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 ...

Social networks play a significant role in learning and thus in farmers’ adoption of new agricultural technologies. This study examined the effects of social network factors on information acquisition and adoption of new seed varieties among groundnut farmers in Uganda and Kenya. The data were generated through face-to-face interviews from a random sample of 461 farmers, 232 in Uganda and 229 in Kenya. To assess these effects two alternative econometric models were used: a seemingly unrelated bivariate probit model and a (...) recursive bivariate probit model. The statistical evaluation of the SUBP shows that information acquisition and adoption decisions are interrelated while tests for the RBP do not support this latter model. Therefore, the analysis is based on the results obtained from the SUBP. These results reveal that social network factors, particularly weak ties with external support, partially influence information acquisition, but do not influence adoption. In Uganda, external support, gender, farm size, and geographic location have an impact on information acquisition. In Kenya, external support and geographic location also have an impact on information acquisition. With regard to adoption, gender, household size, and geographic location play the most important roles for Ugandan farmers, while in Kenya information from external sources, education, and farm size affect adoption choice. The study provides insight on the importance of external weak ties in groundnut farming, and a need to understand regional differences along gender lines while developing agricultural strategies. This study further illustrates the importance of farmer participation in applied technology research and the impact of social interactions among farmers and external agents. (shrink)

Boris Kment takes a new approach to the study of modality that emphasises the origin of modal notions in everyday thought. He argues that the concepts of necessity and possibility originate in counterfactual reasoning, which allows us to investigate explanatory connections. Contrary to accepted views, explanation is more fundamental than modality.

The aim of Modality and Explanatory Reasoning (MER) is to shed light on metaphysical necessity and the broader class of modal properties to which it belongs. This topic is approached with two goals: to develop a new and reductive analysis of modality, and to understand the purpose and origin of modal thought. I argue that a proper understanding of modality requires us to reconceptualize its relationship to causation and other forms of explanation such as grounding, a relation that connects metaphysically (...) fundamental facts to non-fundamental ones. While many philosophers have tried to give modal analyses of causation and explanation, often in counterfactual terms, I argue that we obtain a more plausible, explanatorily powerful and unified theory if we regard explanation as more fundamental than modality. The function of modal thought is to facilitate a common type of thought experiment – counterfactual reasoning – that allows us to investigate explanatory connections and which is closely related to the controlled experiments of empirical science. Necessity is defined in terms of explanation, and modal facts often reflect underlying facts about explanatory relationships. The study of modal facts is important for philosophy not because these facts are of much metaphysical interest in their own right, but largely because they provide evidence about explanatory connections. (shrink)

In this paper, I make a contribution to a naturalistically-minded theory of truthmakers by proposing a solution to the nasty problem of truthmakers for negative truths. After formulating the difficulty, I consider and reject a number of solutions to the problem, including Armstrong's states of affairs of totality, incompatibility accounts, and JC Beall 's polarity view. I then defend the position that absences of truthmakers are real and are responsible for making negative truths true. According to the positive account of (...) absences I offer, absences of contingent states of affairs are causally relevant mind-independent features of the physical world, located within space and time, and capable of being discovered by scientific inquiry. Recognition of the reality of absences strengthens truthmaker theory as a naturalistic metaphysics, as truth and falsity of each and every contingent proposition finds an ontological grounding in some region of the physical universe. (shrink)

BackgroundThe UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the reformed guardianship law in Germany, require that persons with a disability, including people with dementia in Alzheimer’s disease (PwAD), are supported in making self-determined decisions. This support is achieved through communication. While content-related communication is a deficit of PwAD, relational aspects of communication are a resource. Research in supported decision-making (SDM) has investigated the effectiveness of different content-related support strategies for PwAD but has only succeeded in improving understanding, (...) which, although one criterion of capacity to consent, is not sufficient to ensure overall capacity to consent. The aim of the ‘spatial intervention study’ of the DECIDE project is to examine an innovative resource-oriented SDM approach that focuses on relational aspects. We hypothesise that talking to PwAD in their familiar home setting (as opposed to a clinical setting) will reduce the complexity of the decision-making process and enhance overall capacity to consent. MethodsPeople with a suspected or confirmed diagnosis of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease will be recruited from two memory clinics (N = 80). We will use a randomised crossover design to investigate the intervention effect of the decision-making place on capacity to consent. Besides reasoning capacity, which is part of overall capacity to consent and will be the primary outcome, various secondary outcomes (e.g., other aspects of capacity to consent, subjective task complexity, decisional conflict) and suspected moderating or mediating variables (e.g., meaning of home, demographic characteristics) will be assessed.DiscussionThe results of the study will be used to develop a new SDM strategy that is based on relational resources for PwAD. If a change in location achieves the anticipated improvement in capacity to consent, future research should focus on implementing this SDM strategy in a cost-effective manner in clinical practice.Trial registration: DRKS00030799. (shrink)

Starting from the idea that functions are formally similar to actions in that they are described and explained in a similar way, so that both admit of an accordion effect, I turn to Anscombe’s insight that the point of practical reasoning is to render explicit the relation between the different descriptions of an action generated by the accordion effect. The upshot is, roughly, that an item has a function if what it does can be accounted for by functional reasoning. Put (...) differently, a part of a system has a function if what it does is a functional part of what the system does. (shrink)

On the one hand, Aristotle claims that the matter of a material thing is not part of its form. On the other hand, he suggests that the proper account of a natural thing must include a specification of the kind of matter in which it is realized. There are three possible strategies for dealing with this apparent tension. First, there may be two kinds of definition, so that the definition of the form of a thing does not include any specification (...) of its matter, whereas the definition of a compound does. Second, the definition of a substance may not include a specification of its matter at all, but still reveal in what kinds of matter its form can be realized. Third, there may be a special kind of matter, functional matter, which belongs to the form of certain things. I will show that the functional matter of a thing does not belong to its form (in a strict sense of “form”), but that an adequate account of natural substances and their functions must nonetheless involve a reference to their functional matter. This means that the function of a natural thing is not the same as its form and that its adequate account as a natural thing is not a definition (in a strict sense of “form” and “definition”). (shrink)

There is a growing trend in European countries for childbearing to occur later in women’s lives. The recent increase in the use of ART, together with the long-term trend towards later childbearing, raises questions as to the acceptable age of childbearing in contemporary society. ART legislation varies considerably across Europe and age limits for access to fertility treatment are rarely defined. The legislation takes into account the preferences of potential parents; children’s preferences, however, are not ascertained. The article discusses a (...) research method used in a survey of older children and young adults. The objective of the survey was to answer the following questions: What age would children prefer their parents to be if they could choose? What are their reasons? Respondents were asked the following question: “How old would you like your mother and father to be when you are 20 (version for respondents younger than 16) or 25 (version for those older than 16) if you could wave a magic wand?” Furthermore, their reasons for wishing a change were identified through an open question, “Why would you like to change the age of your parents?”. (shrink)

In this paper, we reflect on the connection between the notions of organism and organisation, with a specific interest in how this bears upon the issue of the reality of the organism. We do this by presenting the case of Buffon, who developed complex views about the relation between the notions of “organised” and “organic” matter. We argue that, contrary to what some interpreters have suggested, these notions are not orthogonal in his thought. Also, we argue that Buffon has a (...) view in which organisation is not just ubiquitous, but basic and fundamental in nature, and hence also fully natural. We suggest that he can hold this view because of his anti-mathematicism. Buffon’s case is interesting, in our view, because he can regard organisation, and organisms, as perfectly natural, and can admit their reality without invoking problematic supernaturalist views, and because he allows organisation and the organismal to come in kinds and degrees. Thus, his view tries to do justice to two cautionary notes for the debate on the reality of the organism: the need for a commitment to a broadly naturalist perspective, and the need to acknowledge the interesting features of organisms through which we make sense of them. (shrink)

We continue the exploration of various aspects of divisibility of ultrafilters, adding one more relation to the picture: multiplicative finite embeddability. We show that it lies between divisibility relations \ and \. The set of its minimal elements proves to be very rich, and the \-hierarchy is used to get a better intuition of this richness. We find the place of the set of \-maximal ultrafilters among some known families of ultrafilters. Finally, we introduce new notions of largeness of subsets (...) of \, and compare it to other such notions, important for infinite combinatorics and topological dynamics. (shrink)

Although the brain enables us to perceive the external world and our body, it remains unknown whether brain processes themselves can be perceived. Brain tissue does not have receptors for its own activity. However, the ability of humans to acquire self-control of brain processes indicates that the perception of these processes may also be achieved by learning. In this study patients learned to control low-frequency components of their EEG: the so-called slow cortical potentials (SCPs). In particular ''probe'' sessions, the patients (...) estimated the quality of the SCP shift they had produced in the preceding trial. The correspondence between the recorded SCP amplitudes and the subjective estimates increased with training. The ability to perceive the SCPs was related to the ability to control them; this perception was not mediated by peripheral variables such as changes in muscle tonus and cannot be reduced to simple vigilance monitoring. These data provide evidence that humans can learn to perceive the neural activity of their brain. Alternative interpretations are discussed. (shrink)

Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary effort to understand the structures and functions of the brain and brain-mind relations. This effort results in an increasing amount of data, generated by sophisticated technologies. However, these data enhance our descriptive knowledge, rather than improve our understanding of brain functions. This is caused by methodological gaps both within and between subdisciplines constituting neuroscience, and the atomistic approach that limits the study of macro- and mesoscopic issues. Whole-brain measurement technologies do not resolve these issues, but rather (...) aggravate them by the complexity problem. The present article is devoted to methodological and epistemic problems that obstruct the development of human neuroscience. We neither discuss ontological questions nor review data, except when it is necessary to demonstrate a methodological issue. As regards intradisciplinary methodological problems, we concentrate on those within neurobiology and psychology. As regards interdisciplinary problems, we suggest that core disciplines of neuroscience can be integrated using systemic concepts that also entail human-environment relations. We emphasize the necessity of a meta-discussion that should entail a closer cooperation with philosophy as a discipline of systematic reflection. The atomistic reduction should be complemented by the explicit consideration of the embodiedness of the brain and the embeddedness of humans. The discussion is aimed at the development of an explicit methodology of integrative human neuroscience, which will not only link different fields and levels, but also help in understanding clinical phenomena. (shrink)

In Abelards Kommentar zum Römerbrief erscheint das Handeln contra conscientiam als eines gegen das eigene Urteil über andere. Abelard bezieht sich hier vor allem auf eine frühere Stelle im selben Brief, wo Paulus schreibt, jeder werde nach dem Gesetz gerichtet, das er sich selbst gibt (Rom 2,1). Was wir an Anderen verur- teilen, erläutert er, stehe dadurch auch unserer eigenen conscientia entgegen, und nur ein Handeln gegen die conscientia sei Sünde. Damit wird die goldene Regel, auf die Abelard ad Rom (...) 2,15 verweist, zu dem Gebot, nach der eigenen Überzeugung zu handeln. So, wie wir tun sollen, was wir von Anderen erwarten, müssen wir auch einfach nur tun, was wir von uns selbst erwarten. Der enge Zusammenhang zwischen goldener Regel und dem Gebot, nach der eigenen conscientia zu handeln, beruht auf einer Einsicht in die Natur von Regeln und Handlungsgründen: Eine Regel, ebenso wie ein Grund oder eine Rechtfertigung, gilt nie allein für eine konkrete Handlung, sondern immer für eine Klasse von Handlungen. Da jeder, der sein Handeln allgemeinen Regeln unterwirft, diese auch Anderen nahelegt, unterliegt das eigene Handeln umgekehrt, was seine Rechtfertigung angeht, deren Urteil, so weit sich nämlich die allgemeinen Regeln darin niederschlagen. (shrink)

We continue the research of an extension of the divisibility relation to the Stone‐Čech compactification. First we prove that ultrafilters we call prime actually possess the algebraic property of primality. Several questions concerning the connection between divisibilities in and nonstandard extensions of are answered, providing a few more equivalent conditions for divisibility in. Results on uncountable chains in are proved and used in a construction of a well‐ordered chain of maximal cardinality. Probably the most interesting result is the existence of (...) a chain of type in. Finally, we consider ultrafilters without divisors in and among them find the greatest class. (shrink)

Philosophy is traditionally understood as the search for universal truths, and philosophers are supposed to transmit those truths beyond the limits of their own culture. But, today, we have become skeptical about the ability of an individual philosopher to engage in "universal thinking," so philosophy seems to capitulate in the face of cultural relativism. In Introduction to Antiphilosophy, Boris Groys argues that modern "antiphilosophy" does not pursue the universality of thought as its goal but proposes in its place the (...) universality of life, material forces, social practices, passions, and experiences --angst, vitality, ecstasy, the gift, revolution, laughter or "profane illumination" --and he analyzes this shift from thought to life and action in the work of thinkers from Kierkegaard to Derrida, from Nietzsche to Benjamin. Ranging across the history of modern thought, Introduction to Antiphilosophy endeavors to liberate philosophy from the stereotypes that hinder its development. --Publisher. (shrink)

Though it has been nearly two decades since the fall of Communism in the former Soviet Union and the accompanying disintegration of the Soviet state, a strange aspect of the current cultural situation in Russia and in the other former republics of the USSR is that the people still identify themselves as post-Soviet. Yet, the difference between the Soviet past and a capitalist present is striking, which raises many questions: Why are the new elites referring to the old times to (...) legitimize themselves? Why do commercial advertisements stress that the products they offer are exactly the same as they used to be in Soviet times? And, why, year after year, does the government in Moscow organize impressive celebrations for Victory Day, inevitably drawing parallels to the old Soviet ceremonies? Back in the USSR by Boris Kagarlitsky tackles these questions and more as it reflects on what happened in Russia after the collapse of the old regime and how this has affected social and cultural life, as well as the everyday lives of ordinary people. In this arresting work, Kagarlitsky also delves into what type of intelligentsia still exists in the former USSR and the cultural products that are being produced by these artists, including novels, films, and music. (shrink)

Im 2009 erschienenen Buch "Philosophie des Leidens" versucht Boris Wandruszka, jene immanente Lebensstruktur und Lebensdynamik aufzudecken, die zu den einfachsten und fundamentalen Strukturmomenten des Leidens vorstosst; diese erste "Wissenschaft vom Leiden" transzendierte daher nicht die Grenzen der Anschaubarkeit, sondern verblieb in der "Immanenz des 'inneren Lebens' bzw. des Erlebens". Im aktuellen Buch "Metaphysik des Leidens" werden die "realen Bedingungen der Moglichkeit von Leiden" ermittelt: Wie muss eine Welt beschaffen sein, damit darin ein leidendes Wesen erscheinen konne? Welche Rolle hat (...) das Leiden in Bezug zum fundamentalen Widerfahrnis-, Resonanz- und Responsivitatscharakter des Lebens? Es wird gezeigt, dass menschliches Leben, das einer plural-agonalen Welt ausgesetzt ist, nicht leidfrei moglich ist, dass aber andererseits das Leid nicht das letzte Wort sein kann, sondern notwendig auf Ganzheit, Reifung, Erlosung und Harmonie bezogen ist. Nur auf dem Hintergrund der Spannung zwischen absoluter Seins-, Sinn- und Lebensfulle und der stets problematischen und fragilen Teilhabe von Menschen am "absoluten und leiduberwindenden Urleben" kann Leiden entstehen, durchlitten, verstanden, aber auch uberwunden werden. Hier erreicht der "Opfergedanke", in dem das unvermeidliche Leid frei angenommen und dadurch transformiert wird, seine reinste und hochste Ausformung. Erst nach Klarung dieser Verhaltnisse wird die "Theodizeefrage" als "das Problem der Probleme" angegangen und am Leitfaden der Hiob-Erzahlung diskutiert. Letztlich erweist sich, dass trotz allem Schmerz, Mangel, Unrecht und Unsinn ein "Potential des Unendlichen" im Leiden verborgen liegt, das auf seine Uberwindung durch Sein-, Sinn- und Werterfullung, durch Tat, Erkenntnis und Liebe verweist und dass diese drei "Machte" der Leidensherausforderung bedurfen, um ihre Weite, Tiefe und Hohe auszuloten. (shrink)

Antihaecceitists believe that all facts about specific individuals—such as the fact that Fred exists, or that Katie is tall—globally supervene on purely qualitative facts. Haecceitists deny that. The issue is not only of interest in itself, but receives additional importance from its intimate connection to the question of whether all fundamental facts are qualitative or whether they include facts about which specific individuals there are and how qualitative properties and relations are distributed over them. Those who think that all fundamental (...) facts are qualitative are arguably committed to antihaecceitism. The goal of this paper is to point out some problems for antihaecceitism (and therefore for the thesis that all fundamental facts are qualitative). The article focuses on two common assumptions about possible worlds: (i) Sets of possible worlds are the bearers of objective physical chance. (ii) Counterfactual conditionals can be defined by appeal to a relation of closeness between possible worlds. The essay tries to show that absurd consequences ensue if either of these assumptions is combined with antihaecceitism. Then it considers a natural response by the antihaecceitist, which is to deny that worlds play the role described in (i) and (ii). Instead, the reply continues, we can introduce a new set of entities that are defined in terms of worlds and that behave the way worlds do on the haecceitist position. That allows the antihaecceitist to formulate antihaecceitist friendly versions of (i) and (ii) by replacing the appeal to possible worlds with reference to the newly introduced entities. This maneuver invites an obvious reply, however. If the new entities are the things that play the role we typically associate with worlds, as partially described by (i) and (ii), then it is natural to conclude that they really are the entities we talk about when we speak of worlds, so that haecceitism is true after all. (shrink)

This paper explores the use of new scientific techniques to examine collections of historic scientific apparatus and other technological artefacts. One project under discussion uses interferometry to examine the history of lens development, while another uses X-ray fluorescence to discover the kinds of materials used to make early mathematical and astronomical instruments. These methods lead to surprising findings: instruments turn out to be fake, and lens makers turn out to have been adept at solving the riddle of aperture. Although exciting, (...) in some ways this is neither novel nor particularly unusual. After all, lab techniques have been used in art and archaeological collections for a very long time. In fact, scientific instruments themselves have been examined in this way since at least the 1950s. What, then, is special about the use of new instruments to examine old instruments? We argue that the answer has less to do with measuring historical innovation or establishing priority, and more to do with networks of craft know-how that, typically, have left no other historical traces than those embodied in surviving instruments themselves. We show, in particular, how collections of objects can be mobilised within wider histories of knowledge, placing instruments within a dynamic interplay of craft knowledge, expertise, labour, commerce, and material exchange, over the longue durée. Finally, we suggest that these kinds of lab analyses can be given an extra dimension through the use of computational modelling, and we introduce the “Tools of Knowledge” project, which is designed to bring together XRF with techniques from the digital humanities, in order to tell a new story about the development of scientific instruments from the 16th to the 20th century. (shrink)

La quatrième de couverture indique : "Ils souffrent comme nous. Comme nous aussi, ils jouissent du bien-être. Mieux que nous parfois, ils s'imposent par la ruse et l'intelligence. Comment continuer à les traiter comme des " choses " dont on se contenterait de condamner l'abus? Mais faut-il pour autant leur accorder des droits, et si oui lesquels? Et qui veillera à leur application? Pour répondre à ces questions et à tant d'autres, Boris Cyrulnik l'éthologue, Elisabeth de Fontenay la philosophe, (...) Peter Singer le bioéthicien croisent leurs regards et confrontent leurs savoirs sur la question animale. Trois sensibilités, trois parcours, trois formes d'engagement : la voie est tracée, au-delà des divergences et des contradictions, et en partie grâce à elles, pour que le législateur s'attelle à la rédaction du contrat qu'il nous faut maintenant passer sans délai avec nos frères en animalité, au nom de la dignité humaine.". (shrink)

I consider the main problem areas within theacademic project ``The 1990s: The Semantics ofRussian Culture,'' undertaken by researchers,recent graduates, and the first post-graduatesof the Moscow Institute for European Cultures.The areas include new figures on the publicscene; new forms of communication; newinstitutions; current processes in culture andsociety. I examine the social and historicalframework of the formation of culture studiesas an academic discipline in contemporaryRussia, the alternative perspectives and tasksof the sociology of culture in Russian today.

Bošković’s distinction between two kinds of velocities – velocity in the first act, or potential velocity, and velocity in the second act, or actual velocity – is considered in respect to the concept of instantaneous velocity as defined by calculus differentialis. Contrary to the seeming inconsistency of Bošković’s duality of velocities and the concept of instantaneous velocity, due to a critical examination of logical and methodological foundations of the calculus, the article shows that the duality of velocities is consistent with (...) the interpretations of instantaneous velocity given by Oresme, Euler and Maclaurin, as with the definition of instantaneous velocity according to the rigorous Cauchyan founding of the calculus. Bošković’s duality of velocities is also shown to be consistent with Aristotelian-scholastic doctrine of potentiality and actuality, especially in its domain related to the nature of continuous motion. (shrink)