The foundations of Wesson’s induced matter theory are analyzed. It is shown that the empty—without matter—5-dimensional bulk must be regarded as a Weylian space rather than as a Riemannian one. Revising the geometry of the bulk, we have assumed that a Weylian connection vector and a gauge function exist in addition to the metric tensor. The framework of a Weyl–Dirac version of Wesson’s theory is elaborated and discussed. In the 4-dimensional hypersurface (brane), one obtains equations (...) describing both fields, the gravitational and the electromagnetic. The result is a geometrically based unified theory of gravitation and electromagnetism with mass and current induced by the bulk. In special cases on obtains on the brane the equations of Einstein–Maxwell, or these of the original induced matter theory. (shrink)

We investigate the possibility of inducing the cosmological constant from extra dimensions by embedding our four-dimensional Riemannian space-time into a five-dimensional Weyl integrable space. Following the approach of the space-time-matter theory we show that when we go down from five to four dimensions, the Weyl field may contribute both to the induced energy-tensor as well as to the cosmological constant Λ, or more generally, it may generate a time-dependent cosmological parameter Λ(t). As an application, we construct a (...) simple cosmological model in which Λ(t) has some interesting properties. (shrink)

MATTER AND LIGHT The New Physics By LOUIS DE BROGLIE. Originally published in 1937. TRANSLATORS NOTE: THE Author has in certain places modified the original French text for the English translation, for the sake of greater cohesion, and has also revised some passages, in order to bring them into accord with the results of later research. Occasional Translators Notes are shown in square brackets. The chapter on The Undulatory Aspects of the Electron has the special historical interest of having (...) been delivered as a Lecture on the occasion of the Authors receipt of the Nobel Award, while that on Wave Mechanics and its Interpretations was given as an Address at the Glasgow meeting of the British Association in 1928. I am indebted to Dr. J. E. Turner, of the University of Liver pool, for assistance with the translation and the proofs, and to Dr. C. Strachan, of the same University, I am indebted for valuable assistance in dealing with the equations and the more technical passages, as well as for reading the proofs. W. H. J. PREFACE: THE amiable insistence of my friend Andr George has induced me to collect in the present Volume a number of Studies on con temporary Physics written from both the general and the more metaphysical point of view. Each of these Studies forms an inde pendent whole, and can be read by itself. A slight degree of repeti tion which the reader is asked to overlook has been the inevi table result for on more than one occasion I have been compelled to duplicate a summary of the great fundamental stages of con temporary Physics, such as the classification of simple substances, the investigation of the photo-electric effect and the origin of the Theory of Light Quanta and of Wave Mechanics the subjects are somewhat technical, and I cannot well assume that they are common knowledge. But though the same subject is outlined in several of these Studies, I have tried to take up a different point of view in each, and have endeavoured to throw light on different aspects of the essential problems of Quantum Physics in order to facilitate a grasp of their importance. On comparing the different chapters the reader will observe that, while overlapping, they also complement one another and he will feel the fascination and greatness inherent in the vast structure of modern Physics. And while admiring the vast number and the extreme delicacy of experimental facts which laboratory physicists have succeeded in revealing, and the strange and brilliant concepts devised by theorists to explain them, he will appreciate to what a degree the methods and ideas of physicists have grown in subtlety during recent years, and how great has been the progress from the somewhat ingenuous Realism and the over-simplified Mechanics of earlier thinkers. The more deeply we descend into the minutest structures of Matter, the more clearly we see that the concepts evolved by the mind in the course of everyday experience especially those of Time and Space must fail us in an endeavour to describe the new worlds which we are entering. One feels tempted to say that the outlines of our concepts must undergo a progressive blurring, in order that they may retain some semblance of relevance to the realities of the subatomic scales. Time and Space, in other words, are too loose a dress for the elementary entities individuality becomes attenuated in the mysterious pro cesses of interaction, and even Determinism, the darling of an older generation of physicists, is forced to yield... (shrink)

ABSTRACT:We develop the concept of stakeholder salience to account for stakeholders who should matter to the firm, even when managers do not perceive them as important. While managers are responsible for attributing salience to stakeholders, they can overlook or ignore stakeholder importance because of market frictions that affect managerial perceptions or induce opportunism. When this happens, corporate financial and social performance can suffer. Thus, we propose that the perceptions of organizational and societal stakeholders should also codetermine the salience of (...) the focal stakeholder to the firm. We also propose that stakeholder dialogue can reduce the impacts that market frictions can have on managerial perceptions of stakeholder interests that should matter to the firm. Finally, we discuss how the refined conceptualization of stakeholder salience might have better predictive validity, be more normative, and make instrumental and normative stakeholder theory more convergent. (shrink)

We consider a theory in which spacetime is a 4-dimensional manifold V4 embedded in an N-dimensional space VN. The dynamics is given by a first-order action which is a straightforward generalization of the well-known Nambu-Gotto string action. Instead of the latter action we then consider an equivalent action, a generalization of the Howe-Tucker action, which is a functional of the (extrinsic) embedding variables ηa(x) and of the (intrinsic) induced metric gυv (x) on V4. In the quantized theory (...) we can define an effective action by means of the Feynman path integral in which we functionally integrate over the embedding variables. What remains is functionally dependent solely on the induced metric. It is well known that the effective action so obtained contains the Ricci scalar R and its higher orders. But due to our special choice of a quantity, the so-called “matter” density ω(η) in VN entering the original first-order action, it turns out that the effective action contains also the source term. The latter is in general that of a p-dimensional membrane (p-brane). In particular we consider the case of bosonic point particles. Finally we discuss and clarify certain interpretational aspects of quantum mechanics from the viewpoint of our embedding model. (shrink)

Empirical and theoretical evidence show that the astrophysical problem of dark matter might be solved by a theory of Einstein-Mayer type. In this theory, up to global Lorentz rotations, the reference system is determined by the motion of cosmic matter. Thus, one is led to a “Riemannian space with teleparallelism” realizing a geometric version of the Mach-Einstein doctrine. The field equations of this gravitational theory contain hidden matter terms, where the existence of hidden (...) class='Hi'>matter is inferred solely from its gravitational effects. It is argued that, in the nonrelativistic mechanical approximation, they provide an inertia-free mechanics, where the inertial mass of a body is induced by the gravitational action of the comic masses. Interpreted from the Newtonian point of view, this mechanics shows that the effective gravitational mass of astrophysical objects depends on r such that one expects the existence of dark matter. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.1 (2001) 96-112 [Access article in PDF] A Theory of Fiction A. P. Martinich What is the chief linguistic difference between fiction and nonfiction? My answer, in brief, is that in fiction the Supermaxim of Quality, "Do not participate in a speech act unless you can satisfy all the conditions for its nondefective performance," is suspended. My thesis depends on a modified version of H. (...) P. Grice's theory of conversation. In saying that the Supermaxim of Quality is suspended in fiction, I do not mean that no speech acts are performed. On the contrary, many are; some of them are the same as those that would be performed in a nonfictional context. Sometimes ordinary statements and requests are made, and questions are asked in fiction, as we shall see in section II. However, many of the speech acts performed in fiction are made possible by the fact that the Supermaxim is suspended, and thus the normal consequences of performing and evaluating the speech acts are not in force. This will also be explained in section II.On the one hand, since my theory depends on a more general theory of language, those who accept the general theory will have further evidence of its power, while some of those who do not accept it may be more inclined to if they see that it smoothly accounts for fiction. On the other hand, those who do not accept the more general theory may be reluctant to see any merit in my theory. In addition, because of the almost universal acceptance among Anglo-American philosophers of the Axiom of Existence, which holds that everything referred to must exist, my rejection of that axiom may disincline some philosophers to accept the present theory of fiction. I discuss the axiom in section III. [End Page 96] I Before presenting my theory, there are two preliminary matters to discuss. The first involves the distinction between talk-in-fiction, talk-about-fiction, and talk-about-reality.Talk-in-fiction is the talk or writing that constitutes fictional works, e.g., the sentences in Ordinary People. But the preceding sentence is an example of talk about fiction: I said something about the fictional work Ordinary People. Whenever a philosopher discusses fiction, he uses talk about fiction to explain talk in fiction. Some philosophers give the impression that the terms talk-in-fiction and talk-about-fiction are mutually exclusive. But they are not. When one novel talks about another, talk-in-fiction is also talk-about-fiction. In Judith Guest's Ordinary People, the narrator says, "He had thought about being a Soldier of Fortune, after reading The Three Musketeers."The terms talk-in-fiction and talk-about-reality are also not mutually exclusive and hence do not form a proper distinction. Many novels, including historical ones, talk about reality. The first sentence of Gore Vidal's Burr is "Shortly before midnight, July 1, 1833, Colonel Aaron Burr, aged seventy-seven, married Eliza Jumel, born Bowen...." What Vidal has written is true and intended to be true about the real world. In the "Afterword," he talks about his "meticulous" research and notes that he "tried to keep to the known facts." Thus, if he were wrong about Burr's late marriage or about many other things, he would be liable to criticism, even though he is not required to make every statement in the novel historically accurate.Historical novels are not the only ones that talk about reality. The first sentence of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, "Happy families are all happy in the same way, unhappy families unhappy in their separate, different ways," is a real statement made in fiction about real families as much as fictional ones. 1 Tolstoy is not pretending to make the statement he would be making if he were writing an essay or sociological treatise. He is simply making a statement about happy and unhappy families. We learn or, at least, are induced to think about a feature of the real world.Talk-in-fiction is sometimes referred to as "fictional talk," as if it... (shrink)

The origin of the wave properties of matter is discussed from the point of view of stochastic electrodynamics. A nonrelativistic model of a charged particle with an effective structure embedded in the random zeropoint radiation field reveals that the field induces a high-frequency vibration on the particle; internal consistency of the theory fixes the frequency of this jittering at mc2/ħ. The particle is therefore assumed to interact intensely with stationary zeropoint waves of this frequency as seen from its (...) proper frame of reference; such waves, identified here as de Broglie's phase waves, give rise to a modulated wave in the laboratory frame, with de Broglie's wavelength and phase velocity equal to the particle velocity. The time-independent equation that describes this modulated wave is shown to be the stationary Schrödinger equation (or the Klein-Gordon equation in the relativistic version). In a heuristic analysis appled to simple periodic cases, the quantization rules are recovered from the assumption that for a particle in a stationary state there must correspond a stationary modulation.Along an independent and complementary line of reasoning, an equation for the probability amplitude in configuration space for a particle under a general potential V(x) is constructed, and it is shown that under conditions derived from stochastic electrodynamics it reduces to Schrödinger's equation. This equation reflects therefore the dual nature of the quantum particles, by describing simultaneously the corresponding modulated waveand the ensemble of particles. (shrink)

The concept of the ‘material’ was the focus of much feminist work in the 1970s. It has always been a deeply contested one, even for feminists working within a broadly materialist paradigm of the social. Materialist feminists stretched the concept of the material beyond the narrowly economic in their attempts to develop a social ontology of gender and sexuality.Nonetheless, the quality of the social asserted by an expanded sense of thematerial – its ‘materiality’ – remains ambiguous. New terminologies of materiality (...) and materialization have been developed within post-structuralist feminist thought and the literature on embodiment. The quality of ‘materiality’ is no longer asserted – as inmaterialist feminisms – but is problematized through an implicit deferral of ontology in these more contemporary usages, forcing us to interrogate the limits of both materialist and post-structuralist forms of constructionism. What really matters is how these newer terminologies of ‘materiality’ and ‘materialization’ induce us to develop a fuller social ontology of gender and sexuality; one that weaves together social, cultural, experiential and embodied practices. (shrink)

Spherically symmetric entities filled with matter and induced by the 5D bulk may be built in the empty 4D space-time. The substance of the entity, the latter regarded as a fundamental particle, is characterized by the prematter equation of state P=−ρ. The particle is covered in a Schwarzschild-like envelope and from the outside it is characterized by mass and radius. One can regard these entities as neutral fundamental particles being constituents of quarks and leptons. The presented classical models (...) are developed in the framework of a Weyl–Dirac version of Wesson’s Induced Matter Theory. (shrink)

The generalized Brans–Dicke theory (GBD), as one of the modified gravitational theories, was proposed previously and some interesting properties were found in this theory. Here we investigate the traversable-wormhole physics for GBD theory. Firstly, we derive the gravitational field equation in the framework of GBD wormhole geometry. The traversable wormhole could be gained in this theory. Secondly, using the classical reconstruction technique we originally derive an Lagrangian function for describing gravity in GBD theory. And the (...) derived Lagrangian function for gravity could be satisfied with the requirement of the viable conditions, such as the local gravity tests and the cosmological constraints, etc. Thus, the viable model for cosmology, local gravity and traversable WH can be unified in a uniform Lagrangian quantity within the framework of GBD theory. Thirdly, given that the violation of the energy conditions (ECs) often induce some problems in theory, we explore the ECs of matter in the traversable wormhole. It is shown that the null EC, the weak EC and the dominated EC for the matter can be satisfied in the traversable-wormhole physics of GBD theory, which are different from the results given in GR. It seems that the theory of GBD owns the more logic technically and consistency formally than the theory of GR. Fourthly, some other properties of GBD traversable WH are explored, such as the total gravitational energy, the volume integral quantifier, the dynamical stability of the anisotropic matter, and the difference of the propagation of sound within the matter configuration. The results support the GBD to provide an interesting candidate for traversable WH. (shrink)

Is it possible to explain and predict the development of living things? What is development? Articulate answers to these seemingly innocuous questions are far from straightforward. To date, no systematic, targeted effort has been made to construct a unifying theory of development. This novel work offers a unique exploration of the foundations of ontogeny by asking how the development of living things should be understood. It explores the key concepts of developmental biology, asks whether general principles of development can (...) be discovered, and examines the role of models and theories.The two editors have assembled a team of leading contributors who are representative of the scientific and philosophical community within which a diversity of thoughts are growing, and out of which a theory of development may eventually emerge. They analyse a wealth of approaches to concepts, models and theories of development, such as gene regulatory networks, accounts based on systems biology and on physics of soft matter, the different articulations of evolution and development, symbiont-induced development, as well as the widely discussed concepts of positional information and morphogenetic field, the idea of a. (shrink)

In the asymptotic safety paradigm, a quantum field theory reaches a regime with quantum scale invariance in the ultraviolet, which is described by an interacting fixed point of the Renormalization Group. Compelling hints for the viability of asymptotic safety in quantum gravity exist, mainly obtained from applications of the functional Renormalization Group. The impact of asymptotically safe quantum fluctuations of gravity at and beyond the Planck scale could at the same time induce an ultraviolet completion for the Standard Model (...) of particle physics with high predictive power. (shrink)

A fiber bundle constructed over spacetime is used as the basic underlying framework for a differential geometric description of extended hadrons. The bundle has a Cartan connection and possesses the de Sitter groupSO(4, 1) as structural group, operating as a group of motion in a locally defined space of constant curvature (the fiber) characterized by a radius of curvatureR≈10−13 cm related to the strong interactions. A hadronic matter field ω(x, ζ) is defined on the bundle space, withx the spacetime (...) coordinate and ζ varying in the local fiber. The components of a generalized tensor current ℑ μab (M) (x) are introduced, involving a bilinear expression in the fields ω(x, ζ) and ωΔ(x, ζ) integrated over the local fiber at the pointx. This hadronic matter current is considered as a source current for the underlying fiber geometry by coupling it in a gauge-invariant manner to the curvature expressions derived from the bundle connection coefficients, which are associated here with strong interaction effects, i.e., play the role of meson fields induced in the geometry. Studying discrete symmetry transformations between the 16 differently soldered Cartan bundles, a generalized matter-antimatter conjugation Ĉ is established which leaves the basic current-curvature equations Ĉ-invariant. The discrete symmetry transformation Ĉ turns out to be the direct product of an ordinary charge conjugation for the Dirac point-spinor part of ω(x, ζ) and an internal $\hat P\hat T$ transformation applied globally on the bundle to the fiber (i.e., de Sitter) part of ω(x, ζ). (shrink)

In this review paper, we discuss how gravity and spin can be obtained as the realization of the local Conformal-Affine group of symmetry transformations. In particular, we show how gravitation is a gauge theory which can be obtained starting from some local invariance as the Poincaré local symmetry. We review previous results where the inhomogeneous connection coefficients, transforming under the Lorentz group, give rise to gravitational gauge potentials which can be used to define covariant derivatives accommodating minimal couplings of (...) matter, gauge fields (and then spin connections). After we show, in a self-contained approach, how the tetrads and the Lorentz group can be used to induce the spacetime metric and then the Invariance Induced Gravity can be directly obtained both in holonomic and anholonomic pictures. Besides, we show how tensor valued connection forms act as auxiliary dynamical fields associated with the dilation, special conformal and deformation (shear) degrees of freedom, inherent to the bundle manifold. As a result, this allows to determine the bundle curvature of the theory and then to construct boundary topological invariants which give rise to a prototype (source free) gravitational Lagrangian. Finally, the Bianchi identities, the covariant field equations and the gauge currents are obtained determining completely the dynamics. (shrink)

Promoting innovative work behaviour and employee wellbeing has become essential as it endows companies with competitive advantages to thrive in today's complex business environment. This study investigates the role of workplace spirituality in inducing innovative work behaviour and employee wellbeing based on the social exchange theory and the spillover theory. It also looks at the previously unexplored mediating function of employee engagement in the relationship between workplace spirituality and the outcomes above. Additionally, it examines the interactive effect of (...) workplace spirituality and individual spirituality on employee engagement. Two waves of survey data were collected from 538 employees and their managers working in the IT sector in Pakistan. This study contributes to the expanding corpus of research on workplace spirituality, confirming that the latter positively influence innovative work behaviour and employee wellbeing. The mediating effect of employee engagement on the relationship between workplace spirituality and innovative work behaviour and employee wellbeing is also significant. Further, the results confirm that the influence of workplace spirituality on employee engagement is contingent on the degree of individual spirituality. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

The paper considers the "GR-desideratum", that is, the way general relativity implements general covariance, diffeomorphism invariance, and background independence. Two cases are discussed where 5-dimensional generalizations of general relativity run into interpretational troubles when the GR-desideratum is forced upon them. It is shown how the conceptual problems dissolve when such a desideratum is relaxed. In the end, it is suggested that a similar strategy might mitigate some major issues such as the problem of time or the embedding of quantum non-locality (...) into relativistic spacetimes. (shrink)

One of the main challenges in consciousness research is widely known as the hard problem of consciousness. In order to tackle this problem, I utilize an approach from theoretical physics, called stochastic electrodynamics (SED), which goes one step beyond quantum theory and sheds new light on the reality behind matter. According to this approach, matter is a resonant oscillator that is orchestrated by an all-pervasive stochastic radiation field, called zero-point field (ZPF). The properties of matter are (...) not intrinsic but acquired by dynamic interaction with the ZPF, which in turn picks up information about the material system as soon as an ordered state, i.e., a stable attractor, is reached. I point out that these principles apply also to macroscopic biological systems. From this perspective, long-range correlations in the brain, such as neural gamma synchrony, can be interpreted in terms of order phenomena induced and stabilized by the ZPF, suggesting that every attractor in the brain goes along with an information state in the ZPF. In order to build the bridge to consciousness, I employ additional input from Eastern philosophy. From a comparison between SED and Eastern philosophy I draw the conclusion that the ZPF is an appropriate candidate for the substrate of consciousness, implying that information states in the ZPF are associated with conscious states. On this basis I develop a conceptual framework for consciousness that is fully consistent with physics, neurophysiology, and Eastern philosophy. I argue that this conceptual framework has many interesting features and opens a door to a theory of consciousness. Particularly, it solves the problem of how matter and consciousness communicate in a causally closed functional chain, it gives a physical grounding to existing approaches regarding the connection between consciousness and information, and it gives clear direction to future models and experiments. (shrink)

This article develops the concept of “agnotology”, a term coined by the historian of science Robert N. Proctor and the linguist Ian Bolas. Agnotology implies the study of ignorance, especially how ignorance and doubt are strategically induced by specific agents through misinformation, misleading research and inaccurate scientific data. The aim of this article is twofold: on the one hand it summarizes the main objectives of the agnotological area of study, taking into account the state of the art over the (...) subject matter. On the other hand it criticizes agnotology from a philosophical perspective. In fact, agnotology is heir to a metaphysical conception of reality grounded upon polar oppositions such as true/false, appearance/substance, good/evil. My claim is that agnotology’s efforts in studying the spread of ignorance remain entangled in a mindset, typical of conspiracy theories, which debases the complexity of reality into a two sided clash of ideologies. (shrink)

Despite its title, this is an extremely useful book: the first four of its five chapters expound the standard range of theories of practical reasoning more clearly and accurately than one might have thought possible. A measure of Schaubroeck’s authoritative handling of her material is her ability to navigate the peaks, troughs and crevasses of the myriad variations of ‘internalism’ and ‘externalism’ without inducing either vertigo or fury. Thus she patiently guides the reader through the stupefying obstacles along the route (...) of post-Bernard Williams usages of the terminology as well, it seems to me, as anyone could possibly do. Her specific focus, furthermore, on what she terms—albeit in my view somewhat misleadingly—Humean , Kantian and Platonic variations on a theme enables the reader to see very clearly just what is at stake in the tangled literature on practical reasoning and why it matters. As a guide for the perplexed, then, or for t .. (shrink)

ABSTRACTNumerous studies have found that shame increases individuals’ anger at others. However, according to recent theories about the social function of shame and anger at others, it is possible that shame controls individuals’ anger at others in specific conditions. We replicated previous findings that shame increased individuals’ anger at others’ unfairness, when others were not aware of the individual’s experience of shameful events. We also found for the first time that shame controlled or even decreased individuals’ anger at others’ unfairness, (...) when others were aware of the individual’s experience of shameful events. The results were consistent when shame was induced by either a recall paradigm or an imagination paradigm, and in either the ultimatum game or the dictator game. This suggests that shame strategically controls individuals’ anger at others to demonstrate that they are willing to benefit others, when facing the risk of social exclusion. Our findings highlight the interpersonal function of... (shrink)

In his new book Saving Animals, Saving Ourselves: Why Animals Matter for Pandemics, Climate Change, and Other Catastrophes Jeff Sebo argues that animals matter with regard to human-induced crises and that humans have a moral responsibility to prevent, reduce, or repair the increasing amount of nonhuman suffering and death that we find in today’s world. Moreover, he attempts to show how these various human-induced crises are interlinked among themselves and with our treatment of animals in a (...) number of complex ways on both the levels of empirical facts and moral considerations. In this review I summarize Sebo’s argumentation and then critically evaluate it. (shrink)

I intend to take into account Meinong's theory of objects from a point of view allowed by the author himself, when he agrees that the proper "place" for such a doctrine is the theory of knowledge. According to this suggestion, I think it convenient to explain the doctrine at issue in the light of the definition of knowing as a "double" act, in which the object known is "in front o f the knowing act itself as something comparatively (...) autonomous. From this point of view a comparison with Husserl's "pure logic" - as Meinong again suggests - as well as a valuation of the part played by our philosopher in their common Opposition to psychologism seem to be of interest.Pure logic seems to answer in the most adequate way the demands that induce Meinong to elaborate a theory of pure objects: such objects are taken into consideration as to their positivity and possibility founded on equally pure operations of a subject. At the same time pure logic provides us with a clue to the ambiguity of Außersein: as a matter of fact, Meinong, freeing himself from the prejudice in favor of what is actual, remains involved in what I would call a prejudice "in favor of what has being"; he thinks it necessary to resort to an assumption, that is to a simulation of being in order to explain our thinking of a non-being object. Furthermore according to him an assumpion is in general demanded in order to think of an object as to his so-being, that is of the outside-being object.There are two orders of questions: the first one regards the "formal" generality of the fundamental gnosiological problems, leaving out of consideration every "matter" of knowledge, the second refers to the gnosiological-phenomenological foundation of the concepts and of the laws of pure logic. They are absolutely inseparable, and yet strictly distinct. The first order should be the right place for the Außersein of pure objects. (shrink)

We describe a first experiment on whether product complexity affects competition and consumers in retail markets. We are unable to detect a significant effect of product complexity on prices, except insofar as the demand elasticity for complex products is higher. However, there is qualified evidence that complex products have the potential to induce consumers to buy more than they would otherwise. In this sense, consumer exploitability in quantities cannot be ruled out. We also find evidence for shaping effects: consumers’ preferences (...) are shaped by past experience with prices, and firms may in principle exploit this to sell more. (shrink)

In order to get to a geometrically based theory of gravitation and electromagnetism, a gauge covariant bimetric tetrad space-time is introduced. The Weylian connection vector is derived from the tetrads and it is identified with the electromagnetic potential vector. The formalism is simplified by the use of gauge-invariant quantities. The theory contains a contorsion tensor that is connected with spinning properties of matter. The electromagnetic field may be induced by conventional sources and by spinning matter. (...) In absence of spinning matter, the equations are identical with those of the gauge-covariant bimetric theory.(23). (shrink)

We construct a world model consisting of a matter field living in 4 dimensional spacetime and a gravitational field living in 11 dimensional spacetime. The seven hidden dimensions are compactified within a radius estimated by reproducing the particle–wave characteristics of diffraction experiments. In the presence of matter fields the gravitational field develops localized modes with elementary excitations called gravonons which are induced by the sources. The final world model treated here contains only gravonons and a scalar (...) class='Hi'>matter field. The gravonons are localized in the environment of the massive particles which generate them. The solution of the Schrödinger equation for the world model yields matter fields which are localized in the 4 dimensional subspace. The localization has the following properties: There is a chooser mechanism for the selection of the localization site. The chooser selects one site on the basis of minor energy differences and differences in the gravonon structure between the sites, which at present cannot be controlled experimentally and therefore let the choice appear statistical. The changes from one localization site to a neighbouring one take place in a telegraph-signal like manner. The times at which telegraph like jumps occur depend on subtleties of the gravonon structure which at present cannot be controlled experimentally and therefore let the telegraph-like jumps appear statistical. The fact that the dynamical law acts in the configuration space of fields living in 11 dimensional spacetime lets the events observed in 4 dimensional spacetime appear non-local. In this way the phenomenology of CQM is obtained without the need of introducing the process of collapse and a probabilistic interpretation of the wave function. Operators defining observables need not be introduced. All experimental findings are explained in a deterministic way as a consequence of the time development of the wave function in configuration space according to Schrödinger’s equation without the need of introducing a probabilistic interpretation. (shrink)

Nāgārjuna argues for the fundamental importance of causality, and dependence more generally, to our understanding of reality and of human life: his account of these matters is generally correct. First, his account of interdependence shows how we can clearly understand the nature of scientific explanation, the relationship between distinct levels of theoretical analysis in the sciences (with particular attention to cognitive science), and how we can sidestep difficulties in understanding the relations between apparently competing ontologies induced by levels of (...) description or explanation supervening on one another. Then rGyal tshab's exposition of Dharmakīrti's account, in the pramānasiddhi chapter of the "Pramāṇavarttika", of the necessity of a belief in rebirth for the cultivation of bodhicitta is examined. This account is accepted in the dGe lugs tradition both as an accurate representation of Dharmakīrti's views and as authoritative regarding bodhicitta and the mahākarunā that is its necessary condition. But Dharmakīrti, rGyal tshab, and their followers, by virtue of accepting this argument, neglect Nāgārjuna's account of dependent arising and in consequence are implicated in what might be seen from a proper Prāsaṅgika-Madhyamaka point of view as the very subtlest form of self-grasping. (shrink)

The Direction of Medical Ethics The direction bioethics, and specifically medical ethics, will take in the next few years will be crucial. It is an emerging specialty that has attempted a great deal, that has many differing agendas, and that has its own identity crisis. Is it a subspecialty of clinical medicine? Is it a medical reform movement? Is it a consumer pro tection movement? Is it a branch of professional ethics? Is it a ra tionale for legal decisions and (...) agency regulations? Is it something physicians and ethical theorists do constructively together? Or is it a morally concentrated attack on high technology, with the prac titioners of scientific medicine and the medical ethicists in an adversarial role? Is it a conservative endeavor, exhibiting a Frankenstein syn drome in Medical Genetics ("this time, they have gone too far"), or a Clockwork Orange syndrome in Psychotherapy ("we have met hods to make you talk-walk-cry-kill")? Or does it suffer the afflic tion of overdependency on the informal fallacy of the Slippery Slope ("one step down this hill and we will never be able to stop") that remains an informal fallacy no matter how frequently it's used? Is it a restricted endeavor of analytic philosophy: what is the meaning of "disease," how is "justice" used in the allocation of medical resources, what constitutes "informed" or "consent?" Is it applied ethics, leading in clinical practice to some recommenda tion for therapeutic or preventive action? This incomplete list of questions indicates just how complex. (shrink)

The gauge compensation fields induced by the differential operators of the Stueckelberg-Schrödinger equation are discussed, as well as the relation between these fields and the standard Maxwell fields; An action is constructed and the second quantization of the fields carried out using a constraint procedure. The properties of the second quantized matter fields are discussed.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:61 PROJECTIONISM, REALISM, AND HUME'S MORAL SENSE THEORY* Introduction The character of Hume's moral theory is currently a topic of considerable discussion.1 We find in the recent literature essentially two sorts of interpretation of Hume's theory. On the one side there is the view that, for Hume, the distinction between virtue and vice is reducible to the moral sentiments of approval and disapproval. Associated with this (...) view is the further claim that Hume ascribes to us the belief that virtue and vice exist as the counterparts to these sentiments; and, in addition, that this belief is, for Hume, a mistaken one. For reasons which will become obvious this may be described as the Projectionist account of Hume. On the other side, there is the attempt to represent Hume's moral theory as a form of realism, i.e., a theory according to which there are moral properties belonging to actions, or the agents who perform them, which provide objective correlates of the feelings which those actions, or the agents concerned, induce in us as spectators. Now clearly an important part of what is at stake between these different interpretations is the question of how seriously we should take Hume's own description of this theory as one according to which moral distinctions are derived from a moral sense. It is characteristic of the Projectionist interpretation to suggest that 'sense' is equivalent here to 'sentiment', and, indeed, that Hume's moral sense theory is tantamount to the denial that there is anything in Objects' themselves corresponding to our moral (or aesthetic) sentiments. The Realist interpretation, on the other hand, stresses the importance of Hume's references in 62 the Treatise to a moral (and aesthetic) sense, and the precedent provided in this respect by Hutcheson; and it takes seriously the idea that this sense enables us to become acquainted, via the sentiments involved, with the qualities of virtue and vice. My own interest in these different interpretations concerns their disagreement about the way in which we should understand Hume's notion of a moral sense. I wish to argue against the Projectionist interpretation, and its dismissive treatment of Hume's references to a moral sense, though it is a further question whether the view of Hume which emerges deserves the name of 'Realism'. 1. The Projectionist Interpretation It seems clear that the notion of a moral sense cannot be intended literally, i.e., as though there is a form of moral sense-perception strictly comparable to the modes of perception provided by the external senses. It is, presumably, part of the definition of a sense that it is a faculty whose function depends upon stimulation of an organ or, at least, receptors peculiar to that sense; and, furthermore, in the case of the various external senses there is -- except for the contact sense of touch -- a distinctive medium of perception. For both these reasons moral sense theorists can only be proposing an analogy with the external senses. In Hume's case in particular, however, there appear to be reasons for doubting whether the analogy can be more than superficial. Perhaps the most obvious of these lies with Hume's insistence on the action-guiding character of the distinction between moral good and evil (see e.g., T 437-462). For it seems clear that sense-perceptions g as such can have no direct influence upon our actions. 63 Then there is Hume's denial that morality consists in any matter of fact (T 468; EPM 292). If virtue and vice are to be considered the objects of some form of moral sense-perception their existence presumably does become a matter of fact. Finally, a moral sense theory seems to imply that judgements of virtue and vice are straightforwardly true or false, according to whether or not we perceive veridical Iy; while Hume's own discussion sometimes points to a non-propositional view of moral utterances as the expression of certain feelings or sentiments. These last two points remind us that Hume often appears to deny that values belong as intrinsic properties to the objects evaluated. This is obviously true of the following, much quoted, passage: Take any... (shrink)

Contemporary theory of argumentation offers many insights about the ways in which, in the context of a public controversy, arguers should ideally present their arguments and criticize those of their opponents. We also know that in practice not all works out according to the ideal patterns: numerous kinds of derailments are an object of study for argumentation theorists. But how about the use of unfairstrategiesvis-à-vis one’s opponents? What if it is not a matter of occasional derailments but of (...) one party’s systematic refusal to take other parties seriously? What if one party continually forgoes any form of critical testing and instead resorts to threats or blackmail? Can this be countered by the tools of reason? Or should one pay one’s opponent back in the same coin? To gain some grasp of these issues, we describe a number of strategies used in the public controversy about induced earthquakes in Groningen. We check whether these strategies arefair,i.e.balanced, transparent,andtolerant.We also investigate the effects of the choice for a particular kind of strategy. It appears that, in circumstances, choosing a fair strategy may be detrimental for resolving the controversy and choosing an unfair one beneficial. Following up ideas from social psychology and political science, we formulate some guidelines for the choice of strategies. At the end, we stress the importance — especially for those whose opinions carry little weight — of having a society in which the knowledge and skills needed for assessing the fairness of strategies are widespread. (shrink)

Among the alternatives of non-relativistic quantum mechanics (NRQM) there are those that give different predictions than quantum mechanics in yet-untested circumstances, while remaining compatible with current empirical findings. In order to test these predictions, one must isolate one’s system from environmental induced decoherence, which, on the standard view of NRQM, is the dynamical mechanism that is responsible for the ‘apparent’ collapse in open quantum systems. But while recent advances in condensed-matter physics may lead in the near future to (...) experimental setups that will allow one to test the two hypotheses, namely genuine collapse vs. decoherence, hence make progress toward a solution to the quantum measurement problem, those philosophers and physicists who are advocating an information-theoretic approach to the foundations of quantum mechanics are still unwilling to acknowledge the empirical character of the issue at stake. Here I argue that in doing so they are displaying an unwarranted double standard. r 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Research on self-determination theory and clinical models such as acceptance and commitment therapy has shown that behaving in line with our values is key to maintaining healthy well-being. Combining work on values and experimental studies on moral hypocrisy and well-being, we experimentally tested how behaving incongruently with values affects well-being. We hypothesized that discrepancies between how one thinks one should have behaved and how one reported one did behave would be more detrimental to well-being when the behaviors were value-expressive (...) and motivationally coherent compared to a control condition; greater perceived gaps between how participants feel they should have acted and how they report they did act would be associated with more negative well-being outcomes; the relationship between value manipulation and well-being would be mediated by perceived behavioral gap; and that personal values would interact with value manipulation to produce differential effects on well-being. One-hundred and fifty-eight first-year psychology students participated in an experiment designed to highlight discrepancies between how participants have behaved in accordance with a certain value and how they think they should have behaved, before reporting their well-being. As hypothesized, greater discrepancies between reported past behavior and how participants thought they should have behaved was associated with negative affect and decreased reports of positive well-being. We found no evidence for differential effects of manipulated value-expressive behaviors on well-being, or for our hypotheses that personal values and manipulated value-expressive behaviors interact. Nevertheless, value content mattered in terms of inducing perceived behavioral gaps. Our study suggests that perceived discrepancies between any value and reported past behavior can have a negative impact on some aspects of well-being. We discuss how the application of our methodology can be used in further studies to disentangle the value-behavior nexus. (shrink)

It is often thought that Aristotelian hylomorphism was undermined in the early modern era by the external challenges that alternative atomist and corpuscularian matter theories posed. This narrative neglects the fact that hylomorphism was not one homogeneous theory but a fruitful, adaptable framework that enabled scholastic Aristotelianism to continuously transform itself from within and resolve new natural philosophical, metaphysical, and theological problems. I focus on the period of the Counter-Reformation and rise of Protestant scholastic metaphysics. During this time (...) accounting for the individuation of substances within a hylomorphic framework consistent with Aristotle’s texts, the doctrine of the Trinity, and Aristotelian physics became both urgent and more challenging. I show that Protestant scholastics who took up influential late sixteenth-century Jesuit accounts of individuation so altered the hylomorphic framework inherited from medieval philosophers that atomism appeared to at least one author as more consistent with Aristotle’s metaphysical commitments. (shrink)

This essay addresses Cartesian duality and how its implicit dialectic might be repaired using physics and information theory. Our agenda is to describe a key distinction in the physical sciences that may provide a foundation for the distinction between mind and matter, and between sentient and intentional systems. From this perspective, it becomes tenable to talk about the physics of sentience and ‘forces’ that underwrite our beliefs (in the sense of probability distributions represented by our internal states), which (...) may ground our mental states and consciousness. We will refer to this view as Markovian monism, which entails two claims: (1) fundamentally, there is only one type of thing and only one type of irreducible property (hence monism). (2) All systems possessing a Markov blanket have properties that are relevant for understanding the mind and consciousness: if such systems have mental properties, then they have them partly by virtue of possessing a Markov blanket (hence Markovian). Markovian monism rests upon the information geometry of random dynamic systems. In brief, the information geometry induced in any system—whose internal states can be distinguished from external states—must acquire a dual aspect. This dual aspect concerns the (intrinsic) information geometry of the probabilistic evolution of internal states and a separate (extrinsic) information geometry of probabilistic beliefs about external states that are parameterised by internal states. We call these intrinsic (i.e., mechanical, or state-based) and extrinsic (i.e., Markovian, or belief-based) information geometries, respectively. Although these mathematical notions may sound complicated, they are fairly straightforward to handle, and may offer a means through which to frame the origins of consciousness. (shrink)

I consider Kant’s theory of matter, examine his distinction between “formal” and “material” purposiveness, review the related secondary literature, and interpret the role of the stuff of which organs consist in his conception of the special characteristics of organisms. As organisms ingest or absorb compounds, they induce chemical changes among those materials to grow and repair organs. Those organs have their functions with respect to each other in part on account of the materials of which they are composed. (...) A Kantian biological law, I argue, is a coordinated system of lower-order chemical and mechanical regularities that an organism instantiates in the relations that its organs have to each other. I interpret Kant’s contention that organisms resist cognition as claiming that a “discursive understanding” can have no conception of why a particular biological law instantiates whichever lower-order mechanical and chemical regularities it does. (shrink)

The feeling of clarity can be dangerously seductive. It is the feeling associated with understanding things. And we use that feeling, in the rough-and-tumble of daily life, as a signal that we have investigated a matter sufficiently. The sense of clarity functions as a thought-terminating heuristic. In that case, our use of clarity creates significant cognitive vulnerability, which hostile forces can try to exploit. If an epistemic manipulator can imbue a belief system with an exaggerated sense of clarity, then (...) they can induce us to terminate our inquiries too early — before we spot the flaws in the system. How might the sense of clarity be faked? Let’s first consider the object of imitation: genuine understanding. Genuine understanding grants cognitive facility. When we understand something, we categorize its aspects more easily; we see more connections between its disparate elements; we can generate new explanations; and we can communicate our understanding. In order to encourage us to accept a system of thought, then, an epistemic manipulator will want the system to provide its users with an exaggerated sensation of cognitive facility. The system should provide its users with the feeling that they can easily and powerfully create categorizations, generate explanations, and communicate their understanding. And manipulators have a significant advantage in imbuing their systems with a pleasurable sense of clarity, since they are freed from the burdens of accuracy and reliability. I offer two case studies of seductively clear systems: conspiracy theories; and the standardized, quantified value systems of bureaucracies. (shrink)

We present a gravitational quantum dynamics theory that combines quantum field theory for particle dynamics in space-time with classical Einstein’s general relativity in a non-Riemannian Finsler space. This approach is based on the geometrization of quantum mechanics proposed in Tavernelli and combines quantum and gravitational effects into a global curvature of the Finsler space induced by the quantum potential associated to the matter quantum fields. In order to make this theory compatible with general relativity, the (...) quantum effects are described in the framework of quantum field theory, where a covariant definition of ‘simultaneity’ for many-body systems is introduced through the definition of a suited foliation of space-time. As in Einstein’s gravitation theory, the particle dynamics is finally described by means of a geodesic equation in a curved space-time manifold. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.2 (2003) 273-274 [Access article in PDF] Christoph Lüthy, John E. Murdoch, and William R. Newman, editors. Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Pp. viii + 610. Cloth, $186.00. The nineteen papers of this weighty (handsomely produced, but expensive) volume are mostly devoted to the views of one thinker or group of persons on "corpuscularism" (see 17ff.), (...) in either physics or mathematics, with few synthetic or diachronic studies. Only a quarter of the volume is devoted to the medieval period: Danielle Jacquart on minima in the Salerno school of medicine (twelfth century); the late George Molland on Roger Bacon's and Grosseteste's "corpuscular tendencies"; Charles Lohr on Ramon Lull; John Murdoch on minima naturalia in the medieval and Renaissance periods; and the greater part of William Newman's study of corpuscularian conceptions in "Aristotelian alchemy" from Geber to Sennert. The early-modern part includes studies on mostly expected figures: Francesco Patrici, Giordano Bruno, the Northumberland circle, Francis Bacon, David Gorlaeus (a little-known Dutch theology student; 1591-1612, sic), Daniel Sennert, Honoré Fabri, Galileo, Gassendi, Charleton, Boyle, Locke, and Homberg. Alan Gabbey more generally distinguishes different patterns of explanations in mechanical philosophy.As far as I can judge, the authors are knowledgeable and competent, and the studies make important contributions. But just because this is a high-quality volume produced with the ambition of making a step toward rewriting the history of a major chapter in the history of science, its two significant and principled deficiencies must be pointed out.The volume follows the intention of "show[ing] the debt of early-modern matter theory to previous traditions and thereby [explaining] its bewildering heterogeneity" (back cover). Now, the study of the corpuscular traditions in the pre-modern period is certainly an important desideratum (although this volume again attends chiefly to the early modern corpuscularians). But the motivation and perspective here announced—the medieval period [End Page 273] is to be studied because early modern science is indebted to it—are astoundingly Whiggish. Worse: the study of the entire Arabic-Islamic tradition is dismissed, on the grounds that "Islamic atomism does not seem to have been of any influence upon Christian fourteenth-century atomism" (8): this is not only Whiggism, but also frank and explicit euro- and Christian-centrism, which in the beginning of the twenty-first century is simply stunning. The method amusingly consists in affirming the consequent: presupposing that "Islamic atomism" did not influence the West and early-modern science, no scholar was asked to examine whether or not this was indeed the case, with the congenial result that the volume seemingly confirms the initial presupposition. Q.E.D. Similarly and no less regrettably, the fact that (ps.-) Geber's Summa Perfectionis is not, as Lasswitz had thought, the translation of an Arabic work is here used as grounds on which to dismiss altogether his claim concerning the importance of the Arabic input (13, but see also 293). This way, incomprehension between civilizations is reinforced instead of being reduced, and I believe we did not need September 11 to know this.The thusly dismissed Mu'tazilite school of Islamic theology had important repercussions in Judaism, so that referring to it as "Islamic atomism" is misleading (see notably Hagai Ben-Shammai, "Studies in Karaite Atomism," Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 6 [1985]: 243-93). The volume's forty-page cumulative bibliography, for which the editors are to be congratulated, reflects the volume's parochial viewpoint: H. A. Wolfson's important The Philosophy of the Kalam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), with some 150 pages on atomism, is not included; nor is the (English version of the) landmark study by the late S. Pines, Studies in Islamic Atomism (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1997; the original 1936 German version is mentioned). Wolfson's study, incidentally, shows that the editors' presupposition (8) that the Kalâm tradition could have influenced the West only via the Latin translation of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed is unwarranted, for Isaac... (shrink)

Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science Volume 77Issue 4 01 November 2023 Table of Contents -/- [1] C. T. Wolfe, “The life of matter: early modern vital matter theories,” Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, vol. 77, no. 4, pp. 673–675, Nov. 2023. -/- [2] G. Giglioni, “Large as life: Francis Bacon on the animate matter of plants,” Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of (...) the History of Science, vol. 77, no. 4, pp. 677–696, Nov. 2023. -/- [3] L. Georgescu, “Cavendish on life,” Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, vol. 77, no. 4, pp. 697–715, Nov. 2023. -/- [4] A. Clericuzio, “Thomas Willis’ iatrochemistry and the activity of matter,” Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, vol. 77, no. 4, pp. 717–732, Nov. 2023. -/- [5] R. Garau, “Gassendi’s second thought. From a materialistic picture of cognition to the defence of dualism: the lasting influence of the polemic with Descartes,” Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, vol. 77, no. 4, pp. 733–751, Nov. 2023. -/- [6] T. Demeter, “Sympathetic Organizations: body, mind, and society in Robert Whytt and David Hume,” Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, vol. 77, no. 4, pp. 753–769, Nov. 2023. -/- [7] P. Pecere, “Materialism, Lebenskraft and the limits of science: metaphysical vitalism in post-Kantian scenarios,” Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science, vol. 77, no. 4, pp. 771–787, Nov. 2023. -/- . (shrink)

Within twenty years of one another, Bacon and Descartes proposed cosmologies which relied heavily on matter theory. In both, the distribution of matter in the cosmos determined what centers of rotation there were, and rotating bodies were carried around by the motion of an all-encompassing celestial fluid in which they were embedded. But the role of matter theory in the two accounts is very different, both in motivation and in the level at which it is (...) active in guiding physical theory. Matter theory in Baconian cosmology stands as a foundational discipline, being virtually constitutive of physical theory, as it had been for natural philosophers from Thales onwards, whereas in Descartes it is subservient to the needs of his optics and his mechanics. Comparison of the two cases shows how the role of matter theory came to be radically modified in seventeenth-century cosmology. (shrink)

This paper examines Georg Ernst Stahl's first book, the Zymotechnia Fundamentalis, in the context of contemporary natural philosophy and the author's career. I argue that the Zymotechnia was a mechanical theory of fermentation written consciously against the influential "fermentational program" of Joan Baptista van Helmont and especially Thomas Willis. Stahl's theory of fermentation introduced his first conception of phlogiston, which was in part a corpuscular transformation of the Paracelsian sulphur principle. Meanwhile some assumptions underlying this theory, such (...) as the composition of matter, the absolute passivity of matter and the "passions" of sulphur, reveal the combined scholastic and mechanistic character of Stahl's natural philosophy. In the conclusion I show that Stahl's theory of fermentation undermined the old fermentational program and paved the way for his dualist vitalism. (shrink)

This book on medieval and early modern corpuscular matter theories presents the research results of nineteen scholars, who show that his modern model of matter has some of its roots in physical, medical, mathematical, alchemical, and theological conceptions developed in the Middle Ages.

Recent work on the history of General Relativity by Renn, Sauer, Janssen et al. shows that Einstein found his field equations partly by a physical strategy including the Newtonian limit, the electromagnetic analogy, and energy conservation. Such themes are similar to those later used by particle physicists. How do Einstein's physical strategy and the particle physics derivations compare? What energy-momentum complex did he use and why? Did Einstein tie conservation to symmetries, and if so, to which? How did his work (...) relate to emerging knowledge of the canonical energy-momentum tensor and its translation-induced conservation? After initially using energy-momentum tensors hand-crafted from the gravitational field equations, Einstein used an identity from his assumed linear coordinate covariance x'=Mx to relate it to the canonical tensor. Usually he avoided using matter Euler-Lagrange equations and so was not well positioned to use or reinvent the Herglotz-Mie-Born understanding that the canonical tensor was conserved due to translation symmetries, a result with roots in Lagrange, Hamilton and Jacobi. Whereas Mie and Born were concerned about the canonical tensor's asymmetry, Einstein did not need to worry because his Entwurf Lagrangian is modeled not so much on Maxwell's theory as on a scalar theory. Einstein's theory thus has a symmetric canonical energy-momentum tensor. But as a result, it also has 3 negative-energy field degrees of freedom. Thus the Entwurf theory fails a 1920s-30s a priori particle physics stability test with antecedents in Lagrange's and Dirichlet's stability work; one might anticipate possible gravitational instability. This critique of the Entwurf theory can be compared with Einstein's 1915 critique of his Entwurf theory for not admitting rotating coordinates and not getting Mercury's perihelion right. One can live with absolute rotation but cannot live with instability. Particle physics also can be useful in the historiography of gravity and space-time, both in assessing the growth of objective knowledge and in suggesting novel lines of inquiry to see whether and how Einstein faced the substantially mathematical issues later encountered in particle physics. This topic can be a useful case study in the history of science on recently reconsidered questions of presentism, whiggism and the like. Future work will show how the history of General Relativity, especially Noether's work, sheds light on particle physics. (shrink)

I begin this paper by claiming that commentators who regard the Groundwork as Kant's final word on ethics inevitably misunderstand his moral theory. In support of this claim I focus on how Kant portrayed the role of inclinations in the morally virtuous life. A person who reads only the Groundwork will surely be struck by Kant's negative treatment of desires in that book: they are completely irrelevant to the rightness of our moral judgments, and the only specifically moral motive (...) is dutifulness, excluding all influence of the emotions, which function as the main rival to moral motivation.Kant left a thorough discussion of his division of duties for his Metaphysics of Morals, and there, when he discusses imperfect duties as well as morally permissible activities, we find that the categorical imperative is an indeterminate guide to the majority of our decisions. That is, in such matters, pure practical reason must be supplemented by both prudential judgments and motives grounded on inclinations. Then inclinations operate, not as a crutch to induce us to do our duty, but as a complement to the Categorical Imperative.The Categorical Imperative, therefore, has a more limited role in most of our decisions than appears to be the case in the Groundwork. Yet the all-encompassing role enjoyed by the moral law means that which permissible activities we engage in and exactly how we fulfil positive obligations still both need to be recognized as expressions of a person's character. Contrary a common misinterpretation, then, the criterion of effectiveness can therefore be both relevant to and even mandated by the moral law and so function as a moral category in Kant's theory. Instances in which practice goes amiss in these areas are failures of prudence, and such "faults," as Kant called them, are not necessarily incompatible with a person's ultimate moral commitment.We now can see how misled are those who describe Kant's moral theory as totally rule-bound and excessively rigoristic. That his theory leaves vast areas of our life open to prudential judgments is but another reflection of the way in which he was faitful to the thinking of ordinary people. Zu Beginn meines Beitrags behaupte ich, daß Autoren, die die Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten als sein letztes Wort zur Ethik ansehen, Kants Moraltheorie unvermeidlich mißverstehen. Um diese Behauptung zu begründen, richte ich meinen Blick in erster Linie auf die Frage, wie Kant die Rolle der sinnlichen Antriebe und Neigungen in einem moralisch tugendhaften Leben schildert. Demjenigen, der sich auf die Grundlegung beschränkt, wird die negative Behandlung dieser sinnlichen Antriebe und Neigungen in diesem Buch sicherlich auffallen. Für die Richtigkeit unserer moralischen Urteile spielen sie keine Rolle. Im Gegenteil: Die spezifisch moralische Triebfeder ist allein die Pflicht selbst. Die Gefühle sind von jedem Einfluß ausgeschlossen; statt dessen fungieren sie als die hauptsächlichen Rivalen eines eigentlich moralischen Antriebs.Kant hat die eingehende Erörterung der Einteilung der Pflichten auf die Metaphysik der Sitten verschoben, und wenn er dort sowohl unvollkommene Pflichten als auch moralisch erlaubte Handlungen diskutiert, dann sehen wir, daß der Kategorische Imperativ für die Mehrzahl unserer Entscheidungen nur eine unbestimmte Anleitung liefert. Das heißt, in diesen Bereichen bedarf die reine praktische Vernunft einer Ergänzung, durch Klugheitsurteile wie auch durch Motive, die von unseren Neigungen abhängig sind. Die Neigungen sind in der Metaphysik der Sitten nicht eine Krücke, um uns zu pflichtgemäßem Handeln zu bringen, vielmehr dienen sie der Vervollständigung des Kategorischen Imperativs.Die Rolle, die der Kategorische Imperativ bei den meisten unserer Entscheidungen spielt, ist deshalb viel eingeschränkter, als es in der Grundlegung erscheint. Das bedeutet, daß die Art und Weise, wie wir unsere positiven Verpflichtungen erfüllen, und die Auswahl der erlaubten Handlungen, auf die wir uns einlassen, immer noch als Ausdruck des Charakters unserer Person anerkannt werden müssen, obwohl und weil das moralische Gesetz über allem steht. Entgegen einem gewöhnlichen Mißverständnis kann auch das Kriterium der Effektivität für das moralische Gesetz relevant und vom moralischen Gesetz sogar vorgeschrieben sein und so in Kants Theorie als eine moralische Kategorie fungieren. Soweit diese Überlegungen reichen, erweisen sich Mängel in unserer Praxis als Fälle, in denen unsere Klugheit versagt hat, und derartige "Fehler", wie Kant sie nennt, sind nicht notwendigerweise unvereinbar mit einem Selbstverständnis, daß das moralische Gesetz für mich letztendlich die entscheidende Rolle spielt.Wir sehen nun, wie falsch eine Interpretation ist, die Kants Moraltheorie als vollständig an Regeln gebunden und übertrieben rigoristisch beschreibt. Daß seine Theorie große Bereiche unseres Lebens für Klugheitsentscheidungen offen läßt, ist nur ein anderer Aspekt seiner Bindung an die "gemeine Menschenvernunft". (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.2 (2004) 1-6 [Access article in PDF] Once Again, This Time with Feeling Stephen Davies The arbitrariness of so many virtuosos is partly responsible for the excess of expression marks to be found in the works of composers who thus hoped to forestall distortion and misinterpretation. Yet, complete control over the performer is not only impossible but also undesirable. The only remedy is to (...) improve the education of performers in matters of musical style and taste. The most common fault is the application of a Romantic, that is, a highly expressive treatment of non-Romantic music, such as the works of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. The deplorable result is an overdoing of all nuances: the use of prestissimo instead of allegro, of larghissimo instead of adagio, of fff and ppp instead of f and p, of frequent crescendi and decrescendi instead of an even level of sonority, of numerous rubatos, ritardandos, and accelerandos instead of strictly kept tempo, etc. In view of all these tendencies nothing seems to be more important for the student than to learn to play without expression. Only the pianist who has learned to play Bach's Chromatic Fantasia or Beethoven's Apassionata in the most rigid way will be able to add that amount of nuances and shades which these works properly require.1 Prelude How does the performer communicate the emotional expressiveness imparted by the composer to his music? The response to this question will depend on one's view of performance. For Western works specified notationally(to which I will restrict the following discussion), a plausible position regards musical performance as analogous to quotation. The performer's task and intention is, by following the composer's score, to repeat or re-create an "utterance" made originally by the composer, and, thereby, to convey what he meant by it. The response will depend also on one's theory as regards the manner in which music is expressive of emotion. [End Page 1] Expressive Performance as Feeling or Simulation One such account, known as the expression theory, has it that music is expressive of an emotion just in case the composer experienced that emotion and gave vent to it through the act of composition; the work, his "utterance," betrays what he felt. In that case, the performer's task is to quote the composer's utterance in a manner that betrays the same emotion. Rather than merely mouthing what he says, she will invest it with the passion that would be typical of someone's giving direct expression to his or her experience of the relevant emotion. She might adopt either of two approaches to this end. Like the "method" actor, she might induce an equivalent emotion in herself and affirm what she quotes as an expression of her own feeling, this being one she shares with the composer. Or she might simulate the expression of the appropriate emotion. She articulates the composer's utterance as if she felt what he did.According to the arousal theory, music is expressive of a given emotion just in case the audience is aroused to an experience of that emotion as a consequence of listening to and following the music. In that case, the performer's goal is to move the auditor to an appropriate emotional response by "quoting" the composer. One of the most compelling ways of doing so would be by eliciting an empathetic reaction. Provided the performer demonstrates the appropriate feeling with sufficient ardor, she can rely on the natural human sympathy of the audience to kindle in them a reaction echoing her own emotion. Accordingly, she should proceed as already described, either by inciting herself to the appropriate emotion and showing it in her manner of playing, or, at least, by acting if she is in the grip of that emotion, even if she is not.There are grounds for rejecting both the emotivist and the arousal theories of musical expressiveness, but independent of those reasons, it should be apparent that what these accounts imply about the manner of performing music expressively is... (shrink)

ZusammenfassungAus der Sicht der offenen Transzendentalphilosophie kommt es weniger auf eine physikali‐stische Gesamttheorie der Welt an als auf eine Analyse der normativen Tätigkeiten, die wir in die‐ser ausüben. Es wird gezeigt, wie wir – vor allem auch in der Wissenschaft – selbst die Voraus‐setzungen schaffen, die es uns erlauben, aufgrund von Wertungen ausgewählte Ziele zu erreichen. Pragmatische Erwägungen bedingen in einer gegebenen Situation den Entschluss, einen bestimm‐ten Kontext abzugrenzen, indem wir die dazu erforderlichen Regeln annehmen. Dadurch erzeugen wir ein relatives (...) Apriori, das uns die Mittel liefert, um zwischen analytisch und synthetisch, zwischen Sprache und Theorie etc. zu unterscheiden.Die Methode führt zu einem pluralistischen Weltbild: Nach der Wahl der linguistischen und ontologischen Bestandteile kann die Wahrheitsfrage im Sinne Tarskis nur mehr intern geregelt werden, während sich rivalisierende Systeme als ganze allein aufgrund von pragmatischen Krite‐rien vergleichen lassen.Es werden die deskriptiven und normativen Aspekte der Begriffe des Wertes, der Norm und der Regel erörtert, um schliesslich auf die zentrale Rotle zu verweisen, die Konventionen als nicht der Willkür ausgesetzte, sondern rational begrundete Festlegungen in sämtlichen unseren Aktivitäten spielen.SummaryFollowing my conception of open transcendentalism philosophy is less concerned with a naturalistically conceived theory of the world than with the normative activities we display in this world. By our own cultural and intellectual presuppositions we create the means – scientific or others – required for the achievement of certain goals which have previously been accepted as valuable. Pragmatic considerations induce us to establish, in given situations, what 1 call contexts by adopting particular rules. We thus produce a pragmatically relativized apriori providing us with a clearcut distinction between the analytic and the synthetic, between language and theory etc.The method issues in a pluralistic world view: Once the matter concerning the choice of a linguistic system and an ontology is settled the question of truth in Tarski's sense can only be raised internally while theories as a whole are compared on purely pragmatic grounds.I discuss some descriptive and normative aspects regarding the notions of value, norm and rule in order to ascertain the primary role played by conventions in all our activities. I rid the word of the connotation of arbitrairiness often attached to it in Anglo‐Saxon philosophy by restricting its use to deliberate acts concerned with rationally justified decisions.ResumeSelon ma conception du transcendentalisme ouvert, la philosophic est moins concernée par la recherche?on;une théorie globale du monde, telle que la préconise le naturalisme, que par ľanalyse des activités normatives que nous exerçons dans celuici. Nous créons nous‐mêmes les présuppositions qui nous permettent?on;atteindre un but – scientifique ou autre – dont la valeur a été préalablement admise. Ce sont des délibérations de type pragmatique qui nous incitent, dans une situation donnée, àétablir – en acceptant des règies idoines – ce que j ‘appellerai un contexte. Nous produisons ainsi un a priori relatif dont les préceptes, admettant une distinction stride entre ľanalytique et le synthétique, la langue et la théorie etc., resteront en vigueur tant que le cadre conceptuel en question prévaudra.La méthode mène à une vision pluraliste du monde: Le choix des éléments linguistiques et ontologiques une fois accompli, la question de la vérité, conformément à la définition de Tarski, ne peut être posée que de manière interne, tandis que la comparaison de systèmes rivaux s'opérera àľaide de critères purement pragmatiques.Dans la dernière partie, j'évoque quelques aspects descriptifs et normatifs des concepts de valeur, de norme et de règie afin de dégager le rôle central des conventions dans nos activités culturelles. Je libère la notion de convention de toute connotation ayant trait àľarbitraire en lui conférant le sens?on;un decision rationnellement justifyée. (shrink)

Philosophers of physics should be more attentive to the role energy conditions play in General Relativity. I review the changing status of energy conditions for quantum fields-presently there are no singularity theorems for semiclassical General Relativity. So we must reevaluate how we understand the relationship between General Relativity, Quantum Field Theory, and singularities. Moreover, on our present understanding of what it is to be a physically reasonable field, the standard energy conditions are violated classically. Thus the singularity theorems are (...) unavailable for classical General Relativity. Our understanding of singularities in General Relativity turns on delicate issues of what it is to be a matter field-issues distinct from the content of the theory. (shrink)