In a paper published in volume 50 of Annals of Science an astrolabe at the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, Florence, was attributed to the hand of Gerard Mercator, c. 1570, when his workshop was in Duisburg. This was the first scientific instrument by Mercator to be identified. Since then two further astrolabes by Mercator have been identified, one of them bearing his monogram: GMR. They belong to the Städtische Kunstsammlungen, Augsburg, and the Moravian Gallery, Brno. All (...) three instruments are described as a group, and reasons for believing that the Brno astrolabe was made earlier than 1550, and therefore in Louvain, are given. (shrink)

SummaryThe Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, Florence, Italy, possesses an astrolabe with five latitude plates that is now attributed to the Duisburg workshop of Gerard Mercator. Although it is known that Mercator made instruments, this is the first surviving example to be identified. Another latitude plate is shown to come from the workshop of the Florentine, Giovan Battista Giusti. A seventh plate, possibly engraved by Rumold Mercator, provides the only known Mercatorian polar stereographic projection. The role of (...) Egnazio Danti, cosmographer to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, in the acquisition of the astrolabe in about 1570 is considered. (shrink)

The concept of a technical frontier in branches of experimental measurement, such as the resolution of the microscope, angular measure and time telling, has been around for more than 60 years. The purpose of this brief paper is to identify the technical frontier operating on the achromatic astronomical telescope, where a limiting factor of the resolution of fine detail was the quality of the optical glass available. The achromatically corrected objective is formed from two kinds of glass, the common crown (...) glass and the heavy clear flint glass or lead glass. This last was difficult to make homogeneous, that is without regions of different density, and therefore different refraction and dispersion. Unusually, optical glass had to pass a second frontier, this time placed on the whole glass industry by the English Government in the form of excise duty, administered with a bureaucratic efficiency that effectively stopped, in around 1800, the making of optical glass suitable for the serious astronomical telescopes. The result of the tax imposition was to delay the English production of improved optical glass for more than 80 years. (shrink)

The general view is that there is one type of nocturnal, which is universal, first illustrated in a printed book in 1524. Recently, a number of quite differently constructed nocturnals has come to light. Six of these were made at the very beginning of the sixteenth century by Falcono of Bergamo in northern Italy. One of them, with the initials of the inventor, may well be the prototype. Five more are closely similar. Five further nocturnals of the same type have (...) been identified, but they are unsigned, and are not by Falcono. This paper establishes the existence of a hitherto unrecognized Italian workshop, and of a variant type of nocturnal. (shrink)

The present paper complements the publications of Gerard L'E. Turner on Mercator's astrolabes by presenting an account of an astrological disc which Mercator published at Louvain in May 1551. This instrument, of which only one copy is known, is described, and a transcription of its instruction sheet, with commentary and English translation, is provided. My preliminary study of the astrological content and context of the instrument indicates that it is connected with John Dee's astrological studies at Louvain from (...) 1548 to 1550. The didactic functions of the instrument are discussed, as well as the relationship between astrological theory and practice in Mercator's work. (shrink)

The triangular relationship between the social, the political and the cultural has opened up social and political theory to new challenges. The social can no longer be reduced to the category of society, and the political extends beyond the traditional concerns of the nature of the state and political authority. -/- This Handbook will address a range of issues that have recently emerged from the disciplines of social and political theory, focusing on key themes as opposed to schools of thought (...) or major theorists. It is divided into three sections which address: -/- the most influential theoretical traditions that have emerged from the legacy of the twentieth century -/- the most important new and emerging frameworks of analysis today -/- the major theoretical problems in recent social and political theory. (shrink)

The publication of John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice in 1971 coincided with a complex set of changes in the political situation of the west, the role of intellectuals, the state of the social sciences and humanities, and in the development of the welfare state itself. These changes provided the conditions for the creation of a body of thought quite different from the one the sixties had produced, and a significant change from the discipline-dominated thinking of the period after the (...) Second World War. The immediately relevant events included the effective demise of Parsons’ systems theory, the waning of the passions of 1968, and an enrollment crisis in universities’ humanities and social science departments as economic fear drove students into professional programs, creating a sharp downturn in demand for faculty. The optimism that had characterized disciplines in these fields during the 1960s quickly faded. The idea that sociology was soon to become a “science,” the source of the positivism dispute of the sixties, faded along with it. Logical Positivism as a coherent movement collapsed under the weight of the problems of the theory-observation distinction. At the same time Political Theory, which had been taught largely as an historical study – a history of error, as Leo Strauss described the standard textbook of the time, George Sabine’s A History of Political Theory, or as a continuation of the mood of Kulturpessimismus, as in the writings of Sabine’s critic, Leo Strauss – revived, partly in response to the stimulus from the success of Rawls, partly in response to new ideas about participatory democracy rooted in the experience of the sixties. Social theory also changed: the role that Parsons had played as a focus of theoretical discussion was replaced; the work of Ju˝rgen Habermas, particularly his Theory of Communicative Action, reassessed and re-appropriated the classical theoretical tradition in social theory to replace Parsons’ synthetic account, and this work coincided with a systematic reconsideration of the classic social theorists, especially Weber. An additional source of new thinking came from the “dependent” periphery, as thinkers such as Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, which emancipated Socialist theory from received dogmas about class struggle and recognized the centrality of other antagonisms and the need for open democracy. (shrink)

There is no unproblematic way to study things as “African”, yet an epistemologically situated approach based on concrete technological projects situated in Africa and their social and political implications offers an important account of the intersection of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and African Studies. We explore this perspective through the notion of “indiscipline” using the Square Kilometre Array radio telescope project (SKA) based in South Africa as a case study through which to observe “indiscipline” as a methodological approach to technoscience (...) at work. Indiscipline helps frame the socio-technical (by)products of astrophysics and engineering, and we present the production of ventilators for COVID-19 patients as an example of how the design of mega-science projects can become entangled with the dynamic concerns of society. Our conclusion elaborates on the politics of large technological systems, opening up a conversation on the intersection of science and society in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution in African settings, using the template of experiences with the SKA and the National Ventilator Project in South Africa. (shrink)

Simulation relations have been discovered in many areas: Computer Science, philosophical and modal logic, and set theory. However, the simulation condition is strictly a first-order logic statement. We extend modal logic with modalities and axioms, the latter’s modeling conditions are the simulation conditions. The modalities are normal, i.e., commute with either conjunctions or disjunctions and preserve either Truth or Falsity (respectively). The simulations are considered arrows in a category where the objects are descriptive, general frames. One can augment the simulation (...) modalities by axioms for requiring the underlying modeling simulations to be bisimulations or to be p-morphisms. The modal systems presented are multi-sorted and both sound and complete with respect to their algebraic and Kripke semantics. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate how alternative land ethics of agricultural stakeholders may help explain recent land use changes. The paper first explores the historical development of the land ethic concept in the United States and how those ethics have impacted land use policy and use of private lands. Secondly, primary data gathered from semi-structured interviews of farmers, ranchers, and influential stakeholders are then analyzed using stakeholder analysis methods to identify major factors considered in land use decisions, (...) priorities of factors of each group, and to define relevant mental models describing each group’s view of the land ethic concept. Results show that these stakeholder groups prioritize land use factors qualitatively differently and possess strikingly different land ethics. It is concluded that shifts in stakeholder land ethics have contributed to recent land use changes. Lastly, we discuss how current agricultural policy sends mixed signals about preferred land use and the potential ramifications based on the different land ethics we’ve described. (shrink)

Bioethicists disagree over methods, theories, decision-making guides, case analyses and public policies. Thirty years ago, the thinking of many scholars coalesced around a principlist approach to bioethics. That mid-level mode of moral reasoning is now one of many approaches to moral deliberation. Significant variation in contemporary approaches to the study of ethical issues related to medicine, biotechnology and health care raises the question of whether bioethics exists as widely shared method, theory, normative framework or mode of moral reasoning.

Patients and physicians can inhabit distinctive social worlds where they are guided by diverse understandings of moral practice. Despite the contemporary presence of multiple moral traditions, religious communities and ethnic backgrounds, two of the major methodological approaches in bioethics, casuistry and principlism, rely upon the notion of a common morality. However, the heterogeneity of ethnic, moral, and religious traditions raises questions concerning the singularity of common sense. Indeed, it might be more appropriate to consider plural traditions of moral reasoning. This (...) poses a considerable challenge for bioethicists because the existence of plural moral traditions can lead to difficulties regarding "closure" in moral reasoning. The topics of truth-telling, informed consent, euthanasia, and brain death and organ transplantation reveal the presence of different understandings of common sense. With regard to these subjects, plural accounts of "common sense" moral reasoning exist. (shrink)

Ethics courses are most commonly evaluated using reaction measures. However, little is known about the specific types of reaction data being collected and how these reaction data relate to improvements in trainee performance. Using a sample of 381 ethics training sessions, major reaction data categories were identified. Content and course satisfaction were the most frequently collected types of reaction criteria. Furthermore, content relevance and course satisfaction showed strong, positive relationships with performance criteria, whereas content satisfaction demonstrated a moderate, negative relationship. (...) These results and future directions for ethics training evaluation are discussed. (shrink)