Dogmatic Metaphysics and Tschirnhaus's M ethodology MARTIN SCHONFELD ACCORDING TO STANDARD COMMENTARIES, Tschirnhaus's main work, Medicina mentis, ~ supposedly furnished the methodological basis for the Leibnizian-Wolffian metaphysics. ~ Christian Wolff and his disciples, at any rate, preferred to think so. Wolff taught classes on Tschirnhaus and claimed that he had developed his own tenets on the basis of Tschirnhaus's ideas; Johann Christoph Gottsched praised the Medicina mentis as the basic methodology of the Wolffian enlightenment.3 Mirroring these views, W. Wundt and (...) H. J. de Vleeschauwer saw in Tschirnhaus the inventor of the "geometric method" adopted by the School Philosophers.4 According to M. ' Medicina Mentis, sive Tentamen genuinae Logicae, in qua disseritur de Methodo detegendi incoKaitas veritates, Amsterdam, 1687. Second and revised edition, Medicina Mentis, sive Artis inveniendi Praecepta generalia, Leipzig, 1695. ~For example, cf. Wilhelm Windelband, Geschichte der Philosophie, 3~o-33 and 356; Friedrich Ueberweg, Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, III: ~95-97, 3 x~ 34o-43; A. Robert Caponigri, A History of Western Philosophy (Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame.. (shrink)

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird ein Begriffsrahmen entwickelt, in dem sich Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen drei Arten von Kulturprodukten klar aufzeigen lassen: Dichtung, Mythos und Wissenschaft. Die allen drei Phänomenen gemeinsame Struktur erfassen wir in §II und §III mit dem Begriff eines Repräsentationssystems, welcher in Anlehnung an die formale Modelltheorie semiotische Vorstellungen mit einem Denken in Systemen zusammenbringt. Die relevanten Unterschiede werden durch Differenzierung (§IV) jenes Begriffs festgemacht, d.h. die drei Phänomene werden durch jeweils spezielle Arten von Repräsentationssystemen erfaßt (§V). (...) Unser spezielles Augenmerk gilt dabei dem Mythos (§I), der sich in letzter Zeit eines wachsenden Interesses -- oft außerhalb des etablierten Wissenschaftsbetriebs -- erfreut. Es zeigt sich, daß der Mythos eine Mittelstellung zwischen Dichtung und Wissenschaft einnimmt: als "Bindeglied" vermittelt er sowohl zwischen der rein begrifflichen Struktur der Phänomene "Dichtung" und "Wissenschaft" als auch zwischen deren Unterschieden in Methode und Wahrheitsanspruch (die in engem Zusammenhang mit der begrifflichen Struktur stehen). Der hier entwickelte begriffliche Rahmen soll in weiteren Untersuchungen als Grundlage zur Herausarbeitung von Unterschieden in der Methode und im Wahrheitsanspruch dienen, die sich aus unserem Ansatz in natürlicher Weise ergeben. Diese müssen jedoch aus Platzgründen einer weiteren Arbeit vorbehalten bleiben. (shrink)

Rationale, aims and objectives This randomized controlled trial was designed to evaluate the 2-year costs and effects of a proactive, public health nursing case management approach compared with a self-directed approach for 129 single parents (98% were mothers) on social assistance in a Canadian setting. A total of 43% of these parents had a major depressive disorder and 38% had two or three other health conditions at baseline. Methods Study participants were recruited over a 12 month period and randomized into (...) two groups: one receiving proactive public health nursing and one which did not. Results At 2 years, 69 single parents with 123 children receiving proactive public health nursing (compared with 60 parents with 91 children who did not receive public health nursing services) showed a slightly greater reduction in dysthymia and slightly higher social adjustment. There was no difference between the public health and control groups in total per parent annual cost of health and support services. However, costs were averted due to a 12% difference in non-use of social assistance in the previous 12 months for parents in the public health nursing group. This translates into an annual cost saving of $240 000 (Canadian) of costs averted within 1 year for every 100 parents. Conclusions In the context of a system of national health and social insurance, this study supports the fact that it is no more costly to proactively service this population of parents on social assistance. (shrink)

Trees architectural study shows gradients in the meristematic activity. This activity is described by the number of internodes per growth unit, which is considered as the output of a dynamic random process. Several species were observed, which led us to propose and then estimate some mathematical models. Computing the functioning of a tree in a given environment therefore involves finding the probability function of the meristems and following the evolution of the parameters of this law along the botanical gradients (order, (...) trend, acrotony) within its architecture. (shrink)

Le propos de cette étude est d’explorer l’interface entre religion traditionnelle africaine et christianisme à l’aide d’une catégorie particulière de sources: les témoignages oraux d’un groupe de femmes chrétiennes de Sobantu, un township sud-africain. Peut-on adhérer à la religion chrétienne sans trahir son identité africaine? Souvent, mais pas toujours, en référence à la position de leur Église respective, chacune de ces femmes se forme une opinion sur cette question difficile.

A new formulation of the cusp catastrophe is used to model the fundamental biological functions of predation and reproduction. This new representation lies on the decomposition of the overall cusp potential in two component potentials individualising the conflicting pregnances. It results in a more accurate and less problematic description than the original proposition by R. Thom, mostly due to the use of parameters with strong physical and evocative power. For instance, it gives a very suggestive account for such biologically significant (...) processes as digestion and assimilation, or pregnancy and delivery. Two couples of parameters are used in the new representation of the cusp: one defines the exact shape of the conflicting attractors which symbolises genetic coding, the other controls the deformation of -and interaction between- the two attractors and represent hormonal effects. This new description strikingly echoes Heidegger's philosophical thought on ontological difference, by giving a representation of the distinct concepts of entity and Being. It thus precludes a previous criticism concerning the impossibility for catastrophic models to depict the entity level. Such a type of representation might be useful in translating syntactical-semantic models of catastrophe theory into computer language. (shrink)

We investigate two formalizations of Optimality Theory, a successful paradigm in linguistics.We first give an order-theoretic counterpart for the data and processinvolved in candidate evaluation.Basically, we represent each constraint as a function that assigns every candidate a degree of violation.As for the second formalization, we define (after Samek-Lodovici and Prince) constraints as operations that select the best candidates out of a set of candidates.We prove that these two formalizations are equivalent (accordingly, there is no loss of generality with using violation (...) marks and dispensing with them is only apparent).Importantly, we show that the second formalization is equivalent with a class of operations over sets of formulas in a given logical language.As a result, we prove that Optimality Theory can be characterized by certain cumulative logics.So, applying Optimality Theory is shown to be reasoning by the rules of cumulative logics. (shrink)

Standard quantum theory is inadequate to explain the mechanisms by which potential becomes actual. It is inadequate and therefore unable to describe generation of events. Niels Bohr emphasized long ago that the classical part of the world is necessary. John Bell stressed the same point: that “measurement≓ cannot even be defined within the standard quantum theory, and he sought a solution within hidden variable theories and his concept of “beables.≓Today it is customary to try to explain emergence of the classical (...) world through a decoherence mechanism due to “environment.≓ But, we believe, as it was with the concept of measurement, “environment≓ itself cannot be defined within the standard quantum theory.We have proposed a semiphenomenological solution to this problem by introducing explicitly, from the very beginning, classical degrees of freedom, and by coupling these degrees of freedom, through a Lindblad type coupling, to the quantum world. The resulting theory, we call “event-enhanced quantum theory.≓ EEQT allows us to describe an event-generating mechanism for individual quantum systems under continuous observation. The objections of John Bell are met and precise definitions of an “experiment≓ and of a “measurement≓ have been given within EEQT. However EEQT is, essentially, a nonrelativistic theory.In the present paper we extend the ideas of L. P. Horwitz and C. Piron and we propose a relativistic version of EEQT, with an event-generating algorithm for spin one-half particle detectors. The algorithm is based on proper time formulation of the relalivistic quantum theory. Although we use indefinite metric, all the probabilities controlling the random process of the detector clicks are nonnegative. (shrink)