ABSTRACTThis article discusses the French debate of the 1580s over the status of the Salic Law and its influence upon an important text in English political thought, Robert Persons’s Conference about the next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland. Polemicists on both sides of the conflict between Henri of Navarre and the Catholic League, from Pierre de Belloy to the pseudonymous ‘Rossaeus’, sought to explain the French royal succession using a concept of custom drawn from Roman law. Custom offered these (...) thinkers a way to explain the Salic Law’s peculiar limitation of the succession to males descended agnatically, but it could also be taken to imply that the people, from whom it originated, were in some way superior to the king. The concept was exploited most effectively by Rossaeus, who translated what had been a legal discourse into a freer language of political naturalism. Rossaeus’s interpretation of custom was adapted and exploited by Robert Persons in the Conference about the next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland. While, then, much of the Conference’s contemporary influence derived from how its argument mapped onto English constitutional geography, it originated as a continuation of League political thought. (shrink)

The number of discriminable colours is often assumed to be of the order of several million but the extent of detectable chromatic diversity present in individual natural scenes is an open question. Here, the aim was to estimate the number of discriminable colours seen in natural scenes. Hyperspectral data were obtained from a set of natural scenes over the range 400 - 720 nm at 10 nm intervals (Nascimento et al, 2002 Journal of the Optical Society of America A 19 (...) 1484 - 1490) and the representation of each scene in CIELAB space computed for all pixels of the image. The number of discriminable colours was estimated by counting the number of unit volumes in the three-dimensional volume defined by the scene when represented in CIELAB space. We found that the number of discriminable colours estimated in a scene could vary by an order of magnitude from scene to scene, but rarely exceeded 105, indicating a limited chromatic diversity. (shrink)

The theory of emotion developed by William James has been subject to four criticisms. First, it is held that Jamesian emotion is without function, that it plays no role in cognition and behavior. Second, that James ignores the role of experience in emotion. Third, that James overstated the role of physical processes in emotion. Fourth, that James’ theory of emotion has been experimentally demonstrated to be false. A fifth point, less an explicit criticism than an assumption, holds that James has (...) nothing to offer a social psychology of emotions. It will be shown in this paper that not one of these criticisms of James' theory of emotion can be sustianed. (shrink)

This book is a collection of papers on the metaphysics and natural philosophy of John Buridan (ca. 1295-1361), one of the most innovative and influential ...

Introduction by the Rev. R. J. Fletcher -- The memory of Francis Bacon. A speech delivered in Gray's Inn hall at the tercentenary celebration by Mr. H. E. Duke -- List of benchers and guests present at the tercentenary celebration, 1908 -- Francis Bacon. A speech delivered by the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, M. P., on the occasion of the unveiling of the Bacon statue at Gray's Inn [27th June 1912] -- Francis Bacon's essays: Of gardens and Of masques (...) and triumphs, reprinted from the earliest editions. (shrink)

Depuis 1996, plusieurs équipes sont au travail pour achever la traduction liturgique de l’Ancien Testament. Au moment où le chantier est en voie d’achèvement, un ouvrier de la première heure présente ici l’entreprise à travers le cas particulier du livre de Tobie, qui a été traduit sur frais nouveaux pour l’usage liturgique. La traduction liturgique ne prétend pas surclasser les traductions existantes, mais occupe un créneau qui lui est propre: celui de la proclamation publique.

This article addresses the problem of legislation and adjudication in early states, offering examples from Africa and other parts of the world. It discusses the problems of legitimacy and governance, especially in the context of multi-ethnic populations. For some of its generalizations it draws upon a previous study of twenty-one early states.

Byrne & Russon's target article displays all the difficulties encountered when one fails to take a methodological behaviourist approach to imitation. Their conceptual apparatus is grounded in a mixture of introspection and folk psychology. Their distinction between action-level and program-level imitation falters on goal imputation for sequential acts. In an alternative gradient descent model, behaviour can be simulated as a frustration/satisfaction gradient descent in the animal's “potentiality space,” as defined by knowledge, inventiveness, and the surrounding environment.

Artikelen en lezingen uit de periode 1970-1982.