Tracking theories of knowledge are widely known to have the consequence that knowledge is not closed. Recent arguments by Vogel and Hawthorne claim both that there are no legitimate examples of knowledge without closure and that the costs of theories that deny closure are too great. This paper considers the tracking theories of Dretske and Nozick and the arguments by Vogel and Hawthorne. We reject the arguments of Vogel and Hawthorne and evaluate the costs of closure denial for tracking theories (...) of knowledge. (shrink)

Shows how modern physics supports basic claims of process philosophy.

At Pliny, Ep. 5. 18 we read that Macer, the recipient of that letter, has a villa which Pliny says must be lovely, because in qua [sc. villa] se composuerat homo felicior, antequam felicissimus fieret. The identity of this homo felicior is undoubtedly of some interest, but the latest commentary on Pliny's Letters has nothing to say on the matter. However, B. Radice in her two translations of the Letters says that the person in question is Nerva, but adds as (...) a second possibility ‘the dictator Sulla’. In this ambivalence she is at one with many of the older commentators on the Letters. Alone among the commentators examined by us, M. Gesner elects to give preference to Sulla over Nerva. We believe Sulla is certainly the owner in question, but since the ambiguity persists in the scholarly tradition, a fresh look should be taken at the problem and the case against Nerva and for Sulla be put more fully than hitherto. In using the phrase homo felicior, antequam felicissimus fieret without actually naming the person, it is clear that Pliny takes it for granted that the individual in question will be immediately recognizable to Macer, the recipient of the letter, by this description. It follows, therefore, that the phrase had become well established as a commonplace, inevitably and unambiguously linked to one person only. All of our evidence suggests that it cannot be applied to Nerva. First of all it is likely that such a phrase would need time to become accepted into the tradition so as to become readily identifiable, whereas Pliny was writing only a relatively short time after Nerva's reign. (shrink)

This is a new release of the original 1946 edition.

The double membrane of the nuclear envelope is a formidable barrier separating the nucleus and cytoplasm of eukaryotic cells. However, movement of specific macromolecules across the nuclear envelope is critical for embryonic development, cell growth and differentiation. Transfer of molecules between the nucleus and cytoplasm occurs through the aqueous channel formed by the nuclear pore complex (NPC)Abbreviations: NPC, nuclear pore complex; GlcNac, N‐acetylglucosamine; WGA, wheat germ agglutinin. Although small molecules may simply diffuse across the NPC, transport of large proteins and (...) RNA requires specific transport signals and is energy dependent. A family of pore glycoproteins modified by O‐linked N‐acetylglucosamine moieties are essential for transport through the NPC. Recent evidence suggests that the regulation of nuclear transport may also involve the inteaction of RNA and nuclear proteins with specific binding proteins that recognize these transport signals. Are these nuclear pore glycoproteins and signal binding proteins the ‘gatekeepers’ that control access to the genetic material? Recent evidence obtained from a combination of biochemical and genetic approaches suggests – perhaps. (shrink)

This essay defines and critiques ‘methodocentrism’, the belief that predetermined research methods are the determining factor in the validity and importance of educational research. By examining research in science studies and posthumanism, the authors explain how this methodocentrism disenables research from taking account of problems and non-human actants that are presumed to be of no importance or value in existing social science research methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative. Building from a critique of these methods as profoundly anthropocentric, the authors examine (...) three crucial problematics in which methodocentrism functions in educational research: the institutionalization of graduate training, a wide-spread privileging of the visual, and the seeming necessity of ‘data’ in social scientific research methodologies. Ultimately, this article does not reject the necessity of particular studies having methods—rigorous, philosophically grounded approaches to problems in the world—but it argues that the belief that methods must be selected from existing options and assembled before approaching the ‘objects’ of study is not only a form of bad science, it is also deeply implicated in anthropocentric and colonialist politics. Instead, what research requires today is a thorough rethinking of the very distinction between subject and object and a renewed questioning of how agency functions in specific research settings. (shrink)

The Reichenbach-Grunbaum thesis of the conventionality of simultaneity is clarified and defended by developing the consequences of the Special Theory when assumptions are not made concerning the one-way speed of light. It is first shown that the conventionality of simultaneity leads immediately to the conventionality of all relative speeds. From this result, the general-length-contraction and time-dilation relations are then derived. Next, the place of time-dilation and length-contraction effects within the Special Theory is examined in the light of the conventionality thesis. (...) The slow-transport method of synchrony is then examined in the light of these results and is shown not to provide an adequate method of uniquely determining the one-way speed of light. Finally, the general ε -Lorentz transformations for events along the x-axis are derived from three principles: the round-trip light principle, the principle of equal passage times, and the linearity principle. These principles are shown to be independent of one-way velocity assumptions, and thus may form the basis of a Special Theory of Relativity without distant simultaneity assumptions. (shrink)

In Democratic Reason, Hne Landemore has built a case for the epistemic virtues of inclusive deliberative democracy based on the cognitive diversity of the group engaged in making collective decisions. She supports her thesis by appealing to the Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem of Lu Hong and Scott Page. This theorem is quite technical and the informal statements of it aimed at democratic theorists are inaccurate, which has resulted in some misguided critiques of the theorem's applicability to democratic politics. This paper (...) provides an exposition of the Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem that does not sacrifice precision for accessibility. It also shows that it is not possible to satisfy the assumptions of this theorem when there are only two options. Thus, the Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem cannot provide support for the epistemic virtues of inclusive democratic deliberation for binary collective decisions. (shrink)

The Reichenbach-Grunbaum thesis of the conventionality of simultaneity is clarified and defended by developing the consequences of the Special Theory when assumptions are not made concerning the one-way speed of light. It is first shown that the conventionality of simultaneity leads immediately to the conventionality of all relative speeds. From this result, the general-length-contraction and time-dilation relations are then derived. Next, the place of time-dilation and length-contraction effects within the Special Theory is examined in the light of the conventionality thesis. (...) The slow-transport method of synchrony is then examined in the light of these results and is shown not to provide an adequate method of uniquely determining the one-way speed of light. Finally, the general ε -Lorentz transformations for events along the x-axis are derived from three principles: the round-trip light principle, the principle of equal passage times, and the linearity principle. These principles are shown to be independent of one-way velocity assumptions, and thus may form the basis of a Special Theory of Relativity without simultaneity assumptions. (shrink)