This book helps unlock the root cause of abnormal grain growth in a commercial nickel alloy. The chapters explore the effects of different solution treating and aging techniques, showing how they impact the hardness properties of hot-rolled and cold-drawn Monel K-500. The book covers how high-frequency induction heat treating can lead to severe duplex microstructure, and uncovers the surprising differences between solution treating in vacuum and convection air furnaces. This book is helpful to anyone seeking to optimize the performance of metal alloys.
The work that helped to determine Paul Feyerabend's fame and notoriety, Against Method, stemmed from Imre Lakatos's challenge: "In 1970 Imre cornered me at a party. 'Paul,' he said, 'you have such strange ideas. Why don't you write them down? I shall write a reply, we publish the whole thing and I promise you—we shall have a lot of fun.' " Although Lakatos died before he could write his reply, For and Against Method reconstructs his original counter-arguments from lectures and correspondence previously unpublished in English, allowing us to enjoy the "fun" two of this century's most eminent philosophers had, matching their wits and ideas on the subject of the scientific method. For and Against Method opens with an imaginary dialogue between Lakatos and Feyerabend, which Matteo Motterlini has constructed, based on their published works, to synthesize their positions and arguments. Part one presents the transcripts of the last lectures on method that Lakatos delivered. Part two, Feyerabend's response, consists of a previously published essay on anarchism, which began the attack on Lakatos's position that Feyerabend later continued in Against Method. The third and longest section consists of the correspondence Lakatos and Feyerabend exchanged on method and many other issues and ideas, as well as the events of their daily lives, between 1968 and Lakatos's death in 1974. The delight Lakatos and Feyerabend took in philosophical debate, and the relish with which they sparred, come to life again in For and Against Method, making it essential and lively reading for anyone interested in these two fascinating and controversial thinkers and their immense contributions to philosophy of science. "The writings in this volume are of considerable intellectual importance, and will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the development of the philosophical views of Lakatos and Feyerabend, or indeed with the development of philosophy of science in general during this crucial period."—Donald Gillies, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science (on the Italian edition) "A stimulating exchange of letters between two philosophical entertainers."—Tariq Ali, The Independent Imre Lakatos (1922-1974) was professor of logic at the London School of Economics. He was the author of Proofs and Refutations and the two-volume Philosophical Papers. Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994) was educated in Europe and held numerous teaching posts throughout his career. Among his books are Against Method; Science in a Free Society; Farewell to Reason; and Killing Time: The Autobiography of Paul Feyerabend, the last published by the University of Chicago Press.
1. IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT In 1900, in A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leihniz, Russell made the following assertion: "That all sound philosophy should begin with an analysis of propositions is a truth too evident, perhaps, to demand a proof". 1 Forty years later, the interest aroused by this notion had not decreased. C. J. Ducasse wrote in the Journal of Philosophy: "There is perhaps no question more basic for the theory of knowledge than that of the nature of 2 propositions and their relations to judgments, sentences, facts and inferences". Today, the great number of publications on the subject is proof that it is still of interest. One of the problems raised by propositions, the problem of deter mining whether propositions, statements or sentences are the primary bearers of truth and falsity, is even in the eyes of Bar-Hillel, "one of the major items that the future philosophy oflanguage will have to discuss". 3 gave a correct summary of the situation when he wrote in his Ph. Devaux Russell (1967): Since Peano and Schroder who, in fact, adhered more faithfully to Boole's logic of classes, the logical and epistemological status of the proposition together with its analysis have not ceased to be the object of productive philosophical controversies. And especially so since the establishment of contemporary symbolic logic, the foundations 4 of which have been laid out by Russell and Whitehead. * 2.
In this work Paul Murray explores which style of rationality is most appropriate to Christian theology in the contemporary pluralist, postfoundationalist, postmodern context. At its heart is a fresh consideration of the American pragmatist tradition, focussing on the writings of Richard Rorty and Nicholas Rescher. Where Rorty correctly diagnoses the failures of foundationalist "objectivism", Rescher's "pragmatic idealism" is presented as healing the ills in Rorty's own neo-pragmatism. The significant resonance between Rescher's view of rationality and Christian understanding of the trinity is explored. In turn, Donald MacKinnon's influential writings are presented as exemplifying just such an approach to theology. Murray both articulates an enriched form of Christian postliberalism, committed to receiving and learning from other traditions of thought and practice and probes the claim that the dynamics of human rationality can be expected to reflect the Trinitarian dynamics of God's being. "Paul Murray presents us here with an exhaustive and insightful study of recent pragmatic theory, in which he sets up rhythms of healing and completion as well as interrogation... particularly remarkable is his exploration of Christianity as the deep and in some sense final interlocutor of pragmatic tradition. I strongly recommend this book." Olivier Davis, Professor of Christian Doctrine, King's College London. "This is a mature, wide-ranging work that by uniting the intellectual and the practical carries both rational and ethical conviction. It does equal justice to the classic teachings of Christianity and to the challenges to rethink them in dialogue with modern and postmodern approaches. The result is a conception of Christianity both generously orthodox and deeply engaged with contemporary life and thought. It is especially good to see the profound contribution of Donald MacKinnon understood and developed with such perception and relevance." David F. Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge. Paul Murray is currently Lecturer in Systematic Theology within the Department of Theology at the University of Durham, England. He has previously held posts at St Cuthbert's Seminary, Ushaw College, Durham and Newman College of Higher Education, Birmingham. Essays of his exploring issues in philosophical theology, science and theology and contemporary Roman Catholic theology have appeared in leading journals and edited collections. This is his first monograph.
Scholars from disciplines as diverse as political science and art history have offered widely differing interpretations of Kuhn's ideas, appropriating his notions of paradigm shifts and revolutions to fit their own theories, however imperfectly. Destined to become the authoritative philosophical study of Kuhn's work. Bibliography.
This is the first book length defence of a counterfactual theory of causation. The analysis defended is new. It expresses the idea that, independent of its competitors, a cause raises the chance of an effect over its mean background chance by a complete causal chain. The analysis depends upon a novel development of David Lewis's Theory of Counterfactuals. One consequence of the analysis is that causation is not transitive. Causation is also nonsymmetric. The counterfactual basis of causal nonsymmetry is the result of a number of different, and sometimes interacting, nonsymmetries. The analysis allows for the development of a novel theory of events whose nature is independent of their role in causation and the identification of one other important causal relationship: property causation. Although compatible with Hume's denial of necessary connections between distinct existences, a key feature of the theory is that it benefits from being independent of the Humean framework. There are two ways in which something may be metaphysically fundamental: vertically and horizontally. Many metaphysicians emphasise vertical fundamentality and focus on truth making. The book rejects this emphasis and the truth making approach in particular. Horizontally fundamental metaphysical entities are those that are necessary components in different possible universes. Causation has a claim to be horizontally fundamental: the cement of any universe. Laws are patterns of causation realised in different metaphysical frameworks such as those articulated by Lewis, Armstrong and the powers ontologists. The book recognises varieties of causation both in, for example, counting cases of double prevention and causation by genuine processes as types of causation, and allowing that the analysis identifies causes across these different metaphysical frameworks.
Originally published in 1986. This work remains of compelling interest to those concerned with the natural sciences and their social problems. It puts forward original and unorthodox ideas about the philosophy of and sociology of science, starting from the conviction that modern societies face deep problems arising from unresolved dilemmas about the meaning, content and technical applications of the theories of nature they employ. The book draws on insights developed within a variety of traditions to explore these problems, especially the work of Edmund Husserl and modern critical theory.
A novel, practical approach to modeling spatial uncertainty. This book deals with statistical models used to describe natural variables distributed in space or in time and space. It takes a practical, unified approach to geostatistics-integrating statistical data with physical equations and geological concepts while stressing the importance of an objective description based on empirical evidence. This unique approach facilitates realistic modeling that accounts for the complexity of natural phenomena and helps solve economic and development problems-in mining, oil exploration, environmental engineering, and other real-world situations involving spatial uncertainty. Up-to-date, comprehensive, and well-written, Geostatistics: Modeling Spatial Uncertainty explains both theory and applications, covers many useful topics, and offers a wealth of new insights for nonstatisticians and seasoned professionals alike. This volume: * Reviews the most up-to-date geostatistical methods and the types of problems they address. * Emphasizes the statistical methodologies employed in spatial estimation. * Presents simulation techniques and digital models of uncertainty. * Features more than 150 figures and many concrete examples throughout the text. * Includes extensive footnoting as well as a thorough bibliography. Geostatistics: Modeling Spatial Uncertainty is the only geostatistical book to address a broad audience in both industry and academia. An invaluable resource for geostatisticians, physicists, mining engineers, and earth science professionals such as petroleum geologists, geophysicists, and hydrogeologists, it is also an excellent supplementary text for graduate-level courses in related subjects.
The intent of the present work is chiefly the presentation of a running commentary, preponderantly historical in complexion, on the detail of the text of St. Anselm's dialogue De Grammatico. At the same time the making intelligible of that text has demanded the concurrent proffering of logical elucidations. The framework adopted for the latter is the Ontology of S. Lesniewski. The unsuitability of other current systems of logic for the analysis of medieval doctrines has been suggested in HLM I. Hereunder the line of analyses proposed in HDG (an introduc tory study of De Grammatico) will for the most part be maintained, with only a few modifications. Changes which further study might demand would in any case involve not so much an abrogation of the HDG ver sions, but rather certain complications of detail on the lines indicated in HLM, HEE, and Hoi. Readers who happen to be out of sympathy either with modem logic as a whole, or with the Lesniewskian systems in particular, may be assured that the historical thread of the commentary remains for the most part unaffected by issues connected with such logics. Much of the historical material contained in the commentary consists of quotations from the logical works of Boethius. Some of that material may at first sight appear prosaic and tedious.
This book presents the essential background for understanding semantic theories of mood. Mood as a category is widely used in the description of languages and the formal analysis of their grammatical properties. It typically refers to the features of a sentence-individual morphemes or grammatical patterns-that reflect how the sentence contributes to the modal meaning of a larger phrase, or that indicate the type of fundamental pragmatic function that it has in conversation. In this volume, Paul Portner discusses the most significant semantic theories relating to the two main subtypes of mood: verbal mood, including the categories of indicative and subjunctive subordinate clauses, and sentence mood, encompassing declaratives, interrogatives, and imperatives. He evaluates those theories, compares them, and draws connections between seemingly disparate approaches, and he formalizes some of the literature's most important ideas in new ways in order to draw out their most significant insights. Ultimately, this work shows that there are crucial connections between verbal mood and sentence mood which point the way towards a more general understanding of how mood works and its relation to other topics in linguistics; it also outlines the type of semantic and pragmatic theory which will make it possible to explain these relations. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers and students from advanced undergraduate level upwards in the fields of semantics and pragmatics, philosophy, computer science, and psychology.
What is truth? Paul Horwich gives the definitive exposition of a notable philosophical theory, `minimalism'. This is the controversial theory that the nature of truth is entirely captured in the trivial fact that each proposition specifies its own condition for being true, and that truth is therefore, despite the philosophical struggles to which it has given rise, an entirely mundane and unpuzzling concept. Horwich makes a powerful case for the minimalist view, and gives a carefulsystematic explanation of its implications for a cluster of important philosophical issues on which questions about truth have impinged.The first edition of Truth, published in 1990, established itself both as the best account of minimalism and as an excellent introduction to the debate for students. For this new edition Paul Horwich has refined and developed his treatment of the subject in the light of subsequent discussions, while preserving the distinctive format which made the book so successful. It appears simultaneously with his new book Meaning, a companion work which sets out the broader philosophicalcontext for the theory of truth: an account of meaning which seeks to accommodate the diversity of valuable insights that have been gained in the twentieth century within a common-sense view of meaning as deriving from use. The two books together present a compelling view of the relations between language, thought,and reality. Horwich's demystification of meaning and truth will be essential reading for all philosophers of language.Praise for the first edition:'subtle, penetrating and ingenious . . . everyone interested in philosophy is in his debt' Michael Dummett, University of Oxford'lucid and compact . . . a forthright presentation of an interesting thesis' Donald Davidson, University of California, Berkeley'This is an excellent book and deserves to be widely read and used as a text. It states its thesis clearly and argues for it briskly: a style that seems well calculated to start discussions . . . It seems like an admirable starting-point for several weeks' worth of discussions in a philosophy of language course at upper-division undergraduate level.' Australasian Journal of Philosophy'clearly written and well-structured' British Journal for the Philosophy of Science'clear, informed and provocative ... I thoroughly recommend the book to everyone in the philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and metaphysics' Michael Devitt, Mind and Language
From the author of the acclaimed The First Rule of Survival, praised by Lee Child as 'excellent and uncompromising', comes Paul Mendelson's explosive latest thriller. Apostle Lodge looks out over the ocean, an award-winning mansion built by a renowned architect. Stark and minimal, its black opaque windows hide a terrible secret. As Colonel Vaughn de Vries investigates the depraved crime committed within its walls, he believes there may be more than one killer on the loose, all with connections to a charismatic man who, as a child, drowned his sister and shattered his family. And his work is not over yet. 'A jaw-droppingly brilliant crime thriller. Imagine The Killing moved to Cape Town and into the landscape of the hot and dusty African veld' Philip Glenister 'Mendelson plots so smoothly and writes so powerfully' The Guardian
In the first half of this century, great strides were made in under standing the behavior of polymers in dilute solutions or in the solid state. Concentrated solutions, on the other hand, were commonly regarded as mainly of interest to practitioners, being too complex for the rigorous application of statistical theory. Given the preoccupation with the isolated polymer molecule and the attendant focus on the state of infinite dilution, it is not surprising that aggregation, and inter-polymer associ ation in general, was the bugaboo of experimentalists. These attitudes have changed remarkably over the last few decades. The application of sealing theory to polymer solutions has stimulated investigation of the semi-dilute state, and the region between infinite dilution and swollen gel is no longer perceived as terra incognita. New techniques, such as dynamic light scattering, have proven to be of much value in such investigations. At the same time, it has become clear that consideration of strong inter- and intra-polymer forces, superimposed on the familiar description of the statistical chain, is prerequisite to the application of polymer science to numerous systems of interest. Para mount among these, of course, are biopolymers, their complexes and assemblies. The isolated random coil must be viewed as tl rarity in nature.
1942. In the howling wasteland of the Russian Front, a mysterious giant of the Red Army surrenders to the German Army, presenting his captors with an incredible proposal. Meanwhile, American OSS Agent Michael Barnes undergoes intensive training, unaware that in faraway Berlin, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler is recruiting one of his most fanatical officers to hatch a bold plot designed to fracture the precarious alliance between the United States and the Soviet Union. At the same time, ruthless FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover has embarked on his own subversive campaign, one that will secure his position as lord of national security. As SS Colonel Jochen Pietrich and his elite team infiltrate the American heartland, Mike Barnes finds himself drawn into the maelstrom. A deadly game of cat and mouse ensues, playing itself out across the breadth of America, spanning from Pittsburgh to Oregon, and spilling onto the streets of New York City.
Scientists, philosophers and theologians have wrestled repeatedly with the question of whether knowledge is similar or different in their various understandings of the world and God. Although agreement is still elusive, the epistemology of critical realism, associated with Ian Barbour, John Polkinghorne and Arthur Peacocke, remains widely credible. Relying on the lifetime work of philosopher Ernan McMullin, this book expands our understanding of critical realism beyond a permanent stand-off between the subjective and objective, whether in science or theology. Critical realism illuminates the subject and the objectively known simultaneously. Responding to criticisms made against it, this book defends critical realism in science and theology with a specific role to play in our understanding of God.
Contemporary Materialismpresents an important collection of recent work on materialism in connection with metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind and theories of value. This anthology charts the contemporary problems, positions and themes on the topic of materialism. It illuminates materialism's complex intersection with related subjects such as cognition and psychology. By gathering a wide-range of philosophical interventions around the subject of materialism, this anthology provides a valuable discussion of how materialism can effectively serve the purposes of philosophical assessment. To further assist the reader, it also contains an extensive bibliography on contemporary materialism.
The second volume of the proceedings of the international seminar devoted to locali· zation and delocalization in quantum chemistry is divided into four parts. The first one is mainly concerned with the localizability of electrons in ionized and exited states. The second part shows how is it possible to take advantage of the localizability of electrons to compute molecular wave-functions. The third part of the book is an homogeneous analysis of the electronic collective excitation and of the motion of excitons in organic solids. The last section is devoted to the study of the role of electron localizability in the chemical reactivity of molecules. Concluding remarks are concerned with a careful analysis of the localizability concept itself in relation with a possible interpretation of the wave-mechanics. PART I ELECTRON LOCALIZATION IN IONIZED AND EXCITED STATES APPLICATIONS OF PAIR DENSITY ANALYSIS R. CONSTANCIEL and L. ESNAULT Centre de Mecanique Ondulatoire Appliquee, Paris, France Abstract. The method of pair density analysis is applied to various kinds of calculations. We examine the influence of the quality of the wavefunction and of the nuclear configuration; the problem of hybridization is discussed, as weIl as the relations between separability and excitation.
Time is generally thought to be one of the more mysterious ingredients of the universe. In this intriguing book, Paul Horwich makes precise and explicit the interrelationships between time and a large number of philosophically important notions. Ideas of temporal order and priority interact in subtle and convoluted ways with the deepest elements in our network of basic concepts. Confronting this conceptual jigsaw puzzle, Horwich notes that there are glaring differences in how we regard the past and future directions of time. For example, we can influence the future but not the past, and can easily gain knowledge of the past but not of the future. Moreover we see a profusion of decay processes but little spontaneous generation of order; time appears to "flow" in one privileged direction, not the other; and we tend to explain phenomena in terms of antecedent circumstances, rather than subsequent ones. Horwich explains such time asymmetries and examines their bearing on the nature of time itself. Asymmetries in Time covers many notoriously difficult problems in the philosophy of science: causation, knowledge, entropy, explanation, time travel, rational choice (including Newcomb's problem), laws of nature, and counterfactual implication—and gives a unified treatment of these matters. The book covers an unusually broad range of topics in a lucid and nontechnical way and includes alternative points of view in the philosophical literature.
The result of 15 years of exhaustive research, this work is the definitive statistical and factual reference for everything related to college football in the past 50 years.
The integrated theory of dynamic interpretation set out here will be a surprise to advanced researchers in linguistics. It combines classical formal semantics and modern dynamic semantics without altering the fundamental paradigm. At the book’s core lies a pragmatically motivated notion of a dynamic conjunction of meanings, an idea that is worked out in full formal detail. This is applied to linguistic phenomena that involve anaphora, quantification and modality. The author demonstrates that in each area of application existing data can be neatly combined with new dynamic insights, but more importantly, there is a genuine further pay-off: the work generates treatments of phenomena that were not initially intended, with functional readings of pronouns and quantifiers, ‘Hob-Nob’ sentences, and insights into what we now call ‘Pierce’s Puzzle’. The outcome of a decade of work by the Amsterdam School of dynamic semantics, this volume condenses and reflects upon a vital body of research.
Since the Arab Spring, militaries have received renewed attention regarding their intervention into politics of Middle Eastern and South Asian states. This book examines the factors which influence military intervention and withdrawal from politics—namely, United States and Soviet/Russian economic and military aid—and how this affects democratic transitions and consolidation. The militaries of Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey, have used nationalism to justify their interventions into politics while ensuring that withdrawal would only occur if national identity were protected. This book examines important states in the Islamic World which have experienced similar historical trajectories, briefly experimented with democracy, and had the military become a dominant institution in the state. All four countries differ in their levels of ethnic conflict, importance placed on the country by the international community, and internal security concerns. The common result of international influence on political development, however, is that the military will take a keener interest in politics and be more reluctant to disengage.
Philosophers have sought to define knowledge since the time of Plato. This inquiry outlines a theory of rational belief by challenging prominent skeptical claims that we have no justified beliefs about the external world.
Here is the most comprehensive and authoritative work on radiologic diagnosis of pediatric gastrointestinal disorders. Packed with hundreds of outstanding clinical images, Pediatric Gastrointestinal Imaging and Intervention offers explicit, step-by-step instructions for performing and interpreting the latest diagnostic techniques. It discusses the imaging methods practitioners are likely to employ, including sonography, plain film and contrast radiography, endoscopy, CT, MRI, nuclear medicine, angiography, and interventional radiology.
In Decision Space: Multidimensional Utility Analysis, first published in 2001, Paul Weirich increases the power and versatility of utility analysis and in the process advances decision theory. Combining traditional and novel methods of option evaluation into one systematic method of analysis, multidimensional utility analysis is a valuable tool. It provides formulations of important decision principles, such as the principle to maximize expected utility; enriches decision theory in solving recalcitrant decision problems; and provides in particular for the cases in which an expert must make a decision for a group of people. The multiple dimensions of this analysis create a decision space broad enough to accommodate all factors affecting an option's utility. The book will be of interest to advanced students and professionals working in the subject of decision theory, as well as to economists and other social scientists.
This is a book about semantic theories of modality. Its main goal is to explain and evaluate important contemporary theories within linguistics and to discuss a wide range of linguistic phenomena from the perspective of these theories. The introduction describes the variety of grammatical phenomena associated with modality, explaining why modal verbs, adjectives, and adverbs represent the core phenomena. Chapters are then devoted to the possible worlds semantics for modality developed in modal logic; current theories of modal semantics within linguistics; and the most important empirical areas of research. The author concludes by discussing the relation between modality and other topics, especially tense, aspect, mood, and discourse meaning. Paul Portner's accessible guide to this key area of current research will be welcomed by students of linguistics at graduate level and above, as well as by researchers in philosophy, computational science, and related fields.
Economics, dealing with mental processes of decision makers is part of cognitive science; conversely, cognitive science, faced with constraints on information processing, is part of economics. In July 1990, the Cecoia 2 conference was organised in Paris to further explore the connections between the two. The papers presented in this volume illustrate this truly interdisciplinary research intertwining social and cognitive sciences. Three main topics are represented: agent's mental representation when facing complex uncertainty; agent's computational constraints leading to bounded rationality; agent's learning and evolution in an imperfectly known environment.
The amazing accuracy in verifying quantum effects experimentally has recently renewed interest in quantum mechanical measurement theory. In this book the authors give within the Hilbert space formulation of quantum mechanics a systematic exposition of the quantum theory of measurement. Their approach includes the concepts of unsharp objectification and of nonunitary transformations needed for a unifying description of various detailed investigations. The book addresses advanced students and researchers in physics and philosophy of science. In this second edition Chaps. II-IV have been substantially rewritten. In particular, an insolubility theorem for the objectification problem has been formulated in full generality, which includes unsharp object observables as well as unsharp pointers.
Since the beginning of philosophy, philosophers have sought objective knowledge: knowledge of things whose existence does not depend on one's conceiving of them. This book uses lessons from debates over objective knowledge to characterize the kinds of reasons pertinent to philosophical and other theoretical views. It argues that we cannot meet skeptics' typical demands for nonquestion-begging support for claims to objective truth, and that therefore we should not regard our supporting reasons as resistant to skeptical challenges. One key lesson is that a constructive, explanatory approach to philosophy must change the subject from skeptic-resistant reasons to perspectival reasons arising from variable semantic commitments and instrumental, purpose-relative considerations. The book lays foundations for such a reorientation of philosophy, treating fundamental methodological issues in ontology, epistemology, the theory of meaning, the philosophy of mind, and the theory of practical rationality. It explains how certain perennial debates in philosophy rest not on genuine disagreement, but on conceptual diversity: talk about different matters. The book shows how acknowledgment of conceptual diversity can resolve a range of traditional disputes in philosophy. It also explains why philosophers need not anchor their discipline in the physicalism of the natural sciences.
Arc pair grammar is a new, extensively formalized, theory of the grammatical structure of natural languages. As an outgrowth of relational grammar, it constitutes a theoretical alternative to the long-dominant generative transformational approach to linguistics. In this work, David Johnson and Paul Postal offer the first comprehensive presentation of this theoretical framework, which provides entirely new notions of all the basic concepts of grammatical theory: sentence, language, rule, and grammar. Originally published in 1981. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Within traditional decision theory, common decision principles -- e.g. the principle to maximize utility -- generally invoke idealization; they govern ideal agents in ideal circumstances. In Realistic Decision Theory, Paul Weirch adds practicality to decision theory by formulating principles applying to nonideal agents in nonideal circumstances, such as real people coping with complex decisions. Bridging the gap between normative demands and psychological resources, Realistic Decision Theory is essential reading for theorists seeking precise normative decision principles that acknowledge the limits and difficulties of human decision-making.
The central thesis of this book is that the semantic conception is a logical methodologically and heuristically richer and more accurate account of scientific theorizing, and in particular of theorizing in evolutionary biology, than the more widely adhered to syntactic conception. In this book, the author outlines both the conceptions indicating the significant problems with the syntactic conception; explains and criticizes two influential syntactic-conception accounts of the structure of evolutionary theorizing. Thompson also argues that the semantic conception provides a richer and more accurate understanding than the syntactic conception of sociobiological explanation, of the testability of sociobiology, and of the role of culture and cognition in evolutionary explanations of human behavior.
This collection of essays, by Reding, in the emergent field of Sino-Hellenic studies, explores the neglected inchoative strains of rational thought in ancient China and compares them to similar themes in ancient Greek thought, right at the beginnings of philosophy in both cultures. Reding develops and defends the bold hypothesis that Greek and Chinese rational thinking are one and the same phenomenon. Rather than stressing the extreme differences between these two cultures - as most other writings on these subjects - Reding looks for the parameters that have to be restored to see the similarities. Reding maintains that philosophy is like an unknown continent discovered simultaneously in both China and Greece, but from different starting-points. The book comprises seven essays moving thematically from conceptual analysis, logic and categories to epistemology and ontology, with an incursion in the field of comparative metaphorology. One of the book's main concerns is a systematic examination of the problem of linguistic relativism through many detailed examples.
The development of a sociology of medical knowledge is both assessed and contributed to in Medical Talk and Medical Work. Underlying the analysis is research on the work of haematologists, which offers a rich resource for understanding the complexities and contradictions between physical bodies and social embodiment, medical talk and technical apparatus. Using but moving beyond this specific material, Paul Atkinson demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of the existing understanding of medical knowledge. Among the issues explored are: the place of interaction among doctors, rather than between doctors and patients, in defining the construction of medical knowledge; the ways in which clinical opinion is socially produced and the nature of the local settings through which this process occurs; and the relations among medical knowledge, medical language and the increasingly technological contexts of contemporary medical practice.
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