Constitution Of Things Research Articles

The Mystic Group

ABSTRACTBy way of a set of suggestions W. R. Bion offers in “The Mystic and the Group,” this essay begins to consider the relationship between ideas concerning the necessity of deprivation for proper psychoanalytic practice and interpretation and the metaphysical constitution of things. Bion’s conceptual opposition of the mystic and the group, given in his understanding of the role of the mystic in the group, opens a way to investigate—admittedly, against Bion’s grain—the mysticism of the group as resistance to individuation.

Origami meets electrospinning: a new strategy for 3D nanofiber scaffolds

Inspired by the constitution of things in the natural world, three-dimensional (3D) nanofiber scaffold/cells complex was constructed via the combination of electrospinning technology and origami techniques. The nanofiber boxes prepared by origami provided a limited space for the layer-by-layer nanofiber films, and the human fetal osteoblasts (hFOBs) seeded on the both sides of the nanofiber films were expected to facilitate the bonding of the adjacent nanofiber films through the secretion of extracellular matrix. Specifically, the hFOBs presented 3D distribution in the nanofiber scaffold, and they can stretch across the gaps between the adjacent nanofiber films, forming the cell layers and filling the whole 3D nanofiber scaffold. Eventually, a 3D block composed of electrospun nanofiber scaffold and cells was obtained, which possesses potential applications in bone tissue engineering. Interestingly, we also created 3D nanofiber structures that range from simple forms to intricate architectures via origami, indicating that the combination of electrospinning technology and origami techniques is a feasible method for the 3D construction of tissue engineering scaffolds.

Anneliese Maier and the Study of Medieval Philosophy Today

Anneliese Maier and the Study of Medieval Philosophy Today Dominik Perler (bio) 1 in 1936, at a time of rapid decline in German academia, the Prussian Academy of Science sent Anneliese Maier to Rome, mandating her with a research project on Leibniz letters in Italian libraries. The young historian of philosophy, who had written her dissertation on Kant’s theory of the categories, dutifully established a list with extant letters.1 But she did not become a Leibniz scholar. Nor did she continue her studies on Kant. She delved into the unexplored world of Italian manuscripts dealing with medieval philosophy and decided to spend her entire intellectual life in this world. Leaving Germany for good, she settled in Rome and worked in the Vatican Libraries, reading and writing there until she died in 1971.2 She published a monumental five-volume study of late scholastic natural philosophy (Studien zur Naturphilosophie der Spätscholastik, 1949–58), an equally monumental three-volume collection of essays (Ausgehendes Mittelalter, 1964–67), and other articles, text editions, and manuscript catalogues.3 Despite her extraordinary achievements, she never obtained a regular professorial position in a German or Italian university.4 Using Virginia Woolf’s famous words, one could say that she had no room of her own, at least no institutional room. What makes her work so remarkable? First of all, the choice of topics. At a time when Neo-Thomism was thriving and many scholars were concerned with problems in Thomistic metaphysics, such as the relationship between essence [End Page 173] and existence or the proofs for God’s existence, she showed no interest in these issues. She rather focused on problems in philosophy of nature: motion, change, time, causation, and the structure of material things. In fact, in one of her first publications she made clear that “in every period and every tradition it was the conception of the essence of a material substance that established the basis upon which ideas about inorganic nature and its processes were built.”5 Hence it was her aim to understand how medieval authors dealt with seemingly simple things such as sticks and stones. What was their account of the inner constitution of these things? How did they analyze their perceivable features? And how did they explain simple phenomena we observe in daily life, for instance, the fact that stones fall when we drop them? These questions may seem less exciting than those about such lofty things as God and the immaterial soul, but they are of crucial importance, as Maier unfailingly noticed, and must not be ignored. For it is precisely the explanation of simple material things that reveals a general metaphysical view of the world—a view that relies upon concepts that need to be spelled out. Maier not only provided a detailed analysis of these concepts but also pointed out that there are conflicts in the medieval view of the world. For instance, she showed that scholastic authors were struggling with two hardly compatible doctrines when explaining the inner structure of material things.6 On the one hand, they referred to four basic elements and claimed that all things, including their qualities, can be explained in terms of a mixture of elements. On the other hand, they appealed to form and matter and held, following Aristotle, that all things can be explained as hylomorphic compounds. But how are elements related to form and matter? Are elements also to be analyzed as compounds of form and matter? Why then are they basic if they consist of more basic items? In discussing these questions, scholastic authors realized that there is a tension between the materialist doctrine of elements and hylomorphism and that one cannot dissolve this tension without modifying one of the two theories or both. It was precisely their struggle with this tension that led to a transformation of traditional theories. What makes Maier’s analysis so original and still fascinating is her detailed argument that it was an internal transformation of existing theories, above all of hylomorphism, that gave rise to new ideas about the inner constitution of material things. Medieval commentators did not simply spell out the Aristotelian theory but radically changed it by...

Anaxagoras’s Qualitative Gunk

Are there atoms in the constitution of things? Or is everything made of atomless ‘gunk’ whose proper parts have proper parts? Anaxagoras (fifth-century BC) is the first gunk lover in the history of metaphysics. For him gunk is not only a theoretical possibility that cannot be ruled out in principle (as it is for modern gunk lovers). Rather, it is a view that follows cogently from his metaphysical analysis of the physical world of our experience. What is distinctive about Anaxagoras’s take on gunk is not only what motives the view, but also the particular type of gunk that he develops. It is qualitative gunk, rather than material gunk. Anaxagoras’s ontology was developed before matter was ‘invented’. It includes quality tropes only; they are gunky. The resulting metaphysical view – a world of qualitative gunk – is new, in the sense of being hitherto unexplored; and yet, it is derived from Anaxagoras’s writings. Drawing on Anaxagoras’s insights, this paper offers a sketch of what qualitative gunk ontology looks like; it explores what motives it; and it highlights the differences of qualitative gunk from material gunk.

A philosophy of interstices: Thinking subjects and societies from Whitehead's philosophy

The notion of interstice appears in philosophy as something empty, an in-between, with no importance in the constitution of things. I argue, on the contrary, that the concept can be retaken in a new interpretation of living subjects as a main category to interpret the spatial and temporal dimensions of a subject.

The Elusive Object of Desire: In Pursuit of the Kinetic Equations and the Second Law

It is impossible to overrate the important contribution which statistical mechanics makes to our contemporary understanding of the physical world. Cutting across the hierarchy of theories which describe the constitution of things, and related in subtle and not yet fully understood ways to the fundamental dynamical theories, it provides the essential framework for describing the dynamical evolution of systems where large domains of initial conditions lead to a wide variety of possible outcomes distributed in a regular and predictable way. For the special case of the description of systems in equilibrium, the theory provides a systematic formalism which can be applied in any appropriate situation to derive the macroscopic equation of state. Here the usual Gibbsian ensembles, especially microcanonical and canonical, function as a general schematism into which each particular case can be fit. In the more general case of nonequilibrium the situation is less clear.

The Inessentiality of Lockean Essences

Locke, in his discussion of essences, makes extensive use of a distinction he introduces between nominal and real essences. This distinction has always been found interesting and important, and in fact, R.I. Aaron said of it that ‘there is no more important distinction in the Essay.’ Nevertheless, to say there has not been general agreement about what Locke was getting at is putting it mildly. Interpretations of Locke's point in making such a distinction have varied widely, depending upon whether the importance of the real or the nominal essence is stressed. Locke tells us we should distinguish the nominal essence, which is the abstract idea to which a general name is attached and for which it stands, from the real essence, which is the ‘real internal, but generally in Substances, unknown Constitution of Things, whereon their discoverable Qualities depend (3.3.15. See also 3.6.2).’

More on the Present Tense in English

Edward Calver' offers an ingenious summary of the underlying meaning of the simple present tense in English as opposed to the present progressive: that it refers to 'the constitution of things (logical, physical, psychological, essential, etc.)', while the progressive is the tense of 'mere occurrence'. These observations will be an extension of remarks more than a criticism. Calver excepted one use, the historical present, from his formula, and there are two other types that in a very literal application of the formula would probably have to be excepted also; but I believe that his principle does, if we admit the possibility of metaphor,2 account for both the historical present and for one of the other types. The historical present usually has to do with action in sequence (Calver's example: She runs to the cop and grabs him by the arm); at such times there is none of that p-rduration or predestination that seems to characterize the other uses of the simple present discussed by Calver. Alongside of the historical present is the first of the two types mentioned above: constructions with adverbs in inverted order, such as Here comes the teacher! and Away they go!, reporting immediate occurrences and accordingly, on the surface, seeming to be closer to The teacher is coming and They are going away, i.e. to the progressive, than to other uses of the simple present. But both this and the historical present may be regarded as a figurative extension of.the 'constitution of things'. The speaker who uses She runs to the cop and grabs him by the arm is oblivious of everything but the occurrence. The setting is abolished, and she runs BECOMES 'constitution of things' by absorbing the attention completely. The extreme vividness of the historical present results from this metaphorical abolition of everything irrelevant to the process itself. But there is one use of the historical present which Calver would not have needed to except even from the literal interpretation of his principle, namely, when it is used in a context of past verbs, e.g. Jack said that his mother was very ill, and got me to go see what I could do for her. I had to leave my other patients and drive half the evening, which meant that all my plans were upset. And then he tells me that the whole thing was a hoax! Or this example, from Detective Tales: Yeah! You said he wouldn't live! In other words, you promised to kill him.