Brian Wormald provides a fundamental reappraisal of one of the most complex and innovative figures of the late-Elizabethan and Jacobean age. In the centuries since his death, Francis Bacon (1561-1626) has been perceived and studied as a promoter and prophet of the philosophy of science--natural science--but he saw himself also as a clarifier and promoter of what he called "policy" or the study and improvement of the structure and function of civil states. Mr. Wormald shows that Bacon was concerned equally (...) with the knowledge of the world of nature and with that of policy. The junction between the two enterprises was effected by his work in history; and in the end it was Bacon's conception and practice of history that provided the answer to his efforts to advance policy and natural philosophy. (shrink)

Placide Tempels’ Bantu Philosophy has largely been met with hostility from African philosophers. Whilst Tempels intended to show that the Bantu were not only capable of thinking, but also that they had a distinct and coherent philosophy of their own, his project seems to have achieved exactly the opposite. Temples’ project sought to expose the racism of thinkers such as Lucien Levy-Bruhl, thereby raising the African to the same status as the Westerner. However, his efforts have been rejected for a (...) number of reasons ranging from the view that it is a theory of magic, freely generalized to the Bantu, to the accusation that his project fails to speak on behalf of the oppressed Bantu and furthermore, that he is overly obsessed with finding the African difference at the cost of reason. In this paper, I seek to argue that a neglected critique of Tempels is one that has to do with the basis of his philosophical racialism. I seek to show that at the root of Bantu Philosophy is racialism grounded in the same assumptions as those made by Levy-Bruhl. I seek to argue that the categories that Tempels creates for Bantu thought do not simply seek to articulate a genuine difference from Western categories. The Bantu categories are coined as inferior, incoherent, inarticulate, illogical, and mystified. I argue that it is for reasons of philosophical racialism that Tempels urges his Western audience to overthrow their logical and articulable systems if they ever want to understand the Bantu system of thought. (shrink)

Influential cases have been provided that seem to suggest that one can fail to have knowledge because of the social environment. If not a distinct kind of social defeater, is there a uniquely social phenomenon that defeats knowledge? My aim in this paper is to explore these questions. I shall argue that despite initial appearances to the contrary, we have no reason to accept a special class of social defeater, nor any essentially social defeat phenomenon. We can explain putative cases (...) of social defeat with our existing epistemological apparatus. (shrink)

We interpret the concept of determinism for a classical system as the requirement that the solution to the Cauchy problem for the equations of motion governing this system be unique. This requirement is generally believed to hold for all autonomous classical systems. Our analysis of classical electrodynamics in a world with one temporal and one spatial dimension provides counterexamples of this belief. Given the initial conditions of a particular type, the Cauchy problem may have an infinite set of solutions. Therefore, (...) random behavior of closed classical systems is indeed possible. With this finding, we give a qualitative explanation of how classical strings can split. We propose a modified path integral formulation of classical mechanics to include indeterministic systems. (shrink)

Concepts of stability and symmetry in irreversible thermodynamics are developed through the analysis of system energy flows. The excess power function, derived from a local energy conservation equation, is shown to yield necessary and sufficient stability criteria for linear and nonlinear irreversible processes. In the absence of symmetry-destroying external forces, the linear range may be characterized by a set of phenomenological coefficient symmetries relating coupled forces and displacements, velocities, and accelerations, whereas rotational phenomena in nonlinear processes may be characterized by (...) skew-symmetric components of the phenomenological coefficients. A physical interpretation of the nature of the skew-symmetric parts is given and the variational principle of minimum dissipation of energy is related to a stability criterion. (shrink)

Human adults possess the extraordinary ability to produce mental imagery about a wide variety of non-occurrent events. We can, for example, simulate the perception of different places, different times, different possibilities, or others’ perspectives. Findings from cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and cognitive neuroscience suggest that all of these capacities rely on the same neuro-cognitive mechanism: episodic simulation. This ability produces mental imagery by constructively recombining elements of past experiences to simulate event representations. However, if episodic simulation indeed produces mental imagery, it (...) remains unclear how the non-imagistic aspects of its outputs become cognitively determined. In this article, I argue that there are (at least) four such non-imagistic ‘dimensions’ of episodic simulation: specificity, temporal orientation, subjectivity, and factuality. Further, I propose an account of the mechanisms which might be responsible for determining where a given output of episodic simulation falls within this dimensional space. According to this view, episodic simulation relies on propositional ‘scope-operators’ either deployed as inputs to the simulation process itself or produced by post-hoc monitoring processes operating over its outputs. This view has consequences for how we should view the operation, development, and evolution of episodic simulation. (shrink)

Causes for celibacy, divorces and successful marriage are discussed in the article. Absence of true love and inability to build and keep it are the main reasons for family disruption. Amorousness, immature love and various forms of false or flawed love substitute the true feeling. It is caused by increased women’s independence, loss of mutual understanding and trust (due to infidelity or jealousy), incompatibility of characters or values. Celibacy is often conditioned by physical disability, revaluation of freedom and independence, huge (...) requirements to partners, consumer attitude to life, infertility, alcohol and drug abuse, abnormalities in personality and sexuality. (shrink)

A new ecumenical confession of faithRecently theologians, church leaders and even churches from all over the world expressed the desirability of a new confession of faith, preferably an ecumenical confession. The Reformed Church in America proposed a new confession with their Song of Hope. They still maintain large parts of their 16th century reformed confessions but the following motives played a role in their desire for a new confession:• The necessity to correct the existing, 'old' confessions in the light of (...) modem scientific Bible-research, e g on the doctrine of predestination.• The need for additional confession-pronouncements on modern-day issues and experiences, unknown to the church in the 16th century.• The desirability of a new form to communicate with modem man.• The sensitivity of the churches of today towards church-unity and the trends living in the oikouménè, e g their social awareness.We then proceed to treat the motives why a reformed Church überhaupt needs and forms a confession. In the light of these motives the question arises whether our Church really needs a new confession today; is the exposition of the existing confessions in theology, catechesis, preaching and modem church-hymns not enough to translate and communicate the existing confessions to modem man and to address modern-day issues? (shrink)

This paper is a slightly expanded and altered version of comments delivered in response to a paper by Andrew Dilts at the 35th Annual Spindel Conference in Memphis, TN. I focus on the elision of the state in Dilts' paper in order to demonstrate the need for a genealogy that takes seriously the role of sovereignty in constructing the present of trans femmes and trans women of color.