Causation and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Philosophy
Author: Walter R. Ott File Type: pdf ReviewI enthusiastically commend this engaging (something dryly humorous), skillful, and stimulating work in the history of philosophy. It will certainly be of considerable interest and value to early modern scholars and students and to many readers of this journal. --Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of ScienceIn Causation & Laws of Nature in Early Modern Philosophy, Walter Ott offers us a fascinating account of the development of theories of causation and laws of nature in the early modern period. --Journal of the History of PhilosophyWalter Ott offers an especially clear narrative concerning the development of the notions of causation and causal laws during the period bounded by Descartes and Hume. This narrative usefully distinguishes bottom-up approaches that take causation to be grounded in the properties of physical objects from top-down approaches that take causal laws to provide a contribution to causation in the physical world that cannot be reduced to the contribution of such properties. A distinctive feature of Otts discussion is its use of the views of Rigis and Locke to illustrate the nature of bottom-up accounts of causation in the early modern period. Various aspects of Otts interpretations both of these figures and of Descartes, Malebranche, Boyle and Hume are controversial but merit the further consideration they no doubt will receive.--Tad M. Schmaltz, Duke UniversityCausation and Laws of Nature combines philosophical acumen and historical care to offer a fresh perspective on early modern views of causation, intentionality, power, necessity, and laws of nature. Cutting a path from Aquinas and Suarez through Descartes and the occasionalists to Hume, Ott explores tensions and problems central to the development of early modern philosophy. There is much to learn here about the history of philosophy and some of its most important figures.--Christia Mercer, Columbia UniversityAbout the AuthorWalter Ott holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He is the author of Lockes Philosophy of Language (Cambridge University Press, 2004) and is currently assistant professor of philosophy at Virginia Tech. Some philosophers think physical explanations stand on their own what happens, happens because things have the properties they do. Others think that any such explanation is incomplete what happens in the physical world must be partly due to the laws of nature. Causation and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Philosophy examines the debate between these views from Descartes to Hume. Ott argues that the competing models of causation in the period grow out of the scholastic notion of power. On this Aristotelian view, the connection between cause and effect is logically necessary. Causes are intrinsically directed at what they produce. But when the Aristotelian view is faced with the challenge of mechanism, the core notion of a power splits into two distinct models, each of which persists throughout the early modern period. It is only when seen in this light that the key arguments of the period can reveal their true virtues and flaws. To make his case, Ott explores such central topics as intentionality, the varieties of necessity, and the nature of relations. Arguing for controversial readings of many of the canonical figures, the book also focuses on lesser-known writers such as Pierre-Sylvain Regis, Nicolas Malebranche, and Robert Boyle.ReviewWalter Ott offers us a fascinating account of the development of theories of causation and laws of nature in the early modern period... a great piece of scholarship covering an impressive array of figures. It is quite a demanding read, but well worth the effort. Eric Stencil, Journal of the History of Philosophy I find the book truly illuminating, rich and intriguing. It is clearly an important contribution to the literature on early modern metaphysics and natural philosophy. Yitzhak Melamed, Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie Causation and Laws of Nature combines philosophical acumen and historical care to offer a fresh perspective on early modern views of causation, intentionality, power, necessity, and laws of nature. Cutting a path from Aquinas and Suarez through Descartes and the occasionalists to Hume, Ott explores tensions and problems central to the development of early modern philosophy. There is much to learn here about the history of philosophy and some of its most important figures. Christia Mercer, Columbia University Walter Ott offers an especially clear narrative concerning the development of the notions of causation and causal laws during the period bounded by Descartes and Hume. This narrative usefully distinguishes bottom-up approaches that take causation to be grounded in the properties of physical objects from top-down approaches that take causal laws to provide a contribution to causation in the physical world that cannot be reduced to the contribution of such properties. A distinctive feature of Otts discussion is its use of the views of Regis and Locke to illustrate the nature of bottom-up accounts of causation in the early modern period. Various aspects of Otts interpretations both of these figures and of Descartes, Malebranche, Boyle and Hume are controversial but merit the further consideration they no doubt will receive. Tad M. Schmaltz, Duke University About the AuthorWalter Ott holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He is the author of Lockes Philosophy of Language (Cambridge University Press, 2004) and is currently Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Tech.
Author: Philip Ball
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This Very Short Introduction is an exciting and non-traditional approach to understanding the terminology, properties, and classification of chemical elements. It traces the history and cultural impact of the elements on humankind, and examines why people have long sought to identify the substances around them. The book includes chapters on particular elements such as gold, iron, and oxygen, showing how they shaped culture and technology. Looking beyond the Periodic Table, the author examines our relationship with matter, from the uncomplicated vision of the Greek philosophers, who believed there were four elements--earth, air, fire, and water--to the work of modern-day scientists in creating elements such as hassium and meitnerium. Packed with anecdotes, The Elements is a highly engaging and entertaining exploration of the fundamental question what is the world made from?ReviewA delight of a book.... Elegantly written...far-reaching, entertaining and salted with anecdote.... It could become a classic.--New ScientistBall brings the periodic table to life.--DiscoverPhilip Balls book is an excellent introduction.--Chemistry and IndustryThe book contains some delightful anecdotes.--Times Higher Educational Supplement (London)About the AuthorPhilip Ball is a science writer and a consultant editor for Nature and the author of Designing the Molecular World, The Self-Made Tapestry, H20 A Biography of Water, and Stories of the Invisible A Guided Tour of Molecules.
Author: Paul A. Vatalaro
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Shelleys Music Fantasy, Authority and the Object Voice regards music images and allusions to music in Shelleys writing as evidence that Shelley sought to infuse the masculine word with the music of feminine expression. Set within his configuration of hetero-erotic relationships, this agenda reveals Shelleys desire to remain eternally present in his poetry. In the end, Shelley fails to achieve this goal, because he failed to overcome an even stronger desire to preserve male authority.Shelleys Music demonstrates that the main body of Shelleys writing consists of a fantasy aimed at unifying the word, traditionally associated with masculine power and authority, with voice and music, traditionally associated with the power and mystery of feminine expression. This particular fantasy extends an even more fundamental desire to integrate the object voice with ones own subjectivity. Structured along the lines of sexual difference and providing the coordinates for Shelleys construction of heterosexual and hetero-erotic correspondence, this phantasmic movement reveals Shelleys desire to make his voice eternally present in the written word. As Zizek reminds us, however, all fantasy inevitably exposes the very horror it means to conceal. For Shelley, what plagues the desire to merge word, voice and music is the prospect of losing both the poets authority and the subjectivity upon which it relies. Recycling throughout his writing, Shelleys fantasy, then, generates deadlock and instability each time it finds renewed expression. Shelleys Music argues that this division paradoxically becomes Shelleys ultimate goal, because it maintains desire by creating a steady state of suspension that finally preserves for Shelley his authority and his humanity.**
Author: Barbara Nathan Hardy
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The author offers close readings of Thomas Hardys poetry and novels, regarding these as expressive forms of everyday and professional acts of the imagination. Hardy is placed in the long tradition of writers who subject is not art but imagination and whose most interesting aesthetic introspections, like those of Jane Austen and George Eliot, are oblique or sub-textual. So what the reader follows here is Hardys imagining of imagination in his elegies and nature poems and in his major characters from Gabriel Oak to Tess and Jude.The themes and forms examined by Barbara Hardy include narrative, conversation, gossip, memory, gender, poetry of place and imaginative thresholds. Altogether the study is a lucid and accessible introduction, which locates Hardys place in the tradition of English literature.About the AuthorBarbara Hardy is a poet, autobiographer and novelist, as well as a critic whose books include three on George Eliot and three on Dickens. She is Emeritus Professor at Birkbeck, University of London, Honorary Professor of the University of Wales, Swansea, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the British Academy. The author of this text offers close readings of Thomas Hardys poetry and novels, regarding these as expressive forms for the discovery of everyday and professional acts of imagination. The themes and forms examined here include narrative, conversation, gossip, memory, gender, poetry of place and imaginative threshold. Altogether the study is a contribution to theories of reflexivity, expanding and revising some of the analysis provided by Professor Hardy in The Appropriate Form and Tellers and Listeners.About the AuthorBarbara Hardy is a poet, autobiographer and novelist, as well as a critic whose books include three on George Eliot and three on Dickens. She is Emeritus Professor at Birkbeck, University of London, Honorary Professor of the University of Wales, Swansea, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the British Academy.
Author: Alex Preda
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As the banking crisis and its effects on the world economy have made plain, the stock market is of colossal importance to our livelihoods. In Framing Finance, Alex Preda looks at the history of the market to figure out how we arrived at a point where investing is not only commonplace, but critical, as market fluctuations threaten our plans to send our children to college or retire comfortably.As Preda discovers through extensive research, the public was once much more skeptical. For investing to become accepted, a deep-seated prejudice against speculation had to be overcome, and Preda reveals that over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries groups associated with stock exchanges in New York, London, and Paris managed to redefine finance as a scientific pursuit grounded in observational technology. But Preda also notes that as the financial data in which they trafficked became ever more difficult to understand, charismatic speculators emerged whose manipulations of the market undermined the benefits of widespread investment. And so, Framing Finance ends with an eye on the future, proposing a system of public financial education to counter the irrational elements that still animate the appeal of finance.
Author: Peter Garnsey
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This is the first full-length treatment of food supply and food crisis in classical antiquity. Hunger was never far away in the world of Greece and Rome, yet ancient historians have generally left unexplored the role of the food supply in shaping the central institutions and practices of ancient society. This book demonstrates that a study of systems of food supply and their breakdown leads to a fuller understanding of political behaviour, social mechanisms and economic relationships in classical antiquity.Dr Garnsey poses the following questions What caused food crisis? Was it a common feature of the Mediterranean region in antiquity how frequently did it assume the proportions of famine? What famine relief measures developed in urban communities did popular pressure play a role in their evolution? How adequate were those measures? Did different political systems find different solutions to the problems of supply and distribution of food? How did the peasantry, who made up the bulk of the population, cope in the face of the constraints imposed by nature and man?The author provides detailed case studies of Athens and Rome, the best known states of antiquity, but also illuminates the responses to the problems of the food supply in the mass of ordinary cities and rural communities in the Mediterranean world between roughly 600 BC and AD 500.The book will be of interest to ancient historians studying the politics, economy and society of classical antiquity it will be of equal importance to social scientists of all kinds concerned with the problems of famine and food supply in other complex societies and those who have become attuned to the issue of world hunger and areseeking a longer perspective. It is written with the non-specialist in mind as well as the scholar.
Author: Sheldon Stern
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This book exposes the misconceptions, half-truths, and outright lies that have shaped the still dominant but largely mythical version of what happened in the White House during those harrowing two weeks of secret Cuban missile crisis deliberations. A half-century after the event it is surely time to demonstrate, once and for all, that RFKs Thirteen Days and the personal memoirs of other ExComm members cannot be taken seriously as historically accurate accounts of the ExComm meetings.**
Author: Lucy Bond
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Frames of Memory makes an important intervention into the emerging body of scholarship surrounding the culture and politics of the post-911 world. Bond provides a sweeping analysis of American memorial culture after 11 September, examining the ways in which diverse modes of commemoration, from Acts of Congress to museum exhibits, the military commissions at Guantanamo Bay to the corpus of 911 trauma fiction, have adhered to delimiting templates of remembrance that present an artificial impression of a unified American response to the attacks. In so doing, the book poses a series of urgent questions about the ethical and political factors at stake in the work of memory, asking why, and with what consequences, commemoration becomes an ideological endeavour in what ways the academic discipline of memory studies influences contemporary memorial practice, and vice versa what it means to seek justice for the dead and how we might open the exceptionalist and exclusionary culture of memory surrounding 911 to a more diverse, globally oriented engagement with the recent past.**
Author: Dov M. Gabbay
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With the publication of the present volume, the Handbook of the History of Logic turns its attention to the rise of modern logic. The period covered is 1685-1900, with this volume carving out the territory from Leibniz to Frege. What is striking about this period is the earliness and persistence of what could be called the mathematical turn in logic. Virtually every working logician is aware that, after a centuries-long run, the logic that originated in antiquity came to be displaced by a new approach with a dominantly mathematical character. It is, however, a substantial error to suppose that the mathematization of logic was, in all essentials, Freges accomplishment or, if not his alone, a development ensuing from the second half of the nineteenth century. The mathematical turn in logic, although given considerable torque by events of the nineteenth century, can with assurance be dated from the final quarter of the seventeenth century in the impressively prescient work of Leibniz. It is true that, in the three hundred year run-up to the Begriffsschrift, one does not see a smoothly continuous evolution of the mathematical turn, but the idea that logic is mathematics, albeit perhaps only the most general part of mathematics, is one that attracted some degree of support throughout the entire period in question. Still, as Alfred North Whitehead once noted, the relationship between mathematics and symbolic logic has been an uneasy one, as is the present-day association of mathematics with computing. Some of this unease has a philosophical texture. For example, those who equate mathematics and logic sometimes disagree about the directionality of the purported identity. Frege and Russell made themselves famous by insisting (though for different reasons) that logic was the senior partner. Indeed logicism is the view that mathematics can be re-expressed without relevant loss in a suitably framed symbolic logic. But for a number of thinkers who took an algebraic approach to logic, the dependency relation was reversed, with mathematics in some form emerging as the senior partner. This was the precursor of the modern view that, in its four main precincts (set theory, proof theory, model theory and recursion theory), logic is indeed a branch of pure mathematics. It would be a mistake to leave the impression that the mathematization of logic (or the logicization of mathematics) was the sole concern of the history of logic between 1665 and 1900. There are, in this long interval, aspects of the modern unfolding of logic that bear no stamp of the imperial designs of mathematicians, as the chapters on Kant and Hegcl make clear. Of the two, Hcgels influence on logic is arguably the greater, serving as a spur to the unfolding of an idealist tradition in logic - a development that will be covered in a further volume, British Logic in the Nineteenth Century.