bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Reality, Measurement, and the State of the System in Quantum Mechanics
Authors: Kemble Edwin C.
Published: November 2002

It has always been the ideal of science to discover laws of nature on which we can all agree. Agreement requires evidence independent of individual judgment, i.e., objective evidence. We apply the term objective to such unbiased scientific evidence because we associate it with an external world of objects that we conceive to be the origin of our information. This external world is instinctively invented by each of us as a means of dealing with invariant patterns in his private world of experience. The invention is validated and elaborated as a consequence of the fact that it turns out to be sharable. In fact the common content of all our invented external worlds is so unambiguous and independent of individual bias that it can form the universally accepted basis for communication and action in an organized society. The consistency of the patterns of experience associated with the external world is such that we are under severe psychological compulsion to assign to this world an existence independent of our experience and a reality superior to that of any small part of our experience. Physical science is devoted to the study of the “laws” of the external physical universe, i.e., to the behaviour of the objects in it. Hence there is a strong tendency to project into the external world the information gathered by scientifically objective methods and even the theoretical concepts in terms of which the information is interpreted. Whatever is so projected is objective in a second sense of the term, i.e., assigned by us to the external world of objects.
Quantum Mechanics, Amplifying Processes, and Living Matter
Authors: Elsasser Walter M.
Published: November 2002

A quarter of a century has elapsed since quantum mechanics was discovered. Perhaps it is not too much to say, in retrospect, that the time was ripe for this particular development. This is attested, not only by the speed with which the edifice of the theory was completed immediately following the basic discoveries of Heisenberg and Schrödinger, but also by the rapidity, well-nigh unprecedented in the history of science with which the new results were applied to almost every branch of physics and chemistry. A mental readiness on the part of the scientists involved might have had much more to do with this than the facilities of modern communication systems.
Logical Positivism and Existentialism
Authors: Cerf Walter
Published: November 2002

The two most antagonistic schools in contemporary Western philosophy are Existentialism and Logical Positivism. They have nothing in common but the name of philosophy, and even that they deny each other. There is some kind of discussion going on between even such distant schools as Pragmatism and neo-Thomism; Existentialists and Logical Positivists have nothing but sarcasms for each other. To philosophers familiar only with the Anglo-Saxon scene Existentialism must appear negligible. In the Mediterranean countries, on the other hand, where philosophy is a much more popular pastime, Existentialism has an unparalleled vogue and Logical Positivism is considered a horrible aberration from the naturally speculative course of philosophy. In South America whose philosophical life we are apt to underrate Logical Positivism seems to be known to almost nobody, whereas Existentialism, mostly in its German and anti-religious shape, has become, quite paradoxically, the rallying point of “Liberalism,” liberalism, in Spanish countries, being above all anti-catholicism. Although, ironically enough, both Logical Positivism and modern Existentialism originated in German speaking countries, the split between the two goes vaguely parallel with, and may have found some ready echo in, the different cultural inheritance of the Anglo-Saxon and Latin races. Hence, the subject of this paper would seem far-fetched to those steeped in their own national tradition. There is, however, a growing consciousness of the “one world” function of philosophy, particularly with regard to Eastern and Western philosophy (Northrop, Burtt, Conger, etc.). Would it not be a prerequisite of this more ambitious enterprise to gain a clear conception about the most radical split in our own contemporary Western philosophy, the split between Logical Positivism and Existentialism? This paper is an attempt to establish a perspective permitting a just evaluation of the two philosophies.
Supernaturalism or Naturalism: A Study in Meaning and Verifiability
Authors: Spiegelberg Herbert
Published: November 2002

Among the many dichotomous cleavages among philosophers and theologians few seem to me as questionable as the Procrustean division into supematuralists and naturalists. “Naturalism” and “supernaturalism” have become party labels whose original meanings have been lost in the heat of banner-waving and slogan shouting. Even the great minds of the past, who were innocent as yet of this philosophical two-party system, are being herded into one pen or the other. And apparently few of the penkeepers are aware of the fact, pointed out almost apologetically by Professor Randall, that “the usage is hardly fashionable abroad, even in England.” (39, p. 355) I, for one, confess that, not having been acclimatized in my European cave to this stern disjunction, I have to this day felt rather uneasy, if not evasive, at the outspoken or tacit expectation to line up with one faction or the other, much as my leanings were toward the other rather than toward the one. I therefore decided that some day I had to get to the bottom of this uneasiness.
The Syllogism Revised
Authors: Reichenbach Hans
Published: November 2002

The syllogism has often been criticized. Yet the theory of the syllogism cannot be omitted from logic. Even if it were not for its historical significance, its nature as a chapter of class logic assigns to it a place in any presentation of logic.

The usual exposition of the theory of the syllogism, however, whether given by the use of the familiar rules of the syllogism, or by the help of diagrams, appears clumsy and lacks the lucidity of modern chapters of logic. The reason seems to be given in the inefficient notation, taken over from ancient and medieval logic. In the following I should like to present an improved notation, which combines some of the traditional features with modern ones, and which is based on the criticism of the syllogistic theory which I have given elsewhere. It will be seen that in the revised form the theory of the syllogism is apt to meet the standards of modern logic.
Problems of the Sociology of Knowledge
Authors: Hartung Frank E.
Published: November 2002

The sociology of knowledge can most generally be defined as the discipline devoted to the social origins of thought. It is an analysis concerned with specifying the existential basis of thought, and with establishing the relationship obtained between mental structures or thought, and that existential basis. Some very interesting and difficult problems arise from this conception of the sociology of knowledge. Perhaps the most obvious of these is whether or not a sociology of knowledge, as here conceived, is theoretically possible. This is a problem I do not intend to deal with at present because limitations of time prevent me from doing even partial justice to it.
Reflections on the Problem of Time in Relation to Neurophysiology and Psychology
Authors: Moulyn Adrian C.
Published: November 2002

In a previous paper it was suggested that specific concepts are needed in the psychological sciences and the basic mental triad was described as a useful tool to further our understanding of mentation (1). It was stated that the sensori-motor reflex principle cannot describe and explain mental phenomena, because the reflex is basically a mechanistic occurrence, while mental phenomena differ in essence from mechanisms. Since conditioned reflexes can be conceived as sensori-motor reflexes with another, non-mechanistic factor superimposed, similarities and contrasts between reflexes and conditioned reflexes were taken as the material from which one can develop new thoughts about mentation. Reflex shutting of the eyelid, caused by direct contact between cornea and a small, invisible foreign body was compared with and contrasted to shutting the eye before a large, visible object thrusting toward the eye. It was shown that reflexes occur in response to a stimulus after the stimulus has been applied, while conditioned reflexes seem to anticipate the stimulus. This was taken as evidence that conditioned reflexes have a protensive character, have a relationship to the future, which sensori-motor reflexes lack. This difference in time relationship was developed into the statement that the difference between mechanisms and mental phenomena lies in their different relationship to the future. The need for specific concepts to describe mental phenomena stems from the inability of the reflex principle to deal with the protensive tendency of mental phenomena and to fill this need the concept of the basic mental triad was offered. This principle consists of three interdependent, interwoven phases: the triad connects with the past through condensation of some of the subject's past experience into a vaguely formed conglomerate; it connects with the future by projecting the condensed past into the future; the central phase of the triad is the act within the present instant, where a synthesis of past, present and future is accomplished.
Postulates for Physical Time
Authors: Biser Erwin
Published: November 2002

It is evident to every earnest thinker that a theory of time is in a very significant sense implicit in any philosophy of nature. Indeed, the search for a time standard independent of the variation of the earth's speed, the maximum variation being slightly more than one-thousandth of a second, involves the most basic concepts and principles of physical theory (8).
On Verifiability, Simplicity, and Equivalence
Authors: Berenda C. W.
Published: November 2002

This paper is intended to provide a rather brief, suggestive, though not very precise, analysis of the significance of “contextualism” for “meaning”, and more specifically of the significance of “systematic (contextual) simplicity” in relation to “meaningful operations” in the language of natural science. The notion of “equivalent theories” is examined in conjunction with the question of simplicity, and finally, these ideas are brought to bear upon “realism” and “semantic realism” in particular. The pragmatic-aesthetic question of the role of simplicity in scientific theories is of some concern to philosophers of science. Henry Margenau (7:96) has pointed out that, among the metaphysical (epistemological) requirements of scientific theories, the “most embarrassing … is one which is often called the postulate of simplicity….” When a topic is embarrassing, the best way to help remove such embarrassment is to indulge further in frank and open discussion of the topic. This I have tried to do in what follows.
Linguistic Isomorphisms
Authors: Storer Thomas
Published: November 2002

The Wittgensteinian thesis that “the result of philosophy is not a number of ‘philosophical propositions,’ but to make propositions clear” has been given various interpretations by subsequent philosophers. Thus, for example, certain British philosophers have confined themselves to the analysis of colloquial language and have developed great skill in sophistical demonstrations intended to show that there is no such thing as a philosophical problem. Another group of philosophers considers language solely as a phenomenon of human behavior and attempts to clarify confusions and misunderstandings within language by utilizing the statistical techniques of contemporary behavior psychology. Still other philosophers, under the impact of logical positivism, have maintained that the clarification of propositions entails the construction of a language with precise rules of formation, transformation, and reference into which one could translate all the non-contradictory portions of ordinary spoken language.
The Evolution of Cosmologies
Authors: Reiser Oliver L.
Published: November 2002

Man is by nature a creature who is curious. He must have theories and explanations. He wants to understand why there is a universe; and he wants to know what kind of a universe it is that he inhabits. Primitive man has his myths about the origins of things, and the modern scientists have their latest speculations about the universe. And of the making of cosmological hypotheses there is no end.
Scientific Method in Cosmology
Authors: Munitz Milton K.
Published: November 2002

The extension of the method of science to the study of the astronomical universe as a whole is an impressive and important feature of recent intellectual history. In a field where previously myth and metaphysics ranged at will with speculative abandon but with little in the way of progressively cumulative information or insight, by contrast, scientific cosmology has already produced significant results of an observational sort and opened up vistas of disciplined theoretical vision that are a token of even more extensive disclosures to come. With the aid of high-powered telescopes, observationally grounded descriptive generalizations have been established about the structure, distribution and motions of the bodies constituting the basic astronomical units out of which the universe is composed. Such units are, in contemporary investigations, identified as the extragalactic nebulae. Preliminary surveys revealed a uniformity of distribution of these nebulae throughout space and in all directions. Also original surveys, accomplished primarily by Hubble, suggested an empirical law stating a linear proportionality between the distances to nebulae and the red-shift in their spectra. If such red-shift is interpreted as a velocity effect, it may be taken as marking a mutual recession of nebulae from one another, and leads thereby to the general idea of an “expanding universe.' Meanwhile, theoretical cosmology in the hands of the mathematical physicists has kept pace with observational advances by offering a variety of ”models” or explanatory theoretical devices for the systematic ordering and incorporation of the fruits of observation. Beginning with the ground-breaking paper by Einstein in 1917 where an extension was made of relativistic principles to the cosmologic domain, a variety of further attempts were made along classical relativistic lines by Einstein himself, de Sitter, Robertson, Tolman and Lamaître while somewhat different modes of approach were subsequently opened in several directions by Milne, Eddington, Hoyle, and others. While nothing in the way of a stable or wholly acceptable theory has yet made its appearance, nevertheless fruitful and promising lines of research have thus been inaugurated.
Is medicine an Exact Science?
Authors: King Lester S.
Published: November 2002

It is an interesting paradox that on the one hand intemperate enthusiasm greets new medical discoveries. On the other hand, the lack of science in medicine is paraded from time to time, usually as a matter of apologetics, as, when a physician wishes to excuse an error, a lawyer to discredit a physician, or a jury to render a verdict contrary to medical evidence. Philosophers who insist on the mathematical or quantitative aspects in any definition of science ascribe very little that is truly scientific to biology in general or to its daughter medicine in particular. Jerome Frank comments approvingly that “many scientific-minded physicians today deny that medicine is, or is likely ever to be, a science.” (4) Articulate physicians themselves may be highly critical. Dr. Ian Stevenson, for example, declares, “Medicine will not achieve the status of a science until the basic laws of health and disease have been disclosed. But the search for these laws has hardly begun.” (10) Stevenson goes on to point out that instead of seeking basic laws, medicine is concentrating on facts, from which no laws emerge.
The Functions of Point and Line in Time Measuring Operations
Authors: Moulyn Adrian C.
Published: November 2002

Measuring time is expressing temporal relationships between objects in terms of spatial relationships with the aid of geometric points, straight lines and clocks. The concepts, point and line, are abstracted from the concrete substratum of sensory experience. This process of abstraction is integrated with the psychological processes which go on within an observer who is reading a clock. The analysis of clock-reading from a psychological point of view points up the necessity to differentiate between two modalities of time: objective time, or, time relationships between objects and which can be expressed in terms of space with point, line and clock; and subjective time, or, the time structure of the human individual in which region point and line are irrelevant concepts. From this irrelevance of point and line it follows that subjective time cannot be measured.
A Key Problem of Current Political Philosophy: The Issue of Force and Violence
Authors: Somerville John
Published: November 2002

In recent years American legislatures and other governing bodies, public and private, have been considering, probably more frequently than ever before, problems associated with the idea of overthrow of government by force and violence. The question usually takes the form of whether Communists believe in and advocate this doctrine; and, if they do, whether they should therefore be penalized in various ways. This issue is and has been central to a series of legal actions which, whatever their ultimate outcome, will constitute a landmark in the history of American jurisprudence.
Is the Ψ-Function Description “Complete?” A Layman's Question
Authors: Fries Horace S.
Published: November 2002

On the side of Niels Bohr, not to mention a few other physicists, there is an honest acknowledgment of a difficulty in understanding Einstein's objection to the “completeness” of the Ψ-function description of the quantum phenomenon. Yet the weight which Bohr himself attaches to Einstein's insistence may indicate that if the latter's difficulty could be understood, then, through the cooperation of understanding physicists, another great accomplishment of unification might be obtained which would be as fruitful for the future as either or both the general theory of relativity and Bohr's statistical theory have been to the present.
Professor Carnap and Probability
Authors: Hay William H.
Published: November 2002

Most handbooks on statistics and the theory of probability leave the reader in a mysterious tangle of mathematical rules for computing apparently arbitrarily chosen numerical functions. At first sight, then, a treatise on the Logical Foundations of Probability raises hopes that it will be a guide to clarity in these matters. These hopes are strengthened if the reader remembers that the author, Professor Rudolph Carnap of the University of Chicago, is noted for his thesis that philosophy is the study of the logic of science. On the other hand, a first glance into this book may discourage a reader who, though familiar with statistics, is not familiar with modern logic and its notation. For this reason particularly I shall try to give an account of this book that will enable the interested student to form some opinion of its usefulness to him.
Value Science
Authors: Gotshalk D. W.
Published: November 2002

It has frequently been argued that there is a clear and irreducible difference between statements of fact and statements of value. To say “X is cobalt” and “X is good” is to make statements differing not merely in detail but in kind. To attempt to reduce the second type of statement to the first is to commit the “naturalistic” fallacy. To attempt to reduce the first type of statement to the second is to commit the “idealistic” fallacy. In this paper, I shall accept this position as correct but argue that, far from settling the question of value science, it is merely the elementary premise from which all discussion of this matter must begin.
Physical Versus Historical Reality
Authors: Margenau Henry
Published: November 2002

The science of the 19th and early 20th century permitted the view that all human experience is subject to the deterministic laws of physics. Reality was conformable with these laws, and the laws could be used to designate what is real.
The Problem of Physical Reality
Authors: Werkmeister W. H.
Published: November 2002

In his recently published book, The Nature of Physical Reality (5), Professor Margenau develops a conception of physical reality, which, on the one hand, is a repudiation of radical empiricism (5: 28) and which, on the other hand, is a denial of realism (5: 47). Margenau believes that he has accomplished his task by means of “constructs” which, in “a large area of discourse,” are “wholly synonymous” with concepts and which, nevertheless, when verified, are “the external objects” (5: 70–71; 296).
Mind–Body, Causation and Correlation
Authors: Golightly Cornelius L.
Published: November 2002

Contemporary organismic and bio-social accounts of human behavior consider physical and psychological concepts as alternative or complementary linguistic descriptions of the same subject matter. The notion of complementarity is an important part of the organismic physicalistic synthesis which replaces the old duels between mechanism and vitalism, between physiology and psychology. The concept of complementarity comes from Bohr's solution for the difficulty of reconciling classical mechanics with quantum mechanics. He suggested that they are parallel and complementary rather than contradictory ways of looking at the universe. The continuity of the energy transfer according to the electromagnetic theory and the atomicity of light effects are “complementary aspects of one reality in the sense that each expresses an important feature of the phenomena of light, which, although irreconcilable from a mechanical point of view, can never be in direct contradiction, since a closer analysis of one or the other feature in mechanical terms would demand mutually exclusive experimental arrangements” (3).
The Philosophy of Science in Gestalt Theory
Authors: Madden Edward H.
Published: November 2002

Although the point of departure for Gestalt theory has been for the most part psychological investigation, nevertheless Gestalt theory is more inclusive than Gestalt psychology. Within psychology Gestalt theory claims to be the basis of the only scientific theory that can explain the empirical facts of psychology, but on a more general level Gestalt theory comprehends a philosophy of science, and positions in epistemology, metaphysics, and value theory. According to Wertheimer, Gestalt theory is “a palpable convergence of problems ranging throughout the sciences and the various philosophic standpoints of modern times” (1: 3). He also asserts that Gestalt theory was the result of concrete work done in psychology, logic, and epistemology (1: 1). In this paper we will be concerned only with the Gestaltist interpretations of and claims for the method and structure of science in general.
Nominal Definitions of ‘Culture‘
Authors: Moore Omar Khayyam
Published: November 2002

Many social scientists report that they find it difficult to frame adequate definitions of the important terms of the field. At present they are definition-shy. It is the purpose of this paper to show that this avoidance reaction is neither necessary nor desirable as a means for advancing social science. In order that this be made clear, an analysis of an important term will be presented. First, however, a few preparatory questions about the technique of defining must be asked and answered.
An Approach to the Quantification of Semantic Noise
Authors: Hockett Charles F.
Published: November 2002

In a survey of information theory and some of its implications, Warren Weaver has proposed a distinction between engineering (or channel) noise and semantic noise (1: 94–117). Ordinary Spanish usage reflects this distinction quite neatly. If A speaks to B and B responds with no entiendo, it means ‘I have not heard your words, because of interfering sound or lack of attention; please transmit the same message again’; if he responds with no comprendo, it means ‘I heard you all right, but what I heard doesn't make sense; please paraphrase or explain.’ Channel noise, thus, is the responsible factor when that which leaves a transmitter is not that which reaches the receiver; semantic noise is a discrepancy between the codes used by transmitter and receiver.
Heisenberg's Indeterminacy Principle and Life
Authors: Bachem A.
Published: November 2002

Heisenberg's (3) principle of indeterminacy or uncertainty has led most theoretical physicists and philosophers to two important steps: 1) the denunciation of the law of physical causality; 2) the decision of biological and psychological problems in favor of indeterminism.
Science, Culture, and Society
Authors: Becker Howard
Published: November 2002

Science is one faith and has one great commandment. The faith is simply that man can control his future in his own interest. In the face of the appalling discrepancy between the powers of the natural and the social sciences, a discrepancy that leads to visions of man's liquidation by man, the assertion is nevertheless made that the remedy for the consequences of science is more science. The long record of scientific victories in the past gives some warrant, let us suppose, for faith in continued victory, but at bottom there is no compelling proof. There never has been, and, I make bold to say, there never will be. The role of scientist in the human drama always contains lines reminiscent of Prometheus; an utterly nonrational belief in ultimate triumph lends him strength to confront what to others may seem a hopeless future. (This entire paper is so condensed as to be almost elliptical at many points. Fortunately, the writer has dealt with several of the topics touched upon in his recent book, Through Values to Social Interpretation. (3) The frequency with which it will appear in the references is not because the writer regards it as of major importance, but because it dovetails more neatly with this paper than do many other more significant books. Moreover, it has fairly full footnote and chapter bibliographies. The statements in the non-parenthetical part of this paragraph are good examples of the near-elliptical character of much of what is said here. Expansion is badly needed, but the reader must be referred to (2) ch. vi of (3). The position represented is not new; many writers, among them William James, have held it in various ways.)
A Consistent Conception of The Extended Linear Continuum as an Aggregate of Unextended Elements
Authors: Grünbaum Adolf
Published: November 2002

It is a commonplace in the analytic geometry of physical space-time that anextendedstraight line segment, having positive length, is treated as “consisting of”unextendedpoints, each of which has zero length. Analogously, time intervals of positive duration are resolved into instants, each of which has zero duration.
Degree of Factual Support
Authors: Kemeny John G. , Oppenheim Paul
Published: November 2002

We wish to give a precise formulation of the intuitive concept: The degree to which the known facts (the evidence) support a given hypothesis.
Chauncey Wright and the Logic of Psychology
Authors: Madden Edward H. , Madden Marian C.
Published: November 2002

In this paper we propose to characterize Chauncey Wright's empirical psychology, or “psychozoology” as he called it, from a methodological standpoint. By a methodological characterization of any science we mean an analysis of its structure as distinguished from its actual findings. We mean, for example, a description of the kind or type of variable and law in any science as distinguished from the actual particular content of any defined variable or discovered law. This distinction between variables and the laws which obtain between them is, as a matter of fact, itself a methodological description of the findings of science. Wright, it is true, did not discuss the subject matter of psychology from a methodological point of view, perhaps because he was involved in developing the body of knowledge itself. On the other hand, his discussions of physics and chemistry, areas in which the subject matter was well developed, took a methodological turn (9, pp. 201, 43–96). Regardless of Wright's own practice, however, the methodological implications of his contribution in actual theory to “empirical” psychology remain, and drawing these implications is one means by which we will show the significance of his work relative to the development of psychological concepts and laws. We will consider what specific ways his position is similar to, and different from, the later American functionalists' views on these matters and on the problem of causal interaction between physical and phenomenal events. Any similarity will perhaps gain in significance if, as it is further claimed, there is an actual historical influence of Wright on Dewey, the most noted functionalist.
The Scientist Qua Scientist Makes Value Judgments
Authors: Rudner Richard
Published: November 2002

The question of the relationship of the making of value judgments in a typically ethical sense to the methods and procedures of science has been discussed in the literature at least to that point which e. e. cummings somewhere refers to as “The Mystical Moment of Dullness.” Nevertheless, albeit with some trepidation, I feel that something more may fruitfully be said on the subject.
A Reformulation of Bergson's Theory of Memory
Authors: Elsasser Walter M.
Published: November 2002

The book of Bergson (1) underlying the present study appeared in 1896. It is entitled “Matter and Memory” and is a philosophical disquisition into the relation and mutual limitations of organic life and inert matter. Bergson proposes to deal with this very general problem under the special aspect of a theory of the functioning of the human brain and the mechanism of ordinary memory. Such use of the inductive method, which starts from a special problem in order to arrive at results that might be generalized later, might endear him to the exact scientist who has a healthy skepticism toward pure generalities. But let us for a moment remain in the realm of generalities in order to better circumscribe the subject: Few people would agree to an entirely mechanistic interpretation of organic life; hence there should be some point in biology at which the deviations from pure mechanism appear explicitly and in their fulness. For the present we shall adopt an intentionally oversimplified mode of expression. Let us say that mechanistic description is causal and that as our analysis progresses we must eventually arrive at a point where we can no longer trace the causal chains in their entirety. At that point we must replace causal “classical” physics by quantum mechanics and form our pictures of microscopic realities of organic matter in terms of the latter. Some of the pertinent problems have been pointed out by the present writer (4) among others, following earlier suggestions by Niels Bohr (2). Suffice it here to say that certain processes of the atomic scale going on in a complex system such as the organic tissue essentially escape detailed observation that would allow us to determine the continuity of an entirely causal nexus. It is possible to make such observations, but they result in physical destruction of the very coherence of the organic tissue upon which the biological functioning depends. Bohr describes this condition by the term “generalized complementarity.” We cannot enter into a discussion of these problems here; let us adopt deliberately the oversimplified and somewhat vague expression that at some point indeterminacies become significant in the microscopic processes that take place in the organic body. We shall try to limit ourselves in this paper to the simplistic notion of a multiplicity of indeterminate events inserted (in a very crude manner of speaking) into the play of molecular reactions that constitute the functioning of the organism from the viewpoint of the physicist and chemist.
What is this Crisis?
Authors: Bain Read
Published: November 2002

When people talk about the “present crisis,” they probably mean some significant turning point in history. If they fear or resent it, it is a dangerous crisis, anti-American, anti-Christian, and antidemocratic. If they welcome it, they may call it the “wave of the future,” or some kind of a “deal,” new, square, or fair; prosperity is just around the corner. Only unwanted change produces the “dangerous crisis.”
A Whiteheadian Theory of Meaning
Authors: Greenman Martin A.
Published: November 2002

Although Whitehead did not develop a general theory of meaning, his most systematic account of topics related to meaning is found in his discussion of ‘symbolic reference’ (4), (5). But these latter discussions, however basic they might be in terms of Whitehead's theory of symbolism, yet constitute but a small part of the general theory of meaning that is implicit in the philosophy of organism, as a whole.
The Rhythmic Activity of the Nervous System
Authors: Teitelbaum Harry A.
Published: November 2002

While recent studies have shed some light on the significance of the electrical activity of the nervous system, there has been no adequate explanation for the wave formation or synchronization of this electrical activity. Adrian (1) sums up the problem. “The origin of the 10-a-second rhythm is still uncertain, though the evidence points to some widespread organization, probably involving the central masses as well as the cortex. There are abundant nervous connexions for coordinating the beat, and when the rhythm is well developed it is possible to record impulse discharges in phase with it passing to and fro in the nerve fibers of the white matter below the cortex. But in some areas no impulse could be detected entering or leaving the cell layers, though the potential waves keep more or less in step with those elsewhere. There is no proof that the waves are kept in phase by some means which does not involve nervous signalling, for impulses in axons of small diameter might well be missed, but it is not altogether unlikely that the synchronization is due in part to a direct electrical influence of one group of nerve cells on another. Gerard and Libet have shown that synchronization can occur between the two halves of a frog's brain cut in two and then placed in contact, and more recently Arvanitaki has shown that individual nerve cells may influence one another if they are brought close together in a conducting medium. At all events there are many examples of synchronized rhythmic activity in large collections of nerve-or-muscle cells. In the optic ganglion of the water beetle, for instance, there may be both a slow rhythm when the eye is in darkness and a rapid one when the eye is exposed to a bright light. The change from a slow to a fast rhythm is curiously reminiscent of that in the cerebral cortex when a sensory stimulus abolishes the 10-a-second rhythm and substitutes one at 40–60 a second. Such resemblances in preparations of quite different structures may be quite fortuitous, but they make it difficult to resist the suggestion that the rhythms of the brain may be dependent on the general properties of cell masses rather than on any special anatomical arrangement of them. Whatever its origin, the 10-a-second rhythm of the cortex corresponds to the resting, drowsy, or inattentive state and there is no such uniform pulsation when the brain is alert.”
Toward a Philosophy of Operations Research
Authors: Hindrichs Gerard
Published: November 2002

What is operations research? What is sufficiently new about it to constitute it a “new science”? And how is it related to philosophy?

1. What it is. MOR's definition, based on Kittel's, runs as follows:

Operations research is a scientific method of providing executive departments with a quantitative basis for decisions regarding the operations under their control (7: 1.)
Causes and Effects
Authors: Fales Walter
Published: November 2002

It is the objective of this paper to point out that discussions about cause and effect, and particularly those which bear upon their temporal relationship, are often blurred by failure to make use of the time-honored distinction between transeunt and immanent (also called “extrinsic” and “intrinsic”) causes. Transeunt causes are in evidence whenever we discern two systems, S1 and S2, spatially separated (at least in the beginning of the process), but locked in interaction. In this perspective, cotemporaneous changes can be asserted both of S1 and S2. S1 has an effect on S2, and vice versa. Both effects take place simultaneously but are, as a rule, of different nature. Whether we read the causal relationship from S1, as the cause, to the changes of S2, as the effect, or the other way, from S2 to S1, depends on nothing more objective than the momentary direction of our interest. Immanent causes get into focus whenever we compare the internal conditions C1 and C2 which characterize a system S0 at two different moments t1 and t2. If t1 is earlier than t2, there is a sense in which we can say that C1 is a cause, and C2 its effect.
The Relativity of Reality
Authors: Bachem A.
Published: November 2002

In the interesting discussion between Margenau (1) and Werkmeister (2) a baffling dilemma arises:

If verification of constructs makes up reality, and if verifications work retroactively, several different realities (in physics a Newtonian and a relativistic e.g.) may exist at the same time.

The writer, who—as a positivist—cannot accept a transcendental reality, as Werkmeister seemingly does, is not disturbed by a multitude of realities. He identifies reality with the most familiar and most generalized cognition. As such it varies with the mechanism of cognition and with the type and degree of integration.
Sociological Aspects of the Relation between Language and Philosophy
Authors: Feuer Lewis S.
Published: November 2002

Language is the primary fact which concerns contemporary philosophy. Men have been speaking and writing for a long time, but it is only recently that the task of philosophy has been said to be the analysis of language. Ethical perplexities, social anxieties, the nature of scientific knowledge, religious speculations, are held not to be directly the problems of the philosopher. They enter his study by way of a domain of languages and sub-languages. This preoccupation with language is itself an unusual phenomenon in our intellectual history. It challenges the sociologist of philosophic ideas for an explanation, and it leads one to wonder upon what evidence philosophers have accepted the doctrine of linguistic primacy.
Continuity, A Key to Quantum Mechanics
Authors: Landé Alfred
Published: November 2002

The present article is written by a theoretical physicist who, for some time, has endeavored to trace the origin of the concepts and principles of quantum theory to an empirical background broader than that afforded by delicate optical and mechanical experiments on a microphysical scale involving the microconstant h. In particular he tried to reduce the dominant role of probability in modern physics to irrefutable evidence of a quite general nature. As long as quantum probability is deduced from experience with seemingly uncontrollable micro-mechanisms—think of radioactive disintegration as the most typical example—there will always be the objection that one day we still may find a hidden causality behind those small scale gambling devices called atoms, although one example of an exactly predictable atomic event would make present-day quantum theory untenable. In order to dislodge the remaining classicists from their fortress of doubt one may try to show that quantum probability is not an alibi for a temporary impotence of predicting microphysical events, but is a positive conclusion drawn from experience of a most general type, namely, from the principle of continuity, the basic tenet of the philosophy of Leibniz.
Postulates of Behaviorism
Authors: Stephenson William
Published: November 2002

We propose to take issue with a neo-behaviorist (19) upon what might seem to be a minor detail, and about which we are sure that, upon reflection, he would not differ from us. It has to do with the use of the word experience in a basic postulate of behaviorism. Even if by a hair's breadth this implies something categorically different from behavior, then, it seems to us, the essential meaning of behaviorism has been missed.
Is there a Synthetic a Priori?
Authors: Sellars Wilfrid
Published: November 2002

A survey of the literature on the problem of the synthetic a priori soon reveals that the term “analytic” is used in a narrower and a broader sense. In the narrower sense, a proposition is analytic if it is either a truth of logic or is logically true. By saying of a proposition that it is logically true, I mean, roughly, and with an eye on the problem of the relation of logical categories to natural languages, that when defined terms are replaced by their definientia, it becomes a substitution instance of a truth of logic. And a truth of logic can be adequately characterized for present purposes as a proposition which occurs in the body of Principia Mathematica, or which would properly occur in a vermehrte und verbesserte Auflage of this already monumental work. If we now agree to extend the convenient phrase “logically true” to cover truths of logic as well as propositions which are logically true in the sense just defined, we can say that an analytic proposition in the narrower sense is a proposition which is logically true.
D'Arcy Thompson: His Conception of the Living Body
Authors: Kimball Plochmann George
Published: November 2002

D'Arcy Thompson looked upon himself as a follower of Aristotle in biology, and was an erudite student and translator of biological writings of the Stagyrite. A number of Aristotle's chief terms are to be found in Thompson's masterpiece, On Growth and Form, although these terms—such as ‘cause,’ ‘form,’ ‘movement,’ and the like—undergo some change, generally a contraction, of meaning. But as a tireless investigator of living bodies of all sorts, Thompson developed his own methods for manipulating his concepts, and it is my hope to indicate briefly but critically what the methods are. In so doing, it will be profitable to make comparisons with certain other biologists of past and present, to point up the issues more sharply.
An Account of Recent Biological Methodology: Causal Law and Transplanar Analysis
Authors: Herrmann Heinz
Published: November 2002

It has been tacitly assumed that certain fundamental “laws” of science have the same meaning and significance in the different scientific disciplines. Outside of quantum physics the law of causality was regarded as such a concept which was most generally applicable in the description of the systems of nature. However, the role of causality in recent research in biology seems not quite clear. There an explanation of the specific properties of biological systems does not assume the form of a simple law such as a mathematical expression relating different states of one and the same system. Rather it is attempted to show how the properties of the system as a whole are established by the specific interaction of the parts of the system.
The Routine of Discovery
Authors: Ballard Edward G.
Published: November 2002

In this paper I wish to contrast briefly one of the later developments in philosophy, the philosophy of the concrete, with an archaic mode of thought and then to show how certain defects in each were avoided in the development of the scientific method.
Some Theories of the Development of Science
Authors: Benjamin A. Cornelius
Published: November 2002

Some recent and historical writers in the philosophy of science have concerned themselves with a certain problem which seems to occupy, at least in the minds of those who have written about it, a position of peculiar importance. Whether the problem is really as significant as its authors maintain need not be decided here; certainly many writers in this area have either neglected it or made only vague allusions to it. It can best be described as the problem of the development of science, and it is usually solved in terms of a certain theory that science passes in its growth, either naturally or under the control of conscious logical techniques, through various “stages” or “phases.” For some strange reason these levels are usually exactly three in number. One would like to believe that this number is not a magic one, but empirically demanded by the actual way in which the sciences develop. But the fact that the descriptions of these stages in the writings of the various authors appear to agree only in their triplicity, and not in content, would incline one to believe otherwise. There is, in fact, the slight suspicion that the number three has been preferred to the number two simply because a triad may be ordered in a way in which a couple may not, and to the number four or any larger number merely because of the preference for simplicity over complexity.
Concept of Values in Contemporary Philosophical Value Theory
Authors: Edel Abraham
Published: November 2002

The term “value” has a wide range of current usage in philospohy and the sciences. Descriptively, a man's “values” may refer to all his attitudes for-or-against anything. His values include his perferences and avoidances, his desire-objects and aversion-objects, his pleasure and pain tendencies, his goals, ideals, interests and disinterests, what he takes to be right and wrong, good and evil, beautiful and ugly, useful and useless, his approvals and disapprovals, his criteria of taste and standards of judgment, and so forth.
The Metaphysical Matrix of Science
Authors: Carmichael Peter A.
Published: November 2002

1. Introduction. Nowadays metaphysics is so far out of fashion, with scientists at any rate, that a few words of justification may be required for putting it in relation with science, as in this paper.

Metaphysics is nothing occult, nor is it necessarily dogmatic or allied to theology. Strictly, it is a science itself, the science of being. But since a large section of being—even the whole of it, according to some metaphysics—consists of phenomena, and since the ostensible business of natural science is with phenomena, a distinction has to be made. The use of ‘metaphysics’ in this paper is restricted to the non-phenomenal mode of being. More explicitly, it is restricted to formal and general things, such as category, class, variable, relation, order. General words, which I take to be all the words except certain proper names, are, accordingly, metaphysical signs; and the metaphysical matrix is by no means limited to science but extends to all discourse in which there are general terms.
Some Linguistic Problems Connected with Machine Translation
Authors: Bar-Hillel Yehoshua
Published: November 2002

During my recent work on machine translation (3), I have come across many problems of a linguistic nature that should be of general methodological interest. Some of these problems have never been treated extensively before. Others that have been discussed previously appear now in a different and rather interesting light.
Language and Culture Areas: A Note on Method
Authors: Bittle William E.
Published: November 2002

1. The Problem. The purpose of this paper is twofold. One aim is to examine briefly the criteria basic to the notions of the culture area and the language area; the second is to indicate a method which would allow for the construction of systems which could profitably be compared and held correlate in any problem involving, on the historical level, the development and diffusion of cultural and linguistic patterns, and, on the synchronic level, the precise nature of that complex of human behavior patterns, linguistic and non-linguistic, which is characteristic of man in society.