We investigated the current-voltage I(V) characteristics of GaAs/AlAs double-barrier heterostructures. A fine periodic structure of the resonant tunnel current has been revealed. We attribute (...) class='Hi'>it to a sequence of the collective excitations, presumably of the coupled plasmon-phonon type, that are induced in the heavily doped collector region by hot electrons which escape from the quantum well. An oscillatory structure appears also in the valley regions of the I(V) curve under a high magnetic field parallel to the current. It is due to the off-resonance tunnelling between the Landau-quantized states of the emitter and quantum well. Particular phonon-assisted processes in the tunnelling have been identified. (shrink)
The following essay reconsiders the ontological and logical issues around Frege’s Basic Law (V). If focuses less on Russell’s Paradox, as most treatments of Frege’s (...) Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (GGA)1 do, but rather on the relation between Frege’s Basic Law (V) and Cantor’s Theorem (CT). So for the most part the inconsistency of Naïve Comprehension (in the context of standard Second Order Logic) will not concern us, but rather the ontological issues central to the conflict between (BLV) and (CT). These ontological issues are interesting in their own right. And if and only if in case ontological considerations make a strong case for something like (BLV) we have to trouble us with inconsistency and paraconsistency. These ontological issues also lead to a renewed methodological reflection what to assume or recognize as an axiom. (shrink)
Theoretical discussions of ethics in the broadcasting industry remain abstract, intellectual exercises until they go to court. U.S. v. National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) in 1982, (...) class='Hi'>led to the death of the NAB Code of Good Practice. This article examines objections to codes and evidence of need for a revised set of broadcast ethics, visible to a media?conscious public. It calls for adoption of a new ethics code in broadcasting. (shrink)
Despite the renewed interest in Aristotle’s Generation of Animals in recent years, the subject matter of GA V, its preferred mode(s) of explanation, and its place (...) class='Hi'> in the treatise as a whole remain misunderstood. Scholars focus on GA I-IV, which explain animal generation in terms of efficient-final causation, but dismiss GA V as a mere appendix, thinking it to concern (a) individual, accidental differences among animals, which are (b) purely materially necessitated, and (c) are only tangentially related to the topics discussed in the earlier books. In this paper, we defend an alternative and more integrated account of GA V by closely examining Aristotle’s methodological introduction in GA V.1 778a16-b19 and his teleological explanation of the differences of teeth in GA V.8. We argue for the unity of both GA V and of GA as a whole and present a more nuanced theory of teleological explanation in Aristotle’s biology. (shrink)
In this paper, I shall discuss several topics related to <span class='Hi'>Frege</span>’s paradigms of second-order abstraction principles and his logicism. The (...) discussion includes a critical examination of some controversial views put forward mainly by Robin Jeshion, Tyler Burge, Crispin Wright, Richard Heck and John MacFarlane. In the introductory section, I try to shed light on the connection between logical abstraction and logical objects. The second section contains a critical appraisal of <span class='Hi'>Frege</span>’s notion of evidence and its interpretation by Jeshion, the introduction of the course-of-values operator and <span class='Hi'>Frege</span>’s attitude towards Axiom V, in the expression of which this operator occurs as the key primitive term. Axiom V says that the course-of-values of the function f is identical with the course-of-values of the function g if and only if f and g are coextensional. In the third section, I intend to show that in Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik (1884) <span class='Hi'>Frege</span> hardly could have construed Hume’s Principle (HP) as a primitive truth of logic and used it as an axiom governing the cardinality operator as a primitive sign. HP expresses that the number of Fs is identical with the number of Gs if and only if F and G are equinumerous. In the fourth section, I argue that Wright falls short of making a convincing case for the alleged analyticity of HP. In the final section, I canvass Heck’s arguments for his contention that <span class='Hi'>Frege</span> knew he could deduce the simplest laws of arithmetic from HP without invoking Axiom V. I argue that they do not carry conviction. I conclude this section by rejecting an interpretation concerning HP suggested by MacFarlane. (shrink)
David V. Ciavatta: Spirit, the family, and the unconscious in Hegel’s philosophy Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-5 DOI 10.1007/s11007-012-9222-0 Authors Bruce (...) class='Hi'>Gilbert, Bishop’s University, Sherbrooke (Lennoxville), QC, Canada Journal Continental Philosophy Review Online ISSN 1573-1103 Print ISSN 1387-2842. (shrink)
This paper offers an interpretation of Plato's argument in Republic V that lovers of sights and sounds can have only opinion, and philosophers alone have legitimate (...) class='Hi'>claims to knowledge. The argument depends on the idea that knowledge is "set over what is" while mere opinion is "set over what is and is not." I argue for an enhanced veridical interpretation of 'to be' in this passage, on which 'what is' means, roughly, "what is so." Given a distinction between what is so independently of how things seem and what is so partly in virtue of how things seem, I interpret the argument as an attempt to show that philosophers, who attend to what is so independently of how things seem, have knowledge, while the lovers of sights and sound have mere opinion because they attend not to how things are independently of how they seem, but only to how they are in virtue of how they seem. (shrink)
Mahadeviyakka was a radical 12th century Karnataka saint of whom surprisingly little has been written. Considered the most poetic of the Virásaivas, her vacanas are characterized by (...) their desperate searching for iva. I attempt to convey Mahadevi's epistemology and its struggle to 'know' Shiva, necessitating a lifetime of searching for him; offer an interpretation of the innate presence of Shiva in the world and its consequences for epistemology; and explore the sense of tragic love inherent in devotional searching for Shiva. My primary goal is to offer a powerful and positive, yet critical, interpretation of Mahadevi's beautiful prose on her relationship with Shiva. . (shrink)
The papers in this collection on Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics by Charles, Rowe, McCabe, Whiting, and Buddensiek, offer new readings of Aristotle on the voluntary, friendship, and (...) class='Hi'>good fortune in the EE, by treating the EE on its own terms. (shrink)
I attempt to clarify the connection between two late texts by V.S. Solov'ëv: Justification of the Good and Theoretical Philosophy. Solov'ëv drew attention to (...) class='Hi'> the intrinsic connection between moral and intellectual virtues. Theoretical Philosophy is the initial -- unfinished -- sketch of the dynamism of mind seeking truth as a good. I sketch several parallels and analogies between the doctrine of moral experience set out in Justification and the account of the intellect's dynamism based on immediate certitude set out in Theoretical Philosophy. Solov'ëv can thus be considered as a âvirtue epistemologistâ in the current meaning given to this description. I conclude by suggesting that Solov'ëv's position on these questions does not easily cohere with the âimpersonalismâ he appears to defend in Theoretical Philosophy. (shrink)
On or about June 5, 1895, in Denver, Colorado, a 23-year-old law clerk named James Smith fell off a ladder and injured his left thigh near (...) class='Hi'> the hip. Three days later, on June 8, 1895, Smith consulted a physician named George Gibson. Gibson saw Smith twice.1 After several weeks of continued pain, on June 24, 1895 Grant consulted a different physician named W. W. Grant. Grant was already a well-known railway surgeon in the local medical community, and would go on to even greater prominence. Grant treated Smith, but did not attempt to immobilize Smith’s leg. Rather, Grant “advised exercise of various kinds as though treating a contusion” (Withers 1931, p. 99). On April 14, 1896, Smith filed a lawsuit against .. (shrink)
In times past there was a celebrated, and somewhat mythical, disagreement between William James and W.K. Clifford. Clifford thought that our cognitive ends were best advanced (...) class='Hi'>by a determined effort to avoid error. James thought that our cognitive flourishing was ineliminably linked to a venturing forth for truth. Each carries its own procedural implications. For James, it was Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained. For Clifford it was Nothing Ventured, Nothing Lost. Of course, these are caricatures; but we know what’s meant, at least roughly. The Clifford-James divide carves up Quine’s philosophical architecture in an important way.1 Quine is a Jamesian about science and a Cliffordian about philosophy. Quine knows that science will get nowhere if it is not allowed to make mistakes, lots of them. Like Peirce and Dewey, Quine is a fallibilist about science. He thinks that the correct, indeed the best, methods for science are those that get things wrong with a notable frequency. Even so, there are two considerations which make these the right procedures. One is that a condition of getting things right in science is getting things wrong, though not the same things at the same time. Another is that the error-susceptible.. (shrink)
The publication of Davidson 2001, anthologizing articles from the 1980s and 1990s, encourages reconsidering arguments contained in them. One such argument is Davidsonâs omniscient-interpreter argument (â (...) class='Hi'>OIAâ) in Davidson 1983. The OIA allegedly establishes that it is necessary that most beliefs are true. Thus the omniscient interpreter, revived in 2001 and now 20 years old, was born to answer the skeptic. In Part I of this paper, I consider charges that the OIA establishes only that it is possible that most beliefs are true; if correct, then it is also possibly the case that most beliefs are falseâthe skepticâs very position. Next, I consider two responses on Davidsonâs behalf, showing that each fails. In Part II, I show that the OIA establishes neither that it is necessarily merely possibly but actually the case that most beliefs are true. I then conclude that this is enough to answer the skeptic. (shrink)
Most of us assume that we have a basic right not to be killed. We might not consider that to be an absolute right—since that would (...) class='Hi'>entail strict pacifism—but rather what philosophers call a prima facie right.2 For example, we might be said to forfeit our right not to be killed if we commit a particularly heinous crime like aggravated murder. Or we might waive that right if we suffer from a terminal illness and can’t end our own life without assistance from others. And any right that can be forfeited or waived cannot be absolute. But we’re certainly on solid ground in believing that we have to have very serious moral reasons to justify killing people. In the Western just-war tradition, war is thought to be morally acceptable if it can satisfy certain ethical and procedural criteria. But that tradition also regards war as potentially causing so much suffering, death and destruction that leaders must carefully weigh those harms against the goals they hope to achieve through war. Even if one’s country has been seriously harmed, one’s soldiers or other citizens unjustly killed by foreign powers or terrorists, leaders still face significant moral constraints under just-war criteria on what they may do in response. Having just cause to go to war, for example, does not permit one to wage total war. (shrink)
This paper has two aims, as an exposition of Jürgen Habermas's response to the work of Michel Foucault, and to engage in and assess this debate (...) class='Hi'>between two influential contemporary schools of Continental philosophy. Habermas locates Foucault's project in the history of several attempts at a totalizing critique of reason, attempts which are trapped in a performative self?contradiction. Habermas also argues that Foucault is still caught up in the conceptual straitjacket of the philosophy of the subject which his theory was meant to overcome. He shows that Foucault's central notion of power is used in two different and ultimately irreconcilable ways ? as a transcendental as well as an empirical concept. Much of Habermas's critique is justified and could, indeed, be extended to Foucault's anti?realist relativism, but Habermas's own defence of rationalism is not without difficulties of its own. Thus his notion of knowledge?guiding interests commits him to a form of anti?realism and a transcendental concept of instrumental power which is almost as problematic in its consequences as the anti?realism of Foucault. (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)
At the end of 1907 within a couple of months Lunačarskij met both Gor’kij and Brzozowski in Italy and found many important points of contact with (...) class='Hi'>each. To compare Lunačarskij’s thought at that time with Brzozowski’s “philosophical program” of 1907 casts some new light on the great variety of interpretations that enlivened Easter European Marxism at the beginning of the twentieth century. On the one hand, it explains Lunačarskij’s “economism” as distinct both from Brzozowski’s extreme anthropologism and Gor’kij’s “cosmism”; on the other, it shows that Lunačarskij’s “philosophy of labour” promoted a violent attitude of conquest and humankind’s domination of nature. Although he criticized Brzozowski’s sympathies with German Idealism, Lunačarskij shared with him a deep appreciation of human creative power, which is evident in his peculiar form of collectivism as well. (shrink)
Zur Zeit des Hl. Thomas von Aquin war es nicht leicht andere Religionen zu verstehen. Besonders auch deswegen nicht, weil die Verbreitung der Religion mit Macht und (...) Krieg verbunden war. Aber gerade Thomas hat die sogenannte „Heidnische Lehre“ des Aristoteles in das Christentum eingeführt. In den Augen vieler orthodoxen Christen war dies ein unverzeihlicher Fehler. Mit dieser Lehre ist auch das Naturrecht (moralisch natürliche Gesetz) in die katholische Theologie eingeführt worden. Aber die Aristotelische Wiedereinführung (wenn nicht Revolution) in die christliche Philosophie ist bis heute nicht ohne Hindernisse geschehen. Chesterton meint, dass Thomas korrigiert Platon mit Aristoteles, der die Dinge so genommen hat, wie er sie vorgefunden hat. Thomas nimmt die Dinge so, wie sie Gott geschaff en hat. Trotz allem ist es sehr wertvoll zu denken, dass die Wahrheit und der Glaube nicht im Widerspruch stehen können, und alles was die Wissenschaft ans Licht der Welt bringt, kann nicht im Widerspruch gegenüber dem Glauben sein. In den Werken des Hl. Thomas ist immer die Welt der positiven Schöpfung gegenwärtig. In dieser Arbeit möchten wir die Bedingungen der Zeit des Dialogs mit dem Islam und dem Judentum als Hintergrund für die Zusammenfassung der Summa contra Gentiles analysieren nach den Gedanken von M.-D. Chenu, O. H. Pesch, J. Weisheipl, K. G. Chesterton und anderen, die uns ein Bild über die nicht einfache aber trotzdem erreichbare Begegnung mit anderen Religionen zeigen und auch die Gefahr aufzeigen, die sich in einer nicht konsequenten Philosophie birgt. (shrink)
At any given time, an individual has certain beliefs and certain procedures or methods for modifying those beliefs. In The Realm of Reason, as in his previous (...) book, Being Known (1999), Christopher Peacocke is concerned with the elusive question of what it is for someone to be “entitled” to a given belief or procedure.1.. (shrink)
