_Metaphysics of Freedom? Kant’s Concept of Cosmological Freedom in Historical and Systematic Perspective_ scrutinizes the mostly neglected cosmological foundation of Kant’s concept of freedom.

This volume discusses the origin and structure of the universe in mystical Islam (Sufism) and Islam's civilizational predecessors with special reference to parallel realms of existence and their interaction. Contributors address Sufi ideas about the fate of human beings in this and future life under three rubrics: (1) cosmogony and eschatology ("where do we come from?" and "where do we go?"); (2) conceptualizations of the world of the here-and-now ("where are we now?"); and (3) visualizations of realms of existence, their (...) hierarchy and mutual relationships ("where are we in relation to other times and places?"). Contributors are Christian Lange, Alexander Knysh, Noah Gardiner, Stephen Hirtenstein, Saeko Yazaki, Jean-Jacques Thibon, Leah Kinberg, Sara Sviri, Munjed M. Murad, Simon O'Meara, Pierre Lory, Mathieu Terrier, Michael Ebstein, Binyamin Abrahamov and Frederick Colby. (shrink)

The papyri transmit a part of the testimonia relevant to pre-Socratic philosophy. The ʼCorpus dei Papiri Filosofici‛ takes this material only partly into account. In this volume, a team of specialists discusses some of the most important papyrological texts that are major instruments for reconstructing pre-Socratic philosophy and doxography. Furthermore, these texts help to increase our knowledge of how pre-Socratic thought – through contributions to physics, cosmology, ethics, ontology, theology, anthropology, hermeneutics, and aesthetics – paved the way for the (...) canonic scientific fields of European culture. More specifically, each paper tackles papyrological texts concerning the Orphics, the Milesians, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, the early Atomists, and the Sophists. For the first time in the field of pre-Socratics studies, several papers are devoted to the Herculanean sources, along with others concerning the Graeco-Egyptian papyri and the Derveni Papyrus. (shrink)

Structural realist interpretations of generally relativistic spacetimes have recently come to enjoy a remarkable degree of popularity among philosophers. I present a challenge to these structuralist interpretations that arises from considering cosmological models in general relativity. As a consequence of their high degree of spacetime symmetry, these models resist a structuralist interpretation. I then evaluate the various strategies available to the structuralist to react to this challenge. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, 9500 Gilman Drive, 0119, (...) University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093‐0119; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Christian Leduc | : Dans le présent article, je montre que Maupertuis et Euler proposent une conception contrastée de la métaphysique de la nature. Il s’agit principalement pour eux de repositionner la cosmologie par rapport aux sciences de la nature. Au lieu de considérer la métaphysique comme étant au fondement des théories scientifiques, comme le supposent Descartes, Wolff et, d’une certaine manière, Kant, ou simplement d’interdire l’idée même d’une cosmologie, comme le stipulerait à la même époque d’Alembert, Maupertuis et (...) Euler, renversent l’ordre des disciplines pour donner aux sciences physiques une primauté sur la métaphysique. Ce repositionnement entraîne évidemment plusieurs questions : d’abord, de quelle manière les théories scientifiques peuvent-elles valider ou infirmer un principe métaphysique? Plus important encore, quel rôle incombe à la métaphysique de la nature, étant donné que les sciences possèdent non seulement une autonomie théorique, mais même une priorité sur les réflexions ontologiques. Il semblerait d’ailleurs que la métaphysique se réduise, pour ces deux philosophes, au seul domaine du cosmologique, en particulier aux questions qui concernent la force et le principe de moindre action, au statut ontologique de l’espace et du temps et aux déterminations de la matière que sont l’étendue, l’inertie, l’impénétrabilité et le mouvement. | : In this paper, I show that Maupertuis and Euler offer a contrasting conception of metaphysics of nature. It consists mainly for them in repositioning cosmology in relation to natural sciences. Instead of considering metaphysics to be at the foundation of scientific theories, as was assumed by Descartes, Wolff, and, in a certain way, Kant, or simply prohibiting the very idea of a cosmology, as d’Alembert would stipulate at the same period, Maupertuis and Euler invert the order of disciplines to give priority to physical sciences over metaphysics. This repositioning leads of course to several questions : first, how does scientific theories validate or deny metaphysical principles? Even more important, which role falls to metaphysics of nature given that sciences not only possess a theoretical autonomy, but also a priority over ontological reflections? Besides, it seems that metaphysics would be reduced, for these two philosophers, to the realm of cosmology alone, in particular to questions concerning force and the principle of least action, the ontological status of space and time, and the first constituents of matter, such as extension, inertia, impenetrability, and motion. (shrink)

The Mössbauer rotor effect recently gained a renewed interest due to the discovery and explanation of an additional effect of clock synchronization which has been missed for about 50 years, i.e. starting from a famous book of Pauli, till some recent experimental analyses. The theoretical explanation of such an additional effect is due to some recent papers in both the general relativistic and the special relativistic frameworks. In the first case the key point of the approach is the Einstein’s equivalence (...) principle, which, in the words of the same Einstein, enables “the point of view to interpret the rotating system K’ as at rest, and the centrifugal field as a gravitational field”. In this paper, we analyse both the history of the Mössbauer rotor effect and its interpretation from the point of view of Einstein’s general theory of relativity by adding some new insight. In particular, it will be shown that, if on one hand the “traditional” effect of redshift has a strong analogy with the gravitational redshift, on the other hand the additional effect of clock synchronization has an intriguing analogy with the cosmological redshift. Finally, we show that a recent claim in the literature that the second effect of clock synchronization does not exist is not correct. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs and discusses a proof of God’s existence by Anselm of Canterbury’s friend Ralph of Battle, developed in his recently edited De nesciente, a fictitious dialogue between a Christian and an atheist. Without precedent in antiquity and the Middle Ages, Ralph’s proof has never been examined in detail. It combines a “cogito” argument with a two-part cosmological argument. The paper first presents the textual basis and an exegetical interpretation of Ralph’s reasoning, classifies the parts of the proof (...) historically and systematically, and then compares these with the proofs of God’s existence as well as other arguments in Anselm’s Proslogion and Monologion. Finally, it points out some similarities between Ralph’s “cogito” argument and a passage in the Liber pro insipiente, which may suggest that this anonymous critique of Anselm’s Proslogion proof was authored not by Gaunilo, as traditionally thought, but by Ralph. (shrink)

Plausible assumptions from Cosmology and Statistical Mechanics entail that it is overwhelmingly likely that there will be exact duplicates of us in the distant future long after our deaths. Call such persons “Boltzmann duplicates,” after the great pioneer of Statistical Mechanics. In this paper, I argue that if survival of death is possible at all, then we almost surely will survive our deaths because there almost surely will be Boltzmann duplicates of us in the distant future that stand in (...) appropriate relations to us to guarantee our survival. (shrink)

There exists a growing literature on the so-called physical Church-Turing thesis in a relativistic spacetime setting. The physical Church-Turing thesis is the conjecture that no computing device that is physically realizable can exceed the computational barriers of a Turing machine. By suggesting a concrete implementation of a beyond-Turing computer in a spacetime setting, Istvan Nemeti and Gyula David have shown how an appreciation of the physical Church-Turing thesis necessitates the confluence of mathematical, computational, physical, and indeed cosmological ideas. In this (...) essay, I will honour Istvan's seventieth birthday, as well as his longstanding interest in, and his seminal contributions to, this field going back to as early as 1987 by modestly proposing how the concrete implementation in Nemeti and D\'avid might be complemented by a quantum-information-theoretic communication protocol between the computing device and the logician who sets the beyond-Turing computer a task such as determining the consistency of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory. This suggests that even the foundations of quantum theory and, ultimately, quantum gravity may play an important role in determining the validity of the physical Church-Turing thesis. (shrink)

The prediction defended in this paper is that over the next fifty years we will see a return of the ancient tradition of “universal history”; but this will be a new form of universal history that is global in its practice and scientific in its spirit and methods. Until the end of the nineteenth century, universal history of some kind seems to have been present in most historiographical traditions. Then it vanished as historians became disillusioned with the search for grand (...) historical narratives and began to focus instead on getting the details right through document-based research. Today, however, there are many signs of a return to universal history. This has been made possible, at least in part, by the detailed empirical research undertaken in the last century in many different fields, and also by the creation of new methods of absolute dating that do not rely on the presence of written documents. The last part of the paper explores some of the possible consequences for historical scholarship of a return to a new, scientific form of universal history. These may include a closer integration of historical scholarship with the more historically oriented of the sciences, including cosmology, geology, and biology. Finally, the paper raises the possibility that universal history may eventually be taught in high schools, where it will provide a powerful new way of integrating knowledge from the humanities and the sciences. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 7.1 (2002) 24-38 [Access article in PDF] Arne Naess, Val Plumwood, and Deep Ecological SubjectivityA Contribution to the "Deep Ecology-ecofeminism Debate" Christian Diehm Karen Warren's recent essay, "Ecofeminist Philosophy and Deep Ecology," begins by noting that the philosophical positions found under the heading "deep ecology" are anything but monolithic. This point, which has been overlooked by deep ecologists as often as by others, is (...) crucial for those who are interested in the "deep ecology-ecofeminism debate," for just as one must specify which of the ecofeminisms are in question, so too one must be clear about which of the deep ecologies is being debated, if one is to make one's way through the complex relationships between them. In the course of her article, Warren recounts with approval Val Plumwood's "Nature, Self and Gender: Feminism, Environmental Philosophy, and the Critique of Rationalism," an essay which locates, discusses, and critiques three versions of the "self" that various deep ecologists offer. In light of Plumwood's comments, Warren argues that the work of Arne Naess differs significantly from other deep ecologists such that "Naess' deep ecology position is or could be compatible with ecofeminism" (Warren 1999, 255). [End Page 24]In this essay, I propose to continue the analysis offered by Warren by examining how Naess might respond individually to the objections Plumwood voices. This will be done by looking closely at Naess's articulation of what he refers to as the "ultimate premises" of his view, premises that are not necessarily aspects of deep ecology per se, but of his own ecophilosophy, "Ecosophy 'T'." 1 I will argue that even though Naess may not be subject to Plumwood's most immediate criticisms, her work exposes the problematic tendency of his philosophy of identification to stress sameness in relations with others. I will conclude by suggesting a critical revision of the notion of identification that would allow one to retain key features of Naess's view—most notably his gestaltist understanding of the "self" or "subject" and his emphasis on "Self-realization" as an ultimate norm—while responding to the problems that Plumwood's work exposes. The Self as Transpersonal One of the three senses of self specified by Plumwood is the "transpersonal" self. Her discussion of the transpersonal self focuses on the work of Warwick Fox who, in his Toward a Transpersonal Ecology, describes three "varieties of identification": personal, ontological, and cosmological. 2 Fox favors the latter two because they are less local than personal identification, and this is due to the fact that they are not rooted in the immediate reality in which one moves, but rather within broader, more encompassing views, and thus are said to be "impartial" (Fox 1995, 256). As such, it is claimed that these trans-personal forms of identification escape the problem that accompanies personal identification, which is that, qua personal, it is necessarily biased in favor of those with whom one has personal contact, and thus seems to "have far more to do with the cause of possessiveness, greed, exploitation, war, and ecological destruction than with the solution to these seemingly intractable problems" (262). But this is not meant to imply an outright rejection of personal identification, and Fox cites as proof of this Naess's approval of the "felt nearness" of others as a principle for resolving conflicts. Fox's point is to show that trans-personal identification "proceeds from a sense of the cosmos... and works inward to each particular individual's sense of commonality with other entities" (258), but that within this framework personal identification remains important as "an inescapable aspect of living and... plays a fundamental role in human development" (266-7).Plumwood's critique of this view is that the privileging of the transpersonal [End Page 25] over the personal repeats a patriarchal gesture of the exclusion of a "corrupting and self-interested" particularity in favor of an impersonal and abstract universality (Plumwood 1991, 15). And, ultimately, such a position "cannot allow for the deep and highly... (shrink)

This paper first examines surviving testimonies on the doctrine of the Great Year in Heraclitus and attempts to demonstrate the reliability of Aëtius’ version handed down by the mss., according to which the Great Year is equal to 18,000 solar years. On the basis of such evidence it is also possible to newly examine Diogenes of Babylon’s views about this topic. In the second part, the paper better defines the relationship between the Great Year and the theory of cosmic conflagration. (...) It argues that in the sources at our disposal there are enough elements to credit Heraclitus with the doctrine of Ekpyrosis, although, in all probability, the philosopher never provided an in-depth description of it. Finally, the same problem is analysed in relation to Diogenes of Babylon. In the most mature phase of his career, this Stoic departed from the Ekpyrosis doctrine of the early Stoics and especially of his master Chrysippus. The paper formulates some hypotheses on the reasons for this choice (arguing that it most probably reflects an original attitude towards Heraclitus on Diogenes’ part) and highlights that it was hardly an isolated, ‘heterodox’ stance during the final phase of the early Stoa. (shrink)

This paper explores Whitehead’s concept of law as an immanent order, arguing that it can be successfully used to cover the whole semantic field denoted as ‘law’, and especially law in its juridical sense. After showing the features that make it more plausible and more desirable than the opposing view of law as a transcendent imposition, law will be defined as the expression of the modes of existence of individuals within their environment. It will then be tested as a key (...) for understanding the link between life and law and showing the inadequacy of Foucault and Agamben’s biopolitical reflections: if law is an immanent order, then life is identical with its own inherent normativity. Finally, drawing on Deleuze’s philosophy of right, the fundamental features of an immanent practice of law, a “speculative jurisprudence” which confirms the binding between law, life, and immanence, will be sketched as a proposal for a practical philosophy consistent with Whitehead’s process cosmology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.3 (2005) 199-203 [Access article in PDF] Lived Time and to Live Time Christian Kupke Keywords time, dimensional time, temporality, dialectics, subjectivity In this paper, I argue that a phenomenological description of temporality is a description of what it is to "live" time, that is, to live time in its three-dimensional aspects: past, future, and present. And it is suggested that this dimensional time (...) can be analyzed on two different levels: on a microstructural level that is part of the subject–object relationship (cognitive–intentional time), and on a macrostructural level that is part of the subject–subject relationship (intersubjective time). In a close reading of Martin Wyllie's paper "Lived Time and Psychopathology" (2005) some implications and consequences of these suggestions are discussed. Conceptual Problems: Personal and Intersubjective Time One of Martin Wyllie's main theses is that to accurately describe suffering one may have to use a conceptual framework of a bipartite structure that includes the embodied temporal subject on the one hand and the temporal world on the other. It is this what the author calls a "dialectical relationship" between the time of the individual person called "personal time" and the time of the world called "world time" or "intersubjective time" (Wyllie 2005, 173).But then Martin Wyllie also deals with another model, another conceptual framework that follows a different logic and that—in contrast to the dualistic model—is usually associated with dialectics: the tripartite structure of past, future, and present. "Now in lived time", Wyllie claims, "is a unity of the past, present, and future, and is more than simply a succession because the immediate 'no-more', 'present', and 'yet-to-come' are ordinarily never sharply separated" (Wyllie 2005, 174).I want first to discuss the conceptual problems that come along with Martin Wyllie's use of these models. It seems to me that the author is dealing with the complexity of the relationship between these models by means of a double strategy: to conceptualize world time as intersubjective time (a), and to focus the analysis on the external, dualistic model of personal and intersubjective time (b).(a) "World time" may be differentiated at least into three categories: physical and cosmological time; natural and biological time; and social or sociocultural time. But the question is: how are these (quasi-) objective time matrices realized (and perhaps even "constituted") by the individual subject? To answer this question it is, also in my view, a good strategy for a psychopathology of time to concentrate on intersubjective [End Page 199] time, for, as Martin Wyllie states, there is indeed no doubt that "the embodied human subject is always already in an intersubjective world" (Wyllie 2005, 177).But what I think might be a severe problem with this focal point of the analysis is the tendency to identify the world exclusively with an intersubjective world. That the embodied human subject is always already in an intersubjective world does not mean that the subject's whole world is nothing more than an intersubjective world. Those temporal processes that are, for instance, necessary to "read"—in an intersubjective world—Martin Wyllie's text and to "write" a comment on it (as I do now) are part of at least a double temporal structure.First, reading and writing are formal processes of an integration of cognitive and intentional activities that are the transcendental basis of any intelligible discussion of semantic questions, namely, to recognize signs, retentionally and protentionally, as integral parts of higher temporal units to enable the subject to understand what is read or written. Without such retentional and protentional acts, as they were generally described by Husserl, any text would be a mere accumulation of signs without any formal or logical order.But, second, reading and writing are also informal processes of an integration of those intersubjective activities that result in an intelligible discussion of semantic questions. Here it is necessary to remember what was read or written, by Martin Wyllie, myself, and others (an intersubjective remembrance that is essential for the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 7.1 (2002) 24-38 [Access article in PDF] Arne Naess, Val Plumwood, and Deep Ecological SubjectivityA Contribution to the "Deep Ecology-ecofeminism Debate" Christian Diehm Karen Warren's recent essay, "Ecofeminist Philosophy and Deep Ecology," begins by noting that the philosophical positions found under the heading "deep ecology" are anything but monolithic. This point, which has been overlooked by deep ecologists as often as by others, is (...) crucial for those who are interested in the "deep ecology-ecofeminism debate," for just as one must specify which of the ecofeminisms are in question, so too one must be clear about which of the deep ecologies is being debated, if one is to make one's way through the complex relationships between them. In the course of her article, Warren recounts with approval Val Plumwood's "Nature, Self and Gender: Feminism, Environmental Philosophy, and the Critique of Rationalism," an essay which locates, discusses, and critiques three versions of the "self" that various deep ecologists offer. In light of Plumwood's comments, Warren argues that the work of Arne Naess differs significantly from other deep ecologists such that "Naess' deep ecology position is or could be compatible with ecofeminism" (Warren 1999, 255). [End Page 24]In this essay, I propose to continue the analysis offered by Warren by examining how Naess might respond individually to the objections Plumwood voices. This will be done by looking closely at Naess's articulation of what he refers to as the "ultimate premises" of his view, premises that are not necessarily aspects of deep ecology per se, but of his own ecophilosophy, "Ecosophy 'T'." 1 I will argue that even though Naess may not be subject to Plumwood's most immediate criticisms, her work exposes the problematic tendency of his philosophy of identification to stress sameness in relations with others. I will conclude by suggesting a critical revision of the notion of identification that would allow one to retain key features of Naess's view—most notably his gestaltist understanding of the "self" or "subject" and his emphasis on "Self-realization" as an ultimate norm—while responding to the problems that Plumwood's work exposes. The Self as Transpersonal One of the three senses of self specified by Plumwood is the "transpersonal" self. Her discussion of the transpersonal self focuses on the work of Warwick Fox who, in his Toward a Transpersonal Ecology, describes three "varieties of identification": personal, ontological, and cosmological. 2 Fox favors the latter two because they are less local than personal identification, and this is due to the fact that they are not rooted in the immediate reality in which one moves, but rather within broader, more encompassing views, and thus are said to be "impartial" (Fox 1995, 256). As such, it is claimed that these trans-personal forms of identification escape the problem that accompanies personal identification, which is that, qua personal, it is necessarily biased in favor of those with whom one has personal contact, and thus seems to "have far more to do with the cause of possessiveness, greed, exploitation, war, and ecological destruction than with the solution to these seemingly intractable problems" (262). But this is not meant to imply an outright rejection of personal identification, and Fox cites as proof of this Naess's approval of the "felt nearness" of others as a principle for resolving conflicts. Fox's point is to show that trans-personal identification "proceeds from a sense of the cosmos... and works inward to each particular individual's sense of commonality with other entities" (258), but that within this framework personal identification remains important as "an inescapable aspect of living and... plays a fundamental role in human development" (266-7).Plumwood's critique of this view is that the privileging of the transpersonal [End Page 25] over the personal repeats a patriarchal gesture of the exclusion of a "corrupting and self-interested" particularity in favor of an impersonal and abstract universality (Plumwood 1991, 15). And, ultimately, such a position "cannot allow for the deep and highly... (shrink)

In this paper, I show that Maupertuis and Euler offer a contrasting conception of metaphysics of nature. It consists mainly for them in repositioning cosmology in relation to natural sciences. Instead of considering metaphysics to be at the foundation of scientific theories, as was assumed by Descartes, Wolff, and, in a certain way, Kant, or simply prohibiting the very idea of a cosmology, as d’Alembert would stipulate at the same period, Maupertuis and Euler invert the order of disciplines (...) to give priority to physical sciences over metaphysics. This repositioning leads of course to several questions : first, how does scientific theories validate or deny metaphysical principles? Even more important, which role falls to metaphysics of nature given that sciences not only possess a theoretical autonomy, but also a priority over ontological reflections? Besides, it seems that metaphysics would be reduced, for these two philosophers, to the realm of cosmology alone, in particular to questions concerning force and the principle of least action, the ontological status of space and time, and the first constituents of matter, such as extension, inertia, impenetrability, and motion. (shrink)

Peirce and Royce were giants of American Philosophy at the beginning of the last century. Their contributions still have a high impact on current debates in metaphysics, philosophical theology and philosophy of religion. This is especially true for Peirce and only to a slightly lesser extent for Royce. Their contributions in philosophical theology and philosophy of religion is even more relevant because they did not participate in so-called religion-science-wars. Neither of them refuted or ignored modern natural sciences. In contrast, Darwin, (...) modern physics and contemporary mathematical logics played decisive roles in the development of their theories, especially in their metaphysical cosmologies and their... (shrink)

The Heraclitean tradition in the Herculaneum papyri is a topic which involves some of the most important research fields of ancient philosophy: ethics, physics and cosmology, theology and aesthetics. This paper concentrates on Heraclitus’ fr. 18 Marcovich, where the pre-Socratic philosopher talks about an unspecified κοπίδων ἀρχηγόϲ. The fragment occurs in the seventh book of Philodemus’ Rhetoric and is the only direct quotation of Heraclitus in this multi-volume treatise. This article presents a new textual reconstruction of the two columns (...) of the papyrus in which the same passage is quoted and attempts: 1. to contextualize the quotation inside the Philodemean paraphrase of a treatise by the Stoic Diogenes of Babylon against the rhetoricians of his time; 2. to reconsider the grammatical and philosophical problem of the subject of the Heraclitean quotation. Almost all scholars have considered Pythagoras to be the target of Heraclitus. But certain elements allow us to go beyond this old opinion and to understand this fragment as something of more than a personal dispute. Rhetoric, according to its supporters, was an ‘art’ since Homer’s times and gained its professional autonomy with Corax and Tisias. There is no reason to believe that, in quoting Heraclitus, Diogenes has totally changed the subject of the fragment he cites. That subject could originally have been very similar to that attested in the Philodemean paraphrase, that is the education of the rhetoricians. (shrink)

Vernünfftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt -- Christian Freyherrn von Wolf Erinnerung, wie er es künftig mit den Einwürfen halten will, die wider seine Schriften gemacht werden.

This paper examines two cosmological models of quantum gravity to investigate the foundational and conceptual issues arising from quantum treatments of the big bang. While the classical singularity is erased, the quantum evolution that replaces it may not correspond to classical spacetime: it may instead be a non-spatiotemporal region, which somehow transitions to a spatiotemporal state. The different kinds of transition involved are partially characterized, the concept of a physical transition without time is investigated, and the problem of empirical incoherence (...) for regions without spacetime is discussed. (shrink)

The article examines the development of Paul Tillich’s understanding of Protestantism. Beginning with his 1913 ‘Systematic Theology’, the shifts in his theory of Protestantism, first developed after the First World War and then at the end of the 1920s, are reconstructed. It is demonstrated that, from the outset, Tillich extended the traditional soteriological interpretation of Protestantism into a universal-cosmological theory. Protestantism means not only critique, but also formation.

In order to get rid of the contradictions he had identified in Ptolemy’s Astronomy, Ibn al-Haytham abandons cosmology and develops a purely kinematic description of the movement of the wandering stars. This description culminates with the proof that such a star, during its daily movement, reaches exactly one time a maximum height above the horizon and that any inferior height is reached exactly twice. The proofs of these facts necessitates new mathematical tools and Ibn al-Haytham is led to establish (...) very sophisticated statements concerning the variation of certain ratios of arcs of circles on the sphere. He also introduces the fruitful idea of assimilating a very small spherical triangle to a plane triangle. (shrink)

Part 1. Lecture 1. What is big history? ; Lecture 2. Moving across multiple scales ; Lecture 3. Simplicity and complexity ; Lecture 4. Evidence and the nature of science ; Lecture 5. Threshold 1, Origins of Big Bang cosmology ; Lecture 6. How did everything begin? ; Lecture 7. Threshold 2, The first stars and galaxies ; Lecture 8. Threshold 3, Making chemical elements ; Lecture 9. Threshold 4, The earth and the solar system ; Lecture 10. The (...) early earth, a short history ; Lecture 11. Plate tectonics and the earth's geography ; Lecture 12. Threshold 5, Life -- Part 2. Lecture 13. Darwin and natural selection ; Lecture 14. The evidence for natural selection ; Lecture 15. The origins of life ; Lecture 16. Life on earth, single-celled organisms ; Lecture 17. Life on earth, multi-celled organisms ; Lecture 18. Hominines ; Lecture 19. Evidence on hominine evolution ; Lecture 20. Threshold 6, What makes humans different? ; Lecture 21. Homo sapiens, the first humans ; Lecture 22. Paleolithic lifeways ; Lecture 23. Change in the Paleolithic Era ; Lecture 24. Threshold 7, agriculture -- Part 3. Lecture 25. The origins of agriculture ; Lecture 26. The first agrarian societies ; Lecture 27. Power and its origins ; Lecture 28. Early power structures ; Lecture 29. From villages to cities ; Lecture 30. Sumer, the first agrarian civilization ; Lecture 31. Agrarian civilizations in other regions ; Lecture 32. The world that agrarian civilizations made ; Lecture 33. Long trends, expansion and state power ; Lecture 34. Long trends, rates of innovation ; Lecture 35. Long trends, disease and Malthusian cycles ; Lecture 36. Comparing the world zones -- Part 4. Lecture 37. The Americas in the later Agrarian Era ; Lecture 38. Threshold 8, the modern revolution ; Lecture 39. The Medieval Malthusian Cycle, 500-1350 ; Lecture 40. The Early Modern Cycle, 1350-1700 ; Lecture 41. Breakthrough, the Industrial Revolution ; Lecture 42. Spread of the Industrial Revolution to 1900 ; Lecture 43. The 20th century ; Lecture 44. The world that the modern revolution made ; Lecture 45. Human history and the biosphere ; Lecture 46. The next 100 years ; Lecture 47. The next millennium and the remote future ; Lecture 48. Big history, humans in the cosmos. (shrink)

It is pointed out that the Diosi-Penrose ansatz for gravity-induced quantum state reduction can be tested by observing oscillations in the flavor ratios of neutrinos originated at cosmological distances. Since such a test would be almost free of environmental decoherence, testing the ansatz by means of a next generation neutrino detector such as IceCube would be much cleaner than by experiments proposed so far involving superpositions of macroscopic systems. The proposed microscopic test would also examine the universality of superposition principle (...) at unprecedented cosmological scales. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show how James Mark Baldwin’s theory of Organic Selection can be fruitfully integrated with Alfred North Whitehead’s speculative philosophy, as part of the endeavor to develop a comprehensive process-relational evolutionary cosmology. In so doing, it provides an overview of the theory of Organic Selection and points to several concrete examples from the Galapagos Islands which elucidate Baldwin’s claim that organisms, through their selective activities and behavioral adjustments, play a causal role in directing (...) evolutionary processes. I emphasize some of the affinities between Baldwin’s theory of Organic Selection and Whitehead’s theory of prehensions, especially focusing on the latter’s notion of “prehensive selectivity.” Overall, while Baldwin’s theory of Organic Selection provides a biological ground for a comprehensive process-relational evolutionary cosmology to be developed, illuminating the importance of Whitehead’s theory of prehensions for evolutionary theory, Whitehead’s overall speculative scheme can, in turn, strengthen the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical foundations of Baldwin’s theory. In the course of merging the two views, I arrive at an enlarged conception of Organic Selection, placing it in context with Darwin’s principle of Natural Selection. At the end of the paper, I take up the resulting question of the ethics of selectivity in general, arguing that the merger of Baldwin’s and Whitehead’s ideas constitutes a “non-reductionistic critical pan-selectionism.” This position stands in contrast to the antagonistic standpoints of “Selectionism” and “Anti-Selectionism” in the ongoing debates over the ethical dimensions of Darwinian evolution. (shrink)

We are witnessing a return of cosmology in 20th and 21st century thinking. It is cosmology in the ancient greek sense of the word which addressed the entirety of what surrounds and carries us. Another term for this ongoing transformation is the ›planetary‹ which isn’t simply a synonym for the ›global‹. The planetary means a kind of boundless pervasion based on science and technology and transposing planet earth and human life from a culture-historical to a cosmic scale.

We are witnessing a return of cosmology in 20th and 21st century thinking. It is cosmology in the ancient greek sense of the word which addressed the entirety of what surrounds and carries us. Another term for this ongoing transformation is the ›planetary‹ which isn’t simply a synonym for the ›global‹. The planetary means a kind of boundless pervasion based on science and technology and transposing planet earth and human life from a culture-historical to a cosmic scale.

Résumé Avec la cosmologie de la philosophie de l’organisme, Whitehead poursuit son enquête sur les principes de la connaissance naturelle, dans l’idée de faire se correspondre les données phénoménologiques directes et la physique de son temps. En prenant pour modèle le corps percevant, cette métaphysique fait des individus durables les centres d’où s’élabore la connaissance objective. Nous y gagnons sécurité et cohérence dans un monde en perpétuel devenir où les lois de la nature sont elles-mêmes contingentes. Mais le parcours génératif (...) du sens qu’étudie la partie III de Process and Reality interroge : en amont de toute ontologie, l’espace tensif dans lequel la théorie des préhensions inscrit la discussion ne relève-t-il pas plutôt de l’existence sémiotique? (shrink)

In Science and the Akashic Field, philosopher and systems theorist Ervin Laszlo (2004) makes the case that science is finally in a position to produce a theory of everything (ToE). Drawing on anomalies and advances in cosmology, quantum physics, biology, and consciousness studies, he shows how the discovery in physics of the zero point energy field (ZPE) is also the discovery of a universal information field. This article explores Ervin Laszlo's Akashic Field theory in light of the relationship between (...) information, consciousness, energy, and meaning. (shrink)

We invite systematic consideration of the metaphors of cycles and circulation as a long-term theme in the history of the life and environmental sciences and medicine. Ubiquitous in ancient religious and philosophical traditions, especially in representing the seasons and the motions of celestial bodies, circles once symbolized perfection. Over the centuries cyclic images in western medicine, natural philosophy, natural history and eventually biology gained independence from cosmology and theology and came to depend less on strictly circular forms. As potent (...) ‘canonical icons’, cycles also interacted with representations of linear and irreversible change, including arrows, arcs, scales, series and trees, as in theories of the Earth and of evolution. In modern times life cycles and reproductive cycles have often been held to characterize life, in some cases especially female life, while human efforts selectively to foster and disrupt these cycles have harnessed their productivity in medicine and agriculture. But strong cyclic metaphors have continued to link physiology and climatology, medicine and economics, and biology and manufacturing, notably through the relations between land, food and population. From the grand nineteenth-century transformations of matter to systems ecology, the circulation of molecules through organic and inorganic compartments has posed the problem of maintaining identity in the face of flux and highlights the seductive ability of cyclic schemes to imply closure where no original state was in fact restored. More concerted attention to cycles and circulation will enrich analyses of the power of metaphors to naturalize understandings of life and their shaping by practical interests and political imaginations. (shrink)

This volume offers an integrated understanding of how the theory of general relativity gained momentum after Einstein had formulated it in 1915. Chapters focus on the early reception of the theory in physics and philosophy and on the systematic questions that emerged shortly after Einstein's momentous discovery. They are written by physicists, historians of science, and philosophers, and were originally presented at the conference titled Thinking About Space and Time: 100 Years of Applying and Interpreting General Relativity, held at the (...) University of Bern from September 12-14, 2017. By establishing the historical context first, and then moving into more philosophical chapters, this volume will provide readers with a more complete understanding of early applications of general relativity and of related philosophical issues. Because the chapters are often cross-disciplinary, they cover a wide variety of topics related to the general theory of relativity. These include: Heuristics used in the discovery of general relativity Mach's Principle The structure of Einstein's theory Cosmology and the Einstein world Stability of cosmological models The metaphysical nature of spacetime The relationship between spacetime and dynamics The Geodesic Principle Symmetries Thinking About Space and Time will be a valuable resource for historians of science and philosophers who seek a deeper knowledge of the uses of general relativity, as well as for physicists and mathematicians interested in exploring the wider historical and philosophical context of Einstein's theory. (shrink)

Seminar papers; Study with special reference to Advaita philosophy of Śaṅkarācārya.