We investigate the complexity of isomorphisms of computable structures on cones in the Turing degrees. We show that, on a cone, every structure has a strong degree of categoricity, and that degree of categoricity is${\rm{\Delta }}_\alpha ^0 $-complete for someα. To prove this, we extend Montalbán’sη-system framework to deal with limit ordinals in a more general way. We also show that, for any fixed computable structure, there is an ordinalαand a cone in the Turing degrees such that the exact complexity (...) of computing an isomorphism between the given structure and another copy${\cal B}$in the cone is a c.e. degree in${\rm{\Delta }}_\alpha ^0\left$. In each of our theorems the cone in question is clearly described in the beginning of the proof, so it is easy to see how the theorems can be viewed as general theorems with certain effectiveness conditions. (shrink)

This paper is presented as a performance between the two authors who are discussing the notion of daydreaming as a transitional space between their research interests in dreams and the semantic associations of conscious thought. The first half concerns the logical, rational awake mind when applied to an understanding of daydreaming as a bridge between one state and another. It investigates the idea of the interactive interface as a parallel with the daydream where both enable a middle ground, or safe (...) space for crossing-over. The difficulty highlighted through the performative reading of the paper is to keep focus without slipping into the interstitial state of a daydream. The paper gently drifts towards the second half, which explores understanding of dreamstates and the neuroscientific models of the unconscious brain. (shrink)

The $\Omega $ numbers—the halting probabilities of universal prefix-free machines—are known to be exactly the Martin-Löf random left-c.e. reals. We show that one cannot uniformly produce, from a Martin-Löf random left-c.e. real $\alpha $, a universal prefix-free machine U whose halting probability is $\alpha $. We also answer a question of Barmpalias and Lewis-Pye by showing that given a left-c.e. real $\alpha $, one cannot uniformly produce a left-c.e. real $\beta $ such that $\alpha - \beta $ is neither left-c.e. (...) nor right-c.e. (shrink)

When classes of structures are not first-order definable, we might still try to find a nice description. There are two common ways for doing this. One is to expand the language, leading to notions of pseudo-elementary classes, and the other is to allow infinite conjuncts and disjuncts. In this paper we examine the intersection. Namely, we address the question: Which classes of structures are both pseudo-elementary and ${\mathcal {L}}_{\omega _1, \omega }$ -elementary? We find that these are exactly the classes (...) that can be defined by an infinitary formula that has no infinitary disjunctions. (shrink)

In recent years historians of science have come to an increasing appreciation of the role played by such moral and affective categories as “trust,” “wonder,” “pedantry,” and “self‐discipline” in the knowledge‐making enterprises of the early modern period. Barbara Benedict's book on curiosity is a most welcome contribution to the literature devoted to such topics. In a lively and entertaining work, Benedict sets out to “analyse literary representations of the way curious people, including scientists, authors, performers, and readers, were engaged (...) in practicing and producing curiosity itself” . The author modestly states at the outset that the work is not, and does not claim to be, a history of science, and indeed as a whole the essay perhaps falls short of the more ambitious promise of the subtitle—“a cultural history of early modern inquiry.” Yet it deals with a subject that is nonetheless of profound importance for historians of seventeenth‐ and eighteenth‐century science.Of particular significance is the way in which the book demonstrates how curiosity and its representations served to demarcate the boundaries of legitimate topics of knowledge and modes of enquiry. The discourse about curiosity thus served to inform central epistemological questions of the period: Is it appropriate to seek all knowledge on all topics, and is it to be sought by all people? If there are areas of knowledge that are illicit, what are they and why are they proscribed? What are the proper methods for the various spheres of knowledge? Benedict carefully articulates the role played by the discourse of curiosity in the sanctioning of some projects and the censuring of others. To take one of the many telling examples found in the book, the protagonist of Thomas Shadwell's Virtuoso is presented as epitomizing the curious impulse, here manifested as a puzzlingly earnest quest for useless knowledge and a strange fascination with base and undignified natural objects. The odd proclivities of this character demonstrate in a forceful way how the new natural philosophy could be regarded as merely an outlet for the intellectual vice of curiosity—and how far the new knowledge‐making enterprises fell short of social approval amongst those whose approbation mattered most. The familiar seventeenth‐century rhetoric of the “usefulness of natural philosophy” was thus in part a response to accusations of curiosity leveled against experimental philosophers. Benedict observes that “early modern literary culture struggled to mold curiosity into forms that would preserve public values” . Apologists for the scientific activities of the Royal Society, in keeping with this goal, sought to depict the quest for natural knowledge as a legitimate expression of a curiosity that had been appropriately disciplined and directed in ways that would contribute to the common good.The book also traces the varying fortunes of curiosity, nicely delineating the reciprocal relations between subjective and objective, between the curious sensibility and curiosities, between wonder and wonders. At times it might have been helpful for the author to have transgressed the self‐imposed limitation of examining literary representations and to have considered some formal accounts of curiosity as they occur in contemporary works of moral psychology in which this human propensity is carefully described and precisely located among the other affections. Without more direct information about the contemporary taxonomy of the affections curiosity too easily shades into wonder, credulity, greed, avarice, and acquisitiveness. In short, the relations of curiosity with its neighboring affections—the subtle transformations of which constituted an integral part of the changing status of curiosity—could perhaps have been more finely drawn. This, however, is a minor issue. Benedict has written a good book on an important topic, not least for historians of science because it clearly shows how the eventual establishment of the social respectability of curious individuals and objects was an essential phase in the legitimation of natural history and natural philosophy. (shrink)

Simon Forman, as Barbara Howard Traister puts it, “turned himself into text”: an obsessive writer, he left a cache of manuscripts, some of which—like the earliest surviving chronological case records—are of great historical value. Some of Forman's manuscripts are autobiographical, and it is for the more intimate details of his life that Forman has been known in recent years. He is “notorious” today largely for his sex life, being the subject of A. L. Rowse's well‐known study, Simon Forman: Sex (...) and Society in Shakespeare's Age . But Traister looks at Forman's manuscripts in their entirety, and the bulk of her book considers the intellectual and professional aspects of his medical and astrological practice. This provides a welcome counterweight to Rowse's account of Forman as well as some corrections to the fleeting and often misleading impressions given in other secondary literature.In so far as Forman's professional life is known, it is as a charlatan who preyed on the gullible to acquire fame, money, and sexual favors. From Traister's account there would seem to be a kernel of truth in this but a great deal of distortion too. Though by no means averse to taking payment “in kind” from the women he treated, Forman was a widely recognized authority on the diseases of women and his case notes show that he took his practice seriously. The same is true more generally of Forman's astrological practice , which was founded on a deep belief in the accuracy of astrological predictions. Indeed, Forman claimed that only through astrology could a physician successfully diagnose and treat disease.Forman was, however, a controversial figure in his own age, being “notorious” in the sense that he repeatedly fell foul of the London College of Physicians, which attempted to enforce its monopoly of medical practice in the English capital and its environs. Forman was brought before the college on several occasions for practicing without a license and received a number of fines and jail sentences for his repeated violations of the law. He was continually hounded and ridiculed by the college, partly because he was so successful. People—especially women—from all sections of English society came to consult Forman as a physician and astrologer, although it was largely for the former that he was venerated. Although he was mocked by the college for his ignorance of classical learning, Forman's medical knowledge was considerable, if not entirely systematic, though he lacked the necessary “polish” to present his knowledge in a manner acceptable to such a conservative body. Nevertheless, Forman's medical reputation was sufficiently impressive for him to be granted a license to practice by Cambridge University, after what was most likely a serious examination.Forman's case notes show that he worked within a largely Galenic framework, and most of his treatments aimed at restoring humoral equilibrium. But, like many other practitioners of the time, he embellished his practice with chemical drug therapies; and there is evidence that he incorporated Paracelsian ideas. His case notes are so valuable because they show Forman's knowledge and practice evolving steadily over time: a development that is evident, for example, in his writings on plague. His first essay on plague was composed during the London epidemic of 1593, his second during the outbreak of 1607. The former treated the disease astrologically and theologically, seeing the epidemic as a form of divine punishment for the sins of mankind. The second dealt with the physical nature of the disease and its immediate causes. The two works should not be seen as set in opposition to one another, for they dealt with different features of a complex web of causation, with the increasing concern related to natural causes typifying much of the writing on plague at this time. Growing familiarity with plague—which typically broke out in major cities every ten years or so—permitted closer observation of the disease as a natural phenomenon. Forman was well placed to do this because he remained in London during both outbreaks, a decision that did much to enhance his professional reputation and expand his clientele.The importance of Forman's manuscript collection ensures that this book will reach a wide readership, and few will be disappointed. The author writes clearly, with sophistication and insight, and avoids the anachronistic sensationalism of earlier accounts. As might be expected from the title, the book is especially enlightening about medical astrology, the dominant aspect of Forman's professional life. It is interesting to read this account alongside Michael MacDonald's study of Richard Napier—Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth Century England —for there are many areas of commonality as well as significant differences. All in all, this is a truly fascinating book. Historians of medicine and astrology will find much in it that is relevant to their own areas of specialization. (shrink)

Explores the historical relations between science and religion and discusses contemporary issues with perspectives from cosmology, evolutionary biology and bioethics.

An old conservative criticism of egalitarianism is that it is nothing but the expression of envy. Egalitarians respond by saying envy has nothing to do with it. I present an alternative way of thinking about the relation of envy to distributive justice, and to Rawlsian justice in particular. I argue that while ideals of justice rightly distance themselves from envy, envy plays a role in facing injustice. Under nonideal circumstances, less attractive features of human nature may play a role in (...) motivating the action necessary to push an unjust society in a more just direction. (shrink)

This is a major contribution to the theoretical and comparative literature on welfare states, written by some of the most original and challenging feminist ...

This article seeks to examine Rorty's contention that literary narrative, not political philosophy, is best able to address the problems of the West. It argues that although Rorty's conception of the novel as a valu able and informative medium is credible, he does not establish it as a valid alternative to political philosophy. Moreover Rorty retains the sort of reasoning that is characteristic of political philosophy, despite his assertions to the contrary.

The problem of inferring probability comparisons between events from an initial set of comparisons arises in several contexts, ranging from decision theory to artificial intelligence to formal semantics. In this paper, we treat the problem as follows: beginning with a binary relation ≥ on events that does not preclude a probabilistic interpretation, in the sense that ≥ has extensions that are probabilistically representable, we characterize the extension ≥+ of ≥ that is exactly the intersection of all probabilistically representable extensions of (...) ≥. This extension ≥+ gives us all the additional comparisons that we are entitled to infer from ≥, based on the assumption that there is some probability measure of which ≥ gives us partial qualitative information. We pay special attention to the problem of extending an order on states to an order on events. In addition to the probabilistic interpretation, this problem has a more general interpretation involving measurement of any additive quantity: e.g., given comparisons between the weights of individual objects, what comparisons between the weights of groups of objects can we infer? (shrink)

Excerpt from John Stuart Mill Not only is the language of the Liberty somewhat vague in defining the respective limits of 'persuasion and 'coer cion, ' but the practical illustrations of lawful restrictions by the State seem at times hardly consistent with so abso lute a doctrine. It is somewhat startling, after such tren chant assertion of the absolute freedom of the individual. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com (...) This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This paper engages in the ongoing dialog on "justice and the health care 'industry"'1 and addresses the question of whether market strategies are consistent with an ethical distribution of resources in health care. As it pertains to the development of perinatal services over the past twenty-five to thirty years in the United States, my short answer to this question is "no." Business organization and market-oriented strategies have contributed to the creation and extensive growth of perinatal intensive care centers located in (...) large medical centers. This growth, which has aggravated the neglect of primary care, has been incongruent with known health needs and represents an ethically questionable distribution of resources. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss how, given the complexity of biological systems, reliance on theoretical models in the development and testing of biological theories leads to an uncomfortable form of anti-realism. I locate the source of this discomfort in the uniqueness and hence diversity of biological phenomena, in contrast with the simplicity and uniformity of the subject matter of physics. I have argued elsewhere that the use of theoretical models creates an unresolvable tension between the explanatory strength and predictive power (...) of hypotheses, and I review this argument again here. My discussion parallels that of Nancy Cartwright, who claims that the use of ceteris paribus laws in physics creates an antagonism between truth and explanation that requires theoretical models to figure centrally in scientific explanation, thereby precluding realism. I argue instead that in biology it is the use of theoretical models that creates this conflict, and conclude that adequate biological explanation cannot rely on the modeling approach alone. Finally, I claim that if we accept the semantic view of theories, which makes theoretical models an integral part of our conception of theories, we must accept anti-realism as well. (shrink)

Aristóteles foi o primeiro pensador que articulou uma taxonomia do conheci-mento científico: os quatros livros dos Segundos Analíticos descrevem os critérios que uma disciplina qualquer deve respeitar e satisfazer para legitimamente receber a designação de ciência teorética. Mas Aristóteles é mesmo o criador das “ciências particulares”, ou seja, a biologia, a psicologia, a zoologia e, em geral, as ciências naturais. Trata-se de uma questão já clássica saber se o modo pelo qual Aristóteles desenvolve sua ciência dos animais con-forma-se aos padrões (...) normativos estipulados pela teoria da ciência nos Analíticos. Na men-talidade de muitos intérpretes ficou a convicção de que as obras biológicas de Aristóteles conformam-se a um padrão que utiliza apenas dados empíricos, ao passo que o conheci-mento nos Analíticos é estabelecido a partir de premissas primeiras e imediatas. Agora, nos Segundos Analíticos, encontramos exemplos provenientes da meteorologia, da botânica, da zoologia ao lado de exemplos matemáticos. Fica a pergunta: a metodologia axiomática de estilo matemático que o Estagirita propõe nos Analíticos é totalmente independente e ina-dequada para o estudo da biologia? Se for assim, Aristóteles não teria conseguido encaixar as ciências naturais nos padrões normativos expostos nos Segundos Analíticos. No presente estudo, pretendemos, pelo contrário, ressaltar o fato de que é razoável tomar os textos aristotélicos como orbitando em torno de uma mesma e grande pesquisa, a pesquisa cientí-fica, que inclui os Analíticos, assim como os tratados naturais.Aristotle was the first Greek thinker to articulate a taxonomy of scientific pursuits: the four books of the Analytics present a theory of scientific knowledge with a rigorous ac-count of what a body of propositions must be like in order to count as a theoretical science. But Aristotle was also the originator of “special sciences”. A longstanding problem about Aristotle’s philosophy of science is to understand if there is a conflict between the account of scientific explanation in the Posterior Analytics and the investigations reported in treatises such as the History of Animals, Parts of Animals, Generation of Animals 1. The Analytics restricts knowledge to what has been demonstrated from self-evident first principles. The sciences of nature seem to secure their results without such demonstrations: there are not axioms, nor theorems or proofs, nor definitions. Yet many of the examples in the Posterior Analytics are drawn from meteorology, botany and zoology, and are discussed side by side with mathe-matical examples. It is curious that a philosopher as systematic as Aristotle could formulate the first rigorous theory of scientific inquiry and demonstration, pepper the treatise in which he does so with biological examples, and not aim to structure his science of animals in ac-cordance with that theory. In this investigation I want to show that there is a relation betwe-en Aristotle’s official account of the definition in Posterior Analytics and the nature and the role assigned to definition in the Natural Treatises. (shrink)

In this text Cassin and Narcy begin their reassessment of the mode of thought that is sophistry, which has historically functioned as the (negative) “other” of classical philosophy. To this end, the authors first present a close reading of Book Gamma of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, understood as a concerted “strategy against sophism” that, in establishing a logical basis for metaphysics, seeks to relegate the former to the sidelines once and for all. What proves ineliminable in this operation, however, and which “resurfaces (...) beyond metaphysics,” is discourse itself. Cassin and Narcy then set about exploring the contemporary resurgences of sophistry, first through the discourse of (novelistic) fiction, then, more rigorously, in the work of Jacques Lacan, whose own thought poses radical challenges to the relation of language to meaning. (shrink)

Socio-economic status and mathematical performance seem to be risk factors of mathematics anxiety in both children and adults. However, there is little evidence about how exactly these three constructs are related, especially during early stages of mathematical learning. In the present study, we assessed longitudinal performance in symbolic and non-symbolic basic numerical skills in pre-school and second grade students, as well as MA in second grade students. Participants were 451 children from 12 schools in Chile, which differed in school vulnerability (...) index, an indicator of SES. We tested an explanatory model of MA that included SES and longitudinal performance in basic numerical skills as predictors. The results showed a direct effect of SES on MA and a mediating effect of performance in symbolic and non-symbolic comparison tasks in pre-school. However, in second grade, only performance in symbolic comparison significantly mediated the SES-MA relationship. These findings suggest that performance in non-symbolic comparison plays an important role in explaining MA at initial stages, but that its influence is no longer significant by the time children reach formal instruction in second grade. By contrast, as children’s formal educational experience in mathematics increases, MA becomes linked primarily to symbolic numerical tasks. In sum, SES affects MA and this is due in part to the effect of SES on the development of numerical learning in pre-school, which in turn has an impact on subsequent, more complex learning, ultimately leading to differences in MA. We discuss the implications of these findings for preventing and acting upon the emergence of MA. (shrink)

This article investigates the subject of pilgrimage and change, regarding the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela from a pilgrim's perspective. Two aspects of change are being looked at more closely: 1. The inner transformation of today's pilgrims during their pilgrimage, as well as the factors leading to their transformation, and 2. The occurance of recent structural changes of the pilgrimage and their background. These changes also reflect the tensions between pilgrimage and tourism, and the pilgrims and the politics of pilgrimage (...) respectively. (shrink)

I argue social and political freedom is not primarily about the absence of constraints, whether those constraints be in the form of interference or domination. Instead, social freedom is centrally about what makes us free. That is, the question of social freedom is first and foremost about determining the positive preconditions of being a free person within society. Social freedom is about what I call the social bases of freedom, or those features of our social world that we have a (...) reason to rely on in making plans or going about our business. (shrink)

The ethical challenges of caring for the chronically ill are of increasing concern to nurses as they attempt to create humanitarian environments for long-term care. This article suggests two ethical perspectives to guide the agenda of the nursing profession to achieve social change in the care of the chronically ill and aging. First, a reemphasis on the public duties of the professions is recommended which extends beyond serving the interests of the nursing profession to recognizing the need to serve the (...) common good. Second, the limitations of the autonomy paradigm are explored and the foundation for the development of a new moral paradigm is analyzed in terms of its' potential usefulness in addressing ethical problems of chronic illness. Several initiatives that nursing must undertake to facilitate the emergence of this paradigm are proposed. (shrink)