Exploring the potential of knowledge brokering to enhance natural resource management : findings from the Catchment Knowledge Exchange project in Victoria

Despite significant efforts in natural resource management (NRM), the environmental condition of Victoria’s catchments is mostly ‘poor to moderate’, and continuing to decline in many places. NRM is a complex undertaking involving social, economic, and environmental objectives, across policy, research, and practice dimensions. It is therefore not easy to ensure that the knowledge required to underpin effective NRM is readily available to practitioners. Knowledge brokering is an emerging approach with the potential to improve knowledge sharing and exchange. While it has attracted attention in other areas of public interest (such as health and information technology), its potential in NRM has received relatively limited attention. This article reports on a Victorian knowledge brokering case study which was a major element in the Catchment Knowledge Exchange project. A key finding is that knowledge brokering is a role that is being undertaken informally, without proper acknowledgement or definition. This raises challenges for knowledge management in the context of NRM. We conclude that the ‘people’ component of knowledge brokering is the driving element, although organisational processes and information technologies are critical in enhancing the effectiveness of knowledge brokers. Demonstrating the benefits of knowledge brokering in terms of the ultimate measure of its contribution towards improving the condition of catchments remains a challenge

Staying true with the help of others: doxastic self-control through interpersonal commitment

I explore the possibility and rationality of interpersonal mechanisms of doxastic self-control, that is, ways in which individuals can make use of other people in order to get themselves to stick to their beliefs. I look, in particular, at two ways in which people can make interpersonal epistemic commitments, and thereby willingly undertake accountability to others, in order to get themselves to maintain their beliefs in the face of anticipated “epistemic temptations”. The first way is through the avowal of belief, and the second is through the establishment of collective belief. I argue that both of these forms of interpersonal epistemic commitment can function as effective tools for doxastic self-control, and, moreover, that the control they facilitate should not be dismissed as irrational from an epistemic perspective

The Right Wrong‐Makers

Right- and wrong-making features ("moral grounds") are widely believed to play important normative roles, e.g. in morally apt or virtuous motivation. This paper argues that moral grounds have been systematically misidentified. Canonical statements of our moral theories tend to summarize, rather than directly state, the full range of moral grounds posited by the theory. Further work is required to "unpack" a theory's criterion of rightness and identify the features that are of ground-level moral significance. As a result, it is not actually true that maximizing value is the relevant right-making feature even for maximizing consequentialists. Focusing on the simple example of utilitarianism, I show how careful attention to the ground level can drastically influence how we think about our moral theories

Wittgensteinian content‐externalism

Content-externalism is the view that a subject’s relations to a context can play a role in individuating the content of her mental states. According to social content-externalists, relations to a socio-linguistic context can play a fundamental individuating role. Åsa Wikforss has suggested that ‘social externalism depends on the assumption that individuals have an incomplete grasp of their own concepts’ (Wikforss 2004, p. 287). In this paper, I show that this isn’t so. I develop and defend an argument for social content-externalism which does not depend on this assumption. The argument is animated by strands of thought in the later work of Wittgenstein. In addition to demonstrating that social externalists are not necessarily committed to thinking that a subject can have thoughts involving concepts which she incompletely understands, this argument is important insofar as it: (1) supports a form of content-externalism with extended scope; (2) avoids the controversy surrounding the claim that subjects can think with concepts which they incompletely understand; and (3) situates Wittgenstein’s later work with respect to contemporary debates about content-externalism

Fracture in Mode I using a Conserved Phase-Field Model

We present a continuum phase-field model of crack propagation. It includes a phase-field that is proportional to the mass density and a displacement field that is governed by linear elastic theory. Generic macroscopic crack growth laws emerge naturally from this model. In contrast to classical continuum fracture mechanics simulations, our model avoids numerical front tracking. The added phase-field smoothes the sharp interface, enabling us to use equations of motion for the material (grounded in basic physical principles) rather than for the interface (which often are deduced from complicated theories or empirical observations). The interface dynamics thus emerges naturally. In this paper, we look at stationary solutions of the model, mode I fracture, and also discuss numerical issues. We find that the Griffith's threshold underestimates the critical value at which our system fractures due to long wavelength modes excited by the fracture process.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures (eps). Added 2 figures and some text. Removed one section (and a figure). To be published in PR

Spanish translation and validation of the Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire

The present study reports the multistage development and evaluation of a Spanish translation of the Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire (INQ). The INQ measures the constructs of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness, which the interpersonal theory of suicide proposes are proximal causes of suicidal desire. Participants were bilingual Hispanic college students in the United States (n = 56), heritage Spanish-speaking college students in the United States (n = 281), college students in Spain (n = 1,016), psychiatric inpatients in Mexico (n = 181), college students in Mexico (n = 239), and Spanish-speaking U.S. adults (n = 104). Results indicated that a 9-item 2-factor solution (INQ-S-9) provided good fit. Multiple group analyses were also consistent with measurement invariance across nationalities and clinical severity. Finally, both subscale scores demonstrated good internal consistency, test–retest reliability, convergent validity, and concurrent associations with scores on measures of suicide ideation. Cultural considerations and implications for use in clinical and research settings are discussed

Team Reasoning and Collective Intentionality

Different versions of the idea that individualism about agency is the root of standard game theoretical puzzles have been defended by Regan 1980, Bacharach (Research in Economics 53: 117–147, 1999), Hurley (Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26: 264–265, 2003), Sugden (Philosophical Explorations 6(3):165–181, 2003), and Tuomela 2013, among others. While collectivistic game theorists like Michael Bacharach provide formal frameworks designed to avert some of the standard dilemmas, philosophers of collective action like Raimo Tuomela aim at substantive accounts of collective action that may explain how agents overcoming such social dilemmas would be motivated. This paper focuses on the conditions on collective action and intention that need to be fulfilled for Bacharach’s “team reasoning” to occur. Two influential approaches to collective action are related to the idea of team reasoning: Michael Bratman’s theory of shared intention and Raimo Tuomela’s theory of a we-mode of intending. I argue that neither captures the “agency transformation” that team reasoning requires. That might be an acceptable conclusion for Bratman but more problematic for Tuomela, who claims that Bacharach’s results support his theory. I sketch an alternative framework in which the perspectival element that is required for team reasoning - the ‘we-perspective’ - can be understood and functionally characterized in relation to the traditional distinction between mode and content of intentional states. I claim that the latter understanding of a collective perspective provides the right kind of philosophical background for team reasoning, and I discuss some implications in relation to Tuomela’s assumption that switching between individual and collective perspectives can be a matter of rational choice

How can contributors to open-source communities be trusted? On the assumption, inference, and substitution of trust

Open-source communities that focus on content rely squarely on the contributions of invisible strangers in cyberspace. How do such communities handle the problem of trusting that strangers have good intentions and adequate competence? This question is explored in relation to communities in which such trust is a vital issue: peer production of software (FreeBSD and Mozilla in particular) and encyclopaedia entries (Wikipedia in particular). In the context of open-source software, it is argued that trust was inferred from an underlying 'hacker ethic', which already existed. The Wikipedian project, by contrast, had to create an appropriate ethic along the way. In the interim, the assumption simply had to be that potential contributors were trustworthy; they were granted 'substantial trust'. Subsequently, projects from both communities introduced rules and regulations which partly substituted for the need to perceive contributors as trustworthy. They faced a design choice in the continuum between a high-discretion design (granting a large amount of trust to contributors) and a low-discretion design (leaving only a small amount of trust to contributors). It is found that open-source designs for software and encyclopaedias are likely to converge in the future towards a mid-level of discretion. In such a design the anonymous user is no longer invested with unquestioning trust