Purpose. Romanticism as a movement developed in Germany, where, becoming the philosophy of time in the 18th-19th centuries, spread to all European countries. The "mobility" of the Romantic doctrine, its diversity, sometimes contradictory views, attitude to man as a free, harmonious, creative person led to the susceptibility of this movement by ethnic groups, different in nature and mentality. Its ideas found a wide response in Ukraine with its "cordocentric" type of culture in the early nineteenth century. Since the peculiarity of (...) "Ukrainian Romanticism" was its "literary-centric" nature, the purpose of this study is to analyse and comprehend the place of man in the national philosophy and literature of this period. Accordingly, the main tasks of the work are as follows: to determine the main features, the nature of Ukrainian Romanticism; to trace the main vectors of comprehension and image of man in the literature of this time. Theoretical basis. The ideas of European Romanticism were creatively rethought and assimilated during the emergence of new Ukrainian literature. It provided samples of highly artistic works, unique names of talented writers – creators and thinkers, who in their works reflected the philosophy of time. Based on the works of F. Schlegel, partly E. Husserl, M. Heidegger, K. Jaspers, Romanticism in the Ukrainian humanities, in terms of philosophy, culturology, as well as at the intersection with literature, was studied by T. Bovsunivska, Y. Hrybkova, S. Efremov, N. Kalenichenko, S. Kozak, T. Komarynets, D. Nalyvayko, Y. Nakhlik, I. Ogorodnyk, V. Ogorodnyk, A. Sinitsyna, D. Chyzhevsky, M. Yatsenko, E. Kyryliuk, M. Biletsky, D. Dontsov, S. Efremov, G. Kostyuk, S. Krymsky, Y. Sherekh and others. Originality. The authors of the article prove that Romanticism in Ukraine, being "literary-centric" inherently, having absorbed the main ideas and features of European Romanticism, has its own features and vectors of formation and development. Man in this kind of movement, thanks to the means of art, appears very clearly as a spiritually rich, sensitive, vulnerable and strong person. For him or her, the highest value is freedom, the ability to make freely independent fateful decisions. Conclusions. Ukrainian writers, reflecting the philosophical ideas of Romanticism, saw in man a harmonious combination of "natural" and "social", through which he indirectly carries out his own national existence. In addition to the objective realities of the external world, in their works, Romantic writers appeal to the subjective, internal, spiritual, "ideal" world of the hero, who interacts with reality through his own system of values. At each level of development of the humanities and methodology of cognition, this allows a new reading of these works. (shrink)

Purpose. The dynamics and pace of social and economic transformations that are characteristic of modern society, lead to an increase in tension and the destruction of habitual stereotypes – ideals, values, norms, patterns of behaviour that unite people. These moments encourage us to rethink the understanding of "security" essence, in particular, psychological, which emphasizes the urgency of its study in the philosophical and sociocultural coordinates. Theoretical basis of the research is based on the philosophical methodology of K. Jaspers, E. Fromm (...) and the A. Maslow’s psychological approach to understanding of a person. Originality. Psychological security is considered at different levels: first and foremost, society is a characteristic of social security, that is an analysis of how today’s social technologies, social changes affect the quality of life of the country’s population; secondly, the social environment – the family, the immediate environment, reference groups, training teams; thirdly, a person is an experience of his own security-insecurity, when it is possible to talk about the manifestations of psychological violence, when certain behavioral acts contribute to the violation of the security of the other or to self-destruction. It is found out that the knowledge of psychological security is closely connected with the socio-historical conditions of being, with the level of development of material and spiritual culture, with the interests and values prevailing in society, which determines its ontological, epistemological and axiological features. The presented issue is considered in the correlation of psychological security with types of scientific rationality – classical, nonclassical and post-nonclassical approaches, within the framework of which various perspectives, aspects, forms and types of psychological security are studied. Conclusions. The concept of security requires a systematic description of its manifestations, types, levels, concepts: security as the absence of dangers ; security as a certain activity to ensure or to prevent any threats or dangers ; security as a conscious necessity, the value of the individual. The study systematizes various ideas about psychological security in accordance with the logic of scientific knowledge: in the mainstream of classical, non-classical and post-nonclassical approaches. (shrink)

Moral philosophers agree that welfare matters. But they disagree about what it is, or how much it matters. In this vital new work, Wayne Sumner presents an original theory of welfare, investigating its nature and discussing its importance. He considers and rejects all notable theories of welfare, both objective and subjective, including hedonism and theories founded on desire or preference. His own theory connects welfare closely with happiness or life satisfaction. Reacting against the value pluralism that currently dominates moral philosophy, (...) he advances welfare as the only basic ethical value. He concludes by discussing the implications of this thesis for ethical and political theory. Written in clear, non-technical language, and including a definitive survey of other work in this area, Sumner's book is essential reading for moral philosophers, political theorists, and welfare economists. (shrink)

Suppose libertarians could prove that durable, unqualified private property rights could be created through 'original acquisition' of unowned resources in a state of nature. Such a proof would cast serious doubt on the legitimacy of the modern state. It could also render the approach to property rights that I favour irrelevant. I argue here that none of the familiar Lockean-libertarian arguments for a strong natural right to acquisition succeed, and that any successful argument for grounding a right to acquire would (...) have to use my favoured approach to property rights - the 'vector-sum' approach. I conclude with some doubts about original acquisition theory and natural property rights. (shrink)

Suffering is a central component of our lives. Our bodies break and become diseased. Our feelings get hurt, loved ones die, our goals are frustrated, our expectations are not met. It is a commonplace to think that suffering is, all and everywhere, bad. But might suffering also be good? If so, in what ways might suffering have positive, as well as negative, value? The papers collected for the this volume are original works by experts in a variety of disciplines that (...) address questions about the nature and value of suffering, its relation to other mental states and capacities, and to vital questions in ethics, theology, and aesthetic. This chapter examines the nature and value of emotions suffering in criminal punishment: what is emotional suffering, and can it be justified as as a form of legal punishment? (shrink)

Knud Ejler Løgstrup’s _The Ethical Demand_ is the most original influential Danish contribution to moral philosophy in this century. This is the first time that the complete text has been available in English translation. Originally published in 1956, it has again become the subject of widespread interest in Europe, now read in the context of the whole of Løgstrup’s work. _The Ethical Demand_ marks a break not only with utilitarianism and with Kantianism but also with Kierkegaard’s Christian existentialism and with (...) all forms of subjectivism. Yet Løgstrup’s project is not destructive. Rather, it is a presentation of an alternative understanding of interpersonal life. The ethical demand presupposes that all interaction between human beings involves a basic trust. Its content cannot be derived from any rule. For Løgstrup, there is not Christian morality and secular morality. There is only human morality. _The Ethical Demand _is of the highest relevance to contemporary debate, especially around those issues raised by Levinas. It will exert a steadily increasing influence both in theology and philosophy. (shrink)

This paper presents a speculative model of the cognitive mechanisms underlying the transition from episodic to mimetic (or memetic) culture with the arrival of Homo erectus, which Donald [1991] claims paved the way for the unique features of human culture. The model draws on Kauffman's [1993] theory of how an information-evolving system emerges through the formation of an autocatalytic network. Though originally formulated to explain the origin of life, this theory also provides a plausible account of how discrete episodic memories (...) become woven into an internal model of the world, or worldview, that both structures, and is structured by, self-triggered streams of thought. Social interaction plays a role in (and may be critical to) this process. Implications for cognitive development are explored. (shrink)

Originally published in Proceedings of the British Academy 60 (1974), 339-359.

Like the information patterns that evolve through biological processes, mental representations, or memes, evolve through adaptive exploration and transformation of an information space through variation, selection, and transmission. Since unlike genes, memes do not come packaged with instructions for their replication, our brains do it for them, strategically, guided by a fitness landscape that reflects both internal drives and a worldview that is continually updated through meme assimilation. This paper presents a model for how an individual becomes a meme-evolving agent (...) via the emergence of an autocatalytic network of sparse, distributed memories, and discusses implications for complex, creative thought processes and why they are unique to humans. Memetics can do more than account for the spread of catchy tunes; it can pave the way for the kind of overarching framework for the humanities that the first form of evolution has provided for the biological sciences. (shrink)

A new theory concerning charge separation of atmospheric electricity is proposed, based on the selective capture of negative charge from atmospheric ion pairs by material surfaces. It explains why the earth's surface becomes negatively charged during fine weather, and provides a mechanism for the phenomenon of charge separation within clouds during the violent growth of thunderstorms. Also included is a description of laboratory and field experiments substantiating our views.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology: Vanquishing God’s ShadowWalter L. ReedPostmodern Theory and Biblical Theology: Vanquishing God’s Shadow, by Brian D. Ingraffia; xvi & 284 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, $59.95 cloth, $17.95 paper.At the beginning of John Updike’s new novel In the Beauty of the Lilies, a Presbyterian minister, trained by the Princeton Fundamentalists in the early years of the 20th century, is reading a book by (...) the popular agnostic Robert Ingersoll when he suddenly loses his faith. Brian Ingraffia’s Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology puts secular clerics at the end of the century, secure in their atheism or agnosticism, in danger of the opposite fate. Postmodern theorists are at risk here of losing their doubt. At least they are in danger of losing their confidence that Christianity need not be taken seriously since Nietzsche announced its demise and Heidegger and Derrida elaborated its obituary.Ingraffia is straightforward about his intentions. “In this study I seek to analyze critically the antipathy exhibited in postmodern theory toward theology,” he begins. “Whereas modernism tried to elevate man into God’s place, postmodern theory seeks to destroy or deconstruct the very place and attributes of God” (p. 1). Ingraffia focuses on Nietzsche, Heidegger and Derrida, arguably the three most rigorous and original philosophers of what has come to be known more loosely as postmodern theory. He analyzes the development of each writer’s critique of Western metaphysics in its own right, but he also attends to the genealogy of subversive genealogies among them—in Heidegger’s critique of the residual metaphysics of Nietzsche, for example, [End Page 184] and Derrida’s attempt to deconstruct, at times by appealing to concepts from Nietzsche, the residual ontotheology of Heidegger. “By deconstructing the metaphysics of presence, these thinkers all claim to have deconstructed ontotheology, [that is,] both Greek metaphysics and Christian theology,” Ingraffia concludes. But as he has argued in different specific contexts throughout his persuasive book, “the logos of biblical theology is radically different from the logos of Greek philosophy and modern rationalism,” these being the real sources or substance of the ontotheology that postmoderism is so dead set against (p. 237). In planting a headstone over Christian theology, in other words, postmodern theory has got the wrong grave.The genuine “biblical theology” Ingraffia counterposes to the misrepresentations of Christianity by Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida is found first and foremost in the New Testament letters of Paul. It is one of the striking features of the book that it brings a powerful voice from the first century into conversation and controversy with these powerful voices from the modern era. “The inventor of Christianity,” as Nietzsche labeled Paul in one of his many bitter aphorisms, is the central spokesman for the Christian understanding of truth that postmodernism has, deliberately as well as misadvertently, according to Ingraffia, misconstrued. Thus Paul’s doctrine of “the redemptive-eschatological separation between the present world and the world to come” (pp. 62 ff.), especially in the Letter to the Philippians, is set against Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence; Paul’s discrimination of “flesh and spirit,” with a salutary attention to the koiné Greek meanings of these terms and their cognates in the Letter to the Romans, is opposed to Heidegger’s doctrine of the authentic self. And in the most original of Ingraffia’s Pauline probes, Paul’s distinction between the “letter” (gramma) foolishly grasped and the “Scripture” (graphe) spiritually apprehended in the Second Letter to the Corinthians is counterposed to Derrida’s grammatology, where arche-writing effectively levels all hierarchies and distinctions.The strength of Ingraffia’s argument lies in his clear and, on one level, sympathetic exposition of the different but related projects of these three thinkers. This is not the kind of defensive dismissal of “secular humanism” or “godless philosophy” that evangelical Christianity has sometimes made from behind the barricades of its antimodernist revolt. With lucid expositions of crucial turns of their arguments and judicious appeals to current scholarship on each figure, Ingraffia shows how Nietzsche and Heidegger, “theology students turned philosopher” (p. 47), derive important concepts by borrowing from Christian theology on the one hand... (shrink)

Purpose. Based on the study of philosophical anthropological concepts, to highlight the project of personality in different historical periods, to reveal the meaning of humanistic issues in the postmodern epoch, to identify the essential features of the image of human of the second half of the XX the beginning of the XXI century. Theoretical basis. The methodological basis of the article is the principles of historicism, integrity, objectivity regarding the mastery of the issue of person’s image in postmodernism. The research (...) applied comparative-historical, culturological, analytical, axiological approaches to reveal the problem of individuality in the second half of the XX the beginning of the XXI century. The theoretical basis of the article consists of scientific works in the field of philosophical anthropology, history, cultural studies, and aesthetics. Originality. The author revealed the peculiarities of transformation of the personality model from antiquity to postmodernism, specified the image of man of the second half of the XX the beginning of the XXI century. Conclusions. The analysis of anthropological ideas of Western philosophy of different ages shows the variety of views about understanding the nature of the person, its complexity and ambiguity. In the epoch of postmodernism humanistic issues are of particular relevance, which is connected with social and political uncertainty, domination of mass consciousness, loss of national and cultural identity. The image of a person of this period is deprived of a solid foundation, it is blurred and relative. The destruction of faith in the absolute in the context of the second half of the twentieth century contributed to the formation of confidence in the interdependence of all things, raised the problem of the personality image to a new ontological level. Orientation in the achievements of European civilization, perception of its anthropological experience, intercultural dialogue contribute to the productive use of the achievements of mankind in order to understand the modern person and to form its adequate image. In its essence, postmodernism does not set the goal to realize a retrospection of subject type. However, separating from the cultural memory the excerpts of ideas about a person, by certain styles and directions, it builds on their formations its own eclectic image of the individual. (shrink)

Originally published in 1914, this book examines the French Voluntarist school of philosophy and the key ways in which it differs from the Pragmatists. Stebbing argues that Voluntarism and Pragmatism both prove inadequate in their definition of truth, and suggests that an acknowledgment of the 'non-existential character of truth' is needed. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in philosophy.

I summarize the main argument of Transformative Experience (OUP 2014). The book develops familiar examples from classical philosophical debates, as well as original examples, to argue that an agent’s decision to undergo a transformative experience—an experience constituted by radical personal and epistemic change for the agent—must either be authentic or irrational, but not both. The Precis of Transformative Experience walks the reader through the main ideas involved in epistemically and personally transformative experiences, the problems they pose for rational decision-making, and (...) discusses a number of key original examples of transformative experiences. (shrink)

When speaking of pre-Qin Dynasty theories on human nature, past scholars divided Confucius, Mencius and Xunzi into three categories, and they tended to divide the theories into moral categories of good and evil. The discovery of bamboo and silk sheets from this period, however, has offered some valuable literature, providing a historical opportunity for the thorough research of pre-Qin Dynasty theories on human nature. Based on the information on the recently excavated bamboo and silk sheets, especially the essay titled “Xing (...) Zi Ming Chu” on bamboo sheets unearthed in Guodian, this essay examines pre-Qin Dynasty theories on human nature from a new perspective. In doing so, it looks forward to a breakthrough in academic patterns of thought which typically defined pre-Qin Dynasty theories on human nature as good or evil, and thus a closer look at the original appearance of pre-Qin Dynasty theories on human nature as a whole. (shrink)

The Emerging Issues Task Force (Kellmeyer et al. 2019) identifies several important trends and concerns that neuroethics will encounter and grapple with in the com- ing decades. Among these are ethical issues related to the creation of new nonhuman entities, such as artificial intelligence systems, and human origin entities like brain organoids. The task force briefly mentions animal minds and animal rights, to which neuroethics to date has paid scant attention (Buller et al. 2014). As neuroscientific knowledge and knowledge from (...) other fields, including, to name a few, comparative psychology, primatology, ethology, biology, genetics, and medical sociology, accu- mulate, ethical concerns about the use of nonhuman ani- mals in research, agriculture, entertainment, and elsewhere will grow more visible and more urgent. Turning neuroethical attention toward nonhuman ani- mals also promises to illuminate issues related to specific human populations that are within the purview of a more expansive, forward-looking neuroethics. (shrink)

Theories of Truth provides a clear, critical introduction to one of the most difficult areas of philosophy. It surveys all of the major philosophical theories of truth, presenting the crux of the issues involved at a level accessible to nonexperts yet in a manner sufficiently detailed and original to be of value to professional scholars. Kirkham's systematic treatment and meticulous explanations of terminology ensure that readers will come away from this book with a comprehensive general understanding of one of philosophy's (...) thorniest set of topics. -/- Included are discussions of the correspondence, coherence, pragmatic, semantic, performative, redundancy, appraisal, and truth-as-justification theories. There are also chapters or sections of chapters on the liar paradox, three-valued logic, Field's critique of Tarski, Davidson's program, Dummett's theory of linguistic competence, satisfaction, recursion, the extension/intension distinction, and an explanation of how theories of justification, properly understood, differ from theories of truth. -/- A persistent theme is that philosophers have too often failed to recognize that not all theories of truth are intended to answer the same question. When the various questions are made distinct, it is apparent that many of the "debates" in this field are really cases of philosophers talking past one another. There is much less disagreement within the field than has commonly been thought. (shrink)

The central role played by Darwin's analogy between selection under domestication and that under nature has been adequately appreciated, but I have indicated how important the domesticated organisms also were to other elements of Darwin's theory of evolution-his recognition of “the constant principle of change,” for instance, of the imperfection of adaptation, and of the extent of variation in nature. The further development of his theory and its presentation to the public likewise hinged on frequent reference to domesticates.We have seen (...) that Darwin's reliance on the analogy between domesticated varieties and wild species was a bold and original step, in light of contemporary views on the nature of domesticates. However, as Darwin undoubtedly foresaw, his reliance on the analogy created difficulties as well as solving problems, and these began with his Malthusian codiscoverer of the principle of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace. Wallace's paper “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type,” presented to the Linnean Scoiety along with the first public unveiling of Darwin's theory, states: We see, then, that no inferences as to varieties in a state of nature can be deduced from the observation of those occurring among domestic animals. The two are so much opposed to each other in every circumstance of their existence, that what applies to the one is almost sure not to apply to the other. Domestic animals are abnormal, irregular, artificial; they are subject to varieties which never occur and never can occur in a state of nature.62Much has been made of the similarity of views of Darwin and Wallace, but this quotation surely reveals how utterly different their views were on what to Darwin was an important matter. Several critics of the Origin saw Darwin's reliance on the domesticates as his Achilles heel. As Young has pointed out, Samuel Wilberforce included the following passage in his attack on the Origin: Nor must we pass over unnoticed the transference of the argument from the domesticated to the untamed animals. Assuming that man as the selector can do much in a limited time, Mr. Darwin argues that Nature, a more powerful, a more continuous power, working over vastly extended ranges of time, can do more. But why should Nature, so uniform and persistent in all her operations, tend in this instance to change? Why should she become a selector of varieties?63Another critic, Fleeming Jenkin, found the analogy a weakness in Darwin's theory because of the limited extent of variation in any one direction in domestic animals and plants.64 We have already seen that Darwin had confided a similar view to his notebook thirty years earlier, but changed his mind as a result of his profound study of domesticates. De Beer's reference to “an English country gentleman's knowledge of domestic plants and animals and their breeding”65 fails totally to recognize the originality and depth of Darwin's knowledge of domesticates.Why did Darwin, against the currents of his time, rely so heavily on mankind's experience with domesticated organisms to shape his theory about species in nature? On reason is that only with domesticates was an approach that came close to experimental verification possible. Darwin fully realized the inadequacies of the experiment, as is emphasized by his repeated contrasting of selection under nature and selection by man. Yet the extensive experience and data of plant and animal breeders offered the only reliable base against which Darwin could continually challenge his views. As he wrote in the introduction to Variation, with domestication, “man ... may be said to have been trying an experiment on a gigantic scale.”66 Given Darwin's high opinion of the quantitative work of Malthus and Quetelet (as emphasized by Schweber),67 and his unremitting efforts to secure data by which to test his theories, it was inevitable that he should attach high significance to domesticated varieties. John Tyndall, in his Belfast address of 1874, said: “The strength of the doctrine of Evolution consists, not in experimental demonstration (for the subject is hardly accessible to this mode of proof), but in its general harmony with scientific thought.”68 Darwin would have agreed with the latter thought, but I think he would have challenged the preceding one on the grounds that long experience with domesticated varieties did provide an element of experimental demonstration. It gave him confidence in his theory, and he used his vast knowledge of artificial selection boldly and creatively. (shrink)

L. Nandi Theunissen offers an original and provocative account of the value of humanity. Human beings have value just as anything of value has value: because we are capable of being of value to someone--in the first place, to ourselves. And this explains the key forms of ethical responsiveness that we owe to one another.

The practice of covertly administering medications to patients without their consent is often discussed in the framework of legal questions around the right of patients to consent and refuse medical treatment. However, this practice also raises significant questions surrounding the professional duties and obligations of health care professionals as it relates to the decision-making process of whether to engage in the covert administration of medications. In this paper, I present an overview of the origin of those duties and obligations, and (...) discuss how those duties and obligations when seen from different perspectives may either justify or prohibit the practice. Further, I discuss whether the duties and obligations of health care professionals as they are currently framed are suited to address the complexities of this issue both from the health care professional and patient perspectives. This analysis is conducted in the context of duties and obligations that arise from not only legal framework but also from the ethical requirements from professional codes of ethics. (shrink)

"Legend is overdue for replacement, and an adequate replacement must attend to the process of science as carefully as Hull has done. I share his vision of a serious account of the social and intellectual dynamics of science that will avoid both the rosy blur of Legend and the facile charms of relativism.... Because of [Hull's] deep concern with the ways in which research is actually done, Science as a Process begins an important project in the study of science. It (...) is one of a distinguished series of books, which Hull himself edits."—Philip Kitcher, Nature "In Science as a Process, [David Hull] argues that the tension between cooperation and competition is exactly what makes science so successful.... Hull takes an unusual approach to his subject. He applies the rules of evolution in nature to the evolution of science, arguing that the same kinds of forces responsible for shaping the rise and demise of species also act on the development of scientific ideas."—Natalie Angier, New York Times Book Review "By far the most professional and thorough case in favour of an evolutionary philosophy of science ever to have been made. It contains excellent short histories of evolutionary biology and of systematics (the science of classifying living things); an important and original account of modern systematic controversy; a counter-attack against the philosophical critics of evolutionary philosophy; social-psychological evidence, collected by Hull himself, to show that science does have the character demanded by his philosophy; and a philosophical analysis of evolution which is general enough to apply to both biological and historical change."—Mark Ridley, Times Literary Supplement "Hull is primarily interested in how social interactions within the scientific community can help or hinder the process by which new theories and techniques get accepted.... The claim that science is a process for selecting out the best new ideas is not a new one, but Hull tells us exactly how scientists go about it, and he is prepared to accept that at least to some extent, the social activities of the scientists promoting a new idea can affect its chances of being accepted."—Peter J. Bowler, Archives of Natural History "I have been doing philosophy of science now for twenty-five years, and whilst I would never have claimed that I knew everything, I felt that I had a really good handle on the nature of science, Again and again, Hull was able to show me just how incomplete my understanding was.... Moreover, [Science as a Process] is one of the most compulsively readable books that I have ever encountered."—Michael Ruse, Biology and Philosophy. (shrink)

How are we to understand the role of bioethics in the health care system, government, and academe? This collection of original essays raises these and other questions about the nature of bioethics as a discipline.

Since McTaggart first proposed his paradox asserting the unreality of time, numerous philosophers have attempted to defend the tensed theory of time against it. Certainly, one of the most highly developed and original is that put forth by Quentin Smith. Through discussing McTaggart's positive conception of time as well as his negative attack on its reality, I hope to clarify the dispute between those who believe in the existence of the transitory temporal properties of pastness, presentness and futurity, and those (...) who deny their existence. We shall see that the debate centers around the ontological status of succession and the B-relations of earlier and later. I shall argue that Smith's tensed theory fails because he cannot account for the sense in which events have their tensed properties successively, and he cannot account for the direction of time. (shrink)

On a survalorisé l’influence des traités de rhétorique sur les théories de la représentation à la Renaissance et à l’Âge classique et on a minoré voire ignoré celle de la physiognomonie. Afin de rendre compte de son rôle méconnu, cet article entend mettre à jour les origines physiognomoniques de la pathognomonie, examiner l’imbrication de la physiognomonie et de la pathognomonie durant cette période charnière qui marque un changement de paradigme, en ouvrant sur le cas de la physio-pathognomonie de Charles Le (...) Brun. (shrink)

David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, composed before the author was twenty-eight years old, was published in 1739 and 1740. In revising the late L.A. Selby-Bigge's edition of Hume's Treatise Professor Nidditch corrected verbal errors and took account of Hume's manuscript amendments. He also supplied the text of theof the Treatise following the original 1740 edition and provided an apparatus of variant readings.

Recent interest in the problem of verisimilitude stemmed originally from Popper's desire to provide a non-inductive criterion of merit that will select between two false theories) But the problem has also been taken up by others who are not committed to Popper's anti-inductivism. Indeed Ilkka Niiniluoto has argued that the estimated degree of truthlikeness of a generalisation g which is compatible with evidence e can be equated with the inductive probability of g on e, wherever g is a constituent in (...) Hintikka's sense. It might therefore be worth while to approach the problem afresh, in order to determine quite generally whether a measure of verisimilitude is what is principally needed for the evaluation of scientific progress. I shall argue that it is not. (shrink)

Die Frequenzkurven, die die lebendige Substanz charakterisieren, können als eine statische Beschreibung oder als das Ergebnis einer Entwicklung betrachtet werden.Im ersten Falle akzeptiert man ohne weiteres die gegebenen Verteilungen und man versucht, ihnen durch mathematische Gleichungen, die keine unmittelbare Wirklich-keitsbedeutung haben, nahezukommen. Das kausale Denken wird hier ausgeschaltet oder man gibt sich wenigstens mit nur sehr groben Analogien zufrieden.Verschiedene Methoden über die Genese der Frequenzkurven werden besprochen; dabei wird gezeigt, dass die Mehrheit der Fälle auf Hypothesen beruht, die biologisch wenig (...) begründet sind. Eine Ausnahme davon macht die Theorie vonJ. C. Kapteyn, weil er den Vorgang des Wachstums in die Genese einbezieht. Seine Methode weiter ausbauend kann man sich vorstellen, dass die Genese einer Frequenzkurve in erblich homogenem Pflanzenmaterial durch Variation der Wachstumsgeschwindigkeit zustandekommt.Auf solche Weise kann man in einem Koordinatensystem mit Länge und Zeit als Koordinaten ein “Deviationsraster” konstruieren.In einem experimentell untersuchten Fall ergab die graphische Methode mit völlig ausreichender Genauigkeit die schon gefundene Frequenz.Les courbes de fréquence qui caractérisent la matière vivante, peuvent être considérées ou comme une description statique ou bien comme le produit d'un développement.Dans le premier cas on accepte les distributions obtenues et on essaie de s'en rapprocher par des équations mathématiques qui n'ont pas une réalité effective. On ne recherche plus la causalité ou alors on se contente le plus souvent d'analogies très grossières.Les auteurs traitent des diverses méthodes de la genèse des courbes de fréquence et démontrent que la plupart des cas reposent sur des hypothèses qui ont peu de fond biologique. La théorie deM. J. C. Kapteyn fait exception parcequ'il introduit le processus de croissance dans la genèse. En poursuivant plus loin dans sa méthode on peut se figurer que la genèse d'une courbe de fréquence de plantes homogènes par hérédité s'expliquerait par des variations de vitesse de croissance.De cette façon on peut construire une “grille de déviation” dans un système en prenant longueur et temps comme coordonnées.Dans un cas essayé expérimentalement ce graphique donnait avec une exactitude assez grande la distribution de fréquence déjà trouvée. (shrink)