This little book contains lectures given by Vlastos in the summer of 1972 in the Danz Lectures series of the University of Washington. His theme relates to that often rather paternalistic exercise of plotting out the extent to which Science was Revealed to the Greeks. In his view, "it was not given to them... to grasp the essential genius of the scientific method." However, they did discover "the conception of the cosmos that is presupposed by the idea of natural science (...) and by its practice". This discovery, an intellectual "revolution," was of the view, upheld by the Presocratic physiologoi, that the world is characterized by "unbreachable regularities" which make the world a "cosmos," which "constitute the order of nature and, if known, would yield the ultimate explanation of every natural phenomenon". This was revolutionary since it rejected the traditional belief in an unlimited area of possible divine supernatural intervention in the world, a belief which made perception of the universe a perception of an "irrational universe". Thus, "for the first time in history", man achieved, with Presocratic physiologia, "a perception of a rational universe". In the remaining two chapters of the book, Vlastos examines Plato, represented as a "fierce opponent" of the revolution who appropriated the newly discovered cosmos, refashioning it "on the pattern of his own idealistic and theistic metaphysics". This interpretation of Plato is developed mainly through a study of the Timaeus and especially of the "Theory of Celestial Motions" and of the "Theory of the Structure of Matter". Plato appears as opposed to the "impiety" of the physiologoi, proposing himself in the Timaeus a transcendent god as his primary cosmological principle. At the same time, the Timaeus reflects, as Vlastos shows in a brief survey of earlier and contemporary Greek astronomy, an awareness of the "empirical facts" established by the astronomers and Plato’s desire to reconcile these facts with his metaphysical, theological, a priori convictions. This reconciliation involved postulating a system of celestial circular motions, a theory whose "scientific value" Vlastos does not doubt, despite its dependence on a "metaphysical scheme". Vlastos concludes that although Plato fully acknowledged a supernatural power in the universe, he guaranteed the regularities of nature against divine intervention. There is an unfailing natural law. However, its ground for Plato is not natural but supernatural. In examining the "Theory of the Structure of Matter", Vlastos again finds that Plato’s world-order resembles very much that of the physiologoi and, like theirs, is "safe from supernatural interference". The "elementarism" of the Timaeus is shown to be indebted to the Atomists, but also to innovate by opening the way to the intertransformability of elementary corpuscules. What "scientific value" does this theory of the transformation of elements have? It is neither entailed nor contradicted by observation. Vlastos suggests rather that its grounds are "aesthetic". At any rate, Vlastos concludes that although Plato opposed the physiologoi in reintroducing supernatural agency, he annexed their conception of cosmos. In his "perversely original way," he thus "sustained the faith that our world is cosmos. He gave rational men a pious faith to live by in two millennia all through which science was more prophecy than reality". Some of Vlastos’ more extensive footnotes are collected in an Appendix, which is followed by a Bibliography and Indices. (shrink)

Dynamical collapse models embody the idea of a physical collapse of the wave function in a mathematically well-defined way. They involve modifications to the standard rules of quantum theory in order to describe collapse as a physical process. This appears to introduce a time reversal asymmetry into the dynamics since the state at any given time depends on collapses in the past but not in the future. Here we challenge this conclusion by demonstrating that, subject to specified model constraints, collapse (...) models can be given a structurally time symmetric formulation in which the collapse events are the primitive objects of the theory. Three different examples of time asymmetries associated with collapse models are then examined and in each case it is shown that the same dynamical rule determining the collapse events works in both the forward and backward in time directions. Any physically observed time asymmetries that arise in such models are due to the asymmetric imposition of initial or final time boundary conditions, rather than from an inherent asymmetry in the dynamical law. This is the standard explanation of time asymmetric behaviour resulting from time symmetric laws. (shrink)

D J O’Connor; The Nature of Educational Theory, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 6, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 97–109, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467.

These readings in the philosophy of education are designed to allow issues to emerge and to allow students to see how they arise, how they can be dealt with, and how a philosophy of education might be built. Of course no gathering of disparate works can deliver on that kind of editorial promise. However, this company of contributors is distinguished, and most of their entries provocative and interesting. The first section is designed to show what is special about our age (...) and what must be taken into account in order to think critically about modern issues in education. In this section Talcott Parsons, Cassirer, Melvin Seeman, Wm. H. Whyte, Marcuse, Jung, Sartre, and D. Bell talk about specialization, alienation, organization man, one-dimensional man, anxiety about values, and the knowledge explosion. This is the most "with-it" section and paints a fair portrait of our times. The last three sections are more conventional and more philosophical. There is a section on methodology which finds D. J. O'Conner, Dewey, and Whitehead discussing the nature of philosophy and which closes with Buber's opening pages from I and Thou. The last two sections have contributions by Plato, St. Augustine, Locke, Kant, Hegel, Dewey, Polanyi, and Maritain among others. These sections deal with questions of learning and with some "isms". All the sections have critical bibliographies which are enlightened, useful, and up-to-date. There is a glossary of technical terms. On the whole this is a strong anthology. Each of the four sections is sufficiently unified to provide a helpful context for the readings within it.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Given the importance of cross-disciplinary research, facilitating CDR effectiveness is a priority for many institutions and funding agencies. There are a number of CDR types, however, and the effectiveness of facilitation efforts will require sensitivity to that diversity. This article presents a method characterizing a spectrum of CDR designed to inform facilitation efforts that relies on bibliometric techniques and citation data. We illustrate its use by the Toolbox Project, an ongoing effort to enhance cross-disciplinary communication in CDR teams through structured, (...) philosophical dialogue about research assumptions in a workshop setting. Toolbox Project workshops have been conducted with more than 85 research teams, but the project's extensibility to an objectively characterized range of CDR collaborations has not been examined. To guide wider application of the Toolbox Project, we have developed a method that uses multivariate statistical analyses of transformed citation proportions from published manuscripts to identify candidate areas of CDR, and then overlays information from previous Toolbox participant groups on these areas to determine candidate areas for future application. The approach supplies 3 results of general interest: A way to employ small data sets and familiar statistical techniques to characterize CDR spectra as a guide to scholarship on CDR patterns and trends. A model for using bibliometric techniques to guide broadly applicable interventions similar to the Toolbox. A method for identifying the location of collaborative CDR teams on a map of scientific activity, of use to research administrators, research teams, and other efforts to enhance CDR projects. (shrink)

D. J. O'Connor; I—The Presidential Address: Beliefs, Dispositions and Actions, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 69, Issue 1, 1 June 1969, Pages 1.

The spatial dynamics of the optical emission from an array of 50 times 50 individual microcavity plasma devices is investigated. The array is operated in argon and argon-neon mixtures close to atmospheric pressure with an ac voltage. The optical emission is analysed with phase and space resolution. It has been found that the emission is not continuous over the entire ac period, but occurs once per half period. Each of the observed emission phases shows a self-pulsing of the discharge, with (...) several bursts of emission of fixed width and repetition rate. The number of emission bursts depends on applied voltage and frequency. Spatially resolved measurements prove that the emission bursts are formed by overlapping emission pulses from single discharge cavities. Intensity differences between positive and negative half-wave can be interpreted through spatially resolved measurements of single discharge cavities. (shrink)

D J O’Connor; Two Concepts of Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 16, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 137–146, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.

Random simulation of complex dynamical systems is generally used in order to obtain information about their asymptotic behaviour (i.e., when time or size of the system tends towards infinity). A fortunate and welcome circumstance in most of the systems studied by physicists, biologists, and economists is the existence of an invariant measure in the state space allowing determination of the frequency with which observation of asymptotic states is possible. Regions found between contour lines of the surface density of this invariant (...) measure are called confiners. An example of such confiners is given for a formal neural network capable of learning. Finally, an application of this methodology is proposed in studying dependency of the network's invariant measure with regard to: 1) the mode of neurone updating (parallel or sequential), and 2) boundary conditions of the network (searching for phase transitions). (shrink)

In the present state of philosophy in the English-speaking world, to choose to talk about sense data may seem perverse. What could be more boring for one's audience than to attempt variations on so threadbare a theme? And worse, what could be more unfashionable in the aftermath of Wittgenstein and Austin? My reasons for selecting this unpromising topic are twofold. First, the general theme of this series of lectures is empiricism. And whatever meanings we put upon that ambiguous word, it (...) is clear that as a matter of history the problems of perception have been important problems for nearly all those philosophers who would consider themselves to be empiricists. And however unsatisfactory sense datum theories of perception may now be held to be, such theories have been central to the empiricist tradition. Secondly, it is important not to be too much impressed by the fact that a particular philosophical opinion is fashionable or unfashionable. The former certainly does not guarantee its truth nor the latter its falsity. It has often been remarked that philosophical opinions are very rarely refuted. Instead they fall out of vogue only to return some years later in another guise. It is perhaps time to take another look at the notion of sense data. The most ingenious and persistent attacks on analyses of perception in terms of sense data have been at best indecisive, as Professor Ayer showed in his reply to Austin's Sense and Sensibilia. (shrink)