The relationship between Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity and Hendrik A. Lorentz’s ether theory is best understood in terms of competing interpretations of Lorentz invariance. In the 1890s, Lorentz proved and exploited the Lorentz invariance of Maxwell’s equations, the laws governing electromagnetic fields in the ether, with what he called the theorem of corresponding states. To account for the negative results of attempts to detect the earth’s motion through the ether, Lorentz, in effect, had to assume that the laws (...) governing the matter interacting with the fields are Lorentz invariant as well. This additional assumption can be seen as a generalization of the well-known contraction hypothesis. In Lorentz’s theory, it remained an unexplained coincidence that both the laws governing fields and the laws governing matter should be Lorentz invariant. In special relativity, by contrast, the Lorentz invariance of all physical laws directly reflects the Minkowski space-time structure posited by the theory. One can use this observation to produce a common-cause argument to show that the relativistic interpretation of Lorentz invariance is preferable to Lorentz’s interpretation. (shrink)

What exactly is a genetic disease? For a phrase one hears on a daily basis, there has been surprisingly little analysis of the underlying concept. Medical doctors seem perfectly willing to admit that the etiology of disease is typically complex, with a great many factors interacting to bring about a given condition. On such a view, descriptions of diseases like cancer as genetic seem at best highly simplistic, and at worst philosophically indefensible. On the other hand, there is clearly some (...) practical value to be had by classifying diseases according to their predominant cause when this can be accomplished in a theoretically satisfactory manner. The question therefore becomes exactly how one should go about selecting a single causal factor among many to explain the presence of disease. When an attempt to defend such causal selection is made at all, the standard accounts offered (Koch's postulates, Hill's epidemiological criteria, manipulability) are all clearly inadequate. I propose, however, an epidemiological account of disease causation which walks the fine line between practical applicability and theoretical considerations of causal complexity and attempts to compromise between patientcentered and population-centered concepts of disease. The epidemiological account is the most basic framework consistent with our strongly held intuitions about the causal classification of disease, yet it avoids the difficulties encountered by its competitors. (shrink)

Political violence in the form of wars, insurgencies, terrorism and violent rebellion constitutes a major human challenge. C. A. J. Coady brings a philosophical and ethical perspective as he places the problems of war and political violence in the frame of reflective ethics. In this book, Coady re-examines a range of urgent problems pertinent to political violence against the background of a contemporary approach to just war thinking. The problems examined include: the right to make war and conduct war, terrorism, (...) revolution, humanitarianism, mercenary warriors, the ideal of peace and the right way to end war. Coady attempts to vindicate the contemporary relevance of the just war tradition to current problems without applying the tradition in a merely mechanical or uncritical fashion. (shrink)

lecting statistics about missing bindings and macros, and other errors. This guides debugging and development efforts, leading to iterative improvements in both the tools and the quality of the converted corpus. The build system thus serves as both a production conversion engine and software test harness. We have now processed the complete arχiv collection through 2006 consisting of more than 400,000 documents (a complete run is a processor-yearsize undertaking), continuously improving our success rate. We are now able to convert more (...) than 90% of these documents to XHTML+MathML. We consider over 60% to be successes, converted with no or minor warnings. While the remaining 30% can also be converted, their quality is doubtful, due to unsupported macros or conversion errors. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s Revolution argues that Nietzsche is a revolutionary who aims to liberate modernity by overthrowing Christianity. Although Nietzsche’s terrified inability to follow through on this revolutionary project causes him to retreat into a retrograde essentialism of race and gender that betrays his own revolutionary promise, Nietzsche’s complicity in this failure bequeaths this revolution to us, his future readers, who can take it up in the form of poststructuralist queer theory and politics. This is a revolutionary future Nietzsche could (...) neither have foreseen nor endorsed, but is the necessary consequence of his quest to overthrow Christianity’s cult of meaning. (shrink)

(Expected) adverse effects of the ‘ICT Revolution’ on work and opportunities for individuals to use and develop their capacities give a new impetus to the debate on the societal implications of technology and raise questions regarding the ‘responsibility’ of research and innovation (RRI) and the possibility of achieving ‘inclusive and sustainable society’. However, missing in this debate is an examination of a possible conflict between the quest for ‘inclusive and sustainable society’ and conventional economic principles guiding capital allocation (including (...) the funding of research and innovation). We propose that such conflict can be resolved by re-examining the nature and purpose of capital, and by recognising mainstream economics’ utilitarian foundations as an unduly restrictive subset of a wider Aristotelian understanding of choice. (shrink)

Since Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), historians and philosophers of science have paid increasing attention to the implications of disciplinarity. In this chapter we consider restrictions posed to interdisciplinary exchange between ecology and economics that result from a particular kind of commitment to the ideal of disciplinary purity, that is, that each discipline is defined by an appropriate, unique set of objects, methods, theories, and aims. We argue that, when it comes to the objects of study in (...) ecology and economics, ideas of disciplinary purity have been underwritten by the artificial-natural distinction. We then problematize this distinction, and thus disciplinary purity, both conceptually and empirically. Conceptually, the distinction is no longer tenable. Empirically, recent interdisciplinary research has shown the epistemological and policy-oriented benefits of dealing with models which explicitly link anthropogenic (i.e., “artificial”) and non-anthropogenic factors (i.e., “natural”). We conclude that, in the current age of the Anthropocene, it is to be expected that without interdisciplinary exchange, ecology and economics may relinquish global relevance because the distinct and separate systems to which each “pure” science was originally made to apply will only diminish over time. (shrink)

A characteristic hallmark of medieval astronomy is the replacement of Ptolemy’s linear precession with so-called models of trepidation, which were deemed necessary to account for divergences between parameters and data transmitted by Ptolemy and those found by later astronomers. Trepidation is commonly thought to have dominated European astronomy from the twelfth century to the Copernican Revolution, meeting its demise only in the last quarter of the sixteenth century thanks to the observational work of Tycho Brahe. The present article seeks (...) to challenge this picture by surveying the extent to which Latin astronomers of the late Middle Ages expressed criticisms of trepidation models or rejected their validity in favour of linear precession. It argues that a readiness to abandon trepidation was more widespread prior to Brahe than hitherto realized and that it frequently came as the result of empirical considerations. This critical attitude towards trepidation reached an early culmination point with the work of Agostino Ricci, who demonstrated the theory’s redundancy with a penetrating analysis of the role of observational error in Ptolemy’s Almagest. (shrink)

This article critically analyzes Antonio Negri's democratic theory by exploring the theoretical significance of a concept that begins to appear in his writings after the 1990s, namely the concept of ‘love’. Negri's turn to love in the closing pages of his most recent books is puzzling, especially given his earlier recourse to notions of antagonistic struggle, direct confrontation and even violence. Using Jacques Derrida's conception of ‘the supplement’ for interpretive purposes, I argue that the concept of love not only enriches (...) Negri's account of democracy, but also points to a lack within his political thought. During the 1970s, as one of the leading figures of autonomist Marxism, Negri called for a radicalization of antagonism and the use of violence to ensure the political organization of the revolutionary subject without giving up on the emancipatory potential of ‘direct and immediate’ action. In his recent writings, Negri has supplemented the notion of ‘love’ for his earlier emphasis on antagonism to address autonomist Marxism's unresolved question of political organization. And yet, this turn to love comes at a price. Negri's understanding of love as the creative force of revolutionary consciousness leads him to erase the process of political contestation and mediation involved in the constitution of political struggles. Love, then, operates as a dangerous supplement, undermining Negri's commitment to multiplicity and diversity as central aspects of his democratic theory. (shrink)

These documents, published here for the first time, present the Treasury's counter-arguments during the period when Keynes was developing the ideas that led to the Keynesian revolution in economic policy. Keynes spent much effort trying to persuade the Treasury to adopt policies designed to raise employment and stabilise prices, and to create an international monetary system that would favour these objectives. His arguments are set out fully in the Royal Economic Society's 30-volume set of The Collected Writings of John (...) Maynard Keynes. In contrast, the views of his Treasury critics have hitherto been much less accessible.Economists and historians have tended to assume that Keynes was right and the Treasury was wrong; this volume shows that the Treasury anticipated the political problems that would be encountered in putting Keynes's ideas into practice. Much of what Keynes published was deliberately polemical: he believed that words should be 'a little wild', for they were 'the assault of thought on the unthinking'. Treasury officials were by no means as unthinking as Keynes tended to portray them, and they had a coherent and intellectually respectable understanding of public finance. Ministers in the inter-war period and early in the Second World War were sensitive to the use that political opponents might make of Keynes's arguments; officials had to provide counter-arguments, and in doing so they revealed much about their views on economics and public finance. Once Keynes became an adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1940, the debate became internal to the Treasury, but officials continued to subject Keynes's ideas to critical analysis.The documents in this volume show Treasury responses to Keynes on a range of issues crucial to understanding the period and the context of the Keynesian revolution in public policy. The topics covered include: the return to the gold standard; the use of public expenditure to cure unemployment in the inter-war period; how to avoid inflation in the war; planning for the post-war international economy; and the 1944 white paper on employment policy. This edition is an essential tool for the study of a formative period of British history and a great intellectual debate. (shrink)

The _Second Treatise_ is one of the most important political treatises ever written and one of the most far-reaching in its influence. In his provocative 15-page introduction to this edition, the late eminent political theorist C. B. Macpherson examines Locke's arguments for limited, conditional government, private property, and right of revolution and suggests reasons for the appeal of these arguments in Locke's time and since.

W. H. Walsh argued that historians used colligatory terms to describe historical change, and defined such terms as those which relate a group of events by a common idea or value. The colligatory term identifies a general relationship among singular events. Events give concrete expression to the ideas shared by the people who initiated them. Thus, colligatory terms, such as "French Revolution," are always singular proper nouns, rather than general classifications. However, in addition to common ideas, colligatory terms are (...) used to describe the form of the historical change. Terms like "revolution" and "renaissance" do convey meaning when applied generally. Colligatory terms, then, can relate formal structures as well as dispositional. attitudes, and can function both as general classifications and as singular entities. (shrink)

List of contributors; Acknowledgments; Introduction Robert S. Westman and David C. Lindberg; 1. Conceptions of the scientific revolution from Bacon to Butterfield: a preliminary sketch David C. Lindberg; 2. Conceptions of science in the scientific revolution Ernan McMullin; 3. Metaphysics and the new science Gary Hatfield; 4. Proof, portics, and patronage: Copernicus’s preface to De revolutionibus Robert S. Westman; 5. A reappraisal of the role of the universities in the scientific revolution John Gascoigne; 6. Natural magic, hermetism, (...) and occultism in early modern science Brian P. Copenhaver; 7. Natural history and the emblematic world view William B. Ashworth, Jr.; 8. From the secrets of nature to public knowledge William Eamon; 9. Chemistry in the scientific revolution: problems of language and communication Jan V. Golinski; 10. The new philosophy and medicine in seventeenth-century England Harold J. Cook; 11. Science and heterodoxy: an early modern problem reconsidered Michael Hunter; 12. Infinitesimals and transcendent relations: the mathematics of motion in the late seventeenth century Michael S. Mahoney; 13. The case of mechanics: one revolution or many? Alan Gabbey; Index. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper adds to efforts to retrieve the long-neglected philosophical contributions of Karoline von Günderrode, and is one of the first to seriously address the political commitments in Günderrode’s work, especially regarding revolution. This idea gains an unusual status in the context of Günderrode’s metaphysics, and is key to understanding the connections between Günderrode’s more obviously philosophical writings and her literary work. I argue that Günderrode’s concept of revolution resembles, in some respects, the ideas of other thinkers (...) of her time, but has ramifications for conceiving of human individuals and their relationships to society and nature that are unique to Günderrode. First, I use a comparison with the work of contemporaries on revolution to justify interpreting Günderrode’s metaphysics in relation to her thought on politics. Günderrode often masks her political thought in the form of plays, and the paper next considers the theme of revolution in her plays Muhammad, the Prophet of Mecca, and Udohla. Lastly, the paper contrasts Günderrode’s position on revolution to claims by Herder and Fichte, arguing that Günderrode’s conception of a cycle of enhancement and decay of natural forces, political power and social cohesion differs from androcentric models that emphasize the development of consciousness. (shrink)

In this accessible and comprehensive work, Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins cover the entire history of philosophy--ancient, medieval, and modern, from cultures both East and West--in its broader historical and cultural contexts. Major philosophers and movements are discussed along with less well-known but interesting figures. The authors examine the early Greek, Indic, and Chinese philosophers and the mythological traditions that preceded them, as well as the great religious philosophies, including Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, and Taoism. Easily understandable to students without specialized (...) knowledge of philosophy, A Short History of Philosophy demonstrates the relevance of philosophy to our times, illuminating the impact of the revolutions wrought by science, industry, colonialism, and sectarian warfare; the two world wars and the Holocaust; and the responses of philosophy in the schools of existentialism, postmodernism, feminism, and multiculturalism. In addition, the authors provide their own twists and interpretations of events, resulting in a broad view of the nature of philosophy as an intellectual discipline and its sometimes odd and dramatic consequences. (shrink)

Coady understands political violence to include war as well as terrorism, interventionism, revolution and the violence of mercenaries. His discussion ranges widely over the concept of violence, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and ethical issues surrounding mercenaries. Some of this has appeared in print before, but much of it is new.Although war is but one form of political violence, in his view, much of his concern is with the just war tradition. Contrary to some contemporary just war theorists, who (...) question whether war is presumptively wrong, he takes the just war tradition to counsel against war unless strict conditions are met. He thinks that these conditions can be met, but apparently only rarely. He follows many contemporary writers, however, in seeing the just war tradition as an alternative to the traditions of realism and pacifism, both of which he examines critically.Coady's discussion of terrorism is particularly timely. He rejects the tendency to view …. (shrink)

What is empiricism and what could it be? Bas . van Fraassen, one of the world’s foremost contributors to philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, here undertakes a fresh consideration of these questions and offers a program for renewal of the empiricist tradition. The empiricist tradition is not and could not be defined by common doctrines, but embodies a certain stance in philosophy, van Fraassen says. This stance is displayed first of all in a searing, recurrent critique of metaphysics, (...) and secondly in a focus on experience that requires a voluntarist view of belief and opinion. Van Fraassen focuses on the philosophical problems of scientific and conceptual revolutions and on the not unrelated ruptures between religious and secular ways of seeing or conceiving of ourselves. He explores what it is to be or not be secular and points the way toward a new relationship between secularism and science within philosophy. (shrink)

This is the first full study in English of the German historicist tradition. Frederick C. Beiser surveys the major German thinkers on history from the middle of the eighteenth century until the early twentieth century, providing an introduction to each thinker and the main issues in interpreting and appraising his thought. The volume offers new interpretations of well-known philosophers such as Johann Gottfried Herder and Max Weber, and introduces others who are scarcely known at all, including J. A. Chladenius, Justus (...) Möser, Heinrich Rickert, and Emil Lask. Beyond an exploration of the historical and intellectual context of each thinker, Beiser illuminates the sources and reasons for the movement of German historicism—one of the great revolutions in modern Western thought, and the source of our historical understanding of the human world. (shrink)

Companies do have ethical responsibility and are not protected by limited liability from the consequences of their actions. A company's record and the preception of its ethics affect its reputation and ensure long term success or failure.The financial community has a history of placing moral considerations above legal or opportunistic expedients. But we are often exposed to moral dangers and the dangers of contamination are increasing. Deregulation and the technological revolution are sharpening ethical conflicts.

What is empiricism and what could it be? Bas C. van Fraassen, one of the world’s foremost contributors to philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, here undertakes a fresh consideration of these questions and offers a program for renewal of the empiricist tradition. The empiricist tradition is not and could not be defined by common doctrines, but embodies a certain stance in philosophy, van Fraassen says. This stance is displayed first of all in a searing, recurrent critique of metaphysics, (...) and second in a focus on experience that requires a voluntarist view of belief and opinion._ _Van Fraassen focuses on the philosophical problems of scientific and conceptual revolutions and on the not unrelated ruptures between religious and secular ways of seeing or conceiving of ourselves. He explores what it is to be or not be secular and points the way toward a new relationship between secularism and science within philosophy. (shrink)

The close relationship between Buddhism and medicine that has become so visible thanks to the contemporary ‘mindfulness revolution’ is not necessarily unique to the twenty-first century. The ubiquitous contemporary emphasis on the health benefits of Buddhist and Buddhist-inspired practice is in many ways the latest chapter in a symbiotic relationship between Buddhism and medicine that is both centuries-long and of global scope. This article represents the first steps toward writing a book that explores the global history of Buddhism and (...) medicine ‘from Sarnath to Silicone Valley’. It identifies patterns in the transmission and reception of texts and ideas, networks of circulation, and intersections with local and regional histories that shaped the history of Buddhist ideas and practices concerning physical health and healing. (shrink)

An Aristotelian philosophy of nature rejects the modern prejudice in favor of the microscopic, a rejection that is crucial if we are to penetrate the mysteries of the quantum world. I defend an Aristotelian model by drawing on both quantum chemistry and recent work on the measurement problem. By building on the work of Hans Primas, using the distinction between quantum and classical properties that emerges in quantum chemistry at the thermodynamic or continuum limit, I develop a new version of (...) the Copenhagen interpretation, a version that is realist, holistic, and hylomorphic in character, allowing for the attribution of fundamental causal powers to human observers and their instruments. I conclude with a critique of non-hylomorphic theories of primitive ontology, including Bohmian mechanics, Everettianism, and GRW mass-density. (shrink)

Lectures in which Mr. Adler outlines the political thought of Louis Kelso, "the first clear and systematic statement of the idea of capitalism...." Kelso holds that a capitalistic revolution will herald the era of "pure capitalism" in which all men will have the leisure to follow liberal rather than servile pursuits.--A. C. P.

This paper concerns the reformulation by British expatriates and the first generation of English-speaking Indian intellectuals of the key ideas of European constitutional liberalism between 1810 and 1835. The central figure is Rammohan Roy, usually seen as a of Hinduism. Here Rammohan's thought is set in the context of the Iberian and Latin American constitutional revolutions and the movement for free trade and parliamentary reform in Britain. Rammohan and his coevals created a constitutional history for India that centred on the (...) institution of the panchayat, a local judicial body. While some expatriates and Indian radicals discussed or for the country as early as the 1830s, Rammohan himself argued for constitutional limitations on the Company's power and Indian representation in Parliament. Under liberal British government, he believed, an Indian public would emerge, empowered by service on juries and the operations of a free press. (shrink)

An unpleasantly dogmatic presentation of contemporary Marxist philosophy. Though his explanation of Marxism may be competent, some of the author's interpretations of other philosophies are merely amusing: e.g., the reason positivists hold a non-necessitarian view of causation is that "...then clearly socialism is not inevitable... a boon for an imperialism plunging dizzily toward its destruction."--A. C. P.

The Constitution of Independence is a contribution to the newly rejuvenated subject of comparative Commonwealth constitutional law, politics, and history. In Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, a series of fascinating developments have been under way for more than a decade, characterized by independent thinking, experimentation, and cross-Commonwealth borrowing of constitutional ideas. These include the final termination of constitutional ties with the United Kingdom Parliament and the emergence of controversial issues including variably entrenched or implied rights and freedoms; wide-ranging claims by (...) indigenous peoples; republicanism; and assertions of national, popular, and sectional sovereignty.This book explores the development of constitutional thinking in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand from early domination by Imperial ideas, through the adoption of the Statute of Westminster and the contemplation of severing Imperial connections, to irreversible acquisition of constitutional independence in the 1980s. This book focusses primarily on sovereignty and the legal system, concepts which are also central to contemporary constitutional theory in Europe and the United States. The book closes with an evaluation of recent varied and often contradictory accounts of the constitutional foundations of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, which depict a wide range of scenarios: from constitutional continuity and respect for the rule of law, to popular sovereignty and disguised revolution. Oliver argues that explanations of constitutional independence are characterized by their reliance on independent, country-specific constitutional thinking that evolved over the last century. on. (shrink)

Too much is claimed for this book by its title and by the blurb. The essays published in it were prepared in connection with a course of lectures, organized by the British Council, for non-British philosophy teachers, and held at Peterhouse, Cambridge, in the summer of 1953. The course was a good one; but it did not amount to an adequate picture of British Philosophy in 1953; and it is too much to claim that “it is not only an authoritative (...) review of some of the outstanding recent developments in British Philosophy, but also a significant contribution to these developments.” As a record of what the most vocal British philosophers are saying to-day, it is not so helpful as the less pretentious B.B.C. and Oxford symposia, The Revolution in Philosophy, and The Nature of Metaphysics. As a guide to what is going on in British philosophy to-day, it compares very unfavourably with H. D. Lewis’s symposium, Contemporary British Philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter presents the text of a lecture on the Industrial Revolution in Great Britain given at the British Academy's 2009 Keynes Lecture in Economics. This text suggests that the Industrial Revolution was Britain's response to the global economy that emerged after 1500 and that Britain's success in world trade resulted in one of the most urbanised economies in Europe with unusually high wages and cheap energy prices. The text here also highlights the contribution of Britain in the (...) invention of the steam engine and the cotton spinning machines and in scientific discoveries relating to atmospheric pressure. (shrink)

qThe superior merits of this work are too well known to require commendation.q- from preface.