Rossbank functioned from 1840 to 1854 as one of a chain of British Colonial Observatories which combined with European and Asian observatories in the study of terrestrial magnetism. It was established in Hobart, Tasmania, by the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, Sir John Franklin, and Captain James Clark Ross, R.N., commanding H.M. ships Erebus and Terror. The history and operation of the Rossbank Observatory is related, its instruments described, and the results discussed.Biographical notes on the Observatory staff, with lists of (...) its archives and instruments are provided. A number of previously unpublished pictures show the Observatory in use and the surviving buildings and instruments today. (shrink)

Scientific authority and physician authority are both challenged by Thomas Kuhn's concept of incommensurability. If competing “paradigms” or “world views” cannot rationally be compared, we have no means to judge the truth of any particular view. However, the notion of local or partial incommensurability might provide a framework for understanding the implications of contemporary philosophy of science for medicine. We distinguish four steps in the process of translating medical science into clinical decisions: the doing of the science, the appropriation of (...) the scientific findings by the clinician, the transfer of the findings from the clinician to the patient, and the choice of a treatment regimen. Incommensurability can play a role in each stage. There is at least some theory- and value-ladenness in science that is dependent on the world view of those who construct the scientific theories. Clinicians who must use the results of scientific research will inevitably interpret the research from the standpoint of their own world view. There may be further incommensurability when these data are communicated to the patient. Finally, clinician and patient values must come into play in any decision about choice of treatment. No stage of medical research or practice is value-free. This position does not imply relativism; some scientific accounts are better than others. However, the challenge of the incommensurabilists shows that further analysis is needed to establish how particular accounts are better or worse. (shrink)

This concise, lively introduction to ancient Greek philosophy will help beginning students of both classical studies and philosophy get their bearings within an important yet complex array of names, schools, and ideas. The book illuminates the key period from the sixth to the third century BC, looking at the ideas that engaged the Greeks, in particular those of the Presocratics, the Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and the earliest Hellenistic philosophers. After chronologically mapping the main figures and their interconnections, _Introducing Greek (...) Philosophy_ focuses on themes especially relevant to philosophy today, including the origins of the universe and its mathematical structures; divine creation versus evolution and natural law; probability theory and the criteria for truth; political debates on democracy, citizen rights, and state obligations; and finally ethics, happiness, and the best way to live. (shrink)

This chapter distinguishes two sorts of things we can say about objects, something descriptive, and evaluative. Both, Hare notes, have descriptive function in that they can be used to convey factual information. Value‐words, however, also have prescriptive meaning, and this meaning is primary to their descriptive meaning, because in contrast to its descriptive meaning, it remains constant in all uses and can also be employed to change the descriptive meaning of a class of objects. Finally, Hare notes that value‐words can (...) be used with no commendatory meaning at all: the inverted commas use and the conventional use. (shrink)

Outlines the features of descriptive terms and judgements. The role played by descriptive meaning in moral statements is elucidated by examining the general nature of descriptivist statements and the connection with universalizability. It is argued that any singular descriptive judgement is universalizable in the sense that it commits the speaker to making the same judgement about relevantly similar subjects. Value judgements and generally descriptive judgements share descriptive content and are therefore universalizable in the same way. But in the case of (...) moral judgements, the universal rules that determine the descriptive meaning are not mere meaning‐rules, but rules of substance. The logical connections between descriptivism, prescriptivism, naturalism, and the thesis of universalizability are explored. (shrink)

In this chapter, conceived originally as the introduction to chapters 3 to 7, Hare shows how philosophical questions arise from the consideration of practical moral problems, such as war and euthanasia. The main task of moral philosophy, Hare argues, is to study the logical form of moral arguments and, in particular, the logical properties of moral words, such as ‘ought’, ‘right’, and ‘good’. All argument, including moral argument, depends on logic, and logical validity depends on the meaning of words. The (...) investigation of the meaning of the words and concepts, and thus the logic, employed in moral and other value judgements is, according to Hare, the distinctive contribution of the moral philosopher to the discussion of substantive moral questions. (shrink)

Hare first argues that his theory applies equally to instrumental and intrinsic goodness. He then goes on to show that his theory also holds for ‘good’ in both the non‐moral and moral context. People are falsely led to believe that ‘good’ is used differently in these contexts, Hare claims, because its descriptive meaning differs. Its evaluative meaning, however, is the same: in the moral context ‘good’ is always used to directly or indirectly commend people or human characters.