In this first modern, critical assessment of the place of mathematics in Berkeley's philosophy and Berkeley's place in the history of mathematics, Douglas M. Jesseph provides a bold reinterpretation of Berkeley's work.

The emergence of the global administrative sector and its new forms of knowledge production, expert rationality, and standardization, remains an understudied topic in science studies. Using a coproductionist theoretical framework, we argue tha the mutual construction of epistemic and legal authority across international organizations has been critical for constituting and stabilizing a global regime for the regulation of food safety. The authors demonstrate how this process has also given rise to an authoritative framework for risk analysis touted as ‘‘scientifically rigorous’’ (...) but embodying particular value choices regarding health, environment, and the dispensation of regulatory power. Finally, the authors trace how enrollment of the Codex Alimentarius in World Trade Law has heightened institutional dilemmas around legitimacy and credibility in science advice at the global level. Taken together, the case illustrates the importance of attending to the iterative construction of law and science in the constitution of new global administrative regimes. (shrink)

This article examines Hobbes’s conception of mathematical method, situating his methodological writings in the context of disputed mathematical issues of the seventeenth century. After a brief exposition of the Hobbesian philosophy of mathematics, it investigates Hobbes’s attempts to resolve three important mathematical controversies of the seventeenth century: the debates over the status of analytic geometry, disputes over the nature of ratios, and the problem of the “angle of contact” between a curve and tangent. In the course of these investigations, Hobbes’s (...) account of mathematics and its method is contrasted with the those of Descartes, Isaac Barrow, John Wallis, and Christopher Clavius. (shrink)

A profound guide to embracing your Divine nature.

Early in his mathematical career Leibniz discovered some important methods and results but had to recognize that his findings had been anticipated by other mathematicians such as Pierre de Fermat, James Gregory, Isaac Newton, François Regnauld, John Wallis, etc. This paper investigates the cases of Isaac Barrow and Pietro Mengoli who, earlier than Leibniz, had been familiar with the characteristic triangle, transmutations methods, the inverse connection between determining tangents and areas of curves or the sums of the reciprocal figurate numbers, (...) and the harmonic triangle. To what extent was Leibniz aware of the results and publications of his predecessors? How did he assess their methods and results? Why did Leibniz never acknowledge any influence of these two mathematicians on his own studies? After publication of Leibniz’s manuscripts concerning the prehistory and early history of the calculus in the Academy Edition these questions can be investigated on the solid foundation of original texts. (shrink)

This chapter is concerned with the foundations of Hobbes’s natural philosophy, notably his account of space and time, as well as an inertial law the author terms the “persistence principle” and a mechanistic principle of action by contact. The author argues that these foundational concepts and principles serve as a framework that places constraints upon the kinds of hypotheses that may figure in the explanation of phenomena, but they do not uniquely determine how natural philosophy is to be developed. In (...) particular, the author shows that Hobbes took questions about the infinitude and uniqueness of the world as unanswerable in principle, although he regarded the question of the vacuum as an empirical matter that could be settled by experiment. Hobbes did, however, hold that certain doctrines were incoherent and should be rejected on a priori grounds. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze what some private universities are doing in the area of mediation and other alternative ways of solving faculty complaints – what some term "alternative dispute resolution." Special attention will be given to one of the most important ethical issues in this area at the operating level of individual universities – the due process procedures with respect to the processing of the grievances of individual faculty members in nonunionized colleges. The paper concludes with (...) recommendations for university administrators and faculty senates, as well as recommendations for future research. (shrink)

The time-limits imposed by the κλεψύδρα on speakers in Athenian trials have been much discussed, but a valuable distillation of the ancient evidence and modern interpretations of it has recently been made by P. J. Rhodes, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia , pp. 719–28. He prudently states his own conclusions in a cautious manner, but I find them convincing. One khous of water took 3 minutes to run out; this is indicated by the length of time taken by (...) the κλεψύδρα found in the Agora , which holds 2 khoes and takes 6 minutes, and it is also consistent with the evidence of Aiskhines about the διαμεμετρημένη μέρα. In a ‘measured-through day’, used only for public cases, the total amount of time allowed for the speeches in a trial was 11 amphoreis , equivalent to 132 khoes, taking 396 minutes; one third of this time was allocated to the prosecution, one third to the defence, and one third to the speeches on the assessment of the penalty . Time taken for other proceedings, including the allocation of jurors to courts, voting, and payment of jurors at the end of the day , was additional. (shrink)

This study employs the uses and gratification approach to investigate how different forms of Facebook use are linked to bridging social capital and bonding social capital. A survey of 152 college students was conducted to address research questions and to test hypotheses. Factor analysis identified six unique uses and gratifications: (a) information seeking, (b) entertainment, (c) communication, (d) social relations, (e) escape, and (f) Facebook applications. Findings reveal that intensity of Facebook use and the use of Facebook for social relations (...) are positive predictors of bridging social capital, whereas the use of Facebook for escape is negatively linked to bonding social capital. (shrink)

Do continuing education (CE) mandates increase participation in ethics programs and enhance their perceived outcomes? In a study of 5,198 North American psychologists, significant differences were found between mandated and nonmandated psychologists in relation to their participation in ethics programs but not in the perceived outcomes associated with those trainings. Although 64.3% of those psychologists operating under ethics mandates reported completing at least one ethics training within the previous year, only 40.7% of those without such mandates reported doing likewise. Overall, (...) both groups tended to view their ethics training quite favorably in relation to its perceived outcomes, though they differed in relation to their endorsement of CE mandates. Results are discussed in relation to the ongoing development of evidence-based CE and its role in developing critical professional competencies. (shrink)

Hobbes and Wallis's "battle of the books" illuminates the intimate relationship between science and crucial seventeenth-century debates over the limits of sovereign power and the existence of God.

The number of speaking actors in Old Comedy has been much discussed, but no consensus has been reached. The old assumption that the number was three, as in tragedy, was shaken when it was realized that some scenes of Aristophanes have four characters on-stage at once, all taking part in the dialogue: for example, in Lys. 77–253 we have Lysistrate, Kalonike, Myrrhine, and Lampito, and in Frogs 1414–81 we have Dionysos, Aiskhylos, Euripides, and Plouton. Rees therefore argued that there was (...) no fixed number, but that view was not generally accepted. A more widely held view is that there were three principal actors with additional performers for small parts. However, there is no evidence contemporary with Aristophanes which distinguishes three actors from the others in this way, and it is probable that writers of later periods who mention three actors are referring to their own times and did not have authentic information about the fifth century. The passage which DFA, p. 149, seems to regard as the most trustworthy is in a brief account of comedy attributed to Tzetzes: πιγενμενος δ Κρατνος κατστησε μν πρτον τ ν τ κωμδ πρσωπα μεχρ τριν, στσας τν ταξαν4 DFA paraphrases this as ‘Cratinus reduced the disorderliness and, in some sense, fixed the number of regular actors at three’. But πρσωπα means ‘masks’ or ‘characters’; it does not mean ‘actors’ . What the writer meant by saying that Kratinos settled the masks or characters in comedy at ‘up to three’ is not clear, but his statement is useless as evidence for the number of actors. (shrink)

Marriage is a subject of perennial interest, and we should like to be able to assess the exact degree of importance which the Greeks attached to this institution. One of the chief questions is how the formality of marriage, or the lack of it, affected the children of a union; above all, was illegitimate birth a bar to citizenship even in democratic Athens? Unfortunately there is still no general agreement about the answer to this question.

This book includes a selection of contributions to the Iowa State University Symposium on agricultural bioethics in november 1987. The papers are grouped in the sections "Safety and regulatory issues", "Impact on scientific and industrial communities", "Public perceptions", "Economic prospects", "Social considerations" and "Ethical dilemmas".

The speech Against Euergos and Mnesiboulos describes a dispute over some naval gear. The dispute occurred early in the year 357/6 b.c. π' γαθοκλους ρχοντος, Dem. 47.44), when the speaker was a trierarch and supervisor of his symmory , and he refers to ‘the law of Periandros, by which the symmories were organized’ . There is no other specific reference to the law of Periandros. If 357/6 was the first year of its operation, it was probably passed in 358/7, but (...) that is not known for certain. The identity of the man is likewise uncertain, though it has plausibly been suggested that he was Periandros son of Polyaratos and that he was the Periandros who proposed an alliance between Athens and Arkadia in 362/1 . However, his identity is of no importance for the present article. Here I am concerned only to try to reconstruct what the law said about the symmories. Despite a great deal of modern discussion this question has still not been satisfactorily solved. The word συμμορα means ‘group’ or ‘division’ and does not necessarily have a technical or legal sense. But most of the Attic instances do have the special sense of a group of persons formed for the purpose of making payments of a compulsory tax or levy: either the property tax called εσορ, which was imposed at irregular intervals, or payments towards the maintenance of ships in the Athenian navy, which were required every year. A fragment of Philokhoros says that Athenians were divided κατ συμμορας for the first time in 378/7, and it is generally agreed that this means that symmories were first formed in 378 for the payment of eisphora. For the navy, however, there is no trace of symmories before the 350s, and everyone agrees that it was the law of Periandros which introduced the use of symmories for maintaining ships, which had previously been the sole responsibility of one trierarch or a pair of syntrierarchs for each ship. (shrink)

If you look up οἶκος in Liddell and Scott, you find the instances classified in three main divisions: first those meaning a house, or sometimes other kinds of building; secondly ‘one's household goods, substance’, for which I shall generally say ‘property’, though Liddell and Scott do not actually use that word; and thirdly ‘family’. This threefold distinction is sound, and I shall adhere to it here. Admittedly one sometimes finds an instance where it is not easy to decide which sense (...) the word has. Two of the senses, occasionally even all three, may overlap. But in the great majority of instances it is clear which sense is meant. (shrink)

Western science teaches that our beings are governed by the laws of physics and our minds play no part. There are, however, flaws in this thinking, most prominently unexplained paranormal phenomena that defy explanation by modern theories of physics. Collected by a handful of renegade scientists who call themselves parapsychologists, these data include extrasensory perception (ESP), poltergeist occurrences, and psychokinesis. Much of the current data in parapsychology and their implications for understanding the true nature of the self are examined here. (...) Beginning with a consideration of several instances of spontaneous psi, the book examines the theoretical explanations of paranormal phenomena. It also covers the hypothesis and evidence that minds contain the so-called hidden variables that determine the outcomes of the quantum process, thus interweaving parapsychology with modern physics. The minds fate upon the death of the physical body is discussed; the reader is forced to consider in detail the relationship between the conscious mind and the physical brain and the evidence that minds survive the death of bodies. (shrink)

This chapter examines the views of seventeenth-century British philosophers on the notion of logic and demonstrative knowledge, particularly Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, and John Locke, offering an overview of traditional Aristotelianism in relation to logic and describing Bacon's approach to demonstration and logic. It also analyzes the contribution of the Cambridge Platonists and evaluates the influence of Cartesianism. The chapter concludes that theorizing about logic and demonstrative knowledge followed an arc familiar from other branches of philosophy such as metaphysics or (...) the philosophy of science. (shrink)