JOHN E. MURDOCH AND EDITH DUDLEY SYLLA INTRODUCTION Conferences and colloquia are held and their results often published, but very rarely is any account ...

Expanded version of author's thesis --Universite Paris IV, 1999.

It is always pretentious to treat African art as though a unitary vision of art as it is currently practiced in Africa were possible. This point of view in fact ignores or neglects African diversity: the individual plastic art experiments of African artists. These diversities, tied to the varied contexts and rapid changes that are steadily taking place everywhere, no longer permit such claims.

As its modern edition appears in the Synthese Historical Library, Adam WodehamThis book is an important contribution to the history of philosophy.It will be of interest to all medievalists, particularly to those concerned with medieval science, philosophy, and logic. Theologians and historians of mathematics will also find it useful.Whether charity or [any] other incorruptible form is composed of indivisible forms.Because this difficulty is the same for all composite divisible things, whether intensive or extensive, which are of one and the same (...) species or homogeneous, therefore I will briefly inquire indifferently concerning the former and the latter.” 3 The solutions Wodeham then proposes to the questions he asks rely nearly always on logic. (shrink)

Research and policy interest in questions of environmental waste is growing, especially plastic bag pollution. Where trash disposal and recycling are not highly regulated, the proliferation of plastic bags has created dramatic social and environmental consequences. In this article, we draw on 30 interviews with women who sell goods in markets in Mali as an entry point into investigating this issue through the interrelated dimensions of identity, gender, globalization, and the environment. We find the choices of women become suspect and (...) blamed for this environmental issue despite their having few socio-political options, while global and local political and economic elites have largely been responsible for implementing a series of policies and programs that have heightened the local effects of globalization while diminishing the services available to deal with the environmental and cultural dimensions of these changes. The issue of plastic bag pollution demonstrates the environmental consequences of development strategies that have emphasized economic growth with seemingly little concern or value for local cultures and environments, let alone the experiences and lives of poor women. (shrink)

Aristotelian philosophy is generally regarded as incompatible with the mathematical methods and principles that form the basis of modern science. This book offers an entirely new perspective on this presumed incompatibility. It surveys the tradition of the Oxford Calculators from its beginnings in the fourteenth century until Leibniz and the philosophy of the seventeenth century and explores how the Calculators' techniques of quantification expanded the conceptual and methodological limits of Aristotelianism. In the process, it examines a large number of authors, (...) some of them never studied in this context. Exploring the relationship between various late medieval disciplines, the book sheds new light on the problem of continuity vs. discontinuity between scholasticism and modern science. Beyond its historiographical purpose, this book also hopes to be a source of inspiration for present-day philosophers of science. Co-edited by Daniel A. Di Liscia and Edith D. Sylla with the collaboration of Paul Bakker. (shrink)

The relations between reason, motivation and value present problems which, though ancient, remain intractable. If values are objective and rational how can they move us and if they are dependent on our contingent desires how can they be rational? E. J. Bond makes a bold attack on this dilemma. The widespread view among philosophers today is that judgements contain an irreducible element of personal commitment. To this Professor Bond proposes an account of values as objective and value judgements as true (...) or false, employing a distinction between grounding and motivating reasons to establish their connection with action. He defines and tests his position against a number of recent theories, providing in the process forceful criticism of Williams, Wiggins, Foot, Narveson and Nagel, among others. A distinctive contribution to the subject, it will stimulate interest and worthwhile debate among philosophers, while also serving as an introduction to this vital topic. (shrink)

In a long question, "Whether there is motion to quality," which became part of his Oxford Expositio omnium librorum Physicorum cum questionibus optime disputatis, composed before 1310, Walter Burley supported the succession-of-forms theory of qualitative change. After commenting on Peter Lombard's Sentences at Paris, Burley took part in disputations on controversial questions in the early 1320s, resulting in his De primo et ultimo instanti and his Tractatus Primus and Tractatus Secundus de intensione et remissione formarum. In these independent controversial works, (...) Burley advanced and defended the succession-of-forms theory with greater detail and precision. This paper examines the treatment of the mathematics of alteration in Burley's final Parisian Expositio in libros octo de physico auditu in light of this earlier controversial work. (shrink)

In his De primo et ultimo instanti, Walter Burley paid careful attention to continuity, assuming that continua included and were limited by indivisibles such as instants, points, ubi, degrees of quality, or mutata esse. In his Tractatus primus, Burley applied the logic of first and last instants to reach novel conclusions about qualities and qualitative change. At the end of his Quaestiones in libros Physicorum Aristotelis, William of Ockham used long passages from Burley’s Tractatus primus, sometimes agreeing with Burley and (...) sometimes disagreeing. How may this interaction between Burley and Ockham be understood within its historical context? (shrink)

As its modern edition appears in the Synthese Historical Library, Adam Wodeham’s Tractatus de indivisibilibus does not appear to belong to any one discipline. With regard to its intended audience, the notice of the book appearing on the back cover states that “This book is an important contribution to the history of philosophy.” But it continues, “It will be of interest to all medievalists, particularly to those concerned with medieval science, philosophy, and logic. Theologians and historians of mathematics will also (...) find it useful.”Adam de Wodeham, Tractatus de indivisibilibus. A Critical Edition with Introduction, Translation, and Textual Notes, ed. Rega Wood (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988). In its medieval context as well, Tractatus de indivisibilibus had ambiguous disciplinary status. It begins with the question, “Whether charity or [any] other incorruptible form is composed of indivisible forms.”Wodeham, Tractatus de indivisibilibus, p. 33. Such a reference to charity signals a connection to the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Book I, dist. 17. In introducing his answer to this question, however, Wodeham states, “Because this difficulty is the same for all composite divisible things, whether intensive or extensive, which are of one and the same species or homogeneous, therefore I will briefly inquire indifferently concerning the former and the latter.”Wodeham, Tractatus de indivisibilibus, pp. 34–35. Here and elsewhere, I occasionally modify Rega Wood’s translation in the interests of exactness. The solutions Wodeham then proposes to the questions he asks rely nearly always on logic. (shrink)

As its modern edition appears in the Synthese Historical Library, Adam Wodeham’s Tractatus de indivisibilibus does not appear to belong to any one discipline. With regard to its intended audience, the notice of the book appearing on the back cover states that “This book is an important contribution to the history of philosophy.” But it continues, “It will be of interest to all medievalists, particularly to those concerned with medieval science, philosophy, and logic. Theologians and historians of mathematics will also (...) find it useful.”Adam de Wodeham, Tractatus de indivisibilibus. A Critical Edition with Introduction, Translation, and Textual Notes, ed. Rega Wood (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988). In its medieval context as well, Tractatus de indivisibilibus had ambiguous disciplinary status. It begins with the question, “Whether charity or [any] other incorruptible form is composed of indivisible forms.”Wodeham, Tractatus de indivisibilibus, p. 33. Such a reference to charity signals a connection to the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Book I, dist. 17. In introducing his answer to this question, however, Wodeham states, “Because this difficulty is the same for all composite divisible things, whether intensive or extensive, which are of one and the same species or homogeneous, therefore I will briefly inquire indifferently concerning the former and the latter.”Wodeham, Tractatus de indivisibilibus, pp. 34–35. Here and elsewhere, I occasionally modify Rega Wood’s translation in the interests of exactness. The solutions Wodeham then proposes to the questions he asks rely nearly always on logic. (shrink)

Money performs its economic functions best when its value remains stable over time. This Article explores how that desideratum was achieved, or not achieved, under five identifiable monetary regimes in economic history. Transitions from one regime to another resulted from the demands of economic growth, which some regimes met better than others. The modern fiat money regime is optimal in most economic respects. Whatever amount of money needed to accommodate growth can be supplied at minimal costs. But political control over (...) money creation can be used to increase the short-term control over economic resources of those in power and their constituents. When such debasements of money have occurred, the political economy of every regime interfered with achieving optimal long-term economic outcomes by unleashing inflation. How might the modern fiat money regime avoid that result? (shrink)