The United States Fish and Wildlife Service in Alaska, USA, conducted a species status assessment for a petition to list the Alexander Archipelago wolf (Canis lupus ligoni) under the Endangered Species Act in 2020-2022. This federal undertaking could not be adequately prepared without including the knowledge of Indigenous People who have a deep cultural connection with the subspecies. Our objective is to communicate the authoritative expertise and voice of the Indigenous People who partnered on the project by demonstrating how their (...) knowledge contributed to the species status assessment. The Indigenous knowledge applied in the assessment is the cultural and intellectual property of those who have shared it. We employed rapid appraisal research to expeditiously develop a preliminary and qualitative understanding of Indigenous People's cultural and ecological knowledge of Alexander Archipelago wolves. We used semi-directed interviewing and inductive coding from grounded theory for text analysis. Indigenous knowledge contributed to the agency's understanding of the Alexander Archipelago wolf in Southeast Alaska and helped the agency with their classification decision. Indigenous research partners explained the rich cultural significance and position of wolves in Tlingit society and described human–wolf relationships and ecological interactions. The agency used a single-species assessment approach based in species ecology and conservation biology, whereas the Indigenous wolf experts applied a multi-species, community ecology approach based in a sociocultural context of balance and respect. The Indigenous wolf experts successfully addressed knowledge gaps identified by the agency. The partners were challenged by a short regulatory timeframe that did not allow for comprehensive study of Indigenous knowledge and constrained review and feedback by Indigenous experts. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service learned that its assessment framework was not designed to account for an Indigenous worldview. To level the playing field, the agency and Indigenous experts should discuss how to co-develop an assessment framework that equitably applies both perspectives. (shrink)

I defend (metaphysical) ground against recent, unanswered objections aiming to dismiss it from serious philosophical inquiry. Interest in ground stems from its role in the venerable metaphysical project of identifying which facts hold in virtue of others. Recent work on ground focuses on regimenting it. But many reject ground itself, seeing regimentation as yet another misguided attempt to regiment a bad idea (like phlogiston or astrology). I defend ground directly against objections that it is confused, incoherent, or fruitless. This vindicates (...) the very attempt to regiment ground. It also refocuses our attention on the genuine open questions about ground and away from the distracting, unpersuasive reasons for dismissing them. (shrink)

To have a vocation is to be called to a life of ongoing participation in the redemptive work of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Being faithful to the vocation we have received requires adopting a stance of continuing alertness, ready to notice, correctly interpret, and effectively respond to the various forms of communication by which God draws us into closer cooperation with the redemptive missions of the Son and the Spirit. In this paper I focus on a particular vehicle (...) by which the divine call is transmitted to us—namely, the God-given desire to know, which we experience whenever we wonder about something, whenever we try to solve a problem, whenever we learn or explore or plan. (shrink)

There is currently an explosion of interest in grounding. In this article we provide an overview of the debate so far. We begin by introducing the concept of grounding, before discussing several kinds of scepticism about the topic. We then identify a range of central questions in the theory of grounding and discuss competing answers to them that have emerged in the debate. We close by raising some questions that have been relatively neglected but which warrant further attention.

Using a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental control group design, a learning environment study was conducted to evaluate the environmental literacy of postsecondary, nonscience majors. Data were collected from 183 students taking an introductory environmental science class—a 41-question Environmental Literacy Instrument (ELI) prompted students for responses across four subscales of environmental literacy: Knowledge, Beliefs, Opinions, and Self-Perceptions. Differences between presurvey and postsurvey scores were compared to determine whether a constructivist-based or traditional learning environment improved students' environmental literacy more. Results showed that the constructivist-based (...) curriculum was not a significant factor of influence, suggesting that regardless of which learning environment they were exposed to, participants experienced similar improvements to their environmental literacy across a 16-week semester. Given that the findings were contrary to expectations, and counterindicated by several other learning environment studies as well, a broader investigation as to why the two learning environments produced similar results is warranted. (shrink)

In studying Plato’s Crito with a primary concern for Plato's friend Crito, this book reveals the rarity of the philosopher, the tension between the citizen’s natural understanding of justice and the city’s necessary understanding of justice, and how one might attempt to ease this tension.

This comprehensive text shows how various notions of logic can be viewed as notions of universal algebra providing more advanced concepts for those who have an introductory knowledge of algebraic logic, as well as those wishing to delve into more theoretical aspects.

This paper explores allowing truth value assignments to be undetermined or "partial" and overdetermined or "inconsistent", thus returning to an investigation of the four-valued semantics that I initiated in the sixties. I examine some natural consequence relations and show how they are related to existing logics, including ukasiewicz's three-valued logic, Kleene's three-valued logic, Anderson and Belnap's relevant entailments, Priest's "Logic of Paradox", and the first-degree fragment of the Dunn-McCall system "R-mingle". None of these systems have nested implications, and I investigate (...) twelve natural extensions containing nested implications, all of which can be viewed as coming from natural variations on Kripke's semantics for intuitionistic logic. Many of these logics exist antecedently in the literature, in particular Nelson 's "constructible falsity". (shrink)

To accept that cognition is embodied is to question many of the beliefs traditionally held by cognitive scientists. One key question regards the localization of cognitive faculties. Here we argue that for cognition to be embodied and sometimes embedded, means that the cognitive faculty cannot be localized in a brain area alone. We review recent research on neural reuse, the 1/f structure of human activity, tool use, group cognition, and social coordination dynamics that we believe demonstrates how the boundary between (...) the different areas of the brain, the brain and body, and the body and environment is not only blurred but indeterminate. In turn, we propose that cognition is supported by a nested structure of task-specific synergies, which are softly assembled from a variety of neural, bodily, and environmental components (including other individuals), and exhibit interaction dominant dynamics. (shrink)

Multiple concepts of nature are at play in environmental theory and practice. One that has gripped several theorists is the idea of nature as referring to that which is independent of humans and human activity. This concept has been subject to forceful criticism, notably in the recent work of Steven Vogel. After clarifying problematic and promising ways of charac­terizing independent nature, I engage Vogel’s critique. While the critique is compelling in certain respects, I argue that it fails to appreciate what (...) I take to be an important motivating concern of those drawn to the concept of independent nature, or something like it. I offer a characterization of that concern—a worry about problematic instrumentalization of the nonhuman world—and suggest why this concern, and the idea of independent nature which helps to make it intelligible, should continue to inform environmental theory and practice. In offering a qualified defense of the concept of independent nature, and of its value, I assume that such a concept is only one possible tool in a multi-pronged approach to environmental theorizing, deliberation, action, and policy. (shrink)

We give a set of postulates for the minimal normal modal logicK + without negation or any kind of implication. The connectives are simply , , , . The postulates (and theorems) are all deducibility statements . The only postulates that might not be obvious are.

These lectures constitute the earliest version of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, one of the most influential works in Western political theory. They introduce a notion of civil society that has proven of inestimable importance to diverse philosophical and social agendas. This transcription of the lectures, which remained in obscurity until 1982, presents the philosopher's social thought with clarity and boldness. It differs in some significant respects from Hegel's own published version of 1821. Nowhere does Hegel make plainer the difference between (...) his concept of objective spirit and traditional concepts of natural law or offer a more prominent treatment of the key notion of recognition. His description of poverty is more forceful and his critique of existing social conditions more thorough than in the published edition, which had to satisfy the Prussian censor. The strictly limited powers of the monarch are more clearly delineated in the Heidelberg lectures, and the arguments for a bicameral legislature are more explicit. Hegel formulates in a more dynamic way his understanding of the relationship between rationality and actuality--the rational is not what exists but what is coming into being--and sets forth more simply and clearly the central themes of his political philosophy--freedom, justice, and community. The Heidelberg lectures are an indispensable resource for understanding the edition of 1821 and an invaluable supplement to one of the great classics of political philosophy. (shrink)

We study an application of gaggle theory to unary negative modal operators. First we treat negation as impossibility and get a minimal logic system Ki that has a perp semantics. Dunn 's kite of different negations can be dealt with in the extensions of this basic logic Ki. Next we treat negation as “unnecessity” and use a characteristic semantics for different negations in a kite which is dual to Dunn 's original one. Ku is the minimal logic that has a (...) characteristic semantics. We also show that Shramko's falsification logic FL can be incorporated into some extension of this basic logic Ku. Finally, we unite the two basic logics Ki and Ku together to get a negative modal logic K-, which is dual to the positive modal logic K+ in [7]. Shramko has suggested an extension of Dunn 's kite and also a dual version in [12]. He also suggested combining them into a “united” kite. We give a united semantics for this united kite of negations. (shrink)

Given classical (2 valued) structures and and a homomorphism h of onto , it is shown how to construct a (non-degenerate) 3-valued counterpart of . Classical sentences that are true in are non-false in . Applications to number theory and type theory (with axiom of infinity) produce finite 3-valued models in which all classically true sentences of these theories are non-false. Connections to relevant logic give absolute consistency proofs for versions of these theories formulated in relevant logic (the proof for (...) number theory was obtained earlier by R. K. Meyer and suggested the present abstract development). (shrink)

This paper explores the development of mathematics on a quantum logical base when mathematical postulates are taken as necessary truths. First it is shown that first-order Peano arithmetic formulated with quantum logic has the same theorems as classical first-order Peano arithmetic. Distribution for first-order arithmetical formulas is a theorem not of quantum logic but rather of arithmetic. Second, it is shown that distribution fails for second-order Peano arithmetic without extensionality. Third, it is shown that distribution holds for second-order Peano arithmetic (...) (second-order quantum logic) with extensionality. Some remarks about extensions to quantum set theory are made. (shrink)