A theorem from Archimedes on the area of a circle is proved in a setting where some inconsistency is permissible, by using paraconsistent reasoning. The new proof emphasizes that the famous method of exhaustion gives approximations of areas closer than any consistent quantity. This is equivalent to the classical theorem in a classical context, but not in a context where it is possible that there are inconsistent innitesimals. The area of the circle is taken 'up to inconsistency'. The (...) fact that the core of Archimedes's proof still works in a weaker logic is evidence that the integral calculus and analysis more generally are still practicable even in the event of inconsistency. (shrink)

The author examines the relationship between mathematics and philosophy in the works of al-Kind on the approximation of 's knowledge of mathematics, and on the history of the transmission of The Measurement of the Circle of Archimedes. The author shows that al-Kind M, and that it was one of the sources of the Florence Versions, the Latin commentary on the same proposition.

Previous studies have proposed a virtuous circle between corporate social performance (CSP) and corporate financial performance (CFP). However, a key challenge researchers face when empirically examining this virtuous circle is endogeneity. In this paper, we apply a well-developed method—dynamic panel data (DPD) estimation—to account for endogeneity and conduct two studies to reexamine the causal relationship between CSP and CFP. Study 1 relies on KLD ratings from 1997 to 2012 as the measure of CSP. According to the results of (...) Study 1, although CFP measured as ROE may have a causal impact on CSP, it is doubtful whether there is a causal influence of CSP on CFP. Study 2 relies on the sustainability scores provided by Sustainalytics from 2009 to 2018 as the measure of CSP. Study 2 reports that CSP does not causally influence CFP and that CFP does not have a causal impact on CSP. Together, Study 1 and Study 2, using different measures for CSP, suggest that a virtuous circle between CSP and CFP may not exist. Our study suggests that doing good may not necessarily lead to doing well and that doing well may not naturally result in doing good. Thus, our study implies that future studies should seriously consider the causal mechanisms through which CSP may influence or may be influenced by CFP. Our paper also discusses the implications for CSP research and for management and organization research. The limitations of applying DPD estimation to empirically examine the causal relationship between CSP and CFP are also discussed. (shrink)

To investigate the phenomenon of patient–physician mistrust in China, a qualitative study involving 107 physicians, nurses and health officials in Guangdong Province, southern China, was conducted through semi-structured interviews and focus groups. In this paper we report the key findings of the empirical study and argue for the essential role of medical professionalism in rebuilding patient-physician trust. Health professionals are trapped in a vicious circle of mistrust. Mistrust leads to increased levels of fear and self-protection by doctors which exacerbate (...) difficulties in communication; in turn, this increases physician workloads, adding to a strong sense of injustice and victimization. These factors produce poorer healthcare outcomes and increasingly discontented and angry patients, escalate conflicts and disputes, and result in negative media coverage, all these ultimately contributing to even greater levels of mistrust. The vicious circle indicates not only the crisis of patient-physician relationship but the crisis of medicine as a profession and institution. Underlying the circle is the inherent conflict of interest in the healthcare system by which health professionals and hospitals have become profit-driven. This institutional conflict of interest seriously compromises the fundamental principle of medical professionalism—the primacy of patient welfare—as well as the traditional Chinese ideal of “medicine as the art of humanity”. Patient trust can be restored through rectifying this institutional conflict of interest and promoting medical professionalism via a series of recommended practical measures. (shrink)

I present a comparative and holistic method for qualitatively measuring sound ecological practice in chemistry. I consider chemicals developed and used by man from cradle to grave, that is, from the moment they are extracted from the earth, biomass, water or air, to their transportation, purification, mixing and elaboration in a factory, to their distribution by means of the market, to waste products both from the factory, packaging, transportations and by the consumer. I divide the locations of the ‘life’ of (...) the chemical into four spatio-temporal areas accordingly. I then use the ‘instituional compass’ method to determine a qualitative reading of the ecological soundness of the practice, where practice means the research, the adoption by industry and the distribution at scale on the market. The qualitative reading is in the form of an arrow on a trisected circle. The arrow holistically represents a table of data. The data can be economic, social or environmental. The arrow has a measurement: a degree and a length. The degrees, represent qualities spaning through: harmony, discipline and excitement. The length represents the importance, momentum or amplitude with which the quality is present. We use the compass method to compare the same product over time, or inter-substitutable, chemicals developed in different places, using different equipment or processes. In the conclusion, I discuss objectivity and science as they apply to the compass. (shrink)

A monomethod bias still prevails in the psychology of religion, with the developing field studying the relationship between religiosity, spirituality and health being almost completely dominated by questionnaire research. This comes as a surprise, because the experiential side of religion, spirituality, can by definition be regarded as inner and private experiences of transcendence that have frequently been described as being of utmost importance. At first glance, from this perspective, standardized questionnaire scales appear to be inappropriate for “measuring the unmeasurable”. Until (...) now, no questionnaire instrument developed for the purpose of assessing spiritual and religious experiences has been qualitatively double-checked for intermethod validity. In order to throw light on whether questionnaire instruments are appropriate for measuring domains of spiritual and transcendental experiences, we tested a newly developed questionnaire instrument, the Exceptional Experience Questionnaire , for intermethod validity by conducting post-questionnaire interviews . This revealed that the EEQ was able to grasp these experiences within reasonable limits. However, two thirds of our interview sample said that the study had changed how they viewed these experiences. These findings suggest that the reactivity of quantitative instruments in grasping spiritual and transcendental domains should be taken into account, especially when devising longitudinal designs and further research is clearly needed. As a consequence, introducing a reflective circle of results stemming from both quantitative and qualitative approaches is recommended as the most useful and appropriate research tool for studying spiritual or mystical experiences, if not all constructs. (shrink)

In this book a distinguished group of environmental experts argues that in order to solve global environmental problems, we must view them in a broad interdisciplinary perspective that recognizes the relations—the interconnected circle—among ecology, economics, and ethics. Currently the circle is broken, they say, because environmental policy is decided on short-term estimations of material that take little account of the economic or moral burdens that will be borne by future generations if we deplete our resources now. We must, (...) assert the authors, have a better knowledge of the science underlying our environmental problems, we must understand their causes and consequences in relation to our economic and political systems, and we must recognize that an effective response will require a shift in a technologically oriented society’s ethical attitude toward the natural environment. The authors address a wide range of concerns from global atmospheric degradation and spreading toxification of the environment to loss of forests and massive species extinctions. They offer to general readers, students, and professionals practical assessments and remedies for many of these problems. They suggest, for example, mechanisms that provide economic incentives for conservation; engineering and technical adaptations to use resources more effectively and dispose of waste products; better economic accounting procedures for measuring the real environmental costs of our depletion of natural resources; and a remodeled education system that better prepares us to see each individual’s responsibility to the environment. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es reconsiderar el punto de vista defendido por los pensadores que se pueden adscribir al famoso ‘Círculo de Viena’ sobre el significado y, especialmente, sobre los enunciados asignificativos. Para ello, procedemos usando la típica forma científica, heredera de la tradición del Círculo, de medir empíricamente los conceptos adquiridos. Además, proporcionamos algunas notas históricas, así como algunas reflexiones sobre el pensamiento de Karl Menger sobre la carencia de una geometría adecuada para el micromundo.

Social reintegration of self-demobilised child combatants can be seriously imperilled by the lack of accountability for human rights violations allegedly carried out during their soldiering life and the failure to pursue reconciliation with their respective communities. This paper examines the circumstances leading young soldiers to voluntarily exit armed groups and militias and the extent to which resettling in the community can be facilitated by restorative justice mechanisms. The findings suggest a large support by war-affected communities for restorative justice peacemaking circles (...) as potential accountability and reconciliation measures to help reintegrate self-demobilised soldiers into society. These results were obtained from interviews, focus group discussions and descriptive statistics in which 1447 respondents participated. These included young ex-soldiers, students, educators, government official, members on NGOs, traditional leaders and councils, Security Services, and the Police. The inquiry was conducted between 3 May and 17 December 2014 in North Kivu Province, Democratic Republic of Congo. (shrink)

“In an earlier era of ‘natural philosophy’, physics and philosophy of physics were quite inseparably intertwined, but in the modern age of proliferating specialization, fruitful communication across the disciplines has become the exception rather than rule. We would like to think that the workshop1 and this volume are symptomatic of an ongoing process of reunification, one which can pave the way toward exceptional progress in this fundamental and highly challenging area, and others as well” — the editors Richard A. Healey (...) and Geoffrey Hellman write in the Preface. The main topic of the ten articles in this volume, Quantum Measurement, indeed, requires both physical and philosophical considerations. (shrink)

Anaximander explained the sun as an ejection of light or fire from an opening in the hollow rim of a kind of wheel which revolved around the earth. We are told that this wheel or circle of the sun is 27 times the size of the earth, and again that it is 28 times the size of the earth. These numbers have been thought to represent respectively the inner and the outer diameters of the sun wheel. This has been (...) questioned by Kirk. Kirk assumes that the thickness or width of the rim of the sun wheel would be the same as the diameter of the earth. He argues therefore that there should be a difference of two units between the inner and the outer diameter. (shrink)

The quantum transition probability assignment is an equiareal transformation from the annulus of symplectic spinorial amplitudes to the disk of complex state vectors, which makes it equivalent to the equiareal projection of Archimedes. The latter corresponds to a symplectic synchronization method, which applies to the quantum phase space in view of Weyl’s quantization approach involving an Abelian group of unitary ray rotations. We show that Archimedes’ method of synchronization, in terms of a measure-preserving transformation to an equiareal disk, imposes the (...) integrality of the quantum of action, and requires the extension of the classical moment map from the real line to the circle. Additionally, the same synchronization method is encoded in the structure of the Heisenberg group, viewed as a principal bundle with a connection, whose curvature and anholonomy is expressed in terms of area bounding loops in relation to the underlying Abelian shadow on a symplectic plane. In this manner, we show that the geometric phase pertains to the minimal synchronized area \ of the 2-d symplectic Abelian shadow of the symplectic ball, modulo \. The integrality condition naturally leads to the consideration of modular commutative observables pertaining to the role of the discrete Heisenberg group. We prove that the structural transition from non-commutativity to modular commutativity in accordance to Weyl’s group-theoretic commutation relations takes place via universal factorization through the discrete Heisenberg group. In this way, we derive a homology-theoretic formulation of the synchronization method in terms of the area-bounding cells of the modular lattice \ in relation to any Abelian symplectic shadow. Thus, we finally obtain the physical interpretation of the analytic representation of quantum states as theta functions corresponding to the sections of a complex line bundle with an integral symplectic structure. (shrink)

The ecological impact of alien species is a function of the area colonised. Impact assessments of alien species are thus incomplete unless they take the spatial component of invasion processes into account. This paper describes a measure, termed expansion speed, that quantifies the speed with which a species increases its spatial presence in an assessment area. It is based on the area of occupancy and can be estimated from grid occupancies. Expansion speed is defined as the yearly increase in the (...) radius of a coherent circle having the same area as the AOO, irrespective of whether the increase is due to natural dispersal or anthropogenic transport. Two methods for estimating expansion speed are presented: one that requires several years of spatio-temporal observation data and explicitly takes detection rates into account; and one that can be used under a situation with sparse data. Using simulations and real-world data from natural history collections, it is shown that the method provides a good fit to observational datasets. Expansion speed has several valuable properties. Being based on AOO, it is an intuitive measure; as it only requires occupancy data, it is comparatively easy to estimate; and because it is a quantitative and generic measure, it increases the testability and comparability of impact assessments of alien species. (shrink)

Nicolaus Cusanus, considered one of the most important German thinkers by many historians of philosophy, has yet to receive the recognition he deserves in the phil-osophical circles in Turkey. However, the philosophical writings of Cusanus contain the seeds of the thoughts of many modern philosophers such as Descartes, Berkeley, Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel. For this reason, studies on Cusanus are an essen-tial stopping point in the history of philosophy, especially for the Renaissance period and the transition to modern philosophy. Despite (...) this, texts examining Cusanus' thoughts are limited in foreign languages and Turkish. Towards the end of the 19th century, studies on Cusanus started and recently the worldwide interest in Cusanus has increased. Although there are different theses about the original as-pect of Cusanus’ thoughts in these sources, his theory of knowledge and the rela-tionship of this theory with the contemporary subject of philosophy of subjectivity attract attention. The reason for this is that Cusanus, unlike his contemporaries, as a result of his views on the human mind, makes the human center in the act of knowing and puts everything else into the mind's mediation. That is why people can know things not as they are in themselves, but only in so far, they are part of the conceptual world, that their own mind constructs that. This is a system of thought that on the one hand puts the human mind at the center through its act of knowing on the other hand, limits its knowledge. This centrality of the human mind led Cusanus to characterize man as the second god on earth. The main reason for characterizing man as the second god is the activity of knowing and the act of measuring that lies at the core of this activity. Despite its significance, there is no study focusing on man’s creativity in this world through the relationship between Cusanus’s conception of man as the second god and the human mind’s activity of measurement, which reveals the originality of Cusanus’ thought. This study aims to fill this gap in the literature. To achieve this aim, this study examines the act of measurement of man as the second god, which reveals the originality of Cusanus’ theory of knowledge associated with modern and contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Hilbert arithmetic in a wide sense, including Hilbert arithmetic in a narrow sense consisting by two dual and anti-isometric Peano arithmetics, on the one hand, and the qubit Hilbert space (originating for the standard separable complex Hilbert space of quantum mechanics), on the other hand, allows for an arithmetic version of Gentzen’s cut elimination and quantum measurement to be described uniformy as two processes occurring accordingly in those two branches. A philosophical reflection also justifying that unity by quantum neo-Pythagoreanism (...) links it to the opposition of propositional logic, to which Gentzen’s cut rule refers immediately, on the one hand, and the linguistic and mathematical theory of metaphor therefore sharing the same structure borrowed from Hilbert arithmetic in a wide sense. An example by hermeneutical circle modeled as a dual pair of a syllogism (accomplishable also by a Turing machine) and a relevant metaphor (being a formal and logical mistake and thus fundamentally inaccessible to any Turing machine) visualizes human understanding corresponding also to Gentzen’s cut elimination and the Gödel dichotomy about the relation of arithmetic to set theory: either incompleteness or contradiction. The metaphor as the complementing “half” of any understanding of hermeneutical circle is what allows for that Gödel-like incompleteness to be overcome in human thought. (shrink)

Part I Introduction -/- Passion at a Distance (Don Howard) -/- Part II Philosophy, Methodology and History -/- Balancing Necessity and Fallibilism: Charles Sanders Peirce on the Status of Mathematics and its Intersection with the Inquiry into Nature (Ronald Anderson) -/- Newton’s Methodology (William Harper) -/- Whitehead’s Philosophy and Quantum Mechanics (QM): A Tribute to Abner Shimony (Shimon Malin) -/- Bohr and the Photon (John Stachel) -/- Part III Bell’s Theorem and Nonlocality A. Theory -/- Extending the Concept of an (...) “Element of Reality” to Work with Inefficient Detectors (Daniel M. Greenberger) -/- A General Proof of Nonlocality without Inequalities for Bipartite States (GianCarlo Ghirardi and Luca Marinatto) -/- On the Separability of Physical Systems (Jon P. Jarrett) -/- Bell Inequalities: Many Questions, a Few Answers (Nicolas Gisin) -/- B. Experiment -/- Do Experimental Violations of Bell Inequalities Require a Nonlocal Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics? II: Analysis a la Bell (Edward S. Fry, Xinmei Qu, and Marlan O. Scully) -/- The Physics of 2 = 1 + 1 (Yanhua Shih) -/- Part IV Probability, Uncertainty, and Stochastic Modifications of Quantum Mechanics -/- Interpretations of Probability in Quantum Mechanics: A Case of “Experimental Metaphysics” (Geoffrey Hellman) -/- “No Information Without Disturbance”: Quantum Limitations of Measurement (Paul Busch) -/- How Stands Collapse II (Philip Pearle) -/- Is There a Relation Between the Breakdown of the Superposition Principle and an Indeterminacy in the Structure of the Einsteinian Space-Time? (Andor Frenkel) -/- Indistinguishability or Stochastic Dependence? (D. Costantini and U. Garibaldi) -/- Part V Relativity -/- Plane Geometry in Spacetime (N. David Mermin) -/- The Transient nows (Steven F. Savitt) -/- Quantum in Gravity? (Michael Horne) -/- A Proposed Test of the Local Causality of Spacetime (Adrian Kent) -/- Quantum Gravity Computers: On the Theory of Computation with Indefinite Causal Structure (Lucien Hardy) -/- “Definability,” “Conventionality,” and Simultaneity in Einstein–Minkowski Space-Time (Howard Stein) -/- Part VI Concluding Words -/- Bistro Banter: A Dialogue with Abner Shimony and Lee Smolin -/- Unfinished Work: A Bequest (Abner Shimony) -/- Bibliography of Abner Shimony. (shrink)

In a series of lectures written around 1952, Schrödinger refers to von Neumann’s account of measurement in quantum mechanics as follows:I said quantum physicists bother very little about accounting, according to the accepted law, for the supposed change of the wave-function by measurement. I know of only one attempt in this direction, to which Dr. Balazs recently directed my attention. You find it in John von Neumann’s well-known book. With great acuity he constructs one analytical example. It does (...) not refer to any actual experiment, it is purely analytical. He indicates in a simple case a supplementary operator which, when added to the internal wave operator, would with any desired approximation turn the wave function as time goes on into an eigenfunction of the observable that is measured. He found it necessary to show that such a mechanism is analytically possible. The idea has not been taken up and worked out since — in about twenty years or more. Indeed I do not think it would pay. I do not believe any real measuring device is of this kind. (shrink)

_Sunto_ Nella proposizione 3 della κύκλου μέτρησις Archimede costruisce due numeri razionali che approssimano la misura del rapporto tra la circonferenza e il suo diametro, oggi noto come π. In questo lavoro vogliamo porre l’accento su due aspetti del trattato di Archimede: il primo riguarda le scelte dei valori razionali approssimati per eccesso e per difetto di √3 utilizzati all’inizio della procedura di calcolo, che risultano essere i migliori approssimanti in base alla moderna teoria delle frazioni continue, i cui termini (...) si possono ricavare dall’antico ανθυφαίρεσις euclideo; il secondo riguarda alcune stime utilizzate da Archimede, apparentemente non giustificate e sub-ottime, che invece sono frutto di un preciso procedimento logico da noi ricostruito in termini di un algoritmo. Di tale studio è stata proposta una trasposizione didattica che parte dal testo antico e giunge alla produzione di una traduzione commentata in cui lo studente è protagonista del processo di scoperta. _Abstract_ In proposition 3 of the κύκλου μέτρησις Archimedes constructs two rational numbers that approximate the measure of the ratio between the circumference and its diameter, today known as π. In this work we emphasize two aspects of Archimedes' proof. The first one concerns the choices of the rational values approximated by excess and defect of √3 used at the beginning of the calculation procedure. These values turn out to be the best approximants based on the modern theory of continued fractions, whose terms can be obtained from the ancient Euclidean ανθυφαίρεσις. The second one concerns some estimates used by Archimedes, apparently unjustified and sub-optimal, which instead are the result of a precise logical procedure that we recontruct in terms of an algorithm. We also propose an educational transposition of this study that starts from the ancient text and leads to the production of a commented translation in which the student is the protagonist of the discovery process. (shrink)

The astronomer Ole Rømer emphasized the mechanical nature of the practice of astronomy and this paper attempts to unravel what Rømer meant by the close association between mechanics and astronomy. The point of departure is Rømer's work with Tycho Brahe's observations and his stay at the Royal Academy of the Sciences in Paris. Analyses of Rømer's letters and treatises show that he not only focused on direct presentations of observations and instruments, but demanded an independence of his results that went (...) beyond the rhetoric of first-hand knowledge. Rømer wanted his observations and instruments to demonstrate the physical theories themselves, rather than asking for theories to be accepted on his authority. His invention of the meridian circle with its facility for cross-checking measurements is seen in connection with this drive to make what is observed ‘deserve credit in its own right rather than because of the observer.’. (shrink)

Measures of visual cortical development in children demonstrate high variability and inconsistency throughout the literature. This is partly due to the specificity of the visual system in processing certain features. It may then be advantageous to activate multiple cortical pathways in order to observe maturation of coinciding networks. Visual stimuli eliciting the percept of apparent motion and shape change is designed to simultaneously activate both dorsal and ventral visual streams. However, research has shown that such stimuli also elicit variable visual (...) evoked potential (VEP) morphology in children. The aim of this study was to describe developmental changes in VEPs, including morphological patterns, and underlying visual cortical generators, elicited by apparent motion and shape change in school-aged children. Forty-one typically developing children underwent high-density EEG recordings in response to a continuously morphing, radially modulated, circle-star grating. VEPs were then compared across the age groups of 5-7, 8-10, and 11-15 years according to latency and amplitude. Current density reconstructions were performed on VEP data in order to observe activated cortical regions. It was found that two distinct VEP morphological patterns occurred in each age group. However, there were no major developmental differences between the age groups according to each pattern. Current density reconstructions further demonstrated consistent visual generators across age and pattern. These results describe two novel VEP morphological patterns in typically developing children, but with similar underlying cortical sources. The importance of these morphological patterns is discussed in terms of future studies and the investigation of a relationship to visual cognitive performance. (shrink)

Previous work has demonstrated that simple geometric shapes may convey emotional meaning using various experimental paradigms. However, whether affective meaning of simple geometric shapes can be automatically activated and influence the evaluations of subsequent stimulus is still unclear. Thus the present study employed an affective priming paradigm to investigate whether and how two geometric shapes (circle vs. downward triangle) impact on the affective processing of subsequently presented faces (Experiment 1) and words (Experiment 2). At behavioral level, no significant effect (...) of affective congruency was found. However, ERP results in Experiment 1 and 2 showed a typical effect of affective congruency. The LPP elicited by affectively incongruent trials was larger compared to congruent trials. Our results provide support for the notion that downward triangle is perceived as negative and circle as positive and their emotional meaning can be activated automatically and then exert an influence on the electrophysiological processing of subsequent stimuli. The lack of significant congruent effect in behavioral measures and the inversed N400 congruent effect might reveal that the affective meaning of geometric shapes is weak because they are just abstract threatening cues rather than real threat. In addition, because no male participants are included in the present study, our findings are limited to females. (shrink)

In activist circles feminist political thought is often viewed as abstract because it does not help activists make the kinds of arguments that are generally effective with donors and policy makers. The feminist political philosopher's focus on how we know and what counts as knowledge is a large step away from the terrain in which activists make their arguments to donors. Yet, philosophical reflection on the relations between power and knowledge can make a significant contribution to women's human rights work (...) in the area of evaluation. Feminist political philosophy can offer guidelines for how to evaluate the work of women's human rights organizations and their funders in light of the social, political, and economic conditions that render their work necessary and difficult. This article offers 1) an account of the difficulty in showing the impact of social change activism using conventional modes of measurement, particularly those that focus on first order effects, 2) feminist theoretical insights into the interrelatedness of global gender injustices that may help us develop better benchmarks of evaluation for women's human rights programming, and 3) a sketch of how to approach the evaluation of organizations and donors who seek to support global gender justice. (shrink)

The continuing philosophical interest in the famous 'Protocol Sentence Debate' in the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivists is, to a large measure, due to the focus on the epistemological issues in the dispute, and the neglect of differences among the leading players in their philosophical views of logic and language. In Protocols, Truth and Convention, the current understanding of the debate is advanced by developing the contemporaneous views of logic and language held by the principal disputants. Rudolf Carnap and (...) Moritz Schlick. It is argued - largely on the basis of unpublished manuscripts and correspondence - that, despite apparent differences in their respective conceptions of language, there are nonetheless striking similarities, particularly with respect to the conventionality of language. Nonetheless, one key issue - concerning the syntacticism inherent in Carnap's early Thirties' philosophy - separates the two viewpoints in the clash over protocols. Finally, it is argued that Carnap's syntacticism is untenable, a conclusion that Carnap himself finally reached in the closing exchanges of the protocol sentence controversy. (shrink)

This book analyzes the philosophical foundations of sensorimotor theory and discusses the most recent applications of sensorimotor theory to human computer interaction, child's play, virtual reality, robotics, and linguistics. -/- Why does a circle look curved and not angular? Why doesn't red sound like a bell? Why, as I interact with the world, is there something it is like to be me? These are simple questions to pose but more difficult to answer. An analytic philosopher might respond to the (...) first by merely observing, ``if we ponder the concept `circle' we find that it is the essence of a circle to be round''; but where does this definition come from? Was it set in stone by the gods, the divine arbiters of circle-ness (red-ness and conscious-ness)? It is a measure of the importance of Kevin O'Regan and Alva Noe's 2001 paper `A sensorimotor account of vision and visual consciousness' that it reveals deep scientific and philosophical insight on these foundational issues of perception. -/- Opening with a chapter from Kevin O'Regan, this collection of new essays continues by presenting fifteen additional essays on as many developments achieved in recent years in this field. It provides readers with a critical review of the sensorimotor theory and in so doing introduces them to a radically new approach in cognitive science. (shrink)

Why a hermeneutical philosophy of the natural sciences? It is necessary to address the philosophic crisis of realism vs relativism in the natural sciences. This crisis is seen as a part of the cultural crisis that Husserl and Heidegger identified and attributed to the hegemonic role of theoretical and calculative thought in Western societies. The role of theory is addressed using the hermeneutical circle to probe the origin of theoretic meaning in scientific cultural praxes. This is studied in Galileo's (...) discovery of the phases of Venus; the practice of measurement; the different theories and practices of space perception; the historicality and temporality of scientific research communities which ground paradigm change; and the process of discovery. The paper draws particularly from the work of Heidegger. Though envisaging all science and scholarship, the highlighted theme is research in the natural sciences. (shrink)

Non-Archimedean probability functions allow us to combine regularity with perfect additivity. We discuss the philosophical motivation for a particular choice of axioms for a non-Archimedean probability theory and answer some philosophical objections that have been raised against infinitesimal probabilities in general. _1_ Introduction _2_ The Limits of Classical Probability Theory _2.1_ Classical probability functions _2.2_ Limitations _2.3_ Infinitesimals to the rescue? _3_ NAP Theory _3.1_ First four axioms of NAP _3.2_ Continuity and conditional probability _3.3_ The final axiom of NAP (...) _3.4_ Infinite sums _3.5_ Definition of NAP functions via infinite sums _3.6_ Relation to numerosity theory _4_ Objections and Replies _4.1_ Cantor and the Archimedean property _4.2_ Ticket missing from an infinite lottery _4.3_ Williamson’s infinite sequence of coin tosses _4.4_ Point sets on a circle _4.5_ Easwaran and Pruss _5_ Dividends _5.1_ Measure and utility _5.2_ Regularity and uniformity _5.3_ Credence and chance _5.4_ Conditional probability _6_ General Considerations _6.1_ Non-uniqueness _6.2_ Invariance Appendix. (shrink)

We investigate some dynamical features of the actions of automorphisms in the context of model theory. We interpret a few notions such as compact systems, entropy and symbolic representations from the theory of dynamical systems in the realm of model theory. In this direction, we settle a number of characterizations of NIP theories in terms of dynamics of automorphisms and invariant measures. For example, it is shown that the property of NIP corresponds to the compactness property of some associated systems (...) and also to the zero entropy property of automorphisms. These results give a correspondence between some notions of tameness in model theory and ergodic theory. Moreover, we study the concept of symbolic representation and consider it in some well known mathematical objects such as the circle group, Bohr sets, Sturmian sequences, the structure \\), and random graphs with a model theoretic point of view in mind. We establish certain characterizations for stability theoretic dividing lines, such as independence property, order property and strict order property in terms of associated symbolic representations. At the end, we propose some applications of symbolic representations and these characterizations by giving a proof for a classical theorem by Shelah and also introducing some invariants associated to the types and elements of models. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Politics of Practical Reason: Why Theological Ethics Must Change Your Life by Mark RyanDavid ElliotThe Politics of Practical Reason: Why Theological Ethics Must Change Your Life Mark Ryan eugene, or: cascade books, 2011. 229 pp. $20.80If the spirited debate between Stanley Hauerwas and Jeffrey Stout remains front-page news in theological ethics, then Mark Ryan’s subtle and penetrating The Politics of Practical Reason will help keep it there. (...) Ryan argues that practical reason is the hinge of ethical thinking and that it is “political” in the sense of shaping the community or polis. Given this hinge, the pressing question is of course, “Whose practical reason?” To answer this, Ryan probes major contemporary ethicists from Charles Taylor to Alasdair MacIntyre, but the book always circles back to Hauerwas and Stout. Their debate is ultimately decided by proxy, through a mediating philosopher whose work on practical reason Ryan sees both as the gold standard and as the indispensable background for understanding Hauerwas. Expecting this to be MacIntyre, the reader may be surprised—and perhaps even convinced—that the philosopher who best explains and possibly vindicates Hauerwas is in fact Elizabeth Anscombe, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s protégé, close friend, and translator.The book opens with Anscombe’s Intention (1957), which Donald Davidson called “the most important treatment of action since Aristotle.” In it, Anscombe argued that intention presupposes desire and is declared in public language within a context of social practices presupposed for agency to be intelligible. The implication is that we form intentions as members of a community with a particular form of life sustained by social practices. With human desire as its motivating nisus, Ryan insists that intention “is part of the very form of practical reasoning, then, to be political” (144).Having retrieved Anscombe’s model of practical reason, Ryan examines the field of contemporary ethics to see who measures up. Charles Taylor fails to place agents in a particular community, locating us instead in that bloated abstraction called “modernity.” Ryan therefore concludes that Taylor’s is an “ethics for anybody,” which leaves the self finally disembodied (94–98). Stout fares little better due to his refrain that Hauerwas went astray when he abandoned justice talk. Ryan counters that Stout’s sort of justice should be abandoned; lacking a substantive vision of the good and a teleology of freedom, Stout’s justice is reckoned a blind guide who cannot see or say why the polis should pursue one end and not another. Hauerwas, on the other hand, specifies a particular polis within which practical reason can intelligibly function: the church. It has [End Page 218] a substantive vision of the good (i.e., the peaceable kingdom) located in a scriptural narrative displayed by social practices requiring formation in the virtues (119–21). Ryan therefore endorses Hauerwas’s politics of practical reason, indebted to MacIntyre and made possible by Anscombe.I see one lacuna in this otherwise excellent book. Ryan seemingly advocates a pragmatic model of practical reason that is wholly internal to the polis rather than grounded in “truths of human nature as such” (101). This makes Anscombe an uneasy ally. Her “Modern Moral Philosophy” famously proposed a retrieval of virtue that required an overhauled “account of human nature … and above all of human flourishing” (41). This move opened the door for ethical naturalism, perhaps even natural law—both of which Anscombe and the later MacIntyre endorse. But these look suspiciously like what Ryan calls an “ethics for anybody.” So in the end are Anscombe and MacIntyre turncoats, or do Hauerwas and Ryan not follow them far enough? This crucial question remains unanswered.Despite this wrinkle, Ryan’s book is the best intervention in the Hauerwas–Stout debate that we now have. It throws light on Hauerwas, challenges Stout, shows why Anscombe matters, and gives practical reason its generous due. Philosophically deft and charitable in tone, it deserves to be read and studied as a major contribution to the field.David ElliotUniversity of Notre DameCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

BackgroundImplementation science research, especially when using participatory and co-design approaches, raises unique challenges for research ethics committees. Such challenges may be poorly addressed by approval and governance mechanisms that were developed for more traditional research approaches such as randomised controlled trials.DiscussionImplementation science commonly involves the partnership of researchers and stakeholders, attempting to understand and encourage uptake of completed or piloted research. A co-creation approach involves collaboration between researchers and end users from the onset, in question framing, research design and delivery, (...) and influencing strategy, with implementation and broader dissemination strategies part of its design from gestation. A defining feature of co-creation is its emergent and adaptive nature, making detailed pre-specification of interventions and outcome measures impossible. This methodology sits oddly with ethics committee protocols that require precise pre-definition of interventions, mode of delivery, outcome measurements, and the role of study participants. But the strict requirements of ethics committees were developed for a purpose – to protect participants from harm and help ensure the rigour and transparency of studies. We propose some guiding principles to help square this circle. First, ethics committees should acknowledge and celebrate the diversity of research approaches, both formally and informally ; without active support, their members may not understand or value participatory designs. Second, ground rules should be established for co-design applications and communicated to committee members and stakeholders. Third, the benefits of power-sharing should be recognised and credit given to measures likely to support this important goal, especially in research with vulnerable communities. Co-design is considered best practice, for example, in research involving indigenous peoples in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. (shrink)

Published in 1880–1, this three-volume edition of the extant works of the Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse was edited by the Danish philologist and historian Johan Ludvig Heiberg, whose Quaestiones Archimedeae is also reissued in this series. He compiled this edition from a Florentine codex, which he compared with other extant sources. Volume 1 contains On the Sphere and the Cylinder, On the Measurement of a Circle and On Conoids and Spheroids. Volume 2 contains On Spirals, On the (...) Equilibrium of Planes, The Sand Reckoner, The Quadrature of the Parabola, On Floating Bodies, the Liber Assumptorum, the cattle problem and fragments. Volume 3 contains the editor's own Latin prolegomena, the commentaries on Archimedes by Eutocius of Ascalon and indexes. The texts are given in Greek with parallel Latin translation, notes and introductory material. (shrink)

This article examines the epistemological views of key quantum physicists of the Copenhagen circle. The discussion begins with a presentation of their conception of measurement, indeterminacy and complementarity, and goes on to focus on their views regarding the nature of being and knowledge. The author identifies the basic areas of consensus in the Copenhagen circle as well as the disagreements and disputes that arose between its members. Three main points are argued: The fundamental epistemological consensus in the (...) group was that subject and object are inseparable; that the subject participates in the formation of images of reality, which are multiple and depend on how the subject is concretely constituted historically; the disagreements within the group did not arise with logical inevitability from the principles of quantum mechanics but largely stemmed from ideological clash in the Cold War context. Being linked to specific configurations of the subjects, knowledge is always relative; but it does not follow that knowledge is illusory or inadequate; on the contrary, it is the pretension of attaining the ultimate nature of things “in themselves” that leads to devaluation of any concrete knowledge. The world is something external, generally independent of our desires and will, but at the same time is constructed as concrete objects through the specific configuration of each concrete subject. (shrink)

Some scholars have argued that CEOs may have excessive influence on their foundation's trustees to give away a portion of company profits to charitable causes in order to gain access to elite circles or support the CEO's personal causes. This may result in charitable contributions that ultimately serve the personal interests of the CEOs without regard to corporate interests or social needs. We examine the extent that CEOs appear to direct charitable giving to be compatible with their own personal interests, (...) and if CEO participation on the foundation board affects the relationship between CEO personal interests and charitable giving. Using a sample of 160 corporate foundations, our results showed that CEOs' interests, as measured by membership in different non-profit organizations, was associated with foundation charitable giving. This association decreased, but was not eliminated, when CEOs were absent from the foundation board. Implications of these findings for researchers and managers are discussed in regards to both agency theory and stewardship theory. (shrink)

Objective: Basic temporal dysfunctions have been described in patients with schizophrenia, which may impact their ability to connect and synchronize with the outer world. The present study was conducted with the aim to distinguish between interval timing and synchronization difficulties and more generally the spatial-temporal organization disturbances for voluntary actions. A new sensorimotor synchronization task was developed to test these abilities. Method: Twenty-four chronic schizophrenia patients matched with 27 controls performed a spatial-tapping task in which finger taps were to be (...) produced in synchrony with a regular metronome to six visual targets presented around a virtual circle on a tactile screen. Isochronous (time intervals of 500 ms) and non-isochronous auditory sequences (alternated time intervals of 300/600 ms) were presented. The capacity to produce time intervals accurately versus the ability to synchronize own actions (tap) with external events (tone) were measured. Results: Patients with schizophrenia were able to produce the tapping patterns of both isochronous and non-isochronous auditory sequences as accurately as controls producing inter-response intervals close to the expected interval of 500 and 900 ms, respectively. However, the synchronization performances revealed significantly more positive asynchrony means (but similar variances) in the patient group than in the control group for both types of auditory sequences. Conclusion: The patterns of results suggest that patients with schizophrenia are able to perceive and produce both simple and complex sequences of time intervals but are impaired in the ability to synchronize their actions with external events. These findings suggest a specific deficit in predictive timing, which may be at the core of early symptoms previously described in schizophrenia. (shrink)

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) since November 2019 has increased the challenges of human existence. Before the pandemic there were the issues of insecurity, religious and racial bigotry, climate change, poverty and so forth, which to a large extent have affected humanity negatively. The lockdown, which was introduced as a measure to curb the spread of the virus, exacerbated the anguish of the already tense world. Suddenly, the government proscribed gatherings of people in large numbers, thereby suspending (...) economic, cultural and social activities. The continued increase of the COVID-19 cases necessitated the shutdown of worship centres. It was the first time churches would be shut down in Nigeria. The incident provoked concerns and interests in public discourse and intellectual circles. Therefore, this study examines the effects of COVID-19 on churches, using a historical approach and basically depending on secondary sources from available literature and Internet sources of information. The findings show that it was the lockdown that affected the churches most, rather than the virus. The suspension of corporate worship, sacramental rites, evangelistic outreaches and pastoral visits posed a significant challenge to the churches, affecting members’ psychology and leading to a decline in church revenue and an increase in charity services. The study therefore recommends that churches be digitalised and house fellowships be revitalised. Contribution: Regardless of the impact the lockdown had on the churches, it conscientised them about the proper use of their personnel and material resources. Nowadays, churches do ministry differently, adapting to changing circumstances and harnessing divergent Christian concepts of faith and divine healing by combining science and faith in health-related theologies. (shrink)

The present thesis takes its original impetus from the author's conviction that the German philosophy of the "Goethezeit" represents a peak of metaphysical insight and achievement comparable with the original flowering of European philosophical thought in the age of Plato and Aristotle. Until recently, it was fashionable to regard Kant and Hegel as the two 'giants' of this second flowering and to consign other philosophers, such as Fichte and Schelling, to the role of supporting figures. However, in recent years, the (...) pioneer efforts of such scholars as Walter Schulz, plus the interest shown by modern philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, have drawn attention to depths in the philosophy of Schelling which had been ignored by the leading exponents of Idealist philosophy, due to their sympathy for the ideas of Kant and/or Hegel. In addition, again due partly to the insights of Heidegger, there has developed a realisation among ever widening circles that Friedrich Holderlin was also one of these 'giants' of metaphysics. His strictly philosophical works are limited in number and in length. However, his contribution cannot be measured in terms of quantity: I would maintain, and have tried to show in the present work, that it was his original insight and inspiration which formed the basis for all of Schelling's work as of the late 1790's. In the process, I have followed Holderlin 's thought back to what I see as its roots: the ideas of the Presocratics, early Plato and Kant's third "Kritik'.'. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Don Ihde’s ‘postphenomenology’ may constitute a proper access to the question concerning sustainable technology and I do so in three steps. First, I lay bare how a modern framework that systematically separates facts and instruments from values, choices and responsibilities yields no space for engaged decisions and responsible action towards more sustainable societies. In a second step, I elaborate how postphenomenology’s ‘in-between’ perspective opens up the possibility of questioning science and technology as an inherent (...) part of our human existence. Building on this, I argue how a ‘normativity of the in-between’ may be developed around the concept of ‘topical measure’ and which is grounded in the foundationless foundation of postphenomenology’s relational ontology. In a last step, I show how such a ‘topical measure’ opens up two fields of normative action vis-à-vis the question concerning sustainable technology: one critical, the other empowering. Whereas ‘topical criticism’ focuses on bringing into the open the powerful subpolitics of science and technology, the field of ‘topical responsibility’ rather aims at actively assuming responsibility in these political circles. Besides its main interest, which lies in forging a genuine and adequate way into the issue of sustainability, this paper also constitutes an entry into Ihde’s philosophical oeuvre. The question concerning sustainable technology does not only touch upon Ihde’s relational trinity human-technology-world, it also deals with the degree of normative inquiry present in Ihde’s philosophy, an issue he has been repeatedly questioned about by his interlocutors. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill's commitment to liberty and individual development is one of the most exoteric themes of his moral and political philosophy. But the linkages between this commitment to liberty and development and Mill's conception of utility and principles of the good are not as commonly recognized. As part of a more general transformation of his utilitarianism, Mill repudiated Bentham's principles of the good and instead adopted a more sophisticated form of hedonism. While Bentham admits only the total quantity of (...) pleasure as contributing to value, Mill expands the circle to admit quality or kind of pleasure as well into the value reckoning. I have elsewhere interpreted and defended Mill's qualitative hedonism, and in this paper I can offer only a brief overview of that account and must largely assume its plausibility. Bentham and Mill agree that only pleasurable experiences and the absence of painful experiences have value and so both are called hedonists. But they have very different views about what properties of pleasures makes them valuable, or in other words what are the good-making properties of pleasure. Bentham thinks that only intensity and duration, or quantity, are good-making properties of pleasures, and thus he includes only these properties in measuring value. As a consequence, in the context of value measurement he is not interested in the kinds of things in which people take pleasure. But Mill is a qualitative hedonist, and thinks that the quality or kind of pleasure is also a good-making characteristic and thus should be included in value measurement. The things that are sources of pleasure matter to Mill. (shrink)

Published in 1880–1, this three-volume edition of the extant works of the Greek mathematician Archimedes of Syracuse was edited by the Danish philologist and historian Johan Ludvig Heiberg, whose Quaestiones Archimedeae is also reissued in this series. He later discovered a medieval palimpsest containing lost works by Archimedes, which significantly expanded the canon, but the present collection was produced long before this and therefore contains the works known at the time of publication. Heiberg consulted a Florentine codex, which he painstakingly (...) compared with other sources to produce his edition. This first volume contains On the Sphere and the Cylinder, On the Measurement of a Circle and On Conoids and Spheroids. The texts are given in the original Greek with parallel Latin translation, notes and introductory material. (shrink)

RESUMENEl artículo se propone registrar los puntos principales de la controvertida relación que Theodor Adorno mantuvo, entre 1950 y 1966, con los jóvenes músicos reunidos en torno a los Cursos Internacionales para la Nueva Música realizados en Darmstadt. Se expondrá el modo en que en la música serial, a pesar de su progresismo, que el filósofo medía por el trato con la modernidad radical representada por la escuela vienesa de Schönberg, resonaban elementos que neutralizaban las fuerzas productivas de la nueva (...) música. Al final se elucidará la justificación política que acompañaba a los síntomas estéticos de envejecimiento que Adorno atribuía al círculo de compositores de postguerra.PALABRAS CLAVEADORNO, ESTÉTICA NEGATIVA, RACIONALIZACIÓN, ARTE AUTÓNOMO,MÚSICA SERIALABSTRACTThe paper proposes to record the main points of the controversial relationship Theodor Adorno held, between 1950 and 1966, with the young musicians gathered around the International Courses for the New Music performed in Darmstadt. Here is presented the way in which in serial music, despite its progressivism, which the philosopher measured in the treatment with the radical modernity represented by the Viennese School of Schönberg, resounded elements that neutralized the productive forces of the new music. Finally, I intend to elucidate the political justification that accompanied the aesthetics symptoms of aging that Adorno attributed to the circle of post-war composers.KEYWORDSADORNO, NEGATIVE AESTHETICS, RATIONALIZATION, AUTONOMOUS ART, SERIAL MUSIC. (shrink)

Contemporary education now appears to be dominated by the continual drive for improvement measured against the assessment of what students have learned. It is our contention that a foundational relation with assessment organises contemporary education. Here we draw on a 'way of thinking' that is deconstructive in its intent. Such thinking makes clear the vicious circularity of the argument for improvement, wherein assessment valorised in discourses of improvement provides not only a rationalisation for improvement via assessment, but also the very (...) means of achieving such possibilities via targets grounded in limited specifications of assessment. On reading Heidegger's 'question concerning technology' we sought to reconsider the vicious circle of improvement in relation to Being. We claim that the means-ends driven technology of assessment, rather than being at our disposal and under our control, only serves to reveals the Real to us in accordance with the restricting principle of reason. The principle of reason, we argue, grounds 'Enframing' that ranks and orders the very beings of education as objects to produce an objective 'world as picture', rather than opening the possibility of their identity as belongings with a movement of difference. So, 'improvement' becomes normative and binding for institutions and practices on grounds of the principle of assessment, and renders agents of education as functionaries of 'Enframing'. (shrink)

The book deals with the changing nature and with the history of the concept of scientific determinism from the classical mechanics until the time immediately preceding quantum mechanics: such a historical-philosophical reconstruction is aimed at (1) signalizing and overcoming the deficiencies of the received opinion on the topic and (2) understanding better a concept which has influenced science from the beginning. -/- Before dealing with historical matters I develop in the first Chapter a kind of new, three-dimensional “measurement system” (...) for analyzing any concept of scientific determinism: many different concepts have been developed in the course of history, and we need a classification system which, on the one hand, is inclusive and broad enough to deal with different concepts; on the other hand, which makes possible to differentiate with some precision between them. My “measurement system” has three dimension or parameter: the “strength” (of the determining link between different states of the physical system), the “depth” (depending on how strong the ontological commitment of the particular concept of scientific determinism is), and the breadth (referring to the domain or the object, to which a deterministic evolution is ascribed). -/- In the second chapter I discuss briefly some main shortcomings of the received opinion about scientific determinism. Then I try to identify the “core” of scientific determinism at its origins while at the same time embedding it in the broader historical-cultural context especially of the Renaissance. On the one hand I show how the core of scientific determinism was mathematical, and this distinguished it from other related concepts, as mechanism, the principle of sufficient reason, and the aristotelic conception of science. On the other hand, precisely the support which these related concepts provided to scientific determinism, together with its mathematical nature, endowed it with an incredible resistance against empirical classification. -/- In the following three chapters I analyze the historic-philosophical development of scientific determinism along the three parameter of my measurement system. -/- In the third Chapter I reconstruct the weakening of scientific determinism with respect to its depth: the starting point is the question about the extent in which the deterministic mathematical descriptions do refer. In the development of mechanics into analytical mechanics the more and more formal character of its mathematical descriptions became evident and it became less obvious that these formal, deterministic structures also have an immediate material truth. Parallel developments within epistemology, starting with Kantian philosophy (which I deal with quite in detail), let the deterministic structures (principle, laws, equations, causal relations) appear less absolute and real and more as a product of reason, as conventions, or as models. A brief consideration of the interpretation of mechanics and its principles by Jacobi, Hertz, Mach and Poincaré shows the implications of these developments. -/- The fourth chapter reconstructs the weakening of scientific determinism with respect to the strength of the determining link: here my work deepens the track which has been opened by Ian Hacking, who interpreted the so-called “probabilistic revolution” in the 19th Century as the main reason for the erosion of determinism. The increasing pervasiveness of statistical methods in the social and natural sciences in the course of the 19th Century gave rise to a conception of scientific laws which could dispense with strict determinism. A new, empirical interpretation of probability (Frequentism) and the statistical explanation of thermodynamic phenomena in physics even suggested chance phenomena to be a necessary condition for the emergence of natural laws. -/- The last part of my work (Ch. 5, 6 and 7) considers the period (2nd half of the 19th century until ca. 1920) in which the concept of scientific determinism became explicit and was discussed as a world-picture or a world-view – that is, in its maximal breadth. I argue that there were two main reasons for the emergence of an explicit and ideological opposition “determinism vs. indeterminism” at that time: the first was the successful application of the deterministic paradigm to sociology, history, physiology and psychology in the course of the 19th Century, which provided scientific determinism with ethical implications (in particular with respect to the problem of free will, which scientific determinism seemed to deny). The second, related reason is that in the 19th Century natural scientists became public men, science was increasingly popularized and scientific issues were increasingly related to life-issues, to worldview-questions, and even to politics. In Chapter 6 I reconstruct the debates on the issue “determinism vs. indeterminism” in such a public, ideological and sometimes even political context. Among the discussants were Fechner, Du Bois-Reymond, Helmholtz, Bernard, Ostwald, Haeckel, Boussinesq, Maxwell, Boutroux, Poincaré, Renouvier, James und Peirce. Also in Vienna the debate on the issue of determinism was fervid and took ideological and political connotations: Michael Stöltzner and Deborah Coen have pointed to a particular tradition of “Vienna Indeterminism” (Stöltzner), or Viennese liberal probabilism (Coen), which was characterized by a strongly empirical conception of science and by the full acceptance and appreciation of statistical thinking in science. In the last Chapter of my work I focus on the early philosophy of Edgar Zilsel, a philosopher who stood near to the Vienna Circle and who has been much neglected in the literature by now, and I suggest considering it as part of the “Vienna Indeterminism”. First, I show how he gave an indeterministic foundation both to statistical and causal knowledge as well as to irreversibility in physics. Second, I inquire into his philosophy of probability and show how it developed in parallel to the ones of Hans Reichenbach and Richard von Mises. Finally, Zilsel happens to be a further, relevant case-study for pointing to the ideological and political side of the issue of determinism. -/- At the end of this reconstruction it should have become clear how no physical theory, no empirical evidence and no experimental confirmation can support or contradict scientific determinism in its non-trivial formulations. The validity of any such formulation depends strongly not only (from the systematical point of view) from the definition of other concepts (like time, physical state, causality etc.), but also from the particular conception of science which more or less implicitly constitutes its background, and which is subjected to historical change. -/- (ISBN: 9783495491034). (shrink)

Representative organizations of employers massively occur in Russian Empire in the post-reform period as a form of protection of the interests of industrialists and businessmen in terms of development of capitalist relations. One of the issues related to the common interests of entrepreneurs in the First World War were rail transportation. Transport problems during the war was most acute for business associations, and became for them some kind a test of the efficiency. Analysis of periodicals and record keeping documentation of (...) representative organizations, "Bulletin" departments of railways show in article representative organizations of employers understanding the causes of the crisis in the Donbass railway during the First World War and shows what is needed and the government measures to overcome the negative effects of transport system. The article shows problems of Donbass rail transport during war years: low capacity and carrying capacity of the network, its lack of branching, shortage of rolling stock, the inefficiency of freight traffic and as a consequence of the rapid deterioration of equipment downtime and freight. Solving these problems entrepreneurs have seen in the additional construction of railways and roads, increasing the capacity of transport engineering factories and repair shops, using captured locomotives and wagons, technical upgrading of the railway network and station management. The paper emphasizes that the inefficiency of transport created a vicious circle of problems in the region - untimely delivery of goods to industrial enterprises of Donbass, deprived railways revenues from transport and fuel, metallurgical and engineering products, without which the operation of highways could not be successful. The article concludes that the war uncovered the underlying socio-economic problems in the country only grew, conflicts between different groups of businessman became deeper, Donbass railway crisis has become one of the most destructive processes in whole economy. (shrink)

Article is devoted to ethical aspect of a performativity which usually remains beyond the scope of esthetic, political, linguistic aspects. In modern performance studies are usually combined the private and exact entered by Ostin definition of a performativity as the word making action, and widespread Marxist idea of the critical, changing the world theory potential. In article the main rate becomes on the heterodox reading of a performativity following criticism of violence of metaphysics of Levinas. If the theory is output (...) from ethics, then the performativityt is thought as radical passivity of the theory. In that case, crucial importance for conceptual model of the subject is gained by not epistemological, but ethical measurement, namely ethics of a categorical imperative. The categorical imperative is arranged as a performatory contradiction between desire and a will, it fixes a situation of a gap, an akrasia, otherwise, of the decision. Two modern interpretations of value of a concept of the subject of the decision are given in article. One of them - positive, belongs Badiou, it is the subject of fidelity to an event. It will be coordinated with the subject of practical mind of Kant as it is supported by the pure and formal movement of will. However this model, according to Meillassoux, can be considered transitional as the exclusivity of the decision undermines a correlation circle. The criticism of the Philosophical Decision as distributions of transcendental and empirical functions, offered by Laruelle appears really fresh course. Non-philosophy thinks of itself as the only performatory theory because it registers this initial decision and refuses to go on a speculative circular way of philosophizing. The main problem connected with non - philosophy, consists that its performativity remains rather declarative, conditions of a solution of the problem of an akrasia, a gap between desirable and possible are not clear. (shrink)

RPC.2 The individual’s measure of consequences is proportionate to the circle of his outlook. His horizons may lie so near that he can only measure at short range. But, whether they be near or far, he can only judge of consequences as proximately or remotely touching himself. His judgment may err; his motive remains always the same, whether he be conscious of it or not. RPC.3 That motive is necessarily egoistic, since no one deliberately chooses misery when..

No account of the development of contemporary empiricism is adequate which neglects the writings and the influence of Charles Peirce. Although he is not easily pigeon-holed and can not be claimed as the exclusive property of any school or movement, it is appropriate that the hundredth anniversary of his birth should be commemorated at this Congress. For the movement of which it is a manifestation is engaged in a coöperative, intensive cultivation of the methods of the sciences with the help (...) of the most advanced tools of modern logic; and Peirce's intellectual career was also a single-minded devotion to that task. It is fitting, also, that his birth-year be celebrated at Harvard by an international congress. For although he was denied the privilege of teaching at this university, much of his influence was propagated by William James and Josiah Royce, two of its great teachers; and however much he may have suffered from neglect during his life-time, his work surely merits recognition from a movement not confined by national bounds. It is characteristic of the best established sciences that though individuals may pursue researches in them independently of one another, the conclusions reached tend to support each other and to converge toward a common stream of sound beliefs; and such convergence is indeed the sole identifiable warrant for the confidence that some measure of the truth has been attained. It is therefore a happy sign that so many of the central ideas of the present movement have been independently developed on both sides of the Atlantic. One is not minimizing the contributions of the Vienna Circle in pointing out that many of its recent views have been taken for granted for some time by American colleagues, largely because the latter have come to intellectual maturity under the influence of Peirce. (shrink)

In May 1968, Gilles Deleuze was an established philosopher teaching at the innovative Vincennes University, just outside of Paris. Félix Guattari was a political militant and the director of an unusual psychiatric clinic at La Borde. Their meeting was quite unlikely, yet the two were introduced in an arranged encounter of epic consequence. From that moment on, Deleuze and Guattari engaged in a surprising, productive partnership, collaborating on several groundbreaking works, including _Anti-Oedipus_, _What Is Philosophy?_ and _A Thousand Plateaus_. François (...) Dosse, a prominent French intellectual known for his work on the Annales School, structuralism, and biographies of the pivotal intellectuals Paul Ricoeur, Pierre Chaunu, and Michel de Certeau, examines the prolific if improbable relationship between two men of distinct and differing sensibilities. Drawing on unpublished archives and hundreds of personal interviews, Dosse elucidates a collaboration that lasted more than two decades, underscoring the role that family and history—particularly the turbulent time of May 1968—play in their monumental work. He also takes the measure of Deleuze and Guattari's posthumous fortunes and the impact of their thought on intellectual, academic, and professional circles. (shrink)