The 'Discussion' section of this issue contains the following responses to Wilfred Beckerman's article 'Sustainable Development: Is it a Useful Concept?' Environmental Values 3,3 (1994): 191-209. Herman Daly, 'On Wilfred Beckerman's Critique of Sustainable Development'; Michael Jacobs, 'Sustainable Development, Capital Substitution and Humility: A Response to Beckerman'; and Henryk Skolimowski, 'In Defence of Sustainable Development'. These criticisms are answered by Beckerman in Environmental Values 4,2.

The 'Discussion' section of this issue contains the following responses to Wilfred Beckerman's article 'Sustainable Development: Is it a Useful Concept?' Environmental Values 3,3 (1994): 191-209. Herman Daly, 'On Wilfred Beckerman's Critique of Sustainable Development'; Michael Jacobs, 'Sustainable Development, Capital Substitution and Humility: A Response to Beckerman'; and Henryk Skolimowski, 'In Defence of Sustainable Development'. These criticisms are answered by Beckerman in Environmental Values 4,2.

COVID-19 created a transformational shift in the working environment for much of the labour force, yet its impact on workers is unclear. This study uses longitudinal data to examine the wellbeing of 621 full-time workers assessed before and during the first lockdown in the United Kingdom. We employ fixed effects analyses to investigate the impact of the restrictions and mandatory homeworking on cognitive, emotional, and psychological wellbeing. Within the sample, the rate of full-time homeworking increased from 2 to 74% between (...) waves. We identify significant changes in 9 of the 15 measures assessed, with a general pattern of improvements in wellbeing during lockdown. Overall levels of stress, self-rated mental health, positive emotions and life and job satisfaction are not adversely affected by the restrictions. There is a reduction in the burnout symptoms of disengagement and exhaustion and in the frequency with which negative emotions are experienced at work. Workers feel more autonomous, closer to their co-workers, and more attached to their organisations. However, homelife satisfaction declines. These findings highlight the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic and large-scale transition to homeworking was associated with unchanged or improved worker wellbeing. This study has important implications for governments and employers regarding a global shift to homeworking. (shrink)

The bacterium Deinococcus (formerly Micrococcus) radiodurans and other members of the eubacterial family Deinococaceae are extremely resistant to ionizing radiation and many other agents that damage DNA. Stationary phase D. radiodurans exposed to 1.0‐1.5 Mrad γ‐irradiation sustains >120 DNA double‐strand breaks (dsbs) per chromosome; these dsbs are mended over a period of hours with 100% survival and virtually no mutagenesis. This contrasts with nearly all other organisms in which just a few ionizing radiation induced‐dsbs per chromosome are lethal. In this (...) article we present an hypothesis that resistance of D. radiodurans to ionizing radiation and its ability to mend radiation‐induced dsbs are due to a special form of redundancy wherein chromosomes exist in pairs, linked to each other by thousands of four‐stranded (Holliday) junctions. Thus, a dsb is not a lethal event because the identical undamaged duplex is nearby, providing an accurate repair template. As addressed in this article, much of what is known about D. radiodurans suggests that it is particularly suited for this proposed novel form of DNA repair. (shrink)

In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology—examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world.

Wisdom is a multi-component trait that is important for mental health and well-being. In this study, we sought to understand gender differences in relative strengths in wisdom. A total of 659 individuals aged 27–103 years completed surveys including the 3-Dimensional Wisdom Scale and the San Diego Wisdom Scale. Analyses assessed gender differences in wisdom and gender’s moderating effect on the relationship between wisdom and associated constructs including depression, loneliness, well-being, optimism, and resilience. Women scored higher on average on the 3D-WS (...) but not on the SD-WISE. Women scored higher on compassion-related domains and on SD-WISE Self-Reflection. Men scored higher on cognitive-related domains and on SD-WISE Emotion Regulation. There was no impact of gender on the relationships between wisdom and associated constructs. Women and men have different relative strengths in wisdom, likely driven by sociocultural and biological factors. Tailoring wisdom interventions to individuals based on their profiles is an important next step. (shrink)

At the forefront of international concerns about global legislation and regulation, a host of noted environmentalists and business ethicists examine ethical issues in consumption from the points of view of environmental sustainability, economic development, and free enterprise.

The 'Discussion' section of this issue contains the following responses to Wilfred Beckerman's article 'Sustainable Development: Is it a Useful Concept?' Environmental Values 3,3 (1994): 191-209. Herman Daly, 'On Wilfred Beckerman's Critique of Sustainable Development'; Michael Jacobs, 'Sustainable Development, Capital Substitution and Humility: A Response to Beckerman'; and Henryk Skolimowski, 'In Defence of Sustainable Development'. These criticisms are answered by Beckerman in Environmental Values 4,2.

There is a recent and growing trend in philosophy that involves deferring to the claims of certain disciplines outside of philosophy, such as mathematics, the natural sciences, and linguistics. According to this trend— deferentialism , as we will call it—certain disciplines outside of philosophy make claims that have a decisive bearing on philosophical disputes, where those claims are more epistemically justified than any philosophical considerations just because those claims are made by those disciplines. Deferentialists believe that certain longstanding philosophical problems (...) can be swiftly and decisively dispatched by appeal to disciplines other than philosophy. In this paper we will argue that such an attitude of uncritical deference to any non-philosophical discipline is badly misguided. With reference to the work of John Burgess and David Lewis, we consider deference to mathematics. We show that deference to mathematics is implausible and that main arguments for it fail. With reference to the work of Michael Blome-Tillmann, we consider deference to linguistics. We show that his arguments appealing to deference to linguistics are unsuccessful. We then show that naturalism does not entail deferentialism and that naturalistic considerations even motivate some anti-deferentialist views. Finally, we set out deferentialism’s failings and present our own anti-deferentialist approach to philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

It is appropriate that, following volumes devoted to Plato and Aristotle, the latest Cambridge Companion on an ancient Greek philosopher should be about Plotinus, who is generally regarded as the first fully fledged Neoplatonist thinker of antiquity, and of whom it can be reasonably claimed that he "is probably the dominant philosopher in the 700-year period between Aristotle and Augustine of Hippo". That claim—like the term "Neoplatonism" itself—is distinctly modern: as Martha Nussbaum rightly insists, the tradition of Western thought from (...) Descartes to Marx owes more to the Hellenistic philosophers—Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics—than any other ancient thinkers. The importance of Plotinus and other Neoplatonists to certain Western thinkers—the Florentine Platonists of the fifteenth century, the seventeenth-century Cambridge Platonists, the Idealist Berkeley in the eighteenth century, Hegel, German and English Romantic writers —has long been recognized, and modern scholarship has delineated the influence of Plotinus, his disciple and editor Porphyry, and the fifth-century Neoplatonist Proclus on some authors of late antiquity whose prestige in the mediæval period was paramount: Augustine, Macrobius, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. Plotinus's complex style and method have become considerably more accessible, thanks to the magisterial critical edition of his Enneads by Paul Henry and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer. Readers of English now have a generally reliable translation, based on the Henry-Schwyzer text, by A. H. Armstrong, and two outstanding commentaries on individual treatises, by Michael Atkinson and Barrie Fleet. It is, therefore, a good time to take stock of Plotinus's philosophical achievement in a volume of this kind. (shrink)

Biographical account of Thomas Merton who was one of the leading Christian spiritual leaders of the 20th century. He authored more than 60 books and many reviews and essays primarily on spirituality, social justice and pacifism. His autobiographical account of his spiritual journey in The Seven Story Mountain proved immensely inspirational to many and is listed as one of the 100 best non-fiction books of the 20th century by the National Review. In later life, Merton engaged in dialogue with major (...) Eastern spiritual figures like the Dali Lama, Thai Buddhist monk Buddhadasa, Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh and Japanese writer D.T. Suzuki. Merton wrote books on Zen Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism at a time when this was not common among Christian theologians. -/- ​. (shrink)

In this book Daly attempts to forge a new ethical approach to issues of social structures, an area of thought deficient in traditional Catholic ethics. Daly argues that the concept of the structures of virtue and vice provide the best ethical lens with which to scrutinize the effects of social structures on personal character and the well-being of the community. His argument relies on two premises: First, he considers the nexus between structures and individual moral agency - arguing (...) that Catholic ethics has failed to account for these realities adequately. The second premise concerns virtue theory, once again emphasizing the importance of accounting for the individual when approaching societal ethics. With the establishment of these premises, Daly furthers the book's ultimate goal: the development of ethical concepts capable of scrutinizing social structures regarding how they shape personal moral character, as well as how they causally impact the well-being of people and groups. Drawing on the works of Thomas Aquinas as well as social theories such as critical realism, Daly fills a lacuna in Catholic ethics that addresses the structure-agency problem that has plagued this field of study. (shrink)

In the Québécois political vision of the twentieth century, sovereignty became synonymous with mastery. French Canadians sometimes claimed solidarity with racialized and Indigenous peoples, yet they saw their liberation as a matter of taking their rightful place in the seat of the oppressors. The idea of mastery has prevented the Québécois from seeing that their liberation is bound up with that of other groups oppressed by colonial powers. The Eye of the Master confronts the missed opportunities for a decolonial version (...) of indépendance in Quebec by examining the quest for mastery that has been at the root of every version of independence offered to the people of Quebec since the mid-twentieth century. Exploring political discourse, popular culture, and the family photo album, Dalie Giroux revisits the mythology of being “masters in our own house” and identifies the obstacles blocking a more comprehensive version of liberation based on solidarity. Drawing from the living forces of Indigenous thought and anti-racist, ecological, and feminist movements, Giroux envisions life without conquest, domination, exploitation, and surveillance. Making the case for a different future, beginning in the here and now, The Eye of the Master offers a major new intervention in contemporary political thought to Canadian readers and all those who imagine a different North America. (shrink)

Given the past two decades of over 40 failed trials of amyloid-lowering therapies in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), many of which succeeded in lowering amyloid as designed, we present an ethical argument for emptying the drug pipeline of tests of amyloid-lowering agents so as to end the historical dominance of the amyloid-reducing therapeutic approach in AD.

Offers a comprehensive view of St Augustine's political ideas.

This book defends a form of ethical intuitionism, according to which (i) there are objective moral truths; (ii) we know some of these truths through a kind of immediate, intellectual awareness, or "intuition"; and (iii) our knowledge of moral truths gives us reasons for action independent of our desires. The author rebuts all the major objections to this theory and shows that the alternative theories about the nature of ethics all face grave difficulties.

Thomas Hofweber argues that the thesis of direct reference is incompatible with physicalism, the claim that the nonphysical supervenes on the physical. According to Hofweber, direct reference implies that some physical objects have object-dependent properties, such as being Jones’s brother, which depend on particular objects for their existence and identity. Hofweber contends that if some physical objects have object-dependent properties, then Local-Local Supervenience (the physicalist doctrine on which he concentrates) fails. In this note, we argue that Hofweber has failed to (...) show that the possession by physical objects of object-dependent properties implies the falsity of Local-Local Supervenience. (shrink)

The first edition of The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy took the dialogue of science and philosophy from Aristotle through to Newton. This second edition adds eight chapters, taking the dialogue through the Enlightenment and up to Darwin. This anthology is an attempt to help bridge the gap between the history of science and the history of philosophy.

Ecology of the Brain: The Phenomenology and Biology of the Embodied Mind joins a growing body of writings which presents a serious and compelling challenge to the neuro-centrism and physicalist reductionism that has been predominant in recent philosophy of mind and in the human sciences. This volume will not only be relevant to researchers interested in the philosophy of mind and the role to be played by the human sciences in this domain, but it will also be a valuable addition (...) to any psychiatric training program. It complements the pioneering work of Karl Jaspers and offers a much needed antidote to the explicit or implicit Cartesianism and physicalist reductionism that still persists in many psychiatric writings, research programs and approaches to clinical practice. As Fuchs alerts, the failure to appreciate the organism’s or individual’s embeddedness in an environment, in a world, has stymied efforts to advance psychiatric theory and practice and we can also say this failure has contributed to the current crisis in legitimacy of psychiatry (Daly and Gallagher, 2019). Despite hopes and ambitions that neuroscience might rescue psychiatry from this crisis, it is increasingly clear that it cannot deliver on this promise as long as researchers and clinicians ignore the life-world (das Umwelt) and neglect the concept of life itself as Fuchs proposes. An ecological approach to understanding the brain is thus crucial so as to address these deficiencies. Fuchs acknowledges the previous articulation of a compatible view in the work of Gregory Bateson’s, Steps to an Ecology of the Mind (1972). While Bateson draws on anthropology and evolutionary theory, Fuchs draws on the resources of phenomenology and neurobiology. Fuchs offers integrated analyses of ideas not only from Bateson, but also from the classic phenomenological sources of Husserl, Jaspers and Merleau-Ponty, and brings these ideas into engagement with current neuroscience, psychological medicine, psychiatric theory and practice. (shrink)

Part I: The representation of life -- Can life be given a real definition? -- The representation of the living individual -- The representation of the life-form itself -- Part II: Naive action theory -- Types of practical explanation -- Naive explanation of action -- Action and time -- Part III: Practical generality -- Two tendencies in practical philosophy -- Practices and dispositions as sources of the goodness of individual actions -- Practice and disposition as sources of individual action.

BackgroundWe review original papers on ovarian-hormone status in two areas of emotional processing: facial emotion recognition and emotional memory. Ovarian-hormone status is operationalized by the levels of the steroid sex hormones 17β-estradiol and progesterone, fluctuating over the natural menstrual cycle and suppressed under oral contraceptive use. We extend previous reviews addressing single areas of emotional processing. Moreover, we systematically examine the role of stimulus features such as emotion type or stimulus valence and aim at elucidating factors that reconcile the inconsistent (...) results.MethodsWe followed the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines and included papers published until September 2020 indexed in PubMed and Web of Science databases. Search terms were MeSH terms AND AND with representing our separately searched areas, resulting in, and. To be included, articles had to be written and published in English, examine healthy, non-pregnant adult women in their reproductive age, and measure or at least estimate levels of E2 and P4. In PubMed, the search was limited to humans and to the search term present in the title or abstract.ResultsFeatures of the provided stimulus material constitute a relevant influence that interacts with E2- and P4-related ovarian-hormone status. For instance, recognition of basic emotions appears to be more related to P4- than E2-levels. Quite consistent, OC intake was accompanied by impaired recognition accuracy of basic and also complex emotions, although not in a recent large-sample study assessing complex emotions. Memory recall of negative content was mainly enhanced by P4, especially after having been stressed.Discussion and ConclusionWe document the methodological diversity in the field, presumably contributing to the heterogeneity of results. More studies explicitly contrasting the early follicular phase, mid-cycle phase, mid-luteal, and OC intake while standardizing tasks are needed. Research would take advantage of using within-subject designs and accounting for the recognition of complex emotions. (shrink)

We defend Joseph Melia's thesis that the role of mathematics in scientific theory is to ‘index’ quantities, and that even if mathematics is indispensable to scientific explanations of concrete phenomena, it does not explain any of those phenomena. This thesis is defended against objections by Mark Colyvan and Alan Baker.

Virtually all philosophers agree that for a belief to be epistemically justified, it must satisfy certain conditions. Perhaps it must be supported by evidence. Or perhaps it must be reliably formed. Or perhaps there are some other "good-making" features it must have. But does a belief's justification also require some sort of awareness of its good-making features? The answer to this question has been hotly contested in contemporary epistemology, creating a deep divide among its practitioners. Internalists, who tend to focus (...) on scientific or theoretical beliefs as the ideal, insist that such awareness is required for justification. Externalists, who think children's ordinary beliefs in obvious facts are paradigm cases of justified belief, say it isn't required. Michael Bergmann's book offers a decisive refutation of internalism and a sustained defense of externalism. (shrink)

At the University of Sheffield during 2011 and 2012, a leading group of philosophers, psychologists, and others gathered to explore the nature and significance of implicit bias. The two volumes of Implicit Bias and Philosophy emerge from these workshops. Each volume philosophically examines core areas of psychological research on implicit bias as well as the ramifications of implicit bias for core areas of philosophy. Volume I: Metaphysics and Epistemology is comprised of two parts: “The Nature of Implicit Attitudes, Implicit Bias, (...) and Stereotype Threat,” and “Skepticism, Social Knowledge, and Rationality.” The first part contains chapters examining the relationship between implicit attitudes and “dual process” models of the mind; the role of affect in the formation and change of implicit associations; the unity (or disunity) of implicit attitudes; whether implicit biases are mental states at all; and whether performances on stereotype-relevant tasks are automatic and unconscious or intentional and strategic. The second part contains chapters examining implicit bias and skepticism; the effects of implicit bias on scientific research; the accessibility of social stereotypes in epistemic environments; the effects of implicit bias on the self-perception of members of stigmatized social groups as rational agents; the role of gender stereotypes in philosophy; and the role of heuristics in biased reasoning. (shrink)

Externalist theories of justification create the possibility of cases in which everything appears to one relevantly similar with respect to two propositions, yet one proposition is justified while the other is not. Internalists find this difficult to accept, because it seems irrational in such a case to affirm one proposition and not the other. The underlying internalist intuition supports a specific internalist theory, Phenomenal Conservatism, on which epistemic justification is conferred by appearances.

In this engaging and spirited text, Michael Lynch argues that truth does matter, in both our personal and political lives. He explains that the growing cynicism over truth stems in large part from our confusion over what truth is.

Causation: A Realist Approach Traditional empiricist accounts of causation and laws of nature have been reductionist in the sense of entailing that given a complete specification of the non-causal properties of and relations among particulars, it is therefore logically determined both what laws there are and what events are causally related. It is argued here, however, that reductionist accounts of causation and of laws of nature are exposed to decisive objections, and thus that the time has come for empiricists to (...) break with that tradition. -/- The basic goal of this book, therefore, is to set out and defend realistic accounts of those concepts. In the case of causal relations, for example, Tooley maintains that causation is basically a matter of theoretical relations between states of affairs that underlie and explain relative frequencies. He also argues that such an approach avoids the objections that tell against reductionist accounts and that it does so without making causal relations epistemologically inaccessible. (shrink)

Dignity plays a central role in current thinking about law and human rights, but there is sharp disagreement about its meaning. Combining conceptual precision with a broad historical background, Michael Rosen puts these controversies in context and offers a novel, constructive proposal. “Penetrating and sprightly...Rosen rightly emphasizes the centrality of Catholicism in the modern history of human dignity. His command of the history is impressive...Rosen is a wonderful guide to the recent German constitutional thinking about human dignity...[Rosen] is in (...) general an urbane and witty companion, achieving his aim of accessibly written philosophy.” —Samuel Moyn, The Nation “[An] elegant, interesting and lucid exploration of the concept of dignity...Drawing on classical, liberal and Catholic traditions, Rosen hopes to rehabilitate dignity to its rightful place near the centre of moral thought...Rosen's admirable book deserves wide attention from political theorists, jurisprudes and political philosophers.” —Simon Blackburn, Times Higher Education “Dignity deserves to be widely read, not only for its intrinsic interest, but also as a corrective to the habit of discussing such topics in abstraction from their social context. Whether or not one agrees with Rosen's arguments, there can be no doubt he has widened our horizons.” —Rae Langton, Times Literary Supplement. (shrink)

The eukaryotic cell is partitioned by membranes into spatially and functionally discrete subcellular organelles. In addition, the cytoplasm itself is partitioned into discrete subregions that carry out specific functions. Such compartmentation can be achieved by localizing proteins and RNAs to different subcellular regions. This review will focus on localized RNAs, with a particular emphasis on RNA localization mechanisms and on the possible biological functions of localization of these RNAs. In recent years, an increasing number of localized RNAs have been identified (...) in a variety of cell types among many animal species. Emphasis here will be on localized RNAs in the most intensively studied systems – Drosophila and Xenopus eggs and early embryos. (shrink)

Michael G. Titelbaum presents a new Bayesian framework for modeling rational degrees of belief—the first of its kind to represent rational requirements on agents who undergo certainty loss.