Search results for "Philosophy of Science"

The term “political oeconomy” in Adam Smith

2020

This article analyses the use of the term “‘political oeconomy” in the Wealth of Nations, considered by many the founding text of the discipline of Political Economy. It shows that Adam Smith could not accept the use of the term “political oeconomy” that had been made by other authors to indicate the subject matter of his scientific inquiry, devoted to the nature and causes of the wealth of nations; he used the term “political oeconomy” as a synonym for economic policy, especially in the fourth book of the Wealth of Nations. In order to understand this statement, it is necessary to keep in mind the methodological and epistemological perspective developed by Smith; in his view, the inquiry i…

Einstein Studies, volume 11: A retrospective review

2008

Models, information and meaning

2018

Abstract There has recently been an explosion of formal models of signaling, which have been developed in order to learn about different aspects of meaning. This paper discusses whether that success can also be used to provide an original naturalistic theory of meaning in terms of information or some related notion. In particular, it argues that, although these models can teach us a lot about different aspects of content, at the moment they fail to support the idea that meaning just is some kind of information. As an alternative, I suggest a more modest approach to the relationship between the informational notions used in models and semantic properties in the natural world.

Zielgerichtetheit und Zielsetzung in Wissenschaft und Natur: Entstehen und Verdrängen teleologischer Denkweisen in den exakten Naturwissenschaften

1982

Neben dem Unterschied zwischen einer ‚internen’ Finalitat, die den Einzelprozes deterministisch bestimmt, und einer ‚externen’ Finalitat, die als allgemeine Zweckmasigkeit die gesamte Natur durchwaltet, besteht auch ein Unterschied zwischen Zielgerichtetheit/Zweckmasigkeit (in der Natur) und (subjektiver) Zielsetzung. Eine Wissenschaft als sprachliche Handlungsform kann demnach nur eine Zielsetzung durch den Menschen erfahren, sie entwickelt sich nicht auf ein inneres Ziel hin (ist also auch nicht von einem bestimmten Stand wie dem der Gegenwart her als Ziel zu verstehen). Eine allgemeine Zweckmasigkeit (externe Finalitat) kennt Aristoteles im Gegensatz zum christlichen Aristotelismus noch …

Das Werden des Kosmos Von der Erfahrung der zeitlichen Dimension astronomischer Objekte im 18. Jahrhundert

1985

The Permanent ‘Becoming’ of the Cosmos: On Experiencing the Time Dimension of Astronomical Entities in the 18th Century. - This paper deals with two of the initial stages through which the dimension of time, in the sense of an irreversible development, found its way into astronomical-cosmological thinking. The one resulted from the first consequental application of Newtonian principles and laws to cosmic entities outside of our solar system found in the General Natural History or Theory of the Heavens of Immanuel Kant (1755): Endeavoring to explain through natural causes first the peculiarities of the solar system, no longer naturally explainable through the celestial mechanics of Isaac New…

Términos persas en escritos anatómicos árabes

1995

The. A. explains the meaning of some Iranian technical words, which appear in anatomical Arab works. They are interesting, not only because they are nearly unknown, but also because they are an evidence of the influence of Iranian culture on the rise of Arabian scientific medicine, and so an encouragement to further investigation on this subject.

Gendering multi-voiced histories of the North American space industry: the GMRD White women

2019

Purpose The authors focus on “writing women into ‘history’” in this study, embracing the notion of cisgender and ethnicity in relation to the “historic turn”. As such, the authors bring forward the stories of the US Pan American Airway’s Guided Missile Range Division (GMRD) and the White women who worked there. The authors ask what has a Cold War US missile division to tell us about present and future gendered relationships in the North American space industry. Design/methodology/approach The authors apply Foucault’s technology of lamination, a form of critical discourse analysis, to both narrative texts and photographic images in the GMRD’s in-house newsletter, the Clipper, dating from 19…

The Origins of Economic Growth and Regional Income Inequality in Latin Europe, 1870–1950

2018

Regional income inequality in Latin Europe (France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal) showed a distinctive pattern between 1870 and 1950. Data about population on a decadal basis and Gross Domestic Product (gdp) for 171 regions (84 French départements, 22 Italian regioni, 18 Portuguese distritos, and 49 Spanish provincias) shows that regional inequality increased from 1870 to 1910 but gradually flattened out thereafter until 1950. Current regional disparities in per-capita income throughout Latin Europe are essentially the result of a long-term evolution that traces back to the origins of modern economic growth. Moreover, this study shows the emergence of the core–periphery pattern that characte…

“Ehrlich färbt am längsten”. Sichtbarmachung bei Paul Ehrlich

2013

"Staining is the Best Policy". Visualization in the work of Paul Ehrlich. For nearly all of his life, the biomedical scientist Paul Ehrlich dedicated himself to work on dyes and staining at the interface between so-called color-chemistry and histopathology. The article begins by sketching out the field of histopathology at the junction of pathological anatomy, microtechniques, and the development of chemical dyes in the early 1870s when Ehrlich began his training as a medical student. The article explores Ehrlich's work staining first tissue and blood, and then pathogens and vital staining in the 1880s. In the late 1880s and 1890s, Ehrlich experimented with dyes as therapeutic agents. Stain…

Remembering nature through art : Hölderlin and the poetic representation of life

2021

ABSTRACT For Friedrich Hölderlin, the mediatory role of aesthetics was central to overcoming the challenges of modern life, in particular human beings’ antagonistic relationship to nature. This article claims that Hölderlin preserves and improves what is true in Kant’s conception of the beautiful: that the experience of beauty concerns recognizing our dependence on nature, and that this recognition resonates in the works of artistic geniality as well. The article furthermore argues that the twentieth-century philosopher Theodor W. Adorno’s interpretation of Hölderlin sheds light on how Hölderlin’s late poetry constitutes a remembrance of nature that avoids fetishizing nature as an origin to…