The central motivation behind the scientific realism debate is explaining the impressive success of scientific theories. The debate has been dominated by two rival types of explanations: the first relies on some sort of static, referentially transparent relationship between the theory and the unobservable world, such as truthlikeness, representation, or structural similarity; the second relies on no robust relationship between the theory and unobservable reality at all, and instead draws on predictive similarity and the stringent methodology of science to explain (...) success. I argue that this is a false dichotomy, at least insofar as dynamical theories are concerned. The best explanation of the success of dynamical theories, I argue, must appeal to a robust but referentially opaque theory–world relation. The dynamical notion of ‘tracking’ fulfills this promise. I formulate a modified no miracles argument that is liberated from the false dichotomy and show how tracking responds to the modified argument. (shrink)

Virtually all philosophers of science have construed fundamental theories as descriptions of entities, properties, and/or structures. Call this the “descriptive-ontological” view. I argue that this view is incorrect, at least insofar as physical theories are concerned. I propose a novel construal of theories that I call the “prescriptive-dynamical” view. The central tenet of this view, roughly put, is that the _essential_ content of fundamental physical theories is a _prescription for interfacing with natural systems and translating local data into compact theoretical (...) language_. The descriptive-ontological aspects of theories, if any, are taken as _inessential_ content on this view: they do not contribute to the predictive success of the theory. Rather than describing _what is there_, the essence of a physical theory is to tell us _what to do_ when interfacing with a physical system. (shrink)

The Correspondence Principle of old quantum theory is commonly considered to be the requirement that quantum and classical theories converge in their empirical predictions in the appropriate asymptotic limit. That perception has persisted despite the fact that Bohr and other early proponents of CP clearly did not intend it as a mere requirement, and despite much recent historical work. In this paper, I build on this work by first giving an explicit formulation to the mentioned asymptotic requirement ) and then (...) discussing various possible formulations of CP for emission on the basis of the primary literature as well as general physical and metaphysical considerations. I shall then show that, in all of the most probable interpretations of CP that consider quantum theory as a universal theory, any system incorporating both CR and CP for emission would in fact be inconsistent. Old quantum theory measurably contradicts classical physics in the classical regime. (shrink)

The main thesis of the dissertation is that Hume resolves his central concern with the problem of reason by arguing for a pragmatic conception of that notion. After a discussion of Hume's argument to the effect that the traditional conception of reason leads to unmitigated scepticism, I turn to Hume's account of belief. Vivacity is the distinguishing mark of a belief. That notion has two aspects: an intrinsic felt quality, and a causal connection to action. The former is part of (...) the descriptive account of belief and the latter accounts for the normative distinctions among beliefs. A belief is rationally warranted, if it leads to beneficial consequences. Both the descriptive-explanatory and the normative-evaluative accounts of belief rest on Hume's conception of the imagination. In the last chapter, it is argued that Malebranche significantly influenced Hume's conception of the imagination. (shrink)

One of the main objections to life extension is that life extension will cause severe overpopulation. This objection presents both moral and demographic issues. To explore the demographic issue, we present an updated and improved version of the formula in chapter six of _New Methuselahs_ for projecting the demographic impact of life extension. The new version includes additional demographical factors such as non-aging related causes of death. According to projections generated with this revised formula, moderate life extension (a life expectancy (...) of 120 years) will not significantly increase population at the fertility rates current in the developed world, but radical life expectancy (halting aging completely, leading to an average life expectancy of 1000 years) can lead to severe overpopulation even at very low fertility rates. This formula also enables us to ascertain what fertility rate and birth spacing will prevent life extension from causing severe overpopulation. The moral issues arise if radical life extension causes overpopulation severe enough to outweigh the benefits it brings. _New Methuselahs_ proposed a reproductive policy for avoiding severe overpopulation by limiting reproduction for those who use life extension. We then consider a moral objection to this policy that was not discussed in _New Methuselahs_: it is not likely that society will succeed in imposing limits to reproduction, therefore, it is likely that radical life extension is morally wrong. We respond to this objection and defend our response against two further objections. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:Besila is a paradisical setting in the Kushnameh, an early twelfth-century Persian epic that combines the ancient Iranian messianic legend of Kangdez with more recent geographical knowledge, based on travelers' reports, of China and Korea. Besila’s messianic role in the narrative, its antipodal location, and its quasi-fictional status are quintessentially utopian, and yet little is revealed about the society of Besila. The Kushnameh instead emphasizes the means by which paradises are formed, including the rational origins of Besila’s monotheistic creed, organic (...) growth, translatio imperii, travel, and geographical knowledge. The Kushnameh’s vision of universal monotheism anticipates the story of Hayy ibn Yaqzan, a later utopia with important connections to the development of Islamic political theory. The case of Besila thus suggests that the early modern genre of utopia has deep roots in the medieval discourse of travel and travelers. (shrink)

Although it is one of the indispensable standards of relevant research that Heidegger shortly after Being and Time made a „turn“ („Kehre“) in the development of his thinking, it can be shown that this is merely due to a misunderstanding or misinterpretation that began in 1949/50 with an at least incorrect reading of the corresponding passage in the Letter of Humanism. But if this legend of research can be proven as such, the question arises as to what consequences this will (...) have for the comprehension of Heidegger’s thinking, for it is said that with the „turn“, the transcendental approach was given up in favor of an aletheiological one with which it was possible for Heidegger to overcome subjectivism. In rejection of this by now equally canonical interpretation scheme it is shown here that the aletheiological approach is merely a recourse to conceptions important to Heidegger even before Being and Time and that after the failure of its third section – Time and Being – subjectivistic features were rather transferred, partially into a being that was increasingly thought of as an active one, partially into concepts like that of the „first thinker“ („erster Denker“) or the „messenger of being“ („Botenganger des Seins“). All in all, it is argued that the paradigm of „Heidegger‘ s turn“ should be abandoned in order to enable an unobstructed view on Heidegger’s thinking. (shrink)

The notion of 'freedom' has gained an emblematic character in contemporary political discourse. It is, commonly, viewed as the central value and political goal of modern societies. Similarly, human rights documents conceive of freedom as their founding principle with universal validity. In contradistinction to this prevalent approach to freedom, this paper aims to demonstrate that freedom is, primarily, a political signifier with social-historical variability. One cannot, therefore, simply and uncritically assume that freedom has (or should have) universal validity or transhistorical (...) significance. In the first section of this paper, the structure of the contemporary liberal discourse on freedom is discussed and called into question. In light of Arendt's interpretation of freedom and through her analysis of the public domain, I reflect on the social-historical variability of the meaning of freedom and its inextricable nexus with a particular form of society. In the second section and drawing on Castoriadis, the notion of 'freedom' is approached in view of human signifying practices and imaginary dimension of society. This examination reveals in what way freedom––in the sense of a central social imaginary signification––contributes to the institution of an autonomous mode of society and determines the affective disposition and intentional vector of its inhabitants. (shrink)

Our purpose in this paper is to argue how the idea of affirmation of life embodies the practice of the art of life. The yes-saying attitude towards life can provide an enormous support for the self-formation practices. Our attempt, then, consists of demonstrating the subjective character of the aesthetic marked by pleasure, and especially a new approach to the relationship between “I” and the other. We comprehend that this sort of life is individually relative or subjective. Meanwhile, there is a (...) political reconfiguration of “I” and the other which ends in freedom. Politics becomes possible in a simultaneous caring for I and the other through the practices of self-constitution. In order to clarify our discussion further, this challenge is accompanied by a presentation of three real lives that are exemplary for us in the art of life; a way of being that stands for a political affirmation of life. (shrink)

This paper explores the general characteristics of the aesthetics of life. Our approach will be in thinking about the aesthetics of life as a domain independent from the realms of ethics and morality. This thesis discusses some of the theoretical debates around those concepts. The notion of ‘pleasure’ in those practices will be discussed as the one that gives shape to ‘the art of life’. Pleasure also makes it possible for a person to perform these practices for a long period (...) of time; what we call the ‘life-long character of the aestheticization of life’.However, this effort endeavors to demonstrate another central theme of this style of life; the individual/social character of those practices is the one that exemplifies ‘the art of life’. Thinking simultaneously about ‘oneself’ and the ‘other’ is the main concept that helps us the most to appreciate these practices. These debates are elaborated further in some case studies that have been researched between 2016 and 2019. These are real examples of peoples’ lived experiences who, in different ways, try to give meaning to their lives by turning their existence into a work of art. (shrink)

La recherche actuelle cherche à démontrer qu'il existe une sociologie chez Foucault et l'oeuvre foucaldienne est aussi une oeuvre sociologique. L'oeuvre de Foucault offre plusieurs avantages conceptuels à la pensée sociologique et sa pensée peut être entendue comme une expérience qui nous conduira aussi à une pratique autoréflexive de la sociologie. Mais ce qui rapproche le plus Foucault des sociologues, c'est toujours sa tentative de comprendre le sujet à travers un social qui est devenu historique et cette Histoire nous revient (...) à chaque fois en tant que forme culturelle. La question centrale de Foucault est ce social qui occupe une place considérable dans la constitution de l'individu, pourtant l'individu n'est jamais complètement contraint. Les grandes lignes de la pensée foucaldienne consistent à élaborer une pensée critique, une pensée qui est parvenue finalement à réunir l'objectivation et la subjectivation. La sociologie foucaldienne a pour objectif de mettre en lumière la question "qui sommes-nous en train de devenir?" pour construire un diagnostic sociologique d'une modernité paradoxale. (shrink)

As with terms such as “human rights”, “democracy”, and “equality”, the notion of “freedom” has an emblematic character with highly normative overtones. After the declaration of universal human rights, one might argue that freedom is – at least formally – a universal entitlement belonging to every human being. However, this universalist structure is built upon a conflictual foundation, as the juridico-political meaning of freedom is determined by the boundaries of national citizenship, statehood, and territorial sovereignty. This chapter examines refugeehood as (...) a normal by-product of the post-colonial world order, embodying the counter-history of nation-states whose internal borders, walls, and external fortifications are growingly being militarised and reinforced. Refugeehood represents an anomalous juridico-political condition that cannot be elucidated by colonial-racial binaries such as inclusion versus exclusion or rightlessness versus national citizenship. The central idea of this chapter is that, for refugees, the meaning of freedom and unfreedom are intertwined and should be approached as a dynamic relationship characterising the state of (non)-subjectivity. As political (non)-subjects, refugees call structural determinations of unfreedom into question. Refugees’ freedom is expressed in the act of flight and border crossing, irregular migratory movement, language games of resistance, and other emancipatory signifying practices by which they claim a place of refuge in the world. (shrink)

Problems with regard to the analysis of argumentative partly discourse arise from definitorial disconformity. In this article, Informal argument is taken as the primary definition to study the basic structure of argument from a fragment of an Agatha Christie novel. Bilmes' account of the notions of Formulation (F) and Decision (D+/D-) are adapted to describe the relations of opposition which are displayed in informal argument. The minimal structure of argument is represented by the formula F/D-/D-, in which F is a (...) speaker's personal composition of a ‘fact’, the first D- is the disconfirming uptake of it by another speaker and the second D- is the completing disconfirming uptake by the initial speaker. Some of the speaker's possibilities to initiate an argument by expressing a Formulation are explored, as well as the social and cultural norms which play a role in argument-initiation and the concepts of ‘win’ and ‘loss’. (shrink)

This is a compilation of papers presented at the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, held February 20-22, 1998 in Vancouver, Canada, hosted by the University of British Columbia Department of Linguistics. The conference drew a large number of participants, from around the world. The fifty papers in this volume address theoretical issues in Syntax, Phonology, the Syntax-Semantics and Syntax-Phonology interfaces, and Language Acquisition, and provide an exciting view of current theory in these areas.

Nuclear pore complexes mediate and control transport between the cytosol and the nucleus. They form a highly selective and, thus, tight nuclear barrier between these compartments. The nuclear barrier provides the cell with the opportunity to control access to its DNA, a defining feature of eukaryotes. The tightness of the nuclear barrier is therefore physiologically pivotal and any remarkable change in its structure and permeability can prove pathophysiological, e.g. as a result of viral attack. However, there is accumulating evidence that (...) nuclear barrier structure and permeability are highly responsive to hydrophobic cargos of crucial physiological and therapeutic relevance, glucocorticoids (steroid hormones). The present review highlights the glucocorticoid‐induced effects on the nuclear barrier structure and permeability concluding that they are physiologically essential to mediate glucocorticoid action. BioEssays 28: 935–942, 2006. © 2006 Wiley periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

It is widely accepted among political philosophers that distributive justice should be promoted by the state. This essay challenges this presumption by making two key claims. First, the state is not the only possible mechanism for attaining distributive justice. We could rely alternatively on the voluntary efforts and interactions of individuals and associations in civil society. The question of what mechanism we should rely on is a comparative and empirical one. What matters is which mechanism better promotes distributive justice. We (...) cannot settle the question a priori in favor of the state. Second, several considerations suggest a presumption in favor of relying on civil society. (shrink)

The nature of state governance in consolidated liberal democracies has important implications for the ideal theory debate. The states of these societies are polycentric. Decision-making power within them is disaggregated across multiple sites. This rules out one major justification for ideal theory. On this influential view, the ideal furnishes a blueprint of the morally perfect society that we should strive to realise. This justification is not viable in consolidated liberal democracies because their states lack an Archimedean point from which the (...) institutional structure as a whole can be designed to accord with the true ideal – whichever it might be. However, knowledge of the ideal can still aid agents in those societies to determine the worth of more modest political objectives other than the ideal itself. (shrink)

Philosophy's “linguistic turn” was destined to find its way into derivative disciplines such as political theory. In the last two decades, this turn has led to an absurd reductionism extrapolating the essence of existing democracies from their mode of communication. Flattening political theory, followers of this fashion rarely relinquish their fixation with the communicative component of modern democracies to the level of a multifaceted analysis. The central notion here is “deliberative democracy.” But is this a distinct model of democracy? For (...) Seyla Benhabib, it means “elucidating the already implicit principles and logic of existing democratic practices” (p. 84) There are…. (shrink)

Introduction Talking about civilization is like talking about God. While the aim is to gain knowledge, often the result is only greater obscurity. What is at issue may not be really a concept, but nothing at all. Yet, concepts have their own history, and the UN's inauguration of 2001 as the year of the “dialogue of civilizations,” not to mention recent ethno-religious conflicts, has generated new interest in “civilizational” questions—despite the fact that this runs counter to the postmodern aversion to (...) traditional historiography, in favor of “micro-histories,”1 and objections to the term “civilization” on the ground that it cannot be defined…. (shrink)

As a leading scientist of the 13th century C. E. Quṭb al-Dīn Shīrāzī wrote three substantial works on hay'a (or the configuration of the celestial orbs): Nihāyat al-idrāk fī dirāyat al-aflāk ("The Limits of Attainment in the Understanding of the Heavens"), al-Tuḥfa al-shāhīya fī 'ilm al-hay'a ("The Royal Offering Regarding the Knowledge of the Configuration of the Heavens"), and Ikhtīyārāt-i Muẓaffarī ("The Muẓaffarī Elections"). Completed in less than four years and written in two of the classical languages of the Islamic (...) world, Arabic and Persian, these works provide a fascinating window to the astronomical research carried out in Ilkhanid Persia. Shīrāzī and his colleagues were driven by their desire to rid Ptolemaic astronomy from its perceived shortcomings. An intriguing trail of revisions and emendations in Shīrāzī's hay'a texts serves to highlight both those features of Shīrāzī's astronomy that were inherited from his predecessors, as well as his original contributions to this branch of astronomical research. As a renowned savant, Shīrāzī spent a large portion of his career near centers of political power in Persia and Anatolia. A study of his scientific output and career as a scholar is an opportunity, therefore, for an examination of the patronage of science and of scientific works within the Ilkhanid realms. Not only was this patronage important to the work of scholars such as Shīrāzī but it was critical to the founding and operation of one of the foremost scientific institutions of the medieval Islamic world, the Marāgha observatory. The astronomical tradition in which Shīrāzī carried out his research has many links, as well, to the astronomy of Early Modern Europe, as can be seen in the astronomical models of Copernicus. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Auf den ersten Seiten der Philosophie des Rechts stellt Hegel fest, dass das, was zuvor in der Wissenschaft der Logik dargelegt wurde, hier nun vorausgesetzt wird. Der vorliegende Beitrag erläutert, was diese Voraussetzung bedeutet. Um das zu untersuchen, ist der Fokus auf einen bestimmten Begriff, nämlich den der Totalität gelegt. Es wird argumentiert, dass die Entwicklung in den verschiedenen Momenten der Philosophie des Rechts nicht möglich wäre ohne die vorausgehende Entwicklung der Metakategorie der Totalität in der Wissenschaft der Logik. Obwohl (...) es zu jedem dieser beiden Bücher eine Vielzahl von Veröffentlichungen gibt, fehlt in diesen wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten über Hegel eine Ausarbeitung gerade dieser Voraussetzung, nämlich insbesondere die Rolle, welche die Totalität in der Darstellung der Rechtsphilosophie im Verhältnis zu der Darstellung in der Wissenschaft der Logik spielt. Nachdem ein allgemeiner Überblick über jedes dieser Bücher gegeben wurde, wird in diesem Aufsatz eine solche Beziehung in fünf spezifischen Momenten der Rechtsphilosophie nachgezeichnet, nämlich: Wille, Moral, ethisches Leben, bürgerliche Gesellschaft und Staat. (shrink)

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) est probablement l’un des plus importants penseurs et philosophes de notre époque. On peut dire que les sciences humaines en général et la philosophie en particulier doivent prendre une position positive ou négative concernant la philosophie hégélienne avant de procéder à d’autres développements qui leur seraient propres. Plus précisément, ce collectif trouve sa racine dans une double urgence : les menaces des crises environnementale, politique et économique, les nouveaux enjeux qu’elles entraînent, d’une part, et l’absence (...) jusqu’à présent de réponses prometteuses, de l’autre. Il est temps de faire le point et de contribuer à fournir de nouvelles pistes de réflexion. Le présent ouvrage, bilingue, est le fruit de la collaboration d’éminents spécialistes internationaux qui ont répondu avec enthousiasme à notre invitation. Les 14 textes qui y sont réunis sont distribués selon trois thématiques et, tout en respectant la nature de la pensée hégélienne, leurs thèmes se chevauchent inévitablement. La première partie, « Aspects de la pensée de Hegel / Aspects of Hegel’s Thought », regroupe les textes qui discutent en profondeur d’un aspect de la pensée de Hegel, tout en analysant un enjeu qui se trouve dans ses propres œuvres. Les contributions de la deuxième partie, « Marx et Hegel / Marx and Hegel », examinent la relation entre ces deux philosophes. Comment faut-il comprendre les passages dans lesquels Marx accuse Hegel d’idéalisme, dont celui, largement cité, dans la préface du premier tome du Capital, n’est qu’un exemple? Dans la troisième partie, « Hegel à l’époque contemporaine / Hegel in Modern Times », les auteurs se penchent sur l’influence de la pensée de Hegel sur plusieurs penseurs. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Demosthenes, Aristoteles und Pausanias berichten von dem Dikasterion in Phreatto, zu dem ein außer Landes gegangener Athener auf einem Boot heranfährt, dieses unmittelbar an der Küste festmacht und sich dann in einem Prozess verteidigt. Er betritt zu keinem Zeitpunkt athenischen Boden, sondern bleibt auf dem Boot und vernimmt dort das Urteil, ob er vorsätzlich getötet hat oder nicht. Diese Verhandlungsform zwischen Land und Meer kann – so aufwendig und eigentümlich sie auch anmutet – durchaus historisch sein, ist aber nur (...) zu begreifen, wenn man von Drakons Gesetz über die Tötung ausgeht. Der Gesetzgeber hat 621/620 v. Chr. den Vollzug der Blutrache unter die Kontrolle der athenischen Gemeinschaft gestellt und damit einen wichtigen Schritt zur Eindämmung von Konflikten in der Polis geleistet. Das Verfahren in Phreatto ist im Kontext dieser Verordnung zu betrachten. (shrink)

This article presents the edition of a late 3rd/9th- or early 4th/10th-century search warrant for stolen goods (P.Cair.EgLib.inv. 536v). The scribe reports that two black men (aswadayn) were traveling on two donkeys, one of which was also loaded with a saddlebag of money, jewellery and clothes. Upon reaching the Upper Egyptian village of Saqāwa, the two black men were assaulted and murdered, and the goods and donkeys stolen. This document corroborates descriptions in historical works of frequent rebel attacks in various (...) regions of Egypt in the 3rd/9th and 4rd/10th centuries. (shrink)

In this paper, we introduce a foundation for computable model theory of rational Pavelka logic and continuous logic, and prove effective versions of some related theorems in model theory. We show how to reduce continuous logic to rational Pavelka logic. We also define notions of computability and decidability of a model for logics with computable, but uncountable, set of truth values; we show that provability degree of a formula with respect to a linear theory is computable, and use this to (...) carry out an effective Henkin construction. Therefore, for any effectively given consistent linear theory in continuous logic, we effectively produce its decidable model. This is the best possible, since we show that the computable model theory of continuous logic is an extension of computable model theory of classical logic. We conclude with noting that the unique separable model of a separably categorical and computably axiomatizable theory is decidable. (shrink)

This research aims to examine the specific risk of companies and their effectiveness in various stages of the company life cycle on state and nonstate ownership. For this purpose, the specific risk was estimated using Fama and French three-factor models, and the research objective was examined by considering the data panel model during the period 2015 to 2020 in a statistical sample consisting of 136 companies active in the Tehran Stock Exchange. For this purpose, the main contribution of research is (...) evaluation of the effect of specific risk in different stages of the life cycle of companies admitted to the Tehran Stock Exchange. Therefore, the main valuable advantage to helping stock managers is assessing the impact of government ownership and nongovernment ownership on the specific risk of companies at different stages of the life cycle. Also, presenting a model to show the effects of dependent and independent variables in order to evaluate the impact of government and nongovernment ownership. The research results confirmed that the specific risk of the company in the stages of introduction, growth, and decline is higher compared to the stages of maturity and stagnation of the life cycle of companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. Because the coefficients of virtual variables related to the life cycle stages of the company are estimated to be significant. Also, the finding confirmed that government ownership significantly affects the relationship between firm risk and life cycle stages in companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange. Because, the coefficient of variable state ownership is negative and significant, indicating a lower specific risk in state-owned companies than in nonstate-owned companies. (shrink)

Key Islamic Political Thinkers offers an examination of some of the leading intellectuals behind the resurgence of political Islam. The essays in this volume cover a selection of thinkers that is representative of the main strands of contemporary Muslim political thought.

This article reports the macro-organizational structure of research articles in mathematics, based on an analysis of 30 published pure and applied mathematics articles. Math RAs eschew the Introduction-Methods-Results-Discussion structure for an Introduction-Results model that enables researchers to present new knowledge as clearly and succinctly as possible. Notable omissions from the mathematics RA structure are Method and Discussion sections, which mathematicians do not need because of the well-established methodology used in the field and the relative absence of extended discussion required to (...) interpret research findings. We contextualize the macrostructure of RAs in mathematics within the discourse conventions and disciplinary assumptions about knowledge in the field to suggest the value of such a strategy to teachers and students of academic writing. (shrink)