If the density matrix is treated as an objective description of individual systems, it may become possible to attribute the same objective significance to statistical mechanical properties, such as entropy or temperature, as to properties such as mass or energy. It is shown that the de Broglie--Bohm interpretation of quantum theory can be consistently applied to density matrices as a description of individual systems. The resultant trajectories are examined for the case of the delayed choice interferometer, for which Bell [Int. (...) J. Quantum chem. 155--159, (1980)] appears to suggest that such an interpretation is not possible. Bell’s argument is shown to be based upon a different understanding of the density matrix to that proposed here. (shrink)

Schulman (Entropy 7(4):221–233, 2005) has argued that Boltzmann’s intuition, that the psychological arrow of time is necessarily aligned with the thermodynamic arrow, is correct. Schulman gives an explicit physical mechanism for this connection, based on the brain being representable as a computer, together with certain thermodynamic properties of computational processes. Hawking (Physical Origins of Time Asymmetry, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994) presents similar, if briefer, arguments. The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the support for the link between (...) thermodynamics and an arrow of time for computers. The principal arguments put forward by Schulman and Hawking will be shown to fail. It will be shown that any computational process that can take place in an entropy increasing universe, can equally take place in an entropy decreasing universe. This conclusion does not automatically imply a psychological arrow can run counter to the thermodynamic arrow. Some alternative possible explanations for the alignment of the two arrows will be briefly discussed. (shrink)

This book is the latest step in the development of a scholarly program whose origin goes back at least twenty years to the publication of Henry's The "De Grammatico" of St. Anselm: The Theory of Paronymy. Other major steps in the same direction are the publications of The Logic of St. Anselm, Medieval Logic and Metaphysics, and Commentary on "De Grammatico". The program involves two general theses: the demonstration of the value of medieval contributions to both metaphysics and logic, and (...) the claim that the best way to appreciate and interpret such contributions is through the use of a precise logical language which Henry identifies with that created by Stanislaw Lesniewski and further developed by Czeslaw Lejewski. It also involves a more specific thesis elaborated in greater detail in the latest book: that there is a close interrelation between metaphysics and grammar such that "an analytical exploration of the logical structure of propositions in general, and of medieval metaphysical propositions in particular, may itself have a metaphysical basis". The logical language proposed by Henry becomes the contemporary counterpart of the metaphysical foundations of medieval philosophy. (shrink)

At the time of his death in 1982, at the age of forty-five, and after a short career of only fifteen years, Jan Pinborg had established himself as one of the most important historians of medieval philosophy of the past quarter of a century. His contributions, scattered in more than ninety publications, including books and articles, were primarily in the areas of logic, semantics, and linguistics. This volume is a fitting memorial to his achievements both because it reflects the areas (...) where Pinborg made contributions to the history of medieval philosophy and because the ten articles it contains illustrate the various historiographical genres to which Pinborg contributed: translations, editions, comprehensive historical accounts of the development of certain issues and concepts, general expositions of the overall philosophical doctrine of a particular author, specific studies of the positions of individual authors on a given problem, and detailed analytical discussions of pointed philosophical problems or texts. (shrink)

Limits to Action: The Allocation of Individual Behavior presents the ideas and methods in the study of how individual organisms allocate their limited time and energy and the consequences of such allocation. The book is a survey of individual resource allocation, emphasizing the relationships of the concepts of utility, reinforcement, and Darwinian fitness. The chapters are arranged beginning with plants and general evolutionary considerations, through animal behavior in nature and laboratory, and ending with human behavior in suburb and institution. Topics (...) discussed include operant conditioning; the principle of diminishing returns; and issues in relation to mating strategies. Biologists, sociologists, economists, and psychologists will find the book interesting. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

What are physical quantities, and in particular, what makes them quantitative? This book presents an original answer to this question through the novel position of substantival structuralism, arguing that quantitativeness is an irreducible feature of attributes, and quantitative attributes are best understood as substantival structured spaces.