We present an experimental test of the validity of the Pauli Exclusion Principle for electrons based on the concept put forward a few years ago by Ramberg and Snow. In this experiment we perform a very accurate search of X-rays from the Pauli-forbidden atomic transitions of electrons in the already filled 1S shells of copper atoms. Although the experiment has a simple structure, it poses deep conceptual and interpretational problems. Here we describe the experimental method and recent experimental results, which (...) we interpret as an upper limit for the probability to violate the Pauli Exclusion Principle. We present also future plans to upgrade the experimental apparatus using Silicon Drift Detectors. (shrink)

In this paper we describe an experimental test of the validity of the Pauli Exclusion Principle (for electrons) which is based on a straightforward idea put forward a few years ago by Ramberg and Snow (Phys. Lett. B 238:438, 1990). We perform a very accurate search of X-rays from the Pauli-forbidden atomic transitions of electrons in the already filled 1S shells of copper atoms. Although the experiment has a very simple structure, it poses deep conceptual and interpretational problems. Here we (...) describe the experimental method and recent experimental results, which we interpret in the framework of quon theory. We also present future plans to upgrade the experimental apparatus using Silicon Drift Detectors. (shrink)

We present the idea of searching for X-rays as a signature of the mechanism inducing the spontaneous collapse of the wave function. Such a signal is predicted by the continuous spontaneous localization theories, which are solving the “measurement problem” by modifying the Schrödinger equation. We will show some encouraging preliminary results and discuss future plans and strategy.

The LNCS series reports state-of-the-art results in computer science research, development, and education, at a high level and in both printed and electronic form.

A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament, being Grimm's Wilke's Clavis Novi Testamenti. Translated, Revised and Enlarged by Joseph Henry Thayer, D.D., Bussey Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation in the Divinity School of Harvard University. Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark. 1886. 4to. pp. 726. 36s.Biblico Theological Lexicon to New Testament Greek. by Hermann Cremer, D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Greifswald. Third English Edition. With Supplement. Translated from the latest German Edition by William Uewick, M.A. (...) Edinburgh, T. and T. Clark. 1886. 4to. pp. 943. 38s. (shrink)

This essay argues that normative judgments, in general, and moral judgments, in particular, are "truth apt" and can be objects of belief. Other main claims are: judgments about reasons, if interpreted as true, do not have metaphysical implications that are incompatible with a scientific view of the world. Two kinds of normative claims should be distinguished: substantive claims about what reasons people have and structural claims about what attitudes people must have insofar as they are rational. Employing this distinction, the (...) practical significance of substantive normative judgments is explained, and critical analysis of expressivist and Kantian views on this question is offered. (shrink)

Abstract I argue that the two primary motivations in the literature for positing seemings as sui generis mental states are insufficient to motivate this view. Because of this, epistemological views which attempt to put seemings to work don’t go far enough. It would be better to do the same work by appealing to what makes seeming talk true rather than simply appealing to seeming talk. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-12 DOI 10.1007/s11406-012-9363-8 Authors T. Ryan Byerly, Department of Philosophy, Baylor (...) University, Waco, TX, USA Journal Philosophia Online ISSN 1574-9274 Print ISSN 0048-3893. (shrink)

Sanskrit text with Hindi verse translation of Aṣṭāvakragītā, work on Vedanta philosophy.

T. A. Cavanaugh defends double-effect reasoning (DER), also known as the principle of double effect. DER plays a role in anti-consequentialist ethics (such as deontology), in hard cases in which one cannot realize a good without also causing a foreseen, but not intended, bad effect (for example, killing non-combatants when bombing a military target). This study is the first book-length account of the history and issues surrounding this controversial approach to hard cases. It will be indispensable in theoretical ethics, applied (...) ethics (especially medical and military), and moral theology. It will also interest legal and public policy scholars. (shrink)

Discourses on the Bhagavadgītā, Bhakti, and Hindu ethics.

In this new explanationist account of epistemic justification, Poston argues that the explanatory virtues provide all the materials necessary for a plausible account of justified belief. There are no purely autonomous reasons. Rather reasons occur only within an explanatory coherent set of beliefs.

Cosmological arguments for the existence of God face a gap problem. This is the problem of convincingly arguing that their intermediate conclusions that some first cause or necessary being exists provide evidence for their main conclusion that God exists. This paper develops a simple and innovative approach to solving this problem, applicable to many cosmological arguments. According to the proposal, the best explanation for why the necessary being is found to have necessary existence is that it is a perfect being. (...) Since a perfect being would be God, the intermediate conclusions of the relevant cosmological arguments provide abductive evidence for their main conclusions. (shrink)

This book is concerned with the alleged capacity of the human mind to arrive at beliefs and knowledge about the world on the basis of pure reason without any dependence on sensory experience. Most recent philosophers reject the view and argue that all substantive knowledge must be sensory in origin. Laurence BonJour provocatively reopens the debate by presenting the most comprehensive exposition and defence of the rationalist view that a priori insight is a genuine basis for knowledge. This important book (...) will be at the centre of debate about the theory of knowledge for many years to come. (shrink)

This major addition to Ideas in Context examines the development of natural law theories in the early stages of the Enlightenment in Germany and France. T. J. Hochstrasser investigates the influence exercised by theories of natural law from Grotius to Kant, with a comparative analysis of the important intellectual innovations in ethics and political philosophy of the time. Hochstrasser includes the writings of Samuel Pufendorf and his followers who evolved a natural law theory based on human sociability and reason, fostering (...) a new methodology in German philosophy. This book assesses the first histories of political thought since ancient times, giving insights into the nature and influence of debate within eighteenth-century natural jurisprudence. Ambitious in range and conceptually sophisticated, Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment will be of great interest to scholars in history, political thought, law and philosophy. Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment has been selected as the winner of the annual Morris D. Forkosch Prize for the best book in intellectual history published in 2000. (shrink)

The world appears to conscious creatures in terms of experienced sensory qualities, but science doesn't find sensory experience in that world, only physical objects and properties. I argue that the failure to locate consciousness in the world is a function of our necessarily representational relation to reality as knowers: we won't discover the terms in which reality is represented by us in the world as it appears in those terms. Qualia -- arguably a type of representational content -- will therefore (...) not be found in the physical world as characterized in experience or science. Instead, consciousness constitutes a subjective, representational reality for cognitive systems such as ourselves, and the physical world is a represented objective reality. I suggest that naturalistic approaches to explaining consciousness should acknowledge the non-objectivity of experience, and be constrained by evidence that consciousness accompanies certain sorts of behaviour-controlling representational functions carried out by complex, physically instantiated mind-systems. I evaluate a variety of current hypotheses about consciousness, and suggest that a mature science of representation may help explain why, perhaps as matter of representational necessity, experience arises as a natural but not objectively discoverable phenomenon. (shrink)

This text is designed to help students construct and evaluate arguments.

Ghazzālī, 1058-1111; views on behaviorism ; religious aspects; Islam.