bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Causal Imputation and Purposes of Investigation
Authors: Dexter Lewis A.
Published: November 2002

There is a considerable literature about causation. A great many investigators constantly employ the notion of causation in some form. But with the exception of a very few items, these investigators will find little of use in this literature.
Science and Vagueness
Authors: Benjamin A. Cornelius
Published: November 2002

Many attempts have been made in recent months to throw light on the problem of vagueness. That perfect precision is an ideal not to be attained by any language seems clear. But the obvious fact is that words and sentences in our languages are not so precise as we should like to have them, and we are naturally concerned with finding some sort of device by which vagueness can, in the first place, be detected and measured, and, in the second place, eliminated or reduced to a minimum. I shall not be concerned in what follows with these various special attempts to meet the problem. My task is the somewhat more general one of showing that there are other factors contributing to vagueness, one of which is of particular significance when we leave the realm of ostensively defined symbols and begin to concern ourselves with suppositional symbols, constructs and hypotheses.
Value and Fact
Authors: Vivas Eliseo
Published: November 2002

There can be no possible quarrel with the assertion that the phenomena of value are amenable to scientific treatment if the statement is taken in an obvious sense, for the act of valuation is a fact of human experience, empirically observable in the same way as any other fact. There is therefore no reason why we should not deal with certain aspects of the phenomena of value as we deal with other empirical phenomena. To deny this would be to deny scientific status to sociology, anthropology, and psychology. Sometimes one encounters such denials, but they need not be taken seriously, for they are obviously grounded on a very arbitrary and narrow definition of science.
On the Logic of Imperatives
Authors: Hofstadter Albert , McKinsey J. C. C.
Published: November 2002

It is the purpose of this paper to carry out a partial syntactical analysis of imperatives. Imperatives form a large body of linguistic expressions, appearing, e.g. in mathematical proofs (“Let f(x) be a continuous function!”), laws, moral injunctions, instruction, etc. For analytical purposes we distinguish between two forms of imperatives, the fiat and the directive. By a directive we mean an imperative which includes an indication of the agent who is to carry it out. For example, “Henry, don't forget to stop at the grocery!” is a directive. By a fiat we mean an imperative which includes no reference to an agent who is to carry it out. For example, “Let there be light!” is a fiat. This is a distinction made in terms of meaning. If, however, proper symbolic devices were introduced for the formalization of imperatives, it could be made in a syntactical manner. Thus we could distinguish between imperatives which possess a certain operator—the directive operator formed by putting a name within square brackets—as “[Henry] (Let it be the case that Henry does not forget to stop at the grocery)!”, and imperatives which do not possess this operator, e.g. “Let it be the case that Henry does not forget to stop at the grocery!” In the following we pay attention only to fiats. This, of course, involves a great limitation of subject matter and excludes topics of great interest.
The Philosophical Implications of Some Theories of Emotion
Authors: Nahm M. C.
Published: November 2002

An examination of philosophical conclusions and psychological experimentation upon the nature of the emotions raises numerous complex and controversial problems. The terms employed, viz. “the life of feeling”, “instinct”, “imagination” and “emotion” are integral to epistemology, ethics and aesthetics. In epistemology, the teleological aspect of the emotions is of importance. In ethics, the Stoics gave impetus to the demand that the emotions be controlled, a demand that reached its culmination in the Kantian formalism. In aesthetics, the acceptance of the “sensuous medium” as the material of art has implied “feeling” as its subjective counterpart. Yet, the full implications may not be drawn in these particular fields until analysis of the emotions themselves may relate these terms and give them precise and systematic definition.
What Is a Monad?
Authors: Malisoff William Marias
Published: November 2002

In raising the question of what is a monad I am continuing along the line of two previous discussions. Those dwelt with the questions of what is an atom and what is a gene. Each contained proposals to sharpen meanings of old terms rather than to resort to new ones. The old term “monad” will also be subject to such a proposal. It will not mean merely any one of a dozen things it has meant to different users, but will serve as a more or less well fitting name for the third member of the sequence: atom-gene-x.
Philosophy and Science
Authors: Lee Otis
Published: November 2002

Scientific method in philosophy has been so greatly developed and widely accepted in our day that it seems almost ready to lay claim to the self-evidence which an older rationalism professed. It is my belief that it leaves out something essential to philosophy. I shall not attempt to define scientific method in philosophy, since it is a movement with several wings, rather than a definite set of propositions accepted by all its advocates; but its intent is clear. The theme of current criticisms of metaphysics and speculation has been that philosophy has no private access to the truth, no monopoly of such knowledge as human beings possess; it stands on an equal footing with the sciences. The observation is sound and timely; but from it has been drawn, at least by implication, the conclusion that there is no such thing as philosophy at all. For unless it has a peculiar method, or a distinct subject matter, or some other distinguishing trait, philosophy is only a convenient name for a certain group of men and the books they wrote. The criticism was made because philosophy had come to be identified with a set of dogmas. I wish to suggest instead that it is a peculiar kind of inquiry into a distinct subject matter. Philosophy is the attempt to formulate principles or categories which the philosopher already possesses, in common with everyone else, but in an unformulated state. Philosophy is always developing theories and systems, but they are tentative, not final and dogmatic; the categories are certain, but their statement is provisional; therefore, the process of inquiry is unending.
The Purpose of Philosophy
Authors: Lapan Arthur
Published: November 2002

The question of the character, function and possibility of philosophy can best be considered through an analysis of how men come to philosophize. Were the ideals man seeks always satisfactory to him and the consequences of his conduct and allegiances always what he expected, undoubtedly he would not be the philosophical animal he is. It is precisely because his emotional attachments are so often disillusioning and his actions ineffectual, that he is compelled to reflect upon what ends are worthwhile and what conduct and instrumentalities would bring them into being. Such reflection is the practice of philosophy and, where it is systematic and grounded on the evidence available, constitutes the discipline known as philosophy. Its source is living itself, and it is a kind of life. It is a method whereby life seeks the solution of its own problems; for living is made up of man's responses to his world, responses directed to the management of things for better and worse; and what would constitute the better and what the conditions are upon which it depends, are matters with which life will ever concern itself. The reconstruction of living so that it will have the utmost value is the primary objective of philosophy.
Two Kinds of Certainty
Authors: Miller David L.
Published: November 2002

In his monograph, “Foundations of the Theory of Signs”, Mr. Morris offers us a framework of ideas which is useful in analyzing many philosophic problems. On the basis of Morris' categories I want to show that it is both logically possible and desirable to make a distinction between two kinds of certainty. I will call them purely logical certainty and practical certainty (after Hume). They may be called syntactical certainty and pragmatical certainty also.
Science: Public or Private?
Authors: Bridgman P. W.
Published: November 2002

One thing which has struck me most as I have read the articles of the Encyclopedia of Unified Science is the complexity that can be discerned in many of the operations which for the purpose of the article are treated as elementary. It is apparent that Unity of Science, like every other discipline, has its own stock of “atoms of discourse”, suited to its own purposes. Experience in physics would prepare one to expect that for certain purposes it may be profitable to attempt to analyze these atoms further. The atom of discourse, or presupposition commonly made by most adherents of the Unity of Science movement, with which I shall be chiefly concerned, is with regard to the nature of “science“. My present concern with this matter has arisen from my extreme difficulty in communicating my meaning to other people. The difficulty has been a genuine puzzle to me, until quite recently a discussion with one of my colleagues disclosed a difference of attitude on fundamental matters so revelatory that I am encouraged to return again to the attack.
The Distinction between “Mechanics” and “Mechanism”
Authors: Turner J. E.
Published: November 2002

The recent far-reaching developments of Physics have produced the widespread impression that all those ideas of mechanics and mechanism, which were so influential in the nineteenth century, have now been completely abandoned, because they have proved to be quite inadequate as explanations, or even as mere descriptions, of the ultimate constitution of the physical world. “Has not modern physics”, asks Prof. Millikan, “thrown the purely mechanistic view of the universe root and branch out of its house?“ It is frequently contended, still further, that the place of these concepts has been taken by others, very closely approximating to biological, or even to psychological, interpretations of all natural phenomena; the physics of today, in short, and yet more of tomorrow, is essentially non-mechanical.
Charles S. Peirce, Pioneer of Modern Empiricism
Authors: Nagel Ernest
Published: November 2002

No account of the development of contemporary empiricism is adequate which neglects the writings and the influence of Charles Peirce. Although he is not easily pigeon-holed and can not be claimed as the exclusive property of any school or movement, it is appropriate that the hundredth anniversary of his birth should be commemorated at this Congress. For the movement of which it is a manifestation is engaged in a coöperative, intensive cultivation of the methods of the sciences with the help of the most advanced tools of modern logic; and Peirce's intellectual career was also a single-minded devotion to that task. It is fitting, also, that his birth-year be celebrated at Harvard by an international congress. For although he was denied the privilege of teaching at this university, much of his influence was propagated by William James and Josiah Royce, two of its great teachers; and however much he may have suffered from neglect during his life-time, his work surely merits recognition from a movement not confined by national bounds. It is characteristic of the best established sciences that though individuals may pursue researches in them independently of one another, the conclusions reached tend to support each other and to converge toward a common stream of sound beliefs; and such convergence is indeed the sole identifiable warrant for the confidence that some measure of the truth has been attained. It is therefore a happy sign that so many of the central ideas of the present movement have been independently developed on both sides of the Atlantic. One is not minimizing the contributions of the Vienna Circle in pointing out that many of its recent views have been taken for granted for some time by American colleagues, largely because the latter have come to intellectual maturity under the influence of Peirce.
Particulars, Universals and Verification
Authors: Waters Bruce
Published: November 2002

If the truth of a given sentence, ‘P’ depends upon a certain non-linguistic fact, P then, how is the P without inverted commas involved in the statement, “ ‘P’ is true when P“? How is ‘P’ related to P? My answer suggests that any discussion of these questions leads inevitably to the ancient problem of particulars and universals.
The Fluxive Fallacy
Authors: Lafleur Laurence J.
Published: November 2002

There are no new fallacies under the sun, any more than there are any new methods of reasoning. Therefore, the Fluxive Fallacy is nothing new. Yet, pointing out the Fluxive Fallacy and giving it a name has a distinct advantage in that it directs one's attention to errors which, without the advantage of a definite name and description, might pass unobserved.
Modern Mathematics and Some Problems of Quantity, Quality, and Motion in Economic Analysis
Authors: Niebyl Karl H.
Published: November 2002

It can not be our purpose to give here a complete account of the phenomenological history of mathematical doctrine. It will be enough to refer to the battle of opinions in mathematical theory which was waged within the last eighty-five years, since Riemann's inaugural lecture on Non-Euclidean Geometry. Furthermore, the revolution which Einstein's theory of general relativity created is indicative of the complete absence of any general awareness that mathematics as a science has any relation to social reality. If we are going to establish such relations, we are conscious of the fact that they would be hotly contended by many mathematicians.
History and Biological Evolution
Authors: Zilsel Edgar
Published: November 2002

What is the relationship of history to the phylogenetic evolution of man? Historians, like all specialists, are wont to restrict themselves to their own problems and, therefore, do not deal with this question. Only some popular books on the history of the world cross the dividing line between social and natural science. They start with the origin of the solar system, describe the development of the crust of the earth and of life, turn to prehistoric civilization and ancient Egypt, and eventually finish with the history of present times. It is striking that those expositions become more and more detailed the nearer they come to their end. Near the beginning one page describes ten million years, near the end ten months.
What Is Insight?
Authors: Malisoff William Marias
Published: November 2002

Philosophers are often praised for their insight even if they are found wanting in their powers of analysis. The noble edifices of thought raised by the famous have been reduced to more or less noble ruins, if we consider what disintegrating, analytical time and tide have done to the weaker members of the structures. Some of the palaces of thought even seem to stand without any foundations. Yet they stand. They are admired no longer for their utility or for their massiveness, but for the beauty of their conception. Their conception is said to represent the insight of their authors.
Vocation versus Profession in Philosophy
Authors: Miller Cecil H.
Published: November 2002

In the Prologue to the third book of Gargantua, Francois Rabelais compares his own predicament to that of the philosopher Diogenes of Sinope during the seige of Cornith. “I held it not a little disgraceful”, he confides, “to be only an idle spectator of so many valorous, eloquent and warlike persons, who in the view and sight of all Europe act this notable interlude or tragi-comedy, and not exert myself and contribute thereunto this nothing, my all, which remained for me to do”.
On Physicalistic Models of Non-Physical Terms
Authors: Bergmann Gustav
Published: November 2002

Some of the objections most frequently raised against the thesis of physicalism can be summarized as follows:

(V) The notions of the biological and social sciences, as e. g. organic whole and Gestalt, means and ends, leadership and hierarchical order, the entire structure and meaning of these scientific systems, are of a type essentially different from those of physics. Consequently they can not be expressed by means of the mathematical language used by physics, and it is “logically impossible” to reduce these sciences to physics.
A Critical Analysis of the Canons of Science
Authors: Sharpe Philip B.
Published: November 2002

The effort here is to use the plainest of plain language. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the tenets of Pragmatism, Operationalism or Functionalism. If not, he may refer to innumerable philosophical works, or, if he must glance and run, he must perforce accept the fact that those terms are here used interchangeably to remind the reader of our basic idea that ideas are hypotheses.
Peirce's “Pragmatic” Method
Authors: Hill W. H.
Published: November 2002

Charles Sanders Peirce, who contributed the term pragmatism to the language of philosophy, insisted always that the term was intended to designate a method. Pragmatism, he warned, is not a Weltanschauung, nor a doctrine of metaphysics, nor even an “attempt to determine any truth of things.” It is simply a method of ascertaining meanings, of making them clear, and of pointing a way for the successful determination of the truth of things. Peirce's practice consistently belied his preaching in this regard, for his exposition of the method involved a metaphysical system of considerable scope; and this, it seems to me, was unavoidable. Yet it was as a method that Peirce first presented his distinctive point of view, and it is primarily as a method that I wish to consider it here. Into metaphysics, or Weltanschauung, we shall surely be led; despite Peirce's pronouncement, I make no apology for that.
Verifiability and the External World
Authors: Will Frederick L.
Published: November 2002

For some time there have been appearing in the philosophical literature hints and suggestions that the so-called “problem of the external world” should be abandoned, not primarily because it is of little pragmatic significance, but rather because there is really no such problem to be solved. The publication of Reichenbach's Experience and Prediction has now stimulated a resurgence of these suggestions. In the course of his discussion of the book in the April Philosophy of Science Professor Ernest Nagel has taken occasion to argue briefly that this problem, which Reichenbach attempts to solve, cannot even be stated unless one assumes its solution. And in a similar vein more recently Dr. William Barrett has also criticized Reichenbach and has then gone on to present certain fundamental logical considerations which, it is alleged, guarantee that the expression “Is there an external world?” cannot designate a legitimate philosophical problem. The situation, as he describes it, is as follows. The sentence “There is an external world” or the equivalent sentence “There is a physical object” can be confirmed in a physicalistic language only if one assumes the existence of certain physical objects. This procedure is of course circular. These sentences cannot therefore be confirmed, and, since the verifiability theory of meaning is accepted, the questions derived by transferring them into the interrogative mood cannot be meaningfully asked. A similar result is asserted to follow if one employs a perception language for science in place of a physicalistic language, since there is a parallelism between these two languages such that for every expression in the one there will be a corresponding expression in the other.
The Nature of Causation
Authors: Winn Ralph B.
Published: November 2002

Strange as it may seem, the traditional principle of causality is based on two contradictory assumptions, both of which are generally accepted, explicitly or implicitly, by the contemporary physicists as well as philosophers. That they are not always willing to acknowledge this paradoxical fact, does not save them from the perplexing situation. The two assumptions, in brief, are:

(1) That nothing can act at a distance or across an interval of time, without something mediating between the bodies or events; and

(2) That every cause precedes its effect and may be located at a distance from it.
On Some Methodological Problems of Psychology
Authors: Bergmann Gustav
Published: November 2002

At the end of the last century, there began a movement away from traditional philosophy and towards a closer contact of philosophical thought with empirical science. Philosophers following this course were met halfway by groups of scientists, mostly physicists and mathematicians, who in their own field had found themselves face to face with problems which traditionally belonged to philosophy. But since neither of these two groups was inclined to respect conventional boundaries, they joined forces and the result of their endeavors proved challenging to both philosophy and science. Various aspects and representative theses of this movement are known to-day as logical positivism, operationism, physicalism or scientific empiricism. For the movement as a whole, however, the termlogical positivismis now becoming generally used. The present paper should be considered as a selective and partly historical survey of the methodological discussion in psychology from the standpoint of logical positivism.
Inspection and Introspection
Authors: Wood Ledger
Published: November 2002

The philosophy of science embraces the metaphysical, epistemological and methodological problems which arise in the study of the special sciences and perhaps no branch of the philosophy of science is more deserving of careful investigation than the borderline discipline between philosophy and scientific psychology. The philosophical problems resulting from the impact of psychology upon philosophy include such traditional problems as the existence, nature and origin of consciousness, the relation of the conscious to the unconscious and subconscious mind, the nature and continuity of the self, and the relation of consciousness to its neural conditions. All these problems originate in empirical psychology and are soluble, if at all, only by appeal to psychological evidence and thus through the cooperative efforts of the philosopher and the psychologist. Unfortunately the gulf between philosophers and psychologists is as wide if not wider than that which exists between philosophers and other groups of scientists. The chief obstacle to a philosophical psychology is the alienation of psychology from philosophy which followed the attainment by psychology of its status as an independent science. Psychology as a young and vigorous science, revolting against the parental restraint of philosophy, utterly repudiated philosophy and philosophical modes of thought and, at the same time, philosophy on its side breathed a sigh of relief to be rid of a difficult and recalcitrant offspring. Thus psychological science became more hostile to philosophy than her elder sister sciences, and philosophy went its own speculative way in utter disregard of scientific psychology. Indeed “Psychologismus” has become among philosophers a term of such severe reproach that to refute a philosophical position in certain quarters one need only demonstrate that it is psychological in its origin and foundation. Thus the revolt of psychology against philosophy, natural and inevitable though it was, has been so violent and prolonged as to be detrimental to both psychology and philosophy alike.
Self-contradictory Propositions
Authors: Lazerowitz M.
Published: November 2002

It is frequently supposed that there exist propositions of a kind appropriately designatable as “self-contradictory”; and in this paper I propose to examine this supposition. It may first be pointed out that some philosophers use the word “proposition” in such a sense that to say there exist self-contradictory propositions is unquestionably to say what is true. They give it such a usage (which they claim to be its only significant one) as to make it synonymous with “declarative sentence”; so that a self-contradictory proposition would be a sentence of the general form s · ~s, and the supposition (a) that there are self-contradictory propositions would be equivalent merely to the supposition (b) that there are sentences of the form s · ~s. In this sense of “proposition” it seems quite plain that there are self-contradictory propositions. But it is not this usage of “proposition” with which I shall be concerned in this paper; rather, my concern will be with the usage given it, whether significantly or not, by philosophers like Mr. Russell, who hold that propositions are what literally significant declarative sentences stand for, or express.
An Educational Application of Resources of the Unity of Science Movement
Authors: Byrne Lee
Published: November 2002

The Unity of Science movement is directed primarily toward the further advancement of science, but a second phase is entered when the assessment of its significance for various aspects of civilization is undertaken. In this second phase would fall investigations of the utility of its resources in relation to educational problems.
What Is Freedom?
Authors: Malisoff William Marias
Published: November 2002

Freedom is variability within a system. I venture to give this definition as a natural extension of a series of discussions dealing with what I call materialistic analysis and insight. Objects and such, as I portrayed them, may be analyzed or comprehended as wholes (insighted). The questions were always lurking in my discussion, however, whether an analysis or an insight must be unique, whether it is sharply determined or not, whether it is fixed or variable, whether there are alternative analyses and insights, and whether in some sense one is “free” to choose his analysis or insight. In suggesting these questions, I was not referring to the possible lack of talent of the thinker, who might have a hopelessly single-track mind, but to the objective limitations set by the object being thought about and the observer doing the thinking. I was referring to an emphatically comprehensive freedom, persistently objective although it embraces a so-called “subject.” This freedom I would call materialistic or concrete freedom, and it is this freedom that I wish to discuss. What I call objective includes many things described—carelessly, I believe—as subjective. For better or for worse, I propose to limit the term subjective in connection with freedom to what would be specifically described as purely subjective. The purely subjective notion of freedom would make it absolute, completely arbitrary, infinitely variable, independent of matter as a pure phenomenon of mind, and empirically unverifiable in the sense of being most private. Such freedom I would be unable to discuss were I rash enough to want to do so. Such freedom is personal and mystical and hence not subject to the finite prison of discussion with its bars of language, its narrow bed of fact and its threat of the strait jacket for the prisoner who imagines words to be what they are not to all others. Otherwise, there is no objection to retaining the term “subjective” for the objective behavior of a “subject.” The blend of such subjective factors (arising in subjects) with factors we habitually call objective (arising in objects) I call materialistic. I have no more affection for the purely objective than for the purely subjective. The blend is the thing.
The Significance of Scientific Theories
Authors: Swann W. F. G.
Published: November 2002

The Abstract, Contrasted with the Intuitional-Causal Approach. There are two states of sophistication in the attitude which men of science have taken towards theories of natural phenomena. In the more abstract state, the purpose has been to seek the most harmonious scheme of coordination of the phenomena without raising the question of underlying causes and without adherence to some, or any, set of preconceived principles regarded primarily as fundamental starting points. In this state, the starting points have been sought in the phenomena themselves.
Operationism Analysed Operationally
Authors: Hart Hornell
Published: November 2002

Stevens (7 pp. 249-251) has presented a “lusty embryonic” Science of Science, as having arisen out of “operationism as a revolution against absolute and undefinable concepts in physics, behaviorism as a revolution against dualistic mentalism in psychology, and Logical Positivism as a revolution against rational metaphysics in philosophy.”
Biological Causation
Authors: Lillie Ralph S.
Published: November 2002

It would appear that among scientific men discussion of the general principles of natural science (including the problem of causation) has, on the whole, proved more congenial to mathematicians (with their brothers-in-arms the logicians) and physicists than to biologists. Just why this should be so might be difficult to explain or justify. But one reason seems to lie in the comparative ambiguity of the concept of causation in biology. In general, the term causation has been used in science to designate the special rôle of active factors, rather than of passive or stable factors (more or less permanent “conditions”), in the determination of single events. By active factors we mean those which involve physical change, typically associated with transfer of energy; these are distinguished from stable factors or invariants which persist unchanged throughout the process under consideration. Thus in the classical isolated system, the total energy represents a stable factor which remains the same through all transformations of the system. The energy changes its form, potential or distribution, but not its total quantity. This rule of conservation defines a static condition persisting as a limiting factor through any case of change. Similarly, the permanent or unchanging factor in a machine consists in the stable properties and structural interconnections of its parts; together those constitute an invariant which fixes definitely the possible range of activity. Activity itself requires flow of energy; strictly speaking, a causal factor is not a static factor but is a change of some kind; releasing events (“trigger action”) are included under causal events since they introduce factors without which change does not occur.
The Reality of the Unobservable
Authors: Metcalf W. V.
Published: November 2002

In the issue of Nature for January 1, 1938, Professor Dingle has given us a remarkably clear and thorough analysis of what the physicist really means, or ought to mean, by the principle that only that which is observable is physically real, or has physical meaning.
Relation in Reality and Symbolism
Authors: Sisson Edward O.
Published: November 2002

The sub-title of this paper is not an apology, but is an “apologia”: the paper is an “essay” in the etymological sense, because, so far as I know, nothing better is possible in the present state of inquiry into the no-man's-land lying between official logic and official linguistics. In trying to write on logico-linguistics for years I have been saved from despair many times by the confession of an eminent mathematician: Professor E. T. Bell, in his little book The Queen of the Sciences, after a particularly difficult passage blurts out: “This sentence is riddled with inconsistencies. It is a fair sample of the difficulties of talking sense about the foundations of reasoning,—mathematical or other.” (P. 136.) The present essay is emphatically concerned with ‘the foundations of reasoning’.
A Primitive System of Values
Authors: Lee D. Demetracopoulou
Published: November 2002

The Trobriand Islanders about whom this study-is concerned, have been studied intensively by Professor Bronislaw Malinowski, who has published his results in several monographs. This essay is based entirely on his writings. It does not add any material to what Professor Malinowski has presented. It tries, rather, to formulate what is not explicitly stated;— the logical and ethical implications of the customary behavior of the Trobrianders. If at times I venture to disagree with Professor Malinowski's own deductions, it is only because, in presenting the material with such a wealth of pertinent detail and emotional association, he has made it possible for his readers to draw conclusions as valid as his own.
The Literati Revolt Against Science
Authors: Goran Morris
Published: November 2002

The late Victorian novelist George Gissing wrote: “I hate and fear ‘science’ because of my conviction that for a long time to come if not forever, it will be the remorseless enemy of mankind. I see it destroying all simplicity and gentleness of life, all beauty of the world; I see it restoring barbarism under the mask of civilization; I see it darkening men's minds and hardening their hearts; I see it bringing a time of vast conflicts which will pale into insignicance ‘the thousand wars of old’, and, as likely as not, will whelm all the laborious advances of mankind in blood-drenched chaos”. The German philosopher Schelling protested against “that blind and thoughtless mode of investigating nature which has become generally established since the corruption of philosophy by Bacon and of physics by Boyle and Newton”.
Inverse Probability and Modern Statisticians
Authors: Gordon Robert Dean
Published: November 2002

Introduction: Purpose of this essay is to draw attention to some points which are relevant to the underlying philosophy of modern statistics, but which the writer feels have been largely overlooked both by the defenders and the opponents of the classic conceptions of Laplace. There is no quarrel with methodologies as such which have found their introduction under the heads of “maximum likelihood”, “fiducial limits”, etc. But the writer cannot accept arguments (e.g. Fisher (1)) which would make of such procedures an absolute sine qua non for all decisions based on evidence, and which would relegate human judgment (a priori probabilities) and all considerations of the intended use of a decision to the rubbish heap of outmoded conceptions. To assume that two rational minds, having different backgrounds and different objectives, must necessarily find themselves in agreement in their appraisal of a given objective situation, is simply absurd; yet this is the basis which underlies, so far as I can make out, all the “criticisms” of Laplace and Bayes which constitute the excuses put forward for attempting to displace those procedures in Statistics which involve “inverse probability”. Also the so-called “paradoxes” which have been invented by many writers in order to assail Laplace, contradict only this one assumption; without it they are not paradoxes.
Physics: The Decline of Mechanism
Authors: Malisoff William Marias
Published: November 2002

It is my pleasant task to open a series of discussions on the sciences which will continue here in Cooper Union for the rest of the season. A few words are necessary, therefore, to indicate the design of the pattern of the lecture series as a whole, as well as the specific place and quality of my own lecture.
The Subject Matter of Psychology
Authors: Bergmann Gustav
Published: November 2002

The coordination of both logical syntax and methodological analysis of scientific language by scientific empiricism (logical positivism) has achieved a twofold result:

1. Elimination of philosophical pseudo-problems and purification of the empirical sciences from the biases engendered in them by these problems.

2. Creation of an instrument apt for exact formulation, location, and analysis of the real meaning of the valid philosophical issues.
Thought and Its Objects
Authors: Melden A. I.
Published: November 2002

What are the objects of thought? To consider a familiar case, may we assert that the proposition “I am thinking of a unicorn” entails that there is some object which is being thought of? Theories of subsistent objects provide an affirmative answer and seem to be based on the consideration that we are thinking of something when we think of a unicorn. Otherwise, to paraphrase G. E. Moore's well known statement of the argument, we would be thinking of the same thing whether we thought of a unicorn or a griffen, namely, nothing. But, as G. E. Moore has shown, subsistence theories fail to distinguish between the logical and grammatical forms of such statements as “I am thinking of a unicorn” and “I am hunting a lion”. The latter is of the form (∃x) · φx · Ψx; the former is not since it does not assert that the property of being a unicorn and the property of thought of by me both belong to something. But the problem that suggests itself is the nature of the contention that something is being thought of when, for example, we think of a unicorn. To begin with, is there no acceptable alternative to the various forms of the theory of subsistent objects according to which it would be correct to say that the proposition “I am thinking of a unicorn” entails the proposition “(∃x)·x is being thought of”? And if saying that we are thinking of something, when we think of a unicorn, does not mean that there exists something that is being thought of, what is the force of the contention that we are thinking of something?
Our Certainty of Other Minds
Authors: Dotterer Ray H.
Published: November 2002

In a recent number of Philosophy of Science, Mr. C. D. Hardie offers some interesting suggestions concerning the problem of other minds. In his view the fact that we feel certain of their existence constitutes a problem; and he wishes to find a rational justification for this certainty. “What grounds have I for believing in the existence of other minds?” he asks. He is attracted by the traditional argument from analogy, but finds it incomplete; for “any conclusion arrived at by analogy and induction is at best only probable,” and “I am certain that other minds exist.” Again we find him remarking that “there is room for an account which (1) makes our knowledge of them depend in some way on analogy ... but which (2) is such that we can be certain that other minds exist. ...” (page 311)
The Symbol: The Origin and Basis of Human Behavior
Authors: White Leslie A.
Published: November 2002

In July, 1939, a celebration was held at Leland Stanford University to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the discovery that the cell is the basic unit of all living tissue. Today we are beginning to realize and to appreciate the fact that the symbol is the basic unit of all human behavior and civilization.
The Verifiability of Different Kinds of Facts and Values
Authors: Lepley Ray
Published: November 2002

A common dictum or assumption in contemporary scientific and philosophical circles is that, if values are at all verifiable in any significant sense, they are less verified and less verifiable than facts. Esthetic and moral values in particular are regarded as less verifiable than scientific facts. It is frequently said that esthetic and moral “facts” and values are essentially and finally a matter of private preference or arbitrary social agreement whereas scientific facts are in the last analysis determined and underwritten by the actual nature of events and relations themselves. Yet in opposition to what may thus appear to be the chief current of contemporary opinion, some thinkers follow mainly in the tradition of Kant, Lotze, and Ritschel. They claim for values, including moral and esthetic values, a unique objectivity and validity.
A Framework for an Empirical Ethics
Authors: Ritchie Benbow F. , Kaplan Abraham
Published: November 2002

Empirical ethics, as the term is used in this paper, may be understood as the study of moral practice and of the moral judgments employed within such practice. One aspect of such an ethics is the analysis of the meaning of terms employed in moral judgments. In this study we are concerned with the relations between the rules of usage for such terms as “good”, “interest”, “value”, and others. But these rules of usage are not to be thought of as merely semantical; rather, they are rules which state how the terms are to be used or interpreted if certain results are to be produced in specified kinds of moral situations. That is to say, since moral judgments and their constituent terms perform an important instrumental role within moral practice, it is possible both to formulate rules for the use of these instruments, and also to study the relations between these instruments (i.e., terms) which result from the application and use of these rules.
Prediction in the Social Sciences
Authors: Kaplan Oscar
Published: November 2002

The ability to predict events within its field indicates that a science has reached a high level of development, that its essential facts stand in systematic relationship to each other. It is important to note that prediction does not always culminate in control, but effective control is impossible without it. Thus, medicine can predict the course of certain fatal diseases with which it is unable to cope, and the astronomer can forsee eclipses and other cosmic events, yet remain powerless to intervene. Since events occurring at the human level are essentially the products of human effort and experience, it is reasonable to suppose that greater predictability in the social sciences will enhance man's control over his destiny as a social being.
Presupposition and Objectivity in History
Authors: Ratner Sidney
Published: November 2002

The sub-title of this essay might very well be: “A Study in the Biology and Mechanics of Historical Research and Interpretation”. A study in biology because historians can be divided into two classes: invertebrates and vertebrates. The invertebrate historians are those who have inarticulate major premises; the vertebrate historians are those having articulate major premises. A study in mechanics because analysis of historical thought reveals that the principle of least action holds literal sway so far as many historians' critical awareness of their assumptions is concerned.
The Law of Excluded Middle
Authors: Toms Eric
Published: November 2002

It is my purpose to examine this law in those cases in which it is generally held to be untrue. I inquire what can be meant, in each case of a statement p considered, by denying the law, that is, by saying ‘Neither p nor —p‘. After separating the possible meanings of this declared indeterminacy, I go on to inquire, taking each possibility in turn, whether the law does in fact fail.
Experiments in Thinking About Observed Ethnological Material
Authors: Bateson Gregory
Published: November 2002

As I understand it, you have asked me for an honest, introspective—personal—account of how I think about anthropological material, and if I am to be honest and personal about my thinking, then I must be impersonal about the results of that thinking. Even if I can banish both pride and shame for half an hour, honesty will still be difficult.
Teleology and the Emotions
Authors: Weber Alden O. , Rapaport David
Published: November 2002

In a recent article Professor M. C. Nahm, defending what he characterizes as an amplified version of the James' theory of the emotions, argues that teleological principles are required in any adequate definition of the emotions. Mechanistic principles may account for the physiological basis of emotional experience, it is maintained, but if we are to define the total experience, which includes a certain conscious content, we must go beyond the mechanistic hypothesis and regard the emotions as directed toward certain ends. He proposes to reveal the “epistemological core” of the problem of the emotions with the evident intention of indicating the lines which the development of the theory of the emotions should follow. It is the aim of this paper to scrutinize the general problem of the emotions in the light of Mr. Nahm's arguments and to consider specifically: (1) the alleged teleological implications of the problem, (2) the statement of the problem of the emotions as it is given in Mr. Nahm's paper, and (3) the present state of research as it may be relevant to the question whether Mr. Nahm's presentation makes for philosophical clarity or methodological advancement in science.
Meaning as Behavior
Authors: Krikorian Y. H.
Published: November 2002

Meanings have an empirical genesis and status. This simple claim has often been denied or ignored. Some metaphysicians in their exaltation of the eternal have regarded meanings as essences, or eternal objects, or neutral entities, in a subsistential or supernatural realm that is changeless and has no roots in nature. Some logicians in their zest to manipulate meanings isolate them so completely as forms of reason, or as syntactical symbols that at no point is their connection with natural events made intelligible. Yet meanings, all meanings, have relation to mind. It is this empirical, psychological aspect of meaning that I shall analyze. The larger philosophic question as to what the relation of the psychological aspect is to the metaphysical or the logical will not concern us except indirectly.
Virtue Is Knowledge
Authors: Fries Horace S.
Published: November 2002

The “determination to catch the world's multiplicity and variety in a single net appears to be an incurable bias of the learned mind.” The extremes to which a philosopher will go to make his net hold water should be nothing short of absurd to the literal minded who neglect “the climate of opinion” which shapes the very logic of the systems or who fail to sympathize with the deep underlying human needs which call forth the great philosophies. Most thinkers in this anthropological day make their bow to the fact of cultural conditioning and to the fact of personal and social surds in the thought of the past. We make our bow, and then proceed to forget that we are human individuals living in an historical period with its own unique strains and symphonies and discords: if only today's system can be shown to be scientific, it must then be beyond dispute.
Diffusion and Biological Membrane Permeability. II
Authors: Reiner John M.
Published: November 2002

A kinetic theory of permeability is developed both for the case where the cell membrane is a distinct phase and where it is simply the interface between cell and environment. A general expression for the diffusion current of a substance across the membrane is derived, which depends on two “coefficients of permeability” rather than one. Solubility and adsorption theories of permeability are shown to be special cases of the formulas. The permeability coefficients are expressed in terms of the difference of potential energy of the diffusing substance in the two phases; for a membrane of finite thickness they also involve the thickness, and the diffusion coefficient of the solute in the membrane.
Geometry and Dynamics of Populations
Authors: Avrami Melvin
Published: November 2002

We wish here to consider the theory of a population or system made up of individuals whose number and size change with time. As usual, the description of these changes will be referred to as the kinetics, whereas the description of the special circumstances under which unchanging (equilibrium) conditions subsist will be called the statics of the population. A third category, the conditions for a steady state, i.e., when the variables inside the system do not change, but linked variables outside (or at the boundary) do, will be described by what we shall call the rheostatics of the system. All three, statics, rheostatics, and kinetics are subdivisions of the general dynamics of the system.
On Having A Philosophy
Authors: Malisoff William Marias
Published: November 2002

A devoted colleague often asks me: “But what is your philosophy? Are you a monist, dualist, rationalist, idealist, a Kantian? Do you believe Plato was right? Do you think there is free will ?” He is amused by my answer that I do not know what any of those questions mean, that at least I am sufficiently uncertain to avoid venturing an answer. He smiles knowingly and says: “You won't tell.”