Burgess, J.P. and Rosen, G. Subject with No ObjectElliott, R.Faking Nature.

Quantum entanglement has been focus of fundamental debate since the original paper of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen [1] and the work of Bell [2], discussing its implications on fundamental issues related to the concepts of physical reality and locality. It has only been during the last few years when it has been recognized that this feature of Quantum Mechanics may also have important applications in the fields of communication and computation. In particular, it has been shown that using entanglement (...) would allow to perform certain computational tasks, such as factoring, much faster. On the other hand, it provides the basis for provably secure secret communication and cryptography. (shrink)

The classical utilitarian legacy of Jeremy Bentham, J. S. Mill, James Mill, and Henry Sidgwick has often been charged with both theoretical and practical complicity in the growth of British imperialism and the emerging racialist discourse of the nineteenth century. But there has been little scholarly work devoted to bringing together the conflicting interpretive perspectives on this legacy and its complex evolution with respect to orientalism and imperialism. This volume, with contributions by leading scholars in the field, represents the first (...) attempt to survey the full range of current scholarly controversy on how the classical utilitarians conceived of 'race' and the part it played in their ethical and political programs, particularly with respect to such issues as slavery and the governance of India. The book both advances our understanding of the history of utilitarianism and imperialism and promotes the scholarly debate, clarifying the major points at issue between those sympathetic to the utilitarian legacy and those critical of it. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

One of the earliest and best-known of Bentham's works, the Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation sets out a profound and innovative philosophical argument. This definitive edition includes both the late H. L. A. Hart's classic essay on the work and a new introduction by F. Rosen.

Burgess, J.P. and Rosen, G. Subject with No ObjectElliott, R.Faking Nature.

The long-term persistence of neurotic symptoms, such as anxiety, poses difficult problems for any psychological theory. An attempt is made to revive the Watson-Mowrer conditioning theory and to avoid the many criticisms directed against it in the past. It is suggested that recent research has produced changes in learning theory that can be used to render this possible. In the first place, the doctrine of equipotentiality has been shown to be wrong, and some such concept as Seligman's “preparedness” is required, (...) that is the notion that certain CS are biologically prepared to be more readily connected with anxiety responses than others. In the second place, the law of extinction has to be amended, and the law of incubation or enhancement added, according to which the exposure of the CS-only may, under certain specified conditions, have the effect of increasing the strength of the CR, rather than reducing it. The major conditions favouring incubation are Pavlovian B conditioning, that is a type of conditioning in which the CR is a drive; a strong UCS, and short exposure of the CS-only. (shrink)

Despite all the hyperbole, Natural Capitalism is not a great book and even less of a radical concept. Indeed, the "natural" is wholly unnecessary, for most of its "radical insights" amounts to nothing more than a rediscovery of the fundamental tenets of a market economy. Good capitalist entrepreneurs have always been able to figure out that pollution and waste are both inefficient and expensive. They never needed government officials or business consultants to tell them that you can do well financially (...) and environmentally at the same time. In spite of all this, if Natural Capitalism succeeds in convincing a large segment of the population that economic growth needn’t coincide with environmental degradation, it will have played a useful role—perhaps one that long-time advocates of market economies simply cannot play. One nonetheless hopes that Hawken and the Lovins will one day take a good look at what their ancestors achieved and give some credit to writers who made all of their good points—and most of their bad ones—long before they were born. (shrink)

Among those subjects which have yet to receive general treatment in Scholastic texts is the present one of emotions. Mr. Wirtenberger herein presents a compilation of opinions on this subject.

Many contemporary philosophers writing on punishment seek to show that much of the dispute between retributionists and utilitarians springs from a failure on the part of both parties to elucidate the concept of punishment. The writers are usually utilitarians who seek to show that what is true in the retributive theory is simply a point about the concept of punishment, and that for the rest, the morality of punishment is to be explained in terms of the utilitarian theory. Those who (...) attempt to destroy the retributive theory by reducing its element of truth to a mere conceptual point about the concept of punishment, seek to argue that the notion of being guilty of an offence is part of the concept of punishment. Against this kind of approach, I wish to consider whether a general theory of punishment is possible, and if so, what are its basic concepts—punishment, deserving of punishment, deserved, or justifiable punishment—and how they are to be elucidated. I shall be concerned to argue that much contemporary writing on punishment commits the Platonic fallacy of assuming that there is a single, core, paradigm use of ‘punishment’ which is to be found by elucidating the concept of legal punishment. (shrink)

Probably few scholars would now doubt that at least the bulk of the matter both of Servius' commentary on Virgil and of the additions to it which were first printed by Daniel descends from Donatus. The problem of these additions has been approached by a number of writers from different directions, and different lines of evidence have been found to converge on one conclusion. An important contribution to the discussion has recently been made by J. J. Savage in a thorough (...) study of the multifarious scholia contained in the well-known Bernensis 165 and some other Virgil manuscripts.1 He shows that some of these scholia go back to a commentary which was fuller than that of Servius, and which moreover was related both to S and to D.2 Other fragments of such a commentary are to be found by those who have the patience to sift the rubbish of the Latin glossaries,3 and also, among other sources, in Isidore, who is all the more useful for his habit of verbal transcription.4 When material of this kind is found, there is a strong temptation to say ‘Here is Donatus,’ and one can hardly doubt that that is where much of it ultimately comes from; but the question how far we may assume that the words of Donatus are directly reproduced can hardly yet be regarded as satisfactorily answered. I have before ventured to doubt whether Donatus was the immediate source of D.5 Professor Rand and Mr. Savage think that he was, that the compiler of SD supplemented S with material which S had not reproduce from Donatus the statement to which S had objected. (shrink)

Cistifero was the reading of A and B, but for want of a satisfactory interpretation of it, or indeed any evidence for it, cistibero has been preferred. Hirschfeld, who first brought this forward , explained it as meaning one of the ‘quinqueuiri cis Tiberim,’ a low official contrasting effectively with the senator of Gellia's dreams. It seems worth while to call attention to the Abstrusa gloss ,‘Vicorum et cistifer nomina sunt metallorum’ There seems to be no doubt that the first (...) word should be uiocurus ; and in theNotae Tironianae uiocurus and cistifer stand thus in succession at the end ofa list of officials. Heraeus thinks the author of the gloss must have confused the words with cistophorus and uictoriatus; but would he be likely to write metallorum for ‘coins’ ? For this last word in the gloss magistratuum has been proposed, a somewhat violent change even in a glossary. I suggest metatorum; cf.Abstr. 116, 17,‘Metatores: mansionum praeparatores.’ Was cistifer perhaps the title of a low-grade official who had something to do on the staff of a quartermaster? (shrink)

The Abstrusa glossary consists to a great extent of glosses extracted apparently from the margins of a Virgil MS., which contained not merely explanations of difficult words but many long scholia taken from ancient commentators such as Donatus and Servius. In its original form it was probably much larger than it appears in C.G.L. IV. The process of curtailment is visible in the MSS. we possess. Moreover, the Liber Glossarum and other glossaries borrowed freely from it, and often show its (...) glosses in a fuller form. It is reasonable to suppose that many glosses of the kind described above, which are found in the Liber Glossarum and sometimes elsewhere, belonged to the Abstrusa glossary, though they do not appear in the edition of it which has survived. Some of the following notes will show how these principles help to clear up difficulties which arise in the investigation of individual items. (shrink)

It is shown that the covariance together with the quantum principle speak for an affinely connected structure which, for distances greater than Planck’s length, goes over in a metrically connected structure of space-time.