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This volume provides a framework for approaching and understanding mental normativity. It presents cutting-edge research on the ethics of belief as well as innovative research beyond the normativity of belief—and towards an ethics of mind. By moving beyond traditional issues of epistemology the contributors discuss the most current ideas revolving around rationality, responsibility, and normativity. The book’s chapters are divided into two main parts. Part I discusses contemporary issues surrounding the normativity of belief. The essays here cover topics such as control over belief and its implication for the ethics of belief, the role of the epistemic community for the possibility of ep...
Essays by Hal Foster and Carmen Gim nez.
Statistical mechanics attempts to explain the behaviour of macroscopic physical systems in terms of the mechanical properties of their constituents. Although it is one of the fundamental theories of physics, it has received little attention from philosophers of science. Nevertheless, it raises philosophical questions of fundamental importance on the nature of time, chance and reduction. Most philosophical issues in this domain relate to the question of the reduction of thermodynamics to statistical mechanics. This book addresses issues inherent in this reduction: the time-asymmetry of thermodynamics and its absence in statistical mechanics; the role and essential nature of chance and probability in this reduction when thermodynamics is non-probabilistic; and how, if at all, the reduction is possible. Compiling contributions on current research by experts in the field, this is an invaluable survey of the philosophy of statistical mechanics for academic researchers and graduate students interested in the foundations of physics.
The dark history of eugenic thought in Germany from the nineteenth century to today—and the courageous countervoices Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi genocide claimed the lives of nearly three hundred thousand people diagnosed with psychiatric illness or cognitive deficiencies. Not until the 1980s would these murders, as well as the coercive sterilizations of some four hundred thousand others classified as “feeble-minded,” be officially acknowledged as crimes at all. The Question of Unworthy Life charts this history from its origins in prewar debates about the value of disabled lives to our continuing efforts to unlearn eugenic thinking today. Drawing on a wealth of rare archival evidence, ...
This book presents first-year calculus roughly in the order in which it was first discovered. The first two chapters show how the ancient calculations of practical problems led to infinite series, differential and integral calculus and to differential equations. The establishment of mathematical rigour for these subjects in the 19th century for one and several variables is treated in chapters III and IV. Many quotations are included to give the flavor of the history. The text is complemented by a large number of examples, calculations and mathematical pictures and will provide stimulating and enjoyable reading for students, teachers, as well as researchers.
A history of genealogical knowledge-making strategies in the early modern world. In The Maker of Pedigrees, Markus Friedrich explores the complex and fascinating world of central European genealogy practices during the Baroque era. Drawing on archival material from a dozen European institutions, Friedrich reconstructs how knowledge about noble families was created, authenticated, circulated, and published. Jakob Wilhelm Imhoff, a wealthy and well-connected patrician from Nuremberg, built a European community of genealogists by assembling a transnational network of cooperators and informants. Friedrich uses Imhoff as a case study in how knowledge was produced and disseminated during the 17th ...
The world we live in is unjust. Preventable deprivation and suffering shape the lives of many people, while others enjoy advantages and privileges aplenty. Cosmopolitan responsibility addresses the moral responsibilities of privileged individuals to take action in the face of global structural injustice. Individuals are called upon to complement institutional efforts to respond to global challenges, such as climate change, unfair global trade, or world poverty. Committed to an ideal of relational equality among all human beings, the book discusses the impact of individual action, the challenge of special obligations, and the possibility of moral overdemandingness in order to lay the ground for an action-guiding ethos of cosmopolitan responsibility. This thought-provoking book will be of interest to any reflective reader concerned about justice and responsibilities in a globalised world. Jan-Christoph Heilinger is a moral and political philosopher. He teaches at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany, and at Ecole normale supérieure, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
What happens when human beings fail to do as reason bids? This book is an attempt to address this age-old question within Kant's mature practical philosophy, i.e. the practical philosophy that emerged with the watershed discovery of autonomy in the mid-1780s. As always, Kant is good for a surprise. There is, it is argued, not one answer but two: He advocates Socratic intellectualism in the realm of prudence whilst defending an anti-intellectualist or volitional account of immoral action. This 'hybrid' theory of practical failure is more than a philosophical curiosity. There are ramifications for Kant's theory of practical reason as a whole. In particular, the hybrid account emphasizes the di...
The Intellectual Powers is a philosophical investigation into the cognitive and cogitative powers of mankind. It develops a connective analysis of our powers of consciousness, intentionality, mastery of language, knowledge, belief, certainty, sensation, perception, memory, thought, and imagination, by one of Britain’s leading philosophers. It is an essential guide and handbook for philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists. The culmination of 45 years of reflection on the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and the nature of the human person No other book in epistemology or philosophy of psychology provides such extensive overviews of consciousness, self-consciousness, intent...
This book deals with numerical methods that preserve properties of Hamiltonian systems, reversible systems, differential equations on manifolds and problems with highly oscillatory solutions. A complete self-contained theory of symplectic and symmetric methods, which include Runge-Kutta, composition, splitting, multistep and various specially designed integrators, is presented and their construction and practical merits are discussed. The long-time behaviour of the numerical solutions is studied using a backward error analysis (modified equations) combined with KAM theory. The book is illustrated by numerous figures, treats applications from physics and astronomy, and contains many numerical experiments and comparisons of different approaches.