The Second Conference of the International Society for the Study of Time was held at Hotel Mt. Fuji, near Lake Yamanaka, Japan, on July I to 7,1973. The present volume is the proceedings at that Con ference and constitutes the second volume in The Study of Time series. * At the closing session of our First Conference in Oberwolfach, Germany, in 1969, I was honored by being elected to the Presidency of the Society, following Dr. J. G. Whitrow, our fIrst (...) President. My mandate was to organize a Second Conference, consistent with the aim of the Society, which is the holding of interdisciplinary conferences for the presentation and discussion of papers on various as pects of time. Several participants expressed to me their wish to have a second conference held in Japan so as to emphasize the international and intercultural dedication of this Society. Dr. Fraser carefully evaluated this and many other suggestions, weighed the possible conference sites and our chances of raising the necessary funds to convene a meeting at such sites, and concurred with my conclusions that we should go ahead with the plans for a Japanese meeting. For the difficult and complicated task of raising funds and organizing a conference in Japan, I had to select and rely heavily on somebody both capable and reliable and also living in Japan. Thus, I asked the Reverend Michael Mutsuo Yanase, S. J. (shrink)

The conjunction of Schrodinger dynamics and the usual way of thinking about the conditions under which quantum systems exhibit determinate values implies that measurements don't have outcomes. The orthodox fix to this quantum measurement problem is von Neumann's postulate of measurement collapse, which suspends Schrodinger dynamics in measurement contexts. Contending that the fundamental dynamical law of quantum theory breaks down every time we test the theory empirically, the collapse postulate is unsatisfactory. Recently philosophers and physicists have proposed a less violent (...) solution to the measurement problem. Their modal interpretations of quantum mechanics advocate unusual ways of thinking about the situations under which quantum systems exhibit determinate observable values, semantics which reconcile determinate measurement outcomes with universal Schrodinger dynamics. Thus modal interpretations hold out hope that quantum theory is complete and exceptionless. ;This dissertation tempers that hope. I consider the modal approach to the neglected problem of state preparation. A promising modal account exploits standard quantum transition probabilities. But, I claim, modal interpretations must subject these transition probabilities to a consistency constraint which they can be shown to violate. Non-standard transition probabilities might avoid this inconsistency, but they would also introduce novel dynamics, and so undo the modal triumph of taking Schrodinger dynamics to be complete and universal. Next I consider Albert and Loewer's assault on modal accounts of "error-prone" measurements. I argue that the Albert-Loewer problem is more general than Albert, Loewer, or their critics appreciate, and that the Araki-Yanase theorem implies the existence of a class of observables whose error-free measurements succumb to the Albert-Loewer problem. I review modal responses to Albert and Loewer which appeal to the palliative effects of a decohering environment and find them incomplete. Finally, based on the physicist Anthony Leggett's work with SQUIDs, I present a system concerning which the empirical commitments of modal interpretations contradict those of the quantum statistical algorithm, minimally interpreted. I conclude that these modal difficulties can be resolved only by taking the quantum formalism to be incomplete. (shrink)

Recent Anglophone scholarship has successfully shown that Nietzsche's thought makes important contributions to a wide range of contemporary philosophical debates. In so doing, however, scholarship has lost sight of another important feature of Nietzsche's project, namely his desire to challenge the very conception of philosophy that has been used to assess his merits as a philosopher. In other words, contemporary scholarship has overlooked Nietzsche's contributions to metaphilosophy, i.e. debates around the nature, methods, and aims of philosophy. This important new collection (...) of essays brings together an international group of distinguished scholars to explore and discuss these contributions and debates. It will appeal to anyone interested in metaphilosophy, Nietzsche studies, German studies, or intellectual history. (shrink)

This book examines Augustine's description of the actually existing world, especially that aspect most important for the human pursuit of happiness: the human being and God. It begins with an overview of the characteristics of the human individual and the context in which they must live out their lives, a context dominated by two seemingly contradictory realities: the existence of God and the existence of evil.

The starting point of my study is Kant’s remark to the effect that Garve in his treatise on the connection between morality and politics presents arguments in defence of unjust principles. Recognition of these principles is, according to Kant, an inadvisable concession to those who are inclined to abuse it. I interpret this judgement by making a detailed comparison of the texts of the two treatises. I demonstrate that Garve’s work is an eclectic attempt to combine in one concept the (...) lessons of historical experience with the ideas drawn from British empiricism and German rationalism. These ideas were criticised by Kant in his “critical” period. There is a consensus among researchers that Garve condoned the expansionist policy of Frederick II of Prussia, totally denied that legality in international relations was possible and in general deserved the reputation of an conservative. From that point of view the key values for Garve were the security and well-being of the state. I offer an alternative interpretation of Garve’s position because I believe that the value of political stability plays an important role in it. Such an interpretation makes it possible to treat Garve’s narrative as it was assessed by Kant, i.e. as a concession to the common principles of political practice as a result of a failure to find the guiding theory. My study has established that the role of Garve’s work in the writing of Kant’s treatise Toward Perpetual Peace was more significant than Kant’s own words suggest. Besides, I show that it was under Garve’s influence that Kant turned to the problem of excessive complexity of the principles involved in the search for concrete political decisions. Garve obviously laments this complexity and yet makes these principles still more complex. Kant offers a simpler solution of the problem on the basis of his theory of morals and right. (shrink)

A series of experiments investigated the effect of speakers’ language, accent, and race on children’s social preferences. When presented with photographs and voice recordings of novel children, 5-year-old children chose to be friends with native speakers of their native language rather than foreign-language or foreign-accented speakers. These preferences were not exclusively due to the intelligibility of the speech, as children found the accented speech to be comprehensible, and did not make social distinctions between foreign-accented and foreign-language speakers. Finally, children chose (...) same-race children as friends when the target children were silent, but they chose other-race children with a native accent when accent was pitted against race. A control experiment provided evidence that children’s privileging of accent over race was not due to the relative familiarity of each dimension. The results, discussed in an evolutionary framework, suggest that children preferentially evaluate others along dimensions that distinguished social groups in prehistoric human societies. (shrink)

Exploration of Alfred North Whitehead's influence on Maurice Merleau-Ponty's ontology of nature.

Research papers on Hindu philosophy and Sanskrit grammar.

There is a long and successful scholarly tradition of commenting on Nietzsche’s deep affinity for the philosophy of Heraclitus. But scholars remain puzzled as to why he suggested at the end of his career, in Ecce Homo, that the doctrine he valued most, the eternal recurrence of the same, might also have been taught by Heraclitus. This essay aims to answer this question through a close examination of Nietzsche’s allusions to Heraclitus in his first published mention of eternal recurrence in (...) The Joyful Science and in a related set of notes from the period when he was formulating and defending his doctrine of eternal recurrence while writing Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The key to answering this question, it is argued, is that Nietzsche came to believe that the doctrine of eternal recurrence, when properly understood as requiring identical repetition, has to presuppose a Heraclitean reality of eternal, absolute, and universal flux. (shrink)

Several recent papers dealing with Plato's position on the imperfection of the phenomenal world draw heavily on the differences between two kinds of predicates in order to show the following: In the middle dialogues, Plato posits Forms only as referents of what the writers call incomplete predicates. He does not posit Forms as referents for complete predicates. When interpreters ignore the differences between these kinds of predicates, they ascribe too radical a view regarding the imperfection of the phenomenal world to (...) the middle dialogues. The ontology of these dialogues includes sensible particulars which retain their identity over time even though they are continually changing in some respect or other. (shrink)