Stroud, Austin, and Radical Skepticism

Is ruling out the possibility that one is dreaming a requirement for a knowledge claim? In “Philosophical Scepticism and Everyday Life” (1984), Barry Stroud defends that it is. In “Others Minds” (1970), John Austin says it is not. In his defense, Stroud appeals to a conception of objectivity deeply rooted in us and with which our concept of knowledge is intertwined. Austin appeals to a detailed account of our scientific and everyday practices of knowledge attribution. Stroud responds that what Austin says about those practices is correct in relation to the appropriateness of making knowledge claims, but that the skeptic is interested in the truth of those claims. In this paper, we argue that Stroud’s defense of the alleged requirement smuggles in a commitment to a kind of internalism, which asserts that the perceptual justification available to us can be characterized independently of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. In our reading of Austin, especially of Sense & Sensibilia, he rejects that kind of internalism by an implicit commitment to what is called today a “disjunctive” view of perception. Austin says that objectivity is an aspect of knowledge, and his disjunctivism is part of an explanation of why the alleged requirement is not necessary for a knowledge claim. Since both Stroud and Austin are committed to the objectivity of knowledge, Stroud may ask which view of perceptual knowledge is correct, whether the internalist or the disjunctive. We argue that by paying closer attention to what Austin says about our practices of knowledge attribution, one can see more clearly that it is grounded not only on a conception of objectivity, but also on a conception of ourselves as information agents, a conception that is as deeply rooted as that of the objectivity of knowledge. This gives us moral and practical reasons to favor the disjunctive view of perception

Ökologischer Landbau in Sri Lanka - unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Tee-Anbausystemen (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze)

In Sri Lanka the agricultural structure of smallholder production has changed with population growth and land reforms. In former days a farm family could life from the production of their home garden through subsistence farming and barter economy. Additional income was achieved by selling surplus products like spices on the local markets. Today living standards and life style have changed and monetary needs for housing, schooling, electricity, telephone, household goods and transport facilities are much higher. Many smallholders are involved in single cash crop cultivation and outside employment for income generation. Lack of available arable land and infrastructure are main reasons for the limited economical success of many smallholders in Sri Lanka. This study investigated whether the formation of farmer groups under patronage of an organisation and private company next to adoption of organic agriculture practices can be recommended as an economical viable and ecological sound alternative. Hence a survey was conducted in Kandy District of Sri Lanka, as well as field and laboratory experiments carried out in co-operation with the Tea Research Institute, Talawakele and the Post Graduate Institute of Agriculture, University of Peradeniya. Data from 529 organic tea smallholders (TSHs) were collected between 1997 and 1999. From the findings the study describes the present situation of organic TSHs production systems in Kandy District, Sri Lanka organised under Bio Foods Ltd. Organic Tea and Spices and Gami Seva Sevana (GSS) a Non Governmental Organisation (NGO). Methods applied include taking of farm inventory, questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with farmers and key respondents, drawing of land sketches, evaluation of data records from respective organisations and engagement in post harvest processes (extension, processing, packing, export, inspection). Results showed that 92 % of the organic tea smallholders cultivated plots on former tea plantation land with an average size of 0.4 ha and a given agricultural structure. Mainly seedling tea was grown on steep slopes and 70 % of the farmers cultivated less than 1000 bushes. In depth studies at 23 TSH sites revealed 77 plant species of economical value. For about 35 % of the organic holdings animal production served as an additional source of income (milk, meat, drought power). Out of the whole calculated farm income 42 % was generated from tea, 24 % from fruit and spices and 16 % from treacle, nuts, coffee and cacao. If dairy cows are present 18 % of the farm income is generated from milk sales. Through contract farming with experienced organisations, as well as professional processing and marketing of tea as an exclusive organic product, the farmers obtained premium green leaf prices and a stable income. The stable income served as an incentive to improve the performance of agricultural standards. Here the support of a dedicated extension service brings beneficial inputs. Tea production of the investigated organic TSHs rose by 16 % from 1998 until 2000. Including the marketing of organic fruit and spices there is a high potential for resource poor organic tea smallholders to overcome ecological and economical limitations. Next to the evaluation of the production system, maintaining and improving soil fertility is a major issue for the level of production. Organic manuring is often restricted due to the unavailability of recommended organic materials in adequate quantities. Preparation of compost is time consuming and work intensive and without animal faeces less effective and accepted. The dissemination of biogas plants in the project area gave the incentive to carry out investigations regarding the use of bioslurry for organic tea cultivation. Hence field experiments were conducted to evaluate the effect of organic amendments, namely bioslurry, goat compost and bokashi, on the establishment, growth and yield of tea (Camellia sinensis). Goat compost was made out of goat manure and the remaining materials from the roughage feed given to the goats. Bokashi is a special fermented fertilizer made according to a Japanese recipe (Ahmed, 1995) using soil (50 %), chicken manure (30 %), pressed rape seed oil cake (15 %), rice bran (2-3 %), charcoal (1 %) and boiled livestock bone (about 1 %). Cow and pig excreta passing through a biogas plant, undergoing an anaerobe digestion process for about 70 days are referred to as bioslurry. These three organic amendments at a rate of 3/48/63 t ha-1 year-1 DM were chosen for planting a new tea field. Growth assessments indicated higher plant growth rates of the bioslurry plots when compared with compost treatments. Nutrient balance of a mature tea field partly manured with bioslurry at a rate of 10 l plant-1 year-1 and 12 kg compost respectively showed that bioslurry in combination with mana grass mulch has the potential to add sufficient amounts of nutrients to the soil in order to replace nutrient loss through harvest material. However considering nutrient uptake for plant growth and volatile losses, especially of ammonia, bioslurry application has to be increased and a combination with compost application is recommended. Since organic agriculture plays a key role in maintaining soil fertility and biodiversity, protecting the environment and keeping social standards a model farm with organic tea cultivation as a cash crop was designed. Research findings and personal experiences were taken as a basis for a location specific model of plant production including fodder cultivation, SALT (Sloping Agriculture Land Techniques) hedges, animal husbandry and operation of a 4m3 biogas plant. As main cash crops about 3,000 tea plants are cultivated in a mixed cropping system with 50 pepper vines (Piper nigrum), 56 betel nut palms (Areca catechu) and 100 gliricidia trees (Gliricidia sepium). Remaining 148 plants are grown around the tea field, along the border and surrounding the house. From an average plant species richness of 41 per 0.47 ha with a total of 3,354 plants a monetary value of about 78,000 SL Rs (1998: 1,054 €) per year from plant production was calculated. The total monetary value of cow and goat milk yield added up to approximately 20,000 SL Rs (1998: 270 €) per year. Generated income from farming covers the costs of production. Initial investments for animals, stables and set up of a biogas plant have to be covered by savings and loans. Systematic conversion of smallholder lands with livestock integration becomes financially viable after three years. Specialisation next to diversification ensures income generation and biodiversity as well as an improved nutritional diet for the farm family. Integration of SALT hedges for erosion control also serves as fodder and mulch material. Cultivation of fodder grass assures continuous fodder supply and cuts down walking hours for carrying fodder material from further distances. Proper use of the biogas plant reduces the need for firewood, increases soil fertility through the distribution of bioslurry and improves the sanitary situation. In spite of favourable climatic and soil conditions, Sri Lanka is not self sufficient in its food crop production. Population growth, land fragmentation, ownership patterns, lack of infrastructure and erosion are main factors for low productivity causing land migration because of high rural poverty rates. Alternatives and different objectives of production are required for the survival of the existing population, to solve shortages of food and feed biomass and threats to sustainability. Organic practices use cheap and locally available resources. The productivity of agricultural systems can be improved in the absence of factors like mineral fertilizer, synthetic pesticides, improved seeds and access to credits over which farmers have little control. Organic agriculture techniques replace external inputs by ecological services and farmer’s management skills. This study investigated the status quo of an organic farming system. The interpretation of the survey results led to the design of a location specific model farm, where production goals were matched as close as possible to the resource base

Assessing the financial vulnerability to climate-related natural hazards

National governments are key actors in managing the impacts of extreme weather events, yet many highly exposed developing countries -- faced with exhausted tax bases, high levels of indebtedness, and limited donor assistance -- have been unable to raise sufficient and timely capital to replace or repair damaged infrastructure and restore livelihoods after major disasters. Such financial vulnerability hampers development and exacerbates poverty. Based on the record of the past 30 years, this paper finds many developing countries, in particular small island states, to be highly financially vulnerable, and experiencing a resource gap (net disaster losses exceed all available financing sources) for events that occur with a probability of 2 percent or higher. This has three main implications. First, efforts to reduce risk need to be ramped-up to lessen the serious human and financial burdens. Second, contrary to the well-known Arrow-Lind theorem, there is a case for country risk aversion implying that disaster risks faced by some governments cannot be absorbed without major difficulty. Risk aversion entails the ex ante financing of losses and relief expenditure through calamity funds, regional insurance pools, or contingent credit arrangements. Third, financially vulnerable (and generally poor) countries are unlikely to be able to implement pre-disaster risk financing instruments themselves, and thus require technical and financial assistance from the donor community. The cost estimates of financial vulnerability -- based on today's climate -- inform the design of"climate insurance funds"to absorb high levels of sovereign risk and are found to be in the lower billions of dollars annually, which represents a baseline for the incremental costs arising from future climate change.Hazard Risk Management,Debt Markets,Insurance&Risk Mitigation,Banks&Banking Reform,Climate Change Economics

A Função das Dúvidas Céticas nas Meditações de Descartes

O objetivo central deste artigo é sustentar que as hipóteses céticas presentes na Primeira Meditação, especialmente a dúvida acerca das coisas materiais, devem ser entendidas como uma espécie de exercício mental proposto como expediente para fragilizar a confiança nos sentidos e preparar o leitor das Meditações para a apreensão de verdades acessíveis à luz da razão. Nesse sentido, pretende-se mostrar que a dúvida cética desempenha, na economia das Meditações, uma função muito mais positiva, construtiva, do que propriamente negativa, de instauração do ceticismo filosófico acerca do mundo exterior, tal como ela tem sido freqüentemente representada nos debates epistemológicos contemporâneos. A estratégia que permitiu tal leitura consistiu em valorizar o aparecimento das dúvidas céticas no interior de um texto escrito em estilo meditativo e em destacar certos elementos das circunstâncias intelectuais que envolveram a revolução científica vivenciada por Descartes.The main goal of this paper is to maintain that the skeptical hypotheses in the First Meditation, and especially the doubt about material things, should be interpreted as a kind of mental exercise whose purpose is both to weaken our confidence in the senses and to prepare the reader of the Meditation for the learning of the truths accessible through the light of reason. Thus, the paper purports to show that in the economy of the Meditations skeptical doubts play a positive and constructive role, which is distinct from their role of bringing about philosophical skepticism that prevails in contemporary epistemological debates. The strategy that allowed for this reading consisted in both valuing the emergence of skeptical doubts within a text written in a meditative style and highlighting certain aspects of the intellectual context that were part of the scientific revolution experienced by Descartes

Aufbau eines Automatischen Refokussierungsmechanismus für Hochauflösende Satellitenkameras

Herkömmliche, niedrigauflösende Satellitenkameras waren bisher mit einer Optik ausgestattet, die nur ein einmaliges Fokussieren auf den Arbeitsabstand zuließ. Eine Refokussierung war nicht vorgesehen. Die aktuelle Entwicklung hochauflösender Satellitenkameras macht allerdings einen Refokussierungsmechanismus notwendig, da die Schärfentiefe der Systeme mit zunehmender Brennweite immer weiter abnimmt und somit bei unterschiedlichen Gegenstandweiten zwischen Erde und Satellit ein unscharfes Bild entsteht. Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit dem Aufbau eines Refokussierungssystems. Die Gesamtarbeit ist aufgrund des Umfangs in zwei Abschlussarbeiten unterteilt: • In der Vorliegenden werden o die Grundlagen erläutert und der Stand der Technik ermittelt, o das Projekt in seinen Teilbereichen Optik, Mechanik und Informatik geplant, o der Versuch aufgebaut und durchgeführt, o sowie die Ergebnisse analysiert. In der Bachelorarbeit von Gustav Malte Müller­‐Rowold (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin) „Signal-­ und Bildverarbeitungssystem zur automatischen Refokussierung von opto-elektronischen Sensoren“ wird der Informatikhintergrund (Programmierung, Bildverarbeitung und Ansteuerung der elektronischen Komponenten) erläutert

"There is a presence in anger"

The article examines a traditional pattern of criticism of racial protests involving what I will call anti-racist rage. These critiques revolve around two basic points: they characterize angry racial protests as gratuitous displays of aggression and emotional lack of control that illustrate irrational, authoritarian, and violent political activism, and as unproductive political strategies. Against this approach, I argue, first, that there are normative reasons for anti-racist anger and that the traditional critique is wrong to ignore these reasons. Second, in light of the objections of irrationality and unproductiveness of the expression of anger, and following Amia Srinivasan's approach, I argue that even if it does not lead to desired outcomes, even if it is unproductive, the anger present in anti-racist protests is morally justified, and delegitimizing it on instrumental grounds implies acceptance of a kind of affective injustice

Platão e Iris Murdoch: o Bem, o Amor e a retomada da ética das virtudes antiga na filosofia moral britânica

Since G. E. M. Anscombe’s famous article Moral Modern Philosophy was published in 1958, a consensus has been established around the moral philosophy’s need for expanding its analysis agenda beyond the notion of duty and obligation. This movement has resulted in the recovery of ancient moral conceptions focused on the constitution of a virtuous character and happiness, especially under the influence of Aristotle and Stoic philosophers. In this paper, I intend to show that the British novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch engaged in this movement assuming some central notions of Plato’s moral philosophy as part of her criticism against the British moral philosophy of her age. Such criticism contends the replacement of the modern notion of a rational will by other platonic ideas, especially “love” and “Good”, understood as parts of an objective model of moral guidance. Unlike Plato, however, the Good and its power of engagement and attraction were not characterized in a metaphysical way but as a peculiar psychological and moral notion. Following Freud’s psychoanalysis, the Good is conceived as part of XX lovely attention to the other and as a desire to see the reality behind our egoism and the pitfalls of imagination, which gives a psychological-naturalistic flavor to Murdoch’s claim from Plato’s philosophy.Desde a publicação, em 1958, do famoso artigo A Filosofia Moral Moderna de G. E. M. Anscombe estabeleceu-se uma espécie de consenso em torno da necessidade de as teorias ético-filosóficas contemporâneas ampliarem sua agenda de análise para além das noções de dever e obrigação. Esse movimento conduziu à redescoberta de concepções morais antigas ligadas à constituição de um caráter virtuoso e da conquista da felicidade ou bem-viver, especialmente a ética de Aristóteles e dos filósofos estoicos. Nesse artigo eu mostro que a filósofa e escritora britânica Iris Murdoch participou desse movimento de redescoberta da ética das virtudes antiga, localizando na filosofia de Platão, e não na filosofia de Aristóteles ou dos estoicos, um instrumento de crítica às teorias morais de seu tempo, uma crítica caracterizada pela substituição da noção tipicamente moderna da vontade racional do agente por noções profundamente vinculadas à filosofia platônica, como o “amor” e “atração” pelo Bem, entendidos como constituintes de um modelo de orientação moral objetiva. Diferente de Platão, no entanto, o Bem e seu poder de engajamento e atração, é explorado como uma fonte ético-metafísica com um significado psicológico muito particular. Ele é caracterizado, em termos da psicologia moral de base psicanalítica por ela adotada, como um olhar amoroso do outro e como um desejo de ver a realidade, entendido como um desejo pessoal de sermos justos e bons, o que dá um sabor psicológico-naturalista à sua reinvindicação da filosofia platônica

IDEALISMO TRANSCENDENTAL E CETICISMO EM KANT

No capítulo IV do The Significance of Philosophical Scepticism, Stroud, depois de expor seu entendimento do “idealismo transcendental” e do “realismo empírico” de Kant, apresenta várias dificuldades presentes no projeto kantiano. A principal delas consiste em afirmar que o idealismo transcendental seria compatível com o ceticismo acerca do conhecimento objetivo, o conhecimento do modo como as coisas são por si mesmas. Esse artigo apresenta uma crítica, exposta na forma de argumento condicional, a essa dificuldade do idealismo transcendental kantiano apontada por Stroud. O argumento consiste em sustentar que, se a interpretação que Allison faz da distinção transcendental entre “fenômeno” e “coisa em si” (como uma distinção de dois modos distintos de conceber um mesmo objeto) for correta, então a acusação de um compromisso do idealismo transcendental com o ceticismo não se sustenta

Country Report on Organic Food and Farming Research in Germany

Recently, research about organic farming has gained strong impulses in Germany. Schools of higher education, as well as state research centres steadily opened up, and with the funding under the Federal Organic Farming Scheme BÖL1 organic farming research has been strengthened substantially. Research about organic farming has a long tradition in Germany, going as far back as into the twenties of the last century. At that time the first – mainly biodynamic – pioneers started to carry out research on their farms. The Institute for Biodynamic Research IBDF2 founded in 1950, was one of the first private research institutions in the world. Also the first university chair for organic agriculture emerged in Germany, where until today more specific professorships exist than in any other country. Since the beginning of the nineties, the status quo of research in organic farming is regularly documented through the scientific conference on organic farming, which is coordinated by the Foundation Ecology & Agriculture (SÖL. Further, in the context of EU projects, contacts to research colleagues outside of Germany were intensified. Several public bodies with research divisions got involved in organic farming. Through funding within the Federal Organic Farming Scheme (BÖL) organic research experienced a major upswing since 2002. Germany has also played an important role in the development of international organic farming research. In 1984, the 5th International Scientific Conference of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM)took place in Witzenhausen. In 2003 the International Society of Organic Agriculture Research (ISOFAR)was founded in Berlin. It promotes and supports research in all areas of organic agriculture by facilitating global cooperation in research, methodological development, education and knowledge exchange; supporting individual researchers through membership services, publications and events, as well as integrating stakeholders in the research process