Two experiments are reported that evaluated survey learning of youth with DS and typically developing children (TD) matched on Mental Age (MA). In Experiment 1, the experimenter navigated participants through a novel virtual environment along a circuitous path, beginning and ending at a target landmark (i.e., a door). Then, the participants were placed at a pre-specified location in the environment and instructed to navigate to the same door using the shortest possible path from their current location. They completed the task (...) three times: once after being shown the environment one time, once after three exposures, and once after five exposures. Results indicated that the participants with DS exhibited significantly less skill at identifying the shortcut than did the TD participants. In Experiment 2, participants learned two overlapping routes through a simple environment. Following acquisition, they were tested on several measures of survey knowledge: finding a shortcut, identifying the direction of landmarks not currently visible from their location in the environment, and recognizing a bird’s-eye representation of the overall environment. The results of Experiment2 indicated that the participants with DS were at least as good as the TD participants on all of our measures of survey learning. Hence, we concluded that people with DS can acquire some survey knowledge when they learn a simple environment. However, the performance of both groups was relatively poor in Experiment 2, indicating a need to consider identifying the mechanisms underlying the poor performance on wayfinding of people with DS. Identifying the underlying mechanisms, is a logical first step in devising methods of enhancing environmental learning of people with DS. (shrink)

We give a new proof of the subanalyticity of the regular locus of a p-adic subanalytic set, replacing use of an approximation theorem by a more natural argument based on the flatness of certain homomorphisms given by Taylor expansions of strictly convergent power series at a non-standard point of Zmp.

The word ought is often used to express moral judgments. It is used to express moral laws, as in “We ought to honour our parents”; and it is used to express singular moral judgments, as in “You ought not to have spoken to your mother like that”". Some singular moral judgments are clearly deductions from some moral law, as is “You ought not to have spoken to your mother like that”. Others, however, are not clearly so, e.g. “You ought not (...) to have done that”. Where both the agent and the action are indicated merely by a contextual reference, no underlying moral law is suggested by the words alone. Even when the singular judgment characterizes both the agent and the action, as “You, being a strong man, ought to have gone to his aid”, it may still be quite obscure what, if any, moral law implies this judgment. Clearly there is no moral law that “Every strong man ought always to go to everybody's aid”. (shrink)

According to a (once) venerable tradition, our knowledge of the external world is crucially dependent on divine favor: our ability to obtain knowledge of the world around us is made possible by God’s having so ordered things. I argue that this view, despite its unpopularity among con­temporary philosophers, is supported by a certain inference to the best explanation: namely, it provides an effective way of reconciling two widely held beliefs that, on the assumption of naturalism, appear incompatible: (1) that knowledge (...) is incompatible with the kind of luck present in Gettier sce­narios and (2) that arguments for external world skepticism can be effectively rebutted by “shifting” them in the style of G. E. Moore. (shrink)

BackgroundSuicide research aims to contribute to a better understanding of suicidal behaviour and its prevention. However, there are many ethical challenges in this research field, for example, regarding consent and potential risks to participants. While studies to-date have focused on the perspective of the researchers, this study aimed to investigate the views and experiences of members of Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) in dealing with suicide-related study applications.MethodsThis qualitative study entailed a thematic analysis using an inductive approach. We conducted semi-structured (...) interviews with a purposive sample (N = 15) of HREC Chairs or their delegates from Australian research-intensive universities. The interview guide included questions regarding the ethical concerns and challenges in suicide-related research raised by HREC members, how they dealt with those challenges and what advice they could give to researchers.ResultsThe analysis identified four main themes: (1) HREC members’ experiences of reviewing suicide-related study applications, (2) HREC members’ perceptions of suicide, suicide research, and study participants, (3) Complexity in HREC members’ decision-making processes, and (4) HREC members’ relationships with researchers.ConclusionsReliance on ethical guidelines and dialogue with researchers are crucial in the assessment of suicide-related study applications. Both researchers and HREC members may benefit from guidance and resources on how to conduct ethically sound suicide-related studies. Developing working relationships will be likely to help HRECs to facilitate high quality, ethical suicide-related research and researchers to conduct such research. (shrink)

Geologically speaking, the Anthropocene marks the end of the Holocene period, a time of great planetary stability. Conceptually speaking, the Anthropocene marks the end of the Modernist period, a time of great epistemic stability. As scientific framings of sustainability strain under anthro­pocenic realities, reconceptualizing sustainability may be necessary. By positioning human/nature relations beyond Modernist dichotomies under­pinning scientific discourse, the implications of the Anthropocene shift from methodological to ontological, dislodging sustainability from its traditional scientific foundations. To this, we propose new stability (...) through four interlinked approaches to sustainability’s complex challenges, offering a framework for thought and action beyond Modernist framings of sustainability and opening essential roles to often-marginalized interpretive social sciences and humanities. (shrink)

Geologically speaking, the Anthropocene marks the end of the Holocene period, a time of great planetary stability. Conceptually speaking, the Anthropocene marks the end of the Modernist period, a time of great epistemic stability. As scientific framings of sustainability strain under anthro­pocenic realities, reconceptualizing sustainability may be necessary. By positioning human/nature relations beyond Modernist dichotomies under­pinning scientific discourse, the implications of the Anthropocene shift from methodological to ontological, dislodging sustainability from its traditional scientific foundations. To this, we propose new stability (...) through four interlinked approaches to sustainability’s complex challenges, offering a framework for thought and action beyond Modernist framings of sustainability and opening essential roles to often-marginalized interpretive social sciences and humanities. (shrink)

The essays in this volume explore the ways rights were available to those on the margins. By tracing pivotal judicial concepts such as 'right of necessity' and 'subjective rights' from their medieval versions, and by situating them in unexpected contexts such as the Franciscans' theory of poverty and colonization or today's immigration and border control, this volume invites its readers to consider whether individual rights were in fact or in theory available to the marginalized. By focusing not only on those (...) who are economically impoverished but also those who were disenfranchised because of disability, gender, race, religion or infidelity, the book also sheds light on the relationship between the early history of individual rights and social justice at the margins. (shrink)

The enduring influence of the architect Gottfried Semper derives primarily from his monumental theoretical foray Der Stil in der technischen und tektonischen Künsten, here translated into English for the first time. A richly illustrated survey of the technical arts, Semper's analysis of the preconditions of style forever changed the interpretative context for aesthetics, architecture, and art history. Style, Semper believed, should be governed by historical function, cultural affinities, creative free will, and the innate properties of each medium. Thus, in an (...) ambitious attempt to turn nineteenth-century artistic discussion away from historicism, aestheticism, and materialism, Semper developed in Der Stil a complex picture of stylistic change based on scrutiny of specific objects and a remarkable grasp of cultural variety. Harry Francis Mallgrave's introductory essay offers an account of Semper's life and work, a survey of Der Stil, and a fresh consideration of Semper's landmark study and its lasting significance. (shrink)

The paper presents a general critique of the use of conceptual frameworks in design, illustrated by the well known synchronous/asynchronous, co-located/non-co-located framework. It argues that while frameworks are a necessary and inevitable starting point for design, the business of tailoring and adapting them to specific situations need not be ad hoc.Triggering artefacts are a way of systematically challenging both designers' preunderstandings and the conservatism of work practice. Experiences from the Great Belt tunnel and bridge project are used to illustrate howtriggering (...) artefacts change themodality of designing for change. (shrink)

Kok-Chor Tan argues that cosmopolitan liberalism can serve as a means to implement the ideal of moral universalism, if one sufficiently distinguishes non-toleration from intervention and moral universalism from dogmatism. In a further move, Tan claims that such an understanding of cosmopolitan liberalism can work to mutually regulate the behavior of states in the global arena. Tan’s co-panelists engage different aspects of his vision. Steve Coutinho underscores that changes within cultures do not typically result from a dialogue across cultures but (...) from within individual cultures. Instead of propping up universal morality on the ideal of cosmopolitan liberalism, we should, Coutinho proposes, work toward finding values that have been implemented to create practical circumstances that resemble those found in liberal cultures. Putting the spotlight on the historical context of liberal cosmopolitanism, Zachary Penman argues that to engage in a global dialogue, the onus is on cosmopolitan liberals to shift the geography of reasoning from imperiality to decoloniality. Equally, their decolonial partners in this dialogue should throw into light the normative content of their decolonial practical reason to facilitate the shift. Saranindranath Tagore encourages Tan to think about a more expanded account of autonomy that is set on a more explicit cosmopolitan register. To this end, he suggests that a cosmopolitan sensibility be fostered through education. Sympathetic to Tan’s larger project of a liberal cosmopolitanism that subscribes to epistemic modesty, Inés Valdez brings into focus structures of epistemic dogmatism that currently allow for political and economic control and exploitation of other peoples and their resources. Tan’s response considers how his own defense of liberal cosmopolitanism as well as his interlocutors’ responses relate to the broader project of decolonizing philosophy. (shrink)

Increasingly, palliative care is being referred to as an essential programme and in some cases as a human right. Once it is recognized as such, it becomes part of the lexicon of social justice in that it can be argued that all members of society should have access to such care. However, this begs the question of how that care should be enacted, particularly in rural and remote areas. This question illustrates some of Friedrich Hayek's critiques of social justice. Hayek (...) has likened social justice to a ‘moral stone’ arguing that social justice is meaningless to the extent that society is impersonal and as such cannot be just, only those individuals who make up that society can be just. When responsibility for justice is assigned to an impersonal society, ideas of social justice can become a clarion call for whom no one is directly accountable. This opens the door for questionable macro‐level political agendas that have no capacity to enact the ideal, and worse, may suppress individual moral acts towards the desired end. Further, acts of interference at the macro level with the ideal of equal opportunity run the risk of disadvantaging other members of society. Instead, he has argued that a better approach lies in finding ways to induce and support individual moral acts that promote the human good. Hayek's arguments are particularly compelling for rural palliative care. In this paper we draw upon data from an ethnographic study in rural palliative care to illustrate the potential misfit between the ethical ideal of palliative care as expressed by rural participants and the narratives of social justice. (shrink)

This book diagnoses an urgent need for change and renewal in a period of crisis for philosophy, science and society. The Florentine Renaissance, some six hundred years ago, took a huge leap forward into realism, rationality and self-awareness. It was born out of the waning authority of medieval institutions and beliefs.We stand now at a similar junction in history. It is apparent to many that reductionist science with its materialist values -- the worldview that has driven modern culture for the (...) last two centuries -- is losing credibility. Its objectives of growth and acquisition, and its guiding principles asserting that there is no intrinsic meaning to life or purpose in the cosmos, are now widely seen as creating an unsustainable world. The essays gathered in A New Renaissance are a cultural response to the failings of the materialist worldview. Contributions in the first part diagnose the sources of the crisis in today's world. The second section searches for a new understanding of consciousness and mind, based on findings in recent non-materialist philosophy. The third section looks to a renewal of spirituality beyond religion, aiming to recapture the personal depth and connection to the cosmos that materialism denies or ignores. The fourth section examines possible reforms in politics, economics and education to help bring forth a society that can sustain the flourishing of human beings in the globally interconnected world of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

From industrial psychology and occupational therapy to the laboratory bench and scenes of “heroic” fieldwork, there are important connections between the science of labor and the labor of science. Participants in the 2022 Gordon Cain Conference explored how greater attention to these connections might deepen historical understanding of what constitutes “science” and what counts as “labor.” Our conversations circled around themes of vulnerability (of systems, individual bodies, historical testimony), affect (pertaining to historical actors and ourselves), and interdependence (e.g. across human (...) groups, species, political boundaries, and time). For the members of this group, which grew out of a panel discussion, these themes and motivations coalesced around a topical focus on invisibility, which helped us to articulate – in the form of a co-created syllabus – research questions about science and labor from multiple angles pertaining to practice, archival preservation, and scholarly representation. This syllabus is organized into six thematic modules that aim to challenge and historicize the concept of invisible labor by facilitating comparisons across geographic, temporal, conceptual, and disciplinary boundaries. The goals of this collaborative syllabus, in sum, are manifold: we seek to facilitate more inclusive histories of science through critical engagement with “invisibility” and thereby promote a more expansive understanding of what constitutes scientific labor; to highlight the constitutive role of gendered labor practices in the scientific enterprise; to draw attention to interdependencies that make all forms of production (knowledge or material) possible; to elucidate systems of remuneration for scientific labor over the longue durée and through pointed comparisons; and, finally, to promote self-reflexivity about the methods we use to narrate the history of science and make sense of our own labors. (shrink)

Jenefer Robinson takes the insights of modern scientific research on the emotions and uses them to illuminate questions about our emotional involvement with the arts. Laying out a theory of emotion supported by the best evidence from current empirical work, she examines some of the ways in which the emotions function in the arts. Written in a clear and engaging style, her book will make fascinating reading for anyone interested in the emotions and how they work, as well as (...) anyone engaged with the arts and aesthetics. (shrink)

(Goodsell, Journal of Philosophical Logic, 51(1), 127-150 2022) establishes the noncontingency of sentences of first-order arithmetic, in a plausible higher-order modal logic. Here, the same result is derived using significantly weaker assumptions. Most notably, the assumption of rigid comprehension—that every property is coextensive with a modally rigid one—is weakened to the assumption that the Boolean algebra of properties under necessitation is countably complete. The results are generalized to extensions of the language of arithmetic, and are applied to answer a question (...) posed by Bacon and Dorr (2024). (shrink)

In the heart of southeast Texas, an industrial powerhouse often referred to as the 'Golden Triangle', the oil refineries and petrochemical plants stand as stalwart testaments to the region's economic evolution. Interestingly, before the discovery of oil at Spindletop, the lumber and cattle industries powered this region's economy. A profound shift occurred when the Lucas Gusher, a fountain of oil spurting thousands of feet into the air, struck the lands of Spindletop Hill on January 10, 1901. This remarkable discovery of (...) the Spindletop oilfield on a slat dome formation south of Beaumont, Texas, marked the birth of the modern petroleum industry and fundamentally transformed the region's geopolitical, economic, and cultural landscapes. People from all over the country relocated to Gladys City and Beaumont in search of work and new opportunities, creating a boomtown as the town's population swelled from 10,000 to 50,000. The newfound urbanization brought by the oil industry transformed the town and the surrounding areas, creating a ripple effect across the region that would be felt for generations to come. The surge in oil-driven economic activity transmuted the region into a vibrant nexus of commerce, with the oil industry emerging as a critical architect of growth and advancement. This newfound affluence incited by the petroleum sector ushered in an era of economic diversification, laying the groundwork for industrialization’s further evolution. The Spindletop Oil Fields not only underscored the United States’ ascent as the foremost petroleum-producing nation but also signaled the nation’s initiation into the Petroleum Age. It was Spindletop that solidified its position as America’s first significant oil field, becoming an enduring symbol of its industrial might. By 1985, over 153,000,000 barrels of oil had been produced and extracted from the Spindletop oil fields, underscoring the magnitude of this extraordinary resource. (shrink)

This book gives a descriptive analysis of specific Madhyamika texts. It compares the ideology of Kumarajiva (a translator of the four Madhyamika treatises 400 A.D.) with the ideologies of the three Chinese contemporaries - HuiYuan, Seng-Jui and Seng-Chao. It envisages an intercultural transmission of religious and philosophical ideas from India to China.

A revisionist view incorrectly identifies a growing awareness of historical and cultural relativity by scholars of Roman law in sixteenth-century France with a modern historical consciousness. Friedrich Meinecke more correctly identified historicism as the juncture of the ideas of individuality and development. The perception by these Renaissance scholars of successive changes in language and law only constitutes an awareness of individuality, not of an idea of development. They conceived of an entity as unfolding from a germ or essence, an essential (...) quality which defined it as an individuality. They could not conceive of an entity as developing in relation to its circumstances. (shrink)

Moral encroachment is the thesis that morality has an effect---unrecognized by traditional epistemology---on which doxastic states are epistemically appropriate. The thesis is increasingly popular among those who, in opposition to Gendler (2011), desire harmony between epistemic and moral demands on belief. This paper has three main goals. First, drawing on attractive structural principles concerning belief and justification, it is shown that a thoroughgoing harmony between moral and epistemic demands is implausible. This weakens the motivation for positing moral encroachment, but a (...) proponent might still hope that moral encroachment can have a significant effect, so that many of the central cases of apparent disharmony can be avoided. The next goal of the paper is to argue that any significant effect of moral encroachment would manifest itself in the credences which are most epistemically appropriate. Finally, it is shown that even a small effect of moral encroachment on credence is in tension with widely accepted basic constraints on epistemically appropriate credence. (shrink)

Doxastic normativism is the thesis that norms are constitutive of or essential to belief, such that no mental state not subject to those norms counts as a belief. A common normativist view is that belief is essentially governed by a norm of truth. According to Krister Bykvist and Anandi Hattiangadi, truth norms for belief cannot be formulated without unpalatable consequences: they are either false or they impose unsatisfiable requirements on believers. I propose that we construe the fundamental norm of belief (...) as a knowledge norm, rather than a truth norm. I argue that a specific kind of knowledge norm—one that has a subject's obligation to believe that p depend on her being in a position to know that p—might avoid the well-known formulation problems with truth norms. (shrink)

Normativists about belief hold that belief formation is essentially rule- or norm-guided. On this view, certain norms are constitutive of or essential to belief in such a way that no mental state not guided by those norms counts as a belief, properly construed. In recent influential work, Kathrin Glüer and Åsa Wikforss develop novel arguments against normativism. According to their regress of motivations argument, not all belief formation can be rule- or norm-guided, on pain of a vicious infinite regress. I (...) argue that the regress of motivations argument is unsuccessful: an appeal to the notion of blind rule-following, drawn from a plausible interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remarks on rule-following, stops the regress of motivations in its tracks. (shrink)