As frequently pointed out in this discussion, one of the most characteristic features of Mayr's approach to the history of biology stems from the fact that he is dealing to a considerable degree with his own professional history. Furthermore, his main criterion for the selection of historical episodes is their relevance for modern biological theory. As W. F. Bynum and others have noted, the general impression of his reviewers is that “one of the towering figures of evolutionary biology has now (...) written a towering history of his discipline.”138 Bynum is here referring to The Growth of Biological Thought, but this observation holds equally true for Mayr's other historical writings: One must surely read this book [One Long Argument] not only for its content in itself, but for what it tells of its author. And certainly as one does so, one comes away full-handed. Many, if not all, of the disputes and controversies that have driven Mayr through his long intellectual life reappear, stated as forcefully and elegantly as ever.139Up to this point, most reviewers agree; the bone of contention is, rather, how to evaluate Mayr's historical work, considering this observation. The two related characteristics of his work-I will call them subjectivity and presentism-stand in opposition to a widespread approach in the history of science exemplified by Kuhn's suggestion that “insofar as possible..., the historian should set aside the science that he knows. His science should be learned from the textbooks and journals of the period he studies.”140 There are, however, historians who consider the close connection between Mayr and the subject matter of his historical studies to be an advantage.141On the other hand, it is assumed that the connection between past and present must result in a distortion of the historical truth and lead to a historiographical fallacy, commonly referred to as “Whig history”. Herbert Butterfield, who in 1931 gave the term its now generally accepted meaning, believed that “real historical understanding is not achieved by the subordination of the past to the present, but rather by our making the past our present and attempting to see life with the eyes of another century than our own”142. Unfortunately, Butterfield's definition of what he considers Whig history remains somewhat vague, and modern authors have emphasized what they consider most important. Butterfield's “subordination of the past to the present” is referred to in respect to the selection of subjects (there are more biographies of Charles Darwin than of, let's say, Louis Agassiz),143 to the evaluation of historical authors,144 or, more generally, to all kinds of histories “with one eye, so to speak, upon the present.”145 The underlying tendency of Whig historians is to produce a “historical account told from the viewpoint of those in power,”146 leading to a “glorification of the present.”147 It is obvious that Mayr's strongly presentist approach to the history of biology can be called Whiggish, if we apply the criteria of “selection” or “reference.” However, it might be worth mentioning that the program of writing a strictly historicist account of the history of science is challenged by various authors.148 For Mayr, it is not only legitimate but necessary to compare the present situation with the past. “Whiggish” is only the evaluation of an author in terms of our time.149I cannot discuss the Whit/anti-Whig controversy in any detail here, apart from saying that Mayr has defended himself rather extensively against the charges of being Whiggish.150 Nevertheless, it may be useful to touch on some of the criticisms that are predominant in reviews of his writings. First, we encounter the notion that historians can write a true and convincing historical account only if they have no personal interest or interpretation of their own; Mayr, on the other hand, because he “has such strong interpretations of his own, ... cannot possibly convince everyone that he is right about everything.”151 It makes one wonder, what historian has ever been able to convince everyone that he or she is right about everything? But apart from this peculiar idea, it unquestionably poses certain dangers if the subject matter of historical scrutiny and the author are identical. At the same time, this identity brings certain advantages with it, especially firsthand experiences of the period in discussion. Whether these personal memories ultimately result in a distorted picture of the past has to be decided in every particular instance. The notion that a scientific study can be conducted by a completely detached observer from a neutral standpoint has been shown to be impossible in physics, and it is also an illusion in historiography. The question is not whether, but which kind of interest are the underlying motivation for a historian. At this point, Mayr is ahead of his critics when he suggests that our understanding of the past always has a subjective component: The main reason, however, why histories are in constant need of revision is that at any given time they merely reflect the present state of understanding; they depend on how the author interpreted the current zeitgeist of biology and on his own conceptual framework and background. Thus, by necessity the writing of history is subjective and ephemeral.152Second, the temporal proximity between the event and the historical analysis makes difficulties inevitable and will finally result in certain false assessments. But this applies to all historians when they discuss recent problems, regardless of whether they are personally involved or not: As long as the battle between Darwinism and Lamarckism was raging, it was quite impossible to undertake an unbiased evaluation of Lamarck. ...[The] definite refutation of Lamarck's theory of evolutionary causation clears the air. We can now study him without bias and emotion and give him the attention that this major figure in the history of biology clearly deserves.153Third, Mayr is primarily interested in biological problems and not, for instance, historiographical, sociological, or psychological questions. Several authors have remarked that since the beginning of the professionalization of the history of science in the 1960s, a rift between two groups has developed, resulting from the heterogeneous professional backgrounds and interests of the people involved: the authors who were originally biologists and became interested in the history of their discipline only later on, and the authors who were trained as historians.154 Whereas the first group, the “biologists,” tend to be laymen in history proper, the “historians” are in most cases laymen in biology. Different professional backgrounds obviously shape the historical perspective in both groups, but neither approach is necessarily superior. The great number of important books in the history of biology written by “biologist” documents how valuable this point of view can be. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that the writings of biologists in the history of science tend to have a strong “internalist” tendency and often neglect the professional, cultural, and political context of science. Mayr's approach is that of a “biologist”; it is “internalist,” and typical for scientists who turn to the history of their discipline.I want to conclude my analysis with a quotation from a review by Douglas J. Futuyma, which gives a perceptive glimpse of Mayr's personality and style: One cannot help standing in awe of the germanic capacity for vast, allembracing synthesis: consider the lifelong devotion of Goethe to Faust, or Wagner's integration of the arts into a Gesamtkunstwerk in which all of human history and experience is wrought into epic myth. It is perhaps in this tradition that Ernst Mayr's The Growth of Biological Thought stands: a history of all of biology, a Ring des Nibelungen complete with leitmotivs such as the failures of reductionism, the struggle of biology for independence from physics, and the liberation of population thinking from the bounds of essentialism.155 Within this style of thinking Mayr has “to offer...nothing less than a vision of biology that places neodarwinian evolutionary theory firmly at the centre.”156 There may be other visions of biology, but few of them have as indefatigable and able representatives as Darwinism has in Ernst Mayr. (shrink)

We revisit via a path-integral approach the magnetic top proposed recently by Barut, Božić, and Marić. We point out that the magnetic top has the SU(2) symmetry and that it can be viewed as a free top seen from a rotating frame. We present an alternative path-integral quantization of the magnetic top on the basis of the symmetry, and show that the magnetic coupling does not participate in altering the spin quantum numbers.

Journal Name: Philologus Issue: Ahead of print.

Este trabalho objetiva expor o problema do desacordo religioso, mostrar como ele afeta a justificação da crença religiosa e tentar oferecer algumas alternativas que mostram em que circunstâncias um crente pode manter sua crença religiosa racionalmente em face do desacordo de seu par. Quando somos confrontados com outros que parecem estar em igualdade a nós mesmos no que diz respeito à inteligência, capacidade de raciocínio, informação de fundo, e assim por diante – parece que isso deve reduzir a credibilidade racional (...) que possuíamos antes do desacordo. Não havendo razão para manter nossa crença, devemos suspender nosso juízo. O desacordo religioso torna-se um problema para a credibilidade racional das crenças religiosas. Três propostas são oferecidas como possíveis soluções a este problema. A primeira, defendida pelo relativismo, é a de que, num desacordo sobre qualquer assunto, os envolvidos podem manter sua crença, porque a verdade da proposição, objeto de crença, seria relativa ao sujeito que crê nela. A segunda, sustentada por Plantinga, propõe que a crença religiosa é básica, porque a pessoa está justificada em mantê-la de forma independente epistemicamente de outras crenças. Na terceira, defendida por DePoe, uma pessoa pode manter sua crença em face do desacordo nas seguintes circunstâncias: (i) quando possuir evidência diferente e melhor que a de seu par; (ii) quando com respeito à mesma evidência responder melhor a essa evidência do que seu par; e (iii) quando comprovar que seu par tem um defeito cognitivo. (shrink)

The main problem which I wish to discuss in this paper may be set out in the form of a very simple question. It is this: What makes an artist—whether he be painter, sculptor, musician, poet, or anything else—desire to produce a work of art and to go on working until he has done so?

Science has uncovered many mistakes that had been hidden for centuries among implicit everyday assumptions. When we make explicit what lies implicit within language, there is no guarantee that we will arrive at truth about the world. Many therefore assume that only science delivers truth. Recent debates on this issue often refer to Wilfred Sellars’s arguments against the pre-conceptual given but conclude that his additional insistence on the exclusivity of the scientific image of the world is unfounded. In this paper (...) I resort to Robert Brandom’s development of these arguments to show that saying a word, understanding a concept and engaging in some practices go together. Both laws of nature and social norms regulate these practices and determine the identity conditions of objects. I argue therefore that the conceptual scheme indeed reflects the nature of things because it results from our successful engagement with the world during the long sweep of evolutionary time. (shrink)

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Compassion is mentioned in the Principles of the American Medical Association but not in the Code of Ethics of the Canadian Medical Association. In this article, we assess the case for including compassion in a code of ethics for physicians. We argue that, properly understood, there is a strong case for including compassion in codes of ethics for physicians on the basis that it is both clinically and ethically central to the practice of medicine.

Il existe plusieurs faisceaux de présomption qui témoigneraient de relation entre les Polynésiens et les Amérindiens d’Amérique du Sud : il est aujourd’hui admis que les Polynésiens ont atteint l’Amérique du Sud. Si la patate douce est un indice d’anciens contacts entre la Polynésie et l’Amérique du Sud, des archéologues ont aussi trouvé sur la façade pacifique de l’Amérique du Chili des ossements de poulets polynésiens. Quelles seraient les étoiles que les Polynésiens pourraient avoir suivies pour se pourvoir en patate (...) douce en Amérique du Sud et plus précisément au Chili, sous les latitudes où les chercheurs ont trouvé des poules polynésiennes? L’ethnoastronomie tentera de répondre à la question de l’itinéraire de la patate douce, en soulevant l’hypothèse du rôle des étoiles comme repère spatial. There are several bundles of presumption that would testify of relationship between Polynesians and Native Americans from South America: it is now accepted that the Polynesians have reached South America. If sweet potato is a sign of ancient contacts between Polynesia and South America, archaeologists have also found on the Pacific Ocean facade in Chile the bones of Polynesian chickens. What would be the stars possibly followed by the Polynesians to get sweet potato in South America and Chile, under the latitudes where researchers have found Polynesian chickens? The ethnoastronomy will attempt to respond to the issue of the route of the sweet potato, by raising the hypothesis of the role of the stars as spatial coordinate system. (shrink)

This study examines steroid production in fathers watching their children compete, extending previous research of vicarious success or failure on men’s hormone levels. Salivary testosterone and cortisol levels were measured in 18 fathers watching their children play in a soccer tournament. Participants completed a survey about the game and provided demographic information. Fathers with higher pregame testosterone levels were more likely to report that referees were biased against their children’s teams, and pre- to postgame testosterone elevation was predicted by watching (...) sons compete rather than daughters as well as perceptions of unfair officiating. Pregame cortisol was not associated with pregame testosterone or with perceived officiating bias, but cortisol did fluctuate synergistically with testosterone during spectator competition. Although fathers showed no consistent testosterone change in response to winning or losing, pregame testosterone may mediate steroid hormone reactivity to other aspects of their children’s competition. (shrink)

The following extracts come from a memoir of philosophical life between the wars and after, written in the 1970s by the Anglo-Scottish philosopher Louis Arnaud Reid (1895–1986).2 Today Reid is best known for his writings on aesthetics, and as the holder of the foundation chair in the philosophy of education at the University of London. Reid will also be familiar to those who have read A.J. Ayer's account of Ayer's appointment to the chair of philosophy at London, for Reid (...) was the candidate strongly preferred by the philosophers on the selection committee.3 Reid regretted the rise of logical positivism in the later 1930s because it introduced a break with the earlier world of humane philosophical discourse.In these extracts, edited by his grandson, Reid begins by giving a sense of the breadth of topics covered in philosophical conferences in the 1920s, before sketching some of the characters involved. He mentions of course a number of figures still familiar to us, from Moore to Russell to Wittgenstein, but tries more generally to give an impression of a philosophical world which is now largely lost. These are themes he continues elsewhere in the book, where he discusses the people he knew at Edinburgh, Aberystwyth, Liverpool, Newcastle and London. (shrink)

This is a collection of twenty-two essays by an eminent philosopher, critic, and theorist that appeared between 1971 and 1992.

Utopics has two parts. The first is a study of Thomas More's Utopia, where the noun "utopia" appears for the first time. It attempts to provide the elements for a theoretical reflection on utopic signifying practice. The second part can be seen as an application of the first: It is an analysis of utopic and pseudo-topic spaces. Marin's analysis shows how utopian texts open the way to an alternative future.