This dissertation identifies and criticises a fundamental characteristic of the philosophical discourse surrounding the animal issue: the underlying anthropocentric reasoning that informs the accounts of both philosophy of mind and moral philosophy. Such reasoning works from human paradigms as the only possible starting point of the analysis. Accordingly, the aim of my dissertation is to show how anthropocentric reasoning and its implications distort the inquiry of the animal debate. In extracting the erroneous biases from the debate, my project enables an important shift in the starting line of the philosophical inquiry of the animal issue. In chapters one and two, I focus on philosophy of mind. I show how philosophical accounts that are based on anthropocentric a priori reasoning are inattentive to the relevant empirical findings regarding animals' mental capacities. Employing a conceptual line of argument, I demonstrate that starting the analysis from a human paradigm creates a rigid conceptual framework that unjustifiably excludes the possibility of associating the relevant empirical findings in the research. Furthermore, I show how the common approaches to the issue of animals' belief and intentions deny that animals can have these capacities, and I demonstrate how such denials can be avoided. The philosophical discourse that I examine denies intentional mental capacities to animals. Such denials take place, I maintain, because the analysis is anthropocentric: it uses humans' most sophisticated capacities as the only possible benchmark for evaluating animals' mental abilities. A central example of such anthropocentric reasoning is the oft-mentioned view that there is a necessary link between language and intentionality. Such a link indeed characterises humans. Yet the claim that there is no intentionality without language is a problematic framework for analysing the supposed intentionality of non-linguistic and prelinguistic creatures. Employing a standard that applies to normal, adult humans excludes the possibility of animals' intentionality from the outset. It seems, however, that intentionality is a capacity that evolves in stages, and that simple intentional mental states do not require language. At the same time, such an analysis ignores, to a large extent, cases of attributing intentionality to pre-linguistic humans and even normal, adult humans. Thus, I show how the denial that animals may have intentional mental capacities results in a double standard. In chapters three to six, I critically examine the anthropocentric nature of the debate concerning animals' moral status. The anthropocentric reasoning relates to the conditions of moral status in an oversimplified manner. I show that human prototypes, e.g., rational agency and autonomy, have mistakenly served as conditions for either moral status in general or of a particular type. Seemingly, using such conditions excludes from the proffered moral domain not only animals, but also human moral patients. Yet eventually only animals are excluded from the proffered moral domain. I identify and criticise the manoeuvre that enables this outcome. That is, although the proffered conditions are based on individual characteristics of moral agents, they are applied in a collective manner in order to include human moral patients in the moral domain under examination. I also show that when animals are granted moral status, this status appears to be subjugated by human needs and interests, and therefore the very potential to substantiate animal moral status becomes problematic. Significantly, I also criticise arguments in favour of animals' moral status, claiming that they sustain the oversimplified nature of the inquiry, hence reproducing the major problems of the arguments they were originally designed to refute. As part of my critique towards both such arguments and anthropocentric reasoning, I suggest a non-anthropocentric framework that avoids oversimplification with regard to the conditions of moral status. The aspiration of anthropocentric reasoning as well as of pro-animals philosophers is to find a common denominator that is allegedly shared by all members of the moral community as the single foundation of moral status, which consists of individual characteristics. My framework challenges this aspiration by showing that this common denominator cannot account for all cases. The framework that I suggest enables establishing moral statuses upon distinctive foundations, and at the same time, my proposal avoids falling into the trap of speciesism.

This thesis argues that an effective way to curb the significant problem of environmental degradation in Nigeria‘s Niger Delta region and preserve its environment for posterity is by changing the ethic underlying environmental protection laws in Nigeria to a less anthropocentric one. The wanton degradation has several causes including an overly anthropocentric view of law, life and the natural world. The Nigerian environmental legal order is flawed in the following ways: non-justiciability of Constitutional provisions on environmental matters; insufficient deterrence of some sanctions or inadequate enforcement of others; inadequate compensation; insufficient use of injunctive relief; and difficulty of victims of environmental degradation in the region to be availed by relevant foreign regimes due to lack of financial resources, ignorance, poor education, insufficiency of legal and scientific resources and inadequate action by Government law officers. The thesis explores some improvements that have been suggested in existing literature which should be adopted to make the extant system work better. It however argues that the impact of such reforms would be enhanced if the ethic underlying the Nigerian environmental protection laws is changed to a less anthropocentric one; and one way of doing so is to constitutionalize nature‘s right to exist for posterity. This right will be enforceable by individuals, Non-Governmental Organisations and Environmental Protection Agencies, any or all of whom will act as a ‘guardian’ for nature in a specialist environmental court. This is the ‘new’ contribution of this thesis as regards Nigeria. This proposal will however not be a ‘magic bullet’ but can help promote social change so long as there is genuine involvement of all categories of stakeholders - government and non-governmental institutions, communities and private sector organizations.

ABSTRACT In 2015, an Agreement was made in Paris at the 21st conference of the Parties of the UN. The purpose of the Paris Agreement was to collectively target climate change and keep the global warming under 2°C. Since then, the strength of this Agreement has been evaluated in numerous ways, optimists and pessimists present arguments for different theories and opinions. While some argue that the agreement is too weak because of its non-binding features and vagueness, others argue that the very same vagueness has opened up a new door. To contribute with a new perspective, the aim of this study is to describe and analyse different conceptions of nature in the Nationally Determined Contributions submitted to the Paris Agreement by Parties who signed it. Based on previous research about different conceptions of nature, an analytical framework is built and used through a text analysis of some of the Contributions. The findings of this qualitative, descriptive case study are meant to create a deeper understanding of the Contributions made to the Paris Agreement, describing if different conceptions of nature are found and whether this affects the way the Parties aim to tackle the climate crisis.

The western North Pacific population of gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) is critically endangered of extinction. The population size is estimated to be 131 individuals with 31 reproductive females. Throughout their potential home range, the western gray whale population face several threats to their future survival. On their only known feeding grounds off the northeastern coast of Sakhalin Island, Russia, anthropogenic activity has increased in the past decade due to oil and gas exploration and platform/pipeline construction. This dissertation examines the influences of geophysical seismic surveys (pulse sounds) and platform/pipeline installation (continuous sounds). Each chapter progressively improves upon behavioral models that assess changes in gray whale movements and respirations relative to anthropogenic activity. Theodolite tracking and focal follow methodologies were employed to collect gray whales' movement and respiration information during and in the absence of anthropogenic activity. Spatial, temporal, environmental, and acoustic (pulse and/or continuous) sound levels and non-sound related anthropogenic variables were included as explanatory variables to examine their influence on movement and respiration response variables, such as speed, orientations, dive/surface time, breathing rates, etc. During the 3-D seismic activity, gray whales traveled faster, changed directions of movement less, were recorded farther from shore and stayed underwater longer between respirations as the received sound level exposure increased. During platform/pipeline installations, western gray whales increased their distance from shore with indicators of stress (rapid breathing) and observed to be sensitive to close distance of approach by vessels. No acoustic influence on western gray whale behavior was found during a 4-D seismic survey; however, sample sizes were small in this study to sufficiently detect more subtle to moderate changes in gray whale behavior. These studies illustrate short-term influences anthropogenic activity had on western gray whale behavior which could lead to longer-term responses that may be detrimental to the survival of certain individuals and/or the population. A comprehensive analyses are proposed to increase sample sizes to identify subtle to moderate behavioral changes as well as examine alternative hypotheses to the null hypothesis of no impact used in this dissertation. With the potential to displace individuals/population out of critical feeding habitats needed for their annual survival and the expected increase of anthropogenic activity in the future, this dissertation highlights the importance to monitor and identify problems and suggest alternatives to development/activities that may be impacting this endangered population of gray whales.

In a world where halting climate breakdown is becoming more and more urgent by the minute, so too does the media industry need to deliver its contribution to change. Especially since innovation - a carrier of change - is seen as one of the main pillars of this field. Even more since anthropocentrism – a mind-set of particular harm towards the current Earth crisis – still seems to prevail this pillar. In an ambition to contribute to the urgent and necessary need to halt climate breakdown, this research delves into design thinking, one of the currently popular and established innovation processes, and investigates how it can become non-anthropocentric. Insights are drawn from observations and interviews with several designers who have engaged in the journey to move themselves, their practise and their results towards non-anthropocentrism. Analysing these, it becomes clear that non- anthropocentric design is about embodying an entanglement of species. This is achieved through understanding that we are entangled, by acting in collaboration with diverse fields and through being humble. Moreover, the paper suggests design thinking can become non-anthropocentric - shifting its focus from human to earthling needs - through thickening its current converging phases with speculative scenarios. These should highlight the additional needs of and implications for a diverse set of earthlings. In this manner the scenarios manifest the entanglement. The exercise is done best in collaboration with stakeholders from a diverse set of fields and with help from posthumanist perspectives, real-world entanglement examples, surprise and unifying language. Also, doing justice to the complexity of the entanglement and the challenging nature of this exercise, the scenarios need to be continuously re-evaluated. This demands design thinking to move away from its focus on processes within the scope of a project towards a focus on long-term service-based relationships within the scope of the on-going entanglement. Product-as-a-service business models could potentially make this viable. / Behovet av att lindra och minimera effekterna av klimatförändringarna blir allt tydligare för var dag som passerar. Medieindustrin måste bidra till omställningen av samhället. I synnerhet eftersom innovation – en pådrivare av förändring – ses som en av huvudpelarna inom medieindustrin. Innovation som en gren inom medieindustrin genomsyras dock av den antropocentriska världsbilden, en världsbild som anses bidra till de nuvarande miljökriserna. I ett försök att bidra till att minimera effekterna av klimatförändringarna dyker denna studie ner i ’design thinking’, en i stunden populär och etablerad innovationsprocess, för att undersöka hur denna kan bli icke antropocentrisk. Insikter hämtas från observationer och intervjuer med flertalet designers med erfarenhet av icke antropocentrisk världsbild inom designprocesser. Analys av dessa visar att icke antropocentrisk design handlar om att förkroppsliga en väv av olika arter. Det uppnås genom en förståelse för att vi är en komplex väv, genom att agera tillsammans med olika aktörer och genom att vara ödmjuk. Vidare föreslår artikeln att ”design thinking” kan bli icke antropocentrisk dvs skifta fokus från mänskliga behov till ’earthling’-behov genom att kontextualisera de konvergerande faserna i ’design thinking’ med spekulativa scenarier. Dessa scenarier borde visa på behov och implikationer för många olika ’earthlings’. På så vis manifesteras väven av dessa scenarier. Denna handling lämpar sig bäst i samarbete med andra aktörer från många olika discipliner och med hjälp från posthumanistiska perspektiv, verkliga exempel på komplexiteten och sambanden inom väven, överraskning och ett enande språkbruk. De olika scenarierna måste konstant omvärderas för att göra vävens komplexitet och den utmanande karaktären av handlingen rättvisa. Detta kräver att ’design thinking’ fokuserar på långsiktiga serviceorienterade relationer inom ramen för väven istället för att fokusera på processer inom ramen för specifika projekt. ’Product-as-a-service’ affärsmodell skulle potentiellt kunna göra detta genomförbart.

This thesis questions the coherence of modes of fabrication that introduce materials to a living context, in forms that resist the processes of biological change. In doing so this project explores the ideologies embedded in fabrication that have led to this current position. The implications of an accumulation of materials being recognized as an autonomous object, and treated as if they are detached from their environment are also expanded. The sculptural methodology used to undertake this investigation has used the feature of materiality and it’s behaviours, of both human fabrication and the living environment, as a means to explore processes outside the limitations of specialist human categories of knowledge. The vocabularies of dematerialization, expansion and relational exchange in the critique of sculpture, have provided a starting point to articulate what is implied or “mapped out but not socially recognized”1 by the structure of specialist categories. The practice-based work that has driven this project, documents an extension of sculptural fabrication, which incorporates the literal processes of growth and erosion, illustrating a radical inclusivity of all living phenomena. Engaging with fabrication through this plural and complex methodology allows for a new valuing that recognizes accumulation as a result of employing reductive specialist categories and as inherently problematic for complex living systems. This identifies coherent fabrication as that which merges its engagement with processes of biological change and utility for humans.

Mandarin Chinese numeral classifiers receive considerable at-tention in linguistic research. The status of the general classifier 个 gè re-mains unresolved. Many linguists suggest that the use of 个 gè as a noun classifier is arbitrary. This view is challenged in the current study. Relying on the CCL-Corpus of Peking University and data from Google, we investigated which nouns for living beings are most likely classified by the general clas-sifier 个 gè. The results suggest that the use of the classifier 个 gè is motivated by an anthropocentric continuum as described by Köpcke and Zubin in the 1990s. We tested Köpcke and Zubin’s approach with Chinese native speakers. We examined 76 animal expressions to explore the semantic interdepen-dence of numeral classifiers and the nouns. Our study shows that nouns with the semantic feature [+ animate] are more likely to be classified by 个 gè if their denotatum is either very close to or very far located from the anthropo-centric center. In contrast animate nouns whose denotata are located at some intermediate distance from the anthropocentric center are less likely to be classified by 个 gè.

Este trabalho introduz a formalização algébrica do F-MFG (Functional Mark Flow Graph) para a análise e simulação computacional de modelos de sistemas antropocêntricos de produção, onde são enfocadas a interação e a interface do elemento humano com o sistema produtivo. Abordando os sistemas antropocêntricos como uma classe de sistemas a eventos discretos, o F-MFG, que é uma técnica baseada nas redes de Petri, comprova ter potencial para descrever detalhadamente as ações e estados do sistema. O F-MFG, em conjunto com a Metodologia PFS/MFG (Production Flow Schema/ Mark Flow Graph), estabelece um procedimento eficiente para o projeto de sistemas antropocêntricos, tornando concisa a modelagem e a posterior avaliação estrutural e comportamental do sistema. / This work introduces an algebraic formalization of F-MFG (Functional-Mark Flow Graph). This formalization is effective for analysis and simulation of anthropocentric production systems, which is focused on the interaction and interface between human elements and production systems. When approaching anthropocentric systems as Discrete Event Dynamic Systems, the F-MFG, which is a Petri Net based technique, has been demonstrated its potential capabilities in describing detailed models of system actions and states. The PFS/MFG Methodology (Production Flow Schema/Mark Flow Graph Methodology) combined with F-MFG establishes an efficient procedure for the design of anthropocentric systems. This procedure results in concise modeling and analysis (system structural and behavioral evaluation) processes.

Este trabalho introduz a formalização algébrica do F-MFG (Functional Mark Flow Graph) para a análise e simulação computacional de modelos de sistemas antropocêntricos de produção, onde são enfocadas a interação e a interface do elemento humano com o sistema produtivo. Abordando os sistemas antropocêntricos como uma classe de sistemas a eventos discretos, o F-MFG, que é uma técnica baseada nas redes de Petri, comprova ter potencial para descrever detalhadamente as ações e estados do sistema. O F-MFG, em conjunto com a Metodologia PFS/MFG (Production Flow Schema/ Mark Flow Graph), estabelece um procedimento eficiente para o projeto de sistemas antropocêntricos, tornando concisa a modelagem e a posterior avaliação estrutural e comportamental do sistema. / This work introduces an algebraic formalization of F-MFG (Functional-Mark Flow Graph). This formalization is effective for analysis and simulation of anthropocentric production systems, which is focused on the interaction and interface between human elements and production systems. When approaching anthropocentric systems as Discrete Event Dynamic Systems, the F-MFG, which is a Petri Net based technique, has been demonstrated its potential capabilities in describing detailed models of system actions and states. The PFS/MFG Methodology (Production Flow Schema/Mark Flow Graph Methodology) combined with F-MFG establishes an efficient procedure for the design of anthropocentric systems. This procedure results in concise modeling and analysis (system structural and behavioral evaluation) processes.

The purpose of this study is to explore preschool children&rsquo / s attitudes towards environmental issues in terms of consumption patterns, environmental protection, recycling-reusing, and living habits and to investigate gender as a factor affecting environmental attitudes. The sample of the study is comprised of 40 preschool age children living in Ankara, Turkey. The research has been realized by qualitative design and the data were collected through interviews. The interview questionnaire was adapted from