Expert judgment can be seen throughout climate science and even more prominently when discussing climate tipping points. To provide an accurate characterization of expert judgment we begin by evaluating the existing literature on expertise as it relates to climate science as a whole, before then focusing the literature review on the role of expert judgment in the unique context of climate tipping points. From this we turn our attention to the structured expert elicitation protocols specifically developed (...) for producing expert judgments about tipping points. We highlight that expert elicitation is not only used for the quantification of uncertainty in this context, but also for the very identification and characterization of tipping points and their interactions, making expert judgment in itself a genuine scientific output. The central role of expert judgment in this domain raises several epistemic issues that require careful attention. Among other topics, we discuss the relationship between expert judgment and modeling, as well as the nonepistemic values that are involved in the production of expert judgments, highlighting how the elicitation protocols can be used to manage these values. In the perspective of climate change, clarifying the epistemic foundations of expert judgment in this context can help to navigate the epistemic situation between self-defeating alarmism and blind dismissal, thus contributing to a better understanding of the challenges related to climate (and Earth system) tipping points. (shrink)

RESUMO Em detrimento do acúmulo de 10.000 horas de prática antes do domínio sobre algo - o famoso tipping point de Ericsson - intérpretes médicos podem ganhar considerável experiência ao analisar vídeos de interações médico-paciente, mesmo quando esse par fala a mesma língua. Os hospitais-escola comumente filmam tais interações usando pacientes simulados. Tais filmes têm sido usados em instruções de aula com intérpretes. Aqui, é descrito o uso recente de filmes com PS em um ambiente de aprendizado online, no (...) qual fóruns de discussão e fichas de atividade suplantaram os métodos de trabalho convencionais. Nessa abordagem de aprendizagem baseada em problemas, típica da educação médica, estudantes de pós-graduação em interpretação em serviços de saúde se familiarizam com o discurso típico de diagnóstico e tratamento. Os alunos relataram que essa familiarização os ajudou a liberar seus recursos cognitivos para planejar e monitorar traduções e outras decisões imediatas. Os materiais e métodos de aprendizado usados nessa abordagem online são descritos detalhadamente. O valor do contexto da ABP é descrito em relação às abordagens educacionais de interpretação para o sistema de saúde de modo geral.ABSTRACT Rather than amassing 10,000 hours of practice before mastery is achieved - Ericsson’s famed tipping point - medical interpreters can gain considerable, concomitant experience by analyzing videos of provider-patient interactions, even when the pair speak the same language. Teaching hospitals commonly film such interactions using standardized patients. Such films have been effectively used in classroom-based instruction with interpreters. The novel use of SP films in an on-line learning environment is described herein, where discussion boards and worksheets supplanted traditional instruction methods. In this problem-based learning approach, typical of medical education, graduate-level medical interpreting students became familiar with common diagnostic and treatment discourse. Students reported that this familiarity helped free their cognitive resources for planning and monitoring translations and other decisions on-the-job. The learning materials and methods used in this on-line approach are detailed. The value of the PBL context is described in relation to healthcare interpreting education approaches generally. (shrink)

Can citizens impact the broader discourse about an organization and its legitimacy? While social media have empowered citizens to publicly question firms through large volumes of online evaluations, the high heterogeneity of their evaluations dilutes their impact. Our empirical study applying a threshold vector autoregressive model (TVAR) analysis of 2.5 million tweets and 1,786 news media articles tests the condition by which the heterogeneity of online evaluations converges and influences the broader media discourse. Although social media evaluations do not initially (...) influence media legitimacy, they become influential after reaching a tipping point of refracted attention, which is created by high volume and convergence of individual evaluations around few aggregative frames. Thus, social media storms may influence the broader discourse about an organization when this discourse converges and reaches a tipping point, rather than merely through the massive participation of citizens. (shrink)

This paper presents a stylized bioeconomic model of hunter-gatherer foraging effort designed to study the process of intensification on open-access resources. A critical insight derived from the model is that the very success of an adaptation at the level of an individual forager group can create system-level vulnerabilities that subsequently feed back to cause emergent social change. The model illustrates how the intensification of harvest time by individuals within a habitat creates a forager-resource system that becomes vulnerable to perturbations. When (...) the system is vulnerable, it is characterized by two resource harvest equilibria: a sustainable, low-effort equilibrium and a degraded, high-effort equilibrium. In this situation, the forager-resource system can be shocked back and forth between these different equilibria by perturbations, generating considerable risk for foragers. We use the model to isolate the ecological conditions under which the instability of the system generates the risk that foragers will experience a shortfall of resources, and we suggest a mechanism that might lead foragers to adopt social institutions that regulate who can access a habitat as an adaptive response. As an illustration of the potential utility of the insights drawn from the model, comparisons are made with a substantial ethnographic data set. (shrink)

This paper explores how philosophical accounts of the nature of persons and attributive responsibility can help us to make sense of the kinds of characteristic errors that people make in interpreting what is attributable to one another. I show how this gives us an important tool for understanding some important kinds of interpersonal conflict, with particular attention to understanding why Maya Angelou's advice that "when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time" can seem easier to have (...) followed from the privileged perspective of retrospection than it really was in prospect. (shrink)

Accountability policy and its negative effects on teachers’ working lives and retention is internationally recognised as a problem in education with school evaluation and inspection being a particular issue, particularly in England. Research suggests that the school inspection system Ofsted impacts negatively on the health and well-being of staff and negatively influences teachers’ working practices, which can affect teacher retention. This paper examines the findings of a recent English research project entitled ‘Beyond Ofsted’ (2023) which aimed to gather a wide (...) range of views on both the current inspection system and potential alternatives. The data discussed in this paper is from part of the data collection which was a large-scale survey of teachers and school leaders. One of the findings of the Beyond Ofsted report was that 76% of our survey respondents thought that Ofsted had a negative effect on retention, with 30% considering leaving as a result of their most recent inspection. We found many reasons for this: the overall experience of inspection, the work in preparing for inspection, and many describing the regime as ‘toxic and brutal’. We argue that this is a compelling argument for urgent reform. (shrink)

Earth system science (ESS) and modelling have given rise to a new conceptual framework in the recent decades, which goes much beyond climate science. Indeed, Earth system science and modelling have the ambition “to build a unified understanding of the Earth”, involving not only the physical Earth system components (atmosphere, cryosphere, land, ocean, lithosphere) but also all the relevant human and social processes interacting with them. This unified understanding that ESS aims to achieve raises a number of epistemological issues about (...) interdisciplinarity. We argue that the interdisciplinary relations in ESS between natural and social / human sciences are best characterized in terms of what is called ‘scientific imperialism’ in the literature and we show that this imperialistic feature has some detrimental epistemic and non-epistemic effects, notably when addressing the issue of values in ESS. This paper considers in particular the core ESS concepts of Anthropocene, planetary boundaries and tipping points in the light of the philosophy of science discussions on interdisciplinarity and values. We show that acknowledging the interconnections between interdisciplinarity and values suggests ways for ESS to move forward in view of addressing the climate and environmental challenges. (shrink)

Large-scale and discontinuous rapid transitions in the climate and Earth systems constitute one of the most concerning, yet in many ways one of the least understood aspects of climate change. On the one hand, because of their potential huge impacts on human and ecological systems, it is argued that climate tipping points and their interactions (potentially leading to cascading effects) help “to define that we are in a climate emergency.” On the other hand, it is largely acknowledged that (...) making quantitative (e.g., probabilistic) statements about abrupt climate changes and tipping points is extremely challenging. Some form of tension thus emerges from these two sides of abrupt climate changes and underlies the development of the very notion of climate tipping point. This tension finds its roots in the many epistemic and methodological issues that arise in the context of abrupt climate changes and tipping points. This contribution aims to provide an overview of these issues in a philosophy of science perspective; the expectation is that such a conceptual perspective can help to improve our understanding of the specific challenges related to abrupt climate changes and tipping points. (shrink)

Drawing on convergent work in a broad range of disciplines, this article uses the tipping point paradigm to frame a new account of how early human ancestors may have first broken free from, as Bickerton calls it, the “prison of animal communication.” Under building pressure for an enhanced signaling system capable of supporting joint attentional-intentional activities, a cultural tradition of disambiguated indexical pointing (a finger point disambiguated by a facial expression, vocalization, or other gesture), combined with increasingly sophisticated mindreading (...) circuitry and prosocial tendencies, may have sparked the first in the series of biocultural explosions that led from a simple protolanguage to fully modern human language. This account successfully integrates at least ten other competing hypotheses, and is shown to pass nine important tests that have been proposed for language origin scenarios of its type. (shrink)

This essay develops a concept of curiotization, through which people are reduced to a curio for the fascination of others. I argue that trans people as they have appeared in media, philosophy, and narratives of history are curiotized as forever fascinating, new, titillating, and controversial. In contrast to the narrative of momentous trans progress in the mid-2010s, I point out that frameworks such as the "Transgender Tipping Point" worked to position its "trans moment" as unprecedented and always on the (...) threshold of arrival. To work through a specific example, I point to decades of renewed fascination over trans women being capable of breastfeeding and the long history of trans fascination in popular music. I conclude by emphasizing the obscured world-historical presence of transsexuality as it coincides with the history of pharmaceuticals, hormone technologies, and birth control. In contrast to a "goldfish memory optics" through which trans people become eternally new, fascinating, and debatable, I stress the importance of restoring the complexity of "trans" and its histories back into an understanding of the present. (shrink)

: My response focuses on three main issues raised by the commentaries that it is essential to clarify in order to understand anchoring in lived experience as an act of resistance: the ….

In this article, we claim that recent developments in climate science and renewable energy should prompt a reframing of debates surrounding climate change mitigation. Taken together, we argue that these developments suggest (1) global climate collapse in this century is a non-negligible risk, (2) mitigation offers substantial benefits to current generations, and (3) mitigation by some can generate social tipping dynamics that could ultimately make renewables cheaper than fossil fuels. We explain how these claims undermine familiar framings of climate (...) change, wherein mitigation is understood as self-sacrifice that individuals and governments must be morally persuaded or incentivized to undertake. [Open access]. (shrink)

According to recent scientific reports, certain climatic tipping points can be understood as “points of no return,” in which, for instance, anthropogenic interference changes global temperatures irreversibly. Such an outcome presents a situation unlike any considered before by risk theorists, for it introduces an element of radical uncertainty into the very value (considered ethically, culturally, and politically) of taking action on climate change. In the following I argue that ethical bases for action that rely on traditional concepts (...) of risk (such as the dominant precautionary principle) are vastly ill equipped to make sense of the catastrophes of the scale predicted by most climatologists today. Instead we need to understand the possibilities of political action beyond thresholds assumed by tipping-point calculations. This in turn means investigating action as a form of risktaking and as operating against the conservative connotations of environmental precaution. It also implies acting against the calculative assumption that one’s actions are meaningless “unless this happens by this time,” a sentiment propelled, perhaps, by the repetition in mainstream media of reference to the finality of points of no return. (shrink)

The point of having you write a philosophy paper is for you to develop and practice certain important fundamental skills. They include the following: (1) the ability to comprehend, reconstruct, and analyze complex philosophical arguments; (2) the ability to critically evaluate such arguments; (3) the ability to argue persuasively for your own views; and (4) the ability to articulate your thoughts in a clear, concise, and wellorganized manner.

Psychology of communication must do everything is possible to promote an adequate perception of risk. This is particularly true when it comes to transmitting statistical and probabilistic data to an audience of non-experts, inevitably conditioning their perception of risk. Data are all available, but subjects are able to understand them in the specific meanings proper to a specialized language, only if they are adequately transmitted. And we find these phenomena in the difficulty in representing the trend of, for instance, Covid-19 (...) contagion, based on probability of contagion and mortality. In general, then, when we communicate scientific terms or data we should re-introduce the psychological aspects which characterize communication. The nudging strategies can be considered as a prototype of approach to overcome risky behaviours, which takes into account the cognitive characteristics of the human system. This strategy acts on different levels, using implicit factors, bypassing defensive attitudes and exploiting adaptive inferential processes, without overloading the cognitive system. But from a communicative point of view, nudge, as well as any other type of intervention, is not a general ‘recipe. The acceptance of the suggestion, the effectiveness of the nudging implies the congruity with the system that receives it: the “way of reasoning”, and its implicit layer has to be taken into account. The right combination of the source, the adopted message and the decisional setting could improve the efficacy of the public policies. (shrink)

The problem of naming is not just any philosophical problem, but rather one that is central to classical ontology, the latter depending on the notion of names as latching onto things in their essential being. As such, the name has traditionally been tied to the concept of truth as adequatio or correspondence between knowledge and being, intellect and thing, or proposition and reality. Accordingly, the problem of naming lies at the core of the issues of objectivity and fiction, as addressed (...) in this issue of Filozofski vestnik. Probing and circumventing the double trap of “transcendentalism” and “new materialism,” I propose to cast a side-glance at this massive philosophical problem, approaching it from the singular point of view of smells and their striking relationship to language. (shrink)

The referential focus of this paper is not a hypothesis or theoretical point per se. Instead, it is the body of work (hereafter termed autopoietic theory) developed by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela. The intended audience is not a community of critical scholars per se. Instead it is the "community of interest" for whom autopoietic theory is at least an object of interest and at most an object of personal commitment. To the extent autopoietic theory has prospered and spread over (...) the last quarter century, it has often been a function of highly interactive, even personal, relationships among self-acknowledged adherents and those generally interested. Owing to the distribution of such correspondents across diverse disciplines, their cohesion as a "community" has been tenuous at best. I wish to step back from the usual scholarly perspective and use this venue to address what may be termed the pragmatics of autopoietic theory. The intention is to offer some sort of "state of the community" assessment, recommendations, and / or tips regarding: (a) autopoietic theory's documentary corpus; (b) discourse on autopoietic theory; and (c) applying the theory in the context of focused research. The goal is to help orient newcomers and provoke reflection among the "veterans.". (shrink)

Quel regard les musées de société posent-ils sur les sociétés ? Le musée fait partie des institutions structurantes d’une société, notamment par son rôle de création et de partage de savoir : en ce sens, il est à la fois miroir d’une société et lien critique. Préoccupés par les enjeux contemporains tels que la diversité culturelle, la numérisation, la mondialisation, le développement des activités culturelles ou encore le développement durable, les musées de société doivent sans cesse s’adapter, créer et innover (...) en jonglant avec les paradoxes inhérents à toutes civilisations. À travers des exemples français et québécois, cet article présentera un point de vue critique sur les défis et les enjeux des transformations opérant au sein des musées de société, que ce soit au niveau du discours tenu sur la diversité culturelle, de la mise en muséographie de l’autre, de la mise en valeur du patrimoine matériel et immatériel ou encore de l’engouement grandissant des visiteurs. Du fait de sa mission et de part sa dynamique, le musée de société ne serait-il pas le point de bascule qui permet d’offrir une lecture intégrée des sociétés ? Si oui, quel monde souhaite-t-il construire? De quel monde souhaite-t-il être témoin?How do social museums view societies? Museums are one of the main structural elements of any society, in particular because of their role in creating and sharing knowledge: in this sense, they are both a mirror and a critique of society. Because of their concern for contemporary issues such as cultural diversity, digitisation, globalisation, the development of cultural activities and even sustainable development, social museums have to constantly adapt, create and innovate while dealing with the inherent paradoxes of any society. Through examples from France and Quebec, this article offers a critical perspective on the issues and challenges arising from current developments in social museums, from discourses on cultural diversity, designing exhibitions on other cultures and ways of presenting the material and immaterial heritage, to the increasingly popularity of these museums among the public. Given their mission and their dynamics, could the social museum be a tipping point in the advent of an integrated interpretation of society? If so, what kind of world does it aim to build? What is the world it aims to reflect? (shrink)

Summary In this paper we examine the reaction of the Leiden low-temperature laboratory of Heike Kamerlingh Onnes to new ideas in quantum theory. Especially the contributions of Albert Einstein (1906) and Peter Debye (1912) to the theory of specific heat, and the concept of zero-point energy formulated by Max Planck in 1911, gave a boost to solid state research to test these theories. In the case of specific heat measurements, Kamerlingh Onnes's laboratory faced stiff competition from Walter Nernst's Institute of (...) Physical Chemistry in Berlin. In fact, Berlin got the better of it because Leiden lacked focus. After the liquefaction of helium in 1908, Kamerlingh Onnes transformed his laboratory into an international facility for low temperature research, and for this reason it was impossible to make headway with the specific heat measurements. In the case of zero-point energy, Leiden developed a magnetic research programme to test the concept. Initially the balance of evidence seemed to be tipping in favour of zero-point energy. After 1914, however, Leiden would desert the theory in fovour, of a concept from calssical physics. A curious move that illustrates Kamerlingh Onnes's discomfort with the new quantum theory. (shrink)

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa is not merely a biomedical problem that can be seen in isolation and dealt with only through emergency medical rescue processes. The ethical dilemmas surfaced by this epidemic are also not confined to the usual micro-ethical problems associated with medical care and medical research. The pandemic, as one of many manifestations of failed human and social development that has brought the world to dangerous ‘tipping points’, requires deep introspection and action to address (...) upstream causal processes. (shrink)

As global warming is gradually pushing the Earth to the climate tipping point, the reduction of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has become more urgent than ever. Many high-tech methods, such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies, have been proposed as crucial tools in the fight against climate change. However, this paper argues that the expensiveness and uncertainty of CCS technologies make them not feasibly deployed. Persistent investment in these technologies also reinforces the outdated eco-deficit mindset that prioritizes (...) monetary over environmental values. In contrast, the recent flood in the Sahara desert turned barren areas green, reminding us that nature, when given the opportunity, can have an astonishing capacity to heal itself. Investing billions of dollars in deploying costly and uncertain high-tech solutions while limiting funds for local communities to take care of reliable natural carbon sinks risks depleting humanity's resources to tackle climate change, especially when the tipping points are closed. (shrink)

Since the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT, the world has entered a race to develop more capable and powerful AI, including artificial general intelligence (AGI). The development is constrained by the dependency of AI on the model, quality, and quantity of training data, making the AI training process highly costly in terms of resources and environmental consequences. Thus, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the AI training process is essential, especially when the Earth is approaching the climate tipping points (...) and planetary boundaries. It is evident that AI can function better when trained to mimic certain human mental processes. Based on insights from quantum mechanics and the informational entropy-based notion of value, we suggest AI developers can enhance the AI training processes' effectiveness and efficiency by creating and implementing parameter systems that are capable of effectively assigning probabilities to informational quanta. Such systems can help reduce entropy within the system, which lowers the energy required for data storage and processing while decreasing the likelihood of information loss during training. Successfully applying the concept of information entropy-based value in AI development will be crucial for advancing generative AI and achieving AGI in a sustainable manner. (shrink)

Darwin claimed that human and animal minds differ in degree but not in kind, and that ethical principles such as the Golden Rule are just an extension of thinking found in animals. Both claims are false. The best way to distinguish differences in degree from differences in kind is by identifying mechanisms that have emergent properties. Recursive thinking is an emergent capability found in humans but not in other animals. The Golden Rule and some other ethical principles such as Kant’s (...) categorical imperative require recursion, so they constitute ethical thinking that is restricted to humans. Changes in kind have tipping points resulting from mechanisms with emergent properties. (shrink)

Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) argues that social contracts must be recreated if they are to fulfil the promise of human rights. In The Remaking of Social Contracts, leading thinkers and activists address a wide range of concerns - global economic governance, militarism, ecological tipping points, the nation state, movement-building, sexuality and reproduction, and religious fundamentalism. These themes are of wide-ranging importance for the survival and well-being of us all, and reflect the many dimensions (...) and inter-connectedness of our lives. Using feminist lenses, the book puts forward a holistic and radical understanding of the synergies, tensions and contradictions between social movements and global, regional and local power structures and processes, and it points to other alternatives and possibilities for this fierce new world."--Publisher's description. (shrink)

The world has surpassed three million deaths from COVID-19, and faces potentially catastrophic tipping points in the global climate system. Despite the urgency, governments have struggled to address either problem. In this paper, we argue that COVID-19 and anthropogenic climate change (ACC) are critical examples of an emerging type of governance challenge: severe collective action problems that require significant individual behavior change under conditions of hyper- partisanship and scientific misinformation. Building on foundational political science work demonstrating the potential (...) for norms (or informal rules of behavior) to solve collective action problems, we analyze more recent work on norms from neighboring disciplines to offer novel recommendations for more difficult challenges like COVID-19 and ACC. Key insights include more attention to (1) norm-based messaging strategies that appeal to individuals across the ideological spectrum or that reframe collective action as consistent with resistant subgroups’ pre-existing values, (2) messages that emphasize both the prevalence and the social desirability of individual behaviors required to address these challenges, (3) careful use of public policies and incentives that make individual behavior change easier without threatening norm internalization, and (4) greater attention to epistemic norms governing trust in different information sources. We conclude by pointing out that COVID-19 and climate change are likely harbingers of other polarized collective action problems that governments will face in the future. By connecting work on norms and political governance with a broader, interdisciplinary literature on norm psychology, motivation, and behavior change, we aim to improve the ability of political scientists and policy makers to respond to these and future collective action challenges. (shrink)

Operating at the crossroads of memoir, academia, and literature, You Had to Be There offers a fresh, hopeful perspective on the seemingly hopeless subject of climate grief. Over the course of eleven essays, interrogations, and reflections, the author invites readers to examine the ways in which the media influences our reaction to the events befalling us, not only in how we feel, but in how we behave in the face of such overwhelming circumstances. From TED Talks to Camus, from My (...) Octopus Teacher to The New York Times, Jess Bugg examines what the culture is serving us about climate change; what we should be discarding and what we should be taking to heart. One of a vanishingly small number of graduates from RISD's Nature, Culture, and Sustainability program the author has spent years considering the question of where to turn once you pass the tipping point and writes about the small acts that might keep us afloat even if they don't promise to save us. (shrink)

This article compares two dominating conceptual frameworks of the current global environmental crisis, the Anthropocene and climate change, with respect to how they can be deployed to think about the dynamics of political action. Whereas the Anthropocene has attracted the attention of audiences beyond specialists and has radically expanded the temporal horizon for politics, its temporal characteristics risk rendering it unhelpful for thinking critically about how the current environmental crisis can be addressed. Most importantly, by establishing a reference point in (...) a distant future from which the present is evaluated, the Anthropocene framework gives the impression that the future is already determined and that the course of future environmental degradation is set. The Anthropocene thus fails to specify what is at stake for politics in the current crisis. As a contrast, the climate-change framework is structured as a range of scenarios. It establishes a temporal structure that opens the present to different potential futures and manifests the fact that the level of emissions in the coming decades is decisive for future climate change but not yet determined. Further, the presence of tipping points in the climate system can be understood in temporal terms as a risk in some scenarios of falling into a temporality of unfolding, a mode in which game-changing events that lead to even more emissions proceed beyond human influence. The risk of entering such a temporality that closes down the possibility to meaningfully deliberate on fundamental aspects of the future increases with the rate of emissions. The climate-change framework in this way helps us understand the environmental crisis in a new way, namely by conceptualizing the open future as a finite resource that has to be distributed globally and across generations. In sum, as a framework for engaging with environmental derangement, the climate-change framework offers a more specific and politically useful temporality than the Anthropocene. (shrink)

Why was there a meltdown at the Fukushima power plant? Why do some people get cancer and not others? Why is global warming happening? Why does one person get depressed in the face of life's vicissitudes while another finds resilience? Questions like these--questions of causality--form the basis of modern scientific inquiry, posing profound intellectual and methodological challenges for researchers in the physical, natural, biomedical, and social sciences. In this groundbreaking book, noted psychiatrist and author Peter Rabins offers a conceptual framework (...) for analyzing daunting questions of causality. Navigating a lively intellectual voyage between the shoals of strict reductionism and relativism, Rabins maps a three-facet model of causality and applies it to a variety of questions in science, medicine, economics, and more. Throughout this book, Rabins situates his argument within relevant scientific contexts, such as quantum mechanics, cybernetics, chaos theory, and epigenetics. A renowned communicator of complex concepts and scientific ideas, Rabins helps readers stretch their minds beyond the realm of popular literary tipping points, blinks, and freakonomic explanations of the world. (shrink)

This essay presents central themes from my forthcoming book, The Awakening of the Global Mind. This book seeks to open a new frontier of Global Consciousness that has been long emerging in human evolution through the ages. When we step back from our more localized perspectives and expand into a more integral, holistic, and global space through the awakening of the global mind we are able to discern striking mega-trends in cultural evolution across diverse cultural and religious worldviews and perspectives (...) through time. One striking finding through this global lens is that the collective wisdom of humanity is quite clear that we make our living realities through the conduct of our consciousness: our technology of minding. And when we make ourselves and worlds through egocentric patterns of thinking we get polarized and fragmented worlds that are not sustainable. This essay joins a growing chorus of visionary thinkers and futurists which recognizes that in the 21st Century we face grave planetary crises and that our ego-based cultures are at a tipping point and not sustainable. The primary crisis on the planet now is a crisis of consciousness, and our global wisdom suggests that humanity is in a painful transformation toward a more healthful integral technology of mind that ushers in a new sustainable global civilization wherein the whole human family may flourish together on our sacred planet. (shrink)

Recommender Systems (RecSys) have been around since the early days of the Internet, helping users navigate the vast ocean of information and the increasingly available options that have been available for us ever since. The range of tasks for which one could use a RecSys is expanding as the technical capabilities grow, with the disruption of Machine Learning representing a tipping point in this domain, as in many others. However, the increase of the technical capabilities of AI-powered RecSys did (...) not come with a thorough consideration of their ethical implications and, despite being a well-established technical domain, the potential impacts of RecSys on their users are still under-assessed. This paper aims at filling this gap in regards to one of the main impacts of RecSys: personal autonomy. We first describe how technology can affect human values and a suitable methodology to identify these effects and mitigate potential harms: Value Sensitive Design (VSD). We use VSD to carry out a conceptual investigation of personal autonomy in the context of a generic RecSys and draw on a nuanced account of procedural autonomy to focus on two components: competence and authenticity. We provide the results of our inquiry as a value hierarchy and apply it to the design of a speculative RecSys as an example. (shrink)

Ample research links mothers’ postpartum depression (PPD) to adverse interactions with their infants. However, most studies relied on general population samples, whereas a substantial number of women are at elevated depression risk. The purpose of this study was to describe mothers’ interactions with their 6- and 12-month-old infants among women at elevated risk, although with a range of symptom severity. We also identified higher-order factors that best characterized the interactions and tested longitudinal consistency of these factors from 6 to 12 (...) months of infant age. We leveraged data from eight projects across the United States (n = 647), using standardized depression measures and an adaptation of the NICHD Mother-Infant Interaction Scales. Overall, these depression-vulnerable mothers showed high levels of sensitivity and positive regard and low levels of intrusiveness, detachment, and negative regard with their infants. Factor analyses of maternal behaviors identified two overarching factors—“positive engagement” and “negative intrusiveness” that were comparable at 6 and 12 months of infant age. Mothers’ ability to regulate depressed mood was a key behavior that defined “positive engagement” in factor loadings. An exceptionally strong loading of intrusiveness on the second factor suggested its central importance for women at elevated depression risk. Mothers with severe depressive symptoms had significantly more “negative intrusiveness” and less “positive engagement” with their 6-month-old infants than women with moderate or fewer depressive symptoms, suggesting a potential tipping point at which symptoms may interfere with the quality of care. Results provide the foundation for further research into predictors and moderators of women’s interactions with their infant among women at elevated risk for PPD. They also indicate a need for evidence-based interventions that can support more severely depressed women in providing optimal care. (shrink)

Focused on manifestation, semiotics has nevertheless constantly considered its surroundings, the imaginary that makes the image and gives it meaning. The article tries to problematize this relationship. It separates the picture from its imaginary share, the image, and seeks to support its general propositions on plastic analyzes, a painting by Francis Bacon, an installation by Abdelkader Benchamma and another installation by Adrien M and Claire B. It focuses on reductions and the tipping points of the picture, where the (...) “opening” occurs, striving for a structuring of its proposals. It thus instructs both sides of the enunciation, an enunciation centered on the visible and an invisible enunciation still premeditated by the enunciation. (shrink)

According to Henri de Lubac's history of medieval exegesis, the fourteenth century marked the tipping point for the disintegration of history and allegory. The Postilla super totam bibliam of the Franciscan Nicholas of Lyra plays a prominent role in this declension narrative by ceding the “spirit” of interpretation to the separate discipline of theology, and opening the space for critical biblical studies to attain autonomy. But what if Nicholas of Lyra was on the other side of this history? Arguing (...) from the layout of early Postilla manuscripts and the institutional and manuscript culture of the fourteenth century, this article proposes that Nicholas's Postilla represents a vigorous and largely successful attempt to reintegrate Biblical text, historical scholarship, and theological exegesis. Nicholas's approach to the exegetical crises of his own day helps us to reassess the challenges and possibilities of theological exegesis today. (shrink)

Is social psychiatry at a tipping point, acknowledging that many normal types of behavior are being over-medicalized? What notions of enchantment can we glean from Max Weber's social thought as they relate to our modern, rational, bureaucratic world? Giedraitis explores these issues using the German economist and sociologist Max Weber's theories of rationalization and disenchantment, and connects them to the dangers of bureaucratizing mental health. Giedraitis conducts an innovative study using psychotherapists as respondents to measure varying degrees of "rational" (...) thought in their clients, thereby indirectly measuring Weberian rational thought as related to certain types of depression. This book is recommended to those who would like an introduction to Weberian notions of rationality and disenchantment, or general Weberian socio-economic theory. This book is also suggested to those seeking to understand a possible connection between Weberian rationalization, disenchantment, bureaucratization and mental health. (shrink)

The present essay discusses a notorious rhetoric means familiar to all scholars in the social sciences and humanities including philosophy: name-dropping. Defined as the excessive over-use of authoritative names, I argue that it is a pernicious practice leading to collective disorientation in spoken discourse. First, I discuss name-dropping in terms of informal logic as an ad verecundiam-type fallacy. Insofar this perspective proves to lack contextual sensitivity, name-dropping is portrayed in Goffman’s terms as a more general social practice. By narrowing down (...) the focus to social science and the humanities, the essay emphasizes its function of discursive legitimation. This view, I argue, is incomplete because it overlooks the basic mechanism beneath. Names not only provide legitimation of but also orientation in discourse. Consequently, two tipping points—detour and disorientation—are proposed as benchmarks for it to become problematic. The conclusion re-widens the argument’s scope by suggesting questions for future inquiries. (shrink)

Integral Education - Beyond Schooling explores a new paradigm of education, taking learning and teaching beyond conventional schooling, towards what may be called evolutionary education and the growth of consciousness. The book is premised on the idea that we humans are still evolving in consciousness and have reached an evolutionary tipping point where we need a radically new way of learning and growing, a radically new way of perceiving, understanding and organizing our world and living our day to day (...) lives in it, more in harmony, oneness and peace. This is a book that must be read by all who are interested and involved in the human future, immediate and long term. (shrink)

Our planet is sick and perhaps on a tipping point of extinction. The causes are well known—global warming, the collapse of the world economy, human greed, and thermonuclear war—to name but a few agents at work in the contemporary world. America and China hold the world's destiny in their grip. How they will interact is unknown. What is known is that both civilizations have in their traditions the ways and means to reverse this approaching apocalypse. Each country is now (...) passing through cultural explosions. This article searches classical Chinese and American philosophy for concepts and social forms that can give shape to this era of upheaval. I have confidence in the genius of Confucius as well as that of certain great classical American philosophers. Read together they can help us come to deal with both the decay of established orders and the overwhelming novelty now sweeping through our consciousness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“A Candle in Sunshine”Desire and Apocalypse in Blake and HölderlinMichael Kirwan, SJ (bio)Introduction1René Girard, in the wake of the critical theorists Adorno and Horkheimer, offers “an analysis of the present epoch.” His work can be seen as a further attempt to articulate the “dialectic of Enlightenment”: to explore precisely why, despite the hopes invested in the possibilities of human emancipation, the “enlightened world radiates disaster triumphant.” Like them, Girard (...) seeks to diagnose the present age and its Siamese twinning of emancipatory knowledge and barbarism.He does so by invoking messianic religious themes, notably the biblical theological category of apocalypse.2 In Battling to the End—by Girard’s own admission, a “bizarre book”—the apocalypse has quite specific geographical and historical coordinates. The hypermimetic rivalry between France and Germany that escalates through the nineteenth century reaches a symbolic tipping point in Hegel’s fascinated interpretation of Napoleon Bonaparte’s intervention at Jena in 1806—a fascination shared by Carl von Clausewitz (1780–1831), Prussian military theorist and author of the unfinished treatise On War. Girard thinks through Clausewitz’s appalled realization of the special nature of this [End Page 179] conflict: namely, that the intense “escalation to extremes” that ensnares these two protagonists will prove capable of overwhelming the “sacrificial” function of warfare. In other words, war will no longer have the capacity for channeling and containing conflict within strictly codified parameters. Click for larger view View full resolutionThe Last Judgement (1808) by William Blake (1757–1827), The Egremont Collection (accepted in lieu of tax by H.M. Treasury in 1957 and subsequently transferred to the National Trust). © NTPL/John Hammond[End Page 180]Following this logic, Girard argues that the total mobilization of populations begun with the French revolutionary army has indeed escalated, into the nightmarish catastrophes engulfing Europe and the world in the last century, which we now experience in the form of a global and globalized “war on terror”—a “global civil war.” Robert Hamerton-Kelly understands the situation as apocalyptic, defined as “an interpretation of politics in the form of a coded narrative.”3 Drawing on the root meaning of apokalypsis as “unveiling” or “disclosure,” he declares that ”something is being revealed about our world order, whether by divine grace or human reason,”4 a revelation that not only documents the threat to order but is itself a cause of the instability.Whether this heightened sense of history and its convulsions constitutes a significant change in mimetic theory, an “apocalyptic turn,” is open to debate. Hamerton-Kelly reminds us that Girard’s writing has been apocalyptic from the outset: witness Girard’s discussion of “The Dostoyevskian Apocalypse” in his first book. In his other main works, Girard has developed “an apocalyptic anthropology” that unveils the sacred structure of “this world.” This is apocalypse, but with a twist:Mimetic theory is ironically apocalyptic, because it is the opposite of what normally passes for that genre. It is nonviolent, while the vulgar apocalypse is violent, it decodes while the vulgar encodes, nevertheless, it is apocalyptic because it deals with universal history and human nature and assumes that historiography is possible and the human story is not “a tale told by an idiot.” It is apocalyptic because it decodes the encryption of violence in the vulgar apocalypse, in symbols such as the divine judgement and the torture of the guilty.5Bringing this context to light is less a matter of archaeology as of astrophysics: here, as it were, is modernity’s “big bang,” the point of origin of the matter and anti-matter of resentful energy that now threatens to overwhelm us.6 Girard’s reading offers much for the historian to grapple with, and yet it calls for more than historical analysis. In addition to Hegel and Clausewitz, Girard summons a further witness, Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843), a “theological poet” or Dichter, whose life and verse are read as a further commentary on the turbulent opening decade of the nineteenth century. The aim of the present article is to elucidate this poetical-theological dimension of Girard’s argument, partly by highlighting Girard’s invocation of Hölderlin, but also... (shrink)

Contagion is more than an epidemiological fact. The medical usage of the term is no more and no less metaphorical than in the entire history of explanations of how beliefs circulate in social interactions. The circulation of such communicable diseases and the circulation of ideas are both material and experiential. Diseases and ideas expose the power and danger of bodies in contact, as well as the fragility and tenacity of social bonds. In the case of the theatre, various tropes of (...) contagion are to be found in both the fictional world on the stage and in many theories defining the rules of interaction between theatre audiences, fictitious characters and/or performers. In consequence, the historically changing concept of contagion has in many respects influenced how mimesis was conceived and understood. The main goal of my article is to demonstrate how the concept of contagion has changed over the last few decades and how it may influence our understanding of the idea of mimesis and participation in performative arts. This will be achieved in two steps. Firstly, I will compare the concept of contagion as the outbreak narrative that had influenced, among others, Antonin Artaud’s The Theater and the Plague with the more recent and dynamic concept of epidemic structured around the tipping point. Secondly, I will look for performative art forms with similar structure of audience responses, analyzing Mariano Pensotti’s project Sometimes I Think, I Can See You, in order to demonstrate new forms of performativity and presentation. (shrink)

From the paper's conclusion: "In conclusion, I have distinguished between two Rawlsian arguments for the SPP [strong precautionary principle] with respect to CCCs [climate change catastrophes]. Although both are persuasive, ultimately the “unbear-able strains” argument provides the most powerful categorical grounds for takingprecautionary action against CCCs. Overall, I have argued that the nature of CCCs requires us to take drastic precautions against further CC that could lead us to passthe tipping points that cause them. This is the case (...) notwithstanding the fact that weare in a state of strong uncertainty with respect to these events; indeed, our stronguncertainty with respect to them—given their nature—makes the case for action toprevent them even more persuasive, from the point of view of justice. Some peopletranslate the strong uncertainty of CCCs into weak uncertainty in order to justifytaking precautionary action using risk assessment.59My argument is complemen-tary to theirs. If divergent approaches to the uncertainty of CCCs neverthelessconverge on the PP, then we have what Cass Sunstein calls an “incompletelytheorized agreement” on a policy, that is, an agreement to which parties divided byoften deep theoretical differences can nevertheless give their assent,60which isall to the good from a political point of view. In the specific case of CC and itspossible catastrophes, the fact that such an agreement has emerged provides asliver of hope in the face of the increasingly dismal prospects for the planetuncovered by CC science as it progresses. At the level of principle, we are agreed,whatever justificatory reasons we advance. What is needed now—in the immedi-ate present—is policy to promote our principles, and the political will to enact it.". (shrink)

This paper argues that specific phobia is an ideal kind of psychiatric disorder because it bears the marks of a mature medical diagnosis and is amenable to causal explanation. A new and ambitious program of ‘causal revolution’ has recently emerged in psychiatry that hopes to refurnish our taxonomies by discovering the underlying biological and psychological causes that create and maintain mental illness. I show that the sort of causal story envisioned by the program is a mechanistic property cluster (MPC) structure, (...) which involves a causal mechanism that explains the co-occurrence of a disorder’s signs and symptoms (Kendler, Zachar & Craver, 2011). I then build a model of fear in humans and sketch a novel account of specific phobia as a configuration of the fear system in thrall to deregulated network dynamics such as hysteresis, tipping points, and feedback loops. Specific phobia has an MPC structure. I close by reflecting on whether we can reasonably expect other mental disorders to fit an MPC mold, and thus lend themselves to future causal validation. This paper shows that specific phobia holds a unique place in our picture of mental disorder that has so far been missed. It is an ideal kind of psychopathology. (shrink)

Climate change is the greatest existential threat that human beings face in the 21st century, but unfortunately, we aren't doing very much about it. Graham Parkes' How to Think about the Climate Crisis: A Philosophical Guide to Saner Ways of Living offers a succinct summary of the causes of global heating--scientific, economic, and philosophical--along with practical solutions to help us avoid the first major tipping point, which is quickly approaching in 2030. Parkes draws from both ancient Greek and traditional (...) Chinese philosophy to develop an alternative worldview that can serve as a conceptual resource for reforming our laws, policies, and ways of life.Parkes' introduction provides... (shrink)

Responding to climate change and avoiding irreversible climate tipping points requires radical and drastic action by 2030. This urgency raises serious questions for energy companies, one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs), in terms of how they frame, and reframe, their response to climate change. Despite the majority of energy companies releasing ambitious statements declaring net zero carbon ambitions, this ‘talk’ has not been matched with sufficient urgency or substantive climate action. To unpack the disconnect (...) between talk and action, this paper draws on the literature on framing, organisational hypocrisy, and collective moral responsibility. We conduct a longitudinal qualitative content analysis of the framing of climate change used by the ten largest European investor-owned energy companies and the actions they have taken to shift their business practices. Our findings reveal three main categories of energy companies: (i) deflecting, (ii) stagnating, and (iii) evolving. We show key differences in the relationship between framing and action over time for each category, revealing how deflecting companies have larger and persistent gaps between green talk and concrete action and how stagnating companies are delaying action despite increased green talk, while evolving companies exhibit a closer link between talk and action that tends to be realised over time. Our analysis reveals how competing approaches to framing collective moral responsibility help understand the trajectories of talk and action across the different categories of energy companies. This research makes several contributions to the literature on organisational hypocrisy and collective moral responsibility in the context of climate change. Our analysis highlights the complex relationship between collective moral responsibility, organisational hypocrisy and climate action, revealing how different collective framings—diffuse, teleological, or agential—can both enable and offset substantive climate action. The study also enriches our understanding of the performative nature of collective moral responsibility by examining its temporal dimensions and showing how an agential, backward-looking focus is associated with more meaningful climate action. (shrink)

The paper demonstrates its ‘CSR at a tipping point’ thesis by juxtaposing views of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as essential for business and societal sustainability against those that see CSR as unaffordable or irrelevant in the current economic climate. Drawing from Kohlberg's seminal theory of moral development, CSR is conceptualised as the development of organisation moral reasoning, and the proposition is illustrated by demonstrating inter-disciplinary similarities in levels of ethical concern within different approaches to the practice of marketing, human (...) resource management (HRM) and performance management. Levels of concern for CSR are related to environmental and firm-specific drivers and constraints that influence the CSR dynamic. Environmental influences on organisational CSR stances emanate from a range of stakeholder constituencies, while the importance accorded to CSR is also influenced by firm-specific factors such as the organisation's stage of development, strategy and leadership. The paper's identification of inter-disciplinary similarities in the varying levels of concern for CSR and its delineation of CSR drivers and constraints contribute to CSR theory, and these frameworks also represent analytical tools that managers can use to assess or to change an organisation's CSR stance. The multi-level perspective on CSR adopted by the paper links an organisation's overall or ‘macro’ CSR stance to the ‘meso’ levels of CSR represented by practice within its specialist functions. It proposes that the ‘CSR at a tipping point’ proposition is assessed by utilising the conceptual model in the paper within a case-study research design to determine whether specific organisations – identified as ‘CSR-positive’ ones by their relatively high level of concern for stakeholder welfare – are changing the importance they accord to CSR as a result of the new business context, and the extent to which practice in their marketing, HRM and performance management functions are shapers or consequences of this. (shrink)