This handbook presents a comprehensive introduction to the core areas of philosophy of education combined with an up-to-date selection of the central themes. It includes 95 newly commissioned articles that focus on and advance key arguments; each essay incorporates essential background material serving to clarify the history and logic of the relevant topic, examining the status quo of the discipline with respect to the topic, and discussing the possible futures of the field. The book provides a state-of-the-art overview of philosophy (...) of education, covering a range of topics: Voices from the present and the past deals with 36 major figures that philosophers of education rely on; Schools of thought addresses 14 stances including Eastern, Indigenous, and African philosophies of education as well as religiously inspired philosophies of education such as Jewish and Islamic; Revisiting enduring educational debates scrutinizes 25 issues heavily debated in the past and the present, for example care and justice, democracy, and the curriculum; New areas and developments addresses 17 emerging issues that have garnered considerable attention like neuroscience, videogames, and radicalization. The collection is relevant for lecturers teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in philosophy of education as well as for colleagues in teacher training. Moreover, it helps junior researchers in philosophy of education to situate the problems they are addressing within the wider field of philosophy of education and offers a valuable update for experienced scholars dealing with issues in the sub-discipline. Combined with different conceptions of the purpose of philosophy, it discusses various aspects, using diverse perspectives to do so. Contributing Editors: Section 1: Voices from the Present and the Past: Nuraan Davids Section 2: Schools of Thought: Christiane Thompson and Joris Vlieghe Section 3: Revisiting Enduring Debates: Ann Chinnery, Naomi Hodgson, and Viktor Johansson Section 4: New Areas and Developments: Kai Horsthemke, Dirk Willem Postma, and Claudia Ruitenberg. (shrink)

Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future envisioned knowledge systems might need to look like and how we might get there. Findings suggest that envisioned future systems will need (...) to be much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, and able to work with values and systemic issues. They will also need to go beyond producing knowledge about our world to generating wisdom about how to act within it. To get to envisioned systems we will need to rapidly scale methodological innovations, connect innovators, and creatively accelerate learning about working with intractable challenges. We will also need to create new funding schemes, a global knowledge commons, and challenge deeply held assumptions. To genuinely be a creative force in supporting longevity of human and non-human life on our planet, the shift in knowledge systems will probably need to be at the scale of the enlightenment and speed of the scientific and technological revolution accompanying the second World War. This will require bold and strategic action from governments, scientists, civic society and sustained transformational intent. (shrink)

Users of psychedelic drugs often report that their sense of being a self or ‘I’ distinct from the rest of the world has diminished or altogether dissolved. Neuroscientific study of such ‘ego dissolution’ experiences offers a window onto the nature of self-awareness. We argue that ego dissolution is best explained by an account that explains self-awareness as resulting from the integrated functioning of hierarchical predictive models which posit the existence of a stable and unchanging entity to which representations are bound. (...) Combining recent work on the ‘integrative self' and the phenomenon of self-binding with predictive processing principles yields an explanation of ego dissolution according to which self-representation is a useful Cartesian fiction: an ultimately false representation of a simple and enduring substance to which attributes are bound which serves to integrate and unify cognitive processing across levels and domains. The self-model is not a mere narrative posit, as some have suggested; it has a more robust and ubiquitous cognitive function than that. But this does not mean, as others have claimed, that the self-model has the right attributes to qualify as a self. It performs some of the right kinds of functions, but it is not the right kind of entity. Ego dissolution experiences reveal that the self-model plays an important binding function in cognitive processing, but the self does not exist. (shrink)

The desire-satisfaction theory of well-being says, in its simplest form, that a person’s level of welfare is determined by the extent to which their desires are satisfied. A question faced by anyone attracted to such a view is, *Which desires*? This paper proposes a new answer to this question by characterizing a distinction among desires that isn’t much discussed in the well-being literature. This is the distinction between what a person wants in a merely behavioral sense, in that the person (...) is, for some reason or other, disposed to act so as to try to get it, and what a person wants in a more robust sense, the sense of being *genuinely attracted* to the thing. I try to make this distinction more clear, and I argue for its axiological relevance by putting it to work in solving four problem cases for desire satisfactionism. The theory defended holds that only desires in the latter, genuine-attraction sense are relevant to welfare. (shrink)

The past 50 years have seen an accumulation of evidence suggesting that associative learning depends on high-level cognitive processes that give rise to propositional knowledge. Yet, many learning theorists maintain a belief in a learning mechanism in which links between mental representations are formed automatically. We characterize and highlight the differences between the propositional and link approaches, and review the relevant empirical evidence. We conclude that learning is the consequence of propositional reasoning processes that cooperate with the unconscious processes involved (...) in memory retrieval and perception. We argue that this new conceptual framework allows many of the important recent advances in associative learning research to be retained, but recast in a model that provides a firmer foundation for both immediate application and future research. (shrink)

Struggles over precious resources such as oil, water, and land are increasingly evident in the contemporary world. States, indigenous groups, and corporations vie to control access to those resources, and the benefits they provide. These conflicts are rapidly spilling over into new arenas, such as the deep oceans and the Polar regions. How should these precious resources be governed, and how should the benefits and burdens they generate be shared? Justice and Natural Resources provides a systematic theory of natural resource (...) justice. It argues that we should use the benefits and burdens flowing from these resources to promote greater equality across the world, and share governance over many important resources. At the same time, the book takes seriously the ways in which particular resources can matter in peoples lives. It provides invaluable guidance on a series of pressing issues, including the scope of state resource rights, the claims of indigenous communities, rights over ocean resources, the burdens of conservation, and the challenges of climate change and transnational resource governance. It will be required reading for anyone interested in natural resource governance, climate politics, and global justice. (shrink)

Starting from two observations regarding nursing ethics research in the past two decades, namely, the dominant influence of both the empirical methods and the principles approach, we present the cornerstones of a foundational argument-based nursing ethics framework. First, we briefly outline the general philosophical–ethical background from which we develop our framework. This is based on three aspects: lived experience, interpretative dialogue, and normative standard. Against this background, we identify and explore three key concepts—vulnerability, care, and dignity—that must be observed in (...) an ethical approach to nursing. Based on these concepts, we argue that the ethical essence of nursing is the provision of care in response to the vulnerability of a human being in order to maintain, protect, and promote his or her dignity as much as possible. (shrink)

This paper responds to a new objection, due to Ben Bramble, against attitudinal theories of sensory pleasure and pain: the objection from unconscious pleasures and pains. According to the objection, attitudinal theories are unable to accommodate the fact that sometimes we experience pleasures and pains of which we are, at the time, unaware. In response, I distinguish two kinds of unawareness and argue that the subjects in the examples that support the objection are unaware of their sensations in only a (...) weak sense, and this weak sort of unawareness of a sensation does not preclude its being an object of one’s attitudes. (shrink)

Chris Fraser presents a rich and broad-ranging study of the culminating period of classical Chinese philosophy, the third century BC. He offers novel and informative perspectives on Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, Legalism, and other movements in early Chinese thought while also delving into neglected texts such as the Guanzi, Lu's Annals, and the Zhuangzi 'outer' chapters, restoring them to their prominent place in the history of philosophy. Fraser organizes the history of Chinese thought topically, devoting separate chapters to metaphysics and (...) metaethics, political philosophy, ethics, moral psychology, epistemology, and philosophy of language and logic. Focused specifically on the last century of the Warring States era, arguably the most vibrant, diverse period of philosophical discourse in Chinese history, the discussion covers the shared concerns, rival doctrines, and competing criticisms presented in third-century BC sources. Fraser explicates the distinctive issues, conceptual frameworks, and background assumptions of classical Chinese thought. He aims to introduce the philosophical discourse of early China to a broad audience, including readers with no prior familiarity with the material. At the same time, the thematic treatment and incisive interpretations of individual texts will be of interest to students and specialists in the field. (shrink)

The category of sympathy marks a number of basic divisions in early modern approaches to action explanations, whether for human agency or for change in the wider natural world. Some authors were critical of using sympathy to explain change. They call such principles “unintelligible” or assume they involve “mysterious” action at a distance. Others, including Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, appeal to sympathy to capture natural phenomena, or to supply a backbone to their metaphysics. Here I discuss (...) how concerns about sympathetic actions form at least a partial background for differing seventeenth-century conceptions of what it is to explain action. I argue that critics of sympathy generally insist on an “atomistic” approach to action explanation, which makes primitively relational phenomena come out as problematic. Proponents of sympathy, by contrast, allow for a more holistic approach to action explanation, which allows for such basic connections. Hence, divergent attitudes toward sympathetic action in part explain differences in approaches to explanation. I conclude by showing how some of these core concerns fade into the background when in the eighteenth-century sympathy gets psychologised and individualised. (shrink)

A pressing philosophical problem is how to respond to the existential, anxiety and disenchantment resulting from a naturalistic worldview that eschews transcendent foundations for meaning and value. This problem is becoming more urgent as the popularization of neuroscientific findings renders a disenchanted conception of human beings ever more vivid, compelling, and widespread. I argue that the study of transformative experiences occasioned by classic psychedelic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide and psilocybin may reveal the nature of a viable practical solution (...) to this problem. Despite the apparent centrality of nonnaturalistic metaphysical apprehensions to psychedelic transformation, findings from psychedelic research suggest that key elements of psychedelic or “entheogenic” spirituality are consistent with naturalism. These include disruption to neurocognitive mechanisms underpinning the sense of self, and consequent experiences of self-transcendence and of the decoupling of attention from personal concerns. This liberation of attention can result in the availability of broader perspectives and the development of wonder and appreciation for life. (shrink)

We consider the influence that John Forrester’s work has had on thinking in, with, and from cases in multiple disciplines. Forrester’s essay ‘If p, Then What? Thinking in Cases’ was published in History of the Human Sciences in 1996 and transformed understandings of what a case was, and how case-based thinking worked in numerous human sciences. Forrester’s collection of essays Thinking in Cases was published posthumously, after his untimely death in 2015, and is the inspiration for the special issue we (...) introduce. This comprises new research from authors working in and across the history of science and medicine, gender and sexuality studies, philosophy of science, semiotics, film studies, literary studies and comparative literature, psychoanalytic studies, medical humanities, and sociology. This research addresses what it means to reason in cases in particular temporal, spatial, or genre-focused contexts; introduces new figures into lineages of case-based reasoning; emphasizes the unfinished and unfinishable character of some case reading and autobiographical accounts; and shows the frequency with which certain kinds of reasoning attempted with cases fail. The special issue opens up new directions for thinking and working with cases and case-based reasoning in the humanities and human sciences. (shrink)

Dozens of countries have established Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) in the last decade or so, in the majority of cases employing those funds to manage the large revenues gained from selling resources such as oil and gas on a tide of rapidly rising commodity prices. These funds have raised a series of ethical questions, including just how the money contained in such funds should eventually be spent. This article engages with that question, and specifically seeks to connect debates on SWFs (...) with debates onglobaljustice. Just how good are national claims to the great wealth contained in SWFs in the first place? Using the example of Norway's very large SWF – derived from selling North-Sea petroleum – I show that national claims are at least sometimes very weak, with the implication that the wealth in many such funds is ripe for redistribution in the interests of global justice. I conclude by offering some guidance for how the money contained in such funds could best be spent, with the goal of advancing global justice. (shrink)

Historically Wales has been regarded as a country with relatively low levels of school exclusion, particularly in comparison with England. This has been used as an indicator of Wales’ commitment to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which foregrounds a rights-based agenda that would argue school exclusion is a consequence of broader socio-economic structures than individual actions. However, simple analyses may mask a different picture of school exclusions in Wales. In this article, we study more detailed information (...) on formal school exclusions by looking at ‘instances’ of school exclusion, which considers the frequency and length of formal school exclusions in Wales, and alongside recorded school absence. The article also demonstrates that the pupils ‘at risk’ of formal school exclusion varies by when they experience school exclusion during their educational lifecourse. The article concludes by highlighting that patterns of school exclusion are complex, and that interpretation of these patterns depends on what kind of measure of school exclusion is used. By publishing these results, the article hopes to persuade policymakers and practitioners to re-examine their processes of exclusion to ensure they are commensurate with the law and to prevent unnecessary school exclusions. (shrink)

It has historically been assumed that comparative and superlative quantifiers can be semantically analysed in accordance with their core logical–mathematical properties. However, recent theoretical and experimental work has cast doubt on the validity of this assumption. Geurts & Nouwen have claimed that superlative quantifiers possess an additional modal component in their semantics that is absent from comparative quantifiers and that this accounts for the previously neglected differences in usage and interpretation between the two types of quantifier that they identify. Their (...) semantically modal hypothesis has received additional support from empirical investigations. In this article, we further corroborate that superlative quantifiers have additional modal interpretations. However, we propose an alternative analysis, whereby these quantifiers possess the semantics postulated by the classical model and the additional aspects of meaning arise as a consequence of psychological complexity and pragmatic implicature. We explain how this model is consistent with the existing empirical findings. Additionally, we present the findings of four novel experiments that support our model above the semantically modal account. (shrink)

Chris L. Firestone and Nathan Jacobs integrate and interpret the work of leading Kant scholars to come to a new and deeper understanding of Kant's difficult book, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason. In this text, Kant's vocabulary and language are especially tortured and convoluted. Readers have often lost sight of the thinker's deep ties to Christianity and questioned the viability of the work as serious philosophy of religion. Firestone and Jacobs provide strong and cogent grounds for taking (...) Kant's religion seriously and defend him against the charges of incoherence. In their reading, Christian essentials are incorporated into the confines of reason, and they argue that Kant establishes a rational religious faith in accord with religious conviction as it is elaborated in his mature philosophy. For readers at all levels, this book articulates a way to ground religion and theology in a fully fledged defense of Religion which is linked to the larger corpus of Kant's philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

We have only limited awareness of the system by which we control our actions and this limited awareness does not seem to be concerned with the control of action. Awareness of choosing one action rather than another comes after the choice has been made, while awareness of initiating an action occurs before the movement has begun. These temporal differences bind together in consciousness the intention to act and the consequences of the action. This creates our sense of agency. Activity in (...) the anterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex is associated with awareness of our own actions and also occurs when we think about the actions of others. I propose that the mechanism underlying awareness of how our own intentions lead to actions can also be used to represent the intentions that underlie the actions of others. This common system enables us to communicate mental states and thereby share our experiences. (shrink)

Linguistic meaning underdetermines what is said. This has consequences for philosophical accounts of meaning, communication, and propositional attitude reports. I argue that the consequence we should endorse is that utterances typically express many propositions, that these are what speakers mean, and that the correct semantics for attitude reports will handle this fact while being relational and propositional.

This book brings together leading international learning and attention researchers to provide both a comprehensive and wide-ranging overview of the current state of knowledge of this area as well as new perspectives and directions for the future. There are coherent themes that run throughout the book, but there are also, inevitably, fundamental disagreements between contributors on the role of attention in learning. Together, the views expressed in this book paint a picture of a vibrant and exciting area of psychological research, (...) and will be essential reading for researchers of learning and attention. (shrink)

Van Gelder (1995) has recently spearheaded a movement to challenge the dominance of connectionist and classicist models in cognitive science. The dynamical conception of cognition is van Gelder's replacement for the computation bound paradigms provided by connectionism and classicism. He relies on the Watt governor to fulfill the role of a dynamicist Turing machine and claims that the Motivational Oscillatory Theory (MOT) provides a sound empirical basis for dynamicism. In other words, the Watt governor is to be the theoretical exemplar (...) of the class of systems necessary for cognition and MOT is an empirical instantiation of that class. However, I shall argue that neither the Watt governor nor MOT successfully fulfill these prescribed roles. This failure, along with van Gelder's peculiar use of the concept of computation and his struggle with representationalism, prevent him from providing a convincing alternative to current cognitive theories. (shrink)

After examining the ethical and political writings of Immanuel Kant, one finds an apparent paradox in his philosophy as his perfectionist moral teachings appear to be linked to his anti-perfectionist political theory. Specifically, he writes that the perfection of moral character can only take place for an individual who is inside of civil society, a condition where no laws may legitimately be implemented expressly for the purpose of trying to make individuals moral. Kant believes that living in civil society is (...) a necessary condition for an individual to refine his talents and reason completely, a process required by morality. I believe, however, that the connection between his moral and political theory runs much deeper than simply facilitating the refinement of talents. Kant's moral theory focuses on an individual's cultivation of virtue, but this cultivation cannot be most satisfactorily completed unless that individual is a member of civil society. Put differently, civil society plays a necessary role in cultivating an individual's character so that he is able to act from maxims consistent with the moral law, out of the respect for the law itself. However, because he believes that civic laws primarily intended to encourage moral cultivation cannot be implemented legitimately, it seems curious that this condition should play such a significant role in Kant's moral philosophy. Through this examination of Kant's moral and political theory, it will be shown that Kant's political society establishes a condition necessary for an individual's complete cultivation of virtue, not by implementing laws that make men moral but by weakening the forces of heteronomy, thereby removing barriers to moral action. (shrink)

The role of the arts has become crucial to understanding the origins of “modern human behavior,” but continues to be highly controversial as it is not always clear why the arts evolved and persisted. This issue is often addressed by appealing to adaptive biological explanations. However, we will argue that the arts have evolved culturally rather than biologically, exploiting biological adaptations rather than extending them. In order to support this line of inquiry, evidence from a number of disciplines will be (...) presented showing how the relationship between the arts, evolution, and adaptation can be better understood by regarding cultural transmission as an important second inheritance system. This will allow an alternative proposal to be formulated as to the proper place of the arts in human evolution. However, in order for the role of the arts to be fully addressed, the relationship of culture to genes and adaptation will be explored. Based on an assessment of the cognitive, biological, and cultural aspects of the arts, and their close relationship with ritual and associated activities, we will conclude with the null hypothesis that the arts evolved as a necessary but nonfunctional concomitant of other traits that cannot currently be refuted. (shrink)

In this article we argue that commercial boycotting is not an uncontested economic right. Rather, the practice of boycotting often requires further moral justification. We argue that this justification should not rely solely on the consequences of boycotting, nor should it rely solely on the complicity of the consumer. We suggest that both justifications are subject to pressing objections. In light of these objections, we outline an alternative non‐consequentialist justification of commercial boycotting that is grounded in the moral values of (...) conscience and personal integrity. We then explore the scope of this justification in the legal realm. We focus on cases where consumers lack freedom of exchange due to their contractual obligations and conclude by defending a qualified legal right to breach contracts on conscientious grounds. (shrink)

This introduction to the second international conference on Formal Ontology and Information Systems presents a brief history of ontology as a discipline spanning the boundaries of philosophy and information science. We sketch some of the reasons for the growth of ontology in the information science field, and offer a preliminary stocktaking of how the term ‘ontology’ is currently used. We conclude by suggesting some grounds for optimism as concerns the future collaboration between philosophical ontologists and information scientists.

This paper examines eight publicly available critical care triage protocols intended for use during an influenza pandemic. These protocols place an emphasis on objective measures of survivability as the primary criterion for assigning priority for lifesaving critical care during a pandemic. Triage would then be undertaken without consideration of the relational or social characteristics of patients who need critical care. We argue that enacting these protocols could result in the denial of lifesaving care to oppressed and disadvantaged groups. The lens (...) of relational theory reveals this ethical flaw in the triage protocols we examine, and suggests ways of improving these protocols. (shrink)

According to Fischer and Ravizza, an agent has guidance control over some action A, whenever A is issued from one of their own moderately reasons-responsive mechanisms. This involves two elements: the process P leading to their action being suitably responsive to reasons-; and their taking an attitude towards processes of kind P such that they see themselves as the agents of the behaviour those processes issue. For the purposes of this paper, I assume that guidance control amounts to actually guiding (...) some action. I present, and defend, a counterexample in which an agent intentionally acts via a suitably reasons-responsive process which they have taken responsibility for and yet, intuitively, does not actually guide their action. On this basis, I argue that taking responsibility for a moderately reasons-responsive mechanism is not sufficient for having guidance control. (shrink)

Political liberals aim to treat citizens as free and equal participants in a society governed by principles endorsable from a wide range of reasonable conceptions of the good. This popular account of political morality struggles to accommodate child citizens yet to develop the capacities for freedom and equality enjoyed by citizens under political liberalism. It appears political liberals must either accept political liberalism should not apply to all citizens or intrusively constrain parental rights to shape the values of their children (...) in line with anti-perfectionism. I defend a third possibility that justifies perfectionism in parenting and anti-perfectionism in education. (shrink)

Leibniz’s account of probability has come into better focus over the past decades. However, less attention has been paid to a certain domain of application of that account, that is, the application of it to the moral or ethical domain—the sphere of action, choice and practice. This is significant, as Leibniz had some things to say about applying probability theory to the moral domain, and thought the matter quite relevant. Leibniz’s work in this area is conducted at a high level (...) of abstraction. It establishes a proof of concept, rather than concrete guidelines for how to apply calculations to specific cases. Still, this highly abstract material does allow us to begin to construct a framework for thinking about Leibniz’s approach to the ethical side of probability. (shrink)

Swedberg's two-volume collection of essays covering New Developments in Economic Sociology contains some excellent material, worthy of study by both economists and sociologists. However, there are definitional and conceptual problems in the whole project of "economic sociology" exacerbated by the disappearance of any consensus concerning the boundaries between the disciplines of sociology and economics. Neither has "economic sociology" acquired an adequately clear identity through the use of distinctive concepts or theories. Its future prospects are further questioned by recent changes within (...) economics itself, including greater attention to institutional structures, and the abandonment of strictly self-interested and context-independent rationality. Key Words: economic sociology • economics • disciplinary boundaries • social sciences. (shrink)

Recent European policy has seen a shift from a concern with lifelong learning in the Lisbon Strategy to research and innovation in the Horizon 2020 programme. Accordingly, there has been an increased policy focus on the researcher who, like the lifelong learner must be entrepreneurial, adaptable, mobile, but who must also find new ways in which to develop and deploy her skills and competences and smart solutions to current problems in order to ensure sustainability. The subject position of the researcher, (...) therefore, is not a figure distinctive to the university today, but rather one required of us all. For the excellent researcher in the university, resources exist to enable her to identify those aspects of herself that are in need of development in order to keep all aspects of her personal and professional well-being in balance, often drawn from the field of psychology. Here, rather than analysing directly the ways in which the researcher is addressed by such devices, we focus on the common experience of being in the university today. In everyday conversation, we do not describe ourselves as entrepreneurial, innovative, leading, etc., but more often as tired, stressed and not feeling at home there. Rather than taking these as impediments to productivity and aspects of ourselves requiring psychological strategies, the educational aspects of these are explored in relation to the figure of the studier, as developed from Giorgio Agamben by Tyson Lewis. The shift of discourse from lifelong learning to innovation and research in recent policy is seen to effect a further desubjectivation, a division of ourselves from ourselves. (shrink)

The two leading cognitive accounts of consciousness currently available concern global workspace (a form of working memory) and metacognition. There is relatively little interaction between these two approaches and it has even been suggested that the two accounts are rival and separable alternatives. Here, we argue that the successful function of a global workspace critically requires that the broadcast representations include a metacognitive component.

Before photography went digital and camera phones accompanied people most everywhere, Pierre Bourdieu observed in 1965 that photography had become a "middle-brow art". "How and why," he asked, "is the practice of photography predisposed to a diffusion so wide that there are few households, at least in towns, which do not possess a camera?". Novel at the time, the question has been superseded today. Estimates indicate that 1.27 trillion new photographs will be taken in 2017. That amounts to an ambient (...) symphony of over forty thousand clicking shutters per second. That means the human population will take three times more photographs in one year than there are stars in the Milky Way.... (shrink)

Sciabarra responds to critics of the second edition of his book, Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical: Wendy McElroy, who reviewed the book for The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, and Shoshana Milgram and Gregory Salmieri, whose most recent criticisms appear in A Companion to Ayn Rand. Sciabarra defends both his historical and methodological theses, situating the book within a trilogy of works that define and defend “dialectical libertarianism,” which eschews utopian thinking and embraces a fully radical mode of inquiry. Sciabarra (...) argues that dialectics—the art of context-keeping—figures prominently throughout Rand's literary and philosophical corpus. (shrink)

The derivation of a category of ‘environmental rights’ (as argued in this journal by Margaret DeMerieux) from certain cases heard in the European Court of Human Rights is examined. Opposing the majority judicial opinion of that court, there is emerging a dissenting view which is reluctant to extend a rights perspective to those nuisances which can, in theory, be avoided by relocation of the family home. This critique is then extended to Marcic v Thames Water Utilities in which the claimant (...) used the Human Rights Act 1998 (as well as common law) to secure damages for an environmental threat (flooding) to his home. It is further argued that any ‘rights’ dimension currently attached to environmental intrusion on private life will give way to policy imperatives once the effects of climate change come to be recognized. (shrink)

In this paper, we continue investigations into the asymptotic behavior of solutions of differential equations over o-minimal structures.Let ℜ be an expansion of the real field (ℝ, +, ·).A differentiable mapF= (F1,…,F1): (a, b) → ℝiisℜ-Pfaffianif there existsG: ℝ1+l→ ℝldefinable in ℜ such thatF′(t) =G(t, F(t)) for allt∈ (a, b) and each component functionGi: ℝ1+l→ ℝ is independent of the lastl−ivariables (i= 1, …,l). If ℜ is o-minimal andF: (a, b) → ℝlis ℜ-Pfaffian, then (ℜ,F) is o-minimal (Proposition 7). We (...) say thatF: ℝ → ℝlis ultimately ℜ-Pfaffian if there existsr∈ ℝ such that the restrictionF↾(r, ∞) is ℜ-Pfaffian. (In general,ultimatelyabbreviates “for all sufficiently large positive arguments”.)The structure ℜ isclosed under asymptotic integrationif for each ultimately non-zero unary (that is, ℝ → ℝ) functionfdefinable in ℜ there is an ultimately differentiable unary functiongdefinable in ℜ such that limt→+∞[g′(t)/f(t)] = 1- If ℜ is closed under asymptotic integration, then ℜ is o-minimal and definesex: ℝ → ℝ (Proposition 2).Note that the above definitions make sense for expansions of arbitrary ordered fields. (shrink)