A lively philosophical debate has lately arisen over the nature of elementhood in chemistry. Two different senses in which the technical term ELEMENT is currently in use by chemists have been identified, leaving chemistry open to the logical fallacy of equivocation. This paper introduces a third, more elemental candidate: the high-enthalpy short-lived unbonded atom. An enthalpy index based on free-atoms-as-elements is established, whereby one can monitor the degree to which an atom’s spin-based attractive force is implemented exo-enthalpically when the (...) atom binds chemically to others. Enthalpy indexing shows that the strength of an atom’s attractive force is proportional to its spin angular momentum. Vibrational spectroscopy shows that the force varies inversely as the fourth power of the inter-atom distance. Both features differentiate the chemical force from the stronger electromagnetic force and from the weaker Van der Waals force. (shrink)

Once anesthetized, patients are inherently “compliant” with surgical interventions because they can no longer intervene on their own behalf. In their target article, Minkoff et al. (2024) reasonabl...

Kant conceives of chemical dissolutions as involving the infinite division and subsequent blending of solvent and solute. In the resulting continuous solution, every subvolume contains a uniform proportion of each reactant. Erich Adickes argues that this account stands in tension with other aspects of Kant’s Critical philosophy and his views on infinity. I argue that although careful analysis of Kant’s conception of dissolution addresses Adickes’ objections, the infinite division inherent to the process is beyond our human cognition, for Kant. (...) Nevertheless, such infinite division may be considered as an idea of reason to make comprehensible chemical reactions, revealing reason to play a pivotal role in the foundations of chemistry. (shrink)

This article states that drugs could be used to produce, if not more intelligent individuals, at least individuals with better cognitive functioning. Cognitive functioning is something that we might strive to produce through education, including of course the more general health education of the community. Enhancements are good if and only if they make people better at doing some of the things they want to do including experiencing the world through all of the senses, assimilating and processing what is experienced, (...) remembering and understanding things better, becoming more competent, and experiencing more. Beneficial neural changes have been reported for such familiar technologies as reading, education, physical exercise, and diet. Smart drugs create irresistible competitive pressures such that once they are used everyone is forced to follow in order to keep up, and this is coercive and corrosive. (shrink)

The theory of chemical symbiosis suggests that biological systems started with the collaboration of two polymeric molecules existing in early Earth: nucleic acids and peptides. Chemical symbiosis emerged when RNA-like nucleic acid polymers happened to fold into 3D structures capable to bind amino acids together, forming a proto peptidyl-transferase center. This folding catalyzed the formation of quasi-random small peptides, some of them capable to bind this ribozyme structure back and starting to form an initial layer that would produce (...) the larger subunit of the ribosome by accretion. TCS suggests that there is no chicken-and-egg problem into the emergence of biological systems as RNAs and peptides were of equal importance to the origin of life. Life has initially emerged when these two macromolecules started to interact in molecular symbiosis. Further, we suggest that life evolved into progenotes and cells due to the emergence of new layers of symbiosis. Mutualism is the strongest force in biology, capable to create novelties by emergent principles; on which the whole is bigger than the sum of the parts. TCS aims to apply the Margulian view of biology into the origins of life field. (shrink)

Despite the currently perceived urgent need among contemporary philosophers of chemistry for adjudicating between two rival metaphysical conceptual frameworks—is chemistry primarily a science of substances or processes?—this essay argues that neither provides us with what we need in our attempts to explain and comprehend chemical operations and phenomena. First, I show the concept of a chemical property can survive the abandoning of the metaphysical framework of substance. While this abandonment means that we will need to give up essential (...) properties, contingent properties can give us all the stability we need to account for chemical continuity as well as change. I then go on to show that this attention to clusters of contingent properties does not force us into the arms of an alternative process metaphysical framework either. Finally, I sketch a view I call particularism with respect to chemical properties on analogy with moral particularism. I conclude by sketching some of the implications for the field of philosophy of chemistry of my proposal that we abandon our interest in the metaphysical question of what chemistry is primarily about in favor of a broadly scientific particularism with respect to kinds and properties. (shrink)

Antipsychotic medications are sometimes imposed on psychiatric patients deemed dangerous to themselves and others. This is based on the assumption that treatment is safe and effective, and that recovery depends on biological adjustment. Under new laws, patients can be required to remain on these medications after leaving hospitals. However, survivors attest that forced treatment used as a restraint can feel like torture, while the consequences of withdrawal can also be severe.

Developments in the application of quantum mechanics to the understanding of the chemical bond are traced with a view to examining the evolving conception of the covalent bond. Beginning with the first quantum mechanical resolution of the apparent paradox in Lewis’s conception of a shared electron pair bond by Heitler and London, the ensuing account takes up the challenge molecular orbital theory seemed to pose to the classical conception of the bond. We will see that the threat of delocalisation (...) can be overstated, although it is questionable whether this should be seen as reinstating the issue of the existence of the chemical bond. More salient are some recent developments in a longstanding discussion of how to understand the causal aspects of the bonding interaction—the nature of the force involved in the covalent link—which are taken up in the latter part of the paper. (shrink)

By comparing chemistry to art, chemists have recently made claims to the aesthetic value, even beauty, of some of their products. This paper takes these claims seriously and turns them into a systematic investigation of the aesthetics of chemical products. I distinguish three types of chemical products - materials, molecules, and molecular models - and use a wide variety of aesthetic theories suitable for an investigation of the corresponding sorts of objects. These include aesthetics of materials, idealistic aesthetics (...) from Plato to Kant and Schopenhauer, psychological approaches of Ernst Gombrich and Rudolf Arnheim, and semiotic aesthetics of Nelson Goodman and Umberto Eco. Although the investigation does not support recent claims, I point out where aesthetics does and can play an import role in chemistry. Particularly, Eco's approach helps us understand that and how aesthetic experience can be a driving force in chemical research. (shrink)

The chapter focusses on the Scottish natural philosophy of the late eighteenth century represented by John Anderson (1726–1796) and John Robison (1739–1805), which is considered a link between Newton’s natural philosophy and nineteenth-century physics in Britain (Kelvin and Maxwell). Anderson and Robison have to be seen in a tradition of Scottish Newtonians established in the seventeenth century by David Gregory and John Keill and specifically shaped in the Mid-eighteenth century through the chemical-physical work of Joseph Black and the common-sense (...) philosophy of Thomas Reid. These latter Newtonians built on Newton’s theory of matter and short-range forces as indicated in Query 31 of his Opticks (Black) but also on his Rules of Reasoning of the second edition of his Principia (Black and Reid) and in this way created the theoretical framework in which Anderson and Robison developed their natural philosophy. In the center of their natural philosophy, which was oriented on experimental investigations, were the manifold open questions of the Baconian sciences of that time - theories of heat, light, electricity, magnetism as well as the understanding of the phlogiston. The chapter thus provides insight into the specific way in which the Newtonian camp participated in early modern natural philosophical speculations about minute particles of matter, fluids, or the propagation of light and heat. (shrink)

When “general physiology” emerged as a basic field of research within biology in the early nineteenth century, Henri Ducrotay de Blainville (1777–1850) on the one hand and Johannes Peter Müller (1801–1858) on the other appealed to chemical analysis to account for the properties and operations of organisms that were observed to differ from what was found in inorganic compounds. Their aim was to establish laws of vital organization that would be based on organic chemical processes, but would also (...) be of use to explain morphological and functional differences among life forms. The intent of this paper is to specify for each of these leading physiologists the different presuppositions that provided theoretical frameworks for their interpretation of what they conceived of as laws of organization underpinning the dynamics of vital phenomena. Blainville presumed that the properties of organic compounds depended on the chemical properties of their constitutive molecules, but combined according to patterns of functional development, and that the latter could only be inferred from an empirical survey of modes of organization across the spectrum of life forms. For Müller, while all vital processes involved chemical reactions, in the formative and functional operations of organisms, these reactions would result from the action of life forces that were responsible for the production of organic combinations and thus for vital and animal functions. As both physiologists set significant methodological patterns for their many disciples and followers, their respective quasi-reductionist and anti-reductionist positions need to be accounted for. (shrink)

First responders to chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) events face decisions having significant human consequences. Some operational decisions are supported by standard operating procedures, yet these may not suffice for ethical decisions. Responders will be forced to weigh their options, factoring-in contextual peculiarities; they will require guidance on how they can approach novel (indeed unique) ethical problems: they need strategies for “on the spot” ethical decision making. The primary aim of this paper is to examine how first responders (...) should approach on the spot ethical decision-making amid the stress and uncertainty of a CBRN event. Drawing on the long-term professional CBRN experience of one of the authors, this paper sets out a series of practical ethical dilemmas potentially arising in the context of a large-scale chemical incident. We propose a broadly consequentialist approach to on the spot ethical decision-making, but one which incorporates ethical values and rights as “side-constraints”. (shrink)

Efforts from diverse disciplines, including evolutionary studies and biomechanical experiments, have yielded new insights into the genetic, signaling, and mechanical control of tooth formation and functions. Evidence from fossils and non‐model organisms has revealed that a common set of genes underlie tooth‐forming potential of epithelia, and changes in signaling environments subsequently result in specialized dentitions, maintenance of dental stem cells, and other phenotypic adaptations. In addition to chemical signaling, tissue forces generated through epithelial contraction, differential growth, and skeletal constraints (...) act in parallel to shape the tooth throughout development. Here recent advances in understanding dental development from these studies are reviewed and important gaps that can be filled through continued application of evolutionary and biomechanical approaches are discussed. (shrink)

Chemistry is by far the most productive science concerning the number of publications. A closer look at chemical papers reveals that most papers deal with new substances. The rapid growth of chemical knowledge seriously challenges all institutions and individuals concerned with chemistry. Chemistry documentation following the principle of completeness is required to schematize chemical information, which in turn induces a schematization of chemical research. Chemistry education is forced to seek reasonable principles of selectivity, although nobody can (...) have an overview any more. Philosophical evaluation of the growth of chemical knowledge proves that at the same time chemical ‘nonknowledge’ increases more rapidly. An analysis of reasons, why chemists are making new substances at all, shows that the proliferation of new substances is for the most part an end in itself. The present paper finally argues for the need of a rational discourse among chemists on the aims of chemistry. (shrink)

This paper investigates the determinants of the diffusion of the international environmental management system standard ISO 14001 within the chemical industry using a panel of 126 different countries during the period 2000 to 2003. We investigate how institutional pressure originating from different stakeholders such as governments, businesses, and the civil society and forces related to trade will drive the diffusion. Our results show that the level of community involvement within a particular country and the previous experience of businesses with (...) voluntary standards such as Responsible Care and ISO 9000 impacts ISO 14001 adoption in chemical firms. (shrink)

Alchemists' illustrations indicated through symbols the processes being attempted; but with Lavoisier's Elements (1789), the place of imagination and symbolic language in chemistry was much reduced. He sought to make chemistry akin to algebra and its illustrations merely careful depictions of apparatus. Although younger contemporaries sought, and found in electrochemistry, a dynamical approach based upon forces rather than weights, they found this very difficult to picture. Nevertheless, by looking at chemical illustrations in the eighty years after Lavoisier's revolutionary book, (...) we can learn about how reactions were carried out, and interpreted, and see that there was scope for aesthetic judgement and imagination. (shrink)

Although chemical phenomena are primarily associated with electrons in atoms, ions, and molecules, the masses, charges, spins, and other properties of the nuclei in these species contribute significantly as well. Isotopes, for instance, have proven invaluable in chemistry, in particular the elucidation of reaction mechanisms. Elements with unstable nuclei, for example carbon-14 undergoing beta decay, have enriched chemistry and many other scientific disciplines. The nuclei of all elements have a much more subtle and largely unknown effect on chemical (...) phenomena. All nuclei are innately chiral and, because electrons can penetrate nuclei, all atoms and molecules are likewise chiral. This article describes in considerable detail the discovery of chiral nuclei, how this unusual chirality may influence the chemical behavior of atoms and molecules, and how atomic chirality may have been responsible for the synthesis of optically active molecules in the pre-biotic world. (shrink)

A Defence of Chemical Warfare J B S Haldane Originally published in 1925 "Mr Haldane’s brilliant study." Times Leading Article "A book to be read by every intelligent adult." Spectator. This volume discusses the use of chemical weapons during the Second World War from the scientific viewpoint of the eminent bio-chemist, J B S Haldane and attempts to predict their use in conflicts of the future. 84pp Paris or the Future of War B H Liddell Hart Originally published (...) in 1925. "…a gem of close-thinking and deduction." Observer Liddell Hart was one of the twentieth century’s most respected military historians. In this volume he analyzes the causes of war, and the future of war, as well as examining the air, naval and army weapon and the evolution of "New Model Armies". 84pp. Janus: The Conquest of War A Psychological Inquiry William McDougall Originally published in 1927 "Among all the volumes in this series, none, I think is so weighty and impressive as this…" Evening Standard This volume covers lessons of the Great War, the Causes of War, Preventives of War, League to Enforce Peace, and International Air Force as a Prevention of War. 132pp Sinon Or the Future of Politics Edgar Ansel Mowrer Originally published in 1930 A striking analysis of politics and their future from a national and international standpoint. 86pp Typhoeus Or the Future of Socialism Arthur Shadwell Originally published in 1929 "Invaluable, a miracle of compression and illumination."Yorkshire Post This volume provides an analysis of the aims and prospects of Socialism, both in its political and economic aspects. 112pp. (shrink)

This paper provides a short accountof the South African Defence Force's chemical and biologicalwarfare programme during apartheid, specifically during the period 1980 to 1994. It examines the circumstances ofrecruitment of the scientists and physiciansand their retention in the programme; detailsthe `scientific efforts' of the programme andits aberrations; and explores ethical issues inrelation to the involvement of scientists inthe programme.

Arthur Clark and Michael Kube–McDowell (“The Triger”, 2000) suggested the sci-fi idea about the direct transformation from a chemical substance to another by the action of a newly physical, “Trigger” field. Karl Brohier, a Nobel Prize winner, who is a dramatic persona in the novel, elaborates a new theory, re-reading and re-writing Pauling’s “The Nature of the Chemical Bond”; according to Brohier: “Information organizes and differentiates energy. It regularizes and stabilizes matter. Information propagates through matter-energy and mediates the (...) interactions of matter-energy.” Dr Horton, his collaborator in the novel replies: “If the universe consists of energy and information, then the Trigger somehow alters the information envelope of certain substances –“. “Alters it, scrambles it, overwhelms it, destabilizes it” Brohier adds. There is a scientific debate whether or how far chemistry is fundamentally reducible to quantum mechanics. Nevertheless, the fact that many essential chemical properties and reactions are at least partly representable in terms of quantum mechanics is doubtless. For the quantum mechanics itself has been reformulated as a theory of a special kind of information, quantum information, chemistry might be in turn interpreted in the same terms. Wave function, the fundamental concept of quantum mechanics, can be equivalently defined as a series of qubits, eventually infinite. A qubit, being defined as the normed superposition of the two orthogonal subspaces of the complex Hilbert space, can be interpreted as a generalization of the standard bit of information as to infinite sets or series. All “forces” in the Standard model, which are furthermore essential for chemical transformations, are groups [U(1),SU(2),SU(3)] of the transformations of the complex Hilbert space and thus, of series of qubits. One can suggest that any chemical substances and changes are fundamentally representable as quantum information and its transformations. If entanglement is interpreted as a physical field, though any group above seems to be unattachable to it, it might be identified as the “Triger field”. It might cause a direct transformation of any chemical substance by from a remote distance. Is this possible in principle? (shrink)

This paper investigates the determinants of the diffusion of the international environmental management system standard ISO 14001 within the chemical industry using a panel of 126 different countries during the period 2000 to 2003. We investigate how institutional pressure originating from different stakeholders such as governments, businesses, and the civil society and forces related to trade will drive the diffusion. Our results show that the level of community involvement within a particular country and the previous experience of businesses with (...) voluntary standards such as Responsible Care and ISO 9000 impacts ISO 14001 adoption in chemical firms. (shrink)

On November 28, 2009, as part of events marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the disaster at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, gas survivors protested the contents of the report prepared by government scientists that mocked their complaints about contamination. The survivors shifted from the scientific document to a mediated lunch invitation performance, purporting to serve the same chemicals as food that the report had categorized as having no toxic effects. I argue that the lunch spread, consisting of soil and (...) water from the pesticide plant, explicitly front-staged and highlighted the survivor’s forced intimate relationship with such chemicals, in order to reshape public perception of risks from toxins. Chemical matter like sevin tar and naphthol tar bound politicians, scientists, corporations, affected communities, and activists together, as these stakeholders debated the potential effects of toxic substances. This gave rise to an issue-based “chemical public.” Borrowing from such theoretical concepts as “ontologically heterogeneous publics” and “agential realism,” I track the existing and emerging publics related to the disaster and the campaigns led by the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal advocacy group. (shrink)

Dynamin is a GTPase that regulates late events in clathrin‐coated vesicle formation. Our current working model suggests that dynamin is targeted to coated pits in its unoccupied or GDP‐bound form, where it is initially distributed uniformly throughout the clathrin lattice. GTP/GDP exchange triggers its release from these sites and its assembly into short helices that encircle the necks of invaginated coated pits like a collar. GTP hydrolysis, which is required for vesicle detachment, presumably induces a concerted conformation change, tightening the (...) collar. Unlike most of its GTPase cousins that serve as molecular switches, dynamin has a low affinity for GTP, a very high intrinsic rate of GTP hydrolysis and functions as a homo‐oligomer. A concerted conformational change resulting from coordinated GTP hydrolysis by the dynamin oligomer might be sufficient to generate force. In this case, dynamin would be the first GTPase identified that acts as a structural protein with mechano‐chemical function. (shrink)

Summary Contrary to common belief, Lavoisier's greatest phlogistic rival was not Joseph Priestley but Richard Kirwan, a fact that was firmly recognized by both the Lavoisians as well as Priestley himself. During the 1780s, which saw the unprecedented rise of the chemistry of air(s), Kirwan's ‘ingenious modifications…into the theory of phlogiston’, in Mme. Lavoisier's words, became the most dominant alternative to the revisionist pneumatic interpretations of the French. A genealogical contextualization of Kirwan's phlogistic contributions, the circumstances of their emergence and (...) the nature of their evolution and impact, reveals the intricate process of transformation that pneumatic phlogistic thought and practice have undergone during the final years of phlogiston's existence. Originally introduced as an adverse reaction to Scheele's phlogistic reasoning, Kirwan's work evolved as a sophisticated integration between notions of aerial permutations and Adair Crawford's innovative formulation of the phlogistic role of heat, with its origins in the Scottish pneumatic tradition of Black and Irvine. Examining Kirwan's views against the background of metaphysical conflicts over the constitution of pneumatic entities and the role of phlogiston in pneumatic processes traces their origins and advances to a complex interplay between innovation and renovation, proclamation and reclamation, thus depicting the dynamics of (dis-)continuity in the broader phlogistic sphere from which Kirwan's ‘modifications’ have stemmed and which they came to forcefully represent. (shrink)

This article examines to what extent a particular case of cross-disciplinary research in the 1930s was structured by mechanistic reasoning. For this purpose, it identifies the interfield theories that allowed biologists and chemists to use each other’s techniques and findings, and that provided the basis for the experiments performed to identify plant growth hormones and to learn more about their role in the mechanism of plant growth. In 1930, chemists and biologists in Utrecht and Pasadena began to cooperatively study plant (...) growth. I will argue that these researchers decided to join forces because they believed to rely on each other’s findings and methods to solve their research problems adequately. In the course of the cooperation, organic chemists arrived at isolating plant growth hormones by using a test method developed in plant physiology. This achievement, in turn, facilitated biologists’ investigation of the mechanism of plant growth. Researchers eventually believed to have the means to study the relation between a substance’s molecular structure and its physiological activity. The way they conceptualized the problem of identifying hormones and unraveling the mechanism of plant growth, as well as their actual research actions are compatible with the new mechanists’ account of mechanism research. The study illustrates that focusing on researchers’ mechanistic reasoning can contribute considerably to explaining the structure of cross-disciplinary research projects. (shrink)

By the end of the Second World War the advancing allied forces discovered a new nerve gas in Germany. It was called Tabun. Codenamed GA, it was found to be extremely toxic. British experts were immediately dispatched to examine the agent. On arrival, they discovered that German scientists had also developed even more toxic nerve agents, including Sarin, known as GB. The first organized testing of Sarin on humans began in October 1951 at Porton Down in Wiltshire, Britain's biochemical warfare (...) establishment since the First World War. In February 1953, volunteer number 562 experienced the first recorded serious adverse reaction. Testing continued. Two months later, on April 27, six subjects were given 300 milligrams of Sarin. One of the volunteers, a man named Kelly, suffered serious ill effects, fell into a coma, but then recovered. Although asked by their superiors to reduce the amount tested to the “lowest range of dosage”—which would have been somewhere in the region of 10–15 milligrams—Porton's scientists continued their tests with a “lower” dosage, reducing it from 300 to 200 milligrams. (shrink)

Determination of the structure of the nucleic acids involved inter alia identification of the ring atom of the purines to which ribose or deoxyribose was attached. This in turn depended on knowledge of the ring atoms that could be so substituted and hence that were bonded to replaceable hydrogens. In 1897 E. Fischer adopted a convention of depicting this hydrogen at position 7 of the purine ring, although he was aware that it was equally correct to depict it at position (...) 9. Many later workers apparently came to believe that the 7H structure was more than just a convention, and considered that the sugar was attached solely at position 7 and could not be attached to position 9. When evidence was presented in 1933 that the sugar was in fact attached to position 9, the force of this convention apparently was so strong that many were reluctant to accept this evidence. More than 20 years was required for complete acceptance of the new view, and Fischer's convention was still being used in other contexts until at least 1967. (shrink)

Tissues are shaped and patterned by mechanical and chemical processes. A key mechanical process is the positioning of the mitotic spindle, which determines the size and location of the daughter cells within the tissue. Recent force and position-fluctuation measurements indicate that pushing forces, mediated by the polymerization of astral microtubules against­ the cell cortex, maintain the mitotic spindle at the cell center in Caenorhabditis elegans embryos. The magnitude of the centering forces suggests that the physical limit on the (...) accuracy and precision of this centering mechanism is determined by the number of pushing microtubules rather than by thermally driven fluctuations. In cells that divide asymmetrically, anti-centering, pulling forces generated by cortically located dyneins, in conjunction with microtubule depolymerization, oppose the pushing forces to drive spindle displacements away from the center. Thus, a balance of centering pushing forces and anti-centering pulling forces localize the mitotic spindles within dividing C. elegans cells. We discuss microtubule-based mechanisms of the mitotic spindle positioning, a key mechanical process that shapes and patterns tissues. The magnitude of the centering forces indicates that the physical limit on the accuracy and precision of centering is set by the number of contributing microtubules rather than by thermally driven fluctuations. (shrink)

Tissues are shaped and patterned by mechanical and chemical processes. A key mechanical process is the positioning of the mitotic spindle, which determines the size and location of the daughter cells within the tissue. Recent force and position-fluctuation measurements indicate that pushing forces, mediated by the polymerization of astral microtubules against­ the cell cortex, maintain the mitotic spindle at the cell center in Caenorhabditis elegans embryos. The magnitude of the centering forces suggests that the physical limit on the (...) accuracy and precision of this centering mechanism is determined by the number of pushing microtubules rather than by thermally driven fluctuations. In cells that divide asymmetrically, anti-centering, pulling forces generated by cortically located dyneins, in conjunction with microtubule depolymerization, oppose the pushing forces to drive spindle displacements away from the center. Thus, a balance of centering pushing forces and anti-centering pulling forces localize the mitotic spindles within dividing C. elegans cells. We discuss microtubule-based mechanisms of the mitotic spindle positioning, a key mechanical process that shapes and patterns tissues. The magnitude of the centering forces indicates that the physical limit on the accuracy and precision of centering is set by the number of contributing microtubules rather than by thermally driven fluctuations. (shrink)

This article briefly outlines Ørsted's early aesthetic thought by placing it in the context of his affiliations with early German romanticism, and by examining the poetics and philosophy of language contained in a prize-winning essay on aesthetics that he wrote in 1796. Further, this article presents an example of how aesthetic and linguistic strategies in his writing helped shape the meaning of the theoretical terms utilized in his early scientific work. Toward this end, the focus of the article will be (...) limited to a central passage from the first installment of his Kemiske Breve (Chemical Letters), which he published in 1798 at the age of twenty-one. (shrink)

Self-Interest before Adam Smith inquires into the foundations of economic theory. It is generally assumed that the birth of modern economic science, marked by the publication of The Wealth of Nations in 1776, was the triumph of the 'selfish hypothesis'. Yet, as a neo-Epicurean idea, this hypothesis had been a matter of controversy for over a century and Smith opposed it from a neo-Stoic point of view. But how can the Epicurean principles of orthodox economic theory be reconciled with the (...) Stoic principles of Adam Smith's philosophy? Pierre Force shows how Smith's theory refutes the 'selfish hypothesis' and integrates it at the same time. He also explains how Smith appropriated Rousseau's 'republican' critique of modern commercial society, and makes the case that the autonomy of economic science is an unintended consequence of Smith's 'republican' principles. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:166 HUME'S INTEREST IN NEWTON AND SCIENCE Many writers have been forced to examine — in their treatments of Hume's knowledge of and acquaintance with scientific theories of his day — the related questions of Hume's knowledge of and acquaintance with Isaac Newton and of the nature and extent of Newtonian influences upon Hume's thinking. Most have concluded that — in some sense — Hume was acquainted with and (...) influenced by Newton's thought in particular and scientific thought in general. The genesis of this paper is the recent point of view put forward by Peter Jones which challenges the many permutations of this almost ritualistic standard line by removing Hume entirely from the Newtonian and the scientific scenes of thought. Jones argues that Hume knew less about Newton and science, and needed to know less about Newton and 2 science, than he believes is required by the above interpretation. Indeed, Jones argues that Hume's fundamental assumptions, which, according to Jones, derive ultimately from a form of Ciceronian humanism, drive a "wedge" between Newton's thought and that of 3 Hume. Even Hume's introductory remarks in the Treatise about his universal "science of man" are, for Jones, a declaration of independence from the materialistic trend (as Jones sees it) of Newtonian 4 science and not, as so many commentators have maintained — however tenuously or strongly evidence for linkage of Hume's project with Newtonian or scientific thought. Jones baldly argues that Hume totally lacked interest in science in general and in Newton and Newtonian science in particular. Following J. H. Burton's observation that Hume's work is surprisingly free from the "opinions" of contemporary scientists, 167 Jones states there is no evidence that Hume ever studied science at the University of Edinburgh or that he "pursued" scientific studies of any formal sort. Regarding Newtonian scientific thought, he emphasizes the paucity of specifically Newtonian scientific textbooks in the early eighteenth century 7 which might have been available for Hume to study and argues that nowhere in Hume's writings is there evidence of precise and detailed knowledge of Newton's science beyond what is available in Q Chamber's Cyclopaedia. Jones acknowledges that, in the Introduction to the Treatise, Hume utilizes a "general version" of Newton's "Regulae Philosophandi" from the beginning of Book III of Newton's Principia. Nevertheless, in Jones' view, Hume's fundamentally humanistic orientation separates him completely from g any Newtonian influence. Finally, according to Jones, Hume does not betray the least bit of knowledge of Newton's mathematics and its role in Newton's experimental methodology. On this evidence Jones grounds his central claim of Hume's "total lack of interest in contemporary science." What references there are to Newton and to science in Hume's works Jones finds "traceable to essentially literary predecessors such as Fontenelle or Montesquieu, or to standard works of theologians ] 2 or free-thinkers." The absence of clearly direct references to what Jones feels are scientific works results both from Hume's "total lack of interest in science" and from his commitment to a form of Ciceronian humanism which is "inimical" to what Jones finds to be the obvious materialistic tendencies of 13 science in the early modern period. Jones' account of the Ciceronian and French contexts of Hume's thought is excellent. But his claim that Hume had no interest whatsoever in science 168 is simply too strong and finally forces us to view science in Hume's day as equivalent to science in our own time, a manifestly anachronistic point of view. Throughout this paper, my argument will be conditioned by my view that Hume's interest in science cannot be separated from his epistemology or his religious scepticism. Hume's interest in science was precisely that of a man of letters of the eighteenth century vitally engaged in determining the proper use of scientific methodology in establishing the limits of the secular science of man once it has 14 been freed from the fetters of theology. Hume's interest in theological and epistemological issues inevitably gave rise to a strong interest on his part in the science of his day and in Newton's contributions... (shrink)

This article revisits what has often been called the of Voltaire's historical work. It looks at the methodological and philosophical reasons for Voltaire's deliberate focus on modern history as opposed to ancient history, his refusal to in judging the past, and his extreme selectiveness in determining the relevance of past events to world history. Voltaire's historical practice is put in the context of the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns, and considered in a tradition of universal history going back (...) to Bossuet and leading up to nineteenth-century German historicism. Paradoxically, Voltaire is a major figure in the history of historiography not in spite of his presentism (as Ernst Cassirer and Peter Gay have argued), but because of it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Montaigne and the Coherence of EclecticismPierre ForceSince the publication of Pierre Hadot's essays on ancient philosophy by Arnold Davidson in 1995,2 Michel Foucault's late work on "the care of the self"3 has appeared in a new light. We now know that Hadot's work was familiar to Foucault as early as the 1950s.4 It is also clear that Foucault's notion of "techniques of the self" is very close to what (...) Hadot calls "spiritual exercises." At the same time, there are important differences between the views of these two philosophers, and Hadot has often expressed his regret that Foucault's untimely death prevented them from exploring these differences.5 One important point of disagreement was the status of eclecticism. In Foucault's interpretation of ancient philosophy, the "constitution of the self" implied a personal choice among disparate philosophical references: "Writing as a personal exercise done by the self and for the self, is an art of disparate truth."6 In a 1989 article Hadot argued from a historical point of view that, so far as Stoicism and Epicureanism were concerned, [End Page 523] eclecticism had no place in a mature practice of philosophy. Foucault's favorite example, Seneca's Letters to Lucilius, in which Stoic arguments were invoked along with Epicurean arguments, was a work for beginners. In a mature practice of Stoicism, one would stick to the arguments of the Stoic school, choose them for their coherence, and instead of trying to forge a spiritual identity for oneself through writing, one would "liberate oneself from one's individuality in order to raise oneself up to universality."7 Hadot added that "it is only in the New Academy—in the person of Cicero, for instance—that a personal choice is made according to what reason considers as most likely at a given moment."8 This discussion of Foucault may give the impression that Hadot was somewhat dismissive of eclecticism. Yet in a 2001 interview Hadot claimed that he had always admired Cicero's intellectual independence, and he proposed a reappraisal "of an attitude that has always had a bad reputation: eclecticism."9Something very similar is a stake in the work of Alexander Nehamas, as Lanier Anderson and Joshua Landy showed in their study of his Art of Living. In the conception of philosophy as a "way of life" (Hadot) or "care of the self" (Foucault) or "self-fashioning" (Nehamas), a central issue is the relationship between theoretical coherence and the coherence of the person who theorizes. Elaborating on Nehamas's chapter on Montaigne, Anderson and Landy argue that there is a move in Montaigne away from doctrinal coherence and towards a coherence of the self. As they put it, "the harmonious whole Montaigne commends [... ] is not a coherent body of fact or theory; it is the unified self of the theorizer."10 Anderson and Landy show that this brings up all kinds of difficulties: can this unified self be other than a fiction? If that is the case, how can philosophy be a way of life? Nehamas's answer is very much in the spirit of the late Foucault: there is a coherence of the self in Montaigne, and this coherence is the product of writing as a philosophical activity. The self is fashioned through writing.Because Montaigne writes in the ancient tradition of philosophy as a way of life, one may recall Hadot's suggestion that Foucault's notion of [End Page 524] "writing the self" is an intriguing but historically inaccurate description of ancient philosophical practice. But perhaps Hadot agrees with Foucault after all, since in his most recent interviews, he speaks favorably of eclecticism, a notion that is central to Foucault's analysis of self-fashioning through writing. The case of Montaigne is particularly interesting for these purposes, not only because the Essays seem to be the prototypical example of "writing the self," but also because eclecticism is both discussed and practiced throughout the Essays. I propose to take a fresh look at this issue by investigating the status of eclecticism in Montaigne's Essays. This must start with an examination of the philosophical tradition most closely associated with... (shrink)

The French philosopher and intellectual historian Pierre Hadot (1922-2010) is known primarily for his conception of philosophy as spiritual exercise, which was an essential reference for the later Foucault. An aspect of his work that has received less attention is a set of methodological reflections on intellectual history and on the relationship between philosophy and history. Hadot was trained initially as a philosopher and was interested in existentialism as well as in the convergence between philosophy and poetry. Yet he chose (...) to become a historian of philosophy and produced extensive philological work on neo-Platonism and ancient philosophy in general. He found a philosophical rationale for this shift in his encounter with Wittgenstein's philosophy in the mid-1950s (Hadot was one of Wittgenstein's earliest French readers and interpreters). For Hadot, ancient philosophy must be understood as a series of language games, and each language game must be situated within the concrete conditions in which it happened. The reference to Wittgenstein therefore supports a strongly contextualist and historicist stance. It also supports its exact opposite: presentist appropriations of ancient texts are entirely legitimate, and they are the only way ancient philosophy can be existentially meaningful to us. Hadot addresses the contradiction by embracing it fully and claiming that his own practice aims at a coincidence of opposites (a concept borrowed from the Heraclitean tradition). For Hadot the fullest and truest way of doing philosophy is to be a philosopher and a historian at the same time. (shrink)

Taking Pascal's appropriation of Montaigne as its main example, this article asks what it means to "say something new" in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It argues that literary and philosophical innovation is best understood in reference to the rhetorical tradition, and it analyzes what "saying something new" means in terms of inventio, dispositio, elocutio, decorum, and ethos. Close attention is also paid to the relationship between economy and equity (in the rhetorical sense of these terms). For Pascal and Montaigne, (...) the "new" is desirable not for its own sake, but rather as an exercise for the soul. (shrink)

Dick Popkin and James Force have attended a number of recent conferences where it was apparent that much new and important research was being done in the fields of interpreting Newton's and Spinoza's contributions as biblical scholars and of the relationship between their biblical scholarship and other aspects of their particular philosophies. This collection represents the best current research in this area. It stands alone as the only work to bring together the best current work on these topics. Its (...) primary audience is specialised scholars of the thought of Newton and Spinoza as well as historians of the philosophical ideas of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. (shrink)

A CLOSE READING OF HUME’S ESSAY, "OF MIRACLES", REVEALS THAT HUME SPECIFICALLY AIMS HIS SCEPTICAL ARGUMENT AT THE PROOF OF CHRISTIAN REVELATION VIA FULFILLED PROPHETIC PREDICTIONS AS WELL AS AT MIRACLES. JOHNSON IS UNAWARE OF THIS FACT AND SO I CONCLUDE THAT HE HIMSELF HAD NOT READ THE ESSAY CLOSELY, THAT HE PROBABLY ONLY KNEW THE GENERAL OUTLINES OF THE ARGUMENT AT SECOND HAND THROUGH BOSWELL.