The volume collects classics of Marxist historiography of science, including a new translation of Boris Hessen's “The Social and Economic Roots of Newton's ...

This paper seeks to develop a philosophical framework for what I argue are the Nietzschean and Kantian aspects of professional boxing matches: narrative dissimulation and moral obligation. The over...

This article examines the interpretive dimensions of human action. Although it takes the reflexive sociology of Pierre Bourdieu as its starting point, the article attempts to develop a more robust hermeneutical account of the reflexivity of social actors and those who study them than Bourdieu himself has considered. It is argued that interpretation is best understood not as the homologous expression of inculcated structures but rather as context-sensitive and reflexively context-transforming action—or what the author wishes to characterize, respectively, as first- (...) and second-order thematizations of embeddedness. The article concludes by contrasting the author's position with the thick description of Clifford Geertz. (shrink)

In this response to Paul Gaffney’s “The Nature and Meaning of Teamwork,” I draw on recent work in analytic social philosophy to provide a more robust vocabulary for understanding teamwork as a distinctly social fact. I argue that teamwork entails complex reflexive social cooperation aimed at achieving shared excellence within constraints of various kinds.

Our article is an overview of a selection of findings in physics relating to the issue of time—we do not present in it any “time theory” of our own. After making some general remarks on the issue of time, we present historical outline and a brief description of the current state of time interval measurements. Subsequently, we go on to discuss certain consequences of both theories of relativity: special and general. Here, time is a geometrical component of space-time continuum. Following (...) section is dedicated to time in the so-called Hamiltonian formulations of the theory of particles, where it appears as a parameter of evolution. The last section contains remarks referring to certain attempts of going beyond the recognized physical theories relating to the question of time. (shrink)

This article explores the work of the contemporary sociologist and urban photographer, Camilo Vergara. The piece draws on early work in critical theory to characterize Vergara's work as `rescuing critique'. Specifically, the article maintains that it is only in the theoretical vocabulary of Walter Benjamin that the methodological uniqueness, historical sensitivity and critical thrust of Vergara's project can be adequately understood. Indeed, it is argued that what is truly distinct about Vergara's work is the decidedly Benjaminian way in which, in (...) the ruinous present of neoliberal `progress', it fuses the aesthetic power of images with an anamnestic obligation to the urban past. In such a fusion, Vergara's photo-ethnographies of America's new ghettos raise critical questions about what has – and might yet – become of such places, and those who inhabit them. (shrink)

Historically, Ehrenfest’s theorem is the first one which shows that classical physics can emerge from quantum physics as a kind of approximation. We recall the theorem in its original form, and we highlight its generalizations to the relativistic Dirac particle and to a particle with spin and izospin. We argue that apparent classicality of the macroscopic world can probably be explained within the framework of standard quantum mechanics.

We give some information about new proofs of the incompleteness theorems, found in 1990s. Some of them do not require the diagonal lemma as a method of construction of an independent statement.

Let M be a countable recursively saturated model of Th(), and let GAut(M), considered as a topological group. We examine connections between initial segments of M and subgroups of G. In particular, for each of the following classes of subgroups HG, we give characterizations of the class of terms of the topological group structure of H as a subgroup of G. (a) for some (b) for some (c) for some (d) for some (Here, M(a) denotes the smallest M containing a, (...) , , and .). (shrink)

We give new proofs of both incompleteness theorems. We do not use the diagonalization lemma, but work with some quickly growing functions instead.

If $M \models PA (= Peano Arithmetic)$ , we set $A^M = \{N \subset_e M: N \models PA\}$ and study this family.

We give a survey of automorphisms of countable recursively saturated models of Peano Arithmetic.

We transform the proof of the second incompleteness theorem given in [3] to a proof-theoretic version, avoiding the use of the arithmetized completeness theorem. We give also new proofs of old results: The Arithmetical Hierarchy Theorem and Tarski's Theorem on undefinability of truth; the proofs in which the construction of a sentence by means of diagonalization lemma is not needed.

In this essay I offer a philosophical-political reconstruction of Theodor Adorno's engagements with jazz. Rather than consider whether or not Adorno got jazz 'right', I give an account of how and why Adorno develops the criticisms that he does. I argue that in Adorno's analysis of jazz three interpenetrating claims emerge: (1) a rejection of jazz's sense of improvisation and spontaneity; (2) a demonstration of jazz's entwinement with the modern technologiza tion of everyday life; and (3) a critique of jazz's (...) pseudo-individualiz ing tendencies. I conclude with a brief consideration of the place and critical possibilities of music in Adorno's critique of modernity. Key Words: capitalism • democracy • modernity • pseudo individualization • rescuing critique. (shrink)

This article is an analysis of Anthony Giddens' attempt to articulate a globalization-friendly alternative to traditional social democracy and neo-liberal market fundamentalism. Specifically, I focus on Giddens' insistence that globalization is not merely an economic phenomenon but also, and more profoundly, a political and cultural force of `time-space distanciation'. Whereas Giddens conceives of a direct causal connection between the disembedding forces of globalization and outcomes of democratization, I argue that such a conception is deeply flawed. Indeed, rather than develop a (...) politically useful explanatory social theory of the complex relationship between globalization and democracy, Giddens' `third way' theorizing merely hypostatizes the former by invoking it as a cause of the latter. I provide a series of arguments designed to highlight the weaknesses of Giddens' position, and conclude by questioning the general thesis that underlies Giddens' account of globalization. (shrink)

Through an interdisciplinary approach, I attempt to construct a partial ethno-agronomy of the Seneca people in late pre-contact times and examine it for relevance to modern agriculture.Diohe'ko, the Three Sisters, had been cultivated for at least five hundred years prior to contact by the Seneca, an Iroquoian tribe inhabiting western New York State. The Three Sisters, corn, beans and squash (pumpkins, gourds), were planted together in hills in fields, cultivated and harvested by work parties of women.Changes of village sites and (...) patterns of village movement respond to the adoption of agriculture as well as other factors. Evaluating land use, crop yields and carrying capacity, I question the accuracy of Seneca population estimates.The Three Sisters was an important cultural complex. The Sisters are protagonists of a number of Seneca tales, myths, ceremonies and legends.As an agricultural strategy, Three Sisters embodies several efficiencies in growth patterns, nutrient, solar and water use, harvest and nutritional use. Microhabitat manipulation was practiced by the Seneca. The plants exhibit a high degree of cooperation, or commensality, in the association.Some preliminary judgments can be made about specific varieties of the Sisters in use among the Seneca prior to contact. Northern Flint Corn, Cutshort or Cornhill Beans, and Cucurbita pepo such as Crookneck Squashes are likely the eldest varieties in the area.Three Sisters agriculture demonstrates qualities of permanence and sustainability, especially as related to the Seneca cultural fabric. A conservative ethic, like Handsome Lake's teaching, it binds together people in culture and people and nurture in nature. Mary Jemison, who farmed both the colonial and Three Sisters ways, seems to have favored the latter's “leisurely” approach. (shrink)

Fenomen szczęścia stanowi problem dla etyki z dwóch powodów. Po pierwsze, utrudnia sformułowanie jednorodnych sądów moralnych dla dwóch lub więcej działań, które wydają się do siebie podobne w każdym moralnie istotnym aspekcie, z wyjątkiem niektórych udanych lub niefortunnych zdarzeń, które mają miejsce w jednym przypadku, a w drugim nie. Wystąpienie tych zdarzeń nie było pod kontrolą żadnego z agentów, ale dla zewnętrznych obserwatorów wydaje się być podstawą bardziej rygorystycznego lub bardziej tolerancyjnego osądu moralnego w jednym przypadku, a w drugim nie. (...) Po drugie, szczęście może wpłynąć na nasze poczucie sensu życia poprzez sukces lub porażkę naszych ważnych egzystencjalnie projektów życiowych. Fakt ten sugeruje konieczność moralnie dopuszczalnych warunków polegających na szczęściu w formułowaniu i realizacji własnego projektu życiowego. W niniejszym artykule przedstawiam możliwości zastosowania głównych poglądów na szczęście do rozwiązania powyższych problemów. (shrink)

This article develops a sociological reading of Walter Benjamin’s ‘Arcades Project’, or Passagen-werk . Specifically, the essay seeks to make explicit Benjamin’s non-dualistic account of structure and agency in the urban milieu. I characterize this account as the ‘dialectic of urbanism’, and argue that one of the central insights of Benjamin’s Passagen-werk is that it locates an emergent and innovative cultural form - a distinctive ‘street culture’ or jointly shared way of modern urban life - within haussmannizing techniques of architectural (...) administration and spatial domination. In the modern metropolis, Benjamin sees a new kind of collective - an embedded and effervescent sociocultural group held together not by the functionalist imperatives of capitalist urban planning but by an improvisational mode of street life. Key Words: agency • culture • embeddedness • structure • urbanism. (shrink)