Robert Batterman examines a form of scientific reasoning called asymptotic reasoning, arguing that it has important consequences for our understanding of the scientific process as a whole. He maintains that asymptotic reasoning is essential for explaining what physicists call universal behavior. With clarity and rigor, he simplifies complex questions about universal behavior, demonstrating a profound understanding of the underlying structures that ground them. This book introduces a valuable new method that is certain to fill explanatory gaps across disciplines.

In De myst. 1.11–18, Andokides reports a series of four judicial denunciations, made before the Athenians on four separate occasions in 415 B.c., concerning profanations of the Eleusinian Mysteries. After statements from the slave Andromachos and the metic Teukros, ‘a third denunciation followed. The wife of Alkmaionides, who had also been the wife of Damon, a woman named Agariste, made a denunciation that in the house of Charmides beside the Olympieion, Alkibiades, Axiochos and Adeimantos celebrated mysteries. And at this denunciation (...) all these men fled’. A fourth denunciation was made by the slave Lydos. (shrink)

In De myst. 1.11–18 , Andokides reports a series of four judicial denunciations , made before the Athenians on four separate occasions in 415 B.c., concerning profanations of the Eleusinian Mysteries. After statements from the slave Andromachos and the metic Teukros, ‘a third denunciation followed. The wife of Alkmaionides, who had also been the wife of Damon, a woman named Agariste, made a denunciation that in the house of Charmides beside the Olympieion, Alkibiades, Axiochos and Adeimantos celebrated mysteries. And at (...) this denunciation all these men fled’ . A fourth denunciation was made by the slave Lydos. (shrink)

But do animals know that other creatures have minds? And how would we know if they do? In "Mindreading Animals," Robert Lurz offers a fresh approach to the hotly debated question of mental-state attribution in nonhuman animals.

Since its inception as a topic of inquiry, mirror-self-recognition has usually been explained by two models: one, initiated by Guillaume, proposes that mirror-self-recognition depends upon kinesthetic-visual matching, and the other, initiated by Gallup, that self-recognition depends upon a self-concept. These two models are examined historically and conceptually. This examination suggests that the kinesthetic-visual matching model is conceptually coherent and makes reasonable and accurate predictions; and that the self-concept model is conceptually incoherent and makes inaccurate predictions from premises which are themselves (...) inaccurate. From a theoretical standpoint, the kinesthetic-visual matching model is the better explanation of self-recognition. (shrink)

Stephane Savanah provides a critique of theories of self-recognition that largely mirrors my own critique that I began publishing two decades ago. In addition, he both misconstrues my kinesthetic-visual matching model of mirror self-recognition in multiple ways , and misconstrues the evidence in the scientific literature on MSR. I describe points of agreement in our thinking about self-recognition, and criticize and rectify inaccuracies.

This paper examines a fundamental problem in applied mathematics. How can one model the behavior of materials that display radically different, dominant behaviors at different length scales. Although we have good models for material behaviors at small and large scales, it is often hard to relate these scale-based models to one another. Macroscale models represent the integrated effects of very subtle factors that are practically invisible at the smallest, atomic, scales. For this reason it has been notoriously difficult to model (...) realistic materials with a simple bottom-up-from-the-atoms strategy. The widespread failure of that strategy forced physicists interested in overall macro-behavior of materials toward completely top-down modeling strategies familiar from traditional continuum mechanics. The problem of the ``tyranny of scales'' asks whether we can exploit our rather rich knowledge of intermediate micro- scale behaviors in a manner that would allow us to bridge between these two dominant methodologies. Macroscopic scale behaviors often fall into large common classes of behaviors such as the class of isotropic elastic solids, characterized by two phenomenological parameters---so-called elastic coefficients. Can we employ knowledge of lower scale behaviors to understand this universality---to determine the coefficients and to group the systems into classes exhibiting similar behavior? (shrink)

This volume is a collection of fourteen essays by leading philosophers on issues concerning the nature, existence, and our knowledge of animal minds. The nature of animal minds has been a topic of interest to philosophers since the origins of philosophy, and recent years have seen significant philosophical engagement with the subject. However, there is no volume that represents the current state of play in this important and growing field. The purpose of this volume is to highlight the state of (...) the debate. The issues which are covered include whether and to what degree animals think in a language or in iconic structures, possess concepts, are conscious, self-aware, metacognize, attribute states of mind to others, and have emotions, as well as issues pertaining to our knowledge of and the scientific standards for attributing mental states to animals. (shrink)

Among discrete emotions, basic emotions are the most elemental; most distinct; most continuous across species, time, and place; and most intimately related to survival-critical functions. For an emotion to be afforded basic emotion status it must meet criteria of: (a) distinctness (primarily in behavioral and physiological characteristics), (b) hard-wiredness (circuitry built into the nervous system), and (c) functionality (provides a generalized solution to a particular survival-relevant challenge or opportunity). A set of six emotions that most clearly meet these criteria (enjoyment, (...) anger, disgust, fear, surprise, sadness) and three additional emotions (relief/contentment, interest, love) for which the evidence is not yet quite as strong is described. Empirical approaches that are most and least useful for establishing basic-emotion status are discussed. Basic emotions are thought to have a central organizing mechanism and to have the capacity to influence behavior, thoughts, and other fundamental processes. (shrink)

This article discusses minimal model explanations, which we argue are distinct from various causal, mechanical, difference-making, and so on, strategies prominent in the philosophical literature. We contend that what accounts for the explanatory power of these models is not that they have certain features in common with real systems. Rather, the models are explanatory because of a story about why a class of systems will all display the same large-scale behavior because the details that distinguish them are irrelevant. This story (...) explains patterns across extremely diverse systems and shows how minimal models can be used to understand real systems. (shrink)

This Handbook provides an overview of many of the topics that currently engage philosophers of physics. It surveys new issues and the problems that have become a focus of attention in recent years. It also provides up-to-date discussions of the still very important problems that dominated the field in the past.

In many evolutionary/functionalist theories, emotions organize the activity of the autonomic nervous system and other physiological systems. Two kinds of patterned activity are discussed: coherence, and specificity. For each kind of patterning, significant methodological obstacles are considered that need to be overcome before empirical studies can adequately test theories and resolve controversies. Finally, links that coherence and specificity have with health and well-being are considered.

When Nishida Kitarô wrote Studies of the Good, he was a high school teacher in Kanazawa far from Tokyo, the center of Japanese scholarship. While he was praised for his intellectual effort, there was no substantive agreement about the content of his ideas. Critics disagreed with the way he conceived of reality and of truth as contained in reality. Taken together, I believe that the responses to Nishida's early work give us a window on the state of Japanese philosophy in (...) the early twentieth century. In what follows, I give evidence for the existence of such a debate about the nature of truth and reality. After a sketch of Nishida's position, I outline the positions of two other contemporary thinkers: Katô Hiroyuki and Takahashi Satomi. With respect to Nishida, they offer markedly different takes on the question of universal truth: Katô favors an antireligious, scientific positivism while Takahashi accepts an existentialist notion of radical human finitude, in which human access to any certainty is denied. I conclude that one is confronted with a lively debate by Japanese philosophers inside Japan about the definition of truth and consequently about the nature of reality. (shrink)

This paper examines contemporary attempts to explicate the explanatory role of mathematics in the physical sciences. Most such approaches involve developing so-called mapping accounts of the relationships between the physical world and mathematical structures. The paper argues that the use of idealizations in physical theorizing poses serious difficulties for such mapping accounts. A new approach to the applicability of mathematics is proposed.

Canid and human barks and growls were examined in videotapes of 24 humans (Homo sapiens) and 24 dogs (Canis familiaris) playing with familiar and unfamiliar cross-species play partners. Barks and growls were exhibited by 9 humans and 9 dogs. Dogs barked and (less often) growled most frequently when being frustrated by humans and/or engaged in competitive games, and less often when being chased or inviting chase, and being instigated or captured. Dogs never growled when playing with an unfamiliar human, and (...) humans did so rarely when playing with an unfamiliar dog. Humans growled and (less often) barked most frequently when chasing and capturing the dog, less often when engaging in competitive games, being frustrated by the dog, and/or instigating the dog, and rarely when showing or throwing an object. Dog barks were most often requests for the human to make an object available to the dog. Dog growls were often pretend threats when competing for an object or being frustrated by the human’s actions. Human barks and growls were typically pretend threats, and were sometimes used to emphasize simultaneous behaviors. Human barks and growls allow humans to connect with their canid partner. (shrink)

Reconstructing Damon is the first comprehensive study of Damon, the most important theorist of music and poetic meter in ancient Athens, detailing his extensive influence, and providing the first systematic collection, translation, and critical examination of all ancient testimonia for him.

This paper examines the role of mathematical idealization in describing and explaining various features of the world. It examines two cases: first, briefly, the modeling of shock formation using the idealization of the continuum. Second, and in more detail, the breaking of droplets from the points of view of both analytic fluid mechanics and molecular dynamical simulations at the nano-level. It argues that the continuum idealizations are explanatorily ineliminable and that a full understanding of certain physical phenomena cannot be obtained (...) through completely detailed, non-idealized representations. (shrink)

In 1944, Martin Crowe, a Catholic priest, wrote a doctoral dissertation titled The Moral Obligation of Paying Just Taxes. His dissertation summarized and analyzed 500 years of theological and philosophical debate on this topic, much of which took place in Latin. Since Crowe’s dissertation, not much has been written on the topic of tax evasion from an ethical perspective, with a few exceptions. In 1998 and 1999, a few articles were published on the ethics of tax evasion in the Journal (...) of Accounting, Ethics & Public Policy. An edited book on this topic was published in 1998. The present paper summarizes, updates and expands on Crowe’s work and the other more recent work that has been published on this topic. Three basic views on the ethics of tax evasion have emerged over the centuries. This article presents and critiques those three views and raises some questions about points that have not yet been explored in the literature. (shrink)

This paper concerns what Jerry Fodor calls a 'metaphysical mystery': How can there by macroregularities that are realized by wildly heterogeneous lower level mechanisms? But the answer to this question is not as mysterious as many, including Jaegwon Kim, Ned Block, and Jerry Fodor might think. The multiple realizability of the properties of the special sciences such as psychology is best understood as a kind of universality, where 'universality' is used in the technical sense one finds in the physics literature. (...) It is argued that the same explanatory strategy used by physicists to provide understanding of universal behavior in physics can be used to explain how special science properties can be heterogeneously multiply realized. (shrink)

This paper aims to draw attention to an explanatory problem posed by the existence of multiply realized or universal behavior exhibited by certain physical systems. The problem is to explain how it is possible that systems radically distinct at lower-scales can nevertheless exhibit identical or nearly identical behavior at upper-scales. Theoretically this is reflected by the fact that continuum theories such as fluid mechanics are spectacularly successful at predicting, describing, and explaining fluid behaviors despite the fact that they do not (...) recognize the discrete nature of fluids. A standard attempt to reduce one theory to another, is shown to fail to answer the appropriate question about autonomy. (shrink)

Spiritual values in the workplace, increasingly discussed and applied in the business ethics literature, can be viewed from an individual, organizational, or interactive perspective. The following study examined previously unexplored workplace spirituality outcomes. Using data collected from five samples consisting of full-time workers taking graduate coursework, results indicated that perceptions of organizational-level spirituality (“organizational spirituality”) appear to matter most to attitudinal and attachment-related outcomes. Specifically, organizational spirituality was found to be positively related to job involvement, organizational identification, and work rewards (...) satisfaction, and negatively related to organizational frustration. Personal spirituality was positively related to intrinsic, extrinsic, and total work rewards satisfaction. The interaction of personal spirituality and organizational spirituality was found related to total work rewards satisfaction. Future workplace spirituality research directions are discussed. (shrink)

This paper looks at emergence in physical theories and argues that an appropriate way to understand socalled “emergent protectorates” is via the explanatory apparatus of the renormalization group. It is argued that mathematical singularities play a crucial role in our understanding of at least some well-defined emergent features of the world.

This study examines the effects of sex and familiarity on Americans’ talk to dogs during play, using categories derived from research comparing mothers’ and fathers’ talk to infants. Eight men and fifteen women were videotaped whilst playing with their own dog and with another person’s dog, and their utterances were codified for features common to infant-directed talk. Women used the baby talk speech register more than men, and both men and women used this register more when interacting with the unfamiliar (...) dog than with the familiar dog. When playing with the familiar dog, women talked more than men, and their talk was more suggestive of friendliness and having a conversation. When playing with the unfamiliar dog people used more praise, more conversational gambits, a more diverse vocabulary, and longer utterances than when playing with the familiar dog, suggesting that when playing with the unfamiliar dog, people pretended to have more of a conversation, were more attentive to appearing friendly and were less attentive to the dog’s limited understanding. Overall, however, men and women used similar forms of talk when interacting with a dog, whether familiar or not. (shrink)

Insider trading has received a bad name in recent decades. The popular press makes it sound like an evil practice where those who engage in it are totally devoid of ethical principles. Yet not all insider trading is unethical and some studies have concluded that certain kinds of insider trading are actually beneficial to the greater investment community. Some scholars in philosophy, law and economics have disputed whether insider trading should be punished at all while others assert that it should (...) be illegal in all cases. This paper explores the nature of insider trading and analyzes the issues to determine the positive and negative aspects of insider trading, and how policy should be changed. The best hope would be for studies to be made that isolate the individuals or groups who are fraudulently harmed by insider trading. If any such groups exist, then clearly worded legislation could be passed to prevent any fraud from being committed against these individuals and groups, while allowing non-fraudulent transactions to be completed without fear of prosecution. Until it can be clearly determined that someone is fraudulently harmed by insider trading, there should be no law or regulation restricting the practice, since such restrictions violate individual rights and will likely have a negative market reaction. (shrink)

This study examines the effects of sex and familiarity on Americans’ talk to dogs during play, using categories derived from research comparing mothers’ and fathers’ talk to infants. Eight men and fifteen women were videotaped whilst playing with their own dog and with another person’s dog, and their utterances were codified for features common to infant-directed talk. Women used the baby talk speech register more than men, and both men and women used this register more when interacting with the unfamiliar (...) dog than with the familiar dog. When playing with the familiar dog, women talked more than men, and their talk was more suggestive of friendliness and having a conversation. When playing with the unfamiliar dog people used more praise, more conversational gambits, a more diverse vocabulary, and longer utterances than when playing with the familiar dog, suggesting that when playing with the unfamiliar dog, people pretended to have more of a conversation, were more attentive to appearing friendly and were less attentive to the dog’s limited understanding. Overall, however, men and women used similar forms of talk when interacting with a dog, whether familiar or not. (shrink)

Insider trading has received a bad name in recent decades. The popular press makes it sound like an evil practice where those who engage in it are totally devoid of ethical principles. Yet not all insider trading is unethical and some studies have concluded that certain kinds of insider trading are actually beneficial to the greater investment community. Some scholars in philosophy, law and economics have disputed whether insider trading should be punished at all while others assert that it should (...) be illegal in all cases. This paper explores the nature of insider trading and analyzes the issues to determine the positive and negative aspects of insider trading, and how policy should be changed. The best hope would be for studies to be made that isolate the individuals or groups who are fraudulently harmed by insider trading. If any such groups exist, then clearly worded legislation could be passed to prevent any fraud from being committed against these individuals and groups, while allowing non-fraudulent transactions to be completed without fear of prosecution. Until it can be clearly determined that someone is fraudulently harmed by insider trading, there should be no law or regulation restricting the practice, since such restrictions violate individual rights and will likely have a negative market reaction. (shrink)

A traditional view of mathematical modeling holds, roughly, that the more details of the phenomenon being modeled that are represented in the model, the better the model is. This paper argues that often times this ‘details is better’ approach is misguided. One ought, in certain circumstances, to search for an exactly solvable minimal model—one which is, essentially, a caricature of the physics of the phenomenon in question.

Autonomy -- Hydrodynamics -- Brownian motion -- From Brownian motion to bending beams -- An engineering approach -- The right variables and natural kinds.

Wilkins & Wakefield's intriguing model of language evolution is deficient in evidence of human uniqueness in metaphorical matching, amodal representation, reference, conceptual structure, hierarchical organization, linguistic comprehension, sign use, laterality, and handedness. Primates show communicative reference, laterality, and handedness, and apes in particular show hierarchical organization, conceptual structure, cross-modal abilities, sign use, and displaced reference.

American undergraduates rated masculinity, femininity, and likability of two men from a videotaped interaction. Participants were informed that both men were cat persons, dog persons, heterosexual, adopted, or gay, or were unlabeled. Participants rated the men less masculine when cat persons than when dog persons or unlabeled, and less masculine and more feminine when gay than when anything else or unlabeled. The more masculine man received lower feminine ratings when a dog person than when a heterosexual, and higher masculine ratings (...) when a dog person than when unlabeled. Labels did not affect likability. Overall, the gay label consistently promoted cross-gender attributions, the dog person label encouraged somewhat heightened gender-appropriate attributions, and the cat person label allowed for normative attributions. (shrink)

Apes imitate the effects of others' actions, but the evidence for program-level imitation seems contradictory and the evidence against bodily imitation and trial and error in learning the organization of complex activities seems ambiguous. Action-level imitations are more flexible than described and may derive from imitation of the effects of others' actions on objects.

Tomasello, Kruger & Ratner deserve congratulations for their well-reasoned ideas on the development of cultural learning. Their arguments are generally convincing, perhaps because their distinctions and developmental relations among types of cultural learning and agency mirror concepts of my own.