Summary The rise to dominance of school culture in engineering education took place much later in England and the U.S.A. than in France or Germany. Why? This comparative essay argues that explanations are to be sought within the context of bureaucracy rather than in that of industrialization. The academic training of state engineers set a powerful role model in Continental Europe but was absent in Anglo-America. Consequently, the academic training of engineers for the private sector of the economy started earlier (...) in Continental Europe, and the professional strategies of the engineers included emulating the public service. During the late nineteenth century a general belief in education as a key to international competition joined forces with a thorough transformation of the economy in providing new job markets for engineers graduating from colleges and universities. (shrink)

This far-reaching study redraws the intellectual map of the Enlightenment and boldly reassesses the legacy of that highly influential period for us today. Peter Hanns Reill argues that in the middle of the eighteenth century, a major shift occurred in the way Enlightenment thinkers conceived of nature that caused many of them to reject the prevailing doctrine of mechanism and turn to a vitalistic model to account for phenomena in natural history, the life sciences, and chemistry. As he traces (...) the ramifications of this new way of thinking through time and across disciplines, Reill provocatively complicates our understanding of the way key Enlightenment thinkers viewed nature. His sophisticated analysis ultimately questions postmodern narratives that have assumed a monolithic Enlightenment—characterized by the dominance of instrumental reason—that has led to many of the disasters of modern life. (shrink)

This far-reaching study redraws the intellectual map of the Enlightenment and boldly reassesses the legacy of that highly influential period for us today. Peter Hanns Reill argues that in the middle of the eighteenth century, a major shift occurred in the way Enlightenment thinkers conceived of nature that caused many of them to reject the prevailing doctrine of mechanism and turn to a vitalistic model to account for phenomena in natural history, the life sciences, and chemistry. As he traces (...) the ramifications of this new way of thinking through time and across disciplines, Reill provocatively complicates our understanding of the way key Enlightenment thinkers viewed nature. His sophisticated analysis ultimately questions postmodern narratives that have assumed a monolithic Enlightenment—characterized by the dominance of instrumental reason—that has led to many of the disasters of modern life. (shrink)

Introduction i In an important study of the German Enlightenment, Max Wundt wryly observed that the term "Enlightenment" shed very little enlightenment upon ...

Neuroscience has substantially advanced the understanding of how changes in brain biochemistry contribute to mechanisms of tolerance and physical dependence via exposure to addictive drugs. Many scientists and mental health advocates scaffold this emerging knowledge by adding the imprimatur of disease, arguing that conceptualizing addiction as a brain disease will reduce stigma amongst the folk. Promoting a brain disease concept is grounded in beneficent and utilitarian thinking: the language makes room for individuals living with addiction to receive the same level (...) of compassion and access to healthcare services as individuals living with other medical diseases, and promotes enlightened social and legal policies. However such claims may yield unintended consequences by fostering discrimination commonly associated with pathology. Specifically, the language of neuroscience used to describe addiction may reduce attitudes such as blame and responsibility while inadvertently identifying addicted persons as neurobiological others. In this paper, we examine the merits and limitations of adopting the language of neuroscience to describe addiction. We argue that the reframing of addiction in the language of neuroscience provides benefits such as the creation of empowered biosocial communities, but also creates a new set of risks, as descriptive neuroscience concepts are inseparable from historical attitudes and intuitions towards addiction and addicted persons. In particular, placing emphasis on the diseased brain may foster unintended harm by paradoxically increasing social distance towards the vulnerable group the term is intended to benefit. (shrink)

In the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz argues chapter by chapter with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, challenging his views about knowledge, personal identity, God, morality, mind and matter, nature versus nurture, logic and language, and a host of other topics. The work is a series of sharp, deep discussions by one great philosopher of the work of another. Leibniz's references to his contemporaries and his discussions of the ideas and institutions of the age make this a fascinating (...) and valuable document in the history of ideas. The work was originally written in French, and the version by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, based on the only reliable French edition, first appeared in 1981 and has become the standard English translation. It has been thoroughly revised for this series and provided with a new and longer introduction, a chronology on Leibniz's life and career and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

Angesichts von Zweifel und Verzweiflung, von Furcht und Angst - jeweils verstanden als existentielle Grundbefindlichkeiten des Menschen - werden Haltungen gelingenden Lebens gesucht. Die Ethik bietet Tugenden als Wege zu einer gelingenden Lebensfuhrung an. Die Beitrager dieses Buches suchen nach Entwurfen, die die Verbindung des Tugendgedankens mit dem naturlichen Glucksverlangen des Menschen zu ermoglichen helfen und erortern, welche Bedeutung dabei Mut, Gelassenheit und Weisheit zukommt. Dabei werden ideengeschichtliche Entwurfe in heutigen Problemkontexten auf ihre Gultigkeit hin gepruft. Mit Beitragen von Martin (...) Ebner, Markus Enders, Friedrich-Wilhelm von Herrmann, Stephan Herzberg, Hubert Irsigler, Margit Kopper, Matthias Kossler, Jean-Luc Marion, Peter Reifenberg, Ralf Rothenbusch, Gerd Theissen, Klaus Viertbauer und Gunther Wenz. (shrink)

In the New Essays on Human Understanding, Leibniz argues chapter by chapter with John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, challenging his views about knowledge, personal identity, God, morality, mind and matter, nature versus nurture, logic and language, and a host of other topics. The work is a series of sharp, deep discussions by one great philosopher of the work of another. Leibniz's references to his contemporaries and his discussions of the ideas and institutions of the age make this a fascinating (...) and valuable document in the history of ideas. The work was originally written in French, and the version by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, based on the only reliable French edition, first appeared in 1981 and has become the standard English translation. It has been thoroughly revised for this series and provided with a new and longer introduction, a chronology on Leibniz's life and career and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

Erkenntnisprozesse spielen in der Filmerfahrung eine zentrale Rolle. Dabei vermitteln Filme offenbar nicht einfach nur Tatsachenwissen, wie es gleichermaßen etwa in Aussagen ausgedrückt oder durch Beobachtung belegt würde. Das Wissen, das für die Wahrnehmung filmischer Bewegungsbilder charakteristisch ist, hat vielmehr eine spezifische Form: Es ist bestimmt durch Merkmale der Bildlichkeit, des zeitlich-dynamischen Zeigens, des Filmtons und des sprachlichen Ausdrucks. In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden diese Aspekte in ihrer filmischen Einheit gedacht. Ausgehend von dieser Idee tragen einschlägige Positionen der Filmtheorie, der (...) phänomenologischen Bildtheorie und der Epistemologie zu einer systematischen Bestimmung der epistemischen Objekte des Films bei. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung bilden die Grundlage für eine philosophische Konzeption des Films, in deren Rahmen klassische Fragen der Filmtheorie beantwortet werden können - z. B. nach dem Status von Ton, Musik und Sprache im vermeintlich rein visuellen Filmbild, nach der Rolle der Subjektivität im Film und nach den Möglichkeiten einer besonderen philosophischen Kraft des Films. (shrink)

Leibniz says that descartes maintains that a human soul brings about voluntary acts by changing the direction of motion of parts of its body without changing the total quantity of motion. Most subsequent commentators have endorsed this interpretation. But descartes does not say this anywhere, And says things inconsistent with this interpretation. The present paper attributes to descartes a complementarity doctrine, According to which the cartesian laws of motion do not apply to the behaviour of animated bodies, And argues that (...) this doctrine is a natural outcome of his methodological practice of constructing theoretical models for particular classes of phenomena. (shrink)

‘… the shortness that is in us declines ever to become or be tall; nor will any other quality, while still remaining what it was, at the same time become or be the opposite quality; in such a situation it either withdraws or ceases to exist.’ Plato: Phaedo.

Integrated information systems are increasingly used in schools, and the advent of the technology-rich classroom requires a new degree of ongoing classroom assessment. Able to track web searches, resources used, task completion time, and a variety of other classroom behaviors, technology-rich classrooms offer a wealth of potential information about teaching and learning. This information can be used to track student progress in languages, STEM, and in 21st Century skills, for instance. However, despite these changes, there has been little change in (...) the kind of data made available to teachers, administrators, students, and parents. Measuring and Visualizing Learning in the Information-Rich Classroom collects research on the implementation of classroom assessment techniques in technology-enhanced learning environments. Building on research conducted by a multinational and multidisciplinary team of learning technology experts, and specialists from around the globe, this book addresses these discrepancies. With contributions from major researchers in education technology, testing and assessment, and education psychology, this book contributes to a holistic approach for building the information infrastructure of the 21st Century school. (shrink)

A new scientific mentality of the late eighteenth century, dissatisfied with mechanistic and mathematical models of reasoning and demonstration, replaced static concepts with dynamic ones and defined reality in terms of complex interconnections. These thinkers believed there were basic regulative patterns common to all living entities which could be grasped only by analogical reasoning and comparison. But they also believed that the specific content, such as laws, languages, and nations, existed within a specific historic context. Historical understanding was seen as (...) combining a sense for the formal pattern of development with an acute awareness of the specific force field of historical and environmental determinants existing at a given moment. (shrink)

The author states kant's cosmological argument and its connection to the ontological argument. He discusses different criticisms of kant's argument, None of which he finds convincing. (staff).

This is an abridgement of the complete translation of the New Essays, first published in 1981, designed for use as a study text. The material extraneous to philosophy - more than a third of the original - and the glossary of notes have been cut and a philosophical introduction and bibliography of work on Leibniz have been provided by the translators. The marginal pagination has been retained for ease of cross-reference to the full edition. The work itself is an acknowledged (...) philosophical classic, in which Leibniz argues point by point with Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The result is the single most important confrontation between the philosophical traditions of rationalism and empiricism. It makes an extremely suitable focus for the study of Leibniz's thought and of those two traditions in relation to one another. (shrink)

Aesthetic knowledge consists of a complex interplay between the sensual and the intellectual, and eludes a straightforward logic of judgment. This volume investigates the associated aesthetic, epistemological, and artistic problems using a historical-systematic approach. It documents the relevance of transcendental philosophical, idealistic, and phenomenological perspectives to a contemporary conception of sensual insight.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

For many years—and with some energy since Laudan’s “Confutation of Convergent Realism” —the scientific realist has sought to accommodate examples of false-yet-successful theories in the history of science. One of the most prominent strategies is to identify ‘success fueling’ components of false theories that themselves are at least approximately true. In this article I develop both sides of the debate, introducing new challenges from the history of science as well as suggesting adjustments to the divide et impera realist strategy. A (...) new ‘recipe’ for the prospective identification of working/idle posits is considered. (shrink)

Peter Anstey presents a thorough and innovative study of John Locke's views on the method and content of natural philosophy. Focusing on Locke's Essay concerning Human Understanding, but also drawing extensively from his other writings and manuscript remains, Anstey argues that Locke was an advocate of the Experimental Philosophy: the new approach to natural philosophy championed by Robert Boyle and the early Royal Society who were opposed to speculative philosophy. On the question of method, Anstey shows how Locke's pessimism (...) about the prospects for a demonstrative science of nature led him, in the Essay, to promote Francis Bacon's method of natural history, and to downplay the value of hypotheses and analogical reasoning in science. But, according to Anstey, Locke never abandoned the ideal of a demonstrative natural philosophy, for he believed that if we could discover the primary qualities of the tiny corpuscles that constitute material bodies, we could then establish a kind of corpuscular metric that would allow us a genuine science of nature. It was only after the publication of the Essay, however, that Locke came to realize that Newton's Principia provided a model for the role of demonstrative reasoning in science based on principles established upon observation, and this led him to make significant revisions to his views in the 1690s. On the content of Locke's natural philosophy, it is argued that even though Locke adhered to the Experimental Philosophy, he was not averse to speculation about the corpuscular nature of matter. Anstey takes us into new terrain and new interpretations of Locke's thought in his explorations of his mercurialist transmutational chymistry, his theory of generation by seminal principles, and his conventionalism about species. (shrink)

Peter Morriss discusses the notion of 'power' and attempts to show how recent accounts of power have misinterpreted crucial components, thereby producing faulty analyses. He puts the study of power into a modern context and also explains why an understanding of power is so important in developing a radical critique of a society. The revised second edition includes a new foreword.

Sidgwick's theses that "if I judge any action to be right for myself, I implicitly judge it to be right for any other person whose nature and circumstances do not differ from my own in certain important respects" fails to differentiate moral judgments of importantly different kinds and, In particular, Overlooks peculiarities of a kind of judgment, Made by a prospective agent, About what "he" ought to do. The court-Martial in melville's "billy budd" is closely examined as an example. Although (...) we can speak of such an agent "finding out" what he ought to do, He is not finding out what "anyone" ought to do in such a situation, But something "about himself": something, However, Which can only be expressed in moral categories. (shrink)

Quine has called the question, ‘What is there?’ the “ontological question.” But if we call this question by that name, what name shall we use for the question, ‘What are we asking when we ask “What is there?”’? I shall call it ‘the meta-ontological question’. I shall call the attempt to answer the meta-ontological question ‘meta-ontology’ and any proposed answer to it ‘a meta-ontology’. In this essay, I shall briefly sketch a meta-ontology. The meta-ontology I shall present is broadly Quinean. (...) I am, in fact, willing to call it an exposition of Quine’s meta-ontology. (shrink)

This book argues that sociology has lost its ability to provide critical diagnoses of the present human condition because sociology has stopped considering the philosophical requirements of social enquiry. The book attempts to restore that ability by retrieving some of the key questions that sociologists tend to gloss over, inescapability and attainability. The book identifies five key questions in which issues of inescapability and attainability emerge. These are the questions of the certainty of our knowledge, the viability of our politics, (...) the continuity of our selves, the accessibility of the past, and the transparency of the future. The book demonstrates how these questions are addressed in different forms and by different intellectual means during the past 200 years and shows how they persist today. (shrink)

This paper follows up a debate as to whether classical electrodynamics is inconsistent. Mathias Frisch makes the claim in Inconsistency, Asymmetry and Non-Locality ([2005]), but this has been quickly countered by F. A. Muller ([2007]) and Gordon Belot ([2007]). Here I argue that both Muller and Belot fail to connect with the background assumptions that support Frisch's claim. Responding to Belot I explicate Frisch's position in more detail, before providing my own criticisms. Correcting Frisch's position, I find that I can (...) present the theory in a way both authors can agree upon. Differences then manifest themselves purely within the reasoning methods employed. Introduction Features of the Theory Frisch's Inconsistency Claim Defending Frisch 4.1 Muller 4.2 Belot Difficulties for Frisch and a Compromise Conclusion CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Editors have a responsibility to retract seriously flawed articles from their journals. However, there appears to be little consistency in journals’ policies or procedures for this. In a qualitative study, we therefore interviewed editors of science journals using semi-structured interviews to investigate their experience of retracting articles. We identified potential barriers to retraction, difficulties in the process and also sources of support and encouragement. Our findings have been used as the basis for guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics.

In recent years, evolutionary theorists have come to recognize that the reductionist, individualist, gene-centered approach to evolution cannot sufficiently account for the emergence of complex biological systems over time. Peter A. Corning has been at the forefront of a new generation of complexity theorists who have been working to reshape the foundations of evolutionary theory. Well known for his Synergism Hypothesis—a theory of complexity in evolution that assigns a key causal role to various forms of functional synergy—Corning puts this (...) theory into a much broader framework in _Holistic Darwinism_, addressing many of the issues and concepts associated with the evolution of complex systems. Corning's paradigm embraces and integrates many related theoretical developments of recent years, from multilevel selection theory to niche construction theory, gene-culture coevolution theory, and theories of self-organization. Offering new approaches to thermodynamics, information theory, and economic analysis, Corning suggests how all of these domains can be brought firmly within what he characterizes as a post–neo-Darwinian evolutionary synthesis. (shrink)