This essay provides evidence to support a promising conceptual and potentially practical set of ideas at once both principled and effective found in the work of Max Weber and Alfred Schutz addressed to the issue of ‘adequacy’ as a goal in social research. Efforts to achieve adequacy beyond the epistemological conditions required by Weber’s demand that evidence meet both causal adequacy and adequacy on the level of meaning were significantly refocused by Schutz’s later concern, responding specifically to Weber, that the (...) social sciences also address themselves to his postulate of adequacy. It states that “Each term used in a scientific system referring to human action must be so constructed that a human act performed within the life-world by an individual actor in the way indicated by the typical construction would be reasonable and understandable for the actor himself, as well as for his fellow men”. A serious attempt to implement a more expansive notion of adequacy by practically activating this postulate in the ways suggested can be beneficial not only for the social research situation but in everyday life as well. (shrink)

This latest book, whose editors were among those who prepared the first two volumes, centers on Popkin's crucial role in bringing together scholars from around ...

The connection between William of Ockham's philosophy and his politics has long been a subject of debate among scholars. Many have seen his nominalist epistemology, which asserts that the individual thing is the object of knowledge, as contributing towards his focus on the individual in his political thought. In her most recent article, ‘Ockham’s Right Reason and the Genesis of the Political as „Absolutist”’, Janet Coleman supports this argument concerning the influence of Ockham's philosophical individualism upon his political individualism. But (...) she also provides a different and, I believe, more important argument as to how Ockham's philosophical epistemology is connected to his politics: that what man can know about himself and others through right reason is Ockham's starting point for analysing human authority. This article attempts to support Coleman's argument that the role of right reason in the life of the individual has significant consequences for Ockham's notion of political rule. This is done through a detailed analysis of the specific role of right reason in Ockham's theory of the virtuous act, and how this treatment of right reason can be said to influence Ockham's notion of the purpose and methodology of political rule. Specifically, Ockham's notion of right reason in his ethical theory plays out in his political theory by defining the limitations of political knowledge, and thereby creating a pronounced discontinuity between the function of the individual as a self-ruler and the function of the political ruler. (shrink)

Summary. — The following theorem is proved.: If the statistical predictions of quantum theory are true in general and. if the macroscopic world is not radically different from what is observed, then what happens macroscopically in one space-time region must in some cases depend on variables that are controlled by experimenters in far-away, space-like-separated. regions. By what happens macroscopically in one space-time region is meant specifically the occurrence or nonoccurrence of a macroscopic event, such as the d.etection and recording of (...) a particle by some macroscopic device. By a variable controlled. by an experimenter in a certain space-time region is meant specifically the experimental setting in that region of some macroscopic device, in which this setting is controlled. by an experimenter acting within that region. The theorem pertains speci6cally to experimental situations in which there .are two far-apart, spacelike-separated. regions in each of which there is a device that can be set at either of two alternative settings by an experimenter acting within ' that region. There. is also a long sequence of experimental results (4.e. events) in each of the two regions. The theorem asserts that, for some such cases, it is mathematically impossible, within the manifold. (shrink)

SummaryThe ethical fundaments of research are objectivity and logic. The subjective and objective elements in the procedure: formulation of a problem — hypothesis — experimentation — selection of arguments — theory are discussed with examples from experimental biology, foremost plant physiology. A certain amount of subjectivity is essential in research, but violations of ethical rules beyond that are not uncommon. The importance of a paradigm is emphasized; research ethics may be low under pre‐paradigm conditions. The reasons for lacking ethics are (...) discussed, and the difficulty for publishing media to control research ethics is emphasized. (shrink)

Robert Darnton has recently found that L.S. Mercier's utopia, L'An 2440, was the most widely sold clandestine work of the late eighteenth century. This article first attempts to explain the appeal of the book to contemporaries. It then notes the sudden and complete eclipse of the work and offers an explanation for this based on the political achievements of the French Revolution on the one hand and on a shift in the climate of opinion on the other.

Aristotle considers all examples, as far as they are used as rhetorical arguments, to be inductions . On the other hand, he finds it worthwhile to distinguish different kinds of examples . Moreover, comparisons and fables are said to be “made” by the orator, whereas historical examples are not . The present article attempts to explain this opposition.A close examination of what can be meant by “induction” reveals that this term applies differently to historical examples and to comparisons and fables. (...) In a broader sense, all examples can be called inductions, insofar as a certain logical relation, different from the syllogistic one, obtains between conclusion and premises. This relation, however, is unable to explain why examples can serve as arguments. Applied to historical examples only, the term “induction” preserves its original meaning of checking samples in a number sufficient to yield generalization. In its narrow sense, “induction” gives a satisfactory account of how historical examples work. As for comparisons and fables — to which “induction” applies in a broader sense only — Aristotle fails to explain what makes them arguments. The explanation, missing in Rhetoric 2, 20, can, however, be given according to the general lines of Aristotelian dialectics and rhetorics. The main task of comparison and fable is to elaborate a so far unconsidered middle term meeting the following conditions: the hearer is prepared to agree that M applies to the subject of the conclusion and that the predicate of the conclusion applies to M. All examples make use of a general proposition from which their conclusion can be inferred. Historical examples produce instances, in order to confirm a proposition previously admitted as suitable premise, provided that its truth can be proved. Comparison and fables, by introducing a new middle term, try to form a premise susceptible of being admitted without proof. (shrink)

Rapid handwriting, popularly known as shorthand, involves writing symbols and abbreviations in lieu of common words or phrases. This method increases the speed of transcription and is primarily used to record oral dictation. Someone skilled in shorthand will be able to write as fast as the dictation occurs, and these patterns are later transliterated into actual, natural language words. A new kind of rapid handwriting scheme is proposed, called the Pattern-Based Shorthand. A word on a keyboard involves pressing a unique (...) sequence of keys in a particular order. This sequence forms a pattern that defines the word. Such a pattern forms the shorthand for that word. Speech recognition involves identifying, by a machine, the words spoken by a speaker. These spoken words form speech input signals to a computer that is equipped to correctly recognize the words and do further action, such as convert it to text. From this text input, unique shorthand patterns are generated by the system. The system employs machine learning to improve its performance with experience, by creating a dictionary of mappings from word to patterns in such a way that the access to existing patterns is faster with progression. This forms a new knowledge representation schema that reduces the redundancy in the storage of words and the length of information content. In conclusion, the speech is converted into textual form and then reconstructed into Pattern-Based Shorthand. (shrink)