Within the tight binding method, we study the second order phase transitions in magnetic thin films as a function of the exchange integral J. The transitions from (...) non-magnetic to in-plane antiferromagnetic state which are of second order are analysed in terms of the possible mathematical behaviour. It is shown that such transitions obey a power law rather than an exponential law. No remarkable variation of the corresponding critical exponents ( = 1/2) has been found with the d-band filling, the reduced symmetry, the lattice parameter and the coordination number. (shrink)
The aim of this paper is to take the first steps toward providing a refurbished consent theory of political authority, one that rests in part on a (...) reconception of the relationship between the surrender of judgment and the authoritativeness of political institutions. On the standard view, whatever grounds political authority implies that one ought to surrender one's judgment to that of one's political institutions. On the refurbished view, it is the surrender of one's judgment ndash which can plausibly be considered a form of consent ndash that makes political institutions practically authoritative. (shrink)
w a y s h a v e b e e n . W e a l l r e m e m b e r M a (...) class='Hi'> r x ' s p o l e m i c a g a i n s t P r o u d h o n , t h e Manifesto's critique of "historical action [yielding] to personal inventive action, historically created conditions of emancipation to fantastic ones, and the gradual spontaneous class organizations of the proletariat to an organization of society specially contrived by these inventors" (Marx and Engels, 1986, 64), and the numerous other occasions when the fathers of "scientific socialism" went a f t e r t h e " u t o p i a n s . " I n general this Marxian aversion to drawing up blueprints has been healthy, fueled at least in part by a respect for the concrete specificity of the revolutionary situation and for the agents engaged in revolutionary activity: it is not the business of Marxist intellectuals to tell the agents of revolution how they are to construct their postrevolutionary economy. (shrink)
George M. Searle (1839-1918) and Charles S. Peirce worked together in the Coast Survey and the Harvard Observatory during the decade of 1860: both scientists were (...) class='Hi'>assistants of Joseph Winlock, the director of the Observatory. When in 1868 George, a convert to Catholicism, left to enter the Paulist Fathers, he was replaced by his brother Arthur Searle. George was ordained as a priest in 1871, was a lecturer of Mathematics and Astronomy at the Catholic University of America, and became the fourth superior general of his congregation from 1904 to 1909. Among the books he wrote for non-Catholic audiences was Plain Facts for Fair Minds (1895). On the 8th of August of 1895, Peirce found that book in a bookstore and the following day wrote a letter to George Searle developing his strong reservations about the question of the infallibility of the Pope. This letter (L 397) is almost unknown amongst Peirce's scholars. -/- After describing these historical circumstances as a framework, the aim of my paper is to describe Peirce's arguments against papal infallibility presented by George Searle in his book, and the contrast between the genuine scientific attitude and the putative metaphysical notion of absolute truth that is —according to Peirce— behind Searle's defense of infallibility. In this sense, Peirce's fallibilism will be explained with some detail, giving an account also of his practical infallibilism: "The assertion that every assertion but this is fallible, is the only one that is absolutely infallible. But though nothing else is absolutely infallible, many propositions are practically infallible; such as the dicta of conscience" (Minute Logic, CP 2.75, c. 1902). -/- Finally, having in mind the present interest in Peirce's religious ideas it will be suggested that some of Peirce's ideas on infallibility are nearer to contemporary understanding of that issue than Searle's defense. "I would with all my heart join the ancient church of Rome if I could. But your book," —Peirce writes to Searle— "is an awful warning against doing so." -/- . (shrink)
: C.M. Concepcion's review of "Pornography: An Uncivil Liberty?" (Carse 1995) fundamentally misconstrues the position defended in that article. This paper examines possible sources of this (...) class='Hi'>misconstrual, focusing critical attention on the narrowly crafted, morally loaded notion of "pornography" that figures centrally in the original argument under review. Pornography is not a category of speech that can be characterized as having one crucial meaning or message, nor is the message of pornography easily identifiable in instances of pornographic speech. This raises the problem of interpretive privilege, which haunts many of the antipornography arguments being offered in the contemporary debate, including the author's own earlier argument. (shrink)
Since the 1930s, scientists studying the neurological disease scrapie had assumed that the infectious agent was a virus. By the mid 1960s, however, several unconventional properties had (...) arisen that were difficult to reconcile with the standard viral model. Evidence for nucleic acid within the pathogen was lacking, and some researchers considered the possibility that the infectious agent consisted solely of protein. In 1982, Stanley Prusiner coined the term `prion' to emphasize the agent's proteinaceous nature. This infectious protein hypothesis was denounced by many scientists as `heretical'.This essay asks why the concept of an infectious protein was considered controversial. Some biologists justified their evaluation of this hypothesis on the grounds that an infectious protein contradicted the `central dogma of molecular biology'. Others referred to vague theoretical constraints such as molecular biology's `theoretical structure' or `framework'. Examination of the objections raised by researchers reveals exactly what generalizations were being challenged by a protein model of infection.This two-part survey of scrapie and prion research reaches several conclusions: (1) A theoretical framework is present in molecular biology, exerting its influence in hypothesis formation and evaluation; (2) This framework consists of several related, yet separable, generalizations or `elements', including Francis Crick's Central Dogma and Sequence Hypothesis, plus notions concerning infection, replication, protein synthesis, and protein folding; (3) The term `central dogma' has stretched beyond Crick's original 1958 definition to encompass at least two other `framework elements': replication and protein synthesis; and (4) From the study of scrapie and related diseases, biological information has been delineated into at least two classes: sequential and what I call `conformational'.In Part I of this essay, a brief review of the central dogma, as outlined by both Francis Crick and James Watson, will be given. The developments in scrapie research from 1965 to 1972 will then be traced. This section will summarize many of the puzzling, non-viral-like properties of the scrapie agent. Alternative hypotheses to the viral explanation will also be presented, including early versions of a protein-only hypothesis. Part II of this essay will follow the developments in scrapie and prion research from the mid 1970s through 1991. The growing prominence of a protein-only model of infection will be balanced by continued objections from many researchers to a pathogen devoid of nucleic acid. These objections will help illuminate those generalizations in molecular biology that were indeed challenged by a protein-only model of infection. (shrink)
Zoologist A. J. <span class='Hi'>Cainspan> began historical research on Linnaeus in 1956 in connection with his dissatisfaction over the standard taxonomic hierarchy and the rules (...) of binomial nomenclature. His famous 1958 paper 'Logic and Memory in Linnaeus's System of Taxonomy' argues that Linnaeus was following Aristotle's method of logical division without appreciating that it properly applies only to 'analysed entities' such as geometric figures whose essential nature is already fully known. The essence of living things being unanalysed, there is no basis on which to choose the right characters to define a genus nor on which to differentiate species. Yet <span class='Hi'>Cainspan>'s understanding of Aristotle, which depended on a 1916 text by H. W. B. Joseph, was fatally flawed. In the 1990s <span class='Hi'>Cainspan> devoted himself to further historical study and softened his verdict on Linnaeus, praising his empiricism. The idea that Linnaeus was applying an ancient and inappropriate method cries out for fresh study and revision. (shrink)
<span class='Hi'>span><span class='Hi'>span><span class='Hi'>span><span class='Hi'>span><span class='Hi'>span><span class='Hi'>span><span class='Hi'>span> readers of Greek ethics tend to (...) class='Hi'> favour those accounts of the virtuous ideal according to which virtue involves the development of our non-rational—appetitive and emotional—<span class='Hi'>span> motivations as well as of our rational motivations.<span class='Hi'>span> So our contemporaries find much of interest and sympathy in Aristotle’s conception of virtue as a condition in which reason does not simply override our appetites and emotions,<span class='Hi'>span> but these non-rational motivations themselves <span class='Hi'>span>‘speak with the same voice as reason’<span class='Hi'>span>.2 By contrast,<span class='Hi'>span> the Stoic.<span class='Hi'>span>. (shrink)
In this paper the scientific trajectory of Spanish influential biochemist Alberto Sols (1917-1989) is presented in comparative perspective. His social and academic environment, his research training (...) class='Hi'>under the Cori's in the US in the early 1950s and his works when coming back to Spain to develop his own scientific career are described in order to present the central argument of this paper on his path from physiological research to research on enzymatic regulation. Sols' main contributions were both scientific and academic. He and his collaborators not only contributed to biological knowledge on the biochemistry of metabolic regulation but to the active reception of biochemistry in the Spanish academia and to update of Spanish medical education. (shrink)
This chapter explores the arguments surrounding the use of human enhancement technologies in sport, arguing for a reconceptualization of the doping debate. First, it develops an overview (...) and critique of the legislative structures on enhancement. Subsequently, a conceptual framework for understanding the role of technological effects in sport is advanced. Finally, two case studies (hypoxic chambers and gene transfer) receive specific attention, through which it is argued that human enhancement technologies can enrich the practice of elite sports rather than diminish them. In conclusion, it is argued that elite sports are at a pivotal moment in their history as an increasing range of enhancements makes less relevant the protection of the natural human through anti-doping. (shrink)
Hume’s view of reason is notoriously hard to pin down, not least because of the apparently contradictory positions which he appears to adopt in different places. (...) class='Hi'>The problem is perhaps most clear in his writings concerning induction - in his famous argument of Treatise I iii 6 and Enquiry IV, on the one hand, he seems to conclude that “probable inference” has no rational basis, while elsewhere, for example in much of his writing on natural theology, he seems happy to acknowledge that such inference is not only reasonable, but is even a paradigm of reasoning against which the theistic arguments must be judged. In the face of this apparent contradiction, many recent commentators have proferred “non-sceptical” interpretations of Hume’s argument concerning induction, but in this paper I sketch an alternative and perhaps less radical method of resolving the problem, by identifying a major threefold ambiguity in Hume’s use of the word “reason”. On this interpretation, Hume indeed sees induction as a paradigm of reasonableness in what is arguably the most important sense, but he nevertheless believes induction to be entirely non-reasonable in another sense, which though less important in common life is nevertheless very significant philosophically. A comparison with Locke can help to illuminate Hume’s position, which though indeed not entirely sceptical about induction, is by no means entirely non-sceptical either. (shrink)
The article draws paralles between Bakhtin's literary theory and some of the Peirce's philosophical concepts. The comparisons with Bakhtin go beyond the theory of heteroglossia and (...) class='Hi'> reveal that related notions were implicitly originated by Dostoevsky. The elaboration of the concepts of dialogue, "self" and "other" continue into the ideas of consciousness, iconic effects in literature, and the semiotic aspect of thought. Especially important in this chapter is the aspect of Peirce's theory concerned with the endless growth of interpretation and sign building, or unlimited semiosis. Peirce's discussion of unlimited semiosis is not among the less elaborated ones. Quite on the contrary, it is one of the most important of his ideas of sign. As a semiotic notion it is widely exploited in many related areas. However, it is not often used as an analytical tool to examine literature or to other works of art. Here, we will employ this notion in conjunction with Bakhtin's doctrine of heteroglossia. (shrink)
