In this article the author argues that men and boys have been historically and structurally rendered an invisible group of victims in international human rights and policy responses towards conflict-related sexual violence stemming from the United Nations. The apparent female-focused approach of instruments on sexual violence is criticized followed by a discussion – through analysis and interviews with legal scholars and champions for the recognition of male survivors’ experiences – of the first ‘emergence’ of male victims in these instruments and (...) key actors involved in this process. The existing serious dichotomy between visible and invisible victims is prominently based on their ‘gender identity’ and leads to structural discrimination of male victims of rape or other forms of sexual violence. To overcome this situation and develop more inclusive instruments, a reconceptualization is needed of the meaning and use of words like ‘gender’ and ‘gender-based violence’. Additionally, a more intersectional approach to sexual violence should be adopted, understanding that victims have a multitude of identities such as ethnicity or religious affiliation that make them particularly vulnerable to suffering. (shrink)

On the Life of Abraham displays Philo's philosophical, exegetical, and literary genius at its best. Philo begins by introducing the biblical figures Enos, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as unwritten laws. Then, interweaving literal, ethical, and allegorical interpretations, Philo presents the life and achievements of Abraham, founder of the Jewish nation, in the form of a Greco-Roman bios, or biography. Ellen Birnbaum and John Dillon explain why and how this work is important within the context (...) of Philo's own oeuvre, early Jewish and Christian exegesis, and ancient philosophy. They also offer a new English translation and detailed analyses, in which they elucidate the meaning of Philo's thought, including his perplexing notion that Israel's ancestors were laws in themselves. (shrink)

ObjectivesIn 2015, the Province of Quebec, Canada passed a law that allowed voluntary active euthanasia. Palliative care stakeholders in Canada have been largely opposed to euthanasia, yet there is little research about their views. The research question guiding this study was the following: How do palliative care physicians in Quebec position themselves regarding the practice of VAE in the context of the new provincial legislation?MethodsWe used interpretive description, an inductive methodology to answer research questions about clinical practice. A total of (...) 18 palliative care physicians participated in semistructured interviews at two university-affiliated hospitals in Quebec.ResultsParticipants positioned themselves in opposition to euthanasia. Their justifications were framed within their professional commitment to not hasten death, which sat in tension with the value of patients’ autonomy to choose how to die. Participants described VAE as unacceptable if it impeded opportunities to evaluate and alleviate suffering. Further, they contested government rhetoric that positioned VAE as a way to improve end-of-life care. Participants felt that VAE would diminish the potential of palliative care to relieve suffering. Dilemmas were apparent in their narratives, about reconciling respect for patient autonomy with broader palliative care values, and the value of accompanying and not abandoning patients who make requests for VAE while being committed to neither prolonging nor hastening death.ConclusionsThis study provides insight into nuanced positions of experienced palliative care physicians in Quebec and confirms expected tensions between an important stakeholder and the practice of VAE as guided by the new legislation. (shrink)

BackgroundThis paper represents a portion of the findings from one of the first research studies eliciting the lived experience of adults with an early diagnosis of Phenylketonuria living in Ireland. Ireland has one of the highest prevalence rates of PKU in Europe, however, little is known about the experience of Irish adults with PKU. Furthermore, Ireland is one of the first countries in the world to introduce neonatal screening followed by the introduction of long-term dietary therapy over 50 years ago. (...) This study presents the first comprehensive assessment of the lived experience of Irish adults with PKU on long term dietary therapy.MethodsNarrative data was collected from eleven self-selected participants, using semi-structured interviews. The interviews were divided into five sections focused on eliciting a holistic understanding of the lived experience of adults with PKU living in Ireland. Thematic analysis was guided by Colaizzi's Framework in conjunction with NVivo qualitative data analysis software.FindingsFindings from the original research encompassed a broad understanding of the lived experience of adults with PKU living in Ireland, including factors influencing dietary therapy and managing PHE blood levels. The themes being discussed within this article are those which appear to be least represented within current literature: living with PKU, including reproductive health, the importance of self-management and establishing routine, support networks in adulthood and concerns regarding aging with PKU.ConclusionIt was evident from the findings that a diagnosis of PKU can influence how adults with PKU may experience aging and their own mortality. These findings offer new insight into the vulnerability attached to the experience of aging with PKU and may be beneficial to advocacy groups and for future development of policy and practice. (shrink)

To attain native-like competence, second language (L2) learners must establish mappings between familiar speech sounds and new phoneme categories. For example, Spanish learners of English must learn that [d] and [ð], which are allophones of the same phoneme in Spanish, can distinguish meaning in English (i.e. /deɪ/ ‘day’ and /ðeɪ/ ‘they’). Because adult listeners are less sensitive to allophonic than phonemic contrasts in their native language (L1), novel target language contrasts between L1 allophones may pose special difficulty for L2 learners. (...) We investigate whether advanced Spanish late-learners of English overcome native language mappings to establish new phonological relations between familiar phones. We report behavioral and magnetoencepholographic (MEG) evidence from two experiments that measured the sensitivity and pre-attentive processing of three listener groups (L1 English, L1 Spanish, and advanced Spanish late-learners of English) to differences between three nonword stimulus pairs ([idi]-[iði], [idi]-[iɾi], and [iði]-[iɾi]) which differ in phones that play a different functional role in Spanish and English. Spanish and English listeners demonstrated greater sensitivity (larger d’ scores) for nonword pairs distinguished by phonemic than by allophonic contrasts, mirroring previous findings. Spanish late-learners demonstrated sensitivity (large d’ scores and MMN responses) to all three contrasts, suggesting that these L2 learners may have established a novel [d]-[ð] contrast despite the phonological relatedness of these sounds in the L1. Our results suggest that phonological relatedness influences perceived similarity, as evidenced by the results of the native speaker groups, but may not cause persistent difficulty for advanced L2 learners. Instead, L2 learners are able to use cues that are present in their input to establish new mappings between familiar phones. (shrink)

This report aims to offer insights into cutting-edge research on digital well-being. Many of these insights come from a 2-day academic-impact event, The Future of Digital Well-Being, hosted by a team of researchers working with the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) in February 2024. Today, achieving and maintaining well-being in the face of online technologies is a multifaceted challenge that we believe requires using theoretical resources of different research disciplines. This report explores diverse perspectives on how digital (...) well-being can be actively cultivated, while also emphasising the importance of considering individual differences, societal contexts, and nuanced cultural factors. We aim to offer a holistic view of the future of digital well-being, one that will inspire the next generation of designers of online tools, as well as policymakers who will regulate these tools. We start by asking what digital well-being is – how we can best define a concept that is used by diverse stakeholders and researchers from many disciplines in various ways. To do this, we explore the classic ethical theories of well-being, showing how they can give us insights into how the term digital well-being is currently deployed. We then move to look at the existing strategies that have been proposed to actively cultivate digital well-being, exploring the business models that threaten digital well-being and the relative advantages of the digital and non-digital solutions that are currently proposed. On the one hand, digital tools – such as Apple’s Screen Time and app blockers such as Opal and Forest – integrate seamlessly with the digital lifestyles of users. They also create precise metrics for digital well-being, which facilitates their solutions to reduce screen time. On the other hand, non-digital solutions, including mindfulness practices, digital detoxes, and digital well-being coaching, offer a new set of tools to reconnect individuals to their natural rhythms and help to actively promote offline activities. We then move to discuss diversity and how various groups of users have strikingly different digital well-being needs. Embracing neurodiversity in digital well-being is crucial as it strongly impacts the users’ experience of online technologies. When designing for diversity, organisations and designers alike need to prioritise customization for people with physical disabilities, mitigate harmful content for users with mental well-being conditions, address gender stereotypes and online harassment, and be designed in ways that recognize the very real risks of online technologies. This report closes by examining cultural differences. We believe that non-Western conceptions of well-being offer rich sources for enhancing digital well-being insofar as these traditions can inform and inspire the designers of future online technologies. We focus on East-Asian and South-Asian traditions, although in further work we recognise it would be useful to investigate conceptions of well-being that are influential in the Gulf region, Africa, and South America. Each of these areas have ethical frameworks that discuss well-being in depth as well as a rich cultural heritage. In conclusion, this report’s insights underscore the imperative of recognizing diversity in digital well-being, both in terms of cultural contexts and disciplinary perspectives. It emphasises the need for culturally responsive design methodologies and the integration of non-Western philosophical perspectives into current digital well-being research. Embracing this diversity, we believe, offers the best chance to create digital environments that prioritise well-being for users and the societies they live in across the world. Ultimately, we believe that it is not only about designing better online products; it’s about shaping a digital landscape that promotes well-being and flourishing for everyone. (shrink)

In this Chapter I present early Mesopotamian philosophical views and contrast them to En Hedu’Anna’s account of metaphysics, epistemology, ontology, philosophy of religion and her views on several socio-political issues. Through her writings we see her views of the cosmos, of deities, of women’s nature, gender fluidity, justifications for violence, and other significant concepts. Lastly, I summarize her influence and suggest that her work marks a new dawn, a first, for Philosophy.

In the current literature, discussions of cognitive penetrability focus largely either on interpreting empirical evidence in ways that is relevant to the question of modularity :343–391, 1999; Wu Philos Stud 165:647–669, 2012; Macpherson Philos Phenomenol Res, 84:24–62, 2012) or in offering epistemological considerations regarding which properties are represented in perception :519–540, 2009, Noûs 46:201–222, 2011; Prinz Perceptual experience, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 434–460, 2006). In contrast to these debates, in this paper, I explore conceptual issues regarding how we ought (...) to understand the “cognitive” side of cognitive penetrability. I argue that it is only on its most narrow construal that a full-fledged defense of cognitive impenetrability has been forwarded. Specifically, I argue that the defenders of modularity have tacitly identified cognitive states with propositional states, and have thus only defended the idea that early perceptual systems are immune to the impacts of propositional knowledge. My aim then is to raise doubts about the identification of cognitive states with propositional ones. In particular, by focusing on skill, I will broaden the conceptual space for a greater number of states to have the potential to impact perceptual processing in a way that would constitute a genuine instance of cognitive penetrability. (shrink)

This article is the text of a Plenary Session lecture presented at the World Congress of Philosophy, Rome, 2024. In it I argue that archaeological evidence shows that the first written philosophy originated not in Greece, India, or China as is commonly believed, but, in Sumer, Mesopotamia, approximately 2600 BCE. The author, En Hedu’Anna, was a woman. I describe four writings by her, distinguish her views from then-prevailing Mesopotamian views about a variety of philosophic concepts and topics. I discuss (...) her contributions to cosmology, scientific method, philosophy of religion, and principles of justice, amongst others. I relate her views on the just treatment of prisoners of war, transgenderism, and other seemingly contemporary philosophical issues. Lastly, I summarize evidence for what today would be called her Curriculum Vitae and her Impact Factor. (shrink)

Julia Annas explores how Plato's account of the relation of virtue to law developed, and how his ideas were taken up by Cicero and by Philo of Alexandria. She shows that, rather than rejecting the account given in his Republic, Plato develops in the Laws a more careful and sophisticated version of that account.

How do we perdure when we and everything around us are caught up in incessant change? But the course of this change does not seem to be haphazard and we may seek the modalities of its Logos in the transformations in which it occurs. The classic term "Metamorphosis" focuses upon the proportions between the transformed and the retained, the principles of sameness and otherness. Applied to life and its becoming, metamorphosis pinpoints the proportions between the vital and the aesthetic significance (...) of life. Where could this metaphysical in-between territory come better to light than in the Fine Arts? In this collection are investigated the various proportions between the vital significance of the constructivism of life and a specifically human contribution made by the creative imagination to the transformatory search for beauty and aesthetic values. Papers by: Lawrence Kimmel, Mark L. Brack, Sheryl Tucker de Vazquez, William Roberts, Jadwiga Smith, Victor Gerald Rivas, Max Statkiewicz, Matti Itkonen, George R. Tibbetts, Linda Stratford, Jorella Andrews, Ingeborg M. Rocker, Stephen J. Goldberg, Leah Durner, Donnalee Dox, Catherine Schear, Samantha Henriette Krukowski, Gary Maciag, Kelly Dennis, Wanda Strukus, Magda Romanska, Patricia Trutty-Coohill, Ellen Burns, Tessa Morrison, Sabine Coelsch-Foisner, Gary Backhaus, Daniel M. Unger, Howard Pearce. (shrink)

"All life upon the stage"; the Theatrum Mundi. In this volume, a seventeenth century metaphor is revisited and is seen as applying to all art in all times. In the "magic mirror of art" the human being discerns the hidden spheres of human life and commemorates and celebrates its glorious victories and mourns its ignominious defeats. Let us rediscover Art as a witness to the human predicament as well as a celebrant of humanity's most sublime moments. This is the invitation (...) of this collection of studies by A-T. Tymieniecka, Hanna Scolnicov, Muella Erkilic, Matt Landrus, Patricia Trutty-Coohill, Monika Bakke, David Brubaker, Tammy Knipp, Howard Pearce, Ellen J. Burns, G. Backhaus, Ethan J. Leib, Lawrence Kimmel, Ingrid Scheibler, Gottfried Scholz, L.F. Werth, A. Carillo, M. Statkiewicz, K. O'Rourke, B. Meyler, H. Meltzer, Jiuan Heng, W.V. Davies. Art as mirror of life, human life as participating in a stage play, corresponds to the fervent search human being of the causes, reasons, puzzles of our existence which elude us in the concrete life. This XVII c. conception of Theatrum Mundi opens as this volume shows a fascinating field of investigation for our times. (shrink)

Is power the essence of divinity, or are divine powers distinct from divine essence? Are they divine hypostases or are they divine attributes? Are powers such as omnipotence, omniscience, etc. modes of divine activity? How do they manifest? In which way can we apprehend them? Is there a multiplicity of gods whose powers fill the cosmos or is there only one God from whom all power(s) derive(s) and whose power(s) permeate(s) everything? These are questions that become central to philosophical and (...) theological debates in Late Antiquity (roughly corresponding to the period 2nd to the 6th centuries). On the one hand, the Pagan Neoplatonic thinkers of this era postulate a complex hierarchy of gods, whose powers express the unlimited power of the ineffable One. On the other hand, Christians proclaim the existence of only one God, one divine power or one 'Lord of all powers'. -/- Divided into two main sections, the first part of Divine Powers in Late Antiquity examines aspects of the notion of divine power as developed by the four major figures of Neoplatonism: Plotinus (c. 204-270), Porphyry (c. 234-305), Iamblichus (c.245-325), and Proclus (412-485). It focuses on an aspect of the notion of divine power that has been so far relatively neglected in the literature. Part two investigates the notion of divine power in early Christian authors, from the New Testament to the Alexandrian school (Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius the Great) and, further, to the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa), as well as in some of these authors' sources (the Septuagint, Philo of Alexandria). The traditional view tends to overlook the fact that the Bible, particularly the New Testament, was at least as important as Platonic philosophical texts in the shaping of the early Christian thinking about the Church's doctrines. Whilst challenging the received interpretation by redressing the balance between the Bible and Greek philosophical texts, the essays in the second section of this book nevertheless argue for the philosophical value of early Christian reflections on the notion of divine power. The two groups of thinkers that each of the sections deal with (the Platonic-Pagan and the Christian one) share largely the same intellectual and cultural heritage; they are concerned with the same fundamental questions; and they often engage in more or less public philosophical and theological dialogue, directly influencing one another. (shrink)

We live in a world of technologies. Classical Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Technology, Episte- mology, etc. philosophical disciplines appear insufficient for valid reflections on today's world. The Philo- sophy of Engineering and Design (Technological) Actions is seen promising to become a fruitful field of philosophical reflections and is offered from the perspective of the Philosophy of Action and Agency (Practical Philosophy). The foundations of the latter are presented in Part II. In the Part I, the Phi- losophy of (...) Engineering and Design (Technological) Actions is outlined in a comparative with Philo- sophy of Technology, Humanities Philosophy of Technology, Philosophy of Engineering, Philosophy of Science, Epistemology, etc. plane. The paradoxes of E. Feenberg's technique, the interpretation of which is proposed in the part III, are involved for the illustrating of the maintained understanding. In the conclusive part (IV) the general danger of distortive philosophical understandings about the tech- nological common world of today are mentioned. (shrink)

aspirations, the rise of western monasticism was the most note worthy event of the early centuries. The importance of monasteries cannot be overstressed as sources of spirituality, learning and auto nomy in the intensely masculinized, militarized feudal period. Drawing their members from the highest levels of society, women's monasteries provided an outlet for the energy and ambition of strong-willed women, as well as positions of considerable authority. Even from periods relatively inhospitable to learning of all kinds, the memory has been (...) preserved of a good number of women of education. Their often considerable achievements and influence, however, generally lie outside even an expanded definition of philo sophy. Among the most notable foremothers of this early period were several whose efforts signal the possibility of later philosophical work. Radegund, in the sixth century, established one of the first Frankish convents, thereby laying the foundations for women's spiritual and intellectual development. From these beginnings, women's monasteries increased rapidly in both number and in fluence both on the continent and in Anglo-Saxon England. Hilda (d. 680) is well known as the powerful abbsess of the double monastery of Whitby. She was eager for knowledge, and five Eng lish bishops were educated under her tutelage. She is also accounted the patron of Caedmon, the first Anglo-Saxon poet of religious verse. The Anglo-Saxon nun Lioba was versed in the liberal arts as well as Scripture and canon law. (shrink)

This article is an edited transcript of the roundtable entitled “What is Philo-Performance?” that took place in Paris on 28 June 2014, within the framework of the “Theatre, Performance, Philosophy International Conference: Crossings and Transfers in Anglo-American Thought”. The conference was organized by Julien Alliot, Flore Garcin-Marrou, Liza Kharoubi and Anna Street from the LAPS, a French research group on performance philosophy.

Although affective facial pictures are widely used in emotion research, standardised affective stimuli sets are rather scarce, and the existing sets have several limitations. We therefore conducted a validation study of 490 pictures of human facial expressions from the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces database (KDEF). Pictures were evaluated on emotional content and were rated on an intensity and arousal scale. Results indicate that the database contains a valid set of affective facial pictures. Hit rates, intensity, and arousal of the 20 (...) best KDEF pictures for each basic emotion are provided in an appendix. (shrink)

In their trenchant panoramic overview – ranging from antiquity to the present-day – John and Anna Rist write with authority and ennui about nothing less than the loss of the foundational culture of the West. The authors characterize this culture as the 'original tradition', viewing its erosion as one which has led to anxiety about the entire value of Western thought. The causes of the disintegration are discussed with an intensity rare in academe. Critics of modernity ordinarily concentrate on (...) the Enlightenment and the book certainly offers deep analysis of Enlightenment thought. But it goes further. Thus the cruelty of modern totalitarianism is now depicted as in the spirit of the French Revolution and its implacable hostility to a vanished primordial heritage, while scientism, bureaucracy and consumerism appear as the only rivals to a threatening nihilism. The book argues that Western thought has created a set of conflicting moral and spiritual customs: to the detriment of coherence, in individual minds as in society and culture. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to explore how Belgian nurses view issues related to the development, dissemination and implementation of a code of ethics for nurses. Fifty nurses took part in eight focus groups. The participants stated that, on the whole, a code of ethics for nurses would be useful. They stressed that a code should be a practical and useful instrument developed by nurses for nurses, and that it should be formulated and presented in a practical way, just (...) as educational courses dealing specifically with codes of ethics require a practical approach to be effective. They emphasized that the development of a code should be an ongoing process, enabling nurses to provide input as they reflect on the ethical issues dealt with in the code and apply the code in their practice. Finally, they stressed the need for support at institutional level for the effective implementation of a code. (shrink)

Because of their responsibilities for providing high-quality care, at times when they are continuously confronted with inherent professional and ethical challenges, nurses should meet high ethical standards of practice and conduct. Contrary to other countries, where codes of ethics for nurses are formulated to support those standards and to guide nurses’ professional practice, Belgian nurses do not have a formal code of ethics. Nevertheless, professional ethics is recognized as an important aspect in legal and other professional documents. The aim of (...) this article is to illustrate that codes of ethics are not the only professional documents reflecting nurses’ values, norms and responsibilities. Other documents can also set out professional nursing ethics, and as such replace codes of ethics. (shrink)

I identify my priority in teaching Christian ethics as fostering relationality, both in individual and collective contexts. I argue that focusing on the idea of relationality enables us to explore connections that exist or should exist between individuals and groups. For me, fostering relationality involves building an intellectual understanding of moral relationality and embodying this understanding in practical situations. In order to contain the theme of this study, I focus on a specific aspect of relationality, namely the idea of attunement. (...) I propose attentive listening, openness to innovation and fostering the spirit of tranquillity as key components of the ethics of attunement. (shrink)

Las Cuestiones Sicilianas son el primer texto conservado del filósofo y sufí Ibn Sab‘īn de Murcia (c. 614/1217-668/1270). Aunque el prólogo del texto pretende que se trata de respuestas a preguntas mandadas por Federico II al mundo árabe, parece más probable que se trate de un manual introductorio para estudiantes árabes de filosofía, discutiendo cuatro problemas específicos y controvertidos como manera de presentar conceptos generales de la filosofía aristotélica. Este artículo analiza la estructura y la manera de argumentar en las (...) Cuestiones Sicilianas. Dedica su atención en particular a la relación entre el Sufismo y la filosofía y a las fuentes del texto, sobre todo los textos filosóficos de Ibn Rušd. Interpreta a Ibn Sab‘īn y sus Cuestiones Sicilianas como un reflejo del ambiente intelectual en el Oeste del Mediterráneo durante los últimos años de los Almohades. El texto fue posiblemente compuesto en un contexto que tenía que ver con los ṭalaba, y refleja también unos aspectos claves de la ideología Almohade. (shrink)

The most famous medieval controversy over the power and the temporal dominion took place between the papacy and the empire. One of the greatest advocates of the imperial domination was Marsilius of Padua, the author of an original work that demonstrated the advantage of acknowledging the emperor’s superiority over the Pope’s. The Defensor pacis, written between 1319 and 1324, was devoted to the dispute on such sovereignty issues as proving that the Pope should be subordinate to the Emperor, and not (...) vice versa. The Defensor pacis takes issue with numerous arguments and views uttered by the papal camp and uses the appropriate quotations from the Bible and Aristotle to show their weakness and inconsistency. The work comprises three parts. The first part is a description of the ideal system, i.e., an elective monarchy, with the specified role of a ruler and a clear indication of the sovereignty of the people. The second and third parts present a challenge to the arguments of the papal camp and analyze the general situation of the Church, suggesting the necessary reforms. Thus, the whole work becomes a compendium of knowledge on appropriate governance. (shrink)

The authors proposes a philosophical hinterland of nomological type for various conceptions of alethic modalities. Differences among these conceptions are explained by the fact, that moda­lizators can be relativized to various types of laws. Thus one can speak respectively about logic and definitional, ontical and physical, technical and dispositional, psychological and methodo­logical, and finally deontic modalities. The authors shows that in their conceptual appa­ratus modal logics find intuitive interpretation more clear and ontologically more cautious than the semantics of possible worlds (...) philosophically interpreted. The nomological explication of main notions of this semantics (like “possible world” and “accessibility relation”) is also given. (shrink)

Pojęcia były zawsze jednym z najważniejszych obiektów badań filozoficznych. Szczególnie duży wkład do teorii analizy pojęć wnieśli przedstawiciele polskiej gałęzi XX-wiecznej filozofii analitycznej, czyli Szkoły Lwowsko-Warszawskiej. Badaniom filozoficznym w tej szkole przyświecał postulat jasności myślenia i mowy. Analiza i doskonalenie pojęć oraz języka filozoficznego jako ich nośnika były naturalnym wyrazem programu metodologicznego, jaki formacji tej nadał jej założyciel, Kazimierz Twardowski. W artykule przedstawiona jest procedura rekonstrukcji pojęć, stosowana powszechnie w szkole Twardowskiego. Okazuje się, że pomimo głębokich niekiedy różnic między poszczególnymi (...) przedstawicielami SLW da się wskazać pewne rysy wspólne prowadzonych w szkole badań nad pojęciami. Są to przede wszystkim moment kategorialny i moment konstrukcyjny, ze względu na który całą procedurę najlepiej określić właśnie jako „rekonstrukcję”. Bliżej zostały omówione dwa przykłady rekonstrukcji pojęć: praca Jana Łukasiewicza dotycząca pojęcia przyczyny oraz wyniki Alfreda Tarskiego dotyczące pojęcia prawdy. (shrink)

The article estimates socio-psychological climate in the team by using sociometric techniques, expored in the example of Ltd. "ECMUKRAINE" and the algorithm of its formation. The argue that positive social and psychological climate needs constant work of the management focused on the study of the relationship in the team; identifying and solving objective contradictions; creative application of reasonable system of methods, tools and techniques of psychological impact on staff in order to optimize its entire set of relations on the basis (...) of requirements of morality and regulations. (shrink)

This article presents proposals for a new social settlement – a framework for deciding how people live together and what they expect from government, now and for the future. The proposed settlement has three goals: social justice, environmental sustainability, and a more equal distribution of power. To achieve these goals we have identified a set of objectives too often ignored in mainstream debates: achieving prosperity without depending on economic growth; shifting investment and action upstream to prevent harm rather than coping (...) with the consequences; strengthening the “core economy” of unpaid work, everyday wisdom, and social connections; and fostering solidarity and an understanding of how individuals depend on each other to achieve shared goals. The article draws on a report from the New Economics Foundation, which focuses on the United Kingdom but offers a framework for developing policy and practice that may be useful in other countries, especially in the developed world. (shrink)

In the 21st century what the future holds for young learners is unclear, what is clear is that they need to be confident, capable and resilient. As wider communication about education is increasing there is a developing understanding that children in settings across the globe learn in the same ways and have the same needs. This book considers international and multicultural learning environments from both theoretical and practical perspectives, written by specialists in early years education in the UK and in (...) international contexts. The theoretical perspectives are supported by eight case studies, from Uganda, Indonesia, Mexico, Qatar, Netherlands, Italy, the United Kingdom and Romania. (shrink)

Gegenwärtige Zeitdiagnosen sehen sich häufig durch das Religiöse herausgefordert und stellen es in den Mittelpunkt einer Analyse der modernen Gesellschaft. Daneben entwickelt sich in den letzten Jahren eine soziologische Theorierichtung, die eng am Begriff der Praxis ausgerichtet ist und vor allem in ihrer postkolonialen Ausformung universellen Gesellschaftsdiagnosen höchst skeptisch gegenübersteht. Diese Ansätze kommen zu Neudefinitionen soziologischer Grundbegriffe, indem sie etwa die Rolle der menschlichen Körper und der materialen Dinge bei der Entstehung und Reproduktion von Praktiken und Praxisformen zentral thematisieren. Die (...) praxistheoretische Perspektive verspricht, so die Ausgangshypothese des Bandes, nicht nur hinsichtlich der Thematisierung des Religiösen fruchtbare Anknüpfungspunkte für die Religionssoziologie zu liefern, sondern zeigt außerdem, wie sich die Axiome des klassischen Modernitätsdiskurses praxistheoretisch revidieren oder möglicherweise neu fassen lassen. (shrink)

In the past years, the relevance of Thomas Aquinas's theory of cognition for contemporary debates on epistemology has been widely discussed. That theory claims that mind and world are formally identical and that this relationship overcomes various problems associated with scepticism concerning mental representation. The proposal, however, is grounded on the idea that the world can act on the mind through a relation of formal causation. This thesis attempts to develop a Thomistic theory of formal causation which may be suitable (...) for a realist account of mental representation and which may meet the requirements prompted by current discussions. The suggested view is grounded on Aquinas's metaphysics, according to which the world is constituted of substances. The claim that change is possible since substances are hylomorphically constituted is defended. Aquinas's claim that some substances have forms which may act independently of matter is also supported. The paradigmatic examples are human souls, i.e. the forms of human beings, whose higher cognitive capacity, i.e. thinking, can be in principle carried on without the need of any material organ. A Thomistic theory of causation is subsequently proposed. It is argued that hylomorphism explains the distinction among four species of causes. Aquinas's attempt to explain causal relations conditionally is developed along the lines suggested by John Mackie's INUS conditional analysis. Jaegwon Kim's implementation of Mackie's proposal through an object-based metaphysics of events is then adapted to the hylomorphical account of substances. On these grounds, a theory of formal causation can be proposed and applied to Aquinas's theory of mental representation. The ensuing proposal is offered not in the spirit of historical exegesis but as a substantive philosophical account and it is Thomistic only in the broad sense that it is built on Aquinas's metaphysics and is consistent with his claims on causation. (shrink)

Ordinary competent language speakers experience difficulty in paraphrasing words such as ‘the’, ‘but’ or ‘however’ as compared to words such as ‘chair’ or ‘run’. The difficulty experienced in the first case is sometimes called descriptive ineffability. In recent debates about meaning types in pragmatics and philosophy of language, descriptive ineffability has been used as a test for the presence of expressive (as opposed to descriptive) meaning, or procedural (as opposed to conceptual) meaning. However, the notion of descriptive ineffability is controversial (...) and in need of further clarification. In this paper I provide two arguments that descriptive ineffability is not a good criterion for distinguishing between types of meaning. First, I show that the effability/ineffability divide does not line up with distinctions in meaning type. Second, I argue that several effability/ineffability patterns are best explained not by the meaning types of words but by differences in the range and scope of speakers’ metalinguistic ability to paraphrase, as it is shaped by experience throughout their lives. (shrink)

Cybernetic Bacteria is an ongoing transdisciplinary investigation that brings together art, philosophy, microbiology and digital technology to examine the relationship of the emerging science of bacterial communication to our own digital communications networks, looking in particular at ‘packet data’ and bacterial quorum sensing. The project seeks to compare philosophical notions of the sublime with a kind of bacterial sublime, demonstrating the greater complexity of the interactions taking place at a microscopic level, when compared to human communication technologies such as the (...) World Wide Web (with particular focus on scale-free networks). The first artwork in the series employed a clear plastic tube of liquid agar jelly planted into earth to allow the soil bacteria beneath to grow upwards and become visible. A total of 100 µL of Homoserine Lactone, a hormone used by bacteria for quorum sensing (a form of bacterial communication), was then added by the artist as part of a performance lecture, with her in effect saying: ‘I’m here’ to the bacteria below. The microbes that have been communicated to then pass the signal on to their neighbours and so on. In theory this enables the signal to travel around the planet. However, the main issue with this work is one of Hermeneutics; the bacteria, which receive the communication, will not identify the artist as human – simply as another (albeit very large) bacterium. The project has subsequently evolved into a multiple screen digital artwork showing network traffic taking place in real time (web traffic, RFID and Bluetooth), a film of bacterial communication in progress (using two strains of genetically modified bacteria) and an interactive conceptualisation of the data from both sources generated using artificial life. The project continues. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to show the activities of the non-governmental organization ‘Memorial’ that are aimed at building historical memory and developing civic awareness of state terror and crimes committed by the communist regime. ‘Memorial’ also aims to show the politics of memory pursued by the Russian authorities after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

By the 1990s the dynamic array of creative direct action tactics used against militarised technologies that emerged from women’s anti-nuclear protest camps in the 1980s became largely eclipsed by cyberfeminism’s focus on digital and online technologies. Yet recently, as robots and algorithms are put forward as the vanguards of new drone execution regimes, some are wondering if now is the time for another Greenham Common. In this article I return to cyborg feminism and anti-nuclear activisms of the 1980s to explore (...) what drone feminism might look like today. I examine how anti-nuclear protesters infused affect and techné, creating innovative images of, and tactics for, material resistance. I argue that Greenham women’s cyborg feminisms arose from their material entanglements with the military base. In their efforts to reveal and undermine the national and imperial myths upon which warfare is based, protesters re-imagined technological possibilities based upon a global accountability for ‘earthly survival’. (shrink)

How might law address the multiple crises of meaning intrinsic to global crises of climate, poverty, mass displacements, ecological breakdown, species extinctions and technological developments that increasingly complicate the very notion of 'life' itself? How can law embrace -- in other words --the 'posthuman' condition -- a condition in which non-human forces such as climate change and Covid-19 signal the impossibility of clinging to the existing imaginaries of Western legal systems and international law? This carefully curated book addresses these and (...) related questions, bringing 'law beyond the human' (drawing on Indigenous legalities, life ways and ontologies) and New Materialist and Posthuman/ist approaches into stimulating proximity to each other. Bold and astute, it draws an invigorating and lively mix of participants into its conversation: soils, urban animals, rivers, rights, Indigenous legalities, property as habitat, swarms, 'unusual posthuman capacities', decolonial critiques, eco-feedback, arts, affective encounters and more besides. Ultimately, this pivotal work shows how law currently fails to respond to the challenges and realities it faces, while demonstrating that law can also be a co-emergence of 'something else', more responsive, relational and prefigurative. Lively and engaging, Posthuman Legalities will prove an imperative read for students and scholars with a keen interest in breaking down barriers to address emerging challenges in environmental law, climate law, and human rights law, in conversation with new approaches to planetary justice. (shrink)