This co-edited volume compares Chinese and Western experiences of engineering, technology, and development. In doing so, it builds a bridge between the East and West and advances a dialogue in the philosophy of engineering. Divided into three parts, the book starts with studies on epistemological and ontological issues, with a special focus on engineering design, creativity, management, feasibility, and sustainability. Part II considers relationships between the history and philosophy of engineering, and includes a general argument for the necessity of dialogue (...) between history and philosophy. It continues with a general introduction to traditional Chinese attitudes toward engineering and technology, and philosophical case studies of the Chinese steel industry, railroads, and cybernetics in the Soviet Union. Part III focuses on engineering, ethics, and society, with chapters on engineering education and practice in China and the West. The book’s analyses of the interactions of science, engineering, ethics, politics, and policy in different societal contexts are of special interest. The volume as a whole marks a new stage in the emergence of the philosophy of engineering as a new regionalization of philosophy. This carefully edited interdisciplinary volume grew out of an international conference on the philosophy of engineering hosted by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. It includes 30 contributions by leading philosophers, social scientists, and engineers from Australia, China, Europe, and the United States. (shrink)

An Andalusian tradition of zījes seems to have been predominant in the Maghrib due to the popularity of the zīj of Ibn Is[hdotu]āq al-Tūnisī and derived texts compiled in the fourteenth century. This tradition computed sidereal planetary longitudes and allowed the calculation of tropical longitudes by using trepidation tables based on models designed in al-Andalus by Abū Is[hdotu]āq ibn al-Zarqālluh. This tradition also used Ibn al-Zarqālluh's model to calculate the obliquity of the ecliptic, which implied that this angle had (...) a cyclical period of oscillation between a maximum of 23;53° and a minimum of 23;33°: after reaching this minimum value the obliquity of the ecliptic was bound to increase. This paper argues that some new Maghribi sources give information on observations made in the Maghrib in the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries that imply that precession had increased beyond the limits allowed by the Zarqāllian trepidation theory, while the obliquity of the ecliptic had diminished below the level accepted by astronomers who followed Ibn al-Zarqālluh. This explains the introduction in the Maghrib of Eastern zījes, which computed directly tropical longitudes and did not accept the cyclical variation of the obliquity. Information about observations of dawn and twilight made both in Egypt and in the Maghrib in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is also presented. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of the systematic astronomical observations performed by Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Maghribī at the Maragha observatory between 1262 and 1274 AD. In a treatise entitled Talkhīṣ al-majisṭī, preserved in a unique copy at Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Muḥyī al-Dīn explains his observations and measurements of the Sun, the Moon, the superior planets, and eight reference stars. His measurements of the meridian altitudes of the Sun, the superior planets, and the eight bright stars were made using the mural quadrant (...) of the observatory, and the times of their meridian transit using a water clock. The mean absolute error in the meridian altitudes of the Sun is ~ 3.1′, of the superior planets ~ 4.6′, and of the eight fixed stars ~ 6.2′. The clepsydras used by Muḥyī al-Dīn could apparently fix time intervals with a precision of ± 5 min. His estimation of the magnitudes of three lunar eclipses observed in Maragha in 1262, 1270, and 1274 AD is in close agreement with modern data. (shrink)

A table in five columns for the radii of the Sun, the Moon, and the shadow is included in sets of astronomical tables from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth century, specifically in those by John of Gmunden (d. 1442), Peurbach (d. 1461), the second edition of the Alfonsine Tables (1492), Copernicus (d. 1543), Brahe (d. 1601), and Longomontanus (d. 1647). The arrangement is the same and the entries did not change much, despite many innovations in astronomical theories (...) in this time period. In other words, there is continuity in presentation and, from the point of view of the user of these tables, changes in the theory played no role. In general, the methods for computing the entries are not described and have to be reconstructed. In this paper, we focus on the users of these tables rather than on their compilers, but we refer to modern reconstructions where appropriate. A key issue is the treatment of the size of the Moon during a solar eclipse which was not properly understood by Tycho Brahe. Kepler’s solution and that of his predecessor, Levi ben Gerson (d. 1344), are discussed. (shrink)

The book of Aristarchus of Samos, On the distances and sizes of the sun and moon, is one of the few pre-Ptolemaic astronomical works that have come down to us in complete or nearly complete form. The simplicity and cleverness of the basic ideas behind the calculations are often obscured in the reading of the treatise by the complexity of the calculations and reasoning. Part of the complexity could be explained by the lack of trigonometry and part by the (...) fact that Aristarchus appears unwilling to make some simplifications that could be simply taken for granted. But an important part of the complexities is due to some unnecessary inconsistencies, as recently discovered by Berggren and Sidoli (Arch Hist Exact Sci 61:213–254, 2007). In the first part of this paper, I will try to show that some of these inconsistencies are just apparent. But the complexity of the calculations and reasoning is not the only reason that could disturb a reader of the treatise. The great inaccuracy—even for the measurement methods and instruments available at those times—of one of the three input values of the treatise is really astonishing. In the sixth and last hypothesis, Aristarchus states that the moon’s apparent size is equal to 2∘\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$^{\circ }$$\end{document}, while the correct value is one-fourth of that. Some attempts have been made in order to explain such a big value, but all of them have problems. In the second part of this paper, I will propose a new speculative but plausible explanation of the origin of this value. (shrink)

In the ancient civilizations, the sky has been observed in order to understand the motions of the celestial bodies above the horizon. The study of faiths and practices dealing with the sky in the past has been attributed to the sun, the moon, and the prominent stars. The alignment and orientation of constructions to significant celestial objects were a common practice. The orientation was an important component of the religious structure design. Religious buildings often have an intentional orientation to fix (...) the praying direction. In Islam, a sacred direction towards Kaaba located in the courtyard in the Sacred Mosque in Mecca has been used for praying and fulfilling varied ritual tasks. Therefore, the mosques had then to orientate towards the Qibla direction, being designated by a focal niche in the Qibla-wall, wherever they were built on Earth. In this study, the orientations of the historical Grand mosques in Turkey are surveyed with regard to the folk astronomy derived from pre-Islamic Arabian sources, early traditions of the Islamic period, and geometric-trigonometric computation in mathematical astronomy inherited and developed mostly from Greek sources according to the Islamic view of the World geography. (shrink)

An outdated geography supplies the bond among the thirty‐one articles in Sur les traces des Cassini. In the seventeenth century, when the Italians Gian Domenico Cassini and his nephew Giacomo Filippo Maraldi were born in Perinaldo, north of Genoa, their birthplace belonged to the County of Nice. Hence the rationale of building a set of papers on astronomy in the south of France around Cassini I and his family, which for four generations ran the Royal Observatory in Paris.Over half the (...) articles concern the Cassinis, mostly Cassini I and his great‐great‐grandson and namesake Cassini IV. There was also a Cassini V, Henri de Cassini, who countered the family genius and stamina by preferring botany and dying early, of the same outbreak of cholera that took the life of Sadi Carnot, without having created Cassini VI. He had already entered the Academy of Sciences with a push from his father. “I dare to beg of you [Cassini IV wrote to his fellow academician A. M. Ampère] to consider whether this unique situation in the history of letters, [a family's] devotion to the sciences for five successive generations and 170 years, ought not add some weight to the scientific credentials of my son.” It is hard to refuse the children of important alumni.The portion of Traces dealing more directly with astronomy in the south of France gets off to a distant start. Pytheas of Marseilles, who lived about 350 b.c., sailed to the Orkneys and the Baltic and earned himself the reputation of a liar back home for his stories of midnight suns and frozen lakes. He measured the latitude of Marseilles, the obliquity of the ecliptic, and the size of the earth. Ptolemy praised him. Strabo did not: “Pytheas lied about everything and covered it up with his knowledge of astronomy and numbers.”No traces worth following up were laid down for just under two thousand years. Then, in 1580, Nicolas Fabri de Peiresc first saw the light of day. He lived in Italy for four years as a very young man, deepening his knowledge of astronomy and human nature and meeting the main future actors in the Galileo affair: Galileo himself, Bellarmine, and Matteo Barberini . At his center in Aix‐la‐Provence, Peiresc made many useful astronomical observations, some in collaboration with Pierre Gassendi. He died in harness, worrying about the change of the obliquity since the days of Pytheas.There follow articles on Provençal astronomers who determined longitude and latitude at sea, on neglected observers in Languedoc who assisted the cause of the Enlightenment, and on modern observatories in the south of France. The political circumstances after the defeat of 1870–1871 favored decentralization of astronomy away from the Paris Observatory. In Italy, too, recent political events—the unification of 1870—made a restructuring of astronomical institutions desirable and possible. But whereas France had too few observatories, Italy had too many. Georges Rayet and Pietro Tacchini, both astrophysicists, compared the circumstances in their countries and made mutually reinforcing proposals to their colleagues and governments. Their respective proposals, most of which were enacted, called for reassigning some Italian observatories to meteorological work, building new observatories in Besançon, Bordeaux, and Lyon, and refurbishing older ones at Marseilles and Toulouse. Once again, as in the days of Cassini I, Italy made a decisive contribution to the practice of astronomy in France.Sur les traces des Cassini mixes slight and weighty work, admits antiquarian and broader approaches, offers new documentation, displays pertinent illustrations, and does it all at a high level of scholarship. Since, because of its title, the book's primary audience probably will be people interested in the Cassinis, its fullest articles about them may usefully be mentioned here: Anna Cassini on Cassini's brief return to Italy, 1694–1696; Claude Teillet on the provincial life and poetry of Cassini IV; Christiane Demeulenaere‐Douyère on the Cassinis and the Académie des Sciences; Fabrizio Bonoli and Alessandro Braccesi on Cassini I's astronomical work in Bologna, with full bibliography; and Monique Pelletier on the Cassini map of France, on which she has written a book . Pytheas and Peiresc are the subjects of collaborative articles by Simone Arzano and Yvon Georgelin. (shrink)

BM 76829, a fragment from the mid-section of a small tablet from Sippar in Late Babylonian script, preserves what remains of two new unparalleled pieces from the cuneiform astronomical repertoire relating to the zodiac. The text on the obverse assigns numerical values to sectors assigned to zodiacal signs, while the text on the reverse seems to relate zodiacal signs with specific days or intervals of days. The system used on the obverse also presents a new way of representing the (...) concept of numerical ‘zero’ in cuneiform, and for the first time in cuneiform, a system for dividing the horizon into six arcs in the east and six arcs in the west akin to that used in the Astronomical Book of Enoch. Both the obverse and the reverse may describe the periodical courses of the sun and moon, in a similar way to what is found in astronomical texts from Qumran, thus adding to our knowledge of the scientific relationship between the two cultures. (shrink)

(1994). Annex: The survey questionnaires. World Futures: Vol. 39, The Evolution of European Identity: Surveys of the Growing Edge A Report by the European Culture Impact Research Consortium (EUROCIRCON), pp. 161-164.

This text addresses the problems of complex systems in understanding natural phenomena and the behaviour of systems related to human activity, from a science and humanities perspective. It discusses molecular behaviour and structures, and offers examples of ecological and environmental modelling.

Abstract This essay explores what it means to be human in an age of infomedia. Appropriating Niklas Luhmann's systems theory/media theory in dialogue with other resources, I propose a post-Luhmannian paradigm of (1) extended media/meaning that conceives the world as world multimedia systems processing variegated meanings, and (2) an embodied, contextualized soft posthumanist anthropology that conceives the human as emergent collective phenomena of distinct meaning making by body-mind-society-technology media couplings. I argue: (1) Homo sapiens is Homo medialis distinct with mediatic (...) communication that emerged to cope with contingencies. (2) Evolution is the mediatization/codification of the world that culminated with the outcome of Homo medialis uniquely equipped to process transcendent meanings and to mediatize the world via diverse media—Mediatized Co-Mediatizer or Codified Co-Codifier. (3) This anthropic universe is possibly the most “meaningful” (full of meaning possibilities) of all possible worlds. (4) Social fragmentation could be an optimization; science-and-religion is an infomedium optimizing religion's manifest and science’ latent observation of divine manifestations. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine the nature of Chinese logic and Chinese sciences in the history of China. I conclude that Chinese logic is essentially analogical, and that the Chinese did not have theoretical sciences. I then connect these together and explain why the Chinese failed to develop theoretical sciences, even though they enjoyed an advanced civilization and great scientific and technological innovations. This is because a deductive system of logic is necessary for the development of theoretical sciences, and analogical (...) logic cannot provide the deductive connections between a theory and empirical observations required by a theoretical science. This also offers a more satisfactory answer to the long-standing Needham Problem. (shrink)

With an aim to develop a public theology for an age of information media (or media theology), this article proposes a new God-concept: God is a communicative system sui generis that autopoietically processes meaning/information in the supratemporal realm via perfect divine media ad intra (Word/Spirit). For this task, Niklas Luhmann's systems theory is critically appropriated in dialogue with theology. First, my working postmetaphysical/epistemological stance is articulated as realistic operational constructivism and functionalism. Second, a series of arguments are advanced to substantiate (...) the thesis: (1) God is an observing system sui generis ; (2) self-referential communication is divine operation; (3) unsurpassable complexity is divine mystery; (4) supratemporal autopoiesis of meaning is divine processing; (5) agape is the symbolic medium of divine communication. Third, this communicative model of God is developed into a trinitarian theology, with a claim that this model offers a viable alternative beyond the standard (psychic, social, process) models. Finally, some implications of this model are explored for constructive theology (conceiving creation as divine mediatization) and for science-and-religion in terms of derivative models: (1) God as a living system sui generis and (2) God as a meaning system sui generis. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper investigates whether, in theoretical terms, corporations can be citizens. The argument is based on the observation that the debate on “corporate citizenship” (CC) has only paid limited attention to the actual notion of citizenship. Where it has been discussed, authors have either largely left the concept of CC unquestioned, or applied rather unidimensional and decontextualized notions of citizenship to the corporate sphere. The paper opens with a critical discussion of a major contribution to the CC literature, the work (...) of Logsdon and Wood (Wood and Logsdon 2001; Logsdon and Wood 2002). It continues with a consideration of the nature and role of metaphors for business and of the contestable nature of the political concept of citizenship. It evaluates corporations as citizens through a four-dimensional framework of democratic citizenship offered by Stokes (2002). The analysis suggests that corporations do not easily fit the “liberal minimalist” model of citizenship. It finds, however some possibilities for fit with the three more participatory models. The paper concludes by cautioning against basing corporate citizenship on legal and administrative status or identity, and mapping out specific criteria by which we might determine whether corporations could be considered as citizens by virtue of their participation in processes of governance. (shrink)

The concept of simultaneity, and the associated problems of synchronization of moving clocks and establishment of a universal time scale, were given little or no attention prior to the twentieth century. In 1905, however, Einstein analyzed the concept of simultaneity on the basis of two principal postulates: Absolute velocity is meaningless,The velocity of light in a vacuum is the same for all unaccelerated observers.

To explore the development of contemporary Chinese philosophy, fundamentally, is to explore the development of Marxist philosophy in contemporary China. The disputes over philosophical views in Chinese academic circles during the first half of the twentieth century have been focused on understanding Marxist philosophy from such aspects as "what kind of philosophy Chinese society needs," "the relation of philosophy to science," and "philosophy as an idea to reflect on one's life." These explorations have provided us a significant ideological insight into (...) the development of Marxist philosophy and contemporary Chinese philosophy; that is, in contemporary China, Marxist philosophy, as a doctrine of the liberation and all-round development of human beings, exists not only as a kind of"doctrine" or "academy" but also as a kind of widely accepted "xueyuan (academic cultivations)" among people. (shrink)

The year 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of one of the most revolutionary scientific texts ever written. In this book, appropriately entitled, Astronomia nova, Johannes Kepler developed an astronomical theory which departs fundamentally from the systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus. One of the great innovations of this theory is its dependence on the science of optics. The declared goal of Kepler in his earlier publication, Paralipomena to Witelo whereby The Optical Part of Astronomy is Treated, was (...) to solve difficulties and expose illusions astronomers face when conducting astronomical observations with optical instruments. To avoid observational errors that had plagued the antiquated measuring techniques for calculating the apparent diameter and angular position of the luminaries, Kepler designed a novel device: the ecliptic instrument. In this paper we seek to shed light on the role optical instruments play in Kepler's scheme: they impose constraints on theory, but at the same time render astronomical knowledge secure. To get a comprehensive grasp of Kepler's astonishing achievements it is required to widen the approach to his writings and study Kepler not only as a mathematico-physical astronomer, but also as a designer of instruments and a practicing observer. (shrink)

The year 2009 marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of one of the most revolutionary scientific texts ever written. In this book, appropriately entitled, Astronomia nova, Johannes Kepler developed an astronomical theory which departs fundamentally from the systems of Ptolemy and Copernicus. One of the great innovations of this theory is its dependence on the science of optics. The declared goal of Kepler in his earlier publication, Paralipomena to Witelo whereby The Optical Part of Astronomy is Treated , (...) was to solve difficulties and expose illusions astronomers face when conducting astronomical observations with optical instruments. To avoid observational errors that had plagued the antiquated measuring techniques for calculating the apparent diameter and angular position of the luminaries, Kepler designed a novel device: the ecliptic instrument. In this paper we seek to shed light on the role optical instruments play in Kepler's scheme: they impose constraints on theory, but at the same time render astronomical knowledge secure. To get a comprehensive grasp of Kepler's astonishing achievements it is required to widen the approach to his writings and study Kepler not only as a mathematico-physical astronomer, but also as a designer of instruments and a practicing observer. (shrink)

Background: Both anxiety and depression in family caregivers of advanced cancer patients are common, and they have a negative influence on both the FCs and the patients. Some studies suggested that a variety of interventions could alleviate the psychological symptoms of FCs. However, there is no consensus on much more effective methods for intervention, and relatively high-quality research is blank in psychological problems of these population in China. The validity of mindfulness-based stress reduction and psychological consultation guided by the needs (...) assessment tool in the psychological status of caregivers will be compared in this study to select a more suitable intervention for the FCs of advanced cancer patients in China.Methods and Analysis: A randomized N-of-1 trial would be conducted at the Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Fifty eligible FCs of advanced cancer patients will be recruited, and all will receive three cycles of psychological intervention treatment, with each cycle including both of MBSR and psychological consultation guided by the NST. MBSR and psychological consultation guided by the NST will be compared with each other in each cycle, and the intervention sequence will be based on the random number table generated after the informed consent has been completed. Each treatment period is 2 weeks, and the interval between different treatment cycles or treatment periods is 1 week. The self-reported scales are measured at the beginning and end of each treatment period, including the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, the Self-Rating Depression Scale, Distress Thermometer, Zarit Burden Interview, Chinese version of the Medical Outcomes Study 12-item Short Form, and Family Carer Satisfaction with Palliative Care scale.Dissemination: The protocol of the study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the Ethical Committee of the Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academic of Medical Science. The results will be published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. The study is registered at Chinese Clinical Trials Registry with the trial registration number chiCTR2000033707. This study employs an innovative methodological approach on the effectiveness of MBSR and psychological consultation guided by the NST for psychological status of FCs of advanced cancer patients. The findings of the study will be helpful to provide high-quality evidence-based medical data for psychological intervention of FCs of advanced cancer patients, and guide clinicians on best quality treatment recommendations. (shrink)

In this paper, we analyze the astronomical tables for 1340 by Immanuel ben Jacob Bonfils who flourished 1340–1365, based on four Hebrew manuscripts. We discuss the relation of these tables principally with those of al-Battānī, Abraham Bar Ḥiyya, and Levi ben Gerson, as well as with Bonfils’s better known tables, called Six Wings. An unusual feature of this set of tables is that there are two kinds of mean motion tables, one arranged for Julian years from 1340 to 1380, (...) months, days, hours, and minutes of an hour, and the other arranged in the Hebrew calendar for the times of conjunctions and oppositions of the Sun and the Moon only, with subtables for 19-year cycles, single years in a 19-year cycle, and months. The latter arrangement is found in Bonfils’s Six Wings for solar and lunar motions only, whereas in his Tables for 1340, this arrangement applies to all planets. Notably absent are tables for the trigonometric functions, etc., that are generally found in such sets of astronomical tables. (shrink)

Aristarchus’s De magnitudinis et distantiis solis et lunae was translated into Latin and printed by Federico Commandino in 1572. All subsequent editions of Aristarchus’ treatise, published by John Wallis (1688), Fortia d’ Urban (1823) and Thomas Heath (1913), followed Commandino’s work. In this article, through a philological approach to the geometric diagrams, I tracked down one of the Greek sources used by Commandino for preparing his Latin version. Commandino pays particular attention to drawing figures. This article sheds light on the (...) interaction between mathematical skills and the drawing of geometric diagrams implemented in his Latin edition of Aristarchus’ book. (shrink)

This article compares the growth trajectories of Catholicism and Protestantism in modern China and tackles a puzzle: Why did Catholicism, which maintained a substantial numerical advantage in Chinese converts over Protestantism before 1949, come to lag so far behind Protestantism today? The article identifies three crucial differences in the institutional features of Catholicism and Protestantism, but shows that an institutional argument alone is insufficient to explain their reversal of fortune. It argues that the growth trajectories of Catholicism and Protestantism changed (...) less because their institutional features have experienced major changes, but more because their institutional features played out differently in the sociopolitical contexts of pre-1949 China, Maoist China, and post-Mao China. The article advances a new approach that combines the currently dominant institutional argument with a historical perspective that stresses the importance of political forces in order to understand the growth dynamics of religions. It concludes by making some preliminary observations on the generalized patterns of how institutional features of Catholicism and Protestantism play out under different kinds of political structures, shaping their waxing and waning in a global context. (shrink)

Within the last decade, there has been a dramatic bloom in ridesharing businesses along with the emergence of new enabling technologies. A central issue in ridesharing, which is also important in the general domain of cost-sharing in economics and computer science, is that the sharing of cost implies positive externalities and hence coordination problems for the network users. We investigate these problems experimentally in the present study. In particular, we focus on how sequential observability of transportation mode choices can be (...) a powerful facilitator of coordination in ridesharing. Our study abstracts the essential issues of coordination in ridesharing into a directed network game with experimentally testable predictions. In line with the theoretical analysis, our experimental evidence shows that even a limited extent of sequential choice observability might lead to efficient coordination. However, convergence to efficiency is slower with more limited observability, resulting in a significant increase in travel cost. (shrink)

BackgroundExercise is increasingly recognized as a key component of Parkinson’s disease treatment strategies, but the underlying mechanism of how exercise affects PD is not yet fully understood.ObjectiveThe activation likelihood estimation method is used to study the mechanism of exercise affecting PD, providing a theoretical basis for studying exercise and PD, and promoting the health of patients with PD.MethodsRelevant keywords were searched on the PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science databases. Seven articles were finally included according to the screening criteria, (...) with a total sample size of 97 individuals. Using the GingerALE 3.0.2 software, an ALE meta-analysis was performed using seven studies that met the requirements, and the probability of the cross-experiment activation of each voxel was calculated.ResultsThe meta-analysis produced seven clusters, and major activations were found in the cerebellum, occipital lobe, parietal lobe, and frontal lobe brain regions.ConclusionExercise for PD mainly results in the enhanced activation of the cerebellum, occipital lobe, parietal lobe, and frontal lobe. Exercise for PD does not cause a change in the activation of a single brain area, and the observed improvement may result from coordinated changes in multiple brain areas. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article is devoted to a thirteenth-century Latin text on how to construct, set up, and use a version of the so-called armillary instrument (instrumentum armillarum), which was first described in Ptolemy’s Almagest as a tool for measuring ecliptic coordinates. Written in 1264 by Guillaume des Moustiers, bishop of Laon, this hitherto unstudied Tractatus super armillas survives in a single manuscript, where it is accompanied by a copious set of glosses. The text and its glosses jointly offer an unusually (...) detailed account of the instrument’s material aspects and methods of assembly. In addition, they reflect a keen awareness of the potential sources of error that may arise in the context of astronomical observation, while making suggestions on how these errors may be minimized or avoided. The Tractatus super armillas accordingly is a valuable source on the observational side of medieval European astronomy, which has often been minimized in modern historical accounts. (shrink)

: Scientific observation is determined by the human sensory system, which generally relies on instruments that serve as mediators between the world and the senses. Instruments came in the shape of Heron's Dioptra, Levi Ben Gerson's Cross-staff, Egnatio Danti's Torqvetto Astronomico, Tycho's Quadrant, Galileo's Geometric Military Compass, or Kepler's Ecliptic Instrument. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, it was unclear how an instrument such as the telescope could be employed to acquire new information and expand knowledge about the (...) world. To exploit the telescope as a device for astronomical observations Galileo had to: 1. establish that telescopic images are not optical defects, imperfections in the eye of the observer, or illusions caused by lenses; 2. develop procedures for systematically handling errors that may occur during observation and measurement and methods of processing data. Galileo made it clear that in order to measure and interpret natural phenomena accurately, a suitable method and instrument would need to be developed. It is intriguing, therefore, to regard the Galilean telescope in this light and to discover the linkage established by Galileo among theory, method, and instrument—the telescope. Although the telescope was not invented through science, it is instructive to see how Galileo used optics to employ a theory-laden instrument for bridging the gulf between picture and scientific language, between drawing and reporting physical facts, and between merely sketching the world and actually describing it. (shrink)

ArgumentThe present paper is an attempt to understand how medieval astronomers working within the Ptolemaic astronomical context in which the annular eclipse is an unjustified and impossible phenomenon, could know, define, justify, and later make attempts that led to success in predicting annular solar eclipses. As a context-based study, it reviews the situation of annular eclipses with regard to the medieval hypotheses applied to the calculation of the angular diameters of the sun and the moon, which was basic for (...) contemplating the possibility of annular eclipses. This gives the premises and the preliminary insights that were necessary to clarify the complex situation of the annular eclipse in the late medieval Islamic period and to explain the historical mechanisms leading to justifying the phenomenon during that period. This was, first due to a convincing and efficient observational evidence which, of course, was available only to a number of medieval astronomers and significantly for only a limited time period, and, second, the result of an amazing interaction amongst various astronomical traditions available to them. At a more general level, the research aims to inspect or, at least, to give some impressions of the essential conditions, i.e., identification of phenomenon, empirical evidence, and the justifying underlying tradition, under which it became possible in the tradition-based science of the `medieval period to permit a not-already-defined and tradition-opposed phenomenon to be posed and justified. (shrink)

The article emphasizes the cultural and educational importance of H. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy for the spiritual development of the Ukrainian society, especially in the direction of democracy and establishment of the worldview culture as a requirement for the culture of freedom. From the position of the included observer the author of the article describes some episodes of relationship in the scientist’s communities which can be defined as justice and solidary community. On the basis of the Heidegerian scheme, some dangers (...) are analyzed as demands addressed to philosophical thinking. This scheme is used by structuring of the article. The metaphoric of these dangers indicates the contextual problems which are important for producing of philosophical ideas. The experience of the Institute of Philosophy gained by solving of problems is very remarkable for the fulfillment of philosophical studies and educational practices especially by mentoring of the postgraduate students. The fact of naming the Institute after H. Skovoroda is regarded as a symbolic act with a great creative potential and energy which can be used for reviving of national traditions of philosophical thinking. The role of lyric in activating of philosophical ideas is showed. The symbiotic coexisting of the poetry, art, journalism and philosophy is one of the original features of the Skovorodian tradition caring by the well-known representatives of the Institute. All these characteristics joined with the civic culture, which was demonstrated by all generations of the Institute, allow defining it as a metaphysical place with the ability both to follow on the road of the way of light and to represent it on the landscapes of philosophical science and education. The history of the Institute, especially, in the period of its post-totalitarian transformations, gives the opportunity of taking comparison with the Institute for Social Research Frankfurt. The civic courage of the Ukrainian intellectual elites was always initiated, supported and generated by philosophers gathering in Institute of Philosophy. (shrink)

Ibn al-Zarqālluh (al-Andalus, d. 1100) introduced a new inequality in the longitudinal motion of the Moon into Ptolemy’s lunar model with the amplitude of 24′, which periodically changes in terms of a sine function with the distance in longitude between the mean Moon and the solar apogee as the variable. It can be shown that the discovery had its roots in his examination of the discrepancies between the times of the lunar eclipses he obtained from the data of his eclipse (...) observations over a 37-year period in the latter part of the eleventh century and the predictions made on the basis of the lunar theories in the Mumta $$\textit{\d{h}}$$ an zīj (Baghdad, ca. 830) and al-Battānī’s zīj (Raqqa, d. 929), which were available to him at the time. What Ibn al-Zarqālluh found is, in fact, a special case of the annual equation of the Moon, which is applicable in the oppositions and, thus, in the lunar eclipses. The inequality was discovered independently by Tycho Brahe (d. 1601) and Johannes Kepler (d. 1630). As Ibn Yūnus (d. 1009) reports in his $$\textit{\d{H}}$$ ākimī zīj, Ibn al-Zarqālluh’s medieval Middle Eastern predecessors, the Persian astronomers Māhānī (d. ca. 880) and Nayrīzī (d. 922) as well as ‘Alī b. Amājūr (fl. ca. 920), were already acquainted with the problem of the eclipse timing errors, but it had remained unresolved until Ibn Yūnus provided a provisional, and incorrect, solution by reducing the size of the lunar epicycle. As we argue, the diverse ways to tackle the same problem stem from two different methodologies in astronomical reasoning in the traditions developed separately in the Eastern and Western regions of the medieval Islamic domain. (shrink)

In 1818 Laplace proposed that the Academie des Sciences in Paris set up a prize to be awarded to whoever succeeded in constructing lunar tables based solely on the law of universal gravity. In 1820 the prize was awarded to Carlini and Plana and Damoiseau by a committee of which Laplace was a member. But Laplace strongly criticized the Carlini-Plana approach to the lunar theory. A dispute ensued that is reconstructed on the basis of hitherto unknown letters exchanged between Carlini-Plana (...) and Laplace, and on the basis of papers published in Connaissance des temps and in Zach's Correspondance. After the exchanges, public and private, between Carlini-Plana and Laplace, the latter concluded that the results of the Italian astronomers and those arrived at by Damoiseau following the method of his Mecanique Celeste were fairly close, and that the purpose of the Academie in establishing the prize had been reasonably fulfilled. (shrink)

In this paper, I present and defend a novel account of doubt. In Part 1, I make some preliminary observations about the nature of doubt. In Part 2, I introduce a new puzzle about the relationship between three psychological states: doubt, belief, and confidence. I present this puzzle because my account of doubt emerges as a possible solution to it. Lastly, in Part 3, I elaborate on and defend my account of doubt. Roughly, one has doubt if and only if (...) one believes one might be wrong; I argue that this is superior to the account that says that one has doubt if and only if one has less than the highest degree of confidence. (shrink)

The ArgumentIn 1612, Lodovico Cigoli completed a fresco in the Pauline chapel of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome depicting Apocalypse 12: “A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet.” He showed the crescent Moon with spots, as his friend Galileo had observed with the newly invented telescope. Considerations of the orthodox view of the perfect Moon as held by philosophers have led historians to ask why this clearly imperfect Moon in a religious painting (...) raised no eyebrows. We argue that when considered in the context of biblical interpretation and the rhetoric of the Counter-Reformation, the imperfect Moon under the woman's feet was entirely consistent with traditional interpretations of Apocalypse 12. (shrink)

BackgroundAlthough the Life-Sustaining Treatment (LST) Decision Act was enforced in 2018 in Korea, data on whether it is well established in actual clinical settings are limited. Hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) is a common nosocomial infection with high mortality. However, there are limited data on the end-of-life (EOL) decision of patients with HAP. Therefore, we aimed to examine clinical characteristics and outcomes according to the EOL decision for patients with HAP.MethodsThis multicenter study enrolled patients with HAP at 16 referral hospitals retrospectively from (...) January to December 2019. EOL decisions included do-not-resuscitate (DNR), withholding of LST, and withdrawal of LST. Descriptive and Kaplan–Meier curve analyses for survival were performed.ResultsOf 1,131 patients with HAP, 283 deceased patients with EOL decisions (105 cases of DNR, 108 cases of withholding of LST, and 70 cases of withdrawal of LST) were analyzed. The median age was 74 (IQR 63–81) years. The prevalence of solid malignant tumors was high (32.4% vs. 46.3% vs. 54.3%, P = 0.011), and the ICU admission rate was lower (42.9% vs. 35.2% vs. 24.3%, P = 0.042) in the withdrawal group. The prevalence of multidrug-resistant pathogens, impaired consciousness, and cough was significantly lower in the withdrawal group. Kaplan–Meier curve analysis revealed that 30-day and 60-day survival rates were higher in the withdrawal group than in the DNR and withholding groups (log-rank P = 0.021 and 0.018). The survival of the withdrawal group was markedly decreased after 40 days; thus, the withdrawal decision was made around this time. Among patients aged below 80 years, the rates of EOL decisions were not different (P = 0.430); however, mong patients aged over 80 years, the rate of withdrawal was significantly lower than that of DNR and withholding (P = 0.001).ConclusionsAfter the LST Decision Act was enforced in Korea, a DNR order was still common in EOL decisions. Baseline characteristics and outcomes were similar between the DNR and withholding groups; however, differences were observed in the withdrawal group. Withdrawal decisions seemed to be made at the late stage of dying. Therefore, advance care planning for patients with HAP is needed. (shrink)

Several arguments are considered which purport to demonstrate the impossibility of theory-neutral observation. The most important of these infers the continuity of observation with theory from the presumed continuity of perception with cognition, a doctrine widely espoused in recent cognitive psychology. An alternative psychological account of the relation between cognition and perception is proposed and its epistemological consequences for the observation/theory distinction are then explored.

This paper revisits the historiography of seventeenth-century scientific academies by analyzing an informal academy established in Coimbra by André de Almada, a nobleman and professor of theology at the University of Coimbra. By promoting this academy and sponsoring the publication of science books, Almada stimulated research on astronomy and animated links of patronage, which included not only members of the universities but also the community of astronomers and astrologers active in Lisbon. This paper challenges the traditional view of (...) academic societies as innovative institutions opposed to the old-fashioned universities and provides an insight into the complex relationship established between patronage, the institutional settings, and the practices of science in a country wherein science was poorly institutionalized and political power increasingly centralized. (shrink)

Models of planetary motion as observed from Earth must account for two principal anomalies: the nonuniform speed of the planet as it circles the zodiac, and the correlation of the planet’s position with the position of the Sun. In the context of the geometrical models used by the Greeks, the practical difficulty is to somehow isolate the motion of the epicycle center on the deferent from the motion of the planet on its epicycle. One way to isolate the motion of (...) the epicycle center is to determine the longitude and time of oppositions of the planet with the mean Sun. A Greek astronomer might have realized that the predictions of mean oppositions by Babylonian models could serve as useful proxies for real empirical observations. It is shown that a Greek astronomer with a reasonable understanding of Babylonian System A models for the outer planets and the Sun–Moon could have used those models to estimate approximate values for the eccentricity e and longitude of apogee A required for geometrical models. The same method would work for the inner planets if conjunctions were observable, but they are not, and the variation of the observable synodic events—first and last morning and evening visibilities—is dominated more by the motion of the planet in latitude than the nonuniform motion of the epicycle center. (shrink)

in 1612, lodovico cigoli completed a fresco in the pauline chapel of the basilica of santa maria maggiore in rome depicting apocalypse 12: “a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet.” he showed the crescent moon with spots, as his friend galileo had observed with the newly invented telescope. considerations of the orthodox view of the perfect moon as held by philosophers have led historians to ask why this clearly imperfect moon in a religious painting raised (...) no eyebrows. we argue that when considered in the context of biblical interpretation and the rhetoric of the counter-reformation, the imperfect moon under the woman's feet was entirely consistent with traditional interpretations of apocalypse 12. (shrink)

This paper examines the interrelations between astronomical images of nebulae and their observation. In particular, using the case of the ‘Great Spiral’ , we follow this nebula beginning with its discovery and first sketch made by the third Earl of Rosse in 1845, to giving an account, using archival sources, of exactly how other images of the same object were produced over the years and stabilized within the record books of the Rosse project. It will be found that a (...) particular ‘procedure’ was employed using ‘working images’ that interacted with descriptions, other images and the telescopic object itself. This stabilized not only some set of standard images of the object, but also a very potent conception of spirality as well, i.e. as a ‘normal form’. Finally, two cases will be contrasted, one being George Bond's application of this spiral conception to the nebula in Orion, and the other Wilhelm Tempel's rejection of the spiral form in M51. (shrink)

This study aims to integrate hadith, astronomy and sociology studies in examining the implementation of Hijri calendar unification through a multidisciplinary approach. The Hijri calendar is based on the astronomical phenomena of the earth-moon-sun system and should refer to the provisions of Islamic law or fiqh to be implemented in worship. For the preparation of a good Hijri calendar, agreement on criteria, date line, and authority is necessary. Furthermore, agreement on criteria requires a valid argument based on astronomical (...) studies. An agreement on the implementing region boundaries is necessary due to the round earth and the hilal [crescent moon] cannot be observed simultaneously anywhere. It is also needed to resolve unavoidable differences, specifically in the appearance of the hilal and in schools of Islamic law. The problems to be solved are as follows: What is the strategy for implementing Hijri calendar unification? This study is based on a review of hadith and fiqh literature, analysis of astronomical data related to criteria, and experiences of Indonesia and Islamic countries regarding the Hijri calendar unification. The results show that implementing the Hijri calendar unification through the three approaches above can be carried out and accelerated. Contribution: This study contributes to showing the results of a multidisciplinary approach in the problem of implementation of the new Ministers of Religious Affairs of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore (MABIMS) criteria towards unification of the Hijri calendar. (shrink)