The promotion of conservation agriculture for smallholders in sub-Saharan Africa is subject to ongoing scholarly and public debate regarding the evidence-base and the agenda-setting power of involved stakeholders. We undertake a political analysis of CA in Zambia that combines a qualitative case study of a flagship CA initiative with a quantitative analysis of a nationally representative dataset on agricultural practices. This analysis moves from an investigation of the knowledge politics to a study of how the political agendas of the actors (...) involved are shaping agrarian practices. From its initial focus on CA as soil conservation and sustainable agriculture, the framing of the initiative has evolved to accommodate shifting trends in the policy arena. In tandem with the increased focus on climate adaptation, we see an increased emphasis on private sector-led modernisation. The initiative has shifted its target group from the poorest smallholders to prospective commercial farmers, and has forged connections between its farmer-to-farmer extension network and private input suppliers and service providers. The link between CA and input intensification is reflected in national statistics as a significantly higher usage of herbicides, pesticides and mineral fertilizer on fields under CA tillage compared to other fields. We argue that the environmental and participation agendas are used to buttress CA as an environmentally and socially sustainable agricultural development strategy, while the prevailing practice is the result of a common vision for a private sector-led agricultural development shared between the implementing organisation, the donor and international organisations promoting a new green revolution in Africa. (shrink)

The International Panel on Social Progress is an independent association of top research scholars with the goal of assessing methods for improving the main institutions of modern societies. The IPSP has produced a report consisting of twenty-two chapters in three volumes that distills the research of these scholars and outlines what the best social science has to say about positive social change. Written in accessible language by scholars across the social sciences and humanities, these volumes assess the achievements of (...) world societies in past centuries, the current trends, the dangers that we are now facing, and the possible futures in the twenty-first century. It covers the main socio-economic, political, and cultural dimensions of social progress, global as well as regional issues, and the diversity of challenges and their interplay around the world. The authors offer a cautious optimistic conclusion: multiple ideas for social progress and better policies are already available and deserve to be tested and implemented. (shrink)

This is the first of three volumes containing a report from the International Panel on Social Progress. The IPSP is an independent association of top research scholars with the goal of assessing methods for improving the main institutions of modern societies. Written in accessible language by scholars across the social sciences and humanities, these volumes assess the achievements of world societies in past centuries, the current trends, the dangers that we are now facing, and the possible futures in the (...) twenty-first century. It covers the main socio-economic, political, and cultural dimensions of social progress, global as well as regional issues, and the diversity of challenges and their interplay around the world. This particular volume covers topics such as economic inequality and growth, finance and corporations, labor, capitalism, and social justice. (shrink)

This is the third of three volumes containing a report from the International Panel on Social Progress. The IPSP is an independent association of top research scholars with the goal of assessing methods for improving the main institutions of modern societies. Written in accessible language by scholars across the social sciences and humanities, these volumes assess the achievements of world societies in past centuries, the current trends, the dangers that we are now facing, and the possible futures in the (...) twenty-first century. It covers the main socio-economic, political, and cultural dimensions of social progress, global as well as regional issues, and the diversity of challenges and their interplay around the world. This particular volume covers topics such as world cultures and religions, families, global health, education, and the contributions of social sciences to institutional change. (shrink)

The epistemic conception of scientific progress equates progress with accumulation of scientific knowledge. I argue that the epistemic conception fails to fully capture scientific progress: theoretical progress, in particular, can transcend scientific knowledge in important ways. Sometimes theoretical progress can be a matter of new theories ‘latching better onto unobservable reality’ in a way that need not be a matter of new knowledge. Recognising this further dimension of theoretical progress is particularly significant for understanding (...) scientific realism, since realism is naturally construed as the claim that science makes theoretical progress. Some prominent realist positions are best understood in terms of commitment to theoretical progress that cannot be equated with accumulation of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

This paper proposes a solution to David Miller's Minnesotan-Arizonan demonstration of the language dependence of truthlikeness (Miller 1974), along with Miller's first-order demonstration of the same (Miller 1978). It is assumed, with Peter Urbach, that the implication of these demonstrations is that the very notion of truthlikeness is intrinsically language dependent and thus non-objective. As such, truthlikeness cannot supply a basis for an objective account of scientific progress. I argue that, while Miller is correct in arguing that the number (...) of true atomic sentences of a false theory is language dependent, the number of known sentences (under certain straightforward assumptions) is conserved by translation; degree of knowledge, unlike truthlikeness, is thus a linguistically invariant notion. It is concluded that the objectivity of scientific progress must be grounded on the fact (noted in Cohen 1980) that knowledge, not mere truth, is the aim of science. (shrink)

The Scottish Enlightenment shaped a new conception of history as a gradual and universal progress from savagery to civil society. Whereas women emancipated themselves from the yoke of male-masters, men in turn acquired polite manners and became civilized. Such a conception, however, presents problematic questions: why were the Americans still savage? Why was it that the Europeans only had completed all the stages of the historic process? Could modern societies escape the destiny of earlier empires and avoid decadence? Was (...) there a limit beyond which women's influence might result in dehumanization? The Scottish Enlightenment's legacy for modernity emerges here as a two-faced Janus, an unresolved tension between universalism and hierarchy, progress and the limits of progress. (shrink)

What is the nature of scientific progress and what makes it possible? When we look back at the scientific theories of the past and compare them to the state of science today, there seems little doubt that we have made progress. But is it a continuous process which gradually incorporates past successes into present theories, or are entrenched theories overthrown by superior competitors in a revolutionary manner? _Theories of Scientific Progress _is the ideal introduction to this topic. (...) It is clearly organized, with suggestions for further reading that point the way to both primary texts and secondary literature. It will be essential reading for students of the history and philosophy of science. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to use the scientometrics software CiteSpace as the analysis tool, studying 317 academic documents about inferentialism from 1999 to 2021 collected in the database Web of Science systematically and intuitevely present the development trends and hot topics of inferentialism, hoping to explore new ideas and directions. The procedure includes visualizing and analizing the co-citation networks generated by the 6.1.R.3 version of CiteSpace. The knowledge bases and the research front about inferentialism are identified by analyzing (...) the cited references in the major clusers and the citing articles to the major clusters in citation networks. The landscape view and timeline view of CiteSpace facilitate the comprehension of the interrelationships among clusters and their temporal evolution, thereby offering dependable histographic survey of inferentialism research spanning from theory to practice. Through the utilization of co-keyword network analysis, co-term network analysis, and co-category network analysis, this analytical approach facilitates the comprehension of the interdisciplinary research by identifying various topics and disciplines in compasing the application of inferentialism in education, as well as its relation to logic, metaethics, mathematics, perception and cognition. Through the co-author and collaborating country/region of the study, the question who are the main researchers of a study and which countries/regions are they affiliated with can be answered. It can provide the reference for us to introduce academic resources, carry out cooperation and evaluate academic achievements. All in all, a systematic analysis in CiteSpace is helpful for researchers to capture the salient literature, understand the historical evolution and development trend of inferentialism, and lay a foundation for further research and cooperation according to their interest and specialities. (shrink)

아렌트는 『정신의 삶』 전부터 헤겔 철학에 관심을 가지지만, 특히 『정신의 삶』에서 헤겔의 역사철학을 ‘탈신체화된 기이한 유령 춤’에 비유하며 비판적 입장을 강하게 표명한다. 아렌트에 의하면, 헤겔의 역사철학을 추동하는 세계정신이나 인류의 진보는 추상적이며 보편적인 개념이며, 이러한 개념은 역사의 무대에서 개인들을 꼭두각시들로 취급하면서 인간의 복수성을 희생하여 상정되는 가설이다. 또한, 헤겔의 역사철학은 ‘유령처럼 아무도 아닌 자’인 ‘단 하나의 세계정신’이라는 가정에 의존하며, 역사는 당위적으로 설정된 목적을 이루기 위해 세계정신이 자기 실현하는 결정론적 과정이다. 이 과정은 세계정신 혼자만의 가장 고독한 작업을 통해 진행되기에, 거기서는 실제 복수의 행위자들 (...) 사이의 상호 소통이 불가능하다. 이러한 아렌트의 헤겔 비판은 헤겔의 역사철학을 매우 근대적이라고 보는 관점뿐만 아니라, 정치적 행위에 대한 아렌트 고유의 문제의식에 기인한다. 전체주의 같은 역사적 현상을 세계사의 목적론적 진행에서 불가피한 것으로 간주할 경우, ‘예루살렘의 아이히만’과 같은 반인륜적 결과를 초래할 수 있다는 문제의식이 아렌트의 ‘반헤겔주의’에는 내재한다. 그러나 아렌트의 헤겔 비판은 핀카드처럼 헤겔의 역사철학을 다르게 해석하는 관점을 고려할 때 그 타당성을 의심할 수 있다. 더 나아가 오히려 헤겔의 상호 인정 개념 등을 통해 아렌트와 헤겔의 입장이 얼마나 서로 친근하며 유사한 문제의식을 공유하는지에 대한 추가 검토의 필요성도 제기될 수 있다. (shrink)

In spite of its success, Neo-Darwinism is faced with major conceptual barriers to further progress, deriving directly from its metaphysical foundations. Most importantly, neo-Darwinism fails to recognize a fundamental cause of evolutionary change, “niche construction”. This failure restricts the generality of evolutionary theory, and introduces inaccuracies. It also hinders the integration of evolutionary biology with neighbouring disciplines, including ecosystem ecology, developmental biology, and the human sciences. Ecology is forced to become a divided discipline, developmental biology is stubbornly difficult to (...) reconcile with evolutionary theory, and the majority of biologists and social scientists are still unhappy with evolutionary accounts of human behaviour. The incorporation of niche construction as both a cause and a product of evolution removes these disciplinary boundaries while greatly generalizing the explanatory power of evolutionary theory. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the discussion of social freedom in the family in Axel Honneth's most recent book Freedom's Right. I argue, on the one hand, that radical democrats have much to learn from Honneth's method of normative reconstruction because it provides a much needed corrective to the “social weightlessness” that characterizes their thought about democracy. In contrast to the current preoccupation with rarefied issues of political ontology, Freedom's Right exemplifies a type of sociologically attuned thinking that is essential for (...) addressing issues of power and inequality. On the other hand, I argue that Honneth's reliance on a teleological notion of historical progress has deeply constraining effects on his critique of power. First, in so far as it underestimates the impact of growing social inequality on personal and intimate relations, it fails to acknowledge just how extensive, radical and, potentially deeply contentious the political measures needed to realize social freedom in the family may have to be. Second, Honneth's teleological reconstruction provides too thin a basis to generate substantive normative solutions to issues of social justice in the family. Third, teleology tends to depoliticize the process of emancipatory social change by construing it in terms of impersonal mechanisms and developmental tendencies rather than as open-ended, often polemical and deeply contested forms of political struggle. (shrink)

Convergence of model projections is often considered by climate scientists to be an important objective in so far as it may indicate the robustness of the models’ core hypotheses. Consequently, the range of climate projections from a multi-model ensemble, called “model spread”, is often expected to reduce as climate research moves forward. However, the successive Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change indicate no reduction in model spread, whereas it is indisputable that climate science has made improvements in (...) its modelling. In this paper, after providing a detailed explanation of the situation, we describe an epistemological setting in which a steady model spread is not doomed to be seen as negative, and is indeed compatible with a desirable evolution of climate models taken individually. We further argue that, from the perspective of collective progress, as far as the improvement of the products of a multi-model ensemble is concerned, reduction of model spread is of lower priority than model independence. (shrink)

After expressing gratitude to each contributor, and briefly commenting on each, I probe several main themes of my work, addressing the question of the apparent difference between my earlier philosophical and later clinical writings. Central to both is the reflexivity of the human agent, and that each exhibits a form of practice regardless of the specific aims embedded in each. I then address the theme of narrative writing as my work has developed over the past several decades – at the (...) heart of which are questions of self and integrity. (shrink)

Seven chimpanzees in twenty-seven experiments run over the course of five years at his University of Louisiana laboratory in New Iberia, Louisiana, are at the heart of Daniel Povinelli’s case that chimpanzee thinking about the physical world is not at all like that of humans. Chimps, according to Povinelli and his coauthors James Reaux, Laura Theall, and Steve Giambrone, are phenomenally quick at learning to associate visible features of tools with specific uses of those tools, but they appear to lack (...) cognitive access to forces and other invisible causal features of those tools. Povinelli’s chimps appar- ently rely on a trial-and-error strategy to learn whether a particular tool is suitable for a particular task, and and having mastered one task they appear unable to generalize to other tasks on the basis of tool properties that are not directly visible. Thus, for instance, Povinelli’s research subjects did not immediately recognize that a tool that had been demonstrated to be non- rigid would be unsuitable for dragging a piece of food towards them. When presented with a choice between a rigid, T-shaped “rake” that they had used many times previously and a rake with non-rigid arms, Povinelli and Reaux found, over the course of eight trials, that their chimps chose the non-rigid rake as frequently as they chose the rigid one (experiment 9, chapter 7). (shrink)

In recent pragmatist-leaning philosophy and ethics, the Jamesian notion of the cries of the wounded has reemerged as a method of evoking moral progress. Philosophers like Philip Kitcher have argued that a surefooted approach to the complaints of those harmed by given social moral arrangements may lead to an improvement of moral thought, practices and institutions. Yet, at the same time, it has been acknowledged that this comprises a most evident problem: many wounded stakeholders do not cry out about (...) their sorrow, not at last because they may not be capable of doing so. In this paper, we aim at providing a more detailed account on the communicative range of social unrest, capable of overcoming the reductive vision of some possibly harmed as being silent. Some moral philosophers have highlighted the role of the arts and the humanities in the fostering of a more empathetic imagination. With the aid of continental aesthetics (T. W. Adorno and M. Beistegui), we acknowledge the value of artistic imagination as a communicative faculty extending beyond the limits of discursive reason through non-conceptual tools. Taking it into account in moral inquiry effectively expands and provides a more detailed account on the wounded that are apparently silent, as it includes a variety of forms of communication as moral standpoints and conversational apostrophes. This finally leads us to reread James’ take on the notion of the cries of the wounded, to emphasize the necessity to understand it as a fruitful stance about inclusive moral inquiry exceeding the limits of a conceptual-discursive focus. (shrink)

This book contains a collection of 13 essays from leading scholars on the relationship between passionate emotions and moral advancement in Greek and Roman thought. Recognising that emotions played a key role in whether individuals lived happily, ancient philosophers extensively discussed the nature of the passions.