STILLWATER, MINNESOTA—Two men sit at a long table, oblivious to the breakfast-time commotion. One moves a coffee cup from one side of a water glass to the other. “If I look here and don’t see the cup,” he says to the other, “then I know it must be there.” It sounds like a “deep” exchange between swotty young philosophy majors. But the fellow moving the cup has gray hair— and a Nobel Prize in physics. Sliding the porcelain, Anthony Leggett (...) of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, explains how scientists might try to see past the strictures of quantum mechanics, the bizarre theory that governs the behavior of tiny objects and clashes with our everyday notions of reality. “None of the existing interpretations of quantum mechanics as a theory of the entire world is satisfactory,” Leggett says to John Preskill, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Leggett, Preskill, and 22 other physicists, philosophers, and historians have gathered here for the Seven Pines Symposium.* Packed into a slightly ramshackle lodge in a wooded state park, the scholars—all of them men—will share their insights, suites of rooms without telephones, and meals of roast quail and pheasant at a long communal table. Perhaps not since the famous Solvay Conferences of the early 20th century, at which Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein debated the meaning of quantum theory in their free time, has physics seemed so genteel. Each year, the symposium tackles another of physics’ enduring puzzles: the nature of the vacuum, the concept of a f ield, the meaning of time. The aim is not to resolve the mysteries but to seed new lines of inquiry, says Roger Stuewer, a historian at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and chair of the symposium’s advisory board. “When we get the best people together,” he says, “ideas are planted that in some intangible way will influence what they do in the future.” Those germinating ideas are watered with a mellow Zinfandel and nourished with succulent steak. This year, attendees spent 5 days grappling with the implications of quantum mechanics, which have perplexed physi.. (shrink)

The conjunction of Schrodinger dynamics and the usual way of thinking about the conditions under which quantum systems exhibit determinate values implies that measurements don't have outcomes. The orthodox fix to this quantum measurement problem is von Neumann's postulate of measurement collapse, which suspends Schrodinger dynamics in measurement contexts. Contending that the fundamental dynamical law of quantum theory breaks down every time we test the theory empirically, the collapse postulate is unsatisfactory. Recently philosophers and physicists have proposed a less violent (...) solution to the measurement problem. Their modal interpretations of quantum mechanics advocate unusual ways of thinking about the situations under which quantum systems exhibit determinate observable values, semantics which reconcile determinate measurement outcomes with universal Schrodinger dynamics. Thus modal interpretations hold out hope that quantum theory is complete and exceptionless. ;This dissertation tempers that hope. I consider the modal approach to the neglected problem of state preparation. A promising modal account exploits standard quantum transition probabilities. But, I claim, modal interpretations must subject these transition probabilities to a consistency constraint which they can be shown to violate. Non-standard transition probabilities might avoid this inconsistency, but they would also introduce novel dynamics, and so undo the modal triumph of taking Schrodinger dynamics to be complete and universal. Next I consider Albert and Loewer's assault on modal accounts of "error-prone" measurements. I argue that the Albert-Loewer problem is more general than Albert, Loewer, or their critics appreciate, and that the Araki-Yanase theorem implies the existence of a class of observables whose error-free measurements succumb to the Albert-Loewer problem. I review modal responses to Albert and Loewer which appeal to the palliative effects of a decohering environment and find them incomplete. Finally, based on the physicist Anthony Leggett's work with SQUIDs, I present a system concerning which the empirical commitments of modal interpretations contradict those of the quantum statistical algorithm, minimally interpreted. I conclude that these modal difficulties can be resolved only by taking the quantum formalism to be incomplete. (shrink)

Accuracy-based arguments for conditionalization and probabilism appear to have a significant advantage over their Dutch Book rivals. They rely only on the plausible epistemic norm that one should try to decrease the inaccuracy of one’s beliefs. Furthermore, conditionalization and probabilism apparently follow from a wide range of measures of inaccuracy. However, we argue that there is an under-appreciated diachronic constraint on measures of inaccuracy which limits the measures from which one can prove conditionalization, and none of the remaining measures allow (...) one to prove probabilism. That is, among the measures in the literature, there are some from which one can prove conditionalization, others from which one can prove probabilism, but none from which one can prove both. Hence at present, the accuracy-based approach cannot underwrite both conditionalization and probabilism. (shrink)

This article considers the stakeholder approach (SHA) to organisational management through the lens of what it means for humans to live sustainably on the Earth (that is, for there to be a sustainable world). In particular, the article considers if the SHA, as it is presented in mainstream academic and management literature, is supportive of corporate practices that advance the achievement of a sustainable world. The analysis shows the SHA to have significant failings in this regard when viewed against key (...) sustainable world criteria, with issues of concern evident from the normative core of the SHA through to is practical application in the management setting. (shrink)

Human beings regularly work together to get things done. In particular, people frequently collaborate on the production and dissemination of knowledge. For example, scientists often work together in teams to make new discoveries. How such collaborations produce knowledge, and how well they produce knowledge, are important questions for epistemology. In fact, several epistemologists have addressed such questions regarding collaborative scientific research.

The paper is an attempt to connect the primary concerns of an extensionalist to a solution to the problems raised by the apparent intensionality of contents involving the propositional attitudes. The author begins with an overview of what the extensionalist is, At bottom, Committed to ("hard-Core extensionalism") and its connection with a theory of truth. He considers the attitude of belief as generating problems for such commitments and rejects various solutions to these problems. He outlines a proposal which may be (...) viewed as both consistent with hard-Core extensionalism and our intuitions about belief. The account shares features with fodor's and field's accounts of belief. (shrink)

The authors empirically examine the nature and extent of ethical problems confronting senior level AICPA members (CPAs) and examine the effectiveness of partner actions and codes of ethics in reducing ethical problems. The results indicate that the most difficult ethical problems (frequency reported) were: client requests to alter tax returns and commit tax fraud, conflict of interest and independence, client requests to alter financial statements, personal-professional problems, and fee problems. Analysis of attitudes toward ethics in the accounting profession indicated that (...) (1) CPAs perceive that opportunities exist in the accounting profession to engage in unethical behavior, (2) CPAs, in general, do not believe that unethical behavior leads to success, and (3) when top management (partners) reprimand unethical behavior, the ethical problems perceived by CPAs seem to be reduced. (shrink)

Tai Chi: I Ching Form - Embracing the Mystery is an easy to follow instruction manual that enables practitioners to tap into and express directly each of the sixty-four energies that exist throughout the eternal movement of Tao, as outlined and explained in the I Ching (The Book of Changes). By way of mindful illustration, multiple pictures of postures and movements, and careful attention to detailed description, the practitioner is carefully led through the various postures and transitional movements presented in (...) this form. The form is divided into two essential sequences: Heaven and Earth. Daily practice allows the practitioner to maintain physical, mental, energetic and spiritual alignment with Spirit -- the unspeakable Mystery that is Tao. In effect, the practitioner becomes the harmonizing link between Heaven and Earth! Tai Chi: I Ching Form - Embracing the Mystery brings together aspects of the Taoist tradition in a very unique way, by combining the philosophical insight of the Tao Te Ching, the spiritual understanding of the I Ching, with the practice of Tai Chi. It accomplishes this by offering practitioners a comprehensive understanding of themselves -- as both a part of nature and as Spirit. It is the unification of these three, typically separate, strands that truly makes this work a unique enterprise. • The Tao Te Ching is the most efficacious philosophical text in China, having now influenced millions of people throughout the world with its teachings concerning the relationship between self, nature and ultimate reality. • The I Ching is the most ancient spiritual system in China, describing in a very practical fashion, the way in which Tao -- the ultimate Mystery -- influences and reciprocates with us through sixty-four universal energies formed by the combination of the eight most basic elements in nature -- Heaven, Thunder, Water, Lake, Earth, Mountain, Fire and Wind, otherwise known as Pa Qua. • Tai Chi is a universal and most honorable practice, enabling individuals to work on understanding, strengthening and unifying body, breath, mind and spirit. What also makes this book unique is the bold claim that if understood thoroughly and practiced properly, the I Ching Tai Chi Form may enable an individual to not only become proficient at tai chi and martial arts, to not only increase one's ability to concentrate, to not only enhance one's physical and emotional well-being, but to actually move closer to full and complete realization of one's most essential being, that is, closer to enlightenment, the original purpose of movement meditation. In the presentation of this form, each of the sixty-four postures is accompanied with a philosophical insight describing the essence of the energy which the practitioner is meant to access and express through the movement. Along with these insights are appropriate quotations from the Tao Te Ching that assist the practitioner in understanding the way in which this form corresponds to the universal and eternal movement of Tao. In addition, Tai Chi: I Ching Form - Embracing the Mystery includes chapters on Tai Chi as a practice and a way of life for beginners and masters; on the Tao Te Ching and the I Ching, explaining their contributions to insight regarding the nature of the universe and oneself; on what the Tai Chi I Ching Form offers that other styles do not; on exercise, energy and health; on the integration of meditation, both theory and technique; on how to warm-up, practice and perform the Tai Chi I Ching Form, including what to wear, appropriate environments for practice, incorporating music, stances, exercises, and how to pace oneself. (shrink)

The Shao Lin Chronicles: The Wisdom of Bodhidharma is a fictional book based on the pseudo-historical account of Bodhidharma, who brought Chan Buddhism to China, and his student Hui-k'o, nicknamed "Te" in this book. Specifically, Bodhidharma takes up residence in a cave near the famous Shao Lin Monastery. Te finds Bodhidharma and begins to visit him on a regular basis, along with maintaining his regular duties as a monk, including teaching the local students about the life of Buddha. Eventually Bodhidharma (...) sends Te on a quest to retrieve living water flowing from the Mt. Niu-t'ou. On three separate ventures, young Te returns, only to have Bodhidharma scold him for not fulfilling his request, yet instruct him on the finer points of Buddhist philosophy and practice. However, on his adventures, Te encounters a young lady whose town is being controlled by an evil tyrant, a wizard and an eight-headed dragon, and a peaceful hermit. Eventually, Te must face the fact that even after learning so much and growing spiritually, he has not fulfilled Bodhidharma's request, and as a result, he has not attained enlightenment. The way in which Te's quest finally reaches its climactic conclusion is recognized in the Buddhist tradition as one of the most desperate, yet selfless acts on record. Eventually, Te paves the way for Bodhidharma to be introduced to the masters at Shao Lin. And Shao Lin, based on the teachings of Bodhidharma, eventually becomes the birthplace of martial arts and chi kung. (shrink)

Amongst Professor Dickens’ extensive writings on medical law and medical jurisprudence are a host of distinguished contributions on the subject of the proper legal and ethical limits on human experimentation. As early as 1975, Professor Dickens was examining the legal aspects of human experimentation. A few years later he was promoting the responsibility of researchers to recognize and protect human rights in medical experimentation. In the last two decades, Professor Dickens has penned a rich flow of scholarly contributions on the (...) legal and ethical rights and duties in medical experimentation and the need to do better as a research community. His articles have considered a broad range of issues in medical experimentation including the imperative of voluntary consent, the ethical unacceptability of co-ercion or inducement of research participants, embryonic research, epidemiological research and the protection of vulnerable research participants, particularly children. (shrink)

The present study utilized research design in which six different poems were given repeated readings by groups of persons in which there were an equal number of males and females and of introverts and extraverts as assessed by the Myers- Briggs Type Indicator (Myers, 1962). Assessments of readers’ experience of the poem were obtained immediately after an initial reading and again after repeated readings of the poem. Subjects' general descriptions of their experience of the poems were reduced to fundamental descriptions (...) (Colaizzi, 1969) by a three-step procedure (preliminary listing, grouping, and constituent definition) and then resynthesized in a fourth step that placed the constituents into a coherent general description. As understanding increased, readers experience became less personal and more closely related to that intended by the poet. The general trend was increased imagery but attenuation of emotional experience as both were experienced as a part of or derived more directly from the poem itself. (shrink)

Rhetoric, like any other practice, is always to be used to serve the ends of justice, and for that alone.People will be responsible for the needs of others only when they are responsive to the feelings of need, anxiety, and desire in real other people who work in real material conditions. This direct response will take place only when people are fully responsive to, and fully responsible for, their own feelings. This responsibility for individual feeling, for full complexity and depth (...) of individual feeling, is thus of political not simply personal importance.To theorize justice rhetorically, this article reviews two major theories of rhetoric that address justice: the New Rhetoric of Chaïm Perelman and Lucie .. (shrink)

In The Riddle of Hume’s Treatise, Paul Russell has given us a marvelously good book. I intend that as very strong praise indeed, for as readers of Hume on miracles know, the marvelous constitutes the very upper limit on what can properly be established on the basis of human testimony—which is, of course, what I am offering. What makes the book so marvelous? In defense of what he calls his “irreligious interpretation” of A Treatise of Human Understanding, Russell makes many (...) deep and permanent contributions to our understanding of Hume’s philosophy. His careful tracing of the influence of disputes pitting “speculative atheists” (such as Hobbes, Collins, Toland, Tindal, and Dudgeon) against “religious philosophers” (such as Cudworth, Baxter, Butler, and above all Clarke), in both England and Scotland, helps to reorient our understanding of the context of the Treatise; and his analysis of the early reception of the Treatise from the point of view of its bearing on religion helps to reorient our understanding of its significance. .... Perhaps most importantly, Russell offers original and compelling accounts of the irreligious implications of central arguments of the Treatise on an impressive range of topics—the idea of God, space and time, power and necessary connection, induction, the existence of bodies, the immateriality of the soul, personal identity, liberty and necessity, the moral sense, the artificial virtues, and more—even if some of these implications directly oppose only a more-or-less Clarkean conception of the requirements and proper supports of the Christian religion. ... As Russell says, it should never again be claimed that the Treatise is largely unconcerned with questions of religion. (shrink)

Some aspects of the concepts of counterfactuality and probability are explored as they apply to the specific example of the famous “EPR-Bell” experiments realized by physicists over the last half-century. In particular the question is raised: what hypotheses about actually conducted experiments do the results exclude? It is argued that the answer depends on both whether these hypotheses are deterministic or stochastic, and on the “cardinality” of the experiment relative to the theory.

Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s post-Marxist analysis pushed Gramsci’s anti-determinism to its limits, embracing a post-structuralist, discourse-centred politics. Mouffe’s subsequent programme for radical democracy has sought a renewed democratic left project. While radical democracy’s post-structuralism enables important insights into political subjectivity and antagonism in contemporary democracies, it also weakens its own critical and strategic capacity. By recuperating its Gramscian heritage, radical democracy could be more theoretically and politically effective. In contrast to discourses operating in an entirely open and contingent political (...) field, Gramscian theory offers a more realist – but non-determinist – account of the structural, enabling and constraining properties of ideologies. It also allows for a distinctive institutional space for society. Society is the site upon which political identities are articulated, and from which existing power relations are challenged. But a conception of society also points to the institutional limits to politics, notable by their absence in post-structuralism and radical democracy. (shrink)

Using data from American emergency call centers, this article focuses on the coordination, and mutual relevance, of participants’ effort to manage two forms of unit completion – sequence closing and concluding the occasion in which the project was pursued. In doing so, we specify the import of sequence organization as one method for conducting, organizing, and resolving interactional projects participants may be said to pursue, and describe a range of possible relations between project completion and occasion closure and the locations (...) from which problems come to be introduced as parties move to resolve projects and close calls. As we show, sequence and occasion closings produced in the service of projects are fateful: they inexorably demand that the participants arrive at some alignment – or make visible their failure to do so – regarding the projects pursued in it, the status of those projects, and thus who, as a consequence, the parties are for another, that is, their ‘identities’. For strangers and familiars both, the management of projects and the manner in which closing is achieved matters. (shrink)

We discuss the concept of spontaneous breaking of gauge symmetry in super-conductors and superfluids and, in particular, the circumstances under which the absolute phase of a superfluid can be physically meaningful and experimentally relevant. We argue that the study of this question pushes us toward the frontiers of what we understand about the quantum measurement process, and underline the need for a new theoretical framework that keeps pace with modern technological capabilities.

It is argued that among possible nonlocal hidden-variable theories a particular class (called here “crypto-nonlocal” or CN) is relatively plausible on physical grounds. CN theories have the property that (for example) the two photons emitted in an atomic cascade process are indistinguishable in their individual statistical properties from photons emitted singly, and that in the latter case the effects of nonlocality are unobservable. It is demonstrated that all CN theories are constrained by inequalities which are violated by the quantum-mechanical predictions; (...) these inequalities bear no simple relation to Bell's inequalities, and an explicit example is constructed of a CN theory which violates the latter. It is also shown that while existing experiments cannot rule out general CN theories, they do rule out (subject to a few caveats such as the usual ones concerning the well-known “loopholes”) the subclass in which the photon polarizations are linear. (shrink)

Beginning with an overview of Hume's life and work, Don Garrett introduces in clear and accessible style the central aspects of Hume's thought. These include Hume's lifelong exploration of the human mind; his theories of inductive inference and causation; skepticism and personal identity; moral and political philosophy; aesthetics; and philosophy of religion. The final chapter considers the influence and legacy of Hume's thought today. Throughout, Garrett draws on and explains many of Hume's central works, including his Treatise of Human Nature (...) , Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding , and Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion . Hume is essential reading not only for students of philosophy, but anyone in the humanities and social sciences and beyond seeking an introduction to Hume's thought. (shrink)

I discuss the question: Is it possible to prepare, by purely thermodynamic means, an ensemble described by a quantum state having a definite phase relation between two component states which have never been in direct contact? Resolution of this question requires us to take explicit account of the nature of the correlations between the system and its thermal environment.

I consider various experiments related to the so-called “macroscopic quantum coherence” experiment, which are probably at present in the class of “thought” experiment but are likely to become realistic in the next few decades. I explore the way in which outcomes consistent with the predictions of quantum mechanics would be interpreted by an adherent of, respectively, the Copenhagen, statistical, and Bohmian interpretations of the formalism.

Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Introduction Chapter 3 The Size of The Slice Chapter 4 The Imperial Legacy: Racism and Omission of Triumph Chapter 5 Organizing The Unorganized: Combatting The Grower and The Labor Contractor Chapter 6 Taking It On The Chin and Fighting Back: Defensive and Offensive Strikes Chapter 7 Conclusions: Tactics Out of The Past For the Future Chapter 8 Appendix A: Mining The Fields: The Tindals and Migratory Farm Labor Chapter 9 Footnotes Chapter 10 Photograph Credits Chapter (...) 11 Author Index. (shrink)

Provides general readers with a clear, nuanced introduction to Budo--the "inner way" of the martial arts.