bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Theories as Abstract Artefacts
Authors: French Steven
Published: April 2020

An alternative way of resolving the dilemma is to regard both artworks and theories as ‘abstract artefacts’ in some sense. The work of both Popper and Thomasson is drawn upon to help articulate this view and again comparisons are made between theories and artworks, particularly literary works. One obstacle to the extension of this view into science is that theories appear to be multiply discoverable and modally flexible in ways that artworks are not. However, on closer examination it appears that this barrier is not as significant as might be thought. Nevertheless, the ‘abstract artefacts’ view runs into serious problems in accommodating the heuristic moves underlying scientific ‘discovery’.
Theories Eliminated!
Authors: French Steven
Published: April 2020

Finally, a way forward through all these debates and dilemmas is suggested which involves adopting a form of eliminativism previously applied to musical works and deploying it in the philosophy of science. This eliminates theories as things but allows us to continue to talk about them and about their scientific and aesthetic qualities by adopting a form of ‘truth-maker’ theory, according to which that talk is made true by the relevant scientific practices. This shifts the philosophical focus to where it should be, namely on those practices but it is important to recognise that this does not amount to the claim that theories are constituted by such practices. According to the view motivated and defended here, there are no theories!
Theories in the Realism Debate
Authors: French Steven
Published: April 2020

If there are no theories, how can they be said to represent anything? And how can one be a realist or antirealist about them? In this final chapter the notion of ‘practice’ is extended to cover philosophical practices in order to answer these questions. Furthermore, returning to the topics of Chapters 1 and 2, we should understand the Syntactic and Semantic Approaches and the accounts of representation based on them, as meta-representational devices that allow us to capture those features of practices that we are interested in. This offers the possibility of a suitably reflective philosophy of science that is better adapted to accommodate the hetereogeneous and multi-faceted nature of science itself.
Pascal: Reasoning and Belief
Authors: Moriarty Michael
Published: April 2020

The book is a study of Pascal’s defence of Christian belief in the Pensées. It aims to expound, and in places to criticize, what it argues (drawing on existing scholarship about the history of the text) is a coherent and original apologetic strategy. It sets out the basic philosophical and theological presuppositions of his project, drawing the distinction between convictions attained by reason and those inspired by God-given faith. It sets out his view of the contradictions within human nature, between the ‘wretchedness’ (our inability to live the life of reason, to attain secure and durable happiness) and the ‘greatness’ (the power of thought, manifested in the very awareness of our wretchedness). His mind–body dualism and his mechanistic conception of non-human animals are discussed. Pascal invokes the biblical story of the Fall and the doctrine of original sin as the only credible explanation of these contradictions. His analysis of human occupations as powered by the twin desire to escape from painful thoughts and to gratify one’s vanity is subjected to critical examination, as is his conception of the self and self-love. Pascal argues that, just as Christianity propounds the only explanation for the human condition, so it offers the only kind of happiness that would satisfy our deepest longings. He thus argues that we have an interest in investigating its truth-claims as rooted in the Bible and in history. The closing chapters discuss his view of Christian morality and the famous ‘wager’ argument for opting in favour of Christian belief.
Introduction
Authors: Moriarty Michael
Published: April 2020

The Introduction discusses why it is worth reading Pascal’s religious thought today, and why he has a negative image in certain quarters, where he is perceived as a pessimistic misanthrope. This is partly on account of his adherence to the Jansenist movement in Roman Catholicism, which was committed to a hard-line interpretation of St Augustine. His approach to the task of writing a defence of Christian belief is analysed, and the kind of apologetic argument he employs is clarified. The problem for the exegete of the fragmentary nature of the work is discussed; it is argued that we have enough evidence of Pascal’s intended apologetic approach to reconstruct his overall plan, though there are areas of uncertainty; we can also evaluate the effectiveness of different plans for different audiences.
Order and Disorder
Authors: Moriarty Michael
Published: April 2020

Pascal holds that the persuasive power of an argument depends greatly on its order or disposition. But he himself claims to be writing without order. This chapter aims at reconciling this apparent contradiction. Evidence for the manner in which he intended to arrange his materials is discussed, and the rival theories of different scholars, in particular Jean Mesnard and Philippe Sellier, are expounded in some detail. Aware that unbelievers may be hostile to Christianity, Pascal argues, first, that Christianity is not contrary to reason (it deserves respect, because it shows real knowledge of human nature), and, secondly, that it is attractive because it promises genuine happiness, presumably by reference to Scripture. The expository order adopted in this book is explained.
Futility and Wretchedness
Authors: Moriarty Michael
Published: April 2020

The attention now turns to the Pensées. Futility and wretchedness are two aspects of the human condition as depicted by Pascal (his ‘anthropology’). All our efforts to attain happiness are doomed to failure. The pursuit of glory is pointless; we sacrifice real goods for the sake of our imaginary existence in the eyes of others. The pursuit of wealth or knowledge is precarious. Our activities are mostly distractions from an unwelcome present. We pursue our goals with all seriousness, while partly aware that they are futile. History is governed by chance and social order has no relation to justice. If there is an ideal authentic justice, we are unable to realize it—witness the variety of moral and political values. This is only one example of a general weakness of our cognitive powers (which Pascal emphasizes by appealing to Pyrrhonist sceptical arguments). Our capacity to reason is swamped by the power of imagination; we are vulnerable to forces beyond our control. Pascal’s view of the human condition is compared to Camus’s conception of the absurd.
Self
Authors: Moriarty Michael
Published: April 2020

Pascal believes that human beings are in thrall to an uncontrollable self-love, a self-centredness that sets them at odds with their fellow creatures and that is intrinsically unjust. (For this reason he rejects the ethic of honnêteté—politeness, consideration for others—as inadequate.) Self-love involves both the urge to tyrannize over others and the desire for recognition from them. A long fragment on the nature of the self establishes that we know others only through their qualities, and thus that a direct self-to-self relationship is impossible. Love between human beings is intrinsically flawed since no human being can be another’s fulfilment. Various objections to this line of argument are considered (Pascal’s conception of love is a very partial one), and the conclusion is that, powerful though his analysis his, he has not established that the nature of self-love is a further reason for believing in the Fall.
Diversion
Authors: Moriarty Michael
Published: April 2020

Having established that Christianity, through the doctrine of the Fall, throws light on the contradictions of human nature, Pascal turns his attention to its capacity to satisfy our desire for happiness. He begins by arguing that our particular day-to-day activities are driven, first, by the desire to keep at bay painful reflections on our vulnerable and mortal condition, and, secondly, by the desire to gratify our vanity. This applies both to recreational activities and to work. This analysis is subjected to critical examination: Pascal has overlooked our natural impulse to exercise our capacities and to find pleasure in the exercise. But the question as to the ultimate value of these activities remains.
‘The Plan of his Whole Work’
Authors: Moriarty Michael
Published: April 2020

Pascal has drawn up the blueprint for a hypothetical true religion. This would apparently require him to examine actually existing religions to see which one best matches up to it. But the Pensées discusses only one other religion in any detail: Islam (it conflates Judaism and Christianity). This apparent lacuna is discussed in the light of two accounts of a talk he gave to his friends at Port-Royal in which he set out his apologetic strategy; this is compared with the strategy he seems to be pursuing in the Pensées. In the light of this, two alternative views are set out: (i) he intended to provide a survey of world religions; (ii) he decided that this was superfluous, given the prima facie claims of Christianity.
The Need to Seek for God
Authors: Moriarty Michael
Published: April 2020

Given the foregoing reasons for taking the Christian option seriously, Pascal argues that the non-believer should, as a matter of sheer self-interest, seek for God; that is, in the first instance, investigate the truth-claims of Christianity. Atheists’ dismissal of these claims, he argues, rests on a misunderstanding of the claims themselves. Christianity preaches that God is hidden (as a result of the Fall, before which he made himself clearly known to human beings). This notion is discussed in the light of the argument by J. L. Schellenberg that the hiddenness of God, that is, the absence of evidence of God, constitutes grounds for affirming his non-existence. Pascal emphasizes the difference between Christianity and deism, a purely philosophical belief in a supreme being. Although God is hidden, it is in our interest to seek for him, as Pascal explains on the basis of his theory of probability. Different theories as to the placing of this appeal to self-interest (at the very beginning of the Apology, or halfway through) are evaluated.
The Order of Charity
Authors: Moriarty Michael
Published: April 2020

The apparent disorderliness of Scripture is merely superficial; it possesses a non-logical order which appeals to the heart. The affective aspects of this notion (hitherto subordinated to the cognitive) are discussed, in ways that illuminate Pascal’s conception of faith. The fundamental message of Scripture is the necessity of charity (the love of God). The notion of the three orders (the flesh, the mind, and the will) is explained. The greatness of Christ is as much above intellectual greatness as intellectual values transcend purely material magnitude. The love of God enables liberation from toxic self-love: the Christian ethic consists in learning to see ourselves not as isolated entities but as ‘thinking members’, parts of a spiritual body, the community of the faithful.
The Wager
Authors: Moriarty Michael
Published: April 2020

Pascal argues, on the basis of the logic of probability, that it is more advantageous to believe in God than not, since the gains of belief, if he exists, are far greater than any loss we would incur by believing if he does not exist. In the light of this, he argues that anyone who cannot believe should condition himself or herself to do so by the bodily discipline of practising Christian rituals. These arguments are clarified in detail, and the objections addressed to both are evaluated, especially the argument that the Wager would validate belief in any God. The conclusion is that our assessment of the Wager’s efficacy must depend on our views as to its relation to the anthropological, scriptural, and historical arguments discussed in earlier chapters.
Old Ways and New Roads
Authors: Leask Nigel
Published: April 2020

The chapter explores the little-known Letters  from a Gentleman in the North of Scotland to His Friend in London, written in the late 1720s and ’30s, almost certainly by Edmund Burt, a Government employee during the uneasy period of peace between the two Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745. It is proposed as an important, but often unacknowledged, precursor to many of the texts studied in the chapters that follow. The book’s urbane, Spectator-style spotlight on Highland manners, and pioneering descriptions of Highland travel and topography, mark a major departure from earlier accounts by John Macky and Daniel Defoe. Key sections explore Burt’s critical account of two Highland excursions travelling on the ‘old ways’ (i.e. traditional drove roads), and the final letter’s description of Wade’s road-building programme in the 1720s and ’30s, offering Burt a solution to the problem of Highland ‘backwardness’.
‘The Faery Ground for Romance and Poetry’
Authors: Leask Nigel
Published: April 2020

This chapter proposes that Scott’s romances appropriated elements of the Pennantian travel account, the exhaustion of which he had himself proclaimed in a devastating review of Sir John Carr’s Caledonian Sketches in 1809. At the same moment, he was busy inventing the textual conditions for the next wave of Highland tourism, based on the massive success of The Lady of the Lake and The Lord of the Isles, and his Highland novels Waverley and Rob Roy. The chapter explores the relations between Scott’s travel writing on the Highlands (especially his 1814 Pharos cruise) and the development of these verse romances and novels: his romantic ‘Highlandism’ cast a long shadow over the nineteenth century, especially his successful stage-managing of King George IV’s visit to Edinburgh in 1822. This coincided with public controversy about sheep clearances on the Sutherland estates and elsewhere, and Scott’s own cautious refusal to be drawn into the political fray.
Enemies in the Empire
Authors: Manz Stefan , Panayi Panikos
Published: April 2020

During the First World War, Britain was the epicentre of global mass internment and deportation operations. Germans, Austro-Hungarians, Turks, and Bulgarians who had settled in Britain and its overseas territories were deemed to be a potential danger to the realm through their ties with the Central Powers and classified as ‘enemy aliens’. A complex set of wartime legislation imposed limitations on their freedom of movement, expression, and property possession. Approximately 50,000 men and some women experienced the most drastic step of enemy alien control, namely internment behind barbed wire, in many cases for the whole duration of the war and thousands of miles away from the place of arrest. This volume is the first to analyse British internment operations against civilian ‘enemies in the Empire’ during the First World War from an imperial perspective. The narrative takes a three-pronged approach. In addition to the global, it demonstrates how internment operated on a (proto-)national scale within the three selected case studies of the metropole (Britain), a white dominion (South Africa), and a colony under direct rule (India). It then moves to the local level by concentrating on the three camps Knockaloe (Britain), Fort Napier (South Africa), and Ahmednagar (India), allowing for detailed analyses of personal experiences. Although conditions were generally humane, suffering occurred. The study argues that the British Empire played a key role in developing civilian internment as a central element of warfare and national security on a global scale.
Introduction
Authors: Manz Stefan , Panayi Panikos
Published: April 2020

This introductory chapter highlights the importance of the book and sets out its historiographical, theoretical, and methodological framework. From the nineteenth century the policy of locking away civilian or military population groups has become a truly global phenomenon. Historical scholarship is necessary to understand its importance and complexity. Existing scholarship on First World War internment is locked in (proto-)national levels of analysis. The study’s global perspective, in contrast, allows for a better understanding of the mechanics and impact of internment. It triangulates archive sources from Britain, German, South Africa, and India to come to balanced arguments. Although conditions were generally humane, suffering occurred. The global impact on civilian populations supports the notion of war totalization. The experience of internment is framed within the theoretical parameters of violence, race, class, gender, and emotions such as honour and shame.
Historical and Global Perspectives
Authors: Manz Stefan , Panayi Panikos
Published: April 2020

This chapter places the incarceration of Germans in the British Empire during the First World War into global and historical context. It looks back to the birth of the practice of internment in imperial wars involving Britain, the USA, and Germany in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. It traces the path to the use of British incarceration during the First World War and demonstrates how this conflict acted as a key turning point in the history of civilian confinement, making it normal wartime practice. Civilian incarceration continued in the post-war period, especially in the fall-out from the Second World War and the collapsing colonial empires, while by the twenty-first century camps have become a weapon against refugees. The chapter demonstrates how the British Empire globalized and normalized civilian incarceration during the Great War and therefore argues that it played a key role in the normalization of this process.
The Extent and Nature of the Camp System
Authors: Manz Stefan , Panayi Panikos
Published: April 2020

This chapter gives a broad overview of British imperial internment, stressing its globality. It first looks at internee numbers both within Britain and in the Empire as a whole. It then develops a camp typology which includes specially built environments such as Knockaloe, military establishments and forts, old factories, and prison islands. Some of these structures were permanent, others only temporary. The chapter then tackles cultural life within camps, as well as conditions and the notorious barbed-wire disease. The chapter moves on to a detailed examination of two areas of the British Empire which have attracted limited attention from scholars of internment during the Great War in the form of Canada, where attention has tended to focus upon Ukrainians rather than Germans, and the West Indies and Bermuda.
Great Britain
Authors: Manz Stefan , Panayi Panikos
Published: April 2020

This chapter looks at the centre of the imperial internment system in the form of Great Britain. It begins by focusing upon those Germans already resident in the country who formed the bulk of those experiencing incarceration and the formation of policy towards them, which remained haphazard until the sinking of the Lusitania, which led to the decision to incarcerate all males of military age for the rest of the war. The chapter also examines those brought to Britain from the high seas, whether fishermen, those on ship journeys, or those captured in British ports. The chapter then moves on to outline the key camps which emerged in the British mainland during the war. It concludes by stressing the centrality of Britain in the whole imperial interment process both because it led internment policy and because it held more internees than the rest of the Empire put together.
India
Authors: Manz Stefan , Panayi Panikos
Published: April 2020

The chapter begins with a brief outline of the operation of the Indian civil service, the Government of India, and its relationship to Whitehall through the India Office, as well as pointing to the role of India during the Great War. The narrative then tackles the issue of the development of a hostile Anglo-Indian opinion towards the Germans which meant that the white race split apart. As in other parts of the Empire, the Government of India introduced measures which controlled the movement of the German minority and also confiscated all German property. Those interned consisted mostly of Germans resident in India when the war broke out, including missionaries, although others arrived there from Bahrain, East Africa, and Siam. Apart from the head camp at Ahmednagar, a series of other establishments also evolved, including Belgaum which held families and Sholapur which incarcerated women transported from Siam.
Mobilizing on Germany’s Frontier
Authors: Mezger Caroline
Published: April 2020

Chapter 4 investigates the World War II mobilization of the Western Banat’s ethnic German children and youth into National Socialist organizations. It explores the evolution of the region’s (now mandatory) Deutsche Jugend, showing how—through the coordinated efforts of the German minority school system, the local youth leadership, and the military—almost all children and youth deemed to be “German” officially joined the organization. Not all individuals forced into the Deutsche Jugend, however, saw its activities as an onerous burden. Rather, even decades later, some of its former members appreciated their engagement with the Deutsche Jugend as a key “nationalizing” experience and as an avenue of great personal accomplishment. Within the organization, being “German” once again officially entailed defending the Third Reich, a calculation which would bring thousands of youth voluntarily and coercively into the arms of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS.
Forging Germans under Hungary
Authors: Mezger Caroline
Published: April 2020

Chapter 5 explores the fraught (re-) incorporation of the Batschka/Bácska/Bačka into the Hungarian state during World War II, highlighting the experiences of the region’s ethnic Germans. Interweaving archival, press, and oral history sources, it elucidates the violent conflicts that erupted even among children and youth as the region’s Donauschwaben suddenly became Hungarian citizens. Arenas such as the school and the Church became highly contested spaces of nationalization, as the Third Reich’s imperialist ambitions, local Donauschwaben activism, and Hungary’s nation-building project collided over differing notions of “Germanness.” Unlike in the Western Banat, the Catholic Church in the Batschka maintained its programs and advocated a religious, pro-“host state,” anti-Nazi “Germanness.” This violently bifurcated the Batschka’s Donauschwaben communities, including youth, into pro-Church, pro-Hungarian “blacks” and pro-Nazi “browns,” inspiring conflicts and diverse notions of national belonging that reverberate to the current day.
Introduction
Authors: Webster Erin
Published: April 2020

This chapter introduces the study by providing an overview of the epistemological, ethical, social, and political issues surrounding the subject of technologically mediated vision in early modern England. It lays out the key optical developments of the period, including the invention of the telescope and the microscope, and provides a brief synopsis of Johannes Kepler’s theory of the retinal image, which over the course of the seventeenth century gradually came to replace older, species-based models of vision. This context having been established, the introduction describes the general contours of the debate surrounding the efficacy and ethics of optical technology in the seventeenth century and identifies and introduces the major works to be discussed in subsequent chapters. It closes with an explanation of the study’s methodological approach, which is to read the texts it includes not only as being about optical devices but also as acting as optical devices—literary lenses that can be used to reveal the hidden motivations, assumptions, and desires present within their words.
Poetry as Optical Technology
Authors: Webster Erin
Published: April 2020

This chapter explores the impact of Johannes Kepler’s mechanical model of vision on early modern poetic theory. It begins with an overview of classical visual and optical theory as they relate to Plato’s and Aristotle’s descriptions of poetry as an image-making technology. At the same time, it explains how their poetic theories are in turn connected to a philosophical tradition that associates heightened visual capacity with spiritual insight and intellectual and moral authority. The chapter then moves into an exploration of how early modern poetic theorists both inherited and adapted this existing intellectual tradition in response to the optical and visual theory of the period. By comparing Philip Sidney’s Defence of Poetry (1595) and George Puttenham’s The Arte of English Poesie (1589)—two works that pre-date Kepler’s theory—to later, seventeenth-century works by William Davenant, Thomas Hobbes, and John Dryden, this chapter shows that the changing status of the image in seventeenth-century European culture resulted in a complementary alteration within theories of poetic representation.
Domesticating Atrocity Law
Authors: Berlin Mark S.
Published: April 2020

This chapter traces the history of efforts to domesticate international atrocity law, which provides initial plausibility for the book’s central argument. The chapter locates the origins of atrocity laws in the decades prior to World War II with a community of influential European criminal law scholars, most of whom were leaders of the International Association of Penal Law (AIDP). Following the war, some of these experts helped draft the first international atrocity law treaties, and the enforcement regimes they designed relied on national enforcement through domestic legislation. Four phases of atrocity law adoption then followed. In the first phase (1945–1957), the adoption of atrocity laws was driven mostly by principled norm entrepreneurs who were actively committed to the advancement of an international criminal law regime. In the second phase (1957–1985), professionalization and emulation became central drivers of domestic atrocity criminalization. As national governments all over the world drafted new criminal codes, transnational professional influences conditioned technocratic drafters to see atrocity criminalization as important for a modern criminal code. In the third phase (1985–1998), a new wave of domestic and international attempts to prosecute government officials for past atrocities, coupled with a resurgence of foreign technical legal assistance, helped foster the conditions that made atrocity criminalization salient beyond a specialized community of professional criminal law experts. Finally, in the current phase (1998–present), international civil society groups, inspired by the creation of the International Criminal Court, have undertaken concerted public advocacy efforts to promote the domestication of atrocity law.
Vulnerable Persons
Authors: Katajala-Peltomaa Sari
Published: April 2020

In late medieval miracle narrations, women formed the majority of victims of demonic possession, even if not an exclusive category. General ideas and theories about both women’s physiology and morality facilitated their labelling as demoniacs. Women’s bodies were deemed to be more open and many normal functions of the female body were considered impure. This chapter’s structure follows the female life course, focusing on corporeality’s links with demonic presence. Menarche, (the loss of) virginity, marriage, pregnancy, and giving birth were closely linked with religiously imbued changes in social position which caused anxiety. The paucity of cases connected to signposts of physical growth and social maturing implies, however, that the link between female corporeality and sexuality and the demonic was not inevitably made in the minds of laity testifying in canonization processes. Instead, demons’ role was to give voice to fears and uncertainties when something went wrong during these precarious situations.
Roman Political Culture
Authors: Tacoma Laurens E.
Published: April 2020

This book offers an analysis of Roman political culture in Italy from the first to the sixth century AD on the basis of seven case studies. Its main contention is that, during the period in which Italy was subject to single rule, Italy’s political culture had a specific form. It was the product of the continued existence of two traditional political institutions: the senate in the city of Rome and the local city councils in the rest of Italy. Under single rule, the position of both institutions was increasingly weakened and they became part of a much wider institutional landscape. Nevertheless, they continued functioning until the end of the sixth century AD. Their longevity must imply that they retained meaning for their members, even when society was undergoing significant changes. As their powers and prerogatives shrank considerably, their significance became social rather than political: they allowed elites to enact and negotiate their own position in society. The tension between the fact that the institutions were at heart participatory in nature, but that their power was restricted, generated complex social dynamics. On the one hand, participants became locked in mutual expectations about each other’s behaviour and were enacting social roles, while on the other hand they retained a degree of agency. They were encapsulated in an honorific language and in a set of conventions that regulated their behaviour, but that at the same time offered them some room for manoeuvre.
Liability
Authors: Quong Jonathan
Published: April 2020

Chapter 2 develops and defends an original account of liability to defensive harm: the moral status account. On this view, a person renders himself liable to defensive harm when the evidence-relative permissibility of his act depends on the assumption that others lack certain moral rights that they in fact possess, and his act threatens, or reasonably appears to threaten, those rights. The chapter also provides criticisms of competing accounts of liability, in particular, the moral responsibility account influentially developed by Jeff McMahan, among others. The chapter concludes by addressing a number of objections that might be pressed against the moral status account.
Necessity
Authors: Quong Jonathan
Published: April 2020

Chapter 5 develops and defends an original account of the necessity constraint on the use of defensive force. The chapter argues that the necessity condition is grounded in the right to be rescued from harm when this rescue can be provided at reasonable cost. The chapter argues that even wrongful attackers have the right to be rescued from serious harm when others can do so at reasonable cost, and this right explains why there is a necessity condition on the permissible use of defensive force. The chapter also offers criticisms of competing conceptions of the necessity condition, as well as offering a particular view regarding the relationship between necessity and liability.
Certification and Business Risk
Authors: Trifković Neda
Published: April 2020

This chapter investigates the scope for international private standards to play a role in reducing business risk among the small and medium enterprises in Vietnam. Business risk is measured as variability in revenue, variability in customer base, practice of making informal payments, and temporary firm closure. The results show lower levels of business risk among certified firms, especially for firms in the middle deciles of the risk distribution. This finding is robust to the use of different business risk measures. Certification also correlates negatively with risk for technologically advanced firms, as well as firms located in rural areas and northern provinces of Vietnam. The results suggest that firms could find protection from business downsides by investing in internationally recognized quality management tools.
Motion prior to Galileo
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Aristotle is credited with turning man’s mind towards the natural world and the concept of motion. Unfortunately, his own beliefs on motion were incorrect and evolved into an extremely deep paradigm that stifled progress.
Galileo and the Law of Fall
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Galileo broke away from Aristotle’s incorrect theories of motion towards his own based on experimental evidence. He employed experimentation to discover the parabolic trajectory of projectile motion and also the Law of Fall. His work helped establish the scientific method and launch the scientific revolution.
Newton and the Laws of Motion
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

In his Principia (1687), Sir Isaac Newton laid out his discovery of the laws of motions and the law of universal gravitation. His historic journey involved a critical moment when, aided by discussions with Robert Hooke, he conquered the challenge of circular motion, e.g. one body circling another, by introducing the concept of force. The Principia was a tour-de-force demonstration of the intelligibility of the universe and ultimately broke physics away from philosophy. This work led directly to the concept of energy.
Rudimentary version of the conservation of mechanical energy (1750)
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Simple machines revealed potential energy in the form of mgh (mechanical work) while free fall and ascent revealed the interplay between h and v2. Leibniz revealed the logical connection between mgh and mv2.
Heat: the missing piece to the puzzle
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Historians explore the various theories of heat and the invention of the thermometer that eventually served to quantify the energy related to heat.
Joseph Black and the rise of heat capacity
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

By developing the science of calorimetry and the doctrines of sensible and latent heats, Joseph Black separated temperature from heat. Subsequent research by others on the concept of heat capacity led to the Dulong–Petit Law, which can be understood based on the atomic theory of matter.
Lavoisier and the birth of modern chemistry
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Building on the discoveries of such scientists as Priestley and Cavendish, Lavoisier invalidated the concept of phlogiston, discovered respiration to be a form of combustion, and ultimately laid the foundation for modern chemistry. Unfotunately, he also endorsed the caloric theory of heat, which was later proven to be incorrect.
Caloric theory: beginning of its end
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

The early 1800s provided new evidence challenging the caloric theory when Rumford bored a cannon and boiled water, Davy melted ice by using friction, and Young made the connection between light and radiant heat. Mayer and Joule then succeeded in killing caloric by simply ignoring it and instead embracing work–heat equivalence.
The ideal gas
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

The historical origins of the ideal gas law (PV = nRT) are described in addition to theorists’ attempts to explain heat capacity.
Julius Robert Mayer
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Mayer built a conservation law that included heat based on his calculation for the mechanical equivalent of heat (MEH) involving the difference in heat capacity at constant pressure and that at constant volume.
James Joule
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Joule’s journey to his energy conservation law began with his unsuccessful evaluation of the electric motor as a means to achieve perpetual motion. A series of subsequent experiments eventually led him to a definitive experiment in which he demonstrated the transformation of work (a falling weight) into heat (a spinning paddle that heated water) occurs at a precise ratio called the mechanical equivalent of heat (MEH). This and other of his experiments proved that heat is not a conserved quantity and that heat and work are simply two forms of a conserved quantity later to be called energy. He shared his findings with William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) who then went on to establish the field of thermodynamics.
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

The concept of energy and its conservation arrived around 1850 and became the basis for the 1st Law of Thermodynamics and also the early development of the kinetic theory of gases, which explained heat as the translational motion of atoms through space.
Epilogue: The mystery of beta decay
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

The mystery of beta decay temporarily challenged the conservation of energy. The discovery of the neutrino solved this mystery and preserved the conservation law.
Entropy: science (and some history)
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Entropy is a natural consequence of our discrete world involving large systems of colliding particles, atoms, and molecules. Entropy is quantified based on the number of different ways that such systems can be created. The discovery of entropy, however, occurred not in this mathematical exercise but instead inside Clausius’ theoretical analysis of the steam engine as inspired by Carnot. Clausius’ discovery of entropy enabled completion of thermodynamics.
Britain and the steam engine
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

The steam engine evolved in Britain as a cost-effective means to pump water out of mine shafts thereby enabling deeper mines and greater coal production.
James Watt
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Watt improved the efficiency of the steam engine by moving the condenser out of Newcomen’s one-cylinder operation. Watt’s continuous improvements efforts blazed the trail towards the founding of thermodynamics.
Sadi Carnot
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Carnot sought to better understand the performance of the Cornish engine for the benefit of France. His ground-breaking analysis involved new theories on thermal efficiency, maximum work, and closed-cycle operation. Carnot proposed an ideal heat engine that achieved the best possible efficiency, regardless (surprisingly) of the nature of the working substance. Unfortunately, embedded deep inside Carnot’s powerful analysis was a single major flawed assumption: the caloric theory of heat in which heat is treated as a conserved quantity.
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin)
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Being raised on the caloric theory in which heat is a conserved quantity, Thomson faced challenges in accepting Clausius’ analysis of Carnot’s heat engine. Once he finally overcame these challenges, helped by collaborating with his brother James, Thomson accepted and then furthered Clausius’ work by proposing a different perspective of Clausius’ 2nd Principle and the 2nd Law of Tthermodynamics: energy dissipation. This chapter concludes with the role Hermann von Helmholtz played in bringing a rational approach to a thermodynamic science based on cause–effect.
J. Willard Gibbs
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Building on the work of Clausius, Gibbs wrote three papers that completed the foundation of classical thermodynamics. The focus of this chapter is his first two papers in which he introduced graphical techniques as a means to understand the properties of matter and phase equilibrium of a single compound.
The 2nd Law, entropy, and the chemists
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

The Thomsen–Berthelot principle together with the thermal theory of affinity theorized that the change in enthalpy of a reaction (dHrxn) is the sole determiner of reaction spontaneity. Exothermic reactions are spontaneous. This theory worked well except for the fact that some endothermic reations are also spontaneous. Gibbs’ work incorporating entropy showed that the true determiner of reaction spontaneity, as well demonstrated in the electrochemical cell, is the change in Gibbs free energy (dGrxn) as quantified by dHrxn − TdSrxn. Included is a discussion of the Gibbs–Helmholtz equation, which quantifies the the impact of temperature on dGrxn and thus on equilibrium.
Clausius: the kinetic theory of gases
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Rudolf Clausius developed the first modern version of the kinetic theory of gases. His derivation provided the means to predict the heat capacity of a monatomic gas and to quantify the mean free path distance traveled by atoms between collisions.
Boltzmann: the probabilistic interpretation of entropy
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Boltzmann’s collective work was a mathemetical tour de force. Building on Clausius and Maxwell, he demonstrated that the distribution of gas phase atoms and molecules follows from probability theory. Atoms and molecules distribute themselves in space and momentum to the most probable distribution. Boltzmann used probability theory to quantify the most probable state and then demonstrated the connection between this state and its entropy. This novel approach, later validated by Sackur–Tetrode, led to the creation of statistical mechanics.
Shannon: entropy and information theory
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Shannon embraces statistical mechanics terminology to describe his information theory.
Afterword
Authors: Hanlon Robert T.
Published: April 2020

Thermodynamic theory and history are reviewed together with the sharing of insights gathered during the writing of this book.
Born to Write
Authors: Kenny Neil
Published: April 2020

Scratch the surface of literary production from the late fifteenth to the mid-seventeenth century in France, and a large number of the authors, translators, and editors turn out to be relatives of other authors, translators, and editors. Why was this? Why did some 200 families contain more than one literary producer and so exercise disproportionate influence over what people read in the period? The phenomenon ranged from poetry (the Marots, the Des Roches) to scholarship (the Scaligers), from history-writing (the Godefroys) to engineering (the Errards). It included not just fathers and sons but also mothers, daughters, siblings, uncles, cousins, grandchildren. One family, the Sainte-Marthes, took this so far that sixteen of its own became literary producers, rising to twenty-seven if one broadens the chronological parameters. The phenomenon was European rather than just French, as the Sidneys or the Tassos show. But it took distinctive forms in France, where it was often connected to royal office-holding, and where it eventually faltered only with the French Revolution. Literary production was for many families a way of representing, and so claiming, their own place in the world; a way, alongside others, of clutching at distinctiveness and social status; a way of generating sociocultural legacy within the family. Not that everything went to plan or that the plan was always precise. Family literature, as defined by this study, was orientated towards the future but was sometimes even rejected or parodied by descendants rather than imitated or venerated. Whether harmonious or disunited, families were central to the hierarchical social fabric out of which much literature and learning emerged. Restoring that centrality changes our understanding of the works produced.
Inheritance under the Law
Authors: Kenny Neil
Published: April 2020

Works of literature and learning that emanated from families were not only similar in some respects to inheritable assets but were often legacies themselves. Birth-based social hierarchy was underpinned by inheritance practices, which varied across France and affected men and women differently. These practices were aimed, amongst other things, at ensuring that children maintained or increased the social status enjoyed by parents or collateral relatives. Among the milieu of royal office holders who were heavily involved in producing works of literature and learning, the patrimonialization of such offices was important to the social status of many families.
Family Literature
Authors: Kenny Neil
Published: April 2020

The production of works within families took two main, interconnected forms. First, collaborative production occurred between family members, most often between ones related by blood. Secondly, some families spawned more than one literary producer (in the sense of author, editor, or translator). Although in a few cases this continued over many generations (the Sainte-Marthe family being the extreme case), in most instances the literary producers belonged to the same generation as each other or to immediately successive ones. In practice, those two forms of the production of works within families were often entwined: subsequent literary producers in a family often edited a parent’s works as well as writing new works. I call both forms ‘family literature’. In other words, I use the phrase for works that emanated from a family that spawned more than one literary producer, including, but not limited to, works that were co-produced by family members.
Family Literature
Authors: Kenny Neil
Published: April 2020

Many works of literature and learning were produced by authors, editors, or translators who were not the only author, editor, or translator in their family, but who were joined by one or more others, whether predecessors, contemporaries, or descendants. Of 2,239 literary producers identified as being born in ‘France’ between 1450 and 1600 (or as being born elsewhere but spending much of their life in ‘France’), at least 503 were from families of literary producers. A high proportion of the 503, probably about two in five, belonged at some point in their lives to the nobility. About 7 per cent of the 503 were female. But that quantitative picture does not capture the whole of literary production within families, particularly by women. The present survey is of the production of literary and/or learned works and should not be taken as a proxy for levels of literary and learned activity.
Works Shaped by Family
Authors: Kenny Neil
Published: April 2020

Family literature ranged from works of humanist scholarship to history, to poetry, to engineering. There was considerable imitation by relatives of the practices, disciplines, and genres that preceding relatives had adopted. More generally in family literature, certain preoccupations recurred, for example with history, time, nobility, genealogy, and transmission. Certain structural elements of printed-book objects were fostered by family dynamics: large size; paratexts; bricolage. This chapter surveys some ways in which the preoccupation with propelling families into the future shaped printed books. The survey is of a spectrum of overlapping possibilities: it runs from volumes that were largely presented as being by a single literary producer to ones that were largely presented as being by a family collective.
From Professor’s Son to ‘François Beroalde, escuyer, sieur de Verville, docteur en medicine’
Authors: Kenny Neil
Published: April 2020

François Béroalde de Verville used self-representation, including in print, more extensively than his father, Matthieu Beroald, in order to carve out his own social status. Literature and learning were for François the passport to social ascent, one of the media in which it was achieved, and a sign that it had been achieved. But his is a less clear-cut story of social ascent than his father’s. It is in this insecurity, and in the fragility of the social effects of François’s own intellectual inheritance from his father, that the very dynamism of François’s representations of social status lies. The chapter first considers what Matthieu bequeathed to his son François, formally and informally. It then considers how François constructed his own social status. What role, if any, did family, learning, and literature play in that constructing? And how did the latter affect his communicating to readers through texts?