This paper explores the reception of Gellner’s historical sociology among students of pre-modern societies and the Greco-Roman world in particular and asks how his thought is still relevant to the field. This involves discussion of recent trends in world history as well as new comparative work on ancient state and elite formation. A main contention of the paper is that Gellner’s sociological reading of Plato and his politics may be one of the most interesting modern interpretations of the ancient Greek (...) thinker on offer and one which can serve as a fruitful framework for the comparative study of complex, pre-industrial societies. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Klio Jahrgang: 97 Heft: 1 Seiten: 293-404.

In a range of contexts, individuals arrive at collective decisions by sharing confidence in their judgements. This tendency to evaluate the reliability of information by the confidence with which it is expressed has been termed the ‘confidence heuristic’. We tested two ways of implementing the confidence heuristic in the context of a collective perceptual decision-making task: either directly, by opting for the judgement made with higher confidence, or indirectly, by opting for the faster judgement, exploiting an inverse correlation between confidence (...) and reaction time. We found that the success of these heuristics depends on how similar individuals are in terms of the reliability of their judgements and, more importantly, that for dissimilar individuals such heuristics are dramatically inferior to interaction. Interaction allows individuals to alleviate, but not fully resolve, differences in the reliability of their judgements. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of confidence and collective decision-making. (shrink)

Viet Nam has experienced rapid social change over the last decade, with a remarkable decline in fertility to just below replacement level. The combination of fertility decline, son preference, antenatal sex determination using ultrasound and sex selective abortion are key factors driving increased sex ratios at birth in favour of boys in some Asian countries. Whether or not this is taking place in Viet Nam as well is the subject of heightened debate. In this paper, we analyse the nature and (...) determinants of sex ratio at birth in Viet Nam, including a small family size norm, recent reinforcement by the Government of the "one-to-two child" family policy, traditional son preference, easy access to antenatal ultrasound screening and legal abortion, and an increase in the proportion of one-child families. In order to prevent an increased sex ratio at birth in Viet Nam, we argue for the relaxation of the one-to-two child family policy and a return to the policy of "small family size" as determined by families, in tandem with a comprehensive approach to promoting the value of women and girls in society, countering traditional gender roles, and raising public awareness of the negative social consequences of a high sex ratio at birth. (shrink)

In recent years Vietnam has experienced a high sex ratio at birth SRB) amidst rapid socioeconomic and demographic changes. However, little is known about the differentials in SRB between maternal socioeconomic and demographic groups. The paper uses data from the annual Population Change Survey (PCS) in 2006 to examine the relationship of the sex ratio of the most recent birth with maternal socioeconomic and demographic characteristics and the number of previous female births. The SRB of Vietnam was significantly high at (...) 111.4 (95% CI 109.7–113.1) for the period 1st April 2000 to 31st March 2006. Multivariate analysis reveals that sex of the most recent birth is strongly related with the number of previous female births. This association is consistent across different socioeconomic and demographic groups of women. Given the high SRB in Vietnam, further research into the reasons for high SRB in these groups is required, as are intervention programmes such as those raising the public awareness of its negative consequences. © Cambridge University Press, 2010. (shrink)

This study examines the hypothesis that the stopping rule-a traditional postnatal sex selection method where couples decide to cease childbearing once they bear a son-plays a role in high sex ratio of last births (SRLB). The study develops a theoretical framework to demonstrate the operation of the stopping rule in a context of son preference. This framework was used to demonstrate the impact of the stopping rule on the SRLB in Vietnam, using data from the Population Change Survey 2006. The (...) SRLB of Vietnam was high at the level of 130 in the period 1970-2006, and particularly in the period 1986-1995, when sex-selective abortion was not available. Women were 21% more likely to stop childbearing after a male birth compared with a female birth. The SRLB was highest at parity 2 (138.7), particularly in rural areas (153.5), and extremely high (181.9) when the previous birth was female. Given the declining fertility, the stopping rule has a potential synergistic effect with sex-selective abortion to accentuate a trend of one-son families in the population. (shrink)

This book's importance is derived from three sources: careful conceptualization of teacher induction from historical, methodological, and international perspectives; systematic reviews of research literature relevant to various aspects of teacher induction including its social, cultural, and political contexts, program components and forms, and the range of its effects; substantial empirical studies on the important issues of teacher induction with different kinds of methodologies that exemplify future directions and approaches to the research in teacher induction.

I compare the theory of existence and being (and of non-existence and non-being) presented in Colin McGinn's 'Logical Properties' with those of well known predecessors such as Quine, Frege and Meinong. More recently, neo-Meinongians have held that being and existence are different concepts, and that although nothing lach bang, there are things which do not exist; possibilists have held that there are mere possibilia, things which possibly exist but do not actually exist. I examine a thesis advanced by McGinn (...) which these two positions have also endorsed, namely, that there are things which do not exist. I survey the function of 'existential quantification', and finally contend that the predicate 'does not exist' has at least three meanings, meanings which are determined by the context in which the predicate occurs and which are importantly different from one another. (shrink)

Just what is Einstein's Theory of Relativity? The Big Bang Theory? Curvature of Spacetime? What do astronomers mean when they talk of a 'flat universe'? This approachable and authoritative guide to the cosmos answers these questions, and more. Taking advantage of the distinctive Companion format, readers can use the extensive, cross-referenced background chapters as a fascinating and accessible introduction to the current state of cosmological knowledge - or, they can use the convenient A-Z body of entries as a quick (...) reference to a wide range of terms and concepts. Entries include topics such as: Black Hole; Doppler Effect; Fermi, Enrico; Heat Death of the Universe; Life in the Universe; Olber's Paradox; Quantum Field Theory; Supernova; and much more. (shrink)

Just what is Einstein's Theory of Relativity? The Big Bang Theory? Curvature of Spacetime? What do astronomers mean when they talk of a 'flat universe'? This approachable and authoritative guide to the cosmos answers these questions, and more. Taking advantage of the distinctive Companion format, readers can use the extensive, cross-referenced background chapters as a fascinating and accessible introduction to the current state of cosmological knowledge - or, they can use the convenient A-Z body of entries as a quick (...) reference to a wide range of terms and concepts. Entries include topics such as: Black Hole; Doppler Effect; Fermi, Enrico; Heat Death of the Universe; Life in the Universe; Olber's Paradox; Quantum Field Theory; Supernova; and much more. (shrink)

Just what is Einstein's Theory of Relativity? The Big Bang Theory? Curvature of Spacetime? What do astronomers mean when they talk of a 'flat universe'? This approachable and authoritative guide to the cosmos answers these questions, and more. Taking advantage of the distinctive Companion format, readers can use the extensive, cross-referenced background chapters as a fascinating and accessible introduction to the current state of cosmological knowledge - or, they can use the convenient A-Z body of entries as a quick (...) reference to a wide range of terms and concepts. Entries include topics such as: Black Hole; Doppler Effect; Fermi, Enrico; Heat Death of the Universe; Life in the Universe; Olber's Paradox; Quantum Field Theory; Supernova; and much more. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Global Empires and The Roman ImperiumBrent D. ShawP. Fibiger Bang, C. A. Bayly, and W. Scheidel, eds. The Oxford World History of Empire. 2 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021; xxviii + 552 pp.; xxxiv + 1,318 pp.The volumes under review are an impressive if unequal diptych. The first, the slimmer of the two, entitled "The Imperial Experience," comprises a series of analytical studies on the creation, (...) management, and ideologies of empires, and forms of resistance to them. The second, "The History of Empires," is a forbidding tome of forty-four specific studies of individual empires and imperial ventures, from Ur III and Middle Kingdom Egypt to the Mongols and the British, ending, naturally, with America's "global imperium." In the analytics, the usual suspects, including Michael Doyle, Frederick Cooper and Jane Burbank, are on display; and the conceptual approaches of Michael Mann and Ernest Gellner are favorite points d'appui. For premodern empires, the ideas of the Maghribi thinker Ibn Khaldūn provide a different focus, so it is heartening to see Bang and others applying them more consistently (e.g., 1:13, 40, 326–9; 2:162, 246–8, 253). Especially for premodern empires, these volumes can be seen as an extension of earlier handbooks devoted to the state, one devoted to the ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean state and another on ancient empires.1 As an aspect of world history, the endeavor is the culmination of a decades-long project on the history of empires fronted by Peter Bang.2 He has usefully produced detailed historical introductions not only to both volumes, but also to the subsections in each of them. Perhaps not surprisingly, empire turns out to be a virile enterprise. As Ian Morris notes, "the story of empire... is so strongly gendered that it [End Page 505] seems reasonable to call rulers and commanders 'he' throughout" (1:162 n. 14). The muscular subject is mirrored by its principal actors and by its students. All the editors are men. Reflecting the same balance, out of the forty-five authors of individual studies in the large history of empires volume, there are five (lonely) female voices. In both volumes, women as subjects of empire are, for all intents and purposes, absent.3From the perspective of an historian who has actually worked on the history of an empire, it must be plainly stated that almost all of the theories, adequately reviewed by Bang (1:20–48), are worth about as much as the paper or pixilated screens on which they have been written. Obvious and serious exceptions to every one of the definitions and hypotheticals abound. In fact, a fair number of the exemplary histories in the second volume do not obey the strictures of most of the theories advanced in the first. So it is with a sense of relief that one turns from theory to the hard quantities offered by Walter Scheidel (1:chap. 2). To a considerable degree, his analysis depends on the well-known measurements made by Rein Taagepera. Rather alarmingly, Taagepera counted as an empire "any large sovereign political entity whose components are not sovereign," say, like the well-known empires of Algeria, Finland, or Canada.4 What an analysis of these global entities confirms is that size or orders of magnitude mattered, and that the first entities to count as empires emerged in the 7th to 5th centuries bce in southwestern Asia (1:53; 2:161, 245). The neo-Assyrian empire was the first super-large territorial state and its successor, the Achaemenid empire, was the first "hyper-power without rival" (1:172; 2:83, 111, 161). Subsequent premodern empires were able to reach higher levels of millions of square kilometers of territory and larger populations of dozens of millions of subjects nominally under their aegis. The magnitudes reached by a given generation of super-states set base-lines above which a successor might be able to reach greater sophistication of rule, numbers of subjects, and extent of territory. In some cases, being able to piggy-back on existing empires, they were able to skip early developmental stages and to advance quickly to imperial status, as a succession... (shrink)

It is argued that causal understanding originates in experiences of acting on objects. Such experiences have consistent features that can be used as clues to causal identification and judgment. These are singular clues, meaning that they can be detected in single instances. A catalog of 14 singular clues is proposed. The clues function as heuristics for generating causal judgments under uncertainty and are a pervasive source of bias in causal judgment. More sophisticated clues such as mechanism clues and repeated interventions (...) are derived from the 14. Research on the use of empirical information and conditional probabilities to identify causes has used scenarios in which several of the clues are present, and the use of empirical association information for causal judgment depends on the presence of singular clues. It is the singular clues and their origin that are basic to causal understanding, not multiple instance clues such as empirical association, contingency, and conditional probabilities. (shrink)

Berkeley’s likeness principle is the claim that “an idea can be like nothing but an idea”. The likeness principle is intended to undermine representationalism: the view (that Berkeley attributes to thinkers like Descartes and Locke) that all human knowledge is mediated by ideas in the mind which represent material objects. Yet, Berkeley appears to leave the likeness principle unargued for. This has led to several attempts to explain why Berkeley accepts it. In contrast to ‘metaphysical’ and ‘epistemological’ interpretations available in (...) the literature, in this paper I defend a ‘conceptual’ interpretation. I argue that Berkeley accepts the likeness principle on the basis of (i) his commitment to the transparency of ideas, and (ii) his account of resemblance which he sets out in his works on vision. Thus, I provide an explanation for Berkeley’s reasons for accepting the likeness principle which, appropriately, focuses on his views concerning ideas and likeness. (shrink)

In this important new book in the IPPP series, a group of leading thinkers in psychiatry, psychology, and philosophy offer alternative perspectives that address both the scientific and clinical aspects of psychiatric validation, emphasizing throughout their philosophical and historical considerations.

Margaret Macdonald was at the institutional heart of analytic philosophy in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. Yet, her views on the nature of philosophical theories diverge quite considerably from those of many of her contemporaries. In this paper, I focus on her 1953 article ‘Linguistic Philosophy and Perception’, a provocative paper in which Macdonald argues that the value of philosophical theories is more akin to that of poetry or art than science or mathematics. I do so for two reasons. First, (...) because it reveals just how far Macdonald’s meta- philosophical views diverged from those of many of her contemporaries. Second, because the discussion in LPP pre-empts recent literature on the nature of philosophical inquiry and the efficacy of philosophical arguments. Indeed, Macdonald’s paper is just as likely to provoke discussion today as it was in the 1950s. (shrink)

In September 2008, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) scientists successfully switched on the historic biggest physics device, the Large ...

In my contribution to this Concise Collection on Margaret Cavendish, I focus on teaching Cavendish’s work in the context of philosophy (and, more specifically, Early Modern Philosophy). I have three aims. First, to explain why teaching women from philosophy’s history is crucially important to the discipline. Second, to outline my own reflections on teaching Cavendish’s philosophy. Third, to defend a specific claim about the benefits of teaching Cavendish to philosophy students; namely, that introducing biographical detail alongside philosophical ideas enriches the (...) learning experience. (shrink)

This paper provides a philosophical evaluation of the concept of handedness prevalent but largely unspoken in the scientific literature. This literature defines handedness as the preference or ability to use one hand rather than the other across a range of common activities. Using the philosophical discipline of phenomenology, I articulate and critique this conceptualization of handedness. Phenomenology shows defining a concept of handedness by focusing on hand use leads to a right hand biased concept. I argue further that a phenomenological (...) model based in spatial orientation rather than hand use provides a more inclusive concept of handedness. (shrink)

William Molyneux was born in Dublin, studied in Trinity College Dublin, and was a founding member of the Dublin Philosophical Society (DPS), Ireland’s counterpart to the Royal Society in London. He was a central figure in the Irish intellectual milieu during the Early Modern period and – along with George Berkeley and Edmund Burke – is one of the best-known thinkers to have come out of that context and out of Irish thought more generally. In 1688, when Molyneux wrote the (...) letter to Locke in which he posed the now famous question about a man born blind made to see, he was an active member of the DPS and was on familiar terms with several other key figures in Irish philosophy at the time. For the most part, Irish thinkers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries answered “no” to Molyneux’s question of whether a blind man made to see could distinguish, by sight alone, between a cube and a sphere. (shrink)

"This book is an augmented and updated translation by the author of Theorie des Subjekts: Subjectiviteat und Identiteat zwischen Moderne und Postmoderne, Teubingen, Francke-UTB, 2010 (3rd ed.)"--Title page verso.

In der genannten Epoche werden Grundentscheidungen gefällt, welche die Fundamentalfrage der Philosophie, die Seinsfrage, in die Krisis führen, in den Nihilismus unter ontologischem, metaphysischem, epistemologischem, axiologischem Aspekt. Den Extrempositionen der Systemdenker Hegel, Schopenhauer und Schelling erwachsen in den Hegelkritikern Feuerbach, Br. Bauer, Marx und Stirner Kontrapositionen, die das Wahrheitsproblem der Beliebigkeit unterstellen. Kierkegaard klagt unter existentiellem Aspekt das Problem der Wahrheit ein. Nietzsche überholt durch Abschaffung der Wahrheit alle Positionen,was seinen Standort in der europäischen Denkgeschichte ausmacht und als Ergebnis der (...) problemgeschichtlichen Analysen zu charakterisieren ist. Die Rückgewinnung des Vernunfthorizontes setzen erst die Problemdenker N. Hartmann und M. Heidegger ins Werk durch kritische Erneuerung der Seinsfrage. (shrink)