An important contribution to the foundations of probability theory, statistics and statistical physics has been made by E. T. Jaynes. The recent publication of his collected works provides an appropriate opportunity to attempt an assessment of this contribution.

The view that we are animals -- animalism -- is often misunderstood. It is typically stated in unhelpful or misleading ways. Debates over animalism are often unclear about what question it purports to answer, and what the alternative answers are. The paper tries to state clearly what animalism says and does not say. This enables us to distinguish different versions of animalism.

In four experiments, we offer evidence that virtues are often judged as uniquely important for some business practices (e.g., hospital management and medical error investigation). Overall, actions done only from virtue (either by organizations or individuals) were judged to feel better, to be more praiseworthy, to be more morally right, and to be associated with more trustworthy leadership and greater personal life satisfaction compared to actions done only to produce the best consequences or to follow the correct moral rule. These (...) results accord with claims made by some virtue ethicists. The current data contribute to a small but growing body of literature emphasizing both empirical soundness and philosophical rigor in the scientific study of virtue. Results also offer some guidance concerning how businesses, employees, and executives are evaluated and perceived. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (shrink)

(1983). Orthodoxie religieuse et sciences humaines suivi de (religious) orthodoxy, rationality and scientific knowledge. History of European Ideas: Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 346-348.

An important contribution to the foundations of probability theory, statistics and statistical physics has been made by E. T. Jaynes. The recent publication of his collected works provides an appropriate opportunity to attempt an assessment of this contribution.

One of the most recent writers on the early history of Rome has shown that the framework of the traditional story is perhaps to be trusted, even though there are many details, inconsistent and self-contradictory, which are obviously to be rejected. In view of this fact, it might be worth while to reconsider the Coriolanus story, the prevailing opinion concerning which is that vouchsafed by Mommsen many years ago: ‘die Erzählung ist ein spät, in die Annalen eingefügtes, darum in alien (...) Stücken denselben ungleichartiges und widersprechendes Einschiebsel.’ The reasons for arriving at such an opinion are sufficiently obvious to warrant their receiving but the barest recital. First, it is incredible that the Volsci would either choose a renegade Roman to be their general, or, even if they did, allow him at the last minute to rob them of the fruits of victory. Secondly, inconsistencies in the version of the story which we possess induce us to suspect its historicity; for example, Dionysius of Syracuse is made to send corn to the starving Romans'—yet Dionysius lived some hundred years later; a youthful Coriolanus is represented as having considerable influence in the senate—yet in those early days the senate was essentially a gathering of venerable men; the Roman populace learns immediately the gist of Coriolanus' remarks in the senate—yet senate meetings were held in secret; Volsci are allowed to attend the ‘ludi’ and to meet at the Spring of Ferentina—yet in the fifth century none but Latini could do this; the Roman Marcius is given an honorific cognomen, Coriolanus, because of his behaviour at the capture of Corioli—yet such cognomina were not granted until the third century or even later and even then only to the general and not to the subordinate; the plebs is represented as wielding great power in the assembly1—yet we know that in the fifth century it did nothing of the kind. (shrink)

In the fifth book of Livy there is a passage of which hitherto no good explanation has been forthcoming: Romae interim multiplex seditio erat, cuius leniendae causa coloniam in Volscos, quo tria milia civium Romanorum scriberentur, deducendam censuerant; triumvirique ad id creati terna iugera et septunces viritim diviserant.

The last Latin colony in Italy named by Livy is Aquileia; but Velleius Paterculus in a well-known passage says that Luca received a colony in 177 B.C., and follows his usual practice of not stating whether it was of the Latin or of the citizen type. Livy does not know of a colony at Luca, but does mention a citizen colony planted at Luna in 177 b.c.

With so much attention being paid to the development and refinement of appropriate criteria and tests for death, little attention has been given to the broader conceptual issues having to do with its definition or with the relation of a definition to its criterion. The task of selecting the correct criterion is, however, virtually impossible without proper attention to the broader conceptual setting in which the definition operates as the key feature. All of the issues I will discuss arise because (...) of this lack of concern with conceptual matters. Such problems as incorrectly diagnosing a patient as dead prior to the harvesting of his or her organs, defending the idea that death is reversible, and advocating a brainstem criterion of death, are all, I believe, errors that derive from this misplaced emphasis. (shrink)