Professional historians of science generally recognize the importance of Lavoisier's theory of heat. However, it commonly receives scant attention in the historical treatment of his chemical theories except perhaps as an example illustrating his conservatism and giving the impression that the caloric theory, although perhaps important in the development of ideas on the nature of heat, is independent of and bears little relationship to his general chemistry or is incidental to an understanding of that chemistry. An examination of Lavoisier's writings (...) suggests that the caloric theory is not merely a milestone in the development of physics; and rather than an omittable appendage, his concept of heat forms an integral part of his chemical system and plays a central, necessary role in his oxidation theory in particular. The purpose of this paper is to give a general description of Lavoisier's ideas on the nature and action of heat, the origin of these ideas, their development, and their relation to his general chemistry, pointing out his conservatism as well as his innovations. (shrink)

Dr. Myers challenges the legitimacy of the traditional concept of the "just war," revived during the Vietnam War and with the publication of Michael Walzer's Just and Unjust Wars in 1977.

As mechanical restraints have never been proven effective in clinical practice, they should not be used routinely. They should be considered a non‐validated therapy requiring consent.

Are there really such things as public languages? Are things like English and Urdu mere myths? I urge that, despite an intriguing line of thought which may be extracted from Davidson’s ‘A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs’, philosophers are right to countenance such things in their final ontology. The argument rebutted, which I concede may not have been one which Davidson himself ultimately embraced, is that knowledge of a public language is neither necessary nor sufficient for successful conversational interaction, so that (...) such shared languages are explanatorily otiose. In particular, the ability of interlocutors to communicate in the face of linguistic novelty and error seems to support this conclusion. I respond with two main points. First, initial impressions aside, knowledge of things like English and Urdu is explanatorily necessary. Second, even if successful conversation could be explained without positing such knowledge, we have other reasons to take public languages ontologically seriously. Th.. (shrink)

This Essay examines the elegantly simple idea that consent to medical treatment or participation in human research must be “informed” to be valid. It does so by using as a case study the controversial clinical research trial known as the Surfactant, Positive Pressure, and Oxygenation Randomized Trial. The Essay begins by charting, through case law and the adoption of the common rule, the evolution of duties to secure fully informed consent in both research and treatment. The Essay then utilizes the (...) SUPPORT study, which sought to pinpoint the level of saturated oxygen that should be provided to extremely low birth weight infants to demonstrate modern complexities and shortcomings of the duty to secure informed consent. This Essay shows how the duty is measured by foreseeability of risks and benefits in human research and why federal regulators believed the tradeoffs in risk and benefits from differing oxygen levels administered in the support study were foreseeable. It then explores the contours of the duty to secure informed consent when applied to researchers who also serve as treating physicians, highlighting how common law duties differ in jurisdictions that apply the professional standard and those that apply the patient-centered material risk standard. This Essay provides new insight into what the law must do to make real the notion that [e]very human being of adult years and sound mind has a right to determine what shall be done with his body.”. (shrink)

Thomas Henry Huxley recalled that after he had read Darwin’s Origin of Species, he had exclaimed to himself: “How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!” (Huxley,1900, 1: 183). It is a famous but puzzling remark. In his contribution to Francis Darwin’s Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Huxley rehearsed the history of his engagement with the idea of transmutation of species. He mentioned the views of Robert Grant, an advocate of Lamarck, and Robert Chambers, who anonymously (...) published Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), which advanced a crude idea of transmutation. He also recounted his rejection of Agassiz’s belief that species were progressively replaced by the divine hand. He neglected altogether his friend Herbert Spencer’s early Lamarckian ideas about species development, which were also part of the long history of his encounters with the theory of descent. None of these sources moved him to adopt any version of the transmutation hypothesis. (shrink)

John Henry Newman wrote the “Theses de Fide” in Rome as a seminary student in 1846/1847, and the text represents a key point in the development of his thought. Newman wrote the “Theses” in an attempt to grapple with scholastic categories on faith, a question that had occupied him in the Anglican Church for years. Although the “Theses” were not published in Newman’s life, he returned to these reflections often over the course of his Roman Catholic career. This edition and (...) partial translation of the “Theses de Fide” is to aid general readers in understanding this moment in Newman’s life, and to assist specialists in approaching the manuscript record of the “Theses” themselves. (shrink)

In anthropology, archaeology and popular culture, Shamanism may be one of the most used, abused and misunderstood terms, to date. Researchers are increasingly recognizing the socio‐political roles of altered states of consciousness and shamanism in past and present societies, yet the rise of Neo‐shamanism and its implications for academics and their subjects of study are consistently neglected. Moreover, many academics marginalize "neo‐shamans," and neo‐shamanic interaction with anthropology, archaeology and indigenous peoples is often regarded as neocolonialism. To complicate the matter, indigenous (...) peoples express multivocal opinions of neo‐shamanism, from blatant condemnation to active encouragement. I first trace the roots of neo‐shamanism in order to compare neo‐shamanic and academic approaches. Criticisms of neo‐shamanism as expressed by academic and native critics are presented, and I suggest these conflicting views are potentially reconcilable. Essentially, post‐processualist praxis should be implemented via programs of research and communication. (shrink)

Along with national data, this book uses two detailed questionnaires which were administered to older Americans in Allegany County, New York in 1983 and 1987 as the basis for exploring the public lives of rural older Americans. The authors discuss the factors that shape the political views and behavior of the rural elderly, consulting social, economic, health and nutritional variables.

: Interesting work has been done on the striking similarities between the key arguments of the late Jacques Derrida and Daoism. While named otherwise, such Derridean signposts as the metaphysics of presence, the duality of language, and logocentrism are found in Daoist views of the relationship between reality, speech, writing, and knowledge. However, where the limits of language lead Derrida is different from where they take the authors of the Zhuangzi and the Daodejing, in particular regarding the question of action (...) for and responsibility toward others. (shrink)

It also follows from what has been said that it is not thc poct’s business to relate actual cvcms, but such things as might or could happen in accordance with probability or necessity. A poet differs from a historian, not bccausc 0nc writes vcrsc and thc othcr prose (thc work of Hcrodotus could bc put imo vcrsc, but it would still remain a history, whcthcr in vcrsc 0r prose), but because thc historian relates what happcncd, thc poet what might happen. (...) That is why poetry is more akin to philosophy and is 21 bcttcr thing than history; poetry deals with general truths, history with specific cvcnts. The latter arc, for example, what Alcibiadcs did or suffered, whilc general truths arc thc kind of thing.. (shrink)

Sartre’s commentary on bad faith is the starting-point for an exploration of self-deception: what it is not, what it is, and whether it’s always wrong. The proffered analysis of selfdeception parallels a certain theory of our experience of fiction. In essence, it is argued that the self-deceiver creates a kind of fiction in which he is a character, a fiction that he nonetheless believes to be real.

Natural language processing involves a tight coupling between action (the production of language) and perception (the comprehension of language). We argue that similar theoretical principles apply to language processing as to action/perception in general. Language production is not driven solely by the speaker's intentions; language comprehension is not only input-driven; production and perception use common representations. We will relate recent findings from our language production lab to the Theory of Event Coding (TEC)'s principle of feature binding.

Analyzing Morgenthau's Politics Among Nations, Myers provides a point-by-point discussion of his theory, concluding that the relevance of realism will be seen particularly in the search for a new balance of power in the post-Cold War world.

Through the last half of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth, no scientist more vigorously defended Darwinian theory than the German Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919). More people learned of the new ideas through his voluminous publications, translated into numerous languages, than through any other source, including Darwin’s own writings. He enraged many of his contemporaries, especially among the religiously orthodox; and the enmity between evolutionary theory and religious fundamentalism that still burns brightly today may in large measure (...) be attributed to Haeckel’s unremitting attacks on the ingressions of religion into science. Though he retained a life-long friendship with and the support of Darwin, some in the scientific community who were critical of evolutionary theory—Emil Du Bois-Reymond, Rudolf Virchow, and Louis Agassiz, for instance—accused him of deception. That charge has been renewed in our time based on seemingly incontrovertible evidence. In a Science magazine article published in 1997, ‘‘Haeckel’s Embryos: Fraud Rediscovered,’’ Haeckel, was indicted of having intentionally misrepresented embryological development (Pennisi 1997). The article reported that the work of Michael Richardson and his colleagues demonstrated this malfeasance through a comparison of Haeckel’s illustrations of early-stage embryos with photographs of the same species at a comparable stage (see Fig. 1). The photos showed embryos of various species that differed among themselves and certainly from Haeckel’s images. The differences were striking and the implication obvious: fraudulent misrepresentation. Richardson, as quoted in the article, affirmed the charge: ‘‘It looks like it’s turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology’’. (shrink)

This volume contributes to the remarkable resurgence in interest for American pragmatism and its proponents by focusing on the influence of British empiricism, ...

Stanovich & West rely for many of their conclusions on correlations of reasoning tasks with SAT scores. The conclusions they draw are suspect because the SAT is not a particularly good measure of so-called g; g is not necessarily causal, SAT scores are no arbiter of what is true, and in any case it is not suprising that reasoning tests correlate with reasoning tests.

I describe recent developments of Conway and Kochen on the physical meaning of freewill and their theorem that the assertion of freewill for human beings, in their specific sense, implies the same for elementary particles. This description is given in simplified metaphorical terms that nonetheless address the key physical axioms and essential analytic content of their argument. I then give points of contact of our metaphor with the full technical analysis of the cited authors and conclude with some associated metaphysical (...) speculations. These include the implications of the freewill theorem for dual aspect theories and, in particular, for process metaphysics. (shrink)

In his Meditations Descartes tells us that he initially thought error might be avoided if he withheld assent “no less carefully from what is not plainly certain and indubitable than from what is obviously false.” For example, he thinks it plainly certain and indubitable that he is “sitting by the fire, wearing a winter cloak, holding this paper in my hands, and so on.” And yet even what is “plainly certain and indubitable” can be doubted. “I will suppose, then, not (...) that there is a supremely good God, the source of truth; but that there is an evil spirit, who is supremely powerful and intelligent, and does his utmost to deceive me.” Such a deceiver can spin illusions that appear indubitably real and true—of hands, fire, cloak, paper—and not only when there are none present in any particular case but even where there are none at all in any case. “I will suppose that sky, air, earth, colors, shapes, sounds and all external objects are mere delusive dreams, by means of which he lays snares for my credulity.”2 The deceiver hypothesis is the most difficult skeptical doubt Descartes must surmount in the remaining Meditations. I say the deceiver hypothesis, and for Descartes the deceiver is a mere possibility, raised so as to motivate the reconstitution of knowledge that follows. That there might be a powerful deceiver is itself a threat to knowledge for Descartes. Indeed even the possibility of an evil deceiver is so powerful a threat that Descartes must do nothing less than prove God’s existence to reestablish certainty. It is only at the end of his Meditations that Descartes can say, as if looking back on a hysterical moment, that the evil deceiver idea was “exaggerated” and “ridiculous.”3.. (shrink)

Assuming that the reader accepts, albeit provisionally, that James's "will" to believe, early and late, implies that his ethics is traversed by a deontological streak, and by a "faith" which implies epistemic form on the relevant facts (both interpretations the writer argued for in two previous essays), a final feature of his position entitles one to interpret his "will" to believe as, not merely a willingness or readiness, but as a controlling resolve, in the strong sense, to interpret the facts (...) in a manner appropriate to our living in the "strenuous mood," a mood which is congruent to our universe viewed as "moral." Consider, as a crucial instance, the will to believe which undergirds the "keeping" of a friendship. (shrink)

138 titles across a wide range of scholarly publications illustrate the conceptual affinities that connect the palaetiological sciences of biological systematics, historical linguistics, and stemmatics. These three fields all have as their central objective the reconstruction of evolutionary "trees of history" that depict phylogenetic patterns of descent with modification among species, languages, and manuscripts. All three fields flourished in the nineteenth century, underwent parallel periods of quiescence in the early twentieth century, and in recent decades have seen widespread parallel revivals. (...) "Tree thinking" (O'Hara, 1988) is now standard within evolutionary biology, and the unity of what William Whewell called palaetiology is being once again appreciated by scholars and scientists in many fields. (shrink)

William James' lecture on "The Will to Believe" has kindled spirited controversy. In this reappraisal of that controversy, Father O'Connell contributes some : that James' argument should be viewed against his indebtedness to Pascal and Renouvier; that it works primarily to validate our "over-beliefs" ; and most surprising perhaps, that James envisages our "passional nature" as intervening, not after, but before and throughout, our intellectual weighing of the evidence for belief. --From publisher's description.

A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY examines the nature of philosophical enterprise and philosophy's role in Western culture. Jones and Fogelin weave key passages from classic philosophy works into their comments and criticisms, giving A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY the combined advantages of a source book and textbook. The text concentrates on major figures in each historical period, combining exposition with direct quotations from the philosophers themselves. The text places philosophers in appropriate cultural context and shows how their theories reflect the (...) concerns of their times. (shrink)

This is an essay about the philosophical and practical problems associated with the concept of punishment for corporations that have grievously broken the law. It is specifically an essay about the special incentives that the U.S. Government has put in place to encourage American corporations to create comprehensive ethics programs and observe them faithfully. First, I will look at the sorts of obstacles to effective punishment of recalcitrant corporations that eventually prompted extraordinary measures by the U.S. Government. Then I will (...) present a detailed description of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines which took effect on November 1, 1991, describe what they entail, examine what purposes for which they were intended and question how likely they will be to accomplish their objectives. Finally, we will raise the question whether such policies will help further corporate social responsibility and ethical conduct in the workplace. (shrink)

The following rather unexpected passage occurs toward the end of Barry Stroud’s The Quest for Reality: Once the metaphysical project’s failure to reveal the unreality or subjectivity of color is admitted, I think there is a temptation to conclude that objects really are colored after all. If the austere conception of an objectively colorless world cannot be reached, and the colors of things cannot be shown to be unreal or subjective, we are inclined to think that they must be real (...) and objective. (shrink)

The seventeen seminal essays by Robert J. Gordon collected here, including three previously unpublished works, offer sharply etched views on the principal topics of macroeconomics - growth, inflation, and unemployment. The author re-examines their salient points in a uniquely creative, accessible introduction that serves on its own as an introduction to modern macroeconomics. Each of the four parts into which the essays are grouped also offers a new introduction. The papers in Part I explore different key aspects of the (...) history, theory, and measurement of productivity growth. The essays in Part II investigate the sources of business cycles and productivity fluctuations. Those in Part III cover the effects of supply shocks in macroeconomics. The final group presents empirical studies of the dynamics of inflation in the United States. The foreword by Nobel Laureate Robert M. Solow comments on the abiding importance of these essays drawn from 1968 to the present. (shrink)