Sometimes it is possible in quantum theory for a system to interact with another system in such a way that the information contained in the wave function becomes very scrambled and apparently incoherent. We produce an example which is exactly calculable, in which a macroscopic change is induced in the environment, and all phase information for the system is apparently lost, so that a measurement has seemingly been made. But actually, although the wave function has been badly scrambled, all the (...) original information is still present. We call this situation one of “latent order.”Subsequently, the system interacts again with the environment, wiping out the macroscopic change, and the wave function once again becomes manifestly coherent. Thus the apparent measurement has been undone, and leaves no aftereffect. Thus, our “measurement” has disappeared without a trace. We call such a measurement a “haunted measurement,” and we believe that until the measurement process is rigorously understood, the concept of measurement is ambiguous. It is just not good enough to say that an amplification stage occurs “somewhere” in the process.We also point out the connection between the haunted measurement and delayed-choice experiments and discuss a haunted version of the “Schrödinger's Cat” experiment and of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment. (shrink)

A model theory is constructed that exhibits quantization on a cosmic scale. A holistic rationale for the theory is discussed. The theory incorporates a fundamental length, of cosmic size, and preserves the weak, geometrical equivalence principle. The momentum operator is an integral, nonlocal, naturally contravariant operator, in contrast to the usual quantum case. In the limit of high quantum numbers the theory reduces to classical physics, giving rise to a world which is quantized both on the microscopic and cosmic scale, (...) each of which passes over to the usual macroscopic, continuous, classical, world in the highn limit.The theory is applied to two experimental situations, absorption lines in high-z quasars and elliptical rings around normal galaxies, with suggestive but not definitive results. (shrink)

Review of Peter Mittelstaedt, The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics and the Measurement Process (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 140pp., ISBN 0-521-55445-4, hardback US$44.95, £30.00.

The Tic-Tac-Toe theory is a qualitative, phenomenological theory that automatically explains many of the features of the universe that we see, such as dark matter and dark energy. In that sense it is a Copernican theory that gives an alternate approach, which immediately and intuitively explains phenomena,independently of any detailed dynamics, for which the explanations in accepted standard theories are usually somewhat ad-hoc.The basic concept is to take the possibility of negative masses seriously, and generalize this to counter the unconvincing (...) treatment of negative masses by the equivalence principle. Surprisingly, this automatically solves all sorts of other problems at the same time. Since the theory comes without a detailed dynamics, one can hardly expect people to embrace it with open arms, but it is presented to help convince students that there are many plausible new ideas available to them, and they should not let themselves be intimidated into believing that we are close to understanding nature. (shrink)

Ed. Daniel Greenberger, 750pp May 1995 164.95.

Music can reduce stress and anxiety, enhance positive mood, and facilitate social bonding. However, little is known about the role of music and related personal or cultural variables in maintaining wellbeing during times of stress and social isolation as imposed by the COVID-19 crisis. In an online questionnaire, administered in 11 countries, participants rated the relevance of wellbeing goals during the pandemic, and the effectiveness of different activities in obtaining these goals. Music was found to be the most effective activity (...) for three out of five wellbeing goals: enjoyment, venting negative emotions, and self-connection. For diversion, music was equally good as entertainment, while it was second best to create a sense of togetherness, after socialization. This result was evident across different countries and gender, with minor effects of age on specific goals, and a clear effect of the importance of music in people's lives. Cultural effects were generally small and surfaced mainly in the use of music to obtain a sense of togetherness. Interestingly, culture moderated the use of negatively valenced and nostalgic music for those higher in distress. (shrink)

In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the relation of consciousness, the will, and our intentional and voluntary actions. Wegner claims that our experience and common sense view according to which we can influence our behavior roughly the way we experience that we do it is an illusion.

The science of well-being studies an evaluative kind, well-being, which raises natural worries about the ability of empirical research to deliver. This paper argues that well-being research can provide important information about how people are doing without entangling itself very deeply in controversial normative claims. Most life satisfaction research, for instance, purports only to tell us how people see their lives going relative to what they care about ? something most people can agree is important, whatever their theory of well-being. (...) At the same time, such research can mislead if it does not in fact have the significance it seems to have. Life satisfaction measures in fact have this problem: life satisfaction attitudes have deep in-principle limitations in their ability to reflect the subjective quality of people's lives, for instance because they are only weakly constrained by the facts about how people see their lives going. You might, e.g., reasonably be satisfied with your life even if you think it's going badly for you. I propose largely replacing such measures with aggregate life evaluation measures, which dispense with both the global judgment and ?satisfaction? elements of life satisfaction. (shrink)

This essay defends the controversial and indeed counterintuitive claim that there is a good argument to be made from a Lockean perspective for government action to guarantee access to health care. The essay maintains that this argument is in some regards more robust than the well-known argument in defense of universal health care spelled out by Norman Daniels, which this essay also examines in some detail. Locke's view that government should protect people's lives, property, and freedom–where freedom is understood as (...) independence and self-determination–justifies government action to ensure access to health care, because (roughly), just as individuals cannot protect themselves from crime and foreign invasion, so individuals are unable to provide for their own health care. Defense from disease is as important as defense from crime, and–although this is arguable–government action to guarantee access to health care does not itself undermine freedom. (shrink)

This essay surveys a number of prominent, recurring, and new directions in the growing scholarly discourse on the theme “Heidegger and Judaism” arranged under three headings. The first, the contrastive framing, encompasses cases in which the relationship between Heidegger and Judaism is perceived as antithetical. The second, the conjunctive framing, encompasses views claiming the existence of affinities and parallels between Heidegger and Judaism, grouped under three subheadings: “Heidegger and biblical thinking,” “Heidegger and Kabbalah,” and “Heidegger and the Jewish nation.” The (...) third, historical perspectives, uses the approach of intellectual history to explore visions of Judaism that are developed as part of engagements with Heidegger’s philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I review recent philosophical work in English on the nature of emotion. I begin with the well-known attacks of Bedford, Kenny and Pitcher on what I call the traditional (i.e., Cartesian) view of the nature of emotion. I then trace and discuss the successive alternative views that have been developed in the past thirty years. My aim is both to review the development of these alternative views and to indicate what particular problems have come to be considered (...) the central problems in this area. A comprehensive bibliography of recent work in English is appended. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Economics and Philosophy of Economics Six Central Methodological Problems Inexactness, Ceteris Paribus Clauses, and “Unrealistic Assumptions” Contemporary Directions in Economic Methodology Conclusion References.

If rhetoric is the art of speaking, who is listening? In Being-Moved, Daniel M. Gross provides an answer, showing when and where the art of speaking parted ways with the art of listening-and what happens when they intersect once again. Much in the history of rhetoric must be rethought along the way. And much of this rethinking pivots around Martin Heidegger's early lectures on Aristotle's Rhetoric, where his famous topic, Being, gives way to being-moved. The results, Gross goes on (...) to show, are profound. Listening to the gods, listening to the world around us, and even listening to one another in the classroom-all of these experiences become different when rhetoric is reoriented from the voice to the ear. (shrink)

Includes a foreword by Kevin M. Gilmartin, PhD, author of the bestselling Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement: A Guide for Officers and Their Families. This book offers practical, research-based strategies to help police officers improve wellness, strengthen ethical commitments, and boost resilience both on and off-duty. Your power as a police officer does not come from your badge, gear, or tactical skills. It comes from your POWER: police officer wellness, ethics, and resilience. This book offers a research-based approach to dealing (...) with the daily challenges you face in your law enforcement job. It describes personal and professional steps you can take, on-duty and off-duty, to optimize your health and maintain your performance. When you proactively practice the skills, tips, and exercises outlined in this book, you will be better prepared to defuse crisis situations before they happen, and more capable of coping with them when they do. As a law enforcement officer, you deal with enormous challenges on a daily basis. Policing involves daily risks and stressors that can compromise your health, shorten your career, and make life harder on your loved ones. Even if you have a gym or access to counseling at work, you need a personal plan to maintain your overall wellness-physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and spiritual. (shrink)

Der Funktionsbegriff spielt fur die Kunsttheorie in Geschichte und Gegenwart eine wichtige Rolle: Sei es, dass die Funktionslosigkeit von Kunst emphatisch behauptet oder eingefordert wird; sei es, dass die Auseinandersetzung mit Kunst uber deren Funktionen gerechtfertigt wird; sei es, dass der Kunstbegriff selbst funktional definiert wird. Funktionen von Kunst bereichern auch die Inhalte und das methodische Instrumentarium traditionell kunstferner Disziplinen. Die Beitrage des Bandes behandeln Fragen der Funktionalitat von Kunst, indem sie die Ansatze unterschiedlicher Facher in interdisziplinarer Perspektive mit Fallstudien (...) aus den Kunsten vereinen.". (shrink)

The sun -- The silence of art : Bataille's babbling sacrifice -- A map, of sorts -- Life's grave traces -- The clarity of method and its demands -- Truths of displacement -- Aristotle and the trace of phenomenology -- Encompassing flow or receding deformation ... a first tracing -- The formal force of presence -- The creative force of form -- The force of an impotent demand -- Limitation and light : creatures of the possible -- The intellect moves (...) as the necessity of exchange -- The trace as the force of the absent -- The trace and the gravity of words -- The trace as the absence and the motion of the intelligible -- Affirmation and absence -- The sense of a gesture -- Deformation of one hand rather than another -- The difficulty of gestures -- The subject as the site of the representation of possibility -- The unity of the place of a doubled reflection -- The displacing and transcending logic -- Of the power of representation -- On the place of the subject -- The beginning of the subjective -- Movement and method -- Belonging to the necessity of the element -- The divine task of beginning -- The necessity of the hand -- The difficult gesture of abandon -- The presence of an object, the force of a gesture -- The black box -- The vanishing compulsion -- The philosophical stakes of aesthetic form -- The dark gestures of the hand -- The presence of the frame ... and its gestures -- The originality of trust -- The silence evoked. (shrink)

A volume in Landscapes of Education. In From Socrates to Summerhill and Beyond: Towards a Philosophy of Education for Personal Responsibility, Ronald Swartz offers an evolving development of fallible, liberal democratic, self-governing educational philosophies. He suggests that educators can benefit from having dialogues about questions such as these: 1). Are there some authorities that can be consistently relied upon to tell school members what they should do and learn while they are in school? 2.) How should the imagination of social (...) theorists be both used and checked in the development and implementation of innovative educational reforms? 3.) How can teachers in personal responsibility schools help their students learn? These questions are representative of problems that Swartz raises in his book. Swartz identifies four educational programs as personal responsibility schools. These are Little Commonwealth (Homer Lane); Summerhill (A.S.Neill); Orphans Home (Janusz Korczak) and Sudbury Valley School (Daniel Greenberg). Swartz then suggests that these learning environments create social institutions that are liberal, democratic, and self-governing and therefore endorse the policy of personal responsibility. This policy states: All school members, students included, are fallible authorities who should be personally responsible for determining their own school activities and many policies that govern a school. Schools which incorporate this policy can interchangeably be referred to as personal responsibility, self-governing, or Summerhill style schools. In providing an historical and philosophical understanding of Summerhill style schools, Swartz suggests that these educational alternatives have intellectual roots in the ideas associated with Socrates as portrayed in Plato's Apology. Specifically, in personal responsibility schools teachers are not viewed as authorities who attempt to transmit wisdom to their students. Rather, self-governing schools follow the Socratic tradition which claims that teachers can be viewed as fallible authorities who attempt to engage students in dialogues about questions of interest to students. The interpretation of Plato's works used by Swartz can be found in Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies. Swartz has also been significantly influenced by the educational writings of Bertrand Russell and Paul Goodman. Goodman's Compulsory Miseducation makes it clear that schools which follow in the tradition of Summerhill compete with the educational programs that are an outgrowth of John Dewey's writings. In summary, Swartz's book aims to engage educators in dialogues that will lead to improved educational theories and practices. (shrink)

In der Tradition der Musik ist diese selbst immer wieder als eine Kunstform verstanden worden, die in einem besonders innigen Verhältnis zu dem steht, was uns auszeichnet: unsere Identität. Die Beiträge des Bandes spielen in unterschiedlicher Weise den Gedanken durch, dass Musik an der Konstitution von Subjekten sowie der Gestaltung individueller und kollektiver Selbstverständnisse in geschichtlichen Lebensformen beteiligt ist. Dabei wird vor allem nach der Rolle musikalischer Praktiken und Erfahrungen für die Konstitution, Transformation und Reflexion unserer Selbst als Subjekte gefragt (...) und das Verhältnis von Musik und Subjekt konstruktiv thematisiert. (shrink)

Table at Dimitri's Taverna : on seeking a philosophy of old age -- Old Greek's olive trees : on Epicurus's philosophy of fulfillment -- Deserted terrace : on time and worry beads -- Tasso's rain-spattered photographs : on solitary reflection -- Sirocco of youth's beauty : on existential authenticity -- Tintinnabulation of sheep bells : on mellowing to metaphysics -- Iphigenia's guest : on stoicism and old old age -- Burning boat in Kamini Harbor : on the timeliness of spirituality (...) -- Returning home : on a mindful old age. (shrink)

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the structure, strategy and methods of assessment of orthodox theoretical economics. In Part I Professor Hausman explains how economists theorise, emphasising the essential underlying commitment of economists to a vision of economics as a separate science. In Part II he defends the view that the basic axioms of economics are 'inexact' since they deal only with the 'major' causes; unlike most writers on economic methodology, the author argues that it is the rules that (...) economists espouse rather than their practice that is at fault. Part III links the conception of economics as a separate science to the fact that economic theories offer reasons and justifications for human actions, not just their causes. With its lengthy appendix introducing relevant issues in philosophy of science, this book is a major addition to philosophy of economics and of social science. (shrink)

La modernità incompiuta e l'ermeneutica dell'umano: sulla filosofia di Domenico Jervolino -- Sulla mortalità dell'essere morale: note su ontologia e diritto con Gabriel Marcel -- Matrimonio e "diritto naturale vignete" in Sergio Cotta -- La molteplicità degli ordinamenti giuridici nella riflessione di Giuseppe Capograssi -- Last not last.

As a young college student studying philosophy, Klein filled a notebook with short quotes from the world's greatest thinkers, hoping to find some guidance on how to live the best life he could. As he revisits the wisdom he relished in his youth, each extract is annotated with Klein's inimitable charm and insights. He tackles life's biggest questions-- and leaves us chuckling and enlightened.

Dan Haybron presents an illuminating examination of well-being, drawing on important recent work in the science of happiness. He shows that we are remarkably prone to error in judgements of our own personal welfare, and suggests that we should rethink traditional assumptions about the good life and the good society.

This book is about preferences, principally as they figure in economics. It also explores their uses in everyday language and action, how they are understood in psychology and how they figure in philosophical reflection on action and morality. The book clarifies and for the most part defends the way in which economists invoke preferences to explain, predict and assess behavior and outcomes. Hausman argues, however, that the predictions and explanations economists offer rely on theories of preference formation that are in (...) need of further development, and he criticizes attempts to define welfare in terms of preferences and to define preferences in terms of choices or self-interest. The analysis clarifies the relations between rational choice theory and philosophical accounts of human action. The book also assembles the materials out of which models of preference formation and modification can be constructed, and it comments on how reason and emotion shape preferences. (shrink)

This book, by one of the pre-eminent philosophers of science writing today, offers the most comprehensive account available of causal asymmetries. Causation is asymmetrical in many different ways. Causes precede effects; explanations cite causes not effects. Agents use causes to manipulate their effects; they don't use effects to manipulate their causes. Effects of a common cause are correlated; causes of a common effect are not. This book explains why a relationship that is asymmetrical in one of these regards is asymmetrical (...) in the others. Hausman discovers surprising hidden connections between theories of causation and traces them all to an asymmetry of independence. This is a major book for philosophers of science that will also prove insightful to economists and statisticians. (shrink)

Anger, disgust, elevation, sympathy, relief. If the subjective experience of each of these emotions is the same whether elicited by moral or nonmoral events, then what makes moral emotions unique? We suggest that the configuration of moral emotions is special—a configuration given by the underlying structure of morality. Research suggests that people divide the moral world along the two dimensions of valence (help/harm) and moral type (agent/patient). The intersection of these two dimensions gives four moral exemplars—heroes, villains, victims and beneficiaries—each (...) of which elicits unique emotions. For example, victims (harm/patient) elicit sympathy and sadness. Dividing moral emotions into these four quadrants provides predictions about which emotions reinforce, oppose and complement each other. (shrink)

Three studies test eight hypotheses about (1) how judgment differs between people who ascribe greater vs. less moral relevance to choices, (2) how moral judgment is subject to task constraints that shift evaluative focus (to moral rules vs. to consequences), and (3) how differences in the propensity to rely on intuitive reactions affect judgment. In Study 1, judgments were affected by rated agreement with moral rules proscribing harm, whether the dilemma under consideration made moral rules versus consequences of choice salient, (...) and by thinking styles (intuitive vs. deliberative). In Studies 2 and 3, participants evaluated policy decisions to knowingly do harm to a resource to mitigate greater harm or to merely allow the greater harm to happen. When evaluated in isolation, approval for decisions to harm was affected by endorsement of moral rules and by thinking style. When both choices were evaluated simultaneously, total harm -- but not the do/allow distinction -- influenced rated approval. These studies suggest that moral rules play an important, but context-sensitive role in moral cognition, and offer an account of when emotional reactions to perceived moral violations receive less weight than consideration of costs and benefits in moral judgment and decision making. (shrink)

This essay explains what the Causal Markov Condition says and defends the condition from the many criticisms that have been launched against it. Although we are skeptical about some of the applications of the Causal Markov Condition, we argue that it is implicit in the view that causes can be used to manipulate their effects and that it cannot be surrendered without surrendering this view of causation.

We often consciously will our own actions. This experience is so profound that it tempts us to believe that our actions are caused by consciousness. It could also be a trick, however – the mind’s way of estimating its own apparent authorship by drawing causal inferences about relationships between thoughts and actions. Cognitive, social, and neuropsychological studies of apparent mental causation suggest that experiences of conscious will frequently depart from actual causal processes and so might not reflect direct perceptions of (...) conscious thought causing action. (shrink)

Drawing on theories of William James, Freud, and Dewey, as well as on studies in mood control, cognitive therapy, and artificial intelligence, this...

Participants watched themselves in a mirror while another person behind them, hidden from view, extended hands forward on each side where participants’ hands would normally appear. The hands performed a series of movements. When participants could hear instructions previewing each movement, they reported an enhanced feeling of controlling the hands. Hearing instructions for the movements also enhanced skin conductance responses when a rubber band was snapped on the other’s wrist after the movements. Such vicarious agency was not felt when the (...) instructions followed the movements, and participants’ own covert movement mimicry was not essential to the influence of previews on reported control. (shrink)

This essay develops an account of health, the functional efficiency theory, which derives from Christopher Boorse's biostatistical theory. Like the BST, the functional efficiency theory is a nonevaluative view of health, but unlike the BST, it argues that the fundamental theoretical task is to distinguish levels of efficiency with which the parts and processes within organisms and within systems within organisms function. Which of these to label as healthy or pathological is of secondary importance. Because the statistical distributions that Boorse's (...) account relies on are distributions of functional efficiency, the functional efficiency theory arguably complements rather than challenges the BST. (shrink)