This work builds on the Volterra series formalism presented in Dreisigmeyer and Young to model nonconservative systems. Here we treat Lagrangians and actions as ‘time dependent’ Volterra series. We present a new family of kernels to be used in these Volterra series that allow us to derive a single retarded equation of motion using a variational principle.

The practice of psychotherapy, or any form of counseling, inevitably requires an anthropological foundation from which to work. Defining the nature of personhood is a task which necessitates an explanation of the various aspects of the self, and the relationships between those aspects. In particular, it is crucial to delineate how the person is both an individual being and a relational being, for we intuitively experience life in both dimensions. These are two characteristics which have often been presented in opposition (...) to each other, however. What is needed is a theory which balances the individual character of personhood with the social character of personhood. The task at hand is to develop such a balance which can serve as a foundation for a Christian psychology. ;C. Stephen Evans, a philosopher and post-empirical critic of modern psychology, has emphasized the individual aspects of personhood. Soren Kierkegaard has influenced Evans' view of the self. Thus, Evans conceives of the person as fundamentally an agent, who chooses freely, acts purposefully and reasonably, and is responsible for the consequences of those choices and actions. ;Ray S. Anderson has developed a theological anthropology and on that basis has articulated a theoretical view of Christian counseling. His theory of the nature of personhood, influenced by the theologies of Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is a thoroughly social perspective. The person is essentially relational, such that one is social before one is psychological. ;The present work constructs an integrative theory which balances the individual and social insights from Evans' and Anderson's views, respectively. It is accomplished through an analysis of the self across two ontological statuses and three orientations . A biblical paradigm is developed to illustrate the grounding of that theory in a Christian framework. Implications for therapeutic interventions are provided. (shrink)

Although Brentano generally regarded himself as at heart a metaphysician, his work then and subsequently has always been dominated by the Psychology. He is rightly celebrated as the person who reintroduced the Aristotelian-Scholastic notion of intentio back into the study of the mind. Brentano's inspiration was Aristotle's theory of perception in De anima, though his terminology of intentional inexistence was medieval. For the history of the work and its position in his output may I refer to my Introduction to the (...) reprinted English translation. Alongside Aristotle the work shows influences of Descartes, Comte and the British empiricists. The theory of intentionality presented in the Psychology is much less modern and less plausible than almost all recent commentary would have it, and was in any case not where Brentano's main interest lay. Intentionality simply served to demarcate mental phenomena from physical, in Book One, but the main aim was a classification of the mental, outlined in Book Two. Books Three to Five were to have dealt in detail with the three main classes of presentations, judgements and feelings, with the final book considering the metaphysics: mind-body and the immortality of the soul. Brentano's shifting views, recently documented in English with Benito Muller's translation of Descriptive Psychology, a work from the transitional 1890s, made the original plan obsolete. The role of an a priori, philosophical or descriptive psychology, methodologically prior to empirical-experimental genetic psychology, foreshadowed and influenced Husserl's notion of phenomenology, and Brentano's Comtean methodological epoche of desisting from controversial metaphysical statements in favour of an examination of the phenomena likewise presaged Husserl's more ponderous phenomenological reductions. Brentano's other work covers most areas of philosophy, notably ethics, where he upheld a form of a priori intuitionism much admired by G. E. Moore, the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, philosophy of language, deductive and inductive logic, and the history of philosophy. I shall mention just two areas. In his logic lectures from 1866 onwards (a compilation published 1956) Brentano rejected the subject-predicate analysis of simple judgements and proposed instead (for which he apparently secured written assent from Mill) that all judgements are logical compounds of positive and negative existential judgements. For example the universal judgement All men are mortal becomes the negative existential There are no immortal men. On this basis Brentano radically simplified the inference rules of deductive logic. While unlike de Morgan, Frege and others he does not go beyond logic's traditional scope by recognising relations, within its bounds his reformed-term logic is simple, elegant and easily teachable. Some of his ideas in logic influenced the young Husserl. Unfortunately Brentano took against mathematical logic, which he wrongly associated exclusively with Hamilton's confused doctrine of the quantification of the predicate. His inductive logic, which takes up by far the greater part of his logic lectures, remains unresearched to this day. (shrink)

Summary The development of post-war German social sciences is marked by a series of disputes about the nature and implications of positivist methodology. Two of these are selected for consideration here; the ‘positivist dispute’ in German sociology associated with Adorno and Popper, and the more diffuse assault on positivism in the legal sciences. In both cases, self-avowed positivists were in fact hard to find but the debates were important polemical disputes about the past—notably the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich—and (...) the future of the young Federal Republic. It is suggested below that these disputes should be seen in this context and that the polemical claim in both disputes that certain methodological standpoints mandated specific moral and political commitments is more questionable. (shrink)

The spiritual geography of Russian cosmism. General characteristics ; Recent definitions of cosmism -- Forerunners of Russian cosmism. Vasily Nazarovich Karazin (1773-1842) ; Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev (1749-1802) ; Poets: Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov, (1711-1765) and Gavriila Romanovich Derzhavin (1743-1816) ; Prince Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky (1803-1869) ; Aleksander Vasilyevich Sukhovo-Kobylin (1817-1903) -- The Russian philosophical context. Philosophy as a passion ; The destiny of Russia ; Thought as a call for action ; The totalitarian cast of mind -- The religious and spiritual (...) context. The kingdom of god on earth ; Hesychasm: two great Russian saints ; The Third Rome ; Pre-Christian antecedents -- The Russian esoteric context. Early searches for "deep wisdom" ; Popular magic ; Higher magic in the time of Peter the Great ; Esotericism after Peter the Great ; Theosophy and anthroposophy -- Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov (1829-1903), the philosopher of the common task ; The one idea ; The unacknowledged prince ; The village teacher ; First disciple: Dostoevsky and Tolstoy ; The Moscow librarian ; Last years: Askhabad: the only portrait -- The "common task" ; Esoteric dimensions of the "common task" ; Fedorov's legacy: projectivism, delo, regulation -- The religious cosmists. Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853-1900) ; Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (1871-1944) ; Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky (1882-1937) ; Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) -- The scientific cosmists. Konstantin Edouardovich Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935) ; Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863-1945) ; Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky (1897-1964) ; Vasily Feofilovich Kuprevich (1897-1969) -- Promethean theurgy. Life-creation ; Cultural immortalism ; God-building ; Re-aiming the arrows of Eros ; Technological utopianism ; Occultism -- Fedorov's twentieth century followers. Nikolai Pavlovich Peterson (1844-1919) and Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kozhevnikov (1852-1917) ; Svyatogor and the biocosmists ; New wine and the universal task ; Alexander Konstantinovich Gorsky (1886-1943) and Nikolai Alexandrovich Setnitsky (1888-1937) ; Valerian Nikolaevich Muravyov (1885-1932) ; Vasily Nikolaevich Chekrygin (1897-1922) -- Cosmism and its offshoots today. The N.F. Fedorov museum-library ; The Tsiolkovsky museum and Chizhevsky center ; ISRICA - Institute for Scientific Research in Cosmic Anthropoecology ; Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev (1912-1992) and neo-eurasianism ; The hyperboreans ; Scientific immortalism: Igor Vishev, Danila Medvedev ; Conclusions about the Russian cosmists. (shrink)

The three young philosophers Kevin Mulligan, Peter Simons and Barry Smith have become well-known in the last few years especially in German-speaking analytical philosophy and phenomenology circles. This is on the one hand as a result of their historical and systematic philosophical work; but it is also because of the provocative way in which they represent their philosophy. Because they often appear in threes, they have become known as the "gang of three" or "three musketeers" or even – (...) and this in an admiring sense – "mafiosi" (Rescher). They are known primarily for the small workshops they have been organizing in uncomplicated Anglo-Saxon manner all over Europe. Their goal has been to show that analytic philosophy as it has been pursued up to now is in need of reform and also that the history of scientific philosophizing is not identical to the history of Anglo-Saxon analytic philosophy. Above all, they have tried to make more well known the Austrian tradition of scientific philosophy, and they can be given credit for having done much to promote the current interest in this tradition, which means: the history of Austrian philosophy of the 19th and early 20th centuries and its historical context in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. (shrink)

This book's importance is derived from three sources: careful conceptualization of teacher induction from historical, methodological, and international perspectives; systematic reviews of research literature relevant to various aspects of teacher induction including its social, cultural, and political contexts, program components and forms, and the range of its effects; substantial empirical studies on the important issues of teacher induction with different kinds of methodologies that exemplify future directions and approaches to the research in teacher induction.

Young people have an enormous stake in the present and future state of Earth. Almost half of the human population is under the age of 25. If young people’s resources of energy, time, and knowledge are misdirected towards violence, terrorism, socially-isolating technologies, and unsustainable consumption, civilization risks destabilization. Yet, there is a powerful opportunity for society if young people can participate positively in all aspects of sustainable development. In order to do so, young people need education, (...) political support, resources, skills, and hope. This volume offers a global perspective on education initiatives by and for young people that promote a transition to sustainability. It includes 38 essays co-authored by 68 contributors from 25 nations, representing a diversity of geography, gender, and generation. "The development of youth leadership has been a central concern of my professional work. Young people have a lot to offer to sustainable development and should participate in planning for our planet’s future. This rich collection of theoretical and practical approaches captures the growing response of young people to this challenge. I am particularly pleased with the attention paid to the role of often-underrepresented regions of the world, to the role of women, and to the Earth Charter in the creating of a peaceful and sustainable future." Julia Marton-Lefèvre, Director General of IUCN (International Union for Conversation of Nature), and former Rector of the University for Peace "This book is a rich, global tapestry depicting the inter-linkages among youth, education and sustainable development. What is particularly interesting is that it shows how education, at all levels, can be a powerful engine for promoting sustainability. This work is an important contribution to the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development." Goolam Mohamedbhai, Secretary-General, Association of African Universities, and Past President, International Association of Universities "This important and skillfully-prepared book comes at a critical time.... A great strength of this volume is that it blends together theoretical and practical insights regarding education for sustainable development by and for young people. It is written from diverse cultural perspectives from all world regions. Readers, from many fields, especially young people and their teachers, will find it timely and relevant. I hope that it will inspire the younger generation to get involved in seeking solutions to the challenges we face." James Gustave Speth, Former Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, and Dean Emeritus of the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University "It is my hope that you are inspired, as I have been, by Young People, Education, and Sustainable Development: Exploring Principles, Perspectives, and Praxis, for the stories in this volume are full of the possibilities that emerge when we honor and support young people." Ruud Lubbers, Former Prime Minister of The Netherlands, and past United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (shrink)

It was not long ago when the consciousness was not considered a problem for science. However, this has now changed and the problem of consciousness is considered the greatest challenge to science. In the last decade, a great number of books and articles have been published in the field, but very few have focused on the how consciousness evolves and develops, and what characterizes the transitions between different conscious states, in animals and humans. This book addresses these questions. Renowned researchers (...) from different fields of science (including neurobiology, evolutionary biology, ethology, cognitive science, computational neuroscience and philosophy) contribute with their results and theories in this book, making it a unique collection of the state-of-the-art of this young field of consciousness studies. - First book on the topic - Focus on different levels of consciousness, including: Evolutionary, developmental, and functional - Highly interdisciplinary. (shrink)

This paper is a study about Philadelphia’s comprehensive user engagement sites (CUESs) as the authors address and examine issues related to the upcoming implementation of a CUES while seeking solutions for its disputed questions and plans. Beginning with the federal drug schedules, the authors visit some of the medical and public health issues vis-à-vis safe injection facilities (SIFs). Insite, a successful Canadian SIF, has been thoroughly researched as it represents a paradigm for which a Philadelphia CUES can expand upon. Also, (...) the existing criticisms against SIFs are revisited while critically unpackaged and responded to in favor of the establishment. In the main section, the authors propose the layout and services of the upcoming CUES, much of which would be in congruent to Vancouver’s Insite. On the other hand, the CUES would be distinct from Insite, as the authors emphasize, in that it will offer an information center run by individuals in recovery and place additional emphasis on early education for young healthcare professionals by providing them a platform to work at the site. The paper will also briefly investigate the implementation of a CUES site under an ethical scope of the Harm Reduction Theory. Lastly, the authors recommend some strategic plans that the Philadelphia City government may consider employing at this crucial stage. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Politics of Aristotle by AristotleCharles M. YoungAristotle. The Politics of Aristotle. Translated by Peter L. Phillips Simpson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Pp. xliv + 274. Cloth, $39.95. Paper, $12.95.Peter Simpson’s attractively produced, readable, and generally accurate new translation offers much of assistance to the student of Aristotle’s Politics. In addition to providing [End Page 356] titles to books and chapters, Simpson (...) has broken chapters into sections, which he also titles and briefly summarizes. The summaries allow Simpson to give indications as to the flow of Aristotle’s thought without building them into the translation itself. The sections of the translation also correspond to the sections of Simpson’s still newer A Philosophical Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); notes to the translation also sometimes point to the line of argument in the commentary. Simpson also includes a translation of the last book of the Nicomachean Ethics, which many see as an introduction or transition to the Politics, a brief discussion of the translations of certain key terms, a glossary of significant terms, and an analytical outline of the argument of the Politics. The result is a welcome and useful translation and set of tools.Two of Simpson’s decisions in preparing his translation are regrettable. First, Simpson places the discussion of the best polis in books 7 and 8 between the discussion of the nature of the polis and its kinds in book 3 and the discussion of other sorts of polis in books 4–6, thus printing the books in the order 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 4, 5, 6. There are good reasons for believing that this is how Aristotle intended the Politics to be read. But in deciding the order in which to print the books, these reasons must be weighed against the inconvenience and confusion produced by departing from the normal, manuscript ordering of the books. In my view this is not even a close call. One can easily indicate one’s belief about the correct order of the books, as Simpson does (xvi–xx), and avoid all inconvenience by printing the books in their manuscript order.More to be regretted is Simpson’s decision (made, I imagine, for aesthetic reasons) not to follow the increasingly common and laudable practice of printing Bekker numbers in the margins of translations of Aristotle. These numbers are a great convenience to readers, for they make it easy to locate specific passages in different translations and in the Greek original. Simpson does give the Bekker number of the beginning of each of his sections, and he may think that this is enough to allow readers to locate specific passages easily (he says as much in his Commentary, xiii). But Simpson’s sections are sometimes as big as a Bekker page, and many of them are as many as ten to fifteen lines long; I speak from experience in reporting that it is more difficult and time-consuming to find one’s way around Simpson’s translation than it should be. [End Page 357]Charles M. YoungClaremont Graduate UniversityCopyright © 1999 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Politics of Aristotle by AristotleCharles M. YoungAristotle. The Politics of Aristotle. Translated by Peter L. Phillips Simpson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Pp. xliv + 274. Cloth, $39.95. Paper, $12.95.Peter Simpson’s attractively produced, readable, and generally accurate new translation offers much of assistance to the student of Aristotle’s Politics. In addition to providing [End Page 356] titles to books and chapters, Simpson (...) has broken chapters into sections, which he also titles and briefly summarizes. The summaries allow Simpson to give indications as to the flow of Aristotle’s thought without building them into the translation itself. The sections of the translation also correspond to the sections of Simpson’s still newer A Philosophical Commentary on the Politics of Aristotle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); notes to the translation also sometimes point to the line of argument in the commentary. Simpson also includes a translation of the last book of the Nicomachean Ethics, which many see as an introduction or transition to the Politics, a brief discussion of the translations of certain key terms, a glossary of significant terms, and an analytical outline of the argument of the Politics. The result is a welcome and useful translation and set of tools.Two of Simpson’s decisions in preparing his translation are regrettable. First, Simpson places the discussion of the best polis in books 7 and 8 between the discussion of the nature of the polis and its kinds in book 3 and the discussion of other sorts of polis in books 4–6, thus printing the books in the order 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 4, 5, 6. There are good reasons for believing that this is how Aristotle intended the Politics to be read. But in deciding the order in which to print the books, these reasons must be weighed against the inconvenience and confusion produced by departing from the normal, manuscript ordering of the books. In my view this is not even a close call. One can easily indicate one’s belief about the correct order of the books, as Simpson does (xvi–xx), and avoid all inconvenience by printing the books in their manuscript order.More to be regretted is Simpson’s decision (made, I imagine, for aesthetic reasons) not to follow the increasingly common and laudable practice of printing Bekker numbers in the margins of translations of Aristotle. These numbers are a great convenience to readers, for they make it easy to locate specific passages in different translations and in the Greek original. Simpson does give the Bekker number of the beginning of each of his sections, and he may think that this is enough to allow readers to locate specific passages easily (he says as much in his Commentary, xiii). But Simpson’s sections are sometimes as big as a Bekker page, and many of them are as many as ten to fifteen lines long; I speak from experience in reporting that it is more difficult and time-consuming to find one’s way around Simpson’s translation than it should be. [End Page 357]Charles M. YoungClaremont Graduate UniversityCopyright © 1999 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

PurposeHelping Autism‐diagnosed teenagers navigate and develop socially is an EU research project in progress. The aim of HANDS is to investigate the potential of persuasive technology as a tool to help young people diagnosed, to whatever degree, as autistic. The HANDS project set out to develop mobile ICT solutions to help young people with autism become more fully integrated into society and the purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the design behind the HANDS toolset.Design/methodology/approachThe (...) topic of credibility is approached from an analytical, as well as an ethical, angle in order to address issues of credibility in relation to designing assistive technological tools. In addition, the authors set out to explore possible ways in which credibility can be evaluated. The paper presents a preliminary method for the evaluation of credibility; but which requires further refinement, as well as empirical support in order to inform us about issues of system credibility. Therefore, the suggested method reflects a working hypothesis which may serve as a springboard for further investigation.FindingsThe authors propose a preliminary method which reveals the necessity of certain preconditions requisite for evaluating the credibility of a system; and, in this way, seek to establish an ethically sound evaluation procedure for analysing credibility, by combining quantitative and qualitative assessments of system credibility.Research limitations/implicationsFurther investigation of the evaluation process is needed to develop a standard for resolving the credibility of a system. Naturally, such a standard would serve not only as a tool for measuring credibility but also as a didactic tool for scaffolding a pedagogic dialogue between teacher and learner. It becomes important, therefore, to undertake the task of developing this standard in collaboration with the teachers in the HANDS project.Originality/valueThe paper discusses credibility issues and ethical concerns with a view to designing mobile solutions for autism‐diagnosed teenagers. The ideas expressed and developed herein are applicable to many assistive, technological tools available to persons with special needs. (shrink)

The network concept is increasingly used for the description of complex systems. Here, we summarize key aspects of the evolvability and robustness of the hierarchical network set of macromolecules, cells, organisms and ecosystems. Listing the costs and benefits of cooperation as a necessary behaviour to build this network hierarchy, we outline the major hypothesis of the paper: the emergence of hierarchical complexity needs cooperation leading to the ageing (i.e. gradual deterioration) of the constituent networks. A stable environment develops cooperation leading (...) to over‐optimization, and forming an ‘always‐old’ network, which accumulates damage, and dies in an apoptosis‐like process. A rapidly changing environment develops competition forming a ‘forever‐young’ network, which may suffer an occasional over‐perturbation exhausting system resources, and causing death in a necrosis‐like process. Giving a number of examples we demonstrate how cooperation evokes the gradual accumulation of damage typical to ageing. Finally, we show how various forms of cooperation and consequent ageing emerge as key elements in all major steps of evolution from the formation of protocells to the establishment of the globalized, modern human society. (shrink)

J. H. van 't Hoff's 1874 Dutch pamphlet, in which he proposed the spatial arrangement of atoms in a molecule, is one of the most significant documents in the history of chemistry. This essay presents a new narrative of Van 't Hoff's early life and places the appearance of the pamphlet within the context of the 'second golden age' of Dutch science. We argue that the combination of the reformed educational system in The Netherlands, the emergence of graphical molecular modelling (...) within the theoretical and practical culture of chemistry during the 1860s and 1870s, as well as Van 't Hoff's own personal research trajectory, formed the background to his unprecedented attribution of spatial meaning to the traditional concept of atomic 'arrangement'. We also present a new English translation of the pamphlet, for we have found that the existing translation, published by G. M. Richardson in 1901, contains many errors, changes and omissions. The new version offers a more accurate rendition in English of Van 't Hoff's style and argument. (shrink)

A referendum on abortion in the Republic of Ireland a while ago was strongly influenced by a curious case that aroused great controversy. You probably remember it, but I'll briefly recap the main points. A (very) young rape victim wanted an abortion (or her parents wanted it for her -- I'm not really sure, but it doesn't matter here). She was not only denied it, abortion being illegal in the Republic, but was prevented by a court ruling from going (...) to get one in a country where abortion is allowed. Now, I'm not concerned here with the moral question of abortion itself; what interests me is the confusion evinced (but apparently not felt) by most of those whose comments on the case were reported -- a confusion that afflicted those on both sides of the debate. The results of the recent referendum have reflected the confusion perfectly, with the Irish people offering their collective opinion that a woman shouldn't be allowed an abortion even if her life is endangered, but that women should be allowed free access to information about abortion and to travel to countries where abortion is legal. This would still have denied an abortion to the young rape victim, but would have allowed her to come to England for one. The confusion, it seems to me, is a symptom of two dangerous tendencies of thought concerning other people's moral beliefs -- tendencies which are often linked. (shrink)

Although the relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is, this is the first full-length study of this key concept. Showing that mereology, or the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology, Simons surveys and critiques previous theories--especially the standard extensional view--and proposes a new account that encompasses both temporal and modal considerations. Simons's revised theory not only allows him to offer fresh solutions to long-standing problems, but also has far-reaching consequences for (...) our understanding of a host of classical philosophical concepts. (shrink)

This paper is a review of work on Newman's objection to epistemic structural realism (ESR). In Section 2, a brief statement of ESR is provided. In Section 3, Newman's objection and its recent variants are outlined. In Section 4, two responses that argue that the objection can be evaded by abandoning the Ramsey-sentence approach to ESR are considered. In Section 5, three responses that have been put forward specifically to rescue the Ramsey-sentence approach to ESR from the modern versions of (...) the objection are discussed. Finally, in Section 6, three responses are considered that are neutral with respect to one's approach to ESR and all argue (in different ways) that the objection can be evaded by introducing the notion that some relations/structures are privileged over others. It is concluded that none of these suggestions is an adequate response to Newman's objection, which therefore remains a serious problem for ESRists. Introduction Epistemic Structural Realism 2.1 Ramsey-sentences and ESR 2.2 WESR and SESR The Objection 3.1 Newman's version 3.2 Demopoulos and Friedman's and Ketland's versions Replies that Abandon the Ramsey-Sentence Approach to ESR 4.1 Redhead's reply 4.2 French and Ladyman's reply Replies Designed to Rescue the Ramsey-Sentence Approach 5.1 Zahar's reply 5.2 Cruse's reply 5.3 Melia and Saatsi's reply Replies that Argue that Some Structures/Relations are Privileged 6.1 A Carnapian reply 6.2 Votsis' reply 6.3 The Merrill/Lewis/Psillos reply Summary CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is; this is the first and only full-length study of this concept. This book shows that mereology, the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology. Peter Simons surveys and criticizes previous theories, especially the standard extensional view, and proposes a more adequate account which encompasses both temporal and modal considerations in detail. 'Parts could easily be the standard book on mereology for the next (...) twenty or thirty years.' Timothy Williamson, Grazer Philosophische Studien. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 261 de Descartes," he writes, "n'est pas une th~se sur la philosophie de Descartes." Alqui6 here (and only here) excludes not only all purely mathematical texts but also those on mechanics, optics, acoustics, hydraulics, automata, etc., and even epistemologically significant items like "hi omni questione debet dari aliquod medium," "Si funis," and the full text of the ars memoriae passage. The only exception is Descartes' answer to (...) Beeckman's problem regarding free fall, truncated at the point where Descartes with the characteristic dlan of these years continues: "Ut autem hujus scientiae fundamenta jaciam...". AlquiCs general justification for the exclusion of "mathematics" rests upon the evidence that Descartes himself considered his "philosophy" autonomous. But this was the view of the mature Descartes who had a philosophy, not that of the young French officer who had just been shocked out of his pleasant intellectual dolce far niente by the encounter with Isaac Beeckman, the embodiment of the new spirit of "physico-mathematics," who suddenly showed Descartes a revolutionary alternative to Scholastic speculation. The Cogitationes privatae are the record of an awakening; "philosophical" texts among them, which Alqui6, accepting Henri Gouhier's brilliant hypothetical reconstruction, presents as "Praeambula" and "Olympica," mark the turning point: Descartes accepts, in the wake of his Dream, from the "Spirit of Truth" the mission to philosophize. The notion of philosophizing is still nebulous; of the new lands to be conquered, only "physico-mathematics" is already widlin his grasp. Of this impact of "physico-mathematics" almost nothing survives in the new edition. The "philosophical" items stand alone as if this were all that was philosophically significant at this starting point of a great itinerary. This imbalance (which half a dozen added pages could have redressed) is apt to affect the reader's judgment concerning the bigger question of the role of physics in the formation and direction of Descartes' thought. It also prevents him from recognizing how many lifelong concerns appear already at that first stage. With no early texts pointing forward toward it, the Trait~ de la m(canique of 1637 now stands forlornly at the end of the volume, and the reader may well wonder what it is doing there. This is the only point where Professor AlquiCs editorial principles work against instead of for him. Once the edition passes beyond these years of turmoil and self-discovery, it does full justice to the philosopher and the reader. Professor Alqui6's introductions are models of brevity and firm scholarship, and his annotations could hardly be more helpful. Difficult terms are patiently explained, including the seemingly simple ones which easily trip the reader; complex matters are admirably disentangled. These annotations, a running commentary, are a contribution to Descartesian scolarship in their own right. When this edition is complete it will supersede all currently available study editions. The near-perfect first volume is unique in organization and scope; as a tool of study to serve alongside AT and AM it does not have its like. GREGOR SEBBA Emory University Descartes und die Neuzeitliche Naturwissenschaft. By C. F. yon Weizs~icker. (Hamburg: Selbst-verlag der Universit~it Hamburg, 1962. Pp. 30. DM 2.) The primary aim of this brief and lucid essay is to clarify the precise sense in which Descartes sought to establish physical science on a firm mathematical foundation. In light of the development of post-Cartesian science, it is commonly supposed that Descartes helped pioneer the conception that science is a domain in which mathematics may be fruitfully applied. Professor Weizs~icker emphatically rejects this watered-down interpreta- 262 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY tion of Descartes' intentions. According to Descartes, physical science is mathematics. For only then can it consist of clear and distinct concepts wrought out of pure 9 9Descartes' argument, as Weizsiicker interprets it, is as follows. Physical science is a domain of certain knowledge only in so far as it has for its subject matter clear and distinct concepts. But apart from thought itself, our clear and distinct concepts are confined to mathematics. Thus if physics is to be a science in the strict sense, it must be mathematics. Now physical science can be mathematics if it is geometry. If nature... (shrink)

How can anyone be rational in a world where knowledge is limited, time is pressing, and deep thought is often an unattainable luxury? Traditional models of unbounded rationality and optimization in cognitive science, economics, and animal behavior have tended to view decision-makers as possessing supernatural powers of reason, limitless knowledge, and endless time. But understanding decisions in the real world requires a more psychologically plausible notion of bounded rationality. In Simple heuristics that make us smart (Gigerenzer et al. 1999), we (...) explore fast and frugal heuristics – simple rules in the mind's adaptive toolbox for making decisions with realistic mental resources. These heuristics can enable both living organisms and artificial systems to make smart choices quickly and with a minimum of information by exploiting the way that information is structured in particular environments. In this précis, we show how simple building blocks that control information search, stop search, and make decisions can be put together to form classes of heuristics, including: ignorance-based and one-reason decision making for choice, elimination models for categorization, and satisficing heuristics for sequential search. These simple heuristics perform comparably to more complex algorithms, particularly when generalizing to new data – that is, simplicity leads to robustness. We present evidence regarding when people use simple heuristics and describe the challenges to be addressed by this research program. Key Words: adaptive toolbox; bounded rationality; decision making; elimination models; environment structure; heuristics; ignorance-based reasoning; limited information search; robustness; satisficing; simplicity. (shrink)

Moving beyond the traditional, and unproductive, rivalry between the fields of motivation and cognition, this book integrates the two domains to shed new light ...

Traditional views of rationality posit general-purpose decision mechanisms based on logic or optimization. The study of ecological rationality focuses on uncovering the “adaptive toolbox” of domain-specific simple heuristics that real, computationally bounded minds employ, and explaining how these heuristics produce accurate decisions by exploiting the structures of information in the environments in which they are applied. Knowing when and how people use particular heuristics can facilitate the shaping of environments to engender better decisions.

There are at least three things we might mean by "ethics in robotics": the ethical systems built into robots, the ethics of people who design and use robots, and the ethics of how people treat robots. This paper argues that the best approach to robot ethics is one which addresses all three of these, and to do this it ought to consider robots as socio-technical systems. By so doing, it is possible to think of a continuum of agency that lies (...) between amoral and fully autonomous moral agents. Thus, robots might move gradually along this continuum as they acquire greater capabilities and ethical sophistication. It also argues that many of the issues regarding the distribution of responsibility in complex socio-technical systems might best be addressed by looking to legal theory, rather than moral theory. This is because our overarching interest in robot ethics ought to be the practical one of preventing robots from doing harm, as well as preventing humans from unjustly avoiding responsibility for their actions. (shrink)

While theories of rationality and decision making typically adopt either a single-powertool perspective or a bag-of-tricks mentality, the research program of ecological rationality bridges these with a theoretically-driven account of when different heuristic decision mechanisms will work well. Here we described two ways to study how heuristics match their ecological setting: The bottom-up approach starts with psychologically plausible building blocks that are combined to create simple heuristics that fit specific environments. The top-down approach starts from the statistical problem facing the (...) organism and a set of principles, such as the bias– variance tradeoff, that can explain when and why heuristics work in uncertain environments, and then shows how effective heuristics can be built by biasing and simplifying more complex models. We conclude with challenges these approaches face in developing a psychologically realistic perspective on human rationality. (shrink)

This book with an introduction by Witold Marciszewski, views the history of philosophy and logic from 1837 to 1939 from the perspective of the cradle of modern exact philosophy - Central Europe. In a series of case studies, it illuminates the developments in this region, most notably in Austria and Poland, examining thinkers such as Bolzano, Brentano, Meinong, Husserl, Twardowski, Lesniewski, and Tarski, as well as the logicians like Frege and Russell with whom they bore a close resemblance. The book (...) challenges established views about the history of philosophy and logic in Europe, and shows the vitality of the Central European tradition. (shrink)

It is sometimes argued that Wittgenstein's conception of grammar and the role he allocated to grammar (in his sense of the term) in philosophy changed between the Big Typescript and the Philosophical Investigations. It is also held that some of the grammatical propositions Wittgenstein asserted prior to his writing of the Philosophical Investigations are theses, doctrines, opinions or dogmatism, which he abandoned by 1936/37. The purpose of this paper is to show these claims to be misunderstandings and misinterpretations. On all (...) important matters, his conception of grammar and of grammatical investigations, of grammatical statements or propositions and of grammatical clarification did not change between the Big Typescript and the Investigations. Grammatical propositions (e.g. the meaning of a word is its use; a sample in an ostensive definition belongs to the means of representation; belief is not a mental state) are no more theses, doctrines or opinions than is “a bachelor is an unmarried man.” Nor are they in any way dogmatic. (shrink)

Introduction By the late fifth century BCE Panini had composed the Astadhyayi, consisting of nearly 4000 rules giving a precise and fairly complete ...

This article considers the Gibbs paradox and its implications for three definitions of entropy in statistical mechanics: the “classical” Boltzmann entropy ; the modified Boltzmann entropy that is usually proposed in response to the paradox ; and a generalized version of the latter. It is argued that notwithstanding a recent suggestion to the contrary, the paradox does imply that SB1 is not a satisfactory definition of entropy; SB2 is undermined by “second-order” versions of the paradox; and SB2G solves the paradox (...) but is not a satisfactory definition of entropy. (shrink)

The paper is concerned with the idea that the world is the totality of facts, not of things – with what is involved in thinking of the world in that way, and why one might do so. It approaches this issue through a comparison between Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and the identity theory of truth proposed by Hornsby and McDowell.The paper’s positive conclusion is that there is a genuine affinity between these two. A negative contention is that the modern identity theory is (...) vulnerable to a complaint of idealism that the Tractatus can deflect. (shrink)

A way of reading the Tractatus has been proposed which, according to its advocates, is importantly novel and essentially distinct from anything to be found in the work of such previously influential students of the book as Anscombe, Stenius, Hacker or Pears. The point of difference is differently described, but the currently most used description seems to be Goldfarb’s term ‘resolution’ – hence one speaks of ‘the resolute reading’. I’ll shortly ask what resolution is. For now, it is enough that (...) it aims to give full weight to the penultimate section of the Tractatus in which Wittgenstein declares his propositions to be nonsense, where giving full weight to that declaration involves not hearing it as allowing that those ‘nonsensical’ propositions might have another kind of ‘sense’. In that same section Wittgenstein explains that these nonsense propositions, while devoid of meaning, have a use: to make the kind of use of them that their author intends – and so to understand him – requires recognizing that they are nonsense; and through that recognition one ‘surmounts’ these propositions, and is led ‘to see the world aright’. So there is a point to all this nonsense. What point? (shrink)

For most of the history of metaphysics, the subject has been dominated by the concept of substance. There is an everyday commonsense notion of substance which is perfectly harmless and which I shall defend against attempts to remove it or revise it away. But I deny that substance has to be construed as a primitive even in everyday terms. Borrowing Strawson’s distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics, I press the legitimate claims of revisionary metaphysics and argue that there is no (...) place for a fundamental concept of substance within it, although aspects of the concept are likely to find their place therein. (shrink)

The relationship of part to whole is one of the most fundamental there is, yet until now there has been no full-length study of this concept. This book shows that mereology, the formal theory of part and whole, is essential to ontology. Peter Simons surveys and criticizes previous theories, especially the standard extensional view, and proposes a more adequate account which encompasses both temporal and modal considerations in detail. This has far-reaching consequences for our understanding of such classical philosophical (...) concepts as identity, individual, class, substance and accident, matter, form, essence, dependence, and integral whole. It also enables the author to offer new solutions to long-standing problems surrounding these concepts, such as the Ship of Theseus Problem and the issue of mereological essentialism. The author shows by his use of formal techniques that classical philosophical problems are amenable to rigorous treatment, and the book represents a synthesis of issues and methods from the analytical tradition and from the older continental realist tradition of Brentano and the early Husserl. (shrink)

rené descartes famously and explicitly rejects appeals to final causes in natural philosophy, suggesting that such appeals depend on knowledge of God’s inscrutable ends.For since I now know that my own nature is very weak and limited, whereas the nature of God is immense, incomprehensible and infinite, I also know without more ado that he is capable of countless things whose causes are beyond my knowledge. And for this reason alone I consider the whole kind of causes, customarily sought from (...) an end, to be totally useless in physics; there is considerable rashness in thinking myself capable of investigating God’s ends.1This rejection did not go unnoticed nor without controversy. In the Fifth.. (shrink)

These new studies of Wittgenstein's Tractatus represent a significant step beyond recent polemical debate.