In recent times, a previously unchallenged and longstanding communis opinio concerning the extant manuscript tradition of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica has been shattered by Prof. W.-W. Ehlers in his revelation that the fifteenth-century Laurentianus plut. 39.38, L, written by the Florentine scholar, Niccolò Niccoli, is independent of the much exalted oldest witness, Vaticanus Latinus 3277, V, copied in Fulda in the second quarter of the ninth century. With equally silent subservience to the hazardous and now discredited principle, vetustissimus et optimus, second (...) place in the tradition had commonly been given to a manuscript of similar age to that of V, namely S, discovered in 1416 at the monastery of St. Gall by three humanist scholars, Poggio Bracciolini, Cencio Rustici and Bartolomeo da Montepulciano, and subsequently lost, except through reconstruction from six extant fifteenth-century apographa, each instantly recognizable from the fact that they contain only 1.1–4.317. Between V and S, however, as Ehlers and others before him have argued, a common exemplar, a, must be deduced to exist. (shrink)

The Bell–Kochen–Specker theorem shows that, in any Hilbert space of dimension of at least 3, it is impossible to assign noncontextual definite values to all observables in such a way that the quantum-mechanical predictions are reproduced. This leaves open the issue of what subsets of observables may be assigned definite values. Clifton has shown that, for a system of at least two continuous degrees of freedom, it is not possible to assign simultaneous noncontextual values to two coordinates and their conjugate (...) momenta. In this Letter, it is shown that, for a system of a single continuous degree of freedom, it is not possible to assign noncontextual values to the coordinate and its conjugate momenta that satisfy a continuity assumption herein called the ‘ -Product Rule’.  2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

A number of observations have led researchers to postulate that, despite being replication‐defective, human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) may have retained the potential to cause or contribute to disease. However, mechanisms of HERV pathogenicity might differ substantially from those of modern infectious retroviruses or of the infectious precursors of HERVs. Therefore, novel pathways of HERV involvement in disease pathogenesis should be investigated. Recent technological advances in sequencing and bioinformatics are making this task increasingly feasible. The accumulating knowledge of HERV biology may (...) also facilitate the definition and general acceptance of criteria that establish HERV pathogenicity. Here, we explore possible mechanisms whereby HERVs may cause disease and examine the evidence that either has been or should be obtained in order to decisively address the pathogenic potential of HERVs. (shrink)

In his discussion of Virgilian imitations of Lucretian phraseology Cyril Bailey examines the phenomenon of what he terms the ‘doublet’, that is, the procedure whereby Virgil imitates separate elements of a Lucretian phrase at different points in his own work. Take, for example, De Rerum Natura 1. 210–12: esse videlicet in terris primordia rerum, quae nos fecundas vertentes vomere glebas terraique solum subigentes cimus ad ortus.

This paper argues that, contrary to the claims of Alan Chalmers, Boyle understood his experimental work to be intimately related to his mechanical philosophy. Its central claim is that the mechanical philosophy has a heuristic structure that motivates and gives direction to Boyle's experimental programme. Boyle was able to delimit the scope of possible explanations of any phenomenon by positing both that all qualities are ultimately reducible to a select group of mechanical qualities and that all explanations of natural phenomena (...) are to be in terms of the operations of machines and are to appeal only to qualities that are already familiar. This is illustrated by his investigations into the Torricellian experiment. Boyle's explanation of the elevation of the mercurial cylinder by appeal to the spring of the air was an intermediate mechanical explanation. Boyle was convinced that the spring of the air was ultimately reducible to the mechanical qualities. This in turn had implications for his research into the cause of respiration. In a move that was both parsimonious and consistent with the broad requirements of the mechanical philosophy, Boyle was able to solve the problem of the cause of the inflow of air into the lungs by appeal to his research in pneumatics. This application of a mechanical explanation in pneumatics to physiology is just what one would expect if the mechanical philosophy was as universal as Boyle claimed it to be. Therefore, far from Boyle's experiments having a life of their own, they were clearly directed by and understood in terms of the mechanical philosophy. (shrink)

The status nomenclature of the Imperial slaves, as that of the Imperial freedmen, is important mainly for its bearing on the difficult problems of dating slave sepulchral inscriptions, but also as a means of determining who were Imperial slaves belonging to the Familia Caesaris with the significant social status this implied. Bang's careful but brief treatment of the subject, published in 1919, was not based on a complete collection of the material—admittedly difficult to obtain—and much has appeared in the interval. (...) Moreover, a deeper analysis of the evidence necessitates some revision of his conclusions. (shrink)

We analyze phase-space approaches to relativistic quantum mechanics from the viewpoint of the causal interpretation. In particular, we discuss the canonical phase space associated with stochastic quantization, its relation to Hilbert space, and the Wigner-Moyal formalism. We then consider the nature of Feynman paths, and the problem of nonlocality, and conclude that a perfectly consistent relativistically covariant interpretation of quantum mechanics which retains the notion of particle trajectory is possible.

The concept of joint action is at the core of numerous diverse research topics, including philosophical explorations of social action, studies of human dialogue, human-computer interaction, computer-supported collaborative work, multiagent systems, distributed artificial intelligence, distributed simulation, and contract law. It is therefore remarkable that so central a concept has received so little detailed analysis, in comparison with studies of individuals. However, in recent years, the study of joint action has begun to undergo more intense scrutiny, primarily from philosophers and researchers (...) in artificial intelligence. These two disciplines often address similar topics but with different motivations, methodologies, tools, and criteria for success. Although this paper is inspired by philosophical work, it is squarely motivated by the concerns of building intelligent systems that are capable of collaborative behavior, either with a user, or with other such systems. Still, we hope that the paper sheds light on philosophical issues, and treats the subject of joint action at a sufficiently precise level to be illuminating of problems that any philosophical account needs to confront. (shrink)