Do experiences with nature –– from wilderness backpacking to plants in a preschool to a wetland lesson on frogs, promote learning? Until recently, claims outstripped evidence on this question. But the field has matured, not only substantiating previously unwarranted claims but deepening our understanding of the cause-and-effect relationship between nature and learning. Hundreds of studies now bear on this question, and converging evidence strongly suggests that experiences of nature boost academic learning, personal development, and environmental stewardship. This brief integrative review (...) summarizes recent advances and the current state of our understanding. The research on personal development and environmental stewardship is compelling although not quantitative. Report after report –– from independent observers as well as participants themselves –– indicate shifts in perseverance, problem-solving, critical thinking, leadership, teamwork, and resilience. Similarly, over fifty studies point to nature playing a key role in the development of pro-environmental behavior, particularly by fostering an emotional connection to nature. In academic contexts, nature-based instruction outperforms traditional instruction. The evidence here is particularly strong, including experimental evidence; evidence across a wide range of samples and instructional approaches; outcomes such as standardized test scores and graduation rates; and evidence for specific explanatory mechanisms and active ingredients. Nature may promote learning by improving learners’ attention, levels of stress, self-discipline, interest, and enjoyment in learning, and physical activity and fitness. Nature also appears to provide a calmer, quieter, safer context for learning; a warmer, more cooperative context for learning; and a combination of “loose parts” and autonomy that fosters developmentally beneficial forms of play. It is time to take nature seriously as a resource for learning — particularly for students not effectively reached by traditional instruction. (shrink)

Social norms – rules governing which behaviours are deemed appropriate or inappropriate within a given community – are typically taken to be uniquely human. Recently, this position has been challenged by a number of philosophers, cognitive scientists, and ethologists, who have suggested that social norms may also be found in certain non-human animal communities. Such claims have elicited considerable scepticism from norm cognition researchers, who doubt that any non-human animals possess the psychological capacities necessary for normative cognition. However, there is (...) little agreement among these researchers about what these psychological prerequisites are. This makes empirical study of animal social norms difficult, since it is not clear what we are looking for and thus what should count as behavioural evidence for the presence (or absence) of social norms in animals. To break this impasse, we offer an approach that moves beyond contested psychological criteria for social norms. This approach is inspired by the animal culture research program, which has made a similar shift away from heavily psychological definitions of ‘culture’ and to become organized around a cluster of more empirically tractable concepts of culture. Here, we propose an analogous set of constructs built around the core notion of a normative regularity, which we define as a socially maintained pattern of behavioural conformity within a community. We suggest methods for studying potential normative regularities in wild and captive primates. We also discuss the broader scientific and philosophical implications of this research program with respect to questions of human uniqueness, animal welfare and conservation. (shrink)

What does it mean to consider the world of AI through a Christian lens? Rapid developments in AI continue to reshape society, raising new ethical questions and challenging our understanding of the human person. Encountering Artificial Intelligence draws on Pope Francis’ discussion of a culture of encounter and broader themes in Catholic social thought in order to examine how current AI applications affect human relationships in various social spheres and offers concrete recommendations for better implementation. The document also explores questions (...) regarding personhood, consciousness, and the kinds of relationships humans might have with even the most advanced AI. Through these discussions, this book investigates the theoretical and practical challenges to interpersonal encounter raised by the age of AI. (AI Research Group for the Centre for Digital Culture of the Dicastery of Culture and Education of the Holy See). (shrink)

Clinical ethics consultation (CEC) has become all about right technique. When we encounter a case of conflict or confusion, clinical ethicists are expected to deploy a standardized, repeatable, and rationally defensible method for working toward a recommendation and/or consensus. While it has been noted previously that our techniques of CEC often foreclose on its internal goods, there remains an assumption that we must just find the _right_ efficient technique and the problem would be solved. In this paper, I question that (...) assumption, arguing that any standardized, identically repeatable model of CEC will pull us counterproductively away from ethical reflection, and toward the values of modern _techne_: primarily efficiency, efficacy, and repeatability. This is because standardized techniques of CEC pull the dynamism of being into what Catherine Pickstock calls “identical repetition,” a technologized ontology, which is fundamentally at odds with what being is. And, since ethics is a search for the good of being, avoiding the ontological heart of being severely restricts ethics. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that a literal understanding of someone’s self-deception that p yields the following contradiction. Qua self-deceiver, she does not believe that p, yet – qua self-deceived – she does believe that p. I argue that this assumption is ill-founded. Literalism about self-deception – the view that self-deceivers literally self-deceive – is not committed to this contradiction. On the contrary, properly understood, literalism excludes it.

Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction analysis asserts that the concept of medical disorder includes a naturalistic component of dysfunction and a value component, both of which are required for disorder attributions. Muckler and Taylor, defending a purely naturalist, value-free understanding of disorder, argue that harm is not necessary for disorder. They provide three examples of dysfunctions that, they claim, are considered disorders but are entirely harmless: mild mononucleosis, cowpox that prevents smallpox, and minor perceptual deficits. They also reject the proposal that dysfunctions (...) need only be typically harmful to qualify as disorders. We argue that the proposed counterexamples are, in fact, considered harmful; thus, they fail to disconfirm the harm requirement: incapacity for exertion is inherently harmful, whether or not exertion occurs, cowpox is directly harmful irrespective of indirect benefits, and colorblindness and anosmia are considered harmful by those who consider them disorders. We also defend the typicality qualifier as viably addressing some apparently harmless disorders and argue that a dysfunction’s harmfulness is best understood in dispositional terms. (shrink)

Philosophical discussion of truthmaking has flourished in recent times, but what exactly does it mean to ‘make’ a truth-bearer true? I argue that ‘making’ is a concept with modal force, and this renders it a problematic deployment for truthmaker theorists with nominalist sympathies, which characterises most current theories. I sketch the outlines of what I argue is a more genuinely realist truthmaker theory, which is capable of answering the explanatory question: In virtue of what does each particular truthmaker make its (...) particular truthbearer(s) true? I do this by drawing on recent work by Frederik Stjernfelt on Charles Peirce’s account of the proposition as having a ‘particular double structure’, according to which a proposition not only depicts certain characters of an object, it also depicts itself claiming those characters to pertain to the object. This double structure, I shall argue, also resolves important issues in analytic philosophers’ truthmaker theory, including the proper distinction between reference and truthmaking, and a dilemma concerning an infinite regress of truthmaking. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Why Socrates and Thrasymachus Become FriendsCatherine ZuckertIn the Platonic dialogues Socrates is shown talking to two, and only two, famous teachers of rhetoric, Thrasymachus of Chalcedon and Gorgias of Leontini.1 At first glance relations between Socrates and Gorgias appear to be much more courteous—they might even be described as cordial—than relations between Socrates and Thrasymachus. In the Gorgias Socrates explicitly and intentionally seeks an opportunity to talk to Gorgias (...) and treats him with great respect. Socrates shows that Gorgias’s claims concerning the power of his art are contradictory, but the philosopher does not press his advantage or embarrass the rhetorician (Stauffer 2006, 34). Although Gorgias indicates his interest in hearing what Socrates has to say by urging his young friends Polus and Callicles to continue the conversation, Gorgias never says that he is convinced by Socrates. And Socrates never announces that Gorgias has become his friend.2In the Republic Socrates reports that Thrasymachus burst into the conversation like a lion. Socrates even claims that he and his interlocutor (Polemarchus) were frightened. The initial exchange between Socrates and Thrasymachus thus appears to be hostile. In the argument that follows, Socrates embarrasses Thrasymachus; the famous teacher of rhetoric blushes. Nevertheless, Socrates declares later in the conversation (1900, 498d) that he and Thrasymachus have become friends.3 [End Page 163]The difference in the relations Socrates had—or at least thought that he could have—with the two teachers of rhetoric is important, because it indicates what sort of rhetoric Socrates thought was compatible not only with his philosophy but also with a just political order and what was not. The differences between the claims and arguments of the two teachers of rhetoric are not easy to pinpoint, however. Many of the charges that Gorgias’s associates Polus and Callicles make against Socrates, at least partly in defense of Gorgias, sound very much like charges Thrasymachus makes against Socrates. In order to discover the grounds of the difference in the relation between the philosopher and the two teachers of rhetoric, it thus becomes necessary to review and compare the claims Gorgias and his students make with those Thrasymachus levels against Socrates at the beginning of the Republic.Socrates’ Encounter with GorgiasAt the beginning of the Gorgias the famous rhetorician’s Athenian host Callicles expresses surprise that Socrates has come to hear Gorgias declaim. But Socrates is not interested in witnessing a demonstration of Gorgias’s prowess as a speaker; he wants to ask the rhetorician what the power of his art is and what he teaches. Since Gorgias had previously offered to answer any questions after his speech, he agrees to respond to Socrates’ queries.In order for them to converse, Socrates emphasizes, Gorgias will have to keep his responses short. Although Gorgias sensibly observes that all questions cannot be answered adequately with brief replies, his first responses to Socrates’ questions are very short. Since Gorgias claims to be a knower and practitioner of an art, Socrates asks what he does and makes others capable of doing. Gorgias replies that he gives speeches and teaches others how to orate. Socrates asks what the speeches are about. “The greatest of human affairs, and the best” (1998, 451d), Gorgias vaguely and rather evasively responds. Pressed to be more specific, he finally declares that his art provides “the greatest good and cause both of freedom for human beings themselves and rule over others in each man’s own city” by enabling them to make speeches that “persuade judges in the law court, councilors in the council, assemblymen in the assembly, and in every other... political gathering” (1998, 452d–e, translation slightly modified).The Grounds of Gorgias’s ClaimsIf Gorgias had not been restricted to brief replies by his agreement with Socrates, he might have explained the reasons for his vast claims with [End Page 164] arguments like those to be found in two of his remaining fragments. In his “Encomium to Helen” he explains the overwhelming power of speech, and in “On the Nonexistent” he demonstrates the reason or basis of this power by arguing that there is no form of “being” that exists independent of our... (shrink)

Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that understands knowing the world as inseparable from agency within it. It thereby introduces some unique ideas and approaches to the analysis of concepts. Looking largely to pragmatism’s founder, Charles Peirce, this chapter presents an account of concepts as habits which associate specific kinds of environmental stimuli with schemata of action and ensuing experience, within linguistic communities. I explain how this account avoids Sellars’ ‘Myth of the Given’. I then explore how Peirce’s semiotic approach to (...) philosophy of language and mind theorized signifying habits as symbols which draw icons and indices together into propositional structures, thereby generating meanings that are specifically applicable and indefinitely generalizable. This original account of concept formation is further illuminated through an examination of Peirce’s philosophy of perception, which makes particularly manifest the process whereby primitive indices, or ‘percepts’, are enfolded in symbolic meanings through habitual ‘perceptual judgements’. (shrink)

Edward Craig and Michael Hannon agree that the function of knowledge is to enable us to identify informants whose word we can safely take. This requires that knowers display a publicly recognizable mark. Although this might suffice for information transfer, I argue that the position that emerges promotes testimonial injustice, since the mark of a good informant need not be shared by all who are privy to the facts we seek. I suggest a way the problem might be alleviated.

A variety of factors shape environmental policy and governance (EPG) processes, from perceptions of physical ecology and profit motives to social justice and concerns with landscape aesthetics. Many scholars have examined the role of values in EPG, and demonstrated that attempts to incorporate (especially) non-market values into EPG are loaded with both practical and conceptual challenges. Nevertheless, it is clear that non-market values of all types play a crucial role in shaping EPG outcomes. In this article we explore the role (...) of nostalgia as a factor in EPG. We examine literatures on environmental values, governance and affect in light of their relationships with environmental policymaking, first as a means to decide whether or not nostalgia can be rightly described as an ‘environmental value’. We suggest that, from a philosophical perspective, nostalgia is by itself environmentally neutral, and is not usefully described as a ‘value’. However, as an emotional state that longs to preserve or recover something of the past – whether fading or no longer present – that is fondly remembered, nostalgia does represent a potentially strong ‘motivator’ for EPG decisions. Despite this somewhat ambivalent assessment of nostalgia as an environmental value, we argue that nostalgia and nostalgic longing to return to ‘better’ or ‘cleaner’ environments can lead to potentially significant impacts on ecosystems and landscapes, both positive and negative depending on what it is that people want to preserve or restore. Thus we conclude that we neglect understanding the role of nostalgia in EPG at our peril: first, because preservationist goals have always been an important part of environmental responsibility; and second, because many people will be swayed regarding environmental action through a mobilisation of nostalgia by political leaders and interest groups alike. We end our article with suggestion of avenues for further empirical investigation. (shrink)

During public health crises including the COVID-19 pandemic, resource scarcity and contagion risks may require health systems to shift—to some degree—from a usual clinical ethic, focused on the well-being of individual patients, to a public health ethic, focused on population health. Many triage policies exist that fall under the legal protections afforded by “crisis standards of care,” but they have key differences. We critically appraise one of the most fundamental differences among policies, namely the use of criteria to categorically exclude (...) certain patients from eligibility for otherwise standard medical services. We examine these categorical exclusion criteria from ethical, legal, disability, and implementation perspectives. Focusing our analysis on the most common type of exclusion criteria, which are disease-specific, we conclude that optimal policies for critical care resource allocation and the use of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) should not use categorical exclusions. We argue that the avoidance of categorical exclusions is often practically feasible, consistent with public health norms, and mitigates discrimination against persons with disabilities. (shrink)

Is Leo Strauss truly an intellectual forebear of neoconservatism and a powerful force in shaping Bush administration foreign policy? _The Truth about Leo Strauss_ puts this question to rest, revealing for the first time how the popular media came to perpetuate an oversimplified view of a complex and wide-ranging philosopher. In doing so, it corrects our perception of Strauss, providing the best general introduction available to the political thought of this misunderstood figure. Catherine and Michael Zuckert—both former students of (...) Strauss—guide readers here to a nuanced understanding of how Strauss’s political thought fits into his broader philosophy. Challenging the ideas that Strauss was an inflexible conservative who followed in the footsteps of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Carl Schmitt, the Zuckerts contend that Strauss’s signature idea was the need for a return to the ancients. Through their work, they conclude that Strauss was a sober defender of liberal democracy, aware of both its strengths and its weaknesses. Balanced and accessible, _The Truth about Leo Strauss_ is a must-read for anyone who wants to more fully comprehend this enigmatic philosopher and his much-disputed legacy. “_The Truth about Leo Strauss_ is the most balanced and insightful book yet written about Strauss’s thought, students, and political influence. It dispels myths promulgated by both friends and foes and persuasively traces the conflicting paths that American thinkers indebted to Strauss have taken.”—William Galston, Brookings Institution. (shrink)

Affective geographies examine the emotional dimensions of space and spatial relationships; geopolitics seeks to understand the role of space and geography in international relations. In this paper, we consider a hybridization of these concepts in the context of the Nordic countries, and in particular Denmark. Nordic countries have shifted attention to the wielding of “soft power” as a tool in seeking to achieve international relations and economic goals. We argue that in the case of Denmark, these soft power tools bear (...) an interesting affective dimension through an emphasis on “hygge,” or, “coziness.” Through media analysis, we illuminate the components of soft power in the Danish case and highlight the role of affect as a key element of these soft power tools. (shrink)

The concept of ‘information’ is central to our understanding of financial markets, both in theory and in practice. Analysing information is not only a critical part of the activities of many financial practitioners, but also plays a central role in the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH). The central claim of this paper is that different data can count as information in fi-nancial markets and that particular investors do not consider all of the available data. This suggests that firstly, saying the price (...) of a stock should be $X once a particular piece of information has been incorporated in the price is only justifiable if we know that this information really is relevant for other investors. Sec-ondly, the EMH is often tested by looking at market behaviour after the release of information; again, this is only justified if we know that other market participants share the view that this is information. The purpose of this chapter is to suggest that there are good reasons for thinking that we do not know this. Finally, this chapter also suggests that bubbles in financial markets are best understood in terms of salience of information, rather than irrationality. (shrink)

Polytheism is a strange view to hold in modernity. Connected as it is in the popular imagination with archaic, animistic, magical, prescientific systems of thought, we don’t hesitate much before casting it into the dustbin of history. Even if we are not monotheists, we are likely to think of monotheism as the obviously more plausible position. The traditional arguments for the existence of God, which have been enormously influential in Western philosophy of religion, do not necessarily rule out polytheism but (...) they are clearly formulated with monotheism in mind. While there could be multiple first causes, intelligent designers, or beings than which nothing greater can be conceived, the simplest and most natural... (shrink)

Toward a neurobiologically grounded approach to explaining self-control we discuss the case of a patient with a bilateral lesion in frontal ventromedial cortex. Patients with such lesions display a marked deficit in social decision making. Compared with an account that examines the causal antecedents of self-control, Rachlin's behaviorist approach seems lacking in explanatory strength.

In the debate surrounding the morality and legality of the practices of physician-assisted death and euthanasia, a common logical argument regularly employed against these practices is the “slippery slope argument.” One formulation of this argument claims that acceptance of physician-assisted death will eventually lead down a “slippery slope” into acceptance of active euthanasia, including its voluntary, non-voluntary, and/or involuntary forms, through psychological and social processes that warp a society’s values and moral perspective of a practice over an extended period of (...) time. This formulation is known as the psychological slippery slope argument. This paper analyzes the psychological slippery slope argument as it is applied to the practice of physician-assisted death, and utilizing recent empirical evidence from various nations around the world that practice physician-assisted death and/or euthanasia, the paper argues that employing the psychological slippery slope argument against physician-assisted death is logically fallacious, this kind of slippery slope is unfounded in practice, and thus the psychological slippery slope argument is insufficient on its own to justify continued legal prohibition of physician-assisted death. (shrink)

Despite the burgeoning literature on professionalism in other health professions, psychology lags behind in the level of attention given to this core competency. In this article, we review definitions from other health professions and how they address professionalism. Next, we review how this competency evolved within health service psychology (HSP), and we propose a definition. We offer an approach for assessing professionalism within HSP. Consideration is given to strategies and methods for providing effective education and training in this multifaceted competency. (...) Finally, recommendations are made for creating a culture of professionalism within HSP and honoring psychology’s social contract with multiple publics. (shrink)

At Republic 370c–372d, Plato presents us with an early polis that is self-sufficient, peaceful, cooperative, and which provides a comfortable life for its inhabitants. While Glaucon derides this polis as a ‘city for pigs’, Socrates is quick to defend its virtues characterizing it as a city which is not only ‘complete’, but a ‘true’ and ‘healthy’ city. Is Plato sincere when he lauds the city of pigs? if so, why does the city of pigs degenerate so precipitously into the luxurious (...) city? Some commentators have been unable to find any place for the ‘city of pigs’ in the substantive argument of the Republic. Other commentators have supposed that the source of instability in the city of pigs is the nature of human desire. I argue that these interpretations miss what is most deeply interesting about the city of pigs. On my reading, the city of pigs is healthy and true in that it is a unified community. However, this unity depends on good fortune, is highly contingent, and thus unstable. (shrink)

This brief response cannot adequately address all of the challenging issues raised by Robert Meister in his reply, so I hope only to clarify our main points of contention that will likely continue beyond this exchange.

Imaginative and creative capacities seem to be at the heart of both games of make-believe and figurative uses of language. But how exactly might cases of metaphor or idiom involve make-believe? In this paper, I argue against the pretense-based accounts of Walton (1990, 1993), Hills (1997), and Egan (this journal, 2008) that pretense plays no role in the interpretation of metaphor or idiom; instead, more general capacities for manipulating concepts (which are also called on within the use of pretense) do (...) the real explanatory work. This result has consequences for both our understanding of metaphor and idiom as well as for the use of figurative language by fictionalists in ontology. (shrink)

"Examines the work of three nineteenth-century utilitarian feminist philosophers: Catharine Beecher, Frances Wright, and Anna Doyle Wheeler.

Feminist theory and reflections on sexuality and gender rarely make contact with contemporary continental philosophy of religion. Where they all come together, creative and transformative thinking occurs. In Feminism, Sexuality, and the Return of Religion, internationally recognized scholars tackle complicated questions provoked by the often stormy intersection of these powerful forces. The essays in this book break down barriers as they extend the richness of each philosophical tradition. They discuss topics such as queer sexuality and religion, feminism and the gift, (...) feminism and religious reform, and religion and diversity. The contributors are Hélène Cixous, Sarah Coakley, Kelly Brown Douglas, Mark D. Jordan, Catherine Keller, Saba Mahmood, and Gianni Vattimo. (shrink)

Quelle est l'intention de Platon lorsqu'il fait de Socrate un virtuose de l'étymologie dans le Cratyle? Préciser les rapports entre la " science des lettres " qui se constitue en son siècle et la nouvelle théorie des Idées qu'il élabore. Socrate s'entretient avec le jeune Hermogène puis avec l'énigmatique Cratyle des rapports entre les mots et les choses. La rectitude des noms est-elle affaire de convention, ainsi que le soutient Hermogène? Ou s'agit-il d'un accord " naturel ", comme le prétend (...) Cratyle? Découvre-t-on cet accord par science ou par inspiration? Au terme du débat, après avoir mis à l'épreuve toutes les ressources de la " science des lettres ", Socrate propose une nouvelle théorie du nom, instrument faillible construit pour faire voir la réalité en la minant. Il dessine aussi un ordre des priorités : il faut d'abord connaître les êtres, puis les noms. " Savoir comment il faut apprendre ou découvrir les êtres, peut-être est-ce là trop lourde tâche pour toi et moi! C'est déjà beau de reconnaître qu'il ne faut pas partir des noms. ". (shrink)

This chapter first outlines the three main phases of the development of the single market, together with the impetus and philosophy underpinning it. The idea behind the original European Economic Community (EEC) Treaty was simple: barriers to free movement of goods, persons, services, and capital would be removed through the use of treaty provisions that prohibited obstacles to free movement. One aspects of the single market have been reformed following the crisis, notably financial services. The legislature is increasingly moving towards (...) the use of regulations, rather than directives, to ensure greater uniformity and maximum as opposed to minimum harmonization to remove the possibility of national variation. The chapter then examines some of the challenges facing the single market. The challenges essentially concern questions of competence, sovereignty and effectiveness. There are two main approaches to attaining a common market, namely decentralized model and centralized model. (shrink)

Angels are the ultimate stranger. They come from another world and have a special place in the art of the Russian Jewish painter Marc Chagall (1887-1985). In My Life (1923) the young Chagall recalls one memorable night in Saint-Petersburg. Drifting into sleep in the corner of a room (all he could afford) he suddenly saw the ceiling open and a winged being, surrounded by light and blue air, hovered above him before disappearing through the ceiling again.