In this article, we present results from a literature review of intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values of nature conducted for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, as part of the Methodological Assessment of the Diverse Values and Valuations of Nature. We identify the most frequently recurring meanings in the heterogeneous use of different value types and their association with worldviews and other key concepts. From frequent uses, we determine a core meaning for each value type, which is (...) sufficiently inclusive to serve as an umbrella over different understandings in the literature and specific enough to help highlight its difference from the other types of values. Finally, we discuss convergences, overlapping areas, and fuzzy boundaries between different value types to facilitate dialogue, reduce misunderstandings, and improve the methods for valuation of nature's contributions to people, including ecosystem services, to inform policy and direct future research. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. (shrink)

Dictionary of the Vedanta philosophy of Śaṅkarācārya.

In Knowledge and Its Limits Timothy Williamson argues against the luminosity of phenomenal states in general by way of arguing against the luminosity of feeling cold, that is, against the view that if one feels cold, one is at least in a position to know that one does. In this paper I consider four strategies that emerge from his discussion, and argue that none succeeds.

In his influential paper 'Speaker's Reference and Semantic Reference', Kripke defends Russell's theory of descriptions against the charge that the existence of referential and attributive uses of descriptions reflects a semantic ambiguity. He presents a purely defensive argument to show that Russell's theory is not refuted by the referential usage and a number of methodological considerations which apparently tell in favour of Russell's unitary theory over an ambiguity theory. In this paper, I put forward a case for the ambiguity theory (...) that thwarts Kripke's defensive strategy and argue that it is not undermined by any of his methodological points. (shrink)

Eye-related movements such as blinks and microsaccades are modulated during bistable perceptual tasks. However, if they play an active role during internal perceptual switches is not known. We conducted two experiments involving an ambiguous plaid stimulus, wherein participants were asked to continuously report their percept, which could consist of either unidirectional coherent or bidirectional component movement. Our main results show that blinks and microsaccades did not facilitate perceptual switches. On the contrary, a reduction in eye movements preceded the perceptual switch. (...) Blanks, on the other hand, thought to mimic the retinal consequences of a blink, consistently led to a switch. Through the timing of the blank-introduced perceptual change, we were able to estimate the delay between the internal switch and the response. This delay further allowed us to evaluate that the reduction in blink probability co-occurred with the internal perceptual switch. Additionally, our results indicate that distinct internal processes underlie the switch to coherent vs. component percept. Blanks exclusively facilitated a switch to the coherent percept, and only the switch to coherent percept was followed by an increase in blink rate. In a second study, we largely replicated the findings and included a microsaccade analysis. Microsaccades only showed a weak relation with perceptual switches, but their direction was correlated with the perceived motion direction. Nevertheless, our data suggests an interaction between microsaccades and blinks by showing that microsaccades were differently modulated around blinks compared with blanks. This study shows that a reduction in eye movements precedes internal perceptual switches indicating that the rate of blinks can set the stage for a reinterpretation of sensory input. While a perceptual switch based on changed sensory input usually leads to an increase in blink rate, such an increase was only present after the perceptual switch to coherent motion but absent after the switch to component percept. This provides evidence of different underlying mechanism or internal consequence of the two perceptual switches and suggests that blinks can uncover differences in internal percept-related processes that are not evident from the percept itself. (shrink)

A historical investigation of the exclusion of Africa and Asia from modern histories of philosophy.

Anonymous verse work of the fundamentals of the Advaita school in Hindu philosophy.

Spontaneous eye blinks are modulated around perceptual events. Our previous study, using a visual ambiguous stimulus, indicated that blink probability decreases before a reported perceptual switch. In the current study, we tested our hypothesis that an absence of blinks marks a time in which perceptual switches are facilitated in‐ and outside the visual domain. In three experiments, presenting either a visual motion quartet in light or darkness or a bistable auditory streaming stimulus, we found a co‐occurrence of blink rate reduction (...) with increased perceptual switch probability. In the visual domain, perceptual switches induced by a short interruption of visual input (blank) allowed an estimate of the timing of the perceptual event with respect to the motor response. This provided the first evidence that the blink reduction was not a consequence of the perceptual switch. Importantly, by showing that the time between switches and the previous blink was significantly longer than the inter‐blink interval, our studies allowed to conclude that perceptual switches did not happen at random but followed a prolonged period of nonblinking. Correspondingly, blink rate and switch rate showed an inverse relationship. Our study supports the idea that the absence or presence of blinks maps perceptual processes independent of the sensory modality. (shrink)

Whistleblowing is the act of disclosing information from a public or private organization in order to reveal cases of corruption that are of immediate or potential danger to the public. Blowing the whistle involves personal risk, especially when legal protection is absent, and charges of betrayal, which often come in the form of legal prosecution under treason laws. In this article we argue that whistleblowing is justified when disclosures are made with the proper intent and fulfill specific communicative constraints in (...) addressing issues of public interest. Three communicative constraints of informativeness, truthfulness and evidence are discussed in this regard. We develop a ‘harm test’ to assess the intent for disclosures, concluding that it is not sufficient for justification. Along with the proper intent, a successful act of whistleblowing should provide information that serves the public interest. Taking cognizance of the varied conceptions of public interest, we present an account of public interest that fits the framework of whistleblowing disclosures. In particular, we argue that whistleblowing is justified inter alia when the information it conveys is of a presumptive interest for a public insofar as it reveals an instance of injustice or violation of a civil or political right done against and unbeknown to some members of a polity. (shrink)

Whistleblowing is the public disclosure of information with the purpose of revealing wrongdoings and abuses of power that harm the public interest. This book presents a comprehensive theory of whistleblowing: it defines the concept, reconstructs its origins, discusses it within the current ethical debate, and elaborates a justification of unauthorized disclosures. Its normative proposal is based on three criteria of permissibility: the communicative constraints, the intent, and the public interest conditions. The book distinguishes between two forms of whistleblowing, civic and (...) political, showing how they apply in the contexts of corruption and government secrecy. The book articulates a conception of public interest as a claim concerning the presumptive interest of the public. It argues that public interest is defined in opposition to corporate powers and its core content identified by the rights that are all-purposive for the distribution of social benefits. A crucial part of the proposal is dedicated to the impact of security policies and government secrecy on civil liberties. It argues that unrestrained secrecy limits the epistemic entitlement of citizens to know under which conditions their rights are limited by security policies and corporate interests. When citizens are denied the right to assess when these policies are prejudicial to their freedoms, whistleblowing represents a legitimate form of political agency that safeguards the fundamental rights of citizens against the threat of unrestrained secrecy by government power. Finally, the book contributes to shifting the attention of democratic theory from the procedures of consent formation to the mechanisms that guarantee the expression of dissent. It argues that whistleblowing is a distinctive form of civil dissent that contributes to the demands of institutional transparency in constitutional democracies and explores the idea that the way institutions are responsive to dissent determines the robustness of democracy, and ultimately, its legitimacy. What place dissenters have within a society, whether they enjoy personal safety, legal protection, and safe channels for their disclosure, are hallmarks of a good democracy, and of its sense of justice. (shrink)

This article examines how skilled middle-class Tamil women—an Indian regional group—negotiate with gender to strategize immigration to and settlement in the United States by drawing on life-history interviews with 33 first-generation professional women, most of whom entered the United States as family migrants. I find that the women negotiate with gender to configure Tamil Brahminical relations of subordination, thereby asserting their subjectivity through “strident embedded agency” in immigration. In this way, they realize gender non-normative desires for immigration, engage in gender (...) non-normative actions, and perform normative actions in reconstituted ways. Even as their strident embedded agency facilitates their embodiment of configured Tamil womanhood, it produces Tamil Brahmin relations of subordination. This article delineates the complexity of women’s subjectivities and agency and Tamil women’s agential strategizing of immigration as emergent from their gendered and caste/classed social locations. (shrink)

On David Lewis's original analysis of causation, c causes e only if c is linked to e by a chain of distinct events such that each event in the chain (counter-factually) depends on the former one. But this requirement precludes the possibility of late pre-emptive causation, of causation by fragile events, and of indeterministic causation. Lewis proposes three different strategies for accommodating these three kinds of cases, but none of these turn out to be satisfactory. I offer a single analysis (...) of causation that resolves these problems in one go but which respects Lewis's initial insights. One distinctive feature of my account is that it accommodates indeterministic causation without resorting to probabilities. (shrink)

Tracking accounts of knowledge were originally motivated by putative counter-examples to epistemic closure. But, as is now well known, these early accounts have many highly counterintuitive consequences. In this note, I motivate a tracking-based account which respects closure but which resolves many of the familiar problems for earlier tracking account along the way.

The leading idea of this article is that one cannot acquire knowledge of any non-epistemic fact by virtue of knowing that one that knows something. The lines of reasoning involved in the surprise exam paradox and in Williamson’s _reductio_ of the KK-principle, which demand that one can, are thereby undermined, and new type of counter-example to epistemic closure emerges.

A slight modification to the translation scheme for David Lewis's counterpart theory I put forward in 'An Alternative Translation Scheme for Counterpart Theory' (Analysis 49.3 (1989)) is proposed. The motivation for this change is that it makes for a more plausible account of contingent identity. In particular, contingent identity is accommodated without admitting the contingency of self-identity.

Comics has always had a critical engagement with socio-political and cultural issues and hence evolved into a medium with a subversive power to challenge the status quo. Staying true to the criticality of the medium, graphic medicine critiques the exploitative and unethical practices in the field of healthcare, thereby creating a critical consciousness in the reader. In close reading select graphic pathographies such as Gabby Schulz's Sick, Emily Steinberg's Broken Eggs, Ellen Forney's Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo & Me and Marisa (...) Marchetto's Cancer Vixen, the present article delineates how graphic medicine interrogates the larger than life forces in the field of healthcare. Drawing specific instances from the aforementioned graphic texts, the essay demonstrates that graphic medicine scrutinizes the political economy of health under capitalism. In so doing, the article illustrates how the pharmaceutical corporations, insurance companies, medical technology, and healthcare corporations marketize and commoditize health in the neoliberal era. Finally, the article attempts to theorize how graphic pathographies, mediating subjective experiences, generate a new critical literacy through the conflation of the personal and the political in the verbovisual medium of comics. (shrink)

Innovation has been widely regarded as a powerful tool for stimulating economic growth and changing the quality of human life since the beginning of time. Innovation will continue to remain a key driving force for sustainability and growth in the current economic global slowdown. At present there are hardly any studies that show why innovation is successful at some organizations, and yet fails to achieve the desired results at others. The authors investigate the role of “core values and beliefs” of (...) leading innovative companies in India and abroad on how they go about building a unique innovation culture which ensures their continuous growth even in troubled times. (shrink)

Murali Ramachandran; V*—Methodological Reflections on Two Kripkean Strategies, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 95, Issue 1, 1 June 1995, Pages 6.

André Gallois (1998) attempts to defend the occasional identity thesis (OIT), the thesis that objects which are distinct at one time may nonetheless be identical at another time, in the face of two influential lines of argument against it. One argument involves Kripke’s (1971) notion of rigid designation and the other, Leibniz’s law (affirming the indiscernibility of identicals). It is reasonable for advocates of (OIT) to question the picture of rigid designation and the version of Leibniz’s law that these arguments (...) employ, but, the problem is, some form of rigidity is required for one to affirm the occasional identity of objects, and some (restricted) version of Leibniz’s law must be conceded if identity really is involved. Gallois accordingly recommends an account of rigidity and a version of Leibniz’s law to this end.1 We find Gallois’ proposals entirely inadequate to their task. We aim in this paper is to explicate and defend an alternative approach for occasional identity theorists. We do not seek to defend (OIT) per se; our aim, rather, is simply to show that the arguments from rigid designation and Leibniz’s law are inconclusive. Let’s begin with an outline of these arguments. (shrink)

Hempel‘s paradox of the ravens, and his take on it, are meant to be understood as being restricted to situations where we have no additional background information. According to him, in the absence of any such information, observations of FGs confirm the hypothesis that all Fs are G. In this paper I argue against this principle by way of considering two other paradoxes of confirmation, Goodman‘s 'grue‘ paradox and the 'tacking‘ (or 'irrelevant conjunct‘) paradox. What these paradoxes reveal, I argue, (...) is that a presumption of causal realism is required to ground any confirmation; but once we grant causal realism, we have no reason to accept the central principles giving rise to the paradoxes. (shrink)

Aims. Saul Kripke’s (1977) argument defending Russell’s theory of (definite) descriptions (RTD) against the possible objection that Donnellan’s (1966) distinction between attributive and referential uses of descriptions marks a semantic ambiguity has been highly influential.1 Yet, as I hope you’ll be persuaded, Kripke’s line of reasoning— in particular, the ‘thought-experiment’ it involves—has not been duly explored. In section II, I argue that while Kripke’s argument does ward off a fairly ill-motivated ambiguity theory, it is far from clear whether it would (...) succeed against more realistic candidates. If the central point I make in this regard is correct, it tells not only against Kripke’s argument but also against what has become a fairly orthodox line against the ambiguity thesis (as I shall call it). In section III, I compare Kripke’s defence of Russell with his ‘schmidentity’ argument (1980, p. 108), which involves essentially the same kind of thought-experiment. But, as I shall show, the latter argument contains an added twist which converts what otherwise would be merely a defence of one semantic theory into an attack against its rival. In section IV, I argue that the offensive strategy is unsound and attempt to locate its error. I conclude by drawing a (not unfamiliar) moral concerning the semantics—pragmatics distinction. (shrink)

This paper considers, and rejects, three strategies aimed at showing that the KK-principle fails even in most favourable circumstances (all emerging from Williamson’s Knowledge and its Limits ). The case against the final strategy provides positive grounds for thinking that the principle should hold good in such situations.

One of Strawson's objections to Russell's theory of descriptions is that what are intuitively natural and correct utterances of sentences involving incomplete descriptions come out false by RTD. Russellians have responded, not by challenging Strawson's view that these uses are natural and correct, but by embellishing RTD to accommodate these uses. I pursue an alternative line of attack: I argue that there are circumstances in which "we" would find utterances of such sentences unnatural and improper but "RTD" would sanction. So, (...) RTD clashes with ordinary language, as Strawson suggests. (shrink)

Advocates of occasional identity have two ways of interpreting putative cases of fission and fusion. One way—we call it the Creative view—takes fission to involve an object really dividing (or being replicated), thereby creating objects which would not otherwise have existed. The more ontologically parsimonious way takes fission to involve merely the ‘separation’ of objects that were identical before: strictly speaking, no object actually divides or is replicated, no new objects are created. In this paper we recommend the Creative approach (...) as the best way of dealing with certain problem cases involving teletransportation. Our considerations yield novel takes on psychological-continuity theories of personal identity and survival, and on the puzzle of Theseus' ship. (shrink)

How (Not) to Be Secular is what Jamie Smith calls "your hitchhiker's guide to the present" -- it is both a reading guide to Charles Taylor's monumental work A Secular Age and philosophical guidance on how we might learn to live in our times. Taylor's landmark book A Secular Age (2007) provides a monumental, incisive analysis of what it means to live in the post-Christian present -- a pluralist world of competing beliefs and growing unbelief. Jamie Smith's book is a (...) compact field guide to Taylor's insightful study of the secular, making that very significant but daunting work accessible to a wide array of readers. Even more, though, Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is a practical philosophical guidebook, a kind of how-to manual on how to live in our secular age. It ultimately offers us an adventure in self-understanding and maps out a way to get our bearings in today's secular culture, no matter who "we" are -- whether believers or skeptics, devout or doubting, self-assured or puzzled and confused. This is a book for any thinking person to chew on. (shrink)

In a heart-wrenching TEDx Beacon Street talk entitled "A Journey Through Infertility: Over Terror's Edge", Camille Preston narrates her traumatic journey through infertility. Although she is now the mother of a child, Preston's characterization of infertility as "over terror's edge" and as "a journey" finds a graphic expression in Paula Knight's The Facts of Life, Emily Steinberg's Broken Eggs, and Phoebe Potts's Good Eggs. Unlike Preston, these authors do not give birth to a child; however, they authentically portray the tribulations (...) of infertility in their respective graphic memoirs. While Knight's memoir chronicles her traumatic experience of being an infertile woman in a society that... (shrink)

The conspicuous absence of personal articulations of miscarriage in mainstream discourses attests to the stigmatised nature of the experience. Notably, there exists a growing body of infertility comics which foreground the authors’ lived realities of miscarriage. In a close reading of select graphic memoirs such as Jenell Johnson’s Present/perfect, Paula Knight’s The Facts of Life, Phoebe Potts’ Good Eggs, and Diane Noomin’s Baby Talk, this article examines how the authors use comics to foreground their predicament. In so doing, the essay (...) argues that these narratives attempt to accord a cultural legitimacy to the hitherto silenced experiential realities of miscarriage. (shrink)