In 1845, Robert Graham’s death created a vacancy for the traditionally dual appointment to the University of Edinburgh’s chair of botany and the Regius Keepership of the Edinburgh Royal Botanic Garden. John Hutton Balfour and Joseph Hooker emerged as the leading candidates. The contest quickly became embroiled in long running controversies over the nature and control of Scottish university education at a time of particular social and political tension after a recent schism in Church of Scotland. The politics of the (...) appointment were complicated by the fact that the Edinburgh Town Council chose the chair while the keepership was under the patronage of the Westminster government . Balfour eventually emerged triumphant after a bitter campaign marked on all sides by intense politicking. The struggle to replace Graham provides a case study in how Victorian men of science adapted their aspirations to the practical realities of life in industrial, reforming, imperial, multinational Britain. (shrink)

During the 1840s and the 1850s botanist Joseph Hooker developed distinct notions about the proper characteristics of a professional man of science. While he never articulated these ideas publicly as a coherent agenda, he did share his opinions openly in letters to family and colleagues; this private communication gives essential insight into his and his X-Club colleagues' public activities. The core aspiration of Hooker's professionalization was to consolidate men of science into a dutiful and centralized community dedicated to national well-being. (...) The nation in turn owed the scientific community for its ministration. When the government bestowed funds and status on men of science it was rewarding science -- not purchasing it. His proposed reforms were piecemeal, immediate, and above all practical. He harbored no taste for vast millenarian transformation, and rested his conception of scientific professionalism upon a respectable High Victorian foundation of patronage and pillars of duty, reciprocity, intimacy, and inequality. The process of professionalization he envisioned was as much shrewd compromise between existing interests as a vindication of principle. His power and prestige from the mid-1850s onward gave him considerable ability to carry out his reform program, although his general success did occasion some undesired consequences for the status of natural-history pursuits. (shrink)

Joseph Hooker first learned that Charles Darwin believed in the transmutation of species in 1844. For the next 14 years, Hooker remained a "nonconsenter" to Darwin's views, resolving to keep the question of species origin "subservient to Botany instead of Botany to it, as must be the true relation." Hooker placed particular emphasis on the need for any theory of species origin to support the broad taxonomic delimitation of species, a highly contentious issue. His always provisional support for special creation (...) waned during the 1850s as he lost faith in its expediency for coordinating the study of plant geography, systematics and physiology. In 1858, Hooker embraced Darwin's "considerable revolution in natural history," but only after Darwin had carefully molded his transmutationism to meet Hooker's exacting specifications. (shrink)

Joseph Hooker first learned that Charles Darwin believed in the transmutation of species in 1844. For the next 14 years, Hooker remained a "nonconsenter" to Darwin's views, resolving to keep the question of species origin "subservient to Botany instead of Botany to it, as must be the true relation." Hooker placed particular emphasis on the need for any theory of species origin to support the broad taxonomic delimitation of species, a highly contentious issue. His always provisional support for special creation (...) waned during the 1850s as he lost faith in its expediency for coordinating the study of plant geography, systematics and physiology. In 1858, Hooker embraced Darwin's "considerable revolution in natural history," but only after Darwin had carefully molded his transmutationism to meet Hooker's exacting specifications. (shrink)

Logic has pride of place in mathematics and its 20th century offshoot, computer science. Modern symbolic logic was developed, in part, as a way to provide a formal framework for mathematics: Frege, Peano, Whitehead and Russell, as well as Hilbert developed systems of logic to formalize mathematics. These systems were meant to serve either as themselves foundational, or at least as formal analogs of mathematical reasoning amenable to mathematical study, e.g., in Hilbert’s consistency program. Similar efforts continue, but have been (...) expanded by the development of sophisticated methods to study the properties of such systems using proof and model theory. In parallel with this evolution of logical formalisms as tools for articulating mathematical theories (broadly speaking), much progress has been made in the quest for a mechanization of logical inference and the investigation of its theoretical limits, culminating recently in the development of new foundational frameworks for mathematics with sophisticated computer-assisted proof systems. In addition, logical formalisms developed by logicians in mathematical and philosophical contexts have proved immensely useful in describing theories and systems of interest to computer scientists, and to some degree, vice versa. Three examples of the influence of logic in computer science are automated reasoning, computer verification, and type systems for programming languages. (shrink)

This profound philosophical argument analyzes the mental processes and opinions of such physicists as Maxwell, Kelvin, Tait, etc... who, between 1750 and 1900, considered the relationship between mathematics and experience, causing a revolution which questioned the universal applicability of Newtonian "mechanism.".

This study reconstructs the relationship between philosophy and politics in the way in which Heidegger's failure as a politician influenced the redevelopment of philosophy in the 1930s. The author also explains how Heidegger's failure influenced the content and direction of his later work.

Studies the politics of Heidegger in terms of "thrownness" or "existential contingency". Attempts to think through Heidegger's philosophy in a manner that parallels his own dialogue with other key western thinkers.

The proof theory of many-valued systems has not been investigated to an extent comparable to the work done on axiomatizatbility of many-valued logics. Proof theory requires appropriate formalisms, such as sequent calculus, natural deduction, and tableaux for classical (and intuitionistic) logic. One particular method for systematically obtaining calculi for all finite-valued logics was invented independently by several researchers, with slight variations in design and presentation. The main aim of this report is to develop the proof theory of finite-valued first order (...) logics in a general way, and to present some of the more important results in this area. In Systems covered are the resolution calculus, sequent calculus, tableaux, and natural deduction. This report is actually a template, from which all results can be specialized to particular logics. (shrink)

Having visited Ireland regularly during the 1930s, Ludwig Wittgenstein resigned his Cambridge philosophy professorship in 1947 and moved there, living in a fishing village on the Atlantic coast and hotels in Dublin and the Wicklow Mountains. Although Wittgenstein spent some time out of the country, Ireland was effectively his base for three very productive years during which he worked on what would become one of his key books, the posthumously published Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein in Ireland represents the first sustained account (...) of Wittgenstein's time in Ireland, placing it in its historical context. Wall pays a good deal of attention to the representation of the Irish landscape in which the Austrian philosopher found himself able to work; a large part of his writings were produced in the bleak landscapes of Ireland and Norway. (shrink)

Social appropriateness is an important topic – both in the human-human interaction (HHI), and in the human-machine interaction (HMI) context. As sociosensitive and socioactive assistance systems advance, the question arises whether a machine’s behavior should include considerations regarding social appropriateness. However, the concept of social appropriateness is difficult to define, as it is determined by multiple aspects. Thus, to date, a unified perspective, encompassing and combining multidisciplinary findings, is missing. When translating results from HHI to HMI, it remains unclear whether (...) such insights into the dynamics of social appropriateness between humans may in fact apply to sociosensitive and socioactive assistance systems. To shed light on this matter, we propose the Five Factor Model of Social Appropriateness (FASA) which provides a multidisciplinary perspective on the notion of social appropriateness and its implementation into technical systems. Finally, we offer reflections on the applicability and ethics of the FASA Model, highlighting both strengths and limitations of the framework. (shrink)

Despite their differences in origin, the three influential schools of twentieth-century continental cultural criticism--the Frankfurt School, existentialism, and poststructuralism--have long been treated as an ensemble and with critical hesitancy. Examining these schools as responses to the apparent collapse of Western civilization in the twentieth-century and as formidable intellectual challenges to the cultural legacies of the Enlightenment, this book provides a productive base for criticism and broadens our understanding of their histories and reception.

Methods available for the axiomatization of arbitrary finite-valued logics can be applied to obtain sound and complete intelim rules for all truth-functional connectives of classical logic including the Sheffer stroke and Peirce’s arrow. The restriction to a single conclusion in standard systems of natural deduction requires the introduction of additional rules to make the resulting systems complete; these rules are nevertheless still simple and correspond straightforwardly to the classical absurdity rule. Omitting these rules results in systems for intuitionistic versions of (...) the connectives in question. (shrink)

Textbook on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and computability theory, based on the Open Logic Project. Covers recursive function theory, arithmetization of syntax, the first and second incompleteness theorem, models of arithmetic, second-order logic, and the lambda calculus.

This classic, provocative introduction to classical metaphysical questions focuses on appreciating the problems, rather than attempting to proffer answers.

Drawing on case studies from around the world - including Iran, Guatemala, USA and Mexico - this collection documents how transnational human rights discourses and legal institutions are materialised, imposed, resisted and transformed in a variety of contexts.

The Curry-Howard isomorphism is a proof-theoretic result that establishes a connection between derivations in natural deduction and terms in typed lambda calculus. It is an important proof-theoretic result, but also underlies the development of type systems for programming languages. This fact suggests a potential importance of the result for a philosophy of code.

In this study, Worsley argues that it is rational to believe in a loving God in the face of evil. Beginning with a critique of Alvin Plantinga, he shows that human freedom is highly complex, and so depends upon complex structures in nature. These are both necessary for freedom but also sufficient for natural evil. He offers close analysis of the evolution of the human brain. The book develops a parallel argument that human evil stems from the evolution of personality.

. History of the concept of economic efficiency . INTRODUCTION James Buchanan won the Nobel Prize by proving that the process by which elected officials ...

This book is the complete story of the creation of the universe, as it was understood by the ancient Egyptians. It is a collection of harmonic and radical 'Black Thoughts' and the pursuit of equality for all of this planet's inhabitants"--P. vii.