a serious imbalance in our pursuit of knowledge. The centuries-old dominance of rationality has diminished the value of reasonableness. Toulmin issues a powerful call to redress the balance between rationality and reasonableness.

The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox is a controversial discourse, rich with facts and observations gathered by one of the most erudite minds of our ...

"Biophilia" is the term coined by Edward O. Wilson to describe what he believes is humanity's innate affinity for the natural world. In his landmark book Biophilia, he examined how our tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes might be a biologically based need, integral to our development as individuals and as a species. That idea has caught the imagination of diverse thinkers. The Biophilia Hypothesis brings together the views of some of the most creative scientists of our time, (...) each attempting to amplify and refine the concept of biophilia. The variety of perspectives -- psychological, biological, cultural, symbolic, and aesthetic -- frame the theoretical issues by presenting empirical evidence that supports or refutes the hypothesis. Numerous examples illustrate the idea that biophilia and its converse, biophobia, have a genetic component: fear, and even full-blown phobias of snakes and spiders are quick to develop with very little negative reinforcement, while more threatening modern artifacts -- knives, guns, automobiles -- rarely elicit such a response people find trees that are climbable and have a broad, umbrella-like canopy more attractive than trees without these characteristics people would rather look at water, green vegetation, or flowers than built structures of glass and concrete The biophilia hypothesis, if substantiated, provides a powerful argument for the conservation of biological diversity. More important, it implies serious consequences for our well-being as society becomes further estranged from the natural world. Relentless environmental destruction could have a significant impact on our quality of life, not just materially but psychologically and even spiritually. (shrink)

In this article, from the 2009 Oxford University Press collection Epistemic Value, I criticize existing accounts of epistemic normativity by Alston, Goldman, and Sosa, and then offer a new view.

What does it mean to think of philosophy in the condition of modernism, in which its relation to its past and future has become a relevant problem? This book argues that the writings of Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Kierkegaard are best understood as responsive (each in their own way) to such questions. Through detailed analysis of these authors' most influential texts, Stephen Mulhall reorients our sense of the philosophical work each text aims to accomplish, engendering a critical dialogue between them (...) from which the elements of a new conception of philosophy might emerge. (shrink)

More and more researchers argue that online technologies manipulate human users and, therefore, undermine their autonomy. We call this the MAL view on online technology because it argues from Manipulation to Autonomy-Loss. MAL enjoys public visibility and will shape the academic discussion to come. This view of online technology, however, fails conceptually. MAL presupposes that manipulation equals autonomy loss, and that autonomy is the absence of manipulation. That is mistaken. In short, an individual can be manipulated while being fully personally (...) autonomous. Internet policy researchers should be aware of this point to avoid looking in the wrong place in future research on manipulative and harmful online technology. (shrink)

Transnational corporations have become actors with significant political power and authority which should entail responsibility and liability, specifically direct liability for complicity in human rights violations. Holding TNCs liable for human rights violations is complicated by the discontinuity between the fragmented legal/political structure of the TNC and its integrated strategic reality and the international state system which privileges sovereignty and non-intervention over the protection of individual rights. However, the post-Westphalian transition—the emergence of multiple authorities, increasing ambiguity of borders and jurisdiction (...) and blurring of the line between the public and private spheres—should facilitate imposing direct responsibility on transnational firms. Mechanisms for imposing direct responsibility on TNCs are considered including voluntary agreements and international law. However, I conclude that a hybrid public-private regime which relies on non-hierarchical compliance mechanisms is likely to be both more effective and consistent with the structure of the emerging transnational order. (shrink)

The slavery contract is not a rights violation since the right not to be enslaved and the right not to give out a benefit are waivable and the conjunction of their voluntary waiver is not itself a rights violation. The case for the contract being pejoratively exploitative is not clear. Hence given the general presumption in favor of liberty of contract, such a transaction ought to be permitted. The contract is also not invalid on the grounds that the wrongdoer’s consent (...) to it necessarily reflects involuntariness or irrationality or on the grounds that it is logically impossible for the wrongdoer to satisfy the contract. Allowing such contracts may not have desirable consequences, but for the liberal this by itself is not a sufficient reason against allowing them. One case where the slavery contract might be relevant is where a victim’s agent or the state agrees to waive its claim to harsh punishment in return for the offender agreeing to be enslaved. (shrink)

The slavery contract is not a rights violation since the right not to be enslaved and the right not to give out a benefit are waivable and the conjunction of their voluntary waiver is not itself a rights violation. The case for the contract being pejoratively exploitative is not clear. Hence given the general presumption in favor of liberty of contract, such a transaction ought to be permitted. The contract is also not invalid on the grounds that the wrongdoer’s consent (...) to it necessarily reflects involuntariness or irrationality or on the grounds that it is logically impossible for the wrongdoer to satisfy the contract. Allowing such contracts may not have desirable consequences, but for the liberal this by itself is not a sufficient reason against allowing them. One case where the slavery contract might be relevant is where a victim’s agent or the state agrees to waive its claim to harsh punishment in return for the offender agreeing to be enslaved. (shrink)

Organizational aesthetics, both as a body of theory and a method of inquiry, is a rapidly expanding area of the organizational sciences. The Aesthetics of Organization accessibly draws key contributions delineating the emerging parameters of the field. It explains the significance of concepts devised by postmodern thinkers, through which emerge meaning and order in organizations. Methodological problems associated with investigations of the aesthetic are also highlighted so the reader can identify and understand the importance of recent ideas on vision, perspective (...) and periphery for learning in organizations. Through the contributions of leading international theorists, organizational aesthetics is defined in greater historical and theoretical depth, with a broad conceptual and practical range which academics will find invaluable. (shrink)

Hume's Enlightenment Tract is the first full study for forty years of David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. The Enquiry has, contrary to its author's expressed wishes, long lived in the shadow of its predecessor, A Treatise of Human Nature. Stephen Buckle presents the Enquiry in a fresh light, and aims to raise it to its rightful position in Hume's work and in the history of philosophy.

In his second book, Tierney argues that the purpose of education must move to the heart of the educational debate. Purpose will significantly influence what schools and the education system as a whole will do next.

The norms of simplicity, convenience, unfussiness, and self-control guide Diogenes the Cynic, Zeno of Citium, Chrysippus, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius in approaching food. These norms generate the precept that meat and dainties are luxuries, so Stoics should eschew them. Considerations of justice, environmental harm, anthropogenic global climate change, sustainability, food security, feminism, harm to animals, personal health, and public health lead contemporary Stoics to condemn the meat industrial complex, debunk carnism, and select low input, plant-based foods.

In the December 2015 Issue of the Police Journal Sam Poyser and Rebecca Milne addressed the subject of miscarriages of justice. Cold case investigations can address some of these wrongs. The salient points for attention are those just before his sudden death: Milligan was appointed Private Secretary to Jonathan Aitken, the then Minister of Arms in the Conservative government in 1994. The known facts are as follows: 1. Stephen David Wyatt Milligan was found deceased on Tuesday 8th February 1994 (...) at his Chiswick, West London house where he lived alone. His body was found by his secretary Vera Taggart who was told by Julie Kirkbride where a spare key to his London house was kept and who decided to go to his house that day because he was not answering his telephone. Police said he had made one last telephone call on Saturday evening at 9.00pm. 2. Stephen David Wyatt Milligan had been the elected Member of Parliament (‘MP’) for Eastleigh in Hampshire since 1992. 3. The important topics this MP was addressing in 1994 at the time of his death included: (i) rail privatization plans and the impact through job losses on communities, especially his own constituency of Eastleigh; (ii) arms dealings with Saudi Arabia, especially with his previous intelligence gathered as an economics journalist for esteemed publications; (iii) the UK military industry; (iv) homosexuality among senior government Ministers, as revealed by British footballer Fasanu; (v) personal relationship and planned marriage to his fiancée (Julie Kirkbride) who at the time was a political journalist. 4. Stephen Milligan was also appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Jonathan Aitken, Arms Minister and this position must have required that he came ‘up to speed’ on international arms trade and indeed its relation to bribery and corruption across jurisdictions. Milligan’s experience and knowledge as a former high-level political and economics journalist must have been of huge benefit to government minister Jonathan Aitken who was later imprisoned for perjury. 5. Regarding Stephen Milligan’s death in 1994, the Guardian newspaper in their immediate obituary said that ‘The death of one of the government's most outspoken and loyal supporters will pose a stiff electoral test for the Tories to surmount. He was on the left of the Tory party - he had even had a brief flirtation with the SDP when it was formed - and was a noted Euro-enthusiast… the death of one of the government's most outspoken and loyal supporters will pose a stiff electoral test for the Tories to surmount. Regarding Stephen Milligan’s sudden and unexpected death in 1994, MP David Willetts (Conservative, Havant) said in March 2015, in his address in the House of Commons. ‘…The inevitable ups and downs and triumphs and disasters of politics are among the great features of this place. There are colleagues in all parts of the House who are tolerant and understanding. There are friendships that keep the downs as well as the ups of politics in perspective. Having entered the House in 1992, I think particularly of two good friends, Judith Chaplin and Stephen Milligan, who both died within two years of being elected; that loss stayed with me for a long time...’ 6. On 28 February 2000, in the House of Commons, at Column 106, Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth) said, on the deaths of Michael Colvin and of Stephen Milligan MP: ‘I knew Michael Colvin for nearly 30 years, from when he was first elected to Hampshire county council. During my time as leader of that council, he and the late former Member of Parliament for Eastleigh, Stephen Milligan, were usually the only Members of Parliament who readily supported the council when necessary. Michael Colvin supported many ventures in the county of Hampshire. He will be missed here, in his constituency, and in Europe, and I stress that Hampshire has lost a staunch supporter. I am sure that the county will at some stage want to record its regret at his death and its deepest appreciation of the part that he played in its life....’ -/- Mike Hancock had, like Stephen Milligan, served on the Select Committee on Defence. It is interesting that he mentioned Stephen Milligan’s support as MP for Eastleigh when Milligan had only been so appointed a couple of years before his sudden death, as compared to 30 years of support from Mike Colvin. 7. Mr Andrew Robathan (for Blaby) said in the House of Commons Hansard Debates on 27 January1997, (Column 62) (on the registering of sex offenders): ‘I remember the death of my honourable friend Stephen Milligan, who represented Eastleigh. The press reports of the time stated that each Metropolitan police station had a police officer in the pay of newspapers. I do not know whether that is true, but I am aware that the police are not renowned for being entirely secure with their information…’ This statement is mischievous and it has been demonstrated time and time again, as being untrue, especially during the recent press inquiry leading to the four-volume Leveson Report, published in November 2012, into phone hacking and the ethics and culture of the UK media, pursuant to section 26 of the Inquiries Act 2005, and ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 29 November 2012, ISBN: 9780102981063, by the Stationery Office Limited on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. In Volume 4 of the 2012 Leveson Report, chapter 4 concluded on the Press Complaints Commission (‘PCC’) and its effectiveness and revealed that the PCC does not initiate its own investigations other than those ‘needed to head off criticism of the press or self-regulation- or to accept complaints from third parties across the board and on a transparent basis… and the report states that ‘the resources of the police are limited’ in terms of being able to fully inspect the Press and media reports. (shrink)

Over the last decade, aesthetic and art theory has played an increasingly significant role in the way work and its organization has come to be understood. Bringing together the work of an international spectrum of academics, this collection contributes, in an overall more critical vein, to such emerging debates. Combining both empirical and theoretical material, each chapter re-evaluates the emerging relationship between art, aesthetics, and work, exploring its potential as both a medium of critical analysis, and as a site of (...) conflict and resistance. (shrink)

Presents close analysis of eight of Francis Bacon's texts in order to investigate the relation of his religious views to his instauration. Attempts to correct the persistent misconception of Bacon as a secular modern who dismissed religion in order to promote the human advancement of knowledge"--Provided by publisher.

Foucault, Power, and Education invites internationally renowned scholar Stephen J. Ball to reflect on the importance and influence of Foucault on his work in educational policy.

The problem that Tallis attempts to address in Freedom: An Impossible Reality (2021) is that science appears to describe the entire world deterministically and that this seems to leave no room for free will. In the face of this threat, Tallis defends the existence of free will by arguing that science does not explain our intentional awareness of the world; and it is our intentional awareness that makes both science and free will possible. Against Tallis, it is here argued that (...) his argument is vulnerable to two criticisms. Firstly, his characterisation of science as apparently deterministic is inaccurate. Secondly, he has not solved the problem he has set himself but rather recast it, so that his conclusion leaves us having to account for free will, not in a deterministic universe, but either as a product of chance or as a miracle. It is here suggested that when we set aside the illusory threat of scientific determinism, we also set aside the temptation of free will (as its spurious answer). That done, we may better focus upon agent’s freedom of action – as discussed by philosophers such as Hobbes, Locke and Hume – the rational capability of an agent to act upon their wishes, given the constraints under which they find themselves. (shrink)

Tracing the leading role of emotions in the evolution of the mind, a philosopher and a psychologist pair up to reveal how thought and culture owe less to our faculty for reason than to our capacity to feel. Many accounts of the human mind concentrate on the brain’s computational power. Yet, in evolutionary terms, rational cognition emerged only the day before yesterday. For nearly 200 million years before humans developed a capacity to reason, the emotional centers of the brain were (...) hard at work. If we want to properly understand the evolution of the mind, we must explore this more primal capability that we share with other animals: the power to feel. Emotions saturate every thought and perception with the weight of feelings. The Emotional Mind reveals that many of the distinctive behaviors and social structures of our species are best discerned through the lens of emotions. Even the roots of so much that makes us uniquely human—art, mythology, religion—can be traced to feelings of caring, longing, fear, loneliness, awe, rage, lust, playfulness, and more. From prehistoric cave art to the songs of Hank Williams, Stephen T. Asma and Rami Gabriel explore how the evolution of the emotional mind stimulated our species’ cultural expression in all its rich variety. Bringing together insights and data from philosophy, biology, anthropology, neuroscience, and psychology, The Emotional Mind offers a new paradigm for understanding what it is that makes us so unique. (shrink)

A COMPANION TO AESTHETICS This second edition of A Companion to Aesthetics examines questions that were among the earliest discussed by ancient philosophers, such as the nature of beauty and the relation between morality and art, while also addressing a host of new issues prompted by recent developments in the arts and in philosophy, including coverage of non-Western art traditions and of everyday and environmental aesthetics. The volume also canvases debates regarding the nature of representation, the relation between art and (...) truth, and the criteria for interpretation, which are among the most hotly discussed topics in contemporary philosophy. In this extensively revised and updated edition, 168 alphabetically arranged articles provide comprehensive treatment of the main topics and writers in aesthetics. Major additions include historical overviews from the prehistoric to the present and a section on the individual arts. A Companion to Aesthetics will serve students of philosophy, literary criticism, and cultural studies - as well as the educated general reader - both as a work of reference and, with its many substantial essays, as a guide to the best thinking about the arts from the ancient Greeks to the dawn of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

1 Introducing Monsieur Foucault Stephen J. Ball Michel Foucault is an enigma, a massively influential intellectual who steadfastly refused to align himself ...

The Historical Dictionary of Existentialism explains the central claims of existentialist philosophy and the contexts in which it developed into one of the most influential intellectual trends of the 20th century. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and more than 300 cross-referenced dictionary entries offering clear, accessible accounts of the life and thought of major existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, Martin Buber, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, as (...) well as thinkers influential to its development such as Wilhelm Dilthey, Henri Bergson, Edmund Husserl, and Max Scheler. Historical Dictionary of Existentialism affords readers an integrated, critical, and historically-sensitive understanding of this important philosophical movement. (shrink)

Neo-Confucianism is a philosophically sophisticated tradition weaving classical Confucianism together with themes from Buddhism and Daoism. It began in China around the eleventh century CE, played a leading role in East Asian cultures over the last millennium, and has had a profound influence on modern Chinese society. -/- Based on the latest scholarship but presented in accessible language, Neo-Confucianism: A Philosophical Introduction is organized around themes that are central in Neo-Confucian philosophy, including the structure of the cosmos, human nature, ways (...) of knowing, personal cultivation, and approaches to governance. The authors thus accomplish two things at once: they present the Neo-Confucians in their own, distinctive terms; and they enable contemporary readers to grasp what is at stake in the great Neo-Confucian debates. (shrink)

Dr. Stephen Hawking was the most renowned scientist since Einstein, known both for his groundbreaking work in physics and cosmology and for his mischievous sense of humor. He educated millions of readers about the origins of the universe and the nature of black holes, and inspired millions more by defying a terrifying early prognosis of ALS, which originally gave him only two years to live. In later life he could communicate only by using a few facial muscles, but he (...) continued to advance his field and serve as a revered voice on social and humanitarian issues. Hawking not only unraveled some of the universe's greatest mysteries but also believed science plays a critical role in fixing problems here on Earth. Now he turns his attention to the most urgent issues facing us. Will humanity survive? Should we colonize space? Does God exist? These are just a few of the questions Hawking addresses in this wide-ranging, passionately argued final book from one of the greatest minds in history. Featuring a foreword by Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar playing Stephen Hawking, an introduction by Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne, and an afterword from Hawking's daughter, Lucy. (shrink)

Collecting a wide range of contemporary and classical theological essays dealing with medical ethics, this volume is the finest resource available for engaging ...

Playing the mystery card -- "But it fits!" -- Going nuclear -- Moving the semantic goalposts -- "But I just know!" -- Pseudo-profundity -- Piling up the anecdotes -- Pressing your buttons -- Conclusion -- The Tapescrew letters.

Scholars are increasingly examining how formal leaders of organizations _change_ moral norms. The prominent accounts over-emphasize the role of rational persuasion. We focus, instead, on how formal leaders successfully break and thereby create moral norms. We draw on Dreyfus’s ontology of cultural paradigms and Williams’s moral luck to develop our framework for viewing leader-driven radical norm the change. We argue that formal leaders, embedded in their practices’ grounding, clarifying, and organizing norms, get captivated by anomalies and respond to them by (...) taking moral risks, which, if practically successful, create a new normative order. We illustrate the framework with Churchill’s actions in 1940 and Anita Roddick’s Body Shop. Last, we discuss normative orders, when ordinary leaders change norms, evil, and further research. (shrink)

Simone Weil (1909-1943) was one of the most original philosophers & political thinkers of this century. Coming to Christianity late in her short life, she offered a refreshing creativity & a rare ability to confront theological complacencies. In introducing her writings & thoughts, this book emphasizes her never-ending search for truth, a search that epitomizes twentieth-century spirituality.