The Problems, which occupy pp. 859-967 of the Berlin Aristotle, have probably been less read and studied than any other treatise in the Aristotelian Corpus; they contain, however, a vast quantity of interesting information on a great variety of subjects, and an enquiry into their composition may be not without interest.

Although in most situations approaching desired end-states entails decreasing distance between oneself and an object, and avoiding undesired end-states increases such distance, in some cases distancing can also be a means to approach a given goal. We highlight examples involving responses to obstacles to achievement and self-control dilemmas, showing that motivational direction is not equivalent to the motivational strategy involved when people pursue their goals.

Science, in general, and chemistry in particular advances by methods that are difficult to codify. The availability of theories (models) and instrumentation play an important role but indefinable motivations to study individual phenomena are also involved. The area of chromium photophysics has a rich history that spans 150 years. A case history of the progression from the natural history stage to its present state reveals the way in which several factors that are common to much physical science research interact.

A short article was published in the Classical Quarterly in 1921 entitled ‘Some Emendations in the Fragments of Theophrastus,’ which sought to show that several passages of Theophrastus could be improved by a comparison with certain of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Problems where the author of the latter is obviously deriving his material from Theophrastus. A further comparison of the Problems and Theophrastus, carried out in the course of preparing an edition of the former, has led to the discovery of more parallel (...) passages and makes it possible to suggest further improvements in the text of several passages of Theophrastus. (shrink)

It is shown that, according to NF, many of the assertions of ordinal arithmetic involving the T-function which is peculiar to NF turn out to be equivalent to the truth-in-certain-permutation-models of assertions which have perfectly sensible ZF-style meanings, such as: the existence of wellfounded sets of great size or rank, or the nonexistence of small counterexamples to the wellfoundedness of ∈. Everything here holds also for NFU if the permutations are taken to fix all urelemente.

Charles Peirce is often credited for being among the first, perhaps even the first, to develop a scientific metaphysics of indeterminism. After rejecting the received view that Peirce developed his views from Darwin and Maxwell, I argue that Peirce's view results from his synthesis of Immanuel Kant's critical philosophy and George Boole's contributions to formal logic. Specifically, I claim that Kant's conception of the laws of logic as the basis for his architectonic, when combined with Boole's view of probability, yields (...) Peirce's metaphysics of probabilistic laws. Indeterminism provides, therefore, an excellent illustration of how Peirce attempted to use logic to clarify metaphysical problems.Since everyone must have conceptions of things in general, it is most important that they should be carefully constructed. I shall enter into no criticism of the different methods of metaphysical research, but shall merely say that in the opinions of several great thinkers, the only successful mode yet lighted upon is that of adopting our logic as our metaphysics. (W1: 490, 1866)2. (shrink)

While translating the pseudo-Aristotelian Problems for the Oxford translation of Aristotle, I have frequently found it necessary to refer to the Fragments of Theophrastus , which are obviously the source of many of the Problems, in particular in books II., V., XX., XXIV., and XXVI. The condition of the text of both the Problems and the Fragments of Theophrastus leaves much to be desired, but considerable improvements are possible in those passages where the compiler of the Problems is adapting or (...) copying from Theophrastus. (shrink)

(2008). Neither Dogma nor Common sense: Moore's confidence in his ‘proof of an external world’1. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 163-195.

In Hegel's Idea of a Phenomenology of Spirit, Michael N. Forster advances an original reading of the work.

Recent solutions to the curve-fitting problem, described in Forster and Sober ([1995]), trade off the simplicity and fit of hypotheses by defining simplicity as the paucity of adjustable parameters. Scott De Vito ([1997]) charges that these solutions are 'conventional' because he thinks that the number of adjustable parameters may change when the hypotheses are described differently. This he believes is exactly what is illustrated in Goodman's new riddle of induction, otherwise known as the grue problem. However, the 'number of (...) adjustable parameters' is actually a loose way of referring to a quantity that is not language dependent. The quantity arises out of Akaike's theorem in a way that ensures its language invariance. (shrink)

We consider the relation between versions of Ramsey’s Theorem and König’s Infinity Lemma, in the absence of the axiom of choice.

We create a database of company codes of ethics from firms listed on the Standard & Poor's 500 Index and, separately, a sample of small firms. The SEC believes that "ethics codes do, and should, vary from company to company." Using textual analysis techniques, we measure the extent of commonality across the documents. We find substantial levels of common sentences used by the firms, including a few cases where the codes of ethics are essentially identical. We consider these results in (...) the context of legal statements versus value statements. While legal writing often mandates duplication, we argue that value-based statements should be held to a higher standard of originality. Our evidence is consistent with isomorphic pressures on smaller firms to conform. (shrink)