Aggregation methods allow one to replace a large scale dynamical system (micro-system) by a reduced dynamical system (macro-system) governing a small number of global variables. This aggregation of variables can be performed when two time scales exist, a fast time scale and a slow time scale. Perturbation theory allows to obtain an approximated aggregated dynamical system which describes the behaviour of a few number of slow time varying variables which are constants of motion of the fast part of the micro-system. (...) Aggregation methods are applied to the case of the devastation of the great barrier reef by the starfishes. We recall the Antonelli/Kazarinoff model which implies a stable limit cycle for the corals and starfish populations. This prey-predator model describes the interactions between two species of corals and the starfish. Then, we generalize the Antonelli/Kazarinoff model to the case of two spatial patches with a fast part describing the starfish migration on the patches and the human manipulation of the communities by divers and, a slow part describing the growth and the interactions between the populations. We obtain an aggregated model governing the total coral densities on the patches and the total starfish population. This model can exhibit stable limit cycle oscillations and a Hopf bifurcation. The critical value of the bifurcation parameter is expressed in terms of the proportions of coral species and starfish on the two patches. This implies for example that rather than random killing of starfish by the Australian military, it may be better to send teams of divers to outbreaking reefs when they first occur who will then manipulate the community structure to increase protection. (shrink)

Propositional quantifiers are added to a propositional modal language with two modal operators. The resulting language is interpreted over so-called products of Kripke frames whose accessibility relations are equivalence relations, letting propositional quantifiers range over the powerset of the set of worlds of the frame. It is first shown that full second-order logic can be recursively embedded in the resulting logic, which entails that the two logics are recursively isomorphic. The embedding is then extended to all sublogics containing the logic (...) of so-called fusions of frames with equivalence relations. This generalizes a result due to Antonelli and Thomason, who construct such an embedding for the logic of such fusions. (shrink)

Peter Carruthers's essays on consciousness and related issues have had a substantial impact on the field, and many of his best are now collected here in revised form. The first half of the volume is devoted to developing, elaborating, and defending against competitors one particular sort of reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness, which Carruthers now refers to as 'dual-content theory'. Phenomenal consciousness - the feel of experience - is supposed to constitute the 'hard problem' for a scientific world view, (...) and many have claimed that it is an irredeemable mystery. But Carruthers here claims to have explained it. He argues that phenomenally conscious states are ones that possess both an 'analog' intentional content and a corresponding higher-order analog content, representing the first-order content of the experience. It is the higher-order analog content that enables our phenomenally conscious experiences to present themselves to us, and that constitutes their distinctive subjective aspect, or feel.The next two chapters explore some of the differences between conscious experience and conscious thought, and argue for the plausibility of some kind of eliminativism about conscious thinking. Then the final four chapters focus on the minds of non-human animals. Carruthers argues that even if the experiences of animals aren't phenomenally conscious, this needn't prevent the frustrations and sufferings of animals from being appropriate objects of sympathy and concern. Nor need it mean that there is any sort of radical 'Cartesian divide' between our minds and theirs of deep significance for comparative psychology. In the final chapter, he argues provocatively that even insects have minds that include a belief/desire/perception psychology much like our own. So mindedness and phenomenal consciousness couldn't be further apart.Carruthers's writing throughout is distinctively clear and direct. The collection will be of great interest to anyone working in philosophy of mind or cognitive science. (shrink)

This book presents the first integrated treatment of the philosophy of Robert Boyle, one of the leading English natural philosophers of the Scientific Revolution.

The emergence of experimental philosophy was one of the most significant developments in the early modern period. However, it is often overlooked in modern scholarship, despite being associated with leading figures such as Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, David Hume and Christian Wolff. Ranging from the early Royal Society of London in the seventeenth century to the uptake of experimental philosophy in Paris and Berlin in the eighteenth, this book provides new terms of reference for (...) understanding early modern philosophy and science, and its eventual eclipse in the shadow of post-Kantian notions of empiricism and rationalism. Experimental Philosophy and the Origins of Empiricism is an integrated history of early modern experimental philosophy which challenges the rationalism and empiricism historiography that has dominated Anglophone history of philosophy for more than a century. (shrink)

In this remarkably clear and original study of the Tractatus Peter Carruthers has two principal aims. He seeks to make sense of Wittgenstein's metaphysical doctrines, showing how powerful arguments may be deployed in their support. He also aims to locate the crux of the conflict between Wittgenstein's early and late philosophies. This is shown to arise from his earlier commitment to the objectivity of logic and logical relations, which is the true target of attack of his later discussion of (...) rule-following. Within this general framework Dr Carruthers explores a number of themes, including the early Wittgenstein's doctrine of the priority of logic over metaphysics, the nature and purpose of his programme of analysis for ordinary language and the various possible arguments supporting the existence of Simples. He offers many original interpretations and defends them with considerable attention to textual detail, yet the book's clarity and directness will make it accessible to anyone acquainted with the Tractatus. It will be required reading for all serious students of Wittgenstein's philosophy. (shrink)

Desire-based accounts of practical argument about incompatible ends seem limited either to advice about means or to coercive threats. This paper argues that this can be avoided if the parties to the dispute desire its resolution by means other than force more than they desire the satisfaction of any particular ends. In effect, this means they must argue as if in a position of equal power. This leads to an explanation of the apparent objectivity of moral claims and of why (...) moral reasons appear to be categorical and external. It also explains how notions such as reciprocal altruism and TIT-FOR-TAT can play a role in an evolutionary account of morality. The paper concludes with an argument to the effect that a desire-based metaethic must accept the is-ought gap and explains why there may appear to be no is-ought gap from within a given normative perspective. (shrink)

This title is written to match GCSE Religious Studies AQA B, option 2 and can be used as part of a full course or short course. It contains summaries and practise exam questions at the end of each section to help prepare for exams.

RésuméFerdinand de Saussure postule une science générale des signes qu’il ap-pelle sémiologie. La langue n’en serait qu’un cas particulier caractériée par l’arbitrariété totale de ses unités. Cette caractéristique reviendrait aussi à l’écriture qui n’est cependant pas un systéme sémiologique primaire, mais un système secondaire dont la fonction est de représenter un système pri-maire. Il existe en outre des systèmes tertiaires comme, par example, l’alphabet Morse, l’écriture Braille, les systèmes de chiffrage, etc. Les modes de manifestation peuvent être soit acoustique soit (...) visuel. Tandis que la langue et l’écriture sont totalement arbitraires, les autres systèmes sémiologiques peuvent être motivés jusqu’à un certain de-gré. À côté des sémiologies utilitaires il existe aussi des sémiologies esthé-tiques comme, par example, les légendes. La sémiologie elle-même n’est qu’un cas particulier de la sémiotique qui tient aussi compte des signes naturels. Les frontières entre langue, sémiologie et et sémiotique sont souvent flottantes et imprécises. (shrink)

The Collective Imagination explores the social foundations of the human imagination. A comprehensive audit of the creativity claims of the post-modern age - that finds them badly wanting and looks to the future - this book will appeal to sociologists and philosophers concerned with cultural theory, cultural and media studies and aesthetics.

This volume presents new work in history and historiography to the increasingly broad audience for studies of the history and philosophy of science. These essays are linked by a concern to understand the context of early modern science in its own context.

Music is an important philosophical theme in Confucian writings, one that is intimately related to ritual. But the relationship between music and ritual requires clarification. This paper seeks to argue for a general sense of music that reflects a particular aspect of ritual that has to do with performance. There is much material available in classical texts, such as the 'Record of Music' ('Yueji'), that allows for nuanced explications of the musical qualities of such performances. Thus explicated, those musical terms (...) provide for a way of speaking about the overall effects of ritual that is not bound to specific choreographic details or particular ritual rules. Finally, it is suggested that the Confucian notion of ren 仁 could be usefully compared to the generalised notion of music. (shrink)

Abstract A growing number of theorists have argued that toleration, at least in its traditional sense, is no longer applicable to liberal democratic political arrangements—especially if these political arrangements are conceived of as neutral. Peter Jones has tried make sense of political toleration while staying true to its more traditional (disapproval yet non-prevention) meaning. In this article, while I am sympathetic to his motivation, I argue that Jones’ attempt to make sense of political toleration is not successful. Content Type (...) Journal Article Pages 1-6 DOI 10.1007/s11158-012-9177-3 Authors Peter Balint, The University of New South Wales, Canberra, ACT 2602, Australia Journal Res Publica Online ISSN 1572-8692 Print ISSN 1356-4765. (shrink)

Counternomics—counterfactuals whose antecedents run contrary to the laws of nature—are commonplace in science but have enjoyed relatively little philosophical attention. This article discusses a puzzle about our counternomic epistemology, focusing on cases in which experimental observations are used as evidence for counternomic claims. I show that these cases resist being characterized in familiar interventionist lines, and I suggest a characterization of my own.

This paper presents a unified argument against three widely held contemporary analyses of lawhood—Humean reductionism about laws, the dispositionalist view of laws, and the view of laws as relation...

This paper argues that the English philosopher John Locke, who has normally been thought to have had only an amateurish interest in botany, was far more involved in the botanical science of his day than has previously been known. Through the presentation of new evidence deriving from Locke’s own herbarium, his manuscript notes, journal and correspondence, it is established that Locke made a modest contribution to early modern botany. It is shown that Locke had close and ongoing relations with the (...) Bobarts, keepers of the Oxford Botanic Garden, and that Locke distributed seeds and plant parts to other botanists, seeds of which the progeny almost certainly ended up in the most important herbaria of the period. Furthermore, it is claimed that the depth of Locke’s interest in and practice of botany has a direct bearing on our understanding of his views on the correct method of natural philosophy and on the interpretation of his well known discussion of the nature of species in Book III of his Essay concerning human understanding. (shrink)

Although natural resource scarcity is a pressing issue for many organizations, it has received little attention in management research. Drawing on resource dependence theory, this article theorizes how organizations manage uncertainty from their dependence on scarce natural resources. For this end, it explains how socio-ecological processes involving anthropogenic impacts on ecosystem services cause this form of uncertainty. It then proposes that organizations develop wide-ranging responses to such uncertainty, depending on their predominant institutional logics, from protecting and restoring ecosystems that provision (...) critical natural resources to further developing those ecosystems for optimal resource yields at the risk of degrading them. The article adds to the limited existing research on the unique challenges of managing natural resource scarcity and extends resource dependence theory by accounting for socio-ecological dynamics that create uncertainty regarding natural resources. (shrink)

Early modern experimental philosophers were opposed to speculation, and yet many endorsed speculative theories. This chapter gives a partial explanation of why this is so, using Robert Boyle’s acceptance and promotion of the corpuscular philosophy as a case study. It argues that, in addition to furnishing experimental evidence for the corpuscular hypothesis in his Forms and Qualities, Boyle attempted to establish its epistemic superiority over other speculative theories on the grounds that it is founded upon superior principles. In his ‘Excellency (...) and Grounds of the Mechanical Hypothesis’, Boyle claims that the principles of the corpuscular philosophy are more intelligible, more parsimonious, ontologically primary, simpler and more comprehensive than those of its rivals. On grounds of comparative plausibility then, according to Boyle, the corpuscular philosophy is eminently preferable to its rivals. The final section of the chapter traces the legacy of Boyle’s appraisal of the epistemic status of the corpuscular philosophy in the writings of many of his compatriots from the mid-1660s to the Cyclopedia of Ephraim Chambers of 1728. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In Germany, applied ethics is under attack from a diverse coalition of left‐wing organisations, disability groups, and some conservative defenders of a strict doctrine of the sanctity of human life. The attack has been pressed to the point of forcing the cancellation of conferences and disrupting lectures or classes so that they cannot take place. This essay describes the extent and nature of the attack, and makes a preliminary assessment of its significance.

This paper examines problems of order and periodicity which arise when the attempt is made to define a confirmation function for a language containing elementary number theory as applied to a universe in which the individuals are considered to be arranged in some fixed order. Certain plausible conditions of adequacy are stated for such a confirmation function. By the construction of certain types of predicates, it is proved, however, that these conditions of adequacy are violated by any confirmation function defined (...) for the type of language in question. Various possible solutions to these difficulties are explored and found to be inadequate. In particular, a proposal which stems from the suggestion to restrict a fundamental principle of confirmation to hypotheses containing only non-positional predicates is cited. This proposal, however, is shown to prevent confirmation functions from taking periodicities into account, and so is deemed unsatisfactory. A general theorem is proved to the effect that if non-positional predicates are taken to satisfy the conditions of adequacy which have been formulated, then no periodicity predicates whatsoever (i.e., predicates used in formulating hypotheses which foretell periodicities) can be subject to these conditions, on pain of contradiction. Yet it seems that periodicity predicates must be subject to these conditions of adequacy if a confirmation function is to recognize periodic occurrences. Thus, an impasse seems to be reached. In the final sections we consider the beginnings of one possible solution to these difficulties. Our proposal involves treating sets of individuals, rather than individuals themselves, as instances of an hypothesis which predicts a periodicity. On this basis we formulate new conditions of adequacy which are free from the previous difficulties and which will permit a confirmation function that satisfies them to take periodicities into account. (shrink)

This collection of new essays on John Locke's philosophy provides the most up-to-date entrée into the exciting developments taking place in the study of one of the most important contributors to modern thought. Covering Locke's natural philosophy, his political and moral thought and his philosophy of religion, this book brings together the pioneering work of some of the world's leading Locke scholars.

Translated and edited by Peter D. Arnott, this classic and highly popular edition contains two essential plays in the development of Greek tragedy-_Oedipus the King and Antigone_-for performance and study. The editor's introduction contains a brief biography of the playwright and a description of Greek theater. Also included are a list of principal dates in the life of Sophocles and a bibliography.

This article focuses on the theory of solidarity presented by Émile Durkheim in The Division of Labour in Society ([1893] 1969). Despite its popularity, the distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity has received a lot of criticism. Durkheim allegedly was unable to demonstrate the superior integrating force of modern organic solidarity, while this was his central thesis at the time. A second critique challenges his macrostructural point of view. However, by confronting Durkheim’s classical theory with contemporary work, notably Honneth’s theory (...) of recognition, we can deduce a reformulated framework that is less vulnerable to the afore-mentioned critiques. On the one hand, we specify mechanical and organic solidarity as a dialectical synthesis of both internalized universalistic principles and particularistic emotional orientations. On the other, we incorporate the foregoing typology in a cyclical model that implies interacting processes of inclusion and individualization. (shrink)

Many of us think that perspective-taking is relevant to moral judgment. In this paper I claim that Scanlon’s contractualism provides an appealing and distinctive account of why this is so. Contractualism interprets our moral judgments as making claims about the reasons of individuals in various situations, reasons that we can only recognise by considering their perspectives. Contractualism thereby commits itself to the view that our capacity for moral judgment depends on our capacity for perspective-taking. I show that neither utilitarianism nor (...) Kantianism assign a similar significance to our capacity for perspective-taking. (shrink)

_The Nature of the Mind_ is a comprehensive and lucid introduction to major themes in the philosophy of mind. It carefully explores the conflicting positions that have arisen within the debate and locates the arguments within their context. It is designed for newcomers to the subject and assumes no previous knowledge of the philosophy of mind. Clearly written and rigorously presented, this book is ideal for use in undergraduate courses in the philosophy of mind. Main topics covered include: * the (...) problem of other minds * the dualist/physicalist debate * the nature of personal identity and survival * mental-state concepts The book closes with a number of pointers towards more advanced work in the subject. Study questions and suggestions for further reading are provided at the end of each chapter. _The Nature of the Mind_ is based on Peter Carruthers' book, _Introducing Persons_, also published by Routledge. (shrink)