The fundamental solution of the Schrödinger equation for a free particle is modified by the inclusion of an arbitrary scalar and an arbitrary vector, both imaginary. This gives a field free from singularities. By choosing the scalar small and the vector large, one obtains a model of a wavepacket which moves fast and remains concentrated over a long range.

ristophanes Frogs 1407–81 is a passage involving several problems of interpretation, the chief of which is, of course, the position and status of lines 1437–41 and 1451–3. In this brief note I shall confine myself to a consideration of the distribution of lines 1422–34 among the characters involved.

Analytical philosophers, if they are true to their training, never forget the first lesson of analytical philosophy: philosophers have no moral authority.In so far as analytical philosophers believe this, they find it easy to live with. For them even to assert, let alone successfully lay claim to, moral authority would require, first, hard work of some non-analytical and probably mistaken kind and, secondly, personality traits of leadership or confidence or even charisma, which philosophers may accidentally have but which they are (...) certainly not trained to have and had better not rely upon, while they live by analytical standards. Yet a further reason why analytical philosophers find the denial of their moral authority easy to accept is that they never forget the second lesson of analytical philosophy, either: nobody else has any moral authority. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Lived Experience and Cognitive Science Reappraising Enactivism’s Jonasian Turn” by Mario Villalobos & Dave Ward. Upshot: This commentary questions an assumption in the target article to the effect that science prohibits projecting any intentional properties or entities outside of human experience.

In this paper we construct the ortholattices arising in quantum logic starting from the phenomenologically plausible idea of a collection of ensembles subject to passing or failing various “tests.” A collection of ensembles forms a certain kind of preordered set with extra structure called anorthospace; we show that complete ortholattices arise as canonical completions of orthospaces in much the same way as arbitrary complete lattices arise as canonical completions of partially ordered sets. We also show that the canonical completion of (...) an orthospace of ensembles is naturally identifiable as the complete lattice of properties of the ensembles, thereby revealing exactlywhy ortholattices arise in the analysis of “tests” or experimental propositions. Finally, we axiomatize the hitherto implicit concept of “test” and show how they may be correlated with properties of ensembles. (shrink)

David Lamb offers this book to students of Wittgenstein and analytic philosophy as an introduction to some of the important themes in Hegel's work, which such readers might wish to follow up. The publishers add on the back cover that Lamb's book also contributes to "more advanced discussions of Hegel's philosophy.".

We give an explicit solution of a model Boltzmann kinetic equation describing a gas between two walls maintained at different temperatures. In the model, which is essentially one-dimensional, there is a probability for collisions to reverse the velocities of particles traveling in opposite directions. Particle number and speeds (but not momentum) are collision invariants. The solution, which depends on the stochastic collision kernels at the walls, has a linear density profile and the energy flux satisfies Fourier's law.

(1979). Some Observations on the Problems of Grading Examinations with Several Components: a reply to P. J. Squire. Educational Studies: Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 225-230.

This is a slim volume of essays on meaning that merits use in an undergraduate or graduate course, particularly in that several contributors-Davidson, Quine, Dummett, and Geach—introduce, summarize, and illustrate the views of meaning with which they are associated. There is also a somewhat loosely-woven essay by Follesdal, [[sic]] in part relating the Anglo-American tradition to Continental formulations, and an essay by Anscombe on the first person which concludes, somewhat enigmatically, that "'I’ is not a referring expression.".