We present a simple first step toward a relativistically covariant generalization of the Bohm-Bub hidden-variable theory. The model is applicable to spin measurement on a single Dirac particle and describes the collapse of the state vector to a spin-up or spin-down state. The essential postulate is that the hidden-variable vector transforms in the same way as the state vector under a Lorentz transformation. This yields a covariant collapse equation, which reduces to the ordinary Bohm-Bub equation for an observer stationary with (...) respect to the particle and shows a time dilated collapse for a moving observer. The model yields the correct quantum transition probabilities for all observers. (shrink)

The Bohm-Bub hidden-variable theory is able to predict the results of measuring a quantum system only in the special case where the set of commuting observables being measured is complete. To handle the much more common case where the set is incomplete, Tutsch has proposed a generalization of the Bohm-Bub model. Unfortunately, as we show here, Tutsch's original method does not yield the correct quantum mechanical transition probabilities. On the other hand, Belinfante's modification of Tutsch's method does yield the correct (...) probabilities, and it gives a satisfactory hidden-variable theory of partial measurement for the case where one or more commuting variable(s) are measured at a single space-time point. In the case where the variables are measured at different space-time points, the theory is inadequate, due to the fact that it is not relativistically covariant, and does not take relaxation of the hidden variables into account. (shrink)

Since its publication in 1994, Richard McKirahan's _Philosophy Before Socrates_ has become the standard sourcebook in Presocratic philosophy. It provides a wide survey of Greek science, metaphysics, and moral and political philosophy, from their roots in myth to the philosophers and Sophists of the fifth century. A comprehensive selection of fragments and testimonia, translated by the author, is presented in the context of a thorough and accessible discussion. An introductory chapter deals with the sources of Presocratic and Sophistic texts (...) and the special problems of interpretation they present. In its second edition, this work has been updated and expanded to reflect important new discoveries and the most recent scholarship. Changes and additions have been made throughout, the most significant of which are found in the chapters on the Pythagoreans, Parmenides, Zeno, Anaxagoras, and Empedocles, and the new chapter on Philolaus. The translations of some passages have been revised, as have some interpretations and discussions. A new Appendix provides translations of three Hippocratic writings and the Derveni papyrus. (shrink)

By a thorough study of the Posterior Analytics and related Aristotelian texts, Richard McKirahan reconstructs Aristotle's theory of episteme--science. The Posterior Analytics contains the first extensive treatment of the nature and structure of science in the history of philosophy, and McKirahan's aim is to interpret it sympathetically, following the lead of the text, rather than imposing contemporary frameworks on it. In addition to treating the theory as a whole, the author uses textual and philological as well as philosophical material (...) to interpret many important but difficult individual passages. A number of issues left obscure by the Aristotelian material are settled by reference to Euclid's geometrical practice in the Elements. To justify this use of Euclid, McKirahan makes a comparative analysis of fundamental features of Euclidian geometry with the corresponding elements of Aristotle's theory. Emerging from that discussion is a more precise and more complex picture of the relation between Aristotle's theory and Greek mathematics--a picture of mutual, rather than one-way, dependence. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

This book is a succinct introduction to the orienting of attention.

. Moral systems are described as systems of indirect reciprocity, existing because of histories of conflicts of interest and arising as outcomes of the complexity of social interactions in groups of long‐lived individuals with varying conflicts and confluences of interest and indefinitely iterated social interactions. Although morality is commonly defined as involving justice for all people, or consistency in the social treatment of all humans, it may have arisen for immoral reasons, as a force leading to cohesiveness within human groups (...) but specifically excluding and directed against other human groups with different interests. (shrink)

This book, a member of the Series in Affective Science, is a unique interdisciplinary sequence of articles on the cognitive neuroscience of emotion by some of ...

In this article, I argue that, in showing inconsistency of beliefs, Socratic elenchus is showing incompatibility of the desires those beliefs express. This thesis explains Socrates’ claim that, in refuting Callicles, he is also restraining his desires. The beliefs in question are about the best kind of life to lead; such beliefs express the second order desire to lead a life in which certain sorts of first order desires are satisfied. Socrates’ elenchus shows that Callicles is caught between two incompatible (...) second order desires: a desire to lead of life of enormous pleasure and a desire to lead a life in which his love of honor is satisfied. Socrates does not succeed with Callicles because the way out of this dilemma depends on a type of desire not found in the moral psychology of the Gorgias, i.e., a desire whose satisfaction is pleasure unmixed with pain, described in Republic 583c-585e and Philebus 50e-52b. (shrink)

The relations between different areas of knowledge have been a subject of interest to philosophers as well as to scientists and mathematicians from antiquity. While recent work in this direction has been largely concerned with the question whether one branch of knowledge can be reduced to another , the questions which exercised the Greek philosophers on these matters have a different starting point. Taking for granted that there are a number of distinct areas of knowledge, they proceeded to consider a (...) variety of relations which they observed to hold among the sciences as they knew them; the question of the priority of one science to another is a recurrent theme. In fact, three sorts of orderings were noticed, and the associated conceptions of priority are interesting. Only one of them is the concern of the present paper, though, and I shall briefly describe the remaining two only for purposes of contrast. (shrink)

A collection of essays from major scholars in the field as well as from people in a wide range of other disciplines to which the Timaeus and its reception have been of relevance, from architecture and film studies to physics.

Ethical Practice in the Human Services by Richard D. Parsons and Karen L. Dickinson moves beyond addressing ethical issues and principles to helping readers actually practice ethical behavior through awareness of their personal morals, values, and choices. With coverage of ethical standards from six different associations, the text addresses ethical issues and principles in social work, counseling, psychology, and marriage and family therapy. Robust pedagogy includes case illustrations and guided exercises to give readers a deeper understanding of the underlying (...) moral principles and values that serve as a foundation for the various ethical codes. (shrink)

In Republic ix, Socrates begins his argument that deceptive pleasure causes insatiable desire by citing the error that cessation of pain is the greatest pleasure. Some interpret this error as an illusion, experiencing pleasure when there is no pleasure; but illusion cannot explain insatiable desire. Our interpretation explains insatiable desire—and Socrates’ restatement of wisdom and justice to include pleasures, which links the knowledge of unchanging reality with these virtues.

Does media coverage of politics undermine democratic deliberation? By covering the “horse race” instead of the issues, the media encourage people to believe that politicians place self‐interest above the public interest. The media also affect which issues people consider important, and negative advertisements discourage political participation. People learn from the media only because they know so little about politics. Were democracy deliberative, these media effects would undermine it. But democracy is not a deliberation but a contest that relies on the (...) ability of the media to shape public opinion. The evidence for media effects is strong, but the media cannot be undermining a form of democracy that does not and cannot exist, and they do sustain the form that does. (shrink)

Hegel presents two very different accounts of the initial categorization of essence in his Science of Logic and his later Encyclopedia Logic, thereby raising the question of whether this discrepancy undermines the univocal necessity of systematic logic. A close examination of these arguments reveals that the Science of Logic account captures a necessary ordering that is incompletely presented in the Encyclopedia. The details are provided for comprehending why the logic of essence must begin with a contrast of the essential and (...) the unessential, how this reverts to illusory being, and why identity depends upon the transformation of refl ection from being positing to being external to being determining in character. Significantly, the self-developing nature of these logical developments calls into question the foundationalism entailed by any privileging of the categories of essence. (shrink)

This book traces the development of Plato's analogy between craft and virtue from Euthydemus and Gorgias through the central books of the Republic. It shows that Plato's middle dialogues develop and extend, rather than reject, philosophical positions taken in the early dialogues.

A variety of theoretical positions are emerging to explain the judicial process from such perspectives as hermeneutics, semiotics, critical theory and argumentation/rhetoric. They ask such questions as these: What is the source of judicial authority? How do judges arrive at their decisions? By what logic are decisions to be tested? In this essay I argue that a focus on decisions and their justifications alone masks the broader process in which judges, along with all the other relevant groups, engage in a (...) continuing and evolving dialogue to structure their normative universe through the complementary processes of dialectic and rhetoric. Contemporary concepts of argumentation can serve to analyze this process critically. (shrink)

A number of fairness issues and principles are developed and discussed from the context of personnel selection. It is noted that not too much attention has been paid to these issues and concerns in the past. A distinction is made between justice and fairness having to do with the procedural components and processes of selection, the nature of the information used to make selection decisions, and the resulting outcomes of the selection process. Ideas for future research and exploration are also (...) extended. (shrink)

Discusses the natural affinity between APA's Division 36, Psychologists Interested in Religious Issues, and Division 24, the Division of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. Some members hold common membership in both divisions. The author notes that Division 36 could profit from a more sophisticated analysis of its philosophical presuppositions, and their implications—a task to which Division 24 colleagues might lend a hand, with the advantage of greater objectivity. 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

The transmission of electrical impulses in nerve and muscle cells depends fundamentally on the operation of specific ion channels in their membranes. Recent technical advances in electrical recording from cell membranes have permitted the analysis of the properties of single ion channels and the measurement of gating currents. The results have revealed considerable complexities, in particular in the operation of voltage‐gated sodium channels, and in the relationships between the several open and closed states of the channels. An important new development (...) is the cloning and analysis of the structural genes for the acetylcholine receptor and sodium channel protein, which promises to yield fresh insights into the functioning of these proteins. (shrink)

In this response to commentaries on our target article, we highlight and clarify a variety of issues and respond to several comments, challenges, and misconceptions. Topics covered include the mechanisms of enduring change, the nature of memory, the conditions in which memories are updated, the role of emotional arousal in change, and current limitations in our understanding of the neural basis of change in psychotherapy. It is our hope that through research stimulated by this exchange the latter may be advanced.

Since Freud, clinicians have understood that disturbing memories contribute to psychopathology and that new emotional experiences contribute to therapeutic change. Yet, controversy remains about what is truly essential to bring about psychotherapeutic change. Mounting evidence from empirical studies suggests that emotional arousal is a key ingredient in therapeutic change in many modalities. In addition, memory seems to play an important role but there is a lack of consensus on the role of understanding what happened in the past in bringing about (...) therapeutic change. The core idea of this paper is that therapeutic change in a variety of modalities, including behavioral therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, emotion-focused therapy, and psychodynamic psychotherapy, results from the updating of prior emotional memories through a process of reconsolidation that incorporates new emotional experiences. We present an integrated memory model with three interactive components – autobiographical (event) memories, semantic structures, and emotional responses – supported by emerging evidence from cognitive neuroscience on implicit and explicit emotion, implicit and explicit memory, emotion-memory interactions, memory reconsolidation, and the relationship between autobiographical and semantic memory. We propose that the essential ingredients of therapeutic change include: (1) reactivating old memories; (2) engaging in new emotional experiences that are incorporated into these reactivated memories via the process of reconsolidation; and (3) reinforcing the integrated memory structure by practicing a new way of behaving and experiencing the world in a variety of contexts. The implications of this new, neurobiologically grounded synthesis for research, clinical practice, and teaching are discussed. (shrink)