1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

S. Adams, W. Ambrose, A. Andretta, H. Becker, R. Camerlo, C. Champetier, J.P.R. Christensen, D.E. Cohen, A. Connes. C. Dellacherie, R. Dougherty, R.H. Farrell, F. Feldman, A. Furman, D. Gaboriau, S. Gao, V. Ya. Golodets, P. Hahn, P. de la Harpe, G. Hjorth, S. Jackson, S. Kahane, A.S. Kechris, A. Louveau,, R. Lyons, P.-A. Meyer, C.C. Moore, M.G. Nadkarni, C. Nebbia, A.L.T. Patterson, U. Krengel, A.J. Kuntz, J.-P. Serre, S.D. Sinel'shchikov, T. Slaman, Solecki, R. Spatzier, J. Steel, D. Sullivan, S. (...) Thomas, A. Valette, V.S. Varadarajan, B. Velickovic, B. Weiss, J.D.M. Wright, R.J. Zimmer. (shrink)

In this book, Professor Adkins undertakes an examination of certain key value-words in the period between Homer and the end of the fifth century. The behavior of these words both affected and was affected by the nature of the society in which their usage developed. The author shows how only with a complete understanding of the implications and significance of these value-words can the essence of the Greeks and their society be grasped.

This is an original and stimulating collection of articles by scholars trained in classics, moral philosophy, political science, literature, and intellectual history. Its principal objective is to convey to the modern reader a sophisticated understanding of Homeric and Classical Greek morality and how it differs from our own. Some of the articles focus primarily on Greek value concepts, especially the concept of arete. Others compare those concepts to modern notions of virtue and tolerance, as well as to the work of (...) contemporary literary figures and philosophers, including T.S. Eliot, Alasdair Macintyre, John Wallace, and Philippa Foot. Throughout, the juxtaposition of ancient and modern ideas and the worldviews they presuppose makes these readings both intellectually exciting and revealing. (shrink)

Philosophy of science and, more specifically, philosophy of quantum physics can be but special fields of a general philosophy of knowledge; and the problems arising in these fields can be evaluated properly only when they are seen under the perspective of the whole range of human knowledge. This paper deals with problems of quantum physics and, in particular, with the problem of scientific objects in quantum physics from the epistemological point of view previously defined in the author's books, A Philosophy (...) of Science and The Basis and Structure of Knowledge. The argument of the paper, however, has not been stated before in the direct and concise manner here attempted and may therefore contain elements of novelty even for those readers who are familiar with the books just mentioned. (shrink)

In this paper I wish to discuss a problem which, though it has not in the recent past attracted the attention of many philosophers, nevertheless, in my opinion, belongs quite clearly to that branch of the subject which should rightly be called “philosophy of history”: the problem, namely, of history's intelligibility. Two main questions can be asked about this which it is important that philosophers should answer. The first is that of whether history is intelligible in the sense that we (...) can find intelligible connections bètween all or any of its parts. The significance of this question is apparent enough; for has not one of the philosopher's most pressing problems since Hume's time been that of whether any such connections are traceable in the world of fact? It is true that almost every theory on this subject has been put forward after a consideration of the sphere of physical nature only; but because this procedure has been universally followed, it is not therefore to be accepted as right. For history too offers us facts, and it is at least possible that these differ in important ways from those to be met with in nature, with the result that we can discover other sorts of connection between them than those which the physical sciences recognize. The possibility would seem to be worth investigation, and it is with it that I shall be concerned in the first part of my paper. In the other half I deal with the second main question about historical intelligibility. Supposing that we can find some cases of historical events being intrinsically, i.e. intelligibly related, we can go on to ask whether history is intelligible in a more ultimate sense. Is history, we can now inquire, a thing which is essentially rational, or is the rationality we can find in it of a merely superficial character? To put the problem somewhat more fully, is the historian able to do more than see intrinsic connections between the events which he investigates: can he go further and understand the course of history as a whole, so that he is able to say, in the popular phrases, that history “makes sense,” is “meaningful” and “has rhyme and reason” in it? It seems to me that this is a matter which certainly ought to be discussed by philosophers, if only for the assertion of history's rationality which some philosophers have made. (shrink)

“My only pride is that I am a human being—ein Mensch.” So Kant wrote in one of his Marginalia in his copy of the “Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen” of 1764. And he confessed that he had learned from Rousseau “to honor man.” But we may well ask, What really is at issue here?