1. Realism. Physicists claim rightly to speak about reality. But what does “reality” mean?2. The Copenhagen Interpretation (CI). We consider CI as a minimal semantics for quantum theory, leaving ways open for additional interpretation.3. The Measuring Process. Several interpretations of the process as given in the liteature are discussed.4. Realistic Interpretation. Discussion of the de Broglie-Bohm-Bell interpretation. If well formulated, it is not a necessary consequence of quantum theory but cannot be excluded.

Liebe Frau Henry! Soeben bekomme ich Ihren Brief, Die Freude, die mir Ihre Ankündigung macht, veranlaßt mich, Ihnen sofort zu antworten. Sie wissen wohl, daß ich seit Jahren wünsche, Sie möchten Ihre philosophischen Arbeiten fortsetzen und möchten die dafür notwendige Muße finden. Ich weiß nicht, ob Sie wissen, daß ich Sie mehrfach für philosophische Lehrstühle, über deren Besetzung ich unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Naturphilosophie gefragt worden bin, vorgeschlagen habe.

Liebe Frau Henry! Herzlichen Dank für Ihren Brief und für die beiden Artikel Sie sind der erste Mensch, der es meiner Kenntnis nach erreicht hat, dass die Resolutionen in extenso abgedruckt wurden, und ich bin sehr froh, dass es an dieser Stelle gerade geschehen ist. Ich habe mich übrigens mit hiesigen physikalisch-mathematischen Studienräten verabredet, einmal an ihrem Unterricht teilzunehmen und dann das Problem der Stoffbeschränkung in der Physik mit ihnen zu besprechen.

Liebe Frau Henry! Auf Ihren Brief antworte ich sofort. Ihren gemeinsamen Brief an Herrn Picht und mich habe ich freilich immer noch nicht beantwortet, aber dazu braucht es mehr Gelassenheit, als mir im Moment eine etwas mir über den Kopf wachsende Reisetätigkeit gelassen hat. Nun aber zu Ihren praktischen Fragen.

This anthology consists of forty-nine of Geach’s previously published papers on logic. He opens his Preface by writing: "I bring together here almost all my English articles that I have previously published and have not already collected or cannibalized in other books." It contains his first published paper "Designation and Truth" from Analysis 1947-48 as well as his elegant sketch of a decidable entailment system in the 1970 Philosophical Review. For the most part he has made only stylistic changes and (...) added some notes. So, he claims: "all articles appear without substantial change." However, he admits that he divided his "Quantification Theory and the Problem of Identifying Objects of Reference" from the now classic 1963 volume of Acta Philosophica Fennica. He divided it because he wanted to separate his strong advocacy of a substitution interpretation of the quantifiers from some views on quotation marks, about which he is less than certain. The papers are not in mere chronological order. They are organized by topic within chapters entitled: Historical Essays, Traditional Logic, Theory of Reference and Syntax, Intentionality, Quotation and Semantics, Set Theory, Identity Theory, Assertion, Imperatives and Practical Reasoning, and Logic in Metaphysics and Theology. The chapter titles are a fair guide to content. But note the following. Two lucid papers defending von Wright’s notion of entailment are in the Intentionality chapter. The essay "Ascriptivism" in the Assertion chapter is relevant to discussions of free will because he argues: "to ascribe an act to agent is a causal description of the act" and he urges a search for a non-Humean analysis of causality. The essays in the last chapter are: "Nominalism," "Some problems about time," and "God’s relation to the world.". (shrink)

The polymathic Leibniz was surely one of the greatest and most enigmatic figures produced by the "century of genius." He is the only philosopher whom the renowned historian of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, Adolf von Harnack, would admit as a colleague to that august body, and Leibniz is universally admired by metaphysicians, theologians, advocates of cosmopolitanism and religious tolerance, students of international law, and, not the least, by philosophers of logic and language. Although efforts to canonize Leibniz as the (...) pure type of "harmonic synthesizer" have been under way for quite a long time, philosophers and historians are no longer so anxious as they once were to work out a synthetic unification of these and many other perspectives of Leibniz as was Mahnke, for instance, who characterized Leibniz’ philosophy as a synthesis of universal mathematics and individual metaphysics. (shrink)

Since the publication of our article on Thucydides and the Plague of Athens, Dr Heinrich von Staden of Yale University has kindly drawn our attention to a paper by Eby and Evjen suggesting that the Plague was glanders. We do not think that this diagnosis can possibly be correct, though there are undoubtedly some points in its favour. The authors have argued their case as persuasively as possible, and the proposal has sufficient merit to deserve a serious reply.

We examined if cancer patients' health-related quality of life (HRQoL) scores on the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) QLQ-C30 are affected by the specific time point, before or during treatment, at which the questionnaire is completed, and whether this could bias the overall treatment comparison analyses. A 'completion-time window' variable was created on three closed EORTC randomised control trials in lung (non-small cell lung cancer, NSCLC) and colorectal cancer (CRC) to indicate when the QLQ-30 was completed (...) relative to chemotherapy cycle dates, defined as 'before', 'on' and 'after'. HRQoL mean scores were calculated using a linear mixed model. Statistically significant differences (P < 0.05) were observed on 6 and 5 scales for 'on' and 'after' comparisons in the NSCLC and two-group CRC trial, respectively. As for the three-group CRC trial, several statistical differences were observed in the 'before' to 'on' and the 'on' to 'after' comparisons. For all three trials, including the 'completion-time window' variable in the model resulted in a better fit, but no substantial changes in the treatment effects were noted. We showed that considering the exact timing of completion within specified windows resulted in statistical and potentially clinically significant differences, but it did not alter the conclusions of treatment comparison in these studies. (shrink)

The paper deals with Weizsäcker’s position within the philosophy of mind. It turns out that Weizsäcker’s ontology is based on an unorthodox conception both in the philosophy of physics and in the philosophy of mind. His quantum information theoretic reductionism is based on a subtle combination of atomism and holism, his philosophy of mind connected to this is a neutral monism, which proposes a bold intertwining of mind, matter, and space.

Background: We aimed to determine the smallest changes in health-related quality of life (HRQoL) scores in the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire core 30 and the Brain Cancer Module (QLQ-BN20), which could be considered as clinically meaningful in brain cancer patients. Materials and methods: World Health Organisation performance status (PS) and mini-mental state examination (MMSE) were used as clinical anchors appropriate to related subscales to determine the minimal clinically important differences (MCIDs) in HRQoL (...) change scores (range 0-100) in the QLQ-C30 and QLQ-BN20. A threshold of 0.2 standard deviation (SD) (small effect) was used to exclude anchor-based MCID estimates considered too small to inform interpretation. Results: Based on PS, our findings support the following integer estimates of the MCID for improvement and deterioration, respectively: physical (6, 9), role (14, 12), and cognitive functioning (8, 8); global health status (7, 4(star)), fatigue (12, 9), and motor dysfunction (4(star), 5). Anchoring with MMSE, cognitive functioning MCID estimates for improvement and deterioration were (11, 2(star)) and for communication deficit were (9, 7). Estimates with asterisks were <0.2 SD and were excluded from our MCID range of 5-14. Conclusion: These estimates can help clinicians evaluate changes in HRQoL over time, assess the value of a health care intervention and can be useful in determining sample sizes in designing future clinical trials. (shrink)

MEDIEVAL LOGICS LAMBERT MARIE DE RIJK (ed.), Die mittelalterlichen Traktate De mod0 opponendiet respondendi, Einleitung und Ausgabe der einschlagigen Texte. (Beitrage zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, Neue Folge Band 17.) Miinster: Aschendorff, 1980. 379 pp. No price stated. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY MARTA FATTORI, Lessico del Novum Organum di Francesco Bacone. Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateneo 1980. Two volumes, il + 543, 520 pp. Lire 65.000. VIVIAN SALMON, The study of language in 17th century England. (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory (...) and History of Linguistic Science, Series 111: Studies in theHistory of Linguistics, Volume 17.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V., 1979.x + 218 pp. Dfl. 65. Theoria cum Praxi. Zum Verhaltnis von Theorie und Praxis im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. (Akten des 111. Internationalen Leibnizkongress, Hannover, 12. bis 17.November 1977, Band 111: Logik, Erkenntnistheorie, Wissenschaftstheorie, Metaphysik, Theologie.) Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980. vii + 269 pp. DM 48. CLASSICAL AND NON-CLASSICAL LOGICS MICHAEL CLARK, The place of syllogistic in logical theory. Nottingham: University of Nottingham Press, 1980. ix + 151 pp. £3.00. A.F. PARKER-RHODES, The theory of indistinguishables. Dordrecht, Boston and London: D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1981. xvii + 216 pp. Dfl.90.00/$39.50. NICHOLAS RESCHER and ROBERT BRANDOM, The logic of inconsistency. Oxford:Basil Blackwell, 1980. x + 174 pp. f 11.50. MISCELLANEOUS J. ZELENY, The logic of Marx. Translated from the German by T. Carver. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980. xcii + 247 pp. £12.50. FELIX KAUFMANN, The infinite in mathematics. Edited by Brian McGuinness. Introduction by E. Nagel. Translation from the German by Paul Foulkes. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1978. xvii + 235 pp. Dfl 85/$39.50 (cloth); Dfl 45/$19.95 (paper). PAMELA MCCORDUCK, Machines who think. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1979. xiv + 275 pp. $14.95. J. MITTELSTRASS (ed.), Enzyklopadie Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie Bd. 1 : A-G. Mannheim, Wien, Ziirich: Bibliographisches Institut, 1980. 835 pp. DM 128. (shrink)

Il principio di ripetizione ricopre un ruolo fondamentale in ogni forma d’espressione musicale e rappresenta uno dei più comuni ed efficaci espedienti compositivi. Oscillando fra stasi e movimento, i processi iterativi e le sequenze modulari influenzano in modo determinante la percezione dello spazio e del tempo e sfidano l’aspettativa dell’ascoltatore, originando architetture labirintiche e ossessive, e moduli ipnotici, che generano un impatto sulla sfera emotiva del fruitore. Il contributo esamina in chiave interdisciplinare l’impiego sistematico della ripetizione nella musica per violino (...) di due dei massimi violinisti compositori attivi nel tardo Seicento nell’area a cavallo delle Alpi: Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber (1644-1704) e Carlo Ambrogio Lonati (c. 1645-post1701). Entrambi, secondo modalità analoghe o difformi, sfruttarono la ripetizione tanto per sfidare la perizia esecutiva dell’interprete, quanto per consolidare, disgregare o rimodulare l’architettura formale e temporale delle composizioni, proponendo una bizzarra e ingegnosa disposizione degli episodi musicali. L’analisi di alcuni esempi di particolar rilievo e il confronto fra i due compositori permetterà di evidenziare un ventaglio di atteggiamenti ed espedienti compositivi, fornendo chiavi di lettura applicabili ad altri repertorî musicali e ambiti della conoscenza. (shrink)

Georg Curtius' Griechische Schulgrammatik, achtzehnte wesentlich veränderte Auflage bearbeitet von Dr Wilhelm von Hartel. Leipzig. 1888. Mk. 2.40.Methodik des Grammatischen Unterrichtes im Griechischen im Anschlnsse an W. v. Hartel's Neubearbeitung der Griechischen Sehulgrammatik von Georg Curtius, verfasst von Dr August Scheindler. Leipzig. 1888.Abriss der Grammatik des homerischen nnd herodotischen Dialekts, im Anschlusse an die 18 Auflage, von Dr. Curtius' Griechischen Schulgrammatik bearbeitet von Dr Wilhelm Von Hartel. 60 pf.Kurzgefasste griechische Schulgrammatik bearbeitet von Dr Bernhardt Gerth. Zweite verbesserte Auflage. Leipzig. C. (...) F. Winter. 1 Mk. 60. (shrink)

Die sich um 1800 neu konstituierende Disziplin der Biologie und die idealistische Naturphilosophie Schellings bemuhen sich in ihrer Frontstellung gegen einen unkritisch und ontologisch verstandenen Mechanismus um eine dem Leben angemessene Beschreibung und Erklarung der Lebensphanomene. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird im ersten Teil der vorliegenden Studie das Werk des Naturforschers Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer im Kontext der zeitgenossischen philosophischen und naturforschenden Diskussionen verortet, bevor im zweiten Teil die Bedeutung von Kielmeyers Phanomenologie des Organischen fur die systematische Ausarbeitung des Schelling'schen Systems der (...) Naturphilosophie aufgezeigt wird. In their animosity towards an uncritical and ontology-based mechanism, both the new discipline of biology, which was becoming established around 1800, and Schellings idealistic natural philosophy strove for a description and explanation of the phenomena of life which were pertinent to life. Against this backdrop, the work of the naturalist Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer is placed in the context of contemporary philosophical and naturalist discussions of the time in the first part of this study before the significance of Kielmeyers phenomenology of the organic for the systematic development of Schellings system of natural philosophy is shown in the second part. (shrink)

When von Neumann's and Morgenstern's Theory of Games and Economic Behavior appeared in 1944, one thought that a complete theory of strategic social behavior had appeared out of nowhere. However, game theory has, to this very day, remained a fast-growing assemblage of models which have gradually been united in a new social theory - a theory that is far from being completed even after recent advances in game theory, as evidenced by the work of the three Nobel Prize winners, John (...) F. Nash, John C. Harsanyi, and Reinhard Selten. Two of them, Harsanyi and Selten, have contributed important articles to the present volume. This book leaves no doubt that the game-theoretical models are on the right track to becoming a respectable new theory, just like the great theories of the twentieth century originated from formerly separate models which merged in the course of decades. For social scientists, the age of great discover ies is not over. The recent advances of today's game theory surpass by far the results of traditional game theory. For example, modem game theory has a new empirical and social foundation, namely, societal experiences; this has changed its methods, its "rationality. " Morgenstern (I worked together with him for four years) dreamed of an encompassing theory of social behavior. With the inclusion of the concept of evolution in mathematical form, this dream will become true. Perhaps the new foundation will even lead to a new name, "conflict theory" instead of "game theory. (shrink)

Over 150 years have elapsed since Hegel lectured on the philosophy of religion in Berlin. Now for the first time a critical edition of the fragmentary manuscript that he used to lecture in 1821 has been published in a masive volume, to be followed by subsequent volumes of equal size containing student notes or transcripts of the 1824 and 1827 lectures. Despite heroic efforts by the editor, Karl-Heinz Ilting of Saarbrucken, who previously edited Hegel’s lectures on the philosophy of right (...) according to the same principles, this new edition is unsatisfactory on several counts, and we shall have to await the appearance of these texts in the Gesammelte Werke slowly being produced by the Hegel-Archiv at the Ruhr-Universität in Bochum before we have a completely adequate critical edition of Hegel’s philosophy of religion lectures. (shrink)