Individual neurons display characteristic firing patterns determined by the number and kind of ion channels in their membranes. We describe experimental and computational studies that suggest that neurons use activity sensors to regulate the number and kind of ion channels and receptors in their membrane to maintain a stable pattern of activity and to compensate for ongoing processes of degradation, synthesis and insertion of ion channels and receptors. We show that similar neuronal and network outputs can be produced by a (...) number of different combinations of ion channels and synapse strengths. This suggests that individual neurons of the same class may each have found an acceptable solution to a genetically determined pattern of activity, and that networks of neurons in different animals may produce similar output patterns by somewhat variable underlying mechanisms. BioEssays 24:1145–1154, 2002. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Broken bodies, places and objects demonstrates the breadth of fragmentation and fragment use in prehistory and history, and provides an up-to-date insight into the current archaeological thinking around the topic. A seal broken and shared by two trade parties, dog jaws accompanying the dead in Mesolithic burials, fragments of ancient warships commodified as souvenirs, parts of an ancient dynastic throne split up between different colonial collections... Pieces of the past are everywhere around us. Fragments have a special potential precisely because (...) of their incomplete format - as a new matter that can reference its original whole but can also live on with new, unrelated meanings. Deliberate breakage of bodies, places and objects for the use of fragments has been attested from all time periods of the past. It has now been over 20 years since John Chapman's major publication introducing fragmentation studies, and the topic is more present than ever in archaeology. This volume offers the first European-wide review of the concept of fragmentation, collecting case studies from the Neolithic to the Modern, and extending the ideas of fragmentation theory into new directions. The book is written for scholars and students in archaeology but it is also relevant for neighbouring fields taking an interest in material culture, such as anthropology, history, cultural heritage studies, museology, art and architecture. (shrink)

Considered together, Butler and Whitehead draw from a wide palette of disciplines to develop distinctive theories of becoming, of syntactical violence, and creative opportunities of limitation. The contributors of this volume offer a unique contribution to and for the humanities in the struggles of politics, economy, ecology, and the arts.

Aesthetics is a normative domain. We evaluate artworks as better or worse, good or bad, great or grim. I will refer to a positive appraisal of an artwork as an aesthetic appreciation of that work, and I refer to a negative appraisal as aesthetic depreciation. (I will often drop the word “aesthetic.”) There has been considerable amount of work on what makes an artwork worthy of appreciation, and less, it seems, on the nature of appreciation itself. These two topics are (...) related, of course, because they nature of appreciation may bear on what things are worthy of that response, or at least on what things are likely to elicit it. So I will have some things to say about the latter. But I want to focus in this discussion on appreciation itself. When we praise a work of art, when we say it has aesthetic value, what does our praise consist in? This is a question about aesthetic psychology. I am interested in what kind of mental state appreciation is. What kind of state are we expressing when we say a work of art is “good”? This question has parallels in other areas of value theory. In ethics, most notably, there has been much attention lavished on the question of what people express when they refer to an action as “morally good.” One popular class of theories, associated with the British moralists and their followers, posits a link between moral valuation and emotion. To call an act morally good is to express an emotion toward that act. I think this approach to morality is right on target (Prinz, 2007). Here I want to argue that an emotional account of aesthetic valuation is equally promising. There are important differences between the two domains, but both have an affective foundation. I suspect that valuing of all kinds involves the emotions. Here I will inquire into the role of emotions in aesthetic valuing. I will not claim that artworks express emotions or even that they necessarily evoke emotions.. (shrink)

A timely and uniquely compelling plea for the importance of nurture in the ongoing nature-nurture debate. In this era of genome projects and brain scans, it is all too easy to overestimate the role of biology in human psychology. But in this passionate corrective to the idea that DNA is destiny, Jesse Prinz focuses on the most extraordinary aspect of human nature: that nurture can supplement and supplant nature, allowing our minds to be profoundly influenced by experience and culture. (...) Drawing on cutting-edge research in neuroscience, psychology, and anthropology, Prinz shatters the myth of human uniformity and reveals how our differing cultures and life experiences make each of us unique. Along the way he shows that we can’t blame mental illness or addiction on our genes, and that societal factors shape gender differences in cognitive ability and sexual behavior. A much-needed contribution to the nature-nurture debate, Beyond Human Nature shows us that it is only through the lens of nurture that the spectrum of human diversity becomes fully and brilliantly visible. (shrink)

In its comprehensive overview of Alain Locke's pragmatist philosophy this book captures the radical implications of Locke's approach within pragmatism, the critical temper embedded in Locke's works, the central role of power and empowerment of the oppressed and the concept of broad democracy Locke employed.

Im Alltag wie in ethischen Fachdiskussionen verweisen wir häufig auf moralische Intuitionen. Doch welche Art mentaler Zustand sind moralische Intuitionen eigentlich? Wie 'generieren' sie moralische Wertungen? Unter Rückgriff auf zeitgenössische Theorien aus der Philosophie des Geistes argumentiert die Autorin, dass moralische Intuitionen zu konkreten Fällen eine Form der Emotion sind. Sie spezifiziert, in Anlehnung an Millikans biosemantisches Intentionalitätskonzept und Prinz? Emotionstheorie, was diese moralisch wertenden Emotionen auszeichnet und welche mentalen Prozesse ihrem Auftreten zugrunde liegen. Burgbachers Modell gibt eine zeitgemässe, (...) empirisch orientierte Antwort auf die stark diskutierte Vorfrage der Ethik und Metaethik nach der Natur moralischer Intuitionen. Es bietet eine solide Basis für die Diskussion des epistemischen und handlungsbezogenen Status moralischer Intuitionen. (shrink)

Empathy can be characterized as a vicarious emotion that one person experiences when reflecting on the emotion of another. So characterized, empathy is sometimes regarded as a precondition on moral judgment. This seems to have been Hume's view. I review various ways in which empathy might be regarded as a precondition and argue against each of them: empathy is not a component, a necessary cause, a reliable epistemic guide, a foundation for justification, or the motivating force behind our moral judgments. (...) In fact, empathy is prone to biases that render it potentially harmful. Another construct—concern—fares somewhat better, but it is also of limited use. I argue that, instead of empathy, moral judgments involve emotions such as anger, disgust, guilt, and admiration. These, not empathy, provide the sentimental foundation for morality. (shrink)

Putting laypeople in an active role as direct expert contributors in the design of service robots becomes more and more prominent in the research fields of human–robot interaction and social robotics. Currently, though, HRI is caught in a dilemma of how to create meaningful service robots for human social environments, combining expectations shaped by popular media with technology readiness. We recapitulate traditional stakeholder involvement, including two cases in which new intelligent robots were conceptualized and realized for close interaction with humans. (...) Thereby, we show how the robot narrative together with aspects of power balancing stakeholders, such as hardware constraints and missing perspectives beyond primary users, and the adaptivity of robots through machine learning that creates unpredictability, pose specific challenges for participatory design processes in HRI. We conclude with thoughts on a way forward for the HRI community in developing a culture of participation that considers humans when conceptualizing, building, and using robots. (shrink)

This paper develops an empirically motivated theory of visual consciousness. It begins by outlining neuropsychological support for Jackendoff's (1987) hypothesis that visual consciousness involves mental representations at an intermediate level of processing. It then supplements that hypothesis with the further requirement that attention, which can come under the direction of high level representations, is also necessary for consciousness. The resulting theory is shown to have a number of philosophical consequences. If correct, higher-order thought accounts, the multiple drafts account, and the (...) widely held belief that sensation precedes perception will all be found wanting. The theory will also be used to illustrate and defend a methodology that fills the gulf between functionalists who ignore the brain and neural reductionists who repudiate functionalism. (shrink)

Reading the philosophical literature on consciousness, one might get the idea that there is just one problem in consciousness studies, the hard problem. That would be a mistake. There are other problems; some are more tractable, but none are easy, and all interesting. The literature on the hard problem gives the impression that we have made little progress. Consciousness is just an excuse to work and re-work familiar positions on the mind-body problem. But progress is being made elsewhere. Researchers are (...) moving towards increasingly specific accounts of the neural basis of conscious experience. These efforts will leave some questions unanswered, but they are no less significant for that. (shrink)

Although the main responsibility for informed consent of medical procedures rests with doctors, nurses’ roles are also important, especially as patient advocates. Nurses’ preparation for this role in settings with a hierarchical and communal culture has received little attention. We explored the views of hospital managers and nurses regarding the roles of nurses in informed consent and factors influencing these roles. We conducted a qualitative study in a private, multispecialty hospital in Indonesia. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven managers. Two (...) rounds of focus group discussions with nurses (n = 27) were conducted. Constant comparative approach was used in the analysis. Nurses can act as manager, witness, information giver, and advocate in the informed consent process. These roles are influenced by nurses’ preparedness, hospital culture and policy, patients’ understanding, family involvement, and cost-related issues. In preparation for these tasks, nurses should acquire communication skills, clinical knowledge, and legal and ethical knowledge. (shrink)

This paper studies the effects of social comparison on risk taking behavior. In our theoretical framework, decision makers evaluate the consequences of their choices relative to both their own and their peers’ conditions. We test experimentally whether the position in the social ranking affects risk attitudes. Subjects interact in a simulated workplace environment where they perform a work task, receive possibly different wages, and then undertake a risky decision that may produce an extra gain. We find that social comparison matters (...) for risk attitudes. Subjects are more risk averse in the presence of small social gain than social loss. In addition, risk aversion is decreasing in the size of the social gain. (shrink)

Gut Reactions is an interdisciplinary defense of the claim that emotions are perceptions of changes in the body.

La ética del cuidado es la propuesta teórica feminista más conocida en bioética. Mediante una revisión y análisis bibliográfico abordaré la ética del cuidado e interseccionalidad, como marco para discurso bioético aplicado a las estructuras en la atención de salud y para la toma de decisiones. La ética del cuidado y la interseccionalidad otorgan elementos pocas veces considerados en el análisis bioético, como es el contexto, la subjetividad, la experiencia vivida, las relaciones de cuidado y la responsabilidad con sí misma (...) y los otros. Estos elementos deben permear a la bioética en salud y en el actuar del ser humano con su entorno. (shrink)

For the past three decades there has been a substantial amount of scientific evidence supporting the view that attention is necessary and sufficient for perceptual representations to become conscious (i.e., for there to be something that it is like to experience a representational perceptual state). This view, however, has been recently questioned on the basis of some alleged counterevidence. In this paper we survey some of the most important recent findings. In doing so, we have two primary goals. The first (...) is descriptive: we provide a literature review for those seeking an understanding of the present debate. The second is editorial: we suggest that the evidence alleging dissociations between consciousness and attention is not decisive. Thus, this is an opinionated overview of the debate. By presenting our assessment, we hope to bring out both sides in the debate and to underscore that the issues here remain matters of intense controversy and ongoing investigation. (shrink)

In Arequipa, Peru’s second largest city, engineers work hard to control water flows and provide different sectors with clean and sufficient water. In 2011, only 10 percent of the totality of water used daily by Arequipa’s then close to 1 million people—in households, tourism, industry, and mining—was treated before it was returned to the river where it continues its flow downstream towards cultivated fields and, finally, into the Pacific Ocean. It takes specialized knowledge and manifold technologies to manage water and (...) sustain life in Arequipa, and engineers are central actors for making water flow. Examining the ecology of water management, this article asks to what extent we can talk of a way of knowing and enacting water that is particular to engineers. Through engineering practices, a technical domain emerges as separate from and superior to political and social domains. This production of categories can be understood as practices of purification. However, a purely technical grip on water is never possible. Unruly elements, like weather, contamination, urban dwellers, and competing interests, interfere and make processes of intervention unstable. Water is never completely cleaned, and, equally, the continuous processes of purification of categories and domains take place while other processes work to blur their boundaries. (shrink)

Illusionism is the view that phenomenal qualities are an illusion. It contrasts with both dualist theories and reductive realist theories, which identify phenomenal qualities with physical or functional states. Here I defend reductive realism against three lines of objection derived from Keith Frankish, and I offer two arguments against illusionism. According to one argument, illusionism collapses into realism, and according to the other, it introduces a deep puzzle akin to the hard problem. I conclude that reductive realism is more compelling.

The majority of emotion researchers reject the feeling theory of emotions; they deny that emotions are feelings. Some of these researchers admit that emotions have feelings as components, but they insist that emotions contain other components as well, such as cognitions. I argue for a qualified version of the feeling theory. I present evidence in support William James's conjecture that emotions are perceptions of patterned changes in the body. When such perceptions are conscious, they qualify as feelings. But the bodily (...) perceptions constituting emotions can occur unconsciously. When that occurs, emotions are unfelt. Thus, emotions are feelings when conscious, and they are not feelings when unconscious. In the end of the paper, I briefly sketch a theory of how emotions and other perceptual states become conscious. (shrink)

The article reconciles contentious issues between code biology and biosemiotics. The framework of semantic biology and molecular meaning woven around organic codes by Marcello Barbieri defied classical informational conceptualizations of meaning in the biological realm while the discourse on meaning and agency and their respective (in)dependency on interpretation continues. Whereas the role of codes in agency is often secondary to other aspects, I present here a more consistent picture– integrating codes and artifacts to smoothly transcend from the world of mechanistic (...) molecular meaning to organismic agency. Interpretation is presented as a call-to-action based on intraindividual states, and sense-making as call-to-change based on interindividual communication. (shrink)

Jesse Prinz argues that recent work in philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology supports two radical hypotheses about the nature of morality: moral values are based on emotional responses, and these emotional responses are inculcated by culture, not hard-wired through natural selection. In the first half of the book, Jesse Prinz defends the hypothesis that morality has an emotional foundation. Evidence from brain imaging, social psychology, and psychopathology suggest that, when we judge something to be right or wrong, we are (...) merely expressing our emotions. Prinz argues that these emotions do not track objective features of reality; rather, the rightness and wrongness of an act consists in the fact that people are disposed to have certain emotions towards it. In the second half of the book, he turns to a defense of moral relativism. Moral facts depend on emotional responses, and emotional responses vary from culture to culture. Prinz surveys the anthropological record to establish moral variation, and he draws on cultural history to show how attitudes toward practices such as cannibalism and marriage change over time. He also criticizes evidence from animal behavior and child development that has been taken to support the claim that moral attitudes are hard-wired by natural selection. Prinz concludes that there is no single true morality, but he also argues that some moral values are better than others; moral progress is possible. Throughout the book, Prinz relates his views to contemporary and historical work in philosophical ethics. His views echo themes in the writings of David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche, but Prinz supports, extends, and revises these classic theories using the resources of cutting-edge cognitive science. The Emotional Construction of Morals will stimulate and challenge anyone who is curious about the nature and origin of moral values. (shrink)

Recent trends in agriculturalresearch and development emphasize the need forfarmer participation. Participation not onlymeans farmers' physical presence but also theuse of their knowledge and expertise.Understanding potentials and drawbacks of theirlocal knowledge system is a prerequisite forconstructive collaboration between farmers,scientists, and extension services.An ethnoentomological study, conducted in aTharu village in Nepal, documents farmers'qualitative and quantitative knowledge as wellas perceptions of insects and pest management,insect nomenclature and classification, andissues related to insect recognition and localbeliefs. The study offers a basis to improvepest management (...) programs in terms of efficacyand acceptance. It demonstrates, for instance,that a concept of pests and beneficials isvirtually missing in traditional farmingcommunities and that the Tharu folkclassification profoundly differs from thescientific classification, but is not radicallydifferent from other folk entomologicalsystems. Insects belong to the taxa calledkiraa consisting of arthropods andnon-arthropods that interact with humans. Theyare classified in several overlappinghierarchies where locomotion and human impactplay major roles while morphological criteriaare almost irrelevant. Recognition ofkiraa, however, is dominated by agriculturalaspects followed by physiological-behavioral,ecological, and human-directed features.Morphological criteria play a minor role. Innomenclature, however, the insects' physicalappearance is more important than otherfeatures. The study further shows that male andfemale farmers have different perceptions ofkiraa.The insect-related knowledge system of theTharu has prevented farmers from using modernpesticides in the past. In the course ofmodernization, however, some aspects of theirknowledge system could become obsolete andprove disadvantageous to their livelihood andagro-ecosystems. (shrink)

When people are trying to determine whether an entity is capable of having certain kinds of mental states, they can proceed either by thinking about the entity from a *functional* standpoint or by thinking about the entity from a *physical* standpoint. We conducted a series of studies to determine how each of these standpoints impact people’s mental state ascriptions. The results point to a striking asymmetry. It appears that ascriptions of states involving phenomenal consciousness are sensitive to physical factors in (...) a way that ascriptions of other states are not. (shrink)

In the asymptotic safety paradigm, a quantum field theory reaches a regime with quantum scale invariance in the ultraviolet, which is described by an interacting fixed point of the Renormalization Group. Compelling hints for the viability of asymptotic safety in quantum gravity exist, mainly obtained from applications of the functional Renormalization Group. The impact of asymptotically safe quantum fluctuations of gravity at and beyond the Planck scale could at the same time induce an ultraviolet completion for the Standard Model of (...) particle physics with high predictive power. (shrink)

This paper proposes an analytical framework for the analysis of organizational cognition that borrows from distributed and ecological cognition. In so doing, we take a case study featuring a decision on the topic of agreeing on a set point in the agenda of a meeting. It is through the analysis of a few minutes of video-recording used in the case that enables us to demonstrate the power of applying distributed and ecological cognition to organizing processes. Cognitive mechanism, resources, and processes (...) are identified within this combined framework. Mechanisms are described as “socio-material” —where “people” and “artifacts” are the related cognitive resources—and as “conceptual” —with “group” identity, “topic” understanding, meaning of “procedures,” and perception of “time” as resources. Processes are defined as “coupling,” “de-coupling,” and “un-coupled” depending on the type of relation in place. Finally, the paper presents an agent-based computational simulation to demonstrate the potentials of operationalizing this approach. (shrink)

At a time when humanity experiences its greatest advances, major conflicts and abuses arise around the world due to a lack of humanism and reason within the meaning of the Enlightenment. Modernity and western comfort in our globalized society have not helped share and balance the wealth, nor preserve the natural resources; it has not prevented crimes against humanity nor the most insane dictatorial actions of the 20th and early 21st centuries. This went hand in hand with a massive degradation (...) of the environment. Could the animal be the solution to all the mistakes we have made during the last century, instead of being considered an inferior, a slave? Could he not be the one who has managed the best in the fields of intelligence, self-regulation and respect of his vital environment? Should we not rather turn toward the animal to find a new balanced model? Respecting the environment and his peers seems to be the most striking evidence of intelligence, does it not? The animal has achieved this. Man has not. Focusing on the way man has treated animals may therefore help us to understand why we have treated our peers so badly. (shrink)

This paper reads Carlos Soto Román’s “Chile Project: [Re-classified],” a documentary poem that remediates declassified state documents as an ambivalent form of witnessing bureaucracy and state viol...

How can a confederation of business and industry influence companies and make them more aware of ethical issues? This article examines the work of Norwegian Business and Industry , and the results it has achieved. The author is Assistant Director of NHO, P.b. 5250, Majorstua, 0303 Oslo, and she has been responsible for its business ethics programme for the past three years. This article comes to us through the agency of our Associate Editor for Norway, Dr Heidi von Weltzien Høivik, (...) of the Norwegian School of Management, who has recently been instrumental in founding a Norwegian Centre for Business Ethics. (shrink)

Due to the socio-demographic change in most developed western countries, elderly populations have been continuously increasing. Therefore, preventive and assistive systems that allow elderly people to independently live in their own homes as long as possible will become an economical if not ethical necessity. These respective technologies are being developed under the term "Ambient Assistive Technologies". The EU-funded AAT-project Ambient Lighting Assistance for an Ageing Population has established the long-term goal to create an adaptive system capable of improving the residential (...) lighting conditions of single living elderly persons also aiming at supporting the preservation of their independence. Results of an earlier survey revealed that the elderly perceived their current lighting situation as satisfactory, whereas interviewers assessed in-house lighting as too dark and risk-laden. The overall results of ALADIN showed a significant increase in well-being from the baseline final testing with the new adaptive lighting system. Positive results for wellbeing and life quality suggest that the outcome effects may be attributed to the introduction of technology as well as to social contacts arising from participating in the study. The technological guidance of the study supervisors, in particular, may have produced a strong social reactivity effect that was first observed in the famous Hawthorne experiments in the 1930s. As older adults seem to benefit both from meaningful social contacts as well as assistive technologies, the question arises how assistive technology can be socially embedded to be able to maximize positive health effects. Therefore ethical guidelines for development and use of new assistive technologies for handicapped/older persons have to be developed and should be discussed with regard to their applicability in the context of AAT. (shrink)

While unicellular microbes such as phytoplankton (marine algae) have long been considered immortal unless eaten by predators, recent research suggests that under specific conditions entire populations of phytoplankton actively kill themselves; their assumed atemporality is being revised as marine ecologists recognize phytoplankton’s important role in the global carbon cycle. Drawing on empirical research into programmed cell death in marine microbes, this article explores how, in their study of microbial death, scientists change not only our understanding of microbial temporality, but also (...) reconstruct the relationship between life and death, biological individuality and assumptions about a natural teleology associated with bounded biological systems and genetic programmes. Reading this research together with a Derridean deconstruction of the limit between human and other animals with respect to death, this article explores how the deconstruction of individuality from within biology may suggest alternatives to our anthropocentric notion of time and embodiment. (shrink)

In this article we develop a taxonomy of emotional injustice: what occurs when the treatment of emotions is unjust, or emotions are used to treat people unjustly. After providing an overview of previous work on this topic and drawing inspiration from the more developed area of epistemic injustice, we propose working definitions of ‘emotion’, ‘injustice’, and ‘emotional injustice’. We describe seven classes of emotional injustice: Emotion Misinterpretation, Discounting, Extraction, Policing, Exploitation, Inequality, and Weaponizing. We say why it is useful to (...) distinguish these and also to subsume them under a single concept. Our aims are both theoretical and practical: to provide a unified account of emotional injustice, while recognizing the diversity of this phenomenon; to facilitate further research on this topic; to recognize the political importance of emotions; and to outline some of the ways in which emotional injustice can be combated. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Born to Be Good? Are There Moral Universals? Is There a Morality Acquisition Device? Morality Without Innateness Appendix: Moral Anti‐nativism and Moral Relativism References.

Question the scientific method -- Different modes of experimentation -- Tirelessly tinkering with unruly conditions -- Practising experiments in a world of environmental concerns.

Francis Bacon's experimental philosophy is discussed, and the way in which it not only shapes scientific methodology but also deeply pervades all philosophical and social learning. Bacon draws us in to participate in an experiment with experience. The central driving force is the idea that learning how to learn is necessary in order to know. To meet this requirement, he considers the relation of form and content of pivotal importance, and therefore the selection of the literary form and the form (...) of data inscription is decisive in the construction of a heuristic tool. His inductive method serves a dual purpose: first, the so-called indicative form aims at securing knowledge by a comprehensible procedure that controls and guides hypothetical thinking. Second, the literary forms "fragment" and "aphorism" embody the subjunctive, and invite intellectual openness and even speculation. In this article, special emphasis is put on Bacon's use and justification of the aphorism. Bacon's pervasive experimentalism meets in some sense today's broad adoption of the experimental mode. His philosophy calls for an ontology that is also at work in recent notions of co-action and co-working, or of affordance. (shrink)

We define aesthetic emotions as emotions that underlie the evaluative assessment of artworks. They are separated from the wider class of art-elicited emotions. Aesthetic emotions historically have been characterized as calm, as lacking specific patterns of embodiment, and as being a sui generis kind of pleasure. We reject those views and argue that there is a plurality of aesthetic emotions contributing to praise. After presenting a general account of the nature of emotions, we analyze twelve positive aesthetic emotions in four (...) different categories: emotions of pleasure, contemplation, amazement, and respect. The emotions that we identify in each category, including feelings of fluency, intrigue, wonder, and adoration, have been widely neglected both within aesthetics and in emotion research more broadly. (shrink)

Existing empirical research often do not explain which concepts about genetics underlie the assumption that genetic information is deemed important for donor-conceived offspring. This study focused on how donor-conceived individuals following anonymous sperm donation give meaning to and make sense of genes and genetics. Analysis is based on focus groups and interviews with adult donor-conceived offspring. Findings suggest that genes are part of their specific context of being donor-conceived but also play a role in daily life. Genes make sense on (...) an individual level and a relational level, both on parent-child as sibling-level. On an individual level they were perceived as (1) a biological starting package, (2) their own unique combination and (3) as a reference point. On a relational level, genes were seen as (1) “person-al”, (2) connecting and (3) locating individuals. This information is essential for those supporting/counseling donor conceived offspring and families as well as for policy-members. (shrink)

Meat production in South Africa is on an increasing trend. In South Africa rising wealth, urbanisation and a growing middle class means South Africans are eating more processed and high-protein foods, especially meat and dairy products. These foods are more land- and water-intensive than fruit, vegetable and grain crops, and further stress existing resources. Traditional agricultural farms cannot keep up with the increasing demand for animal products and these farms are being replaced with concentrated animal feeding operations. There are a (...) wide variety of problems caused by intensive livestock production. The concerns regarding factory farming in South Africa are social issues affecting food security, health concerns, environmental concerns and ethical concerns. In order to ensure food security in future we need to consider these concerns and support more sustainable systems to produce our food. Animal agriculture, like many other industries, works on the principles of supply and demand. By decreasing the demand for these products, we can decrease their production. Individuals can do this by becoming vegetarian or vegan, but also by simply cutting down one’s consumption of meat, eggs, and milk produced in intensive livestock farms. Less meat would be produced, and there would be less harm to local communities, lower risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks, fewer greenhouse gas emissions, less land degradation and decrease of biodiversity, less damage to our water supplies and fewer animals living lives of suffering in factory farms. (shrink)

In this article, we study health literacy as entangled and situated processes of authorisation of pregnant women to become competent caretakers of their own physical activity and health based on the development of the practice of ‘learning to take notice’. Based on our ethnographic fieldwork in a randomised controlled trial on physical activity during pregnancy called FitMum, we develop a processual conceptualisation of health authorisation as multidirectional flows between participants, staff and technologies. Using the concepts of attunement and authorisation from (...) Latour and Despret, we suggest that health literacy is not just something that can be acquired once and for all, but is processual and must be maintained, nurtured and developed through continuous negotiations, adjustments and adaptations to the constantly changing conditions of the health subject. (shrink)

The paper examines the relationship between the sexual and linguistic and their mutual influence within the fields of political philosophy, linguistics, and theory of text, in selection from Adriana Cavarero’s work. First, we begin from the knowledge of poststructuralist text theory, psychoanalytic feminism and psycholinguistics, which are later expanded with the results from political philosophy with special emphasis on ancient texts. Cavarero’s texts are being analysed to describe the features through which the relationship between gender, sex and text is established. (...) Through a critical exploration of Cavarero’s texts and previous theoretical discussions and the analysis results, a conclusion about the influence of the sexual on language and culture and the influence of language and cultural symbols on social and gender roles is reached. (shrink)

Drawing on scientific accounts of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and their detection technologies, this paper asks what conceptions of time and species presences enable a mapping of the biological productivity of microorganisms onto economic productivity or the loss thereof and how certain modes of technoscientific detection of specific algae materialize such a conception of time, circumscribing what counts as harmfulness and to whom. Moving beyond the mere affirmation of the activity of nonhuman nature, I seek to demonstrate how an epistemological (...) anthropocentrism in scientific knowledge production that opposes historically flexible and technologically enhanced human creativity to its atemporal object of study manifests itself as a political anthropocentrism that presupposes “our” time as the unalterable movement of Homo Economicus. Such a political conception of time is supported by a view of “life itself” as a teleological process toward ever increasing complexity, effacing the possibility of asking to whom the current ecological transformations matter. (shrink)