Thomas Harriot was the finest English mathematician before Isaac Newton, but his work on the coinage of his country is almost unknown, unlike Newton’s. In the early 1600s Harriot studied several aspects of the gold and silver coins of his time. He investigated the ratio between the values of gold and silver, using data derived from the official weights of the coins; he used hydrostatic weighing to determine the composition of the coins; and he studied the methods used (...) to calculate how metals should be combined in order to produce the required standard of purity. This work required not only arithmetical skill, but also great insight into the relationships between the various quantities, and here his ‘greate invention of algebra’ played its part. The gold and silver coins were critically important in the national economy at that time, because they had intrinsic value and represented the country’s store of wealth. In his lifetime Harriot was supported by the patronage of Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland, who was a member of the Privy Council in 1604 when great changes to the English coinage were being made. After Harriot’s death his papers remained under the control of one of his executors, Sir Thomas Aylesbury, who became Master of the Tower Mint in 1635. These facts suggest that his work on the coins was considered to be important for practical reasons, not just academic ones. In this article the interplay between the scholarly work and its application to matters of national significance will be analysed in depth. The conclusions also throw some light on the long-standing mystery surrounding the fate of Harriot’s papers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Huributt, Hume, Newton and the Design Argument Stanley Tweyman Abookfamiliartomanyofus,Hume,NewtonandtheDesignArgument, originally published in 1965, was recentlyreissued.1 The original work traces natural theology and the design argument from antiquity to the present. It analyses Hume's critique in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, and shows one of his main targets to be the Newtonian formulation ofthe design argument andits effort to exploit science for religious purposes. In the reissued edition, (...) a supplementary essay is added, " The Dialogues as a Work of Art." In this essay, Hurlbuttargues that Hume used the dialogue form because he believed it to be an effective way to explore and expressively reveal the dialectical structure of certain kinds of philosophical and religious belief. In my own work on Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion,2 I acknowledge the importance of the dramatic components present in this work: that Pamphilus is a student of Cleanthes; that the initial assessment ofthe three speakers is provided by Hermippus (ofwhom we know nothing); that Pamphilus tells us that Philo was "a little embarrassed and confounded" after hearing Cleanthes' illustrative analogies in part 3; that Philo distances himselfat the end of part 8 from the sceptic's attack on all religious systems, and, in particular, from the attack in parts 2-8 in regard to Cleanthes' Argument from Design; that Demea's a priori argument in part 9 is criticized largely by Cleanthes rather than, as we mighthave expected, by Philo; that Demea takes leave of the discussion at the end of part 11; that Philo speaks of his "unfeigned sentiments" on the subject of natural religion in part 12; that the final pronouncement on the whole ofnatural theology (spoken by Philo) is regarded as the position which "some people seem to maintain"; that it is Pamphilus who, at the end ofthe Dialogues, assesses the 'principles' ofthe three main speakers; and that Hume speaks in his own person only once in this work, and then only in a footnote—these matters and several others were viewed as relevant to understanding the work as a whole and, therefore, were dealt with at great length. In his essay, Hurlbutt treats a familiar theme in a novel way. He supports the view, popularized largely by Norman Kemp Smith, that the literature on the Dialogues does not ordinarily take seriously the Volume XIX Number 1 167 STANLEY TWEYMAN fact that Hume chose to produce the Dialogues as a work of art. Hurlbutt therefore insists that he will not analyse the Dialogues as an argumentative essay "that is in an external fashion rhetorically embellished, and thus made more 'artful', in order to manipulate the reader and to hide or distance the author from the opinions therein" (p. 213). Such views, he urges, impoverish both Hume and the Dialogueshyimplying that he is deceitful, and by severely limiting the rich character ofthe Dialogues: T assume that Hume's decision to set the religious and theological arguments out in dialogue form was a rational act in a deeper sense, a sense tied to the things a successful work of art can do; things that a scientific essay, or even an 'artful essay", cannot do, or do so well" (ibid.). The main theme of Hurlbutt's essay—also its most original feature—is that by focusing on the Dialogues as a work of art, we will come to see that "a set ofexplicit arguments and beliefs are set out, in a series oflinked episodes, by a group ofexplicit speakers. By processes ofabstraction we can discover an implicit argument that is not wholly identical with any explicit ones, and an implicit speaker not identical with any one of the explicit speakers" (p. 215). Hurlbutt concludes by asserting that he "hopes to identify both the implicit argument and the implicit speaker with David Hume" (ibid.). Accordingly, Hurlbutt urges that Hume's thoughts and attitudes toward theology and religion cannot be identified with those ofany one ofthe explicit speakers, such as Philo or Cleanthes: "Rather, they must be identified with those of an implicit speaker, and the concept ofan implicit speaker is afunction of suggested or implicit meaning. And this last, ofcourse, is a concept ofart and aesthetics" (p. 216). Hurlbutt... (shrink)

Integrates data from various research areas concerned with the effects of unconscious perception and the preconscious antecedents of subjective experience. Discusses the possible nature and origin of preconscious processes, the evidence for unconscious perception, and the effects of unperceived stimuli on perception, verbal behavior, and memory. Examines the theory that cognitive processes evolved for the gratification of need.

Chapter I: The Geometry of Visibles 1 . The N on- Euclidean Geometry of Visibles In the chapter "The Geometry of Visibles" in Inquiry into the Human Mind, ...

Recent research has focused on business as a mediating institution that can influence society while engaging in the traditional profit-making and value generation functions. This work includes Professors Fort's and Schipani's arguments about how business may be able to play a role in promoting more peaceful societies, and other research addressing how businesses might serve a role in reducing violence in society and the workplace. Although there is a significant body of scholarship on the role of business in reducing violence (...) in society, there is little research on concrete steps for businesses to take to achieve this goal. This article attempts to begin to fill that void. As identified by Fort and Schipani, business may promote more peaceful societies by encouraging a sense of community. We argue that one way to reach that goal is for business to provide what we denote as complementary alternative benefits (CABs), to its workforce. In this article, we advocate for businesses to offer CABs which focus on sustaining the health, reducing the stress, and improving the camaraderie of its workforce. We argue that business can use these benefits to promote a healthy, less-stressed, and collegial workforce that is less prone to resolve conflicts by violence. Further, we examine the role business plays in promoting more peaceful societies and how employer-initiated stress reduction programs are consistent with both business ethics and peace-building principles. Finally, using case studies we demonstrate how CABs may also reduce costs related to absenteeism and turnover, and thus improve the bottom line. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Like most egalitarian political philosophers, John Rawls believes that a just society will rely on markets and business firms for much of its economic activity—despite acknowledging that market systems will tend to create very unequal distributions of goods, opportunities, power, and status. Rawls himself remains one of the few contemporary political philosophers to explore at any length the way an egalitarian theory of justice might deal with fundamental options in political economy. This article examines his arguments and conclusions on these (...) topics. It argues that contemporary Rawlsians will reach different conclusions if they take more seriously than Rawls himself did: (1) the implications, for the political culture and the democratic regulatory state, of large firms competing in adversarial markets characterized by the inevitable “fact of market failure,” and (2) the relevance of ownership and governance relationships involving different kinds of business firms. And with respect to the second point, Rawlsians and other egalitarians have much to learn from contemporary economic, legal, and sociological theories of the firm, and the role of these theories in the structure of and rationale for corporate law. This is the kind of social theory that Rawls believes is relevant to the justification and application of theories of justice, but he himself did not appeal to it in his writings on political economy. Contemporary egalitarians can and should appeal to it now, and in doing so correct errors and omissions in Rawls’s analysis. But taking seriously the two points mentioned above will also force egalitarians who support efficient markets to face difficult dilemmas or compromises of their own. (shrink)

No detailed description available for "Prince William B.".

The central thesis of this paper is that cost-containment challenges to an Ideal Advocate model of the physician-patient relationship can be met under proper circumstances. More specifically, it is possible for physicians to constrain costs while still making clinical decisions that are free from considerations of the physician's own interests and are uninfluenced by judgements about the patient's worth. But what is required is a closed distributive system, in which savings of resources at one point are applied to others' care (...) of higher priority and a just system, that is, a system whose distributive priorities are consistent with relevant principles of justice under moderate scarcity. The historical context of the argument and a stopgap, palliative, step are also developed. (shrink)

Democratic theorists, especially since the advent of the deliberative democracy paradigm in the 1980s, have focused primarily on relationships involving citizens and their political representatives, and have thus paid scant attention to the bureaucratic agencies within the modern state that are presumed merely to “flesh out,” implement, and enforce the decisions made by elected officials. This undertheorized space between markets and democratic decision making, in brief, is where corporations and other interested parties inter- act with regulatory agencies, their bureaucrats, and (...) the elected officials who are accountable for what governments do on their watch. How and why ought democratic governments to facilitate, regulate, or get out of the way of, markets and corporations in a so-called market democracy? We cannot possibly provide or defend a detailed answer to this question here. What we will attempt to do, however, is to make the case for why the question is too normatively and conceptually rich for political philosophers to continue to outsource it almost entirely to scholars in law and the social sciences. Although the tensions between lawmaking by bureaucrats and the ideals of representative democracy rarely merit more than a few sentences of abstract reflection by democratic theorists, we have tried to reconstruct the implicit assumptions that might explain this neglect. (shrink)

Certain kinds of medical treatment are often held to be morally unacceptable because they are an 'interference with nature'. I suggest a way in which we can make sense of such ideas. We can make significant choices only against a background of conditions which we regard as 'natural', and these will typically include such facts as those of birth and death, of youth and age, and of sexual relations. I argue, however, that such ideas, though intelligible, do not establish any (...) valid moral objection to, for instance, the use of ovarian tissue for assisted conception. (shrink)

This new edition contains the complete text of fifty-seven letters that Wittgenstein wrote to the author over a period of eleven years.

En el núcleo de nuestra imagen de sentido común se encuentra la idea de que los seres humanos somos agentes, es decir, orientamos nuestras acciones a partir de pensamientos, intenciones y deseos. En este texto, Norman Malcolm examina si disponer de una teoría neurofisiológica completa podría llevarnos a abandonar esta suposición. Malcolm argumenta que nuestras explicaciones cotidianas del comportamiento humano dependen de principios a priori que conectan a lo mental con la acción. Puesto que las explicaciones proporcionadas por una (...) teoría neurofisiológica completa dependerían de leyes contingentes, no de verdades conceptuales, tales explicaciones estarían en competencia con las explicaciones psicológicas. Para respaldar esta afirmación, Malcolm introduce un supuesto que se ha vuelto extremadamente influyente en el debate sobre la causación mental: el ‘principio de exclusión causal’. Si las leyes neurofisiológicas fuesen suficientes para explicar la acción, entonces podría prescindirse por completo de las explicaciones psicológicas. La incompatibilidad entre explicaciones psicológicas y explicaciones neurofisiológicas sumada a que las primeras involucran verdades conceptuales parecería conducir a una refutación a priori de la posibilidad de una teoría neurofisiológica completa. Pero la conclusión de Malcolm es más moderada. Él afirma que tal teoría es inconcebible; aun así, sigue siendo una posibilidad lógica. (shrink)