The early history of string theory is marked by a shift from strong interaction physics to quantum gravity. The first string models and associated theoretical framework were formulated in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the context of the S-matrix program for the strong interactions. In the mid-1970s, the models were reinterpreted as a potential theory unifying the four fundamental forces. This paper provides a historical analysis of how string theory was developed (...) out of S-matrix physics, aiming to clarify how modern string theory, as a theory detached from experimental data, grew out of an S-matrix program that was strongly dependent upon observable quantities. Surprisingly, the theoretical practice of physicists already turned away from experiment before string theory was recast as a potential unified quantum gravity theory. With the formulation of dual resonance models (the “hadronic string theory”), physicists were able to determine almost all of the models' parameters on the basis of theoretical reasoning. It was this commitment to “non-arbitrariness”, i.e., a lack of free parameters in the theory, that initially drove string theorists away from experimental input, and not the practical inaccessibility of experimental data in the context of quantum gravity physics. This is an important observation when assessing the role of experimental data in string theory. (shrink)

The syllogistic figures and moods can be taken to be argument schemata as can the rules of the Stoic propositional logic. Sentence schemata have been used in axiomatizations of logic only since the landmark 1927 von Neumann paper [31]. Modern philosophers know the role of schemata in explications of the semantic conception of truth through Tarski’s 1933 Convention T [42]. Mathematical logicians recognize the role of schemata in first-order number theory where Peano’s second-order Induction Axiom is approximated by Herbrand’s (...) Induction-Axiom Schema [23]. Similarly, in first-order set theory, Zermelo’s second-order Separation Axiom is approximated by Fraenkel’s first-order Separation Schema [17]. In some of several closely related senses, a schema is a complex system having multiple components one of which is a template-text or scheme-template, a syntactic string composed of one or more “blanks” and also possibly significant words and/or symbols. In accordance with a side condition the template-text of a schema is used as a “template” to specify a multitude, often infinite, of linguistic expressions such as phrases, sentences, or argument-texts, called instances of the schema. The side condition is a second component. The collection of instances may but need not be regarded as a third component. The instances are almost always considered to come from a previously identified language (whether formal or natural), which is often considered to be another component. This article reviews the often-conflicting uses of the expressions ‘schema’ and ‘scheme’ in the literature of logic. It discusses the different definitions presupposed by those uses. And it examines the ontological and epistemic presuppositions circumvented or mooted by the use of schemata, as well as the ontological and epistemic presuppositions engendered by their use. In short, this paper is an introduction to the history and philosophy of schemata. (shrink)

Since string theory has not been able to explain phenomena to date, it may seem that this confirms Feyerabend's view that there is no "method" of science. And yet, string theory is still the most active research program for quantum gravity. But, compared to other non-falsifiable theories, this has something extra, especially mathematical language, with a clear logic of deductions. Up to a point it can reproduce classical gauge theories and general relativity. And there is hope (...) that in the not too distant future experiments can be developed to test the theory. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.28892.33920. (shrink)

In quantum field theory, the main obstacle is the occurrence of the untreatable infinities in the interactions of the particles due to the possibility of arbitrary distances between the point particles. Strings, as extended objects, provide a better framework, which allows finite calculations. String theory is part of a research program in which point particles in particle physics are replaced by one-dimensional objects called strings. It describes how these strings propagate through space and interact with one another. (...) The purpose of string theory was to replace elementary particles with one-dimensional strings in order to unify quantum physics and gravity. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.18894.82240. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer an analysis of the radical disagreement over the adequacy of string theory. The prominence of string theory despite its notorious lack of empirical support is sometimes explained as a troubling case of science gone awry, driven largely by sociological mechanisms such as groupthink (e.g. Smolin 2006). Others, such as Dawid (2013), explain the controversy by positing a methodological revolution of sorts, according to which string theorists have quietly turned to nonempirical (...) methods of theory assessment given the technological inability to directly test the theory. The appropriate response, according to Dawid, is to acknowledge this development and widen the canons of acceptable scientific methods. As I’ll argue, however, the current situation in fundamental physics does not require either of these responses. Rather, as I’ll suggest, much of the controversy stems from a failure to properly distinguish the “context of justification” from the “context of pursuit”. Both those who accuse string theorists of betraying the scientific method and those who advocate an enlarged conception of scientific methodology objectionably conflate epistemic justification with judgements of pursuit-worthiness. Once we get clear about this distinction and about the different norms governing the two contexts, the current situation in fundamental physics becomes much less puzzling. After defending this diagnosis of the controversy, I’ll show how the argument patterns that have been posited by Dawid as constituting an emergent methodological revolution in science are better off if reworked as arguments belonging to the context of pursuit. (shrink)

Eternalism, the view that what we regard locally as being located in the past, the present and the future equally exists, is the best ontological account of temporal existence in line with special and general relativity. However, special and general relativity are not fundamental theories and several research programs aim at finding a more fundamental theory of quantum gravity weaving together all we know from relativistic physics and quantum physics. Interestingly, some of these approaches assert that time is not (...) fundamental. If time is not fundamental, what does it entail for eternalism and the standard debate over existence in time? First, I will argue that the non-fundamentality of time to be found in string theory entails standard eternalism. Second, I will argue that the non-fundamentality of time to be found in loop quantum gravity entails atemporal eternalism, namely a novel position in the spirit of standard eternalism. (shrink)

Philosophy in the 20th century began and ended with an obsession with the problems of consciousness. But the specific problems discussed at each end of the century were very different, and reflection on how these differences developed will illuminate not just our understanding of the history of philosophy of consciousness, but also our understanding of consciousness itself. An interest in the problems of consciousness can be found in at least three movements in early 20th century philosophy: in the discussions (...) of perception and realism by G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell; in the related discussions of realism and pragmatism in America, in the period between William James and C.I. Lewis; and in the phenomenological movement started by Edmund Husserl. Two common themes in all these movements are: (i) that consciousness is a central or defining feature of the mind, and (ii) consciousness and thought (or intentionality) are interrelated phenomena not to be discussed in isolation from one another. The problem of consciousness in those days was the problem of the nature of our access to the mind-independent world. (shrink)

For each positive n , two alternative axiomatizations of the theory of strings over n alphabetic characters are presented. One class of axiomatizations derives from Tarski's system of the Wahrheitsbegriff and uses the n characters and concatenation as primitives. The other class involves using n character-prefixing operators as primitives and derives from Hermes' Semiotik. All underlying logics are second order. It is shown that, for each n, the two theories are definitionally equivalent [or synonymous in the sense of deBouvere]. (...) It is further shown that each member of one class is synonymous with each member of the other class; thus that all of the theories are definitionally equivalent with each other and with Peano arithmetic. Categoricity of Peano arithmetic then implies categoricity of each of the above theories. (shrink)

According to the antirealist argument known as the pessimistic induction, the history of science is a graveyard of dead scientific theories and abandoned theoretical posits. Support for this pessimistic picture of the history of science usually comes from a few case histories, such as the demise of the phlogiston theory and the abandonment of caloric as the substance of heat. In this article, I wish to take a new approach to examining the ‘history of science as (...) a graveyard of theories’ picture. Using JSTOR Data for Research and Springer Exemplar, I present new lines of evidence that are at odds with this pessimistic picture of the history of science. When rigorously tested against the historical record of science, I submit, the pessimistic picture of the history of science as a graveyard of dead theories and abandoned posits may turn out to be no more than a philosophers’ myth. (shrink)

The Russell's paradox concerns the foundations of naive set theory. This short short paper is about how it can be interpreted in other contexts and has significance in the world of commands. Understanding the paper assumes that the reader is broadly familiar with the foundations of set theory and its history. The text contains many formulas and therefore the reader should be comfortable in the world of logical formulas. My example is somewhat similar to the barber paradox. (...) There, too, we are puzzled by the feasibility of a task. In the case of the barber paradox there is a solution: the barber is a woman, in my example there is no such escape. (shrink)

String theory, a framework that aims to reconcile general relativity and quantum mechanics, holds a unique position in the field of quantum gravity. In quantum field theory, the main obstacle is the occurrence of the untreatable infinities in the interactions of the particles due to the possibility of arbitrary distances between the point particles. Strings, as extended objects, provide a better framework, which allows finite calculations. In the realm of theoretical physics, where theories often push the boundaries (...) of human understanding, examining the epistemology of a theory becomes crucial. This article delves into the epistemological aspects of string theory’s role in our quest for a unified theory of quantum gravity, exploring the challenges it presents and the insights it offers. (shrink)

In the author’s previous contribution to this journal (Rosen 2015), a phenomenological string theory was proposed based on qualitative topology and hypercomplex numbers. The current paper takes this further by delving into the ancient Chinese origin of phenomenological string theory. First, we discover a connection between the Klein bottle, which is crucial to the theory, and the Ho-t’u, a Chinese number archetype central to Taoist cosmology. The two structures are seen to mirror each other in (...) expressing the psychophysical (phenomenological) action pattern at the heart of microphysics. But tackling the question of quantum gravity requires that a whole family of topological dimensions be brought into play. What we find in engaging with these structures is a closely related family of Taoist forebears that, in concert with their successors, provide a blueprint for cosmic evolution. Whereas conventional string theory accounts for the generation of nature’s fundamental forces via a notion of symmetry breaking that is essentially static and thus unable to explain cosmogony successfully, phenomenological/Taoist string theory entails the dialectical interplay of symmetry and asymmetry inherent in the principle of synsymmetry. This dynamic concept of cosmic change is elaborated on in the three concluding sections of the paper. Here, a detailed analysis of cosmogony is offered, first in terms of the theory of dimensional development and its Taoist (yin-yang) counterpart, then in terms of the evolution of the elemental force particles through cycles of expansion and contraction in a spiraling universe. The paper closes by considering the role of the analyst per se in the further evolution of the cosmos. (shrink)

Bergson offers an epistemological critique of Darwin’s theory that focuses on his gradualism: for Darwin variation is “minute”, and Bergson glosses “insensible.” His main argument is that if variations are insensible, they cannot confer an advantage to the organism and therefore be selected. Yet, for Darwin, the selected variation is not insensible: to be selected, it must be beneficial to its bearer in the struggle for existence. This article aims at understanding the origin of this misunderstanding by tracing the (...) history of this critique. To do this, we will study Bergson’s sources, showing that his interpretation of Darwin is in line with the critique of many biologists at the turn of the 20th century, albeit in a confused way. This will lead us back to the origin of this critique: the work of Mivart. In this study, we wish to reveal the anchor of the Bergsonian interpretation in the debates of his time, and the shifts from the traditional exposition of the argument that led Bergson to formulate this false paradox. This article will also analyze more precisely the counterexample of the “analogy of structure” to show that, despite Bergson’s misunderstanding, he did point to actual limits of the Darwinian theory. (shrink)

The notion of consciousness has been studied in many ways out of which, there could be a scientific approach of studying it using string theory which enjoys the mathematical coherence. The paper aims to study consciousness using string theory in which the role of graviton will be discussed. The notion of parallel universes given by string theory would be tackled to understand consciousness and make an attempt to clarify the notion of other world or (...) universe and parallel universes, the problems of time travel, soul and death in the universe or universes of strings which gets twisted and compactified. (shrink)

Preliminary version of “Towards a History of Speech Act Theory”, in A. Burkhardt (ed.), Speech Acts, Meanings and Intentions. Critical Approaches to the Philosophy of John R. Searle, Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1990, 29–61.

This proposal serves to enhance scientific and technological literacy, by promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education with particular reference to contemporary physics. The study is presented in the form of a repertoire, and it gives the reader a glimpse of the conceptual structure and development of quantum theory along a rational line of thought, whose understanding might be the key to introducing young generations of students to physics.

Neo-Darwinism, through the combination of natural selection and genetics, has made possible an explanation of adaptive phenomena that claims to be devoid of metaphysical presuppositions. What Bergson already deplored and what we explore in this paper is the implicit finalism of such evolutionary explanations, which turn living beings into closed and static systems rather than understanding biological evolution as a process characterized by its interactions and temporal openness. Without denying the heuristic efficiency of the explanation resting upon natural selection, we (...) analyze what it leaves out and what remains to be explored: the unpredictability of the evolutionary process. We will therefore study the role of contingency in evolution, as Stephen J. Gould proposed, but we will also consider the causality specific to the living world that makes it impossible to reduce it to a simple algorithm, as proposed by Daniel Dennett among others, but that it is really a creative causation, or dialectical spiral. (shrink)

Рассматривается вопрос онтологии теорий струн, связанных между собой преобразованиями дуальности. Дуальные теории определяются как теории, которые являются инстанциациями одного и того же витгенштейновского правила – понятие, извлекаемое из философии позднего Витгенштейна. Дуальные теории как различные употребления, или аспекты, некоторого общего правила (нормы), рассматриваются как относящиеся к исключающим друг друга контекстам, между которыми, однако, устанавливается связь в рамках более широкого контекста – контекста оценки, то есть контекста самой дуальности. Онтология контекстуальна – каждая теория струн имеет свою онтологию в своём собственном контексте (...) – и, соответственно, плюралистична, но в контексте оценки существует единственная онтология, определяемая общим правилом – дуальностью (М-теорий). В рамках предлагаемой позиции контекстуального реализма и плюрализма проблема эмпирической недоопределённости теории не возникает. Не возникают также проблемы, с которыми сталкивается метафизический плюрализм при рассмотрении дуальных теорий: проблема теоретической сверхдетерминации и проблема онтологической фрагментации мира. ISBN-13: 978-620-2-66939-9 . (shrink)

My aims in this essay are two. First (§§1-4), I want to get clear on the very idea of a theory of the history of philosophy, the idea of an overarching account of the evolution of philosophical reflection since the inception of written philosophy. And secondly (§§5-8), I want to actually sketch such a global theory of the history of philosophy, which I call the two-streams theory.

Permissivism is the view that for some body of evidence E there may be more than one rational doxastic attitude that inquirers may take towards some proposition. This paper examines the aims and processes involved in doing the history of philosophy. It argues that the complexities involved in the process of doing the history of philosophy motivates hermeneutical permissivism. Section 2 of the paper discusses and motivates complexity. Section 3 focuses on a particular kind of complexity that historians (...) face, namely, the problem of theory choice. Section 4 argues that complexity motivates permissivism. Section 5 argues for the value of thinking about the task of the historian of philosophy as contributing to the landscape of plausible interpretations. The paper demonstrates how this way of thinking about our discipline may be productive and useful for historians of philosophy with differing aims. (shrink)

PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, vol. 52, number 1, pp.44-63. R.M. Nugayev, Kazan State |University, USSR. -/- THE HISTORY OF QUANTUM THEORY AS A DECISIVE ARGUMENT FAVORING EINSTEIN OVER LJRENTZ. -/- Abstract. Einstein’s papers on relativity, quantum theory and statistical mechanics were all part of a single research programme ; the aim was to unify mechanics and electrodynamics. It was this broader program – which eventually split into relativistic physics and quantummmechanics – that superseded Lorentz’s theory. The argument (...) of this paper is partly historical and partly methodological. A notion of “crossbred objects” – theoretical objects with contradictory properties which are part of the domain of application of two different research programs – is developed that explains the dynamics of revolutionary theory change. (shrink)

The ultimate cause of much historical, social and cultural change is the gradual accumulation of human knowledge of the environment. Human beings use the materials in their environment to meet their needs and increased human knowledge of the environment enables human needs to be met in a more efficient manner. The human environment has a particular structure so that human knowledge of the environment is acquired in a particular order. The simplest knowledge is acquired first and more complex knowledge is (...) acquired later. The order of discovery determines the course of human social and cultural history as knowledge of new and more efficient means of meeting human needs, results in new technology, which results in the development of new social and ideological systems. This means human social and cultural history has to follow a particular course, a course that is determined by the structure of the human environment. Given that a certain level of knowledge will result in a particular type of society, it is possible to ascertain the types of societies that were inevitable in human history. The course of history is not random and can be rationally and scientifically understood. (shrink)

This paper was written to study the order of medical advances throughout history. It investigates changing human beliefs concerning the causes of diseases, how modern surgery developed and improved methods of diagnosis and the use of medical statistics. Human beliefs about the causes of disease followed a logical progression from supernatural causes, such as the wrath of the Gods, to natural causes, involving imbalances within the human body. The invention of the microscope led to the discovery of microorganisms which (...) were eventually identified as the cause of infectious diseases. Identification of the particular microorganism causing a disease led to immunization against the disease. Modern surgery only developed after the ending of the taboo against human dissection and the discovery of modern anesthesia and the discovery of the need for anti-septic practices. Modern diagnostic practices began with the discovery of x-rays and the invention of medical scanners. Improved mathematics, especially in probability theory, led to statistical studies which led to a much greater ability, to identify the causes of disease, and to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments. These discoveries all occurred in a necessary and inevitable order with the easiest discoveries being made first and the harder discoveries being made later. The order of discovery determined the course of the history of medicine and is an example of how social and cultural history has to follow a particular course determined by the structure of the world around us. (shrink)

This brief article is a discussion-starter on the question of the role and use of theories and philosophies of history. In the last few decades, theories of history typically intended to transform the practice of historical studies through a straightforward application of their insights. Contrary to this, I argue that they either bring about particular historiographical innovations in terms of methodology but leave the entirety of historical studies intact, or change the way we think about the entirety of (...) historical studies merely by describing and explaining it in fresh and novel ways, without the need of application. In the former case, theories appear as internal to historical studies. In the latter case, they appear as theories about history. Such theories about history are no longer limited to study history understood as historical writing. In reflecting on the historical condition of the ever-changing world, they foster a more fruitful cooperative relationship with the discipline of history. Discussing the scope and use of such theories of history is inevitable today when a younger generation sets out to theorize history against the backdrop of the experiential horizon of their own times. (shrink)

This is a one page handout identifying some notable omissions from her brief history of gender identity theory.

This chapter provides a brief overview of the history of behavioral neurology, dividing it roughly into six eras. In the ancient and classical eras, emphasis is placed on two transitions: firstly, from descriptions of head trauma and attempted neurosurgical treatments to the exploratory dissections during the Hellenistic period and the replacement of cardiocentrism; and secondly, to the more systematic investigations of Galenus and the rise of pneumatic ventricular theory. In the medieval through post-Renaissance eras, the scholastic consolidation of (...) knowledge and the role of compendia are emphasized, along with the use of new methods from within a mechanistic framework. With the discovery of electrical conductance and the rise of experimentalism, we frame the modern era as period of intense debate over localization, decomposition, and other mechanistic principles, and marked by rapid discovery about the brain. The chapter ends with a discussion of the contemporary era, focusing on the establishment of behavioral neurology research on aphasia, apraxia, and neuropsychiatric conditions. (shrink)

Important features of space and time are taken to be missing in quantum gravity, allegedly requiring an explanation of the emergence of spacetime from non-spatio-temporal theories. In this paper, we argue that the explanatory gap between general relativity and non-spatio-temporal quantum gravity theories might significantly be reduced with two moves. First, we point out that spacetime is already partially missing in the context of general relativity when understood from a dynamical perspective. Second, we argue that most approaches to quantum gravity (...) already start with an in-built distinction between structures to which the asymmetry between space and time can be traced back. (shrink)

This paper reviews some major episodes in the history of the spatial isomorphism problem of dynamical systems theory. In particular, by analysing, both systematically and in historical context, a hitherto unpublished letter written in 1941 by John von Neumann to Stanislaw Ulam, this paper clarifies von Neumann's contribution to discovering the relationship between spatial isomorphism and spectral isomorphism. The main message of the paper is that von Neumann's argument described in his letter to Ulam is the very first (...) proof that spatial isomorphism and spectral isomorphism are not equivalent because spectral isomorphism is weaker than spatial isomorphism: von Neumann shows that spectrally isomorphic ergodic dynamical systems with mixed spectra need not be spatially isomorphic. (shrink)

Recently, research on uncertainty modeling is progressing rapidly and many essential and breakthrough stud ies have already been done. There are various ways such as fuzzy, intuitionistic and neutrosophic sets to handle these uncertainties. Although these concepts can handle incomplete information in various real-world issues, they cannot address all types of uncertainty such as indeterminate and inconsistent information. Also, plithogenic sets as a generalization of crisp, fuzzy, intuitionistic fuzzy, and neutrosophic sets, which is a set whose elements are characterized by (...) many attributes’ values. In this paper, our aim is to demonstrate and review the history of fuzzy, intuitionistic and neutrosophic sets. For this purpose, we divided the paper as: section 1. History of Fuzzy Sets, section 2. History of Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets and section 3. History of Neutrosophic Theories and Applications, section 4. History of Plithogenic Sets. (shrink)

Ideas will always resist single-statement definitions, but in a rough attempt at generalization one can say that they either play or are attributed a very special role in thinking and expressive processes, in perhaps all domains of human culture. People who specialize in creating, receiving, transforming, and disseminating them are usually called “intellectuals”—even if they do not monopolize those social practices. The constitution and circulation of ideas as structures of thinking and expression, the settings in which they originate and to (...) which they respond, the material supports in which they are conveyed as well as the intellectual agents specialized in dealing with them are studied by the history of ideas and its neighboring fields. These include intellectual history, history of concepts, histoire des mentalités, Geistesgeschichte, history of books, and even cultural history, sociology of knowledge, and the histories of science, philosophy, literature, and the humanities. As it is obvious, such labels do not support a clear-cut division of labor, nor can they be lined up in an organogram that would fix constant hierarchical relations between them. They show up with incommensurable frequency, displaying different connotations within different academic cultures. This explains why in some cases—as in Geistesgeschichte, Begriffsgeschichte, or histoire des mentalités—equivalent English terms are considered problematic or unnecessary. Having flourished, spread, and sometimes also decayed within different national, disciplinary, and generational contexts, the fields designated by them can only have intricate and overlapping limits. A good way to understand the traditions connected to the history of ideas is hence to look closely to their messy border zones. The closest and most intricate connections are those between “history of ideas” and “intellectual history,” which is reflected in the fact that these terms are often employed interchangeably—a use that will be noted also in the remainder of the present text. Even so, “intellectual history” clearly emerged as preferential designation in the English-speaking world in the final decades of the twentieth century. A reason for this is the spread of the suspicion that “ideas” are burdened by essentialist traits that would render us insensitive to historical discontinuity. The notion of ideas is also sometimes regarded as much too oblivious of the way language conditions thought, and accordingly some analysts suggest that it would be out of line with the best theoretical intelligence established since the so-called linguistic turn (see Kelley 2002a: 310–14). However, others claim that ideas should not be equaled to expressed words, as they refer to occurrences that are best described with psychological terms such as beliefs and attitudes, and, further, that there would be non-essentialist ways of addressing them . What seems more uncontroversial is that, in comparison to “history of ideas,” “intellectual history” opens up an enlarged space of ambivalence as regards the analytical focus, which can then toggle from intellectual products to intellectual producers, consumers, and the cultural frameworks in which they interact. There are also important crossroads between the history of ideas and conceptual history (or Begriffsgeschichte), as both terms signal to the historical study of basic structures of thought. Conceptual history, however, at least in its most well-known variety, which was very much inspired by social-historical approaches, tends to be less centered on biographical and psychological issues and to introduce concepts as more depersonalized linguistic entities. Such and other connections and disconnections between the various ways of attending to “the reflective communal life of human beings in the past” (Burrow) will be further discussed in the following from the perspective of a geographically multicentered historical synopsis. Hopefully, its many limitations will be compensated by the possibilty of bringing to the fore relations that otherwise would not become so salient. (shrink)

In this article I trace some of the main tenets of the struggle between nominalism and realism as identified by John Deely in his Four ages of understanding. The aim is to assess Deely’s claim that the Age of Modernity was nominalist and that the coming age, the Age of Postmodernism — which he portrays as a renaissance of the late middle ages and as starting with Peirce — is realist. After a general overview of how Peirce interpreted the nominalist-realist (...) controversy, Deely gives special attention to Thomas Aquinas’s On being and essence and the realism it entails. A subsequent discussion of the Modern Period shows that the issue of nominalism and realism is very much tied up with di¤erent conceptions of the intellect. Deely credits the theory of evolution with bringing us a conception of the intellect that is closer to that of the Middle Ages and that opens the way for a truly realistic ‘‘fourth age’’ of the understanding. (shrink)

Luck egalitarianism is a family of egalitarian theories of distributive justice that give a special place to luck, choice, and responsibility. These theories can be understood as responding to perceived weaknesses in influential earlier theories of both the left – in particular Rawls’ liberal egalitarianism (1971) – and the right – Nozick’s libertarianism (1974) stands out here. Rawls put great emphasis on the continuity of his theory with the great social contract theories of modern political thought, particularly emphasising its (...) Kantian character, while Nozick overtly develops his theory as an elaboration of John Locke’s account of property. By contrast, how luck egalitarianism is related to the history of political thought or philosophy more generally has been left unexplored by its proponents. Perhaps this is because they see luck egalitarianism, with its focus on individual choice and association with such contemporary concerns as equality of opportunity, as without significant predecessors in the canon. My purpose in this chapter is to make the tentative first steps towards identifying some historical antecedents of luck egalitarianism among the main works of Western political thought, in particular Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Locke. (shrink)

Biological evolution and technological innovation, while differing in many respects, also share common features. In particular, implementation of a new technology in the market is analogous to the spreading of a new genetic trait in a population. Technological innovation may occur either through the accumulation of quantitative changes, as in the development of the ocean clipper, or it may be initiated by a new combination of features or subsystems, as in the case of steamships. Other examples of the latter type (...) are electric networks that combine the generation, distribution, and use of electricity, and containerized transportation that combines standardized containers, logistics, and ships. Biological evolution proceeds, phenotypically, in many small steps, but at the genetic level novel features may arise not only through the accumulation of many small, common mutational changes, but also when distinct, relatively rare genetic changes are followed by many further mutations. In particular, capabilities of biologically modern man may have been initiated, perhaps some 150 000 years ago, by one or few accidental but distinct combinations of modules and subroutines of gene regulation which are involved in the generation of the neural network in the cerebral cortex. It is even conceivable that it was one primary genetic event that initiated the evolution of biologically modern man, introducing some novel but subtle feature of connectivity into the cerebral cortex which allowed for meta-levels of abstraction and upgraded modes of information processing. This may have set the stage for the evolution of integrated but diverse higher capabilities such as structured language, symbolic thought, strategic thought, and cognition based empathy. (shrink)

The article analyses the history of the Einfühlung concept. Theories of ‘feeling into’ Nature, works of art or feelings and behaviours of other persons by German philosophers of the second half of the nineteenth century Robert and Friedrich Vischer and Theodor Lipps are evoked, as well as similar theory of understanding (Verstehen) by Wilhelm Dilthey and Friedrich Schleiermacher, to which Dilthey refers. The meaning of the term Einfühlung within Edith Stein’s thought is also analysed. Both Einfühlung and Verstehen (...) were criticized as non-objective and naive methods consisting only in the identification of the subject with the object or the projection of feelings onto the object. The article refers to criticism by Georg Gadamer and Bertolt Brecht and proposes ways to restitute the concept of Einfühlung after this criticism, recalling the theory of empathy by Dominick Lacapra, in terms of its advantages for the historical enquiry, or the myth of Narcissus analyzed in the spirit of psychoanalysis by Julia Kristeva. The article proposes a reformulation of the concept of mimesis, connected to the Einfühlung, understood as the identification, analogy, imitation of feelings (as it was described by Lipss and Vischer). Mimesis does not necessarily mean a passive repetition and reconstruction of the feelings of the object, but serves only as a starting point for the interest of the subject for the outside world or for experiences of historical protagonists. Then there is no identification or projection of feelings, but the creative, active and critical reformulation of knowledge. It is stated that empathy is not a passive, uncritical process, but that it deals with the critical choice of the object of empathy and with an active approach to the perceived feelings and appearances. In addition to this cognitive aspect, empathy may also contribute to the analytical and valuable introspection. Furthermore empathy allows us to connect the analysis of the facts with a personal narrative and understanding of individual identity in historical knowledge. (shrink)

A lot of words investigated by philosophers get their inception for conventional or extra-philosophical dialect. Yet the idea of substance is basically a philosophical term of art. Its employments in normal dialect tend to derive, often in a twisted way, different from its philosophical usage. Despite this, the idea of substance differs from philosophers, reliant upon the school of thought in which it is been expressed. There is an ordinary concept in play when philosophers discuss “substance”, and this is seen (...) in the concept of object, or thing when this is contrasted with properties, attributes or events. There is also a difference in view when in the sense that while the realists would develop a materialistic theory of substance, the idealist would develop a metaphysical theory of substance. The problem surrounding substance spans through the history of philosophy. The queries have often been what is substance of? And can there be substance without its attributes? This paper tends to expose the historical problems surrounding substance. This paper criticizes the thinking which presupposes that there could be a substance without its attributes or substance existing alone. This paper adopts complimentary ontology principles which state that for anything to exist, it must serve as a missing connection to reality. This suggests that everything interconnects to each other and substance cannot exist in isolation. (shrink)

This paper will examine poetry and rhythm in relation to biological and evolutionary models in order to develop a hypothetical methodology by which certain aspects of literature may be examined through an evolutionary lens. It is by no means an attempt at a finalizing or totalizing way of examining literature, but as such attempts have largely been ignored or assaulted, there is a rather large niche to fill. Hence this article will attempt to redefine literature as a ‘Third Level Darwin (...) Machine’ and parallel the science/culture/Theory debate with that in physics/string theory and then it will connect poetry to Boyd’s idea of ‘rhythm and attention’ along with 'motor resonance', mirror neurons and music theory. It will then look at the influence of Emily Dickinson’s rhythmic and metaphoric compression on the poetry of Hart Crane as a mimetic function following Boyd’s notion of attention, pattern and play as functions of a Third Level Darwinian Machine which will be the operative foundation for a naturalized (but not totalized) account of poetic effect and its relation to the human species’ evolved history. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the logic of the aesthetic argument used in the eighteenth century as a conceptual tool for formulating the modern concept of “(fine) art(s).” The essay also examines the main developments in the history of the art of modernity which were initiated from the way the “nature” of art was conceived in early modern aesthetics. The author claims that the formulation of the “aesthetic nature” of art led to the process of the gradual disappearance of all (...) of the formal elements that had previously characterized the visual arts; the result was “emptiness” or “nothingness” as art. The author refers to this process in terms of “vanishing acts” that allow for the formulation of an aesthetics of absence in connection to twentieth-century art (complementing the Ästhetik der Absenz, formulated in German art theory). The author also briefly addresses the consequences that these processes have for the way contemporary art, and art world operate. (shrink)

This paper investigates the historical origin and ancestors of typicality, which is now a central concept in Boltzmannian Statistical Mechanics and Bohmian Mechanics. Although Ludwig Boltzmann did not use the word typicality, its main idea, namely, that something happens almost always or is valid for almost all cases, plays a crucial role for his explanation of how thermodynamic systems approach equilibrium. At the beginning of the 20th century, the focus on almost always or almost everywhere was fruitful for developing measure (...) theory and probability theory. It was apparently Hugh Everett III who first mentioned typicality in physics in 1957 while searching for a justification of the Born rule in his interpretation of quantum mechanics. The historically closest concept before these developments is moral certainty, which was invented by the medieval French theologian Jean Gerson, and it became a standard concept at least until the Age of Enlightenment, when Jakob Bernoulli proved the Law of Large numbers. (shrink)

In recent decades, perspectivism has developed into an epistemological research program claiming its independence. This autonomy stems from Perspectivism’s potential ability to resolve the contradictions between realist and constructivist programs. Perspectivism is based on the idea that the object depends on perspective, which constitutes any subjective attempt to cognize it. Perspectivists reconstruct and explain the factors involved in the formation of perspective, identifying the conditionality of epistemic acts, using concepts such as “position”, “point of view”, “view”, “angle”, “horizon”, “focus”, “picture”, (...) “context”, “aspect”, etc. Although these concepts are part of the perspectivist’s toolkit, their meanings and interrelation have so far been taken for granted and have not yet been critically and comprehensively analyzed. The purpose of this article is to take steps toward clarifying the conceptual basis for defending perspectivism as an epistemological program. Once consistently uncovered and correlated in a conceptual model, Perspectivist concepts can be used as a tool for a detailed analysis of theories, positions, and beliefs. The article begins with a preliminary description of the concept of perspectivism and its brief history as an epistemological program. In particular, the first modern attempts to outline perspectivist epistemology are described in the works of F. Kaulbach (1990), W. Stegmaier (2008), and M. Massimi (2017, 2020). The problem of identifying the special a priori status of perspectivist notions as a strategy for justifying the autonomy of Perspectivism is then posed. A method for demonstrating such a status, based on Kant’s transcendentalism and P. Strawson’s descriptive metaphysics, is then suggested. (shrink)

In this review, we describe some of the central philosophical issues facing origins-of-life research and provide a targeted history of the developments that have led to the multidisciplinary field of origins-of-life studies. We outline these issues and developments to guide researchers and students from all fields. With respect to philosophy, we provide brief summaries of debates with respect to (1) definitions (or theories) of life, what life is and how research should be conducted in the absence of an accepted (...) theory of life, (2) the distinctions between synthetic, historical, and universal projects in origins-of-life studies, issues with strategies for inferring the origins of life, such as (3) the nature of the first living entities (the “bottom up” approach) and (4) how to infer the nature of the last universal common ancestor (the “top down” approach), and (5) the status of origins of life as a science. Each of these debates influences the others. Although there are clusters of researchers that agree on some answers to these issues, each of these debates is still open. With respect to history, we outline several independent paths that have led to some of the approaches now prevalent in origins-of-life studies. These include one path from early views of life through the scientific revolutions brought about by Linnaeus (von Linn.), Wöhler, Miller, and others. In this approach, new theories, tools, and evidence guide new thoughts about the nature of life and its origin.We also describe another family of paths motivated by a” circularity” approach to life, which is guided by such thinkers as Maturana & Varela, Gánti, Rosen, and others. These views echo ideas developed by Kant and Aristotle, though they do so using modern science in ways that produce exciting avenues of investigation. By exploring the history of these ideas, we can see how many of the issues that currently interest us have been guided by the contexts in which the ideas were developed. The disciplinary backgrounds of each of these scholars has influenced the questions they sought to answer, the experiments they envisioned, and the kinds of data they collected. We conclude by encouraging scientists and scholars in the humanities and social sciences to explore ways in which they can interact to provide a deeper understanding of the conceptual assumptions, structure, and history of origins-of-life research. This may be useful to help frame future research agendas and bring awareness to the multifaceted issues facing this challenging scientific question. (shrink)

In “Conceptual Differences Between Children and Adults,” Susan Carey discusses phlogiston theory in order to defend the view that there can be non-translatability between scientific languages. I present an objection to her defence.

The claim that Galileo Galilei transformed the spyglass into an astronomical instrument has never been disputed and is considered a historical fact. However, the question what was the procedure which Galileo followed is moot, for he did not disclose his research method. On the traditional view, Galileo was guided by experience, more precisely, systematized experience, which was current among northern Italian artisans and men of science. In other words, it was a trial-and-error procedure—no theory was involved. A scientific analysis (...) of the optical properties of Galileo’s first improved spyglass shows that his procedure could not have been an informed extension of the traditional optics of spectacles. We argue that most likely Galileo realized that the objective and the eyepiece form a system and proceeded accordingly. (shrink)

This is the first chapter of Mark Julyan's 'History of the Heavens' which, as a whole, focuses on the many different interpretational problems that emerge within the controversial and previously unavailable appendix to Kant's 'Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens'. The first chapter makes the contention that we should interpret J.L. Austin's curious and otherwise eccentric capitalization of the font in the word KANT (twice on pp.2-3) of his 'How to do Things with Words' (1962), (...) through pp.13-14 of the 'Elementum: eine Vorarbeit zum Griechischen und Lateinischen Thesaurus' of Hermann Diels (1899), where Diels describes the Thesaurus of the font based on Aristotle's description of ancient atomism (twice in the Metaphysics and Gen et Corr). This, alongside a play on the words of the name Bernard de Fontenelle and the provocative nature of Austin's obviously false statements regarding Kant, suggest he had seen Kant's astonishingly scandalous opening statement to the appendix; and that he was making a cryptic, but nonetheless fairly tangible reference to it, by means of showing us How To Do Things With Words by embodying a witticism ass encryption, an instance of his theory into his text. (shrink)

The conception of truth-making, albeit in a rudimentary form, could already be discerned in the writings of G. E. Moore and E. Husserl in the early 1900s. A few years later it was more extensively exploited by William James. It was Wittgenstein, however, who gave the concept a precise meaning. In 1913/1914 Wittgenstein advanced a theory of possible worlds, only one of which was real. Every proposition suggests a part of a possible world which does or does not correspond (...) to parts of the real world. In the first case the proposition is true, in the second case false. Moreover, the part of the real world makes the sentence true. This part is a truth-maker, and the sentence is a truth-bearer. Surprisingly enough, Wittgenstein’s concept of truth-making had its family resemblance with William James’s conception of truth. In 1915 Wittgenstein stopped using the concept of truth-making—it was also not men-tioned in the Tractatus. Unfortunately, Russell did not notice this and in 1918 he adopted the concept of truth-making. In the 1930s, it was used by some second generation analytic philosophers (Schlick, Stebbing, and Wisdom). However, it became rather popular among analytic philosophers only in the 1980s. (shrink)

Two dichotomies, one that resents the West and another that admires it, seem to have long polarized both Iranian intellectuals and the public imagination. Darioush Ashouri discusses this issue in terms of “ressentiment,” a term he borrows from Nietzsche. This study puts Ashouri's scattered views within a Nietzschean framework to form a coherent theory, and places it against the background of a brief history of ressentiment in Iran. It then argues that signs of a ressentiment-less young generation, mostly (...) university students, seem to be appearing, and a certain kind of social behavior on Facebook and a work by the Iranian musician Mohsen Namjoo are analyzed as evidence of this emerging mindset. (shrink)

[from the publisher's website] Questions about the existence and attributes of God form the subject matter of natural theology, which seeks to gain knowledge of the divine by relying on reason and experience of the world. Arguments in natural theology rely largely on intuitions and inferences that seem natural to us, occurring spontaneously—at the sight of a beautiful landscape, perhaps, or in wonderment at the complexity of the cosmos—even to a nonphilosopher. In this book, Helen De Cruz and Johan De (...) Smedt examine the cognitive origins of arguments in natural theology. They find that although natural theological arguments can be very sophisticated, they are rooted in everyday intuitions about purpose, causation, agency, and morality. Using evidence and theories from disciplines including the cognitive science of religion, evolutionary ethics, evolutionary aesthetics, and the cognitive science of testimony, they show that these intuitions emerge early in development and are a stable part of human cognition. -/- De Cruz and De Smedt analyze the cognitive underpinnings of five well-known arguments for the existence of God: the argument from design, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the argument from beauty, and the argument from miracles. Finally, they consider whether the cognitive origins of these natural theological arguments should affect their rationality. (shrink)