bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Skepticism and Perspective
Authors: Furtak Rick Anthony
Published: June 2023

Employing as an organizing principle the classical skeptic’s ten modes of suspending judgment, this long chapter forms the heart of the book by going systematically through the reasons for being distrustful of love as a source of insight, and by examining why each skeptical argument might be rejected. Proust’s narrator Marcel engages in relentless analysis of his love for Albertine—and, earlier, for Gilberte—and Swann’s love for Odette, tending to argue that love is merely subjective, but learning in spite of himself that loving subjectivity may be an essential condition for apprehending what is meaningful in each of our worlds. Adopting a “system of mental hygiene,” such as skeptical doubt toward one’s own emotions and what they reveal, appears to be a defense against the vulnerability that loving entails.
Oar Feet and Opal Teeth
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Oar Feet and Opal Teeth is an extended introduction to the form and biology of the small (at most a few millimeters) crustaceans known as copepods, as a group Copepoda. Brief biographical sketches of more than 20 practicing copepodologists emphasize their commitment to understanding these keystone aquatic organisms better. The focus is on the free-living forms in oceans and lakes, shaped like rice grains with feet. Forms and functions of their limbs are described, as well as the heart, brain, eyes, siliceous teeth, gut, and gonads. Variations are treated in food capture, mate-finding, reproduction, and development of embryos, larvae (nauplii), and juveniles (copepodites). Adaptations including high-speed escape jumps, transparency, several modes of bioluminescence, and diel vertical migrations to remain in the dark around the clock help copepods to avoid becoming predator gut contents. Emphasis is given to egg and larval modes of diapause and to chromatin diminution, a means shared with nematodes of dumping junk DNA. Species concepts and taxonomic practices for copepods are explained. Molecular genetics and high precision morphologic comparisons are marshaled to relate the distinct copepod orders and families as an evolutionary tree (a phylogeny) with its root in the Cambrian era.
The Front End
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Chapter 2 addresses the head section, or “cephalosome,” of a free-living copepod that carries sensory organs and bears ventral limbs variously equipped for slow propulsion and feeding. Cephalosome segments, fused on their dorsal surfaces, are covered with a smooth carapace. The medially located “rostrum,” a projection or pair of tubes filled with olfactory neurons, extends from the lower carapace edge. Just above is a hair-like projection, the also innervated frontal organ. Behind that internally are four darkly pigmented naupliar eyes, usually bundled together and appearing as a distinct spot. In a few families, two of the eyes are illuminated by lenses derived from the exoskeleton. The limbs and their functions are introduced in sequence: tubular antennules, biramous antennae and mandibles, and three limbs modified among species for different sorts of feeding. Left and right gnathobases, bearing silicious (hence, opal) teeth, extend from a basal mandible segment into the mouth. A bio of Barbara Sullivan opens the chapter. She independently discovered the mineral character of the teeth.
Let’s Go Inside
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Internal copepod anatomy is described, based largely on the work of the late Esther Lowe (published in 1935) and of Taisoo Park (published in 1966), and illustrated using their drawings. A bio tells what little is known of the scientific life of Lowe, who examined internal structures in Calanus finmarchicus using stained wax sections. Dr. Park’s career is summarized based on a generous interview. He used sections from Labidocera longipedata embedded in plastic. Organs considered are the heart and open circulation, a fibrous endoskeleton keeping the exoskeleton from collapsing, the gut, oil sac, excretory maxillary glands, functional aspects of the muscles, reproductive organs of both sexes, and the nervous system. Nerve structures detailed include the brain, statocysts located in the brain, and the ventral nerve cord.
Alpha Taxonomy I: Distinguishing Species
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Chapter 4 addresses first the nature of taxonomy, the meaning of the term “species,” and the variety of so-called species concepts. A bio introduces Bruce Frost, a prominent marine copepod taxonomist, whose work provides an early example of the refined morphological observations that now allow distinction of new species by splitting seemingly well-defined older ones. Frost’s study of Clausocalanus for his dissertation under Abraham Fleminger illustrates the importance for oceanic zooplankton of examining specimens of a genus from its entire global range. That tropical/subtropical genus of thirteen species (five of them newly recognized by Frost and Fleminger) includes distribution patterns that recur in all widely distributed zooplankton groups. Frost later took precision taxonomy to Arctic and boreal waters, describing all seven species of Pseudocalanus (three of them newly recognized), again revealing distribution patterns common among planktonic animals and even algae. Frost’s other contributions to biological oceanography are mentioned.
Alpha Taxonomy II: Values of Named Species
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Chapter 5 relates the author’s experience identifying large numbers of very deep-living copepods collected at sea over the deep (4,000 meters) seafloor off California on a cruise led by James Childress and Erik Thuesen. My work provided names for copepods they studied alive for respiration and enzyme activities. Janet Bradford-Grieve, prominent copepodologist working in New Zealand and bio subject, provided me with “ID” help. More help came from Taisoo Park, and his bio is extended. Rough contingency was found between species’ metabolic data and variations in copepod body form and likely behavior. Aerobic enzymes are more abundant in muscular copepods alternating sinking with rapid swimming (like Gaetanus), anaerobic enzymes less so. “Thin-muscled floaters” (like Euaugaptilus) that hang quietly, lunging at passing prey, often have more anaerobic capacity. Very large, thick-muscled copepods like Bathycalanus and Megacalanus tend to be well supplied enzymatically for both aerobic and anaerobic metabolism.
About Feeding I: Various Modes
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Free-living copepods come in predatory, omnivorous and mostly herbivorous versions, with appropriate sensory systems and limb structures for obtaining those meals. Corycaeus species are among the few predators that see their prey, clasp them with antennae modified as claws, then scrape nutrition with rasping mouthparts. Euchaeta (and other genera) directionally sense the sources of micro-eddies from swimmers around them with innervated antennular setae. They lunge toward the eddy source, impaling it with saber-like setae on their maxillae and maxillipeds. Jeannette Yen studied the details, and a bio covers her early career. Means for feeding on particles much less than 1 mm proved difficult to describe, at least correctly. However, studies of “particle clearance rates” were markedly improved in the 1970s using automated cell counting devices. Observed rates depend upon hunger level, particle size and particle concentration. Clearance rates for a copepod rise with food-particle concentration, then plateau, a curve termed its “functional response.
Feeding II: More About Eating
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Because copepods can extract large and small particles from a mixture, while avoiding medium-sized ones, they could not be simply filtering. Results from ultra-high-frequency movies of microscope-enlarged copepods in tiny aquaria show that they do filter. However, particles must mostly approach from suspension one-by-one in the step-like viscous flow generated by the limbs, starting and stopping with every limb cycle, despite limb sweep rates up to 100 per second. Thus, each particle can be examined (in less than 10 ms) before clearing water from around it with setal baskets, then sucking it in. That checking depends mostly on the scent of each particle in the viscous “aura” around it. Undesirable particles are swept back out. Chapter 7 tells some of the story of Swiss-American Rudi Strickler, a master of optical and filming techniques. He worked with several copepodologists to obtain radically magnified slow motion movies of copepods, showing how their high-frequency, feeding-limb movements allow this cell-by-cell acquisition and checking of food items. Careers of Strickler’s several coauthors were given boosts by doing the frame-by-frame analyses demonstrating the details.
Not Being Eaten I: Diel Vertical Migration
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Early near-surface zooplankton sampling revealed more of many species being caught at night than in daylight. Hypotheses abounded, several still current. For many species the answer is daily (“diel”) vertical migration (DVM): down to darker waters during daylight, up to better feeding at night. Daytime abundance increases in deeper, darker strata. A 1930s study by the late G. L. Clarke demonstrated DVM by Calanus finmarchicus. Algae and animals eating algae (protozoa to copepods) are more abundant in the surface; migrators must go there to feed. However, visual predators (e.g., fish) are more dangerous there in daytime. Avoiding visual predators is obviously advantageous, but selection of DVM for that advantage is difficult to prove. Chapter 8 details five studies demonstrating that predation-avoidance is usually the main gain. Bios cover the careers of Steven Bollens and Mark Ohman.
Not Being Eaten II: Other Defenses
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Predator avoidance adaptations other than escape jumps and DVM are described. Eyes of many fish search upward, their mouths opening toward prey above. A role is suggested for the red caps on the posterior oil sac tips of Calanus and its relatives: reducing the hunting success of such fish. Evolution of such red caps seems an instance of the so-called “Red Queen” process. Some nearly transparent grazing copepods with no DVM eat little during daylight, avoiding dark-pigmented guts. Other grazers eat less at night when potential prey, usually dinoflagellates, luminesce if disturbed. Best not to be located in a tiny center of flashing blue-green lights. Another turn of the Red Queen “rachet” could be the recently discovered responses of diatoms to some copepod secretions. One response is cell division without chain formation. One of two separate cells might avoid capture, a lesser stock loss than copepod meals of two or many cells. Bioluminescent blasts along the predator escape paths of Augaptilid copepods suggest they blind or distract eyed predators at night. The molecular biology of the luminescent systems of Metridia has been studied extensively, thanks to applications for tracing specific metabolic reactions.
Sex Determination in Copepods
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Sexual reproduction has genetic and population-increase drawbacks. So, why does sex persist among animals? One answer is reviewed: meiosis provides essential genetic services. The sex of individuals in dioecious species, like copepods, is determined in a variety of ways. The mammalian XX vs. XY “heterochromosome” scheme is one. A possible case of sex determining genes scattered among chromosomes in Eurytemora is summarized from a thesis by the late Archie Vander Hart. In some copepods, like some reptiles, sex is determined by a variable aspect of the habitat during development, termed Environmental Sex Determination (ESD). Differing, cases are presented for several genera. A bio describes the work of Zair Burris on Acartia. Bios of Roger Harris and Xabier Irigoien cover their work together on ESD in Calanus, with support added from work by the author and others. Development of Calanus males and females is the same through the fourth copepodite (C4), with sex of C6 adults determined by something in the habitat of C5. Alternatively stated, genetic males could be switched to females in C5. A bio of Vietnamese scientist Tran The Do covers his work on the ESD of copepods parasitic in mussels and clams. A mature female of Pseudomyicola spinosus alone in a mussel determines the sex of arriving copepodites with a pheromone signal: “grow up male.” The opposite occurs for isolated males.
Chromatin Diminution
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Recounting the career of freshwater copepodologist Grace Wyngaard introduces studies of that habitat, one frequently ignored by marine biologists. Her work is largely on the genus Cyclops with many species. Where lakes freeze in winter, Cyclops copepodites bury in the bottom for diapause. Grace has compared that resting phase between lakes at lower and higher latitudes. She tested “heritability” (H) of the diapause tendency, given its latitudinal differences, along with H of fecundity and body size differences. Mesocyclops edax are larger in warm Florida with 50 eggs/sac, smaller in Michigan with cold winters and 21 eggs/sac. Working at James Madison University, Grace took up research on “chromatin diminution” (CD), known in Cyclopoids since 1894. All embryo cells divide again (mitosis) when there are about 16 (species vary) and chromosomes of all, save one, eliminate up to 95% of the cell chromatin content (presumably mostly “junk” DNA) transferred to daughter cells. The remaining cell also divides, its daughters retaining all of the chromatin. Those are the “germ cells,” destined to generate eggs or sperm. Variants are mentioned. The DNA only retained for germ cells has some role in meiosis or gamete development. A final section characterizes progress on understanding that role, much of it led by Grace.
Copepodite Diapause
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

A diapause (noun, adjective, and verb) is a seasonal resting period of low activity and metabolism, akin to hibernation and aestivus. Winter burial of Cyclops (Chapter 14) is an example. Copepods of oceans and estuaries have two modes: 1) late copepodites load with lipids then descend far down, find neutral buoyancy and just hang still for whole seasons that vary by location and species, and 2) females spawn eggs of two distinct kinds, one equipped for immediate development and one for rest in the sediment (Chapter 17). Research on the significance and physiology of copepodite diapause in the family Calanidae started with studies of Calanus finmarchicus in Scottish sea lochs by Sheina Marshall and A. P. Orr. They demonstrated diapause from early summer until late winter. Results from across the North Atlantic and more recent decades are presented, particularly featuring work on up- and down-regulation of genes between active Calanus and those approaching or in diapause. Bios of Ann Tarrant and Mark Baumgartner, cooperating scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, introduce their results: Ann’s from gene regulation studies and Mark’s on Right Whales feeding in deep layers of C. finmarchicus in diapause.
Copepodite Diapause
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Three species of Neocalanus endemic in the subarctic Pacific diapause below 1000 meters, oil sacs loaded with wax. They spawn at depth, forming eggs from wax and tissue. Their eggs and nauplii are buoyant, rising to feed near the surface. A stock of N. plumchrus C5 enters diapause in late spring, then progressively matures from August to March. A similar diapause cycle, with more variable timing, is found in the larger N. cristatus. Females are the deep diapause stage of N. flemingeri of that species. Its males mature in June and stratify at 500 meters for mating with females passing through. Ovary maturation starts in November, with deep spawning focused on late January. Active and diapause phases are briefly reported for Southern Ocean Calanidae and Rhincalanus gigas. Tropical Calanoides natalis, found off Mauritania and around Africa to Oman, runs off several generations in coastal waters during productive upwelling seasons. Its C5s enter deep diapause offshore when upwelling subsides. Research by French scientists Denis Binet and E. Suisse de Sainte Claire studied that from Cote d’Ivoire. A bio of American oceanographer Sharon Smith covers similar cycling in the Arabian Sea. Her career involved remarkable and brave social interactions in Somalia and Oman.
Beta Taxonomy I: How Speciation Works
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

The late Abraham Fleminger of Scripps Institution of Oceanography developed hypotheses about geographic (allopatric) speciation processes in oceanic copepod genera. His case study of the tropical (20°N to 20°S) genus Pontellina is retold: anatomical data for extant species and circumglobal distributions support range expansions and contractions leading to divergence into four distinctive species. Before his death in 1988, Fleminger published refined anatomical distinctions and rough distribution patterns (some from work by Bui Thi Lang) on the complex genus Eucalanus, recognizing fifteen species. In 1998, Erica Goetz, introduced here from a 2020 interview, enrolled at Scripps as a graduate student. For her dissertation she sought DNA sequence data to further clarify the species “structure” of Eucalanus. Erica needed new specimens, not formalin preserved ones. So, she joined cruises across warm oceans globally, collecting ethanol preserved and frozen specimens. Her DNA results showed strong genetic distinctions for “cryptic” Eucalanus species not previously distinguished morphologically. For more precise anatomical studies Erica was assisted by Janet Bradford-Grieve. These pairs of newly discerned, “cryptic” species are typically sympatric, living in the same waters. At the University of Hawaii, Erica continues work on cryptic species of Pleuromamma, Haloptilus and the geography of genetic variation in plankton generally. Some cases are presented in detail.
Beta Taxonomy II: Copepods in the Stream of Time
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Chapter 20 considers recent reconstructions of arthropod and copepod phylogeny (evolutionary tree branching). Results from DNA and protein amino-acid sequences place the origin of Crustacea early in the Cambrian Period, with divergence of Copepoda at about 500 million years ago. Bios of Rony Huys and Geoffrey Boxshall introduce their work on the definition of copepod orders based on morphological distinctions. Orders are listed with the characters distinguishing them and our present understanding of their divergence sequence. The logics of current algorithms for reconstruction of phylogeny are explained, referring to an initial study of the family structure in order Calanoida by Diego Figueroa (bio in Chapter 21). A summary is presented of Geoffrey Boxshall and Janet Bradford-Grieve’s more complete phylogeny of Calanoida. Based on morphological characters of typical genera, they showed the contingency of “family clusters” with the habitat types in which they swim. A calanoid tree with the same level of family inclusion and good agreement was developed based on genetic sequence data by Silke Laakmann and colleagues.
Modern Taxonomy and Copepod Phylogeny
Authors: Miller Charles B.
Published: June 2023

Diego Figueroa’s work on copepods swimming in seas around the Galapagos Archipelago and in anchialine caves on those islands is recounted. Morphological and DNA studies of new Ridgewayia and Pseudocyclops species from those caves show the effective interaction of those data types for defining species. Work by others with such data suggested moving the genera in Ridgewayiidae into the Pseudocyclopidae. With phylogenetic details coming into better focus, Diego agreed. A postdoctoral opportunity took Diego to Florida and a detour into octocoral phylogenetics. That showed the efficacy of complete sequences of mitochondrial DNA (mtGenomes) for indicating species and higher-level relationships and, thus, more accurate phylogenetics. Current notions of mitochondrial evolution are reviewed. An odd instability of mitochondrial gene sequences among copepods is discussed, with examples recounted from mtGenome work on Tigriopus, Calanus, Eucalanus and Neocalanus. The power of “Next Generation” DNA sequencing (NGS) for assembling mtGenomes is addressed, and NGS procedures are outlined in a text box.
How to Think About Thinking
Authors: Houchens Nathan , Harrod Molly , Saint Sanjay
Published: June 2023

Outstanding attending physicians have a teaching style that is very different from the usual teaching method that presents information and expects learners to memorize and reproduce it. The attending physicians followed in this study used a strategy that was active rather than passive, collaborative rather than authoritarian. Attendings viewed the use of “why” questions as teaching opportunities. Questions served multiple purposes, including guiding the learner through their thinking process, building on knowledge through the use of hypothetical questions, and using the Socratic method to foster critical thinking. Instilling the ability to think critically about one’s own decision-making process was the attendings’ ultimate goal for their learners.
Introduction
Authors: Mitchell James
Published: June 2023

This chapter provides an outline of the book as well as setting out how it is organised. A large portion of the chapter is dedicated to general starting advice about the organ outside of music composition itself, such as how to access an instrument and how to get your music performed. The organ’s relationship with religion and religious institutions is given its own section, exploring the practical ramifications of liturgy for organ composition. Virtual organ software is an expanding field, with sampled organs improving rapidly in quality, and so this chapter briefly covers these virtual instruments. Finally, further links and resources are given to allow further exploration of the pipe organ beyond the music written for it.
The Gardens of Mesopotamia
Authors: Higgins Michael Denis
Published: June 2023

The hanging, meaning terraced gardens are the most enigmatic and short-lived of the Ancient Wonders. They are usually thought to have been at Babylon, in central Mesopotamia, whose city walls also made the early lists of Wonders. However, it may be that the gardens were at Nineveh, built by an earlier king of Assyria. Both cities were in Mesopotamia, the alluvial plain of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, whose behaviour was central to the cultural development of the region. Babylon was far from stone resources and built with mud bricks, except for areas of ceremonial importance. Nineveh was near the mountains and stone was available in much larger quantities. Although Nineveh had a more equitable climate than Babylon, a vast system of canals was built to help feed people displaced by wars of conquest and to cope with climate changes. The natural hydrocarbon bitumen was used to cement bricks and waterproof structures in both cities, and its presence later pointed to the vast reserves of oil and gas for which the region is now famous. The palaces at Nineveh were decorated with carved gypsum panels that show how stone was extracted and transported. One panel was even carved with an image of a garden that seems to correspond with ancient descriptions of the Wonder.
The Statue of Zeus at Olympia
Authors: Higgins Michael Denis
Published: June 2023

In 430 bce the Athenian sculptor Pheidias completed a monumental statue of Zeus so large that the seated figure almost filled a relatively modest temple. The statue was the focus of the sanctuary at Olympia, where Heracles (Hercules) was said to have initiated four yearly games in honour of the god. Zeus’s skin was represented by ivory, traded down from Central Africa, and the gold used for his hair and clothes was obtained from deposits around the Aegean. In his hand, he held a victory figure made of glass. The sanctuary lay beside the Alpheios River, on a stream terrace formed by the deposition of sediments produced by Neolithic cultivation of the hills to the north. The games were held for almost 1,200 years, but with the coming of Christianity, the statue was removed and its temple destroyed, either by natural or human activities. The ruins were buried by stream sediments, but the mechanism is much disputed: catastrophic theories, like tsunamis, have always been popular, but it is more likely to have been prosaic processes such as erosion triggered by hill farming, ironically the same process that made the original Olympia Terrace.
Rebuilding the Wonders
Authors: Higgins Michael Denis
Published: June 2023

Ancient peoples envisaged that their monuments would last forever, in contrast to the brief life of fifty years that is planned for most modern buildings. However, we understand the destructive forces that can affect buildings better than our ancestors and could construct even more resilient structures, given sufficient thought and adequate resources. We could build New Wonders that would physically resemble their predecessors, using both traditional and modern materials. They could be designed to withstand predicted environmental changes and natural disasters for thousands of years. However, we cannot preserve them from deliberate destruction to satisfy political, business or religious objectives.
Why John Locke Thought that the Fundamental Articles Must Be Minimal
Authors: Marko Jonathan S.
Published: June 2023

Chapter 4 situates Locke’s theological writings in the context of the fundamental articles debates of his era. It argues that, for Locke, the fundamental articles are reasonably minimal and explicitly from the Messiah. This position supports religious toleration and is not wholly novel. Locke thought that as people must be able to cull for themselves (although not wholly in isolation) any articles from Scripture to claim that they believe them—lest they be guilty of a brand of illegitimate, implicit faith—it is perfectly reasonable that the fundamental articles in Scripture are few in number and clear—otherwise the vulgar or commoners are practically ruled out from being saved—and expressly from the Messiah Himself—lest, among other things, the continuity of the church be disrupted and the definition of a Christian be subject to change.
John Locke on the Necessity of Scripture Amidst the Innate Idea Controversy and the Rise of Deism
Authors: Marko Jonathan S.
Published: June 2023

Chapter 5 focuses on Locke’s understanding of the necessity of Scripture, set within the historical context of the controversy over innate ideas and the closely related rise of natural religion or deism. John Locke’s belief that Christianity is epistemologically vital to the spread and maintenance of right morals in society is demonstrated by the mutual reinforcement between his argument against innate ideas and principles, which is most prominent in the Essay, and his conclusion in ROC that a great shift in moral thinking started with Christ’s advent. Right moral principles, although demonstrable, are neither easily wrought nor innate but can seem to be so to the many who have taken for granted their Christian (or Christianized) milieu in which they have been raised, such as the deists.
Language at the Interface
Authors: Nefdt Ryan M.
Published: June 2023

This chapter ambitiously puts forward a radical approach to the interfaces between different linguistic systems. It adopts a method of abstraction from computer science and informational structural realism. It also sketches the possibility of extending structural realism in linguistics to semantics by means of semantic metastructuralism or the view that semantically real patterns picked out by formal semantic theories are structural in similar ways to other linguistic systems.
Language and Cognitive Science
Authors: Nefdt Ryan M.
Published: June 2023

This chapter aims to show how linguistics, structurally and biologically understood, can be connected with the other cognitive sciences. It argues that the study of language still has a seminal role to play in the study of cognitive structures. It draws on insights from the history of linguistics, cognitive science, and the development of the fields of systems biology and cognitive neuroscience.
Conclusion
Authors: Nefdt Ryan M.
Published: June 2023

In the final chapter, the general framework it laid out as a species of rainforest realism. Some core assumptions of the text are described as well as comparisons with other work on the market. Finally, the import of the book is presented with its limitations and call for future work.
Discredit
Authors: Cross Elizabeth
Published: June 2023

This chapter examines the controversy over the Nouvelle Compagnie des Indes amid the financial crisis preceding the French Revolution. In 1787 Controller-General Calonne convoked an Assembly of Notables to reform the indebted Old Regime. Concurrently, the New Company became embroiled in a stock market scandal that wasted government funds, enraged the public, and led to Calonne’s dismissal. The scandal created an opportunity for merchants in France’s Chambers of Commerce to lobby the monarchy directly for the abolition of the Company’s monopoly. As these merchant-deputies from France’s port cities claimed to represent the true economic interests of the nation, they came up against short-term fiscal realities that privileged the interests of the Company’s shareholders—as putative lenders to a regime in crisis—over their own. As the Old Regime revealed its chronic dependency on the privileges that lay at the root of its fiscal crisis, both sides questioned whether the monarchy was a sound guarantor of their long-term interests.
Notes on a Scandal
Authors: Cross Elizabeth
Published: June 2023

The New Company’s ultimate revolutionary downfall occurred as the French Revolution created opportunities for new actors to profit from older forms of corruption and venality. The success of the New Company’s revolutionary reinvention played out against an emergent monetary crisis, as the new paper currency, the assignat, depreciated in value. As Jacobin politicians identified speculation in private instruments like the New Company’s shares as a prime cause of that depreciation, the National Convention targeted the Company for suppression and liquidation in the summer of 1793. Many of these same politicians, however, were simultaneously engaged in a scheme to utilize their newfound legislative power in order to extort the Company’s shareholders in exchange for legislative favors. As this scandal became public in the midst of the Terror, the Jacobin government sought to marshal these events, as illustrations of illegitimate private interest and treason, in order to consolidate its rule.
Introduction
Authors: Emery Nina
Published: June 2023

This introductory chapter defines the field of metaphysics—the philosophical study of what the world is like—and argues that metaphysicians need to have a clear understanding of how their field relates to scientific inquiry. The chapter then previews methodological naturalism as a potential way of understanding that relationship. According to methodological naturalism, when coming up with theories about what the world is like, philosophers should, whenever possible, make use of the methodology of science. Methodological naturalism is prima facie plausible because of the role of extra-empirical reasoning in science—reasoning that goes beyond the data. The chapter ends with a preview of the rest of the book.
From Content Naturalism to Methodological Naturalism
Authors: Emery Nina
Published: June 2023

This chapter defines methodological naturalism—the view that metaphysicians should, whenever possible, make use of the methodology of science—and argues that most philosophers have commitments that lead straightforwardly to methodological naturalism. The argument begins by defining content naturalism—the idea that metaphysicians ought to avoid conflicts with the content of our best science—and demonstrating that the vast majority of contemporary philosophers are committed to content naturalism. The chapter then presents an argument for the content-methodology link—the claim that anyone who is committed to content naturalism should accept methodological naturalism as well. The chapter closes with a discussion of several potential objections to the argument for the content-methodology link.
Why Methodological Naturalism Impacts Metaphysical Theorizing
Authors: Emery Nina
Published: June 2023

This chapter discusses in general terms how methodological naturalism will impact metaphysical theorizing. It is of course true that few, if any, philosophical debates can be settled by collecting data in a laboratory. But the same is true of scientific debates. Instead, scientists rely on extra-empirical principles, and we should expect these kinds of principles to impact all sorts of metaphysical debates, including debates that are usually considered to be insulated from issues to do with science, like the debate over the existence of possible worlds or the debate over the nature of composite objects. It follows that if one adopts methodological naturalism one should be deeply suspicious of the idea that there are any metaphysical debates that are wholly insulated from scientific considerations.
Case Study
Authors: Emery Nina
Published: June 2023

This chapter is the third of three case studies demonstrating the potential impacts of methodological naturalism. It focuses on an extra-empirical principle that says that we should avoid a certain kind of excess structure in our theories, and shows how that principle plays a key role in justifying the acceptance of special relativity over alternative theories that are also compatible with the data. It has often been observed that this kind of extra-empirical principle can be used to rule out theories of time that posit a fundamental distinction between the present, on the one hand, and the past and the future, on the other. This chapter argues that the very same extra-empirical principle would also apply in a surprising way to debates about the nature of possibility. It would lead to the rejection of views that posit a fundamental distinction between what is actual and what is merely possible.
Context Dependence in Scientific Methodology
Authors: Emery Nina
Published: June 2023

The foregoing chapters have assumed that there is such a thing as universal scientific methodology—a methodology for arriving at scientific theories that holds across scientific contexts. This chapter revisits that assumption and asks whether and to what extent a context-dependent scientific methodology might make trouble for the methodological naturalist. The focus of the discussion will be on the idea that simplicity is context-dependent. Although existing accounts of the ways in which simplicity is context-dependent do not give rise to serious concerns for the methodological naturalist, there are hypothetical accounts that may give rise to such worries. The chapter discusses three ways for the methodological naturalist to respond.
Metaphysics Unmoored?
Authors: Emery Nina
Published: June 2023

This chapter considers the consequences of rejecting methodological naturalism and suggests that they would be just as widespread and dramatic as (though also quite different from) the consequences of accepting the view. As argued in Chapter 1, if we aren’t methodological naturalists, then we also should not be content naturalists. That is, we should not be concerned about potential conflicts between our favored philosophical theories and our best scientific theories. Although rejecting both content and methodological naturalism might seem initially attractive, since it would free metaphysicians to be more creative and innovative in their theorizing, it would also raise a host of difficult questions about the legitimacy and purpose of metaphysics. It is unclear what it means to say that metaphysicians are in the business of figuring out what the world is like, if conflicts with our best scientific theories are irrelevant.
The Great Nation of Futurity
Authors: Dunmire Patricia L.
Published: June 2023

This book’s central premise is that conceptions of American national identity and geopolitical purpose embed a crucial temporal element that situates the nation in a privileged position vis-à-vis the future. It argues that Cold War foreign policy discourse embeds the claim that America is the exemplar of the future and, as such, has a special right to shape the geopolitical future. It further argues that this claim is inherently hegemonic, as it legitimates a foreign policy focused on shaping the global future in the American image. The book’s overall goal is to elucidate the discursive means by which the future—as a discursive construct, rhetorical resource, and conceptual space—has figured in America’s conception of its place and purpose in the world. This project is situated within the discourse and ideology of American exceptionalism, which has undergirded the nation’s identity throughout its history. It draws out the temporal dimension of the exceptionalist ideology, namely, the construal of America as the “great nation of futurity,” and examines how this identity manifests linguistically and functions rhetorically in Cold War foreign policy discourse. Working within a critical discourse analytic framework, this project examines the space-times construed within foreign policy discourse and demonstrates that these space-times consistently position the United States in a privileged position vis-à-vis the future. This positioning, in turn, sanctioned a foreign policy approach focused on global future design.
“Vistas to the Future”
Authors: Dunmire Patricia L.
Published: June 2023

This discourse-analytic chapter examines the different space-times embedded in Henry Luce’s essay “The American Century,” President Truman’s speech “A Special Message to Congress on Greece and Turkey,” and National Security Resolution 68. The chapter also analyzes how these documents positioned different global actors and constituencies vis-à-vis the future. It explores how the United States was discursively positioned vis-à-vis the postwar future and how the nation’s claim of exceptionalism figured in that positioning. The analysis demonstrates how a temporal interpretation of the Cold War manifested in foreign policy discourse, and, moreover, how this discourse granted the United States a privileged role in shaping the postwar geopolitical future. Its central argument is that various space-time and Self/Other contrasts aligned different geopolitical actors with different space-times in such a way that rendered the postwar global future the special province of the United States.
Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
Authors: Pinkard Terry
Published: June 2023

The Phenomenology is organized into six theses: (1) All consciousness is self-consciousness. (2) Self-consciousness is social self-consciousness. (3) Spirit (Geist) is self-conscious life, and this is to be conceived generically in terms of social self-consciousness. (4) Self-conscious life has a history of that to which it collectively takes itself to be absolutely committed, a history which is as much ideal as it is material. (5) This history is progressive (and in that sense, somewhat teleological), and it culminates in modern life after the finalization of the French Revolution, with two different but related accounts of that progress (namely, the history of spirit and the history of religion). (6) The thesis about the centrality of self-consciousness is what the Phenomenology as a whole is about and at the end turns out to have both a theoretical and practical significance. The Phenomenology itself and the system to which it gives rise afterward is, we are supposed to realize, the very point of departure for modern life. It culminates with the experience of the Phenomenology being the book you needed in particular and the book that we needed in general, and not just another book of philosophy.
Self-Consciousness and Self-Sufficiency
Authors: Pinkard Terry
Published: June 2023

We imagine two self-conscious agents disagreeing over who has the authority to set the terms of their own development. Where there is a fundamental disagreement on this, and a struggle for recognition occurs—a struggle over who sets the terms of authority—and if both of them claim that in fact this unconditional authority they seek is more valuable to them than life itself, it is a struggle to the death. We then imagine that although both have staked out an unconditional claim to be recognized as the authority, one of them out of the fear of death (the absolute lord and master of all) renounces that claim, recognizes the unconditional authority of the other, and becomes his slave or vassal. However, the slave soon comes to understand that the master’s putative unconditional authority is really conditional on the slave’s continued recognition of that unconditionality and thus isn’t really unconditional at all.
Absolute Freedom and Terror
Authors: Pinkard Terry
Published: June 2023

Enlightenment puts all its weight on ahistorical, unencumbered reason carried out by ahistorical, unencumbered individuals illuminated by the light of nature. These individuals, each an “I,” claim to speak with the authority of the whole, as a “We,” and the “I” and the “We” fuse into one. At first, these rational individuals are led into the concept of utility, but utility proves to be too much of a constraint on this “absolute freedom” as constrained by nothing but itself. The oneness of the “I” and the “We” itself shifts its shape into the of the “Nation” as the sovereign will that makes all other law. The French Revolution culminates in a Reign of Terror because the unifying abstraction of “absolute freedom” simply could not take the differences among individuals seriously.
The Late Fifth Century
Authors: Moore Christopher
Published: June 2023

This chapter develops the late fifth-century debates about sôphrosunê first seen in Chapter 1, focusing now on Critias, Antiphon, Thucydides, and Democritus. Critias, according to the Charmides, defined sôphrosunê as “doing one’s own things.” This solves some problems with defining a virtue and emphasizes the theme of self-constitution, in both individuals and cities. Antiphon gives an alternative account of sôphrosunê, where the suppression of felt bad desires is key. He disclaims the necessity that reason or insight does the suppression. For Thucydides, sôphrôn cities are those that, on first analysis, abstain from foreign affairs. Several major paired speeches debate the nature, value, and presence of sôphrosunê in cities; the speech by Archidamus king of Sparta gives the most extensive argument about sôphrosunê yet seen in this book. The half-dozen precepts about sôphrosunê ascribed to Democritus resonate with his moral-psychological theory, in which he presents a rational agent’s duty as to act only on the noblest of his desires.
Plato 1—Sôphrosunê and the Capacity for Action
Authors: Moore Christopher
Published: June 2023

The Phaedo contrasts the nonphilosopher’s incarnation of sôphrosunê with the philosopher’s: the former is a canceling out of inconsistent desires, the latter gives wisdom a role. This account leaves open questions that this and the next two chapters address by looking at six other Platonic dialogues. In the Protagoras, Protagoras places sôphrosunê (perhaps equated with aidôs, respect/shame) and justice at the heart of civic flourishing. Later, when arguing for some equivalence between the cardinal virtues, Socrates seeks Protagoras’ agreement to the coincidence of sôphrosunê and wisdom and justice. In the Gorgias, Socrates’ argument with Callicles becomes most heated once they disagree on the value of sôphrosunê and talk of justice falls away. Socrates cannot defend sôphrosunê as a reduction of desire, since for Callicles the excellent human life amounts to the full manifestation and realization of desire. So Socrates must defend sôphrosunê as a virtue of agency, of human power and responsibility: he therefore argues that it amounts to a well-functioning soul that includes, as subordinate aspects of sôphrosunê, wisdom and courage, the instrumental virtues of agency Callicles has already accepted.
Sôphrosunê for Later Greek Women
Authors: Moore Christopher
Published: June 2023

Classical authors disputed whether virtue had gendered forms: the Socratics argued that it didn’t; Meno and Aristotle claimed that it did. The chapter begins with an overview of this debate. It then turns to close readings of two post-Classical texts, each of which is closely informed by those debates. The first is the On Women’s Sôphrosunê, ascribed to a late-Hellenistic or early Roman-era woman called Phintys. This work opens with a theory about gendered virtue and proceeds to vaunt a conservative—husband-respecting, social-norm-obeying—sôphrosunê for women or wives. Readers must wonder whether Phintys enjoins submissiveness, the abandonment of agency, or, by contrast, an active self-possession governed by norms of women’s thoughtful acceptance, the constitution of agency. The other text is Iamblichus’ letter to a woman named Arete on the subject of sôphrosunê. Unlike Phintys, Iamblichus does not assume that this virtue is gendered, and he leaves no question whether sôphrosunê is the virtue of agency.
On African Music
Authors: Agawu Kofi
Published: June 2023

Composed over a decade and a half and originally delivered to audiences in Europe, Africa, and the US, these lectures celebrate African musical creativity by illuminating selected compositional techniques, key influences, and dominant scholarly themes. Chapters on minimalism, iconicity, tonality as a colonizing force, and African pianism are supplemented by a critique of ethnotheory, a capsule history of African rhythm studies, and an invitation to music theorists to consider whether greater encounter with African music might not enhance the work that they do. Framed as an exercise in postcolonial criticism, the work refers to a large body of recorded music from various parts of Africa, provides close readings of a handful of compositions to supplement the more general appreciative commentary, and engages recurring and controversial talking points in contemporary discourses on African music. Written in clear and accessible prose, these self-standing essays are designed to enhance admiration for the animating structures of African music.
Iconicity in Musical Thought and Expression
Authors: Agawu Kofi
Published: June 2023

This chapter assembles instances of iconicity to show that this modality is widespread in African cultures. It also offers a technical description of iconicity’s principal features and assesses its limitations as a creative option. Referring to semiotician C. S. Peirce’s theories aimed at formulating a universal algebra of equations to help us grasp reality, the chapter refers specifically to the widely cited icon-index-symbol trichotomy. While the symbolic mode is well known to Africanists—Africa, indeed, is a land awash in symbols—the indexical and iconic modes have not received as much attention. Focusing on the iconic, which is said to be the most immediate and rampant of the signifying modes, the chapter describes vivid instances of auditive iconicity and visual iconicity drawn from different performance traditions across the African continent. The chapter does not stop at description and illustration, however, but goes on to speculate on iconicity’s “developmental” potential, concluding that iconicity is limited and suggesting that its ubiquity be considered an ambiguous “gift.”