Search results for "Philosophy of Science"
showing 10 items of 808 documents
Evil lords, benign historians: strongman politics in medieval India and Renaissance Florence
2019
Recent developments in Europe and the United States (US) attest to an increasing fascination with and nostalgia for the strong leaders of the past – especially those that emerged in the aftermath o...
Was Thomas Hobbes the first biopolitical thinker?
2023
Thomas Hobbes's name often comes up as scholars debate the history of biopower, which regulates the biological life of individual bodies and entire populations. This article examines whether and to what extent Hobbes may be regarded as the first biopolitical philosopher. I investigate this question by performing a close reading of Hobbes's political texts and by comparing them to some of the most influential theories on biopolitics proposed by Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Roberto Esposito, and others. Hobbes is indeed the first great thinker to assert the supreme political importance of safeguarding life. Furthermore, this prominence of non-contemplative life is not limited to mere su…
Zum Verhältnis von Religion und Zoologie im 17. Jahrhundert (William Harvey, Nathaniel Highmore, Jan Swammerdam)
1987
Jan Swammerdam was one of the first scientists to do biological research on the basis of physico-theology. He was a very religious man and thought that by studying the secrets of nature he could best serve the Almighty God. He saw his life's work in demostrating the importance of God in the world of the smallest animals. The most important works of Swammerdam refer to the world of the insects and other lower animals, which he called the „legions of the God of Israel”, through which God tells mankind to recognize their sins, to desist from them and to honour him with greater humility. „The miracles of nature” he said „are an open bible, which everywhere points to God as its eternal origin.” …
With Good Intentions: Quaker Work among the Pawnees, Otos, and Omahas in the 1870s
1983
Introduction: A New Look at the Origins of Economic Growth and Regional Inequality
2018
The contributions to this special issue share important themes and methodologies in their quest to explicate economic development and its effects. Nonetheless, each area under examination has its own peculiarities and warrants its own scope of analysis. The result is a special issue that pursues an innovative line of research, exploring parallels and contrasts in economic growth and inequality based on new data at the regional, rather than simply the national, level. The authors are grateful to the following institutions for their financial support of the research in this special issue of The Journal of Interdisciplinary History: (1) European Union (EU— Jean Monnet Action); (2) ICREA—Genera…
The Vesalian movement in sixteenth-century Spain.
1979
In the middle of the sixteenth-century under the direct influence of Vesalius's works there arose in Spain a movement devoted to the renewal of anatomical knowledge. It was one of the initial forces in the spread of the Vesalian reform, but in spite of that it has been almost completely ignored by specialized historical research.' The purpose of this article is to provide a general study of the movement with special emphasis on the conditions which determined its development. In the first place I should make it clear that the renewal in question did not arise from the relationship that Vesalius maintained throughout
Neglecting the 19th century
2015
The present article examines the historical narrative proposed by modernization theory about the recent Spanish past. Its assumptions and consequences for historical research focused on the 19th century are described in order to understand the lack of intellectual exchange among historians and sociologists in the Spanish academic world. Modernization theory has justified the political consensus that allowed the Spanish transition to democracy and its academic authority has narrowed the scope of historical research about previous democratization processes. Although the paradigm of Spanish backwardness has been refuted by specialists on 19th-century Spain, sociologists, economists and histor…
Effects of Equivalence Framing on the Perceived Truth of Political Messages and the Trustworthiness of Politicians
2017
Recent studies in psychology have shown that the framing of a message affects judgments about its truth, as negatively framed statements are perceived as more trustworthy than formally equivalent, positively framed statements. The current work examines this effect in the contexts of political communication and public opinion. The results of three experiments show that equivalence framing affects both the perceived truth of political messages and the trustworthiness of its source, and that one cause of this effect is that recipients have learned to associate negativity with news and positivity with persuasive communication through media exposure. Consequently, we find that positively framing…
Das Problem der âentscheidenden Experimenteâ
1986
In this historical essay an attempt is made to discuss the problem of decisive experiments both from the point of view of History of Science and of Philosophy of Science. The first part deals with Francis Bacon's idea of instantiae crucis and with the use of the term experimentum crucis mainly in optics. With respect to the experimental confirmation of Maxwell's electrodynamics the Duhem-Quine Thesis is discussed. Duhem had argued that not a single hypothesis but only a complete theory is examined by experiment. So a single experiment neither can prove nor can disprove a single hypothesis. With regard to Bucherer's and Neumann's data concerning the velocity-dependence of the electron's mass…