La Filosofía de la Aritmética de Kant, de Charles Parsons.

Anyone who has worked in Science for forty years can be much surprised to realize how little he now hears about evolution, compared with such former times. At present, evolution seems to be accepted as an axiomatic or universal principle, while the mechanism of it is not much considered, except by a small group of specialists, who work on the subject in greatly limited ways. This is practically a reversal of the former emphasis. The chemist would probably suggest that the (...) change is due to a better realization of the chemical difficulties involved in the mechanics of evolution, and his own change in viewpoint. The chemical difficulties will have increased to an almost incredible degree in this period, and his viewpoint will have changed correspondingly. A glance at some of these changes should illuminate the progress made in both subjects in this period. (shrink)

Defences of Kant's foundations of geometry fall short if they are unable to equally ground Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries. Thus, Kant's account must be separated from geometrical postulates. I argue that characterizing space as the form of outer intuition must be independent of postulates. Geometrical postulates are then expressions of particular spatializing activities made possible by the a priori intuition of space. While Amit Hagar contends that this is to speak of noumena, I argue that a Kantian account of space (...) as the form of outer attention-directing remains seated in the subject. (shrink)

The last two words of the title for this essay are taken from a paper by R. S. Lillie, and the first phrase is also taken by implication from the same source. The study of chemical phenomena in life has progressed far enough so that underlying chemical causes, involved in Professor Lillie's picture of Biological Causation, may in part be discussed in general terms, and apart from the mass of detail known about the agents and processes involved. Moreover, this mass (...) of detail is now great enough so that even though we are far from having a complete or even a comprehensive picture of these causes at least some of the fundamental principles involved in the chemical aspects of biological causation are clearly revealed. (shrink)

Ever since the beginning of the modern era of science, more than 300 years ago, the scipntist has been embarassed at times when he undertook to describe the scope and objectives of science. Part of this embarassment was due to the difficulty of setting up the scope and objectives in such a way as to leave room for future development, and at the same time to permit of seeing the limitations of science clearly and truthfully. Recently in an article “On (...) the possible philosophies of science”, Professor Malisoff made use of the old practise in philosophical discussion of using conjugate terms. These terms as used are so selected that complementary pairs characterize or describe an entity or whole of some kind. The difficulty in describing the scope, objectives and especially the limitations of science, arises chiefly from the difficulty of establishing some simple entity that will contain all of this as well, as the remainders that must be included, and that involve the limitations of science, chiefly. This use of conjugate terms offered a solution of this difficulty. (shrink)

Infant and young child electrophysiology studies have provided information regarding the maturation of face-encoding neural processes. A limitation of previous research is that very few studies have examined face-encoding processes in children 12–48 months of age, a developmental period characterized by rapid changes in the ability to encode facial information. The present study sought to fill this gap in the literature via a longitudinal study examining the maturation of a primary node in the face-encoding network—the left and right fusiform gyrus. (...) Whole-brain magnetoencephalography data were obtained from 25 infants with typical development at 4–12 months, and with follow-up MEG exams every ∼12 months until 3–4 years old. Children were presented with color images of Face stimuli and visual noise images that served as Non-Face stimuli. Using distributed source modeling, left and right face-sensitive FFG evoked waveforms were obtained from each child at each visit, with face-sensitive activity identified via examining the difference between the Non-Face and Face FFG timecourses. Before 24 months of age the face-sensitive FFG M290 response was the dominant response, observed in the left and right FFG ∼250–450 ms post-stimulus. By 3–4 years old, the left and right face-sensitive FFG response occurred at a latency consistent with a face-sensitive M170 response ∼100–250 ms post-stimulus. Face-sensitive left and right FFG peak latencies decreased as a function of age, and with an adult-like FFG latency observed at 3–4 years old. Study findings thus showed face-sensitive FFG maturational changes across the first 4 years of life. Whereas a face-sensitive M290 response was observed under 2 years of age, by 3–4 years old, an adult-like face-sensitive M170 response was observed bilaterally. Future studies evaluating the maturation of face-sensitive FFG activity in infants at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders are of interest, with the present findings suggesting age-specific face-sensitive neural markers of a priori interest. (shrink)

Asks whether science can give any hope that some of our being will survive after death, challenging accepted views of mortality.

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Volume 20, Issue 7, July 2020, Page 77-80.

Zeno's challenge to the usual mathematical characterization of extension is still with us. Butchvarov, considering the limits of ontological analysis, writes, “I shall not explore [the decision to accept the infinite regress in which the pursuit of the analytical ideal is involved], beyond noting that the infinite divisibility of space is the reductio ad absurdum of any attempt to understand space in terms of its ultimate, simple parts.” Grünbaum states this problem, commonly known as the Measure Paradox, concisely, “[How can (...) one conceive] of an extended continuum as an aggregate of unextended elements?”. (shrink)