H.B.G. Casimir's life, interests and works are intertwined with the important developments that have taken place in physics during this century. This book was compiled by his friends and admirers in honour of his 80th birthday and concentrates mainly on Casimir's achievements in the field of physics, though without ignoring the peripheral areas of the history and philosophy of physics in which he was greatly interested. The book is divided into four parts. Part I describes Casimir's teachers, Ehrenfest, Bohr and (...) Pauli, and will be of general interest due to the key role which these physicists played in modern developments. The articles do give new facts and provide new insights into the history of modern physics. Part II consists of essays on recent developments in various areas of physics in which Casimir has taken an active interest, such as the modern concept of time, statistical foundations of electrodynamic theory and field theory. The subjects covered in Part III have been selected because of Casimir's efforts in the industrial research area of physics. They cover past, present and future expectations in research. (shrink)

An outline of the life of Heraclides and his fragmentary writings (on the theory of matter, astronomy, ethical and religious topics) is followed by an attempt to reconstruct his thought. He emerges as not so much a profound thinker as a many-sided writer of considerable literary gifts and occasional flashes of brilliance.

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, thinker, dramatist and controversialist of many-sided interests, is the most representative figure of the German Enlightenment. His defence of Spinoza, who had traditionally been condemned as an atheist, provoked a major controversy in philosophy, and his publication of H. S. Reimarus' radical assault on Christianity led to fundamental changes in Protestant theology. This volume presents the most comprehensive collection to date in English of Lessing's philosophical and theological writings, several of which are here translated for the first (...) time. They are edited and translated by H. B. Nisbet, who also provides an introduction that sets them in their historical and philosophical contexts. (shrink)

It is proposed in this paper to develop a method by which the most general problem of the algebra of propositions is solved. This problem is to construct all propositions whose truth is independent of the form of the variables. As might be expected this method will enable us to determine without the use of matrices the consistency and independence of propositions, except in the case of those fundamental properties, which taken together define consistency itself. In the discussion which follows (...) no limitations are placed on the meaning of the terms and the word proposition is used simply in the sense of a variable. If we were to say, for example, that our variables must be restricted to zero or one values, we would be introducing a limitation which would reduce the generality of our science. A logic may be false in the sense that its postulates lead to contradictory theorems, or it may be false in the sense that it lacks generality, and the situation is not saved by calling it a two-valued, or a three-valued logic, or a logic of “propositions,” or by designating it by some other euphuism. (shrink)

Rabindranath Tagore is remembered today chiefly as a poet, and his fame as a poet has often eclipsed his great contributions to other fields of literature and life — especially education. Tagore pondered deeply on the fundamental problems of education — aims, curriculum, method, discipline, values and medium — and wrote and experimented on them freely and extensively. Tagore is perhaps the only literary genius in contemporary history who devoted a major part of his life to thinking about education and (...) creating an educational institution of international significance. Also, the institution he created at Santiniketan proved to be the most global and sustainable among the progressive educational institutions launched by individual thinkers such as Froebel and Russell. This edition revives a classic work, the first comprehensive, full-length account of Tagore’s educational thought and activity, commemorating his 150th birth anniversary. It presents a detailed chronological survey of Tagore’s educational writings and institutional activities in the perspective of his life and thought in general. The book also contains a detailed review and critical discussion on almost all major aspects of his educational work. Through an overall evaluation of Tagore’s unique contribution to education and his message to the world, it seeks to correct some common misconceptions that have existed from time to time about Santiniketan and Visva-Bharati. The book will help form a more complete view of Tagore’s life and work, filling as it does the gaps and voids in the literature that has grown around him, and reinforcing its relevance today. It will be of value to educationists, teachers, policymakers, those interested in modern Indian history and philosophy of education._ _. (shrink)

The so-called fourth book of Aristotle's Meteorologica is not about meteorological phenomena at all. It describes the formation out of the four elements of ‘homoeomerous’ substances, by which are meant minerals such as stones and metals, and organic substances like flesh, skin, and hair, and the changes they can undergo under the influence of heat, cold, and moisture. Most commentators, ancient and modern, have seen that it has very little to do with the first three books of the Meteorologica to (...) which it is attached, and Alexander suggested that it should be placed after the second book de Generation et Corruptione. (shrink)

Beginning with a review the logically first stages in the project of Random Dynamics, hoping for all laws nature being emergent, we also review what can be considered a consequence of Random Dynamics, a model—by myself and Masao Ninomiya—, which in principle predicts the initial conditions in such a way as to minimize a certain functional of the history of the Universe through both past and future. This functional is indeed the imaginary part of the action, which exists (only) in (...) our model of complex action. The main point of the present is to suggest this complex action model to be also helpfull in solving some problems for quantum mechanics. Especially as our model almost makes it possible in principle to calculate the full history of the universe, it even makes it in principle calculable, which one among several measurement results in a quantum experiment will actually be realized!Our “complex action model” thus is a special case of superdeterminism—in Bells way—and does not have true causality, but rather even in some cases true backward causation. In fact we claim in our model that the SSC(Superconducting Supercollider) were stopped by the US Congress due to the backward causation from the big amounts of Higgs particles, which it would have produced, if it had been allowed to run. The noumenon (“das Ding an sich”) in our model is the Feyman path integrand or better some fundamental quantities determined from second order effects of the latter integrand. The quantum mechanics interpretation here is strongly similar to the much criticized “transactional interpretation” by John Cramer (Rev. Mod. Phys. 58:647–688, 1986), but we might respond to some of the criticism. (shrink)

In a given polity, interactions between the Governed and the Governing Strata are symbiotic. The Governed desire, and indeed need, infrastructure services organized. If such basic foundations are not provided, the economic activity so deeply cherished by both groups cannot be realized. The Governing Strata cannot function without the Governed. After all, without the Governed, there will not be a polity; hence nothing to govern. Regardless of the politico-economic system in effect, this co-dependence is inevitable, inescapable, indenturing both groups to (...) each other. This is the case, regardless of the designation, functions, or the style of the governance system. It matters not if the designation or philosophy of the said governance is a variation of pluralism or authoritarianism by a minority. (shrink)